23: Let's Not Have The Handmaid's Tale for Real

[00:00:00] Hey everybody it's Jason, I just finished editing this episode and while I was editing

[00:00:05] our real eyes that I should probably come back and record a little intro because we get into

[00:00:11] some pretty serious and I would say disturbing topics, things that are pretty familiar to you

[00:00:19] if you watch the handmaids tale, things like women losing children in childbirth, rape, abortion,

[00:00:28] except these are in the real world. We're talking about those kinds of things in the real world.

[00:00:33] So I just wanted to let you know, there's times when we get into some pretty detailed descriptions

[00:00:38] of some of it and you'll understand why if you decide to keep listening as you go along

[00:00:43] but there's your little upfront warning.

[00:01:04] Hey everybody welcome to our podcast, I'm Daphne and I'm Wendy and I'm Jason.

[00:01:10] And this is the Handmaid's Tale Podcast. After a two-year break my goodness has it been

[00:01:16] to be serious. We're back for a special episode.

[00:01:20] Yeah last time we podcasted it was November 2022 when we interviewed Bruce Miller.

[00:01:27] Really?

[00:01:28] The show writer. That's crazy.

[00:01:31] Just after I think the season ended and season six just started filming this month,

[00:01:36] I think in September and I think it was on Elizabeth Moss's Instagram that they're coming out

[00:01:45] spring of next year. Six the final season.

[00:01:49] They're all, all our shows are going to line up together.

[00:01:52] I'm scared it's like, oh my god.

[00:01:55] I mean buddy you listening want to be on a podcast.

[00:01:59] I imagine we'll do some kind of a catch-up before then to remind everyone where we are in the

[00:02:03] story and all that but this episode is not at all about that it's about real life because

[00:02:09] unfortunately we think the United States has become more like the Handmaid's Tale since we

[00:02:15] last podcasted and we're going to tell you about how it's become that way and also how much

[00:02:23] worse it could get but what we can all do to help prevent it. And of course that's about getting out

[00:02:29] the vote and usually we generally encourage people to vote but we don't usually get political but

[00:02:37] it's so important now and we think that you guys listening to this podcast are the right audience to

[00:02:42] hear this so we hope you'll stick around and listen to what we have to say for the whole thing

[00:02:46] and also I just want to say before we get into it that it can feel like a single vote that each of us

[00:02:52] have doesn't matter one vote out of millions but I would love to see all of us vote together and

[00:02:58] make about 5,000 times the impact that we normally would and so we can feel like we're making

[00:03:03] a little bit more of an impact that way so the title of this episode is let's not have the

[00:03:10] handmaid's Tale for Reels or for real. Yes so we're going to I'm going to talk about how the

[00:03:15] US has become more like the Handmaid's Tale since we last podcasted I think everyone knows or most

[00:03:23] people know about the structure of the government and how it works but maybe some could use it

[00:03:26] refresh her because I realize that people just run these terms and things buy people but a lot of

[00:03:32] people who aren't really keyed into it just they don't get the context so our government's

[00:03:39] divided into three branches legislative which is Congress or the House and Senate who make the laws

[00:03:45] executive which is the president and the Department of Justice who enforce the laws

[00:03:50] and judicial the judges and the Supreme Court who interpret the laws when their disagreements

[00:03:55] and make sure the laws are applied correctly. So when there's disagreement about an important

[00:04:00] law it can go all the way up to the Supreme Court, the highest court and the ruling that they make

[00:04:05] can actually have huge impacts on our lives. They can affect civil rights, healthcare, daily

[00:04:11] norms, societal norms, all kinds of things. For example in 2015 in the case of Obergefell versus

[00:04:18] Hodges that resulted in the landmark decision which ruled that the fundamental right to Mary is

[00:04:26] guaranteed to same sex couples across the country. So before 2015 there were several states where

[00:04:33] gay marriage was illegal and that that was an instance where the Supreme Court did something

[00:04:38] that had a huge impact to many people. Another thing about the Supreme Court there's nine justices

[00:04:43] and they have life tenure so once appointed they can serve as long as they want to or until they

[00:04:49] pass away. Supreme Court members are appointed by presidents and of course democratic presidents

[00:04:57] tend to appoint more liberal leaning justices and Republican presidents tend to appoint more

[00:05:03] conservative leaning justices. For a long time on the court I don't remember how long but it seemed

[00:05:08] like forever there were it was balanced. There were four conservative justices, four liberals

[00:05:13] and one in the middle Anthony Kennedy who could be swayed to go either way depending on whenever

[00:05:19] there was a decision to be made where he landed. In the gay marriage case the vote was five four

[00:05:25] with Justice Kennedy voting in favor. The four conservative justices voted against gay marriage

[00:05:31] but because Kennedy was there he swung the other way then gay marriage became legal. Then the court

[00:05:37] got all screwed up in all of the balance. There are now six conservative justices and three

[00:05:41] liberals so the liberals lose many of the big important cases and I don't even know if it's that

[00:05:48] important to talk about why that happened but it's so messed up that I really want to mention it

[00:05:53] that in February of 2016 the beginning of Barack Obama's final years president because he

[00:05:59] could only serve two terms conservative justice and to ninscalia passed away. And Obama needed

[00:06:05] to appoint a replacement so he vetted a bunch of possible judges put for Maric Garland who was

[00:06:10] widely regarded as a fair and thoughtful judge he'd gotten praise from both Republicans and Democrats

[00:06:16] but to appoint a new justice you can't just do it as a president you also need a majority of

[00:06:21] the senators to vote yes and at that time there were more Republican senators the Democrats

[00:06:25] and the Republican senator Mitch McConnell said well it's an election year and so we're going

[00:06:32] to delay the vote for a year because we want to let the people pick the president who's going to

[00:06:38] decide and so we had to wait until we found out whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump won.

[00:06:43] He said it would be improper to appoint a justice at that time they should let the people decide

[00:06:47] that never happened before always when the other party control the Senate they still allow the

[00:06:52] justice to be replaced sometimes they put them through you know they always have hearing so they had

[00:06:56] have tough questioning and they at least have the hearing but Mitch McConnell refused and so then of

[00:07:02] course Donald Trump was elected and he employed appointed conservative Neil Gorsuch so then the

[00:07:13] conservative so it stayed the same balance then in 2018 that swing just to say Anthony Kennedy decided

[00:07:19] to retire so Trump appointed conservative Brett Kavanaugh and then the court became five four

[00:07:24] in favor of conservatives if the gay marriage thing came up at this point very good chance we wouldn't

[00:07:31] have get marriage in this country I also think it's at risk for being that that bill is at risk it could

[00:07:38] be. And you have to rob versus wait you can't take anything for granted. Yeah then in September 2020

[00:07:44] less than two months before the Biden Trump election just as Ruth Bader Ginsburg died and days

[00:07:51] before her death she dictated a statement to her granddaughter and heard by others in the room at

[00:07:55] the time my most firm at which is that I will not be replaced until a new president is installed

[00:08:00] that's very same justification for why Mitch McConnell prevented Barack Obama for appointing someone

[00:08:06] but of course even though the polls said that Biden was most likely going to beat Trump

[00:08:11] Trump appointed conservative Amy Coney Barrett to the court the day after Ginsburg died so

[00:08:18] then it became a six three conservative court that we have today and when each of these

[00:08:25] three Trump justices was being brought in the Senate got to question them in hearings and of

[00:08:30] course democratic senators would ask them whether they intended on overturning rho v weight the 1973

[00:08:38] decision that made abortion legal throughout the country and they would all sort of him and

[00:08:42] how about it they would talk about no it's precedent and it had been on the books a long time

[00:08:46] and reaffirmed in other cases several times so they sort of tried to give the indication that

[00:08:50] they wouldn't touch it and then in 2022 when it was a six three court this dobs versus Jackson

[00:08:56] case came up and the Supreme Court held at the Constitution did not confer right to abortion so

[00:09:03] they overturned after 50 years rovers is way making it so each state can make their own laws about

[00:09:08] whether abortion is legal and before we get to the fallout of that decision I want to make it

[00:09:18] clear that this was Donald Trump's goal the whole time before he was elected in 2016 in a debate

[00:09:25] with Hillary Clinton when he was asked whether he wanted rho v weight to be overturned he said

[00:09:30] I'm pro life and then the moderator pressed him on whether he wanted the ruling over turn

[00:09:34] he said that will happen automatically because he potentially gets nominate several

[00:09:38] justice to the court which is exactly what he did in 2023 last year he said after 50 years of failure

[00:09:46] which nobody coming in with close I was able to kill rho v weight and then back in 2016 when

[00:09:53] was asked in a interview whether women who get abortion should be punished he said the answer is

[00:09:58] there has to be some form of punishment and so now that this is such a bad issue for them you

[00:10:04] know he he's trying to backpettle or just make it seem like he says every Democrat every

[00:10:09] Republican everybody wanted rho v weight terminated and brought back to the states that's of course

[00:10:14] bullshit democratic support for preserving rovers is weighed was over 80 percent many polls and

[00:10:20] 90 percent samples even 38 percent of Republicans say abortion should be legal in most cases

[00:10:26] when in 2022 Trump's VP candidate JD Vance said he would like abortion to be illegal nationally

[00:10:33] so it doesn't even want individual states to have the right to legalize it and

[00:10:37] and most recently there was a measure in Trump's home state of Florida that would protect

[00:10:43] abortion rights and he was kind of wishy-washy about it because he doesn't know which way to land

[00:10:47] now he's going to turn people off but he facing backlash among his voters he said he'd vote

[00:10:52] against that so he would vote against protecting abortion in his state so what we get from all this

[00:10:59] in my opinion is you can't trust these lawmakers and just says not to take this kind of thing

[00:11:05] further and push it as hard as they can use any means necessary even if if violates political

[00:11:11] norms to carry out their agendas and so yeah yeah I'd also like to say that

[00:11:19] I absolutely believe that the only reason why they didn't go further in reversing

[00:11:28] Virginia versus lovelin loving which protects people from being able to it's it can't even say

[00:11:37] words it's so preposterous being able to marry outside of their race.

[00:11:47] The only reason why and this is pure speculation but I do think that I'm right the only reason

[00:11:53] why they haven't gone further is because of the incredible backlash that they received after

[00:11:59] Roe V Wade was overturned and then in the midterm elections it really cost them big

[00:12:05] and so I think that's the only reason why they are soft pedaling right now and

[00:12:12] if the Republicans win the presidential election they're going to go like gangbusters because

[00:12:18] they've got this pre-incourt they've you know how about the power and and they'll have

[00:12:23] almost nothing to lose at that point and so I think we're going to see all these national

[00:12:30] protections that we have where you can you can marry the person that you want to regardless of their

[00:12:38] their gender or their sexual orientation or their race that's all it's all those protections

[00:12:44] that you and I and we all grew up with completely taking for granted could be gone.

[00:12:50] There's a lot at risk yeah. Well we're going to we're going to get into what could happen

[00:12:56] but first before we do that I want to talk about what the fallout is from what has already happened.

[00:13:02] What what has been because I know some people maybe on the fence about whether you're pro-life

[00:13:07] or not and it's more than just whether or not it's okay to have an abortion it's about also just

[00:13:16] care that pregnant women are or not receiving because of these laws women who don't want to

[00:13:22] abortions but they're still not getting care and sometimes they could die from it and it's just

[00:13:27] a bunch of shitty things have happened so and we want to really make a point it's not comfortable

[00:13:31] but you guys watch the handmaid tale it's hard to watch and now there's hard things happening in

[00:13:36] real life that we think are important to talk about. That's correct there's there's people that

[00:13:40] their experiences are pretty comparable to what we see in the handmaid tale they're going through

[00:13:46] children that are going through that right now. Like what I can talk a little bit currently

[00:13:52] abortion is completely illegal with few exceptions in 14 states the only place in the south east

[00:14:01] to access legal abortion after six weeks gestation which is many people do not know their

[00:14:08] pregnant at six weeks is North Carolina which then bans it after 12 weeks. 10 states had the so-called

[00:14:18] trigger laws intended to outlaw abortion when and if the Supreme Court reversed row they've completely

[00:14:25] banned the procedure two more states why I mean and Utah have laws that are tied up in court right now

[00:14:32] that that is their intentions is to have similar laws so I wanted to talk about a couple

[00:14:39] of real life cases that happened this was a case that was documented in the Texas Tribune and

[00:14:46] this is the case about a woman named Miranda she was pregnant with a very wanted pregnancy found

[00:14:55] she was having twins she went for a typical ultrasound and there was a problem. Within a few

[00:15:03] hours she was sitting across from a maternal fetal medicine specialist in Dallas he pulled out a

[00:15:09] whiteboard and illustrated all the ways that this pregnancy was headed for disaster so she was

[00:15:15] turned out pregnant with conjoing twins. The baby spines were tested twisted curling and so sharply

[00:15:22] it looked at some angles as if they disappeared entirely or organs were hanging out of their bodies

[00:15:27] or hadn't developed yet at all one of the babies had a club to foot the other a big bubble of

[00:15:33] fluid on the top of his neck it was in many ways a simple diagnosis as soon as these babies were

[00:15:39] born they would die. These were babies that were wanted for dream dim plan for and she was hoping

[00:15:46] that something could be done but the doctor after giving her this diagnosis left the room and a

[00:15:54] few minutes later a nurse came back and handed them a post-it note and written on that was the name

[00:15:59] of an abortion clinic in New Mexico. After the overturn of Roe V Wade, Texas became the largest

[00:16:05] state in the nation to ban abortion to protect the life of every child with a heartbeat as governor

[00:16:11] Greg Abbott put it. Doctors who perform an abortion in Texas can face up to life in prison unless

[00:16:19] it's to save the life of the pregnant patient. A few years prior to this Miranda would have been

[00:16:25] able to terminate this pregnancy at a doctor's office or a hospital at whatever point she felt

[00:16:30] ready to do so even in Texas doctors could perform abortions beyond 20 weeks if the fetus had

[00:16:37] severe an irreversible abnormality but now she's boxed in by abortion bands in Texas Oklahoma

[00:16:44] and Arkansas. The doctors were terrified to even talk to her about her options and she was completely

[00:16:51] alone. Her family did not have the resources to get to a state that she could have safe health care

[00:16:57] so she ended up having to stay in Texas and was forced to carry her doomed children to term.

[00:17:05] And I just thought about this like going through this walking around as a pregnant person for months and

[00:17:12] months. She wasn't going to a baby shower, she wasn't buying tiny baby clothes or decorating

[00:17:19] her nursery instead she was preparing for a funeral. She spent more and more time searching

[00:17:27] first some kind of hope that never came and I just thought about this like imagining all the

[00:17:33] times that you walk around in your late pregnancy and while meaning people who don't know your

[00:17:38] situation would ask these innocuous questions like when are you do? Do you know the gender or the baby,

[00:17:46] you're so beautiful, you're glowing and all these things that people say to pregnant people

[00:17:51] and how awful that would have been for her to go through. I had a friend that was pregnant in a

[00:17:59] very wanted implant pregnancy and they found out that the baby had severe deformations and

[00:18:09] did not have a good prognosis to live. And I live in Maryland, you know, home of John Topkins Hospital

[00:18:16] where it's pretty easy to seek out the correct type of health care that you need in these situations

[00:18:23] but even with that she had to wait 10 days to get an abortion and I remember like,

[00:18:29] her just you know walking around her apartment still feeling her baby moving inside of her

[00:18:36] and you know just what do you do with those 10 days? And like we were so worried about her mental

[00:18:42] health and we had set up shifts between our neighbors trying to make sure that she wasn't alone

[00:18:47] at any time so that she had the support that she needed. Imagine doing that for four or five months.

[00:18:54] I mean it's just heartbreaking to me that she had to go through that.

[00:19:01] Unnecessary. And that's just one case that we have.

[00:19:06] I mean I want to mention maybe you have a case about this but it's the thing about

[00:19:12] you know there are many of these states where abortion is restricted almost completely

[00:19:19] accepting cases where the life of the mother is threatened and even even a lot of them if it's

[00:19:25] rape or incest doesn't matter you have to carry a baby to turn but if the life of the mother is

[00:19:29] threatened then there can be reproductive care applied but the problem with that is that

[00:19:36] the doctors will refuse to help until the person is at death store.

[00:19:40] Correct. You have to die. They're going into sepsis or something like that and

[00:19:45] that's if you watch the Kamala Harris with Oprah Winfrey they had this mother of this 28-year-old

[00:19:52] woman Amber Thurman telling about her daughter who she went out of state. She was in Texas.

[00:19:56] She went out of state to get an abortion but she came back there with complications and the

[00:20:00] doctors by law were not allowed to treat her even for that post abortion unless her life was threatened

[00:20:07] and so they delayed treatment and she died and that was a preventable death.

[00:20:13] And even if you don't die you can be damaged for the rest of your life from these things.

[00:20:22] Why aren't women worth saving? It's just unfathomable to me and I do have another

[00:20:33] case that I'd like to talk about so I'm getting my people. And we're talking about I mean

[00:20:40] some I wonder I don't know but maybe some people are what does this have to do with the hand

[00:20:44] means to tell well this is what happens when people in government decide that they should be the ones

[00:20:50] to have control over women and women's bodies. And this is just the very beginning.

[00:20:56] I mean there can be more after this if this decision was made and rovers is way it was overturned.

[00:21:05] What could be next after that if given the opportunity as you said earlier Jason we can't trust.

[00:21:14] Yeah, you can. So I also have the story of a nine-year-old, nine, who was raped

[00:21:24] by a older man I don't even know. I couldn't even read that article because they all

[00:21:31] after this case came out he was prosecuted so it was an older man I would say in his 30s or 40s.

[00:21:41] Rape to nine-year-old she became pregnant and she was not able to obtain an abortion in Ohio.

[00:21:47] At nine years old Ohio would have made her birth that child at nine. I mean think about your nine

[00:21:56] year old they're tiny that this that isn't just because it can happen in medicine doesn't mean

[00:22:04] it should a nine-year-old should not be giving birth and the girl's physician so she had to go to

[00:22:17] help her but certainly not the medical community in Ohio. The girl's physician in Indiana spoke

[00:22:23] about the case without giving any identifying information away to bring to the forefront issues

[00:22:29] with the Ohio abortion laws. How did Indiana reward this physician for attempting to protect

[00:22:36] the children that these laws impact? They it heard the medical licensing board issued her $3,000

[00:22:43] and finds in a letter of reprimand for speaking about it publicly. That's what happened and that child

[00:22:51] did get her abortion so we're talking about children we're talking about a nine-year-old I have a

[00:23:01] need to stand and I can't imagine she's still playing with their dolls. I mean this is

[00:23:09] this blows my mind because I what I have heard in response to things like that and I've actually

[00:23:16] heard it myself is well two wrongs don't make her right and if you look at a child the life-long

[00:23:25] trauma that is going at that child is gonna go through having been forced to go through this.

[00:23:32] I mean not only being a right victim and a rape survivor we're talking about

[00:23:40] being forced to carry to term as a nine-year-old her rapist's baby and for every case that we see here

[00:23:50] in the news there's tons of 11 and 12-year-olds giving birth this is what's happening

[00:23:58] we're just not hearing about it. We can't go through all the cases either I mean there's

[00:24:03] stories of women bleeding out and parking lots because they can't get care and it's just it's just

[00:24:10] awful. So just in a personal story I have a family member who was in medical school when

[00:24:17] Roe V Wade was overturned in medical school there's a complicated process of bidding for a residency

[00:24:23] program and this happened just after that had all happened so new young doctors find out where

[00:24:34] they're gonna go for their residency program my family member still had a year to go so she

[00:24:39] didn't have to worry about that but she had lots of friends that we're doing that so they had already

[00:24:43] made their decision then it's a big deal where you go it's not like something you can just change

[00:24:47] your mind on and then Roe V Wade happened and everybody was panicked these residency programs are

[00:24:55] typically a three to five year period where you're working and still learning and you're preferred

[00:24:59] specialty and now these doctors were very and I don't mean all of them I just mean you know in my

[00:25:10] experience they're very concerned about potentially going to red states that had trigger laws

[00:25:17] already in place awaiting the Roe V Wade overturned so now you're an emergency room physician

[00:25:25] in Arkansas and you're concerned about you know I don't want to go to a red state because

[00:25:32] either I'll be forced to let women die or I won't be able to treat them as I have oath to treat them

[00:25:39] or if I do treat them I'm gonna get sued if I don't treat them I'm gonna get sued

[00:25:46] I do treat them I'm a prison yeah so so that's what's happening in the medical community

[00:25:55] so there is another article and this was from the new republic by Timothy Noah entitled the Red State

[00:26:02] Brain Drain isn't coming it's happening right now and this was published in November of last year

[00:26:08] and he states as conservative states wage total culture war college educated workers physicians

[00:26:15] teachers professors and more are packing their bags Republican dominated states are pushing

[00:26:22] out young professionals by enacting extremist conservative policies

[00:26:28] and the same thing is happening my daughter's a teacher and it's the parallels between health

[00:26:35] and education are so similar like teachers are now you know really a danger in these states

[00:26:45] the number of applications for OB-GYN residences was down more than 10% in states that have

[00:26:52] banned abortion since dobs 48 teachers in her nando county florida fed up with the whole don't say

[00:27:00] and other new laws restricting what they can teach resigned or retired at the end of last year

[00:27:07] a North Carolina law confining transgender people to bathrooms and accordance with what it

[00:27:13] said on their birth certificate before it was repealed cost the state 3.7-6 billion dollars in business

[00:27:22] investment and in one place there was a 1-800 number where you could turn in your teacher

[00:27:34] for doing something wrong and then they were based of 500 dollar fine if they were so hand made

[00:27:40] still yes yeah turn in your neighbor you know the Gestapo or this is where we are

[00:27:47] yeah it all comes back to if you look on a and I know we're in a podcast that you can't do this

[00:27:55] but I pulled all the information up if you look on a map of the states and you look at see where

[00:28:01] abortion rights are the most limited and then you look at maternal health indicators which is a real

[00:28:13] and an indicator of how well your health system is doing in Arkansas, Alabama, uh, Tennessee especially

[00:28:24] if you are a pregnant woman your chance of dying is four times greater than California

[00:28:30] and then if you take those two maps and you overlay a map that shows education levels in the

[00:28:42] way of the country and then you can't see how it's a correlation I know there's other factors involved

[00:28:45] but you can't help but see how those intensely conservative extremist states are they're killing

[00:28:54] their women and they're not educating their people. And we know like if you're in those states

[00:29:02] listening to us if you look at a more granular look at who votes for what in each state

[00:29:11] there's different kinds of people in every state absolutely there's blue and red in every state

[00:29:16] and there's people who don't feel very blue or red you know they're independent but um it's just

[00:29:22] where there's more concentrations of people who would vote for these kind of things that are being harmed

[00:29:28] yeah and I we're obviously talking generalizations you know you know we're not

[00:29:34] statiticians or political experts this is our opinions based on what we've seen.

[00:29:42] Yeah I mean I've read the same thing that you just said about um complications are higher in

[00:29:48] states where abortion's been they'd illegal yeah I mean I've heard reports of

[00:29:54] somebody's BP dropping and you know getting into trouble and they have to get on the horn with

[00:30:01] hospitals legal team before they can act that should not be we need to give doctors the power to save lives

[00:30:12] that's their oath I mean they take the hipocratic oath to be able to you know first

[00:30:18] do you know harm to treat the patient and to not be able to do that without talking to a lawyer who

[00:30:25] no offense that they're focused on the legal issues they're not trained physicians they don't

[00:30:34] that's not their world patient advocacy isn't their priority exactly yeah any one thing that

[00:30:41] stands out to me too is you talking about um teachers and doctors not wanting to go to these

[00:30:48] red states and they already have such a or they have a lower care rate to begin with

[00:30:56] yep having more doctors leave is just going to make the standard of care even lower.

[00:31:05] I I know um again I had a family member who was in medical school in Kentucky

[00:31:13] and in their emergency room they had to bring in a different doctor like once a quarter

[00:31:20] because they they couldn't get doctors to come and live there so they would pay these crazy amounts

[00:31:27] of money for a doctor to come and be there for just three months and then they would swap them out

[00:31:33] with another doctor because people they couldn't get anybody. All right maybe we should move on

[00:31:41] to to what could happen that would make it worse if we don't do something we can do something to

[00:31:47] make it better or we can sit on our butts and do nothing and watch it get worse those are our

[00:31:53] choices and so I'm talking about what Trump would do in office and how much worse it could get

[00:32:00] and you guys may have heard of this project 20 25 thing that Trump denies having anything to do with

[00:32:07] and what that is in general is an 887 page document laying out initiatives conceived by

[00:32:14] the Heritage Foundation which is a conservative think tank and it's designed to prepare for

[00:32:19] a potential conservative administration in uh 2025 it has a comprehensive set of politics sees

[00:32:25] for the next administration, a list of potential candidates for government positions, training

[00:32:31] programs to prepare these candidates for the roles, a blueprint for a radical restructuring of

[00:32:37] the executive branch and a 180 day playbook for actions to be taken in the first 180 days of

[00:32:44] a conservative administration. It's a manual for reorganizing the entire federal government

[00:32:49] agency by agency to serve this conservative I would say extreme conservative agenda. I don't

[00:32:54] want to come down on conservatives I want to come down on extreme conservatives who want to impose

[00:32:59] these things that we don't like on everybody else you know this country is about freedom.

[00:33:05] Absolutely I have voted for conservatives before meet you. Good so but Trump says I have no idea

[00:33:13] who's behind it but in fact at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration had a

[00:33:18] hand in project 2025 along with over 100 others that Trump has associated with six of his

[00:33:24] former cabinet members helped write it cabinets basically you know the ones that are in the room

[00:33:29] with them all the time. It doesens more who staffed Trump's government hold positions with

[00:33:34] conservative groups advising project 25 including his former chief of staff mark menos and

[00:33:40] long time advisor Stephen Miller that lovely guy these groups also include lawyers involved in

[00:33:47] Trump's attempts to remain in power like his impeachment attorney Jay Sekilo and to the legal

[00:33:53] tax of his failed attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election cleat a Mitchell and John Eastman.

[00:34:00] Also among the contributors Lisa, currenty, an anti-abortion advocate that Trump appointed

[00:34:05] as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the status of women. All of Trump's supreme

[00:34:12] court picks were list of suggestions from the Heritage Foundation, the same group that made

[00:34:16] project 2025 so he's been known to seek and follow their advice that's what Trump does you know

[00:34:22] gets people around him who can do things and then he'll take credit for it but he isn't

[00:34:25] want to actually have to get in and do all the nitty gritty details and these are the people

[00:34:29] who he has around him deciding the way things are going to be so when he says he has no idea

[00:34:34] who's behind that he's clearly lying it's all the people who are his in his administration

[00:34:39] he knows them well so I don't believe anything else he says about it and we should presume that

[00:34:44] we'll enact what's in it so what is in it at 807 pages there's a whole lot but maybe we'll

[00:34:52] try to say 887 yeah wow that's 900 the issues more closely related to the handmaids tale

[00:35:00] things around women's control of over their bodies uh to religious freedom to a pressure

[00:35:06] of tradition state freedom to choose who to love for women's control over the bodies this is

[00:35:12] from reproductiverights dot com the top five ways project 2025 would destroy abortion access one

[00:35:18] and medication abortion used in 63% of abortions in the US by revoking FDA approval of abortion

[00:35:24] drugs to allow hospitals to deny emergency lifesaving abortion care to pregnant patients and

[00:35:31] crisis so that's already the case in some states as we talk but it would yeah they wanted to be

[00:35:37] three prosecute people for shipping and transporting of abortion pills and supplies

[00:35:42] not allowed to do that via the US postal service that's what they want uh for permit

[00:35:49] extremists to harass abortion clinic staff and patients without consequence and five established an

[00:35:56] abortion surveillance system that forces states to report the intricate personal details of all

[00:36:06] turning each other and kind of thing yeah and I do think that when Trump got into office in 2016

[00:36:16] he attempted to put into place people around him that lended some legitimacy to his

[00:36:26] presidential run yeah and two could sort of steer the ship because he was new at it

[00:36:32] then they were in government before and knew how to do it and I think like we clearly saw

[00:36:38] you know in those last days after he had long lost the election in those last days in January

[00:36:46] that he was attempting to stay in office and he wanted his legal team to find a way and they

[00:36:56] denied him that they said we're not doing that and he is not going to make that same mistake twice

[00:37:02] he is going to surround him with people that will do whatever he wants regardless of the legality

[00:37:10] of it that's what he wants to do. It won't be the same no. That's so important what you're saying like

[00:37:16] he has he fire you know he kept saying when he was elected I'm gonna hire I'm gonna bring

[00:37:22] the best people he fired a lot of them most of the big ones yeah and only kept the ones he only

[00:37:26] keeps the people who are who are loyal to him do whatever he says and so come and he's learned

[00:37:32] more about how to do that now and to like you know my pants exactly he refused to not certify

[00:37:40] the election the way Trump wanted him to. Jady Vance has said he would do a Trump wanted absolutely

[00:37:45] and that's just the perfect example of all of the people that he has around him down why it will

[00:37:50] be so much different. He's gonna surround himself with yes people that will do whatever he wants.

[00:37:55] Yeah like when he said while he was president I mean people are coming forward with stories and

[00:38:01] I can't remember who it was in his cabin one of the military officials or somebody said

[00:38:07] that he wanted to shoot protesters in the legs I shouldn't laugh it's awful but you know there

[00:38:14] people saying no to a lot of things that won't be there now. That's right I want to

[00:38:20] documentary on HBO about the January 6th insurrection and it was very telling some of the

[00:38:31] representatives who were on site that day. One in particular said we need to bring everyone back you

[00:38:39] don't go home we have to certify this election we have to certify that Biden won the election

[00:38:47] because there's an understanding that if they delayed it and our former president was able to get back

[00:38:55] into the White House that they may never be able to certify the election.

[00:39:02] Republicans are having to make a decision they're either going to be right and just

[00:39:09] and support our democracy or they're gonna go with Trump. And unfortunately I don't think there's

[00:39:17] a lot of Liz Cheneys out there. Anybody who's gone against Trump has been because he has such a

[00:39:25] strong group of people who support him and he can just name anybody that he doesn't like and they

[00:39:30] will you know vote him out. Yeah. One thing much less harass them so yeah anybody like Adam

[00:39:37] is a girl who has voted or voice opposition to Trump that's Republican has lost their jobs.

[00:39:46] Yep. Except for Mitt Romney but he's now retiring. Yeah. And yeah he just I mean Trump just

[00:39:55] delegitimizes anything that doesn't isn't loyal to him and so any he finds maybe

[00:40:01] grains of truth that he can blow up into big fires. So if you don't trust government already

[00:40:06] well he'll say the FBI is corrupt that you know because if you don't trust the media the media is

[00:40:11] the enemy of the people just total extreme. Maybe there's some truth in that the media can't always

[00:40:16] be trusted but he makes it the enemy of the people and anybody who is against him and won't

[00:40:24] bend any then becomes the enemy and so all the people who support him just start to distrust

[00:40:30] all authority except for him. It's a very cool like mentality but I if even if you're not agreeing

[00:40:35] with everything that I'm saying about Trump here I hope you're at least listening to the parts

[00:40:39] about what has happened and what is in the plane for the future and I mentioned already

[00:40:46] the five points about project 2025 Wood Destroy abortion access. I want to mention

[00:40:51] about LGBT Q plus rights and also this kind of is tied in with penalties for not subscribing

[00:40:59] to a traditional Christian values which I'll say right at front I think religious freedom is so

[00:41:05] important and that means that we all have the freedom to practice the religion we want or to not

[00:41:11] practice but it does not mean that everyone has to practice the religion that somebody else wants.

[00:41:17] That's not where religious freedom is so when I speak negatively about Christian values being imposed

[00:41:24] on everyone it's not necessarily negativity about Christian values and other themselves is the part

[00:41:30] about where everyone has to do it that's very handy. It's tail. We we left England for that purpose

[00:41:36] correct I mean didn't Pilgrim first Pilgrims they left because they wanted religious freedom

[00:41:42] right do we want to live in a country where we impose our religion on others and that's what we're

[00:41:49] doing we're already doing it in several states yeah it's they've imposed it on the schools.

[00:41:57] How so? They're putting the 10 they have put the 10 commandments into several states schools

[00:42:03] and others are trying to get it in there. What do you mean put the 10 commandments and where they have

[00:42:08] kids have to learn about the 10 commandments it's required. It's tricky I like personally

[00:42:14] I think it's okay for kids to learn about religion but there's difference from sort of an

[00:42:20] anthropological point of view but then it should be even you know we're learning about

[00:42:24] different religions versus here's the 10 commandments that you need to follow. Well and also like I

[00:42:28] signed my kid up for a religious class when she was forced she went to a religious preschool

[00:42:34] and they offered this optional thing and I was like sure you know I think it's good to learn

[00:42:39] about other religions and then she came home with the 10 commandments and I said to her teacher like

[00:42:46] can you tell me how you explain adultery to a four-year-old and she was like you know that's a good

[00:42:53] point and I was like yeah I think it's just a heavy topic for a four-year-old. Well so let me get into

[00:43:01] the LGBTQ plus right so nothing in project 2025 proposes banning gay marriage that doesn't mean

[00:43:09] that that isn't a danger but just reporting what's in there but it does have several policy

[00:43:15] proposals that are anti-LGBTQ plus and against people with lifestyles other than being in a

[00:43:20] traditional nuclear family like Christian values say is the best. Project 2025 says the current

[00:43:27] Department of Health and Human Services quote focuses too much on LGBTQ plus equity subsidizing

[00:43:35] single motherhood disinscentivising work and penalizing marriage. These policies should be repealed

[00:43:41] and replaced by policies that support the formation of stable married nuclear families.

[00:43:46] I quote it says that family policies and programs under President Biden's health and human

[00:43:52] services are quote fraught with agenda items focusing on LGBTQ plus equity which makes it clear they

[00:43:58] they intend to roll these agenda items back and married nuclear families also elsewhere in the

[00:44:04] document it makes it pretty clear it means between a man and a woman. They attack the existence of

[00:44:10] transgender individuals saying society today includes the quote toxic normalization of transgenderism

[00:44:17] and quote it calls on the Department of Defense to quote reverse policies that allow transgender

[00:44:22] individuals to serve in the military. In essence it calls for the next president to protect face

[00:44:29] faith based grant recipients and maintain a traditional definition of marriages between one man

[00:44:34] and one woman it proposes that healthy marriage and relationship education grants be given only

[00:44:39] to organizations promoting heterosexual relationships opposing recent inclusivity research

[00:44:44] other policies including limited limiting LGBTQ plus protections defending religious freedoms over

[00:44:51] LGBTQ plus rights rolling back equity programs for LGBTQ plus people. So aside from that just a

[00:45:01] few other things targeting immigrant communities through mass deportations and raids, ending birth

[00:45:08] right citizenship, separating families and dismantling the nation's asylum system. Exploding the

[00:45:14] executive branch is vast and unprecedented powers to spy on American lives with warrantless surveillance

[00:45:19] of our data violating the first amendment by using federal law enforcement to target journalists

[00:45:24] and protesters censoring academic discussions about race, gender and systemic oppression in

[00:45:30] in a violation of the first amendment and promising to cut federal funding for schools with

[00:45:34] curriculum that touch on these subjects re-organizing and dismantling a number of federal

[00:45:39] agencies like the FBI, the Department of Education, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

[00:45:44] which includes the National Weather Service, the Department of Homeland Security and the Consumer

[00:45:49] Financial Protection Bureau, eliminating actually the Department of Education and

[00:45:55] diverting those public funds to private religious schools or religious schools that can

[00:45:59] discriminate against kids who are different because of their religion, sexuality, gender or race.

[00:46:05] And I mean, it's really the merging of a conservative agenda with a strong religious theology

[00:46:12] and at just same point again, free-no-religion is great, practicing what religion you want is great,

[00:46:18] creating a government that has a certain religion infused in it that then is enforced on

[00:46:23] everyone under it, not so good. Right, and this is the party that's supposed to be against

[00:46:29] big government but yet they're in the local and state levels, they are passing all these laws

[00:46:38] that impact your life and you probably don't even know about it. I found this terrifying list of

[00:46:45] state bills attempting to be passed that would impair the ability of libraries and library staff

[00:46:53] and library boards, like one of them proposed charging librarians with felonies.

[00:47:02] If they were found to be disseminating dangerous information, you know, like about

[00:47:07] critical race theory or something like that. And these things are going about on the local and

[00:47:16] levels pre-unnoticed. Yeah, that's why if you decide to vote vote for all of them, not just

[00:47:25] president. Oh yeah, it's very important to focus on your local elections because those are the ones

[00:47:32] that impact your daily life. Yep. I also want to mention in February of this year, the Alabama

[00:47:41] Supreme Court ruled that embryos created through in virtual fetalization or IVF are considered

[00:47:47] children and then that decision led to legal uncertainties for IVF providers. So at least three

[00:47:53] clinics in Alabama pause their IVF surfaces because they were afraid of legal repercussions. And then

[00:48:00] I think the next month there was a new state law passed that provided legal protection for IVF

[00:48:05] providers and patients. So the clinics could restart IVF services, but at least 22 partner

[00:48:11] organizations of project 2025 have published pieces criticizing and opposing IVF talking about things

[00:48:18] like fetal personhood. And so IVF could be another one of the things that's in danger. And that's

[00:48:25] personal for me. If not for IVF, I wouldn't have my son, you know? And a lot of people lost their

[00:48:31] embryos in that whole situation. Just the thought of that. Yeah. And a lot of people had to restart their

[00:48:36] IVF process where they were no longer able to get viable embryos and so they lost, it's just

[00:48:45] lost. They lost their opportunities because of that whole situation that happened.

[00:48:51] Yeah. Also contraceptive access, birth control is risk. In the project 20 twice brings that up.

[00:49:02] Yeah. Eight states have enacted or proposed attacks on contraceptive access.

[00:49:09] They're attempting even when they're not attempting to illegalize it. They're attempting to make

[00:49:15] more red tape, more hoops to jump through to get your birth control. I don't know if anybody's

[00:49:20] tried to get birth control lately, but it's not easy. Like there's limitations on it.

[00:49:29] In Indiana, you can't get an IUD because they think that's abortion, but it's pathologically

[00:49:37] not abortion. But because that is the myth surrounding it in Indiana, they passed a law that

[00:49:45] you can't get IUDs if you're getting, if you have state health insurance. That's very scary for people

[00:49:54] who like me cannot take birth control pill because I have a blood clotting disorder.

[00:50:03] Yeah. I mean, that's really my only option would be an IUD and probably also dangerous for you to

[00:50:08] pregnant, too. Yeah. Yeah. This is a problem. I mean, you're just thoughts post-half sex ever again,

[00:50:15] Daphne. That's the answer. Yeah. I mean, ultimately, I'm sure they would just like to end

[00:50:21] birth control. Yeah. A bill proposed in Oklahoma sought to enact a number of restrictions on both

[00:50:30] abortion and contraception. It purposefully conflated abortion care and certain types of

[00:50:37] contraceptives with the state of the intention of banning IUDs and emergency contraception plan B.

[00:50:42] That's what they mean when they're saying that. And then there's 2500 anti-abortion centers

[00:50:48] in the United States. These people have been doing this forever. They put ads in the one social

[00:50:56] media that makes you think they're a clinic that performs abortions, but they don't. And then

[00:51:04] they get you there and then they bombard you with anti-abortion information. That's been going on forever.

[00:51:12] That was an in-mids to it. Yeah, it doesn't that remind you? Yes. It was a it was a

[00:51:20] genine. That's right. Yeah. And that's straight out of what's going on. And what's been good?

[00:51:27] That's been going on for decades. With regard to the Department of Education breakdown, that's

[00:51:37] in project 2025, just wanted to say that Trump is said in multiple speeches that he plans to just

[00:51:43] mantle the Department of Education. Yeah, he's already when he was in. I guess that is one thing

[00:51:48] he did. He just crippled a bunch of agencies. Yeah. Like the EPA. Just to give you an example,

[00:51:56] the state of Texas contributes $140 million into these anti-abortion clinics. They

[00:52:05] a for that to happen. $140 million, what kind of aid could we give? What kind of health benefits

[00:52:14] could we give? A Texas is in no place to be pissing away $140 million. And you know what else I read

[00:52:22] is abortion is actually up 11%. So it's not doing what they even want it to do anyway.

[00:52:31] Right. It's just causing people to have to go to other states. Or it's caused and the lack of

[00:52:37] birth control, then just causes people to become more unwanted pregnancies or the whoops that you

[00:52:43] have to jump through with birth control. I know again we live in Maryland, which is as blue as it

[00:52:49] comes. And even then like all of a sudden the pharmacy won't approve your next month of pills.

[00:52:56] And then you have to jump through all these hoops and and do all these things. And now, you know,

[00:53:01] what's it like when your cycle is screwed up? It's disrupting to your hormones, to your life.

[00:53:10] And nobody cares about it. Some people do. Yes, I'm sorry.

[00:53:16] Well, let me talk about what Kamala Harris wants to do and it's pretty simple. And she's been

[00:53:24] a champion for reproductive rights her whole career. And for one thing, she doesn't want to do any

[00:53:30] of the things in Project 2020, if I that we just mentioned like not get rid of the Department of Education or

[00:53:36] anything like that. But the two big things relevant to this discussion that she's talked about,

[00:53:41] I think, our sign federal law's to reinstate Rovers' Wade and codify IVF into law.

[00:53:49] The Supreme Court decided the Americans aren't guaranteed these reproductive rights under the

[00:53:54] Constitution, but a federal law can be made to re-establish those rights. And so if Congress

[00:53:59] makes the law, which she will direct them to do then she will sign it, the things to overcome

[00:54:03] one week she has to be voted president. And also in the Senate, you need 51 senators and

[00:54:10] half of the House members to pass the law. So that's why we keep saying you got to vote for everyone

[00:54:16] not just the president, but for senators, well for House members. And then of course,

[00:54:22] because things are so divided, you need 51 senators to pass the law. But there's this thing

[00:54:29] how the filibuster that you might have heard of, where basically means the other side can halt

[00:54:34] to vote. And then you need 60 senators to break through that. And I don't think it's going to be

[00:54:41] possible to get 60 senators. We'll be lucky to get 51. But we only need 51 senators to abolish

[00:54:51] the filibuster since it's a Senate ruling out a law. And Harris, I think, guessed your day or the

[00:54:57] day before has reiterated her support for getting rid of the filibuster. There's questions

[00:55:02] about whether that's a good idea, but I would be on the side of, yeah, it's really important right now.

[00:55:09] We shouldn't have stupid laws like or a loop holes around the way we've set things up purposefully.

[00:55:18] I mean, I personally do not think the Supreme Court should be till death.

[00:55:22] Yeah, there's a, there's also talk about trying to research. Because there's nothing in the

[00:55:27] much the electoral college. But that's another story. There's nothing in the constitution that says

[00:55:32] there needs to be nine members of the Supreme Court or that Supreme Court needs to serve for

[00:55:36] life. So there's talk about trying to restructure it. So there's term limits on the Supreme Court

[00:55:41] just to keep things more sane and yet even, well, let's not get into the electoral college

[00:55:47] discussion. People like this, maybe we'll start a politics podcast. Let us go.

[00:55:51] But I want to talk about how people can help what you can do. Main thing is be sure that

[00:56:00] you are registered to vote and then vote. And if you're not sure, if you don't usually vote,

[00:56:06] join our, join our little movement here of handmade telepye cast listeners, be part of the team,

[00:56:12] vote with us. Let's be all together in this. It's easy to do. You check your registration by going to vote.org.

[00:56:19] It's actually a non-partisan site and you can go in there and put your name in and they'll tell

[00:56:24] you whether you're registered. And if you're not, then it will help you get registered. And also

[00:56:28] you can learn how to vote on there. Most states have early voting. It's already starting right

[00:56:33] now in some states or mail-in voting of some sort. And I would recommend getting that done as soon as you can.

[00:56:41] It's incredibly important that you do that because several states in recent days

[00:56:47] have removed voter voters previously registered voters from their roles. So you need to check that out

[00:56:54] and make sure that you are still registered in your state. Yes. And yeah, it's kind of fun. I just

[00:57:01] go in there and check. I went and checked just to be sure. Yeah, it says I'm registered. So that's great.

[00:57:06] In California, they just send ballots to everybody's registered. So I'll get mine in the mail.

[00:57:12] If you're a senior citizen, AARP has an excellent voting guide. It not only has a great

[00:57:20] national voting guide but it has a voting guide for every single state as well. And I see so often

[00:57:27] seniors voting against their own interests. You know, if you're concerned about how you're going

[00:57:34] to live in the future, how you're going to take care of your loved ones in the future, like

[00:57:39] check out AARP. They have great information.

[00:57:44] Second thing is get others to vote. Like I just that's why I'm doing this right now because I am

[00:57:50] frustrated that I only have one vote and also I'm in California. So it doesn't matter as much as

[00:57:55] somebody who's in a swing state, but it still matters. And if you feel like that too, like I said,

[00:58:01] vote with us, we can 5,000 times our impact. But also if everybody listening to me gets one

[00:58:06] of the person to vote, then that's 10,000 times, you know, or at least two times your own vote.

[00:58:11] So if you have a relative who's just not that interested, then just get them to vote or

[00:58:17] if they're not usually interested, just try to talk them into it. People and your family or friends.

[00:58:22] Yeah, that's another thing. You can donate. If you feel like it, act blue.com is where you

[00:58:29] can donate to the Harris Waltz campaign. We'll put all these links in the show notes by the way.

[00:58:33] Yeah. And if you're like me, like I'm in Maryland, which is very democratic state. Nobody's coming

[00:58:40] here. It's not a battleground. You can when you go to the vote blue, I mean act blue,

[00:58:46] you can specify that you want your money to go to a battleground state and you know, like

[00:58:53] places like Pennsylvania are going to be really important in this next election. Yeah, Pennsylvania

[00:58:58] the most. And also vote save america.com has a great, you can go there in their donation page and

[00:59:08] it will show you different house and Senate races if you really want to get into the nitty

[00:59:12] gritty. If you just want simple, just go to act blue. But if you really want to look at different

[00:59:16] options, go to votes haven't america.com. If you really want to make a difference, volunteer to help

[00:59:27] can set you up to volunteer. I think they can have you like making phone calls, texting people,

[00:59:33] or even going door to door. But if the thought of all that makes your stomach turn and makes

[00:59:38] really anxious like a lot of people I'm sure there's another great one that we've been getting

[00:59:42] involved with some of us lately called vote forward. I actually vote fwd.com vote forward. And

[00:59:48] they set you up to write handwritten letters and they say handwritten letters is an effective way to

[00:59:53] get people to vote. So they know to basically send to people and they're mostly going to

[00:59:57] battle around states. Yeah, and you don't have to interact with anyone. I know Karen has done

[01:00:02] like 500 of those Karen in David. Yeah, and they'll do fun things like hey let's watch the

[01:00:07] princess bride while we're writing letters. They'll do fun things like that. Might get some poems

[01:00:14] in your letters if you do that. Yes. So I will put all those links in the show now. But again,

[01:00:19] the most important one is just go to vote.org. Make sure you're registered and then be sure to vote.

[01:00:25] And we can make a difference together. All right, that's our show. Thanks for listening everyone.

[01:00:40] When Jason, when you invited me, I've been reminiscing I guess lately about podcasting because

[01:00:46] I've been actually doing it for four years now and are over four years. And I remember when

[01:00:53] you in first invited me to be part of podcasting and actually, you know, to be part of the handmaid

[01:01:00] style podcast, I realized at the time it was 2020. I think 2020 or 2021. So it was 2021.

[01:01:10] Trump was out right after Trump left office. The four years he was in office was

[01:01:18] difficult for me. Since then, if Los contact was several really close family members

[01:01:28] because of politics and I am a very diplomatic person. I'm very, you know, I can have conversations

[01:01:37] with just about anybody and it was a very difficult time. And I remember that when you invited

[01:01:43] me to do that, I realized it couldn't have done it when Trump was in office because we had just

[01:01:48] finished four years of this and it was very personally and emotionally difficult for me during

[01:01:55] it. It was easier to watch once he was gone. Yeah, I couldn't, I hadn't watched it. My fiance had

[01:02:03] watched all of it but I and I could not watch it because I was too mentally and emotionally stressed

[01:02:14] and it was very difficult for me to think of being able to do it. And in fact, when I was first

[01:02:21] watching the show, there were multiple times I kept thinking, oh man, this is I expected it to be

[01:02:29] really rough but it was even rougher because I care about people in general that's my personality

[01:02:37] watching people be persecuted is very hard for me. That's but so hard to understand.

[01:02:46] Yeah, like I got into an argument with a family member on Facebook. When Roe B. Wade was

[01:02:52] overturned she like was like, oh my god, thank you. This is great. This is wonderful. This is the

[01:02:58] best news I've ever heard and I was like, I'm not cheering for, you know, these states that

[01:03:07] are having these extremist laws and she's like, why do you care? Why do you care what happens to

[01:03:11] other states? Your girls live here. Yeah. I care about people in others. So, Jeffy saying,

[01:03:18] you're saying you, um, you don't think you would have wanted to podcast about the show while

[01:03:24] Trump is an office. So everybody if you want us to podcast about the show, make sure not to vote

[01:03:29] Trump back into office. That's the message here. No, that's great. No, that's the extra motivation

[01:03:34] you need. Then there you go. It's too, it's too like, from, comes back in or are you going to be,

[01:03:41] yeah, let's go back to him, it's tail. I will finish the series because I'm very passionate about the story.

[01:03:47] I'm not doing it. See in it right now. I'm out. Oh, don't say that. I mean, I, I mean,

[01:03:58] it's not to continue fighting. Okay. It's not. Yeah. I know. It's really, it's really difficult.

[01:04:06] And it's, I'm a registered independent. I lean much more left, but I am not left in an extremist way.

[01:04:14] I'm very much, what is the best thing? And I take things looking at what's best for people,

[01:04:22] not just myself, but people. And I think that what's happened is in particular, and I'm not

[01:04:29] expert in politics. But I feel like the Republican Party is very much now two different parties.

[01:04:38] The Republican Party that is left that still, like, the core Republican old school Republican

[01:04:47] is more to the center, but still on the right side. And then there's no power though.

[01:04:55] There's no power. Yeah. And they can't go against it. As much as, like, I never really

[01:05:01] gotten a politics until George Bush went into Iraq which I hated and that's when I decided, oh,

[01:05:08] I got some Democrats. And, but I still don't like that at all. But like, you know, when a

[01:05:17] bomb came in against some of Cain, I was so in favor of Obama over McCain and then Romney.

[01:05:22] But if we could have McCain or Romney instead of Trump, I would take him into heartbeat.

[01:05:27] I would take him so quickly. And, and I respect them even though I don't agree with them. And

[01:05:32] anybody else who's a conservative that has the beliefs things different than that us right now,

[01:05:38] if you're still listening to this by any, somewhere chance, I still respect you guys.

[01:05:44] But if you're a Trump alcoholic, then I can't. It's just, he is not a good person and he's corrosive

[01:05:51] to everything about this country. I never had a presidential election before where I was so fearful.

[01:06:00] Like, that you shouldn't feel fearful. Like, yeah, some some legislation might happen that

[01:06:07] you're not in a agree with or, you know, an international politics might not go the way you agree

[01:06:13] with it. But I'm fearful that our democracy is in jeopardy. And, yeah, I shouldn't have to

[01:06:22] feel that way. I'm sorry, deaf. No, I'm more, I'm fearful that of widespread sweeping changes that

[01:06:30] are going to completely change the landscape of this country forever. And it's terrifying for me,

[01:06:40] it hurts my heart because people like care about are going to be affected. I'm going to be affected,

[01:06:46] but I feel like I know people that are going to be severely affected by this in a negative way.

[01:06:55] And it breaks my heart. But Jason, when you were talking about Mitt Romney and John McCain,

[01:07:04] that seems like a lifetime ago now. And it isn't that it was that long ago, but it feels,

[01:07:13] like it so much has changed in this polarizing way. Yeah, one of the things that stands out to me

[01:07:20] most about John McCain. I mean, he brought Sarah Pailin in and she was like prodo Trump, really.

[01:07:28] But he one time during a town hall, you know, there were Republican operatives trying to

[01:07:36] stoke fear that Obama is otherwise and that he's not born in this country, Trump was one of them,

[01:07:42] and that he's a secret Muslim, which, you know, there's nothing wrong with being a Muslim anyway,

[01:07:47] but people are afraid. And so telling a lie about him to try to stoke that fear. And this woman in

[01:07:55] the town hall said, I don't trust him. He's a Muslim and McCain just took a beat and then he goes,

[01:08:03] no, man, he's not a Muslim and he's a good person. We happen to disagree on a few things.

[01:08:10] And I might respect for McCain just shot up so much in that moment like you, his, I'm sure his political

[01:08:17] operatives are along with what are you saying? You're giving him a compliment, but people were more decent,

[01:08:22] you know, and Trump just does not have it in him to be that way because he's not a good person.

[01:08:29] And he ridiculed John McCain. Right.

[01:08:33] We're being a prisoner of war. Ridiculous his baseline. Yeah, if you don't, if you're not loyal to him,

[01:08:39] like I said, watch for the pattern. If you don't believe me, just look at how he treats anyone who

[01:08:44] says anything bad about him and then if you say something good about him, it doesn't matter if you're

[01:08:48] a dictator of another country or whatever, then he'll he'll love you. And that's all. It's not about

[01:08:53] truth or anything. It's only about power because, you know, the more people that are loyal and

[01:08:59] bend the knee to him, the better for him. That's all he cares about. And he's, he's the role model

[01:09:05] politicians are figuring out that's the way to go. That's the winning attitude.

[01:09:12] But we can't let that be the truth. That's why I love Kamala how she's come in and she's been like

[01:09:18] all about positivity and decency and joy and stuff like that, you know, it's bringing that feeling

[01:09:25] back to it. And I know, I mean, that's a campaign strategy, but I'm into it. And she, I mean,

[01:09:31] she had to step up. She had to step up. And I feel like she's done that it this

[01:09:40] degree hard time to be. She wrote the occasion. She did. I mean, because we're not talking about

[01:09:46] this has been a six month campaign for her. We're talking about it's been a six week campaign

[01:09:52] for her. Yeah, maybe a little longer now. But yeah, I, I sometimes think what my grandparents would

[01:10:00] be thinking about all of this and my dad, um, they're all no longer with us. And just I'm

[01:10:08] speechless sometimes thinking about the potential for I mean, my father's 85. He's voted

[01:10:16] Republican most of his life. He's got, you know, stocks in the stock market that he's very concerned

[01:10:22] about. But he loves his grandchildren. He thinks this guy is a crazy maniac like he's choosing

[01:10:33] basic human rights over that. Yeah. And I mean, most of Trump's cabinet is not supporting him.

[01:10:40] His vice president. There has been hundreds of prominent Republicans that have come out against him.

[01:10:46] And, and people who support Trump say, well, they're all deep state. And I'm like,

[01:10:52] uh, you just, right, how we're all these people deep state? Nobody know it. Like, and that's it.

[01:10:56] Everybody who's again, anybody who's not in line is deep state and Tifa a pedophile. Like,

[01:11:03] this is what we're doing. And the hard part is people will believe it. Yeah, here's the one thing

[01:11:09] I always bring up when I'm trying to convince people that Trump just says anything that doesn't

[01:11:15] agree with him is he delegated. And I say, is it? Is in the 2016 primary, he lost the Texas primary

[01:11:24] to Ted Cruz and he said that vote was fraudulent and that it was rigged. And I'm like, okay,

[01:11:30] do you believe that Ted Cruz rigged the vote against Donald Trump? No. Clearly not. What is more

[01:11:36] likely? Donald Trump says anything is rigged or fraudulent or false or unfair that doesn't go his way.

[01:11:42] Yeah, they're already prepping to lose. This is what they're already prepping that if it's

[01:11:47] if it's if they lose, it's rigged. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you have to look at,

[01:11:54] look at the big picture and if you're in the middle and you're just trying to figure things out

[01:12:01] because it is incredibly confusing let me tell you to hear everything that's out there. There's

[01:12:08] much static really just dig into what's really happening and the issues that matter the most to you

[01:12:20] and to me I am going to vote my conscience and what I believe is right.

[01:12:27] Thank you so much everybody and before we go, I wanted to mention that this weekend I'm going to

[01:12:32] handmaid's tail opera. Jenny got a kiss. Yeah, it's kind of it's a real thing. Apparently so.

[01:12:40] Oh my goodness. Wow. Well you'll have to tell us how it is. You'll have to report on that on our next

[01:12:48] episode. I can't imagine like the um are they going to do like the ceremonies in opera?

[01:12:54] Oh my god. That's awful. I know. She got to be laughing at this.

[01:13:01] Oh we have to laugh that's all we have. All right. Yeah, all right that's our show. Thank you everyone.

[01:13:10] And please vote so next time we talk we won't have to be saying under his eye.