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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we are back on normally the show with normal it takes for when the news gets weird. I am Mary Catherine Ham.
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Speaker 2: I'm Carol Markowitz. How is your weekend, Mary Catherine?
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Speaker 1: I'm pretty good?
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Speaker 2: Was that what weekend?
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Speaker 1: I remember what I did? Actually, really, I just realized why my weekend disappeared from my head. And it's because I spent a large part of Sunday trying to tame my email in boxes.
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Speaker 2: Hmm.
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Speaker 1: That is bold, thankless, and I'm probably not very effective. Work so good after at least I feel medium. I feel overwhelmed. I feel that I'm going to pay some AI to do this for it.
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Speaker 2: Sorry, I'd love AI to do this for me.
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Speaker 3: I have no problem with that. Do you save a lot of things as newsh you.
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Speaker 1: I could give people an aneurysm just showing them the unread number for my Gmail.
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Speaker 2: Man, I don't think I want to know.
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Speaker 1: You don't want to know. It's it's tragic. I'm one of those people who, when the time comes, I must like just auto archive anything over a certain amount old yeah, and just just be like, Okay, that's that's gone. That we don't need to psychologically deal with that anymore.
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Speaker 2: Yes, totally.
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Speaker 3: I say things as new because I want to respond to them. It's again, basically, if I don't respond to you in the first five seconds, if you're writing to me, I am never responding to you.
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Speaker 1: That That is the way I am, except I don't have a system for reading out what I should respond to.
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Speaker 2: Right, It's just if I feel like it.
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Speaker 1: I need to do better. I think I need to do better, so I think I do too, But I'm working on.
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Speaker 2: I have other other goals ahead of this one. This is like down the list.
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Speaker 1: In the spirit of normally, I feel like this is quite relatable.
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Speaker 2: So yes, we are normal.
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Speaker 1: In fact, if someone could run on how to get me to get my email under control, I would listen. Right, Spencer Pratt, do you have ideas.
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Speaker 3: Their whole campaign is like make Mary Catherine read her emails.
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Speaker 1: It's not that catchy, but I would be. I'd be into it.
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Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
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Speaker 1: Well, all right, we'll see if it improves, do it.
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Speaker 2: Let's talk the news. There's some very exciting primary stuff happening on the right.
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Speaker 3: A few days ago, Bill Cassidy in Louisiana lost his seat. He lost the Louisiana Republican state Senate primary. He was very famously not a Trump supporter. Let's say, is that even fair?
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Speaker 2: I don't even know.
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Speaker 3: It's it's hard to say because Trump is such a unique situation.
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Speaker 1: And at times he at times he was, but he did vote to impeach at one point, so that was his big crossover, and then Trump went after him. And it's important to note in this one that the loss is pretty significant because it was a three way primary that went to a runoff with the top two and he finished third.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't make that runoff.
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Speaker 3: But also in twenty twenty four, Louisiana ended its jungle primary, which we'll get to in you know, other segments future episodes because we're so into this.
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Speaker 2: But that's what California.
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Speaker 3: Has right now, and they may eventually end it two because that's not going the way that they wanted. So after Louisiana ends its jungle primary, people were warning Cassidy that this might be a problem for you because it won't be you know, this larger coalition of voters. It'll just be Republican primary voters who are upset with him for things like voting to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial after January sixth.
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Speaker 1: Well, and the interesting thing about it, I do feel like Cassidy is kind of a perfect picture of like between a rock and a hard place where and I'm sympathetic to him because I'm somewhat sympathetic to the vote on January sixth, which is appalling what happened and his need to sort of lay down the law on that. And then also he tries to like go a little bit back and extend an olive branch to Maha by voting for RFK Junior, even though he was not a big fan, and it didn't seem to get him much from the President because the President endorsed Julia Letlowe, a representative from Louisiana. Yeah, who finished first in this.
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Speaker 2: That's right, in this primary.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, there was this there was this meme about whether Trump was going to be chill about you know, all the stuff that happened to him in the years between him leaving office in twenty after twenty twenty and all of his arrests and all that, and the meme was like, he was not actually chill. So so yeah, I think he's you know, he has the names in his book, and he's going down the list, and anybody who who is not on his side is not pro Trump, is anti Trump, And look, I'm gonna like some of that, and I'm not gonna like some other ones, which is pretty you know, pretty much where Trump and I are a lot of the time.
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Speaker 1: Well, in a primary space, that's gonna mean sometimes you're gonna have quite good people who shake out of these primaries, and sometimes you have quite bad people. I always use the example of in the Tea Party era. The Tea Party era gave us both Christine O'Donnell I'm not a Witch from Delaware, which lost a winnable Senate seat, and we also got Marco Rubio out of Floyd, who was not the establishment pick at that time.
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Speaker 2: No, he was not right, he was the conservative.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he was an insurgent conservative candidate. So sometimes you get really great people out of these shakeups, and sometimes you get very bad people out of these shakeups. So they're going to be different in different races.
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Speaker 2: Absolutely.
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Speaker 3: The biggest primary, of course, going on right now, is the Thomas Massey seat in Kentucky. He and Trump have obviously been at all for a long long time, and the massy primary is the day that this episode comes out, Tuesday, May nineteenth. It's interesting because Massy is trying to run as I look, I vote with Trump all the time? Why is he so mad at me? But they actually have quite a lot of disagreements, and I'm not sure that Massy can honestly say that he has been aligned with Trump. I mean, forget about even stuff like Ukraine and Israel. Massy's biggest issue has been Epstein, and he has certainly implied, though obviously never said that Trump has connections to Epstein and that he has you know, he's culpable in the Epstein situation.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems like something that might tick him off once again.
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Speaker 2: Trump not chill about that.
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Speaker 1: Massy is a guy who like much like the pole vibe. I'm like, hey, I like a guy who just like yes all the time, right, yeah, because I feel like in Congress I might be a person who basically votes know all the time. But then it gets a little off the rails in the America first, a little bit isolationist area, which is why partly why this has become like a really big fight, as it ends up being a proxy fight over foreign policy, which Frankly, the president is quite proud and should be of what he has been doing in foreign policy, as opposed to many who think he should just sit on his hands, right.
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Speaker 3: And I feel like the thing is is that in a past race, I would have been with Thomas Massey all the way, but he has become sort of a crank in the last few years. And really, I know people focus on Israel, but to me, it's not actually about Israel. It's about all the other weird stuff around him. Again, the obsession with Epstein just made no sense to me, and the continual pushing on it seemed to me like just an attack on Trump. The fact that role Kanna is his bff, on the Epstein stuff and just in general also a giant tell that this guy has gone off the rails. His opponent, Ed Gelren, seems extremely sane and normal and a typical conservative.
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Speaker 2: And I don't know.
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Speaker 3: The other thing is, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, if Massey loses his seed, it means foreign influence.
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Speaker 2: There's actually no foreign influence involved here.
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Speaker 3: If you want to talk about people who are supportive of Israel funding Massy's opponent, you could talk about people who oppose Israel funding Thomas mass of.
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Speaker 1: Course, yes, well, and actually Americans are allowed to have plenty of thoughts about foreign policy. They people approach it right. What's your prediction. I haven't watched this closely enough to have a prediction, I must say. I know there's a lot of money being spent.
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Speaker 2: But nice extensive house race in history, I.
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Speaker 1: Tend to think Normy usually wins out in a lot of these situations.
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Speaker 3: What we shall see, right, Massy has been very, very popular in his district for a long long time. Trump has tried to take him out before, with no success. This is the closest it's gotten previous primaries. Massy ran away with it. The fact that this is even tight is the question. I hear that undecided are breaking for Gallerin. But I also try not to look at this with any you know, when you when you want one particular side to win, you end up looking at just the things that favor that.
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Speaker 2: So I think Tomas Massey will be hard to beat.
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Speaker 3: But you know, I know what I would say. I hope it's decisive either way. I hope five points, you know, plus in either direction. So this isn't like you know this ongoing thing of like foreign influences in our government, blah blah blah.
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Speaker 1: By the way, one of the things that keeps somebody like Massy very popular in his district is that he stays in touch with them, and probably constituent services are probably like through the roof because people care about those personal interactions. So just a word to the wise for anyone running for Congress speaking of wanting people to win and putting your thumb on the scale. Shall we talk about California now, Carol. Carol and I previewed this to you guys, that there is a jungle primary in California, which means everybody from both sides runs together and the top two end up in a runoff. This is how it's been for a long time in California. The point of this was to lock out Republicans, but because Democrats have done pissed everybody off so much in California, now it is a possibility that to Republicans would come out of the jungle primary for governor to succeed Gavin Newsom. And Gavin Newsom has some thoughts about this here. He was being pretty frank about the idea that we're just not going to let that happen in a press conference.
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Speaker 4: You think Democrats will hold you accountable for standing by this principled neutrality by withholding your endorsement in this non possible scenario.
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Speaker 5: Where Yeah, look, my focus has been making sure that doesn't happen, and I've exercised not just a focus, but I've exercised through some action efforts to encourage that doesn't happen by making my case and will continue to make my case. I do not see that scenario taking place. I've said this before, Saul repeated. I don't anticipate this need to be the case. But there is a break the glass scenario, and there's many people that have a deep understanding of what it would look like if Democrats are locked out, and we're going to do everything to make sure that doesn't happen.
00:11:32
Speaker 1: A break the glass scenario because because the emergency is the people voicing that they don't want more Democrats at the top of the ticket.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very loving democracy, if that rhetorical anything, it's just they just love the people giving getting what they want. It's just absurd that why are like, is this not a huge story that Gavin Newsom said, there's a break the glass scenario.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: If the election does not go the way that he wants.
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Speaker 3: Why is that not front cover News and all these we love democracy outlets. We just want to defend our democracy.
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Speaker 1: Well, you see, Carol, Democrats destroy norms for the right reasons, and that is what's important. So when you're talking about Rocannell wanting to pack the court, that's for the right reasons. Now if herump took him up on it and said, yeah, let's expand right now, that would be for the wrong.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: I see, I see, thank you for that. I get it.
00:12:31
Speaker 1: So that's how democracy works and that's how you fight for it. Yeah. No, again, we shouted out Guy Benson last time, but he told me months ago He's like, they're not going to let that happen. They'll just make up new rules. I was like, oh, my naive self. I was like, oh, goddamn right, Yes they would, they would.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: Oh they so would.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: Do we have another quick you know, up and coming twenty twenty eight superstar who was down in Alabama this week talking about the redistricting fights and or yelling about them. Here's AOC in Alabama.
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Speaker 4: It is time for the North to pull up to the South. It is time for New York to pull up to Alabama.
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Speaker 2: It is time for all.
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Speaker 4: Of us to come to Georgia, to Louisiana, to Tennessee, to Mississippi.
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Speaker 2: And let them know exactly what they have.
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Speaker 4: Uncorked with this injustice. They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant that they just awakened, because it is not a coincidence.
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Speaker 2: And our whole country must.
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Speaker 4: Understand that it was not until voting rights were ratified in this country that we got the great society. Because when Black Americans have the right to vote and that vote is protected, our schools get funded. When voting rights are pret healthcare gets expanded. When voting rights are protected, our country moves forward. And Montgomery, that's what they're actually afraid of. They're afraid of us coming together. They're afraid of us protecting one another. Alabama is the crucible.
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Speaker 2: Georgia is the crucible.
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Speaker 4: Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi is the crucible.
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Speaker 2: So if you are not from here, it.
00:14:33
Speaker 4: Is time to pull up, because what they thought was the final blow is actually just the opening.
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Speaker 2: Silo, opening silo.
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Speaker 1: Huh, opening silo. Carol, she meant Selvo. She just doesn't She doesn't know words. I've said over and over again. She shouldn't be underestimated. People like her. She presents well. She has a lot of very bad ideas, I think, but that doesn't mean lefty populism can't sell a couple of things. When she says they need to pull up to the South, many many people already have. They left the Northeast and other places to come to the South because there's more economic opportunity here. You Yeah, when people vote, schools are funded, sure, and the places they actually work are in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee. So in some way, yes, it is a very important place where people learn to read across all of the economic levels of different race categories. So that's nice.
00:15:33
Speaker 3: It's also interesting that none of the people who hear all the dog whistles everywhere, ever, hear the dog whistles on the left. I mean, I don't know, pull up in my corner of Brooklyn would mean like come have a fight, and it wouldn't be it be like give a problem, come pull up, you know, And that's what she's saying, that New York should pull up on the South or the North, you know, like a been done maybe, but b you know, Emily's Nati had this great tweet where it was like Southerner's love when Northerners come and tell them what they should do.
00:16:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you misunderstand Kuralty. They would be pulling up and or fighting for the right reasons.
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Speaker 2: Right, So it's violence is okay when it's for the right reasons. Yeah.
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Speaker 3: She also had recently had this line where she said she was asked whether she wants to be president or whatever. She said, her goals are so much bigger than that, and people misunderstand that her goals are bigger. And to me that meant armed revolution. It meant like she wants to remake what America is and that's obviously not happening without some sort of armed conflict. We're not all going to be like, hey, let's take up AOC's crazy ideas.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: Right.
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Speaker 3: So I feel like she kind of, you know, winks at violence often and it just gets gets very excused.
00:16:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:59
Speaker 2: No.
00:16:59
Speaker 1: She lefties will do this all the time, where they sort of say, well, yes, I want to remake the entire system, that's why I'm here. Well, what's what's the point, right, people like Hassan Piker are dumb enough or frank enough to say it out loud, and they stand right next to him and also want the same thing. But we'll just straight up tell you like, oh, I don't know what you're talking about? Wow, what would you?
00:17:23
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:17:23
Speaker 1: I haven't suggested such a thing. It's like, really, how are you going to get widespread socialism all over this country without consent from a bunch of people who don't want it? That's how that's the problem with the communism. That is the.
00:17:36
Speaker 3: Problem with the communism. You you know, can't just give it to us without us wanting it.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: You got to throw him in jail at stuff. Oh goodness, all.
00:17:47
Speaker 3: Right, Well, we're going to take a short break and be right back with another segment of Normally. We are back on Normally where Kamala Harris, you know the same you will about her. She's staying in that conversation. I mean, it's not always a positive conversation for her, but she's in the mix. A few days ago, she was on a video call where she urged Democrats to have the conversations and lay out all ideas and there are no bad ideas let's roll that clip that Mary Catherine Ham is going to blind react to.
00:18:24
Speaker 2: She hasn't yet, she hasn't heard this one yet.
00:18:27
Speaker 1: You're gonna be a little afraid.
00:18:28
Speaker 6: This is a moment where there are no bad ideas, no bad idea brainstorm is what I'd like to call it. And in that no bad ideas brainstorm, we talk about what we need to do and think about doing around the electoral College. We talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court. We invite a conversation about multi members districts. We talk about Look that if we win the Senate, which we should and we will, then the Senate Judiciary Committee should have rules that they put in place so when these people come before as nominees to the Supreme Court and lie, that they are held to account and consequence, not just that somebody goes on cable news and says they lie, but that there are rules in place to actually penalize people for lying to a Senate Judiciary committee. That we agree that it is right to have ethics rules for Supreme Court justices, and let's put those in place. Let's talk about statehood for Puerto Rico and DC. These are the things I think that we've got to do. We've got to neutralize these red states from cheating, including blue states, expanding their maps and all of this, I think is, look, we gotta fight fire with fire. These folks are planning and win win.
00:20:00
Speaker 2: What'd you think? But those are some pretty good ideas.
00:20:03
Speaker 1: Huh, she's so very not good, She's so very natd proves it every time. I also think just the aesthetic of the like blurred background zoom in this like shoddy office that she's in is so twenty twenty and people don't want to feel twenty twenty again. So when you're doing that, that's what you're doing.
00:20:24
Speaker 3: And then she got a bunch of Michael Jackson comments about that video.
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Speaker 2: Did you kind of see it? Oh? No, she loves a little Michael jacksony.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think again, it's very twenty twenty to have your bad ideas brainstorm in public, in front of a camera and tweeting, which is what all of them did in twenty twenty, and it's turned out very badly for them. So I would suggest maybe the brainstorms should happen behind closed doors. But I kind of want to hear them, so I guess I do want to hear them. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't say that, but our friend Sarah Isker has said in the past that transparency or lack of transparency is actually how America came to be born, because all of the people inside Independence Hall had those discussions freely, without a bunch of people like shooting down all of that bad ideas. And it's like, there's something to be said for doing some editing before you come out with expand the court, multi member districts, new states. But again, I know that those are for the right reasons, destroying every depocracy.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's amazing that none of her no bad ideas include things like don't give free sex changes to illegal immigrant criminals in prison.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: That wasn't on the list.
00:21:45
Speaker 1: But that's too hot too.
00:21:47
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but create new states and add more Supreme Court justices, that's on the.
00:21:52
Speaker 2: No bad ideas. Those are already out there as their ideas.
00:21:56
Speaker 3: I don't even think that this is like something secretive or are weird. I think that those are the ideas that they're putting out very plainly.
00:22:06
Speaker 2: And I don't know this just don't know does that work for them?
00:22:11
Speaker 1: It just feels like a repeat, right, It's like mostly bad ideas that we're going to yell about, and then people are not connected to those ideas, nor do they want them. And then, as Grand Platner is trying to do in Maine, you tell everybody that the bad ideas that you guys definitely forced on the rest of us are a distraction from the things you actually want to be talking about. Yes, we're definitely distracting you with transports issues, right, instead of you having pushed them on us for a decade exactly. I just think it becomes hard for them to escape these terrible ideas when they're broadcasting them so enthusiastically.
00:22:49
Speaker 3: Very enthusiastically. Side note on Platner, did you see that he said that Susan Collins sent him to Iraq and then it turned out he signed up for the military years after she voted for Iraq?
00:23:03
Speaker 2: Or think he's going to get held to that.
00:23:06
Speaker 1: Or well in the tweets I was seeing no one was pointing it out. Thank goodness for community notes. Also, I think many many service members and marines would take issue with the idea of Marines without agency. When you sign up as a marine, not only after someone has voted, yeah, you authorize force in Iraq. But even if she hadn't you understand what you're signing up for. And that's part of the bravery and part of the honor of doing it. So this thing where he's like she sent me, I think is not reflective of how a lot of people in the armed forces think about this, even those who disagree with various missions.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: Sure, I mean, the fact is, if you sign up, you have a chance of being central war that you don't agree with. I mean, I think that's the reality of military service. That's why you're serving. It's it is a service.
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like the community, you know, that's a plus of our online time.
00:24:11
Speaker 3: All right, let's take a short break and come back with just like one more lighter topic for.
00:24:16
Speaker 2: The gang to listen to. Be right back.
00:24:22
Speaker 3: We are back on normally where there was a very interesting Wall Street Journal piece recently about the home record lawsuits rocking North Carolina. And as I opened this piece because I love stuff like this, I love reading about stuff like this, it was a face that I recognized, and that was weird. It was former Arizona Senator Kirsten Cinema, and she apparently had had an affair with a married man whose wife is now suing her.
00:24:51
Speaker 2: I don't know what do you think about this?
00:24:53
Speaker 1: First of all, yes, I was confused because she's not generally associated with North Carolina, and I was trying to yellow what's going on here. I'm generally sort of friendly towards cinema. Obviously, her conduct here not great. But I like her for having saved the filibuster from her crazy Democratic colleagues. And I liked her for the crazy clothes that she wore when she was a senator on the Hill, and appreciated that while she was getting stalked by all sorts of lefties into bathrooms to protest her behavior, she stood strong. So there's that on cinema. But I don't know that making cheating actionable in court is something we want to do. I haven't thought deeply about this. It seems like it could cause problems.
00:25:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm extremely anti cheating and find it to be just abhorrent. I actually think there should be more punishment for cheating in divorces.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: But it's actually appalling how little that matters proceed.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: It does not matter at all.
00:25:52
Speaker 3: Like you're the lawyer divorce laur will tell the couple, I'll tell you know, the aggrieved party, like, don't even talk about this makes no difference. But I don't know why the third party should get the lawsuit. I think that it should be again punishment about for the person who made the.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: Vow, Like, I'm quite certain you knew you were married, right, right, you.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Were aware of that fact.
00:26:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't see why the third party should be held accountable here when they were not party to the agreement in the first place.
00:26:28
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm not into it. I'm not into the home.
00:26:31
Speaker 1: Is this a civil proceeding, I assume is it in family court? It's hmmm, that's a good question, just as a It also seems a little bit iffy to be loading up any court docket with uh these kinds of Yeah, I think could be solved outside of court or mediated at least outside of court because but especially in family court, those dockets are so full anyway, right, you're going to add this to it. I don't know there's a resources issue.
00:27:03
Speaker 2: I you know, I can't see where it is.
00:27:06
Speaker 3: I can tell you that the new Mexico Supreme Court banished these lawsuits, but.
00:27:12
Speaker 2: I don't know what the.
00:27:14
Speaker 1: I mean it would have to be a civil instead of obviously, but I was wondering if it was family court.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: Right, I just you know this.
00:27:19
Speaker 3: I don't think that this Wallsha Journal article tells us what which kind of court it is.
00:27:24
Speaker 2: It just says court of law.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: No, it is a civil lawsuit seeking more than twenty five k in damages, and the state's rare alienation of affection law is what is at issue here.
00:27:40
Speaker 2: Right, But again, I don't you know it's.
00:27:43
Speaker 3: One of the trial lawyers in this piece says, take the classic case where you have a twenty eight year old, very attractive secretary who seduces a sixty.
00:27:50
Speaker 2: Five year old married man to get a better life. It is appropriate on those occasions where you have done harm to take action. No, it's not. The sixty five year old.
00:27:58
Speaker 3: Married man is fully aware that he has made a commitment to his spouse. The twenty eight year old, very attractive secretary is going to be stuck with a sixty five year old man.
00:28:07
Speaker 2: I think she's been punished enough.
00:28:11
Speaker 1: And not all appalling behavior needs to be having its tack court right, right.
00:28:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could just quite laugh at her like you could have been with a twenty eight year old Dufiz.
00:28:25
Speaker 1: It's a real thing, it really is.
00:28:28
Speaker 5: Well.
00:28:28
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on normally normally eras Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, we are back on normally the show with normal it takes for when the news gets weird. I am Mary Catherine Ham.
00:00:11
Speaker 2: I'm Carol Markowitz. How is your weekend, Mary Catherine?
00:00:15
Speaker 1: I'm pretty good?
00:00:17
Speaker 2: Was that what weekend?
00:00:21
Speaker 1: I remember what I did? Actually, really, I just realized why my weekend disappeared from my head. And it's because I spent a large part of Sunday trying to tame my email in boxes.
00:00:30
Speaker 2: Hmm.
00:00:32
Speaker 1: That is bold, thankless, and I'm probably not very effective. Work so good after at least I feel medium. I feel overwhelmed. I feel that I'm going to pay some AI to do this for it.
00:00:47
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'd love AI to do this for me.
00:00:50
Speaker 3: I have no problem with that. Do you save a lot of things as newsh you.
00:00:56
Speaker 1: I could give people an aneurysm just showing them the unread number for my Gmail.
00:01:01
Speaker 2: Man, I don't think I want to know.
00:01:03
Speaker 1: You don't want to know. It's it's tragic. I'm one of those people who, when the time comes, I must like just auto archive anything over a certain amount old yeah, and just just be like, Okay, that's that's gone. That we don't need to psychologically deal with that anymore.
00:01:21
Speaker 2: Yes, totally.
00:01:22
Speaker 3: I say things as new because I want to respond to them. It's again, basically, if I don't respond to you in the first five seconds, if you're writing to me, I am never responding to you.
00:01:33
Speaker 1: That That is the way I am, except I don't have a system for reading out what I should respond to.
00:01:39
Speaker 2: Right, It's just if I feel like it.
00:01:42
Speaker 1: I need to do better. I think I need to do better, so I think I do too, But I'm working on.
00:01:46
Speaker 2: I have other other goals ahead of this one. This is like down the list.
00:01:51
Speaker 1: In the spirit of normally, I feel like this is quite relatable.
00:01:53
Speaker 2: So yes, we are normal.
00:01:56
Speaker 1: In fact, if someone could run on how to get me to get my email under control, I would listen. Right, Spencer Pratt, do you have ideas.
00:02:05
Speaker 3: Their whole campaign is like make Mary Catherine read her emails.
00:02:10
Speaker 1: It's not that catchy, but I would be. I'd be into it.
00:02:16
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
00:02:17
Speaker 1: Well, all right, we'll see if it improves, do it.
00:02:21
Speaker 2: Let's talk the news. There's some very exciting primary stuff happening on the right.
00:02:28
Speaker 3: A few days ago, Bill Cassidy in Louisiana lost his seat. He lost the Louisiana Republican state Senate primary. He was very famously not a Trump supporter. Let's say, is that even fair?
00:02:44
Speaker 2: I don't even know.
00:02:45
Speaker 3: It's it's hard to say because Trump is such a unique situation.
00:02:50
Speaker 1: And at times he at times he was, but he did vote to impeach at one point, so that was his big crossover, and then Trump went after him. And it's important to note in this one that the loss is pretty significant because it was a three way primary that went to a runoff with the top two and he finished third.
00:03:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't make that runoff.
00:03:10
Speaker 3: But also in twenty twenty four, Louisiana ended its jungle primary, which we'll get to in you know, other segments future episodes because we're so into this.
00:03:22
Speaker 2: But that's what California.
00:03:23
Speaker 3: Has right now, and they may eventually end it two because that's not going the way that they wanted. So after Louisiana ends its jungle primary, people were warning Cassidy that this might be a problem for you because it won't be you know, this larger coalition of voters. It'll just be Republican primary voters who are upset with him for things like voting to convict Trump in the second impeachment trial after January sixth.
00:03:50
Speaker 1: Well, and the interesting thing about it, I do feel like Cassidy is kind of a perfect picture of like between a rock and a hard place where and I'm sympathetic to him because I'm somewhat sympathetic to the vote on January sixth, which is appalling what happened and his need to sort of lay down the law on that. And then also he tries to like go a little bit back and extend an olive branch to Maha by voting for RFK Junior, even though he was not a big fan, and it didn't seem to get him much from the President because the President endorsed Julia Letlowe, a representative from Louisiana. Yeah, who finished first in this.
00:04:30
Speaker 2: That's right, in this primary.
00:04:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was this there was this meme about whether Trump was going to be chill about you know, all the stuff that happened to him in the years between him leaving office in twenty after twenty twenty and all of his arrests and all that, and the meme was like, he was not actually chill. So so yeah, I think he's you know, he has the names in his book, and he's going down the list, and anybody who who is not on his side is not pro Trump, is anti Trump, And look, I'm gonna like some of that, and I'm not gonna like some other ones, which is pretty you know, pretty much where Trump and I are a lot of the time.
00:05:13
Speaker 1: Well, in a primary space, that's gonna mean sometimes you're gonna have quite good people who shake out of these primaries, and sometimes you have quite bad people. I always use the example of in the Tea Party era. The Tea Party era gave us both Christine O'Donnell I'm not a Witch from Delaware, which lost a winnable Senate seat, and we also got Marco Rubio out of Floyd, who was not the establishment pick at that time.
00:05:37
Speaker 2: No, he was not right, he was the conservative.
00:05:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was an insurgent conservative candidate. So sometimes you get really great people out of these shakeups, and sometimes you get very bad people out of these shakeups. So they're going to be different in different races.
00:05:49
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
00:05:50
Speaker 3: The biggest primary, of course, going on right now, is the Thomas Massey seat in Kentucky. He and Trump have obviously been at all for a long long time, and the massy primary is the day that this episode comes out, Tuesday, May nineteenth. It's interesting because Massy is trying to run as I look, I vote with Trump all the time? Why is he so mad at me? But they actually have quite a lot of disagreements, and I'm not sure that Massy can honestly say that he has been aligned with Trump. I mean, forget about even stuff like Ukraine and Israel. Massy's biggest issue has been Epstein, and he has certainly implied, though obviously never said that Trump has connections to Epstein and that he has you know, he's culpable in the Epstein situation.
00:06:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems like something that might tick him off once again.
00:06:47
Speaker 2: Trump not chill about that.
00:06:50
Speaker 1: Massy is a guy who like much like the pole vibe. I'm like, hey, I like a guy who just like yes all the time, right, yeah, because I feel like in Congress I might be a person who basically votes know all the time. But then it gets a little off the rails in the America first, a little bit isolationist area, which is why partly why this has become like a really big fight, as it ends up being a proxy fight over foreign policy, which Frankly, the president is quite proud and should be of what he has been doing in foreign policy, as opposed to many who think he should just sit on his hands, right.
00:07:28
Speaker 3: And I feel like the thing is is that in a past race, I would have been with Thomas Massey all the way, but he has become sort of a crank in the last few years. And really, I know people focus on Israel, but to me, it's not actually about Israel. It's about all the other weird stuff around him. Again, the obsession with Epstein just made no sense to me, and the continual pushing on it seemed to me like just an attack on Trump. The fact that role Kanna is his bff, on the Epstein stuff and just in general also a giant tell that this guy has gone off the rails. His opponent, Ed Gelren, seems extremely sane and normal and a typical conservative.
00:08:11
Speaker 2: And I don't know.
00:08:13
Speaker 3: The other thing is, you know, a lot of people are like, oh, if Massey loses his seed, it means foreign influence.
00:08:18
Speaker 2: There's actually no foreign influence involved here.
00:08:20
Speaker 3: If you want to talk about people who are supportive of Israel funding Massy's opponent, you could talk about people who oppose Israel funding Thomas mass of.
00:08:29
Speaker 1: Course, yes, well, and actually Americans are allowed to have plenty of thoughts about foreign policy. They people approach it right. What's your prediction. I haven't watched this closely enough to have a prediction, I must say. I know there's a lot of money being spent.
00:08:46
Speaker 2: But nice extensive house race in history, I.
00:08:49
Speaker 1: Tend to think Normy usually wins out in a lot of these situations.
00:08:53
Speaker 3: What we shall see, right, Massy has been very, very popular in his district for a long long time. Trump has tried to take him out before, with no success. This is the closest it's gotten previous primaries. Massy ran away with it. The fact that this is even tight is the question. I hear that undecided are breaking for Gallerin. But I also try not to look at this with any you know, when you when you want one particular side to win, you end up looking at just the things that favor that.
00:09:26
Speaker 2: So I think Tomas Massey will be hard to beat.
00:09:29
Speaker 3: But you know, I know what I would say. I hope it's decisive either way. I hope five points, you know, plus in either direction. So this isn't like you know this ongoing thing of like foreign influences in our government, blah blah blah.
00:09:46
Speaker 1: By the way, one of the things that keeps somebody like Massy very popular in his district is that he stays in touch with them, and probably constituent services are probably like through the roof because people care about those personal interactions. So just a word to the wise for anyone running for Congress speaking of wanting people to win and putting your thumb on the scale. Shall we talk about California now, Carol. Carol and I previewed this to you guys, that there is a jungle primary in California, which means everybody from both sides runs together and the top two end up in a runoff. This is how it's been for a long time in California. The point of this was to lock out Republicans, but because Democrats have done pissed everybody off so much in California, now it is a possibility that to Republicans would come out of the jungle primary for governor to succeed Gavin Newsom. And Gavin Newsom has some thoughts about this here. He was being pretty frank about the idea that we're just not going to let that happen in a press conference.
00:10:46
Speaker 4: You think Democrats will hold you accountable for standing by this principled neutrality by withholding your endorsement in this non possible scenario.
00:10:54
Speaker 5: Where Yeah, look, my focus has been making sure that doesn't happen, and I've exercised not just a focus, but I've exercised through some action efforts to encourage that doesn't happen by making my case and will continue to make my case. I do not see that scenario taking place. I've said this before, Saul repeated. I don't anticipate this need to be the case. But there is a break the glass scenario, and there's many people that have a deep understanding of what it would look like if Democrats are locked out, and we're going to do everything to make sure that doesn't happen.
00:11:32
Speaker 1: A break the glass scenario because because the emergency is the people voicing that they don't want more Democrats at the top of the ticket.
00:11:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very loving democracy, if that rhetorical anything, it's just they just love the people giving getting what they want. It's just absurd that why are like, is this not a huge story that Gavin Newsom said, there's a break the glass scenario.
00:12:00
Speaker 2: If the election does not go the way that he wants.
00:12:02
Speaker 3: Why is that not front cover News and all these we love democracy outlets. We just want to defend our democracy.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: Well, you see, Carol, Democrats destroy norms for the right reasons, and that is what's important. So when you're talking about Rocannell wanting to pack the court, that's for the right reasons. Now if herump took him up on it and said, yeah, let's expand right now, that would be for the wrong.
00:12:29
Speaker 2: I see, I see, thank you for that. I get it.
00:12:31
Speaker 1: So that's how democracy works and that's how you fight for it. Yeah. No, again, we shouted out Guy Benson last time, but he told me months ago He's like, they're not going to let that happen. They'll just make up new rules. I was like, oh, my naive self. I was like, oh, goddamn right, Yes they would, they would.
00:12:53
Speaker 2: Oh they so would.
00:12:56
Speaker 1: Do we have another quick you know, up and coming twenty twenty eight superstar who was down in Alabama this week talking about the redistricting fights and or yelling about them. Here's AOC in Alabama.
00:13:10
Speaker 4: It is time for the North to pull up to the South. It is time for New York to pull up to Alabama.
00:13:20
Speaker 2: It is time for all.
00:13:22
Speaker 4: Of us to come to Georgia, to Louisiana, to Tennessee, to Mississippi.
00:13:28
Speaker 2: And let them know exactly what they have.
00:13:31
Speaker 4: Uncorked with this injustice. They think they can draw us out of power. They do not know the sleeping giant that they just awakened, because it is not a coincidence.
00:13:46
Speaker 2: And our whole country must.
00:13:47
Speaker 4: Understand that it was not until voting rights were ratified in this country that we got the great society. Because when Black Americans have the right to vote and that vote is protected, our schools get funded. When voting rights are pret healthcare gets expanded. When voting rights are protected, our country moves forward. And Montgomery, that's what they're actually afraid of. They're afraid of us coming together. They're afraid of us protecting one another. Alabama is the crucible.
00:14:26
Speaker 2: Georgia is the crucible.
00:14:27
Speaker 4: Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi is the crucible.
00:14:31
Speaker 2: So if you are not from here, it.
00:14:33
Speaker 4: Is time to pull up, because what they thought was the final blow is actually just the opening.
00:14:41
Speaker 2: Silo, opening silo.
00:14:43
Speaker 1: Huh, opening silo. Carol, she meant Selvo. She just doesn't She doesn't know words. I've said over and over again. She shouldn't be underestimated. People like her. She presents well. She has a lot of very bad ideas, I think, but that doesn't mean lefty populism can't sell a couple of things. When she says they need to pull up to the South, many many people already have. They left the Northeast and other places to come to the South because there's more economic opportunity here. You Yeah, when people vote, schools are funded, sure, and the places they actually work are in Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee. So in some way, yes, it is a very important place where people learn to read across all of the economic levels of different race categories. So that's nice.
00:15:33
Speaker 3: It's also interesting that none of the people who hear all the dog whistles everywhere, ever, hear the dog whistles on the left. I mean, I don't know, pull up in my corner of Brooklyn would mean like come have a fight, and it wouldn't be it be like give a problem, come pull up, you know, And that's what she's saying, that New York should pull up on the South or the North, you know, like a been done maybe, but b you know, Emily's Nati had this great tweet where it was like Southerner's love when Northerners come and tell them what they should do.
00:16:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you misunderstand Kuralty. They would be pulling up and or fighting for the right reasons.
00:16:16
Speaker 2: Right, So it's violence is okay when it's for the right reasons. Yeah.
00:16:21
Speaker 3: She also had recently had this line where she said she was asked whether she wants to be president or whatever. She said, her goals are so much bigger than that, and people misunderstand that her goals are bigger. And to me that meant armed revolution. It meant like she wants to remake what America is and that's obviously not happening without some sort of armed conflict. We're not all going to be like, hey, let's take up AOC's crazy ideas.
00:16:49
Speaker 1: Right.
00:16:50
Speaker 3: So I feel like she kind of, you know, winks at violence often and it just gets gets very excused.
00:16:59
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:16:59
Speaker 2: No.
00:16:59
Speaker 1: She lefties will do this all the time, where they sort of say, well, yes, I want to remake the entire system, that's why I'm here. Well, what's what's the point, right, people like Hassan Piker are dumb enough or frank enough to say it out loud, and they stand right next to him and also want the same thing. But we'll just straight up tell you like, oh, I don't know what you're talking about? Wow, what would you?
00:17:23
Speaker 2: Yeah?
00:17:23
Speaker 1: I haven't suggested such a thing. It's like, really, how are you going to get widespread socialism all over this country without consent from a bunch of people who don't want it? That's how that's the problem with the communism. That is the.
00:17:36
Speaker 3: Problem with the communism. You you know, can't just give it to us without us wanting it.
00:17:43
Speaker 1: You got to throw him in jail at stuff. Oh goodness, all.
00:17:47
Speaker 3: Right, Well, we're going to take a short break and be right back with another segment of Normally. We are back on Normally where Kamala Harris, you know the same you will about her. She's staying in that conversation. I mean, it's not always a positive conversation for her, but she's in the mix. A few days ago, she was on a video call where she urged Democrats to have the conversations and lay out all ideas and there are no bad ideas let's roll that clip that Mary Catherine Ham is going to blind react to.
00:18:24
Speaker 2: She hasn't yet, she hasn't heard this one yet.
00:18:27
Speaker 1: You're gonna be a little afraid.
00:18:28
Speaker 6: This is a moment where there are no bad ideas, no bad idea brainstorm is what I'd like to call it. And in that no bad ideas brainstorm, we talk about what we need to do and think about doing around the electoral College. We talk about the idea of Supreme Court reform, which includes expanding the Supreme Court. We invite a conversation about multi members districts. We talk about Look that if we win the Senate, which we should and we will, then the Senate Judiciary Committee should have rules that they put in place so when these people come before as nominees to the Supreme Court and lie, that they are held to account and consequence, not just that somebody goes on cable news and says they lie, but that there are rules in place to actually penalize people for lying to a Senate Judiciary committee. That we agree that it is right to have ethics rules for Supreme Court justices, and let's put those in place. Let's talk about statehood for Puerto Rico and DC. These are the things I think that we've got to do. We've got to neutralize these red states from cheating, including blue states, expanding their maps and all of this, I think is, look, we gotta fight fire with fire. These folks are planning and win win.
00:20:00
Speaker 2: What'd you think? But those are some pretty good ideas.
00:20:03
Speaker 1: Huh, she's so very not good, She's so very natd proves it every time. I also think just the aesthetic of the like blurred background zoom in this like shoddy office that she's in is so twenty twenty and people don't want to feel twenty twenty again. So when you're doing that, that's what you're doing.
00:20:24
Speaker 3: And then she got a bunch of Michael Jackson comments about that video.
00:20:29
Speaker 2: Did you kind of see it? Oh? No, she loves a little Michael jacksony.
00:20:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think again, it's very twenty twenty to have your bad ideas brainstorm in public, in front of a camera and tweeting, which is what all of them did in twenty twenty, and it's turned out very badly for them. So I would suggest maybe the brainstorms should happen behind closed doors. But I kind of want to hear them, so I guess I do want to hear them. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't say that, but our friend Sarah Isker has said in the past that transparency or lack of transparency is actually how America came to be born, because all of the people inside Independence Hall had those discussions freely, without a bunch of people like shooting down all of that bad ideas. And it's like, there's something to be said for doing some editing before you come out with expand the court, multi member districts, new states. But again, I know that those are for the right reasons, destroying every depocracy.
00:21:30
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it's amazing that none of her no bad ideas include things like don't give free sex changes to illegal immigrant criminals in prison.
00:21:44
Speaker 2: That wasn't on the list.
00:21:45
Speaker 1: But that's too hot too.
00:21:47
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but create new states and add more Supreme Court justices, that's on the.
00:21:52
Speaker 2: No bad ideas. Those are already out there as their ideas.
00:21:56
Speaker 3: I don't even think that this is like something secretive or are weird. I think that those are the ideas that they're putting out very plainly.
00:22:06
Speaker 2: And I don't know this just don't know does that work for them?
00:22:11
Speaker 1: It just feels like a repeat, right, It's like mostly bad ideas that we're going to yell about, and then people are not connected to those ideas, nor do they want them. And then, as Grand Platner is trying to do in Maine, you tell everybody that the bad ideas that you guys definitely forced on the rest of us are a distraction from the things you actually want to be talking about. Yes, we're definitely distracting you with transports issues, right, instead of you having pushed them on us for a decade exactly. I just think it becomes hard for them to escape these terrible ideas when they're broadcasting them so enthusiastically.
00:22:49
Speaker 3: Very enthusiastically. Side note on Platner, did you see that he said that Susan Collins sent him to Iraq and then it turned out he signed up for the military years after she voted for Iraq?
00:23:03
Speaker 2: Or think he's going to get held to that.
00:23:06
Speaker 1: Or well in the tweets I was seeing no one was pointing it out. Thank goodness for community notes. Also, I think many many service members and marines would take issue with the idea of Marines without agency. When you sign up as a marine, not only after someone has voted, yeah, you authorize force in Iraq. But even if she hadn't you understand what you're signing up for. And that's part of the bravery and part of the honor of doing it. So this thing where he's like she sent me, I think is not reflective of how a lot of people in the armed forces think about this, even those who disagree with various missions.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: Sure, I mean, the fact is, if you sign up, you have a chance of being central war that you don't agree with. I mean, I think that's the reality of military service. That's why you're serving. It's it is a service.
00:24:05
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like the community, you know, that's a plus of our online time.
00:24:11
Speaker 3: All right, let's take a short break and come back with just like one more lighter topic for.
00:24:16
Speaker 2: The gang to listen to. Be right back.
00:24:22
Speaker 3: We are back on normally where there was a very interesting Wall Street Journal piece recently about the home record lawsuits rocking North Carolina. And as I opened this piece because I love stuff like this, I love reading about stuff like this, it was a face that I recognized, and that was weird. It was former Arizona Senator Kirsten Cinema, and she apparently had had an affair with a married man whose wife is now suing her.
00:24:51
Speaker 2: I don't know what do you think about this?
00:24:53
Speaker 1: First of all, yes, I was confused because she's not generally associated with North Carolina, and I was trying to yellow what's going on here. I'm generally sort of friendly towards cinema. Obviously, her conduct here not great. But I like her for having saved the filibuster from her crazy Democratic colleagues. And I liked her for the crazy clothes that she wore when she was a senator on the Hill, and appreciated that while she was getting stalked by all sorts of lefties into bathrooms to protest her behavior, she stood strong. So there's that on cinema. But I don't know that making cheating actionable in court is something we want to do. I haven't thought deeply about this. It seems like it could cause problems.
00:25:35
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm extremely anti cheating and find it to be just abhorrent. I actually think there should be more punishment for cheating in divorces.
00:25:46
Speaker 1: But it's actually appalling how little that matters proceed.
00:25:51
Speaker 2: It does not matter at all.
00:25:52
Speaker 3: Like you're the lawyer divorce laur will tell the couple, I'll tell you know, the aggrieved party, like, don't even talk about this makes no difference. But I don't know why the third party should get the lawsuit. I think that it should be again punishment about for the person who made the.
00:26:11
Speaker 1: Vow, Like, I'm quite certain you knew you were married, right, right, you.
00:26:15
Speaker 2: Were aware of that fact.
00:26:18
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't see why the third party should be held accountable here when they were not party to the agreement in the first place.
00:26:28
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm not into it. I'm not into the home.
00:26:31
Speaker 1: Is this a civil proceeding, I assume is it in family court? It's hmmm, that's a good question, just as a It also seems a little bit iffy to be loading up any court docket with uh these kinds of Yeah, I think could be solved outside of court or mediated at least outside of court because but especially in family court, those dockets are so full anyway, right, you're going to add this to it. I don't know there's a resources issue.
00:27:03
Speaker 2: I you know, I can't see where it is.
00:27:06
Speaker 3: I can tell you that the new Mexico Supreme Court banished these lawsuits, but.
00:27:12
Speaker 2: I don't know what the.
00:27:14
Speaker 1: I mean it would have to be a civil instead of obviously, but I was wondering if it was family court.
00:27:18
Speaker 2: Right, I just you know this.
00:27:19
Speaker 3: I don't think that this Wallsha Journal article tells us what which kind of court it is.
00:27:24
Speaker 2: It just says court of law.
00:27:28
Speaker 1: No, it is a civil lawsuit seeking more than twenty five k in damages, and the state's rare alienation of affection law is what is at issue here.
00:27:40
Speaker 2: Right, But again, I don't you know it's.
00:27:43
Speaker 3: One of the trial lawyers in this piece says, take the classic case where you have a twenty eight year old, very attractive secretary who seduces a sixty.
00:27:50
Speaker 2: Five year old married man to get a better life. It is appropriate on those occasions where you have done harm to take action. No, it's not. The sixty five year old.
00:27:58
Speaker 3: Married man is fully aware that he has made a commitment to his spouse. The twenty eight year old, very attractive secretary is going to be stuck with a sixty five year old man.
00:28:07
Speaker 2: I think she's been punished enough.
00:28:11
Speaker 1: And not all appalling behavior needs to be having its tack court right, right.
00:28:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, we could just quite laugh at her like you could have been with a twenty eight year old Dufiz.
00:28:25
Speaker 1: It's a real thing, it really is.
00:28:28
Speaker 5: Well.
00:28:28
Speaker 3: Thanks for joining us on normally normally eras Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening, and when things get weird, act normally
