Ep. 49: Wars Everywhere
What's up FRs! (Pronounced "ferrrs")
Well I think we can all say that last week was probably a week best served not being on social media, but we're happy to have you here.
We talked about Charlie Kirk's murder on our YouTube page, you can check that out here. I didn't want to clip it or drop it in the feed because I'm not a rage baiter, and didn't want to detract from the ethos of the show. I have a brief note about this below.
On the show we went over the extra-judicial killing of 11 people on a boat from Venezuela, the US Government is alleging that they were trafficking cocaine. Just food for thought... cocaine smugglers usually don't pack the speed boat with people. They usually - and listen I'm not drug trafficking expert - but you generally want to maximize the amount of cocaine that you are trafficking!
And keep an eye on Nepal! A new leader is coming in and the Nepalese Zoomers are JUICED.
IN "OH NO" NEWS
SEENA'S CORNER
A Note About the Shooter
Since we aired our YouTube-Only response to the Charlie Kirk murder, a lot has been floating around the internet about the shooter. Republicans are saying that he’s a radical leftist because his romantic partner and roommate is trans (?). Democrats are calling him a white nationalist and Groyper who followed Nick Fuentes. We’ll find out more in the coming weeks, but from what I’ve seen here’s how I would define the shooter (if it ends up being this guy):
Trolling culture built him —> Daily violence in the US and abroad desensitized him —> Easy access to guns enabled him
Notice, no political stance here. He did it for the lulz. Modern trolling culture is depraved, and will seek to do anything, even murder, for a laugh. For example, Gov Cox of Utah read the words on the bullet casings, really dumb Governor. The shooter, and his troll friends in the bowels of whatever form of 4chan/8chan exists today, are lol’ing HARD. You handed him a win. Don’t feed the trolls!
We can’t be surprised that the daily violence that we greenlight abroad and allow here at home, manages to spill over into the killing of high-profile people. Melissa Hortman was an actual state rep in Minnesota, and we got nothing. I guess she should have produce more rage bait content, then more people would have loved her. What an indictment on the attention economy. And this Second Amendment - I’ll stand on this forever, it needs to go. You can have a gun - sure - but the right to own a gun should not be at the same level as the right to free speech. The Vikings were a violent people, but I fully believe that if we transported one of them here today they would say, “Hey we love to pillage, but you are letting your children get killed, daily? Embarrassing.”
Ok and don’t let anyone tell you that it’s video games. If they do, show them this chart:
Also if you want to learn about troll culture read this book by Whitney Phillips, This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things. It was the basis for the digital series I directed that starred Henry Zebrowski, called Trollville.
Meanwhile in Ohio: What Travis is Reading ––
As we often say on TFR, foreign policy is domestic policy and now farmers in Ohio and around the country are feeling those effects AGAIN –– thanks to The Trump Administration's latest tariffs, farmers in rural red counties who voted for Trump are now dealing with higher costs for imported equipment and supplies vital to their farming operations, while also losing customers abroad for their agricultural products. For example, this year China has refused to buy ANY U.S. soybeans, which is hitting Ohio's farmers especially hard and forcing them to refigure out their business models for 2025 while also looking at potential relief from the federal government, similar to the subsidies they received because of Trump's tariffs during his first administration... It's yet another example of how foreign policy is domestic policy and it all impacts everything all at once
As always...
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