Subways, Elections, And Christmas Trees

A holiday gift thread turns into a deeper look at what holds communities together: safety, leadership, and the traditions we keep. We kick off with a practical idea—a crowd-sourced list of Christmas gifts on X—then sharpen the focus on a tougher theme: the rise in violent transit incidents and the push behind Irina’s Law. The stories are raw and recent, and they frame a central question: how do we build policies that prevent harm, not just react to it? We examine accountability for repeat offenders, the role of mental health interventions, and what it means for judges to prioritize public safety when the system feels stretched and inconsistent.

From there, momentum shifts to ballots and maps. A Tennessee special election becomes a real-time test of urban influence, suburban recalibration, and the limits of partisan messaging. We explore how the district’s redistricting and demographic changes unsettle old assumptions, why voter persuasion beats outrage, and where both parties are underestimating the ground game. It’s not just about flipping seats; it’s about understanding what voters in Nashville and surrounding suburbs want right now—credible plans on safety, cost of living, and culture that feels like home.

Then we swap policy for pine needles and step into New York’s Christmas tree economy, where romance meets rivalry. The Merchants of Joy documentary pulls back the curtain on a five-week sprint: massive upfront costs, guarded supplier networks, tricky weather, and big-box competition that can nuke margins overnight. Behind every twinkling lot is a logistics puzzle and a bet on joy. We close on a personal note—real tree or fake—and why that choice says something about how we balance mess with magic, convenience with ritual, and nostalgia with the realities of life.

If this mix of grit, policy, and holiday spirit hit home, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more curious listeners find conversations that cut through the noise.

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Liberty Line each week on Sunday, look for topics on my X file @americanistblog and submit your 1-3 audio opinions to anamericanistblog@gmail.com and you'll be featured on the podcast. 

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Chapters

• 0:43 Crowdsource Gift Ideas On X
• 1:30 Opening And Episode Roadmap
• 1:38 Violent Transit Crimes And Irina’s Law
• 4:36 Tougher Sentencing And Public Safety
• 4:36 Tennessee Special Election Stakes
• 7:01 Nashville’s Shift And Redistricting
• 7:01 Christmas Tree Lot Turf Wars
• 8:41 The Merchants Of Joy Documentary
• 9:53 Real Or Fake Christmas Trees

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:29

Well, here's a fun little thing to do. Go over to my profile on X or just search for Robbie Starbuck. And he says it's time for my yearly Christmas ideas list. Here's how here's what here's what you do. He does this every year to help men and women find great unique gifts for our significant others. So here's how it works. Each of us put our best ideas in the replies and bookmark this. Check back tomorrow and boom, tons of ideas. There you go. I think that's something fun and practical and something useful to do on X. Alright, good morning. It's Tuesday. Happy Tuesday, December 2nd. One day closer to my birthday. Alright. I have three little stories for you. We're gonna start serious and then um go light. The first story is with Irena's law, one state forces judges to put our safety first. This is from the New York Post. Of course, I get all of my stories from the New York Post, I know. But it's the most wide variety type of um news to pull from. What will it take to get crime under control in our subways and public transit systems? As Irina's law, you remember Irena, I forget her last name, I'm sorry. The one that was stabbed to death on the on the New York subway. Uh her law goes into effect in North Carolina this week. Let's take stock of the d of the descent into barbarism. Barbarism. We've seen across the country. In the wild environment on our subways have become, most trips on the New York subway or Washington, D.C.'s metro system don't resemble a clip from the Mad Max. That paragraph did not. Okay, anyway, moving on. But sooner or later, anyone who rides the rails of our cities regularly encounters insanity, aggression, and the prospect of violence or actual violence, including the murderous kind. A year ago, a woman named Dabrina Kawam was slain, burned alive in New York City subway. Do you remember her? The woman that was standing there? Oh, just burning. I couldn't believe it. It's insane. It's burned into it's etched into my memory. It's horrible. In August, Irina Zarutska was stabbed three times and killed on a commuter train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Last month, an attacker set fire to Bethany McGee on Chicago's Blue Line, leaving her with life-altering injuries. None of these women had any reason to fear for her life, but a commute turned into unspeakable terror. We're gonna move on. Let's see, the other just talk legislature legislators, sorry, in North Carolina at least, are trying to stop this murderous chain of events before it begins by putting men with criminal records like those of Irina's killer in prison or mental institutions as soon as they start breaking the law. We used to do this. We just need to go back to it. We and why do we have to have new laws? I guess these liberal judges just this whole DEI um soft on crime, this whole crap that the left and liberals have forced upon us. Talking about our justice system being lean one way, so they just let everybody go. This is where we are today. This is the this is the result of it. So we just need to go back to locking up people. Period. Period. Okay, moving on. We're gonna move on. Too close Tennessee election warns GOP. Damning the left isn't enough. I agree. We just sit here and talk about damning the left all the time, but then nothing ever happens. All right. Tuesday is a big day for Tennessee. This is today when they elect go to the voting booth. Um, and for the closely divided U.S. House of Representatives, Democrats have been vowing to turn red states blue, and last month's election gave them hopeful signs, thanks largely to revved up urban voters. They are taking over the big cities. This is their plan, and it's working. Look at Atlanta, look at New York City, look at Chicago, look anywhere in California, and now we've got Nashville coming up on the roster. This week a special election in Tennessee's 7th district, pitting Gopp military veteran Matt Van Epps against far left candidate Afton Ben, Bean Ben, whatever you pronounce her name, will show them just how far their base can take them. Going by conventional wisdom, this should be a walkover for Van Epps. The district liens Republicans by 10% points. And Van Epps' policy positions echoed those of the previous incumbent, former Representative Mark Green, who resigned in July to launch a new business. But redistricting in 2020, redistrict redistricting, hello, made the 7th somewhat less rural than it had been as State House Republicans tried to boost the party's chance elsewhere. Now it's anchored by Democrat-dominated Nashville and its suburbs, as well as the wealthy bedroom community of Franklin, one of the richest cities in America, and some recent polling shows being within striking distance. I I've been to Franklin, and I let's hope it's not turning into an Austin. It used to be really cute and quaint and lovely, but there have been a ton of liberals moving there. So who knows? This makes the race a canary in the coal mine for our national politics, says columnist Mark Collins. So that's going on today. Keep an eye on that. We need to move on. We're gonna move on to the last article, which is a little bit lighter to read, and it's about the Christmas tree lot wars in New York. Forget the mafia. New York City's real turf battles are between cutthroat Christmas tree sellers. Alright, here we go. This is kind of fun. The most statuesque trees worthy of Manhattan or Brooklyn brownstone don't come cheap or without behind the scenes drama that has been kept from the New Yorkers until now. Some of the tree sellers that pop up on city streets in the run up to the big day have gone roughly$400,000 into debt to buy their supplies. What? Then there's the hush-hush aspect, securing the best trees for themselves, often sourced from farms in Oregon, Michigan, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The exact locations are trade secrets that each peddler is tight-lipped about. There is also a documentary about this. We'll get to that in a minute. But most cutthroat of all is the limited time period over which this plays out, with tree sellers duking it out for the biggest profits in the highly competitive five-week window just before Thanksgiving through the end of December. The end of December? Christmas is uh like December 25th. Okay. So uh to make matters more challenging, uncontrollable factors come into play, including bad weather or big box stores like Home Depot dropping an abundance of trees with pressure mounting to get customers during the small window. We deal with everything, the weather. No one wants to buy a tree in the rain. We deal with the economy when people are going through hard times. And we've dealt with the transit strike from December 20th to the 22nd of 2005. New York City tree shop owner George Smith, one of the city's big five dealers, told the post, We see it all firsthand because we're on the front line. Although the business is centered around one of the most magical times of the year, it requires resilience, determination, and a lot of street smarts to survive and thrive. Uh, we're gonna so oh here we go. Here we go. Determination, blah, blah, blah. As revealed in a new Amazon Prime video documentary streaming today called The Merchants of Joy by filmmaker Celia Aniskovich, whose credits include Netflix's Fear City, New York versus the Mafia, and Lifetime's surviving Jeffrey Epstein. The film pulls back the curtain on the intense world of the city's tree turf wars and the lively characters behind the first. I want to watch this. So you can go finish reading that article. It's fairly long and involved. My goodness, it's very well done, I think. I encourage you to go read all of that. But we need to move on. Okay, I guess, okay, here's the question of the day. Speaking of Christmas tree, is do you get a real do you do you what is your firm line on a Christmas tree? Real or fake? We get fake. Now I've had real ones growing up, and I would like to one day go back to going out and buying a real tree and bringing it home. I just think that I just want a real tree one day, one time, just one year. Let's go out and get a real tree. I like the real trees. I know they're a mess and they're a pain, but come on. Anyway, that's my question of the day. And I hope you've enjoyed this episode. Thanks for listening, and I'll be back tomorrow.