23 Sep Honor by Association – FT#181
Show Notes
The Honor by Association Fallacy occurs when someone tries to make themselves look better because of a connection to a positive person or concept.
Trump
We started out by discussing this clip of Trump invoking Lincoln to make the GOP look good:
Then we looked at this collection of clips of Trump talking about his smart uncle:
And finally we talked about this clip of Trump feigning patriotism:
Mark’s British Politics Corner
Mark talked about George Osborne’s mockney attempt at appealing to the common man:
He followed that up by talking about Rishi Sunak’s childhood sacrifices:
Then he talked about Kier Starmers frequent references to his working class roots:
And he finished with Baron Michael Gove’s pretense that he’s just one of the simple folk:
Fallacy in the Wild
In the Fallacy in the Wild we looked at this clip from South Park:
Then we discussed this clip from Saving Christmas:
And we finished up with this Snickers ad from the 1984 Olympics:
Fake News
Here are the statements from this week’s Fake News game:
Mark got it wrong this week, and is on 51%!
The Know Rogan Experience is not a logical fallacy
Jim talked to Marsh and Cecil from The Know Rogan Experience podcast. You really should be listening to their show, which you can find here: http://knowrogan.com
The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about
- At the start of September, Donald Trump went two whole days without publicly committing a crime, subverting the constitution or doing a fascism, so naturally the internet decided he must have died. The rumors of his death turned out to have been greatly exaggerated, but, had they been true, this episode would have featured, if you could make it out amongst the fireworks and champagne corks, some inevitable discussion of the ethics of celebrating the death of a man who made the world a demonstrably shittier place and caused untold harm to oppressed people. While the right would no doubt be desperately clutching at pearls and claiming that they would never disrespect the dead, Mark and I would feel pretty comfortable continuing to give Trump the same respect we have for the past seven years, safe in the knowledge that nobody has ever heard of us. However, with the recent death of a far dimmer star in the Republican firmament, the rules have changed. The free speech absolutists on the right have decreed that anything less than a reverential hagiography that recasts the individual’s remarks as divine teachings must be countered with torches, pitchforks, and a sternly worded letter to the offender’s manager. As an employee of a major media conglomerate with recent history of bending the knee to placate an authoritarian regime, I will not therefore be commenting on whether or not this particular gentleman regularly engaged in stochastic terrorism, minimized gun violence, or trivialized the death of others, and anyone even suggesting his face was way too small for his head will find no support from me. The landscape, you see, has become so unsafe for individual social media users, thanks to the free speech loving right, that expressing any opinion other than nominating him for sainthood, including just quoting words that he said in the order he said them, gets you put on a list and possibly fired, like dozens of people so far including healthcare workers, teachers, lawyers, pilots, fast food workers, and journalists. For the most part, this is just the work of some freedom-loving Americans with no connection to the government, although JD Vance did endorse it when he guest hosted the dead guy’s podcast, and Republican Congressman Clay Higgins, one of the co-sponsors of the Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act, did promise to “use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban[s] for life” for any negative social media users, also vowing to go “after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked”. Trump, of course, would never lower himself to attacking regular Americans on Twitter, not when he can use the death of a close friend as an excuse to get the toadying sycophants who do his bidding to go after people who say mean things about him on TV. Jimmy Kimmel, for example, didn’t actually make any remarks about the murder victim himself. He merely pointed out that Trump’s grief seemed disingenuous, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened ABC’s license. As for me? I couldn’t possibly comment.
- Since Trump came into office he’s been behaving like the line from the Bible “If thine eye offends thee pluck it out’ except of course he’s not taking it on himself he’s shooting messengers instead. Last month, Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after the agency made downward revisions to the number of jobs created in the spring. Other data sets related to gender, sexual orientation, health, climate change and diversity have disappeared from federal websites, and workers and contractors who had been data guardians at statistical agencies either have departed or been forced out by efforts to shrink the federal government. Besides the Census Scientific Advisory Committee, the U.S. Commerce Department last winter killed the Census Advisory Committee, which advised on the upcoming 2030 census, and the National Advisory Committee, which offered insight on how to accurately count and collect data from racial, ethnic and other communities. At the time, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the committees’ purposes “have been fulfilled.” In groundswell of sensibleness as befitting the community working on facts rather than worrying about having their feelings hurt, a U.S. Census Bureau advisory committee made up of scientific experts that was axed by the Trump administration earlier this year is resurrecting itself and meeting Thursday with no official blessing or formal ties to the statistical agency. The reconstitution of the Census Scientific Advisory Committee, rechristened with an “Independent” in front of its name, is a defiant gesture by the research community against the Trump administration’s elimination last winter of three advisory committees made up of outside experts from private industry and academia. Unlike in past meetings, no Census Bureau staffers will be involved directly or indirectly during Thursday’s conference. “Will our scientific advice still find an ear at the Census Bureau? I do not know,” said University of North Carolina sociologist Barbara Entwisle, who chairs the committee. “However, it is a certainty that our recommendations will have no effect at all if we do not provide them.” Which actually provides a comforting lens through which to view the effect of the baseless shizzle RFK Jr and Kash Patel are coming out with oh and Trump of course always Trump…
- If you’re wondering just how far the US has already slid into fascism, and Trump’s moves to control the media aren’t enough of a clue, you might want to consider his attempt to ban flag burning with an Executive Order. The fact the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that it’s a valid form of protest means that the EO had to specify that the attorney general must “prosecute those who incite violence or otherwise violate our laws while desecrating this symbol of our country,” but that didn’t stop DC police from arresting an Army veteran for lighting a fire in a public park when he burned the flag in protest. Speaking of DC, how about the 20 armed officers who were sent to a man’s home to arrest him on felony charges for throwing a sandwich at a federal law enforcement officer. Prosecutors couldn’t convince a federal grand jury to indict him, so they charged him with a misdemeanor instead. Then there’s the new rule that requires journalists at the Pentagon to sign a pledge that they won’t report on anything that hasn’t been approved by the Pentagon, even if it’s unclassified information, because nothing says democracy like restricting a free press. And what about the recent revelation that Trump’s border czar Tom Homan was recorded before the election accepting $50,000 in cash from undercover FBI agents posing as business contractors in return for a promise to help them secure government contracts, but rather than prosecute him on very clear bribery charges, Trump’s FBI dropped the case and covered it up because bribery isn’t a crime if it’s one of Trump’s guys. Another fun example in the controlling information milieu is the removal from the DOJ’s website of a study showing that white supremacist and far-right violence “continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism” in the United States. The study was done by the National Institute of Justice, but it doesn’t fit with the Trump administration’s narrative that the radical left are the violent ones, so it must be suppressed. Speaking of that narrative, we’re at the part of fascism where a sitting US Congressman, Ronny Jackson, can go on Newsmax and call for the mass institutionalisation of trans people, saying “We have to do something about this. We have to treat these people. We have to get them off the streets, and we have to get them off the internet, and we can’t let them communicate with each other. I’m all about free speech, but this is a virus, this is a cancer that’s spreading across this country,” which is exactly the kind of fucked up rhetoric that is being used by members of the Justice Department to suggest trans Americans should be banned from owning guns. Yeah, taking steps to disarm an already marginalised and vilified section of society is always a sign of a healthy society and I’m sure that slope won’t be at all slippery.
- I watched the Bond movie Spectre again this week and was struck by how I just couldn’t fathom a villain having all that power and not using it to good ends. Spectre is a story of long-established networks of powerful people who have alarmingly differing viewpoints as to what to do with it. Christoph Waltz’s Blofeld has the ease and joy of someone delighting in helping blind kids to see, learning sign language to communicate with the deaf and providing opportunities for kids to equally access the same education and opportunities to become fully rounded human beings, except he expresses that joy when blowing up large bits of the world and drilling tiny robot-controlled holes in the side of Bond’s head. Similarly through the Department of Education – double-speak for the Ministry of Ignorance – Trump’s clampdown on their dreaded DEI, you know that thing that ensures people equally access the same education and opportunities to become fully rounded human beings, is halting funding for programs that support students with combined hearing and vision loss in eight states. In Oregon, the 2023 grant application for the deafblind program there included a statement about its commitment to address “inequities, racism, bias” and the marginalization of disability groups. It also attached the strategic plan for Portland Public Schools, where the Oregon DeafBlind Project is headquartered, that mentioned the establishment of a Center for Black Student Excellence — which is unrelated to the deafblind project. The Education Department’s letter said that those initiatives were “in conflict with agency policy and priorities.” “I was told that apparently the administration is going through past grants and two words were flagged: One was transition and one was privilege,” Adrian Klenz, who works with deafblind adults in the state said. “Transition — transitioning from childhood to adulthood. Privilege came up because a parent wrote a glowing review of staff that said what a privilege it was to work with them”. Lisa McConachie, of the Oregon DeafBlind Project said the Trump administration’s view of DEI is different from how inclusion is thought of by disability advocates. “Our passion and our mission is around advocacy for inclusion for kids with disabilities,” she said. “Students in special education are often marginalized in their schools. Students in special education are often excluded.” Trump is all about marginalisation and exclusion and uses any mention of words he doesn’t like to mean the thing he doesn’t like. I wanted to say something about not being sure kids wouldn’t be able to assemble a laser-sighting gun blindfold like Bond but I’m not going to in case Disney cancels us.
- I’ll be honest, this could very easily have been included in my earlier fascism round up, but that’s true of most things that are happening at the moment and the format demands four stories from each of us, so here we go: Acting Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Erik Siebert, has resigned. That’s Siebert’s story, anyway. Trump claims to have fired him, but that’s almost certainly a lie and wouldn’t make the story better, because the reason he’s out of a job is that he wasn’t prepared to make up a reason to prosecute Letitia James, the New York attorney general who filed civil fraud charges against Trump. Siebert’s whole job, it seems, was to look into Letitia James and find something to charge her with, but he looked for eight months and found nothing, so naturally he had to go. Trump, who is convinced he gets to prosecute his political enemies whether they’ve committed crimes or not, has immediately replaced Siebert with Lindsey Halligan, a Florida attorney with no previous prosecutorial experience, but who ticks two of Trump’s most important boxes. She’s a former Miss Colorado, so she looks good on TV, and she’s shown that she will do what he asks, having defended him in the Mar a Lago classified documents case, and more recently taken point on the administration’s assault on the Smithsonian to make sure they remove anything that makes America look bad from their history museum. In a Truth Social post about Halligan, Trump urged the Justice Department to charge former FBI director James Comey and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff along with Letitia James. With his former personal attorney now in charge, little details like not having committed any crimes need not stand in her way.
- Homeland Security officials boasted that the recent Hyundai raid was the “largest single-site enforcement operation” in the agency’s history. But, not surprisingly, in South Korea the detentions were met with outrage from across the country’s political spectrum, the raid coming just 11 days after President Donald Trump sat down with South Korean President Lee Jae Myung. South Korea is reportedly the largest foreign direct investor in the United States and the country’s sixth largest trading partner. As part of a recently reached trade deal, South Korea agreed to invest $350 billion in the U.S. to help revitalize the country’s manufacturing sector. I’m reminded again, of course, of the Idiocracy movie where the courts of justice mete out justice through the medium of monster truck racing. A brilliantly observed clash of the stupid and the revered – depending on where you sit you can decide which is which. It wasn’t even so much that the South Korean workers were detained — it was how they were detained. ICE officials released videos of the workers with shackles on their arms and feet. “Is this any way for the US to treat an ally?” asked the South Korean news outlet Hankyoreh, while the country’s most prominent conservative outlet, Chosun ILbo, labeled the raid a “merciless arrest operation … that cannot happen between allies.” With grace and restraint President Lee has suggested that the raid is creating a “very confusing” situation for Korean companies and may lead some to question whether they should be doing business in the United States. Trump and the ICE team simply sexually assaulted their flags and shouted “Monster, Monster, Monster” Jesus Christ can McDonald’s just do their patriotic duty and lace the White House Happy Meals with paraquat or something – Agent Orange!!
- Of all the bootlickers in Trump’s orbit, few are quite so relentlessly cheerful and enthusiastic about it as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. No matter how appalling the economy gets, with constantly increasing prices on groceries and gas, terrible job numbers, and rising inflation, Lutnick cheerfully pretends everything’s fine like the dog in the meme whose house is on fire. He told Axios reporter Mike Allen that this isn’t even Trump’s economy – you won’t see the miraculous effects of his brilliant stewardship until the end of this year, so it’s all fine. Of course, Lutnick has been instrumental in advising Trump on his use of tariffs, many of which were recently ruled unconstitutional by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and therein, I believe, lies the source of his good humor. If an appeal to the Supreme Court results in the tariffs being upheld, then Lutnick looks good in Trump’s eyes, which he can no doubt parlay into further political and financial benefit for himself, but what if the Supreme Court agrees that only Congress has the power to set tariff rates? Well, that might just make the Lutnick family billionaires. Even billionairier than they already are, that is, since he’s currently worth about $3.5 billion on his own. Before getting into politics, Lutnick ran the investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald. On being confirmed as Commerce Secretary he turned over his equity interest in Cantor Fitzgerald to a trust to benefit his four adult children. Two of those children now run Cantor Fitzgerald in his place, with 27 year old Brandon Lutnick serving as Chairman and CEO and his brother Kyle as Executive Vice President, and they’ve recently been investing in the rights to tariff refunds from big corporate importers. So, if you run a large import company, and you’ve paid $10 million in tariffs to the US treasury, the Lutnick boys will offer you $2 million right now for the right to collect any refund the government has to pay you if the tariffs are ruled illegal and overturned. In July alone, the government took in almost $30 billion in tariff revenue, a big chunk of which will have to be refunded if they lose the appeal in the Supreme Court, and a chunk of that, along with the other billions from the other months since liberation day, will be going straight into that trust to fund the Lutnicks’ early retirements. It does feel a bit like Howard might benefit from giving Trump bad advice on implementing tariffs he knows are likely to be overturned in court, but I’m sure that’s just me being all cynical.
- Peter Mandelson, British Ambassador to the US was fired by serious and transparency-minded PM Keir Starmer last week because an old email that Mandelson sent to convicted paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein was unearthed that hadn’t been discovered or had been ignored during the appointment process, The Duchess of York, former wife of Prince Andrew has been dropped by various charities she fulfils an ambassadorial role for because an old email from 2011 that she sent to convicted paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein appearing to privately apologise for her public rejection of Epstein, saying: “You have always been a steadfast, generous and supreme friend to me and my family.” Meanwhile convicted felon and close friend of convicted paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffery Epstein was welcomed with open arms by the serious and trade deal-minded PM Keir Starmer and Sarah Fergusson Duchess of York’s former Father-in-law King Charles 3rd. To remind them of their convenient waiving of the no convicted felons granted entry to the UK and the royal standing-down of Prince Andrew from frontline Royal duties hypocrisy, Led by Donkeys projected a 4 minute-long video detailing Trump and Epstein’s public friendship onto the walls of the immigrant hotel Trump was staying in – Windsor Castle. In the same way that old, blind, wheelchair bound protesters against the Palestine massacre are enemies of free speech and democracy so the 4 people armed with the projector were summarily arrested. Short of taking them to the tower the ruling class in the UK demonstrate that they too can behead the freedom to protest and hold leaders to account. Meanwhile on the real left Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn, comrades launching a new political party to serve those left-wingers defecting from Labour, didn’t waste time maximising the crisis and started bickering with each other on social media about the setting up of online membership subscription services. Whilst welcomed and joined by thousands it apparently wasn’t authorised by Corbyn’s side of things and had to be closed down and everyone refunded and Sultana got all litigious and Corbyn got all reconciliatory… Oh ferchrissake will the Left never learn the Right’s strategy to close ranks and speak to no-one but each other behind closed doors when awful things happen. I mean just look at the royals and Trump and Starmer – oh hang on he’s supposed to be the left!
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