The Scathing Atheist - 460: Vulgantuan Edition

Episode Date: December 9, 2021

In this week’s episode, Joel Osteen cashes out, the Fox News Christmas tree in NYC burst into flames and spontaneous commentary, and Tom and Cecil will bring too much vulgarity to fit in a mere 60 minute episode. --- 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: Hear more of Tom and Cecil here: https://dissonancepod.com/ Hear more of Thomas and Andrew here: https://openargs.com/ Check out Rocks for Brains on YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/RocksForBrains --- Headlines: Utah throttles assistance to force people into church programs (diatribe) https://www.propublica.org/article/utahs-social-safety-net-is-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-what-does-that-mean-if-youre-not-one A plumber found envelopes full of cash in the walls of Joel Osteen's megachurch: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/12/03/a-plumber-found-envelopes-full-of-cash-in-the-walls-of-joel-osteens-megachurch/ Richard Dawkins Urges People to Sign “Declaration” Opposing Trans Rights: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/12/01/richard-dawkins-urges-people-to-sign-declaration-opposing-trans-rights/ AHA announces new leader:  https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/12/01/the-american-humanist-associations-new-leader-embodies-a-shift-in-the-movement/ David Barton says the 2nd Amendment gives us the right to own a nuclear weapon: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/12/04/david-barton-the-second-amendment-gives-us-the-right-to-own-a-nuclear-weapon/ Conspiracy Theorist Anna Khait Says Mark Taylor Is ‘Literally a Pawn of the Devil Himself’: https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/conspiracy-theorist-anna-khait-says-mark-taylor-is-literally-a-pawn-of-the-devil-himself/ Couple of great candidates for the Herman Cain award: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/12/02/evangelical-eric-metaxas-who-told-people-dont-get-the-vaccine-has-covid/ and https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/12/06/joshua-feuerstein-who-said-jesus-made-vaccines-unnecessary-now-has-covid/ and https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/11/30/marcus-lamb-whose-christian-tv-network-spread-covid-lies-has-died-of-covid/ --- This Week in Misogyny: SCOTUS signals the end of Roe: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/mississippi-abortion-case-supreme-court/2021/12/01/367004a6-52b4-11ec-9267-17ae3bde2f26_story.html Pastor resigns after endorsing spousal rape during sermon: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2021/11/24/pastor-resigns-after-telling-men-the-best-person-to-rape-is-your-wife/ Controversy around PP fundraiser at Catholic college: https://religionnews.com/2021/11/18/loyola-marymount-students-protest-university-over-its-handling-of-planned-parenthood-fundraiser-backlash/

Warning, this episode contains so much vulgarity, it needed extra vulgarians. This week's episode of The Scathing Atheist is brought to you by Stamps.com and by White Hot Rage. White Hot Rage, because now can fuck itself. And now, The Scathing Atheist. Hello friends, this is Lauren from the Rocks for Brains, Rockhounding, and Geology YouTube channel. With my first-hand experience seeing humans urge to pick up and collect lots of shiny, pretty rocks,

I can assure you that we did, in fact, evolve from filthy monkey people. Oh, come look at this cool rock over here. It's Thursday. It's December 9th. And it's World Techno Day. Okay, so we wish you a merry... I'm no illusions. I'm Eli Bosnick. I'm Heath Enright. And from Tower Reeds, New Jersey, Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Waycross, Georgia, this is The Scathing Atheist.

On this week's episode, Joel Osteen cashes out. The Fox News Christmas tree in New York City burst into flames and also spontaneous commentary yesterday. And Tom and Cecil break too much vulgarity to fit in a mere 60-minute episode. But first, the diatribe. you know people always act like there's some contradiction in the christian opposition to a strong social safety net but if you think about it there isn't our side actually deploys us a lot as though it was a gotcha they'll rant against welfare and we'll say something like, well, wasn't Jesus in favor of helping the poor? And we think we scored a point, but we didn't. We inadvertently played along with the idea that somehow Christianity has a deeper, better self that isn't defined by what Christians actually think or do.

So let's get something straight right off the bat here. Jesus wasn't heroic for preaching to the prostitutes and the beggars. They always act like that was some great act of charity. But the truth is, that's where every fucking cult starts. Desperate people are easier to convert. They need help more. They're more likely to be looking for a turn my life around catalyst. And they're the ones the established religions are least likely to already have their hooks in.

This isn't some great act of altruism. It's a target of opportunity. So when Christians oppose a strong social safety net, they're not being un-Christ-like. They're plowing their own fucking fields. This was highlighted really well in a recent article in ProPublica. In a series on welfare in the Southwest, a journalist named Eli Hager started digging into the state that somehow holds the distinction of being the most charitable while spending the least on welfare. Of course, that's Utah. And what he found, of course, is that the state government, overwhelmingly made up of Mormons, of course, intentionally keeps welfare spending as low as possible and the bar for assistance as high as possible to create opportunities for their churches.

So here's all you need to know about Mormon assistance. First of all, it was held out as the perfect model for welfare reform by none other than Ronald goddamn Reagan. It actually did ultimately serve as the model for the disastrous welfare reform bill that Clinton signed back in 96. And the whole system was evil from its conception. Hell, it was evil before its conception. It was created in opposition

to the New Deal. That's right. The Mormons weren't inspired to do this by the Great Depression. They were inspired to do it by the thing that cured the Great Depression. It was literally the result of a bunch of well-to-do white guys largely untouched by the disaster saying, I'll be damned if you'll secure society on my watch.

So they create this system that's crazy generous, right? You can go into a grocery store and they'll just give you all the society on my watch so they create this system that's crazy generous right you can go into a grocery store and they'll just give you all the shit on your list they've got a store with steeply discounted furniture and clothes they'll just straight up pay your power bill or your car payment but that all comes with the condition that your bishop approves every fucking penny of it your bishop has to check off on your grocery list so you know no buying luxury foods like steak and lobster. You don't deserve that shit.

You're poor. You eat rice and beans like a poor person. Damn it. You wear cheap clothes so that your poverty is apparent to us all from a distance. You can have your electricity turned on, but you have to grovel a little bit first. And here's a fucked up fact you might not know. In order to be eligible for the big federal welfare grants, states have a minimum that they have to spend helping the poor people in their own states, right? But it turns out the states get to set the rules on how they're calculating that,

and a bunch of states actually count the work that nonprofits do as though it was state money being spent. So the state of Utah actually counts a bunch of money donated through the church towards that total. They have an official memorandum of understanding about that. You can read it in the fucking article. I'll have it linked in the show notes. Of course, as you might have noticed when I was outlining the system, this doesn't work super well for people who don't have a bishop. While many, if not most, bishops will offer assistance to people,

even if they're not Mormon, not all of them do. It's ultimately at the discretion of the bishop whether you can have access to that money solely. And it's not like there's some appeals process you could turn to anyway the article has stories of people who had to get baptized to access aid but mormons who were denied aid because they hadn't been tithing enough leading up to this shit women who were denied aid because they got pregnant out of wedlock and of course stories of people being turned down because they were gay and that's the system that Christians want. Christians are fine helping the poor as long as the poor acknowledge their

inferiority. They can have the help as long as somebody gets to sit in arbitrary judgment of them. And it's worth emphasizing here how many people who need aid are single mothers and contrast that with the fact that 100% of the bishops making these decisions are men. They can have food and clothing and healthcare and heat, but they better never act like they're entitled to it. And they better be willing to sit through a lecture from an overprivileged cishet white guy who can well actually them onto the straight and narrow.

So yeah, it's not about them getting the theology wrong. It's about us giving them too much fucking credit. Christians love the poor so much so that they'd never want to do anything that would risk getting rid of them. They're talking about you, Jesus. We interrupt this broadcast and bring you a special news bulletin. Joining me for headlines

tonight are the scattered and smothered to my covered Heath Enright and Eli Bostic fellas. Are you ready to hash things out? Ooh, you have given us some great compliments on this show, Noah, but to rise to the level of the adverbious menu, that's too much. You flatter us, sir. You flatter us.

I don't think those are adverbs. Are there adverbs in that? Yes. Smothered? No, it's not an adverb. That's either a past tense of a verb or it's being used as an adjective to describe hash browns. It's not an adverb. Adverb. Nope. In our lead story tonight, we have a headline

with some teeth it's about joel osteen so you know how innocent people they're always hiding very large stockpiles of secret cash inside the walls of their building no yeah me neither i do not know that nobody knows. That's what evil people do at their lair. That's for lairs. Yes. Which you can really only get if you're evil. And I think that's actually the only zoning law in Texas. It's about lairs.

And it's mostly just about how lairs don't have laws. And in this case, they don't have any property tax either. So here's what happened with Joel Osteen. According to a plumber who was recently working at Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, a huge stash of cash envelopes fell out of the wall while he was fixing the area behind the toilet. And also, this is the best part to me, it came with a dollar estimate. Like the plumber apparently counted. He's like, not just I found envelopes full of money i found six hundred

thousand dollars plumber who gave an honest estimate it's weird and then he told someone if joel osteen choked to death in front of me i would eat him like a house cat so the notion of telling someone about his giant cash hoard which he obviously wants to keep. I don't understand people sometimes, is I guess what I'm saying. I get it. I would like that. Given him that negative press would have been 600. I would have put my money in his fucking walls to make this happen. Don't give Joel any ideas.

The secret wall cash. Definitely a little suspect. Little sus. I'm saying sus now. I guess some people. Okay. They a little suspect. Little sus. I'm saying sus now. I guess some people, okay, they hide their cash in their house. Some people do that. But this is a megachurch. They don't need to hide their money from the government.

They could send the IRS a goddamn shipping container of cash and dead orphans, and they'd get a polite return to sender, and it would probably be cleaned up a little bit. But there's a backstory that makes it even more sus in 2014 osteen's church reported to the police that someone broke into their safe and stole about six hundred thousand dollars in cash just for the record that was the amount they collected in one weekend that's what they made in 2014 in one weekend but they were conveniently insured against theft by all the evil atheist master safecrackers in houston texas so they got paid

out by the insurance company for that loss but despite an investigation to find the super duper real criminals and this mega church that has i'm'm sure, a top-of-the-line security system, probably with cameras all over the place. Despite all that, nobody ever got arrested. And they hid it in the walls. Like, you don't do that with one person. That's not a subtle undertaking. This is not thermite, right? You can't do that.

You're not even noticing. I've never understood why these people need to add to their cons like this yeah like joel you're a multi-millionaire legally that that would be like me hiding a bunch of free movie reviews under my floorboards you don't need it that's weird it's a weird it's already your thing sus is what it is interesting so that story got conveniently forgotten until somebody clogged the toilet that's how it always happens that's how everything comes crumbling down so the plumber showed up and had to open up some of the wall and according to the plumber's account on a radio show last week he moved away some insulation inside the wall and about 500 envelopes

fell out all full of cash apparently this plumber thought he was on a hidden camera prank show so he told the church and didn't take all that money stupid and then the church called the police and reported that the mysterious safecracker who never got found probably stole the money from them and then did some really good carpentry and tile work very quietly. Pretending he was taking a really big shit in there. In a minute. What are you doing, man? I'm fixing shit.

I'm using the three seashells. Trust me. Yeah. So he did all that. He took the money. He opened up a wall hit it there and you know this was all to make the church look bad so that atheist safecracker did it so they called the police to let him know about all that and the fact that they called the police makes it worse

doesn't it like it was just a normal stash of their money that's not a crime they need to report the police if it's not illegal money. That's nothing. That would be fine. But they called the police again. It's weird. It's very sus. Okay.

So you know that they were not going to call the cops. And the plumber was like, you guys probably want to call the cops, right? And they were like, right, absolutely. Wing, wing. Hello, police. That's your fingers held out on either side of, absolutely. Wing, wing. Hello, police. That's your fingers held out on either side of your hand. Fuck, fine, I'll call the cops. And in douche canoes,

Richard Dawkins, atheism's shit-smearing grandpa, is a douche canoe. Again, more extra this week. And since three quarters of the internet has decided that like the chief wahoo of not believing in God, he's our super problematic mascot, we have to talk about it. So, yeah. If you haven't been following along with Grandpa Rick for the last couple of years, wow, man, lucky you. Maybe hit the forward button a few times.

Remember the good old days when he just said that mild pedophilia was okay the pedophilus we'll get moving on moving on yep right right well the foot he's been putting in his mouth lately has been trans rights where he's tweeting more and more obviously transphobic shit that only the most desperate of his fans can defend and he made their job even harder this week when he encouraged his twitter followers to sign a quote declaration on women's sex-based rights and quote a michael scottian attempt to deny trans women's existence existence right yeah yeah in case it isn't clear at this point dawkins just like his thing has always been to just say something he was pretty sure would piss off a large group of people the fact that he got one of those things right in atheism is just a typing monkey who happened upon Romeo and Juliet.

Yeah. He's like a bigoted, infinite monkey. Yes. Yeah. So the document, the Declaration on Women's Rights, was put forward by the Women's Human Rights Campaign, an organization that might as well be named PleaseDon'tGoogleUs.org

and is a combination of bizarre conspiracy theory and legalese gibberish that would make a sovereign citizen roll their eyes. But among the usual transphobic demands of not accepting trans women as women, not using their pronouns, not studying the trans experience, etc., it also rejects surrogacy what you know like when someone else carries a baby because when you're an anti-science turf you can truly just throw whatever nonsense you want in your official sounding declaration and bigots will sign it well look the fact that a group calling itself the women's human rights campaign is focusing on something that isn't protecting roe right now it tells you all you need to know about how accurate that name is absolutely also uh rejecting surrogacy was one

of the things what does that even mean what are they they're it's something that exists what how are they rejecting it farm to table babies only and look i don't like to talk about this stuff one because we've done it to death, right? Every time Dawkins shoves his head up his ass, I have to measure it. And there's only so many spins I can put on the sentence. Fuck that guy. Two, because this story is inevitably going to get me the three emails from people who would like a personal education into why trans people are that they won't pay attention to. But I also do it because among you who know where we stand on trans folks,

on this podcast are a few new listeners. And maybe they haven't been in an atheist space that feels welcoming before, specifically because of dicks like Dawkins. So to them, I say, hi, he's the tall one. We just finished raising half a million dollars for charity and Richard Dawkins can suck a turd. But sorry, Eli, that bit only works he's the tall one we just finished raising half a million dollars for charity and richard dawkins can suck a turd but sorry eli that bit only works if you say the part about me being the smart one

it just doesn't pop otherwise that's fair yep that's fair that's fair that was a smart one he's the taller cool love this awesome and in aha moment news i have kind of the opposite story to Eli's. It's just a quick reminder that Richard Dawkins doesn't hold a leadership position in the atheist movement unless you count the Richard Dawkins Foundation. And let's be honest, they'd be trying to distance themselves from him if they could at this point. who do hold those leadership positions are, by and large, trying so hard to move away from what he represents that the American Human Association's search for a new executive director included an earnest

effort to see if there was a guy out there named like Drackersnickwad or something. That's Richard Dawkins backwards. But failing to find that, they brought on Nadia Dutchin, a longtime climate justice and healthcare advocate of Afro-Indo-Guyanese heritage, whose first statement after accepting the position included an emphatic call to be more inclusive to people of the LGBTQ community.

Yes. And at some point in this cold, dead, unfair universe, she is going to be forced into the same convention as me without having me escorted out. So, you know. Yeah. We got a ways to go before Ms. Dutchin isn't forced to be in the same convention as me without having me escorted out so you know yeah we got a ways to go before ms dutchin isn't forced to be in the same building as eli but we're getting there yeah we're getting there we are we're striving arcs towards freedom so this story started back in february when roy speckhardt announced that he'd be stepping down from the aha's executive director position after 15 years and And in that statement, he urged the group to look towards minority communities for the next leader. He said, quote, It is my emphatic hope that my seat is filled with a black or brown humanist

because our movement has gone too long without such diversity at the helm. And this would open the door for the AHA to truly achieve its potential as a humanist and anti-racist institution. End quote. achieve its potential as a humanist and anti-racist institution end quote now at the time that did lead to some people in the jackass wing of our movement lamenting about how it's gotten to where you you know like a white guy can't even get a leadership position in atheist activism unless you count nick fish or dan barker howard berman or jason torpey or kevin bowling or almost any of the prominent youtubers podcasters and bloggers. But despite that tepid backlash, it looks like Speckhardt's emphatic wish came true. Okay, but what if that suspicion by all those shitty people was true?

What if white guys literally could not get a leadership position? Like all the results are good in my head. Yeah, exactly. Well, they'd probably have to bring in white dudes to give sexual harassment instruction. Like, all right, repeat after me. I like your hair like that. Really sexy. I like your hair like that.

All right. All right. Everybody say, well, actually. Now, to be clear, Nadia Dutchin is eminently qualified for the job. And both the American Humanist Association and the larger atheist movement are lucky to have her. I'm focusing on the question of diversity because I think having a woman of color in a position of leadership is more newsworthy than having a competent one with a lot of relevant experience. We've had those before, right? Her last job was co-executive director for a climate justice organization called the Power Shift Network, where she led communications and fundraising. She also currently serves as interim president of Our Climate and is the board

president of the Common Good Generation. The former is obviously a climate change initiative, but the latter, at a glance, seems to be an effort to get them to teach critical race theory in school. Or at least the thing that Republicans think CRT is. So it's nice to know that she's going to strike fear into the hearts of our enemies one way or the other. We're just going to bring her to atheism rallies to read her academic credentials at the Christian protesters.

I'll do it. And with that lovely image implanted in your head, we're going to take a break and hand things over to Eli's lovely wife, Anna. Fuck yeah. A man wrote the Bible? A whore is what she was. If it's a legitimate race. Then it's your slut, right? Cooking can be fun. Hey! I'm proud of a man.

This Week in Misogyny. Okay, so Lucinda was dealing with a toothache last week, and this week she's having that tooth yanked out. Ugh. So she can't be here. But, seeing as this has been pretty much the most misogynistic couple of weeks in her lifetime, she asked me if I could step in and make sure that we got a This Week in Misogyny into this episode.

So, yeah, I'm sure that you don't need me to tell you that the legally protected right to an abortion is pretty much already dead. It'll take a while for the Supreme Court to give us a time of death, and we still don't know if they're going to slit her throat or beat her comatose and keep her on life support. But one way or another, the Grin Reaper is hovering. The nation's top legal minds got together with Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett to hear arguments about the constitutionality of Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban. And to be clear, either the law is unconstitutional or every previous iteration of the court

since 1970-fucking-three was wrong. And it took the brilliant legal scholars that Donald fucking Trump appointed to finally notice. It's one of those two options. Yeah. So, yeah, that's bad. We'll find out just how bad in the coming months and years. But the only people who are even pretending it won't be bad are people who are lying about what bad means. And just to add insult to injury, it's all happening because this country is too sexist to elect a woman as president. Of course, as dominant as this news story is, it's hardly the only sexism in the news.

So let me knock out a few more stories here. We've got the story of Dr. Burnett L. Robinson. And by doctor, I mean doctorate in divinity. So doesn't know anything, but doesn't know it really hard? Not sure. Anyway, Robinson was the senior pastor at Grand Concourse Seventh-Day Adventist Church in the Bronx until a clip of one of his sermons went viral in which he, as Eli and Heath would phrase it, ranked the rapes. In a tirade about how submissive Christian women are supposed to be, he said, and I quote,

I saw, I'm sorry, you know, I should probably say this today. I saw, I saw in court the other day on TV where a lady sued her husband for rape. And I would say to you, gentlemen, the best person to rape is your wife. End quote. So yeah, a list of who would be best to rape is a thing. Burnett L. Robinson has. But you want to know a thing he doesn't have? A fucking job.

Because after the video hit YouTube, he was forced to resign. So I guess your own career is also on the acceptable end of his things to rape list. I also need to give a shout out to the very awesome group of ladies that put together a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood on the campus of the very Christian Loyola Marymount University in L.A. They're the LMU Women in Politics group, and I don't know how well their fundraiser did in terms of dollars, but it pissed the administrators and alumni off bad enough that they're looking into changing rules and policies and shit in response and to me that makes it a success even if you didn't raise a dollar and with that i'm gonna wrap things up lucinda should be back next week but until then i'll be crying in the shower and i'll go ahead and hand you back to noah Heath, and Eli. Thank you, Anna. Next up in headlines, religion is why we can't

have nice things. Sure, we can't. And that'd be a great summary of the show that we're doing right now. If it wasn't way too generous to religion, it's not just the nice things we could have, like better funding for science, or herd immunity, or

way more virgin kids. Religion is also the reason we have to have horrible things. And in America, one of the biggest examples is guns. Somehow, the American Christianity group decided that owning guns is biblical. And therefore, it was in the Constitution. And therefore, everyone's allowed to carry around an ar-15 and shoot you if they get scared did you mean kyle rittenhouse and david barton yes i did alexa yes i did mean those two things specifically for this story i'm talking about david barton who took his christian

nationalist pseudo history brand to a new level this week claiming that we have a guarantee from the God of the universe via the Second Amendment that every citizen has the right to own nuclear bombs. What? Literally said that. Picturing Tucker Carlson standing in the smoky remnants of New York City. Democrats are making this political. OK, no, I mean i i predicted this was going to be the outcome the views of the christian conservatives at this point are so baseline

absurd that they become immune to reductio ad absurdum is what it is they have it's insane so just in case anyone doesn't follow evangelical pseudo historianshistorians with a PhD from university. Here's the pseudo-logical progression that got David Barton to private ownership of nuclear arsenals. He thinks the Constitution is really just a paraphrase of the Bible. Sure. Plus firearms somehow. And he thinks the Second Amendment gives everyone the right to own any weapon that the government might

have. Would that include personal tanks, you might ask? Yes, it would. He literally said that. And here's the latest. During an episode of his show last week, Barton said, quote, the great people killer of all has been government. Nothing has killed

more people than government has killed. That's not correct. It was God. God is the biggest killer. What does that even mean? The founding fathers believed that the people should be able to have enough arms in place to be able to remind the government that you don't want to mess with us.

And this is where he pauses to realize he has to support personal nuclear arsenals now somehow next. And he continues. I don't want to see my neighbor stockpile nuclear bombs, but I don't care if he has one because he should have the same rights as the government. What? End quote. Someone cocks a gun and holds it to his temple.

This is great. I like this. He is having fun with his hobby. This is great. I like this. He is having fun with his hobby. This is fine. Basic freedoms. Don't get me wrong. Look, there is nobody I'd rather see juggling nukes than David Barton's neighbor. But you might be saying to yourself, I don't think private citizens should have nuclear weapons.

I don't think you might be saying that. Well, don't worry. David Barton addressed that directly. Said, quote, but you say, I don't think private citizens should have nuclear weapons. But if you've been trained with responsibility and morality and the concept of when and where you use them. Never. Yep. And this is where he pauses to realize he started

an if statement and had any follow up. And he continues, I don't care if my neighbor has a nuclear weapon as long as he has that defensive concept that he'll never use it

unless it's being used against him. End quote. Nuking someone back is not that strategy. Nope. Nope. Not a thing, man.

Also, it's because americans are great at telling when they're being attacked yeah you certainly couldn't i don't know build an entire career or four based on their paranoia about a fake war on christmas right but but even when he allows his statement to go all the fucking way crazy, he still can't defend his argument, right? It's like, Oh, so you're saying it would be okay if X,

Y, and Z. So then surely you're okay with us restricting gun ownership to people who demonstrate that they understand the defensive concept. Oh, Hey, wait, where are you going?

David? You can't see me. I dove into a bush running at you with a nuclear. I can't get it to go fast enough to blow up. My arms are so tired. Somebody grab the other side. Pivot. Somebody pivot.

All right. So, yeah, this is what happens when Christian people try to use their fucking face brain and they try to logic something out. They read a few sentences in the Bible and they lock that in uh including the part about gun ownership apparently that's in the bible and then they lock in the second amendment as part of their religion and then they say we get to have all the weapons and then someone else says okay but you think people should own personal tanks and they start sweating and shaking for a few seconds and they're like yes i'm digging in and then someone says should we all have nuclear bombs then

yes we should literally own nuclear bombs as a sentence i am saying i am literally saying that now yes i am christianity is 2 000 years of a really bad improv troupe committing to the bit the bit is about genocide yeah yeah and in q ween takes pawn noose once every so often there's a knockdown drag out battle on the internet that we hear the sc Scathing Atheist can only sit back and watch like a mom on Christmas morning. That's right. It's time for another Bad Guy Fight. When everyone's wrong and nobody's right, kick up your heels and tuck yourself tight. It's time to watch.

It's time to laugh at another Bad Guy Fight. Bad Guy Fight is sponsored by Campbell's soup. I don't think it is. Oh, it is. Trust me. Eli wrote it in the script. It's official. Eli has written flint into the script.

Sure. All right. So in this corner, we have firefighter profit and bag. You can drag it. All right. corner we have firefighter prophet and bag you can drag all right so in this corner we have firefighter prophet and bag you can drag a dead body with inventor mark taylor who after predicting that trump would win the 2020 election told us that god wanted him to take a break for a bit well he came out of retirement a couple weeks ago to accuse a few of his fellow christian

prophets of practicing witchcraft hypnotism spells just like barack obama what and adolf hitler it got crazier wow hey uh mark you're trying to explain the oxford comedy yourself you did barack obama and and Hitler and witchcraft what? he realizes that we didn't mean JFK was a stripper he gets depressed goes back into retirement

fuck all of that yes so here's the quote from a couple weeks ago when someone's operating in witchcraft the same spell mesmerizing spirit

that was on Adolf Hitler it was on Barack Obama and it's on some of these charismatic leaders as well. It's a mesmerizing witchcraft spirit. It is a spell that is cast upon the people

to mesmerize them. Let me give you a prime example. They just promoted someone and Lance Wallnau and Chuck Pierce promoted her on stage. It was Anna Kate. Now, I'm not slamming Anna. I'm just simply stating what has happened

here they promoted her you're saying she's of the devil but you're okay all right sorry i'm not slamming her she's a satanic they promoted her out of lance walnau's own mouth he said we don't normally do this with someone who's been saved for only three years why they see her as a moneymaker why but out of lance's own mouth would he say we don't normally do this for someone who has been saved for three years and then he begins to prophesy over her it's because they see her as a moneymaker i've been saying for a long time that they're going to try to turn her into another paula white end quote oh mark taylor thought he was going to be the next paula white that's adorable and now he's mad about it because somebody else is that's right right no his answer

to why does everybody like this pretty girl more than me was was that likable people are using satan magic that's so exquisitely pathetic guys i just wish i were likable like anna kate hitler and that brings me to our other corner of course scathing atheist newcomer but still very much crazy person anna kate who posted in quote, be really careful who you call operating in witchcraft if they are operating via the Holy Spirit. And it is the Father doing things. Be very careful because even with Jesus, the zealots attacked the Lord and said, he's operating through demons, through Satan, through witchcraft. The zealots were not just attacking Jesus. They were attacking the spirit operating through Jesus, which is called the Holy Spirit.

And I would be, real quote, and I would be really, really, really careful attacking people who are full of the Holy Spirit, because whether you realize it or not, you were walking on very, very dangerous waters. Okay. Didn't Jesus walk on the very dangerous no it's like she forgot which of them she was literally calling jesus during her tirade look she did i'm sorry but if you write really really and then you look back on it and say that needs another really to really emphasize my point it's going to take three really you have forfeited your right to my respect okay okay hurtful i feel attacked attacked i feel like if she's listening she's like fuck that sees mark taylor is jesus i got it backwards god damn it i'm in trouble all right so she concludes and get ready for some from the top rope action here, my friends. Quote, how many souls have you saved, Mark?

Because it seems like all you do is slander people, gossip, accuse, come against the brethren, talk about how you're a godly man. Well, you really need to check yourself because you are literally a pawn of the devil himself and you need to repent and quote bad guy. Okay, look, as low as I am to come to the defense of Mark Taylor, the one thing he ever did worth note is he invented device that literally saves people.

So like he's basically reverse Achilles and you shot him in the heel. You fucking idiot. So I think we all agree. It's obvious how this little feud needs to get settled. God powers battle. That is right. Yes. Mark, Anna, if you're listening, and I know you are, just let us know when we're available.

We will rent a boxing ring for the evening. Get back just... Three hours of magic. Magic, magic, magic. And finally tonight in Corona of Thorns news, nothing offers up more poetic justice than medicine denialism. So we're going to close the headlines off this week with a few choice candidates for the Herman Cain Award. For those unfamiliar, that's the work product of a subreddit that celebrates when people who spread COVID misinformation die of COVID. And the award is, of course, named after former Republican presidential candidate, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza and former alive person Herman Cain, who, among other things, really fucked up the die for a lie apologetic when he sacrificed himself to the greater conspiracy theory in July of last year.

He's like if Babe Ruth had called his shot and then accidentally beat himself to death with the back he's a lot like that so the first nominee this week is one marcus lamb the former head of daystar television and by former i mean he's dead of covid of course yeah the 64 year old minister ran one of the largest religious networks in the country and thus one of the largest sources of vaccine misinformation in the country. His network proudly featured the likes of Robert Kennedy Jr., Sherry Tenpenny and the anti-vax group America's Frontline Doctors. Lamb himself appeared with his wife and his young granddaughter on an episode where they interviewed Del Bigtree, the guy who guy who produced vaxxed about how people should

do their own research on vaccines okay what do these people think vaccine research scientists are doing when they say they're gonna do their own research what do they think the real science is doing just like putting on a lab coat for no reason and jumping on google it's like okay good vaccine recipes no no googling stuff is not scientific research you're not doing that that's not what you're doing not even when you use google scholar and you're not using google scholar absolutely not you don't know what noah just said you have no idea what he just said i i don't know why this just occurred to me but do you think anyone's ever gotten on the internet to do their own research about vaccines and found the truth? Like, do you think anyone's ever been like, well, God damn it.

Yeah, I guess experts are right about it. I wasted a bunch of my time. Why did I think I could tell? You know what they never type in? New York Times or any reasonable news source. No, that's not what's happening. Yeah, exactly. I'm stupid.

I should stop trying to answer things. All right, but Lamb's culpability didn't stop with just promoting the misinformation. Keep in mind that Daystar Television was a huge operation with hundreds of employees as well. He was setting policies that affected all of them. What's more,

he actually sued the Biden administration claiming that vaccine mandates would, quote, wound the consciences of his employees and potentially cause them to sin. And real quote from a goddamn lawsuit that a real judge had to read. We had to pay a real judge to read that. You're saying your conscience got a contusion. I'm a real judge. That's what we're here in court to do.

We're figuring that out. That's what we're here in court to do? We're figuring that out? No, of course. He had no problem with the government's COVID response when he was bilking the Paycheck Protection Program to buy himself a private jet, or coincidentally buy one right after receiving almost $4 million from the PPP.

One of those things is true. Yeah. Okay, no. That sounds a little sus, but his anti-vaxxer wife... What's happening with the sus on this episode it's short for suspect i'm no i know i want it up what teen are you trying to groom i'm very what's happening i skew young so uh getting back to the point i was trying to make before i got interrupted by

eli's very sus um so this guy's anti-vaxxer wife, who also helped with all that shit, Ms. Lamb, Joni Lamb, I think. Yeah, she's asking that we respect her privacy in this. Sorry, I tried to get through it. No, fuck you. Yeah, fuck you. I thought your husband's dead. Yeah, sorry, lady. If your spiel this year has been that it's your right to spread the plague,

then it's my right as an American to come to your husband's funeral dressed as Betty Boop. That's my right. That's my right as an american to come to your husband's funeral dressed as betty boop that's my right that's my right now of my nominees lamb is unfortunately the only dead one but it's not too late for the other two to jump out into the lead we learned this week that author and sketch comedy tumor eric metaxas is on a hiatus from his radio show that he used to tell people not to get vaccinated and compared mask wearing to the literal fucking Holocaust because his whole family got the fucking Rona. Now, unfortunately, it does look like Metaxas is on the back end of this thing. He posted a video to that effect the other day, but his wife, parents and daughter all got it, too. And his dad even had to go to the emergency room.

So there is at least a good chance of suffering beyond the long covid chances here. Yeah yeah and he lives in new york city i think he lives in manhattan he's got to go he's got to go from there so okay i know we're not supposed to advocate violence but i have a question this is just a question is it legal to advocate a very polite mob very polite one trying to bring him to a farm upstate very nicely they do one trying to bring him to a farm upstate very nicely they do it nicely they take him to a farm upstate yeah and then we all simultaneously but i do have one more potential nominee and he did not post a video about how good he was doing hell as of this writing he hasn't even admitted to having it at all and he's just a walking comorbidity if

ever i have seen one and that nominee is none other than fat guy in a red hat himself josh fierstein amazing now we only know his condition because he didn't show up for a scheduled sermon on sunday and according to the pastor that took his place fierstein has responded to his covid diagnosis by quote packing the droxy and the ivermectin end quote i'm never saying sus again i apologize he's calling hydroxychloroquine the drox fuck the droxy i'm so sorry everything it was terrible behavior by me this whole time yeah no but the point is there's a strong chance that he will be eligible for this award before it's all over fingers crossed oh guys guys if kovat kills fat guy in a red hat the ballots will be strongly swung in the direction of worth

it i'm not i'm not saying kovat will be worth it i'm saying it will be a lot more worth a lot more worth the grand like a lot though i mean. Think about all the potential his kids will suddenly have. Yes. I think I got to make a spreadsheet to decide. Yeah. So it's with fingers crossed that we're going to close

the headlines out for the night. Heath, Eli, thanks as always. YOLO. Choggy. Watch me on Twitch. There it is. And when we come back, Tom and Cecil will be here

to welcome Andrew and Thomas here. I'm saying shenanigans now too. It's short for shenanigans. Oh nice. I like shenanigans now, too. It's short for shenanigans. Oh, nice. I like shenanigans. Oh, nice. And then wham, flare gun. Flare gun, exactly.

Yeah. Hey, guys, have you ever seen a shaved, whoa, what's with the Mad Max getup? Well, okay, number one, I really need you to finish that sentence you were saying and number two we're going to the post office and it's almost Christmas so you know kind of expecting the worst I made Don Ford into a blood bag I saw that but guys

why go through the hassle of the post office when you can use stamps.com what's stamps.com damn it Don really sorry see this is why i'm going to use all your blood i'm using all of it now stamps dot com lets you compare rates print labels and access exclusive discounts on ups and usps services all year long wait like right from home right from home plus you get discounts you can't find anywhere else like like up to 40% off USPS rates and 76% off UPS.

76% off. That is pretty good. It sure is. Save time and money this holiday season with Stamps.com. Sign up with the promo code SCATING for a special offer that includes a four-week trial, free postage, and a digital scale. No long-term commitments or contracts. Just go to Stamps.com, click on the microphone at the top of the page,

and enter code SCATING. All right. Well, Heath, looks like we don't have to go to the post office after all. I guess not. All right. You guys going to cut Don down? I mean, I could still use the blood. Yeah. No universal donor. Oh man. Be a team player, Don. You know, team players get to be in the ads all the time. I hate being the new guy. You know, it's a pretty good sign when the people who set out to prove to the world that you're more generous

than people give you credit for are constantly surprised by how generous you turn out to be. But after once again smashing our Vulgarity for charity goal that's where we find ourselves yet again and even though we'll never work out for debt to you we're still going to keep trying and to do that we're going to need to welcome back the tito and germaine of our jackson five tom and cecil of the cognitive dissonance podcast gentlemen Podcast. Gentlemen, welcome back. I'm Tito. I'm Tito. I wanted to be Tito.

Tito. Tito. God damn it. You didn't say it. I called it. I'd like to call Janet, please. Just me. I didn't leave you guys any good ones either.

All right. Wow. All right. Let's kick things off by thanking a few of the generous bastards who forked over dough without asking us to do a damn thing. Gary, Samantha, Phil, and Rob, Stephanie, H, and Taz. And an even bigger thank you, your thanks to Courtney, Christopher, Chris J, James T for the second time, and Michelle. More muchly thanks of the having thankness.

I don't know. To Stacy B, Graydon, Nick S., Becky H., and Zach. And Tanksie Tanksie, Banana Fan of Faux Fancy. No, Eli, what are you doing? A lot of people to thank. Tom, you gotta keep it fresh. Keep it fresh. No, you're not even doing... Alright, sure. Whatever. Anyway, that thing to David

and Gail R., Chris L., Mark S., Derek M., and Paul C. Alright, and believe it or not, there are still yet more people to thank for just giving us money, so look out for their thanks on a future show. But now let's get to the roasty bits. I'm pleased to say that we can start off

with none other than our favorite listener, April Poff. April Poff! I gotta say, I am really glad April got randomly selected because otherwise, we were gonna cheat. Yeah. Indeed. So, April would like a roast of rude customers got randomly selected because otherwise we were going to cheat. They were bad. Indeed. So April would like a

roast of rude customers and seeing as how I'm her favorite, I'll take this one. Undebatable. We are getting heart lockets together. Don't you dare tease her with heart lockets, dude. You better make good on that. So, hey, rude customers, you fucking cowards. Next time you're thinking of throwing a toddler-esque

temper tantrum at a retail worker who has no control over your petty ass problem hey look just remember it's not April's fault your dog hates you okay your willingness to abuse those people most likely to be financially dependent on not retaliating isn't impressing anybody

you're a tedious piece of shit and you're as outdated and useless as the fucking coupon you were trying to use in the first place. And Heath, you're up next. Eric wants a roast of David Icke. Okay, so I'm ethically required to start with a story about

David Icke's 1991 interview with Terry Wogan on the BBC. This is the fucking greatest. It's one of those stories, it has to be repeated whenever you think about it, whenever possible. It's like four seasons, total landscaping, Ben Shapiro's wife telling him a wet vagina is a disease.

You got to just say it over and over. We live in a dark time. We fucking need this. So David, let's just remember the four seasons thing real quick. Think about that. Ben Shapiro can't please his wife. Okay. Ben Shapiro can't please his wife Okay, so David Icke is in his

turquoise period at this point in 1991 mostly because he got struck by lightning and then shat himself and then pretended that was because the Godhead told him that he's the son of the Godhead and the Godhead also told him

wear lots of teal that was the other thing godhead's message to him no he got hit by lightning and shot himself side note if you're not a painter and you have a color-coded aeon schedule for yourself fucking stop stop what you're doing and stop you're about to write an anti-semitic book like 3 000 pages long don't do that so david ike going back to this story he walks out on stage to do this interview with wogan during which he's going to tell everyone that he's the son of the godhead and he immediately chokes on a cookie and almost like so good seconds later he walks out he's like oh cook pump it's the best oh my god like i'm the son of the were you gonna say godhead we're gonna say oh you need you need help you need the time

godhead needs water i watched that video like once a week oh it makes me so happy it's delightful it's like those videos of the people who think that the chi really is going to stop the sword. It's amazing. That's great. The guy who punches the punch old man is great. All right. Eli, how about a roast for Thomas's brother? All right. So Thomas sent a picture of he and his brother, Robert, the racist Trump supporting climate change denialists together. And it looks in this photo like they're both being shown how long they have to live. Thomas has this happy little Juan smile on his face. And Robert looks like he's about to check his fucking watch.

I mean, look, I'm not saying Robert is fat. I'm fat. I'm saying that Robert's tits are crooked. He looks like he stole half a push-up bra and is saving up for the second one. Cecil, this next one's for you. How about a little roast for Mark's boss?

Mark wanted us to take a look at his boss Matt's profile. So it's like full of these synergistic garbage buzzwords and techno babble, but the line that really speak volumes is, quote, Matt was raised in a small family-owned mechanical firm, end quote. What? What?

Were you a set of mechanical drawings that somehow came to life because of a misplaced wish? Maybe ask your creator to give you some eyelids that can blink. You look like somebody burned your eyelids off in an atomic bomb test, dude. Trying to push them out of your head. You never look into the plunger when the plunger doesn't work, man. Who knows that? Welcome to Peepaw's Mechanical Drawings.

All right, so Tom, Micah would love a proper roasting of their partner's dad, Rajesh. You know, all the power and control that Rajesh has is, I promise, Micah, both real and very much an illusion. It's real because you guys are young. When we're young, our parents are supposed to be there as our backstop and our safety net. But as time passes, you won't need a backstop or safety net. But as time passes, you won't need a backstop or safety net. There comes a time in your life where all you need from a parent is their companionship, a connection with who they are as their own people. And that time is coming for you. You don't need Rajesh anymore, which means that soon he'll need to do the same work everyone has

to do to earn their place in your life. And Rajesh hasn't. And he won't. Because he's under the impression that he's the guy in charge. He is the driver in this relationship. But once you don't need him anymore, you decide exactly what role he plays. And you choose the size of the influence he has in your life. And I will tell you this. He's not fucking important. I've never heard of him.

Nobody listening to this has ever heard of him. Nobody but you fucking has any idea who Rajesh is and if he continues to live a small-minded life you don't ever need to hear from him again either there you go well done all right let's do another Eli this first one is for you Torian and Cassie would like you to roast the skeptics creed in your best time impression oh okay well i'd love to roast the skeptics creed noah but i can't and you know why because it's words and you know what words are nothing they are the spit that flies from an angry man as he tosses his gay son into a swimming pool full of his own regrets and tim-tams. They are nothing.

They are negative four. And lo, when the aliens in days of future pass come to weep at the dust that is our civilization, the words we spoke

and the poems we wrote will matter less than the hardened diarrhea of the last mad poet to climb Mount Abamor. They will be the 9 p.m. party city to our plastic turtle in a nuclear explosion. And they will provide neither comfort nor solace from the cold. Skeptic's creed's dead. Skeptic's creed fucking rocks.

Alright, Noah. One for you here. Michael would like a roast of men who use children against their exes. Oh, God. Yeah. No, I get it. Your ex is the load, your kid is the lever, and you're the mother of fulcrum that decided revenge was a healthy basis for a relationship so yeah go ahead rely on the bare fucking minimum once again use a person genetically programmed to trust you and the nominal considerations carved out for assholes

like you in the law to what to take petty vengeance on someone else for you being a piece of shit how dare they fail to see all the merits in a person who would weaponize their parental authority for the sake of a grudge? How dare they overlook the hollow, narrow-minded piece of shit you really were long enough for you to forget it for a second, only to whisk that curtain back and force you to look into the mirror and see you again? Jesus, you're the kid in the class who has to get in trouble for fear that otherwise nobody will notice them. But rage all you want, you pathetic turd dribble, eventually no one will notice you. And Cecil, I did a Tom impression

too. And Cecil, how about a rose for the papyrus type face? Ah, papyrus. The fantasy font for people who buy S&M gear from Spencer's Gifts. Ooh! Furry handcuffs that don't latch. My safe word is prosaic. Fantasy font for people who buy S&M gear from Spencer's Gifts. Furry handcuffs that don't latch.

My safe word is prosaic. Font with little bites taken out of it. Doesn't make it look weathered or old. It makes it look like it went hunting with Dick Cheney. All right. Heath, I got one for you here. Allison wants you to roast soccer goalies okay i am really hoping that's because this is allison becker one of the best goalkeepers in the world and they're a big fan of the show so i'm really hoping that's what's happening but what yeah yeah so i'm guessing

the email that we got it spells allison differently than allison becker, but I'm thinking that's just a cover. So this is Allison Becker, the Brazilian amazing goalkeeper, we're assuming. So goalies, I'm going to start by saying that David Ike was a soccer goalie. So that's a good start. And there's this thing goalies all do for some reason. I don't know why they do this.

Every time they make a diving save and they like, you know, they parry the ball out of bounds and there's a timeout they immediately hop back up and they yell at their team for making them do a thing right like it never should have had to come to that me doing a thing just do your fucking job you're the goalie do your job that's like me right now being like where the fuck were you guys this whole time so nobody's to roast goalies while I'm trying to roast goalies? Nobody's going to D up and roast a goalie? What the fuck?

You're the worst. Also, I just want to add one other thing. High school Heath was a soccer goalie too. Yeah, he was. It was not pretty. I'd say my style of goalkeeping was underwater? In one word? Somehow everything was in slow motion. I don't

know how I did it. We'd watch videos afterwards in regular motion and I was like, I'm in slow motion, man. I don't know what I'm doing. You gotta lean into it when you're the fat kid on the soccer team. Everybody's gonna make fun of you. You gotta jump ahead. So we'd be watching these videos, again, in full motion, not slow motion.

And you'd see me diving in fucking slow motion. And I have to sing Whitney Houston while I was doing that, like a really sloppy bodyguard trying to take a bullet. I had, you know, you got to get ahead of it. All right. And Tom, Lane would like a roast

for the voters in the city of Seattle. All right. For the first time in four decades, Seattle turned to a Republican for the voters in the city of Seattle. All right, for the first time in four decades, Seattle turned to a Republican for its leadership. Imagine for a moment that you were living in a city known for its progressive spirit, and you've grown so fucking complacent that nearly 80% of you didn't bother to show up to vote,

and now you're stuck living in a fucking rainy cloud city ruled by someone who thinks the solution to every problem is to look for answers that didn't work the last time they tried them. I'm supposed to roast the voters of Seattle, but there aren't enough of them. You spoiled, lazy cunts couldn't be bothered to do the least difficult possible form of civic engagement. And it is that easy. Voting is the middle school participation trophy of citizenship and Seattle residents still couldn't be bothered to show the fuck up. So fuck you. You deserve your backward descent into stupidity, avarice and bigotry because your dim-witted drizzle-soaked

brains decided not to get off your ass for the few fucking minutes it would take to vote one afternoon fuck your non-participatory woe is me ism bullshit when things get worse and they will because they always do it will be your fault for being too fucking self-centered and spoiled to bother choosing to fucking choose amen okay but if this is their first republican in like four decades also fuck you for being like whiny about that that sounds amazing the first republican you've dealt with in your entire like region in four decades that's true now as you might imagine we got a lot of requests for politicians this year and to help us with that we are pleased to welcome the second best fundraisers in atheist podcasting thomas and andrew of the opening arguments podcast gentlemen welcome back silver medal count or starts or start it start the count

which is it oh oh yeah i know oh i'm sorry we were only fundraising for democracy itself i can see why that was insufficiently motivated i don't think you can andrew i don't think you can all right enough banter damn it let's talk about the folks who really deserve our ire starting with a 250 roast from christy for governor-elect glenn yunkin all right i'll take this one so glenn yunkin's entire platform as far as i can tell was no there's not racism you're all being hypochondriacs that was his like it's race pareidolia you're fucking fine it's illusory and he looks like an evil shampoo commercial like all the time i watch i look at a bunch of pictures and he looks like he's always being like when i'm covering up a sex

crime for my son at yale using my connections in the senate i use pert Pert Plus. He's gross. I just want to point out that no, there's not racism is literally the entire Republican platform. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I just want to point out that blows our sponsorship from Pert Plus. Thanks a lot, guys. All right. So this this next one is a two for both Maddie and James would like a roast of Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeechan. Eli, would you do the honors?

Okay, so you know that moment in a horror movie where the monster reveals itself not to be a beautiful woman after all by like elongating its head and the teeth get super sharp and then it rips off a horny teenager's dick. McGeechan looks like she's been awkwardly stuck mid that transformation for six years like in 2015 someone was in an elevator and they were like huh we're safe now but then the camera started rolling and she just hasn't had the right

moment to get the teeth all the way sharp and now it's been too long everyone thinks her head is just that tall now it's hard for her it's thinks her head is just that tall now. It's hard for her. It's hard for her. She looks like she became lieutenant governor over an expired coupon argument that got way too far. At least somehow there's one of that involved in that. All right, I got another twofer here.

Cecil, why don't you take Alberta premier Jason Kenney for Dave and Jordana? Holy shit, this guy is an anti-LGBT, anti-abortion, bought, paid for, and lubed up by the oil and gas lobby. This guy is culturally appropriating the American GOP. That's all. Are the conservatives up there constantly apologizing for making everyone's life worse?

By the way, I just want to say, he looks like Elon Musk ate Sean Spicer and they're battling right now over who gets control. Perfectly. You'll never digest him with all that gum. Gotta wait seven years to poop him out.

Alright, so Thomas, since I know you've got at least several people's worth of hate for her, why don't you take Kirsten Sinema for Asuma, as well as Barbara and her friends who all pitched in together for a roast? Oh, boy. Okay. Well, I'll start off with a fun fact. I'm sure many of you know that Sinema is the first open bisexual senator,

but not a lot of people know that being bi for her doesn't refer to men and women. It's that she likes to fuck both our democracy and her re-election campaign. To fuck both those things a lot. Sometimes as a politician, you're faced with a choice. Do you do the right thing or do you do the popular thing? Like, it took genuine moral courage for many Democrats in 2010 to vote for Obamacare, even though they knew it was going to cost them re-election. But they did it anyway just to try to give some people healthcare. What is mind-blowing about Sinema is she is doing something both terribly unpopular and morally bankrupt.

A recent Arizona poll shows that among likely Democratic primary voters, Sinema has a negative 45-point net approval. Oh my God. And you might be thinking, oh, well, you know, Arizona, swing state. She has no choice. That's what she's got.

Oh, let's look at the other senator from Arizona. Let me see here. 75 point net approval. The other senator from Arizona, 75 points. She is never winning another fucking election.

I swear to God. I just hope, Kirsten, if you're listening, I hope you're getting paid to do this somehow. And before you say it, I know I've seen all the shit about her getting campaign donations

from special interests, but those are campaign donations. She's not going to win an election. What good does that do? She could have a hundred billion dollars in campaign donations and all she do is Jeb exclamation point her way to a primary loss. So I guess unless her big genius plan is to siphon out campaign donations for personal use, Whatever your fucking plan was is stupid, wrong, and a disaster for the country. Congratulations. Thank you so much, Kirsten. But it could just be that other thing, you know.

All right, Noah. This next twofer is for youfer. Oh, you said that Jim, for yourself, did you? I did indeed. All right. Please roast Madison Cawthorn for Brandon and Deanna. Okay. So there's gym for yourself did you i did indeed all right please roast madison cawthorne for brandon and deanna okay so there's a lot to make fun of when you are handed an idiot man child nazi who has a trumpian number of sexual misconduct allegations so i know brandon and deanna weren't hoping i'd

go after his signature but okay they have it on wikipedia as soon as i put a picture in the notes so that you guys believe me everybody google this this thing it is so much worse than you think follow up first of all it looks like a signature that should have a shiny gold star next to it right it's a fucking nickelodeon movie credit signature but secondly secondly, and most importantly, I swear to fucking God, he spells his goddamn name wrong. He does. This is the signature

of his on Wikipedia. And I invite you to check my map. He subs in a U for a W and he misses the R altogether. There's not even like a suggestion of a bump. He doesn't even have the right number of letters in his own goddamn signature. You know them tests that give you so many points for signing your name right?

Well, Madison Cawthorn doesn't. You trying to sign those with your legs that don't work? Oh, that makes sense. There it is. All right. This next one is actually a forfer. Andrew, PJ, Riley, Kevin, and Jeff asked what all like a roast of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. Yeah. So before he was the hateful, bigoted, moron governor of Texas, Greg Abbott was the hateful, bigoted moron Attorney General of Texas, and this is something upon which I'm eminently well qualified to opine because his job was defined as a dildo, an artificial vagina, or any device designed or marketed for the stimulation of human genital organs.

Abbott's argument, and I swear I'm not making this up either, is that the state of Texas has a compelling interest in discouraging, quote, the pursuit of sexual gratification unrelated to procreation, which he called autonomous gratification. I thought he was going to call it Texas Pedal Code 43-21. Now, he lost because that argument is super fucking stupid, but there you have it. Greg Abbott thinks that the government can't make you wear a mask, but they can stop you from jerking off. I've learned a lot about the law. I know there's balancing tests and you got to balance the state's interest.

I just want to offer myself like I can testify to the personal interest. Right. I have a strong personal interest in that case, just saying. Yep. All right, Tom, Brian and Jason would both like a roast

of Ted Cruz. All right, this is actually difficult to do because just so much that has already been said about Ted Cruz. It's hard to imagine what might be left in the tank.

Ted Cruz is probably the least principled sack of jelly that's ever slithered and oozed his way through the halls of Congress. Ted seems to think of himself as some kind of like zinger-filled power broker shaking things up among the elite. But honestly, I have never seen anyone

as tragically, frighteningly unfunny as Ted Cruz. I've never even read about anyone as craven as weak as transparently pandering as ted cruz ted would happily lap the jizz off the coffee table of anyone with a suit and a red tie that was willing to pull his hair and let him sit at their lunch table ted cruz is a guy whose desire for power is so ugly and cynical and obvious, he is willing to prostrate himself before any altar that even vaguely hints at amplifying him. And that is exactly the thing that makes him weak. He is an invertebrate's invertebrate.

vertebrates in vertebrates. He is the personification of a gaped mouth pawing flaccidity come only halfway to life. There was something left to go after. There was a little left in the tank. A little left in the tank. Fumes.

It's all fumes. All right. So before we move on from politics, I think I'm the first man to say this happily. Why don't we all jump in on Lauren Boebert who took home our prizes. Soft pass.

Second most hated roastie with a total of $2,550 worth of donations from Jacob, Embarrassed Coloradan, Fred. Ooh, Fred. We love you, Fred. We also love Jacob in a barest Coloradan

and Ian S. Okay. Lauren Boebert likes to coyly suggest that her Muslim colleagues are suicide bombers, but I think she's just jealous of anyone whose suicide

would matter. Oh, God. I think her suicide would matter. That would matter to me. Yeah. That would have significance in my life.

Make my fucking day. She looks like a great would matter to me. Yeah. That would have significance in my life. Make my fucking day, yeah. She looks like a great first wife to me. You know what I mean? That's how you learn. Well, so honestly, I had something fairly similar. Maybe this is unique to having come of age in Georgia, but Lauren Boebert looks like every date I ever regretted fused together. This is a woman, by the way, who openly accused

her colleagues of terrorism both before and after helping to incite a terrorist attack on the goddamn Capitol. So she's like if Chicken Little got caught trying to beat people to death with chunks of sky at the end of the story. I just want to say she definitely fucks those guns, right? She absolutely fucks her own guns.

I've seen how she looks at them. Lauren Bulberts, what happens when the two kids from Weird Science leave their electrodes on a cartoon drawing of Sarah Palin and a used fly strip? Oh, man. See, so I was going to use Sarah Palin, so let's see if this still works. Lauren Boebert is the

Marjorie Taylor Greene of Tulsi Gabbert. That's so good. Yeah, that's good. Purely accurate. Lauren Boebert wakes up every morning cradling the only powerful hard thing that will ever speak the language of hate

she swoons to. Her AR-15. And for the sake and safety of all Americans, I hope she cleans it while both she and it are fully loaded. Yeah, she's fucking those guns. She's 100% fucking those guns. I knew it.

She's railing those guns. Absolutely. Rail gun. I see what you did there. All right, so Thomas and Andrew, before we let you guys go, we've got a round of special requests. Andrew, this first one is for you. William would like a roast of lawyers who say what school they went to.

Look, William, lawyers who say what law school they went to are like job applicants in their 30s and 40s who still list their SAT scores on their resume. Getting into a good law school doesn't mean you're a good lawyer. It means you were pretty smart as a teenager and good at taking standardized tests. The best lawyer I know, the toughest son of a bitch, the guy I'd hire if I needed a lawyer,

he graduated from the University of Baltimore, which U.S. News & World Report ranks several spots below the University of American Samoa. And by the way, you're not fooling anyone when you coyly say you went to a top 13 law school. We know that means you went to the number 13 law school. Why else would you say it like that? And Georgetown can go fuck itself because the top 13 is not a thing. No one has ever talked about the top 13. All right.

So, Thomas, Kyle would like a roast of purple state senators. All right. Look, I'm going to take this to mean like Democrats in purple states are trying to get all, you know, centristy. I think that's what they're going for. I just have a message for those Democrats trying to get all centristy. Republicans, they're not going to fuck you. They're not going to fuck you. They're not going to fuck you. Stop trying. They're not going to be like, oh, that Democratic senator stopped a slight corporate tax increase.

So in 2024, I'm splitting my ticket. Trump and this fine moderate Democrat. No, it's not going to happen. Republicans are not going to fuck you ever. Nothing short of pure Trump dick sucking will ever get a Republican to vote for you for the conceivable future ever. Just stop. Stop doing it. I mean, they will fuck you, but they won't. They won't fuck. Yeah, they won't fuck you.

Right. All right. So back to you, Andrew. How about a roast for Cindy's dog? I I'm assuming I'm pronouncing this right. Brunus Magnus. Oh, no, no, no. Look, this bit is only funny when you have Heath do it.

Oh, no, no, no. Look, this bit is only funny when you have Heath do it. This is an adorable, fat, 20-year-old wiener dog. Oh, my God. 20 years. The dog is older than 9-11. It runs Cindy's household because, you know, that's what dogs do. And apparently she has a little, like like network of on and off ramps to get them up on the couches.

That's adorable. Under her bed. And that not only, Cecil, is that adorable, but that is definitely better care than anyone is going to take care of me when I'm that old. I'll make you a ramp, buddy. What? Aw, thanks, Heath.

Or you'll have to make me one. I don't know. It's not clear. Right. Oh, oh, I one. I don't know. It's not clear. Right. Oh, I know. I know. So really, the only roastable thing here is this poor dog's name because you've taken the wonderfully ironic, manly Appalachian Bruno, which would go great on a 12-pound,

20-year-old wiener dog, and you've replaced it with Brunis Magunis, which is, let's face it, the dog equivalent of Bodie McBoatface. Bruno deserves better and some more chicken nuggets. I wasn't listening for that. So this dog did 9-11? Is that what...

I agree. Fuck that dog. I like Brunis Magunis. I think we should go with Brunis Magunis as the pronunciation. I just refuse to give him the silliest, silliest name. Bruno and Ilhan Omar did 9-11. All right, so Thomas and Eli, this one is for both of you. Isaac would like a roast of people who call dads taking care of their kids babysitting. Yeah, this is the weirdest fucking phenomenon.

My wife can have my son strapped to her front while she chainsaws a log and she doesn't get a second look. I follow my son around the park for a half a second. People start making up tragic backstories for me and him signing Will Smith to play me in the movie. I had to get a lot of weight for that role. Look, I get it. My son is the paragon of beauty and I look like there was an Encino man situation in an 18th century Jewish shtetl. But at least assume kidnapping, people.

Come on. Assume kidnapping. It's amazing. Men are like childcare. That is, you know, waking up with the kids, keeping them clean, keeping them fed, keeping them clothed, buying new clothes as they get bigger, reading to them, taking them places,

setting up playdates, remembering birthdays, setting up parties, comforting them, putting them to bed, all that stuff that takes up about, you know, 18 hours of a day every single day, that's women's work. But don't worry, hold on, hold on. Once a year, I'll move a sofa, and then I did the man's work, so... Right, yeah. We each do our part, I do the

man's work. That's why, by the way, when I go on a trip, I ask Lydia to house sit for me. Alright, got another one for a trip, I ask Lydia to house sit for me. All right. Another one for you here, Andrew. Katie would like a roast of her ex-boyfriend, Dylan. You know, look, even if Katie hadn't told us, you can tell by his stupid shit eating grin that Dylan is a Philadelphia sports fan. Katie, by the way, adds, and a casual racist, but that's redundant. Dylan is the kind of guy

who corners you at parties and says he only voted for Trump twice because he cares about lowering the capital gains tax, but you know, after he's two Miller lights in at a Flyers game, he'll launch into his 20-minute screen about how it's okay for him to sing along with the N-word if CeeLo Green sings it first.

No, it isn't, Dylan. And also, by the way, a sincere fuck you for buying a sports car while Katie was working doubles in a shithole diner to pay your shared rent. Fuck you. I got another twofer

for you, Thomas. Both Sarah and Phil Z would like a roast of Brett Weinstein. I can't wait for this. First off, I don't need to roast him because his own wife roasts him live on their show. And not in a fun, ha-ha, they're both in on the joke way. I mean, like, devastating roast. Like Noah trapped in a room with no weed and some uncooperative technology. Like that level.

That level of devastation. Secondly, I think the best roast of Brett is just reminding people or telling people don't know the history of why anyone even knows who this fucker is. He was a longtime professor at Evergreen, which is a small liberal arts school. And there was a once a year tradition there at Evergreen to do a day of absence where black people would leave the campus to make a point about diversity and inclusion. Okay. After the Trump election and some other super racist shit happened around the area, someone said, hey, you know what? Instead of black

people having to leave the campus, why don't show solidarity? Let's switch it up. And any white people who would like to participate, you do the leave of absence and you can go to this workshop if you want. And Snowflake, fragile little Brett, lost his fucking mind. This is incredible. He sent an email reply to, by the way, to the black woman making this suggestion, CCing the entire staff and faculty of the school, saying, you're asking white people to possibly participate in this off-campus optional program is, quote, an act of oppression in and of itself. He then ends the email, which was, I just want to say this one more time, was to a black woman.

He ends the email with, hey, if you ever want me to do a public presentation on race, hit me up. What? It's incredible.

So obviously, students were not a big fan of that. So they got mad. They started, you know, giving him a little shit. And then he did,

he became, Brett became the literal I'm being silenced comic. The one you've seen where it shows the guy doing media appearance then he did. He became, Brett became the literal I'm being silenced comic. The one you've seen where it shows the guy doing media appearance after media appearance. He went on fucking Tucker Carlson.

I'm being silenced. Joe Rogan. I'm being silenced. Op Ed in the Wall Street Journal. I'm being silenced. So long story short, his own college basically pays him and his horrible fucking wife

to just get out of there, just leave. And now the ultimate insult. He's got his pathetic little show where he peddles his anti-vax nonsense. And when you Google Brett Weinstein, you know what it says he is? A fucking podcaster.

It says Brett Weinstein, podcaster. That's right, dickhead. You and me, we're literally the fucking same. We're the same guy now. Oh, except I'm more correct about vaccines and you, the scientist, are not. So, you know, now. Oh, except I'm more correct about vaccines and you, the scientist, are not. So, you know. Eli's a university professor.

Oh, also, your hat is fucking stupid. Okay, now I'm really sorry. Stupid hat. Alright, so, of course, no segment with you guys on would be complete without a good old-fashioned podcast feud, so why don't we all pile on Andrew and or Thomas for Jennifer C. Art C. Wooter,

who really fucked up the pattern by not having a last name that began with C. Kevin W. and Brent. Okay. I just want to thank Andrew for posting pictures of his dinners on Facebook so I can learn his plating techniques because they are, and I mean this, Andrew, outstanding. Aw, thanks, Cecil.

And so I can remember not to overcook things. It's like your kitchen timer forgot to tell you what's on Daylight mean this, Andrew, outstanding. Aw, thanks, Cecil. And so I can remember not to overcook things. It's like your kitchen timer forgot to tell you what's on Daylight Savings, Andrew. Come on. Thanks for the recap, Andrew. That hurts. One thing that's always impressed me about Thomas is his unbelievable confidence. Like, take Comedy Shoe Shine, for example.

See, he just keeps putting out episodes confident against all odds that somebody's eventually going to listen to him. And he's just, like, to muster that kind of confidence, I needed four other co-hosts on the show, but not Thomas. He's got the kind of confidence it takes to invite yourself to some other company's company retreat. And for that, I will always be in awe. Joke's on you. I don't do comedy

shoeshine anymore because no one listens. Fucking gotcha. Zing! Thomas is the guy who's not afraid to ask the tough questions like what can I agree with my patrons about this week? While Andrew reminds all of us that no amount of education insulates any of us from having to resort to podcasting for a living with all else being.

Just like Brett Weinstein. Yeah, just like Brett Weinstein. There's a theme to the show. Andrew, you're just like Brett Weinstein. You're the same person. You're basically the same. You're exactly the same. I get that a lot.

You should try wearing a hat, I've never looked at it so good oh alright and I got asked to roast Thomas by doing an impression of him roasting optimism so here we go Andrew you mind helping me out with this one oh yeah sure sure Morgan hit that doodly doo for me

okay Yeah, sure, sure. Okay, Morgan, hit that doodly-doo for me. Okay, hi, everyone. Let's just get right to it. As you know by now, God, the ghost of Adolf Hitler has been elected president. So, yeah, we're going to talk about that. I'm joined, as always. God, I'm joined by Mr. Fantastic.

Mr. Fantastic, Andrew, how you doing? Well, Thomas, I'm fine You lying fat fuck You told me a ghost couldn't be elected president because of your fucking laws but you know what, I blame myself I should have pushed back harder when you asked to start this fucking podcast in the name of

Negatron or whatever Here we are Look, you know it's very important for me, it's for all of us to acknowledge when we were wrong on the show you know it's it's very important for me it's for all of us to to acknowledge when we were wrong on the show you know it's important to me it's important to me to kick you right in the fucking taint man just you streak pork and liar you're a liar look look i i think our listeners might find interesting right so so the decision right legally speaking what nobody cares none of this is real i I'm going to start smoking. No.

I have. Crack. I'm going to start smoking crack. Cocaine. I have 14 pages of notes here. Yeah, and I'm going to wipe my ass with them and eat it. Now, shut up. We got 58 minutes of Patreon names to read. Jesus Christ.

Oh, no. Oh, no. oh no and unfortunately we won't be having you roast us back before you leave because nobody asked for that it's just oh the time we don't have the 60 minute heart really or 90 whatever we end up doing this week okay but we have to leave time for our most hated person of the entire fundraiser for Vulgarity for Charity 2021. With a whopping seven requests, we all need to pile on Kyle Rittenhouse. Kyle Rittenhouse looks like the Pillsbury Doughboy was proofed in a warm gun safe.

He looks like the protagonist in a made-for-kids claymation movie about how militias are going to save us during the inevitable race war. He looks like a Nazi snowman got melted into a human somehow. Also, he looks like just the word erosion to me. Like the concept of erosion. He's so smooth. It's like if Marco Rubio lay flat in a river for a couple million years, I feel like he might look like Rittenhouse.

I just want to throw him sidearm into water, wherever it comes from. Yeah, and I'm bailing out on this because I have read ahead in the script, and there is no way you're getting me to roast Kyle Rittenhouse. None. Zero. You have better odds of getting Kyle Rittenhouse to shed an actual tear than getting me to participate in that.

Damn it. Damn it. That's how they get you. Kyle Rittenhouse left his perfectly safe home to go play Rambo in, of all places, Kenosha, Wisconsin. And then after he murdered people, it looks to all the world like he got off scot-free, but he still murdered two people and he's only 17. He has the entirety of the rest of his life to live with that, to live with the notoriety, the shame, the endless waking nightmare of knowing that for about half of all the people in America, his name will always be synonymous with a particularly loathsome brand of violent, masturbatory stupidity. And he will never forget this. As he gets older, that moment, that one moment, it will be the only thing that defines every moment of his life. He will never escape it. It will stalk him every

step of every day. As his conscience grows and he matures into adult empathy he will certainly be haunted by it and still unable to evade even for a moment the poisonous rotten core of what he did women will reject him in disgust he will be turned down for schools and jobs and friendships he will be forced deeper and deeper into smaller and smaller niches, so his life becomes a hyper-condensed black hole of loss and regret, and he is only 17. So that torment and that ostracization from society will cling to him for decades like a stench that never washes off. Kyle Rittenhouse's name will ring forever with the likes of George Zimmermanman condemned not by the courts but by every decent polite corner of society forever he is a living boogeyman

perpetually forced to exist on the periphery of society until his despair finally consumes him and to which i say good or he'll move to fucking Florida and he'll be fine I don't run for governor I'm wishing I'm wishing real hard our guy's like jokey jokes and now here's an Edgar Allen Poe piece the telltale gun it'll go floor forever

alright so all that shit that Tom just said, but also he looks like the fucking Cabbage Bash Doll version of Josh Gad, though, right? We could talk about how he's a cowardly murderer, condemned the Barron name synonymous with cowardly murderer forever, regardless of

what some jurors in Wisconsin lied, but the motherfucker looks like somebody tried to make a fuck doll out of Play-Doh, and we should also talk about that. Yeah, that's important. I just want to congratulate him. If he wants to go into acting, he could become like the second

best conservative actor right off the bat. Just from that one. First best, Frazier, and then him. I give Frazier the edge, but close second, Kyle Rittenhouse. Thank you. Fuck Kelsey Grammer. Fuck him. What an asshole.

And I got requested to do Wendy Rittenhouse, Kyle's mom and accomplice. So I'll throw that in here. I mean, look, as a parent, the worst thing that can happen is something to your child. I mean, come on, wendy you know someone's gonna

kill your kid right oh jesus christ look wendy wendy wendy i'm not saying someone should kill your kid a lot of people are cool people who smell like cinnamon but not me i'm not one of them and like you know that wendy you do know. Like every time the phone rings for the rest of her life, she's going to be like, oh, God, somebody finally killed my kid. But hey, Wendy, if it's any comforts, statistically, if someone does kill your kid, which again, it's just like so high, the chance is so high. But if someone does, at least you won't have to watch his killer get acquitted.

Oh, sorry. hot but if someone does at least you won't have to watch his killer get acquitted oh sorry unrelated it would be very funny if one of the moms of kyle's victims killed kyle written i'm not saying i'm saying okay okay don't do it but it's for the record wow it took andrew a while because of how funny puzzle in a thunderstorm thunderstorm LLC doing business as vulgarity for charity would like to say that it would not in fact be funny. And I did not laugh at that joke so do not implicate me either.

I laughed. It's all true, Eddie Lesson. Alright, and not a moment too soon, but some would say a moment too late. We're going to wrap things up. Tom, Cecil, Andrew, Thomas, thank you so much for all your help, guys. I'll never work again. Thanks, Eli.

That dog did 9-11. Thanks. Before we get archived tonight, I want to say, collywobbles. This is a fun word to say. It means like queasy, like the anxious feeling you get in your stomach. want to say collywobbles. This is a fun word to say. It means like queasy. Like the anxious feeling you get in your stomach. I got the collywobbles. Underused. Anyway, that's all the blast we've got for you tonight.

We'll be back in 10,022 minutes with more. If you can't wait, they'll only be able to look out for a brand new episode of our sister show's Hot Friend Godawful 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, an episode of this length and with this big a cast needs a lot of thanks i need to thank heath enright whose wit is quick like mercury i want to thank lucinda illusions who's beautiful like venus i want to

thank eli bosnick who's goofy like earth i want to thank anna who's badass like mars i want to thank tom who sucks in a lot of comments and shit that might otherwise threaten us like jupiter i need to thank cecil whose humor is timeless like saturn i need to thank andrew who's sorry man somebody had to get this one andrew who's deep like uranus i need to thank Cecil, whose humor is timeless like Saturn. I need to thank Andrew, who's... Sorry, man. Somebody had to get this one. Andrew, who's deep like Uranus. I need to thank Thomas, who makes me as wet as Neptune. I also want to thank Lauren from the Rocks for Brains YouTube channel, who is not quite a planet, but did provide this week's Farnsworth quote. She also got some really fun geology videos up. If you'd like to check those out, be sure to check for a link in the show notes. But most of all, of course, I want to thank this week's best bipeds, Kathy, Marjorie, Candice, Vice, Rhino, CJ,

Brian, What Happened to A and B Size Batteries, Keppy, Joe, Frantz, Matt, Man, Chicken, Scuba, Wag, Norbit, and Vern. Kathy, Marjorie, Candice, Vice, Rhino, and CJ, who are cool enough to make up for global warming, Brian, Missing Batteries, Keppy, Joe, and Frantz, who are hot enough to cancel them out, and Matt, Man, Chicken, Scuba, Wag,

Norbit, and Vern, who are so awesome that the sea level would rise just to get closer to them anyway. Together, these 15 phenomenal fuckers forfeited some fortune for our foray into foul free-thinking fuckery this week by giving us money. Not everybody has the money it takes to give some of it to us, but if your bank account is up to the challenge, you can make a per-episode donation to patreon.com

slash scathingatheist, 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 scalingAIDS.com. And if you'd like to help, but I haven't stumbled upon your wake word yet, I appreciate you giving me another chance this week. Maybe it was collywobbles.

Legal services for this podcast are provided by the offices of P. Andrew Torres, Tim Robertson handles our social media, and our audio engineer is Morgan Hork, who also wrote all 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 content info on the content page

at ScalingAdeus.com. Hit record and then I immediately hit my microphone and then burped into it. That's an assault on our dear friend Morgan. That's how you say fuck you to Morgan. Yeah. The preceding podcast was a production of Puzzle and a Thunderstorm LLC. Copyright 2021. All rights reserved.