The Daily Zeitgeist - Cohen Claims Onion Headline Lied, ‘Veep’ Officially Less Ridiculous Than Trump 5.22.18

Episode Date: May 22, 2018

In episode 153, Jack and Miles are joined by podcast host and writer J. Keith van Straaten to discuss the McGurk effect, Trump's royal decree on Twitter and Rod Rosenstein's response, the new commemorative coin for the North Korea peace talks that hasn't happened yet, voting machines still having the ability to be hacked and no one in Congress seeming to care, how Michael Cohen thinks The Onion is real, Publix censoring their cakes, & more!  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that?

That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller

from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality,

cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels,

into something everyone in the South loves, the Biscuits. I was a lady Rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, the Internet, and welcome to Season 32, Episode 2 of Daily Zeitgeist for May 22nd, 2018. My name is Jack O'Brien, aka Jumpin' Jack Cheese, Doritos flavor, and I am thrilled

to be joined by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Miles can feel it coming in the air tonight. Oh, Lord. And Miles been grading for this moment for all zeitgeist. Thank you so much, Chapman Rice, a.k.a. Goddess. I saw you blacked out over the weekend and hit me with just so many a.k.a.s. I appreciate that when your genius visits you and you're able to just get it all out there on Twitter. So shout out to you, Chapman.

Personally, I think that one was too short, but. No, no, they're going to get longer. Cut it off too soon. They are going to get longer. We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by the hilarious J. Keith Van Straten. Hi, everybody. Hello. How are you?

I'm well. Do I do an AKA or a Phil Collins? You do have one. You got one? Yeah. What you got? It's this guy. Hello. How are you? I'm well. Do I do an AKA or a Phil Collins? Do you have one? You got one? Yeah, why not? What you got? It's this guy. Oh.

I was not informed. No. Sorry. In case you have one already. I don't know. Do you have a nickname ever? I used to be called Daddy. Mostly by myself.

Okay. Interesting. We'll get into that later. Yes. Much later. What is something from your search history that is revealing about who you are? I actually have been, for the last three months, working a day job where I produce content for a television game show where I have to write trivia questions and jokes. And so that requires a lot of Googling.

And so actually, I've been sending my weird Google searches to my lady friends every time they come up. And I believe the last one that I have was, what do pimps wear? Which in and of itself is not that interesting. But the autocomplete I thought was, because when I put in what pimps wear, it was what pimps wear, what do pimps wear, what shoes do pimps wear, what color do pimps wear? What do female pimps wear? So I accidentally learned something before I even hit enter. I like the idea of the shoes, that like you got the whole outfit. Right. But what is the sensible footwear for a pimp? I mean, it depends on what idea you have. Is it the Don Magic wand idea, like the superfly? Yeah, I would assume some sort of an animal skin boot.

Yeah. Or a crazy platform with the goldfish in the heel or something like that. Right, right. And did you find the answer to your question, what you were searching for? I did. You know what I was trying to find? What is the name of the stick that they carry that's not exactly a cane and it's not exactly a scepter, but maybe it is a scepter. I thought it was called a pimp cane. Maybe it was pimp cane, yeah.

Well, there you go. I mean, according to the problematic bag costumes that you get at stores, it's called a pimp cane. It's was a pimp cane. Yeah. Well, there you go. According to the problematic bag costumes that you get at stores, it's called a pimp cane. It's called a pimp cane. Hashtag pimp cane. Hashtag pimp cane. What is something that you think is overrated? I think treadmills that do any advanced features are incredibly overrated. Okay.

I bought a used treadmill from the Sears Outlet Store maybe eight or ten years ago. Okay. Totally works fine. Every time I travel and I use like a fancy hotel or gym treadmill, there's absolutely no advantage other than the fact that it's much heavier and it has more blinking lights and whatnot. Right. So it's the same thing.

It's exactly the same thing. Is it simulating running for me? Right. Then it's fulfilled its promise. Or walking or like jogging. Right. Yes. Because now they have ones that it's like run through the Alps or shit like

that. Or is that the cycling one? I feel like everything now is trying to be like, don't you want to run somewhere other than wherever your treadmill is? Right. Or simulating a race or something. I'm good. I'm good.

And even the one I have, the advanced feature at the time was it had, it was iPod compatible, which just meant that it has really crappy speakers in it that you can plug it into. And even that was completely overrated. I remember you right. It's like all you need, all you need is. For those of you who haven't heard of headphones exactly

yeah yeah no I like my treadmill to like blow cold air in my face and like kick me in the shins like I'm in a race you know just get the full vibe

I never use any advanced option other than speed and incline and I don't think anyone else needs to either yeah exactly there is one thing that I've had with shitty treadmills

where if you're heavy enough when you you step on the treadmill, it'll stop the belt briefly. And it's pretty awkward. Well, that's a bad treadmill. I'm not saying that quality treadmills are overrated. I'm just saying anything with a more advanced feature other than it meets the basic requirement of treading mill. In that case, it didn't sound like the tread part worked. Or maybe it was the mill part. I'm not totally sure. What is something that you think is underrated? Hammocks. I got a hammock a couple years ago, and every time I lay down in it, I am as happy

and relaxed as I am. I am angry that it did not have this in my life until the moment that I did. The hammock lifestyle is completely underrated. It changes your perspective on everything. It makes everything better. There is not a time when I would not rather be in a hammock. I 100% agree. My friend had a wedding in the woods, and there were a bunch of hammocks set up

as part of this sort of summer camp vibe. And my girlfriend and I got in a hammock and stayed in it for three hours straight. And we're like, we need this always. And now I've got two hammocks. Oh. Yeah, because that's the way to live. And you can, it helps you enjoy.

Is it his and hers or? It's like a double. Oh, double wide. It's like a double wide. It's a double wide hammock. You know, I'm doing pretty well. So yeah, we just set it up in our backyard and it helps you like, it gives you a reason to just stay outside much longer than normally if you would just have chairs or whatever.

And people are so impressed. It's, it's the proportion of the effort and cost it took to acquire and set up to the enjoyment and the amount that impresses guests is, is a crazy. Yeah. Right. Yeah,

exactly. People are like, people are so impressed. I once, I once had a hundred dollars and went on Craigslist. It's like, well, one of the oldest things, forms of furniture ever.

Yeah. Right. Impressive. Cannot recommend it enough. Yeah. My wife and I have his and hers bathtubs, outdoor bathtubs. Oh. We just sit in next to each other like the ED commercial.

How long have you been taking Cialis? Just looking at each other. Wait. So on the hammocks, do you guys have cloth hammocks? Are they the string hammocks? I have a string hammock. String hammock. I can't remember.

There's one huge company I think in Maine or something that makes all of the high quality rope hammocks. I have one like that that's on a metal frame, and then I also have like the sort of camping kind. You can just throw out if you have the straps between two trees. I bought one of those, and I've yet to use it because the last time I went camping, there was nowhere to put it and I was just raging in my tent the whole time. Yeah, that's also a risk we run. Yeah, it is. Next time I'm going to look closer. I mean, when you reserve a campsite, they usually say whether there's like, you know,

water or power hookups, they should say if it's hammockable. Hammockable, yes. A lot of hashtags coming from this episode. Hammockable. Hashtag factory. Have you ever watched bears trying to get into hammocks and succeeding? Yes, and I can relate. That's awesome.

I have a cat, and my favorite moments are when the cat takes a risk of jumping upon me while I'm in the hammock. Oh. Because, you know, if he gets off of me or the pillow or anything, it's actually having to deal with trying to navigate the rope or whatnot. Yeah. pillow or anything is actually having to deal with trying to navigate the rope or whatnot. It's like that scene in, what was that Stephen King movie where they put a cat on the electrified floor and he kept jumping up? Oh, what is that? Isn't that a real thing? Did I dream that?

Someone listening is dreaming it. No, that's all I can say. Sleepwalkers? Pet cemetery? I don't know. I think it was the cat torture hotel. Also, I've noticed a lot of people get into hammocks very awkwardly. There are also many videos of people fucking up getting into a hammock.

And to you, I say, just have faith. It will carry you. Just put your weight down. When you start trying to balance it with your arms. And people are so afraid to fall. Worst case scenario, you fall, what, six inches? Yeah. Right. Yeah, the great thing about the bears getting into hammocks is, first of all, how difficult it is for them. But then, once

they get in, they're the first of their species. They understand the hammock lifestyle. They've never heard of this. Furniture? Yeah. And they're the first of their species to get it. And they're just like, holy shit. You can just see it dawn on them how great this is.

Do you think in a million years bears will evolve to naturally nestled into a hammock? This could be the precursor to something very dangerous of like exponentially increasing their intelligence due to hammocks. Right. They just slowly

run off into the woods. And finally, what is a myth? What is something that most people believe to be true that you know to be false? That baseball is boring.

Okay. Baseball is not boring. Hot take. Yes. Baseball, I'm a huge baseball fan but even if I were not, the only people who think baseball is boring are people who do not understand baseball. And if you don't understand anything, it is boring.

I know a lot of people who believe that Game of Thrones is a very exciting television show. I only watched part of one episode in, I think, the fourth or fifth season. And I thought it was boring because I did not understand what was going on, who these people are, why were they fighting, any of that stuff. I didn't understand any of it, what the rules were, who the best players were, any of that. So it's the same thing with baseball. You have to have a little bit of understanding about it.

One of my favorite things to do is actually go to a baseball game with a newbie and help them see the game and understand the different factoids about the players and the different strategies and whatnot. But I think that basketball is incredibly boring because it just goes back and forth. And it doesn't matter until the last- Hot take alarm! It doesn't matter until the last 30 seconds.

Yeah. Now, there are probably people who are basketball fans that think I'm crazy and stupid and that that is a myth because I do not understand and appreciate basketball. I see. I see. So you're being the same way if you think that way about baseball. I think basketball is amazing. I think baseball, the same way if you think that way about baseball. I think basketball is amazing. I think baseball, I love going to the ballpark to watch baseball.

For me, watching baseball on TV, I don't enjoy the sport enough to sit through a game until there are stakes. And that's like the postseason typically when I tune in. Although, I will admit, with Shohei Otani now in the league, I'm much more engaged with baseball because I'm looking out for all the Nihonjin out here. Well, you're appreciative of the choir because I'm a huge Angels fan. And so I've been tracking Otani since he was in the Japanese league. Yeah, yeah.

Ready for the Angels. Well, I was hoping he would come to LA too because we have a history of some great Japanese pitchers here, except for Darvish. But that's a whole other story. So my main problem with baseball is that during the regular season, there are so many games that it –

I guess it would be the same complaint you have about basketball, is that even the games don't seem to matter that much. Yeah. Well, and also college basketball especially, people say it's super exciting. And, again, I can go to any sport and I can appreciate it if someone explains it to me well enough. I root for the Louisville, University of Louisville. I got family there. The Ville.

The Ville, sure. But it just seems so random, this tournament. There's no way that that determines who the best team is. And the fact that so many weird things can happen in the last, not even the last second, but the last fractions of seconds that determine the game and determine whether you're going to go on to the championship. That, to me, is maddening. Yeah. The things that I love

about baseball though are that first of all it's just great background noise to like if you have to get something done it's a great thing to have on TV

because it will not take up any of your attention. And I will say despite the fact that I debunk the myth that it is boring I love a good baseball nap. Yeah.

Oh yeah. It's one of my favorite things in the summer is to have a game on and fall asleep to it. And you could argue that a sport is not a sport if you can fall asleep to it, but I'm a pretty good napper. Yeah. I mean, I fall asleep to sports very regularly. And then I also love the mental aspect of it, like how weird slumps are when the Dodgers, who were like one of the best teams in the history of baseball, like in terms of their record, got into the worst slump in the history of baseball. It was just like, what the fuck is happening?

I love how at times it's so unpredictable, it's amazing how much you can predict it, and how at other times it's so predictable, it's amazing how you can't predict it. Did I say that right? Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah, that you never know what's going to happen on any given night. And I also like just over the years, I guess maybe with any hobby or interest that you have, how your love of it changes and how what you see changes.

I used to kind of always look at baseball from the perspective of a batter and then a pitcher and then a manager and then some sort of from the front office. And so as you understand more about the game and what goes into it and the stories behind it, I love the complexity of it and also how it's just simple. I think baseball is one of those things. If you see every layer for what it is, the game becomes much less boring to you because you understand like pitch counts and picture management and things like that. And those are the things that over the years I began to appreciate and go, oh, now I get why people who are so into baseball really are like watching every single thing. And I love that it's over 125 years old that we've had the Major League Baseball and people are still finding ways to maximize it, like completely new ways, even just in the last

10 years of how you build, how you construct a lineup and different ways of measuring stats and how trends about bunting go in and out and all that i love that it's such a beautiful and complex thing that we're still discovering new ways to look at it and new ways to calculate who's good at it right right yeah i think i'm a little weird because i i really like the home runs yes and the home runs are grand slams oh those slam roos. Yeah, the slamaroos. The taters. You like taters? You enjoy taters? Knock it out of the park. I like frozen ropes, laser beams. Cans of corn?

Yeah. But that's just me. Okay. All right. Let's get into the stories, guys. Let's get into the ideas that people are thinking and talking about today in America and around the world. We want to start out with something that our audience, the Zeitgang, was coming at us with after we talked about the brainstorm green needle debate. Laurel versus Yanni.

As well as Laurel versus Yanni. So people brought up the McGurk effect, which is something that I was familiar with, and it does actually apply here. So, J. Keith, you're familiar with McGurk effect. You picked this out of our notes as something to maybe bring up. Yeah, I've been telling people about the McGurk effect for years, and it sounds like I'm joking, but I'm not. I'm a great first date, by the way, because I will play almost any first date. Take you to a baseball game, explain the game and the McGurk effect. Yeah, that's what women like.

Hey, let me mansplain baseball to you. You know about these weird tricks your brain plays on you? Now, you're wrong for thinking you saw what you saw. That's a positive message. Yeah, so basically the McGurk effect is your brain be looking at a video of someone saying fa, like the way that, I don't know the different linguistic things, but the way that the teeth hit the lips and all that saying fa, fa, fa. And even though the audio is actually them saying ba, ba, ba,

and you can, and even if you comprehend, it's proven to you that what they're actually saying is ba, ba, ba. If you match up someone saying ba, ba, ba audio to the video of someone saying fa-fa-fa, and even though you 100% know that they're saying ba-ba-ba, your brain cannot hear ba-ba-ba if they're making the fa-fa. Yeah, it will change it to fa-fa-fa. It will change. For real?

Yeah. Let me do this right now. Yeah. Yeah. There's a really good YouTube video on it. Yeah, it's fascinating. I've watched it. N-C-G-U-R-K effect, I believe.

How do you get an effect named after you? I know. I love that. God. What's the event? Flynn effect. Yeah. That's one of my favorite effects.

Top five effects of all time. Go. Special effects. Butterfly. Butterfly effect. Zero effect. That was a movie. McGurk effect.

McGurk effect. MTV's direct effect. Yes. Or direct effects. All right. So did you watch the And MTV's Direct Effect. Yes. Or Direct Effects. All right. So did you watch the thing? No, I'm watching right now. Hold on.

But it's weird because I would have never associated the F sound and the B sound. Right. You know. See, doesn't this sound like a good date? You bring your laptop with you. Yeah. I just pop it up on the YouTube on the phone. The funny thing is, if you're looking at the same video that I usually show, which is from

a BBC special, it brings on a professor who's demonstrating it, this guy from UC Riverside. Yeah, yeah. And the best part, it says, he's been studying the McGurk effect for 26 years. And he's got this one video out of it. You know what? God loves geeks. God loves specialists. They just got me.

It went from da-da-da to ba-ba-ba. Yeah. Oh, they did the da? Okay, yeah. Yeah, they did the, remember that Volkswagen? Oh, man. I didn't know they took it. From da-da-da to ba-ba-ba. Yeah. Oh, they did the da? Okay, yeah. Yeah, they did the, remember that Volkswagen? Oh, man, I didn't know they did it to the da-da-da.

What song was that? Remember that? I do remember. I don't know the song. Yeah, I remember that. I love that Volkswagen. But I love stuff like that. I love, you know,

I love, it's similar to, I forget the name of it, the, it's what makes our brains think we see faces when there aren't faces. Right.

Because, again, we have to organize, our brain are so conditioned over however many years to, uh, at least 30 to, um, try to recognize patterns, whether they are patterns or not. And we're so used to seeing faces and identifying things by faces.

So that, that's why a lot of times you think you see, you know, a face on the moon or in the clouds or, you know. Right. But I do. Um,

yeah. And I think it ties into how we were explaining the Yanni and Laurel and brainstorm and green needle thing last week is that we have more nerves going from our brain to our eyes than from our eyes to the brain. And it's because we see and hear with our brain. So it's like, even though the stimulus comes in, mostly it is making sense of that stimulus in the brain and like sending that back to the ears or the eyes to sort of reconfigure

it. It's almost like you have a mixing board in your brain. Yeah, like a delay or something. That has to make sense of it. Does that have something to do with the speed of light being faster than the speed of sound? Like we process that first or we put primary importance on? I wouldn't think so because when you're that close to the screen, it wouldn't really be a noticeable difference. And I think that there's some speed at which things travel along your nerves, something like 90 miles per hour, 96 miles per hour.

Wow. Add neurology to your list of expert topics. Right, right. I think I just pulled that number completely out of my head. I like that, though. All right, let's take a quick break, and we'll be right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was murdered there are crooks everywhere you look now the situation is desperate

my name is Manuel Delia I am one of the hosts of crooks everywhere a podcast that unhearts the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks Everywhere

starting September 25th on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance.

It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of my Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts.

Hey fam, I'm Simone Boyce. I'm Danielle Robay. And we're the hosts of The Bright Side, the daily podcast from Hello Sunshine that is guaranteed to light up your day. Every weekday, we bring you conversations with the culture makers who inspire us. Like our recent episode with dancer, actor, host of Dancing with the Stars, and now novelist, Julianne Hough. I feel really whole. I feel like the last few years, I've really unraveled a lot, which is part of what this book is about. And I really feel so content, which is a word that used to scare the crap out of me. And I love that word now. Listen to The Bright Side from Hello Sunshine

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session.

24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out?

I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams.

Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

your podcasts. And we're back. So Donald Trump tweeted, quote, over the weekend, making a sort of royal decree that he wanted all of the information about a spy who was sent to investigate his campaign under Obama during the 2016 campaign. And I don't know, he continues to respond to everything about the Mueller investigation and just the most guilty and not even trying to cover it up. Just, you know, I have something to hide and so I'm freaking out type of way. It's hard for me to take it any other way. Well, it is weird that all of his surrogates that appear, none of them say, well, he's

innocent. Right. None of them say he didn't do these things. It's a witch hunt. Yeah. They're all just blaming everybody for accusing him of doing them or, you know, or there's mitigating circumstances or if he did, it wasn't illegal. There's nothing about what was right or proper or that didn't happen.

Right. Yeah. Well, now it's going into the improper thing, right? Because now they're trying to say like, oh, the deep state sort of FBI, they were trying to undermine me by sending in a spy, which is already those misnomers are just sort of very misleading. Yeah. Because this is just an informant who essentially the FBI was getting reports that they're saying,

hey, we have heard that maybe there's Russians trying to infiltrate this campaign. Like, if that's the case, we need to make sure, like, protect this campaign from being manipulated from a foreign power. Hence, this person goes to sort of do a light technique, I think called brushing up or whatever. Just to merely be like, pick the brain and just be like, yo, talk to some people and see kind of what you dig up. And from there, that person said, whoa, Mike Flynn is like hanging with these like Russian people.

Like this person was beginning to see like they were actual Russians. It's also Papadopoulos, right? Right, Papadopoulos. One of the other people who we know for a fact has bragged about. About how Russia had all this dirt on Hillary and things like that. So all these things came together where they're like, oh, yeah, let's make sure that this campaign has some form of, I guess, integrity or rather it hasn't been completely compromised or infiltrated by a foreign power. So according to Trump and the White House, this was an attempt to infiltrate his campaign and disrupt it for political purposes. and disrupt it for political purposes. However, at this time, the FBI was actively trying to completely cover up and keep quiet the fact that they were investigating Trump and his campaign for

having ties to Russians and other foreign governments. They were publicly talking about the Hillary Clinton investigation. They were perfectly fine to do that and have a political effect there. But they were doing this rather than openly investigating his campaign because they didn't want to have a political effect because they didn't want to be seen as having a liberal bias because they knew that that would make half of the nation freak the fuck out. And they were also under the assumption that Hillary Clinton was going to win. By the way, what would a disrupted Trump campaign look like? How would you tell?

Right. So Trump has responded to word of this, quote, infiltration by issuing this royal decree on Twitter that the Justice Department reveal classified information to him about an ongoing investigation into him and his campaign. Rosenstein tried to keep him at bay by offering to put the inspector general on the case, which, by the way, the inspector general is about to supposedly drop a bombshell, according to NPR on their morning podcast, First Up. He is releasing a report about whether FBI leaked classified information to Rudy Giuliani during the campaign. Right, that would have helped Trump.

Right, that would have helped Trump because Rudy Giuliani suddenly had classified information that he just went on Fox News and talked about during the campaign. And everyone was like, that doesn't seem like that should be possible. Well, then everyone else can be like, no, that's not what we wanted the inspector general to find out. We want them to come back and say the FBI deep stated us. Right. So anyways, this is clearly going to mean that the inspector general is compromised and part of the deep state. But it also means that he takes a while to get things done. part of the deep state. But it also means that he takes a while to get things done. And based on the fact that Trump's tweet all but implied a royal fanfare of trumpets and like a full brass band. I really was hoping a scroll would unravel.

I hereby declare. What was his tweet? I believe it was I hereby demand. Oh, he read demand. Yeah. Which, by the way, I have no problem with an investigation being checked if there was. Oh, of course. Yeah, I don't think anyone does. No, nobody does.

In his mind, of course, any investigation is going to come up – is either going to be a witch hunter or is going to come up with evidence that will support him. Right. I mean there's – that's the maddening thing about that. There's no correct answer that would satisfy him if it doesn't fit his narrative. Yeah, the partisans on the right can't agree on what an objective truth is. Yeah, right. You know what I mean? Because the second it brings to light any kind of fuckery on the right,

it's like, no, no, no. The one where the deep state turned Hillary Clinton to a shapeshifter and was doing a child sex ring. But the fact that he is openly trying to interfere with this investigation into his campaign is just taken for granted. Right. Because he has, we know for a fact that he has tried to fire Rosenstein and tried to fire Mueller.

And it's just taken for granted at this point that he is trying to stop this investigation. I think the people on his side would say that he's doing that because it's undermining or making it hard for him to focus on priorities, I guess. But anyway, so in response to Rosenstein's offer to, you know, we'll forward it up the chain to HR, which is the DOJ equivalent of the inspector general. He called Rosenstein to his office and solicited a commitment to meet with Chief of Staff John Kelly, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, and members of Congress to discuss classified information, presumably including the activities of the FBI's confidential source. And, I mean, as we've been shown,

any information that gets shared with Republican leaders of the House... It ends up on Fox within five seconds. Like, less. It's just like he has a live feed. He's fucking got that shit on a blast. Yeah. On blast. Well, he got more of a direct line.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I was going to say periscope. Wow. Yeah. Because I'm hip and up on the moment. So this is problematic because it undermines an ongoing investigation. Also just the independence of the DOJ and prosecutorial independence in general in terms of the rule of law.

That's something I didn't fully appreciate until all this stuff went down in the last couple of years was how hands off the president was supposed to be at the Department of Justice. The fact that like I think Obama met with Comey maybe once. To like talk directly about something. Yeah, exactly. Comey maybe once to like talk directly about something. Yeah, exactly. And this is kind of the thing. And I was saying earlier, like off mic, that all this thrashing that's happening from the White House and the Republicans to protect the president is going to leave deep scars in terms of our justice system and the rule of law in this country, because it already is. Yeah. But and it's but it's happening in such a small way where on one side, we're just like,

OK, I guess the Freedom Caucus now just wants a special counsel to investigate the FBI because they're doing their job enforcing the law. Like, you know, we're slowly eroding these things, these just sort of norms that we had that kept our, you know, DOJ independent. And we had some form of law enforcement. And now if the norm is going to be the second you get called out, go yeah but we need to look at why they even looked at me and how crazy is it that it's the right that's doing this now i mean the left used to be the ones who who were suspicious of the fbi right and being spied on and plants and informants and all that yeah and that it's completely switched i mean the idea that a republican president and other people in his parties are the ones who are who are accusing

the fbi of being hacks is is it's crazy yeah all the ones who are accusing the FBI of being hacks. It's crazy. Yeah. All these people who are supposedly doing deep state work to undermine Trump's presidency, Mueller, Comey, all Republicans. And he's still causing Democrats. Right.

They're all Republicans. There's also the story from the New York Times over the weekend that basically there was a second meeting that we talked about on yesterday's episode that was very much like the Russia meeting where Don Jr. opens it up and is like, I understand you have information for us. Just openly trying to collude with foreign powers, which is against all election laws. And Trump tweeted, things are really getting ridiculous. The failing and crooked, but not as crooked as Hillary Clinton. There you go.

Has done a long and boring story indicating that the world's most expansive witch hunt has found nothing on Russia and me. So now they're looking at the rest of the world. And there's a Vanity Fair article that is taking this angle on the story and running with it. A Vanity Fair article is like, okay, now we're going to move on to other countries because we couldn't find anything with Russia. First of all, there's nothing to suggest

that they didn't find anything with Russia. They just haven't shared their investigative, like what they found. And also there's nothing about you colluding with one country that says you wouldn't collude with another. And in fact, this is just, nobody has ever argued this was a well-planned thing with Russia

where you guys had this preconditioned idea. It's global corruption and incompetence. That is the model that I'm working from when it comes to your campaign. Just total and comprehensive, just incompetence and corruption. And the fact that they found a meeting where you were willing to collude with another country doesn't change anything, nor does it make the king of blood money. Miles, you were on an upcoming episode of Behind the Bastards. Oh, yes.

Robert Evans' new podcast talking about Eric Prince. Oh, yeah. And he is a huge piece of shit. Really? Yeah. I mean, it's crazy. The stuff that Robert was telling me about him, it all makes sense. You can't start Blackwater unless you have some real wacky upbringing

and sort of crazy worldviews. So, yeah, tune in for that. We'll let you know, that you can't start Blackwater unless you have some real wacky upbringing and sort of crazy worldviews. So, yeah, tune in for that. We'll let you know when that episode drops. He has a vortex of evil and murder. Yeah. And let's just say he tried to build his own illegal air force at one point, like weaponized planes. Anyway. Apparently, he was also meeting and introducing these people to Russian oligarchs at that seychelles meeting

oh wow yeah so that's where it's like all coming together it's just all so fucking complicated and he was even lying in front of congress when he was like oh the most i did was maybe some fundraising and put a yard sign up you know that's most i did for the campaign yeah and so again it's just a culture of deception and corruption right and that's all that's coming to light. So, you know, don't worry. Don't worry about the DOJ. Let them do their fucking job and force the law because, look, this is what we need to maintain some semblance of decency in the country if there's any left. Yeah. But the point you're making that the Freedom Caucus is now saying that they want a special counsel to be like, the FBI and DOJ was unfair.

Right. Like that's essentially the point is they're like, why are they so interested in all this crime? Basically. What the fuck are you talking about? How come they aren't investigating Hillary's collusion with Russia? Yeah. Besides that there wasn't any.

Right. Well, and they have, you know, like there've been multiple things where they've like, yeah, sure. We'll look into it. Guess what? Okay. We didn't find anything. Okay.

You find it. Like, well, no, come back until you say something like she, you know, whatever fantasy they need fulfilled about her. And that's what my smart conservative friends have been saying for a while, though, is that because this is getting into this range where it's like, you know, a special counsel is looking into this, that Trump will now appoint his own special counsel to look into that. This could be the lasting sort of outcome from all of these different investigations. I mean, I wonder if they're just constantly putting special prosecutors on each other whenever the other side wins an election. But I wonder if this is if this could have been avoided if there had been, you know, a 9-11 style commission instead of a special.

I mean, although who know, they would have found something wrong with that too. I mean, there's no – Yeah, I mean, the bottom line is if they're actually investigating them and finding things that are like bringing out the truth of their corruption and bad deeds, then it's a witch hunt. It's a snipe hunt. It's bullshit. Was the 9-11 commission bipartisan?

And it was – I think it was like three at least three people and there was another commission that that i think there was an option of either doing a special prosecutor or an independent commission and they went independent commission sort of like the or they went special prosecutor rather for for trump russia yeah right right and you know jfk assassination and 9-11 commission were both bipartisan commissions. So, yeah, it's just tough to imagine any actual version of reality where anybody looking into this can be seen as bipartisan. Yeah. Well, I'd love to ask them, like, what would change your mind? Right.

What would change your mind? Because I don't think it's not about the truth. They work backwards from, well, I guess they first work backwards from we want the tax cuts. Then it's Trump is right. Then it's everything else. All right. We wanted to move on to just a recent update about the North Korea talks that are scheduled for June 12th. This morning, President Trump has announced that they may be delayed, which is unfortunate because he has also released a commemorative coin.

Yeah, the White House had a challenge coin, as they call it, struck, limited edition coin, with like Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump on it. It's very nice. You know, it has the White House on one side with Air Force One flying over. The other side is like it says Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un. I don't know why they put that on there. That's a little odd. Yeah. That's what they put.

They put President Donald J. Trump and Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, 2018. And it's just a gaudy fucking stupid coin that I'm sure because Donald Trump loves memorabilia. So he can prove to people he was president at one point that yeah, they had this coin. And again, this speaks to the whole spiking the football bullshit that before you've actually scored the touchdown, you're making a commemorative coin on the heels of all this other shit. Do White Houses...

So it was made by the White House? The U.S. Mint. The orders, I think, do come from the White House to have a challenge coin struck like this. Wow, that's incredible. If you were writing this story, like if the Veep writing staff were suddenly tasked with just writing the news for the next couple months, that would be just the perfect storyline that Trump has a commemorative coin, that that becomes like a big chip in it. It's like, but the commemorative coin.

Yeah, that's going to be the motivational factor for the character to go through with it. It's like, well, I can't pull out now. I made the coin. Right, and he's just so thirsty for a win. This can't be good for his... And I'm sure more effort was put into making him look younger and handsomer on it than the idea of what should we call Kim Jong-un.

His neck does, his throat neck is a kind of... It's got a waddle going? Well, not compared to Eun, though. I mean, he's got jowls on there that are pretty severe. Yeah, they both got... I love that they included the side fade of Kim Jong-un. Yeah, his like real hard step cut he has. Stubble. It's a...

Yeah, we'll see. I mean, the... I hope... And again, the coin in and of itself is not the issue. It's that they're called, the United States government should not be addressing him as supreme leader. Yeah, exactly. That's the other thing. At least they didn't put a date on it.

Yeah. Well, they. I know, exactly. They only said 2018. Luckily, they didn't put to the June 12th thing. So, you know, the coin has a little bit of, a little shelf life still. So, you know, if it doesn't happen in June. And I'm sure it's going to, I'm sure replicas are going to be for sale at every Trump property.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Hopefully those don't turn out to be like the Bill's Super Bowl t-shirts that were made and given away to third world countries in the 90s. All right. We wanted to talk about something that 60 Minutes has covered. A lot of different, you know, respected journalistic outlets have covered the possibility that the upcoming election will be hacked. Yeah, the midterms, right? The midterm elections being hacked. There's just all sorts of evidence that points to

foreign powers infiltrating various election security networks. And the US agency charged with ensuring that voting machines meet security standards was itself penetrated by a hacker after the November elections. So they've been testing the fences and getting through the fences easily. It's like Jurassic Park. All of these signs, exactly. The Raptors are testing the fences. The Russians, in this case, All of these signs, exactly. The Raptors are testing the fences. The Russians, in this case, are testing the fences. Clever girl.

And the really scary thing is that a lot of states in America don't have paper ballots that back up their electronic ballots. Yeah. So that leaves us very open to, I think, what we call fuckery, in which the vote count could possibly be manipulated. And there's been all kinds of weird stuff that has not been really brought up in the news that is like kind of fucking like next level. So I don't know if it's next level because I don't know anything. But, for example, like they found these cell site stimulators called Sting Razor, IMSI catchers. IMSI catchers. And, you know, it's not surprising that in certain articles, they say that they would that foreign intelligence groups or criminal groups would use this kind of hardware in the Capitol. But for the first time, the DHS sort of acknowledged that this stuff could possibly intercept sensitive political communications. There are a pair of Princeton computer scientists

have also pointed out that these cell phone simulators, which they mimic legitimate cell towers, can also be used for like inexpensive vote hacking. So basically the Stingray would intercept the vote totals from the voting machine before they're uploaded to the actual canvassing computer mainframe thing. So and again, they're just sort of like, oh, how'd these weird cell simulators show up in DC? There's just, there are many other sort of frightening things along with the idea that, yeah, we don't have paper records in certain states, like important states like Pennsylvania. How is this not the number one priority of anyone who has anything to do with running elections in this country? I mean, this angers me so much that whether people are so cynical or lazy or

manipulative, that they saw what happened in 2016 and it wasn't their number one priority to look at how can we prevent this from happening again? Whatever your party is, just if you like America, if you like democracy, how can you not want to make sure that the integrity of the elections is protected? But if you're hyper-partisan, you might be like, well, this might be the only way to fight off a Democratic wave. Because clearly the intelligence community said that Russia clearly favored Trump over Hillary Clinton. And using that information, we can assume that possibly that's – I don't think that people are going to hack in the name of progressive ideals for the left. for the left. But yeah, I think even in Europe,

because they were really worried about certain elections in the last year getting manipulated by foreign actors or whatever, that some places just did all paper. They're like, we don't even want to even mess with computers because at least we know, like we were looking at human beings using a paper ballot and we have that, we're counting that. Right.

So that's pretty scary stuff. And the DHS, the Department of Homeland Security, yesterday had a presentation for Congress to which 40 members of Congress showed up. 40 to 50, they say. 50 on the higher end. So that's like roughly 10%. 10% of Congress bothered to turn up. So I don't know if it's cynicism. So I don't know if it's cynicism.

I don't know if it's people on both sides being like, well, Trump is clearly never going to do anything about this because it's not in his interest to plug these holes. Yeah. Well, then we've done functionally nothing about it. Right. I guess Pennsylvania is still working with electronic ballots that they got in that they put into rotation in 2002. And they just got funding to replace them with new machines that will be updated in 2019. Oh, cool. Just in time.

Just in time for this blue wave. Yeah, and then I think at a few different hacker conventions in Vegas, they were easily just penetrating these voting machines. They're like, and hacked. And now I can do whatever I want in here. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know what it is if they're, you know, it surprised me that only 40 to 50 congresspeople showed up. I don't know if that speaks to that they felt the briefing was skewed or whatever. But when you read the headline that they gave a briefing on sort of election security and the numbers are low. Yeah, this should be the most important.

I mean, aside from just, you know, not getting physically attacked by somebody. But it's like, what's more important? This is what we fought for. Yeah, exactly. This is our actual democracy. This is how we know the will of the people. Was it that hearing, though, where someone from the DHS said that they weren't aware of any evidence that the Russians had hacked the election, even though it was a publicly available report. I know Kirsten Nielsen, who is the head of DHS, said something to that effect of more like she hadn't heard of the intelligence community's assessment that Russia favored Trump.

Maybe that was it, yeah. Yeah, which was weird of just sort of like, oh, really? I don't know. It's like, what the fuck are you saying? Like, how are you on one hand being like, our elections are vulnerable? From oh, really? I don't know. It's like, what the fuck are you saying? Like, how are you on one hand being like our elections are vulnerable? From who? Oh, I don't know. But look, anyway.

It says everything that they believe that if there were a fair election that they wouldn't win. Well, yeah. That's why the, you know, the redistricting and all those efforts are massively frightening to the GOP because they spent so long completely gerrymandering the districts and suppressing votes that if they're like, wait, we're not going to win a fair one. So we'll see. We'll see what happens. I'm sure, as you'd hope, this story will pick up some steam and there'll be some kind of more public pressure for them to do something.

Is there time, though? Is there time to fix this stuff? I'd imagine. Certainly to harden the targets. Yeah, or at the very least, you just go all analog, and you're like, yo, everywhere's a paper ballot.

Yeah, I don't see how you don't do that, because otherwise, the idea that you would have elections, and they could be compromised, and we wouldn't know it, we just wouldn't have the paper back up to see if people's votes have been changed. That's fucking insane.

There's no way around that. You need to not do that if that's your plan. Yeah, I don't know. The whole idea of gerrymandering and now this, I just wonder if, I know that I personally was less motivated. I feel like in the past, the GOP and the right has been way more motivated to find these cracks that they can exploit in the system. And I feel like a lot of people who oppose far right-wing politics were just made aware and just like sort of activated. So that would be the possibly

hopeful spin to put on it is that all this fuckery is going to be harder for them to pull off now that people have seen how bad it can get if you're not actively engaged and getting out and voting and monitoring and making sure that the electoral system is protected. So we shall see. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia.

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iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. And just a brief news flash is that a sinkhole is opening up in the white house lawn uh it's growing every day so yeah someone who's not very subtle is writing the news now apparently uh whether it be the veep writing staff or just uh or it's a biblical thing you know like hell could be opening up to swallow it.

Yeah. The Old Testament is definitely not very subtle. Oh, no, no, no. But I love the Pentateuch. You've always been a fan. So let's get into the Michael Cohen letter that was sent to The Onion back in 2013. Yeah. So in 2013, The Onion published a story that was... Okay. First of all, if you're listening to this show, you don't know so in 2013 The Onion published a story that was

okay, first of all, if you're listening to this show, you don't know what the fuck The Onion is. Shame on you. The Onion is a satirical website. It's one of the great satirical news websites, publications out there. And in 2013 they ran an op-ed which is fake. Let me

say that again. A fake satirical, ha-ha, lol lol, lol, jokey op-ed written by Donald Trump, supposedly, but it's satirical. So we know it wasn't actually written by him called When You're Feeling Low, Just Remember I'll Be Dead in About 15 or 20 Years. And it was just a very, you know, stupid, just sort of piece about Donald Trump, you know, dying because he sucks. That's right. In the not very distant future, I will die and then be gone from the world for all eternity. You may even get to watch me in a casket on national television being lowered into the ground, never to be seen again. I bet

you're smiling just thinking about that. Yeah. And then so because Michael Cohen, he's like number one attack dog for Trump or who knows how this letter came about. A letter, very angry takedown letter was written by Michael Cohen in all seriousness to the onion. And it goes like this. Dear Mr. Hanna, I wish to call your attention to an article currently on your homepage, allegedly penned by Donald Trump, entitled When You're Feeling Low. Just remember, I'll be dead in about 10 or 15 years. Let me begin by stating the obvious that the commentary was not written by Mr. Trump.

Secondly, the article is an absolutely disgusting piece that lacks any place in journalism, even in your onion. I am hereby demanding that you immediately remove this disgraceful piece from your website and issue an apology to Mr. Trump. I further ask that you contact immediately to discuss. This commentary goes way beyond defamation, and if not immediately removed, I will take all actions necessary to ensure your actions do not go without consequence. Oh, yours. Yeah. Warmly. Warmly. Sincerely, Coco.

So, yeah. I mean, he clearly didn't know what the fuck the onion was and it turns out uh when you ask people so our writer jm mcnabb was kind of looking into this thing and there have been articles written about this moment at the onion and what happened and like one of the people uh who used to work there speculates that it was probably trump himself that wrote this letter and just had michael cohen sent it off they point to just sort of like the words like this article is disgraceful and disgusting and essentially amounts to I demand an apology. I hereby demand.

Yeah, exactly. And it's just sort of like that sort of like that just is the total Trump brand in terms of, you know, his writing style. Right. And like the wording they say is wonky is nowhere even close to being like legalese. I mean, granted, granted, Michael Cohen went to like literally garbage law school. So, of course, we can't expect him to use like real, you know, like nuanced vocabulary. But yeah, Trump is the one who sits around Googling Donald Trump all day, every day.

Not Michael Cohen, or maybe it is Michael Cohen. But if so, that's very sad. But the crazy part is when The Onion put out this piece, Michael Cohen then gets on Twitter to be like, see, I knew that was a joke. Ha ha ha, you guys. It's clearly a satirical website, so therefore my response was also satire.

Therefore, by the laws of comedy, I am the new lord of ha ha's. I don't know. I mean, like, was he?, I am the new lord of ha-has. I don't know. I mean, like, was he- Can I just read his tweet? Yeah. Maybe all of you hashtag haters, hashtag trolls missed the memo, but at the onion is a news satire organization. That means dot, dot, dot.

It's not real. But no, I think he's- because they just came out with an article today, I think, but he was responding. Yeah. Hashtag get a life. I thought the story was that they hadn't responded to it and they just recently discovered that they had this email. So they said they said at this editorial saying, all right, we'd like to take you up on your

offer to come and talk to you. And I think like, well, we'll take that down in exchange for access to the president. They said a quid pro quo, if you will. Yeah, that's great. And so I think he was saying that that was satire or that the letter itself was. I don't know. Either way, the fact that he would have to come out, he was like, oh, that's a joke that I would do quid pro quo with the president. But also, who is clicking on the hashtag trolls?

Who's looking for, hmm, let me see what the trolls are trending right now. Marketing people who put out the failed animated version of the Troll Doll film, Trolls. I just love the idea of him explaining to us that The Onion is satire. What a genius. He's just, yeah. Again, Trump, you know, this is John Miller. Trump has no humor. He has no sense of humor.

He is not, he is incapable of, and he's so thin skinned. And that's one of the things that people, I think Comey wrote about it. And I think there's other people who have spent time around him who remark that the most notable thing about Donald Trump when you spend time around him is he never laughs. Yeah, joyless. He never smiles. It's just all, and we spent a lot of time looking for clips of him laughing. And I think we found one from like many. Yeah, it was really weird.

He was just like, huh. Yeah, yeah. Very odd laugh. It was sort of like an angry, passive aggressive laugh. They were also saying in like this other piece that Donald Trump actually called the onion because there was no response to that email. Which would also lead you to believe that he was the one who wrote it. Of course it was old Donnie. Sorry, John Miller. You couldn't spin this one this time. And I've talked about how when I was at ABC News, we were creating a

piece about how Donald Trump is not as rich as he claims. And he himself called the office maybe 30 times a day. He is- Please don't drag me. Please don't drag me. But yeah, except basically threatening to sue until the ABC News legal department was like, okay. And also, if you look at Michael Cohen's writing style, where we've seen him actually send shit to other people, he'll be like, what I will do to you will be fucking disgusting. Right. You know what I mean? Like, that's how Michael Cohen comes at you.

So there's the other thing. When you look at his past works you can tell that he's not his usual writing style and then we also wanted to talk about a word that has been deemed too hot

for cake so a student who is graduating cum laude from his, now this is weird. He was graduating from his Christian-based homeschool program. Oh, I didn't see that part. With a 4.89 grade point average, which I would feel worse for him if he was graduating from a real school.

Am I allowed to say that? I mean. Probably not. But yeah. So anyways. He did get? I mean, probably not, but yeah. So anyways. He did get an A in making his bed though. Right.

So they organized a graduation. Get the fuck out of here. They organized a graduation party and she ordered a cake online from Publix. Right.

Because he achieved a coveted summa cum laude. Right. You know what I mean? From his mom. From his, which again is, I believe, Latin for with honors. Yes. Right.

Thank you. And. What's the summa part? Super? Super with honors. Super with honors. With honors to the max. To the extreme.

Yeah. So I think it goes Magna's the best, summa's the second best. With the highest distinction. So I guess, yeah, that just means with the highest honor. Then Magna's the second best. He finished first in his class at homeschool. Magna Cum Laude is with great honor. Okay.

And then Summa Cum Laude is with highest honor. With the greatest honor. Highest honor. So congratulations. So I'm the Summa podcast host. She carefully typed the words she wanted on the cake. Congrats, Jacob. Summa Cum Laude.

Class of 2018 uh and publix's online system was apparently unhappy with the word cum uh because they changed it on the cake to congrats jacob summa dash dash. Laude, class of 2018. Because they thought it said, come. Yeah. Suma, come. Laude, class of 2018. Come on, Publix. Let him rock with the, you know, he's got the inflated GPA.

Like, let him flex with his cake. You know, don't police the speech because you don't understand Latin. Because you thought, because what, a mother was going to put that on a cake like intending it for Demetre Seaman? The thing is like let's say you saw that and you weren't obviously – I'm assuming if you graduated summa cum laude, you're not in the cake department at Publix. But regardless of that, wouldn't – if they couldn't print it, wouldn't they call the person or inform them and say we can do this, but do you want to rewrite it or whatnot? But was it, do you think it was the computer system that automatically changed it? So it wasn't someone working at Publix that said, I'm not going to write this on a cake. Right.

So someone at Jezebel did their own test where they basically, it was like an impromptu test where they just sort of put in like profane words to see what the website would censor. So they found that, embrace yourself. I'm going to say a few profane words. see what the website would censor. So they found that. Embrace yourself. I'm going to say a few profane words, okay? So please brace yourself. These are the words that they found were automatically censored. Fuck, fucker, shit, bastard, bitch, cunt, vagina, penis, butt, anus, butthole, ass,

asshole, pussy, crap, cock, fart, queef, damn, hell, slut, whore, prostitute, hooker, and the N-word. Now, I don't know why they just, for certain racial slurs, they were like, the N-word. And then this could be the writer's thing. And then it said a variety of other racial slurs, in addition to motherfucker, twat, boner, jizz, spunk, and piss. And then, but they've also found that these words weren't. So, and the other words that got through the net were poop, cum, taint, dick, dickhole,

cockiversary, ham wallet, dump, Jesus, sex, Jew, shit-ass, communist, commie. Please tell me they put this all on one cake. Give head. Sploosh, douche, darn, homo, libtard, die. So, I don't know. It's weird. I'm not exactly sure how that No, I assume they didn't actually order any of those cakes. So in other words, you get a confirmation

once you put in your thing of what the cake's gonna say, and the ones that were censored had the dashes in it. So the mom who ordered the cake should have known that they weren't going to do that, right? Yeah, apparently, like, when you look at one of these... I think she was looking for a little viral images. So when she ordered it, it looks like this flagged it, and it said, profane slash special characters not allowed.

Okay, so she knew. So she went ahead with it to make a point. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, look. She says her son was humili point. Yeah, I guess so. I mean, look. She says her son was humiliated. Oh, boy. Summa blank laude. What the fuck is this, mom?

Oh, my God. There's no with, so it's highest honor? Who the hell wants that? You think I duped an entire education system for my son to graduate with a falsely inflated GPA? Just for the public to fuck me like this? Really coming for the homeschooled. Yeah, this doesn't pass the smell test. She knew what she was doing and I think wanted to make a story.

Presumably. Although I don't think that it goes from screen onto cake without some human intervention, right? Like they have somebody writing the shit up. Yeah, they're just copying a thing. I mean, you know, they might have thought that was shit up yeah they're not printing a thing i mean them you know they might have thought that was an inside joke but you know there probably could have been someone who ordered it and you know if they'd actually written the coom that they would have been upset right yeah you gotta print what's there yeah again you know look

i know people that have been homeschooled and some people actually have gotten education homeschooling and other people i saw were like actor type kids who basically they just had to go to some form of quote-unquote school to basically you know because they were working and they functionally got no education so i'm a little skeptical but it turns out it was actually a 4.79 jack so i'm looking at the mother's facebook post where she explains it all it's very see that's heartbreaking so she she planned it all. It's very heartbreaking. So she planned all of this just so she could do a brag on the kid's GPA. She had no interest in getting this cake thing out there.

She just needed an excuse to tell people, look how smart my son is. You might be onto something because let me read you the post. This is how we even found out it was a story. She goes like this. Okay, I didn't want to post, but I cannot resist. That already means I wanted to post this. Exactly. I ordered Jacob's graduation cake from Publix, a $70 cake. He earned a 4.79 GPA.

Publix refused to write the word summa cum laude because I was using profanity. They put three dashes instead of the word. How utterly ridiculous. And I will be speaking to a manager for a refund. Shame on you, Publix, for turning an innocent Latin phrase into a total embarrassment for having to explain to my son and others, including 70 year old mother about this joke of a cake my son was humiliated mortified now i do not disbelieve that the son was humiliated or mortified i just by this post yes i do not think it had anything to do with the word on the cake but yeah she

totally could have uh posted that without mentioning the GPA. Yeah. It doesn't need to. Right, exactly. Underlining 4.7. And I guess to make sure, it's like, I'm not cheating when I ask for a summa cum laude, okay? It falls within.

Well, we all know when you order a cake, you do have to submit your transcript. Yeah. Oh, 100%. I mean, when it was my birthday, they asked me to see ID just to get it at Baskin-Robbins. They're like, well, when's your birthday? Let me see. Okay. Well, I guess we'll write it. Jay Keith, it's been a pleasure having you,

man. Where, uh, can people find and follow you? Uh, the big thing to find and follow is I am the, uh, host of a podcast on the maximum fun network called go fact yourself,

which is celebrities playing trivia games. It's super fun. You can get it wherever you get podcasts. and our website is go factor pod.com and on Twitter at go factor pod. My personal Twitter is at j underscore Keith. All right. That's easy enough. I can say more about it, but that's the basics.

Jack was just processing. Okay. I was just going to all. Miles, where can people find you? You can find me on Twitter and Instagram at milesofgray. You can find me on Twitter at jack underscore O'Brien. You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeitgeist. We're on Instagram at The Daily Zeitgeist.

We have a Facebook fan page and a website DailyZeitgeist.com where we post our episodes and our footnotes. We link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode as well as the song that we ride out on. Miles, what's that going to be today? today okay let's say

today i'm feeling this artist buddy uh with this track called find me i first heard about it through the video for this uh song which is really dope uh check out the video for this track called find me uh but yeah buddy's just kind of like in this new wave of uh r&b guys uh just doing his thing i think you'll enjoy it uh and please actually do check out the video because it's really cool like they shot it in like a buick or something that they're just rotating like 360 degrees so as he's in it you can just see the gravity pull on him as he's sitting like in the car uh but they they edit it in a very cool way like it's flying through the sky so check out the video too find me bye buddy all right we're gonna ride out on that we will be

back tomorrow because it is a daily podcast. Talk to you guys then. Bye. Going crazy out of my mind these days So much shit I gotta decide these days Listening to all the lies they say Starting up my car, I'm trying to get away Seems like I've been driving all day Smoking and drinking all by myself Hoping and wishing I find myself

Lost and alone Come find me I just wanna feel loved Come try me Lost in the mood I've been looking but I haven't found nothing yet She been trying to kick it all the time But I'm just posted

Chilling all by myself Weed crumbs on my thumbs Getting high as hell Could smoke, chase it down with a little liquor Then I hop off the freeway all by myself weed crumbs on my thumbs getting high as hell, could smoke chase it down with a little liquor then I hop off the freeway just to swerve through the city, got cop lights behind me, damn I hope they don't kill

me like, whoops I come down rubbing on my temples, I'm smoking and drinking all by myself hoping and wishing I find myself in the late night catching a vibe by myself, Lord willing Outro Music by myself lost and alone come find me I just wanna feel love come try me

lost and alone Come try me My sister say I'm changing a lot Somewhere by the water finally made it straight out of Compton Father calling me like son we hardly see you at all Yeah I know you out here shining but you can't do it all by yourself And I can hear the voice of my mom Telling me to pray for understanding, wisdom, and knowledge Wish I knew what I know now back when I dropped out of college Sometimes I feel like I can have way more shit accomplished

It don't matter cause I'm smoking and drinking all by myself Hoping and wishing I find myself In the late night catching the vibe by myself Lord willing we won't die tonight We gon' fly tonight And I a vibe by myself. Lord willing we won't die tonight. We gon' fly tonight. And I'll fly by myself. Realizing that I can't hide from myself. Close my eyes just to see what's inside of myself.

I cry by myself. Lost and alone. Come find me I just wanna feel loved Come try me Lost and alone Lasting alone Évêtois. Évêtois, man. Évêtois. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist

who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio

app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso

as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah

Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print. It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.