Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 649: Religion & Fascism: A Marriage Made in Heaven

Episode Date: October 3, 2022

Show Notes  

This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda. It's made with pH-balancing minerals and crafted with skin conditioning oils. So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons.

You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Recording live from Glory Hole Studios 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 mat. This is episode 649. And Cecil, I want you to know, buddy, I see what you've been doing. What's that? I see it.

For 647 episodes, the last two weeks withstanding, the notes, guys, have always appeared to my left. And I can look over to my left and I can see the notes and I can see what show number we're on. Oh!

But for two weeks. That's two weeks I've done that. For two weeks, he's put me on notice, motherfuckers. He's put me on notice. Will Tom remember the number? We have two monitors. I can't show you.

My monitor, which Tom isn't allowed to see because I'm looking at porn at the time. And then, three quarters of the time. And then there's this monitor, which is the big monitor that Tom and I can see. And you're right. I have been moving. And it is, I have gotten it right though.

You did get it right. I got to give, this is the moment where I give myself props. You did get it right. Tom, I want to give you props too. Okay. But I also want to talk about a hurricane. Yeah.

I want to talk about the hurricane. So, a couple of interesting things happened. One, there is a quick moving Ian. Which is, that's crazy to me. But in any case. Also, because of Ian, a lot of people don't have internet. Yeah, that's true too.

Um, but, but this week, uh, there's been a, uh, there was a story about, uh, DeSantis reaching out to Biden and Biden saying, yeah, sure. Of course. Instead of like, I don't know, we're not gonna, we're not gonna help you out because I don't like you. You got to tongue my tape for a good 30 minutes. You got to say how great I am and that I won the last election or whatever. Can you make that ask with my balls in your actual mouth?

It's so refreshing to have a commander in chief who's just like, oh, you need help because you're part of America? Sure, I'll help you. Right. And then he does. Oh, let me check my civic fucking responsibilities list. Yup.

Turns out that's on them. It blows me away that we went through four years of a guy drawing Sharpie on a fucking storm. And then like blaming California for their wildfires. And like, here's something you probably don't even remember because you can't remember it all. Do you remember Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico? Yes, we threw the paper towels at people. Do you remember him being like, ah, we don't want to help the Puerto Ricans or whatever?

It's like they could get it from their own country or whatever. And he's like, swap it out for Greenland. Fuck it. You don't even understand what your fucking, what your job description is. But in any case, here's what I want. Here's the one thing I want to talk about. You know, it's sad.

It's a lot of destruction. It's horrible. It's tragic. And it's a ton of destruction. Like it's genuinely a ton of destruction. And it's really limiting our Florida downloads. Straight up, straight up the middle of Florida too. I mean, just absolutely the whole thing. And, you know, I've been paying attention to my Facebook Florida too. Yeah, I know, man. Absolutely the whole thing.

And, you know, I've been paying attention to my Facebook because there are some, you know, some listeners and people who I'm acquainted with who are in Florida.

So I'm paying attention to that sort of thing. But I want to say, and I want to, I want to see if there's some way we can maybe start a petition or get this started. There needs to be a moratorium

on reporters standing in the wind. Dude, thank you. What the fuck are you like we know how wind works man we know it's fucking windy you don't have to stand out there like a jackass and get hit by a tree that tree guy is what the fuck is happening man i fucking that footage and the other thing too is a lot of that footage is put upon like you guys have seen i'm sure you've all seen the like candid outtakes where somebody's standing and the rain is going sideways, but it's

like 45 miles. Like you can stay and some guys like cut and then the guy just stands up and walks. Yeah. It's just like a lot of that footage is just like bullshit put upon nonsense. I don't need you to stand in the middle of a hurricane for me to understand that when you tell me the

winds 130 miles an hour, I'm like that sounds fast. It's just crazy that we live in a culture where we need to see a guy standing in the hurricane to tell us there's a hurricane. All right. Like we have fucking weather models. We have satellites. We have all this. You don't even have to be there, man. We know what's happening. There's cameras. It's like you show a camera. It's like, well, it's whipping around a palm tree, but what will it do to a middle-aged white guy? Is that a scale

that we should have? I want them to like fucking fly these guys like a kite. That's what I want. That's what I want to see. Okay. It's outrageous. It happens. It's a fucking hurricane. Here's our new pledge drive. All right. Weather man in a squirrel suit

in a hurricane. In a squirrel suit in a hurricane. Oh man, you know he's going to fucking turn it and bite it though. You know he's going to get up like 15 feet in the air and then he's going to like,

he's going to freak out and just be like, because when you were a kid and you had a kite, you pull it up, pull it up, pull up, and then it fucking just

detonates on the ground. Have you ever successfully flown a kite? Yeah, it up, pull it up, pull up, and then it fucking just detonates on the ground. Have you ever successfully flown a kite? Yeah, many times. I've literally never successfully flown a kite. Here's a list of things Tom has never successfully done. I have never hit a baseball.

I have never successfully flown a kite. We should go to the batting cages. We should go to a batting cage. We should go to the batting cages. I wonder what that would be like. I'll bet you you could hit. I bet you'd hit it. I'll bet you you'd hit it. Maybe. I haven't tried to hit a baseball. You'd swing a. I wonder what that would be like. I bet you could hit. I bet you'd hit it. I bet you hit it.

Maybe. I haven't tried to hit a baseball. You'd swing a couple times and then you'd be like, oh, okay, I think I know where it is. I get it. You'd hit it. Right.

But yeah, I would go out to fly a kite and I would never be able to get that fucking thing in the air. I'd get it in the air for like a hot minute. It would dive down and break one of the plastic-y things or it would be in a tree. It'd be immediately in a tree.

There could be one tree in all of the entire prairie state of Illinois. And my kite's in that fucking tree right next to the fucking weatherman. Your eminence. It's not a joke. I'm telling you, man, the ceremony is a big mistake. The Catholic church does not make mistakes.

Please. What about the church's silent consent of the slave trade? And its platform of non-involvement during the Holocaust? All right, mistakes were made. All right, so this story comes from AP News. I just grabbed this one today. Church defends, nope, churches. See, you have to make that correction because it makes it worse.

Churches defend clergy loophole in child sex abuse reporting. This has been happening for years. This is, yeah. Yeah, so this is a particular law in Utah. It's like House Bill 690 or something. Doesn't matter. And what it would say is like, hey, you know what? There's mandated

reporters for if you hear about child abuse, you have to fucking say something. Sure. And that law is in place because of fucking course it is. Right, right. Right?

And then there's a carve-out, which is if you're clergy, any clergy, and you hear about child abuse, you can just be like, nah, man, I'm going to let that shit slide. Well, that's between me and the person.

That's between me and God and whoever's confessing it or chatting with me about it or asking to trade notes with me about it or whatever. Right. Yeah. And the Mormons are like,

absolutely not. The Catholics are like, absolutely not. Yep, absolutely. They're like, oh, this violates the fucking seal of confession. Some little kid's seal is being violated. Yeah.

The only seal you should be worried about being violated is some fucking little kid. And the worst part is, is that this is not just, because it's been proven time and time and time again, that it's not just that there's a guy

somewhere outside extra church who is doing this and they find out and then they counsel him and then he stops. Right, yeah. Right? What's been proven time and time again is that one of the major reasons why they want this, there's two, I think, major reasons they want it.

One is so that they can cover up their own abuse. Absolutely. So that they can look at the people who come in to see them, and especially the priests, right? The priests that talk to each other. They can say, I have immunity to telling the law about this

so that when I'm Monsignor and somebody comes in and tells me, I don't immediately have to go out and turn them in. The other thing is, the other reason why, and that's the Catholic Church. I don't know how the structure works in the Mormon Church. I have no idea either. But I do know it works.

I mean, we've seen the inner workings of this in all the journalism that has exposed this, that they've shuffled priests around and that many people higher up have known this. Yes. So we know that it worked, how it works in the Catholic church. No secrets left.

I don't know about the Mormon church, but I mean, I would suspect it's probably pretty similar. Sure. But the other thing that they, that the reason why they don't want to do this, I think, and this is something that they never touch on in the article, and it's something that you can see as an atheist, is that if you break the chain that they never touch on in the article, and it's something that you can see as an atheist, is that if you break the chain that they have

between their parishioners and them to saying there are things that the people get to know, and it's not just between you and God, they're taking away sort of the primacy of the priest to be able to have that conversation with God on their behalf. Right. And that intercessory way, intercessionary, I don't know if I'm saying that correctly, but you know what I mean. Yeah, but I know what you mean. Yeah. In that way to like, be like, I'm the one who's sort of representing you. Right. And

I'm having this conversation and then that I can reach up to God and say, here's your penance or whatever. They're taking that link out when suddenly there's something the priest can't do. Absolutely, yeah. And I think nobody really talks about that because they're not looking at it as an atheist. They're looking at it as a person who might be believing or might be trying to couch their comments around the belief.

I also, one of the things that's particularly galling about this is if you are a person confessing some heinous crime and you confess this heinous crime to your priest or your cleric of whatever, I don't know what they're called in the Mormon church. Elders or something. Yeah, you're elders or whatever. I guess, I don't know. Yeah. Most of the Christian religions, they all all allow they all create some kind of like penance for forgiveness model sure and what that

naturally sort of suggests is there are crimes that you can commit and then you can pay a price and then by paying that price you have transactionally rounded the circle. Yeah. So yeah. All right. Like you went out and you like, you fucked some kid and that kid never gets justice. That kid never gets to face their accuser. That kid never gets to know, but you, it centers the entire conversation around the abuser. Sure. Around the perpetrator. Yeah. It de-centers the victim. The forgiveness model for Christianity is problematic for these kinds of crimes. Because like at some point, if you're like driven to do this kind of shit, you can be like, yeah, I'll just do that. It cost me six Hail Marys. Yeah. You know, it's sort of like, I know they don't sell indulgences anymore, but it's also like, yeah, you sort of do.

Yeah. Because if I can do something to be forgiven, then I know what the price is. And I just have to decide, like, what's my fucking risk or cost-reward benefit here? And I can be like, yeah, alright, I want to do this horrible thing and it's going to cost me this bad week in a community

service. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You know, what's interesting, too, is how much power these institutions have over the political process. Oh, exactly. Yeah. You know, what's interesting too is how much power these institutions have over the political process. Oh yeah, man. I mean, just how much power, you know, when you think about your constituents as a politician, you think, yeah, some of them might be Catholic or some of them might be Mormon. And I guess in Utah, a lot more Mormon might be Mormon than Catholic. But, you know, you think about this rule and you're like, there's a lot more people with kids. But it turns out that these groups have so much sway over the people that they control, you know, or, you know, that are part of their flock or whatever.

They have so much control over them that they will basically do whatever they want. And in many cases, these bills just get crushed. And they said something like 33 states or something have one of these laws on where you basically, the priest knows and no one else has to. That's, fuck, I'm, it's 2022. It's 2022 it's 2022 there's a reason for all the same reasons that we want anyone at all to be a mandated reporter yeah man right and like morally speaking everybody is a morally mandated reporter there is no moral as soon as you find out that some innocent person is being victimized in some way, you are a morally

mandated reporter. We also now have legally mandated reporters. And those are teachers and other people that are like fucking in charge of things and have like this position of trust in society. That's why we separate our teachers. And that's why we say teachers are mandated reporters. These other character, these other job titles, it's because the trust and the faith the kids have

and the relationships kids have, there's nothing special or different about a priest. Nothing at all. They should be mandated reporters. If a kid, and I don't know how this would work. I know that like, as the way this is framed is like, if somebody confesses to a kid, and I don't know how this would work. I know that like, as the way this is framed is like, if somebody confesses to a crime, then the priest does not have to report that crime.

Like, you know, hey, I'm here to say I'm a horrible fucking pedophile monster. But what if the kid goes to the priest? What if the kid goes to the priest and says, hey, you know, this terrible thing is happening to me. Do they have to report it then? I don't think so. I think priests are just fucking exempt entirely.

They don't have to say anything. They don't have to say shit. Yeah. And we talk about this. We actually talked about this in the book. But one of the things, too, that they do is try to protect their brand. Yes. happens all the time where they're so worried about how this will stain their brand that they're willing to push it under the rug and never talk about it and never, and always be the ones to

make sure that it gets, you know, either pushed under the rug, the people get sent off, whatever it is, but it's all just to keep protecting that brand over and over. But, you know, in my opinion, there's nothing you can do to tarnish that brand because all this, all this, all this fucking reporting has come out for, at this point, two decades, right? 2003-ish was when the big sort of exposés on the Catholic church started coming out. And since then, what has really happened? Literally nothing. You know, I mean, you know, some, some,

some diocese have gone broke. You know, some, some of that stuff has happened. There's been some people who have won some money, but you know, with the horror, the fresh horrors that pop up every single day.

Yeah. I, it's, there is nothing at this point that the Catholic church can do to put off the people that are still in the Catholic church. Yeah. That's what I've, that's what I've just decided. It's like,

if you are still, and I, like there are people in my life that I respect that are Catholic and I'm fucking floored by it because some of them are like really aggressively decent and moral people. And I'm just like, how the fuck do you reconcile everything you want about who you are with this monstrosity of a thing? I can't make heads or tails out of it. Yeah. I think they see it like a lot of people see not all men, right?

Sure. Where they see it as like, yes, the church is bad, but yes. And the thing is, is like the church is bad, but then so is the thing is, is like the church is bad, but then so is the structure that keeps on perpetuating it over and over. But I think that they see it in a way

that they're just like, they're like, yeah, but like my local priest is good. And they might be right. They might be. They might be very right. You know, he could, that person or my local nun, groups of nuns, they might be right. They could be very right. Yeah. You know, he could, that person or my local nun, groups of nuns, they might be right.

They could be very good people. I don't want to discount that every single person in the Catholic church is an evil person. And I don't want to say that either. But I recognize that the ruling structure

of the Catholic church is an abomination. Terrible. It's an absolute disgusting organization that continues to basically put little kids at risk

and then also has tried to swipe under the rug years of not only abuse but murders and kidnappings and horrible shit. Crazy shit. Let's talk about this story from Spain. It's a good dovetail.

This is a long article so we can't go into all of the details, but this is a story from the New York Times. And I, the New York Times Magazine. So it's a longer form piece, but this is something I had no idea about, but taken under fascism,

Spain's stolen babies are learning the truth. So essentially when Franco was in power, which was all the way up until the 1970s, the mid 1970s, when Franco was in power, which was all the way up until the 1970s, the mid-1970s, when Franco was in power, they were aligned with the fucking nuns at the Catholic Church. Women, poor women, unwed women, et cetera, whatever woman that they decided was an undesirable woman, they would go to these fucking hospitals. They would give birth to babies, the nuns would be like, that baby died, go home. And then they would keep the baby and then sell that baby so they would kidnap a woman's baby, lie to her and traumatize her.

And then traffic. And then human traffic that child for money to wealthy Catholic families. Yeah. And this is like an organization. This isn't like some one weird rogue nun. Yeah. And this is like an organization. This isn't like some one weird rogue nun.

Yeah. You know, this is a structural element. It's systemic. Yes. The whole system is doing this. This is not just

one person. This is not just one church or one hospital that happens to be run by the church. It's many, many,

many, many, it's all of them. Right. And then there's, and there, there, many, it's all of them. Right. And then there's, and there, there's multiple people in this article that find out that their parents weren't their parents, but they tried to keep it quiet from them their whole life. And then their parents are gone and they're looking through their papers and like, holy shit, I was adopted.

Right. And then they're trying to find their birth parents because, and then they, and then they sort of uncover, and this isn't like a reporter. This is a person. Yeah. This is some lady. Lady. She starts to uncover that this is not just happened to one person. This happened to so many people who gave birth.

And then somebody comes in and says, you had twins last night and then you can go see them. And then says, Oh, um, we're giving those twins up for adoption. And she said, no,

I don't want to give my babies for adoption. And then when she went to go see him again, they're like, oh yeah, your kids died. Yeah. And then showed them two bigger babies. Like they just like weren't just, they were just two baby corpses that were not those babies. They're just like the show corpses.

Literally stole them. Haul out the show corpses. They literally stole this lady's babies. They just steal them. Like literally, like you're a fucking, like are you like living in a house full of candy? What is happening, man? It's like a house made of candy. It is. This is like the evil from your childhood. Yes. You're right. It's grim fairy tales evil. It is.

Yes. Yeah. It's like, is there a witch? Am I going to be thrown in an oven? Will this story rhyme at any point? Yes. There is a witch. And it's the nuns. It's a witch. And it's the nuns. It's the nuns. It's the nuns. Like, there's, like, you look, when you're a kid, you know, everything's so black and white in those stories. There's an evil whatever. It's the same thing here.

This is a black and white story. This is a black and white story. There's no, there is no, like, possible contextual moral argument that you can make for stealing someone's baby and selling it. Yeah. Like, I don't care. I don't care if you're dressed stealing someone's baby and selling it. Yeah. Like, I don't care. I don't care if you're dressed like a penguin while you did it. That literally does not change. It doesn't.

It doesn't. It's the same thing as if I steal a baby out of a pram and run real fast until nobody catches me, which is unlikely. And then turn around and sell that baby to Joe Strange. Why did you call it a pram, though? A buggy? A pram? A stroller.

A stroller. There you go. There you go. I don't know why it took me a hot minute. I've been watching a lot of British TV. I've been watching a lot of British TV. What did you say? Did you take the lift to get up here?

Like, what the fuck? I threw the baby in the boot. I've been watching a lot of British TV, my friend. You must be, dude. I was like, pram. What the fuck are you talking about?

What the fuck is going on over there? What the fuck is happening in your life? You're like, motherfucker, you're born in the Midwest like I was.

Pram, please. It's a goddamn stroller. Oh, man. Next week, your fingers are going to swell up like fucking King Charles. Also, I do want

to point out too, because there was a story earlier this year about the incestuous relationships of the Catholic church and specifically the Pope had with Nazi Germany. Now you've got this terrible relationship, this terrible dictator, Franco, fascist Italian dictator. It says something that these horror show regimes find such ready allies in the Catholic church. I would argue that they find it in religion in general, because look at the fascist wing of our country. You're right. You're not wrong. Look at the fascist wing of our country

and look at how they've grabbed on to the evangelical church. Yep, you're right. You're exactly right. Look at what they've done. And religion and fascism are fucking a marriage made in heaven. They are though, because you're just trading one omnipotent power for another omnipotent power. Yeah, well, and you've got people who are very obviously driving that storyline, driving that narrative who are themselves power hungry. Yeah, exactly. You know, like look at these fucking evangelical leaders, look at the people who are in charge of them. Now I'm talking about the people who buy into it. I'm not talking about the people with their asses in the seats.

I'm talking about the fucking, Hey, didn't you heard of Brimstone and blah, blah, blah. Those motherfuckers to a person, no exceptions to a person. They are hucksters and they're holding a brimstone and blah, blah, blah. Those motherfuckers, to a person, no exceptions, to a person, they are hucksters and they are grifters and they are there to lie and they want power and they want money. So of course they're good allies. It's a great point.

And you're right too, that they don't just stop at the money because Jim Baker could easily stop at the money, but he doesn't stop at the money. And he talks about how evil people are, how Donald Trump is anointed, not only because I think that it helps him get power for people that are,

you know what I mean? Like maintain power over people. But I also think that it helps him sell things too. And so there's like a, there's this weird sort of Ouroboros of all those, you know, it's a confluence of things that make it so that, that, that he is as evil as he is. Right. And then all these other people, all these other evangelical leaders are the same way, but yeah, man, the Catholic church and fascism, they were like fucking peanut butter and chocolate,

peanut butter and chocolate. And the same thing happened in Spain all those years, you know, Catholic church was, you know, Franco knew he could use them. And so he did. And look at what they did. Look at the destruction of all, you know, I mean, how many families did they destroy? Yeah. I mean, it's thousands from, from, and they don't even know, like from the start, they don't even know, but it's thousands thousands of families do you know what makes a human being decent fear and therein lies the problem none of you has anything left to fear anymore you rest comfortably in seats of inscrutable power hiding behind your false idol far from judgment, lives shrouded in secrecy, even from one another, but not from God. So this story comes to the Texas Tribune. Ted Cruz votes against bipartisan bill to prevent another January 6th. And Tom, I found this bill and I figure we should

probably just, you know, maybe just look at the bullet points. Sure, sure. So this is the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022, and here are the key provisions. A single conclusive slate of electors includes a number of important reforms aimed at ensuring that Congress can identify a single conclusive slate of electors from each state. That seems uncontroversial. This seems, all of this seems uncontroversial. Identifies official to submit slate. Identifies each state's governor unless otherwise specified in the laws or constitution of a

state in effect on election day as responsible for submitting the certificate of ascertainment identifying that state's electors. What is wrong with that? We should know. What this says is, hey, we should know who those people are. So you've got to tell us.

And here's who's got to tell us. Jesus. Right? Provides for expedited judicial review. Provides for expedited review, including a three-judge panel with a direct appeal to the Supreme Court of certain claims related to a state's certificate identifying its electors. This accelerated process is available only for aggrieved presidential candidates and allows for challenges made under existing

federal law and the Constitution to be resolved more quickly. That actually, doesn't that help Trump? Isn't that like a plus for Trump in some ways?

I would think so because he wants to get things up to the fucking Supreme Court as quickly as possible because they're his fucking boys. Because he fucking, he fucking dubbed a bunch of them.

Right. Modernized rules for counting electoral votes requires Congress to defer to slates of electors submitted by a state's executive pursuant to the judgment of states or federal courts. Role of the vice president. This is essential, right? This is the essential part. This is like, I hope Pence does what he's supposed to do. I'll be very disappointed.

I hope some weird fucking guy from some weird college comes over and tells us some crazy corner case idea he has in his fedora and unmatching coat. Affirmatively states that the constitutional role of the vice president as the presiding officer of the joint meeting of Congress is solely ministerial. Jesus Christ. And that he or she does not have any power to solely determine, accept, reject, or otherwise adjudicate disputes. I think that that is,

that feels like it's true now in the sense that they already tried to make him do this and everyone said he shouldn't. Yeah. And he even said, he even said he shouldn't. So it feels like it's already true. So like, why not just vote for it?

Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, well, because, because I think Ted Cruz and his fucking crazy contingent of fucking bag of asshole election fraud denying people, they're just contrarians, man. Higher objection threshold raises the threshold to lodge an objection to electors to at least one-fifth of the duly chosen and sworn members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

one-fifth of the duly chosen and sworn members of both the House of Representatives and the Senate. This change would reduce the likelihood of frivolous objections by ensuring that objections are broadly supported. So it's 438 people in Congress? Is that what it is? So let me look here real quick. Well, 438 in the House.

Just in the House, but they're saying- And 100 in the Senate. In the House. Well, in the Senate, it's easy, right? Because you're saying one-fifth. So they're saying it's both the House in the House. Just in the House, but they're saying- And 100 in the Senate. In the House. Well, in the Senate, it's easy, right? Because you're saying one-fifth. So they're saying it's both the House and the Senate is the way it's working. Okay. So it's just a fifth of 538.

So it'd be like- 107. Okay. 107. So it would need to be 107 in both houses, which they did not have. I think there was 60 some the last time. So I'll be like, all right.

So I'll be like, okay, a bunch of nut cases. You can still do it. It's still possible to lodge the objection. You just need more people than just what you had because it even wasn't even party lines last time. No, there was a bunch of people who were like,

no man, what the fuck are you talking about? It was Republicans were like, what's now? Yeah. It was like 7%. Yeah. It now? Yeah, it was like 7%. Yeah, it was a tiny amount. It was like nothing.

It was a tiny amount. Protection of each state's popular vote strikes a provision of an archaic 1845 law that could be used by state legislatures to override the popular vote in their states by declaring a failed election. Fucking A, does that need to be in there tomorrow? That's God.

This is just like, look, if people show up and vote, we have to respect their vote. That's what all this means. It doesn't mean anything more than when the people show up and they cast their fucking vote, we will respect that vote. We won't choose different fucking weirdos that will thwart the will of the people. We won't weirdly give the vice president undue latitude to fucking change the election at the last possible minute. Instead, we will,

in this representative democracy, allow for democracy to take place. And you know what's awesome about this? What I love about this is that this was in committee. This isn't going to get filibustered.

Right. People that are Republican and Democrat, it was a bipartisan bill, and it's got bipartisan support in the Senate. Yeah, this is going to happen. So it's going to go down, and this will pass. 100%.

They tried to pass a more stringent law, I think, in the House, and they already did. But I think that one's going to get rejected for this one. I don't care. Dude, I don't did. But I think that one's going to get rejected for this one. I don't care. Get something done. Make sure that we enshrine this process in law

and so the next fucking joker who gets in there and tries to strongman his way into the office and tries to reject the American people's decision, they get fucking, they get tossed out on their ears. And look, man, you fucking Republicans want this too. You want that. I guarantee you want this because if you

don't want this, then what you're saying is that in 2024, if the Democrats lose, you want Kamala Harris to be able to refuse to certify the vote and to throw the entire, that's what you're saying you want procedurally in person. Because guess what? It's never going to, you'll never get it again. Right. If that's what you want,

then the people who are in power are going to stay there until they die. Right. It's fucking nuts. It's never going to be. So, you know, like, like the thing is,

is like, I would have hoped that there would be more support for this. Because even if you are one of these guys or gals that just hates fucking democracy, you know what I mean? At least you would be wise enough to recognize that the people who are in power now are not you. Yeah, right. And so you want to make sure that you enshrine this shit in law now, because if not, they can do the same thing to you that you tried to do last time.

Yep. But instead, there's just this weird, like Ted Cruz, fucking discount diet watered down fucking Wolverine. He's fucking chubby fucking dad bod Wolverine. He's the worst. I hate the worst. And he's always doing this. He's doing this sort of, like you say, contrarian, but he's also sending a message. I think that he still is a election denier. Absolutely is. Yeah. Right. And, and that's

a terrifying thing. This guy is, this guy was steps away from the nomination. I, yeah, man, steps away from the nomination. Yeah, man. Like, there was a hot minute. Ted Cruz. Someday someone will write the biography of Ted Cruz. And I will tell you what. It will be the most boring,

sycophantic biography, and I will read the shit out of it. You know... I will read... I want to read the biography of a fucking space alien. I will say this. When you hold that book up,

it's going to be limp. Like, it's just going to be like... It's only available in soft cover. It doesn't have any kind of spine. We tried printing it hard cover, but it wouldn't take. Exactly, man. That's exactly it, dude.

He's fucking trash. He's the worst. He's absolute fucking trash. He fucking trash. He's the worst. He's absolute fucking trash. He's garbage. He's the worst. Also, I just want everyone to take this moment to remember the time he tried to do Simpsons voices. Yeah, no, that's the thing.

We should always remember that. We should always remember the time he said in the exact same voice Simpsons lines. Yes, where he's like, Now I will be Bart Simpson. Ay carumba. Now I will be Bart Simpson. Ay carumba. Now I will be Lisa Simpson. I do not like to eat meat.

Now I'll be Maggie Simpson. Yeah. That's it. That was his fucking impressions. That's it. Now I'll be Homer Simpson. Duh. Alright, man. Now in the poem, what do they do? What do they do? They dupe all these oysters into following them and then proceed to

shock and devour the helpless creatures and mass. I don't know what that says to you, but to me, it says that following these fates based on mythological figures ensures the destruction of one's inner being. This is really something, man. Let's talk about this last week.

We didn't, we missed this last and it's still happening. It's blowing up, man. This is from the, man. We didn't talk about this last week. We didn't. We missed this last week. And it's still happening. It's still happening, man. This is from the New York Times. Iran protests surge to dozens of cities. So this happened when, I don't know, a week, week and a half ago, a young woman was arrested by the morality police in Tehran. She was traveling with her family from the outskirts from somewhere that wasn't the capital. She was in Tehran. She was traveling with her family from the outskirts from somewhere that wasn't the

capital. She was in Tehran. She was wearing a hijab, but some of her hair evidently had been poking out or whatever. And the morality police stopped her and they took her in and she died in custody. And photos were released of her bloodied face in a hospital bed. And, you know, they put some fucking bullshit story out like, oh, she had an underlying medical condition that made us beat her to death or whatever. And then Iran, who is like, the entire country has essentially erupted and they are in the streets and they are getting shot at and they are getting beaten and they are getting arrested and they are still pouring out into the streets. Yeah. And it feels,

it feels Arab Spring-esque. It does. And, you know, they were talking too about how there was a, you know, the Ayatollah has sort of handpicked his successor. And they're at this point basically being like, they don't want this sort of theocracy. Right. they don't want to be oppressed by this theocracy anymore and you know some of

the most inspiring shit is seeing these women who could die die who could die walk up take off their headscarf spin it around their head and then throw it in the fire and walk away it's inspiring to watch because when you watch it you know that person could be dead tomorrow because of what they're doing and there's on the streets fighting between these two groups they're being pushed back

they're pushing back and it's a really tragic thing but it's something that's been happening in that part of the world for a very long time. There's been this very hard line Islamic group of people who have held millions of people in check with their religion. Yep. Millions of people.

I mean, subjugated half their population for, you know, ever. Decades. For decades. Not ever, because like you see pictures of Iran before the Islamic, you know, there was Islamic fundamentalists in charge, and it's a very different picture, right? Totally different. Very different picture.

You know, Tehran in the 1970s, in the early to mid-1970s, Tehran was a place, a thriving, reasonably progressive place where women could go to university. They wore Western-style dress. They had bodily fucking autonomy. You cannot help but draw a parallel to the repressive state stealing women's bodily autonomy, forcing them to lose control of their own bodies, whether it's a hijab in Iran or whether it's stripping women of their right to choose in America.

Yep. The roots of that oppression are religious. Yeah. There are no secular groups in America trying to overturn Roe. That happened by religious fundamentalists, evangelical fucking weirdos, pressuring and owning the right. There are, I mean, absolutely, there are people, I think,

you know, few and far between, but I think I'm sure there's atheists that are anti-choicers, right? I'm sure there are. But I also recognize too that the main push of that, the main push of that, the main push of that, just like there's anti-gay bigots

that are atheists too. 100%, but there's no lobbies of them. Yeah. There's no organizational, institutional lobbying. And there's no logic behind it, right? Right. The only, you know,

I've got to believe in your magic sky fairy in order for me to be like, oh yeah, it's a magic moment when the conception happens. And that's when life really starts. You see, that's when the little uterine fucking power wand is shaking. Okay. Exactly. But it, but the thing is, is like, if you're, if you're a person who thinks science is real, suddenly you start having the conversations we do, which is like, okay, show me when it has brain activity and then let's talk and then let's have the conversation.

Yeah. But instead it's like, you know, so, so the person who's, you might be an atheist or whatever, who's anti-choice, he's just a liar. Right. Or she's just a liar or whatever. Almost certainly a he. He's just a liar. You know, and it's interesting, too, that you talked about bodily autonomy, too. Because, you know, we recognize in many Western countries that, you know, if someone wants to wear that headscarf, they can just wear it.

Who cares? I don't care what you wear. Right. It's the enforcement of that. Yes. Which changes the whole, the whole thing. I don't give a fuck what you wear religiously.

Like, I don't fucking care. Wear what you want. You want to wear a colander on your head? Cause you're a fucking noodle Aryan or whatever the fuck they call it. Do it man. Pastafarian. You want to wear a colander on your head because you're a fucking noodle-arian or whatever the fuck they call it. Do it, man. Impostafarian.

You want to wear all those little boxes and fucking shake yourself at the wall? I don't give a shit. Yeah, definitely wear that shit. Whatever you want to wear, I don't give a fuck as long as I don't have to fuck it. As long as you don't make me wear it.

Right? And that's what's happening is they're making them wear it. Yeah, nothing that is compulsory is done by choice. Yeah. That's the nature of things which are compulsory. If the police can arrest you and beat you and fucking send you to a re-education center because a lock of your hair escaped from beneath your fucking prison scarf.

That is a prison scarf. You can call it whatever you want. You can say it has this long-standing cultural tradition. Fuck your cultural tradition. That's nonsense. If I have to wear it or I'm subject to beatings, if I have to

wear it or I'm subject to being stripped of my liberty, that's prison garb. That's all that is. We talked about this last week, about religious consent. There's no real is. We talked about this last week about religious consent. There's no real consent here. You can't consent to do it. If you can consent to do it in a perfectly free society, then yeah. But even still, even people over here, there's probably family pressure. There's social pressure. There's religious pressure. It's all that stuff. Traditional pressure.

It's all that stuff that pressures. So it's not even 100% consent here. You can't have something that is enforced by the community of your loved ones either that is completely consent. But I get the sort of larger argument that there's a lot of social contracts and a lot of social agreements. But some of them are upheld at the sort of larger argument that, yeah, like there's a lot of social contracts and a lot of social agreements. Yeah. But some of them are upheld at the point of violence.

Yeah. And many of the religious prescriptions for women specifically, it's almost always for women, by the way. Yeah, man. Yeah. Are held up, are propped up with threats of and the perpetration of actual fucking violence. And therein lies all the difference. Yeah, for sure. No ticket.

This story comes from Cape Cod Times. He thought there were migrants on the bus. Guard officer pursues, confronts senior citizens. Senior citizens. Oh. Citizens arrest! Senior citizens arrest! This fucking guy is just a,

he's a plain clothes fucking National Guard guy. Wait, aren't they all plain clothes? Yeah, but he wasn't even like, he wasn't even in like his BDUs or anything. No, yeah, he wasn't like in his, like his weekend uniform or whatever those things are.

Like, he just chased down a bus and like scared everybody on it by like riding its ass and flashing his fucking high beams at it. And it's a bus full of fucking elderly people taking a tour of Cape Cod. Yeah, man. And then he gets on the bus and he starts screaming about how, you know, immigrants shouldn't be here. If my guy who I knew or my gal, whoever it was, I don't know. He never really says in Afghanistan who I served with can gal, whoever it was, I don't know, he never really says, in Afghanistan, who I served with, can't be here. You shouldn't be here. And they're like,

we're all Americans, man. We're just old. Leave us alone. And then he apologizes and leaves the bus, but he flagged these people down. What is with this sort of entitlement to telling you what to do and stopping you that seems to be, it seems to be a recent phenomenon. Yeah, man. Where there's this group of people who feel like they have this sort of ability to stop you and ask you who you are and what you're doing and where are you going. And you're just like,

who the fuck are you, man? You're a nobody. You're not a big, I don't even want to tell the police this stuff right right i shouldn't have to tell the police this stuff and instead you're just some fucking rando who's got a bug up your ass who wants to fucking question random people because i don't even know why it's just there's a weird thing that's happening it is it's like it's it feels like there's this sort of like social contract vigilantism.

Right. Going on. Yeah. But it's a contract. One, many of us did not sign the contract. We aren't all on the same page. We've all seen these videos now. Like, they're surfacing all over the place.

And you're absolutely right. Like, people will just like walk up to other people and be like, you shouldn't be doing the thing you're doing. It's like, go lay down. Get the fuck out of here. We're going to walk up to people and be like, you shouldn't be at this pool. And they'll be like, I fucking live here, man. And they'll be like, show me your license.

Who the fuck are you? The pool police? Right. Go away, man. Lick my ass till your tongue turns brown, motherfucker. I literally cannot imagine how more of these people don't wake up in a hospital bed. You know what I mean? Like we're just like the person slept them and then went back to swimming.

I swear to God, man. Like they're going to catch somebody on the wrong day. They are. They're going to catch someone. They're going to catch somebody on the wrong day. What they catch now is there's this weird like TikTok thing that's happening. Yes. Where people are filming it.

And this guy was on live. One of the reasons why he- He went live. He went live. He like literally was like telling people, I'm stopping this busload of migrants going to Martha's Vineyard. I'm going to tell them what I think, blah, blah, blah.

And then he gets on- To what purpose? And that's the thing is like, first off, who are you? Right. You're a no one, man. Do you think that the bus drive? So even let's say the bus had been full of migrants. Exactly. What's your end game? Well, yes. Like what's your like something, something profits. Yeah. What is happening here? You're going to get on the bus. You scared the shit. Let's say it was all migrants

and they were all going to Cape Cod and you got on the bus and you're like, you shouldn't be here. Do you think they were all going to be like, great point. And everybody gets off the bus and walks home to Ecuador. Holy shit. They're just like, what's the fastest way to Ecuador? Highway gets there. They're on a bus. I'll just go south.

I'll just head south. Like the bus driver takes them somewhere. There's like a land break. So I'll go south. What? Yeah, man. You know what happened? We stopped teaching penmanship in school. And now it's,

they don't know how to write their fucking senator. And they fucking just, they don't, like I wrote my senators recently. Did you? Yeah. So there was this thing called Title 42 where they were allowing, Trump had put this rule in place during COVID. And it's this idea that because COVID, therefore no asylees. Yeah, I remember that. And so it's this terrible- It was actually,

wasn't it written because COVID, wink. Yeah, winky face, no asylums. Well, Biden was doing it. Yeah. And so I found out about this through a guy I know, and he said, you know, you can send a form letter. There's a form letter out there, and you can just send it to your representatives. I sent it to my personal state, not state representative,

but my Illinois representative for my area, who's a Democrat. And then I also sent it to Duckworth and to Durbin. And I received emails back from all three. Did you really? I received emails back from all three that said, yes, we support this sort of thing. Right. And we want to make sure that it gets, and it did eventually get overturned. They did eventually say,

yeah, we're going to try to strike that down. But it was the constant sort of pressure that they've been under for so long. And, but they sent me, they sent a message back, but it's funny because you're just like, like this is the sort of thing that you see happen

if you think it's happening, right? And then you send your Senator a message or you send a message to DeSantis and you say, I support you sending them up here to fucking own the libs or whatever. But instead, now it's like, I'm going to follow you around with a fucking phone. Right. Yeah. It's almost like they took that, like, if you see something, say something message, like way too much of the heart. Way too seriously. And now it's like, if you see something say something message like way too

much of the heart seriously and now it's like if you see something scream something if you see something like fucking screencast something right yes yeah and that's and that's what it is it's it's weird and it's crazy and there's so much entitlement from these people they just they just lose this entitlement and you see you see it happen all over the place where it's happening. Like I said, where there's like, I mean, that whole situation with Ahmaud Arbery is one of these moments. This is one of these moments, right? Where somebody takes it into their own hands and says, you don't belong here. I'm going to take this moment in my fucking whiteness to show you that you don't belong here. And that's to take this moment, you know, in my fucking whiteness to show you that

you don't belong here. Right. Yeah. And that's what's happening in all these places. And it's disgusting. It is. It's it's it's not any different than than those assholes who like pointed guns at the fucking protesters walking down their street. Yeah, man. Fucking A. It's the same thing, man. Same energy. This is all the same energy, buddy. Yep. Christ didn't come to earth to give us the willies. He came to help us out. He was a booster. And it's with that take on our Lord in mind that we've come up with a new, more inspiring sigil.

So it is with great pleasure that I present you with the first of many revamps the Catholicism Wow campaign will unveil over the next year. I give you the Buddy Christ. This story comes from the Daily Beast and see, so I'm just going to read big chunks of this story. It's just, why summarize it? Students say they were duped into attending twisted religious event. Is this it? Is this a picture of the event?

I think so, man. Wow. It's fucking huge. That's a lot of people. It's a big fucking event, guys. It's a big, big fucking event. Is it happening at like a church? Yeah, it's happening at a church. So let me read some of this article to you guys. The East Baton Rouge school system in Louisiana has been accused of tricking hundreds of high school seniors into attending a religious event this week disguised as a college and career fair. After students arrived at the venue, a church called the Living Faith Christian Center, they say they found something much different than a career fair called the Day of Hope. While several colleges did have a presence at the event, students said the emphasis appeared to be on something else entirely.

The pupils were reportedly separated into two groups by gender. Huh. Just like you do at a college fair. That. Just like you do at a college fair. That's exactly what you do at a college fair. Normal college fair stuff. That's a normal college fair. Forced to register to vote in order to obtain the promoted free food and listen to speakers share disturbing stories of rape, suicide, and abstinence.

What now? This story is so nuts, man. That feels like no college fair I've ever been to. Man, have you ever gone to college fairs? I work in higher ed, Tom. You've been to a million college fairs. I'm at college fair I've ever been to. Man, have you ever gone to college fairs? I work in higher ed, Tom. You've been to a million college fairs. I'm at college fairs all the time. How many of them segregate the students by gender,

force them to vote, and then chat with them about rape? It feels really weird, man. That's a really weird college fair. It feels like after those three things, you should wind up in a bunker somewhere. After those three things, the only colleges should be representatives of Liberty University. The university, exactly. You get a free somewhere. After those three things, the only colleges should be representative is Liberty

University. You get a free hoodie. Or maybe BYU. You could have two. You have two choices. BYU or Liberty. Yeah, you can either go get flown out to BYU or you wind up on the Falwell's boat. One or the other. It depends on whether his wife takes a

fancy to you. You don't need the sweatshirt, honey. Oh, God. The pupils were reportedly separated. One teacher claimed in a Facebook post that some transgender students were bullied by their peers at the event. Oh, gross.

So there's that. Now a group called Day of Nope is seeking to file a lawsuit over the episode and asking attendees to share their experiences via a new website. Quote, This is supposed to file a lawsuit over the episode and asking the attendees to share their experiences via a new website. Quote, this is supposed to be a college fair, but the girls were talked to about abstinence, bullying, and death. And the guys played games, one student told ABC affiliate WBRZ. Yeah, they talk about the dudes.

You said the next line, yeah. Boys were encouraged to perform macho acts while the girls were asked to forgive were advised to forgive men who rape and assault them says a go fund okay what the fuck wow what the fuck wow that is this is loving the bad man in this corner genuinely is and ping pong in the other corner seriously it's loving the bad man and then like show us how bad you are right that's basically what the dudes do yeah yeah it's it's like we're gonna prep these guys to rape and we're gonna prep these to forgive them for raping except that reality also we are a divine moral authority at your college fair crazy too is like is like you know we talked

about the horrors that come about because of the church and you, it's not just little kids, you know, and it's not just priests that do this sort of thing. It's, it's followers of those religions getting forgiven for doing, you know, date rape in college or, you know, regular rape in college. You know what I mean? Like there's plenty of followers out there that have done something horrible and then they get forgiven because of it. And it's giving those people the, you know, I don't want to say the excuse, but it gives them an out. It does. And, you know, one of the things, too, that is particularly pernicious about all this

is even when the church or no member of the church is involved in any of these sexual abuses, it is the mindset that they cultivate in young people that makes pursuing justice for these young ladies when they are abused nearly impossible. Because they create this sort of social moral expectation that they should be forgiving their fucking abuser. They create a social moral expectation that they are somehow complicit in their own abuse. So they prime that pump. They intellectually, morally, and emotionally prime

that pump for young people from a very early age. And what that does is it just gives cover for abusers. So abusers aren't caught. So the abusers go on and abuse other people and become serial abusers. And the fucking list of victims racks up. And this is how, like, patriarchal systems like stack up

their fucking body count. Yeah. And how they continue on and on and on and on. And they're reinforced in every system. And this is one of those systems that reinforces it.

This is a terrible article. Basically the guys go over and do clapping pushups. Right. And they count how many they do and they cheer each other on and jerk each other off in a big circle jerk or something. And then they basically make the girls sit in a big circle and cry with each other. Yeah.

So weird. Like Handmaid's Tale, man. And then they said, they said at one point there's somebody in this, in this article, I think that didn't identify they were non-binary they didn't identify

and they just they they felt like if they were to go with the boys because they didn't identify either and they tried to split them up by gender but they said if they decided

which gender to go to they they might have been made fun of so instead they stayed with the girls and so they sat and listened to this whole spiel. And then at the end they said,

you can either get pizza or something else. And the non-binary person was like, yeah, I'm just going to go. I just quit. I'm done. You know, it's funny. I lost my fucking appetite. Fucking peace out of here.

I'm out. And they just left. So I want to read a little bit about one of the crazy fucking stories that was relayed to these young ladies. So the second speaker was involved in the education sector in some way and talked about how a guy she met on a dating app ended up attempting to kill her by strangling her. The woman allegedly told the students that she kept their romance secret so no one would know if he did murder her. She used this to ultimately make the argument that if someone needs to be kept secret,

then it shouldn't be happening at all. And after this warning about domestic violence, the woman also emphasized that if she had waited for the man God meant for her, then it wouldn't have happened. And she uses this to essentially shame the concept of dating around and took a soulmate-esque approach to the situation.

Then she explains that she had forgiven her ex-boyfriend for his attempted murder, even if he wasn't sorry what the fuck kind of moral messaging is this? it doesn't even make any sense but then like

what happens if you think because the way they're putting it off is the way they're saying it is like you're waiting for your soulmate but what if you think your soulmate is the guy who beats you up well you're waiting for your soulmate. But what if you think your soulmate is the guy who beats you up? Well, you're like, how are you supposed to find your soulmate without dating people? Man. How?

Like, literally, like, what's the how on that? I don't know, bro. I don't know, man. I don't know. There's so many people, though, that, like, this is the first time they've ever really been with somebody. Or this is the first time they've ever seen anybody. I mean, like, that doesn't make any sense to me at all. Like, I don't get it.

I, I would imagine that you would want to, you would want to experience being around someone. Right. You know what I mean? You've got to experience being around them before you like go in full with your finances and your life and your, your family's intertwined. I mean, I couldn't imagine like soulmate is nonsense,

but like the, like the idea that like you would only have an extraordinarily serious relationship or no relationship at all. Yeah. That is like unhealthy as fuck, man. Like you can't, you can't get to know yourself in a relationship.

There's no space for anything other than the most serious possible relationship. I can't imagine. And I know that this is reinforced through religion all the time of that like sort of like,

like the woman has to save herself to marriage. They don't talk about that about a dude, but they, you know, they say like the woman has to save herself for marriage. And, you know,

she basically marries the first guy essentially that she dates, you know? And that's, that's crazy to me. But, and, and, you know, you wonder why the divorce rate was so high, you know, coming out of a religious time in our country, you know, you wonder why it was so high. You're like, of course it was going to be high. You just married somebody you didn't even know, basically. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And you married somebody to fuck. That's it. Because you were just like, I got to do something here. Well, fucking please. Yeah, man. It's crazy to me. And yet what's crazier though, I guess, is that before people felt more free to divorce, there were just super shitty marriages. Just like tons of them.

And that also too sort of plays with the sort of jokes of the day where the take my wife, please kind of thing. Sure. You know what I mean? That sort of plays into it. And those tropes, those tropes become these sort of

toxic cultural expectations that they then have generational consequences. Yeah, yeah. You know? Yeah, and it basically, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is. It's a vicious cycle.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's just insane. Just be happy in a relationship. That's it. Just be fucking happy. Figure out who you are. Yeah. I can't imagine,

I can't imagine being like, oh man, the only relationship you get to have is the one relationship. That's it. Yeah. So you better get it right accidentally the first time. Jesus, dude. Otherwise, Jesus, man. You're fucking, That's it. Yeah. So you better get it right accidentally the first time.

Jesus, dude. Otherwise, Jesus, man. You're fucking, that's it. The stakes are so high. How high are those stakes? And, you know,

there's so many like cringy and weird shit you do like when you're younger versus when you're older. And you don't know anything. And you don't know anything. And so, yeah,

I couldn't, I think about like my first relationship or maybe my second relationship and how weird it was and how awkward I was and how, and I think what if that was the person I married? And I'm like horrified

thinking about it. I'm just genuinely horrified thinking about it. Sweet Jesus! Do you have to use the whole can? Who the fuck are you and what the fuck are you doing in my room? I'm the one that soaks and she's the one that's surly. That's rich.

Stop it. Fucking crows. Get the fuck out of here. Now! Or you do what exactly? Hit me with that fish. So Cecil, I grabbed this story because this reads just like a modern crusades. Yeah, yeah.

I read this and I'm like, this is the fucking crusades. This comes from news.com.au. Unsettling to promise to Russians who fight against Ukraine. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church of Vladimir Putin ally has made a bold speech as the country recruits new soldiers. Let me read from his speech. Many are dying in the fields of internecine warfare. The church prays this battle. Oops, sorry.

That's okay. Hold on. We got to talk about his hat. Hold on, Tom. Look at this guy. Is there anything more important than this man's hat? Look at this guy. Come on now.

There's nothing more important than this man's hat. All right, so you folks that don't know, you can't see this. The people on YouTube can see this. The hat gets better as you look at it. Vladimir Putin is talking to a guy in a white hat that has like a Klan hood attached to it. It's kind of got its own little Klan hood.

It also looks like it has a German World War I spike on it. It has a spike on it. And then it also has some sort of gold emblem with a woman's face in it. Maybe the mother, the virgin mother on it. I then it also has some sort of gold emblem with a woman's face in it. With a lady's face in it. Maybe the mother, the virgin mother on it. I don't know. And the dude genuinely looks like Santa Claus.

There's nothing weirder in the entire world, guys, than this hat. If he was wearing all red, you would immediately, you wouldn't think Cardinal. You'd think Santa. You would. You'd think Santa. You would. You'd think Santa. You would. You would. You'd think World War One Santa.

Who? I gotta, like, I just who fucking designs these costumes for these religious nuts? It's fucking old timey times, dude. That's what it all is. Well, it's like Amish, though. Like, at what point do you just say, like, that's it forever? This is our design design choice forever. Yeah. Like no zippers. Fuck it. I don't

know, man. It's crazy. Anyway. All right. So he said, many are dying in the fields of internecine warfare. The church prays this battle line as quickly as possible, that as few brothers as possible will kill each other in this fratricidal war. And at the same time, the church is aware that if someone moved by a sense of duty by the need to fulfill his oath remains faithful to his calling and dies in the performance of his military duty, he is undoubtedly committing an act tantamount to sacrifice.

He sacrifices himself for others. And so we believe that this sacrifice washes away all the sins one has committed. Basically, if you are a soldier fighting for Russia, you go to heaven. Yeah. It's the indulgence period of the church. It's this crusade. Yeah, it's the indulgence period. It's when they handed those out

to the people who were going on crusades and they could say, you know what? You get this thing. It just gets like a fucking, you get the fast pass in heaven. That's it, right. You don't have to wait for the line at Harry Potter. You can just go right in. Just go right in.

Walk past all the poor people. Walk past all the people. Stand in there like chumps. God, just walk right past them. You know what? You can pee on one of them. You can actually, you get to pee on one of them. You can slap one.

You can steal one of their babies if you're a nun. If you're a nun. But anyway, this is crazy to me. And this is an ally of Putin who clearly knows that Putin is in this point right now, really does not have the people behind him. No. Has a group of people that they just called up that are like shattering their own legs. I don't know if you've seen this.

I've seen this, yeah. They're like breaking their own legs. To knock up. Breaking their arms. They're fleeing the country. Yeah. They do not want to get called up. And this is a way to, I guess in some way,

try to coerce the faithful. Yeah, absolutely. And this is an ally who's just trying to help put ranks behind this war. We talked earlier in this episode about how easy it is for authoritarians to find ready allies with their church. Yep, yep. And once again, like, what are we looking at? We're looking at the fucking Russian Orthodox Church. Immediately, again, they're the fucking moral authority, right?

That's what they would tell you is they're the church. They're the fucking moral authority. And their advice here is, hey, if you want to go to heaven, why don't you swing by and kill some Ukrainians on your way? Yeah, man. Holy shit, really? Yeah, man. Holy shit.

Yeah, and that war is not going well for him. And he mentioned this week, like, nuclear weapons. And, like, there's a back and forth that's happening. He has lost so much face. And their army has really lost so much of its hype. Yeah. It's a paper tiger. And they've shown time and time again all the, like—

And I think that there might be some disinformation out there too that's helping with that, you know, where the Ukrainian government might be making videos to make it look as if they're more incompetent than they might be too, because it makes, it demoralizes their own side for them, that other side so much. So it's just, it's really bad. It's really bad. And they've been losing badly. They've been losing badly. And nobody expected this thing

to last longer than a week or two. No, we thought it was going to be over in a couple of days. The contemporary wisdom was that in a week or two, the contemporary wisdom held that Russia within a handful of days, if not hours, would have air superiority.

They would establish that within moments, essentially, of launching this war, and that this thing would be over and they'd seize Kiev in a week or two. And that was all the analysis that you read in the beginning of this thing. Now here we are months and months and months later, and the Ukrainians are regaining territory. And there was a great piece in the Times last night that I read that was transcripts of intercepted phone calls from Russian soldiers. Did you read this? I saw this, yeah.

I watched the videos. Okay. They played it and then they did a translation on the screen. Okay, yeah, I just read it. And so what they're talking about, they're calling him an idiot. They're calling him a fool.

And they're just like, we're losing so badly. They're like, fucking a third of my regiment is dead. We've lost our commander. These are the, these are, I do think that the Times reporting

has been excellent on the Russia-Ukraine situation. Yeah. So I, I do give that some credence. So yeah, it's going fucking poorly. So what does he do?

Like, Putin turns to his fucking religious ally and is like, hey, give him all the fucking indulgence. Yeah. Yeah. Give him all the fucking indulgence. Let's Yeah. Give him all the fucking indulgence.

Let's stock the Crusades. Whatever you can do. And then we'll get him to swing over and conquer that territory. And, you know, with the Crusade idea too, you know,

what does it say about your opponent? What does it say about the people who you're dehumanizing the people who you're going after? You're saying,

those aren't humans. Those are evil people. Those are people God hates. It's okay to kill after. You're saying those aren't humans. Those are evil people. Those are people God hates. It's okay to kill them. You know what I mean? Like this has a double, double use. Oh yeah. So yeah, it's a terrible shitty thing.

But again, it's, you know, it's like we said earlier, you know, you can count on religion to do something like this. A hundred percent, man. They're like, it's like they're fucking just waiting to be asked. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah, waiting to do horrible shit. They're waiting on the sidelines. Guys, just ask me. Just ask me. Please. Look, I'm in my dress. I've already bought my own corsage. Just fucking ask and I'm all yours.

Yeah, man. It's terrible. So we'd like to thank our patrons. Of course, we'd like to thank all our patrons. We'd like to thank our newest patrons, Bradley, Julie, and Viotic. Thank you so much for your generous donations. You guys are the reason Glory Hole Studios exists. You guys pay salaries with your donations.

The money that you give us allows Tom and I to not do all the work associated with the podcast. And it allows us to, uh, not only continue on with our regular lives, but also be, it gives us time to be creators rather than people who are like administrators. So we can't thank you enough for that. Yeah. You guys really help keep this show running. Like it'd be impossible to do this show at the same level holding day jobs without help without you guys as patrons we'd be screwed we would not be able to keep doing this so we really thank you

if you're not a patron and you're listening to this show and you're thinking about becoming a patron you can head over to patreon.com slash dissonance pod and become a patron and we'd be very grateful to see you we got an image from seth. This last week on our stream, we watched an Alex Jones long piece and we talked about it. It was an interview by someone who basically just interviews him and lets him talk. Right.

And Alex Jones is a horrible person. But at a certain point, Alex Jones refers to himself as the Marshmallow Man and Seth quickly, while he was watching the stream, quickly photoshopped Alex Jones as the Marshmallow Man. So we're going to put it on this week's show.

And a fine job. Fine job. Fine job. Nice quick turnaround on that. Got a message. You know, we get this all the time. This person didn't leave their name, but they said QAnon has come up quite a bit on the show. And I'm thinking the guys from QAnon Anonymous on your podcast would make

a great guest. We have tried to reach out to them multiple times and we've never received any messages back. If anybody has an in on our audience, like help us out, help us out. Like see if you can get them to come on our show. Send them a message and say, hey, you should go on the Cognitive Dissonance podcast. Send them an email.

That's literally how we got in touch with Dan and Jordan. Some people on our audience sent them a message and said, you should reach out to Cognitive Dissonance. They would love to have you on their show. And they did. And then we've suddenly become friends with them since then. So we're happy to have them on our show. We would love it. We've reached out to them. We haven't received a response. If you're a fan of their show, email them. Say, hey, this Cognitive Dissonance podcast is a fun podcast. They're funny guys. They'd love to have you on the show.

And maybe we can make it happen. Anyone that can handshake us, we'd be grateful. We'd be grateful for sure. We got a message, Tom. So let me play this message. This is from Rob. Hey, this is Rob from Columbus. Love the show.

You guys were talking about the tradition of asking for the father's hand in marriage and how barbaric and awful it is. I agree. It's completely ridiculous. When I asked, my father-in-law is a little bit on the conservative side. So when I asked for my wife's hand in marriage, I asked for a hundred heads of cattle as well. He agreed. And we are now married.

We've been married for about five years, but I never got my heads of cattle. And, you know, well, be that as it may, I love the show. Thanks for listening. Well, you know what I would say is, you know, you definitely got the milk for listening. Well, you know what I would say is you definitely got the milk for free.

Whatever happened to a dowry? I know, right? Jesus. I'm owed. Right. We got a message. This person didn't sign it, but they said, I think, you know, for someone who believes in end time beliefs, Lauren Boberg certainly does have a lot of investments. And then they show, they sent

a link where there's just a ton of stock trades and things. So yeah, exactly. Right. What you saving for there, Lauren? Right. If, if anything, it should all be in fucking a Baker buckets or whatever, right? Like that's what your 401k should be. Junk prepper meals. Exactly. Jay sent in a message because we were talking about uh a guy powering a power plant with just like his big thighs right so he sent a message and it's a guy powering a fucking station with a stationary bike powering a toaster tom we watch this this guy's getting 700 watts out of this fucking this stationary stationary bike and his legs are as big as a fucking they're they're seriously they are seriously as big as a fucking... They're seriously...

They are seriously as big as like a honey ham. Yeah. They said in the beginning of the thing, he's got 74 centimeter thighs. This guy is fucking enormous. He hits 700 watts on this thing

for about a little less than 90 seconds. Yeah, like 90 seconds. To make some toast. Yeah. And it's unreal. He is dying. Yeah. He is dying. And this is a guy who's made to fucking drive a bike. The bike is his thing.

Yeah, clearly. And it is 700 watts on this thing. It's so hard. It's an enormous amount of energy. It's so hard for him to get this energy to do this. It's actually really funny to see. So anyway, we're going to put it on this week's show notes, so check out this video that Jay sent in. Alright, that is going to wrap it up for this week. We are going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie

cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info-docutainment. Death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata nonsense. Expose your signs. Thrust your hands, bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this.

The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is basis. No refunds. Produced in association with the local Dairy Council and viewers like you. you