Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 726: Trump Bucks, New Speaker, Masks Work

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

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 Gloriole 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's political and there is no welcome at today is thursday november the 2nd and that's pretty much all i have to say about that hey look it's been an eventful week it has been an eventful week we've had uh don jr don jr testified today we had sam bankman freed, being found guilty, which is great because he's super fucking guilty. He's a fucking liar

and he fucking grifted a bunch of people with like a Ponzi scheme. Like Ponzi's be Ponzing, I guess. That's how that works. So it has not been a slow week. Yeah. It has not been a slow week. We should start out

with some Republicans doing some very Republican-like stuff. I didn't want to read this story, so we're just going to call it up here. Before we do that, though, would we not be remiss to remind everybody that Vulgarity for Charity is in full swing. That's right.

And we messed up. It's supposed to be 50 bucks. We said it was 100. It's actually 50. So if you donate 50 or more to modestneeds.org, send your receipt to vulgarityforcharity at gmail.com. With your, you know,

with who you want to roast, we will put you on a list, a big, giant list that is done every year by Tim Robertson. He does a lot of work. He does an absolute fucking ton of work for this. It's so much work. The amount of work he does. So he collects all the emails.

Then he creates a document. And in that document, he lists all the people they want roasted. Then he categorizes an Excel spreadsheet based on who they want roasted. And so it's like the amount of work this guy puts in. It's enormous. Like modest needs should high five this guy every year. For real. the amount of work this guy puts in it's enormous like modest needs

should high five this guy every real the amount of work he puts in is unbelievable but in any case send it in tim's gonna look at it he's gonna take all those things put it in a nice big spreadsheet for us and then we're gonna pick a hundred random roasters and a hundred high dollar roaster. So the top hundred high dollar roasters get done automatically. But the ones that are just 50 to wherever the high dollar drops off, you'll get a chance to be drawn as a roast that we'll do

on one of the Vulgarity for Charity shows. And those will be coming up soon. So we're going to be doing those relatively soon. I think the first one for us will drop, I'm not sure exactly when, probably later on this month sometime, or maybe early next month. Pretty exciting. So remember, you email that receipt to vulgarityforcharity at gmail.com. All right, so this story, Cecil, is from KVRR. It says, former state senator Ray Holmberg pleads not guilty to federal child porn charges. I've just got to read the whole article because there are parts of this article that are so fucking insane.

When you put this in the notes, Cecil, I'll admit I read the first two thirds of this and I thought this is gross, but I don't know that I've got like a lot of good jokes. And then the back third, the back third is where it's at. So we got to get there first. But yeah, I'm just letting the audience know kind of what to expect here. Fargo, North Dakota. Former state Senator Ray Holmberg of Grand Forks has entered a not guilty plea

to two federal child porn charges, child sex tourism and receipt of child porn. Child sex tourism. How gross is that, dude? I was today years old when I learned that that was a charge. I didn't know it was a thing either, but like once you read about it,

you're like, oh, of course that's a thing. Right. Because people are gross. Yeah. An initial trial date has been scheduled for December 5th, 2023. Holmberg was released and will be on electronic monitoring.

If he's convicted of the charges, he could face up to 50 years in prison. Raymond E. Holmberg, who is North Dakota's and one of the nation's longest serving state senators until he resigned last spring, has been indicted on federal child pornography charges. Raymond E. Holmberg, who is North Dakota's and one of the nation's longest-serving state senators until he resigned last spring, has been indicted on federal child pornography charges.

The charges, filed October 26 and unsealed Monday, come two years after police and federal agents raided the 79-year-old's home in Grand Forks after an investigation showed Holmberg had traded scores of text messages with another man who was jailed on child pornography charges. Mark Freese, a criminal defense attorney with the Vogel Law firm in Fargo, is representing this scumbag. A federal grand jury charged Holmberg with two counts. The indictment against him claims Holmberg traveled to the Czech Republic for the purpose of engaging in sex with a minor, and that he knowingly received child pornography. Court records show Holmberg's offenses took place between June of 2011 and November of 2016. I want to stop real quick

before we get to the really goofy shit that happens later on. I almost feel like the people in power need a lot more checks, not Czech Republic, but checks on them to, to like follow them. Like, like maybe once in a while, your email gets audited. Maybe once in a while, somebody checks up on you to look at your bank accounts or whatever it is, you know, there has to be some auditors, not just for money for personal stuff. Once in a while, I don't care if once in a while a cop goes into your house and fucking looks around with a fucking dog or whatever, because here's the thing, man, we put you in power and you have a lot of it. And if you fucking abuse that power, it's really easy to fucking get away with it forever for 50 years. But if we put a few things

in the, in the mix to make it so not only being in power makes it so people are looking over your shoulder and maybe the fucking shitty people will think, eh, maybe I won't do this. But also just to have it so that there's some fucking something there for us so we can be like, no, we did our due diligence. We vetted this person. We aren't governed by scumbags. Yeah. Right? Like, that's super important. First of all, like, these guys are raising their hands and begging for this job.

Yeah. So it's not like, like, I'm not supposing that this would be a good idea just for, like, regular Joe working at the fucking ABC factory. Right? You've got to do a lot to get an office. You've got to, you have to raise your hand and beg us to put you in this job. You have to ask for it. It's part of our ongoing conversation of like, this should be an undesirable job, right?

This should not be a job where everybody's like, yeah, man, life was so good being a senator. Life should be harder being a senator. And you should still want to do it because you're the right person for the job. Because like, there's that saying that like, if you want the job, you shouldn't have it when it comes to politics. Yeah, I sort of really strongly believe that.

Yeah, man. These are the guys who write our laws. And our laws are just formalizations of our ethics. So how can we have people who write our laws be unethical people? How can they be the guys who formalize our sort of collective social ethics and be like unethical shitheads?

They can't be. They can't be, but we allow them to. We allow them, and they get away with it all the fucking time. All the time. And there's nothing that really is in our best interest, right? It's always sort of all the protections are for them. We're like, no, the protections should be for us.

Yeah, man. Because we pay their fucking salary. We do all this. We're the ones who said, yes, you can do this job. Okay, yes, you can do this job, but once in a while, we're going to look through your email. Yeah. Sorry. That's your personal email. That's how it works.

Maybe you should think that every conversation you have is being listened to. And that's okay. I think I'm okay with that. If that's how you're going to play the game, then cool. I'm 100% okay with that. My kids want cell phones, right? So my little, like my kids, they want cell phones, not little kids at this point. They want cell phones, right? So my little, my kids, they want cell phones, not little kids at this point. They're like teenagers, right? They want a cell phone. And the rule is like, look, I'll get you a cell phone, but at any time I'm allowed to ask you for that cell phone, you have to hand it to me immediately. And if you don't hand it to me immediately, that cell phone is mine forever. It never comes back to you. So that's the rule going in. You can make that rule going in and being like, look, you can be a Senator, but at any time the NSA can say, hand me your

cell phone. Yeah. Right. And your job is to hand you that cell phone. I think. And that's it. And if you don't like that, that's okay. Yeah. Like if my kids don't like that, that's okay. They don't have to have a cell phone, but they're the one asking there. And these guys are the ones asking, right? These guys are saying, please let me be this position of power. Please imbue in me this massive amount of power and authority. Great. There's no exchange back though. Like I'm not getting anything back for that. The problem, the only problem I can foresee sort of pretty easily is the moment you get somebody in there and they start using this and weaponizing this against people. You know what I mean? Like that's a problem. So there's gotta be some checks and balances somebody in there and they start using this and weaponizing this against people, you know what I mean? Like that's a problem.

So there's got to be some checks and balances put in there. Some smart person can figure all this stuff out, but. Yeah, it does. That doesn't even seem hard, right? It could be like randomized. Yeah. Right. You could just randomize it

and you could have it being done by a nonpartisan watchdog. Sure. Like these aren't like impossible. And I want to say to the audience, if they're worried, I've never actually asked my kids for their phones. So like, please don't send me your emails about violations of trust.

Like I've never asked them just by putting in that rule. I feel comfortable that they're not doing squirrely shit. Yeah. That's fine. Yeah, I know. All right. So I just know that I'll get an email.

Like, I can't believe you would root through that kid and then raise it and do it your way. Like, what the fuck? I'm still going to get a fucking email about it. I guarantee I'll get the email. All right.

All right. Nicholas Morgan. Okay. So this is the crazy part, guys. Nicholas Morgan DeRossier is the man Holmberg was accused of communicating with while DeRossier was in jail. This guy is something else. Let's think about that sentence. Yeah, sure.

Holmberg is a fucking state senator yep this guy is actively in jail and you're like that's the dude I'm gonna chat with while he's in jail he's not even released he's in jail for creepy creepiness and you're like probably I should chat with that guy what What the fuck? What? What? It is fucked up, man. What the fuck? All right, so how do they meet?

He pleaded guilty to seven counts of possession and distribution of child pornography in September. Besides the jail text, there are a number of connections between DeRosier and Holmberg. Oh, what are they, Tom? In a previous evidentiary hearing the case, it was revealed that DeRosier's former landscaping business partner had been killed in a worksite accident while the two were clearing snow at Holmberg's residence. You heard that right. Somebody, two people were clearing snow at the Senator's residence and one of them died. Yeah. So, okay. I just wanted to make sure I got that. I have a service that comes out and clears snow. Nice.

I just wanted to make sure I got that. I have a service that comes out in clear snow. Nice. At no point, if one of them were killed, would I be like, I should make friends with the survivor? Yo, bro. That's it. Can I get your fucking number? We got like text back and forth. You're a survivor.

What the fuck is that? How do you have that conversation? My favorite part is like the next paragraph when they find out how the guy died. Okay. Yeah. Let's let's let, yeah. Okay. The two were clearing snow. Authorities said DeRose Segar was operating a front end loader that

ran over his business partner multiple times. Come on! What the shit? Come on, man! You had a guy You had a guy drive and then jump You had a guy drive and then beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, jump, beep, beep, beep, beep, jump, beep, beep, beep.

You had a guy do that on your property, man. Come on. And you made friends with him. And then you're like, no, man, I like how you work. What the fuck is happening? How? How is that even real? How is that even real? How is that even real, dude?

Just imagine. Oh, God. I can't. You hire someone to come to your house and do some work. That's fine. They kill a man on your property. And you're just like, yeah, I know the police are going to be here. This is a little awkward.

Be busy for dinner next week. I'm a little lonely. Do you like kids? You guys want to go? What the fuck? Do you want to go to Taco Bell? Do you want to go to Subway? And if you're looking for a $5 foot long thing, go.

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That's a callback right there. Maybe they'll all be reunited in prison with Jared. Months later, the North Dakota Attorney General Division of Consumer Protection and Antitrust issued an order of injunction to prohibit DeVosier's landscaping company from doing business. And DeVosier was overheard by investigators on the phone with the Attorney General's office trying to arrange for a meeting in Bismarck at a time when Holmberg needed to be there so they could ride there together. So this fucking guy kills a man in Bismarck at a time when Holmberg needed to be there so they could ride there together. So this fucking guy kills a man in your front yard. Then he gets in then he gets like a fucking government steps in and is like, you can't actually operate a business

anymore. And you're like, yeah alright, but that's my buddy, so like we're gonna ride together, you know, when you're going to get in trouble for the third thing that you're going to get in trouble for. Jesus Christ. Holmberg was one of the legislature's most powerful lawmakers for decades serving as a chairman of the senate appropriations committee he chaired the legislative management committee four times the republican legislator was first elected to his senate seat serving grand force

district 17 in 1976 jesus christ i wasn't borner than you've been alive. I was not alive. That dude was a senator for longer than you were alive. What the shit is happening? And the only solace that I can take is that he was a state senator for North Dakota, so nothing he did matter. Yeah, well, I guess that's true. Except for getting that guy out of trouble who ran over his friend like 15 times.

What the fuck, man? What is that? What is happening up there? What is happening? I understand, though, how he got reelected. Like, how many people are running? Like, how many people

are in District 17 in North Dakota? Like, that's... It's like you and like... You and like... And a you. Yeah, right. A sheep.

That's it. I don't take fake money. Fake. Okay, so this, guys, I'm reading this story and it's long. And I don't know that I would normally read a story this long except for that this is my favorite story

that Cecil has literally ever found. All right, here we go. I adore. I was almost going to put this one in the funny show, but I decided to put it in this one because it's about Trump. It's just delicious, guys. It's from, I don't know, NBC, NBC, NBC. Trump bucks promise wealth. I'm already loving it. You guys, fucking Trump bucks. Oh, man. Trump bucks promise wealth for mega loyalty. What's your Trump buck to camel cash ratio? Hey, if you get enough of them, you get a Harrier jet for Pepsi. No, you can't. Saving Trump bottle caps.

Oh, so good. Yeah. Some lose thousands. The products are advertised online as a kind of golden ticket that will help propel Trump's 2024 bid and make the real patriots who support him rich when they are cashed in.

In the recesses of the internet, where some of Donald Trump's most fervent supporters stoke conspiracies and plot his return to the White House, suspected con artists have been mining their disappointment over the last presidential election for gold. The writing is so good, too. I love this, guys. Really good. They've been peddling Trump bucks, which are emblazoned with photos of the former president

and advertising them online as a kind of golden ticket that will help propel Trump's 2024 bid and make the real patriots who support him rich when cashed in. Is this, is this a analog NFT that they were trying to, because the people who don't know about NFTs

and all the Trump NFTs, he bought them up or whatever and then made it seem like they were all gone or whatever. Whatever happened to those? Where he looks like

he's an astronaut cowboy soldier or whatever. I would be fucking shocked if they weren't worth anything. But I think like those people who wanted to get on in the craze of that, but had no idea they're like computer. Right. What does that do?

Does that have like numbers on it? Like they don't know. They have no idea. So I think that this sort of thing is the best, is the, is the way to like, it's a safe NFT or whatever. It adds his face on it,

right? Like when I, when I, when I think about the thing itself, the way to, like, it's a safe NFT or whatever. Because it adds a space on it, right? It does. When I think about the thing itself, the Trump buckets. You guys, you guys, imagine the dumbest fucking Trump bucks. Like, when you were, like, in, like, Mrs. Johnson's third grade class,

and you could get fucking Johnson bucks, you know, and you could turn them in. Yeah. You know, and, like, if you were, like, putting away your markers and shit. Yeah, for real, guys. That's it. Like, when you got and like if you're like really good markers yeah for real guys that's it like when you got like oh i got johnson bucks if i could trade it like six johnson that's how tom's kids pay for their cell phone they get tom bucks and they have to pay those are worth more than these

yeah well you can get a cell phone with them. Are you kidding me? Come on. This is like, here's the thing, what I think, Cecil, to your point, I do think that like a certain amount of grifters

saw Donald Trump selling digital garbage pail kids or whatever he was doing. That's what they were, man. They were fucking digital garbage pail kids. Dumpy Trumpubby or whatever and he's like

he's like in a garbage dump with like shit on him or whatever and they were like oh there's nothing too stupid yeah man

I really think that was it I think they were like there's nothing too stupid genuinely I am surprised there's not more of this I'm surprised I'm not selling them.

And you know, to be honest, like genuinely, this is a group of people who have deified a grifter to the point that it's absurd and he can do no wrong. So anything attached to his name, I mean, you can drive down the road and there's places in this country that are Trump stores. Yeah. Where you can walk in like a brick and mortar store with just Trump paraphernalia in it. So like your idea that there aren't more grifters, I'm right with you. Like there should be a million, there should be grifters flying above it like a vulture.

It should be like just a grifter after grifter after grifter spitting in the sky, waiting to pounce. Because these people, like you couldn't ask for a better mark i dude i was i'm a little disappointed in myself i'm not even kidding i'm a little disappointed myself that i didn't realize that what the 2020 election really did was point out that there are 74 million dupes dupes yeah and that like if they're all willing to vote for a grifter how are they not susceptible to every grift? Sure.

And all you have to do is just tailor a grift. You've got to see, you've done all the market research for you. They've literally done all the market research. I could tap right into it and figure out like, okay, these are people susceptible to grift. Yes, absolutely. I am disappointed I'm not rich right now. Because like, I wouldn't feel bad. You could be because genuinely the amount of easy grift that is there just by...

And we saw it happen with the pundits, right? The people who sort of followed him and did all this stuff. Those people made a fucking killing off these people. Oh, yeah. I mean, look at the fucking... Look at Jenna Ellis. We were talking about her two weeks ago. Oh, yeah?

All she did was say, I need legal representation. And now she's going to be a cooperating witness and she still gets $200,000 of their money. Yeah. And I think that's small change. She could have easily gotten more. I think that's small change compared to like what you could get selling something.

Like Jenna Ellis just was like, I need money, please help. Right. Like if they, if you were selling something, this reminds me, do you remember that fucking bear? That Trump bear? Yeah, Trumpy bear, yeah.

Trumpy bear. Like, this is like one step past Trumpy bear. Yeah. Trumpy bear was just memorabilia. These Trump bucks are delightful guys, and we'll get into the whole thing

of how they work, but they play off people's like- Don't work, actually. Don't work. Yeah. But like, these 74 million dumbasses don't know how the economy works. They think the world is run by conspiracy.

They have a whole set of associated dumbassery. Yeah. And all of that stuff is like a fucking market. Well, man, how the fuck did the MyPillow guy fuck that up? Oh, I know. He had the goose that laid the lumpy pillow i mean like genuinely had an ability to like sell to these people and have a hotline to these people constantly and he fucked it up by by falling too far in think of the money he could have made

off of just the grift on this from his lumpy shitty pillows he should have he should have just chilled the fuck out associated himself and in put himself deeply in bed with trump associated his product with trumpism and mega bullshit and then been like you know five percent of the proceeds of every my pillow is going to go to support donald trump stop the steal fucking mega alert bullshit right whether he even did it or not doesn't even matter. People would be like, oh, I can buy a fucking pillow from this pillow patriot or whatever they fucking want to call him. Give my pillow bucks.

Right, give my pillow bucks. Go buy a pillow. Buy pillow bucks. Yeah, no, man, you're not wrong. John Amon told NBC News he bought $2,200 worth of Trump bucks and other items over the past year only to discover they were worthless

when he tried to cash the man at his local bank. Hello? Do you take Trump bucks? Why did you lock me out? Cecil, Cecil, here's my favorite part of that transaction. He took money. He took money it's actual american absolutely a hundred dollars the two thousand but more than that because he bought twenty two hundred dollars so he took money and then he turned them into trump bucks and then he

wanted to turn them back into money you see where the waste of time and energy is, right? Yeah, it feels like there's a little bit of... Feels like there's a little loss in the system there, for sure. If you have money and then you have to turn that into something else to turn that back to money, someone

in the middle is taking some of your money, guys. Unless he thought for sure that this was going to be worth more. He thought that he was going to bring him in there because what he bought was $2,200 for five, and he thought he had five grand worth of it. Right, yeah. He thought there was going to be a big giant appreciation because he was told that there would be.

Because I wouldn't be surprised if they even price these things like savings bonds. You know, like when you buy a savings bond and it's like, you pay, it says $25, but you only paid like $6 for it or whatever. Right. And if you wait your whole life,

it'll be worth $25. Did you get savings bonds as a kid from your grandparents or anything? God, those are the worst kids. It's like, here you go. Here's a $50 thing and you're like, $50.

And then you get to be able to cash. You're like, $50 is like 75 cents right now. I got like, I got, thank you. I got savings bonds when I was a kid and my dad bought to be able to cash. You're like $50 is like 75 cents. I got like, I got, thank you. I got savings bonds when I was a kid and my dad bought them for my kids too. And they would be like a hundred dollars savings bond or something.

I'm like, whoa, but it would, it would fucking appreciate or whatever mature in like 20 years or some crazy, crazy amount of money. I've got to save this piece of paper. Useless amount of money, especially because of inflation.

Like it's going to be worth less than what you paid for. And, like, I lost some of them. Because, like, I've got to hang on to something for 20 fucking years. How many times have I moved? You can't even find your keys most of the time. Yeah, I know. Like, if I don't put my keys on my fucking savings bond,

it's basically gone forever. It's gone. Why would you give me something and be like, all right, now keep this safe? Tom's accidentally wiping his face with his safe. He's like, who's supposed to keep this? Fuck! The only reason I don't lose

my kids is they call my name. You know? Fucking hell. What they should have done is like they should have all created an internal market, right? Where you spend twenty two hundred dollars on stupid stupidity bucks. And then somebody else is like just getting in and they want to buy your dumb ass. That's called a pond. Twenty five hundred bucks. But that's called a market.

That's how like Bitcoin works. Right. Like you pay for Bitcoin and then somebody else wants to pay more for your same Bitcoin. Yeah. Like that's how most markets work. Yeah. It's just that like there's no way to do the final exchange for Trump bucks. Yeah. There is for Bitcoin, right? Bitcoin, eventually you turn that back into money. Trump bucks, you just stand there like an asshole with fucking toilet paper in your hand that hurts your bung when you try to wipe with it. Yeah. All right. So he's gone on Twitter to warn other Trump supporters not to fall for this scam. NBC News has identified the Colorado-based companies behind the Trump Bucks as Patriots

Dynasty, Patriots Future, and USA Patriots. And they're really trying to get their, they get their mileage out of the word Patriot. They are. Let me tell you, man. They are. And the New England Patriots. Bill Belichick is on one of them. That's their coach.

That's their coach. That's their coach. Okay. Okay. These actually, it's funny because the value of these is overinflated as. That's their coach. That's their coach. Okay. Okay. These actually, it's funny because the value of these is overinflated as opposed to underinflated.

Isn't that like a joke about the football? Oh, you made a football joke. I made a football joke. Did I get it right? For you, you did. Yeah. Yes, I knew something

for a minute. Underinflated instead of overinflated. You remembered it. Yes. You remembered it. Yes. That's the Belichick. The joke did not work.

Deflate game. But it was accurate. Deflate game. Yes. Also, like, if you use the Belichick. The joke did not work. Deflate gate. But it was accurate. Deflate gate. Yes. Also, like, if you use the word patriot. I like that you had to nudge me on the joke, too. I did, because. No, because I'm like, what is he talking about?

And then I'm like, oh, it's a patriot joke. It wasn't a good joke. It was a good joke, but I didn't totally remember it. So it's my fault. Also, like, if you use the word patriot and identify with that word. Oh, God. Like, you're just a shithead. Well, you're a grifter.

You're just a shithead. You're going to be a grifter. Or you sell fucking concealed carry holsters. Those are your two options. Thank you. You don't do one or the other. You're either a grifter. You could be both.

You could be a grifter that sells concealed carry holsters. Yeah, they're not mutually exclusive at all. And reviewed dozens of social posts, online complaints, and hundreds of misleading ads for the products. Additionally, NBC News has found at least a dozen people like Amon who say they invested thousands of dollars after watching the pitches on Telegram and other websites that strongly suggested that Trump himself was endorsing these products. There's your problem. Hey, I saw an ad on Telegram. I don't know how I got duped. Jesus Christ. Now I'm questioning

whether he's aware of this, Amon said of Trump. Hey, man, he's not. I love it. Although he probably would totally sell these to you. Yeah, he's just mad he didn't do it himself.

Repeated attempts to reach a spokesperson for Trump and his reelection campaign by email have gone unanswered. No evidence suggests the alleged scammers are connected to Trump or his reelection campaign.

In addition to tweeting a warning to others about the scam, Amman said he posted a review on Trustpilot, a website where consumers can rate and review businesses. The FTC, in response to a FOIA request from NBC News, confirmed it has received one fraud complaint against Patriot's dynasty that was filed in January, but provided no further details

about the single complainer who filed it. The Better Business Bureau is like thinking, he's like, okay, Patriots is what I'm going with but what's a word duck dynasty patriot dynasty there it is baby like that's how

he came up with it it's a hundred percent like a dude with a long beard and a duck blind selling you Trump bucks he seems trustworthy

he's on telegram like why would I not how would I not trust the patriots on telegram he pokes out like the dog and laughs at you. And then goes back down

with your money. Repeated attempts to reach representatives for the companies by phone and email were unsuccessful, but Bank of America spokesman Bill Heldin said he's heard reports

from bank employees of customers coming to exchange their Trump bucks for actual cash, but the bank turns them down. And then they, you should be able to get some mason too, I think. customers coming to exchange their Trump bucks for actual cash, but the bank turns them down. And then they, you should be able to get some nasal too, I think. Then they come in. Dude, you should be able to laugh. It's hard to put a number on how many people have come in, Alden said, when asked for more specifics about who these people were and

where they were located. Bank of America as a matter of course is continuing on lookout for fraudsters and circulates information in house with scams. That's a little comfort to Oman, who's 77 and lives in Houston. There's no way to cash out what I have, he said. Since 2020, when Joe Biden defeated Trump at the presidential election, Internet hucksters have been selling pro-Trump products like coins, checks and cards and marketing them as novelty items. The fine print on the websites offering these items usually notes that they're memorabilia. But on social media and in promotional videos, many featuring fake celebrity endorsements,

the sellers have tapped an audience that believes Trump's ouster was part of a great conspiracy and that by investing in the Trump Rebate Banking System, or TRP for short, Trump will reward their loyalty by making them rich. Go lay down. Those who buy these items,

the ads from Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future, and USA Patriot Suggest, will be rewarded when Trump unveils a new monetary system that will turn these products into legal tender

worth far more than the purchase price. Look it, there's a TRB membership handbook. Look at that. And it's got a screaming eagle on it, guys. There's an eagle.

And then there's also Trump coins. It's also communist red, which is weird. Could they make Trump look more like Ram Man in those coins? Like, these coins, if you go to watch this on YouTube or you go to our website to look at this image- It's a fat fucking head. The coins look like somebody squished his head

in the thing that crushes the Terminator at the end. I would be so offended. I'd be so mad if they did that to my face. Be like, what did you do? You put me in a funhouse mirror. Like, what is wrong with you? He's already got a fucking fat head with no neck. And they made him look worse.

They make it look worse. He looks like a collector for the mafia. He does. He looks like a guy who has no neck. 100% no neck. Invested a TRB membership card issued by Donald Trump. The ads from Patriots Dynasty, Patriots Future, and you say Patriots Claim. And the purchaser who spent, say, $99.99 on a $10,000 diamond Trump bucks bill

will be able to cash it in for $10,000. This is my second favorite part. At major banks and retailers like Walmart, Costco, and home. I love to, you go to, you go to Walmart, Tom, you go to Walmart. You're like, yeah, I got my kitty leader and, uh, this I'd like to pay for it with my Trump buck. And they're like, Oh, it's a $10,000 Trump buck. Hold on. I only have like $40 to register to give you change. They're like cleaning out the whole place to give you $10,000 back for your fucking 90. Who thinks? You know what?

I'm sorry. $99 doesn't get you 10,000. That doesn't happen. No. That doesn't happen. That only happens with like fucking Ponzi schemes or something. Yeah, that happens.

And it doesn't even happen with that, right? When you see a rate of return like that, you should be like, oh, that's a scam. But that's a scam. If $99 will make you $103 and it takes a year, yes. Yeah. 100%, right? Sure. $99 will make you $107 and it takes a year. Maybe if the market looks good. If $99 makes you $10,000. $99 makes you $10,000. What you got to do is you got to take their wallet and you got to hit them in the head with it. Don't use, give this to somebody. You don't need to just fucking sign over

power of attorney to somebody around you. You shouldn't have money. Because something is happening in your life that makes you think $99 turns into $10,000. I don't even care if you- I got 99 problems and a Trump fucking one. I wouldn't even care. If you stapled your money to bunnies,

it wouldn't fuck that much and turn into $10,000. What the fuck? It's so funny. It's so funny. They're going to go to Home Depot and be like, hello, major retailer. I would like this one piece of molding at $999,000.

Please act as a random currency exchange for me. And Home Depot's like, no. We sell paint. What the fuck is wrong with you? I don't think it's going to work here. Go check down the street at Walmart. Oh my God.

TRB system membership cards are official cards issued by Donald Trump to allow Trump Bucks holders to use Trump Bucks as legal tender. I can't believe they call it Trump Bucks. That's Shrubux, man. It's Shrubux. Is this the funniest thing?

I can't even breathe right now. I can't breathe. It's so fucking funny. Shroop Bucks. That's impossible. Fucking good. This is a troll story. This isn't a real story.

They got us. Whoever did this, they did a good job. You got us't a real story. They got us. Whoever did this, they did a good job. You got us. You got us. You got us. You got us. It's not real.

And deposit them in banks such as JPMorgan Chase, the Bank of America, and Wells Fargo. A narrator identified only as John that appears to be a computer-generated voice in a YouTube ad. Moments after cautioning viewers that Trump bucks are not legal tender.

Holy shit. Yeah. Aw, see? You're watching a fucking YouTube ad with a guy named John. With a fucking fake voice. A trustworthy AI named John told me about these Trump bucks.

Oh my God. Wells Fargo has no affiliation with those products and cannot accept it for deposit, a bank spokesperson said. JP Morgan didn't bother to comment on that shit. It's a get-rich-quick scam that is catnip to a certain kind of Trump supporter, including QAnon believers

and others who believe the former president is the only solution to America's problems. NBC also reached out to representatives for Walmart, Costco, and Home Depot. Come on! What are they gonna say? Hey, bro. Comma. Have you seen this shit?

Question mark. Send. Love, NBC. How many Trump bucks Costco for a big thing of pickles? I need a 55-gallon drum of ketchup. I need a fucking, what I need is a peanut butter jar as big as my head how many Trump bucks for that and I want a roast chicken

I want a roast chicken while I'm there I'm going to fill my cart with roast chicken I want a roast chicken while I'm there we don't have any connection to this and it isn't a problem we're seeing at our stores at Home Depot spokesperson Terrence Roper Walmart spokesman

Robert Arrieta said, we've not heard of this scam. We don't have any program that resembles this, Arrieta said, and referred a reporter to the company's fraud alert page. This is just the best. This is just the absolute best. If this is indeed a scam, the victims have not had enough time to realize they've been scammed as they will be awaiting the results of the 2024 presidential election to receive the benefit of their initial outlay of money. So that's the thing. They pushed him off a year. A few people were like, oh,

I spent the money. Then they probably had a financial need. And they were like, well, cool. I have these Trump bucks. I guess I won't get rich, but I can just turn them in and get my money back. And they're the ones who figured out they got scammed. It's all the people waiting for that fucking, like, Trump to turn this

into the next dollar. Where all of a sudden people in China are going to be like, oh, okay, well, I guess we take Trump bucks now in exchange. What?

What? They're selling over aircraft carriers for big bags of junk. There's no world where you think that we're going to be doing serious business

with something called Trump bucks. It's not even called Trump dollars. It's bucks. You know what I mean? It's like, it's like fucking Boris quid, you know? Boring.

So this is a story from the new Republic, Kristen Sinema's delusional exit interview. And this is great. The line in here says, what does the future hold for Kristen Sinema, the Arizona Senator who's best described as a dull person's idea of an interesting person? It's so mean.

It's so wonderful. It's so mean. And another thing too is like, in this article, this article is so scathing and so funny. But's so mean. And another thing too is like, in this article, this article is so scathing and so funny. But one of the things they do is they're like, well, she says that she single-handedly saved the filibuster.

And they're like, aren't you forgetting about that fucking shit stain from West Virginia who was also there? Basically what this article is saying is that she's going to go on and she even said out loud, I'm going to go on. I can go be a fucking president of a university. I can go become a, on a board of some place. I can

go, I have a job. I've got options when I leave. And I saved, I saved the Senate basically is what she's saying. I saved the Senate because what she thinks is that she protected the filibuster, which they go through great pains in this article to point out that it's really just dumb procedural shit that shouldn't even be there. Yeah. The, the, the filibuster, which they go through great pains in this article to point out that it's really just dumb procedural shit that shouldn't even be there. Yeah. The filibuster is nonsense that like forces the Senate to operate only by a super majority. And that's not structurally built into the Senate. That's just built into some fucking rules that aren't even the age of the Senate. That's just some relatively like new shit. Yeah. All things considered that the Senate has put into place on a rules basis. It's not like this august institution has always required a super majority.

It is often not required a super majority. And like what a filibuster has really meant is gridlock. And it's particularly meant cock blocking for Democrats. Yeah. Well, and it's because we go back to this a lot, but that's because conservatives want the status quo. What they want is for things to stall.

They want things to stop. And it's in their favor when shit doesn't go forward. Right. It's in their favor when things don't progress. Yep. And so they're like, perfect. We'll put this thing in there that basically fucks you. And for the rest of time,

we're stuck having to like follow them around and beg them to bring legislation to the floor and it needs a lot of people to vote on it to like bring it up you need to have 60 fucking votes for something and like the way the hyper polarized crazy way

that like the fact that land gets votes for the senate like all that bullshit it all heavily favors republicans and republicans like you said all they want to do is apply the brakes so like if you build a structure that is already got its foot on the brake all the time you don't have to do much you don't like in order to advance legislation we have to fucking like no we don't have to hit the accelerator We have to pry your fucking foot off the goddamn brake all the time. It's crazy to me.

And she's proud of it. And I know Manchin's proud of it too. They're both real proud of what they did. Because they're fucking Republicans. That's exactly it. They're fucking Republicans. Or they're like, if they're not, and she's not a Democrat anymore. She even switched to like an independent earlier this year.

Because she's not a Democrat. She never really was. It's a shame that she got elected. And I'm pretty sure she's going to lose her seat. Even she thinks I think she's going to lose her seat. Yeah, she thinks she's going to lose her seat. Because she's a piece of shit. Ladies and gentlemen, it is finally time to investigate

311! This story comes from the Daily News. Huge Clarence Thomas RV loan forgiven by wealthy businessmen. Senate investigation finds another Cecil. And this one was, this is in 1999. Yeah. Or 2000, one or the other.

It's like right around, I think it's 2000. $277,000 RV. The median home price in 2000 was $100,000 in our state. In 2001, it was $130,000. So right around there, you're looking at something that is two and a half times more than a median home value in our state that he bought, that he was driving around. So, you know, when people think of a $270,000 RV, we're thinking about it in 2023 terms where you're like, yeah, that's expensive, but you know, there's cars out there that are easily way more than that. You know, probably you could almost certainly get some larger production cars that might even become

close to 150,000, you know, that sort of thing pretty easily. You're not paying the prices we were paying 20 years ago. And you forget that. That the thing is, I also looked it up. It's fucking decked out. Like this is the type of thing, this RV that he's driving around is the type of thing like rockers drove around, like, like big bands that go travel on the bus to go to concerts and shit. This is their RV that they drive around in. This is like a high-end, super luxury RV. Because again, this guy, that's all he is, is like a guy who hangs out with people

who can give him super luxury shit. And what he did was supposedly played a few payments to this, interest-only payments. And then this guy just wrote it off eight years later and said, forget about it. You don't have to worry about it. But he really didn't pay much for it. He paid a couple of things. They said maybe some interest-only payments, but nothing. No, forget about it. You don't have to worry about it. But he really didn't pay much for it. He paid a couple of things.

They said maybe some interest only payments, but nothing, no principles gone from it. Like how much grift do we have to find? How much, with Clarence Thomas genuinely, what else do we have to find? Like,

is it just, it's a, does it have like a harem of fucking blowjob experts or something? I'll tell you man. What do we have to find where there's too much, where we're beyond the pale? Is there a beyond the pale? I think if the Democrats get the House and the Senate in 24

and they get enough of the House to call something, he'll at least be brought up on charges to be impeached, I think. I don't think it'll happen. It's not going to happen. He's not going to be rejected from his seat. But I think he might be the first, I don't know if he's the first, but he'll be most recent in recent memory,

someone who was at least impeached. I don't know that he'll be able to be removed, but they might get past one vote to another vote and then throw it out. You don't have to be a partisan person to see that this is an egregious miscarriage of justice. It just is. And if they, like, the House

should be forming a committee to investigate this. Because the reporters are doing all this work. Reporters are doing all of it right now. And they're reporting on it. And like, every fucking time we record, every time we record it feels like, oh, well, you know, here's what Clarence Thomas got this week. Here's what we discovered about Clarence Thomas. Oh,

this is his fucking nephew's private school education. Well, that's been paid for. And his mom's home was bought for him. And like, he's got a fucking RV and he took these ultra fucking, and the RV, like you said, it's an ultra luxe RV,, even if it wasn't. But still, it is. It's an ultra, ultra-luxe RV. $277,000 for an RV now would be a lot of dough. It'd be an intense amount of money. That's a lot of dough for an RV. But you're talking 20 years ago? Easily double that.

It's so much money. Yeah. So, you know, and the other thing I think that's really telling is, I really do believe that if this were a democratic justice, there would be people on the Democrat side being like, you got to resign. You got to resign. You got to resign.

Look at what they did with that guy who was like, you know, the guy who was just in the Senate and he's brought up on fraud charges. Oh yeah. There's been people who have said, no, that guy's got to go. He's got to go. He's got to go. He's not going to leave.

And they don't have enough votes to get him out of there. But they definitely thought, you know, that guy should go. They've asked him to step down. Nobody even has said anything. I know. I know. Like, we have a bad system when it comes to the Supreme Court. We really do.

The Supreme Court is a bad system because any system with no check or balance or oversight, no ethics committee, nothing, and it doesn't, like, it's just not an impossible problem to solve. We pretend that it's an impossible problem to solve, but it's not an impossible problem to solve. There are solutions to this that aren't even that structurally difficult.

Right, right. You know, if Clarence Thomas was behaving this way and he was a federal judge at any other level he'd be out on his ass sure be out on his ass yeah if he federal if clarence thomas was behaving this way at like your company he'd be out on his ass sure i don't know it's fucking crazy this is my company well you can actually take as many rvs as you want see so that's fine i'll it into our bylaws. I get to buy all the model RVs.

I have like a whole string of model RVs. Model RVs. $7. You fucking suck. Very well. Tom, I just wanted to talk about this just for a minute. Yeah. Because I have just such dislike for Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She's the lowest approval rating for governor

in the last 20 years, Arkansas poll says. I am just so happy because she, along with all the other press secretaries for Trump, was the architect of the post-truth era that we're in now. Yes, she was, yep. That alternative fact stuff came from them. And so,

I feel like any bad shit that happens to her, I want to be gleeful about. Absolutely. Fuck Sarah Huckabee Sanders forever. And if you want to fuck

Sarah Huckabee... Actually, never mind. No, sorry. Yeah. Like, that is a person who knowingly,

like you said, she knowingly uh used her fame that she got from being an awful mega liar and turn it into her next career move to be governor of arkansas she was never going to be governor of arkansas without no being the fucking secretary yeah yeah she gained a certain amount of notoriety among dimwits and fascists yeah and they convinced her to vote. She convinced them to vote for her in fucking Arkansas. And now,

even in Arkansas, they're like, oh, turns out you're incompetent at this too. You're bad in Arkansas. Yes. How bad is that, man? That's like the opposite

of a Wisconsin 10, right? Like, you're bad in Arkansas. You're in Arkansas 3. Because 3 out of 10 people approve your shit. So from the Washington Post, Trump, his adult children, expected to testify in New York fraud trial soon. That has actually happened today.

Today. Junior. Don Junior. Yeah. And I saw some posts and I don't know, I don't have anything in front of me, but a couple of people were basically saying that he might have sunk himself by testifying. He might have flipped the

whole game board over on himself because he was basically saying that he wasn't checking up on the things that he should have been checking up on, leaving it to people, expecting people to handle this stuff when in reality reality it's your responsibility too. And so he may have even, from what I read, he may have even opened himself up to charges in the future. Oh God, delicious. Yeah. You know, this whole family thinks that they're just too smart

for everybody else, too smart to get caught. Oh, and they're not. I understand these people are just such a mess. You know they're going to get ruined. And they were trying to make it so Ivanka didn't have to testify because she left this company behind. So they're trying to make it

so that she didn't have to, but she does have to, I think. She's going to have to now. I just read that today. She's going to have to come in. But really, genuinely, you know, of the ones she seems the smartest to try to separate herself,

but she was too involved in it. I think she's going to get screwed too. Yeah, the mud hits them all. You know what I mean? Like, you're in the mud with them, the mud hits all of you. I have no fucking sympathy for Ivanka. I know that there's been a lot more sympathy for her in the public sphere. I don't have any.

No, fuck that. Like, she was all too happy to stand by her dad's side, especially in the early years of his administration, and to benefit from his awfulness. While he was in office, she was standing there, and she was, he kept on, like, referring her to people, too, be like, you could talk to my daughter about this. What is she? What's her job? Like, nobody vetted her,

and she's, like, doing, like, shit that heads of state would be doing. For sure, man. For sure. And that was egregious. And then to have her like weird, defective, cyborg husband get like all kinds of jobs. Shit tons of money. That guy like at one point

was in charge of part of our COVID response. Yeah, man. That guy doesn't know fucking shit about shit. Like they crushed it. Yeah, fucking hashtag nailed it. Mission accomplished. Yeah, he crushed some ivermectin

and snorted it, which you did. Homosexuality is not a choice. I love sodomy. Alright, this story comes from LGBTQ Nation. Speaker Mike Johnson wanted to criminalize sodomy and called gay marriage the harbinger of chaos. So, Homeboy has a podcast

and I guess the other thing too is that his podcast was just deleted. They just like got rid of it all. Really? Yeah. They just got rid of the whole thing, but the internet's forever. So duh, people have it. And they're like, no, like we were fucking following you for years. We have all your episodes. We know what you said. So that's out there. He's, he's said some of these things. His wife is part of this, like, she's a consultant for like crazy people,

religious, crazy people. Yeah. She has a website. She has a website that they took down with horrible shit on it. That says like fucking, you know, trans people are the same as,

as incestuous relationships. And gay people are like bestiality and stuff. So like these, this guy, they just didn't check well enough. Or they didn't care. Those are the two options. They didn't check well enough or they didn't care, but he

is the face of the Republican Party whether you want it to be or not, he is. Yeah, 100%, man. 100%. This, and like, I believe that it's not a matter if they didn't check. I think this is genuinely representative. They just don't care. Of those people.

Yeah, they just don't care. I think Mike Johnson is a good representative of the modern Republican Party. No, I think you're right. Yeah, I think they don't care. They want this, this is their message. And it has been since the beginning. You know, a lot of people thought for some reason when Trump was elected, I remember seeing a bunch of like LGBT stuff going around where they were saying, no, he's for the LGBT people.

He's going to protect them. I remember this too. And then it was just absolute disaster for LGBTQ plus rights the entire time he was in office. Absolutely. The entire time. And state after state was doing crazy shit. They just, you know, they're going to overturn all this other stuff. They had to recently pass something just to give them protections because the Defense of Marriage Act.

They had to pass that. Yeah. And like Trump on like his first day, on his first day, took down. Yeah. Like on the fucking White House. I forgot about this. You're right. Yeah.

Like one of the most important first things that they did was take down the portion of the WhiteHouse.gov page that was in support of LGBTQ plus people. Yeah. That was like one of the first things that happened day one. If that's your fucking priorities, where do you think the rest of your term is going to go? Your messaging isn't unclear. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like your messaging is super clear. Mike Johnson is a super clear representative. I've said this before. When people tell you who they are, you fucking believe them. Fucking listen. Listen to them. You fucking believe them. Mike Johnson has told us, the Republicans have told us who they are for fucking years. And there's this weird thing where we're like, nah, like they're just lying. They're saying that, yeah, they're saying it because this is who they are. You know, for a long time, there was this sense that like, nah, they'll never overturn Roe. Yeah, they'll make a bunch of noise about it because they want the political points, but they're never actually going to do it.

Yes, they will. They'll take your contraception. They'll roll back marriage between races. Yeah, sure. They will put women back in the fucking home barefoot and pregnant. That's what they fucking want. That is absolutely what they want.

They will shun everybody back into the closet. We know this because they're saying it out loud. Yeah, man. Why the fuck? Like, what world would you be living in

when you're like, no, but I don't think so. And then they do it. And then we're like clutching our pearls in shock. It's like, that's what they fucking said, man. They said, listen.

They said it. They said it. Listen. Listen to them and listen to this guy. It's like, that's what they fucking said, man. They said it. They said it. Listen, listen to them and listen to this guy. And Mike Johnson, this isn't the only Mike Johnson story we have. We have another one where like, he doesn't have a bank account listed on his sheet. Yeah. On his financial disclosures, him and his wife don't have a bank account. And that bank account has a pretty low bar of being in there. Right. From what I was reading, it was something like $1,000 to $5,000 between all the accounts on the thing. You should be listing it. And they're saying either he's living paycheck to paycheck where he has not enough money in his bank account every week,

or he's not disclosing where that money is. Right. Because he's getting paid money for his wife is employed as a consultant. He's getting paid as a senator or as a congressperson. These are all, this is all money

that he's making. Right. And probably he had a podcast. Maybe he was monetizing that or selling ads or something. Like this is a thing that he could easily be making money off of.

So he's got a lot of stuff that he could make money and it's just not showing up. Right. So either he is lying, like you said, or I think more disturbingly, if he is that paycheck to paycheck. Because one of the things that, in my industry,

one of the things we look at when we put people in certain positions of authority with fiduciary responsibilities- Oh, I see where you're going. I see where you're going, yeah. Is we do credit checks and other background checks because somebody that has a fiduciary responsibilities. Oh, I see where you're going. We do credit checks and other background checks because somebody that has a fiduciary responsibility and is going to be able to write big checks

and is entrusted with a lot of authority, we don't want people in those positions that have intense personal financial pressure. If they're in that position, they're more likely or more suspect or more subject to outside influence. So like if this dude is fucking dead ass broke, no shade on being dead ass broke,

but like you can't be dead ass broke and powerful. That's a problem because then like foreign interests now have leverage over you. It's easy. It's easy. It's easy for you to look the other way when things happen. So much. And then to get like, and then to see exactly sort of what's happening with the Supreme Court. Yeah. You know, maybe it's not that he's getting, maybe it's not that down the road he does, he, he gets money, but maybe he gets an ultra lux vacation for free and then looks the

other way somewhere or brings something up on the floor because somebody helped him. Maybe he gets a loan on a ultra luxury RV. Maybe he gets his mom's house bought and her taken care of for the rest of her life. Maybe those things happen to somebody who is living paycheck to paycheck and they don't have to worry about it because that stuff isn't really checked up on. Right? Yeah. It makes us all more vulnerable. Like this should be a big deal, actually.

I'm not letting you get rid of me. How about that? So they tried to get rid of Santos this week, Tom. They did and they couldn't. Yeah. They couldn't expel Santos because like there's no bar too low. There's no bar too low for

the Republican Party. He was initially brought up by Democrats before. This was a while ago and it didn't go anywhere. Right. And then he was brought up by Republicans. Yeah. And even with the extra Republicans, it wasn't enough to get rid of him. And even with all the extra scandal. Yeah. Like this guy has been like fucking

indicted. There was a lot of Democrats that voted present, but I think they voted present not to, because they knew it wasn't going to pass, so they just didn't bother. Yeah,

I don't really understand that. Like, we need to stop. I don't know how to say it. Like, I know that everything is a political strategy. I recognize that.

But like, can't some stuff just be like, yeah, when people are this corrupt and this full of lies, we're just going to call that one. Stealing fucking credit card numbers

and like fucking buying a sweater with them or whatever? Like, seriously. The dude is just a fucking liar. He's a liar. He's a habitual liar. He's a bad grifter.

Yeah, he's a bad grifter. He's a worse grifter than the Trump bucks guy. Thank you. I know. He's not even clever. He's not even a good grifter. He's basically stealing

his fucking mom's credit card. He seriously is stealing people's credit card that donated to his campaign. Yeah. Like that's, that's the least clever. That's like holding somebody

up with a gun. It is. It's, it's so unsubtle and like grifter-ish. It's just being a con person who steals stuff. It's,

it's like when I was, when I was a teenager, I had a job cleaning a church. And like I would go and I would clean the office in the church. And the office was the petty cash. And I would always take $10 from it. Every single time.

I don't know why. I didn't really need the $10, but it kind of amused me to steal a little tiny bit. There's hundreds and hundreds of dollars in there. I would steal $10. I don't know why I did it. It's the same level of grift, though. Like, it's no more complicated

than that. Like, I saw a thing, I was an idiot, I took it, right? It's like, it was Halloween yesterday. It's like there's kids who, like, take the whole candy bowl. George Santos is the political version of just stealing the candy bowl. Yeah, just stealing the whole candy bowl. It's just opportunistic.

Yeah. Like there's nothing clever or interesting or complex or like, whoa, yeah, he buried this in his deep financial disclosure. He just took the candy bowl. He's just a thief. We have him on your ring cam.

He's just literally a thief. Right. Yeah. And then for people in that entire group to look at him and be like, nah, present. Yeah. Get the fuck him and be like, nah, present. Yeah, get the fuck out of here. Fuck you, present.

This story comes from the new scientist, face masks ward off COVID-19. So why are we still arguing about it? You know, they looked at a ton of different studies to show that face masks do prevent the transmission of COVID. But then they also started looking at the mask mandate places and they found that those mask mandates, even though people weren't following the mask mandate, some people weren't, they wouldn't

follow it, right? It still reduced COVID in those places because specifically more people were using the mask. Not everybody, but more people than normal were using it because there's people who will just follow the rules even if they don't really think that it's a big deal. They don't think it's going to do it. Maybe they don't even think it's going to do anything, but they still follow the rules because they think that's the rules.

And there's some stores that are pretty strict about it, right? That you walk up to the door and they're like, sorry, you can't get a thing here. And yeah, sure, there's going to be some Karen or some jackass who's going to scream at them

and record it and put it on TikTok and think they're the hero. But that's not as many people as will just comply, right? They'll just be like, fuck, okay, fine. I wanted my favorite ice cream.

I'm going to go wear a stupid mask in their stupid store and then eat my ice cream and leave or whatever. Yeah, it's fairly self-evident that like even if the masks were only 30% effective, right? That's still 30% effective.

Yeah. We have this dumb idea and I don't know why we have it, but we have this idea that like solutions that are not perfect aren't worth anything. That we automatically like

throw anything away if it's not 100%, you know? And that's such a fucking dumb way to look at your life. It's like, I get in my car, I put on a seatbelt. My seatbelt is not 100% effective in preventing all injuries from auto accidents, right? I know that, but it's better than nothing. Sure.

If I have my seatbelt on, it's better than nothing. If I have my mask on, it's better than nothing. Sure. If I have my seatbelt on, it's better than nothing. If I have my mask on, it's better than nothing. If I have my vaccine, it's better than nothing. If I have like, if I do social distancing, it's better than nothing. If you do enough better than nothing things, it adds up. It never adds up to a hundred percent. There's no risk-free version of living with a fucking respiratory virus like COVID. But like, it is meaningful to reduce risk because if everybody reduces risk, then like that aggregates, the effect of that aggregates. This is a public health measure. It's not only a personal health measure.

But like, we do this really stupid shit where we're like, well, it's not perfect. like well it's not perfect yeah it's not perfect it didn't you know it doesn't always work and you're like does it sometimes fucking work well and and they the thing is they don't understand how masks work right so one thing that i read in this article was that 50 percent of that the cloth mask just a regular cloth mask is about 50 effective and the n95 masks are about 95% effective, right? That's real fucking effective. They're really, really high level effective.

And they're saying, they're like, look, I know people think that because the virus is very small, there's no way it can get caught in the mask. But they're like, that's not how this works. It's like if you were running through a forest, if you run through a forest really, really fast, chances are you might hit a fucking tree

because the trees are sort of randomly placed in there. So you can't just go, yeah, maybe one thing might get through, but that'll be a tiny amount of it in comparison to all of it that gets stopped by the forest as it's going through. So yeah, the fucking virus is very small, but there's a ton of stuff in front of it

that it can easily get caught on on its way out. So it doesn't have to be catching droplets. It can stop the virus itself from hitting. It'll hit the mask and stick to the mask and just be on the mask. And people don't get that. They think, oh, it's so small. It'll just slip right through.

It goes right through the holes. And you're like, no, it goes to where it's going. And then it hits what's in front of it. That's how it works. That's how fucking breathing works. And like, we intuitively have known this for so long, right? Like we know, like none of us would want to see a surgical theater where the surgeon and the nurses and the techs or whatever are not wearing masks.

We would be appalled to see that. The other thing too is like, what the fuck, what? Yeah, you go in there and they'll like cover, their hands are clean. What did they say to do when we were-

Wash your fucking hands, assholes. Wash your fucking hands or people were wearing gloves. Wear a mask. They're covering up their bodies so that they don't get touched. We were doing all that stuff and fewer people get it, got it

because they were following protocols that we know fucking works, man. We know something about disease transmission and it's like all of a sudden for COVID, we started from square one. Like, well, we obviously don't know if anything works. And it's like, what the fuck? Why would you think that?

We know a lot of stuff works. We know a lot of stuff. It's a virus. We know that a lot of things work to reduce transmission, not prevent. Reduce. And I want to reduce the risks that I take in my life, right? I understand that I can't knock all risks down to zero, right? I drove to the studio today.

There is a non-zero chance that driving to the studio today, I will get in a car accident and get hurt, right? But I get in the car and I fucking, you know, clip in my seatbelt and I buy a car that has airbags and I try not to go too far above the fucking speed limit. Follow the directions. You know, and I try to look at my phone just a little bit. I just text a little while I'm driving. I do the speech to text now, I'm trying to get better. But I do things. Kids, take your cell phone away. They should. But you know what I mean? I'm doing things to try to reduce my risk.

That's something we do in so many parts of our lives, not even thinking about it. And then COVID hits, and we're just like, no, it's not perfect. It's not perfect. And you're like, you're just an asshole. How many Trump bucks for your mask? I know. So that's going to wrap it up for this week.

We did want to mention, before we go out, we hope Noah gets well. If you hadn't heard, no illusions from the scathing atheist had a heart attack this week. He thought he was having a panic attack and luckily called, I don't know if he called or went into the emergency room, but he was having shortness of breath, some pain and some numbness in his arm.

And he did actually have a heart attack. He's okay and he's recovering right now. I'm sure he'd love to hear from you. So you can always send those people a message. You can send scathing atheist group a message or you can find him on Facebook pretty easily, Noah Lusions, and you can wish him well. But we want to wish him well and hope that he gets better soon. He's an invaluable part of this atheist community, and it would be a tragedy to lose someone so important. So Noah, we hope you get well soon, buddy. Wish you well, buddy.

All right, that's going to wrap it up for this week. Don't forget, keep giving to Vulgarity for Charity. And this upcoming Thursday, we're going to have a long form show. So if you're our patron of $2 or more, Tom will read the show, the new long form to you. I'll probably have it posted on Tuesday of this week. So if you're a patron sometime around Tuesday, it should release. And then we'll talk about the long form stuff on Thursday. So we'll catch you later this week, but we're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician, double bubble and trouble pseudo-quasi-alternative

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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.