Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 863: Dictators, National Guard Troops, and Flying Sandwiches

Episode Date: September 1, 2025

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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 Gloryhole Studios in Chicago and beyond. This is cognitive dissonance. Every episode we blasts to 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 Matt today is Thursday August the 28th what's going on as of today I don't know

it's about what time it's about noonish give or take yeah it's about noon there are no national guard troops yet in Chicago so that's a good that's a plus

when this releases who knows who knows that's what I'm saying by noon I mean by 5 o'clock who fucking knows yeah right so you know so you know

fucking fingers crossed the martial law will not extend out of the DC province. I think somebody commented on one of our shows this week and said, how is it that not everybody in the United States is protesting against us? And I would say, well, half the United States loves it. Yeah. Like half the United States is down. They're totally down with people sending people to these, like sending National Guard troops out into the world.

They're fine with it. Do you remember like when FEMA was trying to help people who were like impoverished and had their homes destroyed by natural disasters, specifically Hurricane Katrina. And there was this big right-wing backlash that, oh, my God, FEMA is this big government control society. FEMA camps. FEMA camps. We're going to put everybody in FEMA camp. Oh, they're going to, and this, it was this like big, oh, my God, we have to be afraid

of the way that, like, big government is going to create these concentration camp-esque kind of environments for people. When I look at what's happening now, and I think of things like the alligator alcatraz nightmare, when I think of the undeclared but actual de facto martial law being forced down the throats of Americans, the patrolling of American cities with our own troops, the mobilization of our military against ourselves. And I think that's your FEMA camps, man. the difference is like

when it was Hurricane Katrina what they were doing is saying can we just not help people of color we're spending our money helping people of color and we don't want to do that so let's instead make this a principle that it never was because now

now those same people who were screaming about the FEMA camps that didn't exist they were just trying to help people of color get back on their feet and provide them a place that's safe to live those same motherfuckers are like yeah you gotta send

You've got to send the American military against Americans. I mean, obviously, because they're not real Americans, because we think that they're probably black. Do you remember Jade Helm? I do remember Jade Helm, man. They were upset and worried about American troops on soil, doing practicing maneuvers. They were saying the very next thing that's going to happen is they're going to take over cities. They're going to take over part of Texas. Where's all the right wingers that were freaking out about Waco and freaking out about Ruby Ridge?

And I want to say, rightfully so. I am on your side with that, actually. I mean, I don't think we should blow up a federal building in response to it. That's fucking insane. But I think there were real problems with the militarized federal response to what were ultimately pretty low-level criminal issues. Right? So, like, I do believe that that's worth being worried about.

Like, I think being worried about the militarization of the federal government against its citizens is something that as a democracy, we need to say, hey, let's always be wary of that. Let's always be wary of tanks on American streets. That's Tiananmen Square shit. Yeah. We don't need that here. But those same people, those same motherfuckers are punching the ticket for this fuck. And I think that when you bring up Waco and you bring up Ruby Ridge, I think it's also really

important to bring up race. Because if all those things were black, no one would give a fuck. It's exactly true. the same thing now, where they're going to put what they see as cities with a large black population, they're going to send black or brown, right? It doesn't matter. I'm not saying necessarily black. I'm saying like people of color. It doesn't matter what person of color it is. They will send this group of people, national guard troops, to these places. And they will do it. And the rest of the world will, the rest of our country that is down for it is like, fine, that's

fine. Those people of color need to be watched. They need to be patrolled. They need to be intimidated. They need to be told what they should and shouldn't be doing. And he make no mistake. The reason why this is happening, the reason why Trump is doing this, I'm not sure it's necessarily

to become a dictator. I'm not sure it's necessarily to grab power. It is 100% vindictive against the people who protested there. What Trump is doing when he came in is he said, I can do what I want because he got told that by the Supreme Court. So he's been told I can do

whatever the fuck I want. Doesn't matter. So what he's going to do is he's going to punish, of course, all the people who he thinks wronged him. But that just doesn't stop at the higher ups. That stops at everybody. So that means that if you were out here in Chicago holding up a sign in front of Trump Tower, he sees that and says, I want to hurt those people. I want to do what I can to hurt those people. I will intimidate all those people as many of those people as I can. And he got away with in D.C., right? They immediately, nobody's, he's not been kicked out of D.C. yet.

He's been doing it. We got a couple stories about it on this week's show. He's not been kicked out yet. So what's going to happen is, is he's going to do it in other places until he finally gets told no. Well, and I think a couple of things, and I'll tell you my personal conspiracy theory

in a second. But I think one thing that I've been thinking about that's super important is that there are no constraints on Trump's power until someone constrains him. So there's a lot of people out there being like, oh, well, you know, they can't.

this, they can't do that. This would be against the law. They can only use the troops this way or that way. That's not true if nobody says stop. Nobody is saying stop. We know that he has no personal culpability or responsibility legally because the Supreme Court said, whatever you do, you can't be prosecuted for. That's fucking locked in, right? He's got full immunity for anything he does on a person level. So then the next quiet, the only thing that would really prevent him from doing whatever he wants is, will somebody stop him? And there's really nobody watching the watchman now. So are there legal constraints on his power?

Yeah. Technically, there's a lot of them. But if there's nobody actually saying no and then stopping it, then there's no actual constraint. We are running up against this like nexus between what is technically true and what is actually true. And the difference, the problem is that what's actually true has always mattered more. So there's a ton of people who are saying, oh, well, he's going to be constrained with regard to using the National Guard.

Because unlike D.C. and these other states, he doesn't have the authority. I don't know that that matters whether he has the technical authority. Because if nobody stops him, then he has the authority. And here's my conspiracy theory that I just fucking made up the other day, my head. And it's fucking nonsense. but I do wonder strongly if this is a test run all this like can I mobilize the National Guard in Chicago

if I can mobilize it in Chicago I can mobilize it in L.A. If I can mobilize in L.A. I can mobilize it in L.A. I can mobilize it in Atlanta. I can mobilize it here and here and here. There's no, that that is a domino effect, right? I think this is a test run for him to mobilize federal forces in 26 to quote unquote guard the safety of our elections

and what I really think that means is to take over the elections to make sure that like we create a pattern of and we're going to talk about this real physical intimidation to suppress votes in specific areas

I also think that like it's very clear that he's hunting around at a federal level where he has no authority to try to interfere with the way that elections are run, the technologies that are being used, etc. I do think that this is a test run for him to use the American military to control the election outcome.

Yeah, I don't disagree. We talked about that before. I talked about him using it to intimidate people. I also want to caution people are wondering if, you know, like, people will refuse to do things. I know that there's like a, some people think that the stop gap is, there's many different stop gaps. And one of them happens to be, you know, the courts that we have and whether or not those people will come in and then our Congress, what can they do to stop him in?

you know, different types of administrators that are involved in the system, can they stop him? And one of those things are the people who are actually acting on those orders, the things that he suggests. So I would caution you to not think

that those people will do the right thing. Specifically, the police officers. I don't know about the National Guard people. National Guard people, it's kind of a wide swath. But I will say almost certainly with the police officers, people don't get into that job, not thinking that authority is good, right?

Those people don't get into those positions and become those officers of the law if they don't think that authority should be respected. Right. So they will, I would say more often than not follow those rules to a T. I'm sure that there will be outliers. Don't get me wrong. There's going to be outliers, of course. But those people are going to be few and far between and they won't stop that snowball. Yeah.

And I've heard the argument made, and I think it's a very good faith argument. I've heard the argument made that if you're in the military, you're sorry. swear an oath to the Constitution to protect the America basically against, you know, all threats foreign and domestic. And that individual soldiers, if they're given an unlawful order, have a absolute right to disobey an unlawful order, right? But, and that's, that is the problem, I think, I think that we're running into the problem between what's legally true and what's, what's actually true. Because that's only actually true if after disobeying that order, the system has, helps you and doesn't throw you in jail. Right.

If the system says, yeah, we disagree that that was an unlawful order and is going to throw you in jail. And if your commanding officer doesn't back you up and if his officer doesn't back him up. And if, because you go up the food chain, where is it at? Who's at the top? Commander-in-chief. Who's at the top of the camera? It's fucking Trump.

And like, Trump is fired everybody who doesn't pass his loyalty tests at the fucking next level of business, right? So although it's technically true that at the ground level, an individual soldier being given an unlawful order has an absolute right to reject and responsibility to reject that order, it's not actually true if all the systems that are supposed to protect his ability to do that and be safe personally don't exist anymore. Right, right. So I am less certain that if given an unlawful order that most of those troops will disobey that order

and not because they won't want to but because their lives are on the line their safety, their freedom, their livelihood, their ability to protect and feed their families, all that's on the line for these people. That's too big an ask. I think that's a really unfair ask

for some 20-year-old kid. Absolutely. Big news, bitches. The band's been lifted and we are back in. Flip Adelphia, here we call. Flip, flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Flip, Adelphia. Yeah.

This story's from the Hill, Democrats flip Iowa state senate seat, breaking GOP supermajority. This is great news. It's great news. Admittedly, Iowa has like 33 Republican centers in like 13 of the Democrats, but it's enough where they can't just have whatever they want to have happen, happen. Right. Right. They can't be that kid from Twilight Zone that wishes people into the fucking cornfield or whatever.

Right. There's some way to stop them now. But the other thing that's really great news is that this was a seat that flipped from a lot of points. There was a lot of points leading towards the Trump person before. And they died of cancer, I think it was. They had a cancer diagnosis and they died. And then they had to have a special election. and the special election flip the other way.

If you can keep fair and free elections in this country, 2026 might be a bloodbath. It might be. We're at this like crazy inflection point in American politics where there's a lot of structural advantages for the Republicans, massive structural advantages for the Republicans. But we're also looking at a suite of policies that are really, that really only appeal

to these hardcore, hardline, right people. The policies that are being enacted right now by the Trump administration are wildly unpopular. They're wildly unpopular. We should, as Democrats, if we can keep the momentum up, if we can keep the excitement up, if we can say, hey, it's important that we protect ourselves. That's worth showing up for. We should do very well. But we've got to overcome these massive structural disadvantages. And the Republicans are working as hard as they can to build those advantages into the system for generations. Yeah. And we're talking about removing voting places to vote. You're talking about removing, talking about changing the ways districts work so that you're, you're horning out blue

votes as you work your way through. These are real dangerous ways in which these things could happen. And you could wind up. And these are federal things that are happening. Right. You know, so they could wind up with fewer senators, blue senators from Texas. They already voted on that thing. Yeah. They already put that. The gerrymander. Jerry Mandor vote to a, so and, and we've seen what's crazy is like the courts even returned one of these maps and said, you got to do it over. And they're like, yeah, we'll redo it. And then they did it just as bad. And they're like, and they're like, no, you got to do it. And like, fuck you. Yeah, that was in South Carolina. So they're like, fuck you. So we've already

seen them disobey the courts in that case. And I think that you're going to see, if it makes it to the Supreme Court, one, I think you've already got some juror, some people on that court, some judges on that court that are, that very much want to follow whatever Trump wants. Absolutely. You know, there's, there's some that, oh, they're spot on him to him, but then there was people already there that love him and want to do whatever he can. I mean, fucking Ginny Thomas. Oh my God, I know.

I mean, Ginny Thomas might as well be in a thruple with Donald Trump. I mean, at this point, like it's crazy. So you're in a position now where they're going to do whatever. They're going to do whatever they want, and whatever they want is literally whatever Trump wants. Yeah, the entire party and all branches of government are under, right now, under a single person's control. We have an entire, if you've ever taken a civics class, you were taught that that is not

only undesirable, but structurally impossible, right? And that that was one of the things that made America a specifically different kind of and safer and stronger democracy. we were taught that there was a tricameral, you know, system and the checks and balances. And these were taught to us not just as true things, but as good things, as things that protect all of us, that build us, you know, together and prevent us from having tyrants. That's gone now. Like, it's not going away.

I want to be clear. It is gone already. The real question that you should be asking ourselves is, can we get it back? Is there a way to claw any of this back? Right. And when you do, I think I'm going to go back to what I said maybe four or five weeks ago is like make them eat it. Make them eat it.

Make them eat it really bad. Because if you make them eat it after you're done, if somehow you're able to do a supermarket sweep and get all the back, you make them eat it real, real hard for a couple years because they will be anxious to change it because they don't want to have this happen again to them. Yeah.

They won't. Right now they've never again. experience the hardship of being under this. But once they do, they will recognize how bad it is. It's got to happen to them, though. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And like, that is the only strategy that can work, and that's still so dangerous. And it's got to happen to them because the empathy chip isn't in the same space. And I want to read something real quick. Oh, yeah. This is something I found online. And again, you can, this may or may not be true, right? Because it's a comment. So how do I know it's true? Right. Like a person said it and they posted it somewhere. And it might be true. It might not be true.

but I want to read it real quick. This was about one of those Leopardy-My-face type things, right? It was a question to Trump supporters. Basically, Trump supporters, hey, Trump supporters, do you regret your vote about what you did?

And this was what was written. My father, die-hard Republican, voted for Trump twice. This spring, I had a miscarriage that results to me in hemorrhaging. I was in the ER with my father bleeding out when the ER decided to do a DNC.

I woke up from the surgery and he was bawling, thinking I was going to die. He realized that if it wasn't for my state's constitution, I wouldn't have been saved. He changed his whole view on abortion rights. He's now a non-Republican registered voted in a primary red state. So I don't know how true that is, right?

I don't know. It could just be somebody, somebody could made that up. But I will say this, that's not an impossible thing to happen. Because what happens is, is people, there's, I notice this a lot. It's like when a Republican is on welfare, it's because they deserve it. Yeah, right. But when someone else is, it's like they're, that's. an entitlement we should take that away it has to happen to these people these people have to

have it they got to touch the hand of the stove with their whole fucking hand yeah and what we what's what has to happen at the end of this is somebody's got to take their hand and be like here motherfucker eat it and then shove their hand on the stove so they know this is bad for everybody yeah exactly unitary executive theory is bad for all of us it's not just bad for one side that's right it's bad for everyone, and they've got to learn that. Yeah. If we don't, we will have an accelerating, generationally, we will have accelerating tit for tat politics that is different than

what we've had before. Because we have never had before, people seem to misunderstand or downplay the severity of the power shift. It used to be a power creep. It is an entire, it's a total power shift now. You are absolutely right. it's different than it has ever been. It's not like it was.

It's not. There are so many new laws, rulings, and changes. We could have a, I'm in charge, I changed the whole thing, you're in charge, you change the whole thing,

and then you could have a government and an economy that never has stability. Yeah, it's all a tennis match. And without stability, you don't have function. Yeah, it's a bad call for everybody.

Yeah. You got time to lean, you got time to clean, buddy, all right? You got to be $150. 50% of your toes, 150% of the time. There you go, sir. And have a tune, waiter, dude.

All righty. This story is from Huffington Post. Donald Trump's DC takeover has National Guard soldiers picking up trash. It's because they can't do anything. Yeah. So now they're just like, it's like when you were working McDonald's, they're like look busy. That's what they're doing. They're saying you got to look busy.

So now they're just literally, could you imagine how fucking shitty this would be if you were a National Guard person? and you've got to leave your day-to-day life. You've got to pack up everything you're doing because it's supposed to be an emergency to go to fucking D.C. to pick fucking garbage up. Yeah, because there's not fucking rampant crime everywhere. There's not that emergency. That emergency is a lie.

It's fake. It's all bullshit. It's all made up. You know, like, there is, I will say, that there is always a reality to deterrent effects, right? So, like, if you have a cop on every corner, which would be absurd, But if you have a cop on every corner, will you have less crime? Yeah, you probably would, right?

There's a deterrent effect of visibility for police. Absolutely. But like, we're solving a problem that was never real in the first place. So it's not like they're going to show up and they're going to drive around in their fucking armored vehicles and occasionally get in a fucking car accidents with their fucking armored vehicles, smash people's shit. And they're going to stand around with fucking great big guns. And the Republicans are going to say, look, there's no crime. And it's like, there already was a reduction in crime. This is nothing.

There's also no long-term strategy here. That's something that the Republicans don't ever talk about. Yeah, nobody asks them and a question about it either. Which is weird to me. Yeah. We are not solving, let's say there were a crime problem, right? So now I'm a criminal of some sort. Let's say I have a criminal enterprise, right?

So let's say I am part of a drug trafficking organization. And maybe while the National Guard, is out, I am curtailing or changing the way that I do business, right? So I'm going to reduce my business for a little while, but I'm going to wait this out. You're not going to have people everywhere forever. So if I'm part of like what really matters about crime in many ways, if I'm part of an organized syndicate or something along these lines, I'm just going to wait this out. You're going to go away. Yeah. You can't prevent. Yeah. What is the plan here? There's no plan. That guy on the corner who's picking up trash he has a job as like a mailman somewhere right like he has a he has a real job

somewhere he does this on the fucking weekends one weekend a month two weeks a year that's literally their mantra man they don't do this every day you got to uproot them from their daily fucking life do you think they want to stay out in dc for months and months and months standing there waiting to pick up trash while their fucking regular job is back at home and their family's back at home and their life is back at home? You know what scares me real bad? This does scare me is I can see God I hope this doesn't happen

Cecil, but I can see a scenario where National Guard troops are illegally deployed to some major city in America and they are deployed and somebody takes a shot at these guys and then the president

seizes upon that bad actor as an opportunity for them to not just stand around picking up trash and being a temporary and pointless diversion, but now they can engage in direct military action against their own citizens. Right now, we're not there. But part of me is really afraid of the idea that Trump will use this as a way to provoke somebody. Yeah, for sure. And then use that provocation as an excuse to do what he really wants to do. And I don't know what that is, but I think it involves guns and bombs and shit.

I wouldn't be surprised if we have... On a group of American people, there's happened before. And Trump would be more than happy to damage, hurt, kill a group of people in this country. He would have no qualms about doing that whatsoever. There's a line from... My favorite poem is A Love Song of J. Alfred Prudafock.

There's nothing to do with this, but there's a line in it that's... I'll paraphrase it a little bit. It's something along the lines of, do I have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? And I love that line. That line takes up space in my head, rent-free. Because I think that Trump is attempting to force the moment to its crisis.

I think this is intentional and provocational. It's not on. You son of a bitch, I look at this. Yeah. Gabba ghool. I look at this. When I look at your deep dish, pizza, I don't know whether to eat it. or throw a coin in it and make a wish.

And if I made a wish, it would be it. I wish for some real pizza. All right, so Huffington Post, Trump suggests people might want a dictator for the second day in a row. He said it twice. Said it twice. Did you see the tape of him saying it?

He says, like, oh, maybe they'll like a dictator. I talk to people how, he talks about how bad these places are. He says, oh, you know, everybody says that this is, you know, this is that the Chicago's a hellhole, and we need to send people, and people will say to him while he's there, that's not true. He'll be like, oh, no, you're wrong. You're just wrong. I mean, according to Condé Nast Traveler, which is one of the largest travel publications in the world,

in 2024, for the eighth year in a row, Chicago was named the greatest city in America. For the eighth year in a row, Chicago was named the best city in America. For the pizza, obviously for the pizza. Obviously, Cecil. Chicago is a gorgeous fucking city. It's a wonderful city. It is an amazing city. I know this is just a personal anecdote, but like my wife Haley is a transplant from New York. She was a big fan of New York City.

She fucking loves Chicago over New York all day and twice on Sunday. It's amazing. It's amazing place. It's gorgeous. If you've never been to Chicago, you can't have a bad time. It's a great place. Like any enormous city with like fucking millions and millions of people, there is some crime here. It is mostly fairly localized, but it's not entirely localized. There's a possibility of crime happening in any place that has four, five, six million human beings living together.

It's not an unsafe place, man. And it's a goddamn gorgeous place. He talks about it like it's a fucking Mad Max style hellhole. And the crazy thing is people believe him. Yeah. And what a bunch of people have never fucking left their hometown. And that's the real key is that these people that don't know, but they believe what he asked to say. One thing that really bothers me is that there is a self-preservation

motive by a lot of people that are in this press core that don't push for really good questions and don't push for definitive answers on this group of people. And that really bothers me that they don't do it because they know that they might not be asked back or there might be some real problems, they might never get called on again, et cetera, et cetera. I think that that's another thing that needs to be fixed after this administration goes away. There needs to be something in there that says, like, you have to be

responsible to the fourth estate. You have to be responsible to them. If you're not, then no one, like, you and I can't do anything about it. Right. We're not journalists. Right. The journalists need that access. And if they're not going to be open

with those journalists or at least answer questions to those journalists, like to hand wave and where to call something a stupid question or to, you know, not answer it and to, and to, in the follow-ups, not answer it, that's something that needs to be addressed. That has to be something there that even if they don't, even if somebody does do that in the future, they, there's still that tape of them pushing them over and over and over again because now you don't even have that. You don't even have the, like, courageous journalists doing this work because I think they're so afraid of, you know, not only their, and then their companies are capitulating and giving billions of dollars to Trump because he's threatened to sue them, et cetera, et cetera. So like, I think that there needs to be something set in stone that says there is nothing that can touch these people for asking these questions of power. And the thing is, the thing that we're supposed to be able to rely on to do this is the fucking First Amendment. It's supposed to be able to rely on that. We're, it's the first one.

Yeah. It's the big one. Like, it's the thing that is the thing. The First Amendment is supposed to be the thing that protects journalists. But we are in a place now where like all dictators, right? Like all dictators, one of the most important things for a dictator to do is to seize control of the narrative. And the way that you seize control of the narrative is by controlling who tells the story. And specifically, who is not allowed to tell the story and who is not allowed to see true things. I was listening to a podcast. I don't remember which one, but it was a news podcast.

So I'll tell you, if you want to find this, My morning news podcast, it was either the Daily, the Journal, or Slate, or Vox, or NPR. So it's going to be one of those. Sorry, I don't remember which one. So it might have been Trump's terms on NPR. The reporter was talking about how, for these immigration hearings, there are now parts of federal buildings, which are open to the public but sealed off from journalists. They are specifically, which this cannot be legal. Yeah.

This has to be a violation of the First Amendment. This is a new place that we're in. These are public spaces. They are specifically public spaces. Again, remember civics class. Remember when we all sat together in high school and we had a guy or a girl in front of the class tell us these are the things that make America great and different and special and strong. And one of the things was a transparency.

The government cannot hide from itself. It cannot hide from its citizens. Now we have immigration and detention hearings that, that are specifically locked away behind closed doors. That's Banana Republic shit, man. That's what this is. And you're seeing people dragged from those. And you're still able to see it.

Right. You're still able to see it online. But you're not able to see it with any contacts behind it. All you're able to see is that. And so what you get to do then is contend with the comment section to tell you what's happening. Right. Instead of an actual person who knows the facts of what just happened. And so now all you have to do is just wait for the Russian disinformation.

come in there and be like, oh, this guy was a pedophile or whatever, and that's why they took him out. And, you know, there's no way to, there's no way to know those things unless a journalist is doing the work to know those things. Yep. Yeah, it's not due process if it's secret. Yeah. You can't have secret due process. That's inherently not possible. Yeah. Yeah. But like if, you know, think about this, too, that if we erode even a little bit, if we allow the erosion of the First Amendment, everything that is built on that, that is the foundation those are the foundational precepts that give you anything relating to freedom and the ability to like be a person in the ways that have always felt meaningful

here in this country. And if we go, if we erode that a little bit, if we allow our rights to become privileges, then they're essentially gone. Yeah. And then there's a group of people in this country who think that they are still privileged. Yeah. And they're not. And they're not. They're not. They don't realize it yet. Yeah. They will eventually realize it. But they don't know it yet. They think they're fucking walking around being like, not it. They're like, I'm the one in charge and you're like, oh, no, you don't understand

how this works. He used the fuck out of you. Yep. So, I don't know if you've seen the news lately, but there's a war and also the economy is dipping, ebbin and flowing.

This story is from the New Republic. The Trump recession is coming. The president's assault on the independence of the Federal Reserve is only the latest of several reckless economic actions that have put the country on the brink of economic disaster. Yeah, he's fired or tried to fire a couple of different people that are involved. He's pressuring Powell to do certain things.

He's really, and all these tariffs are also stacking up. There is a ton of stuff that he's done through his whim without a lot of forethought that is possibly going to be some real bad news for a lot of people in the United States. Yeah, this is, we should be really concerned. I think we should be really concerned about this. One of the things that is very concerning to me is that the, one of the strengths of our economic system is that the Federal Reserve has always been divorced from our political machinations, right?

So the Federal Reserve, they get, they get appointed, they serve for a period of time, and really, you can't do anything about it. The federal government, for the most part, has to leave them a little. loan and they are not responsible to a responsive to politics. Divorcing our monetary policy and the people who make our monetary policy from our politics is a real strength of our economic system. We are breaking that, actively breaking that. That is going to erode trust in our economic system.

And what that is likely to do is it is likely to tell investors across the world, that America is not the safe place it always was to park your money. Yep. So for decades and decades and decades, America was seen as the safest place to park your money. So when shit went weird, you bought American bonds. That's what you did. Everybody, when the market was crazy, okay, great.

You put your money in American bonds. America was a safe place to park your money. That does a lot of good stuff, right? I don't want to go into all the good stuff, and I would get half of it wrong because I'm not an economist, but there's a lot of good stuff that comes from that. The reason you have, we have like cheap interest rates on lots of stuff in our, in America overall, the reason we have a lot of the things that we have economically is because of that, that truth, right? That lots of people across the world park their money here because

it's safe. It won't be seen as safe anymore if it's tied to the political whims of whoever's in charge. Yeah. It will be seen as volatile rather than foundational and stable. That's a scary thing. We should all be nervous about that. Even if everything goes well in the short term, making things less stable is just inherently a bad fucking deal

when it comes to our economic and monetary policy. It feels like this is one of the places where Trump can't just control it and it makes him furious. It makes him so mad that he can't just say, do this thing. And they say, no, I'm not going to do that. What are you talking about?

I don't know what to do that. And there's like you suggest built-in safeguards, that make it so it's not like this partisan thing. It's this fucking, it's a bipartisan thing. And somebody put somebody in. And then, you know, Trump is the guy who put in Powell for crying out life. Yeah, and you fucking now hates him. So there's a, there is a, I think, a control thing happening here that Trump can't control.

And it makes him furious that that's the case. And he gets really upset. He's brought a bunch of different cases, tried to throw people out, tried to fire people. Those people are no suing him. We're in a, it's a totally new fucking. situation to be in where somebody is such a like the problem is

that they keep on they keep on sort of allowing Trump to have his whim over and over and over again I don't I feel like it's Trump's world and we're just living in it

like it's so crazy to me it's like this is the guy who everybody has to now follow everything he wants he gets every single thing he asks for he gets and we're the ones who get to eat it. If he tanks the market,

he tanks the market before, you know, an election, he could really screw us over. One of the things that I saw him this week, I don't know if you saw this, but he was saying like, because the tariffs are bringing in so much money, he wants to give out dividends.

And you're like, dude, that's my money already. I know. Like, that's what Bush did. When Bush gave away money, it's like, that's your money. Like, you gave him that money. That was, yeah, it's not like Bush was like,

hey, can you sell one of my fucking sports teams to fucking create a bunch of money that I can give to the America? You didn't do that? He gave you your fucking money back, man. You fucking thanked him for it. And I will say, too, it didn't work. It didn't work.

When George W. Bush did it as a big economic stimulus, it did not work. Of course it didn't work. Because it was a stupid thing to do in the first place. But if Trump does any dividend stuff, he's giving your money back. And like you suggested before, that's a regressive tax.

Tariffs are regressive. Because the more of you buy, of things, especially if they're imported, the more you spend. And most people who are rich don't spend a lot of money because they don't already have all the things that they need. So they don't have to go out and buy a bunch of stuff. They don't buy a crappy thing that they have to replace. They have the best built-for-life stuff you could have.

So they don't need to replace it. So the money that they're getting back is the poor people who had to pay all those taxes and the small businesses that they had to pay all. The big businesses already made a deal with them. They brought a fucking big apple for them. They burn them a gold fucking plate at Apple so they don't have to

fucking pay tariffs on their stuff. You as fucking a fucking Etsy seller, you don't get an opportunity to do that. So if you import your shit, guess what?

Sorry, too fucking bad. The money you got to spend is put your stuff up way too far. It's put it out of reach for these people. Grocery prices are

through the roof. Do you think that money's going to go, you're paying that money now, it's going to come back to you. That's not a benefit. It's not like that's good.

That's bad for you. That's bad for the economy. economy. And I don't think he's going to give you the dividend anyway. I don't like hold your fucking breath for the checks. And I'll also say this, if you get a check and you were one of the people on the right who were screaming about all of the money that we gave out during COVID. Yeah. And how I'm like, oh, right, put all this money into the economy. It's going to raise inflation. The reason we have inflation is because we spent all this money, you know, giving people a way to not die and starve to death during COVID. If you were one of those jackoffs, how is this functional?

different. Yeah, it's not different at all. It's not different. You're just a liar. I'm really nervous, Cecil, that like in September, which is like a minute from now, in September, Powell is, I think, going to reduce interest rates. And I think he's going to reduce interest rates. I am worried, I should say that he's going to reduce interest rates at a time when inflation is growing. And I think, you know, one thing I want to talk real briefly about is the deep state. You know, the woman who's on the first. Fed, the woman is on the Fed that Trump is trying to get rid of so he can replace

her. His woman named Lisa Cook. Lisa Cook is being accused of mortgage fraud. The mortgage fraud specifically she's being accused of is filing, we talked about this before, filing for two mortgages as primary residences. The way that they know that she did that is because

the guy who runs the federal housing finance agency, the FHFA, is a guy named Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee and a Trump surrogate. And he has access to everybody's fucking mortgage application that was FHFA insured, which is essentially every mortgage application outside of private lending or semi-private lending through like hedge funds or private equity.

The vast, like over 90%, right? So it doesn't matter. A lot of people. So they literally just looked into, like this is deep state shit. Hey, we want to look at all the people that are on the Fed share and see where we can exert some power. Let's do an investigation of everybody. Let's pull her mortgage application. Oh, we found this error here.

We're going to use this as an excuse to fire this person. That's the deep state. That literally is a partisan loyalist leveraging a specific and unrelated power to intrusively investigate somebody for political gain. That's the fucking deep state. These guys are worried. That's it.

What else could the deep state be? What else are you worried about? They could do that to you. You think they can't pull your fucking taxes? They've got everything. They've got your mortgage application. Look at a mortgage application. It's everything but your fucking blood type.

It's fucking scary shit, man. You knew that they were going to go through all these things with a fine-tooth comb, though, and try to attack and hurt every single person that they could because Trump has vindictive and he's shitty and he's a child. Yep. See this picture with all the fingerprints on it. I want you to find out who the guy is sitting next to Sykes. Find out his name, his age, his way.

the social security numbers, location, relatives, pets, everything. This story's from NPR. Whistleblower says Trump officials copied millions of social security numbers. Well, you were just saying they have access to a bunch of stuff. Well, they have access to this too. And then they, like, I don't know.

I think fucking Elon snorted him while he was in there. He, like, caught him up with his own social security card and fucking snorted him. Ugh. This is, this is so gross. Yeah. Like, the, this is, this is just, project 2025. Yeah. It just is. This is just the, this is the creation of a deep state. This is the creation of administrative, uh, overreach. This is the, um, weaponizing of your personal

information. We should as people who are on the left as voices, I think this is something to be worried about. Yeah. You know, like I have thought about you and I, I've thought maybe you and I need to have a lawyer on retainer in order to keep doing this show. Sure. Because, Like, will we be singled out for things like punitive audits? I don't know. Would I be shocked? No. Yeah.

No, I wouldn't be shocked. I would be shocked if bigger people than us were, I mean, like, I think we're small enough potatoes that we'll probably get away with it. But the point is the same. Do I think that the big fish are going to be singled out? Do I think that like all of a sudden, you know, would I be shocked if Rachel Maddow got fucking audited by the IRS every year for the next four years. No. I would be surprised if she were not. 100%. Yeah. And then, you know, like all the other thing, all the other governmental

administrative stuff that that person would have to go through their imagine red tape on every of it, every bit of it. There's no reason why they shouldn't think that. They can make your life miserable. Yeah. They can absolutely make your life a living health. Well, and look at what that, I mean, if we're going to talk about Social Security, look at what they did initially when they first came in where they started to close those like regional offices. Yeah. They said, we're going to to close these regional offices and then you had to call and the call wait lines were in the hours worth of time in order to call. They closed these little offices all over the place because they were like, oh, those aren't worth anything. And they saw this massive uproar because people were

like, what the fuck, man? I can't even like, it's already a shitty system. And now I got to like either drive six hours to get to an actual center or I got to sit six hours on a phone waiting for somebody to actually fix my problem and they might not even fix it. This is how they can make your life shitty. We talked about it with closing polling centers. There's all these ways that they can make your life inconvenient. They can fill your streets up with National Guard people. That's a thing that they can do to make your life inconvenient. The other thing they can do with these social security numbers is leak them. Yes. Because there's no accountability, right? So when bad shit, when they do stupid shit, they've already seen them do it, actually. They've already

done this. They have released documents that had unredacted personal information. Yeah. it is, if I were, if I were a deep state official and I would, I would, oh, who are the people that are fucking bothering me in a, cool, I'm going to make sure that release their personal private information. Yeah, man, because that'll fuck you up. That'll fuck you up. Yeah. Now you're going to have to spend some of your time, not criticizing me, but trying to steal back your identity from a bunch of fucking asshole hackers. That's easy to do to. Easy to do. It's so easy to do. Just work your way straight through it. But yeah, like, like, this is why they're, these, these types of things are important to save, Now, according to the people at the Social Security System, they say these numbers never left or whatever, they were always still here. But I don't know that I believe anything. And that's the other real problem is that there's just this culture of lying that makes everything you say, anything you say, something I don't want to believe. Even if it is perfectly verifiable.

Right. I think we would be foolish to say, well, who told us that? Oh, a guy who is working for the government? Yeah, some dude who's working for the government. I don't know, because I'll tell you what, they sure did flush out anybody who wasn't loyal. Right. If you're still here, doesn't that mean you pass

some kind of loyalty test? Yeah. Doesn't that mean I should be at least a little suspicious? Yeah. Still waiting on that heifer, Julio. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. You're cool. And fuck you, I'm out.

New York Times, prosecutors failed to obtain indictment against man who threw sandwich at federal agents. He fucking whipped that sandwich head. A foot long, dude. He fucking threw that fucking thing right in that guy's chest. He fucking bulleted that thing from the foot away. It's fucking, the video of it is amazing. But he gets up in their face, calls him fascist, says you should leave. And he fucking whips the thing right in their face.

And then he runs away and he got away. He got away. They couldn't even catch him. I love it. And then they found out who he was. and they tried to charge him three times. I think it was three times they tried to bring him up under indictment. And each time, every time they were the ones,

they basically stacked the deck when they bring these indictments, they can show whatever evidence they want. And they showed it and everybody's like, yeah, it's not a fucking sandwich. It's not a gun. It's a fucking hero sandwich. It's a sweet chicken and terriac. Like this is not like, this is not a great assault on. It's not anything.

I think. I mean, it didn't maybe have a salt, but it's certainly not of the set. But genuinely, like, they just, like, the dude just chucked a sandwich at him. That's not a fucking felony, man. No. That's not a felony.

No, like, these are fucking military troops. I think they can handle a fucking hoagie. Yeah, like, you know? You get hit in the chest with a sandwich and you're like, it feels like it's not even as powerful as a punch. It's not even as powerful as that. It's heroes for heroes. But it's not even, it doesn't even hurt that.

No. It's like, it's nothing. It's like, you know, you could throw, It's like throwing a fucking bunch of wadded leaves in someone's. It's a squirt gun, man. Yeah, it's a squirt gun. It's not even a squirt gun because a squirt gun might be confused with a gun. Yeah.

It's not even spit, right? Because spit is like a biological contaminant. And I do actually think like there's problems with fucking spitting on people. It's a goddamn sandwich, man. It's a waste of a sandwich. It's a way sandwich. This is the best use of a subway sandwich. I believe it was.

This is the best use of a subway sandwich. Absolutely, yeah. You don't want to eat it. You do whatever you can. I mean, you could probably put it under that. glass and it'll be fine in a week. You ever see that? When they take the

sandwiches and they put them under glass, they'll take like, they're so full of salt. They don't cook. They don't do anything. They're just like, they did. I think I saw a picture of Iceland's last,

because they don't have a McDonald's there. They had the last McDonald's burger that was served there. They put it under glass with like the fries and it still looks pretty good. Yeah. And people get like, they're like, oh my God, it's so full of like poisons.

It's like, no, it's full of salt. Yeah. Salt is. Salt has been preserving food for tens of thousands of years. It's also under glass. The other thing you have to remember, too, is that unless it had something in there beforehand to make your little bioculture, it doesn't have anything in it.

So it's just sitting there, just nothing's going to happen. It'll eventually just dry out. That's essentially, it just dries. And like a dry, salty environment is not a good environment for visible contaminants. Yeah. It doesn't mean you should fucking grab it and eat it. No, you definitely don't want to do it. You know, like Jesus got it.

Although, how different is that from a regular McDonald's sandwich? What do you get it? Do you like McDonald's at all? I don't go to McDonald's anymore after they put Trump there to give away fries. I've never been back since, and I won't go back. Last time I went, I got a Big Mac. Big Mac was the thing I always got. I did like the Big Mac. I did.

It was a fine sandwich. Yeah, I make them on my own now, and I'm perfectly happy doing that. A homemade Big Mac, I bet it's fucking killer. Yeah, it's awesome. It's delicious. I love it. I make a smash burger with it. So I'll do a smash burger.

Yeah. Two smash burgers with cheese, and then I will dice my onion. onion real fine. It's fresh honey instead of dehydrated, so it tastes a little better. And then I make my own sauce and then the shredded lettuce. And I don't do three buns. I was going to say most important question, do you do the middle bun. No, it's like that's extra. I don't need that. I don't do it. I don't need it. So I just make like a, I make a good nice double cheeseburger. That's like in the style of a Big Mac. It works out great. Finally diced onion on that is really outstanding. The onion that they use is dehydrated.

So it's not as good. At least that's what they used to use. I have no idea what they use now. Or even what they've used for the last 10 years. I couldn't. tell you. But yeah, genuinely, it was like a dehydrated onion. I used to work at McDonald's years ago. One of the things that I got fired from McDonald's, well, I didn't get fired. I got yelled at multiple times because there was an old guy who worked in the front. And I worked the breakfast shift on the weekends. I worked both days on the weekends, early morning. And it would be early morning and I'd be washing dishes. And I wasn't one of the guys who worked up front. I was one of the people who worked in back. I was a dishwasher, essentially. I'd clean and

And I was the dishwasher. So I was the dishwasher and cleaning and stuff. And the old guy worked up front when it turned 10 o'clock, they took the cinnamon rolls off the line and they brought him back. And he would set the pan there with the cinnamon rolls in it. And he was like, he's like, those are just going to go to waste. He's like, you might as well eat one. And so I would eat them.

I'd be like, fuck, I'm hungry. I'm a kid. And I remember this lady got so mad at me for eating them. She was my manager. And she came back. She saw me. She's like, don't you ever eat any food ever again unless you're on break. And I was just like, I'm like, I'm not touching anything to give anybody food.

I'm washing dishes. And I was just like, but you could tell like there's like a whole corporate thing to like get mad. And within it, I walked out on her shift a week later because my friend got he was, we both had long hair. And I used to be able to put mine up in my hat. Right. And he got told to put his up in his hat. Well, he had thicker hair than me. And he couldn't fit it up there.

So it used to go down in the back of his shirt. So he used to tuck his hair. behind his shirt. Yeah, okay. And it would just go in. It's a good solution. But he's like, it's tucked. He's like, it's fine.

Like, no, you got to put it up in your hat. And he's like, like, well, then you could just go home. He's like, well, fine, I quit then. And he just threw his fucking hat at the guy. And he starts walking out. And he walks over to me. He's like, hey, man, I quit. And I was like, cool, I quit too.

And I want to tell him. I love it. I was like, yeah, I quit as well. Fuck it. I was like, if you get a yell at me for eating a fucking cinnamon roll, you were literally going to throw away because you don't, because what they don't want is to create a culture of you eating food that they that they create right they don't want you eating on like not on

they don't want to pay you to eat their food right and sneak food yeah they don't want to do that so they're like they there's hard rules and they yell at you and wherever and I'm like that's fine I'm like I'll go wash cars at the dealership down the road which is what I did afterwards let's just stop being human I'm like that's fine it's great but I remember I remember that I didn't work at McDonald's for long but I'll tell you I didn't enjoy any moment Fuck that noise, man. Fuck that. That's how Boston market was.

Was it? Yeah, there'd be all this food, especially like their cornbread or whatever with time out. So after it's out, it's under the heat lamps, after a certain amount of time, it's got to go back. It's got to go bad. Right?

And so they bring it back. I worked in the back. And I remember they were like, you can't eat any of this food. And I was like, yeah, I'm just going to do that anymore. I was like, I am not. Like, that's like nothing. Yeah.

And I also understand, like, food that's been out, you got to throw it away at a certain point. I understand that you. I'm not eating the fucking macaroni or whatever. But it's like, it's a piece of fucking cornbread. It's fucking cornbread. I get the, I understand, but at the same time, it's like, okay, this is this cornbread. You can be okay. I'd be like, yeah, I'm just not going to say anything. That's stupid. Do you think that they're going to prosecute this sandwich guy?

They're going to try. I think they'll get them on a misdemeanor. Yeah. I think they will have to get them on a misdemeanor. But I love that three times they tried to bring a fucking felony suit. And each time they're like, no, we're not going to do it. Because you're going to go in front of a jury and someone's going to be like, get the fuck out of here. You made me come to jury duty for a fucking sandwich.

Could you imagine how fucking angry you'd be if it was like, I would be so mad at just the very premise. I would be like, I would try to get on that jury so I could be like, yeah, this is a fucking, I'm never going to fucking convict this guy. Awesome. I don't care what he did. I don't care if you fuck the sandwich before he threw it at you. I will never convict this guy.

A hundred percent never convicted. Have you ever been on a jury duty? I've never, no. I always wanted to do it. I've never been on it. I wanted to do it too. I've gotten some and more than once, but I've never been on jury. I've been in the room, but I've never actually been interviewed.

So I've been in that big waiting room three times. And in Cook County, too, which is a lot of people come in and out, but I would have been in that room three times. And I've never once had a moment where I was. Oh, man. Yeah. There was one time I was actually really glad because I was just starting as a professor teaching. It was my first ever class of my own.

And I got called three days before. Oh my God. And I was like, fuck, if I go and then they call me, but I'm like, I got to go. I'm like, I don't know how to get out of it or whatever. But my first thought was like, if they say this, I'm just going to say the craziest shit when they fucking ask me a question. I'm just going to say the nuttyest shit. So they throw me off it. But I didn't even make it into the back room. I've never actually been interviewed. I've never had a person to ask me a question to see if I could be on that journey. I have always wanted to be on jury. I have always wanted it too. I don't think I'll probably die and never have it. I don't think I'll ever do it. But I would love to do it. I would love to do it. I would love to do it. I would love to do it. I would love to do it. I would love to do it. I would love. I would love to be part of that process, especially on a sandwich case. The thing is, like, I know a lot about sandwiches. There's no way you're going to, like, they could call me from the jury to be the expert on the sandwich. I feel like I walk around as one of the 12 angry men. I'm built for this.

Absolutely. I am built for this. I'm going to try to be the foreman if I get put on jury. I'm be like, I am the former. A hundred percent, I'll be like, no, we're going to stick fight for it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Break them up.

Break them out. Let's do it. Break them out. I'm going to do it. I'll just be like a guitar wrestle. Just do it. Solve everything this way. Well, Tom's going to crush everybody.

Tom is going to crush everybody. There's like one woman that was like, you're fighting. Yeah, right. She fucking throws me. She's going to throw you like she turns her cat around and then it's over. It's like a switch. It's like a switch. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this week.

We'll be back on Monday with a full show. But we're going to leave you like we always do with this guy. optics, great. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-babelon bullshit. Couched in Scientician, double bubble, toil and trouble, pseudo-quazi alternative, acupunctuating, pressurized, stereogram, 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 in towers, tarot cars, psychic healing, crystal balls, Bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, wizards, vaccine nuts. Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. doubt even this. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed the show,

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