Join us as we explore the multifaceted world of absurd news, from political tensions and media controversies to the recurring oddities in local stories that captivate us all. Hear about how the digital landscape influences media credibility and discover unforeseen connections between controversy and attention. Plus, an insightful dive into the financial wisdom of diversifying with gold and the laugh-inducing accuracy of Punxsutawney Phil’s weather forecasts awaits.
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SPEAKER 10 :
Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast.
SPEAKER 04 :
It’s his life mission to make bad decisions. It’s time for Florida Man.
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s right. It’s time for Florida Man on the Dana Show. D. Lash, Dana Lash Radio and X on Twitter. Great ways to stay connected to her. Here’s a few quick Florida Man stories out there. A Florida man was sentenced for a high-speed chase in a stolen law enforcement vehicle. This happened over the weekend. 42-year-old James Marion Brady was found guilty on all charges. related to the pursuit by law enforcement back in 2024. He had stolen an emergency vehicle and then fled police in it, Grand Theft Auto style. And actually, Grand Theft Auto was one of the charges against him. I was just sort of surreal that a dude walking around is like, oh, I know how I’m going to run from law enforcement. I’m going to take an emergency vehicle. They’re never going to find me. They’re never going to figure it out that way. I’m sure I’ll be 100% fine. You are not, sir. And now, finally, you actually face the charges in court. are found guilty of the ridiculous thing you did there. The next time you see a crazy version of an emergency vehicle and a bunch of police following behind it in Florida, that might be stolen. That might not be people going to help somebody. Sadly, it might be something else. A man was arrested in Central Florida for impersonating a law enforcement official. I feel like there’s a theme to the stories that are out there. Hillsborough County arrested a guy who was pretending that he was a police officer himself. He drove around in a black car. He had a set of lights that he would hold up, which is sort of insane. Not actually on the vehicle or anything the right way. They would flash blue and red. And he’s just pulling people over, just doing certain stuff. A suspicious vehicle was called in. The lights caused other drivers to believe that he was law enforcement. Of course they did. Mostly, I think he did all this to just circumvent traffic. And I’ll tell you, living in Houston, in Texas, where traffic is uniquely horrible, almost as bad as I think is L.A. and pretty much anywhere else out there in the world, it’s pretty terrible traffic here. Man, oh man, would I be tempted to do this, to pretend as though I’m law enforcement just to get through traffic every once in a while. Of course, I’m not going to do it. I don’t ever want to be in the news as someone who did this sort of thing. Probably be bad for my radio career and quite a few other things. But it would be great as far as not having to deal with traffic for the day. And so I get it. I understand the crime, this crime. I don’t understand the guy who steals the emergency vehicle and goes on a chase with cops. That one doesn’t make sense to me. This person, however, does. I get it. And the reasons that it makes sense to me are obvious and probably also make sense to you. There’s also a viral video. I don’t know if this is a Florida man in the same sense as the other. The guy didn’t do anything legal. He’s not been arrested for anything. I just thought it was funny that there’s a dude who went viral because there’s a video of him lying on the ground covered in a pile of frozen iguanas. iguanas freeze in florida when it gets uniquely cold they’re not dead they’re just frozen and usually once it warms up they start moving around again for some reason uh either the man stacked the iguanas on himself or um they may have just climbed up there when he was passed out whatever whatever the decision was made but uh he claimed to have created the world’s first iguana blankets I would be creeped out if there’s other reasons for this that I don’t want to know about for the man to do it. But he’s a Florida influencer by the name Stacks who went viral on social media again for having a blanket, per se, of frozen iguanas. This is the weird stuff that happens out of that place and nowhere else. I can’t think of another part of our country where you’d see a thing like this and be like, oh, yeah, Florida. Like my first reaction out of that story and the viral coverage of it, the dude who created his Iguana blanket is that, yeah, of course, that’s Florida. That makes sense there. He probably wasn’t alone. Probably there are other people that are going to do the same thing in the very near future. I feel bad about all of it.
SPEAKER 01 :
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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz compares criminal illegals to Anne Frank hiding in her attic. Democrats want to shut down the government to defund ICE, even though that wouldn’t defund ICE. And census projections show more people fleeing blue states and creating a better electoral college map for Republicans. I’m Greg Karambas, inviting you to join Jim Garrity of National Review and me each weekday for the Three Martini Lunch podcast. We’ll give you the top news, some good laughs, and we’ll be done in less than 30 minutes. Follow the Three Martini Lunch on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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The one thing that I can’t get over from last week and this weekend is the needed discussion about Don Lemon. Now, here’s the part of information you most need. Don Lemon definitely broke the law, in my opinion. That’s my own opinion. That is not necessarily something that comes from any other expert on this. But if you watch the video of Don Lemon in a church disrupting people’s right to practice their faith, which is what he and others were doing, and you listen to the things he’s saying, He’s absolutely a protester. There’s no version of him being a media guy who’s just capturing a story and doing the thing that you would have seen on television when television was more respectable, where it would have said, hey, there’s people out in this church or whatever. Maybe you’re even standing outside of it as you say this. They’re disrupting a service. We’ll let you know more of what’s going on and why later. Instead, Lemon is saying this is what will happen all throughout the country. if ICE is allowed to keep operating, if blah, blah, blah. He’s absolutely echoing the sentiment of the protesters. You can’t call yourself media if you have that strongly of an opinion on a certain side that is doing the illegal thing. You don’t get to say, hey, First Amendment right for me, baby. I’m just a journalist. If we did that, anyone breaking the law could turn their camera on while doing it and say they were an independent journalist not breaking the law. I’m just showing you guys a news update on the person robbing the jewelry store who is me robbing the store. But I can’t be held accountable for this because I’m just journalism. I’m just media. I’m just a journalist letting you know that someone is robbing this jewelry store. That doesn’t get you out of the crime, people. But they’re pretending as though it does. Todd Blanche and George Stephanopoulos had a bit of a argument yesterday. on ABC discussing Don Lemon, who was released after he was arrested for the church incident in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that I think is very likely to find him guilty of a crime because he seems to have recorded himself doing it. But here we go. Here’s part of this audio.
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So when do you believe that Mr. Lemon crossed the line from reporting on what was going on to criminal activity?
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Conveniently missing from what you just showed, George, is the appellate court and a judge on the appellate court who said just a few days later there was clearly probable cause and it wasn’t even a close question. And by the way, a grand jury, which is what our system has set up to determine whether probable cause exists, concluded that there was probable cause. That indictment is now public. Everybody in this country can pull it up and read for themselves and see what the grand jury found that Mr. Lemon did. I am not gonna comment on the charges specifically because it’s not appropriate. But it’s interesting that we talk about the First Amendment right. You have a right of freedom of religion. which is just as important as any other right that we have. And George, I don’t know if you’ve watched the videos or read the indictment about what it’s alleged that Mr. Lemon did, but if anybody in this country thinks that that is, quote, independent journalism, I would like to have a conversation with you.
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You’re an idiot. is what I would say in response to that. He didn’t go that route.
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He obviously has a very good lawyer. He can raise defenses in court to the extent he wants to. But nobody in this country should feel comfortable storming into a church while it’s ongoing and disrupting that church service and thinking that we’re just going to stand by and let that happen because there is a statute that does not allow that to happen. It doesn’t matter if you happen to be a former CNN journalist. It doesn’t matter if you’re a rioter. It doesn’t matter if you think you’re peacefully protesting. It doesn’t matter.
SPEAKER 11 :
He’s absolutely right. I want to play that beginning part again because I really do like that part a lot where Stephanopoulos is like, oh, what? At what moment did he change from being a journalist to being a writer? And my answer would have been the entire time. He was never a journalist, it seemed, because he was providing an opinion that was completely aligned with the people who were disrupting the church service. But I love the response back that it’s not a MAGA opinion. It’s not something that a bunch of conservatives got into a room together and said, well, we think that Don Lemon is guilty of something, so let’s go and share that with the public. This actually went through the proper channels. A grand jury said, yeah, he seems pretty guilty of doing so.
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So when do you believe that Mr. Lemon crossed the line from reporting on what was going on to criminal activity?
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It’s not my belief is another way to say that.
SPEAKER 02 :
From what you just showed, George, is the appellate court and a judge on the appellate court who said just a few days later there was clearly probable cause and it wasn’t even a close question. And by the way, a grand jury, which is what our system has set up to determine whether probable cause exists, concluded that there was probable cause.
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Yeah, so it’s not just my opinion. I’m not the only one. As Deputy Attorney General saying this, there’s a bunch of other people through the proper channels who seem to believe that Lemon committed a crime. And again, if you just watch the video, I’m not even going to play it because I’m so annoyed with Don Lemon and his attempt to be relevant and to be in the news. Like part of him is thrilled that the news cycle is focused on him again. He says the reason they’re attacking him, he’s gay, he’s a black man, anything other than I committed a crime inside a church, which is what I think definitely happened. And a lot of people seem to, again, I’m just going to keep repeating it. I think definitely happened. But part of him is very thrilled to be at the forefront of a news cycle for any amount of time. And that annoys me because it is all performative and stupid. And every part of it is designed to be, oh man, Like here, you know what? Let me say it this way. I bet you whatever meeting Don Lemon has with who’s ever a part of his social media team, I wonder if it’s like one person or two other people. I don’t know how much money he’s throwing at this thing that I’m not saying he’s all that successful at right now. But anyway, that debate as to how much attention he’d get for being a part of this thing that was happening at this church in Minneapolis where people were accusing a pastor of being a member of ICE and wanted him to stop doing his church service, all horrible, terrible, illegal things. But I wonder how much of their debate was, man, this is going to get us a lot of clicks, a lot of mentions, because no news is bad news or no publicity is bad publicity is the version of think that so many people in digital media only believe to be what’s important for them. Look, I was really happy. I’ll say it this way. at the reporting that Nick Shirley did in Minneapolis when he uncovered all the fraudulent places and knocked on all the doors and showed us how ridiculous and unapologetic the fraud is. But to be honest, Nick Shirley is going to be a person who disappears from our day-to-day conversation unless he does it again, unless he finds another controversial thing to be the first person reporting on and demonstrating how much news media is useless online. in today’s society, even though they have the money and the means to easily do what any independent YouTuber does, like Nick Shirley. But the problem with that beast, with that monster of internet media, is you have to keep feeding it. People ask the question, why did Tucker Carlson interview this guy and have this conversation with this person? Does he think what the other person thinks? Or is Tucker Carlson blah, blah, blah? That happens all the time. where people react to the platform that is shared from one known person to maybe a lesser known or probably just as well-known person in a lot of cases. And I laugh every time I see that because the platform conversation is ridiculous. The platform is ubiquitous now. Everyone has one. Anyone can have one at any time for whatever reason they want. And if the content is good, it’ll go viral. If it’s meaningful, if it matters, people will talk about it, and then eventually news media and everyone else will discuss it, like they did with Nick Shirley. So the playing field has been leveled. I don’t care why someone puts someone else on their show from a platform standpoint, because I believe I know why. I believe I know what the answer is. I don’t care why they tell me, is what I should say. I think it’s just to get more clicks, more views, more people witnessing it, and then more money. Because the more people you have consuming your content in today’s digital media world, the more money you make. Look at Candace Owens as another example of this. I did this deep dive, not in the things she was talking about. I thought a lot of them were stupid, to be honest. And I don’t know how many people in this audience agree with anything that Candace said or don’t agree. But I think by and large, the things she said were ridiculous and clickbait stuff that benefited her a lot. But I did a deep dive into how much her podcast jumped in consumption and the amount of listeners or the amount of money she’s making off of it based on that. And she went from the back end of the top 100 podcasts. like in the 70s or 80s. In the 30s, she got millions of additional downloads. That doesn’t necessarily mean that everyone that downloaded her show agrees with her. That’s another thing that’s missing often in these discussions. There’s probably a whole lot of people who heavily disagree with with the person that they’re consuming the information of. Anyone else can be used as an example of that other than Candace Owens. But it’s funny to think that the amount of downloads you have actually provides credibility to the thing you’re saying, because that’s not true. It just means that people are interested in what you’re saying, and it might be for the exact opposite reason. But nonetheless, I just thought that was fascinating. that the thing she did and the way she did it and how long she and still is dedicated to some of the conspiracy theories around the tragic death of Charlie Kirk has tremendously financially benefited her. And so many people say that now the best way to make money in media, in digital media is to be as controversial as possible. Because unless you get sued, who cares? You’re just going to get more clicks, more likes, more views, and that’ll be great for you. Not great for society, but great for you. All right, quick break. A lot more. Craig Collins filling in on The Dana Show.
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SPEAKER 04 :
And now, all of the news you would probably miss. It’s time for Dana’s Quick Five.
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That’s right. It’s time for a quick five on the Dana Show. A D-Lash, Dana Lash Radio on X on Twitter. A great way to stay connected. Producer Steven and I were just joking about Puxatawney Phil and how often he is horribly, horribly wrong in his predictions. And Steven made a great point. He’s like, hey, man, but we can only play the audio today. Let’s go ahead and do it. The pomp, the circumstance, the stupidity of all this. and the fact that Puxatawney Phil has an amazing Hall of Fame batting average, but not a great actual predicting the weather average, 35% or so. He’s hitting over 300. He’s not actually doing that great, but this is beyond stupid, so we should play it here.
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Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. Now on this February 2nd, Punxsutawney Phil, the seer of seers, prognosticator of all prognosticators.
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Wrong 67% of the time.
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Was awakened from his wintry nap at dawn on Gobbler’s Knob. Phil looked to the skies.
SPEAKER 11 :
Gotta really think about changing the name of that. That’s not a great name.
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And then, speaking in groundhog ease, directed President Dunkel to the proper scroll, which reads… It’s my great honor to answer your annual call.
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And do it wrong.
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So I rise again this morning to greet you all.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
But today, I wake thinking of numbers and time. America turns 250, and I’m at least 139. Uh-huh. Let’s celebrate all, young, old, babies, or millennial. Sure. And kick off America’s semi-quincentennial.
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I’m already annoyed by this. I don’t know why.
SPEAKER 03 :
We look to the future and not just the past. So I suppose this party could use a forecast. A wrong one. It is my job this February too. to look to the skies and report back to you that there is a shadow here on my ground. Six more weeks of winter abound.
SPEAKER 11 :
I don’t know why people are cheering for that, by the way. They should absolutely not be cheering for six more weeks of winter, which is what he normally predicts and is why he’s usually wrong still very, very often. I really poo-pooed that whole thing, but it was indeed fun to play it. Steve was right. That was a good time. Other things out there. Melania crushed. at the box office compared to what people might have thought was going to happen. I think it’s got like a 6% on Rotten Tomatoes, but it made $7 million in its opening weekend. It beat a Jason Statham movie, which is incredible. And also, this is kind of crazy. At least one person online showed a photo of a different ticket that they were given, where instead of giving a movie theater somewhere, I think this was in Arizona, instead of giving them a ticket for Melania, gave them a ticket for Zootopia, and then wrote a different screen for them to go to on it, and said, oh, it’s just a computer glitch. It was the only movie they were doing this with, but it seemed to be trying to dull the numbers of people who actually went to see it. I wonder how many theaters around the country resisted printing out Melania tickets because they didn’t want the movie to be successful. How dumb is that? In all honesty, like how petty and stupid are those kind of things if they happened any more than this one time it was shown? I have no idea if it did, but that is uniquely dumb. I did not go see Melania, by the way. I’m not sure if it’s great. I’m not sure who cares, but I do think it’s interesting that it did as well as it did. And maybe I will go see it now. That word on the street is pretty good. Those are two of the quick five stories. Got a bunch more to get to later on in the show. This is Craig Collins filling in on Groundhog Day on the Dana Show. Stick with us. All right, one other thing actually out there. This might not be on the radar for everybody, but I thought it was interesting. President Trump on Air Force One having a conversation, went en route to Palm Beach, Florida. I had a discussion about Michael Wolff. The Epstein documents that were released, a crap ton of them, got flooded all over the place more than we’ve ever seen before. This was a huge dump of information. None of it really proves anything negative about Trump, even if some media outlets are going to pretend that because that’s all they ever wanted in this story. They didn’t want to actually catch bad guys. They wanted to turn Trump into a bad guy again, regardless of what the truth is. But nonetheless, one of the things that emerged is that the filmmaker Michael Wolff was conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to create something that would have been dishonest and attempt to do harm to President Trump. So he might sue them. President Trump likes suing people, likes suing anyone that seems to break the rules in a certain way. Which, by the way, would also be celebrated by mainstream media if it were a Democrat doing it, keeping people accountable by going through the proper channel and system that exists in our society. If that were a Democrat doing that, they’d be thrilled. When Trump does it, it’s awful somehow. But here he is, saying that he might sue some people.
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What did you think of the latest release of Epstein files, and do you think your critics will be satisfied with this release?
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It looked like this guy Wolf, who’s a writer, was conspiring with Epstein to do harm to me. And I didn’t see it myself, but I was told by some very important people that not only does it absolve me, it’s the opposite of what people were hoping. Yes, it is.
SPEAKER 11 :
It is the opposite. There seems to be a bunch of pieces of information that demonstrate how much Epstein and others were targeting Trump and trying to turn him into someone more in trouble than he deserved to be. There’s absolutely nothing in the document dumps that have been put out there that continues to show any version of anything that Trump did wrong. He’s still not going to be charged with any sort of crime. No information has come out. This is all the stuff they’re mad that is true. And it’s funny. And I use funny loosely because it’s not I’m not going to laugh at this, but it’s funny to me in a dark way that as this information continues to get dumped out and we continue to see horrible things of terrible people connected to Jeffrey Epstein, who who seem to just be awful and none of them are Trump, that none of that media cares. None of the Democrats who are begging for this stuff to be made public care about any of those people. They don’t want to discuss it. They don’t want to think about it. None of the royalty that’s involved in this, none of the Democratic politicians or Democratic financial people or anyone behind the scenes within that party that’s now being outed as someone who seems to have done, or at least even photos of people seemingly in very bad situations. None of that matters. Media, by and large, ignores it because they’re disgusting, as they often are. All right, we’re going to take a break. After the break, We’re going to do the quick five, but I’m also at some point in the very near future, let’s call it like 15 minutes, going to discuss a data dump that is truly absurd. This is a data dump out of North Carolina that shows the amount of anti-ICE group members from different communication things online or whatnot, that are actually also members of certain teachers’ unions, city council members, school board members, mayors of major cities. It’s insane the amount of politically relevant and, in the world of education, relevant individuals who are closely tied to the anti-ICE group or the… You know, Antifa groups that are out there causing all these problems. It seems very obviously to be a thing created by a bunch of people in those positions of power throughout that side of the political aisle. And that’s not going to get talked about a lot. So we’re going to talk about it here. But a huge data dump and a crazy amount of people. hundreds of people that are connected to organizations that you would think would shy away from being at the forefront of this sort of a controversial movement that are absolutely 100% unapologetically trying to lead it and push others to do crazy, horrible stuff. So we’ll talk about that in just a little bit. I will do a quick five. All that coming up. Craig Collins filling in on The Dana Show.
SPEAKER 10 :
Thanks for tuning in to today’s edition of Dana Lash’s Absurd Truth Podcast. If you haven’t already, make sure to hit that subscribe button on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
SPEAKER 08 :
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Absurd Truth: Don Lemon Update
Join us as we explore the multifaceted world of absurd news, from political tensions and media controversies to the recurring oddities in local stories that captivate us all. Hear about how the digital landscape influences media credibility and discover unforeseen connections between controversy and attention. Plus, an insightful dive into the financial wisdom of diversifying with gold and the laugh-inducing accuracy of Punxsutawney Phil’s weather forecasts awaits.
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