Knowledge Fight - #247: Lionel

Episode Date: January 2, 2019

Today, Dan and Jordan enjoy a Wacky Wednesday adventure looking at one of Alex's guests, the enigmatic QAnon enthusiast, Lionel. The gents dig into a cornucopia of old hot takes from Lionel and discuss the path from humor hack to political hack.

Andy and Kansas, you're on the air. Thanks for holding. So Alex, I'm a first-time caller. I'm a huge fan. I love your work. I love you. Hey everybody, welcome back to Knowledge Fight. I'm Dan. I'm Jordan. This is a podcast where we sit down and drink. Oh, boy. Oh, boy. What just happened there? 2019, starting off with a couple of dudes. We like to sit around and drink novelty beverages and talk about Alex Jones. The reason I was, I had that terrible hiccup is my instinct was to say happy New Year to everybody. Yeah. Right out the gate. Right. And I tried to integrate that into the, we're a couple dudes. It was a disaster. Holy shit. Oh man. I cannot get fancy. That was, that was, oh boy. Stick to the script. No kidding. We've

been opening the show the same way for two years now. Oh boy. Oh, Dan. Yes, sir. Dan. Yeah. What's your favorite New Year's? What's my favorite New Year's? Or what was your best New Year's? What my best New Year's? Yeah. Tell me about your best New Year's. I don't think I've had a great New Year's, honestly. I mean, what? Me neither. I can't think of any that stick out in my head as being like super awesome. I remember, I mean, they're all just, you know, various amounts of booze with friends. Yeah. Which is not, you know, it's usually a pretty good time, but there's never been one that was like, you'd make a movie about or something like that. You know, like the glory of youth. Right. Right. Right. I got nothing on this man now. I mean, most, most New Year's for me

especially since I've been like over 21. I've never been all that exciting. Yeah. I'm not a big New Year's fan. I think the only New Year's that I really remember with any fondness because the rest of them have been an absolute disaster was when I was like 19. My friends and I came up to Chicago. One of my friends was in, was at Columbia and we just actually went a like, we went all over the place. Like it was bananas at four o'clock that morning. One of my friends peed on the subway tracks. Hell yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Third rail. Yeah. Not, not yet, but, but yeah. And I remember distinctly everyone being fine with it. Of course. It was four AM on New Year's. Everybody's there. Everybody's just like, Hey,

man, that guy's, it's when you got to go, you got to go. You got to go. That's the way it's got to go. That's a scene from like glory days of youth kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's where it is. I've got, I think one year, the only thing that sticks out to me is there was like an open bar thing like back in Columbia at this dance club that we, me and my friends never would have gone to, but it was like, it was an open bar for like 20 bucks or something like that. Like, Oh yeah. No shit. Let's go crash this and see how we're talking about. Yeah. And I remember I left, I believe a couple of times to go down to the hot dog vendor. Okay. A couple of times. Yeah. That's how bored I was with the scene in there. I think I got, it might be a different

night, but I'm pretty sure it was that night that I got into a little altercation with the DJ. Cause I don't like going to the clubs. Hey, could you play, could you play some highway men for me? It wasn't that it's my specialty. The first thing was, I thought they were playing music too loud. And I let him know that it's too loud. The second thing was, Hey, everyone agreed with you dad. Everybody had elected you silently. The spokesman, it was too loud. They're even looking back. I know I'm like, you know, Hey, cranky old man, shut up. It was too loud. Okay. And the second thing I had a little bit of a tiff with him about was like, I thought the music needed to get off your lawn as well. He could have stood too. He was playing like music

that I thought was just real bad, derivative and boring. And so I went up to the booth and I was like, could you play something better? Like this is just a disaster. Wow. And he's like, I got something that's going to blow your mind. Oh no. The happy birthday song playing it next. I'm like, all right, cool. So I go back and get another shot and I'm standing there and he's looking over at me as he puts on with the positive expression or was it like, Oh, I'm going to kill him. It was kind of like a wait, wait till he sees this. Okay. Check this shit out. All right. Okay. And then the next song was a dance remix of the Mamas and the Papas. Did it blow your socks off? No, it didn't. And as he was looking at me, I made eye contact with him.

Of course. I went like this. Thumbs up. No. Thumbs down. Did not get kicked out, but probably should have been. Anyway, that might have been one of my New Year's. No, that's from a movie right there. That's a glory of old age movie right there. I also might have been 23 at the time. It's not like I was 60. Anyway, Jordan, this is a podcast where I know a lot about Alex Jones. And I only know what you tell me about Alex. And it is a new year. And I've been getting, I've been getting some feedback from folks that maybe our show is too depressing at times. And so what I wanted to do today is I wanted to mix things up and do an episode that I think is possibly, I don't think anyone could be depressed by this. I think this

will be one of our softest episodes. It's going to be. Are you going to get the antisemitism out of the way up top? Is that how this is going to go? No, it's going to be a fancy free, weird, wacky Wednesday episode. And I'm excited to talk about it. But before we do, I've got to give a shout out to a couple of new donors here in the knowledge fight fold. First, I'd like to say thank you to Jeremy. You are now a policy wonk. I'm a policy wonk. Thank you very much, Jeremy. Secondly, we're a little late on this based on the name, but I appreciate it all the same. Thank you so much. The Christmas fish. You are now a policy wonk. I'm a policy wonk. Thank you so much, Christmas fish. Who are you? Mysterious Christmas fish. This next one, I at first thought this

was a name that I don't want to, I don't want to talk about on the air. I thought this was a goofy trolling prank. But I'm going to go ahead and allow it. It is. Thank you so much. You are now a policy wonk. I gambled on a fart and lost a memoir. I'm a policy wonk. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you very much. I gambled on a fart and lost a memoir. We appreciate it. Yes. Next. And finally, I'd like to say thank you to somebody who donated on a little bit of an elevated level. We appreciate it also very much. So read. You are now a technocrat. I'm a policy wonk. Four stars. Go home to your mother and tell her you're brilliant. Someone, someone, Sodomite sent me a bucket of poop. Daddy Shark. Jar Jar Binks has a Caribbean black action.

He's a loser, little, little titty baby. I don't want to hate black people. I renounce Jesus Christ. Thank you so much. Read. Yes. Thank you very much. Read. If you out there listening, you're thinking, Hey, I'd like to support this show. I like these gents and what they do. You can do that by going to our website, knowledgefight.com, clicking that button that says support the show. We would appreciate it. Yeah. If you, that's, that's a, that's an interesting thought to have. Like when you're driving at work and you're just like, when you're driving at work. Sure. You might be driving at work. You might be driving at work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody, if you're a long haul trucker or a chauffeur, it could be a chauffeur, could be, could be an Uber

driver. Absolutely. Any of these things are possible because an Uber driver playing our podcast while driving would be fantastic. Five stars on the app. What were you saying? I think, I think it's a strange thought to have to just be like, Hey, I want to support these guys, but some people do. And it's a weird thought and we appreciate it. Thank you very much to all of you. Speaking of that, I know that I said that the wiki would probably be posted on the first. There's a little bit more work I need to do. And I realized how much better would it be if it came out on January 7th, the formal anniversary of our show. That's right. The second anniversary. So that will be the day that it goes live. I'm sorry for the false

start there, little hiccup, but it will be on knowledge fight.com on January 7th in celebration of our anniversary. Perfect. Now, Jordan, today I told you this is going to be a little bit light. It's positive. I don't know if it's positive. God damn it. Nothing in this show is positive. You're well fair enough, but it can't be depressing. Wacky Wednesday is a place where we fulfill time travel requests. Right. Talk about Project Camelot and Jim Baker, Coach, Dobbin Meyer, that motherfucker, any of these things. But also one of the things I like to do is I like to highlight guests of Alex Jones is a dig in a little bit more about what they're into, what they're about. Oh boy. And today is one such episode where we will be talking about someone

who I know has delighted you every time he's been on, but you haven't heard too much of him. The soap guy. I wish. I wish it was all about Marty Schachter who did a deep dive every limerick he's ever told. No, today we're talking about Lionel. See, you don't even remember who Lionel is. Wait, Lionel, the caller? The guy who called in? Lionel is a guy who hosts the fourth hour for Alex pretty regularly and he's one of Alex's long-term guests. He's been around since about 2011 and had late 2010, early 2011, and he's still there today. He still hosts the fourth hour from time to time. He's still a very regular guest on David Knight's show in particular. Great. And so I thought.

Which get well soon, David Knight. Yeah, absolutely. I take no pleasure in him having a heart attack. Yeah, that's not how I want him to go. So Jordan, Lionel is a guy who you, as soon as you hear his voice, you will remember who he is and remember how much you like him. Okay. Now, I didn't want to go find a ton of clips of Lionel on Alex's show because the first one I found was good enough to give you a taste of the type of weirdo Lionel is. So here is a clip of Lionel filling in for Alex Jones in the fourth hour of the Alex Jones show. All right, Lionel, with you sitting in for Alex Jones. So glad to be here. I want to get down to business. I've got so much to talk about. I've been thinking,

which is a dangerous thing and one of the worst parts about this is what I want to talk about. Do you remember who he is? No, but I love him. Okay. I love him. He's the guy who talks like an auctioneer. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. There's 25 million things. So no particular order and no particular sense of what's important or what's not. Let me tell you what's really getting me charged up. Do you know what last night opened? Let me try this in English. You know what opened last night. There we go on Broadway. Do you know what it was that absolutely has taken Broadway by storm? Do you have any idea? Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Now, I will tell you this much. I'm not familiar with Harry Potter. I know who he is and what it is. The story that is.

Okay. But what is it about? I don't believe in black magic. I don't believe in any of this stuff. It sounds like you believe in black magic. I'm sorry. This point of complete disclosure, I'm irreligious. I don't speak God and I don't speak French. I'm not saying that French people don't exist just because I don't understand what they're saying. And I'm not saying there's no religion because I don't understand it. But I'm not into any of that stuff no matter what. So I don't react in horror from that point of view. But isn't it funny that right now, as this world, this society of ours is being so contaminated. I'm so excited to see where this is going. The fetid, the feculate, the rancid world of sex trafficking, sex abuse, human trafficking,

cults, and the like. Here we go. By virtue of people who believe in symbology and letting you know everything that they do with hand signals and Instagrams. That's all pizza gate, baby. Hand signals and Instagram. Do you think that's interesting? I think it is. I just want to give you that. Park it over there. Just make you say, hmm, for no particular reason to say that's odd. No, I think it's horrific. People can see whatever they want. I don't care about it. But just think wizard, warlocks, magic spells, the occult, whatever. Does that scare you? Does that frighten you? Maybe, maybe not. But isn't that interesting? Because you know, the more that I think we as humans

elevate beyond that, the more I say, I see that we've never really evolved, that we've been like this since we first crawled out of the ooze. Okay, so it goes on for a while. Humans first crawled out of the ooze. Right. Is this some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 shot? I don't fucking know. He's got some point to make about Harry Potter being on Broadway. It has to do with weaving in like it's a distraction and it's a kid and there's magic and wizards and I don't fucking know. Did it make you stop and go, hmm, that whole clip did? Yes, absolutely. I struggle to find the meaning. I struggle to find, I'm glad to hear he's a religious. That's certainly nice. We don't need to get too into the weeds of what he's talking about there because I think it's

pretty obvious. Like if you listen to that, it's nonsense. But it's important because he's weaving in these like sort of pizza gate narratives, the idea of the hand gestures that goes back to a as interpreted. Well, the Instagram thing is straight up Comet Ping Pong. Right. James Alifantes. The hand gestures is in reference to a picture of John Podesta that everyone is misrepresented. Sure. It's very easy to understand what's going on in that picture with the hand gestures. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And what have you. It's all hot nonsense. But that should give you this sort of place where you need to be for this next clip to not be surprising at all. Let me make this first of all unequivocally clear, limpid, pelucid. I want to add clarity, no ambiguity. Listen and listen

good. I stand with Q. I stand with the Anans. I stand with these brilliant decoders who are just breathtakingly, I'm saying the word too much, brilliant. It's Bletchley Park. It's our own project enigma. It's our own cryptographers. It's brilliant. And I want to provide this because there are still folks coming around saying, what the hell are they talking about? What is Q? Who's Q? Why are who's fighting? And it's Harry Potter. It's probably Harry Potter. So look, I don't want to get too into this either because there's been a number of requests from people that we do an episode about QAnon. And I'm not going to say that we won't do it. But one of the reasons I've resisted doing it is that I think that there's a lot of other great resources out there of people who have

been following it much more closely than I have, that I feel like it almost would be a disservice. The level of attention and insight that I could bring to it is not nearly on the level of a number of other people out there. But it may be something that we dive into at some point. And when we do, we'll talk more about it. For now, suffice it to say that Lionel is a huge QAnon guy. He thinks they are breathtaking. By the way, somebody burn his fucking thesaurus as soon as possible. This guy thinks he's Dennis Miller. What are we doing with every possible adjective? Just a long series of synonyms. The manufactured appearance of intelligence is what's going on here. Absolutely. He is irascible. He is annoying. He will never stop talking. I find it necessary to point this out

and make it clear. I want to delineate exactly how silly he is from how silly he is not. And it is all silly, my friend. You need a thesaurus silly three times. You need fucking Lionel's thesaurus. I don't mean to sit here and tell you that Lionel's an idiot or anything like that because Lionel's real name is Michael LeBron. And he's technically a lawyer, having graduated from Stetson University College of Law. Stetson's a small school with a current enrollment of 901 and a bar pass rate of 67.2%. For some context, according to the 2017 data from the Internet Legal Resource Group, that makes would make Stetson the 169th best law school in the country tied with University of Detroit Mercy. Less than 50% of the 2017 graduates found work in law firms. Okay, so it's not a

great law school. This is what I'm getting at. It's not a good law school. Not a high reputation coming from this law school. 67.2 is not a good percent for a bar passage. I was just gonna ask a D. Yeah, I like I would like to know more about University of Detroit Mercy though. That sounds great. I would go there. It's very similar to Stetson in terms of anyway Lionel was a trial lawyer for a bit, but according to his own bio after OJ Simpson got arrested, he decided to rebrand this Lionel. I can't stress enough that's in his own bio. He wrote that the trial of OJ Simpson made me change my whole life around and get a new name. It made him decide to rebrand his Lionel and become a media personality on a local New York VHF station called PIX 11. In 1999, Lionel

got his own show on court TV called Snap Judgment, where he would provide an irreverent satirical look at legal news. It was canceled before 2000 came along. Gotcha. Very short lived court TV show. Yeah, what are you gonna do? From then on Lionel's career was largely radio based. Interestingly, in April 2007 Lionel's show replaced the majority report with Sam Cedar on Air America. Cedar had been a fixture of the network literally since it launched, and this was a huge turn off for the listener base. According to many sources, replacing Sam's show with Lionel created a big backlash that lost the network a ton of subscribers and listeners. The writing was on the wall when Air America was sold to the Green Brothers in early 2007,

but many consider replacing Sam with Lionel was the point when Air America truly died. Yeah, that was it. That was the point where everyone's like, well, all right, this is this noise. Yeah. So when air America went under Lionel took a real serious hard turn to the right. He began appearing on Alex Jones's show on a fairly regular basis. He needed a gig. Right. But he also kept appearing on that VHF station PIX 11. And let me tell you this, all of his reports are still online. Hell yes. Hell yes. This is what I want VHS or VHF. Hell yes. Today's episode will be going over a number of Lionel's local New York TV news reports, seeing what kind of commentator he was. I like it in 2011 and onwards. Okay. And seeing if we can track a certain bit of

change that happens in the course of his rhetoric and his worldview over the years. I'm going to bring you back to one of the earliest videos that's still available. This one is, you know, he's a commentator. He's got druthers. He's got a complaint about things. Enjoy. I should have probably warned you. He has a theme song. He has a theme. He has a Miriachi inspired theme song. That's just his name. Over and over again. Lionel Lionel. To the casual observer, New York in this country must be the exercise capitals of the world. You swear that we were obsessed with fitness. No, your clothes, not fitness. We're obsessed with fitness commercials and fads. Some of my favorites. First, the Russian kettlebell.

It's a recycled hidden gyms all over. Notice two things. First, as in the case of a perverted human behavior, when naming an exercise product, start off with the name of a place. Russia suggests hardcore. Cleveland denotes, well, you know, next. Who is laughing? You stop it. Those are the anchors. You stop it. Those are the anchors. You stop laughing right now. And you will see how sporadic that laughter is. Now look closely. Make the movement seem uncomfortable, humiliating, suggestive and threatening to human reproduction. Next, if it looks stupid, they'll buy it. Look at this thing. It's seen everywhere. I call it the exercise cyst. Billions have been sold and they come in different sizes and colors. What is it? It's popular. That's what it is. Next,

hire an obnoxious pitch man who screams at you the whole time, like this guy. You're jealous. Make sure he's in great shape using methods you know, never included the contraption he's using. Never have fat people or out of shape people anywhere near the thing you're advertising. Remember, you're selling dreams, not reminders. I'm going to cut this one short because I think we get the point. He's complaining about exercise. This is, this is essentially the grind my gears from Family Guy. That's exactly it. It's not far off. Yeah. I'm going to complain about exercise equipment. So it's what is his point? Exercise equipment is stupid. Here's my, you know, it's kind of, there's a hackiness to it. There's a pointlessness to it. Oh yeah. I mean, it's one of those things.

Like I understand life's tough, but like if you have a position where you're on television, you know, you think you would make use of that time and like really, if you're someone who has a lot to say, you know, don't waste your time talking about how exercise equipment is stupid. That's well, like well traveled ground. No, come on. It leads me to believe that maybe you're not, maybe don't have a lot to say. I might, I might agree with you. So a little bit later, especially considering the fact that he uses a lot of words and essentially said, I don't like exercise equipment. I think it's kind of a scam, which I mean, fine. Could have, yeah, could have gotten that out. Could have gotten that out in a sentence.

So a little bit after this, maybe a week or two after this probably, he comes in with another hot take. This one, this one is going to burn your hand. Okay. Why isn't that our intro? The Supreme Court will decide whether the government can ban the Delta or better, video games sold to minors. Now, what will they decide? Simple. They can do anything they want for any reason whatsoever. But the real issue is whether violent video games destroy minds of kids. And the answer is yes. Talk to any team gamer, a kid who plays nonstop for hours. Look at him. You see, have that blank and vapid stare. There's a mumble. Mumble to this, then even

Demosthenes would say, wow, look at that naked and internalized world of gamers. And you'll see that there's something very, very wrong there. And it's not so much that the games are violent. It's that they're repetitive and mind numbing. Gamers become catatonic after hours of this vacuous exercise. There's no socialization and conviviating. Sure, maybe have some other like minded zombie who's logged on to the game from some corner of the world. But that ain't socialization. You know, parents used to just worry about kids getting high or stoned on married Juana. And while I don't advocate its use, I sure as heck would prefer any activity that actually involved and encouraged social interaction, as opposed to the video lobotomy.

At the call of the game is a riot game. If you took lifers in Supermax and subjected them to nonstop staring at a computer monitor, where aliens are killed by way of a joystick for hours and hours at a clip, Amnesty International would be all over you. I think he thinks that all video games are just space invaders. Yeah, like stuck in that night, not realizing that a lot of games have like really compelling narrative structures to that staring at a computer screen, dude. Also, also, yeah, the, you know, the most social drug out there is weed. You know, you know how when you get high, you don't just, you know, sit around and eat Chinese food. You go out with a lot of friends and you get your, you get your jellies off. Sure. The one, the drug that makes

like, I don't know, 20% of the people who smoke it incredibly scared of Yeah, exactly. There was even a PSA. Do you remember the PSA commercial where they, the kid smoked marijuana and then sunk into the chair and became flat? That's the point. Wait, are you quoting drug PSAs? Exactly. Okay. Whoa, Matt. Ooh, Matt. You might as well be quoting a Lionel report. Anyway, he has more to say about video games. Okay. Let me try to articulate my thoughts. Precisely. Let me be trying to explicate and limb thoroughly my objections. It's turning kids into cyborgs. Anti-social duds. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Cyborgs? Children who've lost the appreciation of mere eye contact. Kids who will one day try to interview

for a job and will be shocked when they're 86. A kid who, I'll bet, never shakes the interviewer's hand. And if so, what's that creepy, squishy, non-committal, jello hand-squeezed thing? He has no discernible handwriting or penmanship skills because he's never used a pen for most, if not all of his life. And let's throw into the mix the Teen Boo Radley of today who enjoys a self-created sense of entitlement. And God only knows the amount of medication that's been prescribed in more cases than you can imagine to dampen what's left of a gamer's paralyzed personality. So pass all the laws you want. That's what we need, right? Parents, look at me. Games are fun. Games make you happy. These are games. These are toys. And this isn't funny. Let me know what

you think. Contact me at the mind-numbing graphics. Has he ever played a video game? I don't fucking know. What is he describing? I don't know. He's describing just being completely clueless about the topics he's covering. Now, I think that you can already see that what we've got is a hot take machine on our hands. Oh, man. So that's one issue. But there is a fundamental problem with us doing this episode. And that is that Lionel is also trying to be funny. I know. It's not going well. There is not going well. There is a piece of this that is, unfortunately, we're going to have to drift into deconstruction of humor and stuff like that because he's trying to be funny. But behind that, there are points that he's trying to make. And so we could still

talk about the points he's trying to make, even though he's trying to make them in a humorous way. I think he's against video games, pretty clearly. I guess. But he seems to also, if you hear the end of that, be against the idea of legislating against the video games. That's what we need. He's just against everything. He's a negative. What is this? Connor Friedersdorf? Come on now. Get on out of here. He's just manifesting a crank. He's just a cranky old shaking his fist at video games and the parents who allow their kids to become penniless zombies. Yeah, they don't have penmanship dance. You play so many video games, you literally have a pen in your hand right now.

I know. And I can't write with it. It's unfortunate. I have no discernible penmanship. It's all just for show. They have no penmanship. So exercise equipment sucks. Right. Video games turn you into a cyborg. Even it's not about the violence of the video games. I think that's my favorite part of the take is that he's not even doing the regular take. He's just like, hey, you think violent video games are bad? All video games turn you into the demons. Yeah. Pac-Man will make you unemployable. Great. How do you shake somebody's hand whenever it's so gnarled? It's got so much arthritis from the joystick. Oh yeah. So if that take was boiling, right? Hot. This next one is nuclear.

I would like to take this opportunity to describe a subject of great annoyance to me. I know what you're thinking with all the problems and unspeakable horrors that the world suffers. How bad can my annoyance possibly be? Let me worry about that. Okay. And frankly, I don't need that attitude, Missy. Now where was I? Oh, yes. My annoying. Backpacks, big purses, satchels, bags, anything slung over the shoulder or a fixed attached to or suspended from the back in a contained space like a subway car. I loathe. Yet again, one's desire for totability and portability outweighs any discomfort, inconvenience or pain that having some bag or purse shoved into you by an inconsiderate, self-centered, ego-centric and selfish boar who believe she's the center of the

universe. A universe you are merely permitted to wallow in. It's their world. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm a freak of nature. Maybe I'm possessed with some superhuman sentience and sensitivity because I can tell with some sherpa like backpack that I might wear, slams into some helpless strap hanger for two reasons. One, keen tactile sensitivity and two, the incessant screams of someone yelling, you're hurting me. Look, Bloomberg, you want to pass a law that actually makes sense that doesn't fascistically extinguish yet another civil liberty? Pass line law that makes one criminally liable for up to five years at hard labor for wearing a backpack or a satchel or bag looped over or suspended via a shoulder strap that touches, abuts, intrudes upon or in any way brings pain to

or inconveniences a subway passenger or anyone who must share close confines and whose incredibly horrible luck through some sick draw of the human idiot lottery positions them next to said idiot. What we're seeing is the systematic disregard for the feelings and comfort of others exhibit a the devolution of our once proud society. Comment as you see fit. What the fuck? All right. So if I understand correctly, tote bags, shopping bags, satchels, I'm not even ready to get into backpacks. Backpacks are way down the line. That's pretty serious stuff. I'm trying to figure out how to get there. That's the crack of this conversation. All of that is why our society is falling apart. I know that that's part of the bad comedy. Like that's him being hyperbole in the

same way saying five years of hard labor. I'm not going to respond to that in a serious way. Right. But I am going to respond to like, why did you waste everyone's time with this hacky wash it over a bit? Like this is a bad bit. Hey, people with backpacks on the train. It's suck. Go to any open mic. You'll hear that bit. This is low. This is low hanging fruit. This requires no creativity. No point of view. No perspective whatsoever. This is trash. Like this is legit trash. I am struggling to remember why the 80s comedy boom ended. And I can't fucking lie. I killed Air America and the 80s comedy boom. It's possible. So the quality was just so high back then. No fucking backpacks on the train.

That what would where would they go then? Like, I know that like that part about like hard labor and all that stuff is kind of it's a joke. Right. But if you even think about what he's saying, like, what would you do? Like, would you want to make a rule in place where people can't have backs? Like, how like how draconian would that be? What kind of a nightmare fascist nanny state would be living in? They're like, no backpacks in public. So so we have to have armed guards near every door of the confiscate everyone's bags, right? Put them on a like in a cannon and shoot them to the in the direction of their house. Right. Fair. So it'll land there and you can find if you have like, you know, things that are like might break. Yeah, that's on you. Yeah. That's your

fault. You should know about the cannon policy. You know, people are going to get around this by smuggling bags in, you know, they're going to get through the security guards and you know how they're going to hide the bag in a bigger bag. Probably. Yeah. Look, I get it. Never catch them. I get it. It's nice to be considerate to people. But like, let's say if you're taking the blue line to O'Hare or something like that, or coming back from O'Hare on the blue line. No luggage. What? Like you could never really be that upset by people with luggage on the train. No, you can't. They're going somewhere. I am. I'm furious with them and they need to do five years hard labor. So I'm glad you should never have taken the train to get to the trip. I'm pissed off. Also,

you shouldn't have bags and planes. Well, now what you're really critiquing, not the bags and planes thing, but like you shouldn't take the train to the airport where you're critiquing is them not being able to afford a cab. Right. Now you're getting into some real class punching down issues. Oh, come on. You know, you know, hack comedians never punch down. That'd be crazy. So this, like, there's no, there's no way to really put a finer point on this than to say this is terrible. Yeah, he is not. This is very, this is very bad stuff from a comedic perspective and just from like a being interesting perspective. But I did find what I should say, I watched so many goddamn Lionel videos. It sounds great. Purely, purely for the theme song that

he enters into. It's, it's interesting because in these early days, he has a perspective that's kind of cranky old man hack. Certainly we've seen that. Yeah. But he also comes in with a little bit of decent analysis every now and again, that might surprise you. I think this next clip, it would absolutely surprise me. I mean this completely non facetiously. This next clip is a little bit surprising. It is rare that I don't care about something. I have opinions about everything. And I mean everything. So it's most odd that I can say the following. As to Donald Trump's, I guess, Bertha claims, namely that either the president wasn't born in this country, or that there's something fishy about the history of past. I could say unequivocally,

I don't care. And that's odd because if the allegations are true, that a president's term and administration are invalidated and everything he's ordered or caused to happen here before are in fact a constitutional nullity. But here we are halfway through his first term and we're talking about it. Now, okay, Donnie, make your case. And this is where it falls flat. You see, maybe it's the prosecutor in me, but call me wacky. I want this thing called proof. Make your case and something fishy ain't exactly a cause of action. Now, I don't know, maybe for example, something like maybe a Kenyan birth certificate or somebody proving that his Hawaiian certificate of live birth is a forgery. That might be nice. That's something. And the country, as per usual,

couldn't care less about this or elections or the Constitution or anything. They're not exactly rioting in the streets over the issue. But I love the fact that he's driving MSNBC's Chris Matthews crazy. And that's not a very long ride. Thank you, Joe. Anything that makes him turn beat red and yell and produce voluminous and prodigious pools of saliva makes me happy. So, Donnie, as far as being the torque amount of the grand inquisitor and prosecutor of the claim, you're fired. Your claim so far, what's the word? Suck. But you're driving Chris Matthews a bat, a batty. And I love that. So keep it up. And when we're worried about Mr. Drulcup, the hardball dude, you know, and I know that if he had any doubt about Sarah Palin's birth country, he'd be all over it. You know,

it's true, Matthews. You know, it's true. And finally, I personally hate people who think they're funny when they're not. Next to leprosy, that tops my list of stuff I load. So it's leprosy and people who think they're funny. I'm going to leave that there for a second. Let him finish the clip. But that is a crazy one, too, of things you're mad about. So I hereby announce and declare that all Donald Trump hair jokes have been used. And from here on, the comedic subject matter is absolutely and thoroughly exhausted. So stop. There is nothing new, novel, or vaguely unique about anything of an end relating to or pertaining to that, that thing on his head. So please, it's over. Okay, all right, fine. I don't, I mean, here's,

here's my first thought. All right, with that with that blistering non take, I guess, I mean, no, I think for for someone who ends up becoming a QAnon expert and a frequent Alex Jones, devotee, regular guest, I think I think I think the idea of him saying years back, Donald Trump, please shut up about this unless you can prove it. As far as you being in charge of this birth certificate nonsense, you're fired. I think that's pretty, that's a take. Like, it might not be in the general population. Yeah, but in the population of Alex Jones, guests and stuff like that, that's shocking to hear. I am a big fan of the I need proof to I think Q is great. Yeah, yeah, crazy transformation. And I can tell you why that happened. Now, here's my question. He

clearly hates people who think they're funny when they're not that he said as much and he thinks he's funny and he's not. So that leads me to believe he also has leprosy. That's the only way to explain. But he's just another example of like someone who's a failed humor kind of person who ends up on the right. No, come on. Just yet another. So I think that that take is interesting in the world of his tapes. Yeah, I should say that there's a lot of ones we're not going to listen to at all like things where he's against globalism or the Federal Reserve and stuff like that because it's like, it's what you'd expect. It's not an anomaly. It's like, okay, yeah, should we waste our time confirming that this guy who loves Ron Paul and all that even

back then, yeah, believes the things that anybody who loves Ron Paul believes, right, not really. It's not worth our time. Of course not. What is worth our time is this blistering surface of the sun level take that he's got about holidays. According to a National Retail Federation report, seven in 10 Americans will celebrate the most insidious and pathetic public spectacle known, Halloween. This year, Americans are expected to spend an average of $72 each with total outlays by consumers expected to reach $6.86 billion. Is that a lot? Does he think that $70 is a lot or is that not enough? I don't understand what he's just saying numbers. And I don't think if you live in some sort of a neighborhood

and like buying $70 worth of candy to give to the kids on Halloween, that's a lot of candy. It's a lot of candy, but I also don't see it as like, whoa, kind of numbers. I don't think it's Halloween, Dan. Of course it's whoa, kind of numbers. I don't think that's a meaningful statistic in this context. Also like, oh, they're going to spend $6.1 billion. So, you know, somebody's getting that money like, I want this part of the economy shut down. But if you, I agree there, but if you said like everybody on average is spending $380, I'd be like, that seems like a lot. Like we need to consider this. Yeah. 70 is within the realm of like, that's just a lot of candy for a lot of kids. Or which is a crime. Or there are those people who spend so much money on their crazy house

decorations and bump the average. Right. So there's also that to consider, but who cares? This guy's dumb. For what? A pagan ceremony and celebration that has been commandeered by a sick, indemented group of psychologically twisted people, namely adults. What, like valentines day? There's nothing more pathetic than to hear a grown adult man or woman talking yammer on incessantly about the cool costume they'll buy or what they'll be. Translation, I'm nothing, a zero, a humanality. But for this one night, I'll become something, anything, but this, this miserable empty vessel and vapid zero that I call me. It gives women the chance to start about like trellis. Slatterns and skites all under the excuse of Halloween celebrations. Translation, I'm a zero, a sexual

empty set. I'd be safe, new to the Greek galley ship or in a lumberjack camp. But tonight, tonight I'm the sexy nurse, a scantily clad beau-peep, the syphilitic French maid. Halloween for me will always be that of my youth. Well, you got a costume in a box and it consisted of a mask whose eye holes didn't match up in a way to the orbital radius of a child, thus in effect, blinding you. And it was held on with the flimsy piece of elastic that fastened with a t-bone metal fastener, that cape or costume had the design of a hospital examination room and was made of a substance that made a bookie's flash paper look like asbestos. They swore the costumes were safe. Check out this train on PC label, flame retarded. So you think he's boo? Boo! He thinks he's being

super edgy there in terms like flame retardant. Get it? Yeah, yeah, these PC people wouldn't be cool with that. He thinks that's a great joke. It's the same thing with like Oriental. You can call a rug Oriental, like you can call things. PC people wouldn't like that. They don't mind. It's totally fine to call like an Oriental vase or something like that. How dare you? People are not. In the same way that like flame retardant or you know, there's a retarder that you need to use for bread preparation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like that sort of thing because retard means to delay, to slow down. That sort of thing. So flame retardant is a delayer or slower down of flame. Right. That's a term. It's not okay to apply that term to people. He's not being edgy at all, but he thinks he is.

I know. He really thinks he's scoring a point. He is. He's making an accusation about these imaginary PC people that he's so against or worried about that isn't a point anyone would make. No, it's very stupid. That nobody would care about. He's not quite done. I think my favorite part of him though so far is that he's not even like an old crank where he's like, it was better back in my day. I think he's just more like, I hate everything kind of for no reason except Q and and Ron Paul back then. Right. Ouch. Because of the consistency of the polyester torch fabric, ventilation was non-existent and hyperthermia would set in within 10 minutes of your nighttime death stroll. You'd put on this thermal blanket that would go up like a torch for you to get

anywhere near an open flame. A fix your mask that effectively acted like a blindfold and you'd make your way into the night alone, knocking on strange neighbors doors. Think Boo Radley meets Ed Gein. That's our second Boo Radley. And part of the fun was hearing the stories of kids rustle the apple with the razor blade and the image stuck with me to this day. Now that was Halloween. Not this tawdry demented garbage today. Trick or treat. Comment as you see fit. Comment as you see fit. That's his sign off. It's become his good night and good luck as time goes on. He incorporated it a little bit down the line and he's stuck to it. I don't like the idea that he's talking about the idea of razor blades being an apples as a positive thing that he remembers

that was Halloween. That was Halloween. Constant fear. Yeah. And about the people laughing, the only explanation I can come up with because I've watched so many of these and most of it's pity laughter. Yeah. But like that was a big load of laughter. And I think it's because it's a holiday like Halloween episode and they're drunk. I think I'm guessing they're drunk in studio. It's like it gives a shit. It's a holiday. We get to drink at work. I think it would be funny to watch this if I was if I was in a UHF station VHF VHF Jesus. I'm not doing great. It's all right. Um if I was there and I saw this happening live I think I would find it hilarious but not because of what he was saying. No the same way watching someone bomb it and open mic often will laugh.

Oh it's my favorite thing. I was like wow. Wow. Hecky bits about Halloween. You got him. Yeah. Oh man. I don't want people to laugh at this. I more want the people there just to be like pumping their fists in the air like yeah man you take them down. Yeah. So as time goes on Lionel starts to have a slight transformation I believe and I think you can trace it to around when the second term of Obama starts to come around when the reelection campaign starts getting going to start to see a little bit more weird things being said because up to this point this is like the stuff that we're not covering is the stuff you'd expect. I wonder if he doesn't like hip hop music. No that although that would fit right in with this. Yeah. Like what this is

is like the real deal with Bill McNeil. Yeah 100 percent. Just basically the real deal even had its own theme song. It is exactly that Lionel is living a news radio bit basically the real deal with Bill McNeil. Lionel Lionel Lionel. I'm intending to drive the audience crazy by playing that forever. I want to hear that same song. I want I here's what I would prefer. Don't worry you're going to hear it at least six or seven more times. I want to hear it every single time. I think I think what I would do if I was going to punch up his show play the theme song and then do a lightning round of just him with any topic just like hey how do you feel about paper too live too big. How do you feel about but how do you feel about the get it get it in and out within

two minutes it'd be great. I honestly don't think that would be great. I know I'm going to go with editing zero zero if I were going to help bump this up. Yeah. I would do is a page one rewrite. There's just the whole thing. I'd recast it. You'd recast it. I'd probably take it out of PIX 11. Seems like a not a great environment for this sort of thing. I would rewrite all the bits. Yeah. I would change the perspective. I would do everything differently. Oh wait. I just wouldn't do it. I'm going to be honest. I do find his he's he's got a certain amount of showmanship. I mean appeal. I can see he's got he's got a certain amount of like I can see what you're doing. I can see why you got this job. He presents as someone who's having fun and there's a little

bit of that that is infectious. Yeah. But beyond that I can't say much for it. No. So like I said as the re-election starts to come around you start to see a shifting and I can say this as someone who watched too many of these videos. Yeah. This clip really struck me as pretty weird. You know when I like something I like it and I don't care what you think or what's popular or hip or in if I like it I like it and if I don't like it I don't. Now in fact the best way to kill my endorsement of anything is to tell me that everybody's digging it. Take W as in the press POTUS push 43. George Bush is making the rounds pushing his book decision points and listen to me carefully and look at me. I like him. That is a president him. I don't know what happens to a

president. They they leave office and they let their guard down. They they change. Remember Bob Dole. Okay he ran for president but for years he was this stiff a stick in the mud and then he leaves office and he became the poster child for EV and Viagra. By the way you know what happens when a lawyer takes Viagra. He gets taller and George Bush has qualities I like. Okay first now here's a word you'll never hear anybody ever use on TV because A. they don't know it and B. They think you're stupid. I don't. Bush was a cackle epist. A mispronounce or nuclear. Remember that one? He was king of the Malaprop. He said parents wanted to put food on their family. Fine. I know that scared me too. I could only imagine him on the secure phone

reading the nuclear codes backwards but I like his sort of to dog on it make up your mind. Fisher get off the pot. See now he's got me doing it. Now he won't slam Obama. He says now that he's always said about the war. He said the same thing about the war in Saddam and WMD. He's the decider and could not care less what you or I oppose think. I must admit the bit with Barbara Bush and the miscarriage and the fetus and the jar loved it. Okay a little different and I like his honesty about drinking. You know some have suggested that he's a dry drunk. You know he stopped drinking but didn't get sober. He had 24 years ago but that's admirable and the society with the Charlie Shane's and Lindsay Lohan's spiraling out of control. He took control of himself. He never

chased women or compromised national security by opening himself up to blackmail playing hide the panatella. He's not the worst president. That was Franklin Pierce hands down as a president. But I don't kid yourself. Obama is exactly the same but as a man human being I like him almost as much as the 22nd amendment comment as you see fit. So that's for someone who ended up as a Q and on conspiracy theorist who believes that the Bush family and the Clinton cabal and all that are intertwined and all that and find this very strange. I find this to be very weird. Like the idea of like even if he's saying I'm not saying I like him as a president but I like the guy. Yeah he's falling into the same sort of trap that dumb media people did with the idea of like

now that W is out of office isn't he isn't it interesting that he's a painter. Yeah that's sort of yeah he's falling instead of in the Hague. Right. But that's what he would say now. Right. Right. Is the Q and on conspiracy theorist because he's made that pivot now whereas before he had every reason to hate Bush Bush's term was over. All of the war crimes had been committed. He has every reason at this point to be like fuck that. I'm not giving him a pass. I kind of like the guy kind of like the guy. Hey he's being honest about drinking. How about that. Go president. Everyone hated that Obama was honest about cigarettes. Oh no but that's because Obama is evil. Definitely for I mean definitely for non race related reasons 100 percent for non race related.

Yeah I wonder if that has anything to do with the when I look at Obama see George Bush. I like the guy. It's strange. Hey Obama same president but as a person I don't like him and I can't put my finger on why now my based on all of my shit opinion so far. I think you can guess now might be a time to tell you about the overwhelming number of videos that Lionel has put out about how George Zimmerman is totally cool didn't do anything wrong. About how Donald Sterling is all right. What the Westboro Baptist Church are crusaders for free speech. Okay. He doesn't like them but they're crusaders. Right. Right. Of course. Of course. Ferguson was a disaster. I thought it was a hoax. He might believe that now but back then it was just you know it's all nonsense. He has a real

trend of weirdly exactly like Alexi kind of race stuff but it's a little bit more understated and a lot of the time he's doing these like reports that are there's a detempt at humor at it. Yeah in it but I should say he is probably like 40 50. It's in the dozens of videos about Zimmerman. It's it's pretty. That's too many. It's pretty wild. How can there be dozens of videos about Zimmerman. He's a trial lawyer. So he has a legal take on it. Although there are a lot of other legal cases that have come out that he could have spent that much time on. Yeah. It seems like this one was really important to him. You know what's weird is the more he talks the more I feel like when he was nine he saw my cousin Vinny was like that's what I'm going to be when I grow up.

Interesting. Like this is this is weird. I don't think the ages match up for him to have been nine but no the moment he saw my cousin Vinny he grew about 30 40 years. That's that's possible. Yeah. It could be a big situation. Oh yeah. So you know he talked in that last clip about liking W and that's kind of like I just feel like that's a little hacky and you know if you're a serious commentator you should probably be above that. But then this next clip made me even more concerned that maybe this guy ain't cool. Did Cheney's book in my time hit the bookstores and downloads today and not exactly a brilliant title in my time. Isn't that understood. What else would he call his biography after I'm dead

before I was born. Where's the worst stuff that he and Bush pushed. Had the most incredibly boring names unitary executive presidential signing statements. But trust me they were so toxically unconstitutional and the country couldn't care less. But Nancy Gray's undancy with a start. Well that's news. So real quick we have at the beginning the presentation of the statement. You know it's very clear. He's saying that what Bush and Cheney did it's unconstitutional with boring names but people weren't paying attention. That was the trick. Let's see where this goes. Well look I didn't vote for him or Bush either time and I thought he did irreparable harm to what's left of our country's international image. That being said I miss him. I miss his certitude

and his decisiveness that lip snarl our thing. The fact that he has no pulse. I miss his refusal to equivocate when he and the decider made up their minds. That was it. Don't call him. It was wrong. They were making work. It was definite and unambiguous. This president doesn't have that. And while Bush hemmed and hawned and stammered and stumbled he spoke exceptionally poorly perhaps but they were his words poorly cobbled together granted and ineffectively delivered but no prompter. The whole nuclear business drove me nuts. Where was I. Oh Cheney right now look you've got to give him one thing. He's scared the hell out of most people. Most of the Americans but there's something to be said for that. Look let me tell you ordering the death just like you

want to bounce it looks scary. There's something to be said for a guy who looks like a cross between Mr. Potter and Cerberus the three headed hound that guards the gates of the underworld. Shut up Dennis. Believe me. You know when I know that there are some nasty folks in the world and it comes in handy to be able to say you know I wouldn't do that if I were you. I don't think Dick Cheney would appreciate that versus he's going to torture you. I don't want to have to tell Joe Biden or watch it fella or President Obama is going to read you the riot act as long as it's prompt or ready. Dick Cheney also has an attitude that dog on it. I love it. It's that I don't care what you think attitude recently when he was being interviewed about his book some media thought

she'd get him up you know with a tough question and before she could even get it out he'd answer her like of course no big deal. Vice President Cheney you want to rise torture. Yes well I wasn't done. Waterboarding yes of course please sir I mean finish. Jumper cables on genitals absolutely please let me finish. Be honest don't you kind of miss him a little bit. Comment as you see fit. I don't understand he's trying to be funny and that's why I leave a tiny bit of room that this is all satire but I don't think it is. No. Because the talking points about Obama and the teleprompter are consistent. Yeah. The idea that Biden and Obama are ineffectual is consistent. Of course. The idea what he's expressing underneath a lot of that attempts at

humor is something that I believe he's sincerely arguing that is the world is afraid of Dick Cheney and that is a positive thing. Yeah. Which is not something anybody should argue if they're a serious thinker like that's not that's not good analysis that is very very bad. Dan don't you miss when stupid people used to just assume they were right and do things without any kind of pre-analysis whatsoever and just kind of really get shit done. Now admittedly that shit was war crimes. Right. Death torture. Why should hundreds of millions of people killed. Why should he be worried about like or praise efficiency if it's efficiency towards a goal he's against. Like what is the that makes zero sense. Like there's internal inconsistency through so many of these reports

because I think they're like an attempt to be interesting and attempt to be funny and an attempt to make points that are very poorly thought through. Yeah. And that is exactly what you'd expect of someone who ends up becoming a QAnon guy. Right. Like just. Well of course of course with that kind of dumb worldview you look up to Trump and you're like yeah see he's going to just do it. Like it's kind of interesting that so many of these people like the nationalist movement that we're seeing right now globally is of course just a reaction to all of the neo-liberalism bullshit but there is a certain part of us that you know that goes both ways. Like when people elected Obama there was a certain part of everybody going like oh now we have somebody

who's just going to finally fix it. Not we have to constantly be vigilant to avoid war crimes. But because we finally got our guy who's just going to you know cut through all the bullshit Dan we all want to cut through all the red tape. What are you planning for? What are you doing all of these statistics for? Cut through it and get shit done. That mental weakness does exist all over the place. Yeah. It feeds into each other from both sides for sure. I just think that what you see here is it was the order of the day because at this point the you know the election had already happened. Obama like Ron Paul's not going anywhere. The Ron Paul revolution had deflated by 2012 so it's stupid to have some sort of an idea that like Ron is going to be the guy. He ends up retiring

from Congress in 2013. His whole like sense as a like savior a potential savior is gone. So what you do when you're Lionel and you're a hack and you're basically just libertarian leaning establishment nonsense. What you do is you harken towards the strong man who was there. Of course. Because you're so dissatisfied with Obama it's the easiest cheapest route to having a position that someone will air. Right. And so that's what he does. That's you know that that's the position that he weaves into. Now granted there's still you know the consistent I am against globalism. Right. Right. And I will say to his credit there are a number of videos that he's put out about like defending gay rights and stuff like that. Okay. Now to his

credit he seems to be on the right side of that. I'll tell him to that. Yeah. He does seem to have a weird stance on like fat shaming and bullying though. He seems to think that those things are things that are totally cool. Yeah. Of course he does. Oh of course he does. That's like I don't know. Yeah. That makes perfect sense. I couldn't get my hand. I couldn't get a handle on that in terms of where his position was. I think his take on that if I was going to guess without any knowledge of what he said. I assume there are plenty of synonyms. A little bit of a vocabulary show off session. Maybe a Greek mythology reference. Exactly. Somebody is Boo Radley in this situation. Absolutely. That's gonna come into play for sure. The fat person who's being shamed is Boo Radley.

Of course. He's made to be Boo Radley. They can't shake anybody's hands. No. But it sounds to me more like he's doing that thing where he's like bullying and fat shaming made me stronger and I hate bullies and fat shamers. It's possible. So I want it around but I think they should be killed. It does. It does feel like I mean you've already pointed this out on an earlier clip. It's like you you're projecting a bit here. Yeah. These points are hacky and lame. Comedy is bad. The perspective is weak and you're talking about yourself. Yeah. Now I want to say he's made these harkening and overtures towards a romanticized past of Cheney. Of course. And liking Bush and stuff like that. And don't don't think for a second that even at that point he had forgotten where he came

from. He still is a man who knows his roots. Mayor Bloomberg, I beg you to do something about an instance of incivility seen daily in the bowels of our subterranean locomotive system. Are we doing bags again? The subway. And I beg and implore besieged and treat you dear leader to unleash and untether the full faith and credit of your limitless power to strike down apprehend and if necessary incarcerate these practitioners of untold and unimaginable savagery. Those who insist upon wearing the bane of my existence, the backpack. Not just the huge oversized sherpa like lawnmower sized bundles that people strapped to their backs in complete contravention of the rules of civility, but all backpacks. Mayor Bloomberg and Al

Bloomberg. You're the problem. Stop the madness. Stop the insanity and terror. Oh, the horror, the humanity. Mayor Bloomberg, sir, please in a cramped train as in life every available inch counts and matters. I understand that an elbow and knee may indeed been trued upon my state. I don't know. I'm gonna shut this off. He did backpacks again, man. This is back again. This is crazy. He's got to get back to it. It's crazy to do it once nobody nobody is keeping it in the news, Dan. It's got to stay in the news cycle. You got a harp on it. You can't you got to hold Bloomberg's feet to the fire, Dan. I got to think like he just ran out of time to get the report together for that and forgot he'd already covered backpacks on the train.

It's borderline. What in the fuck? It's borderline the same script too. It's very close. It's super close. A lot of different synonyms. So like I'm saying, he's still doing that. Even at this point when he started to take this like pretty harsh pivot towards, I mean, just conservative nonsense that just the train that he's not wearing a backpack on, of course, just keeps going that direction. And you'll see in this next clip him say some stuff that is just like it's indefensible levels like he takes it. He's taking a turn now where it's not just like these weird globalism and Ron Paul apologetic like sort of positions that are weird. He's starting to say things that are like, I can't believe this. The Todd Aiken case was a distraction, a disgusting, despicable

distraction. Todd Aiken's comments about legitimate rape have absolutely nothing to do with anything. Let me repeat. No, they do. They're irrelevant. Inapposite. And believe me when I tell you this that Romney Obama and everyone charged with crafting policy or stewarding a presidential election could not be happier with this story. Todd Aiken is irrelevant. Todd Aiken's thoughts about anything and I mean anything are irrelevant. But what this did was to give the media something to talk about because it was something they could grasp, especially Democratic and Obama re-election campaign operative and specifically those that are seen on their official network MSDNC. He thinks you're too stupid to get the reference. All discussion about anything that will affect you

and your family has been suspended and instead we parse and reverse engineer rather the mind of Todd Aiken. And his unique theories of how legitimate rape prevents contraception or something I don't even understand and frankly I don't care. The issues like Mittens's tax returns, his offshore accounts, Ryan's abs, these subjects are easy to digest and comprehend. Todd Aiken means nothing. Todd Aiken is a red herring, a rodeo clown, a distraction, a diversion, and quintessentially irrelevant. This is a distraction. Look how much time has been wasted in this meaningless discussion. You're doing it. You're trying to conflate and associate this man's idiocy with Romney, Ryan, the GOP, RNC, the right wing Tea Party, evangelicals, name it.

American political discussion is a rehashed, refurbished, reconstituted, left-right paradigm argument. The left-right paradigm. The level of sophistication when it comes to the issues is beyond simplistic. Seriously. Let me put it this way. Imagine talking baseball with a pal and in turn he would say, eh, you're a typical national league. That's so national league. I'm an American league, true blue. What does that have to do with anything? Here's where the argument falls apart that he's using there, exactly. In one of the leagues, pictures have to hit. In the other one, they don't. So there is a substantive difference between the national and American leagues. Your attempt to minimize this into some

reducto ad absurdium argument falls apart. Dum dum. What kind of argument is that? National league. What about baseball? The game, the sport? That's where we are today. We've distilled and reduced the argument to personality, bumper sticker, playbook argument. The world monetary systems are on the verge of absolute collapse. We are on our way to endless wars in countries that have absolutely nothing to do with our country and freedom and way of life. You said that was great. Surveillance is out of control. So while all of this is happening, today we're talking about Todd Ake. Tomorrow something equally as a name and the obfuscation will continue until November. And yet these 10 backs are sock puppet media barking seals con you into thinking that they're

giving you the news coming as you see fit. I will. So, so what are you doing then? That's, that's a really important point because he's covering it. Right. The idea is like, first of all, he's not taking into account the idea that a media can cover multiple stories simultaneously because it's not like the media has one employee. Oh shit, all my time has been spent writing this Todd Akin article can't get to the bigger things. Right. The examples that he's talking about here, like the endless wars, the economy collapsing and stuff like that. He is the one who is guilty of not covering all these things in favor of talking about Todd Akin. What? But his angle on it is to dismiss this Todd Akin, you know, legitimate rape doesn't

cause pregnancies nonsense. Yeah. Todd Akin did. Now the bigger issue is that Todd Akin being conflated with like the Tea Party and stuff like that isn't irresponsible because he's a member of the Tea Party. That makes sense. The other thing is that his statements weren't condemned by the people on the right. They, they, maybe a couple people did, but generally speaking, people much like with the Nazi Steve King, just sort of like, let's not talk about those girls away. That's sort of the thing. He was a member of the House of Representatives. Like it is relevant. No, it's irrelevant. No, it's relevant. He's got nothing to do with the world. He's an elected official with a modicum of power. It is relevant what his views are when they're this inane and

misogynistic about both the issues of abortion and rape. It is very important. He's got no, there's no point in talking about him. It's not like he has the power to draft legislation. He does. Wait, what? Yeah, I should tell you that. Oh, shit. Well, then he's an important person to talk about. I got bad news about the House. It is very, it's very relevant. It's not a distraction. This is a distraction. This is, this is distracting you from the idea of what Todd Akin, like what it highlights, what it illustrates. It's not to say that every person who's against abortion is like him. It's not to say that every conservative is like him. But a fucking lot are it shines a light on somebody who probably up till that point didn't

say anything like that, but appeared to be a normal run of the mill conservative anti-abortion. Yeah, it gives you a chance when people misspeak to see like, oh, there's probably at least a couple other people who had those same sort of views. And that's really fucked up to think about. It's called saying the quiet part loud, right? It's also really fucked up how he apologized and then lost to Claire McCaskill and then later wrote a book where he was like, I shouldn't have apologized. I definitely believe those things that fucked up. I didn't read that. No, most people didn't. I didn't read his book saying, yeah, legitimate rape is right. See, I was right on the science. Yeah, right on the science. It's crazy. Like this is this is nuts. But this is the sort

of behavior that you'd expect to see out of someone like this, going out of their way in order to run interference in some ways about conservatives who do things that are really horrible. Yeah, it's much like his comedy is hacky. This is just political. Right. It's, it's like he, and this is something that I think a lot of white people do as they get older. Like they ride the minor inconvenience train to out and out white supremacy. Oh, you bet. Where it's like, Oh, I hate bags on these fucking trains. It's terrible. And sure, it's a lot of black people who do those bags. But for right now, it's not going to be important, but five years about the bags now, five years from then, it's like, and of course, that's why whites need to break away

from civilization. Naturally. It's the bags, Dan. It's all about the bag. It's always been about the bag. Everything else is a distraction. distraction from the bag. And I can't stress enough how like, you clearly have editorial oversight of your own show. You chose to talk about this Lionel also every time that he's assigning Lionel a thing to bitch about. If I had any, like Photoshop capability, I would take the Lionel theme song and just use the Zelda villain bad guy, you know, the, the lion and dwarf. No, the Lionel. Oh yeah. Okay. Make a, like a flash video of the Lionel dancing with a Mariachi band. That's all that goes through my head. But so the next clip we're going to play, think about that while the theme song plays.

Would someone please explain to me the inordinate fascination all of a sudden with Chas Bono? I know, I know. I am going to explain to him the inordinate fascination with Chas Bono. You know, it's interesting. Actually, he asked me politely. He said, please, you don't need to, because at the end of the clip, he will invalidate everything he said during the clip and make evident that he knows what the fascination with Chas Bono is. And he's just being an obsequious dick. I'm using words like I'm lying. That's a, that's a great adjective, Dan. He's just being intentionally obtuse here by pretending he doesn't understand why the media that's in him thanks has an interest in covering Chas Bono. He's just being an asshole.

I will say though, I do appreciate that he doesn't misgender Chas. I appreciate that because anybody else of this ilk probably would for sure. And is truly in my book a hero, a hero to thousands of people, including teens who, through no fault of their own, are born with a sexual apparatus that does not comport with what they feel in their mind. Sexuality and gender identity are located in the brain and the heart. So good for you Chas. That being said, I'm starting to get sick of Chas Bono. Now I know the problems with his mom. She's freaked out originally, but she's come around. I understand all that. And now the news is centered around Chas appearing on Dancing with the Stars. I get it. But maybe it's me. Maybe I get bored easily. Maybe I'm so accepting of Chas

and it's no. He gets bored easily. He did over 30 videos about George Zimmerman being cool. That's because he was so boring. A big deal. Maybe I'm the only person who actually couldn't care less about Dancing with the Stars. I mean, I have that initial second time. And listen, this isn't one of those. There are more important issues lectures. I'm a fan of pop culture and intellectual fast food. But the question that I'd like to ask Chas that I know you want to ask too. Come on, face it. You want to know. And my friend Judy Golden, her new one woman shows says it best. You're not friends. Or I guess asks it best. Why is Chas so fat? It's not the penile reconstruction or I guess to be accurate, the construction that I wonder about. That's pretty straightforward. Wait, is that a pun?

Or is it that MSNBC motto that nobody understands? Anywho, the enormity of Chas's girth, the weight that is, is troubling. To reiterate, the guts and courage part, I can't emphasize enough. But let's be fair. The fact that he's got a platform with famous parents certainly helps. There are transgendered folks in small towns who literally risk their lives coming out, so to speak. The whole boys don't cry, Brandon Tina thing comes to mind. And on a different note, if Jenny Craig, who's a genius, doesn't snatch Chas up, she's crazy. I think America's ready for him. After all, if Carrie Fisher with her ECT electroshock every six weeks story is okay, which is fine. If she's good for business, so well, Chas. There, I'm glad I got this off my chest. Comment, as you

see fit. So isn't that interesting there at the end where he's talking about how like, you know, Chas has a large platform as a celebrity, and there's a lot of transgender youths who are struggling. I don't understand how he can end the clip with such an invalidation of what his premise was. The idea that he's sick and tired of seeing Chas Bono around, when at the end of the clip, he makes very clear that he understands that this is very valuable for transgender youths who are struggling in small town America, get to see somebody who is representative of them, making them feel normal for him to pretend that he's like, I'm totally fine with trans people. I'm not against that at all. But fuck this representation thing. I'm fucking annoyed by

it. And yeah, jazz is fucking fat. I'm pretty sure what he just said was a, I don't like it because it doesn't affect me. Sure, I get it because for the people it does affect, it's actually very important. But people being fat affects me. I don't understand. I really don't. Like if I were the segment producer on this show, and he submitted this as a script, I would be like, there's internal problems here. You contradict yourself. Or at very least, you let make clear at the end here that you know exactly what the issue is and why you shouldn't be annoyed by this. But the fact that you are still annoyed by this and aware of why jazz is a valuable figure in pop culture and media indicates that maybe you aren't so into trans rights and acceptance

as you're pretending to be perhaps, perhaps the end of this undercuts your point. I would go to a page one rewrite recast. That's probably why you're not a segment producer for a VHF station. God damn this. That is just embarrassing. Like from a comedy perspective, from a human perspective, from a point perspective, from a writing perspective, from a thought, everything about that is just really bad. Yeah, I don't know. So that's interesting that we have Chas Bono here. And this is his take on on him. And that's great. His take on him is it's super awesome that a trans person is coming out. I'm annoyed by it. I can see why people find it inspirational. And the fact that he is out and we are talking about him so much also helps normalize trans people.

And that helps normalize and make trans people feel comfortable in places where maybe they wouldn't be ever made to feel comfortable. Because finally, this pop culture image is being transmitted to their parents, making them feel more comfortable with the idea of their children being trans. But also, Jenny Craig needs to get too fat. That goes back to the bullying and fat shaming thing that I brought up earlier. Like I really can't understand where he is, like where his heart lies on it, because he does have a number of videos about how bullies are bad, like people, they're committing a bad thing. He defends the right to bullying and the idea that it's okay to do, but the people who do it are bad. But it would be not a difficult argument to make that

what he's doing there is a bit bullying. Yeah, it's a little bit bullying. Also, hey buddy, why do you think somebody who spent most of their life feeling uncomfortable in their own skin, afraid of coming out to their, to his parents or his, his mom, afraid of doing so many things? Why do you think that person might gain weight? No idea. So I, yeah, it's just a mess. It is a mess. So that's how he talks about Chas Bono. And let's see how he talks about someone else in this next clip and see if there's differences. I'm guessing RuPaul. Have you noticed how immediately after the horror in Norway, the killer was said to be connected to right wing groups? And he was a right winger and extremist, anti-Muslim,

anti-immigration. Listen to me, this is dangerous. Let me explain why. The motivation for crime, though, fascinating is absolutely irrelevant. And the focus on ideology is dangerous. Why? First, it allows for the expansion of a singular sick event into a bigger message, a theme that then seeks to include and brand all those people that are believed to fall under the dangerously vague title of right wing, whatever. Yes, correct. Insanity knows no ideology. Giving evil a particular political label seeks to legitimize the terror by explaining its motivation. And inadvertently, we're giving queens to killers. What Charles Manson orchestrated the Tate-Lavianca murders. It was believed that this nut wanted to incite a race war through Helter Skelter.

Because he said he did. And what would that make Manson? A white supremacist or a fallen lefty hippie? No, no white supremacist. Like hate crime laws, we needlessly complicate the issue by throwing into Salem's motivation and bias into the elements of proof, thus complicating matters. Now prosecutors have to prove why a crime was committed, in addition to a defendant's intent to commit the crime. Have you noticed that in our country domestic terror is different for Democratic and Republican administrations? When Republicans were in power, domestic terrorism is for it. Islamophashism and oxymoron have been laughted in al-Qaeda. When Democrats are in power, domestic terrorism is homegrown. Right wing, think Waco, Oklahoma City. Counterpoint, when was the

first, who was in power during the first time Bin Laden attacked the World Trade Center? I have no idea who you're talking about. Militias. In our current system, let me add constitutionalist, anti-tax, pro-second amendment, anti-big government types. Now here's where the danger really gets dangerous. The more that these discussions go from the Norway case at hand to his support of the English Defense League and its similarity to right wing extremist groups here, and further similarity to our Tea Party and the likes of Ron Paul or Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachman, the mutual conflation and expansion then leads to some weird kind of transitive property application that connects the nut in Norway to our political and special interest groups here. Yes. Labeled

right wing by the brain dead media. Wow. And look at me. That's exactly what's happening here, you dig? So listen to the talk of the echo chamber. Be careful, scenographic media connecting culpability and cause to the right wing, whatever. Don't let the horror of the Norway West massacre be co-opted and exploited for political reasons here. Comment as you see fit. I will. That's what you're doing. That's what he's doing. He won't even say Anders Brevik's name. He won't even acknowledge that, like he won't talk about this in any real way. And if you want to, if you want to hear more about why this is bullshit, we did a whole episode about Anders Brevik and his attack. And one of the things I can tell you with categorical certainty

is that Lionel has never read his manifesto. Lionel has no interest in understanding exactly what motivated Anders Brevik to do the things he did because they are so close to the same motivations that do inspire the militias and the right wing and the Tea Party. Like those sorts of anti-immigrant anti-Muslim sentiments are so deeply embedded in what motivated his attack. And all of that. Like I do understand what he's saying in terms of, hey, this guy isn't representative of all of us at point well taken. Like I do think that is a fair thing. If you want to make the argument that insanity has no party, we can have that conversation. No, and I respect that. It's not to say that someone like Anders Brevik is indicative of the

mainstream of conservatism, no matter the country. But to say why somebody did something is irrelevant is to say I'm afraid of looking at why this person did that thing because it will unveil and reveal how these lines of thinking, these anti-immigrant, these anti-Muslim lines of thinking left to their own devices and taken to the logical conclusions end up in a place where why don't we kill people? That is the end result of this line of thinking. It just is. Hey, he's a crazy person. He's a crazy person. It's definitely not anything to do with his motivations. That doesn't matter. It's almost like for white terrorists. The motivation doesn't matter because they're crazy. They're just nuts. You can't, you can't paste their,

you know, manifestos that say exactly the same shit that I say all the time as being indicative of the shit that I say all the time. That's crazy. But if it's a fucking Muslim terrorist, that's because all Islamic terrorists. Because Islam is so horrible, like Sam Harris likes to tell us. Or conversely with this world, because they don't even want to engage that far, it's just all fake. Yeah, that's a fair point. It's all false flagged by the club list or whatever. So like, when I hear something like this and I hear like this clip is interesting to me because he's talking about Anders Brevik like this. Yeah. After he talked about Chas Bono the way he did. This is actually more akin to the Todd Aiken clip where it is like, don't associate us with this.

But I will take no ownership of the idea that this is very close to what I believe. The the I absolutely will not look at the logical conclusion of all of the stuff that I say and believe. Because by doing that, I might see that it would inspire people to kill indiscriminately. And we're on the left and like, I'm totally fine to look at the motivations of like eco terrorists or like for sure animal rights terrorists like those kind of important to look at their motivations in order to understand what it is they're doing. I have no I have no fear of looking at those things and seeing like, oh, yeah, they are, you know, motivated by, you know, sort of left principles or whatever taken to maybe too far of an extreme,

willing to have that conversation. This is just a shutting down of that conversation in any way because of the fear of what it could, like you lift that mattress up, what's under there. And I think it's sad. I think it's a very cowardly, sad type of place to live in. Right. And that's what we see here. We see a sad hack more or less. Yeah, which is why I wanted to cover this stuff as opposed to any QAnon nonsense. Yeah, I think this is more important. This is more like, this is the career that Lionel is living. This is what he put into the world. This is large chunk of his creative output. 100%. I think this is more damning, quite frankly. And at the same time, if you QAnon dink dongs knew that this is the guy who you're now all like super into.

I think you should take a step back and think about who your intellectual heroes are. Well, we all get very bored of our heroes, of course. Absolutely. People who become heroes, it's still boring. I love QAnon. I believe there are tens of thousands of sealed indictments coming and everybody, Hillary's going to prison. The Bushes are going to prison. 100%. Kind of like Bush and I'm sick and tired of exercise equipment ads. Absolutely. And if you fucking wear a satchel, I swear to God, you're worse than Anders Brevik. So, oh yeah, that is actually, that's exactly what he's saying. It is the sense you get from listening to too much of this. Yeah, it really is. So it's interesting to me that early on Lionel had that video where he was talking

about how Trump needs to show proof about his accusations that Obama wasn't born in this country. Now, much like he went back to the well about backpacks, after Obama was re-elected, he went back to the well on Trump's birtherism. Donald Trump is my new hero. I've never really been a fan before. I've never watched a pico second of The Apprentice and frankly, I may be the only person who really knows and cares little about him. That being said, lately he's driving folks nuts by daring. Daring, I say, as an American citizen to question the eligibility of his president to serve as his president. The nerve of anyone questioning the king of Obama. And this week, when I saw CNN's permanently comatose,

the poster child of my numbing, the stultifying catatonic and resident crash test dummy, Wolf Blitzer absolutely lose it over the subject of daring, daring to question the president's eligibility specifically as to his natural born status. He had already released his birth certificate. I thought, you know, if I didn't know better, I'd swear there was something to this old birther business because Wolf, who I swear died in 1978, but nobody told him, the Wolf man went crackers. Now keep in mind, I don't remember ever seeing anyone ever being shut down for asking any embarrassing questions of presidents in the past. Think about it. Oh, really? During the Clinton years, he had old Bill and Hill accused of everything from

whacking Vince Foster to rape to kidnapping judge Larry Nicholson. Nobody said a word. Ask away. Nobody said a word country. Did nobody thought Obama was a pressure. Somebody said a word. Obama nation folks just blew it off and mumbled, Oh, they're nuts. No. When you ask Obama acolytes or really anyone in the media, why Trump's crazy or off base and breaking up the issue of that can give you a detailed answer. Folks either say, well, look at his hair or he's a racist or whatever. Remember Sparky? Yes, article two, section one prescribes absolutely mandatory eligibility requirements for office. Look, presidential scholars might recall that there were questions along somewhat similar lines during Herbert Hoover's presidency.

Really? 31 had worked for a British mining company. And prior to his election had spent some time abroad. Did the 14 year residency requirement apply? Did that mean 14 years that preceded the term or 14 years cumulative? It was a valid question. There were even questions about John McCain, who was born at a naval air station in the Panama Canal zone. That's that a reflection. That's not their word. Donald is not exactly Michael Beschloss of our time. It might not be the best guy to tackle arcane and historically recognized article two parsing, but he's still an American citizen, bad hair or not. Boy, old Donald Trump has hit a nerve. And I love nerve hitters to shade, Donnie Boy, to come as you see fit. Not a lot of laughter

in the studio on that one. No, that starts to go away at the longer he has a job there. Yeah, I think everyone surprised the novelty has worn off. Yeah. There's a couple of really important points in there. One, at the end of his last Donald Trump clip, he declared hair jokes dead. He did two of them in that. Oh, no. So hey, buddy, by your own rule about hating people who think they're funny, by your own rule of jokes that are dead, you have transgressed your own rule. Now, second, nothing had really changed in terms of Donald Trump's birtherism stuff in the intervening year and a half, two years between these clips. Nothing on the ground had changed. And nothing really had changed in terms of his perspective. And the first clip, he was like, Trump, you have

no evidence. You got to stop this. Although I'm thrilled you're making Chris Matthews mad. Right. What's motivating him to make this clip is that Wolf Blitzer is now mad about it. There is no substantive difference except for something, something. I don't know what it is. I have no idea. But something changed that has led him to completely flip his position on something to a point where he's like, it's like, you know, why, why are people mad that Trump is questioning the birth certificate? You made a video being mad about Trump questioning the birth certificate. Like I what you're condemning your past self without calling yourself out that like, hey, I would, you know, I was even thinking he was stupid to do this. This is this. This is indicative of

absolute something behind the scenes changed. I don't know what it is. I could probably be explained by Ron Paul's retirement. Oh, could that that could be a huge piece. Yeah. Like that could that alone could account for a great deal. Right. But but it's something it's something and it's nefarious. That's all I know. I mean, I don't know. Generally speaking, I kind of think I'm right that old white people take the minor inconvenience strain to white supremacy. Yep, because it does kind of just sound like he's getting crankier and less fun. Like he's not having fun. He doesn't seem like he's enjoying himself at all, giving this prepackaged shit rant. No. And if you listen to a bunch of his stuff, he doesn't seem he doesn't have a lot of

joie de vivre in him. Although I'm sorry, he doesn't speak French. He said that earlier. I that's true. You know, you should you should be rightly pilloried for your trying to be funny when you aren't. So there are tons and tons of these shit videos that you can find. These are the ones that I thought told an interesting story over time of Lionel's career and work. Yeah. Now, it should be noted that, you know, in 2011, he started appearing on Alex Jones's show and here is a clip from their first interaction. Oh, wait, wait, wait. So this his last clip that we just played for VHF is 2013, 2014 around there, 2013, I believe. Right. So now we're going two years prior to that. So two years prior to that timeline isn't super important

necessarily for this, this part of it. But yeah, yeah, I mean, this is before the reelection when he starts appearing on Alex Jones's show, but it's pretty close to after when Air America folded. Right. So we're in that place. And I think this should speak volumes about why Lionel is very dumb. I'm Lionel. Great to have you on my friend. Every day I have listened to your show and I've listened for, I don't know how many years, my blood pressure goes up. I actually physically, viscerally respond to this. I get sick every single day you make me sick. And I'm serious, there is not one show. There was not one day that goes by where I turn to my wife and say, what country are we living in? Number one, two,

where are the mainstream media? Where are these narcotized, zombified sock puppets? What are they talking about? Do you know that today, the big story is in New York? By the way, thank God you're not in New York for a variety of reasons. The president's here and Justin Bieber is here. That's it. And if you walked around and listened to local media news, you swear that those are the only two things that are happening on the planet in front of everybody in full view. Those are the stories. And I'm looking at your website and listen every day. And I swear to you, my blood pressure is going up, my diastolic is through the roof. I don't know if I could take this anymore. And I don't know how you do it. I've heard, and if anybody who's

ever, you know, I study your show, Alex, I love it. And I've devoted a lot of time to it and you've been a great inspiration for me at Lionelmedia.com. So he's sick about it, Dan. He's ill about it. He's convalescent, Dan. He's got a disease. He is infected with so many different biomes. Yeah, no kidding. Christ. I think what you see here is someone who probably is just, I don't, it's hard to say. I actually have a very strong theory on this. Okay. I think Lionel is a pathetic, stupid con man. Okay. I think he is marginally talented in terms of expressing something, usually hacky things, but a lot of people like hacky things. Right, right. Very large market for bad opinions exists. Well, I mean, even beyond him, if you just go to like

road comics, you know, like there's a lot of very terrible ones who make a very decent living because they're on the right circuits and middle of the road stuff that's kind of boring to anyone who thinks about things, you know, like a lot of talk radio isn't very interesting. A lot of, yep. Unfortunately, this is bad. I have bad news. Dan, a lot of it is full of like really bad bland opinions, but that is the wide net that can be cast catch more fish that way than the lowest common denominator. Dan, a person at the bottom rung can enjoy it. Right. Somebody who's on the low part of the totem pole. We're both culturally. Yeah, no risk of becoming Lionel with this sort of hacky opinion that talk radio is bland. But I'm saying it in service of making the argument

that I think that he fell into that scam after the OJ trial, I guess, because he realized that like law is hot. People are interested in hearing these legal opinions and stuff like that. Right. I have a law degree from a bad college. I'm going to get into this game. I have made least talented enough with the word that I can do this. Yeah, you know, I can be charming enough. And so he did that. He got into that. And as he got into it, he fell into this, you know, local access TV news spot where he does his hacky washed over warmed up comedy routines that I wouldn't be surprised if there was an expose that turned out that he moonlighted going to open mics. In New York and just writing down premises, not surprised at all, based on the level of

quality I'm seeing here. So he does that for a bit, but it's not really doing all that well. It's not working out all that great. Yeah, gets involved with air America. He is maybe in some ways responsible for air America falling apart because of them turning their back on Sam Cedar and making him a Sunday only show. And when air America falls apart, he's kind of left with, all right, I have a talk radio show that it's not really that great. Yeah, makes a pivot towards the right. What he interprets as being the right at the time that is anti Obama and in some ways glorifying Bush and Cheney and absolutely anti youth people. True. Yeah. Now he's still at that whole period of time has the Ron Paul background. He still was on board with all that stuff. So it's

a natural. So he's already a racist fair. It's a natural transition though for him to start getting involved with Alex Jones. Absolutely. As he gets involved with Alex Jones, whether it's because he recognizes how good Alex's scam is or whatever, he becomes radicalized a little bit and he starts to go down a harder path. Yeah, with Alex. Yeah, his videos that he starts putting out on YouTube are more hardcore. They're a bit more, you know, it goes from him in a new studio doing this shit to him in his office at a webcam, say doing 30 minute videos that are a bit more extreme. Oh, that's not good. Right. So you see that track. But still none of it is that successful. You still look at these numbers and the videos that he has that are posted

of him doing these like news things hundreds of views. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. It's it's miniscule the number of views these ever got. And when he started broadcasting and going with Alex and that sort of thing when he started doing his videos on YouTube, it's still only like 1000 views for these videos that have been online for five years, six years. Yeah. Yeah. As soon as he pivoted to Trump, and as soon as he started doing QAnon stuff, it's now in the 50,000 100,000 round. Yeah. He took a massive jump. And I think that that I think it's the path of the con man. I think he's always been looking for the better con, right, the better game. And he found it. So you think what's going on is this is a dude who has just always been looking for a gig.

And he keeps jumping from gig to gig trying to find the bet. It's like somebody working at a at a company trying to move their way up the corporate ladder. Sure. And then eventually he becomes what he was pretending to be. But I always, yeah, but what's interesting about it is I think you're right in characterizing it as like trying to get up the ladder or whatever. But I think that what he didn't realize probably is that the ladder leads to propaganda. Right. Like the ladder that he was on, I think he thought it was commentating and like, you know, having a position. Yeah. But on the lower rungs of the ladder, it's not that hard. And you can have poorly thought through hacky positions and maybe still coast through. Yeah.

As you go higher up the ladder, it becomes like malicious propaganda. Right. And that's what he grew into. So I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how to end this. I don't know how to sum this up. This was an attempt, I believe, wholeheartedly, not to make a point. It was I wanted to start the year on something that we could just laugh a bunch about and still have some conversation. Just like, Hey, this is all stupid. And I think Lionel's early work is definitely laughable. And so I think we I think we achieved that for sure with a small point about how he has also been a rank hypocrite. What I've always wanted to start the new year with Dan and what I feel like we missed last year. You know, with our secret of 20, I think I know what it is.

All right. I could do that all day. I thank you all for joining us here in the new year. It's been a great day of year so far. So far. Thank you all for listening. We appreciate it. We'll be back on Friday. But until then, we do have a website. We do check out. It is Lionel Lionel Lionel Lionel dot com. We also are on Twitter. It's knowledge underscore fight indeed. You can go to our Facebook group. Go home and tell Lionel you're brilliant. Absolutely. We're on I Lionel. Leave a review comment. Download a leave a review that just says Lionel Lionel Lionel. God, I could do that all day. It's so fucking love it. That is the worst theme song. And I love it so much. It's so bad. And it's so bad. But it's so good. It's satisfying in a way that I did not know as possible. It's

so much like Icarus like they're the hubris of that theme song. I know. Oh God. I wish I'm going to show you as soon as we finish recording this the video like the visual of it. Yeah. Because it's just Lionel like fake yelling in a bullhorn. It's crazy. Everyone look it up tote bag crusher one. I believe is what it was called. So good. We'll be back next time. But until then get rid of your backpacks. Indeed. But oh backpacks on the train. I don't think I've ever killed anybody. I don't know if that's true. I think I think the chances are slim. Backpacks on the train have ever killed anybody doubt it. But one guy has technically probably killed a guy. And that's Alex Jones. Andy and Kansas. You're on the air. Thanks for holding.

Hello, Alex. I'm a first time caller. I'm a huge fan. I love your work. I love you.