TJ Walker connects four news stories: Tennessee's failed execution of Christa Pike, Trump's Time interview focused only on enemies, the Trail Blazers firing an announcer over a 2012 tweet, and the Justice Department reviewing Nixon tapes. He argues these expose a government that can't execute properly but excels at rewriting history.
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Ultimize. Tennessee tried to execute a woman this week, gave her a double dose, and she survived. Meanwhile, Donald Trump told Time magazine nobody asked him positive questions. The Portland Trail Blazers hired and fired an announcer in the same day, and Trump's Justice Department is investigating whether Richard Nixon was framed by the Nixon tapes. I'm TJ Walker, and this is Filtered. And today, the government finally proves It can do one thing well. Tennessee just tried to execute Christa Pike and she survived. Pike was convicted of the 1995 torture murder of Colleen Slemmer. Her lawyers said the state used at least 7 needles over an hour, gave her double the usual dose, and that witnesses heard her snoring. Snoring. That's not an execution. That's my Sunday afternoon. And this is a pattern. An independent review already found Tennessee never fully tested the drugs used in 7 earlier executions. Now, I get the appeal of the death penalty. Colleen Slemmer's family has waited 31 years for justice. In their view, that's human. But I'm a results guy, and conservatives have spent 40 years telling me government is the DMV. Fine, I believe you. Then why are you handing the DMV a needle? You trust them to find the right suspect, to run a fair trial. These are the people who lose your birth certificate renewing your license. If your government can't kill someone on purpose, it shouldn't get to decide who deserves it. And the Republican fix? Senator Marsha Blackburn wants the electric chair back. Tennessee can't find a vein, but they'll always find an outlet. To be clear, nobody disputes that Christa Pike committed this crime. That's not the point. The point is the machine nationwide. 200 people have been freed from death row since 1973. That's one innocent person for roughly every 8 executions. If Domino's got one out of every 8 orders wrong, you'd stop ordering pizza. When the government does it, we say same time next year. The government wants to play God. God made the universe in 6 days, allegedly, ostensibly. Tennessee couldn't finish one Wednesday. And the whole thing is a contradiction wearing scrubs. Before a lethal injection, they swab the arm with alcohol to prevent infection. The state is worried you might get sick on the way to being dead. Officials say it's partly in case of last-minute reprieve, which means the most carefully followed step in the entire process is the one designed to keep you alive. Okay, folks. This is going to make me unpopular, but I'm against the death penalty, all of it. But if you're going to do it, stop pretending it's medicine. The gurney, the IV, the guy in scrubs who's not a doctor— it's a hospital costume. To the person on the table, needle, gas chamber, firing squad, guillotine, the destination is identical. The only people who care about the decor are the witnesses. Lethal injection isn't humane for the prisoner. It's humane for the audience. And if Tennessee insists on the medical cosplay, at least hire someone with a track record. Michael Jackson's doctor, one drug, one night, no second dose, and he wasn't even trying. Speaking of people who think they're God, would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing. No obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. Donald Trump gave Time magazine a long interview, and I read every word looking for one sentence about you. Your rent Your groceries, your insurance, your gas prices, nothing. Here's what he did talk about. He regrets all 3 of his Supreme Court picks because, quote, they voted against me too often. He asked, what's the purpose of CNN's Kaitlan Collins? He said, yeah, sure, he'd pardon his own staff. Then he snapped at the reporters. You haven't asked me one question. Using a curse word. One positive question. Now, I understand why people voted for him. Washington felt rigged and they wanted a fighter, I guess. So as a communications coach, let me translate. He is fighting, just not for you. He's a personal trainer who spends your whole session yelling at the gym. A plumber who floods your kitchen and complains about his ex-wife. A surgeon who opens you up, then asks why nobody's saying thank you. Every answer was about his enemies. Not one was about your bills. And the only people he complimented in the entire interview, the liberal Supreme Court justices for their loyalty. He also dismissed his failing approval ratings as fake news. Sir, polls aren't fake news. They're Yelp reviews, and you're the restaurant where the chef comes out and screams at the customers. So, So let's do a thought experiment. Imagine that in 2016, Democrats skipped Hillary and nominate Kanye West. He wins. He spends 4 years feuding with reporters, loses, takes a little break, comes back in 2024 and starts a war with Israel, which, given Kanye's history, is the least surprising sentence I'll say today. He promises the war will take a few weeks. 6 months later, he announces he met his timeline. He put a tariff on every product that doesn't have his face on it. Prices skyrocket. He tells Time he regrets his own judges because they wouldn't obey him. He offers to pardon his whole staff in advance, like a group discount. Now Democrats are about to lose California. Would anyone be shocked? No. Every pundit in America would shrug and say, well, yeah, the Democrats deserve it. They deserve to be destroyed. They nominated Kanye. Well, Republicans nominated Kanye. Theirs just has a spray tan and the nuclear codes. Speaking of things you say that come back to haunt you, the Portland Trail Blazers hired Braden Bell as their new TV play-by-play announcer Thursday morning and fired him Thursday night. He called exactly one thing his own career. It was a blowout. A Portland TV reporter found his tweets from 2012. When he was 15, one said, and I'm cleaning this up, I'm not racist at all, but not gonna lie, Asian people tick me off. Hahaha. Hashtag honest. Hashtag honest? The most honest part was the hashtag. Now, plenty of reasonable people think it's harsh to fire a 29-year-old for something he typed at 15. Every 15-year-old is an idiot. And reporters found nothing offensive after he became an adult. But as a career coach, here's the result. The internet does not grade on a curve. You think it's a tweet? It's a tattoo. You think it's a joke? It's your background check. You think it's 2012? It's the morning of your dream job. Delete it today, not the day you get the promotion. Better yet, don't write it in the first place. But if you already did, delete it today. And here's the strangest part. In America, if you want to call basketball games, your posts from age 15 must be spotless. If you want to be president, your posts from 3 AM last night can be anything. So I'm launching a new course, Scrub Your Past in 30 Days. Module 1, delete everything you posted before your frontal lobe arrived. Module 2, delete everything you posted after. Module 3, delete the course. Which brings us to the most famous 3 AM president of all. Donald Trump's Justice Department is reviewing whether Richard Nixon got a raw deal. Nixon. The Wall Street Journal reports a former Nixon aide, Jeff Shepard, was invited to Justice Department headquarters to give a 2-hour presentation with a 78-page slide deck titled Watergate as Lawfare. The department says it hasn't opened a new probe. They just watched a 2-hour slideshow. Voluntarily. Now, I understand the appeal. Trump supporters believe prosecutors were weaponized against him, so reopening old cases feels like fairness. But I've taught thousands of people to reframe their failures, and this is the most ambitious reframe I've ever seen. Nixon recorded himself in his own office approving a cover-up. That's not lawfare. That's a confession with excellent audio. The burglars got caught wearing surgical gloves. Lawfare. Next, they'll investigate whether the iceberg was framed by the Titanic. If every crime is fine as long as it annoys liberals, we don't have a democracy. We have a thuggocracy with a gift shop. Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon in 1974. 52 years later, Trump's Justice Department is pardoning him again from history. And this isn't really about Nixon. It's an attack on knowledge itself. Philosophers call it epistemology— how we know what we know. Authoritarians call it Tuesday. First, they rewrite the present. January 6th becomes, in Trump's words, a day of love, and the rioters get pardoned. Now they rewrite the past. Next comes the future, which is the easiest one because nobody's fact-checked it Yeah. Here's what I tell every coaching client. You cannot fix a problem you refuse to admit happened. That's step 1 in every self-help book ever written. Trump's Justice Department just skipped step 1 for an entire country. A country that can't agree whether Watergate happened can't agree on anything. Not an election, not a vote count, not a crime. That's the point. When nothing is true, The only thing left is power. So here's where we are. Tennessee can't finish an execution. Trump can't finish a war. But given his Justice Department 52 years, it can finish off the truth. Finally, a government program that works. I'm TJ Walker. Ultimize.
