For centuries, capitalists ruled the world. They crafted a dystopian hellscape and commodified everything.  Facing extinction, a rebel group emerged to challenge the capitalists. The online left, a group of deviants, zoomers, and millennial misfits devoted to shitposting their way to a better world, one tweet at a time. Will they put aside their hatred of one another to defeat their capitalist common enemy? Find out now, on dystopian times. The future on the line. We're here to redefine political powers. Recognize these dystopian times. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the second episode of dystopian times. I am your host dystopian figurado. So it's really nice to see you all once again. Last week, the panel that I had announced that I would be bringing on. Unfortunately, I'll be having to reach out to them individually since that show was canceled. But have no fear, I will be trying to bring those folks back on. It's really hard to do panel shows when you're just one individual and you don't have a secretary because you have to reach out to each individual person to try to do, try to make sure that, you know, you can schedule them. And oftentimes it's a little bit tricky because I try to bring on pairs. I try to bring on people who know each other or host shows together. So it's a little bit tricky. So bear with me. I'm going to have some really cool things coming up. But today I have a fantastic panel, thankfully here. So, folks, without further ado, let me introduce you to the individuals who will be here with me today. First and foremost, you know him from around the nation. Folks, it is Jeff Waldorf. Jeff, welcome. Hey, Mike. Good to see you, man. Good to see you as well. Glad to have you on, loving the LED lights in the background. It really complements the aesthetic here that we're going for. Appreciate that. Yeah. Next, we have the incredible congressional candidate who I've had on my program probably like 10 times by now. It's Isaiah James running in the 9th congressional district of New York. Isaiah, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me on. Always, always. And folks, I have the absolutely brilliant debate Queen Twitch streamer, YouTuber gamer. It's Tiffany star Tiffany. Welcome to the program. It's pleasure to be here, Mike. So, folks, we have quite a bit of depressing dystopian topics to talk about tonight. So let's just dive headfirst. We have some fun stuff though. So, you know, don't don't worry too much. But I want to talk about the new COVID variant that is officially the dominant COVID strain in the United States. I'm talking about the Delta variant. So NBC News, Erica Edwards explains that the highly transmissible Delta Darien is variant is now the dominant strain of the coronavirus in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Tuesday. As of July 3rd, the latest date for which data was available, the Delta variant accounted for 51.7% of new COVID-19 cases that had been genetically sequenced in the country. Two weeks earlier on June 19th, the variant accounted for just over 30% of new cases. So this is spreading rapidly. And before I go any further, I just want to say that since I've been fully vaccinated, I've kind of like allowed myself the opportunity to pretend as if the pandemic is over. Like I had a pretty normal 4th of July, I've been hanging out with family unmasked, but slowly but surely there's like this dark cloud hanging over me that's following all of us. And it's it's a little bit worrying considering what we're learning about the Delta variant. So one thing that is concerning and this is not yet confirmed, but one leading US disease expert says there's no doubt in my mind that vaccinated people are helping spread the Delta variant. So even if you are protected yourself, there's a chance you could asymptomatically carry and spread this to people who are not vaccinated vaccinated people are well protected from severe illness and death even as the Delta variant surges, but it's possible for fully vaccinated people to be asymptomatic and spread COVID-19 to others. A top disease modeler who advises the White House said vaccinated people should still wear masks. So a little bit of reigning on our parades, but you know, I think that this is important. Furthermore, there's a study out of Israel that's finding that the Pfizer vaccine and most likely the Moderna and Johnson and Johnson are somewhat less effective against the Delta variant. So the beyond tech Pfizer vaccine is less effective at halting the spread of the Delta variant than previous strains of coronavirus according to preliminary study by Israel's Health Ministry. Now by how much? Well, instead of 94% efficacy, we're at 64% with the Delta variant. Now, if all of this wasn't depressing and draining enough, well, there's also the Lambda variants, which is actually more re-relent than the Delta variant. Now the good news about this is that this is not yet the dominant variant and it doesn't look like that's going to be the case for quite some time. It has been found in 30 countries as this article points out. We don't know if it decreases the efficacy of vaccines, but let's read a little bit about this because this is concerning because the Delta variant basically is 60% more contagious and this one is 80% more contagious. So it's like it keeps getting worse. So if you thought the pandemic couldn't get any worse, think again, this is by Dale John Wong, an extremely viral strain of COVID-19 virus has been detected in over 30 different countries over the past month and scientists are now worried that it may prove to prove too resistant to vaccines according to experts, the variant which has been named Lambda strain or C.37 originated in Peru in August of 2020 and has been blamed for causing the country to have the highest pandemic related mortality rate in the world. Now, more concerning is the fact that the variant has not been found in patients in over 30 countries while most of the infections have been confined to South America. A number of cases have also been reported in as far as the UK. Now, the good news about COVID-19 overall is that the vaccines are still very effective. The bad news is that as people aren't vaccinated as the virus continues to circulate, it increases the likelihood that a vaccine resistant strain emerges. So I just for a whole bunch of information out there. I just want to get the responses from the panel. Tiffany, what is your what is your take on all of this? Because I feel like we're headed straight towards an iceberg like we're going to hit it. We're going full speed ahead and it seems as if how rapidly the virus is mutating, we're very soon going to see a strain that is resistant to vaccines and we're kind of all back to square one. Now, note, we're none of us here on the panel or epidemiologists, but what are your thoughts on this? Has this brought you down, Tiffany? Like speak to me because I'm feeling really, really depressed about all of this. Listen, we're not on the course towards an iceberg. We're on the course towards like a ton of icebergs. There's so many icebergs ahead of us that I can barely see the ocean. This is how screwed we are on the bright side. We don't have a president that's going to try and sweep this under the rug and say it's going to disappear by August. This just drives home the point that it's important to get vaccinated while being vaccinated doesn't guarantee 100% prevention. It does defend your body from COVID-19 significantly, including against the Delta strain. Even the Pfizer vaccine, which is less effective, as you just stated, still can stave off the COVID. Although I will say that if the Pfizer vaccine is not as effective, we should probably switch it out for what's more reliable. I'm not sure there's so many different vaccines. Even my girlfriend, who's a biologist, she's actually working for a company making another variant of the vaccine, although she's all hush hush about it. So who knows, but we should not just stop just because we have a vaccine, especially with all these variants coming out, which we've been told that this could happen. There could be mutations or another strain. So we should be prepared for this. But the issue is that a large portion of the population has received the vaccine and there are still a decent amount of Americans who haven't, be it due to hesitation, fear, not being able to schedule an appointment, financial issues, or my favorite excuse, stupidity. People like the anti-vaxxers, those schmucks, or conservatives who listen to right-wing pundits saying that COVID-19 isn't a big deal and wearing a mask goes against your freedoms.  And I don't know. I feel like we can't just go back to normal forgetting, like you said, you were going out to parties and stuff. I feel like a lot of the country is doing that, but we can't just forget that not everyone is protected by this and we can't forget that new strains, even if you're vaccinated, could infect you. Yeah. And your point about the decreased efficacy of vaccines I think is really important. The good news and you kind of like jogged my memory here is that there are boosters on the way. We don't necessarily know what they will or won't do, how much more effective they'll be against these new variants such as the Delta and Lambda strains. But I don't want to be like too doom and gloom, but I say I want to get your opinion on this from policy perspective because you and I talked a couple of times throughout the pandemic last year and you have a lot of different solutions and I wanted to get your response to vaccine hesitancy and what do you think we can do? What do you think is the right solution here? Because for me, it seems like we're going to be in this perpetual pandemic state as a country. If we don't do something else, I am like out of all the things that Joe Biden has done, I think that he's he'd probably get the most praise for COVID-19. But of course, that's that's not sufficient. I still think that paying people to stay home needs to be on the table. What's your take from like a policy standpoint? How can we actually create policy to get ourselves out of the pandemic? And that's an incredibly loaded question, but I know you have a ton of ideas. So what are your thoughts on this, Isaiah? Well, first of all, thanks for the question. So policy fall. So first, I want to jump back to something earlier. You said, you know, you're feeling like dystopian times, but I would like to caution the viewers out there. You know, there's a saying in news and print. If it bleeds, it leaves meaning if it can be sensationalized, it will be sensationalized. So let's not all lose our heads over what's going on. We've all been living with the pandemic now for a year year plus. So we know that these vaccines are affected. They may be less effective than previously thought through this new strain, the Delta and maybe even the Lambda, but they're still effective. That's number one. Number two, the flu mutates every single year.  That's what they do. So this thing is going to be with us from here on out. The Spanish rule of 1918, that virus is still floating around in the world. It's just different strains of it. It has not been eradicated. So COVID-19 is that new virus that's going to stay with us and you're going to need boosters and all these other things. But my whole thing is why make a mountain out of a molehill? And I say that with the respect as this one day, the sun is going to burn out. There's nothing I can do about it. It's going to come. So our best and brightest are on the case to solve COVID-19 as best they can. You said it before, none of us are urologists. None of us are epidemiologists. All we can do is listen to those who are putting power and try to follow their guidance as best we could. So there is no point in losing your head over this new variant is going around circulating and all that stuff. Take the steps to protect yourself. If you can't get the vaccine, please get the vaccine. I'm double vaccinated. So my wife, my in-laws, all that stuff and go ahead and try to live your life because what else can you do? Now, from a policy perspective, absolutely. We should be paying people to stay home from work in areas that aren't, you know, highly vaccinated, such as New York City, where I live. If you look at the map I saw the other day, a lot of the places that have low vaccine rates, sadly are red states, states that are run by Republicans where people, you know, think their freedoms are somehow abridged because somebody somewhere told you to get this shot to save your life.  If you have gone to school in America and the last 50 years, you have been vaccinated with all types of stuff and you have no idea what's in it. I promise you these big corporations, the one thing they care about is money. Johnson and Johnson, Pfizer, none of them are trying to see their stock tumble. They don't want to put out bad vaccines. You know what would happen to Pfizer right now? If 30 million people drop down from the vaccine, their stock would plummet. And if there's one thing these people care more about than actually helping people is making money. So they're doing their due diligence. I promise you. And the other way, you know, the vaccines worked because rich people got it before poor people. That's how you know they work because they put it in the arms of all these rich people before they did poor people. So let me let me disabuse you of any notion that big government is trying to put a microchip in you. From a policy perspective, we need to be, we can pay people, like I said, to stay home. We also, if this wasn't a wake up call for single payer healthcare, then I don't know what is. We had 50 separate health systems, actually more than that because I live in New York City. You have the New York City Department of Health. You have the New York State Department of Health. You have the different boroughs Department of Health. So we need a single coordinated plan to deal with something like this in the future. And not just that before COVID-19 50, 50, 70, thousand people were dying every year because they didn't have access to healthcare. So if this isn't a wake up call for single payer healthcare, I don't know what is. If this isn't a wake up call to let us understand that all these poor communities that have been disenfranchised and left to wither like grapes on the vine need access to technology that they can use to better their cells and better their education. You know how many kids in New York City in Brooklyn where I live who didn't even have access to online classes? Everybody knows my wife's a teacher. My wife literally had to call families and walk them through how to set up the iPad that New York City Department of Education provided to those kids because they don't even have a computer at home. And a lot of them don't even have Wi-Fi at home. It's another thing to let folks know out there that Wi-Fi is a public utility. It is 2021. We should treat it as such. You cannot do anything in this world without the Internet. You need the Internet. So let's stop treating Wi-Fi as a luxury to start treating it as a public utility and make it free to the masses like it was designed to be from the beginning. Yeah, Isaiah. This is why I love talking to you because not only are you liking encyclopedia, but you also have a way of like calming me down when I feel like do more about things because it is true. Like we can only do so much as individuals, right? I mean, we're vaccinated. We take the precautions when necessary, but constantly thinking about it. It's just going to we're going to psych ourselves up out. And I kind of did that this week with the Delta variant when I kind of had my little fourth of July with my family and we all hung out and I thought, is this responsible?  It's strange to me. Jeff, what's your take on this? Because I feel like Isaiah is correct. Like this is going to be something that we live with forever. It's just a matter of like to what extent will this be a part of our lives? Will it be a daily bother? What's your take on Delta? Well, let me just say that there's not a whole lot I can add here. Isaiah, you're very, very thorough. And of course, Tiffany, excellent commentary from you as well. And let me just say like, my only concern is, and this is why I would still caution like, wear a mask, okay? Right.  You're going to be okay. But as far as like going to like a grocery store or larger events, I'd still try to err on the side of caution and wear a mask because you never know. And this is what concerns me.  Tiffany, you talk about unvaccinated people and how and some of your chat points out quite correctly, 99% of all deaths had to do with unvaccinated people in red States. And so what I'm concerned about is, is what kind of, what kind of variants other variants are gestating inside the bodies of, you know, anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers that they're going to spring on the rest of us. You know what I'm saying? Like, like we're going to have the Ligma variant now, you know, and that's not going to be very good. Right, right. It's just, yeah, it's a lot. I feel like when you think about this and you think about climate change, which is an issue that's coming up, it kind of feels like, you know, the weight of the world is on your shoulders, but it is nice to kind of put everything into perspective and remind yourself that, like, as an individual, you can only do so much or only so powerful. And last week, it was, I think it was Dylan Burns who made the point on the panel that like, if we're going to go down, we're going to go down swinging regardless. And I think that you can apply that to, you know, this virus somewhat not too. I will say, I walked into a store for the first time and there was no mask mandate. They weren't checking for vaccination status and I didn't wear a mask. And it felt like I was naked in the store and I actually think I will go back to wearing masks and I will say as somebody who has a beard, I don't have to comb my beard anymore. Like I go, like I just put on a mask and then it's, it's covered. So also I haven't been sick since everyone started wearing masks, just with anything, which is really, really nice. So I mean, some of the positives if we can extract any hope from this just awful story that's affected everyone in a multitude of ways. Okay, folks. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I just want to add one more thing. It was kind of nice not having to deal with people for so long. Yeah. So I'll just add that. Can I also both a variant? Ah, both a very. Do you mind if I add something real quick? Sure. I just want to point out not to be a doomer, but another concern I have not just what Jeff was talking about in, you know, having unvaccinated people spreading different variants across the country, but we just like going through the lockdowns was like hell and we are now just giving people the ability back to like some kind of normal see what's going to happen if there's another strain that's even worse and we have to lock down again and immediately take that back. People are going to get riled up and not just like people, but corporations too, they're not going to want to close down again for any amount of time because of their profits. So I'm worried about if something does happen, even if it's not COVID, even if it's another kind of pandemic. I mean, at least we have Biden in office.  But how are people going to react even though we already saw how they reacted during the last lockdown with people like trying like the governor in Michigan, right? Were they playing the kidnap her? What was the name? Whitmer? Was it? Whitmer. Yep. I live there. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, you know, like, and that was just the first time what's going to happen if we're like, haha, just kidding. You have to go back to wearing masks again. You know, it's I'm worried about that. Yeah, I mean, that's that's the thing. It's like all the freedom that we're starting to slowly but surely get back. The peace of mind that we're getting back like with every single new strain, I worry is this going to be the one that is really resistant to the vaccines. But I mean, if I worry about this, then and really think about this, it's going to drive me nuts and COVID-19 is somebody who's a hypochondriac kind of drove me nuts. Low key last year. So I'm trying to like at least allow myself a little bit of time over the summer at least to feel normal again and spend time with family who I didn't get to see for a year and have a little bit more peace of mind. Not worry about it. So yeah, there's only so much that we can do but the best thing that we can do is educate ourselves and that's the attempt here. So moving on to the very probably more depressing subject I want to say is a climate change. But this is really interesting to me. So I'm not sure if anyone read this. So Greenpeace, they did a little bit of a sting operation on an Exxon executive and they made him think that they were doing a job interview with him and he ended up spilling the beans and we're not going to read all of this but I do want to share some of the article and then we'll get to some clips here because it's not like any of this is surprising. The revelations here are totally predictable but still even having said that you know they're so brazen. So inside Exxon's playbook how America's biggest oil company continues to oppose action on climate change Exxon mobile aims to drastically weaken Biden's climate plans and used shadow groups to aggressively fight climate science insider tells undercover reporter Exxon mobile continues to fight efforts to tackle climate change in the United States despite publicly claiming to support the Paris climate agreement an undercover investigation by unearthed has found a senior lobbyist for Exxon told an undercover reporter that the company had been working to weaken key aspects a president Joe Biden's flagship initiative on climate change the American jobs plan. Now let me just pause for a moment this is not like the end all be all to climate change to say the least this is not a Green New Deal this is woefully inadequate but the fact they're trying to weaken something that's already pretty milk toast to be frank is frustrating because they don't want anything to be done to mitigate climate change. He described Biden's new plan to slash US greenhouse gas emissions as quote insane really Biden's moderate plan is insane and admitted that the company had aggressively fought early climate science through shadow groups to protect its investments not surprising to any of us on the panel but it's really nice to have them admit this right Keith McCoy a senior director and Exxon's Washington D.C. government affairs team told the undercover reporter that he is speaking to the office of influential Democratic Senator Joe Manchin every week with the aim of drastically reducing the scope of Biden's climate plan so that quote negative stuff such as rules limiting greenhouse gas emissions and taxes on oil companies are removed so if you're wondering why Joe Manchin is so apprehensive about doing anything climate related if you're wondering why Joe Manchin has watered down effectively the American jobs plan and removed all of the climate elements to the infrastructure bill here's why it's because he's in the years of fossil fuel funders now I want to skip a lot of this and get to the clips here because keep in mind this is what he believes is a zoom interview he thinks this is confidential so he talks about all of this and I want to hear it straight from the horse's mouth because I think this is really really really this is bad did we aggressively fight against some of the science yes did we hide our science absolutely not did we did we join some of these shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts yes that's true but there's nothing there's nothing illegal about that you know we were looking out for our investments we were looking out for our in our shareholders and you're not going to be able to just switch to battery operated vehicles or when for your electricity and just having that conversation around why that's not possible in the next 10 years is critically important to the work that we do so and that's an entry phase that's that's that's the Senate that's in the House that's with the administration or something like climate change there's some forest fires there's an increase of you know point zero zero one you know Celsius that doesn't affect that people's everyday lives so we'll pause right here does anybody want to comment on this because wow I do let let me just let me just say the ocean was on fire the last week on fire and this guy saying you know we can't just switch to alternative energy within the next 10 years well we can't do any of that why not we already have the technology the only thing that we're lacking right now is the political will and oh yeah by the way not only is the ocean on fire but you had a small that remember that small town I think it was but lighten in Canada normally beautiful no normal moderate temperatures burnt to the ground thanks to massive heat you had the heat dome over in in in the northwest the Pacific Northwest cooking people in their homes I don't I don't recall just how many people died but enough more than enough okay climate change is is is not just an issue it is the issue it is the survival of our species you know we always get made fun of by right-wingers Oh you're trying to save those planet Libby Libs right now we're trying to save our own asses we're trying to save all of us okay including eutroglydites that don't believe in the science whatsoever we're trying to save everybody so again you know actually have a livable climate and yet he's talking about how oh you know we just we just can't do that no the only reason that we can't do that is because of people like what is it my keep McCoy gets paid in order to lobby Congress in order to give these politicians like Joe Manchin fat bribes it's sickening it's disgusting yeah and I wanted to ask Isaiah a question because assuming you'll be elected to Congress you don't take any money from these ghouls but that doesn't mean that they're not going to try to influence you and you know in the event they come to you and they try to get you to back down on some bill or water down something that you're proposing then inevitably there's going to be the entire industry out against you you know these attack ads how do you how do you respond as a lawmaker to all of the corruption and the influence of the fossil fuel industry because I feel like unless there is substantial nothing is going to change so how do you respond to this Isaiah so Justice Briar who was a Supreme Court Justice said that sunshine is the best disinfectant right and for those who know me know that I served in the military I just did an interview yesterday with PBS News Hour about us pulling out of Afghanistan I've been shocked I've been blown up I've been hit by RPGs and IEDs and grenades what is so do you think me as a six-foot-eight black man from Brooklyn cares about somebody saying something about me I don't care about any of that stuff none of that stuff scares me none of that stuff bothers me listen right is right and wrong is wrong I was taught that from a little bitty boy growing up so if I am lucky enough to be elected to Congress man all we we got to keep fighting you don't think people told Nelson Mandela you was wrong you don't people think think people told Malcolm and Martin and sojourning and Marcus Garvey and and and all these people they were wrong and history showed them to be right Martin Luther King got death threats up until the day he died yet he knew he was fighting for something bigger I'm not saying I want to die but I'm not scared of death I can tell you that so if you take death off the table what the hell else can you threaten me what a bad review in the newspaper for people who don't like me anyway okay kick rock that doesn't bother me what we need to do is have somebody in Congress who's speaking out against these things not equivocating not voting present not you know missing both stands up and vociferously speak against these things there's a difference between a leftist and a progressive there's a difference between a leftist and a Democrat or a moderate Democrat or something so there's a huge difference I am not I am none of those I'm a leftist I believe in doing things to help the masses I route to represent the fortune list 500 million not the fortune 500 and what we just heard this man say in the video that's like saying water is wet that's like saying Trump is racist yeah we get that it's baked into the pie so how do we fix that I don't need to see this guy with no goddamn neck telling me that he's a lobbyist and he's trying to kill the climate bill I already know that's what they're supposed to do that's what his job is we get that so let's take let's let's let's pass that they want you to be so ingrained and so enthralled with this and so upset at this that you miss the entire forest that is burning for this dumbass tree that's standing in front of you let's pass that and get to the work of setting about these things in motion these things that we need to do Joe Biden's climate bill is a laughable joke he wants to pull us off of fossil fuels in 50 years and this guy said we can't go electric in the next 10 years who the hell are you to say we can't go electric in the next 10 years we haven't even tried to go electric for the past 40 years we can get things done let me tell you viewers out there something from the planet Earth shot him 300,000 miles into the vacuum of space on a giant moving metal rocket with over a million parts landed him on a celestial body brought him back to this point in space and recovered him safely there is more computing power in my iPhone than it took to put a man on the moon so you cannot tell me and 2021 we cannot get these things done we can get them done but we need the political willpower to do so why do you think people like me are running for office because my opponent takes money from the fossil fuel industry from the natural gas industry listen if this was 1900 I would understand what he was saying this is 2021 all things are possible if we have the political will to do so yeah yeah great point a Tiffany did you want to jump in before we get to the next video yeah I do I don't know the reason that fossil fuel companies and corrupt politicians are against like semi-climate changes because when the world goes to hell they won't be around to see it a lot of these people would have died off by then and until their demise they want to reap as much wealth as possible it's like object permanence if they can't see it it doesn't exist and by the time they admit that climate change is a threat the US coastal cities will be cause playing Atlantis because they'll be underwater there has been articles and data that show that it's actually too late to stop climate change all we can do now is try to mitigate its effects and learn to live with our own man-made disaster we may have been able to get with the program faster if we didn't have money in politics but we live in a country where legalized bribery exists and as such corporations have a louder voice than the scientists and the masses and it's especially frightening to me and a lot of people my age a little older and younger very younger because not to get worse so it's it's very depressing yeah yeah and I thought that you brought up a really good point Tiffany in talking about adaptation as well as mitigation because when we have conversations about climate change it's always about you know what do we do to stop it's always in that context when we have to acknowledge that it's here right now and we also have to equip ourselves with the ability to adapt so I actually the video hasn't been published yet but I share a photograph from my mom's backyard so I live in the Pacific Northwest we just experienced the heat wave and her plants facing the sun it looks like they were hit with a torch completely burned and when you start to really see things like that and last year in Portland we had the wildfires where the air was literally considered hazardous it really puts things in the perspective and you think wow this it's no there's no longer like this idea that climate change is coming you really realize in a concrete way that it's right here and there's something really there's something about that that's like a wake-up call it's like that you know coming to Jesus moment and I've had many with regard to climate change the IPCC is 12 year deadline seeing it you know in the Pacific Northwest Jeff I think you wanted to say something yeah I just want to add it up to add on to something that Tiffany and said you know a lot of these people that are also that don't believe in climate change or don't believe that we should do anything they're the same kind of people the doomsday cultists that think that oh no we don't have to actually do anything because Jesus is going to suck us into heaven anytime now any day so you were talking about the come to Jesus moment they literally want think that they're going to come to Jesus and they're not going to have to deal with the mess that they have made on the earth which sucks for the rest of us yeah yeah and and that's actually an issue that I've discussed with individuals in my family who are evangelical where you know when climate change comes up it's like it doesn't matter we're going to be like raptured in like three weeks so right lol mic it's that's a different story though we won't go down that rabbit hole having said that though I do want to watch one last video from this from this sting here if we want to call it that it doesn't even feel like it's a it's a sting but it technically is but it's just it's really really insightful you know nobody is going to to oppose attached all Americans and in the cynical side of me says you know we kind of know that but it gives us a talking point that we can say well what is I saw move before we'll work for our carbon tax what you said was just really interesting so what so it's basically never going to happen right is the calculation yeah no it's not it's not going carbon taxes isn't going to happen so this helps me understand a little bit why suddenly a lot of car a lot of US oil majors are talking about the I I I I I I I I I I I I the cynical side of me they've got nothing else so it's a um it's it's it's it's it's an easy talking point to say to say um look I'm for a car tax so so that's the talking point that that that is a in my mind in a effective adequacy tool so the reason why I wanted to play that clip is because I think that this is kind of like a microcosm of a bigger issue in the United States and you can apply this to any other issue you know um this is what probably a healthcare executive would say about single-payer healthcare or even a public option and so it speaks to this issue here and this is a bit of a broader question that I wanted to ask the panel theoretically would make climate change mitigation and adaptation legislation easier the question is what is quicker and this is a very loaded question and I don't think there's a perfect answer to it but it's like if we have to get money out of politics first if we have to defeat capitalism before tackling climate change like what do we do do we go straight for climate change with imperfect political institutions I don't I don't know where to begin and I think that for me is what makes this a little bit overwhelming climate change is one of those issues where it affects everything right so if there was this issue where there was pollution in the ocean alright well you create a bill to tackle the you know pollution in the ocean clean up the ocean yada yada but this is such a huge thing where virtually everything on the planet is touched so I wouldn't even know where to begin and I guess what I'm saying is like if it comes to climate change in your opinion Tiffany what would be like the first thing that you would hope movements would focus on and there's there's no perfect answer to this but like if you could narrow it down where do you even begin sorry for the loaded question even if it's too late to stop climate change we still should not give up on getting money out of politics and and stuff like that we should still strive for that and even if it's not perfect we we have to do what we can with the system we're under so any kind of climate change action is better than none even if it's not perfect but still we we should focus on getting corporations off our backs so we can actually focus on fixing the planet you know where we all live yeah yeah Jeff I mean really time is of the essence here so I'm not exactly sure I'm I'm kind of in the same boat that you are where where do we start what's going to be the the the quickest course of action and you know it would be nice to have enough members of you know for example the squad and is you know for whatever problems they have to push a green new deal okay we don't have enough of those people in Congress and we have people like Joe Manchin and we've got people like Kirsten Cinema and and we've got you know oil lobbyists and we have the money in politics so but then you try to remove the money in politics and how big of a process is that going to be and again you run into all these political headwinds and you also have not just divisions within the Democratic Party and I think unfortunately for me not to get it's like super doomer but I'm totally going to get doomer here I don't see anything except for a major catastrophe and it already feels like we've had major catastrophes as I mentioned earlier the ocean was on fire apparently that doesn't seem to be enough for month for certain politicians to move their ass on this and so you know what what is it the question is what is it going to take what is it going to take for them to actually get involved and and to start doing something about this and I just I shudder at the thought really yeah and there's no way that you're going to be able to have like a 100% you know effectiveness rate in terms of like curtailing CO2 emissions one thing that I always kind of go back to in terms of like where do I begin from the Guardian that it sites a study that concludes that 100 corporations are responsible for 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions now if we we stop all of those polluters right away that's still you know a lot of greenhouse gases that are pumping into the Arab but it's a start so I wanted to pass the question off to Isaiah who's more of the policy wonk on the panel and future lawmaker what would you do let's say theoretically speaking you're designing a new piece of legislation aimed directly at those 100 fossil fuel emitters not all of them are American companies like do you push for nationalization do you push for some sort of a cap how do you actually get them to stop killing the planet and again like these questions are so broad and it's hard to answer them because they're it's a lot but what is your general take on that Isaiah oh you're muted there we go it's not hard to answer for me this was actually pretty easy to answer so there are 1.7 million corporations on this planet 1.7 million there over 35 hundred stocks traded on the United States stock market on the New York Stock Exchange right but there are only 535 people who sit in our governing body that make the bills and the laws and the rules of this country so you want to start somewhere you start right there at the heart see what we're talking about here is in our echo chamber of pain we're asking the slave master to understand the plight of the slave but they don't get it because they're on the other side of the whip and we are receiving the lashes to them in their mind this all makes perfect sense because we're corporations we're business people this is what we're supposed to do so we don't need to talk to those people because they'll never understand the plight of the every man and every woman around this country and around this world you see what I'm saying so we're we're speaking to the wrong people you want to find a place to start guess what the house is up for election every two goddamn years not every six years like the Senate they're not appointed for life like the supreme court every two years the house is up and there are enough young people and people who care about the climate and healthcare and fatal justice reform and every other goddamn thing we talk about on the left to swing every election in this country in Brooklyn there are two million people over 700 450,000 registered Democrats if 10% of them came out and voted we would we would move the needle and that's true in every single municipality locality state and every federal election so this is not that hard Mike this is actually pretty goddamn simple well you started why are you going to go to Exxon Mobile to try to get them to understand your reasoning you're speaking as a working person or a poor person they're million billion executive you speak and Mandarin Chinese and they're speaking American sign language just going past each other we're not even asking these people to hear your plate is is ridiculous it's never going to work so what do we need to do we need to extricate ourselves from talking to these folks and we need to mobilize behind people like you and Jeff and Tiffany and myself and anybody else out there in TV land who wants to make this world a better place and we need to push those people forward I'm running for Congress that's what I'm doing in my part Jeff and Tiffany talk about politics and spread the word to the masses that's what they're doing to their part for all these people who are in the comments right now they need to to to put their backs to the wheel stiffen their spines and understand that these people aren't going to concede power without a demand power never concedes without a demand they don't give a damn you already heard it they're not going to be around when this world goes to hell Mitch McConnell is holding up bills and he'll never have to live under and this is not just the Republicans if we're going to bash their side which they so vehemently deserve we have to bash our side too Nancy Pelosi they're all in the same goddamn vote they're all rowing the same boat in the same direction they just do it with a smile on their face the biggest polluter in the United States America is the United States military Democrats vote for that goddamn funding bill every single year yeah how do you stand up and say no Joe Biden is increasing that bill right now so listen it's like they're bombing you with a with a prize flag on their plane it doesn't make any difference the bombs are still killing people so we well we need to understand if they just give it to you with with with a with a with a smile and a frame of soul I live in a a democratic city our police budget is the biggest in the goddamn world the NYPD is bigger than some armies and this is supposed to be Bill de Blasio he's supposed to be a Democrat he ran for president don't let him fool you so listen we need to create our own political will on the left I hear me what I'm saying this is not Democrat and Republican the left of all of these corporate cronies is where people like us need to reside because if you call yourself a progressive Kamala Harris is a progressive Joe Biden said he was most progressive person to ever run Barack Obama was a progressive Bill Clinton was a progressive we've had years and years of progress and we keep getting the same goddamn outcome so how about we try something different organized and fight for the change that we know is needed and let's just I'm not talking to you I'll leave you with this is Voltaire quote to administer to to try to use reason on somebody who has renounced it is like administering medicine to the day it's no point yeah that's a great quote well having said that we've talked about two very depressing subjects let's get to a little bit more of a light-hearted segment folks this week it is the weekly of stupidity and I had something in mind but somebody made a tweet that made this individual leapfrog the other person who was going to be featured so having said that let's let's roll the tape in a world of politics dominated by the strange the deranged and outright insane will now take a moment to shine a light on the craziest of what politics has to offer this is your weekly dose of stupidity and the one who made the cut this week with this absolute banger of a hot take so this is basically I mean as a leftist I don't think I could ever show my face in public again because this is a thorough hypocrisy burn so he writes the same people on the left who rent ceaselessly about expensive supposedly endless wars with no exit strategies are in favor of the counterproductive and endless war on poverty in which we economically burned villages in order to save them folks I don't know where to begin so this this tweet almost broke my brain actually I'll leave it up all all people let it kind of like marinate any thoughts thoughts on this folks I'll jump it on that one first okay someone who's actually been to war three separate times on two separate fields of battle both Iraq and Afghanistan who wasn't infantry men Bench heroes a complete goddamn idiot there's just nowhere okay the guy thinks just talks really fast like this and he says words of nobody he makes a point he doesn't make any point with the war on poverty is nothing like an actual war where human lives are being taken at the end of a barrel and a bomb dropped on these people like Bench Imperial and all the rest of them on the right and even some on the left who are so quick to fund our military industrial war I promise you this I don't think I can impress upon you enough how absolutely horrible war is there is no other comparison there is that what I hear people you know in football talk about we go to war every Sunday it always gets me pissed off I'd go to war with you man no you wouldn't it's not what you think it is so people like him just have no clue of what they're talking about when I see a statement like that I know for fact that you're completed here there's nothing I can say to you that can ever change your mind because if you would say something my father's a veteran I'm a veteran my cousin's a veteran my uncle's a veteran so if you would say something as asinine as stupid as that there's nothing I can say to you is going to make you change your mind because if you haven't contemplated the seriousness of war then and you're just using it as some arbitrary thing to make a point for your your callousness and hatred of helping for people in the richest country on earth then you are beyond saving my brother I'm sorry you live your life enjoy your life and I'm going to work to make people's lives better yeah yeah beautifully put Jeff I know you have a lot to say I know you're a huge fan of Ben Shapiro what are your thoughts here? this one should have stayed in the drafts bro painful I mean again it is like asinine has said you're going to compare the war on poverty the so-called war on poverty you know to actually help people feed them clothes them make sure that they can actually survive you're going to compare that with dropping bombs on primarily brown people let's keep it real that's who they drop the bombs on now of course dropping the bombs of brown people happens to make white people CEOs very very rich and so of course we're going to keep doing that instead of actually feeding poor people who actually you know need the money and need to be fed and all of that stuff know it really shows our priorities as a nation are so incredibly ass backwards and to have someone like Ben Shapiro this guy's supposedly the the the you know intellectual dark web right cool kids there's nothing intellectual yeah there's nothing intellectual about that yeah yeah I mean to these folks they think that it is more egregious to feed people than to stop killing like that says so much about them Tiffany what are your thoughts on this did this break your brain as much as it broke my brain because I feel like I still haven't fully comprehended everything that he's trying to say not that he's trying to make a coherent point but Tiffany what are your thoughts yeah I'm actually still dumbfounded by this ass nine tweet my brain cells are currently committing suicide I do find it hilarious that he he says the left wants to end wars when there are actually a lot of Republicans that also at war with other countries the only people that do are like the the nut jobs are like nothing's more American than killing innocent brown people in other countries you know uh this comparison reminds me of that really terrible one Gina Carano did with uh you know how conservatives are not like persecution is not unlike the Jews in concentration camps like it's that level of stupidity it's like it's not even comparable but I'm not even sure what he was trying to get out with this tweet my brain doesn't work right now Mike I want to say I want to say something so the the narrative of service and you know veterans in this country has obviously been co-opted by the right you know they think only and my reasons for serving weren't patriotic they weren't you know some unabridged unabided sense of freedom I was poor there were a lot of recruiting stations where I grew up and they offered me a job in healthcare in free college to travel the world so I was I was do I have to do but there's nobody on the left that can speak to these things because you know let's just throw somebody who's very popular on the left AOC if she says something what the hell does she know she's a bartender from the Bronx if Corey Bush says something you know Jamal Bowman of Ilhan none of them have the experience to actually speak to this and everybody who serves in congress or serves in the military always winds up being a Republican while I'm a leftist I'm a Democratic socialist unabashed and if I hold up my uniform this right here all the metals and ribbons and all the dangly bangly things and all that stuff I have all of that and I'm not you know a soldier who happened to be a leftist I'm a leftist who happened to be a soldier so I would I would implore everybody right now in in the comments go tweet at Ben Shapiro and ask him to debate Isaiah James you can find me on Twitter Isaiah for congress on this very topic we're talking about right now and I will go in his show in my dressed blue uniform and I will sit there and call him an idiot to his face and let him understand why what he's saying is not just detrimental to the overall conversation of war and poverty but it's also disrespectful to the now you may not agree with the people who want the war I don't agree with why I was sent to war but people are dead on both sides let's not forget about the people in Afghanistan and Iraq and Africa and all those people all those lives that are lost and this conversation respect then to have this in pimple talk about it like it's just some arbitrary subject that he can just tweet out of the 140 characters and get away with it if it irks me to no end and I would employ everybody go tweet at this ass clown and tell him to debate Isaiah James if he thinks he has such if he has all the answers I will just offer to moderate that debate I can't necessarily promise impartiality but I will try I think that would be really nice to have somebody who's a leftist who's anti-war who has that experience in congress Jeff did you want to add to that? Yeah you know something you said it kind of kind of made me think about how right now the military has been used as a jobs program and and of course what they do is it they end up of course drafting people who are it's the poverty draft essentially oh don't worry hey our country we're not going to pay for you to get a higher education over seas right in order to get that education oh you're you know you're poor well don't worry you know we can give you health care we can pay you you know not really that great of salary because an E1 makes what $19,000 a year and there are and and one of the biggest uses of food stamps are on commissaries and so we don't even pay our troops very well imagine 700 over 700 billion dollars a year and very little of that actually goes to the people on the ground who are doing the fighting and dying and most of that ends up into the pockets of the defense contractors that is a fucked system excuse my language that is a fucked system and it is indicative of how little they actually care about the people who serve Isaiah and it's a you know it's broken it's so incredibly broken all the things we fight for on the left you know jobs program right housing education if they're so bad why do Republicans that's was saying the military uses to recruit your ass so they're obviously not bad they're just bad when we want to give them to people without having them to risk their lives think about that yeah that's a great point Tiffany did you want to say anything before we go to the next topic military stuff is not my for day it's not something I'm familiar with same yeah but I just want to say to chat that in addition to asking Ben Shapiro to debate Isaiah you should also hell out of that Tweet and let him know just how dumb it is indeed indeed with the caveat of course YouTube that we are not encouraging we're getting a harassment just you know absolutely the most light-hearted commentary what's what I'm looking for like polite commentary I guess yeah don't Tweet there are complete asshole or anything like that don't do don't call him don't call him or fuck face don't do that okay can we can we just say that that Tweet it those high-level ideas really put our brains into into recovery mode I can't even think after reading that shit recovery mode okay folks so moving on to the next topic here so Biden plans to enact a Trump rule allowing drug companies to price gouge on life saving treatments just take a moment to like let that sink in this is from Donald now the plan initiated by the Trump administration in January would gut a key government power for making short taxpayer funded pharmaceuticals are available to the public at reasonable prices now I just want to read two paragraphs from this the Biden administration is officially moving forward with a Trump rulemaking plan that would eliminate a key government power for driving down the costs of drugs and other inventions built from federal research the rulemaking was included in the administration's unified agenda of regulatory and deregulatory actions for spring of 2021 that was published on june 11 the agenda compiled by the office of information and regulatory affairs outlines the actions that the administration intends to pursue in the near and long term it is in final rule stage which means it's promulgating agency in this case the national institute of standards and technology plan to publish a final rule or an interim final rule or to take other final action date of October 2021 so long story short what Trump put into place Biden is bringing it home and I just want to also speak to the six-year goal now I believe of the Democratic Party who ran on lowering the cost of prescription drugs it looks like that is going to die that I don't know that they're going to be able to accomplish that unless they're coming up that's supposed to coincide with the infrastructure plan but Joe Manchin is already eyeing the reconciliation plan that Bernie Sanders is putting together trying to water it down further so it just feels like something that could be an easy win for Democrats they are totally fumbling and it's deeply deeply frustrating one because I know that this is going to lead to them losing in 2022 which was already probably highly likely but second of all that they're correct so there's a story that I'm working on coming up about Nina Turner and how she's running for Congress shout out to her also a great congressional candidate who everyone knows by now but what's interesting about that story is that there's this primary race taking place in the 11th congressional district of Ohio and it's Nina Turner versus Chantel Brown and the Democratic Party establishment is strutting out everyone as their opponents and the argument that the Democratic Party establishment uses is that look you can't elect people like Nina Turner they'll say the same thing about Isaiah James you can't elect someone like Isaiah James because these folks are too firebrand we need someone who's more pragmatic who can take concrete actions to move us in the direction that we all want to go even if we're not making as big of leaps as the left would like but when it comes to that argument aren't they arguing for us that we need firebrand progressives in there to light the spark under their asses because very clearly they're not fighting as hard as they need to be so Tiffany what are your thoughts on this story it's a betrayal obviously but I mean I just see 2022 as a bloodbath for Democrats at this point it's a betrayal for sure but I mean we kind of knew what we were getting we knew that he was a corporate establishment milk toast hack and we knew that not just him but a lot of other not just Democrats but Republicans have like their coffers filled by pharmaceutical companies to do shit like this and it's depressing hold on brain fight I just had like a point and I totally lost it I get that I had that last week on the show actually but um god damn it I forgot oh get back to me yeah Jeff go ahead and jump in so look I love how they're missing the obvious slam dunks and this is by the way this is the same thing that every single administration even the Trump administration came in oh these pharmaceutical companies they're ripping you off I'm gonna do something about it oh and then by the way I met with some of my donors and decided that I'm not gonna actually do anything about it and that's the major problem it's the same thing every single time they say they're gonna you know because the price of pharmaceutical drugs is insane I mean you have insulin that's $300 of vile and it costs a dollar to make you have those insane you have people like Farmer Bro the Martin and Shkreli's of the world I forgot about that driving yeah that are driving up the cost of drugs because of obviously of capitalism and so you know you have these situations where these people are doing things and these politicians will come out and they'll basically run on this because it is a major problem healthcare is actually the top issue now in this country you know even over the economy over COVID any of that well COVID of course is related to healthcare so it's a part of that but healthcare the cost of healthcare in general is so popular all across the political spectrum you know conservatives are like oh yeah the pharmaceutical jobs here they're really expensive okay let's do something about it now of course their solution is oh we should get rid of the government no no you actually have to get government involved in the way you know like getting Medicare at Bernie Sanders plan for example to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical companies our government is the only one that can't that's why you can go to other countries that's why you can go to Canada and get insulin for much much cheaper because we manufacture the drugs here and we sell them to other places right and they can negotiate the prices and so they can actually offer them cheaper and of course they have universal healthcare we don't have that here we are completely at the mercy of these of these ghouls that are price gouging us so they can buy a yacht that they can park in their second yacht we have to do something about this and the politicians that are not doing anything about this have to be replaced I know some people are very very doomer when it comes to electoralism but it is actually incredibly important you know Isaiah is running for office this guy is super based vote for this guy vote for people like this guy who are actually going to do something about the problem and not take money from giant pharmaceutical companies in a simple please get involved it is so important to get involved especially in primaries primaries primaries where you don't get stuff with the Joe Biden's of the world the milk toast Democrats get involved yeah and before we go to Isaiah we'll get back to Tiffany but I just wanted to say you brought up insulin I just read this really I guess it's a late stage capitalist story like we filed that under late stage capitalism about how Walmart is essentially going to be selling insulin for $75 per vial and this is supposed to be like something that's celebrated right because finally it's affordable and yeah it's more affordable we're giving Walmart this monopoly on insulin and it's just one of it reminds me of those stories where it's supposed to be like heartwarming when a kid creates a lemonade stand to raise money for their mom's heart surgery or something like that like we've all seen these kinds of stories and I just feel like it's we live in hell I mean I don't even know where I'm going with that but Tiffany did you want to jump in or do we want to go to Isaiah do you want to say Isaiah first and get back to me okay thanks so there are 33 industrialized nations in the world 32 of them provide some form of guaranteed health care to their citizens the only one that doesn't is the United States of America I'm talking Canada Japan South Korea France Germany Italy Mexico all of them provide some form of guaranteed health care so what we're talking about here is not reinventing the wheel we're not talking about being pioneers of something we're talking about single-payer health care we can model that after any one of these countries so then ask yourself if the answer is right in front of you this is Occam's razor what is the simplest solution to why we haven't done this not because of the complicated intricacies of health care what is the simplest solution the simplest solution is the fact that politicians on both sides are being paid by the health care industry that is it all of this stuff we talked about climate change wars poverty health care none of it will get done until we divorce money from our politics that is it that is the crux of every argument you will ever hear about politics anywhere to divorce money from politics because guess what when we have politicians who have to go to the people to get their vote then they have to work for those people if I know you're not going to give me any money why would I ever come back to my community why would I ever do anything for you why would I ever listen to what you have to say I just ask you off to an intern because I know I can just go call up the the guy from the lobbyist from Exxon and get you know $50,000 in my campaign coffers so the big issues with divorce money from politics now to the smaller issue of not smaller like lesser issue but to the secondary issue of Joe Biden allowing pharmaceutical companies to still run roughshod this is what you get when you elect a corporate democrat let's be clear I didn't vote for Joe Biden I wrote in Bernie Sanders just because you have a D next to your name does not mean you get my vote I promise you that you have to earn my vote and I am not going to vote for the man that gave us the crime bill I'm not going to vote for the woman who locked up black people for smoking weed when she went on the breakfast club radio show and said yeah I smoked weed those are hypocrites to the umpteenth degree and you don't deserve my vote because if you weren't running for president you would look down upon me with disdain I already know who you are so we got exactly what we expected on the left from Joe Biden he's no different from all the rest of these these damn corporate republicans that's why I call Democrats low calorie republicans they're the same animal they're the same people there are no differences between them the only difference is they stab you in the back with a smile republicans just run you right over and democrats do it with a smile on their face and they're so but I want folks to understand out there that the tide is shifting the older generation that fell for their BS they're still out there but this new generation who has unfettered access to technology unfettered access to information unfettered access to community building via the internet we're not falling for it anymore because we understand that this this piecemeal approach does not get us where we need to be this halfway approach you know what incrementalism gets us it gets us three fifths of a person that's what it gets us in the constitution the southerners couldn't agree the northerners couldn't agree so let's meet in the middle let's be moderates let's call black folks three fifths of a person you know what it gets us it gets us Jim Crow so the Negro's got freedom but we don't want them near us let's give them their own things separate but equal none of it actually works we need bold reformational change on all of these things I know we're talking about individual things but we have to understand that all of these things are interconnected because if you don't have your health you can't go to work you can't go to work you're relying on the government you pay taxes to to give you some assistance but when the republicans are cutting assistance then you can't do that then your mental health suffers but you can't go get help for your mental health because they don't fund those programs you have to go to the hospital because you're sick but then you get a huge bill but you can't work and you're bankrupt and you can't go get a goddamn loan because the banking system is already corrupt all of these things are interconnected don't believe that these are disparate issues don't believe that your problems are only your problems alone me up here in Brooklyn whoever's listening out there in Utah your problems are my problems I want you to know that I want you to know that it's going to take all of us together to turn this mighty ship that is America because the iceberg is dead ahead we're staring at it it's climate change it's income inequality it's racial injustice it's all these things we see right in front of us and if we do not turn this leviathan of a ship what happened to the Titanic it was unsinkable until it wasn't unsinkable America's no different we can slip beneath the ways like the Romans the Greeks the Assyrians the Turks all of these major empire did not take care of what they needed to take care of when it was time to take care of it and they are now history we're no different so don't make no mistake we need to band together and I know I'm going into a tangent but that's how my mind thinks I don't just see issues a singular issue people ask me all the time why I say what's the most important issue you're running off that's a goddamn fallacy there is no issue that's more important than the other because if I'm homeless that's my most important issue if I got cancer healthcare's my most important issue if I got these damn $200,000 student loan people calling me every day that's my most important issue and all of them are the most important issue yeah and I mean we started out the show talking about climate change and that affects basically everything I mean immigration poverty everything is interconnected and I like that you know you do have this holistic approach because I think that a lot of lawmakers aside from the corruption and the legalized bribery as Tiffany eloquently referenced earlier is that they're very short term in their thinking right they're thinking about what's going to get me to the next through the next two years or the next four to six years never about like what's in the future so you know it's whatever is the hot topic or the big thing that everyone is freaked out about currently and usually it's a manufactured issue you know Fox News is talking about critical race theory right now and it's all just the distraction from the serious issues that people are experiencing currently Tiffany did you want to go back to your yeah sorry about that no problem yeah sometimes you know like brain cramps like it just takes time to like get it back yeah I had like a whole paragraph in my head and I lost it but anyways it's just rules like this that drive people to travel out of country to get their medication and surgeries they even have like new segments on how people go to Canada to purchase medicine that is required to keep them alive it's ridiculous the solution of this would be Medicare for all and I'm not talking about some like government like Obama care which by the way is still better than nothing at all but insurance and pharmaceutical companies are preventing that from coming to fruition as I said before these corporations pay off our politicians in order to make our lives harder and for them to get richer the cost of hospital care in the United States is two to three times greater than in most similar countries despite us being the wealthiest country in the world no good reason why our healthcare system should be this broken I don't have the study on hand but I remember it's something about something like 80% of Americans can't afford an $800 emergency and that's ludicrous we shouldn't even that shouldn't even be an issue in the richest country in the world so like Isaiah said we need to band together and push back because we we can't live like this yeah yeah absolutely well put folks so um what we're going to do now is we've got one major story left to talk about but we're going to take a quick two minute break to focus on our featured content creator of the week this is an individual who I think a lot of people already know I've been a fan of him for quite some time so let's go ahead and we'll watch something that you should definitely check out hey what's up dystopian times it's Matt Strakbein otherwise known as the letter hack now I think most people who follow me on twitter know me as that guy who's always making comics about Sam Cedar in the majority report but I have two goals really one I want to promote as many leftist media types as possible and two well I just want more people to read comics now I try to watch all the shows the humanist report rational national secular talk like it or not status coup I try to watch them all because I like what they have to say and frankly a lot of these people make for some pretty hilarious content this year I'm self publishing an original graphic novel called Milagro it's written by Geromo Zagara with art by Ross Radke and myself it's a story of a failed luchador living on the streets of Mexico City in self exile it's a contemporary fight comic rated bv for brutal violence but it's got a lot of heart and soul I like to say it's the story of a wrestler not a wrestling comic per se but we brought on a consultant who's an actual wrestling coach and the founder of the catch wrestling alliance in order to make sure that we get all the fight choreography just right but also to make sure that all the moves are as brutal as possible we're also using a translator to help us out with all the Spanish dialogue Milagro is a thoughtful tale grounded in reality and it's a story of what it takes to be a hero when all you know how to do is fight the Milagro Kickstarter is live as of July 5th so you got to get on it and consider backing us if you can't back us for some reason please share the link far and wide we have some great rewards for you like sticker sheets art prints and also full color digital portraits by myself as an add-on reward for all the info you'll need on Milagro head on over to our Twitter profile at comic Milagro or my Twitter profile at the letter hack where we have all the links that you'll need to back the campaign plus tons of behind-the-scenes artwork once again the Kickstarter is live and running through July so you got to be quick thanks again for the support left is best read more comics alright so Mitch McConnell was very offended here actually let me share my screen to me one sec because he claims that Democrats and I don't even necessarily agree with him here I don't think that most Democrats believe this is the case but he says that Democrats don't think that corporations are people like who would say of course corporations are people in fact there are more people than people are but let's let's listen to this turtle speak friend on the other side I've got corporations are not people well what about all the people that work there got them and all the people that stop and their retirement accounts our friends on the other side corporations are not people so that's basically it I mean it's Mitch McConnell he basically I mean what is like seven layers past bootlicking bootlicking isn't the appropriate word for Mitch McConnell there's got to be something more because I mean it's not like this is surprising because this is the Republican Party this is both parties for the most part but to be outraged and brag about the fact that you are the party that believes corporations are in fact people as some sort of a gotcha to me I feel like that really is like truly dystopian Tiffany I'll go to you because I know that you said that you were looking to talk about this go ahead yeah I he's not licking the boot it's firmly up his rectum he's just it's comfy there he loves it every time Mitch McConnell opens his door I can't help but roll my eyes corporations are run by people but the company itself is not a sentient being worthy of personhood and honestly I think Mitch McConnell knows this otherwise he wouldn't he would be more concerned about corporations and billionaires not paying their taxes but here's the thing Mitch McConnell has been subservient to corporate America throughout the entire political his entire political career as of many other corporate establishment politicians so even if corporations were considered people they would only be considered as such until it was inconvenient to be so for example if a law passed limiting the amount of money a person can donate to a politician I guarantee you politicians would walk back the whole but corporations are people narrative I hate to sound like a broken record but as long as we have money in politics and legalized bribery a.k.a. campaign contributions these kinds of talking points are going to be persistent Jeff did you want to jump in here you know our friends on the other side they say the corporations are people what about the people libs equals owned I mean no seriously though we're never going to recover from this I'm so thoroughly owned my brain is now back in recovery mode and never left for me no I love how this is to them it's a gotcha but understand that the people that are a lot of the people that work at these corporations they don't see the benefits of their labor and so yeah the corporation is by the way an amoral machine which is run by a CEO board of directors and all these top level executives they're the ones that see pretty much all the profit and it does not go down to the workers doesn't trickle down to the workers and it's actually a very authoritarian type of thing I mean when you look at the American workplace in general it's not democratic whatsoever and so no the whole argument of saying that well I mean you should care about the profits of a corporation because that's what this is and not tax them which is really important that means you're somehow looking out for the people no you're looking out for your donors you're looking out for the very richest people there who are doing diddly shit for the actual workers no you want to help the workers you want to help the workers you know you make sure that you and by the way this would help the corporations too healthcare Medicare for all take the burden off of employers and do something cheaper like Medicare for all and everybody gets healthcare and then again that's so these corporations can actually then pay a living wage and by the way we shouldn't even be asking for just a living wage we should be asking for $25 an hour minimum and four day work weeks yes there was that study from Finland that absolutely pointed out how guess what four day work weeks oh Iceland sorry no problem yeah thanks for correcting me I didn't want to put out fake news or misinformation I would get I would Facebook would come after me you know how it is you'd be cancelled I pointed out for spreading extremist content but no the four day work week six hour days because of course studies have shown how you know the brain kind of shuts down and productivity drops after six hours that's what we should be doing that's how to actually look out for the workers in these corporations not whatever kind of tax cut bullshit mumbo jumbo trickle down crap that Mitch McConnell is trying to push yeah yeah Isaiah did you want to jump in here because I know that you're probably chopping at the bit because Mitch McConnell I mean he's such an easy target because look at him but at the same time I mean it's not it's not super surprising coming from Mitch McConnell so what Mitch McConnell did was very very insidious but it was actually very genius pay attention to the word that he said there's a big difference about people who work before a corporation and people who work at a corporation so let's let's not he was making a difference without a distinction so allow me to do so people who work for a corporation are those who care about the shareholders and getting the bottom line up and profits over profit over loss and margin and revenue and all that stuff those type of people other people Mitch McConnell was signaling to the people who line his coffers every campaign cycle people who work at a corporation are just like everyday people like you and me who just got a job to put food on the table and to try to survive but when he lumps all of them in together without making that distinction anybody who was against them is now against the little man is now against the little woman they want to they want to get rid of your 401k they want to take away your pension which he fails to mention doesn't mean a damn thing in 2021 because whatever pension you have is not enough to survive off of this isn't 30 40 years ago when they give you a pen you can you can want a regular union job you to buy a house a car and put two kids to college that's that's let me again disabuse you of that notion so that's not anything he's talking to the people who wear suits and ties to work and I don't mean a $10 tie from from Walmart I mean a Briani tie that's $250 I'm not talking about a suit jacket from men's warehouse I'm talking about a suit jacket from Armani those are the people he's talking to but he lumped them all together so anybody who's against that is against you know working people so that's number one number two we again we know what they think about Republicans actually aren't that hard to figure out actually they make it very easy you know I mean they care about money nothing else nothing else it may look like different forms in the form of war military industrial prison you know the tough one crime the prison industrial complex keeping government out of your healthcare the pharmaceutical and healthcare industry all of it stems back to they just like money so that's very easy to figure out how to be we need to get enough people in office that can tip the scales in the balance for everyday people it's that simple I know it's it's a monumental task I know it's a hard task I ran for office before I'm running for office right now I'm fully aware of the perils that like performing but it's a very simple thing we need to do because if you had a hundred Ilhan Omar's and 47 Jamal Bowman's and 35 Cory Bush's and 12 ALCs then the Democrats couldn't get anything past that didn't that didn't actually help the people let's not forget Rashida to leave and all of them all the people who actually fight and you may not agree with you know all the Democrats all the the progressives in there I get that but at least we're talking to each other and I can move you further to the left when I show you that you know this piecemeal stuff just isn't enough Republicans I'm a thought a big word are intransigent they are they are camped out they are not moving we have seen this since the Southern strategy in the 70s when all these racist as Democrats left the Democratic Party and went to the Republican Party and they have been ensconced for generations so we know that there is no getting to them I get that it is 2021 I have neither the time nor the inclination to get you to believe the problems that we have you're either with me or you're in my way those are the only two options that you have one or two don't try to dissuade me from fighting for people of color don't try to dissuade me for fighting for for women don't try to dissuade me for fighting for any marginalized group because we have seen time again that you do not give a damn so I say that to say this it is incumbent upon all of us everybody out there to get behind somebody that you know that is going to fight for people like you and like me that's as simple as I can make it I mean it sounds very complicated let's let's remove all of it as simple as I can make it is we have to be the change we wish to see leaving it up to others is not going to get it done our problems are not going to go away just because we're tired just because we're hurt just because we think these are dystopian times listen the sun is still going to rise in the east and set in the west and if it doesn't we got a whole bigger set of problems but as long as that still continues to happen as long as there is blood pumping in your chest and your brain is working you need to get off of your ass me myself included you need to get out there and you need to get out of there. Yeah, well said and I'm glad that you you pointed out the insidious nature of his comment because that is really clever like republicans do this. They don't like they don't want to be working class but they want to work as working class you know representatives and to me that got me to think that Mitch McConnell here he has big care and energy by saying that because the lump in like the the executives with the workers it reminds me of the people who would come into the store when I was at Walmart and they'd like threaten me if I didn't have something or I couldn't find what they were looking for they said well I'm just not going to come here I'll give my money to someone else it's like I still make minimal money regardless if you leave or not so that's that's such a caring thing to say and you know that's a big care and energy from Mitch McConnell so yeah all right well folks listen the panel here has been absolutely incredible uh every single one of you are incredible people and before we go I want to give you the opportunity to promote and plug yourselves and uh uh tell the people where you're at and what you're doing we will start with Jeff hey thanks uh you can see of course my twitter handle is on that little bar down there uh and you can check out my show on youtube actually I do youtube twitch facebook i stream I don't cross the streams uh but I do a bunch of streams uh and you can go and uh on youtube subscribe to my channel youtube.com slash waldorf nation uh you know uh jeff underscore waldorf on twitch uh and jeff waldorf show on facebook uh and that's where you can find me and folks if you're not subscribed to jeff I mean what are you doing with your life definitely do that before leaving and then we have of course the incredible tiffany star tiffany where are you at how can we watch more tiffany uh thanks for having me on mike it's good to finally actually meet you uh yes yes um and uh you know if you ever want me back on i'd love to i had a great time tonight and uh this panel was great jeff is always awesome and azair is super inspirational he makes me want to run for office except i can't for various reasons but uh i'll tell you tell you about it later but um you can find me on youtube if you like politics I usually dunk on anti sjw gamer bros uh tariffs conservatives in general so it's a lot of fun there and uh that's tiffany star just google tiffany star this two oz and star like it says down there i know with my accent it sounds like there's no oz because i'm from boston so um if you want to follow me on which i might uh it's xxx tiffany underscore star xxx and i mostly do video games there i'm not going to lie i do politics sometimes and i do a lot of panels like i'll go on prime gaze panel or i'll go on mike's panel i guess now and uh dylan burns all all great people by the way so i'll do panels but more often than not you'll probably find me raging at a video game and uh cracking an appropriate joke so if you like that kind of stuff you know be sure to follow me on twitch and you can find me on twitter at tiffany star xxx and uh thanks for having me on again absolutely can't wait to have you back and of course isaia james who we will also put out a call for a call to action for folks this is an active congressional candidate seeking public office uh so now is the time to get involved but i mean i'm gonna let isaia make the pitch because nobody says it better than isaia uh well thank you for the lauded praise thank you to jeff and tiffany for sitting here listen to me ramble thank you to mike for putting this together and thank you for everyone out there who's watching who will stream this restream this and all these things you know uh like you said i'm running for congress and i don't know if the folks here just wanted to tune in tonight to see you know their favorite person or if they're actively engaged in politics or not engaged in politics but i promise you those who are in power want you to be disillusioned with the system those who are in power hope that you become apathetic and just wash your hands of it that's the only way they can maintain power is if you say you know what screw this nobody out there they're all liars all of them the same i promise you there are good people out there who want to do the right thing who are trying to get in there to do the right thing but just like i said we're all connected with our problems we're all connected and i struggle in our fight good people like me and others who are running all over the country will not get in if they do not have people's support because we are up against a leviathan in corporate money and it is big my opponent last cycle spent a million and a half dollars during a pandemic mind you everybody in my neighborhood broke where the hell you get a million and a half dollars from it didn't come from central brooklyn i can tell you that it came from corporate donors you all know this thing you all know the spiel so i would implore folks out there if you can support me with donations do so if you can't trust me i understand i'm broke just like you but what you can do is you can follow me on twitter isa for congress you can follow me on instagram you can follow me on facebook six degrees of separation we all know somebody you can share a message you can share a retweet you can show a friend that's how we build the bigger coalition that's how i don't know how but that's how i got in front of mic two years ago and new mic to be even on this show tonight that's how we move the ball forward is by building a bigger coalition because if you don't think politics you don't you may not like politics but i promise you politics loves you everything in your life is governed by politics even your religion because we have a first amendment that says you can be free from it or practice whichever one you want that was a political decision the shirt you wear was manufactured somewhere the water you drink is government is regulated by a government agency so if something is going to have a say in every single aspect of your life then you damn well better have a say in it too so again thank you to the panel thank you to the host thank you to the guest my name is azir james and i'm running for congress well beautifully put before we leave i just want to point you to this we didn't have time to get to this but um there's a familiar face on the panel who you might recognize here um so i'll try to remember to link to this in the comment section when this is a youtube video but um really interesting here so this is a panel about i will i will be on john stewart's new show next week he's he's he's been inviting me i was called a troublemaker or something like that so i'm going to tape it next week that's okay i didn't know that john stewart had a new show but i'm very excited about that so yeah i mean you're everywhere i mean the panelists are everywhere folks this is i mean what what left can we say like it's dystopian times but at least we're hanging out together and maybe we were distracted from uh the fact that we live in a hellscape for just a couple of hours so thank you all so much um thank you so much to the mods i'm shuffling through my control panel here to make sure i oh here we go all right folks i'm gonna cue the outro video i will be back to read the super chats thank you so much to my guests folks this is dystopian times