Hey, everybody. Just a reminder that my book, The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power, Paranoia in the Coming Crisis, is out in the world. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, you should do that. I've been really, really happy with the reviews and really happy with the feedback I've gotten from people who feel like this has shined a light and illuminated a little bit of how we've arrived at this point. This is the story of our modern crisis, but more

especially how we get out of it. Again, the book is The Midnight Kingdom, A History of Power,

Paranoia in the coming crisis. Pick up your copy as soon as possible.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Muckrake podcast. I'm J.G.8 Sexton. My co-host, Nick

Houseman, is living and surviving in the Republic

of California in sunny Los Angeles, warm Los Angeles. Tell us about how nice it is out there, Nick.

Well, it's weird because everyone wants to text me and call me and saying, like, oh, my God,

what's happening out there? And it's not like that big of a deal, but it is freaking freezing.

It's like 52, and it's not like that big of a deal but it is freaking freezing it's like 52 and it's this deluge of rain and like uh that horrible noise you know in 2023 they still have these

um they interrupt your show with the eh uh noise and then it gets you a flash flood warning you don't

get those you know well they're interrupting your stories is that what you're telling me like like young and the restless uh you know

whatever we're happening to be watching anywhere on tv you know and it's it's just amazing that in

twenty twenty three there still have literally the 1970 uh air raid warning style stuff what are they

warning you of rain flash floods flash floods. Flash floods. Pestulents. Frogs. I don't know. It's horrible. It's a biblical proportions going on here. And it's got to stop. I didn't move out here for this. What's it like in Los Angeles when you have rain and cold? Like I just imagine cars piling up on the side of the road, mass hysteria, cats, dogs. What are we talking about? I mean, you get the interesting phenomenon probably across the whole country, though, is the people who want to drive as if it's not raining. That's really fascinating and fun for everybody. But other than that, things, you know, tend to go fine. I think what you might see socially is that people just cancel plans. don't want to go out they want i'm not going to meet you for dinner tonight because it's so rainy it's the great los angeles plan cancellation of 2023 is what you're telling it's got to stop i'm actually going to travel to florida on sunday and i'm so looking forward to it because the weather there is so much better and it will not get get better between now and that, in a week from now. By the way, we did not plan this. What an incredible segue. That would that, that, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the best in the business, Nick, traveling to Florida, uh, as, as we so often have to do on this show, uh, We have to talk about the upcoming presidential election.

We're going to talk about the moving and the shaking within the primaries of the Republican Party.

We're going to talk about some absolute madness and bullshit in the state of Tennessee.

And also, the lab leak hypothesis goes mainstream when it comes to COVID.

We'll get to all that.

But before we do, Nick, you know, it wouldn't be this show if we didn't talk about both the dangers of the authoritarian Ron DeSantis and also our media's absolute incapability of being able to wrap their head around these dangers

and to continue to normalize him.

We've got a we got a spicy meatball today.

So it does strad boggle the mind that like, you know, media, whoever's covering this

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