Episode 1564 Scott Adams: Weasels in the News Everywhere and I'll Show You Where They're Hiding
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Biden negotiated, China won
Rittenhouse jury, and update
MSNBC Joy Reid, racist
CNN Bakari Sellers, 4 lies in 15 seconds
Rep. Cori Bush invented getting shot at?
Fake news and fake fact-check on Bill Gates
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You know, I woke up today and I thought to myself, I wonder if Chicago is ready for the simultaneous sip.
And then I saw a comment go by just as I was thinking that that says Chicago is ready.
Good work, Chicago!
Well, today is an amazing day for all of you.
Not only are you lucky enough To join us all here for the best thing that's ever happened.
It's called Coffee with Scott Adams.
But the rest of your day is going to be pretty good, too.
Pretty good. And if you'd like to make this a little extra...
Now, I know you do.
I know you. I know you.
You'd like a little extra. All you need is a cup or mug or a glass, a tanker gel, a steiner canteen jug or flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquid.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
The dopamine here of the day, the thing that makes everything better.
It's called the simultaneous sip.
Go. Yes, I see a comment on locals wondering if in Chicago when you do the simultaneous sip, do you time it to the gunfire?
Or do you just do it plain and let the gunfire do its own thing, sort of syncopated?
I always wondered about that.
Well, in possibly the biggest news in the entire world, although I might be biased, Hotep Jesus on Twitter has suggested that I need new kicks.
For those of you who are not up on the latest language, kicks means footwear.
Footwear. I need some new footwear.
Because apparently I'm unfashionable.
And if we start from the ground up, well, I could be 100 years old before we're done.
But let's get the footwear right first.
Now here's the problem.
Do you know who makes stylish clothes for old white guys?
Anybody? Can you give me the name of the company that makes stylish clothes for old white guys?
That's right, nobody.
That's correct, nobody.
Nobody. It's not even a thing.
But, because I identify as black, I'm hoping that will give me some style advantage.
Which I can say because I identify as black.
If you said it, it would be racist.
But I need all the help I can get.
So let's work on that.
Top priority for the country.
Rasmussen had a poll about gun ownership.
And can you guess what percent of households have a gun?
Now, when I say households, I mean at least one person has access to a gun within the home.
What percentage of the total population do you think?
Or we could do it separately.
What percentage of Republicans do you think?
So Republicans were only 51%.
I thought it would be a lot more.
Wouldn't you expect Republicans to be 75% plus?
But even if you look at the whole household...
Only 51% had guns.
Dems are at 38%.
This was the most surprising thing.
There isn't really that much difference between 51 and 38 when you're asking yourself, you know, who likes guns?
Democrats have a lot of guns.
I'm not sure I quite understood that Democrats were so gun-heavy.
But it explains a lot, doesn't it?
It explains why gun ownership or gun rights remain robust.
There's just plenty of people who have guns.
And then Rasmussen asked, people's opinion is that if the federal government had a list of gun owners, how likely will they someday use that list to confiscate your gun?
32% said very likely, and this is of all voters.
And 21% said somewhat.
So that's 53% think it's very or somewhat likely that their guns would be taken away.
So over half of the country, over half of the country is concerned that if they're on a list, their gun will be taken away.
I feel like that's a pretty reasonable worry.
You know, there's a lot of stuff that I'll push back on, but I do feel like this is quite reasonable.
And it's part of a larger trend, isn't it?
Which is, the more the government knows about you, the more control they have.
You know how knowledge is power, right?
The more knowledge the government has about you, the more power they have over you.
And the less you can get away with.
If they knew exactly how you did your taxes, they might want to talk to you.
And I think there's something about humans that we don't like to admit.
But I'm going to admit it on behalf of all humans.
There are a number of perfectly legitimate reasons to want privacy from your government.
You don't want them to have too much power.
You just don't want people in your business, freedom, etc.
So there are just plenty of reasons to not want the government in your business.
But one of the big ones we never talk about is that most people are crooks.
We don't say that one.
But the fact is, if the government knew what everybody was doing all the time, we'd all be in jail.
Pretty much everybody's breaking some crime.
You know, even if you're just speeding, you're doing something, probably.
You've probably defamed somebody.
I mean, you know, although that would require a lawsuit.
But, yeah, if you took it to the level of cheating on taxes, pretty much everybody would be in jail.
Pretty much. Ken says he celebrates the right of liberals to own guns, but it doesn't work the other way.
yes that's true um all right so there's that um Apparently, school, according to Axios, had a report that 40% of school districts and more than 1,000 districts, they used federal money to upgrade their HVAC systems, their air handling systems, and the filtration because of COVID. So 40% of schools did that,
but they have no idea if it makes a difference.
And apparently some of the schools are saying, wait a minute, wait a minute.
Before we finish installing this, can somebody tell us if this works?
Is there any evidence whatsoever that it changes the COVID situation?
And the companies putting them in, of course, don't have that evidence.
And apparently the air filtration industry is totally corrupt.
Did you know that? I guess we could have guessed.
There are some industries that you don't think about as being corrupt.
For example, the food distribution industry.
Grocery stores? Grocery stores are just a criminal enterprise.
You just don't know it. I'll talk more about that in the future.
But the whole food industry is just...
Thoroughly corrupt. I spent enough time there to see things that were just jaw-dropping.
And I'm talking about normal big companies that you would know the names of the company, doing things so unethical, or maybe illegal, I don't know.
But it's a really corrupt industry.
But it turns out that the air filtration industry is also just garbage.
And they just make up test results, or they test in a way that's completely You know, unrealistic, so that they can get good numbers.
So I guess billions of dollars have gone toward this thing that nobody knows if it works.
I still think it probably does, even if all it does is circulate the air better.
So I'm going to be on the side that says, or the prediction, I guess, that in the long run, we will find that airflow is all that matters.
Anybody want to take that bet?
Here's my bet. In the long run, the only variable that will be predictive of who had COVID and who was at risk will be airflow.
And that everything else will be...
And then vitamin D will probably be the most predictive of outcomes.
But in terms of transmission, I'll bet it's just airflow.
I'll bet it's... That's it.
I'll bet it's... That's it. When was the last time somebody got COVID in a place that had good airflow?
Can somebody tell me? Because these days we tend to be fairly good at guessing where somebody got something, right?
When was the last time you heard somebody got it outdoors?
Never. When was the last time you heard that somebody got it eating at a restaurant?
Restaurants are actually...
Pretty good airflow, right?
They tend to have higher ceilings.
You know, they're built for lots of people in them.
So I would imagine they have pretty good airflow.
The restaurants in California, nobody wears a mask during eating, and you're all packed in this room.
But have you heard of a big problem with restaurants?
You haven't, right?
We would know by now if people are getting this in restaurants, wouldn't we?
Apparently they don't.
And the only thing that I can think of that would make sense for a restaurant is that the airflow is a little bit better.
I mean, if nothing else, people are coming and going, so the doors open a lot, right?
But I think they generally have pretty good airflow.
So that's my prediction.
It will be all about airflow because of the airborne nature of this compared to other viruses.
Article in Inside Sources by Kenneth Raposa.
He talks about the climate deal and how China basically wins.
And until he laid this out, I didn't realize how bad it was.
But I'm just going to give you the facts without much spin.
I don't think there's any spin on this.
Just the facts. China agreed to...
Basically reduce some coal use, right?
So China agreed to reduce coal use by 2030.
Do you think China will do that?
So that's China's part of the deal, is that they would reduce coal use by 2030.
What happens if they get to 2030 and they decide not to?
No penalty, right?
No. China can just say they'll do it and then just not do it.
There's no penalty.
So did we get anything from China...
Except their promise, which is worth exactly zero.
I mean, laughably zero.
I mean, we don't even think there's any chance they would keep their promise, right?
But it gets worse.
So while China is going to do basically nothing, that's what they agreed to do, effectively, the United States is going to go really hard at solar panels.
So we're really going to, you know, increase our investment in solar.
Do you know who makes solar panels?
China. Basically, Biden went over there and negotiated a deal where China would give us a promise that they're not going to keep about coal, but we're going to keep our promise almost certainly to vastly buy more stuff from China.
Now, here's the thing.
We buy the solar panels from China, but who pays for the disposal of them?
Because they're pretty toxic and hard to get rid of.
That's us. So China gets the money, they do nothing in return, and then we get the pollution and the unreliable source of electricity.
Now, when I say solar is unreliable, there are at least two technologies that will change that.
Number one would be something like the Tesla GigaPlants.
Apparently if you build enough of these GigaPlants you'd have enough storage to use these less dependable sources and still have a battery source to work at night and stuff.
The other is hydrogen.
Apparently, there have been some pretty big advances recently in hydrogen.
And hydrogen stores stuff fairly effectively, better than batteries, actually.
So hydrogen storage can last longer than a battery storage.
And some big stuff happening in hydrogen.
So we might actually, by brute force, get to a point where solar actually is more practical than it is right now.
But at the same time, Nuclear is already there.
So nuclear is where solar wants to be.
I don't know. Can solar get there?
Maybe. But nuclear is already there.
Alex Jones, I guess you'd say he lost by default.
This Sandy Hook family's lawsuit against him because I guess he had been claiming that the Sandy Hook shooting massacre was actors.
It wasn't really a real massacre that the people were actors.
So the families that lost people in the actual real massacre that was not a giant hoax at all And I guess Alex Jones did not give them the documents they need.
So he wanted to keep his, I guess, probably private or financial documents private, which meant he defaults.
So he loses the lawsuit just by not cooperating.
But they haven't decided on the penalty yet.
What do you think the penalty will be?
And do you think Alex Jones would be able to pay it?
I don't know if there's any insurance that would cover this.
I doubt it. How much do you think he's going to have to pay?
And will it put him out of business?
Have they taken Alex Jones completely off the table?
And is it obvious to you that one by one every Trump supporter from 2016 is being cancelled?
No, I'm not saying that they don't deserve it.
It's not my job to defend somebody else's speech.
They said stuff.
They got sued. It's their problem, not mine.
But it does seem fairly consistent that everybody who is a Trump supporter is being targeted one way or another.
Now, let me ask you something.
Has Tim Poole ever been targeted recently by a hit piece?
I bet he has, because I don't know that.
Can anybody tell me? Has there been a hit piece on Tim Poole recently?
Because if there isn't, there will be.
Right? Oh, yes.
I'm saying yes, yes, big yes.
Yeah, so Tim Poole has also been targeted.
So we've seen Joe Rogan.
I'm not sure I would call him a Trump supporter, but just the fact that he's willing to, you know, deal in the middle of, you know, the reasonable middle, it makes him look dangerous, I guess, to the left.
What's fake news? What is fake news?
Somebody's saying that's fake news, but...
Tell me what you think is fake news.
Oh, he says he has...
Oh, you mean whether Tim Pool has been targeted?
Now, of course, Bannon's been targeted, etc.
Oh, not true about Alex.
He provided everything.
Well, the court doesn't think so.
The court says he didn't.
That's all I know. Yeah, Rogan is not a Trumper, for sure.
But he can see...
He sees things through a non-political filter, which I think by itself is dangerous in this world.
All right, here's what I would like to see, just to cause trouble.
I would like to see a graph of which liberal pundits match which conservative pundits.
Do you know what I mean? Like, who on the left is their Alex Jones?
Who do you think that would be?
Who on the left? Somebody on MSNBC, right?
Who is the guy on MSNBC? There's a black guy on MSNBC who is an expert in maybe cyber or security or something like that.
What is his name?
And somebody will come up with it here in a moment.
You know who I'm talking about, right?
Nance, yes, Nance.
So Nance maybe is the Alex Jones.
But here's the graph I'd like to see.
So try to picture this.
Imagine a graph that's sort of a big upside-down U-shape.
At the top of the U would be any pundits on the left or right, or maybe the middle, who basically are pretty close to center.
So I would put, for example, Smirconish.
From CNN? I know you're thinking, wait, that's CNN, he can't be unbiased.
But he's relatively unbiased.
If you watch his content, you don't pick up anything that you pick up in the other CNN content.
So I'd put, like, Smirconish at the top.
And then maybe you'd put a few other people.
Maybe Joe Rogan, somebody else.
So it'd be a little bit subjective, of course.
But then... Oh, Dave Rubin.
Dave Rubin's a good example.
But then as you go down to the more extremes, you know, with the Alice Jones here, who would be the one on the left?
You know, Joy Reid. But anyway, wouldn't you like to see that?
Yeah, I guess Greenwald would be at the top, probably.
Anyway, that's the graph I want to see.
So let's talk about this Rittenhouse situation.
I think you're all following it.
And you know that the jury went home.
I don't know if they've started again.
Has the jury started again?
So my understanding is, and I would say this would be unconfirmed report.
Would you agree this is unconfirmed?
But we're hearing, you know, We're hearing the whispers, Jack Basabek is reporting on this, that there are two jury members who are holding out because of concerns over their own safety.
First of all, how many of you think that's true?
Do you think it's true that two jurors are holding out because they're concerned for their safety?
Now, be careful.
Be careful because you want to believe it's true, right?
So as soon as there's something, a story that's a little too good, you should automatically be a little more alert that maybe it's too good for a reason.
So I'm going to say you should remain skeptical about what's happening in the jury room.
Because I don't know that there's any way to have a reliable report this early.
But... I will say that Jack's sources are better than most.
So if I had to guess...
If you said, you know, you just have to put a bet on this, I would bet it's true.
That's where my bet would be.
But, you know, I'm going to remain 40% skeptical, I guess.
Now... What do you think of those two jurors' choice?
Let's call it a hypothetical until it's confirmed.
Suppose there were two jurors who presumably were going to vote to acquit.
Can we make that assumption?
Can we make the assumption that there were two holdouts?
It probably meant 10 wanted to acquit and 2 also wanted to acquit but didn't want to take the chance.
Is that your interpretation?
We don't know that to be true, but that's sort of a reasonable interpretation, right?
Now, what do you think of those two jurors?
In the comments, do you back them, meaning that their choice was right for themselves?
That's the only standard here.
Was their choice right for themselves?
I'm seeing some yeses.
I see a no. Some people understand.
I see yeses, cowards.
Cowards. Okay.
Can I make a confession?
Which I don't think will land me in jail.
I hope not. I once got out of jury duty for the same reason that the alleged two people are holding out.
Imagine me on a jury.
Now imagine that, you know, I was well-known at the time, and it was a case in which guns were involved.
I'll just be generic.
So guns were involved.
It was a dangerous situation.
That's what the trial was about.
Now, if I convicted somebody as part of a jury, what are the odds that my name would come out as one of the people who convicted a guy?
And it was a third strike, so this was the one that puts him in jail forever.
What do you think? Now, all the other jurors could be reasonably anonymous, right?
So if I had been also reasonably anonymous, I wouldn't have any problem with it.
That's the benefit of being anonymous.
But I can't be anonymous.
I don't have the option of being anonymous.
So in my case, should I have been excused just automatically, right?
And the answer is yes. I should have been excused because it would have put me at risk.
And the system doesn't require me to take that kind of risk.
When there are other people who could do it without the risk.
So, what do you think I did?
Do you think I waited for the court to decide how safe I would be?
Fuck no. No.
No, I'm not going to listen to the court to tell me How fucking safe I'm going to be.
That's my decision.
That's it. There's no debate.
That's just my decision.
Same reason I'm against vaccination mandates.
You can't decide what my safety level is.
That's up to me. Now, if the government...
Is trying to keep me too safe, you know, like being a little too cautious, well, maybe I'd have some pushback on that too.
But if the government is telling me to take a personal risk that is unnecessary, in other words, you could get the same result for the public with somebody who's not me, right?
Just some other juror.
I'm sorry, that's where the government and I part ways.
That's when I say, I'm sorry, I don't support this government because you can't put me in danger personally.
Not personally. If you ask me to volunteer, well, that's different.
Suppose the government said, you know, look, you're going to be in a little bit of extra danger because people will know your identity.
So, you know, if you don't want to do it, that's fine, but if you volunteer, we'd love that.
Okay, then I'll be okay because it's me volunteering, but the government making me Give up my identity, because that's what would happen.
No. So let's just say that I got out of that trial on a...
Let's say that my reason for getting out of the trial was true, but it wasn't the only reason.
So I did give a reason to be excused, which didn't go over well with the court.
Well, I'll tell you my reason.
I told the court that I favored complete drug legalization.
And since drugs were part of the thing, they were like, okay, you're out of here.
So, and that was true enough that I wasn't lying.
All right. Apparently, the Rittenhouse prosecution did not give the defense the high-quality version of the drone footage, Which would have looked very different from the enhanced version or the low quality that was shown in court.
Now, I don't know where the line is.
Apparently, prosecution has something like a total...
You know, total protection.
They can't be prosecuted.
That's true, right?
The prosecutors have absolute immunity.
Can somebody confirm that?
I saw that on Twitter.
It looked true. They could be disbarred, sure, but there's no legal recourse, right?
They can just lie. They can introduce fake evidence, right?
Am I wrong about that?
I don't think it's qualified immunity.
I think it's absolute immunity.
So that's actually the question, whether it's qualified or absolute.
I think it's absolute.
So I think the prosecutor probably knew he could just make up anything.
Now, I would say that what the prosecutor did, by any normal standard, would certainly qualify as a horrible crime.
Does anybody disagree? Now, it might be a protected category if he's got immunity as a prosecutor.
And by the way, I think prosecutors probably need immunity.
You know, I don't like it in this case, but, you know, if you had to create a system, I think the system's better when the attorneys are not worried about going to jail.
So I get why we have that law, but it's certainly bad in this case.
Anyway, I completely back the two jurors, and I think they're heroes, frankly, because I think those jurors need to stand up to a system that apparently they're being doxed or they will be.
Pictures have been taken of them, etc.
There have been threats.
I have a little problem with the ten who stayed, or the ten who are willing to make a judgment.
I think the two who are refusing are the heroes here.
Does anybody disagree?
Now, I don't like the fact that this will hurt Rittenhouse.
I don't like the fact that Rittenhouse might not get an acquittal outright, because I think he needs an acquittal To navigate the rest of his life, right?
If the only thing that ends this trial is, what's it called, a mistrial with prejudice, meaning that they wouldn't retry it, he couldn't be retried.
But if you hear that somebody was convicted of murder, I'm sorry, if you hear somebody was accused of murder and the only way they got off was a mistrial...
Are you going to hear the with prejudice part?
I mean, you don't even hear those words, right?
You just hear it's a mistrial. You say to yourself, my God, he got away with murder.
Right? I mean, you're going to think he got away with murder, or at least everybody on the left will.
And that's not anything like what's happening.
That's the opposite. Instead of calling it mistrial with prejudice, you know what they should call it?
Extra-innocent.
Am I right? If you call it a mistrial, he sounds guilty.
In my mind. Even though it doesn't mean anything like that.
But in my mind, he sounds guilty.
Am I right? Am I the only one who thinks that?
If you hear mistrial, don't you think guilty?
Yeah. Here's what they should call it.
Extra innocent. He's so innocent, you don't even need a jury to decide.
He's so innocent...
That the judge can just say, you know, I'm just going to take care of this myself.
That's how innocent he is.
He's extra, extra innocent.
Don't call it a fucking mistrial with prejudice, because that is prejudice, and that's basically going to screw this young man for the rest of his life.
He can't have this hanging over him.
And so that's my only problem with the jurors.
But let me back the jurors completely.
The jurors have the option, because they are Americans living in a free country, to put their own safety above the benefits to the defendant.
And while I hate it, I hate it that they're in that position, They have an absolute right to put their own safety above the defendant.
Agree or disagree? They have the complete right, without any criticism, they will not be criticized for this, to put their own safety above the defendant.
It's not their job. It's not their job to protect this guy.
He's a stranger. It's sad, but true.
I see some of you disagree, and I respect that.
So those who disagree and think those jurors should just, you know, man up or woman up or whoever they are and give us a verdict and take the risk, I get where you're coming from.
Like, I'm not going to reject that.
But my personal preference is that those people have their absolute freedom to protect themselves and that the core system is less important than that, as important as it is.
You know, protecting the court system, I think, is really important.
As I've said, the court system is the jewel in the republic.
If you don't have a court system, the rest doesn't matter.
You got off a jury?
Yes, I did get off a jury.
But I also served on a couple of juries.
So when I was a little less famous, but still famous enough, but people didn't recognize me by my face...
I did serve on a couple of juries, and I recommend it, by the way.
If you've never served on a jury, I think that you're missing out.
Because it's an experience that binds you to the country in a way that I've never felt.
I suppose if you joined the military, you'd feel, you know, maybe psychologically bound to the country in, like, an extra way.
Seems reasonable. But doing jury duty, just the fact that you're serving your citizen duty, and seeing how the whole thing works, like actually breathing it and feeling it and being part of it, gives you a really different feeling About the whole thing.
And the thing that I like best is the seriousness with which every person took the process.
Everybody from the spectators to the judges to the defendants, everybody, were buying into a system that they respected.
Even if they wanted to get out of jury service, of course, people need to take care of themselves, too.
But you do get a new respect for the system, and you see everybody else respecting it, too, including, I think, even the defendant.
So I have a lot of respect for the legal system, warts and all.
Well, Joy Reid is going full racist, of course, talking about something called, there's a thing for white male tears.
As soon as they get caught, they bring the waterworks.
So this is more of the white fragility and white people are defective racist bullshit.
Joy Reid, you're a racist cunt.
And I... I think you should be disrespected everywhere you go.
So I don't think...
I'm not really willing to defend any of this anymore in terms of free speech and opinion and stuff.
When stuff is just flat-out racist, let's just call it what it is.
Joy Reid, racist.
I told you yesterday that I'd been challenged about CNN's reach.
And I said, if you think the CNN's ratings, their ratings on TV, has anything to do with their reach, you are mistaken.
Their reach is the website.
The CNN model, as I understand it, this is my interpretation of it, is that they create content on live TV... And that's sort of just marketing for the website.
It creates content, and it's the marketing for the website.
The website is where they make the money, if there's any money there.
I don't know. But here are some numbers.
They have, by far, the most visited news site.
By far. And even Fox News is way behind.
So their website gets 379 million monthly visits, so that's not people, that's visits, but that's still a lot.
MSN gets 329, so they're up in that category, but not quite.
And then Fox News is 266 million.
So Fox News is quite a laggard on the website.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Yeah, I am wrong about that.
Never mind. Cancel that.
But here's the sort of thing that CNN is spreading with their 379 million monthly visits.
There's a clip of one of their pundits, Bakari Sellers, and it's a 15-second clip talking about Redden House.
In 15 seconds, Bakari Sellers told four lies about the trial.
And by lie, I don't know that he knew the truth, so let's just say it's inaccurate, because he can't read his mind, right?
We don't know his intention.
But the facts are, fairly clearly, he said four things about it in 15 seconds, and all of them were untrue.
Now, why do you think a pundit for CNN... Has four mistaken impressions in...
I don't know how many more he has, but four of them in this many seconds.
And I think the answer is that he watches the news on the left.
Presumably. So basically, he's a victim of fake news.
So he gets fake news, and then they put him on TV... To spread the fake news that he got from his own fake news.
So he's not really making news.
He's repeating the fake news, which they can treat as making news and make a clip out of it.
So it's this, like, circular fake news engine they've got built here.
Pretty impressive. All right, here's some fake news about Bill Gates.
But this is a double fake.
The news is fake, and so is the fact check.
It's a double fake news.
All right. You won't believe this unless you read it yourself.
I'm going to tell you something so jaw-dropping.
Yeah, maybe not in today's world.
But you're going to have to read it yourself because you're not going to think I'm interpreting it correctly until you see it yourself.
You'll think I'm making this up.
So Reuters does a fact check on Bill Gates, and they set it up this way.
They say in a recent interview that's circulating on social media, that Gates said that vaccines, quote, only slightly reduce the transmissions.
And that became viral because it sounded like he was saying the vaccines don't work.
But this is fact checked as false because it's out of context.
All right? So watch the trick.
So you've got to pay attention carefully or you miss the trick, which is why it's a good trick, because you have to pay attention carefully and people don't.
So what Gates said, and this part is not in dispute, he said that the vaccinations only slightly reduced the transmissions.
Now, that was fact-checked as basically not false, right?
But here's how they fact-checked it.
They said, it is true that current COVID vaccines do not halt the transmission of the virus.
Okay. Was Bill Gates talking about vaccines halting or not halting the virus?
Not really. I mean, he says it only slightly reduces the transmission, so he thought it...
So he agreed that the vaccines do not halt the transmission.
So, so far, the fact check just agrees with him.
They both agree that it doesn't stop transmission.
And now here's their punchline and the fact check summary.
They say, this is Reuters.
However, they are highly effective at preventing severe disease.
Wait a minute. That's not the topic.
That's not the topic.
Bill Gates said nothing about severe disease.
He talked about transmission.
And to support Bill Gates, instead of backing him, saying, oh, yeah, it's true what he said, or that it's false, They actually changed the topic for the...
At the end, they changed it from reducing transmission to preventing severe disease, and then they fact-checked the preventing severe disease part.
What the hell?
If you didn't read the whole article, you wouldn't know that they didn't fact-check it.
They made up something to fact-check, and then they fact-checked the thing they just made up.
Unbelievable. Like, you know, of all the fake news, fake crap, fake fact-checking I've seen, this one just, like, really stands out as not even trying.
Now, if you go to PolitiFact, can somebody tell me, does PolitiFact lean left or right?
Is PolitiFact, do they lean right or left?
You're saying left, but I'm not sure that's right.
You all think left?
Oh, okay, maybe.
Now, is that just because you think all fact-checkers lean left?
All right, I don't know the answer to that.
So I'm going to say I'm skeptical that they lean left, but maybe they do.
But their fact-check says that a vaccinated person is significantly less likely to pass the coronavirus.
So in other words, PolitiFact is saying that Bill Gates was just wrong, and it's fact.
So Bill Gates says it only slightly reduces the transmissions, but PolitiFact says the opposite.
That it greatly reduces transmission.
So who are you going to believe?
Are you going to believe Reuters that failed to say he was wrong or PolitiFact that did say he was wrong?
So you've got two fact checks, but they're different.
So do we need a fact checker for the fact checkers?
I feel like the fact-checkers themselves need some kind of a rating, but then that would just put a fact-checker above the fact-checker, and then who checks that person's facts?
And we're kind of really flying blind here, aren't we?
I think PolitiFact was the one who got to find people hoax right.
I think it was the other fact-checkers that got it wrong, but I'm not positive about that either.
Well, Representative Cori Bush...
Tweeted something that never happened.
She says, quote, And then she said something about Kyle Rittenhouse.
Except that none of this ever happened.
None of it.
She just completely made up white supremacists shooting at them.
Who makes that up? Who makes up white supremacists worth shooting at us?
Well, Cori Bush did.
Do you think she will lose her job over that?
No. No.
So Cori Bush is sort of the Alex Jones of the left in this case, I guess.
All right.
And there is one story in the news, and I'm not going to tell you which one.
But this is just context.
So there's one story in the news.
It may be one I talked about.
It may be one I haven't mentioned.
I'm just going to say that one of the major stories in the news is totally wrong.
Well, totally wrong in the sense that the context is completely missing.
And they don't know the context, but I do.
So there's one of the stories where I know some context that would completely change what you thought about the story.
But, as in many cases, I can't tell you how I know it.
Well, just one story that I happen to know, the background, that apparently the news industry doesn't know.
It's time to drug test Congress.
All right, so, what do you think is going to happen with Rittenhouse?
Oh, then why say anything?
The reason I tell you that I know things that are not in the news is part of the context is to tell you how fake the news is.
It's part of the Gelman amnesia concept that if somebody knows something about a topic, they know it's fake news.
But if you're not an expert in the topic, you can't tell.
You're like, oh, that's probably true.
It's funny that all the ones that I know about are fake, but this one isn't.
So I'm just giving you another example that there's a major story that literally maybe only a handful of people in the world know is fake.
I just happen to be one of them.
All right.
So what do you think will happen with Rittenhouse?
How much rioting do you think will happen?
Because I feel like the left might know that this is too far.
What do you think? I'm going to go with very little.
That's going to be my take.
I think there will be mostly pundits talking about it and lying about it like...
Like, what's his name? Bakari Sellers.
I think just the pundits will lie about it.
I think that the 500 National Guard threat will be enough.
And I also think that the rioters don't want to make Rittenhouse look right.
If there's rioting, Rittenhouse looks more innocent.
You know what I mean? Right.
The context of writing would simply make his actions seem more justified.
And I'm not saying I'm justifying them.
I'm saying that, persuasion-wise, it would look more justified.
So I think the left would be smart enough, or at least the organizers.
I don't think any organizers would be dumb enough to organize around this.
Because I think they know this would be too far.
Just too much of a bullshitty thing to take.
And I think they could use the excuse that there's 500 National Guard there.
Now, I do think there will be a smattering of just people independently saying, hey, I think I'll go down there and complain.
But I don't know that it will be organized by anybody smart.
Not the way BLM is organized.
Not the way Antifa is organized.
Because they do have some kind of leadership.
that seems to be, you know, at least smart enough to know when to, you know, when to play and when to hold them.
I give the left too much credit.
Well, that's how we can find out.
Now, I've told you since the beginning of my political commentary that the only credibility you should give me...
Is what I earn through prediction.
And that everything else is just entertainment.
And if I can predict better than other people, then you should give me a little more weight than people who are bad at predicting.
And that's all. That's the best I can do.
So that's my prediction that the organizers of riots will be too smart To organize this one.
So whatever happens would be unorganized and smallish.
Maybe opportunistic.
And that's about it. How does follow the money apply to the jury verdict?
Well, there's no motive stronger than fear.
So fear beats money.
Maybe it's the only thing.
I can't think of anything else.
Can you? I think fear beats money.
And there may be some identity stuff that does, but not as much.
Lust and sex?
Beats money? Maybe.
Does Biden want riots?
I don't think so.
I think riots would be bad for Biden.
I'm seeing somebody on Local saying that I live in a California bubble So I give the left far more credit than it deserves.
Nobody deserves any credit.
Nobody deserves anything.
But if you have a specific example, that'd be great.
Now, if you're saying that I give the left more credit than they deserve, I feel like that's exactly what I'm aiming for.
If you're detecting I'm giving them more credit than they deserve, that's exactly what I'm shooting for.
Because it's the only way I can be credible when I disagree with them, is by starting with giving them more credit than they deserve.
So I guess I would accept that criticism as true, but I think you're wrong that it's a negative.
It's intentional.
Soros.
Who knows how much Soros is behind anything?
I'm not one of the Soros conspiracy people, but it's certainly true that he donates to causes that you may or may not like.
Um... Exactly.
Somebody wisely saying on YouTube that if you can't land on a target exactly, you have to decide whether you're going to overshoot or undershoot.
And when I'm giving credit to the left, I would prefer to overshoot and give them more credit strategically.
All right.
Is wokeness just mass hysteria drummed up by the left media?
I think wokeness is a power play.
And that's the only way I see it.
A lot of these things, you know, we couch them in terms of what's fair and good and who can get away with what.
But some of these things, like abortion and gay rights and a lot of stuff, is just a power.
It has nothing to do with what's right or wrong.
If the people who believe that they are oppressed have enough power, then they change things.
So I just see stuff as power dynamics and nothing else.
Um... Woke is boundary-seeking behavior infantilism.
Hmm. That is an interesting intellectual comment, which I'd have to think about.
I feel like that wasn't as...
I don't know. I have to think about that.
Sounded smart. Blind spot, Scott.
What's my blind spot? So that's the kind of comment that just doesn't help.
Now, I've told you before that it's more exciting to be wrong than right.
Does anybody else have that feeling?
You know, if it's about money, you don't want to be wrong, or health.
Let's say two categories.
If it's about money or health, you don't want to be wrong if it's going to cost you money or cost you health.
But isn't it more exciting to find out you're wrong about something you thought was true all your life?
I find that exhilarating.
Because when you find out you're wrong about something you thought was true all your life, you just got smarter.
Not only about that thing, but about how easily you can be duped.
That's kind of important.
Or marriage. So, how many of you think...
Changing the topic, because I saw a comment there.
How many of you think that...
China is in for a big economic reckoning for any variety of reasons.
They've got a bubble. They closed the border.
I don't know. Yeah, I feel like China's got a big economic bubble.
And here's a dog that's not barking.
Can somebody tell me what progress there has been For Buy American.
Meaning specifically about creating manufacturing plants in the United States.
Can anybody tell me if anything has happened?
And here's the way I'd look at it.
How many, let's say, manufacturing operations moved into China before the pandemic?
And how many American manufacturing jobs have gone to China since the pandemic?
What do you think? I feel like the number of companies going into China may be zero.
But I would love to know what it was before the pandemic.
Was it 100 a month?
What was the number? Because a lot of them would be smaller.
Was it three big ones a month that could really be important?
I just don't know.
But don't you think that that story is lacking in any kind of coverage?
I would say that maybe the biggest...
The security thing that's going is how much we can pull our manufacturing out of China and our supply chain stuff.
So if we don't have any reporting on whether we're at least slowing down our China business, what do we know?
If you don't know if we're slowing down or sending manufacturing to China and reversing it, ideally, if you don't know that, we don't know anything.
Because everything depends on that.
Really, just everything.
Yes, if we don't know it, it's not being managed.
That is correct. China is number one in slavery.
Yeah, you'd have to be an idiot to invest in China at this point.
I actually saw an article recently in a major publication arguing that investing in the Chinese stock market might be a good deal right now because it's depressed at the moment.
To which I said, what actual American would write that article?
Because I think it was written by an American.
What American writes an article that says investing in China seems like it might be a good risk-reward at the moment?
That sounds like somebody paid by China, doesn't it?
I mean, it definitely doesn't sound like something an American would write.
I've already seen articles like that, yeah.
Yeah.
All right. That is all I have for today.
I'm going to go do some other things.
Huawei is just a foreign intelligence operation, yeah.
You know, I invested in...
I think I told you this. When Huawei was having its problems, I invested in Ericsson, because Ericsson is a competitor for the telecom equipment.
And I thought that was a no-brainer.
I thought that investing in Huawei's competition would just be the easiest investment of all, because Huawei would be prevented from competing in Europe.
Ericsson would not be...
There aren't many competitors, so Ericsson would just make a ton of money.
But it went down.
My Ericsson investment just, like, went down.
What's happening? Now, I don't have visibility about that industry at the moment, so it was a dumb investment.
It was more of a political investment than an investment investment.
But... I don't know.
Oh, can I return live if the verdict comes down today?
I will consider that, but it depends where I am and what I'm doing.
I've got a big day today.
Invest in Nokia.
Is Nokia the other one?
All right, everyone who's thinking like you.
All right. Somebody's saying, look into the concentration of lottery winners in Sandy Hook.
That should give you enough to learn how wrong you are about the situation.
No, I don't think you know me that well.
I don't think the number of lottery winners in Sandy Hook is going to convince me of anything.
But... I don't think so.
All right, I think I'm going to go.
Slow news today until the Rittenhouse verdict.
Oh, Erickson was kicked out of China, somebody says.
