It's Time to Make a Difference

[00:00:22] Hey everybody, welcome to the podcast time, Jason. And I'm Wendy. And we're doing another one of our political podcasts. Yay! Yay. This is what I love doing. I mean, the midterm elections, this is more for people in the United States, because I honestly, we just want to try to convince anyone who isn't planning on voting or hasn't thought about it, that it's a good time to think about it.

[00:00:49] The elections are coming up November 3rd, which is as we're recording this 24 days away. And whenever we've done two of these political podcasts before, and whenever we've done them, I've tried at certain points to present this hopeful message of like changing things in the future. And this moment right now is what was in my mind when I was doing that. That's what I've been holding out for time to vote.

[00:01:18] A few of you have noted that there are many things besides voting that people can do to help. And I totally agree with that, but this is one simple, easy thing you can do that is powerful, can have impact that we can all do together. So that's really the focus. And so we're going to talk about, you know, a few things that the administration hasn't, has been doing that's awful. Uh, I don't know if you guys actually need motivation to want to vote, but Wendy has some

[00:01:48] things to go over with you just in case you're not convinced yet. We're also going to talk about where things stand politically, uh, and what the election could change and then just how to make sure you're ready to vote. If you don't need to hear any of that and you already know you want to vote, then I would just suggest that you go to vote.org and make sure that you're registered. And if you're not, you can register there and it has all the information you need, no matter what state you're in.

[00:02:16] So that's sort of a little intro to the podcast, but first we are going to have a little bit of news about the Testament since this is a Testament's podcast. It's a little check in about what we know about season two. Uh, you probably know this, but it's been renewed for season two that happened in May, I guess, of this year filming started in Toronto in August and the production listings give January 15th, 2027 as their scheduled wrap date.

[00:02:45] And, uh, Bruce Miller is returning as showrunner surprise. Uh, and of course, and there's been some new cast members announced. I didn't know this until today when I was just looking up news, but Deborah Ann wall is going to be in season two. Do you know her? What did she play? What did she play? Jessica and true blood and Karen page and daredevil. Hmm. She's great. I really like her.

[00:03:12] She's also a big, like dungeons, dragons, dungeon master, which is kind of fun. Uh, anyway, she's going to play a seamstress whose work brings her into contact with commanders, wives and daughters. I feel like there's probably more to her character than that. Yeah. Luke Kirby, who I didn't see the marvelous Mrs. Maisel, but I guess he was in that. I didn't either. He's playing commander Fletcher, a reclusive commander living on a farm in one of the, one of Gilead's colonies. I feel like that's probably somebody's husband, huh? Hold up.

[00:03:42] I've forgotten already. Hold up. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Although I don't recognize the name. So maybe though. Commander Fletcher. Yeah. I'm not sure. Uh, his eccentricities have made finding a wife difficult. It says, so maybe it's not somebody's husband. Yeah. Haley Wong as Prudence. She's a young actor, a pregnant Gilead wife.

[00:04:04] And, um, Charlie Carrick, who plays commander Judd has been promoted to series regular. Hmm. Which makes sense. Mm-hmm. And, uh, as far as when it will come out, there hasn't been an official date, but just looking at season one that premiered April 8th, 2026, which was about eight months after filming finished season two scheduled to wrap in January of 2027.

[00:04:34] So that could put it like in August, September. That's sooner than I was thinking. Really? Yeah. I was expecting a full two years. Yeah. I mean, Handmaid's Tale came out yearly, at least for a while there. Then they had the writer's strike. Yeah. I know Bruce Miller wants to keep it quick, especially since it's all these young actors who will age and everything.

[00:05:01] But anyway, I hope, yeah, if it came out in September, I'd be happy about that. Okay. You wanted to talk about some fucked up things that are going on right now. Yeah. I don't have to go into too many details. I think if you're listening to us, you know, it's a political podcast, you know, we're left leaning. So we probably don't have to convince you. But, you know, I just looked at some.

[00:05:28] I went by very reputable organizations like factcheck.org, Associated Press, Reuters, and looked for obvious lies that Trump and the administration has told. And there are huge lies in here. I mean, promises that were made that were never even attempted to be given.

[00:05:54] You know, just start with like the 2020 election was stolen. They're still claiming the 2020 election was stolen. And his administration won't deny that even once, even members that I believe probably know that that wasn't true. They don't dare speak the truth. The FBI sent agents to lead the January 6th attack, even though it was his FBI.

[00:06:25] California 2026 primary election was rigged. All the elections that don't go in their favor are rigged. I mean, he's been saying that since The Apprentice, the Emmys are rigged, you know? Yeah. It's just his. He's never admitted defeat. His pattern. And which makes me really, really nervous about, you know, what's going to happen when, you know,

[00:06:51] because I do think the midterms are not going to go their way. Anyway, he's been trying like hell to stymie the midterms by like passing some or maybe it was an executive order to stop mail-in votes. And the courts are stopping him from doing a lot of this stuff, which I've been really glad to see the Supreme Court actually stopped him from doing that. So anyway, yeah, he's trying everything he can.

[00:07:21] He's like trying to bribe people. The other day he said mail-in voting was okay. And I think that just smacks of the desperation that they're seeing the writing on the wall. He'll tell his people to vote. He votes by mail. But he's also offered to pay people $5,000 if the Republicans win. And he's also offered to pay people out for a bunch of other things that never came to pass. So it's all bullshit. Right.

[00:07:47] We've been promised, you know, all kinds of checks and none of that's come to fruition. And then I also wanted to talk about, you know, the war with Iran. You know, there's been no congressional authorization for any of that. No clearly demonstrated imminent threat.

[00:08:10] You know, civilian deaths, including children, civilian casualties, American military deaths. Why are we there? You know, when he first, maybe it was even before when it seemed like he was going to attack Iran.

[00:08:29] There were all these tweets resurfaced of him back in the Obama administration saying Obama's going to go to a war with Iran because his polls are down. And he knows that that'll bring it back up. You watch stuff like that. You know, I'm paraphrasing. But he kept saying that, which which revealed that in his mind, if your polls are down and you go to war with Iran, it'll fix it. And his polls were down when he went to war with Iran. And he was wrong.

[00:08:57] But I just think I think that's why he did it, because he thought it would make him look good and take everybody's mind off the Epstein files. It did take everyone's mind or not everyone. But yeah, Epstein files aren't as prominent in the news right now. So but the war with Iran did not do his approval rating any favors. And now he can't kind of get out of it smoothly. So get out of it. And you're right. People are dying because of this. Right.

[00:09:22] I think it was also done as a an additional way to funnel money, which is what's happening. Everything they do is a way to funnel money towards them, their friends, their cronies, people that are going to do him favors in the future. You know, kickbacks. Just this week, there was an ice shooting in New York City.

[00:09:51] Ice agents surrounded a car and, you know, with somebody they wanted to detain. And they ended up shooting seven bullets into the car and they knew that there was like a five or six year old child in the backseat. Luckily, the child was not harmed, but the child could have easily been killed. You know, the continued terror attacks that ice is being used for is.

[00:10:20] I mean, we have it in Baltimore. I had one of my coworkers who is a social worker who works in the Baltimore City, Baltimore County area called me crying. Absolutely hysterical because she watched this in front of her like it was two or three doors down from where she was walking. And she watched an abduction happen. And then she's just supposed to go about her day. Yeah.

[00:10:48] And then, you know, again, we don't have to ram this down people's throats, but there are lots of proposed legislation, legislation that has been tried to be enacted in the last two years.

[00:11:02] That really stomp on women's rights, LGBTQ rights, minorities, Tennessee lawmakers attempting to charge women with first degree murder if they get an abortion. Restrictions on emergency abortion care. They want this to be handled by the government and not by physicians. Women have died because they go in.

[00:11:30] They're in trouble because they're pregnant and the physicians pause. They are afraid to give the pregnant women medical care because they're afraid. They're afraid they're doing what's wrong. They're doing something illegal. They might end their medical careers. They might go to jail.

[00:11:50] You know, unfortunately, there's a there's a list of women that have died and others, many more others that have been injured because of these pauses that are happening when a pregnant woman goes in. Mm hmm.

[00:12:09] Exactly the kind of things we were warning about when we did our project 2025 episode before the Trump election, when we were trying to get people to not vote to vote for Kamala Harris. Yeah. Criminal penalties for transgender folks using the wrong. I'm saying that in air quotes bathroom. You know, I just traveled to Spain and Canada this year and unisex bathrooms. They have them all over the place.

[00:12:38] It's people have lived with unisex bathrooms for decades. It's it's not a problem. Bathrooms are not a problem. What the hell? I'm in California, so I see those more here. I never been a problem. I did not see them in Maryland at all. But like in Spain, it was very common to have these in like large tourist areas, these very large bathrooms.

[00:13:06] And they all have stalls and each stall has like a gender on and nobody cares. It's all fine. It's less it's shorter lines for women. Just saying longer lines for men. Yeah, I'm against it. Hopefully. You know, I could just go on and on and on. Well, you want to you mentioned about the firing squad thing. What's up with that? Yeah, that's another thing we can talk about.

[00:13:35] So there's a former army psychiatrist who's convicted of murdering 13 people and wounding 32 at Fort Hood in Maryland in 2009. His execution is scheduled for December 2026. And our lovely secretary, defense secretary, Peek Hegseth, is stating that the Pentagon is planning to live stream the execution of this man. So I have a question for you, Jason.

[00:14:03] What other countries do you think have had public executions in the last decade? Gilead. Iran. Iran. North Korea. Saudi Arabia. And Yemen. So that's where we're going to be. We're going to be in with this group of people. And Saudi Arabia actually outlawed it in 2019. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:31] It's I just really want Pete Hegseth to go away. Yeah. And this is the pro-life. We don't like this guy. Christian party. He needs to be dealt with either, you know, imprisoned or if you're in if you believe in capital punishment, you know, this is the kind of guy that should get it. But we don't need to live stream it. Live stream it. And none of those countries have live streamed it.

[00:14:58] They've had public executions where people are invited to come, but they haven't live streamed it. So we would be the only people that have done that. Well, I mean, I know ISIS and things like that have done that. But the only official government sanctioned live stream. Like, is this where we're going? Well, OK. So I'm going to reorganize a little bit. I was going to talk about the political landscape, but I feel like first it's good just with that reminder.

[00:15:28] Just, you know, if we were going to talk about all the fucked up things done by this administration, it would take hours and hours. We could be here for hours. But there's a few things. And so I just want to really point to what would it matter if the Democrats win back Congress since Trump has been president? I've heard a lot of frustration about Democrats not doing anything. And I think that's valid to a degree. Absolutely.

[00:15:58] But also they can do a lot more when they have a majority in either the House or the Senate or both. Right now, the Republicans have more House and Senate members than Democrats. And that makes a big difference. Congress is supposed to be a check on the president. But this Republican Congress, because they have majority, they're in power. They have voting power. They have abdicated that power and let Trump do whatever he wants.

[00:16:25] And just here are three things that happened during Trump's second term that if the Democrats had had a majority, could have been prevented. Medicaid and food assistance cuts. Republicans passed Trump's one big, beautiful bill in July 2025 projected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $900 billion.

[00:16:52] And snap or food stamps by more than $200 billion over roughly 10 years. Defunding PBS, NPR and foreign aid. Republicans approved $9 billion in cuts to previously authorized funding, including $1.1 billion for public broadcasting and the other $8 billion for international assistance. Restrictions on reproductive health care.

[00:17:16] Trump's July 2025 spending law included a provision barring certain Medicaid payments to Planned Parenthood and other qualifying reproductive health providers for one year. Potentially affecting access to contraception, cancer screenings, STI testing and other services. And a Democratic majority in either the House or the Senate could have prevented those things.

[00:17:37] So people who don't really understand the workings of government don't realize that voting for Democrats in the Senate and the House can make a difference to how things go in the country. So, for example, what if the Democrats controlled the House? That would affect protecting federal programs and spending. Trump has attempted to cancel funding already approved by Congress on September 25th.

[00:18:05] His administration moved to cancel $810 million for programs involving refugee assistance, education, housing and other services. And the government accountability office said withholding those funds past September 30th without congressional approval would violate federal law. But the Republican controlled Congress doesn't enforce that.

[00:18:27] So a new House majority could investigate those practices and use budget negotiations to seek stronger protections against future attempts to bypass Congress. So it's not necessarily going to fix what already happened, but it will stop things like that from happening in the future. Another area is investigating abuses of power. House committees could investigate Trump administration actions.

[00:18:53] They can subpoena documents, question officials under oath and do this all in the light of the public. So, for example, ICE enforcement, they could investigate unlawful arrest, detention conditions, violations of constitutional rights, things like that. They can require ICE and DHS officials to testify publicly about their actions. They can investigate their use of taxpayer money.

[00:19:18] There was a report in 2026 that found ICE spent $1 billion buying warehouses for detention facilities without adequate planning. Shocker. Yeah. So these investigations can expose these abuses and pressure DHS to change its practices and use budget negotiations to seek enforceable safeguards. Another thing, politicization of government.

[00:19:45] A lot of people are being fired for political reasons in the government. So they can investigate that. They can examine conflicts of interest and misuse of taxpayer money. And then the Epstein files. They can investigate whether the Justice Department hasn't properly withheld or redacted Epstein-related records, submit documents, question officials, push for further disclosure while protecting victims' identities.

[00:20:11] So, you know, just putting these things more in the light of day. I think a lot of that is going to happen. Protecting reproductive rights. They can block any new federal legislation restricting abortion access. They can oppose cuts to reproductive health funding and things like that.

[00:20:32] If Democrats controlled both the Senate and the House, then they could reject presidential nominees that require their confirmation. That could be future judges, federal judges, cabinet officials, agency leaders. That's important because these idiots get nominated like Pete Hexeth and want to do public streaming of firing squads.

[00:21:00] They could pass legislation changing federal policy. I mean, Trump might veto that stuff, but it's better to have them passing it and getting a veto. Yeah. Yeah. And they just have greater leverage in budget negotiations and all kinds of stuff. So that sounds like a lot of obstruction and investigation rather than positive forward movement. And that's right. It is. But right now, I think the patient is sick and the immediate priority is stopping the bleeding.

[00:21:29] And then if the Democrats can win the 28th presidential election and keep control of Congress, then I think you'll see a lot of positive change. But until then. Do some repair. Yeah. Right. Repair. We need to stop what's happening right now. So. Yeah. Changing congressional control in 2026 will affect the balance of power.

[00:21:52] And it's also important to vote because the midterms include state and local elections, and that can affect education, health care, reproductive rights, housing and other policies. You know what I've noticed? So Maryland is very blue, right? We're very Democrat. But where I live is red. And I've noticed that the Republicans running for local office, they don't say they're Republicans. Oh, yeah.

[00:22:19] People are moving away from it now. Yeah. And in fact, many of them, like their signs are blue. And I mean, it's just like they take out like my little local country paper. They've taken out whole page ads in there for all the Republicans. But nowhere on there does it say they're Republicans. And like, it's really interesting, right?

[00:22:48] Like, you know, the guy running against our governor. And I'm not real happy with my governor. There's a lot of there's been a lot of problems. But like the guy running against him is this crazy nationalistic Christian, you know, MAGA guy. Like, he's not going to win. But like nowhere on his things does it say he's Republican.

[00:23:09] You know, it's just it reminds me of because Biden had this huge infrastructure bill and it caused a lot of like things to be repaired and roads and things like that. And the Republicans who voted against it would go out to like ribbon cutting ceremonies and pretend like they were the reason why it was happening. Yeah. So that that's a very good lead into my next thing.

[00:23:39] The political landscape, because I don't know if I feel like people know this, but maybe people aren't paying as much attention as I have. But things look very hopeful for a shift to Democratic control of the House. I agree. You know, I'm not the most hopeful. Yeah, it's it's great. Like things are swinging around like I've been saying this whole time they would and possibly even the Senate.

[00:24:04] And like you can see their actions are showing how worried they are. Yeah. So Trump's approval ratings have fallen and recent polling shows Democrats gaining ground in these congressional races. And I want to talk about some of the polls and why I say that. And then, yeah, so Trump's approval. Pew Research, which is one of the most respected polling agencies, showed his approval at 47 percent near the beginning of the second term.

[00:24:31] Then in July, it had gone down to 34 percent. And October 8th, just a couple of days ago, was 30 percent. And so it's on a downward trajectory. 30 percent is the lowest it's been in his whole two terms, except for the day right after January 6th when it was 29. Which is still frightening to me that 30 percent of the people. It absolutely is. But it's like he won not by a lot, despite what he says.

[00:25:00] So a huge drop like that is a big difference. And among the people who voted for him in 2024, his approval has fallen from 95 percent to 67 percent. So that's a big decline among his own voters, even though it should be all of them. I agree. It's still it's good. It's good. But in the House for the House, Pew's October survey shows Democrats leading Republicans by eight points in congressional voting preferences among registered voters.

[00:25:30] On October 9th, the Cook Political Report shifted 18 House races towards Democrats, including several Republican held seats. That's just sort of projecting that the Democrats are favored to win. So the Democrats only need a net gain of three seats to take control. And these are 18 races that are projected to go to them for the Senate. They need four seats to take control. So it's a lot tighter of a race there.

[00:25:58] Cook's October ratings, though, shifted several races towards Democrats. Kansas went from lean Republican to a toss up North Carolina, lean Democratic to likely Democratic. And so Senate control is more uncertain because Democrats have to gain seats while defending competitive races of their own.

[00:26:16] But it's significant that some typically Republican strongholds are in play, like states like Kansas, Texas, Iowa and Alaska, where Republicans would ordinarily be heavily favored are now competitive. And a few months ago, it didn't seem like Democrats had much of a chance. Also, voter enthusiasm. Pew's October survey found 63 percent of Democratic candidate supporters say they're extremely motivated to vote, while only 46 percent of Republican candidate supporters say the same.

[00:26:45] So, I mean, saying you're motivated isn't the same as actually voting, which is why we have to actually do it. Like you can't say, oh, good, they're favored. I don't need to do anything. No, don't do that. No, we need everybody to vote. Everybody needs to get out there and vote. Do a little research before you go and vote in every, you know, for every office that's up. Yep. Yep.

[00:27:11] And so that leads me to my last little segment, voting information, which, again, election day is Tuesday, November 3rd coming up. And some registration deadlines are already passed, but most haven't. So if you don't know if you're registered, go to vote.org and you can enter something. I don't know your name. I forget what. But you can enter. Maybe it's social security number. I'm not sure.

[00:27:41] But go to vote.org and you can check whether you're registered. And if you're not, then it will show you how to register. And you can also find out whether your state offers early voting or voting by mail. People are voting right now. You can check your polling location and whatever requirements before election day. If you live in Delaware, your deadline is today. That's right. Yeah. So if I get this out in time, it might be yesterday by the time we're hearing this.

[00:28:10] Lots of states also have provisions of registering emergently and registering actually on election day. A lot of states have like little loopholes that you can go through. I think New Hampshire is like on the day. Yeah. But it's still like the deadline has not passed for Kansas, Maryland, Minnesota, New Jersey, Oregon, West Virginia, most of the states. Most of the states you can still vote. And I think it's helpful.

[00:28:39] Like, you know, I'm a woman. I always look on League of Women voters. Like, if you don't know if there's, you know, different races that you're not sure, they have candidate questionnaires, ballot measures, local races, nonpartisan voter education. AARP, you know, seniors, you know, our Medicare, our Social Security, those things are on the line right now for people like me who are looking at retiring in the next decade.

[00:29:08] AARP has great voting information, talks about the candidate positions on Social Security, their voting records if they're incumbents. Medicare caregiving is a big thing that is huge right now because with the cuts to our health care infrastructure and also people are having to work longer now to make ends meet, people can't afford to retire.

[00:29:35] So caregiving for our elders is a huge talking point right now. That's good. I'm glad you're saying this because it's helping me. I'll go there and check it out, too. Yeah, it's really great. Yeah. Cool. All right. That's our show. Thanks so much for listening, everybody. Please go to vote.org and check whether you're registered to vote. And let us know that you did it. We would love to hear from you. Yeah.

[00:30:05] I'll put a link in the show notes if you're not a part of our Facebook group. Yeah. We would love to have you join. What's our Facebook group called? Talk about all this stuff. What is it called? Mayday? Mayday. Appropriate. Yeah. So, like we said, it's going to be a Wild Tell Testament season two comes around. But Wendy had an idea for something we might do coming up here. Yes. I thought it would be.

[00:30:32] I watched the movie A Promising Young Women in the last few weeks and I was really struck by it. I love Carrie Mulligan. She's so good. I love her in anything. But it's definitely has been very, it's kind of been resurrected because of the Cornell 7 issue. So, I just thought it was a really good movie and it seemed fitting to discuss it here on this podcast.

[00:31:02] So, we're going to get some people together to do that. Yeah. So, look for. Probably after Yellow Jackets. If you're in our group. Yeah. We put comment posts on things that are coming up. So, that's sort of a way to let people know, hey, if you're interested, watch this and then let us know what you thought. And then you can be, you know, we'll read your comments on the podcast and respond to them. But otherwise, if you're not interested in that, then you'll just see that in your feed at some point.

[00:31:32] Yeah. Yeah. And our co-host, Daphne, had an idea also for a movie that she thought might be fitting here. So, we might be covering a couple little things during the break. Right on. Yeah. But like you said, maybe after Yellow Jackets since we're all on that too. And that's coming up November, what? 20th? 20th. Yeah, I'm excited. Season 4, the final season. So, if you're into that and you didn't know all three of us plus our friend Penny, we do a podcast called Yellow Jackets WTF.

[00:32:00] And if you go to podcast2go.com, you can find links or just search for that wherever you get podcasts if you're interested. But otherwise, thanks so much if you made it this far. And we appreciate you guys. Thank you.