Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 749: Cops vs Acorns, Tucker Interviews Putin

Episode Date: February 26, 2024

Show Notes

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. So we recorded this show that you're going to watch a little early this week because we wanted to try to get ahead. We'll talk about that next week.

But Tom is not here for this very particular piece of the beginning recording because we weren't sure when this was going to get placed into our timeline. So, it's just me welcoming you to the show. Thank you for joining us. We're going to jump right in. Here we go. Quack. Quack. Quack. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. Go! See, so this story comes from nature.

Climatologist Michael Mann wins defamation case what it means for scientists so jury awards man more than u.s one million dollars raising hopes for scientists who are attacked politically because of their work so this guy's like michael mann was the uh climatologist who whose work really came up with the famed hockey stick graft. Hockey stick graft, geez. And that really drew an enormous amount of attention to him personally. And he received an enormous amount of vitriolic, hateful attention for it, including comparing him to pedophiles.

Yeah, because he was at the same school as Sandusky, the guy who diddled kids. And they said something about, well, we can't prove he's molested kids, but he certainly molested the numbers when it came to this graph or whatever. And that's not okay. No. That's not okay. No. That's not okay. Conflating a horrible child sex predator with a man who's dedicated his life to understanding and researching climate. No, that's not fucking okay.

I think this is really important because it shows again, and Dominion shows the same thing. We just keep seeing the way to win here is civil. thing. We just keep seeing the way to win here is civil. We've got to make it so painfully financially impossible for these assholes to troll everybody as if there's no repercussions, as if there's no recourse. When you get trolled like this, and Michael Mann even had to defend as a public person. And that is the hardest kind of libel case to win or defamation case

to win because you can pretty much say a lot of shit about people who are public figures. And all of that is kind of covered. And somehow, because his work was so notorious, he then had notoriety. And so this fucking climatologist

was being treated by the courts as a public figure, which I thought was absurd. Absolutely absurd. He still won a million dollars. This has to be the strategy. Doesn't it? I think so. I think this has to be the strategy. I think this is how you hurt people, and this is how you

silence people with these kind of ideas and with these kinds of strategies, if you, cause because they get free reign and so much oxygen, right? Basically they'll go to a place like Twitter and nothing can stop them from doing this. They can do whatever they want and say whatever they want. And Twitter now, even more than before is a worse place is a place that is, that is unmoderated, awful, terrible, with people saying the most hateful, vile shit. And so someone, if Twitter's not going to do anything about it, if the public square won't do anything about it, if Blogspot won't take down

their blog or whatever, then you've got to do something about it. And if you can stop them monetarily and freeze them up monetarily, this person, I guarantee they're not going to make comments like this again. This is going to learn you, right? What I am also blown away by is climate change is a theory that you have. And let's say you don't believe it. Okay, let's see your data. Let's talk it out. Yeah.

Why does it have to turn into this vitriolic attack unless you feel fragile about it, right? Unless you feel so weak in this area, you wouldn't try to turn it into this kind of awful, terrible attack. You're doing this because your argument is so weak and no one believes what you think. You have to do this troll thing in order to convince other people, easily led people. You can't just come out and say,

I have data that says your hockey stick thing is wrong. Instead, it's you're a molester. Yeah, well, Gil, I will say that the big fossil fuel companies have worked so successfully for so long to teach a segment of America that ideas around climate change, research ideas around climate change, are fundamentally dangerous to their way of life. They have taught people that they will lose their livelihoods. Sure, sure. taught people that they will lose their livelihoods too. They've taught people that they will lose their farms, that they will lose their small businesses, that they will lose, you know, their jobs at the oil refiners and the coal mines and, you know, on the oil platforms.

So for a lot of people, I think they do feel that this is a personally existential question. And it's personally attacking them too, right? Because, you know, the Koch brothers and others and the fossil fuel companies who have fueled this rise of propagandized misinformation now for at least three decades, longer probably, they've made the American public, a certain segment of it at least, believe that this is a genuine danger to them. That if the hockey stick graph is presented as truth, when they know it's a lie, they know because that kind of guy over there at BP Amoco

wouldn't lie to me. That guy over at Shell definitely doesn't have the ulterior motives. The Koch brothers who are heavily invested, I think there's only one brother now, but like heavily motives. The Koch brothers, who are heavily invested, I think there's only one brother now, but like heavily invested. The Koch bro. The Koch bro.

You know, they don't know though that the interest that they've been hearing and the messaging that they've been hearing has been propagandized from these sources. They've just internalized it. The same way we internalize so much information about the world we live in. It comes from these sort of multifarious, nebulous places.

So we just have ideas in our head about how the world works, and we can't usually trace back where those ideas came from. It's the, I think I read a book once, or I saw a show about, or I think I heard something once where you just know you kind of know something, you know? And one of the things they've come to know, a huge segment of the population, is they've come to know that climate change is a lie and that if it were true, they would all lose their jobs and mama would lose the farm. And, you know, uncle Jim would be out of a job

on the oil rigs and they want to, they're coming for your car. They want your car. They don't want you to have a regular car. They don't even know how these electric batteries work. They don't even understand how this stuff works. Well, they'll catch on fire as soon as you look at fire. And then what do you do? What will happen to you? My dad, my dad is not a conspiratorially minded guy, but I was talking to him about getting an electric car. I was like, yeah, I think my next brand new car I buy will be an electric car.

And he's like, oh, I don't know. I don't know if I'd buy one of those. And I was like, why? Why? Dad, you should buy an electric car. I was like, you're the ideal consumer for an electric car. Yeah, you go 10 miles.

You don't drive anywhere, Dad. You know? And he's like, ah, you know, I don't think those batteries are any good in the winter. And I was like, they're fine. They get a little less range in the winter than they do in the summer or the fall.

They purposely made stories this year to show that there wasn't places to plug them in or whatever. And that was the story. And that made everybody see that and think, oh, they're terrible in the internet. You can't use them. My dad has brought that up. I don't know where I'd charge it.

Dad, you charge it in your own garage. You live in a house. What are you talking about? Well, what if I want to go on a road trip? I was like, Dad, you go on a road trip every couple of years. Rent a car. Rent a car. You just rent a car for the occasional use.

You buy a car for your everyday. I said all these things to him. And he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the end of the conversation, I still don't think I'd buy one. And he's just got it in his head. And he has ideas that he's not sure. He's been sold the idea that he needs this extended range. I got to be able to drive 400 miles

and fill up in 10 minutes. There's no way your dad would drive 400 miles either. No, he can't do it. His back would not let him do it. He can't do it anymore. But he's convinced he needs that ability. Yeah. And that's sort of like ideas that we all have

around energy and jobs and climate change. I feel like they're very similar. Like there's just, there's this sort of embedded, personalized notions of how the world works that we can point by point go through it and be like, well, you know, this and that and this and that and this and that. And you're like, all right, well, all that's true. Still wouldn't buy one though. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's like, well, and that pushback is not

just on electric cars. No, that pushback is on wind farms. That pushback is on solar. Yeah. All that stuff that is at this point starting to make, peak its head out to be like, this is the thing that we should really be focusing this is the thing that we should really be focusing on is the thing that people are trying to demonize and trying to convince you that it is something that you don't want. Think how much time Trump spent on fucking low flow toilets and low flow shower. I know. Yeah. Look at how much time Trump spent talking about fucking wind farms that are killing birds or how they look from the ocean or whatever, or all these other little things, solar, shitting on solar, shitting on, he's shitting on anything that's green, any green energy. And so many people take what he says as gospel.

Yeah. So you've got a whole group of people in this country, 40% or 30%, 35% of people in this country, that'll 100% follow that man off a cliff if he ran off. 100%, man. And so, of course, they're going to hate it, and there's going to be other people. And so, it's this weird, like you said, I don't know where I heard

it from, but I know it's bad, and I know we shouldn't have these wind farms or whatever. And you think, of all the things we should have is more wind farms. Yeah, we should cover the earth these wind farms or whatever. And you think, of all the things we should have is more wind farms. Yeah, we should cover the earth in wind farms. There should be wind farms like on top of things we already have. There's so many places in Illinois that could be great

places for it. Just great places for it. And they're not, they're not, I know people are like, oh, they're unsightly or whatever. I don't, I don't find them unsightly. I don't care. Like I lived near one before. It's fine. I don't find them even remotely unsightly personally, care. Like, I lived near one before. It's fine. I don't find them even remotely unsightly, personally. But also, we should just have lots of different—we should have a multitude of different energy sources that are scattered and redundant. And none of them need to burn anything.

None of them need to burn anything. the other day, this week or last week, that California just reached over 100% of its electrical needs in entirely green sources. It can be done. It absolutely can be done. It's done in several European countries have it done already. I know Iceland for sure had it

when I was there. They said all their electricity was geothermal. Yeah, that's amazing. It's all geothermal. I think if Norway hasn't done it, they're very close. And so there's plenty of places.

I mean, granted, Norway has also a lot of oil and gas industry that they ship to the rest of the world. Yeah, and these are also tiny, tiny postage stamps compared to the United States in terms of the total land mass. Yeah, yeah. But we can do it here.

And as the richest, big energy user in the world, we need to set that example. We need to do that work. It's so crazy that we are not diving head first into it. I know. This is a revolution. We're missing. There's so much you could do. And they were saying, it's trillions of dollars that you can be making doing this sort of thing. And we could change our own grid, but then also export it to the world. And we could do so much. And it's just,

we're just not even trying. We're just not doing it. We're running out of time. Constantly running out of time. You hear about that fucking Atlantic? How they're saying that that current might stop very soon. No way, what? So there's like some kind of crazy current

that goes across the Atlantic. And they're saying that, who knows, soon it might just stop working and then really colder in northern part of Europe and all're saying that who knows soon it might just stop working and then really colder northern part of Europe and all this stuff that we do in certain places of the world has to change drastically because

there's no more current taking nice weather. So good. So good. Yeah. Glad I had kids. Sorry guys. Sorry. Sorry. Whoopsie. Stock up on heroin. Fuck you boss. I'm late. I'm boss. I'm late. I'm late. I'm late.

I'm late. All right. This story's from The Guardian. Putin, Putin, I think it's pronounced Putin, says he prefers Biden to Trump and mocks Tucker Carlson's questions. Russian president says Biden is more predictable

in remarks likely to be an attempt to make mischief in US elections. Yeah, the back and forth between them. First off, he made Tucker sit for two hours. I guess he's famous for doing this. He just like makes people sit because it's petty and shitty and he makes people just wait for him for hours.

Oh, he just waited? He's like hours late. Like hours late. So he just makes him wait. I would fucking wait five minutes and then walk the fuck out. I was going to say, what if he killer moved?

Five minutes and I'd be like, I'm done. Sorry, buddy. I'm out. Peace out. Go get somebody else to fucking talk to. I wouldn't, there isn't anyone I would wait two hours. There isn't a single human being. I would wait two hours, not one on the world. No, there's, I don't even think there's many. I would wait 15 minutes for 15 minutes. 15 minutes is an egregious amount of time to be late. I have been more than 15 minutes late.

Like I say, very few people. Very few people. But that's an egregious amount of time to be late. If you're late two hours. Two hours, you didn't show up. Fucking, when you get there, I put you in a can and then shoot you back where you came from. Fuck you, two hours late.

Two hours late. I don't, I genuinely, I'm kind of there with you. Tucker Carlson is not going to get fired if he cancels that interview. Because he, like, who does he work for now? Yeah, no, he works for like Joe's Radio City or something. This is how he's going to feed himself. Right.

Yeah. But he was talked down to throughout this entire interview. At a certain point, Tucker is called soft. And Putin says, I'm glad you didn't get in the CIA. It's way too hard for you. It's way too difficult for you. He mocks the questions that he's being asked.

At a certain point, Tucker tries to interrupt him and he kind of just waves at him and talks for another 40 minutes. From what I hear, it's an absolute disaster. I didn't watch it. I didn't watch it either, but like it's what I've read after the fact.

It's like a disaster of an interview. Good. So, but here's what I want to focus on more than anything else. Why the fuck is someone interviewing a fucking tyrant like that?

This is like interviewing Hitler. Yeah. Seriously, Vladimir Putin has invaded a sovereign nation with no cause. Yeah. He is in the middle of an imperialistic bloodbath war against a sovereign nation in Europe. And we are interviewing him like he's a legitimate person. Everywhere he should go, he should be like, oh, I can't go there. I might get arrested. Nobody should be meeting with this guy. Nobody should fly over to meet with him. Everybody should, no, we don't, we're not talking with that guy. That guy's got nothing. He's got,

he's got nowhere he can go where he's not persona non grata. Giving him the time of day and the oxygen is a gross mistake. A gross, like we should de-platform Vladimir Putin. Sure. We really should. No, I'm right there with you. Like, why would you give him a platform? But even worse is Tucker Carlson and, you know, all these people on the right who want to glorify what Russia is doing. Because, one, because it triggers the libs.

They hate that the libs are pro-Ukraine or whatever. So they hate that. And then, so whatever they can do to boost the other side is great for them. That makes them feel good when they hurt anybody on the other side's feelings or whatever they think. And it's not just that it's going to hurt people's feelings, but then you're broadcasting it to a group of people who are going to clip it and share it and popularize this person's stance, clip it out. So, you know, the best thing that could have happened was him treating him like shit.

Yeah. Because that's the thing that's getting play from almost everybody is him getting treated like shit. Is Tucker Carlson getting treated like shit? I hope when he comes back, they take his passport away or something or put him on a watch list from now on. A no-fly list.

Yeah, put him on a list from now on. Be like, well, clearly you're talking to like enemy governments or whatever. So, or governments that have shown that they don't have the best interest at heart in the United States. So we're going to put you on some kind of fucking list and follow you around.

I think they should do that. And I genuinely, I think they should put him on the no-fly list. Tucker Carlson should have to fucking drive everywhere. No overseas. He should never be able to get on a plane ever again. He's got to get on a ferry that goes from Alaska to Siberia and then drive all the way to Moscow.

They stop at Sarah Palin's house because you can see from there from her house. They just put you in a catapult and shoot you across the archipelago up there or whatever. You skip like a stone. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. He should interview

fucking Sarah Palin. That would be amazing. Here's what I would have loved to have seen. Sarah Palin interview Vladimir Putin. Oh, man. Sarah Palin missed her calling as somebody who could be a hard-hitting journalist.

Whatever happened to her? She lost something up there and got really mad and then I haven't heard from her since. Oh, yeah. She lost, she was trying to get their governorship back.

Yeah, she lost and she got mad. And they have that forced, that ranked choice. Ranked choice, baby. Ranked choice. She got destroyed, Makeda.

You know, I talked a couple weeks ago about grassroots stuff. Yeah. That's the grassroots thing you do. Yeah, you're right. Ranked choice.

You're right. That's the grassroots thing we start with. That's how we get things done. That's how you do it is you do ranked choice voting and you work on all these other things that are like

ranked choice voting and the best part about ranked choice voting is states can allow it. So it doesn't have to be, you can ignore You don't have to do it at a federal level. You can ignore the United States government. You can just go to your state and get it

done in your state, you know, and just keep going. That would be outstanding. Get that done in your state and then get that electoral college sign-on thing done, where the electoral college, it doesn't matter who wins your state and then get that electoral college sign-on thing done where the electoral college, it doesn't matter who wins your state after that once all these signatories are on and they beat 260, 260 votes. Right now there's 17 states, I think, that are signed on to this pledge that whoever wins the popular vote, it doesn't matter what their state did. Right. They are going to go with

whoever the popular vote goes for as long as it reaches 260. They won't do it until then. But when it reaches 260, then they will go with the popular vote period. And then it won't matter what other states do. The other states can do literally whatever they want. As long as you have 260,

popular vote's going to win every time. And so that's another thing that you do to get your, because there's going to win every time. And so that's another thing that you do to get your, because there's plenty of places in this country that has been passed by one of the houses. Right. And it's not made it past there. That's a great grassroots thing to do. Yeah. Get the national popular vote to be the presidency. That's another big thing you can do. That would be huge. You could do that. That would be huge. You can do that. And then you could also do the rank choice voting in your state. And those change the perspective of your state in a huge way.

Those two things would immediately allow for more progressive candidates to make it further through the process. Absolutely. Right now, the process really does not reward progressive candidates. It really rewards a centrist Democrat. It really does. And we know it does because we've just seen it happen time after time after time after time. This process would actually reward more progressive candidates. For sure. Well, you never know when you might need the services of a plowman.

Holy shit. This story's from ABC News. I got to read the whole thing. Florida deputy fires weapon after mistaking sound of acorn hitting patrol car for gunshot. weapon after mistaking sound of acorn hitting patrol car for gunshot. A Florida deputy is seen firing his weapon repeatedly at his own patrol vehicle after mistaking the sound of an acorn hitting the roof of the car for a muffled gunshot, according to a video released alongside a sheriff's office investigation. Can we try to watch it and see what happens? I've tried to watch this. I did not. It didn't work for me. Oh, Okay. Newly released body camera footage of the November 2023 incident

shows the dramatic moments the Ocalusa County deputy shot at his patrol vehicle while a handcuffed suspect was inside. I'm hit. I'm hit. The deputy, Jesse Hernandez, can be heard yelling, though no one was shooting at him. What?

He didn't even get hit by the acorn. The acorn hit the car, Cecil. As he stumbled to the ground, Hernandez yelled, shots fired four times, according to the video and an internal investigation conducted by the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Department of Professional Standards. He then opens fire on his vehicle. A sergeant with the sheriff's office also fired her weapon multiple times at the patrol vehicle, believing Hernandez was in danger, according to the report. After the sergeant asked if he was okay, Hernandez responded, I'm good. I feel weird, but I'm good, the footage shows. The two had responded to a report of a

stolen vehicle out of the residence near Fort Walton Beach on November the 12th, according to the report. A woman reported that her boyfriend was refusing to return her vehicle and had been calling and texting her threats, including what appeared to be a firearm suppressor pointing at the dash of the victim's vehicle. The boyfriend was detained, searched, handcuffed, and placed in the rear of Hernandez's control vehicle. While approaching the vehicle to conduct another search, Hernandez told investigators that he heard what he believed to be a suppressed weapon off to the side. At the same time,

I felt an impact on my right side, like upper torso area, he said in the interview. Hernandez and the sergeant both fired their weapons at the patrol car until their firearms were emptied. Okay, I got to put this on the screen now.

We can't find the actual video, but if you look at this, this guy is on his side. Okay. I got to put this on the screen now. I can't, we can't find the actual video, but if you look at this, this guy is on his, on a side. Yeah. So his body cam is, he's on his side and he's unloading his gun into the car. Like when you were a kid and you were playing army, dude, an acorn fell. He's like, I'm hit. I'm hit. He throws himself to the ground. He didn't get hit by a gunfire, right? Worst case scenario, he also got hit by an acorn. He goes tumbling to the ground. Sure.

And he feels weird and he's, I'm hit. You're not hit. The thing that really struck me, thankfully it wasn't one of the many bullets. Lucky it wasn't an acorn. Yeah. Is this guy panics and he freaks out and he shoots and empties his fucking gun

at a non-existent threat after completely imagining that he had gotten shot. Imagining it so hard and play acting it so hard that he falls and tumbles to the ground despite literally nothing having happened to him physically. That I can still almost wrap my head around, not justify it, but kind of almost maybe wrap my head around.

Here's what's so fucking perniciously awful about the police department though. As soon as he starts shooting, the other cops start shooting. She could not have heard a shot, could not have- Felt what he felt. Felt what he felt. Felt what he felt.

Yeah. But immediately once one cop shoots, all cops just start shooting. There is no individual, like, decision-making process about threat. It's just like one cop made the decision to shoot, everybody unloads. That's egregious.

In the rest of the article, this guy gets fired. He resigns. Oh, I thought they said he could not be reasonably... I thought he said he resigned, and maybe I'm thinking of something else. Oh, he did.

So the investigation determined that Hernandez's use of force was not objectively reasonable. He resigned during the course of the investigation, nearly a year after joining the force. But for the woman who emptied her clip. Also did the same thing.

She didn't. They said it was objectively reasonable. That it was a reasonable thing. Yeah. I wonder if he acted out. I mean, if somebody screams, I'm hit, I'm hit, I'm hit. That may make you think somebody shot a gun and I just didn't hear it. You know what I mean? Like, there's something there that makes me think

maybe, you know, his actions, how he was overreacting and screaming, that might have, you know, his panic attack may have caused her to just think something bad had happened. I don't agree with it because you should be able to look at your threats and know your threats. Because at this point, you're shooting blind.

There's nothing you're shooting at. That's right. You're shooting at nothing. So what you're doing is you're just shooting in a direction where he thought you should be shooting, but he's having a panic attack. Right. You can't objectively. Now, if she took cover or she tried to drag him away or whatever. All of that would make all the sense in the world.

That's the right thing to do. Yeah. But when he starts, when she starts to open fire, she's firing blind on hearsay. Yeah. That's the thing is he has not targeted a, there's a man in a car in handcuffs.

He's shooting at his own car. He's not targeting anything in that car. He misses the man in the car is uninjured. They both miss every shot. They're just panic shooting into this car. Both of these officers cannot be trusted. They are obviously of terrible judgment. They fucking lost their full minds and just shot up their own car. Their own car. And can you imagine the fear of the guy inside the car? Could you imagine? I mean, first off, being that guy,

thankfully fucking Barney Fife can't hit the side of a barn. For fuck's sake. Or maybe there's a possibility that there's thick metal in there that might be protecting him, hopefully. But my goodness, when I read this story, the one thing that popped out at me, Tom, was the only reason that someone would ever do this.

The only reason why there could ever be any of this happening is we have guns available to anybody in this country. Because if you didn't have guns available to everybody in this country, one, no one would think there was a shot from somewhere. No one would flip out like this. This guy probably worked himself up hearing about a stolen car. Yeah. Heard this, got an adrenaline bump, was freaking out, caught this guy, got him in cuffs,

probably had a half a panic attack then. And then the tiniest thing set off his, you know, pre-strung PTSD that he had fucking wound up himself. And then he flipped his shit, right? First off, somebody like this, you know, there needs to be better testing just for people who are going to have to do this work. I just don't believe that we do the right amount of psychological testing and stress testing, stress testing, but also just, you know, just training. I don't feel like we do any of that at all. We, we, we let people come on with tiny amounts of on-the-job or previous training, nothing, essentially nothings.

I feel like you need to turn this into something that is, you make a police officer job a four-year degree minimum. You change a lot of what happens to how police officers act to the public and how police officers interact with each other and how police officers are chosen. I think if you turn it into a job that is something that is difficult to get into, it suddenly weeds out the people who, one, might be a little high strung. For fuck's sake, yeah. But then also people who are malicious and mean and sadistic, right? There's plenty of those people who do that job because they know that they can fucking beat somebody up.

And so they do that job because of that. This guy gets this job because I don't know why, and he's also super high strung and if he dropped his soda, he'd unload on the fucking 7-Eleven guy. I know. So, you know, you weed out both of those people. You get them both out of there. But the only reason this, the only reason this happens, and it's the only place in the world this happens, is because our citizenry has so many guns.

Yeah. We're a washing gun so that like you can, because one of the things that's said, if you scroll down just to the end of the article, I want to read what the police office, the office of the cops says, that very last paragraph. Though Hernandez's actions were ultimately not warranted, we do believe he felt his life was in immediate peril and his response was based off the totality of circumstances

surrounding this fear. Just as we have an obligation to protect our officers so they can go home safe for their families, law enforcement has the same obligation to put any citizen being, to any citizen being investigated for a crime. But it's that first part where he says, hey, look, this wasn't warranted, but we do believe that he thought he was in immediate peril. That's exactly your point. He only can believe that because he lives in a culture so awash in firearms that it is a somewhat reasonable worry that at any time somebody around you has got a goddamn gun. They don't have that same constant immediate peril training. They train these cops to believe they're in constant danger.

They tell them the most dangerous thing you're going to do is a traffic stop. Always be afraid. danger. They tell them the most dangerous thing you're going to do is a traffic stop. Always be afraid. Touch the back of your car to put your fingerprints on it in case you get fucking murderated and kidnapped. And they teach them that their job is the most dangerous possible thing that can be done. And they teach them that because they teach the fear that we have reasonably of living in a gun culture. Holy shit. This is from right wing watch. It's that simple. Mark Meckler says the only way to secure the border is by invading Mexico. Yikes. Well, let's see what Mark Meckler has to say.

First time I've heard of this guy. I might even be more radical than those guys on this. I don't think there's any way to solve this permanently without military action. We can create a buffer on our side of the river, on our side of the border, and that's helpful. Sealing a 1,300-mile border, very difficult. And I think he said a buffer zone, I would call it. We believe you have hostile intent and we're going to clear you out and it needs to be that way. That would require military action, whether that's from

Texas or the federal government. I would prefer it's the federal government does that. I think that we ought to acknowledge that the cartels have declared war on the United States of America and whether they say it or not in their actions, they've declared war on us. They control our border now. I don't know if you've seen Ben Shapiro's new special on the invasion. It's absolutely incredible.

He's got a drone flying right up. I thought you were going to ask me if I saw Ben Shapiro's new rap song. I did see that. Yes, number one, by the way. That was very good, too. Which he's very proud of. It's just weird, man.

That's black music. I want to stop for a second. It is not number one, by the way, anywhere that you stream anything. Yeah, no. He's not number one. He's number one by novelty, right? The only reason why he was number one for a second

on any platform was because of novelty. Yeah. Because it's like if you got Joe Biden to do a rap song. Yeah. It would be number one for novelty for a day or two. I think I read, though, that it was number one only specifically if you purchased the song. So it was for people, well, but most, I don't buy songs.

Right. Right? So I stream everything. So the most popular music is not, it's going to be what's on fucking Spotify or what's on, you know, some Apple streaming service. It's not on who bought a song, who buys a song, old out of Dutch people buy songs. Yeah. Yeah. I don't, what was the last song you bought with money? I pay for albums from album from people I like, but I still stream everything. So what I do is, if I like a band and I like their music, I buy their album.

Digitally? Digitally. Okay. But then I just still stream it from the same platform I've always been streaming it. Right. I just do it because I want to pay them some money. Yeah, you want to support the band. Yeah.

So I do buy them, but I don't do it because I want to listen to this song. Yeah, right. I literally never even open up that section of my... I don't do it because I want to listen to this song I literally never even open up that section of my I don't even know that I download them to be honest with you

I'm not sure I even download them that's a really good practice I've not done that I just pay for a streaming service I know streaming doesn't pay a lot

right yours is better it doesn't pay the artist right so I want to buy their album right

and I don't, I listen to a very like eclectic set of music. So I will buy songs very often from, you know, small artists that it makes a difference to them. So I actually have bought, I bought, I got a record player recently.

So I bought a bunch of records. Did you really? I did. Yeah. Record player. I bought an old school full stereo off Facebook Marketplace, piece by piece by piece, just for kicks,

I don't know, a month or two ago. I bought an old receiver like I used to sell when I was in Circuit City for nothing. You could get this stuff, like awesome gear

that would have been so expensive when I sold it in the late 90s, $50 from somebody at Marketplace. And it works good? Works awesome. Does it sound good? Sounds amazing. I have a pair of speakers

that I used to sell for $1,300. I got them for 75 bucks. 75 bucks? 75 bucks. They sound outstanding. I bet they sound great. I have a beautiful stereo in my office. Those big ass speakers back in the day

had some amazing sound. These are a pair of like infinity bookshelf speakers with powered subwoofers built into the side. They're these Overture ones. They're beautiful. They're beautiful speakers. $75 from somebody.

They're just going to get rid of them. Yeah. They're just no use for them anymore. So like, yeah, I think I put the whole thing together for under $300. Record player, receiver. How does a record player sound? Record player sounds great. Yeah.

I just wanted to play with it. I just thought it'd be fun. Yeah. I just wanted to play with it. I just thought it'd be fun. Yeah. I actually have an old iPhone hooked up to it so I can stream, you know, music and stuff. Directly anything I want. But I bought probably 20 albums or so

just to play with a record player. I hear it sounds different. Yeah. Does it sound a little? A little bit. I think you would be really hard pressed to hear a significant difference. If you have a nice record player with a good stylist,

and then you also are streaming with a decent phone, hardwired, not Bluetooth and you're streaming at a very high bit rate. And I did toggle input to input. I started a song, started a song, toggled back and forth. Do they sound a little tiniest bit different?

Tiniest bit. Yeah. It's nominal. The record player is just more fun. I see. It just feels kind of cool to put on a record and there's some tactile something to it that I just thought was kind of cool. Like I said, you can get it for next time. Does Jeeves come over and say

your music, sir? And then you put it on and it blows you away? It does. It's pretty great. So I guess, yeah, music, sir. And then you put it on and it blows you away. It does. It's exactly the way it was. It's pretty good. So I guess, yeah, I did. So Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro. We were talking about Ben Shapiro,

but like, you know, the thing that they're talking about is creating a demilitarized zone. Yeah. One kilometer in their space, right? He's not talking about our space. Yeah. He's not talking about going to invade Mexico

if it was going to build in our space. He's not talking about our space. You know he's not talking about our space. Yeah, we need to invade Mexico if it was going to build in our space. He's not talking about our space. You know he's not talking about our space. No. He's talking about their space. And he's saying we need to keep it so that if like a woman, this is the thing that they miss, is they think that everybody who's coming over this border

is someone who's trying to enter the country illegally and has no place here, right? They don't have any place here. One, we need immigrants. Like that's just true. We need immigrants to come into the country. But I think what they don't understand

is that there's asylum seekers that are searching, that are trying to get- They do not care. They don't care about them, but I don't think they even know about them. To be perfectly frank, I don't even think they know that there's people out there that do this.

I also think too, I don't even think they know that there's people out there that do this. I also think too, they don't understand economics when it comes to very specifically people coming across the border to do work for other people under the table.

They don't understand that at all. Could you imagine if, you know, right before harvest season, they did this and they shot everybody who was going to come across there? Because,

you know, we've seen it happen when they started to crack down in Florida. They had that, that law or whatever. Oh yeah. So many places were immediately opposed. So many businesses were immediately opposed to that, that law and things that were happening. Cause they rely on migrant labor. Cause they rely on that labor. Yeah. Yeah. We, we, America is built on the back of migrant labor and always, always has been. And very specifically, very, very cheap and often under the table paid migrant labor. Exploited migrants. Yes. The, the, the, our meatpacking industry, our construction industry,

our fruit picking and vegetable industry, our farming industry, these are industries that rely every day on this essential illegal, because of the way we, not because the people are illegal, but because of the way we pay them and exploit them as illegal labor. And I think you and I both agree that this shouldn't be happening.

No. Right? But big business has been getting away with this for years. Yes. And this shouldn't be happening. These should be, you know, first off, you don't have anybody who's willing to do these jobs anyway. So we should welcome people into the country

that are willing to do jobs that other people aren't, right? We have plenty of work for these people. There's no reason to keep them out in this case. But then very specifically, they should become citizens and their jobs should be protected by the government. Instead, what they have is just a guy who pays them under the table and then treats them like absolute shit. There's so many documentaries out there you can watch where you look at these people who are living in these terrible trailers, working in terrible

conditions, dying on the job. We don't give a shit about those people. And those people are suffering so that you could have cheap eggs. Yeah, exactly. The reason that you can get a home built or a roof put on or chicken for 99 cents a pound or whatever it is for chicken parts. I know, please don't email me

the cost of chicken is more than 99 cents, I know. But the reason things cost what they cost is because the exploitation of migrant labor. That's just true. Yeah. And these guys want to spend, I would guess, trillions of dollars to create and then maintain and then surveil

a 1,300-mile-long, one-kilometer-deep border zone. And then his comment that he would assume that anybody crossing that zone has hostile intentions. When as to your point, most, almost none do. Yeah. Almost none do. Most don't have any hostile intentions at all. Most of them are just trying to survive their own lives.

They're trying to live a life. They don't have any intentions on America. They have a personal intention to increase the quality of their life because they're coming from a place where survival is untenable. And we have a need to bring those people in. We have an obligation to bring those people in. And because they're human beings, to treat them as human beings, not to create a no man's land full of, you know, fucking attack dogs and landmines and Dead bodies and zombies or whatever. What world does he want to build?

He wants to build a militarized border, which is terrifying. You know, a lot of people seem to think, and I think this person thinks it too, that there's some sort of open borders, that there's an open border somewhere, right? Is there poorest places in our border? Absolutely. I think there's a lot of people

that are in our country that are pro- of people that are in our country that are pro-immigration that are almost certainly not open borders. I'm not an open border guy. I think what you need to do instead of policing the border is pay for more and more people to vet people coming in from the border

and check those people in quickly and get them settled into our country in an organized, quick way. That's what I think you need to do. And then of course, there's going to be people you vet that you turn away. There's going to be people that come in as asylum seekers that say that they have said something and then you research it and then they don't get to stay here. That's going to happen. And the more you fund that, the more you're going to get the people who are being honest and true and want to come in the country and are looking to try to save their own life. You're going to save as many of

those people as possible if you fund that correctly. If you don't, what you have is a shitty, ad hoc, terrible process that takes years and years and years. And all it is, is a reason for people to fight over it. That's all it is. It could be fixed. You could fund this in a way that would be more organized and better for everybody, but we're so unwilling to do it. And so much of the worry of anti-immigration activists is they are terrified of a shift away from white power.

That's really, racism is at the root of most of this. Sure. I don't disagree. I would sit down and I'd pop some pills and I'd drink some rum and I would just go and go and go and go and go. And I'd be typing so fast that I'd be sweating and I'd tear it off. And I had a motto, which was first draft, last draft, get it out the door. And even that motto could use a second draft. You know what I mean? So this story comes from the Joe My God blog. Scientology leader dodges sexual assault summons. So this is David Miscavige.

Miscavige. Miscavige. Miscavige. Miscavige. Miscavige. He kind of looks like, if you look at him, he very much looks like Tom Cruise in a new role. Right?

Oh, he does. It looks like Tom Cruise as, you know, he's going to get his Oscar this year. Because he lost a new role. Right? Oh, he does. It looks like Tom Cruise as, you know, he's going to get his Oscar this year. Because he lost a little weight and he's wearing prosthetic nose or something.

He's going to jump on someone else's couch. He's creepy enough. He looks like he's wearing prosthetic eyes. These people, these people get away with a lot of shit

all the time. And this guy has been, this is, you said this isn't the first time this has happened. Yeah, he's been dodging court summons now for years and years and years. He's constantly

dodging some kind of summons. He's playing a game, right? It's a delaying tactic because ultimately what will happen is if you can't serve somebody for long enough, they just have to file public notice. So they basically put a tiny little ad in the newspaper that says, hey, asshole, you've been summoned. We tried to get in touch and he couldn't reach you. But you have to go through all the hoops before you are able to move

away from the direct service to the public filing piece. And so if he can dodge that longer and longer, he stays free. Right. And if you are worried about sexual assault allegations, for example, having some credibility, you're not going to take service. Don't they have like a big boat he could just be on? He might be on that boat, man. Don't they just have like a big boat that they make people work for free on or whatever? They do. Yeah. The Sea Org.

Sea Org. The Sea Org. Yeah. They just have this crazy boat that's like a- They had a whole fleet of boats. It's like one of those sombering citizen boats or something like that. Yeah, yeah. The fucking like, what the fucking, what's that guy's name?

The guy who started it, the fucking science fiction writer, I forgot his name already. L. Ron Hubbard. L. Ron Hubbard. Because David Miskovich is the protege of L. Ron Hubbard. So he, after L. Ron died, David Miskovich took over.

This is the guy that Tom Cruise saluted, right? Yes. Yep, yep, yep. At the crazy convention. And the thing is, like, this is the- Do you think that they get together and jump on couches together? And, like, stare at each other and then jump on the couch? And hold hands and jump up and down?

And then jump off and then jump on the couch again? Who fucking knows what these weirdos do? Scientology on the couch again. Who fucking knows what these weirdos do? Scientology is the weirdest shit. It is so unutterably bizarre. And it really speaks to, we were talking, I think in the last episode, maybe I were talking recently about like,

there are some ideas that if you get them all at once, you'll never believe it, right? If you got the whole set of ideas all at one time, you'd be like, come on! But if you get, it was when we were talking about the Super Bowl ad, but if you get introduced to the idea, then you can add a little one,

and you can add one, and you can add one. Scientology is just like that. If you were to walk up to somebody and be like, alright, let me tell you the whole story of Scientology, everybody would be like, Volcano, let me tell you the whole story of Scientology, everybody would be like- Volcanoes. Volcanoes full of Phaetons. Volcanoes, volcanoes. What?

Yeah. You'd be like, so there's a flying space 747. Feels like it was made by like a three-year-old who happened to have one of those clay volcanoes that somebody had at a fucking science fair that you put baking soda and vinegar in. Yeah.

And then a couple of dinosaurs and a jet. Yes. And they just made a story about it. And then someone wrote it down. Dude, it's not that far off. There's an episode of Citation Needed that I did on L. Ron Hubbard.

He is, I think, still the most prolific science fiction author of all time. He just cranked shit out. Just constantly was cranking shit out. This is just more crank out bullshit. This is just cookie cutter nonsense,

but it's trickled out to their adherence in these like tiny little pieces. So the next more insane thing just feels a little bit insane, right? So like you've already bought in, you're this deep. You've already bought all these other crazy ideas. So like a little extra crazy is not, and a little, and finally you're like all the way shifted over

into the space where you think there's like 747s flying through space full of Thetans to drop in volcanoes. And you're just like, yeah, all that is definitely true. And we should definitely live in a compound. And it's okay to have kids on a boat in the middle of the ocean in the part of a paramilitary religious organization like it's all so insane so insane i want to ask you because this is something that i think when we first started the show we steered clear of yeah we were worried about because and I think back then, this was before cell phone cameras were ubiquitous, before there was an opportunity to fight back publicly, like on social media.

They would ruin your fucking life. Yeah. And they still try to do that. They still try to do it, but I don't see them as being as effective nowadays. Yeah, I don't know that they are either. I don't think they're as effective as they used to be, right? They used to physically intimidate people. They used to come over and try to do stuff like this

and then try to ruin their life and try to call people and get them fired and all kinds of... They would do all kinds of shit to people who were anti the Church of Scientology. Right. And when we first started this, both of us were a little worried about talking about Scientology. Right. And when we first started this, both of us were a little worried about talking about Scientology stories because we had seen so many stories of people's lives ruined.

Yeah. We still did it, but we were a little leery of it. Yeah. And now I haven't seen a single story in a long time about somebody's life getting ruined or some crazy thing happening. And what I have seen though is like, sometimes Scientology people try to bully somebody and they get pushed back or whatever because there's a bunch of people with cell phone that make them go away. Right. Because what they're doing can be shown to every,

you know what I mean? So I wonder if that, while we may decry the democratization of that sort of thing sometimes. For sure. It doesn't have no good effect. It certainly has a good effect here. Yeah, absolutely. I think that that's exactly what has happened, that the visibility has turned against them, has worked against them.

They still do absolutely try to ruin the lives of people they label as diversers. I have seen them try to bully people, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So hopefully they don't come hassle us. I'm not worried about getting bullied by anybody from the Scientology. I'll be honest with you.

I have seen some really funny videos where they're camped out on people's lawns. They just go out and spray them with hoses and stuff. Oh, so good. It's delicious. So good. Did you watch the Louis Thoreau Scientology special? No, I should though. Yeah, you know, it wasn't that great.

It was, it certainly wasn't, you know, the thing about Scientology is you already know all the bad stuff. Yeah, right. Right? So watching it doesn't really do much. Doesn't add one. Doesn't add anything.

You watch it and you think, yeah, I kind of knew that. Right. I knew that. I knew that. I knew that. I'm sure there's other stuff out there that has been more of a pulling back of this sort of secret shit that goes on that's more horrible.

But the stuff that he was doing, the only thing that they showed and that they really did film a lot of was that sort of harassment. Because he was getting harassed quite a bit during that movie. And I wonder if they stop. Like, if they just, can they lay off the harassment at some point?

I imagine, oh gosh, how much, not only regular energy, but like, money do you have to spend to harass me? I don't know.

You know what I mean? Like, that's a job. That's a job to harass me. You know? And what do they get out of it at some point? Yeah,

they just, I don't know. First off, it seems mean for no reason. It is. And then I think they just get the meanness. I don't think you get anything out of it because back then, they were harassing people

I think that were sort of going to the media. But now if they're harassing people, they're just harassing some regular person. And the media has already broken Scientology open. All this stuff is open. It's already wide open. So it seems like just a waste of resources. Maybe that's what helped too.

It's just so many stories come out that people get sick of reporting on it. Yeah, right. Because it's just, everybody goes, yeah, no, that those are... Well, if you're Scientology, you're like, all right, we don't need to do all that harassment stuff. Because really, what are we going to get out of it?

More bad press? Where's their recruitment? I have no idea who's still signing up. At this point, who's still signing up? I do remember in Lincoln Park in Chicago, I remember there was a Scientology center.

And I remember walking past it with some curiosity like, what is this? I'd never heard of it. It had the word science sort of attached to it. It had ology. I'm kind of Scientology. I'd never heard of it. It had the word science sort of attached to it. Had ology. I'm kind of a scientist. I was curious what it was. I walked past it.

And I remember seeing the Dianetics book and being like, that's weird. What is this place? And I was curious. I didn't go in because I didn't have time. That's really the only reason. I was a young man. And I remember seeing it and being like, what is this? What is going on?

Maybe if I had more time I would have stopped in maybe I would have been converted Cecil Tom maybe I'd be a Scientologist you would have been a Scientologist podcast when I was a kid they used to play you might be too young for this they used to have Dianetics commercials oh I remember them oh I remember them clearly so Dianetics used to

have with the volcano it was a volcano yeah that's why I keep bringing the volcano because of Dianetics used to have... With the volcano. With the volcano. Yeah. That's why I keep bringing the volcano because of Dianetics. Yeah. But it was like Dianetics and there would be a 10 or 15 second commercial. It didn't say anything. It wouldn't say anything.

I remember asking my dad, like, what is that book? And he's like, I don't fucking know. I'm a truck driver. Give me a beer. So I remember asking and him not knowing. Right. But I remember growing up and forgetting about it.

But I imagine that there was, that's clearly a recruitment tool back then. Oh yeah. That's clearly, the Dianetics book itself was a recruitment tool, which is insane because I tried to read that a few years ago. Yeah, yeah. We were going to do another book club

after we did The Biggest, Greatest Secret. Biggest Secret. We were going to each read a book. And we started doing it. We did. I read mine, which was a... What's that guy? The banana guy. Ray Kroc? Kroc. Kroc or something? No.

Ray Kroc is the guy who made McDonald's. Well, I was thinking the Crocoduck. It's Ray Comfort. Ray Comfort. I read a Ray Comfort book. Yeah. And mine was short. Yeah. And yours was Dianetics, which is as big as my keyboard. Yeah, Dianetics is... I

grabbed Dianetics, and it's fucking enormous, and it's not interesting at all. Is it word salad? It's word salad like crazy. I remember reading parts of it to you. I mean, this is just nothing, man. There's nothing, and it's just like 800 pages of fucking gibberish. Here's what you do, Tom.

Plagiarize. First, run it through ChatGPT. Plagiarize it. And then come out as one of these incel influencers. Oh. With a Jordan Peterson-like, you say nothing. Yes. But you have this book that's basically Dianetics that ChatGP you say nothing. Yes. But you have this book

that's basically Dianetics that Chet G.P.T. spit out. And you could be like a Ben Shapiro. You could have a rap song. Oh, I could have my own rap song. You're missing the boat. Did you listen to the rap song?

I did. I won't. I will not. I kind of want to hear it. I will not listen to it. I'm listening to it on my way home. I won't listen to it. I bet it's really good. I actually like

rap a lot. It's one of my favorite types of music, and so there's no way I'll listen to that. There's a 100% chance I'm going to listen on the way home. Don't buy it. Whatever you don't buy. Oh, Lord. I'm not going to buy it. Holy shit.

Buy it? No. But now I have to know what the fuck this song is about. It's going to be, I guarantee he's going to say Facts and Logic in it at least one time. All right, so that's going to wrap it up for this week. This upcoming Thursday will be a mailbag show, a short mailbag show where we dug through our mailbag and read some things that we found.

If you want to send us messages, you can always send us messages at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. We read all our mail, so please send us messages. All right, that's going to wrap it up. We're going to catch you next week. Until then, we're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Grade. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit.

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