For centuries, capitalists ruled the world. They crafted a dystopian health scape 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. Hello, everyone. Welcome to dystopian times. My name is Mike Figurato, and I am so excited to bring you this week's panel. We have a great lineup. I'm not even going to waste any time because we have so much to talk about. I know we're not going to get to everything that's on the agenda, but I will try to squeeze in as much stories as we possibly can. So, folks, without further ado, let's welcome our fantastic panel. Folks, you saw her not too long ago because she was part of a viral video, and hopefully we'll have some time to talk about that today, and she can kind of share her story. It's Tina Desiree, folks. Tina, welcome to the show. How's it going? I'm going great. I'm glad to be here. What a great show entry, by the way. I'm a big fan of Tony Tigg. Good stuff. Yes. Who is it? I mean, Tony Tigg is the best rapper in all of left-wing media, although I shouldn't say that because if I'm forgetting another left-wing rapper, I could be, you know, offending them. But Tony Tigg is great. All right, folks. Well, this is someone who has been a long-time activist, long-time progressive, who basically every single person knows. I've been on her show. I've used her videos and her pressuring politicians. I mean, just an all-around fantastic person, folks. It's Lauren Steiner. Lauren, how are you? I'm great. How are you, Mike? I am doing well. I'm so happy to have you here. Love the glasses, by the way. Yeah. I'm so happy to be here with you guys because I know you all personally, although you and I have never met in person. I feel like I know you. We basically, I mean, for me, someone who's agoraphobic and never leaves home, I basically, like, this is as close to knowing each other as I can possibly get. So I feel like we know each other. We can call each other friends, I feel like. Okay. Next is somebody who is a Twitch streamer that I actually found on the hippie-dippy championship, and I thought she did an amazing job. And she's just all around, just a wonderful person. Folks, it's Josie Rose. Josie, welcome to the program. Hi. How are you? So happy to be here. So happy to have you. Yeah, go ahead. Now I was going to say, I love the bright aesthetic. It's very like your background is very happy. It'll like be a nice contrast to all the, like, doomer horrifyingly depressing stories we talk about. So like the happiness and the brightness, I always welcome and encourage that. Yeah, I love, I'm a cozy streamer, right? So we talk politics, we do some base points, but we cozy about it. You have to do it. That's why on Twitch streams, I have like a dog cam. So it's like a form of therapy while we talk about the world ending through climate change and whatnot. So, you know, it's the balance is what you try to find. And, you know, great work there. All right, folks, last but not least, it's long time legendary journalist and friend of mine. It's Jordan Sheridan of Status Koo. Jordan, how's it going? Thank you for that promotion. I like that. I'm good. Yeah, good. Good to see you. Man, we have a lot of things to talk about today. So I'm not going to waste any more time. I tend to babble on during these segments. I'm doing it right now, but I know everybody has a lot to say about this story. So, Supreme Court allows Texas six week abortion ban to take effect. So what this means is abortions in Texas are effectively banned. So I want to read a little bit of details here about this story. And then we'll take it to the panel. So this is from Alice Miranda Olstein of Politico who explains, the Supreme Court early Wednesday, let a Texas state law take effect that allows private citizens to sue to uphold a ban on the procedure after six weeks of pregnancy, potentially creating a new template for states to impose strict restrictions on the procedure. Now, I should note that there are no exceptions for rape and incest. So it goes to show you how extreme this bill is. The court's decision to not act on an emergency petition from Texas abortion clinics comes as the justice is prepared to more broadly reconsider the right to an abortion it established almost 50 years ago. In May, justice has agreed to review Mississippi's ban on the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. Those arguments are expected later this year with a ruling in 2022. So this is a de facto overturning of Roe before the Supreme Court has time to hear the Mississippi case said Planned Parenthood President Alexis McGill Johnson and Texas will now go back to being pre Roe state turning the clock back 50 years. Now, one of the most bizarre elements of this law is that it would deputize citizens to file civil suits against abortion providers or anyone who helps facilitate the procedure after six weeks. So this means that if you are an Uber driver doing your job driving someone to a clinic to have an abortion, you could be sued. Now for those of you who don't necessarily know why these bills are so egregious, these are basically these so-called heartbeat bills. Now under Texas law, this is from box by the way, patients would have to know their menstrual cycle well and immediately recognize they are pregnant in order to get an abortion. They also they will also need to be able to travel to a clinic and get together the money for the procedure within the time allowed. Six weeks gestation is just shortly after most pregnant people missed their first period, meaning many people don't know they are pregnant at this stage. The law contains an exception for medical emergencies, but not for a pregnancy resulting in rape or incest. So I mean, what I feel like is this is a precursor to what will ultimately be a reversal of the Supreme Court president. Lauren, did you want to jump in? I know you have a lot to say about this particular subject. Well, as the only person who was born, the only person on this panel who was born when abortion was illegal, I do have a little bit to say about it because I didn't realize until decades later that one of our family trips to Puerto Rico was so my mother could have an abortion. But, you know, this is what wealthy women did in those days.  And it was basically because she had two kids and she didn't want any more. And that's what women of privilege were able to do. Versus women who had no privilege, who were poor, were, you know, resorting to these coat hanger abortions, these back alley abortions. And what's interesting to note is in 1967, California became the first state to legalize abortion. And there was a flight from Dallas, where it was very, you know, impossible. And they actually called it the abortion special. That was what it was referred to this flight. There were so many flights from Dallas to Los Angeles called the abortion special or the non family plan. And I interviewed a couple of weeks ago, David Talbot, the famous journalist who founded salon. And he just did a book on a famous 60s activist, one of whom was Heather Booth, who was one of the organizers of the Jane Collective, which was, I guess you could say it's the equivalent of today's mutual aid, where these women got together, and they actually performed abortions. It wasn't like they were intending to do that. They originally had a doctor. But then they saw this doctor was trying to make a lot of money off of it. And they watched how easy it was to do. So they sort of train themselves. And they had this sort of underground railroad, if you will, of people that were performing abortions in Chicago. And I really feel like that's the days that we're going back to. And I just can't believe it's happening. Yeah, Tina, does it feel like people even acknowledge what will happen if this takes effect? I mean, let's say, hypothetically speaking, the Supreme Court does indeed reverse Roe and Casey. I mean, in my opinion, I think that abortions in 12 states would probably be illegal within a month, if not weeks. Do you think that people, like the average Americans who see this story acknowledge that abortions won't actually decrease, they'll just become illegal and unregulated? What's your take on what the average person will think about this? I agree with you. They're not going to disappear just because it becomes outlawed. What will happen is they'll become more dangerous for women, because they will be done illegally in back rooms or in the case where you're wealthy, you can go somewhere, fly somewhere and get it taken care of. But if you're not of the privileged class, it's going to become very dangerous. And I think your assessment is also right, as far as how many states will do it, because we have these so-called heartbeat bills that are being put on hold right now, only because they're somebody that they can sue. So Planned Parenthood, whoever else, can go after the attorney generals for the state to stop these from taking effect. But what the thing is they did with this bill is they've now taken that right away and given it to these citizens, so the citizens can sue. And not only are they deputizing the citizens, they're also saying to these other folks, well, you can't sue the attorney general now. We're not the ones that are doing it. It's these other folks. It's these private citizens. So it's very dangerous on many levels. But to answer the broader question of how most Americans will perceive this, I don't think they care. There's this whole, I mean, and maybe Lauren can speak on this too. I feel like there's just a lot of despondence about it, and it's a very scary and dangerous situation that we end. If we lose the right to abortion, it will be a very dark day in America, and it will affect a lot of women. Six weeks, most women don't know that they're pregnant six weeks in. And let me also say this, they call it a heartbeat bill, but the fetus doesn't even have a heart yet, right? So it's kind of a misnomer to call it that, but that's what they're calling it because they obviously want to engender this idea that it's an actual baby at six weeks, and you'd be killing a baby. So it's all about the way they want to phrase things. But I don't, I don't see a lot of people protesting this. I'm a little bit concerned about that. There should be more concern out there in the streets, and I'm not seeing it. Well, the last poll that I found in 2018, it was a Gallup poll, and it said that 48% were pro-choice, 48% were pro-life, 28% wanted to overturn Roe versus Wade, and 64% do not. So I feel it's like with the the vaccination thing. People are coming out of the woodwork, and we saw, you know, at the same weekend, we had people protesting the mask mandates here in Buncombe County. In fact, the only time my wonderful rep, Madison Cawthorne, has come to... I'm so sorry, Lauren. My new rep with Asheville, and the only time he came to...  Yeah. I mean, we can talk about what he said this past weekend, but the only time he came to Asheville was to sit there, and at the Buncombe County Board of Education, to talk against the mask mandates, and basically talk about them like they were the Nuremberg laws.  It's insane. I also found out that there was one in Santa Monica. And the friends of mine who are anti-vaxxers even before COVID were in attendance. So I know you want to get to this story later when you talk about Joe Rogan and Ivermectin, but I mean, it's like you got the fringe elements of the left and right, and maybe that's the case with abortion. I mean, who knows? It seems like they're politicizing a public health crisis in both circumstances. Absolutely. That's a great observation. In fact, on that note, I wanted Jordan to react to this tweet from a friend of the show, Jen Perlman, who says, Texas is taking away a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, although saying my body, my choice about vaccination don't the same principle apply here. So I mean, I feel like at this moment, Jordan, like the people who deem themselves pro-life after they've been showing up to school boards, harassing members of their children's school or mask mandates, I feel like we're kind of playing their game when we even call them pro-life. Can you just speak about the hypocrisy here, Jordan? Because you've experienced COVID firsthand, and you know how serious it is, but yet they have no concern about that. However, when it comes to fetuses who are not alive yet, even before the heartbeat is there, as Tina says, that's where they're concerned about. When the baby is born, however, no welfare, no support whatsoever. When it comes to social safety, so speak about this, Jordan, because I know you have a lot to say when it comes to the hypocrisy here. Indeed. And I apologize. I actually from COVID got a bad case of asthma, and as the night goes on, I cough, so I apologize if I'm coughing a little bit, but- Yeah, no problem. Republicans and hypocrisy? No. What a thought. It's really something. And you know, I mean, this, honestly, I've said this entire time, this COVID thing, it's not really about vaccines per se. I mean, if Trump went out from the beginning, hardcore, and said, I made the biggest, most beautiful vaccine and you should take it, they'd be taking it. But he didn't. But what's really striking to me, Jen's absolutely right. And it's mostly, by the way, men. I mean, I don't want to say there aren't female anti-vaxxers because there are, but I mean, Tina could tell you, a lot of these anti-vaxxer rallies are a lot of older, sometimes younger white men with resentment, and they would like to tell women what to do with their bodies, but if anybody even suggests, that even tells you, but suggests you do this, don't tread on me. So I think there is not only hypocrisy, but a sexism to it. And I'll also say, in addition to how dangerous this is for women, the added component besides outlaw and abortion, is this law has basically created a bounty hunter system in Texas, where there's already reports of increases in people waiting outside abortion clinics. It's like the whole like, you know, wanted $10,000 reward sign in the wild, wild west, maybe it wasn't $10,000. But this basically allows people, if you sue somebody civilly, and win, then the other person has to pay you who sued $10,000. So besides pro-life, you know, right-wing extremism, there's money in it. And I don't know, Tina could tell you, I sure can, from seeing this exploding white supremacist conspiracy movement over the last few years, when you add on a financial reward. Wow. Well, I want to level, I would like to level a little bit of criticism at the women's reproductive rights movement, because I don't think they've played it very well. And I've been watching this for a few decades. When Roe was decided, even at the time, there was criticism that it was not an absolute right to abortion, they were using the privacy right in the Constitution to stretch it a little bit. And so they even said in the decision that it was not an absolute right. And that's how they came up with the trimester system. And then that was overturned in Casey, who were saying, you know, Lawrence tribe, who I don't agree with on a lot of things, but he was even saying that there should have been a legislative movement for abortion. And what the women's rights groups, women's reproductive rights groups have done is so focused on Roe versus Wade being overturned. Every time there's a Supreme Court justice nominee, it's all been focused on that. Meanwhile, they have ignored what's happening in the states because these laws since Reagan have been whittled away in the states, whether it's parental control spouse, I mean, parental consent, even if your father was your rapist, spousal consent. You have to look at ultrasound pictures of a fetus.   And these women's rights groups, like so many groups on the left, I will say focus almost on federal politics to the exclusion of state politics. And the right doesn't make that mistake. They start with the school board, they start with the city council. And they get up to the state legislatures. And that's how come all of these formerly democratic states now have become Republican.  But you look at Alec, the American Legislative Exchange Council, they're the ones putting in all these laws. The standard ground law, the papers, the emergency manager law that Jordan knows very well, to take away local control, but only in poor communities like Detroit and Flint and Benton Harbor.  I agree. I think that's criticism. Yeah, actually, I'm glad that you brought that up, because we do tend to miss the force for the trees sometimes. And I think that this should really help to recent trust. I wanted to ask Josie, because you have an activist background. This really feels like the warning sign, like the sirens are going off right now. We're about to see Roe v. Wade be overturned. Like this is a huge moment. What do we do? I feel like this is a hair on fire moment, kind of as like Tina alluded to, but people seem somewhat ambivalent. What do we do, in your opinion, like what would make the most impact? Because I kind of see this news and my instinct is to feel hopeless, to kind of shut down. What's your advice to people watching who are feeling that same way? That we need to get involved and you have to get involved. And before I get into my answer, I just want to know that I did not know there was a twitch strike today. I was at work all day and I didn't know that there was a hashtag going around. So I am going to have to cancel my stream on my end, but I will still be showing, I'll still show up. So I'm just going to hit and I'm just letting my audience know that and saying that to bring attention to this, because hate raids are real. I've been rated so many times and it's as a trans woman. It's almost every stream. So I am going to stand in solidarity with especially my sisters on this and in my side of the stream, but I shouldn't affect anything on your end.  Okay. So I just ended my side of the stream. So now let me just pull this over here. Sorry to go off tangent. I'm just curious. No, no, this is actually, I'm glad that you brought this in because it's nice to touch on this too. Yeah, absolutely. So hate raids, there are subreddits, there are communities that are being built in the back end of like internet back rooms and they target small streamers, particularly women to basically try to demoralize them to not want to stream.  And the reason people are mad at twitch is a platform. Yeah, the people, the reason that people are mad at twitch is a platform is because they haven't provided enough tools for creators to be able to do it. So for example, if I want to make sure nobody says a T slur at me, I have to write it in to the back end words that are banned on my stream. And not only that, every single type of character that looks like the T slur. So I've had moderators go in and spend hours of their time going in and putting in every single form of the word. And just for my viewers that are on, you can be a part of my discord, I'll still chat with you. Josie real quick, reach out to me afterwards so I could remind you about another really important thing to protect yourself. I won't say it live because I don't want to give people ideas or encourage anything, but it's a really important thing to protect yourself. Just remind me about that. Yeah, and it has serious impacts because I work with a lot of professional women in particular on streams and we don't say we try not to give where we work anymore. We don't want to try to give too much about our own information in life. I've had personal friends who have gotten emails at work trying to say terrible, hideous things about them because they were critical of another streamer that happened to be a man. Like all of these things are starting to pile up and I always like to say, and I don't mean to divert the topic too much, but we're on the gates of streamergate. Streamergate is going to happen. It's only a matter of time.  Female streamers in particular and female presenting non-binary people, they're the people that are getting a lot of this hate and a lot of this anger and it's attacking the small streamers to the chilling effect. So as female streamers drop off of the stream, it continues to breed that toxic energy that is starting to boil within the platforms of Twitch and Twitch needs to do something about it. And I hope that this boycott does something because like you said, I'm an activist. When I started to see like, hey, did you know there's a the strike? I'm like, no, I didn't. So I wanted to make sure to say that on the on the platform and then come get off of the platform to let people know that I did this because of the strike. But as far as the grander part of the question about abortion rights, again, here we are. And it's like it's like a moral fight, right? Where it's like, okay, it's abortion here, it's trans rights here, it's a quality over here, it's conversion therapies over here, and all of this moral type of like rhetoric of like trying to control people's lives, it's the moralizing. It's like, what do we fight for the trans the trans sports in school in the state of Texas? Or do now we have to divert everything to do abortion rights? It's like it's a continual seesaw back and forth and it's extremely aggravating, especially as activists because we have for years and I know because everybody on this call has been a part of the Bernie Sanders movement back in 2015. And when we built and designed this organization and pushed to bring the progressive movement forward, that that that that spirit and energy started to fizzle out because we kept losing and we kept losing and we've kept losing and now it's weathered us down to the point of like, oh my God, now we can't just fight for progress. We have to fight for abortion rights now. We have to fight for just basic human dignity for people. And so when you say what is the answer, the answer is to not give up, to stand in solidarity and continue to be active and be a part of your local communities because sometimes it's not important to just look at the Senate and look at just one of one seat in the Senate and get mad at that. It's about getting mad at your local level that the person, the representative in your state that voted for this. That's where the anger needs to be generated because that's what scares politicians when you get them at the local level. So for me, as activists, don't go for the top.  And we need to make sure that we fight those fights at a smaller scale because those scales we can actually win. Well, you know, from a macro point of view, and I'm always saying I don't like identity politics because I think it divides the left. We get what's been called the oppression Olympics, where everybody's into their own identity fight. And there's not a lot of intersectionality, although some groups try to form that. I felt hopeful that the Bernie movement and the Occupy movement before that, which I was also a part of, was about the 99% aligning on class issues. And 99% is like you can't get more inclusive than that. But now I think what's happening is I read a really interesting analysis the other day about the demographics that the United States is no longer going to be a white nation. So there's a lot of white supremacy and even in this conversation about abortion, patriarchy, you know, all these things that are bubbling up back up to the surface, and they're attacking things like, you know, mask mandates and critical race theory and trans women in sports and all these kind of issues because they don't have anything else, you know, and it's a distraction. And it's how they bring in their base. And the evangelicals, I mean, we got them here, I don't even, I have given up on them. Because to me, when you're that religious and fundamentalist about something that is not scientific, you can't beat that with science. It's almost like back, going back before the Enlightenment in the medieval age, you know, where people believed in, you know, just beliefs, not facts, and can't argue with the belief, right? So it's very difficult.   And when I asked my salesperson about it, who was, and also is pregnant right now, he said, neither of them have been vaccinated and neither of them will wear a mask. And then I had this really strange experience trying to call the Buncombe County Health Department to try to find out if they can enforce this or not, you know? And I'm thinking, you know, maybe I should start an app where people can report, you know, which businesses are doing it and which businesses aren't because if government isn't going to protect us, maybe it comes down to us, right? Yeah, yeah, I want to touch on what you said, Lauren, about this being a distraction. I think that, you know, during the 2015, because we're all part of the original Bernie movement, it really felt like we were moving in this direction where we were tackling economic issues, talking about healthcare, you know, housing issues. And what I've noticed is that the GOP, they've kind of tried to pull us backwards, right? They hyper focus on these really strange wedge issues that can maybe bring people over to their side. Masks is certainly one of those issues. Also, I think that, you know, after we got marriage equality in 2015, the LGBTQ plus movement was really hyper focused on trans rights. It's time to bring this issue to the forefront as well. And then the conservative movement latched onto that. So it feels like, you know, we're starting to run, we're starting to make progress. And collectively, as a society, we acknowledge that treating people better, I mean, just this is a generalization, but treating people better is good. We all acknowledge that we all know somebody who's gay, we're finding out that our friends are transgender. You know, we're acknowledging that abortion is here to stay, even if it is outlawed. So, you know, we all kind of collectively, as a society, we gravitated towards economic issues, but then the GOP and, you know, the party is using these issues to kind of drag us backwards. And that's what I do notice. I do think that they're trying to do this as use this as a distraction. But it's so gross because even though they're trying to distract us by pulling on these issues, like it's still absolutely nefarious, and it's harming people. Like one thing I always say this, I forgot who did it, but it's a little graph that shows the amount of anti-trans legislation that affects youth, and they go year by year.  So all of this is because they don't really have a counter to the economic discussion that was happening. So, and this is not anything new. This is what, you know, evangelicals and right-wingers have always done, but it is important to kind of point out that they can't deliver in any other way. So the best thing that they can do for themselves politically is to promote bigotry. And it's just, it really is morally reprehensible. But speaking of bigotry, I do want to get to the next subject here. So before we talk about this, this is the Elijah McLean story. I just want to play a clip. Now, usually I don't go out of my way to promote MSNBC segments. Having said that though, it's a really concise segment that summarizes the story, and the anchor's response was very human, and it's really nice to see that. So let's watch it, and we'll get to the update here, and then the panel will react. And David Henderson, one of the things that's so particular about this case is, as you mentioned, based on everything we know about it, there was no reason for Elijah McLean to have been stopped in the first place. Somebody saw him walking at night, he had a ski mask on. He said he was cold, it was Colorado, and he said he was anemic, and that's why he had a ski mask on. And then he was set upon by police and was drugged by paramedics. They gave him 500 milligrams of this powerful sedative.  And his final words are haunting and tragic. He says, God, he says, I can't breathe. He says, I can't breathe. I have my ID right here. My name is Elijah McLean. That's my house. I was just going home. I'm an introvert. I'm just different. That's all. I'm so sorry. I have no gun. I don't do that stuff. I don't do any fighting. Why are you attacking me? If Elijah McLean isn't safe, who is? Who is David Henderson? Paul Butler? Who's safe? I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, that's why we're here. And I appreciate you drawing attention to what's important. Yeah. So this, I mean, seeing him like watching this clip for the first time, it really like, it struck a nerve in me. And I wanted to share that clip because he gives you some background into, you know, Elijah McLean's last words and whatnot, but I do have an update to that story. So this is from the Daily Beasts. Zoe Richards writes three cops, two paramedics hit with 32 count indictment in Elijah McLean's death. A district attorney initially cleared the cops who tackled McLean on the ground, but it took public outrage and an independent investigation to prompt a new inquiry. So a grand jury has returned a 32 count indictment against two Aurora police officers, one ex-officer and two local paramedics, and the death of Elijah McLean, Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser said on Wednesday, all five defendants, Aurora police officers, Randy Rodina and Nathan Woodyard, former officer Jason Rosenblatt and fire paramedics, Jeremy Cooper and Lieutenant Peter Chichunek. Sorry, I'm butchering their names, but you get the point. Face one count of manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide. Now the attorney general has stated that, you know, these cases are really difficult to prosecute, so don't get your hopes up. But I think that the mere prospect of justice for Elijah McLean, the fact that we're seeing these indictments, it's a little bit of hope. I mean, Josie, do you want to speak to this issue? Because, you know, this is one story of many that we've seen over the last five years, and it's really it's exhausting. And I think that to this point, many people just don't even expect any sort of justice whatsoever. And even when we get justice, as was the case with George Floyd, it doesn't feel like we won because he's still gone. So can you can you give us some some some of your thoughts on this topic, Josie? First immediately is just the emotional outrage, just the emotional outrage of how just just blatant all of this is and that another kid is dead.  Critical race theory bad? And they just start going all down this road of like how like racism doesn't exist and that if we talk about racism, and yet they are the first ones to cry about how we had protests that prolonged across the streets of this country and say that those were violent when when when what else is there? Like like it like if we're quiet and peaceful about it, another kid is dead without justice. And then when we get mad and angry about the injustices in this country, all of a sudden the the the people who are on the streets are bad just for a scrap of justice, a scrap of justice. Now now we're starting to see that we have some more district attorneys being elected now where they're starting to take these things seriously. We're starting to see a little bit of mood growth and movement in the justice system. But that's not everywhere. So so we may have justice in some cities, but what about the other cities that are still starving and thirsting for just the monocle of the ability to basically walk around and live in your own communities? So I know my reaction, you know, you went to me first because my reaction is the most emotional on that because after seeing that it's like how many more times do we have to continue to live this story? It's like it's the title of the show is perfect dystopian times. Like it is it is absolutely dystopian that we continue to live this over for decades now decades. And it just breaks my heart. Yeah.  But Jordan's reporting really highlights how it's not just racism and policing. Like this truly is an institutional issue. I know that you reported on an Amazon worker. I believe her name was Pushon Brown. Is that correct, Jordan? Yes. Yeah, how she basically was, you know, there were no worker protections. She ended up dying from COVID after Amazon forced her, someone who's not a medical professional to administer COVID-19 tests. On top of that, you know, we see communities of color disproportionately affected by COVID-19. Every single issue, it always hits communities of color the hardest. We're seeing line three, the Enbridge pipeline hitting indigenous communities. So at what point, Jordan, do you think that America actually has a serious conversation about institutional racism and white supremacy? Because I feel like every time we begin to have that conversation, the conversation gets co-opted by the right and Fox News and all of these propagandists who want to distract us from having this very serious discussion. Yeah, I don't want to minimize what you're saying, but I don't think we need a conversation. I think we need radical action now.  I kick the can down the roll. Bottom line, there's several things wrong. Tina's seen it. I've seen it. Number one, you can't have police, if they're involved in an incident, that's the end of the road. They're not the ones that should be filing police reports, which time and time again, they lie in the police reports. And then it goes to internal affairs, which is basically the CIA of police. Eternal affairs is just basically HR for police to protect them. So if a police officer is involved in a situation like this, they go in their corner, there needs to be independent community led oversight of every police department in America. Sure, you could have sprinkle in their former police, social workers, what have you, but it's like an arsonist going to burn down a building and then like the arsonist goes and files the report on what happened.  The second thing, and it kind of reminds me of the Trayvon Martin murder, but we need to start talking about people making 911 calls in this country. I know the whole thought is if you see something, say something, and sure, if you see an empty suitcase in the middle of a subway, maybe that could be problematic. But when you get to this, people with their own biases calling 911 because something seems suspicious. And then you have police departments who are inherently fill of racist people. Well, that's a recipe for disaster. So why, if somebody on 911 is calling and they're not reporting a crime, okay, why are the police going yet in the first place in the case of Elijah McLean? They said, I mean, it was decided that they had no legal right to even approach him for a quote unquote being suspicious. And the third thing I will say, I mean, at the end of the day, I don't know if you could get justice. Maybe you could say accountability. But if you want to talk about COVID contract tracing, 20 years ago, we should have sent an army of psychologists into police departments up, you know, head to toe, analyzing racial bias, PTSD trauma, you name it, 60% of the police in this country would have their badges pulled away. That's what needs to happen. But the reality is, and this is a whole another discussion, the police are there to protect capitalists, capitalism and property, I give you standing rock. So Joe Biden, it's not all his fault, this is centuries and centuries, but Biden's not going to do anything. I mean, Obama didn't do anything. And a lot of these black lives matter started under him. So I think the time for a conversation is long over, we need to demand action. And I don't know what form that takes. But there's going to be more Elijah McLean's and frankly, there's a whole lot more George Floyd's we don't even know about. Well, what we should do is we should defend our district attorneys who are trying to do something about this. I mean, right now in California, I don't know the latest, but I had read that they were trying to recall both George Gascon in Los Angeles and Chesa Boudin, who was on my show in San Francisco. And Chesa Boudin, who by the way, his dad finally got out of prison, because he was part of the women, and he drove the getaway car or something he didn't actually kill anyone, but he was part of it. And he got to hug his father for the first time. And I think ever because I think he I don't know if he was not born then. Yeah, I think he was born. He was born. Yeah. But anyway, it's his dad for people that don't know his dad is David Gilbert, who is a weather underground member, just so people know what you're talking about. That's his name. Are you sure? Yeah, positive. Hmm. Doesn't sound familiar. But anyway, you know, so he was raised by by I.R.s. That's why people fill airs. Yeah. Yeah. So they were all weather underground members and it and Bernadine door. But you know, so I think people right now should, you know, be involved with trying to fight that recall. And and then the other thing, it's interesting because Asheville has inadvertently defunded the police. 40% of the police force is left. And there's a lot of reasons for it. One of them is, you know, they had huge George for a city of this size, 85,000 people, they had huge George Floyd protests. Last year before I moved here, and they were really anti police and the police do not make a lot of money. I mean, they start him and I don't know $18 an hour, they can get up to 36,000 a year. It's not very much money. And they're realizing this is not a field they want to be in. It's dangerous. They're not appreciated. They don't make money.  I mean, you can report them, but we're not going to send somebody out. And yet there's a lot of violence. There's a lot of murders in Asheville. I didn't realize how much crime there is here. And I think what people need to do is make very clear that the defund the police movement is not about not having police respond to violent crime, but it's not having police respond to mental health calls or traffic calls, you know, because those are the situations that can really get out of hand.  There are if you do polls in the black community, they do want to have a vibrant police presence. But it's the kinds of things that the police are doing that are egregious that we're opposed to. Can I just add one thing? This is more to what Lauren's talking about. There's a whole lot of people on the left or whatever is declared the left these days, constantly, constantly focused on the squad, Bernie, national politics, they can't even name who's on their city council. They can't even name who their district district attorney is, because it's not sexy, it doesn't get clicks, what have you. But I can tell you, as someone who's covered Flint and that cover up for five years now, yeah, it was a governor, but it was also local politicians who were corrupt that that caused this to happen. So Lawrence absolutely right that a lot of this is locally based, but activists and other folks are only focused on the top line and not on the lower level. Yeah, no, that's a great point. I wanted to go to also Tina here, not just because I wanted to see more of her dog who's on the screen. You're around the country and you're kind of seeing the way that the police behaves. And to me, like I feel like most people who've been paying attention, they should have viewed the last couple of years as a full on mask off moment by police forces. And to give you an example of that, I mean, Portland's bizarre experiment with not policing Proud Boys rampage ends in gunfire. This is from Robert Mackey of The Intercept. And there's a lot of videos of people outraged that they kind of just let the Proud Boys get away with everything. You know, a similar story in Los Angeles, which you were a part of Tina, that was hoping that you could speak to as well, where there were Proud Boys, the LA police department essentially stood by it, which is what the criticism is. And that led to this viral moment, which a lot of people have seen. This is you right here. This Capitol writer, Toni Moon, is attacking reporter Tina Desiree Berg today and ripping her mask off today in downtown LA. So can you talk a little bit about this, Tina? The way that events unfold because of the police, either their presence or lack thereof, like what have you seen in your experience as a journalist who's on the ground? So, you know, what happened two Saturdays ago and also in Portland? Actually, Sean Beckner Carmichael, who is the reporter that actually filled the guy with the gun, I know him personally. I've worked with him. You know, he was hiding behind a car as this was happening. And I saw the videos like, Sean, are you kidding me? And he's like, yeah, the guy had come forward. He had chased them. He had pulled the gun out, ran back. So this had been something that was a build up to that too. But here's the thing. Everything we're seeing right now, all of the unrest, all of the violence, we've, we didn't get here overnight. This has been building up for months now. And I could say, without equivocation, that the police department treats both sides differently. And that is part and parcel to the problem. If what happened on Saturday, or if what had happened in Portland, if those had been BLM activists, they would have been shot. I can say that without equivocation. So I have hours and hours and hours of footage where I've been out of skirmish line, and I've seen the difference in the way the LAPD treats both sides. And oftentimes, they're only facing BLM activists. They don't turn around and look at the Trump people.  I'm like, they were there. They were there before it started. They, I mean, they were standing right there watching it. And, and I'm pretty angry right now because I, and I'm going to name names and shame names I've decided because I'm kind of done with this whole thing. Sergeant Gordon Helper, who is part of that Rampart division and Captain Stabil, they are both part and parcel to the problems. They're both giant Trump supporters. They have been openly supporting Trump and saying ridiculous things about Antifa on their social media for months now. But the final straw for me was that Tony Moon actually went online and made this empathetic post about Tony Moon. Gordon Helper did. So I'm like, wait a second. So you were there on Saturday when I was being assaulted when two people were stabbed. Also, there were two stabbings. When another woman was hit on the head with a hydro flask and had blood just gushing out of her head. You were there. You did nothing to interfere. And the old, and when you finally did interfere, it was because one of the anti-vaxxer guys, one of the Trump guys was stabbed. Then all of a sudden, you're going to get involved, right? Meanwhile, somebody else on the left had also been stabbed. So I mean, this violence should have not have happened in the first place. But I think they, you know, they allow it to happen. They have a bias. They're bringing their bias to the skirmish line. And it just blows my mind. So now this is escalating. I don't think this is getting very much media attention. But Tony Moon has now been showing up at the homes of journalists here in Los Angeles. He showed up at, there's a gentleman that I know that works for Vice, who was a senior editor there. Actually, he's not there anymore. But they showed up at his house this week. They showed up. Yeah, showed up at his house. Him, Tony Moon in like a group of five or six people, and they put fliers all over the neighborhood, calling him a terrorist. Then they showed up at a photojournalist house, who I know her name is Emily, and did the same thing. And so he's actively trying to find the addresses. And I'm sure he's going to show up at my house at some point. Why wouldn't I be on that list? He already hit me. But point being is this is where things have escalated to. And you're right, the LAPD isn't going to do a damn thing about it. I've also had internal affairs send me a letter, right? So I read this letter.  You guys aren't actually going to do anything to change this stuff. I can't believe I'm saying this all publicly, but I'm really riled up. Can you tell? Well, you know, Frank Stoltz, Frank Stoltz, it was horrible. Frank Stoltz has been a older man. He's been a reporter for KPCC, which is one of the public radio stations. He was so shocked. He wrote a whole article saying I've been covering protests for 30 years, including the Occupy protests. And nobody has ever physically assaulted me. And what I want to ask Tina, because I asked you this privately over direct message is, what do you make of Matt Taibbi, whose takes I agree with most of the time, going after Antifa? He actually had a whole stack. I thought that was strange. He had a stack the other day that was just retweeted. I was on Joe Rogan's page, because we're going to be talking about him, maybe, which Joe Rogan repeated in which it was all about Antifa and how they attacked the reporter for news to share in Portland. And my experience with Antifa, now I've only covered them, you know, four or five times. But every counter protest from Occupy inauguration to the which was, and I was there in the skirmish line between Antifa and the cops, I went off the permitted march just to cover this. And I talked to some of these people afterwards. Also, there was the big rally in Laguna Beach against the immigrants. There were 50 people protesting. Immigrants are taking our jobs. And 2,500 people came out to counter protest them. I talked to Antifa people there. There was something similar in Santa Monica. And these people have all seemed to me to be very quiet, unassuming, not at all violent, not at all burly. They're kind of look like skinny college kids to me. They're just, you know, wearing black that they were very well spoken. I mean, some of them could have been DSA members, you know, how much theory they knew. And quite frankly, I've always been grateful for Antifa because they're the only ones out there fighting these fascists. You know, there's a group called Refuse Fascism, which was started by Revcom, the revolutionary Communist Party, Bob Avakian's group. And I used to kind of disdain them thinking they were all cultists because every time there was a protest, including Occupy, they would show up handing out their newspaper. And they all, you know, revere this Bob Avakian. But I swear to you, I mean, I lived just north of Beverly Hills during the whole Trump administration. Every time he was there having a fundraiser, I could not get the leftist groups to come out. The only people that consistently protested Trump and saw the danger of him and his administration were Antifa. No, not even Antifa were Refuse Fascism. And when I would reach out to a lot of those guys, they're also members of Antifa, though, I believe. Well, no, but they aren't. They're all refused. And because I had them on my show and people would say, Oh, we don't want to work with them. I mean, to this day, they're trying to organize Occupy 10 year anniversary party. And I spoke to one of the organizers and he said, Oh, Lauren, feel free to call anybody will work with anybody but not refuse fascism. And I just think that kind of sectarianism or whatever you want to call it on the left is ridiculous when we're facing this fascist threat. Yeah. And to kind of go back to the Can I just, can I go ahead and think because I've been covering Black Lives Matter protests for a long time. I got five years of covering Trump protests and that treachery. You know, I really respect Matt Taibbi. It's not just him who's now taking this angle on Antifa. I didn't see these folks commenting when anti-vaxxer attacked Tina and tried to pull her mask, tried to pull her mask down. I have not seen them comment on the many, maybe they just haven't seen it. I haven't seen them comment on the, I mean, there's a whole lot more attacks coming from either Maga, Q1O, and now anti-vaxxers. It doesn't make it okay if an Antifa person is violent, but it's really more narrative what's being pushed than actual reality. Yeah, I don't like the framing. So yeah, let me comment on that. I don't like the framing of that. I think if you're sticking to a principle, which is what I'm going to do right here, I'm going to say you should not attack, press people period and the story. That is the end of the discussion. The problem I have with Glenn Greenwald and Matt Taibbi at this point is that they're framing it from the right wing and I don't know why they're doing that. And I'm also kind of irritated that neither of them have been present at these things and instead of reaching out and having a conversation with folks that were, maybe that should have happened, right? You mean journalism? Yeah, you know, and I know that that didn't happen. Well, you know, I'm kind of irritated by this, especially from Glenn Greenwald. He knows better. And he was making all of these posts about what happened at We Spa last month and he was really, really hyper-focused on this one. And I'm going to call it inconsequential thing that happened. There was this anti-trans Karen, so to speak, that showed up and was spooing a lot of anti- trans-retoric and saying very hateful things. So some folks in BlackBlock chased her away from We Spa because they, you know, they didn't want her coming up to the trans folks that were there protesting. So they were sort of acting like security, I guess you could say. Meanwhile, okay, so you're going to get hyper-focused on that, right? Meanwhile, somebody was stabbed, I filmed it. He was a trans-activist, was stabbed. LAPD was there too. Nobody talks about it. Another press person, Rocky Romano, was hit on the back of the head with a lead pipe, intentionally. A guy came up behind him, hit him back on the head with this like wooden lead pipe thing, ran away, got into a vehicle that was being driven by a gubernatorial candidate, by the way. That's another story. Kids do not. Oh, this woman's running for governor right now. And then they were circling around the streets while he was in the car, and he's talking about how great it felt to crack this press guy on the back of the head with the lead pipe. So again, no mention of any of these things, which as far as I'm concerned, are far more important to the story than anything else. Then Washington Post picks up a story on this, and they don't mention either of these things either. No mention of the stabbing, no mention of the press member attacked with the lead pipe. Oh, and let me also say Tony Moon was there, the guy that attacked me.  I have video of both of it. There was another guy that had like giant rosary beads, because I don't know how to describe these things, that he had wrapped around his hands and he was using them as a weapon.  So these were all very hateful individuals doing very hateful, violent things. But yes, yes, let's talk about the Karen that got chased out by BlackBlock, because that's what's important. That's all I heard about. Okay, so you see my point, my point is this was an inconsequential thing, but because guys like Glenn, who didn't bother to find out the entire story about what had happened that day, decided to put that on blast, that's what people think was the problem. And I'm like, yeah, not even close, not even close. And then the cops showed up to the stabbing victim's bedside in the hospital. And instead of treating him like a victim, tried to accuse him of inciting a riot, because that's what the cops do. If the victim isn't of the right, all of a sudden it still has to be their fault. It's insane that this is what's happening. Yeah. The thing that makes me feel less hopeful about the situation, you know, as you as you share these stories, it's that there is this growing subset of, I don't even know what to call it. I don't think that people like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald are, I don't know if they identify as left anymore, but they are, they're choosing what to talk about. They're choosing to admit certain things. I don't understand it, because this is not how I perceived either of them to be. I've had a lot of respect for their journalism for years I have, for years. So I'm kind of a little bit stunned and taken aback by this. And I'm trying to understand why that's happening. When it's got to be hurtful for folks like you, like all of you, you're all on the ground quite a bit, either covering it as journalists or as activists or both. And I feel like you all have had, you know, contacts with Glenn Greenwald with these individuals who in theory should be aligned, should be helping to tell your story and using their platforms to bolster the things that you say. But I mean, it seems like they are making new, I don't know what the motivations are, so I won't speculate, but it is really depressing. I'll speculate.   They are contrarian to be contrarian. They adopt right-wing talking points under the guise of, you know, liberalism is, you know, elite liberals. And I don't really care what people's label you could be a leftist, you could be a libertarian, it doesn't matter. But at the end of the day, I don't know, call me old fashioned, I just care about the facts. And a lot of the things that are being sent out and put out are just not fact-based. They're not factual, exactly. And I'm always very careful. I'm always very careful when I'm not on the ground somewhere to talk unequivocally about what happened, because I just wasn't there. That's generally why I would have somebody who was there on. So I, you know, in this case, and it's not just about like Matt Taibbi or Glenn Greenwald, there's plenty of people kind of pushing these, I mean, I've seen even people I respect pushing out like, what's the harm in talking about Iver Mectin, which I know we're about to get to. Well, if you care about science, the data shows it's not a COVID treatment. Yeah. Okay. So we're segueing into the Joe Rogan segment. So the video that he posted to his Instagram Live, it's about a minute and 30 seconds. I want to play it from start to finish. Some of it is irrelevant. He talks about like a show being canceled because he got COVID, but he says something at the end that nearly made my head explode. So folks, let's listen to Joe Rogan explain what he did after learning that he got COVID. Hello, friends. So I got back from the road Saturday night, feeling very weary. I had a headache and I just felt just run down. And just to be cautious, I separated from my family, slept in a different part of the house. And throughout the night, I got fevers and sweats and I knew what was going on. So I got up in the morning, got tested and turns out I got COVID. He does. We immediately threw the kitchen sink out of all kinds of meds, monoclonal antibodies, Iver Mectin, Z-Pak, Prednisone, everything. And I also got an NAD drip and a vitamin drip. And I did that three days in a row. And so here we are on Wednesday and I feel great. I really only had one bad day. Sunday sucked, but Monday was better. Tuesday felt better than Monday. And today I feel good.  That's the good news. The bad news is we have to move Friday, the Friday show in Nashville. It's going to move to Sunday, October 24th. So that would be the new Nashville date. My apologies to everyone. Obviously, there's nothing that I can control. It is what it is. Crazy times we're living in. But a wonderful heartfelt thank you to Modern Medicine for pulling me out of this so quickly and easily. And my love.  Big thank you to Modern Medicine. As on his program, he regularly promotes conspiracy theories, has anti-vax rhetoric. And let me just say real quick here, for those of you who haven't already gotten the message, Iver Mectin is not FDA approved to treat COVID-19. People are getting poisoned because they are trying to get access to Iver Mectin. They're purchasing horse paste. So just to be overly responsible here, I want to take some time to go through this before the panel discusses. So in the event any of Joe Rogan's fans brigade the video when this is a segment as they usually will, hi, fellas. FDA has not approved Iver Mectin for use in treating or preventing COVID-19 in humans. Not something that is acceptable. On top of that, for the individuals who call me a big pharma shill for being pro-vaccine and supporting Modern Medicine, the individuals promoting Iver Mectin may not have realized that Merck is the manufacturer of Iver Mectin, also a big pharma who had to put out this statement saying, please do not take Iver Mectin to treat or prevent COVID-19. That is not what it is for. If it is prescribed for human beings in a human dose, it's going to be for a parasite. So I mean, in his video talking about COVID-19, he says he uses Iver Mectin. He says that he's feeling better. He looks horrible. A ton of the commenters said it as well. I don't understand why so many people are falling for this, and let me just say real quick also. So there's a little bit of this origin story. I know that Brett Weinstein is another IDW individual who's been promoting Iver Mectin, among others, but there's a group called the Frontline COVID-Critical Care Alliance who's also been boosting this, and this is a really great report from Marissa Cabos of HuffPost. We can't get into it because it's fairly long, but I'd encourage you all to check it out because it gives you a little bit of insight into how this got popularized, but I don't think it's just this group. It's been popularized everywhere. Right before Joe Rogan got COVID-19, about a month or so ago, he had on a guest who promoted Iver Mectin. So I just want to put that out there and see if the panel wanted to weigh in because the Iver Mectin situation is, I mean, there's anti-mask, made me lose faith in humanity. The anti-vax stuff made me lose more faith, and the Iver Mectin has me so doom and gloom. How did we get here, Tina? What really blows my mind about this is that these are the same groups that are saying I won't take a vaccine because it's experimental. Are you kidding me? Because you think Iver Mectin isn't? Not only is it experimental, there's no peer-reviewed studies on it whatsoever. Vaccine science, however, is quite sound. Regardless of whether Big Pharma is corrupt or not, and it is, I will give you that. But science exists. Big Pharma profiteering exists. Nobody saying that stuff doesn't exist. But that doesn't mean that every scientist that works in biomedical research that works in epidemiology is part and parcel to that. They're not. It's a sound system. It is set up to have checks and balances. And we have thousands of studies on why vaccines are safe to use. The mRNA technology financed by taxpayer dollars. The Pfizer vaccine financed by the German government taxpayer dollars. So this isn't only solely about Big Pharma. And you're right. Merck is who makes Iver Mectin. They are also Big Pharma. So none of this makes any sense to me.  And I've also had people yelling me over this, but I'm just like, are you kidding me right now, guys? Listen, get vaccinated. Let me say one thing about that. Because I loved it when I found that statement from Merck. And that was the exact argument I used in my tweet. Look, if it's Big Pharma, why is Merck putting this out? And someone did answer me. And I have to say I haven't independently verified this, but they said that Merck, that Iver Mectin is off patent now. So Merck isn't making money from it. Okay, but they're always going to have some ridiculous thing. Let me finish the point. So, but Merck is actually working on an Iver Mectin for COVID. And they are doing studies on Iver Mectin for COVID. Great, fair. Do that. My favorite, my favorite meme was people that called you sheep for wearing masks and doing vaccines are literally taking sheep medicine. I love that. Yeah, I saw that. And that was a really great meme. Okay, so Josie, the subtext here of this Joe Rogan story is that he praises modern medicine, has reeled against vaccines multiple times.  But he is presumably not vaccinated unless I'm incorrect here. He discouraged young people from getting vaccinated. He's healthy. He says, if you maintain good health, you don't need the vaccine. I would tell somebody who's young to not get vaccinated. Do you think, and this is kind of difficult because we're psychoanalyzing Joe Rogan here, Josie. Do you think a lot of change of heart and finally stop promoting misinformation when it comes to COVID-19? What are your thoughts? Because I'm not too optimistic. Well, I'm not optimistic either. And he already thinks he's cured, like what, three days later, like everybody knows that the symptoms hit you like pretty hard. So we still got a few days to the wait to see where that his body is going to protect him. And really Joe Rogan is a product of what has been happening.  I'm pretty, pretty public and open about that. In fact, I think I've even talked to you about it before, right? But there has been a weird connection between like the holistic community, the yoga community, a lot of the vegan community have been co-opted into this like, I'm tough, I'm healthy, you know, Zinn is my medicine type stuff, right? And it's a lot of woo-woo stuff. And what's happened is the Joe Rogan brand has kind of developed around this naturalistic, holistic type of situation.  You can completely prove a personality completely wrong, like dot, dot, dot, this is the answer, two plus two equals four on their stream and everything they'll be like, well, I don't know, it doesn't matter. And then they'll completely just avoid it and not talk about it anymore. And because it protects their brand. So if Joe Rogan changes his tune, he's going to lose money. He's going to lose people. And it's very clear, here's the data point. Look at Donald Trump talking about suggesting COVID vaccines and he's even being approved by it. I was going to mention that he was in Alabama and that was, I read that in an article that said his movement has gone to the right of him. He can't even control his movement anymore. Exactly. So there is direct evidence that proves that devout zealotism, I guess, I guess to be a zealot, to be one of those sheep that Laura was talking about, you have to just follow that line of thinking no matter what, it's going to be politicized. And if Joe Rogan or any of their leaders turn on that, then they are then cut by the thousand needles of the movement going around. So when it comes to Joe Rogan himself, honestly, I don't want to be mean, but it will probably take to like ventilation status of him thinking that he may lose his life before that tune gets changed. And that's scary. And I don't want it to go to that point. I just want people to just see the science and do it. But I think really mortality is one of those things that make humans think straight. And I don't know if he doesn't reach that point, it's going to get worse. Well, you know, Kim Iverson did a really good show on a good segment on Rising about this the other day. And it's the science keeps changing or the experts keep changing. And they take it all the way back to Fauci in the beginning with saying, well, we shouldn't wear masks because they're not going to protect us. But and then he said, no, I was really just saying that because we needed to preserve the mask for the, you know, caregivers. And then, you know, the vaccine people that have vaccines, they're okay, they don't have to wear masks. Oh, now they have to wear masks because they can be carriers, MBA symptomatic. So this is such a new thing. And like our friend Nancy Kaufman, Tina, who also is a journalist, really looking into this stuff. I mean, she like my eyes glaze over when she started talking about the biology and the medicine. But she really knows her stuff. And she said she does she all they had to have said was we don't know, you know, this is our best recommendation. This is what yeah, because the recommendations change as soon as they learn more stuff about it. That's how science is. Well, we get more information that is showing us this. So now we're going to change our conclusion. That's normal folks. Of course, when you get more data, you should change your opinion. Why would you stick to the wrong conclusion when it's been proven that it's something else or something's changed? We've gained more knowledge. Science progresses on that. Like I don't think there's anything controversial, conspiracy driven about that. Can I make a few rapid fire points? I'll be quick. Yeah. One, Joe Morgan is a very wealthy person. We have no idea. The grade of doctors he has, he might have an army of doctors right now he's talking to a lot of people do not have the ability to get to take prednisone. Right. And whatever other cocktail he's taking. So I'm happy he's doing better. But we have no idea. He's probably getting a lot better treatment than average person would. Number two, to me, and I've seen this out in the country. This isn't even about the vaccine, Mike. It's not even about the masks. It's not. These people are this is this is the perpetual never ending culture war in America. So if this was framed in a different way by Fox News, right wing radio, blah, blah, blah, if the right wing thought that being the most rigid maskers and the most rigid vacciners could win them elections, they would have changed their beat in a minute. And frankly, the sheep would have followed. So to me, this isn't really about like I know people in my life that I have spoken with that are good people and won't take the vaccine. Not really about the science of the data, but they have New World Order paranoia that, you know, the government's this is this is it. This is what's been building up for 40 years. They're trying, you know, whatever takeover and all this stuff. And these are people that are actually good people that I know that are just getting a lot of propaganda. So to me, you know, it's this it's dangerous, but it goes to the same thing about guns and, you know, people people don't really look at the specific issues and science or common sense. When it comes to guns, they look at the culture war, the government's coming for you. And this has been really, I would say it's not all Trump's fault. But this really started in 2010 and 11 with birtherism, enter the enter the tea party. And then on and on Trump 2016, the Democrats aren't, you know, completely, they're not helping. Yeah. But yeah, to me, honestly, if this was it from the beginning, if this was framed in a different way by Trump, and basically in a way that the Dems are weak, we saved America, you know, this vaccine, we're going to make a big, big, bold, beautiful, made in, you know, made in Trump on it. Right. You'd have 80% of the country right now vaccinated. Yeah. Well, let me talk about let me ask you guys a question on what you make of the anti-vaxxers on the left. Because as I said earlier in the show, I've been arguing with them since before COVID, you know, I had, if you can hear the hoarseness in my voice, it's because I was treated for throat cancer 12 years ago with radiation and my vocal cords were damaged. And my particular throat cancer was caused by the HPV virus. And a lot of people don't know that can cause throat cancer. And they would say, Oh, you don't need that Gardasil vaccination because, you know, if you have a pap smear, you can find out cervical cancer before it becomes cancerous. But when you have throat cancer, it's so microscopic, they couldn't even find my primary tumor and they tried three different types of scans. It didn't become apparent until metastasized to a lymph node in my neck. And by then it was stage three, intermediate cancer. And I always tell people the story because if Gardasil were around when I was a young girl, I would have taken it. And I got my two young sons, they were teenagers at the time vaccinated because throat cancer is more prevalent in boys, men I should say three to one. So they would say, well, you know, we don't need these vaccinations because everybody else is getting them and there's herd immunity.  Imagine if everybody thought like that, we would lose herd immunity. And guess what, with people like, you know, Jenny McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. mouthing off about the mumps, measles, you know, rubella vaccine, we had an outbreak of the measles in California and in other states. So they're just like, you know, it's about their what they're going to put into their body. And then it's almost like parallel to what we're talking about with the abortion people, you know, you can, you can't tell me like they're using the language of the civil rights movement at these anti mask thing. Ooh, like we have there's the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, you know, like that's what they do with the rights movement. Or, you know, we've got these Nuremberg laws where you have to have a vaccination card. That's what they did in the Holocaust. So they're using all this framing. And I find that the left wing, you know, ironically and hypocritically does the same thing in the name of individualism. So I'm wondering if anybody has any response to that. Yeah, I do. And one of the things that, you know, is again, that I don't want to doom pill people because of the like the dystopian times here. But what do we do when we have the ultra right wing and the ultra left wing on the same side? Like, you know, it's so beyond difficult because it just feeds into every facet because I think probably all of us on this call I'm going to make an assumption, correct me if I'm wrong, probably know somebody in their life that's somewhat close that probably hasn't gotten the vaccine yet for some BS reason. And that's five out of five right now. That's sanity. That is a bad sign. It's insanity. I agree. Yeah. This is a public health crisis. We are all in this together. My decisions affect everybody else's as does your decision affect everybody else's. So when they frame it that way, like Nuremberg trials and like these horrible, like it's just offensive. It's like, no, this is a public health crisis. Pure and simple. It's not a genocide. It's not civil rights. It's a public health crisis. Stop it. It's driving me nuts. And I'll just point out because we're focused on the numbers today. The bottom line is left, right, that anti-vaxxers, whatever. If something doesn't radically change like immediately, we're going to be living this with this for five to 10 years. Forever. Yeah. Yeah. Because it's Delta now. We're already hearing about potential variants from other countries. Lambda. You might be vaccinated against COVID-19, but that COVID-19 vaccine is less effective against a Delta variant. It might not even be effective against Lambda, Theta, whatever. And at the end of the day, we are already seeing people dying, not of COVID, but could not get hospital beds. Right. Okay. So it's, I think people are focused because everything's about the new cycle is every five minutes in this digital world. But we're talking about something. We might be on dystopian times if the world still exists in five years talking about this. Yeah. In a Houston hospital, a picture was posted that he died. He needed to have his gallstones removed and he died because all the beds in the ICU were taken with COVID patients. Here in Mission Hospital, they had 23 out of 24 of the ICU beds are taken by COVID patients. No, I should say all the beds are taken by COVID patients. 23 of them were unvaccinated. Yeah. And one thing I want to just be That's just so infuriating. It's so self-absorbed. It's so self-absorbed. So this is something that, you know, back in, back last year, I predicted that we're probably going to lose more than a million Americans to this disease. And we are definitely on track to do it now. We're on track. Yeah, we are. And one of the things that I would like to hear from the people, the panel here holistically is the fact that how morbid does it have to get? Like, like how macabre does it have to get? Like, you know, I remember when I joined the military back in 2004, 9-11 was like the most tragic thing that could ever happen and the loss of lives and the Americans and like, we started losing 9-11s a day, then we started losing multiple 9-11s a day.   People in America are getting their boosters while people in India are still fighting for a vaccine. So we're not even talking about the mutations that are not only happening in our, you know, the non-vaccinated population here in the United States, but the other, like, Lambda came from Peru. It's only a matter of time. Another strain gets developed in India. There's only a matter of time before echelon is created in Florida. Like, these strains are here to come. And it's like, I hate to ask that question, but we are in dystopian times. Like, how macabre does it have to get before people realize that we better do something or we're done as a species? And I don't know if there's an answer. Well, I think you just, I think you gave the answer. I think we are done as a species.  Jordan, did you just say, let's all drink? Yeah. I mean, I wish this weren't just water here that I've got, but, you know, one of the reasons I left California was the wildfires, you know, and now these floods and every year the temperature is hotter than the last year and the floods are stronger and the hurricanes are stronger. And you know, your question, Josie, what is it going to take for people to see climate change? I don't even like that word change because it sounds like change is a positive thing. I'm trying to get a hashtag and use the climate apocalypse. Because to me, it's even worse than crisis. It's an apocalypse. Apocalypse now. I mean, we're in the middle of this. And I feel that maybe this is like the decline of the Roman Empire or something. This is what it's like when human civilization is on its last legs.  We've got taking away women's rights and we've got climate crisis and we've got, you know, the pandemic. I mean, this could be, this could, I don't know if we're going to make it to the end of the century.  And listen, I'm old. I'm in my 60s. So, you know, I'm on my way out. I feel bad for my kids. I told my kids not to have children. I mean, they're 24 and 28. And I said, think about what you're going to be bringing, what the world is going to be like in 50 years. It may be, it's going to be very inhospitable, if not uninhabitable. And I hope I shouldn't have said that on your show, Mike. No, the theme is like, Dumerism. And sometimes the conversations will get so dark that I'll bring in like a pet segment. Well, towards the end, we'll look at pictures of cats, dogs, because, you know, it's really like, these are things that everyone is thinking. So I think that vocalizing it is actually really therapeutic because for me, myself, like, especially after 2021, Bernie Sanders, you know, lost the second time, I was kind of at this crossroads where the pandemic just began. My dad just died. We have climate change and in catastrophic levels of climate change. If we don't take action in eight years, according to the IPCC, turns out that we're kind of already fucked.  It's like this heavy weight for all of us to carry around. And I think that talking about it and sometimes getting a little bit black-pilled and Dumer is a little bit healthy because everyone's feeling it. And, you know, I think that if we don't have these conversations and be frank about the world possibly ending at least habitability for human beings, then we're kind of like, we're fooling ourselves. And I think that part of the problem with the left is that we haven't been alarmist and Dumer enough. You know, it goes back to the beginning of the show when we talked about abortion, how this is kind of a hair on fire moment.  But yeah, it's just, it's a lot. And it doesn't, it doesn't make me feel any better that, you know, it seems like as the world kind of goes to shit, we all are losing our minds simultaneously, which is a pretty good segue into this week's weekly dose of stupidity, but I want to wait to get to that. So we're past the... Wait, we haven't already done that? Not, not yet. Go ahead, Jordan. Can I say something real quick? Absolutely. A lot of time focused on the right, their extremism, obviously the growing, whatever you want to call it. MAGA meets Q meets the anti-vaxxer. Let's not forget the Democratic Party's role. Let's not forget the Democrat's role because today we're talking about a six tree support Supreme Court. You could blame Susan Sarandon and Jill Stein if you want. President Obama didn't fight for his Supreme Court justice. No, he let the right wing and Mitch McConnell hijack the Constitution. He didn't fight at all. Merrick Garland, whether you like him or not, should have been a Supreme Court justice and Obama allowed that allowed it to happen. But we're talking about the climate apocalypse.  All of these are good names. President Biden, President Biden, President Obama, like Gavin Newsom in California, was handing out fracking permits like candy. Yeah, like cookies. He bragged, he bragged at the end of his presidency that they have done more fracking and more exporting of oil than anybody before. That was a Democrat. I mean, the list could go on and on in the case of Joe Biden.  There was nothing stopping from Joe Biden from giving everybody $2,000 a month, a month to stay home, stop the spread. And he kind of sort of did, I mean, a $1,400 check didn't do anything. He did not, other than vaccines, they did very little in the form of you know, stopping the spread beyond vaccines. Frankly, Joe Biden, I mean, I've been, He's MIA right now.  I've been reading legal people. Technically, if people want their freedom and not to get vaccinated, that's fine. It would be legal to deny them taking flights, trains. Yeah, I'm all for it. And Biden's not for that. So, I am definitely for it. Right wing, right wing. Well, the midterms, you can't forget about the midterms. People are going to start preparing for them starting in December. So we can't do anything like that with the midterms coming up. Starting in September, starting right now. You know, they think they have this short-term mentality to deal with long-term problems. But I do want to break some news. Or they just enable it. I do want to break some activist news on your show, Mike. Sure. Which is that Food and Water Watch and several other organizations are going to be doing what they hope is going to be the biggest civil disobedience in U.S. history in Washington, D.C. between October 11 and October 15 over the ish. And it's going to be directed squarely at Biden. And they want him to immediately ban fracking on all public lands and declare a climate emergency. Now, I think they could ask for a lot more. But they want to do something that's doable so that they can, you know, in my Marshall Dan's class leadership organizing action, I learned that incremental wins are important to boost morale and grow the movement. So I guess they want to ask for something that he can actually deliver. So, you know, anyway, they want to have about 1500 people arrested, which would be the most arrests ever in U.S. history. And so I hope that people in and around Washington, I'm helping to provide some buses to go there. So from different states. So I hope people will go. Because this is really our last stand.  You know, my son, I told this to my son's environmental science teacher when he was in ninth grade. So, you know, that was about eight years ago. And maybe it was longer ago because he's 24. No, it was probably about 10 years ago. And she said, Lauren, if you really feel this way, then why don't you just give up and just party till the end? And I said, well, at the end of my life, I want to be able to say that my life had meaning and that I did everything I could. So I try to focus on local and state politics where we actually can make a difference. And I've actually changed, you know, from the I never wanted to go to be in elective office because I don't like to compromise.  I wanted to just be, you know, the activist, activating for the most extreme position, you know, band fracking everywhere. And Obama did quadruple fracking, by the way, not Texas oilman George Bush, but Barack Obama.  I used to say, I used to hate these two expressions. Politics is the art of the possible and don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.  But you know what? His fight against the squad and against Bernie and against these incremental changes that they're trying to do now, really turned me around like 180 degrees because I realized that Medicare expansion is going to get 10 million relief to tens of millions of people. And you know, lowering the eligibility age, getting dental vision and hearing, having a big farm negotiate with Medicare, having to end the caps, lowering the caps, all these things that Bernie's trying to fight for. And he's almost 80 years old. He's schlepping around the country, going to these red states, trying to convince people and to call this guy a cuck. I mean, it's really shameful. I mean, we have to fight for this, you know? And it doesn't mean that we're compromising. It doesn't mean that we're giving up because why did we want Medicare for all? Because we think people should have healthcare. This is going to give people healthcare. Would we rather not? I mean, we're not going to get Medicare for all this here, folks. So why don't we be a little bit more realistic? And I can't even believe I'm saying this, but I am. Lauren, you sound like a Nealib, God. No, I'm not. I'm not. No, yeah, I've been called that, too. No, Lauren, what you're saying is really important because like my mom, for example, she is on Medicare. She hasn't gotten eyeglasses for five years because it's not covered. She hasn't gone to a dentist and who knows how long because if she goes to the dentist, she has to take out a care credit card and make monthly payments, which are really expensive. The interest rate is really high. So she just chooses to not do that because it's too much money. So like these little things, they're not nothing. None of us wanted to be here saying, man, I really hope that the Medicare expansion goes through. We all wanted Medicare for all, but we have to adapt to changing situations. And to the point that Jordan made, it's not a great situation. Like going back to the demerism conversation, like I felt like with Donald Trump, we were accelerating, like his foot was all the way to the floor on the gas, like driving us towards that cliff and with Joe Biden. He eased up a little bit, but the direction is still clear.  So, you know, as long as, and this is my thing, this is something that we talked about on the very first episode of this show, climate change and how, you know, we may have already passed the tipping point. What do we do with this burden, this information, right?  But those of us who are aware of it, those of us who see it, like for me, I live in the Pacific Northwest last year in September, the wildfires made the air literally toxic. Like you could smell it through the homes of your houses everywhere. Everyone I know is affected had asthma. So like what do we do? And one of the panelists, Dylan Burns, said, look, this is what we do. We go down fighting if we go down. Knowing that we're going down, that doesn't mean that we don't fight. When, you know, when it's, when we can't walk anymore, when we're on our last leg, as long as we know deep down we did everything that we could, that in and of itself is something that we have to accept, right? Because we're not going to be able to save the world. And we might not be able to save the world. We likely won't save the world. But if we don't at least try, then, you know, we are failing. But having said that, though, They're really dark. I'm going to say this real quick. There's a there is a weird thing. Okay. So when you lose a massive part of the human population, the earth cools quite a bit. That's true. Like, like, like, You ain't going with this. Yeah. And I'm just saying, like if the people don't want to get vaccinated and things get real bad, like, there could be some weird silver lining. But since we're blackpilling, everybody might as well go with it. We're not getting out of the, the, this wormhole that we're going in with the demerism just yet. But we will take a break from it because I do have some good news, folks. There is a lot of people who care, who want to get involved and do something to speak out. And that's why I have our featured content creator of the week. This week, I have an individual who, you know, is very similar to all of our politics, but he has a YouTube channel that's small. And I wanted to give him a chance to plug his content folks. This is our weekly featured content creator of the week, one of two remaining features that we'll be doing. Take a look. I'm a leftist that intends to explore the working mechanisms of various leftist ideologies and how they can be utilized to influence and change this corrupt capitalist machine that crushes and scams us every second of our lives. The goals of my channel include solidarity among the left and by generating more dialogue and educating more people. With more time and exposure, I feel like my channel can be a useful tool in making people think harder about things like propaganda, manipulation, empathy, and power. What stateless patriot means to me is that no matter where you reside on the planet Earth, you can take pride in the causes that struggling people and the working class fight for every day against ruthless systems and oppression anywhere around the world, regardless of the country. It's not a perfect name, but it gets people's attention. And as the late great Michael Brooks has said, be kind to people, be ruthless to systems. On my channel, I would also want to devote time into holding people accountable who sabotage leftists with harmful behaviors or misguided ideas. Apart from everything I've mentioned so far, not all my content will be me taking things super seriously. You can expect to see various tier lists for fun, of which I've done one already for progressive channels. And yes, of course, the humanist report is S tier. And also in time, I would like to go over my political journey from becoming a right-winger to where I am now, as well as revisiting old videos of mine. If any of this interests you, I'd love you to come check out my channel. And you can also follow me on Twitter at the Twitter handle StatelessPatriot2 since Twitter can't make handles properly, I guess. Thank you all so much, and I'll see you soon. Well, folks, that was StatelessPatriot. I think that we can very easily get him to 1,000 subscribers by the end of the week. And so far, I believe all but two of our featured content creators hit that goal within a week. So let's do it. Check them out. This is all about solidarity, building up people who I think previously would have been able to grow but due to algorithmic changes and so much other people getting, you know, jumping in. It's a little bit more difficult. So giving people a boost is really important. I will say that the last day was today to submit your channel. So I did not have any new submissions today. I checked. And so I have already found the final featured content creator for next week's season finale. So, folks, we are towards the end of the series actually. So one more featured content creator left. And yeah, I just really encourage everyone to do what they can to help build solidarity. And yeah, folks. So getting back into our doomer spiral. This is the weekly dose of stupidity. And I'm not being hyperbolic when I say this. I think this is the dumbest thing that we're going to talk about. So folks, here we are. In a world of politics dominated by the strange, the deranged, and outright insane, we'll now take a moment to shine a light on the craziest of what politics has to offer. This is your weekly dose of stupidity. Now this week, we have a gentleman who walked into a fast food restaurant. They have a mask requirement. He was asked to put on a mask.  Take a look. It's not a easy policy. Easy policy says you have to observe attention.  So folks. He's a counter. He pissed on the counter. It's disgusting. Can I just point out? He's projecting. That's some Olympic level projection right there. Wow. Yeah, those fast food employees do not get paid enough to deal with him. I don't care if they were making $2,000 per hour. There's no amount of money that is worth it to like deal with that level of delusions. And I mean, this is a microcosm of a bigger issue. We've seen these weird anti-mask meltdowns across the country. I have a video coming out tomorrow of anti-mask parents showing up to school boards across the country, threatening violence, assaulting people. On top of that, we have this phenomenon where as these mask mandates get reinstituted by governors, you have local sheriff departments penning these letters, grandstanding basically saying, we're not going to enforce your mask mandates when it's most of the time up to businesses because there's not really action at the federal level to enforce mask mandates. So I mean, I don't necessarily know that our commentary can add to that wonderful video that is going to send me into another doomer week. But Jordan, what are your thoughts on the state of American life? I have traveled for six years, probably, I don't know, probably been to about 35 states. There's a lot of empty land in America, a lot of empty land where if you really wanted to do some organizing, you could really remove, well, I don't say remove, but just kindly move a certain swath of the population to that land where they could live, just put a wall up, as Trump would say, and they could live unvaccinated, maskless, pee wherever they want. And if they don't even want to have a government there, that's fine, as long as they're walled in. Because again, I said it earlier, this is not about masks and it's not about vaccines. It is about the insane culture war that frankly, we don't have time, but a lot of it has been perpetuated by the media over the last 30 years. Fox, Rush Limbaugh, to a less, you know, on the other side, you know, MSNBC, now CNN, but mostly right wing lunatics and the Republican Party, which has really become kind of a quasi-media apparatus masquerading his government.  Because I saw this video and I was speechless. I actually am not shocked. I mean, that's the thing. I agree with what Jordan's saying here. This is a group of incredibly radicalized folks. So you've got proud boys, you've got neo-Nazis, you've got Trump supporters. They've all sort of coalesced together in this sort of a cult that they're in and they're just jumping from cause to cause mindlessly. I don't even think, like if you'd asked several of these people if they were super anti-vaccine 10 years ago, I doubt they would have said yes. Yet here we are. So they're very radicalized. I think it's a culture war issue as Jordan is saying. And it's just really sad that this is what America is, like this is America. Like this is where we're at. Like it's amazing to me that, yeah, I know it's shocking, right? It's shocking that it's gotten this ridiculous, but here we are. And I don't think we've seen the worst of it yet. I think we're going to see more violence in the streets as well. So, you know, it is a sign of the times. It is dystopian as the name of the show is stating. And I think it's going to get much worse because these guys are incredibly radicalized. And when this is done, they'll just find something else to get behind. Because really, nobody's taken away your freedoms, folks. These were folks that were fine with private businesses being able to make their decisions previously, right? It's a private business. They should be able to say, this is what I want in my establishment, right? But now that it's, you know, while you're telling me I have to wear a mask and that's against my personal freedom, now that they've framed it in that sort of right-wing rhetoric, it's an entirely different conversation. But here's the thing. They were very happy with, you know, right-wingers not selling cakes to gay people. That's right, exactly.  So they can choose where that applies, right? Yeah, I'm really thinking of doing an app or at least a Facebook page about the businesses in Asheville that are not enforcing the mask mandate. I mean, I'm trying to, I go into these businesses and I have one of these encounters every day. I was in the Ingalls, which is the supermarket. And this was the first day, so they could have a pass. Maybe they didn't find out about it. But one of the guys at the cash register had a mask. The other one didn't. And I said, you know, they just declared a state of emergency in Buncombe County and you're supposed to be wearing masks indoors now. And they kind of ignored me.  And as I almost walked out the door, I heard him mock me. It's the law, you know? And then my son's own store. He's working in the Ace Hardware. Hi, James. He, I went in there the other day and, you know, the women behind the cash register, they were wearing masks. But this guy that was walking right in front of me, customer, was not masked. And I said, you know, we're supposed to be wearing masks indoors. I'm so tentative now. It's usually not like me. But I never know. These people are going to hit me with a baseball bat or not because I still don't know. We're supposed to be wearing masks now.  And he took his t-shirt and went above his mouth, you know?  I've had both my vaccines. And I said, but you could still be a carrier. And she said, I don't want to hear your opinion. I don't know how much we can do as individuals. You know, I feel like we've got to start boycotting these places, get the word out. I guess I don't understand why they're like so severely politicizing what should be only a public health crisis. But that is what they're choosing to do. And it's become so problematic. We had a couple of them show up at different Target stores wearing women's underwear over their heads. And they said, this is a mask. You have to let us in. And I'm like, why are you doing this? I mean, yeah, that's intense. Like the idea of like, so you said Nashville and you know, one of the big things that, yeah. So, so, so Asheville, like, okay. I thought Tennessee. I so it's not Tennessee. You're right. North Carolina, North Carolina. Okay, fair enough. So, so, so that's a fair state. It still fits my, my conversation about this point is like, I wish like the moral consistency in the HIPAA, we've already talked about hypocrisy already once already today. But the hypocrisy of how we manage things. For example, since I'm a trans rights activist and I, you know, work for a national nonprofit and a national researcher on this stuff. You see things like in Tennessee and then in North Carolina, they actually are like forcing businesses to do things and the law and the government says that's the way it is.  But if you say, no, it's my personal freedom to send my kid or no, it's my personal freedom like in Arkansas to give my kid hormone replacement therapies. They're like, no, it's not. It's the government's right to be able to control that aspect of your body and not let you do the things that you want to do.  I remember I lived in Texas and I remember the Texas conservative values that I was raised with.  You got to listen to the business. The business can kick you out if they don't want you to be there. And we have the right to refuse service to anyone. I remember being raised with businesses having that right to refuse service to anyone. So now all of a sudden when businesses start doing that to them, that's when they start getting mad.   Now you suffer the oppression of the minorities that have to deal with this on a daily basis since the beginning of this country's founding and before. Like it's just like, it's so infuriating, especially for me as a woman of color that is trans, right? That has all of these minority intersections and people that don't want to wear freaking cloth under their face literally try to say that their oppression trumps everything that anybody has ever faced, but yet critical race theory, yet cops aren't racist.     They'll say both on the same page. Yeah, they'll say both. They both say both. They're hilarious. You know, and so that's the world that it is for people who realize like these people are literally crying oppression in the worst ways when our country has been founded on oppressions of minorities. And now because some Karen or some guy wants to just say, I don't want to wear a mask. It's just, I know I'm extreme of consciousness, angry about this, but I love it. The hypocrisy is annoying. And a lot of them are comparing it to the Holocaust. They absolutely are, which is so offensive. It's so offensive. It's not a genocide, folks. It's a public health crisis. Just stop that right now. It's so infuriating. I want to actually also talk a little bit about the school board thing because you did mention that, Mike, and it's been quite a huge problem here in California. There's a group that's been traveling around going from school board meeting to school board meeting to school board meeting. I've attended a couple of them and it's the same group. So these are not, these are not even parents that have kids in their school district. They're traveling around. So Arthur Shaper is heading this up and I'm sorry, even I just pronounced his name wrong and I don't even care, but whatever. He has a group called Mass Resistance and the Southern Poverty Law Center has them classified as a hate group, but they travel around. This is not the first thing that they've attacked. Obviously they're very much anti-gay rights, anti-trans rights, all of these things, right? But they're really lashed onto this particular thing right now. So they've been traveling around from school board meeting to school board meeting and I was at the Palace Veritas school board meeting I think it was about three weeks ago where the school board just wasn't gonna have it. So they ended up just not having the meeting and just letting these guys blabber on in the room and then they had their meeting on Zoom away from where this crowd was. But again, these, you know, my thing when I was watching this is like none of you have kids in this school system yet you feel the need to come here and demand these rights and your say and everything else that you're doing right now without any regard whatsoever for the actual kids that do go to this school system for the actual parents that are here. This is so offensive on so many levels and you don't even care or see it. And then we had another situation with this group in Huntington Beach which is particularly problematic because you do have a lot of neo-Nazis there, you have a lot of proud boys there. They've had ongoing Trump rallies on the peer there for a long time that have gotten a few times out of hand. I filmed some neo-Nazis there three or four months ago but they have been harassing the school board there in Huntington Beach because they also have a mask mandate. There is Gina Trayton Garrison who I've actually interviewed on status coup is on the school board there. She's the only Democrat on the school board. The rest of the school board are Republicans. At least I believe they are. And they all are in agreement on this, right? This is the right thing to do. Well, Tito Ortiz was their mayor for a long time and if you know who Tito is, he's an MMA fighter. He's also a giant Trump supporter. I think he was on the apprentice at one time before he became mayor. But he resigned a couple of months ago because he pulled the stunt with the school board where they had been allowing his children to attend through Zoom because he's refusing to have them wear masks. So they were doing a setup where they could watch online, take the classes online, etc., etc. But he decided to pull the stunt where he brought the kids to the school campus. They didn't want to let him in and he was demanding that they do so. And then he went onto Twitter and was playing the victim and how his rights and he's the victim on the martyr. And I read this tweet and I said, Tito, wait a second. You are asking for an exemption to the rule for everybody else. You think you're privileged enough to be granted that. And when that didn't happen, you're angry and now you're going to blame and lash at everybody around you. But here's the thing. Your decisions are affecting every other child in that school and the other parents in the school board have a right to make a decision that's in the interest of everybody, not just what you want. Stop being so selfish, right? So he ended up resigning over this and blaming Gina and saying that, you know, he's like, one of these guys that thinks everybody's Antifa. So Gina's Antifa, I'm Antifa. Arthur Shaper actually called me, what did he call me, Antifa Boomer Witch or something in a video? What? Geez. I'm still laughing at that one. Let me mention to you that there are people funding this, okay? I did it myself two weeks ago with Julie Dramansky, who's a photojournalist for DSMOG and she's been covering these mass mandate protests in Louisiana where she lives. And she's experienced not so much physical violence like you did, Tina, but a lot of bullying and intimidation and she's getting very afraid. Anyway, DSMOG has done a lot of reporting into who's behind this and it's these right-wing groups like Turning Point USA who are funded by the Mercer's, the Devos, the Koch Brothers. And they're the same groups that have funded climate science denialism. So you see there's a pattern here. It's this kind of anti-science thing. And, you know, there are a lot of politicians that are benefiting from this, mostly the right-wing ones. And my representative, I can't let the show end without saying that he, over the weekend, he was speaking to a county Republican organization and he basically talked about bloodshed and it was going to be over these mass mandates. And somebody said, when are we going to Washington again? And he said, Yeah, I know what you're talking about now. Is he your guy? Madison Cawthorn, yes. How can he be your guy? And I tried to have a citizen lobby meeting with him. I organized a group of people and I was in conversation with his staff and they were putting me through all the hoops and they said, send this thing to the schedule or fill out this form, do all this stuff. I mean, I knew it was never going to happen. I really wanted to go in there so that I could secretly record the conversation and all the moronic things that he said. Because it's just the one party. North Carolina is a one party state. You could do that. So I kind of wanted to get in there and do some intel under the guys of doing a citizen lobby meeting with the guy, but it never happened because he's too busy trying to foment insurrection 2.0. Exactly. I like that, Lauren. I like that. Sneaky. I like it though. Okay, I want to ask the panel a question. So we just watched a video of a man peeing in a restaurant because he was forced to wear a mask with the way that things are going in the United States of America how far are we out from somebody shitting themselves in a viral video? One month or one year? Raise your hand if you think we're a year away from that. Raise your hand if you think we're a month away from that. Minority exist. I'm saying less than a month. You're right. I'm like... I don't know what to say. Less than over under on the one month. I just feel like we're so close to somebody like walking up to one of these school board meetings like getting face turning red just completely shits his pants takes off his clothes. Like I just... What I'm expecting is it going to shock me? Didn't that happen to Caitlin Bennett? Yeah, that's already been done. Wait, what? That's true. Well, I had to get the hit in. I had to. I'm sorry. Oh, I love it. I saw it on White Lotus which is a great show. They did that in White Lotus. That is a great show. Yeah. Thank you. That is a good show. I'm glad that you brought that up. Yeah. That's a good place to end with happiness of the White Lotus. Everyone, go watch the White Lotus. This is as much hopium and happiness that we can leave you with. But, okay, before we go, I do want to let everyone know next week, Wednesday, is the very last episode of dystopian times. And I even took the time to make a trailer for it. So, folks, make sure that if you want to pirate all the episodes, you do it before the 20th because they will be locked behind a vault, the Humanist Report Vault, similar to the Disney Vault. But when I am on a vacation and I'm low on ad revenue, I'll just re-upload all of those and monetize them again. So, if you want to pirate them, then do it before the 20th. Okay, just a little bit of a plug. But yeah, next week, it's going to be a 10-person panel, including myself.   But we're going to tackle some pretty heavy questions. And all of these folks who will be on next week are going to set the pace for the show or basically set the tone post-show about, like, is there any hopium to have? So, yeah, but before we do that, of course, we have this wonderful panel here. Thank you all so much. This has been such a great show. Before we go, I'm going to take some time to allow each and every single one of you to tell us where we can find you, how we can support you, and what you do. Josie Rose, where can we find you? How can the people support you? Well, I mainly stream on Twitch, so you can find me at twitch.tv slash josierosec, like it shows right here. And that's where you can find me. I am a person with a very eclectic background. I used to be a reactor operator for the United States Navy for six years. And then I was in politics for about a decade as a candidate, as a consultant, as a campaign manager all over the country. So I had a lot of fun doing that, including being a birdie delegate for the last two times. That's how I know a lot of these people beforehand on the panel, which is super great. And you can also find me at the same media handles on Josie Rose C on Twitter. I have it locked right now because we got hate rated a lot and I had to, like, buckle down because I am actually a transnational researcher for the largest trans equality organization in the country. So I have to keep my head down sometimes. There's a lot of people that are out for me just because I'm a trans girl. I'm just a trans girl. Don't come after me. Let's show some solidarity with Josie. Give Josie a follow. Go check her out on Twitch. I mean, it's a great show. It's a great, she's a great streamer. What else can I say? I'm sorry you're going through that, Josie. Yeah, and you should keep this show going. This show is great. You're a great host of this.  I love it. So thank you so much.  I'm going to be pivoting to doing interviews with candidates each week who are running in 2022. But I might bring it back. I mean, who knows? Or maybe there's going to be a new host. I won't say anything else about that. Who knows? So Tina, where can the people check you out? And how can we support you? Okay, so my Twitter handle is my name is Tina Desiree Berg. You can follow me there, almost everything. I'm a part of ends up there because I tweeted out. So I work with status coup sometimes with Jordan on bigger stories. And then I recently, if you're interested in local news, I recently, I have a podcast called District 34 that I've done for many years on California politics. I was on that. You've been on it, yeah? So has, yes. Yes, I have been on it too. Lauren, you need to come on. You're the only one on this panel that has not been on my podcast. How is that possible? Let's do it, Lauren. Come on. You can invite me. All right, let's do it. Let's do it. But I've now taken District 34 and turned it to a news co-op on local news here in California. We just started a YouTube channel recently. So if you do want to watch local stuff like what's going on in California, coverage from the protests, what have you, there's all kinds of videos on there in that area. And that's it. Oh, great, great. Actually, wait a minute. No, that's not it. Ron Placone will kick my butt if I don't say this. So I'm also doing a podcast now with Ron Placone called Academy Refugees. And a lot of people don't know this about Ron. So I might be outing him on this. He also has a master's degree, Minds in Philosophy, his is in Media Studies. So it's both of us talking about being Academy Refugees, meaning we've got our master's degrees, we didn't get our PhDs, and this is why, and we kind of talk about academic stuff in a non-academic way. And of course, he's funny. I'm in the same camp. I got my master's, and then I dropped out of the PhD program. Oh, I didn't drop out. I took a permanent sabbatical. OK, you need to come on and join us then because you would have a really good time with this. Because we need to go to town. For sure, for sure, for sure. Jordan, how can we support you and where can we check you out if people don't already know? Yeah. People might not know because YouTube hides us like many other channels. They would never, Jordan. They would never. Status Coup, C-O-U-P on YouTube. As humbly as I could say, we are one of the few outlets that actually do more than pontificate. We leave our studio. Flint, Michigan, environmental protests. We've covered too many black men being executed, Amazon union busting, and working on something now that we might end up going to Buffalo. It definitely costs a lot of money to actually do real journalism. That's why most don't do it. So you can check us out. Status Coup on YouTube. And if you like what you see, you can support us as a member at statuscoup.com slash join. Thank you so much. And oftentimes, we'll cover your segments on the Twitch streams and sometimes on YouTube. Really, really quality content, folks. So be sure to check out Jordan and Status Coup and the underground journalism that him and Tina do. Last but certainly not least, the great Lauren Steiner. Lauren, where can we find your work and how can we support you? Well, I do a show called The Robust Opposition in which I interview activists and organizers, authors, independent journalists, progressive candidates, and progressive elected officials. And I mostly cover issues and I do not do any commentary on my show. I used to do that in LA when I got stuck in terrible traffic. I would do these streaming while driving rants that used to get so many views. It was terrible. It was just me going on and on. The first one that I did was when Tom Perez won over Keith Ellison and I was fuming mad and, you know, I'm driving from one meeting to another. And the next thing I know, I've got 12,000 viewers on this thing. And I'm like- I need to start multitasking. And then I did one where Bernie Sanders tweeted out something about Russia five times in 24 hours. And my thing called Bernie Sanders STFU. And that got 13,000. So I'm like, no, but I want my more serious shows to get views. So I'm on Facebook. I've been doing this show since 2016, December 2016, right after the election. So my Facebook and all my posts are public, lauren.steiner.la. On Twitter, I'm lauren underscore Steiner. And on YouTube, I am Lauren from LA. And now I can't change it because now I live in Asheville, but it's all LA, LA, LA. I was going to say it because it's different. All right, well, folks, thank you so much. This has been such a great panel. These are always therapeutic. I mean, even though we talk about really horrific things and they're depressing subjects, I feel like there is a lot of value in talking about it together. And what I always hear from people who watch the show is that even though these subjects are super depressing, it makes them feel better knowing that this is on the minds of other people. And we all have multiple brain cells that work. So it's actually an intelligent conversation that we can actually have in substantive and nuance and not just clickbaity or drama focus. So yeah, thank you all so much. I really enjoyed this. I will see you all next week. I will be back shortly to read any super chats or comments right after the credits. I'll see you all next week, folks. This has been dystopian times. My name is Mike Vigorado. Thank you and bye. Hi. Thank you. Thank you. Well, folks, that was a fantastic panel. Thank you so much to my guests. I don't think I missed all of the super chats. I got some of them up on the screen, but let me go through here and make sure that I thank each and every single one of you. So we have Tyler Hackner. Tyler, you sent in three super chats. Four? Oh, my goodness. Four super chats. Tyler, thank you so much. So I'm going to miss this show. I know we have one more episode, but still LOL. I'm sorry. That means so much. Well, stay tuned because maybe I can find a way to find someone to take over while I'm doing Canada interviews on a different channel. I have some ideas to keep the show flowing. Well, we'll see, though. I want there to be a continuation of panels, and my hope was to get the ball rolling with this show. So if other people feel encouraged to do panels, I think that would be best case scenario. That's what I really want to get out of this. Tyler Hackner also says it's a piece of cloth to get over to people, right? I mean, as I think it was Tina that said, you have these no shoes, no shirt, no service signs, and nobody questions it. Nobody's angry that we have to put on clothing and we can't hang brain in a Walmart. So I'm over the petulance with these mask folks. Tyler Hackner also sends in a 49 super chat saying subscribed to our featured content creator. That's great. And on top of that, let me see. Oh, there we are. There we are. So John Barlich with a $2 super chat says Chad Bernie. Yes, Bernie is indeed a Sigma male. Absolutely. Temple of Thoughts for the $5 super chats says if idiots don't want to have COVID passport, have a COVID passport, then why not turn it around, only have unvaxed need passports? Yeah. So I mean, basically, what I think that Temple is saying here is that if you don't like COVID-19 passports, then just get vaccinated and it literally won't be an issue. You'll get a card. There was a lady that was busted today who had a fake card to travel to Hawaii and she even misspelled Moderna. It was M-A-D-E-R-N-A.  Your life will be so much more easier. And on top of that, guess what? You'll be protected. I mean, it's a no-brainer to me. We have Nathan Herrera with a $5 super chat. Thank you so much, Nathan. No message here. But I really appreciate you supporting the program. I really, really appreciate that. Yeah. Matt Durna as Chaos Knight says. So Dieter McBusiness with a $1.99 super chat says Rogan classic victim of stratosphere celeb success. Yeah. Yeah. Well put. Well put. Tyler Hackner with a $4.99 super chat. Again, Tyler, thank you so much. So incredibly generous. Let's see. Can't believe we have to say it, but we are not horses, right? Like this timeline, folks, is the dumbest timeline imaginable. The dumbest timeline imaginable. Oh, no. Celeste says her dad has COVID-19. Celeste, I'm so sorry to hear that. Hopefully your dad is vaccinated, but hopefully everything is OK. I'll keep him in my thoughts, Celeste. I'm so sorry to hear that. Let's see here. So Dieter McBusiness with a $4.99 super chat says dark demographic upside is that anti-vaxxers are mostly Trumplicans. So COVID is hurting their voter numbers. Also, I knew Afghanistan would blow over with mainstream media. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing about these pundits where anti-vaxx, like this is your base, like Tucker Carlson, is basically encouraging people or discouraging them from getting vaccinated who watch his program. It's just like it's weird. We have a $5 super chat from Omega Metal Chase 92. Do you think education in both secondary and post-secondary need reforms, not just more money thrown at them? Yeah, I think so. I think Finland has a really good model where they don't hyper-focus on testing. I don't necessarily think that's the best gauge for how good a child is doing. Yeah, I can see reforms. I don't necessarily think I'm versed enough to speak intelligently on this, but I will say I would support reforms, include more history. Yeah, for sure. For sure. We have, let's see here, Tyler Hackner with another $4.99 super chat. These unjust killings should not stand. We can't continue to live like this under the police state. Absolutely. Absolutely, it's exhausting. For people who don't know anyone who's a person of color in their life, I hope that the Black Lives Matter protests has educated them about what people of color have been experiencing forever. In 2020, I feel like the collective white consciousness or a lot of it was awakened by the Black Lives Matter, like the George Floyd protests, and I hope that they don't become complacent. I hope that people who finally get what people of color have been saying forever now, like I hope they get it, and I hope that they continue to advocate for our Black and Brown brothers and sisters, because that is, it's important. See here, Tyler Hackner with another $4.99 super chat. Tyler, oh my God, I'm so flattered. You sent in so many super chats. I really appreciate it, Tyler. You are so kind. Conservative ideology. We care about embryos, but once you're born, it's over. Yeah, Tyler, that's the thing that blows my mind about these abortion or anti-abortion Republicans. They're so hypocritical, right? If you're pro-life, shouldn't that also mean that you're anti-war? Shouldn't that also mean that you are pro-medicare for all? Mike is a sellout to Tyler Hacknery. Taking money from Big Tyler. I love that. Thank you, Alex. Good to see you, Alex. Planet Tiario with a $5 super chat, no message. Thank you so much. We have Sam, the great Sam. Sam, hope you're doing well. Most evangelicals are too far gone. I highly recommend reading this book, Jesus and John Wayne, to see how we got here. Yeah, that's interesting. I agree with you, Sam. I think that most evangelicals are never going to change their minds. It's really frustrating. Really frustrating.  Thank you, Mike, for your time and being a part of my day. Thank you. Oh, I really appreciate that. Thank you for being a part of my day now. Thank you. I really, really appreciate it.  Okay, so we have a 1999 super chat from Finnfan33. Thanks for bringing such interesting panelists together, Mike. Thank you, Finnfan. Finnfan, excuse me. Thank you so much. What a gigantic super chat in 1999. Wow, that is so kind of you. Thank you so much. Wow, you folks are just too kind. Fancam ASMR with a $10 super chat says, apparently Streamlabs implemented a safe mode to combat hate raids when Twitch would not. Worth looking into. That being said, my heart goes out to all y'all dealing with hate. Yeah, I know that Trihex was also hit with the hate raid. He shared like screenshots. I feel like there's got to be like something that Twitch can easily do to stop this. Like you can't be rated by someone unless you're following them to stop the hate raids because that is, that's awful.   That's just like this, this can't stand. Twitch and the internet has to be welcoming to all communities.  So I stand in solidarity with everyone who's not streaming today and shout out to Lance from the serfs. I wouldn't have found out about the Twitch day or day of no Twitch. I don't know what it's called, but I wouldn't have found out about it if he didn't broadcast that this was taking place. We have another Super Chat from Sam. Oh, hey, Mike. Hey, everyone. This was at the start of the show. Hey, Sam, it's always good to hear from you. Wonderful person. And we have another Tyler Hackner Super Chat Tyler. Oh my God. Republican Party wants to be the American Taliban, especially with abortion. They're straight up saying it. Yeah. That's exactly it. Exactly it. Tyler, thank you so much. Wow. Really? So you deal with the two hill debbies, a lot of troll raids? Jesus. I mean, I haven't been on Twitch long enough and I don't stream regularly enough, but it's Jesus. So you get it too.  I mean, this is just inevitable.  Man, this is, I was not like, I'm not super familiar with all of the Twitch happenings, but I'm glad that people are making noise about hate raids because it's so bad. Like this shouldn't be such a common phenomenon. You know, when I first was on Twitch, I think it was like my second stream and I got raided. I immediately thought, oh, God, this is sus. Am I being like brigade by haters?  But raids are usually like something that are really cool. It's supposed to be like this showing of solidarity, but you know, they're being co-opted now by these fuckwads who are doing hate raids. And that's just like unforgivable to me. Okay, folks. So before I bounce, I will take some of your questions here. Non-superchat questions. So if you would like to ask me anything that's on your heart, please feel free. Oh, that feels better to take the headphones out. Ah, yes. Larry Elder is insane. He wants the minimum wage to be $0. Does that sound like a serious person to you? No. Dragon Slayer, Slayer Dragon with a $5 superchat. Mike, hey, Mike, hey, thank you so much. Hey, it's so nice to see you. I really appreciate the superchat. Thank you. Mr. Anderson says, Mike, are you doing Twitch tomorrow? I am doing Twitch tomorrow. Yes, absolutely. I will be there. 7 p.m. BST. Thank you for asking. And thank you for reminding me to plug that, Mr. Anderson. Let's see. Let's see.  So Lord Magnus makes custom beats for me. Lord Magnus has a YouTube channel. He also sells and licenses his beats. Please check out his channel. He is just one of the best. Also, Raheets makes the beats. And for dystopian times, Carl Casey has, I use all of his beats. Carl Casey is someone who doesn't, like I don't know him personally, but he lets people use his beats if you give him credit for it. So Carl Casey, Raheets, and Lord Magnus, all of the beat makers for this show. And incredibly based as well. Hey, lurking is perfectly justifiable as well. Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. Anderson. Yes, twitch.tv slash humanist report, for sure. By the way, when dystopian times ends, I will most likely be moving Twitch streams to Wednesdays because I think that's going to be easier. Like if I do a segment from Twitch that I want to post to YouTube, like to give myself that extra day before the weekend increases the likelihood that I'll be able to take the weekend off fully. So I want to, I want to try to like open up my schedule so I can, you know, just have more free time and improve the quality of like the main show as well. So I'm going to look out for that. I think it's probably going to switch to Wednesdays, just FYI. Alex says, what do you think of Peter Coffin? Personally, I think their Twitter is kind of trash, but their YouTube is pretty solid. In fact, their style of video inspired mine. I don't know enough about Peter Coffin. I would agree that their Twitter takes are not, to my liking, the YouTube videos of theirs that I watched. I've always liked, but not a fan of their Twitter. So I kind of, I tend to agree with you, although to be fair, I really don't know enough. Yeah, I don't know enough, but what I've seen on Twitter, I'm not necessarily super fond of. So I agree, Alex. Mike, can you please do a video of the Indigenous genocide in Canada? I really want people to know the history and be more in the know about it. You know what I usually do for situations like this is I try to defer to people who live in those countries. So what I want to recommend is the serfs who has done really extensive videos. He is very knowledgeable, very passionate about this subject. So I really want to point people to his work because there's nothing that I would be able to add to the conversation that he hasn't already said. But yeah, this is something that is really important. Everything that I know about this is through Lance from the serfs. So I would really recommend that people check that out because we have to grapple with this, right? It's not just Canada, it's the United States as well. You know, North America has to grapple with the way that we did genocide against Indigenous peoples. Like, we need to stop pretending like it didn't happen. We need to call it what it is, a genocide, mass murder. Yeah, A. McGee says, Hey, Mike, love you and your content so much. Thank you. I really appreciate that. That's so kind of you. You always speak truth to power and are fair and mostly unbiased. One question, would your husband ever want to take part in the show? Well, thank you so much for the question. Possibly, I mean, I'm not sure. He's more shy than me. So he might not really feel comfortable with that. But if he doesn't ever get on camera, just know that he does make a contribution in the editing. So all of the YouTube videos that go up every day, he edits like 95% of them to 99% of them. So he kind of adds in humor, he'll add in memes. So in a way, he's a giant part of the show, but just kind of like behind the scenes and people don't really know about it. But I mean, possibly, you know, I'm not sure. It's totally up to him. I don't want to pressure him to get on camera with me, even though I think it'd be awesome. You are very welcome, Kay Trezy. Thank you for bringing that up also. Keep rolling, Mike. You're doing good work. Thank you. It feels good to hear that once in a while. Thank you so much. Yeah, Lance does really great work on this topic. Really, really good work. I always try to highlight good work. And yeah, Lance has been on it from day one. I know David Dole also talked about this. Lance, I believe his mom is Indigenous, so this is why this is personal to him. So he knows the history. He knows the facts. He knows the horrible response from the Trudeau government. I just can't recommend Lance's content on this enough. Like it's great. So check it out. You're very welcome. Very welcome. Okay, folks. Well, I think that that's pretty much everything. You should credit him more in my opinion. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like maybe I should do that. I think you're right. I think you're right. Because only the most hardcore followers know that my husband is the editor. So yeah. I mean, I don't do a credits on the show, but yeah. I have to add in editors notes or something so he gets credit for sure.  And I love when a new one comes out. Yes. Yes. Thank you. I really appreciate that. I work hard on those. I am probably going to create some new ones because the ones that I have are a little bit stale. So yeah, I might make some new ones. Look out for that towards the end of the month, possibly. Joe, how are you doing? Hope you're doing well. Lots of love, Mike. Stay safe out there. Joe, you too. Misha, hope you're doing