- The video discusses the lack of representation for Washington, D.C. in the U.S. Congress.
- Washington, D.C. is unique in that Congress has final say over its budget and laws, and it does not have full representation on the Hill.
- The video highlights the frustration of D.C. residents who pay federal taxes and fight in wars but have no member of Congress who can vote on their behalf.
- The video mentions efforts by Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.'s member of Congress, to grant D.C. statehood or a vote in Congress.
- The history of D.C.'s lack of representation is explained, including the restrictions placed on the city's government by Congress.
- Examples are given of how Congress has interfered with D.C.'s decisions, such as blocking funding for a needle exchange program and overriding the legalization of marijuana.
- The video concludes by highlighting the hypocrisy of Congress denying D.C. rights while advocating for states' rights.

- The piece discusses the lack of autonomy and representation for Washington D.C.
- It highlights the negative consequences of Congress imposing riders on D.C.'s budget and laws.
- The video mentions the impact of needle exchange programs on HIV diagnosis rates.
- It criticizes Congress for treating D.C. residents like children and not trusting them with their own money.
- The piece also mentions the failed attempts to give D.C. a voting representative in Congress.
- It suggests that D.C. should either have a vote or be granted statehood.
- The video argues that changes to the Constitution and flag can be made to accommodate D.C.
- It concludes by presenting a modified version of the song "50 States" to highlight the inequities faced by D.C. residents.

Washington DC experiences taxation without representation. It's also missing from rhyming state songs. John Oliver and a group of singing children fix one of these problems.


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Land of the free, home of the brave, inventor of Chinese food.

Now, as you know, America is made up of 50 states.

As a child, you may have been forced to learn to sing them in order.

Arkansas ♪ California, Colorado Connecticut and more

Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine ♪ Maryland, Massachusetts and good old Michigan ♪ Texas and Lusita Vermont, Monsanto, Missou ♪ Virginia and there's Washington and West Virginia too ♪ Go to Scottsdale, Beagle, Oswald and North Carolina ♪ Norway and Vegas and last 1 in the 50 states that rhyme.

Especially, especially because that is a difficult song.

England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and now this song is done.

And to be fair, I will say, the song used to be a lot longer.

But, but of course, 50 states Does not quite tell the whole American story.

You might remember earlier this year, we talked about US territories, like Puerto Rico and Guam.

But there is 1 other US population which suffers a lack of representation in DC, and that's DC itself.

If you've ever visited, you probably noticed their license plates say, Taxation Without Representation.

Congress has the final say over its budget and laws, and D.C.

Does not have full representation on the Hill.

The Chinese pandas at the National Zoo have as much right to representation in the U.S.

Congress as any resident in the District of Columbia.

But to be fair, that is probably for the best.

We don't need those pandas participating in representative democracy.

The voting rights of my Jiang and Qian Qian can wait.

Right now, it's f**k o'clock, you weird, biochromatic raccoons on steroids.

But, look, you can understand why many people in D.C.

Are angry, because think about it, They pay federal taxes and fight in wars, and yet have no member of Congress who's able to vote on their behalf, even though their population is larger than Vermont and Wyoming, and their gross domestic product is higher than that of 16 states.

And if you're thinking, well, isn't this just how countries treat their capital cities, it actually isn't.

We're the only democracy in the world that does this.

In fact, when the Dalai Lama came to visit, he wondered why a small pocket of people living in the world's champion of democracy lacked full voting rights, calling it, quite strange, quite strange.

And it is not good when a guy from Tibet says, wow, this situation is really undemocratic.

Now, to be fair, DC does have a member of Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, but there are some strict limits on her powers.

I vote in committee, but I cannot do that...

And that is vote on the House floor, vote on whether your taxes go up or go down, vote on whether you go to war or not.

Dora took her map out of her backpack because you told her to.

Just keep believing that, you tiny idiot.

And for more than 2 decades, she's introduced bill after bill to grant D.C.

And by the way, you do not want to interrupt her while she's arguing for it.

Someone tried 8 years ago, and it did not work out too well for them.

The District of Columbia has spent 206 years yielding to people who would

You have had your say, and your say has been that you think that the people who live in your capital are not entitled to a vote in their house.

Smith goes to Washington, except she was already in Washington and doesn't have the power to do anything.

At this point, it might be helpful to just take a moment and explain how D.C.

Back in the late 1700s, there was no permanent U.S.

It was just wherever Congress met, meaning it was in 8 different cities.

But after Congress was mobbed by veterans demanding back pay in the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, they decided they needed an enclave under their own control.

So, they added a clause to the Constitution which said that Congress shall have the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over a federal district.

As far as documents demanding control go, it's right up there with the 1 Christian Grey asked Anastasia Steele to sign in 50 Shades of Grey before he, I don't know, pinched her butt or whatever.

Jamie Dornan was and remains hashtag not my Christian.

Went under federal control in 1801, and it wasn't until the 1960s that D.C.'s then three-quarters of a million citizens, mostly African-American, were given even the most basic electoral rights.

Until 1964, residents could not even vote in presidential elections.

It took a constitutional amendment to bestow that right.

A few years later, Congress granted limited home rule, allowing D.C.

Voters to elect a mayor and city council, but required all legislation, including the city's budget, be subject to congressional approval.

And with that level of restriction, The mayor of D.C.

Gets to run the city the way a student council president gets to run her high school.

Oh, sure, Kelsey, pick the theme for prom, but we'll control the budget, and eyes wide shut is not an acceptable theme.

It was a mess and it was surprisingly boring.

Now, to be fair, to be fair here, Congress very rarely rejects D.C.'s decisions outright, which sounds good.

Unfortunately, Instead, they attach so-called riders to D.C.'s appropriations bills, stripping out funding for things that they don't like.

Is a fairly liberal and diverse city, and Congress is frequently neither of those things, over the years, Congress has repeatedly stepped in whenever D.C.

Is about to do something that they might disapprove of.

For example, just last November, 70 percent of Washingtonians voted to legalize possession of marijuana, and D.C.'s residents were pretty excited about that.

It is illegal, what you're doing right now.

What is that like, to come out of the shadows, as it were?

It's literally, for me, literally coming out of the closet.

I can literally take my tent out of this closet.

At long last, my tent can come out of its closet, and the hydroponic plant inside it can proudly say, I'm here.

My side effects include drowsiness, the desire to make claws out of bugles on your fingertips and fear, get used to it.

-♪ ♪ -♪ But then, but then Republicans in Congress stepped in and passed a rider forbidding D.C.

From using their funds to enact that law.

And if you're wondering how that squares with the conservative ethos of limited government and states' rights, well, here is how 1 of those congressmen justified it.

Has a lot to offer, but, you know, free rein on marijuana use, I just don't buy that.

I just don't think that's the way they should operate.

So, states' rights, yes, but Washington, D.C.'s not a state.

You know you have a weak argument when you're clinging to the precise wording you used.

Hey, I said I wouldn't fuck any other women.

Having sex with women, no, but Gary is not a woman.

Now, DC managed to find a loophole that let them enact that marijuana law anyway, but other laws have not been so lucky.

For nearly a decade, Congress successfully blocked D.C.

From using its own tax dollars to fund a needle exchange program to battle the HIV epidemic.

And 1 of the men responsible for that, Georgia Representative Bob Barr, explained why.

I would also remind our colleagues of a very basic principle.

If you give people the means to do something and encourage them to do it, well, for heaven's sake, no surprise, they will do it.

Okay, that is just ridiculous, because providing clean needles to drug users is not the same as putting out a bowl of chips at a party.

No 1 sees a needle exchange and thinks, well, I had no intention of ever taking heroin, but seeing as you've offered, you know what?

But it's a little hard to hear him object to D.C.

Funding needle exchanges when you hear a little fact later mentioned by 1 of his colleagues.

Barr is aware that Georgia has a needle exchange program?

Yes, Georgia had a needle exchange program too.

And what did Representative Barr think that theirs was for?

Oh, I couldn't eat another bite, but I sure as shit ain't done yet.

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

In the 9 years that DC was denied its needle exchanges, more than 1,500 injection drug users were diagnosed with HIV in the district.

And interestingly, since DC finally funded their needle exchanges in 2008, HIV diagnosis linked to injecting drugs went down by 87 percent.

Needle exchanges are always preferable to the alternative.

Try and think of needles as bridesmaid dresses.

Anyone who tells you you can reuse them does not have your best interests at heart.

Just eat the $200 and throw it away, Cheryl.

It seems that Congress just forces riders on D.C.

Whenever they disapprove of how they're spending their own money.

They are treating more than 600,000 people right now like children.

And in case you think I'm exaggerating, listen to Florida Congressman John Mica explain why D.C.

Should not get full control over their budget.

Well, when my kids were, young, teenagers, they always wanted,

So you believe district leaders are children?

I'm just saying they can't be trusted with money until they learn some responsibility, and until then, we should give them an allowance.

You know, now that I'm hearing it out loud, I am calling them children.

But the award for the most depressingly cynical thing that has ever been said about D.C.

Actually goes to our current president, who in 2011 avoided a government shutdown by striking a deal with John Boehner that included prohibiting D.C.

From spending its own money on abortions for low-income women, saying, And I quote, "'John, I will give you D.C.

I'm not happy about it.'" And the only time trading away D.C.

Abortion is a rare 1950s comic book, and you're getting Marvel's the amazing mammogram in return.

Clearly deserve a greater voice in their own affairs, and they've actually come tantalizingly close to getting a voting representative in Congress.

A vote was introduced in the Senate, and the Senate did the most dickish thing imaginable, passing it, but with a little addition.

Well, you know, they passed a major hurdle today, getting this D.C.

Voting rights bill through the Senate, but not without a highly controversial amendment attached to it.

This amendment would repeal all of D.C.'s gun control laws.

That amendment would have repealed their ban on semi-automatic weapons, removed criminal penalties for unregistered firearms, and even altered their ability to enact future gun control legislation.

It was the kind of amendment NRA CEO Wayne Lapierre dreams about as he sleeps in his bullet-filled bathtub.

As a result of that amendment, the bill was dropped, and D.C.

Has not been close to getting a vote since.

And the problem is, even if they eventually get 1, Congress could still add riders to mess with D.C.'s laws, and that's why many Washingtonians want full statehood.

But that's probably a long shot, because last year, Congress held its first hearing on D.C.

Statehood in 21 years, and the turnout was not encouraging.

The sad thing was, only 2 members, 2 senators of that committee actually showed up to listen to testimony today.

That's not just a pathetic attendance for a hearing on Capitol Hill.

That would be pathetic for a one-year-old's birthday party.

You haven't made any other friends in an entire year.

And look, whether the fix is a vote or statehood, something has to happen.

The problem is, inertia is a really powerful force.

And opponents might say, well, we can't grant D.C.

Statehood, we'd have to change the Constitution.

The whole point of amendments is to fix things that no longer make any sense.

Others will say, well, hold on, we'd have to change the flag.

I mean, sure, it would look slightly different, but we've been using a 51-star flag for this whole segment, and none of you have f-king noticed.

And yes, yes, it would probably screw up the songs that we learned as children, but we could change those, too.

In fact, until DC's situation is fixed, we've taken the liberty of adding an amendment to that song.

Would you like to hear it, boys and girls?

Do you want to sing a song about the 50 states and the inequities inherent in living in our nation's capital?

Alabama and Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut and more.

There are 50 states in total and we'll sing

But there's 1 place that gets shouted and it's Washington, D.C.

That's great kids, now be more specific about the problem.

All the rest of us can choose a path that we think is best But any choice that D.C.

Makes is easily suppressed Plus some asshole with a rider who might live in Tennessee Can destroy a needle program for preventing HIV

Let them have gun laws, let them have weed.

Let them decide the things that they need.

you're totally convinced that there should be just 50 states


Speaker 0: -♪ ♪ -♪ America. Land of the free, home of the brave, inventor of Chinese food. Now, as you know, America is made up of 50 states. As a child, you may have been forced to learn to sing them in order. ♪

Speaker 1: Alabama and Alaska

Speaker 2: Arizona,

Speaker 1: Arkansas ♪ California, Colorado Connecticut and more

Speaker 0: ♪

Speaker 1: Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine ♪ Maryland, Massachusetts and good old Michigan ♪ Texas and Lusita Vermont, Monsanto, Missou ♪ Virginia and there's Washington and West Virginia too ♪ Go to Scottsdale, Beagle, Oswald and North Carolina ♪ Norway and Vegas and last 1 in the 50 states that rhyme.

Speaker 0: That is impressive. Especially, especially because that is a difficult song. The British version is a little simpler. It goes like this. England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, and now this song is done.

And that's it, that's it. And to be fair, I will say, the song used to be a lot longer. But, but of course, 50 states Does not quite tell the whole American story. You might remember earlier this year, we talked about US territories, like Puerto Rico and Guam. But there is 1 other US population which suffers a lack of representation in DC, and that's DC itself.

If you've ever visited, you probably noticed their license plates say, Taxation Without Representation. And that's for a pretty good reason.

Speaker 3: Washington, D.C. Isn't like your typical city in America. Congress has the final say over its budget and laws, and D.C. Does not have full representation on the Hill.

Speaker 4: The Chinese pandas at the National Zoo have as much right to representation in the U.S. Congress as any resident in the District of Columbia.

Speaker 0: Okay, okay. But to be fair, that is probably for the best. We don't need those pandas participating in representative democracy. We need them f**king. And we need them to f**k a lot.

So don't get squeamish about this. They're in danger. The voting rights of my Jiang and Qian Qian can wait. Right now, it's f**k o'clock, you weird, biochromatic raccoons on steroids. Take a trip to Pound Town, pronto!

But, look, you can understand why many people in D.C. Are angry, because think about it, They pay federal taxes and fight in wars, and yet have no member of Congress who's able to vote on their behalf, even though their population is larger than Vermont and Wyoming, and their gross domestic product is higher than that of 16 states. And if you're thinking, well, isn't this just how countries treat their capital cities, it actually isn't. We're the only democracy in the world that does this. In fact, when the Dalai Lama came to visit, he wondered why a small pocket of people living in the world's champion of democracy lacked full voting rights, calling it, quite strange, quite strange.

And it is not good when a guy from Tibet says, wow, this situation is really undemocratic. Someone should do something about it. Does Richard Gere know about this? Someone should tell him. Now, to be fair, DC does have a member of Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton, but there are some strict limits on her powers.

Speaker 5: I vote in committee, but I cannot do that... Which every American would believe... Is emblematic of citizenship. And that is vote on the House floor, vote on whether your taxes go up or go down, vote on whether you go to war or not. Can't do that.

Speaker 0: So she basically has pretend power. Like a child watching Dora the Explorer. Oh, yeah. Dora took her map out of her backpack because you told her to. Just keep believing that, you tiny idiot.

Just grow up. -... And for more than 2 decades, she's introduced bill after bill to grant D.C. Either statehood or a vote in Congress. And by the way, you do not want to interrupt her while she's arguing for it.

Someone tried 8 years ago, and it did not work out too well for them.

Speaker 5: And gave us home rule. I will not yield, sir.

Speaker 1: The District of Columbia has spent 206 years yielding to people who would

Speaker 5: deny them the vote. I yield you no ground. Not during my time. You have had your say, and your say has been that you think that the people who live in your capital are not entitled to a vote in their house. Shame on you!

Speaker 1: Yeah. That is fantastic. It's like...

Speaker 0: It's like Mr. Smith goes to Washington, except she was already in Washington and doesn't have the power to do anything. At this point, it might be helpful to just take a moment and explain how D.C. Got into this mess. Back in the late 1700s, there was no permanent U.S.

Capitol. It was just wherever Congress met, meaning it was in 8 different cities. But after Congress was mobbed by veterans demanding back pay in the Pennsylvania Mutiny of 1783, they decided they needed an enclave under their own control. So, they added a clause to the Constitution which said that Congress shall have the power to exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever over a federal district. Which is pretty significant power.

As far as documents demanding control go, it's right up there with the 1 Christian Grey asked Anastasia Steele to sign in 50 Shades of Grey before he, I don't know, pinched her butt or whatever. I haven't seen it for obvious reasons. Jamie Dornan was and remains hashtag not my Christian. But... But D.C.

D.C. Went under federal control in 1801, and it wasn't until the 1960s that D.C.'s then three-quarters of a million citizens, mostly African-American, were given even the most basic electoral rights.

Speaker 6: Until 1964, residents could not even vote in presidential elections. It took a constitutional amendment to bestow that right. A few years later, Congress granted limited home rule, allowing D.C. Voters to elect a mayor and city council, but required all legislation, including the city's budget, be subject to congressional approval.

Speaker 0: And with that level of restriction, The mayor of D.C. Gets to run the city the way a student council president gets to run her high school. Oh, sure, Kelsey, pick the theme for prom, but we'll control the budget, and eyes wide shut is not an acceptable theme. We are not having a repeat of last year. It was a mess and it was surprisingly boring.

Now, to be fair, to be fair here, Congress very rarely rejects D.C.'s decisions outright, which sounds good. Unfortunately, Instead, they attach so-called riders to D.C.'s appropriations bills, stripping out funding for things that they don't like. And given that D.C. Is a fairly liberal and diverse city, and Congress is frequently neither of those things, over the years, Congress has repeatedly stepped in whenever D.C. Is about to do something that they might disapprove of.

For example, just last November, 70 percent of Washingtonians voted to legalize possession of marijuana, and D.C.'s residents were pretty excited about that.

Speaker 2: This strain is a strain called Mrs. Buttersworth.

Speaker 7: It is illegal, what you're doing right now.

Speaker 2: Very much.

Speaker 7: It won't be illegal tomorrow, correct?

Speaker 2: That is correct.

Speaker 7: What is that like, to come out of the shadows, as it were?

Speaker 2: It's literally, for me, literally coming out of the closet. I can literally take my tent out of this closet. -...out of this closet. -...out of this

Speaker 0: closet. At long last, my tent can come out of its closet, and the hydroponic plant inside it can proudly say, I'm here. My side effects include drowsiness, the desire to make claws out of bugles on your fingertips and fear, get used to it.

Speaker 1: Get used to it.

Speaker 0: Because I'm here, and I look good. -♪ ♪ -♪ But then, but then Republicans in Congress stepped in and passed a rider forbidding D.C. From using their funds to enact that law. And if you're wondering how that squares with the conservative ethos of limited government and states' rights, well, here is how 1 of those congressmen justified it.

Speaker 8: Well, Washington, D.C. Is not a state, And Washington, D.C. Has a lot to offer, but, you know, free rein on marijuana use, I just don't buy that. I just don't think that's the way they should operate. So, states' rights, yes, but Washington, D.C.'s not a state.

Speaker 0: You know you have a weak argument when you're clinging to the precise wording you used. Hey, I said I wouldn't fuck any other women. This is my squash mate, Gary. Having sex with women, no, but Gary is not a woman. You stay here, Gary, let her leave.

Now, DC managed to find a loophole that let them enact that marijuana law anyway, but other laws have not been so lucky. For nearly a decade, Congress successfully blocked D.C. From using its own tax dollars to fund a needle exchange program to battle the HIV epidemic. And 1 of the men responsible for that, Georgia Representative Bob Barr, explained why.

Speaker 9: I would also remind our colleagues of a very basic principle. If you give people the means to do something and encourage them to do it, well, for heaven's sake, no surprise, they will do it.

Speaker 0: Okay, that is just ridiculous, because providing clean needles to drug users is not the same as putting out a bowl of chips at a party. No 1 sees a needle exchange and thinks, well, I had no intention of ever taking heroin, but seeing as you've offered, you know what? Don't mind if I do. How kind. I don't want to be rude.

But it's a little hard to hear him object to D.C. Funding needle exchanges when you hear a little fact later mentioned by 1 of his colleagues. I trust that Mr. Barr is aware that Georgia has a needle exchange program? Yes, Georgia had a needle exchange program too.

And what did Representative Barr think that theirs was for? Injecting peach cobbler intravenously? Oh, I couldn't eat another bite, but I sure as shit ain't done yet. Fill me up, let me ride the peach, yo. Let me ride the peach.

-♪ Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 1: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

Speaker 0: yeah ♪ And here's the thing. There were consequences to that rider. In the 9 years that DC was denied its needle exchanges, more than 1,500 injection drug users were diagnosed with HIV in the district. And interestingly, since DC finally funded their needle exchanges in 2008, HIV diagnosis linked to injecting drugs went down by 87 percent. Because of course they did.

Needle exchanges are always preferable to the alternative. Try and think of needles as bridesmaid dresses. Anyone who tells you you can reuse them does not have your best interests at heart. Just eat the $200 and throw it away, Cheryl. She screwed you.

She screwed all the girls. It seems that Congress just forces riders on D.C. Whenever they disapprove of how they're spending their own money. They are treating more than 600,000 people right now like children. And in case you think I'm exaggerating, listen to Florida Congressman John Mica explain why D.C.

Should not get full control over their budget.

Speaker 7: Well, when my kids were, young, teenagers, they always wanted,

Speaker 10: budget autonomy, too. So you believe district leaders are children? Is that what you're saying? They're not ready?

Speaker 7: No, but they have matured.

Speaker 11: We just don't want regression.

Speaker 1: No, no, I'm not... No, no, no. No, no,

Speaker 0: no, I'm not saying they're children. I'm just saying they can't be trusted with money until they learn some responsibility, and until then, we should give them an allowance. You know, now that I'm hearing it out loud, I am calling them children. That is absolutely what I'm doing. But the award for the most depressingly cynical thing that has ever been said about D.C.

Actually goes to our current president, who in 2011 avoided a government shutdown by striking a deal with John Boehner that included prohibiting D.C. From spending its own money on abortions for low-income women, saying, And I quote, "'John, I will give you D.C. Abortion. I'm not happy about it.'" And the only time trading away D.C. Abortion would be acceptable is if D.C.

Abortion is a rare 1950s comic book, and you're getting Marvel's the amazing mammogram in return. That is it. Otherwise, that's not great. Look, the people of D.C. Clearly deserve a greater voice in their own affairs, and they've actually come tantalizingly close to getting a voting representative in Congress.

In 2009, a bill to give D.C. A vote was introduced in the Senate, and the Senate did the most dickish thing imaginable, passing it, but with a little addition.

Speaker 12: Well, you know, they passed a major hurdle today, getting this D.C. Voting rights bill through the Senate, but not without a highly controversial amendment attached to it. This amendment would repeal all of D.C.'s gun control laws.

Speaker 0: -♪

Speaker 1: Gun control laws...

Speaker 0: ♪ -Oh, she's not kidding. That amendment would have repealed their ban on semi-automatic weapons, removed criminal penalties for unregistered firearms, and even altered their ability to enact future gun control legislation. It was the kind of amendment NRA CEO Wayne Lapierre dreams about as he sleeps in his bullet-filled bathtub. I presume. As a result of that amendment, the bill was dropped, and D.C.

Has not been close to getting a vote since. And the problem is, even if they eventually get 1, Congress could still add riders to mess with D.C.'s laws, and that's why many Washingtonians want full statehood. But that's probably a long shot, because last year, Congress held its first hearing on D.C. Statehood in 21 years, and the turnout was not encouraging.

Speaker 10: The sad thing was, only 2 members, 2 senators of that committee actually showed up to listen to testimony today.

Speaker 1: That's pathetic. That's pathetic.

Speaker 0: Only 2 turned up. That's not just a pathetic attendance for a hearing on Capitol Hill. That would be pathetic for a one-year-old's birthday party. Really, Mikey? Just your mom and dad?

You haven't made any other friends in an entire year. Put yourself out there, Mikey! The world is waiting for you, Mikey! And look, whether the fix is a vote or statehood, something has to happen. The problem is, inertia is a really powerful force.

And opponents might say, well, we can't grant D.C. Statehood, we'd have to change the Constitution. But we could do that. The whole point of amendments is to fix things that no longer make any sense. It's happened 27 times and counting.

Others will say, well, hold on, we'd have to change the flag. But we could do that. I mean, sure, it would look slightly different, but we've been using a 51-star flag for this whole segment, and none of you have f-king noticed. So, you know, it

Speaker 1: wouldn't be... It wouldn't be a

Speaker 0: crazy thing. And yes, yes, it would probably screw up the songs that we learned as children, but we could change those, too. In fact, until DC's situation is fixed, we've taken the liberty of adding an amendment to that song. Would you like to hear it, boys and girls?

Speaker 1: Would you like to hear it?

Speaker 0: Come on! Let's go! Let's go! -♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ Hey, kids. Hi!

How you doing? Good! Do you want to sing a song about the 50 states and the inequities inherent in living in our nation's capital?

Speaker 1: Heck, let's do it, shall we? Okay. Alabama and Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut and more. There are 50 states in total and we'll sing

Speaker 0: their names with glee.

Speaker 1: But there's 1 place that gets shouted and it's Washington, D.C.

Speaker 0: That's great kids, now be more specific about the problem.

Speaker 1: All the rest of us can choose a path that we think is best But any choice that D.C. Makes is easily suppressed Plus some asshole with a rider who might live in Tennessee Can destroy a needle program for preventing HIV

Speaker 0: It's true, it's horrifying, but

Speaker 1: it's true. What's a solution, you think? Let them have gun laws, let them have weed. Why not? Let them decide the things that they need.

And if

Speaker 0: you're totally convinced that there should be just 50 states

Speaker 1: you

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