This is Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk. Here are your hosts. Dr. Tim
Slecker and Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, educated educators talking education.
Yes, it is Monday. Busted Pencils fully-ledded education talk, educated
educators talking education. Johnny Lupinacci on the road, heading to a
destination where the family will be back on the show live with us tomorrow
and I just though sitting in Jess, how are you doing today? I am so energized for
today. I know I'm so ready to be here. Okay, really exciting moment and I know
everybody's like what we we all know, but this is awesome. First of all, though,
just reminding everybody, Busted Pencils, love this is sponsored by
Manakwa Brewing Company, Manakwa Brewing Company who sued the state of
Wisconsin to end that ridiculous parasitically voucherous program. Yeah, getting
rid of vouchers in Wisconsin. Manakwa Brewing Company is making Wisconsin
great again. One beer at a time. Check out Manakwa Brewing.com to see where you
can buy their progressive beer and their progressive wine and their progressive
shirts and their progressive coffee cups and that just go there Jess is what I'm
saying. Absolutely. Have a good conversation. Engage in some small talk. What
remember are 20 from the 20th? Thank you. That's a you know, and it's just
think about that. The role of the tavern in America is an institution that you
think about that. It's like that is where things have started and in fact, you
know, thinking all the way back to towards the American Revolution, they say a
lot of the impetus for the American Revolution came through in taverns at
the time. So not saying that we want you to go to Manakwa Brewing
Tavern to create a revolution in that sense, but to have revolutionary
thinking around ideas that continue to instill democracy and proclaim
democracy. Hey, Manakwa Brewing Company, that's where you can go and do that
because if you don't want progressive beer, you can also have progressive
soda. You can have progressive. Seltzer. Seltzer. It's all there. All of
it. The other thing just too is I so happy over the weekend I had and this is
just a reminder for everybody listening. Download that civic media app. Wow.
Because I had to go out of the area over the weekend had to take my, you
know, mother-in-law back to Pittsburgh. And I tell you what though, having that
civic media app allowed me to get everything I needed from civic media. Most
importantly, too, the alerts that came with it. We're able to keep up with
everything yesterday. Yes, I got all that. So, hey, yes, what? On top of being
able to always listen to busted pencils or any of your favorite civic media
shows, you can get that up-to-date breaking news. Speaking of which, just up-to-date
breaking news. We left on Friday. We were imagining the possibilities. We got
excited. We were like, whoa, and people are like, what are you talking about?
Okay, look, quick. Yes, President Biden has voluntarily stepped down,
opening up the opportunity now to have a new nominee. Right? That's the news.
End of story. No, not end of story. Start of story. Start of story. We've got so much
to talk about here, because I just want to start by saying, do you remember Friday?
Yeah, when we started imagining President Biden stepping down, just moving over, saying so-and-so,
and then we just went into this, well, yeah, if it's Kamala Harris, then this could be that
great vice president. It just was a conversation starter that made us empowered.
And none of that says that President Biden was a bad president. All of that said was, so
there was a lack of an excitement factor there, and that worried me going into this election
with Trump, not saying that none of Trump's policies would have turned people into voting for him
who would have voted for Biden. There was no switch there. So there's no concern about going,
like, oh, Trump is going to win over all these Biden people. No, no, no, no, no, no. The people
who were going to vote for Trump were always going to vote for Trump. It was everyone who was
in the middle. It was everyone who was looking at this situation and going, I don't connect to
either of these candidates. Neither of these candidates are representative of me,
what I believe my situation, and there was just so much disengagement, so much
the fargic energy. So many people just say, yeah, yeah, you will use it, you know,
you know, my son and his girlfriend, you know, the 24, I'm not exactly sure. And they're,
they weren't excited. And that people are like, well, they're not very civically minded. I'm like,
no, you've got an 81 year old and a 78 year old. You've got a crazy 78 year old
who's spouting off crazy stuff. You've got an 81 year old who now they're looking at going like,
wow, he's really slowed down. And neither one of them excites me. I was just, you know,
talking to my son Luke. And he's like, that's where it was. My daughter Lacey who's 21. You know,
not that they don't want to be engaged, but sorry, these two presidential candidates together
didn't create a sense of excitement about saying, I want to be a part of this. And that was
where we were going Friday when we started imagining if President Biden would step down,
what does that mean? Well, it could mean that Kamala Harris now is going to be the new nominee.
And that means who is she going to pick for running mate? And that's kind of cool because L.A.
Tom loves the got the governor from North Carolina. Johnny Lupinachi who's really pulling
hard for the Michigan for Gretchen Whitmer. Gretchen Whitmer, you know, I'm now kind of getting along
this idea. I'm reading more about Andy Bashir in Kentucky because he kind of goes like the true
Kentucky anti JD Vance. Hey, Tim, you know the name that I just heard yesterday. And now I'm really,
really excited about governor Tony Evers. Oh, oh, oh, public education. Super strong advocate
brings the Midwest would not seek the presidency afterwards. Any listeners who have the history
of knowing me though on that one are going like, oh, just you know that Tim and governor Evers
have had their issues. Oh, yeah, you butt heads. Yeah, because he's not been as clear.
Especially when it comes to vouchers is not delivered in that way. However,
well, you know, but this is the possibilities that we're talking about. We can have conversations.
We can have conversations. And I can imagine, you know, if we were having this conversation,
at the Monocle Brewing Company at the tap room, we'd be like, I'm like, I'm like, just, you know,
I got to tell you, I like governor Evers in the sense, but you know, we can have these really
impactful conversations where I kind of like, I had heard about governor Bashir in Kentucky.
I didn't know a whole lot about him, but because we can now think this way legally, right,
whatever legally means, I did some more digging. And I kind of like this anti-JD
Vance or kind of like the true Kentucky, you know, Appalachian voice and kind of going like,
how do you contrast those two? And I was like, that's exciting. Didn't mean, oh my god, that's
my winner. But it just was this just like, wow, these possibilities. And even now, I don't know,
if you're a listener right there, you're going, so you've essentially given into Kamala Harris.
I'm like, I haven't given in to anybody. It feels like that seems like the direction that's
going to go, but I do know as soon as like 10 minutes go with the latest news was is that
there isn't a guaranteed commitment to anybody. Right. This is not going to be a coronation.
Right. What I'm seeing in every breaking news feed is commitment after commitment to saying,
we're going to have a convention where we nominate someone. It is going to be a vote. It's
going to be a discussion. It's going to be democracy in action. What wait. Oh, we'll talk about
that later. Yeah, we didn't hear about. No, it's not going to be a coronation. And that's great.
You know what? And I got to say when when President Biden had that horrible awful, no good,
very bad day on the debate day. Well, actually, if you don't know that there's a there's a
children's book. Yeah, I know. Okay, good. Okay, just make it sure. You know, so it was just like that.
I was kind of like, oh my god, this is horrible. He can't run. I wasn't in that moment going
and therefore, I think Kamala Harris should be the nominee. I was potentially excited about
actually her not being and imagining the possibility of like a Gretchen wetmer, like a Gavin Newsome.
I got to say now, over these times, now I'm feeling kind of connected to going, I think the
Kamala Harris nomination is actually just kind of starting to excite me. I think
here, my personal take is you stick with Kamala. She has the experience. She has been in this
high office. Now for three and a half years going on four years, she's been training. She's been
preparing to at any moment become President of the United States. I'm really excited about the
prospect of Kamala leading the ticket and finding someone else to round it out.
I love it. You know what really got me in that direction. So one of our great guests that we've
had on the show talk about a public education advocate, Dr. Diane Rabbich was reading her blog last
night and she gave a really nice thank you to President Biden and she really positioned Kamala
Harris as her choice and then started envisioning Vice Presidents and she made the connection to
a Gretchen wetmer and Kamala Harris ticket and something about the way Dr. Rabbich presented that
in her blog last night landed on me where I went that just feels so empowering, so you know,
a minority woman, two women, just wow, it just changes everything, all these crappy old white
guys of which I'm a decently towards the end of middle age white guy. I'm one of those people.
No, but I'm tired of my kind. You know, we're predictable. It's exciting. However,
so coming back, busted pencils fully-led education talk, educated educators talking education,
what does this judo now in the situation because people are going, so what happens? What is legal
when we come back? Well, Tim, it is, it is almost any way that you want it. Oh, I hear that.
Anyway, well, come back anyway you want it. Let's see if that is the way you'll get it.
Anyway, well, come back, busted pencils fully-led education,
education talk, educated educators talking education. Anyway, you want it. That's the way we left
the segment. Is that the way you're going to get it? I don't know, but I'm going to bring something
to you. Jess and I are happy. Johnny Lupinot, you'll be back tomorrow with us. He's on a family
trip today. Wish him safety in the drive. He's going to be there, but we will be back tomorrow
with Johnny and Jess. The whole team, we're going to bring it, but Jess, exciting. I remember we
on Friday, just to remember, we're talking about Biden has voluntarily stepped down. We are now
in the process of being allowed to be excited the way we are imagining being excited on Friday.
We can now really do it and it's exciting to imagine. The other possibility, though, too, is to say,
oh, so what is this moment in time in the reality of, hey, guess what, busted pencils, it's about
education. This is a good opportunity to kind of put this out there and say, as you're coming back
to the fall teachers and students and parents, what is the civics lesson here? What is the history
lesson here? They are there. People know, I like to dabble in AI and play around and
it's like a colleague. It's a tool and I ask it some things when we go back. I don't know,
give you a little bit of a read here, Jess, and see what you think about this.
We've got a riveting topic that ties together two monumental moments in American political history.
We're going to explore the striking similarities between President Lyndon Johnson's decision
to not seek reelection in 1968 and President Joe Biden's recent announcement to step down from
the 2024 presidential race. That was me literally sitting down with my chat and saying,
this moment, President Biden has stepped down. I'm a 11th grade history teacher. How do I present
this to my kids? That's the first little kind of thing. It says, well, here, try this paragraph.
I love this because comparison to similar moments in time is typically my preferred way of
teaching history in civics is to say, what we're living now? Can we look at it from an event in
the past to help the past give us a sense of now? I think that's excellent history social studies
teaching. Oh, of course. I mean, we have that standard saying that, you know, the past doesn't
repeat. History doesn't repeat, but it sure does rhyme. But it rhymes and it gives us a sense to
say to a connection. And I will tell you this, though, too, from the teaching standpoint,
truly coming at this as a history teacher and social studies teacher, I can say that this format
of connecting the past to the present, I've seen it be much more celebrated by my students in saying,
I like it when you do that, Mr. Slecker. I was Mr. Slecker at those times. I like when
when you start with something that's happening today and then you go, oh, yeah, we'll check it out
back when because it illustrates and it really gave them a sense. And so we do have that right now,
1968, LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson decided not to run for another term. So people's like, what
do we do in the situation? Well, what happened then? It takes away a lot of the sort of panic
and the feeling of, this is totally unprecedented. Nothing like this has ever happened before. We have
no guides. And you can say, hold on, take a breath. We do have guides. We have guides. And actually,
too, as you dig into this one, you kind of say, wow. So here's the famous quote from LBJ, I shall not
seek. I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term as your president.
So as I'm coming after that, then as a teacher in this teaching moment,
we now know that this quote, I guess the students, how do you know, who said this? You know,
kind of like we do Tim Struvian Friday and some of them would find it. Okay. What was it that led
LBJ to make that statement? What happened? Did he wake up in the morning on the right side of the
bed and say, Hey, I'm not doing it. You know, no, I can get I always throw out that kind of
ridiculous stuff. What was happening in 1968? What was going on? Well, this is in the height of
the Vietnam War. Okay. President Johnson, the mood of the country was very anti-war and that was
coming across at that moment. And there was a sense very similar to today that he was not able to
be reelected in that sense. You heard that little ding there? Breaking news. Breaking news.
No, you know what the breaking news was. Just Tim always, you know, leaving his phone on during
the show. Sorry about that. No, but the other breaking news, but it's the same. It's the same thing.
So you say, Johnson believes that stepping aside was in the best interest of the nation, allowing
him to focus on unity and peace efforts. So he's like, Oh, so what did President Biden? Now this
is where I'd say, well, here's what president Biden said. While it has been my intention to seek
re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party in the country for me to stand down
and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as president for the rest of my term. Okay. So there's
the two statements. I shall not seek. I will not accept the nomination of my party for another term
as your president. What was going on? Not a very popular at that moment. And there was a lot of
things that were moving in a direction that went, wait, there's a really good chance that
President Johnson just doesn't have the support of the people. It didn't mean that people said,
you know, like we just, although there was a lot of disagreement there, people were saying,
Biden did such a good job up to this point. I don't understand. It's like nobody's saying he
didn't do a good job. But we're pointing out that at this moment, Jess and Tim and Johnny for the
last two weeks have been really excited about the possibility of somebody else. That infectiousness
was the three of us, Jess. And that was playing out across the country.
I was going to say, Jess, and you know, it wasn't just the three of us talking.
Right. Yeah. You know, I mean, it was a ground swell of people saying this is probably not in the
best interest. And so many of those voices are coming from people who have been really staunch,
Biden supporters, and people who are able to recognize Biden has served incredibly
as president. Biden has achieved amazing things as president. And it's time.
It's time. And we said, we saw that at the debate. And even then, I was very quick at the debate
to say, okay, he needs to be done. And people are like, wait, wait, give him a chance. Well,
guess what? He did have a chance. He went on George Stephanopoulos. He went on Lester Holt.
And none of it was, oh, my God, that was just a kind of fluke thing that he had this bad day. He,
you know, it was a horrible, no good, very bad day. And it weeks. And it just kept going. And it
was appearing into of going like, yeah, this is not it. We say, why does this matter? And as
the social studies and history teacher, combining these events, looking at them, historical moments,
let's bring them back together, got a little bit more to talk about. So when we come back,
we're going to finish up this history lesson and then possibly talk about democracy and action.
We're not scared of what's around us. We're not ready for a sign. We are the mad ones, we are the mad ones, we are the mad ones.
We're the mad ones.
Ah, that's what we do here every night. Talking about our generation, your generation,
busted pencils, fully letted education talk, educated educators, talking education,
talking about another great song about generation generation X, which was Billy Idle's first band
before Billy Idle became Billy Idle create, they were called generation X, which is where
Gen X comes from the band called generation X. I don't know if you know this. We did not know that.
Okay. So generation X gets its name from Billy Idle's first punk band, which they called
themselves generation X. And on that very, on that very first punk album that they released,
there's also a song called My Generation. And it was influenced by that song that was originally done
by the who about again the situation. So wow, so much learning going on today. Who knew that on top
of talking about the reality of President Biden giving us the opportunity to be imaginative, excited,
and the reality of a combined history lesson. What can we learn from history in 1968? This hat,
this did happen. Lyndon Baines Johnson did step down from seeking didn't step down from the
presidency. Because we're going to get that said, I'm not going to go for it again. I'm done.
So in other words, President, what President Biden has said is that in January during the
transition to the next president, he's done. Correct. So he's, so what he's done is he gave us
the two week notice in advance. Okay. So he was being very generous and cooperative by saying,
Hey, look, when my contract is over, it's it. All right. We were talking about history and we say,
like, let's find moments in history that are similar to the things that are happened today,
because drawing comparisons and contrasting too. Again, what's the like? What's different? We do
both really helps it embed in our minds how to understand this. The other question now too is
going, okay, there is a civics lesson here too, Jess, which you know, it just did the history
lesson. I'm trying to do a social studies encompassing talk about this. So he did history civics.
The US Constitution, though, on this people are like, what do we do? What are the rules? Well,
guess what? The US Constitution does not have rules and procedures for this type of an event.
It lays out what we do for presidential elections. It lays out what we do for presidential succession.
Does not address direct the scenario when a sitting president voluntarily steps down?
Okay, so that could be the end of story, right? Well, I mean, we have procedures for
a president resigning. Do we not? We have we have a succession. It's not really the
resigning. It's this whole idea of saying, I'm done at the end of my contract because even in a
resignation, that requires a succession. I mean, this sounds like a non-issue. You've finished
a contract. You finished your contract. I mean, say you and I had talked about this earlier
before the show. It's like all, you know, because one of the ways the Republicans are going to
come at this is going, Joe Biden can't, he can't quit. He's not allowed. That's against the rules.
It's like, well, wait a minute. I can wake up any morning and say, I ain't doing it anymore.
I hope you're not talking about busted. No, no, no, no, but I mean, it's just like, wait a minute.
Really, really, you're going to say, he's not allowed to quit. That's why it's called quitting.
You know, don't say you're not allowed. Now, what they, are they potentially saying the
Constitution doesn't have policies and procedures when a sitting president decides not to go
for reelection? Well, that could be the issue.
What? Yeah, there it is. That's that bell. We can do it without Johnny Lupinacci. Yes,
that's democracy and action. It's time. Tim and Jess can do this. So just our moment, our
democracy and action. I am so glad you and I talked about this one because I thought about this
and boy, I tell you, yours is the absolute best. In fact, give us just take it away. What do you
think is our democracy and action event today? Today's democracy and action, our value is patriotism,
loving your country and the values that it stands on. And this is in reference to President
Joseph R. Biden, recognizing his limitations and opening the door for so much democracy to be
in action. Wow, truly patriotism. And that's it. The ability, because it had to have been so hard.
Absolutely. I mean, this is a man who has dedicated five decades to public service.
And for those of you who don't know what decades mean, that means 50 years. Just, you know,
some people may not have had the decade part of their 50 years. So and he's been great.
Two, you know, here's the contrast with LBJ. I mean, LBJ, the war on poverty, the civil rights,
like that was great stuff, but that Vietnam war was such an albatross that it was just like,
no matter what the good was that he did, he just couldn't get out from that. Here, the difference
here, President Biden, I say, this is why he gets our democracy and action patriotism.
Talk about being a patriot is is that things have been going great. He has been a great president.
He is delivered on so many. He has been a steady leader.
Yes. Coming out of community. Coming out of an incredibly horrendous pandemic.
Coming out of the chaos of the person beforehand, trying to create a whole
smoke screen around this was illegitimate, creating, you know, truly up against constant divisiveness,
but still putting forward policy after policy, moving the ball, moving it up the field,
making things better for people, not getting trapped. I mean, this has been a president
who has been fully engaged. And so, yeah, the whole idea of stepping down when somebody's
kicking butt, because that's really the reality. He's been kicking butt. And so he's stepping down,
well, because the reality that happened on that night was is that if we're going to continue
to see the progress and the policies that he advocates for, it's evident now that someone else
needs to pick up the torches they've been saying. Right. Right. But to have that humility,
you know, we've talked a lot on this show the past couple of weeks about, you know, really,
really good education, really good connection with people, requires that level of humility
to recognize when you yourself are not the one who is best suited to do something,
to step down and let someone else hold that space. And that's, you say, president Biden,
that's why you get busted pencils, democracy and action. Let's call it an award today. Yeah.
Because truly being able to illustrate for those of us learning what is what it is to be a patriot,
it is not necessarily getting, you know, these colors don't run and all the stuff that people
try to amad patriotism is being selfless, truly. Right. It's not about how big your flag is.
No, this is about a moment and going the country, the people of which I love, it's going to be
better if I'm humble enough to recognize that in this moment, someone else should go forward,
man, that is an illustration truly of patriotism. So our democracy and action goes to president Biden,
the value patriotism. Just thank you so much for steering me into that one today.
My pleasure. And thank you, Biden. Yeah. Thank you, president Biden. We appreciate it.
Now though, Jess, so how do we do with the civics? We've got to come back to this because you know,
we, we understand the history, the contrast, the comparison to LBJ. There isn't anything in the
rulebook. And I say the rulebook, the American, the US Constitution is our rulebook when it comes
to civics. Absolutely. Yeah. So go to page three, when a president says, I'm not going to seek
the nomination paragraphs, be sub, no, there are no paragraph B subsection E on this situation.
There is election law, there is succession law. And so there are things we have to draw on that.
So presidential succession, there is the 25th amendment and the 25th amendment outlies,
outlines the procedures for presidential succession. Jessen is in the case of death,
resignation, removal from office or incapacitation. Okay. So that's why it doesn't really meet up to
the going, well, what happens when they resign? They didn't put that one in there. They didn't think
about the whole idea of resigning. So what do you do with that then? And you go, well, can we look
at it for guidance? Can we look at our, and yeah, and then we look at the presidential elections.
The Constitution sets a framework for presidential elections, but also doesn't specify
procedures if a sitting president decides to not run for a second term. Oh my goodness,
our Constitution now two times doesn't help us. And I can imagine now, too, they're going to say
that's why he can't quit. That's why it's against the law to quit because there's no law that
allows him to quit. I mean, I know strong objections. So that, and I think you can look at very early
American history for guidance on that. Some of our first presidents only served one term.
Yes. Yeah. The whole idea that he can't do that.
Sure he can. He can. And in fact, we're going to look at this moment and say, ah, but the role
of political parties, the Constitution doesn't address internal processes of political parties,
but the political parties do have internal processes for these events. And so at this point as
a constitutional scholar, if I were one, I'd be citing the 25th Amendment, I'd be citing election
laws and then saying this then guides me to the parties to draw from the parties, what it is that
they say happens in this event. And there is language to say, here's what happens. And guess what?
It becomes actually, I know people are going to overcomplicate this in the next few weeks.
Don't fall for it. The reality is here is that they can nominate someone new
at the convention. And everybody can agree that that's the nomination. And then that new person
who gets the nomination can stand up on that last night and say, I accept your nomination.
You know, sometimes it really does not have to be overly complicated.
Right. Yes, what? It's, yeah, sorry, it can happen. And I'm sorry, it's even the wrong word,
but as we're coming to this, though, that is really what's going to be, though,
in you're going to hear a lot of people going, well, what do we do now? What do we do next?
What are the rules say? Well, it's very simple. There isn't constitutional precedent that we're
going to use here. We're going to have some guidance from the 25th Amendment that says, hey,
guess what? People do kind of, you know, they can be coming capacitated, they die, they resign.
Okay, can we use this to say, hey, and guess what? They can stop at the end of their contract.
Yeah, we can use that. We can look to election law and election law then kind of draws us into going
do the parties have processes in place? Yes, they do. And so really right now, it's up to the
Democratic Party to put together a plan for how this is going to happen. What I'm hearing now,
as we're early into this, is that it feels like there seems to be some growing support for Kamala
Harris ticket. However, there has been a we're not sure yet, though, because it still is a procedure.
And in fact, it is a convention. And what you just heard me say, the convention could allow
for people to even, even if Kamala Harris gets somehow put forth, she still has to accept the
nomination. And there is the possibility that some people at the Democratic National Convention
could even at that moment say, we want to put so and so up instead. And they can use, right?
Right. Right. So nothing is written. But there it is. We can put this forward. I think now too,
the positive and the happiness and the excitement that Jess and I and Johnny and L.A. Tom and all of
the colors mark from Perdue Sack, thinking about Joanne, all of our colors, thinking about now going,
I am so excited to be excited. Yeah. You know, it's like people are like, what are you so excited
about? I'm excited. I'm excited because I'm allowed to be excited. And for a while,
I was thinking, man, all right, the excitement, so much more when we get back.
Uh, of course, you always get it any way you want it. Up to pencils fully let it education talk,
educated educators talking education. Jess in the house, Dr. Tim in the house, Dr. Johnny,
one night, you know, he'll be back tomorrow, though, Biden, the big news over the weekend, Sunday,
yesterday. Yes, Jess. My phone went nuts. I got the civic media alert that this happened. My
daughter was like, dad, did you hear? Oh my god. I get a text from Lupinachi. I got a text from Jess.
And it's like, as you said, it was just like, it lifted me. Yeah. In a way, and people are like,
are you just like, why would this lift you up? It's like, because I wasn't excited about seeing
that those two go at it. I mean, I, nothing about that said, oh, I was leaning towards Trump or
something like that. It wasn't that it was just like, oh, it's, it's so old. It's so stale. It's so
we know where it's going to go. And you know what? I just want to feel like there's something
tangible now that like the things that we talk about here on busted pencils matter. And I believe
they do matter. But sometimes there is this kind of like a moment in time we're going, well,
things are just the way they are. And they're just not going to get, no, we kept pushing and going,
we want things to be a different way. Yeah. It's, you know, hey, did that influence the national
conversation, busted pencils? Of course it did. Of course it did. We know that we're listening on
the city. Yeah. Civic media app, you know, the Biden reelection team was paying attention to us.
And they're like, hey, those guys are just, they love President Biden. They're just saying
they want to be excited. And thank you, Biden reelection team for listening to busted pencils.
Out there because man, we are so excited here. But you know, so much to go, LBJ, this is when it
happens. So yes, it has happened in the past. We know what we can do. Well, what are the rules?
Well, we go to the Constitution. Well, the Constitution doesn't necessarily lay out direct rules
very specifically for this situation. But it gives us some guidance. And it typically says, hey,
or not to be it says, go to your parties. Parties have all kinds of rules for how you can continue
to party. Well, on this continuation of the party, the Democratic committee that puts together
the convention has rules. So the Democratic National Committee handles the selection and nomination
of any new candidates, ensuring compliance with federal and state election laws,
to place the new nominee in the ballot. Okay. So there are rules. I'm seeing a text from Jess
here. We had a question in the studio a bit ago about the qualifications for being VP.
Yeah, we talked to that. Yeah. Okay. So we were we were talking a little bit when I came into
the studio today. And what we're seeing a lot from Republicans right now is one, we're seeing
them saying, pardon, you've got to step down. Now if you can't run for reelection, then you can't
be president. And that's nonsense. That's nonsense. The other part is, well, we're going to be
investigating Kamala Harris very, very thoroughly to make sure that she is, you know, she meets the
qualifications to run for president. And my initial thought was the most sacred duty of being vice
president is that you assume the presidency should the president not be able to fulfill their
duties. Therefore, does someone need to fit those same requirements in order to be vice president
as president? Yes. Okay. This is a this is a non starter, Jess, but I knew they were going to
go there with this. This goes back to their Obama birth or baseball. Okay. You know, immediately,
like this is this is just yeah, this is a replay. This is a replay. This is all this
birth or crap around the the idea that, you know, her parents, maybe we're over here,
what she really born is she officially, this is coming down to this BS. And we'll just say like
that the bull, you know, around creating a story around something where there is in a story is
Kamala Harris, a citizen, the way the constitution says you have to be to be able to serve as vice
president. The answer is yes, she has already served as vice president. Therefore, that legal threshold
has been met summed up and guaranteed. And we're now going forward. There is no, whoa,
she wasn't qualified for the whole last three and a half years. Bull. Okay. If they're truly what
and there are qualifications to be a congressman, there are qualifications to be a senator,
there are quality and those are laid out in the constitution. When this comes up, though,
this comes up around this idea of a natural born citizen. And this is the crap they tried doing
to Obama. This is truly this is racism. It is absolutely. I mean, let's be honest, you're not trying
to punk, you know, to just point out a legitimate potential issue. No, you're not. You're being a racist.
Yep, that's what you're doing. You're being a racist and you're trying to cloud your racism
or shroud your racism in policy and procedure of which there is no policy and procedure. You're a
racist. Just come out and go, look, I'm a racist and I would like for that woman who's not my race.
I would like her not to run because she's not my race. That's my issue. I got a racial problem with
this person. Can we take her off the ticket because I'm a racist? The answer is no. No, we cannot
take it off her off the ticket. You're allowed to be a racist. Well, I mean, I allowed you, I suppose,
should be. No. Yeah. Yeah. But there are no rules stopping you from being a racist. However,
there are rules that say you can't try to create policy around the idea that you're just simply
a bigot and a jerk and a crappy person who should just actually go back to take my social studies
classes. When I was teaching second grade, so I can reacquaint you to what it's like to be a
contributing member of the human race. And to be part of this incredible country that is so
bursting with diversity. And that's not a bad thing. That is the most beautiful thing about our
country. It is. You made me think quickly too over the weekend. I sent you a little note talking
about this. I was really surprised at the movie I sent you, which is Hale Satan.
Yeah. I know we're kind of anyone that but boy, it made an interesting point about pluralism and
diversity in this country. And it just lifted it up. So just man, thank you all you especially for
busting pencils with me tonight. Take it out though. Yeah, we'll have more and more on this story
as it continues to build in any civics and history lesson that comes up. Yes, busted pencils.
Stay tuned because we'll continue to be talking about this all week.