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A
Hey guys. We are back on normally the show with normalist takes for when the news gets weird. I am Mary Kathryn Hamm.
C
And I am Carol Markowitz. Mary Kathryn, we get a lot of messages saying that we should banter more. Do we not banter enough?
A
Well, you know, we get right to it. You know, we're efficient is what we are. Maybe we should banter. I like to banter.
C
That's banter.
A
Oh, my goodness. Well, we have a lot, a lot of news.
C
Yeah, there's a lot of news. Who can banter at a time like this?
A
This is what I'm saying. We're gonna keep this a little vague because we don't know what will happen. Post recording. But in Iran, there is of course a continued uprising. We're on week two of thousands of people in the streets. Unfortunately, that also means, because it is a repressive, awful regime, possibly thousands murdered for being in the streets to stand up to the regime. I think we have numbers of thousands just coming from the regime itself, which means there are far more than that. In addition, of course, it's hard to get information out of there, but the Crown Prince was on special report last night. Ran into him in the green room like you do.
C
Interesting.
A
Yes. And he is a person who in the past has not been in favor of military intervention necessarily. But when asked about it by Bret Baer was like, look, there are maybe 12 to 20,000 people dead and the reality is that they don't have weapons and we need help.
C
Right? Yeah. Look, and like you said, we could be sending that help by the time you hear this podcast or not. We'd really, you know, as we like to say in our house. Are you asking me to get into the mind of Donald Trump? Because I don't know, it could be. Anything could happen. It's tough. Like we've talked about it on here, we're not big military intervention people. But then when Trump pulls it off so effortlessly, both the first time in Iran and then recently in Venezuela, it's hard not to be for that. And I root for the Iranian protesters. So, you know, hard to say. I don't want to lose any American lives. I think that should be the first priority always. But these people deserve a fighting chance. They used to be a normal country, ish. Normalish country. And they can get back to it again. And that's what they seem to be fighting for.
A
Well, in the Crown Prince who has been exiled since 78, he was the son of the Shah, American backed Shah in 1978 and nine, he says there is a polity that still exists here. There is a civil level of society that still exists, that understands, that lived through this, that lived in a free society, which is part of what you need. I don't know how much organized opposition there is. He says there are also people outside of Iran who he obviously cannot name for security reasons, who would be willing to be part of a transition should it happen. And also I think when you're talking about Venezuela and Iran, especially from yours and my point of view, which would be, if we're doing military intervention, how is it helping America if those places end up even marginally freer? We are safer. We're safer. And I think the first Iran strike is a total, and the results of it, the total repudiation of the Obama Biden strategy, which was to coddle these people and to hope that they just played nice. And if in 10 years they get a nuke, you know, that's not my problem. I mean, that was the stated policy in addition to giving them pallets of cash. It was not a good policy because.
C
10 years rolled around and hey, here we are. But we're still concerned about this. Yeah, you're right. Marginal change would be a huge help to us. Just a safer world, a more normal world, all of it. So I don't know, we'll see what happens with Iran and, and whether we step in there. I mean, if we had to guess right now, I'm guessing we do step in Trump, see, like he wants to. And when Trump wants to, Trump does it.
A
We also have an update on the synagogue in Mississippi and someone tweeted this and now I don't know who to credit to but it was he said basically Nick Fuentes, Candace Owens Nazi, not Islamist Hamas supporting Palestinian Nazi.
C
Yep.
A
And I think unfortunately due to the horseshoe of anti Semitism. That is a succinct and correct way to say that. His name is Steven Spencer Pittman. A 19 year old who had a baseball career, who went to college, who has, you know.
C
Yeah.
A
Seemingly a stable family and clearly went down a very bad path here.
C
Yeah. Our friend Banchi Red State tweeted about him and said almost every groiper which is a Nick Fuentes follower you'll find out on here that shares their identity is either middle class or higher. It's not a movement of abused people. It's movement of bored morons trying to be edgelords led by self serving influencers who like money. And that's what we've got here. I'll also add that I've had sources tell me that Pittman had a bad drug problem. I don't want to make it sound like that excuses anything at all, but it sounds like he made a few bad calls in his life and this is where he ended up. Where? Burned a synagogue. People on X have been joking around like has he ever even met a Jewish person? Is it like even remotely part of his life? He did it, you know, seemingly for no reason at all and will likely have destroyed his life over this. The Candices and Fuentes of the world, it's at their feet and well.
A
And they'll just go on making money. So. They're fine.
C
They're fine. Right.
A
We also have a big case at scotus.
C
Yeah.
A
So this is West Virginia and Idaho laws. The states at SCOTUS defending their laws that ban boys from competing in women's sports. So.
C
Right.
A
That would include trans identifying boys from competing in women's sports. The argument from some lower courts and from left activists is that they don't have the right to say that only women can play in women's sports. That in fact you have to allow boys to play in women's sports. Which to me is so insane because it utterly undermines the whole point of Title nine.
C
Yeah.
A
Which is the statute under which they are bringing these cases. Title IX and also equal protection in the 14th amendment. I listened to the audio of this and I gotta say it was like who's on first? Or. Or they's on first because. Yeah. What happens here is that lefties require you to go to the Supreme Court to explain things that are plainly obvious. Now the reason they're doing that is because they don't like the facts.
C
Yeah.
A
That this is plainly obvious that men and women are different. The fact that they should be separated, that men shouldn't take up women's spaces. And so they turn it into this gobbledygook of gender matters when we want it to, but sex matters when we want it to, but gender matters now, but when. And they just switch as needed as they're making a legal argument. And I gotta say, I felt like I was being subjected to their mental illness listening to it.
C
Like, my head hurts from this. The two people in the case, I'm just gonna tell you what their names are now. Becky Pat, Pepper Jackson and Lindsay Hecox. Now Hecox is 25, no longer competes in any sports that matter in this case, and in fact no longer wants to be a part of this case. But it's at the Supreme Court and it's too late for all that. Pepper Jackson, however, in West Virginia, still very much in high school, wants to play with the girls. And the arguments here are that Pepper Jackson, quote, unquote, transitioned very early, so has taken puberty blockers, so hasn't gone, gone through male puberty. And the lawyers on that side are making the argument that look, you know, took puberty blockers, therefore is a girl, therefore never went through male puberty, therefore has no advantage. And the truth is that there's still an advantage. I just look at a group of 10 year old boys play a sport and a group of 10 year old girls play a sport and see what the differences are. I have a little tiny 10 year old. You know, we always joke about him, he's really little, but he's very athletic.
A
Right.
C
Ramming into people like you could not even imagine. And there's a big difference between boys and girls. And it's obvious to any parent even before these kids go through puberty, any parent who has ever watched kids play.
A
Sports, I think obviously there's a fairness issue, there's a safety issue. I was at a protecting women's sports gala last night with the Americans Defending free or alliance defending freedom, which is part of this, this legal action. And one mom is talking about how her kid had to quit the track team because the boy on the team was making sexual threats to the women on the team. And the, the coach and the administration is saying we can't do anything or we'll be fired or sued. And that the idea that you cannot protect these young women, that that is the thing that is a bridge too far instead of the actual Sexual threats of minor children is so crazy, making to me that we've got to this point at all. But I do think the hubris of liberal activists two times now has led them to the court making what sound like pretty bad arguments. We can't say what the court will do on this. Obviously in Bostock in 2020, they sided with transgender arguments that in a employment situation you cannot discriminate.
C
Listen, I feel like that's normal. Yeah, yeah.
A
Title nine is very different. Title IX requires separating sexes. That was the point. You had to take that into consideration. But they seem to have gone up there and made very bad arguments and in fact conceded a lot of their arguments by saying, no, no, no, we just want an exception for the medically treated trans, which by the way, subjects all high school and elementary school and middle school women to blood testing at some point. Is that what we're going?
C
Right.
A
At any rate, it's all impractical and stupid. And I'm going to play you a clip of justice Alito having reached the point that I've reached where he goes, this is all crazy, except he says it in a more dignified way. And he asks like, seems like we need a definition of sex if we're going to establish that you've been discriminated against based on sex. Do you have one? Here we go.
D
It does that. Then is it not necessary for there to be, for equal protection purposes, if that is challenged under the equal protection clause, an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?
E
Yes, your honor.
D
And what is that definition for equal protection purposes? What does, what does it mean to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?
E
Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I think that the underlying enactment, whatever it was, the policy, the law, the.
A
Would have to.
E
We'd have to have an understanding of how the state or the government was disturbed to understanding that term to figure out whether or not someone was excluded. We do not have a definition for the court and we don't take issue with the. We're not disputing the definition here. What we're saying is that the way it applies in practice is to exclude birth sex males categorically from women's teams and that there's a subset of those birth sex males where it doesn't make sense to do so according to the state's own interest.
D
Well, how can you, how can a court determine whether there's discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes?
E
I Think here we just know that. We basically know that the, that they've identified pursuant to their own statute. Lindsey qualifies as a birth sex male and she's being excluded categorically from the women's teams as the statute. So we're taking the statute's definitions as we find them and we don't dispute.
A
There needs to be a definition of sex for you to determine whether someone has been discriminated on the basis of their sex. What happened here, it feels to me and Scrometti was similar, is that a tantrum made its way to the Supreme Court and like all these bizarre definitions and uses of language that don't comport with legal standards or legal tradition make their way to the Supreme Court. And then the lawyers glitch out when their internal logic is eventually confronted. Because the internal logic of the gender movement doesn't work. Right.
C
There's no logic. It's just, I feel, I feel that this should be the way it is and there's no logic there. You're, you're arguing that there's no difference between boys and girls. Like, get out of here. Like, stop. Yeah, look, you know, I, I had a column on this in yesterday's and Wednesday's New York Post, and there's a reason we're not seeing biological girls in front of the Supreme Court desperately trying to get into boys sports. There's a reason for that. Because they would not succeed in those sports. And that is why they're not fighting to get into it. These biological boys are crushing the girls in these sports and that's why they are trying to get into it. It's pretty easy.
A
Yeah, there are benefits that were down to them. Even a UN report at that gala last night was cited for saying like some 600 plus medals and awards have gone to biological men in competitions. And by the way, if you do want to play a sport which I think is healthy and good for you mentally and physically, there are many co ed, not very competitive situations in which you can just happily play with men and women because men and women have decided these are the spaces in which it is safe for us to do this together.
C
That's right.
A
So there are opportunities, but you are not going to be able to reach the higher echelons of sports, nor should you in like properly regulated, competitive areas, join a rec league of adults who play men and women's soccer.
C
Easy call.
A
Yeah, I can do it at my gym. I go to my gym and I, I compete with myself.
C
Guys, I love it. We'll be taking A short break on normally and we'll be right back.
A
All right. We are back on normally, Carol, with a story about a tax debacle out of California. This one's quite a story. Billions, billions, billions of dollars in wealth are leaving the state of California now, like, and piecing out now. Why? Because California has a ballot initiative process that allows them to announce a ballot initiative. It will be on the ballot in November. The one they have this year is a wealth tax that would affect all these billionaires that live in the state. They want to confiscate huge amounts of their money, sometimes unrealized money. Just like whatever you got, we're going to take because we're California and we're promising free stuff to everyone. They put it on the ballot for November and then they think to themselves, aha, if we put it, the lefties go, aha, if we put it on the ballot in, in November, then all the billionaires will, will take their money. And so we're going to backdate it. The effective date. And the effective date was January of this year.
C
Yeah.
A
Before it's even on the ballot. And so the billionaires were like, noted, we will take our money now. The cell phone is incredible.
C
Yeah. It's amazing because these people, so it's the seiu, United Healthcare Workers West. It's a statewide union of service employees and their leadership are the ones who put this Billionaire Tax act on the ballot. It's actually not on the ballot yet. They need a million signatures by I believe it's June or July. So they still have some work to do.
A
It not only might not pass, it.
C
Might make the ballot be on the.
A
Ballot and they've already screwed themselves.
C
But here's the reality of it is that the billionaires who left don't trust their fellow Californians not to pick this. Right. That's what this is all about. They're thinking it's possible, like if this made it onto the ballot in Florida, I would be confident this would not pass. But California, who knows? So I've got a piece on this on the Fox News website tomorrow, Friday. But Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co founders of Google, they left. And I love this. All the billionaires as they're leaving, they're like, I moved in December. They're all like, you know, Peter Thiel released a press release about moving and made sure to note that he got the office space in December. But basically, Gary Tan, who is self described San Francisco Democrat, he explained that Brin and Page can't stay in California because the wealth tax would confiscate 50% of their Alphabet shares. They each own around 3% of Alphabet stock, this guy says, worth about 120 billion each at today's 4 trillion market cap. But because their shares have 10 times the voting power, this billionaire tax would treat them as owning 30% of the company. And that means each founder's taxable wealth would be 1.2 trillion. A 5% wealth tax on 1.2 trillion equals $60 billion tax bill each. So 50% of their holdings would be wiped out, what this guy said, by a 5% tax. Now, the thing is, you know, I don't love that people who supported this insanity right up until the leopards ate their face are making a move. I think some people are going to have to stay and fight. And I just think, like, I don't know, Paige and Bryn, I've heard that they've really smartened up. And not like, not in the last few months, more like in the last few years. They both have made some real shifts in their beliefs. I hope that's true. Peter Thiel, he's obviously an open conservative, so he can move wherever he wants. But some of the other ones, Reid Hoffman, the co founder of LinkedIn, he supports every ridiculous Democrat proposal. You're going to have to stay and fight for this one, Mr. Hoffman. This one is at your feet.
A
This is like, you're very real. Mugged by reality.
C
Yeah.
A
In the state of California. I just love that California is so crazy and so willing to be crazy that the very proposal of the crazy is like, I can't risk this.
C
I can't risk the insanity.
A
And I also enjoy that the SEIU thought that it was going to outsmart the billionaires.
C
Oh, I know.
A
And the billionaires are like, you can't outsmart us.
C
Leaving right now. The most mobile people in society. Can we just be real here? The people who have, like, if me and you have to move tomorrow, that's going to be tough. If Larry Page has to move tomorrow, he's got an army that can move tomorrow. Yeah. And he can get his kid into any school he wants. He could do. He could move anywhere. He picks a house that he likes, he pays 10 times what it's worth, and that's his house now.
A
That's.
C
It doesn't matter. Yeah. They picked on the wrong segment of the population.
A
Yeah. Let me, let me just add, Gavin Newsom is vowing to fight this. Okay, well, you already, you've already lost the fight to a great extent. And it says he has not backed wealth taxes in the past. And I would just say why? Why Gavin Newsom, are you against this? Because if they're not paying their fair share in the state of California as you lecture the rest of us about the time, then you shouldn't oppose this. The union argues this is New York Times that the tax is necessary to make up for deep cuts to health care that President Trump signed into law last year, including reductions in Medicaid. That's fraud prevention.
C
Yep, yep.
A
Affordable Care act subsidies, fraud prevention, Covid nonsense. And food assistance. The union's proposal calls for the state to spend 90% of the new tax money on health care with the rest devoted to food assistance and education. By the way, they're bleeding themselves drive with fraud and benefits to illegal aliens as well.
C
Right.
A
And I love this quote from the chief of staff to the labor to the the governor is focused on the wrong problem here. Suzanne Jimenez said the problem is not just about the preferences of 200 ultra wealthy individuals. The problem is millions will lose health care. And that's really the problem we're trying to solve. She doesn't understand what the 200 have and why it's important. And like it doesn't belong to you. Amazing. You can't just take it. That's not how it works.
C
Chamath Palipita he is one of the hosts of the all in podcast. By the way, of the four, two are gone, one left recently and two are still in California, I think just seeing what happens. But he points out that the excess of 700 billion left California just last month and that means that the 2 trillion of California wealth they expected to tax is already right now down to 1.3 trillion. Like they are not going to have anybody to tax when this is over. And you know who should be worried, honestly? The multimillionaires. After all the billionaires have left and they bought up all the property where you might want to live. They're coming for the next rung down and they're going to keep going until they could pay for their ridiculous proposals. So you know, here, here we are. I'm not surprised that California did this. I think that that's they've become the place where where crazy ideas are born. And Gavin Newsom could be against this all he wants. He's still responsible for the tsunami of insanity that exists in his state.
A
Yep.
C
Yeah. I liked Mike Solana, who is one of my favorite Twitter follows. He's the editor in chief of Pirate Wire. He's just so smart and funny. He tweets now that we're calculating net worth as control, I'd like to remind you that Ro Khanna, who is a congressman and is one of the people who support supportive of this wealth tax, is one of 535 United States legislators. That gives him around 0.19 control over 6.3 trillion budget and brings his net worth to something like $12 billion. His tax bill $598,500,000. Fees ROE. Pay up.
A
Pay your fair share, buddy.
C
Yeah, you want to, you want to talk about unrealized gains? That's one of them.
A
Lefties not seeing how incentives work is just a classic genre. It happens all the time. Will never get old.
C
It really won't. We're going to take a short break and talk about how some righties don't understand how incentives work. The next segment will be Trump administration the good and the bad. We are back on normally where look the Trump administration some hits, some misses. This is what it's all about. But let's start with the misses because we just teased that Donald Trump is proposing a cap on credit card interest rates and that cap is going to be 10%. This is a really dumb idea. I give him a lot of leeway with his economic populism because he ran on it and he won on it and that's the way things go. But this is really one of the ideas that are so poorly thought out and will have such repercussions. I just think on a really basic level, I grew up in Brooklyn. You can find someone to lend you money at a high interest rate if you need to, and it won't be Chase or Visa, it'll be the shady guy on your street.
A
Well, I think what happens is people assume and it sounds very people are going to like this idea that the sound of it is good right up until they won't. Okay, great. Credit cards can't charge me more than that. You have to think to the second order consequences beyond the first one. Once they can't charge you that prices are a signal. Interest rates are a signal. Your interest rate is a signal of how risky you are to rent, to give loans to. And so once you cannot be charged the amount that is commensurate with your riskiness.
C
That's right.
A
You will not get money. That's how it works. And unfortunately that will fall on people who need money, who are in more dire situations, lower income brackets who want to rebuild, who need tools to do that. And they will end up doing payday loans or as you noted, extra vinny stock, extra financial sector investments and, and, and transactions and it will go badly. And suddenly when those people don't have access to credit, they'll be very mad at the people who cause that problem. Yeah.
C
And you know, I, I think about all of the like Tech Bros. Stories start out with we started this company in our garage and we put everything on the credit card. And yeah, interest rates are high and you should avoid them as much as possible by paying off all of your credit card debt every month. Then you, then your interest rate is 0. But people take chances with the loans that they get and it's going to lead to fewer people being able to take chances like the people who start their businesses in their garages and put all the money on the credit cards and all of that, that it's going to be a real hard thing for people like that.
A
Also, Trump loves debt. What are we doing?
C
What is going on? Yeah, he's, you know, I feel like he's getting some bad economic populism advice. And I, you know, a lot of people who like Donald Trump, every time he does something they don't like, they blame it on people in his ear. But you're right, he likes debt. How is he now anti debt? How does this make sense?
A
I mean, I would love to just like keep the credit card stuff where it is and do some more financial literacy from the presidential podium. That might help. Yeah, but, yeah, the, there are downsides, of course, but there are downsides to this policy that people do not recognize.
C
Our friend Jesse Kelly has been all over this and I, I really enjoyed his tweets, but he said he tweeted, if you think putting a cap on credit card interest will help with affordability, then there's little that can be done for you. Jesse's kind of abrasive, but that's why we love him. That's not at all how that's going to work. You're simply going to regulate the poor out of access as price controls always do. I mean, that's it. That's what's going to end up happening. And you know, here we are.
A
Yep. Tis true. But we have a good story from the.
C
All right, let's hear the troll story from the Trump administration.
A
Right. Well, we have a little clip from 2014 South park that previewed this week's news. Can we play that?
F
It's dinner time on the east coast in less than an hour. People are going to die. Sir, we've got a boy on the hotline who says he might know something.
C
Who is this my name is important. What matters is that the answer is in the pyramid.
F
The pyramid? That's ancient stuff you're talking about. Are you sure? Bring up the pyramid.
A
What is it?
C
What is it for?
F
We built the pyramid a long time ago to illustrate how much people should eat of the four basic food groups.
C
Sir.
F
We abandoned the pyramid when Michelle Obama got involved. The pyramid doesn't work. We've already tried it.
C
It's upside down.
F
What?
C
Sir. The pyramid is upside down.
F
Turn the pyramid upside down. You can't be serious. That would put butter and fat at the top of the. Flip the damn food pyramid. This is not FDA approved. It's dinner time on the East coast in 10 minutes. Now do it.
A
Sir.
F
We've got a match.
C
Nutrition is stabilizing.
F
We've got a well balanced vaccine. Sir. Get the President on the phone. Tell him to have some steak with his butter.
C
I love that. Yeah. South park ahead of its time.
A
Yeah. So the thing about this is that south park, although it looks very much like it knows the future. A soothsayer. In this bit.
C
We all knew it by then.
A
We've all known that the nutrition advice was very bad from the federal government. Has been bad for a long time. Is in part created by Big Ag. By subsidies. I think. I think it was Jillian Michaels who said this. The pyramid isn't like advice for regular people. Although it does trickle down and people get bad advice. It's not just that. It is a map for subsidies and a map for us giving billions and trillions in money to interests that don't necessarily serve nutrition. What is supposed to be the message here? And so I think. Look, I think this is a needed correction. I. I often disagree with RFQ Junior. But not on this one. I also would like to shout out that they did fantastic design work with so nice a design firm on this poster.
C
Yeah.
A
And I have never wanted a piece of government messaging in my home before. But that poster is making me rethink.
C
Yeah. Come on. You let. You had the Cuomo Hill poster that he made for himself. Right? The mountain of Kobe.
A
The mountain of Cuomo. Yes. The courage mountain or whatever he called it. But I think. I think this is a correct move. I think that if you are funneling subsidies to less processed food, if you are encouraging people to find real food, if you stop demonizing protein and fat. That's. We're moving in the right direction.
C
All good? Yeah. Go have some steak with butter tonight. Friends. Yes.
A
Quit eating your rice cakes and. And like soda. That's not going to help. Diet soda and the rice cakes. Like, I'm not hating on either one of them, but like, those aren't going to solve your problems.
C
That's right. Well, thanks for joining us on Normally. Normally airs Tuesdays and Thursdays, and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcast. Get in touch with us at normallythepod at gmail com. Thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normally.
A
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
Episode Date: January 15, 2026
Hosts: Mary Katharine Ham (A), Carol Markowitz (C)
Main Themes: Iran Uprising, Transgender Sports and Legal Arguments, Anti-Semitism, California Wealth Tax, Trump’s Policy Proposals, U.S. Nutrition Guidelines
In this episode, Mary Katharine Ham and Carol Markowitz offer their signature blend of analysis and wit as they dissect several pressing topics: ongoing protests and violent crackdowns in Iran, anti-Semitism in the U.S., Supreme Court arguments over transgender participation in women’s sports, the exodus of wealth from California over a proposed tax, a critique of Trump’s new credit card interest cap proposal, and the recent reversal of federal nutrition guidelines. The discussion is fast-paced, direct, and interspersed with memorable quotes and moments of comic relief.
The hosts maintain a direct, skeptical, and at times irreverent tone throughout the episode. They combine straightforward policy analysis with personal stories, humor, and sharp criticism of political actors across the spectrum. Their commentary is lively and opinionated, aimed at readers who value an unvarnished take on current events.
Listeners or readers seeking a fast, punchy recap with strong opinions, humor, and analysis from a center-right perspective will find this summary representative of the episode’s content and spirit.