Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 767: Blaming Biden for the End of Roe, Project 2025 and the Death Penalty

Episode Date: May 20, 2024

Show Notes

Today's show is brought to you by Adam and Eve dot com. Go to Adam and Eve dot com right now and you'll get 50 percent 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 Glorial 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, us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at today is Thursday, May the 16th. And the Trump trial is winding down. They had Cohen on the stand this week. They did use on the stand for several days this week. And they were doing a bunch of analysis that I was watching after the fact and he seemed to handle the defense attorneys pretty well.

They had came on and said something to the effect of, hey, did you post this about me on TikTok? And he said something to the effect of, yeah, that sounds like something I do. And it was really, really rude. So yeah. I heard and read some analysis of the, it's so frustrating not to be able to just watch it or just listen to it.

It makes me crazy. Cause like then my commentary feels like commentary on commentary. And it's making me feel like a crazy person. Cause this is the one of the most important things that has happened in our political lifetimes and I feel constrained around talking about this from a first-hand sort of this is my take on what happened kind of a thing so forgive me but like my insight on the insights my commentary on the commentary it all feels very fucking meta with this whole thing

but I did listen to three or four different podcasts about it and I read a handful of articles about it and it kind of overwhelmingly, even from some right-wing sources, it sounds a lot like Cohen was extremely believable as far as his testimony to the prosecution and that a lot of the cross-exam examination from defense felt really disorganized and just kind of shooting from the hip and you know, let's try this question and see if it throws him and it sounds like it didn't. And he's the key witness. He's the witness that really ties Trump the person directly to the payment, the hush money, the conspiracy to,

you know, hide this money as federal, in a federal election of interference case. He's that key witness. So I'm really, I don't know, man, I'm crossing my fingers. We're getting to a point where there's gonna be jury deliberations before we know it. Maybe by the time we record next week, juries will be in deliberation.

Does it surprise you that Trump's attorneys are kind of fucking bad at what they do? No. It doesn't surprise me either because in the other case they had many opportunities that other legal analysts had pointed out from the outside looking in, right? They had plenty of opportunities to do things that they never took advantage of. And I think when I hear that Trump's, one of the things that they mentioned today very specifically was that they tried to get

a little emotional with them, raise their voice in a way. And the analysis that I heard was that's a bad call. In fact, they actually coach police officers to talk in a very monotone voice. That emotion on the stand is really bad. And it's also bad for the, we see it as a drama when we see the Perry Mason or whoever the fuck. We see it as a drama and we think,

oh, it should be this yelling and, did you order the code red? You're goddamn right! You can't handle the truth! You're goddamn right I ordered the code red! It's, but it's- And I order it again! That's not, well, it works.

It's not the same. So they expect a sort of measured tone. And if somebody gets flustered, more often than not, the jury thinks that maybe their argument isn't as good. That's what this person suggested. Yeah. Okay. Thing is, I buy that because it does feel very much like when in an argument somebody

loses their temper and starts like, you know, stomping their feet and screaming, you're like, I'm a little more dismissive at that point of their ability to really have a cogent argument of the next point that they're making. And that sometimes is wrong-headed too. Like I want to recognize that not all emotionality is like, I gotcha, cause that's very Sargon-y, right? Sargon would pull that shit where it's like, oh, you reacted.

It's like, okay, yeah, but that's cause you called me racial slurs for 20 minutes, right? That's, but this is different. This is, is a courtroom. This is a scenario where it's really about what are the facts here. It's not surprising that Trump's attorneys are knuckleheads because look at the defendant. When he was looking for representation, he shopped big law firm after big law firm. And many of them were like, we don't want you, man.

We don't want you man. We don't want you. It's not like he had his choice of like the top attorneys for the top firms and they were all beating down his door like, oh, pick us, pick us. It was very much the opposite. And I think part of the reason is one, he's a political third rail. So two, he doesn't pay his fucking bills. So who wants to sign on for that?

A guy doesn't pay. Michael Cohen didn't get paid. Part of the reason Michael Cohen is flipped is Michael Cohen didn't get paid timely. And he got shortchanged his bonus on the same year that he covered up the Stormy Daniels hush money. Trump shortchanged him a bonus. And then when he got in trouble with the feds, he threw him to the fucking wolves. So if you're like, oh yeah, I definitely want to represent that guy. That guy, he'll definitely pay his bills on time. Why wouldn't you pay a person who you did a crime with well? Cecil for real.

For real. Hey, we're out criming. So maybe I should pay you a crime money. Hey, can you loan me some crime money? Yeah, I got you. But you're going to have to pay me back the crime money, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll pay you a crime money. Hey, can you loan me some crime money? Yeah, I got you, but you're gonna have to pay me back the crime money, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll pay you back. Actually, I know it entirely and only benefited me, but I'm not gonna pay you and you're the only guy who holds the key to my freedoms

vis-a-vis the criming we are doing. Yikes. Not a very smart man. Jesus. Not a very smart man. Jesus. Not a very smart man. Jesus. But this week, there was a parade of people. Vanity Fair has an article, devout Christian Mike Johnson shows up

to Hush Money Trial to defend a guy accused of cheating on his wife for the porn star. Mwah, perfect fucking headline from Vanity Fair. But it's not just him, there was a bunch of other people. I want to mention this Mike Johnson guy who is the Speaker of the House, who is running every time on a very religious ticket. Crazy religious.

This is a guy who's not morally gray like Trump is. This is a guy who very much has a plan on how he wants America to look. This is a promise ring guy with his daughter. This is a guy, and he is at a trial talking on Trump's defense, essentially calling this a sham trial. But this is a trial where we're talking about a porn star,

we're talking about extramarital affair, we're talking about hush money that gets paid to them, we're talking about election interference.. We're talking about extramarital affair. We're talking about hush money that gets paid to them. We're talking about election interference. All that stuff is happening at this trial. And these people, it's not just him either. There's a parade of these dudes. And there are all these politicians that are showing up to talk on behalf of Trump.

Man, this feels so much like a show of political fealty. Yes. Right? Do I think that Mike Johnson, if he holds any of the, if he actually holds these Christian values, do I think he likes Trump in terms of, you know, like, oh, that's a good person?

No. Yeah. But I think he's a politician and this is an act of fealty. Like, it's kissing the ring because these guys are all worried that what's gonna happen is six months from now, Trump wins and they didn't kiss the ring because these guys are all worried that what's going to happen is six months from now Trump wins and They didn't kiss the ring. Yeah, and they eat shit and their careers are ruined and they're you know They become the Mike Pence's of the world who go back to Indiana with their tail between their legs in

Political obscurity for the rest of all time So I think a hundred percent this just tells you how little they believe their own shit. Yeah, no, they don't even care. Oh dear. Raj! Come here you. It's raw. It's fucking raw! It's real. Okay. Cecil. Cecil. From Gizmodo. I'm just going to be here rubbing my eyes, Tom. I'm just going to rub my eyes.

Okay, I'm going going to be here rubbing my eyes, Tom. I'm just going to rub my eyes. I'm going to read this from Gizmodo. We're so stupid. We don't deserve anything. Good. Raw milk sales skyrocket as idiots believe drinking bird flu will give them immunity. Tom didn't add idiots. Idiots is in the title.

Look, other people think they're idiots too. They are, I really thought to myself, when it came out that bird flu had migrated into mammals and was present in, I think now the majority of the largest herds of commercially produced or industrially produced cattle, and particularly the milk stock cattle. I thought, well, that's not good.

And then, you know, science, people have caught this from their cows and whatever. It hasn't gone to be people to people, but you know, which is good because it's a pretty dangerous, it's a pretty dangerous virus. But then, you know, they did some studies, they said, well, all right, so the virus is in the milk, but pasteurization basically breaks it into pieces

and renders it nothing, and it's just genetically not viable anymore. It's identifiable, but it's not genetically viable. It's all broken up. That's what pasteurization does. It kills Listeria and other horrible shit that can live in milk, and it makes it safe for us to drink it.

And I really thought like, okay, well, if anything goes wrong, it's really only gonna be this tiny fraction of fucking granola crunchy dipshits that are drinking raw milk and taking a chance with fucking Listeria every time. And I actually thought to myself, because I was, I up until this article, Cecil, I was an optimist.

I thought maybe this will finally reduce the sales of raw milk and instead in America, because we're the dumbest bag of shit-assholes possible, it literally, we made a thing more potentially dangerous, and people were like, I'll have two. And I don't want your email saying it's not dangerous. I don't know if it is or not. But I know that the answer isn't raw milk. What I don't understand is, you're a person who doesn't think, doesn't raw milk. What I don't understand is, you're a person who doesn't think, doesn't like vaccines. What do you think a vaccine is? Yes!

You have a scientist who takes under a controlled- Now I'm gonna rub my eyes. You rub your eyes while I talk for a minute, Tom. A scientist takes in a controlled environment pieces of that virus and makes it inert, but enough for your immune system to recognize so that when it gets put in your body, it doesn't hurt you, but it might have some effect,

but it's a much lower effect. And your body immediately says, oh, we gotta protect ourselves against this. Tell me you're not doing the exact same thing by drinking this, except for you're drinking the the exact same thing by drinking this, except for you're drinking the dangerous version. Thank you. Right? What you believe that you must believe vaccines work then, right? It's like you believe vaccine theory, right? Because

you, because everything mechanistically that you described is the high level view of how this works. So like you would have to believe in the mechanistic view of vaccine theory, but just like, I just want it to come from a cow's tit. I guess the only, the only, the only way I can get there is if they think that the vaccine isn't actually doing this, it's producing something else. They must think that. Yeah. And I want to say for YouTube real quick, we believe in vaccines here. Okay. We think vaccines work. We believe in the CDC. We believe in vaccine germ theory. We believe in those things. So please don't put some dumb

fucking thing on our, on our video because you didn't bother to listen to it. For real. This feels like the same stupid motherfuckers who are like, chickenpox vaccine, I ain't getting no chickenpox vaccine, I'll buy chickenpox lollipops from strangers on eBay, which is real. Or I'll go to a chickenpox party. Or I'll go to a chickenpox party.

I'll lick a fucking fire hydrant full of chickenpox kids. It must be that they think something's in it that they don't want more so than they're afraid to get the thing. That's the only way I can get there. The whole thing genuinely baffles me because like, what the thing is is the two is that there's a false dichotomy.

What they're choosing between, Cecil, is they're choosing between, I don't want the vaccine, so instead I'll get a natural exposure but the third option is to avoid any exposure they're not trying to avoid any exposure they're not trying to get the vaccine there is no vaccine right in this case in this case but I'm saying like chicken pox so to me the thing is like, if I thought that this disease was dangerous

and I thought that the vaccine was dangerous, I would try to strike the middle. Stay away from it. And I would try not to get sick. Sure. Because I have this crazy idea, and you'll hear me out. Absolutely. That getting sick is probably bad for your health.

I know. It's crazy like that. Oh man. But there's like a whole subset of people that are like their solution to disease is to catch it. Yeah, yeah. Like if they catch it when they were like, like I put on my calendar and so it can't hurt me bad

because I plan to catch it. I'm reminded of the people who got upset when people were wearing masks. And I'm reminded of that because one thing that I think when people see another human being wear a mask, they think to themselves, do you think my immune system's a pussy? Yeah, dude.

That's what I think they're thinking. It's toxically masculine, right? You're wearing a mask. Are you calling me a pussy? Do you think I can't take what you have? I want you to spit in my mouth right now. No. But seriously, there is something to that.

And I remember, I sort of came to that revelation when I was listening to Joe Rogan talk to somebody about it. Because Joe Rogan was very anti-mask and very upset about it. And you could sort of see the gears clicking in his head. He never said it out loud, but he certainly felt like he was intimating, like, what do you think?

I'm a pussy. And I think the same thing works its way down with vaccines. I think that they say like, I can handle this. I can do this. I can fucking, I want the fire hose. I want the fire hose of H1N1. I don't want the little bit. I want the fire hose.

This is uniquely not just American, but I think also like Western European and maybe even, but like this is not like Asian countries have been wearing masks for when the people get sick. If you get sick in China or Japan, people have been wearing masks when they get a cold as part of their culture for decades and decades. You walk down the street in non during pandemic times and it is not unusual to see people in a medical mask because it's considered to be polite to not get other people sick.

And they consider it that because it is, that is more polite. So it's not like this is human nature. This is cultural because this isn't the case in all cultures and in many cultures. You know, I don't know if you saw the news I just saw this yesterday. I should have sent you the story but like North Carolina I'm caught him out. Yeah, they said you can't wear masks. I saw that no exceptions for medical

so like if I have cancer and I want to go to the grocery store in North Carolina if this bill makes it all the way to the governor I will not be allowed by law with cancer to wear a mask in the grocery store. And they're couching it in people shouldn't be able to disguise their identity because something something criminals. That's what they're they're trying to, but this is clearly a pandemic response. This is clearly, I think your point exactly is we don't want no, you know, left leaning, pussified motherfuckers up in here telling us what their California thought thinkings,

what we gots to do here in North Carolinas, we'll get all the diseases at once and we'll kick them in the arse and stick a varmint down their throat or whatever, like crazy hillbilly shit they wanna think. So they're getting the point where they're mandating their own insanity. I read that story and I stared at my computer because it's so bafflingly stupid that you can't come up with a logic where there's no medical exemption to a mask ban.

It's just cruelty. It's toxic masculinity and then the result is always what the result of toxic masculinity is, which is cruelty. This asshole, there's two kinds of people that I hate. Rich and stupid. This story comes from the Guardian, top US ethics watchdog investigating Trump over dinner with oil bosses. El Cesar, why would a nice dinner among friends be problematic? It's not as if, look, if they just got around and they ordered some steaks, they poured some cognac, they had a nice cigar, and they talked about

how great it is to be white, that would be a normal dinner with oil bosses, I think. It's not like Trump said, please donate a billion dollars to my political committee. And in exchange, I will fight for your cause. It's not like he did that. Yikes. Except that he literally did that. Can you fucking imagine how bad at your job

do you have to be to not know where that line is? If you were an oil boss? Don't you think you would have been like, holy shit. We don't say it out loud and walked away. I'd have gone I'd have left. I'd have been like, whoa No, no, no not part of this conversation. You're like that guy who's walking to Congress pretending he has a call This screen is black I could just see it and Trump saying, I could just see your screen. He's like, nope, not a call. Very important call.

It's from South Carolina. They're talking about masks. I got to go. Seriously. I would, I would seriously think if I was in that office that it was bugged. I would think that's what I mean. I would think this is a soprano's hit or something that's going to be happening. You'd run away.

You'd feel, you'd be, sorry, gotta go. I am really sorry, but something died. You guys, let me read from this article somewhere. Yeah, for real. I'd be like, I have a roast in the oven. I gotta go. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has told The Guardian that is investigating the dinner at Trump's club with more than 20 oil and gas company executives

Trump asked them for a one billion dollar presidential campaign Contribution while the same time vowing to undo Joe Biden's restrictions on natural gas exports oil drilling and car pollution What that's the most quid pro quo. I Literally can't think of anything unless he said, by the way, here I would like to accept money into, I will sign a contract where you, I will put a ledger together. This is the most you're selling the presidency. It is as, like you say, as quid pro quo, as you can get without actually saying here's a contract we could sign. Yeah. It's that, it's that handshake. So this is

straight up, this is straight up like selling the presidency. This is bribery. This is like being like, I have an itchy back. Do you have an itchy back? Winkity wink, money, money, money. I have an itchy back. Do you have scratchy fingers? What the fight? Oh, they're investigating.

What do you mean you're investigating whether or not this is criminal? If this isn't criminal, then bribing public officials is legal. It's legal. We should be, if this is not illegal, then I should be able to show up with a briefcase of cash and be like, vote yes on House Bill 1963. What's the difference? Two-year campaign. I wrote a little ticket in there. You can put it where you want. Right. You can. That's seriously, that's not, you're not making an exaggeration. This is literally what happened. I'm blown away that we are in a place

where somebody is so fucking stupid, yet so close to the presidency again. Again. Again, I cannot believe that this person made it through his entire adult life and hadn't gotten arrested until just, you know, until he's been dealt with these current charges that are up against him. I can't believe that. I, you know, until he's been dealt with these, these current charges that are up against him.

I can't believe that. I can't either. But the next story we've got to talk about is the abortion story. This story almost knocked me over when I read this. This is an insane story. You guys, this is, this is so crazy. Cecil put this on the funny show. Yeah.

But I feel like it's so dovetails what we were just talking about that there's, we're living in a world where this guy who's like, I'll sell you the presidency for a billion dollars is living in it. We're living in a country where this is also happening. 17% of voters blame Joe Biden for the end of row. The mistaken belief in a new poll shows how even as abortion is mobilizing Democrats, confusion over the issue is also a challenge. They're interviewing people that are like, well-

In battleground states too. This is in battleground states where it matters, right? This isn't just somebody in some rando state. This is a battleground state. You guys, there are interviews with people from this article where they're like, yeah, you know, I really believe in abortion. It's a, it's a really important. I can't believe they're going to do this.

You know, Joe Biden really should have not let this happen. And you're like, that's not how our government works. Do you know how it got overturned? Supreme court. Do you know? Can we go to civics class? For fuck's sake. Can we sit down and sit and go through those clear things they used to put on the overhead?

Yes! Right? The transparencies? Put a transparency one after another to show them the Amdrel Strabill and then all the other stuff that we need to show so you know how the government works. I actually want to, yes. Because people don't understand, there was all those people who were so upset

with Joe Biden when he didn't change things to solidify this at the beginning of his presidency. They're like, why didn't Joe Biden, this isn't in this article, but this was before, right? Why didn't Joe Biden codify Roe in a law? And then you say to them, how do they actually get that to this floor? Because they would have never made it

past the filibuster to do it. Never. So how do they get it to the floor, smart guy? How could he have codified Roe? How is that possible? They do the same thing with all kinds of looking backward stuff when it comes to Obama too.

And you think there's, you don't understand how any of this works. Sometimes they didn't even have the House or the Senate while Obama was in office. And you can't just make it turn itself around. People complain about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, right? They say Ruth Bader Ginsburg should have stepped down. Fucking McConnell had two years and had an opportunity in the last eight months to stall

fucking Scalia. Do you think that he might have stalled Ruth Bader Ginsburg if she'd put her notice in? Ruth Bader Ginsburg saw the writing on the wall and was like, the only way I just have to make it to the next presidency, because she did not think that Trump was going to win. People complain and say she should have Stepped on before what they were dead But what they forget is that the two full years of Mitch McConnell probably would have deleted into the next president Yeah, a hundred percent would have done that. Yes. He never would have let her be replaced

So they're saying she should have stepped down eight years before that What the what kind of mind reading fucking magic ball bullshit is that? But maybe she saw what was on the wall and decided not to step down because there's a good possibility. I mean, this is not a non-political savvy lady, right? But people do this. They put these, this prognostication cap on in the reverse to think that they can call this shit. And they don't know how the government works.

Yeah, they have no... I mean, I feel the same way when people are like, well, Joe Biden didn't get rid of the federal student loan debt. And it's like, he did though! The Supreme Court overruled it. He did... First of all, billions of dollars have been already forgiven. But like, yes, the big Supreme Court...

No, you're right. The big federal loan, he did it. He did it. He did the thing. And the Supreme Court was like, nah. And so now he's got to try again through a different method. And he is working on trying again. He's not fucking king. He doesn't like, these are not unilateral decisions, but these fucking people, 17%. I got to read some of these quotes from some of these people. You guys, this is unbelievable. This woman, an abortion rights supporter in Las Vegas says, I think the buck stops with him.

So he had the ability to fight that. And that's not what I'm hearing that he did. Fight what, the Supreme Court? That's not how that works. Here's somebody else. So this woman says, I don't think a group of men should be able to decide that for us. This woman living in Georgia talking about the abortion bans. She also said she was under the impression that Mr. Biden was responsible

because it happened during his presidency and she believed his age prevented him from closely tracking such events. Other voters said Mr. Biden hadn't done enough to stop state abortion bans. There should be no restrictions on abortion whatsoever, said this person who lives in Arizona. Yet this person says Mr. Biden made empty promises on many issues, including abortion. Biden didn't fully criticize or condemn the taking away of people's rights. I don't even want to think about voting for Trump, he says. Biden came out very unequivocally. Biden came out very unequivocally. These are people who say, they all of them to a person also say things like, but I don't

follow politics and I don't read the news. It's like, I don't know what I'm talking about. I'm not going to try to learn. Here's my opinion. Here's somebody else from Wisconsin says abortion should be mostly legal and women in states with bands should be able to travel to another state to get one but she also said that mr. Trump's recent statements on leaving abortion up to the states assured her that his views were in line with hers and she said mr. Biden hadn't done enough to support

abortion rights he doesn't say much about it anymore he's our president but he doesn't say a lot period about anything. I don't even know how to parse how wrong that is. That's a two time Trump voter who's just in my opinion, I think some of these people are clearly partisan. And I think they mentioned that in here where they say some people are just so stuck in their own politics that they just can't accept how reality shook out for them. So this is a two timetime Trump voter who is,

believes abortion should be available to everybody. This is somebody who voted for Trump. And Trump said, I'm gonna give you the most conservative Supreme Court ever, and we will overturn Roe v. Wade. I am only barely changing his words here. This is something he promised them and delivered on. He promised the religious, right?

This. Yeah. What the fuck did you expect? It's insane that we are living in a space where a major campaign promise was made, delivered, and provided to America is horrific. And even as that happens, Trump has managed to weasel in a lot of people's minds to weasel out of responsibility for the thing he said he was going to do actively work to do to credit for doing

saw the backlash around. And somehow these dumb, like, it's like almost one in five is like, that was probably Biden. You know, what the fuck is happening? I'm reminded of something you said two weeks ago, and you said Trump will often make two contradictory statements so that then he has his bases covered. Yeah. Is this an example of that where he has had some questioning of whether he's gonna make a big law and the states are gonna be the ones

that make this decision? Has he done that and tricked a bunch of people into thinking he wasn't the people he wanted to trick into thinking he wasn't responsible and still keeping all those people he wants to keep in his pocket to let them know he was responsible. Yeah, I think you've hit it.

I think he got his credit when the credit was what he needed politically. And now he's trying to create distance with what he wants as distance politically. And then once he comes in office, he'll do whatever the fuck he wants because at that point it doesn't matter. And I think that's the other thing

that I really wanna urge people to think about is when you're on your second term as president and you're not a career politician and you're at the end of your natural lifespan, this motherfucker is gonna do whatever he wants to do. Right now, all the incentives for him line up to become president. But after he swears in,

there's nothing anymore that he wants from this. This keeps him out of jail, it buys him another four years, he wipes out the indictments against him. He doesn't have for, there's nowhere to go, there's no up from here. He's already fucking rich. There's only every reason to believe,

and he's not an ideologue, that he'll just use the presidency to do what he personally wants to do. It will only get worse. There's, in most cases, politics acts as a series of restraining forces on power. Because the people in power want to either maintain power, move up the food chain, do something with their legacy, they have a long life left to live, whatever.

There's none of that. He'll do whatever the fuck he wants, guys. Like there's literally do whatever he wants. And there's no reason to think that he'll be restrained by any forces of decency or personal morals or even party affiliation. He'll just, he'll fucking wing it, man. Like it's a fucking plate full of ketchup.

He'll just wing it. Yeah, and you said there's nothing to fear once he gets in office because he's not going to run again, but who knows if he's just going to stay in there until he dies. He might try that. You know, there's a possibility he's going to give that one the college try too. Yeah. Have you ever found yourself at a dance show and thought, what would be good right about here?

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Okay, thank you so much for your time. Have a good one. Abortions for all! Very well. No abortions for anyone. No! Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others. Yeah! Dovetailing on that, Tom.

From the Hill, nearly two-thirds of Americans want abortion access. Because abortion's super fucking, like, popular. People want access to abortions. This is actually not a part... It hasn't been for a long time. It's not a particularly close issue. Because abortion is super fucking like popular. People want access to abortions. This is actually not a part, it hasn't been for a long time. It's not a particularly close issue. It's actually grown. Yeah.

It's grown by four points. Grown by four points since that happened. People want what you take from them. That tells you that not only was it popular before, but again, I've said it multiple times that Roe v Wade was good policy and allowed for abortion restrictions as well as open abortion, right? It allowed for both of those things to exist. It allowed for those two ideas to coexist at the same time, sometimes in the same state.

It allowed for those ideas to coexist and it kept both sides happy for so long. It was abortions for some, little American fucking flags on sticks for others. And nobody fucked. There was a lot of people who were very happy with it. Once you took it away in those states, suddenly those numbers jumped up because they were okay with what happened before. They were. I think there's something about this that really speaks to the fact that it is easier to oppose something in theory than it is to deal with it in reality. So what I mean by that is,

if Roe versus Wade is the law of the land, I can go to the local Planned Parenthood and I can hold meetings and I can pound my fist and I can say abortion should be illegal because it's not. And so there's really no consequences for me as an individual person in holding that view. And it's because like really in the back of my head I know, but if I need one, I still can have one.

And if my daughter needs one, she can have one And if my daughter needs one, she can have one. If my wife needs one, she can have one. So I can have this view very safely. There are no consequences. It changes as soon as that moves from theory to reality. Now all of a sudden it's like, well, I, fuck, I can't have one for realsies though? Cause I wanna say I don't like it,

but I still want the option for me. So that shift from theory to reality, I think, people are like, oh, I like sex. That sometimes creates people that I don't want to be alive. Yeah, no, I saw someone commented on one of our previous episodes, and they had a comment and they said they thought that the pro-life stance, the people with the pro-life stance that are, and I use the word pro-life,

I probably shouldn't, anti-choice. You told me that last time. But the anti-choicers out there, they have a very specific stance where they say they don't want any exceptions. And the person had an interesting take. They said, you know what, those people, because they think an abortion is murder, they're actually, in some ways, the people who don't want exceptions, they're more. And in fact, more logically consistent with that thought than the other people.

Wouldn't you have to be? Like if I really think that abortion, if I really in my heart of hearts and my brain of brain think that abortion is really murder, that it is actually no different than you stabbing me in my face, that it is the same thing, then I can't say, well, you know,

it's murder but only up until this point, or it's murder, but only under these, but it's not murder if the circumstances prior to it were unpleasant or horrible or criminal or debased or whatever. Like we don't get to, that's not how that would work, right? If you really believed- You really believed that.

And I don't disagree with that person. I think they're 100% right. That's why I don would work, right? If you really believed. You really believed that. And I don't disagree with that person. I think they're 100% right. That's why I don't disagree with them. I think, and I think they were arguing, they were saying that people who are arguing for abortion but only stopping in cases of rape and incest are liars. They're saying those people are liars. Same with the people that are just choosing

an arbitrary like 12 weeks. Sure, that's a liar. That's a liar. That's a liar. But I think like, and that's because you have to believe that it's conception and you have to believe it's a fully actualized person for it to do that. That's not how reality works.

No. Like reality doesn't work like that. None of that's true. I mean, we judge whether or not a person is alive by their brain activity and we know that there's no brain activity for, I think it's 20 weeks or something like that. There's no, there's no, the same kind of brain activity that we would use to identify whether somebody was alive or dead in a fully sized body. That same kind of brain activity isn't there until seven months.

That's a long time. That's not there. You can't, you can't measure that same kind of brain activity isn't present until seven months. Yeah. And there's virtually no abortions at seven months. Yeah. Those are, those are only, those are only if something horrible goes wrong. Cause nobody goes seven months into pregnancy thinking, well, I'll just get rid of it if I don't want it. It's a fractional. It's not even 1%. It's fractions of fractions. Tiniest, tiniest amount. And it's only in a horrible situation

and you should mind your fucking business. That's exactly right. You should mind your fucking business. Cause you know what? They didn't go through seven months of that to fucking get rid of that kid. So shut your fucking mouth. That's exactly right.

Yeah, shut your fucking mouth. So we're inconsistent about our logic and how we define life depending on the size of the body, right? If the body is eight pounds versus 225 pounds, shouldn't matter. I should use the same criteria to determine whether somebody's alive. What difference does the size of the vessel matter?

It matters if we're lying. And if we believe in like potentiality and souls and all the rest of that as being more important than somebody who exists, than somebody who exists, a person who has lived their entire life, we're saying that potentiality is worth more. Right. And that's bullshit. That is bullshit. Foozball, you play the foozball behind my back. The only reason I'm doing this so so I can go to school. School? You're going to school? I'm sorry, mama. I can go to school. School? You're going to school?

I'm sorry mama. I wanted to tell you. You off califanting with your fancy foosball friends at school? Well, I'm sitting here all day with nobody to keep me company except Steve. Reminds me of Lulu. The chickens are coming home to roost Bobby Boucher. Well guess what? You reap the fruit of your selfish ways. You're gonna lose all your fancy foosball games. And you're gonna fail your big exam. Cause school is the devil. Everything is the devil to you, mama! Well I like school. And I like football.

And I'm gonna keep doing them both because they make me feel good. And by the way, mama, Alligator is an honorary because their medulla Ablohngada. And I like Vicky and she likes me back. And she showed me her boobies and I like them too. I really love boobies. Harrison Bucker attacks Pride Month and trans people, tells women to get back in the kitchen. All right, so let's make sure we read exactly what he had to say here.

All right. After attacking dangerous gender ideologies in his speech, a clear slam at the transgender community, Bucker highlighted a recent Associated Press article that discussed how Benedictine College and the Catholic Church are seeing an immense shift toward the old ways. He said that while the Associated Press

intended it to create anger, instead people in the church took pride in the article. Quote, not the deadly sins sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it, he said in a clear slam at Pride Month this June, but the true God-centered pride that is cooperating with the Holy Ghost to glorify him. Even the largely Catholic audience in attendance groaned.

He also took a large chunk of his speech to speak directly to the women in the audience. He said that while many of them are likely excited to start a career and get promotions, they should instead consider the only vocation that will make them the most happy. Homemaker. Quote, I can tell you that my beautiful wife, Isabel, would be the first to say that her life truly started when she began living her vocation as a wife and a mother. I'm on this stage and able to be the man that I am because I have a wife who leans into her vocation.

I'm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl I met in band class back in middle school would convert to the faith, become my wife and embrace one of the most important titles of all, Homemaker. She's your eighth grade date? This is the eighth grade date. This is his eighth grade date? Yeah. Yikes. Yikes. Yeah. You got to try on more than one pair of shoes, man. Bro. Yeah. Bro. Oof.

I also what gifts you're a kicker. Come on. What do you do? Is he the kicker? Like he's the kicker. I will say I've always thought that would be the best job. Kansas City Chiefs is a player, but he's the kicker. He's not a, I'm pretty sure he's the kicker.

Let's see. Let's see. Does it say? Yeah, he's the place kicker. This is the guy who kicks the field goal. After he was done, he kicked Jesus through the upright. Come on. This is ridiculous. But he's also interestingly on the same team as the guy who's dating Taylor Swift.

So does this feel like maybe right wing, a right wing backlash attempt at relevance? Could be. It's possible. Although I think what happens with some of these guys, first off, don't invite a place kicker to give your speech. That's stupid. How bad are things going at Benedictine? I mean, don't you have somebody who knows stuff that wants to talk to people?

Why would you want a kicker to come back? But I think what happens... Ball goes up. Ball come back? But I think what happens ball come back down, kick ball, foot ball, go up. Three is the number that I get you. Sometimes one if it's after a score. No, but this, but like the interesting thing, Tom, is that I think these people get invited to a religious college that maybe they attended and maybe they went and they were very religious at, but isn't many of the people who go to religious schools aren't necessarily religious.

And I think they misjudge the room, they misread the room. As you can tell by the groans in the audience when he mentions Pride Month, I think they misread the room. I think they see something, like maybe he decided to go to Benedictine University. I can't imagine him speaking there unless he went there. Like there's nothing in my head that says,

invite this kicker, just cause it doesn't make sense. So my thought is he went there and he probably went there because it was a Catholic school, right? And I went to a Catholic college as well, but I didn't go there because it was a Catholic school. I went there because they paid me money to go there. They paid me money so that it was cheaper than a public school to go there because they gave me a big grant because I was poor. So they were like, hey, you're poor. You want to come here? You had good scores. And I said, sure. And then I came

there. So that's why I went there. I didn't go there because I saw a cross, but this guy did. And so I think he misjudged the room. There's plenty of people that go to Catholic colleges that are not religious at all and not interested in religion. That number's growing. And I think many of the people in the audience here

probably were not interested in what he had to say, but he's a very traditional dude who's saying 1950 shit to a bunch of kids in 2024. Like what, I don't know anything about Benedictine College, but if Benedictine College's demographic makeup is similar to the other trends in college and academia right now,

more women get degrees than men. Women are graduate, which means that this graduating class that he's speaking to is going to be predominantly women who just spent tens of thousands of dollars and years of their life working on an education. And he's saying, you'd be better off putting toaster waffles in and breeding babies. And how would that feel on your graduation day as a message?

You'd be like, no, I worked my ass off to get here. I'm sitting here in my cap and gown. This is my commencement. I'm so proud of the hard work and the dedication and the achievements. This is most of his audience almost certainly demographically unless Benedictine is some weird outlier It's probably most of his audience. It's probably most of his audience. People there he's like great degree

Shelve it, find a dude and make him relevant because that's the other interesting thing he says is like look Because my wife turned her life over to me, I was able to be relevant in the world. So the world he's suggesting is the right world, is a world where women uplift the power of men, men control all the power and money and access, and women are down here in the background making little babies and toasting up those Eggo waffles.

And that's the world he's saying to these women who are graduating and most of his audience, they should somehow embrace that. Behind every great man is a great woman is one of the most misogynist, shitty fucking lines anybody's ever said. Right? I remember I'm reminded of that, and I've said this before, I'm gonna say it again, but I'm reminded of a plaque at Starved Rock.

And on that plaque, it was made by the women of the something. And I don't remember what the organization was, but let's just say the women of the revolution or the women of Illinois or something, women of St. Columbus. But not a single woman's name is on it. It's all Mrs. So-and-so, Mrs. So-and-so.

And it's the dude's name. And in this case, he's talking about Mrs. Harrison Butcher. I don't know who she is, right? This is Mrs. Harrison Butcher. And I'm always blown away because this thing was put out and it's a bronze plaque on a big fucking rock in the middle of Starved Rock. And there's not a woman's name on it,

but all those women organized to put it there. And not any of their names are on there. It's all their husband's name. Now I could probably find out their name. Like I find out their first time, maybe. Maybe. But genuinely, this is all, it was all about their husband. And that whole mine is bullshit.

It's a lie. It was a way to make women feel important in a time when dudes wanted the importance. That's all it is. And that's what this guy is fucking announcing to the world in 2024 to an audience, like you say, that is mostly women. This is like, this is that tradwife shit.

Sure. This is a, and I want to differentiate that from having a sort of family structure where everybody chooses who they want to be and how they want to live their life. I don't think there's anything wrong if this woman chose to do this, good for her. Right, whatever makes somebody happy

and keeps them safe is the right choice for them. Do what you want to do. And build your family is how you want to build your family. So I don't want to come across as like I'm judging somebody's family. But like this is a male endorsement of the disempowerment of women. That's what this is.

It's nothing other than that. And he's a powerful guy, you see. I mean, like, he's still the kicker, so he's not that powerful. He's got one leg. One powerful leg. He doesn't have a leg to stand on. He's got, what he has is he does what Pat Robertson did,

but he does it with one leg instead. That leg press. That thousand pound leg press. That big leg press. He just does it with one leg instead that That thousand pound leg press he just does it with one leg instead the other ones really scrawny I will tell everyone on Facebook that you pluck your nipples. I this story comes from What is this? This is from a weird place? El Pas and it turns out it's it's a it's written in another language And it's in is this is the English version of that. I found this on the

skeptic board. Okay. So this was, and I tried to find it in a different place, but I didn't find it in a different place. So again, but they do link to the studies. So, so this is a really interesting article. So deactivating Facebook for just a few weeks reduces belief in fake news. When I read that headline, I was like, Ooh, interesting. It's more nuanced than that. Yeah. And the subheader is here, the largest study ever carried out on social media deactivation has found that disconnecting lowers users' political participation and also their propensity to believe misinformation. But I think there's a lot of nuance here. What the study found also is that when users deactivated Facebook, and it has no effect if they deactivate Instagram,

and they deactivate Facebook, they become less politically engaged. They also have less overall information. They have less disinformation, but they have also just less overall information. And I think one of the things that's really important that I was thinking about as a takeaway from this isn't that everybody should go deactivate their Facebook. I don't think that that's actually the takeaway, which probably shocks most of the listeners coming from me.

But I think that it's that we should be aware that we are getting more information than we think we are from Facebook. And again, be careful about curating your Facebook and your interactions with it. And then have a plan for how you want to be informed. Because these people are not just losing access to disinformation, they're losing access to other information. It's not like they're still reading the New York Times

and still reading the Wall Street Journal and still reading the Post and still listening to a news podcast. They're not doing that stuff. This is just kind of how they get their information and they can't tell the difference between good and bad, so it all drops out. I thought that was a really interesting takeaway.

I think one of the strategies you can do if you are interested in the world around you. This wouldn't apply to a lot of the people that were in this study because they just dropped off, right? They didn't bother to follow up anything after the fact. But if you're a curious person and you get a lot of your information from Facebook, my suggestion is the moment you see something, go to an actual news site and read about it. Because no matter what, the Facebook presentation of that information is going to be short and punchy and trying to get something out of you.

The article is going to be totally different. It's going to be a lot more nuanced. You're gonna find little things in here. Think of how different this very article is from its own headline. This article itself is very different from the headline. It has a different, it doesn't have a different conclusion, but it has a more nuanced view than just what it presented.

The same thing's true about stuff you find on Facebook. So if you find something on Facebook that intrigues you and it happens to be a meme or it happens to be a picture with a headline, go follow it. I wouldn't click on the link itself. I would maybe type it into a search engine, find it on a site.

It might even be to your best advantage to find it on a different site. Read that article and see what you think about it instead of just looking at what you see and stopping at the Facebook thing you see because it's probably just a tiny bit of text, a headline and nothing else. And they're only going to include salacious shit in there

because they want you to click it and share it. Yeah, man. And I think something that I didn't know until maybe six, seven, eight, 10 years ago, something along the lines, most of my life I did't know until maybe six, seven, eight, 10 years ago, something along the lines, most of my life I did not know that the headline is not in many cases, most cases, the headline is not written by the author of the article.

Editors write headlines. So the person who writes the article might write a very nuanced and detailed take, a piece or analysis or journalistic, whatever. And then somebody comes along and says, ba-bam, that'll sell it. And they write a headline, think of a headline as an advertisement for the article.

So we should look at headlines with the same kind of a scant skepticism that we look at all marketing material. Every headline is an ad for the newspaper, not for the article itself. Because the newspaper makes money because you clicked on it. They don't care if you read the article. That's a good point.

That's an ad for the newspaper. It's not a summation of the article. It's written for a different purpose. Its goal is not to get you summation of the article. It's written for a different purpose. Its goal is not to get you to read the article. Its goal is to get you to click on the article. That's how they made their money. As soon as you know that these are not produced by the same people with the same incentives,

for me at least it changes my interaction with headlines. I'm going to tell you something. I'm from Buenos Aires and I say kill them all. Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! The story comes from Slate.com. This should be a wake up call to the Biden administration on the death penalty. So there's the blueprint, the Project 2025 blueprint. And the Project 2025 blueprint basically says, hey, so when Trump's in power,

we're gonna kill as many people as we possibly can using the federal death penalty. That's pretty much it. That's it. That's it. They said that they wanna clear the slate. They wanna wipe that clean. These are people, you know, this is a group of people, and you make no mistake,

this is a group of people who wanna run the government where every problem is a nail. And this should scare people in a way that I don't think they've been scared yet. Clearly they're willing to take rights away, but there is a group of people that want to murder somebody. They want to use the state to murder people. Now don't get me wrong, I think I have very emotional

feelings when it comes to the death penalty. I know what's wrong in my head. Yeah. But if someone were to kill my wife, there's a big part of me that would want to see that person dead and I understand it, right? There's an empathy there that I understand. But I also recognize that it's a dangerous power

to hand over to the state. And it's a dangerous power to hand over to the state. And it's a dangerous power to hand over to a state that is leaning towards more authoritarian viewpoint. And that's what the whole project 2025 is. It's not just saying we want to kill people as retribution. They're saying they just want to clean the slate. They want to, and they think, here's the thing that the biggest takeaway they think it's actually a deterrent. Yeah I know man. It's not a deterrent. I know. The death penalty is not a

deterrent. Take that out of your head that's never been a deterrent. What it's there for is to is to try to have a vengeance-based system that gives something to the person who lost someone. That's what it's there for. It's not there for anything else because there was never ever anybody who ever thinks ahead of the time and thinks I'm not gonna do this because of the death penalty. Yeah, the deterrent argument has been disproven

for decades by mountains of evidence. More than decades, probably. Mountains and mountains of evidence. And not just here in the States, but internationally it has been repetitively proven that the death penalty is not a deterrent, it is not. If you look at countries, most of Western Europe, that have abolished the death penalty,

they did not see a change, a rise. You would expect if it was a deterrent then, that if you remove a deterrent, that you would see a concomitant rise in the same violent crimes that were supposedly being deterred by the death penalty. It doesn't exist. We know the death penalty is not about deterrence.

It's a lie. It's just lying. This is about, like you said, this is about vengeance. This is about bloodlust. And this is about political gamesmanship. They wanna look like tough guys. This is haw, like you said, this is about vengeance. This is about blood lust. And this is about political gamesmanship. They wanna look like tough guys. This is hawkish. This is an internal hawkishness that they wanna be,

look how tough we are on crime. We killed those guys. It's like when Trump said, I don't remember what speech it was cause they're all insane. But like, I think it was in the summer of 2020 when Trump said, you know, if you rob a store, expect to get shot. You should be shot for like robbing a store. You remember

when he talked about like being shot for theft? These guys really believe that stuff. These are the same guys who think that putting barbed wire barrels in a river is a way to treat asylum seekers. Sure. These are murderers. These are people who gleefully want to watch other human beings die in order for them to gain political power. These are authoritarians, right? They want to do the same thing with you.

Make no mistake, right? Make no mistake. They want to live in a world where you're under their control. And the easiest way to do that is to be as tough as possible on everything, right? It's not just one thing, it's all the things. And this is one of those moments where they're taking the mask off and we can see who they are. And what's underneath is a terrifying monster that we need to make sure never ever ever gets it. Yeah, man, a thousand percent.

And if the Biden administration really believes that this is a possibility six, seven, eight months from now, there needs to be action now to eliminate the federal death penalty. It needs to be fucking gone. We don't need it. We don't need it. We don't need it.

It's not helping anybody. It's not, and I am the same as you. Like I'm probably worse than you. Like I'm a worse person than you. I think I am much more emotionally retributive than you. I recognize that that's a bad part of me that like is true and honest to who I am, but that should not be policy. We should not make

policy based on Tom's emotionality. That's a bad idea. Nobody should do that. Like nobody should do it. I'm worse than you in that. Like there's like, I'm like, fucking kill that guy. You know, like I wouldn't, no tears would leak out of my head if that happened. I feel that feeling. And at the same time, I'm like, but our criminal justice system is so flawed. Oh yeah. It's so, so flawed. And I have no faith that we get it right 100% of the time or 80% of the time. And if you don't get it right 100% of the time,

I'm not going to endorse a murder policy. Yeah. Because I can't be mad that you murdered somebody and then my response is to go murder somebody else that's innocent. Some random person. Yeah, somebody who... It's just as bad. Somebody who's just trying to... the police officer's just trying to close a case.

Right. And that happens way too often in our justice system. So I think in order for me to be like even emotionally consistent, I have to say like, well, yeah, if I, if I am, if I am furious about and, and, and want retribution around murder, I would have to hold myself to that same standard. And so I don't want to get hold myself to that standard. So I say, okay, this isn't how this works. Right. All right.

That's going to wrap it up for this week. We are going to be back for patrons only on Thursday. So if you want to get in on it, you can become a patron at patreon.com slash dissonance pod or dissonance pod.com. You can come up a prayer, a patron on a per episode basis. We would love it if you became a patron. We give a lot of things to patrons. We put a lot of tape out there. We make sure that they're as happy as possible. So please, if you're interested in becoming a patron, we'd love to have you. You get a bunch of extra content a month and this next Thursday, that's a show that is only for patrons. So please sign up if you're interested. All right,

that's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave it like we always do with the skeptic screen. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter mommy issue hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble pseudo quasi alternative acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal free energy healing water downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch late night infodocutainment. Leo Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins,

truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, one slap, you're gonna love my nuts, shaman healers, evangelthers, witches, wizards, One slap, you're gonna love my nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive.

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