Cuckoo 4 Politics �‪�‬ Michael Desrosiers

“In this country, because someone has a lot of money, we treat them like they have the right to tell us what to do.” Sam Jean returns for the Season 3 finale, picking up where he and Michael left off in the previous episode’s discussion about the border crisis, the latest stirrings in Congress, and of course, Donald Trump. It seems Republicans will blame non-Americans for everything. While they continue to promote division in this country by treating immigrants to the U.S. as a threat, they also blame the sending foreign aid to places like Ukraine to excuse wealth inequality, disparity of healthcare and underfunded social programs. With so many perceived injustices, it’s no wonder Trump’s voting base is so enchanted by his crude and racist remarks—they see them as his sticking it to the man, despite, of course, Trump being the man. 

Conservative leaders are playing college students as pawns. They used the recent congressional hearing involving the presidents of three Ivy League universities as another means of denigrating institutions of higher education, particularly elite institutions, as indoctrination camps. Nevermind that many conservative leaders themselves are products of elite universities. They discourage students from speaking out for fear of missing opportunities and at a time and place in life where those students are meant to be exchanging ideas freely. 

It’s no wonder so many unqualified people feel they are fit to run for office. Vivek Ramaswamy continues to troll his way through his campaign, modeling his approach after Trump’s. Meanwhile, a new law threatens to erode what’s left of the Voting Rights Act, affecting those citizens historically most discriminated against, but no one is really paying attention. 



Quotes:


“You do hear Americans say, ‘I’m all about supporting Ukraine…’ and so forth, but the government seems to always have money to provide aid to foreign crises, but at home when the price of goods and services keep going up, and inflation—although it’s coming down–people still say, ‘What about here at home?’ So, that’s a fair critique.” (7:08 | Michael)


“What you get from Trump is the power of celebrity. That’s what you get from Trump, this idea that this is an important person. People believe that Donald Trump is an important person who tells it like it is. He’s not the most couth person. They ignore the fact that almost everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie, but they like the fact that Trump can vocalize the things that they’ve been told they aren’t allowed to say. ” (13:54 | Sam)


“There is a character–even if I disagree with you politically–there’s a certain character that we believe a person should have in order to represent us in government. That’s the myth we’ve been told.” (18:36 |Sam)


“The presidents of the universities were giving lawyerly answers in an environment where they were supposed to give social media-worthy answers, because that’s what the hearing was about.” (20:01 | Sam) 


“In this society, we venerate people who make a lot of money and we treat their intelligence in making money as if it is some moral good. What people like Vivek demonstrate is you can be smart, you can make a lot of money but it doesn’t make you a good person and it also doesn’t mean that you’re smart enough to do other things.” (39:09 | Sam)



Links

cuckoo4politics.com

https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/

https://www.facebook.com/Cuckoo-4-Politics-104093938102793



Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“Hopefully, this is a renaissance,” says Sam Jean, who returns to Cuckoo 4 Politics for another episode of Raw & Uncut as we wrap up 2023. It’s been a year full of high profile labor strikes, which remind people of the power of unions to stand up to corporations to fight for a living wage. Of course, this doesn’t stop many people from blaming immigrants for depressed wages and low employment. America has a history of demonizing its most newly arrived citizens, blaming them for all its problems, while simultaneously relying on them to make up large parts of the workforce. As Americans, we must question which of our foreign policy maneuvers have forced people to come to our country to seek a better life. 

This hypocrisy extends to the highest positions of government. Americans continue to labor under the illusion that those on the Supreme Court hold themselves to a higher moral standard than the rest of us. Yet, as Michael points out, Judge Clarence Thomas accepts all sorts of gifts and favors from rich donors, compromising. Sam calls for term limits in the Supreme Court, to help tamper down such corruption and compromised integrity and corruption. 

Meanwhile, too many conservative candidates are weaponizing their religion as a way to mystify their followers, something that Sam predicts will only become more pronounced during the 2024 election season. If there’s one abiding truth, it’s that Donald Trump makes everything worse. 

Quotes:


“We have to address why it is that people are coming here. The other thing we don’t address in terms of our foreign policy is what has American foreign policy done to some of these countries that are sending us their migrants? Why? Why is that happening?” (9:20 | Sam)


“It seems like the public understands that the workers have no leverage and their only leverage is to strike. And when they start striking and they start explaining what they want, regardless of how the media tries to interpret it like, ‘Oh, they expect a living wage.---the shock of it! God forbid someone get a wage that allows them to live–I  think that (18:17 | Sam)


“One thing the strike demonstrates is the power of labor and organizing labor because the workers by themselves do not have sufficient leverage to stand up against the corporations. They just simply don’t. You think one worker can stand up to Ford, Chrysler, GM? Not at all. So this demonstrates the power of labor, and hopefully this is a renaissance for labor movements to come back.” (19:27 | Sam) 


“Judge Clarence Thomas. The man is literally hanging with big donors who are paying for his–everything–from taking him on lavish vacations, to paying for anything he wants and we think, ‘You’re supposed to be impartial?’ Is he another Tim Scott?” (24:28 | Michael)


“There is a separation of church and state because we understand in this country that there are people who believe and there are people who don’t believe. We have to treat them the same way. You don’t need to insert religion to have an outcome that is fair. Can we use religious ideas to form certain laws? Of course we can, of course people do, but the laws are sufficient as they’re written without a hint and a hinge of religion.” (30:12 | Sam)



Links

cuckoo4politics.com

https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/

https://www.facebook.com/Cuckoo-4-Politics-104093938102793



Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“I don’t care that he’s 80, because the choice is between him and Donald Trump,” says Sam Jean, who returns to weigh in on President Joe Biden as Biden prepares to run for re-election in 2024. The greatest criticism leveled at the president, from his own party as well as his Republican detractors, is that he is too old for the job. Sam argues that people’s perception of Biden is based on the media taking clips out of context. Michael recounts attending a rally where Biden appeared spry and in command of a fervent audience, dispelling popular beliefs that he is both unreliable and unrelatable. 

People also want to blame the president for economic issues that are out of his control, such as high inflation rates and increasing costs of living, while ignoring that unemployment is the lowest it’s ever been. Democrats have a messaging problem, suggests Sam. Their rational approach and insistence on facts means that they don’t experience the immediate, emotional reaction that Republicans are able to elicit from the MAGA crowd.

Stay until the end for Michael’s closing thoughts, where he explains why Biden, though older than Trump only by a few years, is handling aging much more gracefully. 

Quotes:


“I don’t think his age has anything to do with his ability to connect with people, because when I see him, I see him as somebody’s grandfather.” (9:49 | Sam)


“Trump is just a crazy, stupid person, and they have a lot of energy. He’s always raging about something and so it looks like he’s a young guy, but he’s not young himself.” (11:42 | Sam)


“All these things that people have direct anger about —or I would say misdirected anger about —is to Biden. They are not realizing that there are other factors involved, particularly in Congress, because I’ve not yet heard a possible alternative solution to inflation.” (17:48 | Michael) 


“There is this famous composer who is told about this young prodigy who’s great and so the composer goes to listen to this prodigy. And this prodigy has a concert and plays his piece flawlessly, and people come up to the composer afterwards and ask, ‘Hey, what did you think?’ He said, ‘He could play the music but he doesn’t feel the notes.’ And that’s what Democrats are missing sometimes. They don’t feel the notes. Not from the economic arguments. They can play the music, they can tell people, ‘Well, this is not really the president’s fault, look at these numbers, look at these numbers, look at these numbers. But that’s not what people want to hear. They want to hear ‘You feel the soul of this thing that’s bothering me. How are these things going to go down?’ And I don’t know that they have effectively messaged that, and I don’t know if you can, to be honest with you. I don’t know if you can effectively message that, because if people feel like things are bad, how do you stop that feeling?” (19:40 | Sam) 


“People who are liberals tend to be less influenced in the way that Conservatives can be influenced. We look for evidence for things…But the MAGA crowd has been inoculated to just believe what they are told.” (24:18 | Sam)



Links

cuckoo4politics.com

https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/

https://www.facebook.com/Cuckoo-4-Politics-104093938102793



Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“There's no one that I see who can beat Donald Trump. He's vanquished all of them,” says Sam Jean, who returns for another special Raw & Uncut edition of Cuckoo 4 Politics. He and Michael discuss the GOP candidates running for the U.S. presidency in 2024. Mike Pence is an irrelevant dearth of charisma, who has returned to his pre-Trump irrelevancy. Nikki Haley has plenty of charisma but is running a campaign from 2002. Michael’s dislike for Tim Scott borders on the irrational, yet is still not as irrational as those who refrained from donating to Scott’s campaign because of his single status. Chris Christie has a lower than ten percent approval rating but is the only one willing to take Trump head on. Ron DeSantis’ thuggish tactics and empty policies don’t translate outside of his limited base in Florida. Michael takes pointed aim at his treatment of both Black constituents and politicians. 

Does any of this really matter, though? As Sam points out that despite being indicted on 91 counts of felony, including inciting an insurrection, Donald Trump's MAGA base still blindly supports him. And his fellow politicians will do what they must to curry favor with him. After all, this is not the Republican party of Reagan, Bush Sr. or even Bush Jr. Despite the unprecedented vitriol and unbecoming behavior displayed by the party, Michael explains why he isn’t panicked—-yet. 

Quotes 


“Everybody has to account for Trump and Trump's followers. And this is why I told you it wasn't a race from the jump, from the start, it wasn't a race. Trump had already won. And if you've noticed, as the primary has gone on, Trump has only become more and more popular.” (14:39 | Sam)


“Once you get out of Florida, and you go to New Hampshire, nobody in New Hampshire thinks that people in Florida are actually more free than in New Hampshire, and voters in New Hampshire, for all the MAGA craziness, take the primary seriously, and they come with very serious questions. Iowa, they come with a very serious question, because they're given this sort of stage that they aren't given most of the time. And DeSantis just does not connect with people. If he's not bullying, he just does not connect with people. Trump might not like his followers, but he has no problem shaking their hands.” (19:33 | Sam)


“I'll say this. Ron DeSantis is not definitely loved in the state of Florida, not entirely. Again, he's only admired in certain pockets within Florida. But I recall his rhetoric about, Black Lives Matter. His rhetoric about Critical Race Theory, his effort to minimize the political power within black communities to relegate them to one congressional elected official, his firing an elected official who was a black woman, I believe the district attorney, to put someone else in place. It doesn't resonate well.” (23:58 | Michael)


‘About the 91 indictments, it means absolutely nothing. OK, I'm being glib about it, when I say it means nothing. It doesn't mean nothing. In the grand scheme of history, it's a big deal. But if you're asking me in the particular, today, in the political environment for the Republican Party, what it means, it means nothing to them. And the reason it means nothing to them, is he continues to lead every single poll. At some point, Michael, you’ve got to stop believing in Santa Claus.” (30:21 | Sam) 


“Trump is a great ‘marketeer’-- if that's even a word–but what's what I find interesting, too, is that GOP officials are scared, not of Trump, but of his Maga supporters.” (32:40 | Michael) 



Links

cuckoo4politics.com

https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/

https://www.facebook.com/Cuckoo-4-Politics-104093938102793



Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

“They live in a completely different world, and that world is disassociated with the majority of Americans,” says Sam Jean, friend of the show, who joins Michael for another episode of Raw & Uncut, where they talk about the chaos erupting in the House of Representatives under the (lack of) leadership of the GOP. Ignoring any separation of church and state, Republican leaders are making sectors such as healthcare, academia, law enforcement political and the fallout is manifold. Not only does this discourage people from pursuing positions in these fields, the dire need for personnel forces the barrier to entry lower and lower and the populace continues to lose. 

Of course, politicians themselves will never feel these effects. Worse yet, Sam and Michael are convinced they don’t do it for any other reason than for attention, relevance and to curry favor particularly with Donald Trump. As Sam notes, as much as Republicans complain about what Democrats are doing, they never present a viable alternative. They have no agenda or even a plan. 

Join another lively discussion as the two friends discuss the doomed fall of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the white-washing of Black history in schools, and why no one should be taking courses from Prager University. 

Quotes 


“If you're thinking like a MAGA Republican, it makes perfect sense. They don't believe in government. They don't believe government is good for anything. And so their whole approach to governing is disruption.” (13:35 | Sam)


“Republicans are rebels with only one cause: and that cause is Donald Trump.” (15:21 | Sam)


“[Republicans] live in a completely different world, and that world is disassociated with the majority of Americans.” (20:22 | Sam) 


“With the current trend of the MAGA ultra-rhetoric that comes out, we are seeing an increase of people opting out of education because it's been politicized, opting out of the medical field, particularly when it comes to maternity, because, just like you've mentioned, they don't want to be when they have to make a medical decision for fear of a lawsuit. We have people opting out of law enforcement, because of that particular field being politicized. So where do we go with this because we're seeing this trend continuing on, and in the end, who's going to suffer?” (24:03 | Michael) 


“Everybody thinks that their perspective is valid. That's just natural. But for a long time, in this country, we deferred to people who were subject matter experts. We deferred to teachers, doctors, scientists, sociologists or psychologists. Now we don't. Everybody, on some level, feels like they have a certain level of subject matter expertise, whether it is because they've read things on Wikipedia, or they've seen YouTube documentaries. Everybody thinks that they're an expert on things.” (45:41 | Sam)



Links

cuckoo4politics.com

https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/

https://www.facebook.com/Cuckoo-4-Politics-104093938102793


Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast

“Even if you’re not involved in a case, it’s important to care who is sitting in these seats,” says Judge Jill Beck. For the past year, Judge Beck has traveled throughout all 67 counties of Pennsylvania, in a campaign to be elected to the state’s Superior Court. She joins Cuckoo 4 Politics to explain what goes on in all four levels of the court system – something that even lawyers find confusing at times. She also explains what judges do not, or should not, do. Despite many peoples’ growing fear of partisanship within the legal system, judges are not meant to promote or overturn precedents but to make decisions based on the evidence put before them, and to make sure justice is served and upheld. 

A self-described “born neutral,” she herself has drafted 500 successful decisions under Superior and Supreme Court Judges and Justices. She has the highest recommendation from the Bar Association, a deciding board free from political partisanship. Placing an “R” or a “D” behind a judge’s name is a mistake, she warns. It compromises the motivations of an already reluctant voting populace, who may not realize that judges swayed by politics will only work in their favor until the vote swings the other way. It also raises the question of how those judges who owe their position to political backing maintain their impartiality. 

The concerns of Pennsylvanians reflect the concerns of Americans. On today’s episode, Judge Beck explains how she balances her personal and professional life, her most memorable cases dealing with injustice that keep her motivated and why she and Michael actually enjoy jury duty.


“I always tell people, the courts serve as a check and balance not only on our legislative and executive branches of government, but also in the courts below. The things that are coming before the superior court really affect people's lives. Because we're talking about someone's right to be free from incarceration, their right to parent their children, the right to access and make healthcare decisions on their own, the right to their wealth. Their safety. Their home. Their inheritance. These are big picture things that affect everyday Pennsylvanians even if you're not the litigants involved in the case, because our courts are interpreting our Constitution and our statutes. A law that did not adversely affect you yesterday, very well could adversely affect you tomorrow. So, it's important to care who's sitting in these seats.” (13:51 | Judge Beck)


“A lot of people are looking at our courts and seeing them as just a third political arm of the government, and not as the fair, impartial and apolitical branch that it should be.” (21:06 | Judge Beck)


“I always tell people, when you vote, you're investing in your community. And when you do vote, they also put you into the jury pool. And that's just showing that I, the citizen, have an active role in my community. And I could weigh in on that decision. It's not just elected officials.” (26:08 | Michael)


“There is no such thing – or there shouldn't be – as a Democratic judge or Republican judge. We're just judges, we have to do the job, give every single case the time, the effort and the energy to ensure that the facts were correctly found and supported by the trial court. That the law was correctly and faithfully applied in every single case. It isn't brain surgery, truly. But it's an incredibly important job.” (30:48 | Judge Beck)


“Seeing injustice, seeing someone hurt, seeing someone have their rights violated, that motivates me to do the job, to do it right, and to make sure Pennsylvanians–that people–are protected, that they get the justice that they deserve. My goal truly is for our courts to be a place where justice can be for all.” (36:39 | Judge Beck)



Links

Connect with Jill Beck:

JillBeck.com, 

@ElectJillBeck

cuckoo4politics.com

https://www.instagram.com/cuckoo_4_politics/

https://www.facebook.com/Cu