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Sept. 30, 2023 - Blood Money
29:26
Victor Joecks "The Death of the Mainstream News Media..." - Blood Money PODCAST Episode 7
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Welcome to Blood Money. Today we have Victor Jakes from the Las Vegas Review Journal.
He writes an opinion column.
How are you doing, Victor? I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me on. Victor, this show is called Blood Money, and as an entry point to every episode, we ask the guests, what does blood money mean to you?
Well, that's a unique question.
I guess obviously the first thing you think about is the literal definition of money that's given to someone as the result of someone else's dying or being killed.
I mean, if you want to step back and look at it in more of kind of a Hypothetical political sense in terms of, you know, where is money being taken and not being spent very effectively?
I mean, you could basically look at the entire federal government, you know, probably not the entire federal government, but, you know, you just look at all of the boondoggles that we've had.
And the one I'm thinking of specifically is the, you know, the final coronavirus bill that passed last March.
Now, you know, Just to be clear, I would not call that blood money, but if you're just talking about some sort of hypothetical or jumping off point, then money where I think it could be spent a lot better.
I mean, I think that bill is a prime example.
I mean, the biggest result of that bill has been runaway inflation that the country is still struggling with.
Could you tell us a little bit about that bill?
What were some of the points about that bill that were of concern?
Yeah, well, they pumped a bunch of money in the economy in terms of the stimulus checks.
That was the $1,400 stimulus checks to everyone.
And, of course, everyone loves free money.
But the problem is that it's not really free.
First of all, we're going to have to pay it back with a lot of interest.
And then what it did is it It gave everyone more purchasing power at the same time that it expanded unemployment benefits and extended them.
And so you've got people with lots of money, you're paying people not to work, and lo and behold, you end up with a supply crunch where the classic definition of inflation is too much money chasing too few goods.
And that's what we've seen.
I mean, the inflation keeps hitting 40-year highs.
I want to say it was 7.5%, I think, in January.
It's crazy. I mean, I think most people didn't think we would see that.
Again, obviously, it happened during the 1970s and the early 1980s, but that was supposed to be in the past.
We were supposed to be beyond that.
And it turns out that, no, government's still very capable of producing runaway inflation.
So let me ask you about that whole COVID bill now.
It's funny. I was going to drive through to get some coffee yesterday and there was a sign up saying, you know, be nice to our employees.
There's an employment shortage.
It seems like because of COVID, a lot less people are showing up to work.
There's an employment shortage out there.
Was, in your opinion, was this just a comedy of errors or was there an intentional element to all this?
No, I don't think it was intentional.
I mean, I don't think Biden looked at it and said, boy, in 12 months, how am I going to produce runaway inflation and 40% approval ratings?
I mean, I don't think that was his goal.
You know, was it obvious at the time that this was going to be the result or something like this was going to be the result?
Absolutely. I mean, I think you even had a former Clinton economic advisor, I want to say it was Larry Summers, Basically, he predicted this before the bill passed.
He said, hey, I know I'm a Democrat, but look out, guys.
This is a recipe for inflation.
And lo and behold, it's a recipe for inflation.
I mean, it's very basic.
There's this idea that some people hold on the left that basically you can print money and there's not going to be any downstream consequences of that.
And it's just not true.
I mean... You put out too much money, you have too few goods, you're going to get inflation.
Now, if you want to say there are other factors like the low interest rates from the Federal Reserve, I mean, absolutely, that's fair.
If you want to say, well, this is going to happen a little bit naturally because we were coming out of the coronavirus pandemic, yeah, that's fair too.
I mean, the economy, there's lots of...
I mean, that's the thing about the economy, right?
There are lots of factors in the economy.
I don't ever want to I wouldn't say it's just one thing, but the effects of this bill definitely contributed in a large way to the inflation that we're seeing now.
And part of that, of course, is people aren't joining the job market like they were before.
And I think there's lots of causes for that.
One of them is that we paid people not to work, and guess what?
People are rational actors.
Being paid not to work is a pretty good gig and took advantage of it.
Other people, the kids are out of school.
They had to worry about taking care of someone at home.
And so it was harder to work.
Other people are scared to work.
They're worried about the coronavirus and don't think going back to work at this point is the right thing.
So certainly there are lots of factors, but the government can only have a hand in some of those factors and the ones that the government A lot of people that I've spoken with have, I guess,
gone down the conspiracy theory route in terms of coronavirus in general, because some of the facts that they brought up is that a lot of deaths have been inside coronavirus, that the numbers are actually less if you actually look at the core morbidities and that sort of thing.
I mean, what do you think about that?
Well, you know, it depends on what, you know, what the specific thing is.
I mean, I think, you know, in 2020, Trump was talking about, you know, oh, hospitals are getting, you know, they're inflating the number of people who are dying from the coronavirus because they're getting paid, you know, getting paid more for these coronavirus patients.
And that was dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
And within the last four or six weeks, the Biden administration has come out and said, you know, what we really got to do, we really got to look and determine if someone died of COVID or with COVID. And it's like, oh, yeah, you know, I think some people have been saying that for a while.
So... I think there's something like that that is a concern.
People respond to financial incentives, and so I don't think it's a surprise if you say we're going to pay more for if someone had COVID, that they're going to test everyone.
And even if they have a gunshot wound and died of a gunshot wound and they happen to have COVID, they're going to list it as a COVID death.
So I think you've got to drill into the data there.
Now, if someone wants to say, well, that means COVID wasn't serious, I think that's obviously not true.
So I think it just depends on where you're going with it.
I mean, if you want to say a lot of the data hasn't been as precise as it needs to be, and some of that was too easy.
Too quickly dismissed over the last 18 months.
And now that it's, you know, more convenient for the Biden administration to find some of those nuances like dying with COVID versus dying of COVID. I think that's very fair.
But, yeah, obviously you can't just say that, you know, the coronavirus doesn't exist or it's all just a media creation.
Yeah. Trump seems to have been right about a lot of things.
Yeah, yeah, I think it is.
I mean, you look at the, I mean, this is a little off topic, but the John Durham filing that came out within the last week, as we record this, you know, basically, Durham, the special counsel alleged that Yes, Trump was spied on.
He was being spied on, and there was a conspiracy among the Hillary Clinton campaign.
Obviously, that's what Durham alleges hasn't been proven, but I think there's a lot of things like that where after the fact, something Trump said that was dismissed as outlandish, it's, oh, yeah, no, maybe that actually did happen.
Yeah, I mean, let's talk a little bit about that.
So Are we in an era where, I don't know, we've become so soft as a culture, society, where the truth is so offensive to us that it seems like everything Trump said, there would be huge backlash by the media and then a lot of it turned out to be true.
And I see two components there.
I see a potentially soft culture, but I also see a highly corrupt mainstream media that's always been wrong and seems to have an agenda as opposed to just dealing with some harsh truths.
Well, I mean, the national mainstream media certainly has an agenda.
I mean, if you didn't know that before, I mean, the whole Trump administration certainly demonstrated that.
I mean, for the first couple of years, it was Russia, Russia, Russia.
You know, every little anonymously sourced leak was just a bombshell proving that Trump was in bed with the Russians.
And, you know, the Steele dossier just blew the lid off the whole thing.
And then no less a source than Robert Mueller said it.
Actually, guys, there's nothing here.
It's complete garbage.
Trump didn't collude with the Russians.
And then the story kind of just went away.
And now that we're four or five years after the fact, and the Durham investigation came out, and it's not this headline-leading story in the national mainstream media.
In fact, they're trying to spin it with things of, well, this isn't that big a deal.
And it wasn't It wasn't that they were...
Anyway, I can't remember all their excuses, but I was reading some articles the other day about it.
It's just like, my word, if it was reversed, if this was something a Republican had done, they would be calling it Watergate.
It would be on the front page.
There would already be hearings about it.
But, you know, they've had an agenda, they have an agenda, and it's perfectly clear.
Okay, a couple of questions here.
Now, what do you think the ultimate outcome of the Durham report is going to be?
Like, where do you think that's all going?
Oh, that's a great question.
I mean, I think he's definitely, you know, that filing from last weekend as we record this is It's very explosive because it's not just, you know, oh, this guy lied.
I mean, basically he says that this guy who was employed with the Clinton campaign was monitoring Trump's internet traffic or internet traffic from Trump Tower and places including the executive office of the presidency trying to find Some sort of connection between Trump and Russia.
And then, you know, that he took this, this quote unquote evidence, and he gave it to the FBI, potentially gave it to the CIA, didn't disclose that he was working with the Clinton campaign.
And, you know, it appears that the evidence was very skewed.
I think what he was trying to say is, Oh, that people in Trump's orbit have been in contact with these rare Russian cell phones.
And then if you look at the whole data, it's not really that rare.
It happened during the Obama administration.
So he takes skewed data, gives it to the FBI for the purpose of the FBI investigating the sitting president of the United States.
You know, the deep state, you know, that was another thing that was dismissed as a conspiracy.
Well, this looks a lot like the deep state.
I mean, I don't know how else you say it.
And obviously it hasn't been proven in court.
We've got to see what the final result is.
But, you know, Durham's been very studious.
You know, he hasn't. You know, you remember when Trump was basically saying, we've got to hear more for Durham.
Where is he? And he just kept his head down.
He kept working. You know, which is what federal prosecutors are supposed to do.
They're supposed to tune out the political distractions.
They're supposed to focus on where the facts lead them.
And the filing certainly was suggestive that there's more to come.
Do you think we're going to see major figures in handcuffs?
See who in handcuffs?
Any major political figures in handcuffs?
You know, it's an interesting question.
I mean, I don't think Hillary Clinton's getting arrested.
I assume that, you know, It happened several, you know, layers down.
You know, maybe some of the lawyers that were involved, you know, I don't know if people would consider them major.
I mean, they're major power players, but probably not major figures to the public.
But, you know, for something like this that, you know, obviously has to be proven, has to see where the evidence is, but it would not be surprising to see people arrested.
Okay, I'm going to make a statement here.
I want you to react to it.
So, In my opinion, I believe that the mainstream media has gotten to a point where they are destroying the fabric of this country and causing all sorts of mayhem, whether it's deaths on the street, conflicts on the street. We saw that guy You know, run over, you know, all these people in Wisconsin.
That sounded a lot like to me that that guy was upset at lies at his hearing through the mainstream media or divisive propaganda.
We saw, we've seen Trump supporters being shot.
We've seen cities being burned.
All which, in my opinion, this is my opinion, I think that I attribute a lot of that to the divisiveness of the mainstream media and their agenda.
How would you react to that?
Well, I mean, the national mainstream media certainly has an agenda.
And I think that the example you cite is, you know, I mean, the Kyle Rittenhouse thing, you know, within 24 hours, 48 hours, it was a white supremacist, you know, if I remember correctly, in one of the presidential debates, Joe Biden brought him up.
Referencing him as a white supremacist.
And now we know months later that, no, he wasn't a white supremacist.
He was found not guilty for good reason.
And the narrative that was established so quickly turned out to be completely wrong.
And it's so interesting because the guy in Wisconsin, I'm trying to think of where the city was.
But anyway, there's just been almost no interest in what the guy's motive is.
And, you know, his social media posts certainly were suggested that he was potentially upset about the Rittenhouse verdict.
And there's been basically a blackout on why in the world did this happen?
It was like, you know, they saw the social media posts and the media's like, Oh, not interested.
Local crime story. So it's things like that, right?
Where it's just the disparity in coverage where there's an event and it's like, oh, we can pin it on Republicans or conservatives or the NRA. Well, it's all we're going to talk about.
And then it's like, oh, it's an event.
And if we applied the same standard, we could You know, it would be blamed on the Democrats.
Nope, not interested.
So, I mean, my standard is simple.
People are responsible for their actions.
I mean, unless there is, you know, specific incitement Like paying someone to go harm someone else.
I mean, I think it's a mistake to try and blame kind of this larger factor on either side for someone's specific action.
I think people have agency.
They get to decide what they do.
But if you want to say, is the media dividing the country?
Are they pushing narratives that are false in terms of the U.S. being systemically racist, Kyle Rittenhouse being a white supremacist, the kid at the March for Life being a racist for smiling in that famous photo?
Yes, the media is definitely being divisive, definitely increasing the temperature.
But at the end of the day, people are responsible for their own decisions.
What is the solution to all of this madness?
I think what's happening is people are voting with their feet.
They're moving away from the national mainstream media.
They're finding alternative outlets that they can trust.
I think one of the reasons the national mainstream media is so upset about Joe Rogan is Rogan's got a huge audience.
It's so funny because I think people like listening to Rogan, and I'll have to admit I don't listen to Rogan.
But, you know, from what I've read is people like listening to him because he just talks and kind of lets people say their thing.
And people can kind of wade through, well, what do I agree with them?
What do I disagree with them?
And, you know, the role of The press is supposed to be just, here's the facts.
Here's what's happening. And I think people can process that or they can process someone who says, well, I'm a conservative or I'm a liberal and here's my perspective on the events at hand.
I think it's when someone says, well, I'm neutral.
I'm just reporting the facts and they have a clear bias that makes people go, no, hang on a second.
I'm going to go somewhere else because obviously there's a disconnect between what you are Claiming to be and what I'm receiving.
And so, you know, I think the biggest thing that would kind of lower the temperature in a country is to give the government less power.
You know, if these fights didn't involve such high stakes, I think people would care less.
And to me, that's kind of the ideal solution is that, you know, if something's really important happening in government, it should be happening at the city council, at the school board.
It shouldn't be happening in Washington, D.C. You know, and so if we have less power in Washington, D.C., I think there's going to be You know, less stress about who's making the decisions.
So you're saying we'll go more regional, more local, as opposed to give the federal government so much power over what happens in the states?
Yeah, that's exactly right.
I mean, that's the beauty of federalism, right, is that California doesn't have to be like Nevada, which doesn't have to be like Utah, which doesn't have to be like Michigan or Florida.
And if you don't like it, you go to go to a different state.
I mean, I think that was the vision of the Constitution.
The vision of the founders is not that you have this all powerful federal government.
And especially you wouldn't have this super powerful federal government where the president, you know, one person is basically making all of these decisions, you know, in terms of things decided by the bureaucracy.
You know, it was supposed to go through Congress, which is what would give people a vote.
You know, the system has been distorted in many ways, and a couple of them is just there's so much power in Washington, D.C., and then so much of the power is being, you know, handled or dispensed.
So much of the rules are being made by these bureaucracies instead of by Congress.
Where are we heading as a country?
What are the risks and challenges ahead of us?
Where is this all going? Yeah, that's a great question.
I mean, I don't know where we're headed as a country.
I mean, I really think we're at sort of an inflection point where the sides are pretty balanced and there's some key questions.
I mean, the fundamental one is, you know, is America a good country or not?
I mean, I really think there's a divide on that.
You know, the idea that the U.S. is systemically racist when we have outlawed racial discrimination in employment, in hiring, unless you are an elite college wanting to discriminate against Asian Americans.
It's very hard to discriminate on the basis of race in America, and in many ways, racial relations, at least in the last 10-15 years, You know, they probably hit their high point right before, right as Barack Obama was elected president.
You know, there's been some divide since then.
But in terms of, you know, formal legalized racism, it's almost non-existent.
And now you've got this significant portion of the country saying, well, actually, you know, the U.S. is still racist.
You know, Dr. Martin Luther King's vision that we're going to judge people on their character instead of I think the idea is laid out in the In the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are good and are right.
And the problem wasn't those ideals.
It's that we didn't always follow those ideals.
But, you know, there's a significant segment in the country that says, no, the problem is those ideals themselves, you know?
And they want to go back and they want to reshape government, reshape the country.
And I don't think it's decided how that debate's going to end.
Do you think, I mean, you're talking about like the changing the Constitution essentially?
Well, I mean, it probably wouldn't be formal, but, you know, you look at what the Supreme Court has done.
I mean, they talk about another thing the founders never envisioned.
You know, basically, they've become the super legislature.
And, you know, on the right side of the aisle, there's kind of this debate about, well, what?
What's a judge's judicial philosophy?
How are they going to interpret the Constitution?
And on the left, it's just, well, what does the left want?
That's what the Constitution means.
So, you know, in a large sense, you don't have to formally change the Constitution to have sweeping changes pushed through the country when it comes to the Supreme Court.
You've talked about some of this already, but in a bullet point fashion, could you name the top five issues facing this country?
Top five issues facing the country.
I mean, I think you would talk about, you know, what people believe the country is.
You know, are we a great country or are we a country that's systemically racist and needs to be torn down?
The education system, I think, is a significant issue.
The debt is a significant issue.
I would say the size and scope of federal government is a significant issue.
And probably the ability of regulatory agencies to make basically laws.
I think those are some of the biggest challenges facing the country.
Do you think China is going to kick our ass?
Well, you know, it's interesting.
I mean, I think China is a major threat, and they certainly see themselves as a country that wants to ascend into a place of dominance on the world stage.
You know, I think one of the things that's unique about America...
We are the strongest country and what we have brought to the world isn't domination, it's freedom.
What we've said is we want the world to be free.
We want the shipping lanes to be free.
We want countries to...
We're not going to take you over.
We might encourage democracy or support We support certain countries against countries like China and Russia, but we're not trying to go there and take all the resources out of the country.
We invaded Iraq.
We conquered the country, basically.
And we said, all right, here it is.
Take it back. You know, that's just so unusual in the scope of history.
And I think so many people today just assume that's natural.
No, what's natural is what China and Russia are doing, where they're building up their armies and saying, look, we're big and we're strong and we're gonna go take stuff.
And China's been very clear about that.
You know, I'm very concerned about Taiwan and what happens there.
I mean, China's made it very obvious that they want to invade Taiwan.
You know, I don't know what the U.S. is going to do.
I don't know what the U.S. should do. The world did very little when the U.S. took over, or when China took over Hong Kong, which is pretty discouraging.
So, you know, maybe we kind of enter sort of what becomes sort of a pseudo-Cold War, where, you know, because each side could theoretically destroy each other with nuclear weapons, we don't just have a A ground war.
We kind of have these proxy wars.
And, you know, China tries to build up its influence around the world.
I mean, they're doing that with their belt and road initiative, where basically they're going to certain countries and investing in those countries to kind of I think it's time to wake up and say, you know, we thought we could kind of liberalize China by opening trade up with them.
And in fact, what's really happened is a lot of US companies have become so dependent on the Chinese market that the Chinese values are influencing us.
And it's really unfortunate.
You don't see an exit from that, the idea of China influencing us?
Because it is such a different system, and it's not based upon freedom principles.
Yeah, I mean, I think what the U.S. needs to do is kind of strengthen its alliance.
I mean, there was the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
It was basically this anti-China trade agreement.
And in the Republican primary, Trump started poo-pooing it, and everyone started poo-pooing it.
And that was a mistake.
I mean, we've got to build up our alliances, our trade with non-China countries, and we've got to demonstrate to those countries that we are a reliable ally, which is, you know, very tough to do when we pull out of Afghanistan and hand the country back over to the Taliban, who, by the way, is now friends with China.
So, you know, I think policies that move us away from trade with China are good.
Encourage trade with other countries.
I mean, I think if you want to just say from a purer You know, this is kind of where the debate about terrorists come.
You know, and Trump would always say, oh, tariffs are great for the economy.
No, tariffs are not good for the economy.
Free trade is good for the economy.
But you also have to consider that, you know, there are other factors other than the economy and trying to, you know, wean our dependence off a geopolitical opponent like China, that there's benefit to that too, even if it, you know, causes a little bit of an economic hit.
So, you know, how do we get our countries to invest in South Korea, invest in In Japan, invest in those other Asian countries where maybe they can do the manufacturing, but not in rich China.
Let's talk about your job. I mean, you got a pretty cool job there.
That's your writing opinion pieces for the Las Vegas Review Journal is your full-time job?
I know. It's incredible.
People always ask me when I tell them what I do, they say, is that a real job?
Do you get paid? And amazingly, the answer to both of those is yes.
It's a terrific job.
I've always loved politics.
And so being able to talk about politics and, you know, basically I bloviate about politics for a living.
I mean, it's a great gig.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how did you get to where you are today?
Well, it was a total God thing.
I mean, I never thought I'd work at a newspaper, but I worked for a think tank here for a number of years.
The Nevada Policy Research Institute studied state budget, education, tax issues, wrote stuff, and in the process of doing that, I worked with folks at the Review Journal.
And I had deployed for a year, and I came back, and Glenn Cook asked if I was Basically interested in writing for the paper, and one thing led to another, and I ended up at the paper, and it's been great.
How many years have you been there?
I've been there just over five years now, so time flies.
Truth Social, tell me what you think is going to happen with that, since that's actually being released in a few days here.
That is really interesting.
I mean, I think it has a chance.
I guess there's kind of two thoughts I have about new social networks.
You know, the one would be, you know, usually they grow and expand because there's something different.
You know, Twitter or Facebook isn't losing market share to MySpace or MySpace2, right?
They're losing market share to TikTok or Instagram.
You can see how old I am.
You know, but it's kind of a twist.
It's something new.
It attracts young people.
But I guess I'd say the way to combat that is to have a dominant media figure leading up a new social media network.
And Trump's obviously can be a dominant media figure.
He's got a passionate following.
You know, so I think it has a chance.
You know, obviously a lot's going to depend on Uh, you know, if people are willing to make the transition, I mean, I think, I think people have to understand about social networks too, is, you know, a lot of times political people will look at them through a political lens, but you know, most of their traffic is not political, right?
It's, it's people posting their puppy pictures or what they ate last night or where they're going to the movies or show or whatever.
And so, you know, I think the question is, is do you, you know, is, is his social network able to To be social, or is it just going to be political?
Because if you've got people on there who are on there sharing their lives, then I think it's got a chance.
Well, Victor, thank you so much for coming on Blood Money.
I really appreciate your time.
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