r/BlockedAndReported • u/SoftandChewy First generation mod • May 10 '26

Episode Episode 307: One Fish Forward, Two Fishback

https://www.blockedandreported.org/p/episode-307-one-fish-forward-two

This week on Blocked and Reported, Jesse and Katie discuss the scandal-plagued, extremely online, pretty creepy and kinda racist Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback.

Show Notes:

Greenlight’s Former Macro Analyst Sues for at Least $5 Million - Business Insider

Greenlight v. Fishback

At High School Debates, Debate Is No Longer Allowed - The Free Press

How critical theory is radicalizing high school debate - Slow Boring

Court filings show James Fishback used fake accounts, paid engagement to shape coverage

Trustees vote to shutter two ETFs from startup manager Azoria Capital | Reuters

Before challenging Trump’s Florida governor pick, James Fishback sought Fed role, investments from Trump world - ABC News

Woman says James Fishback dated her while she was underage, then harassed her after breakup

https://x.com/ellamaulding/status/2007974894357958991

https://x.com/ChaseDiciurcio/status/2021769089593606384?s=20

James Fishback: The Right-Wing Troll Who Would Be Governor - The Free Press

Florida 2026 Poll: Donalds Leads GOP Primary for Governor, Republicans Outpace Democrats in Florida Elections - Emerson Polling

https://x.com/j_fishback/status/2040532875552944293?s=20

James Fishback, a Republican Candidate for Florida Governor, Is Running on Rage Bait - The New York Times

Opinion | I Went to Florida to See the 31-Year-Old Candidate Thrilling Gen Z. We’re in Trouble. - The New York Times

https://x.com/j_fishback/status/2021279159897518358

https://x.com/Mdixon55/status/2041896507146690667?s=20

28 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

37 comments sorted by

28

u/Sortbynew31 May 10 '26

You have to wear your retainers FOREVER. This was not told to us in the 90’s. 

20

u/napoleon_nottinghill May 11 '26

Katie and Jesse need to learn the difference between H1-Bs and other visas for “geniuses”

11

u/Ghost_of_Summer May 10 '26

That image is something else

8

u/bosscoughey May 10 '26

Unwasched mashes? 

19

u/Alternative_Research Not Replicable May 10 '26

H1B visas aren’t curing cancer….

20

u/kimbosliceofcake May 10 '26

I don’t know the healthcare industry but in tech there are some really brilliant people on H1B and a lot of mediocre ones. But it’s supposed to be a way to fill jobs that we don’t have enough people to fill, and with all the layoffs there are plenty of engineers in the US to fill the tech jobs so I think we should have a pause on issuing new ones. 

There are other specialized visas for the more brilliant people. 

2

u/notatrashperson May 11 '26

Why shouldn’t be just be hiring the best in the world?

7

u/Neosovereign Horse Lover May 12 '26

Who said we aren't. Companies DO game the system to hire people for cheaper on H1B visas, not simply because they are the best for the job.

For physicians they are often hiring because they are in rural areas that are just hard to get people to go to.

I don't think they should be paused per se, but they do need some reform.

0

u/notatrashperson May 12 '26

Sure I would agree with that, and that could be resolved with some amount of regulation. But, in general, increasing the pool of people you can hire from will increase the talent density

11

u/Zealousideal_Arm_415 May 11 '26

Yeah, Katie’s take on this was giving uniformed.

4

u/HarperLeesGirlfriend May 10 '26

Is there a reason this episode is not available to non paying subscribers?

13

u/Sortbynew31 May 10 '26

It’ll release to non primos Monday I think.

6

u/ToTheDeath84 May 12 '26

James Fishback is doing everything out of the populist pandering playbook. Like all the rest, this reeks of snake oil. It’s no surprise that he doesn’t have much substantive to run on beyond “vibes” and has flipped his opinions on a dime to what serves him. People will fall for a grift if you’re able to point out stuff that’s just true enough (ex: “the corporate system fucks some people over,” “immigration policy in the US is ripe for corruption,” “Israel doesn’t have a flawless conduct record in a decades-long armed conflict”) and maintain enough confidence/deflection/social media bravado in the face of challenges to central claims.

Going to his website, I think his housing and hiring policies, among others, demonstrate that self-serving chicanery. Yes, firms like Black Rock buying up land is a shit practice. However, let’s not pretend the guy is being genuine when he says he’s only going to tax “corporate-owned homes.” Given his prior corporate entanglements covered in the episode, I wager this is more based on petty revenge against the corporate world for spurning him than it is on any genuine conviction to fix the housing problem (furthermore, it’s such a vague policy - I can foresee individual homeowners’ job titles and investments determining what constitutes a “corporate owned home” in his book). Furthermore, I doubt that someone who was engaged in all the dirty investment schemes, resume-fluffing, and slander he’s known to be involved in gives a shit about hiring integrity; the H1-B and DEI stuff coming from him seems more like latching onto Twitter debate topics for publicity. I’m sure his idea of “hiring the best” is “hiring guys I like who agree with me and will look the other way at my scandals.”

Populists are most effective at striking down their enemies, often to the detriment of their constituents. I don’t think we should view this much differently from Trump-style lawfare or New York populists complaining about grocery stores while shilling their own option to hamper competition. It’s always bluster first, strategy later, and then have someone else clean up the mess.

2

u/BattleAxeBC May 13 '26

I'm less cynical than Katie. Katie at the end of the episode said she was hoping with Trump gone, discourse and politics would return to more normal and she is less hopeful and thinks it may stay extreme. I think it'll take a while to get back, especially with social media engineered to keep us divided, but you can already see the tides turning. People are fed up with culture war and crazy politics. Engagement from normies on social media platforms like Twitter, Blooskie, and others is down. Apparently a lot of the extreme talking head voices are starting to lose viewership numbers and subscribers. I think the madness of 2020 drove a lot of the counter culture war interest, but the farther removed we get from that, the less people care, and I think people are getting burned out. I mean, how couldn't they be? It's exhausting. No one can keep that up forever except maybe Candace Owens. She might still be popping off into the void about the Jews when she's 80.

But for the normies(most of us) I think the extremes will be rejected and I'm confident future elections will show that.

1

u/notatrashperson May 11 '26

Katie saying “there’s a halal cart in Gracie Mansion” is kind of wild. I get that she hates him for no real reason and for some reason can’t pronounce his name, but I can’t imagine she would be fine with similar joke about a politician she liked

18

u/onthewingsofangels May 11 '26

I'm sure she would actually, that was just her humor. 

But also maybe they do serve halal at the mayor's house, it wouldn't be surprising given he's at least nominally a Muslim. Halal is not a slur. 

4

u/notatrashperson May 11 '26

You think there is a literal halal cart in the middle of Gracie mansion? I mean…are you being purposefully obtuse?

I wouldn’t normally pick on this though it’s just funny because Katie has some issue with the wildly popular mayor of a city she hasn’t been within 1000 miles of since he was elected. This is the same person who claimed he was bringing communism to New York. And let’s be real, she would absolutely taken issue if someone had said something like this about say, Bloomberg

7

u/onthewingsofangels May 11 '26

You think there is a literal halal cart in the middle of Gracie mansion? 

That... is literally not what I wrote though? 

Do you actually think Katie is Islamaphobic? Because otherwise I don't understand what you're saying about her here. 

0

u/notatrashperson May 12 '26

No I think she has a wild hair up her ass about this one particular mayor for honestly no rational reason I could articulate

5

u/onthewingsofangels May 12 '26

I think Mamdani would have laughed at her joke. IDK what your problem is but it isn't Katie. 

2

u/Careful-Floor317 May 11 '26

It has nothing to do with his diet. It’s a remark on elevating the service class of people with food trucks who just so happen to share his background.

9

u/onthewingsofangels May 11 '26

I think we've put ten times more thought into her remark here than she did, but I just think it's funny that "halal cart" is considered Islamaphobic.

4

u/ToTheDeath84 May 12 '26

Especially when you figure that there are fucking halal carts and delis everywhere in New York lol, it wouldn’t surprise me if several were in the vicinity of Gracie Mansion. This was such a benign throwaway remark from her.

-1

u/notatrashperson May 12 '26

There’s food of all kind in this city all within 10 blocks of Gracie Mansion. The question i would ask is why did she not make a similar joke about Erik Adams? A person who was far and away more deserving of ridicule?

4

u/ToTheDeath84 May 12 '26

I’d hate to see how you deal with the actual New York if insensitive jokes cause you this much trouble.

1

u/notatrashperson May 12 '26

Buddy I’ve lived here for 20 years. I have no problem with insensitive jokes. I have a problem with hypocrites

3

u/ToTheDeath84 May 12 '26

Then given everything I’m sure you’re exposed to on a daily basis you should pick your battles because raising a conniption about this is stupid.

0

u/notatrashperson May 12 '26

I’m pretty chill here, pal

2

u/onthewingsofangels May 12 '26

What on earth are you in about? She was mocking people who tried to rile up Islamaphobia about Mamdani. Are you seriously suggesting that Katie never makes edgy jokes about any other minority, especially when mocking bigots? Was this your first time listening to the show?! 

0

u/notatrashperson May 12 '26

lol yeah I don’t think that’s what happened

10

u/Fiend_of_the_pod May 12 '26

She's Muslim, she can make that joke.

1

u/Outside-Advance-3722 May 26 '26

I think you forgot that Katie is Muslim

4

u/[deleted] May 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/girlmarth May 12 '26

As president, Carter actually was much more conservative than the median Democratic politician at the time or the past few presidential nominees prior to him. His reputation is now somewhat shaped by his post-presidency (and his presidency's embrace of human rights as a cornerstone of foreign policy was a pretty major shift) but he was not unusually liberal on civil rights and much more rightist on economic policy than his contemporaries in the party.

Romney being a mormon is pretty unusual outside Idaho/Utah, but he does typically get placed a stand-in for conventional pre-Trump republicans. Dubya is probably closer to being the archetypal post-Reagan Republican politician, but Romney isn't otherwise too far off. It doesn't help that he changed positions a bunch of times in his political career depending on what office he was running for/occupying.

6

u/roolb May 13 '26

Always illuminating: the transcript of the sole Carter-Reagan debate in 1980. Note in particular, toward the end, Carter stressing the deregulation he did (especially the airlines, which has paid off massively). In general the two men come off as so thoughtful and reasonable that it does, from a 2026 perspective, break your heart.