Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 321: Modest Needs

Episode Date: October 17, 2016

  Modest Needs: Scathing Atheist:

Today's show is brought to you by HelloFresh. Please visit HelloFresh.com and use the promo code COGDIS, that's C-O-G-D-I-S, to save $35 off your first week of deliveries. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Recording live, but you wouldn't know it, from Gloriole Studios in Chicago, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence

to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at. This is episode 321 of Cognitive Dissonance. And in this episode, we are joined, we are privileged, I should say, to be joined truly by Keith Taylor from ModestNeeds.org. I thought you were going to say Eli and Noah. No, I said privileged, not disappointed. And we also, smally sigh. Hashtag smally sigh.

Hashtag smally sigh. I have Eli and Noah. Smalley sigh have Eli and Noah. Heath had the good sense to beg off for the afternoon from scathing, atheist, skeptocrat and God awful movies. Joining us to talk about our recent fundraising efforts with modest needs.org. You are watching the beginning and the birth of the new world order. And you want to call me crazy?

Go to hell. Call me crazy all you want. This is more Jim Baker. Supporters of the Constitution are mysteriously dying. I fucking love this guy so much. Jim Baker's my favorite. Is he Heil Hitler? He looks Heil Hitler-y, but they just caught him at an inopportune moment.

His chin friend's fat hand is here. That would be a good little stuffed doll. Chin friends where they just have big, giant, bloated undernecks. You want to know why the church has been shut up? Why nobody's talking about what's going on? Like these kind of shows we do? We're being monitored. By right-wing watch.

And then we make fun of you. Yeah, exactly. There's no monitor here. We're just making, we're, I mean, we're just laughing at you. We're laughing at your stupidity and your tie. Oh, absolutely. Hi, guys. I might as well wave to them. The Bible says I got to love you, so I'm going to try.

But there's monitoring groups. I won't name them right now because I don't want to get in a fight with them. because I don't want to get in a fight with them. But they do nothing but monitor all speech and all, especially religious speaking, anybody who's speaking out on the opposite side of what they believe. And they're not a lot, you shouldn't be able to pay attention

to what someone else who doesn't believe what you believe says. But I mean, this whole This whole idea that there's fucking banks and banks of government fucking employees, there would have to be the same number of people listening as there are talking. The fucking resources don't

line up. It's literally an impossible task to undertake. Or what's happening is he's mad at Right Wing Watch. Yeah, I know, right? Or it's that. Stop making fun of me, guys. And they are studying every word we speak. And anyone who is speaking for freedom and the old fashioned constitutional, all that, They want us off the air. They would take you off the air if they're that fucking powerful.

You don't even have any air. Is he broadcast anywhere? He's like on Roku. That's not broadcasting. Like fucking David Viviano was on fucking Roku. That's fucking the lowest possible bar. You're fucking, you're on a wire. That's not on the air. You're fucking, you're on a wire.

That's not on the air. Like, you're fucking, you're just this, you have the same access to the internet we have, and we're assholes. You know, with this big building up in Utah? NSA? Yeah, oh gosh. I mean, I didn't, are you saying the NSA cares what you say? That is what he's saying. He's saying these are secret government

monitors that are watching and trying to shut him down, but his fucking fancy suit and tie are keeping him on the air. That's what he's really saying. My fancy suit. I didn't know it was being built until it was done. Almost. Oh, they didn't call you to ask you if they could build an NSA building?

You can fucking send us some of your buckets in case there's a fucking nuclear war. The NSA didn't call Jim Baker. Hey, we want to build a headquarters. That is true. They didn't do that. No one did. Really, no one did? I mean, it wasn't in the news. It wasn't being covered at all. Nobody would cover it. Why would we cover it every time

a fucking government building is built? Why would we cover it? Also, why would you cover when a secret agency builds a building? You don't know! In other news, secrets are still secretive. You fucking twat. And suddenly this massive building are still secretive. You fucking twat. And suddenly this massive building, one of the... You got a fucking satellite picture of your secrets.

I quit. You got a... I'm looking at a picture of your secret building. I'm supposed to be fucking worked up about it? That's a drone or something. Jesus. Yeah, that's not a satellite. You're going to get a correction.

Fuck that correction, you pedantic. I'm just saying a fucking drone or something I'm just saying. You pedantic. Fucking drone or something. Probably biggest buildings ever built in the United States with all the computers, enough to record every conversation of every human being in the United States of America. That's right. You're an asshole. You're an actual asshole. You are a fucking dirty, unwashed sphincter of a person.

Every conversation in those buildings, that's it? Yeah. 370 million people speaking. There's evidently just fucking secret microphones in all the places. We're going to record them all and do what with them? Yeah. And now, and you need to warn your family, your children.

Don't say, I mean, you can say stupid things, but don't say things with, I can't say the words because I don't want them to pop up. But key words. Then how are you going to warn your audience? What did you just do? Don't say things. I can't tell you the things, but don't say them.

What the fuck are you talking about? I love this guy so much. Seriously, what the fuck? I want to warn my audience against doing something, but I can't warn them because if I do, I'm going to get caught. This guy thinks that the NSA is listening to every conversation and fucking searching them for hashtags.

Hashtag terrorists. This sounds dramatic. They caught it. They added it from the audience. I'm curious what the fuck possibly you could say that would, you would say. There's nothing to mitigate that. You can't even just say, don't say terrorist.

Right. Instead, you just say, oh, I said terrorist, even though I said don't say it in front. They don't pay attention to context at all. They just hear that word they immediately just kill you the government who's monitoring every conversation right he's listening to this like if he doesn't say the magic words we can't assassinate him we can't illegally assassinate american citizens unless they say a series of magic words in the right order you're such an asshole you're such a complete asshole!

I think I figured out how they do monitor the conversations, though. Yeah? I think he might be correct. I think that there is a way that they can monitor all conversations. I've got to know it. Well, you have to do it from the lower fourth dimension. That's how you do it, Tom. Lizard hearing is the best hearing.

Totally easy, but if you see spokespeople and people who are speaking up for our Constitution and for the other side, you might say, then what's popular today. Just remember, if you see them dying in car accidents, plane wre, and all kinds of things, look into it a little deeper. A lot of that's going around. What would you find? How would you look into it? Would you find a second news story called, oh, it's the government that shot them? And also, how do I look into it? What do I get to, do I get to inspect the car?

Well, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, do I have to fucking do forensic fucking operations on this shit? I don't have access to any of that stuff. I got to believe some other asshole. Even if I thought this stuff was true, my ability to vet the story is literally at zero. It's literally like,

let me see the body. Be like, who the fuck are you? Just get out. What are you talking about? Get out of my office. You show up at every morgue. It's getting weird, man. So this is Tom DeLay and J.D. Hayworth. I don't trust anybody named J.D., including you out there, J.D. J.D. Hayworth, worry, internet transition will be used to hack the election.

I love people who don't understand computers at all. They're going to hack the election. Quick, somebody hack the election. I love people who don't understand computers at all. They're going to hack the election. Quick, somebody hack the election. Is the name of the program Newsmax Prime? Newsmax Prime. Isn't that Optimus Prime's brother? It's the only newspaper Optimus Prime reads. I only read Newsmax Prime.

You read it, you're like, I'd rather watch a video. It transforms into a tablet. And then it goes back into the paper. Newsmax Prime. Newsmax Prime is hacking the internets. Okay. Here we go. It's going to be great.

So now this video is linked. So it goes to 412 into this YouTube video. Well, before we get to January 20th, you've got Election Day in November, and there are still concerns about voter fraud. His eyes are so close together. about voter fraud. His eyes are so close together. I can't even put this in because you can't see the video, but his eyes are distressingly close together.

They're like one cyclopean eye. They are separated by a technicality. Those eyes. What I love is that in this guy, you can see evolution, right? You look at this guy, and it's like single cell division with his eyes, right? One eye just divided from the other eye. Barely.

Barely. Barely. This is why brothers and sisters shouldn't fuck. And look at the bottom half of his eyes. If you just cover his eye, he looks like George Bush. of his eyes. If you just cover his eye, he looks like George Bush. The bottom part of his face looks like George Bush's

slope-faced fucking slack-jawed completely clueless look on his face. That's what he looks like. That guy's amazing. His eyes look so sad, dude. They're fucking downcast.

They're downcast. They do like a little thing. He's got the big sands. He does. His whole life is the sands. This guy is what happens to the flowers in the attic cross-pollinate. Yeah, when they're first sprayed with Roundup. The Hill is not exactly a right-leaning publication, but an article there this morning saying basically if we give up control of the Internet, there could be real problems with our presidential election.

Doesn't he kind of sound like – if you close your eyes, doesn't he kind of sound like sort of a militant Smokey the Bear? Only you can prevent intellectuals. Let's do it again. Our old colleague and former House Intelligence Committee chairman, Pete Hoekstra, had this to say to us here at Newsmax TV. It's that real problems with our presidential. Hey, kids. Don't light the president on fire. Doesn't matter that he's a Muslim black man. Winky face.

Pete spoke about the risks of voter fraud and the Obama administration's decision to give up control of the internet. What does that mean? Obama doesn't have a control of the internet. What is it, like a box that he carries around that's like, don't touch my precious internet. Is everybody controlling the internet?

Calling it patently dangerous. Tom, is there anything else we can use to describe it? It's patently dangerous. Your weird, awkward phrase is perfect. Allow me to rephrase it. Not at all. It just boggles my mind that we would give up the control of the Internet of all things. Now, I'm pretty ignorant on these kinds of things.

I can barely turn on my own computer. on these kinds of things. I can barely turn on my own computer. But I know that whatever agreement has been made by this administration is not going to benefit the United States and it's not going to benefit the American people. Well, how do you know? You fucking just said

you don't even know how a computer works. And he doesn't know anything about the agreement. Or who it's with. Yeah, he doesn't know anything. They haven't described who the agreement is with or how the internet has been controlled previously or who's controlling it or how it would even be controlled as a fucking international resource of networked machines covering the fucking entire globe. It's so funny that they make it seem like, oh, there's like a fucking room, like one room. Did anyone go and turn on the internet?

Hey, man, Go restart the internet. So we have got to find a way to put this off until the next president is put into office. That's what they're going to do with everything. Put it off until the next president because they want to make sure. Can we just kick the can down the road? Is there any way that we can make sure that the next president – yeah, because Hillary is going to do a better job. Yeah, because Hillary is going to do a better job. We cannot allow one of the most important institutions now in our society to be given over to some floating around fairy like board. And, you know, the other thing, Tom, it's the timing.

Now, you and I used to talk and I think we can share it with those looking in. Look at that. Hold on a second. Pause it. They have the exact opposite facial problem. Tom DeLay's eyes are too far apart. It's like... If we took the mean of both of their eyes, they would have normal spaced out eyes. They look so crazy juxtaposed next to each other. You can't look at those two guys. They look insane.

You can't speak up on Tom DeLay because his eyes are like fish eyes. They're like on the side of his face. All he has is peripheral vision. You can punch him dead square in the nose. He won't even see it coming. He's like a chameleon moving in opposite directions. The other guy, he is like. You could.

Just look at these two fucks. If you – you take – you know when you do the peripheral vision test for your license? Yes. He just guesses. We used to think that if you really wanted to affect the elections, tax returns forget April 15th. Have them October 15th. Then Americans paying their taxes would go. Gee who's raising my taxes.

And it could be a political argument. To make in November. But to have the international community. This guy sounds like a children's analyst. Doesn't he? I actually have flabbergasted. Listen to this guy. He's mesmerizing.

Just to watch him. He's mesmerizing. Just to watch him. It's like a puppet made by somebody who doesn't know how people are supposed to look. Yeah, like a sketch artist described a human to him. And then he said... He has like a bad drawing come to life.

He really is. I'm just astounded. I can barely hear his words just to watch his thin tiny lips move i think this is actually proof of david ike's theory oh my god this is we are being controlled by lizards take over the internet in late october just prior to the first week in november that's how late october works there's no conspiracy late october is always before early november jesus yeah that's how it works man the timing of this is really suspect it's it really is and uh congress has got to do

something about it i know they their hands are pretty much tied no matter what they do well then why would they do anything about it you just said they can't do anything about it. Congress has to do something about it. Congress can't do anything about it. You have inoperable cancer. Should we operate? Your head's in your hands. You're doing that rub your eyes thing.

I don't want to do this, though. This guy was the former majority leader. He was the House majority leader for two years. Oh, fucking shark eyes here. He can't. You know what's great, too? They both have downcast eyes in opposite directions. One.

Yeah. Ridiculous. God, you're right, though, man. Their eyes could not be any different. This guy's eyes are like they're trying to they're trying to escape his head. Like these ones are like trying to they're trying to see what's going on in the ears. The president will veto it. But this is really serious stuff that we're talking about here. And we we've got to head it off and head it off quickly because they're going to hand over the internet. Oh, God. I can't listen to this anymore.

This is so stupid. It's not even – It's not true. None of it's true. None of it's true. Not any part of it. First, there's no fucking way to hand off the internet like a fucking – like a relay race baton, you asshole. Internet's in my pocket.

But then secondly, it's not even true. We read it, that all they're doing is talking about like domain name, fucking the way in which they name domain names. It's the fucking most innocuous thing ever. It's a standardization of global domain names. Oh my God. That's all that. Are you serious?

These people are fucking fear-mongering twats with fucking weird eyes. It's so funny. And it doesn't mean that there aren't groups of people in this country that I have sympathy for. I do. And there are kids that were brought into this country by their parents unknowing that they were breaking the law. And they will say to me and others who defend the rule of law, we have to do something about the 11 million. And some of them are valedictorians. Well, my answer to that is, and then by the way, their parents brought them in. It wasn't their fault. It's true in some cases, but they aren't all valedictorians.

They weren't all brought in by their parents. For everyone who's a valedictorian, there's another 100 out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the size of cantaloupes because they're hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. So this story features one of our favorites, Cecil. This is Representative Louie Gohmert, which is just amazing. It's like hillbilly God's cousin. Man, he was interviewed.

Who rides in an El Camino. Lowered El Camino. With a gun rack. An El Camino with a gun rack. An El Camino with a gun rack. An El Camino with a gun rack. God, what a fucking hillbilly garbage person. Deer antlers on the front.

And the back. He doesn't know what to do with them. Where do you put all these? They put those little funny things, those bony things that come out of their face. Where do you put those? They're face bones. Face bones. I got those face bones to put on my vehicle.

Fucking amazing. The guy is such a fucking goober. He's a goober gomer. This story is from September 30th. He's on the Family Research Council, their program. Tony Perkins interviewed him. And I don't even want to read the headline because I feel like his own face hole

needs to make these sounds. All right, so here we go. Here's Louie Gohmert from that aforementioned show. Isn't it amazing, though, judges have been found, liberal judges across the country, to say we don't need identification to be required to let somebody vote because it may be inconvenient.

So it may be more discriminatory. No, they never said that. They've never said it may be inconvenient. That's not a rule. That's not how you put rule on it. Be like, oh, somebody may be inconvenienced by this. They do it because there should be no, you should not have to pay to vote.

And many identification cards require some sort of payment in order to do it. We don't have a show us your papers rule here in America. Like, we just don't. An official, first of all, there is no such thing as an official federal government identification.

That's not a thing. It doesn't exist. What about the passport? But that's to leave the country. If you're planning on staying in the country, you don't ever have to have a passport. That's true. And it costs money. And it costs money. It costs a lot of money.

Right. First of all, it's the most inconvenient thing you can do with your time is to go get a passport. There's nothing more inconvenient than going to get a passport. Incidentally, including if you're getting a passport for your kids. Absolutely. I would sooner drop my fucking keys down a sewer. Right. Yeah.

Than get a fucking passport. Than try to get a passport. It's literally terrible. Yeah. It's literally terrible. And it's expensive. It's fucking like $100 and some dollars to get a passport. Yeah, it's expensive.

And then it's not instant. So it's not like you can be like, oh, I want to vote. Oh, you have to have a thing. Oh, well, fucking, I better go get my passport. It takes weeks and weeks to get your fucking passport. Sometimes months, yeah. Right. We don't have a federal, you know, identification document.

That's just not a thing. The passport is generally accepted as ID, but it's not a required document. States have driver's licenses. But again, if you don't drive, you just don't need one. So why would you spend the time and the money and the energy going to get a fucking ID? And the same is true of a state ID. A state ID

is... And just going to get those IDs takes time out of your day and all that stuff. It's like, look, there's never been any fucking major voter fraud based on this. Right. And voter fraud, think about how ridiculous voter fraud is.

Just pause and consider how ridiculous the idea of voter fraud in terms of swaying an election would be. Let's say you had, you know, especially with something like the presidential election where the votes are in the millions and you're going to sway that election by a handful of people that commit voter fraud, you would have to have this enormous, massive conspiracy of people who were showing up and pretending to be somebody who later they sure know is not going to show up. Yeah. Right. If somebody shows up and they're like, I'm Tom. And then later I show up and I'm like, I'm also Tom. And we both claim to be the same Tom, that's a fucking immediate problem, right? So the way the conspiracy works is I have to buy the vote from someone that I know is not going to later show up, right? It's too difficult to organize.

Yeah, somebody could. I could show up and be like, I'm Joe Smith, and could I vote for Joe Smith? Sure. I guess I could, but we're not talking about numbers that are going to sway elections. We're talking about minute, minute, statistically insignificant numbers of people, which is why voter fraud has been debunked as meaningful to reform. And if I'm willing to somehow sell you my vote, why wouldn't I just go and do it myself? If I'm motivated to do that, why wouldn't I just vote for myself in that manner? Or why wouldn't I just pay you to stand in line and vote the way I asked you to pay? Exactly. Right? I'm going to give you $100 and you're going to sell me your vote and I'm going to show up and pretend to be you. Why don't I just

give you the $100 and say, can you go in there and vote Democrat for me? Yeah. Because you've got to come back to the same thing. When I show up in the morning and I don't know how many, because I only go to the polls once. So I don't know how long these people work. Is there shifts? I don't know how that works, but you know, these people that I show up, if I, if I came in at seven Oh five and then I came back at seven 20, they'd fucking know it's me. They'd be like, I know. Right. Just here, dude. Even in Chicago, they'd be like, you were just here. You can't, You can't give someone else's name. Because you only have one polling place. Yep.

So it's not like you can go to any location. You have one polling place. Your name appears one time on the voter registry. And they fucking mark that thing off. Why do they spend so much goddamn time on this? Why is it? Because it seems self-evident until you think about it. This is such a big

fucking deal to them man i know so often they're like oh my god fucking voter fraud and then they're talking about like oh well they should put uh they should put fucking id and and there's and it's exactly like you say right i when i first heard there should be id for voting i was like yeah that's fucking that's a no-brainer of course there should be id for voting that's the first thing went to my head sure like yeah Yeah. And then I thought about it for a second. I'm like, well, should there be ID for voting? And I just did a quick search, like just a quick search and an ACLU came up and it was like, no, the reason why there shouldn't be this for voting is all the reasons you said. And also it's a barrier to entry for some people.

Not only do they not have the time to go get an ID, but then they also don't have the money to go get an ID. They just don't have, you know, a dispensable income of $10 even to go pay someone else to give them an ID. They just don't have it. Now it's a tax. It's a voting tax. It's a voting tax. Right. Voting tax is illegal. You shouldn't have that.

The only reason anyone cares is because they want to disenfranchise minority votes because those votes swing in a political direction that they don't want those people showing up to the polls. They don't fucking like it. And there's no evidence that so many Democrats, there's no evidence that anybody ever votes illegally. It's not a problem. And here is the perfect evidence. Some have called me crazy because I've been saying the Democrats and Obama,

unfortunately we've got some Republicans joining with them, And Obama, unfortunately, we've got some Republicans joining with him, want to push through a sentencing reform that will allow thousands to be released from prison. And federal prison, we just don't have a bunch of people that have marijuana cigarettes. You can't get to federal prison for that. So at least nobody is in federal prison for that. What the fuck is he talking about? What is he all over the place? Jesus Christ! This guy's fucking mind is a ping pong ball.

It's just like, it's just all over. You're having a conversation with somebody who needs Adderall or something. I am trying so hard to follow his train of thought, but it's derailed off of its derailment. I think he's now starting to say that they're looking to release people from federal prison, and he's saying that they don't just go there for tiny infractions. You go to federal prison for a real—there's a reason you go to federal prison. Sure, because you've broken a federal law. I know.

That's the difference. That is the difference. Like, yeah, you don't go because you broke a state law. Yeah, I fucking know that. That's why it's federal prison, you stupid piece of shit. Yeah. But, you know, what does it say about your party that you want felons to vote? That mouse click, by the way, is not me.

I'm just saying that mouse click is not me, and that sighing, that is not David Smalley. That is the guy who's online with him. You know what's amazing is he's so fucking boring that tony perkins is over there fucking looking at porn yeah tony perkins is tony perkins is clicking around like while he's talking like he's a prisoner what's that prisoner fuck movies i want to say real quick too uh he keeps using this word thousands in what election other than a hyper-local election does thousands of people getting out of somewhere do anything? Now, unless you're

talking about, you know, thousands of thousands. Unless you're saying thousands of thousands, then it doesn't matter. Well, Andrew Torres would write us and say that thousands swung the Bush v. Gore election. That's fair. But we're talking about,

he's talking about felons swaying an election in California, which is where they're talking. I think that's where they're talking about. Because one of the things that I heard too this week is that they're allowing certain felons to vote. And I wasn't able to figure out what that, where that comes from. I think felons should vote. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I think felons should be able to vote. I think this idea that once you're a felon, you serve your time and you're still just always a felon, and you're disavowed of all of your rights because, you know, I know this is an aside, but it makes me crazy that you commit a crime when you're 19 years old, and it's a fucking shitty crime, and boo-hoo-hoo, you did a bad thing,

and then you go to prison, and you serve your time, and you get out, and now you've got, what, 60 more years of your life that you've got to live. And you never get to vote again and you never get to enter society as a functional citizen. You get to live in this weird almost citizen status. You're like a sharecropper.

You know what I mean? Like, you're just weird. One of the things, too, I wonder, too, and this is something that Andrew Torres would be able to answer or another lawyer, maybe like a David Smalley, would be able to answer. Do we need an armature? Maybe. Armature opinion.

But one of the things I wonder is, what is something that we would be shocked at is a felony? I'm sure there's something out there that is a felony, because I think you could get one for driving recklessly. I think that you can get a felony for that. There's some, there's some things that you can get like that may be, yeah, there may be something out there that you can get a felony for that we would be shocked for. Yeah. Well, I can tell you

that I know a guy who has a felony for drug, not possession, like selling drugs, whatever the fuck, drug distribution, intent to sell. Thank you. And it sounds bad. Like it sounds super bad, you know, when you look at it on paper, but if you know the story, like the story is this fucking dude was an idiot and he went to a party and some girls like, Hey, can you get me some ex? And he's like, sure can girls got boobs. And he went and found some X, and he gave her the X, and she turned out to be an undercover cop. He's just not a fucking drug dealer. He's just a guy who went to go buy it from a drug dealer. He went and bought it from a drug dealer and gave it to a girl so he could get sex with the girl.

And now he's got a felony. And so now he can't, like, now he can't vote, and he can't, you know, buy a gun. And this guy shouldn't have a gun. But still, you know what I mean. Okay, this guy's a bad example. guy shouldn't have a gun, but still, you know what I mean. Okay, this guy's a bad example. He shouldn't have any rights, really. I'm just saying. However. I'm just saying, like, when you know the story, the idea that

this indiscretion that he committed when he was in his 20s, that that's going to follow him for the next 50, 60 years of his life, it's an absurdity that he will lose basic rights. I don't see any reason why a felon who's no longer in prison should not be able to vote. Why can't they vote? But there's a big push against it.

They don't think that they should be able to vote. That's absurd. And you want people that don't speak English to vote, and you want people that are here illegally to vote. If your platform— Nobody wants illegals to vote! Nobody wants that! What are you talking about? What would they, how could they get on the

voter registration? Are you fucking that goddamn stupid that you don't understand you have to be a fucking registered voter? What would I do? Show up and be like, I'd like to register for a vote. I'm fucking illegal. We're going to be fucking deported. Oh, that didn't work out. I'd like to introduce you to this ICE official.

Right. This happens never, ever, never, ever. We'll only get voted into office by those people. Felons, people that can't speak English and haven't been able to follow personally what's actually going on in politics without

getting an interpretation. Jesus Christ, he's calling people who don't speak English stupid. That's what he said. Are you unaware that there are other venues for which to get news other than English-speaking venues? Like fucking Telemundo and Univision are a motherfucking thing, bro. And they're huge, man.

Right. They're huge. Also, being called stupid by fucking Louie Gohmert. Y'all don't speak to English as good. Oh, really? Really, Louie Gohmert? Ah, bless English. Whose command of the English language rises at its best to a second grade level,

if that second grader was recently hit with a brick. And those who are illegally here show no regard for the law. What is he talking about? And he is right. Those who are illegally here do show no regard for one law. For the law that keeps them out of here.

The law called, you shouldn't be here. That's why they're disregarded. They absolutely do. I would think you need to think about changing your platform. But this is where we are. This guy's voted three times and he had a tweet that says we can win one vote for Hillary Clinton. Someone else said, oh, he was being sarcastic. But when that woman was asked if she knew the shooter, she said not at all.

So, you know, these are the Democrat drones that are out there helping cover. But this guy voted three times, and he seems to be a big fan of Hillary Clinton. I got to pause. I got to pause. This guy is the worst storyteller in all the history of the world. Isn't he terrible at it? What is he trying to tell us, Tom? He is referring specifically to the guy that shot up the Washington Mall the other day. And that story was blown by the folks at True the Vote.

Yeah. True the Vote. True the Vote is a very, very- Dude, I will verb the fuck out of a noun, but True the Vote. Hey, we should True it. You asshole. It sounds ridiculous. It doesn't even sound funny. Maybe they're from Chicago. Like, hey, you got to go True it. Hey asshole. It sounds ridiculous. It doesn't even sound funny. Maybe they're from

Chicago. Like, hey, you gotta go true it. You can't fucking, you can't go around it. You gotta go true it. The only way out is true it. That's it. The only way out is true. You got one, two, three guys over here. They're gonna go true to vote. So they published a story which turned out to be fucking false

that the shooter had voted and was not eligible to vote and voted multiple times. Right. None of it was true. He was eligible to vote. He was a naturalized citizen. So you're saying they didn't true the vote? They falsed the vote.

They falsed the story. I don't know. It's so awkward. It's not even fun. But he has no idea. When you're hearing him speak here, he has no idea. You can't get that from Gomer. He doesn't know what he's so awkward. It's not even fun. But he has no idea. When you're hearing him speak here, he has no idea. You can't get that from Gomer. He doesn't know what he's talking about.

He's like the guy who sits around a campfire, and he's trying to tell the story about the guy with the hook, and he's like, and there was a hook, which is a curve, and the curves are metal anyway. One time, a blood on a car, so I got to go, and that's it. And you're like, you have no idea what's happening. Well, there is growing concern over those who come into the country. And we've seen the push by the Obama administration with Syrian refugees and others who are very similar to this.

They have a green card. They're set up for the process of becoming citizens. This guy was not a citizen yet. He was a citizen. He was a naturalized citizen, you stupid non-fact fucking finding fucker. He was a naturalized citizen. You get to vote when you're a naturalized citizen. That's the point of becoming a citizen. He was able to register and vote because, and as you pointed out, in a number of states, no identification

is required to register. Now this is a pretty significant duty. Did he just say significant duty? He did. We should cut that for a clip. And honor, really. I mean, it's a right, it's a privilege. It's not a privilege, it's a right. Those are different things. Totally different things.

It's a privilege to fly on American Airlines. Right! I found out it's not a right. To be able to vote. And it's something that I think we should safeguard, making sure that only those who are eligible, who are Americans, who have a stake in this country, and I'm not against those who come here and want to become Americans

and go through the process. That's great. Yeah, like the guy that you're fucking bitching about who did that. It's like this guy. The guy that you're fucking literally using as your poster child who showed up and became a naturalized citizen. That fucking guy, is that the guy you're not against the guy you're expressly against? We so naturalized them.

He became a gun nut. We naturalized him. Now he shot some fucking people. The fuck out of it. We should fucking give him a fucking bald eagle. Like he's so fucking American. He gets a free truck. With balls. He gets a fucking bald eagle. He's so fucking American. He gets a free truck with balls on the back. He gets a testicle truck.

We're talking about those who are being brought in, in some cases, by this administration trying to basically flood the zone in order to help a certain party. Exactly. And they know which party will be most helpful to them who have no regard for the law that guy he seriously he doesn't know whether he needs he wants to speak like gomer pile or yoda he's like a weird mixture of the two he his syntax is all fucking wonkified and he seems surprised by everything he's saying he's one of those guys that like, as it's coming out, he's like, I'm barely following what I'm about to say. So we want to talk a little bit about our sponsor today. Hello, fresh.com.

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So if you're interested, go to HelloFresh.com, promo code COGDIS, and save $35 off your first week of groceries. If you were, for example, a recently divorced single dad, this sounds ideal. So, Gordon Klingenschmitt, he is revisiting the show. Demonic spirits at ABC are bringing sodomy upon America. They're bringing sodomy, Cecil.

What kind of gift is that? They better bring something because we've been married a long time. And it's just uninteresting. At some point, you're just like, that's a weird hostess gift. You show up and you're like, thanks so much for hosting. How do you wrap it? I brought you some in lube.

In lube and hope. You just deliver them the Crisco and they have to cut it out of there. You just sort of the Crisco and they have to cut it out of there. You just sort of point it like, I got, you know. I got a little. How about we start with a back rub and see where things go.

All right, so here's Gordon Shingon Schmidt. ABC television is now promoting a new TV series. It's about a pastor who comes out of the closet as a homosexual minister of a megachurch. Again, another person claiming to follow Jesus who devolves into sodomy. That's never happened. Yeah, that's happened several times. Well, actually, yeah, actually it has never happened.

They don't come out of the closet. They get busted with hookers in a bathroom at an airport. Yeah. Or they get busted fucking somebody, you know, a trans person or something. Right. They get busted fucking someone, and then they get reformed. That's it. That's what happens.

Right. And then they get re-accepted back. They get, like, reabsorbed into the fucking fold. They get told, can you just make it a little more secret? Right. If you're going to do that, fucking download, bro. Download. It's only happened because – and it's only happened the way that we described it because of the constraints that religion puts on people.

Right. You know what I mean? It's never – nobody ever is like, oh, I'm going to deny this essential part of myself. I heard Brian Fisher on Dogma Debate. Did you hear the Dogma Debate? I haven't yet. No. So Brian Fisher came on Dogma Debate and he and David had a conversation at one point. David asked him, when did you become straight? Like, when were you straight? And he's like, everybody's born straight because that's their answer, right? That's the answer to that

question is everybody's born straight. And you've got to, you're the one who's now put on your back foot to try to prove to them that everyone isn't born straight. Right? And it's a tough position. It was a tough position for David to be in, right? David actually abandoned that line real quick. He abandoned that line of questioning. Because he was like, I'm never going to convince this guy that that's how this works.

Right, because he'll just fall back on the Bible to prove that it's true. Like, well, how do you know that? Well, Bible says, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you're like, fuck, all right. Well, I mean, I can't. I'm never going to move you off the Bible. Yeah, I mean, his position was, from a rhetorical standpoint, was a great position. Yeah, right.

It's nonsense. It's nonsense. When you look at the way the facts play themselves out, yeah. But when it comes right down to it, it's a good position for him to stand rhetorically. And this is the same thing, right? This is them saying, look, this sort of thing is an abomination. Everybody's born straight. And for them to be... If you look at it through that lens, right? Look at this particular story through that lens. If you were somehow lobotomized and thought that this was a bad thing. Yeah. All right. But I can't excise my gender from that and my biology from that, right? So let's say I thought that.

Like, I'm actually curious to walk down this road a little bit, like, intellectually. Like, but let's be really blunt. Like, you can't get hard around things that don't make you hard. You just can't do it. As a guy, you can't do it. I cannot decide. I really don't think this is true. I can't decide that I want to fuck a dude.

I'm either attracted to a dude or I'm not attracted to a dude. My body, I don't just wake up and be like, be hard, and then the cock gets hard, right? That's not how this interplay between body and mind works. You're not 16 anymore. Well, right. No, then it's just like, please stop being hard all the time. The interplay between mind and body is more complex than that, right? So I can't, I don't think, I really truly am, like, I'm not fucking around. Like, I don't think that I could get hard with a guy because that's not a gender. That's not a body type. That's not a physicality that does it for me. So I think that the line of questioning that you'd walk down in opposition to that is like, okay, well, walk me through how somebody who is born

straight and is straight and is attracted to the opposite gender, how is it that their body responds when the body response is autonomic. Like the body response and like what we're attracted to. I think he would say that they've trained themselves and they've lied to themselves. And he also believes,

he's a guy who believes in demons. So he would probably say something like, well, demons, they're demon possessed and demons, demons work their way through the junkular region. God, I can't. No, I mean, I think that the junkular region god i can't no i mean i i think

that you're right but i can't i i but i think that's what he would say and i think klingenschmitt would say the same thing klingenschmitt would say that this there's an evil in the world and the evil makes my dick hard there's a world of warcraft type evil in the world that i have to fight against and fighting against it requires your faith. And if you don't have your faith, then you're susceptible, even though there's plenty of faithful gay people out there. Yeah, God, I mean, I feel like that's probably accurate, but oh my God, the demons make my dick hard for dudes.

That's their answer? I think it might be. Maybe. Like I said, David gave up on that line of questioning because you're just fighting against the rock. I know, but I hear what you're saying, and it's just like, because there is a biology there that's really hard to counter, right? Like there are things that turn you on, right?

And then there are things that don't turn you on. Well, it's not just that it's, there's things that turn you off, right? Yeah. Yeah. But like, but even if it doesn't actively turn you off, if it just lives in the middle ground, it's like seeing a bowl of mac and cheese. It's like, I'm never like, you're going to fuck that?

I'm not thinking that because it's not sexual to me. Yeah. And therefore, ABC News is defaming and attacking the true church. Which is which one? Which true church? The more much you church is which church? I don't know which church. I know.

And the thing is, is there are churches out there that have gay pastors. Well, they're not the true church. It's a no true Scotsman. That's what this is. By mocking the Bible and even mocking pastors who denounce homosexuality. So what? Yeah, okay. So it's open

game. You get to denounce homosexuals all the time. Why can't they denounce people that don't like homosexuals? Why isn't this a two-way street because it makes him feel sad seriously like fucking why isn't this a two-way street because he's under attack as a guy who attacks people yeah he is now under attack for attacking people i just that's that's the truth but on the on the face of this he's expounding he's espousing a viewpoint right now that says i'm allowed to defame other human beings if they do a thing that I don't like. And he has every right to do it.

He has a little internet show. He goes out every week and he talks about how he hates gays and gays are bad and blah, blah, blah and this and that. He's allowed to do that every week. And if somebody else comes out and says, oh, well, you know, and they're not even explicitly saying that a priest who attacks gay people is a bad person. They're not even explicitly saying it's kind of wrapped up. He's sort of inferring it from just the tagline of the show. Right. Right. Yeah.

They're not that that's a horrid thing. That's an attack. That's an attack. Well, it is an attack. But who cares? Yeah. Well, no, I know. I know.

I'm right there with you. It is an attack. Well, it is an attack, but who cares? Well, no, I know. I know. I'm right there with you. It is an attack. Let's fucking roll, big guy. But this is not a two-way street because on the one side, he has the truth. According to him. That's true. Now you're right. On the one side, he's got the truth.

And on the other side, he's got the fucking big sads whenever anybody is mean to him. Yeah. Right? So I get to stand over here with the truth, and I get to bully everybody with it and club everybody over the head with the truth, and if you don't like it and you fucking fire a shot back at me, then it's religious persecution. Why did God destroy Sodom and Gomorrah? Well, they're fictional towns that never existed, so probably didn't happen.

Probably did it because the writer was bored. I know, right? He needed some actions. He needed an action sequence right there. It's like i think of sodom and gomorrah like a car chase scene in the born you know we're kind of bored he was looking through some files it kind of got a little lame and then we just needed a moment it's the two towers it doesn't advance the plot but sometimes you want to see an orc and a fucking dwarf fight

each other sometimes you want to see pillars assault right and a fucking dwarf fight each other. Sometimes you want to see pillars of salt. Right. Because of the sin of homosexuality. Because they lusted men for men. Did the women not lust for women? Yeah, I thought the women actually, didn't the women lust and then the men wanted to rape an angel or something? And do angels even have parts? They just have a bump down there?

I don't know. They're all like Ken dolls down there. There's a lot of questions I have, Klingenschmidt. I have a lot of questions about all the sexuality back then. Also, when we went to the Ark thing, do you remember the Ark thing when they were talking about the pre-flood? What they showed when people died

was the reason why they were Ted Nugent-ing all the fucking dinosaurs to cut off their horns for no reason, just leaving the flesh to rot. They were corpsing up the dinosaurs. And then they had big parties with scantily clad women. Like that was the other thing. Yeah, because they had the diorama.

Like we waited in line extra long to see literally a fucking third graders diorama of people having fun. Yeah. And it's like, see, we had to kill the entire population of the earth. They're dancing. They are.

And you're like, well, I would fucking, first of all, I'd go there. Like, take me to there now. I would cut footloose. Right? Rather than for women. And this was such a heinous act. They were so aggressive about it that the Bible says

they were an abomination to the Lord your God. So, if you're a pastor of a megachurch, and you don't believe the Bible, beware. You're bringing sodomy and maybe the consequences thereof upon America. You can't bring sodomy upon America. Like, who's going to bring, again, who is going to bring sodomy?

What if, like, a megachurch is going to be like, yeah, hi, yeah, I'm from the local megachurch. I brought you some sodomy. We baked it into a pie. Put it in my ass, I guess. What? How would that even work? They're going to bring sodomy? Sodomy is something that you either fucking bring or you don't bring.

It's not something you import. It's hard to form a dinner party and ask a guest to bring sodomy. I know, right? So you're going to bring the dessert. I got't know right so you're gonna bring the dessert i got the salad you're gonna bring this out actually actually instead of bringing the salad could you just toss mine instead is that a So we are joined right now by Keith Taylor from Modest Needs, as well as the Scathing Atheist crew, Eli and Noah. Keith, thank you for joining us. You are part of Modest Needs. When did you start Modest Needs? It's all the way back in 2002, so a long time ago.

And so what drove you to, tell me a little bit about this. So Modest Needs, obviously for our listeners, Modest Needs is the organization that we just wrapped our charity fundraising drive for. You started this in 2002. What drove you to start this charity and really format it the way that you did? Because Modest Needs is really uniquely formatted amongst other charities. Oh, thanks. Well, I'll tell you, the way that it started is really funny. Back in another

life, I was a professor. I taught medieval British literature. Oh, wow. Yeah. And when I got my first job in my first tenure track job in 99, one of the things I learned is that, you know, when you're a new professor, they give you the courses that the senior faculty don't want to teach anymore. And the one I drew was research and bibliography. Oh, my God. Isn't that great? The person who numbered the courses all those years ago had like this sense of humor. And the course number was English 666. So my first big graduate school gig is I'm teaching English 666.

And it was every bit as popular as you think it would be. But I determined I was going to do my best with it. And it turned out that we just had a great course. And to get to the answer to your question, I'm sure you guys all remember you've been in a class somewhere where you just had a really great class that day, right? You left. You were inspired. The teacher was inspiring. Everybody had a great time.

For sure. I was driving home. That's never happened to me. Yeah. I was driving home from a class like that, and I was thinking about how lucky I was to have that job because in academics, it's really hard to get a job. Sure. And I thought about all of the times in graduate school where I just was on the very edge of poverty and one time in particular where my car had broken down. And I did what so many of the people at Modest Needs unfortunately do before they find us.

I borrowed from myself. I didn't know anybody who could help fix the car. It was like a $500 repair. And I used my rent money to fix the car. And to make a long story short, a friend of mine found out about what was going on and paid my rent and wouldn't let me pay him back. Never discussed it with me. It was just a really wonderful thing. And I thought about that person and, you know,

really where my life could have gone if he hadn't stepped in and said to myself, well, you know what, when I'm really rich, because I think that's how most people think about philanthropy, right? It's what you do when you have extra money. And it's like like when I'm really rich, I think I'd like to start a charity like that because there's not one and people could really use that kind of help with these short-term emergencies. What occurred to me is that the word philanthropy, in Greek it just means compassion for people. There's no money in that word. It occurred to me that every person who had ever helped me in my life had never had money. They had, they just loved me. They cared about me. And I thought, you know, that's what I've missed all this time. It's not about how much money you have. It's about taking what you've got

and doing something with it right now. Uh, and so I made a determination that I was going to try to help one person a month with a small emergency like that. So I just downsized my life and got to the point where I had about $350 a month that I could use to maybe help with a small emergency. And so now I'm faced with the problem of finding people to help because your friends are not going to come and ask you for help, right? That's a tough thing. Your friends are not going to come and ask you for help, right? That's a tough thing.

So I decided I would just put up an anonymous website that explained what I wanted to do and I called it Modest Needs. My plan was that it would sit on the back page of Google, the millionth search page of Google, and that somebody maybe once a month would be so desperate for help that they would find this and, uh, write to me and ask for help. And the plan was always very simple. I would, uh, you know, I would read whatever they, you know, whatever they sent, if it seemed like a good idea, I would ask them for the bill and I would pay the bill on their behalf. Uh, just like that person had done for me. Uh, and what actually ended up happening is that some, some friends of mine found this and put it on Metafilter. And the next thing you know, it was a national organization. It was really shocking. I mean within a month, we had people just coming out of the woodwork saying – of course some people requested help. But gosh, on the first day that people really knew about this, about 80% of the letters that I got – and there were a lot of letters.

It said something like, this is something we've needed for a long time. Where can I send you a donation? Oh, wow. And, you know, we've got one guy. I'm going to give him a shout out. His name is Roy. So, Roy, if you're ever listening to this, I hope – Roy knows who he is. Roy doesn't make good life choices.

Come on now. Roy seems like a good person. Good people don't listen to the show. That's right. Yeah, let's roast Roy. That's right, Roy. No, seriously. I think he's from the Northwest somewhere.

I believe that's right. In 2002, he said, I'm pledging $20 a week. And he has given $20 a week since 2002. Oh, that's awesome. And it's just like never missed. And that's what really makes Modest Needs so fantastic. I mean, we do have some people that will come in and give, you know, $1,000, $5,000, $10,000 from time to time, right? But mostly, it's people giving $25, $50,

$100, just, you know, something that they can do and working together to change these people's lives. And that's really what it does. It changes lives when we can make these grants. So are you still a professor or is modest needs now your – This long ago became a full-time job. In fact, I had to quit my job as a professor. So you became rich as a professor and then did this, huh? I did. That's amazing.

Some of that mad professor money. That's the first professor I've ever heard of getting rich. Well, that's because you don't know a lot of medieval British literature. Listen, you know what? When you can translate words from Anglo-Saxon to English, that is worth something, Michael. Now, did you ever have an uppity student

who didn't believe in modernism or something like that, and you challenged him to a debate and then you lost, and that's why you really started modest means? I'm trying to get to the truth here yeah that's that's exactly not what happened no actually actually what happened is i really the whole modest needs thing is has been a remarkable uh just just a remarkable journey so far in my life and what actually happened is that i was about a year from almost guaranteed tenure when modestest Needs started.

And really, really, I meant it to be something I was just going to do on the side. And no kidding, this piece on Metafilter was on the 1st of April of all days, 2002. And by the 23rd, my first day that I ever did any media, it was the 23rd of April. It was the Today Show followed by CNN. So it was kind of a weird introduction into what the media does for your organization. And, you know, from that point, it just it was an explosion. But I had to quit my job about a year from solid guaranteed tenure, because if I didn't, I mean, modest needs wasn't going to it couldn't exist. It was just too it was growing too quickly. So I had to choose where I thought I could do the most good for the longest period of time

and I picked Modest Needs. I'm actually at a genuine loss for words. I'm not playing. I'm at a genuine loss for words. So I'm going to pause and I think I'm just going to move the conversation a little bit because that's just so inspiring that's just awesome it's incredibly

inspiring I have a question between the Today Show, CNN and Vulgarity for Charity on Scathing Atheist and Cognizant who would you say had the most effect on your organization? if you really want to know the truth, it would be you guys.

No way. Take that, Katie Couric. I said we need a recipe guy. See, we can do cooking with ramen with heat. Guys, I don't want to take all the credit, but I think it's because of some of the very kind words that I specifically wrote. That's probably true. We sure got a lot of great applications from CNN and the Today Show, but not so many contributions. You guys, I mean, really,

$25,000 in two weeks from people who were brand new to the organization, who really wanted to reach out and get involved. That's amazing. Wow. Yeah. See, we, you know, we've, we've, we've been so fortunate. We've reached out, um, we've done a number of charity, um, events. I know the skating atheists, you guys have done charity events as well. Every time we reach out to our listeners, our listeners respond, um, and they, and they respond and they always exceed our expectations. And we were, we were so excited to decide to do this thing with modest needs. Cause I think it's something that, you know, we were all, we all agreed we needed to do something that we were genuinely passionate about. And we kicked around a lot of charities before we, you know, settled on Modest Needs. And to hear what kind of an impact it has, you know, I think that'll help drive listeners again

and again, and hopefully push listeners into becoming sustaining members of, you know, or sustaining donors for your organization. Oh, that would be great. You know, the biggest thing that we have going for us is that our donors are incredibly loyal. Like the guy Roy I was telling you about, I mean, really, that's typical. We have people who've been giving to us every month, you know, maybe not a huge amount every month, but it adds up over time, right? Sure. $30, $20, I mean, 50 bucks, 100 bucks. When you put together, say, 1000 people who are doing that, that's a good solid chunk of money you can use every month to help people. And it's really remarkable. So I do hope your listeners will get involved. But no, no, really, it was it was

remarkable. And we were as we would watch the day to day as the contributions would come in. I mean, we it was it was like, I don't know we had a party every day uh because we we actually really do love it when we can fund these applications and uh and we we funded some great stuff and and your your listeners chose some great stuff to help us fund so i'd like to hear you know i know i know i don't know if you have a favorite or if you've got a story or two that sticks out in your mind about somebody that you know a family or or somebody who came to you guys you know and needed some got a story or two that sticks out in your mind about somebody that, you know, a family or somebody who came to you guys, you know, and needed some help, a story or two that you might be able to share? Oh, I'll give you, you want to hear two really great ones?

Absolutely. Okay. So this, I'll tell you one that's sort of on the funnier side and then I'll tell you my all-time favorite. This one that's on the funnier side side we got an application from a woman uh who was living in uh i guess a mobile home right and uh she she asked for help 700 and some odd dollars because the floor in her bath bathroom had rotted evidently and one day she went to get in the bathtub with the bathtub fell through the mobile and you know fell fell onto the ground. And so she couldn't take a – she couldn't bathe. And one of the things that we do at Modest Needs, and a lot of people don't realize that we do this,

but one of the things that really separates us from organizations like GoFundMe and whatnot is that we actually verify all of this. So we get people's income statements and copies of the bills that they're asking for help to pay. And so we know that what they're telling us is accurate before we put anything online. And we got this person's income statement. It turned out that her monthly income was around $900 a month. That's what she was making. So this $750 that she needed, I mean, we're talking about, I mean, just pick it. Think of your monthly income, pick an expense that would take up all of that. That's what she was asking. And so, so we did it. I mean, we, we were able to fix the floor. Our donors came together and,

you know, it was that piece of cake, right? So all of a sudden we start getting mail from this person uh every month she sat down and wrote out a one dollar check and sent us a one dollar check every month for about six years okay now you know it's 20 what 26 cents now to mail a letter i don't yeah she's spending you know it's a quarter of what she's sending us to to mail it to us but it's just the point you know yeah talking about a person who uh you know has nine hundred dollars a month and she's sitting down and writing out a one dollar check i mean that's a dollar she could have obviously used uh and that that that kind of help uh even though it doesn't sound like a lot it's that kind of help that that really means a lot and I think drives other people to want to do this kind of work. You know, and I don't mean to interrupt,

but I mean that story flies in the face of the narrative that we're bombarded with about, you know, Americans that just want a hand up, you know, a handout. They just want gimme, gimme, gimme. Somebody just gimme something. People, there is no social safety net. We have not developed a quality social safety net in this country. And we have this anti-poverty narrative. And you have a story like this where somebody doesn't have anything. They have nothing.

And they're writing a $1 check because that's all they can spare. And they probably have to sacrifice something for that dollar. Absolutely right. And what they're saying is, thank you, and I'm still going to pay this forward. I will find a way to pay this forward. Some way. Right. And that is so in contrast with the narrative that we're constantly told about how, you know, demand. It's just incredible.

And to add to that, you know, Cecil's own story. And Cecil, you've told this story on the show show and you were talking a little about it before the record, but it's like when people get the like you know if it feels really good as a person who was once in need to turn around and help others who are currently in need and that's and i'll tell you something that i've personally learned uh in the course of doing all this you know when i started with you know my own commitment i mean i really didn't know but one of the reasons i did put this online you're gonna laugh when i tell you this is I wanted some accountability. I made, you know, a commitment to myself that I was going to do this, but I wanted to put myself out there. So I would be publicly shamed if I didn't, you know? Uh, and, uh, indeed the more that I've been able to give, it's like the more it somehow you're always able to give a little more than you thought you would

ever be able to. Does, does that make sense? Yeah, for sure. And it just, I don't understand it, but it really, it's an amazing thing. Well, and I think that's what I like so much about modest needs and the way that you've set it up is because like you say, a lot of people think of philanthropy as something that you can do when you're wealthier at the end of your life or when you don't need the money anymore. But as, you know, as our show, as our business model and cognitive dissonances proves, that $1 an episode, that $1 a month, that really does make a difference. And it creates something that is sustainable. And it allows everyone to get in on being a philanthropist, which, let's face it, there's nothing in the world that makes you feel better. Absolutely right.

And, you know, that's the thing. You know, really, when you remember what philanthropy is, I mean, we all in my experience with modest needs, there really aren't a lot of people who are just downright awful, nasty people. I mean, most people are really genuinely good. They try their hardest. They work hard. They have a problem that comes up or, you know, and to see those same people once you've helped them, and sometimes even before you help them, turn around and give five or 10 or $20 to somebody else who really needs to help. It's very, it's inspiring. I mean, it's the reason that you keep doing this every day. I, you know, overall, I think, I think over time, about six, was it 68, some odd percent of our applicants, the ones that we've been able to help, have given back. And that's just a huge number.

That's amazing. That's incredible. I have a question. I know you still have your favorite story that you want to tell. We want you to get to that, but I do have a question before you do that. You said that you vet these people. Absolutely. How does that work, and do you have to pay the people to vet them?

Are they volunteers? How does that work? Well, okay, so let people to vet them? Are they volunteers? How does that work? Well, okay, so let me tell you how it works first of all. When somebody goes through our application process, we actually had to build a system that would sort of intelligently know or be able to make a good guess at what documentation we would need to ask for to verify what a person had told us. we would need to ask for to verify what a person had told us. So at the end of the application process, we give each applicant a list of documents that they need to send to us so that we can verify what they've told us. And this ranges from we get everybody's photo ID, we get proof of residency, wherever they are, proof of their housing costs,

because that's part of how we calculate what grant they're eligible to receive, proof of their housing costs because that's part of how we calculate what grant they're eligible to receive, proof of their income, and of course a copy of the bill that they're asking for our help to pay. And if there's anything else that we really need, we ask for that. And then they can upload it to us through a secure link that we provide. And so it attaches permanently to their application and then we're able to go through and actually read the documentation. And that's one of the nice things about the way Modest needs to set up. I can go back in time and find the documents that go with just about every application that we have on the website through a secure link. As far as the people who do all this vetting, yeah, we have employees, including myself.

Three people run this organization for the country. Oh, my gosh. So we vet a lot of applications every day. But, yeah, we do pay them. And one of the reasons that we do that is because we have to maintain confidentiality laws. Yeah, sure. And you have to do that with employees.

When you have volunteers, you really can't hold them to that same standard. Yeah, yeah. We do. We get a lot of information about our folks. And that's only because we want to make sure that when we make this grant, it's probably going to do some real good. And so that way, when we pay the bill in the end, I mean, we pay the bill on behalf of the person. We don't ever send our applicants actual cash. If they ask for help with the rent, we pay the rent for them.

If they ask for help with the car repair, we pay the shop. It's like that. Because we do the betting, a combination of the betting and paying the grants that way, the very worst thing that can happen is somebody who maybe didn't need the help to fix their electricity bill so much gets it paid. But the money doesn't disappear out into nowhere and go buy big screen TVs or whatever. We know what our funding did. Now, I'm really proud of the system we've set up. I think it's second to none when it comes to vetting. We were out there doing crowdfunding before

crowdfunding was even a thing. There was no Kickstarter or GoFundMe or any of this other stuff before Modest Needs. And one of the things I really wish would change about some of those, not so much Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a fabulous system. But some of these other ones like GoFundMe, I mean, you can just say whatever you want and people give money to it. And that's a great thing. But you never really know what that money achieved. And when you're talking about the dollar values that go on that side, I mean, sometimes, you

know, $300,000, $400,000 have gone out to individual people. Really, there needs to be more vetting. I think that's an important part of giving is that you want to know you did a good job. We're looking at you, Fierstein. Yeah. Now, I have a question, and maybe you answered this already,

but for those listeners who gave directly to modest needs, how do you, as opposed to those who picked a cause that they wanted to donate to directly, how do you allocate that money? What's the process for that, those funds? Really, it's just done internally based on what we know about the applications and which application is going to expire when. We try to use those funds that come in, you know, generally both A, to, you know, of course, to operate the organization, and B, to, you know, to finish out applications that maybe aren't going to

be finished in the amount of time necessary to get it funded. Basically, we top off applications with it. So we go through the application list. We know who really needs the help right away. Maybe they need an extra $200, $300. They've got two or three days to go. It's unlikely that application is going to raise that. We'll go ahead and fund it with the general fund is what we call it. We'll just give it,

we'll just use the general fund and it's done. So that's really how we do it. We use the money that people give to the organization itself to really to handle emergencies, to finish applications that are just not going to get done in time if we don't step in. How many applications do you fund a year? going to get done in time if we don't step in. How many applications do you fund a year, do you think? In a really good year, 1,500 to 2,000 applications in a really good year. It's a lot.

You know, when you consider the number of people processing these, the small number of people processing these, and the fact that we're not a gigantic organization, a couple thousand applications a year is really good. Better than I thought we would be in our lifetime, you know? Especially when you have three people doing them. Right. Three people who are all kind of knuckleheads, you know? Not really. We just all go crazy, you know, some of the things that we get.

But, yeah, it's a challenge. It really is a challenge. But I have a great team. I have a fabulous team. So I'd love to hear that story. I want to know that your favorite success story. My favorite all time story is this. This was right after Modest Needs had launched. This was this was when I knew that Modest Needs actually had the ability to to change some lives beyond what I ever would have imagined. OK, so in June, I think it was June or July of 2002,

we got an application from a woman who lived in Kentucky and she was, she was married. She was a teacher. I think she was married. She had five kids and her, you know, and, and her, her husband and she together were making, you know,000 or $35,000 a year. This is very typical of our applicants. $35,000 a year is not nothing, but for a family of seven, that's not much money. Oh, my God, no. Oh, my God, no. And so her oldest child was about to start kindergarten.

So it shows you how close together these kids were. Her oldest child was about to start kindergarten or first grade, one of the two. together these kids were. Her oldest child was about to start kindergarten or first grade, one of the two. And he had an eye disorder called Eerlund's syndrome, which I had never heard of before. But it's when the cornea has dimples all through it. So basically, you know how when you get glasses, really, you're just sort of fixing your cornea, right? This has got a curvature. People with Eerlund's syndrome can have glasses made, but they have to be made to each individual dimple in the eye, and it's really expensive to fix. And so she had asked for help to buy her son some glasses. Now, here's the thing.

She asked for $50, which was 10% of the cost of the glasses. And she wrote in the application. She said, I'm only asking for $50 because I know there are a lot of people in worse need than we are. But if you can help us with the $50, I can get another job and pay off the optician. So if you could just give us the down payment, that way he'll have the glasses when he goes to school. And I read that and I thought to myself, how remarkable is this person? And so we actually were doing okay that month. We had had – as I told you, we had some media and people had given some money. And so I wrote back to her.

This is when it was all me. I was doing all this myself. And so I just – I had very close contact with all of our applicants. And I wrote back to her and I said, how about this? How about we do this? We'll buy the lenses and you buy the frames. And I thought that was – the reason I wanted her to buy the frames. I want her to have some, a piece of this, you know what I mean? She ownership, right? And so,

so she said, that's a great idea. And so we did that. We bought the lenses. Uh, she bought the frames and I, I later saw the glasses like a long time later and it's, and you know, it's these really expensive glasses in the, in like the craziest frame you ever saw. It's, it's a wonderful thing. So now no now here's why this is my favorite story i mean so you know we funded the application and it's a really nice story and that that should be it right well here's what actually happens a couple weeks later i get a phone call from cbs and they want to do a piece on modest needs this is a brand new thing and and i told them i would do it on the condition that this, this time they would make the piece about one of our applicants, because in the, in the past, any articles that we had done or whatever, it really been about me and starting modest needs. And I didn't want that. I want it to be about the people that we were helping. And so they agreed to do that and asked me to send them three or four of what I thought were our most compelling applicants. And I included this woman in the group that I sent to them. And she was ultimately selected and was filmed as part of the story. So when the story

finally aired in October of that year, I see this person for the first time and she tells the story, she says. And so we put the glasses on him and he looked at me and he said, mom, is that you? And it was the first time he had ever actually seen what his mother looked like in his glasses. And he then went home and he had a tutor that he worked with and drew a picture of a family. And the first time he had ever drawn anything coherent ever. And to the best of my knowledge, that child went on to go to college. And that was a great investment. That's $500.

Oh, my God. Really well spent. But I think that's my favorite story because really, I mean, who would have realized that $500, we're giving this child not just the ability to go to school, to learn, but to see his mom, see his family for the first time. You don't think about things like that. I mean to see his mom, see his family for the first time. You don't think about things like that. And we get applications all the time where even if we can't help, we've had some really wonderful letters from people that we couldn't help.

But the ones we can help, they write their thank you notes. It's the only thing we ask them to do. And they end up saying things like, you know, I was going to commit suicide before I found out about modest words. And the people on here changed my view of humanity because really the people who give, they do so selflessly and they know they're never going to see the people that they're helping. And it's just an amazing thing. You don't realize where these people's lives are, where they're coming from until you help them and realize that you may have even saved their lives in the process.

And it's really eye-opening to see what people tell you after they've gotten the help that they were afraid to tell you before, what their mental state was or how close they were to being on the street, really on the street. So when you can stop that for $500, $600, $700 at a time and you can break that up into $20 or $30 increments, I mean, why wouldn't you do that? That's our philosophy. Can I ask on your site, on your page, can you go and set up a recurring donation that just recurs? You sure can. You can do it. You just go to our make a donation link. There's an option that says give monthly and you can just set it up right there. It takes

two seconds. Same as making a regular contribution. That's great to know. I think, you know, I don't know. We weren't planning on doing this, but the stories that you're sharing are just, I mean, they're just incredible. They're just incredible. And I think, you know, for our side, you know, we're going to make sure that Cognitive Dissonance sets up a recurring donation. Oh, thank you very much. You know, starting immediately. Well, as long as our show is in existence,

we're going to make sure that we send funds to modest needs. Well, thank you. And now Tom's made us look like dicks if we don't. So I guess we also, out of the kindness of our heart, are going to do the same. We have to vote on everything in our show, so I want you to cut this whole thing what's he studying in college i have questions

i do want to ask because you know we've talked a lot about how our listeners can go to modest needs to help but i know that some of them also need help i mean i've got some friends who have been you know settling for store-bought chicken wings for a really long time now. So, you know, exactly. So what's the process like for them? I mean, you know, obviously you want to vet them. You want to make sure that people aren't taking advantage of the system. But I don't want to leave anybody with the impression that it's really onerous or that, you know, that they'd be scared off of asking for help?

It's really not. I mean, if you go to our website, there's a big orange button at the top right section of the page that says, apply for help. And if you click that, our system will basically walk you through the application process. But really, it's a matter of creating an account with us and then filling out a questionnaire, a really simple questionnaire, takes on average 15 minutes to complete the application. And then another five or ten minutes to scan and upload the documentation that we need. Unless there's a really major problem, that should be about all. We're talking about 20, 25 minutes to do the whole thing. And then, of course, we're always able to help if people can't complete it on their own, they need some help, we'll be glad to help. I would just really,

once again, like to say to all of you, and of course, to your listeners, you really, I'm going to tell you, it's amazing how things happen at Modest Needs. We had had a miserable summer. Okay, let me just tell you, in the nonprofit world, the summer is the worst time of the year, because everybody's on vacation vacation and nobody's thinking about, you know, what they're going to be doing for other people. And we had had a really hard summer. And when you guys came in, uh, you did for us what we do for our applicants. Okay. You were really, you came at exactly the right time and you did more than we could ever have asked you to do. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all that you did. All we did was write dick jokes.

Everybody else donated the money. Right, right. We just, but we're happy to help and happy to drive charity towards you guys. You guys are doing amazing work. If people wanted to sign up right now, donate monthly or just donate one time, where would they go?

Oh, just go to modestneeds.org and click make a donation. Couldn't be any easier. Keith, it's been a blast having you on. Thank you click, make a donation. Couldn't be any easier. Keith. It's been a blast having you on. Thank you so much for all the work you do. You do amazing work. It's really a privilege.

Thank you so much for having me guys. And, and best of luck to all, all of you for all that you do have a wonderful day. So you want to thank Keith from modest needs for joining us today, as well as Eli and Noah from the Scathing Atheist for joining us and talking about that organization. It was really great to have him on. It was incredible.

It's incredible. Humbling. What an incredible guy. I know. I mean, the amount of work that he puts in to every Scathing Atheist podcast is just amazing. And then Keith was a really nice guy too. Never say nice things about Eli. It's not.

I know he said some very kind things about us, but we will never return. I was talking about Noah. I was talking about Eli. No, but Keith was really just an amazing dude and really a humbling dude to be around and just to talk to. We had a wonderful conversation with him, and we are going to start donating on a monthly basis.

And hopefully next year, the Scathing Atheist crew and our crew can get together to do another fundraiser. Maybe we can make it bigger and better next year. And involve. I think we already had conversations about expanding our efforts. Modest Needs just really strikes me. It just really, really strikes me as an amazing organization. I'm so proud to have been a part of a fundraiser that's done so much good next week. It's our great hope. We'll see what happens. It's our great hope to have a podcast for you from QED. So, uh, now I'm recording

this ahead of time, so I don't know, but they had told us that a high quality recording of our show on QED will be available. So we will have a audio version. We'll also hopefully have a video version that maybe we're loading up for patrons. We're not sure exactly how that's going to work, but we're hoping we're going to have it by the time we leave so we can post it for you and you'll have a show. Now the show may be a little short because we only have a 50 minute slot, but you will still have a show next Monday, and it will be, hopefully, from QED. I give that warning all the time.

It's a little smaller than you'd like, but this is what I've got to work with. So if you're interested in becoming a sponsor of someone on Modest Needs, you can go to modestneeds.org, or you can do a recurring sponsorship like we had found out earlier. They are always looking for some help. And check out the Scathing Atheist and Godawful movies.

You can do Google searches for those, but scathingatheist.com will take you to their flagship show. And that's going to wrap it up for this week. We are still in England right now, and we will be back in a couple weeks. But we're going to have a show for you next week, a canned show with Ishmael for this week. We are still in England right now, and we will be back in a couple weeks, but we're going to have a show for you next week, a canned show with Ishmael for next week. So look forward to that, and we'll leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Couched in Scientician Double bubble Toil and trouble Pseudo-quasi-alternative Acupunctuating

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