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Aug. 8, 2024 - On Brand

02:37:48

OB #70 - Adam Carolla

Former comedian turned blowhard bigot Adam Carolla came on Stay Free to complain about poor people, black people, and women. Support us on Patreon! - patreon.com/OnBrand Buy a magnet! - gityeractualgoldhereyall

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	This is propaganda live.
	I only suggest how to take him out of the boat.
	Extraordinary cultural moment.
	Already iconic.
	Already iconic.
	We love you.
	You're welcome here.
	Where did this guy come from?
	It looks like he's been doing it for ages.
	He's very confident.
	Plainly, and this is a matter now of fact and record, I'm right wing.
	I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
	Is this misinformation or is Vivek Ramaswamy in the lavatory?
	That's sort of like a poem.
	Is this Eminem?
	Man, if we didn't come together in that stream.
	I'm assuming it was just the Pete.
	Now these are the kind of conversations I think that the legacy media can no longer compete with.
	Win win win win win win win This is On Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one Russell Brand.
	I'm Al Worth and each week I go through an episode of Brand Show with my co-host Lauren B. That's me, I'm Lauren B. And I'm the host that has no idea what we are walking into and what we are dealing with today.
	But it's usually bad.
	It's almost invariably bad, which is why we do the good thing before the bad thing.
	And Lauren, what is your good thing this week?
	Well, part two.
	It's a follow-up.
	And this is visual, but we'll do the best to describe for the listening folk amongst you.
	Can we get in the same shot?
	We have a spaghetti squash.
	That's a big white squash.
	All right.
	Well, it's the size that's bigger than your head.
	We don't know what colors are because of my camera.
	OK, fair enough.
	I'm back to Will DeVorte today.
	But it does need to ripen, I think.
	And it's a little bit different shape than you get at the grocery store.
	I hope the guts are still the same.
	So we don't know.
	But yeah, this right.
	It's head sized.
	Yeah, it's enormous.
	Almost exactly head sized.
	It is a little skinny though.
	It's a little skinny, but.
	I don't care about the outside.
	I just want the guts to be yummy.
	We love all shapes and sizes.
	It's what's on the inside that counts, huh?
	Absolutely.
	And so that's very, very cool.
	And I love that I have a good update from the garden.
	That's awesome.
	And there's even another one that's like I saw yesterday who was just like there's there's there's more little alien pods that are coming up in the garden as well.
	Nice.
	But I'm super happy to report I will give the last update when we eat.
	I think it needs to ripen a little bit.
	But yeah, I'll give the final conclusion for the experiment.
	I'll keep everybody updated as to whether it's nasty or good.
	So far, I'm pretty stoked.
	I'm here for the squash updates.
	They're literally a deal.
	We've got enough rain where I don't have to water nearly as much as I have in previous years, and The plants were really cheap.
	So, getting like a return, like a fiscal return on investment into gardening, nigh on impossible.
	But, considering how expensive these things are getting, it's actually pretty good, grocery bill wise.
	Nice.
	And not quite as chubby bunny as just downing lots of spaghetti, if we're talking alternatives.
	So pretty stoked.
	Nice.
	Thanks for coming along the journey with me, everyone.
	Yeah, what's your good thing?
	My good thing this week is, I'm gonna do a you, it's off the back of a bad thing.
	So this last week three very young girls aged six, seven, and nine were murdered the other day by a very unwell young man.
	It was a mass stabbing event in Southport and off the back of this social media misinformation spread like wildfire claiming the 17 year old who did it was Muslim, that he was either an asylum seeker or an illegal immigrant.
	And this has led to literal race riots in the UK, pioneered by the likes of Tommy Robinson and Nigel Farage.
	They don't care that the young man in question was born in the UK, or that he's the child of Christians from Rwanda.
	And, more to the point, it wouldn't excuse their actions even if the man was a Muslim refugee.
	Still, race riots, still not okay, even if that was the case.
	And yeah, there are more than a hundred race riots planned across the UK tonight at the time of this recording.
	Planned!
	Yeah, we're recording that Wednesday this week.
	But my good thing, however, is just how strong the counter-protest has been, and how vehemently huge swaths of the UK are telling these literal Nazis to fuck the fuck off, and that they don't represent us.
	That's pretty great.
	And Keir Starmer has also promised swift and decisive action, and they've made over 400 arrests already.
	But I'm less heartened by the cops than I am our own citizens getting out there and telling Nazis to fuck off, because that's always great.
	And yeah, to steal a line from you Lauren, you know, if you're in the UK and you ever wondered what you would do in Germany in the 1930s and fascism was on the rise, it's whatever you're doing now, because holy shit look out the window everybody.
	But yeah, otherwise, stay safe tonight, everyone, or, you know, in general, this week, whenever, because it's getting frisky out there.
	They're smarter than to wear all the same color shirts this time.
	Genuinely.
	They're not going to be brown, they're not going to be silver.
	Necessarily.
	Mostly white.
	They still love a Fred Perry on the show.
	Yes, yeah.
	Mostly white.
	But yeah, they are learning I suppose.
	But yeah, there's a strong response to that and that is heartening.
	That is a good thing within a very bad thing.
	Um, so yeah, very positive.
	Yeah, and there's been organizing around, like there, the organizing that is happening, like the planning is crazy, but also kind of expected, but like, there was like, I, uh, like two weeks ago, Popular Front, I listened to an interview of somebody that's been tracking this stuff.
	So like it's, it's trackable.
	It's trackable.
	It is.
	Yeah.
	There are people, there are people infiltrating the telegram channels, all of that stuff, you know.
	That's what's heartening to me is like, people were already watching this stuff.
	It wasn't this kind of like, oh, we're blindsided and it came out of nowhere.
	And I guess, you know, the, like, I mean, there were people looking at it before January 6th, but I think there might be a little more willingness to like, I think it was from Keir Starmer.
	Like, Yes, we were tracking it out.
	Whoa!
	It just happened out of nowhere!
	Who knows?
	We were aware of this and these people are going to prison has been the response.
	I mean, yeah, we've covered Keir Starmer's response to riots before, you know, and so I have mixed feelings as to where he's going to take this, but at the same time, like, well, Nazis do deserve to be in prison.
	So, you know, it's tough.
	It's tough.
	Anyway, we've got a show to do.
	So first, let's thank some new patrons, though.
	Yeah, the first one.
	There's no other way to say this.
	My dad, you are now on Awakening Wonder.
	You are indeed an awakening wonder.
	So thank you, Dad.
	Otherwise, in this instance known as Harry the Bear.
	Yeah, thank you.
	It's just because it's Al's dad, right?
	Yes, yeah, Al's dad.
	Yeah, I spoke to him the other day because it was his birthday.
	Happy birthday, Dad, as well.
	I thought you meant the patron.
	Oh my God, that's funny.
	Yeah, I spoke to him the other day, you know, because it was his birthday and it was funny because he was like, it's weird talking to you because I'm listening to the show all day and I'm not used to having you talk back.
	I'm like, yeah, okay.
	Hello!
	So actually, hi Al's dad.
	Hi Al's dad!
	No, no, it's my legit dad.
	Yeah, no, no.
	Legit dad being a legit listener.
	Listen, I think that's a little more rare.
	Yeah.
	So that's that's always nice and hilarious.
	And also, Daniel James, you are now on Awakening Wonder.
	You are indeed an awakening wonder.
	Thank you, Daniel.
	Thank you, Daniel.
	You're also special.
	Sorry you don't get the same treatment.
	You're also special, but you're not my dad, but we love you anyway.
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	Cool stuff.
	Patrons, there is a post up for you to suggest things for us to talk about.
	Any topics are welcome and the recording will be available later for patrons, but anyone can join us.
	So everyone come and hang out on the YouTube.
	It's super cool.
	We have lots and lots of fun.
	It's really fun.
	Yeah, I'm also aware some people have had trouble finding the link.
	So I'll be sending the the stream link out to all patrons as well as putting it up on the subreddit and our Facebook group for anyone who is struggling to find it.
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	And that'll be lots of fun.
	I will be checking in.
	All right, now then.
	We are back, more or less, in present day RNC.
	Fucking done.
	Though the interview we're going to be dealing with was recorded a week and a half ago or something, and has only just gone up on Rumble.
	And as ever, I will let Russell introduce the guest.
	Hello there, you Awakening Wonders!
	Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand for a conversation with that great innovator in this field.
	If you've not heard of Adam Carolla, well, you should have been paying attention to the inception of the medium that you're currently watching now.
	Before there was Rogan, before there was Ricky Gervais, before there was even old Russ... me, that's who I am.
	There was Adam Carolla.
	This is a fantastic conversation about how being an online presence has become a fraught and political endeavor in and of itself.
	Russell, you could go back to doing relationship advice videos like you were a few years ago.
	You have chosen this path and please don't pretend otherwise.
	I don't want him doing that either.
	I really don't want him doing that either.
	I would take that over what he's doing now.
	But, you know, hey.
	We could just do neither.
	Let's do neither.
	Yeah, true, true.
	Maybe go away.
	That would also be good.
	Yeah, Adam Carolla is who we've got today.
	And this was an interesting one for me because I had honestly very little concept of who he is because he never made it big internationally, really.
	So, you know, I realize he's a thing in America.
	Oh, let's party.
	Let's party.
	Here we go.
	Yeah.
	I didn't, um, I didn't listen.
	I wasn't a big Loveline listener and I wasn't necessarily a big man show watcher.
	But, oh bitch, he was everywhere.
	He was everywhere.
	Yeah, he was.
	It's not that I didn't take in either of those things.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's almost like you couldn't not, you know.
	Totally.
	He was ubiquitous.
	Yeah, so for those like me not in the know, Adam Carolla is a, I'm going to say, former comedian and actor, because he hasn't done either of those things in a while, who is these days a podcaster.
	He achieved success in the 90s through Love Line, a radio call-in show which was later picked up by MTV, and then he joined his buddy Jimmy Kimmel as hosts of The Man Show on Comedy Central in 1999.
	Which supposedly existed to lampoon the stereotypical male perspective and had pre-recorded sketches and some live in-studio stuff.
	Also featured many buxom ladies in revealing outfits dancing and bouncing on trampolines.
	And as a fun side note, Kimmel would also sometimes wear blackface to do impressions.
	The 90s and 2000s were a weird time.
	From there Corolla had a series of non-starters until 2009.
	He was just doing a lot of pilots and trying to get stuff going but nothing would really get anywhere.
	Then in 2009 he started a daily podcast.
	And the first Adam Carolla podcast was downloaded more than 250,000 times in the initial 24 hours.
	And by the third one, it was the number one podcast on iTunes in both the US and Canada.
	And during that debut week, they recorded 1.6 million downloads.
	In the second week, 2.4 million downloads.
	Right, so ramping up And it did start to go down, like, I think by the fourth episode it was down to like 500,000.
	And then in 2011 the Adam Carolla Show had taken the Guinness World Record for most downloaded podcast ever from, took that off Ricky Gervais, which, I mean, fuck him too, by receiving just shy of 60 million unique downloads from March 2009 to March 2011.
	2009 to March 2011. That's 60 million. I mean, Jesus.
	I was that did not make it into my mind.
	I had no concept of that.
	It's like when you look at the top podcast, whenever you get on, you know, Apple Podcasts, and you look at the top, and it's like, Ben Shapiro, and you're like, who is doing this?
	Who is listening to this?
	Who wants to listen to this person?
	Yeah, Charlie Cook, you know?
	Why?
	I accept the reality.
	Yeah.
	But it's still just like, oh, that's just- It's always jarring.
	Because that's the thing is like algorithms make all of our specific realities, which is a massive part of the problem of this like social dissonance that we're having.
	But I'm just like- Absolutely.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's still weird.
	It's still a slap in the face every time I see it.
	I'm like, oh no, that's not how we should be.
	I mean, I will say, back in 2009, he was nowhere near as bad as he is now.
	He was much more.
	The Adam Carolla fans track it to about 2014 is when he started to fall off, apparently.
	There were signs before that, but still.
	That's also for podcasts, if you have your shit together.
	Yes!
	Oh, absolutely!
	That was like the advent, basically.
	Right!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, he hopped on straight away.
	He's not quite as, he's not pulled the same, or maybe the same numbers, but those numbers aren't the same today.
	They don't translate necessarily.
	No, no, I don't think he's on 60 million now, but who knows, I guess.
	In August 2011, he released a podcast where he mocked a petition to the producers of Sesame Street that demanded Bert and Ernie get married on air.
	He said on air that gay activists should just get married and please shut up, and that Y-U-C-K would be a more memorable acronym than LGBT.
	And you can see why he quit comedy.
	I don't know, that was very stupid and funny.
	I'm like, oh, a drag performer should definitely clip that.
	I'm like, oh, a drag performer should definitely clip that.
	Yeah, if it was satire, I'd be on board.
	And referring to transgender people, he asked, when did we start giving a shit about these
	people?
	And I mean, yeah, GLAAD characterized the previous remarks by him as offensive, including an assertion, Carolla made the assertion that all things being equal, heterosexual parents make better parents than homosexual parents.
	Great.
	And in response to all this, Carolla said, I'm sorry my comments were hurtful.
	I'm a comedian, not a politician.
	Which, um, that's not an apology.
	Just, yeah, that's, well, fuck you for being upset.
	That's what that is.
	Skipping ahead a bit, in 2019 he made a film with Dennis Prager called No Safe Spaces.
	Talking to college students and faculty about university safe spaces and free speech controversies
	in general.
	The movie featured such unbiased actors as Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Tim Allen, Brett Weinstein, Alan Dershowitz, Dave Rubin, Candace Owens, Ann Coulter, and Cornel West.
	Yes, it's genuinely incredible.
	Like, oh, that human pimple.
	It's so amazing.
	Like that they'll put him in stuff.
	That to me is like the tell.
	Like, mm hmm.
	Nobody was putting... Oh, you know what?
	I'm not gonna... That's not true.
	Celebrity's always been a thing.
	I'm just like, I'm checking myself.
	Yeah, it's true.
	It's true.
	Man, murderous row of people that don't need to be in movies.
	Absolutely not.
	For the AV Club, Vadim Rizov gave the film an F. Summing up, this isn't an argument for free speech, it's just paranoid whining complete with a roundtable of comics sympathetically agreeing how sad and scary this all is, plus images of the Statue of Liberty with tape over its mouth.
	That seems about right.
	Now, I did get in touch, by the way, with the mysterious professor about Adam Carolla because the professor listened to Loveline all the time back in the day and has some thoughts on Adam Carolla.
	But he did say one thing, one fun thing to keep in mind is one of the biggest parts of Adam's earlier career was advocating for easy access to emergency contraception and abortions.
	And he is still, to some degree, pro-choice as well.
	But this, along with some support for gun control, may be the only remnant of a left-leaning perspective we're ever likely to get from him, and neither of those subjects come up today.
	But interesting to bear in mind.
	Absolutely!
	Well, and it also just makes sense.
	Man, that struck me!
	Actually, we'd been in church for, like, a fundamentalist church for a while and it was, you know, in my early teen years.
	I remember where I was standing in my family home basement and thinking to myself, like, you guys really hate black and poor people.
	Why aren't you also into... Because they'll do abortion pushes.
	Picture Jesus Camp.
	Have you seen Jesus Camp?
	That kind of emotional attachment to the abortion issue.
	And they'll do these kind of themes, right?
	Themes come up in the church rhetoric, right?
	And so it was a particularly vehement anti-abortion Month or whatever.
	Programming, right?
	And I stopped dead in my tracks and my developing child's brain was like, shouldn't you guys be the most excited about abortion because you hate poor and black people?
	And they didn't say they hate poor and black people, but I got that they hated poor and black people.
	Shouldn't abortion be good?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Adam Carolla despises people.
	He should be the most enthusiastic contraceptive.
	That's true.
	That's true.
	He is at least somewhat consistent on that.
	Absolutely loathes human beings.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Totally consistent.
	He should want as much pregnancy prevention and elimination as humanly possible.
	Yeah, he specifically loathes specific subsets of human beings as well, and we'll be getting to that very shortly.
	But first off, let's get into the interview proper and get to the first question, which broaches the subject of Gavin Newsom.
	Adam, thanks for joining us tonight.
	My pleasure.
	I got sort of fascinated with you again after watching a couple of your conversation stroke confrontations with Gavin Newsom, but mostly that one from ages ago when you just kept pushing him And I sort of was really amazed by it and like the sort of the push and the tenacity and the sort of certainty of it and okay so it's everybody it's everywhere why can't they why are they and it sort of re-engaged me with you and I wanted to firstly say that both mostly as a kind of a compliment to be honest but then also you are continue to be a resident of California so I figured that Gavin Newsom must be some sort of
	He is.
	I mean, to live in California, for me, it's basically like somebody said, let's create a fictional character that would go against every thought you've ever had and who Who would annoy you the most?
	Like, I've often joked that I think Gavin Newsom wakes up in the morning and thinks, what would annoy Adam the most?
	And whatever it is, that's what I'm going to do today.
	But that's kind of what it's like living In Los Angeles especially, but certainly California.
	Whoever's making the laws and the lawmakers, just do the stuff that would piss you off the most and be the antithesis of what you would do if you were in that situation.
	Okay.
	So yeah, Gavin Newsom spends a lot of his time thinking about how to annoy Adam Carolla.
	What I'm gonna say is something I wouldn't say to almost anyone else.
	But Adam, you can fucking move.
	Like, he's got a net worth of 20 million dollars.
	All he needs to do his job is a microphone and a space to put it in.
	He can do that anywhere.
	Rogan did it.
	Why can't he?
	Like, To most people, the idea of moving across the country for political reasons or whatever is unfeasible financially.
	There are a lot of reasons that I would not suggest that to an ordinary human being.
	But this guy?
	That's a fucking option.
	He could do this tomorrow with very little inconvenience.
	People are still doing that.
	People are doing that here.
	Some people that I know are listening right now are actively still doing that here because they have kids they need to raise and lives they need to live and they need to be safe.
	Yeah, people have fleed Florida, I know that.
	You know, I'm like, dude, why are you still there?
	If it's so terrible, why are you still there?
	If it's so bad.
	That's the key.
	Because, you know what?
	Have reasons.
	Stay family.
	It's fine.
	Stay in your house.
	But don't make it that.
	I, yeah, exactly, you know, and like, I don't know, I may be slightly also venting the fact that no shit, he spent at least ten minutes of this interview whining about California and Gavin Newsom.
	And I'm like, dude, dude, I cut all of it out to save the audience, but holy shit, like, this guy just spends all his time whinging about it, I'm like, just leave!
	Just go somewhere!
	Or shut up!
	You know?
	Well, he's not going to do either of those things because he's rewarded for it.
	That's the thing.
	Oh, yeah.
	Absolutely.
	Anyway, Russell pivots from here slightly to discussing state intervention in schools.
	You know, Gavin Newsom intervening in school and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And Adam takes this to a racially charged place almost immediately.
	Because I was trying to think of what the counter-argument is for the school not having to tell the parents information about their kids.
	I presumed that a good faith argument for that would be, oh what if a kid is being abused or mistreated at home?
	But I suppose that can't be the starting point for legislation.
	A worst case scenario in a family dynamic cannot be the point from which a legislation is formed.
	Can you see what the counter argument is?
	It can't be just to annoy Adam Carolla.
	That can't be their ideology.
	Yeah, I mean, I think what they do is they take an outlier in a worst case scenario and then they prop it up and they do a sort of what if.
	So when you say, hey, listen, I'll tell you what would help the black community, family.
	The dad stayed around and they raised their children in an intact family unit that I think the black community would find.
	And then someone always raised their hand and go, I know a black guy.
	He went to Harvard.
	He never met his biological dad.
	And I'd go, okay, fine.
	I'm not saying it can't happen.
	I'm just saying in general, this would be better.
	Okay.
	That's like the backwards argument.
	That's- What?
	Yeah, I do have some good news for Adam.
	Now, this is a slightly complex subject, so I can't hope to cover the full scope of it here today, but I do have a few points to make.
	Firstly, there's a reasonably famous CDC report from 2013 which shows that 71.5% of black children in 2013 were born to unmarried women, compared with 29.3% of white children.
	And this particular piece of information has been used by the right-wing since that day to say, look, these irresponsible black fathers are the cause of all the problems in black communities.
	Which, by the way, was merely glomming on to the much greater tradition of blaming black fathers for things.
	A lot of people track it back to the Moynihan Report.
	In 1965, white sociologist and then Assistant Secretary for Labor Daniel Patrick Moynihan published a report called, The Negro Family, The Case for National Action.
	This report claimed that increasing rates of out-of-wedlock births and single-mother homes among African-Americans signaled the coming destruction of black families, and these trends were to blame for many of the issues facing the black community in America.
	Said report has been roundly criticized by many race scholars.
	The idea that racial disparities in education, employment, income, incarceration and more can be blamed not on structural racism, but on this absence of black fathers.
	That whole idea has been parroted by pundits and politicians for decades.
	It's also very convenient for them.
	So, 71.5% of black children in 2013 were born to unmarried women, right?
	However, Also, according to the CDC, 58% of black fathers live with one or more of their children.
	It's just, they're not married to the significant other in that equation.
	Not just that, but the CDC reports that black fathers who live with their children are more likely than fathers of other races to provide physical care, so like bathe, diaper, feed.
	Um, for their young children to read to their children and help their children with their homework, all on a daily basis, um, compared to fathers of other races who also cohabitate with their children.
	Uh, and again, according to the CDC, 72.7% of black fathers talk with their children about things that happen during the day, several times a week or more, whether they live with their children or not.
	Which means these black fathers are active in their children's lives even if they are ...separated, and the report also reveals that among the dads who don't live with their children, black dads are more likely to be involved in care, including reading to their children, helping them with homework, talking to them about their days, and taking them to activities, etc., compared to Hispanic or white dads who live apart from their kids.
	So, by all accounts, it appears black fathers are, by race, which is always a great way to do things, better fathers than anyone else.
	Now, there is one issue prevalent within the black communities, that often a father will have multiple children with several different women.
	And this is where it starts to get complicated.
	Black men are nearly three times as likely as white men to have at least one child they don't live with, for instance.
	But there are a number of possible reasons for this.
	A report for the New York Times found that there are 100 black women not in jail or prison for every 83 non-incarcerated black men.
	There it is!
	There it is!
	Mass incarceration has actually drained 1.5 million black men, many of whom are young and of marrying and reproducing age, etc., from their communities, making it substantially more difficult for black women to find committed partners of the same race.
	And then you have the issue of being with someone and maybe they get hauled off to prison and then maybe that relationship doesn't last prison because, you know, prison.
	And then they come out and find someone else.
	It's a whole thing.
	To cap this off, there was a policy meeting last year to try and tackle negative stereotypes of black fathers and Congresswoman Frederica Wilson of Florida's 24th District had this to say, quote, Think about how this group was dogged by the school-to-prison pipeline, mass incarceration, health disparities, and continuing to shoulder the gun violence epidemic, spends more time with their children than others.
	It is very disingenuous the way they are perceived and stereotyped across this nation."
	And Adam Carolla is one of the people perpetuating that stereotype, it turns out.
	Uh-huh.
	And let me say, so the, like, 1965, when the, you know, that report came out that is, can you say the name again?
	Moynihan Report.
	Moynihan Report, yeah.
	I was getting Manchurian like, that's a different problem.
	That's a different candidate.
	So, At the same time, and I had no idea about this, it's something that is not taught and is not talked about, and I have plugged this a million times before, please go watch the documentary on the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex in St.
	Louis.
	It was an experiment for public housing that went Fucking horribly wrong due to neglect and not because it didn't work and the requirement for families for mothers to be able to get public housing.
	The requirement was that they be single.
	Yes.
	So there was this tradition, like there was this kind of practice that dad would be gone and working somewhere else and dad would come home at night and see the family in secret to be able to visit their family.
	And it's because, for whatever reason, right?
	But because They needed the help and whatever bureaucratic roadblock that was thrown in the mix to actively separate these families.
	They were working around the system, I guess, but the system was fucked up and should have been worked around.
	So the notion that, like, Black men were not like, that was such a fucking crazy lightning bolt revelation for me as far as like, oh, there were policies actively.
	I mean, cause we hear about all this other systemic stuff, but this like direct active separation of the family and in the same breath, the same, like at the same time, not later, we're not looking backwards as an analysis.
	They're like, these families are being, are apart and it's their fault.
	Girl, you made the rule!
	You're the government.
	You made the rule to separate them.
	So there are people that have to move from state to state that have disability benefits, that are on disability, that are disabled, that cannot work, or are impaired and not be able to work full-time, and they have to get divorced To be able to keep their benefits.
	This still happens.
	Families are still torn apart because of truly absurd, archaic gates being kept.
	The means testing does not work and is not updated to be able to access the benefits, like the entitlement program, let's call it what it is, that we pay for to make a stable society.
	There are so many, I mean, Yeah, there are podcasts on podcasts.
	We could talk about that for 10 hours straight, right now, off the dome.
	I'm gonna stop.
	It just makes me so furious to hear that attack on the black family.
	Like, oh, you mean from the fucking government?
	Yeah.
	It's such an archaic fucking dog whistle to hear just come immediately out the gate.
	I'm like, oh, okay.
	I mean, it still happens.
	It's still all the time.
	Like, the Wilford Way thing has never gone away, even with the podcast about the woman, One Scammer.
	That's what's crazy, is you can track it to the person?
	That's why they don't say a name anymore.
	Because if you say the name, then a guy who works for Vox can make a podcast, and even if the people that absorb and agree with the stereotype, there is a counter-narrative if you nail them down, which I think is very powerful and interesting.
	Yeah, it just makes me furious.
	Furious!
	Yes, as it should.
	Yeah, it absolutely behooves these people to say vague these days.
	They're learning.
	The other thing to point out... Yeah, but anyway, right.
	It's the slippery slope thing that they were trying to make happen is weird.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So the other thing to point out regarding Russell's original point about why a school would and should know something about a child when the parents don't is, yes, almost overwhelmingly down to the child's physical or emotional well-being.
	If they're trans, for instance, which is usually the case that these people are talking about, But their parents like listen to Candace Owens or honestly basically any of the people that Russell interviews Then perhaps that child won't feel terribly comfortable coming out to those parents because there's every possibility They'll be subject subjected to mental emotional and possibly physical abuse at the hands of those parents Like yeah, there are reasons this happens
	Adam, tell the listeners of your show to be nicer to their children.
	The people you are talking, like, acting like having a bigoted, like, cruel parent is an outlier is fucking absurd.
	You're talking to them, dog.
	You talk to them every week.
	If you want to talk about, like, this random outlier, Oh, your parent might be an alien.
	That's a random outlier.
	Or your parent thinks the child is an alien.
	That's, and then we can't, yeah, we can't base legislation on that.
	This is not some crazy outlying notion.
	Listen, Adam, I bet your dad wasn't super nice to you judging from how you present in the world.
	So maybe we all can be a little more realistic about even Facets of parenting.
	Maybe parents are otherwise much better and more reasonable on other issues, but this is a particularly loaded and contentious one that parents are not willing or able to understand and engage with in a mature way to treat their kids right.
	Genuinely, and that has been a thing that I've witnessed in my daily life with friends and family and people I know is like, you are otherwise kind of fine, but being gay or being queer as their own kid somehow breaks their fucking brain.
	Because they can even be like, well, you know, that's your life.
	But then I suddenly turn into a monster when I'm confronted with the reality of my own kid.
	It is so specific.
	And if we didn't have all these numbers of homeless queer teens, then just being absolutely disproportionately affected by this exact problem, sorry, dog.
	Listen, I just showed the fuck up with a squash today!
	And your argument, Mr. Carolla, holds no water!
	Absolutely none.
	Yeah, and speaking of worst case scenarios, we get a pretty blinkered take from these two on how public policy should be formed.
	You know, and then you go, I think they should reopen schools.
	These kids are suffering.
	Well, uh, what about COVID?
	And then you go with the teachers are young and they're healthy and they're fine.
	Uh, yeah.
	What if a kid goes to school, gets COVID and brings it back to his Nana and his grandpa who he's living with and they're elderly and compromised.
	And I go, okay, now we're just going off into some direction.
	That is a worst case scenario.
	And what I'm saying is, is you're shutting down schools and or, you know, fighting for black families, staying intact or whatever it is.
	You can't go worst case scenario.
	You know, somebody that's not how policy policy needs to be made sort of for the masses.
	And just being antagonistic in the antithesis of doesn't work either.
	Yeah, so this is dumb, and there's a few reasons why.
	Firstly, obviously, children did get COVID and did give it to their grandparents.
	Like, that happened.
	That was a thing.
	There's a reason.
	Still happening!
	Still happening!
	Yes, yes.
	Less so over here, but yeah, definitely still happening where you are.
	And it's...
	It's insane to me, this argument that, oh, that's crazy that kids could, you know, give their grandparents an airborne disease.
	Well, I'm like, well...
	Have you been listening?
	Do you not understand how any of this works?
	Secondly, most public policy, or laws, exist in case of the worst case scenario, right?
	We have laws against murder, not because the broader public is just constantly murdering people, but because in the worst case scenario, hey, we need to legislate against people just getting killed willy-nilly, because I feel like that would be a problem.
	Like, worst case scenario is literally the impetus behind every single piece of legislation backing up public safety.
	From speed limits to seatbelts to warning signs on solvents.
	It's not because everyone's huffing glue, it's because we need to protect the public.
	Good lord.
	Also yeah, all teachers are young.
	That's new information to me.
	No shit!
	All of my teachers weren't ancient dinosaur people.
	Come on.
	And like, that's fine.
	I honestly, that's, I say that because I like ancient dinosaur people, personally.
	Um, yes, yes.
	Yeah.
	No, no.
	I'm quite fond of ancient dinosaur teachers.
	Yeah.
	Most of, most of my favorite teachers were, were over the age of 50.
	Um, you know, and I would have preferred for them not to get killed by COVID.
	Um, that would have been, had I been in school when this was happening, I'd have been like, yeah, we need to make sure Mr. Bracegirdle doesn't get killed.
	That'd be good.
	Thank you.
	You know?
	Yeah.
	Oh dear.
	Oh dear.
	That's so silly.
	God, that's so silly.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, that's the thing.
	Every single clause of a thing that he said was like, wrong, wrong, wrong.
	Like, okay, people can just say stuff, huh?
	You just saying stuff.
	Yeah, we can just words.
	He's just saying stuff.
	Crazy.
	Okay.
	Good times, good times.
	So next he takes this same little thought process and applies it to Biden's migration policies.
	Oh, good.
	So that's where...
	Biden came in and he just said, whatever Trump's doing, I'm undoing it.
	So he just went right down to the border with Mexico and said, what's Trump's policies?
	Well, Trump's policies are remain in Mexico and many other policies.
	And then he went, all right, undo it.
	Because that's his policies.
	And my thing is, your predecessor, Who you may loathe and despise may have been right on a couple of occasions.
	And for those policies, you should leave alone and then enact your new policies.
	Biden got into trouble.
	He just said, we're going to undo whatever it is Trump did.
	Yeah, except he famously didn't do that.
	Yeah, he just said it.
	And didn't do it.
	Yeah, I would have loved for Biden to undo everything Trump enacted, but Biden continued Title 42, expanded the border wall, and deportations are hitting the same figures that they did pre-pandemic.
	He's also created further restrictions for asylum seekers, effectively enacting a partial asylum ban.
	Like, rhetoric aside, this does seem to be one of those areas where old white men agree, and it's a problem.
	Um, good lord.
	This is, this is the fucking proof that they do not want to be appeased.
	They don't want their, like, they don't want their, their asks, their prayers to be answered.
	Because they're not happy whenever, like, Biden didn't change anything.
	And they can still, like, make this argument, which they being, you know, the conservative kind of incendiary right, like, pundit class, Any of them should be like, cool, I like this.
	This one thing.
	But they aren't, and they can still make hay out of the statement and the vibe, but not the reality.
	This is extremely telling to me.
	Right?
	Like, that's the thing, is like, all of his little clauses are so wrong to be wildly instructive.
	They're like, oh, you just aren't paying attention to fucking anything.
	You are just getting, like, vibes off of Facebook posts.
	And you're just saying it.
	And you have no bearing on reality.
	Yeah, yeah, no, pretty much.
	I mean, you know, it was like one of the migration policies that Biden wanted to get through, Trump told Republicans to vote against it, despite them all agreeing with it, because it would have given Biden a political victory.
	And I'm like, well, that says everything we need to know.
	Okay, great.
	It's, dear.
	So next, Russell has an anecdote for us.
	I sometimes feel that reflexive authoritarianism poses as rationalism when actually it's a kind of veiled hysteria.
	And a personal example of that kind of control masquerading as care in my own life came when I was the parent on a school trip.
	You know how you can volunteer to go on a school trip with your kids?
	When I went to get on the minibus there was two minibuses and I went to get on the one that my kid was on of course because for what other motivation could I have for going on a school trip other than I want to spend time with my own kid other than I want to hang out and meet Strangers kids, which seems like a motivation worthy of inquiry in itself.
	When I went to get on the same minibus as my kid, they went, oh no, you can't get on the minibus with her.
	And I went, why?
	And they said, oh, in the event that there's a crash, you would prioritize your own kid Are over the lives of the other kids there.
	That's the scenario that you're regulating from.
	We're already in a crash.
	There's kids dead on the floor and I'm prioritizing my own kid.
	And it's what's interesting is that a rule has been made of the basis of conjecture that's pretty hysterical in the first place.
	And that's obviously just within one school, within a little institution and it's annoying enough.
	So when you see it happening in states and nations, it's difficult to, I suppose, not ...inquire as to whether what's really behind it is legitimizing more and more authority.
	Uh-huh.
	So, Russell has put on a different bus to his child on this school trip, and what's behind it is the legitimization of more authority.
	More authority enacted through primary schools.
	Dude was just mad he couldn't sit with his kid.
	And I mean, fine, be mad about it.
	If this happened.
	If this happened.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Be mad about it, but, like, don't pretend it's part of some grand conspiracy to promote authoritarianism.
	And, like, to me, as a parent, that rule that he's talking about sounds pretty reasonable, because I abso-fucking-lutely would prioritize my own child in a crisis, so I shouldn't be on that bus in, you know, in the event of a crash or whatever, because, like, yeah, instinctively I wouldn't be able to help myself, you know?
	Yeah, but...
	If you're on the other bus, and then there's like, I mean, if you're on the other bus, you would still try to find your kid.
	That, that doesn't even sound like a rule.
	That sounds like a weird thing a teacher or administrator said to Russell to shut him up.
	Like that's crazy.
	Like that's, it's not crazy, but it's like, that seems a little, um, That seems like a unique case, because there have also been parents on the bus with kids plenty also.
	It doesn't seem like the norm to me.
	I mean, British parents who are listeners, I know we have several.
	Holler at me if you happen to know from your experience.
	April's not of the right age to be on school trips yet, so I've not experienced this personally yet.
	Is there a case of this happening?
	That's the thing, it's like, has this policy been in place for whatever reason?
	Widespread?
	Or is this just this school?
	Or is this just for Russell?
	It's a little weird.
	And if anything, I was like, where he was going, my reasonable brain was like, oh, like how the president, the vice president can't ever be on the same plane.
	Like, you don't want your whole family to be decimated in a wreck, you know?
	It would be too tragic.
	Right, like, is that where we're going?
	No?
	Okay.
	That's the thing is, like, if we're talking about minute, like, cases, making a rule, I just don't, I don't know.
	Because how useful are pairs going to be in a wreck?
	They're also in the wreck.
	Like, there's so many assumptions being made in this moment, and like, for that to be instructive, like, I'm just thinking about how many times people just said shit in the moment to Russell to get him to stop.
	Like, and he thinks that that's real life?
	And that's a problem.
	Because if you're especially obstinate, And you're especially problematic maybe whenever you're trying to get 30 kids on buses and you're making a fucking huff as a parent.
	Former celebrity there, yes.
	And you're arguing because maybe there were the two parents on one bus and none on the other and they were just trying to get Russell onto the other bus or the other parent onto the other bus and they made something up.
	To get him to do it, because he's just being a dick, that seems the most reasonable to me.
	Distinct possibility, that's for sure.
	We may never know.
	People make shit up to get you to knock it off and you're being an asshole all the time.
	Like, that's also real.
	Come on, that's weird.
	Yeah.
	And speaking of assholes, next, Adam really does come off like a real asshole in this next clip.
	And it seems odd to me that, as you've described, that what we are being taught, primed to fear, is Trump because of, I don't know, charisma, is it?
	Vulgarity?
	Clumsiness?
	Wealth?
	Conservatism?
	Capitalism?
	I'm not sure.
	When the real march of power, particularly through the pandemic period, has been this rather banal, creeping, insidious paternalism like we've described.
	How's it happening?
	Well, I agree.
	So first off, everything is done under the guise of safety, right?
	It's a safety issue.
	So we have to regulate this and we have to control you.
	I mean, once they bring up safety and everything is done in the name of safety.
	I mean, all of COVID, every right you got stripped away was in the name of safety, right?
	But also, when it comes to regulations, it's always just, you can't do this because there's a safety issue and now we're going to impose ourselves because of safety.
	First off, they come at it from safety.
	Now, they end up with authoritarian, but they're coming with safety.
	You know, so you're right.
	It's a completely repackaged.
	It's like they got a publicist, you know.
	And so what they do is they turn Trump into a caricature from the 40s, you know, and it used to be goose stepping
	and uniforms and Heil Hitlers, and it was very structured and you could see it from outer
	space. Now it's a slow, creeping, dipped in estrogen kind of look.
	We're worried about the kids.
	So that's why we're implementing these, you know, it's a lot of women and a lot of women talking about safety and stripping away your rights simultaneously.
	With a lot of like, what's wrong with you paying a little bit more so people that don't have, you know, and now we're getting involved.
	Cause we just want to take a little more of your money and give it to people that need it and could use it.
	And it's a safety thing.
	And you know, they have children and we just want to give the children a little bit so they can have a hot meal so they don't have to go to bed with food insecurities.
	So it is the exact same authoritarian, but it's packaged in a matronly woman with a sweater who's talking about safety with sort of sensible frames.
	Wow.
	You know, I get the feeling Adam Carolla doesn't like women very much.
	And I wish I could tell you that was the only instance of it in this here show.
	There's more to come.
	Yeah, that's his career.
	That's like what he's built his career on.
	He also doesn't seem to like poor people or paying his taxes.
	This rich white guy is big mad that his taxes are going towards feeding impoverished children.
	And how much of a fucking asshole do you have to be?
	Adam Carolla, by the way, sits in the same class as Russell with a similar net worth of roughly 20 million dollars, and so is also among the top 0.01% of the richest people on the planet, And this bloviating blowhard has a problem with any of it going to feed the poor.
	What a piece of shit.
	Also, no remote concept of how Nazis came to power.
	Like, again, each clause, isolated, is Incredibly wrong and stupid.
	This man's head is empty.
	He's just an antenna.
	Like, he's just a TV antenna for conservative thoughts that tumble out of his mouth.
	What the fuck do you mean that Nazis just showed up and you could see from a mile away?
	That's so profoundly not true!
	Like, that's just...
	They both have described authoritarianism accurately, but then their conclusion is completely skewed.
	Dude, who is this for?
	I mean, that's so ahistoric as far as we can look at systems and cycles that are absolutely repeating themselves.
	This is, like, it's, we're scared because it looks so much like history.
	Yes, yeah, it feels very familiar, you know, and as for why, you know, Trump is a dictator and all this, I'm like, well, there's, there are a whole litany of reasons, and Project 2025 is a big, big player in that.
	You know, there's, There's a lot going on in the system.
	Fucking letting Benjamin Netanyahu address Congress and get one standing ovation a minute doesn't fucking help either.
	We're worried because this is all a big, just a big mess.
	And no one's right about keeping the authoritarianism at bay.
	No one's doing enough.
	And this is exactly what has happened many times in the past.
	Not just in Germany.
	Jesus Christ.
	That's an absolutely insane thing to say.
	That is a, I-fell-off-the-turnip-truck-yesterday thing to say unless, and I think that this is, I can't really speak to this with anyone else, but Adam Carolla might be the most cynical man alive.
	Well, Dennis Miller's still around, I don't know.
	And Bill Maher.
	Oh, there's a bunch, damn.
	But, like, they're competing for that title.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	Steve Banner, pretty cynical.
	But, yeah.
	What's crazy is, like, I can't imagine Adam Carl- like, that's the thing that really blows my mind with, like, guys that want to be perceived as smart, is like, if you're saying something so brain-dead stupid about history, wouldn't your ego be bruised?
	I mean, because Russell definitely backpedals when his ego is bruised about not knowing a thing.
	Wouldn't that even just offend your sensibility as this toxic man not knowing Hitler Channel history?
	That's down the line.
	Your dad doesn't like you for that.
	Unless your dad is just as bad as you!
	You know what I mean?
	This is crazy.
	I think it would if he was challenged on it, but, you know, if he just confidently throws it out there and everyone goes, yes, Adam, yes, then, then, then, you know, what's the worst that's going to happen to him, you know?
	But that's what I'm saying.
	Yeah, that's what I'm saying is like, how do you even get out of that dodge in that chant?
	Like, that's because there's, there are plenty of people that come on, you know, that come on Russell's show that we talk about.
	And I think they are perfectly happy with just saying whatever, and they don't have any kind of notion of themselves as a smart man, or they have the branding.
	But Adam Carolla's been around.
	I would think that of all people, he'd be a little bit bothered by being so dumb, dumb, into a microphone.
	Yeah.
	So we learn new things every day.
	What do you think?
	Yeah, you have to question whether he knows how wrong he is.
	That's the question.
	It feels like he should know, but you can never guarantee.
	You can never guarantee.
	Russell seldom brings up trans issues of his own accord, and usually offers some kind of pushback when one of his guests is hating on trans people.
	This time, however, he brings it up himself, and this appears to be his more kind of internal feelings on the subject, so I did want to track it.
	And the only piece of context I need to give to preface the clip is Adam Carolla mentioned a paddleboarder who got arrested during the pandemic for flouting COVID rules.
	Um, which is why Russell mentions paddleboarding in just a second.
	Because the legitimization of safety measures ought really come from, forgive the word, love.
	That if it was like, because we love you, we want to protect you.
	And I thought about the ethics and morality of the pandemic and felt that, Adam, that The initial idea that undergirds all measures is life is sacred.
	If you take away the idea that life is sacred, who cares if people die?
	Because life is sacred, everyone should take this medication.
	Because life is sacred, all of us should go in home.
	All of us should stay home.
	All of us should wear masks.
	You should certainly not paddleboard because life is sacred.
	But what's curious is that simultaneously the idea that life is sacred, or that there is a God, or that there are universal principles, It's simultaneously being extracted.
	We're simultaneously seeing the idea that human beings, rationalism and materialism are the apex of our systems of thought, philosophy and control.
	That you can change your identity, you can manipulate nature, we are progressing technologically and medically and that is our shared project.
	As is so often the case, a hypocrisy at the heart of the ideology So, what he just said, in his very roundabout way, was that trans people are manipulating nature and are against God through rationalism, and that supposedly goes against the principle that life is sacred.
	So with all his feigned pushback against Candace and Jordan Peterson or whatever, he does seem to, at the very least, internally agree that trans people are bad in his conception.
	They are manipulating nature.
	They are an affront to God, essentially.
	That's a good point for the wooey pastel QAnon.
	I think a lot of folks were surprised that wooey new age hippie types Glommed on to QAnon and glommed on to this authoritarianism when maybe we need to be a little more realistic about how eugenical a lot of the wellness sphere actually is.
	It's wildly authoritarian and it is very eugenical.
	I think the rubber hit the road for that a couple of years ago.
	We all need to get with the program because this is how people like Russell think.
	Because if it's going against nature, Right?
	That's the wellness guy argument.
	It's like, oh, it's natural.
	It's natural, so it's fine.
	Which, so is like, arsenic and asbestos are natural.
	Fuckin' shut up.
	That's incredibly dumb.
	But yeah, like, what?
	That's, okay, all right, all right.
	That's, cause yeah, and you can also kind of cloak it in that just medical speak, cause I can't unhear, anytime he says, Modern medical technology.
	I can't unhear that like his child, infant child, needed massive medical intervention and will continue to need it for their entire natural life.
	Yep.
	That seems to just completely go over his head.
	And on a personal note, I would say that ensuring trans people aren't attempting suicide because they can't get any kind of gender-affirming care is in fact consistent with the idea that life is sacred.
	Oh, incredibly so!
	Yes!
	Yes.
	Again, in the US, a member of the LGBTQ plus community between the ages of 14 to 24 attempts
	suicide every 45 seconds and the numbers are higher for the trans community specifically.
	And that needs to change because their lives are in fact sacred.
	But if you believe that trans people are manipulating nature and are against God, maybe you might
	think their lives don't matter that much, right?
	Good lord.
	Also, on the point of these COVID restrictions he's complaining about, yes, they are undergirded with the principle that life is sacred, but also with the principle that other people shouldn't be able to inflict harm upon me just because they didn't want to listen to public safety rules.
	That paddleboarder in Malibu was arrested because he violated the stay-at-home order in California in early April 2020, right?
	County lifeguards patrolling the shore by the boat tried to get the man to come ashore, and despite repeated orders to exit the water, he continued paddleboarding for at least 30 minutes.
	Lifeguards eventually flagged down one of LA County Sheriff's deputies who responded by boat to help.
	This one paddleboarder's desire to go in the ocean does not in fact take precedent over the safety of the rest of the populace.
	Unfortunately, I couldn't find any follow-up stories as to what happened with the guy's court date or anything.
	But he was facing a $1,000 fine and up to six months in prison if convicted of a misdemeanor.
	No, if he lives in Malibu, then he can spare the change in his car to cover the fine.
	Yeah, that could have been a calculated cost.
	That's definitely a possibility.
	Yeah, I'm just picturing all the guys that had to show up and be like, dude, come on.
	Like, to a person, it's probably like, Come on, man.
	I don't want to do this either.
	Just go home.
	I would imagine being a lifeguard in that cart.
	It's April 2020.
	I bet you've got a pool.
	Yeah, probably.
	Jesus.
	This is longer than anyone wants to paddleboard.
	So from here, from here, Russell went on a jag about how everything is escalating these days, right?
	And Adam started comparing pornography from the 50s to how it is now.
	As well as, you know, skateboarding moves have evolved as well.
	You know, nobody was doing a 720 back in the 80s or whatever.
	It was a pretty dumb conversation.
	And I mention this because there is a reference in this next-tier clip.
	And now, Lauren, you are a student of history, but through Adam Carolla's telling, you are in fact not a student- History enthusiast.
	History enthusiast.
	Yes, yeah, yeah.
	Well, according to Adam Carolla, you're not so much a history enthusiast as you are an enthusiast of stories.
	You know, if X hadn't been acquired by Elon Musk, I wonder how different this post-assassination attempt space would be.
	How people would discuss the various theories, anomalies, peculiarities, failings of Secret Service, withholding of information by the FBI, apparent communications.
	What do you think is the impact, and given what you've just said about pornography and skateboarding, how is this likely to crescendo?
	Well, what I've experienced, because you brought up the fact that we can debunk things in high definition in real time.
	So, you know, I was exploring it a little on my show and I was thinking about, you know, back before this moment, we had lore.
	That's all we had.
	We had people in the Old West on prairies telling stories, you know, and every story you've heard about some Old West Gunslinger or Indian chief.
	It's all lore.
	It doesn't mean it didn't happen, but it also doesn't mean we can confirm that any of this happened.
	You know, it's storytelling, campfires, and lore.
	And that's all we ever had.
	And there was no way to really fact-check lore, per se.
	Now, we have high-def footage of everything.
	But we still have lore, and as a matter of fact, the people that create the lore have to go harder to combat the actual footage and recordings of these people.
	Oh, they sure do, Adam!
	They sure do!
	Well, in the United States, half the country thinks Donald Trump told everyone to inject bleach to get rid of COVID.
	Now, he didn't say inject bleach, and there's footage of him not saying inject bleach.
	But the people who say he said to do it do not care that there's high def video of him saying something different than that, but they must double down on it.
	Okay.
	So it had been a minute since I read this, you know, this happened in April 2020, so I'm gonna read from a Politico piece on it to give full context to what Trump said about injecting bleach, right?
	The COVID Task Force had met earlier that day, as usual without Trump, to discuss the most recent findings, including the effects of light and humidity on how the virus spreads.
	Trump was briefed by a small group of aides, but it was clear to some aides that he hadn't processed all the details before he left to speak to the press.
	A few of us actually tried to stop it in the West Wing hallway, said one former senior Trump White House official.
	I actually argued that President Trump wouldn't have the time to absorb it and understand it, but I lost and it went how it did.
	Quickly, however, came a hint at how loose the guardrails were that day.
	Trump introduced Bill Bryan, head of science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security.
	He's going to be talking about how the virus reacts in sunlight, the president said.
	Wait till you hear the numbers.
	As Brian spoke, charts were displayed behind him about surface temperatures and virus half-lives.
	He preached rather presciently for people to move activities outside, and then detailed ongoing studies involving disinfectants.
	We tested bleach, he said at one point.
	I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes.
	Standing off to the side, Trump clasped his hands in front of his stomach, nodded, and looked out into the room of gathered reporters.
	When Brian was done, he strode slowly back to the lectern.
	And here's the quote from Trump.
	A question that probably some of you are thinking of if you're totally into that world.
	Trump again, clearly thinking the question of himself.
	So supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light.
	And I think you said that hasn't been checked, but you're going to test it.
	And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some way.
	And I think you said you're gonna test that too.
	It sounds interesting.
	And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute.
	One minute.
	And is there a way we can do something like that?
	By injection inside?
	Or almost a cleaning?
	Because you see, it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs.
	So it would be interesting to check that.
	Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump's former coronavirus response coordinator, sat silently off to the side as the president made these suggestions to her.
	Later, she would tell ABC, I didn't know how to handle that episode, adding, I still think about it every day.
	I think about it often.
	I remember the ashen horror we felt when we watched that video several many times.
	This is the thing that's been going around.
	The lore that Adam is perpetuating that he didn't say inject bleach.
	Yeah, he didn't say the words inject and bleach one after another in a sentence.
	Yeah, exactly.
	But he did say disinfectant by injection inside or almost a cleaning.
	Yeah.
	Sorry about syntax, I guess.
	You know, like, sorry about context, dude.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It's incredible.
	In other news, the entire of recorded history is actually lore.
	We didn't have established facts prior to the invention and ubiquity of the video camera, and it was all just stories told around campfires.
	High-def.
	High-definition.
	High-definition, yeah.
	None of this 480p bullshit.
	Give me... Is the notion that you can't check it before video?
	What?
	All of it was just, maybe, maybe these were stories around campfires.
	All those history books, they're just stories.
	Man, you know what?
	I don't think, I mean, I think he's, I think this is wildly cynical.
	He's riffing.
	Oh yeah, I would be amazed if he actually believes this, but it is entertaining.
	And he's not actually finished with his whole thought about lore, actually.
	Your definition of entertainment is weird.
	This is nuts.
	Like, this person is, oh wow.
	Okay, yep.
	Let's go.
	Yeah, I have to watch this all week.
	It's definitely, my concept of entertainment has definitely been frayed at the edges.
	That's what I'm saying.
	It's yours.
	That is yours, and I'm validating it.
	So the people that are in charge of the narrative have to work harder at the narrative versus being coached up and tuned up by seeing the actual footage of it, which is an interesting time to be in because people like you and people like me think we could go to these people and go, look, you keep saying this thing.
	Pull out your phone.
	Let me show you the actual footage and let me show you the actual verbiage that the person used, because it's not what you're saying.
	And they go, okay, there's something that exists out there that's going to debunk my lore.
	I'm going harder with the lore now.
	Everyone's got to get on the same page.
	And that's the era we're living in, which is pretty incredible for those of us who think in a rational and linear way.
	No, you!
	Like, yeah, it pretty does well encapsulate how society operates these days, but with the roles pretty firmly reversed.
	Like, there is a reason this show exists to debunk Russell and the lies told on his show, and if he wasn't lying, we wouldn't have a show.
	It's that, it's, oh wow, yeah, it's pretty fucking infuriating to listen to.
	I mean, it's just, oh.
	All right, so I don't, this is, again, listen, I'm repeating lore.
	There was a quote.
	I may have read it in our free newspaper, in an article.
	So God only fucking knows, but.
	Okay.
	And our, you know, our fellow magician can confirm.
	The, Adam Carolla said once, I believe, it was after The Man Show was off air, and then he was maybe trying to do something else, or he was still on The Man Show, and this is a quote.
	Let me know if I'm wrong.
	Listen, I'm digging back in the anals of my brain.
	Is that he got famous, and he wanted to stay famous and make a lot of money because him and his dad collect vintage cars.
	And the only way he could figure out to make a lot of money is to get famous.
	And because he, he, all he cares about is collecting cars.
	And so does his dad.
	So the way that he figured out how to get a lot of money is to be this famous person and make, you know, like use his skills to make money to buy and trade in fancy cars.
	And in that way, like it, albeit apocryphal, but It really checks out as a behavior pattern because he's just saying... I cannot imagine that this person, this dude...
	We'll stand by anything he says because he never really did.
	He's like, oh, whatever.
	I'm just I'm a comedian.
	I just say stuff.
	You can't hold me to anything.
	When you already have that get out of jail free card in your like planted in your mind, nothing else matters because it's all an excuse to get money to buy cars.
	So you could like.
	Anything can come out of his mouth if it's expedient.
	It sounds like he's processing all of these conservative talking points.
	He's collating data and he's packaging it in a way that, I mean, I don't know who is convinced of this, but it has to be motivated.
	Someone who's a motivated, reasoned listener is going to hear this and be like, oh yeah!
	And then take this infuriating argument out into the world, which is abhorrent as an idea, but it happens.
	And so he's just saying what gets him car money.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I can't imagine, like, there's things that are too incorrect that he is saying, that, like, Doug, you're an adult.
	Like, I've watched you be an adult for decades at this point, and I think that your ego would not be happy with how fucking dumb I think you sound today, unless that rationale of, like, it doesn't matter what I say, I'm getting car money.
	Yeah.
	Or house money, whatever he wants now.
	You know, like, that's...
	I mean, this is an example.
	This is exactly how, like, and at what point do you buy the bullshit?
	Because it's easier for you to cold read with all this, like, information in your brain.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	This is actively, like, this is an example I am watching of the, like, mental damage being rich does to people.
	This is the brain rot.
	Yeah, and that same get-out-of-jail-free card absolutely exists in the back of Russell's mind as well.
	Yeah!
	And we've heard him say it, oh I'm just a comedian, I'm just a comedian, blah blah blah, whenever it suits him.
	And that same thing has definitely come to bear, as with the same cynical money grabbing.
	Great.
	So next he goes off on the media response during the pandemic here, right?
	And I would argue that when you're right, when you have logic and reason and accuracy on your side, you don't need to monitor what the other side is saying.
	You have facts and data.
	And they don't have facts and data.
	They never had it with COVID and that's why they needed so much monitoring.
	You know, why weren't they ever agnostic?
	That's my whole thing.
	I didn't hear one person from CNN go, Ivermectin?
	Hydroxychloroquine?
	I'm not a doctor!
	I don't know what that stuff does.
	I just heard, I learned how to pronounce it 10 minutes ago.
	So I'm not weighing in on what this does or doesn't do.
	Maybe it's effective, maybe it's not.
	You should talk to your doctor and draw your own conclusions.
	No, they all became experts.
	And expertise only went one direction.
	Ivermectin, bad.
	Hydroxychloroquine, bad.
	Social distancing, good.
	Shutting down schools, good.
	Masking up, good.
	Why wasn't there a debate?
	Why wasn't someone going, you know, I don't think shutting down schools is a good idea, could have some long-lasting effects on, it could be, it could be negative, very negative effects on kids.
	How, where was the, I don't know, I'm not an expert.
	Everywhere.
	Consult your doctor.
	Nope, they are all 100% on the same page, going 100% the same direction.
	How did that happen?
	Yeah, how did that happen?
	How did we get to a point of, well, it's called scientific consensus worldwide.
	How did that occur?
	Well, there was some pretty rigorous testing and there was a significant amount of debate, just not involving Adam Carolla.
	We pretty universally agreed the debate on what is safe for the public and what medications work against COVID etc.
	should be left to the people who actually know about these things.
	The people who are scientists and doctors.
	That debate was for fucking Fauci.
	It should not be left up to Joe Rogan.
	Right?
	And yeah, as for the I don't know part...
	This guy has a short memory.
	The first several months of the pandemic was a whole hell of a lot of I don't know, which is why we were told to stay at home in the first place.
	We didn't know what we were dealing with or the severity of it.
	We just knew people were dying at alarming rates, so everyone should stay the fuck indoors.
	The CDC intentionally obfuscated the efficacy of masks so as to prevent, quote unquote, or try to prevent the run on supplies that happened anyway.
	They're trying to please you crazy people and you're still not happy.
	So they even did the other thing for your team that y'all are still running with.
	Yeah.
	And it's just, this is crazy.
	Like, this is like, yeah, again, I'm saying like, he's just saying what works.
	This man knows better.
	And when the legacy media were reporting on COVID safety or vaccines or whether ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine actually do anything against COVID, which they don't, they were taking their cues from actual scientists and doctors.
	It's not like the anchors themselves were like, I know everything about these!
	I'm a doctor now!
	No, the anchors were reporting on what doctors were saying, which is called responsible fucking reporting.
	Good lord.
	And any time something wasn't even remotely ambiguous, that was acknowledged.
	It's like, well, we don't really know this, we don't really know that.
	And again, These commentators are actively subverting how science works and making hay out of those statements too.
	So you don't want them to say we don't know.
	You didn't want them to be agnostic.
	You didn't want them to say we don't know because you're going to complain about that too.
	This is just reactionary.
	And genuinely, He is an expert reactionary.
	This is expert-level reactionary shit because there is no action being taken.
	This is just picking apart in the dumbest possible way that would infuriate someone who could rub two brain cells together and form a sentence.
	Yeah, well the man did go to improv school, so he does know how to react.
	We're seeing it!
	We're seeing it!
	Whatever, he's doing it.
	He's got decades of experience with it, and he's using that for karmony.
	He wants that karmony.
	So in the next clip, Russell pivots to cultural changes, and I think he's feeling a little old.
	It feels interesting, too, that in a fractured culture, the generation of stars is, in itself, in decline.
	It feels like, because the culture is fragmenting, right, for example, this is a good way of saying it, maybe, like Glastonbury, I feel like, you know, this year, I didn't pay enough attention to it, but the year before, it was like Elton John is headlining, and my kids, my daughters, are like six and seven years old, and they like the Spice Girls.
	It feels like the culture can't anymore generate Authentic movement, certainly not in the top line way.
	Perhaps it's now become so fragmented because of the technology and the access that you could just watch all day long very niche stuff if you wanted to.
	There's no need for a centralised culture other than economic requirements and the requirements of control to create the kind of mandates that are necessary to, you know, from the political part of our conversation, i.e.
	to generate consensus through strong messaging, through censorship, There, there seems to be a central culture, but it's a very fraught one.
	But when it comes to entertainment, it feels like there is no unified culture anymore.
	Would you agree with that?
	Say when you watch something like the Oscars now, I don't know if it's a personal thing because I've been cast out of that world, but it seems sort of like ridiculous now.
	I don't know.
	Is that a general view, do you think?
	Like you would ever have been in line for an Oscar anyway.
	Yeah, the dude is just shy of 50 and seems to be wondering why he doesn't know any of the current day musicians and actors.
	Like, he's correct in the assessment that we no longer really have a galvanizing monoculture, or certainly nowhere near in the way we used to, Um, but trying to tell me that, like, we don't have younger headliners than Elton John or the Spice Girls, that's just fucking absurd.
	Like, tell that to Taylor Swift, to Adele, to Chappelle Roan, who may have had the largest Lollapalooza crowd in history watch her set the other day.
	Also, he most definitely didn't pay attention to Glastonbury this year, because while two of the headliners were Coldplay and Shania Twain, The other two were Dua Lipa and SZA and that's a festival with a capacity of 210,000 people which is filmed and watched internationally.
	It's a guy getting older and yelling at clouds about the youth of today.
	I mean, Russell, the music industry is trying to milk every cent of money out of everyone.
	They're putting big names because they want to get as much money as possible.
	They generate revenue.
	Yeah, and the big names want to get paid, you know?
	Yeah, that's the thing.
	It's like, sometimes, yeah, these lineups are getting weirder and weirder because the capitalism has been taken to such an extreme because of shit like Ticketmaster and Live Nation monopolizing live performance.
	But it still isn't true.
	It's just a factor.
	Yeah, it's like, I get that none of these new acts will resonate with you, Russell, but that doesn't mean they don't resonate with anyone, y'know?
	People are into this shit.
	Right!
	We were just talking about it a couple weeks ago, that like, Hulu is catering to my nostalgic taste, not because it loves and cares about me and wants me to feel good, Because it wants my money!
	Yeah, because that's a good market.
	I mean, I feel like it might be working out.
	It's not working out as well as they want.
	The corporations are finding out that disenfranchising an entire Generation of people is not lucrative, but they're still trying to point their marketing at people with the money.
	And children do not have... 20-year-olds don't have money, girl!
	Like, come on!
	Have you seen this economy?
	Jesus.
	Yeah, it's like, college kids, it's their parents' money, and then they get advertised to a lot, and there's this massive void where everyone's poor, and then you get the marketing picking up again.
	Like, come on, that's, come on.
	You know about this?
	So, talking about the Oscars, however, does set Adam off in this next clip.
	I also think that a lot of these franchises Like the Oscars hurt their brand by doing a sort of DEI version of their product and shoehorning a lot of films that nobody saw, that nobody really appreciated into some sort of stratospheric level because they met the requirements, the cultural requirements of that group, you know?
	Ultimately, the brand will be hurt just like Bud Light took a beating with Dylan Mulvaney.
	And so what ends up happening with the Oscars and many of these other sort of cornerstone appointment viewing sorts of things, they sort of Decline and kind of slough off and become semi-irrelevant because they have done away with meritocracy.
	And so we're sitting there and it's going to be hosted by the three black chicks, you know?
	And then you think, are they the funniest or are they just doing it because they're women of color?
	And Moonlight won this year.
	And you go, is that really the best film?
	Or are they just doing it because it's a gay black guy, you know?
	He seems to take issue with black people existing in things.
	I will say up top that the Academy Awards, much like the Grammys, it's not a solid metric of what is going to be good necessarily.
	Often they are politicized popularity contests, which is why if you're chasing an Oscar, you literally have to campaign for it.
	It's a whole thing.
	Regardless of this fact, Moonlight, great movie.
	I think it deserved its Best Picture win.
	What's interesting about this is that he's reaching back to 2017 for his Moonlight example here, right?
	So we're talking seven years ago, when there are much more recent examples of his whole DEI narrative, such as Everything Everywhere All at Once winning seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture in 2022, as a distinctly Asian-led movie.
	Or if we go back to 2019, there's Parasite, that one best picture, despite being an all-Korean cast and the movie being in Korean.
	But no, he doesn't go to either of those examples.
	He has to reach back seven years to the most recent black example specifically.
	Like, ooh, that tells me something, you know?
	Like, hmm.
	Well, because Asians are the model minority in America, so he knows what's effective.
	He knows what tracks.
	Yeah.
	And maybe, I mean, only portions of his listenership hate Asians enough to get going.
	I mean, you should try it.
	It might work.
	You never know.
	Update your ideas, Adam.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Jesus Christ.
	But yeah, the Academy Awards, that famous meritocracy.
	Really?
	Really?
	I mean, you know, Ali makes a great point because the thing about movies is they're so accessible so as to, you know, like, I mean, anybody can make one and it's really cheap and really easy.
	So meritocracy Is really effective and specifically represented by motion pictures in theaters because anyone can do it.
	So you have this wide swath and meritocracy.
	People can really rise to the top on their own merit because of all the easy access to every step Yeah, I've never thought about directing a movie and then looked at how impossible the odds of that ever happening are and gone...
	And no one has ever had that experience.
	It's fucking these people.
	Right, okay.
	But are we going to talk about the Daily Wire shit?
	Because what really stuck with me, his statement of meeting the cult, he is describing himself and his crew and what he's doing.
	So consistently, and then at the very last minute, sharp left turn in that expensive car.
	Creating content, I won't even call it entertainment.
	Lady Ballers?
	Ooh, nope.
	And this little show he's got?
	No.
	But, like, content to meet the cultural requirement of the group, that is exactly what you are doing.
	And what your little friends are doing.
	But, like, and actively, like, this is, like, as far as, like, movies, they're making awful movies.
	That just shoot themselves in their own dick over and over and think it's a win, and it's just... Yeah.
	What?
	I mean... Yeah, because the world loves to see... Do we get to that?
	Please tell me we get to that.
	Westerns with Gina Carano.
	No, he doesn't bring up any of that, unfortunately.
	You don't talk about the cartoon at all?
	No, no.
	But he's, um... He is, however, not done talking about the Oscars and this whole jag.
	So, while they struggle to hang on to market share, The Super Bowl gets more popular every year because the Super Bowl and professional sports and professional football is the last meritocracy.
	It is not corrupted.
	You know, right now we have a black or a half black female who's running for president.
	and half the country's going, is she really the most qualified or she just there?
	Because, well, as soon as you start going, she's just there because you've hurt your franchise.
	You've hurt your business. You know, when if you're walking through the
	quad at Harvard and you see a young black student walking your way and you go,
	I wonder if his SAT scores were as high as the Asian girl or they're just get putting him here
	because they're trying to fulfill some sort of quota.
	By the way, which is unfair to the person because that person may have earned their way there.
	Holy shit.
	Okay, so obviously what he's just said here is pretty horrifying.
	But I want to point out, he's not directly calling Kamala Harris a DEI hire or saying that all black men on campuses or at Harvard have lower SAT scores than Asians.
	What he's doing is far more insidious.
	What he's saying is, as soon as there's even the thought that it's a possibility that Kamala Harris is a DEI hire, the institution loses all credibility.
	To which the only actual answer is to just not have black people participate in anything.
	Because literally, any time any black person has achieved a modicum of success, White America gets together and says, oh, they just got there because they're black and we essentially gave them the position.
	They didn't earn it.
	This isn't a case of Kamala Harris specifically shouldn't be the presidential nominee.
	This is we should never have a black female nominee.
	That's where he's coming from right now.
	And holy shit.
	Yeah, well, or like what he's saying is if she earned it and wasn't an exception on face value, prove it.
	But he has consistently shown over and over, even in just these few clips, he doesn't listen to proof.
	He doesn't listen to the reality of the situation.
	It's just a, it's a vibe he wants to internalize and emotionalize.
	He wants to feel emotionally good about his worldview and he's validating himself.
	This is, I mean, before DEI was affirmative action.
	And the thing is, is like, yeah, DEI, whatever kind of like programs are in place very often are not as effective as they should be or could be.
	And there's a lot of problems in like, in tokenism and and make you know like kind of tokenism.
	Why do I have another word? That word works fine. And I listen to how people of color analyze
	their lived experience and their systemic analysis. Not motherfucking Adam Carolla.
	Yeah, the voice of black people everywhere.
	Also, fuck off is the Super Bowl the last meritocracy, you utter buffoon of a man.
	Again, listen, it's so cheap.
	It's so easy.
	Anyone can access it.
	It's basically like a Facebook quiz, okay?
	And then the best ones get there and it's fine.
	Yeah, exactly, exactly.
	You or I could do it, I just, you know, I don't want to.
	I haven't been around to it, no.
	Yeah, exactly, exactly.
	Yeah, and people tune in to watch the Super Bowl for the friggin' halftime show in the ads.
	It's the same thing every, you know, it's... And then a bunch of right-wing people fucking complain about that every year.
	So just... It's a gladiator con, like, yeah, people like gladiators.
	Yeah, sure.
	Sure.
	We always have.
	We like feats of strength.
	It's a profoundly human trait.
	Yeah, and I think, like, it's one of the last pieces of kind of monoculture left, really.
	It's a thing that everyone kind of goes through, you know?
	And so everyone's like, okay, we'll all do this together.
	We don't do things together very often anymore, so okay, fine.
	You know?
	As a person who has worked events, like art events, that are obstinately scheduled on the same weekend as the Super Bowl, I can tell you, yes, it is when people stay home or go to bars and party.
	Yeah, it is.
	Yeah, it is.
	100%.
	And any other social option.
	Is a ghost town!
	Yeah, yeah.
	What's fascinating, there are Super Bowl parties in this country, and that's interesting.
	It's even crossed the pond.
	Wow.
	Because people like gladiator content.
	They like feats of strength.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	They will show up to a circus to see a man jump into a tiny pool from very high up.
	They want that communal experience, you know, and we're connecting across the ocean and everything else like, oh, this is what everyone's talking about.
	Oh, this is fun.
	There's also millions and millions of dollars of PR and content driving everyone's attention to it.
	Yeah!
	Duh!
	RFK Jr.
	had an ad, didn't he?
	I can't remember how much that cost him.
	Oh my god, we're not, no, we can't, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no Yeah, that happened far too recently.
	That he definitely hit and killed?
	He definitely.
	He blamed it on a lady.
	That's a fucking lie.
	But, I will say, could not have been better timed.
	I'm going to validate everyone listening that listened to the series on Behind the Bastards.
	None of us were surprised.
	None of us were surprised.
	We're like, oh right, he's a weird freak that plays with dead animals.
	Which, listen, I've done taxidermy.
	I collect mounts.
	I used to.
	I don't have any money anymore, but I used to.
	It's the playing with it and leaving it in your car.
	It's not a toy.
	It was a living being.
	And he doesn't really have an understanding of boundaries, say, somebody else's refrigerator.
	So, none of us are even remotely surprised.
	And I've got your back, listeners, because that whole off-brand episode that we talked about Roseanne, there was a lot of shock of like, why are they talking to Roseanne?
	And like, oh, why is she in this set and doing this thing?
	We talked about the talk show.
	We talked about all those things that she's like, This is entirely congruous to what her PR, her team has been trying to make happen.
	Oh, entirely, yeah.
	I was not shocked that the conversation was happening with Roseanne.
	I was like, no, that makes perfect sense.
	I was upset at how little shock.
	I was like, oh yeah, no, I'm familiar enough with these people.
	This is a Tuesday.
	So, okay.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	He just picked a pundit.
	All right, let's go.
	I think this one will fit best.
	Let's go.
	Oh, yeah, okay.
	Yeah, yeah.
	A lot of red flags for a man who wants to be president.
	Anyway, next, Adam turns his sights to Rolling Stone and musicians.
	But the second you start doing that, the franchise falls apart.
	And Oscars did that to themselves and many, you know, Rolling Stone comes out with their list of 100 greatest rock guitars of all time and, you know, 7 of the top 10 are women.
	You know what I mean?
	And you go, oh, come on.
	Give me a fucking break.
	And by the way, how come none of these women ever cracked your top 50 of the last 75 years?
	Why are they all up there now?
	You know what I mean?
	Rolling Stone has, I don't know, the greatest artist of all time, the greatest album of all time is a Lauryn Hill album.
	Oh, it's a black woman.
	It's okay.
	I don't believe Rolling Stone anymore.
	And then Rolling Stone is going to weigh in on Ivermectin, and I don't believe them again.
	And they've hurt and destroyed their own franchise.
	Oscars have done that.
	But when you think about the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl gets bigger and more popular every year because people crave meritocracy.
	Okay.
	Don't fuck with Ms.
	Lauren Hill, Adam.
	She will come for you.
	What's fun about this is- She cannot be bothered with Adam Carolla.
	Oh, nah, nah.
	Maybe not.
	Maybe not.
	Absolutely not.
	That queen does not know this man exists.
	Equally, that is a lady I would not fuck with.
	But, like, Nina Simone level would not fuck with.
	But what's fun about this is he's mentioning specifics, which means I can look them up!
	Now, Rolling Stone does in fact put out these lists of albums and guitarists and whatever every year since 2005, which are compiled by polling more than 300 artists, producers, critics, and music industry figures.
	So not a perfect system, pretty small pool, and everyone has a different opinion, but I don't think anyone in their right mind could argue what's being put forward is not good music deserving of merit.
	So in the present list of top 100 guitarists, there are exactly two women in the top 10.
	That sounds more accurate!
	Accurate!
	Those are Sister Rosetta Tharp, the blues hero, coming in at number six, and Joni Mitchell coming in at number nine.
	Both of which were fucking fantastic guitarists.
	You know, very different styles, but both fantastic.
	I could not find any instance of the list of guitarists containing predominantly women in the top ten, ever.
	Yeah.
	Because that's never happened, Adam Carolla.
	As for top ten albums, on the Rolling Stone charts, Lauryn Hill comes in at number ten, with the miseducation of Lauryn Hill.
	The rest of the top ten consist of Bob Dylan, Prince, Fleetwood Mac, Nirvana, The Beatles, Stevie Wonder, Journey Mitchell, The Beach Boys at number two somehow, and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On takes the top spot.
	Okay, fair enough.
	I'm not going to be mad about the black guy.
	Okay.
	Yeah, right.
	Yeah.
	You could just say the black guy that everybody loves and make people mad about that.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	It's so telling.
	It feels specific choices.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It's very interesting.
	He sounds like Rush Limbaugh because it's so mask off to be completely cynical to me.
	It sounds that way to me.
	Well, didn't he... was it Rush Limbaugh he used to have a segment on?
	Was it Rush Limbaugh's show?
	There was someone's show he used to have a segment on.
	Probably.
	I don't know.
	There's eight of them and they'll never go away until they die!
	I can't remember if it was Limbaugh or the other guy, but yeah, he had a segment on one of these political shows anyway back in the early 2000s.
	But I think Adam got his list confused anyway, because Lauryn Hill did take the top spot on Apple Music's Top 100 Albums list, the very first one that they've done, which polled Apple Music's own team of editors and music experts and a select group of external voters, including artists, songwriters, producers, and some media.
	For those wondering, the Apple Music list went Beyoncé at number 10, Nirvana, Amy Winehouse, Kendrick Lamar, Stevie Wonder, Frank Ocean, Prince, The Beatles, Michael Jackson, then Lauryn Hill at number 1.
	But had he said Apple Music, he couldn't have made his great Ivermectin thing about Rolling Stone.
	Well, I'm not gonna listen to him about that either.
	So he had to stick with Rolling Stone.
	But yeah.
	It's almost like... Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
	No, I was just going to say it feels a bit like he's trying to make excuses here for being misogynistic and racist.
	And just like, I'm going to pretend that these people are number one so that I can be mad about it.
	That runs through his veins.
	Yes.
	He's powered by that.
	But it's almost like these award shows and contests and lists are content that people want to engage with and argue about and that's why they are made constantly.
	That's why listicles exist and that these people also imagine how boring It would be for Rolling Stone to publish the same list every year with minor amendments adding new artists.
	No one would buy the magazine.
	No one would watch.
	Truly.
	It got boring that the Yankees were in the World Series so much.
	If you're in the top two long, no one cares.
	Like, that's... This is... Like, there are levels of stupid in this kind of statement.
	I mean, yeah, it's only a vehicle for racism and sexism because like of all people,
	that's what like is messing with me.
	And maybe always has, especially with Adam Carolla, because if he's a cynical dick,
	man, I'll see you and fucking raise you.
	Cause analyzing capitalism is the one.
	If you want to just bitch about shit, ooh, I got a list for days, and it changes all the time, and I'm fucking fine with it, because the reason, like, the amount of content of old dudes bitching about every list, every year of nominees and inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that you are also a culprit, don't you even, no, no, no, we're not playing that game.
	You love arguing about this shit.
	Oh, no, I do.
	I do.
	I absolutely love it.
	I know it's completely pointless.
	A lot of these people don't, but I enjoy the debate, for sure.
	I'm saying, well... To each his own.
	But truly, the amount of hay that is made That, like, they have figured out the thing that people will argue about for free.
	And, like, the amount of advertising you will get for free and engagement and content you will get for free by making a top five list that everyone hates is massively more consequential than any amount of PR or influencers of everyone liking you?
	Please, come on.
	This has always been cynical.
	I love reading about and hearing about the beginning of the Academy Awards, the people that were so upset at its inception, so upset, and have always been, and have pretty valid arguments for how it is cynical and it is posturing, and you do have to campaign for it.
	And it costs millions of dollars.
	This isn't just everybody watching the movies and making a decision.
	We all know this.
	And it's fun to engage with anyway if you don't, like... Because it's just...
	I don't know, man.
	Think twice about how much your engagement is free advertising for Rolling Stone.
	Genuinely.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Maybe that's not a great use of your fucking time because you're also just pissing people off by arguing with them at the same time, which is like fucking animosity.
	Figure it out.
	Listen, if Adam Carolla wants to get cynical, if we want to have a fucking cynical off, if we want to fucking get down to it, I will beat your ass all day.
	And I'm not, I don't feel that way about, like, this is a new feeling for me.
	Like, oh, if you want to go, let's go.
	You want to get ugly.
	Let's get ugly.
	And I think also one of the worst things about this is the idea that the miseducation of Lauryn Hill doesn't deserve to be number one.
	And that's a fucking great album.
	Fuck you!
	It was a cultural moment!
	It was fucking massive!
	It's a phenomenon, yeah.
	It's huge.
	Yeah, I think she's touring the UK soon, actually.
	I'll have to take a look at that.
	No, I'm just, I'm just, yeah, this whole thing has reminded me, I'm like, Sure.
	Yeah, okay.
	But yeah, good lord.
	Anyway, anyway.
	Yeah, we live in an attention economy and fucking, you know, the stuff that causes controversy is what's gonna get the attention.
	That's, of course, these lists are always gonna have, you know...
	And if someone is using that list to shed light, because also, it's not like it's fucking legislation.
	It's a goddamn article in a magazine.
	Calm down, you fucking baby.
	Because you're bringing attention to a rock and roll legend who is almost entirely erased from history of music using that.
	Yeah, it's fucking cool, dude.
	Affirmative action is fucking affirmative.
	Diversity, equity, inclusion is DEI.
	I love saying it out loud in all the words because these are people that have been marginalized and erased from history and then people like these two fucking dipshits build their careers with no consideration for the backs they're building on.
	Come on, man!
	Yeah, I mean, Rosetta Tharpe being number six, like, that's a big fucking deal, and there will be plenty of people who have read that who will have never heard of her, and they will hopefully go and check it out and be like, holy shit, she was incredible!
	She was on your fucking platform for good!
	Yes, exactly.
	If we're talking about fucking meritocracy, okay.
	I'm gonna drink some water.
	Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, I think we all need to, while Russell makes a particularly stupid point about footballers taking the knee, And to your point about sport and meritocracy, the same thing is happening in this country.
	You know, like football or soccer, as you would call it, continues to be incredibly popular, but it's full of contradiction.
	It was a game that once belonged to a certain cultural group.
	You would have to say working class males.
	As they attempt to sort of repackage and repurpose the commodity, there are sort of odd compromises that happen.
	There are sort of like instances of politicization and genuflection.
	But there are conversations to be had there, even there I would say.
	So for example, like when athletes started to take the knee, there were obvious questions because Well, you know, you're taking the knee, but the royal family are present.
	And how can we be talking about, you know, issues derived from racial inequality, slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and then take a medal from the royal family, who are the living epitome of systems of imperialism and colonialism?
	Seems like we're only interested in gestures rather than addressing the actual power structures that possibly generate inequality.
	I mean, what was the alternative in that situation?
	Did he want them all to, like, gang up and behead the royal family?
	I mean, I'm on board with it, but essentially what this is is another example of Russell saying, well, incremental change of any kind is pointless.
	It has to be everything all at once or nothing at all.
	It's either abolish the monarchy Or live with the system that we already have.
	And that abolishing the monarchy thing seems pretty difficult, so I guess we're stuck with the system we have, guys.
	And don't make any efforts to change it unless you can fully abolish the monarchy in one fell swoop.
	Fuck me.
	And maybe...
	There is a vested interest in keeping the monarchy around, and this is an argument that doesn't hold water.
	I don't think this is the good reason, but there certainly is a reason for keeping these little baby puppets around to dance for their kingdom.
	We could preserve buildings and have museums and there's like mascots that people want to come and take their picture at Buckingham Palace and talk about the Queen, look at the jewels, because it's PR!
	It's PR!
	Branding!
	And branding and marketing is wildly lucrative!
	So maybe there is a whole other section of structure in place that has nothing to do with governing and everything to do with revenue streams that keeps the monarchy exactly where the fuck it is!
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, they are a very neutered organization in this country at this point.
	It's not like they're trying to further empire right now, is it?
	We took that away from them quite a while ago, and it was the government doing that for a long time, actually.
	Right.
	The argument can be made that the Queen had actually very little to do with it either, pick one.
	Just slap her name, like you slap her face on it because it was already happening.
	There weren't decisions, like, yeah.
	Yeah, pretty much.
	There wasn't, like, a dictatorial figurehead.
	They weren't fucking Napoleon.
	No, no, it's, you know, the, well, now king is the head of state, but it's, you know, it's essentially fucking figurehead of state.
	They are there in, you know, ceremonially, basically, you know, is the role at this point.
	There's not a good enough reason to keep them installed, but I'm saying there's a marketing and PR argument that has enough weight behind it to keep them around.
	Yeah, there are plenty of people who make that argument.
	I don't agree with it, but it's not without merit.
	So Russell continues on this and vents some feelings about inclusivity in general.
	Furthermore, there's the sort of sense that however much you commodify football, you can take a World Cup, instead of having it in the summer, put it in the wintertime to accommodate having it in Qatar.
	Have weird moments where, you know, people are going to wear rainbow laces in support of, you know, gender fluidity.
	That's what you choose to complain about?
	establishment thinking, even if that establishment is tradition itself.
	Like one of the points that might be made is, well, we all wear that.
	Athletes or footballers, for example, always wore a poppy to commemorate war, and that is a
	political statement.
	So maybe they should be able to take the knee or wear rainbow laces or whatever,
	which is similarly a political statement.
	But there is definitely the sense that our culture is being used to create something that I don't think is wholesome.
	I don't buy that it's about supporting people or creating love or creating opportunity.
	I don't fully understand its motives, but I certainly don't trust it.
	Oh, fuck, sir.
	I don't understand its motives, but I certainly don't trust it.
	Fucking walk, take a long walk off a short pier.
	Why are you talking into a fucking microphone, you idiot?
	That's amazing.
	Yeah, so all efforts of inclusivity are a vague conspiracy theory of some kind.
	Lovely stuff.
	The rainbow laces thing he's talking about in Qatar was when the World Cup was in Qatar, right?
	A very blatant sports washing exercise.
	And LGBTQ plus activists and people in general were encouraged to wear rainbow laces or armbands or hats in support of LGBTQ plus rights in Qatar where homosexuality is punishable by death.
	I mean, maybe the same?
	more often gay people are flogged instead, which is great.
	Given the punishment for adultery over there is a hundred lashes, I can't imagine what being gay
	will get you. Or they just rot in prison as well. That's also an option. I mean, maybe the same?
	Like, that's probably the same. Maybe.
	Despite FIFA's protests to the country of Qatar, people were prevented from wearing
	rainbow-colored items into the stadium, with anyone who smuggled them in and wore them in
	the stands being well physically escorted out by security.
	Um, it was Stonewall pioneering, uh, the Rainbow Laces campaign.
	And while they stood by the campaign, they also urged their supporters to be safe in a country where you can get killed for being gay.
	Um, hence, maybe you don't want to wear them if you fear for your safety.
	So that's, that's why.
	It's not because, oh, we're not going to do it because it's, you know, we don't want to offend them.
	It's, We don't want to, you know, it makes us unsafe is why.
	It's dangerous to do so.
	And Russell doesn't mention any of that.
	Just, ah, this inclusivity thing.
	I don't trust it.
	I don't know why, but I don't trust it.
	Like, you fucking prick.
	Well, that was honest.
	But also, if you're going to bring up the Olympics, if you can bring up FIFA, the name of FIFA on this good day, you're going to complain about shoelaces and not slave labor?
	Yeah, right?
	I see you.
	I see exactly who the fuck you are.
	And if, I mean, listen, if you want to take back the football, well, where's Football is Nice?
	You have a whole podcast about it.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Be the change you want to see in the world, Russell.
	Yeah, bring back Gareth.
	Next, Adam Carolla's assessment on racism and sports in the United States.
	There's a part of it that I find insidious, which is all the messaging suggests there's a problem.
	So in our American football, in the end zone, the words end racism is scrawled onto the grass and you'll see end racism everywhere.
	I drove here today, there's a There's a sign on a lifeguard tower in Malibu on PCH Highway saying, end hate at the beach.
	There is no hate at the beach.
	But if you're an American, you can't walk 10 feet without seeing a sign saying, stop hate and stop racism.
	We don't really have a problem with racism in this country at all.
	Okay.
	There is no hate at the beach, and there is no racism in America.
	Was it the beach that was stolen from a black man's family?
	That they gave back, by the way.
	Very big deal.
	The one.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, it was cool.
	It was cool.
	Anyway, yeah.
	Listen, this is... I can't be more digressionful.
	Wow.
	Reign it in.
	Yeah, was it the beach that got stolen from the black family?
	Maybe?
	As close to you?
	There's no hate on that beach either.
	I mean, if he means we don't have a problem with racism in this country as in we don't have a problem with it because we're all on board with being fucking racist, then maybe there's something to that.
	There's an argument there.
	But what he's actually saying is America doesn't have any issues of racial discrimination.
	And I'm like, dude, how do you engage with someone who is not living in reality?
	Yeah, any version of that statement is so obviously wrong.
	Blatantly false, just- There is something, yeah, that feels kind of antique.
	Like, genuinely, like, listening to Adam Carolla, right?
	Because I haven't checked in.
	Can't imagine why.
	Yeah.
	But, like, this feels antique because, you know, the, like, Rush, you know, like, Rush, Glenn Beck, the Drudge Report, Alex Jones, like, those people that had this kind of, like, Yeah.
	influence and market share that was bought and paid for.
	But also was incendiary, because people love fucking fighting,
	especially in a toxically masculine culture.
	There is something antique about these examples, which also, by the way,
	we can't be dictated by anecdotal examples, says Adam Carolla,
	but except for every single point he's made has been weirdly specific and alien
	into like most people's experience I know.
	Yep.
	The shock of such a weird, like, oh, that's so weird, it must be true, worked when the information sphere was different.
	When we didn't have smartphones, you could just, like, make a claim.
	And that's what's crazy is, like, even, you know, he was talking earlier, Adam Kroll was talking earlier about, like, how, oh, no one's agnostic, when right before that, The car money quote statement, I couched it within an inch of its life because it was a memory that I wasn't really sure.
	I read a thing, but who's to say?
	I was the most agnostic about it.
	It's basically a theory.
	It's a guess.
	Even though I read it, I remember it.
	I don't know if it happened.
	I just said it.
	It's lore.
	We can play this game.
	Could be albeit apocryphal, yes.
	Exactly, albeit apocryphal, right.
	Unique, right.
	So having that idea that he can just say shit that is demonstrably wacky, not just false, but not really support it.
	It's just all kind of free-flowing.
	He's improvving in a way that is so untethered from reality.
	That's not how other pundits that we have listened to sound.
	There is something antique about it.
	He's not going to have to worry about this because he'll be dead along with all the people that listen to him.
	It feels like he's not going to have the staying power.
	He doesn't have that kind of...
	He's not meeting the moment, whereas, like, even listen to Candace Owens or something, like, she's trying to throw out statistics.
	She's, like, they're fake, you know, but, like, they're, or even Russell, like, he's trying to throw out, like, you know, like, respect, like, very curated clips from respectable news outlets, like, that effort is, and Dan Bongino definitely is, like, referencing real things, like, these aren't just, like, Um, you know, chicken soup for the soul stories, like we aren't really buying that as a culture, as a society anymore.
	That's an antique way of kind of like of telling stories and of like disseminating information.
	We're all kind of like that.
	I think there is an awareness because we have smartphones in our pockets.
	You don't have to know anything, you can just Google and then prove people wrong.
	I mean, if you want to be a dick about it.
	That's the thing, you can fact check till the day is long.
	And you have the resource that you never, we never had that.
	We had to go to a library, we had to learn it from an academic institution, or go to the government and get the statistics from the office by writing a letter, even sending an email before this was Widely disseminated and all in our pocket.
	So it doesn't feel like...
	I mean, shocker, he's not relevant to the modern culture.
	But I'm saying, like, it's weird to hear this particular brand of conservative, like, punditry.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I'm completely with you.
	Like, the presentation and style of it, the talking points, the very specific dog whistles, it all feels like something from 20 years ago.
	Like, just slightly, slightly updated, but only very slightly.
	Yeah, you've got to wonder how he does in terms of market share for that, I suppose.
	It is interesting.
	Now, the mysterious professor chimed in on this portion as well, and he reckons that this whole narrative of racism not existing in the US ties into Adam having had a tough early life.
	He grew up poor and had a chaotic home life and worked a bunch of shitty jobs when he was younger.
	And so it's these feelings of negativity metastasizing in a negative direction culminating in, I had it bad and I'm white, therefore structural racism is bullshit.
	You know, that kind of... And both of these guys are coming from that place.
	Both of them.
	Yes.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Absolutely.
	Right.
	Absolutely.
	There is a clinging to money that is trauma-based, like it comes from trauma.
	It's its own breed, and it sounds different.
	There is a desperation to, I never ever want to be poor again, and anyone taking this from me is going to put me back in that place of trauma and pain and uncertainty, because also you're a kid, so it's even that much more helpless.
	There is a trauma like motivation to get that car money.
	Yeah, and it comes with a hatred of poor people because it's what you used to be and you hate what you used to be.
	Because you hated living through that.
	Yeah, yeah.
	How dare you even remotely attempt to put me back in that place with those people who, like J.D.
	Vance, fucking hates everyone that he, like, hates where he comes from.
	And he hates those people.
	That's why he wrote the book.
	And that's why he's still doing it.
	Yeah.
	Obviously, Adam is not done on this subject.
	But it's still scrawled everywhere, and the reason I think it's insidious, and a lot of people will go, well then so what?
	End racism.
	It's a good thing.
	What if it said, love thy neighbor?
	It's a good thing.
	If I was looking at a culture, and I was looking at Brazil, And everywhere I saw scrawled in their soccer stadiums and on the signs everywhere, it said, end malaria.
	Then I would think Brazil had a big problem with malaria.
	If I came home from my one week vacation in Brazil, they'd go, how's Brazil?
	And I'd go, Brazil's fine, but evidently there's a malaria issue over there because everywhere I went, there was a sign in front of somebody's house that talked about stopping hate.
	And stopping racism and stopping xenophobia.
	And I was like, they're evidently a very hateful group of people who need to be reminded on a daily basis.
	You know, when the black guy is in the end zone, spiking the football with his other 10 black teammates after the touchdown, they're standing on letters that say end racism.
	So I don't like it.
	And I've never liked it.
	Every year for Martin Luther King Day, all the race hustlers get up and they make a speech.
	And this is white and black.
	And they say, we have come a long way.
	There's still a long way to go.
	And I'm always like, give me the examples of what you're talking about.
	You talk about institutional racism.
	Give me the examples of institutional racism and we should work on those.
	But you never give the example.
	You just keep agitating.
	And, by the way, I couldn't imagine being a young black man growing up in this country thinking that this country hated him and didn't want him here.
	But that's what we do.
	See, I can't imagine being a young black man in America because I literally cannot fathom how openly hostile the United States is towards them from birth and what that must feel like.
	I cannot imagine that.
	And yeah, supposedly no one is ever providing Adam with examples of institutional racism in the U.S.
	So here are but a few in case he ever sees this.
	The prison system being essentially a continuation of slavery with mass incarceration of black men.
	The policing system in the U.S.
	being disproportionately more violent and discriminatory towards black people.
	The education systems in black areas being grossly underfunded.
	And while we're looking at that, let's also look at healthcare, water quality, food deserts, pollution levels, and time taken for emergency services to respond to an emergency in those areas.
	And all of those were off the dome and just the tip of the fucking iceberg.
	We don't have a problem with racism indeed.
	Good God.
	Well, and that speaks to the total misunderstanding.
	You're also not listening to anyone who is subsequently affected.
	Growing up in St.
	Louis, you understand that The racism against black people also fucks up your water and your city and your government.
	Yeah.
	Such a profound misunderstanding.
	That's why it's systemic.
	That's why it's the system.
	See?
	Yeah.
	Oh, what do you know?
	Yeah, yeah.
	That systemic racism also impacts you if you are not in that group.
	They and that's to also not care or identify your intersectionality within those impacts is so intentionally obtuse to sound completely.
	It's completely off the wall.
	This is space brain.
	The amount of effort you would have to go through to avoid examples of systemic racism being explained to you.
	In Los Angeles!
	He lives in Los Angeles for fuck's sake.
	You'd have to sit in a dark Faraday cage all day and just come out to record your dumb fucking show.
	That is amazing to me.
	It really is like...
	I mean, I'm sure it resonates with somebody, but it just seems too detached to be completely obtuse.
	I don't even know, who's listening to this and absorbing it?
	Who's listening to this and agreeing 100% oh yeah, there's no racism in the US, there's no systemic racism in the US?
	I think that, you know, you go back five or six years, maybe less, you know, there was less awareness of a lot of these subjects.
	But I cannot imagine how you lived through 2020 in America and didn't gain at least just an inkling of awareness of one of the issues.
	Right.
	Well, I mean, there's so much, right?
	Or even like if you're aware of why Football dudes kneel.
	You've been informed.
	If you know why they're doing it, if you learned it one time, shut the fuck up.
	You're lying.
	You're lying for money and you should stop or admit you're fucking lying for money.
	Because they don't care anyway.
	That's the thing.
	Him being able to say this stuff and sitting in a dark room in a Faraday cage is one thing, but then the people that listen to it and enjoy and then internalize and agree would have to be under a rock as well.
	That's what is kind of mystifying to me.
	I know who Russell is for.
	I don't even know who Adam Carolla is for.
	I genuinely don't.
	Yeah, it's fascinating.
	I mean, there are fewer and fewer rich people in this country that are this clueless and this checked out and this, like, bigoted.
	It's really, I mean, but it's the same thing, like, all right, so, and we talked about this in the Genocron episode a little bit, and I think it's really important to understand and illustrate how outrageous The denial of your world being impacted by systemic racism, sexism, misogyny, homophobia, because a woman, like the box, the whole box, the boxer of it all, right?
	The box, like the, the, the trans panic over this Olympic boxer who just like won.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And that baby of an Italian woman who just couldn't handle losing, I don't know, she's gonna come out and say that it was ambient, like Roseanne, I don't know, but like, because it was so extra?
	She was so extra.
	Understanding that women, women, you will be directly impacted if you have not already been by this transphobia shit, because it is about Women, it's about misogyny as much as it is about hating gay people and hating trans people and hating something that's different than you.
	You will be.
	You are.
	You don't.
	You're not even a step below.
	You're right next to it.
	Yeah.
	And if it doesn't happen soon, it's going to happen later.
	And I can tell you as a person, I think for better or worse, regardless of how I feel about it inside my body, the outside of my body looks female.
	Yeah.
	And I get it.
	I've gotten it my whole life.
	You are not going to be an exception.
	You are not going to be an exception.
	These fucking white guys are.
	White guys are.
	The rest of us are a gnat's wing away from that same oppressive system.
	And just because you haven't dealt with it yet does not mean that you just don't have to look at it.
	My favorite thing about that whole situation was that Joe Rogan has low testosterone and openly talks about taking testosterone, so by their own same logic Joe Rogan is a trans man, you know, was born female.
	It's...
	There's so many mental gymnastics going on around that conversation.
	It's fascinating.
	But what did I say?
	What did I say a couple weeks ago?
	That like just because it sounds completely absurd that there are like gender sleuths that think that they're doing a service.
	You think that, like, listen, they're out there, and they do wear their ugly heads, and this isn't a one-off.
	People are at this all the time, just because it's absurd, and just because it's happening on the periphery that you don't see, it doesn't mean it's not happening.
	Because this wasn't spontaneous.
	There was a structure.
	There was scaffolding underneath all these ideas that just popped up to the front.
	This was not a one-off freak issue.
	This is another systemic problem that will come home to roost sooner than you think.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Oh, and before I forget, the Super Bowl can't have any issues with racism because a lot of the top players are black and therefore...
	So definitely proof there's no exploitation.
	Right.
	Yup.
	That's it.
	We solved it.
	Oh, shit.
	Now, Russell sort of pushes back on the no institutional racism idea, kind of, before then immediately saying, well, I know you have arguments against those things I'm bringing up.
	So before then telling us who he thinks is behind the pushing of this racial equality, how dare they?
	Yeah, that's a good analysis there.
	I feel like people in a contrary position would point to, I guess, economic, prison populations, those kind of demographics.
	And I know you've got arguments, folks, I've seen you make them.
	But I feel like the same interests that were likely behind the execution, assassination, murder of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are not The people are the people that are ensuring that these campaigns are proliferated, you know?
	I don't feel like, you know, that that's the same institutional power.
	That's what it does now.
	Then it killed black leaders.
	Now it generates tension because I suppose earlier we were talking about the necessary generation of fear and here we're talking about the generation of guilt, shame, Okay, um, so there is some evidence to suggest the FBI and possibly the CIA had involvement in the assassination of Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, and while I'm not going to get into that right now, at the very least the world can agree that those institutions at that time were very happy to see those men killed.
	And whatever it's were made COINTELPRO it's there, right?
	Yeah, it's a whole thing. It's a real Um, yes, absolutely. And and and what russell is saying is
	that uh, the cia or fbi?
	Uh are now the ones pushing equality on all of us to sow division
	um Which in of itself takes a significant leap of logic
	suggesting those institutions are no longer racist in any way
	Like, they killed the most prominent black activists pretty much ever, and over the coming 50 years were like, da-da-da-da, we're not racist anymore, alright everyone, let's get to equal treatment for black people and promoting that.
	I can't wait to tell all the organizers at Ferguson, oh wait.
	I need a fucking Ouija board.
	From that perspective alone.
	But also, why should an ideology of racial equality be sowing division?
	That should not be the response.
	Like, oh yeah, they want black people to be treated equally.
	That's just sowing division, that is.
	Yes, among racists it is, and maybe we shouldn't be fucking listening to those people, or to Adam Carolla.
	And the division's already sown.
	Dunbin's sown.
	Yes, exactly.
	Planted.
	Sprouting.
	Growing.
	Proliferating.
	Yeah, like fucking wheeze.
	Jesus Christ. Yeah, yeah.
	That's amazing.
	It's incredible.
	It's incredible, the CIA.
	Okay, quite naturally Adam has one final racist
	point to make along with a pretty dumb idea.
	I've heard in this country from the hustlers 10,000
	times that black folk didn't have access
	to IDs.
	So there shouldn't be an ID presented when voting because it's unfair to certain populace of this country who don't have access to IDs.
	I've heard him say that for 20 years.
	I've never heard one say, I have a plan To mobilize this.
	I want to get an ID mobile and I want to drive it into the black community and it'll be certified by the DMV just like they have blood drive mobiles.
	When they need blood, they'll drive the blood mobile.
	It's a modified Winnebago camper.
	They'll drive it into the community and they'll get blood from people.
	And there's the bookmobile.
	They'll drive that into the community and hand out books to people who need books.
	Okay, let's go along on this journey.
	There are people who are in the inner city who don't have access to IDs or folks who can't get IDs.
	Good.
	Where's the plan to get them an ID?
	Everywhere.
	You keep saying they don't have access to it.
	Let's give them access to it.
	Let's get an ID mobile.
	We'll drive it into the inner city.
	We'll have employees of the DMV working it, and we'll sign people up to get IDs.
	Okay, do it.
	But I've never heard that plan.
	Do it.
	Make it.
	Oh my God.
	If it's so important to you, you got many.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, there are problems.
	Adam wants to create the voter ID mobile, or at least thinks someone should, and I have questions.
	Firstly, who's going to pay for it?
	Because, you know, that's one of the largest barriers to people getting ID in places where there are strict voter ID laws, etc.
	Well, it's gonna cover the cost of all the IDs.
	Adam very specifically does not want his taxes going to the poor, and at this point quite famously hates any money going to poor communities.
	Or are we more thinking, well, fuck those people because they're poor and so they won't be able to use the voter ID mobile anyway?
	Because that kind of feels like where we're going with this.
	Also, the example he just used was of the ID mobile being staffed by DMV workers.
	Nationally, people of color are significantly less likely than whites to own a vehicle or to be able to drive.
	Mostly because of the whole poverty thing.
	So again, who's gonna fucking pay for it, Adam?
	The reality is voter ID laws are intentionally discriminatory, don't stop voter fraud at all, and should be put in the fucking bin.
	And photo IDs also aren't as common as many people assume.
	of all citizens in the U.S. over the age of 65, 16% of Latino voters total, 25% of Black voters,
	and 15% of low-income Americans lack acceptable photo ID.
	Elderly and low-income voters may not have the availability, financial resources, or mobility to
	obtain the necessary ID, and rural voters may face significant barriers to obtaining the
	documentation due to their geographic isolation.
	Also, many rural and Native Americans born at home or on reservations and tribal lands lack the mandated paperwork required to obtain a government-issued ID that fits the requirements to vote.
	Like, how the fuck is the DMV ID mobile gonna get around that one?
	And finally... If you live here, you should be able to vote on how things work where you live.
	Yes!
	Full fucking stop.
	And don't try and tell me that no one is trying to fix this problem.
	Like, the NAACP and black activists have been tackling this for a long fucking time, and it's not their fault if you're not listening to them.
	The amount of like...
	Actual programs I have learned about historically and currently were just running through my head.
	So many.
	So many.
	You can just say stuff if you never learn anything.
	This is what happens when you trust your own, when you are your own consultant.
	This is what happens.
	You say inane things that are completely untrue.
	Yeah, at least Russell just says what he's told to say.
	All right, we've got one more clip.
	They're all a problem.
	Yes, yeah, they are all a problem. They are all a problem.
	We've got one more clip where Russell is naturally signing on to this idea.
	Yeah, that's an interesting continuum because when it comes to, for example, Ukraine, Russia,
	there is no plan for what would constitute a victory and an end point.
	These are kind of, it seems like ideas are just sort of thrown into the culture in order to create, you know, delirium.
	Right.
	But so the question is, is do they want black people to get IDs or do they want to use this to further an agenda that they're not speaking of?
	Yeah, do they want to end the war between Ukraine and Russia or perpetuate a war between Ukraine and Russia?
	Right.
	Yeah, man.
	It doesn't have to do with any of this.
	He's just desperately trying to be like, yeah, I get it, man.
	I get it.
	He just doesn't know America stuff.
	Like he's only got like four America things.
	And so that's what he said.
	I'm going to stick to my safe territory.
	Yeah.
	And from there, Adam leaves the show, etc.
	So according to Adam, it's a great conspiracy to use the voter ID issue among the black community to further Some unspoken intention and no one actually wants to give black people IDs.
	The implication essentially being that, aha, they just want to do away with voter IDs so that they can commit election fraud.
	That's all they're trying to do.
	Now, yeah, I do think that voter IDs should be done away with because they don't do shit to stop election fraud and just act as an impediment to stop people from voting.
	But say we did live in a world where there were strict voter ID laws literally everywhere like these chuckleheads want.
	Well at that point I'd say yes, every single person in the US should have a voter ID and if they don't have one it should be provided for them easily and free of charge.
	Either through an online portal of some kind or it can be done at the fucking post office for those who prefer a physical form or whatever.
	And these people have a right to vote, and if there are any barriers to that, they must be either torn down or overcome at the cost of the state.
	And Adam and his ilk do not want that.
	That is not what they're suggesting at all.
	They would certainly not advocate for putting any money into it.
	They want a world in which there are strict voter ID laws and the people without voter ID, disproportionately made up of people of color, are left to rot and are not allowed to vote.
	That's the project.
	Because they're poor and they're brown or black and fuck them.
	That's the, that's the aim.
	Our taxes are, yeah, our taxes are automatic and compulsory.
	Why is our voter registration not as automatic and compulsory?
	We already have a system and it's gigantic and Byzantine and we need it.
	It could be way fucking better.
	And if people felt like they had more agency to actually get involved in how the government works, you know, like voters, just the baseline, the least you could do.
	It's true.
	If you have the ability to do it, it's the least you could do.
	And it's it's I don't know.
	I mean, Like, I don't know how to talk about this person who's... Well, I do.
	I have a theory, right?
	That has kind of come out through this.
	And what I think is really funny is, like, a number of years ago, you know, when Larry the Cable Guy was a BFD, he was in the public sphere.
	And everybody, you know, like, knew him and came out and was like, oh, he's not like that at all.
	It's a character.
	Yeah, a lot of comedy has always been that.
	It's very weird that people these days, but I do think it is a sea change that comedians are more like, I'm talking about my real person.
	I'm not doing an act or a bit to go to comedy clubs or to be on TV.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Because genuinely, performing a character is a valid form of performance.
	And if you think it's funny, that's fine.
	I don't see the issue, like literally at all.
	Don't think that everyone, like, not everyone is telling you their deepest, darkest thoughts and feelings.
	And just because a comedian said the other day doesn't mean it wasn't five years ago.
	It's a fucking bit.
	It's called writing.
	It's called editing.
	Yeah, Gallagher didn't walk around in that hat smashing watermelons every day.
	Shocking, I know.
	So I think part of that antique sound and feeling...
	Of Adam Carolla, listening to how he talks.
	Because he has, I mean, he's been doing comedy since the 80s at least.
	He's got a long career.
	Listen, career can define a lot of different things.
	This is true.
	Regen is the definition of career, right?
	It's like he has...
	I don't care how much of that is real and how much of it is contrived
	because his impact and the damage he's doing is very real.
	And his platform is big enough to do...
	I don't know who is listening, but it must be somebody or else he wouldn't be on the show.
	Uh so it sounds because when you have a character you can say anything you can make it up because it's a character it's not real you know like a drag persona you can be very different from your real life you know or the undertaker right like there's listen some of these wrestlers aren't actually Risen from, what, hell?
	The dead?
	Like, some people aren't actually, like, zombie wrestlers.
	Like, there's- Yes.
	Not the Undertaker, I think it's somebody else.
	I think it's somebody else.
	Yes, yeah.
	I'm getting my wrestling lore mixed up, but you know what I mean?
	Well, I mean, like, the Undertaker and Kane aren't actually brothers in real life.
	Kane, thank you.
	Exactly, also that.
	That's not a thing.
	Neither are the Brûlée brothers.
	Right, like, that's the thing, is, like, there's these people that aren't actually brothers.
	They didn't actually come back from the dead.
	They aren't actually, like, this...
	Which people shouldn't be shocked by and it sounds to me and I mean it just works for him so why would he change?
	It sounds like because like Adam Carolla is that character even though like Jimmy Kimmel's really fucking famous now and is on TV and is you know for what it's worth incredibly charming and I think is really telling as to what the man show actually worked on maybe somebody was satire and somebody wasn't like that's Feeling a little like that, yep.
	Adam Carolla without Jamie Kimmel or Dr. Drew, ooh, not nearly as digestible, right?
	So that understanding of like a character, him putting on a character, because then it's just like saying, oh, I'm just a comedian.
	And it feels different than like Russell, right?
	Or even kind of anybody else that's been on the show that I can think of in the top of my mind.
	It doesn't sound like he believes any of it to me.
	I would be amazed if he could.
	I mean, because it's so fucking outlandish, the things that come out of his mouth.
	How could you possibly genuinely believe any of this?
	Because he doesn't seem that stupid.
	He doesn't seem that ignorant.
	That's what I'm saying.
	So then think about the leeway, the worlds that are open to you, if it's just a character and then you take the character off and go home.
	And be whoever you are.
	If you're willing to just say anything.
	And especially if you do not have to engage with, like, the news?
	Or, like, reality?
	The freedom of, like, the truly cynical, ugly humanity in that freedom of, like, you don't have to care about a motherfucking person in the world.
	He's hidden behind so many gates of wealth that he never has to interact with reality at all, ever.
	That's that's also an illusion.
	You know what I mean?
	But like, yeah, yeah, because you wouldn't have to be behind all those gates.
	If this were a better place to live.
	Um, yeah, that's it's just, it seems like that's the game.
	And that game has worked for him.
	He has no reason to stop.
	He has no reason to not be Larry the Cable Guy.
	I mean, What a smart way to wear a comfortable outfit on stage.
	Be Larry the Cable Guy.
	Yeah, it's true.
	It's true.
	What a fun shortcut to come from.
	That's the thing.
	If you're putting on a costume and people think that that's who you are and they're getting their ideas confirmed in probably a little more passive way.
	They're just listening while they're on the job site or whatever in the car.
	Yeah, you don't have to be right.
	You don't have to, like, no one can hold your feet to the fire.
	He's like, oh, I'm a comedian, so it doesn't matter, which is fucked up and not true, but effective as long as it works and he gets paid.
	And so what's crazy to me is he did not mention the cartoon.
	It's Mr. Bircham.
	He has a cartoon that has come out.
	Have you heard anything about this?
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's like a... wasn't that the thing with Elon?
	Wasn't Elon in that?
	Was that the Elon cartoon?
	No?
	I don't know if it was an Elon cartoon.
	He might be on it because there's only, again, there's only eight of them and they all have to show up together.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	No, it's a Daily Wire Plus cartoon.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It was on the Daily Wire thing.
	It must be the same one, surely.
	They can't have more than one cartoon.
	I can't imagine why you'd be on another person's show and not plug your cartoon and not even talk about it.
	Especially Russell, he loves cartoons.
	Well, okay, we all do.
	That's whatever.
	But like that kind of, I mean, so he's also dog shit at BR and probably mad about it because if you can't even plug your own cartoon on Your guest appearance on a show?
	Well, it is interesting.
	Like, you know, obviously I keep track of a lot of these wingnuts and Adam Carolla is not a name I see come up particularly often, if at all.
	You know, you don't see him kind of doing the rounds the same way a lot of these people do.
	So that is interesting.
	He is definitely kind of more off to the side and isolated.
	But he's trying not to be.
	I mean, so coverage whenever this cartoon came out was everywhere for me.
	And everyone's really like, where are the jokes?
	Where are the jokes?
	Is this supposed to be funny?
	Who is this for?
	You know, like, okay, well, y'all, it looks like It looks like Brickleberry, but it's not, you know, like that kind of they're like trying to rip off Brickleberry and a couple other cartoons and like doing it really poorly.
	It's just like kind of stale and played.
	Yes.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	That's crazy that he wouldn't talk about it and that it wouldn't at least come up.
	Like, why else are you?
	Why else are you?
	Maybe he knows it's bad.
	I mean, but that's the thing.
	Or maybe it's just not doing well and it's not worth mentioning.
	I don't know.
	But, I mean, because he already got paid, I'm sure, for the work.
	Yeah, that's it.
	That was the game.
	That was it.
	Yeah.
	That's crazy.
	It's crazy that that didn't even... Anyway, I've said the same thing five times.
	Lauren, knock it off.
	Okay.
	But, like, that kind of... The fact that he specifically complained about content meeting the cultural requirement of the group when he is like such an active participant and he is the fit like not the face the voice but like the face like he has a that he made that exact thing you know how few of us could ever even do that have the access in this meritocracy of ours that like we wouldn't
	He not only has the access, he used it.
	He did the thing that he was bitching about.
	The disconnect is so far away from both past and present that it's old comedy, his character.
	He's doing vaudeville.
	He's doing vaudeville.
	It's pretty remarkable, and again we've kind of come back to the point of, fuck I wish hypocrisy mattered to these people.
	But here we are.
	Yet again.
	Well it has to quit being financially rewarded.
	That's the thing.
	You gotta hit em on their money.
	You gots to take their money.
	Period.
	Absolutely.
	All right, well, that's our show, everybody.
	This was interesting.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, I thought so.
	I would have no reason to listen to this man.
	Yeah, right.
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	Bye!
	Rush Limbaugh's still dead.
	Bye!
	Yeah, yeah he is.
	That's not win-win-win.
	That's lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie-lie.

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