Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 448: He Didn’t Died

Episode Date: December 24, 2018

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This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Hey guys, this is Jeff from Grand Rapids, Michigan. You guys are awesome. So, trying to catch up on some episodes. Got to episode 446, social media. And you guys basically articulated a lot of stuff that's been locked up in my head that I can't explain to people for years. I dropped Facebook seven, eight years ago.

The last three or four years, I've been unlocking my phone and running a ROM that has no Google on it just to try to lower that digital footprint, to lower that data, because I understand how it's being used and how I'm being manipulated. And because of that, I don't get a lot of push notifications. So it has been beneficial in being able to engage at a human level again and not a digital level. So anyway, just wanted to share. Thanks, guys. Floor Hill, motherfuckers. Hey, guys, this is Chronic the Hempog calling from Calgary. And maybe it's just the nationally legalized weed seeking.

maybe it's just the nationally legalized weed-seeking. But I kind of like eggnog. Sorry, all. 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 from the elven slave shops of the north pole oh oh oh motherfucker this is cognitive dissonance every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way including the elves we bring critical thinking skept, and irreverence. Open season on elves.

To any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. If you get fisted by an elf, it's a smaller fist. Is that better or worse? It's the starter fist. Okay. It's the starter fist.

So that's like junior varsity. Yeah, it's like junior varsity. Or makes us mad. I think it's a death. It's skeptical. it's like junior varsity yeah or makes us mad it's skeptical it's political and there is no welcome mat this is episode 448 this is our christmas eve spectacular if you're listening to this on the regular release yeah regular it is christmas eve your family and friends are probably all gathered or gathering around today. Soon to be gathering tomorrow.

Go ahead and put this on your Bluetooth, your Sonos. Let Grandma take a listen. Later on in the show, we're going to have on Keith from Modest Needs. Great guy. And No Illusions is also going to join us. And we are going to have him on for an interview and talk about the extent of the reach of the vulgarity of charity. What it actually did this year.

How much it helped people. Huge impact. So, yeah. Stick around for that. It's going to be at the end of the show. And he is an absolute superhero.

So, stick around. That's a great segue into another Fine Charity season. Fine Charity. Did you plan that, by the way? Absolutely. I did.

Well done, my friend. Well done. It's a goo. This is from, yeah, it's a segue. Thank you. You can actually drive one right over a cliff. This is from. Dude.

Oh, man. That'd suck, huh? Yeah. Like, I don't want to die ironically. You know, like, I want to go out spitting and fighting and like clawing my way yeah like i don't want to die in a stupid ironic fedora accident you know what i mean like a tragic fedora accident where you're just like oh fuck like strangled by your own skinny jeans or fucking like whatever like the beeswax on your mustache catches on fire.

And you're like, I'm drowning in artisanal mayonnaise in Brooklyn or whatever. Fucking horrible bullshit death. You die. No, no. Yeah. I'm going to go down fighting the whole time and not on a segue over

bulldozer fight. Guy might've went home. That guy might've went down fighting. You don't know. Oh my gosh. This story is from the New York times. Trump charity to dissolve under deal with New York attorney general. The New York attorney general filed a lawsuit saying like,

Hey, you're using a lot of that charity money for your own personal gain. That's not how you charity at all. And there's been a lot of criticism, criticism over the Trump Foundation for a long time. For a long time. For its lack of transparency and for it being basically

little more than a figure head to launder money in a tax-free way. For real. And the New York Attorney General was like, well, what if we look into this? And Trump was like, what if we just dissolve it right away and you don't have to look at anything? Which is what's happening.

Well, there are also there's so much great shit in this article. The lawsuit against Donald, the Donald Trump Foundation seeks to recoup $2.8 million and ban Trump and his three eldest children from leadership roles

in any other New York charity. Like you, you fuck this one up so bad that you can't charity anymore. We don't let you charity. No, you can't do that. You can't charity anymore. You can't even date a girl named charity.

Can he pay her off when he's done? Can he, can he do that? Well, I don't know. That's what it feels like. It's funny. Cause that's a stripper

I'm just saying like come on it's funny because at the bottom it says that the complaint alleged

that among other things Trimp wrongly ceded control to his campaign of 2.8 million donated to the foundation in in

2016 Iowa fundraiser for military veterans others challenged expenses including $100,000 to settle a dispute in 2016 Iowa fundraiser for military veterans. Others challenged expenses, including $100,000 to settle a dispute involving Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort and a $10,000 for a portrait of Trump that was hung at one of his golf clubs.

Like he's just in a strip club, leaning back, sliding 501C3s at the girls' cheese drinks. Just like, get over here, sweetheart. What do you say stormy i i love the idea that he had to pay ten thousand dollars for somebody to paint him to look good oh you know what i mean somebody's like it takes a lot all right i want a painting of me like all right i might normally charge way less than this but oh my god no it's oh my god what the charge

is is having to look at him that yeah that's what that's what I mean. Yeah. It's just like, I'm not staring at you for three hours. I have to spend my time either looking at a photo of you or looking at you. This is a man so horrifying. He would have to tip the police composite artist. You know, like I get it. He's got plenty of money to tip him though. It's just tip him out of the 2.8 million. I love this guy though.

This is so funny. He's just like, yeah, no, I've done a lot for vets. I also have this full-size likeness made of gold that I seem to have bought from the same funds. I would like $3 million. I will give it to the military veterans.

They will use it to paint my portrait. I will hang it up in my golf club. They'll love it. It'll love it so much. They won't even know how much they love it. It's such a douchebag. Also, I am literally the worst person.

God, such a douchebag. And what's so funny about this, Tom, is that how long have we been hearing about the Clinton Foundation? From all those people at the Clinton Foundation. Oh, I know. It's so crooked. The Clinton Foundation,

look at how crooked that is. They're bringing kids in. Look at Charity Navigator. Yeah, yeah. Charity Navigator and the Clinton Foundation, it's like, it's virtually flawless. Yeah, right. Like, they have looked into that.

It's because they own Charity Navigator. What's that? They own Charity Navigator. It's owned by Big Clinton. Okay, check Soros Navigator. You'll find out. No, but it's so funny because everybody's been talking about the kids,

like all the kids, and, oh, they're going to shut this. They are going to shut this charity down within the next week, I guarantee it. And then you just, what happens? Oh, Trump's charity has to dissolve. Yeah. And Trump's charity has to dissolve because they found him doing some horrible shit. Taking the money.

Basically just dipping into the charity. Yeah, just dipping into the kitty. Right. And like you said, using it as a front. And it's been nothing but that. And you're like, who, I mean,

I can't imagine. Can you imagine if this would happen to anybody else? Here's the problem is this won't matter. It's like the New York times at this point cannot keep up with the amount of, and I'm not, I'm not even kidding. Nobody can keep up with the amount of, of,

of shit that comes out. It's, it's like, you've got, you've got a constant stream where it's like, okay, we examined his financial dealings and how he got rich. Remember

that story? It was like, we're going to look into his past. We're going to find out where his money came from. We're going to see all these misdeeds and that big story broke and then nothing happened because then some other story broke and then some other story broke and some other story broke. And at some point you're like, all right, yeah, he's stealing money from his own charity. Like who's fucking surprised?

He's not paying his fair share of taxes. Did anyone really think he was? Even the evangelicals who support him are just like, look, nobody thought he was a good guy. Yeah. They're coming out and just at this point, like people that support him are coming out and just saying things like nobody thought he was better than this. i and i think that like the problem that i have is i think that that's true i think that that's really the part i'm struggling with is that nobody did think he was better yes right and so the part like like like what i would consider he's just living up to expectations yeah like what i would consider our side we're saying like can't you see how awful he is and

they're and like what we're not hearing is the truth of the refrain back, which is, we already knew that. And we didn't care. And so like when we come out and we're like, but this scandal, people are like, we literally don't care. We don't, we never cared. We never thought he was a good guy.

Why are you going through all this work to try to prove he's a bad guy? And so like, I'm seeing this and I'm coming to this realization over the past week or so and i'm like i can't if we don't care that he was a piece of shit if like we knew he was a piece of shit then like all of this is superfluous all this reporting all this it it's never gonna matter none of it's ever gonna matter because he was the white guy. That's it. So Senator Claire McCaskill did an interview with the New York Times and I was listening to it.

And in the interview, she says that she was at a gas station the week after the Trump victory. And she had someone call her over, a guy, white guy from Missouri called her over and her, you know, on one of the small towns, she named the town of fucking who cares? It's in Missouri. And, uh, and you don't have to say small in front of town when you talk about Missouri. So he says to her, I voted for you in the last election. And I'm going to tell you why I didn't vote for her. I knew she cared about Muslims. I knew she cared about gay people. I knew she cared about blacks. I knew she cared about Muslims. I knew she cared about gay people.

I knew she cared about blacks. I knew she cared about women. I knew she cared about, you know, he started naming, you know, trans community. I knew she cared about, you know,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's like, no, but I felt like she sure as shit didn't give a, give a goddamn about me is what he said. And the first thing that pops into my head when I hear that is to the, to the privileged equality feels like oppression, right?

If you're, if you're a privileged person and you suddenly have a, a level of equality with somebody who was below you before, that feels like you're being oppressed. You're not, they're just being lifted up, but it feels like you're being oppressed. You're not. They're just being lifted up, but it feels like you're being oppressed, right?

And so that's one thing that popped into my head. The other thing is like, if you're a poor person, chances are she was for you. At least more for you than the rich guy, right? Because the rich guy, as soon as he got an office, you can tell, all you have to do is

look at his budget, right? Don't have to look at anything else that came out of his mouth. Don't pay attention to what he did, what he talked about, what he had. Great game. He certainly talked a great game when it came to clean coal and we're going to fire up this nation again. We're going to do it. Certainly

talked a great game, but look at his budget. Look at what he did with his budget, guys. I'm not trying to convince you. Just look at it. Look at where all the tax cuts went. Look at who got the biggest tax cut. Look at who he put the biggest burden on. Yeah, right. And then you can tell exactly what he cared about. He didn't care about that guy in the gas station in fucking Springfield, Missouri or whatever the fuck. He didn't care about that guy. He cared about his rich friend getting a crazy good tax cut

and making a shit ton of money because everything that's been on the Republicans' plate for the last eight decades has been trickled down economics. Right. And so he either wasn't paying attention or he was identifying

with the white guy. Well, I think he was identifying, like, I think part of it too is that people were identifying with the rhetoric. They were identifying with the white guy. Well, I think he was identifying, like, I think part of it too is that people were identifying with the rhetoric. They were identifying with the anger, the emotion behind it. Like they're getting fired up. They're like, I'm angry too.

And it's like, you guys have to be angry about the same things. And you have to be angry about the same things that will lead you to solutions that cause you not to be angry anymore. But the problem, I think, part one of the problems is like, when you're in the midst of all that anger, all you want is for that anger to feel validated by someone more powerful than you.

Because if somebody more powerful than you will validate your anger, regardless of whether they have a solution to where you're no longer angry, because in the middle of all that, it's so hard to see a way out of it. And Trump didn't really try to address a solution. It was never solutions-based. No, it was always attacking the other side. I get it too. I understand too.

I'm also angry. Let's be angry together. We're in the trench. Let's not try to dig our way out of the trench. Let's be in this trench, in this trench together. And so they all fucking linked arms. And then he promptly stood up and walked away from

all those motherfuckers. And it's like none of these folks none of these folks ever thought he was better than that. I think what's happening though is some people thought yeah, he was a piece of shit but he was going to help me.

And now they're saying like, oh, he's a piece of shit and he's was going to help me. And now they're saying like, oh, he's a piece of shit and he's not going to help me. And there is a backlash. They'll start to see it. Missouri is one of those places that is starting to feel the crunch of the soybean tariffs that he put forward. And they're starting to think, oh, maybe he's not the great genius that everybody thought he was. So there's a possibility in that front. I also want to circle back, too, because I don't want people to get the wrong idea.

I don't know that Hillary was going to be... She might not have been super great to somebody who's underprivileged. There's a possibility, right? But she's certainly going to be better than what he's proven he's done, right? Even if she's not even close to ideal for you. And she's

with you on a few things. She's probably going to be with you for more than him. Yeah. And so we've got to start looking at, and I understand that we want to try to get more progressive people in there. You want to try to get more progressive people in there who are going to push for other reforms.

But I think you can't be like, well, she doesn't match up with me 100%, so I'm going to go with this person who doesn't match up with me 99% of the time. There's a sense that I've heard that we should... So I made an analogy a long time ago, and I saw a refutation of it. So I made an analogy that says, if the choice is whether you're going to get punched in the face or get your head chopped off, you should choose getting punched in the face. Even though being punched in the face is unpleasant, it's the face or get your head chopped off. You should choose getting punched in the face. Even though being punched in the face is unpleasant, it's certainly less than getting your head chopped off. One of the refutations was like, well,

but you're telling people it's okay to punch you in the face. It's like, well, no, what I'm saying is I'm acknowledging the reality that one of these two things is going to happen. I am not condoning either, but I understand that the pragmatic reality is that I can't stop either from occurring. I would like to take the one that causes less harm. Right. And, and, and let me add to that. Yeah. At least afterwards, I can argue with the guy that punched me in the face. Yeah. After that's over, I at least have some recourse to say,

you know what? Yeah. Punch me in the face and I'm mad about it. At at least have some recourse to say, you know what? You punch me in the face and I'm mad about it. At least you have some recourse and you're at least in charge enough. Right. At that point to do something about it. Yeah. Now, there's an argument that I've seen that says like, well, you got it. You got to let this happen. You got to let this Trump thing play out because it'll push the reaction against this fucking four-year nightmare, will push people further to the left,

that there'll be a reactionary response that pushes people further to the left, and you'll be more likely to send a message that you're going to... But I think that's a fucking huge gamble, right? It's such a massive, massive gamble. What can you do to the earth in four years? Thank you. And that's the other part, right? It's like your gamble is twofold. Your gamble first is that by allowing

this fucking nightmarish horror show to continue for four years, that you will achieve a political victory at the end of that, which results in a shift to the left, right? And then the other gamble that you're making is that he can't do enough damage that is irreparable. And I think we know now that that's not true, that the amount of damage that is already being done, that is already accomplished, will take decades to unspin. Look at W, right? The damage W did in the Mideast will outlive me. Sure. It will outlive you.

We will never be done with that damage. The damage that, like you and I, as human beings, we will never experience a day where that is something that happened in the past, which is not happening now as a course of the present. I don't, I can't see how that's the case. It's huge. The amount of damage these fucking people can do is huge. And W is a thousand times better president

and he scared the shit out of me than Trump. I was just thinking to myself, I was like, who would I make that gamble with? And I was thinking, you know, I would have made that gamble with Romney. You know, like with Romney, where a guy, he's a guy who in his own state instituted a health plan that was very similar to what Obamacare eventually became. You know, he's a guy who's very, he was more centrist than he was far, far right. He had some crazy right policies. And don't get me wrong.

Don't send me an email and be like, you're so fucking wrong about Romney. Oh my God. But like Romney or Trump, who would you gamble on? I'll take Romney a million times over. But the argument is that like he was, Romney was so establishment that he would not cause the same kind of disruption to the system. Right.

And that's the problem with the gamble though. Right. That's the problem. Because the only people I would be willing to gamble on, on the right taking over are people that are pretty milquetoast. Right. I wouldn't want to gamble on.

I certainly, the gamble fucking did not pay off for fucking Bush and he won two. Yeah. So. Well, and it's like that gamble is predicated on like knowing the unknowable. It's like it's like you've it's predicated on this fucking hypothesis of if I allow this to happen, then and it's like you don't get to know all that.

Yeah, you don't. All you get to know. Nope. Is who gets to be in charge next. Yep. That's all you get to know. And you're not like condoning somebody punching you in the face.

You're saying, look, if one of these two things is going to happen and it certainly is, the lesser of two evils is less evil. Yeah. We should have

vote for less evil. Yeah. I don't even understand how that's like a difficult moment. I'm with you on that for sure. But it's... And if you put somebody in office,

you have every opportunity to then try to change how their policies... It's not like they come in and they're just like, I'm going to do whatever I want. They want to get reelected. 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 story is from Dead State. Pro-Trump journalist George H.W. Bush didn't die of natural causes. He was executed. Hey, man, who's going to be doing a little bit of talking next? Who's the journalist, though? I mean, when you put like air quotes around it, does that mean she's an actual journalist? This is Liz.

Ten fingers. Eight fingers. Croaking. I want to send her a Christmas present. Can we send her a hand puppet as a Christmas present? A finger puppet? Send her a mitten. Can we send her a hand puppet as a Christmas present? A finger puppet? Send her a mitten? Can we send her eight finger

puppets? Everybody should send Liz Croak an eight finger puppets. Oh my gosh. That would be fucking amazing. The worst part is that she can't do the shocker to somebody anymore. That's the problem. She's got to go with her offhand and that's just awkward. Offhand shocker?

That is weird. It is weird because the rhythm's off. You can never get the coordination in there. The rhythm's off and you're just like you're pushing and you're just like, is this working? I can't get a good sound. This week,

the Department of Justice is going to talk about their findings into the Clinton Foundation probe. It was leaked on Friday that Huber had. She has an incredible amount. Did she say Uber? I think she said Huber. Oh, okay.

I think she probably couldn't pronounce it properly through the amount of fucking lip glitter she's got going on right now. She's shiny like a 14-year-old girl. She really is. Jesus Christ. I like that the back, you can really kind of see the painting behind her

and it looks like somebody painted a cat's paws and it went for a little scamper. Do you know what? To me, it looks like, do you remember Blair Witch where all those hands are pressing on the tent? If they just all dip their hands in paint first.

In paint real quick, yeah. That Hoover has been talking to Clinton Foundation whistleblowers. Whistleblowers for the Clinton Foundation. For the charity.

For the charity, yeah. The hearing that goes down this week on December 5th, which happens... That's over now. Okay, so December 5th was over. I just want to say it's over. Guys hearing that goes down this week on December 5th, which happens... That's over now. Okay, so December 5th was over. I just want to say it's over. Guys, that was a while ago.

The best thing to do is to cover these stories just slightly in the future. And then they're just like... It's so good. Because then they prognosticate toward things that never happened. Oh, it's so good. Oh, I just let it drip down my chin.

Oh, it's amazing. I'll get you a hot towel. You could just wipe it off with your three fingers on your hand. Hearing that goes down this week on December 5th, which happens to be General Flynn's birthday. Happy birthday, General Flynn. General Flynn is... Didn't he just...

Oh, he didn't get sentenced. That's right. Yeah, the sentence got postponed. The judge was disgusted with him. The judge was furious with him. The judge told him he sold his country out. Yeah. The does not sound like he's going to take the prosecutor's recommendation of no prison

time. Yeah. Because he because he had initially cooperated and then they went back to like the media or whatever and said that he was like coerced or something. I forget exactly what he said. He kind of went back on and hedged a bit to try to make himself look good publicly. And the judge is like,

oh, guess what's not working out for you, stupid. Well, from what I heard is that the defendants actually were happy about the postponement because they're hoping that the judge will cool off in the interim. Oh, really? Yeah, they're hoping that the judge will cool off.

I hope he gets up. I hope he fights with cool off in the interim. Oh, really? Yeah, they're hoping that the judge will cool off. I hope he gets up. I hope he fights with his wife over the dishwasher. I hope somebody cuts him off in traffic. I hope his kid seems like she's sick and that she's not sick and it's a whole thing. I hope he walks in and goes, exchange a coupon.

Sorry, that coupon has expired, sir. And he's like, this has been back to beyond. It's expired, sir. And he's like, this is Bed Bath & Beyond. It's good forever. He just has a whole thing of it. He's making it rain in Bed Bath & Beyond. With Bed Bath & Beyond going, I don't need these anymore. Take this, Laura. Laura.

Here you go, Laura. He's trying desperately to find the right one in his CVS receipts just like peeling them out I can't which one is it taller than I am he storms out gets into his car

and somebody has blocked him in and he's furious just a series of a thousand fucking tiny and then he just sentences him to death

bailiff cleave him in twain I want one babe funny charm I want you to pull until you're tired there's a very good chance that the crimes against children crimes will be exposed and the floodgates will break open and will they close down the Trump Foundation? I just realized, Cecil, do you remember Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where all those kids get released from the temple? Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I think she thinks something like that is going to open the doors to the Clinton Foundation.

And all these fucking dirty ragamuffin ass children are going to come like running, scampering all like mind controlled sex slave. And I've been held underground. Kali Ma Shakti day and whatever. We walk by the Clinton foundation downtown, wherever it is on a downtown, I don't know, Haiti. You go there. There's a,

there's a kid who's breathing on the window and just spells help me. It's backwards. It's backwards. Help me. Help me. Help me. That's why he does it wrong. He's like,

Impla. Impla. I don't know that guy. I don't know. Anyway. Don't know for sure. I'm praying that will be the case. But whether it happens on the 5th or in a week

or three weeks or an unlimited timeline or forever never ever ago on a long enough timeline this will definitely happen do you know who they're not talking about anymore Q she will probably mention Q she will mention Q but yeah

it's kind of dropped down a little bit it's slowed down a lot well it's because everything that they've said has fallen apart. Well, it's amazing how they just abandon the pieces that don't work. And they're just like, well, anyway, let's not talk about that anymore. Yeah. Let's talk about other weird stuff. Anyone seen Indiana Jones?

Shocked today. The documentary? There's a whole temple. It's a temple of doom. What we need is an archaeologist. All you need is a whip. Who's a whole temple. It's a temple of doom. What we need is an archaeologist. All you need is a whip and a fedora. It's happening. And it's no coincidence that George Sr. died.

And by the way, he didn't die. He was executed. He's like a trillion when he died. Did she say he didn't die? He didn't die. Hold on. Did she say he didn't died? He was, he didn't died. Hold on. Did she say he didn't die? Hold on. I got to hear that again. Okay. Yeah. Coincidence that George senior died. And by the way, he didn't die. He was executed. Hey Cecil, hold on. So many things are great here. He didn't die. He was executed. How many

people do you know that were executed that didn't die? Rasputin. Did he die? Are we six? He eventually died. They had to try to execute him like five times or whatever. I don't know. Put him in a burlap sack.

Stab him 30 times and throw him in a river. He's fine. Funny story about this. So Eli's got a magic trick and I'm not going to ruin the magic trick, but Eli's got a magic trick where he walks up to you and he tells you to, he's like, let me see your phone. And he goes to this thing. He's like, it's, it goes, I'm going to open up a Google and he opens up Google and he sells you to type whatever you want. Go ahead and type whatever you like inside of the Google search and then search for it. And I was at a conference with the scathing guys and he walks away and he says, you type whatever you want.

And so I type in Rasputin. Okay. And then I hit send. And Eli comes walking up a few minutes later and he goes, he goes, okay, are you ready? And I was like, sure. And he's like, it was Rasputin. Right. And I was like, yeah, it was Rasputin.

And Heath hits me from the side. Just boom hits me. And he's like, I fucking chose Rasputin too. Maybe that's the trick. Maybe everybody chooses Rasputin. I was like, wait, how is that? How does he know that we're all going to choose Rasputin? He's like, I don't know, man.

But it was amazing. It's an amazing trick. But if he does come up to do that trick to you, choose Rasputin. All right, what happened after he died? We got to figure out what he died after he didn't die. After he was executedputin. All right. What happened after he died but didn't get executed? We got to figure out what he died after he didn't die. Okay.

After he was executed but lived. He died. I was executed but I feel better now. It was just a face I was going through. I'm going to get pardoned right after I'm executed.

Yeah, no. And then you'll be fine. And then you'll be fine. Executed. He was executed. What was he executed with? A snub-nosed finger gun? You know what we're going to do?

We're going to use old age as our secret weapon. I'm going to shoot senility right into his brain. He was like 94. I know. You could execute him by slamming the door really hard. You're like, hey, just boo. That guy says what you withhold one meal

and he dies it's one meal he misses one meal and he's dead flick a grain of salt on him he'll curl up like a slug are you kidding me take away his daily IV

of virgin blood he's dead within an hour so the tide has turned, you guys. The Q movement is unstoppable. Q. There it is. Yeah, okay, but like, what is the Q movement now?

Like, why aren't we talking? Are we done talking about what Q actually says? I haven't heard anything about, like, Q said. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Q said. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The Q quotes, right? Yeah, yeah, right, right. Now it's like this idea. Well, that one guy, that one guy got, like he got subpoenaed or he got, did he get charged?

Jeremy Corsi? Yeah, he got charged. He's charged. So he's gone. Yeah, that's over. The media's in a frenzy. The cabal's in the frenzy. They're all panicking.

100 military police members were just sent to Gitmo. They're deployed for a year there. The Pentagon just released guidelines on transferring prisoners to Guantanamo Bay. The writing is on the wall. For killing very, very old, old, old men. Men that were so old, they could even be mistaken for dying of natural causes. There's a possibility you could even mistake it. After you execute them, that's why it's such a brilliant plan.

It's because nobody expects these people to live, continue living. And so you kill the people who are super, super old. You could even give George W. Bush, the elder, a head start of like four days. Give him a head start. Best he's going to do is fall out of his bed and hit his life alert. That's the best he's going to do. All right, it's a race. Go. Is it a life alert if you get executed when you press it? It's a death alert.

It's not a life alert anymore. This is happening. Q talks about it. I've been talking about it. Oh, those are valid sources. Good. Nothing is going to stop These arrests from happening Nothing Nothing has started

The arrests from happening Nothing Nothing Right No one's actually Initiated the arrests From starting Literally one arrest

Yeah I love that these guys Get executed Like McCain Right And H.W. Yeah But like

They're like free Like they don't get arrested. They just get the execution. They get a secret double tribunal execution. Right. Yeah. And you don't want to upset the family. Yeah. In order to do that tribunal, they had to go into his home in which he was bed

bound and stand around his bed and then tribunalize him right there. Tribunalize him. That. Tribunalize him. That's how you kill him. And this is going to be a big week. The world is about to change. Guys, that was a couple of weeks ago.

It was a big week. It was a super big week. Yeah, there was like more Trump indictments, I guess, than that. Not much. So just a regular week. Just like a normal week. Facebook scandal and Trump indictments. I just keep the same fucking browsers open all

the time. I say refresh. Ready to stick it in the glory hole? Get links to their Facebook, Twitter, and if you still use it, Google Plus account at their website, dissonancepod.com. If you need to be all discreet about it, contact them by email at dissonance.podcast

at gmail.com. Or you can call and leave a ransom message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Want to hear Cognitive Dissonance commercial free and gain access to exclusive content, including full patron-only shows? Head to patreon.com forward slash dissonance pod and become a patron to support the show on a per episode basis love commercials not ready to become a patron give the guys a five-star review on itunes or stitcher or tell your buddies in the drunk tank about the show we want to send a big sloppy glory hole to all the patrons and people who rate us you fucking. So we are joined by Keith

from Modest Needs and No Illusions from the many, many podcasts that he does. Guys, thanks for joining us. Keith, we wanted to have you on to sort of talk about the overwhelming response that we had this time on both our shows, five of our shows to Vulgarity for Charity. Well, first of all, I'm glad to be here.

Thanks for having me. The overwhelming response, yeah, we were talking a few minutes ago, how are you doing? I said, well, you know, I'm about $70,000 better than I was earlier in the last month. And that's the truth. Not only was it really an astonishing response,

it was just such a surprise and just so unexpected. And I think that was my favorite part of the whole thing is I didn't even know it was going to happen. Can you talk a little bit about exactly how you found out about it? Oh, yeah. It was the first week of November. And I was sitting in front of the computer just plugging away, you know, doing the work I do every day and thinking about, okay, what are we going to do, you know, coming up over the next few weeks? And, you know, we get this littleop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Seriously. And I look and there's been $1,000 that people have just given in seconds. And this is great, but you never know where that's come from. And so I went through the email and I found a name that I totally didn't recognize. So this is a person who absolutely is supporting modest needs because somebody told them about it, right? I mean, that's how they found out about it.

And so I sent an email to that person. I said, oh, there's a very nice contribution. It was $500 or so. And I sent an email and I said, oh, you know, this is so kind. Thank you very much. By the way, how did you hear about modest needs? And, you know, a few hours later, the guy wrote back and he said, oh, vulgarity for charity. I said, it's those guys again.

And the rest is history. I mean, you guys just knocked it out of the park. I don't even, I really don't have the words for you or your listeners to tell you how grateful I am personally and all of us at Modest Needs, the people who work with me and then of course, the people that we help, which is you guys have no idea what you've done for those folks. I mean, really, we have funded a record number of people in the last four weeks, and it's just been remarkable. So I know that some people might not have had an opportunity to donate to Modest Needs. Can you tell us a little bit about your organization, what you guys do,

and maybe we can convince a few other people before Christmas to donate? Oh, that would be great. Sure. So Modest Needs is based on a really simple concept. It takes a lot less money to help a person who's on the brink of falling into poverty than it does to wait and just do nothing and then help them when they've lost everything. So what we do is we help people with short-term emergency expenses, the kinds of things that absolutely everybody has had to deal with in their life. The car repair that you didn't think you were ever going to have to make and then your car breaks down. And in order to work, you've got to fix the car, but you don't

have an extra five or six hundred dollars sitting around, right? That's most people. Most people are a small expense away from, you know, poverty. And so, you know, those people apply for our help. And if we can help them, then, you know, we go through, we vet their application, we get documentation from them, make sure that what they've told us is accurate. And then we post the application on our website and people can go through and look around, see who resonates with them and who they'd like to help and help whoever they'd like. And at the end of the day, when we raise the money necessary to fund one of these expenses, we actually pay the bill on behalf of that person. So, you know, if a person has asked us for help with a car repair, that person is not going to actually see any money. We're going to actually just call the shop and we're going to pay the shop to fix the car. So the point of doing all of this is to make sure that nobody who's out there struggling, doing everything they can to

make ends meet, has to lose their home or their job or, you know, God forbid, their health over a small expense when there are hundreds of people who would be willing to help them if they just knew what was going on. Modest needs is the conduit that lets people know what's going on. That's what we do. Yeah, it's an incredible organization. In 2016, when we worked with you guys, you told the story about how you started Modest Needs, or rather how Modest Needs was started. For listeners who might be new, can you relay that story? Because I thought that was a really powerful story. Yeah, sure. It was, gosh, this modest needs started in 2002, which is kind of hard to believe. Wow. There's a long time. YouTube is younger than us. You know, Facebook is younger than us,

you know, so it's kind of funny. But let's see. So I used to be a professor. And I think I told you guys this at the time. It was really funny. I'll tell you again. When you start as a professor, you know, I had wanted to do that job my whole life. I'd always wanted to be a teacher. And what they've assigned to me is research and bibliography, which is like the class no student ever wants to take. And the people who had numbered the courses had a sense of humor. I swear to God, it was English 666. So I'm teaching English 666. And, you know, I've got all these students who don't want to take the class in the first place and yada, yada, yada. And I just was determined I was going to make it a great class. And just lo and behold, we did great. And I mentioned all of this because Modest Needs came out of a class experience I had. We had one day where the class

had just been superb, just phenomenal. And I'm driving home. I taught in Middle Tennessee State University, which is outside of Nashville. And I lived in Nashville, so I was driving home. It's about a 30-minute commute. And I'm just thinking about how lucky I am to have a job. I mean, just the holy grail of academic jobs, really. And people that I like. And I mean, it's a nice thing when they pay you to talk about what you like to nice people. I mean, that's just a great job. And I started thinking about all of the times in my life, especially when I had been a grad student, that I just came within, you know, just minutes of really not being able to, say, pay my rent and ending up on the street because of the same kinds of expenses we work with at Modest Needs. And I started thinking specifically

about this one guy who I used to work for. He was a projectionist. I worked my way through school as a projectionist because you didn't have to work 15 minutes every two hours. You know, so I wrote my dissertation while I was doing the movies. And this guy was an old, old time guy, old school guy. And he was my boss. And he was also pretty grumpy most of the time. And so one day I'm going to work and I go to start my car and my car doesn't start.

And it turns out after some looking around to be the timing belt or the timing chain, which, you know, is a huge repair. And I didn't have the money to do it. I just didn't. I could either pay my rent or fix my car. And I was living in, you know, East Tennessee at the time, going to grad school, and, you know, we're not known for our public transportation out there.

So, you know, it was the car, nothing. Well, I fixed the car because I, you know, I think there's a lot of people do this. You know, I didn't have family who could help. You don't want to go to your friends and say, hey, you know, my life is down to $500. Can you loan me some money? And so I just I fixed the car.

And, you know, what I hoped is I would pick up some extra shifts and, you know, pay my rent that way. And, you know, that's again, you know, it's delusional. You're not going to do it, but you won't admit it to yourself until you get an eviction notice. And that's what happened to me. I had a three day pay or quit notice, and I have no idea where I'm going to get the money to, uh, to pay this rent. And I go to work that night and, you know, I passed my boss on his way out and he's like,

you know, he notices I'm not very happy. He says, what's wrong with you? And I, I told him and his whole response was, well, that's too bad. I hope you get that worked out. And I was like, well, that's nice. Thanks a lot. And the next day I came to work and he had put a check made out to my landlord on the work bench. And that's how I paid my rent. He never let me pay him back. He would never talk about it. He barely let me even thank him. He was embarrassed to have done it, you know, kind of thing. He was just so kind. And I was thinking about that guy and what he did for me. And I thought, you know, it's a shame that there's not an organization that does that for people because people could really use that.

That's something we could all do together. You could do it for not a lot of money. We help a lot of people, high impact. And I thought to myself, you know, when I'm rich, because, see, that's how most people think about giving, right? It all starts with you having a billion dollars or something. And, you know, when I'm rich, that's what I'd like to do. And then it occurred to me that the word philanthropy itself just means compassion for people. There's absolutely no money in that word. And these people who had done things like that guy for me in the past, they had never been

rich. They had just cared about me. They loved me. That's what it came down to. And I thought, you know, that's what I've missed all of these years. It's that you just have to take what you've got and start with what you have and just do the best that you can. And it's not about money. It's about having compassion for people who are in a bad place. And so I downsized my life to the point that I had $350 a month and started Modest Needs, what I hoped would be just a little side thing for me. I was going to keep teaching and, you know, help maybe one person a month and started Modest Needs, what I hoped would be just a little side thing for me. I was going to keep teaching and help maybe one person a month with a really small expense. And that's how Modest Needs started. Yeah, that's still an incredible story. Two years later, I still like that story. It's awesome. So you said that the folks at Modest Needs, they apply.

How many applicants do you guys get in a year? Oh, my gosh. So, so many. We do. Okay, to give you an idea, we just had to limit the number of applications that we were taking right now. We actually have a cutoff. We stopped taking applications at a point so that we can serve the people that we already have. Right?

And we just had to turn it off. Now, remember, this is just for right now at 1,200 applications. Oh, my gosh. Right? now at 1,200 applications. Oh, my gosh. That's 1,200 at any given time? At any given time. And there are different stages in the process, right? Some of them are still completing their applications, whereas others have completed them.

And we've told them what documentation we want, and we're waiting to get it. And so, you know, when you look on our website, I think we have available, let's see, 150 or so applications that you can actually donate to. All the rest of those are in the background, you know, ready to take those places as those fall off and we get more documentation. And so overall in a year, gosh, the number of people who apply has to be over 12,000. It has to be. And in a really good year, we can help maybe 1,500 or 1,600 of those families. It just depends on giving. We can help an unlimited number. It just depends on how much money people are willing to give. But on average, if we do 1,600 families a year, I mean, you figure an average of four people, a family, I mean, you, you figure an average of, of four people, a family that's, that's pretty effective when you consider that the average

grant's just about $700. Yeah. That was going to be my next question is the average is, is, is $700. That's that line. That's that average line for people between making it and not making it. And you know how to $700 is a, is a huge amount of money if you don't have $700. And so, you know, what's, what's great though, is how it's raised. I mean, you know, we, we definitely have people who, who can give more and they do, but generally speaking, the average gift is 25 or $50, you know? Uh, and, and a lot of the gifts are smaller than that. We have a lot of folks who, who get help and they come back and pledge $5 a month. And that's routine, absolutely routine. We help somebody and within a day or two, they've come back and they've become a donor to the organization. So it really does sort of

build on itself. And as people get help, they become the people who help others. And it's just, it's perfect. I love the way that it works. Well, that's one of the things that I really like about the whole concept is that it tackles the sort of cyclical nature of poverty. But it also tackles, you know, it also works with the fact that at different points in an individual's life, you're going to be on different sides of that divide, right? So there are definitely times in my life where, like, I could have used a modest needs, right? It could have saved me a lot. And it could have saved me years of digging back out. And of course, now I'm at a point in my life where I'm on the other side and I can give to that. It's sort of along those lines. Do you have any like any good success stories of somebody that you did kind of like keep out off that brink of poverty and that was able to come back and make a donation or like, let you know what a difference that made in their lives? Oh yeah. I'll tell you one of my favorites. This is, I'm so glad you asked that questions. I was actually thinking about this earlier. So this, this was several years ago. Okay. This would have been in, I guess before 2010, but, but this will give you an idea of what was going on even,

even back in the day, as they say. So there was this person who applied for help from California, and I'm pretty sure it was Southern California, like Los Angeles area. What the person needed was this, a person who'd been underemployed all of her life, and she's finally gotten a good job offer, and it's a union job, which is, I mean, there you go, that's what you need. But in order to get the job, she has to pay union dues, which I always thought was really silly because how do you do that, right? I mean, how do you pay union dues

if you don't have your job yet? But that was the requirement and we verified the whole thing. And sure enough, she had to pay, it was $350 of union dues. And so we vetted the application, our donors funded it, and we paid the union dues.

And so, you know, normally that, I mean, that, and we paid the union dues. And so, you know, normally that, I mean, that's a great success story by itself. The woman got her job, and that's great. But a couple years later, I'm just sitting around, you know, thinking about things as one does. And I started thinking about that person, because, you know, we actually get to know these people that we work with. I mean, we really do. And I wondered what had happened with her. And so I just looked her up and called her. And she answered the phone. And I said, hi. And I told her who I was. And she said, oh, it's so good to hear from you. I don't have time to talk, but I'll tell you what happened. She said, so you guys paid the union dues. And I got the job. And I worked really hard. And I ended up quitting in six months because I got another job that was paying me almost twice as much. And then I left and I took another job after that.

And she went on and she said, and the reason I can't talk right now is because I'm on my way to the bank because I'm closing on my first house. Wow. That's awesome. So, you know, $350 to take somebody from underemployed who with their hard work buys their house two years later. I'm good with that. No kidding. That's really great. But, you know, again, really it speaks to, I think, the character of the people that we work with.

These are people, just like you said, I mean, they need help at the moment. They're not always going to be that way. They always come back. And sure enough, she did too. I mean, she came back and gave a very nice contribution eventually. And it was $100, $150. And she had given small amounts prior to that. So it's just really sweet.

So can you talk to us a little bit about the vetting process? Because I know all of us are inundated on social media with people constantly sharing a hard luck story that tugs at your heartstrings. But you don't know if it's legitimate. And you see these stories in the news about, yeah, we're going to start a fundraiser for this homeless guy, and then he's going to sue us later to get the money. Oh, my God. That was the craziest story ever.

Was it that GoFundMe? Yeah. Listen, I mean, no disrespect to GoFundMe, but they're sort of the Wild West of giving. I mean, if you give on GoFundMe, anything could be happening. But we're actually monitored by the IRS and all those good folks. So we actually have to have a process as to how this works. So the way that it works is that people who apply for our help, they go through our application. And the application is the initial part of the vetting. We determine whether or not

they fit our most basic grant-making guidelines. They have to have an income that's within certain limits, and they have to have at least some income coming in. They can't just be absolutely totally destitute, because in those cases, there are other programs that can help with that. So once the person has filled out the application, we request documentation from the person. And the amount of documentation we request tends to be pretty standardized. It varies depending on how much the person is asking for in terms of help. But generally speaking, we'll get a copy of the person's photo ID. We'll get a copy of utility bills. We're verifying address, location, identity, a copy of the person's lease or mortgage payment coupon.

So one of the things we look at is housing costs. So we're verifying that. We're going to get a copy of the bill that they're asking for our help to pay. And then usually, because mostly, to be honest, the number one request that we have is help with rent because I already paid an emergency that you would have helped me with. And that happens a lot, just like with me. And so in those cases, what we want to see is proof that the person actually had an emergency and it's not that they just want us to pay rent. So, for example, we had a person who one time asked, it was exactly this situation, asked us for help to pay the rent because what had happened is her child had set fire to the curtains in an apartment that they rented. And, you know, she had fire insurance and the whole thing.

It was fine. But, you know, by the time she paid the deductible, she didn't have the money to pay the rent. Well, that was the reason she had come to modest needs. And in that particular case, what we asked for, in addition to all of the standard documents that we get, was a copy of the fire marshal's report that verified the fire. And once we had that, I mean, we were convinced that she had, you know, I mean, think about it. This is we're doing all of this for money. She's never going to see if she if she gives us all of this and we're going to give the money straight to her landlord. Probably it's legitimate. Right. And so once we get all of that documentation and we're satisfied that it's all

legit and we do check all of that, you know, once and once we know we put it online and let our donors look at it. But that's the basic vetting process. You know, and, you know, let me tell you, it's not to say that all of the people who come to Modest Needs are saints. We catch our fair share of people trying to do some, you know, funky stuff. But the point is that we catch them. Right. And, you know, they don't go forward. How long does that vetting process take? It's pretty fast. We can do, we've been doing this a long time. So by the time we get their documentation in, we can turn it around, depending on how busy the day is. If we're all dug in, we can turn it around in a day.

Oh, wow. Or less. Sometimes it can be hours if it's a real emergency. Yeah, that's so important. As you were talking, I was thinking about that because these crises that these folks are facing, they're just so incredibly time sensitive. That's right. That just so incredibly time sensitive.

That's right. That help is so time sensitive. So having a place that they can turn to get help, you know, that quickly, just there's nothing else like it. There's just nothing else like it. I have to tell you, I'm really, really proud of what people have done with Modest Needs. And, you know, I'm happy that I can be there and sort of help, you know, finesse it and help develop it as things change in the technical world and the charitable world. But really, all the credit goes to people like your listeners who come in and make these contributions,

because in the end, we can vet everybody all day long. We can offer all the assurance that we want. If people aren't giving, it makes no difference. And, you know, the people who came in and made those contributions, they made massive differences. You know, it's in fact, that's that's an overused statement. Would you like to hear an actual thing that your your listeners did? Oh, absolutely. This is this is this is one of my OK, listen, one of the things I just love to talk about. All right. When we get to get righteous with a bill collector, because I don't like it when people are mean to other people. It doesn't make me happy, right? So we had an application come in during the fundraiser from a woman who's an army veteran whose car had basically, she was behind on her car payment. We had vetted everything.

We were ready to go, but it took a little, she needed a little more than usual. It was around $1,100 and took a little longer to fund it. And by the time the money was there to do it, the car had actually already been repossessed. Well, this is no problem because all we have to do is pay this arrearage and she can get the car, right? That's it. So that your listeners did, they funded that arrearage. And now all we have to do is call and make the payment, right? Guess what? They wouldn't take the payment from us. They told us that the lender doesn't want our payment because in reality, that's how this thing works, right? Subprime lending works this way. They make a loan to somebody knowing that eventually you're going to default. Then they get to sell the same thing

again. If we pay it back and the person gets their car back, that just messes with everything. It took us four hours to get somebody on the phone and a lot of really mean, nasty threats to just get somebody to take the money. That's incredible. But we got it done and she got her car and I'm very happy about that. But your listeners did that. That's absolutely last month. It really does talk about the predatory nature of, you know, just like how, how shitty it is to be poor and like, and like the, you know, just how expensive it is to be poor. You know, you talk about like, like how, you know, this, this, at first off it's a subprime loan. So they're probably paying ridiculous interest payments just as it is.

They, you know, they take the car away and then they're going to stack on fees and they'll probably add like a towing fee. And there's just like everything. Just the thing that you guys are able to do is swoop in just before all of those fees start to stack up because that's what's going to kill you all of those vultures yeah what they had already done in this case you know there's three steps in this process step one you know in the subprime game step one is that they take the the vehicle or whatever the property is step two is they take it and move it a long way away from the person right they had already done both of those things. So this woman, I can't remember where she was exactly, but the car was like 600 miles from her. Oh my God, what?

But they moved it to, instead of just auctioning it, you know, like where she lives, they move it 600 miles away. And then they just wait for you to default. And then they can add, you know, like the final default, they can add all the fees. And that's what they were trying to stall by not taking our payment. Because when we did it, I mean, it can add all the fees. And that's what they were trying to stall by not taking our payment. Because when we did it, it came in under the wire. It was that day. We had to do it that day. And they were doing everything possible to not let us get that money paid. Unbelievable. I remember when I was a boy, we had our lights turned off, our electricity turned off. And it took months to turn the electricity back on because, you know, when you're when you're you know, you paid the money, you know, something came up.

So you just can't pay the money. And now you're stuck with the lights off. And then the fees start piling because you're late with the amount of money that you have to pay them back. And so you have to have somebody call them. And, you know, you got to like there's there's all this other work that has to go, go into that. It's not just, oh, once I get the money, I'll pay it. No, there's a whole other stack of fees that has to get added in there. And a whole other, you know, series of phone calls.

Like you said, you spent four hours on the phone. Yeah. It's not just, it's not just money. It's time too. And it's, uh, you guys just save people so much just by swooping in at that last second to help them out with that one thing. And I'm not going to lie.

It feels really, really good to get righteous with somebody like that. I bet. I bet. Oh my gosh. But boy, there were three of us that worked on that. Three people, four hours to make one payment. Normally that would take 30 seconds.

Yeah. And you know, to add to that, to add to what Cecil said, it's, it's not just the amount of time and the amount of work. It's the amount of expertise that's involved. A lot of people are intimidated. They don't know their rights. They don't know that how hard they can push. They just, they don't know. They've got, they've got other, they've got other areas of expertise in their life. And this is not one of them. So having somebody to advocate for them in that way is huge. And, you know, people are. When it comes to money, people are just very afraid.

I think people tend to live in fear about money. You sure as hell do when you don't have any. Having been there, when you don't have money, the last thing you want to do is talk too much about money for fear that somebody's going to notice you don't have it. But you know, it's so funny because even a lot of people with money live in fear that it's going to be gone, right? So you have the people who don't have it, the people who have it, who are afraid to lose it. The bottom line is that, you know, with the people that we work with, they're just, you know, they're just timid. They're afraid that if they say the wrong thing, these people are somehow going to swoop in and make it worse for them than it already is. And so they just tend to roll over and I don't roll over. I just

don't like that. So, um, good. So there we go. Well, you got to think, you know, there's an awful lot of, you know, financial institutions, the subprime loans and the payday loans and all of this stuff that are, that are trying to screw poor people out of money. A lot of bad guys in the world. Really nice to know that you're out there. If you think about it, Keith, you're kind of like a superhero. Oh, that's funny, but thank you very much. Right. So if you're looking for a little, put a little kick on that business card or whatever, just

add to the end, superhero. Superhero. Okay, great. It is not lost on me that Keith is here talking about how he hates it when people are mean to other people and we raise $70,000 being mean to people.

You know what we're going to do next time Keith is I want you to send in ahead of time. Send in a list of people that you have to talk to on the phone that you don't like that you want us to roast. We'll roast the shit out of them. We will roast the shit out of those people.

Alright, well, I know who's number one on that list. We've come to refer to them by the initials STD. And you know what's funny is that that actually is the initials of the lender, but I swear to God it's STD. So we'll start there. It'll be really fun.

But yeah, I actually was a little sad I didn't get roasted this time. So, you know, you're not making me just cry. How many people, and this may not be something that you can even answer, but do you know how many people

around Estimate that were helped just by the charity drive? And what does that compare to, say, a David Smalley podcast-a-thon? Yeah, don't say it. Like, in order, man. Like, you know, like, if you're going to say, like, it's, like, four David Smalley podcasts-a-thon,

or, like, you know... Wait, wait, wait. Okay, so wait. That's actually accurate. It balances out the same as height, though. It works out the same as height with CESA. But you know, I mean, everybody does what they can do. I mean, how many people was it that we helped?

It was, oh gosh, easily 150. Oh my God. Wow. In terms of grants that we made, easily 150 grants. And I'd have to look and see how many people were affected by it. But it was a ton. Oh, wow. And that's a good month? 150 is a good month?

No, that's, that's a good two months, at least two months, you know, maybe three months. So, so yeah, that's, that's unbelievable is what that is. Oh, that's, that's just excellent. How great is that? How great is that? It's pretty great. Um, no, you, you guys made, you made the year, not only did you make me really happy which is of course i know your primary concern but but beyond that no you you really made the end of the year different than it was going to be for a lot of people your listeners did a great thing so i i really really can't thank you

for running such a great charity Noah we want to thank you for thinking up such an amazing way to help other people and for inviting us yet again to do this work so guys you guys are superheroes thank you both for joining us hey thank you man guys, you guys are superheroes. Thank you both for joining us. Hey, thank you, man. Noah, thank you guys so much. And don't forget,

if you still want to get in on the fun, you can just go to modestneeds.org and help people all through the rest of the year. We have another match. Thanks to you guys inspired some people. So we have another match going on. You can still get your contributions doubled. So any help you want to offer,

please come our way. We'd love to have you. And I also want to remind everybody that you can also make it, you can also set up a monthly donation as many of us on this phone call have done. Oh, yeah. And let me tell you, those are the bread and butter in the months when it's not so, people are not feeling quite so cheerful. Those are the way, that's how we fund people is through those monthly contributions. So if you feel like doing

that, we would really love it. Guys, thanks for joining us and thanks for such amazing work, Keith. So I want to thank our patrons. Of course, we want to thank all our patrons, but first we want to thank our most recent patrons, Kaylee and Samantha. Thanks so much for joining up.

Remember that if you want to support the show, you can do so for as little as $1 an episode. You can go to patreon.com slash dissonance pod and you can support the show on an episode per episode basis. And we love our patrons. Our patrons are the reason why we are able to hire people to help work on the show and have a studio in downtown Chicago.

So thank you so much, patrons. You guys make this show work. So thank you. We want to talk a little bit about some email that we got. But specifically, we got a lot of email from people and a lot of great reaction from the trans piece that we did last time. from the trans piece that we did last time. We talked about a trans issue that came up, trans discrimination issue that came up,

and then there was a trans privilege list that I read off, a cisgender privilege list, pardon me, that I read off last episode. And a bunch of people responded very positively and said that they were very, they thought that the segment was really great. It gave some people some interesting perspective that they had never experienced before. And Tom and I had some questions about that.

We had some questions specifically when it came to medical care. Yeah, I did not at all understand how medical care would be impacted by somebody's identity as a trans person. Yeah. And we got a message from Logan. And Logan says a couple of examples.

If your identification or insurance information doesn't match your gender identity, there can be delays or refusal of your care. And the person treating you upon finding out you're trans may give you suboptimal care or focusing on your genitals, genitalia, hormone, surgery plans as a trans person regardless. And it has nothing to do for your reason for being there and not disclosing medications taken or past surgeries when it's relevant due to fear of discrimination or transphobia. And anxiety over possibilities listed above could keep some of the people from seeking treatment altogether or delaying it.

So that was- All things I did not even know that I had to consider because my privilege- Right. Right? Yeah. And it's the same thing we talked about last time. We both said out loud,

yeah, we don't know what this means and we're privileged because we don't know what it means. That is literally the privilege, right? Like not to have to deal with it. Not, yeah, not to have to do that. So we got a lot of messages about this, but thank you, Logan,

and thank you everyone else for sending in messages about this, yeah. We got a, you know, it's funny because last week we talked about the baby, it's cold outside. We did indeed.

And I mentioned, it's funny because one of the things that I did was I said, the reason why I even brought it up, 80s movies, was because I was trying to draw it's funny because one of the things that I did was I said, uh, the reason why I even brought it up, uh, eighties movies was because I was trying to draw a parallel to banning. Baby,

it's cold outside. Baby, it's cold outside has been banned from several different radio networks. They were not playing it anymore. They've taken it off the air. And I was trying to draw a parallel between that and say, be, say maybe a problematic movie that happened in the eighties. Right. Neither of us advocated banning those movies. Neither of us advocated that at all.

I said, I felt a little creeped out by him, but you know, I, and I, but we talked about them. We talked through them and, uh, and neither of us advocated banning. No, not, not at all. Not at all. And I mean, and you know, look, maybe I'm overreacting. There's a possibility I'm overreacting. I have no idea. Right. Like I can only go with how I feel. Right. And I mean, you know, look, maybe I'm overreacting. There's a possibility I'm overreacting. I have no idea, right? Like I can only go with how I feel, right? And I'm telling you how I'm feeling. I'm not telling you how I'm logicking, right? I'm telling you how I'm feeling about something.

And when I watch that, I feel creeped out. I also feel creeped out in Revenge of the Nerds when a guy dresses like somebody else and sleeps with somebody under false pretenses in a fucking, in the moonwalk or whatever on the fucking on the waterbed thing that's there. He takes her into this like public, basically a public place, like a fun house and bangs this girl who's not his girlfriend, who he's dressed like her boyfriend in a mask and a

Darth Vader outfit. And he sleeps with a girl in there and you're just like or he goes down on her i don't know i'm not sure exactly what i can't remember what he does but he sexually does something sexual to her right and she thought he's somebody else am i not supposed to be creeped out because i'm creeped out by that because that's the hero yeah do you i had a question do you think some of the pushback if you've got something that is beloved, like Breakfast Club, which again, I haven't seen it. I know a lot of people love it. Yeah.

Do you think it might be the case that like for some people, if it's beloved, the whole thing has to be beloved? Maybe. You can't have a scene on it. So for example, I know that I can look at something, and I imagine many people can, but I wonder if it's problematic for some folks to be like,

yeah, I love that movie. I still want to love that movie. But if a scene in it is a problem, then I have to throw out the whole movie. I don't know that you have to do that, but I think there's an all or nothing mentality that sometimes pervades. So it's like reflexive.

Like, I don't want to not love this thing I've always loved. I have good memories of watching it. I've always enjoyed it. If I recognize that that scene is a problem, then I have to throw away the whole movie. You know, or throw away all my fond memories of that movie. And I think that there's some not saying these folks, but I think there's

sometimes that there's that reaction where it's like, but I loved this. And I don't want to not love it anymore. And I don't want to not have those good memories of it anymore. I'd still watch Breakfast Club if it was on. Like I've seen it a hundred times. I'd watch it tomorrow. If it came on, if it came on the TV, I'd still watch it.

I'm not, like I said, I'm not advocating not watching these movies. I'm not advocating banning them or boycotting them. What I do want to point out though, is that the people in those movies, the Revenge of the Nerds and the Breakfast though, is that the people in those movies, the Revenge of the Nerds and the Breakfast Club, those are the heroes doing those actions. These aren't villains in the movies that are doing these actions. These aren't people that are like,

you're like, oh, yeah, well, that guy was just shitty. That was just a shitty dude, and we shouldn't look to him for any kind. No, these are the heroes of the movie. Yeah, I didn't know that. In Revenge of the Nerds, it's the heroes, man. Right. It's the heroes that put voyeur cam, I didn't know that. In Revenge of the Nerds, it's the heroes, man. Right. It's the heroes that put

voyeur cams in the sorority. That's the heroes, guys. Like, you know, and the thing is, I can watch Revenge of the Nerds tomorrow. Like, if it could come on TV, I may watch the whole movie. But there's going to be part of me,

and maybe I've changed over the last 20 years. Maybe I've grown up some. changed over the last 20 years. Maybe I've grown up some, maybe my own personally grown up. Maybe our own consciousness has shift forward a little bit more progressive where we think that that sort of thing may be. But imagine a movie today with those as heroes. Imagine a movie that comes out tomorrow in 2018, where the heroes go in and put a voyeur camseur cams in the sorority. Yeah.

Imagine that movie, because I can't. Right. I don't think that movie comes out tomorrow. I don't think that movie is released tomorrow where the hero, no, the villain may do that, but not the hero. Right, right. So I just, I don't know. Like I, and I, you know, maybe I am overreacting.

I don't know. But I know that I feel different today than when i first saw that movie and like isn't it good to have those things available to us so we can look at them and have these conversations and like examine the ways that like our culture has changed and our mores have shifted and like you know like i think it's a good thing to look at a movie that was once beloved and be like, that makes me uncomfortable now. Well, cool. Like, that's a good thing. Like, you know, it's funny because it's like, you ever listen to a song that you know from childhood, you know, and you never once listened to the lyrics really.

And then like as a grown person, you're like, I'm going to turn on that old funny song. And you listen to the lyrics in their horror show, right? And I think that's what's happening with Baby It's Cold Outside. So my example would be Funky Cold Medina. I thought it was a silly song with like this funny kind of beat. And for some reason that song reoccurred to me one day. And I put it on

and I was like, ah, it's going to be so funny. And I was like, whoa! Whoa, I had no idea. I just wasn't aware enough at the time that that song was a part He's so funny. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I had no idea. Yeah. I just wasn't aware enough at the time that that song was a part of my life. Sure. It was just a song with kind of this silly, funky, cool beat that I enjoyed.

That was part of all of our cultural consciousness. It's an unacceptably awful song. Now there was this, that's a good thing that I look at it different. There was a song that somebody sent into us. Um, and it was a while ago And I can't remember what it was But it was from like a metal band That I remember when I was a kid Listening to

And I remember listening to the song And not rocking out to it But like laughing with my buddies When I was a kid about it I forget what the song is about But they're trying to do like a rap And at the end of the rap like laughing with my buddies when I was a kid about it. I forget what the song is about, but they're trying to do like a rap. And at the end of the rap, they make monkey sounds.

They make monkey, and they're like, the thing is, is like when I was a kid again, it didn't occur to me what they were doing, right? I wasn't smart enough to understand that that's a slur, right? I didn't get it. I was too stupid or I was just unaffected by it or just like it went right over my head, but it never once occurred to me that it was a slur, right?

And it's also an anti-gay song too. There's also gay bashing song, like type things in it going on too. It's a really horrible, like, and it's terrible to listen. Like I was doing now and I'm like, it's so bad. It's just bad, right? But as a kid, I remember hearing it's terrible to listen. Like, I listen to it now and I'm like, it's so bad. It's just bad, right? But as a kid, I remember hearing it many, many times.

And I remember asking someone, why didn't you put that one song on? You know what I mean? Like, so I know I had sort of almost requested that song as a kid. But when I listened to it as an adult, I'm like, it's garbage. It's awful. It's not only badly done. It's also just bad. just bad in general. And it has a terrible message. And, you know, I think it's okay to step back once in a while and be

like, oh, you know, yeah, I don't think the same way I did back then. Right. I think personal growth is okay. We did get a message about our discussion about baby with cold, baby, it's cold outside from Judy. And Judy had said that the problem is that while the intentions of the writers in the original context may not be problematic, the broader context of the culture tells young people that when someone says no to my sexual advances, they really mean yes.

And the nuance of the ending that you picked up and its distinction, many who might might listen, might miss. And to me, it's a cost benefit thing. How much enjoyment do we get out of it versus how much harm can it do? And in our society,

oftentimes sexual assaults believe or claim that their victims wanted it. And this song, as well as many other pieces, our media may perpetuate that. Is it part of, you know, what they call rape culture? You know,

like that's the question, you know, that's the question we've got to ask ourselves. I think that's the, that's the whole criticism of Baby It's Called Us. That is, that's the whole criticism, right? Does it contribute to a problem? Is that, and it's, and I think it's hard to quantify that on both sides, you know, is it contributing or is it not? You know, like, I think it's hard. I'll tell you what, I'm glad we're having conversations about it. Yeah. Like, regardless of where you fall

or whether you shift on it, at least we're having conversations on these topics. Got a message from Caleb. And Caleb let us know that the idea that I had, that million-dollar idea I had last week, Tom, about taking human stem cells,

maybe from miscarriages, maybe from abortions, didn't matter where I got them from, maybe on the black market. Don't ask a lot of questions. Don't ask a lot of questions about how I junk this mice up. But if I shoot them up with human gudge

and try to... Human gudge? I wouldn't be able to... Put some gudge in there. I wouldn't be able to sell them, mainly because, um, transporting mice,

uh, there's a chance, a greater chance that they're going to get sick or potentially infecting all the mice that are kept in the same location at the receiving institution. And he's like, there's just a, it's like a huge problem to actually do all this. Right.

He's like, he's like ordering mice like this could also be prohibitively expensive. It's a lot cheaper to inject mice. You already have with cells instead of getting my ship to you. He's like, ordering mice like this could also be prohibitively expensive. It's a lot cheaper to inject mice you already have with cells instead of getting my ship to you. He says, basically, the further from a stock mouse it is, the more expensive it is. Your mouse has spinners on it. I know, like I modded out my mouse. It's a low rider. It's got little legs.

It's got like a rattling trunk. lowrider. It's got little legs. It's got like a rattling trunk. I guess though that it's not, whatever. It's not feasible. Whatever. My idea sucks. Fine, Caleb. Fuck you. Fucking my idea sucks.

That's okay. We got a message from Rich and Rich said that, Rich also chimed in on the trans issues that we brought up. And one of the things that Rich said was, basically, there's a possibility that they could get, you know,

end up in the hospital, be unconscious, and then they might be outed against their wishes. That's another thing that I hadn't considered either. Right. You know,

getting outed against your wishes could be really, really horrible. We got a message from Maggie and Maggie is a public defender and said that the sort of Michael Cohen pee-pee dance he does where he stands up there

and shifts from foot to foot and begs for forgiveness is a thing. And basically, it's something because the judges expect it and it's one of those things, it's one of those things. It's one of those acceptance

of responsibility things that they expect them to do it. And so it has, even though she doesn't think it's a thing, she's like, whatever. She still instructs her clients to do it.

Yeah, all the fucking hand wringing and all that stuff, that theater is required to not get fucked over at sentencing. That's crazy. You had mentioned something earlier about how they do the same thing with parole. It's bullshit on parole.

The general rule on parole is unless you accept responsibility, they're not going to let you out. That's fucking crazy and shouldn't matter. If you were not a problem and you're not a danger to society and it's just costing us money to keep you there. Yeah.

Like I don't care if you apologized and said you were sorry and you totally did it to the fucking nine guys on the parole board. Like society doesn't get to hear it. Nobody cares. All that does is make it impossible for you to pursue vindications through appeals. Yeah. That's all it does. Yeah. It makes you to pursue vindications through appeals. Yeah. Right.

That's all it does. Yeah. It makes it so it's easier that way. We got a message from Marissa and Marissa says, you would be surprised how often I get asked about my genitals. It asks about my genitals every single day. And then she said in a Facebook exchange where somebody just asked some really deal questions that

you don't ask people about like surgery and nuts. I mean, like, it's just crazy that they have to go through this unreal. I don't understand it because it's like so blatantly rude. And also like, why do other people care about genitals? They're not playing.

Yeah. And how do you feel entitled to know about? I don't, the guy, I'm not even curious about it. And how do you feel entitled to know about? I don't. I'm not even curious about other people. I literally am not. You know what I mean? Like, if they're not genitals that are a part of my life, like, they're not interesting genitals. Right.

Like, I don't understand that either. It's so rude. And it's also just weird. It's unreal. And intrusive. We got a message from Zach. That's unreal. And intrusive.

We got a message from Zach, and Zach gave a lot of the reasons that we got from Caleb about the mice not being able to be transported and things like that. But one of the things that Zach says, which I want to read, Zach said that they work in lab animal husbandry. lab animal husbandry. And they said that one of the things that we had said was we're willing to sacrifice an unlimited number of mice for an AIDS cure. And they said, I don't know if you knew this, but when we euthanize an animal, we say sacrifice it as a small way to acknowledge the honor of the animal. That's really interesting. Like a way in which to say, we're not just euthanizing this thing. This thing isn't just a useless thing. It's use was to help further this thing. To act as a sacrifice to this larger

crowd. I think it's nice. So I want to thank Keith from Modest Needs for coming on. If you want to donate to Modest Needs, remember there's still time before. It's the day before Christmas, the spirit of giving. There's still time before Christmas to give. So if you go to modestneeds.org, you can give. They have tons of different people

that are looking for help right now. So you can check it out. Keith is a great, just a great dude. An amazing resource for humanity. He really is. Absolutely. Just a good human being. Yeah.

And if you're, remember, if your roast did not happen yet, do not worry. At the new year, we are going to be doing all these roasts. We're going to be doing a ton of roasts as the new year comes in. We're going to be doing roasts on this show and on scathing.

So listen to our show and scathing when they're going to be coming out. We'll make sure to let you know when we'll be doing it. But in the very beginning of next year, we're going to be restarting them up. We just don't want to fill our shows up with so many roasts that people think it's the roast show. We want to space these out just a little bit, but don't worry. We are going to get to every single one of these roasts. We are not going to give up. We will continue to write dick jokes for these roasts. So just wait around. Yours will

either be played on our show or on their show, but it will definitely be done. So that's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we 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, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists,

conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. conspiracy, double-speak stigmata nonsense. Expose your signs. 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. We'll see you next time.