The Trendren Of The Corn 10/27: Midterms, CA BillIonaire Tax, Trump’s Panic Tour, Israeli Elections

0:00 Hello, the internet, and welcome to this episode of The Trendron of the Corn. My one courtesy of New Chris, The Trendron of the Corn. My kids were asking me about The Children of the Corn. I don't know how it came up, but they really wanted me to explain what happened, why the kids took over.

0:22 Yeah, yeah, yeah. You said, rather than tell you, why don't I show you?

0:27 Why don't I show you Malachi? Was that a scary movie to you?

0:33 No, I was just not interested in it. I was like, okay, dude.

0:37 It was kind of old, too. It kind of felt dated when I watched it.

0:40 It was one of those things where, too, the second I watched a VH1, like I Love the 70s or something, and I heard older Gen X comedians talk about it, I was like, all right, I got the gist.

0:51 You know what I mean?

0:52 It's like, I remember a lot of, a lot of my like, uh, pop culture things from like yesteryear was born out of whatever people were saying were like VH1.

1:00 I love the eighties.

1:02 I love the whatever blank generation.

1:04 All right. Well, my name is Jack O'Brien. That over there is Mr. Yo play himself. Mr. Miles.

1:09 I was just telling her majesty about that. I was like fucking two times. I asked people.

1:14 Yeah. And the pause was real. Have you, have you checked? No, I have not yet. Uh, there, you know, yogurt is full of alive cultures. It is a lively cultural debate happening in there. And a lot of people, a lot of pro Yoplait, a lot of people are like, why would they call it Yoplait if it was for kids?

1:35 Like that's a, that's a, again, my point is they have a product. marketed at children. It's called Golker. Everybody, the majority are on your side. The people are with you. But I do understand the perception. Oh my God, Miles is tearing up. You said they're with me, Jack? I felt so alone. You mean that?

2:00 Are they outside cheering my name?

2:01 I read a couple of comments in the Discord and I was like, wait, I think I'm just the victim of a psyop. of like, you know, what, what has happened to yogurt in the years since I was eating Yoplait. Cause I think I was eating Yoplait like into my like teen years. What, what has happened is that it's become a thing where they've invented more and more like protein dense, like Greek yogurt that is like getting away from brass tacks, man. Yeah, yeah. And so they've just redefined everything, every other yogurt more and more upward to be like more and more adult and serious food. And then Yoplait kind of got left behind because it didn't really change its packaging. No. Yoplait is delicious, I will say.

2:53 Yoplait tastes great. It is just... I think it has a ton of sugar, right? And it does. It feels a little bit.

3:01 It ain't healthy.

3:03 Yeah, it feels like it feels like a thing that was like got in on the idea of yogurt and was like, this is a healthy thing. But then it's actually just completely delicious. It's, you know, a product made to taste as good as possible. Yeah. Yeah, it's French pudding. Um, anyways, uh, I'm sure this will not be the last that we talk about. You'll play.

3:25 No, no.

3:26 Um, this is the episode where we tell you what is trending on this Tuesday, October 27th. Um, four days out. You got your, you got your costume locked in.

3:36 You know what you're, uh, yes, I'm definitely the guy's child has been changing every day. Very mercurial with what he's going to be. We've landed on vampire, uh, but he wants wings. So he's like a winged vampire. And I was like, first he's going to zombie. I was like, I, you want to be zombie too?

3:52 He's like, yeah. And I was like, you want daddy to also be a vampire? He's like, nah. And so I think, Nope. I'm like, so what should I steal in my shine?

3:59 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

4:00 So I'll probably go as up.

4:01 I was also just thinking of just like going out wearing like a ill-fitting miles Morales, Spider-Man costume and just being 42 year old miles. Nah, just like, yeah. Like what miles looks like at 42. Just, it's more of like, it's more of a fun inside joke for people who know my name is actually Miles. But to see a middle-aged body in a tight bodysuit with male pattern baldness, I think it's just.

4:25 So it's ill-fitting in the sense that it's.

4:27 Too small for you.

4:28 I'm out of shape.

4:28 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

4:30 Ill-fitting.

4:31 Just in the wrong ways, accentuating things. I don't look like a superhero. I look like a 42-year-old man in a Spider-Man costume.

4:36 I'll just say, I've worn Halloween costumes, superhero costumes that are too. Look, no bad costume can contain my thunder. They're like, damn, why is that Adam West Batman wearing a towel around his waist? Because you don't want to know, kid, because otherwise he'd be.

5:00 You don't need this.

5:01 You don't need this. That's why I'm wearing jeans. I'm wearing Wrangler jeans. And a Spider-Man shirt. This Batman's a never nude. So, all right, let's talk. It's also coming up on election day.

5:14 Yeah, there's that.

5:15 And we've got a little bit more significant.

5:17 There's also that less important thing. So a big thing in California is this billionaire tax. I mean, it's a big thing everywhere because I think it's the first time that we've specifically talked like done a legislation that is like billionaires shouldn't exist. Give us your money. Um, not even that, like it didn't give us your money. Yeah.

5:40 Give us, give us the same amount of money that we proportionally that we give to kick in. Yeah. That's crazy.

5:49 Cause, uh, what, how much, what, what's your tax spend?

5:52 Like, because it sounds like billionaires don't have to do anything. And that's why the, the bill is made to levy a one time 5% tax on on the wealth of taxpayers and trusts that are valued over $ 1 billion.

6:08 Okay.

6:09 This is not for normal people, working people, firefighters, teachers. I don't give a fuck who you see in these advertisements who are just, who have been complete or just shilling for this class of people. It is to go after billionaires, their stock, their shares of capital stock bonds, whatever they've got.

6:27 If it's over a billion, bro, we're taking 5% of that.

6:29 Okay.

6:30 And it's going to go to fund state health care programs, food assistance, public education.

6:36 Great. Great. Step one. So essentially making billionaires pay their tuition. I have heard their complaints about this. Like them being like, well, that's not even money. Those are unrealized gains that you're asking us. So it's like, yeah, so sell that amount of your stuff.

6:52 And then give us the money.

6:54 Okay. Well, you need to realize we're about to fuck you up. Okay?

6:59 If you don't start paying your fair share, don't give a fuck about what's unrealized.

7:03 I've heard non-billionaires say that shit. They're like, well, you know, it's just not a well-written law. Again, let me tell you something.

7:12 I've worked on ballot propositions in this state before. My first foray into politics was organizing around a ballot proposition for clean energy. You're always going to hear the same fucking stupid boilerplate attacks.

7:25 It's just not a well-written one.

7:26 Let us write it. It's poorly worded is another one they'll always do. It needed more time to actually think of how this should go. There's actually going to be a better way. Fatally flawed. These are the things that you'll always see. It's all nonsense because at the end of the day, the reaction you're getting is being funded by the fucking oligarchs that reside.

7:48 In this state.

7:49 The amount of money that is going into this.

7:52 It's the same thing with the amount of people who are spending money to get Zoran out. And it's like, dude, you could have just paid your fair share and like maybe turned the heat down slightly on you as a group of fucking people. This is from the New York Times about what the billionaires in California are doing because they get together and they're like, how do we fucking avoid paying our fair share? Quote, every Tuesday for the last few months, two dozen of the world's richest people or their advisors hop onto a conference call and plan for war. The war is against a proposed tax, but not any tax. It is a wealth tax on California billionaires.

8:24 One that Silicon Valley's most affluent see as an existential threat.

8:28 Shut your fuck. I can't even like, I want to fucking scream.

8:31 Even reading that a 5% tax on your billions of wealth is an existential threat. How fucking dare you? Like anyway, And it's going to usher in a new way of attacking them. So in confidential memos, WhatsApp and signal chats and conference calls, they are banding together to battle back. 80 or so donors have provided more than $ 333 million to building a better California.

8:55 $ 333 million. Yeah.

9:00 Yeah.

9:00 Yep. Yep. And again, that's how, that's how. Yeah.

9:04 And who's donating to this building a better California group. It's Google co-founder Sergey Brin, former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, chief executive of Stripe, Patrick Collison, John Doerr, many other fucking just very wealthy tech people. And they go on to the article goes on to say many are aware of how it looks. Fighting a billionaire tax as populist outrage grows over inequality requires finesse. In a recent memo circulating among donors and viewed by the New York Times, organizers stress that other supporters, not the billionaires, must be, quote, the face of campaigns. And if you're in California, I'm sure you've seen it. It's like, I'm a nurse and I'm against a billionaire tax.

9:45 What?

9:47 Huh? What are you saying? Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah, it's stuff like, it's tricksy stuff like that where you got other people like working class. people being like, this is actually going to hurt your, your child's education. Um, and then there's stuff that's like, so bald, like on its face, corrupt, for instance, This morning, while we were preparing for the story, I Googled Proposition 40 polling. And the number one thing at the top of Google is get the facts. No on Prop 40. Prop 40 is an everyone tax sponsored. No, it is not. That's crazy.

10:28 That's above even the news results. That's crazy. You went on Google to look at that.

10:34 Yeah, exactly.

10:35 Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, former chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt.

10:41 And now Google is telling you no, no, no on Prop 40.

10:44 Okay. We used to say don't be evil so you can trust us. Yeah.

10:49 But yeah, it's just like.

10:54 Seek and destroy. Billionaires should not exist. Like the... the fact that they are reacting like this to a 5% tax, 5% tax.

11:03 Yeah.

11:06 I like, I, I think that the ultimate like end of, you know, what pub public opinion on billionaires is going to be, um, that it's illegal to have more like a billion, like 999 million is like you're capped out. And that seems very nice to, that you get to have $ 999 million, and they're treating a 5% tax like it's the fucking French Revolution.

11:32 Yeah. I mean, I think the other thing people have to realize, too, in this state, right, because it's obviously you want to vote yes on 40, but they're also funding competing propositions that would nullify Prop 40. So there's Prop 41 and Prop 42. If those pass, it nullifies 40. So they've got all these fucking little poison pills set up on the ballot. It's a fucking three-pronged attack on this thing to try and avoid paying their fucking fair share in the wealthiest fucking state.

12:08 It's like, I just, for their purposes, I wonder how many of them are like, so if we, like if 40 goes through, but then we've like put this like tricky 41 in that like poisons it, isn't that going to make people even madder at us? Like, I feel like they haven't thought through this at all that they're like, this is people want to eat you. You know, like the it's this or the guillotine, man. Okay.

12:34 So this is the deal.

12:35 If all three measures are approved, if all the measures are approved, but propositions 41 and 42 receive more votes, then, then 40, it would nullify it. Prop 40 also has a competing measure provision that would nullify 41 and 42 if 40 receives more votes.

12:52 Okay. Yeah.

12:53 So it's just like, if they all pass, then it's like, okay, well, who has more votes? And then that's... It's all very sticky. The simple fact is, yes on 40, no on 41, and no on 42.

13:04 I mean, read the thing.

13:05 Because it'll be very clear. They're like, if there's any new tax, the state should actually have... And audits, there should be a special audit just to hold up the process and make sure it's the right thing for the state.

13:16 Like those are meant to completely, again, nullify them from paying their fair share.

13:22 All right. Let's take a quick break. We'll come right back. And we're back.

13:35 We're back.

13:36 I had to switch microphones.

13:37 Another Trump rally.

13:38 People with keen ears are noticing. Sorry.

13:41 Technical difficulties.

13:43 I feel like Miles has been switched out with a different guy. This fucking feels weird. Sounds old-fashioned. Looks totally different, too. Mm-hmm. That little big chin. Checking in with the U.S. elections. Donald Trump is continuing his panic tour, trying to shore up votes. for Republicans in, you know, places that are traditionally toss-ups between Democrats and Republicans, like, oh, I don't know, Mississippi? Yeah, right.

14:12 He won by 20 points in 2024, who hasn't had a senator from there since the 80s.

14:18 Yeah, he's there.

14:19 He's there.

14:20 Because Cindy Hyde-Smith is in a winnable, but somehow very close race with the Democratic challenger, Scott Column. So, yeah, Trump had to come down there and, you know, just kind of rally the.

14:33 The troops, as it were.

14:35 Any more ass discussions? There actually was. Somehow, yeah, ass seems to be the theme of the midterms. It's a senator's ass. It's Mickey Minaj's ass. The economy is ass.

14:50 It's all ass.

14:52 And in this rally, while he was speaking, he spoke for an hour, not his longest, but during that a heckler decided to shout out something about an ass so it wasn't trump this time speaking about someone's ass it was something to tell him to shove his ballroom up his ass um so here's that moment where trump was told hey just shove it up your ass.

15:14 People that we shove it up your big ass i'll go home.

15:19 Go one more time of the people that protect us.

15:25 I'll go home Hey, shut that bar room up, you fat ass. Hey, go home. Go home. Hey, go home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sick comeback.

15:36 Yeah, yeah, it wasn't great. It wasn't a great moment for Trump. I mean, the speech was rambling for an hour. I think what was odd, though, is Cindy Hyde-Smith, again, who's actually running, Trump's speaking for an hour.

15:48 And then he's like, all right, what about.

15:50 The senator, huh? Come on, let's say something. She says, fuck, literally nine words and then bolts. She's like, I don't even want to be here. So this is what Cindy Hyde-Smith says right after the president was speaking.

16:09 Is this not the best president in our lifetime?

16:13 Backs away from the podium. He's like, come on, say something. She goes, oh, no, thank you. You know, he keeps trying, gives her an unwanted kiss on the head, and she leaves.

16:24 And then she just walks away? I love that, you know, sometimes they get up and they talk.

16:29 For ten minutes, I say, oh.

16:31 Oh, yeah, you're, wow.

16:33 You don't say.

16:34 I love when they don't have anything to say, and they seem to not want to be there. That's kind of my thing. It's my kink. Some guys like to be stepped on. It's just wild that he.

16:45 Absolutely.

16:46 I don't know what that is.

16:47 If she is just frozen with excitement, if she's terrified, if she just has no absolutely no skill to campaign at all.

16:57 It could be everything.

16:58 It could be everything.

16:59 But yeah, that was a, a very, very short appearance from the person who's running for Senate.

17:03 We have some good news possibly in the Israeli election. I mean, good-ish news. There's no, no candidate seems to be, uh, great in this election. Nobody is mentioning, uh, Gaza at all in their, uh, campaign, but it does seem like, uh, So I think the polls are still open as we're recording this.

17:27 I think they close at like 4 p.m.

17:29 Ish today is kind of when they close in the U.S.

17:32 Right.

17:33 And people are saying that the turnout is the highest in decades. Um, and that this could, uh, there's a ultra Orthodox weekly magazine that, uh, is doing like a live blog of it. And they say, who is heading for a crushing defeat tonight. Only a miracle can save him now. Um, based on just like who is voting.

17:53 Um, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of Arab Israelis who are voting. Uh, I was reading like how Bedouin women are turning out in numbers that haven't been seen before. There's a lot of people who are interested in this race, uh, I mean, obviously trying to get out of like one of the most right wing governments that the country's ever had is yeah.

18:11 Yeah. That's good. That's good.

18:14 But when you look at sort of like what the sort of the two offers on table, like, you know, the main challenger to Netanyahu is Gotti Eisencott, who's also like a former military chief. So he's not, he's, his more is like Netanyahu is doing like trying to scare the shit out of everyone.

18:30 And he's like, oh, you don't know what's going to fucking happen, man.

18:32 All of our safety's at risk.

18:34 We got to fucking, he posted an AI video of Tel Aviv getting nuked.

18:38 To be like, this is what's at stake, folks.

18:41 Vote for me, the corrupt asshole who, you know, it's been one of the worst presidents you've ever had.

18:48 Yeah.

18:49 And then Eisencott sort of his sort of pitch is more about like democratic norms.

18:54 You know what I mean?

18:55 It feels very like 2024 in America where it's like we don't want this super right wing thing. We want a thing that at least resembles a democracy. And people like, what about the larger issues? I mean, at least from the outside world and not much talking about like no one's talking again.

19:10 No one's mentioning Gaza.

19:11 No one's mentioning Russia. but any kind of solution, one state, two state, nothing in that regard.

19:18 Sure. Eisencott has said that like settler violence needs to be curbed and get that under control. And that Israel needs to return to something that actually looks like a democracy and help repair its standing in the world. But you're like, you're ignoring the issue that is affecting your standing in the world. by not actually acknowledging what's happening to Palestinian people and what's the roadmap to get out of this shit and end the suffering. um and so no party looks like they're going to get a clear majority so there's obviously like the way the knesset is set up like if no one has a over 60 or no one has 61 seats then you got to figure out what the ruling coalition is going to be but i think also people have to get over the

20:02 idea that like that a genocidal Israeli government is purely a net and Yahoo product. Um, and that's a much larger, much larger thing to tackle, uh, and wrestle with. And yeah, it's, it's, it's just, it's just interesting to, to hear about like appeal to democratic norms. When you're in a country that is disenfranchised Arab voters and occupied regions, you have millions of people who are living on the land they've lived on for centuries, generations, and they have no vote at all. um, in the direction of, of this.

20:33 So, yeah. And they are saying like, if Netanyahu loses that they're going to, you know, challenge the vote, uh, I think they specifically said, uh, reminiscent of Trump's 2020 rigged vote, uh, they're going to claim voting irregularities in the Arab sectors, which is similar to what we saw in Brazil. Um, this just feels like it is now a part of the electoral process everywhere, right wing party, uh, you know, if they're defeated is already claiming that they're going to, you know, laying the groundwork to just overthrow the election, overthrow the democratic norms, uh, so to speak. Um, I think, I think Trump is already doing this for the midterms with, uh, Alaska. So it's just the world that we live in now, uh, is that the right

21:24 is going to, um, you know, I, I liked it. There's something about the Brazil, uh, having arrested Bolsonaro and like put him in jail and said he can't run anymore. Like, I don't know. It feels like that's the level of aggression that we should have in mind when it comes to dealing with these right wing, you know, people who are invalidating elections like over and over and over again.

21:49 Yeah. I mean, just, just to circle back on Brazil, Flavio Bolsonaro just fled, uh, Brazil.

21:55 Oh, wow.

21:56 According to people. So we'll see. We'll see where that goes. He was supposed to hand over his passport and did not. So we'll see where that goes. We'll see where that goes. But yeah, I think there's what's interesting, too, about what's happening in Israel from like just sort of like the political reporting I was reading was. because so many more Arab Israelis are voting, like those parties that are representing Arab Israelis will, could potentially tip the balance over what the ruling coalition could be. So it's still, I think a lot of people who, you know, like there was, I was reading a guardian piece about people in Gaza and they're like, dude, I don't give a fuck what's going to happen in the election. Like, unless something's actually

22:42 actually going to change. Like that's hard for hard to know, like what, my day to day is going to be like, cause I'm on in survival mode, let alone looking at like the geopolitics of like what's affecting me when clearly what's happening is wrong and needs to be addressed.

22:56 All right. Let's talk about tech and education real quick. Um, because there, there's a, an article, uh, I think an msn.com that's talking about, uh, just the, this turning tide where like for a while there was a lot of, uh, hopefulness specifically like during the pandemic, but you know, people basically being like this, this could actually democratize education and we'll like use these you know, tablets and laptops to make sure that everybody has access to educational material. And now with AI man, we could have the best teachers could be getting lessons from Aristotle.

23:37 Sounds like you're handing over a lot of money to Silicon Valley.

23:41 Yeah.

23:41 Yeah.

23:41 Yeah. I'm, I'm up through third and fourth grades with our kids and I've yet to see an example of technology-based learning that works at all. Like it all, it all sucks. Um, and like, that just seems to be the general, like schools have invested in technology and parents are like pushing back and schools are now having to like, you know, after going all in on these like technological solutions, um, they're having to like kind of pull it back, but they're not able to really pull it back fast enough because they're invested. They're kind of committed, you know, to this in the same way that like the economy kind of is. But I was looking at this one in Marion County outside of Philadelphia. They're saying that like, you know,

24:27 they've adopted a new policy, but that new policy is like kindergarten to second grade, limited non-routine use of technology. Third and fourth grade, less than 30 minutes. Fifth and sixth grade, less than 60 minutes. Seventh and eighth, less than 90 minutes. Ninth through 12th grade, less than 120 minutes.

24:48 That's still so much technology. The evidence suggests that it's not good for people's ability to learn. There's just a lot of evidence that it fucks with kids. It's like distracting in the same way that it is for, for us. And they just like, didn't figure it out.

25:10 It's.

25:10 Yeah.

25:11 I mean, like, I feel like there's countless studies that talk about the like inverse effect of technology in education. Like, yes, there's new technology, but like putting computers in schools, didn't make kids smarter.

25:24 Like kids aren't performing better. And I think they fundamentally miss.

25:28 They're like falling behind. at a precipitous level. Right. And it comes since this happened.

25:34 And it completely misses sort of how we as humans have learned for millions of years, which is person to person. Like that's our brains are like set up for that kind of way of learning things.

25:44 And to keep going, like, look at the, look at the flickery screen.

25:48 Talk to the iPad. I think this is, This is the future. No, that ain't helping. Yeah, it's interesting because we see like falling test scores and we think it's something like the way it's talked about is that it's something inevitable about the progress of technology and that like all these kids are just going to be on their screens.

26:06 And it's just actually like the tech industry just wormed its way into school districts. Like we used to be a country that was so careful about childhood development. We wouldn't allow ads aimed at kids on children's TV. And now they're at a place where for profit companies with a profit motive are like determining what is happening inside the classroom. So I don't know. It just feels like there's nothing inevitable about the fall of American education. It's just the result of what we prioritize as a country.

26:36 Yeah, and it's all about these tech people getting in front of the decision makers and razzling and dazzling and being like, man, imagine a whole computer lab with all of these computers in there for the kids. It's not, it's again, I think it's, it's dangerous because we already have enough things that are disconnecting us from our humanity and like person to person teaching at a, just should be like the foundation.

26:57 Like don't fucking meddle with that.

26:59 There's no, there's nothing to say like, oh man, learning from a caring human being is a, is actually detrimental to your education. And the arguments to say is if like throwing an iPad in front of a kid for 30 minutes a day or something is going to help.

27:14 I think it's just stupid.

27:16 And kids are going to interact with technology anyway, at some point in their lives.

27:21 It's, I think it's, it's one thing, right?

27:22 When, if like, if a country is less technologically advanced and then you're, you're, you're, you're educating kids who aren't able to actually compete or have the skills to, to work in a, like a world filled with computers, but that's passively already happening.

27:36 With so many kids.

27:37 Not to say that that kind of education is important. However, to overemphasize that I think is totally detrimental because at the end of the day, you want to generate people who have the ability to communicate, to think critically and do these other things.

27:50 And that's not born out of staring at a screen. Yeah. I thought it was instruct the articles actually on cnn.com, but, uh, it says that like, um, it has this quote from two parents that are like part of this debate. They said, when you're on the same side as the bullies and big tech, you know, you're on the wrong side, which is like a big part of, it's like, well, they've never done anything that's like good for humanity yet. So like everything they do inevitably turns into like, engineering it to be addictive and distracting. Um, so why, why would you try like that? Yeah. People aren't stupid. Another parent, uh, addressed, uh, the board compared the technology policy to expired milk, which I think it's also like, I understand where the schools

28:35 were coming from. They like got a foothold during the pandemic when like we needed to come up with, you know, technological solutions, but it's like that. I mean, it's also the, the same way that corporations kind of got a foothold on raising prices during the pandemic. And then we're never like, and those prices come back down. It's just like, well, this is a new way for us to make money.

28:56 And we're going to keep making money until somebody like physically forces us to stop, you know?

29:01 Yeah. I mean, yeah, credit to all the parents who, like, I have friends of mine who, like, really fought hard in their kids' school districts and stuff to make sure that, like, they're not just fucking chunking a bunch of fucking screens into, like, a second grade classroom for no benefit.

29:18 And act like they need to do that as part of the curriculum.

29:22 And it sounds, from what they've said, man, it's like, some have been easier fights, others have been really hard because you get people who are just so convinced that it's the future and we have to think about their future. It's like, yeah, think about their future by thinking about how.

29:36 We were taught and how that version of teaching.

29:42 Will eventually become something from the forgotten past if we keep injecting more and more technology into the classroom.

29:50 All right. Those are some of the things that are trending on this October 27th. We are back tomorrow with the whole episode of the show. Until then, be kind to each other. Be kind to yourselves. Get your vaccines while you still can. Get your flu shots. Don't do nothing about white supremacy. And we will talk to you all tomorrow. Bye. Goodbye. The Daily Zeitgeist is executive produced by Catherine Law. Co-produced by Victor Wright. Co-written by J.M. McNabb.

30:15 And edited and engineered by Brian Jeffries.