SIO16: Debunking Liberal Fake News

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 16, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, it's Free Inquiry Thursday for you, so I've got a few things to talk about. First off, some minor news items related to the Trump White House. But the main focus today is going to be liberal fake news. Do we have a problem? Do we more of a problem now, in light of the election? I want to take a look. I like to be fair on this show. And while I do admit and I think it's necessary right now to focus on the administration in power and to not falsely equivocate between left and right, I do think that that doesn't mean that we can't take a hard look at ourselves from time to time, of course. And we should. That also, I got another question for you. Should we all just calm down? Do we all need to calm down a bit?

0:01:19 Thomas: Piers Morgan said on real-time, and speaking of real-time, do we need to be pissed at Bill Maher for inviting Milo Yiannopoulos on? I think that's going to be next week, so lots to talk about. Let's move on over to it.

0:01:39 Thomas: Hey, we can officially say my prediction that everyone would get in in Trump's cabinet is officially wrong, even though I was already wrong, and that's cool if you already thought I was wrong because somebody who wasn't really on my radar withdrew their name from nomination, but now someone who was on my radar, Puzder, he did not get in, he has withdrawn his name from consideration after Republicans in enough numbers did not like his horrible past. Actually, I just saw something a little funny about it, that senators from both parties privately screened a videotape from the Oprah Winfrey show that featured his ex-wife laying out the charges against him while in disguise. Even though she recanted charges of abuse and stuff, she went on Oprah to talk about them in disguise, so this is a victory, and I'm glad to be wrong.

0:02:32 Thomas: You know, my pride will point out that I was right in the major cases, Betsy DeVos and others, Tillerson and all that. But that's OK. I'm glad to be wrong because that means one horrible person will not be in a position of power. Of course, you'll remember that Puzder is the CEO of Carl's Jr. And I think it's called Hardee's in the East Coast or something? I, I don't know. It's called Carl's Jr. where I am. And people were not a fan of him and his sexist ads, for one, but also his crusade against minimum wage and overtime rules. And basically he was someone who, he was an outsider who was going to come shake up the labor department by doing basically horrible things that would only benefit big business and would not benefit, you, the little guys who, who allegedly were the ones that Trump was supposed to support.

0:03:25 Thomas: So he was awful. I'm good riddance. I am glad he didn't get in. Now is the time where a dose of reality, because Trump can just find someone who is just as bad but with a cleaner reputation. He can find someone with just as good of ideals and just as harmful of a message and an agenda, but maybe someone with a little bit better of a resume and not so many ex-wives with allegations of abuse and stuff like that, and they will get right in. So, you know, it is a victory. I'm glad. Fight Trump everywhere we can. Fight his awful nominees everywhere we can. And it's a bit of a victory, I'm glad. The more things to also, let's not discount the impact that this is having on Trump, because Trump is not a normal president.

0:04:12 Thomas: Duh. Understatement of the century. But he is particularly embattled right now. And he is so sensitive. He is so sensitive that I think he slips up and he's prone to being even worse and saying even more ridiculous things when challenged. And so, yeah, sure, even if Puzder will be replaced with a two, you cut off the head of Puzder and then there's two Puzder heads right after him. Even if that's the case, I think there's a benefit to fighting these people just, just on principle, of course, and moral grounds, but also the impact it will have on Trump as Trump the man, because he is just so sensitive. He is just so thin-skinned that any challenge to him, I think it impacts him.

0:05:00 Thomas: And I look forward to, as Democrats, those who listen who are Democrats, and if you're a Republican even who doesn't support Trump, maybe, I look forward to being that thorn in his side with fighting him everywhere we can. So to anyone who called their representative regarding this and DeVos and everything else, congratulations to you. Keep it up. Keep up that fight.

In other news around Trump corruption, you may have seen the Flynn resignation, and this could, this could end up being a pretty big deal now, again, as, as we always have to, especially over on Opening Arguments, Andrew's got to dump the cold water all over us whenever we're, we're just on the verge of thinking Trump is going to be, uh, impeached, uh, yep, Republicans probably won't do that, but you never know, it's getting close, with this stuff with Russia is so bad, reports are out now, and this is New York Times, this is not fake news, we are going to discuss some liberal fake news in a minute, but this is not fake new, New York times, it is confirmed that Trump aides during the campaign were we're talking to Russian intelligence, which just think about that. I mean, could you imagine? I know we always do this. We always do This.

But this is a particular time where it makes sense to ask, could You imagine if this were the other way around? If Republicans pre the Putin intervention and Putin apparently being Republicans best friend, you know, a few years ago, picture Hillary aides being caught talking to Russian intelligence. I mean, that would be that would literally be calls for treason.

0:06:38 Thomas: There already were, for nothing. But in addition to that, this would, that would be substantive calls for treason. And it is. I mean, Russia is I mean they're not our friend, you know, and it's amazing that Republicans of all people would lose sight of that. And as you heard Trump the the other week, equivocating between Russia and the U.S. Like, oh, you heard it. You probably heard it in the news when he, in that interview, when asked him, so Putin, you know, he has people killed. He's a bad guy, don't you think? And Trump says, well, you think we're so great? Which is something you would expect from a hardcore leftist, like maybe Noam Chomsky or something. You would not expect that from Republicans because it would be unheard of and Republicans. Remember Obama's a quote unquote apology tour where he said, oh, mistakes have been made.

0:07:28 Thomas: And that was looked at as some treasonous message that Obama was just apologizing for the U.S. And to hear Trump say that, it really is incredible. But this, this story about Flynn resigning, it could be a big deal. You know, I think that if I'm seeing some way, I don't, we don't know yet now, but I'm seen some indication that there may be Republicans interested in actually investigating this and actually doing their job and looking into ethics violations, which I think that'll be what it'll take. I mean, if we can get some investigations going somehow, maybe with enough Republicans with a conscience, I think, because somebody in the Trump administration, if not Trump himself, somebody is going to lie. Somebody is going get caught in a lie to the FBI or whoever it is, which that is actually usually enough to end someone's political career.

0:08:20 Thomas: I mean, lying under oath or something, that's going to be the ticket. But the bottom line is, I'm going to give this message every week. Apologies, but it's very short and it's very important. This message every week until 2018, and probably beyond, we need to vote in 2018. We need to take control of the House and Senate so that we can hold these people accountable for what they've done. I mean, by the time it gets to 2018, can you imagine the backlog of scandal and just unlawful activity, that that an unethical activity that Trump and his administration are going to have under their belts? I mean, we will finally be able to hold him accountable, and it won't be fake bullshit like Benghazi. It'll be real stuff, you know. So anyway, that's my message. Let's stay fired up. And with that, let's get to the main story of the day, which is some liberal fake news examples.

0:09:19 Thomas: So, I saw an interview with someone at Snopes, and they talked about, ever since the election, because of the result of Trump winning, that there has been a huge influx of fake news. Now, I've talked a lot about the fact that I think there was a disproportionate amount, like that there's no equivocating between left and right on fake news, so I thought. Lot. But I worry, and I still believe that mostly, but I worry that maybe it's more of a function of who's in power, or at least strongly influenced by who's power. Because this influx of fake news that came after the election was all from the left. It was a lot of stuff like Trump literally about to be arrested.

0:10:05 Thomas: You know, Trump, oh, he broke this law, did this. All this stuff that actually didn't turn out to be true. He wasn't arrested, obviously. And it really has me worried that it's maybe more a matter of who's in power. And the fact that Obama was in power for eight years is maybe what caused such a fake news crisis on the right. I mean, on the whole, I still believe, for the most part, that the fake news on the left is less, and I think it's less egregious, news about someone as awful as Trump about to be arrested is far more in the realm of reality than, say, you know, Hillary murdering a person or having a child sex ring in a pizza parlor or whatever.

0:10:53 Thomas: I mean, I, I still think there is a difference and there's an important difference, but that being said, I want, I wanna be fair and I want my side. Here's what I want as someone who, especially now, if we lived in a different, by the way, if politics were a little different in our country, if we lived in a different country in a different time where the decision between left and right was really on a few, few fiscal issues, could see being far more in the middle, but it's just we don't live in that world. We live in a country right now where Trump is president, of course, and there's just no excuse in my mind to not be fully behind the Democrats for at least the next four years until we can get rid of this person.

0:11:38 Thomas: So that being said. I would prefer my current side, which is the Democrats, I want them to be as skeptical, as rational, as well-informed as possible, so that we have better fuel to criticize the other side. So, in that spirit, let's talk a little bit about this interview. It's Brooke Binkowski, she's the managing editor of Snopes. She was interviewed by The Atlantic, and, you know, she made a point here that I think I think is a little weak. She said, even people who are sending around these stupid stories that are complete BS, and she's of course speaking about liberals in this case, they would latch on to actual news, not conspiracy theories, if there was more actual news out there.

0:12:24 Thomas: I think that people are going about the fake news issue the wrong way. Pinching off fake news isn't the answer. The answer is flooding it with actual news. And that way people will continue looking looking for information and they will find vetted, nuanced, contextual, in-depth information. So that's a quote from this interview. And I have to say, I think she's letting people off the hook a little too much because go to newyorktimes.com. There's stories all day. It's no longer like, oh, there's one newspaper that someone delivers you in the morning and that's your news for the day. There are stories on New York Times all day, there are people tweeting like Maggie Haberman, I think her name is that covers Trump and others. There are people covering this stuff all day, giving you real actual news. And the New York Times is not perfect.

0:13:10 Thomas: No, no human thing is perfect. They make mistakes, but they have a very high average and they still have the institutions in place to fact check. And I just think that Brooke Binkowski, though, I like the fact that she is, she's calling out this liberal fake news. But I think she's making a bit of an error there in logic. There is plenty of real news. The problem is people share the fake news that appeals to their biases. When we see Trump about to be arrested, we think, yeah, he should be arrested. No, again, I think we're more in line with reality when we say that Obama's a lizard person or the Antichrist or something. But still, there is so much wishful thinking, and I've seen it. I really think we are fortunate as a community, you listeners and anyone who listens to Opening Arguments.

0:14:00 Thomas: I think we're all fortunate to have a legal expert, again, certainly a human, certainly fallible sometimes, but having Andrew Torrez's Harvard Law education to help navigate us through legal issues over on Opening Arguments because a lot of the fake news I've seen, or not so much fake news as inaccurate stories and inaccurate law reporting, that is really, my eyes have been opened to that through Andrew. Drew, because, for example, we talked about in this week's Tuesday episode of Opening Arguments, we talked About the Muslim Ban, it's getting reported all kinds of places as Trump's Muslim ban declared unconstitutional. That is absolutely not what happened. Now, you likely listened to Opening Argments, I'm sure. We have a very similar audience, but maybe you don't.

0:14:47 Thomas: That's not what happens. His Muslim ban was not declared unconstitutional. That's not, that's just not procedurally what happened. That's yet, it's yet to be ruled on by the three-judge panel. It might go to an en banc ruling, possibly where they bring in all the judges in the in the court, but in the Ninth Circuit. But they haven't done that yet. So that's that's an error of reporting. And it's kind of crucial. And I'll tell you why. Because when let's say the ruling on its constitutionality goes in in favor of Trump, which it could, it totally could. It might not because there's some, and it's going to come down to, listen to Tuesday's episode, but it's gonna come down to just how poorly the executive order was executed, just complete incompetence in the Trump administration. However, barring that incompetence, it may be found constitutional, it may stand up, and then what?

0:15:38 Thomas: And then you've reported, found unconstitutional, and And then, you know, when the next decision comes, what are you reporting then? Oh, not found unconstitutional a second time. You know, like that's wrong. You were just wrong to say that the first time. I think a Mother Jones headline comes to mind, and I think there were others. And in Andrew's opinion, basically most of the media is reporting this incorrectly. So we just need to be careful. I think we need to have the right information. And as far as Brooke Binkowski's point that we need need to flood it with actual news. There is actual news, it's there. She's wrong in that, actually. I think the actual news is there. You can't just say, oh, there's not enough real facts today. It's a slow news day. So, you know, therefore I'm going to go and share this thing about Trump being arrested or whatever the fake liberal version is.

0:16:27 Thomas: That's not an excuse. It just isn't. We need to apply skepticality to everything and make sure, especially when something confirms our biases. When we see a story and it just makes us think, oh, yes, that makes me feel good as a liberal. Oh, I love that story. That's when you need, maybe it's true. It doesn't mean it's 100% false all the time but uh that's when you really need to be uh skeptical. Okay, let's look at some stories. First one, uh, you may have seen this, and I hope that you're like me and that you might have thought some of these were true or just not thought much about it, but now, hopefully, this will, uh- this will correct all of us on this. You may have see, right after the election, a spike in transgender teen suicides.

0:17:13 Thomas: Well, this is unsubstantiated. This is merely- there's no real source here. This was a post that was like a Tumblr post that went viral that just said, you know, eight people dead, update, uh, one on life support, you know, like things to kind of make it seem legitimate, and there's just no substantiation, no one has actual uh corresponding evidence for this, uh, it seems as though somebody just made it up and people shared it because it's compelling, it's emotional, uh, and and it fits our biases. But this is not substantiated that there was like some mass teen LGBT or transgender suicide right after Trump was elected. That's unsubstantiated. So, I, that's fake news. I mean, it's it's not enough to say, like, oh, well, this seems legitimate and you don't have any proof.

0:17:59 Thomas: No, you don't have any proof. That's not real news. And I know it's a Tumblr post, but it's a Tumbler post that got reported and turned into real news, which I think is how a lot of this happens. Like, for example, Policy Mike, or Mike.com, which is, unfortunately, I think that is a source of a lot of liberal exaggerations or fake news. They had a story, now part of the story I think was true, and a great thing to point out, that there were more calls to crisis hotlines, and maybe some of those talks and some of the people were suicidal, maybe, if that's the story, nothing wrong with that, if you have evidence for it. But in that story, there were some of the tweets included that referenced these suicides with no substantiation.

0:18:45 Thomas: So they were shared very widely. And so there you go. I mean, that's something that, all we know, didn't happen. And I think if it did happen by now, we would have pretty good substantiation, but there just isn't. Here's the next story, and this, I wouldn't, I would not classify this as fake news, so to be fair, I'm going to call this something that was widely believed but was sort of a theory, and then once the theory was pretty much proven incorrect, for the most part, I mean, it's not a hundred percent, but once it was debunked for the the most part, uh, I don't think many people knew about that and it wasn't covered. And, and in a lot of liberals' minds, I'm guessing they're still going to think the original story was true. So, but I'm not going to call it fake news, just so you know, but here's the story.

0:19:31 Thomas: You may have, you may have heard this. It was election results in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania may have been hacked. And it's because there was some, some academics. So I'll I'll read a little blurb here. Last Thursday, the activists held a conference call with Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta and campaign general counsel Mark Elias to make their case. According to a source briefed on the call, the academics presented findings showing that in Wisconsin, Clinton received 7% fewer votes in counties that relied on electronic voting machines compared with counties that use optical scanners and paper ballots. So the reason I'm not going to call this fake news because these people did find some interesting data. And I think there were some academics involved. There were, and this wasn't just made up. People looked at the data and it seemed to be true that in these counties that had electronic voting machines, Clinton was receiving somewhat consistently lower voting.

0:20:26 Thomas: So that's something to look into. However, FiveThirtyEight debunked it pretty thoroughly. What they did was, we separated out, here's a quote, we separated out two of the main factors that we know drove differences in voting results, the share of each county's population age 25 and older with a college degree, and the share of the county that is non-white, no apparent correlation between voting method and outcome in six of the eight states, and a thin possible link between voting method and results in Wisconsin and Texas.

So once they controlled for other variables, essentially, once they controlled for demographics, that virtually completely explained away the difference. And the remainder of the difference is pretty low and within statistical norms. What really happened is that demographically, people showed up a little differently in those counties, and that's not hacking, and so I don't blame people for looking into it at all, but I think that we needed to perpetuate the debunking a little better, because I'm I had a vague idea that this was still a story, I hadn't seen the debunken, and I'm glad I have now, and, so that's just something to keep in mind.

End All right, next story is one that I definitely thought was real, and maybe you will too, and this is in the Washington Post, so this is a bit of a higher level fake news story here, and this one I would say, I would rate as, again, not exactly fake news, it's not lizard people material, so I apologize, I am using the term fake news a little loosely, misleading, and sort of not not properly researched and vetted.

0:22:02 Thomas: Uh, so again, just to emphasize, this is not the same as the Hillary killed a person and, and the child sex rape bullshit. It's not the same as that. I'm not trying to say it is as bad. These are just things to keep in mind so that we're all on, uh, we, we all have the facts and that our side can be as factual and as skeptical as possible. So here's a misleading story. The state department's entire senior administrative team just resigned. I saw this. I thought this was real. It's in the Washington Post. And it is sort of true. So I'll just read the first paragraph here of the Washington Post story. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don't want to stick around around for the Trump era.

0:22:55 Thomas: Tillerson was actually inside the State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom on Wednesday, taking meetings and getting the lay of the land, etc., etc. So that's the indication it gets. It goes on and it gives you the indication that these people all quit mass exodus kind of in protest of Tillerson. Well, it turns out that's not really how it works. It turns out. That it's actually a tradition. It's how it's usually done that when a new administration comes in, all these people in these positions offer their letters of resignation because when a new administration comes into office, they hire their own people. That's how it works. And so the tradition is they offer their resignations. Some of them are accepted. Some of them aren't. Sometimes the new administration will keep certain people on, but it's sort of up to them.

0:23:40 Thomas: The ball is in their court. So this wasn't some diss. I'll read a CNN, actually- actually fake news, CNN, quote unquote actually debunked this a little bit. Here's a quote: "Here any implication that these four people quit is wrong. These people are loyal to the secretary, the president, and to the State Department. This is just not- any attempt here to diss the president, people are not quitting and running away." And discuss, this is the White House cleaning house. So, these it says further, these positions are political appointments and require the president to nominate in the Senate to confirm them in these roles. They are not career appointments, but limited term. Of the officers whose resignations were accepted, some will continue to work in foreign service in other positions, and others will retire by choice or because they have exceeded the time limits of their grade in service.

0:24:27 Thomas: So did you catch that? So they may move somewhere else in foreign services. They might just not be in these senior positions because a new administration, and we would want this to be true if Hillary had won over a Republican or next time, next election, when a Democrat beats Trump, if Trump's even still in office, which I don't think he will be in 2020, but we'll see. When that would happen, we would want this to be true. We would, as Democrats, I say we, again, might be some Republicans listening, but if you are, bear with me. You would want it to be truth for when your side gets in office that these top positions, they resign because you get to put in your people. So that was a misleading story by the Washington Post. I think it was quite misleading. I, for one, like I said, I, for one did believe it was some protest where everybody was going to just leave and, and Tillerson was going to have an impossible time because nobody would be left, you know, in these key positions.

0:25:24 Thomas: Nope. I think that was, I think I was a bit misleading. Ooh, next story, I think this might be the most interesting, and again, thanks to Haeley for this research, and this was her favorite. So this story was, a woman dies because of the Muslim travel ban. This was reported on like a Fox affiliate, also reported on Huffington Post. Woman dies because a Muslim travel band. Now, here's here, I'll read a little blurb from the original story. Story. A local business owner who flew to Iraq to bring his mother back home to the U.S. for medical treatment said she was blocked from returning home under President Trump's ban on immigration and travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations. He said that while she was waiting for approval to fly home, she died from an illness.

0:26:10 Thomas: Turns out her son actually lied about when she died to the news. So in reality, the woman was already being treated for kidney disease in in Michigan. She had gone to visit family in Iraq and had gotten ill and died there January 22nd, five days before the executive order that restricted her travel. And the funny thing is the person who debunked this was actually the imam at the guy's mosque. So this is, it's too bad that this imam isn't being given credit for this, you know, contrary to the right-wing view that Muslims are all horrible people and would make up stuff like this, the imam actually debunked it. And that, I say actually, I mean, that would be a decent thing that we should expect a normal person to do.

0:26:56 Thomas: If someone is lying about when their mom died for political purposes, I would hope that any decent person who had this information would come out with it. And this imam did. Now, I want to say something about this story, though. And again, like most of these stories, like most of the liberal versions, this is a plausible story. This is not an immediately something you would hear and think this is impossible. This ist certainly possible. It's merely a matter of luck that someone didn't die as a result of this executive order. So, once again, I know I'm doing this a lot, but this just shows that I do believe that overall this liberal view of reality is closer to actual reality than a right-wing view that believes horrible, ridiculous stuff about Obama and Hillary.

0:27:49 Thomas: And I just want to make that point because, again, it is merely a stroke of luck that this executive order didn't happen to kill anyone in this way, very easily could have, but still need to do our vetting. And when something is debunked, we should spread that it is. We should make sure that the corrections are noted as loudly as the original errors. I think that's very important in something that doesn't happen. Even if something is corrected, this happens a lot in science, too. When there's a study that comes out, when it's later disproven or not replicated, that doesn't get as much press. So those studies are just go down in everyone's minds as, oh, yeah, that happened. Same with this kind of thing. So I think that's important. Alright, our final story. Our final fake-ish misleading news.

0:28:36 Thomas: This one is actual fake news, I think. This is one is, it's in the realm of reality, but it's pretty fake. I think this one's pretty bad. And it comes from a website called Alternative Media Syndicate. So, you know, there's a reason that we don't really want to trust alternative media, somewhat. I mean, be skeptical of everybody, of course, but places like the New York Times, and I would say Washington Post, but, you you know, hey, they were in this too.

So for now, New York Times has the best batting average that I know of. But anyway, this story, it's still up actually. It says, "Police raid Standing Rock camp, dismantle teepees, and burn what remains." And this turns out just to not be true. It's merely fake. And one of the screenshots that was used as a photo in support of this turned out to to be a photograph from the set of HBO production, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, which is a historical drama about Native Americans in the American West in the 1860s and 70s.

So totally fake, a fake photo from a show, TV show set. So that is, that is definitely fake news material. This didn't happen. I mean, sure, some things have been going on in the protests, of course, but that's been a difficult one. I think there's been a lot of misleading news about that. Not to say that everything's going swimmingly. You know, it's not going great and there are certainly problems, but that's a situation where there's so much passion and anger and everything that I think people are particularly prone to believing anything they see if it fits their biases. So this didn't happen.

0:30:15 Thomas: Police did not raid and burn and knock over teepees and all this stuff. That didn't happen. So rest assured there. Alright, last thing, this is not a fake news story now, I'm done with that, but I wanted to talk about Piers Morgan and Jim Jefferies on Bill Maher. I watch Bill Maer every week, I look forward to it every week. I love that he tends to have Republicans on. Speaking of that, that is something I'm trying to do. I'm actually, well, I don't want to jinx it, it hasn't recorded yet, I have an interview scheduled with a Trump supporter who you will likely know. Know. And I want to try to do more of that because I'm tired of the echo chamber. I think I've definitely let it happen a little because of how just frustrated I am with the results of the election.

0:31:02 Thomas: But I don't want to merely be an echo chamber, that's why I play critical voicemails and read critical messages, as in messages that are critical of me or my opinions. I want I want to keep my opinions in check as much as I can. It doesn't mean I'll change my mind necessarily, but I want to make sure that my listeners are at least hearing the other side and can evaluate for themselves. That's something I really pride myself on doing. I want make sure I do more. So that's why I do enjoy Bill Maher's show quite a bit for that reason. Now Piers Morgan came on the show and I'm gonna play a two-minute clip It gives you the the bulk of what happened I just want to point out that before this There was already quite a bit of Piers Morgan saying everyone needed to calm down. So this didn't all just happen at once, in case you didn't see it. But let me play this clip, and you can hear for yourself, and then I'm going to talk about it briefly.

0:32:01 Clip: Let me ask this one last question. The people who said during the campaign that Hillary Clinton was the lesser of two evils, could we get the apology right now? Why? Why? Why? As if, are you serious? I'm serious, yeah. Like Hillary Clinton would have a cabinet with Betsy DeVos and fucking Rick Perry? She wouldn't have a Muslim ban. Go on. They wouldn't a Muslim Ban? They wouldn' be feuding with everybody in the world? They wouldn't be doing this show in Russia. Are you crazy? Calm down though.

There is no Muslim ban if there was Sorry About the hysteria I'm talking about 85% You say he hasn't done this he hasn' done that he's not gonna do all these things give him a fucking chance mate You know what I mean? Why not? He didn't kill the Jews on the first day. He worked up to it. See, that is the exact ridiculous, hysterical, over-the-top nonsense that is on the street making people like you look ridiculous. He's not the new Hitler. You just like that you won The Apprentice and you have a famous friend, mate. That's all you fucking like. Can I say one thing? I know you're losing your audience, because you're sounding unpleasant, and you're also not basically right.

0:33:41 Thomas: And here's the thing, first off, I have so much to say about this, but Piers Morgan said, I forget if it was in this clip or earlier, actually, but he said, this is the reason that the Democrats lost, for this hysteria, and and not calming down, being calm was the reason the Democrats lost. That's exactly 100% the opposite of true. The Republicans won because Trump whipped up hysteria. We did not have enough, as Democrats, we did not enough enthusiasm, we didn't have enough energy. People were meh. That's the main argument that people have about Hillary, as she didn't inspire people. Being this bent out of shape and whipped up and enthusiastic is what actually wins you elections. And we will see, in 2018, the Democrats are going to make progress. Now, midterms are still a battle for Democrats.

0:34:27 Thomas: It will be an uphill battle, but I feel pretty good about it. I think that this outrage over Trump is the most positive thing. All those demonstrations, record-breaking demonstrations, the Women's March, that's what turns into action. That's what turned into votes. That is what the Tea Party did. That was the conventional wisdom of this election. The Tea Party was so effective in 2008. People who say that are right. They were effective. For being a small group of people, the Tea party was incredibly effective. Perspective. And that's what we need. And a lot of people have said this already. We need the liberal version of the Tea Party, you know, except just not insane. And this calming down is just a worthless thing. And here's what I think. Now, you could say you could argue Jim Jeffries was disrespectful. I would I would say watch the whole clip if you want.

0:35:15 Thomas: Watch the whole episode before you make that judgment, because what Piers Morgan did and what is so infuriating about what he was was doing was he kept pretending as though he was a liberal and pretending he's as though he was anti-Trump. He said, "Oh, I didn't vote for Trump, I wouldn't have voted for Trump," and then he's defending this nonsense after kind of pretending to be on that side. "Oh, it's not a Muslim ban, 85% of the world's Muslims can still get in." Okay, well, that's an insane argument. That is either a knowingly disingenuous argument or that is just downright stupid. Trump wanted to engineer a Muslim band. We have his own words, his own tweets, calling it a Muslim ban. We have Rudy Giuliani, not, not a liberal.

0:36:00 Thomas: I don't know if you know this. Rudy Giuliani, not illiberal, saying on, on TV, on television, saying Trump wanted a Muslim ban and he asked, how can we do it legally? We have this whole bullshit about, well, 85% of the world's Muslims can still get in. That doesn't mean it's not a Muslim band. That's just fallacious reasoning. All that means is that Trump protected his business interests in certain Muslim countries, but the ban was very much about banning Muslims. Now, we can argue about the merits of that and security and all that, but to deny that it's a Muslim ban is merely a Trump talking point. That is, that is, so that is what was so frustrating about Piers Morgan, hiding behind the veneer of, oh, calm down, let's all be reasonable, and pretending, well, I do, I'm not, I know no Trump supporter myself.

0:36:49 Thomas: And then parroting Trump's bullshit rhetoric and these bullshit arguments. That is what inspired that reaction in Jim Jeffries. And sure, he was a little colorful and a little angry, but in my mind, totally warranted. If you're not disagreeing with the content, if you're sitting over there and saying, sure, I dislike Trump just as much as you, but let's all calm down about it, you're merely policing someone's behavior, like you're just tone policing, you are just telling someone else they need to act a certain way because you don't like the way that they are acting, and that's just critiquing someone's personality, there's no substance there, just because someone might be a more calm kind of person who doesn't get fired up, that's that's fine. You can be that, uh, as long as you're still, you know, doing everything you can to fight against Trump.

0:37:37 Thomas: You're, you're okay in my book, but, but if you're fired up, if you're marching, if you're, if you're worried, uh, you have a lot of legitimate concerns about the country and the world under Trump. I mean, big things might happen. I don't- he's not Hitler and I get that. That's the, that's, that's the thing that always happens. The first one to bring up Hitler loses.

However, it does illustrate the point that being fired up is not bad when you're trying to resist someone you view as a great harm. That's not the problem. Being fired up isn't the problem. And he's exactly wrong when he says that that's what lost it for the Democrats. It's exactly wrong, 100% the opposite of what lost for the Democrat. So very infuriating. This is is a contentless message, just merely saying calm down is is just It's not, it's, there's no content there. You're just policing someone's personality and policing how, how they want to express themselves. Do you, do you go at a sports game and tell people, calm down, calm down, I know you like the team, I know he might be a Patriots fan, calm down, can we all just calm? No, it's infuriating.

That's not, that doesn't, you can calm down if you want, you can not cheer for sports, and if someone is being abusive to you or something, you can tell them to stop. But just policing someone else's reaction in that way is nothing. It's just irritating. So I saw that. Now, briefly, I to talk about the fact that it just has been reported that Bill Maher invited Milo Yiannopoulos onto his show. I don't know if that's this week. I assume it is, but I haven't seen the details or I don't know if they're ironed out yet.

0:39:12 Thomas: But I will say this, that gravely disappoints me. And I do know that Bill Maher is someone who, while I don't think he's fully on this free speech fake battle, that I think is pretty much like the equivalent of the war on Christmas. I don't think it really exists. I think it's just a few people here and there and the rest is bullshit. I do know that Marr is susceptible to being pretty fired up about campus protests and that kind of thing. And I think he's reasonable to a degree about some of the disinvitations, because I don't agree with colleges disinviting certain people just because of the little protest. I think, have the person speak, but also have the protest. I think that's both – both of it is free speech. But anyway, I worry.

0:39:57 Thomas: But I'm going to watch it. I'm not going to judge Bill Maher before it happens. Maybe he will do his research on Milo. Maybe. Maybe I I'm, I'm worried, but I hope he will do his research and see that Milo has awful views and is just an awful person and, and we'll at least challenge him a little. So I I'M worried, BUT I'M, I'M GOING TO WATCH IT. I JUST HOPE THAT HE DOESN'T NOT DO HIS RESEARCH AND FALL INTO LINE WITH JUST, UH, BUYING INTO MILO'S BULLSHIT NARRATIVE. I,I REALLY HOPE HE DOesN'T. But I will say in support of my hope that he'll do his research, he didn't know who Milo was, he referenced Milo on a previous show and didn't how to pronounce his name, said something like, oh I'm not totally sure, you know, he's not, I know that he doesn't know it intimately, so he's not inviting Milo because he's a huge Milo fan, I think he doesn' quite know and I just hope that he does his research.

0:40:50 Thomas: I really do and we'll see, so disappointing, I really am disappointed, I'm kind of worried that he's going to give them a platform to just spout nonsense. I hope that doesn't happen, but we'll see. So that's my thoughts on that. And now let's get to some of your voicemails.

0:41:09 Clip: 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.

0:41:24 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, I live in the Pacific Northwest. Just wanted to say, I was listening to the most recent episode of SIO. Love the show, by the way. And I love the linguistic talk you were doing on pronouns, nouns. My best friend, he has a bachelor in linguistics, and just kind of interesting topic towards the end when you were talking about double negatives and how you don't like the word here regardless and won't use it. I'm a Spanish learner myself and was telling my linguistic friend how uncomfortable I found it using double negatives in Spanish, because in Spanish, when you want to express a negative sentence, you use double negatives. And he was telling me how English is actually pretty uncommon in that we don't use double negatives.

0:42:15 Voicemail: In a lot of other languages, they're common. That's how you express a negative sentence. So like in Spanish, to say I'm not going to say anything, that sentence would be literally translated as I'm going to not going say nothing. Just interesting. So he told me not to fear so much the double negative and and thought I'd throw that out there. Anyway, love the show, Thomas. Keep up the good work. Thanks. My name's Greg. I'm from Adelaide, South Australia. Hey, look, love the show. Been a long-time listener and like the change in name. Hey, look, I'm just catching up on some shows and the discussion with Kavin Senapathy, there was a few inaccuracies in it that I'd really like you to delve into. One, she stated that no farmer has been sued by Monsanto. I said that's the case of Percy Schmeiser. The canola farmer from Saskatchewan. Secondly, bananas, there's well over 500 different species. They would have been eaten for thousands of years. It wasn't about splicing that changed the taste in them. Thirdly, Vandana Shiva is someone who I think that you should interview.

0:43:41 Voicemail: She is a geneticist and an amazing scientist who talks about GMOs and the myths. Fourthly, that there is a massive difference between hybridisation and GMOs. Fifthly, I'm an organic farmer and I can tell you that the difference between pesticide use on conventional farms and organics is massively different, and it depends on whether it's a chemical input or whether it is a natural input. So that was again with some misinformation, information that was related on there. And the Terminator gene, you didn't talk about the Terminator gene, whereby farmers who have been saving seeds for thousands of years can no longer save seeds because of companies like Monsanto, who really don't have the interest of farmers or food production in mind, it's definitely corporate profits.

0:44:37 Voicemail: And lastly and not leastly, the lack of food in our society is not a lack of food, it is distribution and capitalism, and where we see 70% of the world's food harvest being going to feed animals rather than to feeding people, and distribution is held up because of the same system that we live under. GMOs are not the answer, um, I do understand that there's manipulations that are important, but when you're mixing species, that is not good for humans, that has not been tested properly. So please, please look up all this stuff if you get a chance. And again, look, thanks for the a great show, mate. Yeah, I run a radio show called Bertrand Russell's Cat here in South Australia. It's a sceptical atheist podcast thing. But anyway, thought I'd say hi, and yeah, cheers for the great work.

0:45:36 Thomas: Right. Thanks for those messages. I appreciate a ton, again, if you have any opinions on the show. It's a really cool way to have them be heard by lots and lots of people. So, nine one six seven five zero four seven four six. Okay, as for the voice mailers there, the first one was Pete, and yeah, interesting comment about double negatives. I think that's yet again more interesting perspective. However, I will still say that that means there are rules in that language. So for Spanish, if you don't use that double negative like you said you were having problems with, you're wrong not to. Like the meaning, people won't know what you mean, because there's a set of rules in that language. And so my point is, I will never, still never accept irregardless because it breaks the rules.

0:46:24 Thomas: You know, it's not, we have rules, damn it. Am I the only one who cares about the rules? Spanish, you could still be wrong as regards those rules. And in English, I think you still can be too, especially when it's inherent in one word. And we already have, it's clearly a mix-up of two words. I will never accept it.

If dictionaries want to, and when I'm dead, later generations can go ahead and accept that irregardless somehow is a word, they can, I guess, and I will be dead. So, that's my solution to that problem. I don't care. It's a mistake. I'll never accept It. But thanks. Now Okay.

As for Greg's comment, okay, so, Greg, I gotta say, and listeners, I have to say, I strongly, strongly disagree with most of what you said in your comment, so I wanna make sure I'm not endorsing that, it's, I think you have a pretty anti-science position, I think that, uh, you're under some misconceptions, this is my opinion, of course, I've talked to Kevin Folta, I'v talked to others, uh and I've done some reading, and, and I can't address everything in your, in call, because Because you're right. I think I need to do another episode. Because you know what? I feel like, Greg, if anything, thanks for calling. Thanks for listening. I'm glad you do. And I feel that I could maybe reach you and people like you.

Maybe if I get the right guests, if I make the right points, if they make the right points. So that's good. That's encouraging. And I'm Glad that you're someone who likes the show. And I am glad that you expressed your opinion. So it gives me a chance to do some research. And who knows? Maybe I'll be wrong, but from what I've read and the guests I've had on, I disagree with you.

0:48:04 Thomas: For the Kavin episodes, yeah, I'm gonna look elsewhere for GMO expertise in the future. But I don't think she said no farmer has been sued, and I actually brought that up. Because, and and I'll just, I'll speak for myself. So I never said that no farmer had been sued, but the storyline that people have, people fed me in college, I'll just, again, speaking for myself, the misconception I was under, and I think you're under this misconception too, possibly, and I know a lot of people are, because I was, and the people in, when I was in college who were convincing me of this were pretty numerous. Uh, people were under the impression that what was happening was, uh, someone was accidentally getting Monsanto seeds in their crops, you know, mixed in accidentally, the wind blew it over, and then Monsanto was suing them out of existence.

0:48:54 Thomas: That's not what happened. And here's what I think is interesting. You brought up the, uh... an an example, Percy Schmeiser. It's funny because his Wikipedia so clearly states what actually happened. So, uh, yes, part of Monsanto's genetically modified crops grew near his farm is right in the Wikipedia. You can look it up. They were growing near his firm. He He found that they were good, like they were a superior crop because they were roundup ready or whatever, so he intentionally, and he admitted this in testimony, so this is not the Monsanto official story or something, in testimony he admitted that he took the crop intentionally and planted it on purpose in his farm.

0:49:40 Thomas: So something wound up near his farm, a product, a crop that is proprietary. He intentionally took it and stole it and used it. It would be like if someone's file, computer file that was copyright protected, ended up on my computer, maybe accidentally. And I took it, and I thought, oh, I'm going to copy this and sell it. That's illegal. I mean, I know, you know, we don't some people don't like that. Some people like piracy. And sure, we are. We've we've all stolen files time from time to time. But I mean that is illegal. That's a lot different than saying giant company Monsanto goes and sues little small innocent farmers out of existence.

0:50:25 Thomas: And what you'll find is if you do the research is that Monsanto, yeah, they've had some lawsuits, but that, well, for one, they won on this ruling. The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in favor of Monsanto. Now, that's a close ruling, and I'm curious as to why it would be so close. It's interesting. But I do think there are people who do believe that you should not ever be able to to patent anything like genetic. And I just, I don't quite see it that way.

I think that if a company like Monsanto, and again, that doesn't mean they're perfect. They're a big corporation. Big corporations do unethical things all the time. I would never offer a blanket apology for Monsanto or something. But in general, speaking of general principles, if a company works their ass off and spends millions of dollars or whatever, expends resources into to perfecting, inventing, you know, a product, a genetic product that is, you theirs, I believe they should be able to profit solely off of that for a certain length of time, like is the current setup. And it's in order to encourage that growth and to encourage that resource. It's the same with pharmacology and what people hate about Big Pharma, I suppose. I mean, it just costs a lot of money to do this stuff. And so therefore, they need to be able to make money eventually. It has to be able to pay off.

Otherwise, no one will do the research. Now, again, that's not a blanket endorsement of the system. That's not an endorsement of every instance of every patent of everything. I'm just saying that's a general principle that I think is okay. And if you disagree with that, that is cool. We can talk about that.

0:52:06 Thomas: But I meant to say with Kavin, and I think this was something I was saying more than she was, was that this storyline of big evil Monsanto suing little innocent farmers out of existence is just not quite right. It's inaccurate. And I had to research that to find out. I didn't know that for sure. I actually was under that impression for a while. So if you want to come at me with some different data on this, maybe you know of other instances besides this one you sent me, that's fine. Let me know. Let me just try to answer a couple other points, or at least ask some questions. So I'm curious why you are so worried about using genetics from different species. Now, first off, I want to say I believe, from what I've seen, and you can again correct me, send me an example if you disagree, but is there a GMO you're seeing where we actually spliced two different species? But anyway, even if there were, inherently I don't, it's curious to me, especially when you come from an an atheist worldview, which I know you do based on your messages.

0:53:04 Thomas: Do you think there's some magic about genes, like that would make it so genes from one species are like two different? I, you're not afraid to eat a salad that has more than one species of thing in it, but, but like combining the genetics, are you, I presumably scientists will have to know what they're doing in any case. I mean, any genetic engineering, they have to, they know what they're doing, and it has to be tested, and it is. But I wonder why you would specifically be worried about different species. I mean, that strikes me as saying like, well, if I borrow some code, some programming from one program and put it in another, that can't work. Well, it depends, I mean, if it's programmed correctly, it will, if it applies, it will, it's maybe if it's edited or grabbed in such a way and copy and pasted that it works, like there's no, the pro, the the genes themselves, I mean, they're just kind of a programming language in my mind.

0:53:57 Thomas: But let me know if you disagree with that. And again, if you have a real case, because I don't believe there is actually a case of that. I think that was something that was advertised as a possibility, but didn't actually happen yet. I would also like clarification as to how capitalism causes the distribution problem that you're talking about. If anything, capitalist societies like the US have thrived because of the systems they're in, and that's why we have so many resources. I think that capitalism is kind of irrelevant slash maybe a positive factor, quite a positive factor in food production. Section. Is there any capitalist reason why people would not want food to reach other nations? I don't really understand that, but maybe you can explain that more.

0:54:43 Thomas: We may just have to do another show on this. I don't think it's either a distribution problem or a GMO problem. I think there can be distribution problems and there's a solution. You can either expend resources moving food from one place to another, or you can make more food in another place, or you Can make food that lasts longer is more nutritious, is healthier for people. And I don't see why you wouldn't just do any combination of those that work. I don't think it's an exclusive either or problem, though. I think it's a false dichotomy, the way you've set it up. But as I said, let's talk more about this. Maybe I should get Kevin Fulta back on, because he was a great expert on it. Um, I can try to look for a contradicting expert as well, but I'm worried that this, this is a bit of a topic like global warming, where I don't want to set it up as two, two opposing equal sides, you know, because it's the science is not that way.

0:55:43 Thomas: You know, it doesn't quite, I'm, I am personally worried about that trap of making it appear to be a 50-50 thing when it's not. So I don't know. We'll investigate. But thank you for the call. I really appreciate it. I hope you'll keep listening, even though you disagree. That's awesome that you still listen, and I appreciate it, all right, moving on. Hey, you know, it's that time where I've got to thank my new patrons. I love you guys so much. Thank you so much for pledging over patreon.com/seriouspod. That is The Wayward Willis, Aja Joy Schindler, Jamil Bacha, Quinn Mason, I Spy, Brad Varner, and Patrick. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is, as I've said, now is more important than ever to be able to keep keep Haeley employed, be able to keep myself employed, because this is it for me.

0:56:33 Thomas: This is what I'm doing. I hope you're enjoying it. And thank you so much for supporting the efforts, especially Haeley's hard work. And, you know, I have to put some time into it myself. But thank you so many for your support. And, of course, I need to thank my all-time greats, and they are Matt Garrett, Dale, Brian Gearford, Peter Skelton, Steve Sigman, Adrian Borschoff, Roger Metcalf, Adam Hicks, Matthew Staton, David, John Bodley, Esq, Ian Ryan, Ian Rosano, Jonathan Moyet, Kaylee Reiser, Jesse Sakashite Fukasumi, Michael, Michael Schaefer, Sammy, and Hunter Ashe. Thank you, thank you, Thank you. You guys are so important to me. And you are important to the show and you make it continue.

0:57:18 Thomas: Definitely wouldn't be a show without you. And I hope patrons enjoyed the bonus content with Tim. You know, I wanted to point out that the really worthwhile topic in the bonus content that because people have asked, Sam Harris has pointed out, other people have pointed out. Hey, why didn't the Catholic Church excommunicate Hitler or the Nazis or whatever? And there's actually a pretty good answer, I think, to that.

And it has to do with how fastidious and technical Catholics can be, which, you know, certainly you can criticize that. But I think it's worth understanding what excommunication is. And it's actually not something you just do to non-Catholics who you don't like. So Tim has a good explanation there on the bonus content, as well as some great history on whether or not Pope Pius could have done more to stop the Holocaust. Cost. So definitely check that out. Hope you enjoy that as a benefit for being a patron. That's all I've got for you this week. Got some great interviews coming up and you'll have to just see which one lines up on the roulette wheel for Monday, but it'll be a good one. So thank you so much for listening and I will see you guys next week.