Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 798: Oklahoma Bibles and Weather Machines

Episode Date: October 14, 2024

 

Okay, it's official. We are very much in the final sprint to election day. And face it, between debates, polling releases, even court appearances, it can feel exhausting, even impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Milky, I'm the host of Start Here, the daily podcast from ABC News. And every morning, my team and I get you caught up on the day's news in a quick, straightforward way that's easy to understand, with just enough context so you can listen, get it, and go on with your day. So kickstart your morning, start smart with Start Here and ABC News, because staying informed

shouldn't feel overwhelming. This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. And we'll see you next time. Recording live from Glory Hole Studios in Chicago and beyond, this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way, we bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political. And there is no welcome at today is Thursday, October the 10th, 25 days and counting until the election and until Cecil. In fact, we gather here once

more at beautiful glory hole studios. Tuesday night. Yeah. Is this our third or fourth? Fourth, I think. Fourth, quad-annual, whatever that would be, every four years the word. That's not snap, no, it's every two years because we did a couple in the- We've done some midterms.

Yeah, midterms. I don't know that we've always done the midterms. Yeah, we did one. But we've done them frequently. We did them in 2018. So we did 2016, 2018, 2020. I don't know that we did 2022. I don't remember. I don't know that we did either.

So we missed 2022. We're back in 2024, baby. Here we go! We took two years off. What happened? Anything interesting? Oh, gosh. Well, here's the thing, Tom.

I hope- We're going live. Nothing interesting happens. I hope that the status quo remains the same and the Democrats retain control of the White House and gain seats in the House and don't lose seats in the Senate and we're in good shape. I don't have any faith that all that's going to happen, but you can come not have faith with us. We're going to go live. A key element of the show actually. Yeah. We're probably going to go live. I would imagine we're going to, we're going to hammer out the exact times, but polls start closing. When polls start closing, I think it's seven o'clock Eastern, which is like six central. Maybe we'll go like seven o'clock. We'll go

live something like that. So we'll probably either six or seven PM look at our socials and pay attention to the show. The beginning of the show for the next couple of weeks, because we'll look and see sort of exactly when we'll go live. But we're gonna go live, we might have a couple guests, but if you normally watch your coverage for the election on some of these other places, just come hang out with us,

because we sort of switch between different places. We look at different news sites and things like that, and then we chit chat about what's happening. And it's a lot of fun. We throw up in our mouths and swallow it back. You know, I mean, just all of the normal- Depending on what's going to happen, Tom, I may just let it all out.

I'm not going to swallow anything. Do you know what's going to be interesting for me on a personal level about this particular election coverage that we will do that will be different is I have not had a drink in two years. And I will not be able to avail myself of Lickers sweet sweet soothing So I'm broad dog in this one, baby. We're gonna get you some fentanyl Yeah, so to be fun come hang out with us we'll chill it'll be a good time going to, you know, just be chatting the whole time. And you know, even I want to remind people that were with us for the 2016 one, even when

Trump lost, we still had a good time that night. We still enjoyed ourselves. Yeah. And did I say Trump lost or Trump won? I messed up. That's not right. He didn't lose. He did lose. He actually did lose. He did lose in 2016. He just won the electoral college. But when Trump won the electoral college in 2016, that's when we, you know, there was still a moment where both of us were, you know, shambles, but we still, you know, we're, we're going and same thing might happen this time. So, you know, either show up in support or showed up cause you like shutting fraud or whatever it works, whatever it is show up. But before you do vote. Yeah, whatever it is, show up.

But before you do vote, yeah, definitely. God, just vote. Oh my God. Vote. I already voted. Did you? Yeah, they sent the ballots. I already voted by mail.

I got the thing in the mail that said, Hey, do you want a mail in ballot? And I was like, no, I like going. I just like the personally. I like the ritual of standing there. I like that kind of thing. It makes me feel. I like it. I just happen to like it. It makes me feel, I like it. I just happen to like it. So I had a great, I love, I love voting by mail and I got a

chance to sit at the kitchen table with my wife and we called up the computer and we said, okay, well, who are these people? Let's look it up. And then there's a bunch of judges. I don't know. So it's Illinois bar association, other places. What do you guys think of these? And so we had, you know had 30 minutes of filling out our ballot and taking a look at who's who and all that stuff. Cause I always felt unprepared when I went in the ballot. I always felt really unprepared. And so this makes it so I just sit down

and just do it the correct way. And I never feel like I'm just filling something in randomly. I always feel like, cause before when I used to vote, especially downtown, 50 person long stuff, it was just impossible. So now I feel a lot more like a much more informed voter giving a chance to really page over this

and really think about who I'm gonna vote for. I like it quite a bit. Yeah, I think that that's a great way to do it. An option if you don't have mail-in voting in your state to still do something similar is you can look at sample ballots online and then you can bring a cheat sheet with you. Like it's not a test. It's not like, you know, you can, you can show up with your notes. You can show up with your cheat sheet. So

if you live in a state where mail-in voting or you're just not able to do mail-in voting for whatever reason is not available to you and you still want to do exactly what Cecil was describing, which is really the only responsible thing to do. I will say though, I never did the work. I knew I could do it. I knew I could do it. I knew I could do it, I just never did it. But this now forces me to do it. Where it's like, oh, I don't mind, I'm just gonna fill anything out. I literally have this thing at my fingertips, so it helps me motivate myself to be, but genuinely, what you say is exactly what you should do is create, and I even think they even have checklist sheets out there where they have ballots

that you can like pre-fill and then like have it ready to go so you don't even have to, you just look at where it's positioned even on there. So yeah. You know, when I was a young person, I thought you weren't allowed to bring anything in with you. Oh yeah. I really did.

When I first started voting. You're not allowed to take a photo. You are not. I know lots of people do. Yeah. But you're not allowed to do that. You get in trouble when you do that. So, or you won't probably actually, but like don't get caught. Don't get caught.

Don't post on Facebook. Don't. Yeah. Good Lord. But yeah, I, when I was a young person, I thought you weren't allowed to bring anything because it looks and has the feel of taking a test. And I was a young guy. I just like come out of my like high school career was like, Oh, Oh, going into their own booth, and there's just like it's austere. I'm like this is like I clearly can't have notes

I gotta put this on the big screen. This is the best. Oh my God, Tom. This was seriously like the craziest shit I saw this weekend is, and there's so many different photos of Elon Musk jumping up and down on the stage in Butler, Pennsylvania. And he's constantly leaping in the air and he's like jumping really awkwardly. And like I want to say the most unathletic way you could possibly jump. If you guys have not seen the video of Elon Musk jumping for what appears to be joy or perhaps like a small bug in his shoe. Like it is it's embarrassing to like it's like you get that secondhand cringe. Yeah, it does. it's embarrassing to a, like it's like, you get that secondhand cringe when he does it.

It's weird. He does it multiple times. And I think if you add it up in inches, the total air that he gets, it's an Irishman's dick. There's nothing there. Like he hops this little, like he jumps for joy. And then like, he like, it's like, it's like he barely gets off the ground at all.

It's like Ted Cruz could dunk on him. Yes. My guy, like if that was how I, if my body responded to the command jump by doing that, I'd go see every neurologist possible. It looks like he never did it before. Literally ever. That's what it looks like to me.

You know, like we make fun of these politicians all the time about how they don't feel like they're human. We always talk about, they don't feel like they're humans. They feel like they're weird. There's so many different politicians that seem like they're Ted Cruz for human president, right? That are just so off the wall and weird and don't participate in human interactions

like anyone else. This guy, the way he moves and acts and talks, doesn't feel, he feels like the epitome of that. Yeah, it's so, like, do you remember in Men in Black? Do you remember that movie? Yeah, yeah, the cockroach? Remember Men in Black with a cockroach thing, takes over the human body and walks around?

Perfect match for Elon Musk. Elon Musk is more awkward than that. Elon Musk is a bigger cockroach. He's a bigger cockroach. He's a bigger cockroach. It's like he borrowed his body. It's like he got his fucking body on Tmoo. Yeah. And is like, this isn't exactly what I ordered. It doesn't fit right.

He doesn't, he's trying to move it and the fucking mechanisms inside are breaking. It's got fucking capsula joints. And I think the other thing too that is so disturbing about this is you have a person who's running for president who claims to be a billionaire. It's probably not, uh, who, you know, is all about the money, right? He's like a money guy.

And then you have another guy out there who's on a whim bought a social media network for more billions of dollars than most multinational companies. Yeah, and bought it For you know, forty four billion dollars is worth like six now, but but But you you have a guy. Yeah, who's so fucking rich these two very very rich people and They're in the middle of Rust belt. Mm-hmm And they're in the middle of Rust Belt, Pennsylvania, coal mine closed down, Youngstown, it's by Youngstown, where there's like a bunch of industry that just fell apart. These guys are, the people who live out there are not affluent.

These are just like regular citizens of the United States. And you might even think that many of these people probably are not, some of them are probably below the poverty line. Yeah. Right. And they're sitting there listening to two of the most out of touch, richest people, you know, I mean, I don't think Trump is rich, but he certainly puts off that air and likes to pretend he is. I don't think he's as rich as he claims. He's certainly rich, but he's certainly not as rich as he claims. But they're putting off this air of,

look at how fucking rich we are. And like, they have nothing in common with any of the people there. No, no. And you know, it's, I think it's even worse than that. Like they're, here is like, you've got one guy who comes from South African

emerald mine money, right? Who then is an immigrant, hilariously enough, is an immigrant, turns himself into a billionaire by buying and selling companies and getting lucky a couple of times on the timing. That's pretty much how he made his money. Literally invented nothing, he's not an inventor. Standing next to, he's also so you got an immigrant though,

standing next to a guy who is a billionaire after leveraging his father's millions, turned millions, turning millions into more millions is the fucking easiest alchemy anyone's ever fucking attempted ever. So he turns millions into more millions. He's a fucking New York billionaire loses a lot of millions, bankrupted half a dozen plus companies, right? All those people out of work. Because he had the biggest safety net in the world to do that. Right. Yeah. Well, and like it doesn't matter when you declare bankruptcy because the only people that eat shit are all the people that got fired. Not you. Right? You made your short term gains and then you fucking strip mine the company and it doesn't really matter. You write it

off as a loss. Peace out. You fucking take it off your taxes and call that shit a night. So he's standing next to, so an immigrant billionaire standing next to another fucking billionaire, a billionaire who's running on a platform of virulent anti-immigration, by the way, trying to convince the collapsed middle class

of middle America that they give a shit about them. Yeah. While giving a speech, did you hear the, when he was talking, he was giving a speech about overtime and talking about how he used to dodge paying overtime. Literally standing in front of like union workers. This was this week, he's sitting in front of union workers being like, I used to hate paying overtime, I never did it, I tried not to pay it, I'd rather hire 10 new guys than pay $1 in overtime. I hated paying overtime. He's standing in front of union guys who like many of them

make their livings, working 60, 70 hours a week to feed their families. That overtime pay is the part of what their hand brings to their mouth in the collapse ruin of middle American Rust Belt. It's unbelievable that they're just like cheering that shit on. It feels, it feels idiotic. It feels like idiocracy.

Well, and, and Elon Musk is a famed union hater. Yeah. Right. He's a guy who's stamped out unions when they've tried to make their way into certain places that he's, that he's been in control of. So these are two guys who are anti-union, anti-worker. They're the richest cats you could possibly imagine. They're so far removed from an average human being and they live lives that are just so unbelievably different than any normal person you've ever met.

And they're standing there saying, we would love to have your vote. And then they're also creating lies about like voter ID and all that. I mean, like all these thrown away garbage that nobody, I mean, really nobody thinks this is a real thing anymore. He's talking about how there's no way you can have a secure election without voter ID. I mean, come on, you don't even know how the system works again. But that shows you exactly who Elon Musk is though, because Elon Musk didn't know how Twitter worked either and thought he knew better. Yeah. Elon Musk is clearly a guy for whom the idea of free speech is far more important

than the idea of truth. Yeah. And that's, you know, like free speech has a tremendous amount of value. I'm not a shitter on free speech. I am not, you know, free speech has a tremendous amount of value. I'm not a shitter on free speech. I am not. Free speech has a huge amount of value, but free speech, when it collides with truth, truth should win, right? And I'm not saying you shouldn't be able to lie. I don't think we shouldn't have the police knocking down our door because we told a lie or anything.

That's not what I'm suggesting. What I am suggesting though, is that we have a lie or anything. That's not what I'm suggesting. What I am suggesting though is that we have a responsibility, a civic, moral and personal responsibility to try our best to only say true things. And it's okay to get those things wrong. It's okay to have opinions that are wrong. It's okay to change our minds later.

To forecast wrong, to have strong different opinions on what the best course of action is. That's not the same thing as lying. Straight up lying is different. Elon Musk has built a platform dedicated to the business, the actual business of lying to convert lies to money. That's what Twitter has become. Twitter is, that's why journalists have left in droves.

That's why advertisers have left. They've left it to the recruiters and the liars and the disinformation hacks. Why do I have to go to jail to protect your freedom? This story is from CNBC Trump election conspiracist, Tina Peters, sentenced to nine years in prison by Colorado judge. Fucking good. Fucking tongue latched her. Like you wouldn't believe.

Dude, can I read it? There's yeah, but there's like a whole video I a whole video I didn't find because it's several minutes, but he is genuinely just berating this woman. So this judge nails this lady with nine years for crimes related to a breach of her county's voting system and he says this, you are no hero. You're a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that's been proven to be junk time and time again. Your lies are well documented and these convictions are serious.

I'm convinced you'll do it all over again if you could. You're as defiant a defendant as this court has ever seen. Fucking A, dude. Like, and then nine years. This is not just like, ha ha. But I was thinking, does this send a message to other low level county officials that are required to participate? These guys have to participate in the fraud.

If they don't participate at that sort of lever pulling ground level, these frauds can't continue. Does this chill the shit out? I'd be like, Oh fuck, I don't want to end up like Tina Peters or whatever. Yeah. Who's going to spend the rest of her life in jail. Maybe. Yeah, maybe she's not a young lady. She's 68. Yeah. Jail is not good for your health. Jail's not good. And she spends nine years in there. I mean, she might get out in four and a half, but still, still it's a long time in jail. Jail's not good. And she spends nine years in there. I mean, she might get out in four and a half, but still, it's a long time in jail. Jail's not good for your health, man.

I certainly at 68 would not be wanting to spend my life in a room for the rest of it. No, I'm 46. If you sent me to jail, I'd be like, yeah, I'm just going to be done with this. I'm not doing this. I would just, I seriously, I'd just be like, no, I'm just two years in jail time. I'd be like, no, I'm not doing a day. I'm not doing an hour. No, I don't prison. No, I wouldn't even visit somebody in jail. No, a hundred percent. No scariest thing I can imagine is prison.

I literally wouldn't go for a minute. But like Tina Peters, I really hope, really truly hope that stuff like this will make the people who are going to be recruited by the puppet masters up top. Be like, no, I'm not going to be recruited by the fucking puppet masters up top be like, no, I'm not going to jail for a fucking decade. Not for you. Well, and, and there has been teeth on a lot of this stuff. So people in different States getting caught, uh, and then they, they FaceTime. Craig and I covered on lawful assembly this, uh, last week, we talked about all the

different people that got disbarred. Yeah. And there's a whole slew of lawyers in this new indictment by a new revised document that accompanies the indictment by Jack Smith in the January 6th case in DC that talks about a ton of lawyers who did a bunch of shit that should get them disbarred because they lied. They absolutely lied. And that's something that can easily get you

to lose your license for a very long time. You can maybe never ever get it back. There's a possibility you'll never get it back. So they've given up their careers for this. And they, you know, those teeth too, should be biting, right? This whole thing should be, you know, democracy's fragile, it's fragile.

We've got to trust a lot of different people. The legal system's also fragile. You got to trust a lot of different people with a lot of different things that can really screw up your entire life, right? It can screw up all of your finances. It can put you away in jail forever. In our country and several places, it can take, it can put you away in jail forever. In our country, in several places, it can kill you.

So that's a really big deal and a big job. So you've got to be very careful. It's fragile thing, right? Same thing when it comes to democracy. We've got to trust so many different people to do the right thing. And they take oaths and they should be held responsible every single time.

And they should be afraid to break the law. Like this Tina lady, it's not like she acted in good faith. They should be held responsible every single time. And they should be afraid to break the law. This Tina lady, it's not like she acted in good faith. She acted expressly in bad faith. She used somebody else's fucking key card to let a MyPillowMan representative into the county to muck about with the fucking election equipment. They were trying to brand new pillow stuffed with ballots. So it's not like when you're like,

it's not like when you're holding a key card that isn't fucking yours. Yeah. You're like, well, this feels legitimate. I've got Joe the fucking janitor's key card right now and I'm handing it to fucking my pillow guy's fucking surrogate or whatever, like his fucking body pillow or whatever Like you don't it's not you think you're doing something. That's not shady. Yeah, it's like you're like this is a legitimate exercise of my political power

You know you know yeah the fuck out of here these people know at the ground level They know what their jobs are and they know what their responsibilities are the fraud requires their participation So if we are not going to put away the puppet masters, first of all, that's wrong. We need to put those guys. Oh yeah. Gosh, please. But if we can't do that, we need to scare the shit out of all the fucking levers in the machine. All the facilitators need to go. Like if you called me up and were like, Tom, do you want to be an alternate elector? I'd be like, go fuck yourself forever. An alternate elector. I'm calling every police agency right now.

Literally all of them. I'm just going to start in the A's. I'm going to Alaska. Hello, I know I live in Chicago. I can't believe there's so many people who agree to do that shit. For real. And we saw some of those faces on those mug shots in Georgia.

Where they look like someone just ran over their grave. Dude, can you imagine? Yeah, I mean, can you imagine that like, like I am so afraid of going to jail or prison. I don't fucking break the law, but I'm so afraid of going to jail or prison. I cannot imagine that like somebody shows up and puts me in handcuffs,

and then I just don't get to go home anymore until all of this stuff is over. That is the, I can't even imagine. It's like, well, I don't get to go home and like pack my, no, you don't get to go home and pack. You just aren't there anymore until however many years now. That is terrifying. These alternate electors should look around at their lives and be like, am I willing to give this all up? Am I willing to one day leave the house to go to work

or grab a sandwich or fucking whatever. Stuff a ballot box. Stuff a ballot box and not go home because I wanna help Donald Trump. Who doesn't give a fuck about these guys? Donald Trump's not raising money to help these guys, he's raising money to help himself. He's selling fucking golden shoes or whatever. Coins and NFTs and whatever grifty griftersons he can sell.

I don't know, what is his latest sell? Is it the coins? Coins was a big one recently. Jesus. He had $30 silver coins he was selling for a hundred. It's gonna be those days. You remember back in the day, cause we're old, you remember growing up

and seeing the collector's plates. It's a plate, yeah. Remember the plates and they would have like we would have. He's going to have shit issued from Franklin Mint. Do you remember Franklin Mint? I thought that shit when I was a kid was legit. That was legit. That shit was garbage. It's all trash.

It's trash. Right. It's trash. You can call it. I could be like, it's the curry mint. God, to be honest, I kind of want to start a little curio cabinet full of Franklin mint shit. We should get a curio cabinet in the glory hole of Franklin mint junk. I bet you could buy that junk on fucking Facebook marketplace for pennies. Nothing. Pennies on the dollar for a Franklin mint plate.

God. I would pay that. We got to get, we got to get one with like a fucking screaming eagle or some shit. Those were the best. They were all the worst. They were so gross and terrible. They had like the terrible voice. They were numbered. So they were numbered. They were, and they would have like, every plate will come numbered with a certificate of authenticity. And like they tell you, you'd be like, Oh, a certificate of authenticity. I feel like we should also have a certificate of authenticity of that. we send to people

that just like you listen to the show. As a kid, I was like, wow, a certificate of authenticity. I could take a shit and put a certificate of authenticity on my dump. You got like, what is that? That's nothing. It's literally nothing. But as a kid, and it's funny to look back at that and be like, wait, I was taken by that when I was 12, but you know, there was some like 40 year old part.

Like I have the ugliest house in America and I'm making it worse. As many of these plates as possible. I have people coming over next week. We're not eating off the good Eagles. Yeah, you gotta get new Eagles. This guy may be a dictator, but there's something still very innocent about him. This story comes in New York Times. Book revives questions about Trump's ties to Putin. Bob Woodward's book he just published says that he talks to Putin kind of a lot post

election and while he was in charge, he was like, hey man, you want some of our COVID tests? Yeah, it was COVID machines. COVID machines. I thought it was tests. No, no, no. I misread it. So these are expensive COVID machines

that you repeat tests. They're like medical grade machines that they would test on. I misunderstood that. He sent over medical equipment and it was disclosed by our government in 2020. They did disclose this. They said to the people, yeah, we sent some medical equipment over.

But in Bob Woodward's book, Bob Woodward claims that it was actually sent to Putin himself as a very specifically for his personal use. So he sent an expensive machine in times that America needed a lot of equipment too, over to Russia, which he did disclose, but they're not sure that it went to him.

He's trusting that it did. And there's a lot of, in this story, there's a lot of my source says this, and you have to trust Bob Woodward. But if there's anybody in the journalistic world that I would trust and who has receipts, it's probably going to be Bob Woodward. but if there's anybody in the journalistic world that I would trust and who has receipts, it's probably going to be Bob Woodward. Yeah, for real.

And Bob Woodward so far in his journalistic career, when I was reading a little bit about the story, like he's not been oft proved wrong, right? Like this is not a guy where it's like, Oh, I just willy nilly wrote this thing and later some evidence has come out. No, that's not a thing. He's not showing a layer. Right. Right.

It hurts. That hurts my heart. That hurts my heart Cecil. You know it. You know how it hurt me after all these years. So, Proust was not in fact a neuroscientist. He was close though.

He was not. Nope. Nope. No, it was a really good book. I'm an idiot. So, well, I love that it still hurts you too. Forever, forever in the, in the deepest part of the background really quickly on what that is. Jonah Lehrer was an author who wrote a number of books, but the first one of his that I read that really struck me and like it really struck, I remember reading it so distinctly,

even remember places I was while I read it. It was, Proust was an neuroscientist, and the book had, it just had this whole collection of conflation of different ideas that really hit me in this way that was like, at the time significant, and it spawned a whole bunch of my own thinking and writing, and I created a bunch of stuff based on things I read. He had a great turn of phrase.

Sometimes it would like really spark my imagination. I thought this shit was great. And I looked forward to the next books that he would put out like with like bated breath. And he's a fucking plagiarist and he makes shit up. He made a bunch of shit up. He made a bunch of shit up. That's the real key.

He made quotes fit. Yeah. Things like that. Yeah, he made shit up. And so like as soon as he made shit up, I'm like, I don't know what's real anymore. Nothing matters and my heroes are liars. Well, his book is. Well, let's get back to Bob Woodward.

Yeah, well, someone who's not like Jonah Lair. Someone who's not Jonah Lair and not ripping deep into the tenderest part of my joyous soul. So one thing I also wanna remind people, because it's something that I forget, maybe other people do. At the height of the pandemic,

and I don't even know when you would describe the height, but like at some point, perhaps that we might call the zenith, equipment was so scarce, respirators, testing materials, we were looking at and engaging laws passed in World War II to mobilize factories into producing this equipment through emergency authorizations from the government.

I don't know that everybody remembers as fully how dire that situation was. I forget sometimes. We were in a place where everything was in short supply, dangerously short supply. Governors were in bidding wars with each other from state to state to try to gain access to this material or that material or this medical device or that medical device. We were out of shit, man.

We needed all and we weren't producing anything that we needed fast enough. The streets were closed. I mean, like, it feels like we've forgotten sometimes what that was like when people stood on their balconies and like singly or with like whoever they were bubbled up with were like cheering on with banging pots and pans as the ambulances went down the street. This is real stuff that like,

I feel like sometimes people are forgetting we were out of everything we needed, man. It was scary. And to ship one machine, one fucking machine to a ruthless autocrat of an enemy nation is a traitorous act.

That's a machine we needed here at home. That's not a machine to ship to somebody who is our fucking enemy, somebody who is an enemy of the world, somebody who is an enemy of peace, somebody who is an enemy of his own people. That's a grotesque thing to have done. Trump's cozying up to Putin is traitorous. It is a traitorous relationship. Putin is

no hero. Putin is not just some other leader. Putin is a man who dictates the invasion of a sovereign nation, the murder of tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people, his own and Ukrainians, this is not a good person to give this guy something again at a time in a place where people were terrified and in need and scarcity and shortages were the ruler of that day is a terrible betrayal. It's a terrible betrayal. It should never be forgotten. And honestly, it should never be forgiven. Yeah, this is awful.

And I think very recently we saw in the news the hurricane stuff that was popping up where Donald Trump has been standing on stages and he's been saying, making claims about how aid is going out right now. And some of the things that he's saying are that the Democrats aren't giving aid to certain places on the map that weren't Republican, that weren't Democrat, they were doing that. In reality, Trump is the one who did that while he was in office. So Trump did that when it came to like, you know, places that were attacked by wildfires, et cetera. And he's also making claims against the Democrats that they're doing this sort of in a quid pro quo way, right? They're only giving aid when they can get something out of it, right?

When they can get something back for it. But he did that. Like this is what he did with this sort of material. This is why he did it. He gave stuff away to other people that shouldn't have it. You know, they're making claims that Democrats are giving away money to, for FEMA for other things.

They're giving it to immigrants. That one is one of the things, right? They're making that claim. Money is, money and material are being spent on other things that they shouldn't be. They're being given away to foreign people that don't need it. Well, here's an example of him actually doing that to somebody else, right?

And even if it's not Putin, let's pretend it's not. We know he gave it to Russia. We know it happened. Like his guy who was in charge of a lot of that stuff, the dude who did jail time, that guy fucking said he did it. Yes, I did that. So we know it happened. It's not like, you know, even if we can't,

even if Bob Woodward isn't right, that it didn't go in Putin's office or whatever, he still went to fucking Russia. Right. So, you know, he, everything is a fucking confession. Every time they say this stuff, they keep trying to make it seem like, oh, look at how bad this group is.

And all you have to do is turn and look for two seconds at Donald Trump and his cabinet and his administration. And you see the exact same thing he's trying to point out and everybody else. Yeah, man. He, like the other thing that Trump does and is constantly doing and guys, he's doing it in front of us. You can literally watch it. This is not a conspiracy. He's making deals that are personal deals to benefit him personally. He is not making deals on behalf of America. The decisions that he makes are decisions and deals

and relationships that he strikes because they benefit him personally. He wants a relationship with Putin. It's not advantageous to America for America to have a cozy relationship with a fucking evil empire dictator like goddamn Vladimir Putin. Like that guy sucks.

It's not in America's best interest to be like, yeah, that guy doesn't suck. That guy sucks. He's the fucking worst. That is in Donald Trump's best interest. He's making a personal deal. He's cozying up personally. When he, to your point before, I remember when California was getting absolutely ravaged

and he, he was like, yeah, I'll give fucking California like the federal aid that is earmarked for him. But the governor has to call and ask me nice. The governor has to call and apologize for this, that or the other thing. I remember this very clearly. Like he wanted like the come on bended knee, kiss the fucking ring because he's trying to make a personal deal. Now you own me, not I'm helping America. This is my responsibility as a civic leader. This is like, no, what do I, not America, what do I get out of it? That's the kind of deals this motherfucker is constantly making.

Like he was complaining about his relationship with Russia. And this is like, I just listened to tape of this like yesterday or today where he's like, Oh, you know, I was talking to Putin. You know, he said, Oh, it's so hard. It's so hard to make a deal right now. It's so hard to make a deal with you right now. We could have made such good deals. Uh, well, you know, they've made it too hard for us to make a deal.

He's talking about personal deals. He literally is talking about like building hotels and shit in Moscow and around the air. Like he's not talking about making like a different kind of peace accord. He's not talking about like signing an anti nuclear proliferation agreement. He's talking about a personal fucking deal so he can enrich himself. And he's also receiving phone calls. This was also a big part of this article. Talking about receiving phone calls after he stepped down.

They're saying that, you know, he's saying, Bob Woodward is saying that he talked to somebody close to Trump who had said that Trump has received at least seven phone calls from Vladimir Putin since he stepped down. And those seven phone calls, one time this aide was asked to leave the room while he was having a conversation with Vladimir Putin. So Putin is in, according to Bob Woodward and according to his source, they are still in contact. I don't know what kind of like,

I mean, I could see how Bob Woodward might wanna lie about this because it could sell books or something like that. But the person who's telling him, he's got to have a source. I mean, most, you know, always have a source. And then his source, I don't see what you get out of this, right? Because they could put you in the room, probably get fired. So I don't see what you get out of this other than just, you know, trying to tell somebody

this is a bad thing. This is, this is something that shouldn't be happening. And so they told somebody who they thought could tell other people. And that story is consistent with other known facts around his behavior with Putin. Like it is also, just so people understand, it is illegal, illegal for Donald Trump as a private citizen to enter into any kind of negotiation of any kind with a foreign leader. He has, it is not like he shouldn't be doing it. It is fucking, it is prison time illegal. You can't do that. He's just some fucking private citizen right

now. He can't act on behalf of, he. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. Speech. increasingly angry and rambling, reignite the question of age. One thing I want to talk about with you about this story, Cecil, is why the fuck is it taken The New York Times this fucking long to really start hammering away at this? It took a while. The New York Times specifically is sort of like, thought of as like the paper of record.

And I feel fairly strongly as a daily reader that they have same washed so much of Trump's bullshit for such a long period of time that they have not asked the same kinds of hard questions. They've not pointed out the same kinds of failings with the same like clarity and insistence as people did with Biden, right? It was the right thing to do,

especially when Biden took that stage and we saw how frail Biden was. It was the right thing to do for us to say, I acknowledge that that is true. What are we gonna do about it? And then to do something about it. Trump's not been well, man. And he's fucking angry and he's bitter

and he's rambling and he's incoherent. He's been those things for a long time. And I feel like the media has been just sort of like, ah, that's just him. Let it go. Here's what he meant. Oh, we had this to say about tax policy and you're like, he said it while he was talking about sharks and electricity and fucking like, you know, how much water goes in your goddamn washing machine and what, you know, like he said it amidst a jello salad of bullshit. What's happening?

I think Trump's been stupid for a long time. Yeah. So I think that that, and he's been, he's been visibly stupid for a long time. It's not that this is a new thing. I think he's a dumb person, right? And the things he says are dumb. He doesn't make a lot of sense. Even when he was, I think even, I think even maybe 10 or 15 years ago, he didn't make a ton of sense when he talked. When he first came on the scene, you and I thought, what the hell is happening?

There's no way anybody would possibly vote for this guy. He seems like a rambling, incoherent mess. He was. He has gotten worse. And I think it's tougher for people to figure out, has he really gotten worse? Has he always been the stupid, you know, cause sometimes it's like that, you know,

boiling frog or whatever, where you just kind of forget, like, is he really always been? But genuinely in the most recent months, it's gotten a lot worse, where Trump is constantly talking about stuff off, like basically off topic. He's just been shifting his topics onto weird stuff. He pretends that he's really brilliant

because he says he can weave it all together, even though he doesn't. So, you know, there's this, I think that this advancing of this has been something that they've missed and they really should have been paying a lot more attention to it. But if you think about how Trump was 10 years ago and now, he never said anything of worth

back then either. No, he did not. So you know, like it's just such a diminishing amount of change in comparison to someone who's a really smart, astute person who's made really good arguments politically for decades and they get on stage and they have a hard time articulating those. That's a big difference. It is a big difference.

Yeah, you're right. Biden's difference is way different than Trump's difference. I think people give him the benefit of the doubt when he says crazy shit and they just want to say like, he's saying crazy shit. And, you know, they want to talk about the crazy shit he's saying rather than being like, guys, let's pay attention. He's saying crazy shit. Do you know, like there's a difference? It's sort of subject and object thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I hear that. I think you're right. You know, like what I also was wondering while you were talking is like, is it a problem of journalism that at some point you can't write the story again that Trump got on the stage and rambled and was an incoherent jackass? Because it's not like that story hasn't been written. Sure. The story's been written that like, hey, he just stood here for two hours and didn't make a lot of sense. That story's been written. The problem is the next time he does it, it's like, what am I gonna do? Write the same story? And so like, I wonder, do they go nugget picking?

And then write a story about like, well, I'm only gonna talk about like this thing. It was a mess, but here's the mess. Right, yeah, and try to try to pick out the fucking corn out of the shit. Yeah. I am glad that they're turning on him a little bit though, cause it feels like they should have a long time ago.

There's been many other news outlets that have been saying he's an incoherent mess and other people who've been questioning his mental fitness for a long time. I am not sure he's ever been mentally fit for the job. I don't think he has. But I have no idea whether that's physical or just genetic, right? I don't know if that's physical or just genetic, right? I don't know if that's like deterioration of his body and mind, or if it's just that he's always been so stupid that he's got a room temperature IQ,

and then he should have never been anywhere close to the presidency in the first place. I don't know what the answer to that is. I don't know either. I'm not a doctor. I'm not going to pretend I know. But I will say that I also too, what contributes to some of this stuff is stress. And I think he does see and feel differently now that, now that Biden is gone, his conversations and the way he's talking feels a lot more desperate than it did. Yes.

And so that comes off a little more unhinged too. Dude, the desperation stink wafting off of him is pigpen-esque. It really is. Like it's fucking strong. Yeah, it's like a noxious cloud. Just stress sweat on his upper lip as it drips off. Can you imagine what his fucking undershirts must look like at the end of the day? So it's either wear the leather jacket, which I know you hate, or this.

This story is from the Oklahoma Trump Bible, one of few that meet Walter's criteria for Oklahoma classrooms. Oklahoma is requiring that every classroom have a Bible and see. So there's certain requirements for that Bible. It is. They have to have several different requirements, Tom, I think it's right here. So according to the RFP, so that's a request for proposal,

vendors must provide Bibles that meet in certain specifications. The Bibles must be the King James Version. They must contain the Old and the New Testaments. They must include copies of the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, the US Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, and they must be bound in leather or leather-like material.

I'm okay with that last one. Well, first of all, like, I actually- It's gotta smell like a real book. I mean, come on. Can't have this fake ass leather, this pleather fucking Bible. What are we doing here? Leather-like materials. Look, man, I want a cow to die for fucking Bible. What are we doing? Leather like material, man. I want a cow to

die for this Bible. I only want Bibles in fucking snake skin. I want a snake skin Bible. Can we kill a bunch of atheists and make Necronomicon Bibles with our skin? Well, if the next election doesn't go our way. Yeah. I think like, I think there's some people around here that I'm a little nervous. I'm going to get out them skid knives party at the one big last party at the glory hall folks. Yikes. Nobody. You're right. It's a, this is, this is a crazy list of things that literally are, are there specifically to focus down on one Bible that they can buy for from Trump and

that money benefits Trump. Dude, it's not even a Bible. It's not. The Bible does not, as canon, contain the Bill of Rights. Or the Declaration of Independence. Right, so it's just like, that's just stuff that's not in there, but you can't be like, it has to be a Bible that also contains a copy of the Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

You'd be like, that's not the Bible anymore, man. That's an anthology and your choices are weird. It's not even a Bible. All you did was say, how do we buy, how do we make sure that Oklahoma funds a bunch of this Trump bullshit to try to give money to Trump? Well, what are the things specifically about this fucking grift? Oh, it also has to contain gold-plated shoes? Great, awesome.

Every Bible has to walk into the classroom on gold-plated idiot shoes. They come with a Trump coin in the front. They have a Trump coin. And a certificate of authenticity. From the fucking Franklin Mint. Well, you know, if anything should send a shiver down your spine, it's half that paragraph

where they're talking about all the things that should be included with that Bible. I mean, it really should make you feel uneasy that they're including all of these things with a very specific version of the Christian Bible. If there was ever a clearer indication that the intention to destroy the separation of church and state, like, I mean, what else can we do other than to walk around with fucking t-shirts that say, theocracy now, right?

For real, when you're saying, hey guys, let's take our sacred, you know, institutional texts and then combine them with this sacred religious text into one peanut butter and chocolate Uber text. And I promise that we are not destroying your religious liberties. If you are a, you know, a Catholic or, cause they don't, King James Bible isn't what the Catholics use, right?

I don't think so. Yeah, so like, you know, if you're a Catholic, hey, we use it different. Or if you're a, I don't know, a Hindu or a Sikh or a Muslim or a Jew or an atheist or a, you know, name any other, any of the other many, many, many, many, many religions we are creating literal state sponsored because Oklahoma's got to fucking buy them. State sponsored, smushing together non-separation of church and state. Yeah, I think back to the reason why Trump even put it out. Like, why did Trump, why would Trump even make this thing? And I think your answer there is exactly why. It's a symbol and a signal to a large group of people in this country to say,

these two things are the same and there is no separation. And he made that Bible very specifically, just like he purposefully moved the embassy in Israel, right? Just like he purposefully did that to show the evangelicals what he was about, right? I did this very specifically to show you

that what I am and what I, you know, it's going to Jerusalem because I believe these are, you believe these things and I want to show you that I appreciate you. And the same thing here, he did this thing. He created this thing as a symbol to all the followers out there to say, I don't believe in the separated church and state either. And I've even created a book that shows how much I don't believe it. Yeah. You know, state either. And I've even created a book that shows how much I don't believe in it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You ever go, something just occurs to me. I think this is a good analogy.

You know, when you look at restaurants online and they tell you what the style of restaurant is, you know, Italian food, Mexican food, one of the classifications is fairly new, but it has a definition, it means something, it's new American. You've seen this a million times, right? This kind of, what kind of restaurant,

what kind of cuisine is it? New American. And I've been thinking that Christianity has now a new sect and it's new American. And it is a conflation of a new set of political and religious values, neither one of which is more important than the other, both of which have been shmushed together. It is not purely political. It is not purely religious. It doesn't actually follow any specific religious teaching. It's its own

thing. It's its own cuisine called New American Christianity. And it is a conglomeration of Protestantism and white nationalism and far right political ideology. And you know, little sprinkling across the top of like, you know, parsley and libertarianism. And then there's like a, like a, like a spoon of tech broism across the bottom, just to plate it nice.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like, I'm not wrong. There's a new religion and this is a part of a new religion. It's the religion that flies a Trump flag and an American flag and a Christian flag all on the same idiot truck. And also at the same height. At the same height.

We are creating a brand new religion. It's not a new political party. It's at the same height. At the same height. We are creating a brand new religion. It's not a new political party. It's a new religion. It's something to worship. Sure. It's the most dangerous thing we could be doing. We've been fucking warned about this. Our forefathers, if you give a shit, if you're a founding father philatist, our founding fathers warned us not to do exactly this. In words, in writing, you just gotta read it. They said, don't do this, we're doing it anyway. They had every way to write something like this into the Constitution and could have.

They could have ensconced a religion, a Protestant religion, into the Constitution and had every opportunity to do it. And they didn't do it. Just like they didn't choose to give the president immunity, they chose not to do this too. That doesn't mean anything when you have a Supreme Court like we do. Yeah, you're very right.

And so this sort of thing, the people who live in Oklahoma, your tax dollars are gonna go to a $50 Bible for the kids to go to school. And it's gonna be a Trump, I know that they're trying to say that they're trying to push in, they're saying that you're these measures,

these ideas, the specifications for this Bible are too, they're too narrow and you need to open these up a little bit so we can have a choice. And so I think they did, but the way in which they did it was they allowed, they still required those things, but they had to be, they could be allowed in like an appendix, like a secondary appendix or something. And it would just be too expensive to produce if it wasn't the Trump Bible. It doesn't make sense for another company to swoop in

and be like, I'll lose money on this. So they won't. And so no one's gonna do it. So they're gonna have to buy the Trump Bible. So he did acquiesce by changing the rules, but he changed them still in a way that still made it so there was no competition. And so now it's, and we're splitting hairs here

because we shouldn't be buying money with state money. We shouldn't be buying Bibles with state money anyway. We shouldn't be buying money with state money. We shouldn't be buying Bibles with state money anyway. We shouldn't be putting them in schools. And I don't know, political candidates should not be selling fucking religious iconography back to America in order to fund their fucking political campaign. How are we letting any of this happen?

We are slow motion slamming the corridor on our own dick right now. He had this electronic box with dials on it and in less than three seconds he changed the weather in that room. And if I wasn't there I would have never believed it. All of a sudden it was freezing like you were in the Arctic. It was like less than three seconds. I was like, okay, maybe they can control the weather. This story's from Boing Boing. Actual climate scientists debunk Marjorie Taylor Greene's weather-related conspiracy theories. Big sigh, man.

Big sigh. So unsurprisingly, Marjorie Taylor Greene is a proponent of the idea, as many are, this happens every hurricane season now, that hurricanes and other major natural disasters and weather events are the result of an evil cadre of government scientists shooing hurricanes and making them appear and strengthen and

then, you know, like guiding them gently into the areas that they want to be storm ravaged, I guess. And usually the Jews are the ones doing it. Like almost always something, something it's the Jews, right? Yeah. It's a Roth child. There's a, there's a mono atomic gold. Yeah. It's maybe there's an alien, you know, whatever. A hidden face, a hidden reptile alien. This is so grotesque and disheartening. And there needs to be some sort of rule that if you are a member of Congress

and you promote blatant disinformation like this, you should be to take, you should be censured first. And then they should not allow you to run again. A thousand percent. I think this is, we should hold these people to a higher standard, but also recognize the mouthpiece and the bullhorn that these people carry. These people are trusted by a lot of people in the world.

You're talking about a ton of people who think that Marjorie Taylor Greene knows something she doesn't because she's involved in conversations that you could never be in. We thought the same thing when it came to Trump, right? Trump would say these crazy things and everyone would say, you're crazy,

but there is a level of, he's gotta be hearing things that I can't ever hear, right? I'll never hear about some classified shit that he heard about. So he's got to be in the know when he says this crazy shit. No. Same thing with her. She's not in the know. She has no... First off, the idea of a weather machine. How much fucking energy does a fucking hurricane have? I mean, like, these people don't understand basic physics.

Like, there's so much fucking energy in that thing There's no way if you think that then I guess an army of people with leafblowers should be able to blow it away From the shore as it comes in it's just fucking Hank Kuhn praying and blowing up They bring all those fucking gator boats and turn them around and just start shooting out the back or whatever. Got a bunch of fucking alligators wagging their tails really fast and it just steers offshore. You've got to be such a stupid person. So stupid. To think that this is a thing that can actually happen. But then she's gonna say this dumb shit and, like, this is all calculated by the right. They're saying this is a conspiracy of the government to attack you.

They're also saying at the same time, people like Laura Loomer are saying, don't talk to FEMA. You need to not comply with FEMA. And she's saying that very specifically because if it's a disaster for the relief effort down there, it looks bad for the Democrats. She doesn't fucking care about you. She doesn't give a shit whether you get helped. What she wants to do is use you as a pawn

to further the person who she wants to get in office. That's all, she doesn't give a fuck. She's saying a lie that if you get $750, further the person who she wants to get an office. That's all she's given up. Fuck. She's saying a lie that if you get $750, then the government can wash their hands of you and never help you again. And that's just not true. That $750 is for immediate needs.

It's a bandaid real fast to try to get you into the system, but try to help you right now. And then try to get you in the system so that they can get helped later. But this is just the thing to help you right now and then try to get you in the system so that they can get helped later. But this is just the thing to get you water and toilet paper and food and shit for a few days. That's all it is. But she's saying, don't comply with them.

Well, that $750 can turn somebody, we've seen it even with, you know, the stuff that we've done in the past, the poverty stuff that we've done in the past, the work we've done with charities, where $750 can mean the world to somebody. So think about it, if you've lost everything. And so she's making it, she could totally spiral so many people's lives into a fucking

tailspin that could ruin their entire life because she cares about who's in office. Yeah. And to add to that for years now, for years now, the conspiracy theorists have, the right wing, let me expressly say that because it's important, the right wing conspiracy theorists have been talking about FEMA death camps. They have been sowing a seed of fear

using FEMA as the sort of tool of government oppression and violence. When it's like, that's the federal emergency management agency. Those are the folks who coordinate the effort to go rescue people from the tops of their houses and to make sure that their electricity gets turned on. To coordinate efforts so that like linemen and stuff

come in from California and Kansas and, you know, Illinois and North Dakota and they flood in there to get the power turned back on. These are heroic efforts. These are people who are saying, you have no place to live, here's a place, it's temporary, it's not your home, but you can stay here. We're gonna coordinate that effort. Here's how we're gonna help get clean, safe drinking water

so people don't get fucking like diseases like cholera, which become endemic to regions that have been struck by these disasters if it's not managed well. Like the FEMA does amazing important work and they come in within sometimes hours, sometimes days. It depends on the damage to the infrastructure, the roads, the bridges that make it difficult, physically difficult to get to people without doing other work first by sort of like constantly harping on, oh, the FEMA death camps, the FEMA death camps.

You remember all that shit? That shit has poisoned a certain group of people. Oh, fucking FEMA's here. I can't take their money. I can't let them here. They're going to stick me in a fucking death camp. There are people that believe that stuff now. And some of those people are gonna be harmed personally,

like irreparably possibly harmed. You're also talking about a group of people, the Republicans, who have been shitting on climate change for decades. These are people who say you can't change the climate. And then you're like, and out of the same other corner of your mouth, yeah, but I can actually have a fucking, like a fucking Mr.

Freeze fucking gun that can change, can shoot fire hurricanes out its ass or whatever. I mean, yeah, you don't even make logical, consistent sense with yourself. And it's amazing how pervasive the idea of top-down government weather control. This is not, this is so insane, but the most insane ideas seem to have more traction than ever before. Like, you know, when I first heard like of the idea of people like, oh, the hurricane machine, I'm like, a handful of people who failed earth science in high school might believe that if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury, right?

But like this is actually a reasonably pervasive belief. If you look at the poll numbers on this and numbers have been done, I've read them recently. It's a lot of people, man. It's a distressing amount of people are like, yeah, we can probably make a hurricane. What are you talking about? We can't do shit when it comes. We can't even figure out for sure if tomorrow is going to be that sunny or not. Yeah. Make a hurricane. What is wrong with you? I'm looking at porn. This story comes from Joe, my God, former Georgia governor candidate. Dems created Helene in order to keep Mark Robinson from governorship.

All right. Let's Mark Robinson's doing a fine job of that himself. Yeah, no, yeah, absolutely. Mark is probably on some weather forum somewhere right now. Yeah. Talking about how he's a black Nazi. He wants to fuck a hurricane. I got to say, Joe, this, I don't like your, I don't like that.

I'm not a fan of your player, Joe. Every time I open it, it closes back down. So we can't embiggenate it guys. We can only watch it like this. I really did think about this. It's crazy. The whole thing with North Carolina, I know that it's a grab for the land, land grab. And I didn't understand a word.

She needs subtitles. She sounds like a jug band. Do you remember the show that was like kind of popular for a minute where they would go out and like alligator fish? Yeah. And they would sub because they had that heavy Creole accent and they would subtitle. They'd subtitle those people. This lady should live her whole life being subtitled.

I have to listen to this beginning again because I didn't catch it. It's a land grab. Okay. Maybe I got one. Or a land crab. It could be a land grab. It's a land grab. Okay, maybe I got- Or a land crab. It could be a land crab. It could be a land crab. Backward walking land crab.

I really did think about this, Chrisia. The whole thing with North Carolina, I know it's a grab for the land, land grab and they want the lithium, but I also believe they don't want the voters turning out that are all around Asheville, those Republican red voters. Isn't Asheville blue? Yeah, I think you're saying the people around Asheville? Oh Republican red voters, they- Isn't Asheville blue?

Yeah, I think you're saying the people around Asheville. Oh, okay. All right. Like, yeah, because Asheville is blue as fuck. Sure, sure. Yeah, Asheville is blue as fuck. So here's what you have to- What would you have to believe in order for that to- Yeah.

You would have to believe that they would have to be around, that they won't have voting access a month from now. Yeah, you would also- You would also prematurely shot your hurricane. Shot your shirt early. No, I mean, excited. Maybe it's fine. It's fine. You know, yeah, I mean, you definitely want to see a doctor. If you have a cane last more than four hours,

you also would have to believe like so. So there's the other crazy thing I was thinking when I when I read this story to believe this conspiracy theory, I have to believe, like, so this is the other crazy thing I was thinking when I read this story. To believe this conspiracy theory, I have to believe that the Democrats, in their effort to seize control of North Carolina, took a hurricane and sent it, by the way, not to North Carolina, right? So it's not like Hurricane Helene hit North Carolina,

no, rain that resulted from Hurricane Helene flooded North Carolina. So you have to, your ability to prognosticate here is incredible. It feels like a lot. It's a lot, right? And then you have to be like, we definitely also want to destroy Asheville.

Oh, but isn't that a democratic stronghold in a heavily contested state that we would really well, yes, but we would destroy Asheville so we could destroy the areas around Asheville. Oh, that makes literally no sense. Why would we destroy one of our own strongholds? It's a land grab. It's a land grab. Because it's because of grabbing the land. Hurricane gun.

I'm still not following, but it's mostly because I don't understand. They are trying their best to keep Mark Robinson from that governorship because he understands I went for the Holy Spirit. He understands. What happened there? Did she have a hold up for the Holy Spirit? I'm sorry guys. You have to understand that seriously, I cannot understand a word she is saying.

I mean, it just seriously sounds like the lady from fucking Charlie Brown is talking. I want to send from that governorship because he understands, I want the Holy Spirit, he understands the constitution. He understands state sovereignty. He understands we are the United States of America. And as a state, we're sovereign.

As a state, we should be to function on our own as a state We can push back we're joined because we choose to be but the state has sovereignty and mark understands that and it terrifies every single establishment politician in this country Fucking states right shit. Yeah, and and if that's the case, then don't accept any aid from the federal government. Yeah. Right? But they're not going to do that because the federal government is literally there specifically with this fund to help its citizens. That's what it's for.

Mike, the first word is united in United States. Like it's the first word, lady! We are united. in United States. Like it's the first word lady. We are united. Like I was just saying, like when the fucking line workers, I shouldn't have said linemen, when the line workers come in from California and from Idaho and from Nebraska,

like they're doing that because we are the United States. It's not, it's that we didn't just go like, I don't know North Carolina, looks like you're sovereign. Let us know how it's that we didn't just go like, I don't know, North Carolina looks like you're sovereign. Let us know how it goes. Shrug emoji. Call Mark, see if he's got a shovel. Right? Yeah. That's not what we do. Cause like we're a country. We're not just like a series of loosely held States who are just like friendliest neighbors. What the fuck? That's literally

nothing. This is that sort of gibberish though, that I think it washes over the low information voters out there that are following her, and they're gonna be swayed because they, she said buzzwords that they like. Yeah. You know, states rights, and you know, he's fighting for you, and we're the United States, we're the state first versus this, you know, versus this other thing.

I, gosh, I hope this, this is going to be, you know, come, come by that night. Cause one of the things I'm going to be watching is this race here to see where this goes. Cause I want to see this guy. I want to see it. Paul's clothes, he lost. That's what I want to see. If Paul's clothes, he lost. That's what I want to see. If Paul's clothes, he lost. I swear, if Mark Robinson becomes the goddamn governor of North Carolina, there's like,

that's it. I'm turning off. There's no hope. Cecil, I read a story this week about a guy who back in the 1980s was driving his car. He had a Subaru brat. Remember the Subaru Brat? I do, yeah. He was had a Subaru Brat. Remember the Subaru Brat? I do, yeah. He was driving his Subaru Brat,

and he got close to running out of gas. I'm not saying this. He turned his car into the wilderness of Maine, drove until he just about ran out of gas, took his keys out, put them on the windshield area, got out of the car, walked into the woods, and for 27 years, never came out of the woods. He was just like, you know what? I'm done. He said one word to anybody. Hi. When a hiker walked by, that's it. I'm inches away,

Cecil, from putting my goddamn keys on the hood of the car and walking off into the woods. If Mark fucking Robinson, the black Nazi, the black Nazi on the fucking porn forums talking the insane violent shit. If North Kailor on is like, that's my guy, there is a fucking non-zero chance that on the live stream, I stand up, I put my phone here, I put my keys like giving like the cop giving his gun back. Sure, yeah. Just be like.

A bashing gun. I can't do it. And I leave society forever. Over under, how long do you last in a forest? I'm giving you a week. Six hours. I'm giving you a week. You get to last a week.

But you're going to be really thirsty. Six hours I died. I die in six hours tops. Dive exposure? Yeah. I'm not making it the first night. Like, I'm not. You're Michael Scott cutting your cutting your legs off and then having to duct tape

them back on. Is that is that Tom? Here's the thing, Cecil. If this happens, I'm not trying that hard out there. You know, it's going to get cold and I'm going to be like, I had this coming. I'm going to lay on this rock and die with dignity.

I'm going to let the buzzards do what the buzzards do. All right, that's gonna wrap it up for this week. We're gonna be back. So this upcoming week on Thursday night, we will have a live stream. So come hang out with us for the live stream. Thursday nights, YouTube, I think Facebook, and then Twitch show up, check our socials, make sure it's happening, but it should be 9pm Central time. So check it out. Come hang out with us and chill. It'll be a good time. We're just going to do a couple of stories and hang out,

do a little live thing, chat with chat. So come hang out with us. All right. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're gonna leave you like we always do, with the Skeptics Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno Babylon bullshit. Couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble, pseudo quasi alternative,

acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal, free energy healing, water downward spiral, stereogram, pyramidal, free energy, healing, water, downward spiral, brain dead, pan, sales pitch, late night, info, docutainment. Leo, Pisces, cancer cures, detox, reflex, foot massage, death in towers, tarot cards, psychic healing, crystal balls, bigfoot, yeti, aliens, churches, mosques, and synagogues, temples, dragons, giant worms, Atlantis, dolphins, truthers, birthers, witches, wizards, nuts. What? That's crazy.

Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Patreon.com forward slash DissonancePod. Help us spread the word by sharing our content. Find us on TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Preds, all under the handle at DissonancePod. This show is CAN credentialed, which means you can report instances of harassment, abuse, or other harm on their hotline at 617-249-4255,

or on their website at creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org. Okay, it's official. We are very much in the final sprint to Election Day. And face it, between debates, polling releases, even court appearances, it can feel exhausting, even impossible to keep up with. I'm Brad Nielke. I'm the host of Start Here, the daily podcast from ABC News. And every morning, my team and I get you caught up

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