Non Sequitur (Redux) – FT#162

26 Nov Non Sequitur (Redux) – FT#162

Show Notes

The Non Sequitur Fallacy occurs when someone makes a conclusion that does not follow from the premises.

Trump

We started out by discussing this Trump tweet:

Nobody wants to report that Pennsylvania and Michigan didn’t allow our Poll Watchers and/or Vote Observers to Watch or Observe. This is responsible for hundreds of thousands of votes that should not be allowed to count. Therefore, I easily win both states. Report the News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2020

Then we looked at this clip of Trump still claiming he won the 2020 election.

And finally we talked about Trump making a weird claim about Presidential qualifications:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about Boris Johnson defending by attacking as usual:

And he finished with this example of Liz Truss boldly explaining why she was still (briefly) in office:

Fallacy in the Wild

In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from Chocolat

Then we discussed this clip from The Simpsons

And we finished up with this clip from The Winslow Boy

 

Fake News

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

1. People don’t think of grocery. You know, it sounds like not such an important word when you talk about homes and everything else, right? But more people tell me about grocery bills where the price of bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes, they tell me, and we’re going to do a lot of things. You know our farmers aren’t being treated properly.
2. It’ll also bring your grocery bill way down. I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery, you know, it’s sort of simple word, but it sort of means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does. And I have more complaints about that, bacon and things going up double, triple, quadruple.
3. The number one thing people ask me is about bacon. People just can’t afford it any more. Because it’s grocery, right? That’s what people mean when they say grocery. But you can’t afford to buy the things you need when you go to a store, and they’re not doing anything about it. Grocery. It’s a word. Who knows what it really means?

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

 

A grab bag of freaks is not a logical fallacy

We talked about Trump’s insane cabinet picks

 

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

• One of the things Trump’s not great at is Presidential transitions. In 2016 he didn’t actually bother to put a transition team together, due to the fact that he, like everyone else, was pretty sure he had no chance of winning. And in 2020, when it came time to give it back, there was that whole insurrection thing. This time he did have a team in place, but none of them are actually able to get started with briefings or gathering the information they’ll need to get to work, or even get security clearances, because they still haven’t signed the legal agreements required by the Presidential Transition Act. The forms are usually signed by all major party candidates over a month before the election in order to facilitate a smooth transition, and once signed, they allow the team to access various resources including office space and equipment, IT and staff assistance as well as critical information that will help them to be ready to govern from day one. The Trump team in 2016, such as it was, even signed the documents, so what’s the hold up this time? One possibility is that in 2020 Trump himself signed into law an amendment to the process which required incoming administrations to sign an ethics pledge to avoid conflicts of interest. By not signing this by the October 1st deadline, he’s technically already broken the law, so if you were wondering how long it would take the new Trump Administration to start committing crimes once they’re in office, the answer is negative three and a half months. 
• Texas, not having voted Democratic in a presidential election since southerner Jimmy Carter won it in 1976, of course voted for Trump this year. Texas is also booming, Texas cities regularly appear on lists of the country’s fastest growing communities, and construction cranes and workers donning safety vests are common sites in most major cities. That Texas relies on undocumented labour is one of the state’s open secrets, that Trump is going to bring in the mass deportation of undocumented migrants is one of the openly stated policies of the incoming administration. In a very Brexity-feel complaint Stan Marek, CEO of Marek, a Houston-based commercial and residential construction giant said mass deportations “would devastate our industry, we wouldn’t finish our highways, we wouldn’t finish our schools,” Housing would disappear. I think they’d lose half their labour.” Yeah you know that “hey, it’s just old Donnie doing that locker-room banter – he’s just saying those things that we wish we could all say, you know the nazi-racist-mass deportation hitler blood-cleansing things – he’s just letting off steam, he doesn’t mean it!” blind eye you’ve been turning whilst putting your fingers in your ears, holding your nose and voting all at the same time – yeah he fuckin’ means it! Brexit’s doing away with the freedom of movement in Europe will keep the brown people out is how it got sold to racists over here. No, what it meant was you now can’t retire to your Costa del Sol apartment you spent all that time working to afford in Spain, cos yeah they meant it! Once again the rich,powerful, tax and prosecution-avoiding people in charge that want you not to notice how they’re fashioning the entire country to suit just themselves, have successfully distracted you by getting you to blame people poorer than you for the things they’re doing to you to keep you poor. Ray Perryman, the president and CEO of the Waco-based Perryman Group said the reason Texans need so many immigrant laborers is simple: “The Texas workforce isn’t large enough to keep pace with its growth. There are more undocumented people working in Texas right now than there are unemployed people in Texas.” So yeah Brexit meant people who are in sore need of a booming economy voted to impose economic sanctions on themselves, welcome to the party Texas welcome to the party! 
• While the election, I think we can all agree, didn’t go great, there were a few glimmers of good stuff, like the election of Sarah McBride, the first trans member of Congress, in Delaware. But in case you forgot, we’re not allowed nice things, because Republicans also exist, so Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced legislation last week to change House rules to ban trans women from using women’s bathrooms on Capitol Hill. When asked by reporters if she was specifically targeting McBride, Mace said “Yes and absolutely, and then some. I’m absolutely 100% gonna stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a women’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms. I will be there fighting you every step of the way.” Marjorie Taylor Greene also had an opinion, and I bet you can’t guess which way she went. Ok, yeah, you totally can. She said Mace’s legislation doesn’t go far enough, and said she’d be willing to get into a physical altercation if McBride uses women’s restrooms. House Speaker Mike Johnson initially suggested the issue needed careful consideration, calling it an “unprecedented matter”, except it isn’t, because there are already plenty of trans staffers on Capitol Hill who until now were able to use bathrooms they were comfortable with. I say until now, because after the briefest pretence that it was a hard decision, Johnson made a ruling that “All single-sex facilities in the Capitol and House Office Buildings (like restrooms, changing rooms, and locker rooms) are reserved only for individuals of that biological sex.” Meanwhile, Sarah McBride herself showed them how it’s done, dismissing their bullshit as an effort to distract from the real issues facing the country, and vowing to focus on working hard for her constituents instead.
• In his continued determination to bring about an autocracy with him as the president for life; no not Putin, but certainly by the Putin playbook, Trump is of course determined to convince Americans that all of the offices of state – apart from his – are corrupt, left-wing extremists that are willing to overlook heinous crimes in order to go after him. And he can’t have that cos he’s the Saviour, the God-King Messiah, how is he going to do away with elections, constitutional rights and install himself and his family as rightful dynastic rulers of the New Kingdom, if he allows objectively neutral legal entities to continue to hold him to account and thus provide checks and balances? “For too long, the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponized against me and other Republicans,” Trump said in his statement announcing his new pick for attorney general, Pam Bondi. So first to go will be the attorneys who worked with Special Counsel Jack Smith investigating the former president for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and for his connection to the Capitol riot.  “President Trump campaigned on firing rogue bureaucrats who have engaged in the illegal weaponization of our American justice system, and the American people can expect he will deliver on that promise,” Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Washington Post. Of course Trumpsollini is the one who defines ‘rogue’. And all this despite that Jack Smith is set to reveal in court filings on December 2 how he plans to wind down the cases against Trump in adherence with department policy not to prosecute sitting presidents. Cos for the poor maltreated little kid – little ginger-haired kid – that never could, and won’t now ever be able to, win the love and approval of his emotionally-stunted long-dead father, it’s not enough for Trump just to win, every other fucker has to lose, and lose bigly. But don’t worry about him running for office again in 4 years time, he’d have made sure he never loses again by doing away with voting! Heads he wins, tails we lose and our heads we’ll lose too!! 
• Some bills are given awkward clunky names so that they make a fun acronym, and others are designed to hide the real nefarious intention of the bill behind a name that sounds so positive you’d have to be crazy to vote against it. Such is the case for The Stop Terror-Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. Why would Democrats vote against the Stop Terror-Financing Act? Surely the only reason is because they’re pro-terrorist. And yet, last week, 144 House Democrats and one Republican voted against it. The reason is that the bill empowers the Secretary of the Treasury to designate any non-profit organisation as a “terrorist-supporting organisation” and revoke their tax exempt status, in many cases effectively shutting them down. Even at face value, it seems very likely this will be used to target any pro-Palestinian organisations, but when Trump takes office, it would also enable him and his no-doubt compliant Treasury Secretary to attack any non-profit he disagrees with, with no real oversight or guardrails. As we know from 2000 Mules, a notionally left-wing organisation can simply mean one that tries to help disadvantaged or marginalised people with empathy and understanding, and that’s apparently enough to be suspected of cheating in an election on behalf of Democrats, so if this bill were to pass then any non-profit which tries to mitigate the cruellest effects of Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community or anyone else could find themselves in danger.
• I never thought I’d say this but I find myself in agreement with Kemi Badenoch – whaaat! I know right! She had said in a select committee in 2023 when she was Womens and Equalities commissioner that the content of the curriculum being taught to children should be being created by those that are experts in the subject – she was talking about health and social education and her party had been instrumental in cutting the funding for that ever since Labour had introduced in in the early 2000s but that’s beside the point. Kemi might, just might, baulk at the heavy-handed implementation by the Texas School Board of a new, state-written curriculum infused with Bible stories after it voted in favour of the material on Friday. Rachel Laser, CEO of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State points out that under the actual very First amendment that this may actually be unconstitutional suggesting the teachings violate the “establishment clause” of the First Amendment, which states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” A slim majority of the school board’s 15 members – eight to seven – voted to keep the Bluebonnet Learning material for use next educational year. Under the curriculum, a kindergarten lesson about the “Golden Rule” would prompt instructors to teach students about Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, another kindergarten unit about art appreciation would primarily focus on the Bible’s Book of Genesis and artworks inspired by it. A first grade unit on “sharing stories” would teach “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” from the New Testament. The third grade unit on ancient Rome would feature a section dedicated to the life of Jesus and Christianity in the Roman Empire. And a poetry unit for fifth graders would include a psalm from the Old Testament taught alongside poems from Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams. No other texts from religious books would be included in the unit. The Texas Education Agency says the lessons “were developed using the best evidence from cognitive science to ensure teachers have access to quality, on-grade-level materials that enable teachers to focus on delivering the highest-quality instruction and providing differentiated supports to students,” Staci Childs, a member of the board who voted against Bluebonnet disagrees somewhat adding “I represent the most diverse place in Texas, I represent Muslims, people of the Sikh faith, right? People that even don’t have a faith, that are agnostic. These people should see themselves reflected in the material just as much as a Christian.”  Still after all the mass deportations, once Texas is emptied of everyone but approved white-thinking right-thinking Stepford Midwich Cuckoo Handmaid worshippers of the Orange One – no one will notice that there’s no diversity nor that the words to all the hymns have been changed to include the word Don instead of God!

• In September, investigative journalism organisation ProPublica reported on the deaths of Amber Thurman and Candi Miller in Georgia. Or, more accurately, they reported on the findings of the Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee, who found that in both cases, the women’s deaths were preventable, and were caused by the state’s abortion ban, which led to restricted access to care they desperately needed. The committee, made up of 32 members from a variety of healthcare related backgrounds, found that Candi Miller had ordered abortion pills from overseas, but when the abortion didn’t fully complete, refused to visit the doctor due to the brand new abortion ban. They found that Amber Thurman died of sepsis after the hospital delayed the D&C she needed for 20 hours while they debated whether it fitted into one of the few exceptions in the law that wouldn’t lead to criminal penalties for the medical team. Once these tragic events were made public, the Georgia authorities realised something must be done, and sprang into action, immediately dismissing the entire review committee and announcing that a new committee will be recruited. Presumably they’ll be far more careful this time, and only recruit doctors who will either ignore the true cause of death of pregnant people, or at least conceal it from the public.
• This last week saw millionaire farm owners, who aren’t farmers but dress like them, who bought their farms as a way to dodge inheritance tax; people like pseudo-MP and Trump-licker Nigel Farage, manufacturers of hot air – James Dyson and Jeremy Clarkson, co-opt a real protest by farmers about issues impacting them. Issues that have occurred since Brexit put paid to the farming subsidies that the EU used to give them access to offset their costs and help them through bad harvests, and issues like people buying up agricultural land to offset their inheritance tax liabilities putting up the prices of actual farm land being sought by actual farmers to do actual farming. The co-option of that protest by tax-avoiding non-farmers was to make it look like the Labour party’s budget commitment to increase the inheritance tax level for agricultural land from April 2026 would affect ordinary farmers and thus distract attention as per away from rich bastards who are causing the actual problem. The rise in the inheritance tax threshold on farm land means that any agricultural property valued above the threshold of £1million will no longer be fully exempt from inheritance tax, meaning they will face an effective inheritance tax rate of 20% on the value of their assets over £1 million. Everybody else, incidentally, pays 40% on anything above £325,000. Many actual farmers would remain unaffected by the tax rise. A lot of the non-farmers would consequently have to pay some inheritance tax rather than none at all! The Tories, keen to show that this is a non-political issue but one that affects normal people turned up en masse on the back of a trailer, and whilst none of them are farmers or have any connection to farming; Priti Patel wore a coat obviously edged with the pelt of a subject from her own private mink farm! Thankfully the fact Cruella DeBraverman is no longer in the cabinet meant a hundred or so dalmatians could live to breathe another day! Thankfully also this week former Ukip councillor, Colette Fairbanks, lost her claim that she was bullied and harassed by her charity employer because she supported the UK’s departure from the EU, in a tribunal ruling that determined that Pro-Brexit views are not protected from workplace discrimination, and this also meant that cosplay-landowner Poundshop Parker-from-Thunderbirds Nigel Farage could un-discriminatorily be excluded from the list of speakers at the farmer’s protest cos of his association with Brexit. Though of course he’ll take to all the airwave, print and social media to tell us how he’s so cancelled we can’t hear his voice any more – oh if only that were true!

You can now buy Jim’s book, 2000 Mules and One Big Lie: A Stubborn Conspiracy Theory

Create your podcast today! #madeonzencastr

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:

 Non Sequitur (Redux) – FT#162 Transcript

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

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

Jim: Kakistocrat. Yeah. Kikistocracy is a government that is run by the worst, least suitable, most incompetent people.

Mark: Because it’s a lot of kaka.

Jim: Well, it’it’s. Actually from Greek.

Mark: Oh. Uh-huh. Oh, okay.

Jim: Caakos is bad in Greek and kakistos is worst. So.

Mark: Right.

Jim: That’s where it’fromistocracyocracy. Wow.

Mark: And it’s. Yeah. With nice overtones of kaka.

Jim: Absolutely. So, Nour, we’ve discussed before, we’re doing this a little bit these days where we go back and look at some of the first ones we did.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: Because it’s been now six plus years since we started this.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: And some people might not have listened to the first few.

Mark: And also it gives us a chance to see whether we’ve cured the world of committing that particular fallacy.

Jim: Yeah. Sadly, since we.

Mark: Since we look.

Jim: Sadly, we haven’t. But that does mean that there’s lots of lovely new examples to choose from. So, yeah, non sequitur is kind of the overarching logical fallacy, really, because it just means something that does not follow. So colloquially, a non sequitur is when you’re having a conversation, someone says something that doesn’t follow on from the thing that was just said. That’s a non sequitur.

Mark: Right.

Jim: In logical fallacy terms, it is where the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premises. Right. So they set up the argument, and then what they conclude in the end is not something you could conclude based on that premise or those premises.

Mark: Right.

Jim: It doesn’t logically follow.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So our first example comes from a Trump tweet from November 12th of 2020, just after the election that he lost. Because I thought, why not harken back to happier times? So he said, nobody wants to report that Pennsylvania and Michigan didn’t allow our poll watchers and. Or vote observers to watch or observe. This is responsible for hundreds of thousands of votes that should not be allowed to count. Therefore I easily win. Both states report the news. Soviously one. Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So, yeah. If, as we so often say, it’s not true, but if it was true, it doesn’t actually get to where he wants to get to. So, yeah, if it was true that people weren’t allowed to observe the vote counting in Pennsylvania, Michigan, that that meant you could throw out the votes for those states.

Mark: Right, right.

Jim: That doesn’t mean he won.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because even if you could, if this is not legitimate, it’s not how this works.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And. And they, and observers were allowed to observe the counting in those states, but even if they weren’t. And that meant you could throw out thousands of votes, who knows who those votes were for?

Mark: Yes, exactly. Yeah. Because the observers weren’t allowed to observe, it meant that they could get all of the Biden votes.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Out of the corners.

Jim: How that work?

Mark: And shoved them through. Because. Yeah, that’s not how it works.

Jim: Yeah. So. So he said some things, then said therefore, followed by a thing which is not something that follows not from the premise.

Mark: Yeah. So it is, it’s, a, it’s a bit like Dinesh T. Souza’s documentary shaped things. This is, a causal connection shaped statement kind. Because he shoved therefore in there.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And just going for a completely outrageous thing. Therefore, I easily win both states. Oh, yeah, right. Yeah. Fair enough. And, everybody’s going to go, oh, no, why didn’t we think of that?

Jim: Absolute.

Mark: Yeah. And therefore the moon is mine.

Jim: He made a similar claim.

Mark: Right.

Jim: A couple of years later. Actually, January was a year and a bit later because it’s January 2022, when a court decision went his way.

Donald Trump: The 2020 election was rigged and everyone knows it. You know who knows it more than anyone else? The Democrats. Just yesterday we had a giant victory in the great state

00:05:00

Donald Trump: of Pennsylvania. A statewide court ruled that the practice of no excuse mail in ballots put in place by Democrats right before the stolen election is illegal and flagrantly unconstitutional, and therefore, I assume we won the state. I assume so.

Mark: There you go.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Therefore I won. Yeah.

Jim: So again. Mm

Mark: If this was true, still wouldn’t prove his point.

Jim: The point he’s trying to say it proves is accurate.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Because if it was true that expanding mail in voting to not require excuses anymore.

Jim: Was illegal. Even if that meant you could throw out all of the no excuse mail in votes. That doesn’t necessarily mean he won Pennsylvania, for example. Yeah. As it is, the stuff he’s saying isn’t true. There was a court victory that month in their favor.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Which didn’t call mail in voting flagrantly unconstitutional and illegal. It did address a change to the rules that hadn’t been made by Democrats just before the election, but had been made in October 2019. So over a year before the election by the Republican legislature in Philadelphia. It was, it was voted on 105 Republicans to 2.

Mark: Whoa.

Jim: Versus 33 Democrats to 59 who voted against it. So it was very much Republican voted on thing. And it was done over a year before the election. What it did basically was previously in Pennsylvania, you had to have an excuse to vote by mail. You had to have a reason that you couldn’t get to the polls or you had.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: disabilities or whatever. That meant that it was not possible for you to vote in person. And they expanded that in October 2019, before anyone knew anything about the pandemic, to mean that you didn’t then need an excuse. But post2020, when Trump blamed that for his loss, a lot of the Republicans who initially proposed that bill then challenged it legally. So in 2021, 14 GOP congresseople, 11 of whom had voted for the bill in 2019, challenged it in court and said it was unconstitutional. Wow. The court agreed that it was unconstitutional in ASUC as to change that rule. They said that you needed, a ballot question and then a constitutional amendment. So basically they said that the question needed to have been put to the electorate. They said, right, this is extremely popular and would almost certainly pass, but it needed to have been done differently.

Mark: Right. Essentially not done by the legislators, but should have gone to a vote. Yeah.

Jim: Six months later, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said, nah, it was fine. They did it perfectly. Al. Right.

Mark: Right. So using his logic, because 11 of the people that voted, for the rule change then voted against it, they, their votes ought not to have counted.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Lost. And he lost. Yeah.

Jim: So our final example from Trump is when he was discussing a thing that, he thinks disqualifies Hillary from being able to be, a fit president.

Donald Trump: And we will be clear in naming our enemy radical Islamic terrorism. The fact that President Obama and Hillary Clinton can’t even say these words prove how unfit she is to leadave this country. She’s unfit.

Jim: The inability to say the words radical Islamic terrorism.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: I mean, you’re unfit to be. To lead the country. He added President Obama in there, I think, as a mistake, because the transcript that was made available for that speech was the kind of the teleprompter version that didn’t include any of his ad libs and Obama wasn’t mentioned at that point in the speech. So he started to talk about Obama and then, O’t know, hang on, he is president, who am I running against? Oh, yeah, And Hillary Clinton.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So, yeah, I think whether you choose to phrase it in that way of calling it radical Islamic terrorism, M is not necessarily the thing that decides whether you are fit to be president.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There’s a few other criteria.

Mark: Being found guilty of 34 counts of.

Jim: Yeah, that’fraud. That’s a reasonable one, I think.

Mark: Might be more of a reason for being, unfit for president. But no, apparently not either.

Jim: No. Yeah, doesn’t count.

Boris Johnson: And, now is the time, I

00:10:00

Boris Johnson: think, for Mark’s British politics Corner.

Mark: Well, given that we’ve had three. Is it? Or maybe four Tory Prime Ministers since we tackled this fallacy last time, I thought I’d have a look at a couple of the last Prime Minister’s questions of each of them to see how much they learned and how much they moved on from M employing gratuitous fallacies to collaborating in progressive debate. Turns out they haven’t.

Jim: No way.

Mark: So. No. So. So the first example was Boris’last Prime Minister’s questions, where he was being asked about how the comments’s fellow cabinet members were making members who are now vying to become the next leader. How they reflected on his and his pass’s record in government. And he, of course, gave a humbled, reasoned, considered an apologetic response as a conclusion to Stalmer’s premises.

Boris Johnson: The message coming out of this leadership contest is pretty clear. The Foreign Secretary says we can’t go on with our current policy. And the member for Saffron Walden probably puts it best when she simply asked, why should the public trust us? We haven’t exactly covered ourselves in glory. What message does it send when the candidates be Prime Minister can’t find a single decent thing to say about him, about each other or their record in government. Mr. Speaker, what did he say about him that no one can name a single policy of after three years of the Labour opposition, apart from putting up taxacis, he’s one of those pointless plastic bollards you find, around a deserted roadworks on a motorway. Mr. Speaker, we got Brexit done. He voted against it 48 times. We got this country far out of COVID in spite of everything he would have kept and when he would have kept us in long time.

Mark: So apart from a bit of ad hominem, you know, what does it say about your government that your members of your government are saying this kind of stuff? He said, yeah, but what does it say about you? I think he kind of. He mdraaws a few conclusions there. One of them being he’s like. As a result of what he’s saying, ki Starmer over there reporting the words from members of my cabinet, members of my government, because of what he’s saying, he’s there for like one of those plastic ballllards that is around all traffic cones as everybody else use them. And also in place of a conclusion as to what it says about the state of the Tories, all he does is just run out the old hits of, yeah, we got Brexit done and got the country the far side of COVID in spite of everything. Whereas, exact words, everything.

Jim: Everything we did.

Mark: Exactly.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: The very things that didn’t cover them in glory. As mentioned by Camami Badnok, who’s the new leader, two prime ministers later, who is the member of Saffron Warden, you know, all of the paring gate and the dodgyp PPE deals, blah, blah, blah. My argument is that you can draw the wrong conclusion from somebody else setting up the premises and that because they’re.

Jim: Oh, you absolutely can. Yeah.

Mark: And they all. They’re fairly consistent. All. How many have we had? Four. Three? Four. I can’t keep.

Jim: They all, blur into one shitty Tory.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Mix. Yes.

Mark: And they all kind of perhaps are not quite as graphic in the imagery that they use, but they basically say, oh, yeah, Stmer hasn’t, anything. The only conclusion that we can draw of all these legitimate accusations being laid at our feet is that he’s like a plastic ballllard or he’s got no idea. Yeah.

Jim: I mean that the bollard thing, as is often the case with this, is both alogical and a colloquial non sequitur. Because where the FR did that come from? How does that have anything to do with what anyone was talking about?

Mark: Yeah. And how. And also, it goes no way to explain where. Yes. How it’s nothing. What. What he’immediately said to before.

Jim: At the most generous interpretation of it, he’s calling him, a, traffic cone that is around roadworks that aren’t Happening anymore like that have long been finished. And so that. And the.

Mark: Right.

Jim: The traffic cones are still there.

Mark: Right.

Jim: But that. What is the way is it. Yeah, it’s just like it. Like if I’m really, really, really making an effort to make what he said make sense.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It could be that he’s alerting people to something that is no longer a problem.

Mark: Nice.

Jim: Maybe.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: But that’s not anything to do with what he said Kir was doing.

Mark: No, no.

Jim: So it’s still nothing. you know, I’m. And I’m really having to put a lot of effort in to get there.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah. The last time we

00:15:00

Mark: looked at it, I think the example I used was Boris, who used the kind of colloquial non sequitari was called out for doing so because it was about. So six years ago. Was that. Was there a, Tour de France or something? That Bradley Wiggins probably was.

Jim: Bloody cyclists’always at it, aren’t they?

Mark: They’re always at it. Yeah. And, I think Boris was being, you know, asked difficult questions, not unlike Starr asking difficult questions. And he just went, ah, yes, but why are we bothering with that? Bradley Wiggins is about to win the Tour de France and he got called out.

Jim: That might have been a red herring, which is a similar kind thing, but.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, but, completely un.

Jim: Out.

Mark: Yes. It was a. Look over there. Look at this shiny thing.

Jim: Jingly keys Facy.

Mark: Yeah, yes, yes. So let’s skip forward one. Well, half a. Ah, Prime Minister. A fraction of a prime minister. anyway, Liz Truss at her last Prime Minister question, responding when asked, why is she still there?

Keir Starmer: The only mandate she’s ever had is from members opposite. It was a mandate built on fantasy economics and it ended in disaster. The country’s got nothing to show for it except the destruction of the economy and the implosion of the Tory parties. I’ve, got the list here. 45p tax cut, gone. corporation tax cut, gone. 20p tax cut, gone. Two year energy freeze, gone. Tax free shopping, gone. Economic credibility, gone. And her supposed best friend, the formera Chancellor, he’s gone as well. They’re all gone. So why is she still here?

Liz Truss: Mrs. Speaker, I am a fighter and not a queta. I have acted in the national interest. To make sure that we have economic stability

Mark: Conclusions drawn from the evidence laid out by Stalmer are in reverse order. I have acted in the national interest to make sure we have economic stability when that was her downfall. Her actual actions led to a Massive economic instability to the tune of all on 22 billion pounds.

Jim: Yeah. While she was saying this there was, we were like in the midst of a massive downturn caused by her mini budget. Could not have been a worse time to be claiming that she’s created economic stability.

Mark: Yeah. And also she said I’m a fighter, not a quitter and she resigned the following day.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: What was interesting also is looking in looking at Sunak’s last PMQs both as Prime Minister before the election and when he resigned from being the leader after he became the leader of the opposition. So the last one of those he actually just kind of. It feels like really, really, really old fashioned politics. He just kind of agreed and supported and was not adversari.

Jim: He apologized, didn’t he?

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: He basically took responsibility for stuff. It was weird. Exactly.

Mark: You know, even made a joke about, you know, it’s, you know, I’m not. I think it was something to do with football or something said far be it from me to give advice upon winning but let’s wish the football team success. Bl there was not a non secretary in sight because it just. He said, you know, we’ll use will the Prime Minister to support this stuff. He said, well I’m glad you asked that question. Yes, I will do that and we will make sure that, you know, we will continue to support Ukraine’s application to join NATO. Well I’m glad to hear that. And it felt like it was from like the for.

Jim: It was very weird, wasn’t it?

Mark: Reasoniss come from grapes People come from apes I come from fallacies they come in first place in an non ex system race to hijack the argent the argument in pieces or is a Capricorn I can’t keep my star sign straight When I make mistakes I mot logic assaults cons sallts make mistakes taste great I don’t want to be aboveather but.

Jim: Your fallacies are wild.

Mark: That’s right be naked ladies there with their non seitur filled raisins.

Jim: So in the Fallacy of Oard we like to talk about the fallacy of the week from a non political perspective. And our first example this week comes from Shocola.

Mark: Uh-huh.

Jim: And this is a little bit of narration that is not really to do with the main thrust of the story, but contains a lovely non sequitur.

Narrator: The Comte de Renault was a student of history and therefore a patient man.

Jim: Now

00:20:00

Jim: I don’t think that that is something that you can assume just because someone enjoys studying history. Yeah, that does not necessarily make you patient. Doesn’t mean that you’re patient.

Mark: Therefore. Yeaheah. Therefore was a patient man.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Well, you know. Yes. Might be that he’s a student of the long game and understands the part that passing of time means that we repeat our mistakes.

Jim: It may be. Yeah, but it doesn’t follow. Doesn t that that someone makes you. It’s like. And this may be one that we used before in the original Paul Gosar, who is a dentist and therefore an expert in body language.

Donald Trump: by the way, I’m a dentist, okay? So I read body language very, very well.

Mark: That’s.

Jim: That’s. Yeah, that’s not a thing. So. Because it doesn’it as s a claim.

Mark: Kind, it’s not a real and it. They could have just said he was a student of history and a patient man.

Jim: Yes.

Mark: Because the two aren’t necessarily linked.

Jim: Ye.

Mark: If you were a student of the growth rate of giant redwoods.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: It might followed that. Therefore, you’re a patient man. Yeah.

Jim: If you are a real big fan of the pitch drop experiment and therefore a patient man.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Then fair enough.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: So our next example, is from the Simpsons. And this is an episode where Springfield is going through a change in area code. And some of the residents are not happy about it. And there’s a town meeting and Homer goes along with dynamite strapped to himself because he’s really unhappy about it.

Phone company executive: I know that some of you are. Upset about the area code change, especially those of you covered with dynamite. First, let me reassure you your fears are groundless and your complaints moronic.

Moe Szyslak: That’s good.

Phone company executive: This film will explain everything to you in that you can understand. M

Phony McRingring: Hi. I’m phony McGrring Rring mascot and president. Of the telephone company. And I’m here to explain why the. Convenience of one area code in your. Town has been replaced by the convenience. Of two area codes. You’re probably thinking, sure, more area codes. Are great and I don’t mind paying. The extra hidden fees. But how will I remember all those numbers? Whoa. Well, scientists have discovered that even monkeys. Can memorize 10 numbers. Are, you stupider than a monkey?

Chief Wiggum: How big of a monkey?

Phony McRingring: Of course you’re not.

Larry Dalrymple: Well, I’m convinced. A professional looking film like that, it’s gotta be right.

Dr. Hibbert: I agree. Two area codes is more convenient. I like.

Homer Simpson: Wait a minute. We haven’t heard from me yet. The, nut with the dynamite. The phone company is bamboozling you. I accus the phone company of making that film on purpose.

Phone company executive: Well, of Course we did.

Jim: So there’s quite a few non sequiturs in that y. So if it’s true that monkeys can memorize 10 digits in a row.

Mark: And.

Jim: And you’re not stupidider than a monkey, depending on how big the monkey is, that doesn’t necessarily follow. that it’s more convenient to have two different area codes in the same town. Yeah. Also, Lenny’s argument that it’s a professional film is so professional that it must be correct.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: That doesn’t follow. And home. Ah, accusing the phone company of making the film deler on purpose. Yeah, yeah. Does not follow that it is therefore an attempt to bamboozle people. Although it is.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: but you can’t m make that conclusion from the fact that they deliberately made the film.

Mark: Yeah. Not accidentally just happened. Yeah.

Jim: And so our final example in this section is from the Winslow boy. And this is an example where one of the characters points out that something you might think often follows isn’t necessarily a conclusion that you can draw.

Arthur Winslow: I understand you wish to marry my daughter.

John Watherstone: Yes, sir. That is to say, I proposed to her and she’s done me the honor of accepting me.

Arthur Winslow: I see. I trust when you corrected yourself that your second statement wasn’t a denial of your first. I mean, you do really wish to marry her?

John Watherstone: Yes, of course, sir.

Arthur Winslow: Why of course? There are plenty of people about who don’t wish to marry her.

John Watherstone: I mean, of course because I proposed to her.

Arthur Winslow: Well, that too doesn’t necessarily follow. However, we don’t need to quibble.

Jim: Yeah. So you can’t necessarily assume that justus someone proposes that they actually want to marry the person is probably the case. Yeah, yeah. And given the balance of probabilities that that is reasonable conclusion that you might draw. But in this case at least and in this society or milieu that these characters move in, he says o you can’t necessarily make that

00:25:00

Jim: assumption. So.

Mark: Yeah. And actually that would make you want to not marry her if you’ren to.

Jim: That’s her dad.

Mark: Yeah. Just realize you’re going to be my father in lawantic. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: I do like the fact that he points out, well, why of course. There are plenty of people who don’t want to marry her.

Mark: Yeah. What infuriating little man you are. Yes.

Jim: So before we move on to fake news this week, I just want to mention these socials because the socials have had a bit of a shake up in as much as everyone has left Twitter because y of the election and Musk being a cunt and all of that stuff. I adopted Toyer fairly early on, a very long time before Musk took over. And I have enjoyed it as a place to be, but, it has got progressively shittier.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But there wasn’t really anywhere else to jump ship to. And what has happened since the election is an enormous amount of people have left Twitter and moved to Blue sky, and that has now become a viable alternative. Literally a million people a day are joining Blue Sky. Wow. a really good kind of Twitter clone, but with proper moderation. So it’s actually quite a nice place to be for now. Hopefully it will stay that way. So consequently, what I’m saying is, like everyone else, we’re on Blue Sky. Get over there, search for Fallacious Trump on there, or the best and easiest way to do it on any of the social networks that we are on. Technically, we’re still on Twitter because at the moment is convenient, but I’ll probably delete that at some point. But any like Blue sky threads, Facebook, Discord as well, Instagram, YouTube, any of them. The quickest and easiest way to do it is to go to fallaciousrump.com and then put the name of the social network in it and it’ll take you to our account because.

Mark: Nice.

Jim: That’s nice and easy. Discord, yeah, is also a great place. And our community on there is fully set up now. So if you want to be part of a community that has some nice pet pictures in there, for example, and also ye that now there is a way to be alerted to when there’s a fake news coming out so that you compete against Mark and see if you can beat him. If you’re in our Facebook community or a member of our Patreon, then you can that I put up the fake news at the beginning of when we record the episode on Discord in our fake news channel. You can now just click on a little icon and then that will alert you. Every single time. I put up a fake news thing so that you know that there’s one there and you can come and compete.

Mark: Nice.

Jim: Speaking of which, so we’renna.

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

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

Mark: Well, see, with this game and the way that it’s played, and clearly the scoring system is Rudimentary at best. I’ve discovered that the only conclusion that it’s possible to reach is that elephants are no fans of chili infused cheese. That much is clear.

Jim: Completely reasonable. Yeah. Yeaheah. I also, as much as I like cheese, I’m not that big a fan of the stuff. The cheese with things in like right. Wesley, Dale and apricot or just. Yeah.

Mark: Cranberry.

Jim: Can do without it.

Mark: Yeah. There are, are moments where you bite into it and then some bits of it aren’t cheese.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And there’s no way of gauging how much of a mouthful of non cheese you’re going toa get. So it’s always a surprise and you can never really deal with it adequately. It feels just cheese. You know, it’s all going toa be cheese and you can prepare yourself.

Jim: Absolutely. And I’m usually prepared for cheese. I feel like was a There was a deli that I frequented as a child with my mum which did a cheese that had walnuts in it. That was, that was good.

Mark: Oh, ok.

Jim: I can’t imagine what kind of cheese it would have been.

Mark: Now it’s bit, bit like fruit and nut. It’s like having, you know, a handful of dried fruit with nuts mixed in. There’s that bit where you suddenly get a crunch when you’re not expecting it. You can’t, you can’t relax whilst’ing it because you. Because any minute now you’ll just get not the thing that you expected. It’s a bit like eating bags of here. I don’t know what they call in America where they have them. We have revels which are basically chocolate coated, ostensibly similarly shaped things but they might have honeycomb in them or raisins or worst of all a small ball of coffee. So that. So you. Yeah. And the thing about eating revels is they look on the surface to be all, all the same.

Jim: They’re sort of shiny, they’re all chocolate covered.

Mark: Yeah. And you pop them in your mouth and you might get. One might get orange cream or caramel. So you can’t, you can’t relax whilst re eating them. They very stressful’highly. Stressful

00:30:00

Mark: candy. And we’re coming up to Christmas and we get those big tins of a variety of chocolates and there are inevitably ones that nobody likes. Yeah.

Jim: But they’re in their own individually coloured wrappers so you know what you’re getting with.

Mark: Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. So you can kind of avoid.

Jim: Contrary to what Forrest Gump’s mum says, you do usually know what you’re getting in a box of chocolates because there’s a little. Yeah. Kind of it A little map.

Mark: Mapah.

Jim: That tells you ex what all of the things are. Yeahah.

Mark: Perhaps they bought really cheap chocolates. May I didn’t come with a map. And they all.

Jim: Maybe they had revels. Maybe that s that was what about life is like OFLs. You never know what you’re goingna get. Never know what you’renn so much sense. That’s def.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: We we’re gonna have to remix that. I think revels should adopt that as a thing. Yeah. Get Tom Hanks to redo it.

Jim: Anyway.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: News.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: the theme this week.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is well, bacon for one, but also groceries. But specifically the word grocery and Trump’s fascination with it.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: Statement number one. People don’t think of grocery. You know, it sounds like not such an important word when you talk about homes and everything else. Right. But more people tell me about grocery bills where the price of bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes. They tell me. And we’re going to do a lot of things. You know, our farmers aren’t being treated properly.

Mark: O okay.

Jim: Bit of a nonquitur at the end there.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that bit between price and tomatoes and we’re going to do a lot of things. Another non se secret of there.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Kind of. What. Yeah.

Jim: Statement number two. M It’ll also bring your grocery bill way down. I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery, you know, it’s sort of simple word but it sort of means like everything you eat, the stomach is speaking. It always does. And I have more complaints about that bacon and things going up. Double, triple, quadruple.

Mark: The stomach is speaking. It always does. What? Whats on earth? Well, his does by don’t doubt. Oh my God.

Jim: statement wor.

Mark: Grocery. He’s explaining the word grocery. Right. Okay.

Jim: The number one thing people ask me is about bacon. People just can’t afford it anymore because it’s grocery. Right. That’s what people mean when they say grocery. But you can’t afford to buy the things you need when you go to a store and they’re not doing anything about it. Grocery. It’s a word. Who knows what it really means.

Mark: He said it so many times it makes no sense to him anymore. Said in that. It’s an interesting word because it said in. You talk about your grocery bill, but you buy groceries.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. It’s rarely an individual noun.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And the more you look at it. The. The. The more Dr. Zeus it looks, actually. Okay.

Jim: So out.

Mark: Got to make sense of that. right. Okay. Another one thing people asked me about is bacon. Okay. But they can’t afford it because it’s grocery. That’s what people mean when they say grocery. Bacon. Okay. Yepah. Yeah. That. Yeah. People don’t think of grocery. And our farms are’t track. There’s the. The non secret is a bit suspicious. The other thing that I’m, a bit suspicious about is the missing word where it says the word grocery. You know, it’s. It’s sort of simple word. I can hear him saying it, but I, suspect that that’s something that you ve done deliberately. Like you’ve done it. You’ve done it on purpose. One of these you’ve done on purpose. but it s. Sort of means everything you e. The stomach is spe. He always does. Quadruple. Does he know the word quadruple? Grar. Here. It’s a word. Who knows what it really means? Really? It’s tossed up for me between that one and farmers I’ve being treated. I’m gonna go with, Okay. I think number three is the one you made up.

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

Mark: I’m gonna regret it. I think the number two, the stomach is speaking. And it’s sort of simple word.

Jim: Okay. number two.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is real.

Donald Trump: It’ll also bring your grocery bill way down. I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery, you know, it’s sort of simple word, but it sort of means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does. And, I have more complaints about that bacon and things going up. Double, triple, quadruple, step o. man, that’s going to be. That would be such a good sample to put.

Jim: The stomach is speaking. It always does.

Mark: Speaking always does. No way. but it sort of means like everything you eat.

00:35:00

Mark: No. Really? Well, it’s like he’s discovered s invented the word grocery. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: But it’s.

Jim: He’s only recently learned what it means.

Mark: Yeah. It’s sort of simple where he meet. The stomach is speaking. Not only is the stomach speaking, he always does. Yeah, it always does. It’s always poetic, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: So you also think number one is real.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And number one.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is real.

Donald Trump: People don’t think of grocery. You know, it sounds like not such an important word when you talk about homes and everything else. Right. But more people tell me about grocery bills where the price of Bacon, the price of lettuce, the price of tomatoes. They tell me. and we’re going to do a lot of things. You know, our farmers aren’t being treated properly.

Jim: So what this was, what this was in a town hall in direct response to a ah, member of the public who’d asked what the Trump administration would do to bring the price of groceries down.

Mark: Right. And so we’re going to do a lot of things.

Jim: Yeah, a lot of things. This is the only part of the answer that follows on from the question.

Mark: Yeah. And the other stuff, bacon, lettuce and tomato. Because he’s heard of a BLT sandwich.

Mark: S. Yeah, he goes past that to get to the burgers.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: But he s. But he’s, he’s recognized those as three of them. The major three items in your three a day that you need. Bacon, let. Tomato. No, we’renn. You know how farmers’ah. Ah man. It was a bit like the one where he was asked about what’s he going to do about childc care provision or something like that, wasn’t it? When he just went off on one made stuff up because he’d never actually ever thought about that.

Jim: Childc care is. Childc care is. Yeah, yeah. So it.

Mark: Grocery.

Jim: That means that you. You’re correct. Hey, that number three was the one that I made up.

Mark: Ha.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: It was a close run thing. It was either that you know, our farms are being treated properly, non seitur on the end. Okay. But yeah, grocery is the word. Who knows Was really. It’s just so feasible. Yeah. Well n. Yeah.

Jim: We have a few social contestants right. On. On Discord where you can be alerted when there’s a new fake news.

Mark: Haa.

Jim: Andrew says, I think having two and three where he defines grocery as to tell. And one of those is fake. of Those I’m picking 2/6. Because I don’t think he’d say quadrupl.

Mark: Yeah. See that was. Yes, I’m with you. That was.

Jim: Yah.

Mark: A doubt entered my mind. Yes.

Jim: And also on Discord, Tenacious Monkey says that’s where their thoughts went as well. There’s no way he’d get quadruple. So.

Jim: On Patreon, Anders says they all have bacon and so subconsciously they all seem right to me. But if I had to pick one it would be number one. I can’t make myself believe that Donald would save space for a word like lettuce in his vocabulary. It would be the thing you find between the ben and the meat on the Big Mac. You know, the salad. Nobody knows that. You know, people tell me that. They know that. What do you know? It’s incredible.

Mark: Perfect. Yeah. Ah, you get Anders right on. yeah.

Jim: The Pizza Dude Chronicles says grocery. Let’s say you can’t afford all three, therefore only the first two are real. Well, Kaz too. He says. Jeez. He’s so removed from normal life that the pustulus vomit that pours out of the sewage drain in the middle of his face could well have produced all three statements. Misusing and misunderstanding the word grocery. What a dickhead. I’m going for number one is fake because it uses the word grocery correctly just the onces.

Mark: Ah, very good.

Jim: Ye.

Mark: Yes, yes.

Jim: Rene Z says, I think number one is fake news. I know he talked about bacon a lot, but did he also throw in the L and the T of a blt?

Mark: Yeah, Y.

Jim: So it’s either Jim channeling the American love for BLT sandwiches. Where’s the mayo? Or Trump was trying to stay healthy by talking about lettuce and tomato. Seems unlikely. I only know that I skipped lunch today and this is making me hungry. So out to the grill to cook some chicken. On Facebook, CJ says it’s gotta be two. No way he’d get quadruple right. Karen says, I think number two is fake. Number one is insulting and distracted. Number three is his type of bazar. Grocery equals bacon. What? Number two sounds more coherent, therefore not Trump.

Mark: Right? Okay. Yeah, yeah. The stomach is speaking. Is that a coherent?

Jim: Yeah, right’s trouble. You see, none of them coherent. It’s just this. It’s a trick. When you lay it against two even less coherent things, people are fooled thinking one of them is coherent.

Mark: Yes, yes.

Jim: Mike says I think number two is fake. It sounds too dumb even for him. Fennec says I think one is fake news because the tangent talking about farmers actually has too much of a logical connection to the agricultural products mentioned. The previous sentence.

Mark: O the ln not.

Jim: Enough of aist feoenix argument. yeah. Also, I doubt he ever thinks about let tomatoes. Not even on a burger. And finally,

00:40:00

Jim: Eve says, I’m guessing number three, he would have wh about bacon being forbidden by liberal left.

Mark: Nice. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: There we go.

Mark: Wow. So well, well done.

Jim: So if you want to play along, join us on. On socials.

Mark: Yep. And get foxed by Jim. Yeah.

Jim: And it’s time for the part of the show that this week at least is called A Grab Bag of Freaks is not a logical fallacy because, I mean, frankly, that’s who we’re getting as cabinet members. Yeah. That Trump, is, is nominating and then they are goingna have to go through a confirmat process, some sort of.

Mark: Facade Ye f farc pretend thing. Y. Yeah.

Jim: There was an argument that because some of them were so crazy that they wouldn’t get confirmed that Trump was going to try and use recess appointments to get them through without any Senate confirmation.

Mark: Right.

Jim: But Mitch McConnell said that that wouldn’t, that wasn’t going to happen. And various other senators said that they didn’t think that that was a good idea. So. And certainly with the example of Matt Gaetz, it seems like the reason that he stepped down and withdrew from consideration as attey.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is because it was clear that he wasn’t goingna get confirmed because Trump was apparently calling various senators who had expressed concern about that pick, and, and kind of begging them to vote for him and they were like, not in a million years. So.

Mark: No.

Jim: So that’s why he chose to withdraw because it was, it was clear that he was nevernna get confirmed and with good reason because he’s a, criminal.

Mark: yeah. Well, there go Yeahah. And he. That brilliant time honoreded politician’phrase we said yes. I’m becoming a distraction.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Or I am the distraction from this. I’m becoming the story. And Distracting from the nominations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You are the story. That’s the thing. Release the details of the findings of the inquiry.

Jim: Yeah, yeah. So Mat Gates probably is the most, has had the most written about him, most high profile in terms of the kind of the picks because of partly the fact that he resigned from Congress when he was selected by Trump, which he didn’t need to do because there’s a whole process and he wasn’t necessarily going to get the job, clearly. But he resigned coincidentally, a couple of days before the Ethics Committee was due to release the findings or vote. They were going to vote on whether to release the findings of their investigation into whether he sex trafficked miners.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So having then resigned, theoretically at least the Ethics Committee has no kind of power then over him. No. No jurisdiction. Right.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Not that that has stopped congressional committees releasing reports investigating people like Hunter Biden, who not only is not a congressperson, but has never held any government position whatsoever. So yeah, I don’t think that it necessarily restricts them from releasing their report and indeed they, when they did get round to voting, they voted not to actually release the report as is or the evidence that they’re basing their report on. But they voted to complete the report and then take a vote at a later date as to whether they will, release it. So it’s def, it’s not definitely buried at the moment.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Yeah. whether that will make any difference to anything moving forward is, is. I don’t know if that would have any effect on the likelihood that any law enforcement would take steps or action against him. I don’t know if it would have any impact on that. But, there’s the latest on Gates is that he’s, he’s not, obviously now in consideration for Attorney General. He’s not considering running again in the special election that will be needed to fill his Congress seat.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And someone suggested he could be Governor of Florida when, Ron DeSantis’term is up. And, and Gates replied to that with a kind of a gif of the Florida flag or something, indicating maybe he’s kind of thinking that that would be a good thing, but.

Mark: Right, right.

Jim: I suspect he’s pretty well hated in Florida as he is almost everywhere else, so.

Mark: Everywhere else.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. Plus he will be up the road from Trump’s.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Gulf retreat. Ye.

Jim: Yeah. So, yeah, Gates is out, which is a good thing. but he’s been replaced in consideration by Pam Bonding, who.

Mark: Not good. Yeah.

Jim: I mean, yeah, better, but

00:45:00

Jim: better than Gates. But corrupt. I, mean, as the thing is, almost all of Trump’s picks are either incredibly unqualified or dangerous, sometimes both. And I think Pam Bondi is at least qualified in asmuch as she was Attorney General, Florida. But shouldn’t be in consideration and shouldn’t be, should have an extremely difficult confirmation resulting in her not being confirmed. If nothing else.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Than because of the various kind of issues that she’s had specifically related to Trump, namely the fact that she dumped an investigation into Trump University fraud case.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Days after he donated $25,000 to her reelection campaign. So it feels like that should mean she shouldn’t be his Attorney General. Yeah.

Mark: But who, who are going to be the people that waved them through or approve their Senate nominations. Yeah, yeah. And who’s got control of the Senate?

Jim: Republicans.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. And they’re all people that are determined to show their loyalty to the.

Jim: You know, they mostly are.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So there’s notnn be much that will stop most of these people getting through. The thing against Gates was that actually most senators and congresseople hate M. Matt Gates as well.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So that was actually the thing I was going to stop.

Mark: All agree yeah.

Jim: He’s broken. There’s a few people who are not crazy choices, just badish choices. Like Marco Rubio for Secretary of State. He’s. He’s a politician. You know, he’s actually yeah.

Mark: Reasonably not a news anchor or conspiracy theorist or

Jim: I mean part of the issues with the Republican Party being the ones that you would choose from for these roles is. Is much in the same way as the, you know, the Tory leader had to come from the Tory party and there were no good choices. They were all M. Tories and therefore Barre SC people.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And.

Mark: And they were the people left after this trust.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah.

Mark: And Boris Johnson.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And yes. And you kind of. Yes. By bir. You think. Ah, right. Okay. So those people are gone. Who have we got left?

Jim: Yeah. So there are no good.

Mark: Didn’t get voted in when they got voted in. Yeah.

Jim: So there are no good choices for these roles. And so someone like Marco Rubio, is you know, one of the more normal choices at least.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And. But of course they don’t. He doesn’t have to pick from sitting congresspeople or senators because apart from the else when he does that reduces the Republican lead in those Houses.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And ah. those will usually have to have kind of special elections to replace them which opens up at least a possibility that a Democrat might take that seat. Although in most places it doesn’t because yeah. Gates is unlikely to be replaced with a Democrat for example. but sometimes he is choosing people outside of government. which is how you get people like Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswami running ah. A completely new department that isn’t really a government department can. It’s a cons. It’s an outside consultants really. So he’s not appointing them to government m roles. There’s no confirmation needed for that kind of thing. He’s calling it that’s Yeah. A new department.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And they will be advising on government efficiency. Takes two of them to do that. And they’ll be. Yeah. Suggesting that things get defunded. I’m sure that Elon Musk will. Will focus only on efficiency and not on the fact that he is a defense contractor with multi million dollar contracts with the government. I’m sure that none of the decisions he.

Mark: That’s no. Will affect’be based on that.

Jim: No. Ye.

Mark: Nor. Nor will the fact that he just wants to throw his weight around and. And nor will the fact that he is. Has bankrupted to companies.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Or he’s on the Verge of bankrupting two of them at least. You know, why would that get in the way of his nomination?

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Or

Jim: Right.

Mark: He’s not an nominination. Why would that stop Trump appointing him? Because Trump is, you know, no judge of people’s business abilities. He’s just down for. I want people who are pretending to be like me or pretend to like me.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: that’s all I want. That’s. I just want loyalty and money. That’s. That’s it.

Jim: Yeah. Apparently Marjorie Taylor Greene has

00:50:00

Jim: been tapped to work with Musk and Ramamaswami.

Mark: To make them appear more human.

Jim: Help. No. How would that work? Marjie Helly Green.

Mark: Exactly.

Jim: Ye.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Oh, I see. By comparison. Right.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. No, yeah.

Mark: Fair enough. Right. Yeah. Yes. I just put them in the same room and you go o. Okay. Yes. I quite like to talkss to that one.

Jim: I understand. Yeah, yeah. No, AOC, said that actually this is quite good because she doesn’t do anything. She doesn’t turn up most of the time. She doesn’t do the reading. So this is basically like handing them a ##plugged controller.

Mark: That’s excellent. Brilliant. Yeah. And also they named it acimistically.

Jim: Yeah. Doge those department.

Mark: It’the Department of Government oficnty. Just in order to pander to fucking Elon Musk’s puerile sense of humor.

Jim: Yeah. One of the worst. I don’t know. There’s such a lot to choose from. A really bad pick, is Pete Hegeth, the. The weekend Fox and Friends host. Not even weekday Fox and Friends host. He. Yeah, he’s like not good enough to be the weekday host. he’s the guy they just.

Mark: When everybody’s tired and they just go oh yeah. Just coming on the weekend when nobody’s watching.

Jim: So this guy at rallies, has been chosen to runs the entire Defense Department. He’s gonna be Secretary of Defense, which is the I think probably the largest employer in the world.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: It’s 3 million service members and personnel. a massive, almost a trillion dollar annual budget. And he has never run a company above like 15 people in the past.

Mark: Yeah. I suspect you’s never even run a bath.

Jim: Yeah. I mean, and that’s. That’s before even getting into his, his views on for example women serving in the military, which is they shouldn’t. And yeah. and DEI and like woke.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Issues in the military and. And yeah, just bullshit. Just And obviously that’s without even talking about the sexual misconduct, allegations against him.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Which seems be almost a prerequisite to be one of Trump’s cainet members.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. You know, the. Never mind. radical Islamist terrorists. If, you know, if you, if you can, if you can say that, fine. But if you’ve, if there’s allegations of sort of sexual, improrietietyy, then oh yeah, definitely. You’re in. You’re on the list. Have you got any allegations to sex, Brit? No, no. M sorry, Then you can’t come in.

Jim: Like for example, that Gates and also, RFK Jr. Yeah. The.

Mark: And, and Trump himself.

Jim: Well, and Trump himself. And Linda McMahon. The, the, Vince McMahon’s wife, the wrestling woman who is, who’s going to be Secretary of Education. The first Secretary of Education to have been a playable character in a Nintendo 64 World Wrestling Federation game.

Mark: That’s what you want.

Jim: meanwhile, RFK junior Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because what you really want is a vaccine. Skeptic. Yeah. FDA conspiracy theorist, a fluoride denier. Like basically all of the things that, that have actually contributed to, improvements in public health over the last hundred years in the U.S. he is, yeah, he is quite. Success of all of those things.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Basically they’ve got people that are. Well, J.V. vance is the, is the perfect example. They’ve got people who are deeply loyal to Trump’s. I hesitate to use the word values, but what he thinks are important they all are loyal to. Is he not blind to the fact that some of them have changed their story?

Jim: Yeah. I don’t know.

Mark: Change his tune.

Jim: Loyal to Trump’s values or priorities so much as just their loyal Trump.

Mark: Yeah. That.

Jim: That’s the only requirement.

Mark: Yepah. Or they’ll. They see that bit like Boris Johnson saw which way the cookie was crumbling and decided to go for leave rather than remain for the Brexit thing because it was a way of seeing some power getting.

Jim: I mean, certainly I think that’s true of RFK.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And J.D. vance.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: As well. You know, having said Trump is America’s Hitler, and then actually

00:55:00

Mark: going out and advocating for him because it would give him a job.

Jim: Ye.

Mark: Has Trump not kind of noticed that? I said, well, you’re only saying that because you want a job. No, he doesn’t because he’s. If as long as you applaud him and meet all of his narcissistic needs, then he will overlook what you’re doing. He’s got no idea that they’re all actually Just playing the game in order to get a highly paid job and being. And get some power. That’s why I find it odd that, Musk thinks there’s room in Trump’s organization for two people like him that are, you know, overblown, bankrupt narcissists. That’s. How long is that going to last?

Jim: Oh, yeah, it’s not. It’s gonna go terribly. All of this is gonna go terribly. And that’s partly the point, because the thing is, I think the only way that any of this makes sense is a combination of Trump’s inability to make good choices and the fact that actually what Republicans want is for government to fail.

Mark: Right.

Jim: They want, for the most part, except when they’re regulating your ability to do private things, for the most part, they want smaller government. And to do that, they want to destroy the Department of Education and the Department of Energy and all of the ones that, All of the departments that regulate things.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And so the best way to do that is put complete idiots in charge of them. People who are generally anti the ideas of those agencies and have no ability how to actually make them work. Because if you do that, then they fail. And then you can say, look, see, government’s stupid, rubbish, and it doesn’t work and it fails. Yeah. And, that’s why you put people like Christy Noam in charge of Homeland Security, because she is obviously gonna fail at that. That’s a terrible idea. She is a complete idiot. She’s someone who thinks it is a really good idea to write a book about shooting a puppy in the face and that people will like you for it.

Mark: Yeah. So what, you know how to make your home secure? Shoot a puppy in the face.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Therefore, you’re in charge of Homeland Security.

Jim: Ye.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: people like, for example, John Ratcliffe being CIA director, he was, I think, during Trump’s first term, he was up for DNI job, Director of National Intelligence, but couldn’t get confirmed for that because.

Mark: Right.

Jim: he’s got various issues with security clearance. but now he’s going to be the Director of CIA, the Director of National Intelligence going to be Russian asset Tulsi Gabbard Putin, an Assad apologist. She will be the one in charge of avoiding foreign people spying on America.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that’s great.

Mark: That’s good. Yeah. Because she knows about Russia. She’s got the inside track on Russia.

Jim: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: Plus, but. Ah, yeah, plus we encountered her, alongside Russell Brand with her Cruella Deville white stripe.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And her hair.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeaheah.

Jim: Ah, then you’ve got Russell Vaught as the director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is the co author of Project 2025 which of course y, Trump had absolutely no knowledge of or anything to do with. but Voughtt was the one who was saying at the time, even when Trump was actively saying I don’t know anything about this or any of the people who are in charge of it, he was the one going on television saying of course he does, but it’s political. It’s politically useful to say that at this point and I have no problem with that. He should do that. He should deny knowing anything about it because that’s the way to get elected. That’s, that was his open line on the news programs that booked him to go on.

Mark: And it worked.

Jim: yeah, absolutely.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There’s more but they’re all terrible. And yeah, I mean, I suppose one more worth mentioning is Dr. Oz.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Who couldn’t get elected in Pennsylvania against fetamine. But y is now going to be in charge of Medicare and Medicaid, obviously with a view to destroying those two. And, and also Sebastian Gawker.

Mark: Yes. Friend of the show beloved 2000 Mule Skeptic.

Jim: Yeah. He’snn be deputy assistant the president and senior director for countert terrroorism. Because when you are in league with domestic terrorists, being being the one in charge of the department that is supposed to be stopping them is great.

Mark: It’s. That’s what you want. Yes. You want to put all of the people in charge of stuff so that they can cover up the fact that they are letting the people that they’re in league with get away with it. Yeah, yeah, of course you can. And also demonstrate that actually all of the departments

01:00:00

Mark: are corrupt because here Sebastian Gor could being corrupt. and therefore we should dispensele the department entirely.

Jim: Well, Grker couldn’t get a security clearance because Trump tried to appoint him to stuff in his first term. and’t get a security clearance because of his ties to neo Nazi groups and things like that.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that’s going to be interesting whether there are actually any background checks being done because frankly what’s the point in background checking anyone when the guy with the top job is guilty of for 34 felonies. Like ah, what, what will disqualify these people? So “e mean, I don’t know what they’re gonna do with that. I mean there are although very few, there’s a couple of surprising choices which might mean that they actually then don’t last as choices, one of whom is the Surgeon General, who’s one of the most recent choices, Jeanette Nishwat, who is. I mean, she’s. She’s been on Fox News. She’s a Fox News medical contributor. Which is no doubt why Trump has picked her because.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Apparently mostly how he did his choosing was mostly just in front of a kind of bay of TV screens. And whenever he was like, oh, maybe this person, then they would show him their kind of show reel of times they’ve appeared on TV and that’s what he would base his decision on, whether they were a good person or not. Because obviously you’ve got to be good on tv. You if in the administration. So.

Mark: Ye. Yeah.

Jim: And yet still picks people like Stephen Miller.

Mark: Y.

Jim: But, but she is an odd pick because she advocated strongly for mask mandates and, and the vaccine and all of that kind of stuff. And. Right. Chunks of Trump’s base are saying, why have you picked her? She’s a terrible pick. Why didn’t you pick someone like Joseph Fladapo from Florida Surgeon General there who was, you know, saying all right. Things about. Yeah, Yectin and that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. She’s a weird choice. So maybe she won’t last. But I think fundamentally it’s going to be time pretty soon for a new Deadpool.

Mark: O. Yeah.

Jim: Fire Swamp, which was the best name that someone came up with for it. I think it’s probably worth waiting until he’s actually in office and these people get appointed.

Mark: But they might not even last.

Jim: Yeah, Some of them won’t last until then, definitely.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: but once they’ve been appointed, we will have a Fire Swamp. Y. Yeah. You will get to. To choose which ones you think, are going to get ejected more quickly.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Than others. And then we get points and stuff like that. And that’d be fun because we did that in his first term and there was a high turnover.

Mark: O It was great. And yeah. I’m hoping that he’s learned nothing and will still defy his advisors, you know, the Russell Vaughtse, in order to just get rid of people because he doesn’t like them anymore.

Jim: Oh, absolutely. He’ll do that. Ye yeah. The second anyone says anything against him.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He will turn on them. There’s no question of that. There’s no loyalty coming from his direction.

Mark: No.

Jim: The one thing I have read that I thought, yeah, that’s a reasonable point and might give some hope in the face of all of these terrible Choices is that, clown shoes are better than jack boots.

Mark: There you go. Nice.

Jim: It’s better.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: That he pick people who just don’t have a clue what they’re doing.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Than people who will dangerously and actively use their positions to harm people. And I’m not saying that none of these people will do that. Some of these people will actively harm people. People will die because of the choices that Trump makes, both in terms of his cabinet pickics and, other choices he makes as president. Undoubtedly, yeah, it will be awful. But if he picked all fascists. Yeah. It could be worse. And in many cases, he’s just picked idiots who are loyal to him.

Mark: Yeah. So somebody described it over here as a cavalcade of bozos.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: So it’s not going to usher in World War Three. It’s just watching the Ringling Circus.

Jim: I mean, I think it’s a little early to say it’s not going to usher in World Wars.

Mark: No.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: But not necessarily. Yeah, yeah. As a result of the appointments, it’s not a full conclusion, but it might happen by accident. And finally, some things we really don’t have time to talk about.

Jim: One of the things Trump’s not great at is presidential transitions. In 2016, he didn’t actually bother to put a transition team together due to the fact that he, like everyone else, was pretty sure he had no chance of winning. And in 2020, when it came time to give it back, there was that whole insurrection thing. This time, he did have a team in place, but none of them are actually able to get started with briefings or gathering the information they’ll need to get to work or even get security clearances, because they still haven’t signed the legal agreements required by the Presidential Transition Act. The forms are usually signed by all major party candidates over a month before the election in order to facilitate a smooth transition. And once signed, they allow the team to access various resources, including office space and equipment, IT and staff assistants, as well as critical information that will help them to be ready to Govern from day one. The Trump team in 2016, such as it was,

01:05:00

Jim: even signed the documents. So what’s the hold up this time? One possibility is that in 2020, Trump himself signed into law and amendment to the process, which required incoming administrations to sign an ethics pledge to avoid conflicts of interest. By not signing this by the October 1st deadline, he’s technically already broken the law. So if you’re wondering how long it would take the new Trump administration to start committing crimes once they’re in office, the answer is Negative three and a half months.

Mark: Texas, not having voted Democratic in a presidential election since Southerner Jimmy Carter won it in 1976, of course voted for Trump this year. Texas is also booming. Texas cities regularly appear on lists of the country’s fastest growing communities. And construction cranes and workers donning safety vests are common siteights in most major cities. That Texas relies on undocumented labour is one of the state’s open secrets. That Trump is going to bring in the mass deportation of undocumented migrants is one of the openly stated policies of the incoming administration. In a very brexity field complaint, Stan Marikk, CEO, of Marik, a Houston based commercial and residential construction giant, said mass deportations would devastate our industry. We wouldn’t finish our highways, we wouldn’t finish our schools. Housing would disappear. I think they’d lose half the labor. Yeah, you know that. Hey, it’s just old Donny doing that locker Ramb banter. He’s just saying those things that we wish we could all say. You know, the Nazi racist, mass deportation, Hitler blood cleansing things. He’s just letting off steam. He doesn’t mean it blind eye. You’ve been turning whilst putting your fingers in your ears, holding your nose and voting all at the same time. Yeah, who fucking means it? Brexit doing away with the freedom of movement in Europe will keep the brown people out is how it got sold to racists over here. No, what it means was now you can’t retire to your Costa del Sol apartment. You spent all that time working to affording Spain you races because yeah, they mean it once again. The rich, powerful tax and prosecution avoiding people in charge that want you not to notice how they’fashioning the entire country suititor themselves have successfully distracted you by getting you to blame people poorer than you for the things that they’re doing to you to keep you poor. Ray Perryman, the president and CEO, of Waco based Perraman Group, said the reason Texans need so many immigrant labour is simple. The Texas workforce isn’t large enough to keep pace with its growth. There are more undocumented people working in Texas right now than there are unemployed people in Texas. So yeah, Brexit meant people who are in sore need of a booming economy voted to impose economic sanctions on themselves. Welcome to the party, Texas. Welcome to the party.

Jim: While the election, I think we can all agree, didn’t go great, there were a few glimmers of good stuff. Like the election of Sarah McBride, the first trans member of Congress in Delaware. But in case you forgot we’re not allowed nice things because Republicans also exist. So Congresswoman Nancy Mace of South Carolina introduced legislation last week to change House rules to ban trans women from using women’s bathrooms on Capitol Hill. When asked by reporters if she was specifically targeting McBride Mayce yes and absolutely. And then some. I’m absolutely 100% go going to stand in the way of any man who wants to be in a woman’s restroom, in our locker rooms, in our changing rooms. I will be there fighting you every step of the way. Marjorie Taylor Greene also had an opinion and I bet you can’t guess which way she went. Oh yeah, you totally can. She said. Mac’s legislation doesn’t go far enough. And she said she’d be willing to get into a physical altercation if McBride uses the woman’s restrooms. House Speaker Mike Johnson initially suggested the issue needed careful consideration, calling it an unprecedented matter. Except it isn’t, because there are already plenty of transaffers on Capitol Hill to until now were able to use bathrooms they were comfortable with. I say until now because after the briefest pretence that it was a hard decision, Johnson made a ruling that all single sex facilities in the Capitol and House office buildings like restrooms, changing rooms and locker rooms are reserved only for individuals of that biological sex. Meanwhile, Sarah McBride herself showed them how its done, dismissing their bullshit as an effort to distract from the real issues facing the country and vowing to focus on working hard for her constituents instead.

Mark: Nice in his continued determination to bring about an autocracy with him as the president for life. No, not Putin, but certainly by the Putin playbook. Trump is of course determined to convince Americans that all of the offices of state apart from his are corrupt left wing extremists that are willing to overlook heinous crimes in order to go after him. And he can’t have that because he’s the savior, the God King Messiah. How is he going to do away with elections, constitutional rights and install himself and his family as

01:10:00

Mark: rightful dynastic rulers of the new Kingdom if he allows objectively neutral legal entities to continue to hold into account and thus provide checks and balances? For too long the partisan Department of Justice has been weaponised against me and other Republicans, Trump said in his statement announcing a new for Attorney Generalle Pam Bondi. So first to go will be the attorneys who work with Special Counsel Jack Smith, investigating the former president for his alleged mishandling of classified documents and for his connection with the Capitol riot. President Trump campaigned on firing rogue bureaucrats who have engaged in the illegal weaponization of our American justice system and the American people can expect he will deliver on that promise, trump Press secretary Caroline Levittt told the Washington Post. Of course Trump Celini is the one who defines rogue and all this despite that. Jack Smith is set to reveal in court filings on Dec. 2 how he plans to wind down the cases against Trump in adherence with department policy not to prosecute sitting presidents. Because for the poor maltreated little kid, little ginger haired kid that never could and won’t now ever be able to win the love and approval of his emotionally stunted long dead father. It’s not enough for Trump just to win. Every other fucker has to lose and lose bigly. But don’t worry about him running for office again. In four years time hed have made sure he never loses again by doing away with voting heads he wins tail we lose and our heads will lose too.

Jim: Some bills are given awkward clunky name so that they make a fun acronym and others are designed to hide the real nefarious intention of the bill behind a name that sounds so positive youd have to be Crazy to Vote against against it. Such is the case for the Stop Terror Financing and Tax Penalties on American Hostages Act. Why would Democrats vote against the Stop Terror Financing Act? Surely the only reason is because they’re pro terrorist. And yet last week 144 House Democrats and one Republican voted against it. The reason is that the bill empowers the Secretary of the treasury to designate any non profit organation as a terrorist supporting organation and revoke their tax exempt status in many cases effectively shutting them down. Even at face value, it seems very likely this will be used to target any pro Palestinian organationss. But when Trump takes office it would also enable him and his no doubt compliant Treasury Secretary to attack any non profit he disagrees with with no real oversight or guardrails. As we know from 2000 mules, a notionally left wing organisation can simply mean one that tries to help disadvantaged or marginalized people with empathy and understanding. And that’s apparently enough to be suspected of cheating in an election on behalf of Democrats. So if this bill were to pass, then any nonpr profit which tries to mitigate the cruelest effects of Trump’s attacks on immigrants, women, the LGBTQ community or anyone else could find themselves in danger.

Mark: I d never thought I’d say this, but I find myself in agreement with Chemi Badenoc. What I know right? She had said in a select committee in 2023 when she was Women’s and Equalities Commissioner that the content of the curriculum being taught to children should be created by those that are experts in the subject. She was talking about health and social education and her party had been instrumental in cutting the funding for that ever since Labour had introduced it in the early 2000s. But that’s beside the point. Chemi Mightites just might balkk at the heavy handed implementation by the Texas School Board of a new state written curriculum infused with Bible stories after it voted in favor of the material on Friday. Rachel Lazer, CEO of the advocacy group Americans United for Separation of Church and State, points out that under the actual very First Amendment that this may actually be unconstitutional, suggesting the teachings violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment which states Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. A slim majority of the school boards 15 members 87 voted to keep the Blue Bonnet learning material for use next educational year. Under the curriculum, a kindergarten lesson about the Golden Rule were prompt instructors to teach students about Jesus Sermon on the Mount. Another kindergarten unit about art appreciation would primarily focus on the Bible’s Book of Genesis and artworks inspired by it. First grade unit on sharing Stories would teach the parable of the Prodigal Son, the third grade unit on ancient Rome would feature a section dedicated to the life for Jesus and Christianity in the Roman Empire, and a poetry unit for fifth graders would include a psalm from the Old Testament TOS alongside poems from Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams. No other texts from religious books will be included in the unit. The Texas Education Agency says the lessons were developed using the best evidence from cognitive science to ensure teachers have access to quality on grade level materials

01:15:00

Mark: that enable teachers to focus on delivering the highest quality instruction and provide differentiated supports to students. Staceacy Child, a member of the board who voted against Blue Bonnet disagrees somewhat, adding, I represent the most diverse place in Texas. I represent Muslims, people of the Sikh faith right people that don’t even have a faith that are agnostic. These people should see themselves reflected in the material just as much as Christians. Still, after all the mass deportations once Texas is emptied of everyone but approving white thinking right thinking Stepford Midw which cuckoo handd worshippers of the orange one. No one will notice that there is no diversity nor that the words to all the hymns have been changed to include the word Don instead of God.

Jim: In September, Investigative journalism organisation ProPublica reported on the deaths of Amberurman and Candy Miller in George or more accurately, they reported on the findings of the Georgia Maternal Mortality Review Committee who found that in both cases the women’s deaths were preventable and were caused by the state’s abortion ban which led to restricted access to care they desperately needed. The committee, made up of 32 members from a variety of healthare related backgrounds, found that Candy Miller had ordered abortion pills from overseas but when the abortion didn’t fully complete, refused to visit the doctor due to the brand new abortion ban. They found that Amber Thurman died of sepsis after the hospital delayed the DNC she needed for 20 hours while they debated whether it fitted into one of the few exceptions in the law that wouldnt lead to criminal penalties for the medical team. Once these tragic events were made public, the Georgia authorities realised something must be done and sprang into action, immediately dismissing the entire review committee and announcing that a new committee will be recruited. Presumably they’ll be far more careful this time and only recruit doctors who will either ignore the true cause of death of pregnant people or at least conceal it from the public.

Mark: This last week saw millionaire farm owners who aren’t farmers but dressed like them who bought their farms as a way to dodge inheritance tax. People like Pseudo MP and Trump Lick and Nigel Farage and manufacturers of hot air like James Dyson and Jeremy Clarkson co opt a real protest by farmers about issues impacting them. Issues that have occurred since Brexit put paid to the farming subsidies that the EU used to give them to offset their costs and help them through banned harvests and issues like people buying up agricultural land to offset their inheritance tax liabilities, putting up the prices of actual farmland being sought by actual farmers to do actual farming. The co option of that protest by tax avoiding non farmers was to make it look like the Labour Party’s budget commitment to increase the inheritance tax level for agricultural land from April 2026 would affect ordinary farmers and thus distract attention as per away from rich bastards who are causing the actual problem. The rise in the inheritance tax threshold on farmland means that any agricultural property valued above the threshold of £1 million will no longer be fully exempt from inheritance tax, meaning they will face an effective inheritance tax of 20% on the value of their assets over 1 million pounds. Everyone else incidentally pays 40% on anything above 325,000 pounds. Many actual farmers would remain completely unaffected by the tax rise. A lot of the non farmers would consequently have to pay some inheritance tax rather than none at all. The Tories, keen to show that this is a non political issue but one that affects normal people, turned up en masse on the back of a trailer and whilst none of them are farmers or have any connection to farming. Pretty Patel wore a coat obviously edged with the pelt of a subject from her own private mink farm. Thankfully, the fact that Cruella de Brtherman is no longer in the Cabinet meant a hundred or so dalmatians could live to breathe another day. Thankfully, also this week, former Ukip councillor Collette Fairbanks lost her claim that she was bullied and harassed by her charity employer because she supported the UK’s departure from the EU in a tribunal ruling that determined that pro Brexit views are not protected from workplace discrimination. And this also meant that cosplay landowner Pound Shop Parker from Thunderbirds, Nigel Farage could undiscriminatorly be excluded from the list of speakers at the farmers protest because of his association with Brexit. Though of course he’ll take to all the airway print and social media to tell us how he’s so cancelled we can’t hear his voice anymore. Oh, if only that was true.

Jim: So that’s all about arguments and faulty reasoning. We have time for this week. You’ll find the show notes@felaciousrump.com and if you hear Trump say something stupid and want to ask if it’s a fallacy, our contact details or on the contact

01:20:00

Jim: page.

Mark: If you think we’ve used the 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 podcast. Or simply tell one other person in person about how much they’d like our podcast and you can support the show at patreon.com FTRU just like our strawman level patrons Mike Smith Lt Colleen Lyella, Richard Thunder Hopkins, Will M, Scott Ausszy on Bank, Laura Thompsick, Mark Reich and Amber R. Buchanan who told us when we met her at qed we can just call her Amber. And this year at qed I met the listener recognizer at QED last year because we keep using her full name all the time and our true Scotsman level patron Schmootz Sharon Robinson, Renee Z, Melissa Scitetech, Stephen Pickickel, Janet Uueetta, Andrew Halk and our top patron Kazui. Thank you so much for your continued support. It’s really really very much appreciated.

Jim: You can connect with those awesome people as well as us and other listeners and the Facebook group@facebook.com groupash, feaciousrump or in the discord at fallaciousrump. Com slash discord.

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

Donald Trump: That’s right. Go home to Mommy.