Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 440: Voter Disenfranchisement with Andre Salais

Episode Date: October 29, 2018

Important Links             Stories from the Week

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Tom asked, how can this institution continue to exist? The Catholic Church has been losing members for decades, and less than half the children raised Catholic stay Catholic, and that is loss is increasing exponentially. The Catholic Church is increasingly repulsive to outsiders. Only by brainwashing them from birth can they hang on to a continually shrinking population. That's why the Catholic Church is

so opposed to abortion and birth control. Unwanted children are the easiest to seduce. They can't recruit, so they reproduce. Glory hole, motherfuckers! Hey guys, this is no know gloryhole by the way uh this is mark calling from st louis interesting the philadelphia diocese on that website that you

talked about has about the same number of fiddlers as the st louis diocese and a whole bunch of other dioceses of similar size also found out one of the priests that I knew growing up at my diocese, Diddler. Okay, great. I love that website. I'm going to go take a shower now. Bye. Hey, guys.

You were surprised at the number of Catholic priests on that list. I just want to point out in the movie Spotlight, the guy gave an estimate that there were, that 6% of all Catholic priests are pedophile. If you look at the number of Catholic priests in the world, there's over 400,000 of them. So that means the number of Catholic priests who are pedophiles is in the tens of thousands. And the guy they quote in the spotlight movie is a real person. That is his actual figure. And everything I've seen indicates

that his estimate is correct. So just think about that for a moment and how much work needs the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording live from glory hole 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 episode 440 of cognitive dissonance and it is very

political Cecil the midterms are coming right around the corner blue wave right around the corner blue wave I will not be disappointed again don't go break in my heart Cecil let's see you know we went out of our way to find a political expert.

Andre Salas is joining us right now. I thought you didn't just use the word expert. And we are excited to have you here, Andre, regardless of what Tom says. I was just impugning his character and credentials, but whatever. It always starts with the insults. I'm pretty sure the last time I was on, it started immediately with the insults. And I still didn't get a photo with Gary when I was in the studio. So the next time I'm

in Chicago, you owe me a close and personal experience with Gary there. Hey, the mouth is open for a reason. We'll turn our backs and let things happen. I turned Gary out at a young age. I've been pimping him out for a very long time. So you pay me and you can have as long as you want with Gary. Hey, man, next

time you're in Chicago, we'll cosplay as Priest and you can have your way with that little boy. As long as you sign language the right thing. Oh, God. Oh, God. That's a callback. That's a terrible callback. Yeah. So, Andre, you have been very busy doing a lot of political things in Arizona.

What kind of things have been keeping you busy? Oh, God. So what I do for a living primarily, and obviously the Atheist Candidates Project is going to get its relaunch after this election cycle, but I work with candidates. So it's my job as a political strategist to teach campaigns how to win. And somehow every election I get sucked into running a couple of campaigns. So this is just a couple. You're just running a few campaigns at a time. Yeah, standard. It's yeah. You know, you ever run the same like the same.

Just get the opposing sides and run them both. Oh, no. Generally, the way you kind of want to't you kind of want to, though? Like, I'll run both you guys, huh? Oh, you mean in the same election? Yeah, that's what I mean. Really, just like, are you working with Andre? I'm working with Andre. It's also like playing yourself in chess, right?

There's no winning that, right? I don't know. It seems like a good sell. Like, I know the guy on the other team. Actually, to be honest, if you keep doing this and getting them on both, we can really guarantee a blue wave. Well, so this is one of the unfortunate things about how partisan politics works in this country is once you've gone through one of the party's doors, it closes on your way in. You're you're kind of permanently in a position where the other party will be suspicious of you. You can't switch teams? Like even like if you get surgical manipulations done like this 2019?

Or like what if you get like, you know, you wind up going through anti-gay therapy? Will they take you then? Yeah, can you get like Republican conversion therapy? Well, that is actually the, that's the exception to the rule, right? If you become an extremist, then suddenly the extreme wing of the party wants to prop you up as an example of the liberal coming to reason. Example, yeah. So I will ask this as a semi-serious question. Like, does political extremist even mean anything anymore?

Because, like, at this point, it seems like it's just the extreme. I think it does. And I think that when we're talking about the word extreme, I think it really depends on the definition that you're operating under. we can still refer to that as extreme, even if those policies have become, they've become part of the mainstream political consciousness. Are the extremes closing in? Are the extremes, I guess I'm going to ask a question, I'm going to phrase it strangely, and I still think you're going to know what I mean. Are the extremes becoming the new center? Are they becoming the new main? No, I don't think so. I think there would be some people who argue that. But what I've what I see looking at the recent political history of the United States in the past few decades is a movement to the right. one party has come to represent a disproportionate portion of our government. The left hasn't actually moved very far to the left. They've moved closer to where the left was back in the 80s.

They haven't marched all that far back in the opposite direction. And if you look at Barack Obama, we pay attention to the news, especially you guys watching crazy right wing news and religious news talking about Obama being a communist and extreme leftist. His platform in 2008 was to the right of Ike Eisenhower, who was a Republican. Wow. We're trying to be a bigger tent than we really have to be to be able to have electoral victories in the United States. What do you mean by that? Explain that to me a little more. When we're looking at Bill Clinton's actually a really good example of this. And I don't mean

this to impugn Bill Clinton, but I think every president we can have reasonable complaints about with Bill Clinton, his moving to the right was actually on crime. With Bill Clinton, his moving to the right was actually on crime. Bill Clinton presented himself as a tough on-crime candidate for president. That was Republican language. That's something that Republicans liked. Bill Clinton won. But this strategy that they employed of going after the fears of white Americans to get a Southern Democrat elected in the 90s worked. Are we just electing people exclusively on the fears of white Americans, though?

Like, is that like, because I'm thinking Clinton, and I'm thinking George W. Bush, and I'm thinking Trump, all elected on the fears of white Americans. Well, when we have a system that's rigged for that, then yes, absolutely. And I know we're going to talk a little bit about voter suppression coming up fairly soon. But when we have broad gerrymandering, primarily in Republican-controlled states, there's a couple of Democratic-controlled states where this is a problem. When you get to choose your own voters and your own voters are old white Americans who are predominantly conservative, then that's the that's the party. That's the that's the population that you have to focus on in those districts. What you end up producing is in when we're looking at the primaries, for example, that we know that the populations that vote in the primaries have a tendency to be the more, for lack of a better term, the more extreme elements of each political side. The more committed, more right-wing conservatives are more likely to vote in primaries. And when you draw districts in such a way that you

are guaranteeing that a conservative will take that seat. You're setting the conservative party up for a scenario where the crazy person is more likely to win in a primary and then carry the general because it's not a competitive district. Well, let's talk for a second about some predictions here, because, you know, I know Tom is over there with his blue wave cheerleader outfit on. Blue wave! Blue wave. Give me a B. Predicting people's behavior is complicated, especially when we're talking about such a complex electoral system like the United States. So when we're talking about things like voter turnout and general voter behavior in the long term, we use previous elections as a sort of basis and then look at current registrations. And it's basically dynamics of how the population is changing over time to project what the turnout is going to look like. And this gives us things like win numbers.

The win number is how many votes this candidate needs to get in order to win that seat. So for the nuts and bolts of the campaign stuff, the stuff that tells us how many votes this candidate needs, what the turnout's going to look like, that stuff is really, really bad. And it's because turnout is all over the place. Just looking at Arizona as an example, and then I can use Georgia as another incredible example. I ran some projections based on the voter registration behavior in the state last August. And it looked like, based on those projections, that voter registration in Arizona was going to be up 18.9% compared to the previous year, when year on year we only saw single percentage point changes in registration. We don't know who those people are. They haven't

voted before, obviously, so we can't predict their behavior based on prior voting. We don't know how to contact these folks because they've never voted before and we can't predict what they're going to be interested in. Is it because they're illegal immigrants? Is that why? Oh, you know, clearly we found so many of them voting. Chris Kobach in Kansas decided to launch a huge probe into non-citizen voting in Kansas. Guess how many they found? How many non-citizens

did he probe? That's my first question. How many citizens are even in Kansas? The state is fucking completely deserted. That's a fucking garbage tumbleweed state. The only time Kansas ever appears anywhere is in movies where the wind moves you away from it. Or where you need to build like a fucking like a stadium out in your cornfield. Well, so they found one.

One non-citizen voter. Was he Canadian? I actually don't know that. They did convict the person for voter fraud, which obviously they should. But the case that was being made by Chris Kobach was that there was broad, widespread nationwide voter fraud being perpetrated by non-citizens. OK, yeah, but what you're missing is the multiplier effect. If Kansas has one and there's 50 states, we could have. Fifty. Think about that effect, you know, do the math, smart guy.

That's about close to the actual number. I think when the Bush administration conducted their assessment of voter fraud in the United States. And don't quote me on this. I might be wrong. One of the listeners, I'm sure probably can find the right number, but I think they found 64 instances of voter fraud out of all ballots that had been cast over the course of four years. And we know that the election could have been swayed by five dozen votes. So,

so wipe the beaded sweat off of your head right now, since we can't predict there's still, there's a bunch of people that sort of jump in. Since we can't predict, there's a bunch of people that sort of jump in. We really can't predict who they're going to be voting for. So it's going to make the projections based on this election going to be even harder to do, right? Yes, but we do have some good data that we can consider reliable. So the general population behavioral data that we base on previous elections, that's not very good because Donald Trump fucked up literally everything about our

democracy, including how we measure voter behavior. But when we're looking at things like the generic poll, for example, generic poll is basically when they poll voters and ask them if they favor the Republican or the Democrat for that congressional seat. And they're generally cross-sectional. Sometimes they're state generic polling. But nationwide, we're looking at in the latest polling and then just sort of a normalization of the recent polling, Democrats have a nine point lead in the generic poll. So amongst voters, there's a nine point gap in the number of voters who prefer a Democrat over a Republican with the Democrats being on the winning side of that. That is actually a very reliable test for what the

outcomes of the election are going to be. Is that even reliable when you factor in what happened in 2016, where everybody that was predicting predicted the wrong thing? So I'm going to say something very unpopular. You're probably going to get a lot of hate mail for it. But five, so Nate Silver did not say Donald Trump wouldn't win. Oh, no. No, no, no, we know that. Yeah, and well, and there's like, I saw after the election, everyone attacking Nate Silver, and you said this wasn't going to happen.

And when we're, but when we're looking at voter behavior projections, we're looking at it from a standpoint of probabilities. So he said, I think the number he gave Trump was 23% chance of winning. Things that happen 23% of the time happen all the time. There's a difference between unlikely and impossible. Yeah, it's just unlikely. Well, I guess that gets to my broader point is that when we're looking at polls, when we're looking at voter behavior, and we look at that because we understand that it has some predictive value, right?

Otherwise, why bother looking at it? There's no reason to look at it if we don't feel like it has some predictive value. And there's a general sense out in the world now, and I see it online a lot, where it's like, yeah, well, here's what all the numbers say. And here is the general prediction, which is not a guarantee. It's not a lock, right? But it's a prediction of behaviors. And people say, well, none of that matters anymore. What we learned from Trump is that none of that matters anymore. Does that still matter? And I ask that legitimately, like, does that still matter? Do we still have good predictive modeling that we can say, look, it's not impossible, but this is really likely? Or are the polls, because I know that there was some concern that, hey, people lied about their behavior ahead of the election.

And if we lie about the behavior, then garbage in, garbage out. So I'd kind of like you to speak to those issues, if you will. Absolutely. So it does have value. And I want to make sure that I'm checking for my own biases here as someone who literally works elections for a living and loves numbers. It has value, but there's always the potential for flaws in how we gather the data. So when we're talking about telephone polling, which is generally done by landlines, done on landlines, that population skews older.

That's a problem if you're trying to conduct a cross-sectional study of the American electorate. Jesus, yes it is. And that's just one example. There's a reason that universities and political science universities and political science research is that their researchers are so critical about how questions are phrased to avoid inadvertently prompting an answer that the voter would otherwise not offer or the subject would otherwise not offer. So this is one of the reasons they test the batteries, the questionnaires that they use on whatever population it is they're trying to measure behavior from. So there's always going to be problems in that area, absolutely. Which is why when I tell people when they're sharing polls or they say, oh, well, CNN published

this poll that says that so-and-so is ahead by 10 points. And if it sounds outlandish, look at the methods behind that poll. We should be fact-checking everything. And if it was an internet poll, well, that internet-based poll skews young because young people use the internet. It's also non-scientific. So if you go look at the methods behind the data that you're getting from a lot of these sources, a lot of these places will even say in their methods or somewhere on the graphics, they append to this article that they put out pretending this is scientific. Quote, this is not a scientific poll. So always look for that.

But when you get into the methods and you see how they selected their population, the size of the population, if it's statistically significant, the bigger... What about the girth of the population? Because I'm more...

Well, it depends. I'm counting on that, is what I'm saying. I'm counting on the girth. Are we pulling southerners? Which races do you think we should be paying attention to or more closely to as as we near the midterms? So if you're if you want to do more of the political spectator sport stuff, I'm going to I've got a few of those that you should be keeping an eye on. But the races that people should be paying the closest attention to

are the races in their own district. The white races, right? The white races. Again, we're back on the South. I don't know if we can keep moving right back to the South. No, the races in your own own district. The race is that overlap with where your home is because there may be a candidate there who can win, who may need your help. And if it looks like that candidate in recent polling is showing that they're one point ahead or two points ahead or one point behind, they're in the margin of error, get off your ass, call the campaign. And disenfranchise black people. Phone calls. No, call black people. Make sure people get to vote, right? Especially in some states when we get to voter suppression, especially people of color, they need to know

their rights when it comes to this election. Because in some states, the voter suppression around people of color is blatant and severe. And it's something that we need to watch for. So those of us who have less to lose in this election, we don't only need to vote because the republic is on fire. We don't just need to vote because we don't like the guy who's in the White House. We need to vote the entire ballot, including in states with judicial sections on the ballot where you get to decide whether or not you're kicking judges out of office or justices out of office. Because there are other people depending on you casting that vote. If there is a race in your state, I'll give you a good example of something that people

might not think is all that significant. In Arizona, we have Kathy Hoffman. She's running for superintendent of public instruction. She's running to replace a person who tried to water down our evolution standards in our science classes. And the person she's running against is, he has some questionable financial ties to privately owned schools. Kathy is running in a state that prohibits teachers from talking about LGBTQ issues, period. One of her platform positions is nondiscrimination.

positions is non-discrimination. If you stay out of this education election in Arizona and you say, well, I don't really know what this is about. The schools are going to do their own thing. Oh, it's an executive office. They're going to do their own thing. And the Republican wins that election. The former California Republican congressman running in Arizona wins that election. We will continue our policy of treating LGBT students who are asking for help or guidance from the school or being picked on for being LGBTQ, continue our policy of not allowing teachers to address those issues in a personal way. Yeah, so I want to ask you this question, man, because I think this is like the important piece. Almost a third of people don't vote. Right?

True. Yeah, I know. I'm right there with you. They're stupid. We got to fit. I'm going to vote, right? And we're having this conversation. Cecil, you're going to vote. I've never missed an election. Cecil, have you ever missed an election? Never missed an election. There's a certain group of people, it's like

we're preaching to the choir. And I have to say, as much as i would like to pretend that what i do when i have a ballot is i carefully look at every can i don't at this point i'm like yeah i can't vote for a republican i can't do it i've never been able to do it i but how do we get the other third voting how do we get the other third of people voting on Drake? Because they're not fucking voting. And that's a lot of people. That's a really good question. We have this really strange mentality amongst non-voters in this country that their vote doesn't matter. And if it's not that, it's that they don't vote because they didn't like any of their options.

So it's usually one of those two categories. My vote doesn't matter and I don't like my options. But like what you just described, like there's problems with the options. Like there's always problems with the options. Like in Illinois, the governor that I want to win as a man, I think is disgusting. Like Pritzker, I want Pritzker to win because he's just less worse than the other guy who is much worse. Well, that's the feeling about Kyrsten Sinema amongst a lot of progressives in Arizona. Kyrsten Sinema has a habit of bucking the Democratic Party. She is an agnostic who

has distanced herself from the secular community. And when we look at her voting record, about 60% of the time she votes for things that Donald Trump supports. 60% of the time she votes for things that Donald Trump supports. And she's a Democrat. So our own Joe Manchin. But I know that if when the Mueller investigation's concluded and if that investigation reveals that Donald Trump was complicit in this Russian attack on our election, Kyrsten Sinema would vote to impeach because that is the reasonable thing to do. She bucks her party when she thinks it's reasonable to do so. Now, we have a lot of purists in our party, just like the other party has a lot of their ideological purists who say, well, I can't vote for them because they voted with Trump on this one issue.

But the other person, Martha McSally, that person who's running, other person, the Martha McSally, that person who's running, she removed her support for DACA from her website. She's accused Kyrsten Sinema of treason and claimed that she wants to let ISIS into the United States. She's rambling about MS-13. I mean,

what you're basically describing is somebody who votes for what Donald Trump wants 60% of the time or somebody who votes 100% of the time. Those are your options. They're shitty options, but you got to go with the less shitty option. Yeah, well, it's like do you want to get hit in the thumb with a hammer? No. Okay, would you like to get your eye gouged

out? Well, I'll take the hammer to the thumb. Yeah, there you go. I don't want either of those awful things to happen to me, but like that's also an easy choice. It is. It is. If those are my only two choices, but what I find maddening is this idea and i and i i would love to know how we can work actively actively work to combat this is this

this fucking apathy based around you know i'm gonna let the perfect be the enemy of the okay i'm not even going good yeah and it's dropping you know like i we can't like that that mentality is a bullshit mentality and it's for liars and like every time we allow that to be something that is said without shame without a social stigma attached to not voting like what do we need to do like how do we need to like i want to get out and canvas for people like get out and you know hey who are you going to vote for but like at some point it's like fucking vote that's actually part, hey, who are you going to vote for? But like at some point it's like fucking vote. That's actually part of who are you going to vote for? Who are you going to fuck?

Get out there and do the thing with your thumb. American voters require aggressive persuasion. It's bizarre. Like the French, when it was Nicolas Sarkozy running against Ségolène Royal, they had 84 percent voter turnout in a race that was that was characterized by broad scandal on both sides. 84% of the voters turned out. Here, we run for the hills. We stay away from polls. To me, and I can't say that I have data to support this part of it, but I think it's

about building relationships and communicating to people the importance of their vote to other people, to people they care about, to their family members, and the impact of their choosing a protest vote or choosing not to vote that that's going to have on people they care about and on them. Canvassing is a great way to do that. If you're knocking on doors of undecided voters and you're talking to them, you're just an average person who's volunteering, you're not being paid. You're saying, hey, I'm a volunteer and I'm hoping to earn your vote for this candidate who I care about because they support these things that will make our lives better. That makes a difference. Canvassing, I know makes a difference. That is the most effective way to get somebody out to vote is to actually knock on their door shake their hand and have a conversation with

them like a human being if more people vote do democrats win more often yes yes absolutely i knew that the answer is easy yeah right when when voter turnout is high democrats win uh when voter turnout is low republicans win that's win. That's what most people want is this set of policies, right? Well, let's let's let's transition directly into the voter suppression that's happening specifically in Georgia, but in other places, too. Oh, and absolutely, we can do that. And I did want to mention for the I talked about, you know, focus on your local races. But if you're looking for just some spectator stuff before we jumped into that, Arizona for the Senate is a good state to watch right now. We have our Democrat is up one point, which is within margin of error, of course.

But that's going to be hard fought. Nevada, Missouri, the governor's race in Georgia is going to be a very interesting one to watch. What makes it so interesting? So, and I'm ending on Georgia simply because Georgia is the hotbed for voter suppression right now. This is something that Stacey Abrams, who's running for governor in Georgia, and she would also be the first black female governor to be elected in the history of the United States. That's something they accounted for, and they made a massive push for voter registration to get new voters on the rolls. Georgia might elect a black woman Democrat to governor while their current secretary of state,

the person who's responsible for overseeing the elections, is running against her and attempting to rig those elections. And he's doing it. He's doing it. One of the specific things he's doing is there's a no errors clause or something on their voter registration. So if you have like a hyphen that's misplaced, they'll just take you off the rolls. Oh, come on. And they've been doing it for a lot of people. And a lot of people that most of the people that have been disenfranchised are blacks, because that was a lot of people who got added to the system very recently. Right. Oh, I have a list. So his.

So in addition to that, his office has retained more than fifty three thousand voter registrations that they've just not processed. Eighty percent of those are were from people of color. They've closed motor vehicle department offices on the weekends during the last weekends to register to vote. It's likely that this race, by the way, will be decided by fewer than 50,000 votes. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. How is this? How is any of this not getting pushed up into the court system? I mean, this seems illegal. Some of it is. The problem is when you do it, when you give the order on the last two weekends that people can register to vote,

on that first week or like a couple of days before that motor vehicle division office is supposed to be open on that weekend, the courts don't have time to react. So they get away with it. And it gets worse. So back in 2017, they purged 100,000 people from the voter rolls for not voting in 2016. The largest change that we can project in voter behavior this year is from non-voter to voter. what the fuck i guess like how again how are they getting away with this like like has nobody taken them to court and holding them accountable is this not criminal is there this year they purged 700 000 voters from what was that all yeah yeah so we're uh you know uh close to um close to a million uh so around 800,000 plus, you know. Jesus Christ. His office is currently being sued for racial bias in their voter purges. So we do, that actually is being pursued in the courts.

And we have people in both parties, officials in both parties calling him to resign as Secretary of State because it appears he's manipulating the election he is running in for governor. state because it appears he's manipulating the election he is running in for governor and this is this is the same asshole we played his his commercial on our show where he's like i got a big truck and i'm gonna stuff the illegals in it that's the same guy that's that guy yeah that guy that's that guy yeah that's that guy with the fucking clean and pressed flannel yeah yeah mr clean press flannel yeah that guy's like i gotta pick up truck oh my god shotgun to shoot i got i'll i'm shooting down legislation i'm shooting blacks i mean legislation he's blowing up government spending he literally oh yeah yeah um i don't know but he just had an

explosion behind there was yeah some random explosion that was uh that was all of his campaign's budget for videography. That guy's gonna win. It's blood on graphics. Thankfully, he's got plenty of PACs backing him, so he's good on that, right? So precincts that are predominantly people of color have experienced purges, but there is one precinct in Georgia that is predominantly white and overwhelmingly conservative, and their voter turnout is at 240%. What? I'm not a math magician,

but I'm not sure that that's how that numbers is good. That precinct has turned in more ballots than they have registered voters. Okay, just that's not a possible. How the fuck? What the actual? You know what it is? Huh?

They wound up getting some people from Russia to come over and vote in this election. Oh, my God. That's what happened, Tom. He's for to be. I am. It's illegal voting. What do you want? I am from Georgia.

Maybe not this Georgia, but a different Georgia. At this point, our elections are being decided by illegal immigrants from Russia and Honduras fighting each other at the polls. God bless America. So if somebody is a victim of voter suppression, they feel like they're a victim of this. Is there any recourse? Yes, there is. So and to be fair, for folks who have had their ballots held back as their absentee ballots held back after a handwriting analysis was used to disqualify them, a federal court ruled that they are required to inform those voters. And if the voter doesn't respond, they have to count those as provisional ballots.

respond, they have to count those as provisional ballots. So at least on that part, the tossing the ballots because the signature looked a little funky or that S isn't as squiggly as it is on the driver's license. That has been thrown out, they have to keep those ballots. So that's good news. If you are going to vote on election day and you are told that you are not on the rolls, ask for a provisional ballot. You have the right to receive a provisional ballot. First ask them to double check the rolls, ask them to check again because mistakes happen. The poll workers are only human beings. But if they can't find you, demand a provisional ballot with a receipt.

The law provides you that right to request that ballot, period. What they'll do afterwards is then verify whether or not the person who claimed to be the person casting that ballot is eligible to vote. And if they can confirm that, then that ballot will get counted. But you have to cast the ballot. I had also heard, too, that you have to go within a certain time in some states to show them like an ID or something like that. It was you that cast that ballot or something like that. Like, is that something that you've heard? The law varies from state to state. But as far as your right to cast a provisional ballot goes, if there are ID laws for receiving the ballot in general,

you may have to present identification at that time just to get the ballot. And I have a feeling like the provisional ballot should have something on it. And if not, go look it up on the internet and find out what you need to do to make sure your vote counts if you get a provisional ballot.

Yeah, so if you live in a state that has voter ID laws, go to your state secretary of state's website and look up the ID requirements. If you don't know, if you live in a state that has voter ID laws, go to your state secretary of state's website and look up the voter requirements. Well, how do I know they counted my vote? I know. I know. Like, how can I verify? I've got a receipt in my hand. How do I know that they said that's Tom? You can check with your elections

office. So and it varies state to state. But in Arizona, the county recorder's office handles elections. You can check with the county recorder to see if they have recorded that you have voted. The ACLU has an election protection hotline. I want to give you that phone number so you can provide that to people. So if they're being denied access to a provisional ballot or there's intimidation going on at their polling place, they can call this hotline for help. What is the hotline number? It's 866-OUR-VOTE. So, Andre, when you get the, it's, what is the project? That's Atheist Candidates Project? Atheist Candidates Project, yeah. When you get that back on the air, let us know. When you get it back running, let us know. We'd like to talk to

you about it again. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And if anyone wants information on the air, let us know when you get back running. Let us know. We'd like to talk to you about it again. No, absolutely. Yeah. And if anyone wants information on the project, the website's still up. The next year is going to be mainly fundraising so we can build out the nuts and bolts and the infrastructure to make the project successful. You can go to atheistcandidates.com to get more information on that. And I'm going to make my best effort to make the podcast circles and start showing up at the conventions and whatnot because I got to raise $700,000. So I'm going to be very busy.

Well, we wish you the best of luck. Thank you so much for joining us tonight. You were a treasure trove of information and Blue Wave, buddy. Blue Wave. Thanks for having me on, guys. Have a good night. Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, all truth, and nothing but the truth? Why don't you answer him?

He's talking big right now. I don't know what he's saying. He's asking you if you swear. No, but I know all the words. He's asking you if you will swear to tell the truth. Truth is stranger than fiction, Judge Woody. So the story is from Right Wing Watch. This is Rodney Howard Brown

suggesting that Ruth Bader Ginsburg should be shot for treason. I'm sure this is going to be a reasoned approach. Yeah, so this is based on Ruth Bader Ginsburg was recently interviewed when she was interviewed. Not recently.

It was during the Arab Spring, so 2012. Oh, is this just now coming up six years later? Well, just now that they're bringing it up, yes. Did he just decide six years after the interview that he was

worried about it? I think he may be still mad about it. Wow. Is he still mad about his junior high girlfriend dumping him or what? I know, right? This is a recent story. So forgive me. October 24th, 2018. Yeah, it was 2012 was when she was interviewed.

Like, I literally can't understand a world where you're like, you know, six years ago, you made this kind of like, it's fucking six years ago. Yeah, 2012. It was in February. So Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I guess in 2012 was interviewed and she was asked, you know, would you use the U.S. Constitution as a model for other budding democracies? And she said, well, I would think I would take advantage of all the work that has been done building other governmental and constitutional structures. She specifically pointed out the European Human Rights Document. I forgot what the fucking thing is called. The South African constitution and the Canada charter.

So yeah, she's like, yeah, you know, I don't think I'd look at a 200 plus year old document. I'd look at some stuff that's more recent if I were building a brand new government. Well,

let's see what, let's see if, if that's what, if he's up, why he's upset. Cause it doesn't seem like it seems like a reasonable position. Let's see why he's upset, because it seems like a reasonable position. We have generations of generations of lawyers and judges who have all been taught this supremacist kind of ideology that nobody can even question a judge.

Well, it is called the Supreme Court. So, I mean, it's kind of in the name well and like i don't know that i don't know that i believe that like first of all a judgment by its nature is generally pretty fine it's pretty final that's how judgments work but were you to question it you would maybe appeal it so there'd be like a process huh that's weird it's almost like there are entire structural elements built into justice to literally question judges. And that's the thing that we need to break. That's the thing that is shocking because if you hear Beda Ginsburg talk, she talks about the Constitution of America being totally flawed. And that if they were there to rewrite the Constitution, they would not use the U.S. Constitution. That's not what she said.

Listen, nobody's suggesting that we rewrite. If you were going to rewrite the Constitution and you just used the Constitution, you would just copy the Constitution. Why would you use, like, if I was going to rewrite Stephen King's It, I would use Stephen King's It. And then when I was done, I would have just a transcribed copy of Stephen King's It.

That is a stupid fucking thing to say. I think, you know, if you're going to be talking about writing something today, she makes a great point when she says, if I'm going to write a Constitution Day, I'm going to pay attention to stuff that's a little more recent. Yeah. Stuff that pays attention to people as people's dignity as a human being. And, you know, maybe write something a little different. I think, I think the problem that we have, and it's a problem that we've run into forever is that we just think that no matter what this document that was written, you know,

over 200 years ago is absolutely perfect and nothing can be changed on it. And I think that if the founding fathers were here today, they'd be like, what are you, a fucking bunch of idiots? What is wrong with you? Well, they built into the system a way in which to amend it. One of the first things that happened is the Bill

of Rights was tacked onto it. They're the amendments. They amend the first thing. Because the first thing wasn't fucking perfect. As the model. Well, she actually said that to she was invited to Egypt back during the

Arab Spring when they were going to rewrite their constitution. She sat before an Egyptian journalist who asked her point blank. Why are you speaking? As the Egyptians are writing their new constitution, should they use the US constitution as a model? This Supreme Court justice who took an oath that she would support the constitution of the United States without hesitation, without mental

reservation, flat out said no, that we need to look at the UN human rights agenda. Now, isn't at that juncture, shouldn't she be removed from office? That is what- That was hot. Why would you remove her from office? Those are two different issues. I can say, hey, I will support, I will uphold my responsibilities as a Supreme Court justice as they relate to the Constitution because I understand what it says and what it means.

It does not, however, mean that it is perfect. Yeah. You're like, they are, those things are not even remotely in conflict. You got to remove them from office.

If you, if they say, I like this other document too, right. If you don't suck, it's dick. Like, I'm not,

you know, I have a poly relationship with the constitution. So yeah, no, it's, it? Like, really? I'm not, you know, I have a poly relationship with the Constitution. Yeah, yeah. No, it's actually... Wait, did he say, what did he say? Treason.

That is what... That was high treason. It's not high treason. It's literally not high treason. I want to read what high treason is. Participating in a war against one's native country,

attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military or diplomats, or its secret services for a hostile or foreign power, or attempting to kill the head of state are perhaps the best known examples of high treason. Okay, yeah. Well, when you put it that way, it doesn't quite meet those definitions. Right, right.

Because she said- It's only, it's low treason. It's okay. It's bottom treason. It's sub treason. It's mid treason. It's okay. It's bottom treason. It's sub treason. It's mid treason. No, it's actually clearly what we would classify

constitutionally as bad behavior. She should have been impeached immediately. You went on impeach for bad behavior. We have a president that's been literally the worst behavior

I've ever seen. What is this? Is this like grade school where it's like, okay, well, you got a yellow card today. You got a yellow. If you get a red,

you're going to have to sit out in the hallway and the principal is going to come by and beat you. Well, they, they, they only point out bad behavior, quote unquote, when it's somebody else.

Right. They, they, they, they're like, well, could you fucking look at the one Senator or the representative from California?

Who's like putting a bunch of shit on a charge account and flying all over the goddamn world sending his goddamn puppy over fucking seas because he wants his pup pup to sit next to him in the fucking seat he flies all the way fucking over there and we're like oh that's not bad behavior though it's just only fucking gross misuse of campaign funds yeah but what i mean as long as he can do all that as long as he still fucking gleefully spreads, but I mean, as long as he can do all that, as long as he still fucking gleefully spreads his cheeks for the Constitution. As long as he takes a Lady Liberty statue, rolls a Constitution

up like a paper tube and fucks it like that Tanzler guy from Citation Needed. Okay. I'd have them shocked. Well, fortunately with Kings, we got rid of the whole execution thing.

I like that even she's like, no, that's crazy. You're insane. So we don't do that. We don't kill people. We don't say that out loud because we get sued for it. We don't like kill people

for having ideas ever. That's not America, actually. I mean, just take a second and think about what he just said. Someone else said, I like other documents too. And he was like, hey man, what's your favorite book? And if it's not the Bible, I swear to God. And if it is not

the Bible, the Constitution, and Ronald Reagan's biography. You know, they have a word. It sort of became old-fashioned. It's called a nationalist. And I say, really, we're not supposed to use that word. You know what I am? I'm a nationalist,

okay? I'm a nationalist. This story is from Right Wing Watch. Trump says he's a nationalist, and the far-right cheers. Now, I want to say, when I read this initially, I thought, all right, but, you know, like he's a deeply stupid man. And so maybe he just said nationalist, meaning patriotic. Right. Like he's like he doesn't know what words means. He's like inflammable means flammable.

Yeah, exactly. So I do want to read if you'll scroll up a little bit, I do want to read what he actually said at the rally. Because, like, this was not a mistaken use of this term, and he goes out of his way. This was the best part. This is the only reason to cover this, is how far out of his way he goes to use this term

and to be like, I'm not mistaken, guys. Here's what he says. Quote. You know, they have a word. It sort of became old-fashioned. It became old-fashioned. It became old-fashioned. You know, all these people

were wearing these weird squiggly things on their shoulders. You know, they printed it on a nice armband oh it's back in the day it's called a nationalist trump said and i say really we're not supposed to use that word like really all my closest friends use that word all my proud proud boy friends use that word I have a white friend. All exclusively white friends. So then he says, you know what I am?

I am a nationalist, okay? I am a nationalist. Use that word. This is not, this is like the most clear moment he has. He says, I know what that word means. Guys, you don't have to clue me in on this one. You do everything else I have to do in my job. So let's talk about nationalist and nationalism. That word is and has been synonymous the world over now. I mean, Europe and America, that word is not accidental. That word is a word which is synonymous with far-right fascist ideology right

exclusively so sure nobody else uses that word nationalist it is that's that's it it's except for our current sitting president it's like being a racist where you're just like look i'm just a racist i just like my i just love my race over other races. Right. Over other, I will treat every other race poorly and I will treat my race as sort of a, let's just say like a master race. Let's say that. But it's, it's true. Like that's, it's, I mean, it is a problem.

You have to come up with a good solution. Like the last one. The very, it's like at the end. Right. The final one. The one that you're going to use. When you're, it's, I mean, it is a problem. You have to come up with a good solution. Like the last one, the very, it's like at the end, right? The final, the one that you're going to use when you're, when you're done.

Yeah. Like after you get through a whole semester and you have a solution at the end of the solution. Did you hear the crowd though? The crowd cheers for him. Oh, of course they do. Yeah. Because he's playing to his base.

Like he's playing to the base that got him elected. Yeah. Right? Which is the angry, disaffected, poor, uneducated white people. Yeah. And like, that is not me being shitty. That's literally his actual base. He said during the campaign, I love the uneducated.

Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, of course you do, because they're the dumbass dipshits that are out there. They're easily duped. Right. They're easily duped. They're not fact checking anything. So, yeah. Yeah. So there we go. We've got a nationalist in chief. Tom, this is the most racist thing we've ever covered on the show. And I want to preface this that I'm going to play the audio for this. And it is the most racist shit I've ever heard. So this is from Right Wing Watch.

Neo-Nazi website targets Andrew Gillum, who's running for governor in Florida. And they target him with a robocall. And it's a white supremacist group basically sent out this robocall. I'm just going to start playing it. Well, hello there. I is the Negro Andrew Gillard. Oh, Cecil.

We are. We are. We are in new territory right now, buddy. Five seconds into this clip. I gotta go. Oh, buddy. Five seconds into this clip. I gotta go. Oh, boy. Okay. Anyway, here we go. Stay tuned for the puppy bowl.

We're doing that later. It's so bad. It's so, so bad. Now be asking you to make me governor of this here state of Florida. My scheme. What is he like? Fuck it. Is he like from, is he like? Fuck it. Is he like from,

is he like an old timey minstrel? From like, Andrew Killam is like time transported from 1855. These people like seriously have never met a black person. Right? Cause they're fucking doing an old timey show tune talk. That's kind of what I was thinking. It's like, okay, all right.

And black people sound like this. No, no, black people sound like this. But instead, they all sat around like, that's brilliant, Jim Bob. Everybody's high-fiving each other. Gosh, you sound just like a black person. Who can we get that sounds black to do this? Anyone? I wonder if that guy gets shunned after.

I know, that's what I was going to say. You know, Jim, you did a really good job sounding like that black person. You almost sounded like a black person. In fact, you're out of the club. We're going to tie you to this truck and give you a ride home. I notice you tan real easily. Call me monkey. I'm doing a lot.

Oh, wait, what? That's a monkey scream. He said something called me monkey. I got to rewind it a little bit, guys. My Steve, who's going to call me monkey, is doing a lot of hollering about how expensive my plans for health care be. But he be thinking of the white man's medicine, which is very expensive because it uses science and whatnot.

Oh, my God. It's not even interesting. It's so bad. It's not even inches. So bad. It's just so bad. Also, can we talk about the audio quality? I know, it sounds like it was recorded in a saltines box across the room. Who is listening to this call?

It's recorded on like a Nokia flip phone from like 1999. If I got this call, I'd be like, oh my God, it's the past. The past is calling me. Grandma, are you alive, Grandma? You almost have to past is calling me. Grandma, are you alive, Grandma? You almost have to tune it in better. Why are you so racist, Grandma?

Let us say to my African race, be very affordable. For instance, put into chicken feets under your pillow during the full moon. Don't cost hardly nothing at all. I didn't understand all that, but I will say... My jaw right now is just... chicken feets is what he said.

Yeah. He says the black medicine of my people is putting chicken feet under your toe. I think he said something even more racist. Let me rewind. How could you have anything more racist than that? Let me rewind. African race is what he said.

Yeah. See, it was more racist. Yeah, it turns out. We can't even up these racists. Like, we can't even say anything that's more racist than this. Oh, my God. ...during the full moon

don't cost hardly nothing at all. So I promise that you make me Andrew Dillon, the governor of every people's wealthy alien, will get all the chicken feets they need.

As to the claim by my esteemed opponent that I don't like the jews nothing be further from the truth it was the jews who owned the slave trade what then brought us negroes to america to give it and they the ones that been putting negroes in charge over the white folks what is the point of just taking a shot at the jews and also like it just doesn't make any sense like okay so so, okay, so the Jews bring all the blacks here to be enslaved

and then later they're just like, hey, is there any way that we could just, I don't know, make them all our leaders? If you hated them that much ahead of time, why would you be like, well, we had a big change of heart, us Jews. Oh, it's fine. Yeah, I know. You guys are all in charge now. It's a total shot over the bow over the Jews for no reason.

It's like they wrote the script and somebody's like, it's not in here about the Jews. Uh, Bill, you didn't mention the Jews. I thought you hated the Jews. What they've done after the Civil War. All the Jews don't vote me and you kill them. The government of this

state of Florida. This message is paid for by the roadtopower.com. Wow. Isn't that something else? That is amazing. Who is listening to that though? Yeah. Who is getting that call and being like, well I mean when you put it that way, cause I got a

call from Andrew Gillum and I have to say it was unimpressive. I mean the only way to listen to that would be racist. That guy is such an idiot. That road to power guy. You're such a fool. Yeah, because the only person who's going to be like, hurr, durr, hurr, I sound like a monkey.

Durr, durr, durr. He's going to be like, yeah, who's going to vote anyway against the black guy? You have to convince him. The guy who thinks black guys sound like monkeys isn't going to cast his vote accidentally right he's not going to trip on the way to the ballot box and punch the wrong chad unless that chad is black then he'll punch him punch the shit out of him the china has total respect for donald trump

and for donald trump's very very large a brain So this story is kind of fucking nuts. When Trump phones friends, the Chinese and the Russians listen and learn. This is kind of unbelievable because President Trump uses an old iPhone and he uses that iPhone to call people. And then that iPhone is not secure. Yeah. Well, he does have two iPhones. I thought that they said that they were they were given to him by the State Department, but they have told him many, many times

that cellular phone calls are not secure, period. It doesn't matter what iPhone he's using. He could use the most secure one ever. Yeah. And you can still get your calls intercepted. Yeah. And he doesn't care. What he was told is that the Russian spies

routinely eavesdrop on his calls. Yeah. And he just keeps using the phone. Well, and one of the things that they said was, they said, White House officials say

they can only hope he refrains from discussing classified information when he's not. They can only hope. They can only hope, Tom. Hope and change left the White House

two years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Along with all of my hope for the future and my hope that this is an alternate reality I will soon escape from. Like, this is an old man who's set in his ways and doesn't care and doesn't believe that his aides have his best. The rest of the world is fucking laughing at us. Oh my gosh, yeah. They are laughing at us. The Russians. Absolutely.

The Russians have already, the 2018 election is coming up in a couple of weeks. And there are things we know that the Russians are doing to meddle in our elections and spy on us actively. And all of that that we are not in control of we have we don't have a handle on it like security experts are like yeah that ship has

sailed the 2018 elections are meddled with that is that has happened now yeah it is currently happening we didn't fix it yeah from the 2016 problems all of that shit is true and while all of that is going on and should be a major national fucking crisis because it fundamentally underlies undermines what it means to live in a democracy. The goddamn president can't be bothered to use a secure telephone. He can't be bothered. It's like people won't fucking hand him one. Yeah, it's not like and it's not like he can't wait to use the call. Right. He can't wait to go inside somewhere instead of using it from whatever.

Instead, he's got to use this particular cell phone. You know, what's crazy to me is all the other presidents we've had, even the dumb ones, they played close to the vest, right? This guy is basically playing as far away from the vest as you can. Like he's letting everyone in the room see his hand, and he doesn't

care. He's so easy to predict. He's so easy. They're using these conversations that he's having with other individuals. He's not having a conversation with a national security conversation with somebody on his staff

talking about something that's something of great secrecy. He's not doing with somebody on his staff. They're talking about something that is a great, something of great secrecy. He's not doing that. But he is having conversations with his friends, right? People that are not in the know. And people that he doesn't, he shouldn't have to have a secure conversation with,

but it doesn't matter because he's the president. So when he has a conversation like this, people are able to find his mannerisms. When is he lying? What is he like? What does he dislike? All these different things you can find out about him. And then you can use it to your advantage when you send skilled negotiators to talk to him. Yeah. You don't have, it's, it's just blatantly fucking obvious. The stakes are so high. Yeah. The stakes are so high. And the amount of psychological data that we live in a world now,

so high and the amount of psychological data that we live in a world now, we live in a time now where like data is king, like the ability to gather data about, I almost said gather again, the ability to gather data about people and then weaponize that data against us and against each other. It's, this is not a world that is emerging. It has emerged. We are in that world. I read an article in the Times the other day about the data industrial complex. This is our new reality. And this gets more and more sophisticated. So handing your enemies more information about who you are and, as you pointed, who you are and how you think and where you're going to be and what you like and what you don't like. Giving that stuff up freely when you're the fucking president is just irresponsible. Ruth Bader Ginsburg treason because she doesn't like a document. How about, I'm not saying this is treason, but this is genuinely dangerous.

Yeah, absolutely. This is genuinely dangerous. He might as well just give the fucking, the Chinese secret service, his diary with a big puffy stickers on it. Right. You know, it's like, Bannon broke up with me, saduffy stickers on it. It's like, Bannon broke up with me, sad face. Do not read.

Trump eyes only. 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 hundred out there that they weigh 130 pounds and they've got calves the sides of cantaloupes because they're

hauling 75 pounds of marijuana across the desert. Oh my God, this is fucking crazy. It's from Right Wing Watch. This is Todd Starnes. Treat immigrant caravan like invading force committing act of war. Oh, they're talking about the people from Honduras. Right. There is a group of 4,000 Hondurans, another one of these migrant caravans, and they are making their way at this very moment to our southern border. Keep in mind, Honduras, so they've got to travel through Mexico to get to our border. Got to tell everybody else. Yeah, I do like the geography lesson. Because we literally only have one person on our, one country on our southern border.

I looked on the map and I can't see where no Honduras attaches to Texas. So we's probably all right. We good. So we have to assume that the Mexicans have given these Hondurans safe passage. Why didn't the Mexicans stop them at their end of the border? Why did the Mexicans allow them to cross their border? Probably humanitarian reasons, you stupid fuck.

Or maybe they just don't have a policy like some sort of weird draconian policy where they just let refugees in. Well, it's because Mexico, they don't care about us. Why should they? Mexico! What the fuck? They're not part of our country. Do they pay taxes? Is everybody supposed to care more about America

than their own country? Everyone's supposed to be nationalist about America even if they're not American. There is a sense from some of these guys that it's like, well, that's not... They look around like incredulous. It's like, well, that's not in America's best interest. And it's like, you're Germany.

You're like, yeah, but it's in Germany's best interest. Exactly. What the fuck? Mexico, but it's in Germany's best interest. Exactly. What the fuck? Mexico, they don't care about the United States. So here's where we stand. There is a group of 4,000.

I want to call them militant. You want to? Militant? Militant? Some of these are little kids. Well, I mean, I guess that's true. They have child soldiers down there, so that makes sense. Durans.

And the reason why is they're about to invade our country. Or apply for asylum like you can. Literally the same thing. Yeah. No, it's literally the same thing. An invading force that doesn't have, you know, weapons or any sort of uh political gain that

they're attached you know that it's the same thing as an invading army yeah see so when four thousand it's a child's crusade this is really the children's crusade because that worked out by the way they weren't all slaughtered so a good thing we have a lot of children's hospitals we can send them to and they can get free health care. We'll get them all to the Catholics. It'll be fine. That's what they're fleeing from. Hey, you guys were running out. That's what they're running away from in those Latin American countries. Those grabby-ass priests down there.

I've said this before on this radio program. There was a time in American history when if you had a group of people from one country coming into another country without their permission crossing their border. You would evaluate who those people were and why they were coming. And there was a time when we used to have on this great big statue, this thing about tired and huddled masses. But we don't. Anyway, are they brown? Yeah. It depends on where they land, too, because, you know, they could land on like an island somewhere like an Ellis Island sort of thing

change their names and make them build a railroad that was an act of war if they were armed if they were armed and trying to take over or overthrow or occupy mass amounts of territory they're sending 800 troops down there did you see that I did

800 troops I will say that you see that? I did. I did. 800 troops. I will say that this could be really terrible if they open fire or something. Oh, my God. And this is what he's going to advocate. Yeah. He's literally going to advocate in a moment for their slaughter. But now it's just how do you do? Here's some food stamps. Here's some free health care for you.

And oh, by the way. Well, I want that. Look, I will cross the border if it means I get free healthcare because I don't get free healthcare. Yeah. Do you get free healthcare? I don't literally don't know anybody

that gets free healthcare. Yeah. We don't have a free healthcare system that you can get in this country. You can get like if you're super poor, I think you can get like, like it's technically free, but it's not free

because other people pay for it and it also sucks. So you can have that, I guess. That's something. Yeah, you can get like basic balls of like emergency care and some preventative maintenance care. But that's about it.

I mean, it's not good health. I'm not saying it's good health care. But you can get some if you're super, super duper poor. Oh, that's a nice trade though. Yeah, terrible. That's a great trade, yeah. I'd give up all my wealth for that.

Here's your registration card for the Democrat Party. It's literally impossible to vote unless you're a citizen. But hey, you know, you have us your dues. Anyway, here's some stuff that's not real. Man! I like, too, that he has to throw food stamps in there. So many working families use food stamps, you fool. You just like this

fat prick hasn't missed a meal in all of it. And so he's just like he he doesn't understand that, you know, there are people out there that are working full time jobs and still need food stamps to support their family. He just doesn't understand that. The president is now threatening to call out the military to shut down the border. And I believe the president doesn't need to threat. He needs to act. Yeah. So by his logic, what he's saying is this is an invading force. We should send the military. What does the military do

with an invading force? They engage. Well, he's saying shut down the border. I thought that's what he said beforehand. He wants to shut down. Shut it down like we don't have big doors. We shut. Yeah. You know, like and if Ted Starnes, If Todd Starnes is saying, this is an invading force that should be treated like militants,

he's basically saying the military is within their rights to open fire and shoot at these kids and these women and these men who are searching for jobs and food. You know what? Give them the fucking food stamps. If they're hungry, like we have 320 million people or whatever in this country, 4,000 people is nothing percentage

wise. It just isn't. It's not a meaningful numerical addition to this country. It's just not. And if those people are fucking hungry, yeah, man, I'm cool feeding people that are hungry. Yeah, I say give them food stamps and don't let them in and use them. I mean, that's how you do it. No more threatening, Mr. President. It's time to put a stop to this nonsense. I just, I say enough is enough. I don't know about you, but I'm tired of my tax dollars going to fund and going to take care of all of these illegal aliens.

And now we've got 4,000 more about to invade the country. I say it's time for the president to shut down the border. Not a single person coming into the country. Not until we get a handle on all of this. I mean, if the reports are true and the reporting from Fox News is fairly accurate here, if the reports are true, we don't have any place to put the illegals. So shut down the borders, call out the military. And quite frankly, we ought to treat this 4,000 strong migrant caravan as an invading force. So shoot them. So shoot them.

What do you do with an invading force of 4,000 people? You would shoot them. You would, like, what are you going to just, like, drone strike these guys? Like, what does he want to do? There's no such thing as a border that you can shut down. There's no big set of doors that just closes. We don't have a southern wall, even if winter is coming. Winter's not coming, global warming.

But, like, we don't have a big protective barrier. There's no such thing as a border. The border is a concept. Yeah. You can't close it. It's interesting because I'm listening to a podcast that's talking about

some of the stuff that's sort of bubbled up in 1994. So in 94, Republicans gained control of the House for the first time in 40 years, in 1994. And when they did, they did it on a lot of issues where they basically sort of made Democrats hold a position that most of middle America wouldn't

agree with, right? So they brought up partial birth abortion was their big thing where they would bring it up, bring it up, bring it up over and over and over again. And if you want women to have rights, you got to say, well, look, I'm pro-choice. And then everybody's like, oh, you know, you're pro-choice and you know, so you want partial birth abortions. They sort of make them retreat. And then they do the same

thing here where they're just like, what you want is all 4,000 of these people to just walk right through our borders. You want completely open borders. I don't want completely open borders. What I want is just regular immigration. Somebody shows up at our border, especially if they're asylum seekers. I want to make sure

that we're taking care of those people. And if they're not asylum seekers, if they're somebody who's just applying, then, you know, yeah, I mean, I kind of want to talk to those people and have them, you know, go through the process of becoming a citizen. I don't think that that's a bad thing.

But I also don't want, what I don't want is you never get a chance to come in here and every time you come to our border, whether you need asylum or not, we're just going to turn you away. That's a, I think that's an awful position too. But the problem is, is that most of middle America is a little farther to the close the borders than they are to the open borders. So they're going to bring this up right before midterm so that they, everybody recognizes that the Democrats are on that side. And that's what they did back then is that they brought up these couple of issues. There's few issues that they brought up.

And those issues are issues that most of middle America agrees with. And those are the majority of the voters. Those voters are going to vote those people in, those people that agree closer to their ideals. And they've been winning a lot ever since they started doing this. They're not talking about the big issues. It's tactically very smart. I think that there's a strategy to this, and they do it over and over and over again.

And that's their talking point. And for the United States of America to put the power of the federal government and all of its money and resources behind this transgender movement. It is just nothing short of insanity. So stories from the New York Times, transgender could be defined out of existence under the Trump administration. So the Trump administration is, according to the article, considering narrowly defining gender as a biological immutable condition determined

by genitalia at birth. So that basically means that there's no such thing anymore. If that is the new definition, then there is no such thing anymore as transgender. That would no longer be definitionally meaningful. Yeah. And again, like I have to think like this, all this does is play to his base, right? This plays to the fears, the,

the weirdly bizarrely sexualized fears and fantasies of a trans and homophobic middle, right? Yeah. That's, that's all this is. Because at the end of the day, the amount of transgender people percentage-wise in the population

is not very high. You're saying like it's a million? Yeah. So against, again, a population of 320 million, you know, so it's a third of a percent, you know?

So it's a lot of human beings to disenfranchise. Sure. It's a lot of human beings to disenfranchise. It's a lot of lives to basically define as being less than. But it's not a, and I think this is important, it's not a reaction

by the right to a significant political threat that transgender people pose. Transgender people numerically don't pose a significant social or political threat. transgender people pose, right? Transgender people numerically don't pose any significant social or political threat. There's just not enough of them. So they're a really good whipping boy to get all these transphobes worked up.

And it's admittedly a smallish group of people, but you have to understand, it's not just the trans people that are being affected by this. It's friends and family of those people, right? Oh yeah, of course, but you have to understand it's not just the trans people that are being affected by this. It's friends and family of those people. Oh yeah, of course. We say it's a small group because it's just that part, but it's not just that. It's not just a million

people. It's a million people that also have friends and family. Oh yeah. That huge network of people that know them, that like them, that don't want to see harm come to them. It's meaningful even if you don't know, because it's just in violation of good human decency, right? Yeah. It's in violation of what we know to be true about human people, how people operate.

And it's just, it's a violation of people's rights and the basic rights to decency that people should have. So I guess all I mean is like they make for a convenient whipping. No, I recognize any social status. But what I'm saying is like the amount of people that he's affecting, he's fucking over a large portion of America when he does their whole Amway period. Exactly. Yeah. The whole multi-level marketing that you have to buy when you meet a trans person.

I think that the time is coming soon where this is not, there's going to be enough people where they're going to say no. I think that the time is coming. I know that he's riling up a small group of very vocal people, but I have a feeling like

this is going to turn. We already saw that it was turning. A lot of people didn't care about it, right? Now want to make it. They want to you know, Trump is the party of identity politics. I mean, like, let's not let's not. I mean, it's the fucking Republicans love identity politics. They love it way more than the fucking the left does. They they love to make sure that they bring this stuff up all the time. So but I have a feeling that this is going to be the one thing that sort of it's this is, you know,. But I have a feeling that this is going to be the one thing that sort of... The tooth is starting

to wiggle. And it's going to eventually be the thing that's going to be their downfall if they keep staying hardline on this. The thing is, we know that the base is numerically less than not the base. You just look at the vote in 2016. There's just more people that are decent than are not.

There are people that don't vote. And the majority of those people that don't vote also would have voted against Trump. The majority of people in America don't agree with these ideologies. They just don't. And as people grow up and become more politically aware and become more politically active, become more politically aware and become more politically active. All the polling shows that younger people, these issues,

they are not to the right on these issues. This is a, this is an old man's hill to die on and it's politically expedient now. Yeah. But I think in the medium to longterm, these social issue stances that the right is taking either will need to evolve. They will need to progress or the Republican Party will cease to be a meaningful party. This is the Matlock hour.

Yeah, this is this is some fucking Superbird Matlock bullshit right now. And everybody who's on this train is dying off. Yeah. These are the people who would support Judge Wapner for the Supreme court. Yeah. You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want answers.

I want the truth. You can't handle the truth. Bible museum admits some of its dead sea scrolls are fake. So this is great. Cause in Washington, there's a museum of the Bible, which just opened in November of last year and huge, Museum of the Bible, which just opened in November of last year. And huge, massive amounts

of money were spent to acquire these sort of biblical archaeological goods. In some very dubious ways across the world. And in fact, the Hobby Lobby people I love it's the Hobby Lobby people. They spent millions of

dollars acquiring these biblical archaeological artifacts. Except for I love it. They spent millions of dollars acquiring these biblical, right? Archaeological artifacts, right? Except for, and they were cheap knockoffs. That's weird. Huh?

That's weird that the Hobby Lobby people got cheap, not cheap. Now I got tricked by cheap knockoffs. They've got their Dead Sea Scrolls. They turn it over. There's a made in China sticker on it. Oh man. He turns his wife. He's like,

I told you 50% off on Dead Sea Scrolls was not a good deal. I got a BOGO on Dead Sea Scrolls and it's 20% off coupon. I'm really like, they're paying me to take them. You're like super coupon your way into like these cart full of Dead Sea

Scrolls. You're like, it's an extreme coupon my way into these. You come up to thes. You're like, it's an extreme coupon my way into these. They come up to the line. They're like, we're only going to let you get half off that sea scroll if you could stuff it in this bag. He's stuffing a priceless document into a bag. He's shoving it in the bottom.

But let's hold on though, because it might not be so priceless. Right. It's not worth as much as a shredded bank seat, I'll tell you that much. That's for sure. What it is is like somebody in there, you know, got the whole of their calligraphy set

and then they took a bunch of coffee and dipped paper in it. Like when you were a kid. They put it in there. And then every time the curator comes by and opens it up he smells he's like he's got it man i gotta go to the bathroom again i gotta take a shit he smells like coffee it's triggering the old motion in me you know hello my name is jesus okay and your name, sir? I don't know. It's like, it's so, at least five of the 16. It's not like one, five of the 16 scrolls at least

are fake. It might be more. Well, the one they found out, because the guy had to, the guy, it says on the very top, it's like, get out your Ovaltine rings. And you're like, that's, that clearly that's not, like, it's a coded document, but it's not like a, like an Aramaic coded document. So my God, it's so fucking delicious.

You stupid assholes. I, I want to mention too. It says in addition to the alleged, this is what you had mentioned. And listen to the alleged Dead Sea Scroll fragments. The Greens ran afoul of the Justice Department, which they said that they had acquired thousands of smuggled artifacts looted from Iraq and elsewhere. And the family last year agreed to return those artifacts that pay a $3 million fine. Fuck you. I also like this line because after they were, they discovered the fraud,

the chief curator for the Museum of the Bible said, quote, this is a revelation is an opportunity to educate the public on the importance of verifying the authenticity of rare biblical artifacts, the elaborate testing process undertaken, and our commitment to transparency. And I thought, yeah, but you're supposed to do that before you buy it, you stupid motherfucker.

But I love that you bought it on faith. I love the idea too, that this guy's like, well, I'm just trying to elucidate the importance of buying things, false things. It's like well I'm just trying to elucidate the importance of buying things false things it's like a preacher being like look I just wanted to show you guys how bad it is to fuck a hooker

that's what I it's bad and I was just trying to show you right how bad that is so I want to thank our patrons. Buttercup's Law Cat Services call 831-CATLAW1 to talk to a law cat.

What is that? I don't know. Mean. I hope it's real though. Magnus, Diane, Mark. This is mean. Noah's diatribe equals whiner than Glenn Beck as seen on the Glenn Beck

show. That's super mean. EncyclopediaDumbAmerica.com Encyclopedia Dumb America. Jin, Aaron, Rob, and Ash, thanks so much for your generous donations. We really do appreciate all that you do. So we got a message.

This is from Emma, and Emma sent us a picture about her and her partner on Northern California over the weekend. They wound up coming across a sign, and it's a glory hole sign, a street sign. I kind of love it. I like that there's a glory hole drive somewhere. You got to drive

it into the glory hole. Can you just knock on anyone's door? Actually, you can't, but you can put whatever you want in the mail slots. This was an interesting message. It's from Matt. And Matt said he just wanted to let us know that, you know, there's a couple other things that Trump voters have in common with Trump. They were convinced of his competence because he's rich. And maybe if he's rich, he's smart. And they think he has blue collar roots. He started in his dad's mail room just like the kids, just like his kids. They know the value of a dollar. And basically, they've been lied to and they bought it. That's absolutely true. I think that there is a bill

of goods that Trump tries to sell about himself. You're right. He lied about it and they believed it. You're right. In reality, he doesn't have anything in common with those people. He eats off a fucking golden plate in a golden house. He takes a shit in a golden toilet. We got a... I think it's a tweet. Oh my god.

This is crazy. It's from fucking Greg. Alex Jones just goes to... I guess he was at the Ted Cruz rally or maybe the Beto O'Rourke rally. I don't know. Yeah. And he was outside.

And then he was just screaming at a pile of shit as a joke to try to say it wouldn't talk to him and wanted to get interviewed. And I think he was saying it was Beto. I think he was. He's pretending he doesn't know the difference in a pile of shit and

the other political side or whatever. I don't know. He's just trying to get attention and relevance. And it is so incredibly pathetic. He has basically become the ultra low cut shirt of internet media.

We're going to post the link to this. It's a Twitter status, but it's on Periscope. So we're going to post it on this week's show notes. This is episode 440. Got a message from Austin and Austin said that there was an interview between David

Packman and Jesse Lee Peterson on Jesse Lee Peterson's show. And we are going to post a link to it on this week's show notes. We thought David Pakman was a great guest. We really enjoyed talking to him. And I'm actually anxious to see this. Tom and I skimmed through part of it

and it was really cringy. But check it out if you want. It's on this week's show notes. We got an image from Bryce. And this image is actually kind of funny. It's a pretty clever image about Republicans in Boening Day. We're going to post it on this week's show notes. It's episode 440. So tonight, before we recorded, we recorded a live show that we posted to Facebook Live and to Twitter and to Twitch

and to a couple other places. YouTube got most of it, but not all of it. Yeah. But it's available on a bunch of different platforms. We're going to try to do it again next week on Thursday.

We're going to try to do another sort of short stream where we record a couple stories. So if you're around in the evening, you know, eight, nine o'clock on Thursday night and you want to watch us do a live stream you can check it out remember that we're doing an election

night live stream on the 6th you want to mark your calendars we're going to be going on for a couple hours at least Heath Enright will be in studio you may have a couple call in guests but it's going to be a lot of fun we're really excited about it it should be horrible I'm going to cry anyway

we want to thank our guest a lot of fun. We're really excited about it. Yeah, it should be horrible. I'm going to cry. Yeah. Blue. Anyway, we want to thank our guest, Andre Salas, of the Atheist Candidates Project. Andre is a great guy. He's been in studio with us before. Really cool guy, and he really knows his stuff. We're going to post a link to his stuff

on this week's show notes. And some of the notes that he had mentioned, too, will be also on this week's show notes, episode 440. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like you always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue,

hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble pseudo quasi alternative acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal free energy

healing water downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch late night info docutainment leo pisces

cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death in towers tarot cards psychic healing crystal balls

bigfoot yeti aliens churches mosques and synagogues temples dragons foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this.

The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios, LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is basis. No refunds. Produced in association with the local dairy council and viewers like you. you