The Matt Walsh Show - August 31, 2021


Ep. 787 - Pledging Allegiance To The Pride Flag Of The United States Of LGBT


Episode Stats

Length

57 minutes

Words per Minute

169.8606

Word Count

9,756

Sentence Count

730

Misogynist Sentences

14

Hate Speech Sentences

15


Summary

The head of the L.A. Teachers Union admits that she doesn t care about kids learning academic subjects. She just wants them to be properly indoctrinated. Also, the CDC has expanded its reach beyond diseases and is now fighting the scourge of gun violence. What does that tell us? And can you now lose custody of your kids if you're not vaccinated? Plus, in our daily cancellation, a firefighter in Virginia is under investigation for making an allegedly racist symbol with his fingers. The story only gets dumber and dumber from there.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Today on The Matt Wall Show, the head of the L.A. Teachers Union admits that she doesn't care about kids learning academic subjects.
00:00:06.220 She just wants them to be properly indoctrinated.
00:00:08.460 She may be the one saying that out loud, but that's how the public school system has operated for decades.
00:00:13.020 Also, the CDC has expanded its reach beyond diseases and is now fighting the scourge of gun violence.
00:00:19.720 What does that tell us?
00:00:20.420 And can you now lose custody of your kids if you're not vaccinated?
00:00:25.080 That seems to be the way things are trending.
00:00:26.920 Plus, in our daily cancellation, a firefighter in Virginia is under investigation for making an allegedly racist symbol with his fingers.
00:00:34.620 The story only gets dumber and dumber from there.
00:00:36.860 We'll talk about it today and much more on The Matt Wall Show.
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00:02:21.840 You know, I'm not sure if I've ever said this before, but I'm not a big fan of the public school system.
00:02:27.160 Maybe I've mentioned that.
00:02:28.300 Perhaps you've picked up on that in the past.
00:02:30.360 I may have mentioned it a time or two on second thought.
00:02:32.880 And for good reason.
00:02:33.740 There are about 70 million kids in our country, give or take.
00:02:37.060 And 50 million of them are in public school.
00:02:40.400 So there's no other institution that claims this kind of a hold on this many kids.
00:02:45.380 Almost all of them.
00:02:46.080 70% at least.
00:02:47.760 As a society, we have trusted this institution to mold entire generations of Americans.
00:02:54.320 To determine what they believe, what they think, what values they hold.
00:02:58.940 We've really handed our country over to it, over to this institution, the public school system, and said, here, you know, you make our country into whatever you want it to be.
00:03:08.820 This is totally up to you.
00:03:10.140 And we're suffering the consequences of that decision.
00:03:12.520 But even now, many Americans like to imagine that they send their kids to public school only for academic enrichment and training, only to learn the facts about, you know, math and history and so on.
00:03:26.440 But the system considers facts to be secondary to its primary goal, which is to instill values.
00:03:33.020 It's not so much to tell kids about the world, but to control how the kids see the world and how they feel about what they see.
00:03:43.420 The indoctrination, the point here is the indoctrination is not a byproduct.
00:03:48.400 It's not a side effect.
00:03:50.560 But it is indeed the point of the system.
00:03:53.740 It's why the system exists.
00:03:55.200 So that the state can form the younger generations into whatever shape it prefers.
00:04:00.740 It's not a conspiracy theory.
00:04:01.760 That is why public school came into existence, for that reason.
00:04:05.720 So that the state would have control over the next generation and over molding the country.
00:04:12.540 And if you listen very closely to the people who run the system, you'll hear them admitting to this fact.
00:04:20.140 And actually, you don't even have to listen that closely because they practically will shout it into a bullhorn at this point.
00:04:24.820 So take this, for example.
00:04:25.980 This is a profile in L.A. magazine of Cecily Maillard-Cruz, who is the head of the Los Angeles Teachers Union.
00:04:33.280 Here's the second paragraph.
00:04:35.240 Like I said, shouting into a bullhorn.
00:04:37.500 You don't have to listen even that closely.
00:04:38.780 But this is what the second paragraph of that profile says.
00:04:41.000 And right away, she lives up to her reputation.
00:04:54.680 After settling into a swivel chair and slowly removing her zebra print face mask, the 47-year-old lightning rod for controversy calmly sets her hands on the table and begins issuing a series of incendiary statements that almost seem aerodynamically designed to grab headlines and infuriate critics.
00:05:11.440 Like this one, quote, there is no such thing as learning loss, she responds when asked how about her insistence on keeping L.A. schools mostly locked down over the last year and a half and how that may have impacted the city's 600,000 kindergarten through 12th grade students.
00:05:27.660 Quote, our kids didn't lose anything.
00:05:29.960 It's OK that our babies may not have learned all their timetables.
00:05:33.300 They learned resilience.
00:05:34.440 They learned survival.
00:05:35.920 They learned critical thinking skills.
00:05:38.020 They know the difference between a riot and a protest.
00:05:40.460 They know the words insurrection and coup.
00:05:44.600 She even went so far as to suggest darkly that learning loss is a fake crisis marketed by shadowy purveyors of clinical and classroom assessments.
00:05:54.100 Yeah, it's a learning loss is a conspiracy theory, she's saying.
00:05:57.680 Now, she's right in one sense that there is no reason why kids should suffer learning loss just because public school has been shut down.
00:06:08.120 So that teachers can have an 18-month paid vacation.
00:06:11.440 Some parents picked up homeschooling during that time and discovered that their kids were learning more than they ever had before.
00:06:19.540 Real learning begins when you take your kids out of the system.
00:06:23.740 That's when the best learning, the real learning happens.
00:06:25.440 But unfortunately, many parents didn't replace public school with homeschool.
00:06:29.520 They instead plopped their kids down in front of computers for seven hours a day, hoping that their eight- and nine-year-olds would learn from Zoom classes.
00:06:38.140 Just put their, you know, put your nine-year-old in a Zoom meeting all day and hope that he picks something up.
00:06:41.980 And they didn't pick anything up.
00:06:43.120 Nothing absorbed.
00:06:43.720 Because nobody can really learn that way, or very few people can, and especially kids can't.
00:06:50.400 For many kids, therefore, public school was replaced with nothing.
00:06:54.780 Which, admittedly, still might be an improvement.
00:06:59.120 But that's not the point that Ms. Cruz is trying to make.
00:07:02.560 She's saying that it doesn't matter if our kids, our babies, she says.
00:07:08.080 And she does mean our, as in, like, mine.
00:07:10.560 But it doesn't matter if they didn't learn academic subjects.
00:07:15.740 Because, she says, they were still exposed to the right political messages.
00:07:20.500 They learned that when BLM burns down a city block, it's a protest.
00:07:25.260 But when people with MAGA hats on riot, it's an insurrection.
00:07:29.320 And as far as she's concerned, you know, if that's all they learned in 18 months, well, it's good enough.
00:07:35.820 Right-wing bad, left-wing good.
00:07:38.480 That, after all, is the main thing.
00:07:40.420 I mean, it's the only thing she wants kids to learn through 12 years of grade school.
00:07:45.400 In fact, the kids who learned the difference between a riot and a protest, quote-unquote,
00:07:50.240 are probably ready to graduate as far as she's concerned.
00:07:52.980 No need for them to finish fourth grade.
00:07:54.800 Just send them all the way through.
00:07:56.820 Because for her, again, the indoctrination is the point.
00:08:00.200 Here's another example if you need it.
00:08:01.620 A teacher named Kristen Pitson posted some videos, which have since gone viral,
00:08:06.600 where she brags about how she took the American flag down in her classroom
00:08:11.440 and now tells her students to pledge allegiance to the pride flag.
00:08:14.820 Now, this teacher, after intense backlash from the public, has apparently been removed from the class,
00:08:21.240 though they're not saying she was fired permanently.
00:08:24.240 They're just saying she's not teaching in the classroom right now.
00:08:26.820 And keep in mind, and that's good, you know, that she's not in the classroom.
00:08:30.860 She should be fired.
00:08:31.620 This is a time when someone should be canceled.
00:08:36.220 And there are a lot of people on the left reacting to this and saying,
00:08:38.260 oh, I thought you guys were against cancel culture.
00:08:41.020 No, you misunderstand.
00:08:42.660 I'm not against people suffering consequences, the correct consequences for bad actions.
00:08:49.700 But that's not what cancel culture is.
00:08:52.860 But keep in mind, she was, quote-unquote, canceled, maybe.
00:08:56.680 Maybe, but only because she admitted to this and posted it to TikTok.
00:09:02.660 And then only because the account libs of TikTok on Twitter took it and put it on Twitter,
00:09:08.060 and then it went viral.
00:09:09.300 That's the only reason she's suffering consequences.
00:09:11.700 If she had just kept this to herself or just posted it to her own TikTok page
00:09:14.980 and it hadn't gone anywhere else, she would still be in the classroom right now.
00:09:19.940 So that's all the backgrounds.
00:09:21.840 And here's the video.
00:09:23.340 Watch this.
00:09:24.100 Okay, so during third period, we have announcements,
00:09:26.060 and they do the Pledge of Allegiance.
00:09:28.020 I always tell my class, stand if you feel like it.
00:09:31.580 Don't stand if you feel like it.
00:09:33.200 Say the words if you want.
00:09:34.500 Don't have to say the words.
00:09:35.880 So my class decided to stand but not say the words.
00:09:38.980 Totally fine.
00:09:40.100 Except for the fact that my room does not have a flag.
00:09:43.400 It used to be there.
00:09:45.200 But I took it down during COVID because it made me uncomfortable.
00:09:50.320 And I packed it away, and I don't know where.
00:09:53.720 And I haven't found it yet.
00:09:54.860 But my kid today goes, hey, it's kind of weird that we just stand and then, you know, we say it to nothing.
00:10:02.500 And I'm like, oh, well, you know, I got to find it.
00:10:05.240 Like, I'm working on it.
00:10:06.120 I got you.
00:10:06.720 In the meantime, I tell this kid, we do have a flag in the class that you can pledge your allegiance to.
00:10:17.680 And he, like, looks around and he goes, oh, that one?
00:10:20.780 Hilarious.
00:10:25.520 The American flag makes her uncomfortable.
00:10:28.420 Doesn't bother explaining why.
00:10:29.800 We're just supposed to understand why it makes her uncomfortable.
00:10:32.260 And, hey, if you're uncomfortable with the American flag, you don't like this country, well, join the club with all the other people that are in your boat.
00:10:41.240 And maybe actually get on a boat and go somewhere else.
00:10:46.180 In fact, I hear Kabul is nice this time of year.
00:10:48.620 Why don't you go there?
00:10:49.260 If you hate America so much that you're uncomfortable around the flag, this kind of sentiment would be inconceivable in almost any other country in the world, especially in the non-Western world, to have someone professing to be uncomfortable around their own nation's flag.
00:11:13.440 But we not only have people who feel that way here, but they're teaching students.
00:11:20.860 And that wasn't the only video.
00:11:21.900 There's another one, too.
00:11:22.540 Here she is talking about all the pride flags in her classroom.
00:11:25.000 And she's got about a million of them, it seems.
00:11:26.820 But here's that.
00:11:28.460 It's Pride Month.
00:11:32.820 I'll never not be awkward.
00:11:34.620 That's fun for me.
00:11:35.740 Happy Pride, everyone.
00:11:37.340 It's June 1st, the start of Pride Month.
00:11:40.760 Here's what I got going in my classroom.
00:11:42.080 I got these flags from Target in, like, the dollar bin, so that's amazing.
00:11:48.900 Um, they didn't have all of them in the collection that they came out with, so I got all the ones that they had.
00:11:53.500 As well as the inclusive pride flag.
00:11:59.440 I pledge allegiance to the queers.
00:12:01.760 I also got a really big pride inclusive flag.
00:12:08.140 Um, I need to put it up still, but it's gonna go up there.
00:12:11.080 And I need, like, a ladder.
00:12:14.260 So that's gonna come later.
00:12:16.020 But it's here, yay!
00:12:17.220 So, I love you all very much.
00:12:19.260 For the people who are out, for the people who aren't out.
00:12:21.580 You're appreciated.
00:12:22.600 You're loved.
00:12:23.040 You are enough.
00:12:24.000 I support you.
00:12:25.000 I got you.
00:12:25.720 Now, think about the culture in that school and among the faculty that made Kristen Pitson think that, uh, it was, it was okay not only to do what she did, but to brag about it on the internet.
00:12:39.820 Think about what's happening in that school.
00:12:41.520 Think about what's happening in the faculty lounges.
00:12:43.340 What kind of conversations are going on?
00:12:46.620 That she was able to do that.
00:12:48.300 And, and, of course, it, it, again, if she hadn't posted this to TikTok, and then if it hadn't been picked up on Twitter and gone viral, there'd be no consequences at all.
00:12:55.760 And if it wasn't for the American flag, but the fact that she's draping her entire classroom in pride flags, that's not a problem at all.
00:13:04.200 She wouldn't get in any trouble for that.
00:13:06.980 Even though we're told we got to keep religion and school separate.
00:13:11.380 Separate church and state.
00:13:14.200 And this is, that's her church.
00:13:15.780 That's her, that's a, her religious symbol.
00:13:19.420 That is analogous to, only the sense of being a religion is analogous, but it is like.
00:13:26.380 A Christian teacher putting the crucifix up in the public school classroom.
00:13:30.980 I guarantee if they did that, there'd be a lot of problems.
00:13:33.280 They'd get sued for it, and they'd get fired.
00:13:36.020 Why? Because it's a religious symbol.
00:13:39.640 Now, does the Constitution actually forbid people at public school teachers from expressing their religious views?
00:13:48.200 I don't actually think it does.
00:13:49.900 But that's the precedent.
00:13:51.020 That's what the left always says.
00:13:52.080 And the pride flags are your religious devotion.
00:13:57.300 That is your, that is your church.
00:13:59.340 That's your religion.
00:14:00.100 That you're hanging in the classroom.
00:14:01.700 But that would be okay.
00:14:03.480 If not for all the other bits and the fact that it went viral.
00:14:08.300 This, we always have to remind ourselves when we see this.
00:14:11.580 This is not an aberration.
00:14:12.840 This is not an exception.
00:14:14.340 This is the point of the public school system.
00:14:17.780 Things aren't going wrong here.
00:14:19.300 This is the public school system doing exactly what it's supposed to do.
00:14:23.480 Which is why, you know what I'm going to say to end this off.
00:14:26.420 To end this.
00:14:27.700 Get your kids out of that system.
00:14:31.200 Now, let's get to our five headlines.
00:14:38.560 Now, I got a word from our very good friends over at 40 Days for Life.
00:14:42.840 An organization that does incredible work in the country and for the unborn.
00:14:46.740 You know, it's really easy to get kind of nervous for a lot of people when the topic of abortion comes up in conversation with friends, families, family, co-workers.
00:14:56.120 I realize, you know, for me, it's like I talk about these things every day as a job.
00:14:59.400 But for a lot of people, that's not your job.
00:15:01.120 You have something else.
00:15:02.000 You have a real job that you do out there.
00:15:04.180 And that's why 40 Days for Life has just released the perfect book for those looking to arm themselves against a broad range of pro-choice talking points.
00:15:12.140 It's titled What to Say When, the complete new guide to discussing abortion.
00:15:15.760 This book is an easy read for individuals looking to defend life and convert hearts.
00:15:21.420 A lot has changed since abortion was legalized in 1973.
00:15:24.600 What to Say When equips readers with proven approaches to dismantling the pro-abortion agenda.
00:15:29.280 And even if you do talk about these issues all the time, it still is a useful book.
00:15:34.820 It was useful to me.
00:15:35.780 And it was so useful, in fact, that I actually wrote the foreword to that book, which, you know, no big deal.
00:15:41.100 That's not the main point to get the book.
00:15:42.540 But that's also a nice added bonus.
00:15:45.260 So, What to Say When, the complete new guide to discussing abortion.
00:15:48.500 You can get that now.
00:15:49.000 Get free shipping at 21% off a signed hardback at 40daysforlife.com slash whattosaywhen.
00:15:55.460 We start here with Reuters, as the United States on Monday completed its military withdrawal from Afghanistan
00:16:02.660 after a huge but chaotic airlift that cost the lives of 13 U.S. troops
00:16:06.080 and left behind thousands of Afghans and hundreds of Americans still seeking an escape from Taliban rule.
00:16:11.780 In a first in the nearly 20 years since al-Qaeda September 11, 2001 attacks plunged the United States into war.
00:16:16.540 Not a single service member from the U.S. military was in Afghanistan, according to the Pentagon,
00:16:20.620 which said this in an afternoon news conference.
00:16:22.360 It says, heartbreak was the word that U.S. Marine General Frank McKenzie used as he described emotions
00:16:28.440 surrounding the U.S. departure from his longest war after dangerous and tireless efforts by U.S. troops
00:16:32.960 to evacuate American citizens and vulnerable Afghans.
00:16:39.040 It says more than 122, here's the number.
00:16:41.760 More than 122,000 people have been flown out of Kabul since August 14th, the day after the Taliban regained control of the country.
00:16:52.600 122,000.
00:16:54.860 And we were told to begin with that there were, you know, a few thousand Americans that needed to be evacuated.
00:17:00.580 And there's still hundreds or even maybe thousands of Americans who have been left behind,
00:17:06.600 who have been abandoned behind enemy lines by the Biden administration.
00:17:12.800 So what that means is that 122,000 people were evacuated.
00:17:17.440 Almost all of them were Afghan citizens.
00:17:20.300 And if the pictures and videos are any indication, a huge number of them were men of fighting age.
00:17:29.120 Who were evacuated and many of them are going to be brought here.
00:17:34.560 Many, certainly the federal government, many governors across the state as well,
00:17:39.900 including Republican governors, have said, yeah, bring them in, bring them in.
00:17:42.760 And we're supposed to believe, by the way, that the hundred plus thousand Afghans who have been evacuated,
00:17:51.540 that they were all, they all, what, they were all interpreters?
00:17:54.140 They were all translators?
00:17:56.420 Really?
00:17:59.060 I mean, how would we even know that?
00:18:00.320 That mass of people at the airport.
00:18:04.680 Were we sifting through them?
00:18:07.140 Was there some sort of real intentional and careful process to see who gets on the plane?
00:18:12.300 Doesn't seem like it.
00:18:14.740 I mean, there were people literally, as you recall, clinging to the outside of the planes.
00:18:18.440 This was not a, this was anything but a careful process.
00:18:21.920 And that's all, of course, Biden's fault.
00:18:25.500 But there's no reason to think that all of these 100 plus thousand Afghans that are coming here
00:18:32.120 helped America in any way.
00:18:34.460 These are just people who wanted to leave the country for good reason.
00:18:36.500 I would want to leave it too if I was a citizen of Afghanistan.
00:18:39.420 But just think about this.
00:18:44.260 I mean, there's nothing that better encapsulates the ruling class's attitude and approach
00:18:52.100 than the fact that they're bringing 100,000 Afghans here while leaving Americans in Afghanistan.
00:18:59.760 Evacuate 100 plus thousand Afghans and leaving Americans there.
00:19:03.480 America lasts every single time with these people.
00:19:09.180 America and Americans last every time.
00:19:12.640 Next, this is from the Daily Wire.
00:19:13.800 It says, referring to people as elderly, uninsured, or inmates is apparently dehumanizing
00:19:19.920 and not inclusive, according to the CDC.
00:19:22.540 In what appears to be a recently published guide, the CDC lists numerous descriptors and phrases
00:19:28.060 that it says aren't inclusive before providing a list of non-stigmatizing language.
00:19:33.440 The guide includes multiple sections grouping terms under banners like disability and homelessness
00:19:37.780 before saying those words aren't inclusive enough.
00:19:41.580 Wait, hold on a second.
00:19:42.320 So, the guide uses those words and groups people by those categories and then says don't use those words
00:19:52.800 while they're using the words?
00:19:54.580 Okay.
00:19:55.240 For example, under the disability heading, the guide says that words like disabled, differently abled,
00:20:01.620 and handicapped are stigmatizing and should be replaced with lengthy phrases like people with disabilities
00:20:07.940 or people who use a wheelchair or mobility device.
00:20:12.320 The guide says the CDC is aware that some individuals with disabilities prefer to use identity-first terminology,
00:20:19.040 which means a disability or disabled status is referred to first.
00:20:22.020 For the purpose of these guidelines, CDC promotes person-first language.
00:20:26.940 Most of the guide is similar, suggesting the shorter identifier is wrong,
00:20:30.260 but simply adding people with ahead of that to apparently make it more inclusive.
00:20:34.520 The guide's headlines are in alphabetical order, so the first section is titled Corrections and Detentions
00:20:38.720 that suggests words like inmate, prisoner, convict, offender, criminal, parolee, and detainee are all stigmatizing.
00:20:45.100 We wouldn't want to stigmatize convicted felons who are in prison.
00:20:49.240 You know, convicted rapists and murderers.
00:20:51.640 We don't want to make them feel stigmatized.
00:20:55.300 I mean, we're locking them in a cell, right, for 23 hours a day.
00:20:58.700 But we don't want to make them feel weird when they're in there.
00:21:04.100 So what are the terms we should be using?
00:21:07.440 People slash persons who are incarcerated.
00:21:11.120 Partner slash child of an incarcerated person.
00:21:14.740 People who were formerly incarcerated.
00:21:17.440 Persons on parole.
00:21:18.740 Okay, so don't say parolee.
00:21:21.780 Say persons on parole.
00:21:23.080 And then elderly is apparently wrong, too.
00:21:26.860 You can say older adults.
00:21:29.720 And instead of saying underserved people, the guide suggests saying people who are underserved.
00:21:37.000 You see these, the PC language just changes.
00:21:45.920 I mean, I can remember when I was a kid, there'd be like a shift in PC language.
00:21:50.140 It felt like every seven or eight years, they'd come up with a new word for a lot of these different groups.
00:21:56.860 And even that was kind of annoying.
00:21:58.020 I remember people used to complain back in the 90s about political correctness going wild.
00:22:02.780 Because, you know, every six, seven, eight years, they'd come up with a new word that we're supposed to use.
00:22:08.940 Which was political correctness going wild at the time and which was absurd.
00:22:13.300 But now it's like every seven to eight hours, they've got a new word.
00:22:17.460 A lot of these words, these are the politically correct words.
00:22:20.300 Underserved people?
00:22:21.440 I don't even know who that's supposed to refer to.
00:22:22.960 But that is a politically correct term.
00:22:28.520 Differently abled?
00:22:30.620 Disabled?
00:22:31.160 I mean, what?
00:22:32.840 Differently abled, that is definitely, that's politically correct language.
00:22:37.360 But, no, you've got to change it up again.
00:22:40.980 And why?
00:22:41.680 The arbitrariness is the point.
00:22:43.480 Again, this is all about control.
00:22:45.440 It's all about controlling.
00:22:46.780 If you can control the words that people use, then you can control their minds.
00:22:54.980 I think there was someone at Daily Wire who actually wrote a book about this, I think.
00:22:57.140 Now, another question you might have is, why is the CDC getting involved in this?
00:23:03.460 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
00:23:06.200 What in the world does this have to, putting aside how absurd it is, what does this have to do with disease control?
00:23:11.120 Are people contracting diseases because we're referring to disabled people the wrong way?
00:23:18.280 Well, no, the CDC is expanding the scope of their interests to include now, and this is part of that campaign, a focus on gun violence.
00:23:28.760 So, this is supposed to be a big historic moment, we're told by CNN, but the director, Walensky, of the CDC sat down with CNN and talked about how now the CDC, again, they're expanding the scope of their mission, and that includes policing language, but also policing gun violence.
00:23:47.360 Let's watch that.
00:23:48.960 But now, in a stunning turn, the current director of the CDC is announcing a plan to reduce gun violence, sharing it exclusively with CNN.
00:23:57.240 This is actually a stunning moment that a director of the CDC is even talking about this issue, is even using the word guns.
00:24:07.100 It hasn't happened in years and years.
00:24:12.500 Every day we turn on the news, and there are more young people dying.
00:24:16.780 I swore to the president and to this country that I would protect your health.
00:24:21.840 This is clearly one of those moments, one of those issues that is harming America's health.
00:24:27.240 But there's a reason why your predecessors didn't address it.
00:24:30.240 One recent weekend in Chicago, we had 74 people shot.
00:24:35.220 That same weekend, a party in Florida, five teenagers shot.
00:24:39.660 That same weekend, a man in New York City, in Times Square, shot in the back.
00:24:44.580 And the list goes on and on, week after week after week.
00:24:49.440 Can anything be done about this?
00:24:51.180 Something has to be done about this.
00:24:53.580 So, 40,000 firearm-related deaths a year.
00:24:58.600 120,000 serious firearm-related injuries per year.
00:25:03.860 The scope of the problem is just bigger than we're even hearing about.
00:25:07.600 And when your heart wrenches every day, you turn on the news.
00:25:09.840 You're only hearing the tip of the iceberg.
00:25:13.920 There's a reason your predecessors didn't address it.
00:25:16.940 Well, what she was getting at there is that, well, they didn't address it because it's politically charged.
00:25:21.760 And they didn't have the courage to address it like Rochelle Lewinsky does.
00:25:29.280 Who, look, before we even get to what she's talking about here.
00:25:32.320 The fact that she still has a job, the fact that anyone at the CDC still has a job.
00:25:39.280 They are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
00:25:42.300 Preventing disease.
00:25:46.920 It would seem like the last 18 months, they haven't been doing a very good job of that.
00:25:54.300 Only in the government does it work this way.
00:25:56.600 Well, she heads up an organization that's supposed to prevent disease.
00:26:05.240 And hundreds of thousands of people die from a pandemic.
00:26:08.680 And she doesn't have to answer for it at all.
00:26:13.720 Now, is it the CDC's fault?
00:26:16.760 No.
00:26:17.600 But this is their organization.
00:26:22.880 Preventing disease.
00:26:23.960 They certainly didn't prevent this one.
00:26:27.260 This is a time when, I guess this is the way I put it.
00:26:30.000 If the CDC has any function, if it serves any purpose, if we need the CDC at all,
00:26:37.140 then you would think the last 18 months would be the time when they would leap into action and, I don't know, do something.
00:26:42.860 I'm not saying they could stop COVID from existing, but maybe do something.
00:26:49.240 Where would we be right now in terms of COVID and the death toll if the CDC didn't exist?
00:26:59.180 What if the CDC didn't exist, Rochelle Walensky didn't have a job, or at least didn't have a job in public life?
00:27:06.220 Where would we be?
00:27:08.700 Would anything be different?
00:27:11.180 Would there be one person who's dead right now who would not be dead?
00:27:15.460 Would anything be different at all?
00:27:24.240 Or maybe, are there people, you know, alive right now who are alive because the CDC prevented them from dying of COVID?
00:27:33.120 I don't think there's any evidence of that.
00:27:38.080 I think all the evidence suggests that if the CDC didn't exist, we'd be in the exact same spot.
00:27:44.240 We might be even in a little bit of better shape because the conflicting messages, how badly they bungled everything.
00:27:53.440 It's hard for me to know how many people have died because of that or if anyone has,
00:27:56.480 but all the evidence suggests at least we'd be in the same spot that we are.
00:28:01.500 But not only does she keep a job and the CDC retains all of its power and everything and is not defunded,
00:28:07.780 not only that, but now they can expand.
00:28:11.080 This is how it works in government.
00:28:12.160 When you fail miserably, you are punished with more power and influence, and that's what's happening.
00:28:18.280 And now she's expanding into gun violence, which, just so you know, is not a disease.
00:28:24.040 So that answers the question.
00:28:25.460 Why didn't your predecessors didn't address this?
00:28:27.540 Well, because it's not within their purview.
00:28:30.220 Because you're the CDC.
00:28:31.460 It's got nothing to do with you whatsoever.
00:28:36.480 It's true, though.
00:28:38.180 I'm talking about all the violence in places like New York and Chicago and in our cities.
00:28:42.600 I mean, it is a crisis.
00:28:44.320 It is an awful situation.
00:28:47.020 Lots of people are dying.
00:28:49.960 Our cities have become like these dystopian hellscapes.
00:28:58.100 But why is that?
00:29:01.040 You know, see, for me, the question is always going to be, yeah, you get a bunch of teenagers that were shot at a party.
00:29:06.260 Someone walked up and just shot all these kids.
00:29:09.460 Or I go back to that.
00:29:10.380 We talked about it a couple weeks ago.
00:29:12.760 I think it was in New York, a dispute over shoes at a shoe store.
00:29:16.020 And someone gets shot in the middle of the street.
00:29:18.680 The guy who works at the shoe store gets shot in the middle of the street over shoes.
00:29:21.020 And we see this kind of stuff every single day in the city.
00:29:26.420 And the CDC and, you know, the Democrat Party, CNN, the media, they want us to just ask the question, well, how do you get his hands on that gun?
00:29:35.940 We need a law that would make sure that these people who are committing these crimes don't get their hands on guns to begin with.
00:29:42.360 Well, we already have those laws.
00:29:45.700 I haven't even looked into the cases that were just mentioned by CNN there.
00:29:49.480 But I can guarantee you, to begin with, that almost all of them, the person firing the weapon was possessing it illegally.
00:29:57.520 So he was already committing a whole series of crimes simply by possessing that gun and then certainly by using it the way that he did.
00:30:06.020 So there are already a bunch of laws.
00:30:09.100 But let's add five or six more on top of it.
00:30:10.740 I'm sure that will make a difference.
00:30:11.580 And let's get the CDC on the case, too.
00:30:13.300 That will definitely do something.
00:30:14.300 So that's not really the question.
00:30:17.800 That's not the most important question.
00:30:21.080 The question is, why would someone, even if they have a gun, why would they do that?
00:30:28.180 What is going on with them?
00:30:31.720 That they have such indifference towards human life.
00:30:37.640 I mean, I own a firearm.
00:30:38.940 I own multiple firearms, legally.
00:30:41.060 And you don't have to worry about me.
00:30:44.920 I'm not going to walk up to any party and start shooting people.
00:30:46.960 I'm not going to shoot anybody over dispute over shoes.
00:30:49.520 It's not going to happen.
00:30:53.020 So there's something here.
00:30:54.940 It's not just the gun, right, apparently.
00:30:59.160 Because I have one.
00:31:00.100 I'm not killing anybody.
00:31:02.800 It appears that, like, people have these guns and they make choices.
00:31:07.420 And so the real question that we could be asking is, why are they making these choices?
00:31:13.620 And if we want to narrow it down more, we could ask, in the city where violent crime is endemic,
00:31:22.000 why are there so many people making these kinds of choices?
00:31:26.660 And when you start going down that rabbit hole, pretty soon you're going to get to fatherlessness,
00:31:32.620 you're going to get to the family, you're going to get to all kinds of things that the media and the CDC and the Democrat Party doesn't want to talk about.
00:31:38.340 All right, speaking of the family, here's a man.
00:31:41.920 We're going to play this for you.
00:31:43.360 This is a guy plotting to take custody away from his ex-wife because she isn't vaccinated.
00:31:48.820 And he's very excited about this plan.
00:31:50.540 He's announcing it to the whole world on TikTok.
00:31:52.680 Here it is.
00:31:53.260 Holy s**t.
00:31:55.920 Holy s**t.
00:31:57.840 Holy s**t.
00:31:59.160 As a lot of you know, I have a five-year-old son who is with his mother, my ex-wife, and her entire family,
00:32:06.620 five days a week while he goes to school in her district.
00:32:09.440 Also, as many of you know, she and her family are all anti-vax, anti-mask.
00:32:15.480 Guess what she admitted to while I was recording in my car on my property?
00:32:19.720 I asked her point blank, are you COVID vaccinated?
00:32:23.760 She said, no.
00:32:25.020 I said, do you plan to be?
00:32:26.920 And she said, maybe, I don't know.
00:32:30.080 She said, maybe, I don't know.
00:32:32.220 I now have hard proof of her admitting she is not COVID vaccinated around my son and takes no precautions whatsoever.
00:32:39.920 And I can subpoena video of her being in stores, unvaccinated, with no mask, with my child.
00:32:46.980 I don't know for sure, but I think this could really help my case.
00:32:52.040 What a guy.
00:32:53.460 What a man.
00:32:54.160 Now, you may hear this and you think, well, I mean, that can't really work.
00:32:59.460 I mean, is it not knowing anything else about this person's custody dispute?
00:33:05.860 I feel like we already know, just looking at that guy and hearing it, we already know everything we need to know about him.
00:33:11.020 And none of it is good.
00:33:12.000 But you hear that and you think, well, that would actually work.
00:33:14.180 Could you take custody away from a parent based on vaccination status?
00:33:20.360 And there's no precedent for that as far as I know.
00:33:27.180 But apparently, yeah, it might work.
00:33:29.780 This, I believe, is a separate case, but here's a report from Fox 32 in Chicago, where, in fact, this kind of plan worked out exactly the way that this guy hopes.
00:33:40.180 Let's watch this.
00:33:41.440 A Cook County judge here at the Daly Center has stripped a Chicago mom of her parenting rights because she's refused to get the COVID vaccine.
00:33:49.440 And he is a very sweet boy.
00:33:52.520 He's my whole world.
00:33:55.500 You miss him.
00:33:56.360 I miss him more than anything.
00:33:57.800 Rebecca Furlitt has been divorced for seven years and shares custody of her 11-year-old son with her ex-husband, what had been a 50-50 split in parenting time.
00:34:08.000 But on August 10th, in an unrelated child support hearing, Cook County Judge James Shapiro asked Furlitt whether she'd been vaccinated.
00:34:15.680 When she told the judge no because she's had bad reactions to vaccines in the past, Judge Shapiro stripped Furlitt of all of her parenting time until she agrees to get vaccinated.
00:34:25.480 I think that it's wrong, I think that it's dividing families, and I think that it's not in my son's best interest to be away from his mother.
00:34:33.080 Furlitt is now asking the appellate court to stay the judge's order, her attorney saying the judge has overstepped his authority.
00:34:39.520 You have to understand, the father did not even bring this issue before the court.
00:34:43.880 So it's the judge on his own making this decision that you can't see your child until you're vaccinated.
00:34:50.060 We just wanted the mother to pay support.
00:34:53.340 The father's attorney, Jeffrey Leving, says while they were surprised by the order, he believes the judge is making the right call, given the seriousness of the pandemic.
00:35:01.740 Now, the update here is that the judge has reversed the decision that he made there because of public pressure.
00:35:10.740 Yet again, it's the right decision, just like with the teacher in the classroom, but it's only because of the public pressure.
00:35:17.180 It's only because this case went viral.
00:35:18.740 But the fact that it had to be reversed at all is very troubling.
00:35:28.240 That this is where the trend is heading.
00:35:32.100 And there are many people, advocates for the vaccine and masking, who are really clear about this.
00:35:38.200 They think if you're not vaccinated, if you don't get your kids vaccinated, if you're not wearing a mask, if a kid isn't wearing a mask, then you're an unfit parent.
00:35:45.240 You know, you're putting your child's life in danger.
00:35:49.480 You're basically killing your own children.
00:35:52.480 You're unfit and you shouldn't be allowed to have custody of your children.
00:35:57.820 That kind of rhetoric is very prominent among the mob and in the media.
00:36:04.200 And now it's seeping into the court system.
00:36:06.060 And that's a troubling development, to say the least.
00:36:08.560 Next, we have this.
00:36:09.500 Olivia Rodrigo said, who, of course, you know, I'm a big fan.
00:36:13.820 We did a whole video.
00:36:15.060 I think Olivia Rodrigo was, she was the driver's license one, right?
00:36:18.100 She made that song.
00:36:18.640 Yeah, we did a video about that.
00:36:20.740 Just a tremendous, I think, masterful piece of art.
00:36:27.140 But she said in an interview that she didn't know that non-white people could be music stars.
00:36:32.960 This is from page six.
00:36:35.240 This is Olivia Rodrigo knows the impact she has on fans of color, revealing in a new Q&A that she herself once believed only white girls could be recognized as true pop stars.
00:36:45.140 When Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang asked the Brutal singer how her Filipino-American background factors into how she approaches her career, she said it's something incredible to think about.
00:36:57.140 She said, I sometimes get DMs from little girls being like, I've never seen someone who looked like me in your position.
00:37:02.880 And these are girls that apparently have, like, never turned on the TV, which is great, actually.
00:37:12.020 And I'm literally going to cry, like, just thinking about it, Rodrigo said in a V Magazine feature.
00:37:18.160 I feel like I grew up never seeing that.
00:37:20.680 Also, it was always like, pop star, that's a white girl.
00:37:24.020 These days, however, Rodrigo is grateful that the music biz no longer forces artists to be confined by certain genres, at least not to the extent that she witnessed growing up.
00:37:37.200 That she's 18 years old.
00:37:40.300 She was born in the early 2000s.
00:37:44.180 When, at that point, and for much of the history of pop music, like, some of the biggest stars were non-white people.
00:37:52.520 And that, again, has been the case since the advent of pop music.
00:37:59.120 So, this is, you know, this is someone who has absolutely no knowledge of anything that happened prior to the moment that she was born.
00:38:11.140 And apparently, even a lot of things that were happening when she was born and through her, you know, her own life, she's been unaware of.
00:38:18.680 Which has led her to believe that she's somehow, in the year 2021, as an 18-year-old pop star, non-white pop star, she's somehow groundbreaking.
00:38:31.060 I think, you know, I hate to keep beating on a dead horse here, but this goes back to the public school system in a lot of ways.
00:38:41.100 Not that I really want them to, you know, be teaching the history of pop music.
00:38:44.460 But it's just, this is another symptom of what we find among a lot of people, not just young people, but especially among young people today.
00:38:52.300 They have absolutely no knowledge of anything that happened prior to their birth.
00:38:58.380 And they don't think that any of that is relevant.
00:39:00.540 As far as they're concerned, the world, as far as Olivia Rodrigo is concerned, the world came into existence along with her.
00:39:09.020 She basically created the world by existing, which is, you know, in some ways a very encouraging way of seeing the world, because then you're constantly, since nothing happened before you, you're constantly setting new trends, breaking new ground, even if that ground has already been broken a thousand times before you existed.
00:39:29.860 All right, finally, this is a very important piece of audio, and really everything's been leading up to this.
00:39:33.940 I think this is the most important thing that we'll discuss and play today.
00:39:36.840 And I'm sorry, sorry to get a little bit serious here, but something happened at a Henrico County School Board meeting a couple of days ago that I just think you need to hear.
00:39:48.700 Listen to this.
00:39:49.920 You guys work for us in this environment.
00:39:54.440 You answer to us, and I'm asking that you do not pass this policy in Virginia.
00:40:00.780 Thank you so much, Ms. Thomas.
00:40:02.400 We do appreciate you.
00:40:06.840 Phil McCracken.
00:40:12.140 Phil McCracken.
00:40:13.300 Phil McCracken.
00:40:17.340 Sulk.
00:40:18.760 Souk.
00:40:20.040 Mahidic.
00:40:24.340 Souk.
00:40:24.980 Mahidic.
00:40:28.320 Ophelia McHawk.
00:40:32.020 Ophelia McHawk.
00:40:33.500 Ophelia McHawk.
00:40:37.400 Eileen Dover.
00:40:41.840 Eileen Dover.
00:40:47.300 Don Kiddick.
00:40:52.800 Don Kiddick.
00:40:57.340 Wayne Kerr.
00:41:01.140 Wayne Kerr.
00:41:02.420 I don't know why all those people weren't there.
00:41:07.140 It seems, you know, they all signed up and didn't show up.
00:41:11.960 I don't know if there, maybe there was some other party or meeting they were attending.
00:41:14.940 I'm not sure.
00:41:15.740 I also, I can't believe that Mr. Hunt, first name Mike, was, wasn't signed up for that meeting either.
00:41:21.560 So, I don't know who did that, but they're a hero.
00:41:24.760 Okay.
00:41:25.840 They are.
00:41:26.420 And I'm in, I'm in, I don't know if it was an adult or a child who, who did that, but, um, heroes either way and artists.
00:41:34.820 And I, and I hope it was a kid, actually.
00:41:37.580 I hope, I hope kids are still doing stuff like that.
00:41:41.220 That, that makes me feel better.
00:41:42.660 That's one, that's one glimmer of hope that I have now for future generations.
00:41:48.940 Because that prank, it never gets, it's always hilarious.
00:41:52.420 It never gets old.
00:41:53.280 And I don't see how that guy, I understand the first few names, you don't really know what you're getting into.
00:41:58.280 But once you get to, I leaned over, how does, how do you not figure it out then?
00:42:05.140 That is, uh, I'll tell you something.
00:42:08.060 That is much more important and powerful than any other speech or anything that's happened at these school board meetings, including the one that I gave.
00:42:20.500 I bow down to that.
00:42:23.280 Um, well, I don't bow down to it, but, you know, maybe that's the wrong phrase to use.
00:42:28.440 Okay, let's use, uh, let's go now to reading the YouTube comments.
00:42:31.820 This is from The Fashion Assassin.
00:42:33.560 He says, my guess as to why Matt isn't on camera today is he attempted the milk crate challenge and failed miserably.
00:42:40.500 Now he looks like Tom Cruise from Vanilla Sky.
00:42:43.980 Trevor says, Matt isn't video list today.
00:42:46.280 He's just resting his eyes.
00:42:47.420 D.H. says, apparently Matt's fashion faux pas was so egregious today that the producers wouldn't even allow us to see it.
00:42:55.480 William says, I think Matt shaved his beard, but it looks so terrible that he won't go on camera until it's grown back.
00:42:59.920 Okay, lots of theories about why I wasn't on camera yesterday, but I'm going to tell you the truth.
00:43:03.940 The truth is that I had, I had a flare up of, uh, of leprosy and it kind of comes and goes.
00:43:09.440 And it's hard to tell sometimes because my normal, just my normal face sort of looks like it, but, uh, I didn't want to be seen.
00:43:14.140 And I hope you understand that's the real, that's the real reason, uh, Dick Samarone.
00:43:21.080 I don't know if I'm getting pranked by that name says, are we being punished for making fun of Matt's outfit choices?
00:43:27.740 Gibberish says daily wire.
00:43:29.100 How do you expect us to enjoy the benefits of the bicep cam when you don't show Matt on the screen?
00:43:35.580 Andrew says by not having the podcast and video form today, Matt has bravely demonstrated what a world without white people would look like.
00:43:41.400 This is performative wokeness at its best.
00:43:43.000 Well done, Matt.
00:43:43.740 Okay.
00:43:43.940 So basically every comment is about the fact that there's, there was no video yesterday.
00:43:47.560 Every single one.
00:43:48.920 Um, old school says Matt didn't want to go on camera today because his wife forgot to do laundry and all there was left was his skinny jeans and polka dot shirt.
00:43:58.760 Well, that can't be it.
00:43:59.520 Cause I don't own skinny jeans.
00:44:00.540 First of all, in the polka dot shirt, I will wear proudly as you know, but thank you for all of those very useful comments, which have made for, um, I think a pretty interesting segment of the show.
00:44:11.000 You know, it's never been more important to understand what's going on in the political sphere.
00:44:16.680 And that's why we started our newest podcast morning wire, the daily morning show, which is dedicated to bringing you all the news that you need to know.
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00:45:36.660 Now to our daily cancellation.
00:45:39.820 You know, if you still don't believe that there is a racism crisis in this country, then let me tell you a story that may change your mind.
00:45:50.640 According to an urgent and exclusive report from Fox 5 in DC, a firefighter in Alexandria has been put on administrative leave because he made a, quote, controversial gesture while on camera during a recent news segment.
00:46:02.800 And this firefighter, it appears, moved his fingers in a, in a way that may seem totally benign and incidental to the untrained observer.
00:46:13.180 But the heroic investigative journalists over at Fox 5 know that quite often the most insidious forms of racism can be hiding in plain sight.
00:46:21.760 So we'll play this report for you now.
00:46:23.640 And it's, it's a little bit long, but it's, it's worth listening to every single moment of this.
00:46:29.460 And keep in mind as you listen to it, this is very real.
00:46:32.600 Okay.
00:46:32.900 This is not a parody, not a joke, at least not intentionally.
00:46:37.340 Listen to this.
00:46:38.720 Well, only on Fox 5 in Alexandria, fire department members in hot water being investigated for possibly flashing a racist symbol on our air.
00:46:48.080 Fox 5 Stephanie Ramirez is live in Alexandria at station four.
00:46:51.780 And Stephanie, how did this end up happening?
00:46:53.820 Well, Rob, this was during a live Fox 5 zip trip segment that we were doing last Friday.
00:47:00.220 We do these in the community to highlight different communities all across our region.
00:47:03.860 Well, during the last Friday event in Alexandria, a fire department member decided to flash what is the okay gesture as the camera was passing by.
00:47:12.940 But we confirmed with fire department officials today that that member has since been placed on administrative leave with pay.
00:47:19.440 Now, it happened so quickly, it's kind of hard to catch here.
00:47:21.840 But it is the last Alexandria fire department member on the right who first makes fists and then does that okay gesture just before the camera cuts to our two anchors.
00:47:31.560 A viewer email came into Fox 5 shortly after with a screen grab of this member.
00:47:35.780 The emailer asking why there's a gang symbol on TV stating it needs to be addressed.
00:47:40.760 We asked the department about it.
00:47:42.440 Now, we should note here the okay hand symbol.
00:47:45.060 It was used as part of a punching game if you flashed it.
00:47:47.920 It is used by scuba divers communicating underwater.
00:47:50.540 It's also listed by the Anti-Defamation League as a gesture of hate sometimes used to express white power.
00:47:58.040 Now, I did get to ask the fire chief today about it.
00:48:00.000 If he knew the member's intention behind doing this, Chief Corey Smedley told me no, that he has not talked to this member yet.
00:48:06.060 But there will be an investigation.
00:48:08.260 I also asked, what if it turns out that this was done out of some kind of joke?
00:48:12.400 A joke is only if someone is not offended by it.
00:48:17.860 And it's always in the eyes of the beholder.
00:48:20.820 And just because someone may have thought things were a joke, it does is not something that is up to our values within the department.
00:48:28.660 So we have to first and foremost make every attempt to maintain the integrity and trust of the community.
00:48:35.200 And joking is not something that is part of our mission.
00:48:39.060 It's hard to know where to begin in sifting through this madness.
00:48:42.420 The anchor reporting live from the scene of where a dude moved his fingers says that the okay gesture where you form a circle with your index finger and thumb is a gesture of hate.
00:48:53.300 Well, more specifically, she says that it can be part of a punching game, or it's a sign used by scuba divers, or it could be a secret white power symbol.
00:49:04.420 Those are the options.
00:49:06.460 Son, you're either a scuba diver or a Nazi.
00:49:09.500 And we ain't under the ocean right now, so that kind of narrows it down.
00:49:12.400 A little bit of a full metal jacket thing going on, I guess.
00:49:15.500 She does clarify, of course, that the ADL, the Anti-Defamation League, has declared that the okay sign is a hate symbol.
00:49:22.620 What she doesn't explain, however, is why anyone should give a damn what the ADL thinks.
00:49:28.900 There's a handful of far-left political groups, the ADL, Southern Poverty Law Center, a principal among them, that have appointed themselves sort of arbiters of what is hateful and what is not.
00:49:38.780 And they get to decide which gestures and words and ideas and groups are valid and which are abhorrent and accursed.
00:49:44.400 We're not supposed to ask why, or rather where, they derive this authority or why we should respect or care about their opinion on these matters.
00:49:53.100 The media will simply say, well, the ADL says this is hateful.
00:49:57.720 So?
00:49:58.500 Well, I care what they say.
00:50:00.960 Why should, who put them in charge?
00:50:03.860 It's not unlike the groups that have declared themselves fact checkers.
00:50:07.500 And now, because they have fact checker in their name, they're meant to be unquestionably trusted as the official adjudicators of truth.
00:50:18.760 But the funny thing is that if you go to the ADL's official website and their database for hate symbols, it does list the okay gesture, and yet it admits that the whole white power connection is really a trolling campaign by 4chan.
00:50:33.840 So here's what their website says. It says, a common hand gesture that a 4chan trolling campaign claimed in 2017 had been appropriated as a symbol meaning white power, used by many on the right, not just extremists, for the purpose of trolling liberals, the symbol eventually came to be used by actual white supremacists as well.
00:50:50.540 Caution must be used in evaluating instances of this symbol's use.
00:50:53.980 Okay, so the okay gesture could be a white power symbol, allegedly, or it could be a scuba diver sign, or it could be a game that you play where if somebody looks at the circle,
00:51:03.600 then you get punched. That's when I was a kid, that's what it usually meant when someone did that.
00:51:10.040 It meant that the punch was coming shortly after you saw it.
00:51:12.980 Or it could be a 4chan troll, or it could just mean okay, or it could mean a dozen other things, or it could mean nothing at all.
00:51:21.480 Not every movement a person makes with their fingers has some deep-seated reason behind it.
00:51:26.920 In fact, most movements don't. Most are incidental.
00:51:30.100 If you were to stare at a person's hands long enough and film it, looking for hidden meanings, you know, behind every twitch or gesture,
00:51:37.940 you'll come away thinking that they made white power symbols, they flashed gang symbols, they flipped you off,
00:51:45.240 they said the words train and dog and sign language, I mean, all kinds of random things.
00:51:51.000 And the person will have communicated these messages to you without knowing that they communicated anything at all.
00:51:59.100 Kind of like the truck driver for a gas company in California last year who was fired for making the same white power sign,
00:52:07.500 when really it turned out he was just cracking his knuckles, which is a pretty, you know, you do this and you crack your knuckles.
00:52:12.360 Also, he's Mexican.
00:52:13.660 But they still fired him for being an advocate of white power.
00:52:17.400 But somehow we haven't even gotten to the dumbest part of this alleged news report yet,
00:52:22.980 because the dumbest part comes to us courtesy of the fire chief, Chief Smedley, a perfectly appropriate name somehow.
00:52:31.200 It's just, you hear Chief Smedley and then you see him and you listen to him and you think,
00:52:36.540 well, yeah, that's exactly what I expected from Chief Smedley.
00:52:39.940 So Chief Smedley says that even if the benign, probably incidental finger movement was actually intended as a joke,
00:52:47.400 it doesn't count as a joke anymore if someone gets offended.
00:52:50.600 Exact quote, a joke is only if someone is not offended by it.
00:52:57.160 Which I guess that's news to, that would be news to, I mean, many comedians.
00:53:04.260 Richard Pryor was apparently, he never told a joke in his life, his whole career.
00:53:08.460 We think of him as an iconic, trailblazing comedian, but he's not at all.
00:53:14.800 He was not a comedian.
00:53:16.420 He was not a comedian because he offended people with every joke that he told.
00:53:20.920 But it's all in the eye of the beholder, Chief Smedley says.
00:53:23.940 And if someone hears or sees your joke and decides that they don't like it,
00:53:28.980 then all of a sudden your joke isn't a joke anymore.
00:53:31.300 If they interpret it as something serious, then that means that your intentions were serious.
00:53:37.440 So they get to retroactively determine what your own intentions were based on how your joke makes them feel.
00:53:46.340 That's Chief Smedley's position.
00:53:49.480 That's the media's position.
00:53:51.860 That's everyone on the left.
00:53:53.020 That's how they look at it.
00:53:55.080 And that's why he says joking is not a part of our mission.
00:53:58.020 That's the most Chief Smedley thing anyone has ever said.
00:54:02.560 Joking is really not a part of our mission here.
00:54:06.760 But this idea, which has led to the unjust cancellation of many a person,
00:54:15.060 this idea that your intentions don't matter at all in communication.
00:54:21.240 So when you're communicating something, what you intended in communicating it makes no difference.
00:54:26.320 All that matters is the person listening to it and how they feel when they hear you say it.
00:54:32.900 So even if you weren't trying to communicate anything at all,
00:54:36.020 even if you're just standing there and moving your fingers randomly,
00:54:39.880 and there's no intention,
00:54:42.860 doesn't matter because someone felt differently.
00:54:45.900 And they get to decide what your intentions were.
00:54:48.720 Not you, them.
00:54:49.660 All of this is quite insane, of course.
00:54:52.360 And it would be hilarious if not for the fact that an innocent man's life is being severely impacted by it.
00:54:57.160 Just imagine, imagine from the firefighter's perspective for a moment here.
00:55:02.000 Fox 5 shows up because they want to do some dumb filler segment.
00:55:06.140 And you have to put on your uniform and stand there for the B-roll shots.
00:55:09.400 And they probably did a whole bunch of shots.
00:55:10.740 And you're standing out there for, you know, 45 minutes.
00:55:12.260 Next thing you know, because some hypersensitive tattletale with no life and nothing better to do
00:55:18.160 was offended by the movement of your fingers,
00:55:20.540 now you're under investigation and suspended from your job
00:55:24.180 and being smeared on television as a suspected Nazi.
00:55:28.760 And to make matters worse, it's being done by people who almost certainly know better.
00:55:34.920 They're not as insane as they appear to be.
00:55:36.820 Maybe the original person who reported it, the viewer who saw that and paused it and said,
00:55:41.260 what's that there?
00:55:41.960 What do you do with his fingers?
00:55:43.820 That person might just be a psycho lunatic or simply a loser with nothing better to do, as I said.
00:55:49.560 But the fire chief?
00:55:51.340 Well, he's a spineless coward.
00:55:54.120 The reporters are sadistic propagandists,
00:55:56.860 perfectly willing to destroy a random person's life for the sake of a story.
00:56:01.400 Especially a story that advances the preferred narrative.
00:56:05.260 And for all of those reasons, that is why, of course, Fox 5 in D.C. is cancelled.
00:56:12.280 And I have to say, most of all, and I never thought I'd have to say this,
00:56:16.860 but Chief Smedley, you are also, sir, cancelled.
00:56:20.000 And that is no joke at all.
00:56:21.980 And we'll leave it there for today.
00:56:23.400 Thanks for watching.
00:56:24.000 Thanks for listening.
00:56:24.660 Have a great day.
00:56:25.940 Godspeed.
00:56:26.260 Well, if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe.
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00:56:43.420 Also, be sure to check out the other Daily Wire podcasts,
00:56:45.640 including The Ben Shapiro Show, Michael Knowles Show, The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:56:49.080 Thanks for listening.
00:56:49.680 The Matt Walsh Show is produced by Sean Hampton,
00:56:52.900 executive producer Jeremy Boring.
00:56:54.880 Our supervising producer is Mathis Glover.
00:56:57.360 Our technical director is Austin Stevens.
00:56:59.920 Production manager, Pavel Vadosky.
00:57:01.920 The show is edited by Sasha Tolmachov.
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00:57:11.380 The Matt Walsh Show is a Daily Wire production.
00:57:12.940 Copyright Daily Wire 2021.
00:57:14.960 America officially ends the war in Afghanistan.
00:57:17.140 The Pentagon and the State Department have no idea how many Americans they left behind.
00:57:21.680 And New York City teachers protest the city's COVID mandates.
00:57:24.700 Check it out on The Michael Knowles Show.