Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 923: "I Love the Inflation"

Episode Date: June 15, 2026

Will Maine's scandal-hit Graham Platner help save or sink Democrats? Trump threatens to seize Kharg Island and other Iran oil infrastructure Johnson Says California Election Fraud Is So Bad It Can't Be Proven | The New Republic Trump abruptly ends NBC interview after clash over 'rigged election' claim Trump saw 22 specialists in latest medical exam — nearly double his previous checkup Postal Service won't deliver mail ballots for states that don't hand over voter lists, under plan for Trump directive | CNN Politics Trump embraces May price spikes amid Iran war: 'I love the inflation'

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This episode of Cognitive Dissinance 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 blast anyone who gets in our way.

We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big or makes us mad. It's skeptical. It's political. And there is no welcome at. Today is Friday, June the 12th. We are recording separated. We had intended Cecil to have our usual in-person hanging.

and out two buds recording day instead uh life work lawn mowers everything got in the way conspired to keep us apart yeah today so we are separate today and we'll be separate next week as well uh right because i'm going out of town you're going out of town celebrating a juneth juneth travel so i'm going to be going out of town so we're going to record a little early next week and so we'll be separate again next week but uh but big stuff go ahead i'll say what's your over under on whether or not Trump allows Juneteenth to continue by the end of his term. He just like writes an executive order. He's like, no more.

I'm going to have it anymore. Because like Juneteenth was only, it was only made a federal holiday by Biden. It wasn't a federal holiday until Biden declared it one. I would imagine that they would either, before his term is out, my thought would be he'd either get rid of it. And didn't he already sort of get rid? I thought there was some hollabaloo last year about it. I seemed to remember that there was too.

I remember he. Let me look it out. Some bullshit about how, like, after Juneteenth, about how there's too many federal holidays. Yeah. And it was like, well, you only tweeted that shit out when there was one that celebrated the emancipation of black people. Like, you were fine with, like, he's fine with fucking Christmas, you know?

Like, he's fine with, like, the soldier days. Is Juneteenth still a federal holiday? What Trump changed? Oh, God. So he did change something. Did he change? There's so many things that happened. We forgot.

This is from Yahoo News. Is Juneteenth still a federal holiday? President Donald Trump has made some changes around diversity, equity, inclusion, but it's still on the national calendar. Will it mean a long weekend for workers in Mississippi? The answer isn't as simple as you might think. In 2025, Trump vowed to end the DEI and the government. There was confusion about whether Juneteenth, the holiday celebrating the end of slavery,

would stay on the federal calendar, but Congress hasn't changed it. This year, the president, remove Juneteenth and Martin Luther King Day from the list of free National Park Entreaties. What a petty, shitty, shitty, terrible, awful fucking racist thing to do. God, it's like, it's so like out loud racist, right? He also added Flag Day, June 14th. His birthday. And free on his birthday.

Yeah, yeah. Because Flag Day is his fucking birthday. Oh, what a piece. God, I hate him so much. What a just a, just, just the most manifestly awful fucking person. I had a, a bird get in my attic and was making a bunch of noise. And so I hired a guy to come out and sort of get rid of the bird, but also put up some, like, chicken wire in my, in my attic. So the birds couldn't get in there.

There was, like, I guess several that came in. He shoot them all out and then he put a thing around there to make sure they didn't come in. But the guy comes in and I have to let him in through my garage. and I let him in through my garage and I say, hey man, just let yourself in and out. I'm working. So, here's the door. Here's where you got to be,

et cetera, et cetera. So I was working during the time. I was editing. So I wasn't paying a lot of attention to him. And then I'm walking downstairs and he's like, see, you love Trump, huh? And I was like,

I was like, no, I fucking hate him. I was like, I don't know where you got that. He's like, I saw your protest signs in the garage. He's like, he's like, I fucking hate that guy too. And so we're going. stairs. And it's like, like what's so funny is. How refreshing is that? It's so refreshing because the dude was like,

he's like, man, you know, so many good people die young. And he's like, this guy just keeps living. He's like a cockroach. And I was like, oh, I love this guy. It's like, I don't even care. Like, I'll, I'll pretend there's that I need an animal or something just to call the guy.

up. He seemed like he was so, it was great, though. It was just such a great moment. But like, genuinely, the guy is such a piece of shit. He's such an awful person. And so many people recognize that about it. Like, he just exudes awfulness. I love it because it's always such a crapshoot when you have to deal with somebody that's sort of outside of your existing social sphere, right? For sure. And then like, you work with somebody, you hire a contractor or you meet with somebody new. And you're like, oh, God, please don't. Oh, God. Please don't. Don't bring it up. Please don't. Can we just not, because what if you're the worst and I still have to give you money?

I actually looked the other day at my day job. I looked to see if it was legal or not legal to preference using contractors or subcontractors based on their political views. And like it is not, it's at the corporate level for me. It's not something I can exert control over. Because I was thinking to myself like, you know, we pay a lot of vendors and subcontractors through my work. I have a significant amount of control there.

Maybe I can steer some of this. And I was like, oh, no, that'll let me right in jail. Like, I can't do that. Like, that's illegal as fuck. Wow. No kidding. Well, like, it's illegal. You're allowed to do it as an individual, obviously.

You're allowed to decide who you want to. Yeah, but you can't discriminate in the workplace based on political views. And I, you know, I thought about it. I was like, yeah, I guess that, I mean, that makes sense. That's a good law to have, right? Like, you don't want to have people getting fight. because they, you know, I wouldn't want to get fired because it went to a protest. Like it has to, it protects both ways, right? Sure, sure. Okay, that's. I like that's. Yeah, exactly. You want those

protections. But I'll tell you what, that's not a federal thing. It's a state thing. And many, many, many, many, many, many, many states, most don't have any protections. And your employer can just be like, oh, yeah, you're, you know, whatever. Like, I don't, you're fired because of that. Oh, wow. And they can still fire you without telling you why. But I was like, I can't choose contractors or subcontractors based on their politics. I was a little bummed. You know, I belong to that SCA group, and there's a, I'm one of the sort of fencing guys in that group.

And so there's a group of people that provide their armorers that would provide these rapiers to the groups, right? So they sell that their job is to make these weapons that are safe to play with for the group. So there's many different armorers out there. that do this sort of work for that. It's a very niche product, but, you know, people spend hundreds, if not thousands of dollars on these weapons. Sure, yeah.

It's like, it's expense. Like, we know, it's like high-end firearms. You know what I mean? Like, it's one of those sort of, it's a custom thing. And so there's a bunch of these providers out there. And there's one from, that's in like the south.

I don't know what one of these southern states. And years ago, I met a guy, and I bought a weapon from him at this big thing. in Pennsylvania called Penzick. And I bought the weapon, then I met the guy, and I was like, man, I don't like this guy. He sort of rubbed me the wrong way. But I guess I'm not friends with him on Facebook, but he posted this big long screed on Facebook that, I mean, it was, in some ways, it was impressive how many different slurs he got in

on the thing, right? There was slurs for Muslims. He attacked LGBT people in it. I mean, it was just, he was doing the great replacement theory in it. It was really awful, like genuinely an awful thing. And it's good because, you know, as a person who would maybe give advice on where you should go to buy something to a brand new person, it's great because you can just be like, yeah, well, don't buy from that guy. He's a fucking piece of shit, you know, don't buy from that person. But there was a back and forth, an interesting back and forth on whether or not it's okay to post that sort of thing and tell people not to go there.

I was like, absolutely, it's totally within your rights to vote with your dollar and to tell. other people to vote with their dollar here and not. You're allowed to do boycotts. It's 100% within your purview. You're allowed to boycott people. Absolutely. 100%. Like in your personal life, you can make whatever choices you want to make. And I can also broadcast those choices to whoever I like. I can tell all of my friends, and they could make those decisions on their own. But I could tell all my friends, don't go to Target. Don't go to McDonald's. Those places supported this right wing, even if they didn't outward support, they did things that

helped facilitate and also followed the rules of this current administration. So you shouldn't go to those places. If you have ethics, you shouldn't go there. And that's not against the rules or the law or anything. I'm allowed to say them. Boycotts are incredibly powerful.

Boycotts, if they're organized and they're substantive, maybe one of the last few powerful tools of resistance that the people have. You know, at the end of the day, day, money talks and bullshit walks, right? This is a capitalist society. And at the end of the day, like, if you can organize a concentrated, organized boycott, you can make a difference. You can't exert real pressure, real fine. But the problem is, I think, that a lot of these

financial pressure campaigns in a polarized country like ours that's split nearly 50-50, there's a pressure campaign from one angle and then that creates a counter pressure campaign from the other and I think a lot of times things balance out they might have like a temporary bit of movement I know targets eating some shit I think that's great why targets eating shit is because they kind of danced in the middle of the road

and then they tried to brand themselves as people as somebody who like caters to people who would be more left-leaning and then they went and changed all their policies to right-leaning policies you're like well then go Fuck yourself. And the people over there, they're not going to come to you.

They're going to go to Walmart. So what the fuck? You fucked yourself. You dumb asses. You didn't know your customer. Yeah. But I think of like Tesla, for example. Like I am in the market for an electric car.

I will not even consider the possibility of a Tesla. Like I don't, if there was a Tesla outside with a fucking, you, I will give you a hundred dollars to own this car. One of those big bows at Christmas. I would not take it. There's a Z. Yeah. And like, I know that like SpaceX's IPO is this afternoon.

And like there's no world where I would invest in that IPO. There's, I mean, for a lot of reasons. But like there's no world where I would buy that stock. I won't do anything ever to help enrich Elon Musk, right? I won't. And like for a while when when Musk was running Doge, Tesla was eating some shit. And it was great. But like that does, there's a counterpressure that gets created.

Trump put the fucking cars on the White House law and they become a symbol of, you know, Muscovites go out and buy more of them as a counterpressure. It is difficult to think about how we can exert the pressure in ways that are effective that don't create a contravailing counterpressure and then also last long enough

because that's the other thing. It's like if the pressure campaign is short term, these rich fuckers can outlast you. Yeah. You know, and like to a large degree, a lot of the pressure that you might want to exert because everything is monopolistic and the power has been controlled up to the top at some point.

It's like, what am I going to not buy groceries? Yeah. You know, like there's some stuff where you're just, you kind of get fucked. Yeah. So I recognize that like boycotts have a lot of difficulty in making them actionable. But I do think that like they might be the last most powerful thing

we as people can do if we organize them properly. Well, we're going to cover some stories today that make it seem like that might be the last thing we could do it all. I know at all, dude. All right, well, let's jump in. This story's from the BBC. This is a little bit different, but this isn't,

everyone's talking about this. Will the scandal-plagued outsider help save or sink the Democrats? And this is an article about the troubles of Graham Platner and how troubling Graham Platner is as a candidate and as a person and kind of how that intersects

with the pragmatic sort of needs of the people to oust Susan Collins. And, man, this is a tough one because I feel a couple of different ways about there's a scandal about a tattoo. He's got a totem tattoo on his chest that he got when he was a Marine. That's a Nazi symbol. He's said some stuff on Reddit, specifically stuff that seeks to sort of like shift some

of the blame for sexual assault to the people that have been sexually assaulted. Yeah, I would say blatantly misogynistic stuff. Yeah. Like genuinely misogynistic shitty stuff. Bad shit. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, there's also, you know, he's like evidently, you know, cheating on his wife and unfaithful.

There's some character problems there. Yeah, absolutely. And at the same time, it's like he is the Democratic nominee. Yeah. And the other option is Susan Collins and the fate of the Senate hangs in the balance. And we're left with this intensely unpalatable choice. Well, here's where I stand on it. And I'm interested to see where you stand on it.

When it comes to the extramarital fairs, stuff that happened during his marriage. If you'd ask me that 15 years ago, I would have said, yeah, I think there's something to that, and I think you probably should. We probably should be thinking more about people's loyalties and where they lie and whether or not they're lying to people that are important to them. How will they talk to us if they lie to people who are important to them, etc., etc. I think all those things are good indicators of who you are as a person, those types of things. So I would have, I think, 15 years ago, said, yeah, I think there's something there. And maybe that's, that may, that might even disqualify him from it. As we stand now,

I'm just like, looking at the burning wreckage of our democracy. I think, nah, I'm good. I'm okay. Whatever happened between him and his wife, that happened between him and his wife. We have moved past that as a country by leaps and bounds. So I don't feel as, like, that's probably the least important thing to me. That I would agree to that is the least important thing. Yeah. Same. His tattoo, what you have on the Democrat side is a guy who has a Nazi tattoo. His story is he got it while he was drunk, didn't know what was, he got it in another foreign country where it was on the wall, he picked it off the wall, it looked badass.

I've looked at this tattoo in its natural form. It looks like a skull and crossbones. I wouldn't be able to pick it out as a Nazi tattoo myself just looking at it. Yeah, I felt the same way, yeah. He has since covered the tattoo up with a different tattoo. and has said, I never have had these views, and I would not want those views. It was a mistake to get the tattoo,

but I did it in a moment, and I've since covered it up. To me, that is a nothing, right? On the one side, you have a guy who is saying, I don't believe in this stuff, and I covered up the tattoo, and on the other, you have Heggseth, who literally has a crusader tattoo on his chest,

laughed at the people when they asked about it, told those people to go fucking pound sand during his Senate confirmation hearings, and attacked a Muslim country recently, right? with the world's largest military. So I don't think that there's anything to compare these two things. Right? Look at it.

I'm like, yep. Oh, okay. Well, on the one side, you have a guy who's clearly sorry for it and has changed his body, his literal outside body in order to reflect that. So, again, don't feel like the tattoo is a big deal. In fact, even if someone did have a current Nazi tattoo and they were to have said, like, the KKK guy that was in the Senate or whatever, like, that's, guy recanted his past. He said, I don't believe in this stuff. I don't think. I think we need to

open our hearts to people who want to change who they are. And this doesn't even feel like a thing that he got because he was racist. Yeah, let me, let me add to that because I, I feel exactly the same way and I want to add some additional context. I think one thing that's incredibly important here is that we have a treasure trove of information, some of which we'll talk about next to, is very problematic, about his sort of inside thoughts made loud, right? All the stuff before he was running for election about his thoughts. And relatively, one would look at this and think this is pretty unfiltered, right? Because some of it is so troublesome, you have to say, like, okay, like this looks like a pretty

unfiltered view. And in none of that ever is anything that supports any of these sort of like Nazi white supremacist ideals, right? other things have surfaced. You know, women have come out and said, this guy sucks. You know, there's been stuff that he said that is blatantly misogynist. There's been, there are problematic things that have come out. Literally not one thing from anybody he served with, anybody he knew personally, anything he posted on Reddit that I've seen, right? So maybe there's something I haven't seen, but I did look. None of that backs up or provides support or contextualizes his story and

anything other than he probably thought it looked cool. He's a young guy in the Marines. He's there to like, you know, kick ass and take names. He's just a young dude. And when I looked at it, I didn't know that was a symbol of shit either. I'll be honest, I didn't either. I looked at the original tattoo and I was like, that doesn't look like, it looks like a skull and crossbones to me. So I think it's very reasonable and fair to take him at his word on that. Like, it would be a very different story if there was a treasure trove of comments that were supremacy adjacent or supremacy backing, but there's just literally not.

So it's like, yeah, I'm good with that. Like, I think he fucked up and he was like, oh, fuck, it's what? And then he was embarrassed and he hit it for a long time and then he got it covered up. And I would cover it up. At that point, I'm like, no, look, he went through a whole other tattoo process in order to cover this on his body. That to me shows that he's either never thought those things or he has changed completely to the point where he's not.

I just don't think, I feel like it's a microscope I don't want to get rid of and I do want to keep on our side. I don't want to get rid of it. I don't want to have somebody who is currently a shitty racist trick their way into being a Senate candidate and a senator maybe that is possibly. I want to have that microscope, but I also want to be able to look at the evidence and make a decision based on the evidence. I don't want to just be like, the microscope exists. It found something. and then I just immediately throw the person away because it found something. I think there needs to be some sort of investigation afterwards, and there was.

So, again, I don't feel like it's a big deal. Now, the women comments, I think, are real shitty. I think the stuff that he's saying where it's basically saying, look, women should be more careful or they're going to get sexually assaulted. That's, I'm boiling it down. I didn't really get a chance to read all of the comments, but they're all shitty. They're all terrible. It's all just fucking stupid bullshit that somebody who would be,

be a misogynist would say awful, terrible shit. He has since said, I feel really bad about making those comments. I've changed my mind since then. On the one hand, you have a guy who's saying, I changed who I am. I'm not that same person. I would say that if you looked in Tom and I's back catalog of things that we've said in the past, we have said off-color, terrible shit in the past. I would hope that you would judge us for who we are now and not who we were 10 years ago,

not who we were 15 years ago. I think those are different times. I think they're different people. I think I've grown much as a person in those times. So I would hope that I would be able to at least plead my case now versus when I, like a comment that you found from me from years ago, right? Or a way in which I talked about a thing years ago. That being said, you have someone on one side who possibly could be defending misogynist ideas.

and on the other side you have someone, Susan Collins, who is definitively defending misogynist ideas in President Trump, like literally defending that type of that behavior, right? Defending sexual assault. On the one side, you have somebody who may have done it in the past, and the one side you have someone who is literally doing it right now. Like Donald Trump is a, he has sexually assaulted someone. We know this to be true because he had to pay millions of dollars,

or it's still in the air, but he is on the hook for millions of dollars for sexually assaulting someone. So again, I don't feel like these scales are equal at all. I feel like I don't want to be tricked like we were with Federer or cinema. I don't want to be tricked, right? But at the same time, I'm like,

Susan Collins is a fucking cancer. She has voted with Trump often. And the times that she had an opportunity to stand up, she never did. Never. Yep. So at this point, I'm like, and it's not like I'm saying, well, I guess women will just have to suffer.

then, I think that there has been significant change enough for me to think, okay, that's good. Like, at least he's, he has made the, made his points clear and has changed his ways. And certain people have stuck up for him. So I'm not as uncomfortable as I would be. Does that make sense? It does. I, I would add, like, I agree with everything that you're saying. I think that I have, I have a lot of reservations about his treatment of women, you know, it seems unequivocally

problematic. Like women that he's dated have come out and said, hey, he's treated me poorly. He's been, you know, physical with me in ways that we're controlling or, you know, not, I don't know if it's, if it's risen to the level of violence. It may have and I just don't know it. But like women have certainly come out and said, hey, this was a troubling guy to be in a relationship with. His like womanizing behavior with his wife, it adds to that, you know, puts a black mark in that bucket, right? And then like his comments on Reddit put a black.

mark in that bucket. So do I think this guy has enlightened progressive views about women? I do not. Do I think and hope that he has changed? I hope that he has changed. I know to your point that, like, to some degree, it doesn't matter so much what these guys think at a personal level. A big part of what matters is will they vote with the party? Right. Because the party is got to oppose Donald Trump. Everything Trump and Trump's administration and the MAGA movement and all of that, all of that stuff is absolutely misogynistic, and it's misogynistic structurally and institutionally. As long as he votes with the party, that's what we need.

We have to gain control of the Senate. That's it. And you can't have one of these fuckers who, like, just goes off on his own and fucking plays the independent card or plays the fucking Diet Republican card and does what he wants. And I don't get the impression from the clips I've seen. scene of him doing town halls, that he would do anything other than side with the Republicans, or with the Democrats, rather, 99% of the time in opposition of MAGA. So, like, as long as he's a opposing force, like, as long as he's the fucking opposing

force, I'm in. This is at some point, like, what I hold my nose, I'd be holding my nose. I am not happy about Graham Platner being our nominee. the fact that we can't do better feels like a kick in the dick. It does. And I hope that he has changed. It blows me away.

It fucking blows me away that you can't find somebody who doesn't have a bad text in their background. Dude, I know. Why is this so fucking hard, man? Look in my phone. Look at a whole thing.

I'll open all my email up. Look at it all. I know, brother. I know. I'm not a particularly moral person. I just happen like, like, But what the fuck, man? Like, why can't you find somebody

who doesn't have this in their past? Like, what is, why are we digging so deep all the time? Is there no one out there with populist views that happens to not be also sometimes a piece of shit? Dude, I don't know

why we are dragging people out who have nothing but like big skeletons. Like these are not like minor skeletons in their closets, right? these are pretty big skeletons. It's incredibly dissatisfying, distasteful, unsettling, upsetting that this is the choice that we have to make. I just think it's important to say, this is the choice. Yeah.

It's fucked up. It is fucked up that this is the choice. Look at who Graham Platner was running against, though. It's running against Janet Mills, who's like a thousand years old, right? And like, I am not, I wasn't happy about that either. Like, it's nothing but like mediocre to bad candidates on the left, on the Democratic side running up there in Maine. In a seat where like Maine is mostly blue, I don't understand why Susan Collins has held her seat for as long as she has. The whole area feels very fucking politically confusing to me as an outsider, you know, not a Mainer or Maynite or Mennonite or whatever you guys are fucking call yourselves.

But like, I don't 100% get it. I've only read stuff. And I don't want to pretend that my reading of stuff gives me any expertise. But like, it sucks that it's this guy. I am not happy that it's this guy. I hope he's changed. I hope that people have pointed out the air of his ways. And I want to give credibility to that possibility, right?

Because to your point, I've said some stupid shit. I have said some stupid shit. Because at different points in my life, I was stupid about things. And it took like an intersection of care with people that knew better and were willing. to teach me in order for me to learn and grow. And I recognize that like over the years, as I've matured and I've tried to learn, I've tried to grow, and I've tried to meet other people with different viewpoints, that like my stances on things have softened, they've moved, they've changed, they've matured, and they've grown more progressive on issues that I used

to be arrogant enough to have an opinion about without knowing anything about them. and that is really common for young people. And Graham Platner's explanation, a lot of his Reddit posts are from when he was like 24 to 37. That's a young man. And that's a young man who served in combat in the Marines, came back, had PTSD, was like kind of terminally online and angry. And I think I understand and can give some grace there

if like all of his current actions align more properly with like who he's. he says he is now. Because to your point, like, I don't personally want to judge, be judged or judge other people on who they used to be. That's not the right standard. The standard is who am I now? You know, what have I learned?

How have I grown? So if that's the grace I want to be given as a human being, then I think that that's a reasonable grace to give to other people. I just wish we could find candidates where we weren't having to do this sort of work. I feel like I don't, all I know about this, because it's not my area, right? I don't live there. The only thing I've been able to find

is sort of these bigger news stories. And the things I've read have been shitty, right? The things I've read that he said, they've been shitty. I might have missed something that was really appalling. And that's a possibility, right? I might have missed something

that's really appalling. I would hope that if you're listening to this and you do know that sort of thing and you do know there's something particularly appalling, send it to me or whatever and say, hey, just so you know he did say something like this.

And even in this BBC story, They're not very explicit with the things that they say. I had to like fill that in from other stuff that I've read. So again, they're sort of dancing around the subject, not saying some of the things that he said. So if there is something really, really awful that he said, I'd be happy to see what it is. But as it stands, everything that he said,

I feel like he said it. He said it was, he has changed his mind. And I don't think to be. perfectly frank that Susan Collins might disagree with the things he used to say, right? Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure that she would disagree. I know 100% many of the men in in Donald Trump's cabinet and Donald Trump himself probably wouldn't, would 100% agree with Graham in the past. They would be, they would agree with it. So you're having somebody who at least is saying, I don't agree with what I did, which is way better than somebody who would be like,

yeah, open arms, come on. I know, man. And like, Susan Collins, Collins is like one of those senators that like when things are sort of like, oh, it's going to be a tough vote for the Republicans. Will they be able to gather their coalition? Everybody talks about, oh, I don't, we're not sure if Susan Collins is going to get on board with this, you know, and she'll hem and haw. And then at the end of the day, she'll capitually. She'll capitulate. She'll sit at every time. Oh, yeah.

So all that hemming and hawing is theater. None of that is anything, right? Absolutely. I think it's really important to say, like, out loud and everything that like, it doesn't matter how much you say, I didn't want to. to hurt you and then you hurt somebody. What matters is the hurting, right? And Susan Collins does the hurting. Yeah. She's done it every time. She capitulates. She's just trying to have her cake and eat it too. She's trying to hold on to a sort of like moral high ground that she has not earned, that she has not earned and that she doesn't deserve. And I really do think that in a game as high

stakes and as zero sum as politics has become right now, we have to look at somebody who has continuously voted to hurt you and say you're fucking fired. And maybe the other guy is going to do the same thing, but you're fucking fired, right? I don't know. The other guy's a wild card. That sucks. Yeah. I wish it wasn't.

Wish it wasn't a wild card. Wish it wasn't a fucking wildcard. Hopefully the things that guy has said at 80-some town halls is how he'll act. Because, like, at his town halls, things pretty good. I've watched a few of his, like, clips. His town halls, I'm like, yeah, okay, cool. But, like, hopefully he'll be that. guy. Even if it's theater. I don't care what his heart says. I don't care what he feels like

in his mind. I don't at all. What I care about is what he votes on. What are you voting on, man? I don't care that Susan Collins is holding her nose and voting. Yes, with Trump. I didn't care about the holding your nose part. I only care about that vote. Yeah, man. That's all that affects anyone's life. That's what's doing the hurting. We've got to stop people from hurting each other. We've got to. And I don't care who like fucking sign me up. Like whoever we got to put in there. Sign them up. It's fine. We'll get somebody from the fucking Build a Bear workshop, as far as I'm concerned. If they pull the right lever, I don't get a fuck. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libson ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts, offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libson ads. email bob at libson.com to learn more that's b-o-b at l-I-b-s-y-s-y-n dot com

try here stop what the hell am i looking at when does this happen in the movie now you're looking at now sir everything that happens now is happening now what happened to then we pass then when just now we're at now now now go back to then when now now now I can't why we missed it when just now when will then be now soon. Well, this story is from CNBC, and it's just constantly changing. Literally yesterday, this was true. Trump threatens.

That's what the story's from yesterday. Yeah, which is, this is what's so crazy. So this story, and I think it's interesting to talk about what the original plan was, what the new plan is, and how nobody knows what the plan is. CNBC, Trump threatens to seize Karg Island and other Iran oil infrastructure. So after the downing of a Black Hawk helicopter, in the last couple of days. Trump came out and said,

well, we'd add it as a provocation, we have to respond. We're going to bomb the shit out of them. We're going to take over Karg Island. We're going to seize this oil infrastructure. They responded with attacks, bombing and missiles, including on a water treatment plant,

like a freshwater, not wastewater, but like a freshwater plant, the civilian infrastructure, so that's a war crime. So they blew one of those up recently. but like, then he was like, we're going to fucking bomb the shit. That's so cute. Yeah, I know.

Isn't it adorable? We don't care about those. We haven't cared about those since the 90s. So anybody in a boat, we can just shoot to death right now. Yeah. Dude, I know. I know. So, and then like in this, literally in the same day, he's like, oh, no, no.

We're going to stop all of the bombing stuff. All that was just bluff and bluster because we're really close. We're about to sign a deal. We're going to sign a deal any minute. And the Iranians today, we're going to sign a deal. like, we don't know what he's even talking about with a deal. And Israel's like, we also don't know what he's talking about with a deal. There's no deal, man. I don't know what this is. This feels like market manipulation to me. That's a good call, to be honest, because we've seen

him do that before. We talked about it in the last week's show when he just came out and said, hey, buy Dell. And then he like literally bought Dell. So it could be market manipulation. I mean, hell, why wouldn't, at this point, wouldn't you think that it is? I think the other thing that is so it's amazing to me how they used sort of indecisiveness somebody who's old who can't make up their mind

somebody who's you know not who feels like they capitulate and are not strong on their stances when they attacked Biden even though none of that stuff really seemed to be true Biden was pretty forceful with different things that he did

had stances that were unwavering but they made it seem like he didn't have those things to try to sell you on Trump. Trump, a decisive sort of actor. And he looks like such a fool throughout this entire thing. He's so bad at doing this.

Whenever there's real adversity on the other side, Trump has no idea how to handle it because he's never had to deal with any kind of adversity in his entire life. This is a man whose whole life he's been catered to, he's been pampered, his whole life.

Every time, about when somebody asks him a question he doesn't like. Think about how he reacts. He acts like a toddler every single time somebody even just deigns to ask him a question that might rub him a tiny, the tiniest

bit the wrong way. The man will literally attack and scream and call names and just freak the fuck out and we're going to talk about later just walk the fuck right out of the interview because he's such a child and has been pampered so much in his life. He doesn't

He doesn't even have like an adult mind. He has a child's mind. He's always had a child's mind. And his inability to deal with any kind of pressure when it comes to standing strong to try to fix this sort of stuff, he doesn't have anybody underneath him that's like that either because he's only found capitulators. That's all who he hires. So does Pete Hegseth have the wherewithal, the command the forces to? Of course he doesn't. What is Pete Hankseth done in his life that is hard?

What? Point to it. Point to what he's done. Nothing. Maybe like, you know, drinking that 20th beer might have been difficult. But the rest of his life has been not the same thing with Trump. These people don't know what being hard is,

what having a hardship is. They don't know what that feels like. So, of course, when they have to deal with something like this, they're going to crumble in the face of it. It's so obvious to, anyone who sees it. And these people have been blinded. The Trump voters have been blinded by this man's supposed power.

He's the weakest person in any room he's in. By far, man. Like, you touched on something that like, because everything you said, fucking yes. You touched on something that I want to seize on too. Like, being strong and being powerful has nothing to do with how you act when you are facing off against somebody smaller and weaker and more vulnerable than you. Right? That is, that is literally nothing. But all of these guys, all of their life experiences have taught them that like the projection of strength and power means that you are the most powerful person

in the room and that is why you are strong. That's not what strength really is. Strength is really like how you respond to things which are difficult for you to handle. If everything you, you ever have to handle has been on easy mode because everything has been set smooth and silky for you, then like, sure. Like, what does that mean? That means nothing. It means you've never dealt with adversity a day in your fucking life. How easy is it to project this sort of, like, theater of strength? Very easy. How is it to actually, like, manage adversity? How is it, What are your skills when it comes to dealing with a crisis that is complex, where there are no easy answers, where you can't drive somebody, drive right through somebody and just bowl them over

because they don't have any legal or financial or other options. You know, everything, you think like when Trump wants to get something done as a real estate developer, one of the things that he's notorious for is simply not paying his contractor. Yeah. So he'll hold the price of a project low by simply not paying his. contractors, and then they recognize that they're on a financial back foot, and he can, like, if they try to sue him, it's going to be more expensive. So then he renegotiates after the work is done for a price that is lower than the initially agreed upon negotiated price.

That is not strength, right? He beat up on somebody who had, like, no ability really to fight back in the same ring, right? They weren't at the same weight class. There's no real, there's no real, like, countervailing force there to use the same term I used earlier. there's no like opposing force there. But like here you've got a situation where Iran has some real, they've got some real teeth. Yeah. He's no idea what to do. Yeah.

It's not Venezuela. It's not going to be a quick in and out, look at how powerful we are. We've already shown that that's not the case. They even talk in this article that he's already dropped like a quarter of a billion dollars with the bombs in like one night or whatever. Like that's an insane amount of money. Like, like, it's, this is a, this is so much money that they're spending on this. This is an administration that said they weren't going to start wars that said they were going to cut down in spending. It's all the things he lied about to you.

Yeah. I just hope that people remember the lies. That's all I hope. But extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Those claims are crummy. The evidence just isn't good. And there has been no compelling cases, physical evidence, photographs. a stolen logbook of the alien captain, nothing that would convince her skeptic.

This is fucking great. This is from the New Republic. Mike Johnson says California election fraud is so bad it can't be proven. For real. Let me read to you guys exactly what he said. He said, I'm not saying it's rigged. I'm saying it stinks to high heaven and everybody knows it. Johnson said to a gaggle of reporters, let's remove the appearance of impropriety.

What a concept. Let's have votes on an election the day of the election. And CNN correspondent Manu Raju asked Johnson what evidence there was to support his vague complaints. And unsurprisingly, the Louisiana politician couldn't provide a whiff of it. So here's what he said. He said, look, some of these efforts are so diabolical and so far upstream, it's impossible to prove.

But I think everybody knows instinctively. something is wrong here. And this is because the Republicans lost the mayoral race in Los Angeles, California, which is so blue, it's like it's populated entirely by Smurfs. Like it is the bluest. It's that blue fucking song from like the 90s. That is the most blue fucking.

Yeah. It's so funny. It's like the bluest area. And the guy who lost was a total D-bag who said to everybody. buddy, hey, I'm a giant douchebag, and if I lose, I'm going to leave. And everyone was like, man, let's make sure this guy loses. Because it's a giant douchebag. And so he wound up leaving because of it, you know.

And he's, the thing is, is what the guy was was like a reality star or whatever. Spencer Pratt. Yeah. So it's like a nobody. It's like, why do we, we need to stop with the reality stars. We need to not do that again. That's a thing. that should never, there shouldn't be any more reality stars in government.

That's not a thing that we as a people should be thinking is a good thing at all ever. But the fact is like it's a really blue area. We don't, in fact, according to most case law, react on instinct on whether or not we think something is true or not. Normally what we do is we collect the evidence and then we see whether it's true or not. These people, what they're doing is, this is part of the great replacement theory, right? Is the diluting of your vote is one of the big pieces of the great replacement theory. So it's a downstream effect of people coming in that they say don't match our culture. That often means brown people, right?

So those brown people come in and they don't match our culture. And what they're doing is trying to undermine our culture. And they do it because these elites are letting them in. and the elites want to keep their power so they let these people in to then make it so it's difficult to remove these elites from power and it keeps the votes flowing in that way and it dilutes your vote. And so all this is a downstream effect from that. That's all this is. That's all this is. It's the way in which the right wing has attacked every single voting opportunity in the last 10 years, right?

They've attacked it. This is also in everybody, everybody should be paying attention to this. Because literally the reason why they're doing it so loud here is because they're going to keep echoing this until the elections that happen during the midterms. This is going to be an echo that keeps on coming up time and time and time again because this plants the seeds for us to think that it's rigged later. They're planting them now, even though they have no proof, it doesn't matter. If they can keep saying it over and over again, people will start to hear it and they'll be like, man, I thought they said that there was another one that was rigged in the past. And then they're going to keep saying it over and over and over again every chance they get leading all the way up to the midterms and even on to the other elections if we happen to have them after the midterms. Yeah, I think that's exactly it.

They are relying. So, like, they're relying on repetition to create a sense of truisms rather than having any interest in what's actually true. Yeah. So like if they just say it to you enough, the back of your brain will take in some of, not yours, but like many people's brain, will just take in this information and hold it as a truism without ever checking the truth of it. Because that is like, we've learned that that's what our brains do, right? Social media has exploited this for a long time.

We know this is one of the dangers of seeing things and not investigating them with the casual gathering of information through non-vetted sources like read something. on a meme and then you sort of read it 10 more times and you don't even know you've read it, but it just becomes integrated into your belief and thought systems. We know this is how the mind works. And the Republicans have figured out, like, we don't actually have to do true. If I don't value it to start with, then, like, it's not even something I've abandoned anyway, right? Like, the right is not, like, it's not like they're abandoning some sacred principle to try to, like, get to and respond to a world based on truth. They've never held that. Those aren't there.

values. So what they're doing instead is saying like, oh, okay, well, this is like, there's a one cool trick. Yeah. And they keep trying it over and over and over again. And it does work sometimes. Because if you were to, if you were to poll the people in our country about whether or not they think our elections are fair, that number is way lower now than it was 15 years ago. That number is way lower. There's going to be a bunch of people who are going to say, no, I don't think our elections are fair now than there would have been many, many years ago because they have planned. this seat enough and their side believes whatever they say, but it's, it's, it can affect even people on our side to think that the, the elections aren't fair. And like, I think it also, it,

demotivates disinterested, low potential voters, right? And I think, too, that like, there's something to be said about stress testing this message in Los Angeles County with a fucking deeply, a pathetic candidate like Spencer Pratt, because if they can move the needle at all in a county that has, that has voted Democrats since 1980, every single election, right? So if they can move that needle at all in terms of driving down voter turnout or affecting the outcome or changing polling at all, then they know, okay, this strategy has been pressure tested in a low-risk, low-stakes situation. Yeah.

And now I can roll it out in a more high-impact way across the nation. Are you feeling tired and weak? Do you feel lightheaded? Are you getting dizzy spells? Are you slipping in and out of consciousness? If you are experiencing one or all of these symptoms, it may be because you are not breathing. Breathing, breathing, breathing.

It's safe, affordable, and great for your sex life. You refer to this earlier in the show, Cecil. From the BBC, Trump abruptly ends NBC interview after clash over rigged election claim. Yeah. And his claim was the elections are rigged. I just know they're rigged. And they said, well, how do you know?

He's like, well, I just know. I can feel these things essentially is what he says. I don't know exact quote, but it's essentially what he said. He's like, all I need is eyes, I can essentially know that they're rigged. And he doesn't have to prove it to anybody. And then they pressed him on that saying, that's not evidence. And then he was just like, well, time to go. And then he started walking away.

My favorite is when people get angry and they walk away and they're still plugged into things. Oh my God, it's the best, isn't it? You can kind of hear him sort of like, he's like as he like stands up and hoffs and walks away. It's the best. Like I love it when they're still hooked up to shit. And they're like huffing and puffing just to stand up out of their chair. Amazing. So good.

This is like, is this a projection of strength to be called on your shit and then just run away from a question. Like literally to just run away. And you just run away. They won't see it like that though. Yeah. No. They won't see it like that.

They'll see it. They'll be like, oh, he was standing up to the crooked media by not taking their question and shoving it to him. It's like, no, he literally can't answer it. The thing is, they don't ever want to put any pressure on him because they know he's a fool. So they don't want to put any pressure on him whatsoever because any pressure he immediately folds because he's an idiot.

Yeah. Well, also, like, for these guys, like, it's like, vibes are evidence. Yes, yes. Vibes are evidence. Like, and that's, and there, and I'm not even like being shitty. Think about, like, the anti-vax movement, right? There's no evidence. There's just vibes.

People will say things because they sound like they're plausible, right? Like, oh, like kids are getting too many vaccines and, oh, these vaccines contain formaldehyde in them or all these, you know. And they say things that have no relationship to. evidence, safety, efficacy, like this. Because that's not the soup they're swimming in. That's not important. They're swimming in a vibe soup, right?

It's all vibes. You know, the fucking, the immigrants are eating the dogs and cats. Well, there's no evidence of that. Well, I bet they would, you know, probably eat your dog and cat. It's just like what they feel like should be happening defines their worldview. Yeah. So like, there's a whole bunch of people that are just like, yeah, fucking vibes are evidence. I live in a world I feel is true.

Yeah. fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice. Third time is the charm. Totally normal and not at all, suspicious. From Yahoo News, Trump saw 22 specialists in his latest medical exam, nearly double his previous checkup.

CISO I'm not going to lie to you, buddy. I didn't even know there were 22 different specialties. I'm just hoping that the 23rd one is a coroner, Tom. That's all I'm hoping. man. I'm so healthy. 22 different medical specialists had to be called in to double check how healthy I am. The guy is falling apart. He's literally like his cells are unwriting themselves right now.

Yeah, it's great. Dude, I literally, when I read this, I literally with my fingers. And I'm unfortunately fairly well versed in a lot of like the sort of like ways that consumers uptake medicine. right? So I was thinking to myself, okay, so you've got like a general practitioner. Then you have, let's say, a neurologist, then you have a cardiologist. You might have a rheumatologist. They said there was three general practitioners there. So. Okay. So, which sounds bad. Why? Three. Like they're the same. Aren't they desperately passing his medical records back and forth amongst themselves to decide who gives him the bad news? I can't get to twice. I sat with my fingers and I can't get to 22.

Yeah. Even if it doesn't mean. Everything by three you probably can't get, but can't get to it. I was like, okay, maybe even so, like, I'm even adding stuff in when I'm thinking like, podiatrist to check his fucking feet. Like, I am like, I am like trying to go deep here, you know, like gastroenterologists, okay, fine, like add that. Dermatologist, okay, sure. Like, but I can't get to 22 different special. Right. What the actual fuck 22 specialists.

They have, they have, Cecil, imagine a room with a dozen and a half specialist. and you're still like calling four more. We got to show everybody how healthy he is. You wouldn't be able to even get rid of all these people if you gave them as gifts during the 12 days of Christmas. Dude, at some point, you've got fucking, like, gray aliens probing his ass to check. Like, this is that we've come from Bleasorpe to check and see if you're okay?

What the fucking specialist circus is this? It'd be awesome if some of them are like feng shui experts and there's like a chiropractor in there. Some fucking rakey dude is laying his, He's the dude's lay crystals on him. There's a guy who just has a juicer. He doesn't have any other job. He's like, no, you got to drink juice.

We're doing a juice fast. Juice cleanse. Here you go, buddy. Somebody's like trying to organize all this specials. Like, everybody with a dowsing rod over in the right corner. Everybody with a dowsing rod to the right corner. Why do we have a woodworker? That doesn't even make any sense.

That's awesome, man. It's just like, it's a random different experts from different fields. Yes. You get like a Harvard lawyer in there. although he could probably use a Harvard lawyer, admittedly, more often than not. Oh, God, it's so funny. Gosh, it's just so weird.

The whole time you're just like, come on, little clot, go. The whole time. Oh, man. Because the mail never stops. It just keeps coming and coming and coming. There's never a letup. It's relentless. Every day it piles up more and more and more

and you've got to get it up. And the more you get out, the more keeps coming in. And then the barcode reader breaks. And it publish his clearinghouse down. So this is dystopian as fuck. From CNN, Postal Service won't deliver mail ballots for states that don't hand over their voter lists under plan for Trump directive. I love the party of small government seats. I really feel.

Don't you just feel the smallness of this small government party? Well, and, you know, this is not a thing that we should be doing. The states should be controlling their own elections. That's literally how we have it set up. Now, like, don't get me wrong. if you want to start getting rid of states in general, you want to eliminate the Senate, you want to get rid of states in general, that's a totally different story. But the thing is, is that they always hide behind those states when they want to have states rights. That's why

abortion lives how it lives, right? That's why abortion is a thing that someone can search flock cameras for you in Texas to see if you got an illegal abortion. Yeah. In other places across the country, it's perfectly legal and they allow you to do it. That's why they're wanted it is so they could be forceful in the places where they want to be forceful. So they are inconsistent in the way in which they measure out these states rights things. States rights means states rights. So we need to follow the rules based on this. And having it be states rights is better when the government, the federal government is

clearly corrupt like it is right now. Then you have an opportunity to at least in the blue places and even in some of the red places because we've seen some of these red places basically say we're not doing that. We're not going to do that type. And we won't stoop that low. The Trump administration's trash and we're not going to stoop that low. So we've even seen some red states do that. So them with a stroke of a pen eliminating a large section of how we vote based on how those people

now vote based because the COVID, a lot of people started to do this. Now you're changing that system and that structure. Now, don't get me wrong, I've been voting by mail ever since. If they do make these sweeping changes and then somehow my ballot. I have to go and get my ballot from the place. I will do it, but I will not like it as much. I like voting from home. I think it's a great way to do it.

They just have been, and again, I think the reason why they're doing this, just like L.A. is to put some sort of, like, bug in everyone's ear that says, this is not a safe way for people to vote. They're using language to say that they're doing it specifically to stop people, like, that aren't citizens from voting. They already can't vote, man. We already can't vote. It's not like we send those people mail just because they ask for it.

That's not how any of this works. They're trying to distort how the actual election process works to try to trick you into thinking this is something that is done for your safety. And it's not done for your safety. It's done so they can control it more. Yeah. Imagine the scenario, because this is the true facts. Like imagine where you're like, man, our message is so popular, we should reduce the amount of people that vote for it. we are so beloved by the American people. We've got the right answers.

The best way to take that to the people is to take that to less people. Let's do everything we possibly can to reduce the number of people in our democracy who get to vote. And remember, too, that as late as like this, literally this time in 2024, there's a CNN story from June of 2024. Trump pushes early and mail-in voting initiative ahead of November, despite cast. doubt on voting method for years. All he's doing is making like whatever is convenient for any specific election cycle,

the thing that gets pushed. When he's worried about the results, he wants less people to vote. He did this. He's done that. Like, it's so transparent. It was literally the most transparent when he was like losing the 2020 election. And in some states, count the ballots. And in the other states, stop counting the ballots.

Like, there wasn't even consistency of message jurisdictionally on the same issue. So, like, anybody who thinks that this is anything other than just an attempt to steal from you, your duly granted powers as a citizen to have your voice heard, if this is, if anybody who thinks this is anything other than a way to structurally erode democracy as our functioning system of governance, that you're lying. You're just wrong. this is just power grab shit.

So stories from the Hill, Trump embraces May price spikes amid the Iran war. I love the inflation. Now, let's not take them out of context. No, you should definitely read it. And actually, to be honest, I've seen a ton of newspapers and a ton, not newspapers, a ton of TV and clips online where they literally cut it after he says, I love inflation. So hopefully there's more here. Yeah.

No, I love it. numbers were great, Trump said when asked if he was concerned about the latest data, which showed the consumer price index rising to 4.2% over the last 12 months, with an increase of 0.5% in May alone, according to the Labor Department. I love the inflation, the president continued. That's why oil is $85 a barrel. That's what he said. That's it.

I mean, I guess he contextualized it a little bit by saying that we adjusted the highest stock market in history, highest 401Ks in history. Those are the same dude. Everything was going well and I said, I hate to do this to you guys, but Iran's going to have a nuclear weapon very soon. We have to go and attack. You know,

you could have just kept that deal we had in place and they wouldn't be close to one. But anyway, in any case. Hey, I had to hurt you because of this problem that I fucking created myself. Yeah, 100% responsible for. But even still, even still, like this is a guy who went after

a place in the globe that he was so stupid didn't realize would be such a crunch on the economy because they control it or at least it's more dangerous now and it's such an important place for oil to travel that he had he had he was either too stupid or he didn't he was too brash either one is bad and he wound up screwing up the whole economy and to him it's just like yeah I like that's fine

I think we're going to get the oil down and that'll be fine. Basically, what they're doing is they're going to try, I think they're going to try to cook the books when it comes to inflation too, because, man, I saw this week, they said it's over 4% now, which is higher than it's been forever. And it was steady under Biden. And it was much smaller. It's not going to go down any.

That's the thing that people don't understand. It's not like he can somehow magically bring these prices down, even if it gets this particular thing under control. Yeah, like a couple of quick notes on this, I think, that are important. So inflation is the rate of change in the upward direction for prices measured by CPI, right? So, and it excludes certain things and it includes certain things. And, but like, if inflation slows down, that does not mean that your things got cheaper. What it means is that they continue to get more expensive at a slower rate.

if things get cheaper, that would be deflation, which we don't see. Like, deflation will be its own economic problem. And it would be a big problem. So once something has gotten more expensive, for the most part, and, like, I know certain items will get more or less expensive, but we're talking like the sort of smoothing effect of looking at the whole economy and broadening it out. So now it's 4%. Well, now, like, if they get back down to 2%, that's the goal, right?

The Fed goal is 2%. that's a healthy growth, healthy inflation. If they get back down to 2%, it's not like your things got less expensive. It just means they continue to get more expensive, slower. Everything that you're paying now stays locked in. That's it. And now we have to contend with the fact that wage growth

is not competing with this rapid inflation. So these things are not going to, like your life is not going to get less expensive once this is resolved. That's just not how inflation works. The damage is done. That's how inflation works. The next question is,

how long does that damage last? How big of an impact will it be? And will wage growth keep up with that inflation so that you don't eat shit on a sort of like permanent or semi-permanent level? The unfortunate reality is that wage growth rarely keeps pace with inflation

when inflation is hot for a long time. And that's part of what drives this wage and equality property. Wage growth hasn't kept pace with inflation in a long time, Tom. Yeah. So people are like waiting for prices to go down. That's not how this, that's not what inflation going down means. Yes.

So he doesn't care. Your life got harder. That's just the end of that sentence. Your life got harder. And he doesn't give a shit. And there is no plan to fix it. Even if he said, look, I understand that like this inflation, is hurting Americans, and we need to address that.

But we felt it was existential for the world for Iran not to have a nuclear weapon, but I understand there's no empathy here, right? He's just justifying his choices, and he doesn't care who gets hurt and who gets hurt is you. Because at the end of the day, a billionaire doesn't get hurt by inflation. Well, and even as he said, what he said was, all my friends in me, we made money. So I don't know what you're talking about. Like all the people who are important in my life, they all made money. The 401ks and stocks are through the roof, is what he had said.

And he's right, right? The stock market hasn't been taking major hits. We're not seeing massive selloffs. We're not seeing drops. We're seeing it continuously sort of stay around the same level. So that's great for people. It's normally really good for people who are using that to continue to grow their wealth. That's great for them.

It sucks as somebody who has to, like you suggest, get a paycheck at the end of the week. Because your money's worth less. Your money is just worth less money. And so when you go out to the store and you go try to buy something, you're like, wait a minute, it's $27 for a three pound chuck roast? What is that? What are you talking about? And that's not just that. It's multiple different types of meat are more expensive. Vegetables are very expensive. Package goods suddenly got more expensive. Everything you go to the grocery store is more expensive. Filling up your car is more expensive. Now your service personnel. who come to your house. They want to, before they were charging you this, now they're going to charge you more because they have to travel to you

and it costs them more money to live. So they got to raise their prices. This isn't just one thing. It's the whole economy is raising its price on it. And if you don't get to go to your boss and say, hey, suddenly, you know, I had to call this service guy this week to fix my something.

I had to take my car in and I had to buy groceries and all that stuff basically put me back. Now I owe money on my crew. credit card because I don't even have enough to pay for it. You need to pay me more money. Your employer's like, ha, that's hilarious. Get back to work. Because it's not going to happen. Yeah. And let me add too, it's a little, it's even, it's even worse than that because, like,

the only real tool that the Fed has at their disposal to fight inflation is interest rates. And when inflation goes up, what the Fed does is they raise interest rates, which means that you put your shit on a credit card and now that credit card interest rate just went up. So your life got more expensive twice. You got fucked twice. If you're somebody living, like if you're somebody in many, many, many Americans are. In fact, I just read an article last week that consumer credit card debt is at its highest levels recorded. That's not great.

The debt cycle has, we really made a lot of progress on that debt cycle in 2020. Like, it's only been six years. And the consumer credit card debt is at its highest level. since it's been recorded. And that debt is more expensive than it's ever been. So you just paid extra money at the grocery store and you had to put it on your credit card and your credit card fees are more expensive than they've ever been. So you're getting fucked twice right now by this administration's grotesque incompetence at managing the economy. Let's never forget that these are all self-inflicted wounds. All right, that's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to be

on, we won't be back. We'll be back on next Thursday with the patron show. But we're going to leave you like we always do with the skeptic screen. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-babelon bullshit. Couchton, 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, dragons, giant

worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts. Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak 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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