Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 837: Popes and Dopes

Episode Date: April 28, 2025

Discover the magic of Bad MGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck! Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games with a live dealer! From Roulette to Blackjack, watch as a dealer hosts your table game and live chat with them throughout your experience to feel like you're actually at the casino! The excitement doesn't stop there, with over 3,000 games to choose from, including fan favorites like Cash Eruption, UFC Gold Blitz, and more! Make deposits instantly to jump in on the fun, and make same-day withdrawals if you win!

Download the BetMGM Ontario app today! You don't want to miss out! Visit betmgm.com for terms and conditions. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only, please gamble responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily 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, April the 24th. This has been the longest April of my fucking life. I was talking to my son about this the other day. I was like, it has been April for about three years.

Did he, he, Trump passed his first hundred days the other day. He did. Yeah. He did pass his first hundred days. Yeah. Yeah. That's a something that you know, who didn't pass their freshness date was the Pope Well, he is now definitely best if poked by

They put him in a fucking coffin and the coffin is like it's kind of at an angle and he sort of just like stuck in this like coffin and all the like Like red-headed dudes have to come around and be like bro all the like, like red-headed dudes have to come around and be like, bro. And then like, bro. Yup. Yeah. That's a corpse. So that's what happened.

I gotta ask you, when, when Rush Limbaugh died, we played the funeral march of those guys dancing. Yeah, we sure did. Does the Pope deserve the funeral march of those guys dancing? Does the guy who heads up the largest child sex trafficking ring in the entire world? I think he does. You think he deserves it? I think he does. So a little bit of what we need is...

Yep, bring it in buddy. The coffin dance. Oh, it's not... Embiggenate, get big! The coffin dance. Oh, it's not. Embiggenate, get big. Featuring the Ghana pallbearers. Here we go. All right. I don't want to watch him get addressed. I guess this is the official music video. It'll be a second. Here we go.

As I say, don't fast forward it before the beat drops. There you go, Popey. Tom, I want this so bad. You have to fly these people in. I got you. I want this so bad. I got you. God, I want this so bad. I got you buddy. God, I want this so bad. Look, I don't know how I'm going to do this since we both die fighting each other in bulldozers.

What I want is those guys to pick the bulldozers up and carry it like that. This is- I want this so bad. Copyright. All right. Our video is now demonetized. So and all that money can go to those kind of people. What I'm great.

Yeah, that was that. So so long. So this fucking pope to this pope who was a liberal pedophile. Yeah, right. You know, I read I heard a lot of stuff. So like, you know, all of my daily news stuff, obviously when the Pope dies, everything is Pope central, right? And like the consensus was pretty much

that he tried to split the baby and he kind of just made everybody mad. He wasn't conservative enough for the conservative wing of the church. And he wasn't progressive enough for the progressive wing of the church. And he just kind of tried to, he wasn't a true reformer. He was like reform minded, but he was not a true reformer.

He made gestures in the directions of progress, but he didn't make declarations toward progress. So he didn't actually make a lot of progress. And so now he's fucking dead. And now who knows what the fucking next guy is gonna be? You know, I'll tell you what he won't be, relevant. Yeah, well, hold on. Because the church is not that fucking relevant.

Hold on though, they were talking about possibly a black one. A black pope? Black pope, baby. A black pope? Or an Asian. So like, the biggest areas of the world that are now Catholic are not the Western countries

where most Catholics would have come from. Now most of those places are in Africa or in Indonesia, or whatever that is, whatever that area is, like the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, that sort of thing. There's a ton of them out there. And so those people are all really into the Catholic Church and the Catholic Church, to be honest, now the shitty stuff they do aside,

the opportunities that they open up for some of those people to go learn abroad, to learn a different language, to learn skills and bring it back to their communities is a big deal to them. You know, regardless of what we think of the church, the church does at least create some of these people to go back and be public servants in that area.

So it's like, I mean, now they're probably gonna be playing three card money with some pedophile in a... There are always people on the ground that benefit when colonialism takes place. Yeah. Right? And this is just a kind of religious colonialism. Swooping in and like, you know, playing missionary to the sort of like great unwashed masses

of the yet untouched regions of the world is, you know, like obviously hyper xenophobic and, you know, like incredibly colonialist and paternalistic. And that is the churches across the world all would always do that. They view parts of the world that have not yet been touched by Western culture or colonized exclusively by Western culture as like ripe fruit for the picking.

And ripe for changing all their views, right, exactly what they want, yeah. I have a theological question I don't know if you know the answer I am sure I do I'm curious sure I know it because Haley and I were talking About this the other day and she said to me that she thinks that there's like So like the deal with Christianity as we were joking about it So we're talking about Easter right and our kids I actually had all four of the kids lined up and I was like Hey, it occurs to me

that we gave them little Easter baskets. Do any of you guys know what the fuck Easter's all about? Like the story of Easter. And I pointed to Aislinn, who I sent to Lutheran school for two years during the pandemic. I was like, you don't get to answer. You don't get to answer. Because I know you know.

And so she was like, bummed. I'm like, do you guys even know what Easter's about? And Finn figured it out last year. Donovan figured it out from his last girlfriend, like I think a couple of years ago. Eamon had no idea. Eamon's type, he had no idea what Easter was. He's like, it's about, yeah, he's like,

it's a bunny related holiday, you know? And of course, Aislinn knew. And so we were talking and, you know, Haley said, you know, she thinks that there is a loophole in Christianity that if you've never heard of Christianity, you don't go to hell. That like Jesus, Jesus dying for your sins, kind of all that stuff kind of doesn't count. Yeah. Is that true? Do you know if that's true? So I think I think that is religion dependent.

I think it's religion dependent because I'll tell you who doesn't believe that is the Jehovah's Witnesses who think think that only 144,000 people are there. Well, that's right. Yeah. You know what I mean? So, so clearly there are some sects of Christianity who think, fuck you. Right. You know, oh, you didn't hear about it? You didn't hear about it? Oh, that sounds like a lot of your fucking problem, buddy. Because here's what she pointed out, which I thought was really interesting. If, if there is a loophole that says, I don't go to hell if I didn't hear about it, then actually being a missionary is a huge asshole move. Yeah, because now, I don't go to hell if I didn't hear about it, then actually being a missionary is a huge asshole move.

Yeah, because now you're making them go to hell. Now you're making them choose something. Yeah, you're like, especially a missionary for like Jehovah's Wits. Right. And I mean, I think what's going to happen now is you're going to get, we're going to get a bunch of messages from people who grew up religious, because there's a ton of people who listen to the show who grew up religious. And they're going to say, yeah, in my religion, it didn't matter if you knew or not. And other

religions, the others would be like, no, if you never heard of it, it's fine. Do you know what the Catholic stance on that happens to be? It's okay if you don't. I'm just curious. As near as, and I think it's varied in the Catholic church because from what I've heard, the Catholics, the ones that I, that I've talked to about it, because I've brought up something similar before, and the Catholics that I've talked to about it, they all suggest that basically, if you don't have a way to talk to God or be with God,

then you kind of live without him, and then that also exists in the afterlife too. You're just like, that's it. Like you don't have a date. So just bad luck. They're just like bad luck. Like that's up to you. Like, so some of them are like that and others are like,

no, if you don't know, then you know, it's okay. You can be a good person and God would still accept you. So then I think it really is that liberal and progressive sides of the church. Because like, what an impossibly crazy religious tenant to hold, that if somebody never heard of this belief system, they are still beholden to that belief system by their deity.

You know, like, like I lived without God, so then God is like, well, I know I created you, and I know you're a piece of me, and I know like, I'm supposed to love you, but I created you in a place where you never heard about me so for all of eternity You will now be bereft of my presence. Yeah, he's God is like God is like the the government when they're like, sorry, you can't be ignorant of the law Yeah, like what I didn't know what I'm literally ignorant of it I know that I wasn't allowed to have a buggy whip on Sunday

Bad like I spat on the sidewalk while riding on a donkey in a bathtub or whatever. Sorry, man. No, that's jail. Right to jail. Right to jail. It's like, God is your dad that like went out for cigarettes when you were one and you don't remember him at all. You know, and he never came back and like, you're in trouble because you don't love him.

You know, like you didn't remember me on Father's Day. It's like, what? I don't even know who you are. You weren't up to here, man. What do you want from me? Children of the sun, see your time has just begun. Searching for your ways through adventures every day, every day and night.

With the condor in flight With all your friends in tow You search for the cities of gold Ah, wishing for the cities of gold Ah, someday we will find the city of gold. Evil is being defeated by God. Marjorie Taylor Greene celebrates after Pope's death. Yes, God, God defeated the Pope at 88 years old. At 88 years old.

Was it long battle? God was like, finally I got him. Pope had a long battle with life. Okay. Look, I don't believe in any stuff that these people believe in. God, I don't believe in. I don't believe the Pope was divine. I don't believe that, you know, Marjorie Taylor green has a soul. I don't believe in these things. Right? Right, yeah. Very specifically Marjorie Taylor Greene. The last one especially. But like, like, I don't believe in it, but I know she does. And when I look at her, I think she's afraid. I think she's afraid because of all the exorcism stuff they do.

She's just like, I don't want to, because she's, if there was a demon, if a demon existed, wouldn't it be Marjorie Taylor Greene? Don't you think? No. No? I don't think that a demon would bother, I think even a demon would be disgusted to be inside of Marjorie Taylor Greene. It's like, no, sorry man, no, I can't do it.

No. I can't do it. I'm not gonna stoop so low. I'm gonna go inhabit this cricket over here. Yeah. It's like, I know I came from a place of eternal torment and suffering. I'd rather be there than inside of Marjorie Taylor Greene, which is literally what her ex-husband said. Oh, she's doing burpees and demons are just shooting out of her.

She's doing kip-up pull-ups. Humans are shooting across the room. Yeah. All this is, is just playing your base, right? It's playing your base to be like... Yeah, it's all it is. 100%. Because she knows that there isn't a lot of Catholics in her base.

There's a bunch of evangelicals or Protestants or whatever. And to her, this is a win. Yeah. So she's going to be... But whatever. I don't care that she's... I mean, who cares that she's disrespecting, disrespecting the Pope? Like who gives a shit, right? Like there's an evil lady talking about a bad guy, right? And I'm just like, okay. I kind of want them just

to go after each other. It's like enemy of my enemy. Like go get them. Who cares? Go get them. I do think it's hilarious when somebody dies of what is clearly old age. He's 88 years old. These people 88 years old. These people are so old. These people are like as old as George Burns. And you're just like, dude, come on, man. Nobody won anything. They're just like, well, God made it happen.

Well, okay, sure. Or like fucking the telomeres were exhausted, right? Like he's fucking 88 years old. That shit just gives out. At a certain point. There's like an assumption there, I think like man he would okay he would literally would have lived forever like a vampire like a vamp hope that I'll believe that right yeah man there's a vamp hope if there's a vamp hope and he is he's got a fucking

picture of himself that gets older okay I sure win, it's fucking Dorian Pope. I'm fine dude. Sign me the fuck up. 100% But there's been nothing miraculous. He just died of old age. Yeah, I am extremely willing to believe in magic. Somebody just has to show me one magic. I just want a magic. Just one magic. Just a single magic. Give me one magic. Like they keep not showing me any magic. They keep showing me like, well, here's some holy water.

You're like, that's feces water dripping off a pipe into a statue. It's something every time. They open their mouths like baby birds and swallow that shit. It's amazing. Frank, look! It's another attack!

There's a human spirit! Me human orange, me human orange. The evil that lies within. Can't Earthquar stop this evil before it's too late? Inq.reports. Hi, this is from the New Republic. Abrego Garcia's wife forced to go into hiding thanks to Team Trump. This is disgusting. This is grotesque, yeah. So the Trump administration is going through great pains to do what all racists do, which is to paint people of color that they want to disparage as violent thugs and criminals.

You see it every single time that like a white cop shoots some black kid. All that happens is like, not all that happens, but a lot of the news coverage, especially the right wing news coverage will focus on, you know, that he got suspended from school in eighth grade and here's a picture of them, you know, like watching a rap video or something that these fucking white people are afraid of or whatever stupid bullshit. It's whatever kind of character assassination they can perform in order to get the white base worked up

in order to say that that brown guy was always bad. So it's okay that we didn't follow the law. It's okay that we violated their civil rights. It's okay that we didn't allow for due process. It's okay that we circum't follow the law. It's okay that we violated their civil rights. It's okay that we didn't allow for due process. It's okay that we circumvented all of the systems that naturally safeguard each and every person residing in the United States of America because we did it to a brown guy that had it coming.

The Trump administration's been doing that. And in doing that, they released documentation that contained his wife's, the family home, the family home address. The documentation was a restraining order where it was never fulfilled, right? So the restraining order was written out, but then it was submitted and then I guess it was,

like she said, no, not to do it or something like that. It was basically, it never was fulfilled, but they had the paperwork. So the Trump administration decides to just release it, but then they don't redact her address. Well, she's currently the poster child for both sides war on this, right? She wants to get her husband back a lot.

I can't imagine anybody on the left not thinking that it's a good thing to get the person back. In fact, some people on the right are even talking about how removing due process and doing this stuff is bad. So there's a lot of people who are against him being sent away, but you also know that Trump has a sect of people that are crazy and that will do insane shit, like, I don't know, give pipe bombs away

to like media personalities and stuff. So we know that there's a group of people that are kind of crazy. I mean, they're crazy enough to fucking go knock down the doors at the at the Capitol during January six. Yeah, I know that there's a group of people out there that are that are on the hinge that will do some crazy shit. So she's worried now because they didn't redact her address. And this is the same place where she lives.

So now people know where she lives. She has to go to a safe house now and live until all this stuff blows over because, and there's, you could say it's incompetence, but I don't think it is. I think they always blame incompetence like, oh, we didn't mean to, but they do shit to be mean to. And I think, one, it doesn't matter,

but I think you always have to lean on the side that they're doing this as a punitive measure to try to stop her from doing this, to try to get her to think like, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. They have, these people have a lot more power than I, and I shouldn't be fighting up against them. I also think that, like, I think,

I think the two things are true at the same time, which sound like they are in opposition to one another, but I don't believe they are. I do think that there is a staggeringly high level of real incompetence within this administration. And I also think that this administration intentionally embraces incompetence and chaos as cover. Because if they know that if everybody

just kind of blows it off as an error as incompetence as the sort of natural chaos of this administration that they're not held accountable the same way that competent mature responsible administrations and professionals and would normally be you know the it's it's it's it's part of that shotgun effect but it says it's also this like weaponized incompetence of government. It's fucking wild to watch in action. I hope she sues him.

I do too. Because I think like, you know, you let that, she's part of this media attack of the left or on the right right now that is going after her. They're, you know, they're trying to, and if they, if they publicize this sort of thing, I hope she sues everybody that publicized it in any way.

I hope she sues them. Go after them, man. And I know we talked about this before. I do think it bears a swift repeating that none of this, none of who this guy is and what he's done actually matters. It's an important, it's important to note that that is always a distraction. I literally do not care if he was a murdering rapist of children, he's still entitled to due process

because you don't know that he's a murdering rapist of children unless you go through the due process. What you have is a suspicion, what you have is maybe even a preponderance of evidence, what you have is a lot of things you have is a, maybe even a preponderance of evidence. What you have is, you know, a lot of things, but until you move through that process, you haven't established anything. You've established literally nothing.

These processes are important to safeguard all of us, to make sure that the rule of law is what governs and not the fucking whims of a dictator. Yeah. This is from people Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to launch National Autism Registry. Data will be collected from pharmacy chains, lab tests, smartwatches and more. This is from people Robert F Kennedy jr. To launch national autism registry data will be collected from pharmacy chains lab tests smartwatches and more and I read that and I thought the fuck is my smartwatch going to tell somebody I'm autistic. You might have to enter it in.

Yeah maybe. For some reason. Maybe. I don't know. Question mark. Yeah I don't know. I don't know. Like I've got an Apple watch and I got a Garmin watch and I don't think either of them have like an autism setting

Yeah, I don't think that there's anything I mean, I don't know I mean I've no idea what kind of information they can glean but what they're trying to get is there They're they're saying that what they want to do is use this as data when they do this sort of meta study that they're planning. And the meta study that RFK is planning is he has already decided before any pen hits anything that the reason why autism is rising isn't because we're better at recognizing it, which is probably why it's rising. Sure. Instead he throws that out and said, that's not the reason it's an environmental factor.

So he knows for sure already before he starts any study whatsoever with his new position, right? That it's going to be environmental. So what he's going to do is he's going to have a bunch of people, a bunch of data scientists go through a ton of different data, and then he's going to have is he's going to have a bunch of people, a bunch of data scientists go through a ton of different data and then he's going to have an answer. He already has it. Like unlike other studies where you don't know what your conclusion is and don't know when you'll finish it, he both knows what his conclusion is that it's going to be environmental and he is going to finish this study by September.

So he knows both of those things. That's insane. And he's going to present, I am willing to bet anybody that it's vaccines. I am willing to bet anybody right now, a crisp $100 bill that his environmental factor that he's going to pull out of thin air is gonna be vaccines. And so he's got a plan already to do this.

And in order to do that, he's going to collect this data. Well, there's a couple of things that are, that are disturbing about this. One is you shouldn't, you should be a person who gets to submit data when you want to submit data. Not just, you know, somebody just randomly takes your data. But then also, a lot of people are worried that this might create what might amount to an autism registry, where they would just know the names of people with autism. And I don't have to remind people of fascist regimes

in the past of doing bad things to people they thought were less than. And some of those people happen to be, you know, in other ways, differently abled, right? So, I mean, I'm not adding those things together, but I'm not saying that they don't wanna have that information, so they could disenfranchise those people in some way.

In some way, yeah. I mean, people with disabilities have been put on fucking trains. That is a fucking true fact about the world. And maybe we don't want the United States government to make a registry of its undesirables, right? This is not good. And like, I don't think people with autism are undesirable, but I fucking guarantee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. does.

Is that how he talks about it? I fuck, yeah. I mean, that's not, I'm not reaching. He doesn't, they use the bathroom. Yeah. He's like, he's like, they'll never pay, they'll never play taxes. They'll never, they'll never write a poem. They won't play baseball.

They won't fall in love. They won't go to those. Some of these people can't even use the bathroom on their own. They'll live their whole life in care, essentially. He doesn't know that like... That it's a spectrum? That it's a spectrum. That there's a huge... It's also like there's...

Like, I was looking into this. It's not like there's like one thing that autism is. It's like a... It's a name for a collection of things. It's not a... Just like, you know, like when we say like, I'm going to cure cancer and they're like, yeah, but there's a million different types of cancer. It's not a meaningful thing to say.

It's almost the same thing with autism in the sense that like, we're going to find the cause of autism. We're like, wait a minute. It's just a collection of behaviors that we call this thing. And so yeah, it just, what they want to do is what they started out to do, which is why he was even put off. Yeah. Is so that they could say vaccines are harmful. Trump wanted to do that what they started out to do, which is why he was even put office, is so that they could say vaccines are harmful. Trump wanted to do that since the beginning.

That's why he put him in there. He put him in there so everybody in the world can hear the head of HHS say, vaccines are harmful. So here's what another thing to be afraid of here that I'm really nervous about. If he goes down that road by September, will these vaccines cease to even be available to those that want them?

No idea. There will certainly be, there's already, I saw something today that I think in the Washington Post, it was in the Washington Post, that in 25 years, if we keep at this vaccination rate, millions of Americans will have gotten measles. Millions of people will get it. And that's right now in a population

that is largely vaccinated. But if these vaccines not only are not required, but aren't even available, because genuinely, if we get to a point where the head of the HHS completes a meta study with non-willing participants, that's awesome, super cool, very chill, low, big, not a big government thing to do at all to just do that, but completes a meta study,

arrives at a conclusion that was foregone and says these vaccines cause autism. Here's a causal link. Wouldn't the only responsible thing to do if you really had that data be to pull those products from the shelves? Well, and then what does that do for global travel? Because suddenly, if I want to travel certain places in the world, I have to take a vaccine from here.

If I want to travel to a place that might have some sort of, you know, yeah, yellow fever or if I could get dengue or I can get, I don't even know if there's a vaccine for that, but you know what I mean? Like one of those things like I have people right now traveling to India. They have to get shots before they go to India. But what do you say to people who are coming to your country from the United States as somebody who is a nation that's vaccinated are now we on the watch list for their countries where they're like, sorry, we, you know, you're not able to, you can't come here until you get vaccinated, et cetera.

Because I mean, like, think about that. Think about how that interacts. I mean, suddenly we, you know, the dollar's going down, people aren't coming here and now other people won't even let us go there because we're gonna have to get America vaccines. And like, I mean, I would 100% get on an airplane and fly someplace to get vaccines. Yeah. I would, I would be a vaccine tourist because I am a big believer in vaccines. I am a big believer in the radical notion that it is better to not be sick than to be sick. I know. Fucking crazy. Call me, call me crazy. I did go to high school biology, so I feel like that's a thing. Sure. Yeah. So we're just going to create an industry of people leaving this country to get the most basic medicines that are sometimes almost a hundred years old. That's insane, dude. The Guardian fears grow that signal leaks make Pete Hegseth top espionage target.

Experts say Pentagon chief has endangered secrets of US defense department and given assistance to foreign spies. Super cool. And like I read this article because you put it in the notes. I read this article and I thought, well, no, duh. Like if I was, if I was some, if I was the head of like the Chinese intelligence agency, I would look at this administration and be like, that dude's a bad decision machine. There is a weakest link here for sure.

Right. Like this guy is fucking porous as a sponge. Are you kidding me? He had his family on the same, on a different signal chat. Like his wife and his lawyer. Like his wife and his lawyer and a couple other people. It's like, dude, do you have like a friends and family plan? For real, man.

You have to, they're included in this. Do they get Disney plus too? Like what is happening? It's bundled with Hulu. Could you imagine somebody so incompetent? And it's insane to me that they defend this guy. What you should have done initially was just fire him. Should have been like, yeah, you know what?

That was my mistake and I'll find somebody else. There's another sycophant out there that'll fit the fucking bill for this guy. What's the, why have him in there? And the reason why is Trump doesn't ever want to admit he ever made a mistake ever in his life. He's never made a mistake. And so what he'll do is he'll fight till the bitter end,

even though you put what could be one of the most incompetent people in the country in this position. Somebody, and what did I say? I hadn't heard anybody talk about it at all, but I said the reason why he included all that shit in that text that he sent out to all of his, all the people on the signal thread that was like Tulsi Gabbard and all those other people.

The reason why he included that was because he wanted to swing dick and show people. He didn't have to include the actual shit in there. He didn't have to say it was an F-17 or whatever that flew out here. It was, here's these drone packages, here's this stuff. He included the jargon in there because he wanted to show how in control he was.

He wanted to swing dick. He wanted to swing dick. He wanted to show how in control he was. He wanted to swing dick. He wanted to swing dick. He wanted to show how tough he was. Look at what I'm doing. I'm the one who's facilitating this stuff. That's why they're on the signal chain too. Right? You got the guy who doesn't believe he's been picked and he can't stop talking about how

important he is to all his friends and family. That's why he's involved in this too. And that's the worst person I have in that position. You want somebody who's who understands the gravity of the things that they're doing. That's who you want in that position. Yeah, man. Like he straight up copy pasted shit from the one signal chat over into the other signal chat.

And it was just it was just absolutely a fucking flex. Yeah, it was a fucking friends and family flex. chat. And it was just absolutely a fucking flex. It was a fucking friends and family flex. That's what it was. Like, look what a big fucking deal I am. Won't you guys worship me next Thanksgiving? You go to a barbecue and there's just like big printouts of those signals.

Things like, he's got one on the fridge with a magnet on it. He's that guy standing there with the fucking grill. He's like, hang on. Hang on a minute guys It's set calm. I Gotta take this Yeah, it's central command guys Hold on

Is everybody quiet so I can take this call from central command? Hello, how you doing secretary hug Seth, can I help you I? Hello. It's Pete Hegseth. How you doing? Secretary Hegseth, can I help you? I also think too, this is a little harder for Trump to back down on because this was the big pony he backed when he was picking his cabinet. This is the one that everybody said don't do.

And this was the one that had the most, this was really the big political will test. And so there was a lot more pushback against Pete Hegseth than everybody else. It was the first big one with big pushback. And this was the one where he basically twisted every arm and broke every back and was like, I am flexing my will to get this guy. Soon as he gets this guy, he's backed them so hard.

Now we can't back down because he's already flexed hard to get this done. So like he's kind of fucking stuck. He's stuck because he's a narcissist. hard to get this done. So, like, he's kind of fucking stuck. He's stuck because he's a narcissist. Don't get me wrong. He's not stuck in a decent person way. Well, he's not stuck in any real way. Because any real person would just say you're fired.

I don't know anybody who would accept that kind of incompetence from anyone who works for... No! You're like, no. What, are you kidding me? No! CBS news. Hegseth orders makeup studio installed at the Pentagon. So originally he wanted to put like a $40,000 makeup studio. Is it soundproof too? So we can make calls from it.

Like that one guy got a sit room or whatever. One of those rooms. Oh my God. Like what are those? Uh, like super secure rooms. Yeah. It's a fucking, it's got get smart doors. You know, he's got to like walk down a series of like, I hope it's, I hope it's like a

pole you slide down and it's like, you know how when, when Batman would slide down the pole, he'd change costume. I hope when Hex says slides down, his face gets painted with makeup. So he just gets, he gets bronze real quick as he goes down. And then when he lands, he's right in front of the cameras and he can talk. Here I am. I love that. Like we're at a place where we are firing the entire education department. We've laid off the whole fucking CFPB,

the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We're firing IRS agents, so we collect less revenue from billionaires. But we wanna make sure we give Pete Hegseth a goddamn glow up, right? We gotta get his fucking glam squad on. I think it's important that every member of the secretary cabinet has gender Affirming care. Yeah

And I'm glad the Trump administration agrees great fucking embrace everyone should have gender affirming care even Pete has stuff And for him that's bronzer and like and yeah fucking and like they have to tattoo in his fucking eyebrows And whatever they got to do have to put a little concealer on his white supremacist tattoo. He's the fucking Christ What a fucking Narcissistic piece of shit asshole. I love it. I love to how they were talking about all this fraud and abuse Like oh, it's fraud and abuse. We're gonna cut it. We're gonna clean it and there's like by the way Can I put this on my company card? Can I just charge this? Is that OK?

So where's the expense button? I'm expensing this. Super excited to be part of this. I have this as my job so I can expense this beautiful makeup studio. Go, Gadget Go! Inspector Gadget! Inspector Gadget! CNN, that ends now. Judge overseeing a Abrego Garcia case knocks Trump administration for repeated stonewalling.

So the Trump administration was supposed to do substantive stuff to facilitate the return. If they weren't going to do substantive stuff to facilitate the return of Abrego Garcia, they were supposed to give at least substantive answers and instead they gave a bunch of boilerplate bullshit, nothing answers. And the judge was like, this is boilerplate bullshit. Nothing. You guys are bad at your job. Basically every time they'd come in, they would be ill

equipped, unprepared bad arguments and she would just be like, what are you doing? What is happening? Why are you treating this like this? And like you suggest, that's a level of chaos that they bring to this, right? That sort of weaponized incompetence is necessary for them. And it makes it feel like that, you know,

there's this sort of constant low level hum of chaos in the whole administration. And they're, I mean, just even, even just look at, we can't tell, we don't know, because they came in and said it was a mistake that he got sent there, but then they said it wasn't. And then they said it was, and then they said it was, and they've been going back and forth on whether or not it even is. But even if it isn't, it's still bad, right? Even if, even if he just got sent over, it's still bad.

And the judge can't even find certain important pieces of this out. Like, let's figure out like the best way to get it. And I think that they're just doing this. You know, they're sending in the three stooges and they're like accidentally poking the clerk in the eye. And they're like, they're like, you know, they're like smacking each other in the head. And like, they're like, you know, they're like smacking each

other in the head and like, they're walking through a giant pane of glass. Yeah. Guys are carrying down the street. Yeah. So we crashed, they're chasing each other around the plaintiff table. They're just like, yeah, these people are, they're, they're not, they're not serious people and she, like, I think too, I, I just really want to see the hammer start coming down. What I want to see is the hammer get these people

and hit these low level people hard. Hit them real hard so no one's willing to do this work for him. Yeah, you're immune. Yeah, you know these really high up people in your department are immune. But hit them so hard that like, there's nobody in the attorney general's office

who's willing to go down there and talk for them. Pam Bondi's gotta go court to court. That's what I wanna see. Is make her go do the work because no one's willing to do it. Everybody's like, no man, they're putting the people in jail. No man, I ain't doing that.

I ain't doing that. I got a lot of greener family, I'm not doing that. Yeah, I don't disagree with that take at all. And I do think that there's a real problem, Cecil, when serious systems try to intake unserious people. Serious systems, like we've built a whole series of systems that are built on kind of an assumption of orderliness and an assumption of like a respect for the system

that you're engaging. And I think there's a real impossibility element that we haven't figured out when you send these like agents of unserious chaos into these orderly systems of serious people. The serious people don't seem to know how to respond to this. There's a there's a flummoxing. Yeah. And it's because the threat of all the things that you were planning to do was enough to keep everyone else in line. That's totally enough for everybody else to be like, okay, no, I don't want to fuck with

that person. Like I will do what it takes. But we saw, even when Trump was out of office, we saw these people not respond to summons as we saw this in the first one too. We should have known. I mean, you shouldn't know. You should have known that this was going to happen. Everyone should have known that this was going to happen.

Here's the thing. There are no surprises here. Yeah, nobody. Nobody should be. Nobody paying attention right now has been. I don't think there's been a place where if you've been paying attention, anything that's happened, you have an ability to be like, I didn't see that one because that wasn't on my bingo card. It's all the project. Twenty twenty five bingo. It's all there. Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, the four nations lived together in harmony.

Then everything changed when the fire nation attacked. The independent Sarah Sanders begs her old boss Trump to reconsider after president rejects Arkansas's request for disaster relief funds. The Arkansas governor and former Trump White House press secretary's request for federal support was rejected. Oh, that's terrible. Man, that's really tough. You know, here's the problem with conservatism. They, a lot of people like to think that they like, they want to cut these things, they want to cut out these things or whatever. And they do want to cut them because what they don't want is for you to get it. Right? You, you, you should never get this. You're not deserving.

So they want to cut everything they can so that you don't get it. But every time they need it, they want it and they get upset when they don't get it. But every time they need it, they want it. And they get upset when they don't get it, right? And they also take advantage of everything that they possibly can that is government based. They just don't want you to have any of it. And so that's the difference. That's what conservatives want. Now, you know, I would hope that the people on the left are like, yeah, everybody deserves

to get this. I, of the stuff that our tax scholars goes to, I'm ecstatic if my tax dollars are going to fix somebody's fucking home in Arkansas, because like a fucking twister came through and threw a cow through their picture. Like I'm like, yeah man, fucking pay that dude. Yeah man, fucking A. My, I'm ecstatic when my money goes to a tangible thing

that is actually helping a human being, you know, here in the States that needs our help. Fucking yes, that's what I want to see. And then as soon as he came in office, he's like, no, we're not doing that anymore. Yeah, we're not doing anymore. Like I can't wait. I cannot wait for the first like real, real disaster hurricane first real real widespread like You know something big wildfire something big is gonna hit and it's gonna be so big and it's gonna be like

Massive to the point where that that money if that money doesn't come these people are gonna be fucked and it's not just give me A small group it could be all of Florida. Yeah, right. It could be it could be Hundreds of thousands of people in Florida We saw it happen in North Carolina with all these people and and Trump believed the narrative that those people weren't getting money because that's what? The Republicans pushed because they wanted it to seem like the Democrats were withholding that money or whatever and they weren't actually getting that money I mean, I you'll hear it constantly working its way through the right-wing ecosystem that they say, oh, those people never got any money. And they want to keep that lie up

because they wanted to get rid of it from the first. They wanted to get rid of it all together because they said it's corrupt, but it was never corrupt. And all those people needed that money. They needed it, man. They needed it. They needed it. All these places. And it's going to be the ones

that are going to suffer the worst are going be, the ones that are gonna suffer the worst are gonna be the places that are the deep red places that just don't have the infrastructure to fix it. Yeah, man. When you look at the areas that are most affected by hurricanes most often, these are not fucking blue states, man. These are not blue states.

And Trump came out and was like, yeah, if there's a fucking problem in Oklahoma, let Oklahoma fix it. He is basically saying, let's, let's stop disaster, federal disaster relief. Fuck that. Where's our break in our taxes guys? As we like think about, I want everybody to always think about this like pin and remind your conservative friends of this.

As we continue to provide less and less services, tell me, have your taxes changed? Has your paycheck gotten any bigger? Check your last check, your last two week W-2 paycheck. Take a look at your paycheck and tell me if it's changed. Because if it hasn't changed, all we've gotten is nothing but less than. All we had. You paid the same amount for less.

Yep. Yeah. Cause I tell you what, like my fucking bank account did not get any fatter and we are getting less services. So as we continue to get less and less services, I want you guys to keep an eye on your paycheck. And if it does change, tell me if it's worth it. Tell me if it's worth it when that hurricane comes

and floods out tens of thousands of homes. It's not gonna change. Yeah. It's not gonna change. It's not gonna change. Yeah. It's not gonna change. It's not gonna change. I know it's not gonna change. That money's gonna go somewhere. Yeah.

And it isn't to you. It ain't you. It isn't to you. It's never you, man. Cause I'll tell you what, I'm 47, it's never been me. It's been me once when George W. Bush gave me $300. $300. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Spin it! Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo hoo The new Republic panicking Trump walks back his attacks on the fed and China. Donald Trump seems to have finally realized he's sending the economy into a tailspin. Maybe this will be true tomorrow. Maybe it won't. Maybe it will. Like who knows? Fucking like this week at one point he's like, it can't come soon enough. We got to fire Jerome Powell, the federal reserve chief. And the markets fucking implode

when they hear that, right? Because that's just like, Hey, what we need is a grotesque level of instability within our economy. And we need to like couple together the executive branch and the Fed. Important note, Jerome Paul's term is up in two years. So understand that there will be in the, in Trump's presidency, unless something else happens, maybe he doesn't finish his presidency out for some reason, but let's just presume I don't believe, but I need a genuflex. Let's just presume I I don't believe, but I need a genuflex. Let's just presume. I have thoughts about this. That he's going to finish his term. If he finishes his term, he will pick a new Fed chair. I know man. Well he picked Jerome Powell.

I know, but like he had a person in the room who said, pick Jerome Powell. Well you know why he picked him? Just real quick, do you know why he picked him? Cause he pulled it out of the hat and it wasn't a practice. You're very close. You're actually very close. He picked him because he thought he looked good. Literally looked good. His comment was he looks like a guy straight out of central casting. He didn't pick the other person because he thought they were too short. That's a reason. I'm dead serious about this. I am dead serious. That is how he picked Jerome Powell. He thought he looked to the part of a federal reserve chief.

Looked the part, Cecil. I've stunned you into silence. That's a true fact. I will say that doesn't surprise me. You know what? You like, they say that and I'm like, yeah, no, that's fine. Yeah, that's fine. That's, that's pretty much what it, that's pretty much what you voted for with 2025.

You pretty much voted for a visual based system. Choose for your Fed chair. Like, no, that's, that's, yeah, that's fine. What does he do anyway? He just makes money. Like who cares? He's going to be our next Fed chair. Oh God.

I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. What's fucking insane to me is that Jerome Powell has actually done the impossible. He did a good job. He did more than a good job. He did a great job. He did the impossible. So if you were following this, any of this stuff,

what the federal's aiming for was what they called a soft landing. And the soft landing and the soft landing. Soft landing from COVID. Right. From COVID. Like think about this guys, before Tom finishes, COVID, which was an absolute disaster around the globe, trashing markets, killing industries, it did all kinds of awful things. COVID was an absolute destroyer of markets. And the best we could do to get out of it, we had to give out a couple of stimulus checks.

We had to do like some extra stuff to make sure that those people were able to, that couldn't even do like regular work, had the money to spend. It was insane. And then they wanted a soft landing from that. They wanted a soft landing. Because it was a disaster.

Because it was a fuck, it was an enormous international economic disaster. And the Fed has a dual mandate. So the Fed's mandate is to keep unemployment low and to keep economic growth high. So that's their dual mandate. So those are, those two things have to be sort of balanced all the time. And the soft landing was to grow the economy at a rate that also did not balloon out inflation. Inflation began to balloon out for a variety of reasons. They

use the biggest tool in their toolbox, which is the interest rates. They raised interest rates. They brought them up. They brought them down before this. Paul was on before we did before COVID existed. Right. Or was, you know, before COVID popped, before there was a pandemic. And everybody said that there is almost no way that we are gonna be able to avoid a recession. Everybody was like, that soft landing was like a myth.

It was a dream. It was like something that was almost certain to not happen. And we pulled it off. We pulled it off. We brought the inflation back down from fucking, you know, 9% to somewhere around like 2.9, 3%, somewhere around there. Job growth remained strong.

The economy continued to grow at a reasonable rate. The soft landing happened. It was an impossible economic historical moment. He's not a good Fed chair. He is historically a miraculously good fed chair. And he's like getting attacked because Trump in a hundred days created a crisis that how he needs other grownups to try to solve. And he doesn't understand how to do it. He's like, make the interest rates lower, dummy. Yeah. Which would be the wrong thing to do.

He's just the worst. He's the worst. I don't even know what I'm talking about. And I'm a thousand times better than he is. I was initially a little dubious of Trump's selection criteria. But I will say, you needed somebody who was gonna go hard in the paint

and be a rim protector, and you need a tall guy for that. You gotta get a tall guy. You can't get one of these little Steph Curry guys. He's shooting threes. You gotta get one of these big boys out there. You need a Shaquille O'Neal, you know, a big guy. And so I initially dubious of Trump's ideas on a tall guy, but now I've fallen in line. I've fallen in line.

Nice tall guy. That's what we needed. We needed a tall guy right now. I've fallen in line there. You go fall it in like nice tall guy You should we need a tall guy. We knew it was gonna balloon out. It was odd. Yeah, what a fucking amazing Fucking I don't believe I live in this world I'm like I don't believe I I don't believe this world's real. I don't believe you're real Dude, I don't care. I look up. I don't believe you're real. I'm not real dude. I don't care. I look up I'm like, this is the dumbest simulation. I am living I'm living in the worst sims game I don't even know if there's tariffs on China anymore. I think it doesn't even matter This will come out Monday. And the thing is is like like from what I heard and from what I read you sent me a story

This week where basically China's like go go fuck yourself. We'll be fine. We're going to do this on the 25th. And Trump's like, but wait, I need to talk to you. And like, so, so because Trump, Trump thinks he's the toughest guy on the block. But then the moment he got a talking to this week by a bunch of CEOs are like, you're going to have empty shelves. You're going to have empty shelves if you don't fucking figure this out. And so he's now trying to backpedal and he's like, Oh, we've got, we're going to have to take those tariffs down on China. Even though he's never had a conversation with them. So absurd. It's like China's always known that there's a midterm coming up in 2026. China's not like ignorant of American politics. It'd be so funny if like they just, they just fucking stonewall him until then. And he's just fucking ruined. I mean, we're ruined too though guys. So it's like a bad, bad grade.

What a fucking idiot. What an idiot. I come from the net through systems, peoples and cities to this place. Mainframe. My format, Guardian. To mend and defend. To defend my newfound friends, their hopes and dreams. To defend them from their enemies. Stories from CBC, I think. I don't know. I can't read it. CTV. That's what Canada is. Some Canadian thing. We no longer felt welcome nor safe. Canadian snowbirds cashing out of US for good.

These people are buying, they said that they were 13% of the real estate market, foreign real estate market. 13% of that market said, nah, most of them are like, nah, I'm good, They're not coming back. These people would come here every year. And so think about that return. Yeah, a lot of money, man. It's not just like a one-time trip to one place, right?

You're not just taking a one-time trip to Nashville. You're taking a every year for three months, I'm living in Florida because I'm a snowbird. I fly down there. I live in Canada. I'm like one of the fucking geese, one of those angry ass geese. I fly down there.

God, I wish those fucking things would, they don't even migrate anymore. They just hang out. They just hang out all winter honking at you. They just chill. But in any case, those Canadian geese are gonna be the only Canadians you see. That's it.

Because all the rest of them are like, fuck you. And they don't wanna do it. They're not interested in doing it anymore. And I don't blame them. And like we talked about before, what's going to happen is, you're going to get it, you know, fingers crossed we'll have a new president. Fingers crossed, who the fuck knows.

Fingers crossed you have a new president. You could even change the government. Topsy turvy, all Democrats or all people on the left or whatever. Do they trust you now? Now that they've seen that somebody can go hard in the pain against them, we got a tall guy on our side who's gonna go hard in the pain on them. Now what? What are they gonna do?

They're gonna be like, nah, I'm okay. We don't, you know what? I found a nice place in Europe I'm gonna go visit. Instead, I built a place in some other other place like Acapulco or something. Sure. I went somewhere, I went to Costa Rica. It's a little longer flight, but you know what? It's just, it's nicer down there.

Yeah, but they're not shitting on you. I'm in Belize now, so. Yeah, awesome. I love Belize. But yeah, like the amount of money, if I were in Florida right now, I would be in a fucking absolute tailspin. I would be in a panic.

What's always amusing to me is that these economic effects of a lot of this stuff, they are not proportionally felt. They are disproportionately felt, right? So if you create a situation where, you know, you've got these big ass tariffs, you've fucking pissed off our neighbors to the north, you've pissed off our neighbors to the north you pissed off our neighbors to the south you pissed off all of our neighbors in Western Europe just everybody's pissed and you start to see things like tourism begin to drop Florida Florida is like a fucking tourist Mecca it is the only economy that

in what does matters about Florida it's got nothing but alligators, swamps, fucking Zika virus, mosquitoes, it's a horrible place. And Ron's a Santas. It's a horrible place. So you go there for the tourist stuff or you die. There's nothing to do in Florida but die or be a tourist. That's the only options that you have. Like there's a reason my mom lives in Florida.

It's trash, it's absolute trash. They have gotta be panicking. Their real estate market has gotta be absolutely panicking. I would be desperate if I were in Florida right now. And the same is true for many other places across this country. There's a ton of places that have so much tourism dollars that come in and you know,

gosh, it's our northern neighbor. They're gonna come, they're gonna, gosh, it's our northern neighbor. They're going to come. They're going to show up. It's an easy flight. Like if I drive to Toronto and fly down to Chicago, it's a two hour flight. Yeah, it's nothing. Or it's a one hour flight to New York. It's a three hour flight to Florida.

Like these are real easy flights. It's like when you think about where you're going to travel, you're like, oh, it's only a three hour flight to Vegas. Well, maybe I'll go to Vegas. You know, I'll have a pop up. It's okay to go for a weekend even. Yeah. All that money's gone. That money doesn't come back.

And then it might not come back next time either. And you ruined it and you ruined it in a hundred days. It took you a hundred days to ruin it. So you know, you get what you pay for and we voted for this and that's what we get. But it's a disaster for so many people. And I'm sad because, you know, I think that, I wish that we could still be united with that group. Same.

You know, I think it's awesome that we were for so long. And it's like, I feel sad about it. I'm like, oh, it sucks. It sucks that they're not considered, we're not considered their neighbor anymore. And I feel Distressed too knowing that like if I go to Canada, I would feel Embarrassed to be there. I'd feel I am now I feel I would feel very embarrassed to travel the world and be American I am I would feel like I would need to say I'm not that kind of American. I'm considering

Not sure I'm gonna do it Buying a maple leaf hat because I'm considering, not sure I'm gonna do it, buying a maple leaf hat, because I'm flying to Europe this spring or summer. I'm gonna be going to Europe, I'm gonna be going to Scandinavia, and I'm considering if I get a maple leaf hat and I talk English. Politely.

And I'm still polite. Just apologize a lot, you'll be fine. I feel like I might be able to avoid any shittiness because people will be like, you're an American, fuck you. And I don't, I mean, I kinda don't blame them. Blame them at all. I don't blame them, you know? You would want to identify like not MAGA.

Yeah. Like I just wear a shirt all the time, it's not MAGA. Yeah, not MAGA, fuck those people, yeah. If you're evil and you're on the rise, you can count on the four of us taking you down cause we're good and evil never beats us. We'll win the fight and then go out for pizzas. From the Guardian, don't believe the doubters.

Protest still has power. I want to tell you about my protest. Tell me about it. Oh, so I went downtown. My wife and I decided to drive down. We picked up friends of ours and they brought their son. And all of us went. Their son is like, he's like 10 now? And so all of us drove down.

We got out, we had our signs. I had a sign that says they want 1939's Germany. Let's give them 1789 France and another big. So I had that sign. My wife had one that said resist. The young boy who came with us had one that I think said, everyone deserves human rights. And he had written it out.

And so we taped it up for him and stuff. And then we went down and heard speaker speak and they spoke in daily square and was a fucking huge crowd, man. It was big. It was so big that we moved out to the street and we just did a circle down in the loop, right? So it was just a big circle where you're walking in the loop. And when we're walking, we were walking along and we weren't the first group to get out into the street, right? We weren't early to get out in the street. It was a huge plaza. We were kind of up by the speakers. So it was like an hour of people talking and they were all, you know, talking about different

things like, you know, come next week to this other rally. I'm an immigrant. I'm, you know, this other people were like pro-Palestines. There was some pro-Palestine speakers there. And then we all get to leave. Well, we're by the speakers area. So we were kind of right by the front. So it took us a while to get out to the streets. So we get out to the street and there's still a whole crowd of people behind us, like a giant crowd.

And we start marching. And as we're marching, my wife looks over and goes, look at the crowds over there. So it had gone all the way up the street, turned around and come all the way back. And it was, you could see it, which is like huge, big crowd of people. Like there was people drumming, we're walking down the street.

And what I got a chance to see was just a ton of people just talking to each other. Right? I had a guy come up to me. I stand in there with my wife and I had the, you know, a bunch of people came by. Can I take a picture of your sign? Can I take a picture of your sign? Because my wife did a really nice job by the way. I didn't do it. My wife did it. She drew a nice guillotine on it, you know? I assumed she made it. It's actually a really cool sign she did for me.

So she did the sign and then she did it with all the markers and stuff. And it's a big guillotine. She drew blood on it and stuff. And then she drew like in block letters, the letters. And when everybody saw it, they're like, can I get a picture of that? And so I had a bunch of her coming up and taking pictures of it. And then I had one fella come up to me and he had like 15 cameras on him. He's got like so many cameras and he's walking around and he's like, would you mind if I took your picture?

I said, no, not at all. And so he took my picture and he's taking, he's like, are you with her? And I said, yeah. And so we stood together and he took a picture and then he comes over and he talks and he's in a really deep sort of thick Scottish accent. And he says, I'm from Scotland.

I flew over here, you know, and I went to the protest last week and I stayed so I could go to these ones too. And I'm just taking pictures and sort of documenting. He's like, I just want to let you know, like, you know, like I, pretty much everybody in Scotland stands with you. He's like, this is, you know,

and it was just like a cool feeling of solidarity and that. And I got a chance to talk to a couple of other people and then I could see other people networking and talking about like, oh, we do this here and we do this. And so there's just like this awesome, like, like neat thing where you have a thing in common. So now you have a reason to talk to somebody and anybody can talk to anybody in that crowd.

And so now you get a chance to meet people and there's like a, it's a cool energy. And it was awesome. And people were really excited about it. And, you know, like the concept was like joy as an act of protest. And so that was the name of the protest that we went to. But it was great.

And it was, and there was a bunch of speakers there. And so you get a chance to hear what they had to say. A lot of them were, you know, just sort of rah rah, but there was a, there's a trans man who spoke, who was really very moving talking about all the difficulties that they're now running into. There was a pro Palestine person there who was talking about the issues that are still going on in Palestine. There was a, you know, immigration, there was a guy who was talking about, you know,

how he was, you know, he's an immigrant and all the people he knows are immigrants. And they were the ones who were expendable during COVID. And now they're expendable now. And it's just like a cool, and it's just like a bunch of stuff to remind you why you're there. It was awesome, man.

I can't say enough about it. I thought it was amazing. And I put this in there so I would remind myself to tell you about it. Well, I saw this, because I remember our conversation the other day, where I had taken a pretty dim view of the protest. Yeah, and I think what I saw when I saw people respond, they were kind of split down the

middle. Some people thought, you know, yeah, it's still a good thing. Other people were like, yeah, I totally see Tom's point that it's not really. But I think I'm wrong. Yeah. Like, here's the thing. I think I was wrong. I think like there's no value to cynicism.

And I have to remind myself of that from time to time. Like a cynicism doesn't accomplish anything. It's an easy retreat, right? I think very often people will retreat into cynicism because it's self-protective. It's easy. It's a defense mechanism. And I get it.

And I'm actually not shitting on people that need to use it to protect their peace. and I think too like like we suggested too is like you got to have enough Energy in yourself to do it right and if you don't and you think like I'm just using as much energy as I can to Just get by then just get by right like nobody's asking you to go above and beyond on anything right But if you can and you think that it's gonna be a while do it, you know, like be there That's okay. Like and I do think there's a positivity to it. I'm actually really happy I did it. You know, it was a whole day outing

and we drove to Chicago because I didn't know where any other one was, but there was a ton of people there. And so it was super exciting. And I'm glad I put that in the notes very specifically just so I would remember to talk about it, just so I can remember to tell people I was there at this last one.

And the next few that come up, if I can remember to tell people I was there Yeah at this last one and I the next few that come up if I can clear my calendar I'll be there because there's there's there's every reason to show up You know like you got it And I think that the bigger numbers those big numbers that shows there's so many people that are on the right side They're on the right side of history on this at least it doesn't make you feel like the only crazy person. Yeah, right? I was flying Oh, Superbook I was afraid to look Superbook Oh, Superbook

Okay, we gotta play this. This is one of the playing ones, Tom. This is from People for formerly Right Wing Watch. William Wolfe says Christians want to see mass deportations. Isn't that great? Well, at least we're saying it out loud. Yeah, so let's put this on the big screen for you to watch. What catches everybody's eyes are the pictures, whether it's the group of us praying with Trump,

or I posted my individual picture with Trump, which that was wonderful. But the most important thing I did that day on the White House campus was this roundtable discussion with other faith leaders with the White House Faith Office where we got to actually talk about and advocate for policy that matters for this country and for Christians. That's a behind the scenes thing.

We're not going to be posting pictures of that. I'm not at liberty to say what other people talked about. But one of the things I did in that meeting, Aaron, I think this is really sort of important different posture that CBL brings is I told the White House Faith Office, I think Christians want to see mass deportations. You'll see a lot of sort of evangelical organizations attacking Trump's immigration policies and priorities. They're astroturf.

They're astroturf, they're left-leaning, they're using evangelical in a way that is not really historically accurate. But I'm telling you, I think Southern Baptists and Christians want to see this happen. And so the work of CBL is giving me the opportunity to do things like that. And that makes much more of a difference, I hope, in the long run than even a picture with the president. I don't disagree with him at all. He's right. He's right. He's right. He's 100% right. I want to show you a bunch of racist Southern Baptists are like fucking happy to see that. Absolutely. Of course. This guy here on the left. Yeah. Is he related to the other bald guy who interviews people? Oh, the blobfish guy. Is he related to that guy or is that just their style?

That they need a guy who looks like Lex Luthor with glasses. Are we sure this isn't just like a different larval form of the same guy? I'm not sure of that. I'm not sure of that at all. I have no idea. I just, it just struck me that he has the same style. He doesn't.

Like literally the exact same style. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe this isn't just like the pupae stage of the same life form. That weird blob man. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It's a death head moth.

That's right. Yeah. He's like, he's just, he's just emerged from his chrysalis recently and like sloughed off his transformation jelly or whatever. This is, this is a hundred percent though, exactly what you would expect from a group of people who put Trump in office. Oh yeah. And they're going to use their religion to get that word out to the rest of those people

to show them that this is what you do if you're a good Christian. This is what you do if you're a good Southern Baptist. You're okay with us mass deporting people from the United States. Now understand so far, Trump has been putting out fewer people than other administrations, right? So fewer people have been sent away than other administrations. And there have been way more snafus and way more people that have been deported wrongly or sent away wrongly than in this administration than we've seen before.

So understand they were, they were better at it in other places. What they don't care about mass deportations, they care about the fear that mass deportations causes. That's what they want. They don't care about whether or not these people leave. They just want them to be afraid and know who's in charge. That's what they want. Yeah, well, because they understand

that a highly visible cruelty will accomplish a deterrent effect, which I think is actually happening on the southern border. There are a lot less people coming over because of course, the more cruel and inhospitable you make your country. You wanna wind up in El Salvador? Yeah. Yeah.

So like no shit that that's working, right? But I also think it's worth pointing out too, that just another reminder that it is at this point, a meaningless distinction to draw a distinction between American evangelical Christian and white Christian nationalism. Yeah. There is no meaningful distinction.

Nothing. They are the same thing. The religion of American Christianity has become its own sect, its own cult, its own whatever you wanna call it. It's got its own tenets, it's got its own faith traditions, it's got all of its own belief systems that are separate and distinct from any other forms of Christianity.

American, like whatever we wanna call it, like some kind of American Christian nationalism is white Christian nationalism. They're the same thing. So these guys are just trying to take that, brand it slightly differently, and then sell it large. Yeah.

["Skeptical Creed"] All right, that's gonna wrap it up for this week. We'll be back on with a funny show on Thursday. So check that out, and we're gonna leave you like we always do with the Skeptics Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. check that out and we're gonna leave you like we always do with the Skeptics Creed. Pyramidal free energy healing water downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch late night info Docutainment Leo Pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and towers tarot cards Psychic healing crystal balls bigfoot yeti aliens churches mosques and synagogues

temples dragons giant worms Atlantis dolphins truthersers, birthers, witches, wizards, they've punched his nuts a lot. Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Thanks for tuning in.

If you enjoyed the show, consider supporting us on Patreon at patreon.com forward slash dissonance pod. Help us spread the word by sharing our content. Find us on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Prs, 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.