The Manosphere Report

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2:42Hey guys, we are back on Normally, the show with normal.

2:45It takes a lot of news to get weird.

2:47I'm going to talk to you tonight.

2:48I'm Carol Markowitz. The news continues to be weird.

2:51It continues to be weird.

2:53It just does not stop with the weirdness.

2:56But we're not going to get into any topics we don't want to talk about

2:59today, although the news remains Epstein wall -to -wall.

3:03I'm watching so many people fall down rabbit holes.

3:07And on the flip side of it, every time one of my friends who I

3:11trust otherwise posts something about Epstein, I end up Googling because I'm like, well, this

3:17can't be right. Um, and a lot of times it's not right because it's like

3:22innuendo and questionable commentary. But we're going to overall stay on the Epstein story, but

3:28we're not going to talk about it every episode.

3:30Episode, yes. I think that is wise.

3:33We are wise. We are wise.

3:36We do want to talk about broken promises in New York City already.

3:41Yeah. It turns out there is no money tree in the backyard of New York

3:45City. It turns out free buses aren't free.

3:48It's so weird. Like, how about everything else that's supposed to be free?

3:51How come that's not free?

3:53Can we get the Dolly Parton Imagination Library to do basic economics by Thomas Sowell

3:59to every politician in the country?

4:01Because that's a really good idea.

4:03Actually, maybe that's my library.

4:05I will just send a copy of basic economics to every legislator in the country.

4:12I'm going to donate to Mary Catherine's Imaginary Library.

4:16No, Mary Catherine's Financial Literacy Literacy Imagination Library.

4:24We're going to use basic economics on that one, though.

4:28Yeah. We'll workshop it. Yeah.

4:30It would be useful, except nobody would read it.

4:32I'd have to read it aloud and send them a podcast.

4:35Right. I could do that, too.

4:37Yeah. So, up in New York, Zoran Mamdani was trying to get Kathy Hochul, the

4:43governor of New York, to raise a bunch of taxes so that he could pay

4:46for his free stuff. Right.

4:48He wants to give to everyone in New York.

4:50And she's like, nah, bro.

4:53I'm not sure I'm going to do that.

4:55Right. He's like, I have an election coming up.

4:57Why would I do that?

4:59High earners who they want to tax more, even though they pay a substantial majority

5:05percentage of taxes in New York, they're like, no, you shouldn't do that.

5:11Right. So, Mamdani's like, well, what else can I do?

5:15And now it's going to fall on the middle class.

5:17So, here he is announcing this ultimatum to New York City.

5:21Just, what are we, a month into this?

5:22Right. Experiment? Here we go.

5:24Take it away, Zoran. At the heart.

5:26of this path is a property tax increase.

5:29This would effectively be a tax on working and middle class New Yorkers who have

5:33a median income of $122 ,000.

5:35The second path also requires us to raid our reserves.

5:39It would mean withdrawing $980 million from our city's rainy day fund in fiscal year

5:442026 and $229 million from the Retiree Health Benefit Trust in fiscal year 2027.

5:52These are steps that have been taken before, but only in moments of extraordinary external

5:57crisis. Mayor Bloomberg's response to the 2008 financial collapse and Mayor de Blasio's response to

6:03the enormous revenue shortfall caused by the pandemic.

6:06We do not want to have to turn to such drastic measures to balance our

6:10budget. Can I say something?

6:12You are the extraordinary crisis.

6:15Yeah. New York elected a socialist and caused an extraordinary crisis.

6:21Where's this lack of funds coming from?

6:24It's because you want to send everything out the door.

6:27And New York has never been particularly fiscally responsible to begin with.

6:31A couple people flagged, for instance, that 40 % of the 127 billion that is

6:39in the budget is $50 billion for the Department of Education.

6:42This despite enrollment falling, I think, 10 % over the last couple of years, just

6:47more money, more money, more money.

6:49Yeah. And it makes no sense.

6:51So I think the same person you're quoting, we got to find out who that

6:54is to give them some credit.

6:56But they said that New York City's budget is the same.

6:59Oh, it's Ian Miller. He's so great.

7:01He said New York City's budget is bigger than Florida's and 40 % of it

7:05is going to the Department of Education, even though enrollment fell.

7:09Also, let's talk about the fact that New York's budget is bigger than Florida's.

7:12Right. That's a big deal.

7:14I mean, Florida's, you know, 20 plus million people and New York City is seven

7:19and a half million. Why can't you guys make it happen?

7:22Also, Jordan Weissman reports that New York is expected to spend $42K per student in

7:28public schools. D .C., for perspective, spends $25K to $26K per student.

7:34And we were already like in the upper echelons of spending.

7:37Just for a moment, imagine what that could buy you.

7:41Yeah. In a private school education.

7:42Right. It's unbelievable. Florida actually spends around $10 ,000 a student.

7:48So you can make it happen.

7:49And I've been in that.

7:51And they can learn. They can also learn on top of it.

7:54Yes. I've been in that New York City public school system.

7:57It has its highs and lows.

7:58I'll tell you that right now.

8:00Yeah. Not sure it's worth $30 ,000 plus.

8:02But so is he is this political jujitsu here where he has a D chess

8:08plan that I don't see where he's going to charm everyone into giving him the

8:12money he needs from elsewhere and he's going to blame Hochul or he just thinks

8:17it's costless to impose this thing because he sounds like the villain in this.

8:21Yeah. And I understand because he's blaming someone else, but he's going to be the

8:26one doing it. He's like, don't force me to do this.

8:29But you're forcing yourself by not making other decisions.

8:33Yeah. Maybe some spending cuts would be better.

8:36There's also a lot of people who point to the fact that the budget shortfall

8:40matches exactly the amount that previous mayor Eric Adams said it was going to cost

8:46to house and support all the illegal immigrants that came in over the last five

8:51years or so. So it's not a surprise.

8:55Here it is here. Eric Adams said, we can't pay for this.

8:59This is going to be the budget shortfall.

9:01And that budget shortfall is here.

9:03And I don't like to give Eric Adams credit for that because he was hoping

9:06that the federal government would fill in that shortfall and they didn't.

9:10And he never said, let's stop this illegal immigration to New York City.

9:14He just said, can somebody help me pay for it, please?

9:16And now he's getting the blame for the shortfall that he told everybody was coming.

9:22Yeah. I just they always are looking for the bailout.

9:26Right. And I think the object for many liberal cities is to run themselves into

9:31a ditch so far that there is no way to grow yourself out of it

9:35or to tax yourself out of it.

9:37And then they go, well, let's just wait till Democrats are in charge of the

9:40federal government and then we'll have them bail us out.

9:42That's the plan. Yeah. That's the explicit plan.

9:45Although some people are fighting back in New York, Queensboro President Donovan Richards Jr.

9:49says, as I told Mayor Momdani this afternoon, a property tax hike upwards of nine

9:53point five percent as considered is a nonstarter.

9:55Under no circumstances should we consider balancing our budget on the backs of working class

9:59New Yorkers, especially seniors on fixed incomes and public sector workers who keep our city

10:04running? So that's a lot of constituencies jammed into that.

10:07Oh, yeah. But by the way, wouldn't this robbing the piggy bank of pensions be

10:13on the backs of public employee unions who are one of his biggest supporters?

10:18He's not doing this. That's where that's where this comes down to.

10:21You know, he's saying it, but he's not doing it.

10:24I feel like it's bad to have yourself on video saying this.

10:28But again, he has what I called with Obama.

10:31You know, Obama's not my cup of tea, but he had a charisma cushion, which

10:35means you can get away with some stuff.

10:37And not to mention the mainstream media never asking any tough questions or challenging you

10:42at all. A common theme on this show.

10:45Loving you so, so much.

10:47Yeah. But this does seem like we're being set up to pay for this eventually,

10:52Carol. Carol? Yeah. Yeah, this is why you can't elect Democrats.

10:55I mean, their policies don't work.

10:58They don't, they just do not work.

10:59And now we're having this kind of reckoning where people are, you know, Barack Obama

11:05is looking at California and being like, you know, people don't really like tent cities

11:09of homeless people. Yeah, this is your party, dude.

11:12This is where we are because of your leadership.

11:16And, you know, the idea that the Democrats keep discovering that their policies are abject

11:21failures and maybe they could just rename it every few years.

11:24Like eventually, we just need to face facts that their ideas are horrible and they

11:30don't work. And I'm not saying every one of our ideas is great, but they're

11:34better than those ideas. But like, I do think there is a need, as I

11:37mentioned about basic economics, to...

11:40Basic economics. Get that some of the things you think you're doing to help people

11:46do not actually help them and indeed hurt them.

11:49A couple of examples. In Seattle, the gig worker law was supposed to change life

11:55for Uber Eats drivers and DoorDash drivers.

11:58And what it ended up doing was nothing like that.

12:02A National Bureau of Economic Research study confirmed, and this is Joe Wallen tweeting this

12:09from, partly from an NPR report out in Seattle.

12:12So, you know, not exactly a right -leaning bias.

12:14The NBER study confirmed what the numbers already showed higher per delivery pay was completely

12:20offset by fewer deliveries and lower tips.

12:23Active drivers saw near zero net gain in monthly earnings.

12:27The local NPR outlet reported this week that two years in, the results are undeniable.

12:31Seattle is now the most expensive delivery market in the country.

12:34Denver, Portland, and San Francisco, cities without these laws, saw delivery revenue grow 20 to

12:3940 percent. Seattle stagnated. This is because they jacked up delivery driver pay to $2

12:46,640 an hour, which meant everyone was like, I'm not going to pay $8 ,750

12:52for a delivery taco plate.

12:58But they made the minimum wage $26.

13:02How come people didn't want to pay that?

13:05It's just so obvious that these things have second -order effects that Democrats never think

13:12about, even though they've been studied over and over again.

13:15Virginia Democrats this week are hiking the minimum wage here to, I believe it's a

13:2014 -something in the beginning and then 15 in a couple of years.

13:24And it will do what it does everywhere, which is cut down on job opportunities

13:29for low -skill workers, for young workers who might want to get a job and

13:33then move up. It will not make things more affordable, which is how they're touting

13:38it. It will just, all the costs will get passed on to us.

13:42Or every single person that you wanted to have a job is now going to

13:46be a kiosk. Sorry. Right.

13:48Right. That's really the thing, that they're, the minimum wage is actually zero, zero.

13:53And that's what they're going to be paying the automated services that take over these

13:58jobs. And it's going to be some unnamed rich person's fault when that happens.

14:03But this is dealing with children.

14:05It's like, they're just like, but why don't we just make the minimum wage a

14:08million dollars? It just, it makes no sense and it doesn't work.

14:13And it's long past the time for them to know that.

14:17I, you know, obviously rave about Florida a lot on this show, but here's some

14:22major corporations, and this is my friend Jordan Schachtel compiled this on Twitter, that have

14:28relocated or expanded to Florida recently.

14:31Amazon, Palantir, NVIDIA, Citadel, ServiceNow, ARK Invest, D -Wave Quantum, and VSE.

14:37And Florida, he writes, is now home to Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Peter Thiel,

14:43David Sachs, Jeff Bezos, Ken Griffin, et cetera.

14:47And Jordan adds, the free state of Florida is one giant boomtown.

14:51It's really not a, you know, an unforeseen consequence of the blue state policies that

14:58don't function and don't keep capital there.

15:02And they certainly don't keep jobs there because people want to live somewhere that they

15:07could have normal functioning governance.

15:10That's what they're looking for.

15:11They're not looking for a right -wing paradise.

15:14They're looking for normal. I saw, by the way, and it was somewhat encouraging that

15:19at least one person got mad enough at the D .C.

15:22mayor about snow removal that she's going to run for mayor against the incumbent mayor.

15:27And I thought, oh my gosh, someone actually got mad enough.

15:30Someone did it. In Washington, D .C.

15:34Could it be the poop field, filled river that's over the edge, perhaps?

15:39Yeah. All right. We'll see how that one turns out.

15:42Hopefully, when that person runs for office, they don't realize that they have to tell

15:46people that they want to make minimum wage $29.

15:50They stick to those principles.

15:52It won't go well. It won't go well.

15:55Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, had this great story a long time ago

15:59when he was thinking about running for mayor, and I'm talking like 25 years ago,

16:03that he was in the elevator of a Manhattan building with a little old lady.

16:06And she said, oh, are you Rich Lowry?

16:08And he said, I am.

16:09And she said, aren't you thinking of running for mayor?

16:12And he said, yes, I am.

16:13And she said, but you're going to support rent control, right?

16:16And he was like, I couldn't tell her no in the elevator.

16:19So that's when I realized I could not run for mayor.

16:24Yeah, you got to tell people what they don't want to hear sometimes.

16:28And not the little old lady in the elevator when you haven't decided to run

16:31yet is the problem. So, yes.

16:35All right. We're going to take a short break and come right back with some

16:38television news. Be right back.

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17:02Visit applevacations .com or reach out to your trusted travel advisor to enjoy these deals.

17:07Apple Vacations, where your story starts.

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19:49We are back with more on Normally, where a completely made -up fake scandal is

19:55developing right now on X and on your TV screens, where Stephen Colbert, the host

20:02of The Late Show, which has been canceled, but he's still on, leading to an

20:06angry, bitter man being on the television.

20:09As a comedy host. Ha ha ha.

20:15Anyway, he planned to broadcast an interview with James Tellarico.

20:21Now, CBS, the network that airs The Late Show, pulled this interview from its Monday

20:27night broadcast. They say that their lawyers warned that if they aired that interview, it

20:33would trigger the FCC's equal time rule, which requires broadcasters to offer comparable airtime to

20:40all the candidates in a race.

20:43Particularly right as the race is happening, which is what's happening in Texas right now.

20:48Right. Colbert says he was told he couldn't air the interview, and he even wasn't

20:52supposed to mention it on the air, but he addressed it in public because he's

20:56just so brave that way.

20:58You know, he is saying that CBS bowed to political pressure and censored this interview,

21:04which is kind of ridiculous because the person that would be not getting the benefit

21:09of this equal time is Jasmine Crockett, another Democrat.

21:13So it's not like CBS heard from Donald Trump, which is what the implication is,

21:19and was like, you need to get this Democrat off the air.

21:22No, the problem is he needed to give equal airtime to the other Democrat in

21:27the race. And, you know, the idea that this was a banned interview is absolutely

21:32ridiculous, but Colbert is absolutely ridiculous.

21:35And he has just become a political activist.

21:38Maybe he was always a political activist.

21:40He was never a comedian.

21:41And I hope that he gets to go follow his real passion when the show

21:46is over. I really do.

21:47I think there will be a never -ending...

21:49stream of Democratic fundraisers that he can emcee.

21:52I think that is his future.

21:54That's already what he's doing.

21:55Right. And not just on TV, but actually outside of that as well.

22:00And this thing, I took like 12 to 18 hours on this thing before I

22:04decided how I felt about it, because I was like, oh, if the SEC did

22:08do this, like it does feel heavy handed.

22:10And then it's like, no, it all comes out that CBS was like, we gave

22:13him a couple of options for ways that we thought we could do this.

22:16And I think somewhat cleverly, Colbert paints himself as this brave truth teller.

22:23Yes, yes. He's just a free speech warrior, Mary Catherine.

22:26Slaps the Tallarico interview onto YouTube, brings a bunch of attention to it, giving Tallarico

22:34a bunch of donations and attention right as this primary is kicking off, which disadvantages

22:39Jasmine Crockett, which is what I think establishment Democrats of want to do.

22:45Yeah. Of whom he is one.

22:47Mm hmm. Want to do because Crockett is more of a liability in a general

22:51election than Tallarico is. I don't think either one of them is winning Texas.

22:56Yeah. But she is a tougher sell than Tallarico, who at least is like, I'm

23:01a preacher. I stand in the back of a pickup.

23:03Right. Yeah. And she now has come out and said, yeah, the administration didn't ban

23:09this. Now, she's not the most reliable narrator either.

23:12No, she certainly is not.

23:14But it does seem to me like this was a ginned up thing.

23:17Yeah. And the thing is that you're absolutely right in that they want to stop

23:23Jasmine Crockett. And this is sort of the way to do that.

23:26Outlets like Vox, for example, are covering this as if it were the Trump administration

23:32stepping in and saying, no, you can't have this interview happen, which, again, is not

23:36at all what is happening here.

23:38And I think that they like this.

23:41They wanted to be a story of the Democrats in Texas are really putting up

23:46a fight against that Donald Trump.

23:48It's like it's not at all what it's about.

23:51No. And we shall see what comes of this.

23:54But I do think it's it's instructional for everyone who consumes modern media to watch

24:01that story unfold and go, wait a second.

24:05This is not at all what was presented to me in the first hour of

24:08this story, 12 to 24 hours later.

24:12But they're not going to correct this.

24:13So like the Vox story, which, you know, Vox bills itself as like the explainer

24:17website. They explain things to you.

24:19One time, they explained that there was a bridge from Gaza to the West Bank

24:23and no such bridge exists.

24:25A classic. A classic of the form.

24:26Thank you so much for letting us in on that information.

24:29But here is like, what's the context?

24:31President Donald Trump has long headed out for America's late night hosts, most notably as

24:35administration intervened last year to briefly force the comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who hosts ABC Jimmy

24:40Kimmel Live, off the air for Kimmel's comments regarding the shooting death of conservative activist

24:45Charlie Kirk. Sidebar, Kimmel lied about the shooting death of Charlie Kirk.

24:51It wasn't that they didn't like what he was saying.

24:53He was actually lying. But also Trump celebrated CBS's decision last year to cancel Colbert's

24:58late show. And why does it matter, Vox says?

25:01The FCC's newfound passion for equal time rules is transparently partisan.

25:05Again, not at all what happened here.

25:08It's just wrong. I get that you want to be partisan.

25:12I get that you want to have a position.

25:14Don't you want to be right?

25:15I hate being wrong. I know.

25:17Well, this is the thing that gets me and I'm going slightly on a tangent

25:20here, but this is the thing that gets me about reporting about shooters or criminals

25:24who happen to be trans.

25:25Just tell me the truth.

25:27Tell me the truth. Don't tell me that two women shot up public spaces this

25:32week because two women did not.

25:34Yeah. Right. That's not what happened.

25:36So I need to know what actually happened.

25:39And sometimes in this modern age, it's very hard to get to the bottom of

25:41it. Very. Like two different articles about the trans shooter in Rhode Island didn't mention

25:47that the person was trans and instead said that he had two names.

25:52Like, what? Yep. What does that mean?

25:54Interesting. A person with two names.

25:56Oh my goodness. You want to do the CNN thing real quick?

25:58Yeah. CNN. They are not doing too hot.

26:02I will read you some stats.

26:05Greg Price on Twitter writes, It's absolutely hysterical that reruns of Hannity at 2 a

26:11.m. are now getting more viewers than every single show on CNN.

26:16Like, at what point do they hang it up?

26:19At what point is there no more CNN?

26:21Because these numbers are embarrassing.

26:23I mean, MSNOW, which is what MSNBC is now called, now, now, is doing far

26:29better than CNN. And it really, I guess people really want the insane lunatic asylum

26:35that MSNBC is and has been.

26:38And CNN is just not cutting it.

26:39I don't understand what they can do to make their situation better because they are

26:45just disliked overall. I mean, this is a problem of all major media coverage, right?

26:51Is if you tailor yourself to the far side of each ideological end, you'll get

26:58a lot of clicks, right?

27:00Yeah. And CNN did try that for years.

27:04Washington Post did try that for years to the left, right?

27:08And it, they couldn't hang on once the Biden administration came along.

27:15Because then it was like, well, who do we fight now?

27:16No. like this guy. We're going to cover up for this guy.

27:19And it just doesn't bring you the same kind of hate clicks as you used

27:21to get, particularly when you're in competition with MSN, MS Now, who's going to be

27:26more hate clicky, I guess.

27:28Right. I mean, Fox is just eating everybody's lunch, continues to.

27:32And I have to say, like, you know, for all the like people like to

27:36be in their silos, and I know that they do, the top show is The

27:39Five, which is a lighter show and not so much tearing into, you know, the

27:46other side. And I just think it's not quite the super right wingy show that

27:51people might expect. Number two is Jesse Waters, which is more like that.

27:55I mean, I feel like he does it with a smile, but still.

27:58And then number three is Gutfeld comedy show, basically.

28:02And number four is Special Report with Bret Baier, which is straight news.

28:07So for the fives part, Jessica Tarloff gives as good as she gets.

28:11Oh, yeah. On that panel, she's very prepared and she will go to war.

28:15So she she puts in the work for the other side of those arguments.

28:20Yeah, that's right. All right.

28:23Also in television news, Mehdi Hassan, one of the just the most I just dislike

28:29him very, very much. I just find him to be not only not great at

28:35his job, but also just says crazy things.

28:38During the pandemic, he said, no, we have to basically mask forever.

28:42And who cares what these conservatives say, put the kids back in masks.

28:46And he said also like, but we have to pack the Supreme Court and just

28:50he says very outlandish things.

28:53And then it's kind of taken seriously, which I don't think he should be.

28:56But anyway, he was interviewing Jennifer Welch, who is another person I just don't think

29:01should be taken seriously at all.

29:03She's insane, anti a Trump leftist who has become popular.

29:09Anyway, they start. Reality. Yeah.

29:12She's a reality show star turned an interior decorator turned podcaster who they think is

29:18the lib Joe Rogan, although we've always pointed out Joe Rogan was a man of

29:22the left. Joe Rogan continues to be the lib Joe Rogan.

29:26Yes. She's just so angry and nasty.

29:30But they, Mehdi Hassan and Jennifer Welch, who, by the way, her face does not

29:34move at all. They go into why does Scott Jennings have such an annoying face?

29:39Like, ma 'am, sir, both of you.

29:42No, really. And then they talk about masculinity and how people talk about masculinity a

29:49lot. And Mehdi Hassan calls Scott Jennings the most loathsome man on cable news.

29:56Scott Jennings. Scott Jennings is the most loathsome man on cable news.

30:01I couldn't help myself. I said, you're mad because you're not a man and also

30:04not on cable news. Yeah, I just there's I know there's a market for this.

30:11I know there's a market for just being mean to people.

30:14And also it is telling with people left of center how allergic they are to

30:21one person effectively countering their messages.

30:28They flip out. And I used to get this when I was on CNN panels.

30:32There'd be nine people on the panel who disagree with me.

30:35Yeah. And people would tweet me like, how dare you?

30:40How dare you exist? Is what like, how dare you exist?

30:44Why would they allow you to speak?

30:47I want to hear 10 people who agree with me.

30:51Yeah, yeah, they have some problems.

30:54If these are your, you know, superstars, good luck with that.

30:58The left, I find them both deeply unlikable.

31:00And I do not think they will be appealing to the middle.

31:04Again, the people I named on Fox, they might you might not agree with them.

31:07You might find them too far right, whatever.

31:10They're all doing it with a smile.

31:11They're not talking about how annoying somebody's face is on the opposite side.

31:15Well, Gutfeld might occasionally. Well, okay, fine.

31:19That's comedy. All right. We'll take a short break and come back with some more

31:23Virginia redistricting. It's not going so great over there.

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35:03All right, who's ready for some more redistricting news?

35:07This is important, of course, because a bunch of states are trying to redistrict to

35:11add to the numbers of various parties before the 2026 election.

35:17So all of these lawsuits and all of this redistricting is happening as we speak.

35:21In some states, you might know which district you're in or who's running for it

35:26until much later into 2026.

35:29Virginia has become one of those states.

35:31They claim in retaliation for Texas's mid -decade redistricting.

35:36Now, Republicans had a sort of rationale for their redistricting, which was the census robbed

35:42a bunch of red states of districts and population in 2020 when it was run

35:48badly. Democrats were awarded seats they should not have gotten.

35:52So we're going to do a little correction on this and redistrict.

35:55So Texas does that. And then a bunch of lefty states who I underestimated and

36:01thought they had gone as far as they could.

36:02And they had not. And so California was like, oh, no, we'll do more.

36:06So California does more for Democrats to sort of try to rebalance this situation and

36:12take back their advantage. And then Virginia in 2025 gets, quote unquote, moderate governor, Democrat

36:21Abigail Spanberger. And both of the houses of the legislature are now run by Democrats.

36:27So they say, you know what?

36:29This five, six split of congressional districts between Republicans and Democrats here not working for

36:36us. What we would like is 10 -1, like 10 -1, 10 Democrats to one

36:42Republican for a state that is basically a slightly bluer than red state.

36:49And the way they're doing this is drawing a bunch of districts that snake out

36:53of northern Virginia, where there's a ton of blue population and into more rural areas.

36:58So basically everybody who wants to be a congressman can live up in northern Virginia,

37:02in the D .C. area, never leave, and keep winning those congressional districts because they

37:09never have to, like, talk to the central Virginia or rural Virginia people.

37:12You know, Republicans real flat -footed on this.

37:15Yeah. But there was a lawsuit.

37:17It went to the Virginia Supreme Court.

37:19And the Virginia Supreme Court was like, even though Democrats broke a bunch of rules

37:23to get this thing on the ballot, we're not going to rule on the merits

37:27until after you guys vote.

37:29Isn't there, like, a whole concern among Democrats that the Texas redistricting was an affront

37:36to democracy? Oh, no, no.

37:37That's not an issue anymore because this is the good gerrymandering.

37:41Oh, I see. And when you do the good gerrymandering, you can break all the

37:46rules and violate the Virginia state constitution temporarily to get yourself a bunch of new

37:52seats. So they didn't give people enough notice that this was happening.

37:56That's on purpose. So energized Democrat activists will go out and vote.

38:00No one else will. It's going to be on the ballot and, like, starts voting

38:04on March 6th. Vote no, by the way, by April 21st.

38:07And it turns out that a bunch of people in Virginia legislature.

38:12wrote themselves their own districts nice yeah that's democracy for you for democracy they actually

38:19were naming them for these people like quite openly in the discussions like mary catherine's

38:25district no they weren't they were like so this will be dan helmer's district and

38:30this will be shannon taylor's district and even some democrats in virginia were like ah

38:36we probably shouldn't be referring to them like that yeah well the new york times

38:39has caught up and says huh an architect of virginia's aggressive redistricting scheme will announce

38:45on wednesday that he intends to run for one of the newly drawn democratic seats

38:49himself dan helmer a four -term state delegate who played a key behind the scenes

38:53role in last october's surprise move to redraw virginia's congressional maps is entering the race

39:00for the lobster -shaped seventh congressional district the lobster -shaped that they all created for

39:06him it's quite an audacious thing they're doing here and democrats are very excited and

39:13they're probably excited to go vote and uh republicans are not as engaged right now

39:19although there is an effort to counter this i do think it helps that the

39:21new york times is noticing how obviously backroom deal corrupt right like when you name

39:27the districts after people yeah maybe that's not democracy maybe do you think this is

39:33ultimately to push republican voters out of the state like because i mean my thought

39:38of course is are you staying mary katherine are you i don't know yeah yeah

39:45it look i was already basically disenfranchised by living in this area to begin with

39:51but i do think truly the people who live in central and southern and southwestern

39:58virginia and over in western virginia north north towards west virginia deserve congressional leaders who

40:06have to occasionally leave northern virginia the idea that you would never be able to

40:11you don't have to do that to win is bad the idea that you would

40:16split these very very similar districts into five congressional districts yeah is wild to me

40:23but look gerrymandering is never pretty it's rarely noble i don't think it's ever been

40:29noble it's part of the game and uh they're playing to win here and they're

40:33playing in some real shady ways but i do appreciate the new york times occasionally

40:36telling the truth about it very very occasionally but one more virginia point for you

40:41and for media bias the new york times did a profile on abigail spamberger the

40:45other day and of course it didn't have anything like really tough in it or

40:48any tough questions for her but it did have a quote and some like really

40:53glorified coverage of her cia stint because she was an intel operative and one of

40:59the quotes where she illustrated how awesome she was at this job is that she

41:03says well when you talk to somebody you want to seem trustworthy and i thought

41:07team huh that's a there's a politician for you strategically seeming trustworthy yeah thanks gov

41:15rather you be trustworthy but okay we'll take it yeah well thank you for joining

41:21us on normally normally airs tuesdays and thursdays and you can subscribe anywhere you get

41:26your podcasts get in touch with us at normally the pod at gmail .com thanks

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