Two. Wellcome everybody, here we go. It is that time again,
Matt Connerton unleashed and we are live from the studios of w m n H
ninety five point three FM in glorious downtown Manchester, New Hampshire. A little
humid out there, but it is glorious. It's a bright sunny day.
Although now that I'm looking this, our clouds moving in. But maybe we'll
get a quick storm. Who knows, who knows. But yes, we
are of course at the studios of WMH ninety five point three and of course
on Comcast ninety seven if you are in Manchester, and hello to all of
our online listeners across the nation and around the globe. You can go to
my website Matt Connerton dot com for all your live streaming options, social media
links, contact info, show archives, etcetera, etcetera. Today is Friday,
June twenty three, twenty twenty three. Friday is my favorite day of
the week here at WMNH. It's my long day because I get to do
double duty and I love it. Here of course until six pm for this
show, and then I'm back tonight from eight to eleven pm for Retro Spectrum
Radio with Paul ec Of course I'm one of Paul's co hosts on that show
along with DJ Steve and Mike from Queen City Cabinetry, and of course Queen
City Cabinetry being one of our great sponsors here at WMNH, but also Mike
joins us from Queen City Cabinetry Friday nights for Retrospectrum Radio. So we have
a great time. And this week's show I'm excited about it is part two
of Original Demos of Popular Songs, where Paul will be featuring the original demo
versions of some of the songs that you've probably heard many times over the course
of your lifetime, but have you heard the original version that was demo recording
in its infancy if you will, in its development, and so tonight is
part two of that. I really loved last week's last week's show. I
was looking forward to it and it did not let me down. Again.
If you were listening to the last week's show, whether live or if you
happen to catch the replay or listen to the podcast, I think everybody in
the room was an agreement about the original demo version of Girls on Film by
Duran. Duran just absolutely stupendous. Does anyone say that word anymore? I
can't remember the last time I actually heard somebody used the word stupendous, but
I will use it here. I think it is an apt superlative that I've
presented. It's just so good. The the demo version, it had a
lot of guitar in it, which of course got did not make it into
the final mix in the studio. But yeah, just really cool. So
I'm looking forward tonight. The other really interesting thing that just kind of stands
out in my mind about last week's show was Paul also played And of course
this I had already heard as a as a Kiss fan, the original demo
version of the Kiss song God of Thunder, and on the demo version because
it was actually written by Paul Stanley, even though Gene Simmons is the one
who sings the song and they still do that in their live set today.
But but on the original demo version, it's faster and it's Paul Stanley singing
it, and it's just it's actually kind of funny. It might not be
funny if you don't know the original, or if you're just not a Kiss
fan, but if you know the original and then you hear the Paul Stanley
demo. It's pretty funny. We were we were having a good hearty chuckle
over it. Anyway, I have no idea what the demos are that Paul
plans to feature tonight, but I very very much look forward to to tonight's
program, and I assume Granted state of Mind is still going to be running
immediately after this show. I did hear on the replay of the Morning Show,
of course, the Morning Show with Peter White, which is weekdays from
seven to nine am here at WMNH with a replay from two to four pm.
Right before this program, I heard Peter mentioning that Granted State of Mind
is actually moving to Thursdays at nine pm. It's been a well, it's
been Fridays at six pm for as long as I've been here, but apparently
it is moving to a new, a new day and time. Check your
local listings. But I assume there's still I assume there's still an episode airing
tonight immediately after this program. So of course, during the warm half of
the year, Rob as a Veto and PAULI Stone they record all the shows
out at Pembroke City Limits and then they do a great job. I assume
they'll be once the weather gets cold again, they'll will be back in the
studio, but now on Thursday nights apparently, So congratulations to them. And
let's see what else is going on. Oh, just a couple other quick
things to our amazing sponsor, the Hopknot right across the street at one thousand
Elm Street. They have an event going on tonight tonight, and I do
enjoy saying this. I think it's fun. Big gay bingo happening tonight at
the Hopknot beginning at nine pm, hosted by Onyx Reins and glam Chowda.
So it says here in the on social media it's like bingo but gay.
So and there is an explanation here. And by the way, I hope,
I hope Governor rond de Santas and Florida is not around here campaigning right
now. He'll be very upset at this. You know, in Florida they
think that if you just pretend that there aren't people who are different than you,
than they don't actually exist. I think that's the theory. But anyway,
or at least in the schools. But here's an explanation what is Big
Gay Bingo. It's just like bingo. Instead of numbers and letters, the
cards will be filled with lingo and slang from LGBTQ plus culture. The lighthearted
game is meant to be fun as well as educational. We're going to be
uh. We'll get going at nine pm, so get there early to grab
a good seat. The game is free to play, but we'd love it
if you made a five dollar donation uh to uh m M v APNH,
a local organization that helps people living with HIV AIDS maintain a high quality of
life through education, support and empowerment. And so that's a great cause.
We had to talk about that a little bit on the show yesterday too.
Um. We actually with our friend EAZYG. He called them to do his
entertainment report. But we um we had a surprisingly um I shouldn't say surprisingly,
but uh sometimes sometimes EAZYG he'll uh, he'll he'll he'll surprise you.
Um. We had a I thought a pretty good discussion, not an extensive
one, but we did discuss how you know, HIV and AIDS is still
very much with us. You don't hear about it nearly as much, so
people forget because we do live in an era where, thanks to medical technology,
you can be HIV positive and still live a full lifespan if you get
on the right medications and so forth. Of course, you have to be
able to get on the right medications, which kind of ties into another thing
that we often discuss on the show, which is access to healthcare and the
importance of that and being able to get the healthcare that you need, and
you know on how people fall through the cracks in America, which is unacceptable.
But but you know, the medications are there to help you if you
are HIV positive, but that doesn't mean you can necessarily get access to them,
and you know, and that's life or death. So so this is
very important. So it's for a great cause, Big gay Bingo tonight at
the hop Knot And of course you know it's Pride month, June Pride month,
so very appropriate for that as well, and they do a lot of
great things at the hop Knot, so very proud to have them as a
sponsor. Also going on tonight, by the way, Dj Reckless, this
is going to be in the main room at Soho Djane I think he said
that starts at nine pm or somewhere between nine and ten pm. And uh,
speaking of Rob as a veto, he's got a band I forget who
it is, but he's got somebody performing tonight, so I assume they're going
to be recording Granted State of Mind tonight at Pembroke City Limits, So if
you're up up that way, you can stop in there check it out.
So lots going on, always, always lots going on. And I'm sure
there's many more things I could mention. Oh, actually, here's another thing
I could mention. Trudy from The Hop Knot will be here with us on
Monday. She hasn't been on the show in a long time, so that
will be that will be very very cool. We've got a lot to get
to today. I don't have any guests booked, but we have a lot
to get to. There's a lot that I want to cover today, so
that that kind of works out. Jenny's been doing a great job with the
booking, so most days we have guests. We have guests almost every day,
but it is nice to have a day here and there where we don't
have any guests and I can kind of get up, get caught up with
all of these news stories that have been sort of piling up during the week
that we just haven't had time to get to. But if you'd like to
join us six zo three two five zero six ZO seven, the studio line
is open six zoo three two five zero six ZOO seven. You can also
text me at six one seven nine one seven four four seven six. I'm
on social media at Matt Connerton. You can email me Matt at Matt Connerton
dot com. And of course you can interact Undo Pine in the Facebook live
chat and we will say hello to everybody in there in just a moment.
But the best thing to do so that we can hear and enjoy your dulcet
tones is to give us a call at six three two five six zero seven.
But I do want to take a moment say hello everybody in the Facebook
live chat. Mike from Queen City Cabinetry is in the chat room and says
happy Friday, everyone, A happy Friday. Mike Scott Robinson in the chat
room says good afternoon, my fellow Connerton Nights. I always thought that the
State rep elect was a little hanky. After today, I guess we were
all right about the person. Yes and st is speaking in code because the
particular individual who is in yet again for the I don't know how many times
it is now they are in legal trouble, and the legal jeopardy in this
particular instance is on a scale that I don't think we'll be hearing from that
person for a while. But it's someone we don't for reasons that. You
know, if you're a long time listener, you might have an idea,
but we don't talk about this individual on the show anymore. So I'm not
going to mention their name. But but if you are local in the area
and you pay attention, you can go to WMUAR dot com, for example
channel nine, look at the news and you'll immediately see reference to what I'm
referring to and the particular individual and a partner of that individual who are in
terrible trouble for they are alleged to have done something really disgusting and disturbing.
And I will leave that at that. We won't go any further with it.
But but yeah, that's what's going on. I had last night when
the news broke, when Tony Shanella broke the news on Patch and Nashua,
I had multiple people send me the story, like you know, Matt,
Look who's in trouble? Uh? Pat Mills from the bonfire. We'll give
the bonfire a plug, great place. Pat was the first one on Facebook
to message me a link to the story, and then uh, and then
several other people did as well. And it's like, yep, yep,
I'm I uh yeah, I don't want to I don't want to say exactly
what I'm thinking, but you will just say. Um, let's just say
I I had a feeling we'd see this person's name in the news again,
because it always, it always happens, and every time it's something a little
bit worse than the previous time. But anyway, best of luck. Isaac
Banks joins us in the Facebook live chat, of course, all the way
from Greensboro, North Carolina. Isaacs says, good afternoon, hashtag Matt.
Today is my mom's birthday. Her name is SHELITHA Banks from Greensboro, North
Carolina. She's aged seventy. Good afternoon, hashtag Jenny. Well, you
know I saw on a coffee mug once at life begins at seventy. I'm
a little skeptical about that, but you know, it's good to be positive
and optimistic. Scott Robinson said in the chat room. If you don't know
what I'm referring to, look up wmure about the childcare establishment. Yeah.
Yeah, it's pretty bad, pretty bad. Isaac Banks says N Saturn.
We'll be watching the retro Spectrum Radio with PAULI c on Facebook Live. Excellent,
excellent. We do love to see n. Saturn in there. Eric
Street joins us in the chat room and says, happy Friday. Just saw
that mister Crabs article. Yes, just incredible, isn't it? All right?
Let me give the studio line again, and then I want to get
into something six three two five six seven six zo three two five six seven,
Um, something I've been wanting to get to on the program. And
again it's it's just it's been busy. But um, this uh ongoing story
involving the Supreme Court. But in getting into this about the Supreme Court,
and I have kind of an unpopular I don't want to say, an unpopular
opinion necessarily. Oh, hello to Tony Petrello, who's in the Facebook live
chat and says, good afternoon, Matt, Good afternoon, Tony. Nice
to see you in there. Oh and also Texas Mike just joined us as
well. And says good afternoon. Yeehah, Texas Mike. Um, I
want to talk a little bit about the Supreme Court. But this doesn't relay
or relate I should say directly to I know right now there's a lot of
talk in the media about it's one year. Hard to believe it's been a
year. Uh, it's um the one year anniversary of the overturning of Roe
v. Wade and the Dab's decision. But that's that's not what I want
to focus on with this. But the thing that I'm going to say that's
a little unpopular is and I want to get I'd really like to get some
listener feedback on this, because it's just something you don't hear. I have
a perspective on this that you just don't really hear in mainstream media. But
I have a suspicion I can't be the only one who has had this particular
thought regarding the Supreme Court, even though I don't hear anyone else actually saying
what I'm what I'm going to say in a moment. But but just to
kind of get us going in the right direction and then we'll we'll get into
it. Um, there's a story Usnews dot Com as a story up pressure
mounts on Chief Justice John Roberts to adopt a code of ethics. A key
senator with oversight of the Judiciary Committee has called for ethics reform after he had
another bombshell report questioning the Justice's ability to self police. So, if you
haven't been following this, what this is about is and it it really started.
Uh, she's must have been a couple of months ago. Now,
Apparently Justice Clarence Thomas h you know, he goes on trips and eats at
fancy restaurants and so forth, on the dime of Harlan Crowe, who is
a billionaire Republican donor, and so forth. And uh and wasn't you know,
wasn't declaring that, you know, that he was accepting these lavish trips
and so forth. And then another story just broke that m. Samuel Alito
had been doing something similar. And the Supreme Court is really pretty autonomous in
terms of ethics. Now, the other two branches of govern because obviously we
have three branches, the executive, the legislative, and the judicial executive of
course being the Presidency, and the legislative being Congress, and the judicial branch,
which is Supreme Court. But of the three branches, the Supreme Court
enjoys tremendous autonomy. The other two branches don't really make rules for the Supreme
Court. They confirm justices who then get a lifetime appointment who cannot be removed
unless impeached. I think there is one example in American history of a Supreme
Court justice being impeached. I think I'm a little sketchy on the details of
that, but and not recently, of course, not in any of our
lifetimes, long time ago. But I'm not sure if they were actually impeached,
or if they were going to be impeached and they resigned. I forget
now I should look that up. But so the Supreme Court enjoys tremendous autonomy,
and they have to kind of self police, or in theory, they
would have to self police if there were if they were forced to, which
they or not. So they're really kind of on their own. So,
you know, if someone wants to say, you're a Supreme Court justice and
you want to accept lavish trips and other kinds of social events, if you
want to accept those gifts or those opportunities, oh hello to j fed in
the chat room, if you want to accept that, even even if you
might be presiding over a case that in some ways might have an effect over
the billionaire who's spending all this money on you or or or maybe you might
even as I believe is in the case of Justice Samuel Alito, and we
might look at look at that a little bit more closely, because he sort
of did a pre bottle to this pro publica breaking the story. It's very
it's actually pretty strange, but I guess he kind of panicked and wanted to
get out ahead of it. But I think in his case he was he
had to rule on a case that directly involved, or at least affected in
some some direct manner. Uh, the billionaire who was paying for him to
do to do, go wherever, go on trips, go on vacations,
on a private jet, whatever it is. UM apparently if you go back
to um antonin Scalia, who died while I think on a on a hunting
trip or a golf expedition or something. Uh, he died while on vacation.
But with with one of these billionaires who UM spends money to, you
know, I mean, let's be honest, why if if you're going to
if you're a billionaire and you're going to uh, spend a lot of money
on somebody like a Supreme Court justice or any other type of politician. And
by the way, yes I said that intentionally, any other type of politician.
So you're not supposed to say that. There's certain things that in polite
company. And in this case, when I say polite company, what I
really mean is when you're having a political discussion, you're not supposed to refer
to Supreme Court justices as politicians. There, Supreme Court justices, they're above
politics. Right. I'll have something to say about that, and it's something
that you know, people don't like to don't like to hear. But we'll
come back to that. But if you're if you're spending money on a politician,
whether they be a president or a senator or a congressman or a Supreme
Court justice, you're not doing it because you want to be kind and generous.
You're not doing it because you want to have a friend who wears a
black robe and you think that'll be really cool. You're doing it because you
want something. Oh hello to a Melanie A law liberty from the grace State
of Vermont, who joins us in the chat. You're doing it because you
want something. It's a business expense, it is the cost of doing business,
and it appeals to well. It works for a couple of reasons.
One is I almost hate to almost hate to say it, because it's such
an old and somewhat tired cliche. But the reason it withstands the test of
time it is repeated so much, is because it is so incredibly true.
Is that absolute power corrupts absolutely And but the other thing is so, you
know, so regardless of what someone's position is, you know, it's it's
easy to influence people by buying them stuff. But then again, it's easy
to do that anyway, right, even if you're not a billionaire, and
even if you're not dealing with a Supreme Court justice or a senator or a
congressman or a president or a presidential candidate or whomever. You know, if
you if you spend money on people, they tend to like you more.
If you do favors for people, they tend to like you more. And
that's a way that you can gain influence with people. There's a book Dale
Carnegie, how to Win friends and influence people. This it's human nature.
It doesn't only apply to the elite spending money on well the elite. While
this is all going on, what I see and I hear in the media,
there's a lot of pearl clutching about, well, how could this be?
Something has to be done because there's no one too. There's no code
of ethics there there isn't There are some rules apparently about what these justices are
supposed to disclose in terms of what is spent on them. There's rules,
but apparently there's no laws. You know, there's guidelines, but uh,
but nothing firm. Uh, you know, and they can be selective about
it, like I think in the in the case of Clarence Thomas, I
was reading about there was there was something he disclosed because someone had bought him
a gift or something, and and he felt that, Um, he thought
it would look bad if he didn't disclose it. So he disclosed it.
But then, um, and it was something there was only a few thousand
dollars, but but he felt it. You know, it would be the
appropriate thing would be to disclose that. But then when Harlan Crow comes along
and spends uh exponentially more money on vacations, and rides on a private jet
for Justice Thomas. Apparently he felt no, yeah, no no qualms or
compunctions about that. I guess he must have thought, well, he's he's
not trying to get something from him, he's just being a nice guy.
Um. But because we know that absolute power corrupts absolutely, I don't know
how it would even be possible to be in that position and not be for
sale to some extent, right, Scott Robinson in the chat says, if
anyone wants to give me some cash, my vote can be bought. Now.
I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I'm saying here when I say,
well, if you're in that position and you have so much autonomy, because
again, the judicial branch as much more autonomy than the legislative or the executive
branches. I mean, those branches have you know, they have laws,
and you know there are ethics laws and campaign finance laws, and there's of
course a million ways around all of these laws, and they are circumvented all
the time, but there are laws in place. But when you're a Supreme
Court justice, you really, you know, you're on your own. You
get to decide for yourself what you think is worth disclosing, or you know,
if you want to just be willfully obtuse and say, I don't know
why this billionaire is spending all this money on me. I guess he's just
a nice guy wants me to be his friend. I'm flattered. You know.
You can do that. You have the freedom to do that. There's
no one to tell you you can't. Now the thing that, again,
I'm not I'm not excusing any of that, even though I do believe there's
a high degree of just basic human nature involved here. I don't want anyone
to misunderstand. But the thing that I would say is, and this is
the part that's kind of unpopular that you don't hear people in mainstream media say.
The reason part of why people are so upset and so shocked by all
of this is because we are taught in this country from a young age.
When you first learn when you're a kid. Think about when you were a
kid and you first are learning about civics in school, and you're learning about
the three branches of government, and you learn about the Supreme Court, and
we are taught that the Supreme Court these are lifetime appointments and the Supreme Court
is above it all. Not above the law, certainly. I mean they
rule on the law. But but they're above politics. You know. Now,
the legislative branch and the executive branch, those are elected. Those people
are elected. They are accountable directly to the voters. But the Supreme Court,
oh my goodness, the judicial branch of the Supreme Court, it's it's,
it's it's. It's on this pedestal. And they are just above it
all. And that's why they're lifetime appointments. And they go and they do
their job, and and uh, you just you have to trust them.
That's why there's no code of ethics. They don't need a code of ethics.
They're above it all. They're beyond politics after all. How it's not
like you can bribe them, right, you can bribe a senator, you
can bribe a candidate. How would you bribe a Supreme Court justice. They're
already in the job and it's a lifetime appointment. They don't need ethics.
They're above it all. We're sort of taught that that that they're on that
pedestal, that they're in their own sort of category, and they are exalted.
And I have to tell you, and this is the part that's going
to be a little unpopular but for whatever reason. And I'd be curiously get
some feedback if there's anyone else who feels the way that I do, because
the narrative in the media right now is, well, Chief Justice Sean Roberts
has to do something because apparently there are some problems. But it's but we're
also shocked that there's problems because who would ever expect who would ever expect this
kind of thing? Who would ever expect Harlan Crowe spending all this money on
Clarence Thomas. You would never you would never even expect that. Right,
it's the Supreme Court. Listen, this whole idea of the Supreme Court being
on that pedestal, I can honestly say, and I became I always say
I became interested in politics at an unhealthily young age. I have not,
for a day in my life, ever bought into that idea. I have
always looked at the three branches of government. You know, we have three
coequal branches, as we're taught, right, I've always looked at all three
of those branches as being political. Not well, you have two branches that
are highly political because you have people elected to those branches, and then you
have this other branch that is in its own world right and and and it's
it's it's on a pedestal. I've never bought into that. I have always
looked at the three branches as being absolutely political. And I've always looked at
Supreme Court justices as being politicians, just like senators, just like congressmen,
just like the president, just like the vice president, just like the mayor
in your city, just like anybody. Just like your local sheriff who you
elect. If you some places, the sheriff is appointed, some elected,
Pick any example you want. I have never, for a day in my
life, viewed Supreme Court justices as any different. I get it, they're
not elected. They're appointed, but they're still voted on by a committee.
And they don't have to get reelected because they're not elected to begin with.
It's a lifetime appointment. So there are differences, obviously, but they're still
politicians. Why do you think we have liberal justices and conservative justices. Look
at the process they have to go through to get onto the Supreme Court,
once they've been nominated, the process they have to go through to be confirmed.
It's extraordinarily politicized. Of course it is, because it's all political.
I was agast. Now, again, this is not about the Dobb's decision
overturning Roe v. Wade, but I'm going to bring that in as an
example of something that, again, the narrative in the media is so far
removed from how I've ever looked at this. It's actually bizarre to me,
at least in the mainstream media. I'm sure somewhere on some podcast somewhere that
somebody's saying all the same things I'm saying. But in the mainstream media,
when Roe v. Wade was overturned, I heard a lot of things about
how well the Supreme Court. You know, yes, you have judges who
you know are going to rule one way or the other, but it's become
totally politicized. Now. I actually heard, I don't remember who it was,
I heard a political analyst on CNN at the time actually say, well,
for the first time, for the first time in our history, we
have instead of judges wearing black robes, it's like we have judges wearing some
are wearing red robes and some are wearing blue robes. And I just was
stunned. First of all do people. Again, the individual, whoever they
were, I'm sure they were old enough to remember a certain Supreme Court case
in the year two thousand called Bush v. Gore. Some of you might
remember that, you young uns might not, but yeah, Bush v.
Gore, where the Supreme Court ultimately decided. There's different ways you can look
at it. I would say they decided who the next president of the United
States would be, and that was so political, so politicized in terms of
how Americans perceived it. They actually and I'd never seen this before, and
I'm not sure I've seen this since when they announced, when the Supreme Court
announced their decision in favor of Bush, effectively giving the election to Bush.
Again, we can quibble over the you know, that's my characterization. You
know, you'll you'll hear people say while Bush was selected, not elected,
selected by the Supreme Court. That's my characterization. You might disagree with it.
That's fine. I don't want to get bogged down in that. I
was angry at the time. Looking back, I'm still a little angry.
Even my dad said to me, And my dad's a conservative, but back
then I think he was still a Democrat, and I remember him saying to
me, Yeah, Maddie, it's like the Supreme Court. They just decided,
Oh no, you don't have to count those votes in Florida. Never
mind, We're good. But I would hear all the same things. Then
people have short memories for this stuff, I guess, but I would.
I would hear all these things in and again it was so politicized. They
actually sent Clarence speaking of Clarence Thomas, when they announced a decision, they
sent Clarence Thomas out to talk to the media. And I don't think it
was like an official press conference, but I think he just came out because
there was a lot of media. I'm trying to I can kind of mentally
picture it, but I don't think he was standing at a podium or anything.
But I think it was sort of informal. But I think he came
out. He actually came out of chambers to address the media and just said
politics played no role in our decision. I don't think he talked for very
long. He from what I understand over the years, he doesn't even really
talk that much in court. He doesn't ask a lot of questions. That's
not a reflection on how he does his job or on him, He just
you know, he just doesn't ask a lot of questions. It's fairly unusual.
But he actually came out and talked to the media and tried to reassure
everybody. Politics politics, I did not play any role in this. See
I am still angry about it because I suddenly am having trouble speaking. But
um, so none of this is new. And when you look at major
cases, as we're analyzing cases that are up before the Supreme Court, inevitably
we have conversations about, well, you know, what are the liberal justices
gonna how are they going to vote? How are the conservative justice justice is
going to vote? So none of this is new. So I just say
all that to say, and again it's not something you say in polite company.
When you're having a political conversation, there is an expectation that we're all
supposed to go, Oh my goodness, it's so much worse than I ever
imagined, with um, Harlan Crowe spending all this money on Justice Thomas for
example, or this this new story that's broken with Alito. I never I
never imagined this was going on. Um maybe I'm more cynical than the average
person on this stuff. You know because politics. Obviously I love politics,
but I'm also very cynical about politics. That might sound strange. How can
you love something but also be very cynical about it? But you know,
I'm not a sports fan, but I'm sure a lot of sports fans can
relate to that. You know, like if you have a team that you
love, but you're also very cynical about them. I've heard sports fans do
that. Oh I love such and such a team, but ah, they
never win. They're gonna have another bad season. They're gonna break my heart
again. I just know it. So it's certainly as possible. So I
love politics, but I'm very cynical about it. I've always been very cynical
about the Supreme Court. I don't see them as any different. I understand
the process of how they get there is different. Obviously, they're not elected
in an open election. They're they're nominated and then confirmed or not confirmed in
rare ca like like Bork. Remember Bork. But none of this is shocking
to me. Now I'm going to say something you're really not supposed to say
in polite company when you're having a political conversation. Not only am I not
shocked, about any of this going on, but I don't believe there's any
appetite within the court itself to do anything about it. Let me be very
specific, and again, I'd be curious to get some listener feedback on this,
because I can't be the only one who feels this way. Oh,
Scott Robinson in the shot says, I love the Hulkster, but I'm mad
he's not coming back. Cynical even yes, well, well he does have
quite a few back surgeries and he's seventy. But but you'll always be a
hulkamaniac, Scott, and I respect that. So again, I look at
this story from US news dot com. Pressure mounts on Chief Justice John Roberts
to adopt a code of ethics. Okay, now that brings me to the
other part of this, And this is where I'm gonna say something that again,
nobody in the mainstream media says this, but I'll say it because the
narrative in the in the mainstream media is Justice John Roberts. Chief Justice John
Roberts, he must be very troubled by all of this. He must be
very troubled by the public's lack of confidence, lack of trust in the Supreme
Court. And then it goes back to that, you know, they're exalted
because then you get into because you know, the general public, they must
be. So they must be so bothered by all of this because the one
branch of government they thought they could trust, you know, and turns out
there's ethics problems there too, just like you see in the other branches.
So there must be pressure. Justice John Roberts must be feeling the pressure.
Here's what I'm gonna say about that. I'm sorry, I don't believe that
Chief Justice John Roberts gives a damn about any of it. I don't And
I'll say this, why would he? Now this goes to this goes I
know, I'm really getting cynical here, but this goes to a broader concept
that we talk about on the show. You know, we talk about on
the show, especially lately, while you know, we talk about the some
people like to especially lately it's in fashion to talk about a two tiered criminal
justice system where I guess, you know, we hold we hold Donald Trump
to one standard, which is so unfair, and everybody else to a different
standard, or however you want to twist it, right, But the truth
is, yes, we do have a two tiered criminal justice system in this
country. You have the wealthy, the elite, the well connected, the
powerful. They have a different standard than the rest of us, than the
middle class, than the poor. Right, that's what is really two standards
of government, I mean two standards of criminal us. It's the way most
people think about it. Right. So the elite, they protect themselves,
They to a large degree police themselves. They to a large degree escape accountability,
and they generally only care about accountability. And when I say the elite,
I mean billionaires, I mean or millionaires, I mean politicians, I
mean you know, whoever has a lot of power, you know, the
elite, you know what I mean, they care about accountability. And as
much as they have to look like they're caring about accountability, they only care
about as much accountability as they have to. Beyond that, they don't care.
Because if they actually did care, then none of this would be a
problem to begin with. But they don't. So I see all this in
the media. Now, Oh, first you had the story about Harlan Crowe
spending all this money on Clarence Thomas. Now you've got this story about Samuel
Samuel Elito. Justice John Roberts. Chief Justice John Roberts, he must be
really troubled by all of this. I don't think he gives a damn.
I think he's going to look I'm like, I'm like a twelve on the
one to ten cynicism meter today, I realize, but I don't think he
gives a damn about any of it. But he will. He will look
like he will do the bare minimum, which is all you can expect from
him. He will do and say the bare minimum to try to make it
look like he does. But at the end of the day, why would
he Why would any of them? Why would any of them? Because they
are the elite. You don't get much more elite than a Supreme Court justice.
I'm not saying they're all rich. I don't know how much money they
make, but then again, who needs Who needs a big salary when you've
got billionaires spending a whole lot of money on you, You know, but
you don't get much more elite than that. They don't care. I don't
believe for a second Justice John Roberts cares. Sorry I keep Chief Justice John
Roberts, I don't believe he cares. Why would he? Are you going
to tell me that he had no idea that Harlan Crowe was spending money on
Clarence Thomas. Are you going to tell me that he had no idea that
whoever this other person, I don't remember that they were spending money on Samuel
Alito. Are you going to tell me that it's completely outside the realm of
possibility. I'm not making an accusation, I'm not inferring anything. I'm just
saying, just throwing it out there. Are you going to tell me that
it is completely out side the realm of possibility that somebody right now it's paying
for a very lavish vacation for Chief Justice John Roberts? Why not? This
is how the elite operate. There is no accountability unless there has to be.
And so far Chief Justice John Roberts has been pretty quiet, hasn't He
hasn't said much. Why should he? Why would he? It's the Supreme
Court again. You don't get much more elite than that, and I mean,
hell you can. You can wipe out fifty years of precedent with one
court decision, right. You don't get much more elite and powerful than the
Supreme Court. That's the upper echelon of the upper echelon, right, all
that power, I don't know. And again, please don't misunderstand. I'm
not making excuses or justifications. I'm just saying I don't know human nature being
what it is. I don't know if it's even psychologically possible for any normal
person at that level of elitism to even make themselves care about accountability, about
ethics and so on. I don't know if the human brain can even manage
that. I don't know, but I don't expect that from these people.
Maybe maybe Katangi Brown Jackson is different because she's still kind of the new kid.
You know. Maybe I don't know. I haven't heard anything bad.
But then again, the Samuel Alito thing goes back to two thousand and eight.
We're just hearing about it now. You know, they don't care.
They don't care. Nobody's apologizing for anything. Oh, I said Samuel Alito.
He did that pre battle, so he seemed to get a little nervous.
But he's like seventy years old. He does. Do you think he
actually cares now? And I guarantee you John Roberts doesn't care. Could be
wrong. I hope I'm wrong. I'd love to be wrong. Scott Robinson
in the Chareman says, old Trump thing is very true. It just depends
on how you feel about him. That's why he's so polarizing. Let's look
at this. Wow, we're already almost at the top of the art,
but let's look at this so again. This is from Usnews dot Com.
Pressure mounts on Chief Justice John Roberts to adopt a code of ethics. It
says here and I didn't preread this, so I'll be learning too. This
just went up today, I think. Actually this one up yesterday, but
still pretty fresh. Pressure is mounting on Chief Justice John Roberts to adopt a
code of ethics for the Supreme Court in the wake of yet another revelation of
a justice not disclosing a luxury trip paid for by a billionaire GOP donor with
business before the court. Senator Dick Durbin, chairman of the Judiciary Committee,
told MSNBC quote, there's one person who could end it before the sun sets
today, and that's Chief Justice John Roberts. It's time for him to step
up and announce there will be a code of ethics for the Supreme Court and
that the disclosure laws will apply and they will follow at least the same rules
as every other federal judge in America, not doing so as really at the
expense of the reputation of the Court Une. By the way, that's an
important point that he alludes to. There, any other federal judge, you
do have a code of ethics. Code of ethics is a pretty standard thing.
Oh, but the Supreme Court. Remember we're taught, we're taught when
we're children, when we first learned about civic in school as children were taught.
Oh, the Supreme Court, that's different. That's different. Those Supreme
Court justices, they're they're different. You can't you can't put any chains on
them there. It's a Supreme Court. Anybody lower than the Supreme Court,
who's a federal judge, Yeah, they have ethics rules. Durban's remarks follow
a bombshell report from Pro Publica that Conservative Justice Samuel Alito flew with billionaire Paul
Singer on his private jet to a remote fishing and hunting lodge in Alaska,
a luxury trip that went unreported in financial disclosure forms, despite the fact that
Singer had multiple orders of business before the Court. One of those cases,
Singer versus Argentina, in which Aldo ruled in Singer's favor with the majority of
the court, ensured a two point four billion dollars windfall for Singer's company.
Now, let's think about that for a minute. Now. Oh, hello,
by the way, to our Chris h from Edgewise, who's in the
Facebook life chat. Let's think about that for a minute. Now. We
don't know, We can't know. We cannot prove, No one can that
Aledo would not have ruled in Singer's favor regardless, right, We can't know
that, So we can't know that that's the reason that because Singer took him
on this luxury trip on a private jet to a remote fishing and hunting lodge
in Alaska. We can't know that that's the reason Alito ruled that he did.
And I'm open to the possibility that it's not that Aldo would have ruled
that way anyway he might have. He might have, but think about either
well, well, let me just put it this way, the arrogance of
Samuel Alito to not care how it looked, unless you just assume no one
would ever find out. But I'm sure at the very least the other justices
had to know. I mean, I've always heard, you know, the
Supreme Court justices, even even the ones who you know, are very different,
very polarized politically, that you know, it's very congenial, it's very
you know, sort of it's a fraternity. It's a very elite club.
It's only nine of them. It's a very elite club, being a Supreme
Court justice. Of course they talk, of course, on Monday morning,
they talk about talk about their weekend. Of course, Samuel Alito said,
hey, yeah, wait, don't you hear what I did? Hear what
I got to do? So he either. I mean, I've certainly met
people who just don't have the self awareness to realize that they're doing something that
looks really bad. That's possible, but I assume you don't get to be
a Supreme Court justice being an idiot. So I have to assume that Samuel
Alito had the self awareness to know that to any normal person this might look
really bad. So giving him that benefit of the doubt, and assuming he's
not completely oblivious and does have a degree of self awareness, I have to
assume that he was just so arrogant that he just didn't care, just didn't
care how it looks he might have convinced himself. He very well. Look,
we're all guilty of it. We've all done this, right. I
don't mean we've done what this, but we've all been in situations where we
convince ourselves of things. Oh, I can trust myself in this particular scenario.
Right, We convince ourselves that we can trust ourselves with things that maybe
we shouldn't actually be trusting ourselves with, but we kind of use that as
an excuse to do something we probably shouldn't be doing. So in other words,
he probably may have possibly convinced himself. You know what, this guy
has a case coming up that I'm going to be ruling on. Some people
might think that looks really inappropriate for me to accept this luxury trip. But
you know what. You know what, though I'm cool, I trust myself,
I know me, and I know that I am an ethical person above
reproach, and I would never allow something like this to influence me. So
hey, if Paul Singer wants to spend all this money on me, jokes
on him, it's not going to affect my decision in this case one iota.
That's right. I'm say I'm alito, I'm I'm I'm ethical. I
am so confident in my own ethics that you can buy me a luxury trip
and I know it will not affect how I feel about you and your court
case and how I'm going to rule. It won't affect anything. Oh,
you can try. You can try to bribe me. Oh, go ahead
and try. That's how confident I am in my goodness, in my ethics,
in my honesty. No, seriously, go ahead, try to bribe
me. Go ahead. Yea sad we have a luxury trip. Oh good,
good. I mean you're wasting your time. It's not gonna get you
anything. But yeah, go ahead, go ahead and try whatever I want.
I will try to stop you. I mean, people do again,
and that's an element of human nature. People do, uh, people do
talk themselves into things thinking that I can trust myself and then oops, I
let myself down. Oh but I can't admit to myself that I let myself
down. Scott Robinson says, kind of like that Pepperonian pineapple pizza. It's
nothing like that, Scott. That's a pineapple on pizzas in its own realm
of hell. Let's see Durban said quote, You're not talking about minor rulings.
That is substantial unquote. Last month, Pro Publica published a similarly striking
story about Justice Clarence Thomas, who was treated to lavish vacations for more than
two decades by billionaire and Republican megadonner Harlan Crowe, including on his yacht,
private jet, and exclusive resorts. Crowe also bought the house where Thomas's mother
lives, provided most of the budget for a conservative political organization founded by Thomas's
wife, j n The well I was gonna, I was gonna refer to
Jail, I was gonna editorialize and refer to Jenny as his insurrectionist wife.
But I don't think she actually stormed the capital. She just uh, but
she did try to subvert democracy by overturning the election, working behind the scenes
to overturn the election. Uh. Seditionist will go with that, Jinny the
seditionist wife of Clarence Thomas. Um and uh oh that's odd. Sorry,
everybody, A little issue with my computer here? Um see did I fix
it? I fixed it? Um? Yeah? So uh oh, and
Harlan Crowe covered the tab of the private school tuition for Thomas's grand nephew,
So Durban said, quote this is the bottom line. As far as I
see it, the disclosures from Justice Alito strangely or sadly parallel the same disclosure
is about Justice Thomas. It appears that there's a feeling on the Supreme Court
that it's none of our business. No one needs to know when conflicts or
interests occur, and the Justices don't need to refuse themselves on critical decisions that
are worth billions of dollars from people who are briefs are befriending them on their
vacations. By the way, part of the reason I think you do occasionally.
It's rare, though, or maybe it's not as rare as I think
it is. I mean, somebody who pays somebody who really watches the Supreme
Court more closely than I do, might know better. But my impression is
that it's relatively rare. But it does happen. Recusals do happen. They
have happened where somebody on the Supreme Court says I don't I don't think I
should rule on this case for whatever reason. But my suspicion is that because
that happens every once in a while, that there is probably a thought in
the minds of these justices that, well, you know, people do recuse
themselves occasionally, so that should be good enough. So we look like we
are recusing ourselves when appropriate. So if we don't recuse ourselves when we're being
bought and paid for it, that's okay. As long as it happens once
in a while, no one will catch on it, says here. While
ethical transgressions among Supreme Court justices are not new, the frequency and depth of
the transgressions seems to have reached a crescendo, and legal and judicial ethics experts
agree that the Court is at a watershed moment standing on the precipice of public
trust. See again, though, the public trust thing, this is something,
This has become a narrative in the mainstream media. Well, the court
is losing the public trust. I got news for you. I'm the only
one will say it. I don't think they care. I don't Why would
they care. It's a lifetime appointment. They don't care about the public's trust.
Why would they what's gonna happen. They're gonna lose their next election.
Hoops, it's a lifetime appointment. Doesn't matter to them. I promise you
that's the last thing on the minds of any of these people public's trust.
Scott says in the chat room, that's very cynical. Yeah, I know,
I know. See to me, it all seems obvious, but it's
actually too cynical for what you get in the mainstream media. So if I
have to be the guy who says, hey, let's just call this like
it is, then I guess that's a I guess I'm the chosen one.
As a former president once said, A gallop hole taken last year showed that
just twenty five percent of the public has faith in the Supreme Court, a
new low and down from thirty one in twenty twenty one. The wake of
increasing perceptions of politicization and a widely unpopular ruling overturning the Roe v. Wade
precedent that guaranteed abortion access, The ethical controversies have done little to restore trust.
For his part, Alito has strongly denied any ethical wrongdoing, issuing a
legalistic defense to the Wall Street Journal that purses the terminology used to govern ethics
transgressions, and has been criticized for selectively addressing the allegations against him. Thomas
also has vehemently denied any conduct outside of current ethical guidelines, while the justice
is wow, good enough for me, Okay, thanks guys. No,
while the justices have reportedly been see, that's what they're counting on. Though
they count on that, well, we'll throw them. We'll just tell them
no, no, it's all good. Don't worry about it, and that'll
be good enough. And we don't care about the public trust anyway. So
whatever I got, I got a private I got a flight on a private
jet to catch. I don't have time to worry about public trust. I'm
going to the Bahamas with one of my billionaire buddies. It's got a case
coming before the court next month. It's gonna be great. Not that that
has anything to do with the trip, but I gotta go catch to that
plane. Can't keep a billionaire waiting. A billionaire is going to spend a
lot of money on me. While these justices have reportedly been internally debating about
how to reform their code of ethics for the last four years, they failed
to reach a consensus. Oh I have not committed to a timeline, and
Chief Justice Roberts has refused invitations to appear before a Congress who addressed the matter.
Oh yeah, he doesn't care. And now he's also in his seventies,
right, Justice Roberts, Yeah, he's You think at this point he's
all of a sudden gonna say, you know what, maybe maybe this was
maybe maybe this was a mistake accepting all the you know, maybe I should
go talk to Congress about and explain my side of things. He doesn't care.
He's gonna be a Supreme Court until the day he dies, and he
knows it. He does not care. Democrats in both chambers have offered legislative
solutions, but even those with bipartisans support would be difficult to pass through the
Republican controlled House, especially at a time when the Court's conservative majority is set
to move on a slate of issues important to their voting base. Durban said,
quote, they failed to disclose the very basic things. It's got to
come to an end. Unquote all right, well, nothing will change.
Let's see, we are a little bit past stop they are. We do
need to get to a break soon. But Jenny is on the line.
Hello, Hello, Did I catch you in between topics? Uh no,
but that's okay, it's it's it's a good time. I was listening and
trying. I wanted to call him and just say thank you to the people
that have been supporting me. I'm really excited only Sunday to go back to
DC to attend the People's Action National Convention. Yes, and there's about forty
different organizations that are going to be there. We're expecting thousand people are so
in attendance. I'm really excited to get to speak there about healthcare and that
everybody deserves access to healthcare, no matter who they are. This in this
nation, everybody should be able to access health care. And that's what I'm
going to be working on. And I will be coming back in late Tuesday
night after I go back to the Capitol and do some more lauding before I
come home. Yes, yes, very good. And will any of that
be streaming? Do you know? I mean I would assume so, but
I think so. But I've been so we've all been doing so many things
preparing for this. Thank you for getting to ask. Yeah, it's streams.
Yeah, I'm sure everything's going to be recorded and stuff. And I
do know that there are some videos of me that well to be getting put
together. They may be coming soon. Very good, will be will be
more videos yes, yes, of course, all right, excellent, all
right, Rady, I will let you go into the next topic because I
was actually paying attention. I was trying to thank before you started. The
Wall Street Okay, I actually listened before I call it. It's this crazy
thing I have. Yeah, I'm kind of like figuring out what you're talking
about. I don't know. Not everyone does that. Who knows. It's
It's good. It's a good habit. All right, Jenny, thank you?
All right, bye bye, all right, very good. Um,
yeah, just quickly and then we will get a break. But um.
Wall Street Journal Editorial board defends Alito. All right, let's see what they
had to say. Now, this isn't directly from the Wall Street Journal.
This is from Politico. Says here. The Wall Street Journals Editorial Board defended
Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and it's previously undisclosed fishing trip with the GOP donor
in an editorial Wednesday night, blasting Pro Publica's report as a non scandal built
on partisan's spin. Actually, oh never mind, Oh we had another call,
the board wrote, quote, the political assault on the Supreme Court continues,
and the latest justice in the grinder is Samuel Alito as usual. This
is a non scandal built on partisan spin intended to harm the Justice and the
current court majority unquote. Aldo came under scrutiny after a Pro Publica investigation revealed
that the Justice had taken an expensive and previously undisclosed luxury fishing trip with prominent
conservative donor Paul Singer in two thousand and eight. He also stayed at a
pricey in bank rolled by another major GOP donor. The report alleged Aledo penned
a defensive op ed in the Journal before the report's a publication, denying any
wrongdoing, alleging in the headline that Pro Publica misleads its readers. Yeah.
So the reason that happened is so Pro Publica reached out to Aledo for comment
on the story, So he knew the story was coming, so um,
he posted that op ad in the Wall Street Journal as kind of a pre
bottle to get out ahead of the story. And Shannon's on the line.
High, Shanna, good afternoon, How are you good? How are you?
I know it's your favorite day? Yes, good tell policy and DJ
Stephen Mike. I said hello, yeah, absolutely tonight, Okay, we'll
do And I was gonna say, Um, the judge did when he went
on his fishing trip, did he did he go over the limit on his
catch? Is that divulged anywhere? I mean, really he probably did.
Okay, good, who's gonna hold him accountable? Yeah, I mean there's
limitations, you know, I think I don't know any more what they are.
But truthfully, you know, fishing wise, there's limitations. But yes,
that's neither here nor there. I was being smart, No I did.
Yeah, I know, I know, nerdy pants, you know it's
allowed. Barney, all right, Shannon, have a good night. All
right, you two have a good weekend. You absolutely, she's listening.
She heard you, all right, by bye. All right. That was
our friend, Shannon. I just want to finish up with this before we
get to a break. Um, the editorial board lambassad pro Publica for it's
uh And by the way, pro Publica is a liberal site. That that
is, we should say that, but uh, lambassad pro Publica for it's
a typically slanted quote unquote reporting alleging that Alito had violated the Court's ethics policy
of disclosing gifts. Numerous lawmakers have called for reform on the court since the
outlet revealed earlier this year, Justice Clarence Thomas's close eyes with GOP Megadon or
Harlan Crow. Let me stop there for a second, though, I don't
see here's the point of all this, of why why I'm talking about this
today? Weather? Okay, So pro publica. So they're saying, The
Wall Street Journal is saying, well, pro publica, pro pro that's hard
to say pro public lah public Uh is uh? Pro public there, I
can do it. They're saying that, well, he violated, he violated
the ethics rules. What a ridiculous thing to accuse him of. How dare
they? Well? To me, honestly, that's not even the point.
The only point I'm trying to make, your guys, I don't you know,
I don't know how the ethics rules work. There doesn't seem to be
a whole lot of ethics rules, or they don't seem to be enforced all
what. I'm just making the point that no one should be surprised, and
we need to get over this idea of thinking as a supreme of the Supreme
Court is somehow being different. Those are politicians. They you know, there's
a reason we have liberal and conservative justices and judges in this country. They're
politicians. They are. We can pretend all we want to that they're not,
but they are. And again, think of how highly politicized the entire
process it is to just go through confirmation to become a Supreme Court justice,
and then you can accurately predict not all the time, but much of the
time which way each individual justice is going to rule based on what they're politics,
their ideology. So I'm just saying we need to, you know,
if we want anything to change here. I'm not worried particularly about what rule
he broke or didn't break. What I'm worried about is that he had the
arrogance to not even care about There's this phrase that everybody should know the appearance
of impropriety, not just impropriety, the appearance of impropriety. And if you're
in a position of power and you don't care about the appearance of impropriety,
whether there is any actual impropriety or not, if you're not cared about the
appearance of it, then you're just arrogant. You know you don't have to
You're in a position where you know you don't have to care, so you
don't care, So you engage in what is much impropriety or even things that
might look like impropriety as you want to, because it just doesn't matter to
you. It just doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter. To Samuel Alito.
I'm not there. They're saying, well, you know, they're they're
claiming he violated the rules. It's not about whether or not he violated the
rules. It's about the fact that he doesn't care. And I'm sure none
of them care, and I'm sure John Roberts doesn't care, and I damn
well know Clarence Thomas doesn't care. None of them care because they don't care
about us, because they don't care what we think. They are the elite,
they know it, and they don't care about any of us, and
they don't care about our trust. Oh, trust in the Supreme Court is
at an all time low. I've not trusted the Supreme Court a day in
my life, just as I have not trusted senators, just as I'm not
trusted Congressman, just as I've not trusted presidents, just as I would not
trust a king or a queen. You don't blindly just trust people in power.
I mean, and by the way, if there's someone if there's a
particularly powerful person who you do put your blind faith and trust and unquestioning faith
and trust, well then you might be an occult. But anyway, the
board added, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board quote, Justice Elito is still
on the court, so he is the big fish that Pro Publica is attempting
to catch and filet We are defending the Court because someone has to. Someone
has to stand up for judicial independence and an institution that is part of the
bedrock of our constitutional order. Unquote. I wish I'd worn some boots before
I read that. Wow, we are standing up for the court because someone
has to. Oh, the poor Supreme Court is being picked on. Let
me translate that for you. We at the Wall Street Journal editorial Board,
we are part of the elite. Someone else in the elite is being picked
on. The system protects itself, The elite protect themselves. That's what that
really means. Trying to cast the Supreme Court as some sort of victim.
That's actually bizarre and pretty nuts, even for the Wall Street Journal. Stephen
Engelberg, Pro public As editor in chief condemned the op ed's headline quote,
which the piece declared without having without anyone having read the article and without asking
for our comment. We're curious to know whether the journal fact checked the essay
before publication, unquote, he told The New York Times. Meanwhile, a
new poll from Quinnipiac published Wednesday found that the Supreme Court's public approval rating singing
to thirty percent among registered voters, the lowest and the poll began nearly two
decades ago. They don't care. I'm telling you all right, let's get
to a break. We're running late. I'm gonna play a little song for
you, little chemical distance I think on a Friday, and then we'll show
some love to our amazing sponsors, and then we'll be back with the balance
of our show. There's plenty more to come on Matt Connerton Unleashed. Don't
go away. Welcome back everybody as we cruise into our final segment today on
Matt Connerton Unleashed. We are live from the studios of w m n H
ninety five point three FM and Glorious Downtown Manchester, New Hampshire, also on
Comcast ninety seven. If you're in Manchester and hello to all of our online
listeners across the nation and around the globe. You can go to my website
Matt Connerton dot com for all of your live streaming options, social media links,
contact in folk show archives, etc. Etc. Today is Friday,
June twenty three, twenty twenty three, so nice to have y'all with me.
Friday, of course, my favorite day of the week here because it's
my long day at WMH. I get to do double duty and I do
love it because immediately after this show, of course, we have granted State
of Mind hosted by Rob as a Veto and Paul Stone, which by the
way, next week is moving to Thursdays at nine pm apparently, so I
heard that announcement today on the morning show. But then I am back tonight
from eight to eleven pm for Retro Spectrum Radio with Paulyc and I'm very excited
about that. Of course, along with Paul and myself and one of his
co hosts, we have DJ Steve and Mike from Queen City Cabinetry. And
this week the subject is part two of original demo recordings of popular Songs.
Had a great time with that last week. That was a lot of fun.
I love the subject. I'm a nerd for that kind of thing,
so I'm really looking forward to tonight's show as well Retro Spectrum Radio with Police
beginning tonight from eight to eleven pm. Let's see what else is going on
tonight at the hop Knot if you're out and about. Of course, they've
got those delicious scoremet pretzels. They have the ever burgeoning assortment of craft beer.
They've also got a very special event tonight, Big Gay Bingo at the
hop Knot, hosted by Onyx Rains and glam Chowda beginning tonight at nine pm.
It's like bingo but gay, and uh looks like our friend, our
friend Ron is on the line high run. Yeah. I met good show
tonight and I'm intrigued as to what Jenny is doing. I wish there was
more info and um, I mean, I hope and surely obviously it's a
peaceful event, but I just, hands down, that's pretty courageous. So
that's kind of what I'm saying. Yes, yes, I'm very proud of
her. And of course, uh, yep, she's going going for another
event and in DC or a couple of things where she'll be speaking and it's
it's fantastic. You know, she's really doing a lot to try to uh
you know, help people get healthcare. Yeah, well, thank god.
I mean, you never hear about people standing up, and to know someone
that does it, it's like, wow, that's awesome. So I I
wish you that totally the best. Uh. I can't wait to hear the
outcome. Yes, well, I would love to see it on the news,
but that's not going to happen. Uh well, I mean maybe not
on local news here in Manchester, but uh, I wouldn't be I wouldn't
be surprised if you see your pop up on the national news. Yeah.
Well, any even anyway, that was it. It's gonna be a good
show tonight, I know. And Jenny, huh really kudos to you.
I mean that's great. Yeah she said, everybody be safe, have a
good weekend. All right, Ron, thank you for the call. I
appreciate it. And yet Matt Matt, Matt, Matt, Yes still they
met. I am, yes, I'm still here. Um. I guess
the other day that allegedly some food was left over, did anybody uh take
pirate for it? It just get trashed a couple of hot dogs. I
did not. I have no idea. I don't know anything about hot dogs
being left Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have no no clue. I
couldn't tell you. Yeah, it don't matter. I've just it was curiosity,
because you know, curiosity more than anything. That's all right, guys,
all right, Ron, thank you for the call. Bye bye,
all right, thank you, bye bye. All right. That was our
friend Ron. Always nice here from him. I know nothing of the hot
dogs, but uh, I mean, and even if I did get here
in the afternoon and there were hot dogs left over, that's not something.
I think. It's one thing if there's like a muffin, like if somebody
leaves a muffin, uh, you know, I uh, but I'll enjoy
that. But if there were some hot dog, I do. I remember
the time I came in and uh, there was a box of donuts left
over from the morning show. And I opened the box of donuts and there's
there's a few donuts, but there's also a hot dog in there. And
uh, I couldn't touch those donuts after they'd been in the box with that
hot dog, because something about that just seems so wrong. But Jenny is
in the chat room, Ron, if you're still listening, she said,
thank you, Yes, absolutely absolutely, uh six three two five O six
O seven is a number if you'd like to join us six zo three two
five O six zo seven. You can also text me at six one seven
nine one seven four four seven six. I'm on social media at Matt Connerton.
You can email me Matt at Matt Connerton dot com, and of course
you can interact endo Pine in the Facebook live chat. But the best thing
to do so the weekend here and enjoy your dolcet tones is to give us
a call at six zo three two five six seven six zo three two five
six seven. Oh, but I do want to finish talking about what's going
on tonight with the big gay bingo at the Hopknot because this is actually for
a very good cause. This is what Kenny put on social media. We'll
get going at nine pm, so get there early to grab a good sea.
The game is free to play, but we'd love it if you made
a five dollar donation to m v ap NHA, local organization that helps people
living with HIV and AIDS maintain a high quality of life through education, support
and empowerment. So that will be uh so, yeah, that's an excellent
cause, you know, and they do you know, we're very proud to
have them as a sponsor for a number of reasons, but they do a
lot for the community at the Hopknot, and hey, the food's pretty good
too and the craft beer and Trudy is going to be here with us on
Monday in studio, so we look forward to that. But yes, it's
like bingo but gay and of course appropriate for a Pride month. It is
the twenty third, so we've got about another Yeah, we've got another week
left, one more week of of Pride for twenty twenty three. So very
good, very good. Also going on tonight too. By the way,
DJ Reckless is in the main room at SOHO tonight if you want to go
and see him DJ and support. He's been working very, very hard and
we're very proud of him, so I just want to mention that too.
Let's see a quick thing. This came up earlier in the week. I
think it was Crystal, our friend from Illinois, I think who had originally
brought this up, and we didn't get to it that day. I haven't
seen her in the chat room, so I don't know if she's listening today.
But this story about Spotify. Bill Simmons at Spotify, he's a Spotify
executive and he called um he called Prince Harry and Megan Markle blanking grifters,
except to use the actual word, which starts with F and I do not
mean farfugnugan. And initially I was kind of like, oh, whatever,
because I don't care about the royal family and I don't care about Prince Harry
and Megan Markle. But it's not something I get into. I just don't
pay that much attention to them. But this did catch my interest actually upon
taking a second look, because I do care about media in all its forms,
whether we're talking about more establishment media like cable news for example, or
online media like Spotify and all their various podcasts and things. What goes on
in the world of media at any of the various levels that we have today
is very interesting to me, especially when there's some sort of drama. So
this is from Newsweek. Spotify exec has grenade like Prince Harry's story. So
I did want to take a closer look at this because I'm very curious about
what happened here, you know, and again, if you're a host or
a content creator like myself, this type of thing might be interesting to you.
Says here the collapse of the Spotify deal will not damage Megan Markle,
but an executive an executive's hint at a grenade like anecdote about Prince Harry could
be crippling, a PR expert told Newsweek. The Duke and Duchess of sexis
is multi year partnership with the streaming giant along with Netflix, was heralded as
proof of their financial independence from the monarchy when it was announced in December of
twenty twenty Three years later, and the two sides have parted ways with only
a twelve part podcast to show for it. Bill Simmons, host of podcast
Innovation, Oh I'm sorry Bill Simmons, He's the head of podcast innovation and
monetization at Spotify, added insult to injury by calling the couple blanking grifters during
his own podcast. The swipe captured headlines not only at the ordinarily hostile British
press, but also as far and wide a CNN Variety and Deadline. However,
there was another remark by Simmons that caught the eye of PR consultant Eric
Schiffer, head of Reputation Management Consultants. Simmons added quote, I got to
get drunk one night and tell the story of the zoom call I had with
Harry trying to help him with a podcast idea. It's one of my best
stories unquote, Schiffer told Newsweek. Quote that is a crippling comment because it
raises it at a critical time with the contract, and it suggests there's something
there that could be a grenade like story to Harry. We'll have to see
whether he chooses to release it. For a Spotify executive to attack Harry and
broad Daylight and Spotify not condemn. It suggests there's some strong feelings within the
executive team at Spotify against Harry and perhaps some dark feelings about the interactions unquote.
Simmons account is difficult for Harry because it highlights the fact that the Duke
did attempt to produce a Spotify podcast that never got to the point it was
considered fit for release. However, the Sussex camp may also note the phrase
quote one of my best stories unquote, which suggests Simmons may have already told
people what was discussed. Now I'm going to let's look at this other story
because I think this is related. This is from Bloomberg, and uh,
this is new so this I think this gets into Uh. Oh, hello
to Uh there's a new name in the Facebook live chat Brandon. Uh.
Curseo Cercio. I'm sorry for butchering your last name, but welcome to the
program, Brandon. This is something. Uh, this is popped up,
so I think this is related. This is from Bloomberg. Prince Harry's podcast
Pitch interview Putin and Trump about their childhoods. During a nearly three year production
deal with Spotify, the Duke of Sussex explored several podcast ideas. None came
to fruition. By the way, if anyone from Spotify is listening, if
you'd like to offer me a multi year deal with lots of money, I'd
be more than happy too. I've got lots of ideas. I've got tons
of ideas and uh and I'm not a grifter and uh, you know,
I mean feel free to uh you know, I know you back back to
the brinkstruck up to Joe Rogan's front door when you hired him. If you
want to do that for me, you certainly ken. Oh oh, I'm
sorry. I should have recognized the name, Jenny says, Brandon isn't one
of my favorite bands? After image? Yes, yes, all right,
welcome Brandon after Image of course has been on the show. Great great band.
Go back and check that episode in the archive if you didn't hear the
interview. Fantastic. Okay, So here's what it says here. Hey,
everyone, welcome back to SoundBite. It's another week of Spotify news, this
time with a royal family twist. Okay, what were Prince Harry's podcast ideas?
It says last week news broke that, like many of Spotify's high profile
podcast deals over the years, Megan Marco and Prince Harry's partnership with the Swedish
streamer is coming to an end. I didn't know Spotify was a Swedish company.
My goodness. Are they in Nato yet or are we still trying to
make that happen? Are the ones where there's the issue? Where is at
Finland? Who's Turkey still mad at where they can't get in? I forget
anyway. In a joint emailed statement, Spotify and Archwell Audio, marcol and
Harry's production company said they quote have mutually agreed to part ways and are proud
of the series we made together unquote Oh the twelve episode thing. It's not
a bad time to look back at the twenty twenty press release announcing the partnership,
which promised Marcol and Harry would produce and host podcasts and that the first
complete series was expected to debut in twenty twenty one. Ultimately, the relationship
only yielded one season of one show, arch of Types, which Marcol hosted
at, debuted in twenty twenty two. Hey listen, can I just throw
this out there? And I told you I have a lot of ideas.
I would like to hear Megan Markle to a podcast about her experience acting on
the television series Suits. Megan Markle the only reason I ever knew who she
was before she married Prince Harry was because she played Rachel Zane on the show
Suits, which aired on the USA Network. I don't watch a lot of
television, but I was a big fan of that show. Beyond that,
I never really cared much about her, but a big fan of that show.
I think she should do a podcast about Suits. I think that'd be
fantastic. I mean, I don't think i'd actually bother to listen to it,
but it's just just an idea. But apparently the deal's already off,
so it says over the past week, more details have continued to emerge.
Fellow Spotify podcaster Bill Simmons took his eponymous show to call the couple grifters and
tease an absurd zoom call he once had with Harry about possible podcast ideas,
which he told listeners is one of his best stories, that said. Simmons
had previously criticized Harry in January twenty twenty three, saying he was so embarrassed
to be on Spotify with him. Wow, that'd be fascinating if you're in
that position. You know, you you're an executive at Spotify and you've you've
made a multimillion dollars deal with this person, and then you say you're so
embarrassed to be on the same platform as them. The dynamics of that are
fascinating to me. Yeah, Simmons at the time said, quote, what
does he do? It's one of those things where it's like, what's your
talent? Why are we listening to you? So you were born in a
royal family and then you left. You sell documentaries and podcasts and nobody cares
what you have to say about anything unless you talk about the royal family,
and you just complain about them unquote, although again, if his wife wants
to talk about suits, I would care about that, not enough to bother
to actually listen, though, so it probably doesn't count. Thanks to his
uncensored takes on the Prince's media skills or apparent lack thereof, Simmons has now
joined the upper ranks of Harry commentators to point that paparazzi, oh, I'm
sorry, to the point that paparazzi at the Daily Mail are snapping photos of
him walking in a parking garage. Really though, this got me wondering,
while there's been all this talk of Markle's podcast and what she did or didn't
produce, what happened to the potential Harry show. I spoke to people with
knowledge of the situation about what idea, what ideas the Prince floated, and
why none of them ever came to fruition. They requested anonymity because they weren't
authorized to speak about his work. Spotify decline to comment. As at artwell
Audio, Harry spoke with multiple producers and production houses. These people said to
discuss possible shows. Along the way, Harry listened to various ideas from others,
but mostly stuck to his own, including one about childhood trauma. The
concept Harry would interview a procession of controversial guests such as Vladimir Putin, Mark
Zuckerberg, and Donald Trump about their early formative years and how those experiences resulted
in the adults they are today. Not the worst idea. Harry also had
an idea. The people said, for a show centered on fatherhood. That
sounds boring, but I'm not a day. Maybe if I was a dad,
i'd like it. Another one would have tackled major societal conversations episode by
episode, ranging from climate change to religion. Oh my god, now that
would have been spectacular. What an original idea. Obviously I'm being sarcastic.
You know, there's literally a million other podcasts that do that. That's one
of the few statistics I actually have memorized. There's there's actually one million podcasts
it discuss that specifically. I mean, I'm rounding that number up a little
bit. But for the latter, Harry hoped to have Pope Francis on as
a guest. Okay, so basically Harry's whole thing was he was gonna bring
on these really big and important guests. The practicality of these ideas struck some
people in the Harry podcast cosmos as questionable at best, given that people like
Putin and Zuckerberg rarely give wide ranging interviews about the topics they're passionate about,
let alone about their upbringings and personal childhood dramas. Yeah, I wouldn't even
want to be in a room with of Latimer Putin. Scott Robinson says,
Matt, you say sarcastic, I say cynical. In any case, no
podcast from Harry ever materialized. The difficulty of nailing down a workable idea and
actually recording a show over nearly three years of a production deal speaks to the
broader reckoning around celebrity driven content. Yeah, you know what's interesting. You
know what this reminds me of. So Spotify is one example where you see
this. Another is serious XM satellite radio, and I have satellite radio in
my car and I listen to Howard Stern something that I've heard Howard, and
I love my news channels. I love having access to news anytime I want
it, which is much of the time. But something Howard has complained about
over the years is the way that Sirius XM will give a celebrity, like,
Oh, he loves to complain about Oprah anyway, It's always been kind
of his thing. It's not like he hates her or anything. He likes
to complain about her, but just as an example. So, at one
point they made a deal with Oprah where they gave Oprah her own channel,
and they've they've done this with other celebrities too, But then the content on
the Oprah channel is barely any actual Oprah Oprah Winfrey. There's barely any of
her on there, and it's just a lot of other content that people who
like Oprah might enjoy, but almost no actual Oprah. And Howard just is
amazed that that company would spend so much money to effectively license the name of
Oprah Winfrey without actually without her actually doing anything in terms of contributing content.
And on the rare occasion that she was going to do something, it was
a really big deal, but she was going to do like a thirty minute
This actually happened one time. In fact, this relates to childhood trauma.
She was going to be doing on the Oprah Channel, a thirty minute special
where she was going to be taking calls from listeners who would experienced childhood trauma
and talking with them and hearing their stories, and she's going to have a
psychologist, Sarah with her to help her for thirty minutes. Thirty minutes,
Like, who'd even bother to tune in for something that's only going to be
on for a half hour. And Howard was just a gast just could not
believe that that company spend all that money just to do something like that with
Oprah. And again there's other examples too, but but this is a thing
with these platforms, whether it's Spotify or sirius XM all right, a little
bit more to this article. It says the pandemic reduced work for movie stars
and others who typically fly around the world from project to project. Instead,
they were all stuck at home with plenty of time on their hands, which
is why for a while so many celebrities were signing podcast deals, even if
they didn't necessarily have a concrete, workable idea that could get made into a
show, let alone become a hit. These stars also maintained expectations for the
kind of jumbo paychecks that were once reserved for movies, commercials and Las Vegas
club appearances. And we're not in any way typical of the podcast economy,
regardless, audio executives clamor to sign up a listers in the hopes they'd win
and secure a hit. The companies staffed up, and for a while it
felt like the momentum would never stop. But as we re emerge from that
time and both stars and norms go back to some semblance of their old routines,
we're seeing many of those earlier commitments fall by the wayside. In short,
the great celeb podcast boom is quickly going bust. Clearly, in retrospect,
many of these vastly expensive deals that never resulted in much of anything shouldn't
have been made, but the money was spent, and as cost cutting measures
continue to spread through the podcast industry, the ramifications of this misspending for everybody
else aren't entirely over yet. Just ask the many regular producers, editors,
and engineers who continue to lose their jobs. So that gives us a little
more insight into some of Prince Harry's ideas. It's I mean, it sounds
to me just obviously on the outside looking in, that you know, yeah,
ye had ideas. It's sometimes it's not a matter of you know,
I've fallen into this trap myself, and I think a lot of creative people
do. Sometimes it's not a matter of lacking ideas. Sometimes you can have
several ideas, but it's almost if you have too many ideas, it's hard
to commit to one. And if you don't commit to a single idea,
then you end up in this sort of paralyzed state where nothing happens because you
haven't you haven't chosen a path that you're going to go down, so you
end up just kind of standing there. You've got a bunch of ideas but
no action. Sometimes the hardest part is picking something, saying I'm going to
do that, this is my idea, this is the direction I'm going.
If you're spending you know, in business, they call it analysis paralysis,
where you don't make a decision because you're spending so much time trying to examine
all the options and perhaps second guessing yourself and over analyzing, and but you
end up just not deciding anything. It's like the line from that Rush song,
Uh, you know, I if you what is it? Even if
you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice. I'm not
sure I said that right now. Whatever they're Canadian. If I'm gonna quote
somebody on the show, I should be quoting American bands, right America six
three two five six seven six three two five six Z seven. If you'd
like to get in with a very quick and terse call before we completely run
out of time on today's program, there was something, there was something very
brief that we could do. Let's do this. Governor, former governor of
New Jersey, Chris Christie, was in New Hampshire campaigning as he often.
I think he basically lives here now. Actually I think he's here a lot,
you know, at least until such time. I mean, I don't
think he has any kind of a chance. But one of the things about
Chris Christie, and you know, we've talked about this on the show with
our friend Eric Pilcher, who will be back soon by the way, if
you're wondering about his film reviews and everything, he's he's taking a little break
because he's got some family stuff to deal with. But he will be back,
I promise. But Eric Pilcher, my favorite Conservatives as I like to
talk, as I like to say about him, he um, he's actually
endorsed Chris Christie. I don't endorse candidates myself, except for Jerry Robinson,
of course, for Savior of real rock and roll music. That's an exception,
because Jerry Robinson is just extremely impressive. But there was something I've noticed
about Chris Christie though, and Eric and I talked about this on the show
recently, is that. And I think I dare say I think our conversation
about this might have contributed in some way to him ultimately deciding to endorse Chris
Christie. You see a lot of well, you take Governor ron to Santis
for example, he's kind of the extreme of this. But if you ask
a Governor Ron to Santis in a media appearance, why is he running for
president? The first thing out of his mouth, literally the first thing out
of his mouth is he talks about how we have to defend I'm sorry,
not defend. We have to defeat wokeism. And it's very important to defend
defeat wokeism and leftism and the LGBTQ plus agenda and all of it is just
so terrible and we have to defeat it, you know, he'd And meanwhile,
of course, if you're maybe a moderate Republican sitting there staring at your
electric bill going, How am I going to? Hey this it's double what
it was last year at this time. That might not be the first thing
on your list of priorities, but it is the first thing on Rhoda Santis's
mind. And you have a lot of other Republican candidates who don't take it
to the extreme that DeSantis does, but they do talk about that stuff a
lot. They're very much into the culture war stuff. Nicki Haley certainly is,
and others. Chris Christie, interestingly, one of the ways that he's
distinguished himself, aside from the fact that he's not afraid of Donald Trump and
not afraid to directly take him on, is he also doesn't seem to be
particularly interested in the culture war stuff, and he's not interested in, you
know, attacking trans people and all of it. And in fact, and
this actually surprised me. So again, a lot of these uh Republican candidates,
uh, you know, they're they're always well again. DeSantis in Florida
signed a bill no more gender affirming care, I think for anybody, right,
but Chris Christie, in my view, he's the want a Republican that
really stands out on this issue. He has asked about this very subject by
Brian Kilmeade on Fox News, and this is just only a minute, but
I just want to share with you Chris Christie's answer because I must tell you
this guy, in my view, knocks it out of the park with what
he has to say. And I love what he has to say here.
And if we had more time on the show today, we could really dig
in on this. But I'll just share this and maybe we'll pick this up
on Monday. But listen, here's the question and answer. Listen to this
where he's doing quite well, already making an impact. Governor, your thoughts
about the posh in Florida and Arkansas to make it illegal to do it for
kids under eighteen, Brian, you know, I just don't want to see
our government getting more more intrusive in everybody's life, getting bigger. I don't
think anything can replace parents when you're talking about major decisions that are need to
be made by our children. And I would say this, I want all
parents out there to think about something. How many other decisions do you want
the government making for you in your home regarding your kids. I don't want
any of those decisions made by the government. Parents are the ones who love
their children the most, who care about their children the most, who understand
their children the most, and parents should be the ones making these decisions.
So if a fourteen year old comes home and says, I really want to
start switching genders, that's the parent's decision. Absolutely, I'll tell you it's
more of a parent's decision than is a governor's decision. For goodness, Saints
Brian, you really think that Sarah Huckabee Sanders should be making this decision for
children in Arkansas. I love Sarah. I think she's a great person and
a really good governor. But I don't think she would ever allow the government
to substitute her judgment as a mother for their judgment. And that's what I'm
saying. I would want any government official coming in and telling me what decisions
I can help my child through and how I should do it, and I
want those decisions to be made by not by the government. All right,
let's switch in. I think that is a fantastic answer, And by the
way, it would seem to me, there is a conservative principle rooted in
that. Is there not the idea that, you know, keep the government
out of decisions that are being made in my family. Keep the government out
of decisions that I'm making with my kids or that I'm and my partner are
making with our kids. That's none of the government's business. And I think
he gave a very smart and sophisticated answer to that, and it really puts
him at odds in addition to, of course his willingness to take on Trump
and not cower like a supplicant like Mike Pence. Does you know, except
for those rare occasions when he can actually manage to uh find some cojones,
if I may use that term, it's Friday. So I just think that's
an excellent answer, and listen, I have a lot of Again, I
I'm not on the Chris Chris you know, Chris Christy bandwagon, but you
know I like the more moderate voices in the Republican Party. That's why.
You know, people ask me, why do you cling to Sinunu. That's
why, because I don't hear so Nunu. You know, if you talk
to Chris and Nunu, he's not you know, the first thing out of
his mouth is, well, we need to do something about these trans people,
you know, like does Santas just does Santa seems psychotic to me,
to be honest with you, Um, I don't even really know what Trump's
position is on any of that. I did think it was funny. H
You know, if you're a regular listener, you know I'm no fan of
Trump, but I did think it was funny a couple of weeks ago when
Trump said, you know, de Santas, he's always talking about woke,
woke quoke quoke, like anybody even knows what that actually means. I don't
know what that means, and it was kind of funny. But anyway,
so we will end with that. Oh, Davids uh dismukes in the chat
ram says Chris CHRISTI collapsed I ninety five in Philly when he got out of
his car. Oh that's well, that's that's mean. That's kind of clever.
But but it's mean. But uh, it's sometimes we're sometimes we're mean.
I don't mind mean humor, but hey, you know, he could
be uh, he could be the No, I'm kidding, he's not going
to be the nominee. But but I'm ninety five. By the way,
just really quickly before we go, I can't believe what a triumph of infrastructure.
That is, they've already got it reopened. I don't know if it's
completely reopened. But when that collapse happened and the governor said we're gonna get
this opened in a couple of weeks, I said, that's no. Come
on, you know you wanna you wanna under promise and over deliver, not
the other way around. No, they it's open. It's open. It's
just incredible, very very impressive. All Right, we gotta go. We
are absolutely out of time. Please don't forget tonight. I will be back
for retro Spectrum Radio with Policy from eight to eleven PM tonight. Always look
forward to that. Don't forget tomorrow morning. Of course, from seven to
nine am you have the Morning Show with Peter White On Saturday's Peter runs usually
a classic episode of the Morning Show, or it might be something more recent,
just an episode that he selects it he really likes. And then immediately
after that, from nine to eleven am, you have the best of Matt
Connerton unleashed. I still need to produce some new ones of those. I
know. I say that every every day. I say that, Actually first
thing I say when I wake up in the morning. I need to produce
some more of those. No, I really do though, I really do.
But let's see tonight at the Hopknot. They've got big gay bingo it's
for a good cause and DJ Reckless is at the Soho tonight in the main
room. H And if you miss any part for today's show it we'll be
up in just a little bit at WMH radio dot organ at my website Matt
Connerton dot com. Trudy from the Hopknot will be here with us on Monday
and studio. That's it for us for now. Uh yeah, we are
out of time, but we'll leave you with a little bit of day to
attend great track from from that band, and I will talk to y'all a
little bit later. By everybody,