The Manosphere Report

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2:41Hey guys, we are back on Normally, the show with normal sticks for when the

2:45news gets weird. I am Mary Catherine Hamm.

2:47And I'm Carol Markowitz. We lost an online friend last week that I feel like

2:52we need to mention. John Ectel was an amazing Twitter follow.

2:57I would say that we mentioned him on Normally more than we mentioned anyone else

3:02because he often had these really smart takes and ideas.

3:07Just really sad to lose someone like that.

3:09I didn't know him in real life, but we were friends online and he was

3:14a fan of this show.

3:15And I just wanted to take a minute and say we're going to miss him.

3:19Yeah, I wish I had known him in real life.

3:21We used to toss around the idea of getting together with Charlie Cook and his

3:26family and going to the Georgia -Florida game in Jacksonville because that's where they live.

3:32And when we hit this age, I mean, always, but particularly around our age, it

3:37feels like you have a lot of time left.

3:39But, you know, you're getting to this middle section where sometimes life has different ideas

3:44and you always think you have next year.

3:46And it was a real pleasure to be friends with him in any capacity.

3:51I first came across him because he understood the failure of, remember, the Orca, Mitt

3:56Romney, get out the vote, technological.

3:59No, I don't remember that.

4:01So that's where I came across him because he was a guy who was able

4:04to explain what had gone wrong here and why it hadn't worked.

4:07And I believe he may have predicted that it wasn't going to work.

4:11And from that moment on, I was like, okay, this is somebody who is specialized

4:14and interesting and can tell me things that I wouldn't otherwise know.

4:17He was also just a delight and funny and unfailingly reasonable in our environment where

4:24not everyone is. So my best to his family, who I know are having a

4:29very tough time. And I will miss him very much.

4:32It's a tragedy. It really is.

4:34On the same day, James Van Der Beek, who we grew up with as Dawson

4:39on the show Dawson's Creek, also died of cancer at age 48.

4:44And you wrote such a beautiful tribute to him in the Free Press.

4:47I read it this morning.

4:48It was really lovely. It's also just such a sad loss.

4:51I have a quick story about him.

4:53One time, Bethany Mandel and I went to some, was it a children's manufacture convention?

5:00I'm not entirely sure. But James Van Der Beek was there, and he was chasing

5:04around his kids. And Bethany's a fan.

5:06And I was like, oh, I'll just ask him for a picture with you.

5:08And he was like, guys, I'm chasing around my kids, like literally.

5:12And we both really appreciated that.

5:15We thought, that is really cool.

5:17Yeah, he had six kids.

5:18He so clearly enjoyed them.

5:21I wrote in the piece that, you know, he's a teen idol who got it

5:24right. Like as a child.

5:26actor, the chances you're going to get your priorities right in life are pretty low.

5:30It's a rocky road. Slim to none.

5:32And he really just enjoyed the heck out of his family.

5:35And I think at the end was focusing on them and his connection to God.

5:40And there are really worse ways to be on the doorstep.

5:44Yeah. At the at the end of life than that.

5:47And I I've had this parasocial relationship with him since I was 15.

5:50So it's this it's very interesting way that things sort of overlap in life.

5:55And you you experience these people both on screen and sort of in real life

6:00through social media. And I will just too sad to watch two young fathers go

6:06too young this week. A really terrible day to give a special shout out to

6:10our friend Buck Sexton, whose book Manufacturing Delusion, How the Left Uses Brainwashing, Indoctrination and

6:16Propaganda Against You is out today, Tuesday.

6:19I'm very excited to read this.

6:21Buck is a really smart, serious person.

6:24I don't feel like this is going to be a political fluff book that he

6:28had to write for the hell of it.

6:29He is ex CIA. He has some really interesting insights.

6:33I genuinely can't wait for my copy to arrive today, Tuesday.

6:37I'm excited to check this out.

6:39All right. Let's get into the news.

6:42There's been some news. The news this weekend was there was some high points and

6:48some low points. Yes. The Munich Security Conference is going on, which is a very

6:53high profile foreign policy to do that many leaders go over to Germany to be

6:58part of. Among the leaders who went this time were Secretary of State Marco Rubio,

7:03Congresswoman AOC, Alexandria Ocasio -Cortez and Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.

7:11They all went there to sort of burnish their credentials.

7:15Rubio doesn't need much burnishing.

7:18No, but he burnished anyway.

7:19He was like, I don't need burnishing.

7:21And yet I'm here to burnish.

7:22Yeah. So he did a 20 minute speech for the whole crew.

7:27Yeah. And, you know, it got basically rave reviews all weekend.

7:32It was perfect. It was really something because it was a it was all the

7:37things that we talk about frequently, but it was done in such a positive way.

7:43The way he presented everything about how we care about you, Europe, help us help

7:49you. Very well said. I thought, you know, first of all, can I just say

7:53that 20 minutes is my favorite length for a speech?

7:57I don't think speeches need to be more than 20 minutes, but I loved the

8:01whole thing. I particularly liked his ending.

8:03He said, I'm here today to leave it clear that America is charting the path

8:07for a new century of prosperity and that once again, we want to do it

8:11together with you, our cherished allies and our oldest friends.

8:14We want to do it together with you, with a Europe that is proud of

8:18its heritage and of its history, with a Europe that has the spirit of creation

8:22of liberty that sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilization, with a

8:27Europe that has means to defend itself and the will to survive.

8:30We should be proud of what we achieved together in the last century.

8:33And now we must confront and embrace the opportunities of a new one because yesterday

8:38is over, the future is inevitable, and our destiny together awaits.

8:42I was like, whoo! He also, I want to hear directly from him, and we

8:47have a little on the longish side clip of him, but it's worth hearing.

8:50It's beautiful. Where he talks about many of the things we talk about, which is

8:54if the West does not have confidence in its own values, in its values being

9:00special, in its values being worthwhile, we don't have a future.

9:04And he addresses that starting by saying, look, decline is a choice, and we don't

9:09have to choose it. And here are some of the ways we could be better

9:12at not doing that. So here's Marco.

9:15Excuse me, Secretary of State.

9:17And this is why we do not want allies to rationalize the broken status quo

9:21rather than reckon with what is necessary to fix it.

9:25For we in America have no interest in being polite and orderly caretakers of the

9:32West's managed decline. We do not seek to separate, but to revitalize an old friendship

9:39and renew the greatest civilization in human history.

9:43What we want is a reinvigorated alliance that recognizes that what has ailed our societies

9:48is not just a set of bad policies, but a malaise of hopelessness and complacency.

9:54An alliance, the alliance that we want is one that is not paralyzed into an

9:58action by fear. Fear of climate change, fear of war, fear of technology.

10:03Instead, we want an alliance that boldly races into the future.

10:07And the only fear we have is the fear of the shame of not leaving

10:12our nations prouder, stronger, and wealthier for our children.

10:16An alliance ready to defend our people, to safeguard our interests, and to preserve the

10:21freedom of action that allows us to shape our own destiny.

10:24Not one that exists to operate a global welfare state and atone for the purported

10:29sins of past generations. An alliance that does not allow its power to be outsourced,

10:35constrained, or subordinated to systems beyond its control.

10:39One that does not depend on others for the critical necessities of its national life.

10:44And one that does not maintain the polite pretense that our way of life is

10:49just one among many, and that asks for permission before it acts.

10:53A And above all, an alliance based on the recognition that we, the West, have

11:01inherited together, what we have inherited together, is something that is unique and distinctive and

11:07irreplaceable. Because this, after all, is the very foundation of the transatlantic bond.

11:14Just so well done. Such an optimistic but serious speech.

11:18I think a lot of times people mistake optimism for fluff and doom for seriousness.

11:25I think he proved that that's just not the case.

11:27He's fantastic. Yeah. And I really like.

11:30Yeah. And I would say we got in early on the Marco Rubio's amazing train.

11:34We thought he's been great for quite some time.

11:36It is true. I especially liked the idea that it is not the mission of

11:43Western civilization to become merely a global welfare state and then to atone for our

11:50past sins. Like that idea is big.

11:54He sort of, he repudiated the destabling elements of mass migration.

12:01What he's doing is pointing out all the things that normal people feel and see

12:05all the time, but that at a place like the Munich Security Conference, everyone's just

12:09like, ooh, are we allowed to say that?

12:12Right, right. Are we allowed to say that we like our civilization is crazy.

12:17It's bonkers. And Rubio was there to be like, yes, you're allowed to say you

12:21like your civilization that did all of these amazing things and created a lot of

12:27our modern world. Like, it's OK.

12:29By the way, I want to note two critiques.

12:31We're going to go into some AOC film as well here.

12:33But one of the critiques from AOC was this was a explicit appeal to Western

12:40culture. Yes, AOC. That was what it was.

12:43That's what it should be.

12:45Leadership can breed more courage and it can breed more confidence in our values.

12:52The New York Times ran an interesting critique, which was basically, yeah, sure, he talks

12:57about all these Western ideals that bring us together.

13:00But mass migration has completely changed Europe and we don't have those in common anymore.

13:04I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

13:06I think, I think that might have been part of the point.

13:10There's also this idea that what Europe has done in the last 10 years is

13:15what it must do in the next 10 years.

13:17And I think Rubio was there to say you could stop this.

13:20You can stop this. You're actually not, you know, you don't have to continue down

13:25this path that's been so destructive for you.

13:27You can change the rules around what you can and cannot say.

13:32We should also mention and look, you know, I feel like there's a lot of

13:36people who want to set up the Vance -Rubio battle.

13:39I thought Vance gave a fantastic speech last summer, but a lot of people are

13:43saying like what Vance said and what Rubio said were the same thing.

13:47But Rubio got a standing ovation and it was much more positive and optimistic and

13:52less critical of our allies while being critical, but not like poking them in the

13:59eye with it. Right. Tone matters.

14:01Tone does matter. And knowing your audience matters.

14:04And Vance might be targeting different people.

14:07Last year, he was sort of talking maybe to us more than he was talking

14:11to Europe. I do think Rubio's ability to be kind and charismatic while critical is

14:20a skill. It is. And he makes people like AOC crazy.

14:25One of her other criticisms was, she said, my favorite part was when he said

14:29that American cowboys come from Spain.

14:31And I believe the Mexicans and descendants of African enslaved peoples would like to have

14:35a word on that. Yeah, they also came from Spain.

14:41Wait till she hears where Spanish came from.

14:44It's going to be a real problem the way Western civilization was involved.

14:51There is this thing where once you are sort of an approved lefty and you've

14:55got all your academic nonsense nomenclature going on, you get credit for being a smart

15:02person when you're actually quite clearly ignorant of some major things, which she illustrates by

15:10saying that none of this had European roots and that we should object to him

15:14pointing all of that out.

15:16By the way, I thought her ilk objected to Trump's distancing of us from Europe.

15:20And now she's objecting to Rubio's bringing us back together.

15:23Who knows what she objects to?

15:25Yeah, who knows? But like there's major gaps here in the understanding.

15:29And I think we should go to AOC and Gretchen Whitmer and their clips during

15:34this event. I want to make clear that both of these women traveled to Munich

15:40knowing that the discussion was specifically foreign policy based.

15:46There was no question about what you were supposed to be discussing.

15:52And yet this is AOC's answer to a question about Taiwan.

15:58One of the most obvious things you would be asked about at this gathering.

16:02Shall we play it? Here we go.

16:04Would and should the U .S.

16:07actually commit U .S. troops to defend Taiwan if China were to move?

16:12You know, I think that this is such a, you know, I think that...

16:21This is, of course, a very long -standing policy of the United States, and I

16:33think what we are hoping for is that we want to make sure that we

16:36never get to that point, and we want to make sure that we are moving

16:42in all of our economic research and our global positions to avoid any such confrontation

16:49and for that question to even arise.

16:50I haven't seen her stumble like that in a while.

16:53And it's funny because her last stumble that I remember like this very clearly was

16:58when she was asked about Israel and the Palestinian territories and whether that should be

17:03a two -state solution. I believe it was on Firing Line.

17:06And she was just like, I'm not an expert.

17:09And she does the exact same thing here where she puts up her hands like,

17:12don't ask me, I'm just a girl.

17:17Yeah, this was a real preview of all the things she will not be able

17:22to answer as a presidential candidate.

17:25I'm worried about her. I don't think it'll be an easy path to beat her

17:30because she is talented politically.

17:32But there is a lot this lady does not know.

17:35And if she goes up against Vance or Rubio, I just, they will eat her

17:41alive. I agree with you, Carol, that she should not be underestimated because she has

17:45a bit of spontaneity, a bit of warmth.

17:48She can be a little quick on her feet in a casual back and forth

17:52with someone outside the Capitol.

17:54And I think it serves her well.

17:56Here we have, I think, real Democrat privilege, which is she thinks she can go

18:02anywhere she wants and not be asked serious things and not be stumped.

18:08And who's James Surowitz? Is that his name?

18:11Mm hmm. Wisdom of crowds guy.

18:14James asked me at one point when I was tweeting about this.

18:17Well, what's the correct answer on Taiwan?

18:19And it's like, let me let me tell you something.

18:21She's a Democrat. Yeah. She doesn't even have to have the right answer.

18:24Right. She just has to have an answer.

18:27Mm hmm. You spent six to eight hours on a flight.

18:30Even if you hadn't had a conversant thought, a semi -coherent thought on Taiwan before

18:36you got on the plane, you could certainly have one by the time you get

18:38off the plane. Right. Right.

18:40And there was no attempt.

18:42Yeah. She ends up saying we should never get to that point.

18:45That could have been what you started with.

18:46Like, well, I get it.

18:48I agree. There is no great answer on Taiwan.

18:50And nobody is going to say, yes, we're going to send American troops to Taiwan

18:55if China attacks. Although we all kind of believe that is what's going to happen.

18:59It's like, yes, you can't just say things that, you know, are going to destabilize

19:05relationships. I get that. She gets that.

19:08Still have an answer. Yeah.

19:10Put the put the phrase strategic ambiguity in your head.

19:13Learn three sentences and you're fine.

19:17No one's going to call you out unless you do this.

19:19Yes. Yeah. I just the the lack of respect for the exercise in not prepping

19:26at all. Yeah. Is very it's actually a little surprising to me.

19:30Look, can we hear Gretchen Whitmer as well?

19:32Because here she is being asked about Ukraine.

19:35Who would have imagined you'd get that question on Ukraine?

19:38What does victory look like?

19:42Ambassador? Oh, please. I'd love to hear your answer.

19:48Yeah, it is. I the two the two that I am on the panel with

19:53are much more steeped in foreign policy than is than a governor is.

19:56But, you know, I do think that Ukraine's independence, keeping their their landmass and having

20:04the support of of all the allies, I think, is is the goal for my

20:10vantage point. Go ahead, ambassador.

20:13Do a better job. This one is more egregious to me even because the Democrats

20:19don't have a position on Ukraine.

20:21And I've been saying this since the beginning.

20:23There's a lot of like, you know, Republicans or Trump specifically are pro -Russia or

20:28whatever, have not seen Democrats stake a position on Ukraine.

20:33What should America be doing?

20:35Should they be sending? Should we be sending more money?

20:37Should we be sending troops?

20:38All of that is a discussion that they are unwilling to have.

20:42They just want to tie Trump to Putin.

20:45And that's the entire ballgame for them.

20:47And that clearly is not enough on the world stage.

20:51Well, and once again, it's like AOC putting her hands up.

20:54She's like, I'm but a governor.

20:56Right. OK, great. So what are you doing here?

20:59You're a governor who came to Munich.

21:02What's the point of you being here if you haven't taken some time to think

21:06about this and if you haven't made a plan to make your points?

21:10Marco Rubio made a plan to make some points.

21:14And he could have done that as senator as well.

21:17Yes. Well, and to be fair, President Trump might show up without a plan to

21:22make specific policy points. But he was already elected president.

21:25Y 'all are trying to get his job.

21:28Right. Yeah. I mean, I was actually surprised.

21:32Trump would never stammer like that.

21:34He might also not give a direct answer, but he'll never be like, uh, uh,

21:38eh, oh, I never. He will be like, Taiwan, you know, we'll see what happens

21:44with Taiwan. Maybe China will try to invade and maybe we'll do something, but maybe

21:48they won't. And maybe. We won't.

21:49And just he he'll have an answer.

21:52Well, and again, I want to emphasize truly that's all that's required is to speak

21:57for 23 seconds. And put some she knows a lot of nonsense phrases.

22:06She certainly does. And there but for the grace of God go, I have been

22:11in a situation where my brain freezes up and you're trying to get the right

22:15answer and you're trying to grab something.

22:18However, if you if you are traveling to another country to do a specific event,

22:25just read up, just read up.

22:27She was unprepared. And you're absolutely right.

22:30It's because she never gets hard questions.

22:32And that wasn't even a hard one.

22:34All right. We're going to take a short break and come right back with things

22:38we don't want to talk about, but have to be right back with more on

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24:29That's public .com slash podcast.

24:31Paid for by Public Investing.

24:32Brokered services by Open to the Public Investing, Inc., member FINRA, and SIPC.

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24:43Complete disclosures available at public .com slash disclosures.

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25:51We are back with more on Normally.

25:54And there's stories that are in the ether that are prominent that we're like, why

25:59do I have to talk about this?

26:01And Candace Owens is like always at the top of my ill list.

26:05The fact is, though, ignoring her didn't work.

26:08And I think there needs to be a more direct attack on her.

26:12I think when Ben Shapiro went after her in December, it really took some wind

26:16out of her sails. She became crazier, but that exposed a lot more about what

26:21she's doing. But for our purposes here, Mary Catherine and I are on widow defense

26:26of Erica Kirk. And Candace is getting crazier and crazier and accusing Erica Kirk of

26:34just insane things, like removing a picture of Charlie from the background of the podcast.

26:42Erica had to explain that she actually moved it lower so that her daughter could

26:46see it. Candace has accused TPUSA, Charlie's organization, of being involved in his murder.

26:53She borders on accusing Erica herself, but she says things constantly that lead people to

27:00believe that Erica was involved in the murder of her own husband.

27:05It's just it's it's really sick.

27:07And people who have covered for Candace or have not attacked her directly are just

27:13cowards. And it's sickening, really.

27:16Uh, yeah, like someone needs to really invest in a lawsuit here.

27:21Mm hmm. The line needs to be drawn.

27:24And I hear people say this is what she wants.

27:27She wants a lawsuit. She'll be the victim.

27:29She's already playing the victim.

27:30She already plays the victim.

27:32She already portrays herself as somebody who has been cast out because she's just searching

27:37for the real killer. And she's just a crazy person with a microphone.

27:41She needs to be stopped in a courtroom.

27:44I do think this kind of figure is really tricky to deal with because, yes,

27:48she does want attention. And yes, she thrives off attention.

27:51And yes, that's what she's creating every single second of every day.

27:55And also, if you are the person, you can't just be like, I guess I'll

28:01be attacked endlessly with totally unfounded rumors about myself forever and ever.

28:07Amen. There was another incident recently where people in the Candace camp are airing a

28:13video of Erica speaking to her employees at Turning Point shortly after Charlie's death.

28:21And she's just saying normal things like you can have time off if you're grieving.

28:27She's saying she's clearly distraught.

28:29She's trying to pull people together.

28:31And this was somehow twisted into an indictment of her.

28:35Yeah. When, in fact, I was like, wow, you're really blowing the lid off of

28:39this compassionate manager story about Erica Kirk.

28:46Yeah. Yeah. A lot of online politics is learning about characters I would otherwise not

28:51at all want to know about.

28:53Yes. Why do I know who these people are?

28:56I hate that. The Groypers, the Luxmaxers, the words they use.

29:02I'm not interested. No, thank you.

29:05But I have to sort of be interested.

29:07Yes. I have to pass, but I have to sort of know what's going on.

29:11It's awful. The other topic that I just I look, I want anybody who committed

29:18any crimes with Jeffrey Epstein held accountable.

29:22But we are on a wild goose chase at this point.

29:25People who have nothing to do with it are being just maligned.

29:30Here, Ro Khanna, who with Tom Smassey are like the ringleaders of all of this,

29:38where they want to bring people to justice.

29:40And again, I do, too.

29:41But you're not bringing anyone to justice.

29:43And nobody is being named as having done any of these horrific things that we

29:49keep hearing about. Ro Khanna, on the floor of Congress, read the names of six

29:54people. And he said, I forced last night the DOJ to disclose the identities of

30:00six men, that him and Thomas Massey forced this.

30:02And he reads these six names and he says that these are powerful men and

30:06that he is exposing them.

30:09And then it turns out that they were actually part, four of them were part

30:14of a photo lineup. So not only do they not commit any crimes with Jeffrey

30:19Epstein, they had zero to do with it.

30:22They were randos picked for a photo lineup, not connected to Epstein at all.

30:26And of course, it's somehow blamed on the DOJ for not providing the explanation earlier

30:31instead of redacting, then unredacting their names.

30:34This is what Ro Khanna says.

30:36It's just it makes no sense to me anymore.

30:40And when he says, Ro Khanna tweets, they have failed to protect survivors, created confusion

30:44for innocent men. Bro, you did that.

30:47You created that confusion. You read these names on the Congress floor as if you

30:52knew what you were talking about and you didn't.

30:54And so it has become just a wild goose chase.

30:58People are saying the most horrific things online about people.

31:01I think we talked about this a few weeks ago where somebody posted a picture

31:06of a tech founder with a bunch of children on him and they were like,

31:09ew, this is so horrible.

31:10And then they were his own children.

31:12It's just ridiculous. Nellie Bowles, who was a New York Times reporter at the time,

31:17got dragged for having met with Epstein.

31:20But Epstein was a source for a bunch of New York based and finance world

31:27based stories and important people based stories.

31:30Like, this is what reporting looks like.

31:32I listened to Eliana Johnson on the commentary podcast and she had a great line

31:37about this and a forceful pushback on the idea that this should all be out

31:40there saying transparency is not justice.

31:44Transparency is not justice. And I think I've been maybe too laissez faire about this

31:49thinking like, OK, the thing was fishy from the beginning.

31:51I think that Epstein should have been punished more the first time he was caught.

31:57I don't think these people should have associated themselves with him after the fact, after

32:01they knew about him. And also, in releasing six million pages of information from an

32:09investigation, what you've done is just open the door to exactly what Rokana and Massey

32:13have done here and hurting people who had absolutely nothing to do with this, who

32:19probably don't have resources to deal with being accused in this manner.

32:24And I don't think we're any of us smarter or more justice has been served

32:28by virtue of this. Yeah.

32:30I was scrolling through the documents on the Justice Department site and I was putting

32:35in kind of generic terms like corporation or agency or whatever.

32:39I was just to see the sort of what was out there.

32:41And I came across the name of one of my.

32:44friends who is a real estate agent, has zero, I mean, has never met Epstein,

32:48has zero to do with Epstein.

32:49Literally, I sent this to her and she has no idea what that apartment sale

32:54even had to do with Epstein.

32:55It just got forwarded to him.

32:57But, you know, imagine I'm reading this and my friend's name is in there.

33:00I just, a lot of very innocent people, not just innocent, but literally having absolutely

33:06nothing to do with Jeffrey Epstein or being caught up in this.

33:10Like, you can't just shrug our shoulders and say, who cares?

33:12We have to get justice for the victims.

33:14I want justice for the victims.

33:15This doesn't get us that.

33:17We also have to think about the precedent for other investigations, because as soon as

33:23a particular lightning rod investigation becomes the one that someone important says we have to

33:31release all the files, every single person who spoke to police, every single person whose

33:37texts or emails were part of an investigation, become public.

33:43That's not usually the standard that undergirds our system.

33:49The standard is that you are protected.

33:51It had helped if all of this got released and powerful people were exposed and

33:57went to prison over it or were charged with something or proved something.

34:02That would be amazing and fantastic.

34:04But that's not what's happening here.

34:06And it just, it's just, it's disconcerting to me that so many people don't care

34:12that it's like, so what?

34:14So what if randos are being caught up in this?

34:17That's just the price we have to pay to get all the information out.

34:21I mean, a lot of this goes back to just public officials being responsible and

34:27unfortunately are much of our modern media era in particular and political era incentivizing irresponsibility

34:34instead of being responsible. Yeah.

34:37But you know, you got elected, you should do better.

34:40Like a lot better. All right.

34:42We're going to take a short break and be right back with more on normally.

34:46We're going to talk poop river, Mary Catherine, poop river.

34:49And this is not the topic that we wanted to avoid.

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38:28All right, we are back on normally with a distasteful topic, but one that we

38:33must address. I may have mentioned it before in our bad blue city governance stories,

38:40but it's gotten worse. On January 19th of this year, part of the wastewater treatment

38:47pipelines in the DMV area, Washington, D .C., Virginia, Maryland, cracked and failed and started

38:56diverting wastewater into the Potomac River.

38:59The Potomac River is not famously super clean, but it's okay.

39:03People do water sports in it.

39:05People row. Right now, you should not go near it.

39:08No. It is, this is from the very beginning of this thing.

39:13The interceptor line that broke was roughly 60 years old and carries up to 60

39:18million gallons of wastewater daily from Loudoun and Fairfax counties, areas near Washington, Dulles International

39:24Airport, all of Northern Virginia, basically.

39:27Yeah. It's been doing that into the Potomac since January 19th.

39:34That is almost a month.

39:36And by the way, when it comes to local governance, it took Virginia almost a

39:43month to say anything about it.

39:45D .C. was like slightly earlier in late January saying, oh, we're working on it.

39:50But Marilyn was like, oh, we're working on it.

39:53And now the whole message is don't touch the river.

39:58That's the message. The message isn't we are absolutely getting this cleaned up as quickly

40:03as possible. Yeah, we're on it.

40:03We're cleaning up the Poop River, no?

40:05No, no, no. And by the way, the Poop River goes to the Chesapeake Bay.

40:08Right. If you live in the Mid -Atlantic, you have been subject to a relentless

40:13campaign that the Chesapeake Bay must be pristine at all times for like the last

40:1830 years. I'm wondering how much of that we're undoing right this second as this

40:23stuff flows away. But the most amazing thing to me is that I looked up

40:27the coverage. It's the Washingtonian.

40:30Yeah. It's local Arlington Now.

40:33It's Outside Magazine did a piece because, you know, they're interested in the outside.

40:38They note that it is the E.

40:40coli is extremely high with the 243 million gallons of sewage that have floated to

40:47the river. Just for perspective, I want to tell you, Carol, I looked it up.

40:50Exxon Valdez, about 10 million gallons of oil.

40:53Deepwater Horizon, about 200 million gallons of oil.

40:56So we are going to surpass that in sewage.

41:00That seems bad. It really does.

41:02And, you know, the left is supposed to be environmentalists, right?

41:07Where are they? How could this not be a giant story?

41:10They're very, very quiet. And they're very, very not hard on the governments of D

41:15.C., Maryland, and Virginia, who basically didn't address this for several weeks.

41:21The snowstorm came right on the heels of the breakage.

41:24So they had to deal with the snowstorm first, right?

41:27It has been frozen here, thank goodness, for several weeks.

41:31It is now 50 degrees.

41:33I allow you to imagine what's going to happen when it hits 70, 80, 90.

41:41It's going to take a turn here, guys.

41:44And don't touch the river is not a good enough answer.

41:48Right. I just am trying to imagine if this was going on in Florida.

41:52And first of all, Ron DeSantis would have already fixed it.

41:55But second of all, it would be a front page story in the New York

41:58Times and the Washington Post and everywhere else.

42:01I hope they fix that poop river for you guys.

42:03I hope poop river doesn't continue on into summer.

42:07New York is having this thing where they had, you know, this big snowstorm and

42:10a lot of people didn't clean up their poop, the dog poop.

42:14And now that the snow has melted and there's dog poop everywhere, I feel like

42:18there's some similarities here. Well, you remember the refrain about San Francisco before it has

42:23now become slightly better, but it was a feces problem as well.

42:27Your governance in a blue metropolitan area will let you live in human crap.

42:33That is what they will do to you.

42:36The ideology says. Then they'll be like, this seems fine.

42:42Should we do some more redistricting, guys?

42:44By the way, Wes Moore, who is the governor of Maryland, is doing a national

42:48media tour because he's like the up and coming guy for 2028 right now.

42:52And he did a segment on CBS News saying, hey, you know, we've got to

42:56stop being the party of slow and commissions.

43:00We've got to build things.

43:01So, of course, this area is like, I don't know, it's probably gonna take us

43:05like eight, nine months to fix this.

43:07And I want to also remember that Maryland Governor Wes Moore was in charge of

43:12Maryland when that giant bridge, the Francis Scott Key Bridge went down when that tanker

43:17hit it. It was July of the next year before they had removed all the

43:22remnants of the old bridge.

43:24It has not been rebuilt.

43:26The projected date is 2030.

43:29But sure, do things fast, guys.

43:32All right. Well, get DeSantis in here.

43:34Yeah. What can we appoint him as to fix these problems?

43:38Just like federal. Fixer. Is there a competence czar?

43:42Because that's what we need.

43:44Oh, competence czar. That's good.

43:45That's much better than federal.

43:45Honestly, for the fixer. For the federal government and every state government, competence czar.

43:50Let's do it. I love it.

43:52Let's make it happen. Well, thanks for joining us on Normally.

43:55Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts.

43:59Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail .com.

44:03Thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normally.

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Normally Podcast: Rubio Wins Munich, AOC/Whitmer Fumble Taiwan & Ukraine, Epstein Files Chaos + “Poop River”