Ep. 1202 - The Media Is Still Lying About Michael Brown 9 Years Later. Here's Why.
Today on the Matt Walsh Show, the media and Democrat Party honored Michael Brown yesterday on the ninth anniversary of this death. Incredibly, they are still repeating all of the same lies about this case even after their false narrative has been completely debunked. Also, pro-lifers suffer a major defeat in Ohio. Now the Left and even some on the Right are saying that abortion is a losing issue for conservatives. I'll explain why they're wrong. And CNN excitedly reports on a new study which allegedly shows that "top surgery" -- cosmetic double mastectomies for trans-identified women -- have a zero percent regret rate. I will debunk this study piece by piece today. All of that and more today on the Matt Walsh Show.
Ep.1202
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Today on the Matt Wall Show, the media and Democrat Party honored Michael Brown yesterday on the 9th anniversary of his death.
Incredibly, they're still repeating all of the same lies about this case, even after their false narrative has been completely debunked.
Also, pro-lifers suffer a major defeat in Ohio.
Now the left, and even some on the right, are saying that abortion is a losing issue for conservatives.
I'll explain why they're wrong.
And CNN excitedly reports on a new study which allegedly shows that top surgery, which is cosmetic double mastectomies for trans-identified women, have a 0% regret rate.
I will debunk this ridiculous study piece by piece today.
All of that and more today on The Matt Walsh Show.
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Yesterday was the ninth anniversary of the lynching of a police officer named Darren Wilson.
On the morning of August 9, 2014, Wilson tried to detain 18-year-old Michael Brown, who had just robbed a convenience store and attacked the store clerk.
And that's when, according to the Obama DOJ, quote, Wilson and other witnesses stated that Brown reached into Wilson's SUV through the open driver's window and punched and grabbed Wilson.
Investigators made the determination by observing, quote, Bruising on Wilson's jaw and scratches on his neck, the presence of Brown's DNA on Wilson's collar, shirt, and pants, and Wilson's DNA on Brown's palm.
Brown then tried to grab Wilson's gun.
Wilson shot him.
Brown ran away, then turned around and charged at Wilson, and Wilson fatally shot Brown in self-defense.
Now, the Obama DOJ did everything it could to find some way to charge Darren Wilson, yet those were their conclusions.
Wilson did nothing wrong, much to the dismay of those who wished to sacrifice him on the altar of racial justice.
Now, despite media reports, not a single witness ever claimed that Brown said, don't shoot.
And all the witnesses who claimed that Brown's hands were in the air were either contradicted by the evidence or later recanted their testimony or both.
Those are the factual details.
And if you're so inclined, you can read the full DOJ report online and see it all laid out.
What you can't find online is what exactly happened to Darren Wilson.
His name is never mentioned in the media.
It's as if he never existed.
The handful of reports on Wilson in recent years suggest that he's living a life of anonymity in the middle of nowhere, and that he'll never be able to work as a police officer again.
His life was destroyed.
Nobody who defamed him as a racist killer ever apologized.
Nobody who took part in the destruction of an innocent man's life was ever held accountable for it.
In a country that cared about police officers, or the truth, or both, that would be a national scandal.
But we don't live in a country like that.
So instead, yesterday, the only name you heard on this anniversary was Michael Brown.
They canonized him all over again.
Here's how one local news report talked about the case.
Listen.
Happening right now, a ceremony to honor Michael Brown.
He's the teenager shot and killed by a police officer after a confrontation.
The shooting happened nine years ago today.
Brown's death sparked protests in Ferguson and all across the country.
This is a live picture from Canfield Drive where it happened.
Dozens of people have gathered to remember him.
Just moments ago, they held a moment of silence for four and a half minutes, representing the four and a half hours Brown's body laid on the street after the shooting.
The prosecutor later announced a grand jury had ruled the shooting was justified.
Charges were never filed against the officer involved.
A ceremony to honor Michael Brown, the teenager shot and killed by a police officer after a confrontation.
That's how a news station, quote unquote, is talking about a thug who attacked a store clerk and then tried to kill a police officer.
They don't mention any of those facts that we just reviewed because they're inconvenient.
Instead, the news station informs you that Brown's body laid in the street for several hours after the shooting, as if that's somehow incriminating or even relevant.
Of course, they leave out the fact that the mob that gathered made processing the crime scene so difficult that Ferguson had to call in the SWAT team to control the situation.
They don't mention all the lies that the supposed witnesses told the media, like the false claim that Michael Brown had been shot in the back.
That never happened.
It wasn't just one news station that decided to lie yesterday about this.
They all did.
Here's how the local Fox station described what happened.
Listen.
Welcome back to The 9AM.
Today marks the ninth year since the passing of Michael Brown Jr.
And this tragic incident sparked an uproar not only in Ferguson but across our nation for change against police brutality and injustice faced by African Americans.
Again, without mentioning any details of what Michael Brown actually did, we're told this case has something to do with police brutality and injustices faced by African Americans.
That intro was followed by a sympathetic clip with Michael Brown's family.
Apparently Darren Wilson's family wasn't available.
Maybe they're in hiding.
We really don't know.
What we can say for sure is that there weren't any memorial events honoring Darren Wilson yesterday in St.
Louis.
Instead, the city put on a series of events celebrating the legacy of the thug who robs stores and attacked a police officer.
Watch.
Today marks nine years since the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson.
The metro area is honoring his life today with two memorial events, and our Sydney Stallworth is live in Clayton with today's tributes.
Good morning, Sydney.
Good morning Michelle Rennie.
On August 9th, 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed in the streets of Ferguson following a confrontation with a Ferguson police officer.
Now his death sparked outrage in this community and far beyond, leading to demonstrations and calls for police reform nationwide.
In just a couple of hours, our community is going to honor Brown's life and legacy.
Now organizers for these events in his honor, Are acknowledging that this painful moment of our past can hopefully usher in a new future for our community.
The first tribute will be held on Canfield Drive in Ferguson, where Michael Brown was shot and killed.
A 4 1⁄2 minute of silence will be held there at 1115 AM to remember the 4 1⁄2 hours his body laid in the street.
Michael Brown was shot and killed following a confrontation, the reporter tells us.
So there's that word again.
It was a confrontation.
It doesn't imply any kind of fault by one side or the other.
It doesn't tell you anything.
It leaves you completely in the dark, which is the exact opposite of what the news media is supposed to do.
They just want you to know that the community came together to, quote, honor Michael Brown's life and legacy.
They don't bother explaining why Brown's life and legacy deserves to be honored.
What exactly is his legacy?
These so-called reporters, they know exactly what they're doing.
They're lying on purpose about something that anybody with a Google can prove is a lie in about five seconds.
That's all it takes.
But obviously, none of these people can think for themselves.
So the question becomes, where are they getting the idea to do it?
Well, we know that the Obama administration benefited from lying about Michael Brown all the way back in 2014, just as they benefited from lying about Trayvon Martin and all the other race hoaxes.
That's why the Obama DOJ investigated Ferguson's police department, and many other police departments, and claimed that they must be racist because they pull over more black people than white people.
It didn't matter to the DOJ, apparently, that Ferguson is an overwhelmingly black town, which might be the reason why more black people are pulled over.
They just ran with that reasoning because they knew the city didn't have the money or the PR resources to fight them.
When the city publicly announced that it disagreed with the Obama DOJ's ridiculous reasoning, the DOJ called the city racist again, just for daring to challenge their narrative.
So, you're racist, and if you deny that you're racist, then, well, that's just more evidence that you're racist.
That's basically what the DOJ said.
And again, that document is online if you want to read it.
But it still doesn't answer the question of why now?
I mean, why is the media still lying now, nine years later, about this shooting, when everyone knows they're lying?
Well, it could be that they're still taking orders from the Democrat Party, which somehow has not given up on this lie.
Squad benchwarmer Corey Bush tweeted yesterday quote today is the ninth anniversary of Mike Brown's killing
He would be alive today if the institutions of racism and white supremacy were eradicated. He should be alive today
We will never forget we will continue to fight for justice and accountability
Of course Ben Crump and various left-wing groups said more or less the same thing
But it's not just a couple of race-hustling lawyers and politicians from Missouri who are lying about Michael Brown.
The Biden administration, at the highest levels, is also portraying Michael Brown as a hero.
Again, even now, they're still doing it.
This was the State Department's new equity representative speaking yesterday as Tony Blinken looked on.
Listen to what she said.
I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that today is also the anniversary of the killing of Michael Brown, an unarmed 18-year-old black teenager whose death in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked a national outcry.
His killing, two years after that of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, was a pivotal moment in our country, prompting the need to affirm that Black Lives Matter, a slogan that has gained global resonance, not only for people of African descent.
Well, that's interesting.
The State Department, which uses coordinated disinformation campaigns to inspire color revolutions overseas with the express goal of overthrowing foreign governments, is now deliberately lying about a police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri from nine years ago.
They're telling you that an unarmed black teenager was just murdered by a cop for no reason nine years after that narrative was completely and totally debunked.
So why are they doing that?
They know exactly how destabilizing that lie has been over the past decade.
So take a look at this chart.
It shows the rate of violent crime in Ferguson over the past few decades.
And that's the red line that you can see on the chart.
It also shows you how many cases police have solved in the city over the same period of time.
And that's the green line.
So you might notice some trends there.
It's kind of hard to miss.
You see a big bump in violent crime around 2014 when the U.S.
government decided to pretend that Michael Brown was a hero, while the number of violent crime cases actually solved goes drastically in the other direction.
And you can find similar charts from every major American city that there is.
In recent years, police were either defunded or scared away.
No cop wants to be lynched for doing his job, after all, and understandably so.
And so, predictably, cities got much more dangerous.
A lot of people died.
And it started with the Ferguson lie, which was the genesis of the modern BLM movement.
Now, to the left, all those deaths were collateral damage.
They think it was all worth it, because the rise of BLM meant more political power for them.
They recruited a mob of enforcers who could literally set entire communities on fire with impunity as a message to the rest of the country.
They were able to demonize local police departments and power the FBI, which they controlled.
And for the corporations who bankroll Democrats, the rise of BLM was also a welcome diversion from rising populist sentiments in both parties.
The lying about Ferguson, in that sense, isn't so remarkable.
The State Department and the Democratic Party are pushing for an internal revolution here, for the same reason they push for color revolutions elsewhere.
They want to tear down the system of government that we have in this country, and our rule of law and our traditions.
They want to tear it all down.
And they want to replace them with something very different, something equitable, as they would say.
With them in charge, of course.
So far, their strategy is working, we have to say.
And it's a perfect example of how the left plays the long game.
Okay, they've obtained total narrative control.
Now, sure, their whole narrative was debunked when it comes to Michael Brown, when it comes to many of these BLM cases.
Completely debunked.
But what do they care?
They'll just keep repeating the lie year after year after year until eventually the other side gets tired of correcting it.
And then what happens?
Well, their version makes it into the history books.
It does make you question how much of the stuff that you find in history books can actually be trusted.
You know, if Cori Bush and the State Department and the entire media and Democrat Party can lie about something that we all remember, what happens when there's nobody left who remembers it?
The unfortunate reality is that historical lies gain more power and momentum as time goes on and we move further away from the event they're lying about.
The truth, however, doesn't have that kind of advantage.
It doesn't benefit from the distance.
If anything, as time goes on, for the truth, the road becomes harder.
And that is exactly what the left is counting on.
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Okay, so I want to start here.
This is a story that actually some on the left have been messaging me about and saying, why are you talking about this, huh?
Are you afraid to talk about it?
Are you afraid?
Which, look, I mean, you can say what you want about me, throw whatever insult you want.
I don't care.
But you really can't accuse me of being afraid to talk about things.
I, you know, I think at least I should get credit for that, if nothing else.
I'll talk about anything.
I'll tell you exactly what I think about any topic.
For better or worse, you'll just know how I feel about it.
I think I've more than demonstrated that by now.
So, here's the story that I'm afraid to talk about.
It's a major defeat for the pro-life movement in Ohio this week.
Here's the AP's, I'll read you the AP's absurdly partisan report on this story.
Ohio voters resoundingly rejected a Republican-backed measure that would have made it more difficult to change the state's constitution, setting up a fall campaign that will become the nation's latest referendum on abortion rights since the U.S.
Supreme Court overturned nationwide protections last year.
The defeat of Issue 1 on Tuesday keeps in place a simple majority threshold for passing future constitutional amendments rather than the 60% supermajority that was proposed.
Its supporters said that the higher bar would protect the state's foundational document from outside interest groups.
Voter opposition to the proposal was widespread, even spreading into traditionally Republican territory.
In fact, in early return, support for the measure fell far short of former President Donald Trump's performance during the 2020 election in nearly every county.
President Joe Biden hailed Tuesday's results, releasing a statement saying, This measure was a blatant attempt to weaken voters' voices and further erode the freedom of women to make their own healthcare decisions.
Ohioans spoke loud and clear, and tonight, democracy won.
While abortion was not directly on the special election ballot, the result marks the latest setback for Republicans in a conservative-leaning state who favor imposing tough restrictions on the procedure.
Ohio Republicans placed the question on the summer ballot in hopes of undercutting the citizen initiative that voters will decide in November that seeks to enshrine abortion rights in the state.
Other states where voters have considered abortion rights since last year's Supreme Court ruling have protected them, including in red states such as Kansas and Kentucky.
This issue was about the procedure for amending the state constitution.
But really, as everyone on both sides understood, it was really about abortion.
And the defeat here means that it'll be much easier for abortion advocates to enshrine the right to baby murder in the state constitution in the future.
And that fight will commence, well, now.
I mean, it already has commenced.
And yes, this is the latest in a series of referendums where voters in various states have come down on the side of killing babies.
That is absolutely the case.
So the dominant narrative now, which you hear on the left and the right, is that ultimately The overturning of Roe is a disaster for conservatives because it has rallied the pro-baby murder factions and sort of made this into a mobilizing issue for that side, just like the pro-life side, just like the pro-life issue used to be, used to be, they say, a mobilizing issue for conservatives.
But it isn't anymore because of Roe v. Wade.
I mean, this is the narrative anyway.
And then, of course, the GOP's underperformance in 2022 is blamed on the Roe decision.
Their predicted landslide defeats across the country in 2024 are also being blamed ahead of time on the same.
What do I make of all this?
Well, a few points.
The first and most important is that even if overturning Roe v. Wade has had this cascading effect, And even if you can blame every conservative or Republican defeat over the last year and a half or so, if you can blame it all on the overturning of Roe, even if it was valid to do that, it would still be worth it.
I mean, obviously worth it.
Like, there's nothing to think about.
So if you could convince me that all these things, it's all because Roe was overturned.
And then you would ask me, well, are you still happy Roe was overturned?
If you could go back and do it again?
If you could, you know, go back and change history, would you do it so that it wasn't overturned?
No, I wouldn't change history.
Yes, I'm happy that it happened.
Of course I am.
Okay?
Because we're saving babies from being killed.
And that obviously takes priority over any other consideration, including political considerations.
And this is really what it comes down to.
Conservatives who are lamenting that Supreme Court decision now have only revealed that they are actually fundamentally pro-abortion themselves.
So every single conservative that you see who is openly lamenting it, this is what happened now because Roe was overturned and making it so much harder for Republicans.
Those are all pro-abortion, even if they don't admit it, they're pro-abortion conservatives, which is actually not possible to be a pro-abortion conservative.
Because if you aren't pro-abortion, if you're actually pro-life, then you believe that unborn babies are people.
People like you and me.
And so obviously you want to overturn a court decision that enshrined the murder of these people as a constitutional right.
Obviously you do that, and you let the chips fall where they may.
But there's no question that you do it.
You have to do it.
You do whatever you can to save these children.
And...
If you believe they are children, right?
Apparently lots of conservatives have bought into the clumps of cells thing.
And there's also no question, by the way, that thousands of lives have been saved by the overturning of Roe.
You can listen, even as on the left they celebrate these victories and they say, ah, you see, this is all backfiring on you.
At the same time, they will also, so one minute there's a headline about how this is all backfiring on Republicans and it's actually a great boon for Republicans.
For the left and for liberals and Democrat Party, but then the next minute they'll publish a headline talking about, in very apocalyptic tones, about how, oh my goodness, more babies are being born now.
And all these women, they give us all these horror stories about women who didn't have access to, quote, abortion care.
And so now they, dear God, they had to have their baby rather than killing the baby.
And now the baby is alive rather than dead.
So even they will acknowledge that there are lots of abortions that would have happened and did not because Roe was overturned.
That's just not, that's not even debatable.
Like thousands of lives have been saved.
Thousands of children's lives have been saved by the overturning of Roe.
Any cost is worth it.
It's hard for me to think of a cost that wouldn't be worth it.
When you are, when you are, um, Doing something that certainly doesn't end, but greatly reduces a holocaust.
This is a holocaust of children that has been happening in our country for decades.
It's the holocaust of the unborn.
And again, if you believe that these are actually people, which of course they are, because what else could they be if not people?
Then whatever needs to be done to prevent it just must be done.
Starting, of course, with overturning that absurd decision.
Now, second, I don't buy that every Republican defeat ties back to the Roe decision.
We lost in 2022 because there were a lot of bad candidates who ran bad campaigns, and Republicans didn't stay on message.
They didn't even know what their message was.
Did Dr. Oz in Pennsylvania lose because of Roe?
The guy's pro-abortion.
Is that why he lost?
No.
He lost because he's a bad candidate.
One of many.
And if the Republicans nominate bad candidates again, then we're going to lose again.
That's why I say we should be single-issue voters in the primary, because the only thing that matters is whether the candidate can beat the Democrat in the general.
Everything else is irrelevant.
It's a moot point if he's not going to actually get into office.
Third, and here's the really important point.
Abortion is a winning issue for conservatives, but you have to know how to argue it.
Okay?
It's not automatically a winning issue.
No issue is automatically a winning issue.
It all depends on how you argue it, how you fight for it.
So, as an example, as an analogy, for a long time, You probably will recall this, for a long time we were told that all things LGBT, right, LGBT, trans, all that stuff, gender, for a very long time we were told that that's all, that's, those are all losers for conservatives.
That whole territory, okay, the whole territory that is claimed under the rainbow, the ever-expanding and getting uglier rainbow flag, that whole territory is, you can't, don't go anywhere near it because you're going to lose.
You step onto that territory, you're going to lose that battle every time.
That's what we were told for years.
Nobody says that anymore.
In fact, now it's the opposite.
Now the left complains that this is, you know, that The conservatives are using the pride flag and using LGBT issues because it's just so easy for them.
It's red meat.
Which is a very interesting complaint, because it was the opposite of that for years.
For years, it was the opposite of red meat.
It was like, you don't touch it.
It's toxic, toxic meat.
So we were told that it's a loser, and now we've seen that it's not.
Fighting back against the LGBT cult is not a loser for conservatives.
You just have to know how to fight it.
And so conservatives were fighting the wrong way.
They didn't know how to fight it.
They were too afraid to fight it the right way.
And so they lost.
Well, they lost mostly because they weren't even engaging.
So it's the same with the abortion issue.
You have to fight on the abortion issue the same way we do with the LGBT stuff.
And here's how you do it.
I'll tell you how.
You expose the other side as incoherent and extreme.
That's how you win.
How do you do that?
Well, I'll tell you.
Abortion comes up in a debate.
Say it's a political debate, a candidate debate, and you want to expose the other side as incoherent and extreme.
This is exactly what we've done with LGBT trans.
We've exposed it as incoherent and extreme.
To the point where that's how it's branded now in most people's minds.
They see the pride flag and they think this is an incoherent, extreme thing.
That's what they think.
And it is, and it always was that, and we expose that.
How do we do that with the abortion issue?
Well, it's very simple.
You only need to ask three questions.
So, you throw these three questions at your opponent if you're in a debate.
One.
Is an unborn child a person?
Two.
Two, what is a person?
And three, should it be legal to abort a child five seconds before the child is born?
Those three questions are all you need.
Because your opponent, if he wants to protect the right to an abortion, will have to answer no to the first.
He'll have to say, no, an unborn child is not a person.
It's a fetus.
A fetus is not a person.
He's gonna have to say that.
And then you ask him, okay, well, then what is a person?
So how do you define person?
He won't be able to give you an answer to that question.
Nobody on the pro-abortion side can tell you what a person is.
So you see there's a very familiar strategy being used here.
But that's because it works.
And when there's a fundamental incoherence in your opponent's viewpoint, sometimes the most basic questions can expose it.
And so for LGBT, it's what is a woman?
For abortion, it's what is a person?
They can't define it.
They will not be able to.
They're not going to be able to come up with a coherent, non-arbitrary definition of person that will successfully exclude every person in the womb.
They can't do it.
But then, of course, well, okay, so you said a fetus is not a person, but you don't know what a person is, so how do you know the fetus isn't a person?
So according to you, actually, you don't really know.
Obama famously said years ago that it's above my pay grade to answer that.
So it's above your pay grade, you don't really know.
So even according to you, the quote-unquote fetus could be a person.
Is that what you're saying?
Because you don't know what a person is, and it's above your pay grade, and you're not really sure, and it's up for debate.
So even by your own logic, abortion could be the mass slaughter of 60 million people.
That's as far as you can go with your argument.
You can't even deny that it's the Holocaust of 60 million people.
You can only say that, well, it might not be.
Or it might be.
And then finally, the last question, you know, can you abort a quote-unquote fetus five seconds before birth?
He's going to have to say yes to that, because if he says no, well, no, not five seconds before.
Okay, what about ten seconds before?
What about ten minutes before?
What about ten days before?
So how far does this go back, and where do you draw the line?
And so he understands that.
If he says, well, no, you can't abort a child five seconds before birth, that raises all kinds of other questions he doesn't want to answer.
And so he has to take the position, as almost everybody on that side of the issue has taken by now, that yes, abortion should be fine up to the moment of birth, and sometimes far beyond that.
So, just with those three questions, we've exposed the movement as incoherent, they don't even know what a person is, yet they're sure that a fetus is not a person.
How does that make sense?
And also extreme, they think it should be okay to kill a baby, fully developed, that can easily survive outside the womb five seconds before birth.
So, just to summarize this lengthy discussion.
Why do Republicans appear to lose on this issue?
Well, it's because very rarely do they do what I just described.
When's the last time, and it's not like it's never happened, but how many times can you remember in a debate with a Republican where they do exactly what I just said?
Where they turn to the other side and say, hey, I got a few questions for you.
Can you answer these basic questions?
Almost never happens.
Instead, here's what happens.
They allow themselves, like idiots, to get backed into a corner, to be in the defensive position, and they allow for the entire conversation to revolve around hard cases, rape, incest, life of the mother, and the entire discussion becomes about that.
They never managed to find a way to get out of that, get out of the corner, get back on the offense, and say, hey, OK, you want to talk about the 1% of all cases, the extreme cases?
We can talk about that.
But before we talk about the 1%, let's get to the 99% issue, OK?
Let's talk about that first.
So I'm not going to say a word about the 1% cases until you answer a few questions about the 99% of cases.
How about that?
You answer these questions, and we can go right back to the, you want to talk about rape, incest, life of the mother?
We can do that perfectly fine.
Before we do that, I need you to answer some really basic questions about the issue itself.
You almost never see Republicans doing that.
And the reason they don't do it is because a lot of Republican politicians, frankly, aren't smart enough to even think of these things.
And second, they're so terrified of the issue that they just want it to be over.
It was just the same thing with LGBT for so long.
The moment that it came up, you could tell they're so terrified of it, they just want it to be over.
It's the moment it comes up in a debate, a discussion.
you know, curl up in a fetal position, and pun not intended, but they curl up into a
fetal position and they just want it to be over so they can move on to something they're
more comfortable talking about.
All right.
Tragic situation in Hollywood.
TV Line reports the SAG-AFTRA strike is already putting a squeeze on actors' finances, even for an Emmy winner.
Billy Porter, who shot to fame and won an Emmy on the FX drama Pose, now says he has to sell his house due to the financial strain of the strike.
I have to sell my house, he tells the UK's Evening Standard, because we're on strike.
I don't know if that quote was really necessary.
It just literally restates exactly what we said in the sentence before.
So this is bad writing, but it doesn't matter.
For an artist like Porter, quote, until you make F.U.
money, which I haven't made yet, life is still paycheck to paycheck, he says.
I was supposed to be in a new movie and on a new television show starting in September.
None of that is happening.
This is a tragic story.
Billy Porter.
I mean, this is the face of the tragedy unfolding in Hollywood right now.
Okay, while you continue on with your lives, totally ignoring this horrific tragedy that is happening right now in Hollywood, and you have men like, excuse me, thems like Billy Porter, whatever he identifies as, who are, were supposed to be in a movie in September, and now the movie's been delayed.
Terrible, terrible stuff.
Porter also took a shot at the anonymous Hollywood executive who told Deadline that the goal was to drag out the strike until writers and actors were forced to sell their homes.
Quote, so to the person who said, we're gonna starve them out until they have to sell their apartments, well, you've already starved me out.
I don't know if this is the best, he's not putting himself in the best negotiating position here.
And he goes on and says, To hear Bob Iger, CEO of Disney, say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic while he makes $78,000 a day?
I don't have any words for it, but F you.
That's not useful, so I have to keep my mouth shut.
I haven't engaged because I'm so enraged.
Yes, Billy Porter just wants a living wage.
Now we're being told that an Emmy-winning actor Is not making a living wage, according to them.
For those who don't recall, here's what Billy Porter looks like.
I think we have the, let's put that picture up.
So that's just what he looks like.
This guy's not making a living wage, he tells us.
So maybe if he spent less money, you know, dressing up like the evil queen from Narnia, maybe he'd have enough money to pay for his home.
Maybe he could pay his mortgage if he wasn't spending it on whatever the hell that is.
Just a thought.
But there are a lot of stories like this, these tales of woe, that are coming out of Hollywood.
And the problem for these Hollywood actors and writers, as the strike lingers on and, you know, it's been going on for many months now, And in many of these reports, they're kind of complaining that there's not, like, nobody cares, like, no one's paying attention to them.
And the reason for this, well, there's two reasons.
First of all, so you, this is, this is all self-inflicted.
You've chosen to, uh, you've chosen to go on strike.
You don't have to, but you did.
Um, well, really three reasons.
Second reason is the obvious one, that many of these people that are on the picket line are, like, millionaires.
So it's a little bit hard to feel sorry for them.
And then, and then third, You're asking for sympathy from people who have never received any from you.
Because when have any of these people shown any concern for our well-being?
I saw someone, you know, bring up this point on Twitter, I don't remember who, but it would be very interesting to go back, and I'm sure we could, and I don't know if Billy Porter, I'm going to assume that Billy Porter is probably part of this.
It would be very interesting to go back, And find these actors that are complaining because they want more money or whatever, and they're asking for everyone's sympathy, and find what they were saying during the COVID lockdowns, and how many of them were doing PSAs when they were telling us all to, well, just stay home, give up your job, doesn't matter if you're not making money, we're all in this together.
Remember?
We're all in this together.
And they said that while they continued working the entire time.
And now they come to us begging for sympathy, and there's just not much that we can provide, unfortunately, for them.
Daily Wire has this report.
Monique Worrell lashed out on Wednesday morning after Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis suspended her from office as state attorney for the Ninth Judicial Circuit for dereliction of duty and incompetence.
DeSantis said that Worrell, who was backed by a group tied to Democrat billionaire George Soros, has allowed murderers, other violent offenders, and dangerous drug traffickers to receive extremely reduced sentences and escape the full consequences of their criminal conduct.
The policies and practices mentioned in the executive order that led to her suspension include avoiding minimum mandatory sentences for gun crimes, avoiding minimum mandatory sentences for drug traffic offenses, allowing juvenile offenders to avoid serious charges and incarceration altogether, Avoiding valid and applicable sentencing enhancements, limiting charges for child pornography, and seeking withhold of adjudication in situations not permitted under Florida law.
And that's why she was suspended from office by Santas.
But she's not happy about this, as you can imagine, and she said at a press conference following her suspension that her office did things unconventionally, quote-unquote.
They're being unconventional, you know, not prosecuting criminals, sending dangerous people back out onto the streets so they can kill and maim more people.
It's just an unconventional, unorthodox approach is all.
You know, being lenient on child pornographers, that's just an unconventional approach.
Which, of course, by the way, it's also these days not unconventional.
It's actually quite conventional in these major cities and by these Soros DAs.
She claimed that DeSantis was a dictator who has implemented tyranny and has single-handedly destroyed democracy in the state of Florida.
Worrell said that while her legal team is prepared to fight her suspension through the legal system, but did not believe that she would be successful because the courts have been assembled by the governor, the legislature has a supermajority in favor of the governor.
So she's very upset, but she's been kicked out of office because she wasn't doing her job.
And that's great news.
And this is not the first time that Santus has done this.
And I would hope that no matter who you support in the primaries, everyone should be looking at this and saying, yes, this is good.
This is what we need all Republicans to be doing.
This is what every Republican governor should be doing.
So we should be turning to every other Republican governor in the country and saying, okay, how many Soros DAs have you suspended?
And if the answer is none, well, we better find out that there are no Soros DAs in your entire state.
But there almost certainly are, because they're all over the place.
It's an infestation.
And so, if there are, and you haven't suspended any, well, that's a problem.
And we need to be turning to other Republican presidential candidates and saying, this is what we need to see from you.
This is what you need to promise to do.
This is what you need to actually do.
If you're lucky enough to become president, you need to start firing people.
Like, rooting out the corrupt people within the bureaucracy and getting rid of them.
Lots of them.
Sending them on the unemployment line, so that they are, they are, and we should know that you're doing it, and we will know that you're doing it when you do it, because they're gonna, they're gonna, there's gonna be a bunch of press conferences where they're gonna complain, and they're gonna cry, and they're gonna say, this is terrible, it's tyranny.
This is what we need to see.
This is what draining the swamp actually looks like.
Okay?
It's not just a slogan, or at least it shouldn't be.
Because when we talk about the swamp, we are referring to actual people in positions of power, in many cases who were not voted into those positions.
Sometimes they were, sometimes they're not.
But in a bureaucracy, you get both.
But these are actual people who are corrupt, who are abusing their power, misusing their power.
The way that you drain that swamp, whether it's a swamp in Florida or in DC, whatever level we're talking about, is by identifying those actual human beings and getting rid of them, firing them.
All right, finally, this is kind of petty, I admit, but it does raise some questions for me.
Some questions I find perplexing.
Mike Pence, who is also running for president, put out an ad where he hits Biden over gas prices.
So far, so good.
Makes sense.
But they decided they wanted to get Pence on film at the gas pump.
And that's where things get a little bit confusing.
Let's watch this ad.
Hey, everybody.
Mike Pence here.
Remember $2 a gallon gas?
I do.
And then Joe Biden became President of the United States and launched his war on energy.
Since that time, gasoline prices are up 60%.
Electricity prices are up 25%.
Joe Biden's war on energy is causing real hardship for working families, small businesses, and family farms.
But we've got a plan to relieve all of that.
We just unveiled the Pence Energy Plan that will not only put our country back on a path to energy independence, but by 2040 we will reclaim America's role as the leading producer of energy in the world.
Join us in the fight for American energy leadership by going to MikePence2024.com.
We can lead the world once again to a more prosperous and a secure future for America with energy independence and American energy leadership.
Okay, well, Mike Pence is about to drive down the road and break down when he runs out of gas because he didn't pump any gas there.
And I don't mean to get tentacle, but that's just not how pumping gas works.
You heard the beeping in the background the entire time because that's the pump beeping at him saying, you gotta pay first.
You gotta pay first, you bum.
You gotta pay for this.
That's what the pump is saying.
You can't just get right out of your car and then grab the pump and put it in and expect
anything to happen.
You got to do your credit card, you got to hit all the buttons and all that.
And then when you do pump the gas, you actually have to, you need to hold the lever down in
order to pump the gas.
Otherwise, there's no gas that can come out and it's not going to work.
So here's what I'm trying to figure out.
This is, again, a little pedantic, but you decide you want to get a video.
You're in the Pence campaign.
You want to get a video of Pence doing something normal so that voters will resonate with it.
Hey, he pumps gas like I do.
He's at a gas pump.
I've been to a gas pump.
He puts gas in his car.
I put gas in my car.
He should be president.
And I don't really get it.
I don't think this is the kind of thing that works.
I don't think voters think this way.
Donald Trump has probably never pumped gas in his entire life.
Can you imagine Donald Trump at a gas pump?
He's probably never pumped gas in his entire life.
And his supporters don't care about that.
I think people don't care that much about that in the end.
Anyway, I think the relatability is maybe one of the biggest fallacies in politics.
I actually don't think that, especially when it comes to presidents.
that people care about relatability. They don't need to feel like they relate to the person.
They got to feel like this person is a leader, this person could take care of these problems.
And that doesn't mean being able to relate to them. So, but still, I mean, the campaigns have
often think that they need to do this. And so Pence is doing that thing. But
then the Pence campaign makes the same mistake that many campaigns make when they have the
candidate do the normal thing. But then they don't bother making sure that he's doing the
normal thing correctly.
So it's like the thing where the candidates had a.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
At a grill, hey, you caught me here just barbecuing for the family and having a little barbecue.
And then you look at the spatula and the price tag is still hanging off of it.
And there's still crease marks in the apron because you could tell they just bought it
from Lowe's three hours ago.
And the meat's not even sizzling on the grill because they didn't heat it up before they
put the meat on and all that.
So you're going to do this at least just a little bit of effort to make it look believable.
Otherwise, what's the point?
It's the same thing here.
How was there nobody in the Pence campaign?
There's at least a few people involved in this ad, I would think.
And nobody said to him, hey, well, let's just, you know, let's go through the whole process.
You put the credit card in, pull the gas out.
We're not going to have that beeping sound in the background in that case.
Actually pump the gas.
I just, I don't get it.
These basic mistakes that campaigns make.
And I am no, I'm not suggesting anyone should hire me to be on their campaigns.
Not that I'd ever want to be on anyone's campaign.
I'm not going to pretend that I'm some sort of like political whiz kid.
These basic things I understand at least.
So, if you're going to do the relatability thing, just make sure you're doing it correctly.
That's all I'm asking.
Okay, that's it.
Let's get to the comment section.
She's in a pickle because she wants to see the new Barbie film because she's a great feminist, she says.
But at the same time, We're still in a pandemic after all.
And so she decided that she's going to rent out an entire theater and invite only a certain number of people so they can socially distance.
And everybody's going to wear N95s and you can't scratch your nose.
You have to leave the theater to scratch your nose during the movie and all the rest of it.
So we played that video and some comments are related to that.
Sir Greedy says, Strongly disagree, Matt.
This isn't fear of death.
These people are control freaks.
I think it's an interesting comment because you say that as if these two things are mutually exclusive, which of course they aren't.
Being a control freak, I think, not to get too psychological here, but I think being a control freak is very often rooted in a fear of death, especially when it comes to things like COVID.
The kind of control freak thing that we've seen with COVID and for these people who are still clinging on to it, yeah, they're control freaks and they're also power hungry.
But why are they that?
Like what do they get out of that?
And I think ultimately, so maybe not entirely this, but ultimately it's a fear of death.
People like this, that's why all the stuff like the putting up the plastic dividers.
I mean, all these things during COVID that looking back on it now look insane.
And in fact, looking at it at the time also looked insane.
It was insane the entire time.
So all these sort of things, it was all about feeling like you had control over the situation.
Feeling like you could control things you really couldn't.
And so when they require that you put on a mask, even if they put on a cloth mask and everyone knew that this is not really doing anything, but you feel like you're taking control of the situation.
Another comment says, it's really concerning that we still live in a society where there are people that still insist on wearing masks.
I'm just utterly speechless when it comes to the U.S.
anymore and how far we've come and where we are now.
Just astonishing, really.
Yeah, I kind of go back and forth on this because I don't know Is it more concerning that some people wear masks or that so few people do?
And let me explain what I mean by that.
I'm not saying that people need to start wearing masks.
What I mean is, I assumed, I think like a lot of people, I thought that All the, with all the masks mandates going on, you know, and during that whole time, and I often said how it's broken people's brains and you see people walking around outside with masks on and driving in the cars with masks and all the rest of it.
And I thought that when the mask mandates went away, that many more people would, I thought that like half the country would keep wearing masks because their brains have been broken by this.
And they would, the hypochondria and everything, it's not just going to go away because the mask mandates went away.
And so that's what I thought was going to happen.
And that hasn't happened.
I mean, certainly half the country is not wearing masks.
And at one level, that's good, because I don't want to walk around and see a bunch of idiots wearing masks.
But at another level, to look at it from the pessimistic angle, to see the black cloud within the silver lining, which is my specialty, what that means is that all these people were wearing masks not because they'd been convinced that they really needed to in order to save their lives.
I mean, that would make them gullible.
But they were wearing it out of pure obedience.
And so, the moment they were told you could take it off, everyone just took it off.
Pure obedience.
It was like no one was even convinced by this.
It was just obedience.
And they needed the, you know, it's like at airports.
You know, airports and airplanes were one of the last holdouts when it came to the masks.
I'd walk around.
It's true on an airplane.
They would kick you off the plane.
If you wanted to be on an airplane, you had to wear the mask.
Otherwise, they would just kick you off and you wouldn't be able to fly.
But in airports, I did a lot of traveling all throughout COVID.
And in airports, technically they had a policy saying you had to wear a mask.
I never did wear it in an airport.
And I only got yelled at once.
And I just ignored that person and kept walking.
Because there was someone working at a Cinnabon or something and yelled at me.
I was like, you have no power here, Cinnabon guy.
So you didn't even, in these contexts where you could have, yeah, technically there was a policy saying you had to wear it, but you could have just not worn it.
And I didn't, a lot of people didn't, but all these people did.
They needed someone in a position of authority to say, "Okay, it's okay for you to not wear it now."
And then they just stopped.
So again, it's good people aren't wearing it, but the fact that people were able to switch that flip
so quickly just shows that rather than having been officially brainwashed,
it's in fact that people were simply being unthinkingly obedient.
And I'm not even sure if that's more encouraging.
I'm not sure how to make sense of it all.
And finally, of course, we have to throw this comment in as well.
Gasly Cretin says, how can you be so concerned about getting a flu but at the same time eat yourself into morbid obesity?
And that was the point about that video that I don't even think I said out loud because it felt, you know, it's just like, we're so used to that by now.
All throughout COVID and even now, people that are The people that are still, the people that are still hanging on to the masks, and then you look at them and you say, well, there are so many other, if you're concerned about your health, good to be concerned about your health.
There's so many other things that are threatening you right now that are not COVID.
I mean, COVID's like number a million on that list.
And things that you could change, such as your obesity, but of course they have no interest in that.
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Now let's get to our daily cancellation.
There are many ways to spread a lie.
You can simply tell people things that aren't true.
You can deny things that are true.
Lies come in many forms.
But if you want your lie to be accepted as gospel and reported by every mainstream media outlet, then the best way to tell it is through a study.
And if you listen to this show, you know that I have spent a lot of time trying to explain why you can't blindly trust the results of a study just because it calls itself a study.
This is what many people do.
As long as the study confirms what they already believed ahead of time, then they will just accept the study uncritically.
And this uncritical willingness to believe and cite studies, almost always without reading them, which means without knowing its methodology and limitations, means that any alleged researcher with an agenda can rig his research to say whatever he wants it to say, assured that nobody will notice or call him on it.
If he wants it to say exactly what the media and other powerful institutions want it to say, then he can be even more assured that his results will be accepted without skepticism by a bunch of credulous partisan hacks who see science not as a method for understanding the physical world, but as a shiny gloss to cover their preconceived ideological beliefs.
In other words...
I am not always impressed with studies, and today my skepticism has been vindicated yet again.
CNN reports excitedly about a new study which finds that, quote, transgender and non-binary patients have no regrets about top surgery.
No regrets at all.
None.
Which would mean that top surgery, a cosmetic double mastectomy to remove healthy breasts, stands alone as the one single human decision that nobody ever regrets, ever at all.
Already this is starting to feel just a tad bit dubious, but let's continue.
CNN reports, quote, Some arguments in favor of laws that restrict gender-affirming care claim that patients may someday regret any irreversible or semi-irreversible part of their transition.
But a small new study found that satisfaction with one such surgery is significant even over the long term.
The study, published Wednesday in the journal JAMA Surgery, shows that people who had a gender-affirming mastectomy, sometimes called top surgery, had extremely low rates of decisional regret and extremely high levels of satisfaction with their decision to have the procedure.
The results are, quote, overwhelmingly positive compared to other medical and non-medical decisions, the study said.
Now, we're then told that the, quote, Median Satisfaction with Decision Scale score was 5 on a 5-point scale, indicating the highest possible level of satisfaction.
The Median Decision Regret Scale score was 0 on a 100-point scale, meaning not a single patient regretted their choice to have the surgery.
Later, CNN notes that some studies differ slightly from these results.
They admit that.
One review of multiple studies they tell us finds that the rate of regret is 1%.
So, it's either 0% or 1%.
Imagine that.
So, put this into perspective.
You will find higher rates of regret among women who get double mastectomies for breast cancer, like actual life-saving procedures.
The number of people who regret getting tattoos is more than 10 times the number who supposedly regret having their healthy breasts removed.
You would be extremely hard-pressed to find any medical procedure, even ones that are actually life-saving, where only 0 or 1% of patients regret it.
You'll be hard-pressed to find any decision of any kind, in any context of life, that just 0 or 1% of people regret.
Even if a decision is healthy and reasonable and good, you'll still have a certain number of people who regret it, because that's human nature.
We're expected to believe that top surgery, quote-unquote, somehow transcends human nature itself, that it's a true magic bullet.
Everyone who does it is happy.
Not just happy, but perfectly happy.
A 5 out of 5 on the happiness scale.
Now, you might be asking, how could they have possibly arrived at this conclusion?
Well, let's find out.
For that, we must do the thing that I often do on this show, but that no media outlet ever does.
We have to read the study.
And I read the entire study, and I took notes, and here's what I found.
First of all, this is a survey of 139 mastectomy patients from one hospital who had their procedures between 2 and 20 years ago.
This is not, in other words, a representative cross-section of the country.
It's not that.
And it relies entirely on self-reported data, which already means that the whole thing is tainted and basically useless.
In order for a respondent to report regret, she would need to, first, feel regret, obviously.
Second, be willing to admit to herself that she has regret.
Third, be willing to admit to a third party that she has regret.
And fourth, be willing to accept the political and social implications of admitting to regret in a study like this.
What this means is that a study finding no self-reported regret doesn't mean that nobody experienced regret.
It could mean that, technically.
Or it could mean that nobody was willing to report their regret in the context of this study.
And what that means is that the study is, again, useless.
There are simply way too many factors, psychological, social, cultural, political, standing in the way.
And even without those factors, still the study would be flimsy at best because self-reported data in general, in any study, is infamously unreliable.
This is well known in science.
It's called the Hawthorne effect.
When your subjects know that they're being observed, and especially know why they're being observed, they will inevitably modify their responses and behavior.
Is the reason why there's no such thing as true reality TV, because nobody acts real when they know the camera's on.
And it's also why you can't ascertain true levels of regret simply by going up to somebody and saying, hi, I'm doing a study to find out if people regret making the kind of life-altering decision that you made.
What say you?
Don't worry, we'll record whatever answer you provide and we'll just assume that you're being honest with yourself and us.
Second, 139 people in one region of the country from one hospital is an absurdly small sample size already, but it's even worse when you consider that the survey was actually sent out to 235 patients.
Only a little more than half actually responded.
So to conclude that nobody regretted the surgery, you must assume that the 40-plus percent who didn't respond also feel no regret.
But is that assumption warranted?
Well, obviously not.
I mean, common sense would tell us that patients who do regret the procedure are far less likely to participate in a study that forces them to relive that experience.
In fact, the whole narrative about extremely low levels of regret and detransition, it's entirely based on the fact that very few patients who detransition actually announce their detransition officially in a context that would result in it being recorded statistically.
And you don't have to take my word for it.
Here's an actual detransitioner explaining this point.
Listen.
Hey, I'm about to testify this morning, so I don't have a lot of time, but I just wanted to let you guys know that detransitioners do not go back to the gender clinics which harmed them and report that they're detransitioning.
My paperwork, as far as the numbers go, still says that I'm happy and trans, so when you guys are like, only 1% of people detransition or 2%, You don't know that.
You're making that up.
And the numbers you have about how many happy trans people there are, that's wrong too.
Because again, my paperwork says I'm happy and trans.
I did not go back to the gender clinic, which harmed me.
And when I tried to ask for my records, they ghosted me.
So...
I have to say, it's pretty mind-blowing to watch a video featuring a woman who, according to this recent study, doesn't exist.
But assuming she does exist, her point is pretty obvious.
Most of these detransitioners do not go back to these clinics or consult with researchers and announce and say, hello, I'm detransitioning, please change your records accordingly.
Of course, even if they do announce it this way, we have to trust that the clinics and the researchers will go against their own ideological, political, and financial interests by honestly recording that information.
And we can't trust that, obviously.
But it's a moot point because most detransitioners don't go through that process.
And if two could play at the study game, then I can tell you that a 2021 study by the Institute for Comprehensive Gender Dysphoria Research found that as many as 75% of detransitioners do not report their detransitions.
So, you have your self-reported data, I have mine.
If you like, we can just throw out both and fall back on common sense, and that's perfectly fine with me.
But we're just getting started.
Third, if you read a little further into the study, you'll find this very interesting tidbit.
Quote, 13 individuals had strong discordance among their Satisfaction with Decision and Decisional Regret scores.
The Satisfaction with Decision scale was ordered first, and these 13 participants were noted to have high Satisfaction and high Regret.
Suggesting a possible error due to item order.
What does that mean?
It means that 13 of the participants actually did report high levels of regret, but their responses were thrown out.
The researchers decided that the self-reported regret contradicted other answers on the survey, which meant that they had the right to ignore those answers completely.
Now, it's possible, as they know, that these respondents didn't read the survey correctly or made a mistake in filling it out.
That's what they just assumed.
Well, these ones said they had high regret, and so they must have made a mistake.
This is a paperwork error.
They obviously didn't know what they were doing.
Okay, yeah, that's possible.
It's also possible that they feel deeply confused and conflicted about the procedure, which is why they at once claim to be satisfied with it and also regretful of it.
This kind of inner turmoil is to be expected.
It makes sense.
And in fact, it makes a lot more sense than all the respondents who rated their satisfaction as a neat and clean 5 out of 5 and their regret at a 0 out of 100.
As I've already explained, life doesn't work that way.
There's almost nothing in your life that you truly have 100% satisfaction with and 0% dissatisfaction with.
That doesn't exist on this side of heaven.
Yet those are the answers that the researchers found most credible, while the answers reporting high levels of dissatisfaction along with high levels of satisfaction were deemed somehow illegitimate, when those actually reflect human nature and that speaks to something that might actually be going on honestly in a person's mind?
Fourth, if you go all the way to the end of the study, you finally get to the section that acknowledges its limitations, and it's a rather long section.
That's where you're going to read this fascinating passage.
Quote, this study had several limitations.
Although this study includes robust long-term data surrounding regret and satisfaction with decision following gender-affirming mastectomy, the cross-sectional nature of this study and variation in follow-up time among participants pose the possibility of recall bias.
The association of time elapsed with regret specifically is unclear, with systematic review suggesting that regret may increase over time.
Ah, well, okay then.
Zero patients regret top surgery, quote-unquote, but also, the authors note, regret actually might increase over time.
So the real number, we're being told, is either zero or something higher than zero.
That's what the study ultimately determines.
Either nobody regrets their cosmetic double mastectomies, or a certain number of people do regret them.
And that number might be high or low.
This is what they've determined.
This is what the study actually says.
So, to review.
Zero people regret top surgery so long as you assume That a survey of several dozen people from one hospital represents the entire country, and so long as you assume that the respondents who actually did report high levels of regret accidentally filled in the survey wrong and didn't mean to say that, and so long as you assume that the 40% who didn't respond at all would have said that they had no regret if they did respond, and so long as you ignore the many problems with self-reported data and the personal and political biases that would skew the results, and so long as you pretend that the women who have publicly testified to their regret
Actually don't exist or are lying.
So, if you assume all of that, then the answer is clear.
Chopping your breasts off is the key to happiness, and everyone who has ever done it is now living in a state of unending bliss.
And if you believe that, then I've got an invisible unicorn in my backyard I'd like to sell you.
And if you believe that, you probably work for CNN.
