Episode 1809 Scott Adams: January 6 Was A Feature Not A Flaw. Propaganda Versus News
My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a
Find my "extra" content on Locals: https://ScottAdams.Locals.com
Content:
Jim Comey defends severe treatment of J6 people
CNN defends having no electricity
Lying techniques
Russell Brand upcoming conversation with Scott
Elon Musk vs Twitter, who will prevail?
Pulitzer Prize ethical, moral integrity
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I hope you're feeling great, because today is going to be a really good day.
For most of you. For most of you, yeah.
And showing up here at the live Coffee with Scott Adams, if you are live, is one of the best things that's ever heard.
What? Neil Peart scored higher than Max.
Why is somebody mentioning Neil Peart when I was just watching Neil Peart videos?
How is that even possible?
Literally the last video I was watching and somebody's mentioning this obscure drummer.
How is that even possible?
Anyway, sorry, I'm having a little simulation moment here.
But if you'd like to take your experience up to the stratosphere, all you need is a cup, a mug, a glass, a tanker, a chalice, a canteen jug, a flask, a vessel of any kind.
Fill it with your favorite liquids.
I like coffee. And join me now for the unparalleled pleasure.
The dopamine to the day thing makes everything better.
Go. Neil Peart is no obscure drummer.
You'd be a non-obscure drummer if you know drummers.
Well, the best fake news of the day, I'm going to say I fell for it.
That'll be my story.
I totally fell for it.
The story was that the place...
Zero Hedge tweeted this originally.
The place that Joe Biden fell off his bicycle on Google Maps...
The name of that place is called Brandon Falls.
Brandon Falls, the exact place he fell off his bicycle.
Now, when you saw that, did you say to yourself, well, that's definitely true.
Or did you say to yourself, that's a little too on the nose.
Well, my first reaction to that is, no, that's just somebody geotagged it, which is a thing you can do.
So it'll show up on the map, but that doesn't mean it's the name of the town.
But I tweeted that mofo anyway.
Do you know why? Because for the three or four seconds it would take before it got debunked, which it did.
It took a few seconds, but it got debunked right away.
I wanted you to feel it was true.
I'm not proud of that.
But when I first read it, I thought, oh, this is really funny, because it might be true.
But then after about 10 seconds, you say, no, that's just a geotag.
But I tweeted it anyway, because I wanted you to have the same experience.
Then for a few seconds, you'd think, is that true?
And it would just be, like, really weird and fun.
And then, you know, a minute later, you'd find out none of it was true.
It was just some joker geotag.
Which, by the way, is funny enough.
The fact that it was done by a joker, and it's not real, is just as funny.
So I thought, well, either way.
But anyway, it wasn't real. So, Comey is writing in the Washington Post why it's so important that all the January 6th protesters Be held accountable.
You know, all the ones that broke laws.
And that everyone should be followed up on.
I guess there are some FBI people that Comey is aware of who are thinking that maybe the treatment of the January 6th people was a little harsh compared to how other protesters in other contexts have been treated.
But Comey is saying, no, no, no, no.
And this is one of the things that Comey says.
Quote... He says, none of that matters because surely you agree on one thing.
January 6th can't happen again.
Really? Do we agree on that?
I don't agree on that.
I don't even agree that January 6th was bad.
Except for the violence.
The violence was bad, of course.
Everybody agrees the violence was bad.
Don't make that a thing.
But what about the fact that there was a major protest at the Capitol and it was really dicey?
Was that a feature or a flaw?
Let me say something about America, Mr.
Comey, which is something you apparently don't know about your own country.
It goes like this.
If something happens that the government does, if the government does something, let's say an election, and the signal is that there's fraud, The signal.
Doesn't mean the signal's correct.
There are lots of false signals.
But definitely the signal from this election was that there was something sketchy, and you ought to pause for a second and make sure that everything's okay.
That's what the protesters wanted.
Now, ask me, do I not want that to happen again?
No, I do want that to happen again.
But Scott, Scott, Scott, you say, people got hurt.
You want that to happen again?
Yes, I do. Not the hurt part, but if it's part of the package, yes, yes.
Protests are dangerous.
People get hurt. Let me say it unambiguously.
If the same situation arose again, where half, I'm going to say half the country, had deep questions about the integrity of the election system, I want another January 6th.
And I don't care if it's the Democrats who are protesting a Republican victory.
I don't care who the winner was.
That's not even on my radar.
That's a whole separate question.
But if you send the American people a big, glaring signal of fraud, there's going to be a crowd.
There's going to be a crowd.
That doesn't mean the signal is correct, right?
Lots of stuff we see as signals are just false.
Probably half of them.
Maybe most of them.
Maybe most of the signals are false.
But you tell me that you send a signal this glaringly big that something might be wrong.
Might be. Because I haven't seen any proof that the election was rigged, personally.
But did it signal that something needed to be looked at?
Yes. Yes, it did.
In the eyes of a lot of smart people who may have been suffering from confirmation bias, whatever.
But a lot of smart people looked at it and said, that we need to look into.
That's a pretty big signal right there.
You don't just ignore that signal.
So, to Mr.
Comey, let me say I could not disagree more.
What this country needs is more January 6th, not less.
We need more of it.
We need a crowd to form when it's obvious our government is sending signals of fraud.
Has the Biden administration sent any signals that they're not credible in dealing with China?
Yes, they have.
A whole Hunter Biden laptop.
Now, there hasn't been any protest over that that I know of.
But if a protest formed over that and people got hurt, I would be in favor of that.
Not the people getting hurt, but a process in which people take higher risk because they think there's a higher level problem.
Yes, when people see a high level problem, or even maybe a high level problem, and they take high level risk to address it, that's the country I want to live in.
Don't tell me you're taking that away.
That's the reason I love this country.
It's like burning the flag.
I've said this a million times, but I'm going to keep saying it until everybody believes it.
I don't want to salute a flag I can't burn.
The fact that you can burn it in public is why I glorify it.
That's why I respect it.
That's why I honor the flag.
Because you can burn that thing in public, and it gets stronger.
Every time you burn it, it gets stronger.
Burn it today. You could burn it right in front of me.
I know a lot of you would be so offended if you saw a flag burning right in front of you.
You might try to put it out. You might get violent when the person is doing it.
You'd be so offended. Not me.
Not me. You could burn that flag right in front of me.
You could put a whole pile of flags, set them all on fire.
And when you're done, that flag will be stronger.
Because it let you burn it up and it didn't do anything.
That's how it gets its power.
The power of the flag is you can burn it.
Don't lose that. Don't lose that.
That's a feature. All right.
And Comey says, we have a constitution and statues and blah, blah, blah.
And the FBI's job is to send the message that it can never happen again if we are to remain a nation under law.
No, Mr. Comey.
It's going to happen again.
Because we're America.
We got a lot of flaws.
We Americans got a lot to answer to, right?
People got questions about us?
Okay. They're not all bad questions.
We got a lot to answer to.
But there is one thing we're going to get right every time.
Fuck around and fight out.
We'll get that right every time.
Fuck around and find out.
That doesn't mean we're always right.
But if you fuck around, you're going to find out.
It's just spilt into the American DNA. And most countries, I think.
We're not that unique.
Well, CNN has continued its two-pronged plan to destroy the planet while also telling you that it could be fun.
Could be fun. Does that sound like an exaggeration?
The CNN is destroying the planet, but simultaneously telling you how you can have fun with it.
Well, there was a story today about how, you know, we might have energy problems and you might lose your AC during the summer, but CNN explains that you can still have fun on hot days, and then it gives you a number of tips for not overheating.
So, CNN and the like...
Have pushed the climate change narrative until it caused people to overreact and get rid of their own energy sources without replacements online.
So CNN and others who have gotten us to this place where we reviled the energy that could power our AC, they're literally trying to sell you that everything's fine.
Oh, yeah, it'll be 110 and you won't have AC, but, you know, you can still have fun in the heat.
You can still have fun in that heat.
Just, you know, don't overdo it.
Here's some tips. Put a nice cube in your pants.
Oh, that's right. Your freezer doesn't work.
Just go send your electric car with AC on, as long as you don't have to recharge it.
Yeah. So that's nice of them to destroy the world and tell us how to enjoy it.
Well, Janet Yellen says that we're working with South Korea and probably some other allies to try to decouple from China and the rare earth materials because China has a lot of that market and we depend on it, apparently. So it's a bad thing to depend on that because our whole tech industry and our military and everything else depends on those rare earth materials going into products.
But now we're going to decouple from China and And looking at South Korea for chips and other stuff.
And let me ask you this.
How many of you remember during Trump's first term, and it was early on, before the pandemic, so how many of you remember that before the pandemic I was tweeting like an idiot that we should decouple from China's economy?
How many people remember me saying it over and over again?
And do you remember the reaction I got?
Does anybody remember the reaction from the public?
Now, some of you who follow me were like, yeah, yeah, let's do it.
But generally speaking, what would you say the public reaction was?
The public reaction was, that's not going to happen.
That's never going to happen.
Scott, Scott, Scott.
That's not going to happen. Well, it's happening.
Now, it took a pandemic to do it, but, you know, something was going to happen to wake us up.
It just happened to be that.
Now, the idiot cartoonist was asking for decoupling, but we're decoupling.
That's happening. Now, here's a question to you.
Take me out of the equation for a moment.
Which of our political leaders were also early on decoupling from China?
Name somebody who's running for president, or might, you know, somebody whose name is in the mix, and Trump, right?
Trump, okay. Now, did Trump ever say decouple?
Have you ever heard Trump say decouple?
I don't know if he's used that word.
Somebody's saying Rand Paul.
Rand Paul has said decouple?
As Hawley? I haven't heard of Hawley.
The one I know is Tom Cotton.
Can you confirm that?
I think Tom Cotton was the earliest and strongest voice of the high-end politicians.
Well, Tucker was not a politician.
But of the people running for president, I think it was Tom Cotton, right?
So when you're deciding who to support here, I would just ask you to remember who was right and who was vocally right.
Kyle Bass, of course...
Highly influential on this.
So give a thought to the fact that I think Tom Cotton had the right priorities and saw it early.
So we're watching the left try to explain Biden away.
And it looks like some of them have turned.
We'll talk about that in a minute.
But have you tried having a conversation with a Democrat and asking how they feel about their Biden presidency?
Have you done that lately? You should try it.
Just ask how they think they're doing and watch the answer.
Because I'm pretty sure there's nobody who thinks he's doing a good job.
Like, actually. Don't you think?
I'm pretty sure literally no one quietly, like in their private time, I don't think anyone thinks he's doing a good job.
I could be wrong, but I don't think so.
So watching somebody answer a question when you know they're lying is really useful.
Here's a tip for you.
If there's somebody in your life that you suspect is a liar, don't try to catch them on all their lies.
Let them lie.
Because when you let them lie, if you know they're lying, this is the important part, you know they're lying, watch how they do it.
Because people lie in very specific ways.
It's almost like a fingerprint.
The way one person lies is completely different than the way another person lies.
And look for that. Once you notice that, you're going to see the tell for lying, and it'll be really obvious.
But you have to let them lie so you can see their method.
I hate to tell you how many times I've done this.
Let people lie to me.
Go, okay, all right, you're lying.
So how are you doing it?
Okay. You've added a whole bunch of details.
Okay, that's a technique.
So the way some people lie is they'll add characters and details and like whole events, like an entire imagined event.
But some people will never lie like that.
That's just like too far.
Other people, the most they'll do is lie by omission.
Like leave out a little context.
I would say, if you catch me in a lie, it's going to be that one.
Here's a lie I never tell.
A thing didn't happen that did.
I would never tell a lie that says a thing happened when it didn't or did when it didn't.
Like, that's a direct lie.
I don't tell those. Like, I don't know.
Maybe there's some special case or something.
But, like, that's a lie that I don't like to cross.
But if somebody asks me a question and I didn't feel like a complete answer, I might leave out something.
You know, very normal human behavior.
You don't have to be proud of it.
Sometimes it's just easier.
You know, sometimes it's just convenience.
It's not a big deal. So, watch for people's technique.
And those are just a sample.
But if you look at the way they lie, you can find people's pattern, and then you'll see it every time.
All right. But Jimmy Fallon had a really funny joke about Joe Biden's fist bump with the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.
Jimmy Fallon's joke is that it wasn't a fist bump.
He was trying to punch him as hard as he could.
That's the best he could do.
And, you know, it's Jimmy Fallon's joke, so I'll let him have the joke.
But I was imagining me telling the joke if it had been me telling it.
I think it would have been more physical.
It would have been, you know, Joe Biden winding up, and the crown prince seeing it coming and saying, well, it looks like he's going to punch me.
I'd better stop that.
So he puts his fist out.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh. It's a good joke.
But are you surprised that somebody who would be left-oriented, Jimmy Fallon, would go right after him for how weak he is?
But did you see CNN's top left page today?
I tweeted out a screenshot of just the top left part of CNN's page because the top left is where they put the propaganda.
Did you know that, by the way?
All the propaganda goes in the top left.
Because that's what people read.
When you read a website, you start at the top left, and then you may someday get to the bottom right or the bottom, but probably not.
You're probably going to read the top left.
So when they want to support a narrative, they don't just spread it around where it belongs.
They put it in the top left, so you're damn well going to see it.
So the top left of CNN is negative Biden pieces today.
There's even a negative Jill Biden piece.
If they're starting to shit on Jill Biden, Jill Biden.
Not Hunter, not Joe, but Jill.
Now, let me put my personal line in the sand here.
I don't make fun of first ladies generally.
And if someday there's a first gentleman, I'm not going to make fun of that person either.
Because they didn't run for office, right?
Yeah, I get that they're part of the deal, but when they got married, they probably weren't thinking about running for office.
So the spouses, I always give the spouses a free pass.
I don't care if it's Melania or Jill or even Hillary Clinton.
Like, just leave them alone.
Leave them alone. If they're trying hard...
I'm good with that. You know, put in a little effort.
That'd be good. Put in a little effort.
Now, nobody can say that Jill Biden isn't putting in the effort.
Am I right? She might be the hardest working person in government and she wasn't even elected.
So, I'm not going to dump on Jill Biden, you know, unless it's just funny or something.
I might do that. But just let her...
You know, just understand, we didn't elect her, right?
She doesn't, she's not, she doesn't deserve, well, nobody deserves anything.
All right, here's a question for you.
If you had some word salad and you wanted to keep it in a container of some sort, what is the right container for word salad?
Well, my answer is Kamala Harris' pantsuit.
Kamala Harris' pantsuit.
That's a little joke. Sorry.
But I feel as if almost every day we see a new clip of her babbling like an idiot.
How many babbling idiot clips can you create out of one person who doesn't really talk that much in public?
Makes me wonder if you could do that with me.
So now I have, what, almost 700 hours of live stream?
In my 700 hours of live streams, do you think you could put together a compilation clip where I'm babbling?
Actually, I don't think so.
I mean, I've been stoned on half of them, and I still don't think you could put together a babbling clip.
But imagine the babbling clip you could put together with Kabbalah.
So he says, Jill is guilty of exploiting Joe.
No, that's mind-reading.
That's mind reading. She may just find herself in this situation.
She just might be making the best of the situation.
I don't know, but I'm not going to accuse her of something based on me reading her mind.
That's not going to happen. All right.
So MSNBC on-air news host type person Katie Turr is noting that there's no trust in the media and sometimes she's wondering if she's doing any good.
Only 16% of Americans said they have a great deal or a lot of confidence in newspapers in 2022.
Only 16% have a great deal of confidence.
And that's down since 2021.
This was according to Gallup.
And Katie Turr complains that maybe she's not helping the world.
Well, Katie...
Most of Katie's news is on a network that doesn't even report real news.
It's almost an entirely propaganda network.
And, well, you know, let me digress for a moment.
I think the most important part of this story is what kind of nickname did the cruel kids give Katie Tur, T-U-R is her last name, in high school?
Now, is that a married name?
I don't know if it's a married name.
It might be a married name. That's not as funny.
Well, no, it's not turd.
No, it's Katie Turr.
It's three-quarters of a turd.
Yeah, it's three-quarters of a turd, but it's not a full turd.
And I think that has to be noted.
So Katie, who is three-quarters of a turd, In name only.
In name only. We're not insulting her.
It's just her name. I didn't make that up.
Speaking of polls, the Rasmussen poll thinks...
So Rasmussen poll asked voters, how many think that Joe Biden profited from China deals?
Now, we know that Hunter Biden profited from China deals.
That's in evidence. But...
It's a little less proven that Joe Biden made money from it.
And I would say it's unproven at this point.
I have not seen evidence that would guarantee he made money.
There's indications.
There are suggestions.
There are flags. There are flags and suggestions.
There are signals.
There are signals. But there's not proof yet that I've seen.
However, 62% of the public, according to Rasmussen poll, believes that Biden made some money from China deals.
How often do you get 62% of anybody agreeing on anything?
Did Trump ever have 62% of the public have a negative thought about a single topic?
You know, maybe... Maybe the January 6th thing would create that.
But while he was in office, I don't know.
I don't think he was ever that unpopular, was he?
All right. Here's something that...
So the Democrats have this belief, and I don't know what to do with it, The belief is that if you ask for an audit of an election that you think was suspicious, your true intention is to become a dictator.
Let me say that again.
This is the 2 plus 2 equals 4 that the Democrats have put together.
If you insist on an audit of an election that about half the country thinks isn't credible, and so you ask to check, is this really credible...
That means your inner thoughts are to become a dictator.
So if you're working hard to make sure that a vote was accurate and fair, that's proof that you want to be a dictator.
Democrats also have other things that are similar to that.
So working hard to make sure that an election was fair, that equals trying to be a dictator.
But taking a drink of water...
is proof that you're trying to become a cactus.
Taking a ride in a car is proof that you don't believe airplanes exist.
There are a lot of things that you can prove in the Democrat way.
If you water a plant in your house, that's proof that you have cancer.
If you take a walk on a nice summer day, That's proof you're a murderer.
If you wake up and stretch like this, like that, that's proof you're a pedophile.
If you tell a joke, if people laugh, that's proof you're probably Hitler.
Now, I could go on, but I think you see the pattern.
Orange plus pineapple equals hammer.
And that is who wants to run the country.
No, I correct myself.
That is who is running the country.
The people who say apple plus banana equals hammer are in charge of the country, the Democrats.
So that's happening.
I learned that from a brainwashed NPC today.
Joe Rogan apparently is not on board with the Trump train.
Never has been. He was never a Trump supporter in terms of voting.
But he's called Trump a man-baby and thinks all of his energy comes from Adderall.
Okay. Here's my question.
I think I saw Cenk Uygur saying, if Trump doesn't have the right wing, he can't win.
To which other people said, who are you calling the right wing?
Are you calling Joe Rogan, who supported Bernie for president, the right wing?
Let me give you another example of Democrat thinking.
If the guy who supported Bernie is right wing, there are other things you could imagine that Democrats also think.
If it's light out...
At 12 noon? That could be an indication that it's dark.
I don't know. A lot of things are non-obvious, but the Democrats have explained it to us.
Well, what do you think, but more generally, what do you think of the prominent prior supporters of Trump who may not be on board this time?
I don't think Mike Cernovich is on board, but I can't speak for him.
He has complicated thoughts, so I don't try to summarize them if I can avoid it.
I'm not on board. So, yeah, who cares?
Do you think it'd make a difference? Do you think it would make a difference if some of the, let's say, I'm not going to call myself charismatic, but I'll say other charismatic people who had some influence may not be on board?
What do you think? Scott just wants to win, somebody says.
Is there somebody who doesn't want to win?
Somebody here is saying if Cernovich is out, Trump has no shot.
What do you think? See, I think this might be one of those situations where the world finds out, like, how it really works.
Let me ask you that question.
How many of you think that Mike Cernovich being not on board with Trump would be enough to make it impossible for him to win?
What do you think? Or would it even have a big impact?
You don't have to say impossible.
Most of you are saying no? But I think I asked my question wrong.
Is the no that he would have no impact or that Trump couldn't get elected?
I don't know which way I asked the question now.
I don't know if the no is agree with the thought or disagree.
No impact? No impact.
So most of you are saying small or no impact.
So that would mean that your belief is that Cervich is not influential Beyond maybe his core supporters.
Is that what you think? How about me?
Let's move to me. Let's say, hypothetically, and this is probable, let's say that I'm not on board with Trump for another term.
Would I have any impact?
Local says no.
Mostly no. A few yeses, but mostly no.
Not anymore. That would be a good answer.
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
All right, so most of you believe that my opinion, and I'll just use Mike Cernovich as an example, not important.
Joe Rogan's opinion.
If Joe Rogan went from, you know, maybe disinterest in Trump to maybe outright negative, would that make a difference?
No impact. Interesting.
So who do you think changes public opinion?
Who do you think moves the public opinion?
Fox News? Do you believe that you all are making up your own opinions?
Tucker? Yeah.
Oh, is Tucker going to be pro-Trump?
Oh, there's an interesting question.
Will Tucker be pro-Trump?
What? Has he...
I don't think...
Well, Tucker probably won't endorse somebody, but we would know by the way he covers it.
Yeah. What about Greg Gottfeld?
How is he going to handle a potential Trump run?
But, all right, you tell me, who do you think there was a non-politician who would be the most influential on the question of whether Trump gets re-elected?
Name the most influential non-politician.
Ben Shapiro. Steve Bannon.
Elon Musk. Well, Elon Musk I wouldn't put in that list.
The Pope.
Trump Jr. Elon Musk.
Tucker. Rogan.
Interesting. So, Baron Rothschild.
I'm going to give you a special credit for whoever said Barrett Rothschild.
I like that Soros or Rothschild get thrown into every conversation.
All right, a lot of you think it's Tucker, but here's an interesting question.
Do we know what Tucker's opinion would be on the second Trump run?
I don't think I know the answer to that.
I mean, maybe he's, you know, not talking about it yet.
Alright. Alright, I'm going to break some news for you.
Want me to break some news?
Tiny news. Little news.
Has more to do with me than you.
So, yesterday, Russell Brand's producer asked me if I would appear on Russell Brand's podcast.
And I said, yes, we just have to schedule.
So sometime in the next few weeks, Russell Brand and I will have a conversation, probably on the topic of all things important and political, I guess.
I don't know. We'll decide what it is when we get there.
Now, how do you think that's going to go?
What do you think? I mean, seriously, how do you think that's going to go?
I am so curious.
I have to admit, this is the most excited I've ever been about a conversation.
And I would call it a conversation.
I don't think it's an interview, per se.
But I don't think I've ever been more excited.
And you know why? By the way, do you know why I'm excited about it?
This will be a good test to see how well you know me.
It'll be wild. It might be.
I mean, neither of us have any guardrails, so it could go anywhere.
So some people are saying it'd be smart and funny, and in a perfect world, it would be.
But that's not really the special part.
It's not just because he's smart.
He is brilliant. It's not just because he has six million viewers, but that's a big part of it.
Here's why. Have you ever seen two open-minded people on a large platform have a conversation about politics?
I'll bet not once.
Have you? And if you have, name it.
I've never seen it. There's actually some...
Joe Rogan?
Yeah. But there's a difference.
There's a difference. Joe Rogan is more of an interviewer.
Meaning that this is my take on it.
I think Joe Rogan is maybe the best interviewer we have.
I would say he's in the top whatever, you know, maybe the best.
But he gets his guests to be the stars.
Would you agree with that?
Joe Rogan's genius is that he makes stars out of his guests.
Sort of, you know, Johnny Carson effect.
Johnny Carson's always a star, but what he does really well is he makes his guests the star.
And that's what Joe Rogan does.
Now, what I see in...
And, you know, he has plenty of opinions, too, but it's more about making the guests the star.
I think in the case of...
In Russell Brand's case, I think his input is more central to the show.
But let me ask you this.
Have you ever seen two people who actually maybe could understand some of the topics who were open-minded and had a big platform and talked about the big issues in public?
I've never seen it.
This actually might be a first.
It excites me because of the model.
I'm a big fan of Russell Brand, so it's exciting just because it's him.
But I've lived in this world long enough that celebrity contact isn't exciting too much on its own.
Like, I need a little extra to make it exciting.
And I believe that his ability to take a topic where it needs to go is damn near unparalleled.
And I like to play in that domain as well.
So if you put us together, I don't know, it feels like matches in dynamite.
That's what it feels like.
I just feel like this is matching dynamite.
I don't know who's matching who's dynamite, but it's definitely a match and a dynamite.
So we might stir some shit up.
We might...
I don't know, but I feel like we're going to make a small tear in the fabric of reality.
I don't know. It'll be fun.
Let's see. Elon Musk filed a counterclaim, lawsuit-type thing against Twitter.
And he's got his arguments that Twitter fired some high-level executives and they weren't supposed to do that without checking with the potential buyer.
But what do you think are the odds of Elon Musk prevailing in court or Twitter prevailing under the situation that you know about?
Which is that...
There may be some question about how many bots there are, and Elon Musk can't find that out, and it's material.
Now, whether or not the arrangement said something about, I'm not going to look into things, I still think such a material promise is important.
Like, I don't think they can just lie to you and say, well, you said you weren't going to look into it, so we just lied to you.
I don't think that's a defense, is it?
I mean, this is sort of an area of the law, like all the rest, that I have no real appreciation for.
But I'll tell you my feeling is that Elon Musk will prevail in court.
Now, he might end up buying the company, but it would be at a different price, and it would be after he found out how many bots were there.
But that would be a whole separate conversation.
What do you think? Now, part of it is, I can't believe that Musk would have gotten himself into this situation without having an escape hatch.
Because he's not like the guy who doesn't think it through, right?
He's not operating on impulse.
Like, oh, I just feel like buying Twitter.
I didn't think it through. Well, that's not him.
He thought it through. So I have a feeling that he has the stronger case and maybe knows it and maybe there's nothing happening here that isn't going to work in his favor.
I feel like all that's happening is Musk is finding the lowest price for this asset and once he finds it, he'll pull the trigger.
That would be my prediction.
But I will put this prediction not as a binary, like it happens or not.
I'm just going to go with 60% odds.
So I'll go with 60% chance that Musk wins and buys the company at a lower price eventually.
I think walk away is a reasonable prediction.
Both of them walking away.
It's entirely possible that Elon Musk has no interest in Twitter by now.
He may have lost interest.
Who knows? All right.
Here's some fake news on Fox.
So on the Fox website, since I often point out CNN's fake news, I like to balance.
Do you believe there's any fake news on the Fox News website today?
Or do you think that that's all true?
Well, an article there by Tyler Olson on Fox News, he mentions this just in a throwaway line about Biden making regular gaffes, ranging from the inane, like appearing to shake hands with a person who is not there.
That's fake news.
As far as I know, Biden has never attempted to shake hands with a person not there.
He has, on at least two occasions, signaled with his open hand that he was asking, should I walk over here, or do we go sit here, or you go first.
And then it gets clipped so you don't see that's what he's doing, and it looks like he's shaking hands with a ghost.
That's fake news. Now, the way it was worded was kind of interesting.
It's called a gaffe, which doesn't mean necessarily that you were stupid or wrong.
It means you did something that turned out poorly.
And one example is it appearing to try to shake hands with a person who's not there.
I think if you write that it appears he tried to shake hands, you need to clarify that it appeared like that to people who saw the video out of context.
It didn't appear like that to me when I saw the full video.
If you saw the full thing, it appeared he was motioning toward a chair.
So, fake news on Fox News.
Nobody gets away from my fake news criticism.
As you know, the Pulitzer Committee had given Pulitzer Prizes for the New York Times and Washington Post writers for their coverage of Russiagate, which turned out to be total bullshit.
So I guess the Pulitzer Committee, the board, they had two reviews...
To find out if these Pulitzer awards were still something they would back.
And they found there were no problems.
No problems. So the Pulitzer committee has doubled down about giving the Pulitzer-wide review to writers who literally made up fake news and sold it to the public and tried to destroy the republic.
And they got a Pulitzer for writing bullshit that nearly destroyed the country.
I'm wondering... Is it too late for Hitler to get a Pulitzer from Mein Kampf?
Because I don't know that there's a time limit, right?
You could have written a book a long time ago and they still could get a Pulitzer, can it not?
So I would say maybe they should consider that since they obviously have no ethical or moral core whatsoever.
Here's the name of a politician who followed me on Twitter today, and so I followed back because I had to.
I had to. Sometimes there's a follow that you say, I think I'll follow, this could be fun.
But sometimes you just have to.
Here's why I had to. He's running for Congress in Arizona, and he's a...
If I can judge correctly from his profile picture, I judge him to be a black American whose actual name is Walt Blackman.
His last name is Blackman.
So if you're a Republican running for Congress, you're going to get all the Republican votes because you're a Republican.
But if your last name is Blackman and you're a black man, aren't you going to get 20% of the Democrat votes automatically?
Am I wrong about that?
Just the fact that he's a black man who's called black man?
I think that's worth 20% of the Democrat vote.
Here's my prediction.
If Walt Blackman has any skills whatsoever, he will be your president someday.
I don't know anything about him.
Like nothing. I've never heard him talk.
I just followed him on Twitter today because he followed me.
There's a picture of him.
So he's a good-looking guy.
Seems like the right age for building up his political resume.
So I don't know anything about him.
But if you just say he's a good-looking guy, he's about the right age, and he's a Republican, and his name is Black Man, how in the world does he ever lose an election?
You'd have to be terrible at campaigning to lose under those conditions.
Anyway, if you feel like it, give him a follow.
He's in Arizona. But mark my words.
You might hear from him again.
All right. All right.
I think I was going to talk about something else, but it changed my mind.
All right, I think that covers all the many fascinating things that I wanted to discuss today.
I'm hoping we'll see more imaginary evidence in the January 6th hearings today.
Imaginary evidence is the kind where the president says something like, can somebody bring me a Diet Coke?
And then somebody reports it as, he asked for a Diet Coke, and that's mafia talk for overthrowing the country.
So that's pretty much the quality of the evidence.
Yeah, the Bannon jury selection happened.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but this is actually happening.
Steve Bannon has to manage his schedule...
It's kind of a difficult thing to juggle at the moment.
Because there are two things that Steve Bannon has new that he has to add to his schedule.
One of the new things is he has to testify to Congress, which he's agreed to do.
So he's got to work that into his schedule, testify to Congress.
At the same time he has to work into his schedule the court case in which he's being charged for not doing that, testifying to Congress voluntarily.
So he's got to figure out how to balance his schedule to testify to Congress, but also try to stay in a jail for being accused of not testifying to Congress, which he's doing at the same time.
Now, I understand there's a timing issue, and the Democrats have said, oh, no, he has to be prosecuted because at one point he said no, and that's against the law.
So even though at one point he said no, but even while the proceedings are still going, so it's not too late at all.
It's not too late. He agreed to do it, and they're going to prosecute him anyway.
That's your tax dollars.
So your tax dollars are going to cede a jury to have a trial to convict a guy for not doing the thing that he's actually doing at the moment.
Like, at the moment that the jury will be deliberating, you know, possibly, they'll actually be deliberating whether they should punish him for not doing the thing he's doing, doing in public, where everybody's watching, at the same time.
That's where we're at.
Now, I get there's a technical reason why he'd have to be charged if you wanted to be a complete asshole, right?
Now let me ask you this.
If the ban in trial turned into, you know, him being railroaded, and a January 6th-like crowd surrounded the courtroom, and there was violence that broke out, which nobody recommends.
I don't want to see any violence.
Would you say that was a good thing, a feature, or a flaw?
Would that be a feature or a flaw if a giant protest...
It's a fucking feature.
It's a feature. Right.
And Mr. Comey, let me tell you, you're not going to talk Americans out of forming a crowd if you send a signal that big.
And the signal that big is that we've just forgotten about what's good or legal, and it's just all about winning, and we don't care who we crush in the meantime.
If that's the signal you're sending, you can expect a crowd.
So I'm not like some big Steve Bannon supporter.
He can do his thing, I do my thing.
It's just different worlds.
I don't have any connection, really.
So it's not about him.
It's about the government.
If the government is going to prosecute...
And by the way, I would say exactly the same thing if he were a Democrat...
It wouldn't change. If he were a Democrat being prosecuted for not doing the thing he's doing at the moment, I think I'd have something to say about that.
And I hope it would be exactly the same.
But, yeah, if a crowd forms around the courtroom and some violence happens, because it always does when there's a big crowd, I mean, somebody always gets hurt, I'm okay with it.
I'm okay with it. It's a feature, not a flaw.
All right, ladies and gentlemen, I think I've delivered the finest entertainment that you could ever get commercial free in this entire internet.
I think that's a fact and a feature, not a flaw.
There's still time. Yes, there is.
Yeah. Give me a Diet Coke, and by that I mean put down a hit on everybody I don't like.
Um... Do you still wear a watch?
No. I haven't worn a watch for a long, long time.
Can you imagine someone trying to tell you what to do?
What? Oh, Diet Coke.
Yeah, Diet Coke has dye right in diet.
You're right. Do red flag laws apply to citizens who control nuclear weapons, too?
That's a good question. Do you think we should have Biden looked into...
Because he has access to a weapon, but we've got some questions about his mental capabilities.
Time to activate that red flag law.
Can I provide guidance for how to provide friction so a 15-year-old doesn't use cannabis until they're older?
The answer is there's nothing you can do about drugs and your children that I know of.
I've never seen anything.
Now, I suppose you could be a hard ass and tell them what to do.
But they have complete access to marijuana.
There's no kid who doesn't have total access.
So if they want to do it, there's basically nothing you can do.
You could try educating.
You could try scaring them, I guess.
I suppose you could try scaring them.
I've never seen it work. There are lots of things you can try, but I've never seen anything work.
Kids make up their own ideas.
In the same family, you could have two kids raised exactly the same.
One's a piehead, one doesn't want anything to do with it.
How many of you have ever seen that?
Does anybody have a family where one kid's a piehead and the other one doesn't want anything to do with it?
Right. Well, the answer is yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
It's all individual. If you think that your great parenting is what's going to make the difference in that...
You're going to be disappointed.
No matter what you do, you're going to have one that likes it and one that doesn't, and they're going to act on their preferences.
That's it. That's it.
Yeah, and you look at the comments, everybody's saying, yep, yep, yep.
It's only the people who haven't seen it that think that's a thing.
I don't think there are many things that are more cripplingly negative in this world than the false belief that good parenting is the big solution.
Good parenting is necessary and important.
It's necessary and important.
I'm not going to minimize it, but it's not magic.
If you take this thing which is necessary and really important, And you treat it that way, that's great.
But if you say it's magic, you know, you're not really playing on a real field here.
Steve Keen and Alexis, no, I haven't. - Yeah.
Somebody says that it's culture more than parenting.
Is it? I don't know.
Maybe. Maybe so.
I have two siblings and I don't even feel related to them yet.
You should not have over your kids.
Yeah, right. You should not have 100% control over your own kids.
That would be worse.
Yeah, that would be worse. Watching a loved one deteriorate can make you quit.
Yeah, but that's, again, fear does work.
Fear is persuasive.
If you can irrationally scare somebody into it, I mean, use your own ethical and moral judgment about whether you do that to your own kid, it feels a little damaging as well.
But, yeah, I mean, you could try.
Who says it's magic? Republicans often think that parenting can fix things like drug use, and they can't.
They really can't. Minimum age for social media should be 21 or maybe even 25.
Do you want something manipulating your brain before your brain is formed?
Because your brain isn't formed until 25.
But as a society, we've kind of set it at 21 for important things, so we would probably conform to that.
21. Yeah, fear works.
I don't like to recommend fear persuasion because there's a moral and ethical element to that.
Because basically it might require lying.
Lying to your kids is...
Supportable. It's just not ideal.
By the way, I have no problem with parents lying to their kids for some... if it's for a good purpose.
You have three kids and you're raising them without electronics.
I'd really love to see the difference between kids raised by electronics and not.
Because it's not like it's all positive.
My sense is that it's more positive than negative.
But I think there might be some problems that are unanticipated with that.
Persuasion advice for someone new to the workforce.
Yes. You're in sales.
So you're new to the workforce and you're in sales.
What do you do? And the answer is you use reciprocity as your primary tool.
So you find out what good things you can do for a potential customer or a customer, and you'll see if you can activate their reciprocity.
So doing more than you're expected to do, not just for your boss, but for your customer or potential customers, is the main thing.
That's the main persuasive thing that you do.
Can you compromise with your kids, like, if you get good grades, you can smoke weed?
Nope. That sounds like somebody who's never had any experience with a teenager.
Here's doing a deal with a teenager.
If you get A's, you could smoke marijuana.
Yeah, how's that work?
Kid gets B +, and says, well, if I didn't have a bad teacher, I would have had an A. So, then you say, well, no, the deal was A's.
Then the kid says, hmm, I know.
But if I had a better teacher, I would have had an A, so I'm going to smoke anyway.
There's no way you can make a deal with a teenager.
Can I say that directly?
There's no such thing as a deal with a teenager.
If you think of it as a practice deal, like you're training them to understand the value of a deal, like a deal's a deal.
I don't know where I got it, but I've always been a deal's a deal kind of person.
You'd have to be extreme situation For me to break a deal, even if at the end of it I wish I had not made that deal.
I'm going to keep a deal.
Because that's the only way you can be a complete person.
You can't be a complete person if you can't keep your deals.
Because when somebody talks to you, they go, I don't even know who you are.
If you talk to somebody and you're not a person who keeps your deals, you know, I said I'd do this, and then I did.
If you're not that person, people don't even know who the hell you are.
I don't know. Are you a person who shows up or a person who doesn't show up?
I can't even tell the difference.
Until you make sure that people know you're a person who does what you say you're going to do, they don't even know you.
You're just like a ball of, you know, amorphous nothing.
But let me deal with the most important story on the internet, and I was prompted to do this.
I was going to not, but unfortunately somebody made a comment about it that cannot be ignored.
There is a minister, I think he's a minister, in Africa, and the story goes, I'm just reporting the story.
I'm not saying it's true or untrue, simply reporting it.
That he believes he can cure people by sitting on their face and farting in it.
And that people go to his church and he sits on their face and farts on their face and cleanses them of their evil spirits or whatever it is.
Now, you might say to yourself, I don't believe that's true.
I think I said that to myself too.
But do you know why it's not true?
That he sits on people's faces and farts in them?
Because the story is two on the nose.
Boom. Yeah, two on the nose.
Now, I would like to express some pure hatred for the Twitter user who thought of that joke before I did.
I hate you and love you in equal measure.
I respect you.
Oh, I respect you.
But I hate you for getting to that first.
I'm a little bit competitive.
I'm a little bit competitive.
And how in the world did you beat me to that?
I mean, really.
I am a professional.
The moment I saw that, my fingers should have started tweeting.
It's too on the nose.
It's too on the nose. Like, how did you beat me to that?
Seriously. Did you see the...
There's some reality show competition with Kelly Clarkson where she's...
Who's the actress?
You've all seen the clip.
Where they're trying to guess the song on the first few beats, and then if you guess it correctly, Anne Hathaway.
Yeah. So Anne Hathaway, she's competing with...
Why am I forgetting her name?
But anyway, it was her own song, and Anne Hathaway got it first.
It was freaking hilarious. Kelly Clarkson.
So the song that came on was Kelly Clarkson's own hit song.
And Anne Hathaway got it in the first beats.
And she got it first.
And she starts belting out.
And it was also funny because she can sing.
So Anne Hathaway gets out there and just belts out Kelly Clarkson's own song.
It was an amazing TV moment.
I don't know if it was real. I mean, I'm not entirely sure that was unscripted, but it was pretty good.
Right, because Kelly Clarkson had asked, play a song I know, right?
All right, that is all we have for today.
Anne Hathaway seems smarter than the average.
She does. She does.
And can we agree this was possibly the highlight of your day, the best thing that's ever happened, and it can only get better from here?
