This Is Why We Choose The Bear
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Do you love reading as much as we do? Well, you're in luck because we're launching our first ever Betches Book Club in partnership with Nutella Biscuits because they know the best moments are even sweeter when you share a great snack with your friends. If you're in New York City, come hang out with us IRL at the Betches Book Club.

On October 28th, Aileen, Sammy, and I are hosting a book discussion with author Margot Harrison, where we'll be discussing her brand new novel, The Midnight Club, and snacking on Nutella biscuits. No, I won't be sharing mine because I'm truly obsessed and they're actually my new favorite snack in the world. But don't worry, there's going to be plenty for everyone to share. Head to bit.ly slash book club IRL to grab tickets for you and your friends. That's

bit.ly slash book club IRL for tickets. Grab yours before they sell out. Rise and shine, Fever Dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Bea Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream presented by Betches News.

where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. Today, we are bringing you a temp check on the wildly timed demise of Iranian President Ibrahim Raisi, a rundown of the latest footage of P. Diddy, and how it's tied into the latest speech from Harrison Butker, and how they're both emblematic of the way the American legal system is built to trap women.

Then a down ballot era devoted to getting more representatives like Jasmine Crockett into office and a very personal AmeriCant about our health care system. What's up, V? We are bursting with topics to talk about today, and we don't even have the closure of the defense in Donald Trump's trial on the docket. We don't. And I mean, this weekend, American nightmare Jojo Siwa turned 21 in Disneyland and was performing drunkness on TikTok. So analyzing that has taken up quite a bit of my leisure time.

Have you seen this? Wow. Performances abound. I have not. You didn't send it to me like you're supposed to by Jojo Siwa Guide. She just she's like on TikTok and she's like, I'm so drunk. And I'm like, she's not. I saw candid videos of her taking a sip of beer and shimmering and being like, I hate this.

And she just pretended to be drunk in Disneyland. And I think it's really sad. But as a person who also spent my 21st birthday in Las Vegas with my mother, I understand the cringe and the attempt to make it look like you're having a good time. And that's something I think we can all relate to. Also, those early times of being drunk and being like, I'm so drunk, but like not.

If she was out here drinking like Boone's Farm or vodka cranberry sprites, I'd be like, okay, maybe she was drunk. But to be like, oh, I had sophisticated cocktails in Epcot around the world. Like I don't buy it. Alcohol tastes gross when you're a kid and you first finally get to drink it. You're like, ew, unless it's sweet and delicious. I didn't buy it. I saw the exact same drink in her hand the whole night. As a person who fakes drinking to look like I'm having fun at parties, I know a fake drinker when I see one.

We'll have to sleuth that another day. There's so many things happening. I mean, and then on the other side of the internet, we have the least talented rage bait content creators trying to cancel Miss Rachel for raising $50,000 for starving children across the world. So, you know, it was a rough weekend for TikTok.

Miss Rachel takes the slings and arrows of our desperately misled society. It's so sad. And tries to gentle parent them into not being such terrible monsters.

Well, it's clearly working. But I'm curious if any of our listeners caught Julia Fox on Watch What Happens Live last night on Monday night. Andy Cohen asked her about her comment about having been celibate for over two years. And it brought me back to, you know, all of our conversations that we've had on the show because listen to the reasoning she gave. Julia, Rachel A texted, what's your reasoning behind being celibate? And in what ways do you believe it has improved your life?

Well, I just think nothing good comes from having sex, including children. No, I'm just kidding. But, you know, I think with the overturning of Roe v. Wade and, you know, our rights being stripped away from us, this is a way that I can take back the control. And it just sucks that it has to be in that way. But I just don't feel comfortable until things change.

Well, Sammy, she is an uncut gem, you know, and like we talked about a couple of weeks ago, maybe she's now becoming the tip of the spear on that 4B movement where nobody's going to have sex until reproductive rights are codified into our constitution. Especially because she is has been sort of a sex symbol specifically. So when you flip that on its head, it's very headline making, in my opinion, at least the headlines on this show. Well.

Well, you know who else isn't going to be joining the Mile High Club anytime soon? Who? The former president of Iran. Oh, God. It's time for a temp check.

Oh, boy. Okay. So this is a pretty consequential story. We just don't know how consequential yet, but you can be assured that it will be. So Iranian state media announced on Sunday that their president, Ibrahim Raisi, along with Iran's foreign minister and six other passengers were missing after their helicopter crashed due to foggy weather conditions in the mountainous area near Iran's northwestern border with Azerbaijan, where they were visiting.

So it was difficult to locate the wreckage due to blizzard conditions. But after I think it was like more than 12 hours, the helicopter and the passengers were found early Monday morning in Iran time and they were pronounced dead. This is quite a timely event, poorly timed for the Iranian regime and well-timed for its many opponents. Correct.

Because Iran has been dealing with a lot of domestic unrest, especially since Raisi took power in 2021. He was elected, to be clear. They've also been dealing with economic crises, sanctions due to their relationship with Russia becoming one of their main suppliers. And of course, this shadow war with Israel and the West more broadly.

So, of course, the question was whether any of those adversaries, and that would include potential opponents of Raisi from within Iran, had played a role in what seems like

Should have been a kind of a suspicious death. So both Israel and the U.S. were quick to deny any part of it. And honestly, given the very real weather conditions, it kind of does seem fairly above board. Remember when Kobe Bryant passed away and people were really talking about how unsafe helicopters actually are? Some of my Marine friends would say helicopters do two things, crash and burn and burn and crash. My father is a former helicopter

helicopter engineer for Sikorsky. And of course, when this happened, I went right to my Miltak friends and my dad to be like, pop looking at the situation here. Do you think this is foul play or is this just like helicopters fall out of the sky sometimes? And so we got some really interesting information about helicopters and how they work and why they crash. And it's kind of interesting. I don't know. Do you want to do you want to deep dive my special interest of helicopters right now?

I definitely do also because you know there are people who are like, there's no way this helicopter crashed. I mean...

My first thought was like, really? It just crashed now of all the times? That's the thing. We can use our media literacy we learned from Abby Richards a couple weeks ago also to say when something big happens, our brain wants to fill it in with an equally big reason, right? So sometimes something crazy happens, like the president of Iran gets killed in a helicopter crash, and it's just because of the weather. And sometimes it's like, you know, but our brain wants to fill it in and make it a big conspiracy. So here's...

what I learned about helicopters. One, in the United States of America, we are very lucky to have the helicopters we do. And we take that technology for granted. And then we assume that no other world leader would ever travel in an unsafe vessel, but they do. So here in the States, we have two of the best engineers and makers of helicopters in the world. Sikorsky, which is now of course, Lockheed Martin and Bell. Bell is the maker that does the smaller helicopters. You see like the news use, they have more of that bubble frame kind of helicopter stuff. And then we have,

The cuter helicopters. Yeah, they're cute little baby bumblebee helicopters. Those are the bell ones. Sikorsky makes the majority of the military helicopters. So our airships are required not just to be precision-driven machines that deliver high performance, but they also are required to have extensive safety features. No one has helicopters like us around the world, period, and we don't really sell them. We don't sell the good ones, but...

And this is one of those things other than our fricking awesome Navy boats that we just do not share this technology too readily with the world because helicopters and our boats really give us like great advantage on the world stage when it comes to war.

That's why China wants our IP. They do. And that's why it was such a big deal when the helicopters that took out Osama bin Laden, part of the tail, remember, fell over the 12-foot wall or whatever. And they were like, oh, they're going to get our technology. They didn't. Yeah. So when it comes to the kind of helicopter that Iran's leaders were in, some initial thoughts had emerged before we knew exactly what type of ship it was. The first theory was that the helicopter went down because of rampant decay in Iran's infrastructure and fleets.

Before we knew which helicopter it was, folks were saying that the chopper was probably at least over 40 years old because that's the last time that they were allowed to buy a standard grade chopper through NATO from us. And even if they did get one of these like NATO nicer helicopters from the 70s, they wouldn't have had the engineers to fix it. And they certainly wouldn't have had the parts to fix it, even if they knew how to. So if it wasn't an old helicopter, folks thought maybe, all right, well, it could be a Russian made chopper. And Russia...

This is a quote from my dad. Russia does not put safety features on their helicopters. They don't value human life. Their helicopters are good work-wise and performance-wise, but they are not meant to last or endure. It's why you never see Putin in a helicopter. Yeah, he sticks strictly to horseback.

Oh, my God. Right. So it turns out that, you know, these folks who are helicopter enthusiasts were correct. This this was a 40 year old Bell 212. Also, we call them airships, not helicopters for my dad. So that's why I keep saying ship. It's an airship. Oh, interesting. That's.

Sounds more like an air rowboat to me. The Bell ones are. Sikorsky would never, okay? Not one my dad built, but Bell 212s. They're made well, but they're old. So this one was made in the 70s and Iran has apparently 10 of them. They're very low cost, but rugged choppers till they aren't.

And they have some old ass Bell Canada engines, which is not something the United States would ever use. So maybe this isn't the last time that an Iranian copter will fall out of the sky while carting around some of the evil theocratic leaders. I mean, a girl can dream. Then there was the theories of what could have taken it out. And I enjoyed listening to this because as a person who travels in the air frequently and who also travels on helicopters more than the average person probably does because my DOD stuff,

I like knowing what something is and if it's safe or not. So fog is...

was one of the reasons given for why a helicopter could fall out of the sky. And I was like, but why don't airplanes fall out of the sky? They fly through the clouds all the time. Helicopters do not have the instruments that airplanes do. They straight up don't and they cannot detect well in fog. And then you crash into a mountain. Then somebody was like, well, could a bird have like flown into the rotors? No bird could make it through the downwind of a helicopter. So that is not likely a bird won't take you out. Then it was like, well, was it too hot or too cold? No.

In helicopters, better than airplanes, apparently. Pilots can adjust for that. And helicopters are made for the elements. And in this area, the elements would not have been extreme enough. Sand and dust. This is a big issue because sand or loose dirt can junk up the engines, can take them out. But most helicopters have a dual intake. But that doesn't mean that theirs didn't fail because they don't know how to do maintenance on them. Now, here's the one that both scared and delighted me.

As a helicopter rider, scared me. As an airplane rider, delightful. Air pockets. Climate change is causing a lot more wind shear and air pockets than we have ever had to encounter in flight in the past. And it is very likely that the helicopter hit an air pocket. Now, when an airplane is traveling forward, it's going super fast, something like 400 miles an hour. Helicopters only go a max speed of 140 miles an hour. So if they hit wind shear or an air pocket,

On a plane, you'll feel an air pocket as turbulence, but in a helicopter, your ass will just fall straight out of the sky. You're done.

So why doesn't that happen more frequently? Because most people who ride in helicopters are more careful. It is when you have the theocratic, like these people think they're gods and this happens to rich people a lot too, right? Where they will push their pilot to fly in fog, to fly in wind, and then the helicopter will fall out of the sky. And it's partly to do with the fact that they think that nothing bad will ever happen to them. So we're going to risk it or I have somewhere to be, but it's that

The last thing it could have been is jet wash. There were apparently three helicopters traveling together. If the downwash from the rotors of one copter could have taken out all of them. But to me, it seems like it was an issue of weather and overconfidence that took these helicopters down, just forcing the pilot to fly in bad conditions with old equipment and maybe inexperienced pilots.

And then these people who think that they speak for God, so danger will never come to them. And you can't beat the weather. No matter how much power you hold on this earth, goddess will smite you. Indeed. Take your helicopter down with a little air pocket. I like to picture little Mother Nature with a little air pocket in her little lady jeans. You're just going to go in here. Just took them out. Yeah.

This thing is, I have talked to a lot of Iranian friends and journalists who were saying like, yes, of course, the death of the butcher is something that people are going to celebrate. But it doesn't mean that it's the fall of this regime because Iran's supreme leader, the Ayatollah, is still alive. And the power will now go from this president who is now deceased to the vice president who will become acting president for the next 50 days while they hold an election or their version of the president.

of an election. The head of the judiciary, the parliament, the guardian council, and the army are all still alive and in place. So the people of Iran and the world are really waiting to see if this is an opportunity for change or if the Ayatollah will just replace him with somebody equally brutal. It's a little tricky. Right. And I mean, can you trust the election of it all? No, no.

Because in Iran, there are many political parties, but none of the parties are allowed to stand against the status quo or the Ayatollah's vision for Iran. So it's basically a war of personalities in their elections in which you're just picking which one of these personalities do you want to be the president given all of the politics are exactly the same.

With regards to this crash, honestly, we could have probably seen it coming. I want to read from the Washington Post. Quote, Iran is one of the most dangerous places in the world for which to drive or fly. The number of road deaths is staggering, averaging about 17,000 a year, and the number of fatal plane crashes is also abnormally high. Flight fatalities can be attributed to the use of antiquated aircraft whose maintenance is hampered by the economic sanctions imposed on Iran. And yet Iranians have all

of all stripes, including senior regime officials, make risky transportation decisions all the time. Politicians die or are injured in accidents more frequently than you might think. It'd be your own shitty helicopter. Yeah. So just to close the loop on what will happen next, this is obviously a pretty big deal. We saw Iranian activists celebrating globally. However, you do have the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah, declaring an official five days of mourning in Iran.

You know what? They don't have money for food or to help their people or any kind of economic infrastructure for the people of Iran, the good, beautiful people of Iran who are not represented by the regime. But they do have money to pay fake mourners. So if you look at these pictures, it has been noted that the Ayatollah is paying men predominantly to show up and throw their bodies at the steps of the castle or whatever it is that they live in over there and pretend like they're very upset and

women in like full hijabs and like fully covered like mourning. No, they're firing off fireworks and celebrating in the streets at the death of the butcher, which is the death of the butcher of their people. And, you know, so shout out to Iranian people. We stand with you in your fight for democracy and freedom. But, you know, down with the butcher.

Absolutely. He's in the pocket. He's in the pocket. So after they're done with their sham memorial, they're going to do their sham election. Yep. This is a big one. Raisi was a big deal because he was actually considered to be the top contender

possibly the top contender to step into the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini's role when he passes because he's 85 years old. They're already succession planning over there. It is unclear who the next president will be, but we can assume that they will be aligned with the Ayatollah and that they will be pretty big shoes to fill in terms of how important the previous president was. People are speculating that it could be Khomeini's son, but...

which is actually less ideal in terms of how the Iranian people are feeling about the regime because it was not supposed to be set up as a hereditary monarchy. That was kind of like the whole point. So we will see the election will be held in 50 days or it has to be held in less than 50 days. It will be held on June 28th.

And we'll see what will happen with that. I reported on this in the morning announcements. I know you've been reporting on it on your account on Under the Desk News. So we will see. Just in time for the end of Pride, we'll have the election in Iran. Oh, boy. Oh, man.

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What else do we got, Sammy? So I'm going to go ahead and put a trigger warning on this entire section. I don't know exactly what we will say, but I know that we're going to be getting into conversations about abuse and violence against women. And that can be very triggering as a topic, regardless of the specifics. So I know it's not a conversation I'm necessarily

you know, having the stomach for at all moments. So if you're listening and you're feeling that way, check out the timestamps in the description. They are your friend. Just for folks who don't know, or maybe this is your first episode listening, we put the timestamps in. So if you need to skip a certain story because it's just hitting too hard right now, you could just pick up and just skip this one. So check out the show notes.

I'm sure many of you all have seen or heard about the video footage that emerged on Friday of P. Diddy beating Cassie Ventura in the hallway of a hotel in 2016. It is really brutal footage. Just quick description for the context of how brutal.

crazy it is that this was buried. She is trying to escape their room. She's running towards the elevator and he comes running after her in a towel. He's chasing her, grabbing her, shoves her to the ground, kicks her, grabs her bags, and he comes running, coming back repeatedly to keep beating her, dragging her down the hallway by her hoodie, and he throws a glass vase at her. All of this is in a

stops when someone else comes out of the elevator and he has to stop. This is truly horrific footage. And after it comes out, he issued, remember it was all a witch hunt and all a scam and all a smear campaign against Diddy until this video comes out. And now he's issued an apology on Instagram where he says, quote, I take full responsibility for my actions in that video. I'm disgusted. I was disgusted when I did it. I'm disgusted now. I was fucked up. I hit rock bottom. I make no excuses. And,

However, he did not actually mention Cassie by name. He did not apologize to Cassie or acknowledge her. And to me, this is a clear case of being sorry he got caught. How do we know? Because he had previously issued that blanket denial of all of Cassie's claims in court, including that she was raped in 2018 and subjected to years of repeated abuse by Sean Combs.

Through his attorney, he has called her claims lies and said that she was motivated by financial gain and public notoriety. Also, the other reason we know he isn't sorry is because she said in that lawsuit that he settled last year within one day after she filed it, is she claims that he paid $50,000 to the hotel, which was the Intercontinental Hotel in LA, to have the footage buried.

I'm really curious about how that arrangement went down. But when they were asked for comments, IHG responded that the hotel is no longer under their management and they do not have access to prior incident records or footage. Convenient. And also, I'm sure that they didn't invoice it, you know, the proper way. Also,

Her lawsuit described what, just in terms of the hotel and their culpability or awareness, in that lawsuit, she described what happens after that video footage. And she says that she was able to leave the hotel after the

Ends of the video. But then she returned back because I'll quote it upon realizing that her running away would cause Mr. Combs to be even angrier with her and completely stuck in his vicious cycle of abuse. Miss Ventura returned to the hotel with the intention of apologizing for running away from her abuser. When she returned,

Hotel security staff urged her to get back into a cab and go to her apartment, suggesting that they had seen the security footage showing Mr. Combs beating her and throwing glass at her in the hotel hallway.

I share that to emphasize that the hotel and likely more than one person at the hotel was privy to this and simply did not care. And we're like, A, I don't care. And B, I can get $50,000. Since, you know, after this footage came out, the L.A. County DA's office made a statement that they actually can't even charge Combs for this with a crime because it occurred outside the statute of limitations.

And this is why we have to believe women, because I'm sure that there are a bunch of folks listening right now who have been in a situation where you don't think anyone will believe you or where you are so beaten down either emotionally, financially, sexually, or physically by your partner that the idea of leaving it feels like it will be worse. And that's part of the healing process that a lot of people have to go through to recognize that

Yeah.

That is just a horrible, horrible place that we put women in. And I can think of, you know, five of my friends right now who have been in a similar situation, maybe not quite to the level of, you know, video footage of their abuse being hidden by a hotel employee, but certainly...

have gotten, there's not a woman among us who hasn't gotten a call from a friend who's like, hey, can you, I need you to come pick me up. Or, oh no, this bruise just, it's not what you think. It just, we were drunk or whatever. So to anyone listening, we believe you, we care about you. There is help for you. And I hope that you do seek it because the second that you

And you have that moment where you get to close the door and lock it and know that that person can't get you is the moment that you can really start healing and becoming your best self. So to folks who are listening to this, like this situation you might be in may feel unique to you and like no one will ever understand. We do. We do. Absolutely. Because we've all been there in one way or another.

I think it's interesting that this came out just as the Harrison Butker speech was going viral. And I'm going to assume the listeners of the show have also heard that by now and have the proper context. But ideologically, what he was promoting is a world where women are at the mercy of men and cannot escape abuse, no matter how bad it is, as is the case with Sean Combs.

Harrison Butker wants to build a society where women are fundamentally and systemically at the mercy of men who they're attached to, legally or otherwise. And you can guess people like Butker are not exactly in favor of politicians or policy that give women the benefit of the doubt or grow out of their way to believe or protect these women. They're more like the hotel manager who is going to take $50,000 to hide the evidence and tell the woman to get back in the kitchen.

And the issue is not with women who want to be in the kitchen of their own volition and want to structure their lives in a way that is dependent on men for their survival and social position. I mean, sure, there's lots of people that are entitled to and prefer that. They want to grow up the way that many of us did, where there's a single parent earner and someone else gets to stay home with the kids and keep house.

The problem is when the law and legal system codify and or force that life on women structurally or legally. And right now we exist in a system where the law is increasingly not on women's side and increasingly trying to return them to this idyllic 1950s bullshit that they've been sold, which wasn't even true in the 50s. Yeah, this 1950s shit they want from me. Cool.

Let's go back to the 1950s, Harrison Butker, when you would have been drafted and sent to the Cold War or something. I don't know. Go to Korea or Vietnam or something. Let's go to a time when men didn't have choice, Harrison Butker. You make no sense.

With those feet, they definitely would have taken him. He wouldn't have been able to get out of this. He'd have been kicking grenades. Go kick grenades. That's the elevated way to say go kick rocks. Yep. The point is it's beyond, you know, Harrison Bucker promoting this and it's beyond...

This footage of one celebrity being able to operate in a cycle of abuse with impunity. But this is an everywhere problem. We want to talk about some stats to talk about to demonstrate how widespread and dangerous a conversation we are really having here. This is not a remote issue. This is as kitchen table of an issue as it gets.

In the United States, one in four women and one in seven men have already experienced severe physical violence by an intimate partner, while more than one in three women and more than one in four men will experience some form of rape, physical violence, and or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetimes. This is a ubiquitous issue. And people...

don't know they're walking into these statistics because no one's wearing a sign on their head that says, I'm going to hurt you in the future. They probably don't have the plan to hurt you in the future in the first place. Abuse comes from so much more than just one act.

It's a real psychological cycle. Yeah, it often starts with love bombing, Sammy. I mean, a lot of the people that I've been abused by started off by being the greatest, most wonderful, loving, caring, can't stand it, can't live my life without you. You're everything to me person. So when it starts with love bombing, it's very difficult the first time they hit you for you to be like, well, that must have been a mistake.

Right. And so many people want to blame themselves that it's not your fault. But just to give a number about how prevalent this is, 10 million people in the US are subjected to domestic violence each year. That's what we know. That's reported. I mean, come on. Intimate partner violence accounts for 15% of all violent crimes in the whole country. Think about how many people

one person could hurt and they hurt their intimate partner. And that comprises 15%. It's also a deadly problem. On average, more than three women and one man are murdered by their intimate partner every day in the United States. And according to the CDC, statistics show year after year that approximately half of female homicide victims in the U.S. are killed by intimate partners. Globally, intimate partners are responsible for up to 40% of all murders of women.

Again, that was reported. And then obviously the impact ripples out across families. One in 15 children are exposed to intimate partner violence, 90% of them being eyewitnesses, and that is traumatic and perpetuates cycle of abuse. And in domestic violence homicides, women are six times more likely to be killed when a gun is in the house, making this a uniquely American problem.

Back when I worked in Baltimore, we were doing food delivery programs. And oftentimes we start focusing on kids, sending home food to kids, and then we would meet their parents. And oftentimes it was a mom or somebody. And she would say if she could just get enough food to feed her whole family, which meant not just the kindergartners we were sending blessings in a backpack home with, that she could move on to getting herself in a better situation. So we started doing, we pioneered this program, sending food to people who had reported domestic violence in their home.

And so many of those women were able to leave a desperate and terrible situation because they were less reliant on the male provider for things like food and shelter. So it's not just that.

are subjected to abuse of the partner and then the children are seeing that and it creates all this upsetness. It's also that a lot of times these people are living in a situation where that abuser controls the food in the home, controls the shelter, controls the comfort. And when we were able to relieve some of that pressure, people were able to get out. And I think of that every time I hear these stories of folks who are in an abusive situation and are like...

I can't leave because I need diapers for my kid. I need food for them. I need a shelter. And so I just have to endure it so that my kids can have a decent life. And I think that that is something that systemically we need to address from the ground up, that it's poverty that increases the risk of domestic violence for women. And when we can provide some systemic support

support, foundational support, the rate of domestic violence does go down and the rate of infant and maternal health goes up as we saw in Baltimore. Just more broadly, human nature has its own shortcomings and issues, but it's the conditions around that that make that abuse worse, that allow abusers to operate with impunity and enable that abuse to be deadly and to harm other people outside of the

immediate situation. Well, yeah, when the lawmakers are the one making the laws, you know what I mean? You see like the cop and the police union saying that domestic abusers shouldn't have their firearms taken away because a lot of the domestic abusers are also police officers. And so they're like, well, how are we going to square this? And I know you're going to talk about that next, but this is the importance of looking at, yes, there's the human aspect of abuse and the terribleness that's driven by just lack of humanity that people have. But then there are the laws that embolden these people and protect them.

Right, exactly. One thing that is unique in America is the gun problem. Yes. And how that does make it so much easier for abusers to harm their partners, even accidentally. One thing we should discuss is the boyfriend loophole, which pertains to gun access in the Second Amendment.

This is obviously a uniquely American problem because the way it works is that the boyfriend loophole sets up a situation where an abusive partner who is convicted of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence or who is subject to a domestic violence protective order is not allowed to possess a firearm. However, that only applies to if the abuser is a current or former spouse of the person they abused, if they share a child, or if they live together at any point.

And that's why it's called the boyfriend loophole because it doesn't include any other types of abusive partners of which there can be many situations. It doesn't cover situationships. So the, so,

In 2022, there was bipartisan gun legislation passed which expanded federal restrictions on domestic abusers' ability to own a firearm and to basically close the boyfriend loophole slightly so that the, you know, who was prohibited included current or recent former dating relationships. However, that's still vague.

And it also waives the restriction for first-time abusers after five years if they're not convicted of another misdemeanor. And it doesn't apply to abusers who are subject to final protective orders. I guess because it's assumed that the protective order is enough. It's not. Even though those are usually only issued when people show there is an extreme chance of danger or injury or death. So you can see there are clarity issues there.

It's people still can get guns other ways that are totally above board. And, you know, I think abusers famously don't always define the relationship. So the bigger issue here is that our legal system allows the status of one's relationship to have an impact on the level of protection that's afforded to them from their abuser or their former abuser, which obviously is a dangerous problem.

It's a super dangerous problem. It also doesn't include stalkers, people that you didn't have a romantic relationship with who may have had a one-time interaction with you and now are excluded because they didn't have a definitive intimate partnership with you. Like Baby Braindead? Yes. Oh my God, I haven't watched that yet, but I need to. Oh, you must. You must. Bringing it back to Harrison Butker and the place he occupies, which is, of course, Missouri.

In Missouri, it is illegal for pregnant women to get divorced. Did you know this? Well, it's not technically illegal, but it is effectively illegal. I mean, there are different states where, you know, we got listeners from all across the country. In Virginia, there's a six-month waiting period to get divorced. And if you have children, it's a year and you have to go to therapy. They make it very difficult for people to leave partners. In Maryland, there's not a waiting period, but for...

for the protective orders, same thing. They'll be like, we served a protective order. I'm like, this man could not keep his hands to himself and adhere to the normal social contract or the vows he made to God when he took this woman as his wife. You think he gives a fuck about your protective order? He doesn't give a shit about that. So they make these laws and then they make them vague enough that some senator's son wouldn't have to adhere to it if they didn't want to.

So in Missouri, there's this thing where people are like, it's illegal for pregnant women to get divorced. The law was originally passed in the 1970s. And in theory, it makes sure that men are accountable financially for the children that they fathered. So Missouri women who are seeking a divorce are required to disclose whether they are pregnant or not. And the judges won't finalize divorces during the pregnancy unless

So that they can ensure that the man is financially responsible. Please forget it. And also to simplify custody agreements. It's like, okay, whatever. This is obviously so much more consequential after abortion became illegal, except in cases of medical emergencies in Missouri, because there is no exception for rape or incest. So like, let's say you're, it brings me to the musical waitress.

Where she was trying to leave her abusive husband and then he gets her pregnant so that he could trap her. And it's this whole story of like how common that is. They wouldn't make a musical about it if it wasn't universally common. Right.

But it's exactly this because you have a woman who's in a situation who wants to leave her husband. Let's say she gets, you know, maritally raped and is pregnant. And now all of a sudden, oh, she's got to stay with them for nine months because of custody, because there's no exception for her to have an abortion. And there's no relief for her to be able to leave him. Well, not to mention that the chance of women being injured or killed by their partners increases during pregnancy, which is just wild.

This is why we choose the bear. Exactly. This is one more reason we choose the bear.

Now, there are similar policies in Texas and Arizona, and there has been legislation introduced by Democratic state lawmaker Ashley Loon, one of our down ballot girlies of the week, that would allow Missouri state judges to grant divorces when a spouse is pregnant. This legislation was discussed at a committee hearing in February, but appears to have stalled from there. Unsurprising as Republicans hold majorities in the state government. But Ashley Loon, our down ballot girlie of the week a couple of weeks ago, is trying to get that fixed for us.

She's fighting an uphill battle with the current composition of the Missouri state legislature. So that's why our down ballot girlies are so important. We should also talk about the violence against women act because that's kind of the, you know, big protective legislation we have in America.

That was originally passed in 1994 and reauthorized a number of times since. And over the years, the provisions have evolved as a result of which parties hold congressional power when it expires, basically. Generally, what it does is that it provides funding for programs to support survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault,

dating violence, and stalking. It provides housing for victims of domestic violence, as well as dedicated law enforcement units for abuse. It funds the National Domestic Violence Hotline, mandates that victims do not bear the cost of their rape kits or their service of a protective order. It is expensive to be abused. And it created a law called the Federal Rape Shield, which means that a victim's past sexual conduct cannot be held against them at a rape trial.

So the Violence Against Women Act was originally sponsored by Joe Biden when it was first introduced in 1993. And it's been reauthorized by bipartisan coalitions in 2000, 2005.

And it was first opposed in 2012 by conservative Republicans, Tea Party simmering, just around the time they started to go really off the rails. They objected to extending the law's protections to same-sex couples and to provisions that would allow battered, undocumented immigrants to claim temporary visas.

Finally, it ends up being reauthorized in 2013. Before it expired again in 2019, it was reauthorized by the House. This time, it included provisions that would have protected transgender victims and banned individuals who were convicted of domestic abuse from purchasing firearms, closing the boyfriend loophole further. However, the Senate would not take up the bill.

But it was finally reauthorized in 2022 by President Biden as a result of the reconciliation of the budget package. And that version secured the highest ever amount of funding to implement the Violence Against Women Act.

No parliamentary procedure. Isn't it crazy, Sammy, that there are certain laws that have to be reauthorized? I know we talked about the Voting Rights Act and how parts of that have to be reauthorized. Why isn't it just codified to say that things like the Rape Shield Law, a victim's past sexual conduct,

can't be used against them in a rape trial. Why doesn't that just, why does that have to be reauthorized? That's nuts. Why does it have to be reauthorized that women who are escaping domestic violence obviously need shelter and services? That's a given. That should be like in the fabric of America, we hold these truths to be self-evident that women deserve to not be abused.

My guess is that it has to be reauthorized because it would have never been authorized if they didn't compromise and put an expiration in it. Like that's how they got them to pass it is my assumption.

Like, oh, we're not sure. Maybe in 2000, we can go back to violence against women. We're going to revisit this one. This feels like when they said after Barack Obama was elected president, that racism was cured in America because we had a black president. This is what it feels like to me. Like someday some Republican is going to be like, yeah, violence against women is fixed because we have a female president. Like we don't need these laws anymore or something like they just all these false equivalencies that they make to try and like

shield abusers and hoard power for the worst of offenders. Terrible. Exactly. All right. Welcome back, friends. We're going to switch gears a little bit here and we're going to talk about something that gives me a ton of hope.

That is Jasmine Crockett, the congresswoman from Texas. This week, you no doubt heard Texas congresswoman Jasmine Crockett call Marjorie Taylor Greene a, quote, bleach, blonde, bad build, butch body. And maybe thought, man, I wish there was more Jasmine Crockett's in Congress. But did you know that Rep Crockett is an alumni of the group Run for Something? Yes.

Run for Something recruits and supports talented, passionate young people who will advocate for progressive values now and for the next 30 years. There's a spot on their website, runforsomething.org, where you can search for progressive candidates backed by Run for Something in your state and find more Jasmine Crockett's. Point of privilege as co-host of the show, calling somebody a butch body is not homophobic. I have...

I have a butch body, okay, which I am proud of. It is a butch body. It is just what it is. The only reason somebody would think calling somebody a butch body is homophobic is if you didn't want to be seen as butch because you are homophobic or think something is wrong with that body's type. So I'm saying Jasmine Crockett called it like she sees it. It's a butch body, baby. And

Marjorie Taylor Greene wanting to be perceived as feminine or attractive to men is a way that she gains her power took that offensively because to have a butch body would remove power from her and how men perceive her. Baby, it's a butch body and she should be proud of it. Marjorie did a lot of CrossFit to get that body. So don't back down now, Marge. That's what I'm saying. What did you think it was like when you look at your body?

What did you think it was? Because to me, it's giving it's giving athletic build. It's like a strong like it's very muscular. Here's where I can take a point of privilege on that. I think Iona Mar, the rugby player, has an athletic build. The TikToker rugby player, Iona Mar. But

But I would also say she has a very feminine body. She's athletic, feminine. Marjorie Taylor Greene has a butch built. All right. And that is just there is a difference. There is no you could be an athletic, feminine built. Marjorie Taylor Greene has a butch built. I say that with no hate. I say that as a butch person who walks heavy and, you know, is built to carry wood or something. I don't know. We love all bodies. We do not love insurrectionist souls. That's what our problem is with.

That's exactly right. So moving on from that there, there's a bunch of folks who also may or may not have butch bodies. And we love that if they do on the Run for Something website. And you can find quality down-ballot candidates like Dolce Vasquez. Dolce is an educator, community leader, and formerly undocumented Mexican-American LGBTQ immigrant who is vying for the opportunity to represent California State Assembly in District 57. We love her. Margarita.

Marche and Marquetta Johnson, who I believe are sisters and both Army veterans running for city council in Montgomery County, Alabama, Districts 3 and 2, respectively. And then we've got Brandon Fletcher Dominguez, who is an accomplished Afro-Latino organizer and advocate based in Delaware with a strong track record for fighting for housing rights, fees and fines reform, and ending gun violence. He is now seeking to represent the 3rd District in Wilmington, Delaware, home of Joseph Robinette Biden Jr.

Great options. Great options. So if you are in California, District 57, Montgomery County, Alabama, Districts 2 or 3, or the 3rd District of Delaware, Wilmington, these are your people. And also, big ticket, the Senate is obviously a big deal, especially with the fact that Joe Manchin is retiring. So Democrats are not going to be able to count on that seat. But we do have other really solid options for other seats that we want to pursue.

And we had the Democratic candidate for Texas Senate, Colin Allred, the alternative to Ted Cruz on the podcast. Our episode with him will be out on Thursday. So check it out. He is awesome. Such a cool guy. And the best. Great, great ideas. He I mean, you could have this guy. You could have Ted Cruz tune in on Thursday to find out. I'm going all red for Texas. And now we're at what is obviously our favorite segment of the week. America can't.

Next week, Sammy's got to do the rant. Pretty much I rant about something in America that I literally can't with. And this week it is health care.

I can rant along with you, but this week you have the spotlight on this rant specifically. This weekend, in some personal news, my dad decided to have a little baby stroke and he was in the hospital, which, I mean, talk about an American fever dream. The health care in this country is in fucking sane. It's maddening. And in my opinion, it was very criminal. He had this moment where he parked at the golf course that he works at a couple days a week and

And he couldn't remember where he was. He didn't know how he got to work. He just was having this bout of amnesia. And he was brought by EMT to the hospital.

Where they promptly lost him. What do you mean they lost him? Like mislocated him? Mislocated him. So he came by ambulance to this hospital and they lost him. And so my mom is trying to call and find him and they don't know where he is in this hospital. So my mom gets in the car, she drives up and she gets there and the guy at the gate tells her, oh, you can't come in because you can't park.

parking's full. And she's like, okay, there has to be alternate parking. And he's like, no, you have to valet. And she's like, okay, I'll valet. Like literally my husband is in a medical emergency where he does not know his name. He cannot answer questions and he has a heart condition. So I need to get in there.

And they don't know where he is. And she's like, they don't have any of his medical information. And I'm trying to like get in here. And they're like, you have to go valet. So she goes around to the front and there's no valet person there. So she goes into the front desk and literally the woman at the front desk says to her, I don't know if the valet guy is around.

And she's like, you got to be kidding me, man. Like this is an emergency room I'm pulling up to. The valet is like, you know, pretty critical to this. And they don't even know like where the guy is. It's not like, oh, the guy is like, you know, parking a car, leave us your keys, get to your husband. No, they're like, oh, we don't know what to do. So my mother who gives no fucks leaves her car parked in the loop and the keys on the seat. And it's like, I hope somebody steals it or toes it. I don't know what to do. I literally can't wait. So anyway, that, so she just hopes for the best with that.

Now, my mom was a nurse, as I've talked about in the show before. So she has no patience for a lot of the stuff that she is about to witness going on in our health care system. They get him in. She finds him in this hospital and they can't get his IV in. So my mom's like, I'll do it. And they're like, no, well, maybe. Well, no, no. So they call in. So the nurse that can't get my dad's IV in says, I'm going to call in the guy who, quote, is better at this.

Oh my God. How do you not get an IV in? Everyone who enters a hospital gets an IV pretty much, right? You should be good at this. Okay. Also my-

My dad has worked his whole life. His veins pop out of his arms. He looks like Wreck-It Ralph with the veins. So at this point, a seven-foot-tall male nurse from the Caribbean comes in who turns out will be the only person who is of help or skill the entire time. The only people who know what's going on in this hospital are the Caribbean nurses. Outside of that, do not care about patients at all. Do not care at all. So

So now we get my dad into the room. They're running the cat scan. And my mom's having to like fully advocate for him the whole time because he's saying he feels better. And they're like, OK, well, if he feels better and she's like, he doesn't know his name. He doesn't know our children's names. Like he did know my wife's name, which is funny. He's like, oh, that's Natalie. And we were like, OK, now we know who dad's favorite is. Wow. Yeah.

So now my little autistic dad who only eats like four foods, they bring him a burrito with guacamole. She's like, he's not going to eat it. He eats the burrito, starts telling her how good it is. She's like, he is extremely ill. This is a man who has like food sensitivity. Like the fact that he could do this is crazy. Then they tell her there's no cafeteria. And for my mom to order DoorDash because now she has to like stay with him and there's like no cafeteria. So

but they don't let the DoorDash person in because the DoorDash person is not a registered guest or patient.

So a woman who was rushing her daughter, who was in active labor, into the emergency room agrees to bring DoorDash up to my dad's room before she goes to help her daughter deliver a baby. Now my dad has dry mouth and he's getting confused and he's getting upset. And so my mom's like, okay, do you have any ice chips or a Popsicle I could give him? Because that is proven to just calm people down. They're like, oh, budget cuts, no Popsicles, no ice chips. She's like, are you fucking kidding me? No frozen water? No frozen water at this hotel. At this hotel. At this hotel.

It's definitely not a hotel. I'm telling you, healthcare though treats it like a budget hotel where they just train people to run the machines and hope for the best. They don't invest in bedside care the way that they should at these small regional hospitals. So there's no popsicles, no ice chips. My mom, now it's nighttime because they keep my dad overnight. And my mom has to coach the night nurse through how to care for my dad. She demands CPAP comes in.

And they're like, well, I wasn't going to call it in because the CPAP is loud. And she's like, he still needs it. And they're like, but it's an old machine. He probably has a new machine. My mom's like, he will literally like...

choke. He has a heart condition. Bring the CPAP up here for Christ's sake. Deals with this the whole night through. Honestly, she calls me at like three in the morning and is like, V, I don't know what people do when they don't have a nursing degree and their person is in the hospital. Like how many times she had to try to gentle nurse someone

whoever was on staff through different things. And it is not these people's fault. She was not saying, oh, you're incompetent. The staffing levels at this hospital were not safe, which we know nurses are advocating for safe staffing levels. And just the level of education and empowerment that the nurses had was so low compared to what we would hope and expect we would trust medical professionals with.

Everything's got to be run through insurance. And there's like some guy in Iowa who's deciding if my dad deserves care or not. And it just, it is, it is a heartbreak for the family and for the people working in this hospital. So finally, the next day they do the MRI, they do whatever. And they discharged my dad saying, we don't really know. Could be global amnesia. Could have been TIA. We're going to have you follow up with your doctors because we don't see any permanent damage on the CAT scan or the MRI.

And so now he gets out and has to go to a regular neurologist. My friend who's like the administrator of the heart hospital in Florida is like on the phone with this hospital also trying to like talk them through stuff. What would they do to my dad if he didn't have a wife to call when he didn't know what was going on? Like where would this man have been? That is the million dollar question. It is astounding to me to hear this story from you. It is not unfamiliar.

I had basically a very similar experience last year. My dad, he also had ended up in the hospital with what they never were able to figure out what it was, but it was like he collapsed, had similar situation where he like didn't know where he was, was very confused. The thing is he had cancer for 16 years prior and it's a degenerative disease.

really, really rare type of cancer. So like no one's even like aware of it. Like there are 1500 cases a year. And this was what was so frustrating is like, they don't listen to you when you like tell them things. Like for example, they keep trying to find out the cause of his collapse, but I'm like, Oh, it's cause he has, he's degenerated from cancer. Like, why are you looking for all these causes? And they're just cut. They were like, it was like you said, like,

Some of the nurses, and I don't mean this globally because some nurses are incredible, but some nurses, it's so clear that they are not trained as nurses traditionally were, and that it's more like they're trained vocationally on...

how to react to like the thing they read on the chart and the machine in the immediate moment but they have no sense of like the overall history or the context because people the way the shifts are organized and to actually speak to a doctor let alone most people need several types of doctors like if you have like an oncologist a neurologist a nephrologist like you need all these different types of physicians none of them communicate you get maybe a minute with the

attending physician and they are like pretty much not addressing you at all. And this was at one of the quote best hospitals in the world. The nurses, some of them or the technicians, like they do not know. And there's so little communication between anyone. It's so loud. Like I don't know how anyone gets better simply from your nervous system hearing, being awake all the time and like hearing constant beeping.

all the tests and all these people in, out, all night to the point where people were not acknowledging that my dad had suffered this experience due to cancer and that it was like the end of his life. He was in the hospital for a month and they're trying to quote, figure out what the problem is. Finally, I like demanded that they bring in like a hospice advisor to be like, can you assess him? And the guy was like, oh, he has minutes to,

maybe minutes. Like he didn't, he ended up living for like two more days, but it was like, no one was paying attention to the degeneration of this person who was in the hospital for a month. And like that they, your doctors, like you can't deduce that. I don't see his charts. I don't have access to anything. I just see the person.

You can't deduce that this is a person who is degenerating and that what happened to him was not an isolated event. Like it should not require that much brilliance to figure, to figure that out. And it's really frustrating to just constantly have questions and to ask people things and to get no answers and to get no, and like, Oh, the doctor will call you. They'll come see you. They don't come. Or maybe, you know,

It's just, it's terrible. And I mean, you're dealing with situations with like no ice chips from budget cuts. Right. And, and,

You can tell that it's frustrating to the nurses and doctors also who almost have to dissociate when they go in there because they know that they're not going to be able to provide the level of care that they want to. They know that there's going to be failures that aren't their fault all day, but that they'll get blamed for all day. And so you do that over a period of time. And it's no wonder that we're seeing people retire so early or switch careers. I remember during the pandemic, some of my friends who were nurses switched to being UPS drivers because they were like, I need a break.

And I make more money as a UPS driver. And I just do my little boxes and I go home. And do I feel bad that I have this education and this dedication to help heal people? I feel bad, but I also know that I can't put myself in a situation where I have to dissociate and self-medicate and just be constantly frustrated by the way our healthcare system runs. And now...

I was reading an article over the weekend. They're going to be spending billions of dollars to put AI and virtual reality into medicine so that doctors can, I don't know, better Google treatments and then practice them in a Wii tennis level game of surgery. I mean, Sammy, the internet is not the friend of healthcare and hospitals are dealing with major cyber warfare hacks that lock up their systems and patients' digital charts. We have to bring back common sense care.

We have to pay people what they're due. We have to listen to nurses when they tell you what safe staffing looks like. And we have to stop letting people die so that some yuppie at the insurance company or whatever can buy a second yacht. Because that's what we're here on. First of all, doctors should be paid more than people who work in finance. Like it's crazy that people who are saving lives, and I say this, my husband works in finance, that it's insane. The people who are saving lives work harder, more brutally in worse conditions.

and are forced to provide worse care than they should because of the structure, because these hospitals are run like businesses.

Because they're run like profit centers. And somewhere, the doctor, no matter how educated they are, the nurse, no matter how educated they are, has to pick up their phone and talk to somebody in the middle of America who's making $17 an hour to look up CPT codes and decide if that falls within this person's insurance purview or not. And they're making decisions when the doctor calls to say, hey, I need XYZ thing. They're like, well, could you use XYZ thing? No, I...

Like, I can't imagine the frustration. And the prices of those things have all been driven up.

By the insurance system. The whole thing is a racket and it is, it has actually, it affects the care that people get in the room and the care that the doctors are able to provide and those professionals experience. I can't even tell you the number of people I know who have had such trouble getting the care for the diagnosis that they know they have. And just getting like a doctor who will like follow them and pay attention and

How can we have the, quote, best health care in the world? And this is the experience that we have. Well, let's talk about one more thing, because my mom was a night nurse and she they used to call her. She did switch to hospice and they called her the angel of death. And I love that for her. Hospice is so much nicer. So good. It's so good. Quiet. It's beautiful. So.

One of the things that my mom loved and that we loved when we would visit her at the doctor's office or wherever else she was, was seeing all the folks who work in the hospital that make things happen. All of the orderlies and all of the front desk ladies, the folks who work in the cafeteria, really those support workers that make it possible for a hospital to run effectively and for those people to feel supported. You know, the little coffee cart guy, right?

So I was excited when last year, California Governor Newsom signed legislation to make the mandatory minimum wage for health care workers $25 an hour, which I could not believe it wasn't already $25 an hour. And that was supposed to go into effect this June 1st, so just in a couple days. But now, Governor Newsom, the king of all liberals...

says that he wants to delay this $25 an hour minimum wage for health care workers because of its potential to exacerbate the severe state budget shortfall. Meanwhile, the union that advocated for the health care pay increase has launched an advertising campaign that aims to hold Newsom accountable to the law that he signed.

Like, can you imagine thinking in just a couple of days? Nine days. In nine days. And here we are with that. But I mean, that's health care for you. I think health care advocacy is such an interesting, important topic. What I mean by that is how we advocate for our own care because that's where we're at. But we actually received a very aptly timed email from a fever dreamer who requested not to be named. But we're going to read the email.

get you in on the community. These are the kind of things that we love hearing from you just about your experiences and any sort of reaction or response we can provide. We hope to do that. And this, what this came to our inbox and then we wanted to have this conversation. So we

Wanted to bring this up. Hi, V and Sammy. I'm a relatively new American fever dream listener. Thank you. Having started a couple of weeks ago. I love that you inject humor into pressing topics without taking away from the gravity of whatever topic you're talking about. Thank you again. Other than to demonstrate my appreciation for your work, I'm writing to seek advice and voice some of my frustrations with the American healthcare system.

Look at that. The American healthcare system failed me as it has countless others. In my case, it's an efficacy contributed to my life imploding. Two years ago, shortly after I'd begun a new job in DC, I fell suddenly ill with a litany of primarily neurologic symptoms, as well as a rash, low grade fevers and unintentional weight loss. For the first six months, I was routinely dismissed by doctors, of course, who diagnosed me with being a 25 year old woman who worked in a high stress environment. They always fucking say that. Always.

Always. Always. It's because women's conditions are understudied. In reality, I have a rare neuroimmune condition as well as a few lingering infections. Okay. Not a big deal at all. It took me over a year to be correctly diagnosed and begin treatment. Though I am not my former self, I've improved significantly. If you have any questions about my particular case, I'm happy to answer them.

My frustrations with the system have awakened a desire to advocate for better conditions. I'm also very torn. While my longtime goal has been to work within the climate policy advocacy space, frustration and disgust with the current health care, with specific respect to insurance system, fuels a desire to help incite change. Though without a platform or the context of a campaign, I was previously a Biden-Harris organizer, I do not know where to start.

Another issue I'm facing is the job market. It is not a friendly landscape for anyone less than perfectly healthy. And even then conditions are not ideal. I'm looking to get back to work at a full or part-time capacity with preference for hybrid and remote roles since I'm immunocompromised. I've experienced at the UN in campaigns and in government and a broadly accessible applicable skillset. Do you have advice for getting back to work and or breaking into a new advocacy space other than reaching out to my network?

Thank you for the opportunity to brain dump. I hope to hear from you soon. Well, we did mention that this is a job board. So anyone who's looking to hire for this really great resume we have here, check her out. We'll figure out how to put you in touch without the name. But if you have a job for this person.

Well, I want to say so often when we feel helpless, we think it must be because there are no helpers out there or I would have felt them already. But some advice that I got early in my career was when you care about a thing, look for the people who are also affected by that thing because you will better organize together than you will looking for a hero. So if you are frustrated with the health care system, know that there are lots of other people who are frustrated with the health care system. And there is a ton of work that's being done right now.

I would say, I mean, LaFonsa Butler, who was just made the senator of California until the election this November, she was previously the president of SEIU Local 2015, which is a union that unites the voices of more than 325,000 nursing home and home care workers. That is a place that you can look to for advocacy, talking points, petitions, leadership, maybe even jobs. There's also the Nurses Union, depending on your state.

I would go in and try and check in with them. There are all kinds of healthcare accountability organizations that are doing the work to do things that are common sense, like safe staffing for nurses, quality of pay for caregivers, especially end-of-life caregivers or complicated case caregivers or institutional caregivers.

There's a lot of folks out here doing this. It's about raising their voices and making them important and respected because, again, a lot of the people doing this work are women and people of color. And those are the two people that no one ever wants to listen to or give any credence to. And so this is how we can raise them up. We are out here. We are fighting for equity. And it's easy to join because there are so many different people that are trying to get heard. So you don't have to start from scratch. So I think that that's an important thing to remember. And

to raise up the voices of those nurses unions in particular. And also if you felt like you were in the climate space and now you feel passionately about healthcare, like that's okay. You know, you can, your life is hopefully please God long. I was,

I was a chef before I was a TikToker. Yeah, you could do anything. You never know where things will take you. I would not, you know, I would not worry about that. Yeah, to V's point, there are so many organizations, like just even just speaking to people, like if you don't have a particular end goal other than getting a job, which does not necessarily have to be in this space, just meeting people and meeting people who they know.

And you never know what you might get introduced to. Well, also check out your city and state municipality work because around every hospital is something called a community care zone. The five miles surrounding a hospital, the hospital is somewhat responsible for the health of that community. So you may be able to find a job either with the hospital or with the municipality to ensure things within that five miles surrounding hospitals is being properly handled. So that has a lot to do with food security, water security, housing security, different stuff like that that

contributes to community health. So check that out. I'm not sure what state you're in, but community health zones is something that you can Google and find out a bunch more information about. I know we are running short on time, Sammy, but I do have one more thing. Speaking of Baltimore, we talked a lot about my work in Baltimore and I want to give a shout out to my girl, Marilyn Mosby.

Remember this name, folks? Marilyn Mosby was the black female prosecutor in Baltimore who charged six Baltimore cops with the death of Freddie Gray back in 2015. And since then, the cops have been out to get her, in my opinion, allegedly. Recently, they arrested her for taking money out of her retirement fund to buy a vacation home in Florida. It's her money to buy herself a home, which she was able to do thanks to the CARES Act COVID provisions that allowed folks to take money out of their retirement without penalties.

Thousands of people have done this, but they charged her with mortgage fraud. And then a biased judge convicted her. And now she's asking quite publicly and with the support of the congressional black caucus for Joe Biden to give her a presidential pardon. She,

She is saying this is all a retaliation for her trying to hold Baltimore cops responsible for the death of Freddie Gray. And she is due to be sentenced for this mortgage fraud this Thursday. They're trying to give her something like 40 months in jail. It is quite it's a substantial sentence for something that thousands of people had done and that she was within her rights to do.

So she's due to be sentenced this Thursday. She is publicly calling on Joe Biden to give her a presidential pardon. We could be hearing from the White House in this case this week. If this is something you feel strongly about, you can write to the White House and join the folks in calling for her to be pardoned. Marilyn Mosby has done some of the most incredible work

in the history of Baltimore. She didn't prosecute low-level crimes or drug crimes, instead went after big offenders and murder cases. She improved health and wellness and safety in Baltimore exponentially, and in my opinion, is being falsely dragged through the mud in retaliation for what she did for the killing of Freddie Gray. So Marilyn Mosby, Google it, see if you could do anything to help her out.

You can be sure that the administration is combing through that case. Yeah, looking. Who else walks a line with mortgage fraud? Who? Donald. Oh, yeah, Donald Trump. That's true. Yeah, they're going to try to make sure that if they get Marilyn Mosby off on something, they don't lose the Trump case, I'm sure. Yeah. Let's just talk about double standards. Did you see that there was an article from Forbes that was like,

Joe Biden tapped $50,000 out of his home equity loan. This is what she did. But that's exactly it. He disclosed that he took from his home equity loan or whatever. She took from her retirement savings because COVID had allowed this short period of time. Now, the spirit of the law, this is the bullshit when they say the spirit of the law only a

She took some money out.

She bought herself a little house in Florida. Marilyn Mosby, you deserve it. You work hard. Yeah. You know who else bought himself a little house in Florida? Donald Trump. You know, honestly, the only person in this country who's allowed to leverage their assets is Donald Trump. Apparently. Apparently.

Anyway, email us. Let us know your thoughts. AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com. Leave us a rating review, please. Let us know what you think. Share. Oh, we if you want to share. We still have our hats for pretty females in Democratic politics. We still have to hand those out. Yep. We'll do that next week. We will do that until next time. I'm Vita Spear and I'm Sammy Sage. And also this hospital lost my dad's underwear and he is still upset about that. But this is American Fever Dream.

American Fever Dream is hosted by Vitus Spear and Sammy Sage. The show is produced by Rebecca Sous-McCatt, Jorge Morales-Picot, and Rebecca Steinberg. Editing by Rebecca Sous-McCatt. Social media by Bridget Schwartz. And be sure to follow Betches News on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Betches.