Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 541: Boater Suppression

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

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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 mat. This is episode 541. So Cecil, there's not a lot to do in this crazy madcap world on our weekends, you know, to try to keep busy in the middle of a pandemic. But one thing you can do is if you have one, if you have one is go boating. Yeah, for sure. You and your family, you know, you can get on your boat, head over to a river

or a lake, maybe a lake like Lake Travis, for example. Just throwing one out there apropos of pretty much nothing. Is that a big lake? A small lake? Is it a lake? It's not that. Is it known for, is it known like, is it like Lake Michigan where it's so treacherous that you know for sure boats are going to sink on it?

Is that one of those lakes? I think, I think it has a certain reputation, Cecil. Okay. But, you know, why pay attention to the experts? but you know why pay attention to the experts if you're if you're having a trump parade aren't you really just saying hey i'm not gonna pay attention to the experts yeah i can do this on my own and i i when when the four boats sank uh recently i did wonder did they try to haul them back up from the bottom by their bootstraps like was that is that the salvage yeah yeah yeah that was what was one actually one of the memes was pull yourself up by your

bootstraps was one of the memes that came out it's very very funny my favorite though is boater suppression boater suppression boater suppression for me is the pinnacle of those memes that came out right afterwards. But what really happened was a bunch of people were driving around on their boats and they splashed so much. The bigger boats, the big millionaire boats splashed so much, they drowned the thousand airboats to death. If there could be anything, you pointed this out to me the other day, like if there could be anything more delightfully microcosmic

of our entire capitalist structure, it's that the giant boats overwhelmed and sunk the smaller boats. It's amazing. It is such cosmic justice that something like that happened. And here I thought all ships were supposed to rise. You know, I thought that was the whole thing.

No, no. Yeah. You know, can you imagine how sad this is? You're like, as you're sinking into the water, you're like, man, I just, I keep waiting for my ship to come in. And it's just. Someone plug up that trickle down economics in the corner plug it up it's trickling down oh god cecil i just saw until just a few moments ago i'd only seen the still images of this and read like articles

i hadn't actually seen the video and there's something so glorious about watching their hearts break in real time. It's like, it's like there's an episode of the Simpsons where Bart has like Lisa breaks Ralph Wiggum's heart and Bart has it on, on tape. And he's like, look,

if you pause it at just the right moment, you can see the exact moment where Ralph's heart breaks. It's like, look, if you pause it at just the right moment, you can see the exact moment where Ralph's heart breaks. It's like there's a CBS thing where they pause it exactly the moment one of these boats is getting sunk and everybody in the boat realizes that their ship is sunk. Way too late, too. Way too late. They realize it. And so there's nobody injured right so that's one thing that happened nobody was injured um for good or for bad and uh and so uh and they were and they

were down there just being doofuses on the water driving around playing fucking i don't even know travis kit or something really loud driving around is that even a person i don't even know i just i put two words together i don't even know if that's real. I assume anybody would think Travis is probably a country singer. I didn't know if that was real. You're just required to be a country singer. I saw it and I saw it happen this week and the memes that came out of it were so

delicious and so amazing that you just can't help but be like, oh, this is just so perfect. In 1984 you said, and I quote, I don't mind people looking at public officials with a microscope, but not a proctoscope. Well, that's a lot of bull. I love it when the press uses one of those things. In fact, if you really want to get inside Dick Nixon's head, you have to use a proctoscope.

All right. So before we cover this full story, I guess we just have to introduce the Woodward happening. So, and this is kind of cuckoo, right? Because Donald Trump gave something like 18 interviews to Bob Woodward over the course of the last year and a half or so. Which, well, fucking why? Like, did he think Bob Woodward would be like on his side in some way?

And I read some analysis about this, but I still was absolutely unable to fathom any kind of real reasoning why you would be like open and candid with Bob Woodward if what you were being open and candid about was, you know, general evil doing. So Woodward publishes a book,

right? Like this is Bob Woodward. Like this is like, like this is a guy who in 2018 wrote fear Trump in the white house. And this was not a flattering book about Trump. And he's made a career out of taking down presidents

through scandal. Woodward is like the guy who broke the Watergate story. All the presidents? No, Watergate scandal. If I'm the president, I'm not going to be like, you know, he's probably got my back on my evil doing probably bob woodward i'm just gonna go with bob what the fuck what are you even talking about

that's like trying to sleep with your wife's sister like what the fuck all this shit too it's like bush at war state of denial bush at war part three obama's wars it's like it's like so amazing all he does is go after presidents and kick them in the shins like that's all he does yeah he's a fucking journalistic president sniper yeah that's what he is you're just like well i'm i'm really gonna bear my did he think he was his therapist what the fuck did he think was happening here but he oh he tells woodward and woodward's got it and by the way the best part of this it's all on it's all on tape. So there's no anonymous sources or Woodward's lying. It's none of that. It's all recorded. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So it's one of those things that you kind of can't wiggle out of. Right.

And so that's going to lead us to our story. But what he, what he admitted to Woodward is that he knew the virus early in like January, February, he knew the virus was spread easily, that it was spread through the air, that it was much more deadly than the seasonal flu, and that he was purposely downplaying the virus, intentionally downplaying the virus to the public in order to prevent a panic. And it's all on tape, right? All things which he said, no, you know, like nobody knew that the virus would be this bad. And back in February, April, May, even as late as June. Holding rallies after this conversation. Telling people this is basically a flu, that this is just going to disappear on its own, that it's much harder to spread than they think. Like all the crazy shit. Don't wear a mask. That's bullshit.

Like pulling back like health experts, all that stuff. The whole time he knew he absolutely wasn it wasn't even that he was deluding himself. He knew himself exactly what was going on, exactly how bad things were. And he intentionally for many, many months misled the public, which caused, you know, if you want to know right now, if you're fucking unemployed because of the pandemic, this is why. This is 100% why. Because we didn't do shit about this until it was way too late, even though we could have done shit about this way fucking earlier. We never had to have 60,000, 70,000 cases a day.

We didn't have to look at the news and celebrate, like, oh, good, we're down to 30,000 new cases a day. All this shit is the direct result of poor leadership from the top and lies from the top that like the governors bought into and local municipal leaders bought into and constituents bought into and behaved according to that nonsense. So Woodward like publishes this book and there's this amazing CNN article. Before you continue on, I do want to say the deaths are also, right? You know, you say, but you say, you know you continue on, I do want to say the deaths are also right. You know, you say, but you say, you know, I mean, I know this.

I know you didn't purposefully exclude it, but I want to I just want to say it out loud. Like like if your aunt fucking Susie died because of this, it's certainly it certainly is a part of this. There's a part of this that caused her death. And I'm I'm livid that fucking early on, I was watching videos on how to prevent this and I spent hours washing all my groceries off, making sure I was completely sanitized all the time because when they first came out with it,

the whole big swarm around it was, if it's not airborne, it must be transmitted through touch. And so there was everything I read, everything I saw in the initial days of the coronavirus was all about touch. And so I was super hypervigilant about making sure I didn't touch anything that might've been contaminated. If I did, I was washing my hands. I was washing all my everything. I was leaving stuff by my front door for three or four days, hoping to kill the sort of strain of coronavirus

that might actually land on it. And then all that was bullshit. There wasn't anything, Ted. I had to do anything with that. But in the beginning, that's what was sold to us by the entire administration, by everybody in charge.

That was the line of thinking that everybody had. That was what they told us. And they automatically, when we first started, go back and listen. Masks were never pushed. In fact, they were discouraged. They were discouraged by everybody because they thought they wanted to have them

for the people that were in the hospitals, and they told us not to have them. So masks were actually discouraged early on. So, you know, so there's, those are, those are real problems. The CDC, and I know people are going to say, well, were they really discouraged? Yes. The CDC still has a tweet up that says, you, let's not use masks. Those masks are for other people. In fact, I'm going to find it now and say it out loud. So I don't get tweeted out later saying I'm lying that the, that the administration said they lay absolutely played downplayed the mask thing.

So continue on with Bob Woodward. I just wanted to say that out loud because it's so frustrating that we knew and he knew way back when and we didn't act on it and all the other countries did and look at where they are and look at where we are. Yeah, and like even when better information came out from health experts about this being airborne, Trump himself came out many, many times and Trump

himself came out and said, like, this isn't that bad. It's going to go away. People are overblowing this like and it's all on tape that he knew that was bullshit the whole time. February 27th. This is from the CDC's Twitter. CDC does not currently recommend the use of face masks to help prevent coronavirus. Take everyday preventive actions like staying home when you're sick and washing hands with soap and water to slow the

spread of respiratory illness right fucking there, okay? So if he's fucking having a conversation with Woodward, he's talking about it before then, saying he knew it was airborne. That's a fucking dangerous lie. It is a dangerous lie. And, you know, the thing is, like, people look to the president for leadership.

They act based on what he says. And for months, not weeks, not days, but for months into this pandemic, for months, he kept at it. He kept saying, like, even when his own experts would stand in front of people and say, you know, this is really fucking serious. And like, we need to do these things. And he would stand right at the next podium and be like, no, we're not doing that. It's not that bad. This whole thing's going to blow over. You'll see one day it'll just disappear. It's the China.

It's basically a flu. Remember when he was calling it a flu? He was likening it to the China it's basically a flu remember when he was calling it a flu he was likening it to the seasonal flu the reason why I am you know now that all this stuff has been happening with the CDC where the CDC has been saying things that they've had to roll back multiple times because it appears that there's pressure from administrators and from politicians to make them say these things I cannot imagine that that tweet came from a scientist. Well, you know what's particularly disturbing about that, Cecil, is we're at a place now where you cannot give an organization like the CDC

the benefit of the doubt that we would otherwise should be able to give the CDC. We should be able to say the CDC is, they are the foremost experts, and we are going to cede to the knowledge of the experts on infectious disease. That is literally like why we hire these fucking people with our goddamn tax dollars is so that I can say, you know what I've got? I got a degree in fucking English literature, not virology, not infectious disease.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take my cues from infectious disease experts. But because the relationship now has been poisoned between the experts and the politicians, now it does give rise to credible fears to say like, all right,

I know they said such and such, but they've been forced to say, because how many things have they rolled back now? They rolled back the mask situation, right? And on a best case scenario, they rolled that back because, hey, we don't want, we had a situation, right? And on a best case scenario, they rolled that back because, hey, we don't want,

we had a limited supply of people to eat. Yeah, best case scenario. We need to get a certain amount, right? So best case scenario, giving everybody credit, benefit of the doubt, we got to get that stuff

to the hospitals first, to the population second. So, okay. But then just recently, the CDC came out, you know, with like, oh, we found this like, you know, great thing

that's going to help, you know, the treatment of coronavirus. Then they had to walk that back because the way that they messaged that out to the public was politicized rather than an accurate representation of the scientific evidence. And that's very specifically like at the behest of the administration who announced days before on Sunday, there's going to be a great announcement. It's going to be a game changer. Then they force the CDC to come up and misrepresent the science. We should be in a better place where we're able to say, yeah, I can trust the CDC, but they keep fucking this up. They keep fucking being lapdogs of the goddamn administration. The CDC should be entirely separate from the administration.

If we learn any lessons, and I am not terribly optimistic that we will, but if we learn any lessons from this pandemic, we should do what several other countries do, which is to divorce our medical expertise and decision-making around national medical decisions from the politicians, right? So there are many countries that say like, well, you know who's not involved in decisions of public health? Politicians. They're just not involved. They don't have a say in it. Those decisions are made by experts in that category, in that field. Politicians are, what are they? Fucking people like. They're good at handshaking. They're the people whose job it is that for you to want to have a beer with them which is kind of shocking when you think like

yeah think about like who you'd rat who would you least like to have a beer with in the world if it's not mitch mcconnell i can't imagine having a beer with mitch mcconnell i and not breaking the bottle over his head i'd like to have a beer with mitch mcconnell so that we could get into a bar fight that's what i want i want to get into a bar fight with Mitch McConnell. I don't want to use his fucking chin waddle as a fucking boxing bag. That's what I want to do. Fucking a speed bag. You're just like, it's like fucking Bluto or whatever. Oh man, he's really just beating on that thing. I want to, I want to just like you believe the CDC and look at the CDC as a expert, right? And we're looking at this in hindsight, right? So we don't know. But when these tapes come out

and these tapes clearly show that he's trying to downplay the virus and he's trying to downplay the virus because in his words, he doesn't want to cause a panic, right? So that's why he's trying to do it. That's why Trump is trying to downplay the virus. Like all those panics all across the globe where they, they played the virus and nothing happened. There wasn't any fucking, you know, we've had more unrest here because of fucking racism and shitty people than we've had than anywhere else in the world. But the reason why I did it is because it looks bad. That's why.

And he didn't want to look bad. Right. I mean, he doesn't want to be the president in charge of a pandemic. Exactly. Nobody,

he doesn't want that. Which, to be fair, Cecil, he is not the president in charge of the pandemic. no, no,

no, no. Yeah. Because he has not done any taking charge of it. So like, I will grant him that he,

if he didn't want to be a president in charge of the pandemic, he did an amazing job of not taking charge of this pandemic. Fucking. Yeah. Oh no, you fucking crushed that. Well played. Yeah. You crushed that. Way to pass it off to Pence and then hot potato it to somebody else. It's like the most ridiculous managing of this pandemic that you could possibly imagine. But, you know, I want to be with you and I want to say, you know, you're right. I want to,

I want to believe them, but we're looking at this in hindsight and the key here is that we're looking at it in hindsight but then we're getting revealed to us at the same time that simultaneous to a lot of things happening, he is saying these things out loud that we know now.

And so looking at it in hindsight, it looks bad but looking at it in hindsight, it looks bad, but looking at it with where, where, you know, for sure that he knew what was going on back then. It's way worse. It's way, way worse. Yeah. It's it, this is it. I mean, it's inexcusably criminally negligent. So, and what I think is, I think everybody needs to do is do exactly what Pamela Brown from CNN does. So Pamela Brown has Senator Kennedy from Louisiana, a Republican, on the show. And she's asking him specifically about these revelations

in the Woodward book, which are, again, backed up by audio recordings. So there's no squirreling out of these things, right? There's no wiggling around on this. And so she's asking him about this. And he tries to do the politician wiggle shit. And everybody needs to take a page out of her book because she absolutely does not let him do it. Here we go. I'm going to play the clip. Senator, President Trump told Bob Woodward the first week of February that he knew the coronavirus could be spread through the air and that it was more deadly than the flu. But two weeks later, he said at a rally that coronavirus was the Democrats' new hoax. Is that acceptable to you? Is that misleading the public?

You're talking about the Woodward book? Yes, the Woodward book. All I can do is share with you my point of view, Pamela. These gotcha books don't really interest me that much. He's on the record. He's on the record. He's on the record. These gotcha books don't really interest me that much. There'll be a new one out tomorrow.

But this is different. He did 18 interviews with Bob Woodward. Right. So he's recorded. You hear his voice. And you're seeing that and you're contrasting that with what he says to the public. Wouldn't that be something of interest to you as a United States senator? Well, let me let me answer you again. These gotcha books don't really interest me.

There will be a new one out tomorrow. Senator, let me let me just I let you talk. I wanted I wanted to hear what you had to say. But the bottom line is he told Bob Woodward privately that this was a deadly virus and that it was airborne. Didn't the public didn't the citizens in your home state of Louisiana deserve to know that as well so that they could change their behavior appropriately to protect themselves? so that they could change their behavior appropriately to protect themselves? Well, number one, Pamela, I'm not going to repeat what I just said, but all I can tell you is what my personal experience has been. Number two, let me say a word about this infatuation in Washington with who said what to whom.

I learned pretty quickly up here. No, Senator, I'm sorry. I'm not going to let you do this okay this is I understand there's so much politics right now we're two months away from an election but this is life and death you had 5,000 people that have died in Louisiana from coronavirus Republicans are reluctant as you are now to ever criticize this president, but as a human being, how can you be okay with this? Well, if I could finish my answer, I have learned in Washington, D.C., I'm sort of existential or sartrean about Washington, D.C. To be is to act. You learn pretty quickly not to judge people up here by what they say. You have to judge them by what they do. Cool.

So what you did was you just named a philosopher to make it sound like you're smart. And you essentially just said, yeah, well, I judge people by their actions. Okay, well, let's judge them by 200,000 dead. What do you say? Yeah, right. What do you say? Isn't one of your actions as president to say true or not true? Let's judge him by 200,000 dead. What do you say? Yeah, right. What do you say? Isn't one of your actions as president to say true or not true?

He's trying to draw a distinction that's a false distinction as if saying things as a leader is not action. But it is action. When the president stands in front of everybody and holds a fucking press Right, it's a garbage distinction. When the president holds a press conference where he says that, like, this is nothing to worry about, this is less dangerous than the flu, you don't have to change your fucking behavior. Like, that's an action. Like, his speeches are an act.

Like, his Twitter proclamations are actions. Like, try to pretend that, like, the only thing that matters is, like, what? What he physically does in the world? Like, his words are the only thing that matters is like what what he physically does in the world like like his words are the only thing he gets fucking paid for like literally the only thing the president does is say things or write things down if we don't count saying things or writing things down if it's only like the only thing we count is like well i don't know he didn't walk into the other room when he did it what the

fuck does what does that even mean didn't tackle anybody he didn't stab anyone right in the heart with a corona knife what a dumb what a dumb thing to even think because it's not like the that trump is out there trying to figure out a way to uh say create ventilators right his actions aren't creating ventilators his words are creating ventilators he turns to His actions aren't creating ventilators. His words are creating ventilators. He turns to the guy who knows how to make ventilators and says, hey, bro, make me a ventilator, dude. That's his words.

His words are the only things with power, you fool. Like, as a leader, all you do all day is make decisions. You don't make widgets. So if, like, the decisions that you make suddenly don't count, like, to have Senator Kennedy say some bullshit, like, you know, I don't worry about who said what to who. What really? You don't worry about who said what to who? When the president stands in front of the American people and says, don't worry about this fucking virus. And then people,

I don't know, don't worry about this fucking virus. And as a result, the economy collapses and 190,000 people die. I mean, maybe we should be worried about who said what to who. This isn't like gossip on the fucking schoolyard. Like, oh, did you hear like Joe finger banged Mary on the fucking Ferris wheel? Like, okay, fine. Nobody gives a shit about that except for maybe Mary's parents. But like, this is a big fucking deal. What the fuck?

Can I ask you a question? Yeah. What do you think about Woodward holding onto this to sell a book instead of saying to the public, hey, here's some fucking shit that I have that I know for sure he said ahead of time, a long time

ago, seven months ago, and now I'm just... Yeah, it's repugnant. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I find that, I think it's morally repugnant. I think he had an obligation. I think he has a obligation that goes beyond himself when he has information that can materially affect 327 million people.

I think holding onto that information, I think Woodward holding onto that information for half a year until he was ready to put his book in a publication when he had direct evidence that was contradictory to our public health policy. Yeah. It's inexcusable.

Yeah. I think he had a personal moral obligation to share that earlier. I'm sorry Bob Woodward didn't get to sell his fucking book, but I also don't give a shit. I couldn't imagine. that earlier. Like, I'm sorry Bob Woodward didn't get to sell his fucking book, you know, but I also don't give a shit. Like, I couldn't imagine. Could you imagine doing that? No, I couldn't. I could not imagine being like, yeah.

There's no way to, I can't morally justify that. I can't look at that and say, you know, because 200,000 people's grandma died or whatever. You know, I know it's not all just grandmas, but you know what I mean, right? And I, you know, I'm not trying to say that they're all grandmas and that they're all old,

but I'm saying like somewhat important to somebody died 200,000 times. And that's exponential because it's not just 200,000 times. I'm sure, you know, you're important to, let's say 10 people in your life. So it's a lot more than 200,000, right? So a lot of people in this country

have been affected by this. People have been sick. People are sick now. They've been sick for months. There's people who will never be the same. There are people who were very, very sick and, you know, are going to have a long road of recovery ahead of them. There's, and, and all of this, I'm not saying that Bob Woodward's tapes could have prevented any of it. I don't know that, right? I don't know whether it could ever could, right? I don't know if that's true. But what I do know is, is that he should have fucking tried. He should have at least tried. I don't know if it's going to work. And I like, there's, there's nothing in the world that's going to make fucking Dave Dobbenmeier wear a mask, right? He's a fucking idiot. There's nothing you can do. And there's a whole slew of fucking idiots in this country. But maybe Bob Woodward's book,

what are words on tape with the president would have helped someone on the fence not sure about whether masks are good or bad. Yeah, well, I think it would have made a huge difference if this had happened in February. Because in February, people were still willing to be led in a different direction.

The problem is that we had a president who led them down this road and they got emotionally and personally invested in this road for three or four months. Now it's a sunk cost problem, right? So you have people

who have doubled down to all their liberal family members about how masks aren't necessary, right? And they did that for three or four months. If this had been nipped in the bud back in early fucking February, that's early in the pandemic. That's before everybody went in isolation. If tapes had come out in February, in early February, with Trump's own voice saying, hey, this is actually a big fucking deal. And then Trump was forced then to acknowledge those words. And then people were acting more rationally and more like, okay, you know what? I didn't want to cause a

panic, but it's out. And you know what? We should probably fucking wear some masks and social distance. If that had happened in February, man, the world didn't go on lockdown until end of April or end of March, rather. That's a long fucking time. I don't know that we would have the culture war around mask wearing and social distance if we hadn't doubled down on it for four or five months because it wasn't until like mid-summer that the president finally acknowledged that a mask was necessary.

When did the president finally acknowledge masks? Gosh, you know, he wouldn't even wear one at that plant he went to. He made everybody not, he did not want to be seen in one for a while. I think the first picture of him is probably sometime in July? July 21st. He finally says, he finally

says that a mask is basically something valuable. He endorses mask use for the first time. That's four and a half months. July. That's four and a half months after he had this conversation with Woodward. Yeah. Right? No, five and a half. Five and a. That's four and a half months. July. That's four and a half months after he had this conversation with Woodward. Yeah. Right? No, five and a half.

Five and a half months. Five and a half months. So half a year. Half a year. He waited half a year. Six months before he admitted. From the time he knew. Before he said, yeah.

So I don't think we would have the culture war. I can't imagine you not losing your job for something like this, right? I know he won't. And I know there's no way to actually make him lose his job. But I cannot imagine someone not losing their job for this. Like, you know, you don't get a fucking, you don't get to kill 200,000 people and then be like, yeah, it's an oopsie though. And I knew

about it, but I just didn't, you know, I didn't think it was that important. So sorry about your grandma. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I'm just saying like, we haven't talked about Benghazi in a while. That's true. Yeah. We should get Hillary in. Like how many, like, yeah, four people died then. So, I mean, that's one 50,000th.

This is the stuff that he said in this. And then he's also like, there's some tapes about him talking about Black Lives Matter, about how Bob Woodward saying that there's white privilege and Trump saying you drank the Kool-Aid. There's so much shit in these. It's awful. I don't know that I'll get this book because I kind of pissed that he didn't release these things ahead of time. But there's a lot of stuff in this, a lot of salacious shit that's come out very recently because of this.

Yeah, stuff that should be a scandal, but somehow like- It's not. We're just so exhausted. We're overloaded. We're just so exhausted we can't even scandal. We're overloaded, man. And we were exhausted. Cecil, we were talking about being exhausted before the pandemic by this shit.

Tom, we were talking about being exhausted by Trump's scandal before he even took office. There were so many things that were happening with him that were coming out. Before he even took office, we were just like, how could this not possibly take him down? And we figured it was the Mr. Burns thing where there's too many germs trying to get through the door. There's too many germs. There's too many scandals. He's got all the diseases at once. That's the only thing. And that balance is keeping him healthy. He's got every scandal that's ever been as his. You cannot imagine a single president in the history of the presidency having to contend with one of these scandals. And he's had at least a hundred of them.

At least a hundred. It is something. I do wonder, like, is this going to be a new political strategy? It's like, I'm just, I'm going to be so bad all the time that like, it just won't even be interesting anymore. You have to fix what's wrong. And what's wrong is, is that it was all just kind of this, the publicity will kill the guy.

We don't have to worry about it. And you have to fix what's wrong with the system. And what's wrong with the system is there's no teeth. There's no one there to say, no, that's fucked up and you can't do that. And you're gone. And the problem is, is if you tune that down too much, right? If you tune down the impeachment and the removal of office too much, then it's just whoever has a majority just decides, I don't want this guy as president anymore. Right? And so you can just be like, I don't want this guy. And so you've got to have a check and a balance there. And I get that. But at the same time, there's got to be something there that can slow this down. We're smart enough to figure this out. There's ways to

figure this out. There should be a no confidence vote by the people is what should happen is the moment something really bad happens. We don't turn to Congress to say whether or not, because those guys are all partisan and they're all stuck in their own thing. What we do is we turn to the American people like they do in every other country and say, well, okay, now guys, we're going to have a recall vote. Are we going to recall this guy or not? And then we just do a recall vote and we see what happens.

Because I guarantee what happens, the moment you call a recall vote with Trump, he's out of there. He's fucking out of there. Because it's not electoral college based. Right. Well, and his approval ratings have never been strong at all. He's had the most historically poor approval ratings throughout the entirety of his tenure of any president in history.

Yeah. I worry, too, that what this—I worry about what this presidency exposes, too. Because one thing it does expose is that there is a viable strategy, a legitimate, actual viable strategy. If the political climate is right, that like you can just be as terrible as you would like to be, as long as you appeal to the right base of voters, that there is an overload strategy, that it makes you bulletproof. There's a certain amount of just shit that you're coded in that eventually makes you bulletproof,

and we've realized that. The other thing that this exposes, and the thing that maybe makes me even more nervous, is this exposes the nearly limitless power we've granted to the executive branch, which is not at it's not at all what any of us thought happened. Like, I remember being like, ah, it's not so much the president that matters, it's Congress. And like, all of a sudden it's like, fuck, Congress can't do shit.

Yeah, they can't stop. Congress is not driving. Congress is not setting the tone. They're not setting the velocity and pace of what happens. They're not striking the, or they're not creating the template and the vision for like, what's going to happen next. They're not striking the, they're not creating the template and the vision for like what's going to happen next. They're the fucking lapdog. They're basically just like the gears that turn inside the machine.

The driver is the goddamn executive branch and he's going to drive wherever the fuck he wants to drive. And we've realized there is no governor on that. We all thought, we all grew up taking civics classes thinking there's a fucking governor on that. There's no governor on that. We all thought, we all grew up taking civics classes thinking there's a fucking governor on that. There's no governor on that shit. live streams? Why not? Well, you would have heard about my new Merch Emporium.

Dr. Gary's Merch Emporium. We just opened it up. Now, you may be wondering, where can I find this Merch Emporium? Is it under a bridge? Is it on the other side of a glory hole? Is it inside you? Deep inside? No! It's available at

dissonancepod.com slash shop. Now, we have all of our high-quality merchandise, but also you'll find a link to Dr. Gary's Merchantorium, which features fan-suggested, chat-supported, limited-run, exclusive designs inspired by our live streams. Right now, we have exciting mm-mm Antifa soup for you. Do you want a sweatshirt? A mug? A t-shirt? A gaming mousepad? Gamers?

Yeah, you do. So go over there and buy that shit. Now, did you hear Tom and Cecil say something funny or stupid or mildly amusing or you think it could fit on a shirt, well then let us know. And by us, I mean Ian, because he's going to fucking do all this shit, because I ain't

doing this shit. I'm making money and doing blow. Email Ian at Ian at DissonancePod.com for any merchandise suggestions. And his lazy bitch ass will get on it right away. Post taste. He's got a baby, apparently. So he's like, oh, I got responsibilities. Shut the fuck up, Ian.

And do this for the show. You don't love the show, Ian? Piece of shit. I'm the one that fucking hired you, goddamn mother. Oh. So go to dissonanceblog.com slash shop. And head on over to Dr. Gary's Merch Emporium. Pick up some cool threads and whatevs. Pleasebuy.com slash shop and head on over to Dr. Gary's Merch Emporium.

Pick up some cool threads and whatevs. Make sure to tell him Gary sent you and you'll pay full price. Because Daddy needs a boat. Why did you take it from us? You're clearly standing in front of us, Brick. God damn you! Brick! Brick is dead!

No, Brick's alive! Brick is dead! Look at him! He's not dead. He's not dead, Brick. You're not dead. You're Brick. So Cecil, I love this story. This is from CNN. I love this story. This is from CNN. I love this story because there's parts of it I just want to read. This guy is like, this guy kind of reminds me of my dad. This happened in London. 80-year-old who disappeared while out hiking turned up at his own missing person's appeal. That's awesome. It's like showing up to your own wedding or your own funeral.

It's amazing. It's outstanding. I thought about that too. Man, that's when you find out who loves you, right? You show up, but you're like, okay. I couldn't make it to your search party, Tom. Uncle Jim didn't make it out to the, sorry, where's Tom party. Sorry, I was sorry. I guess you don't really give a shit where Tom is. I was busy. Well, I'll tell you where Tom is. He's noticing you're not here, Uncle Jim. I just wanted to let you know, Tom, I didn't think they were going to find you and the NBA playoffs are on.

Oh, it's amazing. So this guy's 80 years old. He goes out hiking. He's reported missing on a Sunday after he became separated from his walking partner. And there's a picture of him and he looks like a fucking

hale and hearty 80-year-old, by the way. He looks how I want to look when I'm like alive. I know shit like alive. I mean, so I want to be alive. But I'm 80. I'm not going to say that now,

but I probably don't. If it's like this. Yeah. Cause well, no, it's not even going to be like this. Cause it's going to be mad max times. I'm going to be chained up to the back of the fucking,

the reactor or whatever, playing a guitar, shooting fucking flames out of it. That's what's going to happen. So for four days, like the fucking Royal Air Force, the police, mountain rescue workers, everybody's just like fucking looking for this guy, right? Got him all out there. It's good for him. Finally, like a wildlife photographer finds this guy out on the moors and they bring him to the pub where they were having the let's find Harvey get together. Right. So he just like walks in. He just walks into this place like, yeah. And he kind of looks around. He's like, well, if I knew you were going to do all this, he says, if I'd, if I'd known I wouldn't have come back, I could do without all of this talking about like the fuss and the gathering. And then like when he talks about it,

he says, I had three really good wild camping nights where I was on my own and I had all the kid I needed. The only thing I was getting a bit short of, well, I've got a hell of an appetite. When I get hungry, I've got to get something to eat or I just can't go on. So, and his daughter-in-law's like, yeah, he had a blast. We had a nightmare. They said they grounded him. They took away his like hiking boots. It was a great story. It is awesome. You know what I would do if I were president, Mr. President, I would make same sex divorce illegal. Then see how bad they want it. would make same-sex divorce illegal. Then see how bad they want it.

I think that's why you're not president. And that's a good thing. Oh, this is just a little bit of like comeuppance, like a little bit of a ha-ha. This is from pinknews.co.uk. Church leader who claims coronavirus is God's punishment for same-sex marriage tests positive for coronavirus. Also, he's 91 years old. Well, that's not

as good. And he's developed pneumonia. Also not as good, right? You definitely don't want to get the pneumonia when you have the rona. That's a bad call. That is not a good combination. So this guy came out earlier on me and said,

as the virus spread across Europe in March, Phil Orette told Ukrainian national TV network Channel 4 that the pandemic was, quote, God's punishment for the sins of men, the sinfulness of humanity. First of all, I mean, same sex marriage. We've talked about this before, but this is like a really clumsy punishment. This is like coming home and somebody like broke a fucking plate in your house. Just like, well, I'm just going to beat all the kids in the neighborhood. I'm just going to beat this.

I'm just going to take a switch and run randomly throughout the neighborhood, whipping the shit out of kids for breaking a plate in my house. It's like that one. What was that lady's name from? What the fuck was that lady's name from like Kentucky or whatever who wouldn't give out the marriage license? Do you remember this fucking lady? Oh, I do do I don't remember her name yeah she's fucking

lost to history because she was a fucking irrelevant speed bump that's why right nobody remembers him something nobody fucking remembers her name because nobody should remember her name right right but uh but what what does God do does he go see that person and say hey what I need to know exactly who got him who got married that happens to be gay so I could go smite them? And also, does that make God like a Grubhub delivery driver? He's just slowly going around looking at his smartphone. Is this the address I need to go in and give the COVID to? Is this the one? Is that the one?

There's a bunch of old guys living in communities that are kind of gay. They're priests. Maybe, you know what? Maybe we'll give it all to all of them too. How about that? Yeah. Yeah, I like that.

I like that that's who gets smitten too, is like the guys who are like, well, we don't want to just live in sin. We want to get married about this thing. Yeah, no kidding. We're like committed to each other. We don't want to fucking whore around all the time. You're not smiting grinder app holders.

You know what I mean? You're just, you're fucking, the guy who's like, yeah, I'd like to settle down and have a white picket fence with you. Yeah, that guy gets fucked. That guy's, yeah. Well, but not even him. It's just like, well, because of that guy, randomly I killed your grandpa. You're right, because it's not him.

It's not him because God has really bad aim. Instead, it's just random people all around the world because Bill married Joe. Yeah. God, I kind of hope this guy dies. And by kind of, I mean, I 100% hope he dies. He's 91. He didn't have long anyway.

He's 91. He's got pneumonia and he's got the rona. He was already at the finish line, Tom. He's out. I'll see Willie walk in hell, your honor. Noted. Murdering children was fun while it lasted, but I can live with this too.

Finger in your snarsberry, sir. Okay, so this story is just like some real life Willy Wonka shit. This is super weird. This is from Fox8.com. Jelly Belly founder hosting online treasure hunt winner gets a candy factory yeah and then if you guys get a chance you've got to navigate to the page and click on this link because there's like discount budget robin williams drowning in a sea

of jelly beans with like a weird creepy grin yeah Doesn't it look like like Mork from Mork and Mindy right there? He genuinely looks like he looks like like you say budget Robin Williams is a perfect way to describe him. Yeah. So the Jelly Belly guy is having an online treasure hunt and if you search for it, you literally get golden tickets

and one treasure hunt will be eligible to search for the ultimate treasure, the key to one of his candy factories and an all expenses trip and education to a candy making university. I knew that there was clown college. I did not know you could major in candy. Yeah. Now, this sounds like kids that live in my house are motherfucking Rhodes scholars in candy. Let me tell you something.

They are going to get a fucking scholarship at fucking Jelly Belly University or whatever. Can I just say, this is a lame rich guy fantasy. If you're fucking really rich, right? Why would you go out of your way to be like, you know what I'm going to do is I'm going to recreate Willy Wonka.

Why don't you instead, you know, tell your boss he has minutes to live while you paid a hitman to kill him? That's a great fantasy, right? That's an amazing fantasy where you could look your boss in the eye and be like, you know what? You have minutes to live. Actually, let me hold on a second. Let me make a quick call and I'll turn it into seconds.

How about, you know, like let's turn it around. Let's say you get to recreate your porno. Whatever porno you want, you get to recreate. You have enough money to do that. With you as the star, you get to be the star. What about even just, if you're talking about altruism, all you're normally going to do is I'm going to give a homeless guy, the homeless

guy asks for a dollar and I give him a whole house or something. There's some amazing, crazy, fucking I have a billion dollar schemes that would be working as a podcaster for a living. That would be amazing.

Right? Instead, this guy's like, I'm going to recreate Willy Wonka. You're fucking lame, dude. Fuck you. That's lame as shit.

Also, dude, have you seen Willy Wonka? It does not turn out well. It's creepy and weird. And it's creepy. It's not. Yeah.

This is like a weird dystopian movie. Like it's not an okay thing to do. You want to watch when you're on acid. That is not a movie. Which one? Do you like the Willy Wonka movies? Have you seen both of them? Actually, I'll be real honest.

And I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for this. I like the newer one better than like the older one. I was going to ask you which one you prefer. I like the newer one with Depp. I think Depp is a better Willy Wonka. And I know I'm going to get a lot of hate for that. A lot of people are going to be like, Oh my God.

I'm a guy that's like, I grew up with Gene Wilder and he's the only Willy Wonka. I was going to call him Gene Hackman, but it's a different guy. Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman is Willy Wonka. It would be amazing. He just scowled all the kids.

I want Robert De Niro as Willy Wonka. That's what I want. That would be outstanding. Oh, who would be the best recast of Willy Wonka? Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro would Willy Wonka. That's what I want. That would be outstanding. Oh, who would be the best recast of Willy Wonka? Robert De Niro. Robert De Niro would be a good one. Vin Diesel would be a good one, I think. Vin Diesel.

Terry Crews would be a good Willy Wonka, I think. Yeah. There'd be some good stuff you could do. Scarlett Johansson as Willy Wonka. Yeah, that'd be a good one. Yeah, no. I like Scarlett Johansson as Willy Wonka. Yeah, that'd be a good one. Wait, what? Yeah, no. I like Scarlett Johansson as a...

Meryl Streep would make a great Willy Wonka. Meryl Streep as Willy Wonka. No. She would do a good job as Willy Wonka, actually.

She crushes everything. No, but... Oh, Daniel Day-Lewis as Willy Wonka. He would live the part. He would live. He would live as this guy. That's the perfect...

Oh, Daniel Day-Lewis, you fucking nailed it. Absolutely. He would be, it would be the most serious fucking dark version ever. And he could recreate the milkshake scene. The first 30 minutes of it would be silent with just music. He's trying to drill into the ground to find jelly beans. No, but yeah, like fucking, I actually really like Johnny Depp. I thought Depp did a great job as a, as a, as Willy Wonka.

He was, I thought he was excellent. I thought he was excellent. And I thought that the, you know, the graphics were better and it was just a better, I thought it was a better movie. He was, he wasn't as creepy. I think that that's the thing is that he wasn't as creepy. He was a, he wasn't as creepy. I think that that's the thing is that he wasn't as creepy. He was a little more comedy. And so I liked it as a, I thought it was a better comedy than it was sort of a dystopian, weird creep fest. Well, they play it different, right? Like the,

the, the, um, the original version, like you don't trust, you don't trust the wonkas for different reasons. Right. In the first one, you're like, I don't think this guy likes kids at all. In the other one, he's more of like a Michael Jackson-esque character where he's like, he's so into it. Right. Yeah, he's just so into it. You're like, why are you so into this? You're into this in

really unsettling ways. You don't see around you very well, do you? I guess you're right. He reminded me of my childhood priest. So I guess that's true. He was really into kids, that guy. Yeah. The crack cocaine spider figured building webs was for suckas.

Waited till the caffeine spider was exhausted, then came up behind it and popped a cap in its ass. Nice web, Mr. Crack Spider. All right, this is a story about a man who should have gotten a spider. Man blows... Yep, yep. Man blows up kitchen while trying to swat fly. This is you, by the way.

This is 100% you. This is 100%. You're like, hey, Tom, is there any way you can press that button for the elevator? And Tom will break the way. This is 100% you. This is 100%. You're like, hey Tom, is there any way you can press that button for the elevator? And Tom will break the elevator. He'll just break the whole elevator. That's you. This is you. You would break your whole house hitting one thing just to get rid

of one thing. You would literally light it on fire. You're the guy who lights your house on fire. And it's on accident. But you meant to light something on fire. No, I mean you definitely meant to light something on fire. No, I mean, you definitely meant to light something on fire. You just didn't expect it to, you know, It just got a little out of hand. You didn't expect it to be a gender reveal party

is what you're saying. So this is like, this is one of those like perfect storm events where there's an octogenarian who's trying to kill a housefly and he's got one of the electric fly swatter rackets. Bug zapper ones. Yeah, but I guess they spark if you hit the fly or if it hits something with the electric racket.

And he didn't realize that there was a leaking gas canister in his house. I got to say, that gas canister must have been leaking a lot for his fucking house to explode when the fucking thing goes off. But he hits the fly. No, actually it doesn't say if he hit the fly or not.

No, because it says it's not clear what happened to the fly that caused the whole mess. I guess they were looking for it for comment or something, but they couldn't find it. They couldn't find the fly.

I hope this would be me, Cecil, except for that fucking fly would have gotten away. You know, like the house would explode. It would have landed on you afterwards. It would have came up and landed on you, and then it would have flown away. Like rubbed its fucking little fly hands right at the edge of my fucking glasses and like buzzed

off. You fucker. Yeah, I'll tell you, one time I was, I will say this. I was in Canada. This was years and years and years ago. So I was a young boy. A maybe eighth grade, ninth grade, something like that.

So still very young. Maybe I was a little older than that. Maybe I was in high school at the time. And my brothers and I decided to go to the Boundary Waters in Minnesota. And we decided to canoe the Boundary Waters. So you basically get a ferry out there on a speedboat.

Once you're out there on the speedboat, they let you out right at the border of Canada. You have to check in at like a weird station that you have to canoe to. It's like a weird immigration station that you canoe to. And then you get in your canoe and then you're essentially in a place where there's no motorboats allowed.

They don't allow them. And so you have to paddle wherever you go. And we had brought some fishing poles and a bunch of camping equipment. They had outfitted us, like an outfitter had outfitted us. So we had like freeze-dried meals and whatnot. And we had brought some fishing poles and a bunch of camping equipment. They had outfitted us, like an outfitter had outfitted us. So we had like freeze-dried meals and whatnot. And we had these steaks that they give you for the first night.

So they give you steaks your first night, or T-bone steaks that you're going to cook on the grill. And so we go up there and we have a really beautiful first night. We actually don't get terribly far in, but we camp and we set up the tents and we set up this, on this island, this really nice island, I guess, we set up this tent and we cooked the steaks. And the next day, we wake up and we had left. So the steaks, the previous day when we cooked them, we had left the, I guess we either didn't burn

or there was still sort of bloody paper or blood on the rocks from the steaks. And there was a swarm of deer flies there that were the meanest and they hurt, right? They fucking hurt. They bite you and they're just like, ah, I got you, bitch.

And you're just like, oh, mother fuck. And so the whole time, we're all trying to get dressed because we just got out of our tents, right? We're all trying to get dressed dodging these flies. And one of my brothers takes his belt off

at one point and he's spinning the fucking belt around trying to hit these things and he winds up clocking himself in the head with it. It was amazing. He's like, oh, he's so mad because they keep biting him and he winds up clocking himself in the head with it. It was amazing. He's like, oh,

I'm so mad because they keep biting him and he's like, I don't want to hit you fuckers and they fucking smacked himself in the face with a buckle. Oh,

this is exactly what happened here. This guy basically just smacked himself in the face with a buckle of a belt. Take that, you.

Dude, I have been up, I've been up to the Boundary Waters. I did the same trip when I was in eighth grade, but just with my dad and my brother and his friend. And I remember those flies

are a horror. They're brutal. They are a horror. And I went up to Canada, I don't know, eight or nine years back with my dad. We went on a fishing trip.

We're driving up through Ontario to the middle of nowhere to get to this like place that we were staying. And at one point we're driving, we're the only people on the road. There's only one road. There's no turnoffs. It's just, it's crazy wilderness. And like, we both had to stop and take a piss. And so we pull the car, we see like a little like logging thing, like, like there's a highway and there's like a little logging road that like is stretching into the forest. forest so my dad takes the car and he pulls off the highway cecil and he

pulls onto this little like dirt road that there's like the law and the deer fly descend upon the car like a fucking buzzing black blanket of evil like amityville horror shit around this guy my dad had turned the wipers on and i looked at my dad and i did look at i was like i don't have to pee anymore it turns out i'm good like i'm not gonna piss this whole trip if there's fucking deer fly out there like this like i'll just i'm keeping my dick in my pants for seven days that's it walking through that forest no no i would not do it i would just kill myself that's if. If it was like Lewis and Clark and Tom, I would kill myself three hours into day one.

Like Lewis and Clark would be out. They'd be like, ain't this a grand adventure? And I'd be like, ba-boom. I'd have a musket in my mouth. I feel the exact same way. I'd be like, no, no, you chose the wrong guy. So long. Check it out, ba-boom.

Fuck that. Nope. Check it out, ba-boom. Fuck that. Nope. For me, it was like a return to the room. I was absorbed by Mother Enchant in all her wondrous glory. What is he gibbering about? I don't know.

It's French. It's crap. The sea is a zamboni of color. And yet, there is danger of everything. She is a fierce and big old master. Hey, shut your fry hole. Oh, poop. It's a story I grabbed because the title of it is just amazing.

The title is so good. This is from WNYT. Yeah, this is great. WNYT.com. Albany man rescued from Lake George by priests on a floating tiki bar. So this guy goes out. This guy goes out in his kayak. And he gets separated from his family.

And he's taking pictures with his phone. And I love some of the details in this story. The details are amazing. He's taking pictures with his phone. They're amazing. And then he's like, oh, shit. I'm kind of just out in the middle of nowhere. He's in about 30 feet of water.

The kayak, the water gets choppier. He tips over. He loses his paddle. His fucking life jacket isn't fitted properly. So his life jacket comes up over his head. So like picture exactly what this looks like. I need you guys to form this metal picture. So this guy is holding in one hand his brand new $1,400 smartphone, right?

In his other hand, he's still gripping the kayak that he just fucking bounced out of. The fucking life jacket is up over his head. So he's just doing one of those things. He's just like, oh, fuck. He's just stuck. He's stuck with his arms over his head unable to move. He's like a little kid from Christmas story. He's like

just laying there. Give me up. Oh, Ralphie. Ralphie. He's just in the water just floating, screaming Ralphie. That's essentially what's happening. So for like several exhausting minutes. That's a boomer joke for all you young kids out there

who've never seen a Christmas story and think I'm a boomer because I like it. That's fine. I don't mind. I don't mind. I'm not a boomer,

but I'll take it because I like that movie and I'll also explain it as a boomer joke because I'm fine with that too. So for several minutes, he's like struggling with his stupid life jacket

that he's wearing wrong. He's still holding onto the kayak. He's still holding onto his fucking cell phone. He won't let go of that cell phone. He won't let go of the cell phone or get in the water. Look, if you have a $1,400 cell phone, it could probably go in the water. Like they're all fucking waterproof by now.

Put it in your pocket and gain access to your other hand, stupid. And then he thinks like, well, all right. I think I might die today. This might be it. But I'm not going to let go of my cell phone. Look, man, $1,400 doesn't grow on trees, motherfucker. I'm not letting go of my cell phone.

Going back to the story I already told about that trip to Canada. My brother at one point falls out of the boat. We are in these huge waves because it turns out there's one big bay up there that just shits waves. And they're just coming over. They're like three or four feet. And when you're in a little canoe and you're not really sure how to use it, that thing can get filled up like a Trump boat, like really fast, it turns out. And so my brother's canoe gets filled and their boat goes down

and they're not wearing life preservers like assholes, right? Because they're fucking young kids and stupid. And my brother, instead of like swimming or maybe to hold it onto the canoe or grabbing one of the pedals because they float or maybe reaching out and grabbing this life preserver, he put his hand on his head to hold his hat as it went into the water.

So Lou never lost his hat. That's one thing that happened. Lou definitely didn never lost his hat that's one thing that happened Lou definitely didn't lose his hat oh that's so good yeah no it's really great it turned out really smart

but he did survive Lou's still alive but but the hat certainly wasn't a factor in him staying alive that's definitely true

anyway so yeah no this is this is this guy this guy's out in the middle of water and he's basically holding his hat on his head as he goes underneath the water. He is residing

himself to the fact that he is going to die of stupidity next to a kayak with his cell phone above his head. He's calling for help the whole time, right? Who should happen by but a floating tiki bar all of the... This guy is praying for help, by the, but a floating tiki bar, all of the, and this guy is praying

for help by the way. And the floating tiki bar, all of its customers that day were priests. So there is a floating tiki bar full of priests, which comes to help this fucking rescued guy. Well, they pull them aboard. They all look at him like, oh, he's too big. Throw him back. We need a smaller one. We're hoping for a little classic.

Yeah. This is really the classic good seminarian story, you know? And that's when Tobias got some more bad news. Hello, Amos Tart. And she never even saw the license plate. This story comes from WDRB.com. Kentucky driver pulled over after officer spots hand-drawn license plate. See, sir, I will say this, Tom.

He did a good job, though. If you look at this, first off, if you look at this, they did a good job of shading it, so if you're far enough away, it might look okay. And they didn't spell anything wrong or make any of the letters backwards. And thought for sure in kentucky you were gonna have either one of those things yeah i this this is actually the best spelled version of kentucky in kentucky it contains all the appropriate letters in the right order that's never happened i don't even think like in their fucking state constitution they spelled it right this is. Does he have a trademark on there too? He does.

He brought a trademark, Cecil, next to the word Kentucky. I don't know if Kentucky is trademarked. That seems like a weird thing to do, to trademark. And then he's got a squiggle. And I don't know what a Kentucky license plate looks like. Let's look up a Kentucky license plate Cecil and see how good he did. Let's grade it one to 10

once we see what one actually looks like. Not bad. Not bad at all, actually. Okay. He did a good job. He did a really good job. He did a really good job. I think you should only give him half a ticket, right?

You should be, it's like when your teacher gave you a pity C you should be you should it's like it's like when your teacher gave you a pity c because they knew you tried really really hard on the project right and you come in with your your volcano uh that shits out fucking baking soda and vinegar and it's falling apart it's not very good and you're a stupid kid because that's the science project you decided to pick so you're just just... For science, I made volcano. Okay. All right.

That's not even science. How would that be science, Jimmy? Did you... My brother made one of those when I was a kid. Did he really? He made a volcano. It was made out of clay. He made it out of clay

and then he stuck the two things in there and they exploded. Did you do science fair as a kid? I don't remember. I remember doing one, but I don't remember what I did it on. It was years and years and years ago. So I don't remember what I did it on. It was years and years and years ago. So I don't remember what I did it on.

I did science fair in seventh and eighth grade. In seventh grade, I wanted to do a bridge project. So I wanted to build a bunch of different bridge designs and see which ones could hold the most weight. And so like my dad was, my dad was like all into this with me. Right. So like my dad's got a wood shop in the basement at the time and the house that we lived in.

We went out to the store and we bought all this wood. But we bought the wood at different times, different boards and everything. And we built these two-foot-long wooden bridges, like a straight plank bridge and then different truss styles and all this stuff. And I had to research how bridges were made and all this fucking science-y shit about engineering that I didn't know about. And so I'm writing this thing and it's all boring,

but I'm like excited for the part where we're going to break these bridges, right? It's going to be awesome. So we go down in the basement and we suspend these bridges over like chairs or whatever it was. We started hanging bricks on the bridges or from the bridges rather. And the first bridge that we test is just the straight wood plank bridge, right? Cecil damned if that thing didn't hold more weight than every other fucking bridge. Every other bridge we built fucking cracked as soon as you fucking looked at it.

Like a fucking mouse would scurry over the other. Well, it turns out we used like young, fresh wood for the simple plank bridge. So it just would just bend. It wasn't breaking. So the wood was just bending and bending and bending because it was young and fresh and it was just like it's fine and all the rest of them the boards are like older and like kiln dry there's like snap as soon as you put weight on it so i turn to my dad my dad kind of looks he's like well we have we're gonna have to fudge this lie have to lie. We just made up all the numbers. And then I went, so the better part, Cecil, I won.

So I won the seventh grade science. You're such a liar. You're a liar. That's why I'm telling you so I know it'll get you going. You need to call the science board and confess your crimes. How dare you? It gets funnier because then I moved on to the next one. You should work for the CDCdc if you're just gonna

fudge numbers tom well then i moved on to like the regional science fair whatever lying and then i did fine there too and then i moved on to like the the the like the they like they narrow it down and finally they narrow it down and some some kids are coming by and they're like looking at my pictures and one of the like down and some, some kids are coming by and they're like looking at my pictures. And one of the like, not kids, but like college kids that were like judging this with us at the school that it was at.

And he looks at it, he looks at the picture and he says, wait a minute. He said, in their first picture, there's more bricks than in your, in your last picture. The first picture is that the wooden plank.

And I was just like, uh, uh, uh, uh, and he's like, okay, I think I know what's going on here.

I did not advance from there. He got caught. I thought I got an A. He got caught. And he deserved it. He deserved it. Oh, my, the very next year I had to do a,

I decided to do like the effects of like plant-based water pollution on plants, petroleum-based water pollution on plants, petroleum-based water pollution on plants. And I thought like if I watered plants with things like varnish and stain and like motor oil, that it would like kill them, right? And I'd be able to write like, yeah, pollution's bad, whatever, fucking eighth grade. Well, it turns out that like petroleum is a key element in fertilizer. And if you just use a little bit, plants do pretty fucking good. Well, that's contrary

to what I wanted to have happen because I had a whole fucking thing I'd already written up. I already wrote up my whole science experiment before I did the experiment. And I was like, oh. And so my dad's like,

well, we'll just put them in the oven. And so all the ones we wanted to die. Damn it. Such a shitty enabler. How dare he? How dare he? How dare he? We just put him in the oven. Unbelievable.

Outrageous, sir. This is outrageous. I cannot believe this happened. Outrageous. So we want to thank our patrons. Of course, we want to thank all our patrons. We want to thank our newest patrons, Gregory, Joshua, Akasha, Alexi, and Lee.

And I want to say this one. I hate, and it says redacted here, but someone created a patron name called, I hate Ian's baby. And that's the meanest thing I've ever heard. It's so mean. So mean. You've got to change that to,

I hate Eli Bosnick. Please change your name to something respectable like that. Also, people up their pledges. Adam, we want to thank you all for generously donating to our show. We really do truly appreciate it. Ian's baby, whether you hate it or not, appreciates it well. And I will say this. I just today sent Ian his payroll check from the show. So that money is going to go to fund gross baby stuff. If you don't, it will. Babies are expensive. You have no idea, Ian. And they're disgusting. They're going to ruin everything you own.

The things you love most, just throw them away before. As soon as your wife gets pregnant, just find the thing you love the most in the world and throw it right in the garbage. Your $30,000 microphone or whatever, just put a fucking pacifier on it right now and put it in the crib.

That's what you need to do. But if you don't hate Ian's baby, and I understand that, you should donate to the show. I guess that's what I'm saying. Yeah.'t hate Ian's baby, and I understand that, you should donate to the show. I guess that's what I'm saying. Yeah. Make sure Ian's baby can... Maybe Ian should donate to the show. Yeah, Ian.

Ian, donate. What if Ian's a patron? Is Ian a patron? If you're a patron, Ian, up your patronage. For your own baby. For your own baby. It's a weird way to do that.

We got a bunch of email this week. We got, the first email I want to talk about is from Seth and Seth sent in a link and the link is to a Ted Cruz tweet where Ted Cruz is upset.

This is, this is a space person, Ted Cruz, who, who essentially is super mad that they were going to be doing a live read, the original cast, a live read of The Princess Bride.

They call it A Princess Bride, a virtual reunion. And they were going to be donating money to the Wisconsin Democratic Party. And so Ted Cruz, very upset that they were doing that. Ted Cruz basically fucking saying, hey, you shouldn't do this.

And everybody was like, hey, I'll make this as a cue to donate to the Democratic Party. And so they did. And it's amazing. There's so many tweets that are like, thanks, Ted. Thanks for pointing this out.

I would have never known about it if it wasn't for you. For you. I love when these guys get butthurt about some of this shit and they're like, and then everybody's like oh thanks.

Thanks for creating your own demise idiot. It's fucking outstanding. So we got a message this is from Peter and Peter says hey you killed a huntsman as an Australian

I can conclusively state you do not kill huntsmen because huntsmen hunt other spiders. What the fuck is he supposed to do? Let it move in? Like what are you gonna do? You gonna go out to the is he supposed to do? Let it move in? Like, what are you going to do?

You're going to go out to the truck and pick its boxes up and bring them in? Do you put them on the lease? What are you talking about? It's a spider. That's the size of your face. Yeah, maybe you should reevaluate where you live when you're like,

I can't kill that enormous spider because that enormous spider kills the smaller, more poisonous spiders. This is not, that's not a solution. The solution is no spiders in the house. That's the fucking solution. The solution is not, you guys have, in Australia, you guys sing the song wrong. Like you fucking swallow the spider to catch the spider, to catch the spider, to swallow the spider, to catch the spider. That's not how that song works. Eventually you have to have other things. And to be honest, that old lady that swallowed the fly should have been euthanized anyway.

We should have taken her out. Not, you know, people on the message boards here on the Facebook page or somewhere I saw, they were, they were talking about like, oh yeah, they're like relaying these like funny stories of like that time one of them like crawled across their neck while they were sitting in their living room or like one of them like fell on their head and scurried through their hair and they're just like oh that's silly enormous huntsman spider i would kill myself in the face i would stab myself in the face with a butcher's knife before i would let my home be overrun by six inch spiders amazing the fuck is wrong with you?

So Tom, do you want to just read Seth's message? Seth sent us some long message about Kyle in Kenosha and we want to read part of it just to talk a little bit about what he had to say. This is not to be a nag, but I wanted to point out something about this in last week's episodes. Last week, you guys talked about Kyle

apparently having not looked into it too much. To be expected. I know it's a comedy show, not news. I was a bit disappointed this week when you revisited it, though. You seemed to go out of your way to not entertain the thought that Kyle might not be the only person to blame for the whole debacle. As far as I could tell, the argument was, quote, holding the big scary gun is a threat and you deserve to be attacked for it. I understand the sentiment that the gun is big and scary, but my first and only reaction would be, fuck that guy. I'm not going near him.

And I am most certainly not going to attack him from the front without a gun in my hand. In the hopes of not making this too drawn out and ridiculous, I'd like to ask you to think of the situation the following two ways. Please humor me. One, replace the Second Amendment in this story with the first. That terrifies me. And second, your argument seems to suggest that Kyle would have been fine if he had a pistol instead of the rifle. Finally, let me save you with this and I'll shut up. I don't know what it looked like to you, but I saw a very restrained use of force from Kyle while on his back and being attacked, firing three shots out of his 30 round magazine and hitting only the people he intended. We don't expect that from

the cops anymore. All right. So I got a few things I want to talk about in this. Cecil, do you want to go first? Yeah, sure. I just wanted to say in specific, when you're talking about the gun, right? When somebody comes to a protest with a gun and you're saying, well, if I saw that gun, I would walk away. I don't know what transpired, right? And a lot of people, there's been a lot of talk about what transpired back and forth, but he shot a guy and also his trigger discipline wasn't super great because he shot that guy and shot into the crowd, Shot a guy, and also his trigger discipline wasn't super great because he shot that guy and shot into the crowd, shot a bunch of shots off, and then ran away, right? So he shot a dude dead first, then he ran away.

And so the fact is, is that maybe that first guy, right? Maybe what you're talking about is that first guy should have never dove at the gun or never tried to grab the gun from him. But I got to be honest, I don't know what I'd do in a situation like that. If somebody came up, let's say I was at the protest with my wife or with a friend and that guy pointed the

gun at my wife or a friend, it might actually piss me off. Especially if I think the person is there specifically trying to intimidate me and not somebody who I think is a threat, right? The kids, he's a little guy. So he comes walking up, maybe he's fucking saying a bunch of shit. And when he's, he's telling people to get back or trying to act like an authority that he has no authority in, and it pisses you off because he's trying to intimidate you. And so maybe you look at him and you think,

well, I don't fucking, I don't think you're going to shoot me. I think you're a little asshole. And so maybe you lunge at him and then the guy does shoot you. But the fact that he had the gun there and he's fucking actively trying to intimidate people makes him the aggressor.

When you say it's the other guy's fault that he got fucking shot, you're blaming the victim here. The victim, and also the other two people, 100% are victims because they're trying to chase a guy down who they just saw murder somebody. So they just saw a dude murder somebody

and they run after him. Those guys, they're not people who you look at and say, oh, well, yeah, that guy, yeah, he fucking deserved it. Those two, that was two 100% victims. Maybe you might think that the other guy probably shouldn't have lunged at Kyle when he had the gun. I don't know what happened, but I will say this, that gun is the reason all of this happened 100%. Yeah. The gun is the fucking problem. First and foremost, I don't care what kind of gun you have. Like the gun is the problem in this scenario. It turns a non-lethal encounter into a lethal encounter.

If the guy lunged at Kyle and Kyle wasn't armed, there's no news story here. Nothing happened. Two people scuffled at a protest. Story at yawn. It's nothing. It's a non-issue. The point of bringing a giant fucking gun or any gun any visible gun the visibility of that gun is the point of it though you bring a gun like that to

something like this not because you're trying to protect yourself you can protect yourself a myriad of different ways most of the time you don't need to protect yourself we don't i've lived 42 years of my life i've never needed a gun to be safe a gun has never made me more safe ever not fucking once that kid was not in any danger the danger was created by the gun itself the gun was the fucking problem there's no disputing that like if somebody had life he had been there and somebody had lunged at me got into a fistfight maybe he loses a fistfight big deal now he's in jail for murdering three people. Like, I don't understand how any of this is complicated or difficult to understand.

You show up to a fucking protest like that carrying a fucking assault rifle because you know that the visibility of that enormous weapon is in and of itself intimidating. That's the reason you do it. That's the only reason that you do it. I don't want to address your other points, and I'll address them and try to do that honestly. Replace the Second Amendment in this story with the First. That terrifies me. I don't know what that means. I genuinely don't know what that means.

If the idea, though, is that would I... Am I worried about losing the First Amendment? I am worried about losing the First Amendment. I am worried about losing the First Amendment. I think the First Amendment is and has been throughout the course of this year subject to attack. And I think the First Amendment is an amendment that we need in order to be a free and democratic people. The Second Amendment is an unnecessary thing.

We don't need it. It's not valuable. There are many other societies which do not have a Second Amendment, which are free and democratic. Australia is a free and democratic nation that does not have a Second Amendment, right? And it has nothing that is even close to a Second Amendment. Most of Western Europe, Japan, these are free and democratic societies. They are safe societies.

They do not have a Second Amendment. The Second Amendment doesn't make us safer. It makes us less safe. Having a gun culture makes us less safe. We are inherently less safe from each other. We are less safe from the people in our homes. We are less safe from domestic abuse. We are less safe from suicide. We are less safe from the police. Guns make us less safe. are, you have a steep road to convince me otherwise. Guns make us less safe. They do not make us in any way more free.

And if he had had a pistol, if he had a pistol, it still would have been a problem if he's brandishing it. The point, the problem is the brandishment of the weapon. It's the point of the gun. Again, the point of the gun in this case is its intimidation factor. So had he had a pistol and he was walking around with it in his fucking hand, scaring people with it, and it's scary. If you've ever had a gun pointed at you, it's a scary fucking thing.

Have a gun pointed at you one time. It's fucking terrifying to know that somebody could sneeze and end your life. That's scary. Yeah. And as you said earlier, a rifle is literally a brandished weapon because you cannot conceal it. It's just 100% brandished all the time. Whether it's on your back, on your shoulder, in your hands,

poor trigger discipline, good trigger discipline, it's an intimidation factor. You're carrying that giant weapon around specifically to show people I could kill you with a calorie of energy. The end of the story. That's it. That's why you're doing it. I don't want to sound like we're yelling at you, but this stuff gets my blood up and I don't want to sound like I'm mad at you. I'm not. Look, here's the thing. I don't disagree

in having a conversation with somebody about this. I think a conversation like this is a great thing to have. And I want to make sure that people understand where I'm coming from on this. I do not feel like at any point that this guy, that the people who got shot by Kyle should have been shot by Kyle. And I think 100% it's his fault for bringing the rifle there

to start the whole thing. Tom, Ian sends a different message. This is different, Ian. Ian sends in a message and says, I was thinking about the people, sort of the comorbidity argument with COVID. He said, it's a little like trying to argue that the London Blitz didn't really cause the death

of 43,000 people, as some of them were pretty old and frail anyway. It was just the explosions, firestorms and collapsing buildings that finished them off. That's amazing. Super funny. We got another message

and we got one last week from someone who joined the podcast. This one's from Alexi. And we mentioned last week that. We got another message and we got one last week from someone who joined the podcast. This one's from Alexi and we mentioned last week that we also got another one. A couple of people specifically said they found our podcast through Citation Needed

and then they started listening to the other podcasts associated. So they started listening to our show Cog Dis and then the other shows that the Scathing Crew puts on. So I think that's great that people found, specifically found Citation Needed and then thought, hey, this might be fun to listen to their other stuff. That's really neat.

I really think that's great and surprising. Got a message from Still Thirsty for Uncle Doug's voice. And it's a better pun than I came up with last time when I called Attorney General Barr a dime store attorney. They said, Attorney Dollar General. And I think that is so good and so perfect. So thank you for setting that in. That's amazing. So that is going to wrap it up for this week.

We hope maybe soon, I know for sure in a couple of weeks, we'll have a guest. Maybe we'll have a guest on next week. Who knows? But we hope to have some guests on soon and we hope you check out our live streams. Live streams are available at 9 p.m. Central time on Thursday

nights. You can check them out. We have a lot of fun with them. I also want to mention too that my cooking channel launched season liberally. So you can check out the show notes this week and the show notes this week. And the show notes will have a link to my YouTube channel, so I hope that you'll go there, watch my videos, subscribe.

It's a new side project for me that I'm putting together, and I would really appreciate it if people went and checked out the material and gave me your thoughts. You can leave comments on the videos. I'm going to try to respond to them. So if you have time, check out the show notes. This is episode 541,

and you can find a link to my YouTube show, Season Liberally, or you could just search on YouTube for Season Liberally. 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. Doubleak 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 current, 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.

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