Genetic Fallacy (Redux) – FT#130

21 Aug Genetic Fallacy (Redux) – FT#130

Show Notes

The Genetic Fallacy is committed when someone believes or dismisses a claim based on its origins rather than on evidence.

Trump

We started out by discussing this clip of Trump discussing oranges:

Then we talked about this clip from Trump’s attack ad on his prosecutors:

And we followed that up with this upsetting bit of bigotry from Lauren Witzke:

Trump’s judge is not only hostile, but also a Jamaican immigrant with no understanding of true American patriotism or love of country.

Immigrants should not be put in positions of authority- because they will always rule against the “racist” countrymen.

Soon, this will be the… pic.twitter.com/6WQTrIwNzb

— Lauren Witzke (@LaurenWitzkeDE) August 2, 2023

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about this clip of Boris Johnson impugning Sir Kier Starmer’s integrity rather than answer for his actions during Covid:

And he followed that up with this clip of Rishi Sunak ignoring child poverty to dunk on Sir Kier Starmer:

He finished by comparing Jacob Rees Mogg and Mick Lynch both complaining about the BBC not being impartial enough.

Fallacy in the Wild

In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from Murder, She Wrote:

Then we discussed this clip from The Simpsons:

And we finished by talking about this clip from Twilight:

 

Fake News

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

1. No, he’s not taking it not seriously. He’s probably taking it more seriously than any candidate in history, because he has the Justice Department that he said he was going to do. If you look back two years, he made a statement that “we will stop Donald Trump”. Then he goes “constitutionally”. He doesn’t even know what the Constitution is. The guy can’t put together two sentences. He can’t talk. Every time I watch him talk, it’s almost like he’s walking on eggs. You wonder, is he going to get through the sentence.
2. I really believe it’s actually just helping me. You see all the people with the… when… every time they do a new one. A new indictment, my ratings go up in the polls. Biden and his crazy degenerate prosecutors at the Department of Injustice. Everybody knows it’s a hoax and it’s because I’m leading Biden by far. By far. They don’t know what to do, so they throw another indictment on the pile, but honestly I think if I get one or two more I win. I win automatically because everyone knows it’s wrong.
3. This is a nasty, nasty world, as we found out. Probably it’s never been nastier than it is right now because we have sick people. We have sick people in office. And again, they are a bigger problem than the outside world, because the outside world, you can for the most part, you can cajole, reason with. They need things that we have. You can do things with them. But these people that we have, these radical fascists and Marxists that we have in our government, you can’t talk to them, they’re nuts.

Mark got it right this week, and is on 47.5%

 

Rico is not a logical fallacy

We talked about yet another indictment, this time from Georgia.

 

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

• You can always tell how smart the criminals in cop shows are by how much they run their mouths in the interrogation room. The smart ones say stuff like “I ain’t saying nothing until I get a lawyer”. The dumb ones answer all the cops’ questions before their lawyer shows up. The really dumb ones mess up and accidentally confess to the crime before they even get asked a question. And the poorly written unrealistically stupid characters say things like “A Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference at 11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey. Based on the results of this CONCLUSIVE Report, all charges should be dropped against me & others – There will be a complete EXONERATION!” Trump’s legal team is begging him to cancel the press conference because some of them are just about good enough lawyers to understand that there is no way this ends well. For Trump, I mean. I’m really looking forward to it.
• Lt Gen Michael Flynn, well-known for being Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who pled guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017, yet not so well-known for being an out-and-out shyster, grifter and racketeer, is launching an online community dedicated to people who have not been vaccinated for COVID-19, so the latter may well change! RICO anyone? For the mere trifling membership fees of two and a half thousand dollars you can become a founding member of the community called 4thePURE, this gives you access to all those “uncontaminated” essentials like blood donors, sperm donors, breast milk donors, surrogates, and unvaccinated singles. Companies, who will be listed in the directory of “COVID-19 unvaccinated patriot businesses” can pay the measly membership fee of 25,000 dollars for 15 memberships – buy one get 1.5 extra free! Despite Flynn’s reinvention of himself as a Qanonsense-peddling conspiracy theorist upon whose lips the names of alleged (by him) covid-co-creators Soros, Gates and Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum are never far away, can we remind you, in true Genetic Fallacy fashion that he resigned after acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned the White House that the lieutenant general may have lied to officials about his contact with a Russian diplomat!? Which he did, so it’s not a fallacy. Also, studies have shown the vaccine doesn’t have “deleterious effects” on semen, nor is it unsafe to donate blood or breastmilk if a donor is vaccinated. But hey if you wanna get your consumable liquids from a disgraced military man who believed that the vaccine would be deployed in salad dressing – knowing how few “liked-minded individuals who courageously stood against the COVID-19 jab” actually eat salad then you go right ahead. I’m guessing those same people won’t ask where the actual money’s actually going hey Mikey!
• Real-life Ned Flanders, Mike Lindell, has had enough of selling all his worldly goods for 2 bucks and a subway token and is holding another one of his events which will change the world, and it’s happening right now as we record this. Which is a bit frustrating really, because Mike promised something really amazing was going to be revealed this time and we’re most of the way through day 2 and it hasn’t been revealed yet, so I can’t tell you want it is. Unlike his cyber-symposium where he proved once and for all that the election really was stolen, and those numbers he had definitely weren’t just random numbers he’d paid someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for, this one is inspired directly by God, who gave Mike a top secret plan to save America. It is brilliant and divinely inspired, and will immediately secure our election platforms,” Lindell wrote on the official Election Summit event page. “This plan is unique, has never been done before in world history, and has not even previously been talked about by anyone. It does not rely on legislation, judges, or legal actions, etc. This is such a perfect plan, the only way it fails is if we do not get the word out to the entire country”. As it turns out that might end up being the difficult part, since despite hiring a 2000 seat venue, photos of the event suggest only a couple of hundred people showed up. But don’t worry, because it’s being broadcast around the world in 85 languages on FrankSpeech.com. If the start of the event is anything to go by, the plan might be to accidentally show a video of a Jimmy Kimmel monologue instead of your opening video, but I haven’t figured out how that will save America yet. Once he reveals the plan, which will be any time in the next few hours, I expect Trump won’t even need to hold his press conference exonerating everyone, because America will already have been saved. The lord sure does work in mysterious ways.
• Those familiar with the funding of one Marjorie Taylor Green’s campaign for office will be familiar with Isaiah Wartman and his partner Luke Mahoney – whilst they sound like a detective pairing that could rival the ham-fisted Wohl and Burkman they could also vie for lamest money-raising duo ever as well. Wartman and Mahoney have both been ordered to pay $25,000 each in restitution and costs for a charity scam where they raised $149,000 for the Ohio Clean Water Fund in donations to the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio. Only 10,000 was ever donated; the rest ended up in the charity’s charitable pockets! Wartman and Mahoney founded Wama Strategies in Feb this year and Greene’s campaign paid the firm $71,000 in the second quarter of this year, three years after Wartman helmed her successful run to her first term in Congress. As with all TV detective double acts there needs to be the irascible third character who they report to, and that’s played by one Michael Peppel who founded the fake charity – oh and previously worked for federal Republican lawmakers – just saying – he also got fined $25,000. You see the mistake you made guys was to not just set up a campaigning electoral PAC – Make Marjorie Greene Again perhaps, that way you can raise and syphon off millions of dollars and no-one is any the wiser. Ah, except all three stooges have now been banned from running, collecting or soliciting for any charitable organisation until 2027, now that’s the most charitable act on behalf of the people of East Palestine, as carried out by Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost.
• Last April, 93 House Republicans signed a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes to ensure the integrity of the investigation free of influence from Hunter’s Dad, Joe. In September last year 34 Senate Republicans went one step further, requesting that specifically Trump-appointed US Attorney David Weiss be appointed as special counsel, as this would avoid “any appearance of impropriety” and “go a long way in restoring faith in our governmental institutions”. Well, last week, Merrick Garland gave them exactly what they wanted, appointing David Weiss as special counsel in the investigation into Hunter Biden. And of course, since yelling about Hunter’s many heinous crimes won’t be as much fun if someone looks into them and says there weren’t any, the exact same Republicans who signed that letter are now acting like this is some kind of Deep State plot in which sleepy useless dementia-ridden Joe Biden has once again tricked them into demanding exactly what he wanted all along. Tim Scott said Weiss’s appointment “raises further questions about the independence of Biden’s DOJ.” Marsha Blackburn tweeted “Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss as special counsel because he knows Weiss will protect Hunter”, and Ted Cruz told Maria Bartiromo “This appointment is camouflage, and it’s cover-up. I think it’s disgraceful”. All three signed the letter requesting Weiss be appointed less than a year ago.
• We all know the value of a good review – we’ll be soliciting those unashamedly from you again at the end of the show – and we all know the humour involved in those careful cherry-picking of reviews we see adorning theatre and film posters. But when the reviewers themselves take to social media demanding not only that their reviews be taken with fistfuls of pinches of salt, but with demands that the publisher should retract them, and going to the extent to link to their original reviews, you know we must be talking about Jordan (god I didn’t know he could even write) Peterson’s Penguin paperback edition of his philosophical tractatus – Beyond Order. Whilst Suzanne Moore of the Telegraph noticed the book cover’s quote only read “Wisdom combined with good advice” when her actual quote was “Hokey wisdom combined with good advice”,The Times’ reviewer James Marriott pointed out that the blurb included his review calling the book “A philosophy of the meaning of life dot dot dot the most lucid and touching prose Peterson has ever written.” actually missed out the full sentence; “A philosophy of the meaning of life which is bonkers” Adding when he saw that edit “My review of this mad book was probably the most negative thing I have ever written”. Speaking of which; Chadwick Moore’s biography of hard-done-by victim-of-a-conspiracy-that-Dominion-made-demands-about-his-continued-employment-as-part-of-the-settlement-deal-from-Fox entitled simply Tucker has made no inroads to any bestseller list at all; selling just 3,227 hardcover copies. This places it at Number 57 on Amazon’s biography list — just behind the graphic novel Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, which came out in 2004 at no 52, and the Audible version of presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2021 book Woke, Inc at no. 53. The Kindle version of Tucker didn’t even break the top 100. The only meaningful review of the veracity of the content came from Dominion themselves who said: “As the Fox principals who negotiated the settlement well know, Dominion made no demands about Tucker Carlson’s employment orally or in writing. Any claims otherwise are categorically false and a thinly veiled effort to further damage Dominion. Fox should take every effort to stop these lies immediately.” I for one have a sneaky feeling which book we’ll be reading next for our Patrons! 
• A story about an ignorant Karen who is a trustee of a school district in Texas could be seen as depressing, infuriating or exactly the kind of thing we expect, but I prefer to look at the positive, that some of her fellow trustees are awesome fucking heroes. The Conroe Independent School District has a probably quite reasonable policy against political displays in classrooms which are not related to the curriculum. In their latest meeting, trustee Melissa Dungan said she wanted that policy to go further because, she claimed, a number of parents had reached out to her about supposed displays of personal ideologies in classrooms. Melissa sadly said “I wish I was shocked by each of the examples that were shared with me, however, I am aware these trends have been happening for many years” You’re probably wondering what kinds of displays of personal ideologies she’s talking about. Her fellow trustees were curious and asked for examples, and so Melissa, who looks exactly like you’re picturing her right now, gave one, which I can only assume she made up on the spot. She cited a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races with a message about inclusivity, that they transferred classrooms. Awesome co-trustee Stacey Chase asked “Just so I understand, you are seriously suggesting that you find objectionable, a poster indicating that all are included?” and possibly even awesomer co-trustee Datren Williams asked Melissa if bible verses also violated the policy, and whether they should be removed. Melissa, according to the ABC13 report, ‘struggled to respond’.
• Remember Nadine Dorries – Mad Nad – who said she’d resign her seat after her name was taken off Boris Johnson’s peerage/knighthoods etc resignation dishonours list, weee-eelll she’s hedged her bets so long – still not resigned – so long that 75,000 people have signed an online 38 Degrees petition urging her to do so. A town council in her constituency has demanded she step down, and even Rishi has said he believes her constituents are not being properly represented. He hasn’t yet expressed “full confidence” in her yet so, I don’t know, she may well last for another 10 weeks. Meanwhile her “television” “career” on GBNews has come under scrutiny from the parliamentary ethics committee given that it is a second job and all second jobs are to be vetted for possible conflicts of interest, and hers wasn’t and it is! Bullet-headed elected-member-of-parliament-thug and actual deputy chair of the entire Conservative Party; ‘30p Lee’ Anderson got so vexed with the fact that since the UK left the EU, the EU agreement about returning refugees/migrants/asylum seekers to the EU country from which they’ve travelled to another EU country of course no longer applies to Britain, that, in talking about shutting asylum seekers up on large container-based floating barges/prison ships, said “if they don’t like it, they can fuck off back to France.” Which they can’t do cos Brexit, and what the fuck is an actual elected actual member of actual parliament doing saying that kind of thing out loud on television! And some commentators in the Tory party are worried that if things continue like this they might be viewed as the Nasty Party again – tsk! might be!? MIGHT BE!? Never let it be said that they are out of touch hey!!

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:

Genetic Fallacy (Redux) – FT#130 Transcript

Jim: Hello, and welcome to Fallacious Trump, the podcast where we use the insane ramblings of a criminal, whatever the opposite of a mastermind is, to explain logical fallacies. I’m your host, Jim.

Mark: And I’m your other host, Mark. A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that results in bad or invalid arguments. And the logical fallacy we’re taking another look at this week is the genetic fallacy.

Jim: Yeah, genetic fallacy was the very first one we did way back more than five years ago now, back in kind of June 2018. Is that five years ago? Yes, and as we said last time, we’re having another look at it because lots happened since then. There’s lots of new examples, and we have more probably to say about it than we did back then, because we’ve been doing this a while now.

Mark: We’ve kind of got the hang of it. And also, just like Aristotle that came out with the original ones, it’s not like if you spot it, they go away because you just point at it. You go, hey, this is what you’re doing. And people in the world just say, oh, yeah, all right, we won’t do that then.

Jim: Yeah, keeps coming up.

Mark: Keeps coming up.

Jim: Especially ones like this. The genetic fallacy is very common, and partly because it’s actually really a group of fallacies, an ad hominem, which is one of the more common types of fallacies, is really a genetic fallacy. That’s an example of a genetic fallacy because the genetic part of that is genesis, the beginning, the start of something, the origin of it. So this is about looking at a claim or an argument and not addressing the actual claim itself or the point of the argument, but the origin of that claim, where it comes from, who it comes from, things like that, and pretending that doing that is a good answer and a logical way to respond to it.

Mark: So it’s kind of a cousin to whataboutism as well.

Jim: Well, absolutely. And argument from authority, lots of those kind of all feed into genetic fallacies. So our first example is just a great example of Trump trying to talk.

Trump: I hope they now go and take a look at the oranges of the, investigation, the beginnings of that investigation. You look at the origin of the investigation, where it started, how it started, who started it, whether it’s McCabe or Comey or a lot of them. Where does it go? How high up in the White House did it go? You will all get Pulitzer prizes. Okay. You’re going to all get Pulitzer prizes. you should have looked at it a long time ago. And that’s the only thing that’s disappointing to me about the Mueller report. The Mueller report I wish covered the oranges, how it started, the beginnings of the investigation.

Jim: I love the fact he goes in for a second, go at it.

Mark: The AI software running around in his head goes, no, you haven’t quite made that. You’re going to have to find another word for that. So instead of saying, oh yeah, so the content of this report is quite damning. And trying to refute the content of it, he just goes back to say, well, you see, who was the orange person? Well, you are, you’re the orange person. Who is the one that started that? You got to see where it comes from and tries to dismiss it. And he also dismisses the journalists. He said if you look at that, you’ll get full of surprises. and then if you can’t compliment them at all, just to take it away with the other hand, his other tiny hand and say, yeah, frankly, I’m disappointed you haven’t looked at the oranges before now.

Jim: Yeah. So the content of a report about an investigation is really the kind of the key thing yeah. That is what tells you what happened and what people did and that kind of stuff. how that investigation started could potentially be a useful thing to know. Like, for example, say a president was trying to force a foreign government to investigate their political rival by withholding military aid, for example. Hypothetically.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: That is an interesting thing to look at is that origin. if an investigation comes out of that and then shows wrongdoing, that has to be addressed separately.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: The wrongdoing doesn’t go away because the way the investigation started was bad.

Mark: Yes. And actually the parallels when I will talk about that, in my bit, but the parallels are that the investigations say into illegal transgression of rules during lockdown by the very people that set the rules going. That investigation was started by the people that did the rule breaking during lockdown, possibly as a way of diverting attention from the fact that they broke the rules during lockdown. Not possibly. Absolutely. That was why they did it. and the oranges of that report became part of the findings of the investigation. So yes, there was this diversion going on to say, well, we’re the ones that, triggered the investigation. Yeah. It doesn’t let you off the hook just because you started the investigation much as you say that it did or that you didn’t start the investigation doesn’t let you off the hook. The oranges of wherever those investigations neither here nor there. You’re comparing it to apples. That’s what you’re doing.

Jim: Yeah. So this is actually going to be quite a difficult one to talk about without walking the tightrope of possibly committing it ourselves. Because the people we’re talking about are generally speaking, pretty awful people. And the sources that they use are fairly, unreliable sources. And so sometimes we are going to be looking at them and saying, well, look who’s saying that, look at where that’s coming from.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And there are times when that might stray into being a genetic fallacy. But this is quite a nuanced one, because it also crosses over quite a lot with a thing that you should do as a good critical thinker, which is considering your sources. And if the source that you’re using for a claim or an argument or evidence to back up your claim is an unreliable or untrustworthy source, then it is, less of a good argument, it’s less good evidence to support your argument than it would if you were using a reliable, trusted, independent source.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So sometimes that is what’s happening. And actually, people are not doing a genetic fallacy and saying, well, we can rely on this piece of evidence because it comes from a reliable place. they’re considering their sources, and being responsible. And so spotting the difference between that isn’t always easy.

Mark: because that was the whole point of the Mueller report was that Mueller was a, respected and, moderate with a small M investigator. He didn’t make outlandish claims. And that was part of the problem with the Mueller report is that he didn’t term it, he kind of termed it as double negatives rather than a positive many of the findings. So the only recourse of action that Trump had was to go further back and say, well, but if Comey started that, or Comey was the one that he interviewed, so he hasn’t been able to dismiss Mueller.

Jim: it’s not the only recourse that Trump had because he also constantly tried to pretend that the origin or the source of that report, Mueller and his team were tainted, even though they were largely agreed, I think generally to be independent and good investigators. He called them radical, angry Democrats right. Because he didn’t know what was going to be in the report yet. He didn’t know, I mean, didn’t exonerate him, but he didn’t know it was going to say that they couldn’t prove collusion between him and Russia. And so expecting it to be bad, he spent all of the time it was being put together saying how awful the people who were putting it together.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that when it came out, he could say, well, look at who said this. Bad people, bad angry Democrats who hate Trump.

Mark: Well, and the same happened with the investigation, into whether Boris misled parliament, his acolytes were all trotted out the, it’s a kangaroo court and they are obviously socialists, communists and Leninists or Maoists. It was a political witch hunt. They were certainly witch hunters. And then at the point at which the report came out and found that he had indeed misled parliament. He then crossed over to he was denying the fact that or he didn’t deny it, he didn’t agree with his acolytes, were saying that until such time as they found him guilty of misleading parliament and recommended that he be, suspended for six months or whatever it was. Only then did he cross over and say, well, it’s bloody witch kangaroo court, and to try and abuse the findings by virtue of the fact that these people were biased from the outset, even though from the outset he had said that they weren’t. Yeah.

Jim: So our, second example regular listeners will be aware that Trump is currently having some legal difficulties. And so he thought that a, great idea would be to attack the people who are prosecuting him by putting together a little ad.

Attack Ad VO: How far will the most corrupt president in history go to keep Republicans from winning back the White House? Meet the cast of unscrupulous accomplices he’s assembled to get Trump. Alvin Bragg, the radical liberal New York prosecutor who refuses to prosecute violent criminals. Jack Smith, who’s made a career persecuting innocent Republican officials. Letitia James, the socialist who ran on the promise I’ll go after Trump. And Biden’s newest lackey, Atlanta DA Fani Willis, so incompetent on her watch, violent crimes have exploded. So tainted, Willis was thrown off one case for trying to prosecute a political opponent so corrupt, Willis got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting. So dishonest, Willis was accused of creating a fake subpoena. Welcome to the fraud squad.

Trump: I’m Donald J. Trump, and I approve this message.

Mark: Wow. Who would sign up to do that? Voice-over.

Jim: A, voice-over person who really needed some work.

Mark: He really enjoyed he really enjoyed The Fraud Squad, starring Leslie Nielsen.

Jim: So during that, we get images of these people along with headlines from various news sources.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And without immediately wanting to commit the genetic fallacy. Those sources are, the Federalist, the Daily Mail and Fox News mostly.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Washington Times is in there as well, which is not quite as bad as the others, but pretty bad. And the thing is, the things that they said in that ad aren’t wrong or lies because they come from untrustworthy sources. They, are wrong lies that happen to come from untrustworthy sources.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Those news sources are unreliable and incredibly biased. And also they’ve lied about these things.

Mark: Right. So not only are the things they’ve said worthy of some skepticism, because they are outrageously, biased, but the things that they’ve actually said that you would be legitimately, where, you’d be forgiven for being a bit skeptical about the things that they’ve said, they are actual lies, or they’re very economical with the truth.

Jim: No, some of them are actual lies.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: Right.

Mark: Just lacking nuance. Yeah. They’re just out and out lies. All right.

Jim: And this is the thing that we need to remember to be good critical thinkers, is that when I see a headline that says it’s from The Daily Mail, my instinct is it’s probably not true then. And what I need to be doing is when I see a headline that’s from the BBC or NPR or Washington Post, is to think, well, they also sometimes don’t tell the truth. I should check that out. I should try and corroborate it. I shouldn’t just assume that it’s accurate, and I shouldn’t assume that stories from The Daily Mail are untrue.

Mark: Yeah. They’re all worthy of investigation.

Jim: Yeah. And we are inquiring. We are so much more likely to believe something that sounds right to us that comes from a source we trust, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s more likely. I’m trying really hard not to, be unfair or illogical, but I think it is fair to say that a lot higher proportion of stories in the Mail are untrue compared to sources like those other ones I mentioned Associated Press, Reuters, those ones. So just kind of quickly to give an overview of some of those claims that were in that ad. The Alvin Bragg stuff where they said he refuses to prosecute violent criminals was one of the things they said he doesn’t refuse to prosecute violent criminals. That’s almost exactly the opposite of what he does. What happened when he came in in, January of 22, New York State, having undergone some bail reform previously over the last couple of years, he then did a bit more criminal justice reform, where he said, we are not going to incarcerate non-violent criminals. So when we prosecute, which we still will, those non-violent crimes of drug possession or things like that, shoplifting, et cetera, we’re not going to give those people a custodial sentence because, what we want our police to be able to do is focus on the dangerous ones, the bad people who commit violent crimes.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that’s almost literally the opposite of what they say.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And in doing that yes. That means that some people who would be in prison aren’t in prison because of his policies. But they’re not, as the mail said, violent criminals. I mean, the headline in the mail is terrifying rap Sheets of Ten Worst New York City Criminals who were repeatedly released by Manhattan. DA Bragg as he focused on Trump indictment, that’s the headline in the Mail.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: they then list ten people, of which 7 of them are shoplifters.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Not violent criminals. One is the unhoused guy who, set light to the Fox News Christmas tree a couple of years ago. Two of them are violent criminals. They committed violent acts. Both of those people are in prison now. Right. in fact, three of the shoplifters are in prison as well, because, he didn’t refuse to prosecute people at all. All of the people who used to get prosecuted. Still get prosecuted.

Mark: Just some of them that aren’t violent criminals don’t end up in jail.

Jim: Yeah. Some of them get released while awaiting trial because largely of bail laws that came in before he was DA.

Mark: Right. okay, but that doesn’t fit the picture, does it?

Jim: Not in any way.

Mark: You’ve got to cherry pick the things, and let’s not let the truth get in the way of a good story. The fact that it opens up with the most corrupt president in history. Yeah, that’s right. Yes, exactly. That’s a weird way to open an attack. My name is Donald J. Trump, and I am the most corrupt person in history. And I sanctioned this. Yeah.

Jim: So the Funny Willis stuff they made four claims about Funny Willis, and they, said, she’s so incompetent on her watch, violent crimes have exploded. And there’s a headline that says, nearly 60% more murders so far this year in Atlanta from Fox News. That article was accurate, but it was from 2021, which was only six months after she became DA. And now crime is falling.

Mark: There you go. Yes.

Jim: homicides in Atlanta are down nearly 25% from 2022, and rape has been cut in half. Aggravated assaults down 22%. So violent crime hasn’t exploded. It went up during the pandemic and continued to go up a bit, and then came down yeah.

Mark: In the way that explosions do till they explode, and then they tend to.

Jim: Go up and down a bit because very few graphs of things that happen in real life are a flat line.

Mark: Yeah. The fact that it’s gone down for two years out of the three that she’s been in office, would that not be the majority thing to read? Yeah. Two thirds of the time kind of gone down, third of the time went up, and then she put stuff in place, and now it’s gone down.

Jim: You could make that argument.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So the claim that she’s so tainted she was thrown off one case for trying to prosecute a political opponent is kind of maybe valid that one instantly. The source for that one is The New York Times, not one of the usual sources.

Mark: Did she recuse herself from it? Because not exactly. Right.

Jim: She was prosecuting state Senator Burt Jones, who’s a Republican, and, she had hosted a fundraiser for his Democratic opponent, and the Superior Court judge in the case said, actually, that’s a conflict of interest.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And so she didn’t continue with that case.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: It was just she wasn’t the right person to be doing that prosecution.

Mark: Yeah. Because of a perceived conflict of interest. But yes, if you choose to use the explosive language of a Trump attack ad, then yeah. But there’s me being a geneticist. Right.

Jim: Yeah. So, the third claim was she was so corrupt, she got caught hiding a relationship with a gang member she was prosecuting. Now, Trump actually has claimed she had an affair with the gang member wow. Which is kind of implied by she was caught hiding a relationship. Her relationship with this gang member was that when she was a defense attorney, she defended him.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And then when she went to work, for the DA’s office and became a prosecutor, she prosecuted his gang.

Mark: Right. Did she hide the fact that she.

Jim: Didn’t hide no, no.

Mark: it’s a Matter of public record. So the relationship was one of paid professional client relationship. Wow. weasel words. We carefully chosen weasel words. Yeah.

Jim: And finally, so dishonest, she was accused of creating a fake subpoena. And, that’s just an out and out lie.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: This is about the same gang, actually.

Mark: Right.

Jim: There was, an accusation that a sham subpoena was used to obtain information from a car rental place about him and the gang. But that subpoena was issued in 2016, four years before Fonny. Willis became district attorney.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So the Atlanta DA’s office, four years before she was there, was accused of creating a fake subpoena.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Which is not quite the same.

Mark: Not quite the same as so corrupt she created yeah.

Jim: Trump’s purpose, and the Trump campaign’s purpose in doing it is saying, look at all of these indictments that are coming all of these attacks on Trump are coming from these horribly corrupt people. Therefore, the laws that he’s being accused of breaking, the crimes that he’s being accused of committing can’t be true, because the people that are saying it are corrupt. and in doing that, they’re using terribly untrustworthy sources for lies about these people.

Mark: Yes. Wow. Okay, so, it’s a m meta

Jim: geneticception.

Mark: It’s folded up on it. Yeah, that’s right. We’ll end up wait a minute. I’ve just got to spin my little top on the desk. Wow.

Jim: And finally, in this section, we have a tweet from Lauren Witzke. Now, Lauren Witzke is described in her Wikipedia page as an American far right and alt right political activist, known for her anti LGBT views and promotion of QAnon. She’s also committing a genetic fallacy. She’s not doing that because she’s a hateful bigot.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Although, arguably, it factors in, because…

Mark: she draws upon the hate and the bigger tropes.

Jim: Yeah. She tweeted about the, judge in Trump’s. that was the third indictment.

Mark: Which one is it? There’s almost too many to count.

Jim: I’m really losing track. Yeah, the one that happened at the beginning of this month, not the one that happened most recently, or the superseding indictment that happened after that one. Anyway, she tweeted, trump’s judge is not only hostile, but also a Jamaican immigrant with no understanding of true American patriotism or love of country. Immigrants should not be put in positions of authority because they will always rule against the, in quotes, racist countrymen. Soon this will be the future for all of us who oppose this communist take.

Mark: Wow. So not only is she an immigrant, she’s a Communist, I guess.

Jim: Or it’s just communism to let immigrants be judges or something.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The fact that this woman is from yeah. Means she shouldn’t be a judge. And it’s inevitable that she will rule against Trump right. Who is, in quotes, racist. And that’s why she’ll rule against him. Not because he committed all the crimes no.

Mark: But because she’s from yeah. Yes. Well, it’s a bit like it’s the same argument it’s the same Berther argument about Obama, isn’t it? And the one early on where Trump said he can’t be trusted as a lawyer because he’s a Mexican.

Jim: Well, that was the example we used in our first genetic family.

Mark: Oh, it is. There we go. Yes. Times move on. Some people don’t change at all.

Jim: History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.

Boris Johnson: And now is the time, I think, for Marx British Politics Corner.

Mark: Well, when I looked at these ones, and then I looked back at yours, actually, it’s much the same stuff. So these are, it turns out, kind of slanderous, awful things said about somebody who said something in response to a police inquiry or a government sanctioned inquiry into the rule breaking going on at number ten during lockdown. So this is 31 January seems so long ago, 31 January 2022. And this is Kier Starmer responding to the discussion in Parliament, in the House of Commons, to the Sue Gray report into the rule breaking going on number 10th. And let’s see how Boris responds. Our national story about COVID is one.

Kier Starmer: Of a people that stood up when they were tested, but that will be forever tainted by the behavior of this conservative prime minister. Even now, he is hiding behind a Police investigation into criminality into his home and his office. Well, Mr. Speaker, there’s a reason why he said absolutely nothing about the report that was presented by, this government and later put in the library of the House earlier on today. That is because, Mr. Speaker, the report does absolutely nothing to substantiate the tissue of nonsense he has just spoken. Absolutely nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Boris Johnson: Mr. Speaker, this leader of the opposition a former, director of Public Prosecutions, Mr. Speaker, he spent most of his time prosecuting journalists and failing to prosecute Jimmy Saville, as far as I can make up, Mr. Speaker, he mr. Speaker chose to use this moment he used this moment, Mr. Speaker, continually to prejudge a police inquiry.

Mark: So basically, he’s pointing out that we shouldn’t listen to the testimony of Starmer, a former lawyer and director of Public Prosecutions, because he’s pre-empting the police report and making a judgment on the report. That was going to be the Sue Gray Report that’s being filed in the House Commons Library, which does say all of the things that Starmer says it says. So the fact that it’s a tissue of nonsense is just Boris deflecting and we shouldn’t listen to him because he failed to prosecute Jimmy Saville, the serial paedophile and abuser, and was a friend of Margaret Thatcher and a, donor to the Tory Party and all of that kind of stuff. And it’s an off quoted meme by the far right. He’s not true. He didn’t he had nothing to do with in as the Director of Public Prosecutions. He was in charge of prosecutions, and there was insufficient evidence discovered by the police at the time, so they didn’t forward it to the Director of Public Prosecutions in order to bring about a prosecution. What’s delightful about listening to this year on is that we’re now the other side of Boris having been both fined for breaking the law following the police report and found to have misled Parliament following the Sue Gray report. And we know that Starmer was right in all that he said, and why Boris tries to deflect that. So that’s the other way of countering this fallacy, I guess, is with hindsight, is that you can say, well, crimes, were committed and you were guilty of them. Whether I was the lawyer that had done the things that you said I’d done doesn’t alter the fact that you did the things that you did do, and the law caught up with you and found you guilty of them.

Jim: Yeah, I think in terms of countering, this is known as a fallacy of relevance. And those, I think, are probably one of the easier kinds of fallacies to counter, because essentially what you have to do is get it back on track, because it’s just a way of trying to take not the argument that is being made and focus on something else. And so if you can say, well, it doesn’t matter where the report came from, what does the report say? Is there a reason to not believe the facts that, are laid out in the report? And sometimes where that report comes from might be a reason not to believe them. If there is a method and motive for the person who put together the report to lie about, know the origin, might be an answer to that. But if they are facts that have come to light, then arguing about why we started to look at those facts is very different from refuting the facts themselves.

Mark: That was one of the arguments everybody else made, because Boris appointed Sue Gray, and Sue Gray fundamentally reported to Boris, and he, in the position that he was in as Prime Minister, would get the final say as to whether any action needed to be taken as a result of the report.

Jim: Yeah, it’s like when the police, do an internal investigation as to whether the police did something wrong, in almost every case, it comes back, turns out they did everything right. What a shock.

Mark: Weirdly. Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. Institutionally racist. No, we’re not.

Jim: We’re brilliant. If anything, we’re underpaid.

Mark: Yeah, underpaid. And we need to recruit more white people. So the second example is that Rishi Sunak, who remember when he was elected after one leader, after Boris? Yeah. He said he’d govern with integrity, professionalism and accountability at every level. Despite that, he wades into the same grimy, fetid genetic fallacy arena in the last PMQs. Before the summer break in July this year, in responding to Stephen Flynn, our new favorite hero, who’s the leader of the Scottish National Party in Westminster. And he asked this somewhat double bladed it’s like uh what do you call that? A double edged sword. Yeah, it’s kind of like that. But it’s not because he’s not cutting him, he’s cutting both Tories and labour.

Stephen Flynn: Mr. Speaker, the two child benefit cap as introduced by the Conservative Party has left 250,000 children living in poverty. So can I ask the Prime Minister, does he take comfort in knowing that the heinous legacy of that policy will no longer just be protected by Conservative members, but by Labour members too?

Rishi Sunak: Well, Mr. Speaker, I welcome the Labour leader’s newfound support for our policy, even though he previously committed to a different approach. But what I would say to the honorable gentleman, and indeed the Labour front bench, is that they don’t have to worry too much because given the Labour leader’s track record, he’s never actually kept a promise that he’s made.

Mark: So even though Rishi isn’t answering a question posed by Starmer, he calls Starmer’s credibility into question, fails to deny the heinousness of the policy by pointing to Starmer’s not having kept any promises, which is completely unsubstantiated in the context of governing. He’s not in power, so he doesn’t have to deliver on any promises.

Jim: It’s really hard to keep promises you make about what you would do in power if you don’t get into in power.

Mark: Yes. Unlike Rishi of course, not least of all his promise to govern with integrity, professionalism and accountability every level.

Jim: If anything, the Tories should probably let Labour have a go for a bit just so that they can get back into complaining that they didn’t do anything when they were in power. Because it’s been such a long time now that they’re running out of things to say about it.

Mark: Yeah. The legitimacy of saying we’ve had to repair everything that you broke when we got in power. Uh yeah. People who were born when you got into power are now going into secondary school, they’re now teenagers, and you’re still moaning about what you received.

Jim: The bad side of being in power for so long is that people expect you to actually have done something.

Mark: You do some governing yeah. Do some stuff.

Jim: Whereas otherwise you can constantly say, well I didn’t have time, I put things in place, then the other guys got in and ruined it all.

Mark: Yeah. Which is true in the case of the Tories. So they don’t really need an opposition. A when, as Stephen Flynn points out, they both got the same policy vis a vis capping the benefit on, more than two children.

Jim: The Tories: their own opposition.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah. Meanwhile, Labour Party are stabbing each other in the back. Yeah. Finally, for our third example here’s, both the right and the left. So we’ve got Rees Mogg on the right and Mick Lynch on the left, calling into question the integrity of the messenger in the shape of the BBC when interviewed by both being interviewed on separate occasions by Mishal Husain on the Today program.

Mishal Husain: Because of the mini budget, we had to have rounds of emergency bond buying. Three bank of England interventions have taken place since the mini budget. And when the bank of England governor said yesterday that that was going to come to an end, immediately, the value of sterling dropped.

William Rees Mogg: Hold on, you suggest something is causal, which is a speculation. And I think jumping to conclusions about causality, is not meeting the BBC’s requirement for impartiality. It is a commentary, rather than a, factual question.

Mishal Husain: You say your members are making a sacrifice. Now, it was estimated at 1500 pounds on average in the sun. What’s the amount?

Mick Lynch: Now, why are you pursuing an editorial line that I could, read in the sun or the Daily Mail or any of the right wing press in this country? And you’re not pursuing the fact that working people, millions of them, are being impoverished and some of them made destitute by the attitude of this government and by their employers. I find this a shocking stance that the BBC will take. You’re just parroting the most right wing stuff that you can get hold of on behalf of the establishment. And it’s about time you showed some partiality towards your listeners and to working class people in this country who are being screwed to the floor by the attitudes and policies of this government.

Mishal Husain: They’re called questions rather than parroting right wing press. Mick Lynch of the RMT union. Thank you.

Mark: I love that they’re called questions. They’re just called questions. Yeah. And know how they both use the impartiality argument to say you need to be more impartial and you need to be more partial.

Jim: I mean, to be fair, the BBC are unacceptably right wing slash left wing. Yeah.

Mark: Because meeting the old adage, if you’re pissing off both sides of the political spectrum, then you must be doing something right. It’s rather depressing that after five years of looking at this kind of stuff, the same thing is happening. Oh, God.

MARK’S FALLACY IN THE WILD SONG

Jim: Got to say I was hoping for something from Genesis.

Mark: Oh, yeah. No, that yeah. I did toy with, uh how can I Believe you when you tell me that you love me when I know you’ve been a liar all your life?

Jim: That’s not a bad one.

Mark: No karaoke versions of it.

Jim: Well, there’s Megan Trainer’s. I know you lie on your lips moving that, um one.

Mark: Oh, yeah.

Jim: There’s lots of options.

Mark: Yeah. Damn it. Next time when we revisit it, I’ll choose one of them. Yeah.

Jim: So, 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 Murder, She Wrote. This is an episode where Jessica Fletcher is visiting family as usual or friends, I think, actually, in this instance in Canada, one of whom is on trial. And she is called as a witness. The lawyer here is Patrick McGoohan. The wonderful Patrick McGoohan, who is chewing the scenery here like nothing else. It’s amazing.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And, he has, an interesting way of discrediting her as a witness.

Quayle: J.B. Fletcher, have you any recollection of being committed to the state of Maine Institute for the Criminally Insane between the months of May and July in the year 1985?

Pirage: Objection.

Judge: Sustained.

Jessica Fletcher: I was never committed anywhere. I entered the institution voluntarily.

Quayle: under the Care of Dr. Sidney Bachman, who is a specialist in the field of criminal psychosis.

Jessica Fletcher: Yes, I was researching a book.

Quayle: Indeed. What a perfect subterfuge.

Jessica Fletcher: The book was called Sanitarium of Death. It was dedicated to Dr. Bachman.

Quayle: Out of gratitude, no doubt, for the excellent care you received.

Pirage: Your lordship, I must protest. Mr. Quail is attempting to smear with innuendo a woman of impeccable reputation and character who comes from a respected family in New England.

Jim: So Quayle, Patrick McGoohan…

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And this isn’t even really that necessary because her testimony isn’t very damning. But he completely destroys her character by pretending that her time spent researching a book in a sanitarium was her being.

Mark: Committed to a mental criminally insane.

Jim: And the prosecutor does a kind of similar thing in claiming that she is from a very good family in New England. New England doesn’t mean anything. The fact that where she’s from or what kind of family she’s from, it doesn’t necessarily mean she’s telling the truth. And then after this bit, he goes on to trash her family because, of course, this is Jessica Fletcher, and so many of her relatives have been accused of murder. So he brings up two of her nieces that were accused of murder and one of her nephews, who was accused twice of different murders to completely trash her good family from New England.

Mark: And also getting some meta references because.

Jim: We all know that yeah, they were all in previous episodes.

Mark: Ah. that’s kind of the reverse. Because I guess with all the examples that we’ve had so far are where people have employed this fallacy in order to discredit the speaker and the content of what the speaker is commenting on or bringing to bear, but the prosecutor is bringing like a positive reinforcement of so they’re crediting the speaker. And that is just as and I guess that’s one of those cognitive biases that you wouldn’t dismiss somebody saying, oh, yeah, but they’re actually an expert in this, because they come from, a whole long line of experts that live in New England. you just go, oh, yeah, no, I know your expertise, and I know New England, and I’m not fed up with experts. And, rather than somebody who’s denigrating going, oh, they come from that awful bloody place in New England. Just a minute. Whereas you tend to where people are being positive about people in order to back up their testimony, you would kind of ignore that one, and you’d only absolutely the ones where they’re doing it down.

Jim: It is because an ad hominem is sometimes called an ad hominem attack, and is almost always negative.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Whereas yeah, this is an aspect of the genetic fallacy, which is kind of the opposite of that like a reverse ad hominem, because, yes, it is still talking about the person, but it’s suggesting in an irrelevant way that what they say is to be trusted. If you’re talking about the person’s background or experience or training or education or whatever as a reason to trust the things they’re saying about that subject, then that’s not fallacious.

Mark: Because you would give an expert witness. Yes, that’s exactly.

Jim: But if you’re saying something positive about them and, saying therefore you should believe what they say, but it’s not relevant to the thing they’re saying, that’s a genetic fallacy just as much.

Mark: what would have been interesting for this episode we’ll do this when we do again in five years. We’ll just find the positive versions, of it.

Jim: Well, I’ve got another one coming up in a minute, so stick around.

Mark: Okay. Stick around. Stay tuned.

Jim: Don’t touch that dial. But first, our next example is from The Simpsons, and this is an episode where, in fact, this is a little bit kind of a positive one, but it is on the back of a negative one, because this is an episode where Lisa has been accused of being a dumb blonde because she’s blonde. And so she’s getting into debate, and her opponent beats her by basically just talking about the fact she’s blonde and therefore must be stupid. And her arguments can’t be and that completely works with the debate judges. And so Lisa decides to dye her hair brown for the next debate.

Lisa Simpson: Dressing in uniforms is a good thing. If everyone looks the same, it levels the playing field.

Debate Judge 1: Very smart.

Debate Judge 2: That’s well reasoned.

Debate Judge 3: A true brunette.

Lisa Simpson: It’s better to just fit in with the crowd.

Debate Judge 3: She’s as bright as her hair is dark.

Lisa Simpson: Oh, I can’t go on. This rebuttal is a sham. You aren’t being persuaded by the content of my argument. You’re being convinced by the color of my hair.

Debate Judge 2: Preposterous

Debate Judge 3: Although her brown hair makes a persuasive.

Jim: Yeah. Lisa, the logician can’t accept that, even though it’s working and she’s winning the debate, she can’t accept that it’s not because they’re listening to the things that she’s saying.

Mark: Yeah. But even the persuasiveness of pointing out that logical inconsistency, falls on the woman judge because she’s brown hair is making a persuasive argument even when the point is pointing out the logical point of that really good. Yeah. She looks really weird with brown hair as well. I was watching, I think something different about that. What is it?

Jim: So our final example, and the other positive one is from the film Twilight. Not, the one that you’re thinking of, though. Not the one with sparkly vampires.

Mark: No.

Jim: This is a kind of neo-noir detective thing with a fucking brilliant cast. Paul Newman. Gene Hackman. James Garner. Susan Sarandon. M. Emmett Walsh shows up for, like, 20 seconds. Reese Witherspoon’s in it, Liev Schreiber. It’s just excellent cast. Paul Newman plays this old retired private eye and he has this exchange with James Garner.

Hope: You probably already know that Ibar was the investigating officer when Billy Sullivan killed himself.

Ross: Can’t call it suicide. They never found about a body.

Hope: L.A. Times called it a suicide. That’s good enough for me.

Jim: Yeah. James Garner’s character is, making that mistake. He’s committing the genetic fallacy by assuming that because the L.A. Times said it, therefore you can rely on it. It’s true.

Mark: And I was watching, thinking, yeah, that’s a fairly reasonable thing to say because he’s Jim Rockford.

Jim: Yeah, absolutely.

Mark: Fallacy upon fallacy. There you go. well, good enough for me if Jim Rockford says it. Yeah.

Jim: And so it seems like he is falling into this logical cognitive trap thing, but actually he’s using the genetic fallacy against Paul Newman here because it doesn’t give it away to say that he knows it wasn’t really a suicide. He’s saying, well, the L.A. Times said it as a kind of you should I’m convinced. You should be convinced because they say,

Mark: I’m going to have to watch it now.

Jim: It’s pretty good.

Mark: That’s good enough for me.

Trump: So we’re going to 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: Okay? So now, before we talk the authenticity of the score, I think we should draw the listeners attention to some of your other successful book titles. For instance, how to make the scoring system look authentic, even up close. A guide to playing Monopoly at Christmas family gatherings. And I think I’ve worked it out. An investigation into how to make several spurious sums involving donkeys add up to 2000 mules. That way we can see the context against which I’m attempting to compete.

Jim: Yeah, I think I needed a snappier title for that second one. That’s probably why I didn’t sell very well.

Mark: Right. Yeah. Trying to add legitimacy to it.

Jim: So these examples are from a recent interview, that Trump did with Eric Bolling, who is, I think, on Newsmax. I didn’t actually spot the chyron in the corner that said which stupid anti news organization he’s from.

Mark: Okay. Yeah. So it’s possibly a fallacy.

Jim: Could be fox, could be OAN, could be newsmax. They’re all basically the same

Mark: when we put this one out. There should be a little alarm that goes every time we deliberately or otherwise use the fallacy.

Jim: So, whoever Eric Bolling works for that’s who, interviewed Trump.

Mark: wasn’t he The guy that got fired from Back to the Future?

Jim: that’s Eric Stoltz.

Mark: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Jim: Different guy, as far as I know. Unless he’s changed his name.

Mark: Yeah. To protect the innocent, yeah.

Jim: But anyway, he was obviously asked about some of the issues that he’s dealing with at the moment. And he was asked, first of all, if he thought that Biden was not taking Trump’s run for the White House seriously enough. He said No, he’s not taking it not seriously. He’s probably taking it more seriously than any candidate in history, because he has the Justice Department that he said he was going to do. If you look back two years, he made a statement that “we will stop Donald Trump”. Then he goes “constitutionally”. He doesn’t even know what the Constitution is. The guy can’t put together two sentences. He can’t talk. Every time I watch him talk, it’s almost like he’s walking on eggs. You wonder, is he going to get through the sentence?

Mark: What walking on eggs? Okay. Yeah. Okay. He has the Justice Department that he said he was going to do. all right. Okay.

Jim: If you’re looking for someone who can say two sentences, this guy.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Statement number two – I really believe it’s actually just helping me. You see all the people with the… when… every time they do a new one. A new indictment, my ratings go up in the polls. Biden and his crazy degenerate prosecutors at the Department of Injustice. Everybody knows it’s a hoax and it’s because I’m leading Biden by far. By far. They don’t know what to do, so they throw another indictment on the pile, but honestly I think if I get one or two more I win. I win automatically because everyone knows it’s wrong.

Mark: Automatically because everyone knows it’s wrong. There you go. Yeah. Right.

Jim: And, statement number three, This is a nasty, nasty world, as we found out. Probably it’s never been nastier than it is right now because we have sick people. We have sick people in office. And again, they are a bigger problem than the outside world, because the outside world, you can for the most part, you can cajole, reason with. They need things that we have. You can do things with them. But these people that we have, these radical fascists and Marxists that we have in our government, you can’t talk to them, they’re nuts.

Mark: Fuck is he talking about? Okay, yeah, cajole. Okay. It’s a nasty, naughty word. He’s just doing that Rambling thing. We’ve got an otter world because we’ve got six people. And then cigarette. They’re the bigger problem, the outside world. Okay. M. You can cajole and reason with. hello? Yes. Okay. God. Right. Well, he’s not taking it not seriously. And he has the Justice Department that he said he was going to do walking on eggs. You see, that sort of Trumpy, well, they’re all Trumpy, obviously. everyone knows his host because of these m my radical fascists. Okay, so on the basis of nothing whatsoever I see. I think you’re trying to sell me crazy, degenerate prosecutors leading them by far, by far. They know what to do. So for another indictment on the pile, a win automatically. Oh, I so want that to be real, but I don’t think it is. So I think number two is the one that you made up.

Jim: Okay, so of the other two, which are you more convinced by?

Mark: Convinced, I think probably number one.

Jim: Okay. And, number one is yeah, real.

Trump: No, he’s not taking it not seriously. He’s probably taking it more seriously than any candidate in history because he has the Justice Department that he said he was going to do. If you look back two years, he made a statement that we will stop Donald Trump till he was constitutionally. He doesn’t even know what the Constitution is. The guy can’t put together two sentences. He can’t talk. Every time I watch him talk, it’s almost like he’s walking on eggs. You wonder, is he going to get through the sentence?

Mark: Every time I watch him talk, it’s like he’s walking on eggs.

Jim: Yeah, that’s a great thing to say. While you’re complaining that your opponent great after. Guy can’t put together two sentences.

Mark: Every time I watch him talk, it’s almost like he walk what? He’s either walking on eggshells, in which.

Jim: Case, I mean, that still doesn’t really. Work with talking though

Mark: he’d be wading through treacle, surely. Is he going to get through the sentence? That would but Trump has no idea what he’s going to say next. So he doesn’t think he’s not by any means Christopher Hitchens. Who would think in entire paragraphs. Oh my God. Yeah. So he’s probably just stop with the bloody hyperbole, for Christ’s sake. He’s probably taking it more seriously than any candidate in history.

Jim: Yeah. Biden, his political opponent right now, is probably taking Trump’s 2024 candidacy more seriously than any candidate in history. I’d say that’s probably true.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Ah.

Mark: Because he has the Justice Department that he said he was going to do.

Jim: top five, definitely, of, all candidates in history taking Trump’s 2024 run seriously.

Mark: Yeah. but mainly because he has the Justice Department that he said he was going to do.

Jim: Yeah, he did say he was going to do the Justice Department, didn’t he?

Mark: yeah. He can’t even tie the bloody verbs together. He has the Justice Department that he said he was going to have or he does the Justice Department he said he was going to do, or he did. God.

Jim: You also thought Number three was real.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And number three yeah, it’s real.

Trump: This is a nasty, nasty world, as we found out. Probably it’s never been nastier than it is right now. Because we have sick people. We have sick people in office. And again, they are a bigger problem than the outside world. Because the outside world, you can for the most part, you can, cajole reason with. They need things that we have. You can do things with them. But these people that we have, these radical fascists and Marxists that we have in our government, you can’t talk to them. They’re nuts.

Mark: What?

Jim: People in the outside world, outside world need things we have. You can do things with them.

Mark: With them you can for the most part, you can control reason with it. So fundamentally, what he’s saying is yeah. The general public, I can manipulate to give me money and manipulate. Whereas the people in office, the radical fascist, not just they won’t do the right wing, but the left wing also, the radical fashion, you can’t do anything, can’t talk to them because they disagree with everything I say. Ergo, they’re nuts. Yeah. Wow. And it continues to sicken me that, this country that gave us Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama, who can speak wonderfully. And they’ve got this guy, the kind of mafia boss who just says we have sick people. Sick people. They’re nasty.

Jim: Yeah. he called Jack Smith a sick puppy in this interview as well.

Mark: And they’re nuts. You can’t talk to it doesn’t even mean oh, there was an article I read about him that somebody said, no wonder, Rico has been slapped on him because he uses the language of the mafia.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: 50S.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Calls people dirty rats and stool pigeons. All that kind of hep cat talk that he grew up with

Jim: You’re mixing your decades.

Mark: Yeah. I went all Cab Calloway. Then.

Jim: that means that number two is made up by me. well done. Spotted that one right.

Mark: I think it was i, went automatically because everyone knows he’s wrong.

Jim: Just a game too far.

Mark: Damn. Why am I giving you notes? But it’s good.

Jim: But you weren’t the only person who went with number two on Patreon. Alice and Colleen both went with number two.

Mark: Well done, well done.

Jim: And Renee went with number one on well, she said, I’ll choose number one as fake news. I’m pretty sure number three is true. So that means number two is really the fake news, but I’ll stick with number one.

Mark: I like, wow, that’s good. I must read that again.

Jim: I’ll choose number one, fake news. I’m pretty sure number three is true. So that means number two is really the fake news, but I’ll stick with number one. It’s kind of Monty-Halled herself, I think.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: On Facebook. Meanwhile, Andrew and Scott both went for number three. Andrew said number, three, because I can’t imagine Trump using the word.

Mark: I did I did hesitate at that moment. Yes.

Jim: Scott says, I think number three is the one you made up. I’m almost certainly wrong, but that’s my.

Mark: there we go. But I do like Renee’s, logic there. That’s excellent. Yeah. I’ll choose that one because I think that one’s so that means the other one is but I’ll stick with the one you’re mad fool.

Jim: So if you’d like to join in and have your successes or failures read out, then, just be constantly on our Facebook group or in Patreon.

Mark: Good. Well done, people, for joining in. Hey, and that means we’re now, on I’ve gone up one.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: 57 out of 120. Oh, that’s nearly half.

Jim: I think you’re at 47%.

Mark: Have I ever actually got above half?

Jim: So nearly did. You got to 50.

Mark: Ah.

Jim: And I think maybe you got, like, a point above 50, but you never quite made it to 51. I don’t think I could be wrong to go back into the archives.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But yeah, you’re on about 47% thereabouts.

Mark: I’ll refer you back to your book, how to make the Scoring System Look Authentic, even up Close. Yeah. Don’t believe a word.

Jim: And it’s time for the part of the show that this week at least, is called Rico is not a Logical Fallacy because it’s August. So it’s time for indictment. Actually, I’m a bit disappointed that the last one happened on August 1, because if it had happened on the previous day, on July 31, we would have had an indictment in June, July, and August. so then I’d be waiting for the September indictment from, Michigan. I think it’ll be the next one. Arizona, actually one of them. One of the ones with the awesome woman governor can’t remember which awesome woman governor wants to indict Trump next this time.

Mark: Yes, exactly.

Jim: Trump has been indicted again. This time in Fulton County. And this time not just Trump. I mean, it was not just Trump last time because it was Walton Outer and then subsequently Carlos Oliveira. But this time it’s Trump and most of the people who were unindicted co conspirators in the previous one, and also a ton more people. There’s 19 total indictees. Is that what you call them? Probably from now on.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There’s a lot of charges in total, there’s 40.

Mark: 40. Ah.

Jim: 41. Sorry. 13 of which Trump has been indicted on, which brings his 2023 total to 91 charges that he is currently under indictment.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: I asked on Twitter if anyone happened to know who the US. Politician with the most indictments in history, but no one seems to have done that work.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: There are Wikipedia. Pages of US Politicians who have been convicted of things, but there’s a lot of them, right?

Mark: Oh, God.

Jim: Turns out politicians aren’t great people. it’s shock to me, but you’d have to go into every single case and kind of go back to its oranges and figure out how many charges they were originally indicted with, because you’re not going to get convicted on everything. There’s so many, and this only happened on.

Mark: But the thing about this indictment is it’s a marvelous one on several counts, not least the rico of the title, because they’re kind of charging him like he’s a Mafia boss. In charge of a syndicate of organized crime and framing that suddenly makes sense for indicting the co conspirators because they’re all working towards perpetuating this falsehood knowingly, which is the one that kind of came out. The last one was they were, establishing the fact that he knew that he’d lost the election. So was just perpetuating a falsehood. And this one is saying, well, the acts that you performed in the perpetuation of that falsehood constitute organized crime.

Jim: Yeah. So Rico is Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act. the Federal Rico Act. In 1970, it came out. And yeah, it was designed for mob bosses, really, because what they found was they could get evidence on people doing crimes, but they couldn’t, at that point, prosecute successfully people who told them to do the crimes.

Mark: Right.

Jim: and so Rico is about basically recognizing that crimes in organizations, when it’s organized crime, they don’t happen in a vacuum. They happen as part of a series of different things that someone tells you to go know, take care of that yeah. That means something. And that person can then be prosecuted as well. I guess the person who made Rico famous, probably ironically, is Rudy Giuliani, who used it in New York to bring down some of the local mafia there. And he is one of the indictees in the Georgia Rico case. the Georgia Rico Statute, incidentally, is from 1980, so a little bit after the Federal one. And it’s quite a lot broader inasmuch as there are more things that can be considered overt acts that feed into it. And so it’s arguably easier to show connections between the people who did things, which led to the ultimate thing being against the law. In this, lawsuit, Fani Willis and her team have mentioned 161 overt acts of racketeering activity.

Trump: Wow.

Jim: So those are things which, in and of themselves, wouldn’t, in all cases, at least be illegal. Some of them would be illegal but they’re all acts that were undertaken as part of this conspiracy to overthrow the election, essentially. And because they were an overt act that was taken as part of this overall conspiracy, then they are featured in here as evidence of there being a conspiracy, and of these people all.

Mark: Taking working in a coordinated way to make it happen.

Jim: And so what that’s led to is lots of people on the right wing saying things like, oh, looks like just calling people on the phone is against the law now, and having a meeting with people is against the law. And asking questions about the elections against the law. which is a bit like if someone took out an insurance policy on a building and then set light to it, and then you said, oh, it looks like having insurance is against the law. Looks like lighting a match is against the law. Looks like pouring gasoline all over your own floor is against the law all of a sudden.

Mark: Or burning down a crooked pub that you’ve just, bought and then raising it to the ground. Looks like hiring a Shovel dozer is against the law now.

Jim: Absolutely. So that’s the thing. All of these individual in many crimes, all of the things that you do to achieve that crime in and of themselves individually, aren’t illegal acts. But when you put them all together yeah.

Mark: Or the reason you made that phone call yeah. I don’t know, looks like making a phone no, making a phone call isn’t getting making a phone call to a governor to say, can you find me 11,000 votes, or you’ll be waking up with the horse’s head in your bed. So speaking words to people in various orders, that using English. It’s like the Stuart Lee sketch. You could be arrested and thrown in jail just for saying you’re English these days. Can you? Just for saying you’re.

Jim: That is a bad defense. But it is a defense people are using. Not like m some people who are involved in the case, or part of the case, and also just all of the people who love Trump and want to see that he’s not really available.

Mark: To be given money to for years to that, without committing the genetic fallacy.

Jim: The things that this indictment covers, really, in terms of the methods that were used to undermine the election, some of these are the same as the DC case, some of them are slightly different, and some of them very specific to Georgia. So there’s the, making false statements to members of state legislatures, including Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Georgia. That might sound a bit weird for a Georgia lawsuit, because four of those states aren’t Georgia.

Mark: Right.

Jim: But the argument is that the efforts that Trump undertook and his minions undertook to try and convince other state legislatures to overturn their results as well, was all an effort to overturn the election. Which affected Georgia, essentially, which would have also overturned the election in Georgia. Number two is making false statements to high ranking state officials in Georgia, such as the Secretary of State and the governor. Three is the fake electors. Creating a state of fake electors.

Mark: Yeah. Four, harassing good old cheese bro.

Jim: Harassing and intimidating a Fulton County election worker. So this is oh, yeah. Ruby Freeman and Shay Moss.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: But they gave testimony at the January 6 hearings, and they were election workers, and they were essentially picked out by, I think, probably Giuliani initially. and he made various claims about them. They’re suing him that hasn’t come up yet in court. but they’re suing him for defamation, which they will probably do quite well out of, if he has any money left, which he may not do, because he is currently begging Trump to pay his legal fees.

Mark: Yes. He doesn’t give a yeah. Understandably, in a way, he’s got his own troubles. Yeah.

Jim: He has just sold his house in Manhattan, though, so a bit of money at the moment. So, I hope that goes to court quickly. They got harassed endlessly by people involved in the campaign and also just people once their names were out there. Five is soliciting high ranking members of the United States Department of justice to make false statements to government officials in Georgia. Six, soliciting Mike Pence to reject Electoral College votes, properly cast by Georgia’s electors. Seven, unlawfully accessing voter equipment and voter data.

Mark: Oh, yes.

Jim: Because that’s a new one.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: this was in Coffee County in Georgia. Trump isn’t charged with this. This is some of the other people who conspired to do this, including Sidney Powell, a couple of the people who, one of the fake electors, Cathy Latham, Misty M. Hampton, who was the Coffee County election supervisor, and a guy called Scott Hall, who was bail bondsman, who was involved in this breach as well. And they went to, the Coffee County elections office and essentially digitally broke into one of the voting machines to get data out of it. And that is not okay. That’s against the law. So they are included in this as well. and finally, making false statements and committing perjury to cover up the conspiracy. Those eight things essentially cover all of the 41 criminal counts which are across these 19 defendants.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: Apart from the ones I’ve mentioned already. They include mark meadows, trump’s chief of staff john Eastman’s, jeffrey clark, jenna ellis, his campaign lawyer ken cheesebro again. Harrison floyd, the leader of black voices for trump. He was one of the ones who was involved in harassing Ruby Freeman and Seamus David Schaffer, the chair of the Georgia Republican Party, who was also one of the fake electors. Sean still, who was another one of the fake electors.

Mark: It’s got to be a great name for a band, doesn’t it? The fake electors? A kind of Green Day post punk, sort of politically charged fake electors. Brilliant. But one of the things that occurred to me is that the Atlanta and the Florida, and what was the other one that they included in with the Georgia?

Jim: The main ones that he pressured were.

Mark: Bringing it up in Georgia. And as a state indictment, one of the underlying powers of it being a state legislated indictment is that, it can’t be overthrown by presidential decree. So if Trump gets back into power, he can’t quash.

Jim: He or an ally of his get into power. The President has no pardon power over state crimes. So, yes, if he was convicted, if he saw any prison time for this, he couldn’t get released by the President. And in fact, he also couldn’t get released by the governor because in many states the governor can also pardon people. But in Georgia that’s not the case. It’s one of five states where they can’t do that. There is a panel who meet to decide on pardons, and that panel doesn’t have the power to release anyone until they’ve served five.

Mark: That, and that was brought in because of following the other gang related conspirators, the Ku Klux Klan in Georgia. Wow. So naming Arizona and Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania rather yeah. So, naming those, would that mean that the charges relating to those states couldn’t be overthrown either because it comes under Georgia?

Jim: This is not as mean. Basically, these are Georgia crimes. These are all Georgia crimes. So the fact that some of the activity that broke the law in Georgia occurred in other states, doesn’t mean anything for those states. Those states are in, some cases, doing their own, investigations. As I mentioned. I couldn’t remember which awesome female governor it was. Katie Hobbs in Arizona.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Or at least the Arizona Attorney General is investigating the fake electors in Arizona. we already had, I think it was Michigan. They are charging the fake electors in Michigan. That investigation hasn’t taken Trump to account. But Katie Hobbs had suggested the Arizona one potentially could. That would be his fifth.

Mark: Wow. So I want a t shirt with fake electors and then a tour of all the states, you bang out an indictment t shirt and another indictment comes along, it’s immediately, superseded by another one.

Jim: Well, I mean, I should have seen it coming really. But the first one I did on the day of the, DC. Indictment, I thought, it’s time for I’m so indicted and I Just can’t Hide It t shirt and then T public our merch store, put it into kind of review because sometimes they do that with political topics, and they just want to make sure you’re not, I don’t know, defaming someone or doing something. Heinous. So it actually then didn’t end up on our store for like three or four days. And I was like but then less than two weeks later, there’s another indictment.

Mark: That’s excellent. Ah. But it’s been released now, unlike Trump will be yeah.

Jim: So if you want I’m so indicted and I Just Can’t Hide It t shirt with a picture of Trump singing then fallacioustrump.com/tee

Mark: I’ve ordered mine already. Yeah.

Jim: So yeah. As you said, because of the fact that the president can’t pardon people for state crimes, this is the one really, that Trump is probably, if he’s got any sense at all, most worried.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: because arguably, even if Jack Smith did his work in DC and Florida, trump could go to prison, still get elected, and then pardon himself. And it would be like it never happened. This one, he’s fucked if he gets prison time. And one of the when Fani Willis came out and kind of, announced this after everyone had been kind of waiting on tenterhooks, she was asked by a reporter, does the Rico charge carry prison time? Basically, I think people were asking whether it could be probation or something like that. And she said, this is not something that can be probationary. This sentence, it’s a five to 20 year sentence wow. Or a fine of up to $250,000. So the judge, whoever he gets in, Georgia could go in that direction. I think given that he’s at least supposedly a billionaire, they might see that as not a responsible answer to him being found guilty.

Mark: So actually, all his bravado about his self proclaimed billionaireness is going to come back and bite him.

Jim: I don’t know if that factors in, but it feels like it should.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: To me. So, Fani Willis is asking for a March 4 trial date. I don’t know that you’ll get that because this is quite a complicated case given that it’s 19 defendants, and so many criminal counts. Jack Smith is asking for January for the DC case. Florida, I think, is currently May. And, I don’t know what the one in New York will be, but there’s going to be some crossover. There’s definitely going to be some, witnesses that are common to at least two of these. Um yeah. With regard to DC and this one, some potential defendants might be, well, certainly one defendant, but there might be others if they indict some of those unindicted co conspirators in DC.

Mark: I did see a timeline. I think it might have been in The Independent or the Guardian, which had the timeline for the election in the run up to the election.

Jim: Well, yeah. March 4 is the day before Super Tuesday.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that is kind of quite a key date yeah.

Mark: To get him standing up in a courtroom.

Jim: Not that it’ll really make any difference to his base, though.

Mark: No.

Jim: Because I think it’s 15% of Americans that were polled recently don’t think he did anything wrong. 15% 85% think he did do something wrong or actually broke the law. But at least 30% still support him. I don’t think it’ll make any difference. They’re all the way in not wishing.

Mark: To commit the genetic fellowship, but it’s the same demographic that believe the man with a solid gold toilet is actually one of them is a blue collar worker. It’s a bit like believing Bruce Springsteen as a blue collar worker and attending his concerts going, yeah, you’re singing it how it is.

Jim: Man speaks to the common man.

Mark: Only because they marketed it very well indeed. Yeah. Go listen to the Obama Springsteen podcast to reveal all. It’s very interesting. They’re very nice people, but they both are, aware that their backgrounds are about pleasing their fathers and which kind of gives away that they didn’t lead the rough life that they did because they ended up doing jobs that weren’t as tough as their fathers did.

Jim: Ironically, so was Donald.

Mark: There you go. Yes.

Jim: For some reason, his was a much more toxic version.

Mark: Oh, mind you, I was just going to say, but there must be room for a Trump podcast about this stuff. Hey, we’re doing it.

Jim: Just noticed that. I can’t believe.

Mark: This is about, uh so finally, some things we really don’t have time to talk about.

Jim: You can always tell how smart the criminals in cop shows are by how much they run their mouths in the interrogation room. The smart ones say stuff like “I ain’t saying nothing until I get a lawyer”. The dumb ones answer all the cops’ questions before their lawyer shows up. The really dumb ones mess up and accidentally confess to the crime before they even get asked a question. And the poorly written unrealistically stupid characters say things like “A Large, Complex, Detailed but Irrefutable REPORT on the Presidential Election Fraud which took place in Georgia is almost complete & will be presented by me at a major News Conference at 11:00 A.M. on Monday of next week in Bedminster, New Jersey. Based on the results of this CONCLUSIVE Report, all charges should be dropped against me & others – There will be a complete EXONERATION!” Trump’s legal team is begging him to cancel the press conference because some of them are just about good enough lawyers to understand that there is no way this ends well. For Trump, I mean. I’m really looking forward to it.

Mark: Lt Gen Michael Flynn, well-known for being Donald Trump’s former national security adviser who pled guilty to lying to the FBI in 2017, yet not so well-known for being an out-and-out shyster, grifter and racketeer, is launching an online community dedicated to people who have not been vaccinated for COVID-19, so the latter may well change! RICO anyone? For the mere trifling membership fees of two and a half thousand dollars you can become a founding member of the community called 4thePURE, this gives you access to all those “uncontaminated” essentials like blood donors, sperm donors, breast milk donors, surrogates, and unvaccinated singles. Companies, who will be listed in the directory of “COVID-19 unvaccinated patriot businesses” can pay the measly membership fee of 25,000 dollars for 15 memberships – buy one get 1.5 extra free! Despite Flynn’s reinvention of himself as a Qanonsense-peddling conspiracy theorist upon whose lips the names of alleged (by him) covid-co-creators Soros, Gates and Klaus Schwab, the head of the World Economic Forum are never far away, can we remind you, in true Genetic Fallacy fashion that he resigned after acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned the White House that the lieutenant general may have lied to officials about his contact with a Russian diplomat!? Which he did, so it’s not a fallacy. Also, studies have shown the vaccine doesn’t have “deleterious effects” on semen, nor is it unsafe to donate blood or breastmilk if a donor is vaccinated. But hey if you wanna get your consumable liquids from a disgraced military man who believed that the vaccine would be deployed in salad dressing – knowing how few “liked-minded individuals who courageously stood against the COVID-19 jab” actually eat salad then you go right ahead. I’m guessing those same people won’t ask where the actual money’s actually going hey Mikey!

Jim: And I’m sure it’s a complete coincidence that a man like Michael Flyn, who’s been connected to, or at least spoken at various white supremacist rallies, has come up with a thing called for the Pure.

Mark: Absolutely, yeah.

Jim: Bit on the nose if you ask me.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Real-life Ned Flanders, Mike Lindell, has had enough of selling all his worldly goods for 2 bucks and a subway token and is holding another one of his events which will change the world, and it’s happening right now as we record this. Which is a bit frustrating really, because Mike promised something really amazing was going to be revealed this time and we’re most of the way through day 2 and it hasn’t been revealed yet, so I can’t tell you want it is. Unlike his cyber-symposium where he proved once and for all that the election really was stolen, and those numbers he had definitely weren’t just random numbers he’d paid someone hundreds of thousands of dollars for, this one is inspired directly by God, who gave Mike a top secret plan to save America. It is brilliant and divinely inspired, and will immediately secure our election platforms,” Lindell wrote on the official Election Summit event page. “This plan is unique, has never been done before in world history, and has not even previously been talked about by anyone. It does not rely on legislation, judges, or legal actions, etc. This is such a perfect plan, the only way it fails is if we do not get the word out to the entire country”. As it turns out that might end up being the difficult part, since despite hiring a 2000 seat venue, photos of the event suggest only a couple of hundred people showed up. But don’t worry, because it’s being broadcast around the world in 85 languages on FrankSpeech.com. If the start of the event is anything to go by, the plan might be to accidentally show a video of a Jimmy Kimmel monologue instead of your opening video, but I haven’t figured out how that will save America yet. Once he reveals the plan, which will be any time in the next few hours, I expect Trump won’t even need to hold his press conference exonerating everyone, because America will already have been saved. The lord sure does work in mysterious ways.

Mark: His Lindells to perform. Yeah. Those familiar with the funding of one Marjorie Taylor Green’s campaign for office will be familiar with Isaiah Wartman and his partner Luke Mahoney – whilst they sound like a detective pairing that could rival the ham-fisted Wohl and Burkman they could also vie for lamest money-raising duo ever as well. Wartman and Mahoney have both been ordered to pay $25,000 each in restitution and costs for a charity scam where they raised $149,000 for the Ohio Clean Water Fund in donations to the East Palestine train derailment in Ohio. Only 10,000 was ever donated; the rest ended up in the charity’s charitable pockets! Wartman and Mahoney founded Wama Strategies in Feb this year and Greene’s campaign paid the firm $71,000 in the second quarter of this year, three years after Wartman helmed her successful run to her first term in Congress. As with all TV detective double acts there needs to be the irascible third character who they report to, and that’s played by one Michael Peppel who founded the fake charity – oh and previously worked for federal Republican lawmakers – just saying – he also got fined $25,000. You see the mistake you made guys was to not just set up a campaigning electoral PAC – Make Marjorie Greene Again perhaps, that way you can raise and syphon off millions of dollars and no-one is any the wiser. Ah, except all three stooges have now been banned from running, collecting or soliciting for any charitable organisation until 2027, now that’s the most charitable act on behalf of the people of East Palestine, as carried out by Ohio’s Attorney General Dave Yost .

Jim: If you ask me, Wartman and Mahoney sounds like the triumphant return of Steve Gottenberg to the Police Academy franchise.

Mark: Yes, exactly. Well, actually, I think Wohl and Burkman would be. One of them would make ridiculous noises uh huh. With the other one.

Jim: Last April, 93 House Republicans signed a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland urging him to appoint a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden’s alleged crimes to ensure the integrity of the investigation free of influence from Hunter’s Dad, Joe. In September last year 34 Senate Republicans went one step further, requesting that specifically Trump-appointed US Attorney David Weiss be appointed as special counsel, as this would avoid “any appearance of impropriety” and “go a long way in restoring faith in our governmental institutions”. Well, last week, Merrick Garland gave them exactly what they wanted, appointing David Weiss as special counsel in the investigation into Hunter Biden. And of course, since yelling about Hunter’s many heinous crimes won’t be as much fun if someone looks into them and says there weren’t any, the exact same Republicans who signed that letter are now acting like this is some kind of Deep State plot in which sleepy useless dementia-ridden Joe Biden has once again tricked them into demanding exactly what he wanted all along. Tim Scott said Weiss’s appointment “raises further questions about the independence of Biden’s DOJ.” Marsha Blackburn tweeted “Merrick Garland appointed David Weiss as special counsel because he knows Weiss will protect Hunter”, and Ted Cruz told Maria Bartiromo “This appointment is camouflage, and it’s cover-up. I think it’s disgraceful”. All three signed the letter requesting Weiss be appointed less than a year ago.

Mark: We all know the value of a good review – we’ll be soliciting those unashamedly from you again at the end of the show – and we all know the humour involved in those careful cherry-picking of reviews we see adorning theatre and film posters. But when the reviewers themselves take to social media demanding not only that their reviews be taken with fistfuls of pinches of salt, but with demands that the publisher should retract them, and going to the extent to link to their original reviews, you know we must be talking about Jordan (god I didn’t know he could even write) Peterson’s Penguin paperback edition of his philosophical tractatus – Beyond Order. Whilst Suzanne Moore of the Telegraph noticed the book cover’s quote only read “Wisdom combined with good advice” when her actual quote was “Hokey wisdom combined with good advice”,The Times’ reviewer James Marriott pointed out that the blurb included his review calling the book “A philosophy of the meaning of life dot dot dot the most lucid and touching prose Peterson has ever written.” actually missed out the full sentence; “A philosophy of the meaning of life which is bonkers” Adding when he saw that edit “My review of this mad book was probably the most negative thing I have ever written”. Speaking of which; Chadwick Moore’s biography of hard-done-by victim-of-a-conspiracy-that-Dominion-made-demands-about-his-continued-employment-as-part-of-the-settlement-deal-from-Fox entitled simply Tucker has made no inroads to any bestseller list at all; selling just 3,227 hardcover copies. This places it at Number 57 on Amazon’s biography list — just behind the graphic novel Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, which came out in 2004 at no 52, and the Audible version of presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy’s 2021 book Woke, Inc at no. 53. The Kindle version of Tucker didn’t even break the top 100. The only meaningful review of the veracity of the content came from Dominion themselves who said: “As the Fox principals who negotiated the settlement well know, Dominion made no demands about Tucker Carlson’s employment orally or in writing. Any claims otherwise are categorically false and a thinly veiled effort to further damage Dominion. Fox should take every effort to stop these lies immediately.” I for one have a sneaky feeling which book we’ll be reading next for our Patrons!

Jim: Oh God, no. A story about an ignorant Karen who is a trustee of a school district in Texas could be seen as depressing, infuriating or exactly the kind of thing we expect, but I prefer to look at the positive, that some of her fellow trustees are awesome fucking heroes. The Conroe Independent School District has a probably quite reasonable policy against political displays in classrooms which are not related to the curriculum. In their latest meeting, trustee Melissa Dungan said she wanted that policy to go further because, she claimed, a number of parents had reached out to her about supposed displays of personal ideologies in classrooms. Melissa sadly said “I wish I was shocked by each of the examples that were shared with me, however, I am aware these trends have been happening for many years” You’re probably wondering what kinds of displays of personal ideologies she’s talking about. Her fellow trustees were curious and asked for examples, and so Melissa, who looks exactly like you’re picturing her right now, gave one, which I can only assume she made up on the spot. She cited a first grade student whose parent claimed they were so upset by a poster showing hands of people of different races with a message about inclusivity, that they transferred classrooms. Awesome co-trustee Stacey Chase asked “Just so I understand, you are seriously suggesting that you find objectionable, a poster indicating that all are included?” and possibly even awesomer co-trustee Datren Williams asked Melissa if bible verses also violated the policy, and whether they should be removed. Melissa, according to the ABC13 report, ‘struggled to respond’.

Mark: Remember Nadine Dorries – Mad Nad – who said she’d resign her seat after her name was taken off Boris Johnson’s peerage/knighthoods etc resignation dishonours list, weee-eelll she’s hedged her bets so long – still not resigned – so long that 75,000 people have signed an online 38 Degrees petition urging her to do so. A town council in her constituency has demanded she step down, and even Rishi has said he believes her constituents are not being properly represented. He hasn’t yet expressed “full confidence” in her yet so, I don’t know, she may well last for another 10 weeks. Meanwhile her “television” “career” on GBNews has come under scrutiny from the parliamentary ethics committee given that it is a second job and all second jobs are to be vetted for possible conflicts of interest, and hers wasn’t and it is! Bullet-headed elected-member-of-parliament-thug and actual deputy chair of the entire Conservative Party; ‘30p Lee’ Anderson got so vexed with the fact that since the UK left the EU, the EU agreement about returning refugees/migrants/asylum seekers to the EU country from which they’ve travelled to another EU country of course no longer applies to Britain, that, in talking about shutting asylum seekers up on large container-based floating barges/prison ships, said “if they don’t like it, they can fuck off back to France.” Which they can’t do cos Brexit, and what the fuck is an actual elected actual member of actual parliament doing saying that kind of thing out loud on television! And some commentators in the Tory party are worried that if things continue like this they might be viewed as the Nasty Party again – tsk! might be!? MIGHT BE!? Never let it be said that they are out of touch hey!!

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

Mark: If you think we’ve used a fallacy ourselves, let us know, and if you’ve had a good time please give us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts or simply tell one other person, in person, about how much they’d like our podcast. And you can support the show at patreon.com/ftrump, just like our newest Patron, James Lockwood; our Straw Man level Patrons, Laura Tomsick, Renee Z, Schmootz, Mark Reiche and Amber R. Buchanan (who told us when we met her at QED we can just call her Amber); and our True Scotsman level Patrons, Steven Bickel, Janet Yuetter, Kaz Toohey, Andrew Hauck, and our top Patron… Loren!

Jim: You can connect with those awesome people, as well as us and other listeners in the facebook group at http://facebook.com/groups/fallacioustrump

Mark: All music is by The Outbursts and was used with permission. So until next time on Fallacious Trump we’ll leave the last word … to the Donald!

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