Truth Rejection – FT#165

09 Jan Truth Rejection – FT#165

Show Notes

Truth Rejection occurs when someone addresses a question by specifically mentioning a particular response they won’t accept – which happens to be the truth.

Trump

We started out by discussing Trump’s take on waterboarding

Then we looked at this comment from a rando on Tumblr:

And finally we talked about this extract from an Op Ed by Michael Graham in the Boston Herald:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about Theresa May’s interesting take on the free market:

He followed that up by talking about Jeremy Kyle’s uninformed take on refugees

And he finished with this example of Nigel Farage’s naïve take on efficiency:

Fallacy in the Wild

In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from Only Murders in the Building

Then we discussed this clip from Barney Miller

And we finished up with this clip from an unknown flat earther (via SciManDan)

 

Fake News

Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game:

1. (on accepting a salary) I don’t accept — I’m not — I didn’t, and I’m not going to. And I don’t believe I got any credit for not, but I just feel it’s, for me, it’s — it’s nice thing to do. I think — I think this, and I was surprised, not one president has done that. I would have assumed Roosevelt would have not accepted salary or Kennedy. You know, Kennedy family is rich. I would have assumed that some of — I’m the only president that — they say they think that George Washington, but those records aren’t too good.
2. We’re going to make it very easy for people to come in legally, but we’re going to immediately, on day one – you know what’s really the problem is that thousands of bad, really bad people. Murderers. 13,000 murderers were let in by Biden in really a very short period of time. That’s too many. You have to do something. If it’s people who love our country and know what the Statue of Liberty is then that’s one thing, but we can’t have murderers coming in who don’t even speak English. You can’t do it.
3. As you know, I used TikTok very successfully in my campaign. I have a man named TikTok Jack, he was very effective, obviously, because I won youth by 30%. All Republicans lose youth. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s changing. And last time we were down 30% with youth. This time we were up 35% with youth. And I used TikTok, so I can’t really, you know, I can’t totally hate it. It was very effective. But I will say this, if you do do that, something else is going to come along and take its place.

Mark got it wrong this week, and is on 51%!

 

A MAGA Civil War is not a logical fallacy

We talked about the split on the right wing over visas and immigration.

 

The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about

• Former Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg announced at the start of the year that he was leaving his job as President of Global Affairs at Facebook’s parent company Meta, and his replacement would be Republican former White House Staffer Joel Kaplan. No cause for alarm though, as author William Cooper pointed out in a profile of Kaplan in the Standard: “Kaplan’s promotion from VP to president probably won’t lead to significant changes given his decade-plus working for Zuckerberg already.” Maintaining the status quo is in Meta’s commercial interest: doing otherwise, as demonstrated by Elon Musk’s X, can be bad for business. Musk has dented X’s value by 72 percent since he ripped up the rulebook and presided over a vertiginous fall in advertising revenue. Zuckerberg, unlike Musk, “is fiercely and myopically focused on his company’s bottom line”. “While all bets are off at X,” says Cooper, “don’t expect big changes at Facebook in the coming years.” It turns out William Cooper may just be the worst person to have asked, because barely 24 hours after that profile was published it was announced that Facebook and Instagram would be abandoning their relationship with third party fact-checking organizations in favor of a Community Notes style system exactly like the one Musk implemented on Twitter. According to Kaplan, this is because “there is too much political bias in what they choose to fact-check because, basically, they get to fact-check whatever they see on the platform.” So the new system, “instead of going to some so-called expert, it instead relies on the community and the people on the platform to provide their own commentary to something that they’ve read.” Zuckerberg admits that this will result in less bad stuff being caught, but feels that the reduction in censorship is a good trade off, but in fact, less bad stuff being caught is a feature, not a bug. It’s the bad stuff that they want. The fact that the current system limits misinformation and hate speech is exactly why they’re changing it, as evidenced by the fact that the company is also getting rid of content restrictions on certain topics, such as immigration and gender identity. So anyway, if you feel like abandoning Facebook, our Discord is nice – fallacioustrump.com/Discord
• Knowing a thing or two about how the Stars and Stripes should be handled, the ol’ flag-fucker himself; Donald Trump, is worried that flags will still be flying at half mast during his inauguration on Jan 20 in honor of the passing of Jimmy Carter. “Truthing” mere days after Carter died Trump whined “The Democrats are all ‘giddy’ about our magnificent American Flag potentially being at ‘half mast’ during my Inauguration. They think it’s so great, and are so happy about it because, in actuality, they don’t love our Country, they only think about themselves.” You see the problem is a) Trump is only thinking about himself and b) Trump thinks that people will correlate the low-flying flags with his own virility – it’s visually going to be a forest of semis, a phalanx of flaccidness, a riotous display of erectile disfunction. He’s telling us that America will see him for the limp dick that he is and he’s not happy. He’s not happy either that a one-term president got to live so long and lives so long in the hearts and minds of the American people, mainly cos of all the things he did on behalf of the American people and not just himself, that nearly 45 years after he left office Carter is still celebrated across the world. “Because of the death of President Jimmy Carter, the Flag may, for the first time ever during an Inauguration of a future President, be at half mast. Nobody wants to see this, and no American can be happy about it.” So if you are happy that such a liked man and successful president is remembered then you’re unamerican? Also, of course he’s lying, cos it happened during Nixon’s  second inauguration in 1973, when all flags on the Capitol were at half‐staff in memory of former President Harry S. Truman – so that bodes well – run that up the flagpole and see if Bob Woodward salutes!          
• A strong free press is vital in a democracy as a watchdog on power, informing the public and reporting, unafraid, on corruption and the emergence of tyranny. On the other hand, money’s nice, so Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has entirely bent the knee to Trump, stepping in personally pre-election to block the paper’s endorsement of Kamala, donating $1 million to Trump’s nebulous inauguration fund, and meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. But Bezos also rather famously owns Amazon, so there’s even more opportunities to curry favor there. This week we learned that Amazon is producing a documentary about Melania’s life, for release in theatres, on Amazon Prime, and no doubt shortly thereafter in a series of snarky Fallacious Trump Patreon episodes. Executive Produced by Melania herself, it’ll probably skip over her nude modelling, the questionable shenanigans by which she somehow qualified for an Einstein visa to stay in the US, and her hatred of Christmas, and focus more on how she renovated the White House Rose Garden or something. Will we get scenes of her at home nursing newborn Barron while her husband is out fucking a porn star? Who knows? I expect that might be overlooked due to the time needed to cover the massive impact of her Be Best initiative. I’m genuinely struggling to imagine what they might be able to use to fill the time here, but then I haven’t read her bestselling eponymous memoir yet, so that’s on me I guess. In case you were worried this might be an unproblematic film, I’m delighted to inform you that the director they’ve chosen is Brett Ratner, who hasn’t made a film since 2017 when he was credibly accused of rape and sexual assault by multiple women. It’s lucky he was available to direct, because with that resume he’s ideal for a spot in Trump’s cabinet.
• In as moebiusly-twisted fashion as the hyper-wealthy Chinese capitalising on global trade call what they’re doing ‘communism’, so Trump is lampooning the eviction of the moneylenders from the temple by one J. Christ – you know after whom an entire money-making religion has been named. In the run-up to the inauguration not only can you partake in the million bucks a plate dinners with Trump and his henchmen – sorry fellow cabinet-elects – that we spoke about previously, but you can participate in a prayer service along with the president-elect himself – for the mere small contribution into the collection plate of $100,000. It’s not clear where the One America, One Light Sunday Service will be held or who’s organising it, or indeed who’s benefiting from the donations – I’m guessing it’s neither the poor nor the needy of the parish – but Sean Feucht — a conservative Evangelical activist who has promoted Christian nationalism — is hosting an event dubbed “Revive in ’25” the day before Trump’s inauguration. Feucht’s event is reportedly being hosted at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church on Capitol Hill. However, the Rev. William H. Gurnee, who is the pastor at St. Joseph’s insisted that he hadn’t given Feucht permission to use his church. “It is my feeling that this event would be better hosted at another location.” In a post to his X account last week, Feucht tweeted that his event would still be happening and that he wouldn’t “back down.” Yeah way to go Sean get all aggressive about your praying why don’t you that’s sure to get them to turn the other cheek! St. John’s Episcopal Church — the same church across from the White House where Trump ordered a violent crackdown on Black Lives Matter protesters in 2020 before staging a photo-op with a Bible is also a bit reticent to allow any faithy stuff happen on behalf of the Trump mob! The Rt. Rev. Marianne Budde, who is in charge of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington is reported to have since become noncommittal about whether it will be hosting an inaugural service in 2025. Rich men, camels, needles anyone?
• Back in 2020, Trump issued an executive order targeting TikTok owner ByteDance’s US operations. A federal judge blocked the order because Trump exceeded his authority, but while Trump may have been motivated by the opportunity to attack GINA!, the concerns were real about ByteDance collecting Americans’ personal data which Chinese law requires them to hand over to the government on request. So Congress set about addressing it the right way, and in April last year they passed the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act with genuine bipartisan support. The Act required TikTok in the US to divest from its Chinese owner within 270 days or get banned. That deadline coincidentally falls on January 19th, one day before Trump’s inauguration, which is why the Supreme Court received one of the weirdest amicus briefs ever just before New Years. You see, Trump’s position has now changed regarding TikTok, thanks largely to a meeting in March 2024 Republican Megadonor Jeff Yass, who also happens to be a major shareholder in ByteDance. Following the meeting, two things happened. Yass bought a substantial share in DWAC, the shell company that was merging with Trump Media at the time, making him one of Trump Media’s largest shareholders, and Trump decided that actually, TikTok was pretty awesome and shouldn’t be banned after all. Cut to December 2024, and Trump is now convinced TikTok helped him win the youth vote by 35%, and he gets John D Sauer, his pick for Solicitor General, to write an amicus brief suggesting the Supreme Court delay ruling on whether TikTok must indeed be banned until he’s sworn in, because he can fix it, cos he’s great with both social media and negotiating. Yes, it sounds like I’m making that up, but those are really the arguments in the brief. Here are some direct quotes: President Trump “is one of the most powerful, prolific, and influential users of social media in history” and he “alone possesses the consummate dealmaking expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the Government.” So basically, even though he’s just a private citizen until the 20th, he wants the court not to apply the very clear law so that once he’s President he can illegally change the law to benefit one of his rich friends at the cost of national security. I really wish I could be more confident that the Supreme Court won’t do that.
• I think we’ve talked before about House Bill 900, sponsored by Rep. Jared Patterson, which required school libraries to remove any books deemed “sexually explicit.” which got passed in Texas by the Republican majority in 2023, well it wasn’t going to be long before irony inevitably bit them on their sanctimonious arses! Recently, Dr. Darryl Flusche, superintendent of the Canyon Independent School District, sent an email to an unnamed person letting them know the “full text of the Bible” would not be available to students. “This standard for library content prohibits books that have one instance of sexual content as described above. Therefore, HB900 doesn’t allow numerous books, including the full text of the Bible, to be available in the school library.” On the face of it He wasn’t wrong to interpret the law this way. After all, the Bible has depictions of incest, rape, incestuous rape, allusions to bestiality, other forms of sexual assault, and prostitution. If those scenes were in some young adult novel, Christian parents would be up in arms about it. But obviously, Republicans never intended for their book ban to apply to books they like. In a letter to Flusche last week Jared Patterson wrote “Let me be very clear: the Bible, and other religious texts, are protected under HB 900. Moreover, the Bible does not contain sexually explicit content as defined by HB 900. Any assertion to the contrary is either rooted in ignorance of state law or an open hostility to the will of the people.I honestly cannot grasp how you could arrive at this decision. Perhaps you disagree with our fight against radically explicit content in public schools like Canyon ISD. Not only is your interpretation of HB 900 completely wrong, but your decision to ban the Bible was likely illegal.” Apart from the tacit admission that HB900 IS a book ban despite all protestations to the contrary, is this also an admission that incest, rape, incestuous rape, allusions to bestiality, other forms of sexual assault, and prostitution in the name of religion is okay? Just not if you’re not protestant? We’ll bring it up in the next scripture class!
• I’ve got bad news about the new Republican House majority. They actually managed to do a thing without falling over and shitting themselves. It was a real possibility that despite having more votes than Democrats, they might fail to vote on a Speaker in time to certify the election for Trump, but despite Representative Thomas Massie’s best efforts, Mike Johnson was re-elected as Speaker on their first go, and the certification went smoothly. However, Mike probably shouldn’t buy any green bananas for the Speaker’s Office fruit bowl, because he’s already had a letter signed by 11 members of the House Freedom Caucus, which is where they keep the dumbest Republicans, like Chip Roy, Paul Gosar and Lauren Boebert. The letter warns Mike that they only voted for him so that Trump’s win could be certified, and that they are fully prepared to trigger a vote to remove him as Speaker if he doesn’t deliver every single one of their preferred Trump campaign promises. “Personalities can be debated later,” says the letter, “but right now there is zero room for error on the policies the American people demanded when they voted for President Trump — the ones necessary to save the country.” Fortunately for everyone who enjoyed watching the multi-vote shitshow that saw Kevin McCarthy ousted and Johnson installed, the House Freedom Caucus has a track record of demanding impossible things and then kicking off when the leadership can’t deliver, and the more they fight amongst themselves, the less they can focus on achieving their goals.
• Now that Zuckerburg has joined Musk in getting rid of fact-checkers, how will their social media platforms prevent foreign interference in elections? Apparently it’s by believing everything that gets published on their platforms and then ranting like Musk about that to various heads of state on foreign governments to step down and hold new elections. This week Muskie Muskrat  has been angered by posts resurrecting old smears against Starmer when he was head of the CPS Crown Prosecution Service for not doing enough to stop Asian grooming gangs – not true of course but hey facts! A sentiment echoed by elected bandwagon-jumping rightwing racists Nigel Farage and Robert “Paint over those cheery murals” Jenrick. Odd that “losing as leader to Kemi BadEnoch” Jenrick should be concerned, cos the Prof Alexis Jay chaired 7-year long Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), reported more than two years ago, when the Tories were in power. And they promptly did not do anything to implement her recommendations. Nor did the Tory government implement another public enquiry at that time, the second public enquiry Jenrick is demanding be held now. Prof Jay in her report had warned that further public enquiries would just waste time and divert focus from the victims themselves. The self-same diversion that arch-stirrers Musk, Farage, Jenrick, oh and Truss – natch – weighed in on in order to disrupt the political landscape and put the blame on whoever they don’t like rather than help those affected by the scandal investigated in the inquiry. As German Chancellor Olaf Scholz pointed out, in an echo of Prof Jay; “Don’t feed the troll!” and Starmer agreed they were examples of  “amplifying what the far-right is saying” to gain attention. Friend of Farage, who was mere days ago going to bung his Reform Party a lot of money – Elon  Musk – also had a swipe at his friend Farage saying he wasn’t fit to lead the Reform party (far be it for me to agree with Musk!) but that jailed far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon ought to be doing it. If you want to see how confusion written across the face of the ugly frog that wasn’t kissed – look in Farage’s direction now – over there, no further to the right, more than that, yep you see Attila the Hun? Yep, keep going right…

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That’s almost all for this week, but here’s our AI-aided and minimally hand-edited transcript which is at least quite accurate, but not totally:

Truth Rejection – FT#165 Transcript

Jim: Hello and welcome to Fallacious Trump, the podcast where we use the insane ramblings of Scrooge McHmuck to explain logical fallacies. I’m your host, Jim.

Mark: And I’m your host, Mark. A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that results in bad or invalid arguments. And the logical fallacy we’re looking at this week is one that Jim has identified, truth rejection, also known as don’t tell me the real answer.

Jim: Yeah. Because 165 is multiple of 11. And for some reason we decided to do that where every start a number.

Mark: 11.

Jim: It. We did it. 44 was the first one.

Mark: OK.

Jim: It kind became a thing where we did it every. Anyway.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: But, yeah, this is one that I’ve named.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And I kind of toyed with calling it preemptive truth rejection, because. Okay, yeah, most of the, ones I came across, the person who is committing the fallacy is kind of doing it in advance of anyone offering the truth.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Because what this is is where when you enter into a debate or you address a question, you specifically refuse to consider one particular answer.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Which happens to be the true one.

Mark: And in doing so dismiss that as not worth.

Jim: Yeah. They narrow the discussion to only the wrong answers that they tend to believe.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Yeah. And yeah, as I say, it’s often done preemptively, but not exclusively. And I have ve got an example later on where it isn’t. So I feel that it can still be fallacious even after someone has allowed.

Mark: Even after the fact, the truth to.

Jim: Come out and then say, well, not that obviously. So our first Y. Trump example comes from when he was being asked about waterboarding.

Bill Herbkersman: Would you allow U.S. interrogators to waterboard terrorist prisoners in order to extract information?

Donald Trump: Absolutely. You know, this question was in the previous debate, okay. And they asked it of Ted Cruz. What do you think of waterboarding and what would you do and how bad? And he was, like, really weak on it. He was. Well, he didn’t want to get involved because he thought waterboardtder was bad. So of course it’s bad, but it’s not like it’s not chopping off heads, folks. Okay. That I can tell you. So they asked him, and he really gave a very incomplete answer. It was a terrible answer. He was stumbling and mumbling, and he’s going like, well, I don’t know. Okay. Then they asked the question to me, well, what would you do? I. I said I’d prove it immediately, but I’d make it also much worse. They said, what do you mean? I said I’d do much worse. I said, they’re chopping off our heads in the Middle East. They want to kill us. They want to kill us. They want to kill our country. They want to knock out our cities. And don’t tell me it doesn’t work. Torture works, okay, folks? Torture. You know, I have these guys. Torture doesn’t work. Believe me, it works. Okay?

Jim: The main objection that Trump might come across to his proposal to do not only waterboarding, but worse than waterboing, much worse, is that torture doesn’t work. Not only is it immoral, but it’s also ineffective.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But he rules that out as a response to what he’s saying by saying, don’t tell me it doesn’t work. It works. It doesn’t work. It’s been, fundamentally proven, and all the experts in the field who have written about it have said, yeah, it doesn’t work. What you get is, is people just saying anything to make it stop.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: You can’t rely on the information that you get through torture.

Mark: But it fits in with Trump’s whole ethos of just telling me what I want to hear.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So we’ll just, you know, waterboarding, but much worse. Well, it’s not chopping her off. No. Because that. That’s quite inefficient if you want people to tell you stff.

Jim: Very inefficient.

Mark: Yeah. And you cut off the mechanism through which they would tell you it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that it’s not. It’s not going to worse, but. So he’s going to do waterboarding, but much worse. Was it actually gonna drown people?

Jim: I mean, the thing is, sadly, I suspect Trump has never been waterboarded. One day, we can hope.

Mark: Yeah. But it’s one of those moments where you have a deep momentary saying and go, o. He’s never been more to more.

Jim: And it does tend to be one of those things which people feel probably isn’t as bad as people say is this is an experience which I have seen multiple people go through that process of saying, you know, how bad could it really be? You’re just Lying down and someone’s pouring a bit of water on you, it’s bad. And then. And then those people do it to show it’s not that bad and it’s fucking the worst experience of their lives. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I think Christop.

Mark: I wasn’t.

Jim: E did it. He went through it to kind of show that it wasn’t that bad, but he

00:05:00

Jim: experienced it and was like, fuck, that was terrible.

Mark: Yes. People who have not been waterboarded are the ones that say waterboarding. Yeah. How about. Can it be?

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And the thing is, when he says, oh, yeah, I certainly do that, everybody applauds.

Jim: Well, yeah, it’s got of sick f. They’re the kind of people who go and watch Trump speak, aren’t they? So.

Mark: Oh, yeah, that’d be it. It reminded me of the debate with Jeremy Corby when one of the questions say, well, yeah, would you press the button? Would you press the nuclear button? And Corbyin’s saying, well, this is a ridiculous question. Why are we judging the strength of character on whether you would bring about the end of the world? When shouldn’t we rather be not doing that and actually doing diplomatic things? It’s a show of strength. You become a strong leader if you’re in favor of torturing people to get information out of them.

Jim: I mean, the thing is, if you believed in it and torture as a viable interrogation method, or enhanced interrogation, as the Republicans of the 90s used to call it.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: You can still answer, in a way that doesn’t make you look like a psychopath.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: You could say, well, I would follow the advice of my Joint Chiefs of staff and my generals, and if they felt that that was the only way that we could achieve the goals that we needed to achieve, and there was, you know, we exhausted all other methods, then absolutely. It was something I’d be prepared to consider. Right.

Donald Trump: Which.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Which would still be the wrong answer.

Mark: Yeah. But it would be less psych.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But he’s like, oh, I’d immediately water. I’d start doing it straight away. As soon as day one I get the opportunity.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I will that, as much as I possibly can and worse.

Mark: even just asking people directions. Yeah, that’ll be it. Why not?

Jim: So, yeah. Second example.

Mark: But don’t tell me it doesn’t work.

Jim: It’quite unusually for this section, a rando on the Internet who commented, and I’m reasonably sure from the comment that he’s a Republican. he says that this whole mentality that Democrats are the good guys And Republicans are the bad guys is petty and childish. There’s no good or bad party. It’s the individual that’s good or bad. People like this buy into bullshit propaganda and will completely ignore the fact that the KKK was an organization made by Democrats. And don’t give me that the party switched bullshit. They didn’t. The racism and ignorance that many Democrats show is often brushed ont under the rug or isn’t talked about much.

Mark: But that is that. Is that.

Jim: Is that’the answer?

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: anytime that people are like oh well, Lincoln was a Republican that you. The KKK was started by Democrats. Democrats opposed the civil rights movement and then say. And don’t tell me the party switch. That’s the point.

Mark: That’s the response to those, that those standpoints. Yeah.

Jim: And yes there is an argument to say that just the party switched is ah, a massive oversimplification of what happened. It wasn’t just that at some point, you know, when Barry Goldwater was running they went oh I’m a Republican now. And everyone changed sides and changed, you know, the colors that they were wearing or whatever. There were factions within each party that were generally aligned with the goals and values of the party that rose or reduced in power within the party. That meant that over time there was a shift. Where the Democrats had previously represented the values of the south, largely the rural south that around the civil rights movement shifted to that not happening and the Republicans representing the values of the south in those ways. And there’s things like there are ways that the party’s values didn’t change, but their priorities changed because of the way things happen. Like for example, if you talk about the Republicans being the party of less regulation and small government and lower taxes and the Democrats being the party of largely more taxes and public spending y Big business went from being largely Democrats to largely Republicans because early on in the industrialization of the U.S. the growing of infrastructure across the U.S. and the putting in of railroads and roads and things like that benefits big business and that requires public spending. So they’re Democrats at that point. Once all that infrastructure is in place, then lower taxes and lower regulation is good for big business. So they become Republicans because those are the things replicans believe. And so the conservative movement shifted. The conservatives were Democrats early on.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: In the beginnings of when Democrats and Republicans were the two main parties. And that’s what shifted. It’s the people who wanted to keep things the same when the same was slavery and.

00:10:00

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And you know, whites being on top is. Is who moved From Democrat to Republican.

Mark: So yes, give me that party switch bullshit because you kind of think, well that’s the truth.

Jim: Yeah. The point is, it’s meaningless to suggest that today’s Democratic Party would agree with anything that the Democratic party in the 1900s believed in.

Mark: Yeah. So yes, it’s not bullshit. They did switch. Yeah, yeah, that’s the answer. So yes, if you’re going to have this argument, don’t mention the one thing that makes my argument fall to the ground. I’m banning that bit, so let’s just talk about everything except the actual thing that will defeat my argument. Yeah.

Jim: So our third example is from right wing commentator, I guess, Michael Graham, who said this was about why Elizabeth Warren and Devil Patrick didn’t become the presidential candidate for the Democrats. he said, of course Warren and Patrick are lousy at running for president. When have they been good at running for anything? They’ve got the cushiest gig in American politics running as liberal Democrats in the deep blue state of Massachusetts. Oh please don’t give me that Warren hogwash about I beat an incumbent Republican. She beat Scott Brown. A great guy, but a political fluke in a state that hadn’t elected a GOP US senator in a general election since 1972. Yes, Massachusetts has elected some allegedly Republican governors, but with the glaring exception of Mitt Romney, not one of them would be out of place in the Democratic Party.

Mark: That’s almost no true Scotsn.

Jim: Yeah, he’s putting such a lot of caveats in his own argument. Yeah, so he accepts that Warren did beat an incumbent Republican to get her seat. And yes, Scott Brown was a fluke in as much as there were.

Mark: He voted for the Republicans.

Jim: That that’s because he replaced Ted Kennedy who had been in that seat for like 40 years.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So he just kept getting voted in. And when Ted Kennedy died.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: That’s when Scott Brown was elected in a special election. So he was the incumbent and she did beat him.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that, that shows that it wasn’t a guaranteed blue seat even within four years of that election. But to say that the state hadn’t elected a GOP US senator in a general election since 1972 because Senate terms are six years. Some of them aren’t. Right in the same year as a general election.

Mark: Yeaheahah.

Jim: So they had GOP US Senators elected in that state in midterm years again suggests it wasn’t that obviously blue. Also, he’s conceding that Massachusetts elected some Republican governors. The fact that he doesn’t consider them to be that Republican. They’re all right even within that caveat. Has to accept M. Mitt Romney from that.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So it’s mad that that whole paragraph.

Mark: It’S brilliant, is’t it? There you go. There’s a whole, a whole gish gallop of fallacies in there, isn’t it? That’s brilliant. Yeah, that’s the truth. Denial. No. Trueh Scotsman.

Jim: Moving the goalposts and cherry picking. Uh-huh.

Mark: Brilliant.

Jim: So, wow, that was fun.

Mark: Y and,

Boris Johnson: now is the time, I think, for Mark’s British Politics Corner.

Mark: So we’ve got a bit of a smorgasbord of examples here. First one is Theresa May’s Tory conference from 2017. Just after the comments, she. We’re about to hear her saying she was handed a P45, which is what you get when you’ve lost your job in the UK by comedian Simon Brodkin, who managed to infiltrate his way to the front row of the Tory party conference at the leaders speech. And then he just handed this. It’s so good.

Jim: He, confronted Trump at one of his golf courses and yes, scattered that’s swastika laden golf balls around him. Yeah, yeah.

Mark: So this is what she, said.

Theresa May: The free market economy for so long the basis of our prosperity and security. An idea that has lifted millions around the world out of poverty. Called Into question by those who would imperil our future by adopting the failed experiments of the past. That idea of free and open markets operating under the right rules and regulations is precious to us. So don’t try and tell me that free markets are no longer fit for purpose, that somehow they’re holding people back. Don’t try and tell me that the innovations they’ve encouraged, the advances they’ve brought, the mobile phone, the Internet, pioneering medical treatments, the ability to travel freely across the world are worth nothing. The free market and the values of freedom, equality, rights, responsibilities and the rule of law that lie at its heart remains

00:15:00

Theresa May: the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created.

Mark: Well, apart from the wheel. Yeah. So apart from free market economies spinning out of control, leading to things like the Great depression and the 2008 global crash, which led to unemployment, homeliness and lost income. And apart from prioritized short term profits for individuals over the long term detriment.

Jim: Of society, what has free market capitalism ever done for us?

Mark: Exactly. Yeah. Skewed distribution of income and led to social instability. And apart from ushering in Boris’government that just did that completely transparently, which ultimately led to massive visible disparities in wealth distribution and the Labour Party being elected in 2024 as a result. So apart from all that, what she also does is conflate. Look at the amazing advances that it brought which that just happened at the time. Mobile phones, health service, global travel, which Brexit paid to.

Jim: Yeah, again, there’s a little bit of a collection of fallacies in there, isn’t it? Because that’s a correlation versus causation thing, isn’t it? KGO prop hop. Those technological advances happened at the same time as during free free market capitalism. Being a thing doesn’t necessarily mean they wouldn’t have happened otherwise. But also that’s a straw man that she was giving there because she was saying, don’t tell me these things are worthless. No one’s saying those things are worth. No one’s saying mobile phone/ones are worthless. They might be saying you don’t necessarily have to have free market capitalism for those to occur.

Mark: Yeah, you can’t sell me actually that these have got to be replaced with outmoded social experiments. Yeah, actually, free market capitalism, outmoded social experiment. Yeah. Okay, so the second example is Jeremy Kyle, who apart from being a hated TV host, is also a hated radio host. And he’s joined by former conservative special adviseor James Price. So this is after the Rwanda. I want to say initiative feels like, doesn’t it? Feels the wrong way. It was the scheme. The scheme. Scheme. Scam, scheme. It’it’s the Rwanda thing, which was by people on the right seemed to be sufficiently a deterrent such that refugees in Northern Ireland who would be subject to UK law, so if the Rwanda scheme came in place, they would be subject to being sent off to Rwanda to be processed and never heard of again. This was at the time that they were hopping across the border to the Republic of Ireland, which is part of the EU and therefore not subject to the Rwanda repatriation. Except you’re not being repatriated, you’re being sent somewhere else. Part of that. And this was his thought about that.

Jeremy Kyle: Listen, I’ve had stand up roils, people have walked out of studios. You cannot tell me that every, every one of those hundred eighty thousand people has escaped a war torn country. They haven’t. They know the United Kingdom will treat them better now. There are genuine people. We proved it during Ukraine. But I don’t swallow this. 80% of them m are genuine refugees who have left war torn countries. Okay, based on.

Mark: Based on what? Exactly. So, I love he says listen, I’ve had stand up rows, people have walked out of studios which I think is an argumentum. Add argumentum. Ye.

Jim: Yeah, people. People are prepared to argue with me about this.

Mark: Yeah, about this.

Jim: Lots of people think I’m wrong.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. So therefore I’ve got to be right. Yeah. And also I just don’t buy it. Personal incredulity and just saying. Well, well they aren’t from there.

Jim: Proof by assertion.

Mark: Yes. Y. And what he’s. So what he’s doing is not allowing the numbers. So we say 180,000 people go blahy there. There is a lot of people. They kind’t all come from war on countries but if you look at the figures from the refugee council in 2023 there were 36.4 million refugees and the top five countries for the origin of refugees in 2023 were Syria, 6.5 million Afghanistan 6.1 million Ukraine 6 million, Venezuela 5.6 million, South Sudan 2.2 million. All of them war torn countries with perhaps Venezuela. Yeah. That could just be about economic crisis and people leaving because of political unrest. Because the economic crisis and the government being a bit brutal in its repression of people moaning about state of the economy, the health infrastructure collapsing and basically it’s a humanitarian crisis. So people are leaving. So apart from not.

Jim: It’s not hard to imagine out

00:20:00

Jim: of those 36 million that 180,000 than would show up in.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Northern Ireland.

Mark: Yes. And he said, and he says some of them are genuine. The Ukrainians we’ve seen that with Ukraine. The white ones.

Jim: Yeah, absolutely. I was just going to White Europeans them apart from the other.

Mark: Yeah. Syria, Afghanistan, South Sudan. Trying to think. Yeah, yeah. So yes, they are all. It is possible to imagine that they are all all 180,000 people out of. We just adding up those 6, 6 12, 18, 20 million m from countries of origin. 180,000 drop dropp in the ocean. Probably the wrong small boat in the ocean. Probably the wrong metaphor, but yeah. And at the end of 2023 the UK had approximately 448,000 refugees, less than 0.7% of the overall population of the UK. So it’s not an invasion, it’s not a problem. You know. Don’t tell me that. Why can’t I tell you that? Well I won’t believe you. That’s it basically, isn’t it?

Jim: Yeah, that’s what this fallacy is basically is saying that if you tell me the actual answer I will dismiss it. I am not Prepared to entertain that possibility.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So.

Mark: And then. And then. And thenather. And then you say, well, it’s. Here’s the, refugee council doing that kind of. Oh, yeah. Well, you can prove anything with facts.

Jim: Yeah. It’s basically like the kind of fallacy version of putting your fingers in your ears and going, la, la, la, la. When someone tries to tell you the truth and provide evidence for it.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is the kind of rhetoric that Farage uses in 2015. He was talking about whether the. Then you kip. UK Independence Party approach to things other than their racist stance on immigration, stuff like the NHS and their racist start on health staff who don’t have English as a first language

Nigel Farage: savings are clear, aren’t they? In the sense that, you know, the growth of middle management staff in The NHS since 1997, it’s gone up by 48%. You know, don’t tell me there aren’t efficiencies that can’t be made. There are. And it’s up to us in one of these big speeches to lay out the, numbers.

Jim: Don’t tell me there are “eiciencies. That can’t.

Mark: I know, Yeaheah. Yeah. It’s excellent, isn’t it? It’s kind of weird, the double negative. Don’t tell me there aren’t deficiencies that can’t be made.

Jim: I assume he’s going for. Don’t tell me there are no efficiencies that could be made. Like, don’t tell me they can’t make any more efficiencies. I think that’s what he’s going for. But, yeah, we have to be generous to him to.

Mark: No, we don’tume. We don’t.

Jim: That logically speaking, in order to make sense of what he’s saying, we have to be generous to him. Yeah, yeah.

Mark: So he’s talking about the amount of middle management since 1997. Funding for the NHS doubled in the period since 1997 under labor, and the efficiencies such as waiting lists and pay for the health staff and the attendant retention of staff also went up. So when he says efficiencies in that weird double negative, triple negative, flatious way, what he’s actually meaning is cuts. And. And the whole basis of that is that he’s talking to Dermott Murhan on Sky News and he actually. He does that thing where he scoops other people up and you can’t tell me that I’m racist because you’ve had the experience of going to a gp and English isn’t their first language. Have a new Dermot and the derm’s going, yeah, that doesn’t make me a racist. It is true. I’ve not had a, detrimental service as a result of that, but it might well be true. And. And Farage is trying to say, we, it’s a scandal. We’re not training up doctors and nurses in this country. Well, well, that’s not true. But basically he’s saying, coming over here, taking our jobs. Yeah, we ought to be preventing that.

Jim: but part of the reason that we’re not training up as many doctors and nurses in this country, is that they’re not getting paid enough.

Mark: Exactly. So. And even if they are trained up, they go and work somewhere of the.

Jim: Chronic underfunding in the nhs.

Mark: Quite. Yeah. And whilst we’re on the subject of unembarrassed racist Nigel Frage. Not my quote, that was one of his people that worked with him, highprofiles.info website interviewed him in 2011 and one of the questions from the questioner says, I would define a gravy train as getting a lot of money for not doing anything useful or for just having fun. And Feri Var responses, well, precisely. Precisely. and no accountability whatsoever. Life in the city in the 80s was enormous fun, but were you accountable? Yes. If the track’actions that you, look, you were involved in went wrong and you took big losses, you’re out the door. I’ve seen people ask

00:25:00

Mark: to leave the office immediately. And don’t tell me that we were earning a lot of money for doing nothing when it was busy. My goodness me, it was busy. You can’t imagine the pressure. So, yeah. And in the City, he joined the American commodity operation of brokerage firm Drexel Burnham Lambert and then moved to Credit leonnai ruse in 1986. Drexel Burnham Lambert instantly was an American multinational investment bank that was forced into bankruptcy in 1990 due to its involvement in illegal activities in the junk bond market. He joined Refco in 1994. Refco Inc. Enter crisis on, Monday, October 10, 2005, when it was announced his chief executive officer and chairman had hidden $430 million in bad debts from the company auditors and investors. No guilt by association policy there. I’m just saying, so don’t tell.

Jim: It’s a weird proportion of the firms he was involved with.

Mark: Yes. Involved with. Found seemingly making a lot of money. Illegal stuff for doing nothing or for doing things that. That weren’t. Yeah, Anythingeah that weren’t. Actual things. Yeah. So you can’t. We can’t tell him that they were earning a lot of money for doing nothing because they were busy. My goodness me, is busy. Well, no wonder you. Yeah. Hiding from the auditors.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: God, yeah. That take up all your time, wouldn’t it?

Jim: Just constantly shredding stuff.

Mark: Constantly shing the amount of ties I accidentally went through working the city. The pressure was enormous.

Jim: Quintson autograph is what we leave behind.

Mark: Everyere man set foot.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Warongger laughing loud behind a painted face Throw hers to the crowd for re.

Jim: Blowing up the place.

Mark: Don’t give the fallacies don’t give me fallacies don’t give me phsees Please don’t give me fallies. Don’t get the fallies.

Jim: No know.

Mark: Graham Parker and the rumour there with O Lord, don’t ask me questions.

Jim: And in the fallacy in the wild we like to talk about the fallacy of the week from a non political perspective. And our first example this week comes from only murders in the building. Although this clip doesn’t feature any of the main actors ini murders in the building because this is from a voiceover in an episode and the voiceover is weirdly done by Charles’s brother in law who only appears in like one scene and has a few lines. So I don’t know why that character was picked to do the do the voice over kind of the narration for the episode. But here.

Mark: Nice voice.

Mike: New York City. It sucks. It’s a crime ridden hellhole. And don’t hit me that the numbers. Don’T bear that out. Shit. You ever get m mugged by a number?

Mark: Yeah, that sounds so trump like’t.

Jim: It is fair that people’s individual experience might not match up with the data. So it’s not surprising that some people who have experienced violence on the street or whatever in New York might believe that crime is rife and it’s a crime ritten hellhole indeed.

Mark: Just.

Jim: Just the fact that they constantly hear it on Fox means that people think enough crime is basically an all time high. It’s not though. And yeah, the numbers don’t bear that out is the answer to that point.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Because they don’t. Crime is down dramatically since the 90s. It has been dropping year on year on year. That doesn’t mean there isn’t violence that happens. But calling it a crime ridden hellhole is not borne out by the numbers. So our second example comes from Barney Miller and in this episode they have arrested a mailman who was not delivering the mail.

Barney Miller: How long have you been, not delivering the mail?

Alex Fleischer: I start my eighth year next month.

Barney Miller: Or not.

Alex Fleischer: The mail, it’s all junk. Anyway.

Barney Miller: So you’ve just been dumping it in your apartment?

Alex Fleischer: Why should I have to lug it. Around, living on a third class, Garbage, stupid greeting cards, boring

00:30:00

Alex Fleischer: letters to people. I don’t even know.

Barney Miller: Because it’s your job.

Alex Fleischer: Sure. You go for the obvious.

Mark: So people I don’t even know.

Jim: So this, is. Is my example where it wasn’t preemptive. Essentially, he. Barney gives the answer. Yeah, but the question that the mailman is asking. Why should I have to do this? Why should I have to lug all this mail around and not just dump it in my apartment and get paid for it? He knows the answer. That’s the thing. He. The answer is clearly because it’s his job.

Mark: Because it’s your job.

Jim: When. But when Barney gives the answer, he’s like, yeah, you would go for the obvious, answer. You know, he’s still. He’s dismissing the only real answer, the.

Mark: Fact that he’s been doing it for nearly eight years. So good. Doesn’t it? And it reminds me of that whole thing of why should I pay my, community charge to pay for the street lighting? There isn’t a lamp outside my housee. It’s that, you know, I’m delivering letters to people I don’t even know. Why would I do that?

Jim: Boring greasing cards.

Mark: Ah, yeah, yeah. Go for the obvious. Which dismisses it out of hand. Just said, well, that’s, you know, it’s. It’s not even worth to get that. Because it’s the obvious answer. Well, it is, because it’s the only answer. It’s your job. Yeah.

Jim: So our third example comes from a flat Earther who. I tried to figure out who this guy is, but I couldn’t. this is a YouTube short that was, on SciMan Dan’s channel, who is a great debunker of flat Earth as other anti science people. And it didn’t have the name of this person.

Flat Earther: If we are spinning on Earth at a thousand miles an hour at the equator and orbiting the sun at 66,000 miles an hour, and the sun is orbiting the galaxy at half a million miles an hour, and the galaxy is moving outward at over a million miles an hour, how’s that water sitting so still? Now, don’t be going to the comments and putting relativity. We all know about relativity.

Jim: Do you know? Do you.

Mark: I feel like maybe you don’t because that would, yeah.

Jim: Kind of explain if you’re confused about, a lake not being blown away by the speed that the Earth is traveling. I don’t feel like, you know about relativity.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. But that’s the equivalent of. Yeah, don’t go saying all that stuff because we’ve done the research. Yeah, that’s good. Yeah. Go and do the research. Yeah. Where do you suggest. Well, not where the facts are. Yeah, just go research somewhere else. More flat Earthers.

Jim: But yeah, he’s specifically asking this question as if it proves his point.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And then saying, u. When you’re answering this question, don’t say the answer. Don’t tell me the one that actually. The one real. Because.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. The fact is we’re moving at that speed as a planet compared to a fixed point in space. The planet.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is all moving at that speed. So, yeah, just like if you’re in a car that is traveling, ah, at 90 miles an hour, you can still drink a cup of coffee. Yeah. The coffee is lying to the back of the car because the coffee is in the car.

Mark: Yeah. I think he probably gets around by just jumping up in the air and then. And the Earth’s just waiting for the.

Jim: Earth to spin under him, spin round.

Mark: And then he just comes str down again. Yeah, yeah. 0lo o where. So just as the Barney Miller example, quite terse, I came across this. I watched the Grand Tour China special they did. What they’re doing is taking luxury European cars to China because Chinese luxury cars are very expensive. And so James May has arrived. He’s shown us, BMW possibly. And then he says this. At this point, my colleague Richard Hammond arrived in something or other. What is that?

Jim: This is a Cadillac sts and you can shut up.

Mark: There you go. That’s it. Yeah. So he’s, he’s preempted any response, said this is a Cadillac STS

00:35:00

Mark: and you can shut up. So he knows full well that they’re going to tell him the truth of matter that nobody actually buys a Cadillac. And this was Cadillac’s attempt to outdo Audi and Mercedes and BMW in the German market. He bought it in Germany. it was bought by a German. And given that Audi and BMW and mercede will be doing it for years. So all of that is about to be told to him.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And he’s dismissing all of that by just saying you can, you can shut up. Hasn’t even said anything.

Jim: I feel like this is arguably more of a thought terminating cliche.

Mark: ah, true.

Jim: Because he’s shutting down all conversation from that point forward.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Essentially. As opposed to what I think is the core of this fallacy which is choosing specifically the only truthful answer or the only correct argument against what you said.

Mark: But I think that in the context the only truthful answer is he’s got the wrong car.

Jim: Yeah. But again the people who are doing the truth rejection. Yeah. Are identifying the truthful answr.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And then saying that’s the one I won’t be paying any attention to.

Mark: Yes. Maybe an extension of the specific truth denial is that you’re going to deny all of the truths and therefore it would be a thought terminating cliche because I think there are so many things. The pretense is everything is wrong with his car and so there are too many things for him to list. So he just, he just denies all of the truths by just saying. And you can sharp before he’s even said anything. So that’s. It’s an admission of guilt.

Jim: Yes.

Mark: From the off.

Donald Trump: So we’re gonn. We’re gonna play fake news folks. I love the game. It’s a great game. I understand the game as well as anybody. As well as anybody.

Jim: Yes. It’s time for fake news. The game where I read out three trump quotes, two of which are real and one I made up and Mark has to figure out which one is fake news.

Mark: See now don’t come over all. It’s all random. It’s completely fair. Nothing to see up my sleeves because you can’t tell me the chances reset to zero each time and not favor the house. Just try that it’s as possible to win just as much as to lose routine and see what happens.

Jim: Yeah. Well no, it is, it is stacked in my favor because you have to. You’re picking one out of three.

Mark: You finally you’ve admitted it.

Jim: I’ve always been completely.

Mark: It’s in the intro I realized. Oh no. Yeah. Yeah’t.

Jim: Been paying attention all this time.

Mark: No. It’s been there in red and white all this time. Yeah.

Jim: So.

Jim: Trump did an interview on Meet the Press with Kristen Wilker after.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Winning the election.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: She didn’t really push back. She’s not one of the toughest interviewers to be fair. I think.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Since she took over from Chuck Todd or Meet the Press. She saw what Chuck did was like oh okay. I have to be a ah. Complete worussse. I have to basically.

Mark: So Chuck Bl. That’s a bit strong. I’m gonna have to.

Jim: Yeah. No, no.

Mark: She.

Jim: She’s Very much gone. The Chuck Todd way of barely ever pushing back on anything.

Mark: Do you think it’s a correlation between that and the reason Trump agreed with the interview?

Jim: I think there’s a. I mean he did call her. Her questions nasty towards the end of the interview. So he claimed that she’d been not sympathetic to him even though it was an extremely softball interview. I mean she pushed back on a few things.

Mark: Right.

Jim: It was very.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So he was given largely free reign to talk and no one saw the truth. So.

Mark: Right.

Jim: These are some of those ever was the things that. That happened. So he was asked about the fact that he didn’t accept a salary the first time he said I don’t accept. I’m not. I didn’t and I’m not going to. And I don’t believe I got any credit for not. But I just feel it’s. For me it’s, it’s nice thing to do. I think. I think this. And I was surprised not one president has done that. I would have assumed Roosevelt would have not accepted salary or Kennedy. You know, Kennedy family is rich. I would have assumed that some of. I’m the only president that they say they think that George Washington. But those records aren’t too good.

Mark: I was moaning over the Christmas period. I was moaning about self service, checkouts where they’ve left out the words. It’s an automated voice that tells you that you then have to pay for the goods.

00:40:00

Mark: And it says use pin pad to complete transaction.

Jim: They’ve gone for brevity.

Mark: Yes. And why it doesn’t cost anymore. It’s a, it’s a computer. It could be a bit more polite. And it used the pin pad and I realized now it was programmed by the same people that program Trump. Yeah. So he’s, he’s just, he’s just saving air time by missing out keywords so that he can get more bullshit out. He’using yeah. Yes. Yeah. Well, you’d think so. But repeats a lot of it over and over again.

Jim: So filling up the space time he saved wise. But it does save time to fit more in.

Mark: It does give me more time to fit more in. He just uses more of the same words that he’s just saved. because I think in saying it, his listening part of his brain hear’s what he said and then has to reinterpret it. So. Is that English? Where are we in the. In the thought process?

Jim: I think he might have completed one thought in that section.

Mark: M. Yeah.

Jim: I mean if you smushsh Them all together, maybe two. Anyway.

Mark: Yeah, just, just use not enough words. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Statement number two. He was asked about immigration and he said we’re gon toa make it very easy for people to come in legally, but we’re going to immediately on day one. You know what’s really the problem is that thousands of bad, really bad people, murderers, 13,000 murderers were let in by Biden in really a very short period of time. That’s too many. You have to do something. If it’s people who love our country and know what the Statue of Liberty is, then that’s one thing. But we can’t have murderers coming in who don’t even speak English. You can’t do it.

Mark: Okay, that’s too many. What’s the right number of exactly. Merch.

Jim: It depends if they speak English or not, I think.

Mark: yeah, yeah, yeah. Because yeah, if you’ve got English. O well, there you go. If you’ve got English speaking murderers, fine. Come on in. Yeah, yeah. Get elected to office. Yeah, okay. M. Yeah.

Jim: And he was asked what he thought about the impending Tiktc ban. He said, as you know, I use Tik Took very successfully in my campaign. I have a man named Tik Took Jack. He was very effective, obviously, because I won youth by 30%. All Republicans lose youth. I don’t know why. M maybe it’s changing. And last time we were down 30% with youth. This time we were up 35% with youth. And I used TikTok. So I can’t really, you know, I can’t totally hate it. It was very effective. But I will say this. If you do do that, something else is going to come along and take its place.

Mark: So even within two sentences, it went up from 30% to 5% with youth. It’s just the Trump bump happening in four words. okay, so the thing that worries me about number one is all those missing words because I sort of lighted on that last or a couple of times ago when I thought that was the tell. So I’m a bit suspicious that you’ve loaded that with those such that I would pick it. I don’t know. Or that might be that you picked it with loads of them so that I wouldn’t pick it. Oh God. Okay, so murders. 13,000 murders. Has he actually said that? Probably. So Tik Tok and the youth. Oh no. O. I wanted. I want to say one, but I. Okay. I think then can say one if you want. No, I know, I know, but the, the youth and Tik took Tik took Jack 30% and 35. That’s a good trick. Oh no. Okay. Yeah. I’m m going to go with number three. Is the one you made up Tik tock Jack. I’m going to regret that, but that. Yes.

Jim: Okay.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So the other two, which you more convinced by?

Mark: I. I hate saying it, but I think I’m more convinced by number one, the, the one with lots of missing words and the salary and that.

Jim: And number one.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is real.

Donald Trump: I don’t accept.

Mark: I’m.

Donald Trump: I didn’t and I’m not going to And I don’t believe I got any credit for not. But I just feel it’s for me it’s, it’s a nice thing to do. So I think, I think this and I was surprised. Not one president has done that. I would have assumed Roosevelt would have not accepted salary or Kennedy. You know, Kennedy family is rich. I would have assumed that some of. I’m the only president that they say they think that George Washington. But those records aren’t too good.

Mark: I think this and I was surraid. I think. I think this and I was surprised.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Just

00:45:00

Mark: every single thing. He has got to be the best at, everything. Even if it means making up everything.

Jim: Yeah, yeah. Because obviously it’s not true.

Mark: No, no, course it, Course it’t. Of course it isn’t.

Jim: I mean it’s true that he didn’t accept a salary in that he donated his paychecks to various government agencies.

Mark: Oh, okay. Not, not variousm, organizations that, that ran universities or, or merch merchandise shops or had lots, lots of properties in New York.

Jim: But it’s not true that no other president has done that by any means. No. Herbert Hoover, did it. He donated his salaryes to various charities. Kennedy the one he specifically says you would haveum. Kennedy would do it. He did that.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He was one of the richest Americans when he was president. And yeah, he donated. Gave it all his entire salary to charity. As for George Washington, they say they think that George Washington. But those records aren’t too good. The records are great.

Mark: Course.

Jim: So Washington did refuse his salary. He said he didn’t think it should be a thing that was paid.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Congress insisted that he take a salary. They paid him 25,000 a year. Like not immediately, but after a little while because they, they felt. Congress felt that the presidency should not be reserved for only the wealthy. So they felt it should come with a salary.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And based on that, Washington accepted that argument and therefore the salary. But initially he refused the salary as well.

Mark: And the records are that good, that it shows that he initially and then took it. Yeah, yeah, we know all of that because. Because people keep records about presidents.

Jim: It’s one of them. The more record kept things. Yes, yes, presidents, we know quite a lot about them. Historians tend to write books about them and stuff.

Mark: Is that,

Jim: Yeah, so that was real, but simultaneously bullshit. And you also thought that number two is real.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And number two. Yeah, it’s fake news.

Mark: O no, because it’s so calmly stated. Damn it. Damn it. It was, ah, it was that bit. The murderers coming in only can speak English. See it’amongst the other Bach.

Jim: That was an moment of calm.

Mark: He did very nice.

Jim: He did make the claim, amongst other things, that he said that 13,099 murderers had been let in by Biden in three years. That’s the only bit that was based on a thing he said.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And the interviewer did push back and point out that actually that was over 40 years. That, that the records said W. 13,099 immigrants had committed murder essentially over the course of 40 years. Absolutely nothing to do with Biden. That was right. You know, people who had come in, some of them while Trump was president and you know, going back sometime, but Trump was like, oh, no, no, it’s definitely over the last three years. Wow. Which means.

Mark: Oh no, that means that the TikTok bullet J is also real.

Jim: Is a real thing.

Donald Trump: He said, as you know, I used Tik Toc very successfully in my campaign. I have a man named Tik Toc. Jackie was very effective, obviously, because I won youth by 30%. All Republicans lose youth. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s changing. And last time we were down 30% with youth. This time we’re up 35% with youth. And I use TikTok, so I can’t really, you know, I can’t totally hate it. It was very effective. But I will say this. If you do do that, something else is going toa come along and take its place.

Jim: He credits TikTok Jack specifically, for his, TikTok, success, which led him to win Youth by 30%.

Mark: There you go.

Jim: Which is unprecedented. I mean, it would be unprecedented if it was true.

Mark: If it was true and it was down 30% last time and this time we’re up 35%. So I make that 65.

Jim: 65% swing.

Mark: Yeah. From,

Jim: Yeah, that’s. None of that is true at all.

Mark: No.

Jim: So no, he did increase the share of the youth vote and by Youth demographics, people mean 18 to 29.

Mark: Oh, okay. Right.

Jim: In that 18 to 29 demographic, the most generous exit polls to Trump put his percentage of that vote at 47% and Kamala’s at 51.

Mark: Oh, well.

Jim: So not only did he not win it by 30%, he didn’t win at all. The kind of. The average exit polls have it more KLA winning by about 7 or 8 points. O o that demographic.

00:50:00

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But a minimum of four. And that does represent an increase because Trump in the previous election was down by like 10 to 12% to Biden. So he increased, but not surpassed and certainly not 30 to 35%. And that number, you saw it go up there. In just a few words, it went from 30 to 30. In the times he’s talked about TikTok since. It keeps going up and up so well.

Mark: Yeah. Do you think he tries the numbers out and then if it’s a success, he will just put it up?

Jim: Yeah, I think he convinces himself that the thing he said last time was true.

Mark: Yeah, I was accelerating true thing.

Jim: So changing the numbers a little bit. Just exaggerating a little bit. That’s fine. Yeahro. Rounding out, you know. Yeahah.

Mark: Because it’s all true’essentiallyue.

Jim: It’s really thirsty. So saying 35, that’s only a bit of an exaggeration. Isn’t.

Mark: Practically.

Jim: They can’t argue with that, can they? It’s. It’s almost the same.

Mark: So I did, I did a project that was about, increasing the economic viability of people in Bangladesh. I filmed a project that was about that. And the research guy said, well, we got, you know, if we heard that 86% of people said that if we could learn English, then it would increase our economic viability and 86%. Wow. It’s practically everybody, but I wouldn’t be happy to say so think like real research. I mean, it is practically everybody, but it’s, But even real researchers. If even if it was 99.8%, he go, yes, nearly everybody. Well, I’m not happy. Say so people, actual people with real numbers who aren’t just making up statistics on the fucking spotsah are a little bit wary of even round up 98.9% to 100. but he just loves it if he gets away with it. It was just.

Jim: He doesah t he. That’s the problem.

Mark: Yeah, that was. Yes, that was a winning phrase. I will just enhance it in the. In the. In the telling. He increases the storytelling of it.

Jim: Yeah. Wow.

Mark: But, I bl. Mean, well, done for sneaking that one in. It’s a very. You did see that. I’ve now got to be aware of that. I’ve got to watch for that. The calm one in the storm.

Jim: Yeah. well, you’ll never know when you O Yeahly.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Well, we do have a couple of social contestants.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: On Patron.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Rene Z says I don’t know three is real because I’ve heard of Tik Took Jack. Two may be real.

Mark: Right.

Jim: I’ve heard him mention ridiculously huge numbers of criminals related to Biden and number one seems fake because even Trump isn’t that scattered his but yes, he is.

Mark: Well, yeah. Pretty much echoing my process.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. And what I Nic says, Jesus, four more years of this Diet Coke fueled face diarrhea. I remember something about the salary thing, so I think that’s real. 2. I just want to hear him say so I will take that as enough of a reason to say three is fake.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. They go, yes. Yeah. No, you’re coming from that’s exactly my raison debtor. Sometimes eventually he will say it.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: He is an infinite amount of monkeys typing in his head. Yeah. If you’re looking for an excellent philosophy podcast, here is the show for you. The, Partially Examined Life is a philosophical podcast by four guys who are at one point set on doing philosophy for a living. For each episode, they pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy or even to have read the text they’re talking about to follow and Enjoy.

Jim: With a 13 year plus catalogue of episodes, the Partially Examined Life has probably covered any philosophical topic you’re interested in, from practical ethics to the theoretical foundations of science. They go deep into the history of philosophy while making it personal and funny.

Mark: Join the over 45 million downloads already pondering with the Partially Examined Life and find new episodes wherever you stream your podcast or@, partiallyexaminedlife.com.

Jim: And it’s time for the part of the show that this week at least, it is called a maga. Civil War is not a logical fallacy because it kind of kicked off a little bit over Christmas over the kind of festive season when basically they couldn’t decide whether they wanted to be more racist or more big business. Yeah. Supporting.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Capitalist. Yeah. That was largely the kind split the schism in mag.

Mark: Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Which is not to say that the big business people weren’t also being racist ablutely at the same time because

00:55:00

Jim: they Kind of were.

Mark: And also, you know, people that run their own podcasts who have paid a lot of money were siding with the poor people. So kind of. But against. But it turns out. Yeah, it turns out they actually, they don’t care at all about the people that they are supposedly caring about, that is the voters or people coming to work in America. I don’t care about either of those. What they care about is thrusting a stick the. In the spokes of the upcoming presidency to some extent.

Jim: Yeah. I mean the thing is there’s basically it started with Trump appointing or nominating at least Indian tech entrepreneur Srim Krishnan as the senior policy advisr on artificial intelligence.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He’s an Indian immigrant. He’s a supporter of removing caps on H1B visas, which are visas that promote kind of highly skilled immigrants into the U.S. laura Loumr, who is a Trump supporter and a racing.

Mark: Yeah. And a lunatic.

Jim: Yeah. Uter lunatic.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Argued that this was a bad choice and yeah. Elon and Vivek came to his defense on the visa issue.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Not so much on the being Indian issue.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But on the, on the visa issue, basically.

Mark: Yes, yes.

Jim: We need, you know, super intelligent engineers from abroad because it’s not like you’re go goingna find them in the U.S.

Mark: O mean, look at Laura Luma. Yeah. This is what we’re up against. Yeah.

Jim: Which simultaneously pissed off the MAGA crowd who voted for Trump because they want to stop immigration.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because the H1BV encourage immigration, but just from specific countries. We. Not specific countries particularly, but specific groups. And it over is over represented among countries like India rather than Mexico. For examp. Those people were unhappy because the people who are now apparently in charge, like Vivek and Elon, are not making sure that we don’t get any more brown people in the US and right at the same time they were a little bit upset by Vivek doing quite an elitist anti American culture rant.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: In which he basically went off on American culture and its praise of mediocrity.

Mark: Yeses. In terms tv. TV dinners. Yeah.

Jim: Yeahah. But also the kind of people who Americans are taught in their culture to look up to.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: And specifically he said a culture that venerates Corey from Boy Meets World or Zack and Slater over Screech in Saved by the Bell or Stefan over Steve Urkel in Family Matters will not produce the best engineers. We didn’t get Family Matters over here. I’m aware of Urkel.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But I don’t know what’s wrong with Corey from Boy Meets World, but he seemed perfectly good. And he’s just wrong about Zack Morris versus Screech because Zach did better than Screech in the SATs. He is intelligent, Zack Morris. He’s not a. He’s an entrepreneur and a chancer and a kind of bit of a playboy, but he’s not an idiot. He’s super smart. He got like 1500 on the SATs.

Mark: So it’because screech is a bit of an outsider and a weirdo, which. Which, So that’s who Vivek associates with.

Jim: Yes, but it’s just. It’elitist and bad pop culture wrong. But, yeah, people didn’t like that much. But Elon was staunch in his support of H1B visas because that’s how he got here. Well, it’s not. It’s.

Mark: Didn’he say, I’m the kind of people that the. That these are to serve?

Jim: He said that it’s why he’s in the US which was, I think, taken by some people to mean that it was an H1B visa that allowed him to stay in the U.S. but that’s not the case. I think what he meant by it was the use of H1B visas means that he can import.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Engineers for his companies. You know, code as, you know, intelligent, highly skilled workers for his companies. And, here’s the unsaid bit. Pay them a lot less than Americans, right?

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because the H1B visa allows you to stay in the US while you have that job, while you. It’s tied to employ. So it means that employers can exploit those workers. They can pay them less and they can treat them poorly because if they don’t work there anymore, they have to leave the U.S. they have to go back home. They have less rights than American workers, essentially. And so for businesses that don’t like regulation

01:00:00

Jim: or like, you know, having to say how many times their cars crashed, that kind of thing. Yeah, it’s good to have those people, the visa recipients, over American engineers, because you can treat them poorly, pay them less, and get good work out of them. So that’s the argument that people like Steve Bannon, and ironically, someone you wouldn’t expect to be making the same kind of argument as Steve Bannon, Bernie Sanders have, saying, yeah, this is actually a. It’s not a great system, but it.

Mark: Was kind of the other way around. I didn’t expect Bannon would be agreeing with Bernie Sanders because it’s. It’s this. That is a proper.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Workers rights Kind of worry, not only are you going against your anti immigration policies, but you are, what you’re doing is bypassing that in order to get cheap labor. And Banon calls them, you know, indentured, servants, kind of slavery.

Jim: he’s going a bit far on that. Typically for Elon, he doesn’t respond well to criticism.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So, I mean Steve Bannon called him a toddler. nice N said someone, someone please notify child protective services to need to do a wellness check on this toddler. because, because he exc. Because when someone who actually still, despite this claims to be a big fan of Elon, said that he didn’t think actually he should be supporting H1B visas.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: This is the point at which Elon said the reason I’m in America along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong is because of H1B.

Mark: Right.

Jim: The CNN article then missed out a bit, and continued the quote, I will go to war on this issue, the likes of which you cannot possibly comprehend. The bit that the CNN article missed out from Elon’s tweet was take a big step back and fuck yourself in the face. He said to his follower who disagreed with him on this issue.

Mark: Yeah, I think we should alert child support services again they the toddlers.

Jim: But the guy, guy who was told to fuck himself in the face then.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Post that said, look, I’m a big fan of Elon’s. I agree with him on most stuff I just don’t have to agree with on this.

Mark: Yes. Wow, that’s a. Yes. That’s. It reminds me of the kind of the deference that’s paid in the UK to the monarchy and royalty who are, you know, raking it in with public money and, and, and all of even those kind of things where Prince William somewhat crassley said he was going to do away with homelessness and you think, well yeah, sell four or five of your houses. That would do it. Just, or just open the doors and you could haveve homelessness in one go. And, and yet people who ought to know better remain, fans of the monarchy.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Oh yeah, I’ve still that fan. Even though they are literally being fucked in the face spy having to pay for their existence. It kind, it is’perpetuating the class system by the capitalist class system in America.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So at the same time as saying, coming over here stealing our jobs, we need jobs for America. America first. They are saying, well yeah, but what we also need is to get the brightest and the best from the outside of the, and just get them through.

Jim: The immigration system cheaper.

Mark: because they’re cheaper. yeah, yeah.

Jim: So yes, yes.

Mark: That’s the whole thing, isn’t it? But America first is let’s not outsource all of industry, let’s not outsource all of the services. Let’s not put our call centers into the into the, into Asia just because it’s cheaper. We need to support American families and American industry so we’ll invest in America. That’s why American blue collar voters voted for Trump.

Jim: Yeah, that’s was going to bring down.

Mark: The price of bacon and eggs.

Jim: Yeah, those people who voted for, for those reasons for like you know, America first and also the racism. They for several days, well a couple of days at least were basically just arguing with, with Elon and Vivek and waiting to find out what Trump wasnna say because he didn’t weigh in immediately.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So was there was the business people who were on Elon’s side and the racists, again not mutually exclusive who were on who were anti Elon and then there was also the group

01:05:00

Jim: of MAGA people who, who just wait to find out what Trump says and then agree.

Mark: With that and then twists themselves inside out in order to make it all make sense.

Jim: Yeah, they were all waiting and then Trump sided with Elon and said yeah, no H1B visas are great. I use all time. in fact I think they’re great and that’s why we have them. That’s why they exist.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he think they’re great.

Jim: Yeah. Made it sound like it was like his idea.

Mark: Yeah know if he no longer thinks about you then you will cease to exist.

Jim: Yeah, he says he uses them match m. He mostly doesn’t use them because most of the people he hires are not highly skilled people, you know, in his hotels, and golf courses and stuff like that. Yeah, he actually uses H2B visas because he still hire has a lot of immigrants. He doesn’tire American people because it’s cheaper and easier to exploit those people. And that’s obviously not counting undocumented people he hires to construct his buildings. Although he doesn’t really do that anymore because he can’t get loans to make any to put up any buildings. But when, when he was in the construction business, he yah, he employed quite a few undocumented people. But yeah, he doesn’t hire American or buy American. He buys mostly from China and then Sticks a Trump label on it and he hires people on H2B visas and occasionally H1B if he needs someone with specific skills. But I, I mean, I don’t see that happening very much in his businesses. So he supported the, that side, which yeah. Meant that the, all of the people ones who. Elon are now even more concerned about the sway that Elon has over him, which is a thing that has also been growing over the last month. I guess partly because when Congress was debating whether they could come up with, with a resolution to continue the funding, they did.

Mark: And he poo pooed it.

Jim: Yeah. Elon was basically crashing that he was lying about what was in the bill, the continuing funding resolution. And then he was threatening to primary Republicans who supported it because he’s got unlimited funds essentially. Functionally. Yeah. So that meant that, you know, for most of them it would be in either two, four or six years. They would potentially be out of a job. So they towed the line, which meant he was essentially running Congress.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And Trump was doing fuck all and was nowhere to be seen during this period. And everyone started calling Elon President Musk, President Musk, his First lady or his Vice President.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Which Trump surely isn’t going toa stand for him taking control of things and getting exposure and stuff over Trump. Well, I mean, he has specifically said, when he spoke at an event, for Turning Point USA called America Fest.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And he did say, you know, I’m the president. Elon can’t be president because he’s not even born in the US which isn’t the argument people were making. They were like, he’s functionally the President. He s s run because he’s got.

Mark: Billions and billions and billions of dollars. So yeah, he’s the richest man on the planet, of course. So he’s just buying power. And you’ve, you’ve facilitated that.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: You’ve allowed that because your ego, you wanted to be associated. If you can’t be associated with dictators, be associated with really rich tec pros. But yeah, yeah, there you go. That’s it. Because that way you might get have a funding stream to pay off all of your legal debts. Yeah. So he’s kind of, he’s facilitated Musk’s access and Musk is kind of going, well, this is brilliant because I can be in charge of deregulating all of the things that prevent me from doing what I want to do with my businesses.

Jim: Yeah. We all know how well things go when Musk takes them over.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yeaheah. So I’m sure that’ll go brilliantly because.

Mark: The interesting thing is going to be when the bust up finally comes, what will be the effect on Musk and on Trump? You know, Will must go and chum me up to somebody else.

Jim: Well, he’s already trying to muscle in on UK politics and German politics, isn’t he?

Mark: Yeah. And they’re. I haven’t any because they’re grown ups. Yeah, they’re kind of going ye fet the toddler of soothother. Yeah. Hey, and finally, some things we really don’t have time to talk about.

Jim: Former Liberal Democrat leader Nic Clegg announced at the start of the year that he was leaving his job as president of global affairs at Facebook’s parent company Meta, and his replacement would be Republican former White House staff for Joel Kaplan. No cause for alarm though. As author William Cooper pointed

01:10:00

Jim: out in a profile of Kaplan in the Standard Kapan’s promotion from VP to president probably won’t lead to significant changes given his decade plus working for Zuckerbergl Red. Maintaining the status quo is in Meta’s commercial interest. Doing otherwise, as demonstrated by Elon Musk’s X, could be bad for business. Musk has dented X’s value by 72% since he ripped up the rulebook and presided over a vertiginous fall in advertising revenue. Zuckerberg, unlike Musk, is fiercely and myopically focused on his company’s bottom line. While all bets are offered X, says Cooper, don’t expect big changes at Facebook in the coming years. Turns out William Cooper may just be the worst person to have asked because barely 24 hours after that profile was published, it was announced that Facebook and Instagram would be abandoning their relationship with third party fact checking organization, in favor of a community note style system exactly like the one Musk implemented on Twitter. According to Kaplan, this is because there’s too much political bias in what they choose to fact check, because basically they get to fact check whatever they see on the platform. So the new system, instead of going to some so called expert, it instead relies on the community and the people on the platform to provide their own commentary to something that they’ve read. Zuckerberg admits that this will result in less bad stuff being caught, but feels that the reduction in censorship is a good trade off. But in fact less bad stuff being caught is a feature, not a bug. It’s the bad stuff that they want. The fact that the current system limits misinformation and hate speech is exactly why they’re changing it as evidenced by the fact that the company is also getting rid of content restrictions on certain topics such as immigration and gender identity. So anyway, if you feel like abandoning Facebook, our discord is nice. Fallaciousrump.com Discord yeah, knowing a thing or.

Mark: Two about how the stars and stripes should be handled, the old flag fucker himself, Donald Trump, is worried that flags will still be flying a half mast during his inauguration on January 20th//h in honor of the passing of Jimmy Carter. True thing. Mere days after Carter died, Trump whined, the Democrats are all giddy about a magnificent American flag potentially being a half ma during my inauguration. They think it’s so great and I’m so happy about it because in actuality they don’t love our country. They only think about themselves. You see, the problem is A Trump is only thinking about himself and B Trump thinks that people will correlate the low flying flags with his own virility. It’s visually going to be a foreign of semis of phalanx of flaccidness, a riotous display of erectile dysfunction. He’s telling us that America will see him for the limp dick that he is. And he’s not happy. He’s not happy either that a one term president got to live so long and lives so long in the hearts and minds of the American people, mainly because of all things he did on behalf of the American people, not just himself. That nearly 45 years after he left office, Carter is still celebrated across the world because of the death of President Jimmy Carter. The flag may for the first time ever during an ignauguration of a future president, be a half mas. Nobody wants to see this and no American can be happy about that. So if you are happy that such a liked man and successful president is remembered, then you’re un American. Also, of course he’s lying because it happened during Nixon’s second inauguration in 1973 when all flags on the Capitol were a half staff in memory of of President Harry O. Truman. So that bodes well. Run that up the flagpole and see if Bob Woodward salutes A Ah, strong.

Jim: Free press is vital in a democracy as a watchdog on power, informing the public and reporting unafraid on corruption and the emergence of tyranny. On the other hand, money’s nice. So Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos has entirely bent the knee to Trump stepping in personally pre election to block the papers s endorsement of Kamailla, donating $1 million to Trump’s nebulous inauguration fund and meeting with Trump at Mural la. But Bezos also rather famously owns Amazon, so there’s even more opportunities to curry favor there. This week we learned that Amazon is producing a documentary about Melania’s life for release in theaters on Amazon prime and no doubt shortly thereafter in a series of snarky, fallacious Trump Patreon episodesep executive produced by Melania herself. It’ll probably skip over her nude modeling, the questionable shenanigans by which she somehow qualified for an eyes ##tein visa to stay in the US and her hatred of Christmas, and focus more on how she renovated the White House Rose Garden or something. Will we get scenes of her at home nursing newborn Baron while her husband is out fucking a porn star? Who knows? I expect that might be overlooked due to the time needed to cover the massive impact of her Be Best initiative. I’m genuinely struggling to imagine what they might be able to use to fill the time here. But then, I haven’t read her bestselling eponymous memoir yet, so so that’s on me, I guess.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: In case you were worried this might be an unproblematic film, I’m delighted to inform you that the director they’ve

01:15:00

Jim: chosen is Brett Ratner, who hasn’t made a film since 2017 when he was credibly accused of rape and sexual assault by multiple women. It’s lucky he was available to direct, because with that resume he’s ideal for a spot in Trump’s cabinet.

Mark: In asobiously twisted a fashion as the hyper wealthy Chinese capitalizing on global trade call what they’re doing communism. So Trump is lampooning the eviction of the money lenders from the temple by one J Christ, you know, after whom an entire money making religion has been named in the Roy inauguration. Not only can you partake in the million bucks of plate dinners with Trump and his henchmen, sorry, fellow cabinet elects that we spoke about previously, but you can participate in a prayer service along with the President Elect himself for the mere small contribution into the collection plate of $100,000. It’s not clear whether One America One Light Sunday service will be held, or who organizing it, or indeed who’s benefiting from the donations. I’m guessing it’s neither the poor nor the needy of the parish, but Sean Fuc’s, a conservative evangelical activist who has promoted Christian nationalism, is hosting an event dubbed Revive in 25 the day before Trump’s inauguration. FUC’s event is reportededly being hosted at St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church on Capitol Hill. However, the Reverend William H. Gurney, who is the pastor, St. Joseph’s, insisted that he hadn’t given permission to use his church. It is my feeling that this event will be better hosted at another location. In a post to his account last week, FE tweeted that his event will still be happening and that he wouldn’t back down. Yeah, way to go Sean. Get all aggressive about your praying, why don’t youe? That’s sure to get them to turn the other Ch. St. John’s Episcopal Church, the same church across from the White House where Trump ordered a violent crackdown on Black Lives matter protesters in 2020 before staging a photo op with a Bible, is also a bit reticent to allow any faithy stuff happened on behalf of the Trump mob. The right Reverend Marianne Bud, who is in charge of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, is reported to have since become non committal about whether it will be hosting an inaugural service in 2025. Rich men, camels, needles, anyone?

Jim: Back in 2020, Trump issued an executive order targeting TikTok owner Byte Dances US Operations. A federal judge blocked the order because Trump exceeded his authority. But while Trump may have been motivated by the opportunity to attack Jaina, the concerns were real about ByteDance collecting Americans personal data, which Chinese law requires them to hand over to the government on request. So Congress set about addressing it the right way, and in April last year they passed the Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act. With genuine bipartisan support, the act required TikTok in the US to divest from its Chinese owner within 270 days or get banned. That deadline coincidentally falls on January 19, one day before Trump’s inauguration, which is why the Supreme Court received one of the weirdest amicus briefs ever just before New Year. You see, Trump’s position has now changed regarding TikTok, thanks largely to a meeting in March 2024 with Republican mega donor Jeff Yass, who also happens to be a major shareholder in bittedance. Following the meeting, two things happened. Yass bought a substantial share in dwac, the shell company that was merging with Trump Media at the time, making him one of Trump Media’s largest shareholders. And Trump decided that actually TikTok was pretty awesome and shouldn’t be banned after all. Cut to December 2024, and Trump is now convinced TikTok helped him win the youth boat by 35%. And he gets John D. Sauer, his pick for solicitor general, to write an amicus brief suggesting the Supreme Court delay ruling on whether TikTok must indeed be banned until he’s sworn in because he can fix it because he’s great with both social media and negotiate. Yes, it sounds like I’m making that up, but those are really the arguments in the brief. Here are some direct quotes. President Trump is one of the most powerful, prolific and influential users of social media in history, and he alone possesses the consummate deal making expertise, the electoral mandate, and the political will to negotiate a resolution to save the platform while addressing the national security concerns expressed by the government. W so basically, even though he’s just a private citizen until the 20th, he wants the court not to apply the very clear law so that once he’s president, he can illegally change the law to benefit one of his rich friends at the cost of national security. I really wish I could be more confident that the Supreme Court won’t do that.

Mark: I think we’ve talked before about House Bill 900, sponsored by

01:20:00

Mark: Jared Patterson, which required school libraries to remove any books deemed sexually explicit, which got passed in Texas by the Republican majority in 2023. Well, it wasn’t going to be long before irony inevitably bit them on their sanctimonious as ares. Recently, Dr. Darl Fluchch, Superintendent of the Canyon Independent School District, sent an email to an unknamed person letting them know the full text of the Bible would not be available to students. This standard for library content prohibits books that have one instance of sexual content as described above. Therefore, HB900 doesn’t allow numerous books, including the full text of the Bible, to be available in the school library. On the face of it, he was a wrong to interpret the law this way. After all, the Bible has depictions of incest, rape, incestuous rape, allusions, se bestiality, other forms of sexual assault and prostitution. If those scenes were in some young adult novel, Christian parents will be up in arms about it. But obviously, Republicans never intended for their book ban to apply books that they like. In a lesster to Fluch, last week Jarared Patterson wrote let me be very clear. The Bible and other religious texts are protected under, HB 900. More over the Bible does not contain sexually explicit content as defined by HP 900. Any assertion to the contrary is either rooted in ignorance of state law or an open hostility to the will of the people. I honestly cannot grasp how you can arrive at this decision. Perhaps you disagree with our fights against radically explicit content in public schools like Canyon ISD. Not only is your interpretation of HB 900 completely wrong, but your decision to ban the Bible is likely illegal. Apart from the tacit admission that HB 900 is a book ban despite all protestations of the contrary. Is this also an admission that incest, rape, incestuous rape, ilusions to bestiality, other forms of sexual assault and prostitution in the name of religion? It’okay just not if you’re Protestant. We’ll bring that up at the next scripture class.

Jim: Yeah, I think Jarared Patson might not have read the Bible if he doesn’t think that there’s any sexually. He has read Song of Solomon. It’s like, yeah, there’s a lot quite. Yeah. I’ve got bad news about the new Republican House majority. They actually managed to do a thing without falling over and shitting themselves. It was a real possibility that despite having more votes than Democrats, they might fail to vote on a speaker in time to certify the election for Trump. But despite Representative Thomas Massey’s best efforts, Mike Johnson was re elected a speaker on their first go and the certification went smoothly. However, Mike probably shouldn’t buy any green bananas for the Speaker’s office fruit bowl because he’s already had a letter signed by 11 members of the House Freedom Caucus, which is where they keep the dumbest Republicans like Chip Roy, Paul Gosar and Lauren Bobert. The letter warns Mike that they only voted for him so that Trump’s win could be certified and that they are fully prepared to trigger a vote to remove him as speak if he doesn’t deliver every single one of their preferred Trump campaign promises. Personalities can be debated later, says the letter, but right now there is zero room for error on the policies the American people demanded when they voted for President Trump. The ones necessary to save the country. Fortunately for everyone who enjoyed watching the multi vote shit show that saw Kevin McCarthy ousted and Johnson installed, the House Freedom Caucus has a track record of demanding impossible things and then kicking off when the leadership can’t deliver. And the more they fight amongst themselves, the less they can focus on achieving their goals.

Mark: Are they going to just sort of define the ones that they think are, the ones that the American people wanted?

Jim: Yeah, absolutely.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. And then if you don’t deliver those ones, that’s it, you’re out.

Jim: Okay.

Mark: Well, now that Zuckerberg has joined Musk in getting rid of fact checkers, how will their social media platforms prevent foreign interference in elections? Apparently it’s by believing everything that gets published on their platforms and then ranting like Musk about that of varist heads of state on foreign governments to step down and hold new elections. This week, Muskie Musrat has been angered by posts resurrecting old smears against DMER when he was head of the cps, the Crown Prosecution Service for not doing enough to stop Asian grooming gangs. And not true of cause but hey facts. A sentiment echoed by elected bandwagon jumping right wing racist Nigel Farageon Robert paint over those cheery murals jricick it’s odd that losing his leader to Chemy Badenock Jenricick should be concerned because the professor Alex J Chair’seven year long independent inquiry into sexual child abuse the I ISA

01:25:00

Mark: reported more than two years ago when the Tories were in power and they promptly did not do anything to implement her recommendations. Nor did the Tory government implement another public inquiry at that time. The second public inquiry GeneralEnriig is demanding to be held now. Professor Jay in her report had warned that further public inquiries would just waste time and divert focus from the victims themselves. The selfame diversion that arch stirrs Musk, Farraage, Jamric, oh yeah, and trust Natch weighed in on in order to disrupt the political landscape and put the blame on whoever they don’t like rather than help those affected by the scandal investigators in the inquir as German transancellor oaf Schock pointed out in an echo of Professor J don’t feed the troll. And Stalmer agreed that they were examples of amplifying what the far right is saying to gain attention. Friend of Farage who was mere days ago going to bung his Reform Party a lot of money. Elon Musk also had a swipe at his friend Farage saying he wasn’t fit to lead the Reform Party. Yeah, far be it for me to agree with Musk, but the jailed far right activist Stephen Yakley Lenin ought to be doing it. And if you want to see how confusion written across the face of an ugly frog that wasn’t kissed looks, look in for Raj’s direction now over there. No further to right. Yeah, more than that. Yep. Yeah. You see a till of the Hun? Yeah, you keep going.

Jim: Right, so that’s all the bad arguments and faulty reasoning we have time for this week. You’ll find the show notes@feaciousrump.com and if you hear Trump say something stupid and want to ask if it’s a facy, our contact details are on the contact page.

Mark: If you think we’ve the fallacy ourselves, let us know. And if you’ve had a good time, please give us a review on Apple podcasts or whereryver you get your podcast or simply tell one other person in person about how much they’d like our podcast and you can support the show@patreon.com fru just like our newest patrons Lammia Holden and Rocketty Hound. Our strawman level patrons Mike Smith, LT Colleen Layilla, Richard Thunder Hopkins will air Scott Oussy on Bank, Laura Thompsig, Mark Reich and Abbew Buchanan who told us when we met her at QED we could just call her Amber. And Last year at QED I met the listener who recognizedr at QED the year 4 because we kept using her full name all the time. And now true Scotsman level patron Schmoot Sharon Robinson, Reneez, Melissa Scitec, Stepen Bickle, Janet uta, Andrew Halk and our top patron KE Ti. Happy New Year to all of you patrons and thank give your continued support. It’s very very much appreciated.

Jim: You can connect with those awesome people as well as our and other listeners in the Facebook group@facebook.com groups fallaciousrump or slightly less problematically in the discord@feaciousstrumpk.com discord.

Mark: All music is by the outbursts and was used with permission. So until next time, on’feasious Trump, we’ll leave the last word to the Donald.

Donald Trump: That’s right, go home to mommy.