The Scathing Atheist - 407: Blind Bit of SCOTUS Edition

Episode Date: December 3, 2020

In this week’s episode, the Supreme Court declares COVID-19 a religion, we give 2019 the roasting it's been deserving this whole time, and Andrew Torrez will be here so I don’t have to do as much prep. --- To make a per episode donation at Patreon.com, click here: http://www.patreon.com/ScathingAtheist To buy our book, click there: https://www.amazon.com/Outbreak-Crisis-Religion-Ruined-Pandemic/dp/B08L2HSVS8/ To check out our sister show, The Skepticrat, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/the-skepticrat To check out our sister show’s hot friend, God Awful Movies, click here: https://audioboom.com/channel/god-awful-movies To check out our half-sister show, Citation Needed, click here: http://citationpod.com/ To check out our sister show’s sister show, D and D minus, click here: https://danddminus.libsyn.com/ To hear more from our intrepid audio engineer Morgan Clarke, click here: https://www.morganclarkemusic.com/ --- Guest Links: Listen to Andrew Torrez on the Opening Arguments podcast: https://openargs.com/ Check out the Books That Burn podcast here: https://www.booksthatburn.com/ Learn more about Noah’s Skeptics in the Pub talk here: https://mailchi.mp/27f55fa78cf6/how-religion-ruined-americas-pandemic-response-withnoah-lugeons --- Headlines: SCOTUS exempts religion from law more: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/26/us/supreme-court-coronavirus-religion-new-york.html Appeals Court strikes down restrictions on conversion therapy https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2020/11/25/trump-judges-floridas-bans-on-conversion-therapy-for-kids-are-unconstitutional/

Warning, the following podcast contains language. If you decide it's offensive, that's kind of on you. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Hymns, Honey, and by Tony D's House of Comically Undersized Furniture. Is your boss a bloviating idiot that endangers the entire world with his petulant stupidity? Is he too stupid to realize he's sitting at a ridiculously undersized piece of furniture that the entire internet is going to make fun of him for? Then why not come on down today?

Tony D's House of Comically Undersized Furniture. Because if you like the desk, imagine our toilet. And now, the Scathing Atheist. This is Robin, one of the hosts of the podcast Books That Burn. And we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people. It's Thursday. It's December 3rd. And it's Make a Gift Day. And we made this podcast for you.

What'd you get us? No illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. Socks? I'm Ethan Wright. And from Martha Stewart's New Jersey, Cincinnati Red State, and Georgia Blue State, this is The Scathing Atheist. On this week's episode, the Supreme Court declares COVID-19 a religion. We give 2019 the roasting it's been deserving this whole time.

And Andrew Torres will be here, so I don't have to do that much prep. But first, the diatribe. I think the best reputation I've ever heard to the argument that religion helps people cope with death is listening to religious people try to cope with death. Their holistic failure should surprise nobody, of course. There are literally no problems on the fucking planet that are easier to deal with by lying to yourself about them and pretending they don't exist. But somehow people always seem to think that this one is the exception.

So look, I don't mean to keep laying down such heavy diatribes on you but i can either talk about what i'm thinking about or i can offer you up thoughtless words and right now i'm dealing with a man that's at the end of his life trying to come to grips with that fact and it's really hard to think about anything else when that's happening right next to you especially when so much diatribe worthy shit keeps happening in conjunction with it and i have to not yell fuck it anybody when it happens because i'm in a hospital at the moment like let me give you a great example and luckily i wasn't here for this one because there's only so much not yelling fuck at anybody that i've got in me the other day my father-in-law calls up a childhood friend of his

that he still talks to you know once every year or two and he has a pretty hard conversation with him. He wants this buddy of his to be the guy that tells their whole crew when he dies, right? Rather than reading about it in the paper or hearing about it two years later or something, he wants this guy to call up all their mutual friends after the fact and tell them that he's gone. So far, so depressing. But it turned out that the old friend in question became a pastor somewhere along the way so the conversation winds up being way worse than it needs to be because instead of just saying yes of course i will honor my friend's dying wishes is there anything else that i can do for you this asshole starts yammering about making himself right with the lord and accepting jesus as his personal savior but it gets worse okay because not only has he put my father-in-law through that fucking ecclesiastical

timeshare pitch bullshit when he should be shutting the fuck up and letting his friend talk, he also denies the premise. He starts talking about all that miraculous healing that Jesus can offer for the low, low price of one immortal soul. He's telling him not to lose hope and that God knows things that them doctors don't know. And he just needs to put his hands together and trust in Jesus Christ Almighty. Can I get an amen?

Now, you know, look, like I've said before, my father-in-law is vaguely religious. If you ask him his religion, he'll tell you Christian, but there'll be a little tiny question mark at the end of the statement, right? He's not a churchgoer, and he is certainly not a person who wants to waste any of his precious remaining minutes of life listening to some fucking pastor yammer on about how he has just the right magical spell for a time like this and the last fucking thing he needs is false hope

can you imagine how hard it is to make that goddamn call to hold the awareness of one's own mortality in the front of your mind long enough to get to the point of that conversation and then to have somebody ignore the profundity of that awareness on the word of a goddamn fairy tale is more than stupid it's selfish it's a way for that pastor to avoid having to have a really hard conversation to hide from reality instead of sharing my father-in-law's pain for a minute and really being a fucking friend. Because it's easier to pretend that there's a miracle around the corner than it is to recognize that he actually is going to come to the same end as the rest of us. Now, Lucinda was there at the time.

Her dad just held the phone away from his ear and rolled his eyes until all the Jesus words were over. But then he put it back to his ear. He offered up an awkward well anyway and got off the line. And then she, of course, swooped in to try to undo all the damage that jackass pastor just did. Instead of being comforted, he'd been dismissed. And it's not necessarily because the dude is a bad friend or a bad pastor or even a bad person. It's because religion hadn't equipped him with the tools that he would need to help a person in that situation despite how regularly they trotted out as their specialty they never actually learned how to help people cope with death oh no granted that's a huge task

it might even be an impossible task but it's not like the rest of us gave it to them as an assignment it's something they took on for themselves in fact it's not like the rest of us gave it to them as an assignment. It's something they took on for themselves. In fact, it's something that they jealously guard whenever more qualified end-of-life counselors try to encroach on their fucking turf. And if they so much as did the best they could, I think I'd cut them some slack. But as this anecdote illustrates,

they don't just fail to help, they also hinder. How can we ever have realistic conversations about death if we're all obligated to pretend that it isn't final how can we cope with our mortality if we're not even allowed to cop to it in fact i'd venture to say that the only way religion helps people come to terms with their mortality is that most forms of death that we're aware of are still more pleasant than dealing with fucking religious people they're talking headlines tonight are the john ossoff and rafael warnock to my 64 000 heath that's right elad bostic fellas are you ready to do with me what you please oh do you mean slather you all over thomas and andrews face yes we are ready to do

that man if you told 2019 scathing atheists that we'd be raising money for a reverend in 2020 i think we'd just be glad to hear the earth was still here so yeah true yeah right so no nuclear holocaust huh good for us yeah and for those not in the know by the way that number refers to the fundraiser that we did with tom and cecil to raise money for the candidates in the upcoming georgia senate runoff our listeners came through once again with an astronomical record shattering 64 000 in donations during our half hour higher than any other half hour during the fundraiser especially higher than andrew and thomas's half hour there was white plastic during their fundraiser oh yeah that's right you're right

there was there yeah so while we text them another reminder of how much better we did we're going to pause for a quick word from our first sponsor this week hymns i'm i think it's gonna be like a rumba but like on every surface. Nah, man, I'm telling you, in-wall pressure washers. In the wall. We already have pressure washers. Hey, guys, have you seen my... Oh, my God, what happened here?

Oh, yeah. Heath and I did make a little bit of a mess, but don't worry. We're pretty sure that science is going to fix it. Science will fix it? Science is going to fix it, yeah. Just like Hair Loss and 4hims.com, for example. What's forhims.com? What?

Oh, you're doing it. No, I was doing that. Yeah. I mean, you brought it up. Okay. Keith, sidebar. Yeah. How does that change the score?

Yeah, that's a good question. Okay. So I'm thinking we start a new column entirely. Yeah, that makes sense. Start a new what? Respect the sidebar. Don't worry about it. HIMSS is helping guys be the best version of themselves with licensed medical providers and FDA approved

products to help treat hair loss. Wait, like real medicine? That's right, Noah. Prescription solutions backed by science. And today HIMSS is giving you their best offer yet. If you're not happy with your results after 90 days, HIMS will give you a full refund. And right now, our listeners can get their first visit absolutely free. Just go to 4hims.com slash scathing. That's 4hims.com slash scathing. Full refund of price paid available for

the first 90 days supply. Refund requests must be made between 90 and 180 days after product shipment delivered. Prescription products require an online consultation with a medical professional who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Restrictions apply. See website for full details and important safety information. Remember, that's 4hims.com slash scathing. That does sound pretty great, but what did you guys do in here? Yeah, you know, like, you know, pillow fight?

Sure. Like a pillow fight. Yeah. And you know how soft a vacuum cleaner bag gets when it's full? Got it. Yeah. Keith hit me with a vacuum cleaner. The bag was inside.

It counts. And we're back. In our lead story tonight, in a stunning rebuke to rationality. The Supreme Court struck down pandemic related restrictions on religious gatherings. Fuck your face. A five to four decision. Yep. That represents a 180 degree turn from what the same court said in July. ruled that New York's governor overstepped his authority when he restricted religious gatherings in coronavirus red zones to 10 or fewer people, arguing that the

orders unfairly singled out religious institutions. Now, while it is true that religions were singled out by the order, it was so that they could get extra fucking privileges. Secular useless gatherings were banned entirely, but distinction is the same as discrimination, almost as much as lack of distinction is. And thus, religion is exempted from another fucking law. Okay. Pretty sure they just ruled that Andrew Cuomo needs to get the word useless under control in his state.

Religion got persecuted by an adjective in their head. Yep. God damn. Okay. Just going gonna make a note of this i feel like this is important the dictionary is unconstitutional okay got it that's important according to the supreme fucking court and again this is a reversal of three months ago right the supreme court doesn't just no longer have a precedent. It has the memory of the guy from Memento. Yeah, right.

Well, and of course, this is the first really consequential decision that we've gotten from the court since the inimitable Ruth Bader Ginsburg was replaced by Stepford Justice Amy Coney Barrett and signals the kind of shift towards theocracy that we've been warning about since, I don't know, the first time Heath yelled about who you should have voted for. There's a death toll to voting for Jill Stein now. There already was. Now there's more. It's a huge one.

Yep. I just, you know, look, I appreciate them letting me get my book out before they did this stuff so that I wasn't predicting shit that already happened. Yeah. I know at first I said your slow motion mentalism act about destroying freedoms was a weird take but it's growing on me Noah

it's growing on me. And eventually yeah eventually it does. What happened? And to help us get our heads around the implications of this bullshit we're joined by friend of the show and real life lawyer Andrew Torres from the Opening Arguments podcast. Andrew welcome back sir. Noah thanks for having me back on even if

you know we did finish a distant second to you. Yeah, but you guys should be like 62% as proud as us. That's really good. That's very good. I appreciate the condescension. You know, in fairness, we went first. So, you know, we set the bar.

Right. No, that's exactly. You guys faulted over it. No, and I couldn't be happier that together we were able to raise an eighth of a million dollars to try and save the Republic. That's pretty incredible. And as much as I really love rubbing your nose in it, it's the listeners and they really should be the ones rubbing your nose. And actually, they should be rubbing your listeners' noses in it, really. We should just step aside.

So back to the subject at hand here. I have to ask now, okay, let's say I'm a governor. Let's say a Category 5 hurricane is bearing down on my coastline. Do I have to exempt churches from my fucking evacuation orders now? Yeah, I think the answer to that

is if Brett Kavanaugh thinks that you're discriminating against a church, then yes, right? And let me explain why I'm not being hyperbolic. This is a case involving whether the governor, in promulgating reasonable public health restrictions, has the ability to draw distinctions between activities based upon that governor's view of the facts on the ground in their own state. And the Supreme Court, right, the right wing activist Supreme Court that is supposed to be, you know, just calling balls and strikes and appointed by representatives of a party that says, you know, they believe in principles of federalism and local control,

said, no, we're going to second guess not only the factual determinations of the governor of New York, but the factual determinations made by the trial court, which you may or may not know this, not being a lawyer, is what we call the fact-finding body in the law, right? Like, appellate courts are not supposed to decide it's this is bonkers on every conceivable level it's it's as indefensible as supreme court opinion as as i have ever written well okay so that that argument you're making the centering around the second guessing of the governor that's the same argument that john roberts made four or five months ago when they heard this exact

same case out of Nevada or California, whichever one it was. They had several cases that were almost exactly the same situation where John Roberts made exactly that argument. Of course, this was back when we had RBG, so the good guys won that time. How unusual is it for the supreme court to so fully reverse itself four months down the road like this again the word that would come to mind is unprecedented but i'm thinking that precedent is about to you know in an orwellian way lose all of its meaning look this is the court not just disregarding the case it decided four months ago because the alignment of the court has changed, but also disregarding a principle that it has faithfully upheld for 115 years, right?

So it is both very, very new and very, very old. Let me explain both of those, right? So the case from four months ago was South Bay Pentecostal Church versus Newsom, right? And as you point out, the Newsom in the caption tells you it was a California, you know, Governor Gavin Newsom creating various categories of restrictions on public gatherings during the first wave of COVID-19. The 115 years ago case is a case called Jacobson versus Massachusetts, in which the Supreme Court upheld. And essentially, it's one long Supreme Court opinion that uses legalese to say, duh, a Massachusetts restriction that required mandatory vaccinations during a smallpox

outbreak in Boston, right? And it said, look, we're not going to stop the state of Massachusetts from saying, get your damn vaccinations so that, I don't know, a smallpox outbreak doesn't ravage through the streets of Boston, right? The idea that you would take that judgment out of the hands of governors is not only sweeping as a matter of constitutional prerogative, but it leads to the premise of your first question, right? Which is, if I'm the governor in a state, I don't know what I can pass now as an emergency regulation to try and keep my citizens from not dying and like that's kind of a really really important aspect of the job of being governor yeah yeah it's um it's super bad yeah

because dying also fucks up your ability to freely exercise your religion as it turns out a little bit yeah i'm thinking of that fabulous line from ghostbusters, right, where Bill Murray looks at the mayor and is like, if we're right, we will have saved the lives of millions of registered voters. Right. But think about this, right? Like, if you're going to read anything, only read the dissents in this case, right? But as the Kagan dissent points out, it is inarguable that these restrictions put into place in New York were more favorable to religious comparing going to church to going into a liquor store, which is what Brett Kavanaugh does, as opposed to going to a concert, which is really what going to church is much more like. Right. I mean, going into a liquor store. Brett Kavanaugh likes beer, but like.

Yeah. Maybe he spends an hour there. An hour while people spit on you. Right. Come on. That's that's that's insane all right so now in the interest of like the how bad is it gonna get aspect of this story yesterday i read about an appeals court striking down the state ban on conversion therapy in florida as unconstitutional using this same argument that it would violate like the

religious freedom of people who sincerely believe that you can and should torture the gay out of children. Is this just the fucking world we live in now? Should we expect more of this? Yeah. So that case is Otto versus City of Boca Raton. It's an 11th Circuit appellate case. And this is the first time that an appellate court has held that state laws

banning gay conversion therapy which is a form of torture yeah right is unconstitutional it now stands in conflict with the third and ninth circuits which have very sensibly said no that's not like you don't have a right to engage in torture of adolescents because you're religious. So what that means from a legal perspective is whenever there is a conflict among the circuits, that's one of the primary criteria for why the Supreme Court should grant certiorari, right? So that there is uniform application of constitutional principles across theiorari, right? So that there is uniform application of constitutional

principles across the United States, right? So this could be headed to the same Supreme Court. And it's illustrative of kind of the multi-pronged attack that institutions like the Alliance Defending Freedom and other hard right Christian conservative legal advocacy groups are taking. The Otto case is a freedom of speech case. Okay. is that it is viewpoint discrimination to ban therapists from engaging in conversion therapy because the kind of torture that you're engaged in is a thing that comes out of your mouth hole and is therefore speech. Wow. I cannot tell you how preposterous it is. I lack the words to describe how preposterous that is. But here are the implications of that case.

the words to describe how preposterous that is. But here are the implications of that case. Noah, if I call you up every night and ominously whisper into the phone, you should kill yourself and then hang up, right? And I have an organization that does this. Like, the implication of this case is that the state could not prohibit me from engaging in that activity because, you know, I'm described like, oh, yeah, sure. The viewpoint that Noah's life is worth living is one we want to protect. But what about the viewpoint that you really ought to kill yourself? Like, it's crazy. And the authorities that are cited in this opinion are not correct, right? Like, it would be if I submitted a legal brief.

Let me put it this starkly. If I submitted a legal brief, let me put it this starkly. If I submitted a brief to a court that cited US v. Stevens for the principle that it is cited in this Otto decision, right? The 11th Circuit decision striking down gay conversion therapy. I would be sanctioned by the court for misrepresenting that opinion. Really? Stevens is not. It is a grotesque misrepresentation. It's not a permissible reading. If you read the plain language of the Stevens case, it says there's an overbreadth case, not a viewpoint discrimination case. Wow. OK, so is there a case on the horizon that you're using as as a canary in the coal mine or is the canary already dead?

you're using as a canary in the coal mine or is the canary already dead? Yeah, the canary's on life support, but what will put the nail in the coffin from my perspective is a case the Supreme Court just heard called Fulton versus City of Philadelphia. And it involved a challenge by the Catholic social services in the City of Philadelphia to Philadelphia's practice of excluding them from cooperating with the city in placing foster children when they discovered that CSS was refusing to place foster children with same-sex parents, right? And so I want to tell you the layers of terrible that this case is. First is it's defending a terrible policy, right? It says Philadelphia can't decide now not to refer foster kids, if it goes the way I expect it will, that Philadelphia will be prevented from saying as a matter of public policy, we don't want your help on this anymore, CSS, because you're bigots. So that will be bad.

It will additionally be bad because the oral arguments and the briefings in the case focused on the scope of the rights protected by the Obergefell because that's not the posture of the case, right? It's not procedurally the question that's before it. It absolutely could lay the groundwork for creating a separate but equal classification for same-sex marriages, which I expect will happen. And as if this turd Sunday needs a cherry on top, the question posed specifically to the Supreme Court is that it should overrule Employment Division v. Smith, which we've talked about. That's the peyote case. It's probably the only logically consistent opinion Antonin Scalia wrote in his 30 years on the Supreme Court. Antonin Scalia wrote in his 30 years on the Supreme Court. That's the one that says, you know, if you have a neutral law of general applicability, that just because you're religious, you don't get an exception to it. That principle obviously has been gutted by all of the cases to

come before the Supreme Court recently, Trinity Lutheran and Masterpiece Cake Shop being the most prominent. But, you know, it's still technically good law. And in this case, the petitioners, right, Catholic Social Services have asked the Supreme Court, why don't you get rid of that case? Just exit from the books. And, you know, as you began with this, this is Supreme Court that doesn't care about precedent from four months ago or 115 years ago. So the idea that they should care about precedent from 30 years ago, you know, I don't have a lot of faith that they're going to come out the right way. So, wow.

It's Supreme Court's going to be bad for a real long time now. Yeah, probably as long as you and I are alive. I wonder who everybody should have voted for. Yeah. Well, I really appreciate you dropping by to help clarify. To cast a big dark cloud over the entirety. Yeah, we're going to do comedy after this. Of course, if our listeners would like to hear more of Andrew calmly anticipating our inevitable demise as a nation,

be sure to check the show notes for a link to the Opening Arguments podcast. Andrew, thanks again. Oh, thanks so much for having me. And apparently Heath and Eli wandered off during that conversation because Eli can get away with more shit if he knows that Andrew's going to be occupied for a minute. So while I hunt them up desperately, we're going to offer up a couple of headlines that we did in the past few weeks that didn't quite make it into the show. And in Make the Yuletide Gay News, the Christian activist group One Million Moms found yet another thing to be pissed off about this week. And no, it still isn't how much less than one million of them there are. Well, it's not just that anyway.

No, it is not. So tis the season to be offended by the imaginary war on Christmas. And OMM is getting into the spirit early this year by taking on a Hallmark movie about a gay couple trying to adopt a child called The Christmas House. So here's what the institutional embodiment of the Karen haircut had to say about that. It's called the Gosselin. Read a fucking Cosmo.

You know weird stuff. I have fun facts is what I have. Okay. Quote. Gosselin. So many people feel betrayed by Hallmark, which used to be set apart from other channels

because of the wholesome, family-friendly content it aired. However, in less than one year, the network decided not only to air LGBTQ commercials. What, they're advertising

for gayness now? Which One Million Moms petitioned and began to boycott in december of 2019 but also to produce and air movies pushing the gay agenda by featuring lead gay characters in homosexual relationships well but you weren't watching anyway right like oh you were afraid you were gonna see this while you were boy boy? No, you stop watching. That's an excellent point. I guess they got a team of like sympathetic heathens

that they pay to check on stuff. It's like a Shabbos goy to turn off the stove on Saturday or the next Tuesday. She concludes, quote, the once conservative network has caved to LGBTQ pressure and- Oh, that sounds sexy.

Has done a 180 from the wholesome content the channel once aired. And the network is now catering to the left. End quote. That is the most accidentally sexy sentence they have ever said. I want to cave to LGBTQ

pressure and do a 180. Yeah, no, it's rough, guys. Tucker Carlson isn't even parenting Giuliani's latest conspiracy theories anymore. Nowhere is safe for you. Nowhere. And in alternative vax news, religion is going to murder more people by refusing the COVID vaccine. They're going to murder a whole bunch more than they already have. They're already announcing the murder plot out loud.

And they're already starting to legislate the murder plot. And again, just to be clear, that's on top of their ongoing murder plot that's been working all year. But now that the opposite of religion might have finally solved the problem with a vaccine, we have pastors talking about refusing the injection of Nutribullet dead baby juice on moral grounds. We have state legislatures trying to preserve the religious right of plaguing. And meanwhile, we are not allowed to do any murder stuff to them. Now, Heath, don't worry. We just need 70% of Americans to make a responsible and ethical

medical choice. And if they don't, this hell will last forever. So don't worry about it. Just sit back. It's going to be awesome. So the latest stem cell panic comes from Bishop Joseph Brennan of Fresno, California, who called the vaccines from pfizer and moderna morally unacceptable a dutch fetus died in 1973 and brennan won't allow us to kill him again he wants to right that wrong with more plague and death for to go along with his pro-life position just for the record neither vaccine contains any babies or fetal cells or even designer imposter fetal cells.

The Moderna version may have used that Dutch baby for a test, but not as an ingredient. But regardless, the science doesn't matter to the bishop. And that became extra clear when he described a vaccine as unethical if it involved, quote, material that was cast off from artificial insemination.

Dude, the pre-cum is just an emulsifier. We could have used that. Science needs to be like, hey, okay, Bishop, I'll tell you what. We'll throw out the entire batch and start again with one based on carrots. I'll tell you what, we'll throw out the entire batch and start again with one based on carrots. If we can walk around your office for five minutes without finding a list of child rapists. Okay. No.

Okay. You don't want to make that deal? Okay. Safe bet. Real easy. No, you're saying no. Okay. Yeah.

And Bishop Brennan kept talking for a while after that. But when you describe a vaccine as made of cum, it's hard for people to keep listening to your point. So we're going to move on to the state of Tennessee, where GOP state lawmakers decided that right now is a great time to get rid of their existing vaccination policy. The current law says you're allowed to have a religious exemption for your unvaccinated kid at school, except if there's literally a giant global pandemic. And Republicans want to get rid of that last part. Everything after except. Yeah. COVID is like if all the American deaths in World War Two had come from looking down the wrong end of your gun. But it's never just them. Right. So it'd be like looking down the wrong end of your gun well but no but it's never just them right so it'd be like looking down the wrong end of your grenade launcher instead yeah yeah so

i've learned something important living here in cincinnati when california bishops and tennessee republicans are being stupid you can be sure that ohio is handing someone a beer and yelling something vaguely aggressive as they stand up, like, all day or something like that. And this week, that job was handled by Ohio's GOP state representative, Jeffrey Todd Smith. And yes, before you ask, he goes by J. Todd Smith, like an asshole. I bet he does.

And yes, also before you ask, he was a minister for 20 years. You bet he was. That's, also before you ask, he was a minister for 20 years. You bet he was. That's his experience for being a legislator. And during a hearing about a new bill in Ohio that would prevent the Ohio Department of Health from doing stuff to stop the plague, J. Todd said the following, quote, quote i disdain the idea that if i'm not a doctor or an epistemologist or whatever it is that somehow i can't speak in an informed way to this bill well if you're not an epistemologist you can't speak in informed ways about anything really perfect oh If that's not the perfect summary of American politics,

whipping out the big two-syllable word to express that you don't have to know shit to know shit. Yeah, yeah. Well, but to be fair, knowing shit is as un-American as it gets, so yep. And un-pastor-like. Oh my God, and he's trying to say

epidemiologist, obviously, but he says epistemologist and then explains his ignorance about it. It's amazing. It wraps up. That's America. Better than ever. He did say or whatever.

Yeah, that's true. He qualified it. He did qualify it. And on that note, we're going to wrap up a slightly off-format headline segment. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. Jumanji. And when we come back, we'll remind you that everybody has a price, and ours is 50 bucks.

And mango nectar, and of course, a funnel for my mango nectar. Okay, my turn, my turn. I am almost done. Hurry up. Let me finish. Eli, what's all the... Come on. Why are you sitting on my computer?

Are you guys playing Warmy Warm again? No, no. We stopped that. We promise. This is different. We're just telling your computer what we want for Christmas. Well, I would be because it's my turn. If Eli wasn't hogging it, I would be going on my turn.

This is Warmy warm all over again I'm not guys why are you telling my computer what you want for Christmas because of honey wait is that the same honey that automatically searches for promo codes online yeah the one but with honey you can also make a list of all

the holiday gifts you want from certain stores and then honey will email you when the price drops on anything on your list. Wait, really? Yeah. And this year, they're helping pay for $1 million worth of gifts. Just add Honey to your computer, create a free account, and throw some holiday gifts on your drop list for a chance to win.

Honey will randomly select winners and give them the money to help buy something on their list. So wait, I don't even have to buy anything to play? That's right. No purchase necessary. You just need a PayPal account to redeem the prize. Only valid in the US. Giveaway ends 12-21-2020. Well, I'm in.

Where do I get honey anyway? You can get honey for free at joinhoney.com slash scathing. That's joinhoney.com slash scathing. Okay. Now, will you please move so I can work on my computer? Yeah. About that, we... What did you guys do? dot com slash scathing. Okay. Now, will you please move so I can work on my computer? Ah, yeah. About that? We...

Well, what did you guys do? So, you know how you give Santa milk and cookies? I see. He gets it. It's for CD-ROMs. We have a bunch more long overdue thanks and insults from 2019's vulgarity for charity donors to knock out today.

But before we get to that, we need to thank the donors from last Friday one more time for helping Tom and Cecil's fundraiser to save the Senate be so successful. Over $135,000 raised and almost half of that in just our half hour. But most importantly, we beat Thomas and Andrew over at Opening Arguments. Okay. Would we say most importantly? Yes. Yeah. No. No. Also,

wanted to toss out an extra special thanks to James who kicked off our half hour with a $5,000 donation in the first five seconds, putting us on an early pace to raise over $1.8 million. And for his astronomical donation, all James asked for in return was a shout-out to Amber from Her Weirdo. So, gents, shout-out to Amber.

Amber. Ooh! Ooh! Ear to whiz-ay! Ooh! Ear to whiz-ay! Ooh! All right, so let's get to this.

Heath, the first one's for you. Matthew would like a roast of the five count. A roast of the five count. Okay. So Matthew actually wanted to hear Morgan personally roast the five count himself, but Morgan couldn't make it because he's scrubbing the noise of Eli reorganizing his potato chip collection during the last five counts. It's fucking terrifying how badly this goes every time.

We've been doing this so long, it never goes well. We could have Walter White making pallets of Adderall for Eli and Eli still wouldn't have enough focus to spend three entire seconds in the deafening silence of his soul and then say four or five.

Noah says one and Eli turns into fucking Roger Rabbit hearing shave and a haircut. You can hear Eli shaking. You can hear his teeth shattering. Yeah. All right. So Eli, Mike and Brandy Long

would like a roast of the Seattle Transit Authority. Ah, yes. The Seattle Transit Authority, the organization with the grace and posture of a recently turned down American Idol contestant. They literally tried to cancel the vote when Seattle officially

told them to fuck themselves. And if it weren't for Donald Trump, they'd be the most ridiculous reaction to a vote we'd heard of in the last two years. All right. Noah, you're up next. Sophie would like a roast of her acquaintance, Adam. Yeah, this was actually part of a Christmas gift for her boyfriend,

but like not the Christmas that our current timing would lead you to believe. They're all Christmases. Don't hear Chris. That's true. That's true. This one counts too. So Adam is a squeaky dumbass

that her boyfriend used to work for. And I make fun of his appearance, but he's blind. So that seems unfair. But he knows he sounds like Angelica Pickles on helium so you know also he is a Mormon I just point that out so that everyone

knows it is not true that even blind people can see through Joseph Smith's shit at least not all of them alright so Eli I got another one here for you James would like a roast for chiropractor and podcaster Wade Sproviro. Yeah, who cares? Wade is a mega-trumper as well.

So between that and chiropractic, it's hard to know if this guy believes in any real things. He also looks like if Jeff Foxworthy and Jeff Foxworthy's golf caddy were in the middle of using a face swap filter on Instagram. If a third mulligan could be a face, it's Wade's face. And he, the

excellently named Vileblood Annalise would like a roast of her husband, Jason. Alright, excellent pick. Jason looks like a postal worker who wants to talk with you. And you know it's coming and there's nothing you can fucking do about it. He's like, how's it going?

You're trying to come up with, you know, any noncommittal answer that doesn't lead to something. And you're just like, I'm good. We're done. But that turns into a two-hour explanation about his cult that's based on the laws of the Destiny 2 universe. It's fucking exhausting. All right. So, Eli, I got an interesting challenge here.

Michael would like you to roast his dog, Foxy, as his former dog, Duchess. All right. Okay, Chihuahuas. Foxy, Foxy, it's me, Duchess, calling you from dark heaven, which I am pleased to report is just the house without you in it.

Seriously, they offered me a blowjob fountain and I told them, nope, honestly, just a meal and a nap without being attacked by the Taco Bell dog's crazy ex and I'll be happy. I'll be seeing, you foxy. I mean, hopefully not soon,

but sooner if you don't stop cock blocking your owners, man. Sorry. Let them do it. That voice ended up more racially sensitive than I expected. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I'm with you.

When I said chihuahua, I heard them audibly gasp. Yep, you did. I was actually just marking the time for an edit, you know. Morgan, can you marking the time for an edit, you know. Morgan, can you put this to a woke filter, please? Okay. I'll take this next one.

Nora would like a roast of a racist Don Grunman. So first I get a Mormon and then I get a different flavor of bigot. He's also a chiropractor who occasionally squirms his way into the news by trying to organize straight pride parades in California. And he looks like if like if fearing one's own penis was the bad guy in an 80s movie. He does. And OK, so now is the time for a round of special requests. All right.

So, Eli, Laura Ann wants a roast for the leaders of Canada's conservative party as a birthday gift for her husband, Andrew. Now, granted, this was in 2019, but I'm guessing his birthday is still December 1st. So let's let's get that birthday roast going. Exactly. Still birthday. Canada's Conservative Party, you fucking losers. You are the crystal Pepsi of conservatism. You are a desperate hope to break into a market that does not want or need you. Well, nobody wants or needs you except guys that look and think like Doug Ford. So there is a small audience.

All right. This one's for you. Joseph wants us to roast people who think that Shakespeare was a real person. Okay. Interesting one. I look like a diabetic Nazi. Is that good? Does that work?

I'm pretty sure Shakespeare was a real person, but there is no way he wrote all those plays. Computer analysis clearly shows different writing styles. It's just math. He's not the writer of all that shit. Shakespeare wrote all his plays just like Melania Trump wrote her memoir.

No chance. I'm saying it was definitely Francis Bacon and Michelle Obama also helping. Yeah, Michelle Obama was probably. All right. Now, Caitlin would like you to roast her friend's ex-husband, Chris. Yeah. Chris just looks like mediocrity.

Right. He's exactly the kind of person you dread getting for this segment because there's literally nothing exceptional about him. He's not even exceptional at being shitty. You're just like you're left looking for an abnormally large nose or some weird haircut or some revelation about his Netflix preferences in the description that would give you some handhold on this otherwise wholly unremarkable

human. Even insults about him can't rise above the black hole of unexceptional mediocrity that he is. Tom, thanks for joining us. Back to you, Eli. In case you guys were missing Tom.

He looks like someone filled out C on the human-making Scantron, like C was all of their answers. All right, Heath, I've got one for you here. Macon knows you so well, they would like you to roast your least favorite Smash Bros. character. Fuck physics. Physics.

Nintendo created the greatest game in history with the original Smash Brothers for N64. And they've ruined the physics ever since. But, okay. If I have to roast a character from the, again, impeccable original. Fuck Nintendo a little bit more for making Link a piece of shit in that original. Yes. Yes.

They took one of their all-time greatest characters and gave him the jumping ability of an overweight podcaster with melanoma. That was not fun for any Link fans. And a bunch of you are probably thinking, no, I'm amazing with Link. No, you're not. No, you're not. You're maybe thinking of the newer games

or you're thinking of Dunning-Kruger because that's what you have. No, he's terrible. But no, I'm great with the boomerang and the bombs. No, you're not. No, you're thinking of Dunning Kruger because that's what you have. No, he's terrible. But no, I'm great with the boomerang, the bombs. No, you're not. No, you're not. I just spiked you with Kirby while you said that. Well, Kirby was so overpowered in that too.

The best. And they underpowered him for all the... I don't like anything that's happened since. We have yet to find the listener who has defeated Heath at Smash Brothers. All right. We will not. Noah, I've got another one for you here.

Kyle would like you to roast Canadian politician Maxime Bernier. Alright, so apparently Maxime Bernier is the founder of the People's Party of Canada, which is like it's like a faction of the Tea Party broke off to keep out the Chinese.

Right? He inherited his political career from his dad, and I'm sure this title doesn't mean what it sounds like it means, but when he was in parliament, one of his job titles was Opposition Critic for Innovation, Science, and Economic Development. What?

How can you oppose? God damn it. Right, well, yeah, as long as you ignore what that job probably is, it sums up his career perfectly. Also, he looks like a fucking life coach that specializes in people who just got me too'd. All right, Eli, Bill gave us $200.

This is going to be tasteful. $200 for you to roast Michael J. Fox. Eli is going to do this one? Yeah, give me one second. I am just going to check if he is dead before I do this. Nope, still alive. Yeah, still alive. Okay, dude, we get it.

You have paint mixer syndrome or whatever. Jesus. You're a bigger pain in the ass than Patrick Swayze's rectal cancer and half is relevant. Also, why are you always on the cover of a magazine at the grocery store talking about your thing? You haven't been in a movie since Noah had a hair on his balls. What?

Why are you still getting calls from Us Weekly? What? When did I? Thank you. Okay. Calls from Us or Us Weekly? Us Weekly. Are we calling him?

Thank you. So next up, Noah, as we come to the anniversary of your quitting smoking, Robert would like a roast of the last cigarette you smoked. Yeah, fuck you, the last cigarette I smoked. I built you up in my mind like you were going to be some kind of grand orgasmic finale and you turn out to be a bunch of stinky-ass crumbled-up leaves that don't even get me high, just like the last one. You're like pulling out pre-orgasm because I was bored.

All right. So now it's time to limber up for another Spikening Round. The category is dogs. We had an unusually large number of people who wanted their dogs roasted either because they really hate their fucking dogs

or because they love giving to charities. You decide. Yeah, exactly. So for this round, I want you guys to tell me what tricks these dogs know that no other dog does, starting with Joshua, who wants Heath to roast his dog, Snots. Okay. Snots has a really great trick. She has a magical summoning power that conjures another dog and the ability to headbutt that other dog until it disappears when Snots becomes unconscious because she just headbutted the oven door where

that identical other dog appears every single time. It's a real thing Snots does. Nice. All right. I'm going to do Tim's dog, Ozzie, who likes to pick fights with much larger dogs at the dog park and then lose and then threaten to call his personal injury attorney from behind his dad

and his special trick is the ability to eat garbage while vomiting out the last garbage he ate. It's like circulatory breathing. It's like drinking water while you're doing the ventriloquism. I'll take Conan

then, the dog who got a hero medal a couple years ago, and I think we all know the trick that Conan knows, stolen valor. First of all, fuck you and fuck this dog. The dog doesn't want your medal. He didn't drop out of high school and head down to the recruitment office.

If there was a trick he could learn, it would be to have asked and tell. All right, so Heath, how about Rick's dog Thor? Thor's a cop. Cop. He's a cop. He is a cop dog.

Such an obvious narc. We got pictures of him. He looks like he always has a thought bubble that says Blue Lives Matter right about the time. But he does have a trick. He is the only MAGA dog

who can dress up as Champ Biden and and trick joe biden into breaking his foot while they're playing together oh nice all right noah what trick does troy's dog zeke know i love how he sends us a picture of zeke ohio's fuck after getting into his dad's edibles he's so clearly on the cusp of realizing he was the good boy all along and he's dealing with all the implications of that shit and his special trick obviously is rolling a cross joint oh you love to see it those are so stupid

such a waste of weed fuck you everybody who's rolling cross joints get out of here smoke two joints like a fucking grown up I don't smoke anything but cross joints sometimes though it makes a moment special okay you know what makes it special getting extra high stupid stupid idea anything but cross joints. Sometimes though, it makes a moment special. Okay. You know what makes it special? Getting extra high.

Stupid, stupid idea. All right. Eli, you're up next. Tell us about Edgar's dog, Bella Wup. All right.

Well, Bella humps her bed, never listens, and runs away when anyone talks to her. So, the trick she probably knows is podcast. All right. And to close out this frightening round to Heath,

Caleb wants you to roast a dog in his coworking space named Tulip. So Tulip looks like she's working a window in the red light district all the time, but not well, not well at all. Like big props to all the skilled prostitutes out there. Nothing but respect. But Tulip is not well at all. Like big props to all the skilled prostitutes out there. Nothing but respect. But Tulip is not one of them. She's just like clumsily smushing her vagina against the glass. Like she doesn't know she's actually inside the store.

Like she's in it and nobody else is. But to be clear, in a bad way, I feel like I didn't like that. But badly. Yet somehow this old dog has plenty of new tricks every day excellent all right so let's wrap up with a round of group roasts these folks were high rollers who tossed us the big bucks for a roast from everybody so let's take it home with some of them starting with emma who wanted us to roast anti-vaxxers fuck your your faces, all of you. You're the reason I'm collecting all the infinity stones. The only thing Thanos did wrong was snap at random. Now, okay, that's a joke about mass

murder. I'm not actually saying we should mass murder anybody, but here's a not joke. Coward. You make it hard to argue against a war crime. Just think about that. You make that difficult. You're the exception in the Geneva Conventions to the infinity war crime. They're thinking about that because of you. You're the elevator vomit of people. But you know what? Actually, way worse than that. You're way worse than elevator vomit.

You're on the elevator telling everybody about a meme on Parler that said elevator vomit is actually a peer-reviewed way to prevent autism fuck you and the vomit is a grenade here well that's exactly right you're the discount version of flat earth rocket guy except your rocket landed on somebody's house when it crashed and then puked out grenades yeah yeah grenade vomit after that And let's just say COVID is your World Series. You did it, anti-vaxxers. You're done killing in the minor leagues. In the next couple of weeks, you're going to help kill the whole country. Yep.

Yeah. All right. So Michael would like a roast of Randy Forbes, the founder of Project Blitz. You have to Google Randy Forbes. Randy looks like he just farted and he's going to say, well, I guess it's one of mine. It looks like he spends the entire PTA meeting

loudly yelling at a contractor about the work he's having done on his fuck dungeon. Also, he has like a reverse comb over. Like somehow the receding hairline is being stretched over the parts that still have hair. He's balding diagonally. Yeah.

There's like a scary pressure building up. It feels like it's going to explode back the other way all of a sudden. Hurt everybody. And by the way, you're the other reason I'm collecting all the Infinity Stones, fucking Project Blitz and whoever the fuck your name is. In case anyone missed it, Project Blitz is a theocracy super PAC. Yep. They fight for stuff like, for example, the Supreme Court ruling that New York has to let religious people murder everyone with plague on the fucking subway. Randy Forbes, that's his name.

He makes it hard for New Yorkers to argue against Bernie Getz. Think about that. Think about it. Obviously, again, there's a joke in there. Obviously, you can't just shoot people on the subway, but

if you could vanish them with a magic stone and then make them reappear inside like an airtight ball with a hamster wheel in there, that would be great. Iron Man would happily help you out with that. Yeah.

Especially if you could put Gwyneth Paltrow in the hamster wheel too. Yeah, she has to go in the hamster wheel. All right, so how about Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker for Matt? Oh, Charlie. Charlie looks like a man whose other stem cells compromised on chin.

Well, except for his hair. His hair is obviously stolen from a limited edition problematic in his old age G.I. Joe. He looks like the host of Let's Make a Plea Deal. Or if you want to be more literal, he looks like if stupid was a carcinogen. His face especially is crazy looking.

It looks like his forehead teamed up with like the color pink to stage a coup against the rest of his face and they're winning they're doing no resistance yeah yeah like like a kennedy having an allergic reaction to face steroids like he thought he was taking steroids but turns out they're all face and it's not working out for whoever that Kennedy is. He looks like Krang just gave up and put his face on top. Like Mr. Potato Head got snapped on top and he's like, yeah, fuck it. I'm not going back in the middle. That's fine.

All right. How about we throw in a roast for Aaron's dad, Randall? Aw, Aaron loves her dad, Randall. And Aaron, you know what that means? That means you can turn your sweet, sweet sweet kind eyes away when he gets the wall like all the other Fox News zombies of his generation you don't have to listen you don't have to look

but seriously he looks like the dude abides in an old country buffet looks like Santa working a summer job at Staples angrily doesn't he though yeah he looks like the personification of my dad's a good guy but and that's exactly what he is okay i know you want him to be a good guy aaron you really do even in

your head you have to pretend like he is even if the nicest thing that you could think to say about him in your email is that he hasn't actively been unkind to his own children but like you know racist christian fox news loving trump voter and good guy don't overlap on the diagram no no shares not even a sliver of shared space there this man has clearly been mad at dancing before but you know but good job on your part thinking of a way to be awful that he isn't for the purposes of the opening paragraph of your email. Wait a daughter. Yeah. You're a good daughter.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Your dad now. And the last, okay, no, stop making that offer.

You like this kryptonite is a clip of Kevin Bacon dancing in footloose. That's great. Although I will say if Eli is your dad, he will fuck your dad. So, okay. Right. Last but not least,

Sean would like us to roast whoever pissed us off today fantastic sean we need more requests like this this is the best and uh by the way sean made that request on november 26th of 2019 right around the corner turns out that day i was pissed off by donald trump didn't have to check the news archive so donald trump bring it in you look like guy fieri's shirt was actually on fire like it got you it got you you turned in your orange fuck with your waxy splotchy orange veneer you're frankenstein's monster oh that's fantastic that being said we all loved your tangy desk concert. That was so fun.

Quite nice. Because tang is orange and you're orange. Fuck you. All right. So whether I chose November of 2019 or today, whenever I have my choice, the answer is the same. Fuck you. That douchey looking bearded guy in a Chevy commercials where suddenly your grandma was in the backseat or the truck was on top of another fucking whatever. Fuck you. Fuck you.

You expensive hiking gear owning French word over pronouncing cravat collecting craft beer aficionado. Fuck you and the understated premise you wrote in on. Two votes except the craft

beer is good. Alright, I'm gonna go with FedEx. Two votes, except the craft beer's good. Alright. I'm gonna go with FedEx. FedEx, you fucking suck. Yep. You're the third goddamn shipping company people use out of three, and yet somehow you act like you're providing some highfalutin messenger service

in medieval Europe. Oh, I'm sorry. Does your illegally driven and parked truck driven by an underpaid listener to our podcast have a different color palette? Well, then let me rush to my door

so we can confirm my identity through the unhackable system of me saying the name that you just told me you want me to say. Also, if you motherfuckers lost my wife's Christmas present,

I'm going to send you so much cum, people will know what the X stands for. Okay, and on that note, we're going to wrap up this, the 20th installment of our six-part series on charitable insults. The good news is that we were at least halfway through by now,

so we'll be back in 2021 with even more of 2019's Vulgarity for Charity. Before we lick our wounds tonight, I want to let you know that if you listen to this episode early enough, you still have time to catch the Skeptics in a Pub talk

that I'm doing for the Good Thinking Society on Thursday at 7 p.m. GMT. That's 2 p.m. Eastern. You'll find a link to that on the show notes or follow at PIAtPod on Twitter. We'll have links up all over the place. Anyway, that's all the

blasphemy we've got for you tonight, but we're back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait that long, be on the lookout for a brand new episode of our sister show, The Skeptocrat, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Monday, an even newer episode of our sister show's hot friend, God Off the Movies, debuting at 7 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, and an even newer episode of our half-sister show, Citation Needed, debuting at noon Eastern on Wednesday. Obviously,

this show wouldn't be worth its weight in show if I neglected to thank Keith Enright for always giving 100% and never claiming it's 110. I also want to thank Eli Bosnick for always eventually agreeing to run that joke by Andrew first. I also want to thank the lovely and talented Lucinda Lusions, who will be back soon. I also want to thank Robin from the Books That Burn podcast

for providing this week's Farnsworth quote. A very interesting concept where they discuss fictional depictions of trauma in literature. Definitely check that out. Again, you'll find a link in the show notes. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's most scathing Santas, Gene, Alexi, and John, who are too bright to cast shadows. I know that might seem like a short list, but it's December.

It's colder in here than normal. Together, these three dreamy doubters of the divine donated a dollop of dollars to denounce the dumbass deniers of Darwinian development this week by giving us money. If you, too too would like to defeat God with a micropayment, you can make a per-episode donation at patreon.com slash skatingatheist whereby you'll earn early access to an extended ad-free version of every episode, or you can make a one-time donation

by clicking on the donate button on the right side of the homepage at skatingatheist.com. And if you'd like to help, but no payment is micro enough, you can also help a ton by following at P-I-A-T-P-O-D on Twitter and by leaving us a five-star review anywhere they let you do that. Legal services for this podcast provided by the law offices of P and rhetorics. Tim Robertson handles our social media and our audio engineers,

Morgan Clark, who also rolled the music that was used in this episode, which was used with permission. If you have questions, comments, or death threats, you'll find all the contact info on the contact page at skating, 80s.com.

I just pictured me throwing the vacuum cleaner at Eli. He flew across the room. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm, LLC. Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.