Hey, everybody, welcome to the Muckering podcast. I'm Jerry James Sexton. I'm here with the councilman. How are we doing now? You know, it's weird times and the smallest things that can make me happy, I just make sure I focus on those. By the way, have you seen this? There's a there's a there's a chef who watches other people who are making stuff and then it's really Riley commenting on these things. WRY. Have you seen this guy? Check my Twitter feed. It is the only source of Glee I get. I think the only source of Glee you have right now is a professional chef putting people down as they make food. Snark snarked up the wazoo. It's I cannot I'm like, you know, we find pleasure in strange places. You know, we have a whole host of things. We're going to we're going to preview the vice presidential debate in a little bit. A reminder that you're going to be listening to this podcast on Tuesday, October 1st. A reminder, Patreon members, patreon.com/mukeringpodcast. Immediately after the debate, it is going to start at 9 p.m. Eastern. It'll be on CBS news. It's scheduled to be 90 minutes. Immediately after that debate, Nick and I are going to go live. Go to patreon.com/mukeringpodcast in order to watch that live show or to access it later. However, you feel like doing it. A reminder, we're going to bring independent actual analysis. People keep telling us when they watch the the post debate analysis that we give. They get a lot more out of it than they do with corporate media. And we hope that you will join us again, patreon.com/mukeringpodcast. Absolutely. You know, it's it's kind of embarrassing when you end up watching what they see on TV. It's bad. Yeah, but you know, they're nice people. They're just, you know, I'm sure they're nice people. They're just not particularly great at their jobs. So you're going to want to come and hang out with us as well by becoming a patreon. You'll gain access to the weekend or episode that comes out on Friday. You already listened to preview. Come hang out with this. Grow them a correct podcast. We appreciate all the support. Nick, before we get to the vice presidential debate, we have to talk about some breaking news. Over the the weekend, a lot of things were happening on the border between Israel and Lebanon. We saw strategic strikes that took out the leadership of Hezbollah in these bombings. That also, of course, they weren't so strategic. They killed a bunch of innocent people while they were at it. A bunch of Israeli forces started gathering on the border. It looked like invasion was imminent. Well, here we are. Israel has invaded Lebanon. It seems as if special forces have laid the groundwork or gathering intelligence. They are invading Lebanon and God knows where this thing's going to go. I think we might have a sense now. It seems to me, and I was kind of looking through some stuff over the weekend that there is a train of thoughts in Israel based on observations of what's going on here that the technology has improved to the point where when they want to do pinpointed targeted strikes on Hezbollah, they can do that and then they feel like they can then surround them from the north as well, cut them off from Iran, and then maybe sort of once and for all, just get rid of Hezbollah. That sort of seems like what they're doing, and it also seems like because Gaza is subsiding, they pretty much destroy whatever they can destroy in Gaza, and then they can take more of their focus to the north. It sounds to me like they're once and for all going to try and do something to sort of in their minds, try and get rid of all the people that have been trying to get rid of them. How does it work when you try and eliminate an idea? Usually the idea grows, I think, is the answer to that one? Yeah, and usually, I don't know, let's take an example, when you try and eliminate a group called, I don't know, I'm just looking for a random example, al Qaeda. It turns out when you go into these countries and bomb them and kill them and also kill their families, it ends up creating more extremist who are then going to come after you. I just want to remind people, Gaza, what has happened there is not just an atrocity, but like what's happening in Lebanon now is they're going into a sovereign state. They're going in invading it. On top of that, I don't know, man, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just absolutely established himself as a huge piece of shit, is now talking about regime change in Iran, has said, quote, regime change will happen a lot sooner than people think. And so now we're watching them go into Lebanon. They didn't have a plan for Gaza, whatsoever, outside of bombing every single piece of infrastructure and every building that was more than like a foot off the ground. Now they're going into Lebanon to do this again. We've heard from Joe Biden that apparently he's very upset about this, Nick. He's very uncomfortable with this whole thing. He really wishes they wouldn't do it. Unfortunately, we're still going to give them weapons and money. I look at this thing, and it just feels like it's never going to end. It feels like no sort of order is going to be brought to bear in any way, shape or form. We've been saying since October 7 that we were worried that this was going to turn into a larger regional war beyond even just Gaza. And here we are. You know, the other argument can very well be, I mean, I just don't think that the Trump influence is strong is that strong, but it's almost the point where it is Netanyahu who is doing this to cause chaos here as well, to widen that part of heading into the election. No way. And by the way, part of it is calculated for this because he knows that Biden can't risk alienating people who support Israel for those votes. And if he were to say now, we're not going to give you any more bombs or any offensive weapons, which would be fine for probably a lot of people in America. I think they're so petrified that they lose votes, lose the election, that they're not going to do that. And then Netanyahu knows this and then continues to, you know, wage his war. Well, one of the things that they're leveraging as well, and Netanyahu, and listen, this guy is an absolute creep and disgusting person. But Nick, one of the things that Israel has figured out is that the United States, as it's entering a period of declining power, is that client states can do whatever they want. I mean, look at Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, I mean, you know, has had a really, really checkered record in terms of its relationship with America. You know, 9/11 being one of those things killing an American journalist, flirting with Russia and China and just doing whatever they want. And meanwhile, America just keeps helping it, and just keeps like putting forward like new treaties and partnerships. Part of the thing is, as the unipolar world is disintegrating, Israel has choices. Like it's not just that Israel relies on the United States of America, while the United States is supporting Israel, they're talking to Russia. Like they have an incredible relationship with Russia. So it's like one of those things where it's like, Oh, you're not going to help us anymore? Well, guess what? We'll go over here to this other major power alliance that is coming up against the United States. It is obvious that Netanyahu doesn't respect Joe Biden, the stories that have been coming out over the past couple of weeks. It's not just leaks now. It's full-throated reports that are basically like, he will not listen to us. It doesn't matter what we tell them. Like we'll have a meeting with them about a ceasefire. And that day, they will escalate what's going on in Gaza. It's happening again with Lebanon. And quite frankly, the Biden administration has been piss poor in their handling of this thing. They do not respect him. And it's just going to continue until something major changes. And I don't see what it is. I really, truly don't at this point. This definitely isn't going to be taken care of before next month. We know that at this point. I don't know how second care of in the next year, it is determined at this point that Netanyahu and the people around him want to continue this. They're going to keep looking for more and more living space to say that they deserve safety from all these people. I don't know how this thing winds down. It only seems like it's going to grow and it's going to get worse. I mean, for what it's worth, I had seen reporting that did indicate that Palestinians were blaming Hamas more than Israel for their plight based on where they were. It's possible Israel is relying on some sort of version of that as well in Lebanon. And the regime changing Iran is interesting because we had seen over the past several years, some notion of pushback by women, particularly in Iran for the draconian rules they have to live under, laws they have to live under. And CIA has been trying to make that happen for decades. So it's almost like that might also be what they're trying to talk about, some sort of popular uprising to get Iran back to before it was a Sharia law. But again, you're talking about the most chaotic situation in the most chaotic region in the world that could spark all sorts of other wars. You wouldn't want someone like Netanyahu in charge, I think, is the point here. No, you wouldn't. And I just want to point out, we're going to talk in a little bit about the damage from Hurricane Helene and all of these awful, awful images we're seeing out of places like Appalachia. And by the way, I spent 10 years in Georgia and Atlanta right now is being like coated with chlorine gas from a chemical fire. These things, when you start to look at them through the prism that we're talking about, Nick, the decline of American power and influence is overwhelming. Like this does not happen like it does. If America did not have control over, you know, or had lost control over its sort of hegemonic influence. And what we keep seeing time and time again with all these things is that the balance of power is moving in the world. And Netanyahu, who is a criminal trying to evade, you know, prison and whatever else comes with it, is taking advantage of that. And there's no pushback. There's no actual opposition to it. I have to assume Biden said a few choice words if he could even get Netanyahu on the phone. But this is, it's a lot, Nick, like a chess game. I don't know if you play chess. I don't know if our listeners play chess. It could be checkers. I don't care. Monopoly. It's like going around the monopoly board and you look on the board and like, you don't have the hotels. You don't you don't control the major things. And then at some point, you're just you're rolling the dice and you're hoping that you keep landing on community chest or a railroad. And you're avoiding the knockout blow like America right now is reeling and American influence is waning in a way that I don't think most people really want to wrap their heads around. Well, I will also say Netanyahu is taking advantage of this. I mean, so was Hamas, right? Oh, yeah. No, everybody is taking advantage of it. However, they can. Right. And so and that is the real issue here. Right. Which is why this is a true indication of the waning of power of America and a natural waning, which it would never, you know, Rome, Roman Empire, United States, like these things tend to, you know, it's having an expiration date. Yeah, unless you're delusional. And you think that you are going to create an ever existing empire, which we'll talk about a little bit later. The end game here is what we had to do like in Afghanistan, we sat down with Taliban, shook their hand. And as of now, from whatever I've seen, like, I don't think that they have people actively training to attack people in America. Right. I think that is that safe to say? No, I mean, they're just making they're like getting rid of like divorces and making people go back to like, you know, men who had like, you know, taken them as child brides. Oh, I mean, like, it's not a it's not a solution. Like it's especially defense departments perspective. Yeah, it would probably be a solution, right? Well, which by the way, is part of the problem when you look at it through like a geopolitical lens, as opposed to like, what it actually does to people, nothing that's happening right now in the Middle East is going to make anybody's life better outside of the people who are profiting off of these things. Everybody else is just like thrown into the wood chipper, which is the really awful part of this. Right. Right. And but, you know, when you have a mindset, like, in my way, your everyday average is really deals with terrorism on a daily basis. And if you deal with what is happening across the border all the time, you know, and just as the other side does. So what there is a balance there where you have to realize, like, if you were to tell an Israeli who spent, you know, their entire 40 years on this earth or however old they are telling them, you know, what we're going to finally get rid of all those people that have been lobbying rockets for the last, you know, 40 years, you would probably have support for that, you know, as long as it was somehow. And again, they're going to tell that it's really the technology and strategic ability to target these places is very precise. There's not a ton of people that live in them. Wait, wait, time out. Are we talking about the same technology that was used in Gaza? Well, they don't. There is. There are. There also is parsing of that as well, where Gaza is not the same and what they've done to monitor rockets when they're fired and all that stuff is. Personally, anytime somebody says, hey, like, we should be able to do this thing, we offer you security, even though there's going to be brutality in the balance, like, I don't find that compelling, you know, like it's, it's done from like a traumatized activated state, where it's like, well, finally, we need to take care of this and who even cares what the consequences are. And again, to go back to what you said, whatever it is, and however it works out, having someone like Benjamin Netanyahu and the people around him who are carrying it out, it should not inspire confidence. I'll just say. Fair enough. And then, but, you know, but the other issue that this brings up then would be, okay, if Afghanistan and us, we sat down, we made a deal, we shook their hand, we move away, we go away, they're not trying to maybe destroy us, we're not going to get involved. They have autonomy over the country. Now, it's not democratic where they're going to decide every woman is going to be, you know, locked up in house and have to, and doesn't have any rights. But do we have any say in that? Well, I mean, I'll just go ahead and say this, the answer of how to win the game is to not play the game. We shouldn't have gotten into Afghanistan in the first place. Like, there is an ongoing cycle of this stuff, which is might makes right and we're the most powerful. We know better and we're going to take care of it. It always ends up breeding these like really, really repellent situations. And it's part of the mindset that like, you know, America should do this. We're the shining city on the hill. And as a result, we should topple governments. We should kill people. We should, you know, go in and take over countries whenever we want. Nick, you'll notice these things always end up having consequences. They always end up having some sort of a blowback that you couldn't have imagined. Well, a lot of us imagined, you know, as the war on terror began. But like, this thing, there's no easy way to do it. I don't care how much technology you have, whether Hamas or Hezbollah, you know, is rooted into these places, like just going in and like exerting force doesn't fix this stuff. And there's going to be consequences, the likes of which I don't think people are really ready to understand at this point. Well, Jared, we were attacked on 9/11. We had to go into Afghanistan. We had to retaliate. We had to take out Osama bin Laden. You what you think we should just gone in with a really small team of a few, why didn't why didn't we do anything to Saudi Arabia, Nick? Well, because it was Osama bin Laden and he was in Afghanistan. No, I'm sorry. Why shouldn't we've done anything against Saudi Arabia? Saudi Arabia played a role state sponsoring terror. It's the decisions that we make. It's these moments where we say, well, we can't do this because those people are allies in this and we'll do this. It's the geopolitical thinking that always ends up like reaping these awful circumstances. Well, and then to finish that, that thought, if we just would have had a small team with some helicopters going on the cover of night, sneaking in and getting Osama bin Laden, that would have been a lot easier. Oh, well, wait a minute. We actually did that, right? But we had to do that how many years after we destroyed the country? Well, right. And by the way, the thing that we're not talking about here is that whatever the crisis is, whether it's the attacks of September 11th or whether it's what's happening now in Lebanon and what happened in Gaza, there are people who are looking to take advantage of these moments, right? It's not like they're doing it out of the good of their heart, right? There are economic reasons, political reasons, personal reasons, all of that. Like it, it, it really comes down to the fact that like this sort of bakiavellian instinct that has dominated the 20th and then the 21st century. I mean, it's always been here, but like what we're talking about is recent history. That's sort of a mindset, like it, it always has unintended consequences and, and tragic consequences. Like God, no, I mean, we look at the war on terror and like roughly a million people are more died in that. God knows how many people are going to die from this. It's, it's really tragic. Can you rack your brains up with your mastery of history and think about like at some point, it must have actually worked where you killed enough people they give up, right? But then at some point, it changed or whoever with the people that you were killing didn't give up and then more like, right? Or I, I, like, the framing of that makes me itch. The idea of like, we need to kill X number of people in order to achieve Y. I mean, like the most powerful country in the world, the United States went to war with Vietnam and lost. Right. You know, like, and why? Because you can't kill ideas. Like it doesn't matter how much, how many munitions you drop on a place. It doesn't matter how many people are doing the, the, the variables and the algorithms and all that to figure it out. Like it doesn't work. Like might doesn't actually, I mean, like you can conquer people, quote, unquote, conquer people, but that doesn't like make it right. And it doesn't mean that it works out in the long run. Like, I mean, if you go into Lebanon and you take over Lebanon, right? If you, if you like somehow or another unceded Hezbollah, it's not like your neighbors are suddenly going to, I'm sorry, Nick, the phrase is now coming to mind. They will greet us as liberators. Right. Like that, that, that does not come to bear. That's a tough one. It was potentially Lebanon of all places. Although again, Lebanon was also a free and open society that was very modern for a long time. And I wonder if that is part of what Israel is trying to accomplish as well. Like, will they actually, because you know, there have been moments when they've had wars to the north and they've taken huge swatches of a land which they've given back and it's got the borders that moved a lot. I wonder if that is part of their endgame is they want to push the northern border farther north. I have, I know they absolutely do. I mean, yeah, that would be again, a staggering effect on the geopolitical situation as well. But I just curious, I just feel like at some point, somebody must have felt like it did work. This, this whole notion of we're going to just sort of pound somebody and then they're going to just submit. And then, and then there might even be a way where you can point pinpoint a moment where that simply stopped working completely. So not even this, this reason, anywhere. There's a, there's a variety of reasons why it works or doesn't work. But again, I just want to draw this back to one final thought, which is whatever you want to think about the nation of Israel invading the nation of Lebanon, you have Benjamin Netanyahu and a cadre of criminals around him. And to think about then being able to carry out anything that has like some sort of like higher purpose to it or like a good ethical moral purpose. I have a hard time with that. Nick, we need to preview this vice presidential debate. Again, it's going to be nine p.m. Eastern. You'll be listening this on Tuesday. So it'll be tonight. It'll be on CBS CBS news, 90 minutes long. We'll be going live immediately after again, patreon.com/maquariepodcast. Nick, this is probably one of the most anticipated BP debates that I can remember for a long time. There are a variety of reasons for that. We have Tim Walts, of course, from the Democratic ticket and JD Vance from the Republican ticket. I think largely the reason why this feels the way it does, not only because Donald Trump is ducking another debate with Kamala Harris, but I think also, man, do we really want to see JD Vance get the living shit kicked out of him. That would be nice. Have you seen the rumors, which may be Russian propaganda that walls isn't necessarily a really great debater? I mean, that's probably not his greatest skill. I have to do a deep dive and look back at Waltz's debates. I haven't had a chance to do that. But like, he's a good communicator. And by the way, he's going to be on stage with one of the most reprehensible Americans that we have seen in our lifetimes. I do think that the way this thing is set up, you have to think first of all, it's always about expectations. People do not expect JD Vance to do well. They expect him to go out and be disgusting, which he will be. The question is whether or not he'll be graded on a curve. I don't know what Waltz is going to do. I have some concerns about how this thing is being prepped, and the situation Waltz is being put into. But what are your feelings on this? What are your expectations? You keep seeing the GOP have a very strict guidelines when they answer it. To answer questions they don't want to answer. They won't answer it. They will then simply attack the other person for some other random stuff that doesn't connect at all to the question. So I wouldn't anticipate a lot of the deflection from JD Vance. Maybe a sentence where he some acknowledges the question to some degree, and they completely reframes it. But in a, like, intellectually dishonest way, where he will then use it to some sort of springboard to attack, and we'll never get to the actual bottom of like why he would have said at least inflammatory things that they're going to ask him about, you know, about women and cats and single women not having kids and all those horrible things that he said, he will not answer them. And he will, he will, in a very blatant and naked way, the problem is people that are cheering for him won't see it that way at all. Right. They're just going to, once they get turned on by the hatred and the fear of the other party, like they don't, the fact that he won't even address the question, it goes right over their heads. Well, and there's a couple of things here in terms of how this thing is going to play out. A reminder, JD Vance is extremely unpopular. According to an AP poll, his unfavorable percentage is 57%. Last time I checked, 57% means that Republicans who plan on voting for him, or rather for Donald Trump, do not have a favorable opinion of him, right? So there's one thing which is a lot of Republicans have been very disappointed by JD Vance. They don't think he's a good VP candidate. So there are a lot of expectations. Is this guy going to come out and actually win anybody over? I think Walt has a problem. And the problem that Walt has is that he is a progressive, but he is also the VP nominee. And we've been talking about how Kamala Harris has been moving further and further to the right in order to try and open up her strategy to win the presidency. Nick, when you're the VP candidate, your job is to stay in line with your presidential nominee. So the question is, is Walt's going to go out and be himself? Is he going to be able to translate Kamala Harris' new agenda and still be able to be himself? Or is it going to be kind of a big, weird, jumbled mess? I don't know. And that, in comparison to what JD Vance is facing, this might be a very strange debate. I mean, I think Walt's will bury him in a few times, in a few particular instances. But this might end up being a very, very strange debate. I think it's going to be fascinating from that regard. I agree. And based on Walt's schedule, whatever he does won't be from lack of preparation. It sounds like, you know, we had the question, are they over preparing him? Because this guy has not been seen. He should be on a milk carton at this point. Right. I mean, I went to, I went yesterday to see Kamala speak in LA. And you know, he wasn't, he wasn't there either. And it's been very quiet on his part, his part. And yeah, there's going to be a couple really good sound bites. They're going to write for him the whole, he'll nail, I'm sure, related to that, you know, something about, you know, cat ladies, and you know, something about, you know, not needing, not needing the validation of a fam of kids to like be a real citizen in the United States, whatever, you know, they'll have some good ones. And so that'll be the question is, convince, you know, match him or hit a couple times the other side to balance that out or not. Like, I doubt it. They don't have a lot of talent behind them to construct those kind of lines, like the Democrats do. So I would expect it to probably be a little bit, I think it'll be closer than it was between Harris and Trump. But I suspect that walls will probably get it on. What's it called when you get to the end of the thing and you on points? Yeah, when you go the when you go to the scorecard, I think Walt is going to win this debate. And I think in part, it's because he is an effective communicator. And Nick, let me ask you this, is JD Vance an effective communicator? No, no, no, he is. I'm wondering, I kind of feel like he might be okay communicating the bait that's as prepped as this is. But he doesn't have any kind of communication skills than to present them. I will say this, I have watched every public debate that JD Vance has ever ever participated in. And let me tell you something, that dude gets slapped around a lot. Okay. In the Ohio senatorial campaign, there was no shortage of JD Vance being left absolutely gobsmacked. And I think there is going to be a lot of opportunities. I have told people and any sort of advice that I have given. Kamala Harris couldn't go after Donald Trump all that hard. She's a woman and she's a woman of color. And as a result, and we talked about this in the post debate analysis, they came up with a strategy that she was going to react to him through her face and laughter without having to say the quiet part loud, right? In order to try and negate any sort of like misogynistic sort of critiques of her. And also it created a meme strategy, which has worked out very, very well. I don't think Walt has to worry about that. I think Walt has a green light to insult JD Vance. And also, I don't know if it's unique. I'm all for JD Vance being called the piece of shit that he is on live national television in front of the country. It's what people want. Like I've seen, and I don't know what it's like out in Los Angeles, but out in middle America, you would not believe the amount of signs that I have seen that people have made that say I'm a childless cat lady. Like people who are really, really pissed off at the way JD Vance has talked about women and the way that he has discussed a woman's role in society. Like if anybody has been asking to get slapped around at a public debate, it's JD Vance. And I think Tim Waltz might take advantage of that. I understand Midwestern Nice. I understand that might not necessarily be a style, but like if it's going to happen, it's going to happen tonight. And it couldn't happen to a nicer person. So what do you think each of them needs to accomplish by the time this thing's done? Okay, that's a good question. I'd be, I feel like it would be nice if the walls could do it to really lay out some concrete, clear platforms and concepts. Some strong ideas of what they want to accomplish in their first four years, and give us that, lay that out, make that clear. And then certainly, you know, because that sort of hits to what they're trying to hit them on, which is all projection anyway. So anyway, so I would like him just to be able to lay that out clearly and the positive effects that will happen will help the American people. And then I would also expect again, he will wound Vance, he will be able to take a lot of his words that he said and throw them back on him, perhaps even out of context, where Kamala did that as well, where she hit him on the crowd size on a question about something completely else. Maybe it was immigration portion, right? So, you know, that's what we'll expect to send, kind of send similar stuff like that. And so again, well, JD Vance won't have that kind of moment, I don't think, but, you know, he might be able to hit him on some of the things in the border and then, you know, earn those cheap points that way. And then, you know, I don't know, I would be, I would be shocked if they came up with some good line that he could deflect away from his horrible comments about families and women. So real fast on the border, I just want to say, because I don't know when else I'll get a chance to say it, I've been extremely disturbed by people in the hashtag resistance who are like, look how cool Kamala looks at the border, talking tough on immigration. It sucks. That sucks bad. But on that note, I think what Walt actually needs to do is something that he's not going to be allowed to do, which is, as Harris has been moving further right in terms of, like, rhetoric and agenda items, he needs to remind people that there's some sort of a progressive vein to this thing, that there's still an idea that maybe we need social programs that take care of people. I think he's been incredibly effective when he says, you know, you can call this socialism or communism all you want. I call it looking after my neighbor. And like, that type of stuff has been missing from the democratic campaign. I don't think he's going to be allowed to do that. I think one of the issues of why he hasn't been out more and why he's been prepped the way he has been is because they have to find a way to marry Waltz's progressivism and what Harris is currently giving the electorate. I don't know that they can, I don't know they can land that plane. That's a really hard thing to do. I mean, if he does it, if he does it in this debate, I think it will be a really impressive performance. JD Vance has to somehow or another, and I don't know how he's going to do this, he has to show up and perform and not be a total creep. Like, and that that's it. And, and by the way, I don't know if you remember this, Nick, Donald Trump is an old man, and he is running to be president of the United States for the next four years. That in consideration means that JD Vance needs to convince people that he's ready to be president of the United States of America. He's not. You can't do that. There's nothing he can do in this debate that can even begin to allay those worries. So the, the, the lowest thing that he can possibly do. And every debate that we cover, Nick, that involves Donald Trump, we say this. There's nothing that Trump can do that is going to somehow or another change our opinion of him. He is who he is. He can only be repellent and disgusting. JD Vance can't be another person. No matter how much he tries to be, I don't know how he can even come across as like a halfway likable person in this debate. So that expectation, I don't think is realistic. And of course, when it comes to debates, expectations are important and Waltz is going to face heightened expectations against Vance. For sure. And he better point out that like he's not fit that he shouldn't be president either. That's another one to do to hit him on. So we shall see if he can pull that off. But I think he'll be able to, even in the context that you phrased it in terms of helping neighbors, helping other people where who I know, I think that there is a threat he could, he could thread that needle. And I hope he does. I think that that's a compelling argument. Yeah, to remind us that they're not shifted all the way to the right, but it's it's been an interesting shift to say the least. Interesting is a good way to put it. Nick, I have a question on that before we move on to the next segment. So you went to a Kamala Harris event yesterday. We're taping this on Monday. This would be Sunday. What was that experience like? What was the vibe in the room? Did you feel like people are aware that there's been a shift? Like what was that? What was that like for you? No, the vibe was just very, very, very positive. And so it's like, especially when you want to try and juxtapose these two campaigns. There is hope, there is energy. Everyone is fired up. They certainly love it. There was all sorts of people from Hollywood speaking, Stevie Wonder spoke a lot of more set plate. I didn't see her. I got there a little after that. But she came on and it was probably a thousand people in the room, 800 people in the room. And it was pretty thunderous. And it's uplifting. It really is. It's hard not to be inspired when you see all the speakers were leading up to her and then her about what the future of the country can look like. Not spending a ton of time on the Trump stuff where they, you know, it's just enough to kind of like, you know, get us a little bit excited and, you know, maybe a little laughter, a little at his expense. But again, it's really just focused on not going back, right? That's the big one. And it was, it was inspiring. There's no question. Like, you go to those and then, you know, contrast that to Trump where he'll even acknowledge, right? You're not there to get inspired at his rallies. You're there to whip up all your hatred and anger. And it's such a stark difference. It's almost like you walk out of there saying, how can this race possibly be as close as it is? Well, I think again, and we've talked about this a lot. You're talking about the vibes of this thing, like what it felt like to be around it, what it felt like with the rhetoric and the performance and the spectacle of all of it. And of course, you're in Los Angeles. I don't think that Kamala Harris went to Los Angeles and basically rolled out like a centrist or right-leaning, you know, conservative policy. How was the stump speech? What was it more about? Was it more of the vibe stuff that would, did the agenda actually get, get explored or? Yeah. I mean, after the ambition and aspirations and dreams of people, stuff that she really wants to, you know, start off with, she did talk about childcare and child tax credits and starting a startup funding for up to $50,000 for startups. So she got a little bit in the weeds, you know, with specifics and some numbers, which is good. You know, we've heard, it's the same thing we've heard, you know, across the country for the last couple of weeks. But, you know, and it plays well, you know, and everyone understands, you know, that these policies need to be beefed up, right? And more money needs to be injected back into the economy to help people do these things. So, you know, she spent her, I would say, was probably 10 minutes of the 35 minutes of each on it, not bad. All right. Well, speaking of neighbors, anything help, Nick. Hurricane Helene category for Hurricane hit the Florida panhandle with 140 mile per hour sustained winds, it then moved on to Georgia and the Carolinas, where it has been absolute devastation. The estimates at this point are 120 fatalities. I'm sure it's going to be much more before it's over. Trillions of gallons of rainfall led to incredible flooding, the collapse of infrastructure, including roads, bridges, dams, you name it, just absolute under destruction. Currently, Western North Carolina and the Appalachia region is really, really suffering. First of all, I just want to say to anybody listening and any of our fans of the show in that area, please be safe. I hope your deal is over very, very shortly. But this is really a bracing thing, Nick, as we see more of these like super hurricanes that are hitting, more of our infrastructure collapsing. It really, I think, needs to be more than just a passing curiosity. I think it's a sign of where we are going as a country, what we're going to endure. And I think it's a good moment for some real deep soul searching. Well, I mean, we want to focus on why more people keep moving into these areas, because that's an interesting phenomenon, I suppose. And by the way, this is not even the end. We have a whole lot longer of the hurricane season to go. So it's quite possible we see another one of these, if not more. And that's what's so frightening about it. But an article that came out that discusses why more and more people are moving into these areas is pretty fascinating, because, you know, when I living in LA, you hear people say, Oh, I have earthquakes, I would never live there. They understand that there's a danger. Meanwhile, having had one of those really for a while, wait, time out, you had an earthquake like a week and a half ago. Yeah, it was like a five Oh, that wasn't that close. So it didn't, it was, it was not that. And by way, that was the biggest one I had felt in a decade, probably. We haven't had him in forever. You just had a 5.0. Okay, I was that was, I mean, I'm talking about the kind of like the Northridge stuff that we're, you know, stuff's flying off the table or off the the reason why, I mean, first of all, I just want to point out that the people in Appalachia have been failed by this country and into leadership for generations. And one of the reasons, and we're seeing massive migration into areas that are more dangerous, we're talking about places that are going to be hit by hurricanes, massive storms, flooding, fires, deadly temperatures, it's a combination of things. First of all, it's that living in a metropolitan city now is not very affordable. It has, you know, the prices have gone up, rent has gone up, it's almost impossible to find a place that you can buy. So people, especially with tele, you know, telework and telecommunication after COVID, they're starting to leave these cities and go to these other places where it's cheaper. So one of the reasons is because economic precarity has led to a situation where more and more people are having to put themselves in danger in order to try and afford housing and food. And they're not going to get much food there because many of these places are food deserts. They're not going to get a lot of health care because these places don't usually have a lot of hospitals or doctors. And meanwhile, they are more or less being shepherded into areas like Appalachia, like Georgia, where they are going to be in the crosshairs of some incredibly dangerous weather and events because of climate change and on top of that infrastructure that hasn't been updated in generations. And so as a result, we have a crisis that is emerging that is just going to get worse and worse until some things down about it. And you won't be able to get insurance in the covered crisis as well. And I think you nailed it. It's cheaper, right? You know, of course, they're going to the things property rates are going to be a lot less in areas that are devastated by hurricanes often. And it's sad in a way, though, that knowing that people are like, you know, they're so beholden to a good deal or their circumstances just force them to have to, you know, find cheaper places to live, that they will risk doing that, right? And risk putting themselves in harm way. And many people die because of that. That shouldn't happen. And then on top of that, the infrastructure piece of this should also mitigate some of that when they follow the code properly. I mean, we saw in Florida, a whole building just collapsed because they weren't following the right codes. And then that triggered a whole new round of codes that they had to be updated. And I shudder to think how many of those same buildings in that same era, from that same era, were like, thank God that we got to whatever we needed. The answer is we had ignored it for decades. But yeah, it's it's while we have to argue that it's better than a lot of other countries in the world. It's still with with the standard living that we're accustomed to living in the kind of taxes we pay, you would expect that you would have a lot better infrastructure or protections as well, make sure that those codes are being enforced. You would expect that. He really would. You would think that's what would have happened. But the neoliberal era has made sure that that never took place. I'll say personally, Nick, outside of a three year span of graduate school, I have never lived in a so-called blue state. And one of the reasons why I've never lived in a blue state is because, quite frankly, it costs more money oftentimes to live in a blue state than it does a red state. And there's a variety of reasons why that happens. And also, it has incredible consequences for our politics, right? Because you have a lot of people in these states where they've been exploited, where they're not necessarily making a lot of money. Their standard of living is less. And so they're rightfully pissed off. So what are they ready for? They're ready for demagogues to come along and say, I am your retribution. And that's how this thing goes. Meanwhile, because the neoliberal era, and I've always explained it like getting on a plane, where now you have to pay extra in order to like board and have any like overhead space, and then you can pay premium so you can have a more comfortable seat that isn't cramped in, right? Like, that's more or less what's happening in the United States of America. You're now paying a premium to live in a place that theoretically, and of course, everybody's going to be touched by climate change, but to theoretically live in a place that isn't going to be hit by a hurricane every year and devastated, that isn't going to have wildfires outside of where you're living, of course, or mudslides or infrastructure damage or whatever it is. It's basic economy America. And as climate change gets worse, we need to remember something. Right now, it's immigrants who are refugees, right? From war torn countries and places America is destabilized. If you think for a second that as climate change continues to get worse, as temperatures go up, as these storms get worse, if you think that climate refugees aren't going to be treated like refugees from South America, I've got another thing coming. This thing is only going to compound and compound. It begins with the indifference to the suffering that people are having right now in places like Asheville. It increases and increases until that sort of basic economy America is more or less like your shit out of luck. And what we're talking about here, Nick, just to go ahead and bring it back from where we were talking about Israel. We're the most historically wealthy country in the history of the world. We are living in a world that is as theoretically under controlled by the American Empire. This right here, like everything from Katrina on, we need to look at this and understand like, this is decline. Like the fact that this can happen and the people are left to drown on their own roofs and the infrastructure is left to collapse. This is not something that is simply going to solve itself. It is something that's going to need an actual solution and investment. And that's what we've been talking about this show all along. You answer these problems with solutions and in the long term, they're the best thing for the people in the country, but it's also what is necessary in order to stem all of the crises that we're looking at right now. Absolutely. And people are not happy right now about the response. Days and days of no electricity, which is what causes deaths and causes a lot of suffering. And listen, it's not an easy situation to get in there and fix some of the issues they have and get the power back on running. So I feel freely in with that. But if you want to compound that, like you might, I'm old enough to remember back in 2017, I think in North Carolina, that Trump had helped withhold AIDS in North Carolina because they had a Democratic governor that criticized him. And you know, so on top of the suffering, it's going to happen. And this is the general chaos that happens when these things hit, then you're going to have on top of that a president who out of spite and out of retribution is going to cause more suffering on purpose, not only in our country across the world for this kind of thing. So another reason if we have to go back to the Trump stuff, why, you know, he's disqualified. Well, I just want to say really fast, you in go even more recent than that. I mean, COVID, like, I mean, blue states were targeted by the Trump administration. And basically they had a strategy. We want these places to suffer for political purposes. I keep saying, listen, I'm not real happy with the direction the Democratic party is going in. But do you know what happens if Trump gets elected? You know what happens if the oligarchs who support him get their way? We're not just talking about FEMA not operating on like an ideal level. We're talking about FEMA going bye bye. We're talking about all of these funds and things. So like actual people are going to suffer in that case. And the entire point, the entire point of why this is happening is because you are not supposed to help people. You're supposed to give them incentives to quote unquote help themselves, right? Like, if we're going to make sure that you're made whole after a hurricane destroys your home, and you can't even get insurance, Nick. We've talked about that like the insurance companies are backing away from all these places. Like, you are supposed to be paying a premium, which means more profit and more power for these assholes. Like, and but I just want to say one thing very quickly for him move on as well. The answer to this, the infrastructure investment that you and I are talking about actually addressing climate change, it actually means profit. Like it means like you can actually make money doing this. You can actually have a better country. It's just about investment. It's whether or not you're going to actually deal with it, or if you're just going to kick the can down the road and want people to suffer and basically live in a state of precarity. Exactly. So it's like, do you want to give tax breaks to really wealthy people and hope it trickles down? Or do you want to inject money and and business directly into the infrastructure, which will create a much better economy overall and healthier outcomes, better conditions of living. I mean, it's we remember infrastructure week was supposedly every week of the of the Trump campaign. And you know, Biden gets in and he gets some stuff done. He finally actually got that stuff done as Obama did as well. So, you know, the power of lying on the campaign stump is really it has untold influence over people who are already predicated towards voting for a guy like Trump. But they're going to believe that he has some ability to to get infrastructure done when the evidence has been to the opposite opposite opposite for decades. Well, speaking of Trump on the campaign stump, our last story in this episode, Nick, if you could just play a little bit of what Donald Trump as a as a candidate is offering right now, because I hate to tell you folks, it's getting worse. Do it because the liberal left won't let him do it. The liberal left wants to destroy him and they want to destroy our country. You know, if you had one day like one real rough nasty day with the drugstores as an example, but they have to be taught. Now, if you had one really violent day like a guy like Mike Kelly put him in charge. Congressman Kelly put him in charge for one day. Mike, would you say right here? Oh, it's a chain of events. It's so bad. One rough hour. And I mean, real rough. The word will get out and it will end immediately and immediately. You know, it'll end immediately. So Nick, these were the the the rantings of a madman who is declining with mental acuity and becoming more and more dangerous by the day. Can you translate for the listeners exactly what Donald Trump is calling for right there? I've seen this movie. He basically wants the purge. He wants, I think is what I can tell is he wants like a day or an hour where the police just gets whatever they want to do, basically, use and shoot and kill whoever they want, as if that will then again, this goes back to what we're talking about in the Middle East. That will somehow dissuade people from committing crimes for the rest of the year, as if when you announce it on that hour or that day, they'll just go in hiding and wait it out and then like come back and do whatever they want to do. But again, this this is not this is not a serious person. This is not someone who you should be you should be in front of people talking. So one thing that Donald Trump has done repeatedly is to idolize dictators around the world. And one of the things that he loves to talk about is South American dictators who use their police in order to go after drug traffickers and dealers and to kill them to execute them. This is what he's talking about. He's talking about widespread state violence that would send a message and do whatever. Nick, this is bad. Like, I'm not saying that Donald Trump would be able to make this happen, but to even think about electing a person who thinks about this is like a decent way to handle things. He's an inherent fascist. And the thing that he's doing as he's getting more and more scared heading into November, Nick, these are actual quotes from Donald Trump in the same speech. He called immigrants animals who will rape pillage, thief, plunder and kill the people of the United States. At one point, he painted a picture. He said, they will walk into your kitchen and slit your throat. The demagoguery is growing. And the fact that they're saying this stuff out loud without even pausing to think about what they're saying. And they're they're putting this out there in the public. It radicalizes it. It worsens the situation. And you need to understand. And I've said this for years. And you've said this for years. People need to understand this is actually authoritarianism. That's what this is. And that's what they want. And whether or not they'll be able to achieve is a different story. But it is truly what they're looking for. Right. I mean, we're talking about running man. We're talking about having the Coliseum and the lions. I mean, this is what they want bloodthirsty. Now, you have C fights with immigrants. Like, and so that people could like enjoy the blood sport of watching them get like destroyed. Right. Yeah. And it's racist. It's just a long racist lines that that this that notion has existed for a long time. We saw in Django Unchained in the movie, reflected real life. And it's disgusting. It really is. But you can't this is the thing is this isn't this isn't this is planned, right? They are writing these speeches. There are doing it this way because what has happened over the last three weeks, Kamala Harris has slowly been losing her lead. What in response to what they're ratcheting up more and more of this kind of talk. So there's no reason to stop doing it because the polls keep encouraging them to do it. So that's where we're at with that, right? And you know, in a purely political analysis, you have to say that that's that's the only hope they have. They got to keep doing it. And it's got to get worse, right? They're going to have to make they have to continue painting even worse and more scary picture. They're going to have immigrants going to break in and steal our nuclear weapons and destroy that napalm in cities. Like that's the next level they're going to get to. And you know, I wouldn't be surprised that they get some version of that out. Well, they've already hinted at that. Like it's not a matter of if it's when there will be a terrorist attack based on these immigrants. And Nick, I completely agree that this speech was sculpted by Stephen Miller. Obviously, that's that's who put this thing together. Trump put his own flourishes into it. Meanwhile, we all know that Elon Musk is absolutely in lockstep with this. He's part of the strategy. He he helped buy the VP spot spot for JD Vance, speaking of the devil. This is a tweet that Elon Musk put out. Quote, very few Americans realize that if Trump is not elected, this will be the last election. Far from being a threat to democracy, he's the only way to save it. Let me explain. If even one in 20 illegals become citizens per year, something that the Democrats are expediting as fast as humanly possible, that would be about two million new legal voters for in four years. The voting margin in the swing states is often less than 20,000 votes. That means if the Democratic Party succeeds, there will be no more swing states. Moreover, the Biden-Harris administration has been flying asylum seekers who are fast tracked to citizenship directly into swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona. It is a surefire way to win every election. America then becomes a one-party state and democracy is over. The only elections will be the Democratic Party primaries. The only thing holding California back from extreme socialism and suffocating government policies is that people can leave California and still remain in America. Once the whole country is controlled by one party, there will be no escape everywhere in America will be like the nightmare that is downtown San Francisco. Congratulations, Elon Musk. You are going full protocols of the elders of Zion. You took a break from it, but you're right back to it. Great work, pal. Again, he's not smart. No, no, no, no, not smart at all. But he's been told he's been smart for his whole life and his whole life leaves it. This some of this stuff is just intellectual dishonesty, beyond belief. He knows what he's manipulating. In fact, remember Michael Schullenberger, non-front of the prod, the guy part of the Twitter files or the Twitter files? He comes out recently because they're all trying to piggyback on the this is what they focus on. This is it. It's the immigration issue that this is the thing that's going to win the election. And he has these numbers where he's trying to say that 600,000 non-citizens had criminal histories that have been released into the country. And this is what we're dealing with right now. And what it turns out is that those numbers are like over the course of like 40 years. And a huge percentage of that 600,000 or whatever were incarcerated or sent back to the countries that they came from. But they don't care about that. They're just continually trying to scare this out. And this is being shared by everybody, including Musk. And then it gets debunked, but no one ever hears it. So it's just really, really, you're not supposed to campaign like this. And I think the reason was, before Trump, we always said someone's saying, "Oh, we can't go like this." The reason is because that well, there's no bottom to that well. And as soon as you start doing that, you have to keep going deeper and deeper to continue to get some traction. And it will lead to what we've already seen as violence against people who are coming to this country anyway. But it just destroys what reality is. It destroys what evidence-based learning is. It destroys the intelligence of our country. And that's what they need. That's the only hope they have to win. Nick, I know we always point out how stupid and full of lies these things are, but I think a useful exercise is this. Let's take Musk at his word. Let's say that this is actually happening, that the Democratic Party's importing God knows how many illegal immigrants turning them into sleeper cells under their control to take over democracy. If that were true, what should you do about it? Because winning an election doesn't seem like enough, does it? No. No, it seems like you might need to get rid of democracy because it's a vulnerability, correct? Oh, if you want to stop that, yeah, then yeah. Shouldn't you maybe lock these people up or maybe even execute them for treason? For sure. That seems reasonable. Yeah, it's weird because sometimes they'll say this and other times they won't, they'll let it go unsaid. And by the way, for anybody listening at home who's listening to this podcast for a while, I've called it what it is, which is neo-fascism. This is exactly what the fascists and the Nazis were always saying, which is democracy is a vulnerability. It allows the Jews to control everything like it's a weakness that we have to take over. That's why you need authoritarianism. That's why Musk will say it in so many words. That's why JD Vance will say it in so many words. The entire point of this is saying that elections are not free and fair. Therefore, we shouldn't hold them. We need someone to come in and take care of the problem. Otherwise, we are doomed. That's what this is. That's the long and the short of it. And what you just brought up about the well, not having a bottom to it is exactly right. Nothing that we're talking about at this point has anything actually to do with elections outside of possibly winning one and then extending power afterwards. This is about actually attacking liberal democracy as a quote unquote weakness that can be exploited by Jewish people. And that's what this whole thing is. It's literally just the protocols of the elders of Zion with a new code of pain. Right. And just an off ramp from democracy as it is, well, which they don't seem to, again, they don't care and they just need to power. No, they want. They want that. Yes. But they constituents also want it. That's the thing. The 35, 40% of this country want that and they're living in the Republic. What's it called? What's the Republic? Are we living in there? On democracy, it's a whatever republic. It's a constitutional republic. And because of that, these fucking minority people, excuse me, minority rule gets to get to control so much of these elections. And I met saw someone tweet, it's like, how we couldn't possibly go to a popular vote. It's like, I would my vote would be completely negated or I would not have any say at all. And I'm like, no, you would have the same amount of say as I would. And I think that's the point right now you have three three times the amount of vote if you live in these smaller states with electoral college votes. Yeah, and it needs to be done away with like a post haste, especially with assholes like these, like chewing around at the edges. All right, everybody, that is going to do it for this episode of the Muckering podcast. A reminder tonight, Tuesday, October 1st, we're going to be going live immediately after the vice presidential debate. That should be around 10 30 Eastern. Go over to patreon.com/muckeringpodcast and we're joining all the fun. I can't wait to see everybody and get into again what I hope is a massive, massive shit canning of JD Vance. In the meantime, you can find Nick at Can You Hear Me SMH, you can find me at JYsexton. Be safe, everyone.
