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Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman kick off the Weekender talking about the bad vibes in the air, which somehow leads to aliens because, honestly, it makes as much sense as anything else right now. From there they dive straight into the Venezuela mess: the US seizing an oil tanker, Pam Bondi’s incoherent spin, Trump rattling sabers at half the hemisphere, and a political class treating potential war like content creation.
They break down why nobody in power seems serious, why the Supreme Court is rubber-stamping authoritarianism, why measles is suddenly back, and why visitors to the United States may soon have to hand over five years of social media posts. It is all connected by the same theme: these people have no idea what they’re doing, and we’re the ones living with the consequences.
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Welcome to the weekender edition of the McGregor podcast.
I'm Jerry Jade Saxton.
I'm here with Nick Houseman.
Nick, this week has whipped my ass.
The weekend whipped your ass or the week?
The week has whipped my ass.
I'm sorry.
I hate to hear of anybody's ass being whipped.
It has been a week.
How's your week been?
It's kind of flown by.
It's weird.
The general unease.
It's not even like anxiety or whatever.
It's just unease.
It's unease.
Yeah.
The vibes are bad.
I'm worried that something is going to happen.
Yeah.
Good.
You know, whatever it is.
It's the aliens coming down from outer space.
I don't know.
You know what?
We're doing the weekender.
We got a lot of stories to get to today, but Nick, I have a question.
You keep saying you feel like something's coming.
This is the weekender.
By the way, everybody, head over to patreon.com slash muckrake podcast.
Listen to the entirety of the weekender.
We have so many things to go over, but because this is our weekender show, and because it's a little bit different from the Tuesday show, you keep saying you feel like something's coming.
There's all kinds of things that are happening.
You want me to sing it, don't you?
Well, our first story is about a potential invasion and regime change in a foreign country, Venezuela.
You just said aliens.
What do you think is coming?
What is happening?
What do you think?
Well, I mean, you know, it's almost the logical conclusion of all the ridiculousness that keeps happening in the news and across the world.
But yes, at some point, I am one of those people that believes that we are not the only intelligent lifeboard.
Sure, I agree with that.
Yeah.
And so I also believe that at some point, well, I'm not sure I believe that like we've already been in contact with them and the whole thing going.
It's all set up, whatever.
I don't know if I can really get with that.
But at the very least, I'm compelled by a lot of that, you know, some of those UAP evidence that we've seen.
So you're telling me that you have a feeling that our political situation right now is heading towards aliens arriving.
Yeah.
Well, is it related to the political situation?
I don't know.
But why not at this point?
It would just be the next logical conclusion.
So just so people understand, as we're covering daily events and going deep into all of these topics, in the background of Nick's mind, as we're providing context and analysis for all this, in the back of your mind, it's like, this might all be heading towards aliens.
Yeah, exactly.
And I, you know, I would like to think that they would look down upon us kindly and give us the technology with which to travel to other star systems.
Sure, sure.
But you're, you're moving past the subject, which is you feel like something is coming right now.
Yeah.
When we're talking about politics, when we're talking about what's going on, the general unease that you're feeling right now.
Oh, right.
Is it completely rooted in aliens?
Yeah, yeah.
That's a hard one to sell, I think.
But yeah, you know what it is?
It's a lot easier to cling to that than it is to see a demise of democracy and authoritarianism taking.
Yeah, I understand that.
I think that's one of the reasons.
I mean, to be frank, why people join cults.
Yeah.
I mean, why do you think that Superman was invented?
I mean, right?
Didn't he wasn't?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Was it Superman or Batman?
One of them was invented to fight the Nazis.
Captain America.
Captain America.
One of them.
Our friendship, Nick.
I value it so much.
And not to be overlooked at Superman is also an alien.
Superman is an alien.
I'm going to try and compose myself based on everything that has just occurred.
What you feel in the air right now is that aliens are coming.
I'm just expecting.
And yeah, it seems like, yeah, that's been, it's logical at this point.
Wonderful.
Well, uh, everybody, we are going to get to the news of the day.
I don't, I don't know what to do right now.
I don't know what to do.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe they're coming.
Yeah, but there's going to be a moment where people are not going to be able to hear the rest of this episode.
They have to find out how to hear the whole thing.
Well, they are, and I'll repeat again.
They can head over to patreon.com slash my craig podcast and become a patron and hear the entirety of the weekender where things like this happen, which are fascinating, absolutely fascinating.
Who knows what's going to happen at the end of this thing?
Well, actually, I'm going to talk about watching a TV show about aliens.
Oh, so we got that coming.
It's going to become full circle, everybody, somehow, some way.
We also need your support, by the way.
Like, these are tough times and independent media is more important than ever.
We do not have corporate backing.
We do not have ads.
We need your help.
Patreon.com slash McCraig podcast.
Nick, these assholes, they just keep trying to figure out ways to get us into a war that doesn't need to happen.
The United States military has seized a oil tanker off of the coast of Venezuela, supposedly with oil from Iran.
It has set off an international crisis of sorts.
For weeks now, there have been bombings and strikes and war crimes.
Oh my, that have all been pointing at the possibility of the United States either invading Venezuela or pushing for regime change with Maduro.
They have now seized this oil tanker.
It is a developing crisis.
Have no idea where this thing is going.
It seems like another unnecessary provocation.
Here we are.
You know what was really frustrating about this?
Because I wanted to do a little deep dive and kind of familiarize myself with the topography and everything like that.
And Pam Bondi decides to do a release that says some version that they, this tanker had was using, was transporting sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran.
Now, you were a professor of English, right?
So when you write it like that, you start to think, well, how is the Iranian oil getting through like to Venezuela and then back out toward over to Cuba?
I was like, and I had to waste a lot of time before I realized, or not a lot of time, but enough time, annoyingly, to realize that this is a tanker that simply had transported oil from Iran in a distant past.
And now it's transporting oil from Venezuela to Cuba.
And here we are.
I want that time back.
Listen, and even in the recounting of this, I got all twisted and turned upside down.
It's a mess.
And because they can't tell you why any of this is happening.
I mean, they're just picking random boats to destroy, people to murder, taking over tankers.
And by the way, are just absolutely reveling over all of the content that they're creating from this of U.S. military storming this boat with their guns drawn.
Half Of what's going on at all times at this point, it's just content creation.
Wait, literally making videos and pictures to share online.
In that video, the 40-second clip, whatever, was there a soundtrack?
I feel like, did I hear that?
Like, there was no one-I didn't see it with a soundtrack, but it wouldn't shock me if they had a soundtrack because then you have to realize, like, they're paying people to do this, to create this content.
There's money to be made in editing the it's uh it's such it's such a bullshit mess but on top of that So this is, I don't know if it's trying to orchestrate a golf or tonkin type situation.
I don't know if they're looking for Venezuela to do something.
I know that Maduro has decidedly said that he is not leaving.
He has been burning down the phone lines talking to Vladimir Putin.
The rumors are circulating that they might have already sent weapons to Venezuela or they might be on their way.
We have no idea what's going on.
And again, this is one of those situations.
We do not have serious people who are in charge.
We have people in charge who do things recklessly and unprofessionally.
And on top of that, they're so aggressive.
Trump is making threats against Mexico and Colombia as he's inching up on a possible war with Venezuela.
This situation, it feels to me, it's like driving in a car and one of the wheels just keeps getting weird.
And you're like, well, I hope the wheel doesn't fly off at some point.
The wheel's going to fly off at some point.
Now you're having me have flashbacks of Jacob's Ladder, the movie.
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