Dysphemism – FT#164

23 Dec Dysphemism – FT#164

Show Notes

The Dysphemism fallacy occurs when someone replaces a neutral term with an unnecessarily negative one to support their position.

Trump

We started out by discussing Trump talking about the Green New Deal

Then we looked at Trump using nicknames

And finally we talked about Trump’s description of the “BLM/Antifa riots”

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about Nigel Farage insulting the former Speaker John Bercow:

He followed that up by talking about Farage mocking the Budget

And he finished with this example of Farage talking about the EU parliament:

Fallacy in the Wild

In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from House, M.D.

Then we discussed this clip from Ally McBeal

And we finished up with this clip from Blue Bloods

 

Fake News

Since it’s Christmas, we switched up Fake News a bit, so here are 9 facts about Trump. One of the first three was made up by me, one of the second three, and one of the third three, and Mark had to figure out which:

1. Trump is in the World Wrestling Hall of Fame
2. Trump is in the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame
3. Trump is in the Country Music of Fame
4. Trump was nominated for four Nobel Peace Prizes
5. Trump was nominated for three Grammys
6. Trump was nominated for two Emmys
7. Trump’s Secret Service code name was ‘Mogul’
8. Trump is the second tallest President (according to the height on his NY drivers license)
9. Trump has been awarded five honorary Doctorates

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

 

Drones are not a logical fallacy

We talked about the weird panic over recent drone sightings.

 

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

• It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that since Trump won, the Republicans have Congress and the Supreme Court is two-thirds howler monkey, and at least a couple of those howler monkeys are comically corrupt, that there’s no point fighting, and we should all just give up and give in. Well fuck that, we’re not all outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray, and some of us think that there are still things worth fighting for. We’ll probably talk about the status of Trump’s various legal cases in a future episode, and while some have gone away either permanently or temporarily, we got a ruling this week from Judge Merchan in New York. That’s the case that led to 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star so that Trump could get elected the first time. Boy, it’s lucky those didn’t come out earlier, there’s no way he would have been elected President if people knew he’d fucked Stormy Daniels while Melania was nursing Barron and then committed various crimes to cover it up! Anyway, Judge Merchan was getting ready to decide on the sentence for those 34 felony convictions when the Supreme Court announced that a President can order Seal Team Six to assassinate their political rivals and there isn’t Jack Shit anyone can do. Merchan delayed sentencing to factor in this new information, and this week announced that in fact, the Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t make any difference, because he committed almost all the crimes before he was President, and the fact a couple of witnesses referred to conversations Trump had about his criminal activity while he was in the White House doesn’t mean the whole case gets thrown out. Trump took the decision as well as you might expect, calling Judge Merchan “corrupt, biased and incompetent”, and his decision “illegal and psychotic”. Merchan’s decision will be appealed, of course, but it’s a good first step.
• You know of course that the first thing you wish for when a Genie grants you three wishes is to ask for a million more wishes – it seems that has always been an oversight in the terms and conditions associated with rubbing lamps – praps they were there on the side of the lamp but simply got rubbed away over time. Long time Trump licky lackey Steve ‘three collars’ Bannon has been massaging the ego of Trump by rubbing the sticky surface of Republican lawyer Mike Davis, reportedly in line for the role of Attorney General. Bannon on his War Room podcast noted that Davis had said that the Constitution does not specify whether this applies only to consecutive terms. Yes he’s talking about the, more Pandora’s box than Genie’s lamp, wish that Trump could serve a third term! Forgetting of course that it was congress itself that determined the two-term limit following four consecutive terms by FDR and then four years of Truman after FDR’s death, I suspect Republicans were trying to find a way of keeping the Dems out of office! The 22nd amendment ratified in 1951 – under Truman reads “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President when this Article was proposed by Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.” Basically the last bit was taking into account Truman – allowing for a vice president who ascends to the presidency through succession, such as if the incumbent dies or resigns, to seek two additional terms if their initial presidency lasted less than two years. Meanwhile back on the set of  “I dream of Trumpie” Bannon continued, “Donald John Trump is going to raise his hand on the King James Bible and take the oath of office, his third victory and his second term,” Bannon said. “And the viceroy Mike Davis tells me, since it doesn’t actually say consecutive, that, I don’t know, maybe we do it again in ’28? Are you guys down for that? Trump ’28?” Davis later told Newsweek: “Steve Bannon is obviously trolling. Only Obama gets a third term, with his puppet Biden.” And Davis isn’t trolling? Also way to ingratiate Steve! – “Third victory” – nice touch. Ever the plausible denialist Trump has said “I wouldn’t be in favor of a challenge. Not for me. I wouldn’t be in favor of it at all,”, “You know, FDR, he was four terms. I don’t know, are we going to be considered three-term? Or two-term?” and to House Republicans on November 13 that he will not run again in 2028 “unless you do something.” It just remains to be careful what you wish for and to note that an anagram of Mike Davis Attorney General is – Tiny Sick Diva Enabler-Genie  – just sayin’
• Another lovely example of not giving up and giving in came from Judge James Wynn Jr in North Carolina this week. Judge Wynn is on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, and he announced in January that he would be retiring at the end of the year. In July Biden announced his nominee to Take Judge Wynn’s place, North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park. Immediately, North Carolina’s two Republican Senators vowed to block Park’s confirmation, as Republicans have for pretty much all Biden’s judicial nominations for much of this year. When his confirmation finally came up for a vote in the weeks following Trump’s election win, he was predictably opposed, leaving the Fourth Circuit seat open for Trump to ultimately fill. That is, until Judge Wynn unretired. He wrote to President Biden this week, saying “I write to advise that, after careful consideration, I have decided to continue in regular active service as a United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit… I apologize for any inconvenience I may have caused.” Wynn is actually the third Judge to announce his unretirement following Trump’s election, joining Max O. Cogburn Jr., district judge for the Western District of North Carolina, and Algenon L. Marbley, district judge for the Southern District of Ohio. Conservative group, The Article III Project has made ethics complaints against the three judges but legal experts seem to largely agree that Judges are allowed to decide when they retire, and they are allowed to change their minds about it. Well done guys! Let’s have a few more.
• If there’s one thing we’ve learned from car manufacturers it’s they’re not awfully keen on safety legislation if it gets in the way of other more important concerns like making money. The steering column on Chevrolet’s Corvair in the 60s had a tendency to spear the driver like a lance when it crashed, which it did cos the rear wheels had a tendency to lock up – it was cheaper to pay off any successful claims than to fix stuff. The 1981 Pinto gas tank had a propensity to explode during Ford’s crash tests but went into production cos they couldn’t afford the engineers to make it not. We-ell, you know that guy, currently the richest man on Planet Earth, he owns a car manufacturer and is a bit keen on self-driving cars and the chance to possibly own all the driverless taxi franchises that state governments might want him to supply them with? He also, I don’t know if you’d noticed, pumped a lot of dollars and personal appearances into getting Trump elected. Call them cynical but Reuters noticed, possibly more coincidentally than causally, that the incoming administration – which is *checks notes*- oh yeah Trump’s, is considering repealing the requirement for self-driving car manufacturers to report crashes. Ever mindful of that scene in I, Robot where Will Smith single-handedly has to convince everyone that Bots are Bad when he’s nearly killed by a self-driving taxi and don’t get me started on the ones in Total Recall!, but I’m thinking it’s quite behoven (Total Recall? – see what I did there?) on makers to report to regulators about when things go wrong so such regulators can make recommendations as to the killy-nessness of cars that might be put on the public roads. Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the current program. A Reuters analysis of the crash data shows Tesla accounted for 40 out of 45 fatal crashes reported to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration through to October. ‘Tesla finds the rules unfair because it believes it reports better data than other automakers, which makes it look like Tesla is responsible for an outsized number of crashes involving advanced driver-assistance systems’, one source said. Call me Ralph Nader but using the excuse that more tests reveal more failures isn’t an argument for fewer tests but rather for more safety! No doubt this requirement will be one of the efficiencies that Musk’s Doge department will be trying to kill off. Anyone fancy a game of Carmageddon? I’ve got a Tesla mod.
• Sadly, we’ve run out of ethical people standing up to oppression, so it’s time to talk about the ones who obey in advance, like ABC News, who folded like a cheap suit because they are afraid of Trump and his psychotic lackeys targeting them. In March, George Snuffalupagus was talking to Nancy Mace and mentioned that Trump had been found liable for rape. Trump sued ABC for defamation, because he had only been found liable for sexual assault, and was presumably very proud of the distinction. ABC decided to fight the lawsuit, partly because New York v Sullivan gives the press a legal fuckton of leeway when reporting on public figures, and partly because the Judge in the case specifically went out of his way to point out that New York law has a very narrow definition of rape, and that the verdict did not mean that E Jean Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed … the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.” But now Trump is in, threatening to challenge New York v Sullivan, appointing Project 2025 co-author Brendan Carr to head the FCC, and generally doesn’t give a shit about the Freedom of the Press if they don’t use that freedom to praise his every breath. So ABC caved, settled, and agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s Presidential Library, a fictional place that has never been built and probably never will be, because you don’t need a whole building to house three coloring books and a copy of all 22 books Trump claims to have written but actually hasn’t even read. Which presumably means Trump will be able to funnel that money into something more useful, like golf shoes. Meanwhile, George Snuffalupagus didn’t resign in disgust and instead made a statement as required by the settlement that he regretted saying the rapist raped somebody.
• “I’ll never be doing a rally again, can you believe it?” Trump declared in his victory speech on election night last month. I guess we should be grateful for small mercies at least. “We’re going on to something that’s far more important because the rallies were used for us to put, be put in this position where we can really help our country.” And of course rallies mean dollars and short of tearing down the constitution, eventually Trump will be out of office and all of those ‘don’t prosecute a sitting president’ prosecutions – at least  34 I can think of – will come back to haunt him and of course, cost him. So where do dollars come from now? Whilst a spokesman for MAGA Inc. declined to comment about the purpose of the Mar-a-Lago fundraiser, the current Mar-a-Lago fundraiser promises a candlelit dinner where donors can sit in a dimly lit room so as not to be seen to have parted with the price of entry for the event on Dec. 19: “1,000,000 PER PERSON,” according to a copy of the invite obtained by The Washington Post. Supporters who give $1 million or raise $2 million are guaranteed six tickets with “preferred seating at this pinnacle event,” by the door perhaps? Behind a pillar? They also get two tickets to a more exclusive “intimate dinner” with Vice President-elect JD Vance (shudder) and his wife, Usha, the night before; tickets to an earlier “Cabinet Reception” with Trump’s planned nominees; as well as invitations to stay in “select” hotels (Trump owns a smaller selection than he once did)   and other events, including the swearing-in ceremony, Pennsylvania Avenue parade and “Starlight Ball” on Jan. 20. Trump will appear as a “special guest” at the MAGA Inc. event next week. He is barred by law from directly fundraising for the group or privately directing most of its spending but of course Make America Great Again Inc., the super PAC spent more than $450 million to elect Donald Trump this year. In 2017 Trump’s inaugural committee settled a lawsuit that alleged the inaugural committee had overpaid Trump’s companies for events “to the private benefit of the Trump hotel and the Trump Organization.” So look out MAGA Inc. is all I’m saying, don’t be too surprised by the fine print about percentages for ‘administration and hire costs’ on anything to do with staging shit at Mar-a-Lago – the fella’s got form. Still at a cool mill per ticket it’s a bargain. I wonder if ours has arrived yet? 
• We talked last time about people being very upset that Biden repeatedly lied when he said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter. Well, get ready for a shock, because it turns out Trump lied about some stuff too! In the run up to the election, he mentioned that grocery prices were a bit high, and that if he got elected President, food prices would come down. Unless you pay as much attention to Trump as I do you probably don’t even remember it coming up because he only said it 800,000 times, and it was cited as the reason a lot of people voted for him. Interestingly, very few people ever asked him exactly how he planned to achieve the reduction in prices, which is handy because he never had a fucking clue. And now that none of this matters any more, he’s decided to fess up. When Time Magazine voted him the newsiest person of 2024, they did an interview and asked him if his Presidency would be a failure if he didn’t manage to bring grocery prices down, which, side note, I think is a smart way of asking that question. It’s still a softball and I definitely didn’t expect it to induce actual honesty, but Trump replied “I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down. You know, the supply chain is still broken. It’s broken. You see it. You go out to the docks and you see all these containers. And I own property in California…” Yeah, never mind actually, that’s exactly the kind of rambling bullshit I would have expected after all.
• Ben Jennings’ cartoon in the Guardian has Nigel Farage sitting on Santa’s knee – Santa looks very much like the CEO of Tesla – Little Nige says “Oh pwease Father Christmusk can I have some money? I’ve been very naughty”. Farage – Grinch of the moment – has been telling anyone who’ll listen that Musk is going to give him miwyons and miwyons, whilst at the same time denying that anyone has spoken to Musk, but adding in a theatrical whisper ‘he’s giving “serious thought” to bankrolling the party – honestly’. Vijay Rangarajan, chief executive of the elections watchdog, said that linking donations to political parties to the UK profits of companies owned by foreigners was one of the urgent changes needed to retain the trust of voters. As a foreign national Musk cannot directly donate to simpering Poundshop-Trump-a-licker Farage’s Reform Party, but could channel a donation through a UK branch of a company he owns like X for instance – we know this cos Farage said that’s perfectly legal and what he’s going to get his good friend Leon to do. Ever the grifter Farage sees that his job as an elected MP is to spend all his time trying to get shysters to remember who he is and give him money cos he’s a fellow shyster – oh er cough cough – a hard-working selfless representative of the interests of his constituents! Yeah but if that’s the image you’re really trying to put across to your constituents Nige you might want to be talking to people who are a bit more altru– than narcis-istic. People like George Soros or Bill Gates or the Clinton Foundation? Ah no not them, they’re sticklers for truth and transparency and doing stuff for others, plus, blimey if you hang out with them then what will your orange and self-drive new so-called friends think of you then?! Oh the perils of being a two-faced Janus hey Nige! – Sorry not anus… arse! Despite all this Reform UK has said it wants to “professionalise” the party! Which at this time of year reminds me of the professional parties run in Number 10 during lockdown by the other lot – god keep us safe from professional politicians – said a reformed Mr Scrooge!! God help us everyone!

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

Dysphemism – FT#164 Transcript

Jim: Hello and welcome to Fallacious Trump, the podcast where we use the insane ramblings of a man who thinks Lapland is a strip club to explain logical fallacies. I’m your host, Jim.

Mark: And I’m your other host, Mark. Elogical fallacy is an error in reasoning that results in bad or invalid arguments. And theological fallacy we’re looking at this Christmas week is dysphemism. Yeah, it’s a lovely word.

Jim: It is, isn’t it? Yeah, it’s one of those Greek ones. they were great at words, the Greeks.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Came up with loads of great.

Mark: Oh, so it’s not a, portmanteau of dystopia and euphemism. It’s.

Jim: Well, in the sense that those are both Greek words.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because you. The prefix you, as in euphemism and utopia, means good, whereas this means bad. So utopia versus dystopia, euphemism versus dysphemism. Because this is essentially a negative euphemism. Euphemism is something, a word or a phrase that you might replace something neutral with in order to make it sound more palatable y. Or even a good thing. Whereas a dysphemism is something which you would place in order to make it sound as bad as you can and as part of an argument. When you do that, when you are trying to make things sound bad in order to get people on your side or against your enemies or to believe the things you believe or attack the people you want them to attack. Then that’s a fallacy. It’s a fallacy of emotion. It’s like. It’s like an appeal to emotion because you are using a motive language instead of neutral, factual language.

Mark: Right. Yes. You’re queeing the pitch, aren’t you? You’re. In nautical terms, you’re rocking the boat. And, And,

Jim: Oh, God, the mix. Getting metaphors here is.

Mark: I know you. The p. Rockt boat. Same thing. So you’re doing it in order to cast dispersions on what somebody has said or is about to say.

Jim: Can be.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas the euphemism might be. Well, certainly British politics, there are certain things you’re not allowed to say in the Houses of Parliament. So people adopt these euphemisms which everybody knows what they’re actually saying. One of them is, you know, my Lear only friend or my honorable friend, rather than that lying scrooe over there or him. You have to refer to them euphemistically.

Jim: Where’s an attempt to, inject some decorum.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Into a proceedings, isn’t it, Ronnie?

Mark: Yes.

Jim: So rather than a reverse euphemism, this is a negative euphemism. And our first example from Trump comes when he’s talking about the Green New Deal.

Donald Trump: I will do to make middle class life dramatically more affordable is to end Kamalas s war on American Energy, terminate her green news scam, and drill, baby drill. We’re going to drill, baby drill. Since Harris took office, more than 50 power plants have been shut down.

Jim: Yeah, he calls the Green New Deal. The Green New scam. Yeah, well, kind of he doesn’t really, because the Green New Deal isn’t really a thing. It was a thing that was proposed but never got anywhere because it was always just kind of, this would be a thing that we’d like to see. These are, you know, generally people investing money in green schemes and things like that. But it’s replaced by many, many things, mostly the Inflation Reduction act, which along with an attempt to reduce inflation, was really a massive investment, a 2 trillion dollar investment in infrastructure, which Trump is a bit sore about because he kept promising to have Infrastructure Week and never did, and then Biden did it. But he’s talking about Kamala’s War on Energy. American energy. What they’re doing is addressing renewables. They are trying to encourage a transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and encourage investment in those kinds of energies. So by calling that a war on American Energy, he is absolutely using a demism there to make people not want that thing to happen. Because wars are bad.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically his entire canon is using, using dis.

Jim: I did have a lot of examples to choose betweeneah for this week. But yeah, he does this almost all the time. M and in fact, I think all of my examples, he does it more than once within the kind of 30 seconds of the example. But yeah, he talked about the War on American Energy and the the Green New scam. And he also incidentally in there said that under Kamala, meaning under Joe Biden, 50 power plants have closed in the U.S. and he went on to say that this is because they didn’t like the way that they were generating

00:05:00

Jim: power.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Because it’s always worth pointing out lest anyone think at any point that he said a thing that’s true.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It’s worth noting that that wasn’t trueeah. The actual number was 32. He’s talking really about coal powered power plants. So that number went from 246 in 2021 to 214 now 32 shut down. That wasn’t because Biden Oramaa shut them down. That was because coal has got more expensive to use to produce power to the point where it’s now certainly more expensive than natural gas which has grown. And in fact there are new natural, gas power plants that have started up over that time, but also it’s more expensive than renewables now. So the people who run those power plants are shutting themuse it’s not worth spending the money to keep them running.

Mark: So it’s a purely a business decision.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Mark: You know, not helped by possibly proposed tariffs on imports of cheap coal.

Jim: I don’t think that’s probably a thing that’s had that much of an impact because usually it takes years between announcing that you’re going to shut one and shutting it. You can’t just kind of turn off the coal and that’s it. There’s a, there’s a process. But yeah, maybe he’s thinking of his first two years in office where 50 power plants did close down during that period. Possibly he’s, that’s what’s got him all confused.

Mark: Right? Yeah. Again, for reasons other than the one that he said they closed.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, for business reasons. Because it is getting cheaper to produce renewable energy or to use renewable sources for your energy and more expensive to use coal. They are suspecting that those remaining coal powered plants in the US will, will all shut in the next kind of 15 years or so because there’s just not going to be any point even though they will still arguably have coal that they could use in them. It just won’t be efficient to do it that way. So our second example from Trump is representative of again, something he just does.

Donald Trump: All the time under both Bordersar Harris and Sleepy Joe Biden.

Mark: There you go.

Jim: Giving his opponents or anyone he disagrees with negative nicknames, you know, rather than just calling them Kamala Harris and Joe Biden, he calls her Borderar Kamala becausee he’s trying to link her, to the disaster at the southern borderah. And Sleepy Joe, who still managed to beat him in 2020. By doing that, he is constantly putting a negative spin on those people. I think the one that he’s kind of clung to most recently is calling Gavin Newsom new scum. New scum. That’s like his. Ok. His clever thing. Gavin Newsom and he uses it all.

Mark: If only he was a bit more educated, he could have called him Gavin Nuisance.

Jim: Yeah. I mean, I think probably qu. Good. He misspoke at some point. He probably accidentally said Newscom and then. Then it was a thing that he.

Mark: Decided that that was a deliberate action.

Jim: I’m pretty sure Rond scum was quite a mistake as well. And almost certainly Kaba, which doesn’t mean anything. But he repeatedly called Kamala Kabla. That was just a random fucking thing that came out of his mouth.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And then he was like, well, that’s her name now. Yeah. Calling, Elizabeth Warren, Pocahontas. Calling Adam Schiff watermelon head or pencil neck or any of the things that he’s done repeatedly is. Is just all about denigrating these people with every word. Like it’s. It’s quite efficient in terms of word count. You know, you don’t have to talk about negative things these people do or believe.

Mark: No. You can just.

Jim: When you can just add attack. An adjective onto their name and make them sound bad for some people who are listening to you.

Mark: And it bloody works.

Jim: Well, he got elected.

Mark: Works. It got.

Jim: I’m not sure I would say it was thanks to the nicknames, but,

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Well, I guess the people getting elected.

Mark: Yeah, it did. Yes. Didn’t stop him getting elected. Yeah. Yeah. And actually we kind of do that. We’get. For comic effects. We will put those epithets in knowingly in order to indicate. Yes. And a shorthand way.

Mark: How we feel about the particular characters we’re talking about.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: I would argue that’s just as a pre. Preim.

Jim: Because I’m That a lot. Sure.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is that we lay out in quite a lot of detail and with evidence and citations and clips why these people are bad people.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And while doing that we. We will also insult them given the chance.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Whereas Because.

Mark: Because in a way it is s. The only way to keep saying.

Jim: Yeah. In some cases Trump will. That will be his attack

00:10:00

Jim: is giving them.

Mark: That’s it. That’s as much evidence as he’t. As he’s prepared to.

Jim: He often doesn’t provide. Go into any detail about what he disagrees with them about. And that’s supposed to do the job of Indicating that they are a bad person and he disagrees with them when.

Mark: All, all it does is indicate that he’s just a bully. Yeah, it, that’s that kind of playground bully thing.

Jim: Very unimaginative bully as well.

Mark: Is there any such thing as a imaginative bully?

Jim: I think you can imaginaively bully people. I’m not advocating it, but I think it’s possible.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. I’JUST trying to think in our experience over the last years of US and English politics, none of them are strikery as being particularly imag.

Jim: I would say in the Venn diagram of bullies and unimaginaive people, there is a distinct overlap. Yeah, but I don’t think that means they’re completely mutually exclusive. I think you can have imaginative police.

Mark: I’m going to make that my my Ph.D. thes of the Christmas holiday Imaginative Bullies A retrospective.

Jim: In our final Trump example we have a short section of a speech in which he did this five, six times. I know, you can try counting them.

Donald Trump: They send young Americans to fight and die for the borders of distant foreign nations while they throw our borders open to an illegal foreign invasion, which is what is happening. They set violent criminals loose without charges while prosecuting their political opponents for fabricated crimes. They legalized mass robberies and cheer for BLM and antifa rioters.

Jim: I mean working backwards from the end there, BLM and antifa rioters is how he’s describing peaceful protesters in this particular section. Yeah. He talks about releasing violent criminals which is the antithesis of what is happening when they release people from prison. They release, when they release people before their sentences up. It’s because first of all prisons are massively overcrowded and they specifically don’t release violent ones. When Covid meant that keeping people in prison was actually kind of inhumane because of the overcrowding. So they needed to thin out the prison population and have people have home confinement. It was the non violent offenders who still were confined to their homes or given, you know, ankle bracelet monitoring and things like that. But they, they were not and have not released violent criminal.

Mark: Yeah. From a purely efficiency point of view.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: It wouldn’t make sense to release the violent ones because they’re just going to commit more crimes.

Jim: Yes.

Mark: It’s probably occurred to people rather than just randomly do it by alphabetical order. Yeah.

Jim: So calling their border policy throwing open the borders to, to a violent invasion again, it’s, it’s just calling things negative, bad descriptions.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: They are a poor description of what’s actually happening. And they are deliberately negative emotions that are going along with these things.

Mark: Yeah, that whole invasion thing, you know, that was used by Pretty Patel, Kei Badnock, Bravamman, all talked about an invasion at the border. And actually what Stamamer has re characterized that as a really bad border policy because they haven’t got any legal routes, so they forced people to take illegal routes and then characterize them as criminals and an invasion not to make it easier to deal with, but to assuage the needs of the right wing voters that were leaking off to further right parties. That was, that was all it was for. So you use that language because that appeals to those unimaginative bullies who just go, oh yeah, ah, all right. Well these guys, they’ve recognized that there’s an invasion of people that we think think are the wrong color or the wrong kind of people to be in our country, we’ll vote for them.

Jim: The thing is, if you choose to describe something in an inaccurate but extremely negative way, apart from being fallacious, which is enough of a crime in itself, you are also making it actually harder to deal with that problem.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: If you describe something accurately, then you’re at least part of the way to figuring out what the solution for that problem is or figuring out a way to start to mitigate the problem. If you see the difficulties that are caused by poor immigration policies, not enough staff at borders, incredibly slow processing, overcrowded immigration centreers and things like that, the problems that are caused by those things, if you see that as an invasion, you’re not going to address those issues.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: If you see it as an overwhelmed immigration system, then, then you would. The reality is the resources to put more resources into that system and see where efficiencies can be made. So it’s not just petulant to

00:15:00

Jim: say that this is a bad thing to do. We’re not just like, oh, he’s, he’s really annoying and mean.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It means that you’re not going to solve the problems that you’re identifying if you pretend that the problems are something else, something much worse.

Mark: Yes. Because by mischaracterizing it and using an untruthful way of describing it, a denigratory way of describing it, then you’re using that as a solution to some other problem. The problem for the conservatives was that they were leaching voters to the right parties further to right than them, were taking their vote away. So they, rather than solve the problem, which there is a problem with, an under resourced and inefficient immigration service. There’s no problem with immigration. They made immigration the solution to their voting woes by mischaracterizing it as something broken and unsolvable. And that’s all they had to do. Like we said in the last episode, where Farage could just identify the problem. Yeah, he can just mischaracterize stuff as a problem. As a politician, you’re in a position to solve those problems, and you can. And to start solving those, you need to talk about the things truthfully. Of course, if Trump had talked truthfully about any of that stuff, he wouldn’t have got voted in no.

Boris Johnson: And now is the time, I think. For mark’s British Politics corner.

Mark: Seeing as this Christmas, let’s remind ourselves, and when we eagerly anticipated the Christmas annual from our favorite comic book and relive that with a bumper serving of the Grinch himself, Nigel rhymes with garage Farage. So we’re going to have a collage barrage of Farages’camouflage badinage. And I propose that bit. Like Trump, Farage is in a continual state of dysphemia. He alludes to things and he’s just asking questions in a disparaging way in order to do the thing we talked about, which is to cast aspersions or whatever the next person is about to say or what the person before has said in order to make you respond to the other speaker in a negative light. And also at the same time, for him as a speaker, to remain at the distance of plausible deniability. So he can just say, well, I’m just saying it as I see it. It’s, you know, I’m, poor. You what? You’re accusing me of denigrating what they’re saying? No, no, I’m just. This is my experience. So we’re going to have a bumper crop of Barraages stuff. So this is his first speech as an M. MP welcoming the speaker of the House, Lindseay Hoyle, back to his post.

Nigel Farage: And it is, I must say, in marked contrast to the little man that was there before you and besmirch the office so dreadfully in doing his best to overturn the biggest democratic result in the history of the country. We support you, sir, fully.

Mark: There’s a nice bit there where somebody says, yeah, how does that go about, He s talking about Brexit. So he’s talking about the little man, John Bekco, and certainly he wasn’t as tall as Lindsay Hoyle. Like, it’s important to point out somebody’s stature unless you’re doing it in order to talk about not just his feet and inches but the fact that he is a little man, a small minded man who was responsible for running down the position by virtue of the fact that he was blocking Far Ra’s grand plan which he incidentally thought was going to be a failure. And he’kind of go oh yeah, fair enough, never mind Brexit. But of course John Berow, the previous speaker held a much more neutral position than Farage is, characterizing him as being in because he was insistent that the constitution was upheld and insisted that Boris government didn’t do unconstitutional things, lying to the Queen type things like dissolving Parliament and make it unable to prevent a no deal Brexit. Which they did when theyroue to Parliament deliberately and for the avoidance of doubt and not merely to dysphemistically allude to Boris Johnson as likely to be a bit fast and loose with the old truth there. In September 2019 the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the prorogation was unlawful and therefore null and of no effect, having found that Johnson’s advice to the Queen to heroue Parliament was outside the powers of the Prime Minister and that Johnson was motivated by the improper purpose of stymying Parliament and had effectively misled the Queen. So John Bekow just did stuff that vraj didn’t like. So rather than saying fair enough, you did make us

00:20:00

Mark: stick to the rules actually what you was a little man had got in the way. So you know, here he is a bit later on responding to Rachel Reeves first budget. He’s justemically referring to the budget in Diane Abbott terms.

Nigel Farage: I sat listening to the numbers thinking this budget is illiterate. I don’t know who’s doing the sums, whether perhaps it’s the Right Honourable Member for Hackney north, but the sums do not work.

Mark: He’s talking about the budget by alluding to Dian Abbot. And yes, that’s 30p Le laughing at Farage’quip there well known racialist. 30p. And this is what he’s referring to vis vis Dian Abbot.

Diane Abbott: If we recruit the 10,000 police, men and women over a four year period, we believe it’ll be about £300,000. £300,000? Sorry, 10,000 police officers. What are you pay them? No, I mean sorry, how much will they cost?

Mark: And he’s not referring to pretty Patel saying this.

Priti Patel: Through the government’s ongoing monitoring and testing program as of 9am today there have been 300,000 34, 974,000 tests carried out across the UK excluding Northern Ireland. That’s so good.

Mark: Well, it’s like Christmas when you get to hear that again, doesn’t it? So another member of the House calls him out on his allusion to Diane Abbott.

MP: The honourable, gentleman mentioned, the member for Hackney North. I just wondered whether he had actually warned her that he was going to. Be mentioning her in the cheain.

Speaker: I thank the honourable member for the point of order. However, that is not a point of order. It is a courtesy of the House.

Nigel Farage: Nigel, far nice try. I was just gently teasing, that was all.

Mark: I think even the intonation you use is in nice try is a bit dhemistic. And also the original objectors use of e, in the middle of honorable, gentlemen, I think is probably a deliberate act of dysphemia. That’s because it’s far more British than calling somebody sleepy Joe, isn’t it? To just pause before you say gentlemen. So good. So, And here he is again disparaging the. Well, I don’t. This is weird, this one because he’s y. Well, we’ll listen to it and then we’ll talk about it.

Nigel Farage: Now, it’s funny because I spent nearly 21 years as a member of the European Parliament in Brussels and with its monthly journey to Strasbourg, I have to say this place is very different indeed. It’s smaller. there is not a chauffeur driven Mercedes available for each member. No large lump sums of money which you don’t have to spend on anything and show no receipts for. And I wonder whether perhaps that’s why so many in the British political system seem to adore the European Union so much.

Jim: They literally had a scandal this year about spending large amounts of money and showing no receipts for it.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah. His won to disfem is so ingrained that it’difficult to work out what it is he wants us to think here. There’s so many levels of it going on. For a start, he leads with no. It’s funny. So you think, okay, so this, what we’re about to hear, we’re supposed to not take seriously. And then is he saying that the UK Parliament is corrupt because of his love of the eu or that the EU is corrupt for not asking for receipts of bunging out large lumps of money? Or is he distracting us from his corruption and not declaring what he actually spent any of his money that he earned as an mep?

Jim: Does distracting mean drawing attention to.

Mark: Yeah, I know it’s odd, isn’t it? Because he’s just. And then says, perhaps this is why the UK Parliament has such a love of the eu.

Jim: Doesn’t make a lot of sense when you’re saying, look at how these two things are completely different. That’s probably why one of them likes the other one. Huh?

Mark: Yeah. Yes. And I’m trying to draw out why this one is like this, the chauffeur driven Mercedes. What is that where there was chauffeur driven? Yes. And you suffered that for 21 years, you bastard.

Jim: Just while we’re talking about Farage, I think it’s worth mentioning that this week the woman who threw a milkshake at him, most recently, of all the people who milkshakes at him.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Was not sentenced to any PR time.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: She got some, I think, community service.

Mark: And a fine and free vouchers for m. Milkshakes for life.

Jim: I think it was like 600 quid or something like that. So it sounds like that’s the cost of throwing a milkshake at Nigel Farage, which honestly, you know, bargain.

Mark: But yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah.

00:25:00

Mark: It’s Christmas time with every need to be afraid at Christmas time we hear them lie and tarnish truth. But hold that thought before you say another thing at Christmas time is heart but what while you’re aruing watch the fallacies you use are the logical clangers of tomb and when you correct them all don’t forget you in the m world I want you Dr. This the W what you in the watch you do do in the world. You band aid there, of course, with the warning about toxic family gatherings at this time of year. Do they know it’s Christmas? Be careful of those fallacies.

Jim: Employed in the facy in the W we like to talk about the fallacy of the week from a non political perspective. And our first example this week comes from House md.

Mark: Oh ye.

Jim: Because House obviously, in fact doctors as a whole will often use euphemisms.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And sometimes dysphemisms when they are referring to patients when talking to each other.

Mark: And we know this from.

Jim: I mean QI has done some stuff about how the. That doctors will use to describe their patients and things like that. And there’s a book that was this is going to hurt or something like, that.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that is a thing that doctors will sometimes do. But what House will do is do that to people’s faces because he doesn’t give a shit.

Jill: My joints have been feeling all loose. And lately I’ve been feeling sick a lot. Maybe I’m over trinaining. I’m doing the marathon, like, 10 miles a day, but I can’t seem to lose any weight.

Gregory House: Lift up your arms. You have a parasite,

Jill: like a tapeworm or something.

Gregory House: Lie back and lift up your sweater. You can put your arms down.

Jill: Can you do anything about it?

Gregory House: Only for about a month or so. After that, it becomes illegal to remove, except in a couple of states.

Jill: Illegal.

Gregory House: But don’t worry. Many women learn to embrace this parasite. They name it, dress it up in tiny clothes, arrange playdates with other parasites. Playy d. It has your eyes.

Mark: There you go. Nice.

Jim: And in fact, he. He used a similar kind of technique in a later episode when he was dealing with a teenager who wanted an abortion, but her parents were not approving of that.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And so he told the parents that their daughter had an abnormal growth in her abdomen.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And that removing.

Mark: Remove. Yeah.

Jim: Is. Is just the perfectly normal procedure that happens in hospitals all the times. It’s perfectly safe and.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So that was than something that they allowed to happen.

Mark: All right. For them, it was a dysphemism, but it was also a euphemis.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: Description.

Jim: Mystic dysphemism. So our second example is from Alie McBeal

Mark: Oh, wow.

Jim: And this is when her daughter has been caught smoking at school.

Victor Morrison: Hey, what’s going on?

Ally McBeal: What’s going on? Oh, well, I’ll tell you what’s going on. Maddie’s been sucking on the big cancer stick, chewing on the deatheed, the emphysema wick. She’s on one of those new carcinogen diets, the one that traps all the healthy fat cells and shrivels them up and malignant little pieces of rotted flesh. She’s decided that she wants soot for her lungs. A charcoal throat.

Victor Morrison: Ally

Ally McBeal: She smokes.

Mark: Excellent. Excellent.

Jim: yeah. So describing smoking in the, most dphemistic of ways in an attempt to both horrify her daughter and also the girl’s father into being hard on her.

Mark: Do something about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nice.

Jim: So finally, we have a clip from Blue Bloods. This is an episode where Jamie, the youngest Reagan, spotted someone who he had been mentoring being chased by a couple of gang members. And chased them. And one of the gang members got hit by a car. Then he got civilly sued by the family. And so this is some advice that his sister gives him.

Erin Reagan-Boyle: He said that he was pretty sure. You identified yourself as a police officer. When you chase Mr. Sesaross

00:30:00

Erin Reagan-Boyle: into the street. Street. Onone ornament.

Jamie Reagan: I didn’t do either one of those things Come on. Who side are you? Are

Erin Reagan-Boyle: yours? The ambulance chaser was gonna be questioning you for the deposition. Has one thing on his mind and it ain’t justice, it’s money. You got me?

Jamie Reagan: Got you.

Jim: So she describes the opposing counsel essentially as an ambulance chaser.

Mark: An ambulance chaser. yeah. Which.

Jim: Yeah, it’s just It’s a quick way of calling the lawyers motives at least into question. He’s probably not a particularly good lawyer and he’s not out for justice, he’s just in it for the money. And he’s doing it because he sees a quick buck in this person. It may be true of this particular lawyer, it may not be, but I don’t think she knows who it is. And it’s like calling an accountant to bean counter or a mechanic a grease monkey or something like that. It’s giving. Yeah, it’s giving a lack of respect to a person for their profession because you want to see them as the enemy or. Or portray them as the enemy to the person you’re talking to and portray.

Mark: Them as less of a threat. Yes.

Jim: Yeah. Less. Less qualified, less intelligent.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: All of those things will come across when you give a pejorative term instead of a description of the person.

Mark: Yeah. Which is why Trump uses that as a shortcut.

Jim: Absolutely.

Mark: Because he being an unimaginative bulyly, he wants people to be less imaginative than him. He’s got to make every. It’s not enough for him to win. Everyone else has got to lose.

Jim: Yeah.

Donald Trump: So we’renna we’re gonna play Fake News. Folks. I love the game. It’s a great game. I understand the game as well as anybody. As well as anybody.

Jim: Yes. It’s time for Fake News, the game where I read out three Trump quotes, two of which are real and one I made up and Mark has to figure out which one is fake news. Exc. Except we’re doing it a little bit differently this week because it’s Christmas.

Jim: So instead of Trump quotes, we have some facts about Trump.

Mark: Oh.

Jim: Of which I made some up.

Mark: Ye. Well, you see, I wouldn’t want to get people to get the wrong impression vis a vis the honesty with which the scoring associated with any game in this slot is managed. But people have said that the numbers involved as somewhat subject. So shall we say being viewed as okay to be recorded in easily eraable pencil rather than indelible a link.

Jim: Well, inempt all I’m saying to address that, there’s an opportunity for you to get three points in this RA as there are when we do special episodes because. Yeah. We have nine facts that are split up into groups of three of which one in each group is a fake fact.

Mark: Okay. Yeah.

Jim: So the first three of which one is fake.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Number one, Trump is in the World Wrestling hall of Fame.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Two, Trump is in the New Jersey Boxing hall of Fame.

Jim: And three, Trump is in the Country Music hall of Fame.

Mark: What? Well, all of those are highlylausible. Okay.

Jim: Two of those are real and, one made up.

Mark: Jesus U. World Wrestling. Well, we know that one of his nominees for his cabinet is a WWE character that you can play. Trump is in the New Jersey Boxing hall of Fame. Okay, well, I’m just wondering whether that’s from stuff that he did in that area when he was a property magnet and Kate. And Trump is in the Country Music hall of Fame. Ah, okay. Well, that one’s least likely, so is probably true. okay. I don’t think he’s in the World Wrestling hall of Fame.

Jim: Okay, we’ll do all of them and then we’ll give you the answers. Okay, so yeah, yeah. Fact number four.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Trump was nominated for four Nobel Peace Prizes.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Statement number five, Trump was nominated for three Grammys.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: And statement number six, Trump was nominated for two Emmys.

Mark: Okay, well, I’got a feeling that the Emmys is. I don’t know about that because we’ve seen the film that he’s been in though. It was nominated for the Grammys. Would that go along with the Country Music hall of Fame? But ah o. I mean, I really do want to get his album if he’s. If he’s done someone. Trump was nominated for Nobel Peace, Frize. Well, there was that. I think that’s probably true because there was talk of that and he was demanding to have won that and couldn’t understand why he hadn’t. And Obama had four is a lot. Three gramys. Okay, I think that, number six, nominated for Emmy’is not true.

Jim: Okay. And the final set of three. Fact number seven,

00:35:00

Jim: Trump’s Secret Service code name was Mogul.

Mark: Yeah. Okay.

Jim: Fact number eight, Trump is the second tallest president according to the height on his New York driver’s license.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: And nine, Trump has been awarded five honorary doctorates.

Mark: Okay. Second tall is president. Well, yeah, he would say that, wouldn’t he? But he’s the second tallest president. He says he’s the tallest. 5 honorary doctor. I think he might well have been. Okay, so I’m going toa go with The Secret Service code name wasn’t Mogul. So number seven isn’t true.

Jim: Okay, so you think one isn’t true, one isn’t true.

Mark: Is true.

Jim: The Emmys’s and the Secret Service code name. It’s not true. Is’t okay, yeah. Well, yeah. Should we go through them in order?

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Trump is in the World Wrestling hall of Fame.

Mark: What? What?

Jim: It’s hard to explain.

Mark: Was it, was he at school doing it?

Jim: S He’s been what, involved in the WWE for a while as a character around. Because it’s all a bullshit thing, isn’t it? You know, don’t want to get any wrestlers upset with me, but it’s just bullshit’s I tell you what it is. It is very skilled fakery. They are highly skilled athletes and yeah, the bouts are dangerous and people get injured doing it, but yeah, it’s entertainment Rathersport and yeah, Trump is an entertaining figure particularly.

Mark: Well, I mean you don only need to look to the fact that Trump is in the World Wrestling hall of Fame for it to ring those alarm bells of sophisticated fakery because that’s, you know, not dysphemicic. He actually is that. Yeah.

Jim: So while he hasn’t, as far as I know, actually fought in the ring, he has appeared at multiple WWE events.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And as part of the kayfabe has attacked people outside of the ring.

Mark: So they ve put him in the hall of Fame. S man.

Jim: So number two, yeah. Trump is in the New Jersey Boxing hall of Fame.

Mark: No, no, no.

Jim: Again, not due to his success in.

Mark: The ring boxing prowess. Right. It brings down the value of being in the hall of Fame.

Jim: It really does, doesn’t it? It really does.

Mark: If you don’t have to be, you don’t have to have boxed around in your life.

Jim: This is due to the extent to which he promoted boxing within his Atlantic City casinos.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Because he, put on certain big fights and promote them.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And I guess helped promote boxing in New Jersey as a whole.

Mark: I’m surprised he’s not therefore also Miss Universe. You know, that’s the same kind of basis, isn’t it? Yeah, that I think they even. They probably thought that was a bit. They balked at that. Yes. Yeah.

Jim: But no, he’s not, he’s not in the U the Country Music hall of Fame.

Mark: Thank God for that. O I’SOMEWHAT disappointed as, I’d even worked out what the album cover would look like. It would be a sort of grainy Kodachrome shot of him against blue because that show off his orange Face.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Most of all. And he’d been looking kind of serious with, you know, maybe his, his hand on his chin. But, you know, and in the background there would be a nodding donkey, oil well and a dog and a truck and, you know, Dolly Parton.

Jim: So. Nobel Peace Prizes.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Trump has indeed been nominated for four Nobel Peace Prizes. Wow.

Mark: Because. So, yeah, I can remember it. Wasn’t Bannon banging on about that at some point?

Jim: Probably.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The thing is.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I mean, literally, the Nobel committee says, look, don’t read too much into nominations. Not specifically about this, but the. On the Nobe website it says being nominated is not an endorsement or extended honor. to Affilion.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Literally hundreds of thousands of people are eligible to nominate people for Nobel Prizes. university professors of political and social science, history, philosophy, law and theology, leaders of peace research institutes, institutes of foreign affairs, members of national assemblies, governments, international courts of law, previous Nobel Peace Prize laureates, board members and organizations and institutions that have received the Nobel Peace Prize. All of those people can nominate whoever the fuck they like for whatever reason they want. Right. And some of them are far right idiots.

Mark: Right, right.

Jim: Who have nominated Trump,

00:40:00

Jim: among other people, for the Peopleace.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: And he has never got it because of course he has t.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And he’s been annoyed about Thatus.

Mark: He’s just desperate to get every accolade ever to prove to his father that actually he’s as good as Fred Jr. Ever was. And he start’t make any difference now. Donny Caus, your dad is dead and he never liked you anyway. He was just using you as a frontman.

Jim: So. So that’s true.

Mark: Right?

Jim: That’been nominated for Nobel pe PR Prize.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The three Grammys. You kind of thought this might be connected to the country music thing and, and that he has somehow done songs and albums and things. I don’t know if you are aware or perhaps have just forgotten that they also give Grammys for spoken word for people’s like audiobooks and things.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: And obviously Trump, being such a masterful orator, has m. Never been nominated for a Grammy. No. Obama has been nominated for three Grammys and in fact. One, two.

Mark: Wow. What did Obama win the two Grammys for? For his.

Jim: For his audiobooks, Dreams from My Father and the Audacity of Hope. He was nominated for a, promise land in 2022. But you didn’t win that one.

Mark: Wow. Wow.

Jim: So he didn’t win or get nominated for three Grammys. unfortunately for you, but he did get nominated to Emmys. No, in much the same way as the producer of a film that does very well at the Oscars gets nominated for an Oscar. They didn’t really. Some of them did. Some of them. Some producers put in a lot of work and effort and have an impact on the. The film. But Trump.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Was executive producer on the Apprentice because presumably if they gave him an executive producer credit, they could pay him a million lesser season or something like that.

Mark: Right, right. And then I go. Yeah, we’ll just nominate him’ll be. You’ll love that.

Jim: Yeah. So all of the producers got nominated twice in 2004. 2005, the Apprentice was nominated for outstanding reality competition program. And so he was technically a nominee.

Mark: Which he bloody loves.

Jim: And the fact that he didn’t win means he bloody hates the Emmys.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Because Obama’s got some Emmys. So unfortunately for you, again, that one was not correct.

Mark: No.

Jim: Finally, you think that his Secret Service code name was not Mogul.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Any guesses as to what you think it might be?

Mark: U Thief. Liar. U. Oh. What was the one? What was the one in. My son Hunter Trinity. What would he be?

Jim: Ye Celtic. Was. Was Biden’s.

Mark: Yeah.

Mark: Jaffa.

Jim: So my understanding of how Secret Service code names work is that they pick a letter for the first family.

Mark: Oh, okay.

Jim: And grow up with a list of different names that they think they could use and let the beginning with that letter Protectores choose.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: What they would like to be known as.

Mark: Really. Right.

Jim: Yeah. So I think Obama was Renegade.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Biden is Celtic, reflecting his Irish roots.

Mark: Oh, okay.

Jim: And Trump is Mogul.

Mark: He is.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Because now. Yeah. Now you say you get. They get to choose. You know, we’re going to start you all with him. What would you like to be? Master of the universe. Had gone.

Jim: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Melania took. So.

Mark: Yeahah.

Jim: Wow.

Mark: So he did.

Jim: That’correct that’s the true fact.

Mark: Wow. Why didn’t he choose Messiah? If the letter.

Jim: I imagine they didn’t put that on the let. Because would absolutely pick it.

Mark: Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: So number eight, Trump is the second Talt president according to the height on his New York driver’s license. That’s not true. According to the height that he claims to be.

Mark: Ah, okay. Not the actual one. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And the height that White House doctor Ronnie Jackson claimed he was when he gave, his Official M physical.

Mark: 7 foot 6.

Jim: Which is 6 foot 3.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: That would still only put him third behind Abraham Lincoln and Lyndon Johnson.

Mark: O. Okay.

Jim: His New York driver’s license, which Again, I’m not intimately familiar with the process of New York driver’s licenses, but I suspect there’s a more checking that’s done. I don’t know, measuring you get possibly, you know, you tell them or they measure. Yeah, know. But he s 6 foot 2, not 6 foot 3.

Mark: Oh, okay.

Jim: Pictures of him next to tall people suggest he might be a bit smaller than that.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Because there are plenty of people who are 6 foot 3 who he’s been pictured next to and definitely doesn’t reach the same height as them.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: But if we assume that New York takes these things

00:45:00

Jim: seriously and that is officially his height, that places him sixth in the. To presidentidence is actually fifth because I’m taking. I forgot to take Trump out of third place.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So finally, yeah. Trump, has indeed been awarded five honorary doctorates.

Mark: No.

Jim: Yeah. To be fair, three of those have since been revoked when. When they realized what a dick he is.

Mark: What they. They.

Jim: And those were the proper colleges and univers.

Mark: Right? Yeah.

Jim: The one institution that hasn’t revoked and in fact.

Jim: Conferred one of the doctorates in 2017 after everyone knew what a dickie was, was Liberty University, which is Jerry Falwell’s university. It’s not a proper institution. It’s evangelical.

Mark: okay.

Jim: In 2010, Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, just around the corner from where I went to university.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Gave him a Doctor of Business Administration, but then revoked it in 2015 before he was even made president again. Because they were like, hang on a minute. This guy. Y stuff.

Mark: Ye stuff’s gone bankrupt.

Jim: So Lehigh University and, Wagner College or Wagner College. Don’t know how you pronounce it in America. They both gave him doctorates. Lehigh in 1988 and the other one in 2004. And they both invoked those in 2021 after he got impeached. I specifically didn’t write he has five honorary.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Yeah, he only has two now, but he has been awarded five, unfortunately. That means that you got all those wrong.

Mark: Oh, no, but it does mean, that thankfully he’s not in the country music Hal of fam. Nor does he have three Grammys. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: So, yeah, that means that what I’m. Since it’s Christmas, Yeah. I’m only going to count that as one game.

Mark: Oh, that’s very kind.

Jim: Which means that your average doesn’t drop as much as it had the opportunity to rise had you got any of.

Mark: Well, that’s very kind. So it’s quite true that the scoring is done in erasable pencil. You know, not being dysphemistic there, but, you know, sometimes works to your advantage. Boy, we’ve learned some new facts.

Jim: We do have some social contestants right on Facebook. Mike Thunder, who says 3, 5 and 7 are made up. So that’s Country Music hall of Fame, Grammys. And O, you went from mo as well. so two out of three there.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Lucas Roch says three, six and seven. So that’s Country Music hall of Fame, Emmy, mogul and mogul. So only one out says I got 367 is the most logical. But I don’t know about at least two of them. I know he was jealous that he didn’t win awards for his TV show or something. That petty.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Benjamin Colcliffe said were the five honorary doctorates all from Trump University.

Mark: Well, yes, that was what. That had occurred to me. Yes, yes. Before. Before it was banned. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: On patron Steve Bickel says, I’m gonna go with 3, 5 and 8 are fake. So that’s Country Music Hal of Fam. Grammys, and oh yeah, bang on Tallest President. So that’s absolutely three.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Said I know several of them, so it helped. But there’s still a lot of wagging going on, which I presume is an acronym for Wild ass Guessing, but I just.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Ium.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Invisible Unicorn said 3, 5 and 7, trump and music.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And Becca, ah, says, as George Takeay would say. Oh my. The fact that two out of three of these are, ah, true is mind boggling. So much so that my brain kept getting stuck in the typo at number three. Yes. Because I did put country music off of Fame Facebook instead of Country Music hall of Fame. So apologies for that, but when you initially put the typo in three, I did wonder if I’d spelt country wrong.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Or if you thought not spelling country that way was the typo. But either way.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Well done. If you got some of those right. Well done and bad luck, Mark O. Man, there’s always next Christmas. So it’s time for the part of the show that this week at least is called Drones Are Not a Logical Fallacy because shit is going down in New Jersey.

Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, kind of.

Jim: Well, actually, realistically, very little is happening in New Jersey.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But people are panicking because people are idiots.

Mark: It’s somewhere between awesome Worlds’war of the Worlds, and any run of the.

Jim: Mill UFO sighting and planes and planes and stars and just normal shit that’s in the sky. Yeah.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Car.

Jim: Ah.

Mark: Reversing. Lights.

Jim: Yeah. The Asbury Park Press reported in mid November that people claim to have seen large drones flying low in the skies over New Jersey. And the FAA said there’s, yeah, no evidence of any unusual activity, but, you know, we’ll look into it. And

00:50:00

Jim: pretty quickly because people had said, oh, we’ve seen some weird stuff or we’ve seen more than usual, more drones. Then anyone who saw anything at night that was a light was like, oh, it’s one of those drones.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: And started demanding that the government do something about it. And the government was like, m. There’s nothing.

Mark: There’s nothing to do anything about. Yes.

Jim: And so people found that suspicious. Like Kip, a 46 year old new Jersey resident, said at the moment the federal agencies were like, there’s nothing to worry about. I was like, oh, we should be worried.

Mark: We should start worrying. Yeah.

Jim: So that’s the response that people had. Ye is because the government was saying, yeah, it’s fine, don’t worry about it. There’s nothing happening.

Mark: Nothing.

Jim: Everyone was like, oh, something is definitely.

Mark: Happen, definitely going on. Becauseither, why aren’t they doing anything about it? I think these questions should be asked.

Jim: It’s.

Mark: It’s back to qanon Tucker Carlson territory, isn’t it? You know, why are they doing nothing? And Nigel Frage, why are you doing nothing about it? Because there’s nothing to be done about it. Well, yeah, perhaps you’re keeping it all.

Jim: Quiet so the people who are, well, who get the most out of feeding red meat to the idiots.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Made as big a deal of it as they possibly could.

Mark: Including the biggest idiot of all, obviously.

Jim: Including. Yes.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Who truthed mystery drone sightings all over the country. Can this really be happening without our government’s knowledge? I don’t think so. Let the public know and now otherwise shoot them down. Which is a terrible thing to suggest people do because firing guns into the sky is a bad thing.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And in fact, any, any method of, of trying to interact with a thing you think might be a drone is probably a bad thing. Because one issue, that Nelson Delgado of the Newark FBI office raised online was the fact that there’s been an increase of manned aircraft, like actual planes.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: The pilots being hit in the eyes with lasers because people on the ground think they see a drone. So they’re like, somehow reckoning that their laser pointer will, will target that drone in some way and help. and in fact that they’re just, they’re lasering pilots in the Eyes. So that’s a bad thing to do. Yeah, don’t do that. But yeah, planes are one of the big things that people are mistaking for drones because. Because they’re just lights in the sky. And. And in this article in the Washington Post, which is kind of where we have drawn some of this information from, there’s a guy on Facebook where more than 73,000 people have joined a group called New Jersey Mystery Drones. Let’s solve it.

Mark: 73,000 jes. and yet they haven’t.

Jim: No. And a guy whose handle is crypto div post which.

Mark: That is brilliant because in the UK I can remember school calling somebody a div.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Meant m. That they wereiot an idiot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So don’t know what it was short.

Jim: For and probably nothing good.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He posted a video and said, this is not a drone. We have full blown UFO UAP event occurring in real time in New Jersey. ok, so thousand witnesses.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And tons of video footage. And the footage that he produces is very clearly two drones and a plane. A plane. It couldn’t more obviously be a plane a long way up.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And. And two drones just flying around with their lights on. Yeah. And yeah, that’s what most of these videos, the videos that have been posted online and people like going, look, these aren’t drones. These are aliens. Or these are drones. What are the government doing about it? Or are these government drones or whatever the conspiracy of the day happens to be.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: They’re all obviously either just domestic drones that people are, flying around.

Mark: Flying around.

Jim: Or planes. Or in one amazing case by former Maryland governor Larry Hogan.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He posted a video on Twitter showing what he said was drones flying over his house. And it wasn’t drones. It was the constellation Orion, which is probably the most recognizable constellation after the Big Dipp.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And he was like, oh, this is clearly.

Mark: There’s three. Three drones right in the middle that, are flying in formation.

Jim: Jesus.

Mark: The bel of Orion.

Jim: Wow.

Mark: Wow. So good, isn’t it? I mean, all you need is what is a Stargazer app that we just, just pointed at the sky and go. Yeah. Oh yeah, that’s Starlink going over that”sion. Yeah. There. The Mooneah M. Yeah.

Jim: It’s not complicated, this.

Mark: No.

Jim: And it’s not just idiots who think it’s either aliens, which is some of the idiots, or the government doing something.

00:55:00

Jim: Because like for example, Marjie Taylor Greene.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So she thinks it’s the government doing something because obviously.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And she said, I’mnna tell you right now, if they tried to tell us all to stay inside shelter in place for our safety from the drones, there’s no way in hell I will comply with that. Absolute bullshit. Not doing it. No way. I’ll shoot the drones down myself, along with every other red blooded, freedom loving American. So she’s convinced it she’s going to.

Mark: Shoot down the red blooded, freedom loving Americans? Yeah, that’s why you need punctuation. MTG M. Yeah, but for those who.

Jim: Don’T think it’s literal aliens, some think it might be aliens in the tense of foreigners.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: Like U.S. congress Jeff Van Drew, who claimed that he had heard from high sources the drones were coming from an Iranian mothership in the Atlantic.

Mark: Right. Yeah.

Jim: I don’t know why he’s using that phrase. I think he means a literal ship.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Rather than a close encounter of the third kind. Mothership. Yeah, And I don’t know where he thinks he heard that from, but the Pentagon have said this isn’t true. there aren’t any Iranian ships off the coast of the US by the way. That’s the kind of thing we pay attention to.

Mark: Yeah, we kind of know about that. They’re quite big. Yeah, we’d sort of know that. Yeah.

Jim: and then you’ve got people like Nancy Mace, friend of the show.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: She went on Clay Travis’s show on YouTube, which we talked about in our patron right wing YouTube section.

Mark: Is she complaining about the trans nature of these aliens?

Jim: No, she’she’s pretty convinced it’s actual aliens. Well, she said my concern is if, if it’s not a craft from outer space. Because I think that has to be on the table. That has to be an option.

Mark: Right?

Jim: Is it our technology or is it Russia or Iran or China? Is there someone who’s winning the arms race and are we behind? Because my question is about national security and I hope that it’s us. I hope it’s not our adversaries or something from outside the universe.

Mark: Outside the universe.

Jim: Outside the universe.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because I have real concerns that if these drones are from Iran or China, like some of the rumors have been. I pray that there are. But we should also know why they’re out there. Like are they looking for radiation? Are they looking for a nuclear warhead? We deserve to have some answers here. Because people are scared. Yeah, because, because you’re saying scaring them.

Mark: Yeah, rather nothing to see here. It’s just the aeroplanes. Like somebody postasted. Oh yes, like a large cylindrical thing with with. With what appeared to be wings, large wings coming out of the a third of the way down and the’s smaller wings at the back. And then there’s flashing lights on the end of what appear to be wings. And m. I just have no idea what they are. I guess we’ll never know. It’s just what the f. It’s just kind of. It’s willful filling in of a vacuumum and the vacuum is the one that’s been left by qanon that there is that that people need to cling on to some explanation for the unexplained or to turn things that are perfectly ordinary into the unexplained and then make a series on Netflix about it and write books and publish them. But it’s just that fascination with oh my God. Well, what is that? It’s stuff beyond our knowledge. It’s things that people won’t tell us about. Yeah. I think we should be to what end to is it?

Jim: Thing is the government haven’t not explained.

Mark: Yes. They’ve just said what they’ve said airplanes or is ye nothing to be worried about. They are drones. Where we’ve got problems with people flying drones by military bases andever we’re trying to stop that shit. That’s what it is.

Jim: Yeah, they, they first of all they’ve said we’ve had some reports, we’ll look into it. They haven’t like gone yeah, when there’s nothing immediately yeah. but having looked into it, they’ve gone yeah, this isn’t anything we can’t. We’ve found no evidence of any unusual activity. Press secretary of the Pentagon said flying drones is not illegal. There are thousands of drones flown around the US on a daily basis. As a result, it’s not unusual to see drones in the sky, nor is it an indication of malicious activity or any public safety threat threat. We’ll continue to do everything possible to investigate reports of concerning activity. But given how many drones are lawfully in our eyes every day, we need to be careful to avoid assuming mal intent or malicious behavior.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Alexandra mayorkcus the Homeland Security guy pointed out that New Jersey changed their laws the FAA changed the laws in New Jersey in September of last year.

Mark: Right.

Jim: To make it that you can now fly drones at night because you didn’t used to be allowed to and now you can o okay.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So this year consequently more people have been flying their drones at night.

Mark: At night.

Jim: And obviously across the summer of this year when it’s light

01:00:00

Jim: out until quite late y you Know, you can see the drones.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Night as. So as we have moved into winter.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: When people are flying their drones at night with lights on. Now, more people than this time last year or in years gone by.

Mark: Ah.

Jim: Are seeing things with lights flying around because you’re allowed to.

Mark: And y.

Jim: Also.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The drone technology is getting more ubiquitous, cheaper, so more people have them.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And the fact is the most likely explanation of this, of people seeing drones, apart from the ones that are clearly planes or stars, is that people are seeing drones. People are around.

Mark: Can you imagine them watching the opening ceremony for an Olympic event?

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: You know, particularly the one that was in Beijing which had synchronized drones doing the. I think they did that in Paris as well. Didn’t they do that with the logo and the globe and people going, oh yeah, oh my God. These. They, are drawing things in the sky. The people who are publishing this conspiratorial bollocks think that they have an insight that nobody else has. Is that it’s that whole. That cartoon that did the rounds during COVID where somebody was, you know, sitting at their computer going, I found a for. Let’s look at this. I’FOUND something that, you know, 200,000 doctors have overlooked. I’m going to believe this thing because it suits my cognitive bias. It’s speaking of something I agree with.

Jim: The last reaction that I want to talk about is from Senator Doug Mastro ###o who is a certified idiot.

Mark: Right. Yeah.

Jim: He’s a very, very, very, Trump friendly senator.

Mark: Right.

Jim: And he posted on Twitter a picture that he had screenshotted from somewhere or had been shared to him, I presume, which is. The picture is captioned Breaking news. Crashed drone in Orange beach retrieved from water and taken to, undisclosed location for further investigation.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And he said about this picture, it is inconceivable that the federal government has no answers nor has taken any action to get to the bottom of the unidentified drones. The effectlessness of this administration was on display last year when a Chinese surveillance balloon was allowed to fly over the entire continental United States before being shot down. Such should be viewed as a threat to our nation and citizens. And action is long overdue. We have recourses and assets in our arsenal to get answers. But I suppose Ukraine is more important to the White House. January 20th can’t come soon enough. So.

Mark: Wow.

Jim: Does anything in what he said suggest to you that he is joking? That he is trying to be funny, ironic, serious?

Mark: That. Yeah. Ah, yeah.

Jim: That’s exactly the kind of stuff you would Expect him to write if the image that he’d shared was of an armed drone, for example, like something that had the Iranian flag on it or something like.

Mark: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: Because the picture he posted is a TIE fighter from Star Wars. It’s a. It’s a big. It’s a big fake prop being carried on a tractor trailer.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Along a highway. And someone has humorously captioned it a captured drone.

Mark: No. And he is.

Jim: He has taken that fully seriously.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And wow. As soon as everyone on the Internet, or everyone who’s still on Twitter. Yeah. Started taking the piss out of him for that.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: He acted like he knew exactly what it was and. And was. Like he pretended he was in on the joke and. And posted a picture of Darth Vader in handcuffs and said, it looks like it was piloted after all and not the drone you’re looking for.

Mark: And.

Jim: And, like, started posting other humorous images of things that people are pretending are drones, like flying cars and stuff like that. Just totally acting like he knew all the time when clearly his initial post was fully buying into it.

Mark: Yeah. And finally, some things we really don’t have time to talk about.

Jim: It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that since Trump 1, the Republicans have Congress and the Supreme Court is 2/3 howler monkey and at least a couple of those howler monkeys are comically corrupt, that there’s no point fighting and we should all just give up and give in. Well, fuck that. We’re not all outgoing FBI Director Christopher Ray, and some of us think there are still things worth fighting for. We’ll probably talk about the status of Trump’s various legal cases in a future episode. And while some have gone away either permanently or temporarily, we got a ruling this week from Judge Murrchand in New York York. That’s the case that led to 34 felony convictions for falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments to a porn star so that Trump could get elected the first time. Boy, it’s lucky

01:05:00

Jim: those didn’t come out earlier. There’s no way he would have been elected president if people knew he’d fucked Stormy M. Daniels while Melania was nursing Baron and then committed various crimes to cover it up. anyway, Judge Murrchand was getting ready to decide on the sentence for those 34 felony convictions when the Supreme Court announced that a president can order Seal Team 6 to assassinate their political rivals. And there isn’t jack shit anyone can do. Murand delayed sentencing to factor in this new information, and this week announced that in fact the Supreme Court’s ruling doesn’t make any difference because he committed almost all the crimes before he was president. And the fact that a couple of witnesses referred to conversations Trump had about his criminal activity while he was in the White House doesn’t mean the whole case gets thrown out. Trump took the decision as well as you might expect, calling Judge Merchand corrupt, biased and incompetent, and his decision illegal and psychotic. Merchand’s decision will be appealed, of course, but it’s a good first step.

Mark: Boy, it is. You know, of course, that the first thing you wish for when a genie grants you three wishes is to ask for a million more wishes. It seems that’s always been an oversight in the terms and conditions associated with rubbing lamps. Perhaps they were there on the side of the lamp but simply got rubbed away over time. Long time Trump Licky Lackey Steve Three Collars Bannon has been massaging the ego of Trump by rubbing the sticky surface of Republican lawyer Mike Davies, reportedly in line for the role of Attorney General. Bannon, on his War and podcast noted that Davis had said that the Constitution does not specify whether this applies only to consecutive terms. Yes, he’s talking about the more Pandora’s box than Geneannie’lamp wish that Trump could serve a third term. Forgetting of course that it was Congress itself that determined the two turn limit following four consecutive terms by FDR and then four years of Truman after FDR’s death. I suspect Republicans were trying to find a way of keeping the Dems out of office. The 22nd Amendment, ratified in 1951 under Truman reads, no person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice and no person who has held the office of President or acted as President for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of President more than once. But this article should not apply to any person holding the office of President when this article is proposed by Congress and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President or acting as President during the term within which this article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term. basically the last bit was taking into account Truman allowing for a Vice President who has sends to the presidency through succession, such as if the incumbent dies or resigns to seek two additional terms if their initial presidency lasted less than two years. Meanwhile, back on the set of I Dream of Trumpie, Bannon continued, donald John Trump is going to raise his hand on the King James Bible and take the oath of office to his third victory and his second term, bannon said. And the Viceroy Mike Davies tells me, since it doesn’t actually say consecutive, that I don’t know, maybe we do it again in 28. You guys down for that? Trump 28. Davis later told Newsweek Steve Bannon is obviously trolling. Only Obama gets a third term with his puppet Biden and Davies isn’t trolling also. Way to ingratiate Steve. Third victory. Nice touch. Ever. The plausible denial is Trump has said I wouldn’t be in favor of a challenge. Not for me, I wouldn’t be in favor of it at all. You know FDI’s had four terms. I don’t know are we going to be considered three term or two term? And to House Republicans on November 13th that he will not run again in 2028 unless you do something. It just remains to be careful what you wish for and to note that an nanogrm of Mike Davies, Attorney General is tiny, sick, diva enabler, genie. Just saying.

Jim: Another lovely example of not giving up and giving in came from Judge Jamesyn Jr. In North Carolina this week. Judge Wyn is on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals and he announced in January that he would be retiring at the end of the year. In July, Biden announced his nominee to take Judge Wynne’s place, North Carolina Solicitor General Ryan Park. Immediately, North Carolina’s two Republican senators vowed to block Park’confirmation as Republicans have for pretty much all Biden’s judicial nominations for much of this year. When his confirmation finally came up re vote in the weeks following Trump’s election win, he was predictably aosed closed, leaving the 4th Circuit seat open for Trump to ultimately fill. That is, until Judge Wynn unretired. He wrote to President Biden this week saying, I write to advise that after careful consideration, I have decided to continue in regular active service as a United States Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit. I apologize for any inconvenience I may have. Causedy is actually the third judge to announce his unretirement following Trump’s election, joining Max O. Coburn Jr. District Judge for the Western District of North Carolina

01:10:00

Jim: and Algernon EL Marblely, District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio. Conservative group the Article 3 Project has made ethics complaints against the three judges, but legal experts seem to largely agree that judges are allowed to decide when they retire and they’re allowed to change their minds about it. Well done guys.

Mark: Let’s have a few more nice essics. Yeah, won where that is coming Ethics complain. If there’s one thing we’ve learned from car manufacturers is that they’re not awfully keen on safety legislation if it gets in the way of other more important concerns like making money. The steering column on Chevrolet’s CorveAir in the 60s had a tendency to spear the driver like a lance when it crashed, which it did because the rear wheels had a tendency to lock up and it was cheaper to pay off any successful claims than to fix stuff. The 1981 Pinto gas tank had a propensity to explode during Ford’s crash tests but went into production because they couldn’t afford the engineers to make it. Not well, you know that guy, currently the richest man on planet earth where he owns a car manufacturer and is a bit keen on self driving cars and the chance to possibly own all the driverless taxi franchises that state governments might want him to supply them with. He also, I don’t know if you’d noticed, pumped a lot of dollars and personal appearances into getting Trump elected. Call them cynical but Reuters noticed, possibly more coincidentally than causally, that the incoming administration, which is checks notes. Oh yeah, Trump’s is considering repealing the requirement for self driving car manufacturers to report crashes. Ever mindful of that scene in Irobot where Will Smith single handedly has to convince everyone that bots are bad when he’s nearly killed by a self driving t tax. And don’t get me started on the ones in Total Recall but I’m thinking it’s quite beoven yeah, Total Recall. See what did that on makers to report to regulators about when things go wrong such that regulators can make recommendations as to the cleaneessness of cars that might be put on the public roads. Removing the crash disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla which has reported most of the crashes more than 11500 to federal safety regulators under the current program. A Reuters analysis of the crash data shows Tesla accounted for 40 hour 45 fatal crashes reported to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration through to October. Tesla finds the rules unfair because it believes it reports better data than other automakers, which makes it look like Tesla is responsible for an outsized number of crashes involving advanced driver assisted systems. One source said. Call me Ralph Nader. But using the excuse that more tests reveal more failures isn’t an argument for fewer tests, but rather for more safety. No doubt this requirement will be one of the efficiencies that Musk’s s doge department will be trying to kill off. Anyone fancy a game of carmageddon I’ve got a Tesla mod.

Jim: I think Behoven Vehoven is one of the more subtle ye nods we’ve ever had on the show. Yeah, sadly we’ve run out of ethical people standing up to oppression, so it’s time to talk about the ones who obey in advance, like ABC News, who folded like a cheap sup because they’re afraid of Trump and his psychotic lackeys targeting them. In March, George Snuffeluphagus was talking to Nancy Maceson, mentioned that Trump had been found liable for rape. Trump sued ABC for defamation because he’d only been found liable for sexual assault and was presumably very proud of the distinction. ABC decided to fight the lawsuit partly because New York v. Sullivan gives the press a legal fuck ton of leeway when reporting on public figures, and partly because the judge in the case specifically went out of his way to point out that New York law has a very narrow definition of rape and that the verdict did not mean that Eugene Carroll failed to prove that Mr. Trump raped her, as many people commonly understand the word rape. Indeed, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that. But now Trump is in threatening to challenge New York v. Sullivan, appointing Project 2025 co author Brendan Carr to head the FCC and generally doesn’t give a shit about the freedom of the press if they don’t use that freedom to praise his every breath. So ABC caved, settled and agreed to donate $15 million to Trump’s presidential library, a fictional place that has never been built and probably never will be, because you don’t need a whole bill building to house three colouring books and a copy of all 22 books Trump claims to have written but actually hasn’t even read, which presumably means Trump will be able to funnel that money into something more useful, like golf shoes. Meanwhile, George Snuffelopagus didn’t resign in disgust and instead made a statement, as required by the settlement, that he regretted saying the rapist raped somebody.

Mark: I’ll never be doing a rally again. Can you believe it? Trump declared in his

01:15:00

Mark: victory speech on election night last month. Well, I guess we should be grateful for small mercies. At least we’re going on to something that’s far more important, because the rallies were use for us to be put in this position where we can really help our country. And of course rallies mean dollars, and short of tearing down the Constitution, eventually Trump will be out of office. And all of those don’t prosecute a sitting president. Prosecution at least 34 I could think of. We’ll come back to haunt him and of course, cost him. So where do the dollars come from now? Whilst a spokesman for MAGA Inc. Declined to comment about the purpose of the Mar A Lago fundraiser, the current Mar A Lago fundraiser promises a Candle atit dinner where donors can sit in a dimly lit room so as not to be seen to have parted with a price of entry for the event on December19. ###th $1 million per person, according to a copy of the invite obtained by the Washington Post. Supporters who give $1 million or to raise $2 million are, guaranteed six tickets with preferred seating at this pinnacle event by the door, perhaps behind a pillar. They also get two tickets to a more exclusive, intimate dinner with Vice President elect J.D. vance and his wife USA the night before, tickets to an earlier Cabinet reception with Trump’s planned nominees, as well as invitations to stay in select hotels. Trump owns a smaller selection than he once did and other events including the swearing in Ceremony, Pennsylvania Avenue Parade and Starlight Ball on January 20th. Trump will appear as a special guest at the MAGA Inc. Event next week. He’s barred by law from directly fundraising for the group or privately directing most of its spending. But of course Make America Great Again in the Super PAC spent more than $450 million to elect Donald Trump this year. In 2017, Trump’s inaugural committee settled a lawsuit that alleged the inaugural committee and overpaid Trump’s companies for events to the private benefit of the Trump Hotel and the Trump Organization. So look out Magarin, is all I’m saying. Don’t be too surprised by the fine print about percentages for administration and hire costs on anything to do with staging shit at Mar a Lago. The fellas got form still at a cool mill per ticket, it’s a bargain. I wonder if our has arrived yet.

Jim: We talked last time about people being very upset that Biden repeatedly lied when he said he wouldn’t pardon Hunter well, get ready for a shot, because it turns out Trump lied about some stuff too. In the run up to the election. He mentioned that grocery prices were a bit high and that if he got elected president, food prices would come down. Unless you pay as much attention to Trump as I do, you probably don’t even remember it coming up because he only said it 800,000 times and it was cited as the reason a lot of people voted for him. Interestingly, very few people ever asked me exactly how he planned to achieve the reduction in prices, which is handy because he never had a fucking clue. And now that none of this matters anymore. He’s decided to fess up. When Time magazine voted him the newsiest person of 2024, they did an interview and asked him if his presidency would be a failure if he didn’t manage to bring grocery prices down. Which side note, I think is a smart way of asking that question. It’s still a softball and I definitely didn’t expect it to induce actual honesty. But Trump replied, I don’t think so. Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up, you know, it’s very hard. But I think that they will. I think that energy is going toa go and bring them down. I think a better supply chain is gonna bring them down. You know, the supply chain is still broken. It’s broken. You see it? You go out to the ducts and you see all these containers and I own property in California. Yeah, never mind. Actually, that’s exactly the kind of rambling bullshit I would have expected. After all.

Mark: Here in the UK, Ben Jennings’Cartoon in the Guardian as Nigel Farage sitting on Santa’s knee. Santa looks very much like the CEO of Tesla. Little Nig says, oh, please, Father Chris Musk, can I have some money? I’ve been very naughty Far Raj Grint of the moment has been telling anyone who will listen that Musk is going to give him millions and millions, whilst at the same time denying that anyone has spoken to Musk, but adding in a theatrical whisper he’s giving serious thought to bankrolling the party. VJ Rangarajan, chief executive of the elections watchdog, says that, linking donations to political parties to the UK profits of companies owned by foreigners was one of the urgent changes needed to retain the trust of voters. As a foreign national, Musk cannot directly donate to simpering pound shop Trumper Liquor Farages Reform Party, but could channel a donation through a UK branch. If a company owns like X, for instance, we know this because Farage said that’s perfectly legal. And what he’s going to get his good friend Leon to

01:20:00

Mark: do. Ever the grifter, Farage sees that his job as an elected MP is to spend all his time trying to get shyster’to remember who he is and give him money because he’s a fellow shiester, a hard working, selfless representative of the interest of his constituenc. Yeah, but if that’s the image you’re really trying to put across your constituents, Nig, you might want to be talking to people who are a bit more ultro. The narciss is stick people like George Sorus or Bill Gates or the Clinton Foundation. Yeah no not them because they’re sticklers for things like truth and transparency and doing stuff for others. Plus blimey if you hang out with them then what were your orange and self drive new so called friends think of you then. Oh the perils of being a two faced Janus. Hey nig sorry not heinus ass. Despite all this, Reform UK has said it was to professionalize the party which at this time of year reminds me of the professional parties running number 10 during lockdown by the other lot. God keep us safe from professional politicians said are reformed to m Mr. Scrooge. God help us everyone.

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

Mark: If you think we’ve used the phallus ourselves, let us know. And if you’ve had a good time, please give us a review on Apple piedcasts 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@patreon.com FTRU just like our straw man level patron Mike Smith, Lt Colleen Lyella, Richard Thunder Hopkins, Will M, Scott Aussie on Bank, Laura Thompson, Mark Reichin and Abbert Ar Buchanan who told us when we met at QED we can just callull a ra and this year QED I met the listener who recognize at QED last year because we keep using her full name all the time and our true Scotsman level patron Schmootz Sharon Robinson, Rene Z Meissa S tech, Stephen Pickickel, Janet Uueetta, Andrew Halk and our top patron Kazui. Thank you so much for your support throughout the entire year. It’s very much appreciated. Thank you.

Jim: You can connect with those awesome people as well as us and other listeners in the facebook group@facebook.com groups feaciousrump or in the discord@feaciousrumpk.com discord all music is.

Mark: By the outbursts and M was used with permission. So until next time on Felicious Trump, we’ll leave the last Christmas word to the Donald.

Donald Trump: That’s right, go home to Mommy by Bye.

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