Schrödinger’s Idiot – FT#142

05 Feb Schrödinger’s Idiot – FT#142

Show Notes

The Schrödinger’s Idiot fallacy occurs when someone says something ignorant, bigoted or just wrong, and later claims it was a joke when they are criticized for it.

Trump

We started out by discussing this clip of Trump lying about asking Russia to hack Hillary’s emails:

And then we looked at this clip of Trump lying about suggesting injecting disinfectant:

Finally, we talked about this clip of Trump lying about mistaking Biden for Obama:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about Lee Anderson telling a joke that offended people from Bradford:

And he followed that up by talking about Avanti West Coast’s jokey slideshow about performance related bonuses, and the fallout afterwards:

I was horrified to learn this week that Avanti West Coast bosses have been bragging about receiving “free money” from the Government.

Too often I hear of the poor service that my constituents experience on Avanti trains.

Is this really value for money? pic.twitter.com/43Tx4WqYGa

— Ashley Dalton MP (@AshleyDalton_MP) January 18, 2024

Fallacy in the Wild

In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from Peep Show:

Then we discussed this clip from Kevin Can Fuck Himself:

We followed that with this clip from The Simpsons:

And we finished by talking about this clip of Piers Morgan interviewing Andrew Tate:

 

Fake News

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

1. We have become a drug infested, crime ridden nation, which is incapable of solving even the swollest, smallest problem. The simplest of problems we can no longer solve. We can’t do anything. We are an institute and a powerful death penalty. We will put this on.
2. Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. I’ll get it done fast. I know them both, and we will restore on this planet peace through Earth. I am the only candidate who can make this promise to you.
3. We had a perfect border. We were just two weeks from finishing the whole wall, and it was the strongest border we’ve ever had. I think it was probably the strongest border of any country in history. But with the Democrats we are about. They didn’t. And they took it down and sold it.

Mark got it right AGAIN this week (that’s twelve games in a row!), and is on 53%!

 

$83.3 million is not a logical fallacy

We talked about the huge verdict in the civil defamation trial between Trump and E Jean Carroll

 

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

• Florida Governor and definitely human man, honest, Ron DeSantis bailed on his always pointless attempt to be the Republican Nominee, dropping out before the New Hampshire Primary last month, leaving Nikki Haley to give a victory speech after coming second in what is now a two horse race if you ignore the fact that one of the horses doesn’t stand a chance even though the other horse is a cognitively impaired, nearly bankrupt criminal who also happens to be a racist. Sorry, rapist. Well, both really. Meanwhile, Biden skipped the primary entirely, refusing to campaign in the state and not even having his name on the ballot, since the DNC decided to move New Hampshire down the schedule to make the far more diverse state of South Carolina the first official Democratic Primary of the year. The New Hampshire Democratic Party did it anyway because they really like the attention and as a result, New Hampshire’s delegates won’t count when it comes to choosing the candidate at the Democratic National Convention in August. Of course, Biden won anyway because 64% of voters wrote his name in rather than throw away their vote on nobodies like Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. The turnout might have been suppressed slightly by a fake robocall campaign using an AI generated Biden impression telling registered Democrat voters “save your vote for the November election. Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.” The attorney general’s office is investigating the origin of the calls, which both Trump’s campaign and Democrat rival Dean Phillips’ campaign have denied any part in. Whoever it was committed a felony in order to get fewer people to vote for Biden in a primary which won’t make any difference to who gets to be the nominee. They should have saved their crimes for the general election in November when they could have actually made a difference.
• In a blatant attempt to criminalize and erase the trans community of West Virginia leading state organizers recently released 9 anti-trans bills. Senate Bill 194 filed by Senators Mike Azinger, Laura Chapman, and Chandler Swope (Yeees Republicans) is the most dangerous of the lot; one section defines being transgender as “sexual deviation” and places it alongside “pedophilia, exhibitionism, masochism, sadomasochism, fetishism,” and more. Another defines minors for the purposes of this bill as being anyone under 21 years of age, expanding the definition to include transgender adults. The bill then would ban gender affirming care for anyone under this age while also banning the usage of state funds for gender affirming care. The bill mandates that all mental health care professionals would be prohibited from “exacerbating gender dysphoria” in those under 21 years of age by “continuing such condition, delusion, or disorder with no intent of cure or cure-pursuing recovery.” Therapists would be mandated to “cure” gender dysphoria, as affirming their transgender patients would be considered “continuing such condition, delusion, or disorder. This provision would mandate that therapists and social workers in the state become conversion therapists, a practice currently banned in 27 states according to the Movement Advancement Project. Of course there’s no ‘cure’ for being transgender just like there’s no cure for being CIS or White or Heterosexual – let’s hope there’s a cure for being Republican, and of course conversion therapy has been shown to lead to increased suicides as it has always done whether in secular or religious settings. But perhaps that’s the point  – Bill 195 attempts to define being transgender as obscene and would bar “transgender exposure, performances, or display” to any minor. This could have the effect of barring transgender people from being able to exist in public, as it would be difficult to avoid being seen by a minor. Of course with Rep Governor Jim Justice pivoting for his Senate run even GOP members squeamish about such draconian legislated inhumanity may fall in line! Country Road don’t you dare take me there – cos West Virginia is a place no human should ever want to belong after this!
• After Nikki Haley’s strong second place showing in New Hampshire, Trump decided the best thing to do would be to effectively tell her supporters to fuck off. He lashed out in a late night Truth Social post, specifically targeting Haley’s donors, saying “Anybody that makes a ‘contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them and will not accept them.” Anti-Trump Republicans immediately started donating to Haley’s campaign and posting how delighted they were to be banned from his cult. The following week Trump’s Senior Campaign Advisor Susan Wiles was keen to tell a roomful of Republican mega donors that he didn’t really mean it, because in fact, the campaign is running dangerously low on money thanks to spending so much of it on Trump’s legal fees. According to Politico, Trump’s web of political action committees spent over $50 million of donor funds on legal expenses during 2023, with other outgoings bringing their total spend for the year to roughly $210 million, or $10 million more than they raised during that period. The only reason they have any money left is thanks to strong fundraising in previous years, but I don’t know if we’ve mentioned it, but this is an election year, and those tend to be some of the more expensive ones for campaigns. And I don’t see Trump’s legal costs dropping this year, even if he chooses more random shitty lawyers like Alina Habba. So it looks like we’ll be getting some campaign ads made by whoever Trump can find on Fiverr later in the year. 
• In a delicious Carry On movie kind of way, the dodgy British tradition of saucy seaside postcards which led to the Women’s Institute and the Fire Service creating cheeky calendars to raise money has crossed the pond. I’m surprised it’s caused ructions in the GOP given the apparent love by Americans of Benny Hill. Ultra Right Beer, that new anti-Bud Light-wokeness Beer brand, has done the thing that advocates of all right-thinking Burgers, Titties and Beer enthusiasts always want for Christmas and created a calendar. But not a naughty, cheeky, exploitative Benny Hill one you understand, a straight down the right “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America 2024 Calendar” containing photos of “the most beautiful conservative women in America” in various sexy poses. Some, like anti-trans swimmer Riley Gaines and writer Ashley St. Clair, are wearing revealing outfits; others, like former House candidate Kim Klacik, are fully clothed. No one is naked. But even though it’s a right kind of calendar for right kind of people, some prominent social conservatives started decrying the calendar in late December as (among other things) “demonic.” The basic complaint is that the calendar is pandering to married men’s sinful lust, debasing conservative women, and making conservatives seem like hypocrites when they complain about leftist immorality – which I suspect is the worst sin of all! “This is the problem with conservatives who think they can act just like the secular world,” writes Jenna Ellis, one of Donald Trump’s attorneys during the 2020 election fight. “If conservatives aren’t morally grounded Christians, what are we even ‘conserving’?” Oddly other conservatives, led by several of the women who posed in it, defended the calendar — decrying their critics as nosy puritans who exemplify the right’s inability to connect with ordinary people. An observation somewhat upheld by the complete furore that’s exploded across the right wing media online and off. Well as long as they’re arguing about that at least they’re not spending time trying to get their man back in the White House and like, govern the country or nothing – oh no wait!
• A HarrisX poll this week found that immigration has overtaken inflation as the most pressing concern for voters, thanks largely no doubt to the constant barrage of fear mongering from right wing media and Republican politicians about how Biden’s open borders are destroying the country with crime and drugs and human trafficking and “takin’ our jobs”, etc. House Republicans are even trying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas, accusing him of wilfully and systemically failing to secure the border, despite that being neither a high crime nor a misdemeanor. Months ago, the GOP insisted that tougher enforcement measures are needed, and proposed automatically shutting the border when it’s overwhelmed by a large volume of incoming migrants. After a lot of negotiation a border package was drawn up which fulfils those criteria, and President Biden has said he’ll sign it and immediately implement those measures if it reaches his desk. So of course, Republicans are now voting against it. Why? Because it’s an election year and they don’t want to do anything that might help Biden. Which, to be clear, is basically anything that would be good for the country. If the American people would benefit from it, the GOP is against it in case people give Biden some credit. But if they can keep the border crisis narrative going by actively sabotaging any attempt to control it, that’s a win. I know it might seem early to say this, but please don’t forget to vote. 
• Deep in the heart of Texas – well, down at the bottom Gov. Greg Abbott is fighting the Supreme Court over whether he’s able to do what he pleases to endanger the lives of possible border crossers, drowning children and deploying razor wire, but even this isn’t enough for the Maga contingent who basically want to start the Civil War again and defy Federal ruling with online organisers calling themselves ”Take Our Border Back” promising to bring ”over 700,000” semi trucks from across the United States and Canada to three locations along the southern border so they can fight the “illegal invasion.”  As a veteran of a country intent on taking back control of its borders I can tell you it doesn’t live up to the promise of a snappy shoutable slogan. Despite the potential effectiveness of the 9,545 miles of 16-wheelers that would result lined end to end across the entire US-Mexico border five times over, like Trump’s somewhat limp attempt, very few semis actually turned up. As the convoy roared for the border cities of: Eagle Pass, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; and San Ysidro, California only about 20 had arrived – that’s about 9,544.5 miles shorter than planned. Where the 700,000 number came from, who knows, given that it represents about 1 in 6 of all trucks on the road like delivering stuff for companies to earn money sending things to people and factories. Perhaps “God’s Army” as the convoy now calls itself made up the number to raise the fists of the right-wing media and to plunge the hands into the donating pockets of the gullible and armchair patriots too afraid to turn up themselves in case the whole thing was an FBI/Antifa/whatever sting! It worked insofar as the organisers have raised $138,000. That’s enough to put one tank of gas in about 300 semis … if they had 300 semis actually participating cos yeah the convoy suffers a distinct shortage of everything that would make it a convoy. Organisers have even changed their minds about actually going near the area of the actual dispute between Abbott and the Border Patrol. Instead, they seem to be targeting the village of Quemado, Texas. Population: 71. It does look like there’s a good Mexican restaurant in town with a big parking lot. Insert another joke here about impotence and semis.
• It’s taken far too long, but some parts of the GOP at least have finally admitted that there are more than two genders. A Super PAC supporting Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy sent out a survey testing messages they might use to attack his likely GOP primary opponent, Matt Rosendale. I want to be very clear – there is nobody to root for in this story – both candidates are anti-abortion pieces of shit, but the interesting part is that in the survey they collected some demographic data, with one question asking “What is your gender?”, and three multiple choice options.  Sure, three might still be pretty basic, but remember, this is the GOP, so even if those options were male, female, and neither, it could charitably be called progress. But they’re not. Here are the three options: Male. Female – Homemaker, and Female – Working Woman. If you’re wondering “What the fuck?” well, I can’t really blame you, but as Jezebel’s Kady Ruth Ashcraft noted, the options might as well read, “Female, Good kind” or “Female, Bad kind.” Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers said “I couldn’t imagine a reputable polling agency doing it that way…they’re not actually trying to get information, they’re trying to push information. It’s a way to communicate something – and it’s pretty overt.” Of course, what it seems to be communicating most effectively is that Tim Sheehy is a misogynistic dickwad, but the R in parentheses after his name already had that covered. 
• Another flaccid week too in British Politics – Stormont is back – the power sharing executive that governs Northern Ireland from the Stormont parliament buildings in Belfast is set to reconvene after 2 years of not convening after rebelling over the EU and the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland Border deal. Suddenly things seem to have changed but they’re pretty much the same. They’ve got the frictionless EU access deal that Rishi trumpeted last year, but it could be the £3.3bn that had been withheld cos no Stormont might disappear with the Tories at the next election. Oddly in the same week the promised Post-Brexit frictionless trade border between the rest of England and Europe got a whole lot of friction. The trade agreement we had as part of the single market meant that goods travelling within the EU would not need to be checked at the borders cos there were no borders according to the single market. Now there are, cos stupidly Boris thought we should ditch that even though it was offered by the EU. Tory MP and stupid brexiteer (are there any other kind?) Andrea Leadsom says the increased import times and costs to importers and consequent delays in getting, and shortages of, food from Europe are a small price to pay for getting back our sovereignty – whatever the fuck that means. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt says ah er we might not be able to cut taxes before the election after all and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves says Labour won’t cap bankers bonuses when they get back in after all. Meanwhile, sacked Tory MP Sir Simon Clarke, top ally of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, called for Rishi to be sacked – to be fair with allies like that he should know a thing or two. Nobody joined his coup and he later said “I was acting alone” in a very gun-held-to-his-back-out-of-shot kind of way. Kemi Badenoch, Tory Business secretary has told party rebels to stop ‘stirring’ and back the PM but she turns out to be in a Whatsapp group along with Michael Gove called Evil Plotters and is/isn’t sorry/not sorry throwing/not throwing her hat in the ring to be the next PM. Of course she’s characterised the whole thing as a joke, of course she has, its all a fucking joke hahahahahaha bwaahaahaahaah sob sob* sob*

 

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:

 Schrödinger’s Idiot – FT#142 Transcript

Jim: Hello, and welcome to Fallacious Trump, the podcast where we use the insane ramblings of the evangelical’s favorite rapist 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 looking at this week is Schrödinger’s idiot, also known as Schrödinger’s Douchebag I like the way you cleaned it up somewhat. Sure.

Jim: Well, Schrödinger’s Douchebag is probably the more common thing you’ll see on the Internet for this, but Apple podcasts doesn’t like swear words in episode titles, so I thought probably safe to call the episode Schrödinger’s idiot, but likely you’ll see Schrödinger’s Douchebag on the Internet. And, this was actually suggested by a patron, Will. thanks very much, Will, for that. But it is one I’ve had in mind for a while.

Mark: Right.

Jim: But it’s not one you’ll probably find in lists of fallacies. And that’s kind of why it’s taken me a while to end up doing it, because I was thinking it’s not really a new one, because the term exists. The term has been already coined by other people. It’s just they’re not really identifying it as a fallacy. But I think it is a fallacy.

Mark: Oh, yeah. Well, it’s used as if we kind of loosely define using a fallacy to come up with a bad or invalid argument.

Jim: Well, yeah, because, I mean, I think it’s not very dissimilar to how moving the goalposts, for example, is used and various other rhetorical devices. And essentially, what Schrödinger’s Douchebag is, is when someone says a thing, either makes a claim or an argument, or makes a statement, which is ignorant, bigoted, or just plain wrong, and then when they’re criticized for it or called out on it, they will claim that they were just joking, that they weren’t serious when they said it. And so, obviously, where the Schrödinger thing comes in is that the statement is simultaneously serious and jokey until someone says, that’s not cool, man. Don’t say that. And then it becomes a joke, one or the other.

Mark: Yes, exactly. Yes. It requires the observer. Yeah, quite. In this case, an observer who looks at something and points it out changes the result of the experiment. Yes. It’s unlike Schrödinger’s cat, insofar as that was a thought experiment.

Jim: This is a real thing that we can observe.

Mark: yes, exactly. And it involves thought and this probably is done without thought Yeah.

Jim: So our, first Trump example comes from the whole Russia if you’re listening thing, where he asked, essentially, Russia to hack Hillary’s emails.

Donald Trump: Remember this thing? Russia, if you’re listening. Remember it was a big thing in front of 25,000 people. Russia, it was all said in jest. And they cut it off right at the end so that you don’t see the laughter, the joke. And they said, he asked for help. Right. Russia, if you’re listening, very famous. They cut that thing so quick at the end because they didn’t want to hear the laughter in the place. And me laughing, it was just boom. These are really dishonest people.

Jim: Yeah. So the media dishonestly framed in Trump’s telling his thing that he said to, a, rally of 25,000 people. He said, Russia, if you’re listening. And it was clearly a joke because immediately after he laughed and everybody else laughed, but the media dishonestly cut it immediately after.

Mark: He’d have to do it quick. People laughing.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: Is quite loud.

Jim: So here’s him actually saying it, which wasn’t in a rally at all. It was in a press conference in Doral, his golf club in Florida.

Donald Trump: Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That’ll be next. Yes, sir.

Jim: Then, yes, sir. moved on to the next question. No laughter from him or any of the journalists in the room, because it wasn’t a joke.

Mark: No. Cut. Yes. They didn’t all go, ha. They took him at his word.

Jim: Yeah. And he wasn’t saying it in a jokey way at all.

Mark: No.

Jim: In fact, later on in the press conference, he was asked by Erin Burnett, I think, are you saying that you want the Russians to hack Hillary? Essentially. I can’t remember the exact question she asked, but he said, they may already have her, emails. I hope they do. he was doubling down on it very much, and it wasn’t until the next day, when people were saying, look, this is not cool. He was saying, oh, I was being sarcastic, quite obviously. And then it morphed into this story of a thing that happened at a rally, and everyone was falling about laughing because it was so clearly a joke.

Mark: Given that much of his delivery is trying to frame a joke, he does a lot of that. We’ve talked about him being the worst stand up comic in the world in that he kind of flags the joke, and then there isn’t a joke in the sentence, so he kind of tries to make it funny. He didn’t even try with that then? No. so it wasn’t obvious.

Jim: So our second example is from the whole Covid injecting disinfectant thing. And when he was asked about it, this was how he framed it.

Donald Trump: And I was asking the question of the gentleman who was there yesterday, Bill, because when they say that something will last three or 4 hours or 6 hours, but if the sun is out, or if they use disinfectant, it goes away in less than a minute. Did you hear about this yesterday? But I was asking a sarcastic and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room, about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it, and it would kill it on the hands, and that would make things much better. That was done in the form of a sarcastic question to the reporters.

Jim: It was done in the form of a sarcastic question to reporters, asking the scientist if disinfectant on the inside of bodies would also kill Covid.

Mark: So, I’m looking for a big theatrical wink to the audience almost, or a sarcastic tone of voice.

Jim: Yeah, you’d expect that when we play that, it would be obvious that he’s not being serious.

Mark: Yeah.

Donald Trump: Supposing we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light. And I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or, in some other way. And I think you said, you’re going to test that, too. Sounds interesting. Right. And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute, 1 minute. And is there a way we can do something like that? by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see, it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number in the lungs. So it’d be interesting to check that. So that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with. But it sounds interesting to me.

Jim: I didn’t get the sense he was joking at all.

Mark: No. Or asking a question of the journalists.

Jim: No, he’s not speaking to the reporters. He’s speaking directly to the scientist who’s just finished speaking. Trump is relaying a conversation they had before the press conference. He’s talking about, here’s some ideas I came up with. And we talked about it, didn’t we? And you said, you’re going to look into it.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And the guy is going, fucking hell. I said that, like, in the back when I wasn’t in front of cameras. I’m not really going to look into it. Jesus, it’s insane. But when the president says, what about this? I go, yes.

Mark: Obviously, medical doctors, to look at it, not just clown doctors. Yes. in fact, if we were to tune into the pre press conference conversation, we would hear him sarcastically saying, oh, yeah, that’s a good idea.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: But when everybody, of course, we’ll look at that.

Jim: what kind of fucking stupid idea is this that Trump is now talking about the next day? He’s going, I was being sarcastic. I was asking, I framed it in the form of a sarcastic question to reporters, like you do.

Mark: Yeah. What if we took a light and shone it out of the body or got it in the body, if you know what I mean?

Jim: Somehow he said, at another point, he asked it sarcastically to reporters to see what would happen. He said that was his motivation for it. because when you’re doing a press conference about a deadly pandemic, you want to just mess around with the reporters a bit, don’t you? Just kind of check whether they’ll print something that’s obviously false.

Mark: You want to keep it a bit light, don’t you? Yeah.

Jim: That’s the time for joking around, if ever there was one.

Mark: Yeah. Yes. When you’re talking about the increased tens of thousands of deaths. Yeah. That’s the moment to do it. We’re all for gallows humor. If only we could identify it as being humor by somehow the comic flagging. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And, recently he’s claimed that when he sometimes says Obama instead of Biden, he’s doing that deliberately. That’s sarcasm.

Mark: Okay.

Donald Trump: And then I’ll say, our real president is Barack Hussein Obama. They’ll say, he doesn’t know who the president is. He thinks it’s Barack Hussein. No, I’m being sarcastic.

Jim: So this is in response to the DeSantis war room, putting out a compilation of clips of him being in cognitive decline. He is forgetting who he’s talking about at any given point, what he’s saying.

Mark: What he said before.

Jim: Yeah, here are some of those clips.

Donald Trump: As you know, crooked Joe Biden and the radical left thugs, who have weaponized law enforcement to arrest their leading political opponent and leading by a lot, including Obama. I’ll tell you what. You take a look at Obama and take a look at some of the things that he’s done. This is the same thing. The country is very divided. And we did with Obama. We won an election that everyone said couldn’t be won. We beat Hillary Clinton. We built almost 500 miles of wall. Even the Obama administration says it in their stats. And I’m really shocked that the Obama administration can be out there saying, I hope they don’t attack from the north. Brian. It’s all coming through Iran and Obama wants to, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Fauci became big in the Bush administration. it’s almost the same thing in the Biden administration.

Jim: So that last one, he fucks up twice because he means the Obama administration in that one. So he says, oh, Bush, oh, I mean, Biden, it’s the same thing.

Mark: It’s the same thing. One’s a Republican, sure. One’s not. Yeah, they’re white men. Of course it’s exactly the same. Yeah.

Jim: But all that is explained away by the fact that he’s actually, what he’s secretly saying is that Obama is running it all behind the scenes. You see,

Mark: He’s letting us.

Jim: Not that he doesn’t know what he’s saying from 1 minute to the next.

Mark: If only Q was still around, he’d put everyone right if he wasn’t pursuing his martial arts opera career.

Boris Johnson: And now is the time, I think, for Mark’s British politics corner.

Mark: He featured large in the last episode, but where would we be without Lee Anderson, who’s possibly apart, from Trump? Maybe the worst example of an elected representative in power, who ought to be a bit mindful of what he says, what with his fuck off back to France statement that he made to asylum seekers. If they don’t like the British government’s approach to immigration, he’s also the MP most likely to dismiss all concerns as a joke. And here he is last October at a Tory conference, fringe event in Manchester, responding when asked by Anand Menon about the impact of canceling HS2 and what the impact that would have on local rail services like those between Leeds and Bradford

Anand Menon: wasn’t necessarily to get you from Leeds to London quicker.

Lee Anderson: I never said that Anand, never said that.

Anand Menon: It was to free up track so that you could get from Bradford to Leeds quicker than you can now, so that you had more efficient local services as well as national.

Lee Anderson: Is anybody from Bradford in here? Would you want to get there quicker?

Anand Menon: You want to get to Leeds quickly.

Lee Anderson: That’ll be on front at Guardian tomorrow, by the way.

Mark: And he knows because his body language actually gives it away. Once he’s said it, he looks left and right, kind of goes, puts his hand over his mouth, thinking, I shouldn’t have done that, and sets up the Guardian as the people that will bring him down. So that was released on TikTok. And if 1296 comments on TikTok are indicative of the response, Anderson’s comment attracted intense criticism, including from a number of Bradford residents like David Hockney and Zane Malik and Gareth Gates. Philip Davis, another Conservative, of course, MP for Shipley, in a massive overcompensatory justification, said, a lot. He said things like, Mr. Anderson’s comment was a light hearted joke and it was not serious or intended to be taken at face value. As a proud Yorkshireman, I often make disparaging remarks about Lancashire. They’re not serious or intended to be taken at face value. I can only presume that desperate Labour councillors are seizing on this to take away attention from their chronic mismanagement of the district. It wouldn’t work. I’m pretty sure that most of my constituents and people across the district have a sense of humour and understand a joke when they hear one. And I’m pretty sure we can take a joke at our own expense. If you are confident in yourself, then you can take a joke at your own expense. I went to many a Ken Dodd show in Bradford where he would poke fun at Bradford and people laughed. They didn’t take it literally. What is the matter with people nowadays? People might also realize that HS2 is never coming to Bradford anyway. So Lee’s remark were never meant seriously. I, sometimes despair how pathetic political discourse has come when people try to take offense at something clearly intended as a light hearted joke. It’s like when you’ve done something wrong and somebody’s taking offense, so you overcompensate and you try and you just go on. He’s dug a deeper and deeper hole. Should have had him kind of fading into the distance as he digs that hole and said, well, he’s never even coming to Bradford. Which wasn’t the point being made at the first place. It actually would quite rightly, as Anand points out, it would free up the train traffic such that it would therefore be quicker to get from Leeds to Bradford.

Jim: Yeah. I think this is a loose example of the fallacy that we’ve just decided as a fallacy. But inasmuch as I don’t think he was being serious, what he did was he told a joke that is offensive to some people and then said You can’t take a joke. It’s just a joke. And so he’s kind of defending the fact that it’s okay to offend people if it’s a bit funny. Yeah, it wasn’t especially offensive, but it’s a little bit having your cake and eating it in a way, rather than saying something serious. Something that he said seriously was actually just a joke. It’s fine. He is arguing it’s fine, but it was a joke at the time. I think, one of the things that this fallacy does is we were talking last time about scapegoating, blame shifting essentially. and one of the things that this does is it shifts the blame from the person who is being criticized to the listener. Yes, it says, ah, I said a thing, you’re taking it seriously. But it wasn’t serious. I was being funny. You’re too stupid to understand how funny I am. It’s your problem. You’re the one with the problem. I’m fine. So in that way, I think he is basically saying, oh, you’re taking it too seriously, you’re taking it personally. And it’s not.

Mark: And the thing is that Philip Davis mentions Ken Dodd, who was never elected as a representative standing up for the. Interests of thousands,

Jim: the silliest of all comedians.

Mark: Yeah, he was still touring in his ninety s and he was a Liverpuddly and end of the peer comedian, famous in the. Hung around with the beatles. All that came from Liverpool. He was part of that Merseyside wave of, artistic output. And yeah, he did take, he didn’t actually might have taken the piss out of Bradford. Or the only thing I could find about him saying about Bradford was that you could tell a joke in Bradford and it wouldn’t land in Liverpool.

Jim: Right. That’s just saying they have different senses of humour

Mark: Exactly.

Jim: In those days, people told a lot of jokes about things that these days you would be ill advised…

Mark: Yes, that’s what Philip Davis is using in order to kind of compound the stupidity of the people that are taking offense at it. He’s saying, well, obviously because he’s a Tory MP, he doesn’t give a shit about how the canceling of HS2 and also taking the piss out of your own voters. He doesn’t care how it would reflect badly on the Tory party and doom them to oblivion in the next general election. But what he’s using it as a tool to stoke the culture wars and alludes to wokeness. And he’s using that argument, oh, you can’t say anything these days. You get arrested and thrown in jail just for saying English. He’s entirering all his constituents who might vote for him, who previously voted Labour because he’s one of the red wall, mps that all swung over to the Conservatives during the last general election because they all fell for the blame on Europe for their, being underserved by the Tory government for yonks and yonks. so they just kind of, we’ll get. We’ll get out of Europe and everything will be he. Yet he tars all of those people that got him into office with the same lip tarred lefty brush that he’s saying, and Leanne says, oh, yeah, that’ll be all over the Guardian. And it’s. And it’s the tofu eating, yogurt knitting stuff. So if you take offense at the slightest thing, which is, resonant of those really dodgy jokes that were done prior to when things got called, alternative comedy. in the 70s, when all of the, Rick Mayall and Lenny Henry and all of those British comics started telling jokes and making, hilarious scenarios that didn’t involve your mother in law or the fellow next door who’s got a different color skin from you.

Jim: Yeah, it’s kind of amazing that alternative comedy was essentially just not aggressively misogynistic or racist comedy. that was the mainstream alternative comedy was the stuff that didn’t do.

Mark: Yeah. And you won’t be surprised to learn that, like Lee Anderson, Philip Davis also has a show on that right wing Gammon Fest TV, GB News, which is.

Jim: the working men’s club of television.

Mark: It is. It’s the wheel tappers and shunters. Yeah, working men’s club. yeah. It’s all those horrible fat blokes that lent on things and said, my mother. Take my mother in law, please. Yeah. So the second example, sticking with trains and Lancashire as well. And actually, I think this is, if you think that was a loose version of the fallacy, this is a fallacy working the other way around, perhaps. So stick with it. I’ll explain. So we’ll start with the Department of Transport. Last September, renewed Avanti West Coast’s operating contract for running the railways for up to nine years with, Transport secretary Mark Harper. Saying it was back on track following major disruption. But two months later, transport for the north, which is a devolved statutory body to look after the quality of transportation, asked the transport secretary to conduct a review into their operation because they reduced the number of services immediately after getting the contract, over the Christmas period. And on the 15 January this year, Navarro Media revealed a leaked PowerPoint slideshow from Avanti West coast, who had that franchise to run the railway from London up the west coast to Manchester and Scotland. And it was a somewhat jocular and levitous presentation at an all managers meeting on the 10 January. And it’s titled roll up, roll up. Get your free money here. And it details that the treasury, via the Department for Transport client, ask us to provide resources to deliver high level values, high quality levels of customer services. They support us in the delivery of new assets and customer service improvements, projects and initiatives. They ask us to find good quality maintenance and third party supplier contracts. But wait, the slides go on to mockingly describe how advantage West coast is given performance based bonuses by the treasury for achieving a less than perfect service. But wait, do they want 100% compliance? Question mark. No, exclamation mark. Seven, eight or nine out of ten is asked across the different areas of our customer experience portfolio. Dot, dot, dot, dot. And here’s the fantastic thing, exclamation point. If we achieve these figures, they pay us some more money, which is ours to keep in the form of performance based free. Exclamation point. Exclamation point. Sound too good to be true and terabang? Well, on this occasion it isn’t. It’s the absolute truth. So basically, they’re presenting to the managers of Avanti west coast that whereas previous train operating companies were fined for their failures to comply with the standards, they will now be rewarded for meeting their targets.

Jim: Well, yeah, But the targets aren’t even high targets. Ten out of ten isn’t even one of the options.

Mark: No.

Jim: Seven, eight or nine out of ten. They don’t present the possibility of getting a ten out of ten. And what might happen in that?

Mark: Running it according to the terms of the franchise. Yeah, we’re going to pay you money to run the service and then we’re going to give you performance related bonuses for running the service at less than an optimum level.

Jim: Yeah. If you achieve 70% of your goal, extra money for you, free money.

Mark: So Labour MP for Chester, Samantha Dixon, wrote to the managing director, Andy Mellers, saying, the fact that they think this is a joke is a serious affront to those. I represent seeking to use your services. And on January 18, the Labour MP for West Lancashire, Ashley Dalton, raised this question in the House of parliament.

Ashey Dalton, MP: Mr. Speaker, it emerged this week that Avanti west Coast bosses were recently caught giving PowerPoint presentations, bragging about receiving free money from the government. Is this value for money?

Oliver Dowden, MP: Well, I’m not aware of these allegations, but they sound very concerning and I’m very happy to look into them on behalf of the honourable lady.

Mark: So notice how Oliver Dowden, there speaking, who’s the deputy prime minister, says he’s unaware of the allegations. I’m not sure what alligators. Show me the allegators. But he’s not unaware of. He doesn’t say, I’m unaware of the way in which government policy gives free money to failing rail franchises, which would. Imply that he’s aware of that, given that It’s a government policy. Yeah. And at the Greater Manchester combined authority meeting on January 24, Andy Burnham, who’s the Manchester city mayor, asked Andy Mellers directly about it.

Andy Burnham: The slide presentation that talked about things being too good to be true and free money. If somebody’s preparing slides for a meeting, sure, it’s very easy to find out who gave the instruction for those slides to be presented. But doesn’t it, the fact that slides can be presented for a meeting with that type of language, doesn’t that say it’s more than one individual making unacceptable comments? Isn’t there a problem with the culture inside your company that slides of that kind can be presented to a meeting where a number of people might be present?

Andy Mellors: As I said, we are undertaking an investigation into what went on there in terms of the adequacy of the processes and controls in the production of that material. We did apologize that language was unacceptable and the investigation is currently in progress. But I’ll reiterate that the service quality regime is a part of the national rail contract. It is designed as an independent audit regime to drive up standards.

Andy Burnham: But don’t the slides reveal the truth that you’re more interested in making money than providing the service to our residents?

Andy Mellors: No, we are absolutely resolute in the need to deliver a good experience for our customers.

Mark: So I think this is still the fallacy, but it’s a reverse one. They’ve made a joke and they’ve been caught out making a joke, so now they’re having to backtrack and say, oh, no, we were serious. So they’re not no longer playing, he’s no longer playing along with the joke that obviously they all were at the meeting because it was a management, he would have been there at it. And he’s not saying, fuck, we’ve been caught.

Jim: So, having been observed joking, they’re like, no, we were completely serious. We, were completely serious about this. OK, yeah, I’m being talked round.

Mark: It’s the other side of the cat. Yeah. But what’s interesting is that he’s very circumspect about Andy Burnham, who’s the Labour Mayor course. Of course, he’s absolutely right when he says you’re more interested in making money than providing the service. Of course you fanging are, because they’ve only got.

Jim: The thing is, this is government policy. This isn’t the company saying, you as a government must give us money if we fail to meet our targets. The government have put this system in place and the company is going, we can’t believe our luck. This is ridiculous.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah. And he’s saying, what we need to do is track down the person what wrote that and clamp down on the processes so that that stuff doesn’t get shown.

Jim: It’s unacceptable that, the public has discovered that the company is happy they’re being paid for a subpar service.

Mark: Yes, exactly. And he’s also laying the blame squarely at the feet of, the service quality regime. Doing what it’s doing. It’s not our fault. We could just claim money whilst having to fuck all about running a train service. It’s not our fault. We’re just following the rules. Yeah. And he also added, these slides were an attempt to explain how the service quality regime works to some of our colleagues. But the language used in the presentation was unacceptable. And we apologize for this. We’re apologizing for the unacceptable use of language. But according to the RDG, not the SQR, the rail delivery group, which speaks on behalf of the rail industry. In December, they said train operators get paid more if they meet certain targets, just like other government suppliers. This means it’s the taxpayers who bear the burden of a railway that’s unsustainable. Yeah. Who’s laughing now?

Mark: There’s Rod Stewart there with his hit record from the height of the punk era in 1977.

Jim: Nice impression.

Mark: I was only joking. Yeah.

Jim: How many cigarettes do you have to smoke to get that?

Mark: Yeah. 400.

Jim: Nightmare. So, in the fallacy of the wild, we like to talk about the fallacy of the week from a non political perspective. And our first example comes from Peep show. And this is an episode where Alan, Mark’s boss, has made Jeremy a real life indecent proposal. He wants to sleep with Jeremy’s girlfriend for money.

Jeremy Usborne: 530 pounds to sleep with big sues.

Alan Johnson: That’s my indecent proposal.

Jeremy Usborne: No one’s going to give me a medal for saying no. I, am pretty broke and. Okay, it’s a deal. Is this a terrible idea? It can’t be. It’s in a film. They wouldn’t put a terrible idea in a film. They’d get sued.

Jeremy Usborne: Shit. This could be a tricky sell. Say, Suze, do you like the films of Robert Redford?

Big Suze: I don’t know. Who is he?

Jeremy Usborne: He’s a red haired old gentleman, and he started the Sundance Film Festival.

Big Suze: Sounds like a nice man.

Jeremy Usborne: Exactly. So, in that spirit, I was wondering, basically, how would you feel about sleeping with Mark’s boss for money?

Big Suze: Sleep with a man for money?

Jeremy Usborne: Yeah, but it’s not like that. It’s from a Hollywood film.

Big Suze: Sounds like you want to pimp me out.

Jeremy Usborne: Pimp me out. Pimp my ride. There’s a new climate.

Big Suze: I’m a human being, Jeremy.

Jeremy Usborne: Yeah, sure, from one perspective. But also, is it really so different from hiring a solicitor or leasing a villa in Spain?

Big Suze: I can’t believe this. Jeremy, this is really horrible.

Jeremy Usborne: No, look, Suze. No, sorry. I love you. I love you. I’ve just got this big overdraft and I take it all back. There. Normal. We’re back to normal.

Big Suze: No, we’re not. You tried to make me a hooker.

Jeremy Usborne: It was a joke, Suze. I’m hitting the reset button.

Big Suze: Goodbye, Jeremy.

Jeremy Usborne: Don’t go. God, I only asked her to be a hooker. It’s not like I wanted her to work in telesales.

Mark: It is a hard sell, given that you hadn’t heard of Robert Redford. Came at it from that.

Jim: If she was a fan of Robert Redford, it would have been much easier.

Mark: Oh, yeah, no problem.

Jim: I mean, he tried a few different tactics there. He was doing a bit of a false analogy of saying it’s the same as hiring a solicitor.

Mark: Very specific thing, or renting a villa in Spain.

Jim: And then he tried just pretending it hadn’t happened and, like, normal. Everything’s normal again. I’ve reset. And then he went with. I was joking. But, yeah, sadly, big Suze was not convinced by any of.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So our, second example comes from a show called Kevin Can Fuck Himself, which I don’t know if you’re aware of. I don’t know how many of our listeners will be aware of it. I think it’s kind of a niche show. It had two seasons. It’s a very interesting show in that the reason it’s called Kevin can Fuck Himself is a play on Kevin can wait. The sitcom. The conceit of the show is it’s a married couple. When he is there, Kevin the husband. It’s a sitcom and it’s filmed like a kind of multi camera sitcom, bright light stuff. But when he’s off screen and we’re just following the wife’s character, Allison, it’s a single camera drama about how much she fucking hates her husband and wants to get out of the situation. It’s really interesting show. I loved it. I don’t think it lived up to the potential it had in the, early, episodes, but it was really different from what you normally see. Anyway, yeah. This is towards the end of the run, and this is Kevin with his new beau.

Kevin McRoberts: I’m so glad you’re here.

Molly: Really?

Kevin McRoberts: Yeah, of course.

Molly: it’s just last time I stopped by without calling first you called me a stage five clinger.

Kevin McRoberts: I did not.

Molly: Yes, you did. Because then I said, oh, do we still quote wedding crashers? And you said, I’ll stop quoting wedding crashers when they pry it from my cold, dead hands. And then I said, who is they? What are they prying? And then you said, it’s a figure of speech. It’s probably Shakespeare. And then I said,

Kevin McRoberts: where was this memory when you were ordering pizza over the phone?

Molly: What?

Kevin McRoberts: Sorry, that was the other one. But if I did say that, it was just a joke.

Molly: four months together, still never known when you’re serious.

Kevin McRoberts: Rule of thumb. If you’re offended by what I said. I was just joking.

Mark: That’s the heart of the thing.

Jim: Kevin directly creates a rule based on. Yeah, this is the best way to know if you’re offended. I was joking. And in a similar vein, our next example is from the Simpsons. And this is an episode where Bart has convinced Krusty to run for Congress. And they seem to be having a fundraising dinner in the Simpsons house. But it’s just the Simpsons family and mill house, so it’s not quite clear what’s going on.

Milhouse Van Houten: Whoa. Three bean salad.

Bart Simpson: Sorry, you can’t join us. This is $100 a plate crusty fundraiser.

Krusty the Clown: For 200, you get a picture with me. For 1000, I can have somebody whacked. It’s a joke. When you give me that look. It’s a joke.

Jim: Yeah. So Krusty waits for people to disapprove before making it clear that he was joking. Because if they weren’t, if he wasn’t joking, maybe he could make some money out of it.

Mark: Yeah. Because I did actually expect, Homer to go, I’ve got someone his mouth falls open and free bean salad falls out. Yeah. So the last example I came up because I had the unfortunate happenstance of reengaging with the Andrew Tate phenomena, the Douchebag himself, where there was a two part interview with Piers Morgan. That was in last November. So this is after his arrest, and, he’s facing lots of charges for sex trafficking and pimping people out, and all that kind of stuff. And it’s an odd interview in that Tate seems to be off mic a lot of the time, so I did have to do a bit of processing to get him loud enough to understand what he was talking about. And it starts with Piers Morgan reading out a long tweet. This isn’t all of it. it’s a long thing that Tate had tweeted.

Piers Morgan: Just to wake up at eleven, gym till one. One appointment and some shopping dress. Beautiful. By 07:00 p.m. For you to finish working and tell you how strong you are, no matter how pissed off you are, just to always be laughing and smiling and writing your little notes about how you’re perfect and just to be playful and funny. She can’t do that if she has a job. So your job is being my girlfriend. And now you’re a millionaire. Congratulations. Behave. And aim for the promotion to wife. The reason I read all that in detail was I don’t think you understand quite how that comes over, because I think that is the purest definition of misogyny I’ve probably ever read.

Andrew Tate: Well, I don’t think you understand one, especially when I’m talking about the fact. That women can’t handle, what men. Can do, et cetera. One, it’s slightly sarcastic. There’s a sarcastic?

Piers Morgan: Do you mean any of it?

Andrew Tate: I mean all of it. One, it’s slightly sarcastic. Firstly,

Piers Morgan: what do you mean you don’t

Andrew Tate: You can tell by the tone

Piers Morgan: you mean you don’t mean it?

Andrew Tate: No, I mean it’s slightly sarcastic.

Piers Morgan: Well, sarcasm means. Sarcasm means you don’t mean it.

Andrew Tate: No, I mean it, but it’s slightly sarcastic.

Piers Morgan: You either mean it or you don’t. It’s either sarcastic or is not.

Andrew Tate: I mean every single word.

Piers Morgan: But this is the conundrum with you. This is the conundrum with

Andrew Tate: It’s not a conundrum. If you’d let me explain. It’s not a conundrum at all.

Mark: Of course he goes on to explain it, and it remains a conundrum.

Jim: He doesn’t understand the word sarcasm. That’s the conundrum.

Mark: He thinks that just calling it a joke, bit like Jeremy earlier on, calling it a joke, would just reset everything. Just go, oh, yeah, I was being the world’s biggest douchebag sex trafficking misogynist for money, and, no, no, because there is a sarcastic tone in everything I say, but I mean every word of it. Well, then that’s not sarcastic. Yeah, it is sarcasm. No. Yes, it’s. So there’s Schrödinger’s Douchebag right there at the same time. He is being sarcastic and means every word of it. You can’t be both, because the definition of sarcasm is to say words that look like you mean them, but you’re saying it in a way that sounds like you don’t, so you don’t mean them. You’re carrying the fact that you don’t mean them in your tone of voice. So in a sarcastic tone, which would belie the truth of it. So you can’t have or belie the truth of your position about it, so you can’t be both. You can’t mean every single word. Yeah.

Jim: In looking for this fallacy and examples, I found an episode of Bob’s Burgers where Louise got signed up to a soccer team because she couldn’t stop being sarcastic. Because when they got a phone call from the coach saying, does Louise want to be on the soccer team? And Linda, asked Louise, she was like, oh, yeah, I’d love to be on the soccer team.

Mark: Yeah, I really want to do that.

Jim: And Bob’s like, I’ve met Louise. I don’t think she wants to be on the soccer team. And are you sure? Oh, yeah, I’m really sure.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There you go.

Mark: Schrödinger’s Douchebag Andrew Tate,

Jim: you have to know how. To use sarcasm if you’re going to claim that you’re doing it.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah. And oddly, he does it, of course, because the cat’s out of the bag. Because Piers Morgan far be it from us to ever agree with Piers Morgan, but he tempers his position as interlocutor, somewhat by saying, oh, yeah, no, I really agree with all the stuff that you say that young men should follow the nasty youth regime that you seem to espouse. Yeah, but when you say these things about women, I don’t agree with you. So in that clip, Piers Morgan kind of is being, the inquisitor on the side of. Right. And who would have thought that Piers Morgan would be the arbiter of

Jim: It’s when you put Piers Morgan in a room with even worse people, it makes you realize there’s room for him to get worse, as he’s not the worst person. Yes, there are worse people out there. He’s a fuckwad. He’s still really bad, but there are worse people.

Mark: Perhaps that’s why he chooses to interview the likes of Alex Jones and Andrew Tate. Because it makes him look good.

Jim: Yeah, by comparison

Mark: And we aren’t being… No, we are being sarcastic.

Donald 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: 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: So let me tell you, unless you admit that the game is entirely rigged in favor of the house, when they’ll simply have to go through with ordering a bag of flaming dog poo to be delivered through your mailbox. But of course, if you say that kind of thing, people take you seriously and call the cops. Can no one take a joke these days? Jeez.

Jim: See, I thought you were going to say that your first kind of 50 or so episodes, you were losing it deliberately because it was funny.

Mark: Yeah. did you not notice how sarcastically I had said, oh, yeah, that’s a good one. Yeah, that’s clearly the one.

Jim: Because that’s why I’ve been doing for the last six months, because I looked up. It’s July. Last year was the last time I won one of these.

Mark: No way.

Jim: Since then, I’ve been deliberately losing to be funny as a joke.

Mark: yeah. well, the laugh is going to be on me then, when I don’t get it this time, isn’t it? Oh, no.

Jim: So the theme mean it’s like Trump’s malfunctions. Sometimes I think it’s a part of his cognitive decline. And sometimes he says a thing which it could maybe be misreading the teleprompter sometimes. It’s just, What the fuck was he even going for there?

Mark: Right?

Jim: And so it’s important to emphasize that where it seems like he’s hit a brick wall in a thought, in these ones, it’s not one of those times where he kind of is going one way, and then he gets distracted by his own inner thoughts. These are complete sentences as far as he is concerned.

Mark: Oh, my God. Okay. All right.

Jim: So, statement number one. We have become a drug infested, crime ridden nation which is incapable of solving even the swollest, smallest problem, the simplest of problems we can no longer solve. We can’t do anything. We are an institute and a powerful death penalty. We will put this on.

Mark: What?

Jim: Uh-huh.

Mark: On Earth. It’s a fly crawled across the teleprompter or something at that start off, kind of. Yeah, it looks like he’s just misspelled something.

Jim: I think he’s reading in all cases, smallest.

Mark: Smallest. Yeah, you can kind of understand.

Jim: Statement number two. Before I even arrive at the oval office, shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. I’ll get it done fast. I know them both. And we will restore on this planet peace through Earth. I am the only candidate who can make this promise to you.

Mark: Is he going to distribute handfuls of soil or something? to everybody. Everyone will get their own small handful of soil. And in this way, we will be embracing the hippie ideal of planting a seed to peace through Earth.

Jim: statement number three.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: We had a perfect border. We were just two weeks from finishing the whole wall, and it was the strongest border we’ve ever had. I think it was probably the strongest border in any country in history. But with the Democrats we are about, they didn’t, and they took it down and sold it.

Mark: what? They’re like the ultimate non sequiturs aren’t they? You get to what? And your brain flips. And I’m trying to impart some meaning, some of it. But with the Democrats we are about, they didn’t, and they took it down. Sold it. Okay. Institute. and a powerful death penalty. I really like that. before I even arrive. Before I even arrive, shortly after we win, I will have the war over. I’ll get it done. And we will restore this planet. Peace through Earth. Yeah. You are the only candidate who can make that, because other people can read and understand what they’re saying and choose their words carefully. What? okay. I, quite like the screeching halt for the democrats we are about. They didn’t. They took it out and sold it. Okay. well, I can’t believe any of them are true. They all look like they’ve been generated. Wow. Okay. All right.

Jim: AI. Where it comes out with, like, an extra limb or something.

Mark: Yeah. And then you look at it and you think, well, if I squint at it, it might make sense.

Jim: That’s not a mistake a human artist would make.

Mark: Exactly. I did do a whole sequence of things of trying to get people to stand on their head in AI, but then it just couldn’t deal with it. It was hilarious. Quite scary. Okay, peace through earth. I really like, but that could be sneakily. Jim, I am thinking that number three is the one you made up.

Jim: Okay. And which Of the other two are, you more convinced by.

Mark: Only because I really like institute and a powerful death penalty. Number one, I think, is probably true.

Jim: Okay. And, number one is real.

Donald Trump: We have become a drug infested, crime ridden nation which is incapable of solving even the smallest, smallest problem, the simplest of problems we can no longer solve. We can’t do anything. We are an institute and a powerful death penalty. We will put this on

Mark: wow. Yeah. But even the music behind it, kind of makes it almost smooth. Smooth enough to just swallow.

Jim: Yeah. This was the last kind of ten, five minutes of a rally. And I think they were trying to play him off, like at the oscars.

Mark: It’s getting louder and louder. Yeah. Just cranking it up, slowly, moving the travelator under him. So you got to edge towards the stage. no. it just goes all downhill from the smallest, doesn’t it? I like that. I really like the smallest. Smallest. And he doesn’t bat an eyelid in his head. He never makes a mistake.

Jim: No.

Mark: We are in it. What the fuck?

Jim: We are an institute and a powerful death penalty. We will put this, on.

Mark: It’s almost like he’s reading your stage instructions as well, isn’t it? Yeah. And I will get off now. Yeah, they’re calling me in. Wow.

Jim: So you also think that number two is real. Peace through earth.

Mark: Yeah, because I want to hear and say peace through Earth.

Jim: And number two is real

Donald Trump: Before I even arrive at the oval office. Shortly after we win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. I’ll get it done fast. I know them both. And we will restore on this planet, peace through Earth. I am the only candidate who can make this promise to you.

Jim: Peace through, Earth.

Mark: I, am the only candidate about this, promise you, because I am, ah, an inveterate liar. Yeah, because nobody else could do that, could bring you peace through Earth. It’s a bit like a journey to the sense that he’s been watching too many episodes of thunderbirds with the mole and that peace through Earth. I will restore this. We’re going to dig a tunnel all the way to Ukraine and, I’ll bring peace through Earth.

Jim: I don’t know what is, because how.

Mark: Would you know, what has gone through his head before that he just slipped into peace through Earth. Normally when you do those malapropisms, you do it because it. Well, that clicks into an old pattern.

Jim: Yeah. And that’s why I was thinking that’s where these ones, I, think are linked, because I can’t see what the intent could have been.

Mark: No. Or where the accident came from.

Jim: There wasn’t a thing that. Sometimes it’s obvious when he says, the furniture of our children, he means the future of our children. He’s read the teleprompter, swollen smallest.

Mark: but peace through Earth. Everyone said, how has he never received a Christmas card that says peace on Earth or listened to God spell?

Jim: Yeah. Do you think he was going with peace on Earth, we will restore on this planet.

Mark: Peace on Earth throughout the world, maybe. Yeah, but restore on this planet, I.

Jim: Think maybe because maybe he didn’t mean to put on this planet, he meant, We will restore peace on Earth. We will restore peace throughout. I mean, the earth. That’s ridiculous. There’s so many wars going on around the world and the US isn’t involved in most of.

Mark: He. So he read planet, or he thought of Earth and said planet.

Jim: I mean, all good questions, because obviously.

Mark: He’s an alien and as, yeah, for your puny planet, earthlings, he is gort the robot from, Yes, exactly. It would make more sense if he said that. That would be brilliant, wouldn’t it? Restore on this planet. What is. He is quoting from 1950 Sci-Fi we will restore on this planet peace through Earth. Peace throughout the land. I just misremembering everything, isn’t he? What on earth must people have said to him? Sufficient numbers of times that he resorts.

Jim: To those, rather assuming he listens when people talk.

Mark: Yeah, well, because he does come up with those, as the saying goes, and then comes up with something that nobody’s ever said. Yeah, as the saying goes, pace through Earth. Yeah. and then he attempts to copyright it.

Jim: Probably time we did another one of those. We haven’t done it. And as the saying goes, one for a while. But, yeah, I’m sure there’s lots of new examples, but, yeah. So, again, you nailed it. You were right. Get another point.

Mark: You see, you’ve sarcastically been leading me on the win. Something really bad.

Jim: Finding it very funny.

Mark: I can tell. Yeah.

Jim: So, we do have a few answers. Congratulations on Patreon. Becca, says, I think one is fake news. Invisible unicorn. Number one also struck me as fake. That the other two seem real makes me want to cry. And will agrees number one is fake. In my humble opinion, tangerine twat is only getting more and more off the rails as time and tertiary syphilis take their toll.

Mark: That explains the pock mark face.

Jim: Yeah, that’s it. Only three this week and all wrong. All going for number one.

Mark: Oh, wow.

Jim: You outscored them all.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: It’s a small victory for me. In a way, I did manage to fool some people.

Mark: Wow. Oh, my God. Wow. Look at that.

Jim: Well done.

Mark: Well done.

Jim: Congratulations. I’m so happy for you. And it’s time for the part of the show that this week, at least, is called $83.3 million is not a logical fallacy. Excellent, because we’re recording this before judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling in the, civil fraud trial. So we don’t know how much Trump is going to owe, but at the moment, that’s what he owes. E. Jean Carroll, for the defamation case, because he lost, as was expected, because it was his lawyer, Alina Habba who a lot of people are calling her Trump’s worst lawyer, but I think that’s very unfair. She’s his worst lawyer, so far.

Mark: Worse than Giuliani.

Jim: I mean, it’s. So far, she’s cost Trump a lot more money, right? Yes. Not least because Trump never paid Giuliani, according to Giuliani’s most recent financial filings. But, yeah, it’s very expensive. Joe Tacopina, who we have featured before, was Trump’s lawyer for the previous E. Jean cow defamation case. That was about statements that he’d made after his presidency that cost Trump 5 million. Joe Tacopina, who is an actual lawyer, like an experienced trial lawyer, kept it down to 5 million. This one, Joe Tacopina, was like, there comes a point where you’ve just got to, examine your moral compass and make a decision based on that how much you’re prepared to actually continue with this. And he was like, no, I’m out. Alina Habba continued. And, $83.3 million is a lot of money.

Mark: Wow. Yeah.

Jim: And some of that is compensatory damages for the kind of hurt that she has encountered. 11 million for emotional harm, 7.3 million for damage to her reputation, and the other 65 million is punitive damages. So some small attempt at getting Trump to stop doing it because he didn’t stop the last.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: so obviously 5 million wasn’t enough.

Mark: Has he paid the five? Because that was one of the things was that E Jean Carroll said, no, I’ve got no money.

Jim: Yeah, he hasn’t paid it to her because he’s appealing. Well, he’s. Legally speaking, he’s appealing. He’s very unappealing to everyone. But, legally, he is taking it to an appeal. But to do that, you have to essentially make some financial situation clear to the court that you are going to pay that. That can be done by getting a bond, much in the same way as bail works, where you pay a, bail bonds company, or in this case, it would be, I don’t know if there’s a different name for them, but a company that puts up a bond who are then kind of on the hook for that money, and they get some of that, which means you don’t have to put it all up front for the 5 million he paid. Five and a half million. Actually, it was because you had to pay, interest as well. Right, to the court, rather than getting a bond for that.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: Their argument at the time was that saved the bond fee, which is typically about 1%. So that would have been, what, $55,000 he saved by paying 5.5 million to the court. And then the court holds onto that until the appeals are, ah, exhausted, and then pay it back to trump if he wins the appeal, and to E Jean Carroll if she wins. Okay, so there’s question over whether in fact he did pay that 5.5 million to save the 55,000, or maybe because there wasn’t a bond company that was prepared to front him the money. And this time it’s 83.3 million.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: Which is a fuck ton of money.

Mark: No one’s going to stump up that.

Jim: Yeah, the thing is, he’s not going to be able to get loans because everyone.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Apart from, he’s currently about to be another probably 350,000,000 in the hole and be convicted of civil fraud or liable for civil fraud. So I doubt even Deutsche Banke loan him.

Mark: Credit rating. Yeah, credit rating, they’re a little bit trepidacious about that, theoretically. Fallen for it, as we know, in the history of the Trump organization.

Jim: Yeah, theoretically, if he could find a bond company that would work with him, he could pay them somewhere around eight and a half for them to put up the bond for the rest and trust him that he’s good for it after. but they’re, probably not.

Mark: There’s the rub.

Jim: So, yeah, he might end up having to liquidize some assets, liquid dies, liquid date some assets, because I think it’s very unlikely that he has that amount of cash. He has buildings, he has properties and.

Mark: Stuff like that, which, depending on whether he’s seeking a loan or paying tax, are worth either 83 million or not.

Jim: Yes. And in fact, good deal less. His inflated valuations of his properties were used by Roberta Kaplan, E. Jean Carroll’s lawyer in this case to say to the jury, look, when you’re considering how much to charge this guy for punitive damages and all of that stuff, consider the fact that he himself claims to have this amount of money. He claims his Mar a Lago property is worth one and a half billion dollars. So that’s what he says.

Mark: That’s loose change.

Jim: Yeah, absolutely.

Mark: Back of the.

Jim: You should consider him to be as rich as he claims to be.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And that means that accordingly. Yeah. When you’re considering numbers, that’s what you should go by. She wasn’t suggesting that you should look at the 18 million that the judge and in fact, the palm beach assessors said Mar a Lago is worth, but the 1.5 billion that the Trump family claims. And of course, Trump at that point can’t go, no, it’s not worth that at all.

Mark: It’s not worth that. It’s because it has an impact on the other trial. Yes. Brilliant. Brilliant. Checkmate.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: Wow. It must have been a bit of a surprise, the extra 65 mil being kind of come up with, because that’s way higher, what E Jean Carroll was.

Jim: Well, yeah, she initially asked for 10 million.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Although I don’t know if that. In that initial kind of what you claim you’re suing someone for, if that includes punitive damages as well, or if it’s just kind of. This is what, compensatory damages I want.

Mark: Yeah. Because that’s kind of a court thing, isn’t it, to get him to sharp. Yeah, for fuck’s sake.

Jim: Yeah, but the thing is, he will appeal this. Obviously, he’s not going forward with Alina Habba as his appeal attorney. She’s not an appellate attorney. I mean, she’s not a competent attorney, so that shouldn’t. It doesn’t make any difference, really. But, yeah, he’s looking for a new law firm, presumably one who’s prepared to do quite a lot of pro bono work for the pleasure of working.

Mark: For the former president and convicted rapist.

Jim: But the thing is, they’re going to have a pretty tough job, apart from the fact that they have the worst client in the world, because Alina Habba is so incompetent that her case was ridiculous. All of the things that she was arguing were about whether they could prove that Trump assaulted E Jean Carroll. None of it was about how much she didn’t really argue whether E Jean Carroll’s reputation was destroyed or anything like that, or how much m her reputation was worth.

Mark: It was about because the previous case proved that he.

Jim: That’s the thing. Yeah. He was found liable in the previous case, which Judge Kaplan, no relation to Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer. He presided over the previous case as well. So as far as he was concerned, he came into this saying, he’s already been found liable, guilty. We are assuming that to be the case. In fact, when that came up and, he made it clear to the jury he’s been found liable, he’s been judged to have done this stuff. Alina Habba said, yeah, by a jury, like in, as if that kind of. Yeah, you don’t want to believe what to the jury? She was saying to the jury, yeah, fucking jurors, they’re idiots.

Mark: They think proved by scientists. Yeah.

Jim: And so the judge was like, yeah, buy a jury. Stop arguing with me, I’m going to make you sit down.

Mark: Yeah, that’s the thing. That’s the other surprise, isn’t it? Not just the amount of money, but the fact that the jury just found him guilty. Was it unanimous verdict.

Jim: In the previous sentinel cases? yes, it was unanimous. And in this case, they didn’t answer that question because they were only looking at damages because they got into this trial was supposed to be about how much he owed E Jean Carroll.

Mark: Yeah. How damaging has it been for her? Rather than.

Jim: And yes, everything was arguing, know he didn’t do it. This is a witch. Know he didn’t defame, her, he didn’t do the thing that she claimed he did in the first place. So she wasn’t, first of all, objecting to much of the evidence that came in about the stuff that Roberta Kaplan was actually presenting to the court, which is important if you’re going to appeal. If a piece of evidence is presented and introduced into evidence and you don’t even object, what are you going to appeal? Because you can’t say the judge ruled in their favor if you haven’t asked the judge to not allow that evidence in.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: If you object and the judge says overruled, then you can say, well, that was an unfair ruling and the appeals court can investigate that. But if you haven’t questioned it, that’s going to be really hard to prove that it’s.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: And m when she was trying to introduce evidence, she didn’t do it the right way. She started talking to, when she was questioning E Jean Carroll, she was asking her about what other people have said about her and then tried to read out some tweets that people had said that hadn’t been introduced into evidence. And the judge was like, what are you doing? What are you doing? This is not in evidence. Obviously there was an objection. He ruled that it was sustained and, ah, pointed her towards basic lawyer stuff, the way to get documents introduced into evidence, that he’d already given them, because each judge has slightly different rules about how they want evidence presented and things like that. And so they have written information for the lawyers before the case about this is how, in my courtroom, we expect it to be done. And one of the things that Judge Kaplan wants is for the, documents to be kind of marked and numbered so everyone knows what they’re referring to when they’re talking about them. And so she tried to do this. They hadn’t been introduced, they hadn’t been given to Carol’s lawyer, they hadn’t been given to the court. There was no attempt to lay a foundation for them, which is, essentially saying, okay, what are these documents? How do we know that they’re accurate? Where are they from?

Mark: Why are they.

Jim: So she was basically fucking off on basic lawyer stuff, not reading the court’s procedures, and following them. Did the same thing in her closing statement. She tried to introduce new evidence. At that point, what she was saying, she said something about how it’s not that big a deal, essentially that E Jean Carroll has had death threats. I get death threats all the time. And the judge was like, that’s not a thing you can say. The closing statement is about the evidence that has been presented in the case. That’s just a thing.

Mark: You’re coming up with new stuff, potentially.

Jim: Making up about your own life. This is not. And so he struck that from the record. He struck things that Trump was asked when he was briefly on the stand, because he was talking about stuff that either wasn’t relevant or wasn’t part of the accepted evidence. That had already been introduced. So basically, her entire case was a total shit show and she didn’t preserve the means for appeal for most of the things that they would want to appeal about because most of their case was arguing against things that had already been established in a prior case or introducing new things. That were all randomly introducing new things.

Mark: Yeah. Which were not allowed because they were about the previous case as well. Wow. The other thing that struck me is that how does he spin this as a witch hunt or a set up by the Democrats or whatever, when members of the jury just went, yeah. Yes, he really did damage her reputation to the tune of 83.

Jim: The way he does it is just by continuing to say it and assuming that his followers won’t care. and will he just assume he’s telling the truth? In fact, some of his followers have already started calling Alina Habba a deep state plant who kind of lost the case on purpose.

Mark: Lost the case for. Of course. Of course. Excellent. There was a moment, I was following it on, I can’t remember where I was following it. Washington Post or something. And they were kind of tweeting updates and stuff. And at one point, which appealed to the outbursts, the band, the reporter tweeted, or posted on the Washington Post. Judge Lewis a, Kaplan tells the court, we will have no outbursts. So I grabbed that and tweeted it on the band’s tweet. people were going, bit rude. We will have no outbursts. I was hunting all over to see if the thing was being streamed to the tv, but it wasn’t because that was another, deliberate act on the part of the judge to say, I’m m not going to allow him.

Jim: No. there were a lot of people live tweeting stuff, so a lot of the stuff that was being said was kind of out there. Pretty. Was nothing. There was no live audio or video, sadly.

Mark: Yeah. Because didn’t Trump leave before?

Jim: yeah, he walked out during. Carroll’s attorney was summing up during the closing argument. Yeah. I mean, he came back in pretty quickly before Alina Habba started hers. But one of his advisors of Boris Epshteyn stood up to follow him out and the judge was like, nope, you can’t go anywhere. Excellent. Essentially kind of considered him, although he’s not his lawyer for this, he considered him part of the, kind of the defense team. So he said, no, no one else is allowed to leave the court.

Mark: Yeah, because he was allowed in the court on that. And of course it will stir up the red mist for all the maggots. Because it’s Trump not fighting on his home turf. He’s not allowed to spin his yarns and denigrate everybody. And as a result of that, kind of justice has been served. And ordinary people on the know, not CIA plants, not FBI stooges, not antifa, just ordinary people who did get advised to not tell anyone that they were on the jury, because they’ll be. Yes. Yeah. And they’re not in it for the money. They’re not going to benefit from the money at all. So they’ve got. No, that’s the kind of thing. Trump would only do it if there was money in it. Yeah, I’ll be on the jury if you pay me. It’s a civil duty that they’ve performed and they’ve followed the letter of the law and they’ve said, okay, yeah. It’s been established that he did do this. He damaged her. We’ve now got to work out by how much. Let’s put a figure on that and let’s use the figures that he’s provided. It’s just brilliant.

Jim: And one of the things that surprised some people, is that what we have found out, I think it’s seven of the nine jurors were men. So it’s good to see that a jury made up mostly of men, is still prepared to give such a large award to this kind of behavior.

Mark: So he can’t say, yeah, locker room banter. it’s just jokey, blah, blah. So that’s another one of his foundations kicked out from under him. Yeah. Oh, it’s great. So what’s going to be the impact of this on the fraud case? Well, apart, from he can’t say, I’m not paying that, because I’m not worth that.

Jim: I mean, at the moment, the fraud cases, we’re just waiting for judge Arthur Engoron’s ruling. It was supposed to come through on Wednesday, I think. But an insider has told, the press that it’s going to be the fifth. Now is Ingrid’s ruling. So we won’t know what the award for that is. But given everything that went in, in that courtroom, I’m expecting it to be quite high. I’m expecting at least 300 million, probably 350, maybe.

Mark: Wow. Yeah. Because the precedent has now been set, hasn’t it? This fairly small case, an individual case with jurors that have been assessing the evidence, such as it was in his defense, have come up with a massive amount of money. They’re not going to think, oh, perhaps we should limit it to, what do you think, 60? No, because they’ve just done 83. All right.

Jim: It’s a lot more than was expected, I think, initially going in by E Jean Carroll, but it’s not as much as it could have been. They could have gone higher. One thing, there is some supreme court precedent of knocking down awards that are too high in terms of the ratio between compensatory damages and punitive damages. there was a case where someone was awarded a million in compensatory damages and 145,000,000 in punitive damages. And the supreme Court went, nah, that’s not fair. It’s not the way this is supposed to work. This is only because the other side, it’s 65 million in punitive damages, and the other is like 18 million in, the other two combined. So this is only about three and a half times. so it’s well within the usual range of the ratio. That ratio, yeah. So, it’s very unlikely that he could successfully appeal on. This is an outrageous amount of money and beyond the scope of what would be expected. So, yeah, that takes another string out of his bow of his appeal.

Mark: But, yeah, it’s going to be difficult to see on what basis he’s going to appeal, other than I don’t want to pay it, so I’m just going to keep it in the courts.

Jim: That’s going to be largely. It’ll go through an appeals court, and then he will lose that and then probably try and appeal to the Supreme Court. I don’t expect the Supreme Court would touch this with a barge pole. I don’t think this is a case that they will. There’s. There’s not really any issues of law. There’s not any issues of law that are undecided or conflicting or something that they would look at. I’d be surprised, let’s put it that way. It’s not impossible. Supreme Court’s weird, but,

Mark: Yeah, horrifyingly pro Trump. Yeah, but they’re going to have to. It wouldn’t be beyond them to change the rules because they’re so pro Trump. They will change the rules in order to make it something that they do have to make a ruling on. still, small victories, enormous. 83.3 million victories. How marvelous. And finally, some things we really don’t have time to talk about.

Jim: Florida Governor and definitely human man, honest, Ron DeSantis bailed on his always pointless attempt to be the Republican Nominee, dropping out before the New Hampshire Primary last month, leaving Nikki Haley to give a victory speech after coming second in what is now a two horse race if you ignore the fact that one of the horses doesn’t stand a chance even though the other horse is a cognitively impaired, nearly bankrupt criminal who also happens to be a racist. Sorry, rapist. Well, both really. Meanwhile, Biden skipped the primary entirely, refusing to campaign in the state and not even having his name on the ballot, since the DNC decided to move New Hampshire down the schedule to make the far more diverse state of South Carolina the first official Democratic Primary of the year. The New Hampshire Democratic Party did it anyway because they really like the attention and as a result, New Hampshire’s delegates won’t count when it comes to choosing the candidate at the Democratic National Convention in August. Of course, Biden won anyway because 64% of voters wrote his name in rather than throw away their vote on nobodies like Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson. The turnout might have been suppressed slightly by a fake robocall campaign using an AI generated Biden impression telling registered Democrat voters “save your vote for the November election. Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.” The attorney general’s office is investigating the origin of the calls, which both Trump’s campaign and Democrat rival Dean Phillips’ campaign have denied any part in. Whoever it was committed a felony in order to get fewer people to vote for Biden in a primary which won’t make any difference to who gets to be the nominee. They should have saved their crimes for the general election in November when they could have actually made a difference.

Mark: In a blatant attempt to criminalize and erase the trans community of West Virginia leading state organizers recently released 9 anti-trans bills. Senate Bill 194 filed by Senators Mike Azinger, Laura Chapman, and Chandler Swope (Yeees Republicans) is the most dangerous of the lot; one section defines being transgender as “sexual deviation” and places it alongside “pedophilia, exhibitionism, masochism, sadomasochism, fetishism,” and more. Another defines minors for the purposes of this bill as being anyone under 21 years of age, expanding the definition to include transgender adults. The bill then would ban gender affirming care for anyone under this age while also banning the usage of state funds for gender affirming care. The bill mandates that all mental health care professionals would be prohibited from “exacerbating gender dysphoria” in those under 21 years of age by “continuing such condition, delusion, or disorder with no intent of cure or cure-pursuing recovery.” Therapists would be mandated to “cure” gender dysphoria, as affirming their transgender patients would be considered “continuing such condition, delusion, or disorder. This provision would mandate that therapists and social workers in the state become conversion therapists, a practice currently banned in 27 states according to the Movement Advancement Project. Of course there’s no ‘cure’ for being transgender just like there’s no cure for being CIS or White or Heterosexual – let’s hope there’s a cure for being Republican, and of course conversion therapy has been shown to lead to increased suicides as it has always done whether in secular or religious settings. But perhaps that’s the point  – Bill 195 attempts to define being transgender as obscene and would bar “transgender exposure, performances, or display” to any minor. This could have the effect of barring transgender people from being able to exist in public, as it would be difficult to avoid being seen by a minor. Of course with Rep Governor Jim Justice pivoting for his Senate run even GOP members squeamish about such draconian legislated inhumanity may fall in line! Country Road don’t you dare take me there – cos West Virginia is a place no human should ever want to belong after this!

Jim: After Nikki Haley’s strong second place showing in New Hampshire, Trump decided the best thing to do would be to effectively tell her supporters to fuck off. He lashed out in a late night Truth Social post, specifically targeting Haley’s donors, saying “Anybody that makes a ‘contribution’ to Birdbrain, from this moment forth, will be permanently barred from the MAGA camp. We don’t want them and will not accept them.” Anti-Trump Republicans immediately started donating to Haley’s campaign and posting how delighted they were to be banned from his cult. The following week Trump’s Senior Campaign Advisor Susan Wiles was keen to tell a roomful of Republican mega donors that he didn’t really mean it, because in fact, the campaign is running dangerously low on money thanks to spending so much of it on Trump’s legal fees. According to Politico, Trump’s web of political action committees spent over $50 million of donor funds on legal expenses during 2023, with other outgoings bringing their total spend for the year to roughly $210 million, or $10 million more than they raised during that period. The only reason they have any money left is thanks to strong fundraising in previous years, but I don’t know if we’ve mentioned it, but this is an election year, and those tend to be some of the more expensive ones for campaigns. And I don’t see Trump’s legal costs dropping this year, even if he chooses more random shitty lawyers like Alina Habba. So it looks like we’ll be getting some campaign ads made by whoever Trump can find on Fiverr later in the year.

Mark: Oh, we should get on there and do some! In a delicious Carry On movie kind of way, the dodgy British tradition of saucy seaside postcards which led to the Women’s Institute and the Fire Service creating cheeky calendars to raise money has crossed the pond. I’m surprised it’s caused ructions in the GOP given the apparent love by Americans of Benny Hill. Ultra Right Beer, that new anti-Bud Light-wokeness Beer brand, has done the thing that advocates of all right-thinking Burgers, Titties and Beer enthusiasts always want for Christmas and created a calendar. But not a naughty, cheeky, exploitative Benny Hill one you understand, a straight down the right “Conservative Dad’s Real Women of America 2024 Calendar” containing photos of “the most beautiful conservative women in America” in various sexy poses. Some, like anti-trans swimmer Riley Gaines and writer Ashley St. Clair, are wearing revealing outfits; others, like former House candidate Kim Klacik, are fully clothed. No one is naked. But even though it’s a right kind of calendar for right kind of people, some prominent social conservatives started decrying the calendar in late December as (among other things) “demonic.” The basic complaint is that the calendar is pandering to married men’s sinful lust, debasing conservative women, and making conservatives seem like hypocrites when they complain about leftist immorality – which I suspect is the worst sin of all! “This is the problem with conservatives who think they can act just like the secular world,” writes Jenna Ellis, one of Donald Trump’s attorneys during the 2020 election fight. “If conservatives aren’t morally grounded Christians, what are we even ‘conserving’?” Oddly other conservatives, led by several of the women who posed in it, defended the calendar — decrying their critics as nosy puritans who exemplify the right’s inability to connect with ordinary people. An observation somewhat upheld by the complete furore that’s exploded across the right wing media online and off. Well as long as they’re arguing about that at least they’re not spending time trying to get their man back in the White House and like, govern the country or nothing – oh no wait!

Jim: One of the things I noticed is that there’s only ten women in the calendar, and like most calendars, it’s a twelve monther. so they’ve repeated a couple, and I’m like, could you not find twelve women, conservative women, who were prepared to be in the calendar.

Mark: but maybe they’re kind of the most beautiful. I wonder who. I’m surprised they didn’t ask Trump. With his history of the miss world. He knows a few judge who they know. That’s right. Who were the most beautiful? Perhaps there were some that were not quite the most. There were some that were quite beautiful, but they picked the most beautiful. And I love the fact that they called it the conservative dads. Real women of America.

Jim: Yeah. Not conservative man’s. Specifically for men with children.

Mark: Conservative dad. Exactly. From married fathers. Yeah. Married men’s sinful lust. That’s the market they’re going for. Yeah. Why not? They’re out about it. Yeah.

Jim: A HarrisX poll this week found that immigration has overtaken inflation as the most pressing concern for voters, thanks largely no doubt to the constant barrage of fear mongering from right wing media and Republican politicians about how Biden’s open borders are destroying the country with crime and drugs and human trafficking and “takin’ our jobs”, etc. House Republicans are even trying to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alexander Mayorkas, accusing him of wilfully and systemically failing to secure the border, despite that being neither a high crime nor a misdemeanor. Months ago, the GOP insisted that tougher enforcement measures are needed, and proposed automatically shutting the border when it’s overwhelmed by a large volume of incoming migrants. After a lot of negotiation a border package was drawn up which fulfils those criteria, and President Biden has said he’ll sign it and immediately implement those measures if it reaches his desk. So of course, Republicans are now voting against it. Why? Because it’s an election year and they don’t want to do anything that might help Biden. Which, to be clear, is basically anything that would be good for the country. If the American people would benefit from it, the GOP is against it in case people give Biden some credit. But if they can keep the border crisis narrative going by actively sabotaging any attempt to control it, that’s a win. I know it might seem early to say this, but please don’t forget to vote.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah. Schrödinger’s republicans right there. You need the legislation to do that and say, okay, yeah, we’ll do. can’t vote for that because do what we want and you’ll get credit for it.

Jim: Then we’ll have less to shout about and complain about.

Mark: Yeah. Yes. Quite. Deep in the heart of Texas – well, down at the bottom Gov. Greg Abbott is fighting the Supreme Court over whether he’s able to do what he pleases to endanger the lives of possible border crossers, drowning children and deploying razor wire, but even this isn’t enough for the Maga contingent who basically want to start the Civil War again and defy Federal ruling with online organisers calling themselves ”Take Our Border Back” promising to bring ”over 700,000” semi trucks from across the United States and Canada to three locations along the southern border so they can fight the “illegal invasion.”  As a veteran of a country intent on taking back control of its borders I can tell you it doesn’t live up to the promise of a snappy shoutable slogan. Despite the potential effectiveness of the 9,545 miles of 16-wheelers that would result lined end to end across the entire US-Mexico border five times over, like Trump’s somewhat limp attempt, very few semis actually turned up. As the convoy roared for the border cities of: Eagle Pass, Texas; Yuma, Arizona; and San Ysidro, California only about 20 had arrived – that’s about 9,544.5 miles shorter than planned. Where the 700,000 number came from, who knows, given that it represents about 1 in 6 of all trucks on the road like delivering stuff for companies to earn money sending things to people and factories. Perhaps “God’s Army” as the convoy now calls itself made up the number to raise the fists of the right-wing media and to plunge the hands into the donating pockets of the gullible and armchair patriots too afraid to turn up themselves in case the whole thing was an FBI/Antifa/whatever sting! It worked insofar as the organisers have raised $138,000. That’s enough to put one tank of gas in about 300 semis … if they had 300 semis actually participating cos yeah the convoy suffers a distinct shortage of everything that would make it a convoy. Organisers have even changed their minds about actually going near the area of the actual dispute between Abbott and the Border Patrol. Instead, they seem to be targeting the village of Quemado, Texas. Population: 71. It does look like there’s a good Mexican restaurant in town with a big parking lot. Insert another joke here about impotence and semis.

Jim: It’s taken far too long, but some parts of the GOP at least have finally admitted that there are more than two genders. A Super PAC supporting Montana GOP Senate candidate Tim Sheehy sent out a survey testing messages they might use to attack his likely GOP primary opponent, Matt Rosendale. I want to be very clear – there is nobody to root for in this story – both candidates are anti-abortion pieces of shit, but the interesting part is that in the survey they collected some demographic data, with one question asking “What is your gender?”, and three multiple choice options.  Sure, three might still be pretty basic, but remember, this is the GOP, so even if those options were male, female, and neither, it could charitably be called progress. But they’re not. Here are the three options: Male. Female – Homemaker, and Female – Working Woman. If you’re wondering “What the fuck?” well, I can’t really blame you, but as Jezebel’s Kady Ruth Ashcraft noted, the options might as well read, “Female, Good kind” or “Female, Bad kind.” Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers said “I couldn’t imagine a reputable polling agency doing it that way…they’re not actually trying to get information, they’re trying to push information. It’s a way to communicate something – and it’s pretty overt.” Of course, what it seems to be communicating most effectively is that Tim Sheehy is a misogynistic dickwad, but the R in parentheses after his name already had that covered.

Mark: Another flaccid week too in British Politics – Stormont is back – the power sharing executive that governs Northern Ireland from the Stormont parliament buildings in Belfast is set to reconvene after 2 years of not convening after rebelling over the EU and the Northern Ireland/Republic of Ireland Border deal. Suddenly things seem to have changed but they’re pretty much the same. They’ve got the frictionless EU access deal that Rishi trumpeted last year, but it could be the £3.3bn that had been withheld cos no Stormont might disappear with the Tories at the next election. Oddly in the same week the promised Post-Brexit frictionless trade border between the rest of England and Europe got a whole lot of friction. The trade agreement we had as part of the single market meant that goods travelling within the EU would not need to be checked at the borders cos there were no borders according to the single market. Now there are, cos stupidly Boris thought we should ditch that even though it was offered by the EU. Tory MP and stupid brexiteer (are there any other kind?) Andrea Leadsom says the increased import times and costs to importers and consequent delays in getting, and shortages of, food from Europe are a small price to pay for getting back our sovereignty – whatever the fuck that means. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt says ah er we might not be able to cut taxes before the election after all and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves says Labour won’t cap bankers bonuses when they get back in after all. Meanwhile, sacked Tory MP Sir Simon Clarke, top ally of Liz Truss and Boris Johnson, called for Rishi to be sacked – to be fair with allies like that he should know a thing or two. Nobody joined his coup and he later said “I was acting alone” in a very gun-held-to-his-back-out-of-shot kind of way.

Jim: You sure it wasn’t Chet Wallaby?

Mark: Yes. Kemi Badenoch, Tory Business secretary has told party rebels to stop ‘stirring’ and back the PM but she turns out to be in a Whatsapp group along with Michael Gove called Evil Plotters and is/isn’t sorry/not sorry throwing/not throwing her hat in the ring to be the next PM. Of course she’s characterised the whole thing as a joke, of course she has, its all a fucking joke hahahahahaha bwaahaahaahaah sob sob* sob*

Jim: So that’s all the bad arguments and faulty reasoning we have time for this week. You’ll find the show notes at 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 patreon.com/ftrump. like our straw man level patrons, Laura Thomsick, Renee Zed, Schmootz, Mark Reiche and Amber R. Buchanan, who told us when we met her at QED, we could just call her Amber, though another listener, recognized her at QED this year because we kept using her full name all the time. And our true Scotsman level patrons, Melissa Sytek, Stephen Bickle, Janet Yuetter Andrew Hauck and our, newly crowned top patron, Kaz Toohey. Thank you so much for your continued support. It really is very, very much appreciated.

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

Mark: All music is by. We will have no outbursts and was used with permission. So until next time on Fallacious Trump, we’ll leave the last word to the Donald.

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