Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 815: Meta Ends Fact Checking, DOGE Targets Education

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

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Ontario. 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 mad. Today is Thursday, January the 9th. And Cecil LA is on fire today.

Did you have that in your bingo card? Wow, yeah, it was really devastating out there. It's terrible. Those winds, those winds just ripped through and like so many different places got burned out there. It was really just a drone footage was awful to look at. Not even remotely contained. Like I was reading a thing today.

I've got a good friend of mine out in California and when this whole thing started, I reached out to him. Now he's in the Inland Empire, so he's pretty far from LA, but they get a lot of fires where he's at. And he sent me like a thing of like the newscaster. Dude, 100 mile an hour winds in parts of 80 mile an hour winds like up to 100 mile an hour winds, like up to 100 mile an hour gusts. That's a fucking, that's a hurricane.

That's hurricane force winds. 74 miles an hour is a force one hurricane. Yeah. Is a category one, not force one, category one hurricane. That's crazy, it's devastating out there. Wow, that's insane. It's been really bad, yeah. There was a really weird piece of tape that I heard

Where somebody is like being interviewed as the newscasters interviewing somebody and the guys like hey You know if you have to abandon your car in the street leave your keys in the car So that fire was so so that so that myself and others like me and fire rescue We can move your car out of the way if necessary and the guys like that. Thank you so much And who am I speaking with? He's like, Steve Guttenberg, the actor. There's just like, it's such a Hollywood LA thing. Like he's just out there like doing some work

and trying to help and like be a good community member. And like, it's just a moment where like he didn't, the newscaster didn't recognize him and just like, yeah, thanks, that's great. You know, and who are you? And he's like, my name is Steve Guttenberg. Like, he's like, the actor? And he's like, yeah, thanks, that's great. And then who are you? And he's like, my name is Steve Guttenberg. Like, he's like the actor? And he's like, yeah, yeah, it's me.

So I thought it was really funny actually, like a weird little piece of California Hollywood. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's like a person who's like, just walking down the street and you see like a guy who was in Three Men and a Baby. Yeah, I know. What the hell?

I also wanna mention too, this isn't in the notes, but about an hour ago the Supreme Court denied Trump. They were initially going to try to see if they could stay that the 34 felony accounts tomorrow, the 34 felony accounts tomorrow. This is releasing, so this already have happened, but we're recording on Thursday night. So they are going to sentence him for these 34 accounts. And he, he tried to go to the Supreme court to see if he could stop the sentencing. And they came back with a five, four decision that he is going to continue being sentenced. Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberal justices, but Gorsuch, Alito, Kavanaugh, and Thomas all thought

that Trump shouldn't be charged in this, and they all voted for it, but they were outvoted in this particular case, so we'll see what happens tomorrow, but by the time this releases, we'll have known what Judge Marchand does on Friday morning. Yeah, you know, the thing is like, I'm certain that it's gonna be a symbolic sentence.

Yeah, I'm sure. So there's no way. They said they're not, they said they're not. So what are they gonna do? Like he's the fucking president, president-elect of the United States. He's gonna be sentenced on January 10th and like 10 days later, he's gonna be fucking sworn in.

Yeah, he's gonna be the president. So this is such a bizarre world that we've built for ourselves. It's a bizarre world, Cecil, that we have constructed for ourselves to live in. And I'm saying that on purpose, because this is not a world we find ourselves in. You know what I mean?

We find ourselves in a world like in LA, right? We find yourself in that mess because nobody raked LA to get all the leaves out. Nobody's about to rake it. That's why forest fires happen. That's clearly why LA caught on fire. You gotta rake it. So Finnish people know how to rake forests. They know how to rake it. Yeah. That's why forest fires happen. That's clearly why LA caught on fire. You gotta rake it. So.

Finnish people know how to rake forests. They know how to rake the forest. Like you gotta get in there with like one of those big yard rakes and rake out LA and it wouldn't have caught on fire. I mean, duh, everybody fucking. But like, this is a situation that we've created for ourselves.

We elected a felon. Yeah. We didn't elect a guy who was maybe a felon. He'd already been adjudicated a felon. By the time we elected him, we elected a felon. This is the thing we did. We all get to look around and say, this is the world we built together.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's watch it happen. Yeah. If caring is a crime and trying is a felony, I guess we're all gonna plead guilty. How's her, my honey is right. All right, let's start with this story. This is from theindependent.co.uk.

Trump is reportedly complaining about Elon in private and hates President Musk jokes. So everybody is aware that Elon Musk has been a, a stage four clinger, a hanger on within the Trump administration. Hey, Tom, he's the first buddy. Okay. That's what he is. Do you remember those My Buddy dolls?

Yeah, I know. That's what I'm saying. He's like a Super PAC fuck doll. Who in the right mind would want that as a fuck doll? God, what dick wiltingly fucking... What do you have to get wrong in your life for that to be your fuck doll? I feel like if you get that, you get, what's crazy is this. Elon is staying in like a $2,000 a day little cottage on Mar-a-Lago. And they say in this report that one, Trump hates president Musk.

He hates the idea of someone calling someone president Musk. So whatever you do, never stop saying President Musk. Always say President Musk because it clearly upsets him and it makes him mad. And if it draws, if it, if it makes a rift between these two, all the better for the rest of the United States. So you know, this is, this is, this is like preventative medicine for the United States. This is a vitamin we all have to take. Just everybody remembers to say President Musk all the time.

But one thing is, is that he's now currently in sort of this inner circle and he's pushing himself in Trump's plans and Trump's getting a little annoyed with him, but he can't be too annoyed with him because he pretty much helped him win the election and he spent a shit ton of money. So Trump is torn. He doesn't want to just throw him out, but he also definitely doesn't want him around. And they're saying in this that he probably will not have as much access once Trump heads to the White House.

He won't have as much access unless he starts renting out the garden shed for $2,000. I was thinking about this. Like one thing that's really going to be interesting is that we might actually have a moment, not a full moment of reckoning, but it may be a moment of sort of very public realization of exactly what it means to have an oligarch. Yeah. of exactly what it means to have an oligarch. Yeah. What I mean by that is,

Musk is incredibly powerful. He's not like Steve Bannon. He's not like any of these guys. No. So there's a whole bunch of people in Trump's circle that when Trump got tired of him or he didn't want to deal with him anymore, they pissed him off

or they disagreed with him about something, he could just throw him away. And then they could go cry on CNN or go, you know, do something else, but it didn't really matter. They didn't really have any, they didn't really have any power. Musk is arguably as powerful in many ways as Trump is.

He's a massive oligarch. He is incredibly powerful. He's not just influential. He's got real, actionable, wieldable power. He is like, he owns a company that is the largest contractor for the Department of Defense. He could turn on or turn off Starlink over Ukraine at his personal whim. He owns the largest bullhorn in the world. He owns it.

He can decide who's on it and who's off of it. He's incredibly, but he's the richest man on the planet. This is gonna be interesting because no matter how mad Trump gets, I don't think he can jettison him. Yeah. I really don't think he can. I think he can want to.

I think he can get real fucking mad about it. But this is a moment where we get to look and say, this is what an oligarchy really means, is that this guy, he makes the rules. You don't make the rules. Musk makes the rules, because you let him. That's why, because you allowed for this to happen because you open that door. As soon as you open that door, he's like a fucking vampire.

You invited him in and that's it. Look at him. He actually looks like a vampire and not one of the cute sparkly ones. Yeah. He's just biting like a prescription bottle and sucking all the catamine out of it. You know, I, I recognize that what you say probably is true, although I am remembering from Trump's first term and, and it could be that I am not sure of Musk's power level at that point, but he did not have a relationship with Elon Musk and he posted things that made

Musk look like an asshole. Said he would bag or whatever. Now I am not sure what Musk's power level was at that time with the government, right? Because we know now that Musk is one of those people who puts our satellites in the in the sky. These technologies that his companies have created are very valuable to the United States and they don't want to ruin those relationships. So I don't know how powerful he was back then, but Trump sure didn't give a fuck about him six years ago, I would say. Yeah.

I think that Elon Musk's ability to, so let's say, let's say Trump pisses. Here's what I want to see, cause this will make it interesting. And this is good for sanity. And this is what may actually happen. Trump may just get tired of Musk and jettison him and then talk shit about him the way he talks shit about everybody. But like, unlike everybody else, Musk can then flip on Trump and go to Twitter, kick off a bunch of people.

He actually can do shit he couldn't do back then. Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. And the damage he can do is pretty real. Maybe you're right. Maybe that's something Trump recognizes. Yeah, I think it's a huge, like the power of that megaphone and the power of like Starlink and the power of that megaphone and the power of like Starlink and the power.

And also like I was just Googling out of curiosity. In 2015, Elon Musk's net worth was not even publicly known. It has grown over that 10 years, that 10 year period. It's grown over 10 fold. So he's massively over 10 fold. So he's massively more economically powerful. Yeah. And that could be too, that could be the thing that, you know, and we know for sure that during the pandemic was when he gained much of his wealth,

almost doubled his wealth. So it's like, yeah. So you're right. Maybe that's what you're seeing too, is that there's a level of wealth that he never had before that is enticing and is sort of mollifying to Trump, right? It's the thing that's making him so he's not as acerbic as he could be to Elon Musk, which he is to some people,

you know, and degrading, because people say he degrades them and he's mean and he's shitty, and maybe he just doesn't have, he's not the one in the room who's in charge. Yeah. I, this is, this is going to be interesting. And again, I really think this is the problem with oligarchs, right? Is that the people we elect oftentimes cannot be more powerful than the oligarchy.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I, well, there's one line from this article though, where they say there can't be two tigers on a mountain top. And I thought there was a no less apt metaphor than those two guys, a being tigers or B being on a mountain. Come on, Sergeant. It's not your job to investigate this incident, is it? This next story comes from thehill.com.

Mike Johnson says House Republicans will investigate the January 6th committee. House Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday that House Republicans will investigate the disbanded House Select Committee that investigated the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol. Johnson hit President Biden in a post on the social platform X for awarding the Presidential Citizens Medal to former Representative Liz Cheney and Representative Bernie Thompson, both of whom were January 6th committee members. Responding to another post in the New York Post about Cheney and Thompson, the Louisiana Republican said the president is foolishly giving an award to members of Congress who

intentionally and repeatedly lied to the American people. This is fucked up. This is so crazy fucked up. It's chilling. I will say that like, you know, this, this could be the start of several types of tribunal type things that will happen in the United States as we move forward into a Trump presidency.

This could be just the start of people being tried for crimes that we are appalled by and have never seen before. The thing is, is that they think the people on the other side think that this already happened to Trump, right? They think that all the charges against Trump were all manufactured and that this already happened to Trump, right? They think that all the charges against Trump were all manufactured and that this particular thing was a vehicle to manufacture it. So what they're gonna do is they're gonna now

try these people, maybe try Cheney as a criminal. I don't know what you get. I mean, I have a feeling like, you know, just like they tried to try Hunter Biden and there was nothing there. My hope is that what it is is just smoke like a big show. Like it's just like, hey everybody, we're doing this big thing and nothing really happens from it.

That's my hope that, you know, that they try to try her and nothing happens. But if they do wind up finding things, then you're opening a box to basically say, well, because we wanted retaliatory retaliatory prosecution against people who went after Trump when he did like tried to have a fucking insurrection. Now you're opening the box to the next time someone's going to do it to you. And you're going to still like, because if, if let's just say for argument's sake in four years they lose the house to Senate and the presidency. And somebody comes in and is like, you guys fucking tried and put Liz Cheney behind bars. We're going to try you for that injustice.

Now you've started a rubber band back and forth of trying people for injustices when your side wins. Like you've, look at what you've opened up. Yeah. Yeah, and the thing is too, that the speech or debate clause of the United States constitution protects members of Congress from being questioned for what they say during legislative activity. So these people should be protected from, from, from this sort of like, you know, I mean,

honestly, this, this kind of fucking like nonsense. The right has it all wrong. The January 6th committee was mostly, it was made up, the Republicans decided not to sit on it, you know, for the most part, but it had Republicans on it. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. If they go after Liz Cheney, they're going after her now as a private citizen.

She's not even a member of Congress right now. This is purely a message that says, we're gonna do whatever the fuck we want for the next four years. And if you so much as blink about it, we'll come after you. Not even try, not try to get you fucking like, we're not gonna primary you in the next election. No, we're gonna, we will come after you. Not even try, not try to get you fucking like, you know, we're not gonna primary you in the next election.

No, we're gonna, we will come after you in your home where you sit. That's, this is, this is, this is part of, this is part of how democracy dies. This really is. This is like, this is the leading edge. This is the wedge of fascism. That is really, or at least authoritarianism. That's really what this kind of shit is.

If you want to watch democracy die, then we allow this to happen. This goes through. Something like this. If you throw Liz Cheney, if they put fucking handcuffs on Liz Cheney for sitting on a committee and interviewing people to find out what happened during a fucking insurrection,

that's it. Like everything else after that is just window dressing to the apocalypse. interviewing people to find out what happened during a fucking insurrection. That's it. Like, like everything else after that is just window dressing to the apocalypse. You're just, you're just watching it all collapse after that point. Right. That's a, that is a definite signpost. Yeah. I don't, I don't know what the, I don't know what the way back from that is.

Yeah. Hopefully is that like the insanity brigade at some point ends, but I'm kind of like, I kind of thought maybe that we would see a cultural shift in our lawmakers away from the sort of juvenile nonsense of the troll party and back to a more earnest, if shitty and a more like, I mean, the old guard were a bunch of assholes.

Don't get me wrong. Like I was no fan of the old guard. But like they at least were rule followers, you know? They at least, they at least like, you know, didn't make excuses for the insurrection, you know? Mitt Romney at the very least, like for all of his faults and they are legion, Mitt Romney at least thought that he personally had integrity. Yeah. Right?

Yeah. I think with some of these guys, the idea of personal integrity is not a value they hold. Yeah. That's something that I was thinking about the other day. Like, I think I can have strong disagreements with somebody, but if they hold themselves to a standard of personal integrity, we can probably find some common ground,

because there's gonna be consistency. So we can look for commonality somewhere in that consistency. Sure, you can sit down and talk to that person, yeah. But if you don't hold integrity as a personal value, then we're probably never going to be able to find a middle ground because you don't actually believe anything. Yeah. Everything about you is expedient.

It's practical. It's about winning the ball game, you know, not about following the rules. I think our tactic moving forward is to reject the trollishness of this party whenever possible and to not engage with it. I think that's going to be the path forward if you want to try to figure this out. I think like if they push your hand like there's going to be more drastic stuff that has to happen but if it turns out that really all they want to do is just Continue this trollish behavior because it gets them more clicks and views and makes them more popular with their base My suggestion is just to not engage with it this whole week

I've seen I want to say a hundred and fifty headlines that all talk about how Trump wants to invade or annex Canada, annex, change the name of the Gulf of Mexico, annex Greenland, go after parts of Mexico, et cetera, et cetera. I just haven't even engaged with it. I didn't even care. I'm like, yeah, no, that's fine. He's not gonna do any of that.

And that's, and he can't, and that's stupid. And I'm just like, nothing's gonna happen. And if it does, then we're attacking people in the West and whether or not I clicked on that link doesn't matter. Right? Like that doesn't matter. But what I think is he wants to make. You know, like we got bigger fish to fry.

War with NATO is way bigger than me clicking on a link. But genuinely, if you engage with that and you get mad about it and you social media posts be like, how can this guy represent our nation? I can't play. Don't just don't play into it. Just be like, yeah, you can't do that. It's that you're stupid. And then just forget about it and forget it happened. Don't even pay attention to it. And he does a million of these things a day. He says crazy shit. He, he tries to tee you up.

Don't let him do it. Just be like, yeah, okay, just lead. I want you to lead. Go lead, go do the things you say you're going to do. You haven't done any of them yet. Well, and I think that you're exactly right. I think we know his strategy now, right? So don't play his hand. Because what I, and I'm not inventing this. I heard this on another news podcast,

but what seems very reasonable, and as soon as I heard it, I was like, yes, I think that that's true, is that all of this stuff is exactly what you described. It's just a distraction. It's a distraction so that on day fucking 10, he can force through a great big omnibus bill full of all the economic shit he really actually wants to get done. Where he can strip wealth from the lower middle class, push that wealth up to billionaires and corporations,

and defund most of the social, defund or strip or damage most of the social safety, and that's the people rely on across this country to further the agenda of the oligarchs. Like, that's the plan. That's what's gonna, and if we're all like whistling Dixie about fucking Greenland, we're going to, we're

not going to be paying attention to the boring stuff. But the boring stuff is where the meat is. And what's funny is like when I, as soon as I said that, I thought, and that's why Joe Biden didn't get any love because he focused on the boring stuff. He did a lot of great stuff. There's a lot of great progressive environmental and other great stuff that was built into the fucking infrastructure bill, but it's a big boring infrastructure bill. You know, he didn't talk about invading Greenland or something. He just put his head down, did a bunch of boring work. The boring work is

really fucking important and essential, but it just doesn't get, it's not sexy. The good Lord is going to ease the pain and suffering in your heart with a bright light of grace. Look out you demons, demons, demons out. Amen. Oh, that's great. Praise the Lord. Another soul saved by Jimmy Lee Farnsworth. Fucking to be expected, but still.

This story comes from Las Vegas Sun. Strict abortion laws since the fall of Roe have led to increased infant deaths, not fewer. Researchers have marked an increase in infant deaths since the Dobbs decision, which removed a woman's constitutional right to an abortion infant deaths, not fewer. Researchers have marked an increase in infant deaths since the Dobbs decision, which removed a woman's constitutional right to an abortion under any circumstances

and nullified the Roe v. Wade decision from nearly 50 years before. The death rate is especially high among infants born with congenital anomalies, according to a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics, an international peer-reviewed journal, and the oldest continuously published pediatric journal in the United States.

There's a part of this article, Tom, I just have to read. It says, this is an opinion article, but it is leaning heavily on that study. It says, abortion isn't a decision that pregnant people and families make with malice towards pregnancy, as it's too often portrayed by pro-life proponents. It can also be used to spare the mother and the father from stillbirths or situations that result in a baby's death just a few hours after birth. It's a heart-rending,

emotionally wrenching situation that these conservative states have condemned mothers to by enforcing these abortion bans, more often than not, pregnant people seeking an abortion are not the stereotypical boogie man of a baby killer, they are just seeking medical care. Yet these laws set up to catch those rare cases instead catch women and pregnant people who need care that falls under the medical definition of abortion and thereby doom their unborn to short, painful life. And like, that is the reason why you like, this is exactly why you need it.

And you're seeing the uptick in these children that they know what before they're before they are a fully formed child or whatever you want to call it in the womb. At a certain point, we have these markers that are like, yeah, it's a viable baby or whatever. These are things you can find out long, long, long before it would have been perfectly legal during the Roe v. Wade days to have an abortion at that point. Long before, right? You can find out these markers. You can know that these markers are part of what could cause something to cause

your child to have some really serious problems and then die. And you know, you don't want to go through that and you don't want to put a baby through that. And you'll think, you know, I don't want to have to have this kid just so it could die within minutes. And you know within the, like, let's say the 10th week of pregnancy. Wouldn't you change your mind? Be like, you know what? I just don't want to do this. I just don't want to make a world with more suffering. But the thing is, is that again, I feel like the suffering is the point for them.

Yeah, the suffering. Well, and let's be very clear. The suffering for the women is the point. Exactly. The suffering of women is the point of doing this. So the suffering of women was always the point of the Dobbs decision. It was to increase the suffering of women

and to decrease women's autonomy. That is exactly, like, that's it. That was the reason for it. It's not about babies. To say this is about babies is genuinely a, a phenomenally stupid thing to say. And I mean that too, in that it is a phenomenon. It is, that's, it is, it is just a drastically stupid

thing to say. And we know it, right? If you spend literally any time looking at the science around pregnancy, we know this. We know this. We know that there's no, like, there's none of the same brain activity we would require in an adult person in order to say this isn't a living being, right? Until the seventh month. Yeah. We know that. Like, it's just, it's a knowable thing. You can fucking read about it. It's not, so like, we, so like we have a lot more answers than the sort of magical theory bullshit that they pretend.

Oh, like as soon as it's conception, there's a magic blink of super Jesus magic that makes a, like that's, nobody really believes that. Nobody that's got any fucking sense believes that. This has always been about hurting women. And what a cruel way to hurt women to make them give birth to a child that is congenitally non-viable. And to put another point on it,

it's also just the case that pregnancy is dangerous. It's a dangerous thing to do as a human being. Giving birth is also a dangerous thing to do as a human being. Giving birth is also a dangerous thing to do as a human being. These are not risk-free propositions at all. So to make a woman go through all of the physical, hormonal, and mental changes that they go through during a pregnancy, then to make them go through

the dangers of that, preeclampsia, toxemia, you know, all of the, I'm just naming the same thing in two different words, but like there are many different like complications of pregnancy that kill women. And here in the United States, funny enough, we have the worst maternal mortality rate of any industrialized first world nation. It's a dangerous thing to be pregnant.

And we're making more women to be pregnant. Because this is about hating women. It's always been about hating women. Yeah, the one thing that always surprised me, or I don't know if it surprises me, but it's something that completely flies over their head is they want it, like you suggest, they want to damage their,

their goal. The cruelty is the point. They want to attack pregnant people. They want to make sure that they attack them and make sure that they suffer. But very specifically, if you believe, if you're a believer and you think we're trying to save babies or whatever, you also have a God who's up there. Who's like thinking that what I want is that baby to live for a day and then damage that person who had them and then damage and then kill

the baby. You're the one doing it, right? Like they're all talking about how they don't want, oh, we're killing babies. But what's going to happen is that baby's going to be born and then your God is going to kill it. Yeah, well, you know, and this doesn't even take into consideration other genetic horrors would be likely to be aborted.

That will mean that somebody will be born to live for years in agony. So I'm thinking like right now of something like cystic fibrosis. Cystic fibrosis is a death sentence. You do it like it's a terrible, miserable existence to have cystic fibrosis. You can't live past your 20s.

That's unlikely to even. Oh really? Yeah, it's terrible. Yeah, you. Oh wow. It's a nightmare. You get, you know, best case scenario, you get a lung transplant or two to make it into your 20s or early 30s. Oh my gosh, really?

It's a horror. Your brain is totally unaffected, so you get a regular mind, but you get a body that constantly has fluids that overly thicken. That is basically what's system. So you're drowning constantly in your own self, and you die young and you die in pain,

and it's terrible. And it's also genetically knowable. So you can test for cystic fibrosis in the womb. And if you had a baby that was six or eight or 10 weeks, 12 weeks old, and it doesn't have any brain function, but it's got fucking cystic fibrosis, you might want to not bring that person into the world

to be born into the world in a life of suffering and pain Though it's not even counted in this study, right? There are plenty of people who if they found out they had a child that had one of the many many and this just one I happen to know about but like one of the many types of genetic disorders that cause you to live in agony and pain You'd be like, yeah, I'll just do it. I'll do it over. Where I won't have kids at all. But I don't want to have a kid that's gonna live. That's not even counted in this study.

This study is just about infants that die. There are people that just live in agony. And those people are being born where they wouldn't have been born before. And like, think too about the burden that places in a system without social safety nets. Yeah, man, for sure. The financial burden that places in a system without social safety nets. Yeah, man, for sure. The financial burden that places on those caregivers. when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette.

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we teach you that there's more to life than just being really, really, really good looking. This is the most fucking like, it's like a tautology of stupidity. Like this is crazy. I read this thing almost like in disbelief. Kids low reading scores are a five alarm fire, says Doja's Ramaswami. His solution? Eliminate the Education Department. One of the business leaders tapped by

President-elect Donald Trump to suggest cuts for government spending said axing the Education Department would help boost kids' reading scores in the U.S. Education policy experts say it's not that simple. They don't say it's not that simple. They say, what the fuck are you talking about? How would that work? Huh? Yeah.

Like, also, Ramaswamy is pointing to data that shows that reading scores for eighth graders are not good. They've never actually been particularly good. They hover around 30% between 29 and 36%. What does that mean? I saw that number. What does 30% even mean? That doesn't mean like 30% only 30% can read.

They're reading proficiently at grade level. I see. Okay. So that's not great, right? That's not great. You'd want to see that number closer to 50, 60% probably to be in that sort of mean. That's sort of like, you know, but like the only reason we have that number is because of the department of education. You can't know it any other way.

He is suggesting eliminating the department in charge of knowing stuff and that that will fix the thing. How are you going to fix things you don't know? That is a Rumsfeldian problem. It really is. It really is. I think, you know, this is one of those moments that you get a chance to see once in a while, they'll let a libertarian loose in Washington. Just like let him out of the cage. They like roll up the cage like gladiator comes up from the floor and then they just let him loose for a little while on the books and then they then they get a bunch of they get a bunch of sergeant in arms. They get a bunch of sergeant in arms to put them back in the box with spears later.

But they they let a libertarian loose once in a while and they go after the books and you're like dude here's the thing, man. You're going to cut the shit out of this department and then you're going to blame it. You're going to say, see, it sucks. And you're like, dude, you fucking just cut the shit out of this department. You're going to say, see, it sucks. We've been cutting this department and and cutting things from these social safety nets and all these like, like ways in which, you know, like this is,

this is not a, this isn't a fluff department. This is a necessary department so that the people in the United States can hopefully learn better, right? That's what the department exists for. But instead we're saying, you know, what we're going to do is we're going to wind up cutting from that department constantly over year after year after year, and then when it fails, we're going to say, see how department constantly over year after year after year.

And then when it fails, we're gonna say, see how much it sucks? Do you see how bad it is? Do you see this? And nobody's gonna remember the deaths from a thousand cuts that came beforehand. And then they're gonna say, you're right, it sucks. We should just delete it.

I should just have fucking Rick Perry write it on his hand and then forget about it later on during a presidential debate. Hey, he's smarter now. He got glasses. He does have glasses. That's how you know that he is now a serious gentleman. Ibergain or whatever it is too. He's an Ibergain guy. The Department of Education is a really important department.

It's a really fucking essential department. Without the Department of Education, we would be relying entirely, entirely on local sources to fund all of our schooling, to fund all of our education, to fund all of our systems. And like, be not mistaken, that's exactly what the right wants. They want that because they want to hand over control of schools, which are very lucrative to religious institutions. That's what they want.

They want to move to charter schools and religious private schools. They want to move that money over there. They've been wanting a voucher system for fucking ever. They want to nationalize a voucher system and the, since they don't, since they can't do it at a national level, if they destroy the Department of Education, the funding will fall to the locals, the locals will move it into local control financially,

and we'll have way, way, way, and now we have a much happier or easier Supreme Court too, that's already come out and said that we can use public funds for private education, even if it's religious. This is a way to, to gift that money. Yeah. Into corporate schools. Yep.

Right. You're going to be going to fucking... That's always been the plan, man. Yeah, dude. That's always been the plan. You're going to go to fucking Pepsi high school. You just are. It's just like, you just are because it's already close to that.

This is kind of the barrier that stands in the way. Yeah. So you get rid of that and then all the rest of those dominoes begin to fall and they fall very quickly. close to that, this is kind of the barrier that stands in the way. Yeah. So you get rid of that and then all the rest of those dominoes begin to fall and they fall very quickly. And you know, the people that suffer are always the same people. It's special ed kids, right? A huge amount of government funding is necessary for special education.

Those are higher needs services. Those services are available in your local public school, but they are not available in most private schools, special education services, because there's no money in it. It's intensive work, requires a lot more money, more, if I were building a school for profit, I wouldn't have special education services in that school.

Those kids aren't profitable clients. I don't want special education services in that school. Those kids aren't profitable clients. I don't want to bring them in. These are, it's a real problem. Like if we get rid of the Department of Education, like we're really gonna fuck over a lot of people. And I don't know how many of those dumb ass dipshit mega supporters that like have a kid with a fucking IEP or a 504 plan,

really understand the impact that that will have on their family. How bad it's gonna be for them. Yeah, this is a major on bed stuff for some people, but it's also, you're just attacking the people on the margins because that's what the Republicans are good at. Yep, yeah, and funneling money up.

This is gonna be, I think we're gonna see the greatest upward wealth distribution. I don't funneling money up. This is going to be, I think we're going to see the greatest upward wealth distribution I don't think you're wrong. in American history over the next four years. Anyway, I thought you might like to know in case you want to brush your hair or hide the large stack of pornography

you keep on that show. So stories from Vox, the huge stakes in a new Supreme court case about pornography. Texas asks the justices to abandon longstanding First Amendment protections for sexual speech. I was kind of of two minds when I read this. This is a long form article, guys. It goes into a lot of the legal arguments

with respect to the upcoming Supreme Court case. Nested in here, like a lot of things I think, is what I think is a good idea implemented very badly. Yeah. So the good idea in my opinion is that we probably should have some formal restrictions that make it more difficult for minors to access pornography online.

That there should be some kind of age verification system that makes it a little more difficult. I know nothing makes anything impossible, so I'm saying it on purpose, but makes it more difficult. It's the means reduction idea, right? You make things a little harder, it affects most people's behaviors. Makes things a little harder.

Makes things a little harder, makes things a little softer. So like, I think that that is a generally well intended idea. I support that idea, but behind that, because the technology already exists to do that without any real problems, behind that is an attempt to just get rid of porn. This is just a vanguard to get rid of porn. Yeah. This is something that the GOP does all the time. They do a, won't you think about the children

when they want to attack things they don't like. Pornography, the drag queen story hour, the trans people. They will say, why don't you think about the children? And they will use that as a way to say, I am just trying to protect kids, even though it has very little to do with children, right? It doesn't have the things that they're expecting it to do with children.

They wanna get rid of porn, man. That's what they want. That's the thing that they're looking to do. And you know what they're going to do? They're already starting to suffer in several states where they can't log into Pornhub unless you get a VPN. If you don't have a VPN in several states in the United States right now,

you go to Pornhub and they're like, sorry, we just don't operate in your state. We just don't do that. We don't do that here. And so, you know, like there's going to be blackouts for porn. And that's what they really want is to stop porn altogether, but they're going to mask it and they're going to hide it behind. Please, please, please think of the children as often as they can.

Yeah. And you know, I want to be clear too, because I know that listeners to the show understand my position, like I actually am not a, ethically speaking, I am not a supporter of pornography. I don't think that pornography is often produced or sold or distributed ethically. But I also don't trust the government to be the arbiter and censor. My solution to that problem has always been a consumer-focused solution. I think we as consumers need to be careful, conscious consumers of all the products that we consume and understand the implications.

And I think, you know, I don't believe in a top-down solution. I don't want to outlaw this, right? I don't like it because I think it's often produced in really deeply and distributed in deeply unethical ways that bother me. But like, I don't think that we should ban it from the top. The problem with banning it from the top

is that you're asking the government to be the arbiter and censor of what is obscene and what's not obscene. And when you ask a bunch of religious right-wing wackos to hold that responsibility, the likelihood thatos to hold that responsibility, the likelihood that they will hold that responsibility and discharge it well is exactly zero. Like I believe in a consumer-driven approach

to handling this. What I think of is a real problem, but like it's okay if somebody else doesn't, right? The solution though is not like Texas will decide for you what's obscene. That is obscene. That is actually obscene. That is antithetical to free speech in this country. That is antithetical to the idea of a small government beholden to the people.

That's the government deciding what it is you can and cannot handle. Rather than you as a consumer putting pressure on an industry to behave in more ethical ways. You see, the thing is, Brian, that God is a hateful God. This story comes from Right Wing Launch. Kent Christmas says God will soon kill President Biden for awarding the Medal of freedom to George Soros. Cecil, I know you want to play this clip and I want you to play this clip, but I also just want to start off by saying, Biden's old as fuck.

That guy's going to die. Yeah. Right. His dartboard's getting bigger for God. That's for sure. You know, like, like this is a, like, it'd be like if I was like, oh, you know what, God's coming for George Soros. George Soros is 94 years old. Yeah, George Soros is pretty old.

Time is coming for George Soros. When George Soros dies, there's gonna be people on the right who are like, well, God got him. And it's gonna be like, he lived as a rich motherfucker into his late 90s. What do you mean, God got him? We're reaching the limits of human lifespan. God is at that point, he's one of those kids

that's trying to hit a piñata. He's got the thing on his eyes, and they spot him three times, and Soros is just walking around and he's swinging that fucking, the death ax, and Soros, and he keeps missing over and over and over again. Like, you don't get to claim

Like celestial victory when a guy hits 94 he won Soros wins this feels like peek Let me peek outside the blindfold. Let me just look and see if I could see him Kill him though candy is gonna spill He's so old they're all just Werther's Originals. I actually have a bag of Werther's Originals in my nightstand right now. That's a good candy. They're so old. Alright, so here's Kent fucking Christmas.

It's a good candy though. This is what I believe the Lord is saying. Because you've heard me say this, that there is a natural death that's getting ready to hit wicked people in this nation. And God said, I'm getting ready to remove. And God helped the man who gave a presidential medal of freedom honor to George Soros. Can I just say like, it's not a natural death. It's a supernatural death.

Like a natural death would just be like waiting. Again, like he's getting ready. I love that God's always getting ready to do something. He's getting ready. Yeah, he doesn't. God doesn't like Joe Biden. He did let him be president for four years. Gotta have a morning coffee. That's the first thing. Then I gotta go on the shitter for a few minutes and play my wordle. And then, after that, so. What are you waiting for?

He's old! He already, again, like you already gave him 86 years or fucking whatever. I don't even remember how old Biden is. He's a million years old. I'll kill Biden when I pull it out of the hat and it's not practiced. Jesus Christ. What are you waiting for? I have to defend God's people today. Hallelujah. What did he just say?

What? Was that a hallelujah? Had to do that it hold on what did he say I have to defend God's people today hallelujah and I'm telling you by the spirit of the Lord, I hear God saying, they have thrown down the gauntlet and God said, I have picked it up. And the Lord said that when I pass through Egypt and the darkness is in it,

I will not turn the light off in Goshen where my people live. Because, man, I, look, I ain't lighting the whole damn world up. You gotta turn that light off when you leave that room. I'm not just gonna leave the light on all the time. No wonder he's our father. He's always haranguing us. Am I air conditioning the whole world? Who left these pyramids open? That's where I store the salt! I'll turn this universe around! I wish you would!

That's amazing. Oh my God. This guy, this also feels, we've talked about, you've pointed this out for years. This feels like one of those sermons that he has no idea where it's going while he's giving us and know what he's gonna say The next second it's all a surprise, but but they but they have these are major. Yeah They have they have all these phrases though that they can easily just slap in to make something love it's like a It's like a modular speech. You just take this piece and stick it in there. Cause all you need is like one or two Bible verses and you're good.

And you're just like, if necessary, we'll go to Egypt. Like if intellectually, like my storytelling, I'm just like, I drew a blank and like, uh, and then lo did we go with to Egypt and it was dark and we were like, whoa, man. Whoa, man. It's dark here. Like Zoiks, man. It's dark in this pyramid. Bro.

Bro. But it will only be in the enemy's camp. And God said, I'm gonna turn the light out in the land of the wicked. And I'm gonna turn the light out in the land of the wicked, and I'm going to turn the light on. Hallelujah. In the land of the righteous. And the Lord said, I'm going to begin

to remove those, hallelujah, who have sold their souls out to the enemy. And God said, you're going to begin to see wicked men begin to pass from the earth because I am doing something in the new day by the spirit of the Lord to bring freedom to the house of God. It's all just nonsense. Is it like at the end you just like add it?

Like I don't, I don't like your signature at the end of your email. I just don't like, I just, I just don't think it's, I think it's a little excessive at Christmas. What the shit? Oh, like, can you listen to that and not zone out? Dude, I have to listen to it like three times because I'm constantly thinking that doesn't mean anything. What you just said didn't mean anything. Like at some point I'm like, like that's, I've filled up on word salad.

You know what I mean? Like I'm just like, I'm done. Like on word salad You know what I mean? Like I'm just like I'm done like my my fucking my brain is full word salad now I don't want anymore, and I just start getting like sleepy Absolutely, I'm the one side of your plate is word salad and the other is the daily bread Seen up late last night, and I crunched the numbers This story comes from N.org or just NPR. I didn't have to say the dot org. How many transgender teens in the US

are receiving medical care related to gender transitions? According to a peer reviewed research letter published Monday. Is it a lot? It is not. It's very, very few Cecil. And in fact, they have a number. So I wanna actually go into the article here

and tell you what the number is. Because for all the fucking hand ringing and the crying and the screaming, when they look at insurance claims, that's the data that they used, from 2018 to 2022, so over a four year period, there were less than a thousand youth over the course of four years that accessed

puberty blockers and less than two, less than 2000 that ever had access to hormones. That is less than 0.1% of teenagers with private insurance that are transgender. That's a four year period? Over a four year period. Wow, man. Yeah. So when we talk about, like when these conversations are had, I think a lot of times these conversations are had in a vacuum and in a sort of like hypothetical

space because if we talk about them in the practical space with numbers, this is a non-issue. Yeah. Right? So numerically in a country with 300 and I is a non-issue. Yeah. Right? So numerically, in a country with 300 and, I don't remember how many people are here, like 370 plus million people,

we don't ever talk about public policy that affects a thousand people, right? It's not meaningful to affect a thousand or 2,000 people because it would actually not qualify to be public policy. So these conversations are always had absent those whole numbers, because we have them in the hypothetical as if to suggest that this is a problem of scope and scale.

Yeah, it's a widespread thing that's happening. Every single school is having to deal with this. Every single counselor at school has to talk parents down from doing something like this, et cetera, et cetera. You hear all these, they try to make it into it's ubiquitous that we're creating an entire youth that is going to be using these products. We're changing how puberty works for wide swaths of the young people in this country when in fact you're not at all.

You're not doing that at all. What you're doing is like you say, a thousand people. It's a tiny, tiny sliver of people. And the thing is, is that that doesn't serve the hysteria. Yes, exactly. If they just said something that was like, oh yeah, it's happening in like, you know, over a four-year period in the tiniest amount of places, that doesn't serve what they want,

which is to erase trans people. That's what they want. They want to erase trans people. And the way they can do it is to erase trans people. And if they can, and the way they can do it is to, again, like we talked about earlier, think about the children. But when you consider all the factors, they're there, it's, it's almost like non-existent. There's a tiny, tiny, tiny sliver of the population here that we're talking about, but it doesn't serve your hysteria if you, if youia if you go with the actual numbers.

So that's why they conveniently ignore them all the time. There's a difference between has it happened and is it happening, right? We should have public policy conversations about things that are happening and not something that has happened. It really is the same thing that they do when they say, hey, this one immigrant committed a murder.

And you say, okay, well, statistically speaking, actually people who are migrants are less likely to commit any kind of violent crime, right? It's a crime in general, but specifically violent crime. It's actually significantly safer to have around you than a United States citizen. And what they'll do when that happens is they'll say, ah, but you know, this tell that to the, tell that to the, to the family of dead so-and-so. One person is too many.

So what they'll do is they'll have disingenuous conversations in order to make something that happened become something happening. But we don't wanna do that. That's bad thinking when it comes to public policy, when we come to lawmaking, when we come to social choices, we need to think more broadly, of course we do. And so we need to think about what is happening, not what has happened. They intentionally invert those arguments.

And it's very confusing. If you've ever had a conversation with somebody like that and they say, well, one time is one murder is too many. You're like, okay, I do actually think every murder is bad. Of course, what kind of person wouldn't think that? But also, I recognize that we make public policy choices that are complex and balanced and based on the good of the whole.

I understand how trolley problems work. These guys intentionally don't want you to think about it. What they wanna do is they wanna load that trolley problem on one, with one thing to get you to think about one thing. So they're loading the tracks very quickly so that you, they hope you don't notice that the other side is clear. Yeah. Yeah.

I had a conversation, immigration conversation, Cecil, you might enjoy it. I had an immigration conversation with a doctor the other day. So there's a, there's a doctor of mine that I've gotten friendly with and he's kind of middle right, you know? He's not hard right, he's not MAGA right, but he's middle right. And you know, he and I were having a chit chat about immigration and he feels, I think, fairly torn about, he thinks we're spending too much,

and this is not born out by the numbers, but like he thinks we're spending too much, and this is not bored out by the numbers, but like he thinks we're spending too much money providing social and other services to immigrants. That's nonsense, we know that's nonsense. We don't do that, yeah. So I swim upstream on that. But it was actually more successful for me to say, look, if tomorrow Trump got his way and deported,

let's say just as a thought experiment, let's say deported 50% of all the undocumented migrant workers in the United States. I was like, your life would get immediately more expensive. Like immediately. If all those people stay here, it stays the same. What scenario do you envision where your life gets less expensive?

Because your argument is an economics argument, right? So he's saying like, we're spending too much money. I'm saying, even if I grant it, if everybody, if we were to find and round them up and put them in camps, like all of a sudden everything, and he concedes everything would become more expensive. Sure. And there's really only more expensive or stays the same. There is not a less, there is not, we saved money. There's no argument there.

And that actually was effective. That argument was actually effective with him. Because rather than trying to like dig up a whole bunch of facts that he could dig up himself, it was just like, look, you've only got two, the equation doesn't balance out ever where you get more money in your pocket. Yep, yep.

And then actually was an effective argument. Like he was like, yeah, okay, I actually see that point. And I actually like think he may have changed his mind. Wow. I think. Wow. I think, we'll see next time I see him in six months. And you are a liar and coward and very rude man. I think. We'll see next time I see him in six months.

And you are a liar and coward and very rude man. This story comes from NPR. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday that the social media company, which owns Facebook and Instagram, would stop working with third-party fact-checking organizations. Repeating talking points long used by President- elect Donald Trump and his allies in a video. Zuckerberg said the company's content moderation approach resulted, resulted too often in censorship. This happened by the way, the same week that Dana White, a man who beats his wife on tape was appointed to the board of Metta. Yeah. On tape was appointed to the board of Metta.

Yeah. So if you're wondering how far shit is shifting to the right and how much like kissing of the ring is being done. Yeah. Dana White, longtime friend and ally of Donald Trump, notorious man who beat his wife on camera, what, like a year ago? On tape, didn't hurt him at all because those are the values the right holds.

He's on the board now at Metta. Why? Because he's rich. Yeah. He's rich. That's how those boards work. I gotta say too, you know, this is, they are going to follow a pattern,

a pattern put forth by Elon Musk and mark my words. I'm gonna make this prediction in a year, I think that meta, all the meta space will be probably maybe not as toxic, but close to as toxic as Twitter is. I think it will be close to as toxic. You're getting of fact-checking which their fact-checking sucked, okay? So I'm not gonna say their fact-checking was good, but fact-checking also allowed for deletion of things Yes, that's the one thing that's the difference is that they're they're actually able to delete shit so now so it for instance

I saw a Twitter thread about this one of the things that they suggested was like So for instance, I saw a Twitter thread about this. One of the things that they suggested was like, one of the reasons why certain things like the January 6th thing wasn't as big is because it was deleted before January 6th. There was stuff that popped up. People said, no, this is, we're not gonna allow this because it's gonna allow some sort of, you know,

people to gather in a way that is, you know, we don't want to have happen and And so we're going to delete it. In this case, it would just fact check it. It would still be there. Right. And so that's the real problem. Harm can still be there when it comes to like anti-trans stuff. Right. So we know that trans people, some that there's a, I think younger trans people, I don't know the exact statistics, but I know that I think it's younger trans people are more likely to inflict self harm. And if they're, especially if they're rejected, right? If that sort of thing, if their true identity is not, if they're rejected. So like if you have these people who are hurting them and then there's some sort of, doesn't matter about community notes, if it doesn't get deleted,

you have an opportunity to hurt more people and to cause more damage in the world because that stuff still exists there. It just happens to have a little note on it now. So yeah, I mean, I think that this is a, it was not good before. It's still bad and it's going to get worse. Yeah. And I, I feel like lately, this is just anecdotal bullshit. Facebook has gotten worse just over the last six or eight weeks.

I don't know if you've encountered the same thing. I have way more like, I didn't ask for this random suggested pages and groups. And then the comments section seems wildly more vitriolic and hateful than I've seen in a long time. If you click on the, I actually sent this to the dads. Like I think we may talk about it, but it was crazy. There was a New York Times picture when Ariana Grande

and another woman, I forgot her name because I just didn't know her. She's an actress and I'm just bad at this. They are in the movie Wicked, and one or both of them were nominated for an award. I don't even remember the award. A Grammy maybe, I don't know. They were nominated for an award, that's the point.

And there was a picture of them on the red carpet, and they were like arm in arm. It's a very nice picture. I read the book Wicked. I thought the book was really cool. I'm actually pretty excited to see the movie. I clicked on the comments. My God, Cecil, the misogynist hate in the comments

was blistering, absolutely blistering for these two women. And I don't remember seeing that stuff on Facebook in that way. absolutely blistering for these two women. And I don't remember seeing that stuff on Facebook in that way. I mean, it was a thousand or 2000 comments. And like for every, what a talented group of ladies, there's 10 horrible comments about those women. It was, it was, it was bad. It's egregious.

And I'm seeing more and more. It's not gonna get any better. No, it's gonna get worse. It's not it was, it was bad. It's egregious. And I'm seeing more and more. It's not going to get any better. No, it's going to get worse. It's not going to get any better. Yeah. They're, they're going to continue to make a place that is less and less safe for people. And it's going to be less and less, it's going to feel less and less safe. It's going to feel more and more punishing to be there. They're going to,

they're going to do what, what Metta did, which is they're only going to attract trolls and people who want to hurt other people and look at the Exodus from Metta. There's going to be, or not from Metta, from from Twitter. From Metta, there will be an Exodus, too. They're going to find another place to hang out. They're going to go somewhere else. They're not going to stay there. Mark my words.

You're you're not going to see the people who are going to stay and try to like, I don't think Facebook's worth fighting for anymore. No, it's not. It's not worth fighting for. It's not anything. It's like, at this point, my feed is one person I know and 30 videos I didn't ask for. 30 videos from some place that wants to show me power washing, cabinetry, routering, and like, you know, somebody dancing. And I didn't ask for any of those things. I didn't want them, I didn't ask for them,

but they're gonna put them in. And then there's cooking. Of course, there's like six other cooking videos in there. Street food to like somebody who's making something at home, because I'm a cooking guy. So all in my feed is all these videos I never asked for. I never asked for your page, but they're just trying to get as they're trying to squeeze as much money as possible from all these ads and all these people who boost their pages

so that they wind up in my feed. But I don't want to see them. I don't care. I don't want to see your shit. So I'm at this point now where I really do think, and mark my words, right? I could be wrong, who knows? Mark Zuckerberg, my words.

Here's the thing, you look in the future, I think it's gonna go, I think it's gonna do exactly what happened with Twitter. I think it's gonna be the same type of place, it's gonna be the same type of toxic environment. I think they're gonna remove all the safeguards that are in there, all the play, all the ways in which you can report shit, et cetera. And it's going to be a less friendly place to go.

And you know, the thing is like meta products have always been dangerous products, intentionally. So there's been so many exposés, especially now with Instagram, of the way that Instagram and Instagram's algorithms are built to encourage child predation. Like there's not one or two exposés on this. There are so many exposés about the intentional writing of that code and people at Meta saying, hey, this isn't good, and then getting shut down,

and then they don't put safeguards in place. These products were never built for your safety. They were always built as revenue generation machines. That's what they're always around. And like, if they're gonna kiss the ring and kowtow, they're going to become that toxic Twitter. I totally agree. They're gonna become, they might become worse than that.

Who knows? It's gonna be a place where we need to pack our bags and leave. I've been thinking about this for a long time that it might be time to just download all your old photos and shit from there onto a USB drive or whatever you gotta do and then find a new digital home,

because this ain't it anymore. It's becoming an increasingly weird space. And like, everybody's gonna be, the next four years are gonna be bleak. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's also positive in some ways, I hope, that this shows people that when you let the capitalist motive of social media

Turn us into an attention economy Rip our data from us and sell that to other people so that they can keep selling other things that get in front of Your eyes and when we see capitalism ring all the fun out of any of these places Constantly, maybe it'll wake us up to realize, maybe, I don't know, but maybe it'll wake us up to realize that these spaces, when they're polluted like this, are terrible. They're awful, terrible spaces and they hurt us. And maybe what we do is we change all that moving forward once these collapse. I'm hoping that they collapse. I really am.

All right. So I wanted to mention this week. So tomorrow, this show releases on Monday. On Tuesday, I am starting a new show with Michael Marshall from Skeptics with a K. And you've heard him on other things. He used to do a show called Be Reasonable. I'm sure you've heard him on Incredulous and on GAM and on other places. He's been a guest here a number of times. Yeah, absolutely. He's been on our show multiple times. But Michael Marshall and I decided to start a show called

The No Rogan Experience, K and O W. And we're going to be listening to Joe Rogan. The two of us will listen. We will critique certain portions of the Joe Rogan program. We're not gonna be doing extensive coverage of everything Joe says. We'll be picking an episode and then sort of dissecting some of the things that he says.

We'll be covering some of the logical fallacies that are used very often on his show. And then we also have a Patreon where we do sort of cover a grab bag of material from that same episode where we put it on the Patreon. You can find out about this show at norogan.com, K-N-O-W-R-O-G-A-N.com. And of course, you can send a message to us here at Cognitive Dissonance and we can tell you where to find it. But if you just go search for the No Rogan Experience, KNOW, you'll find it in all your podcast players. I would love it if you gave it a listen. I think that this is going to be a really interesting show. I know a lot of people have said it's sort of in the vein of knowledge fight.

It's a little different in the sense that both of us are not, there isn't a single expert and one sort of person who's maybe, I guess, roasting it. We're not trying to be as roasty as we would be on this show. We're trying to dissect things and explain things. So if you are curious about what's happening on Joe Rogan and you're like, man, it's, you know, he's really infiltrating near ways,

but I just don't want to spend any time listening to him. You can listen to the show and we will give you the lowdown on at least one of his episodes a week. So I really appreciate if you gave it a listen, just see if you like it. Uh, you can check it out. Like I say, no Rogan.com KNOW. Hey guys, I've had an opportunity to listen to a test episode and then, uh, part of another episode I just listened to today. This is a great show. The chemistry between you guys, I'm a little jealous, you know, Cecil. You know, it's 30 years of friendship I've, no, this is great.

Can't recreate that. You can't, no. Replace by a guy across the board. No, the- Can't recreate, I also just don't buy his accent. I'm just being honest. The chemistry, the fun you guys have, the show is great, and I honestly,

I think the show is necessary. As soon as Cecil told me about this show, I immediately thought of people that I was like, holy shit, I want this show to exist so I can send it to this guy, or so I can send it to that guy. Like this kind of work is important work to do. And it's Joe Rogan's the biggest bullhorn.

Somebody needs to talk about that. And I'm glad you're doing it, man. It's a great show. Yeah, thank you, thank you. We're really proud of it. So if you get a chance, please give it a listen. All right, that's gonna wrap it up for this week. On Thursday, we'll be back with a long form article

about malicious. So don't miss that. 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. Creed. 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 you want to walk your little baby nuts around the block you Atlantis, Dolphins, Truthers, Birthers, Witches, Wizards, Nuts, Shaman Healers, Evangelists, Conspiracy, Double-Speak, Stigmata, Nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody. Evidential. Conclusive.

Doubt even this. YouTube, Facebook, and Pretz, all under the handle at DissonancePod. This show is CAN-credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at 617-249-4255 or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org. Thanks for watching!