Normally Podcast: Portland, Crime, and Classrooms: What Failing Cities Teach Us About Accountability

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show – "Normally Podcast: Portland, Crime, and Classrooms: What Failing Cities Teach Us About Accountability"

Episode Date: September 30, 2025
Hosts: Mary Kathryn Hamp & Carol Markowitz

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into some of America’s most contentious issues—urban decline, education failures, and the cultural schisms driving accountability in our cities and schools. Using recent news stories from Portland, Des Moines, and national education data as jumping-off points, hosts Mary Kathryn Hamp and Carol Markowitz blend sharp criticism, wry humor, and policy analysis. They discuss why some cities and school systems are failing, what’s working elsewhere, and why entrenched ideological bubbles prevent meaningful reform. Other key topics include media coverage biases, school leadership scandals, the aftermath of political violence, and the cycle of radical empathy in the liberal establishment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Opening Banter & Comedy as Cultural Commentary

(03:13–05:41)

• The hosts kick off with a weekend recap, including Carol's experience seeing comedian Shane Gillis.
• Key Insight: Gillis is highlighted as one of the rare politically engaged comics who critiques both sides, but is nonetheless marginalized by the left for “coding” conservative.
  • “The left will never accept him because he codes so conservative…but he still seems very in the middle. If the left would wake up a little bit, they’d realize what they have in a Shane Gillis type.” – Carol Markowitz (04:21)
• Mary Kathryn notes that live comedy often delivers more nuance than today’s ideologically-driven discourse:
  • “Chris Rock is also a good one for making fun of all sorts of people…he ticks off everyone at some point during the show.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (05:25)

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2. The "Mississippi Miracle:" Literacy, Accountability, and Denial in Blue States

(05:53–13:37)

• National education results are at historic lows, especially in literacy.
  • “32% of high school seniors scored below basic, which means they cannot find details in a text…we’re not doing great.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (06:04)
• Southern states, particularly Mississippi, have dramatically improved literacy rates using traditional, accountability-driven methods: explicit phonics instruction, flashcards, and holding back non-readers.
  • “All the red states have figured out how to teach kids to read, and blue states are inexplicably not following their lead.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (07:21)
  • Louisiana’s improvement attributed to “going back to basics...shipping old school flashcards with math facts” (07:28)
  • “It turns out that low income black students can learn to read…you just use phonics, you teach teachers to teach phonics, and then you apply accountability. That’s the three-pronged attack that Mississippi used.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (08:42)
• Discussion of ideological resistance in blue states; preference for "newfangled" approaches over proven basics, linked to denial and media coverage biases.
  • “They are completely focused on finding newfangled solutions… they don’t understand doing things that have worked in the past.” – Carol Markowitz (09:53)
  • “If your ideological model is more important than kids learning, you have a bad ideological model.” – Carol Markowitz (12:49)
• The role of stigma in retention: elite private schools hold back students for success, but in public schools, it’s seen as failure.
  • “Social promotion is so much worse than being held back…promoting kids who can’t read is a terrible idea.” – Carol Markowitz (11:19)

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3. School Leadership Scandal in Des Moines: Ideology Over Integrity

(13:55–18:05)

• Story of Des Moines’ superintendent, Dr. Ian Roberts, detained by ICE for deportation despite past weapons charges, criminal record, and alleged falsification of credentials.
  • The school board president urges “radical empathy” in response, prioritizing compassion for the superintendent over transparency for parents.
  • “Your actual job is to know the facts about the guy you hired…when it comes to education in liberal areas…the stuff they will tell you is acceptable is astounding.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (16:10)
  • “Having a sex offender in several high school locker rooms…that seems fine to us…The bar is so, so, so low.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (16:39)
  • Quote of Radical Empathy:
    “It seems fitting to take a page out of Dr. Roberts' book and ask the community to engage in radical empathy as we work through the situation together…” – Jackie Norris, Des Moines School Board (14:54)
• Discussion of broader trends: criminal backgrounds are endorsed as a means to diversify school staff.
  • “He was for it because it would diversify their staff.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (17:54)
  • Hosts urge listeners not to “take this nonsense from them” and demand higher standards of accountability.

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4. Aftermath of Political Violence & Media’s Moral Confusion

(22:36–32:56)

• Examination of the media and left-leaning intellectuals’ reaction to the (fictional) killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
• Ta-Nehisi Coates is quoted as expressing horror at the killing, but ultimately justifies emotional distance based on his perception of Kirk as a “hate monger.”
  • “I always think it’s important to differentiate how people die versus how they live.” – Ta-Nehisi Coates (25:36)
  • Hosts criticize the tendency to justify dehumanization of political adversaries and reject the idea that disagreement equals hate.
  • “I didn’t agree with everything my husband says…It makes no sense.” – Carol Markowitz (27:11)
• Critique of Nicole Hannah-Jones’ response: she equates Kirk’s mainstream conservatism with hate and disallows the possibility of civil debate on campus.
  • “She’s trying to disqualify all conservative thought…Because Jones disagrees with you, she just says, you're a racist, fascist, homophobe.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (29:55)
• Discussion of public tributes to radical activists (e.g., Assata Shakur), the lack of critique within left-leaning circles, and the erosion of standards for acceptable discourse.
  • “There’s no self policing on the left. There’s no kind of think pieces like, oh, this is not who we are.” – Carol Markowitz (32:28)
  • On the celebration of radical violence:
    “This was all political violence. That is good. And it’s teachers unions and the press and entities of the left are happy to say so.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (32:14)

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5. Portland, Urban Collapse & the Limits of Radical Empathy

(37:55–43:40)

• Discussion of President Trump’s proposal to use the National Guard in Portland, city officials’ denials of urban decline, and media talking points that rebrand decay as “vibrant.”
  • “The Portland mayor says there’s no problem in Portland. What are you even talking about?” – Carol Markowitz (37:58)
  • Mark Hemingway cited:
    “Downtown Portland is mostly vacant and full of stabby homeless addicts. Portland has the second most crime of any city in America. Vibrant and peaceful is objectively a lie.” – Quoted by Carol Markowitz (40:39)
• Hosts recount how major American cities suffered from policy failures during 2020–21 riots, with Portland as a case study in failed leadership and consequences of hands-off policing.
  • “Cities…adopted policies that were basically suicide for their downtown areas…allowing for rioting, vandalism, occupation of major parts of cities.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (41:08)
• Discussion of successful urban turnarounds, citing New York and Miami as proof that decline can be reversed with will and proper policy.
  • “Cities need to remember that they can fix themselves…Let the Trump administration try to help.” – Carol Markowitz (41:31)
• Critique of “radical empathy” as a governing principle; hosts argue it serves to excuse dysfunction rather than solve it.
  • “The liberal bubble inside these cities…is simply pro the crime…They put the criminal and the criminal’s rights and radical empathy above…the quality of life of their citizens.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (42:39)
  • “Just be normal.” – Carol Markowitz (43:30)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On blue state resistance to proven educational reforms:
  “They are serving low income and minority children better than California… It turns out that low income black students can learn to read and that you shouldn't treat them as if they cannot and that this is some impossible task.” – Mary Kathryn Hamp (08:42)

• On the political incentives preventing positive coverage:
  “The appetite to tell positive stories in red states is low.” – Karen Vates, quoted by Mary Kathryn Hamp (12:36)

• On the phenomena of ‘radical empathy’:
  “Radical empathy is the recognition that we can disagree and still empathize with each other. The respect of others, humanity. This concept will be essential as we wait to learn more. We do not have all the facts.” – Jackie Norris (14:54)

• On media and activist reactions to political violence:
  “In some parts of polite society, it now holds that if many of Kirk's views were repugnant, his willingness to calmly argue about them…and his insistence that people hash out their disagreements through discourse at a time of such division made him a free speech advocate…and an exemplar of how we should engage politically across differences. But for those who were directly targeted by Kirk's rhetoric, I could think of maybe a different phrase for that in this case.” – Nicole Hannah-Jones, quoted by Mary Kathryn Hamp (28:56)

• On American cities’ decline and potential for renewal:
  “My kids get shocked when they see homeless people…they had gotten used to living in a place where it wasn’t normal to have people just sleeping in the streets. Cities need to remember that they can fix themselves.” – Carol Markowitz (41:31)

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Important Timestamps

• Comedy as Political Crossroads: 03:13–05:41
• Mississippi Miracle & Literacy Politics: 05:53–13:37
• Des Moines Superintendent Scandal: 13:55–18:05
• Political Violence & Media Reactions: 22:36–32:56
• Portland, Urban Crime & Empathy Debates: 37:55–43:40

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Tone & Style

• Candid, irreverent, and pointed. Mary Kathryn Hamp and Carol Markowitz blend humor with serious critique, highlighting perceived absurdities and failures in progressive governance and media narratives.
• Mix of policy analysis and culture war commentary, delivered in a conversational, accessible style.
• Frequent use of memorable one-liners, e.g., “Just be normal,” and recurring critiques of “radical empathy” and leftwing denialism.

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Conclusion

This episode presents a tour through America’s culture and policy wars—sharply critiquing educational failing, media bias, knee-jerk defenses of criminal administrators, and the cycle of radical empathy stifling accountability. The hosts argue for a return to basics: in reading instruction, in public safety, and in civic debate, pressing listeners to demand more from public officials, media, and themselves.

Transcript

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

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[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Hey guys. We are back on normally the show with normal ishtix, but when the news gets weird. I am Mary Kathryn Hamp.

[Carol Markowitz]

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

[Ad Voice 3]

I'm all right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

The news is as busy as my weekend. We had one of those weekends where you do so, so, so many things.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. That I had a busy weekend.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I had a surprised. I got through it.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's unpleasant because you just feel like you need another weekend. Like that wasn't a weekend. What was that?

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

What happened there?

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, you know, I did on Friday night, I went to see Shane Gillis and I have to say, even though the show was super raunchy and like, definitely went too far for me in a couple of different spots, but I will say I think that Shane Gillis is the most bipartisan comedian working today. And I say that, look, obviously we were Nate Bragazzi fans on this show. He does not know politics at all. Sebastian Maniscalco, I love him. He really doesn't do politics either. I'm talking people who do politics and make fun of both sides equally. Shane Gillis might be the top of the list for me. And the left will never accept him because he codes so conservative. And he talked about how he was like, sort of affiliated with blm and he was very outraged about the killing of George Floyd and all of this stuff and how he sort of moved rightward in the last few years, but he still seems very in the middle. And if the left would wake up a little bit, they'd realize what they have in a Shane Gillis type.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

You mean like normal dudes who and like football and beer end up getting pushed to the right by the psychos on the left.

[Carol Markowitz]

Crazy right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Seemed like a storyline I've seen before.

[Carol Markowitz]

You've heard of this? Yes. And then they'd be like, we need a Shane Gillis for the left. Like, yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

You had one, right? You had one. No, I, I do think every time I see live comedy, I have more fun than I thought I was going to have.

[Ad Voice 3]

Right.

[Carol Markowitz]

I'm on a chair right now.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I get A little nervous going to watch other people speak, which is silly because I speak all the time, but that's part of it. It just. It kind of like I get sympathetic nervousness for other people.

[Carol Markowitz]

Sure.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

And when they're good, they're great. Chris Rock is also a good one for making fun of all sorts of people.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I've seen him live before, and he ticks off everyone at some point during the show, right?

[Carol Markowitz]

Yes, that's exactly what this was. And I would say Shane Gillis comments about Joe Biden were the warmest comments I've heard from anyone about Joe Biden in many, many years.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

So Gillis just went after his fellow comedians, by the way, for performing in Saudi Arabia. Yeah, he's not afraid to jump in the mix. All righty.

[Carol Markowitz]

Okay, no more laughing.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Can we talk a little news?

[Carol Markowitz]

Yes.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yes. Okay, so we're gonna talk education because we like to get into that. And there's a couple crazy stories. One, let's talk about literacy. We talked a little bit about the national report card that came out a week and a half, two weeks ago. And, you know, the top lines on that are really embarrassing. I'll just run through a couple of them real quick, which is 12th graders. Scores dropped to their low level in more than 20 years. Scores for lowest performing students are at historic lows in reading, the average score was the lowest score in the history of the assessment. 32%. It's bad. 32% of high school seniors scored below basic, which means that they cannot find details in a text and help them understand the meaning of the text. So we're not doing great. Math is equally problematic. But I wanted to talk about literacy because Kelsey Tuoc. Is that how you say your last name? She's a. Yeah, yeah. Kelsey took. Who. Who writes for the Argument, which is sort of a. A place that the left is trying to have fights about the abundance, renewal that they want to go on or what their party's going to be. And I think Kelsey thinks critically about a lot of things, and she has written about the Mississippi miracle and the southern surge in literacy, wherein all the red states have figured out how to teach kids to read, and blue states are inexplicably not following their lead.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's wild because they're not doing anything special. That's what's really so crazy about this. I wrote about this in February, and it wasn't. It's not just Mississippi. I wrote about Louisiana, and they have an amazing superintendent there. His name is Cade Brumley. You'll hear about him in other places. He credits the achievement with quote, going back to basics. And this is a quote from him. We've done symbolic things like shipping old school flashcards with math facts to every elementary school in the state. He said that is what they came up with. They went back to flashcards and they do things like they get kids help instead of just promoting them. I mean really obvious basic things. And yet the blue states can't manage it. And you know one thing that Kelsey writes, and she says, I like this part a lot when she points out many people who aren't too focused on education policies seem to imagine Mississippi has simply, simply stopped underperforming, that they're now doing about as well as everyone else. This is not true. They haven't just caught up to your state, they are now wildly outperforming it. And it was true for a while that these states were catching up and then they caught up and went way past everyone.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Well, and it's also that they are serving low income and minority children better than California. She uses California as an example because she lives there and she pays taxes there where they spend a ton more money and are not serving these students. So it turns out that low income black students can learn to read and that you shouldn't treat them as if they cannot and that this is some impossible task. In fact, you just use phonics. You teach teachers to teach phonics and then you apply accountability. That's the three pronged attack that Mississippi used and that took them from 49th in literacy levels to 9th in literacy levels and that Louisiana, Tennessee, Alabama are all following. And it takes some time, but the solution is actually quite simple.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

And it is having these incredible results. And I kind of think, I wonder too if like in these negative partisan polarization times that the way to get blue states to adopt these things is just to troll them by saying Mississippi is better than you.

[Carol Markowitz]

But the thing is they won't be like, let's get flashcards and work on phonics. They're going to be like, we need this new technology that everybody needs to pay more for. It. Just, it's, they, they don't understand doing things that have worked in the past. Again, they are completely focused on finding newfangled solutions to this. I don't know.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

And that's why we lost ground over all those years is that a bunch of people got conned by this other style of teaching.

[Carol Markowitz]

Oh man.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Reading, which is not science based, which does, which doesn't work and makes children sort of guess Based on the context clues.

[Carol Markowitz]

Makes me insane.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Context clues they're reading, it's a terrible idea. But because it was trendy and because it's not right coded, it went everywhere. And by the way, a lot of people say, well, if you hold kids back in third grade, which is what Mississippi does, and this is what the Mississippi teachers and administrators were concerned about. They said, if you hold them back in third grade, if they can't read, everybody's going to get held back. But it turns out that when you put a fire under everybody's butts and tell them they're going to have to hold back everyone who can read, they teach them to read.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right, Right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

The adults take charge and do what they're supposed to do.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. It's just. It's so weird that there's this stigma of being held back, you know? You ever see those videos? Like, what's, like, cool if you're rich, but not cool if you're poor?

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Right, right.

[Carol Markowitz]

Having a refrigerator in your garage, like, all kinds of, like, you know, differences, like speaking a second language. This seems like one of those things because in elite private schools, kids get held back so that they suc. And if they're at the top of their class and they're bigger than everybody else and just so many things. But if you get held back at, like, a poor school, you're, like, dumb and you're, this is the worst thing that could happen to you. And whatever. It makes no sense. I think the social promotion is so much worse than being held back. And the stigma around it really does need to change because this doesn't work at all. Promoting kids from third grade who can't read is a terrible idea because they.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Just lose ground forever for the rest of their life.

[Carol Markowitz]

Everybody moves on without them.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah, I want to note this part, too, and I appreciate her homing in on this. She asks why this, you know, huge success that seems rather simple isn't getting implemented everywhere, isn't getting glossy magazine coverage, isn't getting documentaries. And some educational leaders tell her this is just a politically awkward story. Education policy expert Andy Rotherham told me, it's all these red states. This is a very ideological field. People struggle with calling balls and strikes. Karen Vates, who's a friend of mine, who's a great fellow on Twitter, says, I think the story's going untold for the same reason journalists ignored the successful school reopening stories in Florida and the rest of the sun belt in August 2020. The appetite to tell positive stories in red states is low.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. I will say about that, though, they also ignored European schools opening because they couldn't fit it into their ideological model. Now, if your ideological model is more important than kids learning, you have a bad ideological model. And I think that that's just the case. And again, you know, why isn't this story being told? It is being told on the conservative side. It's being told by the people you don't listen to and don't read and don't follow.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Carol's written about it. I've written about it. Yeah. So. But it's good to see we're talking.

[Carol Markowitz]

About it on normally.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah, it's good to see it get more coverage. And I think, you know, what I've heard from literacy experts is that one of the things that needs to be done is people in blue states need to talk to their school boards and say, why are you not Mississippi?

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Why aren't you making this happen? Because they're not. They're so ensconced in their bubbles that getting them to consider Mississippi's success is not going to happen without outside pressure. So.

[Carol Markowitz]

And they deserve that pressure. So.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Well, should we talk about their bubble and what it causes?

[Carol Markowitz]

Let's do that. Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

We got another good one. Out of Des Moines, Iowa, the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools was picked up by ICE because he had a deportation order from 2024. He has had a weapons charge against him. He has a criminal record. It turns out he's probably falsified a lot of his educational achievements and he went on the run when ICE came after him. So that's who they hired to be the superintendent of Des Moines Public Schools. Jackie Norris, who was an ex Michelle Obama, she's a former Michelle Obama aide, is the head of this school board and led the hiring of this man. And I just want you to listen, Carol, to what she had to say about how we should feel about the guy she hired being picked up by ice.

[Jackie Norris]

On behalf of the Des Moines public school community, I want to provide an update from district leadership and the board on the current situation unfolding with our superintendent, Dr. Ian Roberts. Before we begin, it seems fitting to take a page out of Dr. Roberts book and ask the community to engage in radical empathy as we work through the situation together. Radical empathy is the recognition that we can disagree and still empathize with each other. The respect of others, humanity. This concept will be essential as we wait to learn more. We do not have all the facts. There is much we do not know. However, what we do know is that Dr. Roberts has been an integral part of our school community since he joined over two years ago. During his time with our district, he has shown up in ways big and small and has advocated for students and staff. All right, Jackie, you're good concepts.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Wrap it up.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. A lot of words to say. He's on our team and we're going to defend him.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

By the way, we don't know all the facts.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Your actual job is to know the facts about the guy you hired. And I just. When it comes to education in liberal areas where liberals make up the school boards, the stuff they will tell you is acceptable is astounding. And I know because I live in one of these areas where the school boards will just tell you like, no school being closed for two years is good.

[Carol Markowitz]

Fine. Kids are so resilient.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Having a sex offender in several high school locker rooms closing themselves, that seems fine to us. In fact, let's lobby for more of that. I mean, it's just shocking. The bar is so, so, so low.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

And teachers like she's going to tell parents who are upset about this empathize with him.

[Carol Markowitz]

Radical empathy.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

And with me, who hired him. Just like Google your guy. Google your guy.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. Doesn't seem like that's a stretch. Right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

His public pronouncements about himself are all conflicting about where he went to school, where he was born. He signed paperwork apparen saying he was a citizen when he, in other public statements said he was born in Guyana. It is wild.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. Yeah. This is where it leads when you protect your side at all costs. And the left is very, very good at that. And this is what happens, by the way.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

He also, Guy Benson, pointed out to me this morning that he had instituted a policy about hiring criminals, people with criminal backgrounds for.

[Carol Markowitz]

Was he for it?

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

He was for it because it would diversify their staff.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. That's not racist.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I just.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

These people are beyond. Don't let them fool you. Make sure they teach your kids how to read and don't take this nonsense from them. Oh, it's bad.

[Carol Markowitz]

We'll be right back with more on normally talking. The New York Times just can't help itself. Not have radical empathy for Charlie Kirk. We'll be right back.

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[Glenn Washington]

I'm Glenn Washington, the host of KQD's snap judgment podcast. And at Snap, we don't just tell stories, we live them. Every week a different journey like on a plane with Rihanna, a racetrack in Tijuana, a year inside an Oakland homeless encampment. Real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound. Snap Judgment from kqed. New episodes every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts, this is.

[Danielle Fishel]

Nicole Safire from Wellness on Mass with Dr. Nicole Safire. You may know me from my medical appearances on various networks throughout the years, and today I'm here with a health message for all listeners, no matter your age. Here's what's happening. Starting around age 25, we lose 1 to 2% of our collagen production every single year. By 50, you've lost nearly half, and that can lead to a lot of discomfort. Patients in their 40s and 50s are complaining about joint pain that used to be reserved for much older adults. Collagen is the most abundant protein in our bodies. Type 1 and Type 3 collagen make up more than 90% of the collagen in the human body. That's why Native Path's formula is just those two fibers to support connective tissue, muscles, organs, skin, hair and nails. Multiple randomized controlled trials show that collagen supplementation can significantly reduce joint discomfort within as little as four weeks and it can also improve skin elasticity in eight weeks. That's why I recommend Native Path Collagen. It's not just any collagen you'll find on the shelves at your local grocery store. Just two small scoops of NativePath. Collagen gives you 20 grams of their single ingredient clean, bioavailable protein. It's flavorless and it mixes easily into your coffee or other favorite beverage. Visit shopnativepath.com today for 45% off plus free shipping. That website is shop nativepath. Get your native Path Collagen before this deal expires. Visit shopnativepath.com Stop settling for weak sound.

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[Carol Markowitz]

We are back on normally where the New York Times just can't seem to get itself together on the death of Charlie Kirk. They don't want to be the kind of people that have staffers rooting on murder of ideological foes. But but that's sort of where they're edging up to. So here we are and it's Ta Nehisi Coates who has some words about Charlie being a hate monger. And I I just, I I he write, he says, I think Charlie Kirk was a hate monger. I take no joy in the killing of anyone no matter what they said. But if you ask me what the truth of his life was, I would have to tell you it's hate. Now Coates excused the rape and murder of Israelis and said that if he were Gazan he might participate in that as well. So don't tell me that this guy is not all about hate. He also very famously said that he could not relate at all to the murdered firefighters and policemen who died on 9 11. They were not people he felt sorry for. He is full of hate and rage and yet is constantly telling us who else is hateful.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah, he had a conversation with Ezra Klein who is one of so very few liberals who seems to understand what the murder of Charlie Kirk requires of them. Ezra Klein and like one other person who is this liberal professor who wrote for the New York Times so credit for publishing it. Nicholas Creel an associate professor of business law at Georgia College and State University who wrote a piece about how he advised a Turning Points chapter at his college because a conservative professor wouldn't. Because he was afraid he'd get lambasted and. Or fired. And this guy with liberal creds was like, I'll step in and do it. And in the spirit of free exchange, even though I disagree with everything they say. And then Ezra Klein is like, yeah, this is an attack on all of us. It's important to honor what he was doing on campuses. This made Tahanasi Coates very angry, and they had a public disagreement about it. And then they sat down for a podcast together. And I just want to hear Tahanasi Coates wrestle with this. While talking to Klein, you can tell how much it pains him to think that this guy is worth saying, oh, he shouldn't be shot. Here we go.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Having not done the research that I eventually did for the college, there was something off about what I knew about this guy and the presentation of him as. And I don't want to misquote you here, but as basically a paragon of politics and how politics should be done. I think I had the same reaction that most ordinary people would have, which is absolute horror, the idea that this guy was somewhere speaking and was killed. But I always think it's important to differentiate how people die versus how they live. And then after doing the research.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I.

[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Had, to be honest with you, that's when it got really, really difficult. When I went past my initial impressions and started going through all of the clips of the things he said, the way he talked about people, the way he described Goose in ways that, honestly, even as I was writing it, I was uncomfortable saying. And so the idea that this guy should be in any way celebrated for how he conducted politics, the fact that he just slurred across the board all sorts of groups of people and then ran an organization wherein. Which appeared to me just a haven of hatred. I would not want that to be a model for my politics. And I know, as we talked between us, that you are not attempting to make a statement for the entirety of it, obviously.

[Carol Markowitz]

Obviously, who was talking about the entirety of it. I despise that line of thinking so much. And I know you and I have talked about this on here, but I didn't agree with everything Mary Catherine said. Yeah, I didn't agree with everything Mary Catherine said because I. I'm a normal person, and I don't agree with anything anybody says. I don't agree with everything my Husband says, I don't agree with anything. I can't think of anyone where I would agree with everything.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Every single thing they say that makes no sense.

[Carol Markowitz]

And the fact that there's this guy who is considered a thinker and so smart, and I just don't find him that at all. But saying, I know you weren't talking about the entirety of Charlie Kirk's commentary, like, obviously Ezra Klein wasn't. And if you watch Ezra Klein's face in that clip, it's like he's looking at him like, we are never gonna win again.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

No. Well, that's partly what he's worried about, is that if. If you're. If your goal explicitly, as Ta Nehisi Kosis is, is to say that this form of argumentation that Kirk was doing is, on its face, evil and hateful because you disagreed with his, like, frankly, very normal policy positions, then, yeah, the Democratic Party is going to have trouble winning people over because you are unwilling to talk to them. And I. I want to follow that up with the Nicole Hannah Jones, who is another thinker, alleged thinker from the 2020 period, who is the author of the 1619 Project, which has all of its own accuracy issues. Yeah, she comes straight out and says it in her column for the New York Times. Because New York Times needs to publish a couple people ragging on Kirk. In some parts of polite society, it now holds that if many of Kirk's views were repugnant, his willingness to calmly argue about them and his insistence that people hash out their disagreements through discourse at a time of such division made him a free speech advocate and an exemplar of how we should engage politically across differences. But for those who were directly targeted by Kirk's rhetoric, I could think of maybe a different phrase for that in this case. But she does it on purpose.

[Carol Markowitz]

Of course she does. Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

His thinking seems to place the civility of Kirk's style of argument over the incivility of what he argued through gossamer tributes. Kirk's cruel condemnation of transgender people and his racist, throwback views about black Americans were no longer anathema, but instead are being treated as just another political view to be respectfully debated, like a position on tax rates or health care policy. Okay, she's incorrect about everything she cites him say, and I don't know how it got through all the fact checkers over at the New York Times, but she's trying to disqualify all conservative thought. If you express yourself in civil ways on a college campus because Jones disagrees With you, she just says, you're a racist, fascist, homophobe, whatever. And we can't dignify this, but nobody is the racist, fascist, homophobe here except for maybe the person saying, we can't argue.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. And she was. She led so much of the silencing of the. Of the cancel culture years. You know, any. Any criticism of her was racist. Anything that, you know, she didn't like was racist. She made us at each other's throats. And I have just no sympathy for the New York Times being stuck with her and having her be kind of their most prominent voice because they sort of deserve it at this point.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah. And the other thing is she doesn't write. So I guess I'm glad something finally got her to do so.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. I know.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Who knows how much they pay her, but she doesn't turn out a lot of copy.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. And no, she spends her time, like, on, you know, X, but now probably at Blue sky, arguing that, like, Anne Frank had a lot of white privilege. I mean, true story. This is what she does.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Well. And apparently the Blue sky folks are very angry that Klein sat down with Ta Nehisi Coates and slightly disagreed with him in this interview. Because, like, how. I mean, what is it. Is it Barry Weiss that calls it the moral flattening of the earth?

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

If arguing is fascism, then.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah. We're not allowed to do anything, apparently.

[Carol Markowitz]

No disagreement allowed, obviously.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I call it like, they reverse victim and offender all the time. Like, the New York Times is convinced that lefty thinkers are the actual victims of Charlie Kirk's murder.

[Carol Markowitz]

I don't think that's it.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I don't think that's it. Can I add one more thing that also goes with our first topic? After, like, a week of being told that we are the violent ones and that left. The left definitely doesn't valorize violence, and it's so far from the truth. We are but lambs to the slaughter in this country. We lefties who don't do any of this. The Chicago Teachers Union honored Assata Shakur in a post. Today we honor the life and legacy of a revolutionary fighter, a fierce writer, a revered elder of black liberation, and a leader of freedom whose spirit continues to live in our struggle. She's also convicted murderer of a New Jersey State patrolman. She was involved in various armed bank robberies, I believe hostage holdings.

[Carol Markowitz]

What a hero.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

She escaped to Cuba. This was all political violence. That is good. And it's teachers unions and the press and entities of the left are happy to say so, and there's no, like.

[Carol Markowitz]

Real blowback for them. There's nobody on the left saying this is a line too far. I just, again, we've talked about this, but there's no self policing on the left. There's no kind of think pieces like, oh, this is not who we are. None of that's going to happen because they're on the left. And that's, that's the squad.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Well, and when Ezra attempts to very lightly say maybe this was an attack on us all, they're like, no, it wasn't. It was an attack on the right people.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

The correct people.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, good luck with that, Ezra.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah, he's trying. We'll be right back on normally. But first, it was nearly two years ago that terrorists murdered more than 1200 innocent Israelis and took 250 hostages. Today, it seems as if the cries of the dead and dying have been drowned out by shouts of anti Semitic hatred. And the most brutal attack on the Jewish people since the Holocaust has been forgotten. Yet as the world looks away, a light shines in the darkness. It's a movement of love and support for the people of Israel called Flags of Fellowship. And it's organized by the International Fellowship of Christians. And on October 5th, just a few weeks away, millions of Americans will prayerfully plant an Israeli flag in honor and solidarity with the victims of October 7, 2023 and their grieving families. And now you can be a part of this movement too. And I know you'll want to. To get more information about how you can join the Flags of Fellowship movement, visit the fellowship [e-mail] that's ifcj.org this is an issue that is close to both Carol's and my heart's. IFCJ.org that's IFCJ.org will return to normally right after this time.

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[Glenn Washington]

I'm Glenn Washington, the host of KQD's SNAP Judgment podcast. And at SNAP, we don't just tell stories, we live them. Every week a different journey, like on a plane with Rihanna, a racetrack in Tijuana, a year inside an Oakland homeless encampment. Real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound. Snap Judgment from kqed. New episodes every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Danielle Fishel]

This is Nicole Sapphire from Wellness on Mass with Dr. Nicole Sapphire. You may know me from my medical appearances on various networks throughout the years, and today I'm here with a health message for all listeners, no matter your age. Here's what's happening. Starting around age 25, we lose 1 to 2% of our collagen production every single year. By 50, you've lost nearly half, and that can lead to a lot of discomfort. Patients in their 40s and 50s are complaining about joint pain that used to be reserved for much older adults. Collagen is the most abundant protein in our bodies. Type 1 and Type 3 collagen make up more than 90% of the collagen in the human body. That's why Native Path's formula is just those two fibers to support connective tissue, muscles, organs, skin, hair and nails. Multiple randomized controlled trials show that collagen supplementation can significantly reduce joint discomfort within as little as four weeks, and it can also improve skin elasticity in eight weeks. That's why I recommend Native Path Collagen. It's not just any collagen you'll find on the shelves at your local grocery store. Just two small scoops of NativePath collagen gives you 20 grams of their single ingredient, clean, bioavailable protein. It's flavorless and it mixes easily into your coffee or other favorite beverage. Visit shopnativepath.com today for 45% off/free shipping. That website is shop Native Path. Get your Native Path collagen before this deal expires. Visit shopnativepath.com Stop settling for weak Sound.

[Ad Voice 4]

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[Carol Markowitz]

We are back on normally where President Trump says he's going to authorize the National Guard to use, quote, full force in Portland to get that city under control. Now, of course, the Portland mayor says that there's no problem in Portland. What are you even talking about? Portland's doing just super duper well and they're suing the Trump administration. In the suit, Oregon and Portland claim that the federal government does not have the grounds to call on the Guard. I don't know how that could be true. And said the city has seen, quote, small protests near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in recent weeks. The Democratic governor says that she spoke to the president and said there is no insurrection or threat to public safety that necessitates military intervention in Portland or any other city in our state. Despite this and all evidence to the contrary, she says Trump has chosen to disregard Oregonian safety and ability to govern ourselves. This is not necessary and it is unlawful, and it will make Oregonians less safe. I don't think so.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I just. Again, we're reversing victim and offender.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yep. Yeah.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

The reason that he's sending people to protect a federal facility is because the federal facility has been surrounded and under siege by people who are not merely protesters. And I know that the left has decided that speech is violence and their violence is speechless, but violence is not speech. And if you surround a federal facility and you will not cooperate with law enforcement when you are asked to leave, that law enforcement has the right to detain you, to arrest you, to disperse you, and to sometimes use force to do that. I'm so sick of these babies acting like they do not understand this.

[Carol Markowitz]

Mark Hemingway is from Portland, and I always found that he definitely has a warmth for the place. But he tweets that, you know, all the Senator Pat Murray had tweeted. Portland is a beautiful and vibrant city. It is not a war zone. The president needs to keep the military out of the Pacific Northwest. Just another abuse of power. Blah, blah, blah. Mark Hemingway retweets that and says, I see vibrant as part of the talking points. Downtown Portland has one of the highest vacancy rates in the country because of the deranged homeless everywhere. It is a ghost town. It is decidedly not vibrant. He in another tweet, tweet says that downtown Portland is mostly vacant and full of stabby homeless addicts. Portland has the second most crime of any city in America. Vibrant and peaceful is objectively a lie, I believe. Mark Hemingway.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah, I mean, I, I have been there in the last 8ish years. Like it's been a while, but like in the last 10 years, I've been several times. And yes, it is hollowed out. Yes, many American cities, cities decided to adopt policies that were basically suicide for their downtown areas in 20, allowing for rioting, allowing for vandalism, allowing for occupation of major parts of cities, allowing for the burning of municipal buildings and violent attacks on law enforcement. These things take a toll on those areas. And we all remember what Portland looked like in 2020 and what was allowed. And when you allow that, those things continue to happen. Yep, they continue to happen.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. And it doesn't have to be that way is the reality of the situation. I think that we think of these cities as lost forever. Look, I lived in New York when it made a spectacular turnaround that nobody thought was possible. I live in the Miami area now. Miami is booming and they've cleaned it up so much. My kids get shocked when they see homeless people. And it's, you know, we came from Brooklyn. It wasn't like they had never seen homeless people before, but they had gotten used to living in a place where it wasn't normal to have people just sleeping in the streets. And it wasn't normal to have 10 cities. And now when we go places and that does exist, they're like, oh, why? Why does this happen? I think cities need to remember that they can fix themselves. And I don't see why they wouldn't let the Trump administration try to help. Trump Admin done an excellent job in Washington D.C. i think there's very few people who can argue otherwise. It's gotten cleaned up in a way that nobody expected. And crime is down. All of that is good. There's nothing bad about it. Just because you hate Donald Trump.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

I mean, I think the thing that we really have to consider is that the liberal bubble inside these cities, and I think our show today is some evidence of it, is simply pro the crime.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. And not being pro crime.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Yeah. Just they put the criminal and the criminal's rights and radical empathy above radical empathy. The livelihood and quality of life of their citizens. And that does not work for normal people.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, it's a crazy thing to do. Stop with the radical empathy, just regular.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Empathy, whether it's your superintendent or adopting literacy standards of a state like Mississippi or just having not open drug markets in the middle of your streets. Just be normal.

[Carol Markowitz]

Just be normal.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

That's what some people would like and like. Trump has limited power in various cities, but if you're going after a federal building, he has the right to protect it.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, I think he has that authority. Well, thanks for joining us On Normally Normally air, there's Tuesdays and Thursdays and you can subscribe anywhere you get your podcasts. Get in touch with us@ normallythepodmail.com thanks for listening. And when things get weird, act normally.

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[Glenn Washington]

I'm Glenn Washington, the host of KQD's snap judgment podcast. And at Snap, we don't just tell stories, we live them. Every week a different journey, like on a plane with Rihanna, a racetrack in Tijuana, A year inside an Oakland homeless encampment. Real people, real voices with original music and cinematic sound. Snap judgment from kqed New episodes every Thursday. Wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Danielle Fishel]

Going on in Hollywood. How are you supposed to stay on.

[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

Top of it all?

[Danielle Fishel]

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[Ta-Nehisi Coates]

Where do you see the business actually heading?

[Danielle Fishel]

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[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

The only constant in Hollywood is change.

[Danielle Fishel]

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[Mary Kathryn Hamp]

This is an iHeart podcast.