Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman examine what Jimmy Buffett truly represented in American culture and how he disguised neoliberal capitalism as takin' it easy on the beach. They pivot to the inability of Democrats to convince people that Bidenomics is working before moving on to the sad state of affairs surrounding Mitch McConnell. They finish on a fascinating tale of police work utilizing drones to catch their suspect.
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Welcome to a special Labor Day episode of the Montclair Podcast.
I'm Jared Dave Sexton.
I'm here with my comrade, my labor partner, Nick Halseman.
How are you doing, buddy?
I'm good.
I'm good.
Nothing like working on Labor Day.
You know, we're going to talk a little bit about that in just a second, and I think it's an important actual political topic that we need to get into.
A couple of quick notes before we get into today's show, and this show is absolutely packed and we are so happy as always that you're joining us.
First of all, solidarity to the workers, solidarity now, solidarity forever.
Second of all, a reminder for everybody who's interested in listening to the Friday shows, go over to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast in order to support the show, our hard work and our hard labor, and also to send in your questions.
We've been doing this on the Weekender, it's proved popular.
If you want to suggest some topics, ask us some questions for the Weekender episode on Friday, go to patreon.com slash muckrakepodcast.
You can email us your questions, you can send us a voicemail, we're so happy to do this stuff.
In the meantime, Nick.
You know, and you do get like a longer episode and it's much more meaty and fun and funny and all that stuff.
It's a great time.
Come on over.
Join us.
We would be more than happy to have you.
It helps the show.
It helps you.
It helps everybody.
Nick, we're gonna start in a weird place, but I promise that we're going to get somewhere with this.
I'm sure you were a little bit surprised by this as I was this Saturday.
Beach, tropic, folk, country singer phenomenon, Jimmy Buffett died at the age of 76.
Buffett, of course, is most well known for his song Margaritaville, which people have been drunkenly singing along to for decades now.
You know, I first of all, I enjoy Jimmy Buffett.
I I am a person who enjoys the beach.
I am a person who likes to drink a cerveza in the sun.
I never went over to the Parrot Heads side.
I always looked at the Parrot Heads.
I always thought that it was an interesting subculture, which I want to talk about a couple of those things in a second.
But before we get into the political aspect of this, Nick, how do you feel about Jimmy Buffett?
You know, it's funny, because I remember when I got to college in Wisconsin, he was huge.
And it was not someone that I was very familiar with at all, even though I liked classic rock in high school.
But, you know, it's weird.
I don't know any other song, right?
Margaritaville is the only Jimmy Buffett song.
Oh, and I'm sorry, Cheeseburgers in Paradise.
That's the other one.
Pirate Looks Back at 40?
I have a cousin, I guess a second cousin now, who was, you know, 14, visiting my house with her parents, and, you know, huge Jimmy Buffett fan.
I still remember saying, yeah, I'm not a really big fan of Jimmy Buffett.
I remember this kid turned to me and goes, "Well, I'm not a big fan of you." - That is a savage thing. - That's what Buffet fans are.
You know, the music wasn't groundbreaking, but there was something comforting to being able to hear it.
And in that same way as "Brown Eyed Girl" comes on, we all sing along.
There's other songs like that that are kind of anthemic.
It was always kind of fun to kind of do that and sing along and everyone had that shared experience.
People enjoy that.
And another thing that people enjoy is they do enjoy sort of the tropical, laid-back, taking-it-easy-it's-five-o'clock-somewhere culture that Jimmy Buffett not only brought to the masses, but also franchised in a way that few people have.
Jimmy Buffett was a musical phenomenon and a cultural phenomenon, but I think it's really important to examine something which is the economic cultural phenomenon that Jimmy Buffett embodied almost more than anybody else.
Maybe this side of Band-wise, I can't think of any others.
Grateful Dead is in there as well.
Kiss is in there.
You know, just putting the branding and the ideology behind all this stuff.
Of course, Buffett was a billionaire.
He launched this Margaritaville empire.
It includes restaurants all over the country, possibly the world.
Clotheslines, cruises, retirement communities.
Musicals, you name it, if you could slap a Margaritaville sticker on the thing, it was being sold.
And it sold, and it sold, and it sold.
And I just want to point out, Nick, I think this was I think it was symptomatic of something that has happened in American culture, and I want to get into it right now.
You had brought up Labor Day, the fact that we're recording this on Labor Day.
You and I, I think we've mentioned this on the podcast from time to time, we have a fraught relationship with work.
Uh, in that, uh, we work a lot.
Uh, I do not think that we are different from a lot of Americans in that way.
And I think that things like Margaritaville and Jimmy Buffett's empire, I think, benefit from an American very, very, uh, unhealthy relationship with work.
Does that, does that sit well with you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Especially when you don't have normal hours and you work whenever you work.
And that, yes, it definitely can be a consuming thing that makes life, uh, difficult.
Yeah, it does.
And I wanted to, I'm going to get a little personal here in just a second, but I want to go ahead and talk about this, Nick, because Americans, we're sitting here on Labor Day, which was hard fought this and the weekend and the 40 hour week, which is being absolutely disintegrated and attacked by the right wing and their corporate backers.
Americans average, do you know how many days Americans average for vacation a year, Nick?
Do you have any idea?
I would like to think it's like at least 10.
Is it that close?
It's 10-ish.
It's 10-ish.
How many days do you think Europeans get for vacation a year?
Ooh, that's interesting.
I mean, phrased that way, it's probably like 30.
I don't know.
It is a full month of paid vacation, which was won in the 1990s by something called the European Union Working Directive.
Europeans are going on vacation a lot more.
They're enjoying their lives a lot more.
America particularly has this epidemic of misery deaths in which, you know, it wasn't just COVID that caused our life expectancies to go down.
People are dying of everything from diabetes, heart disease, suicide, homicide, you name it.
Quite frankly, things like what Buffett presented to people It's not actually a leisure culture.
It's a simulacrum of a leisure culture.
It's to go ahead and work yourself nearly to death.
Which, by the way, Jimmy Buffett did.
I don't know if people know this, but as he got older, he didn't really party anymore.
He didn't really hang out on the beach anymore.
He was more or less managing this mogul empire that he had created about that lifestyle.
Um, it's more or less about sort of paying your hard-earned money for the appearance of going on vacation and enjoying your life while you're sort of working yourself to death.
Okay.
Yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, you work hard, you play hard, right?
You get to deserve a little, you know, a little fun at the end.
So, yeah, it's interesting.
I never, I've never really, it's amazing.
I don't think anyone, I mean, hopefully, or maybe they have, I've never really considered the depth of this and what he represented.
This is fascinating.
It didn't really get to me until this weekend.
People would give me a little patience on this, Nick, and I would love to hear what you have to say about it.
This last Saturday, you know, the beginning of the three-day Labor Day weekend, which everybody's like, you know, people love, I was like going out to get a bagel, and I was listening to the radio, and they were just like, man, everybody's going to be having a great weekend, they're going to be grilling out, they're going to be taking it easy from work.
It had never occurred to me to take the weekend off.
I just thought I'm gonna, like, I work every weekend.
That's what I do.
It never occurred that three days of not working would somehow or another reset me or re-energize me.
I got a little bit teary-eyed.
I got, I got a little, I got a little emotional and I was like, Nick, why don't I deserve three days off?
Right.
Or were you feeling that life is passing you by?
I wonder how you feel about this.
I kind of feel like I have to do this stuff in order to keep up with everybody else, which I think is how everybody else feels.
And as a result, the 40-hour work week is totally non-existent.
God knows how many hours of work we're all actually putting in.
We're not putting in the self-care.
Ransoming off who we are.
And meanwhile, the best that we have is maybe going out and wearing a, you know, a Hawaiian shirt.
Maybe it's buying a Harley Davidson and pretending that we're all living in Easy Rider.
Maybe it's being an old hippie from the Grateful Dead days and still also being a yuppie at the same time.
It's a weird situation and weird relationship we have.
And it's not even, like, close to healthy.
Right, well maybe, yeah, maybe it's like going to Burning Man and then doing this six-mile hike through, you know, dangerous mud to get out of it, and that's the other, that's the journey.
Yeah, I do feel like, you know, it's funny, I'm in the middle of, you know, normally I would be right there with you and feel exactly what the strain of overworking is like and all that and neglecting myself.
I am in the middle of, you know, the off-season of the NBA, so I do At least I have had that.
So I do feel like I've been on an extended, you know, and I've seen the point.
And by the way, I've also in the last couple of years have made a point to try and do disconnect a little bit more and be a little bit more with the family.
So I have been able to kind of find a little bit more of that balance because it was as, you know, as nefarious as you're describing in terms of just the happiness you can enjoy in life.
So that is important.
Well, and it's really weird because what a lot of what we're doing is we're trading away that time and self-care and the money that we're getting from it we're then spending on the illusion of it.
You know what I mean?
It's like the thing maybe there are things you enjoy doing and that's wonderful but you're also cramming them into things and I don't know.
The Jimmy Buffett thing dying, I think there are like these figures every now and then that they'll pass away, and I think they're really good encapsulations of a moment.
And I think it just took a... It was important, I think, to take a look at Jimmy Buffett and that entire empire.
Like, this isn't something that happens by accident, you know?
It's a very important thing.
It's a very American thing.
Exactly.
Yeah, I agree.
And I feel like, you know, does that apply to... because when you think about... when I think about Europeans and the amount of vacation they have, I really kind of quickly get to, like, health care, too, for some weird reason.
Yes.
Oh, you should!
They don't have to worry about having to sacrifice food so they can pay for medication that's going to keep them alive.
Things like that, right?
Well, unless you live in Great Britain now.
Well, there was a deal that happened, Nick, and what happened after World War II, Europe was absolutely destroyed and basically, you know, England was like, hey, United States, take the baton and run with it.
And what they got out of the deal, you know, capitalism got out of Europe, it got to the United States where globalism was going to start forming.
Europe got all the perks.
They got all the cool little perks.
They got a bunch of vacation.
They got the Medicaid, you know, the medication and the healthcare.
The United States got the power and the influence and the authority of the dollar and what we get out of it, Nick.
Like, Yes, we had, like, advancements.
We had civil rights.
We had, you know, women were treated better.
And there was, like, a standard of living that for a while grew until, of course, neoliberalism took over.
But, like, the deal was, you take the power, you take the responsibility, you take the consequences, we'll go ahead and take some of the perks.
But now even that is falling apart.
Yeah, well, and then we also become a target of other countries, you know, like in 9-11, for all the excess and all the perks or whatever, the power that we got.
Well, and what we did with that power, for sure.
What we did with that power, right.
But I tell you, I've said this before, I walk into a Costco And you look around, it's just the sheer volume of things that you can buy, thinking about other countries that can't even barely have, you know, toilet paper to sell to their people live there.
And you realize that that can engender a lot of ill will as well.
Nick, I went to.
So, by the way, just to put an addendum on this story, you know, I said I was going to take three days off.
And here I am on Labor Day with you recording this podcast.
So congrats to me.
And I felt squirrely.
Basically, I fixed everything there was to fix out my garage.
I did everything that I had, you know, that I could possibly do with myself.
Please do a podcast.
Right.
Just please somebody make a person record a podcast.
So I went to a fair yesterday.
And Nick, it's just like the amount of junk.
Do you know what I mean?
Just junk.
This has just been produced, this is being peddled.
I mean, my God, the amount of Trump-themed booths now is incredible, for the record.
And it's just like, it's all of these expressions of, like, who people think that they are, like this Jimmy Buffett thing.
And by saying, I'm a Jimmy Buffett guy, you're saying something about yourself.
You're laid back, you're doing whatever.
But it's also a group of people that are part of a generation that has just worked themselves to death.
And in many ways, some of them have completely abandoned their values.
It's a, it's a historically fascinating thing.
And, and I think American culture is so weird speaking.
But you know what I think about when I'm looking at those places and all this stuff, just the random stuff that they're selling, right?
I think about how much plastic is there.
There's so much plastic and so much waste and like when you really... We talked about this a little bit like last week when we were talking about museums and zoos.
You don't see it until you see it.
And when you see it, you're just like, oh my god, this is actually horrific.
And that was just like a random fair.
All right, on that note, speaking of plastic and horror, Nick, we got to talk about Bidenomics because this is something that this is as we're getting ready to enter into the 2024 electoral season, the Biden team, the administration, the Democratic Party, they're all trying to figure out what's going on.
And basically, anywhere you look right now, there's a conversation that's happening with Democrats and all the apparatus around them because they have all the institutes, organizations, they're just not as well funded and or focused.
Nick, what they're worried about is their inability to sell the concept of Bidenomics, the idea that Joe Biden has presided over a successful economy, and what they keep finding.
is that it doesn't matter who they poll, when they poll them, where they poll, any of it.
Nobody is buying that Bidenomics is a good thing.
Nobody is buying that Joe Biden has done a good job with the economy.
And Democrats and all the people around them can't figure out why this isn't a winning message.
Before I get into it, what are your initial thoughts on this?
Why do you think this is happening?
It's almost like using the unemployment rate as the bellwether.
It's always been just a political thing that people try and use, depending on who's in the White House itself.
It's all about what you end up paying at the grocery store.
That's it.
That's a big part of it.
I mean, you probably can even transcend the gas.
Gas has been up and down.
Everyone understands how manipulated that market is anyway.
But when people want to say in the government that the inflation is down, yet I'll go to the store and for three bags of groceries, I'll spend over $200.
That, to me, tells me that it's not gone down.
And I don't know if it's like this in other places in the country, but in L.A., there's been a consolidation of the major supermarkets.
So I think what they're relying on is that competition lowers the prices because they want everyone to go to their store versus somewhere else.
But I think, I don't know if it's collusion, but they have not lowered these prices.
And in fact, they might have even gone up continually.
So everybody I know and everybody who's checking out with me, we all are just like exacerbated, not exacerbated, we are exasperated Yep.
Because the exasperation of the of the of this, I think I think they're not lowering their prices, even though they could.
And they're like, why should they?
This is capitalism.
And that's not gonna make anybody feel good.
First of all, it doesn't seem like collusion.
It's collusion.
That's what's happening with inflation.
Basically, everybody recognized an opportunity to raise their prices, as they always do, and it's a silent agreement.
Nobody's getting together in a room.
Nobody's, like, making the plan.
The World Economic Forum isn't hosting, you know, the Bilderberg Group to sit there and do it.
It all happens naturally.
Everyone starts to recognize that other people are raising their prices.
They start raising their prices.
There's money that's been put out for stimulus plans.
There's all this stuff.
They start doing it.
It doesn't mean that you shouldn't help people with stimulus plans.
It doesn't mean, like, you know, Larry Summers and all these brain geniuses out there that you need to cause a recession, which, by the way, will do what we've talked about, which is to go ahead and create a labor market in which people are absolutely terrified.
The reason why people aren't buying this is because we don't measure the economy based on if it's good for people.
We measure the economy based on whether or not it's effective for capitalists.
That's it.
Also, Nick, here's the thing.
The President of the United States of America only has so much that they can do to control an economy.
And quite frankly, the best thing that you can do is tell the people, hey, guess what?
Our guy, Joe Biden, he hasn't wrecked it.
You know, he didn't drive the car into a ditch, which Donald Trump did, which George W. Bush did.
Like, you know, he actually did things to help it.
And again, we'll call balls and strikes.
I'll tell you when Joe Biden does some good things.
He did a good thing in terms of, like, how he's handled not killing the economy.
He hasn't done a great job when it comes to labor.
He hasn't done a great job in actually reining in inflation in terms of the collusion that you're talking about.
But look at some of these quotes, Nick.
This is from an article in the New York Times.
Biden struggles to make Bidenomics a plus, not a minus.
And this is coming straight from the Biden administration, trying to get these stories out here.
And this is a problem with Democrats.
I'm going to read you some quotes here.
These are people around in the institutes, all this.
This is from Patrick Gaspard, the president of the Center for American Progress.
Quote, this is the thing that's vexing all Democrats.
That people can't figure out that Biden's good on the economy.
This is from Heidi Schierholtz, the president of the Economic Policy Institute.
Quote, I've never seen this big of a disconnect between how the economy is doing and key polling results and what people think is going on.
Nick, quick question for you.
Where do you think the Center for American Progress and the Economic Policy Institute, where do you think they're based?
Um, probably Washington, D.C.
Probably Washington, D.C.
I just want to put on a flashing light.
I wish people could hear it.
Why can these people out in the hinterlands?
Why can these hillbillies not figure out what's going on?
And for starters, it's communication problems, which we have documented since the beginning of the Biden administration.
They're not really great at spiking the football.
We've talked about that.
But also the fact is the economy doesn't feel good.
You nailed it.
Going into a grocery store feels like you're being robbed at gunpoint.
Because you are!
You're literally being destroyed by the economy.
Don't tell me it's doing so good.
And on the way to the grocery store, you feel like you're in a war zone driving over the roads, which are completely... Destroyed?
Destroyed, yeah.
That's a problem.
You know, what's interesting is that, you know, there's more people with more credit debt In America than ever before.
Whatever the article was I saw and this hits home with me because you know you just charge it and you don't even really think about the value of that and you just hope you pay it later down.
But like I think what we're ended up doing is there is one moment in everyone's life where that credit doesn't mean anything.
You know what that moment is Jared?
When you die.
Well, it depends on what kind of debt it is.
Right?
I can just have this credit card debt for the rest of my life, and I'll just ride it, and then I'll die, and then it goes away.
They don't get that money back when you die, I don't think.
I don't think that any of my family's going to have to pay for it.
So, you know, if I'm in the ground and my credit rating goes to shit, that's okay with me.
What you're saying, and I really love that you're saying it the way that you are, what you just said is something that millions of Americans literally say Do you know how depressing and macabre that is?
Like, really, if you break it down.
We hear it, and I'm sure there were some people who heard this on the podcast, and they were like, yeah, that's something that I said last week.
That's something that everybody in my family says.
And this is a problem with Democrats because Democrats are, they're so analytical about this stuff and they are so academic about this stuff that there's a huge disconnect between them and normal people and the experience that's out there in the world.
Most Democrats, by the way, are part of what's called the professional managerial class.
They went to college, they are now the bosses and the middle people in corporations and you name it, right?
So they have a problem in understanding necessarily how this stuff comes across.
Nick, what you just said is literal horror.
And how many things do we say on a daily basis about this situation?
The economy feels bad because it feels bad.
This does not feel like a good system.
It is unfettered capitalism that exploits us, keeps us absolutely terrified all the time.
And meanwhile, As we've talked about, the federal government has basically been turned into a piggy bank and a support system for corporations.
That's it!
And so there, I'm going to read you two quotes, or I'm going to give you a stat and two quotes from the same article.
This is from Reed J. Epstein.
First of all, Nick, you won't talk about how good the economy is.
The average worker is $2,000 behind where they were at the start of the pandemic.
I'm going to reread that again.
The average worker is $2,000 behind since the pandemic.
Nick, Is $2,000 a lot of money for most Americans?
Sure.
Yes.
Most of the people I know don't have $2,000.
Most of the people I know, like if their car broke down and it was like a $500 fix, they would be in trouble.
$2,000?
Pretty bad.
There's a reason why this economy feels so bad.
Then Reid J. Epstein writes a sentence that is incredible in the midst of this article that is talking about why Bidenomics won't work.
He says, For most Americans, their views on the economy are directly tied to their partisan leanings.
NO SHIT!
No shit!
Because everything has now been brought down to a cultural-political divide that explains everything.
If you don't like Joe Biden, you don't like the economy.
If you like Joe Biden, you like the economy, unless it's squeezing you.
That's what it comes down to.
It's the equivalent, Nick, of thinking there are gods in the sky that are causing the rain.
There's a complete disconnect between people and the economy and how it works and how it feels.
I was gonna say, I thought you were gonna say it's the equivalent of people thinking that there's a God in the sky that you pray to and that things happen.
Which, hey, maybe there are, maybe there is, I don't know.
Yes, that was always a thing.
I can remember talking with Republicans throughout my life about that, where they'll have certain bellwether things, like I mentioned in the beginning, that mean the economy's doing well, and usually it's the unemployment rate.
They're always concerned about the working class and the working man, right?
Well, whenever there's a really good report on unemployment from a Democratic-controlled White House, oh, it's terrible, they're lying about the numbers, they're not real, these are shitty jobs, you know what I mean?
And it's the same idea there, where they simply, it doesn't matter what the facts are, they just simply have to cheer for their team.
And that really is too bad, but that ship has sailed.
We're never gonna get a reasonable discussion on these things based on the reality.
No, you know, basically what it comes down to, you know cheers.
Right?
The sitcom.
One of the best opening sequences in all of television history.
Like, if people remember it, and if they haven't seen it, go and look back.
Nick, you might remember this.
There's all these clips from like an old-time saloon, right?
There's one clip in which I believe an older gentleman holds up a newspaper and it says, Right?
And there's no context.
It just says, we win.
Guess what it feels like with the economy, no matter what happens?
We lose.
And that's all it is!
Like, basically, if you were sitting around arguing, why can't these idiots figure out why the economy is good, you've lost the plot.
Things in America don't feel good.
And basically, however you want to rationalize that or figure it out, you can.
But it goes deeper than Democrat and Republican.
It goes to the fact that this economy has become the entire, well, again, economy, quotes around it, that's the entire measure of how we're supposed to feel about the world, but that's not how most people feel.
It just isn't.
You know what's funny about the cheers thing is I always, if you asked me what it said I wouldn't have said it said we win even though now I can picture it.
I would have said that they were holding up the Dewey defeats Truman headline.
That's what I always envisioned that's what I was saying and it's so wrong.
No, it says we win!
Yeah.
We win.
That way, it's apparently a reference to the Boston Red Sox.
Oh, of course.
It has to.
But guess what?
We lose.
Speaking of losing, everybody, we got to talk about what's going on within the Republican Party.
Since Mitch McConnell's episode, and for those who didn't hear us talking about it, Mitch McConnell had another instance where he was talking with the press.
For the record, and again, I don't want to give tips to the Republican Party, Nick, but I'll give you some free tips.
Stop putting him in front of the press.
I don't think he should be there.
I think he should get out of politics.
I think he should walk out the door and enjoy his poisonous legacy.
If you're going to keep him around, quit doing pressers with this man.
It's not good.
So he had an episode.
Since then, Nick, the GOP has just been circling like sharks, and there's a reason for that.
We'll get into it.
But everywhere you look right now, there's a conversation that the GOP is starting to push Mitch McConnell to the margins.
They want to get beyond him.
Establishment Republicans want to get past this.
Upstart Republicans who hate him want to get past this.
But what they're also doing, and maybe this is something we all should have predicted, Nick, they're going ahead and tying him straight up to Joe Biden.
And it looks like for the next few months, or maybe the rest of the election cycle, what we're going to get is a double feature, just a combo of Mitch McConnell needs to leave our party, maybe Joe Biden needs to leave your party, which is as cynical as it gets, and also as gross as the GOP regularly behaves.
Right, and by the way, for the same reason, I think is what we're trying to say, right?
These are the same people.
They're both, you know, and by the way, that's the worst part about it.
Joe Biden is definitely not the same guy he was seven years ago, whatever that was, right?
He's not the same guy.
He's slower and things, but there is nothing close to being, like, he is not, you know, having mini strokes or whatever's going on with Mitch McConnell.
And we remember this.
We knew that Mitch McConnell was ill several years ago when he was walking around with the most bruised top of his hands like he had been getting, you know, IVs.
Something was going on then that they were treating him for.
They were not revealing.
And it's just been going downhill since.
So he should be convalescing.
This is really, really sad.
Dianne Feinstein should be convalescing and should not be in the Senate.
Fetterman probably should also be.
Let me read this tweet.
I'm glad you said in that order.
I want to read this quick tweet from Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It's not called a tweet anymore, man.
I don't care.
I will call it a tweet until you take it from my cold, dead hands.
This is from Marjorie Taylor Greene after the Mitch McConnell episode.
Severe aging health issues and or mental health incompetence and our nation's leaders must be addressed.
Biden, number one.
McConnell, two.
Feinstein and Fetterman are examples of people who are not fit for office.
It's time to be serious about it and she suggests the 25th amendment getting it done.
Whoa!
Marjorie Taylor Greene thinks there are people who are not fit for office.
That's a rich one.
I know, it's great.
Yeah.
So there we have it.
Like, that's the move.
You're exactly right.
And look at how craven this is, Nick.
It's, we'll get rid of McConnell, which Marjorie Taylor Greene wants to get rid of McConnell because, as we've talked about, these new Republicans hate McConnell and they want to take over the party.
They want to get rid of the old standard bearer.
They want to move on to the next one.
And they, meanwhile, they're like, yeah, we'll take McConnell off the board.
You take Biden, Feinstein, and Fetterman.
Feinstein needs to go.
We all know it.
Everyone's well aware she can't get out of the Senate fast enough.
Biden, you want to talk about mental acuity, Nick.
This is a person, if you want to compare him to McConnell, he has moments in which he is so lucid and capable that they're like, well, obviously they're shooting him full of drugs.
Like, obviously, obviously they've got him on every drug known to man.
So, maybe let's not go ahead and equate all these people.
Well, and the only reason why they're saying any of this against Biden is because we all said that about Trump.
You know, we all said he's on Adderall, and look, you know, and there were moments, right, when Trump and his rallies, like, we could tell at certain points of the day, he would just become weird, right, and like, out of it.
Trump would, right?
And in the mornings, he seemed a little bit more focused and whatever, more energetic.
So that was that was always being said.
So they just have to say the same thing about Biden, which is just really, really silly.
The thing about the Kentucky thing, I thought I did the research in here, as I can tell, the Democratic governor would have to appoint a replacement, a Republican, because I was thinking, oh, they don't want to lose that seat.
But they're not.
They can replace him with a Republican.
So that's not it.
Which then means that people in McConnell's family are so tight to the grift that they don't want to give it up.
And that's why they have to prop him up.
And then Feinstein the same way.
I can't quite figure out why they wouldn't just be like, we love you, Mitch.
You're going to come convalesce with us at home and just live out your days without having to be in stressful situations.
I don't understand any other explanation.
One of the reasons that Mitch McConnell has had the career that he has had is because he is so tied into the donor class.
He, you know, he absolutely, it's the equivalent of a heart bypass machine.
He's what keeps that juice going around.
You have to.
And believe me, the Republican Party is more than ready to move on from Mitch McConnell.
They have been for a while.
They're done with the neoliberal libertarian push that he was into.
He gave them the judicial system victory that they wanted.
They're ready to move on.
They're ready to totally embrace the new wave and the new authoritarianism.
It's a very delicate matter to get rid of this person who is so tied in and synonymous with all these donors and all these donor systems and also keep them from being pissed off.
You know what I mean?
It's trying to usher him out while maintaining those relationships and just making sure that they can continue that thing forward.
It's a weird business, but that's where this thing is going.
If you want to know how weird it is, how weird I'm getting, I'm starting to wonder, like, is there some benefit that you get if you die in office?
Like, do you get to be laid in state?
What do they call it?
Buried in state?
Whatever.
You get the whole... Is there more pomp and circumstance?
I mean, that's where I'm at now.
There's no other explanation that I can figure out why these people seem to want to die while they're serving, other than, like, yeah, you get some sort of special treatment.
It's hard to give up power.
By the way, Nick, I just want to read something real fast before we move on to our final segment today.
This is from a New Republic article that's about the Mitch McConnell age situation and trying to get him out.
And the reason I read this is simply for my own enjoyment.
I am working on Labor Day.
I just want to point out, after years and years and years of this, we are seven years into the Trump era, arguably eight years.
I'm still amazed when I read stuff by people on a national stage that shows that I guess they've been in a hyperbolic chamber for years and haven't paid attention to anything.
He's talking about the need to get Mitch McConnell out for the Republican attack on Joe Biden.
He writes, quote, Trump wants to talk and talk about Biden's age, but he can't do that effectively if his own party is keeping an 81-year-old man in his rigorous job.
He can't?!
What, it would be too hypocritical?
The Republican Party couldn't stand for that type of hypocrisy?
They can't hold two completely contradictory things in their heads at once?
What are we doing here?
It would be nice if that was the case.
Yeah, that sentence should have been edited out.
Sorry.
I know!
Like, for someone's brain to think about it, and then for the electrical currents to get into their hands to type it, and then email it, and for no one to get- that's incredible.
Why are you limiting that to just the last eight years?
Why would that have to be like- they would have been like that for the last 20 years.
Well, that's true!
No, that's exactly right.
It's just this, like, fevered state.
Speaking of... This is a hell of a transition, but I'll do it.
Nick, I sent you this thing.
Um, I... So, I got up this morning.
Uh, Labor Day.
And, you know, I don't... Do you read articles immediately?
Are you that type of sicko?
Uh, you mean if I see them in my Twitter feed?
Yeah!
Are you, like, looking through articles?
I'm looking for articles, but I usually DM them to myself, and I'll get to them later.
Okay, I, I'm the type of sicko, it depends on how I'm feeling.
I'll get up, I'll immediately read articles.
I'm, we're gonna read an article, Nick, that I, and I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna exaggerate here.
I'm, I'm gonna give you, give you all the straight poop.
I, I read this article five times.
This is incredible.
This is from News 10 NBC in Pinfield, New York.
This is the headline, Nick.
Burglary Suspect Arrested in Pinfield.
Found by MSSO Drone Technology.
Alright?
So, this is from Pinfield, New York, Nick.
It begins, The Monroe County Sheriff's Department utilized canines and their drone response team to catch a burglary suspect in Pinfield, to which I immediately responded, Say what?
What?
What?
What are we doing here?
Okay, the canine team and a drone team found this burglary suspect.
By the way, before we even move forward, Nick, what do you think would be needed?
What would need to be stolen in order to deploy the drone team?
Nuclear football?
I don't know.
What are we talking about here?
I mean, the daughter of a senator?
Yeah.
Okay, 12.36 Saturday morning, deputies say they responded to a business on Pinfield Road for the report of a man was observed entering a business on camera.
Officials say they entered the building and cleared it after not finding one inside.
Officials say the business was in the area between, that doesn't matter.
While investigating, deputies learned that a man entered the location with a key.
He didn't even break a window, Nick.
He had a key, but that's okay.
He entered the location with a key and several items, including an Xbox, were missing.
Deputies were able to create a description of the suspect using video footage.
How much does an Xbox cost, Nick?
A couple hundred bucks.
I'm sorry, what?
A couple hundred dollars, I think.
$250 maybe?
Wait, I'm sorry.
I can't relate that to what we're talking about.
How much was it?
Um, let's see, 10 score.
Does that help you?
$200.
Oh, that sounds great!
Deploy the drones!
All right.
A K9 track was started which led deputies to a vehicle nearby where they found more information about the suspect seen on video inside the business.
Members of the MCSO drone response team deployed a drone and found heat signatures Of a person in a nearby wooded area near Hill Creek Road at 3 a.m., deputies went into the wooded area and arrested the suspect.
Officials say he was in possession of the keys to the business and the missing items at the time of the arrest.
Brown is charged with burglary in the third degree and petite larceny.
Nick, third degree burglary sounds pretty bad, right?
I guess.
It's not.
It's not.
It's the least burglary charge that you can have.
This is obscene.
Sending the drones after this guy.
I have a take on this and I want to hear yours.
This is a great NCIS episode, isn't it?
Oh, twist and turns?
Yeah, really good police work.
Okay, we have a dog.
They finally sniffed it to the car.
He's not in the car.
He must be somewhere near the area.
Well, the drone has hit.
I mean, you know, that's good police work, Jared.
It really is.
I mean, listen, maybe it's not worth it for what they're looking for, but I like the idea in some respects.
I hate it!
And you know what else I hate, Nick?
I hate that what you just did, you made it a TV show in your mind because that's what the cops have done!
Yeah.
In your mind, a movie played out because propaganda absolutely has taken over our airwaves and makes us go ahead and do this.
This guy stole an Xbox.
He's using an inside job.
This isn't like, yeah, a thief.
Yeah, probably an inside job.
And they deployed the drone team.
Why do you think this story made the news, Nick?
I think because, exactly that, this is technology we haven't really seen before, right?
Maybe they want to get a... Do you think the local news sniffed this out and they were like, this is incredible?
How do you think they came about this news?
I forgot how your mind works, Jared.
Yeah, how do you think the local news got a hold of this story?
Yeah, they got a tip.
They got a tip from somebody, I think, who maybe wants more funding for these kind of things.
Hey, this is Sergeant Smith over here at the bullshit, whatever this is.
Hey, I got a story for you.
This is sexy to go.
And by the way, they brought the they brought the drone out because they were horny to use the drone, Nick.
They wanted to use the drone so bad they could taste it, because that's what happens in America's military-industrial-police complex.
They have all this leftover material because they hold every town hostage for funds.
They've got all this leftover War on Terror bullshit that they can't not use.
They would have used a tank on this guy if they could have.
They would have flown a Raptor drone down his gullet if they could have, because he stole an Xbox.
Listen, if you think, if you want to live in a society where people are running rampant stealing Xboxes from everybody with keys to their places, then that's, I guess it's a free country.
That's what I want.
I want to live in a country where I can steal an Xbox.
Jared, why do you hate America?
I hate this shit.
And I hate that this is where stuff is going.
That we're going to have drones and robot dogs and automatic weapons that's going to be going after people who are stealing McDonald's fried pies.
That's what I hate because this stuff, they are so horny to do this stuff and they want to do it.
Nick, I got a wild hair.
I told you this.
I want everybody real fast to think for a second.
How many people do they think get killed every year by these cops who want high-speed chases because they want to live that TV movie life you just thought about?
And I looked it up.
It's more people that are killed every year in floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, and lightning strikes combined are killed in police chases.
Really?
Yes.
I wouldn't have thought it would be more than like, you know, I would hope it wouldn't be more like 10 a year or something crazy like that.
There are hundreds of American human beings who are killed just standing around minding their own business when the police get in their car and rip ass over 100 miles an hour down their street.
Well, you know, it also brings to mind this terrible footage they released the other day of a pregnant lady coming out of a liquor store, and supposedly, I guess she's accused of stealing liquor, and they shot her dead.
Yeah, I mean, Nick, that sounds right.
That sounds perfect.
What's wrong?
What's the problem here?
Well, when you look at the comments and the tweets, a lot of people feel that way.
She started her car, she started moving, and the guy gets in front of the car, which I wouldn't, if I was the deputy or chair or whatever, I wouldn't do that, I don't think.
No!
Because you know what?
It's a really interesting, it's fascinating what happens, and this is probably a really new technology in 2023, where if you operate a vehicle, there's a way that you can trace where the vehicle resides and who owns it.
See, I love that you brought this up, because here's the thing about these chases.
You're after these people.
You're on their bumper, Nick.
You see their license plates.
Do you know why you're not doing that?
You're not doing that because you're in love with the character of being a police officer.
Right?
Like, you want to be the type of person who's getting into shootouts.
You're the type of person who wants to get into high-speed chases.
This is what you're doing it for.
You're exactly right.
It's the license plate.
Remember the movie Doc Hollywood?
I do remember Doc Hollywood.
I've not thought about that in a long time.
And by the way, Cars rips it off.
Cars, the movie, is basically Doc Hollywood ripped off if you didn't know.
They literally just changed a couple names.
But, you know, he's in town.
He's this, you know, highfalutin surgeon guy, whatever.
And the kid is choking.
It looks like he's gonna die.
And the Old Town guy, the Old Town Doc's like, just give him a Coke.
And everyone's like, what the hell?
He'll give him a Coke or whatever.
And then it turns out he knows the kid had swallowed his old man's tobacco, whatever it was, and then they cleared out.
And meanwhile he was about to do a tracheotomy on the damn kid or something like that.
This is the same kind of thing where the scene should be the lady drives off and they're like all right great they go sit in their car and they press a button and then they'll just pick her up from the house later a few minutes later.
That's all that should be.
That's all it should be but this is what happens when you get all hyped up on the idea that you are an occupying force That you are the thin blue line between a normal, safe society and a society that is absolutely run amok.
Running a license plate and going to that person's house?
That's not exciting.
That's not why you got into this job.
You want to rip ass up and down the street and hopefully, you know, I don't know, cause a big giant wreck that gets on the news.
What a mess!
What's worse than that, though, is that they are now also empowered by their training.
If the car inches at you at all, you are now under threat of your life and you can use lethal force.
Do whatever you want!
So they're doing, that's what the other argument is, they're doing what they're trained.
So then now it's up to the people who are in the situation, in behind the wheel, they have to be the ones who have to know all of those rules and whatever just and comply.
Now again, they should have complied and a lot of those things are, you know, you should just listen to the fucking cops and they won't get Well, maybe.
Maybe if they don't get a fantasy that they're under attack and they just shoot you for no reason.
Right.
And by the way, the majority of these are like when the kid with a toy gun on the playground gets shot in two seconds as soon as they pull out of the car.
So that's the other issue is that nobody deserves to die for any of these infractions.
That's what's so ridiculous about it.
No, the cops should not be running around shooting people.
Also, the cops shouldn't be running around with drones.
Gaining heat.
Dude, I can, before we get out of here, I just imagine the guy who called it that tip, like how excited was he to talk about heat signatures?
- You probably watch them, and then they'll fit him in that.
This is a great idea. - We found the subjects, heat signatures, and oh, loved it.
Loved it.
I hate it.
I hate it.
And if only we could see your heat signature right now, Jeremy.
My heat signature is off the charts.
Go get your drone to check out my heat signatures.
All right, everybody.
We're gonna come back for the weekend or on Friday.
Maybe then I won't be pissed off about this.
We hope you had a fantastic Labor Day.
Hopefully you and your loved ones and your colleagues and your co-workers, you were able to take it easy.
We weren't able to do that, and yet here we are.
If you need us before then, oh, go to patreon.com slash Montclair Podcast.
Just get another plug in there.
You know, help us, support us, listen to the show.
Get your questions in, too, for the weekend, or if you'll do that by Wednesday, early Thursday, that'd be fantastic.
All right, everybody, if you need us before then, you can find Nick at Can You Hear Me SMH?
