Aliens, Propaganda & Lessons from New York Primaries

Dem Establishment hell bent to learn nothing from Mamdani and NY Primaries; Trump Admin’s dirty propaganda comparing immigrants to alien creatures; Join Team Algae in the Reflecting Pool drama; Hegseth can’t even lift; Alyssa makes a mixtape

Note: the memo labeling many people “terrorists” is NSPM-7, not NPSM-7

• Four years after the fall of Roe

The Reflecting Pool

• Some background on the Reflecting Pool renovation
• Arghavan’s first and second carousel about the Reflecting Pool saga

Lessons From NY Primary

• Mamdani’s candidates win
• Jaime Harrison’s tweet about Democratic politics
• New York AG’s comments about Mamdani

Dehumanization via Government Propaganda

• "Dept of War" UAP website: https://www.war.gov/UFO/
• Racist, xenophobic Aliens.gov site
• SCOTUS’s decision on Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Syrians
• Hegseth works out with the military
• Longer video of Hegeth’s workout shows he does almost everything half-heartedly. What a warrior!
• Summary of Prairieland case
• Prairieland sentences

💊Take Two and Call Me in the Morning💊

• Pentagon reinstates flu vaccine mandate
• Reactions to JD Vance patting Usha’s knee
• Alan Opts Out Mixtape
• June 26 - Come see Alyssa and Courtney Maum at Book Passage in Corte Madera

Thanks for listening to The Present Illness! 

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Credits

• Production by Arghavan Salles & Alyssa Burgart
• Editing by Alyssa Burgart
• Music by Joseph Uphoff
• Social Media by Arghavan Salles

Don’t take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes, is meant to be fun, and is certainly not medical advice. Please, take your medical questions to a qualified professional. Nothing we say represents our employers or anyone else. 

Transcript

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there are very wealthy, wealthy people with a lot of experience in this area who the government is investing for those folks to really drive what is the visual vision of America. And I think it's going to be used. I think the propaganda is getting more sophisticated and it's going to be used. you know, over and over again in ways that I I really think we have to pay attention to. Hi there, fellow nerds. Welcome to another episode of The Present Illness, the podcast where two physicians try to make sense of a world that is uh increasingly febrile and definitely underdiagnosed. I'm Arghavan Salles, a surgeon scientist in your friendly neighborhood doom scroller and residence. And I'm Alyssa Burgart an anesthesiologist and bioethicist who tracks news and health law like their EKGs full of spikes and surprises. The present illness is where we dig into public health, politics, culture, and ethics with a scalpel in one hand and a meme in the other. And as a note to our listeners, we often talk about tough topics that can be intense, activating. And so if you need to take a break, we understand. A big thank you to everyone who's listening wherever you found us, and some extra love to our subscribers and those who follow us on any of the various platforms with a special warm welcome to anyone who just stumbled in from we're giving you a choice this week, either the four-year anniversary of the terrible Dobbs decision or the catastrophe that is the reflecting pool at the Lincoln Memorial. What a week for America, you know, in the last the last gasp of her two hundred and forty ninth year. Yeah, never looked better. Well, the Dobbs decision is obviously trash and we desperately need to get abortion rights back for everyone. And screw you, Supreme Court, you suck. And they they continue sucking in as many ways as possible. Um now. Yeah, well it's always like this. It's Supreme Court season, right? Like SCOTA season. So they have no, but it's like but like usually they get released over the course of June. It's not usually like it's freaking June twenty we're recording on June twenty fifth. They're hoarding. Yeah. Well, the latest one I saw was they said that Haitians and um what was the other nationality they ruled on? Are no are not protected. Well, that basically the court is not going to interfere interfere with decisions made about that temporary pre protected status. If you recall the Trump administration withdrew temporary protected status um from a large number, I don't have the number in front of me, um, of Haitians. And this was fought all the way up to the Supreme Court. And the Supreme Court said, Yeah, actually that's not our business, um, what they do with temporary protected status. Um, so that's extremely disturbing along with many other extremely disturbing things that they have done and will continue to do. you know, the Supreme Court has to decide which cases to hear. So I sort of feel like that's like that sort of makes it your business, you know? Yeah. And they said um Syrians are the other nationality um that was part of that decision. But yeah, they basically said they're not gonna interfere with the federal government deciding to revoke temporary protective status for these individuals. Well America, we're really just just we're really messing up. We're really messing up here. Okay. In as many ways as possible. Wait. The reflecting pool? Well yeah, we have to talk about the reflecting pool and I'm and I'm gonna say this i in part because like talking more about temporary protective status and how horrible it is and talking more about how women are like being harmed, dying, etcetera, because of lack of abortion access. That's too much for me today. It's too much for me today. Okay, so I need to talk about um the science of algae. Let's do that. That's the level that I can tolerate today. You know, and I think you're not alone. I think there are a lot of people who uh who are upset and frustrated by all the things that have been happening um in this country in the last year and a half who are like, hooray! A story that doesn't involve people dying. Let's talk about that. Um, so the reflecting pool, right, if people have seen photos or been to DC, it's it's in between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. I've been there many times. It's it's a beautiful place. Um and Our president had decided that he wanted to repaint the bottom of the reflecting pool so that it would be this color is called American flag blue. And and he needed to do it in t I know, I know. It's all it's all a game. Anyway, he needed a he thought it was gonna be like a happy birthday America, like Manny Petty. Of course, of course. Yeah. initially he said it was gonna take like a week and one to two million dollars and Anybody who has ever painted a pool knows that that is irrational. Like, that's the anyway. As a man who seems to own a lot of pools, you'd think he'd know that. Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I don't know what he's doing with his other pools, but this was clearly a vanity project. And he he made this argument that or his team did that this was an emergency because it had to be done in time for the 250th anniversary. So they had to do these, this is what they said. They had to do these no-bid contracts, one of whom was to one of Trump's neighbors in Florida, who also donated to his campaign, mind you. So they they end up an and for people who don't know though, like a no bid contract is like when you you really need to do something like urgently. There's some like specific reason why you cannot go through the normal contracts process where like there's this whole thing of like a health issue, right? Let's say you've got like legionella in the the vents coming out at a place, right? Like and you need to do something urgently to fix that so people aren't getting sick. Sure, that makes sense. Repainting the willing to pay more money to take whoever will take it right now. Right, whoever will help solve the problem. But instead, we're talking about the bottom of a reflecting pool that was fine. Okay, was it perfect? I'm not gonna say that, but it was fine. And he felt very strongly that it needed to be American flag blue. So this is problematic for a couple reasons. One of which is that this is a darker color, and the darker color will retain more heat from the sun, which raises the temperature of the reflecting pool, which To your point, makes it more hospitable for algae. Isn't that nice? Okay, so that's one thing. Another thing is that they they did this relatively quickly. Um, they drove, for reasons unclear to me, they drove the motorcade over the newly finished bottom. I genuinely yeah. To supposedly inspect it, I guess is what they said. But like that means they had laid down, like it's not just paint, there's some sort of um ceiling. And he says it's like some kind of almost rubber. I don't actually know what the material is, but whatever material they they've lain down needs time to cure. Like it has to set, right? Anybody who's painted anything, refinished anything, you know this. and but then they like drove over it with this motorcade, which seems just like a ridiculous PR stunt. And then they filled the, the, the And I believe they used water. I will fact check this in the in the show notes, but I believe they used water from the Potomac. Who knows why? and I I've heard rumors that they removed the filtration that had been put in by the Obama administration because, you know, it was Obama, so it had to be wrong. And then um, so soon enough, so sure enough, as pretty soon after they had filled this pool, algae algae began to grow. everywhere and it became green. So one person I saw called it the Strait of Warm Ooze, like a play on Worm Ooze. The Strait of Warm Ooze. did you see the guy with the t shirt that said team algae? yeah, well, and I also saw the pink frog. There's a there was a protester in a pink, you know, one those poofy animal suits. It was a pink frog suit, and they had a sign that said team algae, and then across their chest it said ampha, a m-p-h-i-f-a. And um I love that. Thank you, shout out to whoever that was. Um anyway, so so the water turns green. The president is very upset. That it's green. So he starts looking for culprits, right? It couldn't possibly be because he picked a terrible color. And also, by the way, they this is a thing that I've learned is that algae do tend to grow when you change out the water in a system like this. And they didn't um they didn't irrigate the all the different um pipes, I guess, that are affiliated. So like there could have been algae in the pipes. Anyway, so algae starts to grow. Then he, because he cannot accept responsibility for ever having done anything wrong, like perhaps selecting people and paying people who don't know what they're doing to fix this pool. By the way, costing us between fifteen and sixteen million dollars of taxpayer money. Anyway, so the thing, is like it it had an like you said, it had an update during the Obama administration, like to maintain it, right? Like to like fix parts that just needed to be fixed and like the filtration system and all this stuff. And it's and I mean, I feel like if you were gonna use a no contract, you know, like a no competitive contract system, it's too bad they didn't pick the person who had done it before and not messed it up. But it turns out if you but if you just pick like your buddy. Who you want to give money to, uh, turns out they did a terrible job. And you're welcome. And now it can cost you more money. Us. Yeah. And um, they I believe in the Trump and Trump won term, they also made some repairs in 2019. Um, anyway, so so we have these um things happening. So somebody orders people to start pouring hydrogen peroxide into the pool to kill algae. Yes, hydrogen peroxide into the pool. And so you see them. They're like around the edges of the reflecting pool, pouring like from like a container you could get at Home Depot. It's not like they got a truck or anything. They're just like one by one pouring these, like, I don't know, liter gallon, whatever containers. And so uh some people took photos from the air, like they happen to be on a flight, and they're like the edges of the pool became more blue, but like the middle remained green. And then, and then after that, the bottom started peeling. So there's like sheets that are floating up, sheets of this American flag blue floating up. It's not a very deep pool, the reflecting pool. So they're floating up and last Friday, like a week ago, there is a US Olympian who lives in the area, was on a long bike ride. He decides to take a detour and just like see what's happening at the reflecting pool. And he leans over and there's like this sheet that's floating up and he reaches his hand down just to touch the sheet because he's like curious what is what is this? What's happening? He gets arrested. He gets arrested and held for five hours. Um yeah, yeah, because he's a he was vandalizing the reflecting pool. Um so think that the president vandalized the reflecting pool. Correct. That is exactly what happened. But they've now arrested six people for like touching the water of the reflecting pool. And uh the president has insisted, even as recently as yesterday, that vandals took, he said, either a knife or a box, a box cutter to the bottom of the reflecting pool and put a Either 250 yard or 300 yard or 350 yard slit, he said all three of those numbers, slit into the bottom of the pool. And that's what has caused these sheets to float up. Not the improper installation, not the fact that the motorcade drove over it, not the hydrogen peroxide that's corrosive, but that in an area that has 24-7 surveillance, vandals, those radical leftists. got in the pool and and cut a slit with what knife? What kind of knife would you use to cut a slit? Anyway, um that is what our our president is insisting has happened. And then they two days ago they put a fence around the reflecting pool. So I mean presumably to keep the vandals out. And then now they're saying they're going to have to drain it again. After the 4th of July, and they're gonna have to do some repairs on our dime, of course. But I wanna say to your point, I know we have to move on, but I wanna say to your point about whose fault this is. So Donald Trump had posted on the 21st, he said, work will begin immediately on fixing the seriously vandalized reflecting pool. I just inspected it and could only say to myself and those gathered around me, wow, who would do such a thing? Sick, deranged people. I mean it's really like a perfect visual analogy for his presidency, right? Like let's take something that was basically functioning everything else, like that we can't necessarily see, or maybe a lot of people don't necessarily see exactly what's happened at NIH, exactly what's happened at CDC, what's happened at the Consumer Protection Bureau. Um, you know, all the exactly. They all have had people who are incompetent put in charge. And they've made changes that have led to the destruction of the thing they're supposed to be in charge of. But we just don't always see it as clearly as what we're seeing with the reflecting pool. Um, I do want to say though, it has brought out a lot of humor. Uh, one person said, Donald Trump will go down in history as the only US president to be outwitted by a single celled organism. Which Yeah. I mean, touche. and another one, hold on, there were so many good ones. So um i I mean, imagine like thirty years from now needing to write like a US history book, like a modern US history book, and being like, Wow, we're not gonna be able to fit all of this in one text. We should we're gonna need multiple volumes. yeah, there's so much. There's so much to work with here. One person said, Selena Meyer, the spirit of your administration lives on. That's of course a VEP reference because where else would you find so much incompetence? Um, he does also, I should point out, continue to blame Barack Obama for all of this. Um, I also saw someone posted um there's a photo of the Strait of Hormones, and it says scientific rendering of the Strait of Hormones if the US. Takes control and is green. The whole thing is green. And then somebody replies, that's where Algae Zera is located. Like play on Alga Zera. Anyway, thank you all for the comedy. It was clearly much needed because we're so overwhelmed with all the terrible things that are causing even more damage than the damage that's been done to this reflecting pool. Um, but yeah, that that's what's happening. well, and it's also been fascinating that like this whole story about the reflecting pool has been unfolding and then like the Obama presidential library opened up and like they had a beautiful ceremony and there was all this like I mean, I almost didn't recognize it decorum. Um and like I'm not I'm not like a big I obviously I say like the F word a lot, like I'm not a big I don't like lean into decorum as a general thing, but I like I'm into it for the government. Like I sort of want the government to have like serious people in it who have serious interests and make smart choices based on the best available evidence. Um so yeah, it was nice to see those speeches and be like, you know, that was a bright spot. So true. I mean, because we had also the day that that library opened, and they we had these speeches from Michelle Obama and Barack Obama that were excellent. We also had the rally or the parade for the Knicks celebrating their NBA championship. And so there was a really excellent speech that Zerwan Mamdani gave. I mean, excellent from the perspective of a sports fan and a Knicks fan. Like it was very, very well done and very inspiring. And people were commenting that, you know, we should really never see both Obama and Mamdani giving speeches on the same day because it really puts into focus how bereft our current government is of eloquence, of complexity of thought, of decency. Um anyway, so I mean, I feel like this is like a great opportunity for, you know, Republicans. Like if you want to get ahead, I'm just saying, like, we're open to hearing people who are gonna speak with, you know, d dignity and and care about people. And, you know, you could really change the whole party. Try try it. I I'm open to that. I'm open. Yeah. You know what? That's a great challenge to any Republicans out there. Try to bring decency to the Republican Party. It there whatever I to America. bring it to America. Anyway. ah All right. Well, I I like I'm I appreciate you bringing all the jokes about the the algae. Yeah, any time I'm always happy to see anything funny out there. Oh, I have a Maya culpa to tell you about. I'm switching gears. Um, so as many of you listeners know, we we have this podcast uploaded to like all the all the platforms. Um, and like a lot of people listen on Apple, fair number of people listen, listen on Spotify where it gets aggregated. I did not realize um that people were leaving comments, very lovely comments, on our episodes on Spotify. And that's my bad. Spotify is not my typical um platform that I use. So listen folks, I will be paying much better attention now that I understand that. So I apologize. So all of you who just recently got like little hearts from from us and little responses, like I'm gonna be so much better. Thank you for your beautiful comments on our episode episodes. We love that you're listening and I will start pulling some of them to share. Yeah. Yeah. I mean I don't check at all, so I also bear the blame, but thank you for for noticing that. f you know, it's like the the Instagram, the TikTok, the Apple, the Spotify, you know, we're we're all learning. So anyway, thanks folks for listening. For all of you who are over on Spotify, I will pay much better attention to you and return the love. Uh Hmm. um, should we get into our first topic for today? Topic one point five, I guess. yeah. Well you were just talking a little bit about Zoran Mandani. Yes, yes. Okay. So what I thought we could talk about today is this week was um New York's primaries for their congressional races. So there were three candidates running for Congress who Zoran had endorsed. And these are all Democratic Socialists. So for folks who don't know, like that's Zoran's uh affiliation is the Democratic the Democratic Socialists. And um so he had three candidates he was backing, two of them up against incumbents backed by the democratic establishment and all three of his candidates win. Nice. It turns out that people do want Medicare for all, affordable housing, people who are going to care about the working class, and people who are not going to go along with genocide. Mm-hmm. You love to see it. we absolutely. Um, and uh one of them, so one of my favorite stories is Brad Lander. So Brad Lander did run for mayor against Zoran. and I the first time I had ever heard of Brad was when they were campaigning essentially together because it's ranked choice voting in New York. And so they had joined forces and they were like, vote for me or vote for him, vote for one of us. We're both great. Um, and and Brad is Jewish, and of course, Zoran is Muslim. I forgot about that. It was so like refreshing. it was so sweet. Yeah. And so they've continued obviously to have a a good partnership and um it seems like a friendship as well. Anyway, so Brad was up against Dan Goldman, who is not opposed apparently to genocide as far as anything that he has said publicly. Um and and Brad um won pretty handily. Um and then we have Claire Valdez. and Daria Lisa Avila Chevalier, or the other two who he had supported who won. And while folks in New York were celebrating, a lot of folks in New York were celebrating, uh, both online and in person, I saw um, you know, parties and and and yeah, people just being genuinely happy that this had happened. Um the Democratic Party was responding differently. Now you could imagine the party could be like, hey, this is great. We've got like a lot of enthusiasm around Democratic candidates. And we obviously need that. We have no control over anything right now. And we need candidates that people can rally around and like feel good about support us about supporting. Yet, here's what Jamie Harrison was the former chair. of the DNC said um that night, Tuesday night um after the election. Jamie Harrison said, I say this with no ill will or animosity. That's already suspicious. Excuse me. He says, if you hate the Democratic Party, then please don't run for our nomination. Don't use our resources, don't rely on our volunteers, don't use our infrastructure. Don't ask Democrats to invest their time, money, and energy in your campaign. Focus on building the party you actually support. Political parties aren't perfect, but they're built by millions of people who knock doors, make calls, organize meetings, and fight for the values they believe in. If you don't believe in the party, then don't ask its members to carry you across the finish line. Yeah, that's a pretty wild thing to say on a night when don't know. It's I mean, it's almost like they don't want us to vote democratic anymore. I I think the I mean, I think he is very out of touch, obviously, with voters. I mean, what folks have said, including Zoran, was asked about this on um one of the cable news channels, and he said, What is the Democratic Party if it's not the voters? Which I think I mean, that's what it is to be in touch with reality. Like that's who the party is. It's not Donna Brazil, it's not Jamie Harrison, it's not Tish James, no offense to any of those people, but you are not the party. The party is the people and the people are are telling you what it is that they're looking for. And I mean, if you wanna win, it seems like there's a guide that you could follow. Absolutely. I mean, the the person, um, one of the people who lost was a five-time incumbent and chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. This wasn't just a random congressperson. This was a person seen as a leader in Congress and lost to one of these up-and-comers. That's not the response that they're having to to feel threatened. Is so counterproductive and off-putting that it's it it's no surprise that they've had such trouble gaining traction with voters. Like if that's your reaction, you should be so delighted. Like, oh, we found messages that resonate for people. We should run with that, right? And mind you, folks may or may not be aware that a lot of the Democratic establishment did not support Zoran in his run for mayor, even after he became the candidate even after the primary. Um and I just wonder like what what is it that you want if it's not to win? Like, is that not like the point of your like the DNC? Isn't that like the I mean I it's to raise money, but isn't the point of the raising money to win the races? Um, you know, Tish James, who has publicly had a a positive relationship with Zoran, she said something um along the lines of being oh, she's attorney general, attorney general of New York. Um of New York. Got it. Mm-hmm. She said something like, A lot of people in the Democratic Party are disappointed in Zoran because he's blowing up the Democratic Party. I just, I guess I don't understand what these people see as a win because to me, all of this is winning. This is, like you said, this is a roadmap for how to win. What is successful messaging? What is it that people actually want? And how do we deliver that to them? That's what he's doing. And instead of cheering for that or learning from that, they're tearing them down. And and But it's so inconvenient. Do you know how expensive it's gonna be to actually like care about voters? gonna cost a lot of money. If we had to actually follow through on the things that we promised the voters. Well, and I think it really does point to something these DSA folks are harping on quite frequently, which is money. The money that goes into these elections, the money that these candidates receive, and how that impacts the policies they're willing to support. And so they're it's becoming clear, right? Like that, what else is influencing these people to take these positions? Like Donna Brazil replied or quote tweeted or something related to to Shams' posts and s or to Shames's words that I think someone else had posted, saying that she agrees. Like, what do you mean? You have a winner. I mean, this is why people I well, I mean, I don't know about I can only speak for myself. This is part of why, like, I you know, I've never really been that impressed with the Democratic Party. Like I liked Obama. I mean, it was really hard for him to get things done in office because of the way that the government runs and the way that the Republican Party was just really dead set on being as divisive as possible. I think like we really, you know, we weren't able to Like we like sort of stopped doing bipartisanship at that point. Um but yeah, I I'm kinda like I mean, I don't understand what it is that the Democratic Party thinks is gonna keep voters who genuinely care about the well being and human dignity of the citizenry. Like I'm just not impressed with them. But then when somebody like Zorin comes by, and like, you know, I tend towards democratic socialism as well, and like I would love to see more of that. Yes, and even the general population is much more supportive of this. Now there was a recent poll that showed there are more people in favor of socialism than there are in favor of capitalism. Yeah. You mean this lives are like kind of kind of in a shambles right now 'cause you can't afford to buy milk or gas or like put your kids in school or retire. Pay your bills. We we're seeing what capitalism does. And um it's not for most people it's not been good. I mean, like we've got so much wealth concentrated and very few people. Um and I mean look at uh look at Elmo. He's uh the first trillionaire. Yeah, but he just lost like a ton of value uh because to to for his net worth because SpaceX stock tumbled, tumbled. Um, so yeah, he's not a even by net worth a trillionaire anymore. Yay. Um, but he was there for a hot minute. Good for him. and anyway, so I think they're they're clinging to something that doesn't make sense. Like people are so frustrated. with the Democratic Party. People who are like left leaning are frustrated with Democratic Party because they haven't, in many people's views, done enough for the people. I mean they can't even get their act straight. Like, listen, you look at the Republican Party, those people know how to get people in line. They know how to get them to vote. They have a tight message. Now I f I hate the message. The message is grounded in, you know, xenophobia and racism, white supremacy, and some mythical pastime. Um, but they're very clear. And the Democratic Party's like, we're so distracted and whatever. Yeah. And I ch and then like you see somebody like like um mom Donnie come in and like resonate with voters, have messaging that resonates, get it, and they wanna like throw it away. What do you guys are you guys for like how stupid? It's just so stupid. Yeah, it makes no sense. I mean, so s for folks who haven't been following, like some of the things that Zoran has done in just six months of being in office is he's gotten money from the state for universal 2K. So start childcare starting at two. Um, the baby baskets that are gonna go out to newborn babies, for all newborn babies in New York City. He's gotten nine million dollars back from Jeff Bezos for whatever he owed the city that he didn't pay before through Amazon. he's gotten approvals for a faster process to build new affordable housing. He's, I mean, I don't even have all the things in front of me. That's just off the top of my head. But the point is that he not only campaigns well and is obviously very charismatic, eloquent, you know, gifted speaker, but he's following through on the things. That's why I think he has so much cachet in this moment. It's not just that he talks good talk, it's like he's like, yeah. This is what we're gonna do. He has really cracked down on bad landlords in New York City, saying that if you're not addressing the things that you're supposed to be doing for your building, we weren't we're gonna reclaim your building. I mean, all sorts of things. And he's proposed that new tax on people who have a second home in New York. They don't live in New York, but they have a residence that's valued at more than five million dollars. So he's gonna tax those people. I mean, he is really following through on so much of what he said he was gonna do. And that's why people love him. In addition to the fact that he's charismatic or whatever, you know, but like he's actually doing the thing. these are these are all interventions, right? That are that are pro citizenry. They are this is these are actions that are pro family. These are actions that are, you know, pro safety. And why it is that the Democratic Party finds all of this just like so threatening. I don't know what to do. Please grow up. so just so I can be clear about what it was that she said, she said some of the candidates that he has supported are individuals who do not understand the politics of New York City, the cultural differences from district to district, who have not been who have not been part of the history and the struggle of some of these districts and are relatively new to the body politic. Okay, so they're young is what I'm hearing her say. And that she and other Political colleagues have said they're disappointed in his push to change the party. She says, quote, all of us are a little frustrated with the Democratic Party, but you don't blow it up. I don't think anybody's trying to I mean, anyway, I don't know. I the same same with Jamie Harrison's comments about hating. None of those people have said anything hateful about the Democratic Party at all. I mean, they're just saying what they they're campaigning on what they believe to be important. And it is such a swing and a miss that the Dem establishment is not just following right along. Like, great, I love it. Great idea. Let's do more of that. Um, it just the the whole organization is so stale that they don't understand the power in listening to the people and delivering on the things that people actually want. And that isn't that like the whole point of this like representative system that we have. They're supposed to be delivering on what the people want, not on what the people who paid you want. It's the people who elected you. That's who you're supposed to be caring about. Turns out if you want people to get out of their homes and go vote or to vote by mail or whatever, like this works. Yeah. Anyway, so I think I think it's great. I mean, I don't know about I'm not sitting here saying I know everything about these candidates and they're the best people ever. I don't know that. But just the fact that there was so much support for people who are clearly behind progressive policies that are meant to help regular citizens, I think is such a positive direction in politics, whichever side of whatever aisle, you know, like that this is actually going to help. People, these folks are gonna actually help people, and having more of these folks in Congress is gonna be beneficial. So that's a win. Yeah. I don't know a whole lot about New York politics. I never really thought I cared that much, but like Zoran Mondani has me really caring about New York politics. Yeah, I mean I've never lived there. Look at all these things I just told you they're doing. I uh they're not benefiting me, but I'm like, oh, that's a cool thing. Look at them go. Uh and there's all these like tweets. I wish I had them pulled up right now, but there's all these tweets of people being like, look at me, I'm New York City, like I have sunshine and rainbows and dolphins and Zoran Mimdani and the next one, meh. That's funny. That's funny. clearly a lot of New York City envy going on out there. And I would count myself as part of that. I mean, I'm like, can I move to New York? Is it now a good time? By the way, there's like all these people who are saying that and have been saying that people are gonna leave New York because of Zoran Mamdani and these policies. And I'm like, again, like how out of touch are you to think that people are going to run away from policies that help families? What are you talking about? Even the rich people, I mean, this is the other thing is you're gonna tax the rich, the rich are gonna leave. I mean, that's not what's happened anywhere else so far. I've not heard of that happening in New York either. Um, but you know what? If they leave great, great. Go take your inequality somewhere else. Go, I don't know, somewhere else. Invest it somewhere else. But you know, they're not New York City's not propped up by these people's second home that they don't live in. Like that's not what's happening. Anyway. That's that's that on that. Amazing. Amazing. Well, thank you for the rundown. I had not followed this races that closely. I just knew that, like, I just I had just heard a little bit about it. So I appreciate that. Um, so I wanted to talk, and I mentioned this last week. I want to talk about um, I want to talk about UFOs, and I want to talk about aliens. You ready? Okay. So um, so listen. I'm an eighties, nineties kid. I grew up on the X-Files. I imagine you did as well. loved the X-Files. And in anyway, so there's like there was all this like culture around UFOs and like it's out there and all of that stuff. And it's interesting because now of course all of us we're like in our we're in our forties and fifties and whatever. And there's re in the past couple of years there's been there's sort of there's multiple tracks of things I'm gonna talk about because the government is doing some I mean I know you're gonna y'all are gonna be shocked, some wild things. With websites and some wild things with messaging, uh, you know, to promote various factions of behaviors. So before I get into the aliens, I want to give you a little bit of a setup about some of the things that are happening in the design world of the US government. So, and this is important because of the way that design is used to sell us things. And Design is used to sell us ideas. Design is used, you know, in marketing to help us, you know, not help us, to for companies to say, hey, we want you to believe this thing and lead you to buy our product, or we want you to endorse this particular idea so that we can then get you to believe something else. So I have noticed since this government, since Trump's second term started, they've had a lot of I mean, I'm gonna be honest, like sort of trashy redesign of a lot of government websites. Like they it's very like we're trying to be hyper masculine. Like I always feel like I'm being sold like a protein bar when I go to government websites now because the like it used to be that the websites were quite tame. They were they were sort of boring. Like I I like a boring government myself. Um usually means it's functional. Um But so many of the websites in this government have become more splashy. Um we've seen, you know, every time, like if you go to any of the web pages that are about executive orders, they have a big black splash page with this sort of like flowery script that's, you know, about the US government, and then big block letters, oftentimes in all caps, but not always, in white. Uh, this has this sort of like masculine gravitas sort of a look to it. So I've just been watching that. And then I noticed when after RFK Junior got into office and HHS started releasing some of their reports, I was like, ooh, these are very like Instagram yoga mom aesthetically coded. Like there's a lot of like beige. And and like design comp design forecasters, for example, will be like, yeah, the the the colors in 2026 are gonna be this sort of a palette, you know, like a terracotta or whatever. And so starting to notice those features showing up in government documents in a much more sort of in-your face, but also like I don't know, you hired like I don't know, an Instagram designer maybe off of Fiverr or something. You got like a budget version. I don't know. But I've noticed these changes in the design features. And so One of the projects that came out by executive order is that uh President Trump decided to have a national design studio. Now, most uh we were talking earlier about contracts. Most of the design that's done for the government is done through government contracts. It's not done through an in-house design studio. So the government usually will pay contractors, and there's like a specific list of government contractors, who will be designed to like redo. The websites for the national parks or to read, you know, to update certain websites. a government contractor, for example, like if you've ever seen Medicare and Medicaid have these like big books that are by state. There are at in they don't have an in-house designer, they hire these outside groups to do it. Well, with the launch of the National Design Studio, uh, apparently there's gonna be this, you know, government rebrand, which is part of the stuff we've been noticing now. And um, we've been talking a lot about who are Trump's friends and who are the people that he's giving jobs to. And so Joe, I don't know if it's pronounced Gebia, Joe Gebia. He's the billionaire co-founder of Airbnb. And he is now the chief national design studio or the chief of the national design studio. Um, Trump's got this like America by design initiative. Like, honestly, none of this seems necessary. It seems like the other system was just fine. Um, but they're clearly making this effort to use design as a way to tell us to to like sort of micro-target the citr citizenry to tell us things that we want to hear and to market certain materials to us by using design and to make us feel a certain way. So just a few weeks ago, Peter Arnell was appointed the chief brand architect for the United States of America. Now maybe people don't understand that every government like we there is a brand. We do have like certain fonts that are used. Mm-hmm. are how governments will show you that how you know when you look at something like this is from the government, this is a legitimate source. There's a bunch of, you know, if you think about the details in the money that, you know, if you look at paper money, for example, when you look at a government website, you want it to be very clear to people that it is a trusted, reliable source. but all of that is up in the air right now in terms of what it's going to look like. So Peter Arnell being put into this chief. Brand architect position is really interesting because he is a very senior, very, my understanding is very well-respected person who's done a lot of design work for companies that we all know about, you know, Pepsi, Donna Coran, Samsung, Unilever, who makes like soaps and stuff, Home Depot. Um When big companies hire design firms, like they're trying to sell products, they're trying to sell messaging, they want to make us feel good about things so that we will believe them. And also can be a beautiful distraction. So if you want to distract people from, I don't know, a war in Iran that you're totally blowing. Um, you can use design as a way to draw attention to different things and to sort of pull people in using. A lot of the things that we know from social media that are effective in terms of getting people's attention. So I say all of that because there is a big ecosystem behind the two websites I'm about to describe. And I think it's it's important to recognize that these do not come out of nowhere. Um so back in March, um on March 18th, the government quietly registered a website called aliens.gov. And people who like watch the Um, government's behaviors saw this and basically every day were like refreshing it to see if it would have a website attached to it. And a website was officially launched on May 28th, 2026 at aliens.gov. Um, before I get into what that website looks like, the other website that was launched by the government is through, you know, the Department of Defense is now called the Department of War. Not not technically, by the Not technically, but but on all of their imagery, for example, and on the website, for example, it's no longer dod. It's war.gov. So this is again like how do we use how are we using websites to send messaging? mind you. Anyway, go on. But Pete Pete Hug Seth needs it to be the Department of War. So anyway, whatever. So war dot gov is the Department of Defense official website of the government. you see the video of him working out with the uh military? Because Well, because you know, the the reason it has to be war, right?'Cause he's he's gotta be a manly man and show to be I'm a I'm a real man. That's why I'm the secretary of war. We don't need that ninny piece nonsense. Anyway, so he there's a video of him working out with these Uh, folks in the military, and you know, I'm sure whoever made these clips like waited till the last part of his set or whatever, but it looks pathetic, is what I'm saying. Like he's doing a bench press. I mean, I could do a better bench press at that weight than than he's doing. Like, he just looks like he can't he's just struggling, and then somebody has to help him, like take which I mean that's part of working out, by the way. It's just that. He's trying to project an image of strength that doesn't, I think, exactly match with like who he actually is. Anyway, I'm sorry for that aside. I just that's what popped into my head when I started thinking about Pete Hegsett's attempts to be a a man manly man and how it falls short when documented. Anyway, carry on. know what I just really quick about Pete Hegseth. I one of my favorite things on Saturday Night Live in this administration has been Colin Jost coming out to play Pete Hegseth and all the skits, and it's pretty funny. So anyway, so the Department of War, the Department of Defense, the the website is war.gov. And again, we are in the age of distraction where anytime something that Trump is doing is going bad, which is happening all the time, means that it's like, ooh, squirrel, look over here. mm. over here, something else is happening. And so there's been a long push for many years to like release a bunch of uh files that the Department of Defense apparently has and that the US government has related to what we colloquially would have called UFOs, the government since uh you know, unidentified flying objects, whereas the government since 2020 uh they switched the name first to Unidentified aerial phenomena, and now it's like unidentified anomalous phenomena. So they're called UAPs now. And basically it's like imagery that pilots are seeing that that indicates that there may exist some technology that is far beyond the capacity of our government. Um, some of these things maybe they're Russian technology or Chinese technology, and some of these things there's not. There's been a bunch of government hearings around this. So basically the president says, well, I'm gonna be really transparent. I'm gonna be the most transparent president. And so has been releasing or authorizing the release of these troves of documents that are about these UAPs. So like I was saying, so it back in March 18th, the the government buys aliens.gov or registers it on May 8th The government starts releasing documents on war.gov about these UAPs, but they want the public to find it. And so it's war.gov backslash UFO backslash. Now that website, you can download a bunch of these images, you can download a bunch of reports, whatever. It's a very like masculine coded, like I'm about war sort of a website. Um again, it's sort of like it's like Like if the regular Amer like w White House website is like a fancy protein bar, but it like still tastes chalky, the war.gov site is like Yeah, it's like a creatine ad. Like they're gonna sell you some creatine. Anyway. Um so then so that so May 8th, that UFO website gets launched. People start analyzing whatever footage they see, whatever, whatever. The aliens.gov site god.gov website went live on May 28th. So 20 days later. And it is fascinating if you look at these sites side by side, because the aliens.gov website. It's very X Files. It's got the neon yeah. lot like Xbox. is that it's got the neon green text? green, sort of like glowing font. It's got a little bit of a 90s vibe to it. Um, it's got scrolling text, which which actually the the war.gov site also has this, where they're they're really trying to maintain people's attention through scrolling. So when you open it up, you actually have to wait for the words to appear, which is a it's a technique to get people to stay. So if you have people who are going to be pulled in by a particular bit of text, they're gonna keep waiting for the text to be revealed. Mm-hmm. it's on the the aliens.gov website. The background is like stars, you know, you might say in the background. It's a little cheesy, it's a little tongue-in-cheek. trying to be also a little bit Star Wars, you know, like the intro of Star Wars where you've got the stars in the background and the text. Like it's not exactly that, but I I I wouldn't be surprised if they threw some inspiration. but imagine if instead it was Spaceballs, but it was real. Um Spaceball's one of my favorite movies, by the way. Um can't wait for the second one to come out. Anyway, so This website, however, aliens.gov, it is coded visually to make you think of little green men, of aliens who are, you know, from i extraterrestrial creatures. Um I feel like you're really burying the lead here, because what is that website actually about? I stop it. Getting there. Because why we're talking about UFOs. Our readers, our listeners, sorry. So for example, when they did the tease like the teaser trailer for this website, it showed a like UFO thing, AI generated image, of course, yanking up a person who appeared to be an immigrant into this thing. And so aliens.gov is actually, it is all it's coded to look like UFOs. It's coming out at the time when these uh UAP documents are being threatened. But it's but it's All just xenophobic, racist, anti immigrant stuff where it's like it goes down into like they walk amongst us, the people here. I'm gonna actually read it because it's so terrible. It really is terrible. Just for people to understand like how absolutely absurd it is. for 60 years, the US government has kept a closely guarded secret. So again, like trying to sound like it's all about UFOs. Aliens have been walking among us, living in our neighborhoods and interacting with us in our daily lives. They've shopped at the same stores. They've attended the same classes as our children and lived seamlessly normal human existences. So the dehumanization, it's it's terrible. And like the entire site refers to. immigrants and not just not just undocumented immigrants by the way, all immigrants, as it like the dehumanization is so outrageous and so intense. Well, what I was gonna say is that right after where you stopped reading, they say, because you what you said was just to refresh for folks who are listening, that yeah, that they lived seemingly normal human existences. The next line is with one exception, they do not belong here. Millions arrived under the cover of darkness and embedded themselves directly into our society. So it's it's terrible. And then you know at the bottom it's like this whole map of apparently, you know, immigrant arrests. Of course, the data in it's wrong. They've had to multiple times change it because it turns out that like these numbers that they're showing, they're not grounded in reality anyway. Also, it's terrible and stop harassing people in America. We obviously hate ICE on this show. We're an anti-ICE show. Um You know, this is happening at a time when like in 2025, 50 people died in ICE detention facilities. The government has arrested people, not only people who are undocumented, but also people who are citizens. Like they're going after kids. We've had we've talked about how they're abusing children and putting them in terrible conditions. Adults are in terrible conditions. And so to put out this um like super cute, sort of like fun website. Is so it is incredibly offensive. And it's doing something from a propaganda standpoint. I think it's doing something that is really negative and very powerful because it's so outrageous. It's it's doing that work of moving the Overton window because it's like, it's a joke. Can't you these libs, they just can't take a joke. You know, and so it it s it fits very well into this type of use of storytelling, this use of visual cues to say, but this is all really lighthearted. Like we're just talking about, you know, terrorizing people. It's fine. And It's clearly meant it was it was launched at a time to distract from the Iran war, as but they could have released it, I'm sure, at any time when they decided it was time to like distract. Um, but it's really embarrassing. It's a terrible move by the government, and I think that we are gonna need to be. On such high alert as citizens at how is it that the government is utilizing imagery, websites, the the names of websites? How are they using text? How are they using colors to make us feel a certain way? Or to move an overton window or as a distraction? And I just think that this is a whole new era. I also think that I mean, while I can't wait for this Particular government to be over. I also think there are so many things that are happening in this Trump administration that I don't think we can take for granted are gonna go away. I really don't. And so it's very smart, you know, if you're if you're a government and you recognize like the government has a brand and we want to be able to market certain ideas, they're obviously paying people now to do that. They're not using outside government contractors. They're specific. Like there is a, there are very wealthy, wealthy people with a lot of experience in this area who the government is investing for those folks to really drive what is the visual vision of America. And I think it's going to be used. I think the propaganda is getting more sophisticated and it's going to be used. you know, over and over again in ways that I I really think we have to pay attention to. Mm-hmm. No, I think you're absolutely right. And that that aliens.gov website is such a good example because when you look at it, like it already it has the built-in othering. Like it's making you think of, as you said, X Files and these strange creatures, but they're talking about human beings. Yeah. Yeah. And that's something, right? We're like we you have to think about it. And the normalization of dehumanization. And they're doing it in a way that's I and I I I I obviously am not I am obviously in opposition to the way that this is being done, but they're doing it in a way that feels fun. It feels tongue in cheek. You know, it's just a joke. It's just a joke. You know, it's like a rape joke. It's just a joke. Can't you lighten up? Mm-hmm. Yeah. that way it has this plausible deniability that they'd be like, we're just being funny. Yeah, sure. Usually when something's funny, people laugh. I don't know. Um I'm sure there are people who are laughing, right? Like you and I aren't, but Yeah. I mean, there's also uh you know, we were we were we had talked you and I about maybe discussing this other thing. I just wanna throw it in here because we're talking about immigrants and um a case that got sentenced. There was sentencing this week in in a case that came out of a protest at a nice detention center in Texas. The center was called Prairie Land or is called Prail Prair Prairie Land. And um Folks who were there protesting have been now sentenced to 50, 70, and 100 years in prison for having been there. one person who wasn't even there was sentenced to 30 years in prison. His wife was one of the protesters. And he his crime was moving some documents, some pamphlets, artwork, and poetry that they had um at their house. And he's serving 30 years for that. And all of this, uh, there's a lot more complexity to this case. Uh, if for listeners, I know that. I'm just we're for the sake of time, not gonna go into it, but I raise it here to just say that that's part of this same play of now they're calling these protesters terrorists. This is related to the NPSM memo, which I forget if we discuss on this podcast, but this came out in the fall. saying that anyone who um supports migrants, supports trans people, who um, you know, opposes fascism, et cetera, is a terrorist. And so the judge in this case gave out intentionally severe sentences to like make this point um that you can't you can't attack our democracy. I mean the judge said that these folks were attacking democracy by protesting at an ICE detention center. the right to protest is a first amendment right under the const it's numero uno. It's not numero dos. Number one they're genuinely trying to eliminate it. And there aren't enough people talking about that case. I hope that folks will look into it. I will put a couple links in the show notes. But if the if you can be sentenced to 30, 50, 70 years for showing up at a protest, how are we to express dissent moving forward? Um anyway, uh it's a terrible, terrible precedent. and I should note that there They're already they've pressed charges against folks in Minnesota and in Spokane, Washington, and in Chicago as well, using this same NPSM um memo framework. And now that there's precedent from this case in Texas, I I find it to be one of the more concerning among all the many concerning things, I find it to be one of the more concerning things that's happening right now in this country. Well, clearly we're never gonna run out of stuff to talk about. You know, I was worried. I was worried, Argivon, when you were like, let's talk about something every week. I thought certainly there won't be so many things each week that we'll have a hard time choosing, but I'm I just want you to know I understand that I was wrong. Well, that's beautiful because you know what, you, unlike our president, can admit when you're wrong and I appreciate that about you. I'm team Algae. What can I say? All right. Uh let's do take take two and call me in the morning. Let's let's prescribe some lovely, lovely stories, some links. What are we gonna give to the people? I have a couple um sh real quick things. One is that folks may have seen the military a while back, the military said they were no longer requiring the flu vaccine. because you know, they were we're not gonna be tyrannical about people's bodies, even though we're not gonna let pregnant people get abortion. But anyway, um you're supposed to kind of hand wave that away. But then there was an outbreak, a flu outbreak. Um yeah, isn't that funny? and so the good thing is they've now reinstated the flu vaccine mandate. So I guess we have to just keep relearning lessons we've already learned. But at least we're capable of still relearning them. So that's one. Um, another one that I wanted to point out, this very quick one. If you're looking for a laugh, there's a little video out there. JD Vance went on his wife's show. You know, she has um Usha has a reading show to like but she like can't read very well, right? I mean I mean I'm sure she's literate. I just mean like when she reads out loud it's pretty painful. She's been very she's been criticized a lot for and so she started having guest readers. And so JD Dance was her JD Vance was the selected reader? Correct, but the best part about it, if you just Google JD Vance Usha Vance reading, it'll come up, I'm sure. she welcomes him to the show. They're both sitting down, you know, like on a typical podcast type thing. And she's she welcomes him to the show and he says, Good to see ya. And he leans over and her pats, he pats her knee. Good to see ya. It's like very weird. It's very like, do you all ever touch each other? Are you? it was a Father's Day event. White House locks down Vance video before critics pile on I don't know, man, but there's a lot of funny takes about it. If you uh wanna scroll on some social media, there's lots of people wondering what is happening uh with that relationship. Meanwhile, Usha's very pregnant at the moment and people are like, Yeah, had to be a turkey baster, right? Well, it's just that if you can't even look like you touch each other ever, it's hard to imagine that there was anyway. Yeah. I imagine that? Stop doing this to me. No imagination. Anyway, okay, I had one more but I'm gonna save it for next week. What's your take two? okay. Okay. Well, so people who follow me on Substack know that I have been raising butterflies. Like I love this. I get these like little cup. It's got a little little caterpillars in it. They eat their caterpillar food and you get to like it take the whole process takes about six weeks. On Saturday morning we released all the butterflies, but there was one Yeah. There was one straggler butterfly, which was like the last one to go into its cocoon. It like s it's very small. I was like, is is he gonna make it? Like he was like the runt of the litter. I don't know what the plural is for caterpillars, but I'm gonna say litter. And this one like grew very slowly, seemed like I was worried would be kind of sickly or whatever. Became a cat became uh pardon me, uh in his in its crystallis, like much later than the other ones, like several days. But I just I'm happy to report, did great. Emerged, beautiful, all the wings intact, happily went out into the yard afterwards. So it was great. I'm so glad to hear it. I saw them. I saw them at in the caterpillar stage. Yes. and then my other thing is uh so we're recording this on June twenty-fifth. Tomorrow, June 26th, when this show comes out, I will be in Corte Madera at Book Passage, which is a bookshop. I'm gonna be in conversation with my friend Courtney Maum who has a book that I've talked about here before um called Alan Ops Out. Actually, here it is. Have it. Alan opts out. and I'm doing an event with her, which is gonna be super fun. And um I wanted to I love music. I wanted to do something special. So I've made a mixtape to go along with the book, uh it's inspired by the book. And um, you know, I'm gonna share it with people at the event as well. So I will put a link to the mixtape. I've it's on Apple, it's on Spotify, and it's on YouTube, so you can get it in any of those places. That's amazing. I think that's it for this week's episode. If you didn't like what you heard, um, this has been the whatever podcast. If you liked it, don't forget to subscribe to the present illness, leave us a review and a rating, and then let other folks know that you like the show. Follow us on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube at the Present Illness to stay on top of all of our TPI-related news. And for those of you listening on Spotify, I will pay attention there as well. We will be back next week with more headlines, hot takes, and doom scrolling, hopefully wrapped in some laughs. Until then, agitate, hydrate, and take a nap. We will see you next time on the present illness. Production by Argivon Salas and Alyssa Berghart, editing by Alyssa Berghart, social media by Argivon Salas, original music by Joseph Uphoff. Don't take medical advice from random people on a podcast. This show is for informational purposes. It is meant to be fun, and it is certainly not medical advice. Please take your medical questions to a qualified professional. This podcast is our hobby. It doesn't represent the opinions of our employers, just ourselves.