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Oh hey.
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Welcome to gift wrapping.
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B
Whoa.
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So is Saldana.
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C
Hey, can you wrap these please?
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A
Wow. IPhone 17s.
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You splurged at T Mobile. You can get four iPhone 17s on them. The new the new center stage front camera is amazing for group selfies. It's the perfect gift for everyone.
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A
I'm the worst. I only got my mom a robe.
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C
Well, it's better than socks.
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A
So I have to trade in my old phone, right?
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C
No AT T mobile. There's no trade ins needed when you switch. Keep your old phone or give it as a gift.
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A
Incredible.
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C
In fact, wrap up my old phone too for my aunt Rosa.
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Forget that.
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C
Aunt Liz will be jealous.
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Sounds like my family drama.
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Oh, I got it. I'll give it to my abuela. I'll take reindeer paper with. Hey, where are you going?
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To T mobile.
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The holidays are better. AT T Mobile get four iPhone 17s on us. No trade in needed when you swift plus four lines for just 25 bucks a line. And now T mobile is available in U S cellular stores with 24 month legal credits and 4 eligible board ins on essentials for well qualified customers. Photo Pay + taxes, fees and 35 device connection charge credits and imbalance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Contact Us Finance Agreement 256Gigabytes 830.
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Required Visit T mobile.com we're running a couple of wonderful deals for the holidays and today I want to tell you about our substack behind the paywall price discount. So it used to be that to get access to all our just list offerings where I make great jokes where I tell you about stories you might not have heard about. For instance, the roller skating elephant and his love affair with a woman. There's a lot of lawsuits involved, there's a lot of chicanery and almost near death experiences. I found that story. I'm giving it to you. So it's not just the fines, it's how I break down, say an oval office visit in a way you won't find on the gist because I have too many things to get to. So this is all on substack. It is for paid subscribers to our substack. The gist list is now. Are you ready? $49 a year. It's going up to 5,999 because of tariffs after January 4th. But from now to January 4th, I want you to be able to get in for $49 a year. And the way to do it is to text 33777 and text the word Mike. I'm Mike. I'm giving you the Gist list because I care. And if you care about supporting weird stories about trapping bobcats in Indiana and a lot of other things, you will subscribe for only 49. Not the 55 it was until now, not the 5,999 that these Trump tariffs are forcing us into, but for only $49. Text Mike 233777.
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It's Wednesday, Dec. 3, 2025, from Peach Fish Productions. It's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca. I've been thinking the big thoughts. You're welcome. About politics. I have a second spiel, second day in a row spiel about Marjorie Taylor gre, about what she meant to the people who will soon be her former constituents and how to think of her a little bit today is more about us, how we should think of her, how we should think of her past statements, what sort of forgiveness we should extend or context we should extend now that maybe she has split with Trump and is maybe trying to appear less extreme. Her signature issue is now something we probably all agree on, release of the Epstein files. And let's also take that instinct. You know, how much should we forgive the past statements of other politicians? Right. Let's try to be consistent. Is it that the past statements of other politicians are hers? Let us consider how extreme those statements are. Let us consider where they have evolved to. And I should mention that the other main politician I'll be talking about is Zoran Mamdani. Should have yelled that name at the top of the episode to help SEO. And the algorithms are the algorithms. But here I want to tell you in this space, not about the spiel. The spiel will explain itself. You have to wait for the spiel. I want to tell you about what's going on in the Gist list, which on Wednesdays I do a written piece, Pesca Profundities. It's a Pesca Profundities branded essay. Let us say last week I wrote about Riley Gaines, who is like Marjorie Taylor Greene in a way. She's blonde, she's southern. Is Kentucky Southern? Let's call it southern. She's athletic, one more so than the other. And each has said a bunch of things that your standard Progressive cannot stand. Here is the Pablo Torrey Finds out podcast where Pablo in this clip he has asked his reporting partner Madison Pauley of Mother Jones about the main character.
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The poster child, the it girl, the Regina George of this movement is the 24 year old who claps longer than anyone else at a White House ceremony in February during Hail to the Chief as Trump walked in.
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Riley Gaines so Riley Jones is the anti trans woman's in sports activist who the podcaster Pablo Torre has done a deep dive on a couple of deep dives across different platforms and he has revealed one of the stories is what is she hiding? Another is titled maga's Number one Troll. He has found in these deep dives that this conservative activist is well funded by rich conservatives or also that her college coach is being sued for sexual abuse, which he didn't find it was known, but he puts it out there to try to consider her in that light. Now that part isn't a scandal. And I argue today on Pascal profundities that it is impossible to assess Riley Gaines just as Riley Gaines activist or Riley Gaines person who is either credible or incredible in her own right. Riley Gaines moral person. It is so tied up to Riley Gaines and the position that she takes on the issue. And I try to get into how you feel about on the issue. Her issue is her crusade against allowing athletes who have experienced male puberty to compete for scholarships and titles against women who haven't. I totally understand as I listen to those who argue against Riley Gaines arguments, those who say, well, she doesn't really argue fairly, she argues extremely. She doesn't adhere to my standards of honesty. And I know that and I don't excuse that, just like I don't with Green or mom Donnie. But I try to make a point. And the point actually, I didn't mention Greener mom Donny in my Riley Gaines piece. But I could have because I put my finger on a phenomenon that I really do think is driven by algorithms, as I mentioned, and it's that in the last few years, three to five years, the characters who come most to symbolize culture war or third rail or hot button causes, those most prominent spokespeople will always be the most loathsome to the other side. That is what our systems select for. So let's flip the tables ideologically and say if you are conservative, you can't consider Jasmine Crockett without saying oh my God, she is not a fair broker. And then by extension you can discredit all the arguments that Jasmine Crockett is Making another example, Greta Thunberg, who probably predates this three to five year timeline, but especially on the Gaza issue. She has come to be the kind of person where a certain thinker, a conservative or at least Zionist, might say, I can't really trust her on anything. Why is she the one who has become so elevated on this issue? I'll also tread into murkier waters when I say that if you are the kind of conservative who thought that Trump got a raw deal, broadly speaking, on what he calls Russiagate, you can't look at the most prominent spokesman for that cause. Who are people like, let's say, Eric Swalwell and not say this guy is discredited in so many other ways. There are other prominent spokespeople on that issue who don't have the stature of, say, an Eric Swalwell who didn't get the media attention of an Eric Swalwell. Well, who maybe aren't in that discredited camp. But that is my point, that we give the media attention, but also we give our attention and we also give our social media attention, and we don't give it, it is taken to the very people who the other side will most object to. That is my point today as I try to make it in print. I welcome your thoughts. I welcome your subscriptions to subscribe to the Just List and Pesca Profundities text 33777 the word Mike to there. I'll give you a discount. How about that? I'll give you a discount before prices rise. I also ask everyone for their examples of advocates who've risen in the last couple of years, who've gotten the spotlight but who retain credibility even among their opponents. I can think of such people. A spokesman who even opponents will begrudgingly respect. But they predate the three to five year period. Right? You're going to say Bernie Sanders. Don't say Bernie Sanders. My point is, in the last few years, the algorithms have won. We're only going to generate spokespeople who are quite hated by the other side. That is kind of the point. And on the show today, I've already told you what the spiel is going to be about. But now I will tell you what my interview is going to be about. Axe Murder. My guest is Rachel McCarthy James, and she has written Whack Job, a history of Axe Murder. We'll chop it up in a moment.
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When you give to a nonprofit, how do you measure success? You hear a lot of things like, oh, low overhead costs or the efficiency of fundraising as defined by how much money actually doesn't go to administration. All right, let's talk about GiveWell. This episode sponsor focuses on the actual impact on people's lives. They've spent more than 70,000 hours on research to help donors fund highly cost effective programs that save or improve lives the most per dollar by putting money in on the front end and knowing how things best work. That's how things work best. GiveWell has spent 18 years researching global health poverty alleviation and they only direct funds to the highest impact opportunities. 150,000 donors have already trusted GiveWell to direct more than two and a half billion dollars. Rigorous evidence, which is the name of the game, suggests that these donations will save 300,000 lives. Two lives per donor. You can be one such donor and you can find all their research and recommendations on their site for free. If this is your first gift through GiveWell, you can have your donation matched up to $100 before the end of the year or as long as matching funds last. To claim your match, go to givewell.org and pick podcast and enter the gist. There are a few to choose from. Please enter the gist at checkout. Make sure they know that you heard about GiveWell from the Gist to get your donation matched again, givewell.org code the Gist to find out more. And to make a tax deductible donation Today, go to givewell.org and pick podcast and enter the gist at checkout. Make sure they know that you heard about Give well from the gist. Again, that's givewell.org to donate or find out more. Quince Quince the mornings get cold, the holidays come around. You have to worry about what you wear to work. You also have to worry about what you give to those you love so that they're warm and cozy and maybe ensconced in cashmere or an Italian wool coat. Quince Quince pieces are crafted from premium material and built to hold up without all the folderol of the luxury market and the markups that they instill. It makes the essentials every guy needs Mongolian sweater for. I don't even want to say it. You're not going to play $50 Italian wool coats that look great and feel. Designer denim chinos that fit just right. Yes, they cut out the middleman and that's a bit of a cliche, but did I mention the fifty dollar Mongolian cashmere sweater? It really works. There aren't sophisticated, unknown, heretofore unknown methods to take excellent clothing and give it to you at A cheap price, an affordable price. The answer is that middleman must go. But while he goes, maybe he will go down the street in a down jacket or a wool top coat because he too can avail himself of quints. Having been cut out, he might need the savings. The down jacket I picked up from Quince is getting me through this cold weather. It is warm, it is structured. Get your wardrobe sorted and your gift list handled with quints. Don't wait. Go to quince.com/the gist for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com/the gist free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/the gist.
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The ax is a symbol, a totem, a tool and a weapon. Then again, we what tool isn't a weapon? I have the answer. It's the salad spinner. That is an aside in a book filled with many fascinating asides as it tells the history of a lot of things, not just murder, but technology in a way, through an item. And that item is indeed the axe. The name of the book is Whack Job. It is a history of axe murder. Rachel McCarthy James is the author. Hello, Rachel. Welcome to the.
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Hi. Thanks so much for having me.
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A
So are you doing a salad spinner book next? Because I want you to know, at first I was going to say spatula, then I looked it up and yeah, there are some gruesome crimes.
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B
I'm not depending on how sharp the salad spinner is. I imagine that you could if pressed into use. Could you?
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A
I don't just throw these things out there. I just. I don't spit them into gold and hope they stick. I looked it up. There is no known salad spinner. It's a recent technology too. So.
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B
Yeah, that's true. That's true. You know what's interesting is the chainsaw is almost as big of a like horror movie icon, but there's really not that many chainsaw murders when you look it up. Yeah, they're occasionally. But it's not really something that's pressed into use for murder very often. This complicated couple.
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A
Yeah. And also a lot of them have that mechanism where they stop when they skin.
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B
But.
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A
But this actually gets exactly into one of your theses, which is one of the reasons that the ax is so often used to murder. And in some cultures it's that was. It was supposed to be used to murder or kill a war. But one reason is it's there. The Ax is always there and therefore it's a companion to civilization. But the chainsaw is not always there.
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B
No chainsaw is very recent, but the ax has always been around. I mean it's really the stone hand ax is one of our very first tools going back millions of years. So it's something that's always been used both in domestic settings and labor settings as well as in conflict, in wars and battles, execution rituals, things like that. So it's got a lot of uses on both sides of it. You know, it's used in not just, you know, architecture, construction, but also butchery. You know, that's one of the main uses for it is to hunt and to kill and to process the animals as well.
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A
So you had to come up with a starting point. And there is cranium 17 who we'll get to know. Although how much can you really know Cranium 17? But was there a question, is it an ax? Does it, does the Death of Cranium 17 Count as an ax murder?
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B
You know, I think that's really an open ended question, as was cranium 17 skull. Go ahead. Two identical. So cranium 17 is a, is a skull found at the bottom of La Sima de los Huesos, which was a very ancient burial ground in Spain where bodies were thrown over the edge of a cliff as kind of possibly a morning ritual as well as, you know, other reasons to keep it away from animals and things like that, keep it away from where they actually lived. But Cranium 17 is interesting because the researchers there can tell that it is not an accidental death. You know, you, the same branch can't fall in your head the same way twice. And cranium 17 has two identical fractures. And it would have had to be something heavy that could be certainly an ax. That was one thing. Hand axe, that was one thing that was, was put forth by the researchers. But it could have been a club or a spear as well. But you know, those things were intertwined. You know, an axe, hand axe often became, you know, would break at some point and then would become the tip of the spear or something like that.
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A
Yeah, it seems harder with a spear to get.
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B
It does it does, it does. That's more of a projectile weapon. Whereas you know, with a hand axe there it's, you know, with your hands, as with now, as with axe murders later on in history, it's a very up close and personal brutal weapon.
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A
So here we learn of a very useful concept. And I think the German might be the hot crimp and regal. But we just call it. Or you just call it the hat brim line.
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B
Yes. Yeah. So that is kind of a. It's kind of a rough forensic measure from the beginning of forensics, which was very tied up in like race science and a bunch of other stuff. You know, forensics are not necessarily as reliable as we'd like them to be. And this one is kind of. And I think they're best often as a rough measure. And this is definitely a rough measure. So the hat brim line rule is, think about a baseball cap, for example, and the parts of your head that it covers. If a fracture occurs in that area covered by the hat, it is more likely to be intentional. Whereas if someone is just falls, trips and enters their head that way, it's more likely to be on the face or on the very back of the head spine there. So that's kind of a way to tell whether a fracture is intentional.
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A
Right. And it's not refined enough to introduce that in court, in a US court. But murder investigator on the scene will look at the wound and definitely think of where on the head it is. And that hat brim sure gives us a useful heuristic.
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B
Absolutely. And when you're just looking at a skull, you know, there's no other, you know, there's no flesh and blood, blood to actually look at. There's no crime scene to look at. So you kind of have to use what you've got. And when you're examining a skull, that's one of the things that you've got.
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A
Now, a lot of these cultures didn't prize the ax as a weapon. And we'll skip around or skip over a couple because we can't get to them all. And that will leave the reader some fun discoveries. Yes, yes. As, as one would in, say, a grave of bones. But there is, there is Lady Fu. How in where? In the Shang Dynasty.
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B
In the Shang dynasty of China. That's about the 12th century BCE. So that's really, you know, the first writing systems in China were taking place. Lots of different, lots of different technological explosions there, as often is the case with Chinese history. So Lady Fu Hao was the, I believe, second wife of the king, Wu Ding. And the axe was very powerful at the this stage in Chinese history. It was not just, you know, something that was used for executions and ritual, human sacrifice rituals, which it absolutely was, but it was also like placed onto a pole and put high on the battlefield so that the soldiers could follow it like a flag, basically. And Lady Fu Hao, we know of her because of her grave, which was unrobbed, unlike a lot of these ancient Chinese graves. And she had, I think it was, five axes in her tomb, quite a few axes. And one of them was this big ceremonial ax which most women would not get in that time and place, because most women were not generals, as Fu Hao was. She was a military figure. She did a lot of espionage and definitely led soldiers into battle at several different points.
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A
Yeah. And they. Why. What insight did they have about the usefulness of axes that other armies and the Romans did too, but many did not. So why? Were they smarter or were they smarter about axes as a useful battlefield weapon? I mean, they were a dynasty for a while, so something was working.
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B
Yes. So partially the ax was, and this is true for many different cases, as well as in Rome with the Fasces, it was mostly a symbol of power. It was a symbol that the king had the right to chop off your head. Basically, it was a symbol of how. And these were huge axes. They're very big. You can go see them at most art institutes. They're really, really much bigger than the axes that you're thinking of. The ax on the COVID of this book. So it was really about the spectacle of it. They were engraved with different patterns, really elaborate faces that were very scary. Kind of like a jack o' lantern almost. Some of them look like. So they were about intimidation, about fear. And on the battlefield, they would have used axes, but also daggers, other different things. Things. I don't think they had chariot technology at that point. So they wouldn't have even using spears quite as much. But the ax was definitely paramount at that stage. Swords weren't really a big factor yet at that stage in history.
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A
So you mentioned the executioner and there is many, many words spilled along with the blood spilled by Henry viii. And I was interested in somehow you got your hands on the contemplations of the about to be executed, his various wives. And some wanted to do it quite daintily and some wanted to go about their execution with a bit of defiance.
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B
Yes. So Henry VIII is interesting because I go through this whole book and I'm trying to, you know, it's like looking at that cranium 17, I don't have that much information. And then all of a sudden, in the Tudor era, there's tons of written information. We know what they had for breakfast, we know what was said at their trials, things like that. So it's just a situation where you've got a lot of information. There's a consciousness of how Much it's going. There's a consciousness of bit being preserved for the record. It's kind of. It's their last act on earth. It's their last impression that they're going to make on the people that they mean so much to. And it's also a way for them, the executed, to ensure that their loved ones are not further punished by Henry VIII after their death. Because that was certainly something that was in play. But I mean, two door death, human sacrifice rituals related to execution are really, really gruesome. One of the things that could happen, you could be burned at the stake or you could be drawn and quartered where you're literally, you're half, you're hung partially, but you're still alive. And then you are pulled apart by four different horses, each with a.
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A
This is quartering.
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B
Yes, yes, quartering, yes, exactly. I always wonder donation.
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A
It can't really be quartered. I mean one part has to to get most of the stump. This is just a nitpick.
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B
That's true, that's true, that's true. One of them is going to have like 40% of the body.
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A
Whereas it's a good gambling opportunity. The fanduel of the dead.
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B
There you go, there you go. Get a parlay going on that. So obviously the ax is a much more dignified way and usually much more quicker, much more painless. Not always. But you know, the executioners in Henry VIII's day, they were pretty well practiced. They knew what they were doing and if they had a nice sharp axe, then it was a pretty painless operation and somewhat dignified as well. You know, that's how people have died since time immemorial. A lot of very important people have died by being executed with the axe. So there's kind of a stateliness, a dignity to it that does not exist with these other things. And when you're a woman, you know, performance is very important. How you look is very important. And that last impression that you're going to make has to speak to your beauty and your femininity so that people continue to talk about it throughout the centuries, as we are doing today.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the axes are a gateway to sociology, as you say. There's a courtliness to it and you have to flatter your executioner. And it tells us a lot about the status of the people being executed and the people who are chosen for execution and just how they do it is unbelievably important.
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B
For example, Anne Boleyn did not get the ax, she got a sword it was kind of the last thing that Henry V8 gave her an upgrade on was a very classy French sword. A sword is higher prestige than an axe. So she got the sword instead of.
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A
The axe, but the sword as a means of decapitation. She wasn't just stabbed?
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B
Yes, yeah, yeah, no, she wasn't stabbed. It was the same method, basically, but just a very large sword as opposed to the sword.
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A
I would think the sword wouldn't do the job as well as the axe.
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B
A sword is very heavy. You know, a big, big sword, very sharp sword. Could do about this. Especially used with a lot of force. I think it could do about the same. But yeah, you wouldn't absolutely would want a small sword or like a dagger or something like that for sure.
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A
Do you want to talk a couple more specific cases? But then we have to broaden it out for. In a number of ways. So let's just talk about George Washington. Just because I thought I knew a lot about George Washington. I didn't know about his misspent or early 20s. And well, the description that you have, he wasn't the killer, he wasn't the decapitator and brain scooper outer. Who was what went on and why does it speak so poorly of our founding father?
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B
So George Washington at the time was like 22 years old and he was given his first military assignment. He had been a surveyor previously and he'd been very successful at that. And they were kind of hurting for young men to come and be leaders in the army. So he was given this opportunity to go and have diplomatic relations with the French. And so he was, he enlisted this man known as the Half Kin King Tanakressen, who was a Native American leader. He had some authority on behalf of the Iroquois Council and he had a grudge against the French. The French had done a lot of horrible things to him and his people and he was kind of out for revenge. So he sets up the situation where he's taking the English troops through the wilds of Pennsylvania and he is able to track down where the French are, where the French have set up their camp and lead them to it, start a confrontation and then in the middle of it there's gunfire and then it stops. And George Washington and the French Captain Jumonville were trying to communicate with each other. Tanakressen steps up to Jumonville, says, you are not dead yet, my father in French, and then brains him with a tomahawk, basically. And then scoops out according to some stories, then puts his hands in the Guy's brain pan and scoops them out. This obviously caused a huge international incident. The French chased the English back. They were in this terrible little Fort Tanakhressen, having done what he came to do, basically went away. And they were basically cornered. And so George Washington is given an opportunity to end this conflict by signing a treaty. But the treaty is in French and George Washington doesn't speak French and neither do any of his men. So he just signs it, thinking, okay, this will be over, not realizing that in signing the treaty, he has admitted to culpability in June. Bill, there is.
- [27:59]
A
There is the clause there that doesn't just spell out we're going to end, we're going to end hostilities, but also, yes, I killed these people.
- [28:06]
B
Yeah.
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A
And it takes a year and a half to go back to France and then for the orders to come back. But voila, there is now a war. Thank you, George Washington.
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B
Huge World war, seven years war. But amazingly, George Washington managed to profit, basically fail upward from this. He publishes journals from it in which he does not take a lot of culpability. Kind of paints himself in the best possible light.
- [28:28]
A
Does the word axe appear anywhere in those journals?
- [28:31]
B
You know, I'm sure they did, yeah, at some point, because it was an essential tool. He probably would have described it as a tomahawk because that's what it was, which is, of course, an axe. It's a little bit more like a hatchet, though. It's smaller. And it also often has a pipe because it's often a diplomatic tool. That's where the phrase bury the hatchet comes from. It was an important diplomatic tool for native diplomacy. You know, they had these wampum belts that were sometimes stitched with an ax and they would be serve as basically a declaration of war or as a tree, as a peace treaty.
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A
In other cases, the parts about wampum belts were fascinating.
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B
They were really important.
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A
You'd have to like, stop on the way to get certain wampum belts. They communicated a lot. It wasn't just a trinket. It was basically currency and communication and treaty.
- [29:23]
B
It was a historical document as well. There was a lot that was encoded within it. But yeah. So George Washington publishes his journals from this conflict and they become a huge bestseller and basically make him a national figure. And it's also notable that there's a lot of stuff in this case where they're going through this terrible weather, they're poorly prepared, don't know what they're doing, a lot of that. You know, those failures are things that he took to the Revolutionary War and did right that time. So it's really interesting case and how he failed as a young man and the consequences of that and how he was able to recover from it.
- [29:58]
A
Yeah, some of them, like, don't get your weapons wet. You'd think he'd know. You'd think he'd just intuit, but I guess not. Now I do have to ask you, since we were talking about murder via Tomahawk, listeners should know the co author of your last book, the man from the Train, your father, Bill James, baseball genius. When you hear of the Tomahawk chop, do you not care? Do you object to it on cultural appropriation grounds or do you object to it on weaponry grounds?
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B
I would say I object to it. Just as kind of a caricature of the complexities of native traditions. The Tomahawk is not just like I was saying, it's not just an article of war. It's not just something that was used in violence the way Tanakh Cressen did. It was also an. A diplomatic tool. And I think that reducing it to the tomahawk chop, it brings up a lot of stuff about, you know, scalping and things like that that I don't think we need to linger on quite so much. Especially, you know, there's a lot of different ways that you can chant for your favorite sports team. We don't need to bring those kind of into it.
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A
No dearth of ways. Now, as far as, as far as language, as you were talking, and maybe this is just how I think, but there's something about the word ax that yields or gives itself over to many examples of puns or wordplay. Like when you're talking about the Chinese empress who had many axes in her grave, I was, I was thinking to myself, might want to label those as the X axis or the Y axis. And was the worst one.
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B
Yeah.
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A
Perhaps the axis of evil. And then in your book, like right here on page five, the 1910s was a clash of cutting edge technology. Same page, new and available, new availability and cheapness did not temper demands. Next page there was a. Yet it is the earthbound flintiness that makes the act so iconic that. Yes, you did intend that one.
- [31:52]
B
Yeah, I did. The last one, the first two, I didn't even think about it that much. So, I mean, what do you do?
- [31:56]
E
What do you do?
- [31:57]
A
Do you pull back or lean into that?
- [32:00]
B
I mean, I try. There's so many, you know, you could say acts, ask for acts.
- [32:05]
A
Some people can't not say that exactly.
- [32:07]
B
You can't not say that. When I was, the New York Times did an article about it and said axed and answered. So I really tried to stay. I mean, you know, I try not to go. I rely on my editors to make sure I don't go over the edge. Because I am, you know, I'm trying to make it entertaining, but I'm also trying. People died. I'm trying to have a sense of sobriety. And it's just if you start going down that road with acts, puns especially, there's no end to it. It's just gonna go forever. So I generally stayed away from it. But I do enjoy the. You know what's interesting is axis and axel. Axis comes from axel, which has a different root altogether.
- [32:40]
A
I know. In fact, I was just reading about the as river, as in Lesotho, and the Lesothians want it known that oftentimes this is relayed as the Ash River. But they don't want you to think this river has ash. They want you to know that the Afrikaner is named it after an axle and it should be the Axe River. So currently there is a huge debate over the as river in Lesotho. And by huge debate, I mean I care and maybe two Lesothans. Rachel McCarthy James is the author of Whack Job, a history of Axe Murder. Thank you so much.
- [33:15]
B
Thank you so much.
- [33:26]
A
My mom and dad live close to me and they have a nice counter. But you know what would improve it? A cove pure. You don't need to hook it up through the plumbing and the taps. You just pour the water into the COVID pure and it makes the water pure. It lets you choose the temperature of your water. Hot, cold, or warm. It has size presets, 6 ounce, 8 ounce, 16 ounce. Walk away and you know it'll hit that mark. And here's the most important thing for mom and dad. The water tastes very, very good. Guess what? Cove pure tastes Pure, clean, no aftertaste. Why they filter out those little TDSs. The total dissolved solids. Do they even dissolve all the way? It doesn't matter. Because when cove pure purifies your water, they go from hundreds to says it right there on screen to 500 something. TDS is the 9 11. It's pretty amazing. I find it a lot of fun to fill the COVID pure. And this is why. Oh, don't tell them, but I might be giving a cove pure to mom and dad for the holidays. CO Pure is lab certified to remove up to 99.9% of contaminants from your water which contaminants PFAS, pharmaceuticals, fluoride, lead, arsenic. The purest water you can get. So if you're looking for a gift that's good for you and your loved ones, the one that they'll actually use, I highly recommend Cove Pure. And because I have partnered with them, they're giving you a special 250 holiday discount with my link. Cove Pure.com the gist that C O V E p u r e.com the gist to get $250 off covpure.com the gist hurry before the sale ends Morning.
- [35:13]
C
Zoe Got donuts Jeff Bridges why are you still living above our garage?
- [35:18]
E
Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me so Dana.
- [35:25]
C
Oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly at t mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.
- [35:37]
A
Wow.
- [35:37]
E
Impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best network.
- [35:44]
C
Nice. Jeffrey, you heard them.
- [35:46]
E
T Mobile is the best place to.
- [35:48]
D
Get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition.
- [35:53]
E
So what are we having for lunch?
- [35:54]
C
Dude, my work here is done.
- [35:57]
D
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- [36:15]
A
And now the spiel. Excuse me if I don't excuse Marjorie Taylor Greene's excess and rhetoric, her copiously documented crazy talk, her alignment with Q and on her loose talk over gun violence against members of the House of Representatives, and of course her Jewish space lasers comments, by which I mean to be very specific, her claims that California wildfires came from lasers or beams of blue light fired by space solar generators tied to the Rothschilds. She also memed herself posing with an AR15. Besides pictures of the squad urging strong conservative Christians to go on the offensive. You're probably like me. You saw a softening of green, or at least what she put out in the public sphere, and you thought, well that's better than the undistilled version, the unexpurgated version, but still not Good. And certainly not what we want out of a public figure. And you might also have said there's a reason she's shifting. And it's not a crisis of conscience. Not really. It's politics and perhaps a little self preservation insofar as she really did genuinely get frightened by Charlie Kirk's assassination. And this takes me to Zoran Momdani. Why? Why does it. I'll tell you why. His rhetoric is not anywhere in the same ballpark as Marjorie Taylor Green's. I will definitely assure you that. Are you comparing the two? Well, I am comparing, but I am also acknowledging that the things that one says is much worse than the things the other one says. But one is my elected official, and I would say that many of the things that Zoran Momdani has said should be outside the acceptable ambit for public officials, at least ones I support. The explanation or excuse for Mamdani is that he has moderated. He gets a lot of compliments for it, in fact. So I won't compare him to Greene. I will compare him to another national politician, Kamala Harris. And one of the knocks on Kamala Harris, accurately, I think, is that she was a shape shifter. But when Zoran Mamdani goes from a defund the police position in 2020 to a I shan't defund the police posture today, it isn't called shape shifting. It's called being politically astute. So shape shifting, if it was shape shifting, that would be bad. Until shape shifting is good, when the shape that's shifted into is one we like. One that the Democratic electorate of New York City likes. But you know what I like someone who doesn't play footsie with those chanting Globalize the intifada. Someone who will critique that phrase. Someone who didn't want to defund the police at the time. And this was at the time when I, as an adult with a public platform, knew that defunding the police was a terrible idea and was either brave enough or stupid enough not to hold my tongue. So we don't like shape shifters. Well, really, we don't like when we detect them as shape shifters. Just like we don't like liars. But that's also not true. We don't like liars when we know they're lying or expose them as lying when they're telling us things we already agree with and we have no way of knowing that those things are lies, then those people are just pleasing us. People don't lie to damage their standing in other people's eyes. People lie to Elevate their standing. So we do like liars. Everyone who's ever lied has done it to gain some sort of advantage, usually an advantage of other people's opinions up until the moment that we expose them as liars. And then they become something bad, just like shape shifters. So from mom, Donnie to Green, Come with me. I'm not willing to forget all she said and all she stood for. And there's a lot more of what she said and stood for beyond what I cited. But I also note that in adding up to my assessment of her as a character and to her character as well, I think that all of her statements accrue to her detriment and they're not so loosely shaken off. And the same applies to the guy who said, when the boot of the NYPD is on your neck, it's been laced by the idf. Some portion of his constituents will say, yeah, that's great. I'm glad he said that. That's true. In referring to NYPD training exercises with the idf, like they conduct training exercises with the Singapore Police Department and Colombian armed forces and public safety officials. Some portion of the audience will hearken to those words because they hate the idf. And that rhetoric strikes them not only as poetic but true. That's some portion. A large segment will say, it doesn't matter. He's here in New York. He doesn't have control over the idf. He does, however, have ultimate authority over the nypd. The boot lacer, not the boot laced. And we know that he loathes the idf. So what is he saying about the nypd? Well, I guess at the time he was saying they are what he considers the idf, essentially an evil organization. Now I understand he's had a huge change of heart and this was way back when at a democratic socialist convention, the way distant past past of 2023. But just like Marjorie Taylor Greene, where it's easy to make these assessments and it's easy to look at the things she said and it's easy to look at what she says now and to say to ourselves, what she says now is better. But it really doesn't excuse, take her off the hook or in any way negate what she said, what kind of person she was when she said it, what kind of person she still is now, and is just taking political considerations into account. Again, both of these people, one worse than the other. But in both cases, I would prefer an elected official who never thought those things, never said those things, and never played to a crowd that would give them a big round of applause. For expressing those things. I am very much trying to be consistent intellectually, ethically, rhetorically consistent. I know I can't have everything, but I can in my own head refuse to make excuses for wild, crazy, borderline dangerous rhetoric. And even if the rhetoric is quasi or fully renounced a couple of years later, I could still hold on to and assess the kind of mind and person who uttered the rhetoric. And it really isn't a 180 get out of accountability free card to have some positions today that I also support, be those the release of the Epstein files, or funding for ACA or a plan to make my city more affordable. I have not prejudged Mom Donnie or I haven't prejudged him to the point where I'm going to tell you I think he certainly won't be a good mayor. I don't really know what he honestly thinks of his more radical positions that he expressed in the heady long ago days of 2023. But I could still set an ethical bar high for myself. And if maybe you're listening to this and you think it's a total unfair advantage that Marjorie Taylor Greene is in one camp of fascists and Zoran Mamdani is in one camp of perhaps intemperate idealists, I don't know, what do you call it when you say things that aren't true? Jewish space lasers or Rothschild space lasers? That is 0% true. The NYPD abuses being fostered by the IDF? What percent actually true? Is that 5% true? 10% true? Are you telling a story to yourself that that is just purely poetic and therefore acceptable, whereas Rothschild space lasers wasn't meant to be poetic? I think it's just working overtime to make excuses. Again, not excuses that can't be overcome by good works in office, but excuses that I still hold the utterer to account over. And it will be very interesting to see what Mamdani actually does. Not the poetry he utters, not the sentiments he professes to endorse in front of a DSA crowd. What he actually does now that he is put in charge of the nypd, an organization that he cast to some degree as being functionaries of the evil Zionist state. Putting him in charge of the NYPD is a little like putting MTG in charge of NASA. It'll be interesting.
- [44:46]
The Gist is produced by Cory Warrow. We had help today from Leah Yan. Kathleen Sykes helps me with the Gist list. Jeff Craig does so much with the video and the socials and the visuals. He's a master of the visual in this a primarily audio form. Michel Pesca also works with the visuals but is mostly the visionary improve Do Peru and thanks for listening.
- [45:16]
F
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G
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