Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 773: Alito Secret Recordings, Alex Jones Bankruptcy Dismissed

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

Tom and I recorded this episode the day we found out about the lead story on Modest Needs. Forgive us for talking about it at length, it was still pretty raw.

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.

Today is Thursday, June. No, I'm sorry. Today's Friday, June the 14th. I'm so used to Cecil. So you're announcing the Thursday. You got switched around buddy. We did. And we're recording from our respective homes.

We had some scheduling snafus and personal things pop up. So we had to make some last minute adjustments to our recording schedules. So today is Friday, June the 14th. And Cecil, we've got to start off with a lead story, our lead story. Unfortunately, sadly, honestly, devastatingly from the New York Times. Let me read this to you guys before we comment on it. New York Times.

Charity founder embezzled millions and spent on lavish meals, US says. Prosecutors say the Keith Taylor, head of Modest Needs, crowd-sourced donations for the poor, but spent hundreds of thousands of dollars at high-end restaurants. The head of a charity called Modest Needs was charged Tuesday with embezzling $2.5 million to rent a Columbus Circle high-rise, have cosmetic surgery and dine regularly at some of Manhattan's most expensive restaurants. The charity executive, Keith Taylor, was accused in a federal complaint of siphoning money donated through the charity's crowdfunding platform into personal accounts, ducking more

than a million dollars in taxes and creating a fictitious board of directors populated with the names of unknowing acquaintances. Keith Taylor falsely claimed that donations to his charity would help working families with unexpected expenses that put them at the risk of homelessness. Damian Williams, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said in a statement, he added that instead the defendant had defrauded the charity's donors and unconscionably took money from the pockets of those most

in need. Mr. Taylor, 56, was released from custody Tuesday on a $250,000 personal recognizance bond. Brian Ketchum, Mr. Taylor's lawyer, said Tuesday evening that his client denies the charges and intends to clear his name. Modest Needs, which Mr. Taylor founded in 2002, claims to provide emergency grants to low-income workers who are at risk of slipping into poverty, according to its website. In 2009, Mr. Taylor told CNN he got the idea for Modest Needs after reflecting on a small

but significant act of kindness that helped him pay his rent after a costly car repair. Sometimes he said $10 or $20 can help people make ends meet. The organization's YouTube page and website are filled with urgent pleas. In appeals to would-be donors, people describe heart-wrenching circumstances that prompted them to seek help from strangers, like child care costs, medical debt, and looming evictions. Modest Needs' humble pitch to donors took off, as did Mr. Taylor's profile. During the six years, starting in 2016, the charity brought in about $9.9 million in donations, according to the complaint. But of that, only $5.9 million was spent on business costs,

distributed as grants, or paid to employees other than Mr. Taylor. Prosecutors say that Mr. Taylor took money meant to help the most needy and instead spent it on some of America's most expensive food. Between 2016 and May of this year, Mr. Taylor spent more than $320,000 on meals and drinks at Manhattan's restaurants, according to prosecutors. In five years, starting in 2017, the complaint said Mr. Taylor spent more than $101,000 at Jean Georges, a two-Michelin star restaurant in Midtown, where one of the people falsely listed as a board member worked as a bartender. The bartender told investigators that Mr. Taylor was a regular at the restaurant, sometimes visiting its bar twice a day.

Prices at the restaurant range from $32 for a plate of pasta to $188 for ribeye steak for two. Another favorite of Mr. Taylor's was Per Se, a Columbus Circle restaurant with three Michelin stars and a nine-course tasting menu that cost $390. Prosecutors say Mr. Taylor spent more than $68,000 there. At Masa, one of America's most acclaimed sushi restaurants, the complaint says Mr. Taylor spent $25,930 in the same period. The complaint also says Mr. Taylor spent more than $300,000 on rent at a luxury high-rise just minutes from the restaurants.

His voter registration lists his residence as an apartment on the 30th floor of a building overlooking Central Park. Monthly rents for a two-bedroom unit on the upper floors range between $6,000 and $7,000, according to the real estate listing site, Street Easy. Between 2020 and 2022, Mr. Taylor spent $63,000 on his own medical expenses, which included

cosmetic surgery, according to the complaint. Melanie Cochran of Nashville became a friend of Mr. Taylor's almost two decades ago, and they've stayed in touch over the years. His foundation even gave Ms. Cochran a few hundred dollars to cover the cost of her car payment, she said. She said she applied for the funds several months ago, and the money was sent directly to CarMax on her behalf. She said she was for the funds several months ago and the money was sent directly to CarMax on her behalf. She said she was shocked by the charges.

The Foundation has helped a lot of people, Ms. Cochran said. He's very smart and very kind and has a lot of empathy. Ms. Cochran said she last saw Mr. Taylor during a New York City visit about two years ago, during which they enjoyed an expensive dinner with plenty of drinks at DeLis and Saracen, a vegan restaurant in Greenwich Village. To her knowledge, the foundation was still operating when they spoke about a month ago, she said, although Mr. Taylor said it was going through a hard time, with many people requesting assistance and few donors giving. The new complaint isn't the first time Mr. Taylor's leadership has been called into question. In 2012, Charity Navigator, a website that rates nonprofits, issued a warning to prospective donors.

It described a $26,000 loan from the charity to Mr. Taylor's personal coffers that was itemized in the group's tax filings. Mr. Taylor sued Charity Navigator the following year, saying it had been retaliating against him after he questioned its methodology. He dropped the suit not long after. The warning has been removed from the site, and Modest Needs currently has a 4-star rating, the highest. In 2014, American Express sued Mr. Taylor over more than $31,000 in credit card debt.

The company did not pursue the case beyond the initial complaint, but three years later, it sued him again over an unpaid sum just under $30,000 on the same account. That dispute ended with the court ordering Mr. Taylor to pay his outstanding balance and additional legal costs. But Mr. Taylor's modest needs maintained a high profile and solid reputation. In 2020, it was included in a New York Times article that suggested ways to help strangers during the COVID-19 pandemic. In a CNN interview in 2002, Darren Kagan, a former anchor introduced Mr. Taylor as just an average guy with a really big heart, trying to help people in need. Come on, tell the truth. You're this high rolling, really rich guy who's spreading his money around, right?

Mr. Kagan asked Mr. Taylor teasing. I wish he started to respond before cutting himself off. Not hardly. I want to say before we start Tom, can I jump in here real quick? I just want to say, I want to first, if these allegations are true, I want to apologize on behalf of us for asking people to send money to modest needs. And I want to fully, myself only, take the blame for picking modest needs

as a charity. Modest needs was suggested through another group that was vetting charities that were secular charities. And it was another group that was, when we first started looking for places to donate, and I found them. I did what I thought was some due diligence. I looked them up, I looked at their ratings, I checked some things out. And when we were asked what charity to choose, it was my choice and my suggestion to go with Modest Needs because Modest Needs really touched something inside of me

that was very personal, right? I had a very difficult childhood when I was eight years old. The bank foreclosed on our house, kicked us out. The sheriff came and evicted us. We lost our car. We lost everything. And a little bit of money in those situations would have really changed a trajectory in my life.

And we didn't have it, right? There was a moment a while after that where someone did give us a car for a dollar. And it literally changed the trajectory of where we were going to a different place. My dad was able to get a job then, and it really changed the trajectory of our life. And it was a tiny bit of good that somebody did.

And I thought, when I saw this, I thought that's what Modest Needs is doing. And so I was the one who pushed for this charity. I was the one who suggested this charity. I was the one who looked into this charity. This is my fault. The guys on scathing and Tom, they followed my lead on this. So I want to make sure to mention this is my fault. This is something I did and I made a huge mistake. I didn't realize and I had no idea any of this was happening and how could I? And I am actually out if again, if these allegations are true, Tom and I are out tens of thousands of dollars that we donated to modest needs personally.

So I was also tricked, but I definitely want to say like, this is definitely something that I pushed for a lot and this is my fault. Well, and I, you know, I want to, I want to add something to that. We were all, we were all of us, including the New York times in 2020, deceived potentially. Right? So if these allegations are true, there was literally no way for any of us to know this. Not you, not me, not the New York Times when they vetted presumably this same charity

to suggest it as part of the COVID-19 way to help other people. It's still at four stars, by the way, on Charity Navigator. Still four stars on Charity Navigator today. Today, it's still four stars. You know, what I wanna say is, and Cecil and I talked about this, I saw this article today,

and it is now the only thing I can think about in the middle of my day trying to work and accomplish the things I have to do. And it's the only thing I can think about. You know, modest needs has been a point of real personal pride for me. Um, I had always wanted Cecil and I talked about from the beginning. We'd always wanted to do something with this show, uh, some way to give back. Charity was an important part of the show from before the show even had income. We actually did our first charity drive long before this, before Patreon existed, before the show itself had income, we were organizing and raising money for charity

because it's part of our values. And so when this vulgarity for charity thing took off and we were raising this money for modest needs, I used to sit with my wife and I'd be like, we raised this much money and the average gift is $700. And that means we helped 1,265 people or whatever the number was, you know, I would equate it down to the people.

And I had this real sense of like real pride in having been a part, a small part. You know, for me personally, reading this article, what I have been, you know, really having a hard time with is this kind of, this ruins my sense of pride in that accomplishment, you know, for us, for me personally, you know, I don't, I can't feel good about this anymore. Um, and I, and I, I just can't, I can't feel good about this anymore, but I do want to say this to the audience that if you gave money to modest needs, you should still feel good about it because your heart was in the right place. Right.

You, the audience, like I'm sad and I'm disappointed and I have, you know, a tremendous loss of faith here. But I think if you're in the audience and you donated that money and you gave money to modest needs, I just want to say like all we can ever do morally is the thing we think is right at the time we do it. Yeah, absolutely. Right? Like there's no way for us to have a different moral calculus than that, but I'm still so

proud of the audience because what I've seen is $740,000 of the heart and soul of very, very good people who tried to help. And I think did help, you know, it's not good. This is a terrible article, but on the facts of the article, 9.9 million over this course of time was raised. 5.9 did go to charity causes. So it's not like all of the money, even if these allegations are true, it's not like all of the money was siphoned off a way too much of it, but it sounds

like around 60% of it still went to good causes. So I do still want to say I have always maintained how proud I am of our audience. How proud I am of the kind nature, how proud I am of the generous spirit, how proud I am of the moral goodness of people that listen to our shows and reach into their wallets and reach into their hearts and try to help. It certainly changes the equation for me, but only in the sense that like, I don't feel good about having organized something that now has this black mark on it. But I still feel incredible pride in our audience and who they are as people and as moral characters.

Yeah, I agree wholeheartedly Tom. I think like the amount of good that they were willing to do is amazing. And if these allegations are true, even still, that money still did help people. And I want people to recognize that it wasn't like you gave your money and your money was wasted. If these allegations are true, then your money went to people that were in need. It also, it seems, fueled a sort of lavish, luxurious lifestyle, if the New York Times is correct, or if the allegations, like I say, are true, it fueled a lavish lifestyle

that we had no idea was happening. Whenever we talked to Keith, true, it fueled a lavish lifestyle that we had no idea was happening. Whenever we talked to Keith, he was very gracious, but he always seemed like he was looking out for the people who he was helping. And we are just as much a victim as every single member of the audience in the sense that we were taken in and we gave, you know, a ton of money to this cause over multiple years. There's multiple matches that we've done on our own. And so-

So many thousands of dollars, Cecil, tens of thousands. I don't think it's an understatement to say tens of thousands of dollars went to modest needs from our personal accounts. And it was because we really did trust in Nautis needs. So if these allegations are true, I'm, I'm devastated. I'm absolutely devastated. John, you're a time mix watch in a digital age.

All right. So this story comes from the daily beast. Trump demands Biden remove ad of him calling dead soldiers, suckers and losers. Man, it sucks living in a digital age where someone could just get what you said from somebody else and then you said certain things that can be, I don't know, sent back to other people. It's just crazy to live in a digital age, Tom. It's, you know, this is like the president of gaslighting and has been for the longest

time, right? He's, this guy has literally said things and then turned around and been like, I never said that. And you've got it on tape. Like you, you the lock them up thing. I never said lock them up. We've got like six instances on tape of you saying it. Yes, you did.

Yes, you did. I remember very clearly. I have a recollection of covering it on this show, Cecil, when he was referring to John McCain, right? It was the prisoner of war. And he said like, I prefer guys that I prefer my heroes to not be caught and captured or something along those lines. And I remember when he said that, how unbelievably appalling that was.

And I remember being like, oh, that's the death knell of his candidacy. I remember being like, America will not stand for that kind of bullshit. And we did, we stood for it. We fucking elected it. That was the 2015, 2016 run-up, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, yes. So absolutely unbelievable.

But like, there's a part of me that's like, I would love to be the editor putting together attack ads against Trump right now, because there is like a volume of material. But I also wonder like how much people can even be swayed by reality anymore. Does reality matter? I don't know that answer.

I don't think so. I don't think it does. I also think too, what's interesting about this is there is, you know, this particular, one of these particular statements is from someone else who said they heard him say it. Right? So one of these statements is from someone who said they heard him say it. So him denying it, sure. But like genuinely all the things you've said add up to us thinking you probably said this right

Yeah, look the the the likelihood of him having said this is in my mind Literally 100% because he has denigrated Soldiers in the past this is a guy who doesn't like if you you know if you're if you're on the record This is a guy who does it. Like if you, you know, if you're, if you're on the record, like dropping end bombs, and I've got six cases of you on the record dropping end bombs, and then like, you're trying to dispute the seventh, it's not even interesting whether it's true or not anymore.

Right? Because the sentiment is there. The sentiment is a hundred percent there. The thing is like, yeah, I know that some of this stuff is kind of hearsay, right? As I heard somebody, I heard he said this or whatever, but like the thing about John McCain, like that's, I think that's on video. Like I think that was like, Yeah, like some of the things he said is on video, right? So some of it is, is him saying it, but I think the very, the suckers and losers comment is not, it's a comment from someone else who heard him say it while they were touring.

And here's the other thing. Here's the other thing. He came out on his true social or whatever, and he said, I never said anything about World War I victims. And you're like, dude, you were in Normandy. World War I never came to fucking Normandy. To Normandy. World War II came to Normandy. You don't even know what fucking war you're talking about. I know, man. I know.

Remember the gaffe, the Revolutionary War gaffe about the airports? Yeah. Do you remember that? This guy doesn't know shit about the military. He doesn't know shit about history. Like, he's a genuinely awful, stupid human being. And if he gets reelected, it will be despite who he is. Yeah.

Right. It'll just be because there's a certain electorate of people that is just mad and wants to see the world burn. Well, man, and he's the guy holding the match. He can absolutely sway the military and he has for many years. I know there's a military people who aren't swayed, right? I know there's people in our audience that are in the military that are not swayed by anything Trump says. But I think broad strokes wise, I think the military largely

wants him rather than Biden. And so I think you're looking at a group of people who he would regularly insult just taking it. Being like, yeah, no problem, that's cool. Which, doesn't that feel crazy to you? It feels crazy to me, I don't know. That was a part of the sort of like, I don't know, this zeitgeist of America that was always unassailable. Right, it didn't matter who you were,

you had to be like, everybody's for the troops. Doesn't matter what the troops are doing at any given time. You had to be for the troops. If you're a politician, everybody's for the troops doesn't matter what the troops are doing at any given time You had to be for the troops if you're a politician you're for the troops If you get seated first on an airplane you better you better be for those people So it's fucking like and now I guess you could just say the most awful shit and the troops themselves would be like that tracks And I'm just like, what is happening anymore? Like this guy, you feel like you could be captured and he'd be like, yeah, like the guys that aren't captured.

Like what are you talking about? What is happening anymore? Every single time they come to him with one of these elaborate plans to get hostage, he's like, yeah, I don't like those people. He shouldn't have gotten captured in the first place. You do a kick ass job, you get a full presidential pardon. From NBC news, President Joe Biden says

he will not pardon his son, Hunter Biden, if he's convicted on gun related charges. So he is convicted. Hunter Biden was convicted and he was convicted because he did this, right? I mean, the case was as from everything that I read and listened to, it's an open and shut case, right? He lied on an application. You can't lie in an application to get a gun. He had a gun for 11 days. He lied. Like you lied on the application.

That's a felony. You can't do it. Now, typically from everything I've also read, these things are not prosecuted at this level. These are typically not, the government does not usually bring to bear these kind of resources for this kind of almost administrative thing. That being said, I don't care. Yeah, I don't care. He's fucking guilty. Whatever, man. You shouldn't do this shit. You did this shit. Don't fucking commit a felony if you don't want to be a felon. Like this is like, I don't know, man. Like this is, I don't feel bad for this. I don't know, man. Like this is, I don't feel bad for this. I don't feel anything.

Right. This is just, this is basically if someone were telling me about anyone else in the world who committed a crime, got prosecuted and went to jail for it, or had some sort of sentencing, if it doesn't matter who they were, if I heard it, I would say, oh, okay. And then that would be the end of the conversation.

You told me a thing. I heard it and now I just agree. Okay. That seems, I don't know. I normally hate the justice system for a lot of things it does, but in this case, it seems like it was pretty fair. And so I don't really care. I will say that right after he was prosecuted and right after he was,

he was, the verdict came back guilty, there was a back and forth that I saw via headlines that they said he hasn't ruled out that he would do this for his son. That's my, and I think those were coming from farther right media outlets because I just did a search right now and I cannot find a single one of them now.

I think he has come out after the fact and said, I will not pardon him. Yeah. I didn't see anything from the Biden camp at all that suggested in any way that he was going to pardon his son. If he was going to, he shouldn't, he shouldn't. He shouldn't commute. He shouldn't pardon. He shouldn't do anything. No, he should let it be. He should just fucking let it be. Give yourself a hug. Right. Send him a care package in prison.

Visit him, be supportive when he gets out. Be supportive. You know, but like, I think there's two things that are real important about this. The first is to remember that Hunter Biden is not and never was a government employee of any kind, was not involved in the federal government, did not have a job in the federal government. Was not like, it's not like fucking Don Trump Jr. and not like fucking the rest of these chucklefuck Trumps. Jared Kushner.

Right. You know, that fucking weird fucking uncanny Valley Jared Kushner. Yeah, that fucking guy and his weird daughter he wants to fuck that he hired. And like his ugly fucking weird inbred son, Donald Jr. Like it's not like any, Hunter Biden never worked for the government. He's a private citizen that did something stupid and then got prosecuted. It literally means nothing politically. It's no different than if your cousin Phil did the same fucking thing and got

prosecuted. There's no connection here to anything political except for that this prosecution probably would not have happened if this were not political. That's the only political thing about this. The other thing that is worth noting here is that there is no screaming banshees of Democrats saying, let them out, the system is rigged. The justice system is being weaponized. Like, no, the response from the left has been like, yeah, that tracks. Sounds good.

It's gonna be the same when they finally decide whether or not the Senator Mendez or whatever, if he's guilty. Robert Menendez, yeah. I'll be like, yeah, okay. Right. Hold on. La la la la la la la I'll be like, yeah, okay. Right. Hold on.

But they're... La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la want him to be prosecuted. Yeah. Make him make it. Let him go to jail. A hundred percent. Make an example out of that dude. Yeah. You know, we, we invest a lot of power in these politicians. Absolutely. Beg us for their job, right? They stand up on the goddamn campaign trail and they beg and they plead and they cajole and they promise in order for us to say, fine, fine,

fine, I'll fuck you on prom night. And then we fuck them on prom night and they turn around and do this bullshit, right? And when they turn around and do this bullshit and they betray us, we need to make an example. I actually have said for a long time that I do believe that if you are a civil servant and you commit a crime as a civil servant

and that crime is committed using your powers as a civil servant, that there should be a multiplier to your sentence. Yeah, it should be max plus. Yeah, it should be like, whatever, if I did the same thing, you know, as like a regular guy, there should be like a 2X multiplier, like some fucking candy crush shit.

Max plus, and you're not wrong because this is the exact opposite of what the Republicans are arguing for Trump, right? Exactly. They're arguing that he should be immune to these things. He should be able to do bad things while in office. And if he does those bad things while he's in office with the power of the presidency, we should just look the other way because there's no way he could act unless he was

doing something immoral or whatever. I don't even know what the fuck their argument is a dumb argument, but it should be the exact opposite. It should be, if you use your powers while you're in office and we found that you use your powers to enrich yourself or do something that is immoral and against the law and we catch you, we're going to fucking, we're going to throw so many fucking books at you. You're going to look like that hot dog girl. They're just going to be fucking smacking in the face.

It's gonna be, I'm fucking, I would, I agree with you a hundred percent time. Take it to these people and make them so they're terrified of doing the wrong thing while they're in office. Yeah, I actually- You want to talk deterrent. This is the deterrent. This is the deterrent. This is deterrent time. I feel like there should be a category of, and we've talked about this for other, you know, positions of great responsibility as well. You know, if you're a teacher, if you're a priest,

if you're a politician, if you're a cop, you know, if you want to take on these jobs and then you commit certain abuses of the power within those jobs, those should be a different crime. You know what I mean? It should be like, should be like fraud, like wire fraud for regular people. And there should be a different crime. You know what I mean? It should be like, should be like fraud, like wire fraud for regular people. And there should be a separate crime called wire fraud as a goddamn politician. And like whatever the punishment would be for like

Joe regular committing wire fraud. If you get charged with wire fraud as a goddamn politician, it's the hammer, man. It's the hammer. The same thing if you're like, you know, some teacher that's diddling kids or some priest that's fucking kids or man. It's the hammer. The same thing if you're like, you know, some teacher that's diddling kids, or some priest that's fucking kids, or some cop that's committing some horrible abuse of your authority and power. Like if you're gonna take on a position of trust and authority in a society,

there needs to be literally a different crime that multiplies. And we do this, Cecil. There are already this, there's a precedent for this, right? So certain crimes that are committed, if they are committed with a firearm, that firearm is an aggravating circumstance that increases the penalty, right?

So we already have precedent for saying, look, some shit's just more dangerous. And I really think that if you violate a social contract in one of these like trusted authority spaces, like it should be, it should be terrifying. I agree. You should be like biting your fucking nails. You feeling frisky tonight fellas? Yeah.

Let's go. Yeah. Okay. So here's this one, Cecil. And now we're just saying the crimes we're committing out loud. Now we're just naming them. Now we're just naming them. They're just looking across at each other like, no, you go. Now you go.

What is happening? Now you name a crime. From Salon, Donald Trump's admits he still has a gun despite felony convictions. It is a violation of federal law for someone convicted of felonies to possess a gun. Now he does say that the third gun was lawfully moved to Florida, but like if it's a violation of federal law, you can't lawfully move your gun because you can't gun. You can't gun, man. You can't gun, man. I mean, like you aren't allowed to gun anymore. That depends on how, on how much Florida is willing to let like federal

investigators see him, right? How much protection he gets in Florida from DeSantis. They're just running around with like, like murals in front of them all the time that there's like, like a road runner spot, like a, like the tunnel spot, you know, that there's one dude who stands near him to let him shove the gun down his pants when the cops come by. He's just wearing big drawers, big old clown drawers that are like, they have this, it looks like a hoop. He can even shoot it from across the room, like bank it in there. Oh, off the belly board. Trump double dribbles it between his legs and then

like comes up for a reverse slam into the guy's pants. He beats the generals every time. So I wonder about this, like maybe more, you know, smarter listeners can can email me, but like, if I had a gun and I thought I was going to be convicted of a felony, could I just give my wife that gun? Like as a present? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. Because here in Illinois, I believe I can just gift people guns. Like it's like there's no registry. Yeah.

So you can just give a gun to somebody. I don't know the answer to that question. I wonder if you can do that. Because then, like if I'm Trump, I would just be like, I don't have any guns. Like Melania's got a gun. Melania's got a lot of guns. I don't even know why you would say that. I know the combination of the safe and where the ammo is. Yeah, right Like it actually becomes kind of an interesting question too. Like if there's a gun in your house Whose gun is it? It's like I'll tell you a story real quick. I

Worked at this in this office job and it was this crazy office job run by complete numbskulls for the longest time. And it's late at night, I used to work late nights all the time, it's late at night, maybe 10, 30, 11 o'clock, something like that, and I'm in my office and I'm slogging away at whatever nonsense I was slogging away at. And I get this knock on my door.

And this guy's head peers in, he's one of the sales guys and he was also working, everybody's working late nights at the time. He goes, hey, is that your fire in the kitchen? What? And I jump up and I'm the manager, you know, I jump up and I run to the kitchen and the toaster oven was extremely very much on fire. Holy shit. Flames were licking out of the toaster oven out of like all the venting and everything blackening the cabinets. So I run over we've got a kitchen fire extinguisher. I grab the fire extinguisher and I put the fire out and I turned to him like Joe when there's a fire that's everybody's fire. Everybody's fire. You can't have

My fire or your fire. Yeah, I didn't claim it. That's our fire. You know, it's not Chicago I didn't put a cone out there and be like this is my fire Yeah, I feel like in a house Wow with a gun isn't it kind of like every like feel like it's everybody's gone cuz you everybody could just pick it up man It's everybody's gone. Yeah Like it's everybody's gun because everybody could just pick it up man. It's everybody's gun. Yeah Just say it out loud. Yeah, I lawfully moved that illegal firearm great God, I hope they fucking nail him on this. That's hilarious. Keep getting away with crimes, too It's crazy because you know that other people would in their conversation with their fucking parole officer that would be one of the first things they'd say,

is, hey, do you have any guns? You're not allowed to have guns anymore or something. You know what I mean? There would be something there, but from what I can gather, the parole conversation was done via Zoom. It was shortened. It was, you know, there was a lot of,

he didn't have to go through all the hoops that most people who are felons have to do Which I you know, there's part of me that understands, you know And he talks about what his job was job history was I mean how long you gonna spend on that but but I also recognize too that you know You committed a crime do the things that are that are required of you I mean your party even though I know it's not true your party purports to be the party of law and order. So maybe follow one single law once. Cecil, did you see all the hullabaloo about, um, that when they raided Mar-a-Lago for the

documents, that the, that the FBI warrant had like a, like a, like language in it that like essentially like you can shoot him if he resists or whatever. Like it had standard language on every search warrant that basically says that they're allowed to go in looking for this stuff, they're allowed to be armed and they're allowed to use deadly force if necessary to effectuate this or whatever it is. I mean it's the United States police force of some kind. They all use deadly force. So it's the standard boilerplate language is my point. I don't remember exactly what it said is a standard boilerplate language around,

Hey, the cops are armed and the FBI is armed when they show up. Right. Like they're not showing up with their pretty pleased jackets on. Yeah. And Trump got ahold of the language on the warrant recently. And he's been tweeting or truthing or whatever that they sent like death squads and then he was moments away from being a sad. They're so bad. They're bad man. We need better death squads Tom.

And the best part is not only was this boilerplate language that is literally in every search warrant that's used by the FBI when they're doing this stuff. It's just literally just always in there. But they specifically went to Mar-a-Lago when he wasn't there. So like the death squad was like, we're definitely not going to be there when you're there though. That's the death squad. And he is truthing out that Biden, that this was an assassination attempt. Wow. This was an assassination of a political rival attempt.

He's truthing this nonsense out. You need to fire the appointment guy for your death squad because that guy's not good. He's real bad at what he does. The guy who looks at everybody's calendar and makes sure everybody's going to be on the right call, he needs to go. everybody's calendar and make sure everybody's going to be on the right call. He needs to go. It's like, uh, it's like when they decided they wanted to like, uh, catch

Koresh, David Koresh, and instead of like getting them on one of his many, like runs when he would go jogging, they're like, sure, let's definitely wait till he's in his compound full of guns and get them then full of guns and children. Let's, let's definitely knock on the door at that time, not when he's like out jogging alone. Do I make myself clear? I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. Ow, fucking fascist. Stay out of Malibu, Lebowski! Stay out of Malibu, deadbeat! So we got a real problem at the courts. New York Times.

In secret recordings, Alito endorses nation of godliness. Roberts talks of pluralism. The two justices were surreptitiously recorded at a Supreme Court gala last week by a woman posing as a Catholic conservative. So, holy shit, here is, let me read some pieces of this article to give you guys some context. So there was a woman as noted, um, who was posing as a Catholic conservative. She was secretly recording. Justice Alito told this woman, this woman's name is Lauren Windsor.

He said one side or the other is going to win. There can be a way of working, a way of living together peacefully, but it's difficult, you know, because there are differences on fundamental things that really can't be compromised. So Ms. Windsor pressed Alito further and he said, well I think that the solution really is like winning the moral... no. She said, I think that the solution really is like winning the moral argument. Like people in this country who believe in God have got to keep fighting for that to return our country to a place of godliness. And Alito responded by saying, I agree with you.

I agree with you. This is supposed to be a neutral, non-political, non-partisan, neutral, non-political, non-partisan legal arbiter at the very highest level of our court. And this is a guy who is agreeing wholeheartedly with the statement that in this country, those who believe in God have got to keep fighting to return our country to a place of godliness. That's all you need to know now about what his agenda setting role will be in the courts. Yeah.

And, and I saw a little pushback from different places on this. And one of the pushbacks I saw was when you listen to it, and I did listen to this, I did listen to this audio. They say that you can maybe hear what Alito is doing is trying to get out of a conversation that he's sort of just saying something to be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, kind of not really super agreeing, but he sort of just sort of, you know, blah, blah, blah. And I want to throw that out the window

because she did the same thing to Roberts. And Roberts said that like, basically either said that what she was talking about wasn't something he really wanted to talk about, she was just wrong and that you know the country is actually a pluralist nation and that's just not the case. So what he did was uphold the precedent and not give anything away, kept his cards close to his vest like what you would expect from a Supreme Court justice instead of just opening up and saying oh Oh no, yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree.

Absolutely. Yeah. And, and even if he was just agreeing, like I want somebody who's more like Roberts in this situation than I want. Even if he was just trying to get out of a fucking conversation, I want somebody who actually knows how to do it instead of somebody who fucks up and just agrees with people. Well, let me, let me read what Robert said, and then I'll yes and that, because I think it is such a stark contrast.

So this same lady says, Ms. Windsor's assertion that the court had an obligation to lead the country on a more moral path. Would you want me to be in charge of putting the nation on a more moral path, the Chief Justice said? That's for the people we elect. That's not for the lawyers. Then Ms. Windsor pressed the chief justice about religion.

She said, I believe that the founders were godly, like we're Christians. And I think that we live in a Christian nation and that our Supreme Court should be guiding us in that path. And justice Roberts said, I don't know if that's true. I don't know that we live in a Christian nation. I know a lot of Jewish and Muslim friends who would say maybe not. And it's not our job to do that. I don't care if Alito feels like he doesn't want to have this conversation.

I've had a million conversations that I've been trying to get out of. And I do not agree wholeheartedly with principles that violate my personal ethic. I don't do that to get out of a conversation. I don't believe that he did that to get out of a conversation. I don't believe that he did that to get out of a conversation. I don't believe that you can contextualize, that you can pull that out of context, I should say,

with the flags that are being flown at his home, with the views of his most trusted and most loved person in his life, presumably, his wife, and the things that she is on record as saying, which we'll talk about as well. I don't think with, with his decisions on the court and his reasoning in those decisions, which is spurious at best and obviously agendized. Sure. I don't think that it is even remotely reasonable to say, Oh, well, this one thing, which is literally in keeping with all of his actions, his family's actions, and his decisions

is somehow the one thing that we should like give a fucking side eye to. That's a crazy thing to say. I agree. I agree. And I also think too, this article makes a connection between what this reporter did with Secret Tape and Project Veritas. Now Project Veritas, if you don't remember, this is the group that surreptitiously recorded the Planned Parenthood group and then they edited that footage and handed that back and during that whole thing, there was a bunch of people who sort of went off on Planned Parenthood saying, oh, they're, you know, they're trying to sell embryos.

They're trying to make money off of this stuff. They're, you know, they're killing little kids. It's just awful stuff that they were saying, right? Awful, untrue stuff. And it wasn't based really on what was said, but the way the thing was selectively edited, it made it seem like that there might be true. But here's the thing, here's I think the very big difference

between these two things. The Planned Parenthood is funded through as a nonprofit. So there's a board, there's a bunch of people who pay attention to what's going on. They're also funded partially by the government. So the government also gives them money. They get grants and things from the government. So the government also gives them money. They get grants and things from the government.

So there's, there's some checks and balances. There's something there that can be like, Oh, you know, we're making sure that everything's going okay and you know, there's discipline and we'll pull their funding if they don't report in a certain way, et cetera, et cetera. But fucking there's nothing, there's literally nothing that is in charge of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has, they can do anything they want and there is nothing above them that can even remotely reprimand them in any way. There's nothing. And the only way you're going to get this kind of information ever is through this method. And that's the only way that we, the people can keep an eye on them and keep

track of what they're saying. They should always presume no matter what in their entire life that they're being recorded. And if they did, maybe they would do a better fucking job. Yeah. I want to yes, and that I've got a couple of things like Here's a big difference between this and the project Veritas project Veritas was only ever available in an edited format That's what project Veritas put out there the entire audio here is completely available entirely unedited You can just listen to the entire audio without edits

That's a massive difference. That's the difference between somebody offering the entire audio without edits. That's a massive difference. That's the difference between somebody offering the entire audio with full context and somebody selectively editing something to skew a vision to sell something that didn't fucking happen. If you try to compare those as somehow being one-to-one because they use the same technique, they delivered an entirely different product. It's not a fair comparison. I also will say this, I don't believe that public officials should attend any event other than a personal social event that is not entirely transparent to the people.

Yeah. They should not, they're literally nothing. They should not attend a fundraiser. They can go to family Christmas, Thanksgiving, a holiday or birthday party. That stuff should not be public. But literally anything that they do where they attend as a justice,

meaning the reason they got that invitation is because they were a fucking Supreme Court justice. If the reason you attended is because you were a Supreme Court justice, that's on my dime, bitch. Yeah, man. I own that. I have full transparency to that. You don't get to go to a gala and have privacy. You don't get to have that. And if you don't like that, then what you should do is not be a Supreme Court justice. Literally nobody asked you. Or just stay in your office and make decisions. Yeah, that's it. Don't ever go to one.

Because here's the thing, because more importantly, here's the thing. One of the guys who you said that he helped convince Alito on the Dobbs decision said he did so through this very particular gala, that this was one of the ways in which he interacted with the Supreme Court justice. And he claims that he was able to bend the ear and maybe shift the opinion of a Supreme Court justice because he had access to him. So fuck you. No, absolutely not.

You should 100% presume that there's fucking mics hanging from the ceiling. Yeah, I think, I honestly think that we should require that if you are going to attend because you are a Supreme Court justice, it's a work event. All work events should be transferred. We should mic it. Like the fucking, like we should, the taxpayer should mic it. Yeah, we should mic it. It's like a fucking body cam for a cop. Some journalist shouldn't have to do it. Yeah. It's like a cop body cam. And if. Some journalist shouldn't have to do it.

Yeah. It's like a cop body cam. And if you don't like that, then don't, like you said, don't attend the event. Don't go. Doesn't mean you can't go to your fucking, you know, niece's bat mitzvah. Go to the fucking bat mitzvah. That's fine. That's not something you got invited to because you were a Supreme Court justice.

But if the reason you were invited is because you were a Supreme Court justice, that's on my dime. Hey Gilmore. You suck, you suck. You duck ass. Why don't you shut the hell up? So let's talk about Alito's wife from the New Republic. Alito's wife caught on tape spewing venom at everyone.

This is Martha Ann Alito, who sounds Cecil like one of the worst people ever. Oh, if you hear this, she is 100% that crazy, older lady who just wants to speak to the manager. Man, and also her ideas around what a feminazi even is or what a feminist is are very, very confusing. Let me go ahead and read some of this from the secret recording. Again, this is from the same journalist who made this, the recording we just discussed.

Windsor first approached Martha Anne, posing as a Christian conservative, to express her sympathy over everything that you're going through, referring to the highly publicized flag hanging. It's okay, if they come back to me, I'll get them, Alito said cheerfully. I'm gonna be liberated and I'm gonna get them. What do you back to me, I'll get them, Alito said cheerfully. I'm going to be liberated and I'm going to get them.

What do you mean by they? Windsor asked. There's a five-year defamation statute of limitations, Alito said, letting out a laugh. I don't know what you mean by they. Like, get them. Windsor pressed. The media, Alito said, going on to complain about her coverage in the Washington Post Style section from two decades ago. While maintaining her cheerful tone, Alito also took aim at any woman who suggested her husband would have prevented her from hanging an appeal to heaven flag, a symbol revived by a Christian nationalist sect and favored by January 6th insurrectionists at her vacation home. She says, quote, the other thing the feminazis believe is that he should control me. So they'll go to hell. He never controls me.

I just want to pause there and be like, if you're a hardcore feminist, you don't believe that your husband controls women. Yeah. I think she's responding to the people who said, you know, why did Alito let his wife do that? And I think what she's missing is she's thinking that it's a control thing rather than just a respect for your husband's position,

because it's a very delicate position and means a lot to the country. And I think she's misunderstanding why people are saying, you should, you know, your husband maybe should have said something to you, because one, we thought maybe he had some sort of inkling of a moral responsibility for something like this. And two, we also thought that maybe you

respected your husband enough not to try to ruin his fucking life at work. Yeah, I know, that's exactly right. That is exactly right. It's, again, this is another circumstance where it's like, if you decide to take on this extremely high profile role as a public servant, your whole family has to get on board. Your whole family doesn't wanna get on board.

Don't accept the job. I literally know, I can't imagine sympathy on this at all. And then she says, when Windsor asked what someone who has the same flag should do, Alito responded simply, don't get angry, get even. There was one group that Alito seemed to admire. It's not exactly one that people are often praising. Look at me, look at me. I'm German, from Germany. My heritage is German. You come after me, I'm going to give it back to you. And there will be a way. It doesn't have to be now, but there will be a way. They will know. Don't worry about that, she said. Jesus Christ said vindictive shitty lady. She sounds like the worst. She says, you know what I want

I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the pride flag for the next month And he's like, oh, please don't put up a flag and I said I won't do it because I'm deferring to you But when you are free of this nonsense, I guess being a civil servant, which is a lifetime appointment I'm putting it up and I'm going to send them a message every day. Maybe every week I'll be changing flags. They'll be all kinds. She said, fantasizing about the day when she could finally antagonize her neighbors who support the LGBTQ plus community.

God, she sounds so bad. She sounds like such a bad person. And also I saw a post this week that was like you're not German You're from Kentucky lady like your fucking family has German roots from way back in the day, but you're from Kentucky get the fuck out of here This is like it's I actually like I kind of am always annoyed by that. It's like, oh, I'm Irish Okay, look, I'm Irish in the sense that my family came over in like 1782 or something I'm not a fucking Irish. I'm from Chicago

Yeah, I'm Italian that my fucking grandfather came over on a boat. Yeah, my dad was American. I'm American I was born an American the something Italian shit. I didn't even say like Mouth sounds in general make you sound stupid. This story is from the Hill. Colorado GOP calls for burning of pride flags. Colorado's Republican Party this week called for LGBTQ pride flags to be burned, describing LGBTQ Americans as godless groomers in a fundraising email and multiple social media posts burn all the hashtag pride flags this month the state GOP wrote Monday on the social platform

X fucking yikes earlier Monday an email sent by the party with the subject line God hates pride perpetuated the false claim that LGBTQ people are grooming children to abuse them quote they also did one that said God hates flags, which is a, which is a play off of what fucking the Westboro Baptist Church used to do. Oh, for real. Yeah. So it's God hates flags. Oh my God. So they, they did that instead. They thought, Oh, this is going to be, you know, we're, we're so they're linking their party to the Westboro Baptist Church, one of the most hated religious organizations in the country. Um, and was, and has been for a decade, right? At least a decade, they've been one of the hatest, most heinous, hated religious organizations in the country. They send, they, they use groomer language, like,

I would say proudly. And so- Oh, very proudly, yeah. You know, so these people are gross and disgusting, and this isn't a small organization. This is the Republican Party of Colorado. This is one of the states in our union. This is their fucking spokesperson

for their fucking group, man. Absolutely. These people, and there's another story here about a person who's a log cabin Republican who's upset that they got this message. They were the one who was targeted with this message. God hates flags and groomers. And he went out and said, that's awful.

You shouldn't do that. And people just fucking flamed him. They thought, oh, fuck you. You shouldn't belong to this party. So these people who have been voting them in, they've alienated some of the people who even voted them in because they thought it couldn't happen to them. Well, guess what? It can happen to you if you support people who oppress people like you. Thank you. It's like I read that other article where the guy seemed like

shocked to learn what his fucking party stands for. Like where have you been? This isn't new. This is like, I don't, doesn't that feel like lying? Doesn't it feel like you're, you're, you're like, you can't believe this, right? You can't possibly believe this because they have been so vocal for so long. The Republican party has been, I mean, this is not like a subtle thing.

It's not a new thing. They didn't shift their stance here. They didn't suddenly take a more, you know, um, uh, aggravating opinion on this topic. The Republican party has always stood, always stood for bigotry. They're proud of their bigotry. Bigotry is a, literally has been a tenant. It's built into their party platform. So like when this guy was like,

oh, and then I saw this email and now I don't feel, I feel like this is divisive. And you're like, yeah, that's what wedge issues are, man. Wedge issues are literally intended to drive a, now hear me out on this, wedge. It's a whole thing. It's built into the goddamn term, you liar. I have no sympathy for this shit.

I have no sympathy for that. Like I'm a Republican, but you know, I think there's room. There's no room. There's no fucking room. There is no room. You can't be like, hey, you know, the Ku Klux Klan is a little misunderstood because their fucking pancake breakfasts have great pancakes They're fucking racists, man. Yeah, like that's how this works

It's built into the it's built into like their actual documents Like you can't read project 2025 and walk away with a different conclusion You can't read, you know They're their policy and platform positions state after state after state after state after state. You can't read their national platform when they bothered to write one. You can't look at the commercials they run, the candidates that they run,

and be like, suddenly clutching your goddamn pearls. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And the other people I wanna talk to, the gay people are clearly a target for this, right? They don't like gay and trans people. They want to burn your flag. They think they think They hate you, right? They call you a groomer. They think that you're a pedophile But I want to say this to the people who you know might be on the fence with the Republicans that also are atheists They're using God as a club, right? They're using God as a weapon.

They don't like you either, man. They don't fucking like you at all. They don't want you as part of their party. So all that leopards ate their face shit that this dude is doing, you will do too. Mark my fucking words. They don't fucking like you. They don't want you.

They don't want you there. What they wanna do is they to ram that shit down your throat and they want to ram that shit down every American's throat. They want this country to be straight. They want this country to be cis and they want this country to be godly. And they will do whatever they can to make sure that happens. And if you ride their train because you like lower taxes, even though that's a fucking lie,

if you ride their train because of that, guess what? They're phoning you off at the first fucking stop, man. Exactly right. That is fucking exactly right. This is, this like faux outrage bullshit is disingenuous. It makes no sense. They, they, they have known, we have known what this snake was. If you weren't willing to pick it up to get fucking cheaper taxes or whatever it is that you thought you were going to get out of it, whatever deal with the devil you thought you were willing to pick it up to get fucking cheaper taxes or whatever it is that you thought

you were going to get out of it, whatever deal with the devil you thought you were going to make at the fucking crossroads and now you feel fucking betrayed, like get the fuck out of here. That's dumb. That is a dumb, stupid, dumb idea. From Yahoo.com phony news portalsS. newspaper sites, according to researchers. Partisan websites masquerading as media outlets now outnumber American newspaper sites,

according to a research group that tracks misinformation. So we've talked a lot about misinformation. We've talked a lot about this particular tactic of creating websites that look like they are from, you know, Putnam County, Illinois, the Putnam County Bee, you know, that kind of stuff. And like what they, what bad actors, often foreign actors, but sometimes local partisan actors,

both left and right wing, have come to understand is that there are many, many, many, many cities and counties that do not have a public online news presence. And they are ripe for the picking in terms of like domain name searching, domain name purchasing. And then they just create a news site that looks local. You know, you could just put a weather widget on there.

You could put some fucking classified widgets in there, that kind of bullshit. And they spoof the look, the feel, the skin of local news as a way to push out hyper-partisan misinformation. Yeah, and they do, like Tom, man, you called this so early. You said AI is gonna make this easy. AI writing for it, AI writing for these particular outlets. And you were right. I mean, AI is making it easier and easier and easier

for you to find fake news sites on there, like Tom said, left or right. And these are very often foreign actors trying to stir up stuff between different parties in the United States. So I'm going to say right now, try to get your news whenever you can from a trusted source. And if we say something on here, check the link. And if you think something we posted wasn't true or something you saw wasn't, we welcome

all corrections. We 100% want as many corrections as possible and we want to make sure that everything we say is as true as possible. But I also want to caution you, don't listen to us. Don't get your news from podcasts. Get your news from trusted news sources, places that are vetted that you've gone to for years. These are institutional journalistic organizations. And then get your news from those places and then get your, you know, maybe it'll inform your opinion if you listen to podcasts like ours or other podcasts like us, where you can then maybe get some analysis of those stories, but don't take the facts for granted. Yeah. And, you know, if you want, and I'm only half kidding. I'm not kidding at all if you want our

Real advice to on how to find in vet news sources We do happen to have a book about this the grand unified theory of bullshit Yeah, does touch on and I think pretty great detail Literally how to do this but another thing that that often advise people, especially young people to look for is look for who's advertising. When you open up a website, what are the ads on that website? What is the most obvious revenue stream when that website pops up? Right. When you want, when you go to the New York Times, the only thing on there is the New York Times.

If you're not a subscriber, it's like, it's like basically says, hey man, you wanna read this? You can subscribe. There's a revenue model, it makes sense. It makes sense, it's right there. If you open up a lot of this garbage news, there is no discernible revenue model.

Or if there are ads, there's ads for, you know, fucking supplements and boner pills and fucking like colloidal silver and other hucksterisms. So if hucksters advertise on huckster sites, Nike vets, right? Yeah. If you see like, and I'm just using them as an example, don't send me your email about how you hate Nike, I get it. But like what I'm saying is like big corporations vet where they put their money. saying is like big corporations vet where they put their money.

So if big corporations are on your site that you're looking at, there is a higher, not perfect, but a higher likelihood that that site itself has been vetted in some way as having some legitimacy as a site that doesn't necessarily make the news on it good, but at least it will tell you that the site itself has been corporately vetted by partners that have a monetary interest in it not being, you know, Chinese propaganda bullshit. Oh my God. I am never going to financially recover from this. All right, see, so this story comes from the AP.

This is baby steps toward our goal, our dream, our one wish and desire to get the Alex Jones info wars desk, Alex Jones, personal assets to be sold to pay $1.5 billion. Sandy Hook that company bankruptcy is dismissed. Houston, a federal judge on Friday ordered the liquidation of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones's personal assets but dismissed his company's separate bankruptcy case leaving the immediate future of his Infowars media platform uncertain as he owes 1.5 billion dollars for his false claims that the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. Judge Christopher Lopez approved converting Jones' proposed personal

bankruptcy reorganization into a liquidation. But Lopez threw out the case of his company, Austin, Texas-based Free Speech Systems, after failed attempts by Jones to reach an agreement with Sandy Hook families on his proposals to reorganize and keep operating the company while paying them millions of dollars. It was not immediately clear what will happen in the coming weeks to Free Speech Systems, Infowars parent company, which Alex Jones built into a multi-million dollar moneymaker over the past 25 years by selling dietary supplements and other products. But both Jones and lawyers for the Sandy Hook family said they expect Infowars to cease

operating at some point because of the huge debt. A trustee appointed Friday in Jones' personal bankruptcy case to oversee the liquidation now has control over his assets, including Infowars, according to lawyers. Call me, trustee. Call me on the phone, baby. We'll make a deal about that desk. We'll make a deal. I will make it worth your while.

I want to attend the bidding wars. That is what I want. Bidding wars for info wars, Cecil. Man, and do you think what's going to happen though, is once this company's gone, he just starts like knowledge fight or something. I read an article that basically- Info wars is, I can't be knowledge-fied because that's trademarked, but you can go with the other, you know, whatever thesaurus flipped to information, Infowars part two, and see what you say. Electric Boogaloo like version of Infowars. Infowars electric Boogaloo.

He's breaking, he's like, I read an article, I think in the times that basically said something to the effect of, um, this follows him in perpetuity forever. So whatever he starts is immediately leaned. So he can never escape this. He will never be able to escape this. To those poor people who lost their children in a mass shooting because the United States can't fight its ass with two hands when it comes to guns. The things he did to them by continuing to hound

that group of people to continue to press this conspiracy theory that none of those children died, that they were crisis actors and false flags and whatever else Alex Jones pushed out into the world. And then he weaponized his audience to go after them. And then his audience through his, you know, through his urging went after this group of people. All the bad things that happen to Alex Jones right now,

do not for one second, for one second think, Oh man, that might be too much. It's not, it's not too much. No, and I want to be clear. I'm so happy that this follows him in perpetuity forever, that there's literally nothing he can do and no way he can ever recover because the families that lost their children that were victimized will never recover. They can never recover. He has hurt people who were already at a level of hurting

that is incomprehensibly awful. And so, I am glad that there is no possible recourse for him to just flip start a new shell company and get rich again. I am to understand from the article I read that he'll never escape financial destitution for the rest of his life. Once this process really begins in earnest, that he will be essentially bankrupt forever, no matter what.

And nothing in the world could make me happier than that. Like it is, it's terrific. Sounds sad. Yeah. Sounds great. Anyway, I want the desk. Yeah. I sell it off.

Go walk off into the, into the distance. The only thing I can add to this, Tom, is that my great hope is that this convinces other people, this is the deterrent that convinces other bad actors that you can add to this, Tom, is that my great hope is that this convinces other people, this is the deterrent that convinces other bad actors that you can't do this shit, that this is bad, that misinformation is bad, that lying is bad, and when you get caught, you get fucked. ["The Good, The Bad, The Good"]

All right, that's gonna wrap it up for this week. You can catch us on a live stream, fingers crossed, watch for the social media stuff, but we might be doing a short live stream this upcoming Thursday. So watch for social media. We'll let people know if it's actually happening, but YouTube and Twitch will be the place you want to go for that. I think Facebook as well. And you can catch us live 9 p.m. Central on Thursday,

this upcoming Thursday. But that is going to wrap it up for this week. This episode will come out on my 24th anniversary. So I want to wish my beautiful wife, Sarah, a happy 24th anniversary. I love you, Sarah. And let's do 24 more. Hopefully I can make it.

I don't know if I can, but I'm going to try.. We're gonna do our best, but we're gonna leave you like we always do with the Skeptics Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, watered, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night info, docutainment. 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, Nuts, Shaman Healers, Evangelists, Conspiracy, Double-Speak, Stigmata, The opinions and information provided on this podcast are intended for entertainment purposes only. All opinions are solely that of Glory Hole Studios LLC. Cognitive dissonance makes no representations as to accuracy, completeness, currentness, suitability, or validity of any information and will not be liable for any errors, damages, or butthurt arising from consumption. All information is provided on an as-is

basis. No refunds. Produced in association with the local dairy council and viewers like you. Thanks for watching!