Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Fellas, do you love British weather but hate British people? I do. Do you own seven pairs of Doc Martens and platform shoes? No. Maybe you've even had the urge to drink a PBR while bicycling naked with a flamethrower. Haven't we all? Gents, you may be suffering from Portlandia. Ed: Oh, God. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Hi. I'm low tax speed run enjoyer with the normal men podcast. Portlandia affects billions of otherwise normal men across America every day. The good news though, is there is a treatment available. Scientists from the University of Oregon's Phil Knight Center for the Study of People Who Eat at the Burnside Taco Bell have developed tragic lovers, and their new EP, Blue Blood by Way of Glacier. Portlandia doesn't have to rule your life. Talk to your edibles dealer about Tragic Lovers, or simply go to tragiclovers.com to have tragic lovers shipped directly to your home. Tragic lovers, Portland Postpunk. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: This is Normal Men, a podcast from four men who are clinging desperately to normalcy in an era when that's asking a bit too much. I'm George in Charlotte. Propter Malone: In DC, I'm Propter Malone. In Outer Florida, I'm low tax speedrun enjoyer. And I'm Ed in Boston. We actually just lied to you. George is off this week in Portugal with his lovely wife, but we have a pinch hitter. Please welcome Go Like Hell Machine back to normal, man. Ed: Who's he? Good question. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Oh god. That that fucking guy? Doctor Propter Malone: Machine, what have the tragic lovers been up to? Ed: Pay us for an ad. They did not pay us for an ad. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: We've been playing a bunch of shows and, watching all of the excitement that all of you have been reading about in the national news here in Portland. Ah, you're playing the home game. So we are quasi occupied, we will say. It has been weird to watch over the weekend. At some point, while we're talking, you might even get some real Portland authenticity and hear helicopters passing over my apartment building. Ed: Portland with occupied characteristics? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yes. It's a it it it's a little bit like 2020, but it's farce. In in 2020, we had helicopters all over the place too. This time, it's federal helicopters, and they're circling around one building rather than one block. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: What you gotta do is you gotta get that guy in the inflatable frog costume and get him attached to just, a bunch of drones and chase the, helicopters away. Ed: That guy is a national hero. If you haven't seen these, and I'm I'm filling in for proctor now, there's a there's a a vertical video going around of a guy in an inflatable frog costume just standing at the do not cross line for US government property gyrating. Propter Malone: I think that's the Ed: the the fairest way to put it. Propter Malone: Big big hip action on that frog. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. This has become a thing at, like, every Portland protest. It seems like you've got folks in different types of inflatable costumes. There's the guy who has been showing up in the chicken costume with an American flag cape. Even, I know that when Nedermeyer was doing Tesla protests, he would show up in a shark costume doing ballet dancing. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: So Wait. Is there video of this? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I don't know. There might be. I'll have to check with him. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I need to see Nedermeyer in the shark costume. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: This is kind of how Portland responds to this kind of thing. You know, you hear a lot about war zone. You hear a lot about the city burning down and us being anti for controlled. And then when you go out and you see the reality of it, it's a bunch of people gyrating in inflatable costumes at ice goons who are spraying, like, tear gas at them. Propter Malone: They did they did, like, directly tear gas that guy's breathing port, which seemed a little over the line. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I'm pretty sure that Portland in a generation or two are going to is going to produce people who are completely immune to tear gas, just given how often we get tear gassed in this city. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I like that it's that you see at protests I remember this especially back during the George Floyd protests. There would always be the the group of people with drums, and then the one guy in the middle of them wearing a big Elmo costume. Remember those guys? Except in Portland, it's like the whole city is engaged in this absurdity. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, this is kinda what you move to Portland for. I was like, you're not really moving here for jobs at this point. You're not really moving here for, like, cost of living at this point. You know? What you move here for is people in inflatable costumes giving the finger authorities. Propter Malone: I imagine you gotta have, like, a protest costume and, you know, an everyday costume because you don't wanna get tear gas out on people when they're working. You gotta get your home. Yeah. So it sounds like morale is holding up okay? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. Pretty well. At least amongst people I know. And I'm like, we were out. We played a show this weekend. We were out all kinda around town yesterday. And the other people I talked to, everybody is annoyed by this. Everybody is pissed off about it. No one's really afraid of this. One of the most annoying things about it is that everyone watches news stories which are just grossly inaccurate. There were lies in 2020, and they're obscene lies now. My sister was texting me from Oklahoma, and she was saying that the the news that they see makes it look really serious. And and so I sent her the clip of aforementioned frog gyrator. It's frustrating because this isn't what Portland is. Portland has had a really difficult time recovering from COVID and recovering from 2020, and this just feels like an attempt to try to kick us in the balls right as we're getting back up. Things are actually improving. We've got more traffic. We've got more business. Things are pretty nice. It's also gorgeous. Like like, it is incredible to hear the president of The United States talk about the war zone, when I'm watching, like, the red maple leafs fall in my front yard. Like, it's the perfect time of year here. Propter Malone: Yeah, this is this is the sweet spot for Portland weather, for sure. This is right before the long dark, which if you're not Portland affiliated, you may be unfamiliar with, but Portland gets dark and stays dark for a while. The days get short, it gets rainy. We'll see if the California National Guard can survive that, I guess. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: The California National Guard needs to be on their best behavior because these people all Californians all retire to Portland and Oregon in general, and where they come and ruin everybody's traffic. Ed: Wait. You guys are you're at forty five degrees north and you're complaining about a long dark? Boston is 40 two. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. But, Ed, you have street lights that were manufactured in the twentieth century. Ed: I I mean, let's let's not go there. I live in the the suburbs. Thank you. But, like, that just seems like that just Propter Malone: So you think it's stolen valor? Ed: That I do. Especially growing up in, like, the the woods of Maine where it's dark at 04:30. And honestly, then we have our Canadian brothers and sisters who, god help them, to be honest. Although they all live right on the border, so, like, Propter Malone: forged forged in the gloom. I hated it when Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I was in I hated it when I was in grad school, because it would get in England, because it would get dark at, like, 03:00 in the afternoon. Propter Malone: Yeah. It's always moist too. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. I live on the West Side Of Portland, which you could probably film a miniseries about Jack the Ripper in. That's that's about the level of of redevelopment and and reinvestment we've had in the West Side Of Portland. Propter Malone: So just to bring everybody up to speed on the current legal status of the occupation in Portland. As of, Sunday, October 5, because this is moving very quickly, we first had a declaration that there were going to be troops sent to Portland, and that the Oregon National Guard was going to be federalized to occupy Portland. In addition to that, we have the usual suspects, at least some portion of the skull cracking squad that they're sending around from city to city, made up of federal law enforcement agents, has gone to Portland. Ed: In oddly poorly fitting TMU clothes? Yeah. I don't I don't Propter Malone: know what's up with the uniforms. It feels like they could do better, particularly Ed: Some of these guys look like they've got sweatpants. I don't think you can oppress them and, like, I don't think you can occupy a city in sweatpants. Unless Not GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: this city. Not on this Ed: continent. Let's put it GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: that way. Do you do you know how many fashion graduates we have that move out here? Ed: They're mean too. Yeah. How how's Nike doing for him? Propter Malone: So we already had the Trump administration got an adverse ruling from a Trump appointed judge, that was maybe a little bit of a surprise to those of us who were expecting a Trump appointed judge to rule for them, but a very welcome surprise. She put together what I thought was a very well reasoned opinion about the non necessity of federalizing the National Guard in Portland, because there were not conditions of emergency backed up by lots of statements from the administration, and a timeline that demonstrated that this emergency that Trump, I guess, thinks is happening is not in fact happening in Portland. It may or may not have happened in Portland five years ago during the BLM protests, but it definitely is not happening right now. Ed: I almost sorta leaned in with a made it up, but in fairness, he didn't make it up. The TV made it up. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. He's just watching. Made it up. Her opinion, I thought, was interesting because it was really legitimately a small c conservative opinion about the the importance like, the critical importance of state sovereignty. And so I thought that was really interesting. And then Trump, morning, when he was asked about it, very clearly had not read the opinion, very clearly did not even know who had issued the opinion, because he kept referring to her as a man. Propter Malone: Yeah. This is this is judge Karen Emmergut, who previous to this was was best known to me as the person who, for Ken Starr's team, during the Clinton impeachment, actually took Monica Lewinsky's deposition. So, you know, she's got conservative bona fides going way back, but she's from a different era of conservatism than Trump. Anyway, nice to see that at least some of the Republican district judges are still still holding to small c conservative principles, as as as Maestro Machine says. Ed: I was 10 years old when that happened. Propter Malone: These people never go away. Ed: I mean, I'm glad that she wrote the opinion this way on today, but, like Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: The nineties are so back, baby. Ed: We do not want yellow teal and magenta. I'm sorry. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Listen listen, man. They never died here. Ed: That's true. Of the nineties. Propter Malone: So downstream of that, the Trump administration has claimed that they are going to send the California National Guard that is already federalized in California, into Portland. This, I think, is is going to be a mistake for them legally. One of the reasons why we haven't seen red state National Guard troops deployed to blue states so far, is that there are fairly significant constitutional principles about state sovereignty that come into play, front and center, when you're talking about deploying troops from one state to another state without invitation and without consent. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: They're already here. According to the governor, they are they started arriving today. It sounds like they flew them overnight last night from California to get out here. So almost immediately after the ruling, like, just as far as timing goes, that's almost how it had to have happened. Ed: So they've got 28 left before they rotate them out, because they're not going to pay them. So, you know, there's Propter Malone: a there's a clock here. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: And the other thing is that you've got their troops from one state who are ostensibly under the command of one governor being deployed to another state. Neither governor consents to this. Not both governors vociferously disagree with it, which seems like a legal mess. Propter Malone: I think this is I think this is just the weakest terrain they could have chosen to fight for the principle that you can deploy National Guard you can deploy federalized National Guard from one state into another state without consent. There's a bunch of other bad facts for them in this pattern, such as that, you know, California doesn't want to send these troops, Oregon doesn't want to receive these troops, there's already been an adverse ruling about the necessity of deploying the National Guard, in any case under emergency conditions, to Portland in federal court. And you know, the Ninth Circuit is not the liberal bastion it used to be, but this is this is in the Ninth Circuit, and that's not a gimme circuit for Trump by any means. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: That's what I that's what I thought was interesting about the that small c conservative opinion. That opinion is is not intended to win over liberals. That's not who that is written for. It's just wild, and it's wild to be going through this again. This was really stressful in 2020 for everybody who lived here in Portland, and it's much more farcical this time. I think everybody who listens to this show probably follows at least one, if not most of us, online, and so you've probably seen me rant about this. But, like, we are talking about one building. It is one building in Southwest Portland. Prior to this administration, it had kindergarten or preschool down the street. That had to be moved because the neighborhood is full of tear gas all the time. There's an apartment building that is basically unrentable now because it is full of tear gas, and you've got drums going every night. This is one building. ICE is also in violation of their contract with the city of Portland about this building. This is another part of that. Propter Malone: It's not even a particularly large building. Correct? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: No. So the contract with the city of Portland that ICE has has stipulations about how long they can hold people in this facility. ICE has been in violation of these basically as long as they have had this building as far as I can tell, but the city of Portland has decided now that they intend to enforce that contract. And so we will see what happens. I think that there are some indications from city government that make it look like the city may be gearing up to try to actually evict this facility, but that's that's gonna be a long road. There's there's a lot of legal legal work that has to happen there first, but they have taken the first steps. Propter Malone: And there are actual federal buildings in Portland, but this but this isn't one of them. This this is a lease building rather than a known building. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: That's correct. Ed: All this over a rental. Propter Malone: Every image I see is of, like, this entryway arcade that looks yeah. Mean, you know, like like like like it's reasonably pleasant architecture for somebody's patio, but it doesn't exactly seem like flashpoint of major a major violence. Ed: It's really weird that this is the building that they're going to give woke to the reason to invade Idaho. Right? Like like, this is a this is a weird spot this is a weird spot to lay the future for the the Third Republic. Propter Malone: Yeah. I mean, this is this is Four Seasons landscaping stuff. Right? Like like like, you know, you book you book the venue you can book, not the venue you wanna book. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: All of this is just that Trump legitimately hates Portland. I'm not even sure Donald Trump has ever been to Portland. I was thinking about this earlier this last week. I'm not sure he's ever actually been here. But but Donald Trump hates Portland and wants Portland as someone to kick around, and a city to kick around. And we're we're not as big as Chicago, we're not as wealthy as Seattle, we're not, you know, completely inundated with kind of cameras everywhere like LA. It's a city full of mostly weird artists and weirdos. Right? Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: You can't golf. The beaches are terrible. I can't stand this city. Propter Malone: One thing the Rose City does have going for it from the Trump perspective though is that there are conservative nut cases fairly nearby. Are they an element that you're seeing at the at at the protest at this point? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: So I haven't been out to these specific ICE protests. I've only been out at the, the the bigger ones on the waterfront. I do know that there are a bunch of right wing influencer types who are on scene, and, you know, starting trouble. A couple of them have already gotten arrested, by PPB for starting trouble. The other thing that protesters here are reporting is that there is a large number of videographers who are embedded with the ICE folks at this protest, or at these ongoing protests. And what I what it sort of seems like might be happening is that our big wet president is being inundated by all of his scheming viziers with all of this custom created footage that ICE are producing that is primarily geared towards him as the audience, and it's absolutely bizarre. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Which led to a very fun comment from him, in which he he talked about speaking with governor Tina Kotick. Is that how that's pronounced? And he said, I spoke to the governor. She was very nice. But I said, well, wait a minute. Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening? My people tell me different. They're literally attacking, and there are fires all over the place. It looks terrible. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. It's the the president of The United States admitting that he can't tell the difference between reality and television. Ed: At some point, we have to do something about Fox News. Yeah. It's really the takeaway that I'm I'm getting from this. Because the level of alternate reality that you're seeing, and not just on this, but also on this, is just shocking. Like, if you are one of the weird people who still has a a cable subscription, you should go look at it for, like, five minutes because it's probably the most the median, good and very attractive normal men listener would be able to to really sort of, like, stomach. It's weird. They're just, like, inventing stuff. They're layering on culture war beefs from 02/2008. It's just this cavalcade of bullshit at all times. And and so they can just sneak in new bullshit anytime they want. And now suddenly, Portland's on fire instead of just, you know, being the second best Portland. I don't really I I I don't understand how this is supposed to, like, work. That's all. Like, there has to be an off ramp, and they they do not seem GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: to be wanting one. Ed too, Ed? You would also kick us while we are down? Yes. Ed: I would. I was in I was in GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: the good Portland over the weekend. It was delightful. Whatever, maner. Propter Malone: You know, for what it's worth, Trump actually had a truth social post this weekend tearing into Fox News. So there might be a little trouble here Ed: at least. That didn't stop him from watching. Propter Malone: Also true. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. But the thing that you have to remember is still going on with Fox News is that Lachlan basically runs Fox News now, and Lachlan's a dipshit. Like, Lachlan is definitely not Rupert, in terms of his strategic acumen nor his connection to politicians. Lachlan's a moron. And so I think that some of Fox News's pro some of our Fox News problems might sort of sort themselves out over the longer term. Propter Malone: They don't have Roger Ailes around around anymore either. You know, at one point, they had some legitimate talent in propaganda network building and operation, and it's not clear to me that that talent yet remains. That's gonna be an interesting thing as we watch CBS kind of progress through its its its fail son slash Barry Weiss era also. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Because, because Chris Chris Cornell killed him. They died on the same day. I'm choosing to believe that Cornell did it. Ed: I I mean, first good thing he ever did? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Oh. You're Propter Malone: just you're just trying to get the whole Northwest mad at you now, man. Yeah. Really? I mean, what Ed: how how many woke two legions do they command? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: More than Boston. Ed: I don't know. You guys are tiny. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: So a weird thing about this is that it has engendered a moment of unity between local, county, and city politicians in the state of Oregon. Ed: That never happens. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: No. It's otherwise normally impossible. So, normally, we have interesting governance in Portland, and we're also in the midst of a brand new city government. So we have a brand new city government that has a couple of DSA folks on it. Propter Malone: DSA is Democratic Socialists of America. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: We have a brand new mayor who is new to politics and is serving in a mayoral role in Portland that has never existed previously. So he's actually in a much weaker mayor position than the mayor normally is. We have Multnomah County, who are the the biggest county that Portland resides within, who is constantly at political warfare with the city of Portland, typically about the allocation of funds. And then you have the governor, and some Oregon governors, take a strong in interest in Portland and some don't. They are all singing from the same sheet of music in a really interesting way. There was a I wanna say an Oregonian piece or an Oregon capital capital Chronicle piece from last week that detailed that Kotak has essentially been having, like, state level security council meetings with everyone for weeks, and in some cases, for months. State of Oregon has anticipated this, and the city of Portland has anticipated this. And they they have shown a level of coordination that that this region, and this area, and this city does is not usually known for. Propter Malone: That's great that that the locals are are are kind of rising to meet the moment here. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: If there's if there's one thing that pretty much everyone involved in Oregon government at any level can agree on, it's that they all hate Donald Trump. Ed: I can't imagine why. Propter Malone: Has there been an uptick in ice snatchings that you're aware of? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Not not that I am aware of. These these are hard things to track, and there definitely have been some. So, my friend Kate from a band called Calais mentioned the other day that a neighbor of hers got snatched basically right off the street. And so it's definitely happening here just like it's happening everywhere, but not not super visibly. Like and it doesn't seem like at a doesn't say like, we don't have, like, a lot of, like, ice patrols the way you're seeing in footage from, like, Chicago, for example. Now I don't know if that is because people just don't catch them on video or they're not happening nearly as often. I have maybe seen federal agents once, and, like, I'm on, you know, I'm on the bus two and a half hours every day for work, and I go through a big chunk of the city. This just isn't something that I see very often. It might happen further out in East Portland because that's not where I go through, but but you don't see the kind of presence that even it looked like you were seeing in DC. Propter Malone: That's gonna be interesting because this this will be the first time that we've seen this kind of stepped up militarization slash surge that hasn't been accompanied by by an ice surge, if that's the case. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I'm I'm I'm fully expecting that's coming next. Propter Malone: So something to keep an eye on, particularly if we think that the capacity is a limitation because, I mean, there's still there's still a pretty high level of ICE activity here in DC. Obviously, they're trying to surge in Chicago right now. The fact that they have a limited number of bodies is gonna come into play, if they're trying to do this in too many places at once. Ed: Well, I don't understand why they're having so much trouble recruiting. Did you not see the thrilling recruitment posters with, one Stephen Miller on them? Head so freaking shiny that it observable from space. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I mean, if ever if ever there were a guy you would wanna follow into hell Oh, hell. It's it's Stephen Miller. Right? Ed: He would eat you alive, and you would thank him for it. Wait. That's the other thing. Horrifying. That's what we're looking for. Yeah. Yeah. Like, the executive capacity, you know, so many so many grad students, when all of this is over, are going to write so many papers about how stupid this was. Right? Like like, somebody's going to have to try to explain this in a way that doesn't leap delegitimize the entire canon of, like, political science in America. And I don't envy them. They can't freaking run a lemonade stand at this point. I I it's it's offensive that we are being terrorized by people that are this stupid. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yes. I don't have any other way to put it. This is part of why the the Portland incursion is sort of interesting because it's being met as the farce it kind of deserves. Yeah. Like, and you've got everybody from, you know, both our senators and the governor and the mayor and the head of the county and everybody else are basically saying, don't take the bait. And so far, Portland is not taking the bait. Portland is creating entirely new forms of bait for these fed Ed: Host host. Propter Malone: We joked about a naked a naked bike ride earlier on podcast. That wasn't a joke. They actually did it, a naked bike ride. Ed: I like how how we were both going to the same terrible place. I appreciate that. Portland's Propter Malone: got their inflatable frogs. They've got their nude cyclists. They've got their Roombas with flamethrowers attached. They're ready. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yes. The naked bike ride thing is a funny thing that, like, the first year you live here, you're completely bewildered by. And then a couple of years in, you're like, oh, yeah. No. It's just, you know, old flappy dongs rolling down the street. Ed: You know that's not a Portland specific thing. Right? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Oh, no. No. But Portland really No. Ed: I know. But, like, there's the World Naked Bike Ride Association. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: No. No. No. But what you don't understand is that Portland's split into two roaring groups. Yeah. Ed: You can't you elected two DSA seats to your city council. I don't ever ever have trouble believing you have factionalism in your naked bike rides. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: So Portland Portland is like the, the disco Elysium studio for, for naked naked bike riding. And we can make Ed: that joke because George isn't here. Propter Malone: All the best from those of us at Normal Men to Portland, and good luck with what's coming. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Well, thanks. Holding it down in our very normal city. Propter Malone: So we've had some other news in this last week. Here in DC, the talk of the town is the government shutdown. The government shutdown on Tuesday when Democrats did not at least initially buckle. The initial vote did have three members of the Democratic caucus pried off to vote for the continuing resolution. I take that to be a somewhat negative sign on the ability of Democrats to sustain this, but we'll see. Polling has been mostly Republican blaming since then, and there have not been the kinds of obvious breaks in the caucus that sometimes proceed a fold. Ed: You say three, and I know you said caucus, but we have to stress, it's two Democrats and Angus King. Propter Malone: Is it is it is two Democrats and Angus King. Yeah. Ed: Angus King is like if you gave a chat GPT a frigging senate seat. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Yeah. Why is Angus King siding with him? I thought Angus King was, like, a fairly liberal senator. Ed: I mean Propter Malone: I think he just thinks it's a stupid shutdown. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: He's I mean, it is a stupid shutdown. He's Ed: Yeah. Liberal, but he's liberal in the same way that Susan Collins is conservative. Right? Like, yes, technically, the label fits. But really, it's like, these are the most Glonzo ass humans you'll find outside of Fetterman. But, like, I believe King's entire thing was like, by shutting down the government, we're actually giving Donald Trump more power. It's honestly maybe true. In fairness, what are you gonna do? Just give it to him anyway? Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Does he actually sound like that? Ed: Not really. I lately, I've been getting annoyed and giving people quasi Kermit the Frog jokes when I'm mad at them. Absolutely Propter Malone: top tier mustache on that man, I enjoy the king mustache. Ed: He has had that mustache for my entire life. And like because he was governor before this, and he was occasionally a gadfly in Maine politics at various points. And all you remember, mustache. Hair, used to be better. Mustache, perfect. Propter Malone: So Ed brought up that that there's some concern that the shutdown will enable Donald Trump to do things he wouldn't otherwise be able to do. So far from my perspective, that's kind of been the dog that hasn't barked, we haven't really seen aggressive personnel actions coming in that are justified or enabled by a shutdown. We've seen some at least putative cancellations of federal grants to various infrastructure projects, especially exclusively in blue states, that I think is gonna be a, I don't think it's really enabled by the shutdown, they could have done this either way, but b Right. That is going to, I think, have a tough time in court, eventually. Ed: I mean, you say they haven't abused their power, but they went into Microsoft Outlook and changed everyone's auto response. Propter Malone: Yes. Yeah. No. That's actually kind of a big deal, which is okay. So there's there's something called the Hatch Act, which is supposed to provide a restraint on government employees doing political messaging and, you know, it's it's something that has generally been acknowledged in the breach more than in the observance. In in lots of cases, like, people violate the Hatch Act all the freaking time, and, you know, it gets a in the paper that so and so did such and such in violation of the Hatch Act. Ed: They usually don't violate it for other people, though. Propter Malone: Correct. One thing we have seen here is that furloughed feds are having their out of office message changed to blame Democrats for the shutdown. Which tedious shit I've ever seen. Yeah. Right? Like, I mean, it's middle school stuff. There's been nearly universal messaging, on government agency homepages that blame the Democrats for the shutdown. It's very, very clear that there are no compunctions about using the organs of government to blame Democrats for the shutdown. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: It's also the clumsiest wording ever. Like like, there's absolutely no sort of tact or nuance about it, or or even, like, attempt to try to make it seem believable. Ed: Yeah. Their idea of believable comes from Facebook posts. What do you want from these Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: people? So we we we all agree that Steven Miller wrote the language. Right? Ed: I think he no. I think he's potentially more literate than that. This is, the sub assistant to the Steven Miller. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I don't know. It might GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: have been Steve it might have been Stephen Chung. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: He did go to Duke. Propter Malone: Yeah. It's not it's not as fun to rag on Duke when George is gone. Ed: No. But we have we have standards to maintain. Propter Malone: So, yeah. I mean I mean, My guess is is is that this is this is either the leftover Doge guys who are doing the messaging, or it's a bunch of 23 year old Liberty grads that Ed: please explain to me the difference? Propter Malone: Well, they're from different schools for one thing. I don't think I don't think the Doge guys drew from Liberty very much because No. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I think the Doge Propter Malone: guys have to be Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: able to, Ed: like, read. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I don't think Liberty has a computer science program. Ed: Oh, now I have to know. Propter Malone: So the state of play on on on the shutdown is that it's going on. Nobody knows exactly when it's gonna be over. There is a potential off ramp early next week. When the senate comes back, Democrats could fold there or there could be a nuclear resolution, but because Mike Michael Johnson has taken the house home for the next week, there can't be a deal unless they're called back, because the house would then have to approve something besides the continuing resolution that they've already approved. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: If I didn't hate them both so much, I would maybe kind of appreciate just how badly Johnson has absolutely screwed John Thune on this entire deal. Yeah. Propter Malone: I I mean, I think it's a useful pre commitment device for Johnson to be able to kinda throw the steering wheel out the window and say, alright, we're playing chicken here, because he doesn't have to then deal with his often fractious caucus. And if you recall, this is essentially the same kind of thing that got the last Republican Speaker of the House booted, was handling or mishandling continuing resolution government funding stuff. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I have a really hard time thinking Gingrich but stupid because I don't have any respect for Ed: Gingrich. I Propter Malone: mean, Gingrich was at least was at least a stupid man's idea of a smart man. Ed: Yeah. Oh, he was. He wrote so many books. It's the Bill O'Reilly of the senate. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: His wife has extensive experience in, like, photo filtering apps. It's incredible. Propter Malone: Yeah. I mean What? You know, that still plays. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Oh, no. Have you never seen that? No. So, like, when she was ambassador god. She was was she ambassador to the Vatican? Propter Malone: She was ambassador to the Vatican. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yes. When she was ambassador to the Vatican job? Yes. She would constantly post these photos of her and sometimes Newt Gingrich, but mostly just her with, like, the most aggressive phone app photo filtering you have ever seen. She looked like Odo from Deep Space Nine. Ed: And there's the Star Trek engine. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Check. God, of all the people to appoint as ambassador to the Vatican, Newt Gingrich's wife? Like, this is the same wife Propter Malone: Not Newt not Newt Gingrich's first wife, to be clear. Yeah. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Right. This was the one this was the one he walked in on his first wife, who I believe was receiving cancer treatment. He walked in with this second wife on his arm to hand the first wife the divorce papers. Right? Propter Malone: While while she was in the hospital. Ed: Yes. Getting chemo. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: She's now our ambassador to Switzerland. Propter Malone: She's got experience. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Look. Switzerland's a great place for the photo filters. You know? Ed: I mean, you can do some magic with a phone these days. You can load a LUT on. You can have some some, like, nice warm glow no matter what time of day it is. You don't have to get up early. It's never been better for the wannabe influencer slash wife of the ghoul. Propter Malone: So shutdown wise, what everybody wants to know, at least at least in my city, is when it's gonna be over. Because about three quarters of a million federal employees are furloughed right now, meaning that they they can't work. This is not just we're not paying you, and you don't have to work. They're locked out of work. They cannot perform work under the conditions of the shutdown. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: It's also it's also just a few days, like, less than a week after, what was it, like, a 150, 175,000 federal employees just left the payroll permanently. Propter Malone: Yeah. Although they were they were already gone. They weren't working anymore. Those were the fork on the road roll GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: offs Okay. Propter Malone: That were getting paid through the end of the fiscal year. So they're gonna they're gonna show up eventually in the in the labor numbers if we ever get jobs numbers again, because they don't count as being unemployed for purposes of BLS until they're no longer receiving that negotiated severance. Anyway, so that's that's going be a big hit to jobs numbers eventually when jobs numbers do come back, But in terms of day to day operation of federal agencies, those guys were already going. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: So there's also, in addition to the fork in the road people, there's also the people who got, RIFT, right? Yes. They're also Agencies. Propter Malone: That's Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: true. And rift rift means reduction in force, for the record. That's what, you implement when you're reducing the federal workforce at a given agency. How many people were a part of those? Do you do you have any idea? Propter Malone: I don't have the RIF numbers offhand. I think that they it was not a tremendous number of people who were who were RIF. Ed: Like Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I think it was tens of thousands, like like 60,000 comes to mind for some reason. Propter Malone: And the speculation was that some of that was probably going to pull forward some attrition that would have happened anyway. That, you know, it is a reduction in the size in the size of the it is a net reduction in the size of the federal workforce. There was a lot of speculation that Russ Vogt at OMB would take advantage of the shutdown to issue a bunch of RIF notices and that hasn't really happened yet. That's not to say that it can't happen. Trump has been posting memes about how Russ Vogt can do all these things and has all these new powers under the shutdown. It's deeply weird to me that the White House is taking that messaging stance that they are able to do things that they're not visibly doing yet. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Well, and and things that are grossly unpopular too. Right? Like, it it is not super popular to give vote, you know, this power to fire tens or hundreds of thousands of federal employees, mostly to punish Democrats, which is also a part of their messaging. There is no messaging going on here. There's there's no, like, coordinated strategy here. Propter Malone: So I I mean, what you want during a shutdown is for the public to blame the other guys, right? It's very difficult to blame the other guys if you're sitting there rubbing your hands together gleefully over what you can do, but it's even weirder to blame the other guys if you're sitting there rubbing your hands gleefully over what you can do and not actually doing any of it. You're you're incurring the costs, or or you're incurring a lot of the costs without incurring the benefit. Ed: It's just like the the first day of the shutdown, which was four days ago now. Time isn't real. 50% of independents said that it was Trump and the Republicans' fault. Like, 33% of Republicans either blamed their own party or were unsure. I think, like, 25% of it was was unsure, but, like, let's be honest, most of that is I just don't wanna say the thing that makes my belly feels hurt. And so it's like, they all know. And the only way you could potentially get some of those Republicans back is to do your evil shit. The fact that they are not doing their evil shit suggests to me that they know they can't. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Right. There was also a point the other day where some Fox News reporter asked Mike Johnson something to the effect of, like, how is it that you're taking this so seriously when the White House is trolling everyone? And then Johnson had to come up with some terrible excuse that nobody buys. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I don't think they're trolling anybody. Thank you. Think they're being very serious about this. Propter Malone: We haven't gotten the full polling that we'll probably have by even by even by tomorrow, I would guess that we're gonna have another couple polls that were that were in the field, over over the weekend, on who the public is blaming, but the early polling indications are that it's, you know, as Ed said, that it's heavily Republicans that are that are taking the hit for this. That certainly strengthens the Democratic bargaining position. There are some signs that Democrats might be trying to work towards a resolution. Like I said earlier, the fact that three of them already jumped ship is not a great sign. Assuming Rand Paul gets back on side, that means they only need four more, and you can see the outlines of that between potentially the New Hampshire senators, who have been interested in keeping the government going previously. I think Jackie Rosen, the other Nevada senator, is almost certain to be on whatever whatever capitulation set comes together. The question in my mind is whether they can do it going around leadership, or whether they're gonna have to have leadership on board to break. And that requires insight into the into the workings of the Democratic Senate caucus that we don't have from the outside. Whether Chuck Schumer is still actively whipping against some kind of fold. Ed: I mean, like, Schumer either has to vote for ending the shutdown or he needs to resign in that situation. Right? Like, if they vote if they go against him, literally, what is his reason for existing? Propter Malone: I mean, because nobody else wants the job. Ed: I mean, yes. I understand that part. Propter Malone: Part of the honest answer. Like, I mean mean I mean, I've I've said my piece on on the situation that Chuck has put himself into here and elsewhere. But I think at this point, his highest and best use is essentially as a sin eater for the Democratic caucus. His job is to get us through the 2026 cycle with as many Democratic senators as possible, and there's not really a future career for him to worry about. He could theoretically run again in 2028, which is when he's up. He's he'd be at 78, I think 79 at the time that he'd at the time he'd start his next six year term, but he's blown a great deal of credibility with Democrats writ large. He might draw a primary challenger. It makes a lot of sense for him just to hand the baton off to somebody else at that point. Ed: No. Totally. And, like, I've I have agreed with you on on Chuck Schumer as as sin eater for a long time. I'm more worried about what it does, like, institutionally going forward if it becomes, hey, let's just tell the leadership to go screw when when we're getting ants in our pants. Propter Malone: You know, one of the things that remains true, and we talked about this last week, is that the stakes of this CR are not extraordinarily high. This is basically a queen CR. Yeah. No. I mean, just just in terms of being able to wield the whip over the caucus, yeah, that's a big deal. It's possible that leadership would try to position themselves to be part of a fold, so as not to be cut out of a fold. I would also say that, you know, we said they need four more, probably they need more than four more, because the screws are really gonna get put to whoever's the marginal vote, if they get to that point. And also, you know, if Rand Paul stays off doing his Rand Paul thing, they actually need eight rather than seven. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: And this is just for a CR. They have another actual funding build that they have to deal with immediately after this. Right? Propter Malone: Well, so the CR runs through, I wanna say it's mid November. In theory, what Democrats are are trying to bargain for is a re upping of the ACA subsidies, which is a significant pot of money that would be put towards helping people afford insurance on the exchanges. I think there's various reasons that that's been chosen as the ask, it's probably the easiest thing to hold the caucus on, which is its major virtue. But there's no way that Republicans are going to barter away ACA subsidies in exchange for a CR. They're they're just not gonna do that, because it's a it's it's more valuable than a seven week CR. So the straightforward scenario is not real to me. If you think that eventually Republicans are going to agree to the ACA subsidies, they're going to agree to that as part of an omnibus appropriations deal, that funds the government for much longer than seven weeks, probably through the next probably through the end of the next fiscal year, and also has a bunch of Republican priorities in it. It's going be a bipartisan deal, it's going pass with Democratic votes, both in the Senate and in the House, and that's going be the real deal. We can't get there from the position we're at right now. Negotiations on that bipartisan appropriation deal, if such a thing were to exist, haven't really been underway, at least in at least in the House. It may be that this is something that the Senate leads and that gets us across the finish line, but there's still a lot of work to be done on getting to anything that might be a mutually acceptable deal. And the time is getting kind of short. If we get to November, I think that's when the enrollment letters need to go out for insurance, and there's gonna be some blowback when people see the prices in their mailbox. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: So Propter, would you say that that means that we're in one battle after another? Propter Malone: I haven't seen it yet. Is it good? Ed: No. I I don't know. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I actually really wanna go see it, but I wanted to see what you guys had been up to other than, like, politics news lately. Ed: So one of the nice things is that this is pretty much all of the politics that I get aside from random things on Blue Sky. I've kind of cut most of it out of my life, Which means for a really interesting lens where where Propter is an uncomfortable amount of my my political analysis right now. That and people who quote tweet me on Blue Sky. But anyway, in addition to having my eyes lasered open, I have been playing Hades two until my hands hurt, which doesn't take that long because that is a very very difficult game. I just finished it at my just saw credits, I shouldn't say finished last night, and it's the first game that almost makes me understand the Hollow Knight people. So it's hard. I say that. Yes. But the difference is it's, like, not cheaply hard. If I can editorialize GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: a little bit. Propter Malone: If I may if I may speak for the insects, don't I don't feel Hollow Knight is cheaply hard either. I've been watching my elder son play through Silksong, which, you know, he's he's doing. It's kind of amazing. I I haven't seen him get frustrated at all, despite the fact that it is an extremely frustrating game in lots of places. He's just like, oh, okay. I guess I better go, you know, go go do this corpse run and then go fight that boss and die again. Ed: I think that there's a certain difference to that when when, you don't have a job. Because I definitely remember enjoying games like that a lot more when I, you know, had free time, parentheses, what's that? As opposed to the honestly, the reason Hades I mean, Hades one was like this. But like Hades two, which just came out of early access, and if you like video games, you should play it because it it has modes that are less punishingly evil. It really is is kind of, you know, you never don't move forward. Right? There is no way to get a strict loss. Even if you get wiped very early on, you have still gained some of the resources. It it it can incrementally make the next bit easier. I played Hades one, so I kinda cleared it pretty fast. But it's also just a much more specific game than Hades one was, and a lot of the games that have come out since that have been trying to be like it, where it makes you balance and and juggle a lot of different stuff. You have a number of different resources. It's a it has almost too many ways to play the game in terms of weapons you can use and and how it changes your move set and and the way the game operates really on a very fundamental level. But they also there's no punishment for trying. There's no punishment for experimenting. And, again, that you can always move forward really makes even playing for, like, half an hour a lot more rewarding than, I don't know, getting killed early on in I wasn't even gonna make a Hollow Knight joke here. I was thinking of of the the souls of the world where one bad afternoon, and you're gonna have a really bad week. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Low tech speedrun, enjoyer, what have you been up to as of late? Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Not a whole lot, honestly. I've been I've been watching my, football teams get their heads kicked in by, other trash ass teams. The Dolphins the Dolphins choked against the Panthers. So there you go, George. Congrats. Florida State, despite Mario Cristobal's best efforts to piss the game away, Florida State fell to the the evil Miami Hurricanes. I mean, the the Joker has to win sometimes too. You know? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: At some point, you should do a total ranking of what Florida teams are evil and, like, rank them by evilness. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Okay. So Miami number one. No. No. Florida Panthers are good. Twelfth. I mean, a lot of the Florida teams a lot of the Florida teams aren't evil. It's just, like, who cares? Like, no one cares about Jacksonville. No one cares about the Tampa Bay Lightning or the Bucks or whatever. No. Ed: People do care about the Tampa Bay Lightning. I made a joke about the Florida Panthers, and I retract it because I forgot the Lightning exist. That is a team of fucking divey Canadians wannabes from there are there's lore. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I can I can absolutely see why someone from the Northeast, or especially for the poor folks north of the border, why they would despise the Panthers and the lightning because Florida, as you all Ed: know kinda likes the Panthers these days? They're fine. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: But, like, the Panthers Ed: have historically been I mean, hockey is a game of complaining, GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: and they are masters. Propter Malone: Okay. Say more about I I I don't really understand that. Say more about that because because of Wait. This Wait. Before we Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: before we get there Ed: You do have your power rankings. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: You you do have you do have to know that the Panthers owner is probably the most MAGA chuttiest owner in the NHL. Propter Malone: That's gotta be stiff competition. Ed: Vincent Viola, which is which is the name of he he probably has lawyers. I'm not gonna finish that sentence. He's the chairman of the New York Mercantile Exchange. He definitely has lawyers. But, no, that that yeah. Fair. Fair enough. But I I have a feeling you'll find most of the, most of the league has certain amounts of, chud in their ownership group. So I I have trouble blaming them for that. But the thing about hockey or the NHL is that there are really two two and a half classes of players. There's the guys, and then there's the guys who scored lots of goals. And then they start whining when they don't score the goals, when somebody hits them. Basically, when someone else has the temerity to exist on the ice with them. The lightning had built their team for, I don't know, sixteen years. Sorry, Nashville. Around Steven Stamkos, who is not my favorite player. He definitely, he definitely doesn't feature in some Boston Bruins lore. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: But other than that stuff, I've just been doing, I am also playing Hollow Knight. I I do need to try Hades two at some point. I did not play Hades one. Ed: Oh, you should play Hades one first. I mean, you can play Hades two now. It it no. The cops are not going to come for you, but it's a good on prem. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I will play I will play Hades one when they update it for the Switch two, so that it runs better? Ed: It runs perfectly on Switch. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Oh, okay. Ed: Yeah. No. Like, I I played it on Switch first. It's great. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Well, unlike the rest of you, I get out of my house. So I Ed: have Because you're on a bus two and Propter Malone: a half hours GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: a day. Ed: That doesn't count. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I have been spending a lot of my time at my rehearsal studio where we've walked into a murder scene two weeks ago. Propter Malone: That's right. Hang on. Like like, literally a murder scene? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Literally, yes. A murder scene, and literally, yes, walked into. Like, walked out the front door from our rehearsal studio into a space that was taped off. Ed: Didn't one didn't one of you have a to get a ride home because the vehicle was in the tape? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We all had to. So there's only one of us that drives. That's my my guitarist, Dylan. And their car was in the taped off zone. So, Leo and I had to get a get a ride home. So that was interesting. Although, I have been in that space on and off across a couple different bands for almost ten years, and it's genuinely surprising to me that that's the first time it's happened. It's, like, right in industrial Portland, like, in a rough area. Propter Malone: They don't they don't let the bands practice in the nice places. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: But on the video game front, Ghost of Yotai so far is fantastic, and was an excellent distraction from low flying helicopters yesterday. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I've heard that's really good. Ed: I will get around to it in, like, twenty thirty six. But, like, when it comes up, I'll be excited. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: What's funny is it how is it on cut scenes? GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Oh, there are many. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Okay. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: What's interesting about it is that it is thoroughly a different game from Ghost of Tsushima. The entire story, all of the characters, the entire bent of it is very different while using kind of the same mechanics. And as we had fed helicopters circling our neighborhood low all night last night, I really kind of appreciated someone who goes through and kills thieves and kills scum without really any compunction whatsoever. Propter Malone: So we've got we've got a good governance fantasy here. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: I ask about I I I ask about the cut scenes, of course, because as you all know, I despise cut scenes in video games. I made the mistake of downloading that Death Stranding game. Ed: That's not fair. Death Stranding is not a video game. Death Stranding is an actual walking simulator, not what you know, not the pejorative walking simulator for delightful narrative epic. That game is about walking. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Everybody raves about that stupid game. I I downloaded it from PS Plus. I spent, like, three and a half hours of it. I think ten minutes was actual gameplay. Yeah. That's about right. The the most absurd thing I've ever seen in my life. The highlight of that game Ed: is when you get a ladder, and then you put it up, and then the ladder stays there. This game has an entire, like, weight distribution mechanic for the stuff you're carrying. It's genuinely a it it is the simulator version of QWOP. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Not not to mention, the first hour or so of the game now the one thing I will give him is the music is is great. But the first hour of the game is like, title screen stuff coming up. Like, you know, Hideo Kojima production, directed by Hideo Kojima, in association with Hideo Kojima. And there's, like, 9,000 of these things that pop up, and I'm like, oh my god. This guy has to be, like, the worst fucking boss to ever have to deal with. Ed: I think, like, genuinely, he actually seems like he's alright. Like, his most of his team jumped ship after Konami fired them all. Some of it, I think, is actually, like, an attempted irony because so there's lore there. When they all got fired, this entire team used to work for Konami Productions, which or Konami as, like, Kojima Productions, a a brand name for them, making the Metal Gear Solid games. And during the last one, they all got fired. Or at least Kojima, the the director slash author got fired. Oh, no. I'm doing the proper thing now. Seemingly, in retaliation, they put credits after every mission in that game. And it's like Hideo Kojima shows up in, like, five places on all of these credits. And you see these credits at least 30 times during when you play that game to completion. So, like, at some point, it kinda becomes an extended piss take, where, like, Death Stranding itself seems like an excuse to just hang out because he seems to genuinely be fond of Norman Reedus. Like, these somebody just keeps giving you money for this. I don't like I I am a Kojima enjoyer from the from the old school. Sega CD heads know. That game is that game's not a game. That game is just a way to to get Sony to pay for his junkets to The United States. And then some people buy it anyway. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: You are one of, like, five people who owned a Sega CD. You realize that. Right? Ed: That's that's true. I had a Saturn tip. I think we I think we have, prevailed upon the people's time enough this evening, gentlemen. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: Yeah. Fellas, it is very good to talk to you, and I'm very happy to be back. I would like to come back here in a couple of weeks, with another episode of Mailbag. So if you're listening to this, follow any of our Blue Sky accounts. We'll have instructions for submitting, questions for Mailbag again. Looking forward to joining these guys again and asking them uncomfortable questions that I'm not going to give them any heads up on. Ed: I'm terrified. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: Hell, yeah. Propter Malone: From DC, I'm Propter Malone. Lowtax Speedun Enjoyer: From Outer Florida, I'm low tech speed run enjoyer. GOLIKEHELLMACHINE: I am go like a hell machine from Antifa controlled Portland. Ed: And I'm Ed from Boston. And before we all go, I did just stumble across something that I figured I should share in its entirety, because it'll leave you with a a a good feeling for things. Quote, the second Trump revolution, like the first, is failing. It is failing because it deserves to fail. It is failing because it spends all its time patting itself on the back. It is failing because its true mission, which neither it nor, still less, its supporters understand, is still as far beyond its reach as algebra is beyond a cat. Because the vengeance meted out after its failure will dwarf the vengeance after twenty twenty, because the successes of the second revolution are so much greater than the first, insert fart noise here. I feel that I personally have to start thinking realistically about how to flee the country. Everyone else in a similar position should have a 2029 plan as well. And it is not even clear that it will wait until 2029. Losing the congress will instantly put the administration on the defensive. That was Curtis Yarvin. He's having a great time, and I hope you all have a wonderful week. Good night.