Automated Transcript
Sam:
[0:00]
| Hello, folks. We are about to get started with a live stream. Live stream. Live stream. Let's see. Can we get a... Not yet. We're waiting for the little announcement to go out. There we go. Announcement out. And I will re-blook it, blah, blah, blah thing as soon as it shows up here. There we go. Okay. We're just going to jump into it and i'll intro what's going on and blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
|
Sam:
[1:04]
| Welcome to Curmudgeon's Corner for Saturday, March 22nd, 2025. It's just after 17 UTC as we're starting to record this. I am Sam Minter, and I do not have an Yvonne with me. Yeah, he's traveling again, and whatever his travel schedule this time around is one that was incompatible with doing the show this week. I sent out my little note to our stable of potential substitute co-hosts, and at first no one answered. But then I did have someone say they would do it. And that would be my wife, Brandi Donaghy. Representative Brandi Donaghy. State Representative Brandi Donaghy in Washington State, 44th Legislative District. But right now, at this very second, while I'm starting to record, she is preparing to go out and do a series of two town halls.
|
Sam:
[1:58]
| And so I thought I'd just get the show started, and then we will record more with her later on in the weekend. As usual, I'm anchoring the show in the correct week, and so she'll be with us after the first break. And then as usual for a guest she'll pick topics maybe we'll talk about those 10 halls maybe we won't i don't know it depends what happens there and what she wants to talk about that's it's gonna be up to her the one thing that i yeah since i figured i'll do this first segment to anchor i'll do the but first thing where i do some media first especially like and i looked to see what was next on my list and if it was something that i knew like you know she'd watched with me or something, I would have said, hey, let's wait and have a conversation where she can talk about it too. But no, this one was definitely not one that she was with me when I watched. As with all of these, I think my son was with me, but I don't remember anything about his reaction to this one because I imagine it was very understated. This was a 2021 documentary called Stuart Udall, The Politics of Beauty.
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Sam:
[3:11]
| And I guess you can imagine. So first of all, let's say who was Stuart Udall? For anybody who may not remember, he was a Democrat. He was a congressman from Arizona. He was Secretary of the Interior from 1961 through 69. So that's under Kennedy and Johnson. And he is best known, I'm reading from the first paragraph of his Wikipedia page now, for promoting environmentalism while in the cabinet and his success under President Johnson. So that's who he is. I believe there is a brief, like, very tenuous family connection in that I think my grandmother and grandfather on my father's side of the family, so the Minter side of the family, I believe they like were at least acquaintances with this guy or knew him in passing. I don't think they were like good friends or something, but I remember hearing that he was like a friend of the family kind of thing, or maybe it was his brother that was.
|
Sam:
[4:32]
| Let me see. Okay. I brought up a note from 2024 from my dad to his sisters, actually in May 2023, that says, Hi, as I remember, both Stu Udall and his brother Mo Udall were friends of dads, or patients, or both. Does that fit with your memories? Mine is not very certain, and I am almost sure it is because of this email that I put this movie on my list, because it includes a link to historynewsnetwork.com, a blog post about the movie.
|
Sam:
[5:18]
| My Aunt Diane answers, I remember Mo being a closer friend, though they also knew Stu, of course. He was closer to other friends of theirs in Tucson. Maybe the Barrys? I remember the National Parks and Secretary of Interior, but not anything else. And then we've got from my dad, thanks for your good memory. Frank Berry was indeed the key connection to the Udalls. And then there's a little biographical bit that he puts, you know, when John Kennedy rewarded Udall for delivering the Arizona delegation at the 1960 Democratic Convention by appointing the 40-year-old congressman as Secretary of Interior. No one anticipated that one of his first acts would concern civil rights. By 1961, Washington, D.C. had become a primarily black city. The federal government had just completed the construction of a new public athletics facility, the District of Columbia Stadium.
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Sam:
[6:15]
| In April, Udall requested that Interior Department solicitor Frank J. Berry render an opinion on discrimination at any facilities administered by the Department of Interior. Using court cases, executive order, civil rights laws, and the 14th Amendment, Berry informed Udall that he could simply announce that there could be no discrimination at any federal properties, including the new stadium. The Washington Redskins of the National Football League planned to share the new stadium with baseball senators. However, the senators moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and became the Twins. In 1961, the Redskins were the only NFL team without even one black player and had nowhere to play if Udall denied them access to the new stadium. The city received an expansion baseball team, also called the Senators, but it had black athletes. Consequently, Udall announced that the Redskins could not use the facility because of discriminatory hiring practices. And let's see, my Aunt Susan asks, I wonder what Tom Udall is doing these days. I think he was a grandson. And Diane says he's the ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa. This was obviously still during the Biden administration. My aunt Susan says, nice work if you can get it. I wouldn't mind that job. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa? That sounds nice. And then I mentioned in June 2024, I replied back to this thread from like a little more than a year later that Alex and I were actually watching the movie now.
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Sam:
[7:41]
| And yeah, then. So let's see what else in this email thread. Mo was a friend, not sure if he was patient, but better friends with the berries. They knew Stu, but not as well. But Stu is the example I use when I want to talk about honest politicians. And Mo's son was until recently the governor of New Mexico and Stu's son of Colorado. So anyway, there's lots of, Lots of politicians in this family, and apparently I had a sort of weak family connection through my grandfather, my father's father. So, Mo Udall. Anyway, the documentary itself.
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Sam:
[8:19]
| Look, you can go find out more information on StuartUdallFilm.org. And let's see, does that History Channel link still work to actually watch it? I forget how we watched it or where we found it. I'm going to check Just Watch as well real quick because that always tells me where to find things. You know, it corrected Stuart Udall to Stuart Usual. There we go. Not available for—oh, Ovid. Ovid. It was available on this service called Ovid.
|
Sam:
[8:57]
| Which I probably set up just to watch this stupid thing. Anyway, the movie itself. It's one of these documentaries that are made by people who are obviously fans of the person and with close cooperation with the family or whatever. Stuart Udall died in 2010, and this movie came out just a few years later in 2021. well, 11 years. You know, you could tell, you know, you could tell what stage of life I'm at with 11 years is just a few years. Not a lot, you know. Anyway, so it's kind of a hagiography. You know, it's not doing a lot of, you know, sort of a balanced, here's the good, here's the bad, here's the whatever. It's like, hey, look at this great guy and all the things he accomplished during his life, which is fine, which is fine.
|
Sam:
[10:00]
| I'm going to give it a thumb sideways. I mean, look, it's a documentary about sort of a mid-level politician from the middle of the 20th century. You're not talking somebody super famous. You're not talking about, you know, a president or, you know, things that are like dramatic historical events that we have all heard of. We're talking about a guy who is secretary of the interior and a congressman. And, you know, it seems like he accomplished some good things. I mean, you know, as we go through it, like I'm scanning the Wikipedia page from his time as Secretary of the Interior, because I don't actually remember the details from the documentary that I watched almost a year ago. But, you know, he... He oversaw creation of new national parks. He played a key role in getting some environmental laws through. Clean air, water quality, clean water restoration, some wilderness stuff.
|
Sam:
[11:14]
| There's a list of laws that he helped. There's the Washington Redskins thing that I just mentioned. And he apparently did some other anti-racism stuff, like policy on use of ethnic slurs on topographic maps. So, you know, names of places that were insensitive, let's say.
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Sam:
[11:44]
| He apparently had a bit role in the lead up to the cuban missile crisis like in some communication with khrushchev i don't know you know he he he wrote a book on the conservation i mean he was known his big thing was being an environmentalist okay and he was also a big proponent it looks like for starting to use nasa satellites to survey as part of the u.s geological survey and to understand what the natural resources of the country really were etc etc.
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Sam:
[12:27]
| Okay you know and and like that that that's the list of stuff about him but the point is like okay.
|
Sam:
[12:34]
| It's a biographical film that concentrates on the good stuff about sort of, you know, I'm not going to say he didn't matter. Of course he mattered. He did important things, but he's not the big famous person. So you don't have that hook and you don't have a hook either of, oh, and there was this big scandal, or of other things along those lines that would make you think, that would give it sort of extra flavor and interest just as a documentary of, oh my God, this source material is so interesting that it's interesting no matter what. So, thumbs sideways. And look, honestly, unless you have some sort of direct interest in this man or the environmental movements of the 1960s or just generally of mid 20th century Democratic politicians, I don't know why you would like seek this out. Because it, you know, like I said, I think I signed up for a new streaming service or at least the free trial for a streaming service just to watch this movie.
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Sam:
[13:56]
| And, you know, or maybe I found it online somewhere else. I don't remember where I saw it, but I do know I have Ovid on my Apple TV now. And the only thing I can imagine is I probably got it for this.
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Sam:
[14:08]
| But I wonder if I'm still paying for it. I should probably check that. Anyway, thumb sideways. It wasn't bad or anything. It's just like it's not exceptional. So it's sort of like you need to have some reason to be watching it, I think. Maybe if you were studying this era for school, like you were in a college program studying this stuff or a graduate program studying this stuff. I don't know. Anyway, or your family knew him. Like apparently my family knew him. So anyway. way.
|
Sam:
[14:50]
| Okay, I think that's going to be it for this segment. As I mentioned, next up, when we come back from this break, I will have my wife, Brandy Donaghy, with me. I am actually going to leave and go to the town hall right now. She's doing two town halls today in two different parts of her district, one in Mill Creek, Washington, and one in Snohomish, Washington, Snohomish City. We're all in Snohomish County. So I'm going to attend both town halls with her, even though I've got other stuff I should be doing too, but I don't miss her town halls. So I'm going to go attend both town halls, probably participate a little bit in helping set up and tear down. I usually help with that stuff. And then, yeah, later on this weekend, we will pick this up and my wife will join me for the rest of curmudgeon's corner but first this exciting break and yeah yeah yeah i'm confusing myself first this break.
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Break:
[15:54]
| You're supposed to say do do do do do do do alex amzilla, alex amzilla is awesome its videos are fun and today once again we have one of our most The Loyalist Subscriber is here to tell you how awesome Alex Emson is. I'd say on a rate from 1 to 10, Alex Emsla is awesome at, I don't know, 37, 82. He's pretty radical. His videos are phenomenal. They're full of creativity. And they're so funny and exciting to watch. Wow, what happened to your voice then, Amy? Was that dad pretending to be you because the audio was distorted when it really wasn't Because I told him to? Yes. Good job on remembering, Dad. Do, do, do!
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Sam:
[16:53]
| Okay, we are back. And as promised, I do now have my wife, Brandy Donaghy, who, as I mentioned, representative, state representative, Washington State, 44th Legislative District, all that kind of stuff. I did want to finish up, before we get to Brandy, and I'll say hello to Brandy, And we've sort of decided we're going to do like one segment with like Washington state stuff. Cause we do have her here as a state rep and then one segment on national ish stuff. But, you know, I had talked in the last segment, I talked about Stuart Udall and I, and after.
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Sam:
[17:34]
| After I recorded that segment, I did notice that it was one more thing on the Wikipedia media page that was worth mentioning about him. And it's just that him and his brother Moe, which apparently my grandfather and grandmother on my father's side knew both of them to some degree. I mentioned his career in Congress and Secretary of the Interior. This is because of a movie I watched, Brandy, a documentary about this guy. Anyway, Apparently, they were also known before that for helping to integrate the University of Arizona cafeteria. And this is apparently one of the stories they tell about themselves. Basically, as with most places back in that era, this was actually pretty early, in 1947. 47, they specifically went and did sort of a thing where they invited some Black students into the cafeteria with them, which was against the rules at the time. And it apparently helped open up the situation. I don't know the details of that, but it was in the Wikipedia page and I thought it was interesting.
|
Brandy:
[18:51]
| Anyway.
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Sam:
[18:53]
| Okay. So, Brandy.
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Brandy:
[18:56]
| Yes.
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Sam:
[18:57]
| Since we have you here as a state rep in Washington state, and I did mention to folks that I was going to your two town halls today. What do you want to talk about on the local side or on the Washington state side?
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Brandy:
[19:13]
| Things have been incredibly busy incredibly busy and sometimes it's busy in a good way and sometimes it's busy in a less good way um so this is definitely a very different session than i've i've experienced before and i think most most the most of the people in the house anyway will probably feel the same way we do have people who've been around since previous um, previous funding issues.
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Sam:
[19:41]
| So most people listening will probably have absolutely no idea what funding issues you are talking about. So explain.
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Brandy:
[19:51]
| Okay. So.
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Sam:
[19:53]
| And how is it different than every other time?
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Brandy:
[19:55]
| So we've had a decent amount of money coming in and some of it was due to like the COVID, the one time things for COVID. And so we were able to fund stuff and do some things that we hadn't been able to do before. And it's important to remember that when you're using like money, like federal money, or putting out grants or receiving grants, there can be stipulations that they actually have to be spent or at least allocated within a certain period of time. So it's not like you can save it for later. You want it to go. And so a lot of the things that we had done before, of course, we're not able to continue because our budget situation has changed. We've gone from having extra cash to having much less.
|
Sam:
[20:39]
| Just to make sure I understand that properly, there's a lot of that was expected. Like you said, it was temporary programs with temporary funding. So you expected those to go away.
|
Brandy:
[20:49]
| We expected to have less, but then, and we knew it was going to be a tighter biennium anyway. But I think the change in- What's a biennium? It's two years. It's the two-year period that we fund things for that. So, next biennium starts, I want to say July 1st.
|
Sam:
[21:12]
| Okay.
|
Brandy:
[21:14]
| And then it's a two-year period.
|
Sam:
[21:16]
| So, basically, you have to have all the budget stuff, all the spending stuff has to be in place by July that will cover the next two years.
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Brandy:
[21:24]
| Well, kind of, yeah. So, basically, it trails the legislature by about six months. Okay. The start of the biennium so that we can do the budget and then it goes into effect. And that's every two years. I mean, there's usually a supplemental budget, too. So, like, this year we did the budget. Next year we do a supplemental budget for picking up things that we missed or things that need to be adjusted, whatever. But our revenue forecasts are not great. And I think they'd have been better had we had a different outcome in November.
|
Sam:
[22:03]
| How so? How would the national election results, because I'm pretty sure that's what you're referring to, make a difference to the revenue forecasts for the state?
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Brandy:
[22:17]
| Well, they make a difference to revenue across the country, actually across the world. Perfect example is, as we've seen the stock market crashing, a big part of that is due to the implementation of this weird tariff war and, mass firings and all sorts of things there. Everything they do in D.C. was going to have an impact on us, and it's going to have an impact on what we can expect to be coming in.
|
Sam:
[22:48]
| So real quick, I think it's, and look, I'm reflecting back some stuff I heard at your town hall earlier today, but I think it's important to note, part of this is Washington state has no income tax. Most states have state income tax. Washington state does not. So the revenue sources, and a lot of it is from sales tax.
|
Brandy:
[23:15]
| Sales tax and fees.
|
Sam:
[23:16]
| Sales tax and fees. And both of those are sort of consumption related. So if people are out there spending, you get more of that. If they're not, then those decrease. So basically, unlike a state with income tax, Washington state, and there are only a couple more, like Florida has no income tax, but a couple more, I think. Is it just the two?
|
Brandy:
[23:40]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[23:41]
| I know those two don't, but most states have income taxes. And in those cases, you'll see a reduction if people lose their jobs and such, But just a regular slowdown of spending is probably more impactful for Washington because there's no income tax, right?
|
Brandy:
[24:02]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[24:02]
| Okay. So, sorry. Tangent or additional explanation that I thought would be helpful. Okay, continue.
|
Brandy:
[24:08]
| You're translating for me again. No, but I think that does have an impact on our economic forecast. You know, we also, we saw some changes because of inflation and that kind of thing. But I mean, one of the things that inflation did was, or the inflation was a, I guess, a byproduct of, keeping us out of a recession.
|
Sam:
[24:34]
| And a lot of still sort of post-COVID adjustment stuff was still going on as well.
|
Brandy:
[24:42]
| Yeah, because the world was about to spin into a recession. Honestly, I think at this point, unless things change in D.C., we're going to go beyond that this time. Which will be very bad.
|
Sam:
[24:56]
| But so revenue revenue down and then costs for doing things up because of inflation so you're you're you're sort of so the state's in a revenue pinch or in a about an out of balance budget pinch and you have to do stuff about it right yes and i want to say.
|
Brandy:
[25:20]
| It's 12 to 15 billion dollars.
|
Sam:
[25:22]
| And, and you said, you know, this is a biennium kind of thing happens every two years. You were here two years ago too, but this kind of issue did not, wasn't a problem years ago.
|
Brandy:
[25:31]
| No. I mean, there was, I, I, I think there may have been a little bit less, but it was still, it was a different time.
|
Sam:
[25:40]
| Okay.
|
Brandy:
[25:40]
| That's the easiest way to put it. and.
|
Sam:
[25:45]
| And so this is like the big theme of the legislative session this time is all surrounding this crisis.
|
Brandy:
[25:52]
| Sort of i guess i i would say yes but also i mean it's it's where we are right and financially the the money that has to come in the money has to go out but there's also that big, piece of unknowing about what's happening at the federal level, whether or not we're going to get funding for schools, which is about 8% of the funding for schools here comes from federal government. We have lots of transportation projects that have federal matches or federal funds, grants, all sorts of infrastructure things that are partially funded by the feds. And we don't have a realistic understanding as to whether or not that's actually going to happen. So, and if it does happen, if they just claw it back once they give it to us, because they've apparently done that too.
|
Sam:
[26:48]
| And that potentially makes the issue worse. Yeah, because you have a shortfall anyway, and then potentially you're losing even more revenue that you're expecting to happen from the feds, but may not.
|
Brandy:
[27:03]
| Yeah, and Washington's what you'd call a donor state, I believe. We actually send more to the federal government than we receive back from them.
|
Sam:
[27:12]
| Now, just to be clear on that, because I've heard a couple people in other contexts talk about what happens if donor states just withhold, but it's not the state itself donating, right? It's just federal income tax.
|
Brandy:
[27:25]
| It's the people in the state.
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Sam:
[27:26]
| It's federal income tax from all the people in the state.
|
Brandy:
[27:29]
| And the businesses. Right, right, right.
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Sam:
[27:31]
| But the point, it's not like the state legislature could say, we're not going to contribute to the feds this time. You know, it's individuals and businesses paying their taxes.
|
Brandy:
[27:43]
| Yes. But again, that creates an interesting balance because if... I am not advocating for not paying federal taxes, but if we didn't, we'd probably be fine. So it's like this weird little space to be in.
|
Sam:
[28:00]
| Well, they're cutting all the enforcement abilities of the IRS anyway, right? So like, who's going to do anything?
|
Brandy:
[28:08]
| Yes, that is true.
|
Sam:
[28:11]
| I would not recommend that.
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Brandy:
[28:16]
| I too am not recommending that.
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Sam:
[28:19]
| We will be paying our taxes just to be clear sadly yeah so so basically this puts you in a position of in order to bring this back into balance some combination of spending cuts and tax increases that's really the the only two options right yeah and yeah yeah you have to like Like, from these town halls, and I'm going to keep coming back to the town halls, because in between the first segment and the second segment, I attended two of these town halls that Brandy was giving. Each one of them had, what, about 40 people? About 50. 40 or 50 at each one, so about 100 people total for the whole day.
|
Brandy:
[29:03]
| Which, you know, actually was fairly small, because there were other ones that had hundreds and hundreds of people show up. I usually take that as a whole bunch of people not showing up is that not everybody's mad at me, but I guess we'll see.
|
Sam:
[29:18]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[29:21]
| But one of the themes that I found, it's not really, I was going to say found remarkable, but it's not really remarkable. It's fully expected because this is like, there are several common themes in American politics, and this is one of them. But at both of your town halls, there were a combination of people. There was one set of people who got up over and over again.
|
Sam:
[29:50]
| And we're, and especially in the realm of education, but in some other areas too, but especially in education, we're like saying, we've already been cut to the bone. Please don't cut our funding any further. We're already like, we can't provide the services we're supposed to provide. It is really tough out there. We are losing people. We are losing some from straight up layoffs, some from you're just not paying competitively, so they go do other things, etc. And these people basically saying, look, you're already cutting crucial things. Please don't cut any more. And then there's another group of people who raise their hands and say, don't talk to us about raising taxes. You shouldn't be even thinking about that. Cut, cut, cut, cut, cut. You should not be spending this money you don't have.
|
Sam:
[30:51]
| And these two groups of people will speak within minutes of each other at the same town hall, talking about the same issues, obviously coming at it from a very different perspective.
|
Brandy:
[31:04]
| Yeah, well, there's a couple things, right? One is that I don't, I don't, people see that the budgets are, the budget is large, right? But I don't think that they truly understand that the vast majority of the money that we start with goes to just like operations and maintenance companies. Because the money we start with goes to all the agencies. It pays for all the different departments. It pays for all of the staff. It pays for all of that. So the discretionary part of, and I say that with quotes, the discretionary part of the budget in the first place is, and that's the stuff that we can legally not pay for. Not that it wouldn't be completely destructive and make everything fall apart. Is like 15% or something. It's actually a pretty small percentage, like 15 or 20%. Everything else, we actually have legal requirement to pay. So there's that.
|
Sam:
[32:11]
| Now, you say that though, but legal requirement, but you're the legislature, you could change those laws, right?
|
Brandy:
[32:18]
| Not always. We have a constitution. We have other things that we've been required to do. For example, one of the issues with the school funding is the player aid decision. So when that went into effect, I think there was this camp of people that thought that when McCleary went into effect.
|
Sam:
[32:35]
| School was going to be fully funded. Explain what it is. No one knows what that is.
|
Brandy:
[32:39]
| It was a court case. But basically what it comes down to is we, as a state, are required to fully fund education. The definition of fully fund education is where it gets tricky. Because it'll be like maybe it'll cover the books and the teachers the certified teachers but not the office staff not the custodial staff not the food not the building there are all sorts of people that are things that are not actually caught up in what's considered fully funding education so yeah, By adhering to the decision in McCleary, you would think that everything's getting taken care of, but it's really not. And then we have that secondary piece where the way the school budgets are set up is that the state pays a chunk, about 8% comes in through the federal government. And then levies are actually part of the operating budget of schools, like those levies that people vote on.
|
Sam:
[33:46]
| That's basically local taxes ends up being paid by local.
|
Brandy:
[33:50]
| Yeah. But that's when the levies fail. That's why they have to let go of a bunch of people.
|
Sam:
[33:57]
| Right.
|
Brandy:
[33:58]
| Because that's actually part of how the school funding is done with the levies and the bonds. So I lost track of where we were because it's late. But, you know, we have.
|
Sam:
[34:11]
| You were responding to my comments about like half the people are like, don't cut anymore. And half the people are like, you need to cut more.
|
Brandy:
[34:20]
| Yeah. But I think McCleary, with the way that came out and some of the adjustments that were made, actually put school districts in a worse spot than they were before.
|
Sam:
[34:30]
| Mm hmm.
|
Brandy:
[34:32]
| So there's that. And that's part of the issue with especially the school, the teachers talking about school funding is because the shifts made things worse for a lot of schools, not better. And we knew that was going to happen, by the way. We knew it was going to happen. But it was a forward order.
|
Sam:
[34:56]
| So backing up a little bit, that was in response to you saying there's a certain amount that's legally mandated. But how do you respond in general to this clear bifurcation with the people in the audience at town halls and presumably the people in general that are your constituents in terms of what they're demanding? I mean, and this is clearly like related to the general partisan divide, but not 100% aligned with it.
|
Brandy:
[35:30]
| But if we are in a position where we have to see property taxes go up, it also makes sense to ensure that we've got enough coverage for an exemption for people who are living on fixed incomes, older people who are retired, people who are disabled.
|
Sam:
[35:51]
| So wait, you're talking about the revenue side now.
|
Brandy:
[35:55]
| No, I'm talking about both. I think that if we're in a situation where we have to raise property taxes, we also need to look at that situation from the angle of those who are living in fixed incomes and such and actually start to make more exemptions for them to expand the exemptions to ensure that we're not pushing people out of their homes. I think all of the stuff that we need to do has to be balanced.
|
Sam:
[36:22]
| So, but that's still like, you're talking the revenue side. You're saying if we have to increase taxes, we have to make sure we're structuring it so that it's not hurting these people. Yeah. But also on the cut side, what do you say, like, on the one hand, you have people saying you've already cut too much. And then you've got people saying you haven't cut enough. How do you square that? What's your take on what's going on with that?
|
Brandy:
[36:52]
| I think I kind of want to say that both are right to an extent. It depends on where you're looking.
|
Sam:
[37:01]
| Explain.
|
Brandy:
[37:03]
| I'm sure there are places where we can make some cuts that would be less devastating. But in a lot of spaces, I think our focus is between our caucus, our Democratic and Republican caucus, are probably opposite. So I'm not going to say opposite. A lot of them care about making sure people have access to health care. They care about making sure people have places to live. They care about making sure people have food to eat. But they also represent areas that tend to be a lot more, want to be a lot more independent, I guess. So there will be situations in which they would resist any kind of assistance and instead be mad because they feel like we're driving them into a hole. Does that make sense? The constituencies are different. Right. It all gets, it gets really tricky. I think when it comes down to it, this biennium, no one's going to win. Everybody's going to lose. And our goal is going to be keeping people safe and alive as opposed to ensuring they can thrive. And that's not great. It's really not great.
|
Sam:
[38:24]
| Because basically you're, you're, you're stuck in a hole. Like the, despite the people who want even more cuts, what's on the table right now, and I guess, correct me if I'm wrong, the governor made a proposal for what the budget should be that had some pretty deep cuts in it already, but not enough to balance the budget. And now the legislature is trying to figure out how to take what started with the governor and then adjust it further because you're legally required to balance the budget in the end, right?
|
Brandy:
[38:55]
| Yeah. And we're also not legally required to do everything the governor wants.
|
Sam:
[38:59]
| Right.
|
Brandy:
[39:01]
| Although then he has to sign it. So there has to be a balance there, too.
|
Sam:
[39:07]
| But even compared to what the governor submitted to you guys, you either have to cut even more or you have to raise more revenue. There's no other ways around.
|
Brandy:
[39:19]
| Honestly, both. We have to do both.
|
Sam:
[39:22]
| And both are going to make people unhappy. Like you said, there's no, you know, the, the, the, the, there are people who are upset that it's already been cut as far as it has been. And there'll be people who are going to be upset on any increases in taxes to make up revenue. Like, and so are, are you just screwed?
|
Brandy:
[39:45]
| Define screwed. like I think we're is the.
|
Sam:
[39:50]
| Whole state screwed what's the situation I.
|
Brandy:
[39:53]
| Used to joke that you know the sign of solid legislation is was when nobody won. It was, maybe nobody loses, but nobody wins.
|
Sam:
[40:06]
| I was going to say, shouldn't we be looking for win-win situations, not just everybody loses?
|
Brandy:
[40:14]
| Yes, but those are always suspect. When it's win-win, you've got to worry a little bit about what's hiding behind here. I mean, there are occasionally win-win. I had a bill that would be a win-win. There's a Senate version, because mine's not moving, but the Senate version is, and that would be a win-win. but they're rare. Mostly it's...
|
Sam:
[40:32]
| Don't just drop that without saying what it is.
|
Brandy:
[40:35]
| It's actually, it's a really simple bill. It impacts a fairly small group of people, but we have registered tow truck operators. They're registered with the state and they are a regulated business. And basically when there's a need for a tow, they have to go out and do it.
|
Brandy:
[40:54]
| It's kind of a requirement. it. So they'll take a vehicle, they'll tow it. And if the owner doesn't turn up, they can auction it off after a period of time. And they hope that what they auction it off for will cover at least some of the storage and tow services and stuff that they've had. Now, there are plenty of people who are living in their vehicles. There are plenty of people who do not have the money to get their cars back from impound when they've been towed. And so there's this fund that when a vehicle is sold at auction, if the amount made at auction was more than the cost of the tow truck services, the towers would be able to get paid with that income there. And then whatever remains gets put to a separate account, and it's the excess funds account. So my bill would say that when there's money in the excess funds account, when somebody who is indigent has their car towed, they can attest that they do not have the funds to be able to get their car out of impound. Or if they live in their vehicle, they can be like, my vehicle is my home. And if there's money in the excess fund account, it allows the tow truck drivers to get paid for the tow, plus release the vehicle.
|
Sam:
[42:21]
| Okay.
|
Brandy:
[42:23]
| And it's an excess funds account, so it's not filled by the transportation fund or the general fund. And it ensures that tow truck drivers actually get paid for their work when there's funds available.
|
Sam:
[42:37]
| And you said your version of this bill is not moving, but there's a Senate equivalent that is?
|
Brandy:
[42:44]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[42:44]
| Okay.
|
Brandy:
[42:46]
| So, and that's what matters. No, I mean, in this case, that's what matters because it'll help keep an industry functional.
|
Sam:
[42:54]
| So back to the budget, it's just going to be bad. Everybody's going to be unhappy. Nobody's going to be happy. And, you know, are we going to get a situation where Democrats are all blamed for this and end up losing some traction next election? or is it enough time before the next election that this will be the last thing on anybody's mind by then?
|
Brandy:
[43:19]
| Well, you know, I think it depends. We don't have any certainty about the federal situation. So how that plays out is going to have an impact. For example, they're talking about raiding Medicaid or Medicare, Medicaid. If that happens, there are going to be lots and lots of people who are going to be sick who will probably die and there are lots of people who rely on that for health care services particularly in states that supported donald trump if he cuts everybody's health care and they also mess like at social with social security though it looks like they will, I don't think we're going to continue to see so many people say, oh, well, this is just part of the plan, but it's going to get better. We're going to have a bunch of people who are really struggling across the country. And that's actually going to be really hard on blaming on anybody other than who's responsible.
|
Sam:
[44:21]
| Now, if those kind of national things do hit, is there talk of state contingency, like the state having to step up and do stuff? But with all the budget stuff you just talked about, how?
|
Brandy:
[44:36]
| Yeah, the states don't have money. It's just the same idea. They're talking about eliminating FEMA and that states should take responsibility. But part of what FEMA does is it helps organize and direct funds to where they need to be. So we don't have the infrastructure for that because fema's been there and we don't have the money to build it up so again there are going to be states that actually are much much worse worse off because of the actions of the the federal government and i think that can definitely have an impact on where we end up because even if even if people believed when he said he wouldn't do these things once he does and they're hurting it's going to be hard to justify continued, adoration i guess um i.
|
Sam:
[45:33]
| Guess we'll see on that.
|
Brandy:
[45:34]
| Yeah i mean i there are going to be people who think it's wonderful all the way through and keep making excuses but i think a lot of people made the choice they did because they wanted to believe him yeah and if he directly does this, then that's going to be an issue and you know how we our focus is really you know it's keeping people alive it's keeping people safe, And that needs to be our goal. So for those states that are able to do that better than others, I don't know. I think it's really going to depend on how things come out, whether or not we find ourselves in a recession or even a depression. And how many games the federal government is going to continue to play with economics. Okay so i mean i love my job and i'm usually really cheery about it but this is really hard it's because it's a struggle to make sure people have what they need let alone get what they want.
|
Sam:
[46:42]
| Right so just it sounds like the the mood this session is just entirely different than the same time two years ago for.
|
Brandy:
[46:52]
| Instance it's it's very strange like even even the new representatives are like, this feels really odd. And it's like, yeah, this is really odd. So people who haven't been here before know it's out of character too. So that's really interesting. That's how marketed it is.
|
Sam:
[47:09]
| So obviously the big theme has been the budget stuff. Anything else you'd like to highlight either from what's going on in Olympia these days, other than the big budget crisis or or things specifically to call out from your town halls today.
|
Brandy:
[47:27]
| I have a couple traffic safety bills i've been doing a lot around traffic safety okay and i have a couple traffic traffic safety bills that are useful one uses sound to identify vehicles that have been modified for racing okay, And the other one would increase the age that young people are required to have driver's training before they get their license.
|
Sam:
[47:58]
| Okay. How are those doing?
|
Brandy:
[48:01]
| I think the young drivers was already moved out of the transportation committee. I'd ask Jessica, but we got distracted today.
|
Sam:
[48:10]
| Jessica, her legislative aide.
|
Brandy:
[48:12]
| Yeah. And then the other one has a hearing coming up in a week or so. So they're still moving. I had a lot of bills this session, more than I've ever had before.
|
Sam:
[48:23]
| I didn't let you do your intro like you do at your town halls. I know you didn't. I had mentioned you're a state representative, 44th legislative district in Washington State, but you usually say all the committees you're on and stuff. So what are all the committees that you're on?
|
Brandy:
[48:40]
| I am on technology, economic development, veterans. I serve on consumer protection and business. I am on education and I'm new to education. This is the first year. And I'm vice chair of transportation.
|
Sam:
[48:56]
| So, okay. Of those committees, like why, what, how did you end up on those committees? Why, why was, were you a, are they things that are of particular interest for you or were you just assigned or, and what do you, what do you like best? What do you like least?
|
Brandy:
[49:12]
| So the way people are assigned to committees, they're pretty careful. They have a certain number of Republicans, a certain number of Democrats on them. So shifting people around is necessary when you need to move people from committee to committee. So when I started, it was the middle of the term. And so because it was the middle of the term, I think the goal was to put me on some of my predecessors' committees to make things easier so fewer people had to shift around. So that's how I ended up on transportation. And at that point, I was on housing and what was innovation, community economic development, and veterans. But the next year i was assigned based on what my choices were which happened to be transportation because i had a blast in transportation i really like it it's like i want to say it's grittier than the rest of the committees in some ways grittier yes like, I'm getting a vision of like 1970s.
|
Sam:
[50:20]
| Movies set in New.
|
Brandy:
[50:21]
| York or something. Grit, dirt, asphalt.
|
Sam:
[50:24]
| It's...
|
Brandy:
[50:26]
| I like the concept that so much of this is about things getting built, I guess, or maintained. And there are so many different areas of it. I just, I find it all fascinating, the engineering and everything that goes into the work that's getting done.
|
Sam:
[50:43]
| We're talking roads, bridges, trains, ferries, that kind of stuff.
|
Brandy:
[50:46]
| Yeah. I mean, there's also all sorts of policy around how things are used, et cetera. But like the other piece about transportation is that it's actually a fiscal committee. So we have, I guess, four main fiscal committees. There's finance. That's the committee where you find revenue. And then you've got appropriations. That is where money in the operating budget goes out. You have capital budget. That's where money in the capital budget goes out. And then transportation has its own budget. And so you've got both the policy and the budget in the same place. And what I like about that, it's that we're able to not only look at whether or not the policy is good, but also weigh the cost of it and weigh the ability to fund it. So all in one committee so in other places you may have something go through as policy committee and everybody there understands the policy and why it needs to happen then you may have it go to appropriations after that and then it kind of it almost separates the policy from the i think it makes the policy further away from the from the costs like you don't have that same expertise i I guess. Does that make sense?
|
Sam:
[52:02]
| Mm-hmm.
|
Brandy:
[52:03]
| So that's why I enjoy transportation.
|
Sam:
[52:08]
| Is that your favorite?
|
Brandy:
[52:10]
| So here's the thing. I really like all of them. Innovation. Community economic development and veterans is now technology, economic development and veterans. And so I've got that tech side. So data privacy and all the all those pieces that go with it, as well as stuff for veterans, which which I also really like. The economic development, I do find interesting, but it's the technology and the technology, tourism and veterans pieces that I really enjoy about that committee. And then consumer protection and business. I have a business degree. It actually gives me the opportunity to use some of what I learned. And then it also handles some real estate aspects of real estate. And so having experience there, too, it's also useful. And then education is new. I requested either education or environmental energy, but I would have loved to do both, but they're at the same time and I can't. And I don't think I can actually fit another committee into my schedule anyway. So that's why the four.
|
Sam:
[53:24]
| One more thing before we take a break and switch to national stuff. Two town halls today. What are your general thoughts on those kind of interactions, the town hall interactions. What are they good for? What are they not good for? Do you like them? Do you have fun?
|
Brandy:
[53:44]
| They're not great for really, really in-depth, policy-heavy conversations, but I really like them because I think there's this idea that we are hard to reach and that we are not available. And I really believe that it's very important that we are, right? Like legislators be available to the communities they serve because it's not, it's a service position. It's not a, In order for me to do my job, I have to be able to interact with people. And so being able to understand what they need, what they're thinking, and how they see the things that we are doing is really important, I think, to being able to do my job as effectively as possible. So I mean I'm not a huge fan of public speaking so there's that but I do enjoy them in that it helps it helps me understand what they need what they're hearing and I hope it helps them understand a little bit of how how things are working and what's behind them because those Those are important.
|
Sam:
[54:57]
| Do you get a lot of angry people?
|
Brandy:
[55:00]
| At the town halls?
|
Sam:
[55:02]
| Yeah.
|
Brandy:
[55:03]
| No. I mean, there's always going to be someone who's upset or angry. But I've heard stories about other districts getting a bunch of people showing up shouting. Today, in one district, people actually protested outside one of the legislators' homes.
|
Sam:
[55:21]
| Oh.
|
Brandy:
[55:22]
| And then brought some of that into the town hall as well. And it's, I think part of it is a, it's just part of the district, who the people in the district are.
|
Sam:
[55:35]
| Okay.
|
Brandy:
[55:36]
| I think that's probably a big piece of why, why maybe we don't see that. It's, it's not that people in the district care less or, or more. I think it's just the different groups of people do things differently. But I typically don't get angry people. I also make it a practice to listen to everybody and actually value their positions. And again, I'm not suggesting other people don't do this, but I think I represent the entire district. That means everybody in it. And I have a responsibility, even if somebody doesn't vote for me, even if maybe I don't agree with everything they stand for, I think we can always find common ground. And so being able to demonstrate that, I have a child trying to crawl onto my lap. Being able to demonstrate that I think also helps.
|
Sam:
[56:34]
| Okay. Any other Washington State stuff you want to throw in here before we move on?
|
Brandy:
[56:43]
| I really like washington.
|
Sam:
[56:48]
| Okay okay very good okay well let's take a break and then when we come back may i'll get your thoughts on some of the national stuff you've already touched on it a little bit in relation to washington state stuff because.
|
Brandy:
[57:03]
| It's all connected.
|
Sam:
[57:04]
| Yeah, Okay.
|
Brandy:
[57:08]
| So you know I also have your daughter behind me. Oh, no, she's gone.
|
Sam:
[57:12]
| I'm waiting for everybody to be quiet before I...
|
Brandy:
[57:16]
| Alex has left the room. Okay. He's followed his sister. Tretzky looks like he cares that they left, but not enough to move.
|
Sam:
[57:24]
| Okay, here's that break.
|
Break:
[57:27]
| Okie dokie. Here it comes. It was just my internet being stupid. My internet being stupid is a new song we will make. The baby well well well well well, Come on, come on. I'm tired. What's wrong? I'm really tired. It's amazing. Show on the road. There's a road? There's a road? Oh my God, there's a road.
|
Sam:
[58:32]
| Okay, we are back. Did you enjoy that break? I was enjoying your facial expressions during the break.
|
Brandy:
[58:39]
| Sometimes I wonder if maybe did you eat something that was a little bit too expired and, you know, it had like a hallucinatory effect or like what is going on in your head? That's all.
|
Sam:
[58:56]
| Oh, OK. Yvonne enjoys that one as well.
|
Brandy:
[59:01]
| OK.
|
Sam:
[59:02]
| OK, so national news, you know, we talk about that every week on this show. So what in particular of the goings on nationally, internationally, et cetera, I guess, what, two months and three days is the relevant time period here. What particular things are you like hankering to talk about on the national scene and your thoughts? so.
|
Brandy:
[59:33]
| There's this movement it's like 50 51.
|
Sam:
[59:37]
| 50 51 yeah.
|
Brandy:
[59:41]
| And they it's like groups that they'll do protests 50 states same day every month.
|
Sam:
[59:49]
| Okay 50 51 what what's this 50 states yeah 50 protests yeah one day oh okay yeah i think i've i i i don't know that i recognized that name but i definitely know they're the concept a number of these things going on to try to so what what what about this one in particular.
|
Brandy:
[1:00:20]
| I actually went out during it. There was time that I could actually go out and walk through the crowds.
|
Sam:
[1:00:27]
| To one of the protests there at the state capitol.
|
Brandy:
[1:00:30]
| Yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:00:30]
| Okay.
|
Brandy:
[1:00:31]
| And I walked through and there was, there were a couple of people I talked to, but there was one in particular that stuck out because they're, they're black hawk pilot.
|
Sam:
[1:00:43]
| Okay.
|
Brandy:
[1:00:45]
| And trans.
|
Sam:
[1:00:47]
| Oh, and just to be clear, it's 50-51, not 50-51, 50-50-1 movement.
|
Brandy:
[1:00:58]
| It's 50 states, 50 protests one day.
|
Sam:
[1:01:04]
| One day, right. Okay, go ahead.
|
Brandy:
[1:01:06]
| So I was talking to them, and they're a Black Hawk, I think, pilot. And that's not something just anybody can go do, right? Like, it takes special skill to be good at it. And they've been all over the world. But because they're trans, they're being transitioned out of the military. And I know that since then, there was a requirement to put a stop on it. But fundamentally, I think that's the kind of thing that has been sticking with me through all of this.
|
Sam:
[1:01:45]
| Specifically the anti-trans stuff?
|
Brandy:
[1:01:47]
| It's not just the anti-trans. I mean, that's a problem, but to me, it's the direct attacks on specific groups of individuals by the administration. On veterans, federal workers in general. Well, it's federal workers, 30% of federal workers, almost a third of them are veterans. And, you know, making more huge cuts at the Veterans Administration, that ensures less efficient and less effective services for vets. And then also you take into account there are more vets working in VA than the other agencies. It's like it's just like an attack on an attack on veterans because.
|
Brandy:
[1:02:40]
| We're not useful to the administration anymore because they can't take us and throw us at other places like when they want to start a war right? Like we're done so we don't have value to them anymore we're not useful and that's that's something that's been really standing out to me, or You're removing all the pictures and information about military members, color or women in the military. Removing the top officer at the Coast Guard because she was a woman. These aren't just random slashing. These are deliberate attacks on specific groups of people.
|
Sam:
[1:03:24]
| So, yeah, like the latest one of those that I heard was Bea Arthur, who was before she was a golden girl. She was a Marine. And that's one of the web pages where information about that got purged. Now, I have heard administration people saying that this is actually malicious compliance from employees who've been told to remove DEI stuff and so are intentionally looking for sort of high-profile ones to remove that'll make them look stupid.
|
Brandy:
[1:04:05]
| Maybe. But I don't hear the administration complaining. They're like, okay.
|
Sam:
[1:04:15]
| So, yeah, I mean, look, those kinds of things are just, I don't know, it's just so dumb, so stupid, so clearly hateful.
|
Sam:
[1:04:30]
| It's and i know they're they're at least at least in theory if you give them any sort of benefit of the doubt whatsoever and say okay they believe that di stuff is sort of fundamentally harmful to promote diversity, which I have a hard time giving any benefit of the doubt to that statement. But assuming you do, even if you do, like the way they're going about it is just brain dead stupid. Like, they're not actually like, okay, like, if you want to criticize, like, you some of the like, mandatory training stuff that, like, almost everybody thinks is done badly and does stupid is stupid and is kind of performative. Then, okay, maybe, you know, get rid of some of that stuff, maybe improve it, make it better. I don't know. But like this kind of stuff, like getting rid of references to the Tuskegee Airmen or to Bea Arthur or to, you know, various other historical figures who, who happened not to be straight white men.
|
Sam:
[1:05:46]
| It's just, it's just so idiotic, but I guess it's also very indicative of the entire mindset. I mean, it's so clear that the mindset is only straight white men belong here. And anything else should be, you know, we need to get rid of it however we can. I mean, they almost explicitly say that.
|
Brandy:
[1:06:12]
| Yeah, but there's another part of that, right, too. Yeah. It's that if women and people of color are being... Celebrated for something then it's not straight straight white men right they feel like they're losing something because somebody else was successful and the concept of somebody else being able to be successful even with all the barriers placed in front of them means that a lot more work had to happen in order for a person to be where they were and that's that's really hard for people. I think the DEI excludes them when really it includes, it makes sure that we're including veterans. Fucking Abbott, Governor Abbott. He's in a wheelchair. He's getting rid of all the DEI stuff. Does that mean they're going to take the ramps out of the Capitol? Because, like, that's why they're there.
|
Sam:
[1:07:09]
| Right.
|
Brandy:
[1:07:09]
| It's a DEI that they're there.
|
Sam:
[1:07:11]
| Now, we've been throwing around the term DEI. I've heard a number of people make the argument of, like, don't even use that acronym because it's giving in to their framing of it.
|
Brandy:
[1:07:25]
| DEI is diversity, equity, and inclusion.
|
Sam:
[1:07:28]
| Well, right. I've heard people say, well, say it out every time. Don't use the initials because they've, just like they did with all kinds of other words in the past, they have made it a bad word that many people hear it and they don't hear anything else other than, oh, yeah, that's that awful thing.
|
Brandy:
[1:07:48]
| Yeah. They think it's also affirmative action, which is ignorant. But, yeah, I think the fact that they're very carefully picking specific groups of people to go after is a major problem. And it's intentional. And now, you know, deporting, detaining Americans and deporting people who are illegally, all that kind of stuff is problematic as well.
|
Sam:
[1:08:19]
| Say more. Go into more detail.
|
Brandy:
[1:08:23]
| There have apparently been cases now where people will be picked up by ICE, their identification will be confiscated, and they'll be stuck somewhere, despite having legal status in the U.S. Apparently some citizens have been caught up in it, like actual U.S. Citizens, green card holders. Because it's not about, it's typically not about looking for people who are here illegally. It's typically looking to get people who are here who are black and brown gone.
|
Sam:
[1:09:03]
| Although what I found interesting, I think you're absolutely right. That is the focus. That is what they are. That's the fundamental goal is they don't actually care about like, you know, white Christian straight immigrants. Um you know they they'd be perfectly happy with more swedes or whatever however despite that because they're pushing people so hard on numbers presumably and people are just trying to do whatever there have been numerous cases in the last couple weeks of like people from germany people from England, people from various other places.
|
Brandy:
[1:09:44]
| The actress from American Pie. She was detained for like two weeks.
|
Sam:
[1:09:48]
| Right. I mean, and we're talking, you know, non-brown people are getting caught up in this anyway. You know, non-brown, non-trans, you know, because they're specifically targeting trans people for immigration stuff as well. But you know so all kinds of people are getting caught up on it there i saw that several countries who are ostensibly our allies have been updating their travel warnings for the u.s uh telling people like i think canada put out a warning saying hey be super super careful about like time frames like if you're going in and it's you're you're you're legal for 30 days as a tourist or whatever be damn sure you're home before the 30 days expires yep because you may get caught up with this i've seen warnings from places in europe saying if you're trans now is not a good time to go to the united states you know and various other places that are saying hey look maybe you should reconsider travel to the u.s.
|
Brandy:
[1:10:59]
| Well the thing is just because somebody has a visa to come here even if they do everything right they don't have to let them in and they don't have to let them stay. I mean, technically anybody who's here in the U.S. is actually covered by the Constitution. They have those constitutional rights.
|
Sam:
[1:11:15]
| Well, they're trying to work on that. Well, this administration is going to follow them. Yes, and who knows? I'm sure some of these cases are going to go back to SCOTUS, and I don't know what this SCOTUS will decide on those things. It may not be the same as the decisions that currently govern things.
|
Brandy:
[1:11:38]
| They're starting to speak up, though. They've done a couple things now that make the Supreme Court, I think at least some of them are recognizing that they helped bolster a monster.
|
Sam:
[1:11:52]
| Yes. I think it's an open question what SCOTUS will do on various of these issues. It's, you know, on the one hand, it's very easy to sort of think, hey, it's a 6-3 court. They're going to back up Trump on everything he does. I don't think it's quite that straightforward. You know, Roberts has shown multiple times that he's willing to go against sometimes. What is her name? Brown? Barrett? Barrett. Barrett. has also conservatives are apparently mad at her now because they think she's gone soft. So, you know, because.
|
Brandy:
[1:12:33]
| Oh, my God, the Constitution, let's try to follow it. I mean, literally, that's their job.
|
Sam:
[1:12:39]
| Yes. OK, moving on from targeting direct folks and immigration, other things like. Well, I'll ask you first, then I've got a couple that I'll throw your direction if you don't bring them up.
|
Brandy:
[1:12:54]
| I already mentioned the medicare thing the dismantling of the department of education.
|
Sam:
[1:13:01]
| Um
|
Brandy:
[1:13:01]
| And dumping things specifically in places where they know that they're going to get fucked up like.
|
Sam:
[1:13:06]
| Well that's that's the whole point i mean honestly like one of the things i've been frustrated with on some of the commentary i've heard and some of this applies like to international things like, Trump and Ukraine and Russia. But some of it is domestic, too, where people are like, well, you know, it's hard to see how with these kind of reductions, it's not going to diminish the ability of this agency to do its job. And it's like, That's the whole point. They fundamentally don't believe that government should be doing whatever that agency is tasked with. The entire point is to make it non-functional.
|
Brandy:
[1:13:51]
| I don't think that they believe that they shouldn't be doing it. I think that they recognize that an uneducated, sick electorate isn't going to fight back. They're just not. Hmm.
|
Sam:
[1:14:05]
| Well, I was, I was talking more generally than the Department of Education. Right. Just, just in general, like the, the whole, like, Hey, let's gut all these agencies. Let's try to find the, the waste fraud and abuse or whatever fundamentally is undergirded by the notion that they believe government doing any of this work is waste, fraud, and abuse. Like, it's not like you're actually trying to find the 1% of people who are doing something fraudulent with Social Security. It's that they fundamentally believe that the idea of Social Security is waste, fraud, and abuse.
|
Brandy:
[1:14:44]
| Even though we pay into it.
|
Sam:
[1:14:47]
| Yes. And that's just one example. I think it's true of practically everything. I mean, the whole Heritage Foundation Project 2025 stuff is just a continuation of the fight that started with FDR. Like, it's people who fundamentally think that everything since the New Deal in the late 1930s was a mistake, and we should undo all of it.
|
Brandy:
[1:15:15]
| You know what I want to know? I want to know if when they eliminate everything, if they're actually going to stop taking all of our taxes.
|
Sam:
[1:15:27]
| Only if you're in the top 1% or less, top 0.1%.
|
Brandy:
[1:15:32]
| Because, see, that's the other thing, right? They want to eliminate all this stuff, calling it wasteful. But they're going to keep taking our money.
|
Sam:
[1:15:40]
| Well, I mean, one thing that some folks on the right actually do say is that they fundamentally believe the income tax was a mistake and should be eliminated entirely and replaced by things like, tariffs. And so would that actually happen? I don't know. But there are those out there who say that. They say, fundamentally, income tax is bad. Where we need taxes, it should be other forms of taxes. They particularly like tariffs because, I don't know, the other countries pay for them. They don't. They don't. But they don't. But I don't know. That's what Donald Trump keeps If any of them ever studied economics.
|
Brandy:
[1:16:23]
| I know that Donnie was supposed to have, but apparently he was a really shitty student, and they had to buy his way in in the first place. So then he clearly demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge of economics, because I'm pretty sure he doesn't do this maliciously. He does it because he's stupid.
|
Sam:
[1:16:43]
| Well, yes. I mean, he's definitely stupid. He's definitely like last person who talked to him is what he does, these kinds of things. However, he's also just incredibly self-interested. And I think everything comes down to, does he think it will, does it help him personally? And that could be either that the policy helps him personally, or just that advocating for the policy helps him personally because of who else might like it. And I think in very few cases, if any, is he making any sort of evaluation in terms of what will this policy do in terms of the greater good or anything like that? I don't think that even crosses his mind.
|
Brandy:
[1:17:34]
| No, he doesn't care.
|
Sam:
[1:17:36]
| Okay. A couple I'll throw out for you. And they're sort of related, so maybe I'll merge them together. Fundamentally, there's been a lot of debate about, over the last two months on how national Democrats are or not meeting the moment for what's going on with the Trump administration. Now, obviously, Democrats lost the presidency. They lost the House of Representatives. They lost the Senate. They effectively lost the Supreme Court a long time ago. So there's very tight limits on what's actually possible out there. But at the same time, even without the ability to, quote unquote.
|
Sam:
[1:18:22]
| Do something in those official capacities, there's a lot of question in terms of just what you what you do do in terms of messaging, in terms of how you react to things, in terms of what you do. Everything from what Chuck Schumer did with the continuing resolution to how people acted at the State of the Union in terms of who sat there politely versus who went and protested versus who didn't go at all. What are your general thoughts on the... And another thing is who's actually talking and who's not. There was a news article in the last couple of days about Biden wanting to get back in the game. Meanwhile, Harris has been really quiet, but Walls has been out there a lot in the last few weeks. There's a whole Sanders AOC tour that's going on where they're having big, huge rallies. What's your general thoughts? And I threw out a whole bunch of examples, but what's your general thoughts on how national Democrats are handling the moment.
|
Brandy:
[1:19:35]
| So i i've said before you know i think that democratic messaging sucks it's really bad, so there's that and that certainly plays a part but also you're right there they how how do they fight they have very little power to actually affect change and so they have to be very very careful how they wield that power, or it will no longer exist. And then take into account the fact that there's a president who has been given immunity from utilizing his office against people who disagree with him, utilizing the FBI against people who agree with him.
|
Sam:
[1:20:22]
| Disagree. Yeah.
|
Brandy:
[1:20:23]
| Yeah, who disagree. Sorry. He removed Secret Service details from.
|
Brandy:
[1:20:31]
| People, because he wanted to make them vulnerable.
|
Brandy:
[1:20:35]
| This is somebody who's not going to think twice about putting people in their families in very dangerous situations. I think that is true. And the Supreme Court has given him the leeway to do so. So there's that. I do think a lot of people are out there speaking. They're just not always speaking to who is expected. Like, there seems to be this whole thing where, where are the Obamas? Where are the Clintons? Where's Kamala? why aren't they fighting for us and it's like i mean that kind of happened already and we told you this was going to happen and you ignored us and so now here we are and you want to know who's going to save you and that's not how this works but like i think the last i saw hillary clinton was in germany talking about the rise of fascism like they're out there doing stuff If they're all out there doing stuff, they may not be in the spaces where other people want them to be. And they have no responsibility to be in those spaces. None. And that's important to remember. And I know there were some people who were kind of like, oh, we can't let Biden back in. Dude's offering a fundraise. He is a master at fundraising. If you say no, then you are essentially saying, that's okay. We don't want our party to succeed anymore.
|
Sam:
[1:22:02]
| I feel like in the Biden case, I have no problem with the fundraising. I feel like in general, it probably is time for Biden to sort of walk off into the sunset. And I was a Biden fan defending him staying in until the moment he dropped out. But I think it's okay for him to walk out into the sunset. Walk away, except like, like you said, fundraising. Okay. Let, let him do it. Like that's not harmful. That's not the same as, you know, I'm going to go on TV all the time and be in him doing the Bernie Sanders rallies, you know, I don't know, but, but like, but at the same time, I, I, I on it, I do feel a little bit disappointed in that Harris hasn't been more visible now. You're absolutely right there's no there's no obligation absolutely no obligation whatsoever but i feel like she could be being useful.
|
Brandy:
[1:22:56]
| She could be doing.
|
Sam:
[1:22:58]
| Some i told you so's you.
|
Brandy:
[1:23:00]
| Know she could be she could be but nobody even has a right to that i mean when it comes down to it again people chose what they got, it's not her job to come coddle people now because she's not there to protect them well i mean hell She.
|
Sam:
[1:23:18]
| You know, she, you know, one extreme the day after the election, she could have announced her run for 2028.
|
Brandy:
[1:23:26]
| She could have.
|
Sam:
[1:23:27]
| Yeah. I mean, obviously, there's no obligation. But the thing that I am feeling right now is when it does come time for 2028, I am going to have, I will be more inclined for people who are being active right now versus people who wait till after midterms.
|
Sam:
[1:23:56]
| Now, it of course depends on the person. Like, you know, there are certain people I like and certain people I don't like anyway, you know, but I feel like the folks who are just sort of like, well, there's nothing we can do right now. So we're just going to lay low for a year or two. At least in, and then maybe we'll pop our heads up and start campaigning for midterms. But like, at least for the first year, we're just going to lay low, see what happens, let Donald Trump do damage. I mean, cause you can't stop the damage. And I have argued at various points in the past that a fundamental problem of our system of checks and balances. I mean, there are lots of good things for a system of checks and balances. It's bad that it's being eroded. But one of the problems was that people couldn't see the consequences of their votes. Like they, you know, you'd either vote for somebody because you wanted them to do something. And then because they didn't have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, they didn't actually get those things done. And then you're like, oh, they failed. We voted them to do X and they didn't get it done.
|
Sam:
[1:25:05]
| And they, and so people don't see that result or, you know, they see the other part, they blame the negative for the wrong folks because they just don't understand how the system works. And it feels like if you really and truly allow the consequences of the vote to happen, either positive or negative, then it makes for a better next election, because people are actually voting on, hey, the people I voted for actually got to enact their policies. And now we've seen what happens. The problem, of course, is on the negative side, lots of people get hurt. But I've heard the argument here in some degree that, like, you know, you got to let the damage happen because then people will realize they fucked up.
|
Brandy:
[1:26:02]
| Yeah. But at this point, though, we got to let the damage happen because we have no control over making it go away. We don't we just don't have it.
|
Sam:
[1:26:11]
| So allowing for you have no control and allowing for what you said before about democratic messaging tends to suck what approach should these folks be doing what like you know um our our congress people our senators what approach should they be taking towards the national stuff right now it feels like they're.
|
Brandy:
[1:26:35]
| And they're talking and they're being honest.
|
Sam:
[1:26:37]
| But it seems that's the approach it seems like so far yeah and again completely recognizing that they can't actually do anything substantive because they don't have majorities but it seems even the communication stuff they're doing for the most part with a handful of exceptions for the most part they're not doing great on the message you said you said messaging sucks but they're really doing badly at it. Like, and there seems to be a coherent strategy from leadership anyway, on the national level to say, you know, hey, we're not going to spend most of our time pointing out all the bad things Trump is doing. Instead, let's just keep talking about, you know, the price of eggs is still bad. Or, you know, the lesson learned from 2024 is that people cared about, you know, breadbasket, kitchen table issues. And so that's all we're going to talk about. All of the other issues, forget about. We're not going to talk about democracy because that clearly that didn't work in the election. We're not going to talk about the trans stuff because that was wielded as a hammer against us and they won. So let's just ignore the trans people for now and the issues there. I've heard people make that argument.
|
Brandy:
[1:28:02]
| Yeah, that's a stupid argument.
|
Sam:
[1:28:04]
| I've heard people say, look, being all worried about trans people, minorities, immigrants, wanting to be like, you know, having empathy, caring about DEI, that didn't work. So we got to stop doing that. And it's the economy, stupid. And there's a big push to say, hey, the problem was we were two left. Let's go to the center and get more of those Trump voters back.
|
Brandy:
[1:28:43]
| Yeah, that's not likely. And the true Trump voters aren't going anywhere because politics is not about data. It's about faith.
|
Sam:
[1:28:52]
| Yeah, it's about emotion. And I feel like, I feel like the, the, you know, the, I've said this on the show before. So for long time, long time listeners are going to be annoyed at me, but.
|
Brandy:
[1:29:10]
| I'll be in what you do just for the sake of it.
|
Sam:
[1:29:13]
| I'm sure you will. I feel like the time of the traditional wisdom of trying to swing the median voter and so always trying to sort of triangulate and get the center. I think that may have been appropriate for certain times in the past, but for this moment, given how polarized everything is, I think that was a mistake in the 2024 campaign when they tried to do it. And it really is about motivating your base and getting them out there and making sure like, you know, there was a poll out from I think it was NBC in the last week talking about the approval rating for the Democratic Party as a whole had now dropped below 30 percent nationwide, which is the lowest it's ever been while they've been tracking these things. And is lower than Donald Trump, lower than the Republicans, you know, and, but, but that's not, the problem with those kinds of polls is they often aren't accompanied with why, because while certainly some of that is going to be, oh, the Democrats are too far on the left.
|
Sam:
[1:30:31]
| Some of it is, from what I've seen in other polls and just the general zeitgeist that's out there, is a lot of it is... Okay, you guys lost, but you're acting like losers. Start actually acting. And yes, they are.
|
Brandy:
[1:30:49]
| It's the whole, why aren't you doing something? And it's like, what do you propose is done?
|
Sam:
[1:30:56]
| I think the thing that people are looking for, because I think most people recognize they can't actually do anything in their jobs. They're looking for them to look upset look passionate be like leading demonstrations and stuff not just sitting back like i think there was a lot of frustration for just like you know the state of the union thing the 10 democrats that went along with the center of the one guy who stood up and protested um that was weird you know things like that i i think i see them doing things like, okay, the people who showed up at the state of the union, but held up little signs or t-shirts that are like, that's just, that's just weak and silly. Like the guy who stood up and, and then was made them escort him out. That's more like it. Like, and did it accomplish anything in the end? No, but it's a bit more demonstrative and it's a bit more, okay, you're showing us you're with us. You're showing us you feel the same level of anger we do.
|
Brandy:
[1:32:02]
| I understand that but i also recognize that it's not it's not always useful like.
|
Sam:
[1:32:08]
| Do you think you're alienating more people than you're gaining when you do performative things like that i.
|
Brandy:
[1:32:15]
| Think i think as time goes on as we start to play the same kind of games they do.
|
Sam:
[1:32:22]
| Well that term that term is actually one i've i've heard explicitly is like you know So they this this like when they go low, we go high stuff failed. We have to start like when they go low, we kick them in the nuts.
|
Brandy:
[1:32:42]
| Yeah. But here's the thing. Then that makes us know better than they are. And that's what differentiates us. Having more compassion. Caring about people. Yeah. Being the better human beings, that's what differentiates us. And if we take that away, then we're no different.
|
Sam:
[1:32:59]
| So do you feel happy with how the National Democrats are handling it for the moment? Or do you wish they'd be doing something different? What do you think they should be doing different?
|
Brandy:
[1:33:10]
| I honestly don't know that there's anything they can do right now. And so saying you need to be doing this thing differently doesn't work. And honestly, I don't know enough about the politics and how it works there.
|
Sam:
[1:33:25]
| Some examples that have been thrown out, I think we're pretty much at the end. There's like one or two stragglers. But people mentioned, hey, on confirmations that the Senate has to do, why aren't we a unified no on everybody? Instead, they have the votes to pass them anyway. Yeah. You know, so do the performative no and make them take, you know, do every procedural thing in the book to slow it down and make it take as long as possible. That kind of thing.
|
Brandy:
[1:33:59]
| What I would have done is I would have saved my no for the ones I thought were the most dangerous.
|
Sam:
[1:34:05]
| Well, that's essentially what happened, right? Like, yeah.
|
Brandy:
[1:34:08]
| Like, because if you just say no every time.
|
Sam:
[1:34:10]
| Rubio was like essentially unanimous. I think he got like 99 votes. And then but like the the unanimous democratic opposition came for things like rfk jr and and hogeth and i i think even those might not have been perfectly unanimous they were.
|
Brandy:
[1:34:26]
| Close but but you know if you do it all the time and you do it the same way all the time it it has no value you.
|
Sam:
[1:34:35]
| Don't get credit for it anyway.
|
Brandy:
[1:34:36]
| Yeah because people.
|
Sam:
[1:34:39]
| Will still be like you didn't stop it.
|
Brandy:
[1:34:40]
| Yeah but you didn't stop it whether you voted for it or against it because, they don't have the power so yes they could they could be performative and vote no every time but i i think i think it the message it sends a clearer message when you're holding out for the ones that are the problem i think rather than just doing the same thing over and over again, um i know so you say you're.
|
Sam:
[1:35:16]
| You're not happy with how they're doing things but you don't have any particular things you wish they would do different because you think it's a no-win situation.
|
Brandy:
[1:35:24]
| Yeah well i think sometimes there's that whole thing right it was from the american president you fight the fights you can win versus you fight the fights that need fighting from the movie from the movie The American President yeah.
|
Sam:
[1:35:38]
| Good movie it's been a while.
|
Brandy:
[1:35:40]
| I know right and I've been thinking about that a lot lately yeah, If you're fighting every fight, though, you don't have the energy when something really big comes along that you might actually have the opportunity to change the direction of.
|
Sam:
[1:35:56]
| So you kind of think the lay low and wait for the right opportunity is actually the right way to do it rather than because, again, the push from a lot of people is like, you know, we want people who are sort of demonstrably, clearly. Fighting even if.
|
Brandy:
[1:36:17]
| Even if they.
|
Sam:
[1:36:18]
| Even if they are continuously losing we want to see them in the battle.
|
Brandy:
[1:36:22]
| And not sort.
|
Sam:
[1:36:23]
| Of preemptively say we can't win this one so we're not going to try.
|
Brandy:
[1:36:27]
| They want god i just lost the word they want activists yeah most politicians aren't activists and never were so it's also not something that everybody knows how to do and so they They think like politicians and they strategize and they do the thing that will have more of an impact when they do it every once in a while instead of all the time.
|
Sam:
[1:36:58]
| I think the activist identification is correct there. I mean, like, there are clearly people hankering for, like, Democratic leaders, whether they be elected leaders or non-elected activists or whatever. They want to see them like protesting and getting arrested and beaten and like just the, the performative, like, you know, they, you know, it was just the anniversary of the whole Edmund Pettus bridge thing that I think. People are hankering for that kind of activism right now. And you're right. It is an activist thing, not necessarily something you expect of elected officials. But I think people are hoping for some of that. And even for the elected officials, it's like, I think the thing that really rubs people the wrong way is the, we know we can't win this one, so therefore we're not going to try. see.
|
Brandy:
[1:37:51]
| And and the other thing is i don't think there's no no trying i think it's just not public.
|
Sam:
[1:37:58]
| You know.
|
Brandy:
[1:38:00]
| I i think they are.
|
Sam:
[1:38:02]
| But but that's the thing that like if you're talking about the general electorate and the general world of.
|
Brandy:
[1:38:09]
| They don't see that.
|
Sam:
[1:38:10]
| They don't yeah because if it's if it's not public they don't see it and you've got a lot of especially in the younger generations, you see a lot of people who are like, they won't associate themselves with Democrats. They may not like Trump, but they won't associate themselves with Democrats either because they think of Democrats as weak and feckless. And this is marketing. This is not about what they actually do. This is marketing. So I would suspect some of the people who are activists will end up in 5, 10, 15 years being the new electeds at that point in time, because of names they'll make now.
|
Brandy:
[1:38:59]
| I can tell you, though, that people who go from activism to policy, like politicians, don't always do well because they expect to be able to make...
|
Sam:
[1:39:10]
| Radical change quickly.
|
Brandy:
[1:39:11]
| Radical changes, but don't take into account that we are working in a system that was not made for us and not designed for people like us to be a part of. In fact, excluded.
|
Sam:
[1:39:27]
| And also, despite the current efforts to dismantle it, the entire American system at a national level was specifically designed to slow down change. It was designed to not allow the whims of the crowd, as it was called back then, or maybe I just made that up. But it was designed to insulate against raw democracy.
|
Sam:
[1:40:01]
| Because prior to the American experiment, democracies were known as a system that always failed because you would always end up in a situation at some point where the hoi polloi would vote themselves out. All kinds of goodies and it would go bankrupt and it would get corrupt and it would, you know, it's, it's a cycle that happened over and over again. So the American system was specifically designed with all kinds of choke points and checks and balances that were specifically designed to insulate the system from the raw popular will and slow things down and, and prohibit concentration of power, all of this kind of stuff at which, you know, you know, someone like Donald Trump is trying to get rid of all that and allow himself to have monarchical power again, again, but have, you know, have unrestricted power and we'll see, but, but yeah, it's intentionally slow. So yeah, no, I can definitely see how the activist mindset and the, and the sort of Actual governance, sort of one hits the brick wall of the other, and that can be frustrating.
|
Sam:
[1:41:23]
| But at the same time, it's a big reason for people's disillusion right now, is that they feel like, you know, it doesn't matter who you vote for because nothing good happens no matter what.
|
Brandy:
[1:41:35]
| Yeah. I think that we're going to see some interesting changes in the midterms.
|
Sam:
[1:41:39]
| Yeah. Well, I think part of that depends on...
|
Brandy:
[1:41:43]
| Assuming they happen.
|
Sam:
[1:41:44]
| Yes. I mean, we got a year and three quarters left to go, but it's like forever. I think approximately I did. I do the math right. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
|
Brandy:
[1:41:55]
| Yes.
|
Sam:
[1:41:57]
| But that's gonna, but certainly with the current direction, you got to think like Donald Trump has been doing unpopular things since January 20th and doubling and tripling down on them. And at some point that has to like, As much as people talk about how much of a disaster the 2024 election was for Democrats, it's because we have a winner-take-all system, essentially. It was really close. The Democrats actually gained ground in the House. They only lost a little bit in the Senate. They just barely lost the presidency. And I continue to believe that if the Harris campaign hadn't shifted tone in mid-September, they could have still pulled off a win. It was really close. And so you don't need to fundamentally change the entire political universe to reverse these trends. You just need the Republicans to lose a couple percent of ground. And that's not much, especially if you destroy the economy.
|
Brandy:
[1:43:10]
| If you remember too there was a at least one situation in which donald trump actually said the election was rigged for him do you remember that.
|
Sam:
[1:43:22]
| He he he made a little statement about elon musk and elon musk knowing stuff and blah blah blah i don't think it was rigged i think he said it was yeah i mean there are different.
|
Brandy:
[1:43:35]
| Ways to rig an election right like i was talking to somebody was convinced that there are a lot of houses that went out for sale or rent right after the election like people relocating in order to shift to vote people who had money being able to do that that kind of thing.
|
Sam:
[1:43:54]
| Um and that that's been hell i've suggested that tactic i've suggested moving through it's entirely just barely you know move to purple states move to states that don't need that many people i i've pointed out many times how like wyoming may seem very red but it's also very small so it wouldn't take that many people to flip it you know, you know those are actually like you know there's rigging and then there's okay that's a legitimate tactic you know paying.
|
Brandy:
[1:44:31]
| People to to.
|
Sam:
[1:44:32]
| Vote for.
|
Brandy:
[1:44:32]
| A certain candidate.
|
Sam:
[1:44:33]
| Well yeah and and elon's like lottery in pennsylvania oh and he's doing it again oh yeah he's doing it in the the the in the judge judge race wherever it is um and it's still legal yeah well and we've we've made And, you know, current campaign finance basically allows you to spend as much money as you want.
|
Brandy:
[1:45:00]
| Yes, but it doesn't allow you to buy votes. That is illegal.
|
Sam:
[1:45:04]
| Not, yes, not directly. But, like... He tried to do it in a very loophole-ish way to make it technically by the letter of the law legal, even though clearly in spirit it wasn't. And, of course, you're going to see that kind of stuff. And now, with the current environment, nobody's going to go after him for any of this stuff anyway. So, ugh.
|
Brandy:
[1:45:25]
| Now Trump wants to take over the FECs.
|
Sam:
[1:45:28]
| Yes. Well, didn't he already fire all the Democratic members of the FEC last week or the week before? Yeah. So, yeah, it's going to be, like you said, my take is not that, you know, you said if there are going to be elections again, there'll be elections again. But all of the stuff.
|
Brandy:
[1:45:48]
| Will they be rigged?
|
Sam:
[1:45:50]
| Well, and I don't even know if rigged is the right word, but all of the things that we know about that make it harder for Democrats to win will be emphasized more. There'll be more voter suppression. There'll be more hoops that you have to jump through to vote. The media environment will be pushed in a certain direction. Trump is actively threatening media outlets who say anything negative against him, and that's going to have an effect. But they're playing off the Eastern European playbook from Orban in Hungary who did this kind of thing and other authoritarians elsewhere in the world as well, where you don't know... At this point, it's not, you're transitioning to what they're calling an illiberal democracy, where you still have all the institutions of democracy officially running, but you try to put your thumb on every way possible to make it really, really hard for the opposition. You know? So there you go. Okay. We've gone on long enough. Any last thoughts before we close it out?
|
Brandy:
[1:47:06]
| Every day seems like a really long day. And then also every day seems like a really short period of time.
|
Sam:
[1:47:14]
| Right. All right. Just because of session or because of the entire damn world?
|
Brandy:
[1:47:24]
| Because the entire damn world.
|
Sam:
[1:47:26]
| Okay. Yes. a lot of people seem to have forgotten how this was like during the first Trump administration. And if anything, it's twice as bad this time.
|
Brandy:
[1:47:39]
| Oh, yeah. It's way worse than it was before. Because before, he didn't have a plan. He didn't think he was going to win. So he just kind of banged around inside there. This time, there was a plan.
|
Sam:
[1:47:50]
| And there were a lot of the quote-unquote adults in the room who may have been conservative, but they believed in the basics of government and the constitution and tried to reign him in. Those people are all gone now. All gone.
|
Brandy:
[1:48:03]
| And he believes himself to be a king. What would the long live the king crap, which also really fucking is trolling.
|
Sam:
[1:48:10]
| Well, he loves trolling with that kind of stuff, but he clearly, even with other things.
|
Brandy:
[1:48:14]
| I don't think that's trolling. He has a golden throne.
|
Sam:
[1:48:18]
| He may be trolling with the meme but the underlying thought that he believes that his power should be unlimited is absolutely true absolutely.
|
Sam:
[1:48:29]
| Okay we can be done thanks everybody for listening to yet another curmudgeon's corner Ivana's gonna be gone again wait, Yes. Yvonne will be gone again next week too. So I don't know who I'll have on next week. I'll have on somebody or I'll just do it myself. Who knows? But, but yeah, he, this, this week he was traveling for work. Next week is like spring break or something. So he's doing something with his family. So good for him. Have fun. We'll see. We'll see what I do next week. In any case, go to the website, curmudgeons-corner.com. You can find all the ways to contact us. You can find the archive of our shows, transcripts of recent shows, all of that kind of fun stuff. There's a link to our YouTube where these live streams exist and you can watch the show unedited instead of listening to the edited audio version. Now I say edit, but I'm not like picking out the best half hour out of a two hour recording. No, I'm just removing coughs and the dog barking, children interrupting nonsense like that. But on YouTube, you can see all of that stuff, including the fact that because of technical difficulties, it took us like five tries. I did the one recording earlier, and then it took us five tries to get a good connection and whatever, four tries. I don't know.
|
Brandy:
[1:49:56]
| I blame you, Sam.
|
Sam:
[1:49:57]
| It is entirely my fault. But you can see all of those artifacts on YouTube and see the video of us and that links there i i still have not added a tiktok link i am posting highlights on tiktok every week but oh and this last week for the first time curmudgeon's corner on tiktok now has more followers than my personal tiktok so i it's a it's a huge milestone i know i know, but but yeah i i'm waiting to post the link because a i'm lazy and busy and b like my excuse is I want to wait till TikTok's 90 day reprieve is up and see what happens then, you know, but anyway, all of that stuff. And of course you can find a link to our Patreon where you can give us money. Money is always appreciated, whether it's a dollar, $5, or, you know, what would really be nice, $50,000 a month. If you have that in you, cough it up. We'd be fine with that. You know, anyway. Or $500,000 a month. I don't mind more zeros. Add as many zeros as you feel comfortable with. Right, Brandy? You'd be okay with that, right?
|
Brandy:
[1:51:11]
| Totally.
|
Sam:
[1:51:12]
| Yeah. Anyway, at various levels on the Patreon, we will send you a postcard, send you a mug, ring a bell, talk about you on the show, whatever. At $2 a month or more, or if you just ask, we'll invite you to our Curmudgeons Corner Slack, where Yvonne and I and a variety of listeners are chatting throughout the week, sharing links, just talking about whatever. Let's see, what interesting thing is there recently on there? Oh, I know I mentioned this on the show that it was coming soon, but here's something that you would have seen on the TikTok. I am officially Uncle Sam now. I have to wear the red and white hat and the star-spangled suit every day because I am Uncle Sam, because my sister had a beautiful baby boy that I shared some, I shared one picture of the mother and child. So yeah, this is my first time as an uncle. I don't know when I'll get to go see the kid. Maybe the summer. I'm thinking the summer, maybe.
|
Brandy:
[1:52:31]
| If Cynthia will have you.
|
Sam:
[1:52:33]
| If Cynthia will have me. Yes. So anyway, that that's, that's my highlight from the Slack this time around. Okay, everybody. Thank you for joining us. It's been a wonderful, exciting show. I will send out my usual email to potential co-hosts, but if you're listening to this, and you have not co-hosted recently and you are interested in co-hosting and we've at least had some contact in the past so I know who the hell you are, go to curmudgeoncorner.com, use one of the contact methods and let us know you're interested and maybe I'll pick you. Maybe I won't, but maybe I will. So contact us. And if I haven't ever heard from you before and you're listening and you get to this point, Contact us anyway, just to say hi, but I probably won't like say, yeah, come co-host if it's the first time I've ever heard from you in my entire life. Just, just being honest there. So anyway, that's it. Thank you, everybody. Goodbye. We'll talk to you next week. And thanks again, Brandy. It's always great having you and I'll come downstairs and see you in person in a few seconds. Bye everyone. Say goodbye. Goodbye.
|
Brandy:
[1:53:53]
| Bye-bye.
|
Sam:
[1:54:23]
| Thank you. Okay, I'm going to hit stop, and then you wait until I tell you to hang out. Okay, hitting stop!
| |
|
