t, now I have to admit that I did not therefore go all the way to Hillary Clinton paid for it. My brain did not go there on day one. I could just tell that it was fake news by the nature of it. You just listened to it, you go, I don't think so. And by the way, I'm pretty sure I would have spotted this had the parties been reversed, meaning that if the Republicans had accused Biden of the same thing, I would have said, you know, I mean just without even doing any research, I don't think so. I just don't think so. I think I would have spotted it in either direction.

All right. So the Pulitzer is not a credible organization, and if you hear somebody got one, you should not be impressed. I say this because I've always wanted to win a Pulitzer Prize and never have. So if you'd like to get your commentary from somebody who is clearly disgruntled, this guy. Why is two thumbs and is disgruntled about not winning a Pulitzer Prize? This guy. Yes, I'm very bitter about it. I'm bitter about winning the prize that I have no value in whatsoever. It's true, by the way. I am actually bitter about it. I swear to God I'm bitter about it.

And the reason is the other cartoonists have won the Pulitzer. So Gary Trudeau's won once or twice, and I think Berke Breathed has one, and then lots of political cartoonists have won. And I always said to myself I feel as if Dilbert has defined the workplace in a way that if somebody deserved a Pulitzer Prize for cartooning, for commentary about the world and even having an effect on the actual workplace, honestly with complete humility I deserve a Pulitzer Prize just based on how they're given and what they're for and the context. But I don't think I've been nominated, so you can't actually win it unless you're nominated. I think you nominate yourself. So no, I'm not high, but thanks for asking.

So somewhere halfway into my live stream pretty much every day, or no matter what time of day, somebody says, I think he's high now. If you think that now, somebody says Gary Larson is 100 times better, and I agree, but you're off point. You're off point. Calvin and Hobbes is also the best cartoon that's ever been made in my opinion, but Calvin and Hobbes doesn't get a Pulitzer because the commentary is not serious about the world, right? Dilbert is actually serious commentary in humorous form. So you have to at least be political or social in nature before a Pulitzer is applicable, right? Yeah. So I feel like I'm in that domain.

All right, here's an interesting factoid, a little positivity for you. So because of the Roe decision by the court, people are asking ridiculous questions about other things. And one of the ridiculous questions is, will the Supreme Court somehow make it illegal to have interracial marriage? Now there are some predictions I make that I'm like, oh, I'm really like 90 percent sure. I'm not 100 percent sure. But this is the only one where I'm going to go out on a limb and say 100 percent sure: interracial marriage will remain legal in the United States. Does anybody want to argue that point? I'm 100 percent sure it's not a problem.

Anybody talk about a revolution? Oh my God, there's probably not a single thing that we've ever discussed that would be more volatile than that. All right. Now I live in California. If I hosted a party at my house and just invited 100 people that I know from my social circle or whatever, there would be so many interracial marriages. Now I live in California, so maybe there's just more of it, but I almost don't see the other kind where I live. It's mostly interracial now. Interracial depends how you define it, right? So we're not counting just Black and White. You've got to count Hispanic, you've got to count Asian, you've got to count everything, right?

So interracial marriages where I live, I don't know, it is so far beyond anything you could ever reverse. Just no way. Everybody might define it a little bit differently, but here's the point. I was going to say there's this scientific, let's say, idea that has been confirmed by studies. Of course we don't believe studies are necessarily true unless they agree with our biases, and this one does, so I'm going to say it's good.

Somebody says Pleasanton is not mostly interracial. I'm going to disagree with you. I'm going to disagree with you because I said if I threw a party of my social circle, I didn't say a generic Pleasanton event. But I don't think you could have a generic Pleasanton event that wasn't just full of at least Asian-American plus others, Hispanic-American plus others. There's less Black-White where I live, but the interracial part is pervasive. I think whoever just said that Pleasanton doesn't have interracial marriages, I think you're discounting how many different groups there are, because if you throw in Indian-Americans, people born in India or not, who have very high interracial marriage rates, very high in a good way.

So the idea is that proximity makes people less bigoted. In other words, if you simply spend time around people instead of disliking them more because you get to see all their warts or whatever, it's the opposite. The more time you spend with people who are different from you, the more accepting you are. Does that make sense to you? Do you believe that? I mean, does that study sound like that makes sense?

Now some of the examples they gave I thought were, and I'll tell you why. One of the examples was that people who served in, back when the military were segregated, there was a period when there were still segregated units and then integrated units. And if you followed up with them, you found that the integrated units, years later the people who were in it were less bigoted than the people who were never integrated in the first place. Does that make sense? And so that was part of the evidence that working together makes you less bigoted.

Do you see any problem with that study? There's a big problem with that study, isn't it? Well, let me ask you, at a time when there was a transition and there were still segregated units and then integrated units, do you think there was anything that those units had in common before the study? Almost certainly the ones that were integrated first were in places where they thought it would work, right? I'm just guessing that the units that perhaps were made up of or comprised of more old Southern boys, so to speak, I've got a feeling that they didn't integrate right away. Like maybe they needed to wait to see if the Northern units worked it out, and once they did everybody could do it. But I have a feeling that the ones who decided to integrate first had something in common. In other words, it was a group of people where you said to yourself, well that could work with that group. But I'll bet there were other groups where they just said, okay, let's wait on this group because these are all just severe racists in this group.

So I'm not sure I believe the study. Do you? But it also tracks with my own understanding, meaning that I would say that's true. I would say that exposure makes you more open to other people. Would you disagree with that? Is anybody who would disagree with that just sort of common-sensically? Or does your own experience say yeah, the more time you spend with other people, the more accepting you are?

Now I'm almost positive that this proximity thing is why I'm so much more pro-immigration than a lot of you are. I'm almost positive, because I have a proximity thing going on. If you take the people coming across the border illegally or people who have recently, maybe it's the second generation, whatever, if you take that group as a class, I've had extensive exposure to them because of where I live. And my opinion is they're better than the people who are already here. Sorry.

Now when I say better, I don't mean smarter, taller, better at sports. I don't mean their DNA is better or anything like that. Not in some way that you should care about. I don't think they're better. Here's how I think they're better. I just love the fact that they beat the odds, that they took on something enormously risky and dangerous to get to the United States to better their lives. In my opinion, I know how distasteful this is for some of you. Some of you are just going to hate this, especially on the Fourth of July.

But to me, America is not a border. We have to have a border, and I'm big on having strong borders and protecting them. So separate the fact that I think functionally you have to have a strong border, more strong than we have now. But I think America is a way of thinking. I think America is a vibe. I think America is a point of view. And the people who come here illegally, not all of them, I mean they all come for their own reasons, but to me they come with more of an American vibe than the people who are already here and just were born into it and didn't work for it.

Now that's just a bias, right? Could I prove it? If I did a study, would it be backed up? I don't know. I have no idea. It's a complete bias that is informed by proximity. If you spend enough time around the people who came from below the border recently, you will love them. That's my opinion. If you spend enough time around anybody who came across the border, you could have a really good opinion of them, and it will definitely influence what you think about how tough we should be in sending people back or amnesty or all that. It completely changes once you've had direct exposure.

Now if the only thing you've done is watch Fox News and see these armies of brown people coming across the border, it does look like an invasion. That looks scary. But if you're in it, like you're steeped in it as I am, not people who just came across the border but if you're steeped in the culture, it's very embracing and it's not scary at all. Like if you wonder what your future looks like if you're not in California, California is often your future, right? For good or bad. What happens here just happens a little faster. So where maybe what would you say, five years? California is about five years, maybe, depends on the topic, ahead of what's going to happen everywhere.

And if you live here, I don't know anybody who has extended exposure to the recent immigrants who doesn't love them. I don't. Now I'm sure they exist, and it has a lot to do with the town I live in, right? We're a pretty open town, so things are pretty good mentally where I live. There's not a lot of hate, a lot of acceptance here. So I'm just giving you my view. Now if you say that's not how it feels where I am, well that's the point. It doesn't feel like that where you are. But here's what I don't see. I don't see anybody who is really surrounded by the immigrant culture who doesn't love them. I don't know anybody. In fact, privately when people talk they say, yeah they're awesome. That's what people say behind their backs. So how would you like to be that? How would you like to be the immigrant community that when people talk about you behind your back it's almost always positive? I mean that's pretty good. Talk about managing your brand. That's pretty good.

All right. Elon Musk visited the Pope, and the big news that came out of that is that I expected it would be like matter and antimatter and that when they shook hands there would be some kind of a black hole or explosion and both of them would disappear in a giant fireball. That didn't happen, which shakes my confidence in everything I knew about reality.

But I also wonder what was the thinking of either Elon Musk or the Pope. Don't you say to yourself, huh, I wonder if the Pope converted Elon Musk from being a non-believer. Elon Musk believes in the simulation. I wonder if the Pope tried or had any success moving Elon Musk to become more of a believer. And then I asked myself, well which one of those two is more persuasive? Pope, A plus. You don't become the Pope unless you got some serious Catholic skills, am I right? Like there's a lot of work to become a Pope. That's not an easy entry-level job. So you have to say that the Pope probably is a real persuasive person, wouldn't you say?

But he's not as persuasive as Elon Musk, which is interesting. Very rare situation: somebody visiting the Pope who's verifiably, in my opinion verifiably, more persuasive than the Pope. I'll bet that's almost never happened. It has probably almost never happened when the person who's more persuasive is not a believer. So what I'm wondering is if Elon Musk had any luck convincing the Pope to abandon his religion. I mean there's no reporting on it. We don't know what they talked about. But I don't know. I'd be a little worried if I were a Catholic and my Pope spent 10 minutes with the most persuasive person on the planet who also thought we lived in a simulation and that my religion wasn't real. I'd be worried about it. I'd be worried about that. No, I'm just joking. But it is weird that the world's biggest non-believer, at least most famous for being a non-believer, would visit the Pope of all things. It's a wonderful world. I'm glad that you did.

Well, in California a lot of Californians are getting what they call inflation relief checks. Inflation relief. And so I was quite excited about this because I live in California, and so I thought, oh I can't wait to get my inflation relief check. Let's check the eligibility. Eligibility: I will not be receiving a check. I will not be receiving a check. But I'm not alone. The other people who will not be receiving a check for inflati