Speaker 1: Also media that sound Listeners was me opening a bottle
Speaker 1: of my very favorite productivity beverage, club Mate, which you
Speaker 1: can get now in the US in some places. It's
Speaker 1: it's effectively a Yerba Mate soda that I started drinking
Speaker 1: in Berlin because you get dehydrated when you're doing ketamine
Speaker 1: and then eventually you get tired when you're at one
Speaker 1: of those like underground sex clubs that's open for four
Speaker 1: days in a row. And club Mate it's really really
Speaker 1: really hits the spot.
Speaker 2: I like how they let you in the club and
Speaker 2: not Elon Musk Robert.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I didn't. I didn't bring my phone, you know,
Speaker 1: right right let me in.
Speaker 2: You weren't wearing a dumb ass Zoro mask, they were, Yeah,
Speaker 2: yeah you had.
Speaker 1: I can be separated from Twitter occasionally. Yeah. Now, speaking
Speaker 1: of guys who are not allowed in German sex clubs,
Speaker 1: John George Schmidt, it's uh that is the best too.
Speaker 2: Whenever we go out, the people below way shout they go.
Speaker 2: John George Smith is a piece of shit.
Speaker 1: La la la la. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's pro.
Speaker 1: He's got to be related to John Jacob Jingleheimer. You know,
Speaker 1: they both have the Schmitz at the end, more or
Speaker 1: less so. Our John Schmitz was born on August twelfth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the very mouth of
Speaker 1: Hell itself. Now, there are unfortunately few details that I
Speaker 1: ran into on his very early life. His mother was
Speaker 1: named Wilhelmina, which is a red flag right that name
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty. That name means I love Kaiservillehelm or
Speaker 1: at least my parents did. And his father was Jacob John.
Speaker 1: There you go, there he does basically between them and
Speaker 1: his dead Jacob John Schmitz. You're okay, no, no, that's him, baby.
Speaker 2: Where's the jingle Heeimer? Or was that just like a
Speaker 2: like a sort of unknown s s officer.
Speaker 1: Look, nineteen thirty, you still did get some people who
Speaker 1: were anti German racists. I would not be surprised if
Speaker 1: Jingleheimer was a slur, like specifically, really it's like sausage eater. Yeah, totally, totally,
Speaker 1: totally schnitzelheads. Yeah. They were devout Catholics. John would remain
Speaker 1: a devout Catholic his entire life. And again we don't
Speaker 1: know nearly as much about his childhood, but his family
Speaker 1: seemed to have been comfortable middle class or upper middle class.
Speaker 1: There's some hints that he may have had a degree
Speaker 1: of family money, but it is unclear whatever it was,
Speaker 1: either it wasn't that much, or his parents still wanted
Speaker 1: him working a job, and he did have a job
Speaker 1: as a young man, scrubbing out vats of beer. That
Speaker 1: will be relevant for a very stupid reason. Later his
Speaker 1: family was again comfortable enough that he's able to go
Speaker 1: straight from high school into college, where he received a
Speaker 1: BS at Marquette University in nineteen fifty two and subsequently
Speaker 1: joined the US Marine Corps. He qualified initially as a
Speaker 1: jet fighter pilot and then as a helicopter pilot. From
Speaker 1: what I can see, he didn't do any combat tours.
Speaker 1: He was instead stationed in North Carolina and then Japan,
Speaker 1: flying F two H four Banshees and F nine F
Speaker 1: eight cougars. Part of why I think he doesn't actually
Speaker 1: get sent anywhere because obviously the US during the time
Speaker 1: he's in the military is in Korea, and then kind
Speaker 1: of while he is still in the military, we start
Speaker 1: being in Vietnam. But he is in the Marines and
Speaker 1: he is part of like kind of an experimental Marine airwing.
Speaker 1: The Marines really hadn't had like that previously to the
Speaker 1: same extent that they did at least with jet fighters,
Speaker 1: and so his unit is not sent anywhere because they're
Speaker 1: still trying to figure out if like that's a thing
Speaker 1: that they think will work for the Marine Corps. His
Speaker 1: career is then of little note but for one fact,
Speaker 1: which is that after he retires from active duty in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty and transitions to being a reserve officer, he
Speaker 1: volunteers to teach a class on communism for the Fleet
Speaker 1: Marine Force Pacific Leadership School, which is based at the
Speaker 1: El Toro Marine Corps Base. And the El Toro Marine
Speaker 1: Corps base is in you guessed it, or County, California. Now.
Speaker 1: Doing this series of anti communism lectures seems to have
Speaker 1: basically been an excuse for Schmidz to rant about Communist
Speaker 1: plots to conquer the world and how piece is impossible
Speaker 1: with the Soviet Union in China to an audience of
Speaker 1: young men who then went over to Vietnam and did
Speaker 1: the kind of things that you did in Vietnam, most
Speaker 1: of which you're not very nice. His lesson plan seems
Speaker 1: to have been deeply inspired by Frederick Schwartz's. Again a
Speaker 1: lot of Schwarzy names flying around here, very frustrating, but
Speaker 1: Frederic Schwartz's anti communism school. And so given the mood
Speaker 1: at the time, the fact that this dude is doing
Speaker 1: basically the version of this big public anti communism school
Speaker 1: that the Knotsbury Farm guy is funding, and that this
Speaker 1: Australian fascist is doing the lesson planned for the fact
Speaker 1: that John Schmidz is like doing a class on communism
Speaker 1: for the military, it makes him fit in really well
Speaker 1: with this whole whole fucking zeitgeist, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Leaving active duty in nineteen sixty, he became a history
Speaker 1: and philosophy professor at Santa Ana College. He quickly became
Speaker 1: a fixture in the arch conservative Orange County political scene.
Speaker 1: He joined the John Birch Society. He also attracted the
Speaker 1: attention of local far right businessman, including Carl Karcher, the
Speaker 1: founder and namesake of the Carl's Junior fast food Empire.
Speaker 2: Everything truly, everything.
Speaker 1: Really really a remarkable set of things there, right, not
Speaker 1: very far I love the both very Farm and Carl's
Speaker 1: Junior are funding the fascist movement.
Speaker 2: Yeah, seriously, what else? Like like the giraffe from toys.
Speaker 2: R us is just is a fucking oh like.
Speaker 1: Oh he he he. He actually is in Leavenworth still
Speaker 1: for crimes he committed during the Vietnam War. Jeoffrey went
Speaker 1: went went too far for even yeah, for even even
Speaker 1: the army in that period. That's right, Yeah, Geoffrey. Geoffrey
Speaker 1: is the name of the giraffe. Has been just a
Speaker 1: mountain of blood behind him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had the Melai massacre was his idea.
Speaker 1: He invented the concept of saturation bombing. That was him.
Speaker 1: Geoffrey the giraffe.
Speaker 2: He's made of agent orange like what other loved it.
Speaker 1: They got it from glands in his skin and folio
Speaker 1: aided the jungle. If only I could blame a giraffe
Speaker 1: for all of our country's worst crimes. Alas so we'll
Speaker 1: blame the Schmidt's. You know. He gets out of the military,
Speaker 1: he becomes a history and philosophy professor at Santa Ana College,
Speaker 1: and he quickly becomes a fixture in this political scene. Right,
Speaker 1: and he's working with the Carl's junior guy, with the
Speaker 1: nots Berry farm guy. He had married while he was
Speaker 1: still in the Marine Corps to a significantly younger woman.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure exactly. But one newspaper I found from
Speaker 1: when he was like in his forties described her as
Speaker 1: youthfully pretty in contrast to him. So I'm gonna guess
Speaker 1: a decent bit younger Mary is just as conservative as
Speaker 1: her husband and almost as hungry for power. But I'm
Speaker 1: getting ahead of myself here. So in nineteen sixty two, right,
Speaker 1: the family Schmidts get their first daughter, a young girl
Speaker 1: named Mary Kay. And we will be talking about who
Speaker 1: Mary Kay Schmitz becomes a little bit later, because I
Speaker 1: think it might surprise you, not that Mary Kay.
Speaker 2: Not the call leader, not that Mary Kay.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, don't forget she exists though, because boy howdy,
Speaker 1: it's going to really be a satisfying end to this series. Now.
Speaker 1: The same year that Mary Kay is born, her father
Speaker 1: would carry out an act of probable heroism that helped
Speaker 1: make him into a local celebrity. He was leaving the
Speaker 1: Marine Corps base one day after a long day of
Speaker 1: screaming about communism to teenagers when he encountered a man
Speaker 1: stabbing a woman by the roadside. Quote. With nothing more
Speaker 1: than the sheer authority of his voice. According to the
Speaker 1: La Times, Schmids disarmed the assailant. Right, So the story
Speaker 1: is he finds this man stabbing a woman and he
Speaker 1: yells at him, and that his voice is so commanding
Speaker 1: that it disarms this guy. Now, that is I think
Speaker 1: literally what happened in that this guy Schmid's yells at
Speaker 1: this guy and he stops the attack. I think that
Speaker 1: the casual descriptions these sources get tend to minimize a
Speaker 1: crucial detail. And I want to make it very clear
Speaker 1: that that details that the woman dies. Right. This is
Speaker 1: not a case where he saves a life by stopping
Speaker 1: an attack. This is a case where a man stabs
Speaker 1: a woman to death, probably in a fit of rage,
Speaker 1: and then someone yells at him and he realizes what
Speaker 1: he's done and he stops. Right, He doesn't. He doesn't
Speaker 1: commit a spree killing, because most killers aren't spree killers.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: He murders this woman for some specific reason, and then
Speaker 1: someone yells at him and he realizes, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: what have I done? Right, He says, Hey, don't stab
Speaker 1: that lady.
Speaker 2: He knock it off.
Speaker 1: Knock it off, Hey, knock it off. You you crazy kids.
Speaker 2: Hey that's enough, She's not enough. You did it again.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he didn't do anything bad, but like
Speaker 1: you should. In fact, if you see someone getting in
Speaker 1: stabbed at least yell at the stabber.
Speaker 2: Sure you know at least you can do.
Speaker 1: But it's framed us like he disarmed this man, and
Speaker 1: I really don't think that's exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: They didn't talk about the thirty seconds he spent watching
Speaker 2: it happen and then was like, all right.
Speaker 1: Buddy tweaking his nipples. Yeah. Well, it's also the thing
Speaker 1: that's really weird because I will I'll shit on him
Speaker 1: for everything, but this isn't a bad thing. But the
Speaker 1: way the news describes it, they always talk about how
Speaker 1: cool it is that he disarms this guy with his
Speaker 1: voice and then just casually announced, oh, yeah, the lady died,
Speaker 1: Like the La Times just summarizes it this way. Although
Speaker 1: the woman died, Schmid's his reputation as a hero was
Speaker 1: made just like, yeah, she died, but what a cool
Speaker 1: thing this guy got to do. Very funny. I love
Speaker 1: that all of the newspapers write at the same way.
Speaker 1: It's just as afterthought. I find that darkly interesting.
Speaker 2: That is funny. It is it's it's so unremarkable that
Speaker 2: like it only is remarkable. If she lives, it's not remarkable.
Speaker 2: If she dies, is everyone we get that right?
Speaker 1: Stop something? Yeah? Yeah? Or if he's like stabbed multiple people,
Speaker 1: and then you could genuinely say, yeah, maybe he somehow
Speaker 1: stopped more people from getting stabbed. But I'm seeing here
Speaker 1: as she came upon the end of a murder.
Speaker 2: Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: You witnessed the very end of a murder. But I think,
Speaker 1: if I can put my conspiracy hat on, I think
Speaker 1: what's happening here is that, like Schmitz is a pr
Speaker 1: savvy guy. He has a degree of charisma, He knows
Speaker 1: how to spin things, and as soon as he realizes
Speaker 1: what's happened here, like this is too good a story
Speaker 1: to waste, I can really make this work for me.
Speaker 1: And by nineteen sixty four, Schmitz had become one of
Speaker 1: Orange County's leading political lights. He is still working as
Speaker 1: a professor of philosophy and political science at Santa Ana University,
Speaker 1: and he's already he's become very active in the John
Speaker 1: Birch Society. His support for the Carl's Junior Guy and
Speaker 1: several other wealthy conservatives ensured that he had enough donation
Speaker 1: to run his campaign. So Schmidts, who regularly joked that
Speaker 1: he joined the John Birch Society to get moderates to
Speaker 1: vote for him, comes out blazing in this like local
Speaker 1: state Congress election with a raft of absolutely bug fuck
Speaker 1: policy proposals. He wants to ban sex set in public schools.
Speaker 1: He wants to encourage citizens to carry loaded handguns in
Speaker 1: their cars, which the corollary to that is he wants
Speaker 1: citizens to leave loaded handguns in their cars whenever they
Speaker 1: leave their cars. He wants to sell all California state
Speaker 1: universities to private corporations so they can use violence to
Speaker 1: crack down on student protests against Vietnam. That's why he
Speaker 1: wants to privatize colleges so that the corporation can use
Speaker 1: security guards to beat up students. This all occurred during
Speaker 1: a very special time for the United States when the
Speaker 1: most prominent Republican is again Barry Goldwater. Barry is such
Speaker 1: for an idea of how freaked out people are about
Speaker 1: what a fascist this guy is when Goldwater is running
Speaker 1: like is in this campaign. This is lbj's re election campaign, right,
Speaker 1: gold Well not reelection because he was never elected the
Speaker 1: first time. But you get what I'm saying right. LBJ
Speaker 1: has been president a little while since the Kennedy assassination.
Speaker 1: He's running to continue to get to be president, and
Speaker 1: Fidel Castro sends a private letter to LBJ basically saying, hey, man,
Speaker 1: I really want you to win reelection. If you need
Speaker 1: to bomb us a little bit right so you can
Speaker 1: brush up your anti communist credentials for the election, I
Speaker 1: get it. You just give me a heads up before
Speaker 1: you fuck with us, and I won't respond like I
Speaker 1: love you, bro, like good luck. That's it is because
Speaker 1: like Castro is a rational actor. He's like, yeah, man,
Speaker 1: Goldwater my fucking nucas, Like he's this guy might actually
Speaker 1: be crazy. Like Goldwater is the namesake for what's called
Speaker 1: the Goldwater Rule, which is this rule where if you're
Speaker 1: a mental health professional, you cannot diagnose a presidential candidate
Speaker 1: that like you know, isn't coming to you for medical
Speaker 1: help or whatever. Because there were so many people in
Speaker 1: media being like Goldwater may actually be insane. Like that's
Speaker 1: how crazy we think his policies are, and he is.
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting Goldwater a big reason people think
Speaker 1: he's crazy is that he is one of these guys
Speaker 1: like Henry Kissinger, who thinks low yield nukes should be
Speaker 1: used tactically in battlefield situations, like we need we need
Speaker 1: to win this battle in Vietnam. We should drop a
Speaker 1: little nuke on him.
Speaker 2: So Goldwater's rule is you can't diagnose someone running even
Speaker 2: if you're should not absolutely saying insane shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should not use that to diagnose someone with
Speaker 1: a mental health.
Speaker 2: Condition someone else or this candidate, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: This candidate. Like basically, if someone's running for election, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't say if you haven't like worked on them or whatever,
Speaker 1: and can't. You shouldn't be like, this person has this
Speaker 1: mental illness.
Speaker 2: Right, So we can't say Trump, yeah, as a sociopathic
Speaker 2: narcissist because we don't know clinic Yeah exactly.
Speaker 1: Is yeah, yeah, you're not gonna get. You're not gonna get.
Speaker 1: A psychologist should say that, right, that's the Goldwater rule.
Speaker 1: It's fine for regular people to say, I think that
Speaker 1: guy's a fucking psychopath. Right, I think we've gone Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's probably good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we might have jumped the sharkody. So I
Speaker 2: feel like this a few people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know it's always debatable, but it tells you
Speaker 1: how crazy people think. Goldwater is. Right, you have a
Speaker 1: whole rule about not declaring presidential candidates crazy because of
Speaker 1: how crazy everyone fact this guy was. Now. Another big
Speaker 1: thing that Goldwater is a proponent of, and this is
Speaker 1: a less controversial thing than the nukes, is the idea
Speaker 1: that positive change for people who aren't white men means
Speaker 1: that society is in collapse. Right, Goldwater opposes the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act, as does John Schmidz and the rest of
Speaker 1: Orange County. And this is the beginning of a new era,
Speaker 1: one in which you can't be as racist.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: You can't say I don't want the Civil Rights Act
Speaker 1: because I hate black people.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Instead, you have to say, I love everybody, but my
Speaker 1: property rights are more important than that right. And if
Speaker 1: you're saying we have to integrate the school like private school,
Speaker 1: so you're saying private schools can't be whites only, that's
Speaker 1: bad for property rights. Or if you're saying I have
Speaker 1: to serve black people at my restaurant, that's a violation
Speaker 1: of property rights. And so I don't oppose the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act because I'm racist. I oppose it because it's
Speaker 1: a violation of property rights. And that's the most important
Speaker 1: thing in the world. Yeah, this all comes down to
Speaker 1: like fair housing, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, and schooling and their education yep, access. I mean,
Speaker 2: but again it's sort of what's running cover for what
Speaker 2: Your libertarianism running cover for your racism, and then your
Speaker 2: religion running cover for all of it, like just like
Speaker 2: blanketing the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And this kind of comes to a head in
Speaker 1: California politics in nineteen sixty four because there's this proposition
Speaker 1: backed by the California Real Estate Association to rescind the
Speaker 1: Rumford Act, which is a state law that makes it
Speaker 1: illegal to discriminate housing based on race, right, And the
Speaker 1: proposition to like say no, we want to be able
Speaker 1: to be racist in who we let buy houses places
Speaker 1: is obviously like Orange County had kept black people out
Speaker 1: for a long time by doing shit like that. So
Speaker 1: the mobilization for Prop. Fourteen to let people discriminate when
Speaker 1: they sell houses and shit, that's hugely centered around Orange County.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to quote from the book Suburban Warriors here. Indeed,
Speaker 1: one activist Tom Rogers of San Juan Capistrano, who served
Speaker 1: as the campaign finance manager for John Schmitz's state Senate
Speaker 1: run in nineteen sixty four, and who shortly afterwards served
Speaker 1: as co editor of that Catholic traditionalist paper, The Wanderer,
Speaker 1: asserted years later that for him and many others, Proposition
Speaker 1: fourteen was what the movement was all about. Goldwater's frequent
Speaker 1: references of freedom of association, his belief that prejudice is
Speaker 1: the immoral issue that cannot be legislated, and his strong
Speaker 1: advocacy of property rights placed him firmly on the side
Speaker 1: of those opposing the Rumford Act. Moreover, Goldwater's determination to
Speaker 1: fight lawlessness, his references to rising crime rates, and his
Speaker 1: linkage of crime to lawlessness of other sorts a reference
Speaker 1: to the civil rights and students movements, appealed to the
Speaker 1: white middle classes in Orange County. So Goldwater does not
Speaker 1: succeed in his dream of becoming the president. But Schmidtz
Speaker 1: does get elected to the California State Senate representing Orange County,
Speaker 1: and he is the first member of the John Birch
Speaker 1: Society to make it into local California politics. He immediately
Speaker 1: gets to work being the loudest, craziest asshole in the Capitol.
Speaker 1: The first full year that he served, nineteen sixty five,
Speaker 1: is the year of the Watts riots. Now, if you
Speaker 1: know anything about anything, you know that this becomes like
Speaker 1: a massive political issue for the right in California. His
Speaker 1: attitude is not, well, this was a response to generations
Speaker 1: of abuse by the local government and by the police.
Speaker 1: This was a communist operation. He's so incensed that he
Speaker 1: sponsors a bill to investigate the backgrounds of every public
Speaker 1: school teacher in the state for communist affiliations. Like his
Speaker 1: response to the Watts riots is we need to have
Speaker 1: build a CIA basically to go after school teachers and
Speaker 1: make sure they're not communists. That's clearly what this case is.
Speaker 1: John develops. Yeah, he is just a maniac. Now, what's interesting,
Speaker 1: We've been talking a lot about how Reagan is such
Speaker 1: an important development for like the far right getting increasingly
Speaker 1: into legitimate conservative politics in this country. John Schmiz hates Reagan,
Speaker 1: so do a lot of Birchers, because they see Reagan
Speaker 1: as a compromiser right, and a compromiser is the same
Speaker 1: as a communist sympathizer. Schmidz is the only Republican Senate
Speaker 1: member who votes down Governor Reagan's nineteen sixty seven tax program,
Speaker 1: and his issue is that as much as they'd cut
Speaker 1: taxes are still too high, and I'm going to quote
Speaker 1: next from an article on cafe dot com by David Kerlander.
Speaker 1: Over the next three years, Schmiz took many, often lonely,
Speaker 1: far right stands. He argued for eliminating state income taxes altogether.
Speaker 1: He sponsored a bill to repeal fair housing laws. He
Speaker 1: argued that there should be no sex at you education
Speaker 1: in public schools. He led an successful effort to censure
Speaker 1: University of California, Berkeley for allowing black panther leader Eldridge
Speaker 1: Cleaver to speak on campus. He fiercely spoke out against
Speaker 1: abortion in women's rights. He also continued to buck fellow
Speaker 1: conservative leaders. Schmids declined to endorse a presidential candidate in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, telling the press, George Wallace is too
Speaker 1: moderate for me. Hubert Humphrey is taking a dive, and
Speaker 1: if I endorsed Richard Nixon, he might repudiate it the
Speaker 1: next day. Like again, George Wallace is like the guy
Speaker 1: who became famous for loving segregation as a governor of Alabama.
Speaker 2: But that's what they want, I mean, that's effectively what
Speaker 2: this sounds like.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They can't They've never gotten over it. And here's what
Speaker 2: I've realized. Now we're in part two, could we say,
Speaker 2: as a native Californian myself, I mean not like you know,
Speaker 2: native to the land, but someone who's born and raised
Speaker 2: in California obviously nor cal for life, but that these
Speaker 2: are a kind of transplants that ultimately the OC is
Speaker 2: a blight, is an anomaly, that it's not really California.
Speaker 2: They're all from somewhere else. It's it can me disign
Speaker 2: the OC, is what I want to know.
Speaker 1: I feel like you can't, because I think a crucial
Speaker 1: aspect of Californian culture, at least over the last going
Speaker 1: back two hundred years or so, is the gold Rush mentality. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the idea that the culture in this area, and this
Speaker 1: is big thing in North cal too, right, it's a
Speaker 1: big part of northern California San Francisco culture is like
Speaker 1: a bunch of the people who live here now are
Speaker 1: descendants of folks who rushed here to try to grab
Speaker 1: a bunch of money from a social phenomenon that had
Speaker 1: a ticking time frame to it, right, right, These upper
Speaker 1: middle class and rich people who fill out the OC,
Speaker 1: and who are you know, these kind of fascist maniacs
Speaker 1: running the defense industry. That's a gold rush. That is,
Speaker 1: one day there's nothing, the next there's all the money
Speaker 1: in the fucking world, and you get a sprint over
Speaker 1: there as fast as you fucking can to pick it up.
Speaker 2: Totally, It just depends on the industry. Like Silicon Valley
Speaker 2: and the dot com.
Speaker 1: Coon Valley is another gold rush, righty, same idea, same
Speaker 1: cultural and so is the pod industry as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact.
Speaker 2: Right, Oh, I thought you said the pod like the
Speaker 2: podcast No.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean actually a little bit, right, that's
Speaker 1: less geographically centered than weed or the tech industry, the
Speaker 1: defense industry.
Speaker 2: Gold yeah, true, true, a little bit less harm less harm.
Speaker 1: But it is. You know, California is a state of
Speaker 1: like a lot of our culture is gold rushes, and
Speaker 1: these people embody it right. Yes, it's not a pretty
Speaker 1: part of Californian heritage, but it is. It is very
Speaker 1: much part of it, I think. Yeah, although you know,
Speaker 1: you don't need to jettison them as much because things
Speaker 1: have gotten better. We'll see if it lasts, right, there's
Speaker 1: there's always.
Speaker 2: We noticed a little bit in the beginning. Okay, so
Speaker 2: two so not right wing enough for the Birchers and Schmidts.
Speaker 1: They hate Nixon. They don't like Reagan much better. They
Speaker 1: do like him better than Nixon, but not a lot.
Speaker 1: So Schmidz is he's one of these guys where he's
Speaker 1: such a howling fascist, but the Republican Party in this
Speaker 1: period is not nearly as inviting of that. So most
Speaker 1: as much as he yells about the left and socialism,
Speaker 1: all the people he really fights hard in his political
Speaker 1: career are other Republicans, right, Like he is constantly going
Speaker 1: to war with Republicans now. His wife Mary is really
Speaker 1: interesting too, because she uses her husband's newfound power and notoriety,
Speaker 1: the fact that he's gotten elected. He's making all these
Speaker 1: waves as this just kind of arch Bircher in California Congress,
Speaker 1: she becomes one of the first female far right media influencers.
Speaker 1: Right she gets on local TV, she has Eventually she
Speaker 1: gets like a permanent place on a TV show that's
Speaker 1: like a politics roundtable. She is just like a frequently
Speaker 1: wanted speaker. She gets speaking fees in things, going around
Speaker 1: supporting different candidacies. If she were around today, she'd have
Speaker 1: a podcast in a blue check Twitter account, and she
Speaker 1: would make seven figures working at the Daily Wire. She
Speaker 1: is the prototype for that kind of like woman in conservatism.
Speaker 2: Her handle, like her bio would be like like mom
Speaker 2: wife American flag cross, yeah, you know, and she'd have
Speaker 2: like really nice arms, which is always the most annoying
Speaker 2: thing about right wingers is they all have the same
Speaker 2: trainer and they all have the like just sort of
Speaker 2: strong arms, which I don't understand. And simultaneously cut it.
Speaker 2: People know what I'm talking about. You guys know that
Speaker 2: right wingers are terrible, but the women have great they
Speaker 2: have their arms are great.
Speaker 4: Only spoken truth.
Speaker 2: Right, And you're like, I don't know, you definitely can't
Speaker 2: fight like they're not fighting.
Speaker 1: Arms I'm thinking of I'm thinking of Ann Coulter. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what in Ann Coulter like the celebrity that I
Speaker 1: would compare her to positively, I think this is actually
Speaker 1: a compliment for her. Is Jack Skellington? Yes, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we should probably cut all of that.
Speaker 2: Don't cut that. She would she would take it as
Speaker 2: a as a w she she appreciates it.
Speaker 4: Well, we got our go to an ad real quick.
Speaker 1: We sure do, we sure do. Speaking of Jack Skellington,
Speaker 1: he would want you to participate in capitalism well passed Christmas. Yes,
Speaker 1: he doesn't actually like Christmas all that much, does he. Anyway, whatever,
Speaker 1: here's ads ah and we're back. So Mary schmidtz is
Speaker 1: to give you an idea of like how people view
Speaker 1: her in the conservative movement. Her nickname is the Phylish
Speaker 1: Schlaffley of the West. So this family, they're just bad. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's horrible. Oh god, two real powerful right wing ghules. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh lord, very soon these people, you know, there's state
Speaker 1: level figures right now, but very soon they're going to
Speaker 1: be in the halls of real power throughout this whole
Speaker 1: time mid sixties and stuff. The Senate representative for the
Speaker 1: district that John and Mary live in for for you know,
Speaker 1: the district that covers Orange County, is this lunatic right
Speaker 1: wing hero named James b Utt, which yes, does look
Speaker 1: like James, but when you type it all out, that
Speaker 1: is that is the man's name. It is ut with
Speaker 1: two t's. I know, I know, like that's like a
Speaker 1: joke you would see some dude with a comic make
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Yeah no, no, it's his real fucking name,
Speaker 1: that is real.
Speaker 2: No, it's b uh James b You know what when
Speaker 2: your name is James, b utt. You keep the bee
Speaker 2: because you want people to think it's butt like you.
Speaker 2: You relish the buttons because you're you want to be
Speaker 2: a little you want to be an ass.
Speaker 1: Clearly, yeah what you know what you're going to become,
Speaker 1: so James. But his pet theory is that quote a
Speaker 1: large contingent of barefooted Africans had been snuck into the
Speaker 1: United States by the United Nations, which is a communist
Speaker 1: organization from takeover the country. And that's where the Watts
Speaker 1: riots were. Not a black people born and raised in
Speaker 1: the United States. They were Africans snuck into southern California
Speaker 1: by the United Nations to it destroyed the United States.
Speaker 2: But this is the same shit. This is the same
Speaker 2: shit we talk about now, right, and it generally is
Speaker 2: like the Jews have done this, but it's right. It's
Speaker 2: like sneaking. They sneak in the elites, sneak in migrants
Speaker 2: to rile up the blacks until they want their rights.
Speaker 2: You know, they're fine with black people as long as
Speaker 2: they're in their place, as long as they're happily in
Speaker 2: ghettos and prevented from you know, owning homes anywhere near
Speaker 2: Orange County of course. Yeah, but yeah, it's the same shit.
Speaker 2: My god, it's the same shit. And it's crazy how
Speaker 2: like they don't see how much they recycle this stuff.
Speaker 2: And I think mister Butt should get more credit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no's that's what we all feel about mister b Utt.
Speaker 1: So Ud was the son of a rancher. He'd won
Speaker 1: his seat representing Orange County by attacking his opponent for
Speaker 1: preaching the gospel of socialism. He believed that the music
Speaker 1: of the Beatles had inflicted artificial neuroses on young people
Speaker 1: and given them brain damage. He was I will say this.
Speaker 1: He was occasionally on the right side of issues, always
Speaker 1: for the wrong reasons. He opposed the annexation of Hawaii,
Speaker 1: not on any kind of anti colonial grounds, because the
Speaker 1: islands had too many non white people and they would
Speaker 1: inevitably breed with white people. That yeah, he is in
Speaker 1: his kill them all.
Speaker 2: No, I don't want it.
Speaker 1: Well, then I don't want to admit here. When his
Speaker 1: grandson decided to oppose the Vietnam War, Ut said that
Speaker 1: he would have rather seen the boy die overseas. Oh,
Speaker 1: he is just a giant piece of shit. This is
Speaker 1: the Congressional the National Congressional representative for like the district
Speaker 1: that Schmidz lives in. Yeah, and he's he's just just
Speaker 1: a real bad guy, but extremely popular. He wins an
Speaker 1: Orange County by a two to one majority. Utt is
Speaker 1: one of the few men in politics who is extreme
Speaker 1: enough for John Schmitz's tastes. He's basically the only dude
Speaker 1: who could hold that office and be sure John would
Speaker 1: not run against him. But then in nineteen seventy, tragedy struck.
Speaker 1: James b Utt died to complications from being a huge
Speaker 1: piece of shit. In literal terms, he has a heart
Speaker 1: attack in church, which you might read as God's striking
Speaker 1: him down if you're inclined to that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: But while one lass dead Butt is generally good, it
Speaker 1: also created opportunity for John Schmitz. Schmidz runs for the
Speaker 1: former representative seat and wins. Now his camp the slogan
Speaker 1: that he uses to like, win this special election, it's
Speaker 1: impenetrable today. It's when you're out of Schmidz. You're out
Speaker 1: of gear. That doesn't mean anything to you, does it?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: No? Well, it's because he works at the cleaning out
Speaker 1: beer steins in a beer company, and there was like
Speaker 1: I think the slogan was when you're out of Schlitz,
Speaker 1: you're out of beer, like for some Milwaukee beer. But
Speaker 1: like he he takes this slogan that's very much this
Speaker 1: like Milwaukee area beer slogan and he repurposes it for
Speaker 1: a campaign in southern California. I don't know how this worked.
Speaker 2: And the rule of puns it does not work.
Speaker 1: Such a weird idea.
Speaker 2: You can only change one side of the pun. It
Speaker 2: can't be both. It can't be when you're out of
Speaker 2: Schmidz you're out of gear. When it's if you're out
Speaker 2: of Schlitz, you're out of beer. You got to keep
Speaker 2: Schlitz or beer in there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Otherwise it's just it's just nuts.
Speaker 2: No one knows what you're talking.
Speaker 1: But he wins the special election. It works. So now
Speaker 1: this fucking guy is in DC and is a full
Speaker 1: on ass congressman. He moves his wife and family to
Speaker 1: the Capitol and he gets to work extending his unique
Speaker 1: brand of god awful politics nationwide. His biggest enemy in
Speaker 1: government again is not some leftist but his actually Richard M. Nixon,
Speaker 1: who schmid saw you guessed it as basically a COMMI
Speaker 1: sleeper agent from that article in Cafe dot Com. Matters
Speaker 1: were made more tense given that he was President Nixon's
Speaker 1: congressman representing the Orange County district containing San Clemente. Schmitz
Speaker 1: was particularly critical of Nixon's rapprochma with China, telling the press,
Speaker 1: I have no objection to Richard Nixon going to China.
Speaker 1: I just object to him coming back, which is actually
Speaker 1: pretty good. That's not bad. Schmid's vocally backed Ashbrooks attempt
Speaker 1: to primary Nixon in nineteen seventy two, and so this
Speaker 1: is something that pisses off Richard Nixon. Schmids has made
Speaker 1: it his business to become a thorn in his side,
Speaker 1: and he starts to expand in this period of time
Speaker 1: outside of harboring these kind of economic grievances and even
Speaker 1: grievances against like, you know, communist states, to this more
Speaker 1: sort of esoteric conspiracy theory conservatism. In nineteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: he writes an introduction to Gary Allen and Larry Abraham's
Speaker 1: None Dare Call It Conspiracy the book, which was in
Speaker 1: hugely This is influential. This is like the center of
Speaker 1: Alex Jones's ideology today. The book argued that Eastern American elites,
Speaker 1: particularly the Jews therein, were funding global communism. Alan proclaimed,
Speaker 1: among other things, that Chase Manhattan Bank president David Rockefeller
Speaker 1: had personally fired Soviet Premier in Dakita Khrushchev in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four. Jesus, you know the Chase Bank guy has
Speaker 1: has has the fireda codes for hacking the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: Who could be more influential in Soviet politics than the
Speaker 1: head of Chase Manhattan Bank. Oh my god, it is
Speaker 1: so funny.
Speaker 2: Again, I mean, who is the head of Chase Manhattan Bank?
Speaker 2: Was it a Jew? Again? With these like broad like
Speaker 2: anti Semitic thing like just like the history of this,
Speaker 2: It's just like and the like superpowers that racists and bigots,
Speaker 2: anti Semites apply to Jews is just wild.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, it really is.
Speaker 2: Then he hacked into that, I mean again, and it's
Speaker 2: just the Jewish space laser. Marjorie Green, the Rothschild, the
Speaker 2: same shit, same shit.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Now, if you know anything about Dick Nixon, and
Speaker 1: I know an unfortunate amount about the man, you do
Speaker 1: you know that his chief personality trait was that he
Speaker 1: could not let go of a grudge, right, that is
Speaker 1: the main thing that defines Richard Nixon. If he is
Speaker 1: angry at you once, he is angry at you for
Speaker 1: all time. Now Nixon again, he remembers his fucking enemies.
Speaker 1: And so in nineteen seventy two, Schmids has just finished
Speaker 1: backing an attempt to primary Nixon. He's been yelling at
Speaker 1: him the whole time, two years he's been in Congress.
Speaker 1: Tricky Dick is like, well, this guy's up free election.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna let that son of a bitch fuck
Speaker 1: with me anymore. He turns his petty manchild laser on
Speaker 1: John Schmitz and he blasts his career at national politics
Speaker 1: to smithereens. John loses the primary nomination to a tax assessor,
Speaker 1: which is basically I kind of wonder if Nixon did
Speaker 1: that on purpose, because there's no one worse you can
Speaker 1: lose to as a libertar an a tax assessor.
Speaker 2: I'm happy about this. Yeah, fuck this guy. I mean yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean like Nixon, but no, but you know.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, but I respect Nixon's ability to both
Speaker 1: be petty and wheeled power effectively enough to squash this
Speaker 1: motherfucker like a bug. Right, Yes, you just have to
Speaker 1: take some satisfaction in it, like absolutely Nixon beat everybody else,
Speaker 1: but at least this son of a bitch didn't get
Speaker 1: a fucking like hand up on it.
Speaker 2: That's the other thing is that I feel like the
Speaker 2: right now is like, oh god, maybe I should cater
Speaker 2: more to the John Birch society, or maybe I should
Speaker 2: cater more to the far right, or maybe I should
Speaker 2: change up my tune. And it's like, eh, you know,
Speaker 2: it takes a certain sob to be like, no, fuck you,
Speaker 2: I'm the president, I'm doing what I want, and yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna kill your career there you go, Like, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I respect that. I respect that more than
Speaker 2: I respect someone who's like just gonna be yeah, cajoled
Speaker 2: by the most extremeist elements of their own party and
Speaker 2: literally stands up for nothing and cannot lead. And I'm
Speaker 2: not even talking Trump. I think just broadly the Republican
Speaker 2: Party what it's become.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least Nixon there was this like
Speaker 1: animal cunning at work with the man. You had to
Speaker 1: at least respect in the same way you respect a
Speaker 1: tiger in the woods, you know, as opposed to just
Speaker 1: like a horde of of fucking hovelina that have gotten
Speaker 1: drunk on prairie wine, which is how I feel today.
Speaker 1: So Schmitz was adamant that this was all a conspiracy.
Speaker 1: You know, when he loses his reelection and Nixon had
Speaker 1: flexed his influence and done it specifically to embarrass Schmitz,
Speaker 1: and that is probably what happened, right, Schmitz is like
Speaker 1: the president had his henchman come out and get me.
Speaker 1: And honestly, this is the one conspiracy Schmitz believed in
Speaker 1: that like, oh yeah, there is no world in which
Speaker 1: Dick Nixon did not destroy this man for hitting him
Speaker 1: from the right. That is totally in character for Richard.
Speaker 2: Nixon, and you would have done the same.
Speaker 1: So now the thing here, this is really a case
Speaker 1: of you've got Schmitz fucks with Nixon. Nixon being a
Speaker 1: petty bitch, like destroys his chance at getting re elected.
Speaker 1: And then but the thing is, like Schmitz is also
Speaker 1: extremely petty. So when Nixon knuped his hopes of staying
Speaker 1: in Congress, John Schmitz starts scheming. Fate presents him with
Speaker 1: an opportunity in the form of a bullet which an
Speaker 1: assassin fired in the body of George Waller, the segregation governor.
Speaker 1: Wallace is badly hurt and he has to drop out
Speaker 1: as a presidential candidate for the American Party. Now, I
Speaker 1: know what you're saying, Francesca. The American Party isn't a thing,
Speaker 1: but it was, it did used to be. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is now deep political lore here for the country.
Speaker 1: But it was a third party that was formed entirely
Speaker 1: to support the ambitions of George Wallace. Right, Like, if
Speaker 1: the fact that Goldwater isn't just saying slurs on stage
Speaker 1: doesn't means you don't trust Goldwater, and if the fact
Speaker 1: that Nixon isn't completely out of his mind means you
Speaker 1: won't vote for Nixon, the American Party has got your back, right,
Speaker 1: thank god, we love you.
Speaker 2: Just a little slur, only a bit of.
Speaker 1: Slurs, Yeah, more than a bit. This is George Wallace.
Speaker 2: So now Wallace is to the right of Goldwater, even
Speaker 2: to the.
Speaker 1: Right, I don't know, even to the right. Like they're
Speaker 1: just kind of saying he's just cruder, right, I think
Speaker 1: is probably a better way. He is more. I don't
Speaker 1: think Goldwater like he is more directly motivated by racism.
Speaker 1: But they are both. They're both of their campaigns are
Speaker 1: pretty race baby, right y, yeah, yeah. And the American
Speaker 1: and this is you know Goldwater, I think is sixty four,
Speaker 1: This is sixty eight. And in the sixty eight well,
Speaker 1: the sixty eight election is when the American Party runs
Speaker 1: for the first time and it does really well. They
Speaker 1: get ten million votes in the nineteen sixty eight election, right,
Speaker 1: And that's that. This is it comes to something it's
Speaker 1: kind of relevant today, which is that you know, we're
Speaker 1: starting twenty twenty four, which is this presidential race is
Speaker 1: going to be the first race in a very long
Speaker 1: time where a third party candidate seems likely to win
Speaker 1: a lot of votes, right, talking about RFK, the Kennedy
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, the new Kennedy that we got
Speaker 1: up in politics. He's going to get only enough like
Speaker 1: certainly not enough to win the presidency, but more like
Speaker 1: he is polling better than a third party candidate has
Speaker 1: in a time like since I've been you know, aware
Speaker 1: of politics, right, that's.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I don't know. I think we're going to
Speaker 2: find his vax card at some point, he's got a
Speaker 2: vax card. Possible, it's all going to be over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anything could happen. It's January, as you know. But
Speaker 1: I it is like at the moment right now, he
Speaker 1: is more a bigger factor in the election than a
Speaker 1: third party has been in quite a bit, right sure,
Speaker 1: But I'm bringing this up because I want to talk
Speaker 1: about how significant the American Party was for a brief
Speaker 1: period of time. They get ten million votes in the
Speaker 1: sixty eight election. Today, the Libertarian Party in the US
Speaker 1: has seven hundred and thirty two thousand registered voters. The
Speaker 1: Green Party and Constitution Party together are another three hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand. Right, Ross Perot got about twenty million
Speaker 1: votes in nineteen ninety two, but he was a billionaire
Speaker 1: and he had the money to finance a sizeable campaign,
Speaker 1: and the next election he barely he barely broke eight
Speaker 1: million votes. So while this is American Party, it's not
Speaker 1: going to win the election, but it can it can
Speaker 1: spoil the election for a Republican ten million votes. That
Speaker 1: kind of potential. Having done that in the previous election,
Speaker 1: that's not something to scoff at, right, No, Yeah, so
Speaker 1: you know, now that's interesting. So the American Party is
Speaker 1: not this inconsiderable thing within US politics at the time,
Speaker 1: not entirely, and any candidate who could perform at the
Speaker 1: level Wallace had might be able to take away enough
Speaker 1: votes from Nixon to assure his re election. Schmids wanted
Speaker 1: to be that man, the fact that he might be
Speaker 1: able to wrench the Republican Party for the because again,
Speaker 1: you know, if you force Nixon out, right, if you
Speaker 1: make him lose the election, then the fact that you
Speaker 1: got that many votes might is going to convince a
Speaker 1: lot of Republican leadership. Okay, we need to speak to
Speaker 1: some of the issues that this guy has adopted. Right,
Speaker 1: that's I think his assumption, right that I can wrench
Speaker 1: this party to the right and I can hurt Nixon,
Speaker 1: who I hate and who is a communist. Anyway, he
Speaker 1: gets the nomination for the American Party at that party
Speaker 1: convention that year, and he's you know, I'm actually going
Speaker 1: to read a quote from that Cafe dot Com article
Speaker 1: again about like how he kind of frames his campaign.
Speaker 1: Schmidz continued to tie himself to conspiracy theories. He made
Speaker 1: much use of his connection to none dare call it Conspiracy,
Speaker 1: which by election season had blown up selling five million copies.
Speaker 1: Gary Allen even came aboard the campaign, providing his mailing
Speaker 1: lists accumulated from the book's success. He also suggested Arthur
Speaker 1: Bremer Wallace's would be Assassin was part of a cadre
Speaker 1: of killers, which also included Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earrolray,
Speaker 1: and Sir Hans Siran, that was secretly funded and trained
Speaker 1: by left wing groups like the Students for a Democratic Society.
Speaker 1: Schmid summed up his basic presidential campaign pitch. I boiled
Speaker 1: down our platform to a two plank platform. There's a
Speaker 1: foreign plank that says, never go to war unless you
Speaker 1: plan on winning, and a domestic plan that says those
Speaker 1: that work ought to live better than those who don't, right,
Speaker 1: which is both not politics and also real. Easy to
Speaker 1: see why that spreads among a certain chunk of the country. Right, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: so cool stuff. You know what else is cool?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I know, it's cool.
Speaker 1: Ads. Sure, the nice cool breeze of capitalism blowing down
Speaker 1: our backs and we're back. How you feeling, Francesca about
Speaker 1: all this republican ting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot of republican ing. I'm feeling overwhelmed
Speaker 2: but fascinated by all of this. I wish we had
Speaker 2: the countervailing force on the left to do shit like this,
Speaker 2: but we don't. But I love Yeah, the evolution of
Speaker 2: the rights thinking really hasn't evolved at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this is really the evolution of the
Speaker 1: rights thinking, right, Like the evolution of the modern right
Speaker 1: is so much where this guy was back then. But
Speaker 1: the broader Republican Party adopts a lot of those attitudes
Speaker 1: in part because Schmidt's it kind of cracks that wall
Speaker 1: between Orange County and the rest of the country.
Speaker 2: Right, well, because it's simultaneously it seems like Orange County
Speaker 2: is it is just so isolated from the rest of
Speaker 2: the country that is turning on things like the Vietnam War,
Speaker 2: that is for things like not just integration, but like
Speaker 2: civil rights exactly, like actual civil rights, and.
Speaker 1: Certainly more so than oc is.
Speaker 2: And an awakening, and just more culturally, like there is
Speaker 2: a backlash of course against like conservatism of your parents
Speaker 2: and whatnot. There's like free speech movements, you know, like whatever,
Speaker 2: you know, hippie movement, drug culture, whatnot. Like there's a
Speaker 2: whole rejection of this bullshit, which is why Reaganism was
Speaker 2: such a fucking blow. So was Nixonism, Nixonianism, so is Dixism.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it it is is interesting to have schmids
Speaker 2: come in here and get that many votes and then
Speaker 2: also with such a simple play. I believe in money,
Speaker 2: money number one, and white people, I mean private property.
Speaker 1: Yeah, money, but just for the people who are already
Speaker 1: rich exactly, and bombing people who do not live here
Speaker 1: like that's that's his plank. Right, It's a.
Speaker 2: Perfect encapsulation of right wing isolationism, you know, which is
Speaker 2: if you're gonna fight a war, make sure you win it,
Speaker 2: which is the if you're gonna go to war in
Speaker 2: the Middle East, take all the oil. Right. It's that
Speaker 2: like it's voted as isolationists, but it's really not. It
Speaker 2: really is as we talk about, like super pro war.
Speaker 2: Just kill them all dead, deader than.
Speaker 1: Dead, Yeah, kill them all, take their stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now for a running mate, he picks a guy named
Speaker 1: Tom Anderson, who is a farm magazine publisher who was
Speaker 1: far right, but also not the kind of guy who's
Speaker 1: going to detract attention from the main show.
Speaker 2: Mostually, I take pictures of cows. Cows lounging is livestock, yeah,
Speaker 2: just looking.
Speaker 1: It's like a right wing livestock magazine. I think it's
Speaker 1: an early homesteading magazine, right, and you're saying we need
Speaker 1: to go back to the land to drop out of society.
Speaker 4: Because like, like a guy who takes pictures of cows.
Speaker 4: I would that that sounds like a cool dude this
Speaker 4: but that sucks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he got drawn into this mess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, poor guy.
Speaker 4: What a bomber.
Speaker 1: So his campaign manager is Dan Smoot, who's a former
Speaker 1: FBI agent who's obsessed with the Council on Foreign Relations
Speaker 1: and because this was fun in California, his finance director
Speaker 1: is actor Walter Brennan, who had won three Best Supporting
Speaker 1: Actor Oscars. So that's this guy's bench. Yeah, what a crew.
Speaker 2: They had better celebrities though, I feel like all the
Speaker 2: celebrities you mentioned are like at least at least they
Speaker 2: won Best Supporting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he seems to have been an actor. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't recall anything he was in.
Speaker 2: But Gina Carano now or.
Speaker 1: Fucking uh no, no, no.
Speaker 2: Tim Brewer, Jim Brewer, whatever the name is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Jim who cares what happens Jim. Yeah. So
Speaker 1: the campaign was immediately aggressive, filled with wealthy, small business
Speaker 1: owning middle aged men who were just desperate to get
Speaker 1: to feel like they were like insurgent revolutionaries. One American
Speaker 1: Party official told a journalist, this party is a distillation
Speaker 1: of the John Birch Society, the Christian Crusade, and the Minutemen.
Speaker 1: We're revolutionaries. We're getting together to try to work through
Speaker 1: the system. But I'll say this, we'll have constitutional government
Speaker 1: in this country, and if we don't get it through
Speaker 1: a ballot box, we'll get it in the streets.
Speaker 2: That's what the constitution would want.
Speaker 1: Again, that's very much that like J six attitude. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: We're going to work through all of our daddy issues together.
Speaker 1: If we lose an election, we have the right to
Speaker 1: kill people, right Like, That's what he's saying. And Schmids
Speaker 1: knew that he had an uphill battle in getting elected, or,
Speaker 1: more to the point, stopping Nixon from getting re elected.
Speaker 1: His brand of paranoia utterly fantastical conservatism was not popular nationwide,
Speaker 1: but he was tailor made for media sound bites, which
Speaker 1: helped to keep him in the news. He told ABC,
Speaker 1: the Nixon family motto is be sincere, whether you believe
Speaker 1: it or not. He presaged both Donald Trump with his
Speaker 1: meaner lines and the presidential campaign and personal brand of
Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan with folksy right wing witticisms like this, do
Speaker 1: you know why a newborn baby cries because he's naked,
Speaker 1: he's hungry, and he already owes the government fifty nine
Speaker 1: hundred dollars in taxes, Which is funny because like, well,
Speaker 1: that baby already owes private corporation of dollars for being born,
Speaker 1: because that's what it costs to be fucking born. And
Speaker 1: this system you people insist on continuing to have for.
Speaker 2: Us and Jesus for dying for its sins. According to them, Yeah.
Speaker 1: In Cafe dot com, David Kordlander writes, quote, The Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal offered a piece entirely devoted to Schmidz's rhetorical flourishes,
Speaker 1: entitled keep them Laughing as the motto as John Schmitz
Speaker 1: runs for president. The piece even referred to Schmid's as
Speaker 1: sort of the Bob Hope of the ultra right. Oh God,
Speaker 1: what an unappealing series of words. His mix of jokes, conspiracies,
Speaker 1: and righteous indignation at everything he deemed the political establishment
Speaker 1: garnered decent returns. He managed to get himself on the
Speaker 1: ballot in thirty two states, even as Wallace refused to
Speaker 1: formally endorse him, and in the decades to come this
Speaker 1: kind of style of far right populist conspiracy messaging. Really
Speaker 1: the fact that he is marrying outright conspiracy theories to
Speaker 1: an attempt at mainstream politics. This is now dominant, right,
Speaker 1: This is the dominant for conservitism, and be honest, it's
Speaker 1: not not dominant on the left as well, just in
Speaker 1: a different direction. But like, conspiracism is so mainstream now.
Speaker 2: And we all get together in the Epstein conspiracy that's
Speaker 2: where we meet. Yeah, that's the Serengetti for a little while,
Speaker 2: and then we all go.
Speaker 1: Then we decide we want to be angry at specific
Speaker 1: people on that plane. Differently, Yeah, I do think we
Speaker 1: should do a squid game for all of the people
Speaker 1: in the Epstein books and to pretend whoever survives didn't
Speaker 1: do anything wrong or.
Speaker 2: Their children, you know, send their children there, sort of
Speaker 2: like the Hunger Games, but for the rich.
Speaker 1: I do, like, I do think it'd be fun make
Speaker 1: a lot of money as a TV show.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean, God, don't get me started on
Speaker 2: that TV show. And Netflix is awful, but I would
Speaker 2: I love them, But I do want to hear what
Speaker 2: Chompsky has to say, because he apparently was also as associate.
Speaker 2: But no, more importantly, I want to hear what Kate
Speaker 2: Blanchette has to say. I really actually want to hear
Speaker 2: what she has to say, Like what the hell, my girl?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want them all to have to say all what.
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean he did do Epstein did do a
Speaker 1: lot of flights to like anything that would get famous
Speaker 1: people on his plane, to like different galas and shit overseas.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, maybe can't, I can't. I have
Speaker 1: trouble imagining Cameron Diaz wanting to buy whatever he was selling.
Speaker 1: But who knows, who knows.
Speaker 2: I think it's just like everyone who was famous in
Speaker 2: the year two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: That is a lot of them, But a lot of
Speaker 1: those people are also sex creates. It's a mix.
Speaker 2: This is it's a really it's a grab bag anyway,
Speaker 2: we're getting off topic. But but but the conspiracy theory, yeah,
Speaker 2: that wasn't It's interesting that it also is the media
Speaker 2: because he and his wife are also media figures. So
Speaker 2: it's the marriage of the media figures good sound bites,
Speaker 2: which is what you need, or at least what the
Speaker 2: media wants and the conspiracy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one of those things where he has predicted
Speaker 1: where things are going, but also at his time, the
Speaker 1: Republican Party is not ready for that.
Speaker 5: Right.
Speaker 1: He does not succeed in his time because it's just
Speaker 1: not You can't win nationally, even among Republicans doing that
Speaker 1: quite yet. That's not really going to be possible until
Speaker 1: you've had a few generations of Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Breitbart, etc.
Speaker 1: Propagandizing to the masses. That's it. He doesn't do badly.
Speaker 1: He takes in one point two million votes, which is
Speaker 1: an amount vastly higher than nearly any third party candidates
Speaker 1: get today, but also well short of what Wallace did.
Speaker 1: In his concession speech, Schmidts aptly identified that Republican influencers
Speaker 1: would use his techniques to win support of the dedicated
Speaker 1: maniacs who made up his base in the future. We
Speaker 1: got one million votes enough to strike fear in some
Speaker 1: hearts in this country. He's not wrong there. He saw
Speaker 1: this as a good start. He was at the time
Speaker 1: the seventh most successful third party candidate in US political history,
Speaker 1: and his plan was to double down, get back into Congress,
Speaker 1: and weld together a coalition of the deranged that could
Speaker 1: lurch the Republican Party to the right and act as
Speaker 1: a constant thorn in Dick Nixon's side. They were not
Speaker 1: aware at this point that Nixon was going to get shitcammed.
Speaker 2: Coalition of the Deranged is beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well that's what's going on here. Right. While
Speaker 1: he plotted, his wife organized her campaign against the Equal
Speaker 1: Rights Amendment and scored a job on TV as a
Speaker 1: political pundit. Things were going great for the Schmitzes. They
Speaker 1: had power, money, and growing influence. Soon in nineteen seventy three,
Speaker 1: John Schmitz, who's again a family values candidate. Right, that's
Speaker 1: a big part of this degeneracy and modern era. Our kids.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we want to know what comes next. Oh
Speaker 1: he gives himself a mistress. Yees. Yes, this guy is
Speaker 1: both a creepy politics dude but also a professor. So
Speaker 1: of course his mistress is one of his former students,
Speaker 1: much younger, Carla Stuckel. He is like fifty now, he's
Speaker 1: like in her late twenties, And he starts sleeping with
Speaker 1: his student, Carla Stuckell, former student, and then he fathers
Speaker 1: two children with her over the space of a few years.
Speaker 1: And while he's doing that, Mary Schmidz is doing her
Speaker 1: phillish laughly routine. She's going on TV, she's organizing the
Speaker 1: fight against the equal rights and then that are helping
Speaker 1: to you know. And while you know, he is seeing
Speaker 1: his mistress and she is becoming a media influencer. You
Speaker 1: know what, no one is doing watching their fucking kids.
Speaker 1: And this is going to end in tragedy. One August
Speaker 1: afternoon in nineteen seventy three, both parents are out and
Speaker 1: their daughter, Mary Kay, a sixth grader, had been put
Speaker 1: in charge of the baby.
Speaker 2: Philip time out, time out. First of all, that's totally
Speaker 2: not a nod. You can totally do that. No, this
Speaker 2: is family one, family two. What are we talking about.
Speaker 2: We're talking about mistress's family. We're talking about Mary.
Speaker 1: No, No, his his family one family og Fang, his
Speaker 1: daughter from family one, Mary Kay, who I told you
Speaker 1: to keep an eye on for this. Although this plays
Speaker 1: into why you need to remember Mary Gay. They have
Speaker 1: her watching the baby while he is having sex with
Speaker 1: his former student, and Mary is on TV. Right, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from the La Times here. The baby
Speaker 1: was a fearless three year old and when he took
Speaker 1: off his life jacket and stepped into the deep end
Speaker 1: of the pool. Not even the diligent Mary Catherine, playing
Speaker 1: the shallow end with their older brother Jerry, noticed the
Speaker 1: tiny splash only after their mother began looking for Philip.
Speaker 1: Was he found lifeless on the bottom of the pool.
Speaker 1: So that's bad. Yeah, pools not great. And I mean.
Speaker 2: People who are not wealthy enough to have this problem
Speaker 2: don't know, but like me, but apparently, Yeah, pools are
Speaker 2: total death traps. There's like one of them leading killers
Speaker 2: of babies.
Speaker 1: Of course it is, they're not that's not even surprising.
Speaker 2: I mean, guns are really trying.
Speaker 1: It's just a thing for a small person to drown it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, guns are truly trying to Like I
Speaker 2: think it might be no, might actually begun to this point.
Speaker 1: But pools, oh, I think I probably beat him at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah. Those are much more affordable than al
Speaker 1: everybody gun.
Speaker 2: I know, if only pools were as accessible, we.
Speaker 1: Could be drowning in case, we could really up those numbers.
Speaker 1: So you know, this is tragic, obviously, and it brings
Speaker 1: Schmidt's a lot of sympathy, partly because nobody knew that
Speaker 1: the reason he had not been there to watch his baby.
Speaker 1: Is that he was having sex with a woman not
Speaker 1: his wife, who was also his former student. You know,
Speaker 1: if people had known that he was a fraud as
Speaker 1: a moral paragon and that his son had maybe died
Speaker 1: in part due to his ambitions, they might not have
Speaker 1: felt as positively about him, though. But this doesn't come
Speaker 1: out immediately, right, and through the mid nineteen seventies to
Speaker 1: the early eighties, Schmids, you know, continues to run. He
Speaker 1: gets back into state Congress. He's in California Congress for
Speaker 1: another term. He makes another national level campaign, and he
Speaker 1: becomes more comfortable broadcasting openly racist remarks on the campaign
Speaker 1: trail after lawyer Gloria Already gives him a leather chastity
Speaker 1: belt during a state Senate committee on abortion, and Gloria
Speaker 1: is like making fun of him. He's they're doing. They
Speaker 1: have a state Senate committee in California on like abortion laws,
Speaker 1: and obviously she's Gloria already she thinks it should be legal,
Speaker 1: and that he is being a howling fascist about it
Speaker 1: and saying no, women shouldn't have the right to have sex,
Speaker 1: all right, And so she gives him a chastity belt, right.
Speaker 2: I love it, which which actually he needs.
Speaker 1: It's like a joke.
Speaker 2: She doesn't even know that he's fathered.
Speaker 1: He literally does. She has actually anticipated a real need.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: He issues a press release calling Gloria and other pro
Speaker 1: choice activists quote a sea of hard Jewish and arguably
Speaker 1: female faces. There is there. He said it. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: did it everybody, And there's a backlash to this. Even
Speaker 1: in the seventies, you can't say this, like, so there's
Speaker 1: a backlash. In his response to the backlashes, basically they say,
Speaker 1: I don't hate Jews. They're like everyone else except more so,
Speaker 1: which is still pretty racist.
Speaker 2: They're like everyone else, except.
Speaker 1: They're not like everyone else. I mean, it's something people
Speaker 1: used to say it about the Japanese too. I think
Speaker 1: it's like a classier way of saying they're not like
Speaker 1: regular people. I think it's what you say too when
Speaker 1: the group you're afraid of has a reputation at least
Speaker 1: for like being powerful in an industry or in some
Speaker 1: other way. Right, you know, Japan is a military power.
Speaker 1: When people are saying that about Japan, there's this widespread
Speaker 1: attitude that Jewish people run certain and I think that's
Speaker 1: kind of what he's saying, right.
Speaker 2: So it's the polite company bigotry.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it is the polite way of saying I
Speaker 1: think the Jews run the media, right, That is basically
Speaker 1: what he's saying. He also he did not just confine
Speaker 1: himself to talking about Jewish people. He said of Latinos,
Speaker 1: I may not be Hispanic, but I'm close. I'm Catholic
Speaker 1: with a mustache, which is what a wild thing to say.
Speaker 3: Say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what a dad or that's what a guy
Speaker 2: on Sinco de Mayo says. Yes, yes, a nacho bull
Speaker 2: like sombrero. Yeah, and calling every waiter pedro.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He also called Martin Luther King Junior a notorious liar.
Speaker 1: He had regained a Senate seat in nineteen seventy eight,
Speaker 1: but he failed in two campaigns to win election to
Speaker 1: the US Senate. By nineteen eighty two, he had been
Speaker 1: thoroughly relegated to the status of a local headache. And
Speaker 1: then in nineteen eighty two, a month after losing yet
Speaker 1: another primary election, the news broke that Schmidt's had fathered
Speaker 1: two children with his mistress. Now you want to know
Speaker 1: how this news broke, because this is a fucking story.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, kay, it's may It involves a penis injury,
Speaker 1: so not a good one. This is a child's penis injury.
Speaker 1: So nobody laugh. You're not allowed to laugh if you
Speaker 1: just had laughed before, feel bad about it right now? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're thinking about thirty seconds reflect on your crimes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you sick ohs. So his also, this is kind of
Speaker 1: a sicko thing. He names his second son out of
Speaker 1: wedlock after his father. No, which is a weird move
Speaker 1: for your kid. You're gonna deny the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: But okay, like you have to have a little bit
Speaker 2: of deniability, like if your wife finds out, but like,
Speaker 2: that's not my kid.
Speaker 1: It's like, yeah, it's after you're dad.
Speaker 2: Named after your dad.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding me? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Its name is Snitzy Ditsy, Like come on now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's you know, the reason this all comes out.
Speaker 1: So he's got this kid, John George, who is a
Speaker 1: baby at this point, and the baby gets booked at
Speaker 1: an oc hospital for an injured penis. The injury is
Speaker 1: very peculiar. A piece of hair had been wrapped and
Speaker 1: it's described as being wrapped in a square knot around
Speaker 1: I think the head of the penis so tightly that
Speaker 1: it had nearly severed the member. Right, So the baby
Speaker 1: has to have surgery. He it's fucked up, but the
Speaker 1: baby's fine, like it does, he does recover, right. But
Speaker 1: the incident prompted obviously an investigation. Right, that's the kind
Speaker 1: of thing that looks like it could be something intentional. Right,
Speaker 1: someone hurt this kid, you know, I think they're perfectly
Speaker 1: reasonable to look into this. Detectives threaten to arrest the
Speaker 1: baby's mother, Carla Stuckle, if she didn't tell them who
Speaker 1: the father was. And I think this is the police
Speaker 1: assume if someone's abusing this child, it's probably the dad.
Speaker 1: So we need to figure out who the dad is,
Speaker 1: right yeah, yeah, And they're like, look, we'll arrest you
Speaker 1: if you don't tell us. And that's how Schmidt's get
Speaker 1: his name gets out, right because he's famous, Right, he's
Speaker 1: there local, he's been there wrapped a couple of times.
Speaker 1: He's this big figure.
Speaker 2: So mom, so I know, like I see all these
Speaker 2: Instagram posts and some of them are like careful with
Speaker 2: you know, stray hairs, because I guess hairs. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: when like a hair gets like wrapped around your finger,
Speaker 2: like that can happen, and it can be hurt, and
Speaker 2: it's hard to like cut it or break it. Just
Speaker 2: random thing reasons for parents to worry, random shit, but
Speaker 2: like getting it out of your dick. Like I don't
Speaker 2: believe in God, but I'm pretty sure God put that
Speaker 2: piece of hair around.
Speaker 1: Oh God, that is kind of the shitty thing God
Speaker 1: would do instead of just strike John Schmidt's down, make
Speaker 1: a baby suffer to ruin his career, fucking asshole like
Speaker 1: that is is a very old testament God. So you know,
Speaker 1: the story breaks. I'm sure the police just can't keep
Speaker 1: their mouths shut or whatever. But like it breaks, and
Speaker 1: it creters John as a political figure. This is the
Speaker 1: end of his like meaningful public life. He makes another
Speaker 1: congressional run in nineteen eighty three, but he loses by
Speaker 1: more than fifty points. The affair was such a scandal
Speaker 1: that it also ends Mary Schmidz's career on TV, which
Speaker 1: is a kind of evidence of some massada, right because like,
Speaker 1: this isn't her fault, right that her husband cheated on
Speaker 1: her with a lady, but she loses her job on
Speaker 1: TV as a right wing shithead anyway, I guess it's
Speaker 1: unjust she does suck, so you know, take you think
Speaker 1: about that how you want. I guess the two separate,
Speaker 1: but they get back together. True to his nature's human garbage,
Speaker 1: Schmids never supports Carla Stuckle or helps to support their
Speaker 1: He refuses to pay right. He is like this his
Speaker 1: whole life. When the police question him, he tells the
Speaker 1: police straight up, I do not and will not support
Speaker 1: him financially. Because the police are like, do you want
Speaker 1: to help pay the bill with the hospital for your son?
Speaker 1: He's like, I will not pay any money. It is
Speaker 1: her responsibility to take care of him, not mine. Replicans
Speaker 1: party of personal responsibility.
Speaker 2: Yea, indeed, I mean at least I will give him this.
Speaker 2: He didn't, like, you know, advocate for stealth abortion the
Speaker 2: way other Republicans do with their mistresses. Right.
Speaker 1: No, he has the kid and then he I mean
Speaker 1: he was anti abortion, but he does have his kid, yeah.
Speaker 2: And then allows them to live a life of like,
Speaker 2: you know, a shitty life where his dad doesn't hug
Speaker 2: him or support him or love him the way Republicans
Speaker 2: want in order to breed more Republicans.
Speaker 1: Guess what, You're head of the game again, Francesca. Okay,
Speaker 1: these kids have a nightmare life. Carla Stuckle is left
Speaker 1: to support both children on her own. This is actually
Speaker 1: did you watch The House of Usher?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Oh, well, these two kids have literally the background of
Speaker 1: the kids. I honestly wonder if that's who what's his
Speaker 1: name was thinking of what? Anyway, So Carla is left
Speaker 1: to support these kids on her own, which she does
Speaker 1: until nineteen ninety three when she dies due to complications
Speaker 1: from type one diabetes. She had been like working barely
Speaker 1: keeping it together to take care of these two on
Speaker 1: her own, and then she dies. Schmids refuses to take
Speaker 1: either of his children and they're sent to an orphanage.
Speaker 2: Oh John Smith's god, it's fuck a piece of shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, he just like, not my responsibility, not my job.
Speaker 1: Her body made him fuck her like it's it's that's him.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: He lives on increasing increasingly angry, interrational until two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, when he dies of prostate cancer. The Journal
Speaker 1: of Historical Review, which exists Tony the Holocaust, called him
Speaker 1: a good friend in its obituary. He's a just a
Speaker 1: cool guy. He is, by the way, a Holocaust denier.
Speaker 1: He attends a vince held by the Journal of historical review.
Speaker 1: Of course he has. He had to get the Bengo.
Speaker 2: Guard, Yeah, exactly to complete it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's almost the in Francisca, because we got
Speaker 1: one bond on this episode. Yes, Sophie, just read it
Speaker 1: at the start. I mentioned at the start. Remember his
Speaker 1: daughter Mary Kay. Yeah, right, Schmids the daughter that he
Speaker 1: had with his wife, right, who starts there when her
Speaker 1: baby brother dies, Yeah, which probably fucks her up somewhat.
Speaker 1: So in between John getting exposed as a philandering fraud
Speaker 1: and dying while he's still alive, something else happened, not
Speaker 1: to him, but to his daughter, Mary Kay. She becomes
Speaker 1: a middle school teacher and she marries someone. I want
Speaker 1: you do you want to guess what the last name
Speaker 1: of her husband is becomes her last name? No, no,
Speaker 1: Mary Kay Laturno, that's John Schmitz's daughter. Now, depending on
Speaker 1: how much you know about this story, so you are saying,
Speaker 1: oh shit.
Speaker 2: I actually don't know this story.
Speaker 1: But yeah, in like the mid nineties, Mary Kaylaturno. I
Speaker 1: think it's the mid nineties, Mary Kay Turno gets famous
Speaker 1: because she starts she's a school teacher, a middle school teacher,
Speaker 1: and she repeatedly statutorily rapes one of her twelve year
Speaker 1: old male students and has two children with him. Oh
Speaker 1: my fucking gets public and she it is a massive
Speaker 1: national news story. This is front page news on every
Speaker 1: household for weeks for.
Speaker 2: The first female teacher is a predator.
Speaker 5: And you've probably you've probably seen the clips of like
Speaker 5: them when they're older and her being like, oh is
Speaker 5: the boss and him being like what the fuck and like, yeah,
Speaker 5: it's because.
Speaker 3: They go on to like get married and yeah, well
Speaker 3: she's I mean she in prison and then makes Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's really dark.
Speaker 1: It's my gosh, fucked up story.
Speaker 4: She died horribly though, so that's cool.
Speaker 1: She does die really badly, so yeah, that's John Schmitz's
Speaker 1: primary legacies are that he helped create the modern Republican
Speaker 1: Party that we're all desperately hoping doesn't kill everybody today.
Speaker 1: And he gave birth and raised Mary Kayla Turno, who
Speaker 1: became one of the most famous pedophiles in this country's history.
Speaker 1: So oh, I was not see that one coming, did you?
Speaker 5: Was not ready for that last paragraph?
Speaker 1: Surprise pedophile in the fourth quarter, baby, Oh my god.
Speaker 4: Thank you for knowing what the fourth quarter is.
Speaker 2: Wow, they breed, this is these are the kinds of
Speaker 2: people they breed. This is what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if you I mean, you know what
Speaker 1: I will, Mary Kayla Turno is a bad person. But
Speaker 1: having your parents fist who neglect you and kind of
Speaker 1: put you in a situation where you were responsible for
Speaker 1: your infant brother or your child brother's death, couldn't have helped.
Speaker 1: Like that didn't make the odds of her turning out
Speaker 1: healthy better? Right?
Speaker 2: No? And also like we don't know whatever, like some
Speaker 2: other ship might have happened, you know what I mean, Sure,
Speaker 2: someone who knows exactly like something else might have happened.
Speaker 1: She is bad and so is he.
Speaker 2: She's bad, She's very bad. She's curse. They're so cursed.
Speaker 1: Also sounds like a dog shit family.
Speaker 2: It's a very dog shit family, Robert.
Speaker 5: I think this is the first time in like a
Speaker 5: really long time that I've been extremely surprised at the
Speaker 5: end of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you didn't say that one coming at all, did you?
Speaker 3: So?
Speaker 2: I wish I was more up on my on my
Speaker 2: child rapists.
Speaker 5: There's a there's a there's a lot of clips going
Speaker 5: around because there's a Netflix movie that's loosely based based
Speaker 5: off the story called me Yeah.
Speaker 1: Good stuff, good stuff. I just know this is one
Speaker 1: of those episodes that, like the instant I said that
Speaker 1: across the country, like hundreds of thousands of people all went,
Speaker 1: oh fuck, really you know I did not like it was.
Speaker 1: It's such a funny bookend for this. Not funny because
Speaker 1: like an actual child was deeply, deeply harmed here, more
Speaker 1: than one. A lot of children actually armed in this story.
Speaker 1: But just it was not not what you expect the
Speaker 1: first ninety percent of this story, right, It's a.
Speaker 2: Fun distraction from the rest of it, which was like
Speaker 2: the origins of like the fly right and mano, Like
Speaker 2: that's I like, you.
Speaker 1: Really refreshing, Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: Really exactly cleanse my palate from all the other stuff.
Speaker 1: Mm hmmmmm. It's like that sip of water when you're
Speaker 1: doing a wine tasting. For sure, this is probably not
Speaker 1: a road to go down.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, do not. But hey, look they got
Speaker 2: a Netflix show, I mean movie, so.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, I'm gonna be watching that tonight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, poor Schmidz doesn't get a special.
Speaker 1: So Francesca Fiorentini, you have a podcast Habituation Room, which
Speaker 1: people should listen to. I have been on it.
Speaker 2: You have you were great, you were there in person.
Speaker 2: I'm doing another live show on January twenty eighth, seven
Speaker 2: pm at the Gateway Theater in San Francisco, is a
Speaker 2: part of SF Sketch Fest, and Miles Gray is going
Speaker 2: to be there, and thank you so much. And now
Speaker 2: I'm gonna just sit in shame that I didn't know
Speaker 2: who Mary Kayla Turno was and I was just now
Speaker 2: it's okay, it's okay, double knew it.
Speaker 4: I double knew it.
Speaker 2: So we made up.
Speaker 1: You've got time before Sketch Fest to really really work
Speaker 1: on some Mary kay laterno jokes. You know what, if
Speaker 1: you just find David Letterman's monologues from back then you
Speaker 1: can steal some one.
Speaker 2: To steal them, and Kat Williams will call me out
Speaker 2: for it. It'll be great. Yeah, it's just been a.
Speaker 1: Pleasure so much. Anything else you want to tell people, no, man.
Speaker 2: Just listen to the Situation Room and there's a comic
Speaker 2: and uh oh yeah, there's always a comedian. There's always
Speaker 2: an expert or and activists. We talk politics and kind
Speaker 2: of big what the fuck are we going to do
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty four stuff. So it's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And I think that's it's useful. You're thebituation
Speaker 1: Room has a style that is cathartic to it, and
Speaker 1: if you think you need that right now as we
Speaker 1: start to head into twenty twenty four, it's a great
Speaker 1: place to get it. So you listen to some of
Speaker 1: that relax. I feel too bad for laughing about the Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: you never know where Married Kay Laturno is going to
Speaker 1: be heading in an episode, so best I could do
Speaker 1: that any day.
Speaker 2: I'm like, my face is a different shade.
Speaker 4: That's how shocking.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's like how you know, you I may
Speaker 1: have American history before j six and after we're like,
Speaker 1: oh wow, now a coup could just happen at any time.
Speaker 1: It's real to us now. The possibility of being confronted
Speaker 1: with Mary Kay Laturno is going to be lurking in
Speaker 1: the back of your mind every episode, Sophie forever.
Speaker 5: It's been five or six years, and this is the
Speaker 5: first time where I couldn't close my bow.
Speaker 4: The pure shock of the Mary Kay Turno draw.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: See, it's a good way to four.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 4: I feel like I feel like I gotta go, like
Speaker 4: hug a dog in this.
Speaker 1: Episode, What Yeah, Yeah, Bye, all right, everybody, Bye bye bye.
Speaker 4: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
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