Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 542: Knowledge Fight with Dan & Jordan

Episode Date: September 21, 2020

Thank you to Dan & Jordan from Knowledge Fight LISTEN TO THEM SUPPORT THEM ANNOY THEM ON TWITTER Jordan's Book

This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. 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 glory hole studios here this is cognitive dissonance every episode we blast Storyhole Studios here. This is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence. 20 topics 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 543. 42? He doesn't know. I got a check. Damn it. 42. 500. I haven't done that in a long time. 542. For some reason, Cecil, I almost said 432. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me today. You know what's wrong with me today? I'm fucking discombobulated by the fucking sheer unlikelihood of having our esteemed guests on

today i we are joined by dan and jordan from knowledge fight guys hey hey i'm jordan uh so good to be on cognitive discombobulation yeah yeah yeah i enjoyed it that should have been our that should have been our title that would have been great. Can you imagine people just go ahead and type discombobulation in your browser? We're already asking them to write cognitive dissonance somewhere. I always think there's an A in cognitive, which is probably... Cognitive. We're from Chicago. Yeah.

It's cognitive dissonance. God damn it. I love it. I love it. Oh, God. Welcome, gentlemen.. I love it. Oh, God. Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you. Sorry about our tech issues. It's a treat to see you guys

while you can't see us. That's how we like it. So it's fine. You can't just see me vaping like a man who's completely lost his will to live. This is a lot like a glory hole. Like we get to see what's going on on one side through the peephole. You guys don't know what's happening. It's perfect.

Yeah, we do. There's a dick in our face. That's what's doable. Guys, we want to start out the show because we've talked a lot about Alex Jones with you guys because you guys are the Alex Jones experts on the internet and everybody goes to you to hear about Alex Jones stuff. But we wanted to talk to you. Such a weird thing to choose

to be experts about, by the way. I just want to throw it in. It's a little weird and obsessive, but it's cool. It's you guys. It's your thing. It's your jam. But what we wanted to do is we wanted to sort of broadly talk about politics with you guys because we've never actually broached the subject and we have

a feeling, we're not sure, we're hoping that we are on the same political spectrum I don't know I can't see you guys if you're wearing MAGA hats or not but I don't think so I don't know how do you feel about eco-fascism my friend are you guys on board with that

I want to save the environment but also exclude minorities I'm in favor of Trump boats sinking. I don't know about you guys, but I think that's pretty cool. But here's the thing. We want to just sort of talk a little bit in general about politics. We've never really done it with you guys. I want to start

by talking to you guys about the Democratic primary that happened in the last year and who has emerged. What were your thoughts? Was that this year? Was it this year? The primaries were in 2020?

It was last year. Because, you know, like the voting happened early this year, but most of it was done... Oh my God. Yeah, it was... Time. It's just the before time now.

That's all I call it. I call it the before time. Hey, great question you've really made us all introspective and depressed i'm just tell me about your past i don't remember it i i seriously like that that was a year ago yeah that is i. That's less than 12 months ago. I remember a year ago, you and I did a live stream, Tom, where we ranked all 37 of the Democratic nominees.

Holy shit. Yeah. Oh, my God. They're such a simple time. Yeah. Yeah. There was a whole clown car full of them. And the next week, Tom,

we raided cookies. I don't know if you remember that, but we did it. We did. Yeah. Yeah. That was... Yeah, back when you could fucking eat a meal with somebody. Which was more contentious

of a debate, the cookies or the Democratic candidates? Tom and I agree on a lot of things. It's definitely the cookies. He and I disagree more on food than we on anything else. We do. So let's talk though.

You know, we go back to the clown car that had like Marianne Williamson in it and Swalwell and all those other people. I don't know if you guys are super familiar with who was in there, but there was some big names that made it far into the debates. I mean, talking about Andrew Yang made it pretty far.

Yang Gang. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, you know. So when we're looking at these, and then what was that guy's name? made it pretty, pretty far. Gang, gang. Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, you know, so, so when we're looking at these, and then what was that guy's name? Bloomberg, who got fucking ass raped on stage. He's amazing.

Bloomberg getting raped on stage by Liz Warren. It's like, I never knew I had that kink, but I loved it. So. Hey, hey, don't talk that way

about the guy who won American Samoa. He did. He did win American Samoa. Oh, my God. Let's talk about that for a minute. Let's go back. Let's rewind time

into a more wistful time. Tell us what you thought about the Democratic debates and what you think about the frontrunner now. Huh. Jordan? Well, first off,

I supported Bernie, but only after Senator Mike Gravel had to drop out uh i don't know if you remember mike gravel but he was the senator who uh basically didn't run at all and two teens just campaigned for him the whole time on a yeah 100 look up senator mike gravel he's retired he's like 89 nobody he didn't go out he didn't talk to anybody two teens were just like this guy is a progressive hero so fuck it let's try and trick people into voting for him and i appreciated that uh also they had the most left-leaning uh platform of any candidate period

uh but that was because they were teens and they have hope or whatever so that was my choice I saw that as a crass PR kind of affair and never took that all that seriously no of course nobody took it seriously but that's the difference between you and I I had hope too I was a teen once and you were born like this I was 60 from day one

and just over it. Is that baby have a beard? What is happening with that baby? Squinty ass eyes, beard. I'm glad we're in a hospital because mom is looking fucked up. I would say

that I too was more towards Bernie than other candidates from policy standpoint. But, yeah, I don't know. I never... I don't know. I didn't think that

the primaries were all that impressive and I think a lot of people lost their minds in a lot of really bad behaviors between fan bases. Yeah, that's absolutely true. I'm not saying that as like pointing the finger at any particular one like

Bernie Bros or anything like that. That's not my point. I think a lot of people got into like really, really hard hurting each other kind of mentality. It became very tribal. It became really tribal in a sort of scary way where we should be on the same

side but the democrats once again ate themselves because you're not as far left as me or you're you're not as far you're not as close to the center as me and so there was just a and i'll be honest i will be honest there was a couple people on the stage that i absolutely loathed and did not want them to get the nomination right stand. American Samoa would disagree with you. Of course, Bloomberg, I fucking, that guy was awful. But, you know, I hated Amy Klobuchar. I really did not want to see anything that Amy Klobuchar did become policy. I thought she felt really corporatist to me. And I also really didn't like Biden. I was not a Biden fan at all. And I think, I feel like there was a lot of things that when I, when I saw it happening, I was like, oh, this is, it's, it's turning in the, in the worst way.

And so, yeah, I was, I was actually a little, little disturbed, but I will say that, that one of the surprises that came out of this, and I'm curious to get your guys' thoughts on this, was Andrew Yang going as far as he did and the emergence of universal basic income into the vernacular, which is something that Tom and I were both really surprised by. And it seems like something that could feasibly be something that happens in the future. Universal basic income. I mean, if you're predicting what the future is going to bring now, I think you're a silly person. Okay. That's fair.

A lot of things are possible, but it seems like the most likely one is we're stomped under a boot. So it's hard to think universal basic income is the way to go. to be like somebody who spends his time looking at like these sort of anti-communist right-wing propaganda types uh and seeing how they paint someone like joe biden as a fringe socialist communist uh radical and then imagining how aggressively the push would be uh from their end against something that would be like universal basic income. Yeah. Imagine trying to give those assholes money. They would hate you. They would storm a fucking state house to keep from getting a check. You know, that does bring up like one of the lessons I took away from the primary was like, never underestimate the left's ability to become deeply entrenched, siloed, and defensive about the littlest fucking

issues, right? Like we look at Biden now and like the criticism from the right is like, he's too far left. I almost think like, man, it wouldn't even matter if we had somebody that was far left. They're going to use the same slurs. Exactly. Right. They're going to use the same, like, you know, this guy is a anti- anti-fascist, a Trotskyist, communist, Marxist. Well, one thing, whatever is one thing I've thought is that these these insinuations and like complaints of like, oh, Biden's a evil socialist monster. Those are slurs to to the right wing, but they're also in a certain way, permission to the left wing. It doesn't matter if you're going to be a centrist or not, you're going to be betrayed as a liberal. So fuck it, go all in. Do you know what I'm saying?

Like that seems the smartest way to go. You're right. No matter what, you're going to be betrayed in the sense that, you know, like if the farther left you are, the worse off you are because the left in this country is the center everywhere else on the globe. It's not a, we're not, we're not a left leaning country at all. We're a, we're a, we're a far right leaning country. And our farthest left people at this point are the people that are, you know, we would be considered centrists in other countries. You know, Bernie's, Bernie's pushing for stuff that literally almost every other standardized nation, every other, you know, industrialized nation has, you know, Bernie himself is not far left. Bernie's fucking, Bernie's a centrist in other places all around the world.

So you're right. You know, we feel like we'd be betrayed all the time. Who else though on that stage except for Bernie was far left? I mean, I can't think of anybody else that was far left. Most people had pretty center-leading policies. I mean, Marianne Williamson is about as left as you can get. Okay. Well, I mean, she had like a weird like crystal thing going on.

That's pretty far left. That's pretty far left. Yeah. I think maybe the question should have been rephrased. Who is far left that... Fair enough. Yes. That isn't Marianne Williamson because that woman was fucking...

She was... I got to say, like, she was the bright spot for me in a lot of those debates. Like, watching the fucking debates, then she'd be like, you know... Just like, you know, just like, oh, yeah, yes, the rent is too damn high. She's about to sing,

she's about to sing, if I could buy the world a Coke on stage, and you're just like, what the fuck is wrong with this lady? She's an insane person. She was great. She was absolutely amazing. I like the way that you put that.

This lady was out there. She was nuts. She was insane. She was absolutely great. She was great. She was absolutely amazing. I like the way that you put that. This lady was out there. She was nuts. She was insane. She was absolutely great. She was great. I loved her. She was fantastic. She made a lot. So what do you guys think then of the final process? What do you guys think of Biden and what do you guys think about this

upcoming race that's happening now? We're under two months away. Well, to start out, I wanted to loop back to what I was saying really quick, just to clarify my answer, because I think it'll help answer this question, is that when people were fighting with each other a lot in pretty ugly ways during the primary, I'm not saying that as a really condemning way. I think a lot of that is because each sort of faction uh believed that their candidate was the best that was able to create a better situation out of beating trump or being able to beat trump which is an existential threat to a lot of people so whenever there is all that ugly

fighting i think it's kind of uh a representation of people wanting something better and caring so i'm not i'm not i don't i don't say that to deride uh necessarily uh but now that's kind of where i'm at is like uh you know it doesn't i i can have as many complaints about biden as anybody else uh it doesn't change anything yeah that yeah there's an existential threat of trump presidency again yep and it's just an unacceptable risk to take well i'll tell you what i voted for biden even though he wasn't by any stretch of the imagination my favorite candidate from a policy position but by the time by the time illinois got to vote super tuesday was over yeah yeah that's like all right you know bernie has no chance in hell at this. He just doesn't. Like, the numbers don't work. He's not going to be. He's

not there. And like, I thought, all right, Biden probably is just strategically. Yeah. I just felt like, okay, he's not my candidate of choice. Of the fucking 49 candidates that stood on the stage, you know, he was down among the bottom four for sure. But when it comes down to it, like I'm a strategy guy. Like what I want is not Trump. Like that's what I need to have happen. And I, I gotta say like my opinion here is like,

I am actually glad it's Biden. One of the lessons that I learned from this democratic primary is that America is not as far left as I am. America's really, really not as far left. And I think if we had gotten somebody who was as far left as I am. America's really, really not as far left. And I think if we had gotten somebody who was as far left as I am or further left or whatever,

like they would have nowhere near the same leads in the polls that we see, you know, with cross and look at with crossed fingers with Biden. I think you kind of need a centrist right now.

Yeah. And all the... To win, if we're talking about winning. Yeah. And with the, like no matter where you are on the political spectrum, the right is going to call you extreme communist left wing or whatever even though that is the truth that doesn't play with a large part of the electorate like that

really affects mostly the right wing folk and their ideas about the democratic candidate and you you may be right you may be right that someone who actually has fairly left politics for our country's standards might have had a more difficult time than we like to think uh i mean well in a way what we're all really saying is that if bernie was the nominee all of these people who said they were never trumpers would suddenly come out of the woodwork and be like, well, we can't have Bernie be the president. Right. That's my real worry. We would wind up finding out how many

of our friends are actually willing to sacrifice everything to become Nazis. So, in a way, we kind of missed out on that little boat. Rats. Yeah. I think I would have felt way differently if the left had swung super far in favor of Bernie. If Bernie was just like Bernie or Warren or Booker, like if Booker

less so, he's more centrist. But if Bernie or Warren had like taken the primary by storm, if they had just fucking crushed it, you would have been able to sell me that America is far enough left that you could drag the center and then the center right over left and actually win the thing. But when you saw how bad that showing was, it was like, holy shit, America is not as progressive as the progressives like to think we are. Not yet, you know, in terms of the numbers. And that was a wake-up call for me. I was like, holy shit. I really kind of thought we were past this. But we are so not past this.

Like, I know the right isn't past this, but I thought the left might have been past this. I mean, that's beautiful. But we aren't even close. I know. Well, and I think what leads everybody to believe that, though, and especially when it comes to Bernie, you know, when everybody thought we were more and more progressive.

And the reason why is because, you know, how badly Hillary did against Bernie. And so when we look back at that sort of thing, we think, OK, well, you know, Bernie's got a great shot. Well, it's just because I think people didn't like Hillary. And, you know, that's the problem. And so now you have a situation where there's sort of this false sense because Biden put like liberal policies like far left policies in front of people devoid of the context of political party or candidate everybody winds up seeing a majority of approval for all those far left positions you're not wrong you're not wrong so to me whenever we start talking about who's progressive in terms of like uh you know the country is not that progressive in terms of policy uh you know the country is not that progressive

in terms of policy i think we are it's just that we're so warped by the way the media portrays it as a competition or a horse race instead of we're trying to actually improve things like politics is not a oh biden's up ahead by five points politics is how is it that we are going to deal with fucking climate change guys we got to do something I like that my favorite part of this is watching you gesticulate towards the camera that's not on it's not on but I'm so mad

like I'm leaning into you guys like I'm seeing if I can get inside your faces to really drive my point home you can't see a thing. I will say this. One of the reasons why I voted for Bernie was he was going to executive order a ton of environmental change.

His plan was from day one, he was going to come in the office and just tear into the environment with a ton of executive orders that were going to hopefully start changing what's happening. And that was one of the things that absolutely... I was like, there's no way I can vote for anybody else. But I, you know, like, like Biden has come, the thing is, is like, like the good thing about the primaries, and we see this all the, all the time is that, you know, good ideas rise to the top and people start talking about it. I mean, look at when I talked about- And then Biden wins the nomination. Well, and he's come farther left because of it. I've seen, there's a lot of things that he's done

that's changed from where he was, I think, in the beginning. And I mean, I even think about when I talked about UBI, look what happened when coronavirus hit. There was two or three UBI bills on the table. There was, you know, yeah, we got a crappy stimulus from the government, but there was a couple of UBI bills on the table. There was, you know, yeah, we got a crappy stimulus from the government, but there was a couple of UBI bills

already on the table once coronavirus is to say, we should just start paying people X amount of dollars a month. They got shot down because we have a Republican Senate, but there was at least a push and a group of people in the country, a large group of people in the country

that were nodding their head along going, no, that was a good idea. Well, but to, I mean, I people in the country that were nodding their head along going, no, that was a good idea. Well, but to, I mean, I'm not, I'm not saying that that means nothing or anything, but like,

I mean, Ron Paul put forward like abolish the fed bills every year. And there was a number of people nodding along with it too. Yeah. I'm talking about population, not, not just like five people that are following Ron Paul with Ron Paul signs. Like,

I mean, like there was a significant group of people in the country that were thinking that was a good idea. You clearly didn't go to Paul Fest. Paul Fest. Are you kidding me? I'm a Paul bearer. Get the fuck out of here. So let's shift gears and talk about- History is not going to look back upon that pun lightly.

I don't... I want to... Let's talk about the other side. You guys, when we first heard Trump was running, this was, you know, when he first joined the clown car that was the Republican primary in 2015 or whatever, Tom and I thought it was the funniest thing

we'd ever heard. We thought it was hilarious when he got endorsed by Michelle Bachman, or not Michelle Bachman, Sarah Palin. Tom and I played the entire clip on our show and talked about it. It was so fucking amazing and tasty and delicious. And those two idiots on stage together was just brilliant. And we loved every second of it. It was so fucking amazing and tasty and delicious. And those two idiots on stage together

was just brilliant. And we loved every second of it. And then he started getting closer and closer to winning. And we were like, ah, it's not a big deal. He's probably not going to win. And then it turns out he does win. And so Tom and I, when he, when we weren't sure what to expect, but I don't, I'm going to speak for Tom here and think I did not expect it to be this bad. Where are you guys on the spectrum of this? Well, for me, whenever Trump started running, I think it was summed up best by a former Chicago comic named James Fritz. He tweeted out something, I want to say like two weeks before Trump clinched the nomination, which was that it was for all of the people who are saying that Trump can't

possibly win. You have never done road work as a standup in the Midwest. Like that's the way that we, it's like, and I experienced the same thing whenever I was doing road stuff in like Southern Illinois, you would see people like viscerally angry if you said anything negative about trump even back then when he only had like 20 of the republican vote so that's crazy i didn't know that

yeah most people didn't know that because they're not road comics road comics are in a unique position to be in towns for one night that almost nobody ever would have a reason to go to yeah yeah so that's why they're prophets yeah i wouldn't go that far that is that's not that you know looking at it now and looking at his following now it's not surprising to hear that. But thinking about it back then, it is. You know, if I put myself back into that position, it's surprising. Now, I can't see it as anything other than a cult. It's a terrifying cult.

But before it got to this point, I didn't think of it like that. And I certainly didn't think of it during his primary. No. Sure. I think it was the same. I mean, like, just look at this from a pure, like, what people will wear on their bodies standpoint.

Like, you see people with, like, Trump shit now. They are fucking decked out. Like, their cars, their boats, their bodies, their hats, their shirts, their fucking people are getting fucking tattoos and shit. You never saw that before with any other president. You clearly didn't go to Poll Fest. I said president, not candidate candidate he's my president he's the president of your heart the red was started by three senators only yeah you would seriously you'd see a bumper sticker right or like a lawn sign now people are fucking

decked out and like full fucking like regalia obama's hope image was fucking everywhere like it was on it like it was on like t-shirts go too far hope was fucking everywhere well it's like campaigns all have merch but i think yeah i think the point still i don't think it's valid it's it's excessive what's going on now that's fair and it's it's and it's like it's more like you know it's more like on your personhood now you know what i mean it's like one thing to have like a poster up and you're like i got a poster up people are like fucking flying like flags and their other flag had a flag on that flag and they've got a fucking hat and their hat is

wearing a shirt and their shirt has a tattoo and it's like holy shit holy shit you look at like we have a new thing we have a new thing with it like you have like a four year electioneering site you've got people ironically getting Trump University tattoos proud alum of Trump University

I don't know if anyone's doing that that might have been a joke that'd be amazing if they were oh you almost had me I was like oh shit I gotta see that I That might have been a joke. Oh, that'd be amazing if they were. Oh, you almost had me. I was like, oh shit, I gotta see that. I'm Googling it right now. That's amazing. Trump steaks tattoos. That might have been more believable. Well, I think, not to bring it back to Alex Jones all the time, but

I think this is partly a function of a right-wing grifter being the president instead of a right-wing liar. Do you know what I'm saying? Like part of Trump's game is the grift. So he's more centered towards selling stuff. In the same way that if you listen to Infowars, you're going to hear Alex Jones like constantly beat the drum.

Buy my pills, buy my merch over and over and over again. So in a way, it makes perfect sense. Trump is still just trying to make money out of this shit. So I saw something today that like $1.1 million billed to his private hotels during times when those hotels were closed for Secret Service personnel to show up. And I mean, the man is making a mint

off this goddamn presidency. Totally. It's ridiculous. But he's donating his salary, Tom. And that means something. Oh, yeah. That makes it better. Jimmy Carter put his peanut farm into a blind trust.

I know. I don't know how to deal with too much. I know. I know. God, I want a peanut farm. That would be great if in 1978, it was suddenly revealed that the government bought 10 million pounds of peanuts. For the Secret Service.

Exactly, for the Secret Service to eat. The Secret Service was going out to ball games every weekend. So there you go. You go to the Secret Service headquarters, it's just covered with peanut shells everywhere like an old bar. It smells like the BFW. They put out a new food pyramid that's all peanuts. The Presidential Peanut Fitness Award.

All right, I'm going to get out of here. I think I had my fun. Our new mascot, no longer a bald eagle, Mr. Peanut with wings. Wait, is a bald eagle a mascot? Not even sure. All right, the fighting eagles. It's America. So we move into

our current situation with the coronavirus. There's been so much that's happened since this started. What do you think about the United States coronavirus response

thus far, guys? Great. Perfect. Couldn't be better. You know, guys. Great. Perfect. Couldn't be better. Trump nailed it. I think we've definitively proven that herd immunity is the way to go. I'm pretty sure that that's the strategy we... I know it's been months, but I heard recently

that it'll be gone soon, so I believe that... I don't know. It's been bad, right? Yeah, it's hard to accept that like they have so destroyed everyone's faith in science that even I am at this point like if they came out with a

vaccine in October and I didn't have fucking 10 different experts saying this vaccine is safe I'm now an anti-vaxxer I'm like I don't know if I'm going to take this shit right now because these fuckers are liars. It's hard to deal with that.

Just today, there was something that the CDC's website, I was just reading this late this afternoon, that some of the new guidelines that have been recently published on the CDC, the CDC's like, we didn't write that. Yeah, it was the HHS. It was like Alex Azar directly. Yeah, it's not good. And they're like, yeah, you can tell that wasn't us

because they don't use the same scientific terms of art that we at the CDC as science talking guys tend to use. They're like specifically reference COVID-19. Like we don't call it COVID-19 on our fucking, we call it by the actual name of the motherfucking virus. And they don't... They're like, that's not us. It was weird when the CDC used a racial slur

to describe the virus. That was a surprise. That was a really weird thing to put on your website. We call that the Chinese flu. Thank you. It's the Kung flu. The CDC is here for accuracy, guys. Oh, boy.

Yeah. I think one of the things that's been really difficult i i recognize i'm coming from like a place of privilege to an extent like you know i work from home and so you know i i have a greater ability to protect myself and stuff but like for sure one thing that's been really weird is is seeing how much my perspective has changed since the beginning of all this like when when the first news was breaking about there being a coronavirus that was out breaking

in China like my immediate response was this isn't going to be that big a deal like people are really exaggerating what's going to because I've lived through other virus outbreaks and I know that these things happen naturally it does happen and people have

studied these things they know how to do best practices to contain things and i i'd never imagined that we would allow ourselves to get to the point that we're in now and it's been it's been such a disillusioning process of like i thought we had this well trump's own government in 2018 built a literal like step by step if a pandemic happens plan and then it happened and they were like what if instead we just uh hoped that only black people die like i guess that's what that's what they did it was it's fucking you know what i if you don't count the blue states almost nobody which is not true don't count the state is not true you don't count the states states, almost nobody. Which is not true. You don't count the states where people live,

the numbers are down too. But what's hilarious is that he added all those numbers up today because I know that he said that shit out loud. He said, if you don't count the blue states.

But if you add all the numbers up for the red states and you just took the red states, it'd be the worst in the world. Yeah. Are you saying that it doesn't matter and that he's a liar

no matter what? Holy shit. You know, I know that that might come to a shock to someone but yeah it's so hard to have like just these very elementary things of faith

and trust stripped back yeah 100% that's just all like that's the process I think I'm going through is just like the baseline stuff that I thought like oh well we can believe that. Well, maybe I think.

And then how do you go from there and maintain enough critical sort of social trust that you don't end up becoming someone like Alex? Totally. You know, how do you not become a conspiracy theorist while maintaining like, I don't fucking know anymore. It's hard. It's hard.

You now become a conspiracy theorist when there's a literal conspiracy trying to kill people? Like it's Trump's family and Jared Kushner and Bill Barr and those people in that circle all conspiring to get us killed. Well, I mean, it used to be that you could say things like when I mean, you could say them as far back or as soon as like February or March of this year. You say, look, well, I'm just, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to rely on the CDC. I'm going to look at their website. I'm going to believe in what they say, because those are the guys that are, you know, they're

not, they're not in the politics. They're not in the thick of things. This is the center for disease control for God's sake. Like we're going to believe the scientific experts, but everything has become politicized. Every fucking thing has become politicized to such a ridiculous extent that like, just trying to figure out what's true. Yeah.

It used to be that like figuring out what's true, if you had a method for truth seeking that was reliable, figuring out what was true was not an impossible task, right? Now it's fucking rolling a boulder uphill every day because it's like, well, I'll just check the CDC. You can't check the CDC. Okay. All right. I will...

Fuck. Actually, that's kind of the guys we're supposed to go to for this. I know a doctor you could talk to. And who is the better secondary source? The who? Ron Paul. I mean, who is the better source? Ah, you got me on the Ron Paul. I remember talking with Cecil before this started, and I was like, God, can you imagine if something like a pandemic hit in the United States? I remember we said this out loud, Cecil,

before there was any inkling of it. I was like, can you imagine if we faced a real... I remember I was on this show. I was like, imagine, as bad bad as all this is imagine if we had a real crisis like a pandemic and then like a few months later it was like fuck you a year ago we did an episode where we were making fun of somebody who interviewed a time traveler and the uh the time traveler was talking about how i think it was martin luther king's granddaughter became president in 2030 or something like that but she wouldn't be the right age she wouldn't meet the age requirement so we were joking around about how like okay well for this to happen there would need to be a

gigantic worldwide uh outbreak that mostly affects older populations and we were just talking about this as like a way that someone might lower the age requirement for president and then you know here we are six months later this virus happens and people are like hey did you listen to your old episode you predicted this i was like that was not a prediction it was that was an idea we were joking we were having a good old time yeah i will say this the one thing that is that that is the most, the most surprising thing to me, you know,

because if you look at the CDC and the sort of politicizing of that, it's, it's shocking, but it, it, it falls right in line with pretty much everything that Trump has done

up to this point, right? So it doesn't, it's not, it's not one of those surprising things. It's shocking that he would do it, right? It's shocking that he would push,

that his administration would put people to make statements that weren't completely true to make himself look better. But that, that it's not, it's not like one of those things like, oh my gosh, I can't believe it. The one thing I really can't believe is the anti-masking stuff that's happening. Like it, one, it doesn't make any sense to me to, to, to it just in general, like what's the worst thing that happens if you wear a mask? I don't understand why you would even be anti-masking other than just to be a dick. But the anti-masking stuff that is happening

is literally a zombie movie, someone saying, no, the zombie bites are fine, we're good. And then getting bit by a zombie, seeing someone get bit by a zombie, seeing them turn into a zombie and be like, no, it's cool. I'm just going to hang out over here at the petting zoo, the zombie petting zoo.

You know? Yeah. I imagine the next zombie movie is going to be about herd immunity to zombies. And I don't think it's going to go well. There's going to be people in a fucking jewel or whatever being like the zombies are our friends, people. And they're going to be yelling because there's no zombie. I can't be a zombie. You're stealing're going to be yelling because there's no zombie i can't

be a zombie you're stealing my freedom to be a zombie you look i know zombies are a big problem right fine but what about these stores zombies are looting zombies are looting you know how many people die a year from the flu though i mean come on guys i uh yeah the math the mask stuff's really interesting i think it's all just like from from the sense that i get from taking in so much of this like right-wing media like a lot of it is basically surrounding the idea of not doing it is standing up to domestication of the state and stuff like that. And that's kind of like where, wait a minute,

are we going to teach it to like pee in the house or what do you mean? Domestication of the state? Like, what does that even mean? Well, wait, wait, wait,

wait, you can pee in a house now. It's a, it's like a, if they can get you to wear a mask, they can get you to do anything. And then you're going to be microchipped. they can get you to wear a mask they can get you to do anything and then you're gonna be microchipped they could get me to pay taxes they could get me to do anything

here give me 30 percent erica roe dogi like a mask fuck me here's a mask i'm not saying it makes sense i'm just telling you what they think oh god but the thing i think is really funny is like how it's shifted like the excuse to not wear a mask is shifted over the course of like this whole period. There's been like so many different attempts to be like, it makes you breathe in CO2 or, you know, like it'll strangle you. Like all they have like a hundred different things after each one has been like, all right, we're bored of this. Oh, here's a new thing to yell at people. It's weird. It is very weird i don't

i think part of it is more like uh that the whole right wing philosophy is essentially a house of cards so here's here's what happens if you believe the cdc before the right wing comes out and says all that nonsense right if you just take what the government says at face value, then you have broken every compact the right wing has ever made. So you can't do that. You have to say that the government is lying to you because that's part of your foundational philosophy.

Once you start believing what the government says to you, then what's next, you know? Like, oh, now they're saying that I should have healthcare? They're evil, you know? You can't give them an inch. So we were destined to have this happen, you think? No matter what? Because of right-wing ideology, we were destined for

this result? I mean, I think well, Dan, go ahead. Not destined like from the point of creation, but since Barry Goldwater, let's say. Yeah, you know what? Maybe. Holy shit, really? Yeah, it's his fault. You don't think we could have gotten us, I mean, like America's that far gone, like we're

that divisive that like, because like back in, I was reading an article today that like back in April, the U.S. Postal Service had a plan to send out 650 million masks to everybody. Like the Postal Service. Yeah, they had a memo. And then, yeah. And they were like, cool, we can do this. They had a huge plan, like a 10,000 page draft on how to

get this thing done. They were going to give five for every household in America. And the fucking Trump administration nixed that. This seems like... Do you think that would have happened under W? I don't know. Probably not. Probably not. But but then you know

the decline of an empire is a slow process not uh it didn't just happen you know like the the circumstances by which we get trump have been laid down for i i don't know what do you want to say like since nixon or go back further since andrew johnson, at what point do you think that the groundwork was laid for this massive right-wing cult takeover? It was Obama. I think it was during the Obama administration. I don't think America was ready for a black president. I think that question from time was answered pretty seriously

when Trump was elected. Yeah, yeah. But I think genuinely those fires were all stoked during the Obama administration because Obama won two presidencies, was mostly blocked in the Senate and, uh, and didn't really do a ton to make those, the country progressive, but instead constantly got fear mongering and hate from the other side that he was i mean i i remember having conversations with people during his first term that they like were literally terrified that he was going to take away all the guns stop it so you could get bullets he was just like it was just

they were absolutely scared out of their wits about an obama presidency and so he was gonna do all that stuff but alex jones uh talked about it and that stopped it from happening that's the magical thinking of the uh yep because it didn't happen we stopped it it doesn't matter that it was never going to happen in the first place you know how many uh antifa city burnings he's uh stopped you know let's talk let's talk about the uh the the protests and the destructive protests that have been happening. We haven't really covered a lot of that stuff. And that, I mean, is it the end of America as we know it for a lot of these right-wing guys? They're very obviously stoking violence.

Like, they're trying to get their supporters to find it okay to think of these protesters as not people. And if they're not people, then anything you do to them is fine they're automatons they're robots they're the stormtroopers in star wars you can kill a million stormtroopers and everybody's like yeah yeah but they're stormtroopers you know it's it's the way that they treat everything yeah there's a lot of that bad mentality uh and uh rationalizing that right to life is equivalent to right to property yeah uh those sorts of ideas are really running rampant uh throughout a lot of the right what does alex sit on all this i mean alex clearly is he is he uh he's probably one of the i mean clearly he's

one of these guys that uh definitely is an anti-masker i've seen him out there handshaking and doing all that stuff um during all protests, these weird anti-mask protests. He leads those protests. Yeah. Oh, okay. I didn't know that. With a tiny bullhorn. He's organized a couple of them, yeah.

Does he put a mask on his tank and drive around? Yeah. That's the only way he can get the tank into a store. Yeah. They won't serve it at a gas station without a mask. He does sell masks, which is kind of ironic. That's amazing. Oh, my God.

Does he really? Totally. It's a right-wing grift. I fucking love these fucking guys sometimes. A part of me is just like, you know what? They're just fucking better at this than we are. Oh, so good. You know what? Let's just call this shit what it is like they are a fucking numerical

minority that was somehow maintains a stranglehold on power in this country thanks to barry goldwater you just have to say like man they're just better at this like that team just wanted it more that's fucking rudy or like every fucking bad news bears or whatever. It's like they're shitty and they're like not as good. They're just like, well, I don't know these. I didn't ever watch a sports movie all the way through. I don't know anything about Rudy either except for he's small. I think he's like a short

guy that plays football. It's like I'll maybe basketball. I don't even know what that game is. But like, but you know what I mean? It's the same. Like at some point, it's just sort of like, fuck it. You know what? Hats off to you.

Maybe we should be run by you guys. You're better at winning. Like you're just better. Cause you keep fucking us. There's less of you and you keep winning. Maybe you should be fucking winning. Do you know? I don't believe that,

but it surprises me. The, the, the statement I use most, uh, from game of Thrones to explain this is in the first season, whenever the king was like, what's stronger, five or one? And he holds up five open fingers and he holds up a fist and he's like, one is stronger.

So even though they're the minority over everything, as you as you pointed out on the out on the left, every time it's like, no, I think this is more important. No, I think this is more important. Where on the right, it's just like, I hate the left. It's very direct and simple. Anything the left does, I am against. We need an abortion-style rally.

A wedge issue. Yeah, we need a wedge issue like that. We need our own thing. Yeah, we need a wedge issue like that. We need our own thing. Yeah, we need something like, and it's got to be like the biggest fucking thing. Oh, you mean like climate change? The thing that we should be united around that somehow we still fucking aren't?

Yeah, it's got to be something to do with controlling women. That's what I've learned from the right. Like, we've got to control our women. I think that's what I've learned. Oh, boy. History will not look back kindly. I'm going to cut that out and that's going to be the preview for our episode right here. Have you ever been to Paul Fest?

Well done. What's our horribly immoral wedge issue? I know. We've got to figure out one horrible moral wedge issue. I don't know. Maybe it's hysterectomies in ICE detention centers? That's what I'm saying. I know. We got to figure out one horrible moral wedge issue. I don't know. Maybe it's hysterectomies in ICE detention centers. Maybe that's it. I don't know. Something.

I'm going to go with super deadly hornets. They were in the Northwest. We got to stop those fucking hornets, guys. I think we did. Did we? Did we stop them? I don't know. You don't know.

Maybe they got COVID. They all got COVID or they're on fire. I think we got the hornet problem. Look, there's no way to live that way. Maybe they got, they all got COVID or they're on fire. I think we got the Hornet problem. Like, like there's no way to live that way. Like, that's what the gender reveal party was really about. We got to take care of these fucking Hornets.

And that's what this gradual D like a destruction of the environment. Yeah. Deregulation has been about. We have to make the environment inhospitable to murder Hornets. The Hornets can't stand the heat. The long game. It is the long game. That's right.

There's a real pandemic and it's Hornets. Yeah. I don't know when you're going to put this episode out, but apparently I didn't realize this. But a while back, we also did an episode talking about this racist guy who claims to be an alien named Eddie Page. Oh, yeah. He claims to be a Pleiadian and then eventually he was saying he was like this alien and then he revealed himself to be the

Dark Angel Abaddon, bringer of death and like you do. I had forgotten about this. He predicted that the world will end on September 20th. Oh, shit. We're coming up. Yeah, he predicted that at the end of last year. And it sounded really stupid then. Three days.

Get it out, guys. I'm worried that he was the birthday of death. Of all people to turn out to be right, Eddie Page was not my number one guess. Well, audience, if you're hearing this, he was wrong. my number one guess. Well, audience, if you're hearing this,

he was wrong. So, yeah, so it's, yeah, you're definitely wrong. Let's talk a little bit about a possible change of power. I don't want to get my hopes up in such a moment,

of course, because they were dashed so greatly a few years ago. So greatly? It hurts. What do you guys think about what would happen on the right if,

because I remember, I don't know if you guys remember, but when there were the women's marches and there was a ton of people who marched against Trump taking office and there was like three arrests and 4 million people or something marched and there was like three arrests,

the right painted it as violent protesters. I don't know if you remember but there was like this this huge painting of this is angry violent protesters if we lost we wouldn't be doing this what do you think happens if if trump loses um well i would say the biggest problem that we're going to wind up having with this is that even if biden is elected uh we're not done marching it's not going to go back to normal because that's kind of probably going to be the instinct for the the business class is to treat this as another like okay we had our fun with trump now we're going to go back to screwing people the way we did during obama's years and if we want to move forward, we just can't let that happen. So there still needs to be constant pressure on Biden to actually do something good. And that probably means that

people are going to need to stay out in the streets. And that probably means that the right wing is going to get into conflict with them. So I and if Trump trump wins the right wing might wind up hunting us for sport so i don't know how it's gonna go but the conflict doesn't end at the election the conflict doesn't end two years into biden's presidency or maybe even four years like this has to stop because we don't have time to wait on incrementalism anymore. We're watching the entire Northwest burn. Climate change is the biggest issue that we can possibly imagine. It needs to be taken care of now. So we can't

just go back to the way things were. And that means we're going to have to fight the right wing head on. And of course also, you know, the sort of foot dragging tendencies on the left as well. Exactly. Yeah. No, it's going to be a big of foot dragging tendencies on the left as well. Exactly. Yeah. No, it's

going to be a big fight for a long time is my guess. That sounds so exhausting. Well, that's encouraging. That is encouraging. Hey, guys. I told you I was going to bring positivity to this show. Didn't I say that before we started recording?

I feel like... Yeah, it's not it's not like it's not like biden wins and then it's like all right cool well those problems are now exactly it's like all it does is set up it all it doesn't even set up a precondition that allows for the solving of the problems what all it does really is remove a roadblock which virtually guarantees those problems won't that's a great way of putting it, yeah. And puts in a potential sympathetic ear that some progress could be made, which is just an impossibility now. And I mean, consider if we actually do try

to enact any real left-wing policies, the Supreme Court is 5-4 against us. So that's another huge roadblock, and they're not going to care whether or not the Constitution says it's OK for people to have health care. They're just going to say no because they're insane. I don't know if you've heard this, Jordan. I have good news. What's that?

Multiple members of the Supreme Court are being blackmailed by the globalists. Oh, shit. So five to four is meaningless, my friend. It's actually three to three to three yeah i've heard this on a very reputable news source what always blows my mind is how how much they want to try to be the underdog when they are in power i every single thing is written in such a way that makes them feel like the underdog the way trump talking, the way Trump is even giving town halls where he's blaming the coronavirus response

on Biden's mishandling of... That was a big swing. That was a big swing. That was a big swing, yeah. Biden's hands aren't clean. I don't know. I think that's the theory of the big lie, though. Like, if you can get people to believe the big lie,

you've got them. There's nothing that they can do. You tell them something that's obviously not of the big lie, though. Like, if you can get people to believe the big lie, you've got them. There's nothing that they can do. You tell them something that's obviously not true to their face, and if they nod yes, then you won. How do you convince somebody that the Supreme Court isn't in your favor if you're on the right? I mean, the Supreme Court is 100% in your favor. They fucking literally blocked that seat for a whole year

to make sure that they could fill Scalia's seat with Gorsuch because they fucking knew for sure Obama was not going to put somebody in that was going to be like right-leaning. And so they specifically blocked it. I don't know if you've heard this, but from a very reputable news source, I have heard that multiple members of the Supreme Court are being blackmailed by the globalists. Is it Ron Paul ron paul blackmailing them is that what's happening yeah rand yeah rand paul that would be a good updated blaxploitation film where at the end instead of it being nixon it's actually ron paul who's the guy behind everything

i gotta get dolomite to beat the shit out of ron paul you know i'm joking around a little bit but that is how they convince themselves like there are oh my god media sources that are insisting that although that is a very clearly conservative lean in court that uh there's you know nefarious things at play and secret blackmail intrigue and and shit like that yeah 100 that's uh it's it's you know conspiracy is very effective in in in those sorts of arguments that are just patently absurd yeah well it's perfect right conspiracy just automatically explains everything because it doesn't have any actual standard to to be held as a built-in reason why you can't prove it yeah yeah right yeah right yeah i think. Right, yeah, right. Yeah. I think part of it's because, like,

the right doesn't win every single time. Like, the right recently lost a couple of, like, pretty significant social issue Supreme Court cases. So, like,

if you're a conspiracy theorist, that's all you need, right? Like, that's all you need is, like, oh, we don't win 100% of the time. Yeah, which you should if your conspiracy theory is right, then you should win 100% of the time. Which you should. If your conspiracy theory is right,

then you should win 100% of the time because you're right. Is Alex Jones a mass arrest guy? Is he one of those guys who thinks that there's going to be some mass arrests that happen and he just keeps on saying it will happen and waving down the road? No, no, no. That's much more Q. Alex has a

sort of push and pull relationship with QAnon and that he wants to control it and can't. And so he's mad at it. He thinks he treats it like a disobedient dog. He's just like, yes, yes, yes, 100%. Yeah, he has this mentality that's like all these dumb fucks out there thinking that these arrests are coming any day and you should just do nothing because you know the plan is in place he's mad about that stuff but

in the same breath he will be like William Barr needs to go arrest every Antifa member in this country so he wants mass arrests of all these quote unquote globalists but he doesn't believe that there's some secret internet commenter who knows the plan I guess that's the distinction he has.

I don't know how to break it to you guys, but I'm the president of Antifa. I mentioned it a couple weeks ago on our show. Oh, that's nice. I didn't want to... It's nice to meet you. You guys can come over to our cupcake social. We have it every couple weeks, and then we go burn down a building. It's fun.

So I don't know if you guys want to join. Honestly, that sounds like fun. I'm not going to lie to you. If that was real, I don't think I would say no. Yeah, get together and make some Molotov cupcakes. Yeah, absolutely. Put them in a small bag and like slowly

toss them at a guy so he could shoot us. It'd be great. It'd be nice. Yeah. So I want to talk one more thing. You guys are following Alex Jones. Coronavirus is clearly one of the things that has dominated everything. So I'm sure he's talking a lot

about it. But what about his grift on this? Is he selling like coronavirus boner pills? We know he's selling masks, but what else is he selling? We're back on food buckets are big right now. Food buckets are the sort of prime. Yeah. He was selling like his weird like silver stuff as a like preventative and like possibly a cure.

But then the district attorney in New York sent him a cease and desist. And he's been pretty mad about that. So you can't sell silver. Yeah. Yep. So we're back on the world is going to end. So you can't sell his silver. Yeah. So we're back on the world is going to end. So you better have your food buckets. Have you ever had one of his buckets?

Hell no. I'm affected by the questions. Here's what we should do. We should get a bucket and we should have you guys over for food once this is all over or either we're dead or it happens. So it doesn't matter, right? Once this is all over, we'll have you guys over.

We'll get a bucket of his and a bucket of Jim Baker's, and we could do a taste test. Oh, have a bucket off. Guys, this is a terrible idea, but this sounds like a great Thanksgiving plan. Jim Baker sells special Thanksgiving buckets with a Thanksgiving feast, my friend. Yeah, that's right. That's a Thanksgiving bucket that you hang on to for about 20 years. And then bam, that's a good Thanksgiving.

That's amazing. Guys, if people were going to find your show on the internet, where would they look? Knowledgefight.com is probably a good place to go. You got a link to the iTunes and, the best episode for people to, if our show is really dumb and most people,

it's hard to get into, but yeah, knowledge fight.com. There's an episode people can listen to. That's just good fun. And hopefully they'd enjoy it. Yeah. Yeah. And on Twitter,

we're at knowledge underscore fight. And I'm at go to bed, Jordan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I wrote a book. I wrote a book called,

uh, the quiet part loud. Uh, and I have it on a buy what you want, a website, uh, the quiet part loud.com. You wrote a book.

I wrote a book. That's awesome. That's great. We'll put a link to on this week's show notes. Yeah. Now I'm curious about your book. A very, uh,

interesting book structure. It actually yells at you. Yes. I love the idea. What I will do is I will not pay you, but I will trade you an Alex Jones bucket for your book. I'll take it. I'll take it.

In these trying COVID times, we're bringing back bartering. Yeah. You give me a bucket of food and I give you a PDF file I think that's a fair trade until the electricity goes out it's going to work for me I think guys thank you so much for joining us tonight we really had a great time with you and people go check out Knowledge Fight it's a great podcast

we always have a great time with you guys thank you so we want to thank our patrons of course we want to thank all our patrons we want to thank our patrons. Of course, we want to thank all our patrons. We want to thank our newest patrons, Jewish Monk, Gerard, Perry, Aaron, Evan, Ken, Gabriel, and Brian. Thank you so much for your generous donations. We really do truly appreciate it.

And so does Ian, because we pay his salary with that money. So thank you very much. And if you don't want a baby to go hungry, you'll pay Ian's salary. I just think not donating to the show

at this point means you want to starve Ian's baby. That's what you're saying. You're baby starvers. God, it's so sad. That's mean. I'm just saying, I'm not a mean person.

That's why I wouldn't do that. I always thought, Tom, we had a really empathetic audience. I thought. I don't know. I don't know what happened to him. I don't know what I'm not a mean person. That's why I wouldn't do that. I always thought Tom, we had a really empathetic audience. I did too. I don't know. I don't know what happened to him. I don't know what happened to him. Alright, so forgetting about Ian's stupid baby, let's move on. Let's talk about

some email that we got. We got a message from Dave and Dave sent in a Forbes article that I can't read because it's behind a paywall. I got it if you want me to. But it clearly says that Alberta Premium is the new rye. Like it's a brand new rye. That's the best whiskey in the world right now is a Canadian whiskey.

I would certainly try it. But now that it's been sort of flagged as one of the better whiskeys, it'll probably be very, very difficult to get. So Cecil, we should both try to find a bottle of this. When we both can find a bottle of it, let's have a taste test on air. We'll do it on a live stream. Yeah, we'll try it. When you and I can both have it. We'll try it.

Same company that makes this is the company that makes Whistlepig and Masterson's, both of which I enjoy. Whistlepig is excellent. I don't know. I've never had Masterson, but Whistlepig is an excellent rye. I will say this. I will say that the last time we tried a rye from Canada, someone had said that Crown Royals fucking rye or whatever was like number two or number one in the world. And it was fucking garbage. Boring is the problem. Canadian whiskey to me tastes boring. Yeah. Canadian whiskeys and Irish whiskeys are both boring. Oh God. Have you ever had an Irish whiskey that you wanted to drink? whiskeys and Irish whiskeys are both boring.

Oh, God. Have you ever had an Irish whiskey that you wanted to drink? That's a mixing whiskey. No, I'll take that back. I've always wanted to drink them, but I've only ever chosen to drink them when I wanted to get fucking floor hammered drunk because that's the... They are amazing for that. You could do fucking five or six shots in a row and be like,

whatever. It doesn't taste like anything. It tastes like being Irish. Drunk and stupid. That's how they taste. Exactly. Yeah. This's how they taste. Exactly. And yeah, this is a message from Nick and Nick sent us a New York Times article

about the gimpy, gimpy tree, Tom. God damn. Australia is, almost every episode I go story hunting and we find some horror from Australia.

This one was emailed to us. The gimpy, gimpy tree is just a tree. It's just a tree. But if you touch it for no reason, just touching the tree will cause excruciating pain. And that pain Cecil can last for months, for months, this fucking tree again, for no reason other than the fact that it's just in Australia and it has to protect itself from Australians. It's just covered with like millions

of these stinging trichomes. And then those things themselves are covered in some fucking evil shit. So you're basically like putting tiny fucking like razor blades or pinpricks all over your body, like little hairs. And then those things just release toxins into you. And this is on a tree.

This is just on a tree for no reason, except for that it's in Australia and nothing else can survive unless it is covered in weapons. Unbelievable. It looks, and the stories sound terrible. It sounds like it lasts for a long time and it hurts. It sounds like marriage.

I mean, it's just, it sound terrible. It sounds like it lasts for a long time and it hurts. It sounds like marriage. I mean, it's just, it's terrible. So the next story is, is a message. This is a message from Ben and Ben sends in a fucking photo, I guess, from where he was in this thing forever. One of the,

one of the far away lands that we have our wars. And he had taken a photo of a camel spider and it seriously looks as long as your leg. It's fucking the biggest, craziest. And I guess it's a scorpion, like a tiny, like a, it's not really a scorpion or it is a scorpion or something, but it's a fucking terrifying thing. This thing seriously looks like a face hug. It is enormous. This thing is, this thing is big enough, Cecil, that if you cooked it, you'd need those fucking

crab claw breakers to crack it open and eat it. You know what I mean? Like a nutcracker. Yeah, exactly. God damn. These things are absolutely enormous. There's no world where a bug should be of that size. No bug should be that size.

No. I don't even like getting a daddy long legs on me. Can you imagine getting one of these fucking things on you? Cecil, if we knew these things were in Iraq, we wouldn't have invaded. There's no way. There's no way you would purposely go to a country. All they needed to do is be like, yeah, look, we have these things. We'd be like, fuck, no, I'm staying the hell out.

Like, you can have your dictator or oil or whatever reason we purportedly went over there. I'm not going. Look, we only came over here because Dick Cheney wanted to get rich. So, I don't know. Look, we only came over here because Dick Cheney wanted to get rich. We got an email from John and John said, we're liars. Basically, here's the deal. I drove from Mississippi to Wisconsin. No idea why. He said that he wound up going, driving up there and he said, look, the crop, the only thing that happens is the crops change from soybean to cotton and cotton to corn. The temperature drops a bit. And we uncultured motherfuckers don't drink sweet tea.

I don't think you drink sweet tea. Don't you just put it in the fridge and it solidifies into jello? Like, what the fuck do you do with sweet tea anyway? The only thing to do with, like, southern sweet tea is just to cut off your own foot from the diabetes and inject it directly mainline into your open arteries. Absolutely. Holy shit. I'm not even kidding. I think it's, I think you can unmold it like a custard. Like it's fucking crazy.

You could set it out for the hummingbirds. That's another option. Just let them. That might be something you could do. The bees would fucking spit that out for being too sweet is all I'm saying. Absolutely. Absolutely. You're a hundred percent right. But anyway, he's saying, look, here's the deal. Fucking Illinois is just unbelievable. He said, I saw a sign that said, and this was in Illinois, it said, young thugs won't attack if they know the teachers can fight back, gun saves lives. And those are, they post them all over in Illinois and they post them all over the place, all over the country. But here's the thing, Illinois, outside of a blue bubble here and two or three small blue bubbles

in the rest of the state, we're talking the outskirts of St. Louis, Peoria, and- Champaign. Champaign. And not even Bloomington. I would say Champaign is probably it. The rest of the state is all red.

And it's hard red. It's hard. I guess Rockford also might be a small blue bubble. But it's all hard red outside of Chicagoland area. It's just, and it is crazy, hillbilly, play your fucking banjos, sing your fucking songs and blow into a jug, crazy, nutty, rural.

It is absolute, but we just happen to outnumber all those people. That's all we got. But the rest of the state is all red. Because I mean, drive through Illinois, it's all empty land. There's nothing there. There's thousands and thousands of, I mean, hundreds of miles of nothing at all. Nothing. So yeah, the corn leans red. Yeah. It's a hundred percent red and I do not disagree with you at all. And I think that our

southern most crazy, and not even our southern most, just our, our most rural portions of this state are just as backward as some of the most rural portions of the rest of the United States. And they, you know, they are, you know, you're, you'd find just as many Dixie flags here as you would buy you.

I bet. It's just, yeah, it's the same thing. Yep. Got a message. This is from Brian and Brian sent in two images of Neapolitan, but they happen to be Neapolitan, but they happen to be

Neapolitan of one flavor. So there's triple vanilla and triple chocolate. Yeah. This is like, why on earth would you do that? A couple of things upset me about this. First of all, it's Turkey Hill ice cream, right? Which is, I mean, that's just- Yeah. That doesn't sound good. But also Cecil, did you see the sell by date? Not the eat by date even. The sell by date, But also, Cecil, did you see the sell-by date? Not the eat-by date even.

The sell-by date, 8-28-2021. That's a long way in the future. That's a year from now. You can sell this a year from now? And I thought that sounded extreme, Cecil, until I realized there's no way anybody could sell this in a year. You couldn't sell. You need a full year just to move the two tubs of Turkey Hill

Triopolitan quote premium ice cream. What could be premium in Turkey Hill ice cream? In the 11th hour, in the 11th hour, you got to put it on clearance. That's the only way to sell it.

So that makes sense. Right. Yeah. Okay. So we got a bunch of messages about Bob Woodward. We did. And we're going to talk

about a couple of them. One of them is from Elvis. And Elvis says, basically, look, if Bob Woodward goes public immediately, our scenario is that Trump would have to admit that he knew it was serious and that it's airborne transmission and that untold numbers and deaths

would have been averted. I don't want to sound like that's what I said out loud. I don't want to sound like I said, because I definitely said to Tom, I don't know what would have happened, right? I definitely said that out loud. I don't know what would have happened, but I don't want to present this as a thing to think about

as if we were predicting what would happen and looking back in the past and trying to predict what would have happened. I want to present this as a moral problem. This is essentially the trolley problem for me, right? So here's the deal. You know something and you have an opportunity to maybe tell the public and that maybe changes somebody's mind. It's just like the trolley problem where you don't know for sure. You know, if I pull the lever for the one guy, maybe the five guys run over and try to save that one guy

and I kill six guys. Like, I don't know. What the fuck? You don't know what's going to happen. But you guess and you do the most utilitarian thing with your guess. And that's how I was approaching it. I was not approaching it from any kind of prognostication.

I don't know what would have happened. And neither do you, right? Neither do you. You don't know. I don't I don't know what would have happened. And neither do you, right? Neither do you. You don't know. I don't know. Nobody knows what would have happened. We have guesses and that's the best we can do, but I'm treating it more of as a moral problem.

And if you understand and think there was something moral that he could have done, then you should act. That's where I stand on it. I can see a case for maybe the more moral action is to use the information strategically, right? So, you know, sometimes if the goal is like, hey, Trump is who Trump is, Trump supporters are who Trump supporters are. I believe I can get more public good from this information by releasing it close to the election and creating scandal and eroding any, you know, then I can see that. So I

want to give credence to that possibility. Like it's possible. It's certain. And I will say too, like, um, and I've thought about this since then, and I've listened to some other opinions on this, like, you know, one thing that is, that is insanely intractable is the mind of the Trumpian audience. And like, they're not subject in weird ways that are hard to remember are true. They're not subject to new information. You know what I mean? They're subject to information that is only biased toward their worldview. So this information had come out, and then Trump an hour later said, even with a playing in the background, even with a playing on repeat in the background,

said, yeah, that's not really what I said. I'm not sure it would have mattered anymore. I don't know that things matter anymore in that way. I genuinely don't. And it's troublesome. So I understand that viewpoint. And I understand why people think that maybe Woodward had a better strategy releasing it later.

Maybe he did. I don't know, man. It's hard for me at this point. It's hard for me to decide like anything makes a difference. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. Woodward, Woodward knew one of the things too, that you got to consider, right? Is that Woodward is having conversations with Trump. He has to know he's a liar. So, so when he's having these conversations with him, maybe he doesn't even believe whether or not it was true

that it was passed via respiration when he heard it in early March, right? Maybe he doesn't even believe that because he doesn't know what Trump says is true or not. Again, that's another thing. Maybe that's true. I think you're right, Tom, when you say there might've been different strategies if masks would have been pushed early and they weren't. And I think that might be true. I think that might be

something that we might be able to think about and say, you know what, if Trump would have been the one to say it out loud, because you can't look at what he says and have somebody else say something. And if it's not coming from Trump, you don't know what that audience is going to believe or not believe. But if it comes from him, you do think that they might believe it. And I remember when this first started, people I knew were not taking it seriously, right? So I knew some people who were not taking it seriously. They happened to be Trump supporters. The moment Trump started to take it seriously,

they started taking it seriously too. And so I think you're right when you say his voice mattered early on to do this, but I don't know if Woodward's voice saying Trump said it would have done anything.

I definitely feel like you got to try. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, it feels like you didn't try. It feels, you know what it looks like from the outside as a person who's looking at Woodward, it looks like a money grab, right? So that's why, that's why I initially have a, like a feeling of you did the wrong thing because it doesn't look like he did this strategically to hurt Trump. It looks like he did this strategically to make a lot of money. And so that to me, that's why I initially pushed back on it. Like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah. It's hard to know. And he hasn't commented on it. We got a message about vaccines and Martin wanted to let us know that not all vaccines, and I hope I

didn't say this out loud. I was talking about the vaccines that they were planning on putting out a couple of weeks ago when they announced, the CDC announced that they wanted to have vaccine centers opened before the election. The person who I saw was speaking had said that the vaccines that are the farthest along, some of the vaccines that are the farthest along require a negative 80 Celsius environment in order to be transported. And Martin wanted to let me know that there's a lot of different vaccines that are just fine at, that are, that are going through the process now that are just fine at room temperature. And I wanted to make it sure that I mentioned that, um, that, that when I said that I wasn't, I don't think I was saying all vaccines, but if I did, I misspoke kind of message from Dan and Dan said, uh, you

know, he's been wiping down his groceries the whole time. And then he just heard recently on Friday that, uh, on the skeptics guide live stream, they said that it wasn't really worth the effort to do. Um, I remember early on the timeline. I remember early on, the timeline that I remember early on was the moment everything started to really hit and they started to do some lockdown stuff here in Illinois. And my last day at work, my actual office was like a Friday. I remember watching a couple videos and looking on the internet, like, how is this spread? I remember really going out and actively trying to find, and most places were not talking about masks at that time. They were talking about how when you go to the grocery store, it's living on plastic for up to 24 hours,

cardboard's a little better. I don't know if you remember this time, but there was big tests about how long the coronavirus can survive on these things. And they were pushing this and talking about this at such great length, I think because everyone had sort of exhausted the mask out already and said, oh, that's not how it's transmitted. So they were saying it's got to be translated this other ways. And so we're doing all these tests on how long it lasts and how long you can get it on these substances on these other places and like, you know, on different, on different surfaces. And so I remember hearing and reading about it and being very conscious and hyper-conscious about that sort of thing.

And so it wasn't until maybe two or three weeks later that I started to see more and more and more. Tom had said earlier, when we looked it up, it was early April when they started talking about how it can be passed through droplets in the air. And from that point on, it started getting more and more and more closer to it's transmitted through the air. It's way more than it is transmitted in other ways. Right. Yeah. And I remember one of the arguments about why masks weren't effective wasn't related to it not being spread respiratorily. It was related to the virus was, and I remember thinking the same thing. I was like, oh, that makes sense. The virus was just so small that it was like pouring water through a colander was the example that I remember reading.

Like the virus was so small that the mask was effectively non-existent to the virus because viruses are nanopart. I mean, they're so tiny. They need an electron microscope to see them. So I was like, oh, that makes sense. But it's like, well, it's got to be carried on something. It typically carried on respiratory. So it like the, everything was emerging, I guess is my point. Everything was, everything was emerging. Everything was changing. And it's entirely reasonable to say like, man, unless you like dove into this head first and read shit every fucking day, the conclusions in March were different than April that were different in May, which were different in June. And you know, who the fuck knows if there'll be different in November of this year. This is an emerging,

it's still an emerging situation. You know, the information that we know when this first came out, it was thought it was just a respiratory disease. How long was that? I mean, that was the prevailing theory for the longest time was this is primarily just a respiratory disease. And now there's speculation that this is in fact a vascular disease more than a respiratory disease. So, you know, it's okay. And we shouldn't beat ourselves up about it to continue to consume news to continue to fact check and to continue to let our conclusions about this thing evolve yeah it's absolutely that's that's how it should work right the more the more we get information someone sent in a message uh kitsune sent in a message for vulgarity for charity they said look if it's not too much to ask is there any way you can just put like the time codes

on when the thing happens? I'm not a fan and I just don't want to listen to it. And I want to say that I've made it very easy if you want to skip that segment. I know that we run them for the whole year. We wanted to finish them much earlier. We didn't get an opportunity to do that. But the thing is, is that we've, we name our episode

Vulgarity for Charity. So, you know, it's coming. We also put it right before the, it's the last segment. It's never like in the middle of the show. It's not the first thing in the show. It's always the last segment. So if you just listen until you hear the music for Vulgarity for Charity, you could just shut the podcast off. You might miss the email section, but you'd shut the podcast off and then you don't have to worry about it. And you can pick us up next week. So, um, we have done a very good job of trying to make sure that that is cornered in an episode. So you, if you don't want to listen to it, you don't have to listen. You won't miss anything else. Uh, Tom, uh, Trent sent in a message. Um, we're going to limit our Kenosha talking to just this email. So go ahead. This is from Trent.

Trent says, if armed counter protesters show up, that's going to cause a lot of people to stay home or stay away from the event. In the same breath, the listener is defending Second Amendment while upholding the rights of armed individuals to intimidate others out of their free speech and the right to protest peaceably. I think that's an interesting comment. Like, you know, our First Amendment rights are predicated upon our ability to engage in that free speech without intimidation. Now, obviously, that right is protected by the

government or it's supposed to be protected by the government from the government, right? We don't have an unfettered right to speech, free speech, particularly in private spaces. But we're talking about public spaces. And when people show up with guns, you know, I got to say like, if I'm having an argument, Cecil, and I'm having an argument just with Cecil, I'm okay. If I'm having an argument with Cecil and he's pointing a gun at me,

suddenly I turns out I've changed my mind and I'm on your side because Cecil could shoot me. It changes the power dynamic of that argument. I'm probably going to be a little less vocal. There are places where I'd be happy to have a fucking argument with a bunch of white supremacists, but while there's a cross

burning in one of their rallies, and I'm the lone voice, that is probably not one of those spaces. Intimidation certainly does have a chilling effect on free speech. It matters. It matters. We got a message from Elvis. This is an image we're going to post on this week's show notes. This is Joe Biden as the beast. So check it out. We got a message from Lou and Lou said that you can still get COVID if you look at the Who's website. You can still get COVID

from surfaces. One thing I want to tell you right now is do not get your medical advice from a podcast. So you should look at how you get coronavirus or not coronavirus. Go look at that on your own. Don't ever take our word for that. And for a lot of other things, in fact. I mean, we're commentary guys.

We're not news guys. So if I ever say anything that's a news story, I'm getting it from another source so check out those sources see if those sources are reliable for you and believe or not believe them that's up to you but yeah check out places

that you can find good information about the coronavirus and find out how you catch it how you spread it and follow those rules I'm collating all the information myself and any of the information I can give you can be flawed. Go find out that information on your own.

I would always recommend that. Lastly, we got an image from Holly. This is Glenn Beck as Colonel Sanders. It's genuinely amazing. Glenn Beck should never do a show that's not him as Colonel Sanders. I think he should just change his show to the Colonel Sanders show

and be that guy constantly. It's amazing. He looks fucking amazing. He looks so perfectly fucking Colonel Sanders. It's unreal. It's not like a little bit of a resemblance. Right. It's like if Colonel Sanders wasn't a drawing,

this is 100% what he would have to look like. This is separated at birth. That's what that is. Yeah. It's crazy. So we want to thank the Knowledge Fight guys, Stan and Jordan, for coming on. Great guys. Had a lot of fun chatting with them. You can check out their podcast, knowledgefight.com. And you can check out

Jordan's book, thequietpartloud.com. It's a book that you decide how much you want to pay for it. So that's gotta be, that's pretty bad-ass. Um, go check it out. Uh, and, uh, and thanks. We want to thank them so much for coming on. We had a lot of fun with them. Uh, but that is going to wrap it up for this week. Uh, we are going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics grade. 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 deadpan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. brain dead pan sales pitch late night info docutainment leo pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and 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, 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.