Words Matter: Gerrymandermaxxing: Can Dems Still Win in November?

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“This is Deep State Radio, coming to you direct from our super-secret studio in the third”

sub-basement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C.

and from other undisclosed locations across America and around the world.

Hello and welcome to D.S.R's Words Matter. I'm David Rothko, and I'm joined this week as every week with the font of all Washington, D.C. Wisdom, the person to whom everyone goes when they want to understand the unfathomable, and since we live in unfathomable times, he's especially in demand. But we have norm or, in steam here today, as we do every week, to help you directly.

How are you doing norm? Well, as I guess it would be appropriate, as the Chinese say, "I'm living an interesting times." Well, look, let's be honest with people. We don't have to give out your personal details.

You're moving out of D.S.R. You have given up. You are saying, "I want D.C. behind me. I cannot be part of this corruption anymore, is that correct?" What's correct is that at some point in the foreseeable future, living in four stories without an elevator, which has been great with the stairs, at some point it becomes not so great

with the stairs, so one story living, but you know, that's moving out of D.C. but who knows what other climbs might occur given the state of the nation.

“My son has German citizenship, I mean, to need you passport, who knows?”

I got one of those. Well, you know, I have a new passport, too. But you know, having a German passport, the idea of Jews fleeing fascism to Germany is just so deliciously. I would.

It's looked my dad, Fred Austria, 36 relatives were killed for 50 years, all the Austrian government gave him was a $40 or 40 euro a month reparations payment. So that seemed kind of, you know, one euro per month for debt relative. That seemed kind of bad. And then a couple of years ago, they changed the law and they said, "If you can prove that

they not see his brand new out of Austria, you can have an Austrian passport, like, but well, that's a you. I could use it. My daughters could use it."

“And we went and we got it, and you know what it has gotten me so far?”

It was a shorter waiting lines at airports. That's not too bad. I will just tell you this about Austria. My wife's family, many of them, came from Austria. We went to Vienna some years ago and went to the cemetery.

We had the location of her relatives, great stones. And we got to the cemetery, which is a huge city cemetery. And there's a Christian part and a Jewish part. So you walk through the Christian part, beautifully landscape flowers everywhere, the grass mode, perfectly.

You get to the Jewish part. The gravestones turned over some of them broken weeds everywhere, an utter catastrophe.

It took us three hours and finally found the gravestone, uh, turned it upright.

And as we were leaving, we saw the caretaker who said, "Isn't this a beautiful cemetery?" We said, "Yeah, this part's beautiful. What about that part?" He said, "Well, you don't understand. The relatives come here and they take care of their part of the cemetery, but nobody goes

there." And I said, "Well, let me think. Why do you think that might be?"

So that would explain the 40 euros above the tour, which is more than they were spending

to take care of a fucking cemetery. Oh, my God. Well, I'll try to work on that the next time I go on. It's a new gay in Austria, New York. And well, it's, and look, let's talk her tart and...

And vener sits on, and vener sits on, yeah, no. But let's be honest, Norman. Once this is, we can sort of ease our way in the policy here, there is almost no place in Europe right now that doesn't work better than the U.S. works.

“And I remember, I was in the Clinton administration.”

I was in a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House with a very prominent government official, later became a cabinet secretary, later had some problems because of his association with Jeffrey Epstein. So I won't mention his name, but this individual said, "Your up is a museum." Nothing new is coming out of Europe.

And yet, if I'm in Europe, I get healthcare free. If I'm in Europe, or, and I'm one of the go to school, free. If I'm in Europe, my retirement is taken care of. I know that if my company disappears, I will be retrained and taken care of until I find something new.

And in all the countries that offer all of those things, particularly in Northern Europe, the budgets are balanced, they're more fiscally responsible. And somehow I figure, feel like they figured it out. And if you bring up any of these things in the United States, it's kind of the third rail. Do you think there's any chance the OS is going to sort of get with the program that the rest

of the OECD has gotten with and start providing basic things, including housing and food

“and clean water to its citizens, the way other civilized countries do?”

So, the answer is that, in the United States, the United States is going to get the same.

And in the United States, the United States is going to get the same. And in the United States, the United States is going to get the same. And in the United States, the United States is going to get the same. And in the United States, the United States is going to get the same. And in the United States, the United States is going to get the same.

The answer to that, to borrow a phrase from George W. Bush, are slim to none and slim just left the building. So, great. I'm leaving. I'm going to go get that passport out of the safe. Anyway, go on.

“They also have much longer life expectancy than us, which is a change from the past.”

And of course, policy affects whether what your life expectancy might be. They have better infant mortality rates. Now, of course, ours, including maternal mortality rates, are going up because of the Dobbs decision. And the way it's been implemented by so-called pro-life people, who are actually pro-deft people. Death people in Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, and related countries.

And while it's true that their GDP is lower than ours, one of the reasons is that they actually give people five or six weeks of paid leave each year. They have easier lives than we do. You don't have people because of all the reasons you mentioned forced to work two or three jobs. They don't have medical bankruptcies. And while the Affordable Care Act almost eliminated medical bankruptcies. Now they're back because, of course, Trump and the Republicans in Congress refuse to extend subsidies.

And people are going off of any.

I saw an estimate this week that 10 million people will leave healthcare because of the subsidies being removed.

And of course, the cost to the society, I mean beyond the cost to individuals, the cost to the society are far greater than those subsidies. Why? Well, among other things, if people get seriously ill and they don't have health insurance, they're going to emerge in students. Emergency rooms are going to become vastly overcrowded. The hospitals are not going to be able to pay. rural hospitals are already closing, we're already seeing it happen in a lot of other places.

So, you know, these policies are insane. And of course, there are more.

“The idea that we are going to eliminate all wind energy by not only paying people off to keep from opening wind farms that are on the verge of being opened.”

That you are going to punish people who already have wind, which is a huge source of electricity at a time when with artificial intelligence, electricity needs are going up dramatically. So, costs are going to go up.

It is a set of policies so self-defeating that you've got to believe that G, as Trump is visiting here, and as being briefed, things like this.

In a country that has gone leaps and bounds ahead of everybody else with solar and wind energy, is saying, I can't believe how great this is for us. And I would add one other thing, Doug Bergham. I was just going to bring him up because there was this hearing this week, so go ahead. You know, my belief is that Bergham is not a dumb guy. He's not like Howard Nufflic, and I didn't mispronounce it accidentally. I call Lutnik Nufflic, and he, I guess, has to take the party line, and the party line is, well, with wind and solar, if there's no wind or when it goes dark, they're not usable.

And we had a Democrat in Congress saying, I'd like to let the witness and everybody else know about it, remarkable breakthrough.

“It's called the battery. And of course, Doug Bergham knows full well that solar and wind energy are stored, and you use them when you need to use them.”

It's not just that you have to have it bright sunlight for solar, or with heavy winds for the wind energy. But he says this stupid stuff, because that's the dos you have to pay to stay in the Trump cabinet. And it is just so, I mean, pathetic is the nicest thing you could say about it. A radius in, you know, unethical immoral, those are all terms that you could use.

“To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know, there's no better place than right here on the DSR network.”

And there's no better way to enjoy the DSR network than by becoming a member. Members enjoying ad-free listening experience access to our discord community exclusive content, early episode access, and more use code DSR 26 for 25% off discount on sign up at the DSR network and dot com. That's code DSR 26 at the DSR network and dot com slash buy. Thank you and enjoy the show. Yeah, and I encourage everybody to use those terms, but with an emphasis on immoral, because, you know, people may not remember all the way back into 2024 when Donald Trump was caught on tape in a room full of oil and gas executives saying give me a billion dollars, and I will give you whatever you want.

And so what he has done is he has pursued policies that are insane in terms of our energy needs insane in terms of the environment insane in terms of our competitiveness with places like China on green energy and other things and insane in terms of the acquisition or focus on fossil fuels, including in Venezuela country that has a lot of oil, but is very, very environmentally and friendly oil. But somebody is benefiting from the kidnapping we didn't Venezuela, we're not sure who it is, but it's not the American people, it's pals of Donald Trump.

And now with this war in Iran, the price of oil is going up, who benefits Vladimir Putin has benefited oil producing nation and of course China producing all the green energy, particularly when we're out of that business, we're against EVs. China is having a huge boom as a result of all this as he indicated with regard to Xi and that visit, and you know, nobody is drawing the line back and say, yeah, he said give him a billion bucks, they gave him a billion bucks, and he is now essentially blown up US energy policy transportation policy environmental policy, national security policy, just to satisfy the super greedy characters at these oil and gas companies who are making.

Yes, indeed, and just as we've been discussing China and the visit of Trump with Xi, just a little thought experiment, I'll ask your opinion of this, because the first thing she brought up, not surprisingly was Taiwan saying that that was the most important issue to them. And that if we screwed around with them, it could mean war, and so here's my question.

“Imagine if, I don't know, one on one setting, nobody else around, and Xi says to Trump, you know what?”

I got ten billion dollars, I can give you an along with that, an unlimited number of Trump golf courses and Trump towers in Taipei, which we will rename, and maybe we'll even rename it Trump City.

If you just leave us alone when it comes to Taiwan, what do you think Trump would say? It's probably throwing a factory that makes golden Trump statues, and you've got yourself a deal, because, you know, as I have said about these meetings, most US presidents go over there prepared, he's not. They go over there with experts, he doesn't have experts, and they go over there to advance US China relations, but that is not what Donald Trump is doing.

Donald Trump goes on trips like this to advance Trump China relations, or Trump and his buddies, China relations, and not relationship issues that deal with all the rest of us.

“And so do I think Trump for the right deal would look away on Taiwan? I do, but I'll tell you something else. I think Trump will look away anyway, because I don't think he cares.”

And I think he has adopted a view around the world of spheres of influence, in which he says, "Well, why doesn't Russia get to have what Russia wants? We'll take what we want," and the Chinese, if they want to get something in their own neighborhood, they can go and do that. And I think she knows that. And frankly, I think it's more likely that she, you know, forge as ahead with this, and there is no war that the perception that Trump is there, the perception that there are Americans like Trump out there, make the Taiwanese more inclined to negotiate, because they know they're not going to get back.

I think Trump weakens them in that regard. And you know, meanwhile Trump, you know, he made some bizarre statement this week that they love him in Venezuela, and I was thinking maybe his next job could be president of Venezuela. But he wants to make it the 51st state. This week, the 51st state, which, I mean, I'm all for there to be more states. And I don't think he understands fully the consequences of that.

“But I don't know that I'd start with Venezuela. Let me ask you one other thing, because I think it's really the big story of the week.”

And, and it's a little diffuse, right? We had the Supreme Court blowing up the voting rights act. We had the Supreme Court saying, hey, buddies, go ahead. district, jury, mander, don't let race figure in it, but if politics figures in it, it's perfectly okay. And so now you have this mad rush across red states to go and get rid of democratic districts. And by the way, thereby, disenfranchised millions and millions of Americans mostly people of color and possibly pick up for the Republicans eight, ten seats. So I have two

questions for you. One, how outraged are you? And two is eight ten seats going to be enough to give the Republicans continued control of the House, come the elections in November.

So first, I am apoplectic over this. And a part of it is watching John Roberts say,

"Yeah, I'm very worried people think we're political and we're not political. We just decide the law and I honestly threw up a little in my mouth over a number of years this court. When there were illegal congressional districts, Alabama being a good example, the court acknowledging that the districts were illegal. But saying, you know, we're four months, five months, six months from an election. That's too close to change them. Now they not only

wait for more than a month until there was an opportunity for appeals,

“a little lying saying that the defendants didn't express an interest in a peeling which was”

a flat out lie, one of many that he told us he also lied about data in the crux of what was in that decision. But in the middle of an election, they allowed Louisiana with 49,000 votes that had already been cast to throw out those votes. And in the middle of an election, change all of their districts. So this is beyond outrageous. And it is unethical. It reflects a Supreme Court in which there are six partisan hacks who operate

90% of the time when it's a decision that would benefit the Republican party. They opt to benefit the Republican party. Now there are plenty of decisions that don't affect the party's directly one way or the other. Some of those, they might even decide unanimously or nearly unanimously. They're usually very narrow decisions. Every once in a while, they might step up

“and give a slap on the wrist to Donald Trump. They did it with tariffs, although I think they did it”

because other Republicans were telling them, save us, save the Republican party from these crazy tariffs. But otherwise, it's a entirely a political court filled with hacks. Now, having said that, this time around, I'm assuming we're going to have a wave. I don't see the world getting better before we move to an election. And I actually think they may not be able to get all of those seats. They were able to succeed because four partisans on the Virginia Supreme Court said,

yeah, go ahead and have this election. Then said, oops, for technical reasons, the election doesn't allow you to do what happened, which is to allow this redistricting plan. And they kept in place an old redistricting plan that had four Republican incumbents, but two of them could lose. So we may not see it quite as as bad. It's at least possible in one of these southern states that are making these changes, that they will dilute a Republican seat enough that maybe it'll

“enable a victory for Democrats. But I think the way will be strong enough that it can overcome that.”

The problem is you're not going to have the robust majority that you might have otherwise.

What I worry about more than that is at least in a couple of these instances the redistricting that they're doing, eliminating black districts and creating problems for Democrats, aren't going to take effect till 2028. And the problem that I see here is the turnout in a midterm election is lower. In this instance, I think we're going to get a group of enraged Democrats and independence who want to change. And probably some Republicans will vote for Democrats because

it's not taking on Trump directly. It's creating a check in balance. You get to a presidential election and I'm afraid the tribal instincts take over. And that's when we could see a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate and very possibly the House flipping back, which would

be terrible. As we're not going to get anywhere to basically repair the country, move in the

direction of eliminating some of the authoritarian and fascistic elements that have taken place restoring reasonable and for your elections and all of that if we don't have full control. Folks, I really want you to understand what you've got going here. And there are two ways to look at. One is Norm is a visionary who looks at it. The other is Norm is deeply neurotic and he can't even enjoy the potential victory in November because he's already worried about the loss two years

from November. I mean, Norm, we haven't even had the victory yet. You know, allow yourself like a moment. Now, there is a problem. And that is if the Democrats win the House and maybe the Senate, although for some reason I feel that's a little less likely these days. But if the Democrats win the

House, the problem is the people who will be in charge of the Democrats in the House are Democrats.

I will tell you, David, that last night, I was at a wonderful event. A group called Democracy

Defenders. In this case, it was Democracy Defenders Action inaugurated their first award

for a defender of Democracy and the winner was Nancy Pelosi and they're going to name the award

“the Pelosi, which I think is wonderful. Now, I happen to be an enormous Pelosi fan for a whole set of”

reasons. Some because I do believe having been around the House for 55 plus years, having watch speakers come and go, having studied the history that Nancy Pelosi is the strongest and best speaker in the history of the House. Well, there is Mike Johnson. Yeah, there is. And there was Danny Haster and there was Kevin McCarthy. So we've had a rose gallery as well. But it was a celebration and enormously significant figure. And if I could put Nancy Pelosi in a time machine

and take her back and then bring her forward 20 years younger to recapture the leadership, I'd be very happy. As it is, my sense from talking to a number of members who are there

is that finally, the Democratic leaders in the House, a King Jeffrey's Catherine Clark, are getting

it. And whether that carries through with what they will need to do if and when they take over remains to be seen. But I'm feeling a little better about that now. Are the Democrats is vindictive enough? No. And you know, there's still this instinct that when they go low, we go high, that we just have to be better than them. And that we cannot fight fire and

“chakenary with our own fire and chakenary, that's to restore not to destroy. And I think that's”

obviously been proven to be a false premise. And I worry about that. And it seems to be the

two big events in US history, the American Revolution and the Civil War, involved the people we thought were the heroes of American history, standing up and actually fighting, risking lives, inviting mayhem in order to defend what matter. I think that's exactly right. And what I, you know, in some ways, I'm beginning to worry less about the leaders and more about some of the rank and file. Because if you take, wait, wait, you're dropping out of the John Fetterman fan club?

You know, the tragic thing about Fetterman is that he's not up next time. But the one thing you want on the agenda when the power is there is to dramatically change the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is the root of a large share of operates. Not the only one, obviously. And we need to do many things, as you and I have talked about before. You know, it starts with enlarging the court to 13. It's then goes to term limits and the term limits are going to have to take effect

involving current justices. Let's say you have a 13 member court and you have either a 13 or 26-year

“term, single term, retroactive. You make it retroactive. Yes, that's what you'd have to do to make it work.”

And actually, if you don't implement it that way, it becomes extremely complicated and takes decades before it actually works because you have to wait for people to leave and then you have to time the seats so that you can have it. You know, the idea of term limits is among other things that if you did it with nine justices and you have a single 18-year term. That means if you were starting from scratch, every president gets two vacancies. We're now we operate with this

ridiculous, actuarial roulette that a president and a four-year term might get four vacancies to fill and another one might get zero. And that, especially given where we know the court is and where the presidents are in terms of the kinds of people they pick, you need to change that but then

whether you want to continue to have a Supreme Court that can open on matters involving elections or personal freedoms or things of that sort. But, you know, we're talking dramatic changes. It is not court packing. They engaged in court packing. When they block Merrick Garland from even having a hearing almost a year remaining in the Obama presidency and then jammed through Neil Gorsuch and then in some ways even more outrageous after what happened with Merrick Garland

and that seed. They confirmed Amy Coney Barrett eight days before the 2020 election. Not waiting for the election, which is what they claimed was important with the Garland. And of course they lie. But, you know, we need to obviously thanks for how we deal with the court and and the idea that we get would get charged with court packing for really writing the wrong with what they did in packing the court is ridiculous. But some Democrats are going to respond to

that. Yeah. And they can just get over it. Get over it. You know, the stop with worrying about

“what names here. What was the duration you thought of term limits? What what is it you're going for?”

If I think what I would actually do if we had a 13 number court, there's a 13 year term. Well, let me just tell you something. Clarence Thomas is 34 years. Yeah. John Roberts is 21 years. Alito is 20. So to my or 16 and Kagan 15. Now, Gorsuch is 9. So Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett and Jackson are not going to be under these things. But if you're in any of those ranges,

you're going to get 1, 2, 3 Republicans off the court and you're going to get two Democrats off the court. Yeah. But just I'm just saying that so people understand what's involved here. But, you know,

it's funny. I was I'd lunch today with a friend who is a never trumper was in the Bush administration

is now actively never trump. And and he said, look, I just don't think the Democrats are going to be as vindictive as I would be, you know, trump is stealing money. Yeah. He's family is stealing money. You know, that we've made progress somehow this week norm. And you know, we don't know we can't

“go on and on here. You've important things to do. But I do want to, you know, and this week as I”

try to every week with you flipping out. And so let me, let me offer you one more story. And that is we do seem to be closer than the to the DOJ cutting a deal with Donald Trump to pay him potentially billions of dollars as a settlement for his grievance that the IRS leaked his taxes. And that

part of that settlement would involve all the audits of him being called off and him never being

able to be audited again, which is like literally he could take a dump truck back it up to Fort Knox put gold bullion into it driveway. It's that level of larceny. And I was just wondering if you have any feelings about it or you don't care one way or no. Seems reasonable to me. You know, the level of open corruption is astonishing. And there are two elements to this thing. But, you know, we have the one element which you mentioned. And that is taxpayer money.

It's our money being siphoned off into his personal treasury. And that is

disgusting outrageous, it's beyond, almost beyond beliefs. But there's the second kind of corruption

that is at least as worrisome. And that is selling out American interests in return for money

“or favors. The point that I think is the broader point on all of this is there were”

Qatar Aircraft. There are other deals. There was just this week announced to deal for a Trump tower in Georgia. There are other discussions for Trump real estate, Trump golf courses in Saudi

is pushing for more drone production. There is no area where you can look at how the current

“US government is operating. Where you don't see primarily, first and foremost, a transactional”

perspective. And frankly, if that's the perspective of the US government, other countries end up having to deal with that, whether they like it or not. And the Chinese know that and the other remember last time that he went to China right before he went to China, they were issuing trademarks to Ivanka Trump's company. This is a pattern. And frankly, the failure of the Biden administration to prosecute through what happened in the first term, the failure of the Justice Department before

it was taken over and turned into Trump's lawyers to prosecute. All of these things have led to this expanding and expanding and expanding and expanding. And if we want to end corruption in the United States government, all of these cases need to be examined. And where laws were broken, people need

“to be held to account. And I think that's an extremely important point. But I did want to put it.”

I want to make sure all our disclaimers are there. So everybody is listening to our other podcast

knows where we come out on all that. And to the UAE, I would just say, never mind what I said.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's the opposite of the point. I'm trying to, I know. I know. I know. I know. I, you know, I, I, I, I, I just want to us, always to be completely transparent. So people can always trust what they hear here. Before we go, as long as you've got into some of these other things, let's also note that Ron DeSantis created alligator alcatraz and spent now close to a billion dollars from the Florida emergency fund, which is Florida taxpayer money to do so. With the expectation, if not the promise, that the

federal government would reimburse Florida. And of course, as he is want to do with every other individual contractor or others, Trump has stiffed, not just to Santa's, but the state of Florida. Well, yeah, hey, now our norm, have you gotten your Trump phone yet? Yes, right. Now, along with that, we know that an extremely valuable piece of property owned by Miami, date, community college, which is actually one of the most prominent community colleges in the country,

worth hundreds of millions of dollars or tens of millions at least, was sold to Trump for ten dollars to build his future presidential library. And which Trump has now said, yeah, we're going to put a hotel there and probably shops. So there will be a Trump hotel making money for Donald Trump on a piece of property given to him by the community college who's board is dominating it by dissentess, of course. And he's poking everybody yet again.

No, no, I'm the Palm Beach Airport, which is now named out. We've learned it was not just because Palm Beach out of the goodness of their hearts, decided to not just rename it, but give him exclusive rights for merchandising in and out of the airport, but that they were threatened, the board that made this decision, that may have what ensued for them and the county if they didn't do this.

“So it's a, it's a Trump crime family. I mean, that's what we're saying. And they got it,”

they have a deal as part of the old thing that they can sell merchandise that says Palm Beach, Donald Trump on Beach Airport. And Donald Trump, Junior's company controls the rights to sell that. Yeah. So they're allowed to merchandise off of that. And there's a hundred other examples. The phone example, it seems to be evolving because they said they were going to now send some of them out. The phones that they're going to send out are made in China.

They're one generation older than the main phone. They say that they're old junk phones,

but they just didn't want it to be that it was a complete scam where they stole $60 million.

So, you know, there is a lot to study here if you're teaching a graduate level course in crime families and Marceny. In any of it, thank you very much, Norm. Thank you very much, everybody. And we'll be back next week for more true crime and other things that are happening in Washington,

we just didn't need to know with Rush Doshi of the CFR. We did our deep state radio podcast

“with Rosa Brooks and Ali Wine, both on the China trip. And so there are good deep”

dives that are quite different from what you're hearing elsewhere and I encourage you to go and

go and miss to it. Until next time, thanks very much everybody. Bye bye.