Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to the call like I see it podcast.
I'm James Keys, and in this episode of call like I see it, we're going to discuss the Senator Tommy Tuberville and this hold he's employing on hundreds of military nominations and promotions due to his objection to a Pentagon policy dealing with abortion or making abortion available for service members.
And later on we're going to react to a new study and new publications which suggests there's an inexpensive technique that may be as good as Viagra for men.
Joining me today is a man who can make a person drop it like it's hot. Toon day, Ogun Lana. Toon day. Are you ready to show the people some heat today?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: Of course.
[00:01:04] Speaker A: All right. All right. Now we're recording this on November 14, 2023. And the first part of our discussion today looks at around, well, yeah, it's about 350 nominations and promotions to military service members that Tommy Tuberville, the senator, republican senator from Alabama, has been holding up for several months and holding up in the sense that they usually do these as a batch and from a bipartisan standpoint, but it requires all 100 senators to do them as one group instead of individually. So he's saying, all right, we're not going to do this as one group. So he's holding it up in that sense, holding up his consent or objecting to it. And so he's been holding those up for several months now. And his objection is with a Pentagon policy that was implemented in the last year or so which allows service members that are stationed in a area in a jurisdiction where abortion is illegal. If they need an abortion, it's other reproductive care, all types of reproductive care. If you're stationed somewhere where what you need isn't there, then they'll allow you to travel to somewhere where it is and give you leave or whatever. And so his objection is to that policy. And so he's taken it out, presumably on the military to try to force them to change the policy. So, tunde, to get us started, what stands out to you? You know, as far as what's happening with Tuberville and these, this hold on the military promotions.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: There'S several things that stand out to me. I mean, one is, this is interesting. I've never seen anyone, a senator or someone in this position hold up something like this important just by themselves for an ideological reason. So that stuck out to me. But then I'd say besides focusing on Mister Tuberville as an individual, I think if we peel it back out kind of 30,000ft and look at what's going on in this era of our political discourse, in the landscape. I'd say it's, it reminds me, it reminded me of Matt Gates, the congressman, who by himself forced kind of the chaos we've been seeing in recent months with the speakership in the Congress. And it just reminded me, honestly, of the first main advisor hired under the former president, a gentleman by the name of Steve Bannon, that he said his number one goal and the administration's number one goal at the time was the destruction of the administrative state.
And so I can't help but think of those things when I see the way that one man is behaving, especially against an important branch of our government, which is the US military, for his own, what appears to be his own personal ideological reasons. And to your point, when you said the intro, he's holding up big batches. We're talking hundreds now of people being promoted within the military. So that's what stands out to me, is that this is a continuation of that era of attacking our own kind of institutions.
[00:04:12] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, no, and I think it's, when you look at something like this, it seems like this is just politics as usual. But really what stands out to me about is this is something for decades that's been going on, we never hear about it and we hear about it now and it's like, well, what are we supposed to think about this, you know, like, is this just politics or is he doing something that is corrosive or immature or, you know, because some people have said, oh, this is like him throwing a tantrum. And in many respects it is, because one of the things that really stands out to me about this is that what he's saying is that, well, until we have a vote in the Senate on this Pentagon policy, then I'm going to hold up all these promotions, which oversteps a lot of different things, because he said a vote in the Senate, you know, is not going to mean that it even passes the how. If they have a vote and it passes, it starts to go to the House for this, for there to be a law in this. Like there's, there's the Senate, there's the House and then the executive branch there. The president gets to sign off on it or not. Now this is the guy who, you know, in being interviewed was asked the three branches of government, he said the Senate, the House and the presidency. So maybe he doesn't know, you know, that the machinations on how this has to happen anyway. So, but the thing is, is that he won't.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: You would assume people would learn how their employer actually functions when they get hired for the job, but maybe you.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Would think they would learn before they apply.
[00:05:37] Speaker B: So even better.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, but, so, but the thing about it more than that though, he hasn't, it's not like he's going to introduce something and then I want you guys to vote on this and then I'll remove the whole, he's saying he wants the democrats to introduce something that's to his liking and then he will. And then if there's a vote on it he'll release his hole. And so it's really like, it does seem like he is just trying to jam up the system like it seems, okay. I just don't want the system to function right now. And that to me seems to be the big departure right now is like we have people and this is where your, your comparisons that you threw out might, might fit is that we have people in positions of power now in the inside that are doing things that make you question whether they actually want the system to work or whether they don't want the system to work and they're playing another game where it's like okay, we need to break the system so that then this, whatever next step we can have happen, we can make that happen. And so to me that's what really stands out about it is that if he wants a vote on, on this rule, which I think oversteps anyway because it gets the Pentagon, the Pentagon runs their policy. Like that's not what they should, what the Senate should be doing really, you know, like he's not asking for a declaration of war or not. You know, like that's not what's happening here. He's saying we want to micromanage what the military's doing, which is again totally, that's a bit much already. But then he won't even introduce into like he's in a, he's in the Senate. If he wants to put everybody vote on something, he won't even introduce something for everybody to vote on. So it's just like well yeah, you know, you're just really out there, man.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Well and I think, you know there's a couple things swimming around with that. I think part of it is ideology, which I'll get into as the show goes on about. You know, I'm doing some reading and I found it very interesting to learn about just specifically Mister Tuberville's own personal ideology on a lot of topics, which again this isn't new in american in the american experience. But I think it's important that we know the mindset of some of the people who are in charge of, you know, important things, like being a senator, one of only two senators from a state that has the power to create and influence legislation, so on and so forth. So that's number one. Number two, you said something very interesting, which I want to follow up on, is that we have never heard about this. And I'm speaking now not his behavior, but meaning specific process, the process of confirming in batches, military promotions and moving people up the chain.
[00:08:06] Speaker A: And that's not because it never happened before, and that's not because nobody ever disagreed with something before. It's just that this was not something that was a political football previously.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Correct. And so that reminded me. That's why I said I wanted to go back to that. Cause it reminded me of so many things that is interesting. Right. Like, this whole last decade, to me, kind of has just been a big civics lesson, because I learned so many things through behaviors and actions like this, actually, about how the system works. Like, so now I've learned about how the military does batch promotions. And it makes sense because if the Senate here confirms.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Yeah, the conference let me go and.
[00:08:43] Speaker B: Say, because they had. If they had to confirm each of these people one by one, but we got a military with, I think, over 2 million employees in it, people employed in it. So just the idea of promoting people up the ranks. You've got hundreds of people at a time that come every few months.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: So imagine if the Senate only had. Was focusing on that. They wouldn't do anything else. So the idea is that, okay, that's the point. Yeah, but that's the point. That's why I want to explain it like this. So people understand that. How mundane and bureaucratic this basic stuff is. Like, okay, we've got 80 people lined up between the air force, the Marines, the army. So here's their background.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: So organization, you know, like that.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Yeah, let's just approve them to go forward. And what he's doing.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Well, hold on one other second. They've been already.
The promotion has already put. Been put forth by their superiors, the people who supervise them and everything like that. That stuff is already done. This is the senate. Who doesn't? They're not directly supervising these people. They're not paying that much attention to it in many respects. They're relying on the military to say, okay, yeah, you guys keep the best people rising up through the ranks. So he's not looking at this substantively either.
[00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah, well, and the other thing, too, which he's really not doing, is seeing that, which is. Seems to be happening right now as we're speaking, which is they're figuring out ways around him, which means that, unfortunately for him and maybe his colleagues in the senate, what he'll do is diminish the kind of the role or the seriousness of the Senate's confirmation process, because we need a functioning military. So that's kind of the point I was getting at, which is, and appreciate you explaining that these are people that have already been vetted through their respective branches. So it's not like the Senate's going to the air force or the Navy and saying, give us the top ten people and let us pick them. They're just, this is just the formality of saying, okay, the Navy told us these are the 16 guys that were at this rank, and now they're telling us that they have earned the right to be promoted this rank. And we, as a Senate, need to just complete our constitutional duty of, you know, confirming this military assignment. And so the ability for him to gum up the works.
And again, that's why it came to me about the destruction of the administrative state. And what I'm saying about just going back to the long going civics lesson we've had for a decade, it reminded me, like you said, we've never heard of this before, because this is just normal stuff, that this should go on without it making the news. And I thought about things like the debt ceiling. I never heard of the debt ceiling before 2011. And there's so many things like that that traditionally have not been points of contention for political, ideological fights. These were things that, you know, one side accepted that the other side won an election and that they're gonna do things that, from a policy standpoint, that reflect the ideology of the voters of that party that won. So I flew with debt ceiling.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: It's even more interesting because, remember, the debt ceiling debates, that's money that's already been legislated into the budget, and it's just a matter of raising the debt ceiling to accompany, to account for money that has already been passed the law to spend. So that's even more disingenuous for.
[00:11:53] Speaker B: Even though that's the point. Yeah, but that's just the point is this is the way the system functions. And we've never seen before this era of this last decade or so, where politicians who are leaders of our country, and it's a good point, James, you make about the debt ceiling that did like the fact that so disingenuous. Meaning these people voted on a budget themselves.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:15] Speaker B: And now that it comes up, just to do the formality of allowing the treasury to now be able to borrow enough to pay stuff that these same people voted for.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: Now some of them will say, oh, well, you gotta hold this up because you're spending too much money knowing that they voted to spend the money. And that's where it becomes a clown show. Which is, again, why I have the Simpsons background today, preparing for the day and reading about this guy Tuberville. I was just like, this is literally cartoonish.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: So I had to do something. And just by coincidence, it's not on purpose, but I have Peter Griffin from family dialogue.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: You're mixing your animation.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: That was just a, that was just a coincidence. I just realized that as I'm looking at myself in this.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Yeah, but, but that's kind of what.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: I wanted to just say. Yeah. The destruction of the administrative state is that is, is making all these little things of how the system work become ideological.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: The administration of the state, the administration of things. Let's make that stuff political. And that's, that's actually what I wanted to touch on before we move to the next part, is just that a lot of times what you hear is people are making something political. And I think that's a lot of time, a lot of times can be a throw off in saying, because the, the Pentagon, what Tuberville says right now is that the Pentagon is doing this, this program that it's doing as it's a political move. And what the Pentagon is doing is not a political move. Objectively, what Tuberville is doing is a political move. And I'll explain that. The reason why, what the Pentagon is doing, the Pentagon sends people, deploys people to various places without, by and large, they don't get to say, okay, I only want to be here. I only want to be there. So the Pentagon will send you wherever they want you, wherever your talents are needed or wherever they, you know, however they want to distribute things. And so they're saying, okay, because we'll send you anywhere. If you're in a place where you can't get the care you want in, you know, you attach abortion to this and people get a little fuzzy about it, but it's just, it's medical care, any kind of medical care. You, if you can't get what you need where we've sent you, then we'll allow you to go somewhere for the, for the need that you have and get it. So that's, there's nothing in politics about involved in that. That's about a decision between an employer and employee about, between, you know, as far as whatever medical care is desired or how even if you disagree with the care that's desire that's desired, you're them. Getting the care isn't a political act or a political statement. It's them trying to manage their own body or their own health or whatever. What Tuberville is doing is saying, I don't like this. So literally, I'm going to play politics. I'm going to use a political maneuver to try to force you, to try to pressure you to changing the policy. I don't like that is doing politics. That's exactly playing. So that's making this policy or his making it political. So Tupperville is the one making it political, taking something that wasn't political and making it political. And a lot of times people get confused on that and say, okay, well, just because if someone's a political actor, if you criticize someone for doing something and they're a political actor, that doesn't mean you're making it political. If you're criticizing them for based on policy and stuff like that, then it's political. So it's not always cut and dry and say, okay, well, this is political because it involves, involves politics or it involves something that I think about in a political lens. It's whether or not the act itself is something that is a political act versus one that's just, I'm just doing something. You don't like it, so therefore you're going to make it. You're going to try to attack me politically because you don't like what I'm doing. The second point.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: So, well, let me jump in because I really appreciate you saying that, because it's very important and nuanced that this would be equivalent because you're right about ideology versus policy. First of all, let's point out that abortion is legal in the United States.
That's got to be very clear whether you agree with what I just said.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: It's not illegal federal law. In many states it is legal. Yeah.
[00:16:07] Speaker B: Correct. So the overturning of Roe versus Wade just allowed states to make the decision based on, you know, how the voters of those states want to decide that topic. Right. But it's not illegal to do this. So if somebody's in one state that doesn't provide those services and wants to go to another state, they're not breaking the law. So let's be clear on that. So where does this come into play as ideology and kind of trumping the ability to run the system? And that's what I think we're saying here about the, the hurt to the administrative state, which is many people. That sounds like something that they don't want anyway. Oh, the big administrative state. But at the end of the day, we got a big system and we need to train someone on time. I mean, this is exactly what running a government is and running a big society entails. So the issue with this one would be equivalent to, let's say, the last administration, which was Republicans in charge, not Democrats. And we know that there's some people in the Democratic Party that take things like climate change very seriously. Could you imagine if a democratic senator was holding up the promotion of military, you know, commanders and people going up through the ranks because they didn't agree with what the administration's view was on climate change? And that's bringing your ideological more on.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: Point would be if they didn't agree with the military's decision to not switch over to electric vehicles. 100%.
[00:17:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that's what I was going to think. Like, you know, we want, the Pentagon said we're going to by next year flying off electricity or I'm going to hold up this whole thing and I'm going to destroy the ability, the morale internally, all this kind of stuff of the military to function smoothly because people can't move to different places with their family and all that because they're not getting the promotion and they're waiting in the wings. So that's really what we're talking about here is this guy's putting his own personal stamp on the system. And that's something we haven't seen before, this era in this way of just saying that someone else, my opponent won the election and they have a right to deliver the policy that they see fit in a, you know, within certain parameters. And this is one of those. But yet I'm not going to accept the fact that they are in control of the situation right now and instead of telling the country how our side is better and let's go in the next election and win so we can take control, I'm just going to hurt the system. I'm going off the works because I feel like it very unamerican.
[00:18:25] Speaker A: Worse than that, honestly, because again, we don't. It is to our own detriment if we view everything as partisan. This is the military operating. The military is nonpartisan. The military is not supposed to be a part of the partisan mechanism back and forth the pilot, like this is what the secretary of defense has decided to do. Now the secretary of defense is civilian and is part of, you know, is someone that's put in by the administration. But nonetheless, if this is what the military is doing, this is what the military is doing. And you bringing the political beef that you have to the military, it is just like saying, okay, well, if the military doesn't use all electric vehicles in the next two years, then we're going to, we're going to punish the military. Not again. And the thing is, is not through votes, not through saying we're going to vote to do this or vote to do that. It's just saying I'm just not going to let things happen, you know, and there's a difference there. If Tuberville has a problem with this policy, then he needs to introduce legislation to make abortion illegal throughout the country. Then this policy will go away. You know, that's not what he wants to do. He doesn't want to try to win. And from a democratic standpoint, he just wants to, like you said, gum up the system, make the system not work, which is to all of our detriment. You know, if, if everyone who doesn't get their way just says we're going to try to make the system not work, our system's not going to work. And then, you know, like, we're not going to have a system much longer because once the system stopped serving the people, then we're going to end up with something else which we can actually get into that. Like, how do you do it? This, what we're seeing now, how do you think this reflects or, you know, stands in contrast even, you know, it could reflect or could stand in contrast to how things in our government system are going right now. You know, like, and we've, I guess we've already thrown out a couple of analogies, but just in general, in the climate that we're in now and, you know, from the standpoint of how things are going, what do you think? It's similarities, differences and so forth?
[00:20:11] Speaker B: No, I think, like we've been kind of leading up to this. This part of the discussion is this appears to me, I mean, this Tommy Tuberville kind of situation is a microcosm of a more unhealthy rot that we have in our system.
And it's unfortunate. Right. And that's what I mean, that's why I want to make very distinct here that this is unique. Like we're saying this would be like if some other senator literally gummed up the works and stopped the promotion of hundreds of people in our military because of their own personal view on something. I mean, this is unprecedented to me, and I'm willing to take anyone want to email us or give us some example of a historic time this happened other than maybe civil war. Right. Like, where really the system had to stop and people just fought each other. So that, to me, is what stands out and kind of the risk for our kind of the system. And that's what I mean. Like, I know that this was new when people like Steve Bannon seven, eight years ago were talking like that, all the destruction of the administrative state, and it's hard to take that stuff serious. It does seem bombastic.
[00:21:21] Speaker A: Well, it wasn't that new, though. I mean, there have been people in the Republican Party talking about drowning the government in the bathtub for 30 years, 40 years.
[00:21:29] Speaker B: Yeah, but this seems to be a step further. That was when they just want to keep government small, which still, they weren't.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Saying that it could be drowned in the battle.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: But I mean, but that, look, I'm not gonna. That's one guy that said that that's pretty famous. And it is what it is. What I'm saying is even those guys was all, you know, those guys were more about the taxes. And I don't want the government to be able to be function to confiscate my income. But other than that, I want the military and other things to run. You know, the trains are on on time. Like, I want this system to still produce and function. This is a new thing. Like, that's what I mean by the destruction of the whole administrative state. And it goes back to, like, the ISIS type of mindset or these kind of, like, radical, really, people that terrorize their own system. Okay, so you want to do that? What's coming after that? Like, what is this vision of this? These guys think that, you know, that it's going to be utopia. And I think we got to start believing people like Tommy Tuberville when they behave this way, that we do have people in our government that are hostile to our own system right now, and they're not joking about it.
So, I mean, that's. That's kind of what I see from the standpoint of the government. Like, this is not healthy.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: Well, yeah, what it represents, I mean, to say it a different way is it represents the mentality of my way or the highway. And that's, you may not know this, but that's very antithetical to the american system. The american system doesn't work if you have large numbers of people taking the mindset of my way or the highway.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: James, I don't understand that. Can you please explain to me how that makes sense? Because I don't understand what you're saying. This country founded. And why was it founded in a certain way?
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Well, the reason for that is that you're operating in a system that's based on the consent of the governor. And so in this system, the founding fathers built in many, many, many mechanisms that required repeated and ongoing compromise in order for the system to work. There's a reason why you have two houses in Congress now, because they're, each can do their own legislature, they can pass their own bills, and then they have to reconcile them together. That's a compromise. Then it has to go to the president, and the president can either veto it or sign it. That's another potential compromise. So there's all of these mechanisms built in, and that's just, again, top line. You know, there's, there's federalism, the federalism system where you have the state governments, and, you know, on top of that, you have the federal government system. You got the judicial system, which there's all these different certs and, you know, circuit district courts, circuit courts. There's all of these different areas. This distribution of power, separation of powers. I guess here's the best way to put it. You have the principle of the separation of powers, power separated and distributed at various points. So in order for power to be exercised, these entities through which the powers have been separated, generally a couple of them have to work together, and when they do that, they have to compromise. So compromise. The american, the american experience is defined by compromises. You got going back to the three fifths compromise. Back at the Constitution, you got compromise, you know, 1850, 1876, you got all these compromises that go on. And interestingly enough, if you read about a lot of those compromises, they involve black people and black people getting the short end of the state, but with, you know, just all types of stuff. But we want, that's not the point of this conversation right now. But there's just been, compromise is such a part of how this nation needs to work. So, in fact, if you want to break the system, what you do is take the mindset of, we're just not going to compromise it. I'm not going to compromise anything anymore. And that is how you break the system. So whether it's witting or unwitting, and it seems pretty intentional to me that, again, to break the system, it's like okay, we're not going to compromise anymore. So it's basically people that are antithetical to the american, the american system, the american experience. That's what we're seeing, is that. That's the hot. When people say Tuberville or when I say Tupperwill's hostile to the american system, that's what I mean. One of the fundamental principles of the american system. He said, I'm just not. I'm not in that anymore. I'm not going to do that anymore. And the my way or the highway is the end. You say, well, where does this lead? Well, there have been. There are people now who have taken the mindset that either we're going to do either I win or we're going to try to blow up the whole thing. Either everybody does what I say, or I'm going to try to blow up the whole thing. This my way or the highway mentality, which is taking root in certain areas. And that's what we're seeing. It is a takeover attempt. We're like, we shouldn't mince words about this. We shouldn't sugarcoat it. It is an attempt to take over the United States of America and say, we're no longer going to operate on this constitutional separation of powers, checks and balances system. It's going to be all about me or all about what it is that I want to do. And if you don't do it the way I want to do it, then nothing else is going to happen. We're just going to jam everything to a halt, and that's what we're seeing right now. So to me, it's very consistent with this strain, this toxicity. I think that it's risen up in our system and, you know, I'm going to kick it back to you, but there's another point I want to make on this that feeds into it. But I threw out a lot there, so I want to, you know, make sure.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Go ahead, bro. You're on a roll, man.
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Okay. Well, the other piece, the other piece about this, that there's a second part of this that you can't separate from it, and that's the media ecosystems. And what you're seeing is this rising catastrophism, like everyone or a lot of people are in these mindsets right now, and the media fees these mindsets that everything, if things don't go my way, everything is going to. It's going to be so bad, it's going to be so terrible. It's this, we have to do something now, or else everything's going to, you know, like it's going to fall apart. And that's with, everything that's with CRT and so we got to do all this stuff to the schools or like everything. There's the, what I'm going to say about that is what those are, is pretexts. Those are pretext. Those aren't legitimate claims. Like it was said in 2000 or 2001, if Biden takes power, then the country is going to fall apart or whatever. The country hadn't fallen apart. The parties have been exchanging power back and forth forever, you know, for, well, for hundreds of years. And, but it's this, every single, everything that's at stake is so dire and is so like, oh, so important. And what that does is it conditions people to a, by any means necessary mindset. It's a pretext. The people who want to get rid of the system create pretext in the mind of their supporters saying, okay, well, we got to do this because if we don't do this, then, you know, all is lost and everything is going to fall apart. You know, if we pull out of Afghanistan, it's going to be the worst thing ever. If we, you know, all of these things, we can go back. Like there has been so many worst things ever over the past five years or so. And it's all it is, is a pretext to get people comfortable with the idea of let's go above and beyond the system, let's break down the system. If we don't control it, then we, nothing's going to be left anyway. And so we got to take it over either by the ballot box or by some other means.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's good you brought up the media because, you know, that's to me the important thing too, to look at, which is Mister Tuberville seems to be on an island with his own colleagues in his own party. Like, it's not like there's another seven or eight republican senators that are like, yeah, this is a great idea, we're going to come do it, too. There's not like he's getting all this vocal support from Republicans in the Congress. And I haven't seen publicly any republican voters who are service members in the military saying, we love what this guy's doing. So I wonder sometimes to myself, well, how is it, you know, it seems that because I remember last week was the first time we saw his colleagues in the Senate, several prominent republican senators actually take to the floor and speak up against what he's doing. One who happened to be a lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps reserves, I should say, happens to be, and I believe he served in Iraq. So that was refreshing for me to see some of his colleagues taking the floor and actually vocalizing that how messed up this is. And I think the majority of those that did were veterans, whether they served in combat or not. And so that got me thinking about what you said, which is the media ecosystem, and thinking, well, why is it that no one would stand up to protect the military from at least until now, until recently? And that's what I thought of is because there's been this ecosystem created where people that would dare to stand up to this type of behavior by certain elected officials will actually become harassed themselves.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: And so it becomes this weaponization of the political position and power that I can do this. I'm going to gum up the works of the system. But then if someone else, even from within my own party, begins to criticize me, then I know that they'll, like their life will be made hell because we have all of these little, you know, for lack of a better term, kind of trolls, right? Like these people within the ecosystem, like the former advisor to the former president, Mister Bannon, who now has his own podcast. He's very popular in certain circles and he can tell people to go attack somebody and they do. And we've seen that, you know, whether physically, like the last speaker at a house, you know, on the democratic side, Misses Pelosi, her husband being physically attacked in his home. And we've seen it with threats where even, remember just recently this stuff happens so fast it's hard to keep track. But with the disaster that happened with the Republicans, with the speakership and the leadership in the Congress, when people were voting against one of the people who had been running, Mister Jim Jordan from Ohio, they were sharing voicemails with the public and through the media and people were threatening to kill them. And so this is where we're at now and, and you know.
[00:31:01] Speaker A: Yeah. And that's intro, like that's, and that's intrapart.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's what I'm saying.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: This is all my way or the highway mentality. Like it doesn't matter. Ultimately, it's just either do it my way or I'm going to try to blow up the system, basically.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's the other thing that I'm glad you went there because it helped my mind go to another thing that this era made me realize what I say, this era, like now, literally between dissimilarity of Tommy Tuberville with his kamikaze mission for I don't know what. Right. This whole thing about his ideology around abortion. Again, I respect that he has his view, but like we just explained, it's probably a better way to handle this that won't gun up the works of the system and the people in the military. I find it if you want to.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Preserve the system, the system, mechanism for this. But if you, if you're trying to, so if you want to do it within the system, there's a mechanism for it. But he doesn't want to do it within the system.
[00:31:56] Speaker B: Correct. And so, and that's where I was just equating this recent thing to like someone like Matt Gaetz from the Congress who again, by himself doesn't like that, you know, the speaker of the House acted certain ways, whatever, and just decides I'm going to blow it up and cause all this chaos for a few weeks. And so that's what we're getting at, James, is kind of this confirmation that we're seeing is that this, these people are for their own reasons attacking the system. And, you know, the constituents of Alabama need to decide do they want to vote this guy in again to behave this way or not.
[00:32:30] Speaker A: But that's where the media and the kind of this creating constant pretext for extreme behavior comes into play because I saw, it was really interesting, you sent me something this week. It was representative and House Representatives Ken Buck, a Republican out of Colorado, announced that he wasn't running anymore. And we've seen this story before with the Jeff Flakes of the world. Or, I mean, Mitt Romney's saying he's, he's not, he's eventually getting out and, but you're seeing these people from the republican side that come out and say we got to stop lying to our people. And that's kind of what I'm talking about. And this is this week. You know, we'll have it in the show notes. But Ken Buck said, I'm retiring. He's retiring because he recognizes in this ecosystem, until the Republicans stop lying to the republican voters as far as, in the republican, kind of the right wing media stop lying to the, to the people as far as what's happening and what, why they're doing this and what's being done and all this other stuff, then he basically, he's acknowledging a person like him doesn't have a role. And again, this is the same thing we saw with the flakes of the world, Jeff flakes or the, the Liz Cheney's or Liz Cheney, an example, if you don't. If you say, hey, that you got to obey the law, if you, if you step out of line at all, even if it's on behalf of law and order and rule of law, you're out, you know, so what we're seeing basically is this situation where we've heard it, alternative realities are created. And so Tuberville actually understands he won't face any repercussion for this. In fact, he is strengthened because this will insulate him against the primary challenge, you know, because that's where, you know, in a state like Alabama, that's where his concern is, is if somebody can outflank him to the right and come in from a primary standpoint.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah, man, I agree. And then I just want to kind of get this out because it's been, I've been thinking about this a lot and I think about it sometimes, like this seems so irrational for people like me and you, and it's just like, come on, guys, like, dude, why can't you just like we're talking about this whole show, figure out another strategy that's within the kind of bounds of normalcy in politics and then just, you know, I respect that you feel this way about abortion, but why gum up again, make this all about you and come up?
[00:34:37] Speaker A: There's an answer to that, though.
He votes to do what he wants to do.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: Well, wait, so no, but here's where I'm going with it. I'm going past that. This is really going 30,000ft to what's in people's heads and I can't legislate or guess, but I'm going to go off what Mister Tuberville, like I said at the beginning show, I'm going to share some things he said.
So one of the reasons, so one of the things that bothered him was one of the promotions to head the air force was a nonwhite gentleman. And I'll quote Mister Tuberville from an interview he had on Bloomberg in October. He says, let me tell you something. Our military is not an equal opportunity employer. We're looking for the best to do whatever. We're not looking for different groups, social justice groups.
We don't want to single handedly destroy our military from within. So I thought I wrote a smart ass note for me on the side, which is, yeah, he doesn't want them to destroy the military from within, so he's going to destroy it from without. And my point is James is he's telling us a lot about what his mind is on. His mind is he's, because a non white guy is being promoted. He's saying we don't want different groups, social justice groups. I don't know. There are social justice groups in the military. He's saying the military is not an equal employer employer, an employment opportunity or whatever. Equal, equal opportunity employer. Sorry, again, he's a us senator that's not even educated. He's ignorant about his own employer. Harry Truman made the military an equal opportunity employer in 1948.
It's in their laws. Like he, the president of United States almost 80 years ago made it an equal opportunity employer. So like why is he even going there? And that's what I mean by what's on his mind. Now. Then I'm reading here, and in May he was criticized because, I'll quote here we are losing our military so fast, our readiness in terms of recruitment. Tuberfeld said according to stations transcript on May 4 interview quote and why? I tell you why. Because the Democrats are attacking our military, saying we need to get out the white supremacists, extremists, white nationalists, people that don't believe our agenda.
He said that, not me. So I'm a black American.
If there were black people in the military that were racist and said that this has country has to be black. And I want to, you know, I don't like anyone else outside my group and all that. I would not want them in the military because we have a diverse military and they would not be productive. So what I'm saying, James, that's why I bring up the 68 southern strategy. And all that is because when I think about it, I gotta rationalize or think about who does this behavior, who would think that this is rational. And when Mister Tubberville makes comments like this where he says that because some people don't want white nationalists and white extremists, he said it, we need to get out to white extremists and people that don't believe in our agenda. So he's telling us that his agenda is in line with them. And I just think we need to stop pretending that these guys don't exist in positions of power in our government today. This used to be more normal back, you know, in the old days, 50, 8100 years ago to hear this publicly. But for someone our age, I've never heard a us senator speak like this in an interview and feel fine about it, that he wouldn't be somehow punished by his voters.
So let's see if he gets reelected in the state of Alabama.
[00:38:14] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I don't think he has any concern about that. But one of the things that I want to mention, though, before we close this topic up is, and this is just a kind of full circle on what we spoke about as far as the pretext and everything like that. I think the biggest problem that you have is that the agenda for large parts of the Republican Party is set by the right wing media. And so therefore, what you, this leads into even, even comments that you'll hear from Tuberville, you know, and the, the, what the, what right wing media is trying to do is sell ads is get eyeballs. And so what they are trying to cultivate a message that is compelling, whether, what we see is whether, however truthful it is, but it has to be compelling. It has to get your emotions going and so forth. So there's this constant effort to keep people angry, keep people locked in on the tv or locked in, keep clicking through and so forth. And so if you're going to govern by that kind of principle, and that to me is the biggest issue is, and that's what, you know, the representative buck was saying is that if you're, you have to, if you've got to constantly hype things up or he, as he says, lie to keep the attention of people. And if you want to do that from a media standpoint, from a business standpoint, but if that is going to be how you run your political operation, you're going to end up in a situation like this where you're telling people that things are so bad and that everything's a catastrophe all the time, they're going to want, hey, if that's the case, we need people that, you know, like that are going to go to the extremes on our end because we've been told it's super extreme on the other side. So ultimately, when you have that kind of build in and there is that, that's where this quote, unquote lying that's happening is very corrosive because, yes, it does create a situation where it's like, no, no, no, you can't compromise. If a compromise delivers ruin, then it has to be my way or the highway. So people are being led into this kind of mindset. And I think that's ultimately what we see here with Tuberville because, yes, that Tuberville does this without fear. He's not taking this stand on principle. Like, I know this might hurt me at the ballot box, but, you know, this is what has to be done. He knows this is going to play. This is a hit that will play. This is something that's compelling television. And so if it's compelling television then this is something that's going to help him regardless of whether it's kosher from a political standpoint, whether it's anti american, from the way the design of the american system, anything. So again, he knows what he's doing. This ploy plays on television. This ploy gets eyeballs. So it's going to get talked about and it's going to get presented in a way that's going to make people from an emotional standpoint attack be attached to it. And it's therefore it's going to help them. So I mean ultimately that kind of, you know, chicken and egg thing we had to deal with as well. Because without that, without that financial incentive to keep people emotionally, you know, like in and you know, emotionally flared up and eyeballs locked in, you know, like that's what is dominating, you know, the politics, you know, from that standpoint, from, you know, in that. So.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: And one thing I'll just finish off is, you know, the reason I bring up the 68 stuff when I read his quotes is because we also got to stop pretending that there aren't people in this country that feel that way. And you know what, honestly there, it's a democracy, right? I gotta accept that there coexist in this country. I'm not gonna behave like them and say that they need to be exterminated and they need to get out the country. So that's kind of what I'm saying is we need to be more open and talking about the fact that everything we just said, what you greatly laid out about how this country is supposed to work about debate and compromise, but we have a slice of the population that is still large enough that we got to hear them and deal with them that are very uncomfortable with all the changes that have happened, especially in recent decades with chain. That's what I'm saying. That's why I read that stuff about what he said about an Air Force gentleman that's getting to, you know, looking to be promoted to the top of the Air Force and what do we say? This is a decision that the Air Force made internal internally, but Mister Tuberville is saying that it's woke and all that just because he's not white. And that's what I mean is we're going to deal with these tensions more and more because of the facts that the demographics are changing and there's still certain Americans that are uncomfortable with that. And again, instead of having a party that has leadership that is helping them accept the reality without destroying this country. We now have leadership that has decided that they are going to drive home that wedge even further. And that's to your point about why people feel like, some people feel like the ends, no matter what now will justify the means because they've been told that people like you and I continuing to get promoted and doing well in life is somehow a zero sum game for them that has taken away their.
[00:42:56] Speaker A: Rights as Americans until we'll, they've been told it's worse than that. They've been told that will lead to.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: The end of the country, destroy the country. So they're, they're gonna destroy it through their own insecurity without, you know, so it's just very interesting. And I think we need to stop pretending that that's not part of this issue as well.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: No, no. I mean, and I don't know that everybody does, and I don't think that you and I pretend that, but there are people in what I would call, you know, the mainstream media or, you know, the corporate, you know, kind of that, that media where this type of, they believe that that type of message will have people turn off, that doesn't keep attention. So they're disinclined to put that kind of information on television or, you know, whatever, because they're like, oh, well, we got to make sure that we don't lose viewers. And so ultimately, as long as news is a slave to ratings, you know, like actual news, information providing is a slave to ratings, then you are going to have different avenues of news gathering and providing are going to be warped because it's only about, well, we can't show news whatever, whatever we think our viewers want to see. We can only show them that, you know, or whatever they don't want to see. We can't show them that even if it's actually real, even if it's actually what's happening. You know, we have to. So that's kind of the, this, this circle that we're in right now where, you know, we're going to keep going down in this area where it's like, okay, yeah, we, we, people are going to be ill informed this or either actively misled or kind of been told, patting on the back and say, hey, everything's okay. Actually, you don't have to worry about this. You don't worry about that when, you know, there's some real stuff going on. But I do want to get us to the next topic, which is a much lighter topic, something that just caught our eye.
It's it's crazy. And I'm gonna, I'm not gonna, I didn't say what it was before, but, yeah, because it's just so. It's so crazy. But to me. But they, there's been some publication talking about how they've discovered or figured out a inexpected, inexpensive and a highly effective approach that is as effective as viagra or can be as effective, maybe as effective as Viagra for men with Ed. And this technique is walking for 30 minutes three times a week, which to me is just a mind blowing in the sense that if you reverse that and you say, okay, well, what is, like, what's causing ed and everything like that with people? And it's like, well, if you can avoid it or if that's something you can mitigate big time by just walking 30 minutes for three times a week, then you could almost, there may be a causation there. Like, maybe that's something that's coming from people not moving enough. And that's all this multibillion dollar industry is, because people are sitting down too much. So, tunde, I gotta get your reaction to this.
[00:45:48] Speaker B: I was letting everyone know this was your idea.
No, look, it was, like you said, a fun story.
I think it's funny. Erectile dysfunction is very, actually can be a very serious issue and has a lot of different potential causes. I think for some men, it's interesting. It can be more psychological than physiological. So I think we got to be careful that it's not a cure all, just going out walking for an hour and a half a week, you know, three different times. But, um. But it's it's, again, so without going with all the jokes we could have about this whole topic, on a serious note, it reading it made me real, you know, just kind of gave me that feeling again of, you know, what other ailments are we throwing pills at in our modern world that prop up, you know, the pharmaceutical industry? And. And literally one fifth of our economy is spent on healthcare. Right.
[00:46:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: So what other ailments, for us in general, in the human body and the way we live in our society could be better served by things that are free, like exercising and taking time to just take care of yourself? So I think it was another good reminder of that part of our experience now in the modern world, which is Viagra and these pills. You know, I know there's more than just Viagra now. That's, that's just, you know, they're generics, but, of course, kind of like a microwave. They can help us solve a problem quickly.
But is it really the best thing for our long term health and for our ability to maybe have an erection for men, you know, us to be able to do that without needing to take a pill all the time. And so, you know, obviously, if there's other issues besides blood flow and all that, that are the issue for ed. For a guy, maybe walking doesn't help. But again, it said that, you know, the majority of men, and it was interesting. It said it actually, they saw the greatest results for men with severe erectile dysfunction.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:47:50] Speaker B: Which is. Was interesting to me. I would have thought that somebody with a more severe case of anything, something as simple as 30 minutes of walking three times a week might not be the cure. That might be the mild guys. And the severe guys might need some sort of pharmaceutical or drug to help them intermittent. So to see that it was the walking that helped the severe guys more, I was like, wow, that's interesting.
[00:48:11] Speaker A: Well, see, there's two key takeaways and. Yeah, the point isn't to make light of this. It's actually to find some of these deeper meaning points. I thought you hit one of them, which is really good, just like, hey, you know, are we throwing pills at, you know, and, hey, we're. It's a consumerism type of economy, so I guess it's good that, you know, people do throw pills. Walking doesn't stick. There's no velocity of money involved with, with walking, you know, so it doesn't stimulate the economy. But it. That's. I'm joking about that, by the way. Like, there are other things we could spend our money on that would be private equity.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Wait till my private equity firm gets a hold of walking. I'll be. Yeah, there you go. I'm going to show you something or.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: Figure out a way. But the thing that, about there, there's. So there is that piece, you know, like, well, what things? Like walking or things like, you know, just meditation or whatever types of things that could be. Really provide helpful interventions. But the other piece is how, like, everything about our experience is very interrelated. Like, even with the psychological things. Like, I walk, you know, a few times a week, you know, like, just as part of my exercise. Like, I can't. I can't, like, do intense exercise every day. So the days I don't do intense exercise, I take walks. And for me, the walking, though, I didn't know about this, but it just wasn't something that, you know, was on my kind of radar. But for me, the biggest part of the walk isn't necessarily even the cardiovascular benefits, which are minimal, which are not relative to running or jogging. It's smaller, but walking is much easier on the joints. But it's the psychological benefits for the walking that I'm in it for more than anything. I find that, like, some of the work I do is high stress. I just, I gotta, you know, I'm doing these arguments or I'm doing this stuff like that. And so the walking actually is very. I've always found that to be very helpful for me to kind of just keep my cool, keep my calm, and, you know, like, it's something that I can tell if I don't work out, you net, that would be intense. Or walking. If I don't work out for a week, I can tell the difference in my psychological well being, you know, and it's like, okay, I got to keep, make sure I'm moving. And so even with the, the psychological issues, you know, could be something that walking would be helpful. So I think that not, we look at the exercise a lot of times as, okay, yeah, I'm going to do a, you know, a curl, and that's going to help this muscle, and that's it. But we forget that exercise in general sets off a cascade of. Of hormonal changes in our body of, you know, psychological, you know, has psychological benefits in addition to the physical stuff. And so it's not, it didn't surprise me that this, seeing this research, but again, it was just something, it didn't surprise me to see it. But then it's something that's just like, wow, you know, to see that something that seems so small can make such a substantial difference is, is always going to be surprising because it always feels like, at least when you are working out, like, oh, you got a bust your butt for 45 minutes and become away drenched with sweat. And it's like, this is walking for 30 minutes three times a week, which is like, as light as you can imagine as far as exercise.
[00:51:04] Speaker B: Yeah, no, and it's a good point you make about the way that our bodies are so interconnected also to our psychology, because it's a good point to make a lot of stress. I mean, it's well known for anyone that is reading things about the body or exercise that general working out helps reduce with stress reduction, I would say, especially in men and young men that have a lot of energy that can go sideways.
But it's interesting just back on this topic, because as you're talking, it makes me realize this. You're right. Like, think about the ability to just get 90 minutes of exercise in a week. That doesn't have to be intense for, let's say, a man with erectile dysfunction, if that begins to improve that part of his life. Think about the psychological toll that erectile dysfunction takes on men. You see what I'm saying?
So that's going to naturally create stress. And I don't mind. I'm an open book when it comes to it. I suffered for the first time, really in serious way from ed, actually. A year ago, I had prostatitis. I had an infection on my prostate, and for about two months, I had the issues, and, you know, the urologist threw some pills at me that worked, you know, and that helped me get my confidence back, you know, with my wife and all that. I mean, this is serious stuff, right? And I was thinking about it for the first time, having to really deal with it in that way where it wasn't working, and I just was not a good feeling.
And that creates other levels of stress in not only my mind, but potentially the relationship. I'm lucky that my wife was understanding and cool and, you know, she. She didn't try and belittle me or anything, but I thought about it. I was like, wow, imagine if I was with someone that's like saying, you're not a real man now, and all that, how damaging that could continue to be for a man psychologically. So that's what I mean. And again, because I share that with the audience here, I can also share that. Yeah. Once, you know, my body healed up and the infection of our prostate went away and I was back to normal in a sense, again, that from a psychological, emotional, my own confidence standpoint, I was, like, through the roof, like. So again, that's what I'm saying, is that you made me realize, as you're talking, that is. Yeah. Again, I know that Ed is a topic that we can make light of, but it's not just about the ed part of it. It's the psychological toll it can take on a man. So if that can be fixed just through 90 minutes of exercise a week, that not only going to improve the sex life, but perhaps a lot of other areas of just a man's life because now he's in a better place emotionally.
[00:53:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, family, you know, just the whole thing.
[00:53:45] Speaker B: That's what I'm saying. Like your relations and all that.
[00:53:47] Speaker A: There's another piece in addition to what you just said, is that Ed could also be a symptom of other issues going wrong. You know, like and we know that a lot of times those things are tied together with, you know, whether it's heart disease or, you know, other issues. And for, you know, like, for yourself, it was actually easier to see, you know, like, but.
And if you're just. If someone's just using a pill, you may be ignoring or kind of covering up these other issues that are accompanying this. And so, like, but the walking, that's more of a comprehensive help aid to the entire body in that sense. So it may actually not just, you know, be able to get, you know, kind of your stuff working right again, but also try to reduce or lower any other issues that may be under the surface on that, you know. And so I think that ultimately, it is a kind of a bigger, you know, a more comprehensive approach, basically, to health. Not to say that the pills are a problem necessarily. Like, you know, I'm not casting aspersions or anything like that, but just that there may, this is. This is promising in the sense that there may be another way to help manage that symptom because that may be a symptom of something else that could be a bigger problem in the future that you can't just take a pill, you know, like, so, you know, it's. I think ultimately, this is one good research to see, give people more tools in the toolkit. And on a side note, people always wonder, or a lot of people wonder. I always wonder, like, when there are almost, like, simple treatments to things that make a lot of money, you know, for pills that make a lot of money, will those things ever get out? You know, it was like, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. All the people that. There's a lot of things people sell as far as diabetes. Well, you know, will it ever get out that, you know, sugar is a big part of that, and if you can cut out the sugar, then you might be able to control the diabetes or this, you know, will it ever really get out that, you know, walking? You know, maybe it makes a big difference as far as ed if there's some people making a ton of money on selling the pills for it. So who knows? But it's out, you know, so we'll see how. How widely this becomes known.
[00:55:50] Speaker B: Well, you know, but there'll always be a market for the pills because the sad part is, the reason why that article was written is, like, you started this section with is that's how many people don't do that basic level of exercise per week.
[00:56:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's an intervention. That's an intervention.
[00:56:07] Speaker B: So that means that there's probably always going to be a certain percentage of our population that just won't exercise at all. So, yeah, the pill market will be there. And I want to say this one joke before we leave, because this section two makes me feel like to solve part one of today, maybe all we need to do is get Senator Tuberville to walk more during the week and maybe he'll calm down and be in.
[00:56:31] Speaker A: His zen, put him in a more balanced psychological.
[00:56:33] Speaker B: Yeah, like, you know, maybe I'm gonna call Mitch McConnell. Cause he's the head of the republican descent and say, hey, man, Mitch, what's up? It's been a minute since we talked. You know, I can't tell you when we talked last what secret deal we had, but I'm gonna tell him this isn't as stressful. I'm not asking for a huge favor this time. It just get this guy to walk. That's all I'm gonna ask.
[00:56:52] Speaker A: 30 minutes, three times 30.
[00:56:53] Speaker B: 30 minutes a day. I want maybe four or five times a week. You know, maybe three is not enough, but, you know, I think they can fit that in.
[00:57:01] Speaker A: I'm done. I'm done.
But, but, yeah, I think we can get out of here from there, man.
[00:57:08] Speaker B: That's.
[00:57:08] Speaker A: That's. That's one hell of a way to end the podcast. But we do appreciate it for joining us on this episode of Call. Like I see it, subscribe to the podcast, rate it, review us, hit like, you know, if you see it on YouTube. And until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:57:22] Speaker B: And looking at my family picture in the back here, I'll be Homer Simpson today.
[00:57:27] Speaker A: All right, and we'll talk to you next time.
