Pelosi & McConnell Fall (again,) Banning HFCS, & How To Fight Insurance Companies
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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. And where we also put on makeup. What?

Sorry, you're going to blow me up like that? Sammy is putting on makeup as we're starting the show. This is an American fever dream where I'm here to let you know, listeners, Sammy and I are going to get so hot this year, it's going to make you sick. You're going to be sick of us. Sick of us because I have time. You have time?

Where's your time? Where are you getting time from? From the TikTok ban. That's where I won't be spending. Do you know that I get my weekly, like, how much time I spend on the internet? And it's like nine hours. It's like a full day that I spend on TikTok. So the TikTok ban is going through. It is my job. And I...

I appreciate everybody tagging me and all the solutions that folks are coming up with. I've been dealing with this for three years, almost four years now. They've been trying to ban TikTok and I've never told you they're going to ban it before. I've told you they don't have a way. I'm telling you now they do have a way. And even the people who wrote the legislation are a little bit scared by how ironclad what they wrote is. We're not getting a fair day in court and now nobody wants it banned, but they have to keep up the ruse of, oh, it's for national security. And to me,

That has nothing to do with it. I think it goes back to the time that TikTok exposed Mark Warner's Restrict Act legislation and everybody dropped it. And I'm upset. And now I got to be on YouTube and I can't use the filters. So I'm going to have to like actually, you know, learn how to like do YouTube makeup or something. You know what? We should just play underneath this whole segment. You're so vain.

I spent the last four years staring at my face and that was very different. It is weird when you're a creator to constantly look at yourself. Like, it's weird. That's why I don't do more stuff. Yeah. Nobody loves me like I love me and even I'm sick of my damn face. No wonder they banned TikTok. Well, here we are. They're like, we're sick of that girl's face. We're done with it. They're like, I'm turning this episode off because I'm also sick of their voices. I'm sick of them. Fuck them.

Right. Okay. We promise this episode will get better. Can you tell we're preparing to see our parents? I'm preparing to see my mom for the holidays and I always get like insecure. That, I think that is relatable. Every time I know I'm going to see my family, I haven't seen in a while. I like get nervous that they're going to perceive me. And then I start like being like, Oh my God, I have to like immediately do skincare. And like, what am I going to wear? And like, they don't give a shit. I,

I don't have this feeling now, but I've had this feeling in the past and it is annoying. You know, especially if someone's going to be like, oh, you look like you're getting weight. Yeah. Or my mom will be like, do you ever try a little lipstick? I'm like, no, ma. No. You got to get that Monica Lewinsky lipstick. I know. That was my first and last lipstick. But yeah, we're gearing up for the holidays. It's a weird time. It's a time in between the end of the year where nobody wants to do anything and everybody's weird.

We're like part reflecting, part wondering if we bought enough presents for people, part wondering if I'm going to have money after I buy presents for people, all that shit. I do have a segue for our first topic. And that is, while I may be feeling down, I'm not down as bad as Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell were this week. I mean, two of them taking big falls out there in the world. God.

God is sending the signs that they need to step down from leadership and they're just not taking them. They're ignoring them. They're not taking them. You know what? I saw a musical this past weekend called Moses and I didn't really know about Moses because in the Catholic faith, we like to start at Jesus and go from there. We'll like sort of tap about, we'll be like, okay, yeah, Moses. Okay, Joseph, you know a little bit Noah, but they don't really dive deep on Moses. And I think Moses is my favorite of the Bible characters now.

He did a lot of cool shit. Moses is quite relevant to the Jews. Yeah, well, that's why they don't let the Catholics know about it because they're like,

no, we really want you to focus on Jesus. But I'm like a Mositarian now. I was like, Moses was dope. Moses was dope. Moses could get Nancy Pelosi to step down. Let my people go, Nance. Let my people go and run for chairman of the oversight committee and not be up against a 70-year-old man who has cancer because you don't want AOC in the seat. Not to disappoint you, but I don't know if Moses would allow AOC into the seat because he famously...

Was not a fan of women. He didn't cede any... No, he was a fan of women. He didn't cede leadership until he literally died. So just saying, maybe it really... Moses is off by Christmas. I don't know. Maybe we're looking in the wrong direction for a lesson. No, it wasn't quite like that. The story was more complicated. But to the point...

Nancy Pelosi broke her hip while she was in Luxembourg. Listen, she was in Luxembourg. Nothing makes me more upset than the fact that Nancy Pelosi, who has $200 million, is going to get this hospital stay for like three euros.

Yeah. They have the best healthcare there. That's what they were saying. They're taking such great care of them. And it doesn't matter who you are. You don't have to be a citizen. They just take care of you. And the thing that pissed me off about it was when she was like, I fell. I broke my hip. Don't worry. I'm still working. I'm like, please don't. Please don't set that example anymore of being like, oh, if you break your hip, you still work. She ain't going to run far with that hip replacement. Oh. Yeah.

I don't know what she's going to do. I can't do another Dianne Feinstein moment though. And I, and you know who will be, it was her daughter, Christine Pelosi that was pushing Dianne Feinstein around the halls of Congress. And I can't have Christine back to push Nancy around Mitch McConnell freezing up again. You know, it just, it's too much. It's too much. He looks so ridiculous and he freezes up in front of the cameras again. I don't, how is this happening? How is this, how is this allowed? Because the,

because everyone plays this gentlemanly game in DC. This is the thing I hated about DC always is that everyone's like, oh, well, we have to be the bigger person. We have to be gentlemanly. We have to be this and that. And it's like, no, we don't. We don't. We have to tell people... Why are people still so afraid of Nancy Pelosi? Like,

At some point, there has to be a collective mass that could be like, we have so much respect for what you did, but we have to continue the work and that work. We're getting behind AOC or we're getting behind Jamie Raskin or whoever. Like, why is she still trying to put her finger on the scale against young people taking leadership? That just is weird.

Well, I have an idea, V. Because I'm in D.C. at this very moment and you're going to be in D.C. in just a few short hours, why don't we make that our mission to figure out? Why are people so afraid of Nancy Pelosi at this point especially? I think maybe that's what we want to get to the bottom of because why? Like are you guys afraid you're going to get cut out of the will? And also why is she split 200-something ways?

You're not getting much anyway. I know. But that's how they act. It is how they act.

But what confuses me is like, is there some real form of harder power than we're aware of going at play? Because why doesn't she want AOC to be on the oversight committee specifically? It's not like that's her position. Do you know what that's about? We should have gone to see the play and then we would have known. Me and Sammy were supposed to go see the play at Lincoln Center, N.A., which was about Nancy and AOC, and we missed it. So now we can't bring you the story and that's on us for being bad theater patrons. Yeah.

That was a fictionalized account. I'm just saying there's a little truth in all. I think it's a threat, not to Nancy's power or position. Okay. When going back to this theater that I went to, to see Moses said, I was sitting next to this older gentleman, Ed, who immediately told me he voted for Trump. And I was like, that's cool, man. And we ended up chatting and he was like, I just couldn't look at Biden. He just was so weak in Trump. You know, he's like the same age, but he presents strength. And I was like, that's why we lost. Yeah.

there was something about older men. Men see other men as a mirror. This is what my new friend Ed told me. And he saw himself more in Trump. He felt like that made him less face his own mortality or his own age than looking at Biden did. And I'm going to bet that when Nancy's looking at AOC, she's like, I used to be that girl. And does she feel like she's, you know, is Nancy willing to face that she's more at the end than the

the middle even. And maybe that's something that she should work with her therapist on as she retires and counts Dira off her back deck. Right. Doesn't seem like that's coming upon us anytime soon though, but maybe the health experience will change her tune. Well, I kind of don't think so. Her husband was beaten with a hammer and she's still running again and again and again. The universe will teach you a lesson.

kind the first time, a little bit stronger the next, and then it will break your hip in Luxembourg. The ways that your destiny is supposed to unfold will unfold. You can't cheat death and you can't keep going after the point that you're actually supposed to. And I think we're just at a point with her, Mitch McConnell, Chuck Grassley. There's so many people, even Bernie Sanders, where I'm like, I got it. We've absorbed your wisdom. I'm grateful for the things you did. I truly am. But you're starting to ruin it. You're starting to ruin it. You're

your legacy. Right. If it is true that she sees herself in AOC, which I don't know if she necessarily does, because if you think about when Nancy Pelosi came into office, she had five children. She was already kind of in the act two of her life. Yeah. She grew up in a political family. It wasn't so out of reach for her. She is quite a religious woman and it kind of like went

in accordance with her faith. AOC is like a, of our generation. I just think people look to AOC for answers now and they used to look to Nancy for answers. And I'm wondering if that somehow makes her feel left out. Yeah.

Well, yes. Although I feel like the people around Nancy Pelosi still look to her for answers enough that she gets the good feels. Leave us alone. After what she did to Ken Russell in Florida, in Florida's District 17, and then lost. I don't know. I have a lot of feelings about a lot of things, but this is not a show about my feelings.

And we are, for all of our dysfunction, not the most dysfunctional people in Congress right now by a long shot. Congress is supposed to be passing the stopgap measure to keep the government funded, and Speaker Johnson can't put together a budget to save his life. He did make time to go to the Army-Navy game and sit in Trump's suite with Daniel Penny.

who killed a guy on the subway for reasons that the court now disagrees with public opinion on who was responsible and how responsible and what the punishment should be. Well, I mean, he did have a trial of his peers. He had a trial of his peers, Daniel Penny, but regardless...

That is too much of a... Yeah, we're not going down that path. Honestly, I think the Daniel Penny thing, and this is why it's upsetting that he was then brought to this Army-Navy game, which is that this is a tragic thing that happened on this subway. The people who live in New York City, who have severe mental health problems, who are in and out of homeless shelters, potentially arrested dozens of times, who clearly have a mental illness, and it is a sad situation...

That should not be fodder for a culture war and us versus them. For me, a story like this should tap into everyone's humanity. That's a really sad situation. And I believe that what Daniel Penny did was try to protect people who, by their account, this was a very sad, scary thing from what I understand.

Jordan Neely was still alive when the coughs came and they did not administer any form of help for him. So this is a complicated situation. And just because this guy was not held responsible by law does not mean that he is a hero. You know what? Forget whether or not you evaluate him as a hero does not mean that this story needs to be nationalized and exploited.

It's fucked up. And also it doesn't mean you get invited to the president-elect's box suite for like a VIP night of football because that's when it does get extra weird and super political. And that's when they are making, you know, what happened be separate from the way they're going to treat it now. It's like what they did with Kyle Rittenhouse.

Kyle Rittenhouse also got off. And then they were like, oh, he's our hero now. Like, is Daniel Penny going to be speaking at CPAC? What does Daniel Penny have to do with the Republicans who are also on the same side saying, oh, everybody on the left is a sicko for thinking that Luigi is hot or whatever they have with that? Because they have turned him, and they, as they always do, they always turn these

sad situations, these messed up violent situations into a culture war. That's how they capitalize on everything. That's how they capitalize on every conversation and turn. That's how, if you really think about it, post-2020, after Trump was out of office, that is how they made their comeback. Because

They kept hammering immigration, crime, everything's so dangerous in all the cities. Everything's so expensive. It's because of the immigrants. That is how they got back their power.

So this is actually very effective for them. And it's very, very sad and fucked up. And to your point about how they'll turn around and say something about the Luigi who shot Brian Thompson, it just shows the hypocrisy of these people. And in so many people, when they discuss this situation, because either you believe death is bad, cheering it on, murder, killing people is bad on a karmic level, or you don't.

And you can have your gripes with the establishment, with the insurance companies, which are so fucked up. And also, you know, kind of like murder by spreadsheet, if you want. Like that's how I would categorize it. Murder by P&L. But the point is,

You don't cheer that on either. And just because you've now found a target for your anger does not make it karmically and spiritually cool with me. And I think part of the problem is that people like me who have this issue with it, who I don't give a shit about the establishment. I don't care about the insurance companies. I do not think they should be in business. I do not think health should be insured.

I believe that, but I get lumped in because I don't think that cheering on Luigi Mangione, who we don't even know what happened with his mental health, cheering him on is a good thing.

and who the people are matter less than what people have decided they represent. And Luigi Mangione represents an eye for an eye, represents a place for people who lost people because of the decisions that Brian Thompson made. Feel like, you know what? I suffered and now you suffer too. And it's this whole pulling down situation too, where it doesn't matter who Daniel Penny is. It doesn't matter who Jordan Neely was. It doesn't matter who Brian Thompson is. It doesn't matter who Luigi Mangione is. It matters what the media and people have

put on them to represent. And that's why we're in this kind of like, again, fever dream weird space. That's what's so fucking sad about this moment is that everything just becomes like an avatar for something else. Nothing can be nuanced and what it is. And everyone has come to stand for something that is in opposition with something else. It feels like the incentive structures all

all across society have broken down so that the situation basically incentivizes all the worst behavior and all the worst, most antisocial. I don't mean this as an introverted. I mean, this is the opposite of pro-social behavior. So corporations are incentivized to exploit people and then hide themselves away and

when their consumers try to hold them accountable. I don't mean by murder. I mean in general, not even just in the insurance industry. People are incentivized to stir up frenzies online and share false things because it will make them, their posts go farther. It will make them richer. Literally, it will make them richer. They're incentivized to not follow science and real information and to have real conversations because you're not going to get the most views.

It's like, how can we ever function? At what point do we turn the norms around to be encouraging of pro-social behavior? Mm-hmm.

How do we do that? Sammy and I, before we got into recording today, I told her I didn't want to talk about Luigi because it's so hot on TikTok that I'm like, Sammy, I don't have the mental capacity to say the wrong thing about him right now and have it become like the way that it does, which is where we center a TikToker for what they did that wasn't exactly perfect. And then that's going to be my last 30 days of TikTok. I don't want to deal with it.

Um, and that, that, you know, this is where we're at. I'm sorry. I brought it up. No, I'm glad we're talking about it. I think it's important for other people who I'm sure are listening right now and going, yeah, I never know what to say anymore. Cause I feel like that. It's like, you never won't know what to say because we're in a surveillance state where everything you say, you could be recorded. It could be repackaged and put online. And I'm not just talking about like big tech talker

people like anyone. How often do we see a stranger be recorded and then context is added and then billions of views later and that person made thousands of dollars off of it? We don't know what happened that day. And then what's worse is while we're spinning on all of this and people are making literal 3D printed Chia pet heads of Luigi Mangione so that they could grow his hair out or any of the other fan edits that are happening, they are trying to pass a budget. Paying his legal bills? Yeah. And that'll happen. We...

Loving a violent man is just about as American as apple pie, right? We were just in this situation a couple of months ago when they were saying that people were saying Jeffrey Dahmer's hot and they were all upset about that, right? America loves a violent man, okay? I'm not surprised that they love Luigi. It is what it is. What we're not seeing...

America is a violent man. They're calling it the American guillotine, death by gun, right? There's a lot to talk about here, but we don't get to that because we all argue about should we think Luigi's hot or not? Who cares? People are like, I love a bad boy. I totally get it.

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What we're not talking about, though, is that the government isn't going to be funded, right? And Mike Johnson can't put a budget together. And the thing that he won't put in his budget is $14 billion in farm aid for the Midwest. Now, you may not know this, but there is a fight, a bruin between Republicans, which I think will surprise a lot of people, and farmers, because normally the farmers vote for Republicans. Mike Johnson...

is one, because the farm, when they're going through with Doge and everybody and saying how they're going to cut the budgets, they're talking about cutting farm subsidies, which is what keeps this country running.

Add to that the amount of farmers who are retiring and the amount of farm foreclosures we're seeing, we're in a weird spot that the farm subsidies cannot be on your line item to say, well, just grow more corn. That's not how it's going to work, right? They don't know how the government works. And then on top of it, on top of them just looking at it and going, well, why should we give the farmers any money? Fuck them. You got RFK Jr. in there saying, well, I'm going to ban high fructose corn syrup. Now, you're crazy.

crazy. You're crazy. Do I think we should have it in all our food? No, absolutely not. There's something we should be doing. But you're crazy to go up against the corn kings and queens of the Midwest and expect that they're going to let that happen? They build whole summer festivals around corn and corn queens. You can't go after the farm dynasties of America. V, I look at the corn farmers of Iowa and the Midwest at

Afghanistan. Empires fall when you try to go to war against it. You will not. You will not succeed. No, and

No, and I don't watch you. You'll never beat the big corn. No, I'm taking up arms for big corn and I don't like it. Why? Because there are just certain things that happen in this country that need to continue. You cannot shut them off. You cannot shut off the entire Midwest and starve them. I'm not saying we should. I'm just saying as an example of a solution, could one scale up or down the production of corn and

And supplement it with something else that they're perhaps growing or producing in order to create that income. Because for the last dozens of years, they have forced us to scorch earth and make cheap crops like soybeans and corn and all these things that can be made not just into animal feed, but into people feed and into products often, like your corn straws and all that kind of stuff comes from that. It's not that...

We had to produce this level of corn for the subsidies and for like what was going on at that time. What they actually need to do is start incentivizing farmers to grow food for consumption and not food for product making, not food for corn syrup, not soybeans for fuel, all that kind of stuff.

But that actually means breaking down the oligarchy at the top because you got the farmers, which is who you think of. And then you've got Montesano who own all the seeds and like you have to buy their kind of seed and all that. And I don't even want to talk about it on the show because I fucking know better. Okay. I came from the food world and I am, I'm not here to mess with. That's not my job.

But the Secretary of Agriculture and our elected officials should be looking at that stuff and going, why are farmers so poor? Why are Americans so overfed corn syrup? Why do we need to add cheap preservatives to all of our food? And it's because that's the product that we make here because of years of mismanagement, not from the farmer side, but from the big industry side. And they need to be growing food for consumption on a more local level. It's a government problem. And the government subsidies. Yeah.

If the government was subsidizing, like they did for me in Maryland, farm boxes, CSAs, stuff like that from local farms to families, you could do incredible things. And we can scale that program out. But I'm telling you right now, Mike Johnson, if you're listening to this podcast, you're

You don't want to mess with the corn. Yeah, he must be. You don't want to start with the corn. Don't start with the corn and the soybeans. You have bigger fish to fry. And RFK Jr. is not going to stop production of high fructose corn syrup or corn syrup or corn in at all. He doesn't know anything about this industry. And while we hear high fructose corn syrup is bad for you, and it is, you have to look at what it takes to move that ship. And it's not a dead stop in the water. That's not how it works. Like-

We can't bankrupt the entire Midwest. But I do think that farmers, workers, well, they're trying, right? And the farmers are still reeling from Trump's tariff war in 2018, which is what Republican legislators from the Midwest are saying to Mike Johnson. Look, you wanted Trump. We gave you Trump.

He has to give back to them because they're still messed up from his tariffs in 2018 and we're not even to the new tariffs yet. So they are going to learn a very hard lesson and that is going to unfortunately impact all of us because I did not fuck around and I still have to find out. But I think we're going to see the absolute stupidity of some of these Republican candidates.

I don't even... I don't know what they are. Like, these RFK Jr. Elon people, when they try to go up against something like porn. They're like the biohacking trad wives, kind of. They are. You know what I mean? And it's like, girl, those supplements don't work. There's nothing in them. It's just saline solution. Like, it's not... It's not... Look...

If you're looking at everything, you're looking at everything as a line item. It's the way they look at TikTok. They look at it as a widget and they say, why won't you just sell me the widget and just give it to me? And it's like, because it's not, that's not how it works. You don't understand how complicated this is and the people that rely on it. And so I've never heard of the butterfly effect before. They've never, no. Or the burnt toast theory. What's that?

It means like if you burn your toast in the morning, you might have to make more toast and that makes you two minutes late. But by being two minutes late, you avoided a car accident or you ran into the love of your life. It's burnt toast theory. A minor inconvenience can actually better your life. I didn't know it was called that, but I did once hear that if you leave something at home and you have to go back, you should just take a little extra time because...

You might have avoided an ill fate. So just a thought. Is that true or is that something they say? Is that something they say like when you get shit on by a bird and they're like, it's lucky. Is it? I don't know if I believe that. I don't know. I believe in...

Clearly some form of spirituality and karma. Well, I hope spirituality finds Mike Johnson because he is in a world of trouble. He cannot handle what he has going on. And the Democrats have said they'll not support him again if they do another recall. Like if Marjorie Taylor Greene gets up there and says, I want to do another speaker recall, they won't support him again. Well, then Speaker Hakeem Jeffries.

I'm here for Speaker Hakeem Jeffries. There are so many things. I hate when people on the internet, I'll report something and they're like, what are they distracting us from? But there are a lot of distractions right now, like the drones in New Jersey. Nobody cares about the fucking drones. Yes, they do. I don't know what you're talking about. No one cares. I care. Who's they? Like the public will be distracted by the idea of drones more than a lot of the stuff that's going on with like UnitedHealthcare or like the budget, stuff like that.

People are obsessed with the drones. The healthcare, yes. The healthcare, yes. The budget, doubt it. I'm going to tell you what the drones are. You tell us. Please tell us. I hope you're right. The drones...

are an exaggeration of people's imagination, half and half military exercise. I promise you. There are people who think they see it and then every single thing they see in the sky. I used to think I saw Santa Claus in the sky. It was an airplane, but my parents let me believe it. People heard there are drones and now they're calling in every single thing they see in the sky. No. If there were a horde of drones, they would shoot them down.

There are real lawmakers who have seats on committees where they would know. There are people who have military backgrounds who are saying that this is fucking weird. This doesn't make sense. And it doesn't make sense that the president and the administration are saying, we don't know

what it is, but we know that they haven't done anything malicious. That logically breaks down in about one step. What is going on? That's why I'm saying it's military and they just don't want to tell us what it is because if it wasn't, they would shoot it down. I don't know. They don't want people to know about what they're exercising. You know what's coming out in two days also? People are asking me about the 45 days since the election.

Do you know over the last, so there was the election and then for 45 days after the election, there's the ability for everybody to investigate if there was international interference in our election and raise like a concern. Well, that is Wednesday. I believe it's Tuesday or Wednesday. So either the day you're watching this or it'll be the next day is the 45 days where like the FBI, the DOD, everybody gets to put forth their how much foreign

foreign interference was there in our election and in what ways. That's what I'm waiting to drop. Oh, I'll be waiting as well. I don't care about the drones or the aliens. I don't care about anything else. I'm like waiting on this 45 day thing to drop. I hope that you are correct to not think about it and to just ignore it and assume it's fine because I am curious what the drones are. And I also am also curious about the foreign interference report.

My eyes will be on that immediately. We'll drop a special. Assuming there's something. If there's something. Noteworthy.

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Welcome back. By this point that you're listening, I am in D.C. and Sammy and I have already gone to Hanukkah at the White House, which I'm so excited for.

We're also going to Christmas at the White House because we're going as each other's plus ones. Because I think we said last week our spouses are not interested in going. But I'm so excited to be included in Hanukkah. Look, I think we're going to have a great time, San's spouses. Because we have some missions to go on. What did we say? We were finding out why people are so afraid of Nancy Pelosi. Who's afraid of little old she? That's number one.

What's mission number two? I want to know if Joe Biden's getting a presidential library. That's hot gossip that he's apparently like not raised enough money to get a presidential library. And by this point, Barack Obama already had it fully funded. And I'm like, please, if the Obama Biden teams could stop their pissing contest, that'd be great. But

I want to know, is Biden getting a presidential library? What will happen to the state of Delaware and in particular, Wilmington without the Bidens in office? Like what's the new hotspot for the Amtrak DC commuter? DC. DC is the new Wilmington, Delaware. Palm Beach. Palm Beach. Oh God.

The amount of people who are going down to kiss the ring of Trump is wild. I mean, Mark Zuckerberg giving a million dollars to the inauguration, ABC's paying $15 million because they like misspoke about him one time. Like there's a lot of,

Joe Scarborough yelling at everybody. You know who else is donating a million dollars to the inauguration? Jeff Bezos and Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI. They each threw in a milli. ABC News. That's nothing to them. That's like 10 bucks, right? That's a dollar. That's why it's like... Yeah. I believe... I see it as like an ante more than anything. It's like, oh, yeah, we're all here at the table. And then with ABC, they had...

George Stephanopoulos had used the phrase rapist to describe Donald Trump in the context of the E. Jean Carroll case. And what it was was that he has been found liable for sexual assault. So that's the correct term. And as a result, Donald Trump sued ABC News on George Stephanopoulos. They settled yesterday because they were going to depose him this week. And they obviously didn't want to do that.

So they, meaning everybody. And so instead they're giving 15 million to his inauguration fund. And Joe Biden can't even pull together a few bucks for an Encyclopedia Britannica over here. I know. Well, you just said OpenAI and I didn't like plan to talk about it, but did you hear about

Unfortunately, this 26-year-old kid who was a former OpenAI researcher was found dead on November 26th in his apartment. Terrible, horrible story. He had accused OpenAI of violating copyright law with its popular chat GPT model. Also, I didn't know one query on chat GPT takes the same amount of energy as one AAA battery. Why are we doing this? I don't know that particular statistic, but yes, it does use quite a bit more energy than your average Google.

Well, they're restarting the nuclear reactors off the coast of Manhattan so that Microsoft can power AI. Maybe that's what the drones are for. That's probably what the drones are for. They're looking for more nuclear reactors. Can you believe that's a real sentence that I just said to you? Microsoft purchased defunct nuclear reactors so that they could run them not to make energy cheaper for everyone or to improve the electric grid, but to power AI.

Unsurprising. Deeply unsurprising to me. Money will always speak more. Of course. But they're saying that this kid was a whistleblower. He was saying that the modeling that they're promising people is not true. And I can't imagine.

Yeah.

Super sad story that I think really speaks to the pressure that people feel right now in this like rapidly moving tech space that we know is over promising and potentially ruining the planet. Yeah, I mean, this is a bigger economic question of kind of the Ponzi scheme of it all. I know. Yeah.

I know we got the Hawk to a crypto. Now we got the, the chat GPT. She rugged her whole audience. She rugged them. Basically. She put out a coin. I'm not going to explain like the mathematical or financial put out a coin. How do you just put it? Because we're not gonna, we're not scammers. And we didn't talk to on that thing on that microphone.

True.

All those people lose their money because now it's worth like basically nothing because it was all hers. So yeah, that's essentially what she did. She made like $50 million. Good for Hawk Tua. I will not feel bad for a woman. No, not good for Hawk Tua. Yeah, no, I'm not going to feel bad for her because if you are a man who invested in a Hawk Tua coin, then I don't know what else you would have spent your money on. And perhaps it's best that you've been parted.

Well, I hope that no... Look, that's feminism. I hope that no women were harmed in the... Actually, you know what? If you bought that, I don't know what to tell you. I can't get with you on that. Yeah. I mean, the thing is that this whole thing is kind of taking over culture. Yeah.

And the one that I know we started, we've talked about a million things and we've gone in every direction. Going back to the Army-Navy game with Trump and J.D. Vance and Elon Musk and Mike Johnson always in the corner with his little peek, peeking his little head over, hi, I'm here, not working on the budget. Such a loser. It's all about, it's like this aesthetic. I don't know what it will eventually be named, but this techno scam scheme thing

vibe that glorifies like very innately violent masculinity and punching down has become such a

This like toxic glue. And I don't know. At least talk to us. It's schoolyard bullshit. The stuff they're doing is so nerd. It's like you could write a movie about like really Trump is your strong man. I mean, come on. I don't know. I don't want to rehash all the weirdness of MAGA, but it is sort of like revenge of the nerds, but not the cool nerds. It's like revenge of the incels, I guess. Like remember when nerds used to do cool stuff and they were like the good guy? I'd like to bring those days back.

That's what Silicon Valley kind of sold themselves as in the beginning. Yeah. The good nerds. And then they became these like techno-capitalist

coin people. Well, the actual cool people left and became like contestants on The Bachelorette. Like the guy who founded like Venmo or something sold it and then was on The Bachelorette. He did? Who? Oh my God. John, his name was. The world is in a weird place. But I won't be here for inauguration. So I won't be able to bring you that news. Where are you going to be? Yeah.

On a farm. Just getting ready for when RFK Jr. puts everyone on SSRIs on a farm. I'm going to go to a farm. There's a farm here in Rochester that I like that you can rent. You can go and be there. And I'm going from the 19th to the 23rd.

to just not be a part of it because it's somebody else's turn to report on that. Like, what am I going to do? We already made a deal with my audience that I won't show pictures or videos of Trump. They're like, I need to know what he does, but I can't look at him. And I was like, that's totally fair. Yeah. I mean, I don't really like looking at him either unless it's like necessary. Like, for example, there's a clip I would recommend everyone watch where he's talking about on Steve Bannon's War Room podcast about how much he loves the Phantom of the Opera. I sent this to you last night at like probably 1 a.m. about. Yes.

Yes. The man is a friend of Dorothy. He definitely is because he's like an old New York person who thinks that Broadway is still the Phantom of the Opera. His favorite song is Memory from Cats and stuff. The YMCA. Please, girl. Please. Yeah, the YMCA. If he was listening to better music, he wouldn't hate us. Yeah, he wouldn't hate us. But I'm not the only one who is planning... You should have just included him. I know. I'm not the only one who is...

planning to not attend Donald Trump's inauguration. There is apparently a Democrat boycott that's being organized of 13 people not attending. Okay, he didn't go to Biden's. No, and 44 Democrats are attending, which I think is weird. 20 are undecided and 13 are definitely not. I'm looking at Axios right now and I'm looking at their pictures. I just don't see any reason to go. I don't know.

I don't know. Are you guys going to watch? Are you going to be involved or are we going to like go do something else? I wouldn't watch like any of my exes get married or something. Like I wouldn't like come and lurk their wedding. Why would I go watch Donald Trump's inauguration? I wouldn't want to watch somebody else's moment. Like I don't need to be there. I shouldn't be around for that. I didn't choose this.

We will have by that point done the nine documents to create a legal marriage. We will have like done a revocable trust. We will have like organized all of my stuff to get ready for Trump's inauguration and this horrible first hundred days, which will, will be bad guys. It will. And we're going to give it to you as gently as we possibly can, but it's going to be bad.

I'm like, I can't. I can't be there on the coronation day to watch this and get myself all worked up. I'm going to have to do the first 100 days. So don't scroll on your phone that day, I guess. Oh, no, I'm not going to. I'm waiting. I'm sure there's going to be a spectacle and all kinds of craziness, right? If something really nutso happens, my mom watches the news 24 hours a day for me, and she's my number one reporter. She's like my tips list.

And so she'll call me if something happens. Yeah, Maureen's always watching. We'll text. We'll text. We'll text. But I'm not trying to be involved. Honestly, I don't blame you.

Well, in the spirit of leaving you with something practical with our episodes, because you have just been listening to us talk shit the whole time. We have- You promised in the new year it gets more structured again. We're just holding on by a thread here. I'm having fun. Do we promise? Well, yeah, me too. I like it this way. But what does everyone think? Let us know. Email us, AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com. But this time, we're going to leave you with something that we saw on the internet and

This sprung from a lawsuit that was filed by a patient against United Health Insurance, someone who had chronic pain. And basically through his lawsuit, some of their processes were revealed and uncovered. And basically this is some advice if you have an insurance claim that is denied. This is how you should approach it. This is what you should ask the company for if they deny your claim.

I had a friend explain this to me who her dad, you know, is a doctor and she was like helping with his practice in some way. And basically like, think of it like a game of chicken. They are going to deny you because that's kind of what their business model is. And you want to get them to change that. And you kind of have to do it with a combination of badgering them and showing them that they are wrong and that you could potentially sue them in some way.

Although they know that most people won't. Most people can't.

So this is what you do. If you are in a scenario where a treatment is denied, what you should do is ask the insurance company in writing for the name, the board specialty, and the license number of the doctor who determined that your treatment was not medically necessary. As you know, United was just in trouble for using AI to make those determinations. So that's why you have to ask that information. The name of the doctor, their board specialty, and their license number.

Then you should ask for, in addition to that, copies of all materials that they relied on to make their determination. So like, what were they looking at to decide this? In addition to that, ask for proof that the doctor who made the determination to deny your claim has maintained their registration in your state.

and documentation that they meet all of their continuing education requirements. So is this doctor liable? Is the insurance company employing doctors who might be liable, might not have all of their certifications correct, might not have their registration legitimate in your state, not in the company's state, in your state, because that's the one you're getting the care in. Also ask for, and this is some data they're going to have to look up for you, but they've asked you for plenty of data, so make sure to do it.

Ask them for the aggregate rate at which similar treatments to the one that you are asking for is denied versus approved by the doctor that's being used to review your claim.

Ooh. So meaning like, is that doctor systemically denying claims or claims like yours for what you need? Yeah. And you know, really putting it on your claim. Yeah. Yes. And basically by law, they,

do have to cover you for certain things. And you can push them into this. Like I grew up listening to my mother push insurance companies like all damn day for my brother. Like just constantly, just you have to keep

It fucking sucks. And it sucks. Yes. Even if they're answering them honestly, they're going to have to probably answer them honestly unless they're going to manufacture the information. But then it gives you evidence to potentially use against them that maybe they don't have the right doctor, maybe right specialty, they don't have the right license or qualifications, and maybe they're not up to date on all of their continuing education. So that's a liability for them. So for

Make it harder for them to deny your claim than to just accept it because they can afford it. They definitely can. And I'm sure that they don't want you to put out there that you found out that the doctor who denied your claim denies 97% of claims, 80% of claims, 20% of claims, whatever it is. It's going to sound bad. It could be 3% of claims. It's going to sound bad. You're going to mail that to us and then we're going to put their ass on blast. Yeah.

Right. And I mean, it's really like about... But that's how it'll go, yeah. But you know what? This is why they want to shut down TikTok. Look, got this on the good old RSS feed over here. You don't even need TikTok for this. You got us. And more helpful advice to come. Yeah.

It's wild out there, kittens. We will get through it together. But politics show during the lame duck session. We're going to let you know what we know as we know it. But most of the time, this is a time of reflection. And I hope that y'all are taking some time too to just like shit talk and speculate, reflect on what's gone on, stay focused on what matters. Our next episode is a super important one. Sammy had the chance to speak to Holocaust survivor and incredible storyteller and just incredible human, Miss Rhodey Glass.

And we will have that for you on Thursday. And then next week, it's back to you guys. We're doing mailbag. It's Santa's mailbag, except it's Sammy and V's mailbag with all your horrible stories about the holidays, your favorite recipes, anything goofy that you want to tell us about. And I do have a submission from my friend, Andrea Salatino. I'm using your whole name. You're on the show, baby. It's getting on. We're going to tell your story about the worst Christmas you and I ever had together as friends.

I can't wait for that. This is the holiday season. Two more weeks to go and we've got mailbags, entertainment. We got you. We got you. Yeah. We're going to cruise it on into the new year. We love you guys.

We really love you. We are so happy to have gone. I mean, we're not really happy. I don't know if you can call it happy, but we are grateful to have gone through this election season with you. Think about where we were on July 4th. We could not have done it without the American fever dreamers. We could not like your emails, your comments, your DMS, everything. We got your notes about cities that you want us to come to. So we're going to start looking at that and seeing what we could do with that, which will be so fun. Um,

But yeah, send us your holiday stories, fun stuff. It could be political or not political.

my story is just something that will make you laugh because it is the stupidest thing that ever happened to me on a holiday. And my friend Andrea was a front seat witness to it all. Oh my gosh. Do I need to bring some lore? Yeah, you need to bring like, cause this was what we were talking about. Like being in your New York city moments, let era. And mine is not like a slutty story, but it is like such a New York. You're not, you can't believe like how absolutely unhinged this thing is that happened and everything turned out all fine.

Oh, I got some lore for you if you want to do that. Maybe I shouldn't even share some. I don't think I should share some of these things. It will make people question my judgment too much. We'll do the night before Christmas. And here are Sammy and V's lore and also our listeners lore.

You know what I love? We love you, dreamers. I love gossip. We love you, dreamers. I love idle gossip. I want to know just the dumbest things about you, the little tiny things that are gossipy. I heard a piece of idle gossip, American Fever Dream oriented, but I think we should save it till our first subscription episode that we're going to do. And that'll be like a free one. It's not even that crazy. I mean, I found, I was like, oh,

I love gossip. Maybe I'm over-teasing it. I don't want to over-promise or deliver. Like when the DNC said they were bringing Beyoncé and then they brought Leon Panetta. I'll never really forgive them for that. But shall we? And then the DNC said that they were bringing Beyoncé and she didn't sing. She just spoke. Whatever. It's pretty rare to get a Beyoncé speech. I know. But everyone was waiting for freedom to start and her to come out and start singing. And then she was like, hello, I'm Beyoncé Knowles. Yeah.

Anyway, until next time, I'm Vita Speer. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. Good night. American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News. And follow me, Sammy Sage, at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com. Betches.