Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 549: 70 Million Terrible Votes

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

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Today's show is brought to you by AdamandEve.com. Go to AdamandEve.com right now and you'll get 50% off just about any item. All you have to do is enter the code word GLORY, G-L-O-R-Y, at checkout. 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. recording live from election 2020 headquarters part two this is cognitive dissonance every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way we count the votes in nevada and they blast anyone who gets in their way. They don't blast anything. They plod slowly forward.

Well, those fucking protesters outside ready to blast people in fucking Arizona. Fuck. Keep going, Tom. You got it. Jesus Christ. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news,

makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at this is episode 549. I think I didn't double check that, but it's somewhere around there.

Guys, counting is not our jam here in America. We can barely get to 270, much less 549. So obviously this is going to release. By the time this releases, it is entirely possible that nearly a week after election night, hopefully we will know who the president is. I think there's a possibility. But we're recording this on Thursday night and we don't know.

There's a possibility, Tom, that we might know by the end of this recording. Like there may be a possibility that one of us refreshes of a hit fucking F5 again for like the past- I fucking, my F5 button wore out on my computer at home. I'm on my third keyboard. Pressing F5 over and over and over again for three fucking straight days,

staying up, can't sleep, watching CNN in the middle of the night, which is the worst thing you could do with your time. Genuinely, 100% the worst thing you could do with your time. But, you know, you're pressing the button, you're freaking out, you want to get there. But there's a possibility that by the time we're done recording,

we'll know. We will know who the president is. Yeah. That would be great, Cecil. But let's talk about where it stands as of recording right now and how that, because man, maybe we don't know. So we did our election night coverage on Tuesday. It was live. It was great. We had a lot of wonderful guests that were kind enough to join us. It was a really fun night. Went kind of how we expected, to be honest. So I don't think anybody going

in, unless there was a massive landslide, thought that the night was going to go smoothly or that we were going to have any real solid answers. And that's because the ballots, many, many, many ballots were last minute, mail-in, absentee. And so there's a tremendous amount of work that has to be done in order

to count all those ballots. There's also the red mirage that they're talking about, which I think is a really interesting way to look at it, which is all the people who came in during the day, all those people were the ones who voted early. And so the places where they did count the early ballots, the ones that were sent in, the other ballots, those ones populated first. And so that's why there was a blue Ohio. That's why there was, I think, a blue Florida and other places, those ones populated first. And so that's why there was a blue Ohio. That's why there was, I think, a blue Florida and other places because those populated very quickly. And then as time went on, they counted the day, the ballots of the day of, and that disappeared. But then all the other places across the United States who don't count those ballots right away,

who keep those mail-in ballots till later, waited. And so what you had was what they called the red mirage, which was everything looks like it's red, but then slowly started to chip away. Once they start unfolding all those ballots and sending them through the machine, it started to slowly chip away at the lead. And by the time we left here, Michigan was solidly red, Pennsylvania solidly red. Pennsylvania, solidly red. It's still red, but at this point, it's closer to flipping than ever. Wisconsin, solidly red.

So there was some states that were specifically very, very red and in the next day flipped and were actually called for Biden. Yeah, and it's not like that was unexpected. That was predicted. FiveThirtyEight predicted that. Bernie Sanders two weeks ago predicted that on Jimmy Fallon's show. This was a well-known phenomenon that was likely to occur, and it did occur.

The only way that that wasn't going to happen is if there was a massive in-person turnout landslide for Biden that grabbed and held and delivered key states like Florida very early on in the evening. That was my sincerest hope, but it didn't happen. And I wasn't holding out a tremendous amount of hope that it was going to happen. So here's where we stand right now. As we record this, it's 253 for Biden, 214 for Trump. The Senate's 48 and 48. The House is 209, 192. We're still waiting on results from Nevada, Arizona, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia. It amuses me because it also says Alaska, but who fucking cares? Yeah, that's Trump. I don't know why they're fucking playing games with that.

Well, they're waiting for people because they have a rule that you can send your ballot in because they have a very robust mail-in ballot system up there. And they count anything that's postmarked that day. And so they wait like a week to process everything. So that's why it's not called. And that's very responsible reporting, right? And this is also the responsible way to decide, to figure out what the fucking will of the American people is. We're in a place right now at Thursday night where the president and his supporters simultaneously are gathered in mass outside polling places in Pennsylvania, screaming, stop the vote and gathered outside in mass in Nevada, screaming, count all the votes. Yeah, in Arizona. In Arizona, I'm sorry.

They want all the votes counted in places where they feel like they have some numerical advantage. They want the voting to stop where they feel like they don't have a numerical possibility of winning that state. They want to end it where they're clearly ahead. What that belies is that that is authoritarianism. Yeah. clearly ahead. What that belies is that that is authoritarianism. That is a desire to be in power regardless of the will of the American people. That is literally authoritarianism. That's what that is. That is a desire for power for an individual over the will of the democracy. You can't pretend it's anything else. This isn't gamesmanship. There are people on the right who are saying, well, you know, you got to fight,

you know, use everything in your tool, every tool in your toolbox to win. And no, fuck that. This is cowardice and this is corruption and this is personal gain. This is blatant, power-grabbing authoritarianism. Let it not be said it's anything else. This isn't hyperbole when I say it. When every vote, the vote is the will of the people. We're in this crazy place where the electoral college and the popular vote do not sync up. And even that, even throwing away that the actual will of the people is unbelievable. It's 4 million votes clear at this point and probably will be much clearer. It's going to be more. Right?

It's at least 4 million clearer. We're at a place where we're nail biting about 10,000 votes here and 6,000 votes there. And even that, even that, Trump is saying, I don't want those votes to count. Even the minuscule micro niche, tiny corner of the fucking pie of votes. This is a direct and blatant attempt to disenfranchise the American people from having their choices heard. The Electoral College already does that. The Electoral College already disenfranchises you. It already means that your voice doesn't matter. It already means that the will of the people does not carry the day.

And there's an attempt, a blatant attempt, and it is supported crazily. It is supported by 69 million people. There are masses of people gathering in support of their own fucking disenfranchisement. Even if you win, you are still being disenfranchised. Because we are saying that the American people's voice does not decide the election. That's fucking wrong. That is not a democracy. It's not even a representational democracy. We spend how much time over the last several days paying attention to Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, and Georgia?

How many hours of our day did we spend paying attention to only those states? Right? We literally, they are the only ones that matter. Well, that doesn't make any sense. All of our votes should matter. And this literally would be over by a lot. I mean, I'm looking at California right now. California only has,

they've only gotten through three quarters of their votes. They still have one quarter of their votes to do. Biden is winning there by 65% to 32%, right? So he's pulling in two thirds of those votes and he's 7 million to three to 4 million. It's almost 8 million to 4 million out there. And they still have a quarter of their votes to count. So it's going to be more, a more mil, maybe one more million. What? I don't know. I don't know math, right? It's going to be more millions. It's going to be more, and it's going to be way more

at the end of this. We're looking at the electoral college. You're looking at the popular vote right now is at 4 million. Earlier in the day, it was at 3.5 million. It's going to keep growing as time goes on. And you're looking at just, if you can look other people in the face and say, no, this is a better system than disenfranchising 4 million people. More than that, it's actually 70 plus million people, but still 4 million people at the very least. And saying those people,

they don't get a say in who the leader of this country is. And I know people want to say, oh, well, it's how the states handle the bull. It's like fucking states don't fucking, states aren't things. People are what matter. The states are just a collection of those people. And it shouldn't be that a collection of people in Georgia suddenly get to decide how this whole

fucking country swings. Well, Cecil, we are, I just did the math out of curiosity. We are breaking our ass trying to figure out what 54.27 million Americans want, right? That is the collected population. It's actually much less next. They don't all vote. But that is the collected population in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. But there are 328 million people. Yeah. 328 million people. We are breaking our ass worried about what's 16.5%. Yeah.

That's what they care. When the odds are ever in our fucking favor on the goddamn general election popular vote. It's not even close. There is a multi-state compact, which I think is amazing. There's a multi-state compact, which is right now primarily eastern seaboard states, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, California, I think Oregon and Washington. And they've all said, look, where the popular vote goes, that's where our electoral votes go. And that is the only fucking thing that makes sense. And the wonderful thing about that is you don't need a fucking act of Congress in order to fix that, right? That fixes the issue. Everybody can just get together.

All the states agree. We say, hey, we're just going to throw our votes at the winner of the popular vote. And that means that 270, if you're at 270, it doesn't matter what anybody else does. They could still do however they want to do it. If the state wins, it doesn't matter because 270 is the winner. Right. I wish that we would be required, Cecil, to change our rhetoric to match what we do. that we would be required, Cecil, to change our rhetoric, to match what we do. And what I mean by that is it would be wonderful if we were going to, if the right was going to say, well, you know, we really want to stop the voting when it says we really want only certain votes to count.

We really want to not count these people who voted and mailed in their ballot. They should have to say that we don't govern by the will of the people. They should have to come out and say that shit. They should have to come out and say that the will of the people, that they're not pro-democracy. They should have to say it out loud. They should have to stand in front of everybody

and explain to me without these backbending, rhetorical, fucking shenanigan, backflip bullshit that they're doing. They should have to stand in front of everybody and they should have to say, you know what? Your vote doesn't count because it doesn't empower my team. That's why I don't care about you or your family. That's why we're not really a democracy in Pennsylvania because you didn't vote for my team and I just want my team to win.

Yeah. That's all this is. This is gamesmanship. And that's exactly what's playing out with all the lawsuits that he's filing, right? So he's filing lawsuits and he's sending people to the polls and they're trying to get more people into the room to watch the polls. And the people are saying there's already people here. There's already webcams here.

There's already, you know, there's already- It's live stream. An immense amount of transparency. The other thing too is that he keeps on saying, Trump just talked maybe 40 minutes ago and I watched it. And he said on the podium, he said, well, yeah, these are all run by Democrats. And then the person on Fox News,

as soon as it was done, came on and said, the president just said it's all run by Democrats. But I want to point out in Georgia, the secretary of state and the governor are both Republicans. Brian Kemp is a fucking cheating Republican. If he was going to cheat, he would cheat in his own state. Like it would assume that cheating in your own state might be easier than cheating in a neighbor state, especially when you run the whole thing. And the fact that he's saying that it's run by a democratic machine is absolutely ludicrous. And the fact that they, he's pointing

out that they put up barriers, they put up a paper to block out, but they have in every place, they have poll watchers from an independent, a Democrat, a Republican, sometimes multiple versions of those, webcams. They have people there that are constantly watching and making sure that this is going on and it's accurate. And I think the reason they put that shit up, because it's just distracting when you got a bunch of fucking zombies out there banging on the window, screaming, stop the count and let us in. You know, it's just a random person. You don't just get to come in here. Like what the fuck do you think this is?

What are you just going to barge in on a surgery too? Asshole, what the fuck is going on with these people? What do you think you, what do you think you have the right to do? Actually, I want to try to keep that place as sterile as possible. Sterile in the sense of not having a bunch of people that would be contaminants in that room that could feasibly fuck things up. I don't understand why people don't just want fucking every vote to count and then just look at it.

Because I'll tell you what, even if you voted for fucking a Republican, which I think is repugnant, I still want your vote to count. Yeah, that's because I want us to live in a goddamn democracy, Cecil. Because if we don't, then what's the point of the whole thing? A huge part of the problem that I've had over the last four years is this unbelievably rapid descent into authoritarian rule. We have had a complete disrespect of the first amendment in this country. It has been the government, the fucking president in June stood in front of everybody and said, when you're president of the United States, you have total control.

This is a thing that is happening right now. We have, we have people peaceably gathering. They declared a protest. Did you see in North Carolina, there was a, there was a peaceable march to the polls and they broke it up within one minute. Did you see this thing, Cecil? I missed it. So they had this, the march, like a get out to vote march. Oh, I saw this. I did see this. This was last week. Yeah. They had like, they had hundreds of people. They're walking. It's a get out to vote march. They're doing their thing. They get to a statue. They plug in a doohickey, and they start having some speeches.

The police come out. They unplug the portable PA system. They tell everybody to leave. People have less than one minute before they start firing tear gas on that crowd. Yeah. I saw they tear gassed somebody in a fucking wheelchair. Dude, they're tear gassing children intentionally shooting pepper balls near children. They're tear gassing the crowd within one minute.

That is a that is a rapid descent into authoritarian rule by fucking government thugs. We are there, guys. We're there. When when the leader of the country is standing in front of the press and the press cuts away because the press is saying to us, this is not credible. That happened today. That happened today. The president, you told me about this earlier, the president stood in front and then multiple news sources cut away because he is not a credible source of information because he's a corrupt authoritarian. 69 million people support that. Tom, he was saying the vaguest shit you could possibly imagine. He's saying, oh, there's

just tremendous voter fraud. And I told everybody there was going to be voter fraud and it's just tremendous. And they found ballots here, hundreds of thousands of ballots in this place. And they brought in ballots late at another place and that proves fraud. And he just keeps going on and on and on. And he's saying the most absurd shit you could possibly imagine. And I'm watching Fox News' coverage of this. I'm not watching fucking MSNBC, which cut away from him actually, right? They actually cut away from him. But I'm watching Fox News' coverage of this. And they literally come on after it's over. And the guy says, yeah, none of that is true,

basically. The president has no evidence. They don't have any evidence. And then they talk to a woman who essentially pointed out the Brian Kemp thing. Like,

what are you talking about? You have no evidence. And he's sending, I guess he's sending lawyers up and they're just getting smacked down by judges. They're trying to come in

and they're trying to figure out and they're trying to stop counts and they're just, get the fuck out of here. They're just getting wasted. down by judges. They're trying to come in and they're trying to figure out and they're trying to stop counts and they're just getting the fuck out of here. They're just getting wasted. And then it's because they literally have no path. They just don't have a path. You got to count the fucking votes. Yeah. And again, if you feel like, I just can't get over Cecil, the idea that we are in a place where we're saying out loud that we don't want people's vote to count yeah we're saying it out loud we don't want it we don't want the thing that we do is we add up all

the votes and then you figure out who wins from the votes yeah in 2000 that election was fucking flat out stolen stolen stolen election gore won that election that can't happen again. That was not right. People chose a different leader than the leader that they got. And as a result, the direction and the shape of the country. If you guys think this doesn't matter, if you think all people are the same, do you really think Gore would have gone to war with Iraq? Because there was literally no reason for that to happen. There was literally not one fucking credible reason for that to happen. There was literally not one fucking credible reason for that to happen. If you had Gore, you wouldn't, if you didn't have, if you had Gore instead of Bush,

you wouldn't have Cheney, you wouldn't have Rumsfeld, you wouldn't have had any of those guys that were pushing for that war. The war in Iraq would not have happened. Yeah. These things matter. They make a real tangible difference. People live and die because of the leaders that we choose. And at the very least, Cecil, we get to make that choice. And I cannot believe at fucking 7, 10 p.m. on Thursday after election night, we are having people, armed people protesting outside the fucking ballot counting offices, honestly suggesting that we not count other citizens votes. If I lose, I'll be a sore loser, but I'll recognize that I lost. Yeah, me too. Me too.

I'll fucking wipe my eyes and bitch and piss and moan, but I will recognize that I lost. I won't try to, I won't try to cheat to win. The other thing too, is that, you know, I won't try to cheat to win. The other thing too is that, you know, you didn't lose. You know, even if Trump somehow runs the field here and gets all the electoral votes that are still on the table, because he really does have to get almost everything. He's got to definitely get Pennsylvania. And then he's got to get most of the other ones.

I think at this point, he can lose Nevada. But the rest of the rest of them, if he doesn't capture the rest of him he's fucked and so he's got to run the board um chances are really good for biden at this point uh and and it's kind of the way pennsylvania is coming in if he wins pennsylvania it's fucking over like the whole thing's over period it's done it should be over anyway because we're four million votes ahead because four million more people that's a lot of people man there's some states don't even have four million lots of states don't have four million

people you know so like like it's about the size it's about the size of chicago and a little bit of the chicagoland area you know it's a fucking big amount of fucking people there's a shit ton of cities out there that we think are big cities that have way less than 4 million people, right? Way less than 4. You think of a big city, you're like, oh, it's a big city. Yeah, that city only has 600,000 or 700,000 people. You're talking about a massive group of people in this country that basically have already

said, I want Biden as my president. And let's talk for a second, Tom, about what this says about the country, because I was, we did our election night coverage. And by the way, patrons, anyone can go watch it. It's on YouTube and it will be on Twitch for a little while. I don't know how long. It's also on Facebook. So you can go watch it if you want. We had on Andy Wilson, we had on the Knowledge Fight guys, and we had on Heath Enright. We tried to cross the streams with opening arguments, but it didn't work. We canceled after a minute or two.

It just didn't work. It was tech problems we had to fire in. The thing is that we covered this the other night, and I thought, and I said on that coverage,

I can't believe he's getting, he's going to get more votes than he got last time. Right? I mean, here we are this far into our, our, where we're at, which is, you know, COVID, you don't need, we wouldn't even heard about COVID for the past couple of days, but COVID is on the fucking loose. It is just more people today have gotten it and died than I think we've ever seen. And so, you know, it's just going to keep climbing. Tom had some horrifying numbers that he quoted to me earlier about how a conservative estimate is over 400,000 people dying in the United States before the end of the year. And so we're in, we're on a, we're on a pace to really be in a bad way with COVID. And I don't understand how that doesn't get you to change your mind. But then all the other stuff that he's done,

all the divisiveness that he's created, I thought for sure I was going to look out and see, yeah, he got way less votes. And he did get way less votes, but not enough for me to think that he, I mean, I think he should have got a lot less votes than what he actually got. And it really says a lot about America.

It does. It's in a, in a world Cecil where there, his record turnout and 6 million, so far 6 million more people than four years ago with everything we know about who Trump is with that. And that's the thing. Four years ago.

Yeah. Four years ago. 19 more million at the end of this. It'll be nine. I think 19 more million people will have voted. I will. I will give. I guess I will. I will fucking bite my tongue till it bleeds, but I will give a pass the first time.

The second time you can't. You can't. You don't get to. You can't, you can't, you don't get to, you can't. We've, we've had four years of this motherfucker standing in front of us and lying to us and refusing to take our problems seriously and mocking the disabled and mocking people of color and fucking mocking the rule of law and hiring his children, his fucking nepotistic fucking hiring practice, sending his goons out, his Rudy Giuliani to go dig up garbage dirt, his fucking incompetence, his corruption, his greed. He is indecent. And you have four years and every day you cannot

possibly keep track of the crazy, evil, shitty, authoritarian, mean-spirited, despotic shit that this motherfucker has done. You can't keep track of it. I defy you to keep track of it. Yeah. Four years of it. And we have half the country or goddamn near standing in front of us saying, four more years. And I can't believe that we are this people. I can't believe that nearly one in two of us, nearly one in two of us can look you in the eye

and say, that's a good man. That is what a good man does. That is how a good, that is somebody I want in charge of me. I can't believe that. It's more than that too, because all those people that voted, they have families and they have kids that can't vote and they're teaching their kids to be exactly the same way they are. And so, you know, there's plenty of people out there that are Trump supporters that couldn't actually vote for him that are, you know, younger, that are too young. And so they're, they're, they're a hundred% in the Trump camp. They're right there. I think we talked about it a little the other night, and I think there is something to follow up on. We talked a little about how many people view COVID as a, I live in danger, but still I'm able to sort of make a living, or I hide in my house and we shut the

economy down and I lose everything. And there's a binary choice for them. And so they see it and they see the candidates who played up, admittedly, Biden played up the COVID thing, which he should have because Trump's a terrible leader. But when you play that up, it might tune people up to say, well, what are you going to do when it finally happens? And they might not listen to him and his plans, which sound like he wants both and.

He wants to be able to slow the growth of this thing and also try to open up as much of the economy as possible. I think that that's a normal person's view on this and what we should be trying to do. And it seems like many other countries know how to do this and we just haven't figured it out yet. But the way Trump has and the way certain media has focused on this,

they're pushing the one only narrative, which is he's going to shut down the economy and you're going to lose your job. And so I think that there are some people out there. Now, don't get me wrong. These, I don't think they're, they're, they're either not thinking or they're not good. Those are the two options and neither of them are great. Neither of them are great. But when I see these inflated numbers, the only thing I can think to myself is that's the explanation. That it can't be that they're all mean-spirited, happy to have a despot as a leader. concerned about the single issue and then that's the only way that they function. I'm not saying that's a good thing to be, but I am saying I don't know that they're just like all...

I don't know that they're all people that would block a highway in New Jersey with a Trump flag. No, I'm sure that they're not. The thing is that being a single issue, even COVID, being a single issue, even COVID, being a single issue voter means you probably should lose the right to vote. I am, I am, Cecil, I am, I am very nearly done with the ideal of democracy at this point. And I'm going to say a few things that I don't know exactly how much I mean them, but in the moment I mean them. The world is more complicated than it used to be in 1776, right?

It is. Yes, 100%. In 1776, you as a person and all of your family, you couldn't do a fucking thing that resonated or rippled more than likely beyond a handful of miles from your homestead. The world was not complicated in the way that it's complicated now. We have an ability to fuck things up in enormous volumes at incredibly rapid paces with unbelievable technological sophistication that has never been before. It's just never been like this before. We have, the constitution is an agrarian document. It suggests that all people are equal in terms of their ability to decide what is good for them. And that made sense when most of you motherfuckers were on a farm or you ran the general store

and there were a handful of fucking printing presses and this guy over here is putting shoes on a horse and nobody had that much real power and nobody fucking actually fucking mattered. But the world is more complicated than that now. And we're still holding on to this bullshit idea that everybody has the ability,

frankly, to know enough about the world to make good decisions about how the fucking world should run. But that's not true anymore. The world is more complicated than that. We know more.

We can fuck things up. Think about what we can fuck up now. I'm not even talking about nuclear weapons and shit. We can fuck things up. Think about what we can fuck up now. I'm not even talking about like nuclear weapons and shit. We can, we can get a whole bunch of oil, put in a great big boat that didn't exist 200 years ago and ram that fucker into a reef and poison the ocean. How do I know? Cause we're doing that right now. Like we're doing that in the Maritius islands right now. You can fuck shit up on a scale we've never been able to fuck shit up before. So maybe the everyman is not the answer. Maybe

the everyman doesn't have, is not well equipped to decide these things. Maybe that's just, maybe that's just the God's honest truth. Maybe this idea where we get a bunch of fucking citizens together and we rule each other. It's just a bunch of lawyers citizens together and we rule each other.

It's just a bunch of lawyers now. We are crazy. We're a country that is in actuality owned by technocrats, governed by lawyers. How the fuck do we think this is going to work? And then we decide as a bunch of fucking illiterate fucking jamokes which lawyers to put in charge. More than 60% of us don't have a college education, but the world is too complicated for guys like me to understand.

I don't know anything. I got a fucking English lit degree. I'm not qualified. If you ask me about climate change, I shouldn't get to answer the question. I shouldn't even be able to opine on it. I am not qualified. You are not qualified. You have to constantly phone a friend.

Like you're up there every moment. You're just like, I want to phone a friend. Can I poll the audience? But only if they're all climate scientists. That's what I want to do. I think that we should just collectively decide that, you know what? The world is more complicated than it ever used to be. And we should be, we should, the world should be run by experts in their fucking field.

That's because this, I don't know that I believe this is working anymore, man. I'm not sure that I buy this idea anymore. Yeah. Well, and I want to talk too about the Senate because, man, this is the most depressing part of the whole thing. Not only did Mitch McConnell, of course, win, but the Senate right now is deadlocked

with, you know, essentially the Senate has, there's a one net gain. There's one net gain in the Senate. There was two seats that were flipped. The Michigan, or not the Michigan seat, the Arizona seat, Mark Kelly won, There's one net gain in the Senate. There was two seats that were flipped. The Michigan, or not the Michigan seat, the Arizona seat, Mark Kelly won,

and John Hickenlooper from Colorado won for the Democrats. But the Alabama Tommy Tuberville. What a name. He won. I gotta believe that guy. Hey, welcome to Potato Town, Tuberville. That fucking Mr. Potato won down there. And so, and then now, right now we're waiting on, and I don't understand the Georgia process. I genuinely don't.

But Purdue is now below the level he needs to actually win outright. And so then there's another vote that they do. And then there's also a Georgia special election where there was three people running. And now Raphael Warnock is running against Kelly Loefer. I don't know if I pronounced that correctly, Loefer. And they're going to be running in another special. So there's two special elections that possibly could happen depending on how the votes, the rest of the votes shell out for Georgia.

And, you know, Susan Collins won her fucking seat back by a lot, too. Yeah, what the fuck is that? By a fucking lot. What lesson there? Equivocate until you win? Yeah. seat back by a lot too like what the fuck is that by a fucking lot and then what lesson until you win yeah yeah and then lindsey graham won by 10 points fucking mitch mcconnell won by fucking oh god it's just i want to puke when i look at it but but basically here's the deal we didn't we're i don't know that we're gonna flip the senate we probably will not flip the senate um and so we're stuck right now. There's four remaining.

Alaska, of course, is going to go. I mean, fucking Alaska, for Christ's sakes. And then North Carolina, it's close. So you don't know yet because there's still 15, 5, 6% of the vote is still not in. And it might be mail-in. I think they're waiting at this point. From what they said, they're waiting until all the ballots come in because I think that they are in a system where they allow for a couple

of days postmark ballots to come in. And so there may be more votes that come in from this point on, but as it stands right now, they're 6% unreported. And so it might be that Tom Tillis loses, but then you only get to 49. And then you have to win both of those Georgia fights, which good fucking luck there. And so here's the deal. Have we ever had a split Senate before? Oh, where it's split down the middle?

I don't know. I'm not sure. Yeah, I'm not sure. That means the vice president comes in and starts swinging their dick, which would be great. Yeah, 50-50 is a win for us because then Harris is the 50 first. But 49

is not. No. 48 is not. Nope. And so if we wind up with 48 at the end of all this, which is where we're at now, guess what, guys? We didn't get a chance to do anything that we had planned. And so all those people who were saying, you know, Bernie Sanders would have

done a much better job if Bernie comes in. And I'm going to say this, and I know I'm going to catch some shit for it, but I'm going to say it. As a Bernie supporter in the primaries for two straight primaries, as someone who loves Bernie's policies, I'm going to say this. I think Biden might be a better choice if he has to work with the Senate. I think if he has to work with the Senate to get shit done, Biden came into the primary talking about working across the aisle.

This is going to be the moment that you're going to have to have those skills. Because if you don't have those skills, what the fuck are you going to do except for just watch Mitch McConnell's chin grow over the next four fucking years? Because that's what's going to happen. Man, and nobody was going to work with Bernie. Even if Bernie decided he wanted to work with people, nobody was ever going to work with

him. Think about what we learned about America from these last two elections. I mean, really pause and reflect about what we learned. Do you really think that a secular socialist Jew would have any fucking way to gain access to real power, even if he was, he would be executive actions or nothing. That's it. And all that means is that we have to continue to invest deeper and greater authority into the executive branch in order to get our agenda done. And then the other guys will do it and the other guys will do it. And then we got a fucking King.

That's that's. And that's kind of where we're at now. So anybody would think, Oh, Bernie would have been a great now. Fuck that. We saw that a middle of where we're at now. So anybody would think, oh, Bernie would have been a great, no, fuck that. We saw that a middle of the road, milquetoast establishment candidate is on Thursday night, not a landslide winner. And it's not because people didn't turn out. People turned out in record numbers. More people voted for Biden than have voted for any other presidential candidate in history. And that number will be vastly greater than any other. So it's not that he didn't turn out the

vote. You can't, you can't put that out there. It's that a middle of the road establishment milquetoast candidate was still painted by the opposition as a radical socialist. And people believe that if you go looking on forums and message boards, people on the right believe that Biden- Watch a commercial. Yeah, they believe- Watch a commercial. Watch one attack ad.

But people believe the attack ads. I didn't know that they would, but they do. I looked at some fucking message board shit today and people believe, they believe it. And they're scared that Biden is going to usher in an era of socialism. Do you think Bernie would have got? Are you fucking high? That's crazy. And I and I and I and I and I agree. Right. Here I am. Somebody who genuinely loves Bernie's

policies, looking at this, thinking, God, if we could get two or three things passed at this point with the way the fucking Senate's going to shake out. Yeah, man, we we could get two or three things passed at this point with the way the fucking Senate's going to shake out, man, we might be doing pretty good. And so I'm actually, you know, to be honest, I was not at all enamored with Biden, but I have to say he might be the best person for this job to try to reach across the aisle and try to have some sort of movement forward, some progression, because it's in the conservatives' best interest to stall everything. And he needs to paint it, and the Senate needs to paint it, and the House needs to paint it as something that has to be done. And that may change people's minds. But guess what? If you get this right now, here's what,

and this is, I'm not a fucking, I'm not a genius, but I can see this. It's crystal clear. He's inheriting if he wins tonight or tomorrow or whenever they fucking call this thing, he inherits the largest amount of COVID cases in the world and the largest death tolls in the world as a nation. He inherits that, right? So that's already on the books. He inherits a bubble that has already been an economic bubble that has already shown that it's really very weakened. And it's starting to get to the point where, you know, we lost a bunch of jobs from COVID. Yeah, some of those came back, but those may actually go away again because we might have to do some measures to shut things down to slow the spread of COVID. So he's inheriting a fucking mess. And so he's gonna come in the first fucking day

with an awful shitty mess, and he's gonna try to pass some things and get some things done. But that's gonna be painted. And so if he can't get anything through the Senate and he comes back two years later and says, hey man, nothing will go through, it might be that the United States

decides that they wanna go red. it might be that the United States decides that they want to go red. It'll be a referendum on Biden. It'll be a referendum on Biden in the midterms and it'll be a red fucking house, a red fucking fully red Senate. And guess what? You don't get shit done for four straight years and he's a one-term president.

He's probably a one-term president anyway because he's a million years old. But he's a one-term president anyway because he's fucking a million years old. But he's a one-term president then, and he got nothing done. And so you wasted all that energy to do nothing. And so at this point, if we don't fucking turn some shit around and really, I mean, I'm going to be real honest.

If these two seats go in Georgia, I am going to shit a ton of money down into Georgia. The show, in fact, is going to donate down there. We're going to probably donate some money down there. We'll let people know when we do it. We might even hold a fundraiser to see if we can send some money down there just to see if there's some way we could flip those fucking seats

because you are looking at a very stark future if Mitch McConnell is still in charge. We'll have years and years additional of not getting anything accomplished. And we need to get things... We are at a breaking

point. We're at a precipice. Things have to change. We need things to change. Nothing has happened. Most of what Trump accomplished was breaking things. It's very easy to take shit apart. The system makes it easy for people in power to take shit apart. The system makes it easy for people in power to take things apart. The system makes it so fucking hard to build anything, anything,

even things that the plurality of Americans generally agree we want. Look at gun control. The plurality, the vast plurality of Americans agree on things like background checks, and we cannot pass a law for national background checks. The will of the American people does not create action in our government. When we have a government which is going to be held hostage to itself and to its own bullshit bipartisan processes, we are fucked. We're absolutely fucked. We're not going to solve the COVID crisis. We're not going to solve the unemployment crisis that's coming hot on the heels of that. We are not going to solve the housing crisis, which is going to be absolutely a fucking epidemic unto itself once everybody can start evicting people who are unable to pay during the

lockdown period. There is a number of mortgages that numbers in the millions, Cecil, which are in something called forbearance right now. If you're in forbearance, what that means is you get to not pay for a short amount of time, but you still owe that money. And many lenders- And he still collects interest too, right? Some of it. Some of it. And the way that- And he still collects interest too, right? Some of it. Some of it. And the way that a lot of these forbearance, all of it collects interest. And then the way that a lot of these

forbearance agreements are written is, let's say you're in forbearance for six months. Great, I don't make payments for six months. Well, month seven, you owe me six months worth of payments. No shit. And if you don't make those payments, well, guess what?

You're six months behind now in default. We have millions of people who are renting, who cannot afford to pay the rent, and they're not getting evicted because we have passed short-term legislation, which bars landlords from evicting people during COVID. That will come to an end. Those people don't have the back rent. Where's this money supposed to come from if we don't solve these problems? If you don't solve these problems, not only are those fuckers going to get kicked out, but these landlords are also going to have their homes, their properties taken from them. They're going to be ceded back

to the bank. We're going to have a massive crisis in real estate, commercial and residential real estate. We're going to have a housing bubble that follows that. We have to fix these problems. We're going to have a housing bubble that follows that. We have to fix these problems. And we can't fix anything if we don't agree that there are problems. We're not even at a place, Cecil, where we can agree what the problems are. It's terrifying. That's the scariest part.

That's the scariest part is that, you know, and there's, you know, you thought that the mask thing was bad before when Trump was in office. Oh, I know. Wait until there's a national mask mandate. Wait until then. Then you'll really see what the fuck's going to happen. And you thought it was bad before. It's going to be real, real, real, real, real, real bad. I'm looking at the way things are shaken out and it does not look great. You know, even though people came out in record numbers to vote, it still does not look great. We still have a lot of work to do in this country. Oh my God. Gary, Gary, he won. Gary, we did it. We did it. You and me, buddy, we did it. We were the ones. Oh my God. Finally, American decency is restored. We can treat each other as Americans again and come together. Yes, it is a time for us to come together.

See you, witch. I have something prepared. Oh, what? Well, I'm a bit of a history buff, so I thought I'd reinterpret some of the founding fathers and patriotic quotes from our history. You think that's a good idea? Yeah.

Well, like give me your huddled masses yearning to come. That's a different interpretation. America is another name for opportunity to come. I think of a hero as someone who understands the degree of responsibility

that comes with his freedom. I get what you're putting down. There's never been a more perfect time for a pleasurable celebration. Release the stress of the last four years by going to adamandeve.com. Use offer code GLORY for 50% off almost any one item

and free shipping. America was not built on fear. America was built on courage and imagination and an unbeatable determination to do the job at hand. The job at hand. The hand.

Do you see what I'm getting? That one was a little belabored, Gary. Yeah, it's okay. Maybe you like this one. Where liberty dwells, there is my country. It's a little more direct. Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask, can I come yet? Okay, no more.

Oh, I got another one. Is it all people are created equal and that they're endowed? Okay, Gary, that's enough. Go to adamandeve.com. Use offer code glory for 50% off almost any one item and free shipping. The best is yet to come what so you're allowed to do it well mine's a little more classy hypocrisy was a gilfoyle that i mean all right okay fine you dirty communist what we don't want any more sir there's an unruly mob to see it does it have

an appointment uh yes it does i phoned ahead. This story comes from ABC 13. Pole dancing skeletons must be removed, HOA tells homeowner. So America, what is the problem with pole dancing skeletons? Are they showing too much skin? Now you get a boner.

Oh, man. I only wanted that story for that skin joke. This is hilarious. This is a woman who put, I mean, it's Halloween. She put a bunch of skeletons on poles and they're dancing on the poles. And the HOA is like, won't somebody think of the children? And all fucking pearl clutching. You can't have sexy skeletons.

I know. There's nothing to look at. There's no, how do you even know, what are you talking about? It's sexy. Well, it's giving me thoughts. What are you, a necrophiliac?

Are you kidding me? Are you Carl Tanzler? You're going to go fucking grave robbing to fuck a corpse you weirdo i can't imagine what position you put a skeleton in where i'm like whoa i have got to fuck that skeleton well you know it's a little hot because some of them are in the closet so i gotta say this reminds me of the conversation we've had a bunch of times, Tom,

about the MPAA or whatever, when they do the ratings. And if there's anything remotely, like you see like the tiniest second of somebody's nipple or, you know, somebody's bare ass, they throw a PG-13 or an R rating on something. You can't say bad things either

like F-bombs or anything because they'll immediately drop. You can't do that at all. They'll show people's fucking heads exploding and bodies turning inside out and like a fucking little kids dying and things like that. They don't care at all about that.

And think about Halloween. Think about, I mean, I know I've seen some very gory costumes. I mean, how just like a regular zombie is like, it's just full of blood. And, you know, people with good, good, that are really good with makeup can make themselves look really gory and disgusting. And then there's all the other implied violence that goes on specifically with this type of thing. And so, you know, and you know that they're not addressing the violence of thing. And so, you know, and you know that they're not addressing the violence of the fact that there's a skeleton somewhere. They're addressing the fact that it's sexy. That's what they're upset about. They're upset about this

thing because it makes them feel weird, but they'll have somebody walking around with a fucking bunch of gore on their face or dragging a body or something. And that's totally fine. Well, I saw something, I saw a story that's to your point. I saw a story that actually models that. So there was a, there was a story. Somebody put a murder scene in their front yard and it looked so realistic. There were multiple calls to the police and police were like, wow, there's nothing we can do. It's Halloween. You can decorate however you want. You put a skeleton on a fucking dancing pole and people are like, whoa. Yeah.

Whoa. Yeah. Okay. Maybe we need to realign our priorities a little bit. Like, whoa, human sexuality. Uh-uh. Human violence, though. Yeah.

Hey, that. We got to celebrate that shit. Exactly. Fucking crazy. This is the BBC News. Essex firefighters rescue three men from tumble dryer. Three people. Three people. It was an Tumble dryer. Three people.

Three people. It was an industrial size dryer. I mean, let's... That is true. That is true. But it's sort of like the first one gets stuck and they're like, I don't know, send the other one after him.

The second one gets stuck. And it's like, what is... Keep throwing guys in the dryer. Eventually we'll get them out. I read this story and I thought... You're like a World War I general. You just keep sending people over and over.

One gun, six guys in a row. Just pick up the gun from the guy that fell. I read this in Cecil. I was sympathetic. Like the last four or five days have been rough. I've wanted to hide too, but maybe don't. You're hiding in the dryer.

You're just curled up in a fetal position in a fucking dryer. It's warm. Leave me alone. I'm spending my winter here. When I was a kid, I lived in an apartment complex with a bunch of other kids. We're kind of a bunch of poor kids. I lived in an apartment complex with a bunch of other kids. You know, we're kind of a bunch of poor kids.

And I lived in an apartment complex that had no laundromat. So there's no laundry inside of your place. And there's no laundry mat. Because I've lived in many apartments in my life. And those apartments have had one or two laundry machines in the building that you could use quarters or things like that. There's always sort of a little bit of a convenience in that sense. Well, at this place that I live, there wasn't any of that. So we had to go to the actual laundromat with our stuff.

And so we'd carry our laundry down. And our parents used to make us do it. You know, like our parents were like, I'm going to get work done. You kids go do it. And so we'd have to go down and go to the laundromat. I feel like it worked all day. You kids go do it. And so we'd have to go down and go to the laundromat.

And so we'd go down there and it'd be in the evening and we'd be hanging out with our friends, doing laundry, waiting for stuff to get done. And we're kids and those dryers are pretty big. And so when we would finish and there would be no more, like all the clothes are dry, if there was any time left, we would pull the clothes out and then one of us would get in it and we'd turn it out and we'd spin around

inside the dryer. Did you really? Yeah, it was like a carnival ride for us kids. Oh my god. For hours we would spend in there. You know, you get 12 or 13 minutes a quarter and so if you ran out of time and there was still four minutes left, we had four minutes of tilt-A-Whirl in the dryer.

I didn't know anybody ever actually did that. Yeah, yeah. We used to, you have to, when you get in, you have to basically, because these were big. These aren't just small little dryers. These aren't your home dryers. These are made to fit like two or three loads of laundry. These are big dryers,

right? And so we would get in. And of course, you're not adult-sized yet. You're still a kid, right? How old are you at this point? I want to say 11 or 12. Okay. All right. So not, you know, certainly not a little. You're mid-sized. I'm not a little kid. Yeah. But you're mid-sized. Yeah. I was definitely, I was a really skinny kid. So I was definitely a coop. I wasn't a sports, I wasn't a fucking SUV like I am now. But back then I was a really, really thin little kid. And all my friends were all little thin kids too, you know? And so we all just jump inside this thing. And so you'd go in one at a time.

And you'd have to put your feet against the edge. So it's a barrel with these like little baffles on it, just like your home dryer. And you'd have to put your hands on the two baffles and then wedge your ass between the other two baffles. And then you have to hold your, you basically have to hold yourself up because if you don't, and this happened to me,

you would lose your grip and you'd fucking clunk on your head. And then you're stuck in there and you're literally rolling around like a fucking you're like a fucking gold nugget on one of those pans that they shake you are essentially bouncing around in that thing and then somebody has to be out

there to open and close the door so you have to have it gets hot in there too I guess and that's the thing is we would leave it open for a second too, because you'd unload all the draw, the clothes and it's fucking hot, right? It's just, it's a hundred plus degrees and the dryer is hot to the touch. Not just, not just a little hot, like very hot to the touch. So we'd leave the door open for a minute and we'd wait and then we'd get in. But yeah, it gets hot in there. You can't go for very long.

You only go for like three or four spins and then it's the next guy's turn. So that's how it worked out. That is my favorite story. I can't believe I've known you for 20 some years and I did not know that story. That's my favorite story you've ever told me in my life. It's outstanding. So I sympathize with guys getting trapped in

triers. Shoot her before him, but make sure he sees it. Or in this one, kill him, take him to his church, dump him in the pulpit. Alright. This BBC News article, this reads like Russian Clue.

This reads exactly like the final for Russian Clue. Vladimir Muragov murder. Russian Sausage King killed in sauna with a crossbow all of the nouns in that headline sound like mad libs okay give me a weapon crossbow okay give me an unusual room sauna okay give me a type of meat, sausage and a ruler. Great. Sausage King killed in sauna with crossbow. It's Mad Libs. What is happening? Oh, it's outstanding. And it is the most Russia way to die. A crossbow is the most Russia way to die. And also, you know, it's also the most Russia

profession. Sausage King is definitely the most Russia profession. I think it all just fits together so perfectly. It's like, it makes me think of like 2020 as a time capsule thing. Like you want to put that story in the time capsule. You want to step back and marvel. You know, I was talking about this many times when we've been recording, Tom,

is that there's been a lot of awful shit that's happened this year. But we've shifted the show to try to not talk as much about COVID and to try to shift, and it doesn't help. Sometimes we still have to talk about politics, but try to shift away from politics.

You know, some of the politics, because it gets a little over and over, you know, basically gets repetitive. And the same thing with COVID. There's nothing new we can tell you. And so from politics. You know, some of the politics, because it gets a little over and over, you know, basically gets repetitive. And the same thing with COVID. There's nothing new we can tell you. And so it's, you know, it's just really bad, guys. You know, and it gets really repetitive and depressing. And so we shifted away to try to do some funnier stories.

And it's really just been a delight to come across some of these, especially ones like this. When you just find something and you just marvel at it and you think, it's almost like a teddy bear. You just hug it and you say, this is what makes me sane this year.

This is what makes me sane. This would have been only slightly more absurd if it had been an icicle he was murdered with. And they come in and there's just a piece of water and they're looking around.

It's a crossbow that shoots icicles. Oh! The perfect sniper rifle. Did you ever watch Mythbusters, Cecil? Yeah, I did. I didn't watch a lot of it, but I watched some of it, yeah. I used to really like that show. They tried to make an ice bullet one time,

because that was the idea. It's the perfect sniper rifle. You know what you can't make? A fucking ice bullet. Because as soon as it basically blows it up, it just shits out. Too brittle to be used. It just shatters.

But you could make an ice crossbow. You're shooting icicles. That kid from Christmas stories wearing his glasses and he gets caught right there and it saves his life. Just catches him right. Oh, how was that for a carpet ride? It was a whole new world. This story comes from NDTV. Con artists summon genie, sell Aladdin's lamp to doctor.

Wait, he summoned a genie? That doesn't sound right. That doesn't sound... Oh, it's in quotes. Okay, so it didn't happen. Okay. So I love so many things about this story. I read two different,

and I don't know which one I threw in the notes. Maybe you should read it. You should read it short. It's only five paragraphs long. Two men have been arrested in Western Uttar Pradesh's Meerut after they allegedly cheated a city doctor one. Maybe you should read it. You should read it short. It's only five paragraphs long. Two men have been arrested in Western Uttar Pradesh's Murat after they allegedly cheated a city doctor of indecipherable sum of

money. By the way, I read another article. It's about $14,000 is what that turns out to be. By selling him Aladdin's lamp, the magical artifact from the popular Middle Eastern folktale that brings forth a wish-granting genie when it is rubbed. The con artist even managed to summon a genie from the popular Middle Eastern folktale that brings forth a wish-granting genie when it is rubbed. The Khan artists even managed to summon a genie from the lab to convince their victim, according to the doctor who was cheated. Dr. Khan filed a complaint with local police on

October 25th, describing in detail how he had been swindled by the now-arrested men, Ikramuddin and Anis. According to the doctor, he first met them when he began treating a woman they described as their ailing mother. I started visiting their home to treat the supposed mother. The visits continued for over a month. Gradually, he started telling me about a baba, godman, whom they claimed also visited their home. They started brainwashing me and asked me to meet this baba. The doctor said he met the godman who seemed to perform such rituals. Eventually, this group told me they would sell me a lamp for some sum of money ends

up being 14 grand. They told me this lump would bring health, wealth, and good fortune. They said, this is Aladdin's lamp. During one visit, Aladdin actually made an appearance in front of me. I did not know who this person was at the time. I later realized one of the accused was dressed up that's the best part oh my gosh that is so outstanding it would be even better if he had if he just had on his legs just like that

a cray paper where it looked like it was smoke but it wasn't actually on his legs that would be amazing he just like walks in a cray paper where it looked like it was smoke, but it wasn't actually on his legs. That would be amazing. He just like walks in from the other room. It's just like something from Spirit Halloween. He just walks in one of those vinyl bags

or whatever that you buy from the Halloween store. Hello, I am Aladdin. I hope it's like super racially insensitive too. Hello. I have a lamp I'd like to sell you. It brings health and wealth.

Aren't I a doctor treating your mother for sickness? Yeah. Yes. Yes, you are. Why would you sell? Why would you sell anything that brings me wealth? If I have something that brings wealth,

I don't need to sell it. It brings wealth. I love that part of it. It's like selling all your wishes when you could just wish for infinite wishes. I know. It's like, I love the idea that aladdin walks in it's like hello it's like well you didn't appear from the lamp i did earlier and when you're not looking i'll get back in the lab i took an uber i just i came in that way

i don't i know we're not supposed to blame the victim but I don't feel bad for this guy at all I just don't it's hard not to think of this as a fucking a lich and the story of Aladdin

my favorite thing too is the story of Aladdin that is folklore told by somebody trying not to get murdered. Like, that's what the Thousand Tales are, the Arabian Nights. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They were never, even in that story, they weren't true stories. So why would you think, why would you believe in Aladdin as real? Nobody, even the woman who was telling the story did not say here's a real thing that

whole thing is a thousand stories of please don't kill me please don't kill me please don't kill me hold on if i can if i fucking do if i if i can distract you for another 30 seconds i live another 30 seconds yeah that's so fucking crazy just what what in the duck guts you think you're doing? Minding my own beeswax. What are you doing? Where are you from? Florida. Florida?

Where are you from? Me too, buddy. Oh yeah? You call yourself a Florida man? You think you're such a Florida man? Prove it. Florida man was mauled by a leopard from CNN after paying $150 for a full contact experience.

I kind of feel like that's been our last four years. That we paid for the full contact experience and we thought, you know, maybe this is a bad idea. Do you see this guy's face? I did not. No. Is he all mangled? Just a big, giant bandage. I don't know. I can't see his face. He looks like H.G. Wells, the Invisible Man.

He looks like when you comically slam your thumb in a door and you wrap it with a bandage. That's what he looks like when you comically slam your thumb in a door and you wrap it with a bandage. That's what he looks like. Wait, you hiss? Yeah. He looks like a thumb bandage.

That's what he looks like. To be entirely fair, he did get exactly what a full contact experience with a leopard is. That is what a full contact experience... This would be like getting in a cage and having a full contact experience with a leopard is. That is what a full contact experience... This would be like getting in a cage and having a full contact experience with a UFC fighter.

Yeah, sure. With Jon Jones or whatever. Right. I wouldn't pay for that. Why on earth would you pay for that? What did you expect? That's so... These people who like cuddle, snuggle,

like incredibly dangerous, wild animals. Yeah. And then they get attacked by incredibly dangerous, wild animals. Yeah. And then they get attacked by incredibly dangerous wild animals. And you're like, well, I guess I didn't see it coming when the tiger attacked me. And the worst part is,

is you can get attacked by a tiger for free. Like you could just go somewhere and get attacked by a tiger and it's free. Same thing with getting your ass kicked. You get your ass kicked for free, man. Like 100%, someone will donate that shit to you. You don't have to pay him 150 bucks for the pleasure of getting your ass kicked.

You could just get your ass kicked. It's insane to me that this guy not only got, not only did he get fucking his face bitten off, but he also had to pay $150 for the pleasure. You have to wonder if he got his $150 back or if the guy was like,

no, man, that's full contact. I hope he takes her to Judge Judy and then she has to look at the contract on air. That's what I hope. That's what I hope.

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but Ian's the one who makes sure that it's curated to you. And he also is the one who puts together the wonderful commercials, the funniest commercials in podcasting, in my opinion.

He puts together some amazing stuff and people love it so we are very happy that he's part of our team but we need to pay him and so if you want to become a patron you can become a patron now at dissonancepod.com

or you can go to patreon.com slash dissonancepod and become a patron on a per episode basis and help pay Ian's salary someone's got to do it right he's the only one who actually dissonance pod and become a patron on a per episode basis and help pay Ian's salary. Someone's got to do it. Right. He's the only one who actually draws his salary from the show. That's the thing. Ian is better paid than we are because he's paid. Yeah. Ian is better paid than both of us for sure. And all jokes aside, it also gives us the ability to do things like donate to the goddamn Georgia runoff election, which we're hoping to do. Which we're hoping to do. Which we're hoping to do.

Because we're going to put our fucking money where our mouth's at. Depends on where that goes. We might actually do a fundraiser for that, Tom. We might do an online live fundraiser. We should do it. We should do it. It matters.

Maybe what we could do is we could seed it with X amount of dollars. Yeah, and get the ball rolling. We'll match whatever people post. So whatever people post, we'll go up to X amount of dollars and we can then donate based on that

and that would work out good. That would be awesome. We should do that. So maybe we can do that. Maybe we can plan something like that. Do a little fundraiser couple hour live stream and get a couple of guests on and see if we can raise some money. Let's do it. We wound up getting a

message from Asymmetria and they said, listening to 548, as someone who's an Englishman pointed out, Trump packed the court in preparation of the court to declare him winner of the election. You know, it's not that easy. He has to get there first and he has to have things that are actually legal that he can do because no, I find it hard to believe that it's going to get

all the way up to the Supreme Court and they're going to be like, yeah, you should disenfranchise the entire city of Philadelphia. You know, you need, there needs to be actual factual basis in the things that he's saying

to get votes thrown out and to get things flipped his way. And so there was, you know, surely there was some judicial shadiness on the part of during Bush v. Gore. But we've got to remember that there was certainly some sort of legal thing going on there that was not just, I want to win. Yeah, and Trump seems to think he can just call the Supreme Court and make a reservation. He treats the Supreme Court like it's a fucking Manhattan restaurant. And they

shut him down a number of times on that. He's just like, oh, I'll go to the Supreme Court. You don't make a fucking appointment at 1-800-SUPREME-COURT. You have to go to like, you have to go to Open Table. It's Open Gavel. I was going to say it.

You beat me to it. But yeah, so, and then, you know, if you look back on how Trump treats the entirety of the office, look at his early stuff when he was talking to certain people in the administration. Listen to how he talked to Comey.

You know, we need to trust each other. You got to rub my back. I'll rub your back. That's literally the life that he comes from. That's how he thinks everything works. He looks at Amy Coney Barrett, and he looks at Neil Gorsuch, and he looks at Brett Kavanaugh, and he says, I made you. He's doing the fucking Joe Pesci thing. You wouldn't exist out here if it wasn't for me. He's doing that to all of them. And they're all going to be like, yeah, fuck you.

I'm going to bury you in a fucking hole. That's what I hope. Anyway, I hope he winds up like Joe Pesci at the end of that with Brett Kavanaugh kicking him in the face, throwing him into a hole, and then throwing dust on his, throwing the dirt on his face, and he just breathes up that last pool.

That's what I hope. That's an unsettling scene and I would watch that. I would watch that with my pants around my ankles, my friend. Got a message. This is from Adam and he was talking about how Tom had said he was wary of vote by mail, and Tom wanted huge proponent of vote by mail. My only worry was this particular election with the monster that we currently have in charge because he said ahead of time, he said ahead of time what he was going to do.

He telegraphed his strategy to cast aspersions on mail-in votes. Here we are on Thursday night recording. And what he has just done is gone on television and filed cases with the courts to cast aspersions to not count mail-in votes. My only concern was this one time with this one dictator. The rest of the dictators, I think, will be okay. So I also want to say, that, you know, it's, there are, there is good systems in there.

I didn't know how it worked before I started to do it, but really genuinely the, uh, the, the ability to track your ballot that they have in multiple places now makes it a lot less of a chance that you will be disenfranchised through the mail and through the fault of the post office. And so, uh, cause you know, you just look at it the day of and say,

well, they didn't cut my bonem and I go have to stand in line, but at least I know for sure whether or not they did it. But even still, Tom, I dropped my ballot off. I did not entrust it to the United States Postal Service because I didn't, like you, did not trust them. But they had plenty of drop-off ballots all over. And so I was 100% down with walking my ballot in in the morning one day

and making sure my ballot was counted this time. And it looks like vote by mail was fucking absolutely baller this time for Democrats. Huge, huge. So I'd love to see it be a thing that happens in the future more and more and more and more. And the more we do this, the bigger the turnout's going to be because you make it convenient and people will do it. Well, and remember too, remember that before this, before he got caught and it didn't work,

Trump was trying to break the U.S. Postal Service ahead of the mail so that your mail would not arrive. You remember when he had, he ordered, the postmaster general ordered the destruction of mail sorting machines and the intentional slowdown of the postal service at the direction of Trump in order to make mail less reliable. So, yeah, this one time, this one time I was nervous. So but generally speaking, yeah, man, mail in is fucking it's amazing. It's what we should all do. The more we get to hear from the people, the more we really have a democracy.

If that's the system we're all going to decide that we have, then we got to go in on it. Absolutely. And I love the fact that you can do more research when you're at home and slower research. It's amazing. I love it. I hope that that becomes the norm for the future.

I love it. We got an, we got an image and I don't want to post it because it's someone's license plate, but someone's license plate has chicken wings on it. It's just so great. It literally spells out. I mean, it does.

They're missing some vowels, but it basically spells chicken wings. And Sam, Brian said it. I love it so much. So good. I would love to have that. There's a great image of,

that was sent in by Aaron of Trump that we're going to post on this week's show notes. It fucking should be the actual image of this fucking show. It's unbelievable. We might even do it. I might even post that as the image. I might even have that be the fucking image of this week's show. It's kind of perfect.

But we'll also post it on this week's show notes. And we also got a message. This is show notes. And we also got a message. This is from Adam. And Adam says, hey, I was listening to the podcast and you're talking about people, you know, balancing working and voting in Canada. And he says, it's not all by me. By all means, it's not a perfect,

it's not perfect, but it's a good idea. The law is that every employee has at least three consecutive hours during their workday to vote and it's paid. So if your shift runs eight to four and the polls are open eight to five, the employer must give you that time

to leave and go vote. And in Illinois, you are required to let your employees leave to vote, but it's not paid and we're in Atwill State. And so that could be some real, that could actually be really, it could not be good for you if you leave during the shift to go vote. The problem in the states is, and most states are at-will states. So here you can be fired

without any reason given. So an employee, you can call in your boss's office. They can say, hey, we've decided to let you go. You're effective immediately. You're terminated. They don't have to provide any reason for your termination here at all. So they can't fire you because you went to vote, but they can get mad at you because you went to vote. And then next week they can just fire you and not tell you why. And it's probably because you went out to vote. There are so many people in this country who have jobs where they are absolutely terrified to take advantage of the law, to take advantage of time off for breaks, to take lunches. People, we have rights, but because we don't have a right to work, we don't have any contract that secures your employer's obligation to you. People are terrified to lose their jobs.

I've had those jobs. go run to the bank to deposit money for the job I had because I felt guilty leaving the office to do other office-related work and be away from my phone because I knew I was going to catch shit even though I was still working. I mean, so many people have jobs like that where they are constantly under the gun,

constantly under scrutiny, constantly under the microscope, and you'll be replaced at the drop of a hat. And there's no fucks given. So that's a great system, but we got to have protections that are more real relative to our labor environment.

So we are going to stream tonight. We're doing this, we're recording a little early so we can stream after. And so we are going to be streaming tonight. So you can check out our stream. You can also check out the last live stream that we just put out. The election night was four full hours of live streaming.

That is also going to be, if it's not already, it's going to be available to patrons as audio. So you could just listen to the audio of us hanging out and chit-chatting with a bunch of different guests and having a great time. So you can, of course, become a patron. You can get that directly to your podcast player, but you can also watch it on YouTube. And if you're at YouTube or you're at Twitch

and you're watching it or you're at Facebook, be sure to like us on Facebook and subscribe to the channel on YouTube and whatever, wherever you're consuming that media. We really do appreciate it. If you've never visited our YouTube channel, we got a ton of videos there and we'd love to get you to subscribe to our channel

so that you can find out when we go live. And so you can come join us because we really having a great time there. I will say too, Twitch is a thousand times better to watch. I watched the video feed from Twitch and it's so much better than YouTube. It just looks way better than YouTube. Really?

There's a lot of people who actually congregate on YouTube. So depending on which community you want to talk to, you can go to different, different places to watch us. But we're going to be live streaming tonight. And so by the time this goes live, and by the time Monday, we should have a president. It's looking like Biden's going to win.

At this point, Biden is ahead by 2,500, or Biden is behind by 2,500 votes in Georgia. He could feasibly flip Georgia this time around. Biden is behind by, uh, by, uh, Biden is actually ahead in Nevada by 11,000 votes. Uh, and he could feed, he's, it looks like he's going to probably hold onto that, uh, to that, uh, to that lead. And he's only behind by 48,000 votes in, uh, in Pennsylvania. And there still is 331,000 votes to count. So, and he is beating the average that he needs by a whole lot to win that state.

So chances are he's going to win that state. Might be when we come in on Monday that that's where we're at. But I hope so. And even if not, hopefully Pennsylvania holds on and that's a victory. So, um,

but, uh, we want to thank everybody for, uh, for listening. We're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics. Creed credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter.

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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.