The Libertarian Moment? To Start A War Weapons of Mass Delusion Pelosi Attack Definitely Not Bothsidesing Voting For Anyone Else Is a Vote Against Democracy The Gravity of Things Reddit profiling A Few Parting Thoughts Recorded: 11.2.22 Published: 11.3.22
Draper gives the game away when he say, in reference to Russia collusion, "for all those people who believe it was a hoax." As opposed to who? Does this guy think there are still legitimate arguments/theories to support collusion? At this point, anyone who believes in Russia collusion are just as cultish as the QAnon people.
The fact he can't connect the dots between that and the stolen election hoax tells me all I need to know about his biases and clearly points to him not being an honest broker.
He also argues that this is the first time a conspiracy theory has been a motivating force for a political group in the US. I’d argue that BLM, which is a much more violent group than the MAGA folks, are driven by the motivating conspiracy theory that cops kill black people all the time in the US.
Yeah and Michael said he totally disagrees with him on some issues. The general sense I got from the questions the guys asked was that they weren’t onboard with all his claims.
I’m just done with listening to people this partisan and closed-minded on either side. Also Moynihan has a tell, about the third time he insists a guest really is a bright person I know the guest really isn’t a bright person and I move on ;) I loved Lara Bazelon although I disagreed with her often. She was clever and open-minded and not at all a drippy journo hack. Oh well :)
I haven’t even listened to it yet, but it seems like 1 million people are bailing on it halfway through or even 10 minutes through. So depressing. I thought...eh, never mind whtat I thought.
1) He derided "the Deep State conspiracy to impact individuals" two fucking days after The Intercept revealed the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY was working with big tech to silence people. I was banned on Twitter 4 times in 2020 for COVID, Rittenhouse, and Hunter Biden info that was all true.
2) he claimed Al Gore magnanimously accepted the election while omitting he fought all the way to the supreme court
3) he claimed Hillary made no impact to the certification when she literally gave her oppo research to the FBI and tried up the Trump admin for years.
4) The transition in 2016 had disruptive events like the NSA wiretapping Gen Mike Flynn and giving the recordings to WaPo.
5) he made the laughable claim that Stacy Abrams didn't go as far as Jan 6, when her supporters literally stormed the capital in Atlanta to stop the certification.
6) he ignores that place like HuffPo regularly ran pieces "Trump and his supporters are treasonous Russian agents, and the penalty for treason is death" days before a Democrat volunteer who believes Russiagate opened fire on a field of republicans, nearly killing Steve Scalise.
7) you guys discussed Nixon breaking in to get Psych records, but didn't mention the NYT/Mary Trump break in to a lawyers office to get Trump tax records
8) he discussed that some people on Trump's side made ugly threats on a day a Democrat in Chicago was charged with threatening to kidnap the GOP gov candidate, kill his family and feed them to him.
9) talked about Trump's threat to press freedom when you guys still haven't discussed Biden's Project Veritas prosecution, or the fact the DHS got NYPost banned.
10) he still believes Russiagate!?!!
I understand you can't pick apart everything the guy says but you let him talk 20 minutes straight before Kmele final put up tepid pressure against his one-sided arguments.
I remember podcasts where if someone said something as anodyne as "Some in the gay community downplay the pedophilia of Harvey Milk" process to be a point of absolute pushback that Bill O'Reilly would have blushed about
"I was banned on Twitter 4 times in 2020 for COVID, Rittenhouse, and Hunter Biden info that was all true."
Heh. I got tagged for "hate speech" after I said to the effect that "Even if Kmele Foster has opinions that are pretty atypical of the Black community, calling him a 'house nigger' is not OK". A later "review" of my account made that suspension permanent. In the end, I'm better off not being there - Twitter is a total shithole and more than a bit of a time-suck, and even if Elon Musk fixes its bias problems, it doesn't mean the basically negative nature of that medium will get any better.
Constructive criticism -- you guys (and Draper, in this episode) frequently assert (dare I say, without evidence?) that people who believe in election conspiracies or who stormed the Capitol are crazy or suffering from mental issues, and I really think you need to start being more specific. I'm not saying that each claim has to be accompanied by a clinical diagnosis, but we risk eroding the standards for what qualifies as mental illness if we use that label to describe everyone who's beliefs are based on trust in a dishonest authority figure, or who's worldview is influenced more by emotion or conformity with their social circle. Those tendencies are nearly universal aspects of human psychology.
There are much simpler terms we can use to describe election deniers -- wrong, misinformed, foolish, and angry (in some cases, violently so). Might some of them also be suffering from no-shit mental illness? Maybe, but I think those claims need to be made and backed up on a case-by-case basis.
I could be mistaken but I don't think the guys meant that as a direct accusation or meaningful judgement. I also don't think most Q adherents necessarily knew about those aspects of their belief. Most people are not well informed, they lead rich lives which leave them with little room for anything but the most superficial awareness of those events which do not directly impact them.
I tend to be friends with a lot of current service members, prior service, and law enforcement personnel. They make for better conversation than salarymen and they tend to be heavier drinkers. My sort of people.
Once you've been in you are kind of marked and pretty easy to single out, especially if you took your role seriously. I don't keep close touch with many of them but when we do get together politics, philosophy, and history tend to dominate our conversations mostly because I am an asshole and there is where my principle interests lie. Or art, theatre, and cinema but there is a lot less of that worth discussing of late. In any event, Q was something heavily debated by almost everyone I knew engaged in whatever level of civil service they were commissioned with during most of the Trump administration. The more critical viewed it all with astonishment, the more credulous with curiosity. I am going to briefly describe two of them who were at opposite ends of the spectrum and then end with my personal assessment.
I had one friend in North Hollywood who was really deep into it, he would often lean on me to work through some of the puzzles with him and then fact check some of the claims with me. Prior to fishing I was a CTO in the Navy, I had a TS/SCI and worked on various programs under ONI and NavSecGru. To my everlasting regret I didn't stick to retirement and never did a damn thing worth bragging about while I was in, but I was solid and learned a lot and am still in touch with the few CTs I came into contact with. Its a really small community. Anyway, he is the one I learned as much as I known about QAnon through and most of it was patent nonsense any serious and knowledgeable person would dismiss, there is absolutely some cRaZy shit under the hood. Moynihan mentioned some this episode like Hollywood alumni killing children and draining them of vital fluids, strung out on adrenochrome which extends their lifespan and preserves their health to an unnatural degree, or our politicians being cultists whose primary interest is the preservation of a pedophilia centric cabal. Jacques DeMolay would recognize all those charges with a bitter laugh. I never understood his interest or attachment to any of it and while he is disillusioned with it now he still feels as though there was something to it all. I never could dissuade him for more than a couple days that any of it was bullshit. And I do mean ANY of it.
The other friend is a sheriff and a sheriff's wife in Kansas. She's half my age and I, frequently, made the mistake of sleeping with her when we would pass each other on varying benders. Her working knowledge never went beyond news articles involving kids, trafficking, arrests and prosecutions being attributed to the Trump administration which the mainstream media, supposedly, was trying to keep suppressed. As far as she was aware, QAnon was about keeping people informed about what was really going on because the media hated Trump and would never report anything that was favorable to him. That doesn't seem particularly unreasonable on the surface. Most of the articles were old, taken directly from mainstream sources, and reprinted without the authorization or knowledge of the original publishers. Getting her to let go of it all was relatively easy but I think she always suspected something wasn't right because she began running this shit by me pretty early after getting into it herself. I think it was the second or third time I was able to show her that the shit she had was manufactured she dropped it all with contempt and immediately set herself to convincing other people is was bullshit too.
The Q shit is crazy. Its conspiracy sudoku. I would be willing to bet none of the guys knew anyone with a working knowledge of any of this shit, let alone enough that they could gather that it was like Project Mayhem and different people had completely different experiences with it, or even that QAnon itself was something different everywhere it cropped up, because once it became airborne it mutated to suit whatever environment it found itself in. Some day it might make a fascinating study, but for now? For now its just more bullshit. The guys who stormed the capitol may very well have been well intentioned rubes fired up and responding as much to four years of civil unrest from the left as they were the rhetoric of irresponsible persons on that fateful day. I would very much like to believe that. . .But they acted like assholes and its difficult to cut them any slack. I honestly don't think anyone on this podcast gives a shit if they were crazy or not, I think all three of them are fucking done with it.
As someone that lived in Seattle during 2020 and had to drag an employee (that was to scared to move)out of office covered in glass from antifa breaking out windows and then hide as they were threatening us...I’d say that day was worse for the person the Jan 6. I appreciate Kmele bringing these events up to Draper and when French was on but these guys are really missing out on what 2020 was really like for us non journalist.
Hear hear. I get the symbolic worse-ness of the Jan 6th stuff, but also being in Seattle, this this was on fire for like a whole 8 months or whatever. The ID is STILL covered in plywood begging BLM not to destroy their businesses. Jan 6th may have been a yahoo assault on our democracy, but 2020 was the year we watched the left throw a year's long temper tantrum.
Are all journalists living in a fantasy world? This guy does seem to at least understand the right a bit more than most, but the number of comments he made where he’s unaware of the facts is unbelievable.
Also - the left has a theological underpinning as well. If you don’t think that the racial reckoning or the climate change movements aren’t essentially eschatological. Let’s burn it all down, destroy all the oppressive forces, and then we’ll get to the pot of gold on the other side of the communist rainbow.
Really? I can see the point about "racial reckoning", but there's an actual scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, inconvenient though that might be to some people pet economic ideas. There's nothing "eschatological" about that. That said, yes, folks like Extinction Rebellion do imbue their activism with a "holy war" mentality, which is actually counterproductive.
Yeah, I would say there's a 'scientific consensus' on things like how to calculate the Earth's albedo and some generic agreement on the effects of increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, but beyond that, there's PLENTY of disagreement in the 'scientific community' over many aspects of climate change and what to do about it. In particular, there's quite a bit of debate over modeling and differentiating between human 'signal' and background noise. Steve Koonin's book, 'Unsettled' has some excellent analysis on this.
I’ve been a weather nerd since I was 3, and over the last 15 years watching the various computer models, have become a decent regional forecaster. It doesn’t take long watching computer models outside of 5 days to recognize how a little bad data can butterfly effect into some insane scenarios.
In addition to that - we have satellite temperature readings back almost 50 years. Anything prior to that is analyzation of incomplete and error prone data sets. And then once you get back a couple hundred years you’re looking at tree rings and ice cores. Anyone who claims consensus or certainty on climate stuff should be immediate cause for skepticism.
" It doesn’t take long watching computer models outside of 5 days to recognize how a little bad data can butterfly effect into some insane scenarios."
Oof! That's a very basic 'weather vs climate' error. The inability to predict specific weather conditions beyond 5 days has no bearing on the understanding of very long-term climate models.
You are making a very basic “leftist talking points” error
Computer models are dependent upon the data that’s ingested, and the assumptions that have been programmed in. The computer models over the last 3 decades have not been anywhere close to actual temperatures. Even then, you have motivating factors such as higher low temperatures due to urban heat islands (which you can now see in the short term forecasting models - especially the high res ones)
It has nothing to do with weather vs climate. That would be like saying “oh it’s really cold today so much for global warming” or “man that hurricane is really bad, must be global warming”
You clearly have not read anyone who hasn’t drunk the kool aid, and if Covid wasn’t a glaring example of how “scientific consensus” is 1. Nonsense 2. Not an argument for anything 3. Especially dangerous when grant money from the feds or getting published in a journal is dependent upon coming to the right conclusions - I’m not sure what to tell you.
The global warming industry hasn’t been studied for 100 years unless you count all the years we weee going to die from a second ice age. This stuff started in the late 80s. It is about control, and scientists have been co-opted just like so many medical professionals were and the ones who disagree keep their mouth shut to protect their livelihood.
Your comparison has everything to do with a 'weather vs climate' error. It is not accurate to say that just because you can't accurately predict specific weather events more than 5 days out that you can't make accurate probalistic predictions about climate. That's absolutely silly, and I can't believe you'd double down on that point.
As for the rest, yes, I do see you repeating a whole lot of climate change denialist talking points. "Oh, well, in the 1970s they thought they was going to be global cooling". Good grief, that was just a hypothesis, and a climate change consensus emerged by the end of the 1990s if you follow the history of this.
But, whatever, you've basically chalked climate science up to conspiracy theory. I'm not sure what the end goal of this conspiracy is or how the conspiracists have such total control over the scientific community that nobody from within that community can challenge it with a more accurate paradigm. Or how energy interests are somehow immune to this capture and are actually going to be the ones to save the day.
Look, I'm worried about ideological capture in institutions too, but I do think there are objective facts and solid science that can be relied upon. So, no, I don't buy into the idea that either climate change or the COVID pandemic was all a massive hoax, even given the politically opportunistic ways in which those facts might be deployed.
It's worth noting that Koonin is a physicist and not a climate scientist. Specifically, someone with a Department of Energy background. And pardon me if I find it a tad suspicious that climate change skepticism comes overwhelmingly from energy interests and affiliated scholars rather than Earth sciences. That speaks to me of motivated reasoning.
It's not obvious which way the correlation goes, though. Scientists need grants to perform their work and outlets to publish it in. Energy interests need scientists who believe things that are convenient to them. Are the energy companies bribing the scientists? Or are the scientists seeking out the energy companies because that's the only place they can get their heterodox opinions published?
There's differences in models, but is there any model where we continue to put CO2 into the atmosphere and have anything other than dramatic change to the climate? Sure, there's uncertainty over something like whether the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current system will collapse. But is there any meaningful "debate" that any given model is going to show most areas on Earth getting far warmer at a rate that neither biomes or human society are able to readily adapt to.
Like the scientific consensus on Covid... it’s the same thing. I’m sure there is warming and I’m sure humans contribute to it in some way, but getting rid of fossil fuels, climate action people, saying every storm is worse bc of climate change? It’s basically a reincarnation of tribal environment worship. Mother Earth is unhappy - we have to sacrifice so she won’t kill us. Can’t use nuclear or natgas or oil... has to be wind and solar. But get electric cars that absolutely can’t be powered by wind and solar and use batteries that require precious metals that cause great environmental destruction in impoverished countries.
I am absolutely for conservation. I think capitalism without telos, or with a telos of greed and short term thinking, is a real problem. But modern environmentalist movement is absolutely a nonsensical cult.
No, it's not quite like COVID, since that specific pandemic only about 3 years old, and scientific understanding of it is necessarily provisional. (Of course, the politics that people build around COVID isn't always about "following the science".) Anthropogenic climate change, though, has been studied for well over a century, and scientific consensus around the idea has been established for probably 25 years now. What we all do with that information is a political decision, but it seems to me that folks going into denial mode because they really don't like the implications for the economic status quo is not exactly a the best response.
As to "every storm is worse", we can't say that, but what we can say is that storms, droughts, flooding, etc are getting worse *on average* because of climate change. That just gets to the failure of most people to look at things in a probabilistic way rather than wanting certainty about a cause in each and every instance.
And, yes, I think it does imply phasing out fossil fuels, and it amazes me that there are so many fossil fuel dead-fuel dead enders who don't want to deal with that fact. If you follow the science, it's very simple - fossil fuels represent carbon that was taken out of the biogeochemical cycle over many eons - out of the atmosphere and oceans, ultimately, when the Earth had a much hotter climate. Burning them as an energy source returns that carbon to the atmosphere on an unprecedentedly brief time scale, with massive effects on climate. There's no free ride with fossil fuel technology, and we continue to depend on it as the basis for our energy system at our peril.
That leaves renewables and nuclear. Renewables would seem to be the 'greenest' source, but you are correct about they're not being able to fill the gap in being able to fill any realstic energy demand. They'll probably alwasy be a secondary energy source. I think phasing to the newest generation of nuclear technology (which are a lot safer than the Chernobyl/Three Mile Island generation of nukes) would be the best choice, while electrifying things like autos and trains.
In general, with an adequate energy source, I think the transition to greener technolgy more generally is realistic. It just has to be an impetus to develop new materials and technologies rather than sinking into the mindset that the way we've always done things is the way that it always should be. Need I point out that even if environmental concerns weren't a factor, that fossil fuels resources are finite and will one day run out? What does human civilization do then if it hasn't transitioned to a better energy technology?
"Storms, droughts, flooding, etc. are getting worse on average" is not a true statement, rendering the leap to "because of climate change" a nonsequitur: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters. We are experiencing losses from natural disasters at historical lows. All the fussing from Do Something Disease-stricken people does is demonstrate a lack of perspective and grounding in actual data. Deaths have decreased; media coverage increased. There's your root cause.
<eyeroll> Good grief, the logical fallacies in your argument here! Just to begin with, you're making a comparison of "natural disasters", which is a pretty broad category, with specific climate events. That's an apples to oranges comparison. And saying it's all "media coverage" doesn't address the fact that climate scientists are pointing to actual data, not news stories.
But, hey, just go on making shit up and name-calling because you don't like the implications of a scientific finding that adds a complication to your favorite economic model.
As climate models have become more sophisticated, their uncertainty has *increased* https://rattibha.com/thread/1562499557690183682?lang=en. That’s the “actual data” you’re taking about, and the it’s so muddled and subject to lossy inputs and confounding factors that its predictive ability is basically nil.
Also, don’t go acting aggrieved because you have trouble seeking out alternative views that call into question what your peers and favored talking heads have instructed you to think. You want talk data? Go find data that disproves your point and tell me why it’s wrong. What are natural disasters if not “specific climate events”? Also, what is a “specific climate event” anyway? “Natural disasters” is a very specific term by the way - it’s made of many discrete subcategories, but it’s hardly ambiguous. “Climate events” is the broad and effectively meaningless term. You should also brush up on what logical fallacies are. I’m trying to save you future embarrassment because you’re punching outside your weight class here.
Since the turn of the century, climate science has predicted 99 out of the last zero apocalyptic climate outcomes. What actually has changed in climate science since then, and which scientists have apologized for past inaccuracies?
Happy to change my mind if you can point me to examples of any of those things.
I found it funny when Draper said the right was worse for “galvanizing a movement” with their speech/rhetoric. How could you not consider Biden’s speech about the end of democracy “galvanizing a movement”? Not a huge fan of this guy’s one-sided views. He’s just ignoring clear facts.
Won’t be buying the book lol but I love that the guys brought up genuine counterpoints, and Draper could only respond with non-answers and long monologues.
Re: Security at Nancy Pelosi's house in San Francisco.
Anybody else remember when far-left types who thought the stimulus checks were inadequate graffitied her garage door with "We want everything" and left *a severed pig's head* out front? https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/report-nancy-pelosis-home-vandalized-with-pigs-head-fake-blood/ This took place on Jan 2, 2021, so it got overtaken in the news cycle pretty quickly. Also the fact that far-left political violence just doesn't get the same level of coverage. At that time, the paranoid style folks on Twitter had their "There's no way this happens in front of the Speaker of the House's home without it being a setup" theories too.
Do you mean the guy who obviously had no intention to kill Cavanaugh because he called law enforcement on himself?!? The guy who  CALLED HIMSELF in? You mean THAT guy? FOH. Yeah. He was the same kind of threat. 
And he said "difference WITH a distinction" twice - that is the general assumption of a difference, you don't have to say that. You just wanted to sound smart by saying a phrase in vogue, but it diddn't work so you destroyed it for your purpose.
I'm pretty sure he was trying to say that it was not just a quantitative difference (how much) but a qualitative/categorical difference (different kind). That, while they shared some similarities, one was not merely a heightened version of the other. It's totally reasonable to disagree with that assessment, and it wasn't the most clear way of asserting it, but it's a completely valid thing to try and do.
The second half of this podcast was therapy for me. As a right wing conservative, I have an impacted asshole full of lefties describing in detail just how my motivations are secretly racist/sexist/bigoted/homophobic/etc. And the continual and eternal downplaying of anything uncouth that happens on the left.
Some hobby horses took a mild beating at the hands of the guest, but otherwise a great podcast. I like y’all letting people just go, particularly if you may disagree (as I do/did). It’s a excellent feature of TFC.
I wrote that comment about 10 minutes in I think where he was doing that thing that journalists do so that they don't totally burn a source, and that's be complementary while still being critical. Later on, he seemed to abandon that pretense, which is fine, because she's crazy and probably unfit for one of the 435 seats that are supposed to be reserved for sober representation of the people's interests.
Hey guys I don’t know if you have control over this issue but I literally have to turn the volume all the way up to hear you over my big trucks engine. I don’t seem to have the same problem with other podcasts or youtube. If there’s anything you can do I’d be super appreciative!
I’m having the same problem. Literally had to turn the volume to the max setting in my car, which scared the shit out of me when I switched it back to music lol
It seems very low compared to other podcasts I listen to as well. If you have any interest in Adam Carolla his podcasts are comparatively very loud. (I’m assuming you have time to listen to The Fifth Column AND lesser podcasts ;)
What has surprised me the most about all the news articles describing the end of democracy is that they are all behind paywalls! Guys - if democracy hangs in the balance, shouldn’t having people read about what is at stake be more important than the $4/mo subscription?!?
Draper seems to have a decent grasp of some troubling things animating the GOP right now. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) it seems the critical lens is dropped the moment he returns to the comfortable confines of his own political tribe. As long as that remains the norm in the mainstream media, they will remain incapable of understanding and contextualizing the political landscape in a way that is tethered to reality.
Yeah, I think he is missing an opportunity to acknowledge the inconsistencies in the Democratic party. It's unconvincing to say ad nauseum, "Trump's the worst." Yeah, Trump was rotten. Now can we talk about all of the other political rot, and how it's continuous across the political spectrum? This audience doesn't care whether the Democrats or Republicans are in control.
Draper gives the game away when he say, in reference to Russia collusion, "for all those people who believe it was a hoax." As opposed to who? Does this guy think there are still legitimate arguments/theories to support collusion? At this point, anyone who believes in Russia collusion are just as cultish as the QAnon people.
The fact he can't connect the dots between that and the stolen election hoax tells me all I need to know about his biases and clearly points to him not being an honest broker.
He also argues that this is the first time a conspiracy theory has been a motivating force for a political group in the US. I’d argue that BLM, which is a much more violent group than the MAGA folks, are driven by the motivating conspiracy theory that cops kill black people all the time in the US.
Is he familiar with the Weather Underground literally bombing the capital?
Did he ever bail and leave the guys to chat? I can’t listen to any more of him.
That's what I did!
Yeah and Michael said he totally disagrees with him on some issues. The general sense I got from the questions the guys asked was that they weren’t onboard with all his claims.
I’m just done with listening to people this partisan and closed-minded on either side. Also Moynihan has a tell, about the third time he insists a guest really is a bright person I know the guest really isn’t a bright person and I move on ;) I loved Lara Bazelon although I disagreed with her often. She was clever and open-minded and not at all a drippy journo hack. Oh well :)
Bazelon engages questions actively, I think that's why I find her fun to listen to.
Sorry. Yes I absolutely did mean to reply to someone else. I loved your comment.
No problem! :)
Great episode. Not sure why people here seem to be miffed by Draper. Definitely enjoy getting someone thoughtful on with a different perspective.
Kmele, no more hard stops though. Moynihan was just getting going with his goblet of vodka down the gullet.
I haven’t even listened to it yet, but it seems like 1 million people are bailing on it halfway through or even 10 minutes through. So depressing. I thought...eh, never mind whtat I thought.
Robert Draper is a dumpster fire in 10 points.
1) He derided "the Deep State conspiracy to impact individuals" two fucking days after The Intercept revealed the DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY was working with big tech to silence people. I was banned on Twitter 4 times in 2020 for COVID, Rittenhouse, and Hunter Biden info that was all true.
2) he claimed Al Gore magnanimously accepted the election while omitting he fought all the way to the supreme court
3) he claimed Hillary made no impact to the certification when she literally gave her oppo research to the FBI and tried up the Trump admin for years.
4) The transition in 2016 had disruptive events like the NSA wiretapping Gen Mike Flynn and giving the recordings to WaPo.
5) he made the laughable claim that Stacy Abrams didn't go as far as Jan 6, when her supporters literally stormed the capital in Atlanta to stop the certification.
6) he ignores that place like HuffPo regularly ran pieces "Trump and his supporters are treasonous Russian agents, and the penalty for treason is death" days before a Democrat volunteer who believes Russiagate opened fire on a field of republicans, nearly killing Steve Scalise.
7) you guys discussed Nixon breaking in to get Psych records, but didn't mention the NYT/Mary Trump break in to a lawyers office to get Trump tax records
8) he discussed that some people on Trump's side made ugly threats on a day a Democrat in Chicago was charged with threatening to kidnap the GOP gov candidate, kill his family and feed them to him.
9) talked about Trump's threat to press freedom when you guys still haven't discussed Biden's Project Veritas prosecution, or the fact the DHS got NYPost banned.
10) he still believes Russiagate!?!!
I understand you can't pick apart everything the guy says but you let him talk 20 minutes straight before Kmele final put up tepid pressure against his one-sided arguments.
I remember podcasts where if someone said something as anodyne as "Some in the gay community downplay the pedophilia of Harvey Milk" process to be a point of absolute pushback that Bill O'Reilly would have blushed about
"I was banned on Twitter 4 times in 2020 for COVID, Rittenhouse, and Hunter Biden info that was all true."
Heh. I got tagged for "hate speech" after I said to the effect that "Even if Kmele Foster has opinions that are pretty atypical of the Black community, calling him a 'house nigger' is not OK". A later "review" of my account made that suspension permanent. In the end, I'm better off not being there - Twitter is a total shithole and more than a bit of a time-suck, and even if Elon Musk fixes its bias problems, it doesn't mean the basically negative nature of that medium will get any better.
Yeah they guy has been living on a different planet apparently
Constructive criticism -- you guys (and Draper, in this episode) frequently assert (dare I say, without evidence?) that people who believe in election conspiracies or who stormed the Capitol are crazy or suffering from mental issues, and I really think you need to start being more specific. I'm not saying that each claim has to be accompanied by a clinical diagnosis, but we risk eroding the standards for what qualifies as mental illness if we use that label to describe everyone who's beliefs are based on trust in a dishonest authority figure, or who's worldview is influenced more by emotion or conformity with their social circle. Those tendencies are nearly universal aspects of human psychology.
There are much simpler terms we can use to describe election deniers -- wrong, misinformed, foolish, and angry (in some cases, violently so). Might some of them also be suffering from no-shit mental illness? Maybe, but I think those claims need to be made and backed up on a case-by-case basis.
I could be mistaken but I don't think the guys meant that as a direct accusation or meaningful judgement. I also don't think most Q adherents necessarily knew about those aspects of their belief. Most people are not well informed, they lead rich lives which leave them with little room for anything but the most superficial awareness of those events which do not directly impact them.
I tend to be friends with a lot of current service members, prior service, and law enforcement personnel. They make for better conversation than salarymen and they tend to be heavier drinkers. My sort of people.
Once you've been in you are kind of marked and pretty easy to single out, especially if you took your role seriously. I don't keep close touch with many of them but when we do get together politics, philosophy, and history tend to dominate our conversations mostly because I am an asshole and there is where my principle interests lie. Or art, theatre, and cinema but there is a lot less of that worth discussing of late. In any event, Q was something heavily debated by almost everyone I knew engaged in whatever level of civil service they were commissioned with during most of the Trump administration. The more critical viewed it all with astonishment, the more credulous with curiosity. I am going to briefly describe two of them who were at opposite ends of the spectrum and then end with my personal assessment.
I had one friend in North Hollywood who was really deep into it, he would often lean on me to work through some of the puzzles with him and then fact check some of the claims with me. Prior to fishing I was a CTO in the Navy, I had a TS/SCI and worked on various programs under ONI and NavSecGru. To my everlasting regret I didn't stick to retirement and never did a damn thing worth bragging about while I was in, but I was solid and learned a lot and am still in touch with the few CTs I came into contact with. Its a really small community. Anyway, he is the one I learned as much as I known about QAnon through and most of it was patent nonsense any serious and knowledgeable person would dismiss, there is absolutely some cRaZy shit under the hood. Moynihan mentioned some this episode like Hollywood alumni killing children and draining them of vital fluids, strung out on adrenochrome which extends their lifespan and preserves their health to an unnatural degree, or our politicians being cultists whose primary interest is the preservation of a pedophilia centric cabal. Jacques DeMolay would recognize all those charges with a bitter laugh. I never understood his interest or attachment to any of it and while he is disillusioned with it now he still feels as though there was something to it all. I never could dissuade him for more than a couple days that any of it was bullshit. And I do mean ANY of it.
The other friend is a sheriff and a sheriff's wife in Kansas. She's half my age and I, frequently, made the mistake of sleeping with her when we would pass each other on varying benders. Her working knowledge never went beyond news articles involving kids, trafficking, arrests and prosecutions being attributed to the Trump administration which the mainstream media, supposedly, was trying to keep suppressed. As far as she was aware, QAnon was about keeping people informed about what was really going on because the media hated Trump and would never report anything that was favorable to him. That doesn't seem particularly unreasonable on the surface. Most of the articles were old, taken directly from mainstream sources, and reprinted without the authorization or knowledge of the original publishers. Getting her to let go of it all was relatively easy but I think she always suspected something wasn't right because she began running this shit by me pretty early after getting into it herself. I think it was the second or third time I was able to show her that the shit she had was manufactured she dropped it all with contempt and immediately set herself to convincing other people is was bullshit too.
The Q shit is crazy. Its conspiracy sudoku. I would be willing to bet none of the guys knew anyone with a working knowledge of any of this shit, let alone enough that they could gather that it was like Project Mayhem and different people had completely different experiences with it, or even that QAnon itself was something different everywhere it cropped up, because once it became airborne it mutated to suit whatever environment it found itself in. Some day it might make a fascinating study, but for now? For now its just more bullshit. The guys who stormed the capitol may very well have been well intentioned rubes fired up and responding as much to four years of civil unrest from the left as they were the rhetoric of irresponsible persons on that fateful day. I would very much like to believe that. . .But they acted like assholes and its difficult to cut them any slack. I honestly don't think anyone on this podcast gives a shit if they were crazy or not, I think all three of them are fucking done with it.
As someone that lived in Seattle during 2020 and had to drag an employee (that was to scared to move)out of office covered in glass from antifa breaking out windows and then hide as they were threatening us...I’d say that day was worse for the person the Jan 6. I appreciate Kmele bringing these events up to Draper and when French was on but these guys are really missing out on what 2020 was really like for us non journalist.
Hear hear. I get the symbolic worse-ness of the Jan 6th stuff, but also being in Seattle, this this was on fire for like a whole 8 months or whatever. The ID is STILL covered in plywood begging BLM not to destroy their businesses. Jan 6th may have been a yahoo assault on our democracy, but 2020 was the year we watched the left throw a year's long temper tantrum.
Are all journalists living in a fantasy world? This guy does seem to at least understand the right a bit more than most, but the number of comments he made where he’s unaware of the facts is unbelievable.
Also - the left has a theological underpinning as well. If you don’t think that the racial reckoning or the climate change movements aren’t essentially eschatological. Let’s burn it all down, destroy all the oppressive forces, and then we’ll get to the pot of gold on the other side of the communist rainbow.
Really? I can see the point about "racial reckoning", but there's an actual scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change, inconvenient though that might be to some people pet economic ideas. There's nothing "eschatological" about that. That said, yes, folks like Extinction Rebellion do imbue their activism with a "holy war" mentality, which is actually counterproductive.
Yeah, I would say there's a 'scientific consensus' on things like how to calculate the Earth's albedo and some generic agreement on the effects of increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, but beyond that, there's PLENTY of disagreement in the 'scientific community' over many aspects of climate change and what to do about it. In particular, there's quite a bit of debate over modeling and differentiating between human 'signal' and background noise. Steve Koonin's book, 'Unsettled' has some excellent analysis on this.
I’ve been a weather nerd since I was 3, and over the last 15 years watching the various computer models, have become a decent regional forecaster. It doesn’t take long watching computer models outside of 5 days to recognize how a little bad data can butterfly effect into some insane scenarios.
In addition to that - we have satellite temperature readings back almost 50 years. Anything prior to that is analyzation of incomplete and error prone data sets. And then once you get back a couple hundred years you’re looking at tree rings and ice cores. Anyone who claims consensus or certainty on climate stuff should be immediate cause for skepticism.
" It doesn’t take long watching computer models outside of 5 days to recognize how a little bad data can butterfly effect into some insane scenarios."
Oof! That's a very basic 'weather vs climate' error. The inability to predict specific weather conditions beyond 5 days has no bearing on the understanding of very long-term climate models.
You are making a very basic “leftist talking points” error
Computer models are dependent upon the data that’s ingested, and the assumptions that have been programmed in. The computer models over the last 3 decades have not been anywhere close to actual temperatures. Even then, you have motivating factors such as higher low temperatures due to urban heat islands (which you can now see in the short term forecasting models - especially the high res ones)
It has nothing to do with weather vs climate. That would be like saying “oh it’s really cold today so much for global warming” or “man that hurricane is really bad, must be global warming”
You clearly have not read anyone who hasn’t drunk the kool aid, and if Covid wasn’t a glaring example of how “scientific consensus” is 1. Nonsense 2. Not an argument for anything 3. Especially dangerous when grant money from the feds or getting published in a journal is dependent upon coming to the right conclusions - I’m not sure what to tell you.
The global warming industry hasn’t been studied for 100 years unless you count all the years we weee going to die from a second ice age. This stuff started in the late 80s. It is about control, and scientists have been co-opted just like so many medical professionals were and the ones who disagree keep their mouth shut to protect their livelihood.
Your comparison has everything to do with a 'weather vs climate' error. It is not accurate to say that just because you can't accurately predict specific weather events more than 5 days out that you can't make accurate probalistic predictions about climate. That's absolutely silly, and I can't believe you'd double down on that point.
As for the rest, yes, I do see you repeating a whole lot of climate change denialist talking points. "Oh, well, in the 1970s they thought they was going to be global cooling". Good grief, that was just a hypothesis, and a climate change consensus emerged by the end of the 1990s if you follow the history of this.
But, whatever, you've basically chalked climate science up to conspiracy theory. I'm not sure what the end goal of this conspiracy is or how the conspiracists have such total control over the scientific community that nobody from within that community can challenge it with a more accurate paradigm. Or how energy interests are somehow immune to this capture and are actually going to be the ones to save the day.
Look, I'm worried about ideological capture in institutions too, but I do think there are objective facts and solid science that can be relied upon. So, no, I don't buy into the idea that either climate change or the COVID pandemic was all a massive hoax, even given the politically opportunistic ways in which those facts might be deployed.
It's worth noting that Koonin is a physicist and not a climate scientist. Specifically, someone with a Department of Energy background. And pardon me if I find it a tad suspicious that climate change skepticism comes overwhelmingly from energy interests and affiliated scholars rather than Earth sciences. That speaks to me of motivated reasoning.
It's not obvious which way the correlation goes, though. Scientists need grants to perform their work and outlets to publish it in. Energy interests need scientists who believe things that are convenient to them. Are the energy companies bribing the scientists? Or are the scientists seeking out the energy companies because that's the only place they can get their heterodox opinions published?
There's differences in models, but is there any model where we continue to put CO2 into the atmosphere and have anything other than dramatic change to the climate? Sure, there's uncertainty over something like whether the Gulf Stream/North Atlantic Current system will collapse. But is there any meaningful "debate" that any given model is going to show most areas on Earth getting far warmer at a rate that neither biomes or human society are able to readily adapt to.
Like the scientific consensus on Covid... it’s the same thing. I’m sure there is warming and I’m sure humans contribute to it in some way, but getting rid of fossil fuels, climate action people, saying every storm is worse bc of climate change? It’s basically a reincarnation of tribal environment worship. Mother Earth is unhappy - we have to sacrifice so she won’t kill us. Can’t use nuclear or natgas or oil... has to be wind and solar. But get electric cars that absolutely can’t be powered by wind and solar and use batteries that require precious metals that cause great environmental destruction in impoverished countries.
I am absolutely for conservation. I think capitalism without telos, or with a telos of greed and short term thinking, is a real problem. But modern environmentalist movement is absolutely a nonsensical cult.
No, it's not quite like COVID, since that specific pandemic only about 3 years old, and scientific understanding of it is necessarily provisional. (Of course, the politics that people build around COVID isn't always about "following the science".) Anthropogenic climate change, though, has been studied for well over a century, and scientific consensus around the idea has been established for probably 25 years now. What we all do with that information is a political decision, but it seems to me that folks going into denial mode because they really don't like the implications for the economic status quo is not exactly a the best response.
As to "every storm is worse", we can't say that, but what we can say is that storms, droughts, flooding, etc are getting worse *on average* because of climate change. That just gets to the failure of most people to look at things in a probabilistic way rather than wanting certainty about a cause in each and every instance.
And, yes, I think it does imply phasing out fossil fuels, and it amazes me that there are so many fossil fuel dead-fuel dead enders who don't want to deal with that fact. If you follow the science, it's very simple - fossil fuels represent carbon that was taken out of the biogeochemical cycle over many eons - out of the atmosphere and oceans, ultimately, when the Earth had a much hotter climate. Burning them as an energy source returns that carbon to the atmosphere on an unprecedentedly brief time scale, with massive effects on climate. There's no free ride with fossil fuel technology, and we continue to depend on it as the basis for our energy system at our peril.
That leaves renewables and nuclear. Renewables would seem to be the 'greenest' source, but you are correct about they're not being able to fill the gap in being able to fill any realstic energy demand. They'll probably alwasy be a secondary energy source. I think phasing to the newest generation of nuclear technology (which are a lot safer than the Chernobyl/Three Mile Island generation of nukes) would be the best choice, while electrifying things like autos and trains.
In general, with an adequate energy source, I think the transition to greener technolgy more generally is realistic. It just has to be an impetus to develop new materials and technologies rather than sinking into the mindset that the way we've always done things is the way that it always should be. Need I point out that even if environmental concerns weren't a factor, that fossil fuels resources are finite and will one day run out? What does human civilization do then if it hasn't transitioned to a better energy technology?
"Storms, droughts, flooding, etc. are getting worse on average" is not a true statement, rendering the leap to "because of climate change" a nonsequitur: https://ourworldindata.org/natural-disasters. We are experiencing losses from natural disasters at historical lows. All the fussing from Do Something Disease-stricken people does is demonstrate a lack of perspective and grounding in actual data. Deaths have decreased; media coverage increased. There's your root cause.
<eyeroll> Good grief, the logical fallacies in your argument here! Just to begin with, you're making a comparison of "natural disasters", which is a pretty broad category, with specific climate events. That's an apples to oranges comparison. And saying it's all "media coverage" doesn't address the fact that climate scientists are pointing to actual data, not news stories.
But, hey, just go on making shit up and name-calling because you don't like the implications of a scientific finding that adds a complication to your favorite economic model.
As climate models have become more sophisticated, their uncertainty has *increased* https://rattibha.com/thread/1562499557690183682?lang=en. That’s the “actual data” you’re taking about, and the it’s so muddled and subject to lossy inputs and confounding factors that its predictive ability is basically nil.
Also, don’t go acting aggrieved because you have trouble seeking out alternative views that call into question what your peers and favored talking heads have instructed you to think. You want talk data? Go find data that disproves your point and tell me why it’s wrong. What are natural disasters if not “specific climate events”? Also, what is a “specific climate event” anyway? “Natural disasters” is a very specific term by the way - it’s made of many discrete subcategories, but it’s hardly ambiguous. “Climate events” is the broad and effectively meaningless term. You should also brush up on what logical fallacies are. I’m trying to save you future embarrassment because you’re punching outside your weight class here.
Since the turn of the century, climate science has predicted 99 out of the last zero apocalyptic climate outcomes. What actually has changed in climate science since then, and which scientists have apologized for past inaccuracies?
Happy to change my mind if you can point me to examples of any of those things.
I now sleep in a suit every night just so if my house is broken into I'll be clothed enough that people won't assume I'm gay
I found it funny when Draper said the right was worse for “galvanizing a movement” with their speech/rhetoric. How could you not consider Biden’s speech about the end of democracy “galvanizing a movement”? Not a huge fan of this guy’s one-sided views. He’s just ignoring clear facts.
Won’t be buying the book lol but I love that the guys brought up genuine counterpoints, and Draper could only respond with non-answers and long monologues.
Re: Security at Nancy Pelosi's house in San Francisco.
Anybody else remember when far-left types who thought the stimulus checks were inadequate graffitied her garage door with "We want everything" and left *a severed pig's head* out front? https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/report-nancy-pelosis-home-vandalized-with-pigs-head-fake-blood/ This took place on Jan 2, 2021, so it got overtaken in the news cycle pretty quickly. Also the fact that far-left political violence just doesn't get the same level of coverage. At that time, the paranoid style folks on Twitter had their "There's no way this happens in front of the Speaker of the House's home without it being a setup" theories too.
Alternatively, remember when a guy tried to assassinate Justice Kavanaugh and we forgot about it after a day?
Do you mean the guy who obviously had no intention to kill Cavanaugh because he called law enforcement on himself?!? The guy who  CALLED HIMSELF in? You mean THAT guy? FOH. Yeah. He was the same kind of threat. 
🦗🦗🦗
Twice in the space of half an hour Draper compared wildly different things to the cantina in Star Wars. He needs new analogies.
This comments section truly is a hive of scum and villainy. Not unlike the cantina in Star Wars!!!
And he said "difference WITH a distinction" twice - that is the general assumption of a difference, you don't have to say that. You just wanted to sound smart by saying a phrase in vogue, but it diddn't work so you destroyed it for your purpose.
I'm pretty sure he was trying to say that it was not just a quantitative difference (how much) but a qualitative/categorical difference (different kind). That, while they shared some similarities, one was not merely a heightened version of the other. It's totally reasonable to disagree with that assessment, and it wasn't the most clear way of asserting it, but it's a completely valid thing to try and do.
The second half of this podcast was therapy for me. As a right wing conservative, I have an impacted asshole full of lefties describing in detail just how my motivations are secretly racist/sexist/bigoted/homophobic/etc. And the continual and eternal downplaying of anything uncouth that happens on the left.
Some hobby horses took a mild beating at the hands of the guest, but otherwise a great podcast. I like y’all letting people just go, particularly if you may disagree (as I do/did). It’s a excellent feature of TFC.
I also enjoy the talking smack about them after they leave.
Same! 🤣
"Say what you will about the tenets of Marjorie Taylor Greene-ism, at least it's an ethos."
-Paraphrasing Rob Draper
While I love the reference, I’m not sure that’s how he is approaching MTG’s batshittiness. But I also haven’t read the book. .
I wrote that comment about 10 minutes in I think where he was doing that thing that journalists do so that they don't totally burn a source, and that's be complementary while still being critical. Later on, he seemed to abandon that pretense, which is fine, because she's crazy and probably unfit for one of the 435 seats that are supposed to be reserved for sober representation of the people's interests.
Hey guys I don’t know if you have control over this issue but I literally have to turn the volume all the way up to hear you over my big trucks engine. I don’t seem to have the same problem with other podcasts or youtube. If there’s anything you can do I’d be super appreciative!
I’m having the same problem. Literally had to turn the volume to the max setting in my car, which scared the shit out of me when I switched it back to music lol
It seems very low compared to other podcasts I listen to as well. If you have any interest in Adam Carolla his podcasts are comparatively very loud. (I’m assuming you have time to listen to The Fifth Column AND lesser podcasts ;)
Only for 14 hours a day five days a week for the past 12 years L😂L
What has surprised me the most about all the news articles describing the end of democracy is that they are all behind paywalls! Guys - if democracy hangs in the balance, shouldn’t having people read about what is at stake be more important than the $4/mo subscription?!?
If you don't pony up a measly $4 for a subscription, do you even *deserve* democracy?
Truth!
Draper seems to have a decent grasp of some troubling things animating the GOP right now. Unfortunately (but unsurprisingly) it seems the critical lens is dropped the moment he returns to the comfortable confines of his own political tribe. As long as that remains the norm in the mainstream media, they will remain incapable of understanding and contextualizing the political landscape in a way that is tethered to reality.
Yeah, I think he is missing an opportunity to acknowledge the inconsistencies in the Democratic party. It's unconvincing to say ad nauseum, "Trump's the worst." Yeah, Trump was rotten. Now can we talk about all of the other political rot, and how it's continuous across the political spectrum? This audience doesn't care whether the Democrats or Republicans are in control.
🥇