Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 582: A Hard 79

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Show Notes

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 from Glory Hole Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way.

We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, It's political. And there is no welcome at. This is episode 582 of Cognitive Dissonance. I think. Give me a look, Cecil. You're right. No, you're right.

You're right. 582. Made me nervous, Cecil. No, no, no. It's been a while. There's two documents. There is. And one of them is blank.

One of them is blank. And I don't know why it's there. And I do know who did it. And that was me. So, and it's funny because I thought like, like oh did i start the notes in two places again because i've done that that's that's happened to me i'll start them like on monday and be like i should do the notes three days later i forgot i'm sure you have done that yes yeah i've done that many times many many times so cecil before we go through the through the show, I want to tell a little story here. So we've talked a lot on this show about the fucking grotesquery that is the American

medical system, specifically the fucking insurance piece. So I'm going to relay a little personal anecdote. So way back in December, my wife had surgery. Haley had surgery back in December. Everything went fine. Surgery was great. They put her on a antibiotic after the surgery and she got, ended up getting C. diff. And this antibiotic, it wound up doing what? So antibiotics, so they gave her an antibiotic that like wipes out all the gut flora, except for C. diff.

C. diff is a horrible gut flora. That's just like, you can never get rid of. It just, it just, yeah. It's the fucking uninvited flora that's just like, you can never get rid of. It just, it just, yeah. It's the fucking uninvited house guests that like won't leave your couch of, yeah.

So, so she takes this fucking, it's Heath. Okay, it's Heath. It's exactly, it's Heath. Well, it's a little bit of Heath and a little bit of Eli

because it just shits constantly. It's just shitting blood. It's just shitting blood. Okay. So it's really bad. So it's, it's really, it's a,

it's a really terrible infection actually. So she ends up getting sick in December, a handful of days after surgery. We can't figure out, long story short, we can't figure out what the fuck is wrong. Right. So we're going to doctor to doctor, gastroenterologist to gastroenterologist, in and out of the emergency room. She's getting scary sick frequently, you know, like where she's losing weight.

She's a small woman to begin with. Things are getting like kind of raw. Like things are getting like kind of rough. And so we're going to doctor, to doctor, to doctor, to doctor, to doctor. And like, there's another part of this that's important. So we go to these doctor's offices and we go to the fucking emergency room and we're, we're smart and we're, we're well-educated people. And we show up and they are 100% treating her like she's a hysterical woman. And this is all,

like the beginning of this, mind you, is happening at the very height of the pandemic, the worst part of the pandemic, January, February, March. Yeah, sure, the worst part. We're in ERs.

We're in the ER five, six, seven times in the middle of a pandemic. And they come in, and we're describing what's going on. They're like, you know, it's probably anxiety and they're giving her like, anxiety,

they're giving her psychological referrals, everything but testing her and we're describing like, this is a stomach problem. I am telling you that there is something wrong where they say, well, you know, anxiety can come.

It's not fucking anxiety, you know? Stop treating like a hysterical woman. You know, stop doing that and dismissing it. I want to stop though, too, real quick. You have really good insurance. Let's just say that too

because we want to get that as a ground rule here. You have... I work for a Fortune 500 company. I have excellent insurance. You have excellent insurance. Your insurance, now granted,

you have to pay a little bit for it, but your insurance is top notch. Yeah, I have good insurance. I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that because our foreign listeners, I have good insurance. I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that because our foreign listeners, you know, their insurance can vary. Your insurance coverage can vary.

Your insurance, you know, the insurance payments that you have can vary. What they cover, what they don't. It can all vary, but you have pretty much top-of-the-line insurance. I have good insurance. Yeah, just wanted to say that. For sure.

So we're going through this whole rigmarole. Finally, four and a half months after she began being ill, we get tested for C. diff. And we're telling the story to yet another. Every time you go, you have to tell the story again, right? Yeah. That's the other thing.

There is no medical system, right? So there is no single source of your medical record, which means that every time you go to the doctor, you start over from ground one. Every single time you walk in, they've never seen you before, even if they saw you a month ago, right? They act like they've never seen you before. You're starting over from, so what, tell me what's going on. Tell me, so you're starting from ground one. So finally we tell the fucking story over and over

and over and over. And finally somebody said, well, have you been tested for C. diff? No, we get tested. Boom. She pops positive. She's got C. diff. Okay, we think. She's got an infection. Infection's treatable. We'll get treated. Sure. We'll recover.

It should be okay, right? So bad news. Four and a half months, a long time to be sick. But all right, let's- But good news is the horizon. The horizon is in sight. You can see it, we think. So, and mind you, this whole time,

every time you go to the doctor and every time you have a visit, it costs you money, even with insurance, right? So it costs you your deductible. Then it costs you 20% until you reach an out-of-pocket maximum. So we're 10, 11, $12,000 out-of-pocket at this point, personally.

Not our insurance company, but personally out-of-pocket, five figures. Your insurance company is easily personally out of pocket, five figures. Your insurance company is easily four times more than you. Right. So we start getting these bills from the insurance company. And you look at a bill, and this is part of the fucked up part of the system, right? You look at a bill from like an ER visit and it'll say, you know, $2,500. Let me just make it a number up, but it's probably not, we've gotten many and they're like that, right? So $2,500 for the ER. And then it says something like less adjustments.

And then it'll say negative $1,600, right? And then it'll say insurance pays $316 or whatever. And then you pay $582. And that's your portion that you pay. Now, what the less adjustments means is that your insurance company has a contract with that hospital. And if that hospital agrees to accept your insurance, they take a standard rate and they reduce the rate by a certain percentage before they bill the insurance company. Then the insurance company pays some portion and you pay some other portion of the insurance. Again, deductibles, out-of-ppocket maximums all play into how that works.

But Cecil, what that also means is that if I got that same exact service and I didn't have insurance, I pay $2,500. Yeah. Because the hospital gives a discount if you have insurance. They discount the total value

of the service. They don't charge the same amount to the insurance company that they would charge to you cecil yeah if you didn't have insurance they charge more to people who are uninsured more in whole dollar amounts than they charge to this big giant fucking insurance company the big giant insurance company gets a great big fucking discount because it's return business. And you, well, you, Cecil, you're just a person without insurance. You're more vulnerable. Sure. You're more financially vulnerable. Absolutely. You get fucked is what you get. Every time. Yeah. And you go to doctor, to doctor, to doctor, to doctor, to doctor. And part of the reason that that whole

system just doesn't work is because these guys have an incentive to churn through patients, right? Because these guys, like maybe they bill out $300 for a patient visit, but the insurance company reduces the amount that they pay per visit because of that contract. So they don't actually get $300. They get $300 less insurance adjustments. Then the insurance pays some portion. Then you, the patient, pay some portion. So in order for medicine to be a viable business, your doctor has to spend an increasingly small amount of time from patient to patient to patient. In the last several years,

I've noticed doctors essentially sprinting into the room and sprinting out of the room. And that's why they can't remember you. And that's why when you go for four and a half or five months from doctor to doctor to doctor, they just look at you like, well, you know, try this. And they run a test. Then they run a test. The test comes back negative. You know what they do next? Literally nothing. Because the way it works here in the States is the doctor says, okay, well, I think it might be A. I'm going to run a test. Well, they don't run the test that day. They say give orders to have a test or a lab drawn. Then you go to another place, another facility where you have the test done. That can take a week or two weeks to schedule that appointment. Then you get the results of that. And that might take a day. That might take a week, might take longer. Then those results go to your physician

and your physician looks at them. And if they come back negative, they just say that was negative. They don't say that was negative. It must be something else. Or let's try B, let's try D, whatever it is. So what you as the patient have to do is you have to then say, well, I'd like to make another appointment because I'm still sick. Oh, that's another two weeks out to make an appointment. And so being sick drags on for weeks and weeks and months and months. And the costs keep accumulating. And they keep accumulating. And the standard for care is so bad. Now, Haley got C. diff, right?

And so the most efficacious treatment for C. diff is something called a fecal microbiota transplant. We actually covered this on Citation Needed. Right. Well, they won't do a fecal microbiota transplant until you fail three other medication attempts. Because a fecal microbiota transplant is expensive. So they won't do it, even though it's the most efficacious care that you can receive. Right. Come to find out, and I won't go through this whole story that the second most efficacious

treatment is a treatment as a medicine called deficit deficit is 5600 it's 20 pills and insurance just my insurance just won't cover it at all that's 100 just no shit on you you just jesus christ you're just out 5600 but the doctor doesn't even tell me or Haley about deficit. We don't know anything about it. And the reason is, even though that's more efficacious than the medicine that they put her on, because they know your insurance won't cover it, they don't even consider it as an option to tell you about it. Because most people don't have $5,600 in fucking disposable cash.

But even if you do, you don't actually have access to the expertise, right? Because the doctor is not treating you based on what's most efficacious. The doctor is treating you based on assumptions that are financial in nature. The whole system, because of the way that it's financial in nature, reduces your quality and access to care. So Haley gets fucking C. diff. She goes through this treatment. She's still struggling mightily. She's still very, very sick. We don't know exactly what's wrong.

We're now into this thing, you know, five figures, easily into this thing, five figures. And I was thinking about this today. And if you had a veterinarian that responded to you and your pet this way, it would be unacceptable. Absolutely. Cecil, if you had a veterinarian that responded to you and your pet this way, it would be unacceptable. Absolutely. Cecil, if you had a veterinarian, if your cat was sick and you took your cat to the vet, or if your cat was sick and you wanted to get in, you said, I'm really, really sick.

And I want to get my cat in. They said, it'll be two weeks. You'd be like, get the fuck out of here. What do you mean two weeks? If you got them in and they said, I'm going to run a lab test. And then you got to go, it'll take you a week to run a lab test. And then you got to go, it'll take you a week to get the lab test. And it'll take another two or three days. You'd be like, get the fuck out of here. They do it all there. Get the fuck out of here. Then if the lab

test came back negative and the only communication you ever got with the doctor was through some fucking MyChart messaging bullshit and nobody ever picked up the phone, not one time fucking ever. And you can't pick up the phone and call your doctor, because I tried that many times, by the way. You can't get a doctor on the phone. They will not take your call. I called and damn near cried begging these people, like, please just let me talk to somebody. My wife is sick. I really need to just talk to somebody. Can I get a few minutes? And they said, no. Yeah. I tried many times. Sure. Right. If you did that to a veterinarian, they'd be out of business. Yeah. Our standard for human care is better for our fucking animals. Yeah. Than it is in America

for people. Sure. And the reason is these fucking insurance companies. Insurance companies keep us sicker. They're not helping us pay our bills. That's not what it's about. They drive up your costs because hospitals, if they know they're going to have to take 60% or 80% off the top, they increase their prices 60 to 80%. That's what they do. They don't give the insurance company a discount. They increase the fee. Then they reduce it in this bullshit way. Then they pass on a portion to you and then they pass on a portion to the insurance company and they pass on 100% of an inflated fee to the uninsured. Uninsured people get nothing. And even if you're uninsured, even if you're willing to just write a check, I walked into the doctor's office a few weeks ago, Cecil, and I'm like, the FMT is the, like every evidence

says it's the most efficacious treatment. Please, I will do anything. I will swipe a credit card right now. Can we just do this? And they looked me in the eye and said, no, we can't. They just can't do it because the system is set up for approvals through insurance. They just can't do it. Because the system is set up for approvals through insurance. They just can't do it. The guy we're talking to said,

if I could do these, I would do them all day. If I could just do them because they're the right thing to do. He said this out loud. I would do them all day. And he just can't. Everything is hamstrung

by these motherfucking insurance companies. And for some reason, there is a contingent of America that continues to grasp and hold and fucking hand job off their fucking insurance company. They believe that they're like a fucking, they're the best.

They believe that it's the best, it's the best care in the world. That's the line you hear. It's the best care in the world. Have one problem without an easy answer one time. Well, and the other thing too, is like, like I've been through, I have very good insurance as well. Right. So I work, I work at a, in higher ed and we have a lot of people. And so when you have a lot of people, you tend to get a

better insurance because the more people you have, the better chance you have. So I have a Blue Cross Blue Shield here in Illinois and I had the HMO for years. And I was doing the HMO was cheap. And I will say out-of-pocket expenses when it comes to the HMO that I had were amazing. Getting care was, it was months. I would come in with a sprained knee and the doctor wouldn't be able to treat it because he was a general practitioner. So he would have to say, I have to refer you to somebody else. And then they would refer me. And then I would have to say, I have to refer you to somebody else. And then they would refer me

and then I would have to wait two weeks for that appointment. Right. And then the two weeks later, I would go see them and they would say, okay, well, we need to get you to get an MRI.

It's going to be two more weeks. By the time that month is over, I'm basically better, although now it's a little gimpy. Yeah, you've just lived with it until it fucking healed itself. And it's kind of healed, but it's still a little gimpy.

But now it doesn't make sense to go through all this extra rigmarole. So I just stop. I just quit. There's so many times I quit on my own body. I was like, it's kind of fixed, so I'll just not go, I guess. And it's because they force you out. They force you to, because it's literally the line at the post office where you just get so frustrated and you

just say, fuck it, I won't even mail it. You know what? Mom, you're not getting a fucking Christmas present. I'm not sending shit to anyone. And you just leave. And then you don't send it. It's literally like that. It's just you get so frustrated, you just fucking check out. Like, I'm not going to do this. We have

astonishingly poor care. And we pay an enormous sum for that privilege. We do. And it's more than most people pay in other countries. They don't realize that, but it is. It's like, it is an astonishing amount. Like if you just count the amount that you write to a check to your doctor's office, you got to, you got to account for how much you're paying in your insurance premiums. Then you got to account for how much your employer is paying. Your work's paying as well. So your work is paying for insurance. You're paying for insurance.

Then you're paying out of pocket expenses. Then you get fucking medicine. You're paying for those medicines. And some shit isn't covered. The fucking, it stacks up and stacks up and stacks up in ways that are absolutely fucking crippling.

And at the end of the day, you got bad care. Yeah. You got bad care. Like, I think that the care, if I break my leg or have a heart attack or have, you got bad care. Yeah. You got bad care. Like, I think that the care, if I break my leg or have a heart attack or have, you know, these sort of checkbox problems

is fairly good, right? I think if I go to an emergency room clutching my chest and wheezing, if it's a good neighborhood, right? Because that matters too. Absolutely, yeah. Then I think the standard for care is fairly high. If you have a problem that takes

time and energy to diagnose, you have to know yourself what specialist you should go to. You've got to navigate all of that. And because none of our systems, unlike the NHS, unlike Canada, where all their systems are tied together, where any doctor can pull up your account, so to speak, and they can see your history and they can see everything. There is no such thing exists in our system. There is no such thing. If you go from one medical group to another medical group, it's all wiped out. It doesn't exist. That's why you have to carry your own vaccine card because nobody knows whether you got a vaccine or not. When I switched, because I just

moved, I switched to hospitals. So I was going to University of Chicago. University of Chicago closed down by where I used to live. And so I started to go to University of Illinois at Chicago. And now I'm going to Northwestern. So those are the three that I was using. Northwestern, I started all over. They did, however, have a little system that allowed me to share my old medical stuff with them. Yeah, if they're tied in together, so some of the systems now can't share. You can share. They can share.

They don't all share. And some of that sharing is imperfect. And even within systems, even within the same system, there's been so many times I've gone to the same, essentially the same hospital, just seeing a different doctor. Because for me, if I'm sick, they'll say,

okay, do you have a primary care physician? I normally don't because I tried to have one in a little while, but they'd be like, yeah, okay, well, it's four weeks to see the person. And you think, well, I'm not going to be sick in four weeks. Unless it's a physical or something. There's nothing I need that I can wait

four weeks for. Right. I'm either going to be really, really sick or done with it. Those are my two options. So why do I need to wait four weeks?

So I would always just choose the first available. I would say, well, what's the first available appointment? And they would say, we can get you in three days.

You got to see so-and-so at this place. Okay, cool. And then I would show up and they never met me before. So they immediately are like, well, okay, well now you got to give them

your whole history. The whole thing over again. You got to do it again. And if you came in with this this is the third or fourth time coming in. You got to do it again. This is now it's talking.

You're talking for another half an hour with them. Yeah. And if you've got a complicated medical history. Oh yeah. The thing is that like we, cause we've encountered that

cause Haley's been sick now for seven months. Yeah. Like she's been sick nonstop for seven months. And like shit has gotten complicated at this point. So now you go in and it's like, you've got to remember where to start. And like, you've got to remember all the details of like, and this person did this and that person, the last appointment we went to was kind of un-fucking-believable. We're sitting with this gastroenterologist and he's like, okay, well, when did I diagnose you with the C. diff?

And we're like, you didn't. Somebody else did. You missed it. Like, you missed it, like, at least once, if not twice. Like, you didn't. And he's just like, oh, okay. Like, no concern whatsoever, man. None. None at all. Because you know what? In 10 minutes,

you walk out of that room and he's in the room with someone else. There's, and that's insurance drives that speed. Insurance necessitates that speed, which means that nobody cares. Nobody's looking. You as the patient have to do all the legwork yourself, but you're not qualified. We on this show have talked so many times about like, like making fun of Dr. Google, right? And absolutely, man, Dr. Google, we should make fun of Dr. Google. But at the end of the day, what I've come to realize over the last seven months is you don't have a better choice a lot because you can't call your doctor.

And if things go wrong, they don't call you back. They just don't. And something happens on a Friday at seven o'clock, everyone's closed. Yeah. Unless it's a fucking emergency. If you just have a problem, you can't get shit done. And the emergency room just pats you on the back,

puts drugs in you, and sends you home. They give you a lollipop, and they send you on your way, man. All they do, like... They are 100% triage. Yeah. Just fix whatever they can

and send you on your way. It's not a solution. Yeah. It's not even remotely a fucking solution. The system, the financial requirements of this system mean we get terrible care. We get bad care. And we pay the absolute most in the world

for the privilege of it. Sure. And I was thinking, man, and I thought about it because I drove past my old, my fucking veterinarian's office. Like, we wouldn't accept this from a veterinarian. If something like this, if you veterinarian's office. Like, we wouldn't accept this from a veterinarian. If something like this,

if you told this story about your cat, you'd be like, that veterinarian sucks. I'm leaving him a bad review and I'm going down the street and he'd get better care at another fucking vet.

Yeah. We, we accept worse care for ourselves than we require for our fucking pets. Yeah, that's true.

These guys are not our legitimate contacts. These guys are KGB special branch. Oh, come on. Don't tell me to come on. That was a Russian wristwatch. I know the country of origin of every timepiece in the world.

That was a Russian copy of a 1969 Timex digital. What is this, some kind of a hobby with you? Basic. Most common slip-up in espionage. We walk right into enemy hands. So this is the big story everywhere.

This story comes from the Independent. Justice Department National Security Chief resigns over snooping on Democrats. So, holy shit, dude, it's fucking Watergate with a computer. Yeah, yeah. Like, Watergate, you know, for those who are not a million years old,

Watergate was basically the president sent lackeys to break into the offices of his political opponents, and they fucking literally broke in with flashlights, and they're walking around, and they get caught, right?

And they're trying to dig up dirt on their political opponents. Right. This is the same thing! Yeah, man. Without the flashlights, Cecil. Absolutely. This guy,

so he's stepping down, but I think what the scariest part of all this is, is that, you know, this guy is digging up dirt on opponents. They're using all kinds of different ways, and it's the Justice Department is going through different ways to dig up this dirt. Phone records, email. Yeah, all this dirt

on them, trying to find something, right? You expect shitty, actual shitty behavior from Trump. Yeah. But there was this narrative and it was reinforced, Tom, if you remember the op-ed that came out that essentially was the guy in the room

who was saying, don't worry, I'm not letting him fuck everything up. There was that op-ed. Do you remember this? I do. That big op-ed to be like was saying, don't worry, I'm not letting him fuck everything up. There was that op-ed. Do you remember this? I do. That big op-ed to be like,

oh, there are smart, there are adults in the room. Don't worry, there are adults. They're stopping him. There's checks and balances. He's not going to bomb a hurricane. He's not going to buy Greenland.

He's not going to do all these crazy things that he says he's going to do. He's not going to shoot disinfectant up your ass. Yeah. But the more this happens, the deeper you see his toadies involved.

Yep. And it was more pervasive than we thought. And it's scary that there was toadies willing to do this work and willing to be politically malicious. Yeah. And compromised. Yeah. And absolutely compromised. Yeah, and compromised. Yeah.

And absolutely compromised. Yeah. We always were taught this bullshit narrative that the government was set up in such a way that there were checks and balances on power, right?

And the three branches of government are supposed to provide checks and balances on one another. Yeah. But then there's also supposed to be

internal checks and balances that are procedural in nature on the legislative side. Right, right. And which are structural in nature on the executive side. The Justice Department being chief among those. And the Trump era really upended any fanciful fucking utopian notions of checks and balances, man. There's nothing. If you get the right guy, and what you saw Trump do from the very beginning was he consolidated power through loyalty.

He fired people like crazy. He burnt careers to the ground. He burnt how many people's careers, livelihoods, reputations were ruined. Longtime associates of Trump, longtime political operatives in Washington. And I think he did that really fucking strategically and intentionally because that made anybody working for him in any capacity have to think like, man, how am I going to put my kids through college if I don't

do this? I don't want to lose my job or I don't want to lose my career. I don't want to lose my good name. How am I going to find work again? All I've done is this, you know, Washington work since I was a young person. And so all of a sudden these people have become absolutely compromised they've they've lost any sense of that responsibility to be a check and balance and this should be such a big deal watergate was an enormous watergate brought down a president man this is like gonna be forgotten next week. Yeah, I know. There's so much.

It just doesn't matter. Remember Vindman? Remember the guy... Yeah, I do now, but I literally didn't until you just said something. Here's a guy who was a whistleblower,

lost his career, man. Yeah. Lost his career just being a whistleblower. Yep. And we have whistleblowers for a reason so that the government

doesn't go unchecked. So there's some check there that at least there's some release valve where you can say something to another section of the government to stop people from abusing their power. Yep. Otherwise, everybody just fears Kim Jong-un. You know what I mean? Right. I mean, I know that's like a ridiculously hyperbolic thing. People fear Kim Jong-un because they'll fucking shoot you with like anti-tank dogs or whatever.

Exactly, whatever he's going to throw at you. Yeah, anti-tank catapults or whatever, yeah. But, you know, it is analogous, but not the same. I don't want to draw an exact analogy. It is analogous. It's unbelievable that we have Watergate. It just happened. There's so many scams.

This should be enough that anybody with any integrity should be like, wow, you know, we don't want a system where the president abuses the powers of the Justice Department to try to pull phone records from journalists and to destroy the fourth estate. We don't want a president who uses the Justice Department to try to pull phone and email records from his political rivals, right? That's not our system.

That's not democracy. That should scare everybody. That is fascism. That is the overreach of big government that everybody should be afraid of. And weirdly, this is not a scandal. This is like a meh. It's in the pile. I don't understand that. They're going to resign and that's going to be the end of it. You won't hear about it after this. This is the only time you're going to hear about this. Right. Because next year when I mention this to you, you're going to be like, I forgot about it until you just said it. Yeah, I know. Mitch McConnell is not going to abandon Trump. you, you're going to be like, I forgot about it until you just said it. Yeah, I know. Yeah. And like Mitch McConnell is not going to abandon Trump. Lindsey Graham

is not going to abandon Trump. These guys, if there was ever any pretense that this was about values, that any part of the Republican Party was about values or what they believed

in a vision for America or, you know, none of that is true. This is only about one thing. Yeah. It's only about holding on to power. The power. It's holding on to it and keeping it

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Well, there are several options on adamandeve.com that can facilitate that, especially if you use code GLORY. Yes, Gary, some people you use code GLORY. Really? But some people only have sex with their hands? Yes, Gary, some people use their hands for sex. And what goes good in your hands but a pocket pussy or a booty boot camp anal training kit? What if those people don't like their hands? Well, if they don't like to use their hands, they could probably use their feet. Why do they do that?

They might enjoy binding their feet together to form a foot vagina of sorts and putting lube on it for smooth thrusting. And then what do they do with the foot vagina? Well, then somebody probably sticks their penis in it. What if they don't have a penis? Well, they could stick it in their vagina or around it. What if they don't have a penis or have a power-up smiley face? Well, that was the it in their vagina or around it. Well, that was the whole point of this exercise.

If there's other ways to have sex other than penetrative... What do you mean if it was missing? Like it was gnawed off? How would that happen? No, Gary, termites eat a different type of wood. Well, I guess if they didn't like hand stuff or foot stuff, they still have a mouth and that could work. What if they didn't have a head? What person doesn't have a head? They wouldn't be sentient. So they're just nipples? Well, again, I don't think nipples on their own are sentient, so I don't know if that's possible. What? How can nipples be sentient? I'm sorry, is this the ontological argument for a nipply being than which no more nipply can be conceived?

Oh, yeah, the areological argument. I get it. No, no, no, you don't need to show me. No, no, your mic is recording. Turn my fucking mic on, Ian. What the fuck? My mic was off this whole time? God, you have a punchable voice. You know what? Never mind.

I got to go. No, Gary. No call to prayer. Okay. Go to adamandeve.com and use code glory and get 50% off all the 71 items and 10 free gifts. And free shipping is one of them. Yes, inshallah, Gary. I love the certainty of Deepak Chopra.

I love that guy. Because he's so confident about what the fuck we're all doing on this planet. If you want to have success, let go of success. If you want to have happiness, let go of happiness. If you want to have happiness, let go of happiness. If you want to be rich, give me all your money. This story comes from the Friendly Atheists blog over at Patheo. Some Indian villages are refusing COVID vaccines due to religious superstitions. So I want

to read actually part of this. So India, this is important because India's COVID crisis is the worst in the world right now. Right now, and has the potential to continue to be the worst in the world for a super-duper long time because it's a really, really populous country, right? It has four times the population of the United States. It's about 1.3 billion people.

India's COVID crisis may be the worst in the world due to the nation's initial denial of the problem, followed by the government's attempt to hide the seriousness of the epidemic. But it also doesn't help that some citizens refuse to get vaccinated because they will believe that God will be furious about it. Al Jazeera's, I'm going to mispronounce this, Shrishti Jawal writes about the village of Malana, quote, a remote Himalayan village in northern India's Himachal Pradesh state, where only a few dozen residents out of 2,200 opted to get the shot. Residents of Malana were reluctant to take the vaccine for months because the village council religious authority had stonewalled the inoculation drive, claiming the local deity known as Jagadamani Rishi had not

agreed to it. The local deity just shows up. He didn't agree to it. He was just like, uh, no. God damn it. I'm laughing about it, but somebody can die. Somebody can die from this, man. About a dozen people out of 2,200. It's virtually none of these people.

Nobody's getting it. And it's crazy. You know, it's, it's, I say that it's crazy, but at the same time, like their local deity is the same thing as the evangelical God. Yeah, there's no difference between locally sourced deities

and imported deities. Yeah, it doesn't matter. Who cares? Yeah, they're all cheap tchotchkes. That's for sure. Terrible knickknacks. No shit. They all hang on your wall like this.

You know, they got their arms out out head to the side. I do like this part though, although it's not funny. According to the villagers, it took about five months of rituals, prayers, and petitions for the deity to convey its assent to the council for vaccination. The divine permission coming in mid-May when India was undergoing a ferocious

wave of the coronavirus pandemic. It's weird how your fucking local deity changed its mind when it was like, really, really time to change your mind now. I don't respect much about religion, but I definitely respect the messages from religion

that always point to when they talk about how, yeah, you know, God gave you a brain and so you used it to make a virus fighting thing and you should take that, right? There's that, there's once in a while you'll run into a religious group that says that,

but for the most part, a lot of them are just asshole dummies. They say the thing that they want to say so that they can control you. That's it. That's it. It's not a group of people that are out for your best fucking interest.

Yeah, like these guys didn't just believe this out of nowhere, right? There is some power group in control who's like, no, yeah, we're the local council. Turns out, you know, Jagadamani Rishi says no vaccines.

Like, somebody made that up. I'm getting a message from Janvanati Rishi. Hold on a second. Hold on. Just give me a second. He says no. Oh, wait, wait. There's more.

There's more. Blow jobs? Okay, guys. I guess you guys all have to give me blow jobs. I don't know. That's so weird. Anyway, line the fuck up. But like this article even points out at the end like before you know any of us in the

u.s roll our eyes in this ignorance you know keep in mind that there's plenty of americans that are refusing vaccinations for similarly irrational reasons oh that's very true yeah it's very this isn't to pick on ending that's not there's plenty but but what's sad is is that people are are weaponizing religious power yep to stop people from getting this this vaccine and that's been happening all and we're and we're covering it week after week with different religious people here in the states but it's happening all over the world everywhere yeah everywhere and i i i have to admit i am still unclear how you get more power because people got sick i don't get it either i don't understand i don't get it either. I don't understand that part.

But I think it's about convincing them that you're the authority and there is no other authority outside of them. I guess I do understand that. Because if they start seeing that the government can save them, then they say, oh, well, the government's bad.

That's right. It's narrative control, right? That's what it is. And they have to be the ones that have the solutions, right? If the solutions come from science, you might start reading some science. They have the line from heaven that tells you what the solution is. And they're lying about your solution.

And so it's all about power. And it's crazy that we're all so stupid that we don't see it. And this power is not unique just to religion. It spreads itself to all the different institutions of power. Yeah, and all the institutions of bullshit that are out there. Right, right. Conspiracy is another one.

I mean, think about how conspiracy controls you. They 100% attack the sources of power in the world. Right. And especially the ones that, you know, like when you're looking at QAnon and how they have fought against all the vaccine stuff. And, you know, I mean, so. That's true.

Like you gotta maintain control of the answer, right? Yeah, right. So, you know, whoever is the gatekeeper of the answer. Exactly. They've got to, they've got, and so, and so if that means, so if that means your puppet god has to denounce the vaccine, then that's what it's got to be.

And if some people have to die as a result. It's rough. That's rough for them. Tough times. Yeah. But you know, out of these two schools, we each have a strength. We do score a little bit lower on our standardized tests than Hogwarts, but there is a cultural bias.

We may not have a huge endowment like they get over at Hogwarts. And yes, some of the teachers have to buy their own new ties or bat wings. One kid got transformed into a cat. They can't even afford a changing back. This story comes from Mother Jones. Teachers across the country are protesting laws that stop them from teaching about systemic racism. So this is very much what it sounds like.

In over 30 cities, there are teachers that are saying, hey, these laws that have been passed, where we're not allowed to teach the reality of race and power and how it's affected virtually every institution in history and all of American society, fuck those laws. We can't do our jobs. We can't do our jobs. We won't do our jobs without teaching these pieces.

And this is, this like attack on critical race theory, really like it also, remember the 1776? Yeah, the 1776. Project, right? Commission, yeah.

Versus, and that was Trump's bizarre response to the 1619 project. Yeah. And it was him trying to say, basically just trying to whitewash history.. And it was him trying to say, basically just trying to whitewash history.

Yeah. It was him trying to say, no, the story I heard about the pilgrims dropping fish with the Native Americans in the corn or whatever was right

and we all had such a great first Thanksgiving and Columbus ordered fucking blankets off Wayfair for people or whatever. You know what I mean? We civilized the savages. Yeah, we did. We did all that. All that sort of bullshit. But it Like, you know what I mean? We civilized the savages.

Yeah, we did. We did all that. All that sort of bullshit. But it was, you know, we didn't conquer anything. We just, we just. Right. We gave America the hug it needed. That's what it was.

What we did is we found America. Yeah. Because it wasn't. Nobody knew about it. Yeah, we found it. We didn't occupy it violently. No, no. Yeah, we found America.

And then shove all the native residents into a tiny place in Kansas, right? You know, like a fucking giant broom. You just basically broomed clean. It wasn't a trail of tears.

It was a water park. It was, yeah. It was a water slide. It was a water slide. Yeah, it's like action park. Oh my God, there should be like

a genocide. There should be a genocide themed fucking water park. You know, the thing is, is like people would go to that unironically and think it park. You know, the thing is, is like people would go to that unironically and think it's, you know, the thing is like, like you

could call it Trails of Tears water park and make it just the Native Americans helping pilgrims or whatever as your theme and people would love it. They would eat it up. A true slice of Americana open today in butt fuck Georgia. 100% eat it up. They would be like Americana opened today in buttfuck Georgia. 100% eat it up.

They would be like, oh man, this is exactly what happened. Trail of tears. Trail of tears is a happy time. Trail of tears, that's better than the lazy river. Okay. They seriously would. They would 100% eat it up. And that's because people don't want to hear these hard things to listen to.

I mean, the 1776 Commission is essentially someone jamming their fingers and they're going, la, la, la. They don't want to hear this stuff. And there's reasons why they don't want to hear it. You know, especially when you're talking about, you know, the troubles and the tribulations of being African-American in this country.

The reasons why they don't want to hear it is because they're either overtly racist or they think they want to fight back and say, well, I'm not racist, but you're fighting against this, so you kind of are racist. Or it's about the grift, right? Because there's plenty of people out there

who probably don't give a shit about it, but they're certainly making a lot of bank fighting against critical race theory right now. Sure. Oh yeah, there's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. So you know for sure right now, there's plenty of people because critical race theory scares now. Sure. Oh yeah. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of that. So, so,

you know, for sure right now, there's plenty of people because critical race theory scares the bejesus out of several white people. And so those white people, they get scared and they want to pump money into anybody who's fighting it right now. And so anybody out there who's trying to make the grift,

they're going to, they're going to be cleaning house on this stuff. And it's going to be the talking point that they're going to go back to time and time and time again. I'm glad there's teachers, though, out there that are willing to stand up to this. Because, man, if you're not telling people the truth, what the fuck are you doing? You're not doing your job. You know, you might as well just not do it. Well, you know, the thing is that I think one of the other things is it does, it makes people contend with the reality of their privilege.

And they do not want to do that. That hurts people. And they don't want to do that. I think, and I've been thinking about this topic for the last couple of days because of a project I'm working on for Citation Needed. But, you know, the problem with contending with your privilege is that it actually is in stark contrast with the entire American narrative of the self-made man, right? There is an embodying mythos within America that we are all self-made men. Every good story of every hero is about the man born from nothing, out of which comes heroism, right? Sure. It's bootstraps. Right, yeah. And we love that idea. We fucking fetishize that idea.

But you can't reconcile that idea. It cannot be reconciled with the reality of privilege. Sure, yeah. So once you recognize the reality of privilege, then all of that fucking American mythos just explodes. That's a lot to contend with. Sure. And I do think, honestly,

that we need to be a little more conscious of how difficult, that's not going to be contended with overnight. You know what I mean? That's part of what people have been proud of for generations, steeped in for generations, educated within in many circumstances

throughout their entire lives. And you can't just pull that rug out from underneath everybody. And I think we've seen that when you do that, there's a lot of people grab that rug real hard and they pull right back, you know? And I don't know what the answer is, but what I do know is that like, we have to contend with the reality of privilege, but you have to do it in a way that doesn't upset people's tenuous hold on who they are. That caters to their fragility? Yes. You have to cater to people's fragility because we are not doing it and we are losing, in many cases, the narrative and we're losing political battles. And if you don't do things

in a sensitive way that gives them time to adjust, then I think that you don't accomplish the pragmatic necessity of progress. Yeah, I feel like the problem is if you give those people an inch, they take it, and then they never give it back. And so what you wind up doing is catering to them, and then you never make any progress. But don't you think there's some compromise between catering to them, and then you never make any progress. But don't you think there's some compromise between catering and like the speed at which you require people to adjust? I don't know the answer to that. But I do think that catering doesn't get you,

it certainly doesn't get you the things that you want to see happen. And so what I see happening is that there is a lot of fragility and you have to contend with that on your own. And sometimes that's hard and you're right, it does shake you a little. But I think that that's more of a sign of strength to watch and to contend with that than it is to have somebody sort of coddle you, right? Yeah. I wish it was seen that way. I think, I think I agree with you on an individual level, but I think this is from a, from a, from a, how do you address this at a policy level? My worry is that people don't want to do this work. You, you and I want to do this work. So

it's different, right? So I want to contend with my privilege because I think that that's an important part of understanding myself. But there's a lot of people that don't want to contend with it or acknowledge the reality of it at all. You have to get them to the wanting part. You have to get them to that piece.

If people don't want to do the work, they're not going to do it. What they do instead is they create these insular groups that reject that. And that's why you get these, like, I mean, that's why you get the radicalization of the right. That's why you get the January 6th riot, the rise of Trumpism, all of that stuff. I'm worried that we're, I don't know what the answer is, but I don't know that the answer is you're wrong and now you just have to be right. You know what I mean?

They're wrong. But how do you get them to understand that it's okay? That there's a path to being right that doesn't destroy the things that they value. And I think if you can figure that out, you achieve a much more pragmatic goal. I'm worried that the progressive hold is so slim and so tenuous and the pushback against it is so powerful and so hard. And my goal would be to, you know, it's really pragmatic in nature rather than the ideal would be like, you're wrong and so you should deal with being wrong. But people don't know they're wrong. They don't want to acknowledge that they're wrong. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know, man. I, I, I feel like, I feel like, I feel like

if you are a, if you are a person who has lived your life in privilege and you are now confronted with that and you don't take it well, that's on you. Yeah, it is. But if we say that- And I shouldn't spend my time trying to treat you like a mule that doesn't want to change and cater to you and cater to your fragility. Like, I feel like when I cater to it,

you're going to think it's easier to fight against me. Yeah, but I guess I think it's like changing any, like it's changing the mind of anything that's taken a long time to develop. It doesn't change quickly. You know what I mean?

Sure. Like when we talk about like, how do you bring somebody out of QAnon? It's this long, slow, empathetic process, right? I don't think that's catering to somebody. It's just recognizing like it took a long time. It took generations of emphasis for somebody to end up not understanding or appreciating privilege. You know, it's probably like their parents and their parents' parents and their social circle and the way they were educated. And so like, I think that

it's not any different than trying to un-brainwash anybody. It's a longer process. It's a slower process. And I don't know that that's catering so much as that's just the, that's just the most effective way to change minds. I feel like it's easy for me to say, you know,

to coddle when, especially when there still is atrocities happening all the time to people of color, people getting shot, people getting, you know,

hassled by the... And so the problem is... Well, I want to be clear, I'm not condoning anything like that. No, I know. But I recognize that a person of color who's going to hear this is going to be like, yeah, of course, you're white, and it doesn't affect you on a day-to-day basis.

So for you to take a slower approach to this doesn't hurt you, but it does hurt a lot of people. And I feel like it's really... to this doesn't hurt you, but it does hurt a lot of people. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, it's really, again, this is a very privileged way

to have this conversation. Right. You know what I mean? Like, we are having a privileged conversation because none of us don't, we don't, I drive wherever I want

and never get pulled over and shot or hassled or anything. Right. Okay, I hereby find all parties culpably as matters as charged and so choose to invade the

maximum levy for these violations and do therefore deem that you be conveyed to a holy awful place of execution wherein you shall be put to death well this story comes from the new york intelligencer just in case you thought um that there was any ethics at all left okay at all okay hold on it's mitch mc Yeah. Oh, what a picture. Mitch McConnell all but admits he would never confirm a Biden Supreme Court pick. Tell me Mitch McConnell

doesn't look like a flesh wall in hell with a soul trying to push its way out. He does. Right? That's amazing. Doesn't he look like a,

I mean, he looks like if you were walking down the hallways of hell, you know how you, in like Milton or whatever where someone is trying to press themselves out. Like it's a soul trapped in a flesh.

Oh my God, yes. He looks like a soul trapped in a flesh trying to find his way out of that fleshy prison, whatever that is. But he's not gonna, he has again done a flip-flop. Now this is the flip-flop that people should attack, right? The act of hypocrisy where someone literally is using their power

to hurt a large swath of people. Right. He's not changed his mind based on better evidence. Right. He's just doing something more expedient. He's just like, you know what? This is going to help me. And so what I will do is,

he said that it's during an election year during Merrick Garland, so we're not going to do it. Yep. Now, what, eight weeks before Trump? Yep. RBG passes. They put Amy Coney Barrett in there. Yep. Within three weeks?

Now, he tried to salvage his flip-flop at the time by saying, well, you know, we didn't do it at the time of Obama because it was close to the election. And now, you know, we are installing it because we have a Republican-controlled House, Senate, and Presidents, or a Republican-controlled Senate and Presidency. And so there's no division there. There's no like, this is what the American people voted for. This is what they want. They want the president to do this. Right. Right.

And that's nonsense. Yeah. It's utter nonsense. But it's a way for him to flip-flop a little less. Right. But now he's coming out and saying, if it was an election year again, no way he would allow a Biden pick.

Yep. And he would say, he said, he even said he wouldn't even answer the question if it was a 2023 person. He wouldn't even answer the question. So again, he 100% is literally in it only for his party. And this is something we were talking about before we started recording, Tom. We were talking about how before there would be 99 votes for a Supreme Court justice. They just, as long as they were qualified, they got in. Yeah. The question was not whether or not you're going to vote in a way that, that, that matches my political goals. That, that was the, the, the president picked who they picked. And the job of the Senate was to be

like, do I think this person is qualified for the job? Not do I, am I happy about it? Not do I think that I'm pleased with the position. But now fucking nothing. Congress has some jobs which are kind of rubber stamp jobs. Right. Or they're supposed to be sort of quasi rubber stamp jobs, right? Confirming a cabinet appointment. Cabinet.

Confirming a cabinet appointment, confirming a Supreme court justice. Those are not supposed to be politically rancorous decisions. They are supposed to be a check and balance to make sure that the president doesn't choose somebody unqualified. Just like, just like when the president, just when it was when a fucking Trump had picked like a blogger to be a judge and everybody, everybody was just, they just looked at the guy and said, are you fucking kidding me right now? And he goes, he said, yeah, no, I'm kidding.

I'm sorry. Yeah, he backed off that one like, I'm out. I'm going to go blog. I got to go. I got to blog. All right, fine. Markiplier will not be the defense secretary. Fine.

Fine. Okay. Amazing. But so yeah, there are some checks and balances there right so you can't just he can't just look at some rando on the street and say hey i really like this guy he be shine my shoes i think he should be the secretary of defense there should be something there but at the same point they should just look at the resume and say okay yeah no you got right yeah you went to the best schools you did did the, you know, you

worked under these people. You check all the fucking boxes. It's not like we don't know what boxes to check for somebody to be qualified to be a fucking Supreme Court justice, right? Absolutely. So, and I mean, really, after Kavanaugh, it doesn't matter what you do with your personal life. And it literally doesn't matter at

all. You can do literally anything. As long as you keep a journal. There you go. Well, you got to have at least, you got to lift weights with squeak. As long as you lift weights with squeak.

You got to push some iron with squeak. If you do that. Jeez. Man. Look at that guy though. That is the best. You know,

you're not supposed to take photos, Tom, from the underneath. Underneath is bad. But some dude is literally kneeling right in front of the TV. It's like the worst angle. There is no worse angle. It's the worst angle you could take a picture of Mitch McConnell

because his face is such a slope from that angle. Well, because the man is melting into himself. Oh, gosh. His neck has like a neck like the man is a fucking melty flesh candle it's amazing this is when is he gonna die i don't know dude but i will cheer how old i will cheer there's some people when they die are gonna be i'm gonna be excited about it i'm gonna be like the world is a is a hundred times better place without that human being yeah they're the worst they're the worst. They're the worst.

And he's one of them. Trump's one of them. When they go, the world just got a whole bunch better. The world, yeah. Absolutely. How old is McConnell? He's in his 70s, right?

Oh, he might be in his 80s. He's an old son of a bitch. Let me look it up right now. Because I think that they were talking about how this might be his last years in office. 79. Old, old guy. Yeah, no, he looks every bit 79.

Yeah, he's a hard 79. Right? When you're a hard 79. Like, there's like a, it doesn't look 79 like Jack LaLanne. Right, right. Mitch McConnell, who when he was 45, looked like he was 79. looked like he was 79.

Yeah. He's 79. He doesn't look a day past 88. He really doesn't. Remember when he started turning black and rotting? Yeah, no. When he's rotting, just in-person rotting.

Yeah, no. That's the best. He just, he had to filibuster his own necrosis. Like the guy, the guy's tried to die like three times, but he wouldn't fucking bring the resolution to the table he just keeps liquefying and reforming and then he liquefies and reforms

did he have a daddy of course he had a daddy i told you he had a daddy god was his daddy you have a mummy yes he had a mummy mary was his mummy so god was married to mary no god was not married to mary mary was married to joseph shut up all right so this story comes from india ahead news nowhere else to go. Sister Lucy, who protested against rape, accused Bishop, expelled from convent. So there was a bishop accused of rape in 2018. And there was a group actually of nuns that protested against this bishop. One of those nuns,

this woman who's the subject of this article, is now being expelled from her convent. And that's egregious for every conceivable reason. First of all, I mean, it's obvious retaliation against somebody for standing up against rape. If you're not on the side of standing up against rape, like, I question your moral position. But, you know, the other thing is that nowhere else to go piece, right, that's the very heading, is when you become a nun, you give up all of your worldly belongings. You give up your connection in all meaningful institutional senses to the entire outside world. You don't have a car, you don't have insurance, you don't have many times an education that would translate into other areas

of work. You don't necessarily have the same social connections. You may have been required to move to another part of the world or another part of the country in order to further your mission work. The level of isolation that may likely be present if you're a nun and your ability to just, it's not like a job you quit. It's supposed to be a lifelong vocation. And to lose that, to be stripped of that for the moral crime of violating your vow of obedience, crime of violating your vow of obedience when you're when you're supposed to be obedient to the church in order to what support a rapist holy shit holy fucking shit what a goddamn organization yeah and and the other thing too is like like you said they of course they're you know they're giving up all this stuff and they're traveling to another part of the world and we sometimes come down pretty hard on the catholic church right not reporting

people but if the people that are housing you and controlling pretty much everything that you have right are the ones that are committing these atrocities, how likely are you, especially when you see things like this, to happen to report somebody? Because you're in a strange place. And like you say, across the world. I mean, if you look the way Catholic church now in the United States is being mostly populated by people from other countries,

those priests are coming here to become priests because most people in the United States- Not becoming priests. There's no more. I don't even know if there are because most people in the United States- Not becoming priests. There's no more, I don't even know if there are seminaries here in the United States. If there are, they're very small. There's one woman I ran into recently

because I do run into religious people on occasion in my job. And I ran into a 48 year old nun and she is seriously 30, 20, 30 years younger than any nun that is in the convent wow because they're just and she's in she but not if they are from other countries there's plenty of young nuns and plenty of young priests coming from other countries right right but when you talk about the catholic church there's not anybody here that is looking to join the order. And so if they show up and there's this abuse from far away,

they might feel hamstrung because they've been brought here. And then what do you do? And this woman is now, they took away everything she had. She has to sleep in a room by herself that has no furniture. And they could take that away. They could take that away, too. You're beholden to this group. And that might be one of the ways

in which they keep silence is because anybody who has any moral inkling gets threatened with, sorry, you're going to get fucking taken out. Put it out. Yeah, you'll get removed from this. And like, again, like, the solution isn't challenging, right?

The solution is that at a high level, so like my company has an ethics hotline, for example. So like we're a big financial related company. So we have an ethics hotline and we have a very aggressive and overly stated and, and repetitively stated non-retaliation policy. Right? So if you're my boss and I see you do something that is unethical,

I can call an anonymous hotline to trigger an investigation, or I can call and just rat your ass out. And there is a policy that covers me against any retaliation, right? You're protected. So if there is some, you can sue. Right. Yeah. So the Catholic Church could institute the same thing, right?

Sure. Where, okay, it's a bishop. I'll go above bishops. Like, I can report one level up, right? And if I report one level up and the overall policy is to protect anybody who's whistleblowing or reporting or whatever, then again, the corporate world's figured this out for less important transgressions than rape. It's just amazing to me that the Catholic church continues to build in these structures or refuse to build in other structures, right?

Because it wouldn't be challenging to protect this woman. Sure. Organizationally. No, not at all. Not at all. And the fact that they refuse to says what's important. It speaks volumes about what's important. And the fact that this is popping up all over the world is systemic, right?

There's a reason why it's not just happening here. It's happening all over the world. And that shows you that there's some, there's sort of a cancerous rot in that organization that encourages this sort of behavior and encourages the hiding of this behavior. And that needs to be rooted out or it needs to get dissolved.

Those are your two options. You can't have one or the other. You can't just be like, you can't just pay off the people that catch you. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. That can't be the solution to the problem. That can't be the other. You can't just be like, you can't just pay off the people that catch you. Yeah. Right. Right. Yeah. That can't be the solution to the problem. That can't be like, Oh yeah, I got caught. I guess. Yeah. I mean, I guess I'll, I'll, I'll fucking cash in this fucking Pope hat. Right. And every once in a while they have to go to the fucking pawn store. Right. Sell all the gold

chairs guys. Yeah. Gosh. Gotta sell my big cross and my incense burner so I can pay off this. But seriously, that's what they're doing. They're essentially just cashing out certain places, selling off the assets.

The land, yeah. And then they just pay off some of these things and then they keep doing the same fucking thing over and over again. Right. And it's disgusting.

Something's got to happen. Eventually, they're going to run out of money, but they're so fucking rich. It's just like there's so much harm that's got to happen before that happens. At some point, what I think is going to run out of money, but they're so fucking rich. It's just like, there's so much harm that's got to happen before that happens. At some point,

what I think is going to happen is governments are going to take notice. Yeah. You know, maybe not the US, but there's a lot of other governments. Yeah. You know, governments at some point are going to be like,

we're revoking your charter as a religious institution. Yeah. You can't be here. Yeah. That's it. Yeah. Like, you just don't get to be here.

That would change things. Yep. I got an idea. If you don't like here. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, like you just don't get to be here that would change things Yep, I got an idea You don't like what you see I can get my friends Paulie and Carmine over here to take you outside and See if they can change your mind. Whoa, whoa slow down that Stop messing around. He's really cool. You guys he's got some big stugas talking to guys that way, huh? He was kidding? Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me?

Yeah. Pasta fazool. Good for you. You was real funny. He's like, where am I? I like you. Okay, where were we? The next word is sandwich.

Since the story comes from above the law. Representative Jim Jordan outraged about Department of Justice refusal to investigate Italian space laser election fraud. Oh, is that what now? So, for a hot minute, Cecil, there was like a trending hashtag among the fucking idiot Twitter

groups, the conspiratorial Twitter. Right. It was like hashtag Italy did it. So they were, when they were trying to figure out when they were trying to find anyone to blame, it was like Hugo Chavez.

Like, that's the thing is like, like all the time that they, that they, that they want to blame people. You just ask you like, but, but I understand that you want to blame somebody,

but they've got to be some motive. Right. Just like a little. But Italy? Yeah. Italy can't manage their own elections. No.

Italy has a corruption problem of their own. Yeah. Also, like when was the last time Italy was a big power broker in the international community? It's been some time.

It's been a while. It's been a hot fucking minute, guys. So, like, but the idea was something, something lasers. They shot. Well, I got to read. I got to read. I just got to read it. Just read it.

The Italy gate theory is beyond batshit. It involves Barack Obama amassing a secret $400 million war chest, then cahootsing with former Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte to disrupt vote tabulation in key swing states using Italian military satellites. How? And somehow this is all coordinated at the U.S. Embassy in Rome, according to Brad Johnson, a self-described retired CIA station chief and current Epoch Times columnist. So the Epoch Times is a Russian-owned propaganda

fucking website. Yeah. I don't even know if CIA station chief is an actual job title. Maybe it is. So if I give the Italians $400 million, they'll use their military satellites to do what?

Don't you, do you not know how satellites work? Satellites don't shoot lasers at ballots. Blink really fast, right? Blink at a different rate and it changes ballots. I love it. So I filled in Biden or Biden or fucking filled in Trump.

What is crazy to me is none of these fuckers know how voting works. None of them. None of them, man. None of them. None of them. And they proved it when they all went in to go watch the polls. Oh, I know. Because they didn't understand how things worked.

And they called into question and slowed the process down all over the country. All the poll watchers that were in there, that were in there specifically because Trump had said, they're going to steal your votes. And so all these uneducated people who have really, they probably never even used the system before that day are all involved in it. And then they don't know how it fucking works i mean these people seriously think that there's just a big fucking bowl of rocks that you walk up to and you pick one and you hand a rock to a guy and he tabulates it they don't know they have no idea how any of it works how how the checks work how how fucking slow the process is like i go in it's. I don't just walk in and I just walk in

like I'm going to pay for or open a door or pay for something. It's not that fast. I walk in. I hand them a thing. They have to check the thing. They check the signature against it or whatever. They have to

hear me tell them exactly where I live and my birthday. And then they finally give me, they make me sign a thing. And then they check that thing against the thing that they have on record. And then they give me a ballot. And then I have to fill that ballot out. And then I have to put that ballot into a specific thing. But that ballot, the ballot I get is controlled by the people who are there to check. And these are not just Democrats.

who are there to check. And these are not just Democrats. These are Democrats and Republicans in equal measure at all places to make sure there is no corruption, to make sure those ballots are checked. And then they check them again after this is all over. So they check the tally counts

with the number of ballots and the number of people that walked in the door. There's checks and checks and checks and checks to make sure that there's no changes. Every time they find any kind of discrepancies, it's in the onesie twosie column. Yep. It's nothing. It's, it's, it is statistically beyond insignificant. Every time Italian fucking military. So does the Italians even have military satellites? Well, if they do the Italian military satellites talk with their hands. Right.

For sure. You know they do. You know they're waving their hands. Hey, it's a nice election you got here. It'd be a shame if something happened to it. It'd be a shame if I used my fucking laser on it. I don't know. Seriously, this is the dumbest thing.

The idea that not only the idea that Italy is somehow involved, but that, you know, and Jim Jordan wants to talk about all kinds of things. Because what Jim Jordan wants is he wants to slow the process down and muddy the water and make it seem like... Because what he is doing is the gish galop. He's saying, all these things, why aren't we talking about it? Why aren't we talking about this? Why aren't we talking about that? Not that every single thing you're bringing up is nonsense, but that you don't want to talk about it, right? It's about you. And then he exhausts you because he mentioned so many

things and you just, you sink into your chair and defeat because there's so many things that he wants to bring up. And the other side sees that and thinks, well, if he has this many things, one of them has to be right. Well, and also he gets to now say, you know, that there was an investigation or that the president of the United States was thwarted from using the Department of Justice to pursue these credible allegations, right? So now he gets to say that. But if the Department of Justice wasted its time pursuing this nonsense about Italian space lasers, get the fuck out of here with that. Also, if they did it, then he'd say, you know, there is an investigation undergoing right now. Yeah, he can't lose. There's no losing in doing this.

He can't lose. He can't lose. He looks like a buffoon to us. Right. But to the people that are his constituency and the people who are Jim Jordan fans, he looks like a hero. Yeah, absolutely. To the fucking buffoon baboons out there. Yeah, absolutely.

They're fucking thrilled. They're fucking squeaking their asses around. They're throwing a bone at a fucking Italian satellite in the air. They're fucking ooking. Maybe hurling feces did it. Jesus. Swaying a bone.

Did anyone check the obelisk? All right. Get the fuck. Maybe obelisk did it. It's a big pepperoni pizza. Dropping pepperoni. Hey, it's a plate of sauce on a pizza. It covered up on my Biden vote.

On the 28th day of May, you published this phrase book. I did. I quote an example. The Hungarian phrase meaning can you direct me to the station is translated by the English phrase please fondle my bum. I wish to plead incompetence.

This story comes to the New York Times. The House votes to repeal the 2002 authorization for the invasion of Iraq. And when I first read this headline I was like, okay, that's a little late. Like it's been 20 years.

Okay, guys, I guess you can't invade again. All right. Yeah, no. But what it really is, is that it is a repeal of the presidential authority for certain war making powers that George W. Bush was granted subsequent to 9-11, right? Yeah, right, right. And it really is a substantive scale back on presidential unilateral authority to make war. And what I thought was really cool is

Biden pledged to sign this. Yeah. So Biden has pledged to limit his own power. Yeah. And we have talked how many times in the show about no president is ever going to sign off on limiting their own power. And he is, at least in this one instance. And I can't think of a single time in history of my following politics that a president

has ever supported the idea of limiting the powers of the presidency. Since I've been paying attention, all the presidents have ever been trying to do is to expand the powers of presidency. Yeah. And what's good about this and something when we talked about this too, because we had talked about this multiple times. We had talked about limiting the executive branch. Somehow, whoever gets in there, that would be an amazing thing to do. And we also talked about how it would have bipartisan support because of course the Republicans want them to limit. And if the Democrats are on board with what Biden says,

then it will happen. And that's exactly what would happen here. Because when they talk to different people, it looks like there would be people on one side that are, they're 100% behind it and they're Republicans. Yeah. Because they want to see it happen. How, you know, during a time of a Democratic president,

how do you come out as a Republican and say, no, I want to make sure that Democrat has more power? Sure. Right? It's a total loser for you not to support this. So if this is ever getting done, now's the time. Yeah. I mean, they got 49 Republicans

joined on. That's amazing. 49 Republicans. It was a 268 to 161 with 49 Republicans joining 219 Democrats. That's... That's amazing.

That's more than you're going to get from almost anything. Yep. And so I think it's great. I think it's... I think this is... This is a way to limit that power.

And I think that that's important. We've talked about it before. I hope there's more measures like this. I do too. So we'd like to thank our patrons. Of course, we'd like to thank all our patrons, but we'd like to thank our newest patrons, Nate, Burke, Florida Nighthawk.

I say Zaid, but maybe it's Zaid and Alexis. Thank you so much for your generous donations. We really do truly appreciate you guys are the way, the reason glory hole studios exist. You're the reason we're able to have two wonderful employees that work for us. So thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. We cannot thank you enough, uh, for your, uh, weekly donations. We got a bunch of messages, uh, and we're going to go through some of them here.

We got a bunch of messages about pinball. I talked about pinball last episode, Tom, and a bunch of people were saying, yeah, in the beginning they were gambling machines. However, they didn't have flippers in the early iterations.

They're kind of like a Plinko game that you just like roll the ball down. But in any case, they thought there's just a weird drop a ball. You didn't have any much control over it. It was just chance. It was just exclusively chance. As opposed to when I play pinball now, it's still exclusively chance. Yeah, and

every time Tom plays pinball, he doesn't even have to move it. All he has to do is hit it for it to tilt. He just hits it once to tilt. I get excited when I play games like that. I think i think i'm moving fast but what i am doing is moving hard harder and like in my brain can't differentiate hit it hard or hit it fast like just does both i'm like i get panicky i do the thing where i slap both flippers at the same time like i can't i'm a train a train wreck. I did know some people who were good at that sort of motion

where you could kind of once in a while give it a bounce. Give it a little hip check. But it would tilt eventually. It would tilt. And then it goes all wonky. Once it tilts, it's fucked. It's done.

It just stops. So I don't know if that's how this worked back in the day either. Maybe that's where they developed the tilt thing too. Anyway, I'm going to post this picture on this week's show notes. It is a pinball machine without flippers.

We got a message from Spencer and Spencer wanted to mention that we talked about the cop who did the pit room maneuver on the pregnant woman's car, Tom. But it turns out that wasn't the most egregious thing. And so he actually sends a link

referring to the Arkansas State Police driver's license study guide. And the crazy thing is that according to the study guide, that's what you're supposed to do. So like this poor woman was actually following the rules. So when she was upside down

after rolling around and she was like, I thought I was able to do that. You probably thought that because that's what you fucking learned. Yeah. It's like getting shot because you're holding your hands at 10 and 2. Right.

Right. Or avoiding wolf packs. Yeah, right. And then the cop comes over and you're like, I thought I could do the thing I taught. And they're like, well, I have a gun,

so I changed the rule. I get to do literally anything I want and there's no repercussions. I thought he was let go. Was he not let go? I think maybe he was let go. You know, the worst thing that ever happens to these cops though I thought he was let go. Was he not let go? I think maybe he was let go. You know, the worst thing that ever happens to these cops, though,

is that they're let go. And then they go on to somewhere else and become a cop. Why let go? Why isn't he in jail for assault? I'll tell you, man. He attacked this woman without provocation. And he could have killed her.

It's attempted murder. He could have killed her. He could have killed other people. Absolutely. It's attempted murder. And if you're a Republican, it's double attempted murder. That's true.

That's true. So we got a message from Mike and he suggests that we have the people from QAnon Anonymous on and we're going to probably try to reach out to them soon. I've never heard of the show, but I'll check it out and see if it's people

that we might want to hang out with and chat with. So we'll reach out to them. Thanks for the never heard of the show, but I'll check it out and see if it's people that we might want to hang out with and chat with. So we'll reach out to them. Thanks for the suggestion, Mike. Got a message from Seth that says, just want you to know I'm a native West Virginian

and I had to move back to West Virginia during the pandemic. And he said that the wild, wonderful whites of West Virginia are kind of a special, crazy, a special kind of crazy

even around here. So evidently, that's not how it is in all of West Virginia, but that's really the only taste of West Virginia I know. So get famous for something else. Maybe it's not

all of West Virginia, but nobody would know because nobody's going there. We had a couple people said this, but it should be like, I'm literally listening to this. Cecil, name a city in West Virginia. Cecil, name a city in West Virginia. Arlington. You win.

I didn't know one. I'm going to look it up. I don't know. Let me see if it is. I made it up. Arlington, West, Virginia.

Oh, you got one. Virginia. Because there's a map. Town in West Virginia. There's an Arlington, West Virginia. Yeah. I got it. I guess I got one. Virginia. Because there's a map. Town of West Virginia. There's an Arlington, West Virginia. Yeah. I got it. I guess I got it.

Let's see how many people are in Arlington, West Virginia. I think that was an accident because that's an unincorporated community along some butt fuck river. It's got a Wikipedia page though, Tom. Oh, yeah. Look at that. It kind of does. It's got a Wikipedia page.

It's the name of several unincorporated communities. Isn't that all of West Virginia? A set of unincorporated communities? I genuinely don't have any idea what the capital of West Virginia is. Is there an airport in West Virginia?

Hold on. Biggest city in West Virginia. Let's look it on. Biggest city in West Virginia. Yeah, let's look it up. Biggest. Charleston at 45,000 people. Shut the fuck up. I'm going to read these out. Charleston, Huntington, Morgantown, Wheeling, Fairmont, and Weston. Charleston has 45,000.

Huntington has 44,000. And then it drops drastically to 30,000 people. Holy shit. There's more people in the United Center than there are here. I've had more dinner guests than this. That's amazing. 45,000 people in your biggest city so good

we got a message from Illumi Lama herald of Lama Geddon and bringer of the Alpocalypse gosh that's hard to read and they said that the person, there's a lot of people

that have a bigger personal wealth than the GDP of Botswana because the GDP of Botswana is $18 billion. Oh my gosh. So yeah, there's a lot more people. This year, Jeff Bezos made more in one year than that.

Than Botswana. Botswana did. We also got a message from Dr. James Devon Esquire. And he said, you may consider that admitting how much taxes you pay on Patreon may turn off international patrons who don't wish to contribute to the US war industry. I also don't want to contribute to the US war industry.

So what I think is every time I pay taxes, I'm buying government cheese. That's what I think. I think I'm paying I pay taxes, I'm buying government cheese. That's what I think. I think I'm paying for somebody to eat something. I'm paying for somebody to go to school at a public school or to get some sort of assistance. I think that I'm paying for a food stamps or something like that. I don't ever like to think that I'm paying for war myself. So that's how I like to think about it is when I do it. Whenever I pay taxes, I always think that. And I take a slightly different approach. I always

think this is the way I don't go to jail for tax evasion. You know what else? Because you literally go to jail for tax evasion. I also like to think that I'm paying for Republican abortions. That's the other thing I like to pay. I like to think I'm paying for it too. Yeah. It's tough. It's tough. You're right. There's nothing you can do. You're right, but there's nothing I can do. I got to pay the taxes, buddy. I'm not a fucking sovereign citizen. You will literally go to prison. I'm not a sovereign citizen

and I'm not being detained. And then when you go to prison, if you make any money, they'll tax it. They're going to tax it on you and they're going to pay for a war with you. They're going to just build a prison with your prison wages.

That's amazing, yeah. We got a message from Shane and Shane said, is this the video, magpie video Cecil was talking about? I'm going to have Ian post this YouTube link if he remembers on this show notes. You're right.

It is. And it is, we just watched it again. Tom and I laughed. It was seriously amazing. That poor woman paints eyes on the back of her helmet to scare the magpie away.

She initially puts tree branches in her helmet and it works really well. Right. And then she puts eyes and the eyes she screams over and over. The eyes do not have it. The eyes do not work. So it's very funny. We'll post the link

on this week's show notes. That is going to wrap it up for this week. Next week we're hopefully going to have a guest on. If all goes well, we should have a very learned, awesome guest, a friend of the show. And so we hope that this will all go through and we'll have a guest. But check us out next week on

our stream. On Thursday night, Tom and I are going to try to do a bracket of plastic liquor, bottled liquor. The little mini bottles. So we're going to go, Tom and I, I'm going to go try to go to the liquor store this week and try to find only things that are packaged in liquor, eight

of them, and we're going to do a bracket next week. And Tom and I are going to decide what the worst liquor is. That's going to be rough. Which one tastes like turpentine is basically. What if the answer is just yes. The thing is, is like, this is what the tough part is,

is that we have to send it to the audience if we can't decide. And that's what the brackets are all about. So we'll do a bracket next week. join us hang out with us we're going to tell you some liquor we'll probably watch a story maybe play a talkie hang out and chill and it'll be a lot of fun so 9 p.m central all the places where you can check us out online that's going to wrap it up for this week we're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics creed credulity is not a virtue it It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quasi-alternative,

acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water downward spiral, brain dead pan, sales pitch, late late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death and towers, tarot cars, 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 sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential. Conclusive.

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