Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 934: Michigan Primary, Flock Cameras

Episode Date: August 10, 2026

Senate Homeland Security committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress Trump Said Qatari Jet Was Destined for His Library. That May Change. - The New York Times Takeaways From the Primary Elections in Michigan - The New York Times Michigan Democratic primary seen as latest test for party's progressive wing - AOL Christian preachers are turning airplanes into unwanted worship services Anti-Trump conservatives Tucker Carlson, MTG, Massie huddle about launching third-party movement - POLITICO Runaway online rumors sparked frantic rush by migrants to the Spanish territory of Ceuta Georgia has arrested at least 20 officials for misusing the flock surveillance database Google's AI Is Telling Users That Flock Cameras Are Filled With Valuable Gold and Copper

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. From Glory Hole Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is Cognitive Dissanance. 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, August the 7th, Cecil, when we are recording this. We are again recording not together, not in studio. It's going to be a couple of weeks, unfortunately. Life has gotten in the way of the glory hole, Cecil. And there cannot be anything less acceptable than cock blocking the glory hole.

You know what else also isn't together, Tom? Is the Republican Party deciding to vote for Todd Blanche? That's also something that's not together. But they are still going to get him in because one of the guys finally said yes. Even though Murkowski and Susan Collins are taking a stand. Oh, brave Susan Collins and Murkowski. Boy, what principled women of integrity we're talking about there. Still got enough votes.

So he's going to be, I think, our next AG. So by the time this goes out or maybe Monday, I'll be IG. So do you think that Murkowski and Collins, I do, only strategically take a stand when they know it won't matter? Sure feels like that. I mean, I'm not going to say I know the operation of their mind, but I certainly know the operation of what they do and how they maneuver themselves. And it certainly feels like that time. I feel like every time they look around, they're like, okay, so we can take a stand here. The thing will still pass.

The most important thing is that we actually don't accomplish. 100%. And then they're like, okay, this is our. chance. Look at us. Look at us constituency. We're standing up. Yeah. We're standing up to the powers that be. We are not just rubber stamps. Well, let's make sure that if we're not rubber stamps, that the paperwork still goes through, though, guys, everybody's good on the paperwork. Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, we are not rubber stamps at all. Think about, though, how strategic that is for the places that they live, right? Obviously, the two of them have gotten elected multiple times,

specifically doing this strategy. And their party, it feels like, is totally willing to go along with this charade as long as they are still falling in line when necessary. And then that would also help them keep that seat. And so like it costs them nothing to do this. It costs the Republican Party, nothing for them to do this. Because pretty much every single time she gets,

they get their way, even if they stay. stomp their foot and say you can't do this, the Republican Party still gets its way and they still get elected. So even if it's like, let's presume that it's all just made up, right? Like everybody's in the back room being like, you're going to do this. Even if that's true, it's like they're winning. They're still winning. Yeah. I think the Republicans at the end of the day look at Murkowski and Collins and they probably are like, oh, that's cute. Yep. That's cute. You guys go do your cute thing. And I think like if you're if you're them, I think it's even worse. I think they're like, okay, look, we'll let you know ahead of time when we have the votes without you.

We know that we need your Senate seat. And we know that you have to appease a constituency that maybe is going to be slightly more middle of the road than some of the lunatic right. So we'll give you a few wins that you can take to your constituency. But we'll make sure to let you know when those wins don't actually cost the party anything. Yep. Yep. I 100% think they just backdoor that shit. I bet they say it out loud.

You know? Just, hey, this is a good one. Here's a good one where you can buck the system and it won't matter. What is it hurt? Yeah. Because like, it's like if it's not that, then it's the world's biggest set of coincidences. Yeah.

It's a huge set of coincidences. Exactly. It's, it's comical how these coincidences have. It's like a fucking rom-com in the Senate. One more word out of you, Mr. Reed. And I'll hold you in contempt. I hold myself in contempt.

Why should you be any different? Take him away. This man is a good father and children are not leverage. Oh, no, don't do that. I have a day to play ball with my son. I can't be late. It's my last chance. I'm always taken Saco.

It's Sika. All right, so let's talk about this story from NPR. Senate Homeland Security Committee votes to hold Fauci in contempt of Congress. Hmm, we talked about this. We talked about him saying, I plead the fifth. And that made them so big mad that they went to, they basically said, we're going to hold them in contempt to Congress. And then they passed that off onto the Justice Department. Now we get a chance to see how they're going to treat him.

Yeah. This is very upsetting, right? Because we have a Fifth Amendment right. We have a Fifth Amendment right. Whether you like it when somebody pleads the Fifth or not. This is, again, it is one of our fundamental Bill of Rights bills. or amendments as citizens. This is something we get to do, right?

We are not required to answer questions which would incriminate ourselves in a legal proceeding. That is a fundamental right. And this is another chiseling away at that series of rights. The right has been targeting the First Amendment. They've winnowed down the freedom of the press.

They've winnowed down your personal freedoms in significant ways, time and time and time and time again. We're going to talk later in this show about flock cameras and the use of flock cameras and the way that those potentially violate our civil rights. Do violate our civil rights are a fucking joke to the right. Absolutely. They're an absolute fucking joke.

The premise that they're using is that because Fauci was pardoned, then he doesn't have a Fifth Amendment right because any answer that he would have given could not possibly be an incriminating answer because he's already been preemptively pardoned. That seems like the most fucking legally spurious bullshit that I have ever heard as a justification to say, you know what, people get rights when we decide they get fucking rights. This to me, when we talked about it when it happened when they were doing the song and dance, this to me just shows that they have no real policies, no real ideas, no fresh anything to try to fix any of the problems that they've created since they've been elected into office and since they've held every single branch of government, right?

They have none of those answers. What they have is a situation where they're staring down a really horrifying midterms for them. And so they're trying to do whatever they can to bring any kind of smokescreen, any kind of pocket sand, back into the world so that they can basically distract us by making us angry about Anthony Fauci it doesn't matter what they do because the left's never going to vote for them anyway. So they don't care what happens with the left.

If they violate people's rights and they do horrific things and use government in a way that it shouldn't be used very punitively and in ways that is vengeance-based, that doesn't matter to them if that upsets the left. That's not a big deal. The only thing they care about is can they rev their side up loud enough to die out the sounds of all the people struggling because of income, all the people struggling because they can't get a job, all the angry people who are upset about Trump traveling over to other places in the globe and starting wars. Can they rev this engine loud enough to drown that out?

Because this is, say what you will about the party, that party, the Republican Party is if there's blood in the water, they will swarm. They love that sort of thing. So if this is loud enough, it's going to work for them. And I think the key is, is like, I think we just, you just need to fix it later because they're going to do what they want now. And Trump is very seriously going to probably prosecute him. I mean, think about how much he has his hands in what happens at the beach. Justice Department. There's no way he's not going to push to try to have. He's trying to have a guy who's driving by a fucking reflecting pool arrested for Vandons. Right? So this is this is not something that is

below him in any way. He's going to try to prosecute the Fauci. I would I would bet almost anything on it that he's going to push to have him prosecuted. So expect that to happen. But my suggestion is that we can't let it overpower. The sound of this can't overpower all the things that are pulling their voters away in droves. Yeah, I agree with that. This is this is a intentional smokescreen distraction for the crazy people who are still fucking weird about the fact that they had to wear a mask once for six years ago. Yeah. And there are still those people, right? There are still people who fucking still remember with hate in their hearts when they were mildly inconvenienced

for less than a year by having to wear a fucking mask for a minute. By being asked Tom, it's not even having to. They weren't required. That's true. Because like, sure, where there's some businesses that were like,

hey, you can't do business here? That's between you and the business, right? But I don't remember any mandates that were like so egregious. I know that there was some places that they closed down. businesses or they close down certain activity that you weren't allowed to do. Yeah, of course. But again, like, this is a thing that killed a million people in a year. Like, that's a lot of

people to die from something that we knew was dangerous. Yeah. Yeah, I really think that that's worth saying back, nobody was actually required to do much of anything. Yeah. From a federal level, there were no requirements. There were no requirements. Your state may have had some asks of you. And if you were in certain job fields, they may have said, okay, if you don't get the vaccine, you can't work here anymore. But nobody held anybody down and gave him a vaccine. Nobody grabbed a mask and strapped it to somebody else's face. Nobody was put in jail for not getting a vaccine or not getting a mask or not keeping a social distance. There was social pressure. There were some economic pressures. There was definitely like guidance that was offered. And,

And that's it. Nobody, that's it. Like there were people, like I said, like did you, there were some people that lost their jobs. Yeah, there were some people that lost their jobs. But you know what? They didn't get a vaccine against their will. Yeah. Nobody got a vaccine. Nobody put a single fucking vaccine into somebody's arm. Nobody strapped a mask to anyone's face. It was just like, hey, here's the guidance. And if you want to come into my store, maybe I've got a sign that says you got to wear a mask, right? Maybe if you want to go to this place, you got to wear a mask. Or we're not going to you. You got to wear a mask if you're not going to go, if you're going to go to this hospital. I mean, are you fucking kidding me? Are you fucking kidding me? I barely remember the times that I was wearing a mask. I barely remember it. I know that I did for a little while. I know I bought some. I think I went to work a few times and we were wearing masks, but I, for the life of me, can't remember once being inconvenienced by it. I don't remember. I know. The only only time I remember being like really having a difficult time with a mask was when I was, I was working out in a gym and we all had to wear masks while I was working out. And I was like, and it was so

hard because you can just suck it in wind. And it feels like you're being like waterboarded while you're working out. It was really unpleasant. I get it. 100% totally down. But I remember like, that was the only time I remember. The rest of the time I was like, eh, I don't really remember it. I don't. I mean, I kind of do, but not really. No, I don't really remember it. most of the things that we were asked to do, not all, most of the things that we were asked to do didn't rise beyond the level of inconvenience. Yeah, that's it.

You know, at the end of the day, being moderately uncomfortable, because I had the same thing. I actually was doing CrossFit at the time. Like, oh, I'd wear a mask. And, like, it was less convenient for me. But it was not dangerous for me in any way. It was just, yeah.

But people have this idea that if they have been asked to be inconvenienced in any way for the well-being of somebody that they don't care about and they've proven they didn't care about so many people that they have been sort of like

egregiously walked upon when the answer they could have just like not gone to do that thing. Yeah. But like that's it. No, like we're not being asked we're not being forced to do much. Like if you were a nurse or military

Yeah, sure. Then like you still didn't have to get a vaccine. You could just quit your job. Right? Or you could not, but nobody put the vaccine in anybody's body. I think the other thing that's really apparent here, especially when you come to like the lab leak theory or whether or not COVID vaccines are injure people, et cetera, et cetera. There's a group of people out there. And again, I listen to a lot of Joe Rogan for the other show.

I do the No Rogan experience. And he talks about this all the time, how everybody knew or people, we knew it was like. a lab leak. We knew there was a lab leak back then, et cetera, et cetera. There's no proof that that's true. The only thing you're ever going to find that that says that is like really slanted sources that specifically want to implicate that group or in some way pull some sort of guilt off of the mismanagement of COVID that was happening here. That's why very our government now, the Trump administration wants to make sure that they mention that it's a lab leak because they want to try to pull any of the blame that they had for bad management off of them.

themselves in any way that they can't get rid of that blame. But I think one of the things that is so interesting about that and about a lot of the way in which we think nowadays is like even if let's just say, let's just say next week there is independent reports, not from governments, but from like medical agencies in countries that don't have a dog in this hunt. Right. So not the United States or anything like that, but like a couple of different countries. And they say, We have come to the conclusion that it is a lab leak theory. We've come to, we actually found this thing. It figured this thing out, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And it's in, you know, we know now for sure. And there's a bunch of confirmation all over from real actual scientists that say it's a confirmation. It doesn't matter if you were right about it before. Yeah. In fact, it's nothing because you had no evidence for it before. What you had was vibes. That's not anything, man. That's a nothing.

And the same thing goes for whether or not if down the road, somebody's like, oh, well, let's just say that the vaccine eventually becomes dangerous or something. We figure out it's dangerous or something like that. That's just vibes. There was nothing there that said it was real. Instead, what we had was a bunch of science that said it's not going to hurt you. It's just like all the other stuff that we do. None of this is going to hurt you.

Go ahead and get it. It's safe, right? If you did those things and followed the people who said it was safe, you did the right thing. Because that's where the evidence. was. Same thing when it comes to whether or not it's a lably. If you said it's not elably because there's no evidence, you were right at the time. Even if you're wrong in the future, it doesn't matter you were right at the time. And there's this weird thing that we do where we seem to think like if I guessed it ahead of time and the stuff changes, then I've been right the whole time,

but you weren't right the whole time. Yeah, that's so important to think about. Getting something right by accident, but not using the tools of proof and evidence is bad. It's just as bad as guessing wrong and not using the tools of proof and evidence. The only things that should matter when we decide about what is true and how we're going to operate in the world is, okay, what is the method we use to get to truth? Did we use a good, solid, reliable method to get to true things? Yes. Okay, great. Where did you arrive? Actually matters a little less. It actually matters a little less in terms of being right more often than you're wrong. If you want to be right more often than you're wrong, you've got to always and scrupulously

maintain the same tools. Anything less than that is you just fucking threw a dart at the dartboard. That's it. And I guess I want to ask this, like, people are obsessed with this idea of the lab leak theory as if it, what would that matter? Like, so right now, the prevailing theory, as I understand it, is that COVID. it originated from a wet market, and it was a mu, like a zoological mutation from an animal to humans, and it spread along that transmission chain. If it came from a laboratory,

it was still the same virus. The response doesn't change. It doesn't mean we shouldn't have socially distanced or we shouldn't have worn masks or we shouldn't have made a vaccine for it. like it would mean that we should take steps to lock that lab down, right, and make sure that that doesn't reoccur. But like if I'm a conspiracy theorist, what does that mean for me? Like, what's the juice in that squeeze? I think, I think that the, there is obviously something that should, that there would be something that would happen internationally with China then, right?

Like, so certainly if that was the case and they lied and something like that, then there would be certainly some sort of repercussions diplomatically because of that. Obviously, I think that there would be something that would happen. But I think that the reason why they want to say this and the reason why they want this to be true, and I can't speak to what it does, right? But I will say I think one of the reasons they want it to be true

is because they want to think everything that happened afterward was completely orchestrated. So in order for the government to be putting it, that's heal on your neck the whole time to take your business away and force you to wear a mask and create mandates, et cetera, et cetera, they need to have some, it can't be, it makes it makes it more impactful for them if it's not opportunistic. If it is something that is created, start to finish. If the mastermind's thought, we'll do this, then we'll do this, then we'll do this, then we'll do this. And it finally realizes itself into, you might have to wear a

mask at Jewel because you were asked or whatever, then that's important. I think it's important to the conspiracy mindset. I can't be 100% sure, Tom, because I don't know how they think, but that's my guess. So just to understand that a little bit further, that would mean that like are, that would mean that the authoritarian regime of the United States that wanted you to wear a mask for, you know, nine months or whatever, they were, we collusion. with bad actors in China to spread an international virus

in order to get you to wear a mask? No, but the vaccine. It's money for the vaccine is the final outcome. That's the final bit. That is an impressively stupid theory. It's so stupid, right? The thing is, the thing is, the thing is, the thing is, the thing is, the thing is,

just presume none of COVID ever happened. They would just find other ways to make money because they're a business and that's what they do. So, I mean, if the COVID doesn't come around and there's no COVID, it's not like all the other things they were making money off of go away.

All those things still exist. And then they just maybe instead of doing a bunch of research and figuring out a COVID vaccine, they find a new GLP1 or something for people. You know what I mean? Like they do research in a different area. They make a different non-smoking drug or they make a

different like a drug that helps you with any number of things instead of COVID. So like we would, because like, again, like governments across the world lost enormous sums of money. Absolutely. Because of COVID. Like enormous, enormous sums of money. Large sectors out of work.

Large sectors out of work all over the, all of the world. Like we, in the United States, we did, you know, we offered financial assistance to many people that cost a lot of money. there was less revenue coming in, less taxable dollars, GDP growth was stalled, unemployment went up. It was massively expensive for the United States. We saw inflation leap because of it. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. And we're still dealing with that. Supply chains were down. So there were all these net negative effects. And so I have to, if I'm thinking of the pandemic idea, I have to then look at that and say, okay, well, but who won? And like, it's Pfizer and Moderna. And I'm like, why would anybody care?

at levels so high up that we did this internationally in cooperation with China, who is not our ally. Yeah. So we have a non-cooperative hostile foreign power that we're colluding with to damage their economy and our economy. So Pfizer could make money. It's genuinely stupid. Right. Like my brain can't even like say it. Oh, no.

It's what the thing is is nobody ever says any of those pieces out loud together. Right. They're all just the pieces. And the pieces themselves, those pieces, are things they want to believe. So if it's a tiny piece that I want to believe, I'll forget about all the things that are needed for that foundation to be strong. Crazy. Do you think Fauci's going to end up getting held in contempt?

I think he will. I think, in fact, he will probably have something happened to him. And they'll point to Bannon and they'll point to Navarro because they were both held in contempt to Congress. and they'll say those people were held in and you guys weaponized the Justice Department and so therefore it's fine for us to do this even though those guys

were in doing shady shit and they didn't want to talk about it. And you're like, okay, well, you know, the thing is, is like you have all the records. You have everything. It's not like you don't have the records of what he said. So you already have all the records. What you want is tape.

So you could use that tape so you could run that tape on attack ads. That's why you want him to say things out loud. There's no other reason why you would call him there unless you want to make political hay out of it. That's the only reason you would call him there. So I think they will actually prosecute him. I think he will get, something will happen to him. It's fucking depressing. I've said it before. There should be statues in every town square for Anthony Fauci. There should have been, there already should have been for his work in the AIDS epidemic. Yeah, absolutely. He was a transformative figure, say,

millions of lives. One human being, and he literally saved millions of lives. Maybe our... Disgusting treatment. ...will realize the error of our ways and how stupid we were. Or maybe we just keep getting stupider. I'm not sure which it's going to be. How do I describe this without, like, sounding like Alex fucking Jones.

I do not. One-eight-77-carbric... That, that one. It is that one. It is the one you're thinking of. So, and I'm not joking, Israel. From the New York Times, Trump said Katari Jet was destined for his library. That may change.

Hey, Tom, President Cecil enacts a rule. You want to hear it? Let's hear it. First day in office, I repossess that jet because it belongs to the United States. Love it. First day in office, I send the, I send U.S. Marshals to take that jet back. and that jet belongs to the United States and you don't get to keep it.

Come see me in court. Come find me in court. I will use the Justice Department to defend me taking that fucking thing back and I would take it back the first day I was in office. Fucking right, man. This article at least was kind of good news, right?

So initially, the Qatari jet, which we never should have accepted and it's clearly a violation of the Amolman's clause in the Constitution, but we did anyway. And then we didn't recollects, retrofit it properly and it may or may not be secure and safe enough and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, the Qatari jet in question. Trump initially was like, yeah, when I'm fucking not president,

I'm just going to keep that jet. I'm going to basically donate it to myself as an unused piece of equipment, give it to my library, and then just fly it around and have an awesome sweet-ass jet. And now they're saying, all right, well, maybe not. Maybe it'll be decommissioned and given to his library. And now they're saying also, well, maybe not that either. Maybe it'll go into service as a third Air Force One operational jet. So they don't have what the fuck they're going to do with this thing. They're trying to figure out how to get the most out of it. That's what they're trying to do.

How do I get this thing without the undercoding? That's basically what they're doing right now. The guys in the back talking to the manager, they're going to come out and tell you. It's just the thing is, it's so egregious. It's so against the law. It's so awful. It's such an affront. But it's genuinely just another day.

And it's a nothing day in the administration. I know. 400 million dollar jet, hundreds of millions of dollars spent retrofitting this thing. Because usually Air Force One, part of the reason that they take so long is they are custom builds. It's not just a jet that you then take and like slap on a fucking Air Force One logo. Yeah. Makes sense. It's one of the most important things.

like assets the United States fucking owns, you know, so, but, you know, whatever. We'll just go ahead and take it from the Qataris and then we'll spend millions and hundreds of millions retrofitting it and then maybe it's safe, maybe it's not. And then one guy might just own it as his own private play thing

because whatever. I would take it back and then I would basically seize it. And then the first thing, chance I had, I would donate it to like, I don't know, not cars for kids because that's like a bad. But whatever is. like that.

Cars for kids. Because I found out that's like a religious. I don't know if you saw this, but there was a story recently that said that was linked to a religious charity. I had no idea. Yeah, I thought I read a story.

Again, I'm not sure. I remember reading the story, but I can't be sure of 100%. So don't take my word on it. Do your research on which you're going to donate to if not or whatever. But one of those types is what I'm saying. Like a donate your clunker type of thing

is what I would do. Either that or I would call Victory Auto Wreckers because that old planes with money. That's a Chicago joke. Only Chicago people are victory auto wreckers. Oh, God. I love that. I'm going to fucking listen to that joke

with a shot of Mallort later. I'll tell you what. I'm going to do a shout with Eagle Man. Me and him. I'm going to vote blue. Vote for who you want. This is a free dictatorship. A couple of things to talk about

from New York Times. Takeaways from the primary elections in Michigan and Michigan Democratic primary seen his latest test for party's progressive wing. That one's from AOL. So Cecil, big important election, primary election took place recently in Michigan. It was a fucking squeaker.

It was a nail butter. I went to bad, Tom, at 2 in the morning. And it was still not set. Yeah. I was checking it, checking it, checking it. It was actually on my New York Times app on my phone. It was displaying live data. with my phone closed as the percentages were ticking.

So I could just glance over to my phone and be nervous about it and glance over and be nervous about it. For me, what I think the takeaway is and the thing that makes me uncomfortable is how poor the center-left candidate really was and how close it still was. So this thing was like when you compare the two candidates, the progressive candidate, by all measures, is outgoing. He's a terrific orator. He's, you know, like on paper, just an objectively better candidate as a candidate. And then the center-left candidate, the traditional establishment candidate, and I've listened to her, when she speaks, she's awkward. When she held, like, town hall meetings, there would be like a dozen people there. She is not a great orator.

She's not a great speech giver at all. She's as exciting as buttered toast. And it still came down to a point. point or two. That makes me very nervous going into the general because the way that that primary vote split is it was essentially like establishment Democrats and black voters voted for Stevens. And then younger voters, more progressive voters, by about a point went for the progressive candidate. And I worry about what that means. And everybody wants to talk about the same thing, which is electability. I worry about what that means.

The Republicans are actually thrilled with this result because they feel like it is an easier fight. And I don't know that anybody knows that, right? I don't know if that's a good, I don't know if they're bullshitting. But I just think that that closeness is the story to me. Yeah, and it's going to be interesting because I think what we'll really see is rubber hit the road on a group of, I think, across the nation. some progressive, very progressive people,

some very, you know, certainly non-traditional people, right? When we talk about the tradition of the Senate in the United States, these are white people. These are white dudes, right? So you're going to get an opportunity to see people that don't fit into that demographic that are running for these seats. And that's exciting and awesome. And it should be young people.

It should be people of color. It should be people of different genders. Like, that's an important... Those are all important pieces of your identity that you bring to this job that makes you understand the different facets of people in the United States. It's super great. It's literally what we should be doing all the time. But instead, what we have is geriatric septuagenarian white dudes who just go, that constantly get revoted in. And so that's who runs the country.

It's like fucking, it's like Logan's run. like there's just like a whole group of people whose fucking hand is flashing. It's been flashing for 35 years. They're here. It's been flashing. And they're still in office. They found that one loophole that keeps them alive. But here's the thing that I think is the rubber hits the road here where progressive people

from mostly progressive areas win a Democratic primary, where it's progressives versus sort of the old school. and they come out in there and we get a chance to see what that looks like in these states. I know that there's a lot of people who are really excited about the progressives.

I'm one of them. I'm very excited for them. I'm happy that they're winning. I am worried that if... And the other thing that's really important to point out too is during this very election, it should be an election on easy mode.

It should be an election that is hyper... winnable and easily winnable because of the disaster that is happening in our current government. So it should be easy. It should be a simple, you know, go through probably win both houses as long as you do real simple stuff and have real simple messaging. The problem is, is that we're going to get a chance to see how easily these people are attacked and how much people's people in certain areas.

will lean progressive if progressive policies are the mainstay, we're going to get a chance to see whether or not Michigan is really progressive. You'll get an opportunity to see that. That will be something that happens in this election. Because I think more people will be motivated to vote in this election, especially if their pocketbooks are taking a hit in under 100 days now. And you're going to get a chance to see where they stand on that spectrum because that large group of people is going to come up.

out. It should be an easy win. Will it be? I don't know. I hope it is. And I hope this is a turn for the party. But I will be the first to point out I would much rather win than not, then lose this particular election and continue on with another two years of the same thing that's happening for the last two years. Yeah, I think one of the things that is going to be really telling. And I don't, I'm not making any prediction. I'm just really excited to see what happens, nervous as well. I think this is going to be a turnout test. And it's a really big and important one because if we listen to the voices, and we should, if we listen to the voices that are truly on the left, many of them who have been disengaged from participation as voters in the political process have said, I don't want to show up

if there's nobody on the ballot that reflects truly left-wing progressive ideals. I will not vote blue no matter who. I do not want to show up unless there is a candidate that matches my values. Right. Now we have a candidate in this Michigan candidate, El-Sayed, we have a candidate who should check most, if not all, of those boxes for many of those disengaged non-participant voters. And it's necessary that those people show up. and vote. It is necessary. So what we should do is after this vote is over, we should go back and do a

retrospective analysis and see, did that actually bring those people who have stood in the sidelines and complained without acting? Did it bring them into the fold? Did it bring them into the political process? Did it move the needle? Did they show up? Because if we're to believe them, and we should, at least until we do the numbers, if we believe that they don't vote because they don't want to just vote for more of the same and the left is the same as the right and nobody reflects my values, well, here's your guy. Here's a guy that should be different enough that it should pull you out of the sidelines. If it doesn't, that is worrisome. That would be really worrisome. Even if we win, that would be worrisome to me. Because that would tell me that we've not

reached that critical block of young people and disaffected people who are abstaining from using their rights as citizens to vote for the next candidate. Yeah, you're just using the right. That's the wrong message then. Somehow you're doing the wrong message if you're not reaching those people. You're doing the wrong message. Stick them up, please. Smoke if you wish.

Come on. This is a story from the friendly atheist blog. Christian preachers are turning airplanes into unwanted worship services. Evangelists are exploiting captive audiences who can't walk away and broadcasting it online. I don't even know what I would do, Cecil. Cecil, Cicero, I don't even know what I would do. I feel like you got to take their guitar away.

You just got to walk up and be like, give me that. You can't use this right now. I'm trying to watch Golden Girls. She needs to settle down. This makes me so irrationally angry when I see this happen. And the reason why it makes me angry is I have a lot of anxiety. when I fly. I don't like going to the airport. I don't like going and I don't like getting on a plane. I don't like flying. I don't like the landing part. I don't like the leaving of the plane.

I don't like any moment I'm on a plane. I don't like any of it. I'm never looking forward to it. Every single time I have to fly, I dread it. I don't like it. Right. It's not something I'm never excited. I'm always excited about where I'm going to be, but I'm never excited about any of the way to get there. Now, when I was younger, it was exciting. I was like, oh, cool, I'm going to be on a plane. How cool is that on me flying? It was awesome. Now I see it as absolutely anxiety-inducing in me.

So I'm already a ball of nerves when I get on the plane. I don't want anything else. And what I want is I want to listen to my music and then I want to fall asleep. Because those are the two things that I always try to do on a plane. I try to listen to a like of music. And then I always try to fall asleep because it just makes it so I don't have to deal with anything that's happening on the plane at any moment. I could just go to sleep. If you get up and you start playing your little fucking guitar and sing it to Jesus,

I am going to be furious. Now, I don't know how I'm going to react because the thing is, is I don't want to wind up on a no-fly list myself. Right? I don't want to walk up and be like, give it that I can take. And then beat them over the head with their guitar like Pete Townsend or something. Like, I'm not going to do that. So I don't know what to do.

But I think like what you do. And this is really smart because in the article they say, just Blair really popular music from your phone. So your phone as a speaker, just turn on like some popular, like, I don't know, a Taylor Swift song or like an Ariame Grande song or a, I'm sure there's a guy who sings a song that I could think of that's popular, but I can't think of any right now. But in any case, turn on one of those and just make it really loud. And do it so you're close enough to their recording so they can't actually use it

because it'll shut off, it'll demonetize it or whatever. And that's the goal is to try to get it so it's demonetize. so it ruins it for them. And the thing is, is like, if they're singing to me, me playing my music, that's where it's at now. I mean,

I think that's my retaliation is I just play whatever music I have as loud as I can. I have to say, I didn't even know this was possible. I thought there were rules against being like loud and obnoxious and the airline would just kick you off the airline.

But I think that they're exploiting the fact that everybody is a, afraid to overstep, especially with this administration, to overstep and infringe on somebody's religious rights. So these people are exploiting the fear and making people really fucking uncomfortable, and I don't think it's because they want to actually proselytize. Like, your point is the right point. What they want is to leverage this for social media stuff, right? Because they're all doing this and posting it on social. Not just doing it and not posting it on social media. They're posting it for attention in order to become a certain kind of like Christian influencer.

Like, would it be, would I get kicked off in a genuine question? What if I brought a boom box onto the airplane to fit under my? They would tell you to turn it off. Like the thing is, is like, if you brought a boom box, I guarantee you. If you started playing music from a speaker that was loud. And now we're going to get messages, they'll be like, no, I was on a flight and somebody did it. I would, if somebody next to me over in another aisle was doing this, I would immediately call over the stewardess and say,

can you please tell them to turn that down? I don't want to hear their music. Yeah. And I don't know if the flight attendant can or would, like, take action. If they didn't turn it off, would they kick them off the flight? Like, what would they do? What is supposed to? This is not how we treat each other.

That's the thing is that once you start, like, destroying the norms of, like, a socialized, like, decent society where we're just nice and polite. and we respect that other people might not want to listen to the same shit we want to listen to. Like, holy shit. Because I can't even imagine. I see so. I cannot fucking even imagine what I would do. Can you imagine me on like a long haul flight?

Like a four, six, eight, 12 hour flight. And there's somebody who's fucking intermittently yammering loudly and playing a guitar. I fly once a year, maybe, maybe once a year. You haven't flown in several years, right? I've been on an airplane in many years, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's abstract for me.

I think that the playing music on your phone or whatever is a great idea. I also think atheists should travel with accordions. Just travel with a prophylactic accordion, just in case accordion. Somebody sits up and starts fucking preaching the gospel and singing their fucking kumbaya song. I think you just, and don't learn to play it. I want to be clear about that. Don't learn to play the accordion. Just re-r-r-r.

This is the worst sound that any instruments ever made. Or bagpipes would work to. Or, I don't know if you remember Green Acres, but they used to have some sort of instrument that sounded like a pig

when they would play. Be like, wow, gu. Love it. Sounded like a pig? Get a pig instrument. Whatever that is and just play that.

Love it. Love it. I guess you can't travel with a speaker, but you can clearly travel with other instruments. The moment somebody starts taking out that fucking guitar,

You just got to be looking at yourself and thinking, oh, God, I got to deal with this for how long? Unbelievable. The gin will often grant wishes in such a way as to thwart the desires of the summoner. Their fulfillment frequently leading to unintended consequences. This story is from Politico, and it's great. Anti-Trump conservatives, Tucker Carlson, MTG, and Massey huddle about launching a third-party movement. We've been talking about the possibility of this happening now for years. I love when the villains have a villain fight.

Like just the fucking just throwing lava at each other or whatever they do. And you know that it's at the biggest villain layer because it's at his compound. It's at Tucker Carlson's compound. I would just be outside of that compound just being like build it, build it, build it, build it. Because you want them 100% to build this coalition and create this new party. That is what you want. You want this with every fiber of your being. Split the crazy vote.

Just split it right down the middle. Get the nutty people on your side. Get the nutter butter people on the other side. And you guys just fist fight it out the whole time. And nobody else, no other sane person has to worry about this in elections ever again. Because you guys will fight over the scraps we have in this two-party system until it falls apart. Please, please, please, please, please. I can't beg you enough.

Build this party and take 20% of the Republicans with you. It's that, man. I love this so much. I love the schism. I think it's terrific. I think like this is what you have coming to you as a party. And I hope it hurts. And I hope every day these fuckers wake up and they see the decline of their power and authority.

Yes. And respect in the world. And they have no idea what to do about it. And it makes them sad and it makes their families sadder. I want nothing but the worst for these people. So sad. I want them to cry the bitterest, bitterest fucking tears. I love this.

Shitheads. Gosh. What kind of party has Tucker Carlson as one of the thought leaders? Like that guy is, he is literally just a Russian noodle. Like he does whatever they tell him to do. They just push him into any position. wants and they just does whatever they want. What kind of person?

And it's so crazy to me. You see like Massey and MTG talking to him. And you're just like, and I don't know if they're also on Russia's payroll or influenced by Russia or if they're just genuinely stupid. I'm not sure. What I think with Massey is he's just angry. I think that's why Massey's in the room. He's mad because he got primary because he didn't follow Trump's edicts.

And he tried to bring out the Epstein stuff. and that pissed Trump off enough to pick somebody else against him and got Massey out of there. Massey's going to not be, he's got primary, so he's not going to be running. So that's why he is pissed. And I have no idea if he believes any of the other stuff. And if you read this article, they say in the article, all of them are just like, yeah, we don't even know if we agree with each other, but fuck them. And you're like, that's the best part. Not only do I want you fighting them, I want you all fighting amongst yourselves.

Dude, also, is there any word less appropriate for a gathering of Thomas Massey, Marjorie Taylor Green, and Tucker Carlson than party? I can't think of people I would want to invite less to a party than Tucker fucking Carlson. Yeah, man. Yeah. Like, Tucker Carlson could fucking go back in time, show up to fucking Studio 54 and bring the temperature down 100 degrees in a moment. There is nobody that's ever been born less. cool than Tucker fucking Carlson. Anytime all three of those people are together, it has to be called a function.

What is that? What is that? What is it? Oh, no, not the peace. Not the peace. Ah! I don't know my eyes! Eyes!

As from NBC News, runaway online rumors sparked frantic rush by migrants to the Spanish territory of Quetta. I'm not sure how that's pronounced. I don't know. I think it's a sea sound, like a swaita or something I thought I heard. I think that's what it was. But again, I don't know. I'm not sure.

So this is basically social media influence gone amok, run amok. And to the tune of, you know, thousands and thousands of people flooding over the border, mistakenly believing that that border was open and that they would be, able to cross over from Morocco into Spain, people died. Like, and a few dozen people died. Yeah, it's like under 100, but closer to 100 than to zero. Yeah, like something like 80 people. Most of them on the Spain side, you know, died in this mad crush to try to get over the border. And then almost all of them have been sent back or forced back at this point because that border was never open and it was disinformation and misinformation. I'm not even sure which. I don't think anyone's

sure right now who exactly was and why these rumors were being spread and broadcast online. But you read these stories and these people are fucking heartbroken because they were involved in this thing where they really felt they had a moment where they might be able to do this extraordinary thing and better their lives and provide for their families and make change for themselves and not only did it not work, but, you know, people died on the way. Yeah. People died because of this. Yeah. And it's important, I think, to talk about a couple of different factors. First off, the place itself, this small territory, is, like literally attached to Morocco, right? Or it's very close, right? It's like right next to it. So geographically,

it's not like they were coming into Spain. This is a Spanish territory that's not a Spanish territory that's not part of mainline Europe, right? So they were coming in because they were deceived and they were lied to that they would be able to get this sort of immediate refugee status. And this, there's clearly some push on that other side to become citizens in other countries because their country isn't doing well. So they're looking to try to better themselves and leave that area because their country sucks and they don't like it and they don't want to be there. So they left to try to get more money. And they realize that there is a better quality of life in a different place.

And so they decided that they were going to try to take that risk, follow this direction that they got on the internet, and it take them to this other place, another country, to try to live there, to try to get refugee status there. It was all just a lie. It was all a lie perpetuated by social media accounts that at this point, some of them are even been deleted. They've just been deleted at this point. that leads me to believe, and I have no idea whether this is true or not, but I will say that if we find out who was doing this and it happens to be far right groups that are doing this or Russia that is doing this or some sort of a foreign actor that is doing this, that would make a lot of sense.

Because what they want to do is pass off this narrative to everybody that there is an invasion. They want to try to make it seem like there is an invasion. They want to say there's an invasion. They're coming in. All the scenes, that you saw about this particular thing were all about the people coming in. I saw very little about this story about why they were coming in the first place and I saw very little afterwards about how many of them left. What made the news

was all the images of all the people swimming, crossing over the border, the fence was open so they came through. I saw all those images like crazy that. And then there was just a ton of people who were online cycling the same type of comments. This is happening all over. This is the new normal.

This is what's going to happen in the future. This, to me, screams disinformation campaign set out by bad actors to try to push the great replacement theory onto normal people who might not ever see it. But the more shocking the images, the more they're going to fall into this sort of thing. That's what it screams to me. I don't have any proof that that's the case. And in fact, some of these accounts have been deleted. We won't know.

Maybe we'll never know whether or not that's the case. But even still, here's what I'll say. Even if I can't know whether or not that is the true motive, I would say we need to steal ourselves from that in the future. This sort of thing needs to be caught in the future if you're seeing this kind of information. The real culprits here are the, in a lot of ways, are the social media companies that allow this type of shit to spread. and then they have no responsibility for the 80 people that died.

Look at all the people who said that they had, like it was social media that led them there. And what is social media going to do? Instagram was the main thing that they were saying was sending them over. And the final thought I want to say is, think of where we're at. We're under 100 days away from a very specific and very difficult election in the United States.

The current right-wing party is falling on their face. they're tripping over their own dick every other day because they're so stupid they don't know how to deal with anything any kind of pressure they've created a bunch they've kicked a bunch of beehives and the bees are stinging them every single place they can sting them they're just terrible think about this how how great is this kind of footage in two months how great is this kind of footage for attack ads in two months in the united states to say look at what's happening around the world trump is made you safe. Yeah. Would you be surprised at all because I wouldn't. Yeah. If this footage... I love it.

I don't even have to hear it, Tom. No. This footage will get re-captioned and presented as if it's happening on our southern border. 100%. Because I think you're exactly right. I think this is...

When I said I didn't know if it was disinformation or misinformation, I meant that, but I think with 100% of my heart... You can't know. And I'm with you. I can't know either. Sure. But what is my heart?

heart say, Cecil? My heart says this is disinformation because the narrative of the ungovernable migrant is a narrative that works for the powers that be. It's a narrative to your point that pushes the Great Replacement Theory. And these images, once they become sort of like embedded in the background memory for people, it's actually really easy to keep the image in people's memory and then just relabel it by showing it to them again and again. No, it's familiar. I've seen that before. Now it's got a new label. And you can recycle these images in people's heads by just relabeling it. And people say, I saw that.

I remember when that, no, no, that's not bullshit. That's not fake. That's not AI. I remember when that happened. And they'll remember the caption that you put on it and the image from when it first happened. They won't put those things together. And multiple governments will be able to use these. There was a woman who was part of this.

And again, I only saw the video. So I wasn't able to source this woman. So please, if I'm incorrect. here, please let me know. But I saw a woman who was riling up the group, that group in Spain. She went there a day after. And she literally threw a Nazi salute. Like literally, like straight up at the end of her speech through a Nazi salute.

So I feel like at this point, if it might, again, I have no idea. I can't be sure whether it's coordinated or not. But I will say the people who were trying to spread the message that this was bad, even if it wasn't coordinated, we're opportunistic. So whether or not it's coordinated doesn't matter because the final piece at the end of all this, I mean, it does matter because what it means is that it's even a bigger lie than you thought, right? Because if it's coordinated, then it's a huge lie because that means that they're the ones who are kicking this hornet nest to scare you, right?

It's worse if it's coordinated. It's way worse. But even if it's not, they are still trying to look at a kicked hornet's nest and blame it on something else. Even if it is opportunistic, it's still bad. And so I think that what you have to do in the future is we need to make sure that the social media companies face something when they are spreading blatant disinformation like this and it runs amok. They have tools that can stop this. We know they have tools that can do this. We know they can do this work.

We know they can hire more people to do this work. They just choose not to do it because it's more profit for them. We can't let them get away with that. Please. I'll be not calling your girlfriend. Remember, big brothers listening. This story comes from reason.com. Georgia has arrested at least 20 officials for misusing the flock surveillance database.

So this is a pretty big deal. It's a big enough deal that we're using an article from Reason Magazine. Once in a while. I'll stumble. The thing is, is like, even a fucking blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. So reason once in a while can luck out and find something that they actually, their principles are just, they can't break on this. You know what I mean? Like, they're fucking stupid most of the time, but they can't break on this.

How fucked is the world when the folks at Reason Magazine are like, hey, hey, hey, Hey, too far. Too far. We hear at Reason Magazine, you know, one of the most staunchly, aggressively conservative right-wing spaces that you can find. When they're like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, we'd like some rights still. Thank you. I mean, like, this could affect white people. Are you kidding me?

Just a single right, yeah. You got to love these people who are, as soon as they have this opportunity to use this a technology. Look at how many people dip into it. As soon as they have an opportunity to look and search for your plate and find out where you are and use this database that tracks you all over the place, look how quickly they jump in and do it. And they supposedly these data companies are like,

oh, well, we're going to put in some safeguards. Sure thing, buddy. Sure you will. I realize that there are moments now where we're seeing the cracks and how bad this is and there are people who are currently being prosecuted and accused of crimes and they're going to have to face time for those crimes. Understand that this is again a bold prediction, but understand that what's going to happen is probably not a lot to these people and this is

going to become more and more normalized as time goes on. They created a system that allows for them to monitor like the entire population and then keep data. on where they're at if they're driving and moving around. That's a horror. That is straight up big brother shit. That shouldn't be happening. There's no great use for these things. This isn't going to make anybody safer.

What it's going to do is give the government all your information to let you them know exactly where you're at whenever they want to see. And then they can just, because we've shown that they're fucking super unscrupulous when it comes to whether or not they're going to decide who to prosecute for a crime, they could then just be like, pick a fucking random car. And if they get two other points where they think it makes sense, they're going to bring you in. And they'll, like, it could be crimes you don't have anything to do with.

But if they go through the database and type in a couple of parameters that make it seem like you were in the same place and just so happen to be in the same place at the same time, that might be evidence enough to put you in jail. Like this is, this is an opportunity for them. It's not making you any safer, but it's an opportunity for them to, to imprison people and make it seem like they are much better at their jobs now and use this stuff for nefarious purposes, which is what we've seen them do and what they're getting arrested for here. And there's no safeguards by these social, these company, I call them, social media companies, but these data companies, they don't have any safeguards. And they're not going to, they're certainly not going to put any new ones. one's up because one, they don't want to spend the money. And two, they don't fucking care.

Yeah. Yeah. They don't. They, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they. They care about, they, they. Yeah. They care about making dollars. We are actively working to build an, a massive, massive, surveillance state. And there's no world, I think, where we're not going to do that. We're going down that road. That's the road we're going down. So we have to still, we have to decide collectively as a country if while building this surveillance state, if we also want to give up our civil rights. And if so, which ones? And I say fucking none of them. That's what I say. And I say like if we're going to build a surveillance state,

then we need to have regulation and we need to have prosecution. And when police and other officials use these tools to violate our civil rights, they do not have access to qualified immunity any longer, right? So police are very often protected by a qualified immunity, by qualified immunity statutes that basically means like, hey, you're a cop, you can kind of do whatever the fuck you want, and nobody's going to show up at your door and arrest you for doing it. Fuck that. If we're going to build a surveillance state and make no bones about it, we are.

That ship is sailing right now, and we're all on it. We are building a surveillance state. the choice that we have isn't whether we do that. The choice that we have is do we retain our civil rights or not. Yeah. And I say I say we've retained those rights. And I'm as fucking fired up about this as the people at Reason Magazine, right? It's that big a deal.

Yeah, it's a deal. What do we do? What do we have? What, and this isn't even rhetorical, what do we have as citizens to show for that citizenship if it is not our rights as citizens. We have nothing. You cannot have liberty if you do not retain privacy. It's not possible.

You cannot be free without having privacy. It is not possible. It is a requirement of liberty. It is a requirement a prerequisite of freedom to have privacy. If we give these things up and give up our civil rights in the process, we lose our freedom. We lose our liberty. And there are why, like, I'm at least glad that the right is upset about this. At least some folks on the writer.

Some part are. Yeah. Because, like, guess who's driving it? The tech billionaires, the Peter Teals, the Palantir nuts. Like, all of these people are all in bed with each other. And they're all building tools to monitor and evaluate and quantify and track and own and report on every single fucking thing you do. from where you go to what you buy to what you look at to how long you looked at it. All of that.

Your whole life is being tracked. And none of that was true 10 years ago. And all of that will be more true 10 years from now than you ever could have imagined. And we're going to decide right now in real time whether or not being a citizen fucking means anything or not. And I think the answer is going to shake out to it doesn't. That's the real worry I have. All right. that's going to wrap it up for this show. Now, Thursday, we're going to have a show about

apps and about how these apps are sometimes putting you in the same room as really terrible people. And it's going to be a pretty disturbing episode. But you're going to want to check it out. It's coming on on Thursday. And we are going to leave you, if I always do, with the skeptics greed. 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,

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