Weekly Skews - S6 Ep21: Weekly Skews – RFK Jr. Cut Off a Raccoon’s What Now

Episode Date: April 22, 2026

RFK Jr. “Yeah yeah, we’ll get to the measles outbreaks, but first what’s up with raccoon penis bones?” The FBI director apparently cries at work, but don’t worry, it’s only because he’s... blackout drunk. Trump considers giving himself an Iran War medal. Then, we get into the insane goings on with influencers on the right, where the real ones are self-immolating at the same time they’re being replaced by A.I.This episode is sponsored by ZBiotics. Go to https://www.zbiotics.com/SKEW now. You'll get 15% off your first order when you use SKEW at checkoutWeekly Skews is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. If you believe religious freedom is supposed to protect everybody, not be weaponized to turn away good families, visit https://www.au.org/crooked to learn more and become a member today. 

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:08 What's up everybody? Welcome back. Happy Skues Day to you. It's April 21st, 2026. We're recording this on it just occurred to me for the first time today. Hitler's birthday, Monday, April 20th, 2026, or We'd be. I guess depends on what kind of American you are. I guess there's some overlap with those nowadays. Some people are really into Hitler's birthday. We're also toking up today. That's the weird, wild world we all live in but either way i'm trying that's mark how you doing mark good man that uh so fun story you see yesterday i come back from the gym i'll find my wife sitting on the couch holding our dog who's shaking and i'm like my wife seems upset and like well what happened she's like well she noticed a lump on the dog's butthole so she did dr google stuff and then did a
Starting point is 00:00:58 watch a youtube tutorial on how to express your dog's butthole so she decided to attempt that herself and see if that would solve the problem She did not, yeah, she did not successfully express her dog's butthole, but she had trauma. I was like, yeah. She sexually assaulted your dog, basically. Yeah, yeah. And then she's upset. I'm dying laughing because, like, the dog is not, the dog is not upset about being, but he doesn't have, it doesn't know it was molested.
Starting point is 00:01:25 It doesn't like it. Yeah, right. It just didn't like your finger in its butthole. Right. Yeah, I mean, I remember at one point in time I tried to have a bit about, I found out about expressing. dogs, anal glands after moving to Los Angeles somehow, and I was trying to do this whole bit about, you know me, about dog people in L.A. and rescue dogs and expressing anal glands, all this stuff, never worked because everybody fucking loves dogs. I know I get it now. I gave up. You guys won.
Starting point is 00:01:49 But that reminds me of, you know, unfortunate source here, although kind of appropriate. I don't know if you have, Louis C.K. used to have a bit about, and it was not about butthole stuff with dogs, but it was like he was having to hold his dog down and prior jaw open to put medicine down her throat because of an actual problem that she had. But he was like, but think about it from the dog's perspective. He was like, she doesn't, she doesn't know she's sick or needs that medicine. She's like, the entity she trusts most in the world is holding her down every day and fucking, you know, forcing something down her throat until tears come out of her eyes. He's like, it's got to feel pretty fucked up.
Starting point is 00:02:25 And I'd never thought of that before then. But that's kind of what Aaron did to your dog's butt. Yeah, definitely. They're both over it now. My wife, Jeffrey Epstein, their dog. They're both there, but find out. Do you've been following this mystery of the scientist deaths that is like overtaken the right wing media sphere?
Starting point is 00:02:43 Do you know what I'm talking about? No. I've been, I had a long weekend this weekend in Raleigh, which was an insane amount of fun. But I always, whenever I'm on the road, even though my phone is still in my pocket, somehow me being on the road, it's like I'm in a whole different country or something. I always miss literally everything. So I don't have a clue what you're talking about.
Starting point is 00:03:02 I thought you would have come across this on your regular. your alien Reddit research. Right. Well, you also have secretive government laboratories. I kind of used to work at one of those sort of, you know, OR&L or whatever. So, I mean, I'm interested already. I also had a show idea. I tried to pitch once.
Starting point is 00:03:17 So, like, this is a field of interest for me. So please go on. So I've been, like, seeing this stuff bubble up for a couple, a month or two now. But it was pretty much confined to, like, the Daily Mail and New York Post, you know, where these entities, like, they're not interested in getting to the bottom over. They're interesting to present at it in the most click-worthy, way possible. So you never, like it, but then like it was a minute to Fox News as a website couple days ago. Then Peter Ducey finally asked like Carolyn Levin about it at a White House
Starting point is 00:03:45 Press availability and she commented on it and then Trump chimed in. So, uh, so now the mainstream press is trying to get to the bottom of it. But I hear me quote here, President Trump hinted this week that something sinister may lurk behind the disappearance or death of 10 government workers tied to sensitive nuclear or space technology. Quote, I just left a meeting on that subject. are pretty serious stuff. Hopefully, coincidence, but some of them were very important people.
Starting point is 00:04:07 We're going to look at it. This is from CBS, but those close investigations into the disparate cases that they see no links. We're talking about, like, so it's up to 11 people now, and let me describe the 11th person
Starting point is 00:04:19 for you to, so we can understand how, like, there's not that nothing weird happened to any of these 11 people, it just there aren't 11 weird people. So they basically, like, anybody the last four years that's connected to anything connected to nuclear,
Starting point is 00:04:31 aircraft research or space research or UFOs or the Air Force who's gone missing or died, they basically lumped into this conspiracy, the point where some of them are just like, there's like, you expect me to believe that a couple guys in their 60s just died? I'm like, right. Yeah. So the way they get to the 11th person, and I hate talking about this because this person should not be discussed in a national news framework because that feel bad for their family. But this woman who, her obituary quietly appeared in Alabama newspaper,
Starting point is 00:05:01 She was too young to have died of natural causes, and they did not give a cause of death, right? So usually you can use your imagination to say, like, it's something embarrassing or something that family doesn't want to talk about. Her internet history shows that she had claimed to be into anti-gravity research, even though it was not government affiliated. She was, like, tag NASA in her internet posts. She was trying to get funding from NASA into her basement anti-gravity research. Right. She does not, she's not part of any government conspiracy. She's just a person who's crazy.
Starting point is 00:05:30 Okay, that's all right. That's what I was going to ask. You know how at all legitimate it was? You said, because, like, because I used to get calls for people all the time, because I was in charge of this grant program for the DOE for, like, emerging technologies. And my number, office number was listed on the website for that.
Starting point is 00:05:46 And, bro, I will get calls from wing nuts all the time for people that are doing, like, you know, trailer park, mad science, laboratory shit, and they're fucking, you know, and their basements in the backyards, you know. Yeah, so if you had been stabbed to death in a mugging, in the last four years, you would be on this list of maybe 11th. I was actually going to bring that up
Starting point is 00:06:04 because I used to be adjacent to this type of stuff. I don't mean like you if you would still work to the DOE. I mean, they'd be like he used to work at the DOE at a secretive facility and now he's dead. You think that's a coincidence, right? Right. So, like, among the people that died, like, again, at least two of the people I think here
Starting point is 00:06:21 did seriously go missing. But one of them was a secretary, I think. And then a guy who ended up dead was a janitor. And I don't know how deep these people would have been read into top secret weapons programs. I do. I know. Like,
Starting point is 00:06:35 not at all. You can be, I, we talked about it before, but I had a Q clearance, you know, what Q had not his name for. I had one of those.
Starting point is 00:06:42 And I was in these, like, top secret meetings and stuff. So I was technically privy to it, but because I'm dumb about nuclear shit, they might as well have been speaking a completely different language the whole time I was in there.
Starting point is 00:06:53 So you could have waterboarded me all goddamn day, and I wouldn't have been able to tell you much of any use. So that definitely applies to secondary. and janitors and stuff, even if they, you know, clean the floors in those meeting rooms every night. They're not, they're not going to know anything generally. And two of these people were killed violently. One was shot to death when it looked like a mugging and they arrested a person for her who has like a coronal history for like carjacking and stuff. And the other one, do you remember the MIT professor was killed by the mass shooter from Brown University who Patel couldn't catch in the meantime?
Starting point is 00:07:28 and he went and killed the MIT professor. That apparently is what jumped off this conspiracy theory. But if you remember, the professor was, the mass shooter who killed the professor, they had been classmates 20 years ago, and the shooter apparently was jealous of how the other one's career it went. So maybe that's part of a sinister conspiracy and the previous mass shooting was just part of the cover story,
Starting point is 00:07:51 the legend they built for this guy, so they could have just had this elderly, this middle-aged MIT professor die out of heart attack that he didn't fucking know. Right. So this all, like, this all seems very silly. But the part that it was, it does seem mysterious here, that sort of ends up being the lead on all these stories, the retired major general by the name of William Neal McCasland of the Air Force, I believe, who was last seen in his home in Albuquerque in late February. His wife, Susan, said in a Facebook post that it, quote, seems quite unlikely that he was taken to extract very dated secrets from him because he had been retired from the Air Force for 12 years. He was a former commander of the Air Force Research Laboratory
Starting point is 00:08:28 and the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. So if you were taking him to get secrets out of him, when the secrets from 12 years ago. So the theory is that he was taken against his will because of his work consulting for a non-government group that was probing the government's UFO files, pushing for the government to release files about UFOs. But his wife is like, quote,
Starting point is 00:08:50 Neil does not have any special knowledge about the ET bodies and debris from the Roswell crash store to Wright-Pat. Though at this, at this, point with absolutely no sign of him, maybe the best hypothesis is that aliens bring him up to the mothership. So, that,
Starting point is 00:09:04 so, I feel like they've been married for a long time. There's like, there's like a hint of like, annoyance that I'm reading into the way she put that. She's like, I don't know,
Starting point is 00:09:15 who knows where he is, probably in the fucking mothership for all I know. Yeah, it means to me like, like, like, so like, like, like,
Starting point is 00:09:21 like the she thinks he ran off or killed himself, which is like, like, let me tell you, like, But also, like, I want to put out, like, being into UFO research in New Mexico is like being into smoking brisketes when you live in Texas. Right. Like, this is not, like, it's not weird that is in everybody fucking UFO.
Starting point is 00:09:37 You collect, you collect, you know, jade jewelry or whatever, and then you fucking look into UFOs. And you make, you make the enchiladas with the red and the green sauce. Yes. So, but this is, so McCaslin basically walked out of his house in February without his phone, any wearable devices, or his prescription glasses. He wore hiking boots. He had his wallet and a 38 caliber revolver. And they found a sweatshirt about a mile from his house. So if I told you a guy took his ID and a gun and walked off in the woods,
Starting point is 00:10:07 what would you think who was going to do? Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's a form of identification. He wants you to identify as body. When I find him, yeah, right. Right.
Starting point is 00:10:16 So, and then, so anyway, Tim Burchett probably is probably doing podcasts about this is what got this all started. Now it's filtered up through the fucking daily. mail to the more mainstream right way we can't get me to go to the White House. So now the government's got to jump into action, trying to figure out what you got to the bottom of it. But this isn't even interesting enough for Cash Patel's fucking FBI.
Starting point is 00:10:37 They shrug this off. So who's looking into it, your old boss, your old employer, the Department of Energy, which oversees NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Alamos is looking into it. But the only investigators they have is for the Inspector General's office, which tries to catch people doing contract fraud.
Starting point is 00:10:53 Yes. And the intel they have focuses on counterintelligence. So I take that to me and they're loosely checking in if he has any suspicious bank transactions to see if he like defected to like Beijing or Tel Aviv or whatever and then they'll fucking go back to the day. I know one of those, I mean I don't know
Starting point is 00:11:06 that you know he were one of those IG agents right. He was also an SEC referee and had like an ego the size of the fucking large Hadron Collider at OR&L or whatever. So like if they've got him on this case he'll be trying to do some real fucking
Starting point is 00:11:23 secret agent FBI shit. I could I can promise you that. You're right. They normally, they look into contract fraud and that type of thing, but you wouldn't know it from talking to this guy.
Starting point is 00:11:31 He's a fucking secret agent, man. You expected to blow the whistle on this UFO experience? You won't even call Alabama for holding this motherfucker. There it is. There it is. All right.
Starting point is 00:11:43 Well, let's get into it. You know that. Nowadays, the plugs come at the very end. So what that means is, it's time for the daily dumbass. Matt, graphic, please.
Starting point is 00:11:56 Today's the day. dead roadkill raccoons for being oh so tempting with that rocket in their pocket. Secretary, what did you do with the raccoons dead penis? Where is it now? You're a cabinet secretary for the United States of America. You're asked about what you did with a dead raccoon's penis and you chuckle like Beavison butthead, basically. Yeah, it's been a minute since one of these coming up. We're a long. overdue for a wild-ass RFK Jr. Fucking dead animal carcass story or whatever. So it's got time.
Starting point is 00:12:37 So this is from a new book called RFK Jr. The Fall and Rise by a Reporter for the New York Post who based their book upon a wide range of sources, which includes RFK's private journals from around the year 2000. I want you to read this quote here, Tray, that I've highlighted for you. I was
Starting point is 00:12:56 standing in front of my parked car on I-684 cutting the penis out of a rogue-killed raccoon thinking about how weird some of my family members have turned out to be. I get he's probably hitting right there but that is pretty funny. Yeah, that's hilarious.
Starting point is 00:13:14 So they, just apropos of nothing, one of the many spectcripts I've written over the years is like a, like a sitcom in a trailer park and one of the characters is based on you know DJ's old lady she makes like animal bone art and stuff in real life one of the characters in the show I made her also do that and she gives the DJ character a necklace made out of raccoon dick bones in the in the sitcom and he finds out
Starting point is 00:13:43 later that those are actually because raccoons actually have dick bones I don't know if this comes up later yeah right it does see I found that in my research as well Mark so sometimes I didn't do field research right I just looked it up but I just Sometimes there could be legitimate reasons for trying to learn about raccoon dick bones. See, that's what's... So, like, you and I are aware that raccoons have dick bones because we're from the South and our people do stuff with the raccoon dick bones. Right.
Starting point is 00:14:08 So I'm here to tell, like, RFK Jr., our culture is not your costume, basically. So, you guys aren't familiar. Raccoons do have a bit comb called a baculum. A raccoon's penis bone is about the same size of bears, so fucking you go, raccoons. And in South, people make them into fish, so. and stuff. Some people keep them as a love charm, like a fertility amulet or like a gambler's good luck charm. What a nickname for a raccoon's, you know,
Starting point is 00:14:32 Dick Mohn is the Texas toothpick. And I did watch a YouTube video where one made one into a toothpick. He'll believe they went into a toothpick. I didn't know that last part. I like that, though. Yeah, you can find a website. I've had a website online yesterday where you can buy them for $12.99. They can be used to determine the relative age of a raccoon.
Starting point is 00:14:50 So if a raccoon's baccumum tip is made up of uncalcified cartilage, has a porous base and is less than 1.2 grams in mass and measures less than 90 millimeters long, the nebaculine belongs to a juvenile. So Bacy Rfk Jr. needed to know if this raccoon dick was barely legal. That's what he was in the research. He was done. So this is a...
Starting point is 00:15:10 I wanted to speak on this for a second because this is absolutely fucking ridiculous. Let me quote here. My kids waited patiently in the car, he noted. Later telling people magazine he collected, the raccoons generalist who could quote, study them later. So basically he's a legend that has a bat paved lab where he looks at different animal
Starting point is 00:15:29 dicks. Are you doing taste test? Like the Pepsi Challenge? What are you fucking doing on these dicks? Now you brought up the other like roadkill. He obviously has a fantasy with fucking found dead animals. Right. Which I believe is on when you look for signs of
Starting point is 00:15:45 serial killers and children, I think that's one of them. Like it's like setting fires and peeing your bed as poor of the other stuff. Yeah, right. Bedwetting. Pyromaniia. and yeah I think they make the animals dead and then fuck with them
Starting point is 00:15:58 but you know he's probably done that too right absolutely well he did hit them he killed the bear with his car yeah yeah yeah yeah
Starting point is 00:16:05 so but like you and I remember this stuff but part of the rules the mainstream Washington press scores they're not allowed to remember anything that happened previously and draw connection between it
Starting point is 00:16:14 but that video I showed you was from TMZ TMZ opened a Washington Bureau last week and unfortunately for these people TMZ has no standards that say they cannot remember things and draw conclusions
Starting point is 00:16:24 So let's watch this next video from TMZ where they do remember stuff. Hey man, one question. You know, in all seriousness, what is your fascination with this roadkill and get animals? I know you've done a few things notably with a whale, with a bear, with a raccoon more recently. I just want to know what the fascination is, sir. Anything? Okay. Thank you.
Starting point is 00:16:54 Thank you, sir. All right. So, if you remember, he cut the head off of a dead whale, put him on the top of his car, and his daughter told this story to her magazine because she remembers, like, dead whale juice coming through the windows. So they drove it back to that house.
Starting point is 00:17:09 So anyway, I just, like, I'm glad the TMZs finally do this, these people get covered with the dignity they fucking deserve. This whole incident did gift us this video from Fox News this week if they have this, Matt. This is just funny. Penis goes right through your mind. I want the penis.
Starting point is 00:17:24 You're going to clip that. Yeah. So the last week of Trump's cabinet, so we found out the health guy collects raccoon dicks. The Secretary of Defense quotes fake Bible passages from Pulp Fiction. And the FBI guy is on a paranoid bender and won't leave his room. We're going to get to those in a second. I just like, like, I don't think RFK is a southerner or a shaman or a scientist. He's just a weird pervert, right?
Starting point is 00:17:52 So this is just his life now. And Representative Alada Grasalva of Arizona, this is actually relevant to like, this guy's in charge of health science. And as he was on research, when Raccoon Beuses, it's worth asking him about. So here's her at a hearing a couple of days ago. I'd like to first talk to you about your proposed cuts to medical research. I was reading an article this morning and talked about your affinity to perform your own medical research. Apparently once cut, you're going to self a road killed raccoon, and study them later. who speak calmly medical research, yet your budget cuts show that the National Institutes of Health
Starting point is 00:18:28 are going to get a cut of more than 12%. This level of cuts would halt promising research, force layoffs of scientists and research staff, and undermine America's global leadership in medical intervention and innovation. What specific diseases do you believe deserve less medical research? A DEI. were we funding research into the DZs of DEI? What the fuck is he talking about? So I wanted to connect this dot here.
Starting point is 00:18:58 So this is a couple of big headlines over the weekend about cancer research. Pancredic cancer MRI vaccine shows lasting results in early trial. Science is cautioned that more research is needed, but nearly all the patients who respond to the personalized vaccine are still alive six years later, which is amazing because less than 13% of people diagnosed with pancreatic cancer to live for more than five years. Maybe it's obviously one of the dead. Have you ever known anybody?
Starting point is 00:19:19 Your father had it, right? Yeah, my dad died of pancreatic cancer, yeah. It took like less than two months from diagnosis to dying, which is like morbidly in some ways almost, it was so fucking brutal that that was almost like, you know, merciful or whatever. But it's like, I've never seen nothing like it in my life. Like it's wild. It's super fucked up.
Starting point is 00:19:39 I guess I'm being put to the test now because there are not like student loan debt debate and stuff. So many people would be like, I paid my fucking loans. Why can't these people pay them too? And I always would say like, you know, if one day they cure pancreatic cancer, I'm not going to be like,
Starting point is 00:19:52 hey, I got a dead dad. Why these people think they get to have fucking parents that go on living or whatever. It's pretty entitled, you know. It's kind of weird. The same people always scream that life isn't fair, desire for other people's lives to be exactly as unfair as those words in the exact same ways.
Starting point is 00:20:09 Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah, right. Right. It's just people don't want everyone to be better off whatever, you want everyone to be as bad off as you feel like you've been. You know, you want everybody else. If you, things must suck the same for everyone as opposed to things hitting the same for everybody, you know.
Starting point is 00:20:28 Fundamental disagreement I have with those people philosophically. Yeah, me too. So, uh, so typically there's, there's no like screening process of pancreatic cancer. And once it's discovered, only like 20% of cases are operable. And being operable is considered a prerequisite for this. So like, it's not like, I'm not saying this is like, Like tomorrow everyone gets cured of pancreatic cancer sort of panacea. But, you know, it works like a kind of immunotherapy.
Starting point is 00:20:51 Basically, after the tumors removed, it trains your immune system to attack small cells so the cancer doesn't spread, is my understanding. But anyway, I want to read this headline last August. HHS winds down MRI vaccine development under Barta. So basically, they canceled all MRNA vaccine researching was $500 million worth because, according to RFK Jr., it was ineffective in responding to upper respiratory infection. like COVID in the flu, which it wasn't, according to other scientists on Earth. But even if it was, he's saying because it didn't cure, fix COVID, we can't have the cure for pancreatic cancer.
Starting point is 00:21:26 Right. This vaccine for pancreatic cancer is broadly part of the larger category of vaccines that are associated with the COVID vaccine, right? So they all have to be demonized because of the COVID association, even though this cancer one doesn't have obviously anything to do with COVID. it, but it's like collateral damage from fucking COVID hysteria or whatever, pretty much. Yes. Because MRI, like it allowed the COVID vaccine to be rolled out more quickly, but that, you know,
Starting point is 00:21:57 of course, made people more suspicious of it because quick is bad and therefore, you know, whatever. So, so did you, if you follow, like, I don't really have anything to say about the Hexas Bible quote thing, except that I had never, I had never thought about whether the Bible verse from Pulp Fiction was real at all. I mean, I definitely did, but what I did, was because it's so fucking rad. And by the time, even by the time I saw that as like a teenager, I already, the Bible did not
Starting point is 00:22:24 hit for me generally, that I was like, I got to find out if that's real. Because to me, that feels too fucking cool to be in the Bible. And I know now that there's all kinds of wild ass shit in the Bible that's, you know, pretty metal and everything. I know. But either way, I looked it up immediately because I just had to know if it was real or not. but so I found out at 15 that it wasn't an actual real Bible version
Starting point is 00:22:47 I've known that ever since I guess is all I'm saying so like it's still not you know an excuse really I had never thought about it was real because the point of it and you have no idea how much like Tarantito might have just written it because it fucking sounds badass right but also the character
Starting point is 00:23:03 is putting Jules is speaking as if he's God he's saying I am vengeance I am vengeance sayeth the Lord like basically but I'm taking while taking vengeance into his own hands on behalf of his boss. Right. So the thing is sacrilegious, even if it was accurate. So never thought about it.
Starting point is 00:23:18 So the point of, is that Jules has come up with a mental framework to justify being a horrifically violent sociopath within the university operating. And that's the point of it. And so even if it was real, it's still blasphemous. And it would be fucked up. I mean, yeah, he's cool as fuck, but he's a hip man. Yeah. But it's like, but he's badass.
Starting point is 00:23:37 Like, I bet, I bet, I bet hexets at one point in his life, if not today, has had the bad motherfucker wallet, too. probably, like unironically, because he's just like that kind of dude, but which is whatever, that would be insufferable to me if he worked at the gym in my neighborhood. But like, he's the
Starting point is 00:23:55 secretary of fucking war, you know? So it's way worse. Yeah, like, I just feel like it's weird. Holy Wars are weird and bad enough, but Holy War is based upon a made-up invention and religion or their imagination that they just invented last week is such a crazy place to be. Moving along.
Starting point is 00:24:12 Cash Patel. The Atlantic had a long in-depth piece over the weekend about what a drunk loser he is. And two main anecdotes that I want to inform you guys about. So back on April 10th, he was trying to leave work for the weekend, and he tried to get into an internal computer system. And he couldn't get in. And when his login didn't work, he just assumed his credentials had been cut off because he was fired and called people around panic, basically crying to them about being fired. People, two of the people he called described the behavior as a freak out. And because it was so pathetic, word like ricocheted around.
Starting point is 00:24:43 on the White House and the FBI headquarters. And the, and a bunch of people were relieved that he was fired, even though he wasn't fired. And the White House got a bunch of calls in the bureau and from members of Congress asking who was now in charge of the FBI because they obviously believed he was fired
Starting point is 00:24:56 because he deserves it. But it turned out it was just a fucking technical snafu, and he was still the director of the FBI. Yeah, I mean, that's not a good look for him, but it also is like an insight into the general culture that's been established, you know, and working for the Trump administration. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:25:12 Like immediately just to say, assuming that, A, you might have been fired because no one is safe, and they all know that, but also, B, if you are fired, you could be, you could definitely plausibly be fired in such an unceremonious and disrespectful way, right, as to, like, just get locked out of the building, like that New York Jets rookie in that famous fucking hard knocks clip that, you know, became a meme when he shows up and he just can't get into the building. And he's like, okay, well, I guess I've been cut. and he had been good.
Starting point is 00:25:44 Like Ash Patel thought the FBI did there, that the government did that to him, you know, because they kind of, they kind of operate like the New York Jets, I guess is what. Our government is the New York Jets
Starting point is 00:25:54 of world governments. So, you know, all kind of tracks. Woody Johnson's big in this fucking administration too. So, you know, they're all, he was an ambassador in Trump won,
Starting point is 00:26:05 the owner of the Jets, right? So it's all tracks. So he doesn't serve to be fired for reasons we didn't even know about this article. I mean, we knew he partied and drank. He's always jettling around with his girlfriend.
Starting point is 00:26:14 He went to the Olympics and shook beers with the hockey team. But we call it here, several officials told me that Patel's drinking has been a recurring source of concern across the government. Meetings and briefings have had to be rescheduled for later in the day as a result of his alcohol-fuel-fueled nights. On multiple occasions in the past year, members of his security detail, had difficulty waking Patel because he was seemingly intoxicated. A request for breaching equipment, normally used by swat and hostage rescue teams to quickly gain an entry into buildings was made last year, because Patella had been unreachable behind locked doors, according to multiple people familiar with the request. When I read that the first time,
Starting point is 00:26:47 I thought they meant they had to call a SWAT team to help them out one time. But no, they made a budget request to have that equipment themselves because they had to break down doors to find him passed out drunk several, like multiple fucking times. Yeah. Yeah, and this is like, this is nothing. It's like if he wasn't, you know,
Starting point is 00:27:09 I feel like if he wasn't otherwise, such a tool and seemingly so ineffective at the job and everything. Well, I mean, you can't just be fucking being passed out drunk in closets every day. I guess, and I know we live in a different world now, but I'm just saying like, you know, the way Winston Churchill famously operated or whatever, like, you can like enjoy your fucking libations and whatnot if you actually do the job and are good at. I guess I'm just saying, be a functioning alcoholic if you're going to be an alcoholic, you know, for God's sake.
Starting point is 00:27:38 People let you get away with that. even at the highest echelons of power. But if you're being a fucking fratboy dip shit about it, that's going to be a problem. And rightfully so. There are things that the FBI agents can't do without the fucking FBI director's approval.
Starting point is 00:27:53 Right. So like, I'm not trying to do they drew up a disaster scenario, but say they need to execute a FISA warrant to stop a terror attack, and he's fucking passed out drop in a locked hotel suite. Right. So, Patel's filed a lawsuit about this. He's suing the Atlantic for 250
Starting point is 00:28:10 million dollars and it's pretty funny because they basically confess the things that weren't even the story when they followed the lawsuit and put out the press release objecting into it like for one of the accusations in this story is that he once had a security detail shut down uh sorry he was complained about how the FBI merchandise wasn't intimidating enough and when they issued the denial they said in allegation that he once had a security detail shut down the FBI Association store they say to the shop alone and then complained the merchandise wasn't intempting enough is untrue, but they didn't report the first part. You confess to closing down the store and your denial about the merchandise.
Starting point is 00:28:48 It's basically if the news, if the media said, I stole a chicken, and then I put out a press release saying, the news and media is lying when they say, I stole a chicken, then fucked it. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So the competence just, he just overwhelms you. And I want to talk about Trump for a second before we get the second segment,
Starting point is 00:29:06 but we got to take a quick break. That's right. We will do that right after this. Weekly skews is brought to you by Zbiotics pre-alcohol. Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic, invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle the rough mornings after drinking. Finally, somebody's speaking my language, let me tell you, if there's a surefire way to wake up feeling fresh after you've had a night out with friends, it's Zibiotics pre-alcohol, right?
Starting point is 00:29:38 Because it's like it's the season. Spring is here. You got like, you got baseball games, backyard barbecues, like the weather is nice now. I mean, I don't do these anymore, but festival season is upon us, right? You know, and it's just, it's a lot of fun stuff to do, and I love doing fun stuff. It's just that you know it's hard to be a functioning human being the next day, especially as you age, as I certainly am doing. And the way all that works, just so you know, is when you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in your gut, and the buildup of that byproduct,
Starting point is 00:30:08 not dehydration itself, like everybody always thinks, the it's the byproduct that's responsible for the rough days after drinking but zbiotics pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break that byproduct down so you make it your first drink of the night then of course you drink responsibly and you will still feel your best the next morning you know i was skeptical at first time from rural tennessee we're not historically a people who put a whole lot of thought and how we're going to feel the next day before we get started the night before but i thought what the hell i tried it you know and i kid you not the difference is real woke up the next morning I was ready to actually do something instead of just wallowing misery,
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Starting point is 00:31:05 One more time. Zbiotics.com slash. skew and use the promo code S-K-E-W skew for 15% off. Z-biotics, give it a shot. Weekly Skews is brought to you by Americans United for Separation of Church and State. This hasn't been getting a lot of airtime lately, and I think that's a problem, because it ought to make everybody mad, regardless of where you come from politically, if you ask me. Trump's so-called Religious Liberty Commission has been meeting regularly,
Starting point is 00:31:30 and what they're actually working towards is a full-blown Christian nationalist agenda. Not religious freedom for everybody. not religious freedom. It's just religious freedom for only the right kind of Christian as they see it. That's all. You know, and I grew up in the Deep South religion, a very specific type, was everywhere. Faith was woven into everything, you know, Sunday mornings, and the way everybody talked to and related to each other,
Starting point is 00:31:53 dictated everything about everybody's lives. And I understand what real faith means to people. You know, I know how important it could be. It honestly kind of saved my meme on her later years. That's the truth. And I know that real faith does not need the government picking winners and losers to survive. What's happening right now is not about protecting religion. It's about using religion as a cover for blatant discrimination. Here's what that looks like on the ground. Americans
Starting point is 00:32:16 United has real clients, real families, who have been turned away from taxpayer-funded foster care agencies like Liz and Gabe Rutan Ram, a Jewish couple in Tennessee, my home state, ready to foster to adopt and they're turned away because they're Jewish. There's also Amy Madonna, a Catholic mother of three rejected because she wouldn't sign an evangelical Protestant statement of faith. Fat Mama Roof and Bryn Esplin, a same-sex couple shown the door entirely. These are qualified people who want to give children who need a home a home. They're trying to do a good thing. And the state, using your tax dollars, refuses to let them do so, told them no based on what they believe and who they are. That's not religious liberty. That's the government putting its thumb on the scale for one version of religion and using it to keep kids out of loving families.
Starting point is 00:33:02 If you believe religious freedom is supposed to protect everybody and not be turned into a weapon against everyone else, visit A.U.org slash crooked to learn more and become a member today. That's A.U.org slash crooked. Find great deals on steel hedged trimmers, chainsaws, line trimmers, and more. In stock at the largest steel dealer in the G-T-A. C-O-O-O-I-B-R-S.com. all right we're back yeah you're talking about things feeling generally incompetent and i think you're about to segue into the man himself the head of the fish from when from whence the rot originates right
Starting point is 00:33:45 and that so sunday saturday night sunday morning don't trump apparently stayed up all night in the morning and it culminated into a single hour where he posted 20 47 posts on true social including this video if you have this Matt bro what a shock shot shot ah
Starting point is 00:34:12 what no he posted that if you guys in the audio the fucking fuck dude I had not saying that Jesus Christ is there some religious
Starting point is 00:34:26 like something I'm missing or something like not Christian Okay. It looks like a demonic ceremony where if you guys listen on the only feed, it's an AI-generated video of a man anointing Donald Trump with blood on his forehead and then him doing that demonic chant in some sort of ancient Sumerian language or whatever. Yeah, so he also posted a video of Frank Sinatra singing My Way, which should horrify everybody. You're not familiar with the lyrics. And now the end is near.
Starting point is 00:34:55 And so I face the final curtain. I've had my fill, my share of losing. And now it's fears subside. I find it all so amusing. So that was like basically like, oh, should we all get in bunkers? My way,
Starting point is 00:35:06 by the way, by the way is the unofficial anthem for every fucking sociopathic dickhead. Right. It's like alcoholic father, known to me. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:13 Sure, whatever else happens. Sure, you know, kids hate me and my life is generally in ruins and all that or whatever. But hey,
Starting point is 00:35:20 at least I did it in my way. No one can take that away from me. It's like, yeah, maybe you should try to somebody else's way, maybe. Those people never think, I think your way
Starting point is 00:35:29 kind of, sucks maybe, but, you know, you're trying to hear that. And the Wall Street Journal had yet another behind-the-scenes piece about Trump's decision-making on the Iran war, which is what Schrodinger's
Starting point is 00:35:43 straight of her moves, both open and closed, both at war and not, both negotiating and not. So this appears to be like a bunch of anonymous quotes from Marco Rubio trying to distance himself from a fucking war planning. But anyway, he, in a gathering one night after threatening to end Iranian civilization,
Starting point is 00:35:59 Trump stood in the White House with donors and top staff for reception. He mused by giving himself the nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor, designed to honor bravery, courage, and sacrifice. He then told a story about why he deserved it. In his first term, he flew into Iraq for a supplies holiday visit to the troops. And they had to take that weird bank into, like, you had to turn into Boggham Air Base. You have to do like a rapid descent and come into that angle to avoid like incoming airfire.
Starting point is 00:36:26 So he thinks he deserves a medal for being on the plane that made the landing. Okay. Yeah. So I look forward to... Every plane that's ever landed in Iraq? Yes. Yeah, has made the same landing. Yes.
Starting point is 00:36:38 Yeah. So, yeah. So just a very serious government of really responsible people. Yeah. All right. And we got an honorable mention for Daily Dumbass. The news for finally getting to the bottom of six months ago's internet. It's our trend that hard to believe.
Starting point is 00:36:55 These young men are hitting themselves in the face with hammers, even sauce, Get this, they think it will improve their looks. It's called looks maxing, and it's being promoted on social media by 20-year-old Braden Peters, a controversial influencer who calls himself clavicular and has 8,000 followers. You've got to hit the chin hard. He spoke his own. So this is about a real thing, but it also kind of goes into, like, with the news report on the kids wearing sex bracelets, you know what kind of thing?
Starting point is 00:37:26 Where it's like, it's overstated to a degree. Like you like like like first of all those kids are not hitting themselves in the head in the face of the hammer is very hard you might notice in the video. Yeah there is that. I was just the guy. The guy that opens for me a lot and I mean he's 32. These dudes are 20 or whatever. But it's like to me he is the same as them. And I was just asking him like this weekend about all this stuff.
Starting point is 00:37:48 And he said something like he was like dude every everyone that I know is talking about the guys that are doing this or whatever. he was like, but I don't know any guys that are doing this. He's like, I know a ton of people talking about you believe all these guys are doing this. He's like, but I've never met a guy or a guy with a little brother or anything who's actually unironically doing it.
Starting point is 00:38:13 Right. I was like, yeah, you know, could be something to that. Yeah, of clificular 800,000 followers and not saying that his existence or fame isn't a problem. I'm just saying like, of his 800,000 followers, how many people are watching because they think it's fucking funny
Starting point is 00:38:24 this guy's life is so miserable. Right. Yeah. I did tell him. Donnie is the guys now. I did tell him, though, and it's a different dude altogether, but like something made Andrew take millions and millions of fucking dollars. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:38:35 He's not exactly the same, but they're certainly similar. So, like, it's not not a thing either, but yeah, I hear you. I think we're getting ourselves whipped up into a hysteria over it, perhaps, because it's really fucking dumb and alarming. Yeah. I like, I'm about it to talk about it because it's so fucking stupid, but like, like, so, I thought the influencer the last week in the influencer economy or whatever
Starting point is 00:39:01 couldn't get any dumber than the parents parental tips influencer who backed her own toddler in her driveway than mine the trip to the emergency room for like more content. Yeah. Just to be clear, because I didn't actually say what you put that in our group chat. The said toddler is okay, right?
Starting point is 00:39:18 Yes. She didn't, she did not Anton Yelching her toddler. That would be super fucked up. I would be laughing about it when they killed her toddler. The toddler being fine. does make that pretty funny, although very,
Starting point is 00:39:27 you know, dystopian too. There's been multiple parenting influencers who have been like, like, like, CPS, I have eventually had their kids taken away from them. Or have, like, been charged for child abuse and shit like that. So it's like, uh, it's really not surprising either, I feel like.
Starting point is 00:39:41 If you're, like, exploiting your kids for fucking internet clout and stuff, you're probably not super cool as a parent, in my opinion, but. Yeah, if you, if you've turned, I don't want to be delicate here, because there are different flavors of it, varieties of it. But I do find dystopia. when a parent's sole source of income is posting videos of their children online. It feels like you're heading towards some weird.
Starting point is 00:40:02 You have some, you have some, your incentives are at cross purposes there, I feel like. Absolutely. Doing with a cat, I'm on board. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:40:09 Love that. But a baby, it feels a little fucked up. Anyway. So, I wanted to talk about this for a minute because, you know, we're heading to an election where a lot of the action for,
Starting point is 00:40:20 you know, me, and this was just a banner a couple of weeks for right-wing adjacent Zoomer live streamers. Clavicular, for example, was doing an interview with 60 Minutes Australia that he walked out of when they compared him to in-cells,
Starting point is 00:40:37 and then he OD'd on meth while live-streaming at a nightclub. Then he announced he's quitting streaming because he's too autistic to be polite on stream without doing drugs. Then immediately after that, he did live stream
Starting point is 00:40:47 with a group of retirement home residents and talked them about facelift maxing. So he's back on the meth. We're just all, we're going to watch this kid die live stream for an amusement, I guess. He's reportedly being investigated
Starting point is 00:40:59 by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for a video appearing to show him shoot an alligator. You can't do that in Florida? I thought that was a right of passage in Florida. I thought they made you kill an alligator before you become an adult. I thought they'd make him the state bird of Florida for that.
Starting point is 00:41:15 You didn't have to eat it. And then you're a Florida man. It's when a Florida boy becomes a Florida man. Yeah. No. An influence, the last year by the name was Sniko, who I know you're familiar with. He's a big fan. He's like Nazi adjacent, right?
Starting point is 00:41:29 Yeah, yeah. He's a big time fan of Hitler. Like, these are the famous clip of him on Nick Fuente, so they're arguing about, like, they're both talking about they both aren't fans of trans people. And Fuente says that transsexualism was invented by Hitler and Sneco disagrees them and says, no, it's the Jews. So a real diversity of thought. finger spirit he was walking through
Starting point is 00:41:55 Manhattan talking to a camera about how people who masturbate should be hanged to death and then I got a guy filming his own video
Starting point is 00:42:04 just punched him in the face I don't know what the fuck is going on here so you might not know who sniko is but some guy knows who he is enough
Starting point is 00:42:12 to ambush him and beat the shit out of him on the fucking street of New York then this is the worst one a guy named
Starting point is 00:42:18 Johnny Somali He was like a shock-jot prankster kind of dude. We talked about him before when he got arrested. Is he the black streamer that goes like Asian countries and shows his fucking ass, like, and that's his whole thing? Yeah. I hate that. He was just sentenced to South Korea.
Starting point is 00:42:36 We talked about this incident when he first happened about a year ago, but he went to South Korea. He lap danced and kissed a on and kissed a memorial for World War II sex slaves. He played North Korea propaganda on the subway, and he threw ramen at a store owner like a fucking psychopath. The other charges he faced related to deep fake porn. He made of himself fucking a rival South Korean streamer. And he also sends some explicit messages to minors.
Starting point is 00:42:59 If you don't remember this. So he was live streamed viral in South Korea. A bunch of people put boundaries on him saying basically, we'll crowd fund your fucking bail if he'd beat the fuck out of this dude. So after they took away his passports who couldn't leave the country because they're trying to figure what they charge him with, he was just running from mobs of people who were beating the shit out of him over and over. on the streets of South Korea
Starting point is 00:43:19 It's not bad for a movie. It sucks because he's the central character. He had to find a way to Danny McBride it somehow. You know what I mean? Because he's one of the most unlikable people alive. But that story is, you know, would make a good movie, I think. It's the running man, but the guy deserves to die. Yeah, right.
Starting point is 00:43:39 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. With just heroic Koreans defending their country's honor. Yeah. So he showed up for, when he was through, trial started, he showed up for his first court date, an hour late, hungover wearing a MAGA hat. He called South Korea a U.S. vassal state in open court.
Starting point is 00:43:56 And then four months later, he was seen holding a Japanese rising sun flag and saying that Japan should reoccupy Korea. So, then his mom filed a petitioner asked the judge for leniency. So he got sent us like six months of hard labor. And when he gets back to America, he's going to be forbidden from working with a kids for five years because he has to register, disabled people are kids for five years, because he has to register as a sex offender.
Starting point is 00:44:22 So, yeah, so like everywhere else, these people are extremely unreliable, and lots of riding on them, so everybody else, they're about to lose their jobs to AI. Here's what the new AI influencer economy looks like if you got this clip, Matt, according to the New York Times. If this offends, you keep scrolling, but if you love Trump, you just gained a follower.
Starting point is 00:44:44 Hit, follow. If this offends, you keep scrolling, but if you love Trump, you just follow her. You get it. Different looking babes and fascinating in the lines of babies and military uniforms saying the same thing over and over again. Right. Was that like casting a wide net?
Starting point is 00:45:02 Like making different prototypes of hot lady, say this pro-Trump stuff and put them all out at once so they can, you know. But they're in a military unit of all hot ladies. So I'm trying to like, do people who think, this is real, what are they supposed to believe is happening here? So it's some sort of special, like it's Delta Delta Delta Force? Like what's going on there? So I guess
Starting point is 00:45:26 if you think this is real, what happens, because they're basically saying, you follow me, I'll follow you back. These are fucking, I don't sure whether their main thing is like political influencing, some people up to that, or whether they're just trying to get followers to sell the account, so that happens too. So basically you follow me, I'll follow you back. So if you think this is real, you think
Starting point is 00:45:41 Trump has an elite team of hot babes following people on Facebook and Instagram. Right? So yeah, these four are a bunch of like at least hundreds of avatars that have been people have noticed on social media specifically TikTok mostly. Let me quote here in the months leading up to the midterm elections, hundreds of accounts have emerged on social media featuring AI generated pro-Trump influencers posting at a rapid pace about the quote radical left and quote America first. Okay. So I mean, is this, compare this to like, you know, the Russians and shit and everything like to run up to 2016. You know what I mean? like they did a lot of this right it's just AI wasn't I think at the time it was just Russian dudes making fake accounts online and pushing a bunch of mega shit like is this that again is it coming from somewhere else or multiple places people don't know like you know well let me let me find uh sorry so TikTok said in a statement that it conducted a careful review of the 304 accounts and found quote zero indication of covert influence operations end quote so the Ellison's
Starting point is 00:46:44 say it's not massad. Okay. Well, at least there's that. Yeah. So, um, yeah, so I don't know. Like, trying to figure out who, who's, who's doing it is, again, some campaigns are going to do this, but also you've got just got the
Starting point is 00:47:00 Malaysian, uh, engagement farmers who just want to build up the, the follower accounts. You can try to sell like, you know, right. Fake cures for diseases. Yeah. It's just trying to get, get their own little piece of like the right wing griff pie, basically, because it's been proven. be so lucrative because they're such fucking robs.
Starting point is 00:47:18 And when that's been established, people want to try to capitalize on that. So it could just be as simple as that. It's not even really political in nature. It's just, you know. It is sort of like, it is, but the isn't, because you're like you said, the easiest people to grift off of are like,
Starting point is 00:47:34 you know, elderly conservative people and conservative people in general for whatever reason, right? Part of it's paranoia. They don't trust official sources. They're more likely to trust random people on the internet, which is so upside down than it's fucking crazy. but here you go. But like it's inherently
Starting point is 00:47:49 becomes like a reactionary right wing project no matter what the person believes the person doing it are because the rest of us want reality and want to live in it. Anytime you fucking tear down that brick wall it ends up empowering fucking fascists. It's sort of like
Starting point is 00:48:05 it's the asymmetry of the fucking info war. A lie gets around the, gets around the earth a thousand times where the truth can put his boots on. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:48:17 So Trump has been, he actually reposted one of these right-wing gifts accounts, Griffith accounts the other day. If you got this next video, Matt. California's corrupt governor is being pushed to resign after investigators uncovered a scheme inside his own office involving dirty money from Mexican cartels. Cartel cash was allegedly funneled through shell companies to launder drug money right here in California. I am Fernanda Perez and let me tell you, this is about to blow up.
Starting point is 00:48:42 So Fernando Platinum blonde Fernando Perez I'm going to guess you some Argentina after her family somehow arrived there in
Starting point is 00:48:52 1946 she is Trump getting his news from Fernando Perez does he think that's real Is that okay
Starting point is 00:49:01 that's not a real person though right? No no right yeah okay yeah yeah there was a part
Starting point is 00:49:06 there's always at least so far I mean I've definitely been fooled before or I've been fooled a few times
Starting point is 00:49:12 but like a lot of times there's at least some element of the uncanny valley that something makes your brain go like what was that? Like it was for me in the very middle that right before she said to her own name like everything she said up into that
Starting point is 00:49:24 and then all of a sudden I don't know something just felt unnatural about the sentence that came after that that makes you go like wait what the fuck was that about but well probably they'll probably iron those kinks out before long I imagine.
Starting point is 00:49:38 Well the bad news for me is that one of the tells that is that A.I. Bots talk too fast. So no one's going to believe a video in me in a few years. Right. Yeah. So what they are, like, they do come around. So if you just scroll on your phone, they can't look pretty realistic if you want to throw up this soundless video for B-roll match just to see what these videos look like. So TikTok has basically concluded, like I said, these accounts were spambers attempted to mind engagement.
Starting point is 00:50:03 They almost immediately pivoted to romance catfishing scams. Others sold hair removal creams or tours to China. So basically... I just hit me that these people are all doing what I do. They're just on the right. Just the right wing version of it. But yeah. But they can,
Starting point is 00:50:21 but they're going for my job, Mark. God damn. Yeah. But they're way more profitable because they can run a thousand accounts at once. Right. These videos cost like one to three dollars to make. So if you sell one jar of hair removal cream, you've recouped all your,
Starting point is 00:50:34 all your costs you're making a video. Many of the accounts, however, seemed intent on manipulating the audience's political opinion. They have like identical language, imagery, profile pictures, and sound effects. One AI woman, AI-generated woman is like across a bunch of different accounts. She basically just like has different pro-Trump messages and different names. Like I'm not, you can't tell how much this is on purpose. Because again, these are people that barely, a lot of these are people that barely speak English in other countries are just, it had attaching, like, glooming onto this
Starting point is 00:51:03 drift. Um, let me quote here, most claim to hail from various American states, but use still through ungrammatical English. Mr. Trump is their favorite. president they wrote in captions describing themselves as sharing you the truth and urging viewers to follow me first if like my life if you like my life i guess in 13 bios the bios released 13 accounts state quote republican and proud of you support don't trump let me know say new york times cause it's fake because these people spelling grammar so bad i just want to say New York times a bunch of americans are absolutely fucking stupid enough to add to write that way i think they're probably for them but what you're not proving shit
Starting point is 00:51:41 Right. Yeah. Corey's buddy and associate, the guy whose name rhymes with Jade, Corey said that's a post that he made about in remembrance of Corey's uncle who passed years ago, who's a big-time redneck, you know, lunatic, or again, was, rest in peace. And this guy made a post that said, I never had more fun with anybody that I did be not to jail with. That's what he said. Did be not to jail with.
Starting point is 00:52:09 So, and he's real. met him in person. He's not AI. He's a very real man. And he talks or he types like that or even worse at times. So, you know, I, I buy that people buy it or at least don't pay as much attention to it. What was the guy who's named Robeswood Dade? What was he, what was he trying to say there? Because I still figured it out. I've never had more fun with somebody that I didn't end up in jail with, basically. Like I never, you know, every, the only people I've had more fun with, we had so much fun. We went to prison is what he's trying to say. But yeah, he comically butchered it. Yeah. So they said, be caught here. Although the quality of some of the accounts
Starting point is 00:52:53 edged towards slop and engagement may be filled by by, inflated by bot activity, researchers said the comments on the post suggested that many users believe that the avatars are real people. This is despite the fact that the avatar changes, like the faces change, like from post to post. It would be a different face with different hair. color and different eye color from post to post. And they still think it's real and it's the same person. Fernando, the one Trump reposted, she didn't learn English until like her fourth or fifth post.
Starting point is 00:53:21 Then she immediately lost her accent after two posts. The companies that do this, so this is a company that was too ethical to engage in this, was trying to describe how this economy works. Was the one who said that, mentioned that the posts cost one to $1 to $3 to do. But the company was too. ethical to do this so far is owned by Andresen Horowitz.
Starting point is 00:53:45 So Mark Andreessen's a huge Trump guy. So if this stuff works, you want to know what comes next? They're not going to hang on to their ethics the whole time. Right. And like where I'm at is like, what frightened to be a little bit is that multiple studies here have like shown that chatbots are kind of one of the more effective methods of like political persuasion. For whatever reason, multiple studies have come.
Starting point is 00:54:11 confirm this. A brief conversation with a trained chat bot proved roughly four times as persuasive as traditional political ad on television one of the studies found. That's fucking crazy to me. Yeah, me too. I mean, they don't, they don't know. Do they know they're talking to chatbots? You're telling me that they get onto, is it like bots target these people and they think
Starting point is 00:54:36 they're talking to another person who's like, bro, I'm cluing you into the truth? or people go to chat GPT and they're like explain politics to me. Yes. Okay. So they seek out robots to talk to about it. They'll see an ad saying that Kamala Harris wants more abortions because the Planned Parenthood is selling the body parts to people who eat them or whatever. And then they'll go to Chad GPT and be like, hey, chat, GPT is abortion?
Starting point is 00:55:09 wrong and then they whatever the chat but the chat bot tells them becomes their political opinion right okay which is fucking that's fucked yeah for sure yeah because they think that's more fuck than the i thought i thought for a minute you meant because like there was a lot of talk about that like you know rushing bots and shit like that and i thought you were saying people being like unwittingly targeted by what they did not know was you know not a real person who was like radicalizing people but it's honestly worse to kind of like do it to yourself knowing you're not talking to a real human being. And you can see all over the internet,
Starting point is 00:55:45 you can go on, what's formerly known as Twitter and watch how people talk to Grock, or you can see screen grabs of conversations in these lawsuits, people have with Chad GPT and Claude and Gemini and stuff. And you can like, they talk to it like it's an expert on everything
Starting point is 00:56:01 and they take its opinion and face value. But they don't just ask it, like factual questions, like, what's the capital of Illinois? they ask you like personal life advice and moral questions. So like the smarter version of it is like, hey, Chad GPT, can you outline for me the parameters of the gun control debate, right? But like that's the smarter version of it.
Starting point is 00:56:25 But these are people used to have innate moral philosophies that were based the worldview off of. Right. Like that's crazy. It's like people trust this shit for everything. But like that's even like asking it Google or whatever. or Chad G. People don't trust Google.
Starting point is 00:56:42 If you click through different links, you'll get different sources from different motivated actors. Like, okay, well, understand what this organization wants and when it doesn't. But Chad GPT scrapes the fucking internet and just regurgitates that stuff to you
Starting point is 00:56:51 from opinionated observers and presents this, though, like it's neutral observer telling you facts. That at least is sort of understandable even though you shouldn't be trusting Chad GBT. But like, people are just going to be like, Chad GBT, who should I vote for? Right.
Starting point is 00:57:08 And do you want to know who Sam and Elon Musk want you to vote for? Right. It's just fucking crazy we've handed this much of our public infrastructure over to like five dickbags
Starting point is 00:57:19 who hate us all and want us to die. Yeah, seems ill-advised to me. But I don't know. Maybe they'll figure it out, Mark. Maybe they'll come around. Maybe Joe Rogan-Dryton-A-I is actually Jesus returning.
Starting point is 00:57:33 And I'm sure you and I will be high on the rapture list. The rapture happens after Jesus comes back, right or no or is that a separate thing Jesus comes back and then you get yeah it's part of the same series of events right yeah yeah yeah and if we don't give me and you
Starting point is 00:57:49 don't get rapture we just get to hang out here we're left behind seems fine yeah it must be weird like like it's such a final thing to it everyone it's not no stories need an ending but like so we we get left behind
Starting point is 00:58:05 and now we know that Jesus is real and we're wrong our whole lives and just so we get to live out the course of our lives than when we're going to hell and being sad about it. Right. Yeah. Okay. Not that much different than what my life has been like so far.
Starting point is 00:58:19 Thank you guys for watching. I appreciate it. Reminder, come see me on the road, please. Like I said, Raleigh this past weekend was magic. I got one night in Phoenix this Thursday, and after that we got Brooklyn, Sam Fran, Portland, Seattle, Florida run, going back to the Carolinas, and a bunch of other places all in the near future.
Starting point is 00:58:36 All at Treycrowder.com. Also, if you'd like a pallet cleanser, if you want to hear some good news, try Good Skews. That's producer Matt's audio exclusives, you can find on the audio version like the podcast feed for this very show. Good scus, good people doing good things. And consider supporting this show on Patreon. $5 a month to get you access to two full-length bonus episodes and all the ad-free editions of every episode we do. And the bonus episodes include periodical skew in as we call them. We'll re-answer your question.
Starting point is 00:59:04 So weekly skews.com slash more. We're on Patreon and search for my name. either way it works but uh that's it for now we'll see you right here in about seven days love you bye

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