S21.E06: Bernie Sanders; John Heilemann; Russell Brand

[tessaray]

Air Date:  March 3, 2023

Bill’s guests are Sen. Bernie Sanders, John Heilemann, and Russell Brand.

Note: Bill is off 2/24.

[WendyM]

Good grief, dear god...Russell Brand. WTF. Make it stop.

[sugarbaker design]

I'm grateful for Russell Brand!

[Starchild]

Russell Brand is over the top, but from an ideological perspective, much of what he says is right. The problem is, he isn't acknowledging the nuances created by reality. Then again, once you start to do that, you slow down and change becomes harder. I think every movement probably needs uncompromising people like him to keep driving forward, but yeah, it can be tiring to listen to after a while.

I will say, he's the first person in a long time to get the whole panel riled up. John was fuming lol. Even Bill might hesitate to bring Russell back for a while.

[rwlevin]

I like Russell Brand, I really do, but he’s not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. Yes, ivermectin is more than a horse medication. I’ve prescribed it to patients myself. But I prescribed it to rid patients of horrible head lice infections, not bacteria or viruses. I agree with him about the pharmaceutical companies trying to make huge profits off the Covid vaccines. Who can forget a few weeks back Moderna trying to increase the price of its vaccine like 900% and then was shamed back into making it free? And don’t even get me started on insulin prices or fighting with insurance to get medications and treatments/tests approved. However, MSNBC is not FoxNews. Morning Joe is not a news show anymore than The Today Show is. Joe Rogan is a conspiracy nut. Vitamin D does not protect you from getting Covid (it does protect you from rickets and osteoporosis, though) Saying things loud and fast does not make you right.

Holy crap, Bill admitted that the vaccines actually do save lives!

 

Finally, Bill, get off your high horse about college not being necessary. Not too long ago, City College of New York was free. Not only that, it’s nickname was “Harvard of the poor.” You want to go to law school or med school? You went to CCNY? You’re in! Now, in order to get into medical school, you need above a 3.5 at an Ivy League (or academically equivalent) school along with whatever the equivalent of a 35 on the MCAT now is (they changed the scoring scheme some time in the last 10 years) along with hours of research and volunteering at a hospital. And unless you’re lucky enough to get into NYU, you’re going to be paying through the nose, especially if you’re out of state,

Thanks to a small inheritance I received from my father passing away when I was a baby, I graduated from college with no student debt. I then graduated from med school with over $220k in student debt. Because of grants due to working for the underserved and the Covid forbearance, I’m down to $50,000. I don’t qualify for Biden’s forgiveness plan but I don’t begrudge anyone who does. And do you know what I would do with that extra money? Use it on the things I’m paying for now-childcare, diapers, food, my mortgage, clothes (yes, Bill, clothes-kids grow and need new clothes and even old clothes wear out so suck it, Bill), transportation and, yes, even the occasional vacation because, let’s face it, as a doctor who was both pregnant and working full time during Covid and watched half of her coworkers either quit or retire and is still waiting for those open positions to be filled, I’m burnt out.

[heatherchandler]

John Heilemann is so smug.  
I hope Bernie does run again, this man can pinpoint the exact issues in the US and he actually knows how to do something about it.

[aghst]

Bill tried to take a victory lap, referring to recent studies about masks and natural immunity.  Obviously not reading beyond the headlines.

Because even though he cherry-picked the studies, they don't really allow him to make the conclusion that he does.

No vindication for the "dissenters" because studies came out in the last couple of days showing increased incidence of heart attacks, strokes and cognitive dysfunction within a year of an infection.

Brand tried to brand all pharma as bad as Gilead.  I agree they're all greedy, with the execs more driven by financial incentives than you know, providing treatments, which is what their products purport to do.  I'm sure a lot of the scientists who work in the industry believe in that mission -- they may own stock in these companies but they didn't go into a difficult discipline, for not necessarily the most pay given their academic and intellectual abilities, to just become rich.

Like most industries, it's only the executives who become rich.  A lot of pharma researchers and scientists, if they never ascend to the executive suite, will still have a good upper class life but they won't be rich, like tens or hundreds of millions in wealth.

What would be the alternative anyways, if they imposed higher taxes on that one industry or price controls, there would likely be a brain drain as salaries would be cut, not just to executives but the actual researchers.

New Rules about trigger warnings, sure his staff found a lot of good examples to make fun of.  I agree too many disclaimers but some of those are probably driven by lawyers.  And if younger generations want them, because that seems to be Bill's strategy lately, to show how weak and coddled and humorless young Millenials and Gen Z are, who cares, they're going to have to live in this world a lot longer than us older people.  So let them have whatever they want.

He goes hard after social media and lately TikTok, because it's wildly popular with young people.  Yes it may be harming them psychologically and it may be spying on them -- Chinese Communist Party wants to monitor what kind of dances American teens like to do.

But his whole thing about trigger warnings is that young people are being coddled too much and they should become mentally tougher and do things without warnings so they can find out things for themselves.  Well if they choose to spend their time watching TikTok videos, aren't they finding out things on their own?

Bill wants to be able to tell younger generations how to live and to laugh at all his jokes.

[WendyM]

55 minutes ago, aghst said:

 

New Rules about trigger warnings, sure his staff found a lot of good examples to make fun of.  I agree too many disclaimers but some of those are probably driven by lawyers.  And if younger generations want them, because that seems to be Bill's strategy lately, to show how weak and coddled and humorless young Millenials and Gen Z are, who cares, they're going to have to live in this world a lot longer than us older people.  So let them have whatever they want.

He goes hard after social media and lately TikTok, because it's wildly popular with young people.  Yes it may be harming them psychologically and it may be spying on them -- Chinese Communist Party wants to monitor what kind of dances American teens like to do.

But his whole thing about trigger warnings is that young people are being coddled too much and they should become mentally tougher and do things without warnings so they can find out things for themselves.  Well if they choose to spend their time watching TikTok videos, aren't they finding out things on their own?

Bill wants to be able to tell younger generations how to live and to laugh at all his jokes.

And maybe it's because it's a weekly show so if feels like a broken record, but...how many times can he make fun of trigger warnings, COVID protocols, "woke"ness? He is fast becoming the echo chamber he accuses every other network of doing. If he were on every evening, he'd have to come up with different topics, right? And his interest in ageism sprouted when he turned 60. Hmm. I wonder why.

[DXD526]

It got to the point where I had to FF through Brand. He wasn't too bad in the first few minutes, but then it was liked the drugs kicked in or something, and he just wouldn't.shut.up. I'm not real familiar with him, but I always thought he was kind of an amusing, reasonably intelligent guy. This episode made me majorly rethink that opinion. 

The only other guest in recent years that made me turn to the FF button was Anthony Scaramucci. Imagine a panel with the Mooch and RB? Thirty minutes of them endlessly trying to shout over each other. 

[The Solution]

Russell Brand is basically right in most of his opinions but he refuses to see nuance and is nowhere near as intelligent as he thinks he is.

Re: Bill and vaccines. In order for vaccines to work in a situation like the coronavirus pandemic, almost everyone has to take the vaccine. No one forced Bill (or Kyrie Irving for that matter) to get the vaccine, and that's a sign of a free society, but with that refusal came some restrictions that Bill wasn't willing to live with (Kyrie was slightly more cooperative - not much). Bill needs to recognize those restrictions and responsibilities.

[Mr. R0b0t]

I simultaneously wanted to hear more of what Brand was talking about and for him to STFU.  That was like watching Uncut Gems: Real Time Edition.

[ApocalypseThen]

As someone who likes to follow a wide variety of news sources and political podcasts, I would say that Brand's views are a lot more widespread in our society than people think. And it's not just "fringe nutcases" who have these beliefs. I agree with some of the core arguments that he makes, but his delivery is just not ideal for a show like Bill's (and I also find Brand insufferable at times). In a long-form podcast like Joe Rogan's or Sam Harris', there could actually be more of a back-and-forth that would allow one to flesh out those arguments properly. This would help to highlight their strengths while exposing their weaknesses. 

Taking Brand's claims regarding Fox News and MSNBC as an example, his core argument that they're both heavily biased and are essentially owned by big corporations is correct. However, MSNBC is NOT a propaganda machine the same way that Fox News is. Fox News goes a lot further in providing an alternative reality for its viewers and in being an unofficial mouthpiece for a political party. 

I think Bill made a mistake in moving on from the topic in order to have a superficial 5-minute discussion about Brexit. John Heilemann didn't really get a chance to respond to Brand's claims after giving the examples of Ivermectin/Joe Rogan and Rachel Maddow/vaccine transmission. While these were false equivalencies when compared to what Fox News did with Dominion and the election, they were good examples for highlighting the issues with groupthink and corporate influence that liberal news organizations also suffer from. 

Not surprisingly, when I found this part of the discussion posted on online platforms, you just get the two extremes - one side claiming it shows what an unhinged lunatic Russell Brand is and the other side claiming that Brand "schooled" Heilemann. Nothing even remotely nuanced. 

Overall, I prefer episodes like today's, which are more adversarial in nature. I think recently Bill has had too many episodes with guests who just sit there and agree 90%+ of the time. However, Bill needs to do a better job of moderating the discussions and allocating enough time to each segment. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ApocalypseThen]

5 hours ago, WendyM said:

And maybe it's because it's a weekly show so if feels like a broken record, but...how many times can he make fun of trigger warnings, COVID protocols, "woke"ness? He is fast becoming the echo chamber he accuses every other network of doing. If he were on every evening, he'd have to come up with different topics, right? And his interest in ageism sprouted when he turned 60. Hmm. I wonder why.

Agreed. I can accept that Bill has made this his main battle. There's no way around it. It reminds me of when Bill was talking about the "Islamic threat" in our society. He seemed to be overly obsessed with it.

But given everything that is going on around the world and in the US, is it so difficult to have a wider variety of themes for New Rules at least? He should realize that this would also be a smart decision from a comedic standpoint. New Rules just feel stale when they're so repetitive. 

[Starchild]

20 minutes ago, ApocalypseThen said:

Overall, I prefer episodes like today's, which are more adversarial in nature. I think recently Bill has had too many episodes with guests who just sit there and agree 90%+ of the time. However, Bill needs to do a better job of moderating the discussions and allocating enough time to each segment. 

I guess he's forgotten how to deal with dissenting opinions, after having so many guests who validate all of his positions.

[Hedgehog2022]

8 hours ago, aghst said:

Bill tried to take a victory lap, referring to recent studies about masks and natural immunity.  Obviously not reading beyond the headlines.

Because even though he cherry-picked the studies, they don't really allow him to make the conclusion that he does.

No vindication for the "dissenters" because studies came out in the last couple of days showing increased incidence of heart attacks, strokes and cognitive dysfunction within a year of an infection.

Brand tried to brand all pharma as bad as Gilead.  I agree they're all greedy, with the execs more driven by financial incentives than you know, providing treatments, which is what their products purport to do.  I'm sure a lot of the scientists who work in the industry believe in that mission -- they may own stock in these companies but they didn't go into a difficult discipline, for not necessarily the most pay given their academic and intellectual abilities, to just become rich.

Like most industries, it's only the executives who become rich.  A lot of pharma researchers and scientists, if they never ascend to the executive suite, will still have a good upper class life but they won't be rich, like tens or hundreds of millions in wealth.

What would be the alternative anyways, if they imposed higher taxes on that one industry or price controls, there would likely be a brain drain as salaries would be cut, not just to executives but the actual researchers.

New Rules about trigger warnings, sure his staff found a lot of good examples to make fun of.  I agree too many disclaimers but some of those are probably driven by lawyers.  And if younger generations want them, because that seems to be Bill's strategy lately, to show how weak and coddled and humorless young Millenials and Gen Z are, who cares, they're going to have to live in this world a lot longer than us older people.  So let them have whatever they want.

He goes hard after social media and lately TikTok, because it's wildly popular with young people.  Yes it may be harming them psychologically and it may be spying on them -- Chinese Communist Party wants to monitor what kind of dances American teens like to do.

But his whole thing about trigger warnings is that young people are being coddled too much and they should become mentally tougher and do things without warnings so they can find out things for themselves.  Well if they choose to spend their time watching TikTok videos, aren't they finding out things on their own?

Bill wants to be able to tell younger generations how to live and to laugh at all his jokes.

Interesting that Bill wants to bloviate to the younger generations when he has zero experience actually having any youngins or raising any youngins. If he did he might be able to listen to them when they tell him his boomer humor is lame.

[Welshman in Ca]

My problem with RB was the same here as it's always been, while he may have some good points he talks so fast & so loudly without even a pause for breath that you don't have a chance to take a second & think about anything he may say or for any opposing viewpoint that after 10 minutes I switch off to him & hear nothing coming out of his mouth. It's no wonder his marriage to Katy Perry was so short, 2 very over the top & me me me people who don't shut up long enough to hear anyone else is a recipe for disaster.

[Hedgehog2022]

1 hour ago, Welshman in Ca said:

My problem with RB was the same here as it's always been, while he may have some good points he talks so fast & so loudly without even a pause for breath that you don't have a chance to take a second & think about anything he may say or for any opposing viewpoint that after 10 minutes I switch off to him & hear nothing coming out of his mouth. It's no wonder his marriage to Katy Perry was so short, 2 very over the top & me me me people who don't shut up long enough to hear anyone else is a recipe for disaster.

RB broke up with Katy Perry...by text I believe! She was totally blown away since there had been no discussion between them about splitting up.

[Hanahope]

What’s wrong with using extra money from student loan forgiveness for shopping, vacations, yes even alcohol (responsibly).  It’s stimulating the economy, isn’t that what we want?  

yup, almost everything about Covid in 2020 was politicized by our government.  And that is why we will have a problem with the next pandemic.  

those tik tok ‘teen’ pics, just look at the necks, you can tell they are older.

I don’t think msnbc has ever had guests on their shows peddling outright lies, especially those intended to destroy democracy.

 I’ve not heard of anyone who took ivermectin that cured Covid.

Brand wasn’t hurt by brexit so of course he’s fine with it.

 

[canaanite2]

In case anyone was wondering about the poll Bill was referring to regarding people using student debt relief for vacations, here it is. Of special note is the graph that shows the answer choices the respondents had. This is one of many BS polls that are nothing more than talking point producers. When Bernie asked Bill who conducted this poll, Bill knew he was lying when he said NBC. A lot of the "facts" Bill's been sharing lately come from questionable sources. If he had a policy of posting links to the references he cites, he'd have less "facts" to work with when it comes to his war on college and wokeness.  

Edited March 5, 2023 by canaanite2

[realityplease]

Student debt relief is probably a moot point since the U.S. Supreme Court seems poised to tank the very notion of it.

Extending the reasoning expressed by some in this forum, some of you would probably say that certain justices shouldn't rule on this issue because, like Bill, they don't have or never had "youngins." But that's not how the world operates.  If you're a member of the Supreme Court - you get to decide many issues that don't affect you personally.  If you're a member of society - you also get to voice an opinion about the society in which you live - even on issues that don't affect you personally or hit young/old, parents/non-parents, grads/non-grads, woke/non-woke differently.  Even Bill.  In theory, everyone gets a vote/opinion, though others can choose to listen or not listen, to reject or be persuaded by that opinion.  

Thanks canaanite2 for providing the poll that surveyed all of 1,250 people!  Geez.  No wonder many pollsters are or should be ignored as total BS-meisters. How can a pool that small be reliable?  Shame on Bill for trying to push that poll as if it is worthy of attention. Bernie was right to question who conducted it. 

[heatherchandler]

19 hours ago, Hanahope said:

 

I don’t think msnbc has ever had guests on their shows peddling outright lies, especially those intended to destroy democracy.

 

 

They have.  Rachel Maddow, huge example as someone mentioned above.

Also Zerlina Maxwell, she lied outright about Bernie Sanders' speech in 2020.  

 

[Hanahope]

well, the suit against Maddow was dismissed and the appeal lost too, no evidence of falsehood of an actual fact by Maddow.  

and did msnbc know in advance that Maxwell was going to lie about Sander's speech?

and neither of the statements was intended to destroy the trust in democratic elections.

very different from fox hosts knowing allowed the lies about the 2020 election, dominion voting machines, etc.

[Tachi Rocinante]

Ivermectin is primarily used as a horse de-wormer.  That is a plain fact. Saying Joe Rogan took a horse de-wormer is also a fact. 

Just like Coumadin (warfarin), one of the most widely prescribed anticoagulants/blood thinners for a time, is rat poison. It was a running joke amongst my family and friends who were on Coumadin to say things like "gotta go take my rat poison."

Yes, MSNBC skews to the left, but the degree to which they do is nowhere near the slant that Faux News employs. As others have mentioned, nuance is important.  And that the only example of MSNBC that Brand could think of was Joe Rogan tells you all you need to know.

Edited March 7, 2023 by Tachi Rocinante
Screw grammarly, pay attention in class

[SG429]

Quote

Taking Brand's claims regarding Fox News and MSNBC as an example, his core argument that they're both heavily biased and are essentially owned by big corporations is correct.

Assuming someone with deep pockets will fund an "unbiased" news organization on the scale of NBC News or Fox and then achieves a significant following, how long before some big corporation offers Deep Pockets an irresistible buyout offer anyway? 

Sorry, forgive me for trying to rebut the lunacy. On topic, the Morning Joe appearance he referenced was equally unhinged, as his only objective is too talk louder and longer than any one else and he really isn't interested in actually discussing (and defending!) his views.

[Tara]

On 3/5/2023 at 6:30 PM, canaanite2 said:

In case anyone was wondering about the poll Bill was referring to regarding people using student debt relief for vacations, here it is. Of special note is the graph that shows the answer choices the respondents had. This is one of many BS polls that are nothing more than talking point producers.

This I will agree with wholeheartedly. Polls, in general, are usually nothing more than “ torture numbers long enough and they will admit to anything.”

This poll, in particular, seems to be even more meaningless than most. This isn’t money they are “getting”, it’s money they are not paying. So the responses would seem to be more wistful dreaming.

12 hours ago, SG429 said:

Assuming someone with deep pockets will fund an "unbiased" news organization on the scale of NBC News or Fox and then achieves a significant following, how long before some big corporation offers Deep Pockets an irresistible buyout offer anyway? 

I think this is exactly what Brand was saying, that the news is bought and paid for, and presented with ulterior motives. I miss the days when CNN was a trusted news source. They all learned from Fox that inciting people delivers ratings, which delivers money. Too bad. MSNBC is no better. The news outlets learned, before Covid taught a lot of us, that people will believe what they want to believe. The news outlets capitalize on that.

[Thomas Crown]

On 3/4/2023 at 12:57 PM, heatherchandler said:

John Heilemann is so smug.  
I hope Bernie does run again, this man can pinpoint the exact issues in the US and he actually knows how to do something about it.

I agree about the smugnes and it was nice to see him completely knocked off balance by RB.  Heilemenn barely made any coherent points afterwards for the rest of the show including overtime as he was still fuming.  2nd week in a row that someone from MSNBC gets told straight to their face that their network is a problem. Good it should happen more often.  I get it.  MSNBC is not as bad as Fox, but they're still a problem.  Anytime you have news network that caters to a specific target market and delivers the news in a way that the target market wants to hear the news, then it's a problem whether it's coming from Fox or MSNBC.  They both use hate for the other side as a business model to get ratings.

When providing examples of MSNBC misleading viewers, I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Rachel Maddow & OLN lawsuit as an example. Rachel was pushing night after night the Russian conspiracy story to the point of calling the OAN network as agents for Russia and them providing paid propaganda.  After the lawsuit, MSNBC had to go to court and admit that the Maddow show is more entertainment than actual factual news.  The Judge even acknowledge this in her ruling noting that Maddow's show is nothing more than hyperbole, exaggeration and pure opinion where MSNBC viewers should not assume that Maddow's show is factually true even when Maddow uses language of certainty.  It's interesting story to read and sad acknowledgement about what the news media has become.  I hope Dominion wins the lawsuit against Fox so that the network goes away and we never have to hear from Carlson & cie again.  Unfortunately, I see them using a similar argument that MSNBC used to get out of it. 

[Thomas Crown]

On 3/5/2023 at 5:48 PM, Hanahope said:

What’s wrong with using extra money from student loan forgiveness for shopping, vacations, yes even alcohol (responsibly).  It’s stimulating the economy, isn’t that what we want?  

yup, almost everything about Covid in 2020 was politicized by our government.  And that is why we will have a problem with the next pandemic.  

 

I agree.  We will have a serious problem with the next pandemic. The politicizing of the origins of Covid and the media coverage that followed is truly frightening IMO. That's one topic that Bill keeps brining up on his show that I actually don't mind when he goes off on a tangent on it.  It's truly scary how quickly news outlets labelled it as conspiracy / racist and would not discuss the origins of the virus despite the "lab leak" being a viable theory to the origin.

[Hanahope]

10 hours ago, Thomas Crown said:

When providing examples of MSNBC misleading viewers, I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Rachel Maddow & OLN lawsuit as an example. Rachel was pushing night after night the Russian conspiracy story to the point of calling the OAN network as agents for Russia and them providing paid propaganda.  After the lawsuit, MSNBC had to go to court and admit that the Maddow show is more entertainment than actual factual news.  The Judge even acknowledge this in her ruling noting that Maddow's show is nothing more than hyperbole, exaggeration and pure opinion where MSNBC viewers should not assume that Maddow's show is factually true even when Maddow uses language of certainty.

the lawsuit against tucker carlson and fox news went the exact same way.  at least the rachael maddow show is not on a network that has "news" in its name, which can be misleading.