SIO8: Completely Unpresidented

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 8 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. And it's Thursday, which means we're gonna do a little free inquiry here to talk about today. Going to do a little Confirmation Hearing update, figure out the status of some of our favorite nominees for these positions, Betsy DeVos others and like that. Also, it's Donald Trump's inauguration weekend coming up. I'm going to take a look at the money he's raising as well as the people who are boycotting it. Who's coming, who's not, that sort of thing. Also got a lot of great comments from last Thursday's episode and And got some great voicemails to listen to and react to. Thanks so much to those who called 916-750-4746, left a little comment via voicemail.

0:01:19 Thomas: I think that's a really fun way to do it, something I like spicing up the show with, so thanks for that. Little later. Also So that's what I've got planned today. Let's get on over to it.

0:01:35 Thomas: Well, guys, it's Trump's inauguration. It's happening. It'll happen between now and the next time you hear me, so... the best, one of the best tweets I saw on the subject said that the best dealmaker in the world, the art of the deal author Trump, all that kind of stuff, couldn't even get a Bruce Springsteen cover band to play for the inauguration, so it couldn't land that deal, but that's okay. And another hilarious thing I saw, this is from the Twitter of real Donald Trump, the man himself. He tweeted, The same people who did the phony election polls and were so wrong are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before. Yeah, rigged polls.

0:02:21 Thomas: There's so much stupid in that tweet. I don't even know. Yeah. The election polls were correct. They were based on a projection of who was going to vote. As it got nearer and nearer to the election, Trump did actually gain. The numbers that came out after he was elected showed gains, possibly due to the Comey letter. And the problem was not that the polls were rigged or wrong. It was applying it to likely voters. So you can ask a person, who do you support? And they can tell you. And statistically, we can do a great job of that. That's not hard to do. What's hard to do is figuring out, okay, of the people who said, yeah, I support Trump, or I support Hillary, who's actually going to vote?

0:03:07 Thomas: That's not an easy thing to do. That's a very, very, very difficult thing to do. Estimates were built based on early voting based on voter registration, things that they try to do a good job of doing, and they just happened to not be good this year, this election, there was a huge swell of early voting, but actually less turnout than there should have been based on that. So that's difficult. Approval rating, not hard. That's not a difficult thing. You call a bunch of people, you say, do you approve? That's easy. There's no rigging. There are no complex calculations going on. You don't rig approval rating polls. Trump just has the lowest approval rating of an incoming president in 40 years. Obama had 79% favorable rating when he came in.

0:03:53 Thomas: Even Bush, uh, W. Bush had 62%. Trump is at 44% according to a poll by CNN, ABC News, Washington Post, and Monmouth University who all apparently are faking it. They all decided they have it out for Trump and they're just gonna fudge the number. Why not zero then? Why not make it 20? Why do they decide on like a pretty reasonable percentage based on everything that we're seeing in the news and just in everyday society? A pretty reasonable number, 44%. But anyway. I just thought that tweet was particularly egregious and it's nothing new. It's never going to change. I don't know how we make Republicans care that this man is clueless and not only that, it's not just that he's clueless and it is not just he's wrong.

0:04:42 Thomas: It is that he is wrong and clueless and or lying or whatever and it the things he's targeting. He's targeting things that people don't do. I mean these institutions that we need. The idea that no, you can't trust any poll. You cannot trust any any poll. The only thing you can trust is the feeling that Trump has about how people like him, I guess, or something. There's nothing. These things that he's challenging and these things that he is completely eroding confidence in are important things. And that's the difference. It's not just like, oh, look at this guy. He's wrong or he's lying or he happens to be ignorant on this thing. It is not that. It are the things he is taking down and it is working. So, Trump is, like I said, as you know, going to be inaugurated. You know, I wanted to take a look at the people who are boycotting the inauguration, and I've thought a lot about this, I've gone back and forth, because I just can't decide if it's a good idea.

0:05:41 Thomas: You know, like the easy Democrat impulse, the liberal impulse is, yeah, boycott Trump, he's horrible. But at the same time, I mean, what did we think of people who boycotted Obama? What's frustrating is I can't seem to find a really good source on the numbers of this. I just think it maybe wasn't actually as much of a thing. But certainly how would I feel? I guess I can just wonder how would I feel if they did that. I would feel like they were being babies and etc, so it's close. And also, Obama is not boycotting it, but Obama, as I've noted before, is almost a little too gracious about Trump. I like he's being very classy and gracious as regards the incoming president, but it's almost a a little too far to me.

0:06:28 Thomas: It's a little bit too much like, oh, we'll be fine. It is okay. Don't worry. I don't know. I wish he was speaking out a little bit more. Just a little bit. Stay classy, but be a little more critical. Like, I want him to be critical of the things Trump is doing that are unprecedented. It doesn't mean he has to pick apart everything that they disagree. He is one Republican, one Democrat. I get it. But maybe the things that are totally unprecedented that he's been doing, like with the press and all this stuff, they've just, well, there's countless examples, like there's a billion examples. But on the other hand, Republicans have not had to deal with this electoral college popular vote nonsense. They haven't had to do deal with it. We've had to, Democrats have had to have to deal several times now, the Republican getting the electoral college vote and the Democrat winning the popular vote.

0:07:19 Thomas: This one was more than ever. Three million votes almost, Hillary won by. Three million votes. And the Russia hacking and the Comey letter and voter suppression. I mean, there's there are a lot of reasons why it's not simply a, oh, Republicans do this and Democrats do that. We're tied. You know, that's that's maybe the theme of this show. I'll talk more about that later. But that's why I actually do kind of get it. And so I promise you, I wasn't sure.

I wasn' sure on whether I thought this was a good idea. I thought, you know what? But boycotting doesn't do anything. But at the same time, I have no interest in coming together to make Trump's agenda work, you know, or to or to compromise between Trump's insane pro-Russia, pro-Putin agenda. Find some middle ground between that and the liberal agenda. It's nonsensical. He can't. There's... there's almost no respects in which we can work with him. We're in hell right now as liberals. So I don't know. You know what? I support it. Who cares? And it's and I do mainly because of the he really is the least legitimate president we've probably ever had. So, yes, if it were just a question of I hate Republicans, therefore I'm boycotting, then I would not support it. I really wouldn't.

If, let's say, I don't know, Ted Cruz, if, I mean, I hate Ted Cruz so it's tough, but still, I think I could say that. If Kasich, if President Kasich were taking office, eh, whatever. I mean I don't really see a lot of value in boycotts.

0:08:58 Thomas: But this is not the same thing. Thank you for listening. There's some good quotes from the representatives that are boycotting. There's one from a Republican from Arizona, Raul Grijalva. I'm not sure how to pronounce that. I will not be attending the inauguration of Donald Trump as our next president. My absence is not motivated by disrespect for the office or motivated by disrespect for government that we have in this great democracy, but as an individual act, yes, of defiance of the disrespect shown to millions and millions of Americans By this incoming administration and the actions we are taking in this Congress. Interesting Republican there. While I could conceive of an argument that Congress should go to the inauguration, I could just lost a bunch of listeners, but it's terrible.

0:09:52 Thomas: But anyway, everybody who is boycotting, that's what I love, because that is a true show of just how unpopular these horrific, sexist, racist, xenophobic, anti-trans, everything, all these policies are. That's a way to show it. You know what? No, you don't get to have the finest entertainment at your inauguration when when you say the things you do about women, about Mexicans, about everybody. I mean, I don't need to go over it every time, but I'll have to fight the urge. But no, you don't get to just everything's OK and you get to all the best celebrities are going to come sing and all the best artists are going to come celebrate you being president. No, you don't get that. I highly recommend if any of you listening ever get an offer to go perform at Trump's inauguration and you don't agree with Trump, just boycott it.

0:10:43 Thomas: That's the best thing to do. I really like that. I like that a lot. I think it's probably more effective than the Congress people, congresspersons boycotting. Another thing I'm finding interesting about this inauguration is the amount of money. It's obscene. Now, it's not absolutely unheard of. A lot of people gave money to Obama for his inauguration. However, in 2008, 2009, I suppose it would be, Obama capped donations of $50,000 per individual and did not accept corporate donations. And he still raised $53 million. That's with no corporations and with a $50 thousand cap per individual.

0:11:23 Thomas: However, Trump is on pace, according to sources, according—we'll see. I mean, we have to wait until after it's said and done. But arguably, allegedly, he's on pace to raise over $100 million, and there is no cap on his donations. There is no ban on corporations. Now, I do have to say, in all fairness, Obama relaxed that for 2013. He did not cap donations, and he did accept donations from corporations. However, he raised less money for his 2013 inauguration, so that's interesting, $44 million. I'm not totally sure what's going on there. So in fairness, yeah, in his first inauguration though, he did restrict all that stuff, and Trump is not restricting anything, which, I mean, that alone, that in and of itself, like I said, Obama did that in 2013, sothat's not horrible, but the amount of money and the amount of access he's giving, this is the part that is interesting and perhaps unprecedented.

0:12:21 Thomas: Or unprecedented, as Trump once tweeted, everything he does is unprecedented. You know, that should be a, you know how the dictionary adds a new word every year, whatever it is. That's a perfect word for Trump because everything he. Does is unprecedented and it's also unpresidential. And it's like this perfect combination of both. So that, that should be him. He's unprecedented. So speaking to being unprecedented his top packages that's $1 million and up, inaugural donors will get a candlelight dinner with Trump.

0:12:56 Thomas: Oh my gosh, do I wish I had a million dollars just for this. Thank you. Well, no, I need like billions, because I wouldn't want to waste my only million dollars. In contrast, Obama's top donor package was, this is his second one, when it was much higher, but I'll use that just to take the worst example. Individual contribution of $250,000 or more and $1 million from corporations. But the top package, they received four tickets to the ball, two bleacher seats to the parade, a VIP reception, at a candlelight celebration on inauguration eve, tickets to a children's concert, and access to special receptions in a meeting with Obama's finance team. Now contrasts that with Trump, who is giving people, for a hundred thousand dollars you get tickets to an intimate policy discussion and dinner with select cabinet appointees. A hundred 000 and you can talk to a cabinet appointee.

0:13:52 Thomas: Well, that seems... I feel like as the podcast, we could get this together, like $100,000. We could probably do it. Let's do a charity drive right now. Let us talk to a select cabinet appointee. I want to ask Betsy DeVos why in the world she thinks she is qualified to head education or maybe. We can ask Rick Perry what he thought his job was. That would be another thing we could do. Not sure if you saw that. Rick Perry had no idea what his job would be. Turns out he's in charge of the nuclear weapons, or at least maintaining them and all that, and he had no idea. He thought it was just like oil and gas. So, there you go. But back to the inauguration, I think it's interesting looking back through the history from Carter, who only raised $3.5 million for his inauguration. Now, granted, that's different dollars, but it's not, I don't think it was astronomically different in 1977.

0:14:48 Thomas: Reagan, it jumped up to $16 million and then $20 million. And it seems like Reagan set a precedent for just millions and millions of dollars at your inauguration This is another thing, along with so much of campaign finance, I wish this is just such a waste of money. Like, I wish this money could be going anywhere else. I mean, really, $100 million. And what's funny is, even with Trump's $100,000,000 like record-breaking money for his inauguration, still can't land that Bruce Springsteen cover band. Can't offer them $20 million, can't sweeten that deal enough for the B Street band or whatever the cover band would be, I think it is that actually, for them to play at your ball. Pretty funny. We'll be right back.

0:15:43 Thomas: Alright, on to another topic, which is the confirmation hearings. I think what's so funny about this, and again funny in a sad way, with like pretty much everything with Unpresidented President Trump, uh, they have no idea what they're doing confirmation hearing wise. Nobody, this is, uh, he might not have his cabinet confirmed before inauguration because of the ethics issues with the picks, and with so many of the picks that he nominated requiring massive amounts of time to clear these ethics panels because of their business dealings of being billionaires and just generally unqualified as well, and just not the typical kind of people that would be nominated for such things. When Bill Clinton was sworn, this is from a Politico story. When Bill Clinton was sworn into office 24 years ago, every single member of his cabinet but one was confirmed by the Senate within two days.

0:16:36 Thomas: When Donald Trump is sworn in Friday, he'll be lucky to have half that many. And mind you, this is with, uh, because of the rules change, the Democrats changed the rules in 2013, I think, because of how much the Republicans were causing trouble for Obama's picks. Picks. They changed the rules so that you only need a simple majority. And so the Democrats can't do anything. We've covered this before. The Democrats can't do anything about any of these nominations. They need for any of them to stop even a one, they would need Republicans. They don't need that many. They only need like three or four, but they need Republicans, so likely they're not stopping. And just so you guys know, to give context in case you haven't heard this already, it's very rare that anybody gets rejected. The last person to actually get rejected was one of Bush seniors, uh, members.

0:17:23 Thomas: There have been a few people who, what they usually do is pull their nomination. They just withdraw. Um, if it looks like they're not going to get through, but that's not a lot of people. That's only three people who have done that in the last, I don't know, like 40 years or something. So it doesn't happen very often. So. While Trump's picks are certainly unprecedented, well, it's also pretty unprecedented that we'd be able to block anybody. In general, the president gets to staff who he wants. I mean, that's pretty much how it works. So don't be too disappointed, I suppose, or don't be too surprised when every single one of Trump's nominees gets through. Because that's, right now, that that's the odds on favor. That's the good money. The smart money would be on every single one of them getting through. Now, because they are so horrible, because several of them are so terrible, particularly DeVos, the.

0:18:14 Thomas: Rick Perry is terrible, though I don't know that Congress will bother with that. Tillerson is one that I would think would have a chance of being rejected, just because of how pro-Russia and how cozy with Russia he is, and the what should be a Republican appeal to that. I mean, what should a sensitivity among Republicans. So if there's ever a nominee that maybe you can get three or four Republicans to jump over on, I would, it would be Tillerson.

However, again, don't be surprised when this doesn't happen, but I wish it would. Good. And like I said a moment ago, Tillerson might be the one that maybe, just maybe, because we got video here, it's too long to show, and it's honestly not even that great, these confirmation hearings. Every video I'm seeing where it's like, oh, they grill the, they'll usually be from liberal sources, so they're a little biased, and they'll say, ah, they, ah.

They grill the nominee on such and such, and they have been a bit of a letdown for me, because people are able, Trump's nominees are able to just kind of give weaselly answers, and that's not really that satisfying.

0:19:10 Thomas: Satisfying. With the one exception of Betsy DeVos, which maybe we'll get to. But here we go. We've got I'm not going to play it again, but we've got Rubio, who is actually grilling Rex Tillerson, is actually trying to ask tough questions. And they're pretty much Russia based because he, Rubio, stated he tweeted that it wouldn't didn't make any sense that Tillerson would be the nominee here. And so I hold out some amount of hope, some tiny little teensy weensy bit of hope. However, I just to have this feeling in the back of my mind that he'll just cave. It says here, Rubio said he's not willing to commit himself to voting for Mr. Trump's based on concerns he shares with the likes of Republican senators like Lindsey Graham and John McCain. Now, there's three right there.

0:19:55 Thomas: That almost gets you there. So maybe, just maybe, you could block Tillerson. Maybe. But again, I predict no. I predict he'll be appointed. And if I'm wrong, I will be happy but I'd be wrong, but that is my prediction. But he's maybe, in my opinion, doing all this research, looking at this, he's who I'm holding out hope for. So we'll see where that goes. Next up We should talk everyone's favourite completely unqualified pick for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos. Lots of highlights here. I can play a little clip. Yep. Just I thought this was interesting by Al Franken. I pinpointed her as maybe with her and.

0:20:41 Thomas: Rick Perry as the two least qualified, most insane, just jokes of picks. So let's hear maybe a little example of why she's not exactly qualified.

0:20:56 Clip: And I would like your views on the relative advantage of doing assessments and using them to measure proficiency or to measure growth. Thank you, Senator, for that question. I think if I'm understanding your question correctly, around proficiency, I would also correlate it to competency and mastery, so that each each student is measured according to the advancement that they're making in each subject area. Well, that's growth. Matt, that's not proficiency. So in other words, the growth they're, is in growth, the proficiency is, if the arbitrary standard reached a level, the proficiencies, if they've reached a, like, third grade level for reading.

0:21:44 Clip: Etc. No, I'm talking about the debate between proficiency and growth. Yeah, what your thoughts are on them. Well, I was just asking to clarify. Then, well, this is, this is a subject that is, has been debated in the education community for years, and I've, I've advocated growth, as the chairman and every member of this committee knows, because with proficiency, teachers ignore the kids at the top who are not gonna fall below proficiency, and they ignore the kid at the bottom who, no matter what they do, will never get to proficiency. So I've been an advocate of growth, but it surprises me that you don't know this issue and

0:22:29 Thomas: There you have it. Yeah, impressive stuff. She also, there was a good video, you might have seen her with Tim Kaine questioning her. There's a quote here, during rapid fire questioning by Tim Kaine, she seemed to demonstrate a lack of understanding of one of education's major, major federal civil rights laws, which requires states that take federal funding to provide children with disabilities, the services they need to benefit from public education. DeVos also declined to say whether she believes that all schools receiving taxpayer funding, public, public charter, or private, should be held accountable to the same performance standards. There was also a great episode where she was asked whether or not guns belong in schools, and she said it should be left to state and local officials.

0:23:14 Thomas: So she can't even definitively say whether or not guns should be allowed in schools, because there might be bears in certain places or something. You don't need a school gun to shoot a bear, just so everybody knows. That's not how bears work.

I'd say maybe the last highlight to go over here is Elizabeth Warren asked her questions about her qualifications to run the trillion-dollar federal student loan program, and DeVos acknowledged that she has no experience running or managing anything near that size and complexity, and she also acknowledged that has never taken out a federal student loan for herself or her children. Again, this is, I mean, she's gonna get through, probably. I mean, I would hope not, but nothing you can do.

And you know what is particularly egregious to me is Joseph Lieberman, uh, is backing her and said that her best asset is not being part of the establishment and You know, that's exactly what education needs right now, is someone just with no clue about anything, no experience. I don't mind people with different views, you know, I don't mind if someone has a different view on education, but this idea that the only way to get a different view is to pick someone who does, has, doesn't know anything, like has no experience, isn't in the, the system, hasn't done anything, hasn't even taught, at least find me a teacher.

Come on, if you're going to do the Trump thing of just, oh, you've got to get outside the establishment, you know, because the establishment is just terrible. At least find like a teacher or an administrator, principal, something who's like, you know what? I know what the solution is. It's totally not what we're doing now. We're going take it in a different direction. At least someone who has some experience in education of some kind.

0:24:54 Thomas: She has none. Someone else you may remember we took a look at in the cabinet episodes was Jeff Sessions. And I said at the time that I don't really think on paper there's much, there's not much to say. This is not like DeVos or Rick Perry where it's like Sessions is an incompetent boob who has no experience. He's a lawyer, he's got a lot, he has experience, you know, in law, he got experience as a congressman. I mean, he had the experience and it seems as though Jeff Sessions is answering the questions. He's saying things he needs to say because he said, though, he still believes Roe versus Wade is one of the worst, clearly erroneous Supreme Court decisions of all time. He would follow that law and the law legalizing same sex marriages as attorney general.

0:25:41 Thomas: So he says he's going to follow the law. I don't know what he says. It's the right answer. I mean, it's not completely the right Answer. The right answer wouldn't involve Roe v. Wade being the worst decision of all Time. But same with the history and current views on drug sentencing laws. It's not the attorney. He says it's not The Attorney General's decision about when and where a mandatory minimum is imposed and whether it can be retroactively altered. So I will follow any law that you pass. So honestly, you know, I'm, I said it at the time and I didn't really hear anyone disagree with me, which is interesting. It's not normal. But I don't think Jeff Sessions is among Trump's worst picks. Yes, he has the racism allegations.

0:26:28 Thomas: I went over the evidence at the time. It is hearsay. I mean, it's not great. I bet he's kind of racist if I, you know, if I had to make a bet on it, but he said all the right things, uh, in the, in the, years after, like in the years since about how it wasn't really how he felt and it was misrepresentation. And of course he believes in equality, all this stuff. And I don't know what to say. I mean, if, if someone denies it and they, they say, no, you're wrong. I don't really, that's not really how I feel. And they're answering these questions correctly where they're saying, I'm going to enforce any laws that you pass. I don't know what you can do. I mean, this is one that I think will be confirmed. Jeff Sessions will be confirmed. And I don't even think he's in the top 10 worst picks, really.

0:27:15 Thomas: I mean, maybe top 10, but not top 5. So I think he'll be confirmed, and I think that'll be that. We can probably do a mini-update next week, but I think the funniest thing of course is that just everything is last-minute. His picks are so weird and they are so disorganized. The ethics committees haven't had time to do the proper paperwork and review and all that, background checks, conflict of interest checks, when you're dealing with a bunch of billionaires with extensive portfolios, that's something that takes time. It takes a lot of time and it's, it's not done. This is really a shit show. But I really, as I said from the outset, I think every single person will be confirmed. Maybe we'll get lucky and Republicans will not have caved to Trump's pro-Russia Tillerson pick.

0:28:01 Thomas: Maybe that's like the only thing I can hope for. So those are some of the highlights of the confirmation hearings. Again, virtually no one's scheduled to be confirmed right on day one, which is funny. So we'll see where it goes from here.

0:28:18 Thomas: It's time to check the voicemail. And of course, if you'd like to leave a message, that's 916-750-4SIO. That's 9-1-6-7-5-0-4-7 4-6. Let's check out this week's messages.

0:28:35 Voicemail: Thomas, hey, this is Chris Christofko, calling in about your most recent episode. You know, the one thing that disturbed me most about the press conference, and I think going forward, the press really needs to show some solidarity, is shutting out an outlet like CNN. It's really destructive to the First Amendment. And you feel like there has to be some sort of action among the press to realize this is a threat to all of us, because it's CNN this week, an unfavorable article means it could be NBC News the next week. And he would think that those journalists would step up. And I've seen a lot of people say, when this happens, when something like this happens, the journalists who is shut out, they need the others around them to ask the same question, to press the president-elect on questions, the issues, and to not shy away. Because what Trump is doing is conditioning the press, conditioning the press to say, I can't ask tough questions because what I do, I'm going to get shut out.

0:29:28 Voicemail: And that means fewer clicks, fewer reads. That puts my job in jeopardy because now I'm less relevant if they can band together a bit. And look, I'm not exactly encouraged that this will happen, but this is something that needs to be done. The press needs to step up and say our rights as a press, our First Amendment rights as the country require us to work together in this case because we need to get to the truth. And if the truth is going to be shut out from one one outlet. Others have to take over. I was disturbed. I think that you're going to see more of this going forward. There's nothing we can do. There is nothing we could do unless the press holds him accountable. And we know that during the election itself, the press wasn't exactly the best at holding Trump accountable. Re-advertising, sure. But hopefully going forward, they realize how critical their role is. Thanks very much. Love the show and look forward to your new episode.

0:30:17 Voicemail: Hi, Thomas. My name is Hal Hackett. I've been listening to you for I don't know how many years, I picked up somewhere along the way with where you read through the Bible, and I saw you in Milwaukee, and that was amazing. And what I'm actually calling to tell you about, I'm in the middle of your last podcast, and, well, first, I completely agree with you about Sam Harris. I mean, the fundamental problem with this election is not that the left got too balkanized, as I'm sure he would say. It's that the good guys actually lost. But the lesson here is not that the good guys were actually bad. People on the left have this expectation that the good guys are going to win if they're good enough. And that's just not what happened with this election.

0:31:03 Voicemail: I mean, Hillary may have been a flawed candidate, but the bad guys won. And it was because of all the misinformation that they had. Thanks for doing what you're doing. Bye.

0:31:15 Voicemail: Hey there, new listener. My name's Casey. I'm from California. I am a Republican atheist that listens to your show, and I just want to tell you the reason you lost is because we loathed Obama. He was everything we hated. He made our wives cry like Eli constantly talks about his wife crying over Trump getting elected. We watched our country take it in the short. As far as international prestige, international power, the U.S. president should bow to no man on earth. And uh we're just sick and tired of the left and we finally had enough so anyway enjoy the show make america great again

0:32:01 Thomas: Thank you guys so much for those voicemails, I just, great points there too. I, I'm gonna save the last one for last, because that was, I've got a lot to say, but Chris Christofko, thank you so much. I totally agree. It's, I heard someone make the point that it's never been a worse time for journalists to band together and for journalistic integrity, because newspapers are failing, and the whole thing with the, you know, the internet making the newspapers so much worse, and reducing the resources that they have. There used to be bureaus in every major city in the world, and now there just aren't. And I just think that it's so much more dog-eat-dog because of that situation that I don't really have much faith that journalists and different news organizations are going to pull together to make that happen.

0:32:52 Thomas: But great points there, and it's something I worry about. And not optimistic at all. And then, Hal, yeah, I agree, the good guys lost and that happens. And I largely, I think I echo the sentiment that for my money, I'm just being misinformed. News that was just a lie, fake news. We have fake news on the left for sure, but on the right, and it was worse. And the fact that Trump would just contradict himself constantly and they didn't care. And, I don't think you can beat that with more of being good necessarily. I mean, we could have, but But the biggest thing is that Trump was horrible and a bunch of people don't understand. A bunch of People don't value consistency, not lying, just a bunch of things that they should be valuing.

0:33:39 Thomas: We need to work on having more people value it, but also we just need to work on turnout. We could have won so easily, but I'll talk more about that in a minute. And then, finally, KC, for some reason, I had a, just a twinge of doubt about your sincerity, but I'll take you at your word that you're a Republican, Make America Great Again, all that. Thank you for listening, if you are, by the way.

I appreciate it because, you know, I'm pretty liberal, so if you're someone who can listen to a very liberal show and you're Republican, I respect that quite a bit. I would like to find some good Republican shows to listen to. I tried and they were awful, completely conspiracy theory-esque. It was unlistenable, but I'm sure I could find the right one if anyone ever wants to give me some tips on that. Why were your wives crying over Obama winning? All due respect, Was it like, oh no, now people are going to have health care and black people can finally aspire to be elected to the highest office in the land, like, what, I, my wife, I don't think would have cried over, uh, Romney winning, for example, or, uh, I don't know, just some other normal Republican candidate. This was particularly egregious, this, this was horrifying, because we've never elected someone who's even come close to saying things Trump has said.

So this idea that you're normalizing it, like, oh yeah, when Republicans win then you cry, and Democrats win then, yeah, that's when our, our wives cry, I don't get it. Can you give me a specific issue you're crying about? And I have to say, so your biggest issues, yeah, you hate the left, I get it, the left hates the right, the right hates the left, that's how it's going to be.

0:35:12 Thomas: That's not a normal explainer for why a certain side won an election. You can't say, okay, well, Trump won because the right hates the Left. Well, then why did Obama win? Oh, because the left hates the Right. Like, that doesn't explain anything. But the biggest point that I like to make over and over, Casey, and I'm curious if you want to respond to this, you voted, I actually agree with you that I think America needs to be stronger in foreign policy. I actually do think Obama was a little bit weak in foreign policy. I don't think he's the cartoon that you likely are kind of alluding to and being there. But how does that mean we need to elect Trump, who's in bed with Russia? Russia, the Republicans' biggest enemy up until a minute ago, five minutes ago.

0:36:00 Thomas: Now we're electing someone who Russia is actively helping. And this is not conspiracy theory, by the way. This is established. Trump has even finally admitted to it. And this is something that our best sources tell us, that Russia wanted Trump elected. Trump has business feelings in Russia, and furthermore, his cabinet is all pro-Russia. His cabinet, his Sessions. Secretary of State Tillerson. Extensive, extensive experience in Russia. Billion dollar deals with Exxon. You know, like, I mean, why would that be? Is that the good foreign policy thing? Is is that what we want to do now? To kind of bow down to Russia? Bow down to Putin? That's going to make you happy? Furthermore, I thought the whole thing was Hillary was too hawkish.

0:36:46 Thomas: That's the thing about these criticisms. They're so contradictory. Hillary's too hawkish, but also, you know, we want a president who's going to bow down to no one. I don't know. Not terribly convinced. I could even agree with your reasoning for wanting a different president, but I just would like to ask you, how is Trump that person? Trump is not that person. All right, let me know, Casey. I'll be curious what you think of that. But also, but overall, thank you for participating. And again, 916-750-4746. Get your comment heard. It's fun. I like it. It was a really cool thing that for some reason I decided I should have done. I should've done a long time ago. Go. Got an email comment. I actually want to point out, we're going to change something up. It says in the... uh... Episode post to email Haley with comments, but that's not really making a lot of sense.

0:37:35 Thomas: She's just having to forward them to me anyway. I think we just did that without thinking about it. Why don't you go ahead and email comments to Thomas at SeriousPod.com? Thomas at SeriousPod.com for comments, and if you're a guest, you've got guest suggestions or other kind of things that's more in that realm, or you just want to tell Haley she's doing a great job, email Haley, that's H-A-E-L-E-Y at SeriousPod.com. I'll put the links in the show notes, but yeah, comments, to send them to Thomas at SeriousPod. But here's one that we got from Carolyn, or, and I'm not going to read all of it, but there's a part of it that I want to read, I think it's important to talk about, relating to last week's points I made. She says, I've been a long time listener, but I've never emailed before. I just had to disagree with Thomas, though, when he said that the far right is worse than the far left, and he was mostly dismissive of the far left for being annoying.

0:38:26 Thomas: Now, I'm not denying the malevolence of many on the far right, but the far left is more harmful than policing words. It is often the far left that turns anti-science on many subjects, and ally, albeit for different reasons, with the right against modern medicine. The, the left sees big pharma conspiracy and autism and things not being natural. They fight vaccines and routine doctor visits and promote all sorts of crazy, unfounded remedies. And it carries far and wide because the message comes from nice lefty people. The far left also use non-scientific reasoning to go against GMOs and food when they really don't know what a GMO is or how they can be hugely beneficial. They preach organic without understanding what exactly it means. They are just as ignorant as the far right.

0:39:11 Thomas: They just maybe, maybe use less hate, or at least they say so. I'm not going to have time to get to the rest of it, but I'm going to address that first part there. Carolyn, I agree, and I've done episodes on almost everything you mentioned, I think. I agree, I support GMOs, I agree that there is a left-wing anti-science problem, there is a problem, it is not as big as the right. And a lot of what you've pointed out is actually, and you even acknowledge, oh, they ally with the right on such and such. Well, then that means it's a tie. That doesn't mean that you can count that against the left and then count the left against the right, therefore. That's, if something is bipartisan, then there's no way you can count that as special evidence that the left is worse, over and above the stuff that we would both acknowledge is terrible on the right, like being against gay marriage and being against trans rights, and all that other stuff that is really the stuff I was referring to.

0:40:07 Thomas: Also, you left out a whopper of an anti-science problem that's far, far and away on the right, and that is climate change. Maybe the biggest, single biggest issue that's going to affect us, the The entire planet. Sure, GMOs, that has an effect, of course. Vaccines, that's got an effect. Climate change is an exclusively right-wing denial issue, and that could affect the entire world. That could very easily, drastically harm the entire world. Got three polls here to evaluate what your claims are. The first one is on whether or not vaccines are safe. I think it's a particular vaccine. No, I think think it just says vaccines. 89% of Republicans say yes.

0:40:52 Thomas: And this is in 2015. Looks like February. 87% of Democrats say yes, they're safe. That's very close. Now I'll admit when you go over to the not safe column, 5% of Republican say not safe. 9% Democrats say not safe. So there is a bigger increase with more Republicans kind of saying don't know. And so that's why the difference there. But that's very close. That's certainly very close that that means that, virtually the same numbers within a couple percent think that vaccines are safe among Democrats and Republicans. Republicans, independents are the biggest group terms of anti-vax stuff. But sure, we'll give that one a little bit over to the Republicans, by a littlebit. At GMOs. Well, Pew Research Poll 2015 July says, unsafe to eat, Republicans 51%, Democrats 56%.

0:41:45 Thomas: Safe to eat Republicans 43%, Democrats 38% of Democrats say safe to eat. Yeah, little bit of a gap there. So 51% of Republicans say not safe, 56% of democrats say not save. Little bit of of a gap, not huge, little bit of a gap. Let's look at climate change now. This Pew Research poll is from 2016, October, 70% of Democrats trust climate change, climate scientists to give full and accurate information about the causes of climate change compared with just 15% of Conservative Republicans. Republicans. That's an enormous gap. That is way bigger than the 2% and the 5% gap we saw in the other two issues. So you're making the claim that it's about a tie.

0:42:30 Thomas: Roughly speaking, a tie... We'll be right back. But keep in mind that I just said the far left and the far right, we're talking about all issues. So if we take the sum of everything, are you telling me that the, the margin, first off, are telling me the marginal differences between vaccines and GMOs? So yes, Democrats are a little, little bit worse on those two issues. First off, do you even think that makes up for the climate change issue? I know, I know it's hard to compare like an actual, you know, apples to apples number, but when it's 79% of liberal Democrats say, yes, climate change is real. And only 15% of conservative Republicans do, the moderates get a little closer together. I'll read those. Moderate Republicans, 34% believe that climate change is warming due to humans or whatever.

0:43:15 Thomas: And moderate Democrats, 63%. So even, even among moderates is still a 30% gap. Among the far left and the far right, There's almost a 64% gap, that's a huge gap compared to the little two and little 5% gap that we're talking about in the other issues. The other issues are largely bipartisan. They're almost equal. A little bit more on the left. So even just counting anti-science, I completely reject your claim. I think that climate change makes a huge difference. And I would like to also make this point. What are the bills that are going through Congress? And what is the harm that can be done? So think about anti-GMO. Well, there's labeling.

0:44:02 Thomas: Okay, that's not good. I'm against that. I'm far and away against labeling of GMOs. Compare that, which is bad. It's not good, but it's not life-altering. It's nicht world-changing. It has effects, but it is sticking a label on something. Vaccines. Have the Democrats been pushing any anti-vax legislation?

0:44:26 Thomas: Nothing comes to my mind. Feel free to let me know if I'm forgetting something. Then look at climate change. Yes, the Republicans are killing us on climate change, they are literally might be killing people by not stopping all efforts to curb climate change, that's a huge huge impact. And all that is just on one axis. That's just on science. So, then let's compare the far left to the far right on everything else. I had another comment, I'll mention it now, where It's by Dan on the website. They said the far left is communism and the far right is fascism. Why would anyone choose between these two options? All right, Dan, you missed the point. The point is the far left as it's active in my country. This is US centric.

0:45:11 Thomas: I don't know, Dan. It sounds like you're from the... well, you might be Canadian, it looks like, but based on your comment, but I'm talking about the far left in the US versus the far right in the U.S., because that's what this election was about. And I will take the far left every time over the far right in this country. I think the far far right is a bigger part of the right, as we've just seen with Trump. I mean, he is far right. He's legitimizing far right, his entire cabinet is far, far right with a few exceptions. So I'm not talking about, to answer Dan and to sort of also answer Carolyn's question a little bit, I'm talking about the far left as it's been the worst example in the history of the earth versus the far right as it has been the worse example in history.

0:45:57 Thomas: I'm not talking about that. I am not talking about Mussolini versus whoever. I'm talking about in our country right now, who is more influential? As Eli always points out, tell me the far-left laws that are hurting our country, like language policing, laws. There's a few examples people point to. I've already debunked them. I'm going to debunk them further in a future episode. Then you look at the far right, being against gay marriage, trans rights, stuff that's actually happening, you know, legislation that is actually happening. Abortion, they're trying, they are doing their best to restrict it, and they actually are, they succeed in restricting abortion, they shut down Planned Parenthood.

So, let's take this as a whole, left vs. right here. Sorry Carolyn, I agree with you on certain problems with the left, I'm not happy with the anti-science, I wish it was further away. I wish the left was like 100% pro-science and the right, you know, well, I wish everybody was pro- science, but I wish The Gap were bigger, I suppose is what I mean to say. And that would make me happier. That would make, sure, that would be more clear cut. The left is not perfect, but I just ran through all those numbers. I'll link them in the show notes. Even on the anti-scientist question, it's not a 50-50 thing, in my opinion.

0:47:40 Thomas: Well, that does it for today's show. I've got so much planned for next week. I'm loving this new format still. Thank you to everyone who commented and again shoot those comments to Thomas at SeriousPod.com. If you've got guest suggestions, you can shoot that to Haley at SeriusPod.com or both of us if you want either way. And I absolutely need to thank my new patrons. That is Joseph Smith Married My Wife.

0:48:06 Thomas: Great name. Blackhawks Greater Than Sharks. We'll see. Is that a duplicate or did you un-pledge and re-plege? Either way, thank you for the pledge. Darren Holmes, Matthew Staton, StinkVomit. It's a pleasant, very pleasant name. Laura Miller, Julie Barks, Aaron Rabinowitz, and Andrew Snider. Thank you for being my new pledges this week. Very much appreciated over at patreon.com/seriouspod. It is the way you can support the show, the way You can keep me being able to do this as my job and also employ Haley, which is a big, big plus to the show. So thank you so much for your support. And now's that time I've got to thank my top patrons, and they are...

Matt Garrett, Dale, Brian Garefort, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigman, Adrian Borschoff, Roger Metcalf, Adam Hicks, Detective Matthew Maxson, Andrew Waddington, David at TheRamblingBlog.com, Zabby, Matthew Staton, Ian Rosano, Jonathan Moyet, Kaylee Reiser, Jesse, Sakashite Fukasumi, Michael, Sammy, and Hunter Ashe. Thank you so much for being my top, top patrons. You really do make the show happen. I mean that. If it weren't for you guys, the show would not happen and I would very depressingly have to return to my day job. And that's not something any of us want. Let's face it. So really excited about where the show is going, about the voicemails. That's really fun. A cool component of it, being able to respond to comments and stuff and having one show a week where we can do a format like this.

0:49:38 Thomas: I'm enjoying it. I've gotten a lot of positive comments, so I think that means you're enjoying it too. And it allows us to flex our research muscles. Big thanks, of course, to production assistant Haley with that. All right. That's all I've got for you this week. I will see you next week with some more great episodes. Awesome interviews planned. Not sure which one's going to make it for Monday's episode, but really good stuff. I'm excited about both of them. See you then.