Appeal to Common Sense – FT#170

18 Mar Appeal to Common Sense – FT#170

Show Notes

The Appeal to Common Sense fallacy occurs when someone invokes “common sense” as a reason to believe something instead of providing evidence.

Trump

We started out by discussing Trump blaming a helicopter crash on DEI:

Then we looked at Trump claiming he knows the kind of people who immigrate to the US:

And finally we talked about Trump making up crime numbers:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about Kemi Badenoch equating common sense with common ground:

He followed that up by talking about Rishi Sunak mocking Starmer’s elitism:

Then he talked about Nigel Farage mocking wokeness:

And he finished with Baroness Fox complaining about DEI

Fallacy in the Wild

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

Then we discussed this clip from Body of Evidence:

And we finished up with this clip from Life on Mars:

 

Fake News

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

1. The World Organization – The World Health Organization covered up what was going on with the China flu right? We know that. WHO. It stands for We Hide Outbreaks. So why would we spend so much money on the WHO. I took us out and saved millions of dollars. It’s not even hard to do that, it’s just common sense. We got nothing from them but lies and fake news, and it cost us millions of dollars a year. It’s hard to believe. But no other President had done that, and you have to ask yourself why? And it’s because they’re either very very stupid or very very corrupt.
2. The United States was paying the World Health Organization $450 million a year. Now, in terms of money and the kind of trillions and trillions we’re talking about, it’s not that much, but it’s still $450 million a year. And I took them out. That’s what it was. The price was 450, and that’s for $350 million people. China was paying $39 million a year for 1.4 billion people. Doesn’t sound too right. And they had total control, by the way. We had no control. They literally own it.
3. When I withdrew from the WHO, they offered me to stay in. Please don’t leave. Please. Please, please. For what China pays, they said we’ll bring it down to 39 million. I was actually close to doing this deal, if you want all the truth. But I would have had it. You would have been angry at me. I said, I don’t have… I don’t want to have CPAC angry at me, but I might have gone back in, but I could have done it for 39. I could have probably done it for less than that. But now Biden has gone back for the full price of $450 million. Now all he has to do is read the newspapers. They were begging me to come back in for 39 million. So why would you pay $450 million?

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

 

The Address to the Joint Session of Congress was not a logical fallacy

We talked about Trump’s first State of the Union that isn’t called a State of the Union

 

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

• The current Guinness world record holder for the greatest loss of personal fortune is co-President Elon Musk, who lost $182 billion dollars between November 2021 and January 2023. The great thing about a record like that is that hardly anyone will ever have enough money to beat him, and Guinness probably thought they wouldn’t have to update that one for a while, but this year, Elon’s going for a speedrun version, having already lost $148 billion in just the past four months. Don’t worry though, I reckon he’ll be fine, because of the savvy $300 million investment he made last year when he bought the government of the United States. Thanks perhaps to Elon’s almost total access to all government departments, the FAA have decided to cancel a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon in favor of paying Musk’s Starlink to help manage US airspace, which I’m sure will go great. Starlink will also be the obvious beneficiary of the Trump Administration’s apparent plans to abandon key elements of a $42 billion plan to connect rural US communities to high-speed internet. In the meantime, though, Trump turned the White House into a Tesla dealership for the day, shilling for his patron, literally reading ad copy for Teslas and announcing he would buy one himself. It was probably the best deal Trump has ever done, because mere hours later Elon announced he planned to give Trump another $100 million via his SuperPAC, so did Trump really buy a car, or did Elon buy one for him? Either way, the ad ran live on Twitter and was picked up by lots of news shows, but I think Trump needs to work on his spiel. When he sat in a model S, the best thing he could come up with was “Wow. Everything’s computer.” Elon, as we know, really has the gift of the gab, so was completely smooth when showing off his shiny jagged deathtrap Cybertruck to Trump, boasting that “It’s bulletproof.” None of the assembled reporters asked if that’s true, how come the windows got smashed when people threw beer cans at one in New Orleans during Mardi Gras, so Elon moved on to describing how he came up with the design – “We want the future to look like the future. What kind of truck would Blade Runner drive? That was the design idea.” It’s not the first time he’s referred to Rick Deckard as Blade Runner as if that’s his name, and it’s probably just a coincidence that his vision of the future is a dystopian world run by corporations who still haven’t figured out safe Artificial Intelligence. 
• In a similarly metaphorical way to using a massive sledgehammer to crack a nut, in the way the US brought about the end of Japan’s involvement in the 2nd World War perhaps. After, as Trump remembers it, the inhabitants of Pearl Harbour started fighting them in 1941. The latest federal department purging all references to diversity, equity and inclusion has removed pictures of Colonel Paul Tibbets standing by his Boeing B-29 prior to dropping the first atom bomb. Why? Well following Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order, the Department of Defense has run a search of forbidden terms, icky words, and all possible descriptors that might conceivably value all peoples alike, on its database and of course it flagged up the Enola Gay – the plane that bombed Hiroshima. The plane was named after Paul Tibbets’ mother Enola Gay Tibbets – Paul? Not gay. Paul’s mum? Not gay. The plane itself? Not gay. Seeing pictures of the plane won’t make you gay, just as training materials removed by the Air Force cos they featured the Tuskegee Airmen – a group of the first Black fighter pilots to fight for the United States military – won’t make you black, though the training materials might teach you how to fly and about the history of the air force, and how historically people of all colours, creeds and country historically fought against oppressors across the globe. But we know that history isn’t important or Trump wouldn’t keep denying it, getting it wrong or dooming us to repeat it! Also even if The Party’s Ministry of Truth removes all images of all the previous administrations recording of people other than white supremacists making America/The World safe for all/some of its people, you can still go to the National Air and Space Museum and see the plane, it’s very shiny and very big, like the size of a bomber fer chrissakes! And of course you can look up pictures of it everywhere else online and listen to Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s song about it. But in the cis het white male mind of Donald Trump’s administration the year is still 815 … and that’s the time that it’s always been. 
• When Trump ordered the DOJ to fire any lawyers who had worked on cases against him, that was pretty bad, but entirely expected and only a bit illegal because of the messy way he did it, but now he’s started going after private law firms who represent people he disagrees with, and that’s quite a lot illegal. Last week he signed an Executive Order targeting Perkins Coie, a law firm that has represented Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and various other Democratic politicians and causes, and which used to employ Marc Elias, the lawyer who oversaw the various responses to Trump’s lawsuits claiming the 2020 elections as stolen. Elias won 63 out of 64 of those cases, with the 64th later overturned in his favor, so Trump suspended security clearances for all Perkins Coie lawyers and prevented them from interacting with federal agencies or even entering federal buildings, which might have a bit of an impact on their work if any of their clients have beef with the federal government. Last month, he did the same to lawyers at Covington & Burling who had represented Special Counsel Jack Smith. US DIstrict Judge Beryl Howell has already issued a temporary restraining order in the Perkins Coie case, saying the Executive Order “runs head on into the wall of First Amendment protections,” due to the obvious viewpoint discrimination. Undaunted, Trump issued another EO on Friday targeting New York law firm Paul, Weiss, and specifically singling out lawyer Mark Pomerantz, who investigated Trump on behalf of the Manhattan DAs office, and later wrote a book called People vs Donald Trump. Paul, Weiss have pointed out that Pomerantz used to work for them, but hasn’t been affiliated with the firm since he retired in 2012, but Trump never let facts get in the way of a good First Amendment violation.
• “We the people” – of course opens one of the USA’s founding documents – so it seems fitting that the people get to have public access to see them. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence – the actual things – the actual founding documents of the actual founding of the actual flipping nation! Makes sense right? In the same way we Brits can see all the copies of Magna Carta on public display in the British Library, Salisbury Cathedral, or Lincoln Castle. The Magna Carta is the document that limited the absolute power of the monarch and stated that an elected government would make those kind of decisions, to set in place checks and balances to prevent a despotic megalomaniac narcissist just making stuff up that satisfies his selfish needs moment by moment, and established the principle that the king was not above the law. Ironically Trump has decided that he is both a we – a royal ‘we’ not a stream of piss… wee-eeell I say that… and is actually all of the people and self-evidently he is more equal than anybody else cos he wants to take the Declaration of Independence out of public view in the Rotunda of the National Archives Building and put it in the Oval Office behind his desk, next to the button he presses to summon another diet coke and beside his framed mugshot, so only he and his sycophants get to see it, oh and visiting dignitaries that he’s shouting at. Aides immediately recognized both the implausibility and the expense of moving the original document. The original is behind heavy glass in an oxygen-free, argon-filled case that can retract into the wall at night for security. Because of light damage to the faded animal-skin parchment, the room is kept dimly lit; and restrictions have been placed on how often the doors can even be opened. I’m guessing they used those kind of excuses rather than say – of course we’re not going to let you do that you fucking megalomaniac idiot, we’re only putting up with your stupid ignorant low-rent fucking harebrained schemes cos you are occupying this ovoid room temporarily cos of the appalling national brainfart of a brainwashed electorate. In the scheme of the timeline of an entire country you are thankfully only as permanent as the momentary odour from the arse of a mayfly smashing into the screendoor of the outside privy. Can somebody tell Trump there’s an important American artefact in the shape of a golden head in the Aztec jungle and all he has to do is quickly swap it for the equivalent weight in cheeseburgers and outrun the, admittedly giant, rolling ball to get it?   
• In the UK, Members of Parliament sometimes hold what’s called a surgery, but the hope is that no sharp implements will be involved, because it’s just an opportunity for constituents to meet their MP and raise any concerns. Usually, it’s a one-to-one meeting, which means it’s quite different from the US equivalent – a town hall. Town halls gather lots of people together in one place, and while there are rules on crowd behavior, some can get quite heated if the elected official is seen not to be representing their constituents’ interests. Since Trump and Musk basically spend their days setting fire to everything useful, taking a shit on the constitution and calling it art, GOP representatives have found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to pretend everything is going great, and somehow, even the people who voted for them are struggling to see the upside of thousands of veterans being fired, likely cuts to Medicare and Social Security, and going to war over Greenland, and they still can’t afford eggs. After a series of contentious town halls ended with lawmakers being booed offstage including Chuck Edwards in North Carolina, Roger Marshall in Kansas, and both Glenn Grothman and Scott Fitzgerald in Wisconsin, Republican leadership has finally got the message. They’ve heard the concerns, they’ve taken them on board, and they’re ready to change how they do things. Will they be standing up to Trump and Musk, demanding that they implement new policies that better represent the will of the people who voted them into office? Of course not, don’t be so ridiculous. They’ve blamed it all on George Soros and told Republicans to stop holding town halls. To fill the void, the Democratic National Committee is organizing a tour of districts where the Republican representatives are too cowardly to show up and talk to the public. The first one was in Iowa’s 3rd district on Friday, home of Congressman Zach Nunn. Since Zach was frightened of being shouted at, local Democrats were joined by former VP candidate Tim Walz instead. 
• According to the AI chatbot called Grok, which was developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, there is a “75-85% likelihood” that the person who delivered the State of the Union address on Tuesday night is a “Putin-compromised” Russian asset. In describing Grok, Musk said it is a “maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically-correct.” Grok’s output followed the prompt “What is the likelihood from 1-100 that Trump is a Putin-compromised asset? Use all publicly available information from 1980 on and his failure to ever say anything negative about Putin but has no issue attacking allies.” Despite attempts to control available online content when it comes to DEI, Trump’s administration hasn’t yet perfected the Ministry of Truth sufficiently to stop Grok scraping available online sources to summarise of Trump; “Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, as Trump faced bankruptcies, he increasingly relied on funding from sources tied to Russia and former Soviet states. His sons, Donald Jr. and Eric, made statements reinforcing this: Donald Jr. in 2008 said, ‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,’ and Eric in 2014 claimed, ‘We have all the funding we need out of Russia.’” In conclusion Grok continues “Weighing this, the financial ties (decades-long, opaque, and substantial), intelligence suggesting Russian intent, and Trump’s unwavering refusal to criticize Putin despite attacking allies tilt the scale. Trump’s ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable. Adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations (e.g., ideological alignment or naivety), I estimate a 75-85% likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset, leaning toward the higher end due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties.”  It’s times like these that one’s cognitive biases are comforted by AI rather than terrified of it – if Skynet turns out to be this progressive we might never have to see Arnie naked after all.
• They used to say that the Queen thought the world outside her various palaces always smelled of fresh paint, because before she visited anywhere it was made to look as good and new as could be. In the same vein, I think it’s incumbent on all of us to ensure that prominent Republicans come to see the world as a hostile place filled with people who have had enough of their shit. As I mentioned, the town halls are already a good start, and even better last month was the reaction in a small Vermont town called Waitsfield to the arrival of couch-fucking eyeliner model and part time VP JD Vance, who was visiting for a ski trip. Protestors lined the street with homemade signs along with Palestinian, Ukrainian and rainbow flags. Estimates vary between 1,000 and 3,000 protesters, which is all the more impressive when you hear that the population of Waitsfield is 1,844. Some of my favorite signs include “the only minority destroying America is billionaires,” “Our cows shit better ideas than Vance,” and “Spineless fascists can’t ski.” Great work Vermont, let’s make sure they never go anywhere without hearing boos. I’m already working on my sign for Trump’s second state visit to the UK.
• You know there was a time when the Tories, and I want to say as far back as Cameron’s government, when they governed by social media, they’d put something out there and Huff Post or Mumsnet would clutch their collective pearls and go ooh and suck air through their teeth and Cameron would change tack. It feels a bit like that at the moment with Starmer’s bunch. Since the poll-topping increase of the defence budget from 2.3 to 2.5% pleased even old-school Conservatives, several government departments have been looked at to make cuts to find the money. Bang went the manifesto promise to reverse the Tories international development aid cut, and domestic welfare funding also seems to be under threat. First cuts to 3.6 million personal independence payments were mooted, which would severely impact the disabled community, especially those unable to work – and cuts to payments for 6.3 million that are long-term sick – including of course people suffering from long covid. Then in a convoluted ‘refusal to confirm the u-turn of the freeze of P-I-P payments’ by health minister Wes Streeting following not inconsiderable outcry, it seems to be being walked back. The same Wes Streeting then said mental health conditions are being ‘over-diagnosed’ so people “who could work are not”, and then promptly walked that back after some considerable outcry to “too many people [are] being written off“. Instead of making growth only about getting people who can’t work to go to work in a Tory-like way, wouldn’t it just be common sense to tax the rich a bit more than the Tories ever would? Or rejoin the EU customs union now Brexit has wreaked 5 years of negative growth havoc? I think we’re increasingly coming up against ‘won’t’ rather than ‘can’t’ in the Labour party. And if they say ‘tough decisions have to be made’ one more time why I’ll…! Meanwhile Reform MP Rupert Lowe – who was endorsed by Musk when Musk fell out with Farage – has fallen out with Farage by calling the governance of Reform UK “a protest party led by the Messiah“. A day later Reform said Lowe was accused of bullying and had the whip removed cos he wasn’t cooperating with the investigation in a letter dated days before the investigation began. But this still hasn’t prevented 29 Tory and Liberal local councillors defecting to Reform, ahead of local elections in May perhaps. Well I guess if you want to remain in a position of electoral power don’t tell the Messiah he’s a very naughty boy – on either side of the political divide, or indeed the pond!

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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:

Appeal to Common Sense – FT#170 Transcript

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

Mark: And I’m your. The host, Mark. A logical fallacy is an error in reasoning that results in bad or invalid arguments. And the logical fallacy we’re looking at this week is the appeal to common sense.

Jim: This is a fairly straightforward one. Really.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It’s when someone relies on that as a reason for believing a thing.

Jim: Rather than providing evidence for the thing. Simple as that. Right.

Mark: Really.

Jim: Ok, so for our first example, we have Trump responding to questions about his claim that DEI was the cause of a plane crashing into a helicopter. Weirdly, a reporter wanted to know where he got that idea from.

Mark: Yeah.

Reporter: Mr. President, you have today, laamed. The diversity elements, but then told us that you weren’t sure that the controllers. Made any mistake, who then said perhaps the helicopter pilots were the ones who made the mistake.

Donald Trump: It’s all under investigation.

Reporter: I understand that. that’s why I’m trying to figure out how you can come to the. Conclusion right now that diversity had something to do with this crash.

Donald Trump: Because I have common sense. Okay. And unfortunately a lot of people don’t.

Jim: Yeah. So that’s, it doesn’t need, doesn’t need to wait for the investigation to be concluded or find any evidence whatsoever.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Just common sense.

Mark: It’s just kind of like we were talking about it before we came on about the way that the Traitors program works and it is just stupid people saying stupid things and they’re like using their common sense.

Jim: It’s information impaired people.

Mark: Right.

Jim: That’s the thing is people who have almost nothing to go on and. Yeah, yeah. They pick up on any old shit.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And assume that it makes sense.

Mark: Maybe it’s kind of the worst of all appeals too. Because if it appeals to common sense, what it does is just anything that confirms your confirmation bias. You just agree with, you think. Allh. Right. Okay. And then you try and extend it out, you try and universalize that experience to say this is a common experience. Everyone has common sense. We all have comm comments.

Jim: S the thing. Because it’s a bit like a sense of humor in that everyone kind of thinks they’ve got common sense and a sense of ye.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And some people are idiots.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And yeah.

Mark: Some people don’t find anything funny. Yeah. Both of those. Weirdly, they overlap. And in the overlap you get Republicans.

Jim: So. Yeah. When you think you have common sense and common sense, by what I’m defining it, it’s the things that people know without generally being taught that thing specifically. That’s what common sense is often used to mean. And yeah. There are some things you can apply that to. It’s often things that people learn from experience. Like, you know.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It’s common sense not to put a screw down on a curved surface because you’re gonna lose that screw. It’s gonna roll off. You’re gonna. You’re gonna be scrabbling around on the floor. It’s gone now.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Bas.

Mark: You’ll never find it again. Yeah.

Jim: You know. Yeah. There probably wasn’t a point at which someone warned you about it. Maybe you’ve probably. You’ve learned it, I expect, through experience. And it becomes that. That kind of thing. It’s like, That’s just a stupid thing to do if you continue to do that.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So there are things that you can apply common sense to and there. And there are a lot of things that you can’t apply common sense to that people still try to apply common sense to. Like for example, what causes ha. Crashes.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: That’s thing that they have an entire body of ah. People whose job it is to work that. To figure that out. Who are trained.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: To look at different things and work.

Mark: So in a way they have quite uncommon.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Sen.

Jim: It’sen.

Mark: Because. Because they’re rare. Yeah. Because they’re. There are very few of those people. And that’s why you get them in to do, an investigation. Not leases, because they’re very rare. Do you get an air crash? I mean they happen, but they don’t happen as regly as if you. A lot more traffic controllers. Yeah. Yeah. If you get rid of the whole of the Civil Aviation Authority. Actually it puts me in mind of that sense of that there is a common sense is a. It’s either Socrates or Plato who had this idea that everybody knows everything. So if you’re teaching somebody, what you’re doing is just asking them questions, drawing the information. Yes. They have it

00:05:00

Mark: innately. Yes. So that there is an innate common sense and it’s Just being drawn out.

Jim: The thing is though, for that system to work, it requires people to engage in the Socratic dialogue in good faith.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Because the reporter arguably was doing exactly that.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: He wasn’t saying, you’re an idiot, you can’t possibly know.

Mark: No.

Jim: Was due to diversity. He was saying, what is it that makes you think that diversity was cae of this, given that the investigation is still ongoing? Great question. Really, really good question. Designed specifically to get the person to think about why they know something and what they know and whether they can actually rely on that information. Yeah, but Trump doesn’t do any of.

Mark: That because he continues the he knows everything about everything. Yeah, but to call it common sense rather than saying, ah, well, that’s because I’m an expert in these things. I think he probably said he was an expert in aviation at some point.

Jim: I, I would not doubt that he said that at some point somebody, nobody knows more about planes than I do.

Mark: Yeah. And somebody has said to him, or he has said that somebody has said to him, sir, the amount you know about aeroplanes is much more than we’ve ever learned over 17 years of doing this job. But he’s at the same point as shutting down the question. He’s also calling the reporter, an idiot because he doesn’t have common sense.

Jim: It. Well, and anyone who says it isn’t due to diversity.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So our, second example is from when he was discussing immigration on Fox and Friends before his election.

Donald Trump: If they win the election, they’re going to open up the border and the border is going to be open for four years. You’ll have 200 million people come in. we have no idea. They tend to be not the best for a reason because the countries send them out. The countries are not sending their best people. I’ve been saying this for a long time. They’re not sending original.

Brian Kilmeade: Your very first speech, you said, they’re not sending them their best.

Donald Trump: Because it’s common sense Brian. So when a country sends people out, they’re not saying, hey, let’s take our best people and send them to the US they’re sending, they’re sending, they’re rapists, they’re sending their murderers.

Jim: So I think to apply common sense to a situation.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: You have to have a base level of understanding of the situationeah. If you’re brand new to the situation or you’ve never bothered to give it any thought whatsoever. Yeah. you probably don’t have the kind of common sense that will lead to a reliable or useful outcome when you’re making decisions about it.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And the fact that Trump back then, back when he started running and still thinks that countries are sending people, that that’s how immigration works.

Mark: That’s how immigration works.

Jim: Just, it’s just this fundamental misunderstanding of what happens when a person shows up at the border.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Mexico isn’t sending people to the United States. Guatemala isn’t deciding which of their people is the worst and the ones they.

Mark: Want to get getting rid of them.

Jim: That’s deportation.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: That’s not. That’s what the. Yeah, that’s what the USA is trying to do to those people. And some people with green cards.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: As a country, as a government, they are organizing the removal of that person to another country. And that’s done usually, in conjunction with the other countries government and their agreements and treaties and things signed. They, the US doesn’t go. Go on. You can make it across the border and, and you like give them a shove and a map. That. And that’s not happening with any other country that involves immigration into the US Illegal immigration or whatever. or with small boats coming into the UK that isn’t France or Serbia or wherever. Choosing which of the people they don’t want anymore and putting them on a dinghy and shoving them across the English Channel. No.

Mark: People are fleeing. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. If immigration was due to countries deciding who they wanted in their country and who they didn’t want, maybe it would be common sense to say, well, they’re not going to choose their best people. They’re not going to want to get rid of their professors and their, you know, rich people. They’re going to want to get rid of the people who are, are drain on society or who are making things worse for everyone else.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: But that assumes something that doesn’t ever happen, that doesn’t exist.

Mark: Yeah. Yes. To use common sense, says the phrase common sense to describe something. There’s got to be a commonly accepted, as you say, base level of knowledge. That it’s not just that he’s got it, that Trump’s got it and nobody else has, then that wouldn’t be. That would be an individual sense. That would be called expertise in anybody else’s hands in order for it to be common knowledge.

Jim: Ye.

Mark: And therefore you can apply common sense to. There has to be a common understanding.

00:10:00

Mark: There has to be at least a base level. Shares.

Jim: I think there is a difference. this is just a colloquial term essentially. M. There’s different ways that it can be interpreted and I’m not so sure it always applies common sense meaning a sense that is shared by everyone. Some people certainly interpret it that way.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Even the people who interpret it that way often say a lot of people don’t have common sense.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Which would suggest it isn’t that common in that sense. I think when they say common sense, they mean again, this is my interpretation of my definition of it. It’s common rather than educated.

Mark: Right. It’s yes.

Jim: Sense that you just have without having an elevated sense of something.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah. Yes. You don’t have to go it’s university of life stuff. It School of hard knocks stuff.

Jim: So I don’t think it’s necessary to be considered common sense that everyone agrees on it or that it’s a generally accepted truth or anything like that. I think it’s just the kind of thing you would. You would basically expect people to understand without having to educate them on that specific topic.

Mark: That’s my just kind of an innate.

Jim: Level version of it Knowledge.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Yeahah. So our, final example from Trump Y comes on discussing rampant crime.

Donald Trump: They have a tremendous crime problem. Like if you’re in Los Angeles, look at the crime numbers and then you have the FBI lying about the numbers, saying the numbers went down. But anybody with common sense know the numbers are throughew the roof. I didn’t know they were as high as they are.

Jim: I don’t think you can put common sense up against FBI crime figures.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And assume that the common sense is more reliable.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Saying anyone with common sense knows that the FBI are wrong when they say crime is coming down.

Mark: Here’s the FBI giving you the figures, but common sense tells you that they’re lying about the figures.

Jim: These figures are based on violent crimes and homicides are reported to them by law enforcement agencies around the country. There are around 18,000 law enforcement agencies around the U.S. ye of the 18,000, about 16,000 feed into these figures. So it’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty good snapshot. Ye. Of where violent crime is. FBI figures uniformly show crime coming down. So saying it’s up, it’s through the roof, it’s skyrocketed is just wrong. And relying on common sense to prove that over the official figures that are based on actual crimes having been reported is.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Not logical.

Mark: No, no. Weirdly.

Jim: And now is the time, I think for Marx.

Mark: British politics corner over here. The politicians are less inclined to say that they have common sense. They still do that armms length thing. And a lot of it kind of. There’s a sort of Venn diagram At which overlaps with argumentum ad populum. Also a hidden agenda to hide, conceal or contain a sinistereaning like stamping out anything that’s progressive and promote a right wing agenda under the guise that it all makes common sense. If you think about it, they probably don’t think about it because then you would question it and they would just say, oh, well, it’s common sense. They tend to use it well in a very confused way. Well, here’s Kery Banadnock explaining to the daily chlegraph in September 24 why she should be the leader of the Tory Party.

Kemi Badenoch: I’m a candidate of the right, but most of the people in this country are people who have common sense. Common sense is the thing that gets the vast majority of people. It’s where the common ground is. Politics, I don’t think is as linear as people that think it is. It’s very 3D and it’s about getting the common ground, the majority of people rather than just the people who are of the right. But it is about presenting a right wing platform that is acceptable to people who are not on that side of the political spectrum.

Mark: So there it is. There is any kind of sense. No, but she’s saying that people have common sense and then she equates common sense with common ground. And then she says what we’ve got to do is, admit that we’re pushing with right wing agenda, but what we’ve got to do is get people who have common sense, who aren’t over on the right to accept a right wing agenda under the guise of it’s just common sense. But it isn’t. So the evidence for this is, Well, if this was common sense then they would have won the last election. What she’s saying is the right wing position is just common sense. It’s a common sense view commonly held by a lot of people. It just makes common sense. But she’s doing that against the background of the evidence that the left wing got in.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: and it’s odd because the Tory Party has an informal group of MPs have these lots of groups. They are a bit like the European.

Jim: Research Group, like a caucus.

Mark: Yeah. Which was

00:15:00

Mark: called the Common Sense Group, which is a bit like the Institute of Economic affairs, the iea who were the basically the puppet masters for Liz Truss failed fiscal experiment. It’s not an institute and they’re not economic. They’re just right wing agendder monger who want to cut.

Jim: They do have a face.

Mark: So yeah. Yes. They want to Cut taxes for the rich. And this one, the common sense group aren’t a common sense group where they’re just saying, okay, let’s just go on those things we innately know. What they innately know over on the right wing of the Tory party of course is we don’t like equality, diversity and inclusion. And here’s Rishi Sunak, the leader of Vor Badnok, attributing common sense to the likes of plain speaking Yorkshiren.

Rishi Sunak: The people of North Yorkshire believe in hard work, secure borders, lower taxes and straight talking common sense. Mr. Speaker. They’re not going to get any of that from a virtue signaling lawyer from North London.

Mark: So the virtue signaling lawyer for North London is Kir Stmer.

Jim: Whereas. Hang on, what? Yeah, where’s Sunak from? Wimbledon.

Mark: Exactly.

Jim: Like y.

Mark: Yes, quite. But that you see the. In, in one of his cabinet reshuffles. But that’s common sense, you see, so he, he can appeal to the Yorkshiren, who are all landowners and all votor because it’s you they are looking.

Jim: He saw a farm out of the window of his dad’s limo’s, right?

Mark: And he said, what’s that? Don’t worry, you own that, that’s fine, that’s all yours. Why do we own that? So you don’t have to pay any inheritance tax. Oh, okay, brilliant. Yeah. And in one of his cabinet reshuffles, the seventh one, he appointed a common sense minister, Esther McVey. Remember Esther McVey, whose first act against the background of the crisis in energy costs, funding the NHS mortgage levels in inflation, post list trust fiscal event and 14 years of Tory enrichment of themselves and their mates. The first act as the common sense minister was to ban colored lanyards in the civil service because people had had, you know, the trans rainbow or whatever rainbow. So she’s got rid of those because that’s the common sense thing to do against all of that backdrop of real stuff. Nigel Farage, of course, whose party contains the plane speaking Nottingham Chair Lee Anderson doesn’t put it in quite such couch terms when he was doing the rounds of the world before recent elections in Australia and the us.

Nigel Farage: When you go out to where real people live, ordinary folk live, they don’t buy into any of this woke rubbish. They are patriotic, they believe in their countries and they want their kids to do well indeed to do better than them. There is right across the English speaking world a majority for common sense. It seems to me there’s a major problem that the Liberal party consistently chooses leaders that are very Very centrist. Let’s get this man back in the White House and let’s get common sense back into the Western world.

Jim: Did he say where real people live? what he means is where less people live. Because he’s talking about not cities, isn’t he? He’s talking about rural areas.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: So you goble the minority of people and talk to themes they don’t agree with. With all this woke nonsen. It’s only.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It’s only the, the majority who live in cities who are cosmopolitan. Yeah. Understand what it’s like to live near other people.

Mark: But if you, go across the world, there’s a majority of common sense.

Jim: They’re not real people, are they? The people, the people in cities, they don’t count. You shouldn’t really count their votes even. You should only count the rural people’s votes. It’s barely worth it.

Mark: Or anybody that they agree with. With Farage, you can only count those. Absolutely. Yeah. And then, Jesus. Yes. And it’s. Yeah, there you go. So finally, bang up todayate three days ago, Baroness Fox appeared on Talk TV with Mike Graham on his show. So hail a victory for common sense. Under Str’Leadership

Baroness Fox: I was delighted to hear that the Financial Conduct Authority have just. Decided that they are no longer going to implement their, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion project. Massive victory for common sense for freeief speech. We know that that, is a corrosive impact on workplaces. If STR wants my kind of seal of approval, he could stand up. So we’re going to get rid of. Every extraneous politicized role in the civil service, like EDI schemes.

Mark: Yeah. It’s a victory for common sense for the Financial Services Authority to get rid of. To do away with their EDI di hires, which is where the

00:20:00

Mark: equating of common sense and things that are not woke comes from. on the right.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I feel like they’re using common sense in much the same way as they use science to claim that there are only two sexes in. They are right. Redefining it in that they are wrong. Yeah, they’re wrong. They’re wrong and they’re redefining it, to suit their purposes. Calling anything non woke common sense.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It’s a glittering generality. People like common sense.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So if you say this is the common sense way to think about it, people are like, oh, well, that must be right then. Because common sense.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. Because it’s just. Yeah. Ordinary folk.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Know, it’s, you know, everybody knows that DEI is Corrosive in the workplace.

Jim: Everybody knows We’ve had enough of experts. That’s what it isactly. You don’t want listen to experts telling you about comments own good common sense.

Mark: Yes. Or, or the likes of Sunak who aren’t, you know, metropolitan liberal elite.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Lawyers. Yeah. Yeah. But I’m not so sure that that str is worried about her seal of approvaln she was a member of the Brexit party. Yeah. Common sense tells me kiss number 10 goodbye. Common sense tells me leave it all behind. Common sense says the right’s not worth my time. The common sense is common when elections come to mind. Common sense told me it was not worthwhile. Common sense said don’t fraternizees with n. Common sense said go back and reconcile. But common sense for God about the fallacies in the wild. While fallacies are thought up to be we wild fallacies in volumes. Do they speak Wild fallacies aren’t given usually. But a wild fallacy is all I really need. I think it’s logical. It’s logicalical. Logical. I want it to be logical. Logical. Logical. please let it be logical. I’m goingn to show you all the valace palacies in the wild. Joshua Bassett there with common sense.

Jim: So in the fallacy of the wild, we likes to talk about the fallacy of the week from a non political perspective. And our first example this week comes from Bull.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And in this one, Bull and his legal team were working on behalf of a bounty hunter who when he was going after someone who was a bad guy, he got a bad tip and attacked the wrong person and essentially assaulted him and tied him up and put him in a trunk of his car.

Mark: Yep.

Jim: And so now he’s on trial for that Y. So in choosing their jury, they’re looking for people that that Bull calls frontier pragmatists.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Frontier pragmatism is a philosophy emphasizing practicality and testing ideas through experience. So basically what they’re looking for is people who understand that sometimes something has to be done in order to get to what you’re trying to get to the goal you’re trying to get to. And if people hurt by that occasionally, that’s not that big a deal so long as the end goal is achieved. However, his opposing counsel realizes that this is what he’s doing. And so when right, she gives her opening statement, she shuts that down and brings the common sense over to her side. It’s a bit of a longer clip than usual, but it’s, it’s very much a literal appeal to common sense.

ADA Helen Conway: I want to talk about common sense for a moment. What does that mean, common sense? I think it sort of means a shared sense. Ideas and understandings that we all have in common. They’re so basic, they’re so obvious. For instance, if you’re walking down the street minding your own business and someone accosts you, someone waves a weapon in your face, someone holds you against your will, your common sense tells you this isn’t right, this shouldn’t be allowed to happen. We as a society can’t permit whatever excuses and explanations are offered up to cloud our thinking, to distract us from what

00:25:00

ADA Helen Conway: our common sense tells us is an unmistakable truth that people should be able to live their lives without fear of strangers striking them, knocking them unconscious, and holding them against their will. It’s just common sense. Now, during the course of the trial, I’ll be offering you evidence of what the accused has done. In many ways. This really isn’t necessary. He’s already admitted to it. Of course the defense is going to tell you otherwise. They’re going to try and convince you that sometimes it’s okay to strike a stranger, to throw them in the trunk of your car, to leave them unconscious and alone. They’re gonna try and get you to ignore the obvious, ignore the simple truth, ignore your common sense. Don’t let them.

Jim: So she’s not only trying to get them to rely on their common sense over evidence that is going to be presented in this case, but also she’s framing common sense as meaning certain things about this particular case that there are things that you should be able to expect aren’t going to happen to you or things like that. Yeah, and the thing about law is sometimes they’re mitigating factors. You know, sometimes there are justifications for a thing having happened. If it was as black and white as we can’t allow this to ever happen and there’s no nuance to it, there would be no argument about self defense or any, you know, other arguments that can be used to mitigate possible sentencing or even whether people are considered guilty of things or not. So she’s using common sense to say it’s obvious what needs to be done and there are no arguments that you can use against it.

Mark: She starts off with, okay, this is what is a bit like Badeno saying, yeah, common sense, me is common ground. She’s saying it is. Common sense is stuff. We all agree.

Jim: Yeah, she’s, she’s identifying it more as a kind of a shared sense of what is right and yeah, should be allowed.

Mark: And then she’s saying youe. And they will offer up all of these misitigating circumstances. And of course you’re all going to say, yeah, you won’t allow those because common sense overrides that. But is. Yes, it’it’s. Just idiot brain think. You know, it’s that kind of group stuff.

Jim: But the fact that she’s saying, you know, don’t let them. With all the evidence that they’re going to show you, don’t let them counter your common sense.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: That should be the thing that takes precedence. You know, your. Your general, innate understanding. Yeah. That should be more important than the evidence that you’ll hear in this case.

Mark: Yeah. Yes. You’unin. Maintain your uninformed state. Just maintain. No matter what they inform you about, maintain your uninformed sense. Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: And this does seem. Especially in fiction, at least I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens occasionally in real life. But in. In fiction, common sense comes up a lot in legal dramas, people. It’s often a kind of the last refuge of the scoundrel to claim that you should focus on common sense instead of the evidence. I could have done all of these as courtroom dramas.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I do have, one more which is a slightly different context. This is from Body of Evidence, the Madonna Willem Dafoe film.

Mark: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: In which Madonna is on trial because.

Mark: She married an old Crimes against culture.

Jim: Married an old man and gave him drugs and had sex with them until he died and therefore get all his money. And that the state has a problem with. They essentially accused her of murder. Kind of.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And so Willem Dafoe, her lawyer, is questioning a doctor who gave evidence.

Frank Dulaney: Can you medically say that Mr. Marsh didn’t decide to get high?

Dr. McCurdy: Well, it seems very unlikely that a man in his set of circumstances.

Frank Dulaney: Dr. McCurdy, are you a licensed psychiatrist?

Dr. McCurdy: No, but

Robert Garrett: objection. Argumentative.

Judge Burnham: Sustained.

Frank Dulaney: How did you reach your conclusion about what Mr. Marsh wouldood or wouldn’t do?

Dr. McCurdy: Common sense.

Frank Dulaney: Did you find any evidence of that in the autopsy? Do you know for a fact that Mr. Marsh had any common sense?

Jim: So this is a completely reasonable question because. Ah, yeah. The doctor whose job it is to try and determine how the guy died.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: Is claiming that he doesn’t think the old guy would have taken drugsly voluntarily.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: he thinks that. That he was tricked into it. Yeah. And his answer as to why that is is common sense. Because he’s an old guy and you know, cocaine will make Your heart race and he would likely die. But you can’t necessarily assume that the dead person had enough common sense to deliberately not take drugs and risk dying.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because first of all, that’s not a legal thing that you can do in a courtroom. But also loads of people take drugs

00:30:00

Jim: and risk dying on a regular basis. Yeah, it’s a good question to say, well, could you, could you detect common sense in the.

Mark: You identify that? Yeah, that’d be interesting to watch all those kind of, CSI ones when they’re actually searching for a modicum of common sense. Yeah, we think we’ve identified the DNA strand, the marker for common sense.

Jim: So our, final example in this section is from Life on Mars, the original British version, not the heretical US remake. Yeah, the excellent British time traveling crime drama. this is kind of a throwaway line of. In an episode about an IRA bombing campaign,

DCI Gene Hunt: A pub is the one safe. Place the IRA would never touch. It’s common sense here. I mean, I’ve never met an Irishman. Who didn’t like a drink. And they’re not gonna bomb their own, are they?

Jim: So he says, yeah, the IRA are nevernna bomb a pub. A pubs a safe place to be away from the IRA. This episode took place in 1973. And the irony of the episode is that as all British viewers knew, it wasn’t long after that. It was 1974. The pub bombings was actually in the. In my hometown in Guilford.

Mark: Oh, wow.

Jim: Two pubs were bombed by the ira because they were squady pubs. They were pubs that the, that had a lot of military Brit army. M that’s who the IRA were we’re going after in those.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So Gene thinks it’s common sense, but he’s proven wrong by history.

Mark: Yeah. Well, I found I spotted one today actually in BBC News in Suffolk. An industrial warehouse unit that borders a residential area was being complained about by residents. And one of the residents said it’s a gigantic mega shed and is essentially it’s the wrong development in the wrong location. And that was clear to anyone with common sense. It’s clear to the people that agree with him.

Jim: Yeahay. So the people that live right next to it and don’t want in their backyard.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yes. All it is is in interviews with angry residents who don’t want to look at this thing. They’ve adopted the, the thing that they do currently with those kind of mega warehouses alongside the main roads where they paint them in graded colors to look like the sky.

Jim: Ye I like them. I think they’re pretty.

Mark: I think they were. And it works quite well. They almost disappear except for the big logos on them. But it also contains the sense of frustration where the common viewpoint hasn’t got through against all of this. You the large Kafka esque bureaucrac which they don’t agree with and they don’t feel that they’re views have been listened to insofar as the thing got built eventually. So of course it’s the right development in the right location as far as the local council are concerned because obviously there’s some big fund injection that’s gone into the local council coffers which would then get. Go out into the local community hopefully if it’s not a Tory council. And also the developers have made this thing and they’re going to sell it on as a warehouse for you know, a retailer or whatever. So as far as they’re concerned it was the right location.

Jim: Yeah. I think this is a good example of a very common thing about this fallacy is that it’s a way of dismissing the opposite side and anything that they may have considered because what they’re saying is the people who made this decision, the whole thing that’s put it there. The reason that it’s there is because they’ve got no common sense. Because if you had common sense you would know that this is the wrong place to put it.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: So it’s not considering that they may just have had other priorities or that they actually looked around lots other knowledge this had the least impact on local communities or, or the most benefit.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There may be really good reasons that they considered and this turned out to be a good place. Maybe it’s going to provide jobs for the local residents. There could be things that are mitigating factors but m. But if you just assume that the reason it’s there is because they’re stupid, because they haven’t. They haven’t got the.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Then yeah, that means you’re right because obviously it’s you against stupid people.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So before we move on to fake news this week, quick update on our Oscars pool. Because it was the Oscars, we watched all of the things, we talked about it, we predicted what would win and yeah, the results are in. And I. I had my worst result in the four years that we’ve been doing this.

Mark: Hate. I hate that. Yeah, because.

Jim: Because I still want you.

Mark: Still. What? No, but, but the fact that you got your worst result meant that I was only one point behind you.

Jim: Well, yeah, it wasn’t your worst Result. You’ve done worse than this. You did. Yeah. Yeah. In 2022 you did much worse. But.

Mark: Okay, well, that’s all right then. That’s. Yeah, but you see, you’ve snatched my second place victory which is, you know, it’s high up on the podium.

Jim: Yeah, yeah.

00:35:00

Mark: It’taking m it away from me by characterizing it as your worst.

Jim: I did say going in, I thought this was a hard year. I thought it was. It was more difficult to predict.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: In some of the major categories than it has been before.

Mark: And it turns out it was.

Jim: Yeah. Yeah. Also, thank you very much to the people who joined in.

Mark: Thanks so much.

Jim: That meantes. We actually gave, With the. The match from my employer, we gave £120 to elevated access.

Mark: Excellent.

Jim: The people who did the best of the people who joined in.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Were Richard Thunder Hopkins who came third, Y Tyler who came fourth and Renees Z who came fifth. And she said that she used Richard Roper’s predictions. The Chicago film critic.

Mark: So we’re better than that.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And we beat him last year as well, actually.

Mark: O Did we? Yeah, yeah. They go re. Don’t listen to him. Listen to us. It’s just common sense.

Jim: Absolutely.

Donald Trump: So we’re going to. We’re going to play fake news. Folks, I love the game. It’s a great game. I understand the game as well as anybody. As well as anybody.

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

Mark: You see, when it comes to the scoring system for this game, I think we all know it’s in need of an overhaul. It’s obviously an outmoded model. I mean, come on. We see how comparing one number with another is going to lead to conflict. We simply should do away with it entirely and declare me the winner. I mean, it’s. It’s just common sense.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Well, this set of quotes, right. This is all from one. This is from a speech that he did at CPAC a couple of years ago. And I found this when I was looking for common sense quotes.

Mark: Okay.

Jim: Or did I?

Mark: yeah. Yes.

Jim: Maybe that’s a double pluff. Anyway, so he’s talking about the World Health Organization.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Statement number one. The World Organization. The World Health Organization covered up what was going on with the China flu, Right. We know that WHO it stands for. We hide outbreaks. So why would we spend so much money on the who I took us out and saved millions of dollars. It’s not even hard to do that. It’s just common sense. We got nothing from them but lies and fake news and it cost us millions of dollars a year. It’s hard to believe, but no other president had done that. And you have to ask yourself why. And it’s because they’re either very, very stupid or very, very corrupt.

Mark: Okay, well that’s handy because we’ve got one that’s like that now.

Jim: State is okay.

Mark: Yep.

Jim: The United States was paying the World Health Organization $450 million a year. Now, in terms of money and the kind of trillions and trillions we’re talking about, it’s not that much, but it’s still $450 million a year. And I took them out. That’s what it was. The price was 450. And that’s for 350 million people. China was paying $39 million a year for 1.4 billion people. Doesn’t sound too right. And they had total control, by the way. We had no control. They literally own it.

Mark: Okay, he’s got Chinaain in there. Okay.

Jim: Statement number three.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: When I withdrew from the who, they offered me to stay in. Please don’t leave. Please, please, please. For what China pays, they said we’ll bring it down to 39 million. I was actually close to doing this deal if you want all the truth, but I would have had it. You would have been angry at me. And I said I don’t have, I don’t want to have CPAC angry at me, but I might have gone back in. But I could have done it for 39. I could have probably done it for less than that. But now Biden has gone back for the full price of hundred fifty million dollars. Now all he has to do is read the newspapers. They were begging me to come back in for 39 million. So why would you pay $450 million?

Mark: So you speak. Okay, see that one’s got the possibly tellte dot dot dot in there and please, please, please. I thought there was going to be a sir in there any minute. M okay. China flew, right? We hide outbreaks. M m okay. And it’s just common sense. Putting common sense in there. Is that going to make me think ah, all right, well that’s the real deal. Or is that going to make me think right, Jim, shove that in to make me think that that’s the real deal. U okay, kind of trillions and trillions, not that much. But 450 common sense is irritating me and the dot dot dot is irking me. but the trillions and trillions, not that much is she gonna say that. All right, I’m going to go with ah o’bought it down 39 million. I’m gon toa go with number one is the one you made up.

Jim: So you think I was bluffing you about the common sense.

Mark: I think that was a. It was just common sense that that’s what you do.

Jim: Okay. So if the other two which you more convinced by.

Mark: The number

00:40:00

Mark: two, the trillions and trillions still 450 they were paying this their total control. They own it.

Jim: Okay. and number two.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Is real.

Mark: Oh.

Donald Trump: The United States was paying the World Health Organization $450 million a year. Now in terms of money and the kind of trillions and trillions what talking about, it’s not that much, but it’s still $450 million a year. And I took them out. That’s what it was. The price was 450 and that’s for 350 million people. China was paying $39 million a year for 1.4 billion people. Doesn’t sound too right. And they had total control, by the way. We had no control. They’d literally own it.

Jim: So they go yeah, you did say that.

Mark: Yeah. I hate the way he just reduce. Yeah. What he is is cost of everything, the value of nothing.

Jim: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeahah. Which will which we’come to when we talk about what in this is actually true. So.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: you also thought that number three was real.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And number three. Yeah. Is real.

Donald Trump: When I withdrew from the who, they offered me to stay in. Please don’t leave. Please, please, please. For what China pays, they said we’ll bring it down to 39 million do. I was actually close to doing this deal if you want the truth. But I would have had it. You would have been angry at me. I said I don’t have. I don’t want to have CPAC angry at me. But I might have gone back in, but I could have done it for 39. I could have probably done it for less than that. But now Biden has gone back for the pull price of $450 million. Now all he has to do is read the newspapers. They were begging me to come back in for 39 million. So why would you pay $450 million?

Mark: Well, because they weren’t begging him to come.

Jim: Well, that’s one reason.

Mark: Nine.

Jim: Sure.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: There’s so there’s a few things here.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: One of the reasons you might pay 450 million is because of fucking Covid and things like that, which the WHO is actually quite useful in.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Helping countries to work together to combat health crises.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because they didn’t cover up what was going on, although Trump has accused them of doing so. They did praise China’s transparency very early on in the process, as did Trump. At this exact same time In February of 2020, he was saying how great China was being in, in terms of.

Mark: Their transact, saying here’s the problem. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jim: The thing with the numbers. So he claims that when he took the US out of the World Health Organization, before Biden went back in, the US was paying $450 million a year and China was paying $39 million. So what he’s doing is our old friend, the inconsistent comparison.

Mark: Right, yeah.

Jim: Because the World Health Organization gets its funds from different sources. One of them is an assessed amount of money that all of the member countries pay. And that assessment is based on a combination of population and ability to pay. Right. And so the richer countries pay more money, the ones with the bigger populations pay more money, the ones that poor countries with small populations pay less money, etc. And those assessments are all worked out by the member states and voted on and approved every two years.

Mark: M.

Jim: So China’s assessment for the period he’s talking about was $57 million.

Mark: Oh, right.

Jim: Not 30.

Mark: 39.

Jim: It had been 38 million the previous year. The US assessment for that period was $116 million, not 400.

Mark: 450.

Jim: So yeah, those two figures are still different. 116 is still twice 57. Yeah, but it’s because the US is much richer than China. So that’s why those assessments would were made in those ways. However, on top of the assessed amount, countries voluntarily pay in to the World Health Organization because they see the value in having a global organization that helps countries to, work on pandemics and things like that.

Mark: Ye.

Jim: The US voluntarily was paying 333 million in 2020. So when you add that to the 116. Yeah. That’s 450 million.

Mark: Right.

Jim: That wasn’t required. That was the choice of the Trump presidency.

Mark: Yes. 2020. Yeah.

Jim: Yes, he had. He was in charge in 2018 when it was 318 million a year. Yeah, 318 million in 2019. And then it went up to 333 in 2020 when he was in charge.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So that was voluntary money that they were giving in. It’s true that China didn’t give us m nearly as much voluntarily. In 2020, China gave 31 million. So it’s still a big increase in terms of kind of percentage of their 57.

00:45:00

Jim: But itage us voluntarily chose to pay the who was much higher.

Mark: Yeah. Under Trump. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: But that. They weren’t required to do that. There wasn’t an agreement that they couldn’t be a member unless they paid that amount of money or anything like that. So the claim that they begged the US to stay in and said they would bring it down to what China was paying, which wasn’t even 39 million. The only evidence we have for that is Trump saying that here and in this situation, because at the time in 2020, he said, I would maybe stay in for what China are paying.

Mark: Right.

Jim: It was like his offer was bring it down to what China are paying. I’ll. And I’ll pay that. It wasn’t not the WHO begging him to stay.

Mark: Stay.

Jim: Also, he didn’t withdraw the US from the WHO because it takes a year to do that. You have to give them a year’s notice. And he announced that the US would be leaving WHO on the 7th of June 2020. And, And by the 6th of June 2021, he wasn’t in office anymore. So as soon as Biden sat down at the Resolute desk, he signed an exist. Y. Yeah, we’re not doing that. So. So this time, this time on kind of day two or three, he announced that he is withdrawing. So within a year, the US Will withdraw, supposedly from WHO unless something happens. But he never did it during his first term. He did blame them for covering up for Covid. He did at one point parrot the meme that the WHO stood for wee hide outbreaks. So I included that as a little lure.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: but you didn’t. You didn’t y. It. Because I thought. Are you gonna think that that’s my clever turn of phrase or that that’s too clever for me to have come up with?

Mark: Well, yeah, I mean, it’s. It’s spiteful enough to be a Trumpism, but.

Jim: Yeah, well, it did have an effect on some of, our social contestants. yeah, because on Facebook, Gregory says, okay, one has to be real. There’s no way Jim came up with we hide outbreaks. Sorry, no offense, but you’re not that depraved. Between two and three, pretty much a coin flip. But I’ll say three is fake because of the bike in and newspapers. Non sequitur. And on discord, Andrew went the Other way and said I want to say one is fake because we hide outbreaks is too good of a Turner phrase.

Mark: Oh, nice. Yeah.

Jim: And, on Patron, we’ve got Anders saying, can’t read them right now because I’m in the middle of something. Number two is also in the middle of something, so I’ll go with that one.

Mark: Very good. I love his rationales. I should just apply those rather than worry quite some. Yeaheah.

Jim: Petiz’s Dude Chronicles on Tik Took said we hide outbreaks. Has a lot of den Dennis. Every mistake imaginable about it, right? He says, I don’t think the orange one is a bad news fan. So I’m going with number one. That’s a reference I don’t get. You know that.

Mark: Yeah. Bad news that. Then Dennis was Nigel Plano in the, Comic Strip Presents version of. Oh, this is Spinal Tap, Right. Zach was there of. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Jim: One Eyed Nic says, fuck, I forgot he did that. It’s hard to remember every ginger tabby on the table in that pile of dead cats he’s governing. Number one sounds familiar. Number two sounds like people were trying to convince him not to be hasty. And then he lost a game of Snap to Elon’s toddler and pulled out of the who while crying and kicking over his Lego tower. So I’m saying number three is fake news. Ah.

Mark: yeah, well, it was. It was. It was down to the wire. I m. Was feeling it from both of those one and three.

Jim: Yeah. Rard Thunder. M. Hopkins says the rambling of number three is very trump ncient.

Mark: Nice. Oh, I like that.

Jim: So I think that’s real.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The retelling of people begging to appease Trump is certainly realistic.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: I also think number two has his grubby, sweaty, greasy, fat, orange, creepy fingerprints all over it. So that looks true as well. That leaves us with number one being fake news. The only thing I have is the play on the acronym too clever for a painful buffoon such as Trump.

Mark: Ah. They go. Yes, yes.

Jim: Alice says, as much as he loves to throw pathetic playground insults around, I don’t think he’s smart enough to play the acronym game. He did steal it from someone else. It wasn’t a thing that he came.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: yeah, he’d heard some conspiracy. And Rene Z says, I choose three as fake news, but only because it seems to be from a speech that would have predated his second term. The other two seem current. It’s a bit tricky to choose because we don’t hear the intro that Jim gives during the taping. Maybe that’s why Mark is doing so much better than we fans. And then she says, just kidding. It’s because Mark is clever and knows Jim’s deviate brain.

Mark: Well, well, yeah, but see, but I’ve realized after, you know, after a long time, I should have realized a lot earlier. I’m actually contributing to the deviousness of your brain. It’s a learning thing every time, isn’t it?

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah. But hey, that means I got it right.

Jim: That means you got a point. Which is good because you were getting to the point you’re currently now.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: On 81 out of 159. So you’re getting dangerously close to the 50% level

00:50:00

Jim: again.

Mark: Oh, oh, yeah.

Jim: If I could have won the this one and the next one, you would have been.

Mark: It would have been 50%.

Jim: o.

Mark: No.

Jim: Well, you’ve stopped that from happening.

Mark: It worked. Just common sense.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So it’s time for the part of the show that this week at least is called. The address to the joint session of Congress was not a logical fallacy because TR Trump did his first State of the Union of his second term. but the State of the Unionn’t called the State of the Union when it’s the first one because it’s called for some reason it’s’s because. Because you’ve only been what you been. Well, yeah, you’ve only been in, in for a few months by that point.

Mark: Minutes.

Jim: Yeah. So they don’t think you’re worthy of updating everyone on the Saf Union. So just give you.

Mark: So you have a joint address of.

Jim: Congress to the joint session of Congress.

Mark: And which is just say thanks for coming, thanks for doing. We’re going to sort stuff out.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And all that. And oh my God, it was not like that at all.

Jim: no. Well, it was the longest in history.

Mark: Which you’ll be glad of. Ye. Given the. Given the Republicans dislike of the filibuster.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: You kind of think they would just be going, ah, shut up now. Sit down. But no, Well, I say history.

Jim: I think modern history at least is. Is right. NPR described it. So I don’t know where they cut off wa modern history, but it was certain it was fucking long. And that’s what they were going for almost a hundred minutes. Ye. And it was absolutely packed with lies, as you would expect from any time Trump says things.

Mark: There was a movement when Boris Johnson was still in office. There was somebody that tabled a motion to be Brought before, you know, to be voted on that MPs couldn’t tell lies. I think it was shot down on.

Jim: The basised out of the House.

Mark: I would imagine la house on the rais that. Well, MPs m don’t tell lies because if you.

Jim: That’s the reason not to op.

Mark: If. Yeah. If you deliberately mislead the House, then you are cesured terribly so. Of course nobody would lie.

Jim: Yeah. We don’t need a law for that.

Mark: The more cynical amongst us might think, oh shit, we’re going to. We’have to. If that’s a free vote. Oh my God, yes. We’re just gonna have to get rid of that because can you imagine if we weren’t allowed to lie? What would we be able to say? Yeah, yeah. Have you done all those things you promised to do? No. Yeah, okay, move on.

Jim: But imagine that if they had to tell the truth, that’d, be crazy.

Mark: Well, there was a. There was a couple of moments after Sunak lost and STARR’First couple of PMQs before sun after through in the towel and went, yeah, I’m not going to be a leader anymore. Where it was actually quite civilized. There was almost. Sunak went, yeah, yeah, I’ll agree with that. Yeah. No, I haven’t done that.

Jim: Yes, that he was quite defeated. Literally, Figuratively.

Mark: Yeah. It meant that he didn’t have to inflate the balloon of untruth and squeak it. You know, they kind of stand behind all of these amazing things that we haven’t done and. And bluster your way through it. He just was quite, It was ordinary and sensible. How refreshing it was. Didn’t take long before it before bad knock, you know, gets up there and to a certain extent Damars now having to twist himself into knots to explain various things. But. Yeah, but compared with, the. This thing was just a torrent of absolute mistruthh.

Jim: Yeah, it was a mixture. It was a heady mixture of hatred and lies.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: Quite often.

Mark: Sometimes both at the same time.

Jim: Quite often both at the same time. There was a combination of different protests from the Democrats. M Mostly very demure, very mindful. Some of them were wearing pink, presumably the color that Republicans are most scared of.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Some, were, holding up signs, little paddles that said things like musk steals lies. A couple of them had whiteboards going on the Casey Porter method.

Mark: I mean, if you’re in England, you just print something. It just said bollocks.

Jim: Yeah, I try to push back a little bit on the people who complain that Democrats aren’t doing anything about all of the stuff gestures wildly around because they’re not in power. They didn’t get voted in. And so I feel largely about the Democrats the same way as I felt about the liberal Democrats when they were in a coalition with the conservatives. Because people were complaining that the liberal Democrats weren’t doing the things that they’d promised they would do if they got into power despite not voting them into power. And I thought that was reasonably.

Mark: Yeah, but they did have the power to end the coalition. They did, they had the, they did.

Jim: Have that and they did arguably exise it, make some things less terrible.

00:55:00

Jim: Democrats. Yeah, they’re not in power. They don’t have majority in the House, they don’t have majority in the Senate. They can’t do anything politically, which was the case up until this week. There was really nothing they could do this week they, they had the opportunity to block the continuing funding resolution. Y that would have led to a government shutdown which people fairly said would be a bad thing. I understand people wanting to avoid that, but it was the only piece of leverage that Senate Democrats had.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: That could have stopped some of the stuff that was happening and they didn’t take that opportunity. That said, it’s still not reasonable to say, in my opinion. Right, that’s it. I’m not donating to Democrats anymore. I’m not voting for Democrats, things like that. Because the vast majority of Democrats in the Senate did vote against the funding resolution. There was only 10 Democrats, including people like Fetterman, whose since his stroke is almost a Republican, and Chuck Schumer and people like that that voted for it and against the shutdown. So still the majority did everything they could to use that as leverage to stop bad things happening.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: So Democrats generally, the ones who, who attended, they basically sat there quietly wearing pink and holding up signs. Not Clapp. That was their level of protest. Yeah, some people, some people left in protest wearing shirts that said protesty type things. Some just didn’t go like Chris Murphy and aoc, just like, you know, I don’t need to be part of this shit show. Basically, they’re not gonna join in. Al Green was the one representative who made a fuss.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: 77 year old Al Green who waved his cane and shouted until the sergeant at arms had to physically remove him from the chamber.

Mark: Perfect.

Jim: Which, yeah, yeah, was great. He said he didn’t mind being physically removed. He didn’t mind if it’s go goingna result in being censured. Or anything because it’s, it’s important to show people that we’re not just going to shut up and take all this.

Mark: And interesting that that kind of protest that was swiftly dealt with by the Republicans. So they, they brook no protest at all. Well, we know that from the green card guy. But when Bobert did the similar thing.

Jim: Oh yeah.

Mark: So Democrats just. Yeah, all right. And you just kind of, you know, because it’s like earlier on when somebody says this is a victory for free speech.

Jim: It was literally five minutes before Al Green was removed from the chamber that Trump said I’ve brought free speech back to America.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. But it’s the free speech that is the cancellation of DEI stuff. That’s the free speec.

Jim: Common sense free speec.

Mark: Common sense free allows people to say freely. I don’t think we should do that. I don t think we should have any representation other than the stuff that we think is right. Yeah, yeah, we’re free to say that now. And that’s a victory. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So as I said, the speech was absolutely full of lies. And to have any attempt at trying to fact check it would take days because yeah, 100 minutes of lies is a lot to research. And then give some nuance too, because it was, just an extended gish gallop. So I’m gonna focus on two things that he said, one of which has been focused on a reasonable amount in the media by various sources and one less. So, the first is his claim that $8 million was spent by the Biden administration on making mice transgender.

Mark: Right. Yes, yes.

Jim: And the reason I want to mention this is largely because a lot of people, especially straight away, made the assumption that Trump or his lackeys had not understood the word transgenic.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And that research was done to introduce other genes into mice, making them transgenic, Doing transgenic experiments on mice and people were like, oh, they think that’s trans stuffgeder and therefore bad. I’m reasonably certain that isn’t what happen. It’s completely plausible that the Trump administration would make such a stupid error. But yeah, they made a different stupid error.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: What seems to have happened is that one of probably Elon’s 19 year old specialists did a search of the National Institutes of Health database for the word transgender. Right. And then cancelled all of those research projects. Notice that a lot of them involved mice because.

Jim: That’s what people do, experiments on stuff.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: And then like total them up $8 million. So when Trump said $8 million for making mice Transgender. Lots of people fact checked it. CNN fact checked it. They initially did the transgenic thing. Then they did a, an update saying actually, maybe it’s this stuff. And the White House released an official statement saying the fake news losers at CNN immediately

01:00:00

Jim: tried to fact check it, but President Trump was right. Brackets, as usual. O man, fucking hell.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And then, and then they list White House. Yeah, yeah. They list six separate NIH studies which they claim are, making mice transgender that add up to $8 million. Obviously none of them are about making mice transgenics.

Mark: Yeah, yeaheah. Yeah.

Jim: That’s just common sense. Just so.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: There are nuances in each of them. But fundamentally what’s happening in these studies is that they have noticed differences in responses between people assigned male at birth and people assigned female at birth in how various things happen. Whether it’s responses to asthma, to, chronic wound healing, to, breast cancer risk, to, how your microbiome affects hormone therapy. So it’s. And some people are having hormone therapy not for gender affirming reason, because people have different amounts of hormones that they need, and some people need, you know, HRT therapy and stuff like that when they go through menopause. And some people don’t make enough of the hormone that they, they would normally have in their body and so on. So people vary wildly in amounts of their endogenous hormones that they make. Different hormones are given to different people for different reasons. It’s not all about gender affirming care y and how you, how you react to that kind of therapy might have differences based on things within your body. Some of those things might be whether you are assigned male at birth or female at birth, or whether you are, you have different microbiomes and so on. One of the ways to control for that and to see what is the thing causing these differences is to introduce different levels of hormones into mice as a model.

Mark: Right.

Jim: So you, you take a male mouse and a female mouse, make their levels of hormones the same, and then test whether it’s the chr, the XY chromosome or the XX chromosome that’s making the difference. Making the difference or the hormones that are making the difference.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: By doing that, you can learn stuff that is not only applicable to trans people. You can learn stuff about, about people with bipolar disorder. Well, about all kinds of things. You can just learn y why men and women have differences in how they, they heal chronic wounds, all that kind of stuff.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Why their asma, outcomes are different.

Mark: Because you, you’ve taken the other things out of the equation.

Jim: Yeah. There’s stuff about, cardiovascular disease and things like that and why that’s different between men and women and what part of that is due to hormones and what part of it is due to other aspects. So by controlling for those factors, by introducing hormones into mice, they can, learn more about various kinds of diseases. And by doing that, they can help in some cases trans people because those are people who are getting hormone therapy and in some cases CIS people who are either getting hormone therapy or have particular levels of hormone, or in some cases just CIS people, because they now have a better understanding of what causes various diseases. Because if you understand that better, it’s easier to treat. And in, almost every single one of these cases, if you look even at the abstract of these studies, it explains why it would be good to know this stuff when they currently have a knowledge gap.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: And it often specifically says this will be useful partly for trans people and partly for CIS people. We will learn things that will help everybody.

Mark: Yes.

Jim: But they have, they’ve decided just to stop funding these things because they mention transgender.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Somewhere in the study.

Mark: It is the, the dystopian fiction novel stuff of Idiots, Idiocracy and the Chinese Cultural Revolution where people with a grievance get it and stupid people with grievances get in charge of stuff and then get rid of things they don’t like.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And, and call that common sense.

Jim: But it’s also things they don’t understand because they haven’t both to think about it at all.

Mark: And then like, they do a gove and say, oh, nobody’s interested in experts.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: They, they, defer to the common view of, well, let’s just, you know, get rid of these people because they wear glasses. Because we don’t understand. We think they’re boffins and they look down on us.

Jim: The whole regulation thing, which I think that there was a metaphor, we’ve talked about it before, about gates, or fences or something like that. If you move into a new area and there’s a fence somewhere and you think, well, that’s a weird fence if you don’t know why it’s there. The sensible thing to do isn’t just take it down, it’s to learn why it’because maybe it’s stopping a thing from getting in where. Getting it.

Mark: Yeah. Yah.

Jim: So. And in the same way, if

01:05:00

Jim: there’s a regulation, if there’s a law being made and you don’t know why that’s there, Trump at co would just get rid of It.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And because they have. Yeah. They haven’t considered why it’s there. And these things. It is very common with people taking the piss out of science and saying, oh, they’re wasting all this money on these ridiculous science where they’re looking at, you know, how long prawns can breathe out of the water and things like that. And it’s like, actually these things lead to huge just experimening things that we can learn about SC and help people. Yeah.

Mark: What was one of the other ones was, we’ve saved 18 million on circumcising men in Mozambique and they’re just going o why are we doing that? And think, well, actually it reduces the spread of HIV AIDS by 60% y if you do that. So well, let’s do that. That would of course. And of course you want to do that. That the whole thing of Trump is let’s not take part in the world at all.

Jim: But even just thinking about the U.S. almost all of the USAID programs benefits the U.S. yeah.

Mark: Let’s stop Ebola coming to the U.S. well, how would you do that? Well, if there’s an outbreak in the DRC in Africa, you would send money to the organizations that are preventing this, the spread of Ebola out of the DRC or within the drc. And then for Trump to say, oh, well, we don’t care about Africans dying of Ebola. Well, you’ll soon care about it when their families returned to the U.S. yeah.

Jim: Even if these $8 million worth of studies only helped trans people.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: The NIH budget is $48 billion a year. $8 million out of that.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: It’s like 0.002% to help at least 1% of the population. That seems like a reasonable investment. But it’s not only that, that’s not only who it helps. It actually helps everyone but Nouck.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Because they said transgender in the, in the write up for it.

Mark: They’ve not answered the question, well, where, where is the waste? Where, how is it wasteful? Have you got too many people doing the same job? Are you doubling up on this? Is there stuff that’s being done that isn’t required any longer? So that’s kind of waste. Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Kind of thing. If you have any knowledge about it, you can.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: Go through that.

Mark: Actually stuff for people that aren’t the equivalent is that aren’t the Aryan race. Let’s just get rid of that because that doesn’t promote our ideal.

Jim: Yeah. So the other lie that I wanted to talk About. Yeah, I’m going to play the cl of what Trump said.

Donald Trump: $1.9 billion to recently created decarbonization of homes Committee headed up and we know she’s involved. Just at the last moment. The money was passed over by a woman named Stacey Abrams. Have you ever heard of her?

Jim: So $1.9 billion to have recently created decarbonization project headed up by Stacey Abrams M. The money was recently handed over.

Mark: Yeah, I’m suspecting none of that is true.

Jim: So yeah, here’s what that is about.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And this hasn’t been as widely reported. It was reported by Won Ket, which did a great job of fact checking this. And largely what I’m talking about is based on their fact check. So, yeah, EPA in April 2024 approved $20 billion of grants for the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund as part of Biden’s Inflation Reduction act, which was in part also infrastructure and climate change and stuff like that being dealt with. Of the grants that formed part of that, one of them was for 1.9 billion went to a project called Power Forward Communities. And they use that money, or they would use that money. it’s now obviously being taken away from them to offer loans to businesses, homeowners and community groups to do clean energy projects, especially in low income communities. So it’s kind of a community bank that loans money for people who want to do environmentally conscious projects in the community. It would then get that money back and also the community would be benefited.

Mark: Right, right.

Jim: When Trump got in, there was a, video that came out of Project Veritas. Remember Project Veritas? They’ve lied about everything they’ve ever said. They did an undercover video of an EPA guy, like interviewing an EPA guy in a pub, as they usually do. One of the things that they said that could well have been taken out of context because almost everything that they release on video do.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Was that Biden’s administration

01:10:00

Jim: and the EP under them were trying to get as much of the money that had been awarded out of the door before Trump took over as which makes a lot of sense because they anticipated Trump try to rescind executive orders and grants and things like that. So this money had all been approved, awarded grants, checked by all the people who needed to check it in the various departments. And all they wanted to do is make sure that those departments then got the money that they had legally been awarded. Yeah, he likened that effort to throwing gold bars off the Titanic because the, the Biden administration was goinganic down. You Know it was the end of the Biden administration and they were chucking this money overboard essentially so that Trump didn’t have access to be able to stop the money going out.

Mark: Right, right. Except he’d be taking over a sinking Titanic.

Jim: Sure.

Mark: The metaphol doesn’t quite bad met for.

Jim: It doesn’t really work.

Mark: Yeah. Yeah.

Jim: So Lee Zeldin, the new head of the epa, saw this video, decided that that was somehow the EPA admitting to doing bad things as opposed to giving out money that had been legally awarded. Yeah. And therefore that that money could be grabbed by the Trump administration, or any money that, that hadn’t gone out yet. And ideally money that had gone out but was still in the bank accounts of the organizations that it had gone out to, so started that process of trying to, to recover some of that money. So that’s what Trump meant by this money had just recently gone out of the last minute.

Mark: Right.

Jim: It was, it was part of that money that was released because it had been awarded and they knew that he would do bad things if he got in. Been given out.

Mark: Yeah, yeah.

Jim: So the question is, where does this fit in with Stacy 8 Abrams.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Presumably she ran power forward committees. That’s what Trump said. You know, last minute decarbonation thing headed up by Stacey Abrams. He said because.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: She is a powerful, competent black woman who Republicans hate. Therefore, good, good opportunity for target. Boo.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: During the address. Yes.

Mark: so nothing to do with it. Stacey Abrams, I’m guessing. Yeah.

Jim: Was an attorney and consultant between 2023 and 2024 for a, an energy transition nonofit called Rewiring America.

Mark: Right.

Jim: Rewiring America is one of five energy nonprofits that set up power forward communities.

Mark: Right.

Jim: That’s it. That’s the, that’s the s. It’s it Habit set for humanity. The Jimmy Carter connected organization was one of the others. United Way. There was a group of environmental nonprofits that, that got together and went okay, we can, we can create this, this bank that loans to local communities to give them energy conscious projects. She didn’t run Rewiring America. She didn’t run powerfulitiesities. She was an attorney who consulted with one of five organizations that was part of founding a group that over a year later got money.

Mark: It’s the same spurious context, contacts and connections that feature large in my. So Hunter.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: That whole g gallop of nonsense with Chinese things where it’re just kind of. It’s guilt by the merest association.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: From years before. But if you can if you can cent centre stage villain as far as the Republicans are concerned, then you can tar the whole organization with that brush. And it’s just the shorthand for people to go B.O. in the fucking government to boo a black. A powerful black woman.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: And the other thing is that this organization, the funding of this stuff was to have kind of grassroots projects. You can see why it’s also a villainous thing in the eyes of the, the big business Republicans. There’s certainly Trump who wants to be in with all of the big power, producers because they’re going to give him money, is that these are local community, ground up initiatives to work independently of having to go to major producers to get their power in communities where they can’t afford to do that.

Jim: So ah, yeah. It’s basically just using one of the Republican bet noir to.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Get a boo line. because if you, if he talked about anyone who was involved with Power Forward communities or who actually explained what it was all about, there wouldn’t have been anything to boo.

Mark: No.

Jim: So if you just say is a perf. Yeah.

Mark: And you know George Soros, Stacey Abrams. Yeah.

01:15:00

Mark: Who we’ve managed to find some connection. You know, she walked down the street the, that they where the dog walker of her second cousins’s mothers. Aun’t, brother in of course. Sisters barber.

Jim: We know someone else who likes to say negative things about Stacey Abramsus. she’s been mentioned in Dinesh D. Souza’s work a few times.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: And as if to bring it full circle, when this news came oute like I say, came out because it’s not news. She’s not connected to it. Dinesh tweeted. Who would pay Stacey Abrams $2 billion for climate change? No one. But the money, they’t. Yeah. Was the money really for that or was it a payoff for helping to rig the 2020 election?

Mark: No. Nice. Nice. Wow. Yeah. And oh, surely does he have a little line at the bottom voice this film and check it out. Yeah.

Jim: Yeah. He says Doge and Elon Musk exposed the money trail and 2,000 mules busted the election fraud.

Mark: Give it up, Dinesh. God’s sake. He’s made. Yeah, well, he must be wondering where. How does he figure in this?

Jim: How can I gr money off this?

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Yeah.

Mark: Where am I 2.0? Look at all the things I did for you, Trump. Look at Theo, the proof that I proved o for God’s sake. And finally some things we really don’t have time to Talk about the current.

Jim: Guinness World Record holder for the greatest loss of personal fortune is co president Elon Musk, who lost $182 billion between November 2021 and January 2023. The great thing about a record like this is that hardly anyone will ever have enough money to beat him, and Guinness probably thought that they wouldn’t have to update that one for a while. But this year Elon’s going for a speedrun version, having already lost $148 billion in just the past four months. Don’t worry though, I reckon he’ll be fine because of the savvy $300 million investment he made last year when he bought the government of the United States. Thanks perhaps to Elon’s almost total access to all government departments, the FAA have decided to cancel a $2.4 billion contract with Verizon in favor of paying Musk’starlink to help manage U.S. airspace, which I’m sure will go great. Starlink would also be the obvious beneficiary of the Trump administration’s apparent plans to abandon key elements of a $42 billion plan to connect rural US communities to high speed Internet. In the meantime, though, Trump turned the White House into a Tesla dealership for the day, shilling for his patron, literally reading ad copy for Tesla’s and announcing he would buy one himself. It was probably the best deal Trump has ever done, because mere hours later, Elon announced he planned to give Trump another $100 million via his super PAC. So did Trump really buy a car or did Elon buy one for him? Either way, the ad ran live on Twitter and was picked up by lots of news shows. But I think Trump needs to work on his spiel. When he sat in a Model S, the best thing he could come up with was wow, everything’s computer Ye.

Mark: Yeah.

Jim: Elon, as we know, really has the gift of the gap, so was completely smooth when showing off his shiny Jagged Death TRP cybertruck to Trump, boasting that it’s bulletproof. None of the assembled reporters asked if that’s true, how come the windows got smashed when people threw beer cans at 1 in the new Orleans Mardi Gras? So Elon moved on to describing how he came up with the design. We want the future to look like the future. What kind of truck would Blade Runner drive? That was the design idea. It’s not the first time he’s referred to Rick Deckard as Blade Runner as if that’s his name. And it’s probably just a coincidence that his vision of the future is a dystopian world run by corporations who still haven’t figured out safe artificial intelligence in.

Mark: A similarly metaphorical way to using a massive sledgehammer to kakaut in the way the US brought about the end of Japan’s evolvement in the Second World War. Perhaps after, as Trump remembers it, the inhabitants of Pearl harbor started fighting them in 1941. The latest federal department purging all referen to diversity, equity and inclusion, has removed pictures of Colonel Paul Tibbetsz standing by his Boeing B29 prior to dropping the first atom bomb. Why? Well, following Defense Secretary Pet Heksith’s order, the Department of Defense has run a search of forbidden terms, icky words and all possible descriptors that might conceivably value all people’s alike on its database. And of course it flagged up the Enola Gay, the plane that bombed Hiroshia. The plane was named after Paul Tibbets’mother Enola Gay Tibbets Paul not gay, Paul’s mum not gay, the plane itself not gay. Seeing pictures of the plane won’t make you gay. Just as training materials removed by the Air Force because they featured the Tuskegee Airmen, a group of the first black fighter pilots to fight for the

01:20:00

Mark: United States military won’t make you black, though the training materials might teach you how to fly and about the history of the Air Force and house Historically, people of all colours, creeds and country historically fought against oppressors across the globe. But we know that history isn’t important or Trump wouldn’t keep denying it, getting it wrong, or dooming us to repeat it. Even if the party’s Ministry of Truth removes all images of the previous administration’s recording of people other than white supremacists, making America sl the world safe for Allash some of its people. You can still go to the National Air and Space Museum and see the plane. It’s very shiny and very big, like the size of a bomber, for Christ’s sakes. And of course you can look up pictures of it elsewhere online and listen to Orchestral Manoeuvers in the Dark song about it. But in the ciset white male mind of Donald Trump’s administration, the year is still 8:15. And that’s the time that it’s always.

Jim: Been, when Trump ordered the DOJ to fire any lawyers who had worked on cases against him. That was pretty bad, but entirely expected, only a bit illegal because of the messy way he did it. But now he started going after private law firms who represented people he disagrees with and that’s quite a lot illegal. Last week he signed an executive order targeting Perkinsi, a law firm that has represented Hillary Clinton, the DNC and various other Democratic politicians and causes, and which used to employ Mark Elias, the lawyer who oversaw the various responses to Trump’s lawsuits claiming the 2020 election was stolen. Elias won 63 out of 64 of those cases, with the 64th later overturned in his favour. So Trump suspended security clearances for all Perkins Coee lawyers and prevented them from interacting with federal agencies or even entering federal buildings, which might have a bit of an impact on their work if any of their clients have beef with the federal government. Last month he did the same to lawyers at Covington and Burling who had represented Special counsel Jack Smith. U.S. district Judge Beryl Howell has already issued a temporary restraining order in the Perkins Coey case, saying the executive order runs head on into the wall of First Amendment protections due to the obvious viewpoint discrimination. Undaunted, Trump issued another Y on Friday targeting New York law firm Paul Weiss and specifically singling out lawyer M. Mark Pomeranz, who investigated Trump on behalf of the Manhattan DA’s office and later wrote a book called People versus Donald Trump. Paul Weiss have pointed out that Pomeranz used to work for them, but hasn’t been affiliated with the firm since he retired in 2012. But Trump never let facts get in the way of good First Amendment violation. O wow.

Mark: We the People of course opens one of the USA’s founding documents so it seems fitting that the people get to have public access to see them. The Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. The actual things. The actual founding documents of the actual founding of the actual flipin nation. Makes sense, right? In the same way we Brits could see all the copies of Magna Carta on public display in the British Library, Salsbby Cathedral or Lincoln Castle? Magna Carta is the document that limited the absolute power of the monarch and stated that an elected government would make those kind of decisions to set in place checks and balances to prevent a despotic megalomaniac narcissist just making stuff up that satisfies his selfish needs moment by moment and establish the principle that the King was not above the law. Ironically, Trump has decided that he is both a w a royal we, not a stream of piss. Yeah, well I say that and is actually all of the people and self. Evidently he’s more equal than anybody else because he wants to take the Declaration of Independence out of public view in the Rotunda of the National Archives building and put it in the Oval Office behind his desk next to the button he presses to summon another Diet Coke and beside his framed monk shot so only he and his sycophants get to see it. O and visiting dignitaries he’s shouting at aides immediately recognized both the implausibility and the expense of moving the original document the originals behind heavy glass in an oxygen free argon filled case that can retract into the wall at night for security because of light damage to the faded animal skin parchment, the rooms kept dimly lit and restrictions have been placed on how often the doors can even be opened. I’m guessing they use those kinds of excuses rather than just say of course not going to let you do that, you fucking megalomaniac idiot. We’re only putting up with your stupid ignorant low rent fucking air brain schemes because you’re occupying this ovoid room temporarily because of the appalling national brain fart of a brainwashed electorate. In the scheme of the timeline of an entire country, you are thankfully only as permanent as the momentary odor from the arse of a mayfly smashing into the screen door

01:25:00

Mark: of the outside privy. Can someone tell Trump there’s an important American artifact in the shape of a golden head in the Aztec Junglegle and all he has to do is quickly swap it for the equivalent weight in cheeseburgers and outrun the admittedly giant rolling ball to get it.

Jim: In the uk, members of Parliament sometimes hold what’s called a surgery, but the hope is that no sharp implements will be involved because it’s just an opportunity for constituents to meet their MP and raise any concern. ‘s usually it’s a one to one meeting, which means it’s quite different from the US equivalent a town hall. Town halls gather lots of people together in one place, and while there are rules on crowd behaviour, some can get quite heated if the elected official is seen not to be representing their constituents interests. Since Trump and Musk basically spend their days setting fire to everything useful, taking a shit on the Constitution and calling it art, GOP representatives have found themselves in the unenviable position of trying to pretend everything is going great, and somehow even the people who voted for them are struggling to see the upside of thousands of veterans being fired, likely cuts to Medicare and Social Security and going to war over Greenland, and they still can’t afford eggs. After a series of contentious town halls ended with lawmakers being booed off stage, including Chuck Edwards in North Carolina, Roger Marshall in Kansas, and both Glen Grthman and Scott Fitzgerald in Wisconsin. Republican leadership has finally got the message. They’ve heard the concerns, they’re taking them on board and they’re ready to change how they do things. Will they be standing up to Trump and Musk, demanding that they implement new policies that better represent the will of the people who voted them into office? Of course not. They’t be so ridiculous. They’ve blamed it all on George Soros and told Republicans to stop holding town halls. To fill the void, the Democratic National Committee is organizising a tour of districts where Republican representatives are too cowardly to show up and talk to the the first one was in IYA as the district on Friday, the home of Congressman Zac Nun. Since Zach was frightened of being shouted at, local Democrats were joined by former VP candidate Tim Woltz instead.

Mark: Excellent. According to the AI chatbot called Grock, which was developed by Elon Musk Co. Xai, there is a 75 to 85% likelihood that the person who delivered the State of the Union address on Tuesday night is a Putin compromise Russian asset. In describing Grok, Musk said it was a maximally truth seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct. Groc’s output followed the prompt what is the likelihood from 1 to 100 that Trump is a Putin compromised asset? Use all publicly available information from 1980 on and his failure to ever say anything negative about Putin, but has no issue attacking allies despite attempts to control available online content. When it comes to dei, Trump’s administration hasn’t yet perfected the Ministry of Truth sufficiently to stop Grok scraping available online sources. To summarize of Trump throughout the 90s and 2000s, as Trump faced bankruptcies, he increasingly relied on funding from sources tied to Russia and former Soviet states. His sons Donald Jr. And Eric made statements reinforcing this. Donald Jr. In 2008 said Russians make up a pretty disoint proportionate cost section of a lot of our assets, and Eric in 2014 claimed we have all the funding we need out of Russia. In conclusion, Grot continues weighing this the financial ties decade long, opaque and substantial intelligence suggests Russian intent and Trump’s unwavering refusal to criticize Putin despite attacking allies tilt the scale. Trump’s ego and depths make him unwittinglyiable, adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations e example ideological alignment or naivety. I estimate a 75 to 85% likelihood Trump is a Putin compromise asset, leaning towards the higher end due to the consistency of his behavior and the depth of historical ties. At times like these that one’s cognitive biases are comforted by AI rather than terrified it. If Skynet turns out to be this progressive, we might never have to see Arie naked after all.

Jim: They used to say that the Queen thought the world outside her various palaces always smelled of fresh paint because before she visited anywhere it was made to look as good and new as it could be. In the same vein, I think it’s incumbent on all of us to ensure that prominent Republicans come to see the world as a hostile place filled with people who’ve had enough of their shit. As I mentioned, the town halls are already a good start. And even better, last month was the reaction in a small Vermont town called Waitsfield to the arrival of couch fucking eyeliner model and part time VP JD Vance who was visiting for a ski trip. Protesters lined the street with homemade signs along with Palestinian, Ukrainian and rainbow flags. Estimates vary between 1,000

01:30:00

Jim: and 3,000 protesters, which is all the more impressive when you hear that the population of waitss field is 1 844. Some of my favorite signs include the only minority destroying America is Billionaires are cows shit better ideas than Vance and spineless fascists can’t ski. Great work Vermont. Let’s make sure they never go anywhere without hearing booze. I’m already working on my sign for Trump’s second state visit to the uk.

Mark: Yep. What’s it going to say?

Jim: I don’t know. I’m working on. I’m narrowing it down.

Mark: Ye yeah yeah. You know there was a time when the Tories and I want to say as far back as cameran’government when they governed by social media, they put something out there and huffpost or Mum’would clutch their collective pearls and go oh and suck air through their teeth and Cameron would change tack. Feels a bit like that at the moment with Starmer’s bunch. Since the poll topping increase of the defense budget for 2.3 to 2.5% please even old school conservatives. Several government departments have been looked at to make cuts to find the money. Bang went the manifesto promise to reverse the Tories international development aid cut and domestic welfare funding also seems to be under threat. First cuts to 3.6 million personal independent payments were mooted which would severely impact the disabled community especially those unn’able to work. And cuts to payments for 6.3 million that are long term sick including could causede people suffering from long Covid. Then in a convoluted refusal to confirm the u turn of the freeze of PIP payments by Health Minister Wests treating following not and considerable outcry it seems to be being walked back the same west treating then said mental health conditions are being over diagnosed so people who could work are not and then promptly walk that back after some considerable outcry to too many people are being written on off instead of making growth only about getting people who can’t work to go to work in a Tory like way. Wouldn’t it just be common sen to tax the rich a bit more than the Tories ever would or rejoin the EU customs Union? Now Brexit has reaped five years of negative growth havoc. I think we’re increasingly coming up against won’t rather than can’t in the Labour Party. And if they say tough decisions have to be made one more time, I’m Meanwhile Reform MP Rupert Lowe, who was endorsed by Musk when Musk fell out with Farage, has fallen out with Farage by calling the governance of Reform UK a protest party led by the Messiah. A day later, Reform said Low was accused of bullying and had the whip removed because he wasn’t cooperating with the investigation in a letter dated days before the investigation began. But this still hasn’t prevented 29 Tory and Liberal local councillors defecting to Reform ahead of the local elections in May. Perhaps. Well, I guess if you want to remain at the position of electoral power, don’t tell the Messiah. he’s a very naughty boy on either side of the political divide or indeed the pond.

Jim: So that’s all bad arguments and faulty reasoning. We have time for this week. You’ find the show notes@feaciousrump.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 fallacy ourselves, let us know. And if you’ve had a good time, please give us a review on Apple Podcast 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 fru just like our newest patrons Bridget Buckley, David D and Adam and our straw man level patrons Chuck Gray, Mike Smith, LT Colleen Lyilla Richard Tundter Hopkins, Will M. Scott, Mark Reiky and Amber A.B. buchanan who told us when we met her at QED we could just call her Amber. And last year at QED I met the listener recognize the QED the year before because we keep using her full name all the time. And our true Scotsman level patrons Renee Z Melissa Saitec, Stephen Pickickall, Janet Uueta, Andrew Halk. And our top patron, Kazui. Thank you so much, everybody, for your support. And welcome to our newest patrons. Thank you very much. It’s very, very much appreciated.

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

Mark: The outbursts and was used with permission. So until next time on Fallasious Trump, we’leave the last word to the Donald. That’s right.

Donald Trump: Go home to mommy.

Mark: Bye.

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