Normally Podcast: DHS Shutdown Fight, Strong Jobs Report, Crime Drop & Nancy Guthrie Mystery

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show

Episode: Normally Podcast: DHS Shutdown Fight, Strong Jobs Report, Crime Drop & Nancy Guthrie Mystery
Date: February 12, 2026
Hosts: Mary Katharine Ham and Carol Markowitz
Network: iHeartPodcasts

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Overview

This episode, hosted by Mary Katharine Ham and Carol Markowitz (in a guest episode for Clay & Buck), covers a variety of political and cultural topics with a tone that's sharp, skeptical, humorous, and informed. Major themes include the looming Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding fight in Congress, surprising economic and crime data under the Trump administration, and the media’s framing of these issues. The episode closes with commentary on the high-profile disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, worries about elderly vulnerability, and a segment on college students gaming the accommodations system.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Superbowl National Anthem & the Politics of Performance

• Charlie Puth’s Anthem: Hosts praise his “gorgeously arranged, beautifully performed” rendition (00:48).
• Cultural Reactions: They note the debate around the involvement of Spanish in the performance, pointing out most complaints are about politics or “leftism,” not the language (01:30-02:12).
• Quote:
  • “Are we asking for too much? … make them good and don’t make them stand out too much in a negative way.” — Carol Markowitz (01:30)

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2. DHS Shutdown Fight in Congress

• Continuing Resolution Drama: Congress passed a stopgap funding bill, but left out the DHS, leading to a showdown—funding for FEMA, Coast Guard, TSA will lapse, but key immigration agencies like ICE and Border Patrol are already funded and won’t be affected (02:23-03:38).
• Political Motives:
  • “It’s like they're scrambling around just to find something to oppose because that's what gets their people going.” — Markowitz (03:38)
  • Democrats’ current asks (e.g., judicial warrants for deportation, body cams) shift constantly, showing lack of a clear negotiating stance (03:47-04:25).
• Media and Political Savvy:
  • CNN’s Dana Bash challenges Hakeem Jeffries over the logic of risking a shutdown when main immigration agencies are funded (04:44-05:48).
  • Smart legislative strategy credited for preempting this standoff (05:49-06:00).

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3. Strong Jobs Report, But the Public Mood Lags

• Surprise Numbers:
  • 130,000 jobs created vs. 48,000-70,000 forecast; unemployment falls to 4.3% (06:21-06:45).
  • Despite numbers, news outlets (e.g., NYT) spin the findings negatively for the Trump administration (06:45-07:27).
• Public Perceptions and Political Risks:
  • Pollster Harry Enton (“Donald Trump took a beautiful swan and turned it into an ugly duckling…”), reveals sharp drop in Trump’s job approval, especially among independents (07:50-09:33).
  • “Americans need to be feeling some other sensation here that isn’t being picked up in the actual numbers. … maybe that is just AI.” — Carol Markowitz (09:33)
  • Anxiety about AI’s impact on jobs pervades even strong economic reports (10:45).

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4. Major Crime Drop and Media Framing

• Violent Crime: Marked decrease in major urban crime, including homicides, since Trump/crackdown policies began (11:52-13:07).
• Media Spin: Axios headlined crime plunge “despite Trump’s crackdown rhetoric,” which Press Secretary Caroline Levitt calls “ridiculous framing” (12:30-13:02).
  • Quote:
    • “Crime plunges in major cities, despite Trump’s crackdown rhetoric. It's like, guys, that’s what’s happening here.” — Mary Katharine Ham (13:02)
• Broken Windows Theory Redux: Hosts echo the 1990s logic that enforcing public order (e.g., fare evasion) reduces broader crime. Notably, some liberals now admit their changed views after seeing new data (13:31-14:40).
  • Quote:
    • “Have you heard of Rudy Giuliani and this broken windows theory? Because we knew this in the 90s.” — Markowitz (13:38)
  • Viral tweets acknowledge most crime is committed by a small group of repeat offenders (15:55-16:14).

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5. Nancy Guthrie Mystery (Savannah Guthrie’s Mother)

• Case Summary: Nancy Guthrie, 84, missing 12 days; no suspects, though a delivery driver was briefly questioned. Public interest is high due to Savannah Guthrie’s celebrity (18:50-19:15).
• Why This Matters:
  • “I think a lot of people feel connected to Savannah Guthrie… It’s this parasocial relationship. … A woman in her 80s, taken out of her home, possibly for… ransom. … I think that deserves to be a large national story.” — Ham (19:15)
  • Hosts shy away from wild speculation or rumor-mongering, and note both families and law enforcement are being careful.
• Related Concerns:
  • Rise of AI-related scams targeting the elderly. Recommended read: Nancy Rommelman’s “Caring for Mom as an Education in Scams and Fraud” (21:36-22:23).
  • Tips: Establish code words, skepticism toward urgent requests, and remind all ages of scammer tactics (“Don’t answer your phone is actually my message.” — Markowitz, 22:26-23:08).

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6. Stanford and the Accommodations Explosion

• Startling Data: Up to 40% of Stanford students claim some disability for test/academic accommodations; similar trends at Brown and Harvard (24:13-25:18).
• System Gaming: Loosened requirements (post-2008) enable more students to claim mental health or neurodevelopmental disorders for advantages—sometimes, as the hosts suggest, at the expense of fairness (25:18-26:56).
  • Quote:
    • “If you claim this, which is pretty easy to do, they’ve taken all the verification requirements down quite a bit, then… you’re off to the races…” — Ham (25:18)
• Social Media and Identity: A concern students are starting to see “struggles” or disabilities as a primary identity trait, sometimes “pathologizing normal challenges” (28:45-28:57).

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7. Stanford’s Student Matchmaking App

• What’s Happening: A student-made algorithm matches singles every week (“date drop”), reflecting their struggles with in-person dating (29:25-30:22).
• Social Commentary:
  • “You just really used to go to the bar and say hi to people. The algorithm did not do it for you.” — Ham (30:22-31:00)
  • Observations that the app mostly matches people already interested in each other—just as traditional peer pressure would have in the past.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Anthem & Culture Wars:
  • “Make them good and don’t make them stand out too much in a negative way, period.” — Carol Markowitz (01:30)
• On Shutdown Fights:
  • “It’s like they're scrambling around just to find something to oppose because that's what gets their people going.” — Carol Markowitz (03:38)
• On Media Framing:
  • “Crime plunges in major cities, despite Trump's crackdown rhetoric. It's like, guys, that's what's happening here.” — Mary Katharine Ham (13:02)
• On Accommodation Inflation:
  • “If you claim this… then there you are. You’re off to the races with not the same hurdles as a student who doesn’t claim any of these things.” — Ham (25:18)
• On Stanford Dating App:
  • “You just really used to go to the bar and say hi to people. The algorithm did not do it for you.” — Ham (30:22)
• On Elder Scams:
  • “Don’t answer your phone is actually my message.” — Markowitz (22:26)

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Timestamps of Key Segments

• Charlie Puth & National Anthem: 00:48–02:20
• DHS Funding Showdown: 02:23–06:03
• Jobs Report & Political Spin: 06:03–09:33
• Crime Drop, Media Spin, Broken Windows: 11:52–15:34
• Nancy Guthrie Disappearance & Elder Scams: 18:50–23:08
• Stanford & Academic Accommodations: 24:13–28:57
• Stanford’s Matchmaking App: 29:25–32:12

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Conclusion

With a blend of wit and depth, Ham and Markowitz dissect recent headlines—exposing the gap between data and public perception, policy and rhetoric, and social reality vs. media coverage. They make a case for normalcy, pragmatism, and a persistent skepticism about how stories are framed for political impact. The episode is informative for anyone who wants a conservative-leaning but critical take on current culture and policy.

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For further information or to contact the hosts:
normallythepodmail.com

Next episode: Updates on the Nancy Guthrie case and more political and cultural analysis.

Transcript

[Mary Katharine Ham]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed.

[Carol Markowitz]

Humanos Cuatro iPhone 17. S hinosa nes acite intercambio con cuatro.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Lineas nuevas en siertos.

[Carol Markowitz]

Planes Unlimited. Hey, guys.

[Guest or Correspondent]

We are back on.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Normally the show with normal ish takes, but when the news gets weird. I am Mary Kathryn Ham.

[Carol Markowitz]

And I'm Carol Markowitz. How are you, Mary Catherine?

[Mary Katharine Ham]

I'm doing all right. And I forgot that yesterday I for. I did not give a. Or this week, I did not give a shout out to Charlie Puth for the national anthem, which was gorgeously arranged, beautifully performed. He's a great guy. He has a. He has perfect pitch, so he, like, knows every note without context. You can just play him a note and he knows what it is. And he does all this, like, fascinating music theory on his social media. And when that flyover happened and he finished, there's a clip on the NFL X account of him reacting to the anthem and to the moment and to the flyover. And he is just so obviously tearful, way honored. And it was such a nice moment.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, he fit the moment and he sounded great, really. Are we asking for too much? That that's what we're looking for from the performances. Like, make them good and don't make them stand out too much in a negative way, period. Like, don't make them too scandalous. Don't make them too political. Just a normal show would have done it for everybody. And you know what? It could have been in Spanish. The Spanish part was really not the problem. It. The leftism. And the more days go by, the more that seems to be the message. I think from most people that the Spanish part was a side issue for some people, but for the most part, it was. What is he talking about?

[Mary Katharine Ham]

My favorite joke is how other Spanish speakers are like, oh, we didn't understand him either, right? Oh, yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

All right, you know, let's get into it.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Do some news. Okay. Well, there are fights brewing in Congress. There was a small cr. That's the continuing resolution that we use to stopgap fund our government. Because we don't do it in a functional fashion.

[Carol Markowitz]

We're just going to keep talking about that every time they do it.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

And everybody, like, signed off on it. Except the part that got left out was the Department of Homeland Security. Because the Democrats want to have a fight about Homeland Security. The funding for that will run out February 13th, this Friday. So they're negotiating about what this looks like. The problem for Democrats in this fight is that they are risking a shutdown over something like, I think they sincerely care about not doing immigration reform. I think it's a sincere belief that they hold. But they're going to potentially shut down the government over something that is not in this funding bill.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Because ICE and Border Patrol were funded for several years in the one big beautiful bill. So that's done. The things they are arguing over, the thing they would shut down the government for are fema, Coast Guard and some other ths tsa. So it won't actually affect the thing that they're talking about. So that's where we are on that fight at the moment.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's like they're scrambling around just to find something to oppose because that's what gets their people going.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Well, and they had said, okay, our ask is the body cams. And they're like, oh, wait, maybe we don't like body cams. So it's going to be hard to make a deal if you don't know what you want. The other thing they're asking for is judicial warrants for picking up people who have final orders of deportation that is meant to make this process nearly impossible. A final order of deportation, by the way, means you have had due process. That's what that means. You've been through a process. So I don't agree with that part of it. I think there are other things that they could make compromises on. But I don't know where this is headed. And I don't think people want to shut down.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. Although I feel like Americans don't even notice when there is a shutdown, only.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

The people that are getting paid. They're diminishing returns on the PR hullabaloo of a shutdown because we do it so much. I did find it interesting that Dana Bash on CNN asks Hakeem Jeffries, a toug. Here she is.

[Guest or Correspondent]

We know that ICE is completely and totally out of control. They've gone way too far. And the American people want them reined in because immigration enforcement should be fair, it should be just, and it should be humane. So dramatic changes are necessary to the manner in which the Department of Homeland Security officers are conducting themselves before any funding bill should move forward.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

So you say very clearly that this, and it's clear in your proposals, this is about reining in ICE and the cbp. But those agencies, as you well know, are very well funded already through the Big Beautiful Bill Act. That's what the president called it and it passed last year. So what that means is that a shutdown would really only impact unrelated agencies. FEMA tsa, faa. So how does pushing for these changes and potentially not getting there help rein in an immigration crackdown?

[Carol Markowitz]

Wow.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

I mean, tricky, right? And whoever's idea it was to put that funding in the one big beautiful bill. Very smart.

[Carol Markowitz]

Brilliant.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Because it forestalled exactly all of this.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

This discussion.

[Carol Markowitz]

Just going to guess it was Stephen Miller on that, but who knows.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

But the, the general mood, like, you know, we talked about the PR fight, there wasn't extremely a beyond expectations jobs report today that I think signals that if Republicans could claw back some of the, some of the feels, some of the vibe shift.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

That the fact that it might be happening now in the early part of the year is very good news for them. There were 130k jobs posted now that could be revised, but the forecast was like 48 to 70. Yeah. So that's a, that's a very large number, particularly in the AI age.

[Carol Markowitz]

Exactly. Unemployment fell to 4.3%. Of course, in the telling of this story, the telling isn't going to be politically neutral. And that's where the Trump administration has its difficulties. Because when the New York Times writes about this report, obviously they try to portray it in the worst manner possible. One of the things that they say is that maybe, maybe companies didn't hire as many people for the holidays as they normally do and so that therefore they did not need to lay them off in January. Is this possible? Who knows? They provide no evidence for this whatsoever. It's literally just an idea they have on their live update page about the economy.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

That seems like you should back that up with something. But I do think that Trump and Republicans should not ignore the environment that they are in. Right. To tell yourself that everyone's getting this message clearly is not wise. Because if you listen to Harry Enton, who's running the numbers from the polling on the economy and jobs, he has this to say about how people are perceiving this, particularly independence.

[Guest or Correspondent]

Donald Trump took a beautiful swan and turned it into an ugly duckling as far as the American people are concerned. Because these numbers, as John and I were discussing just before the segment, absolutely crazy. And how the American people have totally turned on Donald Trump. Take a look here. Trump's net approval rating on jobs and employment in January 2025. Look at that. Overall, plus nine points. Hey, that's pretty good. But down he goes minus 13 points overall. But you think that's nuts, take a look at the independents. They go from plus seven way, way, way down off the screen to minus 30 points. That's a 37 point drop in the net approval for Donald Trump among independents on the issue of jobs and employment. Again, with independence, just consistently, we're seeing these staggering changes over just a year, just, just one years of time. All right, this next chart is actually the one that, that really blew my mind. It's about people's views of the job market in general over a similar period. Yeah, okay, if you think these numbers are crazy, this next one, these are bonkers. Okay, well, what are we talking about here? Americans rate the job market as bad or good. February 2025, equal shares say fair or say bad or good. 42. 42. Look at this now. Over just a year's time now, the clear majority, 52% up like a rocket, rated as bad, compared to just 33% down in the basement who rated as good. So what we've seen is Americans rating the job market. It was an even split a year ago. And now the clear majority, by a 19 point margin, rate it as bad rather than good. And that goes a long way to explain why Donald Trump's numbers on jobs and unemployment have fallen to the. Just be clear, this is Donald Trump's presidency. During Donald Trump's presidency, these views have changed a lot.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, they can't, you know, blame this on just bad media coverage, which of course I do think deserves some blame. Like, media loves to talk down the economy when a Republican is president. But it can't just be that. Americans need to be feeling some other sensation here that isn't being picked up in the actual numbers. And I wonder maybe that is just AI on the very near horizon moving towards us and people understanding that things are going to get tough, I think, before, you know, if they get better. I wanted to say before they get better, but that's not a given. This is something really different. And I don't know if that's really what it is. If Americans are seeing the AI thing coming at them and thinking, like, things are about to get really rough and we're not going to get into this, but there was a big piece today out by this guy named Matt Schumer, and he said Something Big is Happening is the name of the piece, if you want to look it up. But it's about how AI is here and we need to, like, really recognize what that means. And he compares it to, you know, the water rushing in and suddenly it's around your chest and you don't realize that. And that's where we are with AI. Maybe Americans know that.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yeah, I do think there's some anxiety about that. And it's sort of ironic because, AI, I think probably a little bit of a bubble is propping up some of the economy in the markets, but then it might be making people anxious when they look at the outlook for their own lives. And, you know, he can keep messaging this consistently, as they should, all year long. But, yes, I do think there's. There's something else going on here. And if you have Democrat enthusiasm against Trump, plus the fall off in independence, that's a really bad recipe for a midterm that was already going to be hard.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Although I should say this started in. If it started in January 2025, it's like, okay, well, this is like the very beginning of your job. So it's like, it's like he hadn't done anything yet. But I do think there's, there's something more going on there that they must heed at the White House because they need to speak to people's actual feelings about this instead of only throwing numbers at them, which is what Biden tried to do too many times. He said, like, oh, no, this is healthy. Look how healthy this is. Right. But if people don't feel it, that doesn't matter. You're up a creek.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, exactly. Another issue is that crime is down significantly, and that's also being obviously talked about in a way that is very specific to the Trump administration. Axios had to remove a post of a story that noted that violent crime dropped sharply across America's biggest cities in 2025. And they had to. They would deleted a previous post of the story which compared the drop in violent crime to Trump's arguments for deploying federal troops to US Cities. Because the headline was like, despite Trump's, you know, entry into these cities, Despite.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Trump's crackdown on crime.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Crime.

[Carol Markowitz]

Down, down. Yep, yep. And, yeah, it's, it's interesting the way that it all gets portrayed. Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said this ridiculous framing is why Americans don't trust the media. President Trump securing the border, mobilizing federal law enforcement to arrest violent criminals, and deporting the worst of the worst illegal aliens is exactly what's driving the massive drop in crime. The headline again was, crime plunges in major cities, despite Trump's crackdown rhetoric.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

It's like, guys, that's what's happening here.

[Guest or Correspondent]

Right?

[Mary Katharine Ham]

And the thing is, I do, I do think people, the homicide drop alone, violent crime in general, but the homicide drop alone is such a huge story. Now, it did go up during the 2020-23 insanity. Period. But because of liberal policies. And now it's coming down because someone did the opposite. That's what happened.

[Carol Markowitz]

And there are some liberals waking up to this. Jill Filipovic tweeted, one of the things I've really changed my mind on is public order enforcement. I think a lot of liberals like me assumed people do things like turnstile jumping, were poor or just kids, but it seems like actually a small number of people just do a lot of antisocial shit. And she was responding to a graph that showed that San Francisco's bart, that's their public transportation system, installed anti fair hopping gates. And the person writes, the amount of station maintenance and cleanup they had to do went to basically zero. So the people who were jumping and not jumping the turnstiles and not paying the fare were also the ones destroying the train station. And you're like, have you heard of Rudy Giuliani and this broken windows theory? Because we knew this in the 90s. Why are you guys so far behind? And why is it such a battle for you to face reality when it's not what you wanted it to be? I think, you know, conservatives change their minds on stuff when new data presents itself. I wish liberals did that a little bit faster.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Faster. Yeah. There is a preference just to honor the criminal. They're just. There's just a reflexive need on the left to go, well, surely this person's rights are important. This person's story makes them sympathetic. This person should be placed in a hierarchy above a person who would just like to ride the BART in peace. But that's not how normal people think. That's how weirdo, ideological people think. And it was the. The Washington Metro has improved greatly because they've got a general manager who thinks that fair evasion should be cracked down upon. And as a result, it's much nicer to ride the Metro. It does the job it's supposed to do far better than it did a couple of years ago. And he said, not all fair skippers commit violent crime and vandalism, but all people who commit violent crime and vandalism skipped their fair.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yep. I. I'm telling you, I think Rudy Giuliani might have said those exact words in, like, 1995, but probably so. So, like, it's fine.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

It's fine.

[Carol Markowitz]

And we'll just, you know, get to it a little later here.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Learn the lesson again. How many pandemics will it take to learn the lesson, one wonders. Anyway, I don't want to get too dark. Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

Jill also tweeted about Washington D.C. and she said that there was an article in the Washington Post that basically found that some huge percentage of crime in Washington, D.C. was committed by like 300 people. Just thousands and thousands of crimes by people who crimed over and over and over again. It's like, yeah, yes, but we know about this.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yes. And you revolving door them for years and years and years to trample the rights of everyone else in your city. It is a wild thing that they have been in favor of.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's not great. And if we could just. I mean, I. I say we, but I mean, I mean, them. If they could just let go of blaming or making sure that Donald Trump doesn't receive credit for anything, we could all live better.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yeah.

[Carol Markowitz]

If we just follow policies that have worked before, despite Trump being in support of them, that would be a good thing.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Well, and even if you're a person who has some misgivings about, okay, how is this being conducted right on the margins with National Guard or with whomever, one must admit, nonetheless, that a 100 year low in some places in homicides is good. That. That the city of D.C. going many weeks without a murder at a time is good. That.

[Carol Markowitz]

I hope they believe that. Yeah.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

The fact that I can go to union station and not be harassed or possibly threatened is good.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

People like that.

[Carol Markowitz]

I like that. I like when no crime is committed around me. It's just. It's a plus for me.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

It's a plus. It's a plus.

[Carol Markowitz]

All right, we're gonna take a short break and come back to the biggest story in the normie world, which we have not talked about at all. The disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mom of Savannah Guth. Um, and we'll be right back to discuss that. We are back on. Normally, where Nancy Guthrie has been missing for today is 12 days. By the time you hear this, it might be 13 days. And a local delivery driver was taken into custody and questioned for several hours on Tuesday about the abduction, but then he was released. He seemed to be very surprised about being taken in. He had not heard of the TV personality or her mom. And, yeah, they really seem to have no leads is where this is. Now, the thing is that I hear from a lot of people, why is this such a big story? And I have to say, I think this should be a big story. I'm not a true crime person in any way, so I'm not, like, following this with all the details, and I'm not trying to find the real killer or, you know, kidnapper in this case with everybody, but I absolutely think a woman in her 80s, taken out of her home, possibly for. Because her daughter is famous and they want to have a ransom. Yes, I do think that should be a story. She's 84 years old and kidnapped from her house. Blood on the porch. Yeah, I. I think that deserves to be a large national story where we don't just shrug our shoulders and say, yeah, kidnapped senior citizen. What are you gonna do?

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yeah, well. And I think it. It might shine light on other instances where this happened that have gotten less attention. I think a lot of people feel connected to Savannah Guthrie, particularly when you do a morning show. I did a morning show on radio for a couple of years, or even. I think it was just for one year. It was many years ago. People still identify me with that morning show because when you wake up with a personality and you're hearing about their life every day and. And you're connecting with them while you're having your coffee, it is a. It is a real thing. It's this parasocial relationship. So I think a lot of people feel connected to Savannah Guthrie. They see their mother in her mother and the fright over the idea that this could happen. It's also. There's a lot of intrigue. There's been rumors that it might be a family member. There's rumors that it could be based on Savannah being famous. There are video of Savannah and her brothers and sisters speaking to camera, trying to reach the person who might beholding their mother. Right. There's a lot here, and there are a lot of amateur sleuths who want to get bottomless.

[Carol Markowitz]

I like the amateur sleuths.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

I like you. I'm sort of like non normie on this because I am not bought in on true crime as it's happening. If you give me a documentary with all the facts later, I will watch it, but I get a little nervous about the speculation and being careful about these things while it's happening. But the, you know, the ring camera video of a man coming to her door, very, very creepy with a mask on. Possibly two masks on. It's very unclear whether that where you can see his eyes are actually his eyes. If so, he has very distinctively groomed eyebrows. So look into that, everybody, and it's very creepy. I would also add, just as an addendum to our topic the other day, the ring camera. She did not have a subscription that she was paying for.

[Carol Markowitz]

I didn't have it anyway.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

The FBI nonetheless has the videos. Just FYI, everyone, it's definitely just for looking for dogs.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Anyway, I am, I am glad if it helps in this case, but that was an interesting bit of information. Yeah. For me. And I really hope she can get home safe. This is a very scary situation.

[Carol Markowitz]

Absolutely. Yeah. I. The thing is, it's so scary that it's been so long and they have very little to go on. But yeah, we're obviously praying for her safe return. We're not going to be sensationalizing it here and talking about possible motives and situations when nobody really seems to know anything. Yeah. Hope she gets home.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

I wanted to add one thing, that our friend Nancy Rommelman, who is a great follow on x at NancyRomm r o m M. She wrote a piece that sort of, it fits in with this, like all of our worries about our elderly relatives as they age and if they're alone. She wrote a piece for Real Clear Investigations called Caring for mom as an Education in Scams and Fraud. And this is a freight train that is coming for the aging population. Oh, yeah, the AI voice scams. I mean, people were doing scams on the elderly over the phone without the AI voice technology. And it is going to get worse. And I do think there are ways that with code words and such you can protect your loved ones and try to be as proactive about educating people as possible on these fronts. So I would recommend that as a read as we think about.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

These worries as we move forward.

[Carol Markowitz]

Absolutely. Have a conversation with anybody in your life, I would say old or young, because there's always these stories about like a 30 something who ends up giving away their life savings. And yes, you know, to a scammer on the phone, it's. Older people are definitely more susceptible to these scams. But I think I've had this conversation definitely with my mom, but also with, you know, friends my age and also with my children. Just don't. If somebody calls you and it, it sounds like me or it sounds like someone, you know, hang up, call that person back. It doesn't matter. Just hang up and call. Call the person that they're claiming to be. Yes, but don't believe anything. Don't answer your phone is actually my message.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

And like, well, don't believe.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's fine. Have them leave a message.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

A good, a good one. To, to. A good rule of thumb, I think, is not to always believe the sense of urgency from whatever Rando is calling you on your phone because they inculcate a sense of urgency on purpose so that you then start to panic about whatever this situation is and that sort of shuts off the thinking part of your brain. I almost got fished the other day by the Kurt Loder hack. I was like, oh, yeah, let me help out Kurt Loder. And then I was like, kurt Loder doesn't need my help. What is this?

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, I was like, he would never, I mean, none of your friends would ever DM you and be like, vote for me in this contest. In fact, you know which friends would and it wouldn't be Kurt Loder. You know what I mean?

[Mary Katharine Ham]

I'm thinking of them now. I do wish for a safe resolution to this. It's very bizarre. And I was down in Richmond lobbying my state legislators not to ruin private schooling because that's what they're up to in Virginia. They want to just turn it into public schools, which is fun since they failed us for a couple years. But anyway, I was down there talking to the normies and guess what? The normies first asked me about Nancy Guthrie.

[Carol Markowitz]

Wow.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

That's what everybody wants to talk about.

[Carol Markowitz]

Well, if we hear anything else, we'll have more news in the next few episodes, but for now, we'll just pray for the Guthrie family. Be right back with more on normally. We are back on Normally, where reports last week revealed that up to 40% of students at Stanford University, one of the top top schools in the country, are claiming to have a disability in order to get special accommodations. And that's stuff like more time on tests or extra time to study, things like that. It's really insane that the numbers are this high. And it frankly sounds like a lot of them just make it up. They get things like being alone in a room on a to take test or exemptions from certain requirements. It's bananas. And again, Stanford and at schools at like Brown and Harvard, more than 20% now register as disabled in this way.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Well, and they, they also get sometimes their own room. If they have social anxiety, they get a solo room, which used to be very sought after. And kind of the slope here, the slippery slope here has been the Americans with disabilities act in 1990 was supposed to allow for many important accommodations for people to be able to get into buildings, to be part of higher education when they couldn't before. And then in 2008, they sort of widened it and encouraged people to include other more lax medical diagnoses, mental health issues, psychological health issues. And as the number of people who either self diagnose or are diagnosed with these adhd, with anxiety, with depression, as that goes up in these elite colleges, it becomes the way to compete is that you end up getting more help and more accommodations. Because if you claim this, which is pretty easy to do, they've taken all the verification requirements down quite a bit, then there you are. You're. You're off to the races with not the same hurdles as a student who doesn't claim any of these things. And there's an Atlantic piece on this that notes if the rise in accommodations were purely a result of more disabled students making it to college, the increase would be more pronounced at less selective institutions than at so called Ivy plus schools. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. According to Robert Weiss. He's a psychology Professor. Research. Only 3 to 4% of students at public two year unit two year colleges receive accommodations, a proportion that has stayed relatively stable over the past 10 to 15 years. So it's definitely focused in those areas.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. So I have, you know, I have a son who gets accommodations and often chooses not to, which also drives me crazy. But, you know, that's the thing. The people who get, like, say, extra time on tests, like, they're often like, I don't want it. I don't want to be different from my classmates. But then you get to this, like, cutting, you know, cutthroat environment, and they're like, I do want it. I want to, I want to be better than my classmates at any cost.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yes.

[Carol Markowitz]

And the thing is that, like, of course you can concentrate better if you're sitting in your own room. My other son was at a. He's a, he's a really into history, goes to these history competitions. And last week we were at a history competition and I was like, oh, I feel like he's going to, like, smoke these other kids. And then this kid, like, starts talking to him, like, just making friends, banter. And I'm like, oh, it's over this. He's going to be so focused on this new friend that he's like, just, yeah. And I. And he came in second. But I'm just saying, had he not made a new friend, he would have been in first.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

That's amazing.

[Carol Markowitz]

You know, all right, but at least he knows how to make friends. I think you got to, you got to say that that's like, you know, that's more important. Right, Than coming in first.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

He's not, he's not going to turn out like one of these students. In this Atlantic story, one administrator told me that a student at a public college in California had permission to bring their mother to class. This became a problem because the mom turned out to be an enthusiastic class participant. Actually that kid of yours might enjoy that accommodation. And you'd participate in class.

[Carol Markowitz]

No, no, that, no, he would enjoy it and I would not.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

They also note, and I think this is important that, and I think it comes from social media. A lot of these students are starting to view this as their identity. And by the time colleges see them, they've self diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders that they may not even have.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Tr. This is by attributing all of their difficulties to a disability, they are path. Pathologizing normal challenges, which is the thing that we see over and over again that worries us and that I refuse to do with my kids.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, that's the thing. It's like you don't want them to internalize their struggles and turn it into their personality. And the fact that some of these kids don't even have struggles and that comes to her whole personality. It's kind of a problem. I forgot the name of the comedian on snl, but he said, like, him and his sister tried to get depression, but their mom wouldn't let them because she was an immigrant. She was like. She's like, you're depressed. No.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yes. He's fantastic. I'll find his name.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. So good. Also, at Stanford, they are doing an experiment where they built a matchmaking algorithm. A student built a matchmaking algorithm and it has consumed the school because every week singles get a match in their, you know, inbox, and you're matched with somebody. And it's become such a huge deal. Matches drop. Every Tuesday night, students huddle in dorm rooms and libraries to find out who the algorithm chose for them. It's a real big deal. And it's interesting because they're so excited about this. And it is clearly because they don't know how to meet people on their own. I love it. Because why not? Like, at least you get a chance to meet somebody. At least you have a chance at having a date and all of that. But it's wild that this is where we are. Like, here is your date for the week.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yeah, I, I'm always torn on these things because I, I don't begrudge a new tool for meeting people. Right. I think that's, you know, but I, I think we did get so far into optimization and we get so far into so many choices that then you're like, you're always doing the grass is greener thing. You're not really evaluating. You're not enjoying these dates. I do hope that maybe it encourages more people to, when they get that prompt to go, maybe I should go out in real life and hang out with this person. But it. I hate to sound like an old fogey, but, man, you just really used to go to the bar and say hi to people. That was. The algorithm did not do it for you.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right? And the thing is that they're using the algorithm to talk to people who they already like in real life. So here's a story of Freshman Wilson Adkins began chatting with a girl from his dorm just as date dropped. This is the name of the app was getting buzz. His friends took notice. A feature allows users to couple two people to boost their odds of matching. Students get an email alert if their friends propose a match for them. Adkins got three at once. I knew they were conspiring, he said. Sure enough, AD Adkins and his classmate were paired with a 99.7% compatibility score. So now it looks like I had been scheming and forcing this to happen, Adkins said. But now they're hanging out. So yeah, you didn't need the app. You were already talking.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Well, and also, that seems like just an old version of peer pressure put online. Like in the old days, they'd just be like, y' all like each other. They'd tease you about it, Right? And then these two people would actually talk to each other if they were nervous before.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's. They call that shipping, Mary Catherine. I learned that from my teenagers. They ship their friends like they ship their friends.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Well, yep, I guess you can do it on an app now.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, but you could do it without the app.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

You really could.

[Carol Markowitz]

Whatever. Whatever way you crazy kids need to make it happen. You know, go meet some people in real life, even if you have to meet them online first.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Yeah, just get out there, man.

[Carol Markowitz]

You can get out there despite your.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

Anxiety and your ADHD that you made up.

[Carol Markowitz]

Thanks for joining us on Normale Ly. Normale Ly airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcast. Get in touch with us@ normallythepodmail.com thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normalely.

[Mary Katharine Ham]

This is an Iheart podcast. Guaranteed human.