The Courtier’s Reply – FT#197

20 Jul The Courtier’s Reply – FT#197

Posted at 00:32h in Fallacies by
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Show Notes

The Courtier’s Reply occurs when someone dismisses their opponent’s opinion by claiming they lack sufficient expertise on the subject to be allowed to opine.

Trump

We started out by discussing these Trump tweets:

Then we talked about this clip of Trump attempting to belittle AOC:

And finally we looked at this clip of Ben Shapiro making the same mistake:

Mark’s British Politics Corner

Mark talked about Boris Johnson dismissing Brexit critics:

Then he looked at this clip of Nigel Farage defending the bribe he took:

And finally, he discussed Robert Jenrick’s take on the Farage debacle:

Fallacy in the Wild (Sting: Total Eclipse of the Heart – Bonnie Tyler)

In the Fallacy in the Wild, we looked at this clip from Edison The Man:

Then we discussed this clip from Parks & Recreation:

And finally, we talked about this amazing review of Deuce Bigelow: European Gigolo

Fake News

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

Mark got it wrong this week and is still on 48%!

 

Mitch McConnell is not a logical fallacy

We talked about Schrödinger’s Senator.

 

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

  • The midterms are only four months away, so Trump is laying the groundwork for both cheating, and blaming the GOP’s inevitable loss on Democrats cheating. His latest barrage of bullshit was a 25 minute television address on Thursday night to tell everyone that the entire American election system is being rigged by China, and of course, that he can prove it. He did that by declassifying a massive tranche of “shocking” intelligence documents, which the White House immediately dumped online. If you actually look at them, they’re just a mixture of old internet rumors, conspiracy theories, and pages so heavily blacked out with redaction markers they look like the Epstein Files. The big bombshell was that China supposedly “stole” 220 million U.S. voter files. In fact, they only accessed data from seven states, did so through legal public records channels, and don’t appear to have used them in any way. In fact, that’s a repeated feature of the declassified documents and Trump’s claims. China stole data, there are dead people on the voter rolls, voting machines have vulnerabilities, he claims, but at no point do any of the documents suggest any actual votes were changed or stolen. In fact, the documents the White House chose to release on their special page, reiterate the intelligence communities previous findings that China did not deploy any effort to influence the outcome of the election, and also the ones that say Russia did, and they did so to benefit Trump. He’s such a fucking idiot. Meanwhile, his actual plots to mess with the midterms keep getting laughed out of court. He tried to pass an executive order to ban mail-in ballots, but federal judges blocked it. He tried to build a giant federal database to block the Postal Service from delivering ballots to citizens, but the courts killed that too because non-citizen voting isn’t actually a real problem. He even tried to hold a bipartisan housing bill hostage until the Senate passed his new election restrictions, but Congress just ignored his tantrum and passed the housing law anyway. Since he can’t get his way through the rules, Trump is just trying to break the machine. The day after the Supreme Court gave him greater power to get rid of the heads of independent agencies, he fired the remaining leaders of the Election Assistance Commission because they wouldn’t help him illegally decertify the country’s voting tabulators. Over in Georgia, his obsessed hunt for 2020 election fraud completely imploded this month when a judge blocked his subpoenas, and two FBI agents literally chose to get fired rather than spend another day digging through Fulton County’s trash for imaginary fake ballots. Even Republican Thomas Massie pointed out that crying about a rigged election when your own party literally controls the White House, the House, and the Senate is a bizarre look.
  • Professional cranium below the sandy surface ostrich Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary insisted, “there are very strict ethical guidelines here at the White House,” on Thursday when it came to light that someone has been raking it in betting on Kalshi on what Trump is going to be saying in his speeches. No doubt wanting in on the ‘I know a pool guy’ and ‘I have sons and sons-in-law who are going to bid for contracts I am about to announce’ action, Gabriel Perez, Trump’s teleprompter guy has been placing bets on what Trump’s going to say in his speeches. Who placed better than he to know? He’s apparently amassed $100,000. Obviously Trump’s erratic behavior during speeches apparently posed a problem for Perez, who would allegedly back out of certain bets mid-speech if the president skipped over a portion of a speech that was originally in the text. Kalshi themselves tipped off the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which has been investigating insider trading on betting markets, and Leavitt confirmed ‘a member of staff has been put on administrative leave’. After all the White House can’t have anyone playing the system at Trump’s expense, it’s gotta be Trump at everyone else’s expense. Perez was allegedly betting on what’s called the “mention markets,” where people can wager on whether a given word will be mentioned. The mention markets on Kalshi had over $1.1 million of bets on what Trump would say on Thursday night. There was a 98% chance he’d say “election,” a 55% chance “Iran” at least three times, a 52% chance he’d say “stock market,” and a 49% chance he’d say “alien.” When it came to the long-shot bets, there’s a 22% chance he’d say “transgender,” and a 4% chance “crypto” or “bitcoin.” Also I bet the odds are such that you would have had to pay them if he mentioned “fraud” “mail-in” “Biden” “Obuma” or “Russian interference” or “He called me sir” or “best president that knows everything ever, man, woman, TV”
  • Regular listeners will recall that we took a few months off earlier in the year, and that means we missed talking about a few news stories. For example, back in January, leather-faced family disappointment RFK Jr (and I’m not saying whether the family he disappoints are the Kennedys or the leatherfaces) claimed that Dr. Oz peeked at Trump’s medical records and said he had the highest testosterone Oz had ever seen in a septuagenarian. Normally, I’d assume that at least one of RFK and Oz were lying, but the side effects of high testosterone include fluid retention, irritability, insomnia impaired judgement, extreme mood swings, and delusions, so maybe they’re on to something. Of course, the only side effect of excess testosterone MAGA believes in is being too much of an awesome Alpha male, who could totally beat up your Dad, so that’s why mediocre wino Pete Hegseth announced on Twitter last week that The Department of War will start annually screening the testosterone levels of all troops over 30, and offering TRT –  testosterone replacement therapy for any who fall short of optimum levels. Since Pete is a brilliant military tactician who surrounds himself with the most experienced and studious experts, the armed forces have gone from strength to strength under his leadership. It’s not like he’s focused on ridiculous things like beards or firing top generals because their skin colour or gender makes him feel icky. But in this case, it may be that he has rushed in without thinking it through. Or being someone with the ability to understand or care about basic science. He thinks embracing taxpayer-funded gender-affirming care in this specific way will give him a legion of super soldiers like Captain America but the truth is, if you even need it, TRT improves mood, libido and erectile function, but not warfighting lethality – that’s not even a thing the NIH measures. And because testosterone levels fluctuate wildly based on sleep, diet, stress and other things, mass testing of otherwise fit and healthy soldiers will inevitably lead to lots of false positives. And when they’re given testosterone, aside from the side effects I mentioned earlier, it can also lead to infertility, depression, blood clots, and liver disease. It’s almost as if you shouldn’t trust a weekend Fox and Friends host with the world’s most powerful military. 
  • Turkey spent more than 120 million dollars over eight months rebuilding the runway at Ankara’s Etimesgut Military Airport to accommodate the Boeing 747-8 donated by Qatar to the United States, and then Trump flew back out on the old Air Force One. I’m beginning to suspect Erdogan is eyeing it up as a retirement present now given that both he and Trump’s current terms end in 2028 and he knows what Trump’s like when it comes to giving stuff up. But the official line when Trump hastened up the steps of the old Air Force One “for old time’s sake” and had everyone lower the blinds for the entire flight was because of the “sleazebags over here” — an apparent reference to Iran, and that new Air Force One was going to a US airbase in England so the “troops could tour it”. Perhaps more likely is that the modifications to the jet from Qatar were completed so quickly that some US officials raised concerns about whether that meant the plane was up to the security standards of the old Air Force One. While the US Air Force has said the retrofitting cost is close to $US400m, Pentagon officials quoted by the New York Times, have estimated the cost of refurbishing the jet to be more than $1 billion for it to fit the standards of an Air Force One. The older Air Force One is reportedly fitted with a system designed to blind an incoming anti-aircraft missile, as well as a mechanism to mislead a missile and force it off course, but it is unclear if those capabilities have been installed on the newer plane. Indeed several US politicians and officials raised security and ethics concerns after Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth accepted the jet from Qatar, but Mr Trump brushed off the concerns, saying it would be “stupid” not to accept it. Perhaps Pete knows something we don’t – let’s check with Kalshi if an anonymous bet from a Washington IP address on the downing of a poorly secured ex-Qatari jet was hastily withdrawn last week.
  • Since bush baby in a suit, Kash Patel made the transition from shitty podcaster to shitty FBI Director, FBI agents have been fired left and right, but mostly if they’re on the left. Offenses as diverse as doing their job in investigating Trump, to doing their job in investigating January 6th have caused people to get purged, and Kash’s paranoid search for who’s leaking all the embarrassing stories about his drunken grifting and general inability to do the job has caused others. The latest we’ve heard about though, is David Maltinski, a 16-year veteran of the FBI who was more than 80% of the way through his special agent training program when he got a letter from Kash himself, firing him for exercising “poor judgement” in displaying a piece of “political signage” at his workstation. Just for a moment, take a guess at what you think the signage might be. I’d assume something like Fuck Trump, or 8647 which even those of us who believe in free speech might concede would be an unwise thing to display on your federal government desk. But, it’s worse than that, because it’s always worse than that. Maltinsky was fired for having a display case containing a Pride flag on his desk. It was in a display case, because it was awarded to him BY THE FUCKING FBI years earlier as a commendation for his work supporting diversity within the agency. After years of it bothering nobody at all, some fragile asshole complained about it early in Trump’s second term, at which point both Maltinksy’s supervisor and the Chief Legal Counsel for the FBI told him it was fine and didn’t violate any FBI policies or regulations. Then Kash fired him anyway, and now he’s suing. The government are arguing that they definitely didn’t fire him because he’s gay, because you can’t even tell he’s gay based on the pride flag, and it’s also definitely not because of all the good work he did advocating for diversity, because that was years ago, so it’s definitely just because of the flag itself – which I don’t think is a better reason – those would all be terrible reasons. Given that other FBI employees are openly displaying thin blue line flags,  and punisher skull and don’t tread on me flags, it seems that political messaging is only poor judgement if you do it while gay. It’s a pretty clear case of viewpoint discrimination even if the court does decide to ignore the actual discrimination. Meanwhile, it appears to have had the desired Lavender Scare effect of other LGBTQ FBI employees removing any personal effects that include multiple parts of the visible light spectrum from their workstations.     
  • The Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor formerly known as Prince was also known as Airmiles Andy back in the days when he was a “Special Representative” business envoy, because of his penchant for using helicopters and planes on official engagements and private jaunts when he could use a train or car. Vilerbymiles Vance has a similar reputation. On Thursday last week, Secret Service agents groused among themselves as they prepared to deliver another perk to Vice President JD Vance’s family: a military helicopter crew to fly his young son to his golf lesson. Vance planned to travel with his son on the flight to Joint Base Andrews — which includes a secure, world-class golf center; the flight was cancelled due to bad weather and agents would instead drive his son to the Thursday golf lesson at Joint Base Andrews. Whilst there’s no formal Secret Service policy prohibiting the use of a government helicopter for transporting a vice president’s child to a local even – and the Vances are the first family to reside at the Naval Observatory with young children since former Vice President Al Gore and his family, more than 25 years ago – former and current Secret Service supervisors agreed the request for a chopper for this purpose has no precedent. “They change everything,” one of the security detail told MSNOW. “They don’t stick to their schedules, and that costs shit-tons of taxpayer money.” Operating the helicopter costs taxpayers between $16,000 and $24,600 per hour of use, according to 2022 Defense Department budget estimates.The Vances recently required several last minute chopper trips to the region around Middleburg, Virginia, so they could hunt for houses to buy or rent there for their expanding family. On the Mike Rowe podcast Vance remarked about how the level of creature comforts he enjoys has risen dramatically since becoming VP “I think what ‘Mamah’ would be worried about, and it’s something I’m worried about, too: my life is totally transformed. People go to the grocery store for me. I don’t have to cook anymore because I have an army of people willing to cook my food. No more TSA lines for me.” But he also noted in the interview that, with this job, you have to watch yourself or you could become “an entitled asshole.” Yep we already see you JD, we already do. 
  • On top of gender affirming care, the Trump administration is now openly embracing socialism, with Donald Trump personally saving summer road trips by launching 25 “Freedom Fuel” gas stations in Philadelphia and New Jersey. The administration proudly announced on Twitter that they had slashed prices to exactly $3.47 a gallon – get it? “47” – saving drivers a solid fifty cents compared to the local averages. They even dropped a hype video featuring locals who were “super pumped” about the cheap gas, framing it as a triumph of executive will over the energy market. The timing of this sudden oil charity is incredibly convenient, considering the fact that Trump’s actual foreign policy just blew up the global energy market. The only reason gas is touching $4 a gallon in the first place is because Trump keeps restarting the war he keeps ending. So, how exactly does a president lower gas prices at 25 specific gas stations while his own military escalates a war that is making oil more expensive everywhere else? The White House insists it’s just a private company willing to “take a hit on profit margins” out of sheer patriotism. But I’ve noticed that sometimes they lie about stuff, and it turns out that the private company, Freedom Fuels LLC was incorporated just a week before the White House’s announcement. The owners are former commodities trading executive Yoni Gontownik and former special teams coach for the Baltimore Ravens, Randy Brown. Neither appears to have experience running gas stations, but both are heavy Republican donors, so the fact that one employee told the press they are selling gas at a loss, rather than taking a hit on profit margins, suggests this is more of a political donation than a business model. Yoni and Randy have failed to respond to questions from the press about how they are funding this enterprise, but true to the GOP grifting spirit, maybe they are finding a way to make money out of it too, since the person who appears to be actually operating the gas stations is another New Jersey businessman, Shamikh Kazmi, who previously operated franchise gas stations with his brother. In February, a federal judge slapped Kazmi with a default judgment for allegedly running off with $667,000 worth of fuel without paying for it, with the judge noting a “serial flouting of Court orders.” In a separate case in January, another judge ruled Kazmi’s company failed to pay over $700,000 in rent for 17 stations down in Florida. If you don’t pay for rent or the fuel itself, it’s shocking how little you can charge customers and still turn a profit. And if your business is making the President look good, law enforcement might not take too close a look at your books.
  • Well as I predicted here in the UK Nigel Farage, following the heat of the questions surrounding the £5m bung from the crypto billionaire Christopher Harborne and how much influence that has on Farage lobbying for the relaxation of crypto rules by the Bank of England, resigned, thus triggering a by-election in his Clacton constituency. But far from disappearing to earn millions in America Farage is going to stand in the by-election in order for the people of Clacton to judge whether he’s dodgy. Far be it from me to commit the Courtier’s Reply fallacy but the populace are not qualified to make that judgement, that’s for the Parliamentary Affairs Committee to do that but Farage is determined to make this a Nige vs the Establishment contest, except the establishment see it for the total electoral farce that it is and none of the main parties are standing candidates, instead Nigel is up against Count Binface an intergalactic trash can who stands in the British tradition of taking the piss and bursting the bubble of pomposity of politicians. Binface has pledged to attend constituency surgeries and spend 10 days in Clacton for every 1 he spends in the US so is in stark contrast to Farage. In a country that once voted to name a new Lifeboat Boaty McBoatface Nigel must be a bit worried, so much so he gave a speech at the CPAC meeting held in London yesterday where he lambasted incoming Labour Prime Minister Andy Burnham for referring to his notes 299 times in 9 minutes during his first speech as PM in waiting, cos being able to rant on for hours rehashing the top ten conspiracy theories about why Reform is being hounded out of existence without notes is the true measure of statesmanship. Burnham has already cancelled Starmer’s £2bn digital ID initiative and is set to undo the last 40 years of Thatcherite monetarism which he says Labour have perpetuated under Blair and Starmer. With 2 years to go Burnham is determined to do things quickly and show what it is to actually be a socialist progressive left-wing party and not waste the massive Commons majority that he thinks Starmer failed to capitalise on for the first half of Labour’s term in office. Much like England’s semi-final losing World Cup team under Tuchel it seems the Labour Party have played all the right players just not necessarily in the right order!

 

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Jim Cliff
jim@fallacioustrump.com


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