Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 874: Pro Hitler 'Young' Republicans, ABC Does a Real Journalism

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

This episode of Cognitive Dissinence is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. Recording live from Gloryhole Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is cognitive dissonance. Every episode we blasts 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 16th and we sort of still have a republic. I just

want the Republic countdown to be interesting question I was raised. What happens if we just don't ever go back? Like what happens if the government just never comes back online? Oh like if the shutdown just is a shutdown? The shutdown is just like yeah they're just done with it. They're just like no more stuff.

There's going to be a point. They have to like do something eventually, right? There's going to be because the services that they provide and the money they provide to so many people there's no way you can just keep this going indefinitely there will have to be a cave there has to be because you can't like there just can't be well we're done with that we know yeah there at some point that so that's a good question i think the answer as far as i understand it maybe i could be wrong fucking write in the what is happening now is we are essentially operating on debt and credit yeah so the government is still operating

like pretty much every single person on the united states right yeah because they're all operating debt and credit to buy groceries. A thousand percent, right? Yeah, a thousand percent. So we have not like passed a funding. We've not passed funding legislation. So the only thing that's happening right now are what they consider essential services.

And that's the only money that's sort of allowed to go out during this time period. But it's not sustainable. Like it can't, it can't be sustained. Even the military budget, like they had to pull. Trump politically, of course, did not want the troops not to get paychecks. That's happened in all.

other shutdowns or the troops didn't get paychecks, and that creates a lot of political pressure. Trump didn't want troops not to get paychecks, so he pulled money from something else in order to sort of allocate it, but those funds will run out at some point. So I think that everybody understands this can't last indefinitely. This can't be like the new way government sort of is, because at some point, like our sort of credit rating internationally would collapse. Yeah. Like it would be economic ruin for the, for the, and there's no economic ruin for the United States. It is not economic ruin for the world. Sure, the globe. Yeah. So we've seen that. So it has to stop at some point. I mean,

right? Right. I don't know, man. Here's the thing. Every time I say something like that, this is literally how ruined my brain has gotten Cecil. Every time I say something like that, I'm like, yeah, but there's flame thrower dogs. Yeah. You know? So like, like, I can't live in a world where I'm like, this is the only, it has to get better, right? And I'm like, I don't know, man, there's flamethrower robot dogs. And I'm just like, who knows, man? Who fucking knows?

Flamethrower robot dogs. They throw the whole thing off from me. They really do, because I'm just like, that's the world I live in. Every time I think about, every time I think about government. And, you know, when I was a kid, of course, everybody thought this,

that people who were adults were in charge. There's adults. Yeah, right. And now I think like RFKs in charge of something. I know, man. That too just like, hold on. Let me. Do you want to hear from my brain worm?

Let me pull my hair back. Did you know? I'm RFK's brainworm. How much there should be. Okay, listen, I don't know who's into crafting. See, I'm serious, though. I want a hand puppet of RFK Jr. And your finger controls one of the worms that comes out of his head.

And swear to God, if somebody can make that for me, I'll pay you all the pesos. Even better. Have somebody follow him around with a sock puppet right behind his head. You know how you used to do the two. Yes, of the brainworm? There's a brainworm there like, hello, how are you? It just like yells the whole time. Or get that guy who just got arrested in Portland, who goes around and sings those songs.

Have you seen this guy? No. So there's a guy who dresses up like, I don't know, he dresses up like in normally those pajamas that have like the hood on them or whatever, you know, like the hoodie pajamas. He gets dressed up in different animal types. And then he has a big speaker. And then he rewrites really badly rewrites songs that are popular and he sings to people. and it's Republicans where he's saying it's actually really funny and he goes and he bothers them

and they don't like it well he was up in Portland and they actually put he was outside well past the blue line which you can clearly see in the video where he's passed and they dragged him onto the thing and they arrested him but if you so wait he was he was he was past the line meaning he had stepped over the line he was not supposed to step on to he was on the other side they dragged him on to the place where he shouldn't be okay again like i know i said like where are my second amendment guys where you guys at aren't your guns seriously say, aren't your guns supposed to exist to protect us from tyrannical government? That is literally, if you watch this video, if you watch this video, you see it.

Now, I have no idea because the video starts with him walking back and forth and then they pull him across. Is it possible that a minute before he was standing over on the other side of the line? Maybe. I didn't say, I wasn't watching him all day. So I don't know. But at the same time, like, that video that I've seen looks really incriminating towards the ice agents that drag. him onto the thing. But in any case, this guy runs around. His name's Robbie something. I forget. I see him on TikTok all the time. But like that guy, get him to follow him around in a brainworm outfit. Oh my God, yes. Cecil, yes. Did you hear the thing? It's not our show notes, but did you happen

to hear the thing that RFK was saying last week where he's like, you know, actually, it may be circumcision. Circumcision. Because they give the baby's Tylenol. Yeah, they put Tylenol right in there. Right in the dick. Stick it right into the end of the penis. If you guys didn't hear it. hear this. What, what is so funny, because like, what RFK said was like, hey, like maybe the high rates of autism, which are high rates, higher rates of autism exclusively are coming from just diagnostic criteria, right? So to ignore that. But like you say, maybe this is because of circumcision. And like, when they give baby, when they circumcise babies, they give him Tylenol. And I've already blamed, you know, autism on Tylenol. And it's like, then people,

then there were news stories that said things like, you know, RFK blamed circumcision for autism. And he's like, no, I didn't. No, I didn't. He said, what I said was maybe the circumcisions and then they get Tylenol. And it's like, well, first of all, my guy. You don't give babies newborn.

Typically, if a baby is circumcised or circumcised in the first 48 hours after birth, that is the most typical, don't write me and say sometimes it's not typical timeline. So they do it fucking right away, right? They do not give babies Tylenol. You do not give a two-day-old baby Tylenol for a circumcision. Usually what they do, if you're going to circumcise the babies, they give them like a little

injection at the surgical site, like a little nerve block injection at the surgical site, and they just give them sugar water. And it calms them down. And then they do the circumcision. And whatever your views about circumcision are, don't write me about that. I'm not talking about that. Now, what I'm saying is they don't give them Tylenol. So circumcision has nothing to do with autism.

And also, you blamed it on Tylenol in utero. Not Tylenol after the fact. Which is it? They're just like throwing darts at a Tylenol-shaped fucking dartboard. Well, the thing is, like, every moment, they're like, hey, man, can you freestyle a few bars for us? Yes. And he just does. And he doesn't know what he's talking about.

No idea, man. Yeah. I mean, like, I'm glad he's against circumcision. Don't get me wrong. I'm glad he's against circumcision. Like, I actually, like, I am not. I'm glad he's against circumcision, but the same time, like, you're glad

you're against circumcision for all the wrong reasons. Like, you went, you, like, there's plenty of reasons to be against it. You went the crazy train reason. Yes, you're like, chew, chew, motherfucker. I'm off the track. Why? What?

There's plenty of reasons to be against it. He's a crazy person. And, like, also, he's in on... Circumcision Cecil is on the decline. Yeah. So, like, if you were to draw the graph, right? The graph would look like circumcision down, autism up,

like, maybe it's the thing that's less that's causing the thing that's more? How does your... This guy isn't qualified to pass like a high school level statistics class. No. Let alone run all the doctors in the country. Like, and all the scientists.

And all the same. We should listen to RFK Jr. on issues of medicine in exactly the same proportion that you should listen to your bus driver on issues of medicine. He is literally no more qualified than any other person you mean. This is to denigrate bus drivers.

It is to say that that expertise is zero. I think on occasion you might run into a bus driver would be like, well, I don't know. Ask a doctor. Thank you. Actually.

That might be better. You're right. That would actually be better. If he sat next to, if he sat next to Trump and they said, well, what do you think is causing us to me? He's like, I don't know. I'm not a scientist.

But I'll certainly look into it. That's a great answer to that question. That's it. That's all you need to say. That's the answer. The end. What do the scientists say? Well, they don't say it's fucking two days after you were born, You didn't get Tylenol because that's not how this works,

but maybe you did. And also circumcision, but-da-ba-ba-da, autism. That what? Posted a link. Someone posted a comment. And they said, what if we all just died in 2012 during the 2012 apocalypse and this is the hell now?

We're all in the bad place. We're all in the bad place. And I was like, I can't dispute that at all. I did have some kick-ass years between 2012 and 2016, though. Is that, is the bad place supposed to be kind of fun up and then a lot down? I don't know, man. That wasn't my highlight. Yeah, it wasn't for you.

It wasn't for you. That was not my highlight reel. Yeah. I don't know, man. I was really more of like a, like a 2016, 2018, 19 kind of guy. That was like my, that was the peak of my, uh, peak of the fun. Peak of my roller coaster. Yeah, it's been a little rough since then.

It's been a little rough since I would say, yeah, I thought, 2016 was kind of where it went to shit. 2016, nationally. Yeah. Not a good year. Terrible. I had a pretty good personal year, 2016. Like the rest of it. Hey, man, just want to let you know that sometimes you got to shut the fuck up.

You gotta shut the fuck. And this current time is just one of those times. You gotta shut the fuck up. All right. This story is from Yahoo News. ABC host Pohl's Plug on J.D. Vance interview mid-sentence. This is George Stephanopoulos. Did you see this, Tom?

I didn't see it. Okay. Can we real quick, just say, there is no more fun last name to say than Stephanopolis. Stephanopolis is a great name. I absolutely, it always reminds me of snuffel effigus. Admittedly, it's a great name. And if it was snuffelophagus, then you can't see him. How much would you pay?

Well, at least some people can't see it. How much would you pay for an interview? of J.D. Vance with snuffaloficus. Just he's like holding the microphone with his like... I would love to see a Muppet shame J.D. Vance. And tell him how he's being a bad person

and how he needs to be nice. J.D. Vance on Sesame Street. I would love to see them be like J.D. Vance, you have a lot of unresolved anger issues. All right. So this is George Staphanapha. This is a minute long. But I want you guys to watch this.

We're going to put it on the big screen here, I think. All right. Here we go. I don't know what tape you're referring to, George. I saw media reports that Tom Homan accepted a bribe. There's no evidence of that. And here's, George, why fewer and fewer people watch your program and why you're losing credibility.

Because you're talking for now five minutes with the Vice President of United States about this story regarding Tom Homan, a story that I've read about, but I don't even know the video that you're talking about. Meanwhile, low-income women can't get food because the Democrats and Chuck Schumer have shut down the government. right now we're trying to figure out how to pay our troops because chuck schumer has shut down the government you were focused on a bogus story you're insinuating criminal wrongdoing against a guy who has done nothing wrong instead of focusing on the fact that our country is struggling because our government shut down let's talk about the real issues george i think the american people would benefit much more from that than from you going down some weird left wing rabbit hole where the facts clearly show that tom homan didn't engage in any criminal wrongdoing It's not a weird left-wing rabbit hole. I didn't insinuate anything.

I asked you whether Tom Homan accepted $50,000, as was heard on an audio tape recorded by the FBI in September 2024, and you did not answer the question. Thank you for your time this morning. No, George, I said that I don't. Next, we'll be right back. They were like, yeah, now we're done.

Yeah. I think one of the best things about this story is that there is somebody who's finally just like, I'm not going to listen to you, I'm going to correct you because what you said wasn't true and I'm not going to listen to you try to change a subject

and I'm going to correct you and then I'm not going to give you an opportunity to respond because I've given you that opportunity multiple times you didn't take it and what you're going to do is exactly what you just did but just try to say that this is a witch hunt

and it's a left wing rabbit hole and I'm not going to give you that opportunity anymore not enough people are doing that. We're seeing that and a few things that we're going to cover today it seems like there's some journalistic integrity that's poking through. The other thing I want to say too

and I think this is super important we let these fuckers get away with well i didn't see that well i don't know about that well i don't know about i don't know about this i don't know about that what is your fucking job man what would you say you fucking do here if you don't if you fucking don't know about all this stuff why are you there in that job right these are important issues of the day you should fucking know the important issues of the day as the vice fucking president of the united states if you don't You shouldn't have the fucking job, man. That shouldn't have been something you raised your fucking hand for

and let fucking Peter Thiel spank you until you cried for. Dude, a thousand percent. Pam Bondi did the same thing, right? Where Pam Bondi was like, yeah, I don't know about that. And it's like, you're the fucking attorney general. You should fucking know. What do you mean you don't know about that? All of a sudden, nobody knows about this.

That should be an indictment to how you fucking do your job. Like, if my boss calls me up and is like, Tom, I need to know a thing about something that is broadly within your area, of responsibility, right? And I was just like, yeah, I don't know about that. He'd be like, well, fucking find out, dumbass. Like, it's your job to know stuff. Knowing is the thing you do.

And I get, I get, like, once in a while, it's a story that's just breaking. And you just don't know about it. Sure. But if something happened yesterday, and then they'll talk to the president, right? They'll say something about the, to the president, about a story that broke two days ago,

and they'll say, hey, what do you think about it? And be like, oh, I don't know about that. I guess we'll just have a Pam hand. You're like, that's your fucking job, man. man. Why did we ask, why did everybody say he's good enough to do this? If you can't even fucking follow the news, man, these are important moments. You've got to be able to follow that shit. Also, and I think this is super important to point out, these are the easiest questions in the world, right? So if there's nothing to see here, so let's say Tom Homan did not in fact

accept $50,000 in cash in a fucking comical bag of money from the FBI. Let's say that didn't happen, right? because the initial response from the administration was that didn't happen. They've stopped saying that didn't happen. Now what they say is there was no criminal wrongdoing, right? And there's no criminal wrongdoing because you're in charge of the guys who decide whether there was any criminal wrongdoing. You get to say a crime or not. Right.

So, but what they've stopped doing because there's tape, right, and at some point that tape is likely to come out. So what they've stopped doing is saying this fact didn't happen. And the question that they refuse to answer is a question of fact, not a question of interpretation of law, not a question of whether or not this was corruption or bribery. People are specifically not asking that question. They're asking two relatively basic questions, which are just objective things that happened in reality space or didn't.

Did Tom Homan accept $50,000 in cash from the FBI? And what happened to the $50,000? Because the FBI says, we gave it to Tom Homan. Where's the money? Did Tom Holman just keep it and say, ha ha, dumbass, and he's got $50,000? If so, the FBI's got some answering to do, right? So if the FBI's walking around handing out $50,000 and then being like,

oh, it turns out he didn't do anything wrong, guess that cost us $50 grand. You would think that they would be like, okay, no, this is a $50,000 question. Right. Whether or not, we need to make sure the question is right before we actually ask it. If Tom Homan didn't accept the money, they would just say, that never happened. here's the evidence from the here's the tapes from the FBI or there are no tapes but like they're not doing that because it happened it's a wait if you if you come to me and say Tom did you take a $50,000 bribe I get to say I wouldn't say like I've never been uh credibly accused of any

wrongdoing or bribe I was just like no man nobody showed up and handed me a giant bag of fucking robber money what when I when I it's just a no I I think though it's important to point out that Stephanophilus did stuff Lefegas did everything he possibly could hear that was correct. Yes. He did exactly what he should. Don't give these people a line. And what happened afterwards, what I saw afterwards was another clip. I don't have it. But there was another clip of Trump. Someone raised their hand and tried to ask him a question. He said, I don't answer

questions from you fake news ABC. You didn't, you were very rude to the vice president. Well, guess what? Everybody should do that then. Because then he just won't have anybody that he can send his things out. Here's what I think the press doesn't understand is they're the ones that the power in this situation. They think they don't have the power. I know. I know. But what they do is have the power because Trump can't not get his voice out there.

So if he is stifled, he gets mad. So what you do is you make him answer questions and then you cut the people off that don't answer questions and you do it time and time and time again. And he will be frustrated. You know, he can't hold a press conference without the press. Yeah, the press has to be there. So, oh, well, OAN will show up and Newsmax will show up. No one watches those. By the numbers, nobody watches that shit.

So if the only, if Trump was like, I'm going to call a press conference, and the only people that show up to the press conference, because everybody else has said, we're boycotting your bullshit until you give us some answers or until you start treating the press with more respect. We are not going to show up and give you the time of day for a press conference. You have to. No, I don't.

No, I don't. All right, fine. We'll just do it with OAN and Newsmax. We'll give them all this. stuff. Cool. Nobody watches that. So you're not going to get any fucking juice out of that, right? There is a lot of power. I fully agree with you. This actually is a good opportunity for us to talk about another story here about the Pentagon. The Pentagon. So the story comes from WKYC. New York Times, AP, and Newsmax among news outlets who say they won't sign the new

Pentagon rules. The New York Times, the AP, and the conservative television network newsmax are among the outlets who say they will not sign a new Department of Defense document restricting access to information essentially within the Pentagon. What I thought was the most interesting about this is even Newsmax. Even Newsmax is like, what? Yeah, we're not doing that. No. We're not doing that.

At some point, you as the press have to say, look, there's either a First Amendment here or there's not. We either get to function or we don't. Even if if we are the worst kind of news, like Newsmax or O-A-N, like, even if we are the most horrifying news outlet, we have to, like, if you, if you constrain us from any journalism at all, then why are we waking up and coming to work? Why are we giving you the time of day? Why, like, I don't want to get sued. I'm not signing this bullshit. They have the power.

You're right. Yeah, they have the power. They have the power to do this. And it's interesting to see that even Newsmax was willing to walk away from this. But I think they showed them all getting kicked out of the there was a whole video I saw of them all leaving Tuesday because they were just like we're giving our badges back then I guess I guess we're just done we're not going to be here we won't we won't report on it we're just going to go somewhere else and they get they had places in the Pentagon where they were able to use to report and now they're not a bit allowed in there anymore they had to give their passes back and they all did everybody banded together and did it I wish that that would happen more often you know if you're going to if you're going to say you're

the most transparent yes uh or administration you got to be transparent. And the thing is that I think even Newsmax is saying you're not. Yeah. Right. And like, you know, when, when Pam Bondi was talking about how Trump was the most transparent, what she was really doing and what, and what the press secretary has said it as well. And what they usually mean is that the president just says whatever bullshit is on his mind, right? That's not the same thing as governmental transparency. That's someone lying to you in real time. But genuinely, and I mean this with real disrespect, idiots don't understand that, right? Idiots cannot tell the difference between transparency and fucking diarrhea of the mouth.

Sure. Right? Because a lot of stuff is being said. So if a lot of stuff is being said and it seems unfiltered, some people will interpret that as transparency. That's not what's meant by transparency. What's meant by transparency is that the people broadly, through the press, through freedom of information, through journalism, et cetera, they have a right to know everything that is not classified. because we fucking pay for it and the government is responsive and responsible

to us. That's how a democracy works. Everything else that isn't that, that sort of secretive bullshit, that's some fucking KGB bullshit, right? That's like some seriously, like some horrible autocratic dictatorial shit where

the machinations of government are hidden in the shadows and the people have no right to know. We tried to build an entirely different thing and it was revolutionary when America's said, actually, government should be beholden to responsive and responsible to the people. And there are limited exceptions to that. What's happening now is they're saying, hey, everything is an exception to that.

We'll tell you what we want to tell you. This is an erosion of one of the fundamental tenets of American democracy, something that made American democracy special. Hey, what's going on? Those bums won their court case So they're marching today What bums The fucking Nazi party

Illinois Nazis I hate Illinois Nazis Holy shit from Politico I love Hitler Please don't clip that Please just don't clip that Don't clip that Politico I love Hitler

leaked messages expose young Republicans racist chat Dude these chats are a nightmare. They refer to black people as watermelon people. They spell, they do the N-word,

but they add it with an A or an A-H at the end. There's a bunch of stuff talking about gas chambers. A bunch of stuff talking about raping women. A bunch of stuff talking about rape. It's just, I mean, like, and there's another story

that sort of coincides with this. This is J.D. Vance. Here it is. J.D. Vance. Downplays, this is also from political, J.D. Vance, downplays the group chat message is kids do stupid things, especially young boys. These are adults.

These are all adults. These are people of mid-20s to mid-30s. Like, I might call that person a kid, but I don't mean they're an actual kid. That's an actual responsible fucking adult. Here's what I, a thousand percent. And so here's what you've got to hold in your head at the same time if you're on the right. The right very often when there's a, let's say there's an act of violence that takes place or a criminal activity. the people on the right very frequently

will advocate strongly to try underage people as adults for their crimes right? All the time. Because they have a strong there is a strong feeling especially on the right that the more egregious something is the more individually responsible you can start to hold somebody right? So there are

kids who are tried as adults in certain crimes at younger and younger and younger ages and the right generally agrees with this right That is a push specifically by the right. When the left says something, let's say after the Charlie Kirk assassination, there is no grace given on the commentary from the left after the assassination saying, oh, that was a 25-year-old person who said that. That was a 30-year-old person who said that.

What J.D. Vance is doing is intentionally lying to people and doing so saying, I know people don't read the headlines, or don't read past the headlines, rather. so people will read it's the young Republicans I'll say these are kids and people won't look into this and see these were actually fucking adults Yeah So if you only read...

A young Republican is under 60, by the way. I know, like what is it... Thank you. What is a young Republican? Yeah. A young Republican means like you're on your second hip. Yeah.

Right? This is... The young Republican only has one knee replaced. Yeah, thank you. I want to mention on the other show I do No Rogan Experience with Michael Marshall we just covered J.D. Vance.

So J.D. Vance went on Charlie Kirk show. You and I talked about it, in fact. We talked about Charlie Kirk going on, or Charlie Kirk dying, being murdered, and then they, the next Monday, J.D. Vance hosted his show. I think we might even played a clip or talked about it the week after, where it was like, holy shit, this is a crazy thing that he said on that show. Well, I listened to the whole thing with Michael Marshall. We just reviewed the whole thing.

We talked about all the stuff they talk about. In that very specific show, J.D. Vance, at the very very, and makes a plea to everybody and says, if you see people dishonoring Charlie's memory, get them fired. Now, I'm not saying he said exactly those words, but he said pretty much that sentiment, right? He said other words,

but they were very close to what I said. I am not paraphrasing that far out of frame, okay? Yeah. It is pretty much what he said. So in one instance, he's like, fuck those people, fuck them forever, ruin their lives. And in this case, he's like, come on kids will be kids what are you going to do you know these kids sometimes they joke around

about gas chambers what are you going to do there's nothing you could do about it he's and and i and i and i want to say it's important people can change their mind on things but it's also very important to recognize when someone isn't consistent because they just want to lie and just want to get their way those are very important distinctions to make if this was 20 years ago jd vance said those people should you know, be, be, uh, basically lose their jobs because of what they said. And 20 years later, he changes his mind. Sure. Five years later, a year later, he changes his mind. I'm, I'm willing to accept it. Yeah. If he changes his mind and now that's a consistent position. But this isn't a consistent position for them. What it is a flip-flop position for when the other side is on the ropes,

hit him. When we're on the ropes, give us a second. Let's get a, let's get a standing eight count over here for us. Yeah. Yeah. The, the other thing I think is really worth mentioning is this is, exactly the kind of stuff that happens when somebody rapes a woman and they're like, hey, he had a good college career. We don't want to ruin his life. We don't want, you know, why should, and they, and so they're, he's going to be a doctor.

Right. They're looking at the person who is the perpetrator of hate or violence and saying, well, let's not ruin their life for their hateful violence shit. Because that hate and that violence is directed to people we don't care about. And we care less about.

That hate or that violence is directed, at Jewish people, women, black people, people of color, indigenous people, marginalized peoples. Immigrants. Immigrants. When the subject of violence and hate is not a white guy, it's okay. That's what they're saying. They're saying it out loud. He's saying, don't ruin the lives of these people.

And if you read through the selected texts that were in here, one of the texts is, if anyone ever sees these messages, we're fucked. Yeah, we're fucked. So it's not like they don't know. It's not like there's not that there's a lack of self-awareness, right? You could make an argument that a really young person lacks the kind of self-awareness to know that what they're doing is reprehensible. And if a young person is not reached an age of moral maturity where they don't understand

like that what they're doing really has moral repercussions in the world, that's the reason you hold them less morally and legally accountable. That's one of the reasons at least. this is not the case here these are people who are explicitly saying one we know we shouldn't be saying this let's all hope we don't get caught saying this

and then J.D. Vance is basically coming out and saying it's okay they're white guys that's what's happening here there's nothing else happening you're going to see a ton of people make the same comment which is going to be well this is a private chat and they should be able to say whatever there was a lot of people in this chat this wasn't like necessarily a private chat

this wasn't like between you and me and one other person. Right. There's a lot of people involved in this. So they're going to be hand-waving this away for the next several weeks. But there's another story that plays into this, too. But real quick, can I piggyback on that a little bit? I want to piggyback on this.

Cecil, if the private chats of you and I, we've been friends for almost 30 years, we'll be friends 30 years, by the way, in 2026. I thought about this. If all of the private chats of that 30 years were tomorrow made public, nothing in there would embarrass nothing in there would be embarrassing nothing in there would ruin my job nothing in there would ruin my career

yeah I don't think so I so like there's a guy one of the people that was involved was saying oh my God they're just trying to you know yeah I shouldn't have said this stuff but like this was private

and it shouldn't be used to smear me because it was supposed to be private look if you're privately in the Ku Klux Klan I wore a hood I wore a hood I didn't want anyone to see it that's why I wore the hood

someone said someone wrote somewhere and I forget where I saw it but they're like if that's what they write in private that's what they think in public that's what I'm saying right so like I don't think that there's anything there it would be different so like if I disclose to you something deeply personal about my intimate life or my private life or my private thoughts you're it would be embarrassing for the world to know that about me because you're my best friend so I might tell you something I wouldn't tell the world sure but what I mean by I wouldn't care like nothing in there would reveal a defect of character I feel like I feel like I feel like too, when I think about this sort of thing, I'm like, you know, one of the things that I, that I recognize when I see them using this sort of Nazi paraphernalize Nazi language and there's things that they're saying, that's been directly linked to Nazis and stuff, they're saying it to rev each other up. But at the same time, like, understand that other people in the world think that that's something that you believe in. So if you're playing into it, while you're playing into it, you've got to also

realize. So either you don't care about that sort of thing in your perception of how other people perceive you or you might actually believe this stuff. I don't know that as a reader. How do I know that they don't believe that? Are they joking for real? I don't know. Here's my take on that, right? And I want to acknowledge, you're right that I don't know with capital K, right? I don't capital K know. But I will say that nobody in my life makes jokes like that and ever has. That is a good person. I've never known a good person who makes a joke about maybe this person should be raped, right? Or maybe these people should be thrown into gas chambers, right? Like, I'm not saying we've not made off-color jokes in our lives. We've made a million off-color jokes. I edit off-color jokes

out of our show all the time. Yeah. Right. But like, there's a big difference in terms of, like, there's an advocacy for violence here. There is a, there is a saying, these people are, are less than people. That doesn't exist unless you think that. I'm not going to argue with you on that. You are absolutely right. And then there's another story too that I want to rope in here. This is a story that came out yesterday. Republican congressman calls flag with Schwastika displayed in his office vile and says it's under investigation. There is an image. Let's see. Politico first reported it. So let's see the image. This was on a Zoom call. I'm going to put this on the main page. Holy fuck, bro. Here's what I want to say. Like this

was on a Zoom call. There's a person's face was right next to it. This was plastered on a Zoom call. If you're not watching this, it's an American flag. And on the American flag, there is a swastika right in the center of it. Now, here's what I will say. If it's an open cubicle area, it's possible that someone else put that up there as a, like a prank. Like a prank or a, you know, genuinely fuck with somebody and be like, fuck you're a Nazi. That's a possibility. I'm not saying that that's not a possibility. But you got a lot of spleenin to do. You definitely got a lot of splaining to do, man.

Because that's, because when I see that and then I, it breaks the same day as there's a bunch on Nazis. Yeah. Here's the thing. Like, after, again, I just have to call back to what did the right in a unified voice come out and say after the Charlie Kirk assassination? They all, in a unified voice, said, this kind of thing happens because of a radicalized language and rhetoric of violence that comes from the left.

They all said it. Yeah. They all set it. Now here on the right, you have a literal swastika. You have text messages from the young Republicans talking about murder and gas chambers and rape and violence. And it's excused entirely. They're lying. They're lying about all of it.

The reason the swastika, I think, is important here is not because it feels anomalous, but because it feels consistent. That's why I'm worried, too. Right. I'm willing to hear how it could possibly have been a prank of somebody's or whatever. One, it's not a prank if it's on your side, right? If somebody on your side did it as a joke, that's not funny. Yeah. Right.

If it's somebody else who's doing it as like a way, like if it was a Democrat that snuck into the, I don't know how these are sequestered. So I have no idea if a Democrat Some sabotage Would have access to their thing I don't know how I couldn't tell you what it looks like Inside of all their cubicles Right

I don't know But if they do have access to it There hopefully it'll be cameras in there And you can see who did it And who went into those areas And walking around Because I guarantee that place is cameraed up I guarantee it's cameraed up

And that So you should be able to see Who was in there And when it was When were the Yeah the dude was on multiple Zoom calls. You can tell when they were in there. Like, I'm not a fucking detective,

but I could already fucking Sherlock Holmes this shit. You know what I mean? I can figure out when it was put in there. But none of that work will be done. And I think that's important too. We should see that what should happen in a sensible world. Supposedly the Capitol police are looking at it. But nothing's going to happen. I just am going to

say this out loud. Like nothing is going to happen. We'll see if Tom's right. I hope. Here's the thing. Tom hopes he's wrong, but he's probably right. I would love nothing more than to be wrong about this. But I don't, I would, I would bet my next three paychecks that nothing will ever happen. That what will happen is this will just go away. This will just be, this will just be another thing. Another piece of noise, dude. There's so much noise that you won't be able to remember this happen last week. Next week. You won't remember. It's, they have succeeded in their

stated strategy of flooding the zone. Yeah. And so this is an outrage. And this, what's crazy is if something analogous like to this were to happen in a democratic administration, an administration where sensible people were quietly and maturely handling government affairs, whether they did a good job or bad job, set that aside. But they were just coming to work, making decisions, being grown-ups, not trying to sort of like swing the world in this like violently authoritarian direction, right? So this would be a scandal that would ruin careers. This would be it.

Imagine if this was AOC's cubicle and there was an ISIS flag. Right. That's a perfect, literally the perfect analogy. This would be all anyone cared about. She'd be censured. It would be career ending for her. If somebody, if somehow it was proven that one of her staff put it up there. 100%.

It would be career ending for her. Yep. Yeah. There would be no getting out of this. Instead, what will happen with this is nothing. This will be so nothing that I'll admit that I have, as a person who I think is pretty plugged into the news in my day-to-day life, I didn't even know about this story, Cecil.

It happened yesterday evening, so maybe you missed it. Maybe I missed it. It got broke yesterday evening, and I put it on the notes this morning. So it's like, you know, yeah, it's possible you would have heard about it today. That I would have heard about it. But I, there's a lot that happens that we don't even talk about. Right. There's just so much.

There's too much in a week. And things get pushed off. You just miss them. You just don't talk about them. Yeah. It's fucking nuts, bro. You just need to leave because I know you all don't have warrant and you're not searching us again. That's, Mom, defend they're here.

Sir, I'm just here to believe her. Defender here! Politico, Trump falsely suggests FBI agents to blame for igniting the January 6 violence. Who was president when January 6th happened? I don't think. Was that by Trump? Was it Pence, I don't think. Because they wanted to hang, Mike.

They want to hang. I have a question. I found this very confusing because I thought that January 6th was a peaceful day of peaceful protest by peaceful people can't even get a fucking their own story right. That's the best. They were so peaceful, I went and I pardoned them all. So they're so peaceful and everything's so perfect and it was a beautiful day of love. I pardoned all of them. Also, it was super violent because of the FBI. Yeah, the violence. The FBI, he called them insurrectionists.

He should pardon the FBI. Oh. It's like an inception pardon. So you are the party of law and order who hates your own intelligence and law enforcement community, unless and until they've pledged allegiance to the Trump. That's absolutely true, right? Yeah. So the FBI, which is just a police, it's a policing and investigatory branch of the federal government, used to, be if you were a Republican, you would support that as law and order. Now the FBI has become

like some kind of like left wing boogeyman or something. And it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever. But like even in this one article, Trump says like that he literally calls them insurrectionists, which to me would lead me to think then that there was an insurrection that almost happened. But at the same time, it was a peaceful day of love and snuggles. There's so much cognitive distance is involved with this. And the other thing I want to mention, too, that I think is really important is, you know, if Biden were to mess up a timeline like this

in any way, everybody would be like, let's just start throwing dirt on him right now. We'd be like, everybody needs to get a rose in a handful of dirt. Just start burying that man alive. Like, they would 100% be ready to, like, there would be one guy be like, well, guess it's time to put old Biden down

and they have a shovel. and they just beat him to death with the trouble and then they just bury him right in the middle of the White House. You see like a breath of dirt come up. One breath of dirt comes out. Are you like it 100% there was so many people just ready to be like

they were following him around with a casket hoping he tripped his entire presidency. And this guy says the craziest shit messes up timelines all the time totally fucks up these things. Now do I think he's 100% dementia adult? I don't know.

I can't make that as, assessment. But I will say, if this was another guy, they would say yes. Yeah, right. Yeah, this would not fly, right? This would not fly. Also, like, there were, the FBI is like, well, you're saying that because we said there were FBI agents, but the FBI agents showed up because somebody needed to help the Capitol police. They were just happened to be police officer shaped. Right. Yes. And then Trump was like, well, they were playing clothes. It's like, because they came in a hurry. They ran over here. They were wearing. Yeah, they chocked over. Right. Because there was a fucking riots.

They jog-walked here. Because all your guys carrying Trump flags were storming the Capitol like it was the Princess Bride, man. What is happening? This is amazing. Every week there's a brand new

what the sweet fuck is happening in the world. Every single week. It doesn't slow down. I can't. We never slow down. It's all gas, no brakes. Okay, forget about.

Forget about. Your rear end is all screwed up. No, it was like that. Let's just call the police You file a report Fuck the police Okay I'm welcome

I love it MSN J.B Pritzker Looking at prosecuting ICE agents in Chicago Yeah he's talking about One of the things he said was Look The pendulum's going to swing the other way

Yep And when it does Understand that we know We're going to follow you And that's what I was talking about last week when I were talking about this, I'm like, I just want somebody to keep records. I want somebody to know that badge number 1654 or whatever is Joe Blow. And that Joe Blow has to answer for shooting pepper balls in the face of this guy.

Yeah. And that Joe Blow has to answer for pit maneuvering a pregnant lady because he thought she was Mexican enough to rest. Right. I want to know about that stuff after it's all over. And I want these long bits of crime. and what I want is to make sure that everybody's just like we're going to turn off the spig

at a qualified immunity and you're going to have to fucking handle all this stuff now you're going to eat shit it's not going to be the union or whatever it is or the government because now the thing is like after this is all over

and a bunch of people are getting sued that's you and me paying that fucking thing it's like a bunch of people had a heartbreaking three years or whatever and then you and I got to pay for it right we got to pay for it because ICE fucking ran around

with their cowboy Spears and their big old hat and their horses and they fucking ran a bunch of people down. So we got to pay for that. What I want is for us to be like, we're turning the spigot off. You've got to fucking pay for it. Qualified immunity is the key, right? Qualified immunity is the thing right now that basically says if you're a cop or cop adjacent, right, that like whatever happens, somebody else is on the hook for it for the most part.

It has to get fucking extreme in order for you to have any personal criminal or civil liability. Right. But like Pritzker's like, hey man, we'll look out for you. And Pritzker is running for, I mean, it's rumored that Pritzker is a contender for president in 2028. And if I was looking, if I was an ice agent, I might feel pretty fucking invincible right now. But like your invincibility has a fucking clock on it. Yeah. And maybe like you said, maybe you shouldn't shoot a priest in the face with a fucking pepper ball because he's standing there talking in. America, you should shoot that fucking guy in the head with a goddamn pepperball because you're on camera. You're on candid camera, motherfucker. The thing that may keep our, if anything keeps our republic safe, it will be cameras. I was thinking about this. Like, we are, we are in a real place where we may, I think it's more than 50%. We may see the fall of our republic. We may see in the course the next three and a half years, three months, we may see the fall of our democracy, like in a formal way. I actually think that that's a very possible thing that we might

witness and live through. If it doesn't happen, it won't happen because of cell phone cameras. I believe that to be the case. I don't think there's anything more powerful that exists than those cameras that are in our hands. We should be filming fucking everything. It's the only way to keep reality cohesive. And the thing is like, we need to have 100 cameras on an event to counter the one bullshit AI nonsense. Because that's just how

numbers are going to have to work now. There's going to have to be overwhelming evidence of reality that in order for us to have that narrative cohesion we were talking about in the last episode. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. Well, you know, it's so funny because I had thought back in the day

when they first started introducing body cameras. I was like, this could really change how policing's done. This could really have a big effect on how policing's done in America. Suddenly, there's a lot more eyes on you so you're not doing the same things that you were, et cetera, et cetera. But man, how many body cam videos have we seen where police have just fucking like been so unbelievably horrible where they've murdered people on body cameras? They've, you know, they've done things. They've abused people. They've killed people. They've, you know, tortured people, they've done all kinds of crazy shit on these body cams as if they didn't even exist.

And I wonder if that's a product of the qualified immunity stuff that we were talking about already. I wonder if that's a product of basically what Trump is doing now. Well, Trump can't, anything that's an official act, he can't be tried for. So he's just doing whatever he wants because it doesn't fucking matter anymore. And I wonder if they feel the same way.

Like, nothing, I can do anything. Like, what's going to happen to me? And so they didn't care about the body cams. And so I, there's a part of me that wonders like, like, I recognize that that puts it out into the public. And I think that that's a great thing. And I think you're right in the sense that the more people see this stuff, the more chance you have of stopping it. But I also recognize that, like, if we're expecting that to be the thing that stops it, it's not going to be. No.

There's got to be more than that. Yeah. I think. So when I say that, what I mean is like, I think there is a lower than even chance that will continue to have it. I don't think it's going to work, is what I'm saying. I think if anything does work, it will rely on that as its foundation. Got to have it's foundation, yeah. But like the follow-up to that is exactly like we've got to have systems, formal systems of justice in place, that then take those cameras into account.

I've seen body camera footage. This was a few years ago, but I've seen body camera footage that, like, I can't get out of my head. That, like, I remember watching one where some cop. was screaming at some kid who was on the ground was of no threat to anybody who had his hands behind his back. And he just shot him. And he gets shot and he kills this kid. And on his rifle, he had etched something like, I fucking want to kill somebody or some crazy, crazy shit, etched onto his fucking like service weapon, his rifle for a service. And that guy got let go. Like nothing happened to that cop. That cop was like, yeah, whatever. That's fine. You could just

fucking murder somebody in the back on camera. And I'll never forget that. video. And I think like if that's not the thing. And I think back to like the summer of 2020 and the intense violence that the police engaged in against unarmed, against a video, nonviolent protesters. Against a video of a guy who got killed on camera. Yeah, man. Murdered on camera. Nine minutes they sat on his neck. And no repercussions. No repercussions. Well, there was repercussions for that guy. For that guy. But I'm talking about like the police that engaged in the violence against the protesters. When that happened in the summer of 2020, when America erupted into protest and the police

responded with overwhelming violence, you know, driving through crowds, beating people from horseback, beating people with bicycles, arresting protesters, shooting the press with non-violent, disappearing people into vans, driving around in vans, laughing and shooting people with pepper guns and stuff. the violence that the police perpetrated on American citizens exercising their First Amendment rights was intense and unrelenting

and national in scope. And to my knowledge, there's been almost no repercussions for anybody. So I don't think it's going to fix it. Like, that's why I don't think the odds are good. Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you

the Spokane National Bank Building. That's a That's ridiculous. Yahoo News. Fact check. Speaker Mike Johnson called nude cyclists in Portland the most threatening thing he's seen.

Yeah, and he did. He said this in a comment. He's like, because somebody asked him, this is what we were talking about earlier, Tom. We're talking about what you should know, what you should, you're the speaker of the fucking house. How plugged in to the world should you be? be. And someone asked him a question about the ICE agents that are abusing people across the

country that we have, you know, dozens of hours of footage of. And he responds with, I've not seen them, the federal law enforcement, crossed the line yet. We have committees that have jurisdiction who have that responsibility, but it's not risen to that level. What I've seen is the abuse of law enforcement by radical leftist activists. You know, most recently, the most threatening thing I've scene was the naked bicyclers in Portland who were protesting ice there. I mean, it's getting really ugly. They have attacked physically assaulted officers. People have been arrested, okay?

This is serious business. What? This guy is so fucking repressed, first off. This is the guy who shares an accountability app with his son, right? About porn? I understand. I get it. I don't think I'd want to see a bunch of naked bicyclers because the first thing

I think is like, even with the junk placed where it needs to be with, like, bike pants. Yeah. Not a pretty look. It's still not good. Like, sometimes you still got to... And, like, being on a bike for a long time, like, is it hanging off to the side?

Where are the boys on either side of that seat? Are they on one side of the seat? There's a... That bumps you hit and then they bounce. It feels like a lot. I'm like, yeah, I agree with you. Naked bicyclists, that seems like a very difficult thing to pull off as a dude.

You know, the whole time I'm thinking it's a rocket. I know it's not that long, but I'm still thinking it, you know? And so I understand, but at the same time, like, dude, you're so repressed and weird. And also, it's your fucking job to know this, man. You should know, or at least be able to say something that's fucking coherent about what's happening instead of I don't know what's going on right now. I haven't seen you that. Yeah. Well, if you're so worried, if the thing that threatens you the most is a protest of people literally in their most vulnerable state,

Right? Yeah. What? Portland's a war zone. There's naked weirdos on bicycles. That's Portland. I feel like we just all pulled on our pants. And then while our pants are on our ankles, we do that wiggle walk. Yeah. And then the wang swings back and forth. And we scare all the police officers. Everybody's just walking and their dick is just wagling back and forth as their pants are on their ankles and they're doing that little shuffle walk. That's what we need to do. That's our, that's our charge. That's the charge. When somebody holds up the sword

Everybody just fucking drops trow And then we just Bopo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo Bo As As absurd as possible Walking like a penguin after them Yes yes yes When you're like gotta paint your dick Like a penguin then

A penguin face And then it's got a beak And it's going back and forth perfect Just in case absolutely yeah That's why I wake up I don't know about you I wake up a shit shower shave Put googly eyes on my dick

I'm ready to go out in the world I feel like it's either the Google is on my dick or I do it so I can wear that big top hat over my head and have my belly make the, I put lipstick on my yeah, yeah. Lipsick on my belly button. So I get me and go, hello,

blah, is there anybody more uptight in the world than Mike Johnson? Seriously, that guy's wound so tight. If you're going to bump into me, it'd fucking explode. I feel like he's going to explode into a thousand threads. Like somebody touches him and he's just going to go, poof.

And then you're just going to be able to pick him up and you'll be able to be like, yep, that's his eye. That's it. Yeah, you just be able to work your way down, Mike Johnson. My kids, when they were younger, they used to play this game called Bay Blades. And what they were was like, it was like a little, like, plastic arena.

And, like, one guy had, like, a top, basically. And the top was assembled into multiple parts. And then they put it in this little holder and they pull a string and the top spins in this little arena. And you do the same thing. And our tops hit each other and they battle. Oh, it's like rock'em, sock and robots. Rock them sock and robots with tops, right? Metal tops.

Got it. And they are designed so that after a while, one of them will break apart. And then you'd be like, I won. I broke your fucking Bayblade or whatever. Okay. That sounds fun. They come apart in like catastrophically, right? Because they hit each other and like pieces just go burn it back.

Is it like jarts? Did they close it down? No, that's just super fun. Like I used to. And they're the loudest toy in the entire world. Like they are maximum volume toy. I feel like Mike Johnson at any moment is going to catastrophically come apart from just trying to the effort of holding himself together as a man who's like, naked people. Oh, God.

Oh, God. Can we get some authoritarian violence? I cannot stand seeing a naked person. Oh, God, there's a nipple. Oh, buttocks. Oh, there's a buttocks. Oh, my God. He is, there was leaked, like supposedly leaked.

I don't believe it because I have no idea how to prove this. But they were saying that, like, someone leaked his grinder conversations. Again, I don't know. Who knows, right? Who knows, right? But would you put it past him, though? Zero percent. Would you put it past him to be like,

like a secret grinder guy. Of course not. I mean, like, the way he talks about, about anything sexual makes you think that guy is so tightly wound that every once in a while, that thing just goes, but doosh. Yeah, man. A thousand percent, if it's not on Grindr, he's got a dungeon and he, like, in his basement and he's like, yes, mistress, yes, mistress. And on the side, he has naked protesters type of.

The United States of America is insisting it's not the bad guy. It comes as President Trump ramps up his America First Agenda, sets off trade wars around the globe, and adds human skulls to the U.S. flag. This is from stories from Fox. Pentagon agrees to host Katari F-15 fighter jets and pilots at Idaho Air Base. They definitely phrased that very differently on Fox News that they did at other places where they're like, no, we're going to give on an airbase, basically. So it's the difference between headlines here.

But you get an opportunity to see what a $400 million gentle buy. how fucking weird and scary and quid pro quo is this? This is so evidently quick. I mean, in the justification, they basically said like, well, yeah, they helped us out with, like, Gaza. So they were really helpful there. So we're just going to let them have their fighter jets and troops on our soil. I could be wrong about this. And so you guys can correct me if I'm wrong.

I know that we have military bases and countries all across the world. But I'm not aware of military bases from any other country on American soil. they were over here. That's what I thought too. I was thinking about that because I was like, yeah, we have, we have relationships with other people where we have our military base there. But I thought that was our military base in somewhere in like, wherever the fuck, like Germany or whatever was like, we're here just in case something kicks off. Yeah, like my understanding, and I know it's more complicated than this, but broadly, my understanding is one, we have military bases and parts of the world that were holdovers from

World War II. So Germany and Japan, for example, they were holdovers from World War II. where we said we want to continue to have military influence in these spaces after World War II. We also have provided security guarantees across parts of Europe. And so in order to provide those security guarantees, we have to have actionable military staged in different places. Of course, we also want intelligence and the ability to act.

So there's a give take. Yeah, and we get to send over our drunk 19-year-olds to get fights and bars over there. It's like a whole thing. But like we don't need, what do we get out of having a bunch of Qatar war jets on in Idaho.

And pilots. And pilots. Like what are we, what do we get out? Is this make us more secure? I can't imagine a world where this makes us more secure. What does Qatar want this here for? I will say this. Do you not feel weird about everything about this?

It feels weird for me, but I'll tell you, you know how it feels weird for? As many Republicans didn't like this either. They were all like, what is happening right now? There's nothing to like here. Nobody likes this. This is so insane. like it. Are the people who are flying around or going to be flying around in a $400 million

jet they got for free? For real, man. That's the only people who like this. This is fucking weird. Like, we should all be intensely uncomfortable. Not because there's any possibility of Katari F-15 fighter jets in Idaho posing a direct one-to-one military threat

against the United States. So I don't want you right to me about that. But because this is an unprecedented level of access that is obviously purchased. Yeah. It's It's quid pro quo, man. It's like literally you can see it happening in real time in front of your face. And the only reason he's doing it this way is because he knows that if he does something as an official act, it can't be fucking scrutiny.

That's it. He is getting, like, like the America, capital A America gets nothing from this. But Donald Trump personally has gotten a lot from Qatar. I don't want, nobody should want this. Yeah. This is fucking weird. I do hope that the, uh, that the Gaza deal. stays in place.

Same, yeah. I don't know if it will. It's sounding bad already. Yeah. It doesn't sound like it's going well already. But I hope that there's something that stays in place so that people don't die every day. That would be great. Same man.

Yeah. Actually eat a food, not get starved to death, not get murdered, not have a, like a fucking 60,000 pound bomb drop on their fucking. There's nothing left there. There's nothing. I mean, they've fucking leveled it. So I hope that they have an opportunity to rebuild and not be fucking molested and destroyed.

That would be amazing. I have no idea if that's going to stay in place. Same. Do you want my conspiratorial hot take? Go. My conspiratorial hot take is that Netanyahu used this moment as leverage to get the hostages, knowing that by forcing the hand of Hamas to lay down their arms,

that they would not lay down their arms, they get the hostages back, and then he gets to persecute the entire rest of the war. without any of the sort of like political damage of more dead hostages. So he gets everything he wants out by getting all of the hostages back. Then puts all of the blame on Hamas for not laying down arms for an agreement that they didn't, I don't even know if they fully agreed to that part. I actually have not read anything that says Hamas has agreed to lay down arms.

So they're not, they've not fully finished negotiating that element of the deal yet. And then he'll just prosecute the rest of the war exactly how he wanted to prosecute it. and never had any intention of this being a long-lasting ceasefire. That's my conspiratorial take. Classic Nutting Yahoo. Classic. Classic, BB. I don't know that that's true, guys.

That's some shit Tom just made up. I just am saying stupid shit right now. The thing is, though, when I hear that, I think none of that sounds so out of the realm of possibility that I'm like, let's institutionalize Tom for saying it. Right. It seems like it's perfectly well within the range of what this person has done. in the past. Right. That's what, like, I understand that I'm

just like, that's just the fucking hottest taste. You can't tell his, you don't know what he's thinking, but at the same time, you're like, man, I will say past experience is coloring my future perception. Right. I know that I was not wrong about that. And yes, it's only been four days, but I know you feel it

too. I need you to leave. Do not right me. Do not call me. Do not email me. This story is from CNN. Multiple airports refuse to play Christy Nome video that blames Democrats for government shutdown. Dude, they're doing this stuff constantly. They put that on the websites. They got sued for that. They're trying to play at all these.

Put out of office replies on people's emails. And then now they're trying to play this video of Christy Nome saying it's the Democrats who closed the government down. And you're like, dude, the Democrats didn't close the government down. The Republicans can't open it. Yep. Like, they can't keep it open. They can't. And I saw somebody today talk about this. And I think it's so important to remember, all these things happen all the time in government. And what happens is, and this happened during Biden's term, right? When Biden was in office, he had one two-year period where he had everything. But it was very, very slim. If you remember, it was the lady from Arizona and then Mansion. What was Lady from Arizona's name? Do you remember her? Cinema. Cinema. So Kristen Cinema and Mansion were a fucking thorn in his side. didn't do anything, we're essentially independence-leaning Republican, right, the whole time he was in. So the two, the first two years were fucked anyway. They couldn't bring anything past the filibuster, so nothing they wanted to bring, except for budget shit, got past period anyway.

They wouldn't let them bring anything. Harris was a tiebreaker. So there wasn't anything, and Harris was a literal tiebreaker. And guess what? Every single time they passed this thing, because you know what they did? They opened the White House. They had the people come over and say, well, what do we have to do to get six of you guys to sign on to this fucking thing? And then they figured it out. They had to hash shit out because it turns out you have to work with the other group. Trump will never do that. He doesn't want to do it. So if he's not going to work with the other group, then there will not be a resolution. And so they're waiting for this other side to cave and it doesn't feel like they're going to do it. So now we're just stuck in this holding period.

And then they're using the government in these cases illegally to say it's the other side's fault. Yeah, this is a clear, this is the clearest possible violation of the Hatch Act. The Hatch Act, and I'm no, I'm not a fucking legal talking guy, right? So, like, take this and, like, cross-reference it with somebody who's got a JD, right? This is just Tom saying stuff. But everything I have read super strongly suggests that there's no world where this is legal, right? That the Hatch Act basically says that federal employees need to keep the fuck out of politics. They cannot espouse or use their federal office to espouse a strictly.

political message. That's not your job if you're working for the EPA or fucking, you know, the Department of the Interior etc. Like, you just can't do that stuff. But Christy Knoem and all these other fuckers are like, yeah, we're just going to, we want to manage public perception, we want to control the narrative.

We have physical and technological access to this stuff. We're just going to use it. And because, again, there's nobody to hold them accountable. The law is a suggestion without enforcement. Yeah. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this week.

We'll have a patron show for you on Thursday. We're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptics creed. 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 and towers, tarot cars, psychic healing, crystal balls, bigfoot, Yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, wizards, wizards, vaccine nuts.

shaman healers, evangelist, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your signs. 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 dissonancepod. help us spread the word by sharing our content. Find us on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Preds, all under the handle at DissonancePod.

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