Is democracy on the brink, or can we stand together to save it? In this compelling episode, I navigate the turbulent waters of global chaos, zeroing in on significant political and legal developments that shape our world. From the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on the FDA's regulation of the abortion pill, to the House's controversial contempt referral of Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the DOJ's decision. I dissect the layers of these pivotal moments. You'll hear my unfiltered reactions and thoughtful analyses, shedding light on the dynamic tensions between reproductive rights, executive privilege, and political strategy.
Additionally, I touch on the recent G7 meeting where global leaders decide on how to support Ukraine using funds from Russia? I offer a nuanced perspective on international cooperation in times of conflict. Join me for a deep dive into these critical issues as I celebrate judicial victories, question the motives of political maneuvers, and explore the broader implications for democracy and justice. This episode promises to be a thought-provoking journey through some of the most pressing topics of our time.
Is democracy on the brink, or can we stand together to save it? In this compelling episode, I navigate the turbulent waters of global chaos, zeroing in on significant political and legal developments that shape our world. From the Supreme Court's landmark ruling on the FDA's regulation of the abortion pill, to the House's controversial contempt referral of Attorney General Merrick Garland, and the DOJ's decision. I dissect the layers of these pivotal moments. You'll hear my unfiltered reactions and thoughtful analyses, shedding light on the dynamic tensions between reproductive rights, executive privilege, and political strategy.
Additionally, I touch on the recent G7 meeting where global leaders decide on how to support Ukraine using funds from Russia? I offer a nuanced perspective on international cooperation in times of conflict. Join me for a deep dive into these critical issues as I celebrate judicial victories, question the motives of political maneuvers, and explore the broader implications for democracy and justice. This episode promises to be a thought-provoking journey through some of the most pressing topics of our time.
AWorldGoneMadPodcast@gmail.com
Speaker 1:
There is chaos in the world, can't you see? And we need to stand up and preserve our democracy. Well, this is a world on fire, this is a world gone mad. Mad news, obviously. Look at your favorite links, check out the internet, go to CNN, msnbc, whatever you want to listen to. I just give you commentary on news that I come across that bothers me or makes me give a reaction to, and the first thing that happened for me that I saw no particular order.
Speaker 1:
As we say, the Supreme Court has rejected a lawsuit challenging the Food and Drug Administration's approach to regulating the abortion pill Mifepristone and I'm probably mispronouncing that, but the abortion pill with a ruling that will continue to allow the pills to be mailed to patients without an in-person doctor's visit. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the unanimous court, and it's good to hear something like this happen, because the reason why this matters. It's a significant setback for all the anti-abortion people out there in what was the first major Supreme Court case on reproductive rights since the court's conservative majority that overturned Roe v Wade in 2022. Now the appeal was filed by anti-abortion doctors who said their practices have been affected because they must treat women who had complications from the drug. You know we have attacked women or this country has attacked women. The Republicans and the Supreme Court conservatives have attacked women for years and ever since the overturning of Roe v Wade. They wanted to go after contraception. They wanted to go after the abortion pill. Thankfully, the Supreme Court made a wise decision once in a blue moon on this. So the abortion pill is still out, there, can be mailed and women have one foothold on their rights to their bodies and to their choices. A light clapping to the Supreme Court conservatives who made a smart decision.
Speaker 1:
You know, recently the House found that Merrick Garland, attorney General Merrick Garland, found that Merrick Garland, attorney General Merrick Garland, was guilty of avoiding a subpoena and they recommended to the DOJ that he be prosecuted and put in jail. Well, the Justice Department said this past Friday that it would not act on the House's contempt referral of Attorney General Merrick Garland. I have some mixed feelings about this and I'll go into that in a second. Now, in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson, the DOJ pointed to its understanding, or rather longstanding position of not prosecuting executive branch officials who withhold information subject to executive privilege from Congress. Now, the announcement was anticipated after the House in a mostly party-line vote, as we know, held Garland in contempt for not turning over audio from President Joe Biden's interview in special counsel Robert Herr's classified documents investigation. The quote from the Justice Department was consistent with this long-standing position and quote from the Justice Department was consistent with this long-standing position and uniform practice. The Justice Department has determined that the responses by Attorney General Garland to the subpoenas issued by the committees did not constitute a crime and, accordingly, the department will not bring the congressional contempt citation before a grand jury or take any other action to prosecute the attorney general.
Speaker 1:
I stated in an earlier episode that if you are subpoenaed you need to show up, so I have a little bit of mixed feelings that subpoenas should be the rule of the land and it's gold and if someone summons you you need to go. However and you could take issue with me in this case, the republicans just wanted to do something, because the democrats are doing things against donald trump. That that's my feeling. Hey, you need to turn over those recordings because we need to, even though we got the transcripts remember they got the transcripts we want to hear the actual words from President Biden, what was said in the Robert Herr you know documents case so we could have ammunition to use in political ads against President Biden for Donald Trump. So, while I believe in subpoenas, I think the request for this subpoena was wrong and I think Republicans are doing things just to be SOBs and to get privileged stuff that is going in an ongoing investigation that they don't really need to have. That's just a layman's take on it, and you may not agree, but that's how I feel at the moment. So I'm glad the DOJ is not going to prosecute Attorney General Marigano.
Speaker 1:
Seriously, now we just had the G7 meeting and the G7 leaders have reached an agreement to loan money to Ukraine, backed by the profits from frozen Russian investments. A senior administration official confirmed this this past week. There was shared recognition here in Puglia by every G7 member that the situation on the battlefield remains difficult, to say the least, and that, if the war continues, ukraine is still going to have a large financial need next year and beyond, and that this summit is our best chance to act collectively to close the gap. Good, you invaded another country, putin. We froze your assets. We're going to use your assets and give it to Ukraine for weapons and support and aid and anything else. Hey, stop being in the country, leave the country and you can get your money back, but until then, we're taking what I think is fair. Until then, we're taking what I think is fair Freeze Russians' assets, put their backside in a sling and give all of that money to Ukraine. The official also said when you have a commitment at the highest political levels, technocrats act and technical details get worked out. The loan will be drawn from funds frozen by the Western leaders in the wake of the invasion in 2022. It's just $3 billion in frozen funds. It's located in US banks, but a much larger share, adding up to hundreds of billions of dollars, is located in banks in Europe. So $3 billion rather in US, hundreds of billions in Europe. Good, take the money and give it to where it's doing the most good to prop up Ukraine and help them fight this BS invasion from Putin. And, might I add, the most important thing, this most dangerous invasion into Ukraine and has repercussions into Europe and the world at large.
Speaker 1:
Alright, we had another Supreme Court ruling and this past Friday, the Supreme Court I'm laughing, but not in a happy way. They struck down a federal ban on bump stocks approved by former President Donald Trump. The latest opinion from the conservative court rolling back firearm regulations. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion for a 6-3 court. The court's liberal wing, led by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, dissented. Trump had pushed for the ban in response to the remember 2017 mass shooting that killed 58 people at an outdoor music festival in las vegas.
Speaker 1:
Well, bump stocks allow a shooter to convert a semi automatic rifle into a weapon that could fire at a rate of hundreds of rounds a minute. That's what a bump stock is. In case you didn't know, a bump stock does not convert a semi-automatic rifle into a machine gun, any more than a shooter with a lightning-fast trigger finger does. Clarence Thomas wrote Even with a bump stock, a semi-automatic rifle will fire only one shot for every function of the trigger. All right, let me clarify something, clarence. The bump stock does not work by repeatedly pulling the trigger. That's not how a bump stock works. A bump stock works by pulling the trigger once, holding it, bracing it against your shoulder, and then it fires like a machine gun.
Speaker 1:
The conservatives on the court got it wrong. Fbi agents and federal agents even said that a bump stock basically converts a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun type weapon machine gun type weapon. So the conservative court got it wrong on a technicality and instead of worrying about killings and shootings and music events and schools and children and destroying bodies and human life and families ripped apart, we're worried about propping up the manufacturers of bump stocks so they can make a lot of money. Woohoo, profit in the usa. Um, more and more every time I turn on the news, I worry about what I'm going to see from a supreme court ruling, knowing most likely it'll be the conservatives who do some stupid ass thing and vote against the logic of something that the majority of America would go. Hey, wait a minute. That's what the ruling should have been, not what you guys decided on. Alrighty, and more to come from the Supreme Court. We're still waiting for the immunity case to decide whether a president is immune that Donald Trump had asked, that I'm guilty of nothing and the president should be a hundred percent absolved.
Speaker 1:
All right, when I come back after this short break, I'm gonna do something a little different and we're gonna talk or rather, I'm going to talk about the cities that are now so expensive in the United States and the world that they're considered impossibly unaffordable, and I found this and I said you know what, let me share this with the audience A little bit diverting from events, politics etc. And elections, but I wanted to share this and then ask you, the listening audience, a couple of questions. Don't forget to join the Facebook group of World Gone Mad Podcast. It's on Facebook. Just look up a World Gone Mad Podcast and you can email me at aworldgonemadpodcast at gmailcom. Taking a short break, I'll be right back. This is a world gone mad. This is a world gone mad. This is a world gone mad.
Speaker 1:
You're listening to A World Gone Mad, thank you, and you could reach me by sending me an email, and the email is aworldgonemadpodcast. Aworldgonemadpodcast at gmailcom. Leave your first name in the email, your age, your location, where you're listening to us, from what app, etc. And any comments you have. Also, don't forget to hit subscribe. That way I can let you know when the new episode goes online. It's automatic and it's free. Also, if you can review, rate, rank the show on the app you're listening from, that helps me tremendously. I thank you for listening, whether you just joined us for the first time or have been listening for a while. I appreciate that. And now back to the show and welcome back to the podcast. I'm Jeff Allen Wolf, your host for World Gone Mad and something different. This episode.
Speaker 1:
I wanted to jump in another area of life and that's owning a home. We know renting a home is impossible. I have a friend in Florida who's renting a home for a ridiculous amount of money per month and it's choking them. But buying a home? We know the interest rates went up and then they came back down a little bit, but it's almost, in general, virtually impossible to buy a home now unless you're loaded with money. Unless you're loaded with money, my significant other, natasha, and myself we got lucky and we already had a home since 2015. And we refinanced it at 2.99%, when it was the lowest we could possibly get it. 2.96 was what we could hit. We decided to lock it in. But the point being is it is difficult Right to buy a home. So, with that being said, anyone with half an eye on the housing market over the last couple of decades two decades will know that in many countries, not the least the United States it's become much more difficult to buy a home.
Speaker 1:
A new report sums up the feeling of many potential homebuyers by creating a category that labels some major cities as impossibly unaffordable, and the report compared average incomes with average home prices. It found that pandemic-driven demand for homes, with outside space, land use policies aimed at limiting urban sprawl and investors piling into markets, had sent prices soaring. Piling into markets had sent prices soaring. So I'm going to give you the list of the top 10 impossibly unaffordable cities. Okay, I'm going to start with number 10. I like working it from the bottom of the list on up and you're probably already guessing in your mind, and some of you are knowledgeable about real estate market, already know this, but for the majority of us that didn't. Here's the number 10 most impossibly unaffordable place to buy a home Toronto. Okay, toronto is right there, and that is number 10. Number nine and, by the way, five of the top 10 were in the United States. Some of them we can already guess Number nine is San Diego. Number eight is San Francisco, adelaide, melbourne, australia, number let's see 10, 9, 8, 7, 6 is Honolulu. Number five is Los Angeles. Number four is San Jose. Vancouver is number three. Sydney, australia, is number two. And the worst, most impossibly unaffordable place to buy a home is Hong Kong, the compact Asian financial hub known for its tiny apartments and sky-high rents. It's the only Chinese market covered in their report.
Speaker 1:
So if you already have a home and if you are already satisfied where you are, would you move? It's a question for all the listeners. You know how to reach me. We have a phone number. We have an email. Join the Facebook group. I would like or stop in the middle of the podcast. You can sometimes leave a text message to me, depending on what app you're on. Where would you move if you could move right now to your ideal location, if you had the money? What city, state, country from where you are to where you would like to go? I'd love to hear that Personally. For us it was San Diego many years ago and I ruled it off of the list immediately. We crossed it off because it's just ideal weather but impossible for the price of the home. By the way, the report also identifies the most affordable cities of the 94 surveyed worldwide, and they are in no particular order in the US, edmonton, calgary. In Canada, blackpool, lancashire and Glasgow. In the United Kingdom, and Perth and Brisbane in Australia, those were the most affordable cities. So let me know where would you like to move if you had the choice? I would love to hear that feedback.
Speaker 1:
Okay, thought we'd do something different this week. Some fun things. Hope you enjoyed it. I will be back next week. Don't forget the facebook group. Please join and be with like-minded people like yourself. Uh, we'll be back next week. And another episode of a world gone mad. I'm your host, jeff, and until next week, stay hopeful. This is a world gone mad. Mad, mad, mad yeah.