The Viral Lie About Somali Americans— Qasim Rashid Breaks It Down

Hey everybody, welcome back to the Find Out podcast and welcome to this week in between Christmas and New Year's that I don't think really has a name. I was just referring to it as the Netherworld or I don't know. We're time sort of stands still. So a lot of people are actually taking this week off, but we decided we would do a little counter programming and see if, you know, if people are listening this week. So we're doing this episode done on Thursday, but we're really, really fortunate to have with us a Casimir Sheet, who is a civil rights attorney and a substacker of more prominence than the Find Out podcast, which it's called Let's Address This, which everybody should go check out. So Casimir, welcome, welcome to the show. That's right. Me, Tim, appreciate you. You're bringing me on. And yeah, this is like, it's like purgatory, right? Right. Where we are. It's kind of floating in space. I know there's like cheese and I don't know what day it is. My kids are like, do we have school today? I'm like, kiddo, I don't know what dimension we're in. Stop asking. I know the answer is I wish, but no. But anyway, but it's important to have you on because there is this bubbling story coming out of Minnesota that I think the right wing is getting all up in a tizzy about. And the left is doing what we normally do other than you, which is kind of like hope it goes away. But I don't think this one is going to. And that's why we wanted to have you on because you wrote this piece today called debunking the Nick Shirley video attacking Somalis in Minnesota. So for people who have been paying attention, there is this growing, I guess we can call it scandal with childcare in Minnesota, which seems like a real thing. But of course the right is doing what they always do, which is signal signal out minorities in their role in this thing and try to make it all about them. So could you give us a little bit of an overview of what this story is all about? And then we can dive into how the right is doing what they normally do, which is to turn this all into a race war to rile up their base. You're exactly right. I mean, this is a culture war. I want to lead with that because the goal here, and I talked about this in the article as well as do why are right wing maga pundits suddenly making this a big issue? And the reason why I say suddenly is because nothing that the Shirley kid promoted is new. This is well documented local media, local journalists, actual journalists have already talked about this for years in advance, since at least 2019 by 2021, 2022, these childcare centers that were committing fraud were being shut down, their license is being revoked, people being sentenced. And so for him to come in and pretend that while he's the one who broke this news and he's doing this fearless journalism, it's nonsense. And in my article, I even show screenshots of journalists at the daycare centers years ago that he's revisiting now at the exact same spot and trying to pretend like it's something new. So the first thing I want to point out is there's nothing new here. This is age old stuff. ISIS back. He's bringing it up now in part because Donald Trump has been relentless in attacking Somalis in represent of El Hanomar. And so he probably saw that this is a way for me to get some clickbait headlines, some views and so far, hey, it's work. He's a good marker, but that doesn't mean he's factual. That's one. Two, this is part of a broader fraud scheme that we're seeing nationwide. And I cite the evidence from the Department of Justice who released press releases earlier this year talking about how this and healthcare fraud, Medicaid, Medicare fraud is to the twos of tens of billions of dollars nationwide. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of cases, tens of bills that are nationwide. But for some reason they're only focused on Minnesota and the Somali community who by the way is 1% of the Minnesota population. They're acting like Somalis are 80 million people in this country. No, there's 60,000 people in, uh, in Minnesota and then three. And this is the third point that I bring up that if these folks really cared about fraud, if they were really upset about fraud, then they should be screaming from the hilltops about Donald Trump pardoning at least 24 people convicted of fraud by a jury trial to the tunes of tens of billions of dollars, including Medicaid, Medicare fraud, but they're completely silent on that. In fact, they're celebrating. In fact, it's become so brazen that the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump's handlers are now charging a million dollars to people convicted of fraud to go before Trump and lobby for their pardon. And this is, and we'll talk, uh, I'll pause there because I gave up on a long rant, but these are the culture wars that they're waging. There's a sinister reason behind them, but it has nothing to do with opposing fraud. It has everything to do with upholding white supremacy. Yep. Yeah. And this is exactly why we wanted to have you on it. Explain it. And I read your, read your piece, which everybody should go do. And I want to reiterate again that the Somali population of Minnesota, it's 1% of the population. The way that this, the right wing is talking about this, it's like, it's like 55% or something like that. Also there's all these like ridiculous dog whistles, right? I'm seeing all this. The Somalis all operate as one, one brain. Like what? Yeah. I mean, obviously that is a white, that is the white supremacy angle to this, to try to other Somalians in this country. And it's interesting because I'm from Maine and Lewiston, where actually the, there was a mass shooting there a couple of years ago, not anything to do with them. There's a, I hear a lot of this in Maine as well, these sort of dog whistles. And it's, and it's all, I mean, again, I think you're right. It's cover for Trump's poll numbers sitting at about 35%. I mean, there's Somalis that they're not the Borg, right? They're not like one of the mind that's going to stimulate people. The Daleks. Right? I mean, it's, it's nuts. And they're, they're trying to deflect and, and attack Somalis is because Republicans know a couple of things. They know that 16 years after the ACA passed, they have been so incompetent and corrupt. They haven't proposed in actual viable healthcare solution. They know that they jacked up the ACA subsidies and they're going to expire and ACA rates are going to skyrocket, double and triple, come January 1st. And they need a scapegoat. It's far easier to say, Hey, so Somalis over there and their alleged fraud, wider rates are higher instead of admitting that they don't know how to govern. And that it's because of their own corruption and incompetence that these rates are going higher. And then to your point, Tim, Trump's poll numbers continue to plummet. And Hey, if you're a strong man, if you're a dictator and your poll numbers start to plummet, what's the first thing you do? You find the most marginalized community and you demonize them and you demonize them and you demonize them. The black welfare queen trope is what Reagan uses, what Trump is using right now. I mean, I think that's the thing is, you know, they always need a distraction and sometimes it works. But what you can't do is distract people from their bank accounts and distract people from their household cash flow and the cost of the medical deduction coming out of their paycheck or the cost of the health insurance, you know, bill that they're paying each month. And so like on one hand, I'm like, how is this the reality that we're in? I mean, we ask ourselves that like 14 times a day, right? That we just have to sort of like suffer overt racism from the president and the entire MAGA machine for the billionth time, this time toward, you know, Somalis and just like move on as if it was a political football. It's pretty frustrating, but at least at this point, the other things are coming true that are going to make these distractions because, yes, he does hate people who are minorities, hate people who are different. He hates a Somali community. He doesn't know anything about the Somali community, but he hates them because they look different and they serve him well as a political football. So, you know, this will go past us. He'll do a lot of damage, but, you know, trying to keep the conversation focused back on what he's trying to keep us from looking at is one of my big objectives. Yeah, I want to ask you because this is following a very, the Republican playbook to a T, right? It's like, find this thing that has a kernel of truth. Right? Because it does seem that there are some, some people that have been caught up in this that are Somali, majority of them are white, but like they are. So like there's a little bit of truth there, but then they make it all about the racial stuff. And I think this is what we see regularly, right? Like the Donald Trump's friends and the billionaires use these things when things aren't going well economically to rile up the base, who generally doesn't receive any of the benefits of the people that are voting for them. But this is the stuff of where they keep them in line. But my question is from the, we obviously know what the rights have been doing. Tell us a little bit about like, is the mainstream media covering this fairly? Are they not covering it at all? Because that's a piece of this that is concerning to me is that I'm not seeing a lot of like factual information other than your piece that you just dropped this morning. Out there explaining what's really going on here. And I was able to, you know, write that piece because I have contacts in Minnesota, attorneys, of politicos in Minnesota who are embedded with local politics, with, you know, the local situation, and they're able to kind of share on the ground data and facts and evidence, which I cite in link in detail. You know, Tim, I think we're at a really unique place in the country right now. And this is why podcasts like yours, I think are sort of, you know, you and Luke and rich are so critical to these conversations. Gallup came out with the poll recently that says that trust in corporate media is at a historic low, something like 26, 28%. And the conversation becomes even more sinister when you realize that the way corporate media has built its empire is largely by drowning out local newsrooms, whether it's buying them out and shutting them down or just, you know, pricing them out. So there is a lack of local coverage and then a lack of care on the national level as well. And so there's a huge information gap that's happening right now. And so when these kinds of stories break, Republicans still have the discipline to have, you know, the vice president tweet out some BS about how this is a people surprised winning piece of journalism when it's actually trash. And that's all the queue the rest of them need to run with it. Whereas we're sitting here twiddling our thumbs, still, you know, writing strongly worded letters to the president and not realizing that we need to be able to meet people where they are. We can't just say, well, this is so stupid, people are going to fall for it and be elitist about it. We need to break it down. And we need to provide the receipts and the evidence and have these conversations. And that's why I was so thorough and diligent in my piece to, to, to write this out with all the details and all the facts and all the references, not because I think that Republicans or magas are going to care. I know they won't. I have zero. I have zero fantasy in my mind that this will magically enlighten them. And then, you know, we're going to hold hands and sing kumbaya. I'm writing this because our voter base needs to have the information at hand. They need to know that they're not being doped. They need to know that there's not any truth to this. They need to understand how to fight disinformation with actual facts. And this is one of the reasons why I don't have a paywall on any of my content. Yeah, because I need to make sure we are making this stuff accessible. And, and, you know, to throw it back to you guys, this is why the conversations you guys have are so critical and so important because you're able to reach people in ways that the party establishment cannot, not because they're not capable, but because it's in my view, that is all care. They just don't get it. And one of the reasons why we keep losing these culture wars is because we fight the wrong ones and we forget what Rich said that people are going to ultimately notice what's in their bank account. And if they're convinced that it's because of the Somali immigrant or because of the trans person, right? And there's no other side to it. Then that's where the conversation is going to be. And we will lose that every single time. Right. They double down on the worst possible response to the misery. And that's why I certainly do not want to diminish what Somalis in Minnesota are going through, because there there are real victims of these distractions. Of course. And they're always the marginalized people. To your, to your point earlier. So, you know, politically, yes, we will move on, but the damage to our soul that and I don't even believe in souls, but the damage to our soul that takes place every day and having to just watch terrible things happen to really good people, really good communities and, and by people who are doing all of the things that they were accusing everybody else of doing, that's, you know, I think the truly the hardest part for me. It's really, really, really difficult. But thanks to this information age and sort of where we've gotten in the past, you know, two years with digital creators and I used to laugh at citizen journalists, but I'm like, oh, shit, it's a real thing. And that's us. Yeah. We can at least help people see through that. And frankly, we get a lot more views and a lot more listens than a lot of these cable news programs, you know, these days. So yeah, we know what it looks like. Yeah, but I think I think our problem and I think this is what Cassim's getting to is like, you know, a lot of times we hear these stories right on the left and we go, that's ridiculous. No one will ever believe that. And then they do leave it, right? Like lots of people, like people, like we're all news junkies. We're in it all the time. I mean, because we're all four, all of us are in these different text threads talking about all this stuff. Most Americans don't do that. They don't even watch the news. But if something comes across their Facebook feed, like all of a sudden, I don't know what it is. And there's some of this on the left, too. Don't don't get me wrong. But they are like, I believe it. And if our people don't have the information, what are the, and they they're just like, oh, that's ridiculous. Those people who are getting this information, they're got there, go the Democrats or the liberals, like your progressives or whatever. Again, not defending their position and just like saying this is nothing when it's something that's with quote unquote them. And I think that's been very dangerous to to the discourse, but also the fact that like the only way to break these, some of them, I don't think all of them are like you said, we're not solving 30 percent of this of the population that is MAGA, but like those people in the middle or the or they may they may have voted for Trump because they blame Biden for high prices. Those are the people that we need to be like, no, they are lying to you. Yeah. Or the fact that Donald Trump, we said like it's 24 pardons for for people committing fraud in the millions of billions of dollars. Yeah. Like it's in and the fact that like they're outwardly saying it costs a million dollars for a pardon, which by the way, is a crime. Yes. Like this is why like as rich citizens, I mean, you're you're not a journalism journalist by trade, right? You're you're an attorney. I mean, you were to but like and I'm you know, we're not worried. I mean, we don't see ourselves as journalists, but like, you know, I'm the furthest thing from it. Right. You call yourself a journalist. So like we need to be doing the things that the right is doing, accepted a truth telling capacity and using their strategies against them. Because that's how we start to turn it. And I'm not worried about the the way I talk. I call it collateral education, meaning that the person, the troll I'm addressing may not give a damn what I have to say, but the people watching may better collateral education. And it's been like that. I also want to point out that, you know, this healthcare issue that we're this healthcare fraud that we're talking about, this is where we need to hold Democrats and Republicans alike accountable. Because by being a country that has decided we are going to commoditize healthcare, we are going to benefit off of your cancer diagnosis, that we are going to make money off of the fact that you are suffering a medical emergency while pregnant. We have decided that people's lives have a price tag and we have incentivized as a country fraud. If we caught up with the rest of the developed world and guaranteed healthcare as a human right, you would eliminate 95% of the fraud because now the focus is not profit. The focus is making sure people have the damn healthcare that they need to live. The fact that we refuse to do that is I put that at the hands of Democrats and Republicans alike for different reasons. Republicans because they're anarchists and they don't want healthcare. They want to privatize everything and Democrats because they think that you can privatize it and it not be corrupt. And no, you cannot privatize it and not be corrupt. UnitedHealth, the largest healthcare company out there is being sued right now for denying 90% of Medicaid claims. People died. That's fraud. Denying legitimate claims is fraud because it's a corporation that does it. Suddenly, it's just a booking or rounding error and we excuse it. Efficiency. Nonsense. Till and unless Democrats can actually lead with the courage and conviction to say, I'm going to turn down these campaign donations. I don't I'm going to stop stock trading in healthcare companies and I'm going to guarantee healthcare is a human right. We're going to be in this exact same trap and the average voter is not going to be able to distinguish between Republicans and Democrats because at the end of the day they have cancer, they can't afford it and both parties are complicit. Yeah, it's the old as a parent, incentivize the behavior you want to see. Yeah. If we are the parents of the healthcare system, why are we making it so much more profitable to sell expensive drugs and name band drugs and do expensive procedures and unnecessary procedures and overcharge people? That's what drives the shareholder value and the corporations are responsible for providing shareholder value more than they are for saving lives. And that goes for the hospital systems, but it also goes for the insurance companies. If we flipped that and said, well, tax dollars are going to pay for it and we're paying for outcomes and that's healthy people, that incentivizes all of the behaviors that we want to see it. Incentivizes telling people, hey, you need to get preventive checkups. Everything is cheaper when you had it off early on, you survive, you live a better life and it also encourages people to actually make better lifestyle choices because it puts the accountability where it belongs. But that comes at the expense of shareholders. And so it's just an automatic non-starter because they'd rather have a million people getting sick and then you buy the share and the company and then have a million people getting healed and then they're like, oh crap, the share price dropped 50%. Goldman Sachs had an article that published a few years ago with the headline, is curing people of illness a sustainable business model. I saw that, yes. You're right. I mean, it's crazy. You don't even have to answer the question. I'm already angry about it. Just hearing the question enrages you. Yeah. But that's the world we're in right now. I mean, this is like talking about United Health for a second. You know, this is why there was such an eruption of folks who, you know, I mean, I don't necessarily agree with it, but like, I don't agree with it, but like with Mazzoni, you know, shooting the CEO of United Health on the street in New York, murdering him and people were cheering it. And there are all these people who are horrified about it. But like when you think about it for a second, so yes, yes, a horrific street murder is exactly what it is. Horrific. No doubt about it. But this guy also drove like their denial of claims up way higher, which means I mean, we can't put a number on it probably, but there's hundreds, if not thousands of people. Yes. Died. Yes. Died because of that decision. And as you pointed out, there is no incentive in the health care industry to prioritize the health of the pain. There's zero, right? It's just it's it's the reverse. So like, what are we doing? And I agree, Democrats, I mean, I used to be very cautious about this. And you know, public option. I am I am so ready for some sort of I don't know what the right term at Medicare for all or whatever. Like you have to take the incentives, the financial incentives out of health care. That's right. And it's just badness. We have to end and look the data. I don't care what the argument someone makes is they're all bad for private health care, every single one is bad. And I will stand by this. If you want to talk about cost, we're spending double per capita of every country on earth that guarantees health care. Right. So my wait times, if our wait times are somehow better, why do we have the lowest life expectancy, the highest maternal mortality and the highest infant mortality of any of any developed countries that guarantees health care? Right. If you want to talk about access to a diversity of physicians, we're not talking about fewer physicians. We're talking about cutting out the middleman who's telling you that you can and can't go to a physician. I think our daughter has a very unique life threatening illness that is fatal, if not treated. We had our experts, two double board certified world leading experts tell the insurance company, this is what this little girl needs to live. And they said, no, 13 times they denied us. These are board certified, like the cream of the crop. Like we're talking the top of the top in the world. And they're like, nope, sorry, tough luck. Our, our shmuck sitting in our office thinks that this is not what she needs to live. And so there's really no need for it. The other argument I hear often is, well, what about the people who are working in the health insurance industry? You're going to, you're going to lose all those jobs. Yale tackled this in their study. They tackled this in detail, published the Lancet and they found out two really cool things. One, that the amount of money saved by switching to a universal healthcare model where we're not spending double per capita would be enough to give every person in the health insurance industry two years severance and training for a new job as well. And in addition to that, it would also require us to grow our Medicare system. We already have Medicare. We already have Medicaid. And all they do is process these claims with a two to 3% overhead versus the 20 to 30% overhead that insurance companies charge. And so you're still going to need people to process claims. You're just not going to have insurance companies saying, nope, Tim, we don't think you're sick enough or no bridge. We don't think you actually have cancer. We're going to go ahead and deny it. That's all that's happening. You're just getting rid of the jerk in the middle who's telling you you can't get care, but you're still going to need to have people doing these jobs. So it's not a question of where are they going to go? It's a question of, are we going to pay them a living wage to make sure we get healthcare or are we going to pay CEOs a bonus to buy a second private jet so that you can't get healthcare? It's not a very complicated decision when you break it down. Well, for now, I can tell you exactly what the answer will be though. Yeah. What is it? Oh, they're going to keep killing. Keep giving the old billionaires bonuses. Yep. Yeah. Well, it's funny because we, everyone always says the government is inefficient. The government is inefficient. Waste fraud abuse. You know, that's why Doge was created even though he kept, you know, no, that was only made so that we could kill 600,000 people. Get your shit straight, Tim. Well, that is true. That was the only reason that Doge is made. And that is what happened when you cut USAID for sure. But like there is the narrative, what I'm saying is that there is a narrative out there that the government isn't efficient. Well, the government is more efficient in delivering healthcare than the insurance industry. Yep. Clearly. Like they're spending billions of dollars a year on drugs. You know, this is this thing we see on TV all the time. Now I'm in my late 40s. I see more of them and it's like, ask your doctor about this thing. And I'm like, what is that? Why would I ever do that? Like I don't have a problem. Like why is Pryla set good for? I don't know. Like why? But I wouldn't add. But like they're spending all this money to sell drugs. Right. And it is, it is really inefficient. So it's this, the narrative is just insane. The only place the government is inefficient. Is when it comes to war, the pensioner has never passed an audit. Right. We don't know how that money is going to, trillions of dollars magically disappear every year. We have no idea what hell that money goes. But when you talk about snap, for example, fraud, waste, fraud and abuse is one or two percent. When we talk about Medicaid and Medicare, waste, fraud and abuse, one or two percent. Cause you talk about section eight, waste, fraud and abuse, one or two percent. It is nominal. It is overall a rounding error. And whatever money we are spending on social welfare programs, the economic benefit is 78, 90, more than makes up for any potential ways to burn the boost. And by the way, and I'll be very clear about this, if my tax dollars go to helping somebody get a little bit more food, I'm okay with that. I don't care. Right. Oh, a second sandwich. Good. Eat like, I would rather have that than my tax dollars go to bomb a child in Gaza or in Nigeria or in Syria, wherever the hell's we're bombing in the world right now. Like this is not, I mean, this is why I go back to the fact that I, I'm sick of the culture wars that these politicians and these billionaires keep trying to push us into. And as, as much as I despise MAGA politicians, our conservative friends out there, I will never demonize or dehumanize them because I need them to understand that I don't consider them my enemy, I don't consider them my opponent. I see them as my neighbor and we cannot let these culture wars divide us because at the end of the day, the billionaire who's out to bankrupt me is out to bank up a white male Republican, just the same if it means that he can get that white male Republican to hate me. And that's what we need to fight against. Right. Well, and I also, I got to add a country to that list because apparently we bombed Venezuela last night, according to, to President Trump that we hit the high target. What's hard to keep track of all this bullshit, right? But like something or other, something he did. It was of course, typical Trump fashion. It was very big and we were very successful. But what it was is so we're hitting, we're now bombing South America. And I mean, those missions, by the way, folks, are cost millions and millions and millions of dollars. Just the bombs cost millions of dollars. Yes. Yes. They should give him like a, they should, they should put him in the, in the situation room with like a simulator up on the screen where, and, and he doesn't know that it's not real. And then he can just like bomb anybody, like a video game, like plug him into a video game. Let's see if we can coast with, you know, with him playing like Command and Conquer for the next three or just like right now, he's just throwing a dart at a fucking globe and deciding where to go. Just put one of the expendable movies on and give him a remote control. He'll think that he's blowing stuff up. You know, it's like just like America. I posted it for all we know. Trump got an email from a Nigerian Prince offering him a hundred thousand gold bars bombs and then he fell for it. That's probably what happened. Yeah. I mean, if someone was going to fall for it, I would, I would, I would put it more on him than one of my grandparents or something like that. But yeah, it's just madness. And then it this latest budget bill that I think Trump just signed, I think for the first time ever, the defense budget alone for 2026 is over one trillion dollars, which is more than I believe at least the next, I think it's the next 20. Yeah. Countries combined. Yeah. Combined. It's basically the whole developed world. Right. Which includes China and Russia that we keep telling are these big like behemoths, but like we are outspending them by a tremendous amount. Meanwhile, people can't get health care here or, you know, they don't, they go without health care and then they go to the emergency room when they're on death's door, which is the least efficient. And then your bankrupt for life. It's just absolute madness. But going back to our visual point, like the Trump wants to talk about, you know, Somalis in Minnesota, because he doesn't want to have the real conversation about the fact that his tariffs have made everything more expensive. His poll numbers are now lower than they've ever been. And that's why we're seeing this racial fear. And that's why I'm hoping that more people on our side are talking about this. And it's great that you got this information out here. And I've seen you pushing it on other places too, because we have to, even though this stuff sounds so ridiculous, we still have to inform ourselves in order to educate, you know, our uncle, our cousin, your friend, because otherwise they're just going to think we're full of shit. And that this is another thing that liberals are just screaming about any facts. And we need to make clear that, look, if, if there were some people who are Somali that committed fraud, prosecute them, yes, obviously, up defending them, as far as I know, they have been prosecuted, right? Like three year investigation. 70 have been prosecuted as part of a scheme to traffic $250 million. But the part that always gets left out is that the mastermind of the entire scheme is a Midwestern white woman named Amy Bach that you probably appreciate with, right? And like that's what he missed, but she's the mastermind. She was the one on trial as the headmastermind that coordinated this higher thing. Now that doesn't excuse the other people, but when was the last time you heard that in corporate media or any acknowledged right? That whatsoever. And so I think that's a distinction here that we don't want anyone to be, you know, pardoned from committing, you know, these fraudulent things because it's costing us absurd amounts of money. But also let's recognize a privilege here. This is, this is a white privilege. If you're a white person who commits this, you're responsible and only you're responsible. Yup. If you're an immigrant, if you're Somali, if you're Muslim, if you're brown, you're black, suddenly the entire community on the mere accusation is accountable. That is the double standard that we need to oppose because that doesn't make any of us safe. Yeah. We talk about the, like the double standard, the asymmetry of expectations a lot in left versus right and that it's not just left versus right. It's like sanity versus chaos. When, when they do something like this, good journalists and good content creators and smart educated people don't say, look at this white woman. All white women are the problem. But they do that, but they do that exact thing. Every chance they get. Look at the beta male. Look at the, the, the shooter in Minnesota, who was, I believe was trans, right? Look at the trend. Look at these dangerous trans people and look at the, look at the Somalis. Look at all of the, you know, they immediately make it about the identity and then accuse us of playing identity politics by trying to protect people from their racism and xenophobia. Well, you know, the whole identity politics conversation, it's, it's, it's, yeah, and it's deliberate. It's frustrating. It's deliberate, but you know, it's, it's easy to say for these folks on the right that I'm sick of identity politics when you see your identity represented in politics. And the mere idea that somebody else have a different identity would be there is what offends you. I mean, I, when, when JD advanced that a couple of weeks ago that you don't have to apologize for being white anymore. That's just white nationalist propaganda. That's all that is. It absolutely is. Someone responded that I don't want JD to apologize for being white. I don't want, or I don't want him to apologize for the color of his skin. I want him to apologize for the content of his character because that's where we are right now. And I mean, just imagine, you know, white men have been, I'm talking about three white guys right now. So I know you guys know where I'm coming from. You know, white men have been, you know, 98% of US presidents, 94% of the US Supreme Court, 94% of the US Senate, 90% of the house, 90% of CEOs for 200 years. Right. And now, because you only control 85% of all that stuff, suddenly you're being persecuted like give me a break. Like how fragile are you? How much of a snowflake are you? Pretty fucking fragile. You're, your video on that was so good, by the way, where you, and then you, I think you could turn it into a graphic too, because it was just going apeshit. I was looking up similar stats and then I saw yours and I was like, oh, he already did all the work. So then I went and found another one, which is that 80% of Americans work for a white CEO, which is another thing that it's like, God damn it. Like, and of course I didn't do the gender math, but it's probably 88% white white male CEOs. Yeah. Sure. We see ourselves reflected in every possible, like from our own boss to the to the CEO of our company, to the person representing us in Congress, everywhere, everywhere. We see ourselves in every position of power reflected back to us. And then that changes for like one company, one time, or like somebody in the WNBA makes, makes the headlines for five minutes. And then we're like, Holy shit, all this woke stuff has gone, gone way too far. Great replacement. That's fucking ridiculous. And the thing is like, you know, when we talk about things like meritocracy, and this is where I get upset by fellow Asian Americans for becoming mules for the case that dismissed or ended affirmative action for university admissions. And again, I looked, I'm a numbers guy, I look at the data, like my, my decisions are based on what the facts tell us, what the data tells us. The data tells us that black students were about 8% of admissions into Harvard University. Nothing significant or major, but you know, it's 8%. And that now is being stripped away. And we're seeing a plummeting of black and Latino admissions into Harvard University. Meanwhile, you compare that to legacy admissions, which is almost exclusively white people, because legacy admissions is based off of your father, grandfather getting admitted during Jim Crow, America, when black and brown people weren't allowed to be admitted, when women weren't allowed to be admitted. And you look at legacy admissions and you find out that nearly half of white students at Harvard are there because of legacy. And the argument is, well, they're probably qualified anyway. Well, Washington posted a study and found that the three quarters of them would not have qualified on merit whatsoever. But that's never discussed. So if the question really was about meritocracy, that should have been the very first thing they went after, because you're telling us that the majority of people on legacy have no business being there whatsoever. But the fact that they ignored that and went after black kids, who by the way, were qualified, shows you that it was never about meritocracy. It was again, always about white supremacy. Of course. And it's the same argument with DEI, right? They're always like, Oh, DEI, it's a preference program. No, it's not. No. All DEI is, first of all, diversity, equity and inclusion, not exclusion. Right. And the wild thing, and I got into it with some Bozo Fox contributor this weekend about it, is that like I worked for the University of Michigan before they got rid of their DEI program before we did this job. And I learned an awful lot about what they were doing in the upper peninsula of Michigan, which by the way, folks, not a lot of people that aren't white up there. And that was for kids that were on the lower on the socioeconomic scale. And so they were giving them like they were giving them assistance to get up so that everybody is competing at the same level. It's not if you don't have your grades, you're still not going to get there. But it allows you to have an even playing field. Yes. And what's wild is that the white people in this country, in particular, Ben have had affirmative action their entire lives. Like we it's just assumed that we are going to take these jobs and, you know, all of these things. And what we've actually learned from DEI is that your bottom line, you have a better chance at a stronger bottom line with a diverse diverse board, diverse, diverse leadership and staff. Yeah, because monolith, you know, thinking in like a monolith or one one way of thinking is not the success is not a successful way to succeed. And so it's just wild that, in fact, what the Republicans are asking for is getting rid of affirmative action for white people. Of course, they lose their mind if they heard that. Yeah, it's true. And it's actually, it's actually deadly because again, to your point, Tim, affirmative action was never about admitting unqualified black and brown people. It was about ensuring qualified black and brown people and women also had access. It simply is that. And remember, white women have benefited more from affirmative action than black, Latino, indigenous and Asian people combined. I mean, combined. And I want to double down on this point about how stripping this stuff away is actually deadly. There's a famous case study about how women were dying at higher rates in Ford car accidents and they couldn't figure out why. And this conversation came up because I had a conservative friend of mine talk about, you know, these stupid degrees like gender studies. And I'm like, what do you think gender studies actually is? And of course, you didn't have an answer. But I cited to him the study that women were dying at higher rates in car accidents. And they found out the reason was actually very simple. The reason was that the crash test dummies that they were using were all five, 10, five, 11, six feet tall, the average height of most men. And so when the accidents happened, the way the airbag would deploy would be for a man of that height. Women being shorter were being bludgeoned to death because of the speed and the direction that these airbags were being deployed. And you wouldn't know that if you didn't study gender and didn't understand women have a different physiology than men. And most Republicans don't seem to understand that women have a different physiology. They keep on asking us what a woman is, but they can't define it themselves or what it is themselves. But that's what gender studies teaches. That's what having, imagine if you had a female engineer that said, hey, hold on a second, I'm only five, four. This is for someone who's six, four. This is going to kill me. Something as simple as that. So when we deny a representative access to these important positions of people who are qualified, then what we're actually doing is undermining our own safety and security. So you may be a right wing, mega conservative alpha male self described guy, but there's probably a woman in your life, a spouse, a daughter, a mother, who isn't any of those things and who deserves to be as safe as you are when you drive. And when you deny access to education that ensures women have equal safety and access, you're actually putting your own life and your own family's life in danger. Well, and I think this points to the, you know, the challenge or the weakness on our side of telling these stories. I mean, I bet most of the people who are listening to this right now had, and I mean, I had heard something about this a long time ago, but didn't know, don't know, didn't know that, you know, and I don't think we tend to talk in these like, you know, grand, you know, top level pictures and people want details in specifics. And I do think, I mean, Trump's crazy lies all the time and he's racist, but he has found a way to, to do that for people, to make them understand. Now, for negative reasons, and they're not true, but I mean, I think there's opportunities here for us to really be explained to people in different audiences, like this is how this affects you. Like this is actually hurting you. Yeah. And it's really, you know, this is where I think the alternative media world is going to be very influential because we all have a little bit of a different take on these things and a little bit different audience where I think we'll have, you know, real impact as, as we move into 26 and then the presidential in 28. But it's, you know, this is what the right has actually gotten right for a long time, just for nefarious reasons. And it's because they know how to speak to their audience. And this is like communications marketing 101 is know your audience. And, and also for the people in the audience, because the left is really good about hearing a message, getting angry about it. And then very vocally making sure that they, that, that, that that creator knows that they said it wrong or that they, they stepped on, you know, they stepped on a rake and it hit him in the face. Yeah. If you don't like the message, it's possible the message isn't for you. And that's something that I think a lot of people on the left need to remember is because Trump does a really good job of what he does, because he knows exactly who he's speaking to, and he packages up everything he wants people to believe and to act on into things that resonate with that audience. And his audience is very easy to cater to because it's a, it's a monolith, but then so the left, the job is much harder. But we have to remember that in saying like, if we could go back and rebrand affirmative action, rebrand DEI and rebrand all of these things and put them in the terms that the people who we need to communicate with understand, you know, you're talking to a finance bro or you somebody on Wall Street, you put it in terms of the balance sheet in terms of profit margins. You're talking to somebody who's, you know, hurting in the middle class, you put it in terms of, you know, that they can understand that their community is stronger when there's diversity. Because all they hear is this person needs something. And so it's going to come at your expense. Well, this person gets right. This person needs rights. And we don't, we don't always frame it in a way. That resonates with people who only know and care about the things that are like directly right in front of them. And that's something they're not going to fix it themselves. So we have to either deal with it and try to help or, you know, berate them to death and that has not worked in the past. Yeah. Well said. I, I, I'd love to get you guys thoughts on this. It's probably a controversial take, but I'm, I always want to be respectful of ensuring that we're using words that aren't offensive to people's identities and personalities and just who they are. I think it's a basic human decency. Right. Where I've kind of lost it is I'll give you an example. A few months ago, I got yelled at by folks on the left for saying homeless instead of unhoused. I said I'm like, I'm constantly, but then I said unhoused and I got yelled at for saying unhoused. Both are being politically correct. They are. I had a similar thing happen when I was first starting out. I used the word, the phrase differently able instead of disabled because I thought I was being like, right, you're trying to do that. Don't say that. And I was like, okay, okay. Like, whoa, pump the hate breaks there. Like, yeah, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off, Luke, but I mean, but no, go, no. Exactly what I'm talking about that. It's like, I, I think there's a difference between calling somebody like a slur versus using words that for all intents and purposes don't really mean anything different. I mean, it's just, it's describing like either way, like meanwhile, the person who's unhoused or homeless or whatever you want to call it, still doesn't have a goddamn house. Like what are we arguing about? Right. It's just semantics and it distracts from the point of the actual conversation, which is that person needs their body in a thing that keeps the weather off of them. Can we just like, how do we talk? So, so I think, yeah, and I agree with you. And I think there is a difference between somebody using a term negatively to disparage a person or group of people and somebody who doesn't maybe I mean, myself included, doesn't know the difference. I am all for somebody coming to me and saying, Hey, Tim, like, you know, this is really the term and I've had people do this and I appreciate it. Yeah. You know, but generally the mob comes out and is like, you piece of shit. Why would you ever? And it's like, we all, like we can't be experts in everything. It's not possible. And yes, because I think we have shows that they see us like they see us as as not a mirror of themselves, but like speaking on behalf of people. And I understand that. But like, we have to be better at giving people some grace to learn and grow. And that's different from like saying to Nick Flentes, go fuck yourself because he deserves it. Right. There's a difference. And I think we're just, we are the tone police and it's killing us. Yeah, it really is. I agree. No, I want to be very deliberate. Like if I go and call someone the N word and be like, Hey, I didn't know. That's very different. Well, that's very different. Exactly. Right. That's very different than calling somebody disabled when it's sort of indifferent to the able. Like, I mean, they're, they're, you know, I'm not trying to disparage on the, on the latter example, it's trying to use the right words. And frankly, Luke, I've had that exact same experience with that phraseology as well. And people with disabilities, is that the right phrase? I don't know anymore, but I'm going to continue to advocate for, you know, universal healthcare access. Right. For no other reason than the humanity of a person and they should have that access, but sometimes I feel like we become our own worst enemies when we get into this kind of nitty gritty that doesn't effectively or have any practical effect on solving the problem. And if you go talk to a person who's marginalized and you say, Oh, I'm sorry. We're, we're, I want to make sure I say the word right before I get you in a house. That person's going to say, you know, I, I probably don't care so much about how you talk about it. It's really more what you're doing because I'm really in a bad space right now. And Tim, that's exactly the intent. I, we have to do a better job of, of assuming positive intent when it's a person who 95% of the time, even 56% of the time is trying to do the right thing. We're all on this spectrum of being stupid about most things to being smart about everything we can be smart about. And if you know, the person is trying to go in the correct direction, like, yeah, nudge them or whatever, but in and call it out if it's something that is material, but, but please don't make it the whole conversation. Because then everybody points and laughs and nothing gets done for the people in Intel. And it prevents people from wanting to, to improve and do better as well. I, I public speak a lot and I'm bilingual. I'm an immigrant for this country. Sure. Inevitably every single audience I speak ahead of, I get people walking up to me afterwards, almost all as white liberals, some white conservatives who say, my God, you are so eloquent and articulate. I didn't expect that. Jesus. And the thing is like, they mean well. So if I do mean, you know how racist you are, they would have been mortified. And so I tell them, thank you. I appreciate that. And I, I respond in a way where they feel validated and seen because look, it's not going to do me any good to sit there and die on the hill of how dare you give me a compliment in not the most, you know, specific way. It's so silly. It's such a dumb hill to die on. And that's kind of what I mean, that sometimes it's okay to be the quasi martyr, it's not really even being a martyr. It's just, right. It's a very mild. Right. I don't want that we need to worry about too much though. You are very articulate. Fucking super articulate. Duped. These people will just like sit and watch like a right wingers. They're like, God, we got to get these goddamn homeless people off the street. And they don't say a fucking thing. And you make a video talking about how, yeah, we should get homeless people houses and food and, and they are lining up with pitchforks to get you. Well, look, there and then like the disabled thing, I made that video. And a bunch of actually disabled people were like, hey, we don't love the phrase differently abled like we call us disabled. And I was like, OK, the next video, like a month later, I use the word disabled. And it's a bunch of white liberals that are like, use the word differently. And it's like, I don't think I will. There is. I think I'm going to listen to the people that actually know what they're talking about. There is a terrible tendency of some on our side to want to try and be the most politically pure people on the planet. And it is destructive. And I think this is why we sometimes eat our own faces, right? Because we're getting into arguments about like nuance, like policy issues, rather than being like, hey, guys, we're all one team. Let's argue about this. We actually have the power to do something. But until then, let's stop the fascist creep that we've got now. This this horrifically racist administration, like let's band together. Like, oh, you see this on threads all the time. People arguing about who's going to be the presidential nominee in 2028. Like, can we retake? Can we retake the House and Senate first? Like, and then worry about that for two years? Like also, like it's just it's just like, and I know. They took money from a engagement. The APAC. I mean, look, like I don't want anybody to take money from APAC either. But it's like the people in the Texas stuff got I thought it was a little crazy. But like, even that's at least for 26. But I have people they're like, oh, well, you know, you you took a course money so you're a corporate shill. I'm like, I'm for a green new deal. I'm from Medicare for all. I was Elizabeth Warren supporter. And of course, they're all like, well, she's a corporate shill. I mean, OK, I mean, you are not. You are not operating in a room of operating a good thing here. I've been a corporate shill long before you took money. Tim, the OG. True. True. I have worked a corporate job. So I did. I have a soft pivot. If if we want to make fun of Republican men just for like five to 10 minutes. Do it. Yeah. Then yeah, we got a few minutes and we got about OK. OK, so Wall Street Journal ran a article the other day, a column. And I was like, here we go because it's titled America needs more husband material. And and in the Wall Street Journal, when it's Rupert Murdoch and in all of the I'm like, OK, what are we getting into? Turns out it was a it was like a Democratic staffer from Bill Clinton era who wrote it. And so I was like, oh, wow, this is mind blowing that they published it. But it turns out that what what the the article is about is that educated women who more and more women are getting college degrees and it's been on an upward trend for a long time. They're still getting married at the same rate. They're still getting married about 70 percent as they have for like 50 years. And so who are they marrying? Because educated men or college educated men have been on a decline for the same amount of time. And so what they found was that educated women are now taking the top like five to 10 percent of noneducated men in terms of earnings as their next option, because they've married all of the guys with college degrees that are that want to get married, right? And so but then there's still women left over who want to get married. And so they're taking now the top earning non-edged non-college educated men and it's left uneducated men and uneducated women are the only people left in the and I and I'm talking about college degrees, not like life, but yeah, are the only people left. And so now you then you compare that to the what? 70 point gap and approval rating between young men and young women. The husband problem, I think we all know is right in front of us. But since what three of us are married, right, Luke, you'll get you'll get there. So I'm me. I get there. You'll get there. You know, what would you guys what advice would you give to a non-college educated man, you know, and let's say Missouri, who wants to get married? This is what they do. This is a slight shift. What should they do? What's it? You get a degree? Find a woman who who's attracted to them still? I mean, what's the don't be a piece of shit. Yeah, be respect a respectable human being that is kind and like respects others and lifts up people who need the help and don't like disparage people. That's beta stuff, though. Do you have any like or there is there an alpha path to being a high value male without a college degree or. Where will you do it? I think I mean, for me, and I talked to I mean, I've got two boys. We got three kids, two boys, and my eldest is going to be 17 next week. And, you know, what I talked to him about, I said, you know, the term alpha male has been kind of common here by the right to mean, like, you know, arrogant and blunt and loud and angry. And I'm like to me, an alpha male is somebody who leads with integrity and respect and dignity. Somebody who is secure in who they are, how they look and recognizes that true strength comes in being in self control, not being in a belligerent or in people's faces. You want to develop a persona that when you walk into a room, people notice your presence because they respect you because of who you are, not because they fear you because they don't know what you're going to do if you lose your damn mind. And I mean, I think like that. I think women will be drawn to that. Women are drawn to that. I mean, it's how I lured my wife into marrying me, right? And we're now 18 years later. And so I think part of it is like, for us on the left, we should redefine what alpha male means as somebody who leads with a sense of compassion and conviction and sincerity in what it means to treat people with decency. You know, that is the kind of leader that I want to see. That's the kind of leader we'd all want to work for. That's the kind of leader we'd want to have as a father, right? That's the kind of father figure we need. Until and unless we can do that, we're going to kind of goes back to where we started this conversation. We'll keep ceding control of the narrative to the right of what these terms mean, and we don't need to do that. We can lead by example ourselves. And I think we do that consistently enough. We'll have success. That's great. Well, I'm going to end it there because we are at the hour. We could pick that up more. But yes, guys, if you're listening, don't be an asshole. Women don't want that. That's start off with that. Cassim, thank you very much. It is so great to have you on. I know we've known each other for a while and it's so great to finally do something online together. And everybody go check out Cassim's sub stack in that article today. We've also got two guys wearing merch. I'm not going to do my whole spiel because it's the middle nowhere we can. You don't want to hear it again. So people are just eating cheese and eating cheese at home. Maybe maybe too many drinks at night or whatever. And, you know, being gluttonous that they should all the above. But anyways, guys, have a wonderful New Year's. We're January is going to be a big month for us. I think we're going to be announcing some of the new projects that we're working on and some other exciting things. And that this is really becoming a media company. We're really excited about to do some of the work that the left has not done in a long time. So we're really excited to do that. So everybody have a wonderful, wonderful rest of your time off. Enjoy this week where time doesn't matter. And we'll see you next week. Take care, guys. It's hot.