#691 My daughter feels left out when my husband only takes my son fishing. I do not take her side.
TODAY: Ani joins us to discuss a perplexing dilemma causing vigorous debate online: Do you have to take your daughter fishing even though she's basically a woman and might cramp your style? A mother writes to reddit explaining her daughter no longer wants to spend time with her dad after he refused to take her on a "guys only" fishing trip. Is the daughter really hurt, or is the mother just cheating on her husband? ALSO: We look at Teamsters president Sean O'Brien's recent comments about Right to Work and his support for a labor secretary who defends the anti-union policy. What are teamsters getting out of O'Brien's support for this labor secretary? Is it worth legitimizing the right wing administration? We dredge the depths of Teamster and UPS facebook groups to gauge rank and file reaction to O'Brien's budding relationship with the reactionary forces in Trump's camp and uncover some not-so-convincing arguments for RTW from union members themselves. Pre-order Merch by this friday at www.miniondeathcultmerch.bigcartel.com Get a bonus episode every week and 20% off all merch by signing up at http://patreon.com/miniondeathcult for only $5/month Music: Cyndi Lauper - Girls Just Wanna Have Fun Windows 96 - Caligula
And conservative humor gone awry is going to fascist-fornia today.
So stay tuned.
We're going to take a few pictures of the desert and how their policies are actually messing it up.
It's not beautiful when you go across that border.
But stay tuned, guys.
We'll show you exactly what it looks like when the people of the desert fall there in Barton, Houston.
Stay tuned.
Alright, I'm Alexander Edward.
And I'm Tony Boswell.
And we are Minion Death Cult.
The world is ending.
Annoying daughters wanting to do stuff with their dad is responsible.
And we're documenting it, folks.
What's up, everybody?
Wow, what a show we have for you.
And it's just going to be so much fun.
And I think that feeling is in the room right now.
You can hear it audibly from Ani, our special guest today.
Welcome, Ani.
Hey, how's it going?
The one and only Ani.
She's the only, I think that's maybe your nickname, the only Ani.
Only the Ani.
No.
You're so much more than just Ani.
You're not only the Ani, but you are the only Ani.
The only one.
Welcome.
Welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me.
Thanks for inviting me to the basement.
It's another Ani-sode.
This should be good because we have an annoying daughter and we have dad of annoying daughter to cover this.
Right up my alley.
I thought of Ani instantly as a dad's daughter, as the only daughter to a dad.
This topic just clicked with me.
Ani, and just before we get into it, I wanted to say how similar Tony, you, and Ani are.
Different ways, but especially the way in which you both decide to take a shit right at start time.
Well, I don't decide.
My body decides for me.
Never, never, never fails.
Whenever it's time to eat dinner, oh, Ani's got to go to the bathroom.
Oh, whenever it's time to record, oh, Tony's got to go take a shit.
I appreciate the, you know, this like might come, I mean, this does come after our discussion of working on the clock.
And I do normally support shitting on the clock.
But I want to remind both of you, I am not your employer.
We are partners.
Tony, you and I are equal partners.
And Ani, you and I are also equal partners in a different respect.
You don't have to stick it to me by shitting during work time.
My body can just tell that we're about to go on a journey and it needs to prepare itself.
I need to evacuate and be ready.
You guys were literally both taking shits at 10am when we were supposed to be recording.
Yeah, that's about when I do it.
It's weird.
I felt it.
I thought something special was happening.
I could tell.
There was an aura in there.
I have to do it here because I can't shit at my other job because...
It's a disgusting bar.
So I can't shit there.
So I have to do it here.
It's something I have to get out of my system.
And also, I don't know about you, but I think me and Ani are probably pretty clear right now.
We're probably pretty clear-headed.
Focused.
Balanced.
Ready to strike.
Well, you know what, guys?
I'm also feeling pretty clear and light on my feet because I also shit.
Several hours before it was start time.
It would have been hard for me to do because I was asleep in bed.
I don't know what you're getting at here.
That's plenty of time to get clouded again.
I don't know if you knew this, but your stomach is your second brain.
Sure, yeah.
There's a little brain in there.
Everything's always working.
Isn't it like the collective consciousness of your gut bacteria?
That's the part of your stomach that's the brain.
Yeah, exactly.
No, I mean, I do, after our, like, no working off the clock conversation on the last episode, I do think that shitting is work.
And it should be done on the clock.
That is included.
I got, like, I don't know, it's such a prime example.
Like, yesterday I got, this week has been, I got dispatched really heavy a few times this week.
And just so frustrating.
It's just like, one day they took off my bulk stop.
And it's like, because it was an especially heavy day for that bulk stop, but only by like 30 packages.
They take that off my truck, which I can only assume is meant to be like, oh, this is an efficiency thing.
Like, this stop is particularly heavy.
Let's lighten the load and give it to somebody else, which they did.
But then they gave me 70 additional stops to replace it.
Which is insane.
That's like two and a half, three hours worth of work to replace a stop that takes ten minutes because I back up to a dock to unload it.
That's so fucking nuts.
I got the bare minimum two math credits needed to graduate high school in Washington State, but I can...
Something doesn't seem right to me.
It sounds like you're being punished for being good at your job.
Always.
That's what it is.
Always.
They hate to see...
A Union Brothers shine.
They hate to see me succeed.
But it's like I said on the internet, they know that that's not two and a half hours worth of work, that one dock stop, because if I spent two and a half hours at that one stop, they would call the cops on me.
Well, I mean, they knew that, but they didn't know that because they couldn't check the computers before they clocked in to make sure that was a thing.
So it was just bad math.
Let's replace these 30 packages with 70 stops.
And then they did it again, but they didn't replace the bulk stop.
They did it again on Thursday, but they just didn't get rid of the bulk stop, too.
They gave me the bulk stop and the 70. And it's crazy because when they put these extra stops, I'm typically a business route.
I have residential apartment buildings and stuff like that.
But they don't get the kind of crazy furniture or mattress deliveries if you have 200 or 70 residential stops in the fucking track homes.
That's when you start getting crazy.
So I have all this stuff that's like...
I can't even start delivering until 2 because I have all my hospitals and stuff that I have to deliver in the morning with refrigerated packages and medications and all that.
So now it's even worse.
I can't even find anything because I'm tripping over fucking bed frames for half the day.
But anyway, so they did that shit to me again on Thursday.
And so I was just having kind of a rough, busy week.
Then yesterday, I get like a good dispatch.
I get like a decent, normal kind of dispatch.
And I'm like, oh, cool.
You know, I'll get home at like a reasonable time.
I'll get home at like six.
And then I get home and then I have to shit.
And I'm like, God damn it.
You know?
You could have been getting paid for that.
And so now I'm spending a half hour of my own time because then I've got to take a shower after I shit because it's just so crazy messy down there.
I'm so dirty.
It's all down my legs.
And so now I've got to do that.
And it's just like, man, I should have just stayed on the clock.
There's a shower at the building that I could use.
You're all, listen, you know, brown time is UPS time.
So, you gotta pay me for all that whenever I'm covered in brown.
Yeah, but what I'm saying is, if I hear about you shitting at your own house, I will call you a scab.
Okay.
I will call you an anti-worker.
You're shitting with Satan.
When you shit off the clock, you're shitting with Satan.
I'll go down the street.
Yeah, I guess we got two stickers to make now.
I love pooping at work because I open pretty much every day that I work, so I clean the bathroom and I clean it so good.
I make it so nice and then I get to be the first one who shits in it.
You should.
That should be your honor.
Honestly, you get to be the only one who shits in it.
Hey, Ani, can you do me a favor?
Can you not say pooping again?
It's just gross.
We've got to stick to saying shitting.
It's too cute.
It's confusing.
I work around kids, so we have to, like, call things what they are, you know?
Yeah, okay, okay.
I respect that.
It is the real words for things.
Feces?
Defecation?
There you go.
Oh, do you have to defecate?
Imagine, like, a little kid saying it all cute.
Defecate?
Do you have to excrete fecal matter?
Dude, when I was a preschool teacher, I got corrected about an animal that I was pointing out in a book.
This little three-year-old was like, oh, it's not a baboon, it's a male mantle.
I was like, oh, okay, Alan.
Owned.
Got your ass.
Dipshit.
And that's when you decide you would never not know anything again, and that's why you become a baboon.
I was like, I found my fucking equal in this kid.
Ani's going to just black out one day at the bookstore and just haul off on some little kid and just be yelling Alan the whole time and we'll know why but other people won't.
So, okay.
Let's get on with the show.
This is something I saw online that made me really sad.
This is a crazy depressing kind of But it gets into our modern politics and gender politics and sexual politics, so it's definitely worth exploring, but it's just kind of a bummer of a situation.
This is posted in Am I the Asshole on Reddit.
Am I the asshole for insisting my daughter should be allowed to go on the, quote, guys-only family trip?
Yeah, it says it right there in the title.
Guys only.
I don't know.
Words still mean things.
No matter what wokeness or DEI says, words have meanings.
And we called it a guys only trip.
What's confusing?
I don't understand.
I have two kids, John who is 13 and Kelsey who is 11. My daughter, Kelsey, has always been a tomboy and prefers hanging out with her older brother and my husband.
She goes fishing and watches slash plays sports with them.
Meanwhile, I enjoy gardening and baking.
No biggie to me.
I love their bond and I'm happy she's close with her brother and dad.
Or so she thinks.
Right, guys?
My husband's only sister is a single mom and has recently moved to our state with her son, Michael, who is 12. My husband has been talking about planning a, quote, guys trip this summer with him, John and Michael.
While my husband was discussing with John, I could see Kelsey looking visibly sad because she wasn't included.
It gets worse.
Later, I told my husband that Kelsey should go too and that there's no reason to exclude her.
He says he just wants some guy time with his son and nephew.
Fucking divorce time, man.
Pretty bad.
And that men need to have, quote, their time away from women.
I took offense to that comment, which led to an argument between us.
I told him that Kelsey needs to go, too.
Otherwise, I won't approve of money being taken out of our family vacation budget to exclude some of our family-based.
Yeah.
This woman is being so fucking reasonable.
My sister-in-law texted me saying I'm being controlling and ruining a good experience for the boys by being petty.
I told her I'm not being petty.
I just don't want my kid feeling left out.
This is a crazy thing to bring into a relationship that's apparently been going on for at least 13 years, is that actually men and women are totally different and need to have their time away from each other.
You know what I'm saying, everybody?
That's funny.
At first, I thought maybe this was like all the men in the family were going to go hunting or whatever, and they were going to be gross, inappropriate men.
But it's the dad and the two young kids, and they're not including the other kid?
That's so fucked.
Yeah.
This is insanely depressing.
This is so fucking sad.
I would divorce this man.
This man would absolutely learn about going his own way.
This would be a hard reality check.
I'm gonna get you a new dad that will hang out with you.
How about that?
Dude, I'm gonna find you a butch lesbian to hang out with.
You will never be disappointed like this again.
Yeah, this is brutal.
Why?
Why do you need...
Why do the, quote, guys need time away from...
The sister and cousin who seems to enjoy all the same activities and apparently has an otherwise good relationship with you.
What did she suddenly do to deserve to be ostracized except for something you can only see with a fucking ultrasound?
Yeah, well, they realized, yeah, that her penis is inverted, so that means she can't go on the camping trip.
That's actually going to be a pretty negative influence on the cousin.
He's going to get confused and think, maybe I should push it in.
This shit is so fucking insane.
This is the continuation of people being like, no, my baby has to have a blue or a pink headband so you know what kind of junk it has.
It's like, yeah, no, when my kid is 11 or 12 and has all of the exact same fucking interests as my husband and our son, now she's got to stay home because, well, it doesn't have the same equipment, you know?
And, uh, yeah.
We're actually getting a little ahead of her, so this is actually the right thing to do because this whole trip is actually planned around a moment he has planned where they're going to be, like, peeing in public, peeing out in the forest, and he's going to, like, Accidentally expose himself to the kids to exert dominance because he has a grown man dick.
And they're going to be like, whoa, that thing's huge.
I'll never have a big dick as dad.
And they'll always respect dad, uncle.
But if he brings the daughter, it's sexual harassment.
That's different.
She's never allowed to see a penis.
I think he's being responsible here, actually.
This is the smart move, yeah.
I respect it.
You've got to exert dominance on your kids.
Dude, besides divorcing him, if a husband pulled this move and the daughter ended up staying home with me, I'd be like, baby, what do you want to do?
Do you want to shoot arrows from horseback?
Should we buy a blowtorch?
Do you want to blowtorch stuff?
What do you want to do?
We're going to spend some of the fucking family vacation money on you.
Do you want to shoot guns?
Yeah, I imagine, um, I have more to say about, like, the gender essentialist nonsense here, but I imagine we'll get into it as we go through the replies, but there's more to this.
Uh, this is a cross post.
Am I the asshole for not helping my husband repair his relationship with our daughter after he excluded her from a, quote, guys-only trip?
Oh, so he went through with it.
He went through with it.
God, this is so fucking sad.
You can read some of the details if you go through my post history.
Essentially my husband has decided he wants to have a quote guys only trip this summer with my son, 13 male and nephew, 12 male.
My daughter, 11 female is a tomboy who's into sports and fishing and extremely close with her brother and dad.
And the three of them often spent a lot of time together.
You're also teaching your son awful behavior.
You're also teaching like your son who has a relationship with the sister, you know, that she's to be otherized.
She's to be kept separate for whatever reason.
Jesus Christ.
Now, I'm not saying there's never a reason that women wouldn't want to be around men.
There are, unfortunately, reasons for sex safe or gender safe places, but they have to do with how men are raised in this country.
They have to do with how men behave in this country.
They have to do with learned behaviors by men.
It's nothing innately wrong with men that causes them to be a danger to women or whatever.
It's because of how we treat women in the society, how we view them, how we objectify them or otherize them that leads to the necessitation, unfortunately, of some of these gender-segregated spaces or whatever.
That's not what this is.
This isn't for the daughter's safety or anything like that.
This is just because we're different than you.
You need to go over there and be different.
And it's like, well, how am I different?
It's like, well, I'm teaching you right now that you're different.
We're creating the difference, essentially, that's unfortunately there, and we can't do anything about it, but we're policing it rigorously.
Yeah, and it's different, too, because this is not even just like, you know...
An intergender hangout.
This is your daughter.
This is your kid.
That's a totally different dynamic that should be even more pure than any other one.
Why are you tainting him with this?
Just to tell your daughter there's a space that me and your brother can hang out in that you're not welcome.
I know your brother's only two years older than you and you're probably years ahead of him when it comes to maturity and understanding.
But, you know, you can't come with us, you know, because what happens if she gets her period when she's out there?
She's going to attract the bears.
It's like, fuck off.
Dude, seriously, fuck off.
You fucking get to live in a dog kennel now, Dad.
Fuck you.
Can you imagine, like, doing this to Penny?
I can't imagine my dad doing this to me.
Holy shit.
No, and I also, I definitely couldn't imagine doing this to Penny and her letting go of it.
Oh, no.
Yeah, no.
There's no way.
She'd be mad at me forever.
Dude, you'd have to be careful.
I would have set traps for my dad.
I did set traps for my dad, but they were fun ones, but I would set bad ones.
You want these fun traps to get real, Dad, real quick?
I've been practicing.
I've been practicing with the pots and pans and noisemakers, all right?
Shit can get real, real fast.
You gotta describe the traps you set for your dad.
When I was three, I locked my dad in the bathroom using his belt.
I, like, tied the door handle shut somehow, and he had to crawl out the tiny window.
And, like, he was the only one home alone with me, so it was, like, a real emergency.
Because he was like, oh my god, she's unattended.
And then when I was like four, we moved into a different house and he was a stay-at-home dad, so he was cooking dinner for us.
And I was like very carefully sneaking around behind him in the kitchen and I used all of the dish towels to tie like a chain of pots and pans and lids to his belt.
And then he went to like walk across the kitchen to grab something and it was just like, and it scared the shit out of him.
And then I would save poppets from 4th of July, and then I would carefully bury them in the driveway where I knew he was going to get out of his car when he got home from the grocery store or whatever, and he'd step out.
Is that a monster snap?
Is that what a poppet is?
Yeah, they were little cute paper hot packets of gunpowder or whatever, and I would bury little mounds of them, so he'd step on them and it'd be really loud.
Give him a little hot foot.
I would do the water bucket above the doorway and remind him, hey, Dad, you know, this bucket could also hold broken glass.
This could be, you know, his bottles.
Filled with cement.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
and his nephew without any women present oh my god i eventually gave in on the boys only trip but warned him that our daughter would be hurt and it was up to him entirely to fix it he promised me he would ever since my husband told her she couldn't go my daughter's behavior has changed she no longer hangs out with her brother playing video games and she has been extremely distant with my husband just this past week during the super bowl while my son and husband were watching the game my daughter was tucked away in her room Watching the Super Bowl together has always been a tradition for the three of them to do together.
I'm not into sports ball.
But this year, my daughter didn't join them.
I asked her if she was okay and she gave a yeah and continued reading her book.
My husband noticed this behavior and tried to cheer her up by telling her he would plan something really cool.
Just the two of them.
But our daughter told him she didn't want to do anything.
A couple days later, my daughter needed to be picked up early from school for a dentist appointment.
My husband said he would pick her up, but she texted me asking, Please, mom, can you pick me up and bring me?
My daughter has also been getting the school bus in the morning instead of catching a ride with my husband and son, which she typically does.
Now my husband has been complaining to me about our daughter, saying he's done everything to make it up to her and that I need to step in.
I told him that she would be hurt by him, excluding her from the trip, and it's entirely his fault she's icing him out.
He says we should be a team and try to fix this together.
I can't believe she's refusing to pull her fair share of the relationship, guys.
I mean, classic, classic case here.
He says we should be a team and try to fix this together, but he's the one who caused this hurt.
So it shouldn't be on me to fix it.
It's starting to affect our relationship now, too.
Am I the asshole?
To me, like, it just sounds like you were an asshole to somebody and now they don't like you.
It's pretty fucking simple.
I don't know what's to fix about this.
And it wasn't just you were...
Like unthinking.
Like you did something without her on the spur of the moment, without thinking about it or whatever.
No, you gave her a concrete insight into how your mind works and how you view her as a person.
This wasn't just some arbitrary decision you made without thinking about it.
Like I said, you revealed your values to her and she's like, fuck, I have a bad dad.
That sucks.
Yeah.
You revealed who you really are to her.
You planned something months ahead of time, knowing that it would be devastating to her.
And she's like, oh, it turns out Dad isn't somebody I want to be friends with.
He's also just stupid.
Like, he can't give me a logical reason for why he's...
Because one doesn't exist.
But he's just saying, oh, it's because.
It's because men and women.
And it's like, okay, my dad's, like, bigot and an idiot.
A big, dumb animal?
Yeah.
It sounds like he never actually apologized.
It sounds like he never said, hey, I was wrong for that.
I shouldn't have done that.
It sounds like he never did that.
There's nothing wrong with doing things with your individual kids.
You can do that.
But what he did was he said, actually, I wanted two sons.
I actually wanted two sons and now I have a nephew and so I'm going to bring my two sons now because I didn't want to bring my daughter.
And then it's funny because like you said, then You know, men grow up like, why do women have this grudge against men?
Well, it's because their dads were assholes.
It does usually start that early.
It's like, well, my dad othered me and ostracized me for existing as a woman.
And it's like, yeah, you were taught from the one guy you're supposed to learn good things from how men think.
And it's like, fuck off.
You should be proud of your daughter, man.
Looked at your behavior and was like, well, I guess I should believe him about what he does.
I guess I should take him at his word that he's a fucking dick.
She's being smart.
She's not putting up with shit.
No, totally.
She's not setting herself up to be disappointed by him again.
Yeah, and the thing with...
You know, some of these excuses, like, you could be forgiven for thinking, wow, this is such a crazy story.
I don't want to believe it.
You know, this is an anonymous post on Reddit.
It could be fake, whatever.
It doesn't sound that fake to me.
I think maybe the least believable part is this guy didn't exhibit any of these sort of weird gender hang-up symptoms before, or maybe the mom ignored them or whatever, like a lot of people have to do to get along.
You have to just take the good with the bad or whatever.
I get it to a certain degree, but...
There are people defending that, and that's what we're going to get into right here, are the defenses for this.
And one of the defenses is Matt Walsh here, who's like, I can't believe, he says, some of these responses here are truly incredible.
A very troubling number of people apparently believe that a father should never have any one-on-one time with his son.
Girls should be included in everything, always.
And this is one of the bait and switches like defenders of this idea are trying to do that this was somehow a one-on-one trip that he had with his son and a nephew he just met or whatever.
It's like, no, it's very obviously a group fun group outing.
It's like I went on one and I have a sister.
I have three sisters.
I have one like full sister and two stepsisters.
We always did things as a family unless the kid didn't want to do them or it was like my birthday and me and my dad have a special birthday trip that we went down to the beach.
Every year for my birthday, we stayed.
That's different.
That's like, okay, this is you, your time.
What do you want to do?
It's not gender-based.
It's a total bait and switch.
It's very funny.
Another thing that Matt Walsh was crying about with the people who were highlighting how fucked up this was.
With the response from the mom being like, am I the asshole for not helping repair the relationship or whatever?
He spun that as, I guess a dad has to be punished for spending time with his son.
And it's like, no one's punishing him.
His daughter just doesn't like him anymore, man.
You can't make somebody not like you.
It's a continuation of this soy right, therapy-speak adoption of, I'm a victim because you don't like me anymore.
Yeah.
You're victimizing me.
You're otherizing me by not liking me.
Because the biggest factor here is the nephew.
If he wanted to take his son on a one-on-one trip because he's 13 now, whatever, whatever, that would make sense.
But bringing the nephew is what changes the dynamic here.
That's everything.
And it's like, yeah, you are an asshole.
There's no way around it.
Yeah, you don't think the daughter would want to get to know her cousin too?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, here's one of the viral defenses of this dad's behavior.
Paleo normie.
Wow.
An oxymoron, brother.
You know, this guy might be an ironic name.
I think this guy might be a freaking twisted schizo poster, you know, epic based pilled guy.
He says, I don't know how to get through to people who think males don't need mail time.
The author is 100% the asshole here.
What she's supposed to do is plan a concurrent girls trip that gets her daughter so excited that she forgets all about the fishing she doesn't get to do.
She forgets all about her father and brother, her former best friends in the world, totally rejecting her and making her feel bad because she has a vag.
Yeah, but she could just do another activity.
It's just fishing, babe.
It's got nothing to do with, yeah, the fucking shattered bond.
Dude.
It would have been sick, though, if they went to the lake to fish, and mom was like, fuck it, we're going deep-sea fishing.
We're taking a week on a boat.
We're going spearfishing.
We're going to go spearfishing, totally.
We're going to go fish for sharks.
Yeah.
You know what?
Fuck it.
I just bought some Tannerite.
We're going to go blow stuff up in the desert, honey.
What do you want?
It's cheap, as it turns out.
We're going to go blow fish up in the lake.
We're going to go catch deep-sea fish and then explode them in the desert.
It sucks, because I learned all those gnarly deep-sea fish are actually really small.
You see the anglerfish that surfaced?
It was like, whoa, what a crazy beast.
And you look at it, and it's like the size of a tennis ball.
Yeah, it's like the palm of your hand.
Yeah, you could barely see it if you didn't have a wide-angle 4K lens or whatever.
It is funny, because it being so tiny did change from being this awful-looking creature to being pretty adorable.
More from Paleo Normie.
Quote, But you don't understand.
My daughter is a tomboy!
Fishing is her favorite thing in the world.
Go on a girl's fishing trip, then.
Maybe the real problem is that her dad is the one being loving and nurturing while you're posting on Reddit.
That's right!
She's a Reddit...
She's, what, like a cringe Reddit debate lord or something?
Like, that's, I guess, yeah, totally.
Absolutely.
How do you twist, like, I left my kid at home as being loving and nurturing?
Sorry the mom's too busy collecting Funko Pops to take her on a fishing trip with pink fishing rods or whatever a girl's fishing trip is.
Oh my god, dude.
And then he says, this is great.
This is the last tweet in his thread.
Want to know the plot twist?
What men need to get away from women to talk about?
It's usually talking shop about how to coexist more harmoniously with women.
I'm so sure.
Absolutely.
Totally.
You know what I used to hear men talking about at the bus stop when I had to catch the bus on Bothell Way every day?
It was definitely that.
It was for sure that.
That's definitely what I hear groups of boys at the bookstore talking about when they're in a boys-only group.
All right, fellas.
So what we're going to do this weekend is we're going to actually get in touch with our feminine energy.
We're going to do that with our moms and sisters and all.
So you fellas ready for this?
You ready for a little bit of crying?
There's going to be a little bit of crying.
I don't want to taint you with one being here.
We're going to cry.
We're going to hold each other.
We're going to cry it out.
This argument is so funny.
No, we had to get away from the women to learn how to get closer to the women.
We need to talk about how to get along with it.
We don't need to ask them how we could be better.
I was pretty bummed when you told me that Ani was going to be on because I was really looking forward to talking about how to coexist harmoniously with women.
We can't do it now that she's here.
We're having a no women convention to learn how to get along with women better.
What the fuck are you talking about?
It's so asinine.
It's so desperate and pathetic.
Such a pathetic argument.
That's the most charitable part of this.
What's funny is like...
Your defense for whatever...
Well, the sexes have to be separated because we need to figure out what to fucking do with them.
We needed a guys-only trip to plan the final solution for women, alright?
Okay, can you give us a little fucking breathing room here?
What is to be done about the women?
We need some fucking time to figure it out, okay?
We don't want the guys to be embarrassed and come up with bad ideas on what to do to these broads in front of the broads, you know?
And what sucks is, like...
Because I remember going on, like, hunting trips when I was a kid, when I was, like, young with my uncles and cousins, stuff like that.
And the real conversation that's happening here is this grown adult is, like, telling these kids, like, so you guys are interested in pussy yet?
You guys playing with yourselves yet?
Like, that's the actual conversation that's coming, the closest thing to coexisting with women, is him probably talking to them about, like, about sex and about women.
It's like, that's probably what's actually happening here, and it sucks that he's trying to twist it as, like, a...
No, we just want to know how to be nice to him.
Well, I think even that's a charitable explanation, Tony.
And that does become the defense of this in just a couple examples.
But yeah, here are some more just very crude responses from Adam Lane Smith, who I think is a therapist.
He's got a professional headshot in his bio.
He's got a suit and beard.
Oh, is that a book title that's after his name?
We've got to look up his book.
Is it about attachment?
I think it is, yeah.
He's like an attachment therapist.
What's attachment theory?
I'm not going to be able to explain it very well.
You better explain it to him before this wedding.
You better put him on before you guys get married for real.
The idea that you should have a really, really strong attachment with your children or partner, that they should feel like you are always there for them.
A lot of it is good.
A lot of it can go to crazy extremes.
I interviewed to be a nanny for these parents who were doing attachment parenting, and it was like they were still co-sleeping with their kid when he was four, and she was still nursing him, and they were going to let him, the four-year-old, decide when he was ready to stop nursing.
So it can be pretty wild.
But a lot of it is just being like, no, I'm always available.
To my kid if they need me, because they're little and vulnerable and they need to know that I'm always there in that way.
They'll be secure later in life.
Maybe it's like a book debunking the idea of being there for your children.
It's like the attachment myth.
It's just like, you know, cry it out.
That shouldn't just be for babies.
He says, it sounds like neither the mother or the daughter has ever heard the word no.
And now they're both throwing a tantrum to triangulate against the father who wanted one weekend with his son and nephew.
This is a father clearly expressing his boundaries.
Clearly asking for what he needs in a relationship, and these women refuse to give it to him.
And it's like, again, how can you coexist with these people, frankly?
I'm trying to think of just any activity that I would be doing that a woman being present would ruin.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, what is the thought here?
But you gotta watch out for some of these therapy men.
They're so weird.
I was dating somebody who was becoming a therapist, and she was talking about this guy and her...
Oh, hell yeah.
She's talking all about her clients?
Not her clients.
She's talking about a fellow person in her class.
And it's this guy who's this alpha dude.
And the reason he wants to be a therapist is to help women get in touch with their feminine divine.
With the divine feminine.
And it's like, brother, you're clearly just a creep.
There's no way around it.
You gotta watch out for these fucking guys.
That classmate, David Avocado Wolf.
This dude, Adam Lanesmith, writes books that are called, like, Slaying Your Fear.
He writes relationship self-help books.
And by that, you mean he prompts ChatGPT to write relationship-help books.
Slaying Your Fear, a guide for people who grapple with insecurity.
There's another one called Exhausted Wives, Bewildered Husbands, Why Your Marriage is Hurting and How to Thrive as a Couple.
Man, yeah, that's funny.
He's clearly putting on a more woke face to the public than he really fucking believes here.
I liked this.
Lady Lark says, so what you're saying is men can't have their own time for male bonding anymore.
This is fake.
Male bonding happens when two males bond.
That can also happen with a woman present.
There's also intergender bonding.
It's crazy to think that it makes the world a better place to segregate by...
Fairly blurry, if not totally arbitrary lines.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially, like I said, it's hard to think of a thing where a woman being present wouldn't make it better.
I can't really think of anything that I would want to be doing that my kid being there wouldn't make better.
Oh, dude.
I wish she could do everything with me.
Like, she fucking moves.
Like, that's so...
It's just...
It speaks to, like...
A bad relationship.
I don't know.
Not to get on my fucking high horse or brag about what a great relationship I have or whatever, but I'm the same person.
I get to be the same person at home around my partner that I do when I'm anywhere else.
And it's like if you have two ways of acting, one that's around your fucking partner in life and one that's around the boys or your cousins or whatever.
Uh, that's weird, man.
Like, yeah, you're not, maybe you're not gonna, like, roughhouse or wrestle with your partner the same way you would with somebody who's into that shit, but maybe you would!
If your partner fucking does wrestling, then that would be fun as fuck!
You know, it's just, it is, I think, a red flag if you have, like, I don't know, like, if you're, I get it, if you're in a relationship for a long time and you see the same person all the time, every day, and you're like, for some reason, you're like, I need a break to do something else.
I do still think that speaks to your relationship with that person, that something is not going well to cause you stress.
Those things might be other external factors like financial stuff or the kids or whatever.
I get needing a break from your kids too, but in general, if you have, I don't know, with an adult, You're not raising or whatever.
If you don't want to be around that adult, there's other reasons for that than their gender.
Yeah, and most of the men who are doing this who are saying, I need a break from my wife, they want to go to Thailand and do sex tours.
That's not it, bud.
It's also just fucking crazy.
Back to what Tony originally said, it's not a one-on-one trip with him and his kid.
It's him saying, no, I'm going to take these boys and you can't come because you would taint the trip.
If you want to have a fucking boys trip and that's the logic in your head, you can do that and not say it out loud.
Make your daughter feel like shit.
But you do have to then plan a special trip with her.
It has to be fair.
I don't know what reason you could come up with for justifying a trip that isn't based in the 1950s era gender stereotype.
You gotta just be like, it's fun to a couple times a year do a fun special day with just one kid.
Let each kid have their own special time, like birthday trips, like you were saying.
And then you bring the cousin along secretly.
You smuggle him along.
So yeah, and Andrea here says, why?
What are they doing that she can't be there for?
It already said she enjoys all those activities.
Thank you, Andrea.
Drunk Knight says, you want me there when you are having periods or sensitive ladies talk with your daughter?
Huh?
You want me to come up and talk to your daughter about sex?
Is that what you're saying, Andrea?
Well, not you, particularly drunk night.
But I wouldn't have any issue if, for some reason, me and Penny were talking about stuff and you were there, Alex.
I would have no issue with that.
Yeah, but what if I wanted to corner her and demand information from her?
Demand some answers about this whole period thing.
Would that be cool with you, huh?
Well, no.
That's the whole point.
That's why we want everyone together.
Safety in numbers.
I love this so much.
You want me there when you are having periods?
Like, how do you think a period lasts?
You think it's just like, well, I didn't want to barge into the bathroom while she was having her period.
I guess that makes me a fucking gender essentialist.
Like, how do you think?
You're around women having their periods all the time.
Or maybe he's not.
I don't know.
Don't women have to wear that armband to let us know they're on their periods?
We actually segregate ourselves into a red tent and we're not allowed to clean anything, cook anything, prepare food.
We just completely separate ourselves from society.
Return.
I think that women should have to wear gloves when they're on their period.
Red silk gloves.
So they can't touch us with their actual period flesh.
That way it doesn't transfer the curse.
It's women's special thing and I don't want to be part of it.
And if it takes putting one of them in a cage for men to not ruin the female experience, then so be it.
This is so good.
So this is somebody responding to Paleo Normie.
The actual problem here isn't fixable.
This is a super fun site.
That's a pretty good...
That's a pretty good display name.
That's pretty sick.
Super fun sight.
The actual problem here isn't fixable.
The girl has learned that her father sees her as another, which means he can't possibly see her as an equal.
Planning a girl's trip does not change that.
Reveal the mom may not be doing anything to help, but she's right.
It's his fault.
Ding, ding, ding.
Paley Normandy says he's clearly volunteering to give the sex talk to his 13-year-old son and 12-year-old nephew.
Can't bring his daughter for that.
What the fuck are you talking about?
The daughter could probably give them that sex talk at this point.
What the fuck are you talking about?
This is what they all switched to.
They all got the memo that it made them look like deranged psychopaths that a daughter who's interested in fishing couldn't go on a fishing trip.
So they all invented this reason that the dad was actually planning a special fishing trip where he teaches the birds and the bees to the son and the nephew.
Which he would have said if that had been the reasoning.
Second of all, it's insanely funny to think that a...
I mean, this is, like, I guess something my dad would do.
Like, my dad's a romantic at heart, and he might plan a special trip for a special conversation or something like that.
It's not necessary.
That's not something that actually needs to be done, because as it turns out, puberty is a normal thing that happens for an extended period of time.
You're going to have to have multiple conversations about puberty with both of these kids, as many as possible.
You don't need to plan a little, like, Cottage getaway to have the conversation about not masturbating with shampoo.
Yeah.
You want to use conditioner.
Not only that, but the thing is, as someone who has an 11-year-old daughter, who I'm really grateful and really, I'm so happy I have the relationship I have with her.
I know that I can speak frankly to her because I don't treat her like a baby.
I think if the dad were to be like, hey, so I got to talk to your brother and your cousin about consent.
Like, I have to do that.
She would probably be like, oh, yeah, go for it.
But that's not what happened here.
That's not what happened here.
And I think the mom would have probably acknowledged that if that's what was happening here.
The mom probably would have been like, you know, they would have been able to have a conversation with the daughter that she probably would have had some understanding with.
And she probably would have been like, you know, actually, I don't want to be there for that.
To be honest, you know, that would have been a thing, but because, you know, they treat these kids like they're not humans.
They can't have those conversations.
Those conversations should, I don't know, like every kid should feel confident enough to be able to approach their parents or their teacher and have a private question that they don't want to talk about in front of other people.
That's totally normal.
That's totally fine.
That's a healthy thing.
However, I think like grouping all these kids together, these three kids together, if you're really going to have a conversation about puberty and sex and stuff.
It's a great idea.
I think it's kind of like making sure that every worker knows how much their co-worker makes.
A group discussion about everybody's responsibilities, everybody's vulnerabilities, everybody's rights.
All of that stuff is great for everybody to know.
It shouldn't be secreted away and hidden behind some gender mysticism.
That's suspect.
When you're doing that, it's like, why are you hiding this stuff?
Why are you being secretive about it?
Or whatever.
It's, I think, on the face of it, pretty unhealthy.
A pretty unhealthy thing to do.
And it also expresses what a different type of conversation you're going to have with your daughter about sex than you are going to have with your son.
Yeah.
You know, because it sounds like you're probably just going to tell your daughter, like, well, you can't really do anything until the Holy Spirit's involved.
So, you know, but then you're telling, you know, then you're like telling your 13 year old son, well, you got to wrap it up.
Got to wrap it up.
It would just I think it would be good for men.
And this is like I'm not to say that like mothers are abdicating their responsibility or women or whatever.
But I think it would also be good for boys and men to hear what women have to do to protect themselves and what women and young girls are up against when they go.
You know, that's because because.
I don't know.
I was raised around women by women, and it still wasn't until I was, like, 18, 19, 20 that I heard the statistic that, like, three out of five women face, like, sexual assault.
Sorry, I don't know the actual statistic, but how rampant both sexual assault and sexual harassment especially is.
And I asked my mom, and my mom was like, yeah, I've experienced sexual harassment in my whole life.
I'm like, fuck!
Yeah.
And hearing that as a younger person, I think definitely would have had an effect on me.
I still feel like I was raised right and all that, but it would have, I don't know, like added concrete...
Maybe not concrete, but personal anecdotal data, which is so strong for people.
We know when making these judgments and forming these opinions, anecdotal data is unfortunately ways harder than statistical data does.
And just having those concrete, real experiences or real warnings, it's unseemly.
It sucks that society is like that, and I could see why you wouldn't feel great about having to talk about that with a...
A few innocent members of the society, but it could work towards making society less fucked up in the long run, I think.
Yeah, and the whole gender thing about genderizing this stuff is so bad.
For instance, with my co-parenting situation, I have a lot of these conversations with Penny.
It's me having this conversation.
It's just because her mom's not really good at this stuff.
It's not that she can't.
She's not really good at expressing these things.
For a lot of the same reasons, you know, that most people don't because I don't think she had the proper conversations growing up.
And so it's me having a lot of these conversations with her, you know, explaining to her, like, about, like, you know, some of the predatory nature that she's going to be up against, you know, growing up as a woman in society.
And it's like, the gender part is not a factor here.
It's just I'm her parent.
I'm her parent.
I'm the person who is supposed to be helping her out, supposed to be guiding me through these things because I'm her parent.
Not her dad, her parent.
It sucks that people are so caught in these dynamics.
We've been spending a lot of time on this topic, so we need to move on.
But some real funny highlights from some other stuff I have.
John Jones says, you are being willfully ignorant if you don't think an outing to bond and talk about coming-of-age topics with your male children is acceptable.
So again, reverting back to...
He was trying to have this sex talk, and you guys cramped his fucking style.
Nobody has to justify it, just like you don't have to justify girls' nights, trips, and period parties.
The fuck is a period party?
Was I denied period parties?
Sounds like it.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry you didn't have that experience.
When I hear period party, I think of it like a chicken pox party.
Yeah, like, oh, gotta get them together so they can catch it from each other.
Yeah, just get it out of the way, you know?
Just get them all synced up and ready to go.
I like to get all my boys, I like to get all my boy's girlfriends to hang out once a month, so hopefully they sync up.
So that we know that there's a week where we can go get out of town because they're all going to be on their periods.
Some other funny stuff.
A lot of these guys are trying to say that the mom is cheating on the dad and that's why she was mad that the daughter had to stay home.
Michael says, I put decent money down that at least one of the following is true.
She doesn't want to spend time with her daughter.
Or her plans for that weekend are of the nature that she wishes to hide them from her husband and kids.
And Carolina Ranger replies, probably, to be honest, statistics show that women cheat at a rate higher than men by at least 15-20%, so it's very likely the mom has been allowing dad to pull double duty with both kids so she could have more time to cheat.
Fucking whore.
That was not me making a hyperbolic, ironic comment.
That's how this comment ends, with fucking whore.
The O in whore is a zero, so it's like really big.
So I imagine it pronounced like whore, like Danny DeVito or something, you know?
Do you think he made the O in whore big because that's what he thinks happens to vaginas after they have sex a lot?
Oh, yeah, probably.
Even the O in whore is loose.
Usually when they're watching football together, she's like fucking some guy.
So stupid.
I love this statistic, the 15 to 20%.
I love that they have their own FBI crime statistics against women now.
I'm going to get a 15 to 20% tattoo.
If you think that this woman couldn't organize a fun hangout for her daughter to go do something fun somewhere else for the night, you're an idiot.
If she really wanted to do that, she's gonna do that.
This has nothing to do with, like, don't fuck out of here.
This lady, my teenage, this is Carrie O. A.K.A., and excuse me, Gypsy1776.
A lot to unpack here.
You know, I don't know if you knew this, but the founding fathers were gypsies.
They were.
They were immigrant gypsies, bro.
They were travelers, dude.
What else could you call them?
Amazing, amazing.
Carrie, aka Gypsy, 1776. Oh my god.
Come and take it.
We're talking about crystals.
Yeah, come and take it.
It's tarot cards.
Come and take it, and it's my transient lifestyle, my nomadic transient lifestyle.
I don't know.
You seem more like a Romani or a traveler.
It seems more like a sovereign citizen, like somebody who doesn't claim any nation rather than somebody who claims the worst nation in the world.
Carrie says, My teenage daughter gets jealous and feels left out when my husband only takes my teenage son fishing or target practicing.
I do not take her side.
He does things with her also, and she and I do mommy-daughter days.
It's okay to have one-on-one time with your kids.
Good grief!
Sounds like an awful parent, but this is her profile pic.
Oh my god!
Can I see it?
Oh yeah, I haven't been sharing these to you.
Sorry, dude.
It's okay.
She seems really laid back.
What was she trying to do?
I don't understand.
There's some crazy face-tuning thing happening, but she cranked it up so high that her edges are glowing red.
It looks like it was put under a stained glass filter on MS Paint or something.
It's fucking gnarly.
She looks like she's going to get zapped into Tron.
She looks like, I don't know, one of those new horror movies where, like, Smile.
She looks like the guy from Smile or, like, The Purge or something.
She looks like she's wearing a Purge mask, but it's her actual face.
It's fucking crazy.
This is, like, the same filter I used when I was, like, 13 and got my first, like, digital camera and had MySpace and, like, thought that I was really doing art by, like, just making it look so crazy.
Yeah, it turned every line into a neon red glowing sign.
It's fucking crazy.
I love that through the distortion you can still see that she has a giant novelty decorative clock on her otherwise bare wall in her great room.
Yeah, okay.
So thank you Carrie1776 for telling us about how you like it when your dad excludes.
Sorry, you like it when your husband excludes your daughter from activities.
She just needs to suck it up and realize that not everything's for her, like her dad.
And again, this was not a one-on-one hangout.
I know, yeah.
This was not father-son time.
This is boy time.
Any final thoughts on this, Ani, before we move on?
This guy's not going to see heaven.
I agree.
Moving on, something close to my heart.
This is why we brought me onto the show today.
Thank you so much for being here.
It's because I wanted to talk once again about Sean O'Brien, president of the Teamsters, my union, doing very weird stuff.
Stuff that is kind of hard to understand.
Most recently, his full-throated support of Trump's pick for Secretary of Labor.
And I think maybe just this post right here is a great example of the dissonance that I'm experiencing.
This is a post from Senator Mark Wayne Mullen.
Let's be honest.
The last time at Teamster SOB, so that's Sean O'Brien, the last time Sean O'Brien and I were in a hearing room together, we almost came to blows.
President Trump brought business and labor together in this election.
I trust his pick.
Let's finish this fight.
American flag emoji.
Flexing emoji.
But he's using the yellow flexing emoji.
Coward.
Cowardly.
Cowardly.
What would Elon Musk say, bro?
I just don't know why people are so ashamed to be white these days.
This is white genocide.
You know?
How about you have a little white pride and use that pink arm?
Yeah, Senator Mark Wayne Mullen is a business owner who inherited a...
I can't remember what he is.
He has a farm.
I don't even remember.
He has a farm or some sort of factory that Teamsters was actually trying to unionize.
And he had a bunch of crazy accusations about Teamsters threatening his life and whatever, which would never happen.
Teamsters, we don't do stuff like that.
That's crazy.
Yeah, there was like a back and forth where both guys were like talking about wanting to fight each other.
Both him and Sean O'Brien were talking about wanting to fight each other.
And now here they are in this video standing next to each other, side by side, flanking Trump's Secretary of Labor pick Lori Chavez de Ramir.
More on her in just a second.
But yeah, I don't know.
It's just it's funny also to say that President Trump brought business and labor together.
And that's one thing I like to see from my labor leader is helping business.
That's definitely something that I think the president of my union should be doing.
Lori Chavez de Ramire, her bio on Twitter, wife, mom, Oregonian, small business owner.
Former mayor of Happy Valley, Oregon, and congresswoman for Oregon 5th District.
Yeah, so she is a congresswoman from Oregon who is notably the first female congresswoman from Oregon.
She has that, what do you call it, inner belt.
Also small business owner.
I was trying so hard to find out what her business was, but I couldn't.
I'm reading here from Wikipedia.
She is the first Republican woman to represent Oregon in the House.
Additionally, she is one of the first two Hispanic women elected to the United States Congress from Oregon.
Chavez de Ramirez served one term in the House before being defeated in 2024 by Democrat Janelle Bynum.
Yeah, I don't know.
It is funny how Republican...
Women, I do think that there are some cynical actors out there who see an opportunity for a Hispanic or Mexican-American woman to run as a Republican.
I think that there is a cynical opportunity.
We've talked about it a lot on this show.
But, I mean, if you're running as a Republican anyway, I don't need to know whether it's cynical or not.
You're still just my enemy, typically.
On November 22nd, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Chavez de Ramir as the Secretary of Labor.
Chavez de Ramir was the only Republican co-sponsor and one of three congressional Republicans to support.
Protecting the Right to Organize Act or the PRO Act.
So that's what the Teamster support is coming from, is from her past, emphasis on past, support for the PRO Act.
The very next sentence, however, as nominee for Labor Secretary, she later stated during the hearing that she no longer supported the legislation.
Okay, so just to clarify some things, she now supports...
Supposedly, a version of the PRO Act that does not fight right-to-work states.
Jesus Christ.
So, the official original version of the PRO Act gets rid of right-to-work states.
Bans the right-to-work states, okay?
She has revoked, withdrawn her support for that act, and is now saying that she does, in fact, believe in right-to-work, that whatever, that workers have a right-to-work.
The idea that this is a Republican president.
He's going to make a Republican appointment.
And she might be the best Labor Secretary Trump would ever appoint.
I think there's a sound argument for that line of reasoning.
Sure.
Does that mean you need to go out and launder?
Her reputation?
Does that mean you need to stand next to Senator Mark Wayne Mullen and talk about how great the Republicans are for labor?
How they're appointing this wonderful labor secretary?
I don't think she's wonderful.
I think she's okay for a Republican.
That's not saying much.
And a larger point is that I don't think Working with Trump to get a, quote, more labor-friendly labor secretary is a good strategy going forward.
I don't think that this is how we need to meet the moment.
We need to be doing things to force politicians and to compel the public.
To organize around opposition to the billionaire oligarchical structure of the entire country.
That's the only way forward.
Because charitably, again, I could say maybe there's some deal behind the scenes where Trump says, I won't sign a national right to work piece of legislation because you know that's what they want to do.
If you support my pick for Labor Secretary and you come out and say how great Trump is for workers, how he's working with us, yada, yada, yada.
Maybe that's the calculation that Sean O'Brien is making when he engages in this game.
It seems like a game.
And when he engages in this, talking about how the new...
I can't remember the name of the director, I think, of OSHA, you know, this former Amazon executive, this former UPS executive, calling him a worker.
Like, there's something else going on that either Sean O'Brien thinks is a good idea or he's afraid of.
And I don't really agree with it if he thinks it's a good idea, and I don't know what else could be going on.
It's very clear.
Like, it's wild.
We'll get into it with some of these responses.
I like a lot of what Sean O'Brien's done.
I think he's had a materially good effect on the Teamsters.
I like the contract.
A lot of people might disagree with me.
I like the contract.
And I like that we've got 75,000 new members of the Teamsters under his tenure.
That's good.
That's a good thing.
Why are you running from these fights?
If we're getting stronger as a union...
Why are you running away from confrontation?
You know what sucks?
And from my total outsider perspective, it kind of seems like he's getting lost in the sauce.
It kind of seems like he's almost trying to get some clout.
Now regular people know his name because he's done these things.
But it's not like people know his name and he's bringing him to the union.
They just know his name, and they're like, oh, he's now a name we know.
He's a celebrity of sorts now.
And it kind of feels like he's just lost in the sauce.
He just wants to kind of be in the conversation more, but not in a way that's productive, in a way that's just like him.
Yeah, I mean, I think he does like the attention, which I don't...
I have a fucking podcast.
I can't criticize him for wanting...
He's a politician.
He's the president.
You have to, to some degree, appreciate the attention or know how to wield attention to get to that public office.
But that could be the case.
Did you watch the footage of her answering questions during her confirmation interview?
I saw, I think, one.
I forgot which...
Senator Representative Kim was asking her, you know, like, do you think that there's a state where people can live on $7.25 an hour?
You know, and she just, like, hemmed and hawed and was like, oh, I'm not sure.
And he's like, so just to be clear, do you know, like, how much that is a year if that is, like, your salary?
It's about $15,000.
Do you think that there's anywhere?
You know, I'm just trying to get, like, a clear picture here.
Do you think there's anywhere?
Where a worker can live on their own comfortably for $15,000 a year.
And she just would not fucking answer.
At that point, if you're Sean O'Brien, you should be like, I challenge you to live on $15,000 a year.
We get to pick the state.
Or, I mean...
I know I say this a lot, but this is another person who should live in a fucking dog kennel.
If the president gets to pick the nominee for labor secretary, then workers across the country who make below a certain threshold should get to vote on whether or not that person lives in a veal cage.
If they answer like that.
Cynically, like...
You're talking about people know Sean O'Brien's name now, right?
Because he's got this elevated status by dealing directly with the president, by agreeing with things on the president, by being complimented by the president or whatever.
That, I think, only works on the Trump supporters who are already Teamsters.
Yeah.
That only serves the people who are in this crazy position of being in a union and benefiting from a union while also liking the reactionary boss president.
For a normal Trump person who's not union, they see Sean O'Brien cozying up to Trump and think, he's cozying up to Trump.
He's trying to get something out of Trump.
I don't respect him anymore for this.
He's still my enemy.
He's trying to extract...
I don't know.
And I don't know what he's even extracting from Trump at this point.
I think Sean O'Brien should have to tell us what he's extracting out of this.
And if Lori Chavez as Labor Secretary is all we're getting out of this, I don't know.
I don't think that's enough.
I don't think that justifies it.
At any point, he could be saying, like, I am here.
I am more involved because I am fighting for you.
At any point, he could say that, but I don't think that's happening.
It's funny because the other thing that's fucked up about this whole system is she lost her election in 2024. She lost her election three months ago, four months ago.
So she lost her election to a Democrat, and then we're going to give her this elevated status?
That seems weird to me, but I don't see where the benefit is here.
Honestly, I don't want anybody representing me whose identity is mom-wife.
Give me a mom and a wife, but I don't want that to be in your bio.
I don't want that to be your identity.
I don't want that to be part of your qualifications.
That sucks.
That doesn't tell me any sort of credential for why you would be good at representing the workers of this country.
Yeah.
It should at least say, good mom, good wife.
Unless you went on some sort of Silvia Federici-inspired campaign of wages for housework or some shit.
If you were part of the original wages for housework movement in the 70s, then you're allowed to put this in your bio on the top of your CV when you're applying to be fucking labor secretary.
Jesus.
Sean O'Brien also went on Fox News to say why he thinks Lori Chavez de Ramire should be confirmed.
And in doing this, he had to answer questions about right to work.
And I'll give this in the most charitable presentation of this that I can.
He does, in this interview, say, we don't agree with right to work.
He says that to start off.
But then he keeps talking and he says, We need to look at what works best for each state.
I'm willing to look at what works best for each state.
Okay?
And people like the National Right to Work Committee seized on this, tweeting out, everyone is feeling the heat on right to work today.
Even Sean O'Brien acknowledges that right to work may be, quote, what works best for some states.
Oh, you stupid dirty dog.
This is like the fucking charter schools argument, but with labor rights.
True.
In fact, it's the best policy for asterisks.
See, they're doing that so I can't scream and make them look crazy.
They're putting the asterisks around every instead of all caps.
I don't appreciate it.
I'm going to read it.
I'm going to scream it anyway.
Do it.
Do it.
True.
In fact, it's the best policy for every state.
That's why we need to pass at Rand Paul's National Right to Work Act.
Yeah, so you set yourself up for this, bro.
I don't know what to fucking tell you.
You got in bed with the right to work people, and now you're associated with it, man.
But the thing is, as we'll get into right now, there's astonishingly...
A number of Teamsters who see nothing wrong with right to work and in fact will defend the idea of right to work.
So he maybe knows that he can dance around the right to work issue or flirt with it without losing the support of the same people he didn't lose support for for working with Trump previously and on other things.
You know what I mean?
Well, the whole thing about right to work is like it was such good marketing because you hear that and it sounds like a good thing.
You hear the words right to work, and it sounds like a good thing.
Right.
I like rights.
I like work.
I would like to have the right to work.
That sounds like a good thing.
And people have no idea what it really means.
They have no idea how it puts you in precarity as somebody who is an employee, who is a laborer.
They don't understand that part of it.
And I think they just...
Go along with it because they have no idea what it really is.
And especially when you don't know what it is and then you have your guy, you have the president of the Teamsters saying it's not that bad.
You're like, okay, cool.
It must not be bad.
It must be what I think it is, which is wrong.
And as I've said before on this show, I get that a president is an elected position.
They have to represent all members.
And unfortunately, a lot of Teamsters are reactionary, right-wing.
Guys and gals who don't see the conflict for their own interests in doing this.
So I get having to represent those kinds of people, but I think a good leader leads.
I think a good leader can affect...
This guy can affect...
Actual change within his union.
You know what I mean?
We all can.
We're all part of the union.
We can all do that.
This guy has an outsized influence on it, and he has a responsibility, I think, to challenge these reactionary beliefs, to challenge these anti-union beliefs, to even his own members.
You have to treat it as a learning experience.
It's a good opportunity to make these clarifying points and to put forward a plan that actually aims to combat this stuff instead of wheeling and dealing with the people who...
They're going to try to do a national right to work no matter how well you play along.
I don't know, man.
First of all, what gives him any sort of confidence that the Trump administration would honor anything they tell him?
Changes his mind all the time.
Why the fuck would you believe them?
And yeah, second, Sean O'Brien is otherwise such a good...
Like, public speaker.
Like, we saw him talk in person.
He's, like, a funny, charming guy who can give, like, tough guy talks, but be, like, funny and approachable while he's doing it.
He absolutely has a responsibility to explain to the misled members of his base, like, hey, I know right to work sounds tight, but it's actually, it would be cutting off the leg that you're standing on, and this is why it's a misnomer.
And he does argue against right to work in other examples, but that all goes out the window when you have this banner headline about you supporting the right to work labor secretary.
Actions speak louder than words sometimes, man.
I don't know if it's me being ignorant, but this is one of those things where it's like the whole state's rights thing, especially when it comes to Everybody has the same rights no matter what state they're in.
Yeah, you're still living in the same economy as the rest of the country.
Yeah, we're more nationalized now than we've ever been.
Yeah.
And it's like, well, we already decided states' rights can't be invoked for certain things like slavery.
Fucking 14th Amendment, baby.
You know, it's, you know, slavery, like it's obviously a human rights issue, but it's also an economic issue.
Compelling people to work.
For nothing.
That's the same thing as setting the minimum weight.
It's not the exact same thing, but it's the same category.
It's the same category of thing.
Of course, there should be universal rights and universal standards of living for everybody that is represented by this government.
In my lifetime, I've never seen states' rights evoked to do anything other than maintain the status quo or rollback rights.
I've never seen it used for anything good.
Yeah.
So this gets shared by Dan into a Teamsters Facebook group.
Pretty much the same screenshot of the same tweet from the National Right to Work Committee celebrating the fact that the biggest labor leader in the world seemingly said that right to work might work best for some states.
Dan says, National Right to Work Committee out here celebrating Scab O'Brien.
He's going on Fox News selling full-on anti-union policy.
Right to work is never what works best for workers.
You know, I've seen a lot of anti-O'Brien stuff just in general.
You know, that usually happens when one side wins, the other side gets kind of emboldened and starts piping off.
Yada, yada, yada.
But since appearing at the RNC, since getting cozy with Josh Hawley and other Republican senators and helping to launder the reputation of these obviously anti-worker politicians, just more and more people are sick of the shit, sick of this stuff.
And more and more people are just outright calling Sean O'Brien a scab, saying he needs to be voted out.
I agree.
I think he needs to be voted out.
I would see who's running against him.
Even TDU, Teamsters for Democratic Union, of which I am also a member, and who also was behind Sean O'Brien's candidacy, has been supporting him this whole time.
Even they have posted against this.
Even they have posted just in general against right to work.
They haven't specifically called him out.
But they've shared this screenshot from the National Right to Work Committee and they've just pushed back on the idea that right to work can be good for any state, which is a good first step.
There are more militant Teamsters organizations that have been calling out this behavior more strongly from the beginning and they also deserve credit.
But I'm with...
Any organization that wants to push us in the right direction, and so I'm happy that TDU is at least addressing this.
But yeah, Dan posted this in the Teamsters group, and now we're going to get to see some Teamsters arguments for supporting Right to Work.
Well, first of all, Brad says, he gave you a great contract that Hoffa never would.
Stop crying.
And my response to this is, he didn't give us anything, man.
He did the job we hired him for.
Like, I think he did a decent job, and he did give us a better contract than Hoffa would.
But I don't have to shut up.
I don't have to take it because I can vote him out.
I don't know what you're talking about here.
It's very weird that in a worker's organization, you're like, hey, he's the boss.
Listen to him, right?
Again, I think a good leader can be convincing and can give good advice and can push things in the right direction.
That doesn't mean I have to fucking listen to him.
It's not a dictatorship.
Also, cool, you like the contract he gave you?
Who's going to enforce it, bro?
What courts are you going to appeal to when the company says, hey, we're not honoring that great contract, you think?
Because the NLRB isn't going to hear your case.
They're fucking shut down.
OSHA doesn't give a fuck.
It's just, okay, you got the contract.
I'm being hyperbolic, but you got the contract and it's seemingly helping weaken the entire system that upholds the contract.
It's crazy to think that a good contract would supersede the entire structure that buttresses every labor contract.
Bob says, I don't get it.
This is for you, Tony.
I don't get it.
Everyone says that every person has rights.
That is true.
Everyone says that every person has rights.
I think we can all agree on that, right, everybody?
So why not have the right to work?
What if he thinks this right to work is like Bernie Sanders' Bill of Economic Rights?
That's what he thinks.
I think he does.
Well, that's what this guy.
That's why I got this comment.
Because he's, like, I think one of the few supporters of Right to Work that is, like, ignorant enough, but also, like, vocal enough to vocalize his own ignorance, you know?
If one person wants to be in the union, that's great.
But if another does not, it's supposed to be bad.
So he does know what it is.
Doesn't sound like a person has a right.
And then Dan responds, you have the right to not work for a union job.
Yeah.
And Bob says, so why is a person forced to join if they want a job?
No, you wanted a job that was negotiated by a union.
Yes.
You wanted a job that only exists because of an organization that you also want to defund.
Do you also want to withhold your dues from?
We're talking about, again, private ownership of the means of production, so I don't agree with any of this shit.
Just to let you know, union, again, is the compromise here, folks.
Do you have the right to sue your employer because they didn't pay you the wage that you decided you wanted?
No, you don't.
You have the right to go work somewhere else.
That's what workers' rights mean in this country.
You don't have the right to demand something in the contract that's not in the contract at that place of business.
That's just how that business runs.
If there's something more broadly illegal about how they're running, then you can make that case.
But no, you don't get the freedom of choice to decide how you get to work at a privately owned company.
Nobody gets that right.
Only the people who own the companies get that right.
Okay?
So you can't compare it like that.
What you're doing with Right to Work is you're saying, I want the benefits without any of the contribution.
And no, you can't do that.
You have to contribute because that's how this whole thing works.
It doesn't work without it.
Yeah.
The reason this job is desirable is because of the people before you who did put in the work, who did contribute, who did fight for those perks to make that job good.
And you can't come in and say, I want it, but I don't want to contribute.
Yeah, you have to just go work somewhere else.
You're not going to get everything the same.
You're not going to get everything you want.
And just to clarify for people who don't know, right to work is a state legislation that says, Employees who are employed at a union company, at a union organized shop, have to voluntarily decide to pay union dues.
The union cannot just take money out of their paychecks because they're working a union job.
So people have to opt into paying the dues.
And so now, not only...
Does the union lose money from the people who aren't paying dues?
They also have to expend extra effort to convince the people who aren't paying dues to contribute dues.
So you're putting more work on the union and you're depriving them of income and the resources to do that work.
It's a recipe for the death of unions is what it is.
And if you don't see it for that, you're living in fantasy land.
You have the mind of a child.
If you think, well, I think that they're just trying to be fair and give us a choice.
No, they're trying to kill your job.
Yeah, they're trying to give power to bosses.
Look at the outcome stats for right-to-work states.
Workers come out on bottom in those states.
Thank you, yeah.
Across the board.
They're the poorest states to live in.
They're the poorest states.
They have the shittiest social safety nets.
They have the highest concentration of, like...
Extremely low-wage jobs.
People are paid less.
Having high union saturation really does lift all boats.
It makes standards higher for everyone.
And you're really fucking stupid if you can't see that.
The numbers are there.
Look at the AFL-CIO website.
Yeah, I have a couple more pro right-to-work arguments from Teamsters, and then we'll get out of here.
Justin says, right-to-work states are the only thing...
This is, again, in the Teamsters group.
Phenomenal.
Oh my god, Justin.
Justin says, right-to-work states are the only thing standing between you and dogshit representation.
When workers are forced to give, there is no incentive for the union to be productive.
Workers should weigh the costs of dues versus ROI, which is a fancy...
A smart guy.
You got a smart boy on our hands.
Why are you a teamster?
You should clearly be a businessman.
This guy's doing logician shit.
Return on investment.
You should be day trading here.
What are you doing?
Will they not let you be an angel investor?
Is that what's going on, Justin?
That's so fucked up, man.
You have so many cool decisions to make, but they simply just won't let you be a billionaire.
What the fuck is this guy talking?
Sorry, I'm reading ahead in the comment.
This guy's a fucking idiot.
That's why I didn't want you to be able to see the screen.
I can't help this.
I'm just such an avid reader.
If you're offering a product that is worth a shit, it will sell itself.
I gladly pay my dues, as does every driver I know in the right-to-work state I live in.
The value the union brings to me and my family is very clear.
That could easily change in the future.
What the fuck are you talking about?
Fortunately for me, I get to vote with my money as well as my ballot.
It's wild, and this is a very similar argument to, I guess, the next comment that I have.
But I love that it's like...
Well, it's a competition.
It's a competition between...
We've got to let the market decide about whether unions are good or not, even though I know that unions are good, but I'm still like, well, we've got to give the people who are wrong a chance to change my life forever.
What the fuck are you talking about?
I have a house and a stable income, and I can take care of my family because of unions, but I really think that we should let the marketplace of ideas ultimately decide if unions are worth the shit.
It's just fucking nonsense.
I think you have these principles that have been brainwashed into you about the market and about business leaders and having money makes you successful or whatever, even though you know it's not true.
Even though you know in your practical life it's not true.
And so this is how you square that circle.
You know that businesses will suck you dry if you don't have representation there.
And still you have to regurgitate this American exceptionalist, capitalist propaganda.
I was going to say, OSHA is good because they tell you to use the right kind of filter on your respirator.
And if you don't use the right kind of filter, you have thought patterns like this guy.
That's why it's good.
Because he says in the beginning, right to work is the only thing that stands between you and Dock's representation, and then goes on to talk about his ballot.
It's like, no, that's what stands between you and Dock's representation, is the fact that you actually have a say in it, where other people who don't have unions have no say.
They just have to show up and hope that they get what they deserve.
But here in a union, you get a chance to use your ballot to ask for what you want.
To actually have a democratic representation here.
And it's like, man, you're such an idiot.
What we need to do is, if people don't think unions are very effective, we need to withhold money from the unions so that they can become more effective as a result of compromise.
What the fuck, man?
It's so tortured.
It's such tortured logic.
And here's the creme de la creme.
I think this will be the last one.
Says, failure to join the union in right-to-work states falls on the union leadership.
And I'm like, okay, I don't know how that works.
That seems a little confusing.
That seems like weird logic again, a kind of weird thought pattern.
The very next sentence, I'm a Ron Paul libertarian living in a right-to-work state, and I never hesitated to join.
Still saying you're a Ron Paul Libertarian in 2025 is wild.
I mean, that's the one they think is dignified because the current Libertarian candidate, Chase Oliver or whatever, was gay or was bisexual or whatever.
Yeah, no, I mean, like...
Okay, like, actually, I guess you can be a libertarian and be pro-union because it's like freedom of association, yada yada.
I still think you're a naive baby if you think that's the logical endpoint of libertarianism.
Is that, well, we can have unions and McNukes owned by global conglomerates.
Okay.
I don't think a single person on the labor side is free riding in our building.
The way I look at our right to work is simple.
I've never needed a state or federal law to force me to be a member of something if it was beneficial and useful.
How do you feel about taxes, man?
What are your libertarian views on taxes?
Well, he doesn't think they're beneficial.
He wouldn't contribute them if he weren't compelled.
You should just get to opt into funding roads and municipal waters and electricity sources and stuff.
If you're having poor union membership and right-to-work states, maybe you need to look internally.
Again, it's your fault that we took money away from you.
And it's just, it's like, you can argue about the principles all you want.
Removing funding from a union does not make it better.
It makes it worse.
And then, like I said, it also makes them spend time trying to get that money back as well.
And it results in a decline in membership.
Just by, from going from 100% to any other number is a decline in membership, which is what happens in right-to-work states.
I've never needed a state or federal law to force me to be a member of something if it was beneficial and useful.
Um...
There's a lot of beneficial and useful things that just people wouldn't do if they weren't told to do them.
I'm sorry.
I do think that we should have a governmental body saying, don't drink bleach.
Please don't let your baby ride in the front seat of your car with no car seat.
Sorry, there's some people who are going to do bad stuff because they didn't think about it.
We should try to prevent that.
Yeah, a little bit.
We have a responsibility as a society to prevent awful things from happening.
And I just, you're like a joke.
Again, you're in fantasy land if you're like, well, clearly this thing is good and benefits me because I've made the choice to partake in it, but other people should be able to do bad stuff.
Yeah, absolutely.
Other people should be able to do the bad thing that will also hurt me.
And you're acting like assholes don't exist.
Yeah.
It's like...
Assholes exist.
There's going to be a guy who just doesn't want to pay his dues because he wants to save $25 a week.
That guy's going to exist.
And that's not a good reason.
Alright, well that's the episode.
Thank you so much to Ani for joining us here.
Oh, thanks for having me.
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