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Wait... What!? is an often humorous, sometimes ferocious, but always entertaining romp through the bizarre memes that inspire mass lunacy, religious fanaticism, and ideological intransigency where basic reasoning is overwhelmed by willful ignorance. Why do people believe and refuse to ask simple questions about the nonsense they are fed by corrupt politicians, unscrupulous religious predators, and ordinary scam artists? What is the psychological mechanism that makes masses of people behave in ways that would make lemmings point and chortle? When X-files hero Fox Mulder said, "I want to believe" he was unknowingly speaking for religious fundamentalists, conspiracy theorists, UFO true believers, nut-case truthers, and ideologues who run the gamut from skin heads to Antifa -- people for whom there can be no other side of a complicated issue. What causes these people to willingly embrace nonsense -- ideas and claims that make little or no sense -- and shut out facts and reason as if they repositories of the Corona virus? What strange predisposition keeps them from putting both hands in the stop gesture and saying, Wait... What? Howard Siegel takes us on a voyage to a world where objective, reasoned thinking has been replaced with the powerful appeal of irrationally simple answers. Howard Siegel is an attorney, author, former MSNBC legal analyst, and hapless, sysphysian golfer. He has appeared on 60 Minuets, Larry King Live, The Today Show, NPR, and PBS. He lives in South Carolina where he is a practicing heathen, heretic, and herbivore.
This episode explores why Santa Clause deserves to die and why I will never be able to hit a 300-yard drive. None of which has much to do with why you should immediately go to my website www.howardsiegel.com or Amazon and buy my new book Everything that Lives and Moves but I decided that this was a good place to plug it. The podcast, as you know, is free. The book is almost free ($.99 for the e-book) and will change your life. Mine too if enough of you buy it. EVERYTHING THAT LIVES AND MOVES: A Confrontation with the Origin of Natural Evil - Kindle edition by Siegel, Howard. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
My ongoing preoccupation with what makes a moron a moron has led me to explore the great lemming fraud perpetrated by Walt Disney, the Catholic preoccupation with personal pronouns and why the wrong one will land you in hell, the idea of clean coal, and how to get Trumpers to demand vaccinations en mass.
You are just going to have to listen if you want to know "what's in that" (podcast) which happens to be the unanswered question going through every MAGA antivaxxer's mind when they reach the conclusion that they are part of an elite "in the know" group of Facebook and YouTube warriors who know "what's in that" and conclude that it ain't good. These people are definitely not sheeple. They are morons.
Welcome to part 2 of a journey into the minds of the dumbest people in America. The anti-vaxxers (ANTIVA) and the anti-maskers (ANTIMA). In this episode, I will attempt to abandon my immature use of the ad hominem "stupid" and show you that I believe everyone is entitled to their own opinion. "They got rights." I will fail miserably.
Welcome to the world of hardcore Trumpers where mysterious disappearing bamboo fiber remnants are the accepted explanation for why Trump-supporting investigators cannot find any Chinese bamboo in the Maricopa County Biden ballots. If you want to understand how any thinking human could believe the utter nonsense put out there by Trump regarding a stolen election and his legions who claim that we have nothing to fear from COVID 19 and that the vaccines are part of a plot by the government to insert chips into us for mind control... all you have to do is go to a professional wrestling match, ignore the wrestlers and watch the crowd. Once you grasp the attraction and success of the wrestling concept of "kayfabe" you understand exactly what makes masses of idiots believe in imaginary bad guys, conspiracies, and satanic pedophile cannibals.
A person who claims that something happened has the burden of proving that it actually happened. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The absence of any evidence is as far from extraordinary as one can get. People who believe claims that are unsupported by evidence should not be allowed near power tools or carving knives. The statement that "everybody knows it" is not evidence. It is what idiots say when they have no evidence. Donald Trump is an idiot. And so are you if you nod in agreement when he says it.
It could never happen here? Think again. It already has. Today the Republican Party formally blocked the investigation into the mob violence that Donald Trump inspired on January 6, 2021. But there was a reason for their opposition. You see, the mob violence and treason were perpetrated by white people. It is that simple and if you doubt it for a moment, ask yourself how Ted Cruz and Jim Jordan would have voted if the mob had been Black Lives Matter supporters, Mexicans, Asians, or Muslims. But for most of us, this reprehensible vote will be quickly forgotten. It is what the party of Donald Trump does. It embraces any kind of evil sanctioned by Donald Trump no matter how unthinkable. It is now the party of Donald Trump, Matt Gaetz, and Marjorie Taylor Greene. Gaetz called for a Second Amendment response to the people in Silicon Valley who are interfering with Trump's spreading of the stolen election delusion. Greene has called for the murder of Nancy Pelosi and the execution of Democrats. Trump called her, “somebody that I just think is fantastic.” Public pronouncements by members of congress advocating "Second Amendment solutions" were unthinkable five years ago. Today they seem to be Republican mainstream political positions. We started down this path when Trump's people began to tolerate, shrug their shoulders, and nod when he suggested that his followers might want to "take care" of Hillary Clinton by exercising their (sic) Second Amendment rights. It all began when he correctly calculated that he could gain a foothold with racists and closet racists by fostering the rumor that a black American president was really a Kenyan Muslim. We became numb to indecency when people began to excuse Trump-style cruelty by saying, "Oh... that's just Trump being Trump." Years before he ran for president, he showed us exactly what he was. The problem wasn't that he hid the evidence or that he fooled us. The problem was that Donald Trump-style unapologetic cruelty was exactly what almost half of America wanted.
Do you remember the cute little lion cubs in The Lion King? Well, the male lion -- The King -- practices infanticide every chance he gets so the females will be receptive to mating. He kills the cubs for the pleasure of ten seconds of mating. So, occasionally, do crystal meth dealers. Are these the parts of life you would rather not explain to your children? You aren't alone. Everyone avoids explaining them and most of us even avoid thinking about them. Would you rescue the lion cubs and interrupt the natural circle of life if you could do it without getting killed? Of course, you would. But why would you? It is simply mother nature operating at her most elemental level. Would you rescue the adorable lamb who had been separated from her mother and is being stalked by wolves? Yes, you would. You would hold her in your lap on the way back to the farm and stroke her. But you wouldn't think twice about ordering lamb shishkabob at that trendy new Lebanese restaurant in The Village. Same lamb, different carnivore. Can you explain that one to your children? I don't think you can. If you really believe that there is nothing wrong with eating animals can you articulate why you would never have the courage to kill one yourself and you would never even think about letting your child go on a field trip to a Tyson's slaughterhouse? If you really believe that there is nothing morally wrong going on, why are you repulsed by the thought of participating in or viewing the slaughter? In this podcast, I examine the moral precept that I have come to accept as a cornerstone of humane living: The infliction or support and participation in the infliction of unnecessary suffering on innocent sentient living things is wrong. I invite you to listen and tell me where I may have gone wrong.
Marjorie Taylor Greene gave a thumbs up to a bullet in the head for Nancy Pelosi and wrote about hanging President Obama and Hillary Clinton. She embraced murder as a political tool. Republican leaders appointed her to the Education Committee. Donald Trump called her a future star of the Republican party. He welcomed, endorsed, and applauded a person who approves of murder to the ranks of the Republican leadership. And 87% of Republicans still embrace Donald Trump as their hero. Explain that one to your children.
The answer to the rhetorical question, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" is that sometimes none of us know. We no longer need to fear Donald Trump. But we always needed to fear the people we never imagined would admire and support him.
Amanda is a wife. A mother. A blogger. A Christian.
A charming, beautiful, bubbly, young woman who lives life to the fullest.
But Amanda is dying, with a secret she doesn’t want anyone to know.
She starts a blog detailing her cancer journey, and becomes an inspiration, touching and
captivating her local community as well as followers all over the world.
Until one day investigative producer Nancy gets an anonymous tip telling her to look at Amanda’s
blog, setting Nancy on an unimaginable road to uncover Amanda’s secret.
Award winning journalist Charlie Webster explores this unbelievable and bizarre, but
all-too-real tale, of a woman from San Jose, California whose secret ripped a family apart and
left a community in shock.
Scamanda is the true story of a woman whose own words held the key to her secret.
New episodes every Monday.
Follow Scamanda on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Amanda’s blog posts are read by actor Kendall Horn.
