31 Aug False Uniqueness – FT#200
Show Notes
False Uniqueness occurs when someone overestimates how rare their positive traits, abilities, or experience are.
Trump
We started out by discussing this clip of Trump relying on his understanding of “the system”:
Then we talked about this clip of Trump lying while explaining his dementia test:
Mark’s British Politics Corner
Mark talked about Nigel Farage playing the victim:
Then he looked at this compilation of Rishi Sunak repeatedly writing checks his electoral potential couldn’t cash:
Fallacy in the Wild (Sting: Grace Kelly – Mika
In the Fallacy in the Wild, we looked at this clip from Beauty and the Beast:
Then we discussed this clip from Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder:
We followed that with this clip from Brooklyn Nine Nine:
And finally, we talked about this clip from an interview with Ola Svenson:
Fake News
Something a bit different for the Fake News game this week, since it’s the 200th episode. Instead of the usual three statements, Jim showed Mark nine Trump NFTs, three of which Jim created. The others are real:
Mark got one out of three right this week and is still on 48%!
VoteRiders is not a logical fallacy
Jim spoke to Pam Pearson from VoteRiders, a fantastic organization that helps people get the ID they need to vote in their state.
You can check what the ID requirements are in your state at VoteRiders.org, and if you need any help, or are worried you might not have the ID you need, call their helpline on 866-ID-2-VOTE. That’s 866-432-8683.
If you’d like to consider volunteering with VoteRiders, or donating to help them continue their important work, just go to their website.
The stories we really didn’t have time to talk about
- Primary season continues to be an absolute bloodbath for people Trump has personally, publicly, “complete and total”-ly endorsed, and nowhere was that clearer this week than in Minnesota, where car alarm shaped like a walrus, Mike Lindell, lost the Republican primary for governor to House Speaker Lisa Demuth by a comfortable 11 points, and shockingly responded by refusing to accept the vote count. Despite his own TV network, LindellTV, reporting that the Associated Press had called the race for Demuth, Lindell told reporters there appeared to be last-minute “mathematical deviations” in the results. Refusing to concede, he insisted “It just doesn’t make sense, you guys. So we need a day. We’re going to look into it,” he said, not specifying what they were looking into. “We’ve got different teams right now. I’ve been on the phone with three of them. And the one person said, ‘We’ve seen a couple of anomalies.'” A week later, he still hasn’t conceded, but so far he hasn’t held a cyber symposium about it or bet anyone $5 million that random strings of numbers are absolute proof it was rigged, so that’s progress! Meanwhile, down in Tennessee, grifter and pretend economist Congressman Andy Ogles, the guy who spent this year loudly announcing that Muslims and gay people have “no place in America,” got walloped in his own primary by former state Agriculture Commissioner Charlie Hatcher, despite Trump’s endorsement, proving that bigotry alone is no longer a sufficient personality trait to survive a Republican primary if you’re also under federal investigation for campaign finance violations and can’t keep your staffer-blaming straight when your own homophobic posts get deleted. Unlike Mike, Ogles gave a gracious concession speech thanking Tennessee for the honor of representing them, which I’m sure was appreciated by the constituents he says don’t belong in the country. The real gut-punch for Trump came in Michigan’s 8th District, where Trump gave his “Complete and Total Endorsement” to Amir Hassan, a Black, Christian, Navy veteran who used to be on Transport Secretary Sean Duffy’s security detail, only for Hassan to get absolutely demolished by Thomas J. Smith, a guy who dropped out of the race in mid-July, did zero campaigning, raised basically no money, and endorsed a different candidate. His name was on the ballot because he dropped out after they were printed. The working theory, cheerfully confirmed by Trump ally and distaff Saw villain Laura Loomer, is that plenty of MAGA voters took one look at the name “Amir Hassan,” thought “he’s probably a terrorist”, and voted for the guy who sounds like he coaches Little League.
- We talked recently about the report of Trump hopping on the previous Air Force One for old times and not the Qatari Gifted Air Force 1 Flying Palace as there were questions about the suitability security-wise of the Airborne Bribe vis a vis it being, armoured enough and equipped enough to keep the Prez safe. Well it turns out there was even more deception afoot. Having boarded Air Force One, the one where the passengers were told to keep the blinds down for the flight, Trump then snuck out the back way onto a catering truck and swap planes to a C-32a. Apparently information of a real risk of an Iranian attack had been intercepted and that bit of news was not imparted to the 100 or so aides officials and reporters that remained on board Airforce One for the flight to RAF Mildenhall in Britain. “It appears that the idea was we can reduce the danger to President Trump by offering up 100 or so people to be killed by the Iranians in his place,” said Steven Cash, executive director of the Steady State and a former CIA intelligence officer and senior adviser to the Department of Homeland Security’s intelligence branch. Trump confirmed on Tuesday that he secretly switched planes, but said the plane he ultimately flew on was still more vulnerable than Air Force One. “I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” Trump told reporters. “I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.” Perhaps in his mind this a) makes him the centre of attention – ‘natch – and b) makes up for him appearing to hint at the security concerns when reporters questioned him about why they had been ordered to keep their window shades closed. “You’re probably on a dangerous flight,” he said. “But if I go, you go. Right?” before exiting out the door past the bags of Cheetos and diet pepsi coming the other way. Ned Price, an ex-special assistant to Barack Obama on the national security council, added: “There was a way to do this where they didn’t need to lie. They could have enlisted the travelling press pool, who would have very willingly, I am certain, not reported on certain security arrangements. “Once all was said and done and the president was safely in the UK or back at Andrews air force base, they could have said: ‘This is what we did and this is why we did it,’” Price added. “But they feel no compunction to the truth. They feel no loyalty to the truth. Instead it’s just an effort over the past month to lie and to mislead.” Asked later whether there had been a credible Iranian threat against Air Force One, Trump said: “Well, I have a threat all the time. I’m No 1 on their list before you.” Well I guess as long as the missile hits you first Donnie everyone else will be grateful as they’re vaporising!
- Today is White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s last day in the job, as she steps down to spend more time with her newborn baby. Fragile, completely helpless, and constantly either napping, shitting, or crying, Donald Trump announced Leavitt’s departure on Truth Social, calling her “one of the best White House Press Secretaries in the History of the Office,” and I agree. Technically, 35th best out of 35 is still “one of the best”. And yes, Press Secretary fans, I’m even including Ron Nessen in the 34 that were better. He knows what he did. Leavitt herself wrote that she “cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting the constant time, energy, and attention required” of the job, which is fine, except her chosen next act is becoming a “vocal advocate for MAGA,” and an “outside advisor” to the White House, which as far as I can tell requires the exact same constant time, energy, attention, and devotion to lying, just without the health insurance. At 27, Leavitt became the youngest press secretary in American history, and she spent her entire 50 Scaramuccis in the job proving that youth is no obstacle whatsoever to a truly world-class capacity for bullshit. She opened her very first briefing, on day one, with the claim that the Biden administration had earmarked $50 million to fund condoms in Gaza for Hamas, who, according to Leavitt’s genuinely unhinged elaboration, planned to use them as bomb-making material. This was not true. It wasn’t sort of true, or true if you squint, or technically true using some novel definition of the word “condom”. The State Department’s own numbers showed the real figure was zero. It set the tone for the rest of her tenure beautifully: state something confidently, watch it get debunked within hours, and never once acknowledge that it happened. We’re recording this two weeks ago, so we don’t yet know who will replace Leavitt, but Mike Lindell has some extra free time, and it would make our job much funnier, so fingers crossed. We also don’t know if there’s some other reason she’s decided to leave after only a month back from maternity leave. One theory is that she’s finally realized that Trump doesn’t care if she lives or dies, since she was on the decoy plane, but I’m not convinced. Firstly, it’s not clear whether she was even on the Turkey trip, and also, she’s met Trump. There’s no way she thought he cared about another human. A more plausible theory ties her departure to a 21 page opinion from Todd Blanche’s brand new DOJ, and Leavitt’s new role as “outside advisor”. According to the opinion, the president’s “executive privilege” protects communication between Trump and advisers who don’t work for his administration, which would make it a lot harder for any future Democratic Congressional investigation to compel her to spill the Trump tea.
- The White House flooded social media on Saturday with an image of Donald Trump showing off the recent Washington Post headline “Prescription drug prices record sharpest drop in more than 60 years”. The image was one of several taken during a staged photo-op on Friday, when Trump approached reporters with a copy of the headline he wanted them to see. Holding up a print-out of the headline, and the first five lines of the article, the president waved the page around and encouraged the press pool to record and photograph it. On its official accounts, the White House triumphantly captioned the photograph of Trump: “POV: you bring the receipts.”
What the White House reporting did not say is that the text of the article, published by the Washington Post on Thursday, reported that while the Trump White House “took credit for” the biggest year-over-year drop in drug prices in more than 60 years in July, independent experts “said a Biden-era policy that requires Medicare to negotiate prices for some popular prescription drugs is more likely to be driving down costs”. The Post’s report noted. “The Inflation Reduction Act was a signature accomplishment of former president Joe Biden, a sprawling measure enacted in 2022 that aimed to lower prescription drug prices by requiring Medicare, the federal health program for the elderly, to begin negotiating the prices it pays drugmakers for an array of popular and costly prescription drugs, the first price reductions took effect at the beginning of this year.” Richard Frank, a professor emeritus of health economics at Harvard University said “If I was a betting guy on what mattered most, it would be probably stuff around the Inflation Reduction Act,” adding that Trump’s efforts “wouldn’t be where I’d place my money”. Steven Cheung, the White House communications director, posted a screenshot of the Post’s headline on his X account on Thursday with no link to the article. “All thanks to President Trump!” Cheung wrote. The new reduced priced prescription Trump Rose-Tinted Glasses are now of course on sale! - ICE, the agency of emotionally stunted racists that disappears citizens, fires on moving vehicles, and hides their faces behind ski masks, has decided what it really needs to de-escalate encounters with civilians is the ability to electrocute them with a glove. DHS documents reveal ICE is planning to spend up to $20 million on thousands of G.L.O.V.E. devices. That stands for Generated Low Output Voltage Emitter, in case you were wondering what acronyms a committee of absolute fucking psychopaths would come up with. They deliver a Taser-style shock through the palm at the push of a button nobody else in the room can see. The manufacturer’s own promotional videos show cops getting demonstrated on for marketing purposes, screaming and collapsing to the ground, so, you know, it’s not all bad. An internal investigation at one Alabama detention facility already found officers holding the shock down for 45 and 99 seconds at a time, against a recommended 15-second limit, resulting in what investigators dryly called “unnecessary pain” and a “heightened risk of serious health complications,” which is a very polite way of describing a guy being repeatedly tortured over a full minute and a half by someone who’s never even heard of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The ACLU pointed out the obvious, which is that an agency that has spent the last year proving it’s trigger-happy with actual firearms probably shouldn’t be handed a tool that lets it inflict “terrible pain” silently and invisibly, but sure, let’s give the guys currently deciding on a whim which Americans get Fourth Amendments rights, weapons used by literal Batman villains. Which brings us to the news that ICE is also, finally, after years of stalling, rolling out body cameras to its field officers. Real progress, you might think, until you read the actual policy, which specifies that footage of shootings or other incidents where agents cause death or serious injury will only be released once ICE has determined doing so is “in the best interests of the agency.” Not the public’s interest. Not the truth’s interest. The agency’s interest, as determined by the agency, about footage of the agency’s own officers potentially killing people. One camera policy expert said “ICE is saying the quiet part out loud,” because selective release is routine in some law enforcement agencies, but it’s not usually so clearly laid out in advance. Border czar, and human-potato hybrid Tom Homan mumbled on Face the Nation that “if you look at the data, body cameras actually exonerate agents more than they, you know, provide evidence of wrongdoing.” Oh really Tom? I wonder why the fuck that might be when the agency gets to decide which clips to release.
- “Donald Trump should stick to what he knows best — ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bullshit.” Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, posted on X on Thursday, adding, “I’ve launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot and even I wouldn’t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships.” Both parts of his post were accurate observations but what brought this on? It seems Isembard Kingdom BruTrump has got all antsy about water affecting magnets again when it comes to the design of aircraft-launching catapults on aircraft carriers at sea. This from the man who can’t work out if you’d get electrocuted from a battery powered ship. Anyway the USS Doris Miller was due to be fitted, as have all such ships since 2009, with electromagnet-based catapult systems – the kind of technology that high-speed trains use, a lot simpler and a lot more reliable. Trump wants to revert to steam power cos apparently the electromagnetic system EMALS are “not nearly as good, too complex.” as he said at the Defense and Innovation Summit in July. “When a little water touches the magnets, it doesn’t work anymore. You’re – you’re in the Atlantic Ocean with waves that are 60 feet high, and the Pacific Ocean with waves at 70 feet high, and they’re talking about magnets.” This of course is stupidly wrong and conveniently and ignorantly glosses over steam’s valves, pressure, heating, water and fuel considerations that weirdly were superseded in the locomotive world by ooh I don’t know electromagnets!! Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, added that the move would require the USS Doris Miller, which is already under construction, to be redesigned. “Nobody builds them anymore. There’s no steam catapult manufacturers in the … US anymore so they’d have to restart that production line, which would cost tens of millions of dollars to get going and it’ll take years to start that up again and build the first catapult.” The cost of that, he told CNN, “will probably be into the billions” and it could delay the carrier — which was expected to be in service around 2034 — “until the end of the next decade. The electromagnetic ones have proven themselves to be easier to operate and less expensive in terms of personnel and maintenance. So the Navy has saved $100 million a year on the Ford class carrier,”” Still I expect Trump knows a steam guy – he must have built a sauna next to the pool guy’s pool surely?
- Donald Trump has a recurring imaginary friend, or should that be imaginary enemy? It’s Vandals, Capital V, always, on Truth Social, roaming the nation’s capital in the dead of night like a roving band of malevolent groundskeepers with a personal vendetta against anything Trump has personally touched. Nobody else can see them. No security camera has ever caught them. As far as the rest of us can tell, they exist exclusively inside Trump’s head, like Fred Flintstone, shouting about a floating green alien only he can see, except the Great Gazoo occasionally helped Fred out, and Trump’s Vandals only ever show up to cover for something Trump broke himself. This week’s victim was a large patch of dead, brown grass on the National Mall near the World War II Memorial, which Trump insists was destroyed by Vandals connecting “the vandalized World War II Monument and the vandalized Reflecting Pool.” The dead grass in question is, conveniently, the exact footprint of the stage and crowd area for Trump’s own July 4th “Salute to America” bash, which he claims drew over 420,000 people. He’s off by an estimated 400,000 people, but even then, it’s not great for grass. Photos from the webcam on top of the Washington Monument show the bandstand covering the entire lawn. AP photos show workers dismantling it days later to reveal the same brown patch Trump is now blaming on Vandals. As far as evidence goes, Trump offered none, beyond gesturing at a faint “86 47” weedkillered into a totally different part of the Mall weeks earlier, which is not visible anywhere near the actual photo he posted. Trump has now blamed Vandals for practically every piece of damaged Trump-adjacent property in DC this year, like Big Bird insisting Snuffleupagus is real while every adult around him raises an eyebrow and quietly changes the subject.. The Reflecting Pool’s peeling paint and algae bloom? Vandals, he says, despite his own US Attorney, Jeanine Pirro, formally concluding it was a botched renovation. Trump didn’t like that, so the DOJ’s dropped felony case against David Hearn is apparently now quietly being reconsidered for a misdemeanor charge instead, seemingly on the sole legal theory that Trump is furious nobody’s in jail for it. Grass at the White House Ellipse and South Lawn, worn down by a UFC event he personally hosted there this summer? Also, somehow, vandals. Cracked limestone in the freshly renovated Rose Garden? For one brief, disorienting moment back in 2025, Trump correctly blamed a subcontractor dragging a heavy cart across it, calling the culprits merely “stupid” rather than criminal. Which suggests the Vandals showed up some time after last summer. At this point a competent therapist would be leaning forward in their chair asking, gently, whether the Vandals are in the room with us right now, Donald. They are everywhere. They are responsible for badly poured concrete, for sun damage, for foot traffic, for gravity itself, and they exist, entirely and exclusively, in the specific two-week window after something Trump built, renovated, or hosted starts visibly falling apart.
- Good news this week in British Politics – Count Binface won 26.9% of the vote with 9,455 votes in the Clacton by-election – 10,000% more votes than he got against Andy Burnham only a month ago. He came second only to Nigel Farage who got 63.3% with 22,239 votes – a little more than he got in the general election last year. Count Binface was the largest vote-getter at the declaration ceremony saying “I came first in the Clacton byelection! Of the candidates who bothered to turn up for the results.” cos Farage refused to attend the results as he was a) avoiding a security threat that the police said didn’t exist or b) “I am damned if I am going to stand on a stage, having won a resounding victory… and be demeaned and humiliated by nobodies,” (some may say – and probably us amongst them – too late mate too late! or c) didn’t want to let down the attendees at the local FarageFest where he was appearing. Well you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t Nige cos delightfully the investigation as to whether he broke the parliamentary rules regarding failing to declare the small matter of the £5million bung, which had been suspended as soon as he was no longer an MP cos of the by-election, immediately recommenced the moment he was re-elected. Unfortunately Nige, you see the voting members of the Clacton public don’t get to decide those kinds of rules. The actual winner of the election was the voter who spoiled their 3-foot long ballot paper by writing along the length of it in 9” high letters “What a disgraceful waste of money” in response to the quarter of a million of taxpayers money it cost to stage Farage’s vanity project, money he offered to provide knowing full well it is against the rules for a political party to fund an election. Some rules he’s thankful for I guess.
You can now buy Jim’s book, 2000 Mules and One Big Lie: A Stubborn Conspiracy Theory, and you can buy all our t-shirts, mugs, hats and more at our TeePublic Store, including this week’s fallacy:
Before we leave you with the 200 things that Trump says he’s the best at, this seems like good time to thank all our listeners for your support over our first 200 episodes. As Mark often says, it really is very much appreciated. Also, thanks to The Factory London for hosting us to record our 200th in a real-life podcast studio. Here’s to the next 200!?!
