Ep. 497 The Liberal Media Can't Get Out of Its Own Way
In this episode I address the continued fake news crisis at CNN and their alleged blackmail of a GIF producer. http://thefederalist.com/2017/07/05/cnn-just-published-a-fake-quote-from-abraham-lincoln/ http://www.dailywire.com/news/18286/breaking-cnn-may-have-targeted-wrong-reddit-meme-ben-shapiro I also discuss the liberal policy meltdown in blue states using tax revenue data to show the futility of liberal economic ideology. https://www.wsj.com/articles/get-able-bodied-americans-off-the-couch-1499188689 https://www.wsj.com/articles/blue-state-budget-breakdowns-1499198223 Finally, I address the economics of green energy and the North Korean crisis. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-20/texas-is-too-windy-and-sunny-for-old-energy-companies-to-make-money
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
I have an obligation to come on the air with data and material and research.
I can't just say, trade stinks!
Thanks for tuning in to Dan Bongino Show.
Let's jump right in because we have no time for nonsense.
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
When I was a young man, I don't remember it being sexy to want to allow a nanny state to control my life.
On a show that's not immune to the facts with your host, Dan Bongino.
All right, welcome to The Renegade Republican with Dan Bongino.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
I'm doing very well, Dan.
Thank you very much.
We want to give a quick shout-out to Jay, right?
Yeah, man.
This is important.
Jay Davins, the guy that sent me that abacus.
He's in Pennsylvania, and I didn't remember his name yesterday when you asked, and I do today.
Jay Davin, thank you so much.
Yeah, Jay, you're the man.
We appreciate that.
Yeah.
By the way, also, one quick other shout-out, folks, if you'll allow me.
I got a gi from a guy to growl and do a little Brazilian jiu-jitsu grappling.
It's a century gi.
And, uh, thank you.
It was very nice of you.
And it's a, it's, I told him I'd give him a review, but I'll give you a little shout out on the show too.
It's a pretty, pretty good gi, man.
I'll tell you better than the one I have now.
So thanks for doing that.
I'll, I'll give you a full writeup, but a century ambassador gi, so really nice.
You know, when you're rolling around a lot, you don't want these really super thick, uh, Brazilian jujitsu gis, cause your fingers get caught in there and they get all dinged up and gosh, they look like sausage fingers I have now.
Man.
All right.
As always, overloaded with news today, so let's jump right in.
Yesterday, I covered the Blue State madness going on, and yesterday's show did phenomenal numbers.
Thank you.
I don't know if that was everybody catching up from the 4th of July holiday, but we went bonkers yesterday.
But I wanted to cover this a little more today, too, and then go into a couple of other stories as well, because there is a lot of breaking news going on.
But before I get to that, CNN.
It's... I don't even know what to say, folks.
It's a total meltdown over at CNN.
I tweeted out a story yesterday at the Federalist by Molly Hemingway, who I really like a lot.
Apparently CNN tweeted out a fake Lincoln quote on the 4th of July, which, all right, you know...
I know but it happens I guess like people get burned all the time I'm sure I've probably tweeted out Thomas Sowell quotes that maybe Thomas Sowell didn't say but gosh this is a news organization that can't seem to get their their act together and yesterday I was uh I did a little fox hit on this the story which you probably heard about I addressed a little bit of it yesterday is CNN basically outed a reddit user and now we're finding out it may not be a reddit user it may be someone else who published the the WWF gif of of trump that trump used in the tweet folks this is a complicated story if you haven't seen it forgive me for not explaining this well but trump tweeted out what is it sunday or saturday a gif a moving picture of himself in the WWF
When he hit Vince McMahon and someone superimposed the CNN logo on Vince McMahon.
Trump took that and tweeted it out.
CNN engaged in this full-blown investigation to find this kid, which I said yesterday is amazing because they found this kid on Reddit supposedly.
Now they're saying he's not a kid, it's a middle-aged man.
And now I got another tweet from a guy who says not only is it not a middle-aged guy, it's not any of those people because it's a different gif.
This is a crazy story.
Here's all you need to know about it.
This goes to show you the priorities of CNN right now.
They have what they have been pitching to us, Joe, literally for months, to be the biggest espionage story in human history.
That the Russians colluded with the sitting President of the United States, at the time a candidate, to throw a presidential election in said candidate Donald Trump's favor.
This is the story, Joe, is it not?
Yes.
This is the story they have been pitching to us for months.
It is the biggest espionage story potentially in human history.
They have not developed one credible named source or one scintilla of evidence to back this story up to the point now where even Democrats are starting to realize, as we've noted a long time ago, that the story's made up.
It's a fantasy.
There's nothing to it.
It is literally made up.
There's no there, there, there at all.
All of these resources, none of them can find a name source on this huge story they've been promoting for months.
Yet the minute something makes CNN look bad, this Giphy Trump put out with him hitting Vince McMahon with CNN on his face or whatever it may be, CNN takes it personal.
All of a sudden, Joe, the resources avail themselves to go track down what was originally reported to be a 15-year-old kid, which I had said on the air because that's how it was reported to me.
But now they're saying it's not a 15-year-old kid.
They found this kid almost overnight.
Again, it just speaks to the priorities of these people.
They don't care!
They don't care about anything but making Trump look stupid, Joe.
Is that not obvious at this point?
Pretty damned obvious, Dan.
They don't, right?
They don't seem to care.
It's amazing.
This Trump-Russia story, they can't find anything.
They won't dedicate any resources to putting anybody on the record because they know they have a fake news story, and yet the minute a gif comes out which makes them look stupid, they track down some kid or some adult, whatever they're reporting now, and Just so you know, folks, there's a question of journalistic ethics here because CNN... I'm going to read you from a CNN piece.
I'm going to read you something they put out there.
Now tell me this doesn't sound sinister, folks.
I'm not making this up, by the way.
This is from a CNN piece.
I'm obviously not making... I'm reporting on my show.
CNN is not publishing this guy's name, supposedly the guy who created the Giphy with CNN, that made them look bad, because he is a private citizen who has issued an extensive statement of apology, showed his remorse by saying he has taken down all of his offending posts, and because he has said he is not going to repeat this ugly behavior on social media again.
In addition, he said his statement could serve as an example to others not to do the same.
Here's the money line, Joe.
CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.
What?
So let me get this straight, we're blackmailing people now as journalists as long as they apologize for producing giffies we don't like?
Folks, listen.
Joe, I've been the subject of some pretty funny giffies over the years.
I'm pretty sure I've never made the effort to track anybody down and basically blackmail and harass them into not publishing another negative Dan Bongino gif again.
What a load of crap!
Really, right?
I'm going to move on after this, but I had a funny one after I lost that election in Florida.
I announced publicly, then I'll announce again today and repeatedly to whoever asked, I'm not running for office again.
I just, you know, I gave it a shot.
I hate perennial candidates.
I didn't win.
It's time to move on.
Maybe God has a different path for me.
There's nothing wrong with that.
Gave it a college try, right?
And some guy tweeted back to me because he doesn't like me at all.
He tweeted back to me, Dan Bongino isn't running for office again and he had a giffy in air of this guy in a bear suit breakdancing.
And I got to tell you, you know, at first I was offended and the more I, it's the funniest thing ever.
If you get the chance to, I wish I had saved it.
It's really funny.
Like I never had the desire to track the guy down by his Twitter handle, whatever it was, that liberal, liberal toolbox.
I know that wasn't his thing, but that wasn't his handle.
But you get the point.
Like, I never had the desire to go track the guy down and bribe him.
Like, I'm going to expose you and I'm going to give people your name.
And unless you apologize for this abhorrent behavior.
I mean, this is, folks, this is just stupid time right now.
It's silly time.
It's a little toolbox.
Nice one, Dano.
Yeah, it's just ridiculous.
All right, moving on.
Before I get to that, hey folks, have you picked up a bottle of BrickHouse yet?
I got another great email yesterday about Dawn to Dusk from another regular emailer to my Daniel Appongino account, which I always appreciate.
I read your emails.
Thanks for sending them.
BrickHouse Nutrition, Dawn to Dusk, fantastic product.
Folks, if you're having trouble getting through the day, and listen, I'm 40.
I'm not that old.
I'm going to be 43 soon, but I feel pretty old.
I've taken quite a few beatings in my life.
You know, sometimes it's midday, you're just worn out.
BrickHouse Nutrition invented a time-release energy pill.
It has none of the ups and downs, problems with coffee, energy drinks, all that other stuff out there where you get these really high elevations in energy and then you crash.
They developed a time-release product that gets you through the entire day.
It is a fantastic product.
I get a ton of positive feedback on this product.
Go give it a try.
Go to BrickHouseNutrition.com.
That's BrickHouseNutrition.com.
Pick up a bottle of Dawn to Dust today.
This stuff sells like hotcakes.
I talk to Miles all the time.
He actually sends handwritten notes to a lot of his customers.
He's the owner of the company.
He's that good of a guy.
But he's that good of a guy because he knows he has a really, really good product.
My wife loves it.
It helps her get her through the yoga classes she goes to, which are really tough for her.
We're not as flexible as we were in our 20s anymore.
Bouncing around in yoga, bending yourself like a pretzel all day in a really hot Florida.
It's tough.
So she takes it.
She loves it.
It's called Dawn to Dusk.
Go give it a shot.
BrickHouseNutrition.com slash Dan.
Okay.
So yesterday's story, we were talking about Illinois and the, the blue state meltdown going on right now.
And I got an email from one guy who was basically terrified.
What was his name?
Hold on.
Let me just find this guy quick.
Cause it was a cool email.
Well, Bobby, Bobby.
Yes.
We'll call him.
Bobby's like, brother, I didn't know it was that bad in Illinois.
And he's like, is this true?
I'm like, Bobby, I didn't email him back, but I'll tell you on the air, Bobby.
Yes, it's true.
Illinois, you're really screwed.
Listen to yesterday's show if you want to see how bad the budget situation in Illinois is.
But folks, it doesn't end there.
And the problem I'm having with this and the reason I keep talking about these blue state meltdowns It's because the same exact policies happening in these blue states are the policies Democrats nationally are advocating for for the entire nation.
And I want to go back and readdress the topic I've addressed in episodes.
I was big on this last summer.
I used to talk about it all the time.
Remember Subsidiarity Joe?
I used to talk about it all the time.
Last summer I was all over this and it deserves a re-mention here.
Folks, subsidiarity was basically a Catholic church principle, but it applies to politics, too.
Management and decision-making should be pushed down to the lowest level possible of organization.
So, we as conservatives generally support subsidiarity.
It's a really fancy way of saying local control.
The reason we support local control is because your vote matters more in local elections where you can influence policy.
If I'm voting for where I live, a commissioner in Palm City or a councilman, whatever it may be, right?
If I'm voting for those people, Joe, and only 5,000 people show up, My vote really matters.
I'm one of 5,000.
But in a national election, I'm one of, you know, what, 100 million people who could vote?
My vote doesn't matter as much.
It's a matter of simple math, folks.
It's not a matter of opinion.
You have more ability to sway policy at a local level.
Secondly, when policies are pushed down and legislation is pushed down to the local level rather than the national level, and I'll get to this as it relates to the states and national policy in a second, but when it's pushed down to the local level, it inconveniences the least amount of people possible who don't agree with that policy.
There is no policy.
Believe me, if you had a policy that we're going to give out free candy to kids, there would always be a kid in the class who's going to vote against it.
There's no policy that's going to get 100% support, ever.
So the idea of living in a constitutional republic like we live in, not a direct democracy, but a constitutional republic, a representative democracy, is we're going to elect people, we're going to make decisions that are going to be unpopular with a lot of people, no matter what, Joe!
No matter what!
Now, when you have decision-making at the local level rather than at the national level, you are inconveniencing the least amount of people possible.
Use the example of Obamacare.
Take the exact same policy.
The community rating, the guaranteed issue, the mandated benefits, the individual mandate, the employee mandate.
Take all that stuff, Joe.
Transplant it from a national policy to Palm City, Florida.
Think of the advantages there.
You're like, your advantages to Obamacare?
Yeah, you know what the advantage would have been?
It would have sucked in Palm City so bad that 330 million Americans wouldn't have been subjected to it.
So, in Palm City, where it's about 65% I'd say Republican, the rest Democrat or liberal, right?
You would have subjected, say, 65 out of 100 people to this bad policy, if you take a random group of 100 people, they would have been able to tell their neighbors how crappy it was, and it probably wouldn't have impacted the entire nation.
That's why conservatives love local control, because your vote matters more, and policies that are bad, that are like test tube chamber policies like Obamacare, You don't have to impact the entire nation.
You can impact the local area first, who can warn the rest of the nation how bad these things are.
Democrats hate it.
They are anti-subsidiarity.
They absolutely hate it.
This is why Democrats and liberals, well I should say liberals, not all Democrats, but liberals are globalists, Joe.
Globalism is the opposite of subsidiarity.
It's the idea that control should be pushed out to not the smallest amount of people possible, but the largest amount of people possible, meaning global Elites.
That's why they love international organizations, they love the UN, they love international cooperation, not because they want to sit around a campfire and sing Kumbaya, but because, Joe, this is critical, and you'll remember this from last summer, they don't want you to be able to escape.
Right.
So if you're a Palm City resident, and Obamacare passes here, and again, it's about 65% Republican down here, you can move.
You can say, you know what?
The health insurance plan, Palm City Care, that resembles Obamacare, stinks so bad, I'm moving to Stewart, or I'm moving to Hope Sound, or Jupiter.
Those are all surrounding areas.
I'm getting out of Palm City because I want to deal with it.
Fine!
Go ahead!
People can do that.
That's a great part about living in a free country.
The reason liberals hate subsidiarity is precisely because of that.
Because you can't escape.
Liberals don't want you to escape because when given the option to escape, Joe...
People do!
People leave.
They don't want you to leave because as I said in yesterday's show, liberals crave control and power.
They worship the power of the state.
The state and power are the same thing to them.
They need power.
They don't care about policy.
They care about power.
They will stand for anything if it gives them power.
As I said in yesterday's show again, a tax hike, a tax cut, School choice.
They don't care.
They will flip on a dime if they think it will empower them more.
Now, conveniently, giving parents choice and giving people their money back typically disempowers the state.
They're not completely unrelated, so they will usually rarely support them.
But if they can support a tax cut and it gives them power to do something later on that implements state control, they'll do that too.
They don't have any principles.
Just listen to yesterday's show if you think I'm making this up, okay?
Now, I wanted to bring this up because while we're on the topic of blue state madness in light of what's happening in Illinois, in light of what's happening in Connecticut, in light of what's happening in New Jersey right now, I wanted to give you an example from Maryland and why subsidiarity matters.
Given the opportunity to escape, people will.
Now, Joe, you remember the millionaire's tax in Maryland?
Yeah.
Remember the huge controversy that was?
We had a Democratic governor, super majorities in the House, super majorities in the Senate, when I was in Maryland.
And Governor Martin O'Malley, again, was a Democrat, pushed through this brilliant, and believe me, I'm using the term brilliant in the most negative way possible, He had this brilliant idea for a millionaire's tax.
The tax was projected to rake in $106 million.
Here's what the tax was, to give you specific numbers.
It was a hike in the tax of people who had roughly $1 million in income or above, from 4.75% to 6.25%.
So it was a pretty substantial tax hike.
And again, the projections were that it was going to raise $106 million.
What do you think it did?
See ya!
It lost $257 million.
Let me hear you.
You got that abacus out there, our friend Jay?
Was it Jay Davis or whatever?
Check this out.
Jay, get the Jay Davis abacus out here.
You got it?
Yeah, yep, yep.
All right, move some.
You're going to have to move some beads around here.
So a gain projection of $106 million.
So let's see.
Did it meet that $106?
What's bigger than?
Is $107 million bigger than $106?
It is, right?
By $1 million?
Yes.
Yes, okay.
So if you lose, meaning put a negative in front of this, if you don't gain 100, move the abacus, get the abacus ready, if you don't get 106 million and it's a negative, you lose 257 million dollars from the same class of taxpayers, is that 257 million, Joe, clearly is less than 106, do the things.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So negative 257 million is less than 106 million.
Yeah.
Okay, there you go.
Jay comes through again with the abacus, big time.
It's sad that Jay had to help us out with this to walk liberals through this kind of stuff, but I get it.
We're being sarcastic.
Joe and I like being silly, but How silly are we being?
This is abacus math.
I mean, this is simple.
Liberals do not get it.
They still defended this tax cut.
Remember, Joe, all the nonsense they had?
They had a thousand different reasons this thing didn't work.
Ah, well, people don't only leave because of taxes.
And here's the point.
Subsidiarity, by the way, which I just kind of teased a bit.
I might have stole my own thunder.
What happened is millionaires fled the state because they didn't want to pay more money.
They just fled.
They had second houses in Maryland and they were like, all right, we're just not going to declare residency in Maryland anymore.
A lot of them moved to Florida.
One of them was a friend of mine who I'm not going to name, but he was a relatively wealthy guy.
He had two homes, one in Maryland in Talbot County and one in Florida.
And he just said, you know what?
I'm just going to go declare my residency in Florida and stay down there.
Folks, simple as that.
It was a paperwork change.
He didn't sell his house in Maryland.
He just stayed there less often.
And you know what, Joe, here's the thing.
You know what they collected from him?
And he's probably worth easily over a million dollars in income a year.
You know what they collected from him?
Zero!
Because he declared his residency in Florida.
This is why liberals are globalists.
The why matters.
You know, it doesn't do you any good.
Oh, you know, globalism.
Okay, why?
Why are we afraid of globalism?
No, we as conservatives, and I know many of you know this, I'm not trying to insult your intelligence, but we as conservatives have to make really good, powerful, salient, strong arguments as to why we believe in what we believe in, because liberals own the media.
So when we have facts, we have to get them out there on social media to fight the liberal propaganda they have out there on the media.
The reason globalism is a bad thing is because you cannot escape.
You can't escape it.
If that millionaire's tax was national, I got news for you, whatever state you live in, you would have been subjected to it.
Folks, it's a scam.
You're being screwed.
Globalism is a liberal thing and it has nothing to do, and this is why I object to it so strongly, it has nothing to do at all with shared international values and all this flowery crap BS they put out there.
It has nothing to do with it.
It has everything to do with the fact that they don't want you to escape, ever.
They want all of their policies to affect everyone all the time.
It's no more complicated than that.
Man, that Maryland Millionaire's Tax.
It infuriates me, it really does.
Now, in a little more current events, in relationship to yesterday's piece, which is in the show notes and I'll put it in today's again, about Illinois and what's going on in Connecticut as well.
Connecticut, Joe, raised their top tax rate to 6.99%, which is, you know, three quarters of a point higher than the Maryland Millionaire's Tax.
Connecticut thought this was a great idea too.
What happened there?
Again, Liberals, this is the facts portion of the show.
I know this is tough for you.
You know, take a Valium or something to calm down if this bothers you, but these are just the facts.
What you do with them is completely up to you.
So, Connecticut raises its top tax rate again, 6.99%, nearly 7%.
Income tax revenues, Joe, I had to underline this to make sure I emphasize it, were downgraded by $1.1 billion.
Okay, raised income tax, 6.99%.
Income tax revenues downgraded by $1.1 billion.
Libs, again, don't let facts get in the way here, really.
Just keep fighting for higher taxes, even though you get nothing out of it at the state level.
Sales and corporate taxes plummeted by $450 million after a hike in the corporate tax as well.
Where do we go with this?
Now, Dan O'Malloy, who is the governor of Connecticut, now, to be fair, those tax hikes happened with a Democrat, overwhelming Democrat majority in their House and their Senate, but there was a... I think Jody Rell was a Republican governor when these taxes were... But again, it was the idea, Joe, that, oh, this is a sensible Republican hiking taxes.
You're not getting tax money out of it!
Your people are leaving!
What's your solution?
Keep them there at the barrel of a gun?
Have station state troopers at the border?
Don't give many ideas.
You know what?
That's a good point.
You're absolutely right.
Don't give many ideas is right.
That could be another t-shirt.
Democrats.
Don't give them any ideas.
I like that.
They're in a severe budget crisis in Connecticut, right?
So the governor there wants to shift pension because they can't pay public pensions anymore.
They just don't have the money.
Just like Illinois, which has $130 billion in liabilities, pension liabilities.
They don't have the money.
There's no money.
Listen, folks, there's just no money.
So Malloy wants to shift the pension payments, the future pension payments, to cities.
Now, the cities in Connecticut, a lot of the cities are run by Democrats.
And the Democrats in the cities are like, wait, wait, wait, wait.
We're not going to pay for this.
These are state pensions.
You guys are going to pay for it.
So now there's this, again, what I told you yesterday, that I'm not trying to repeat yesterday's show.
I'm just trying to tell you how profound the negative psychology amongst the left is, that they don't see the implosion of their own movement even coming here.
They're starting to fight now amongst themselves, the Democrats.
This is all good news for us, by the way.
But they're actually fighting amongst themselves because now the cities are saying, no, we're not paying those pensions.
So now Daniel Malloy is responding by saying, OK, maybe we'll do this.
Maybe we'll just bump up the state sales tax.
Not just the governor, but a lot of Democrats want to bump up the state sales tax, which, by the way, is a regressive tax, meaning it affects the poor.
It's not a progressive tax.
It's a regressive tax.
It affects the poor.
Now, why is that?
Because a greater quantity, a greater percentage of the income of middle class and poor folks is spent on consumption-type behaviors.
Food, gasoline, Joe, things like that.
Entertainment.
$15 on a movie, you go to one of those fancy places like I go in Jupiter, which I really like.
I probably shouldn't say that.
I sound like a liberal, limousine liberal, but it's a cool movie theater.
If you're spending $15 on a movie, $100 in the supermarket, and $80 a week on gas, and you make $40,000 a year, that's a big chunk of your income, folks.
And if the sales tax goes up on those items, that's a big chunk of your gross income.
But, and here's the but, If you're making $2 million a year and you're spending the same thing, $80 in gas, $200 on groceries, and you go to see a few movies, that's not a big chunk of your income.
That sales tax, folks, is nearly insignificant.
It is a regressive tax, the sales tax.
It hurts the poor.
So here's my point to sum this up.
I made the argument yesterday about factions, how the liberal factions are starting to fight each other now.
The cities, which are run by Democrats, don't want to pay the pensions.
So they're saying, no, no, I'd prefer a sales tax, a statewide sales tax, which, by the way, is going to affect all of the poor and middle-income people throughout the state to a greater extent than it'll affect the rich.
But we tried to milk the rich, and the rich already left Connecticut.
Folks, it's like a joke, and nothing will change these people's minds.
They are obsessed with class warfare and income inequality, and nothing will stop the buffoonery.
Nothing.
I'm just giving you the numbers.
We don't mess around on the show.
We don't jerk you around.
I'm just giving you the numbers.
What you do with them is entirely up to you.
All right, I got a couple other stories I want to get to, but hey, also...
And today's show brought to you by buddies at My Patriot Supply.
Big fan of these guys.
You know, you have to have a supply of emergency food, but everything going on with North Korea and their obsession with an electromagnetic pulse, atmospheric nuclear detonation.
I'm not making this up.
This is something they've threatened repeatedly.
Thank God the chances of that are very low, but is that a chance you want to take?
I mean, if they knocked out our electrical grid, seriously, how long do you want to be left without food?
I saw a quote once, and again, forgive me, I don't remember who said it, but they said we're only four missed meals away from chaos.
I believe that.
You have to have an emergency supply of food.
It's crazy not to.
Our friends at MyPatriotSupply will get you a month's supply.
It comes in a super thin plastic case, folks.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
140 servings for only $99.
Stick it in your closet.
Hopefully you never need it.
All you have to do is add water.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner included, right?
My Patriot Supply.
Go to preparewithdan.com.
That's preparewithdan.com.
$99.
Get yourself a month's supply of emergency food.
You don't have to think about it ever again.
It's good for 25 years.
Preparewithdan.com.
Go check them out.
Please support our sponsors.
They've been really, really strong.
Great long-term providers of the show.
They allow the show to continue to be free for all of you.
And thank you, everyone who listens.
All right.
I had a lot of things I wanted to get to.
I mentioned last week a story, and I hate when I do this and I don't bring it up, so I'll just quickly hit on it.
Remember the story about the Texas wind farms?
And I kept saying it and I just got lost.
There was so much going on last week.
There was just an interesting story I saw, I think it was in Bloomberg, about these wind farms in Texas.
I'll look it up.
I'll get it in the show notes today for you.
You can check it out.
But I just wanted to bring it up.
I found the story interesting.
Because, you know, the Greenies' obsession with solar and renewables and wind energy, it's ironic that There is a market for this, Joe.
Listen, I'm a capitalist.
If wind energy turns out to be cost-effective and a great way to produce energy, I'm all for it.
The problem I have is when we talk about things like public investments in renewable energy, what Democrats are really saying is taking taxpayer money and giving it to companies that couldn't attract taxpayer money if they had to do it without the cudgel of government.
You know what I'm saying, Joe?
I sure do.
I mean, when you talk about taxation and you refer to it as public investments, what you're really saying is investments people weren't willing to make with their own money.
Because then you wouldn't need public money, right?
The problem I have with the wind industry is there are areas of the country where wind is super effective.
In the Gulf coastline in Texas, there's a great story I'd read about how wind is so plentiful over there during the day.
The problem they have with wind ordinarily, folks, is it doesn't blow as heavily during the day when people need it.
So they haven't found an effective way to store all the energy that builds up at night when the wind is a little bit more intense.
You get what I'm saying?
They don't have batteries basically big enough to store all that.
That's not a problem in the Texas Gulf where the wind blows 24 hours a day.
There's a whole bunch of reasons why, you know, meteorological reasons I don't care to explain, but all you have to know is it can work in certain areas and that's a great part about capitalism.
Matter of fact, it works so well it's putting, you know, natural gas in that area nearly out of business.
So I just wanted to bring it up to show you that When liberals attack you and say, oh, you know, you guys are all for coal and whatever, dirty energy, all these stupid talking points they develop in clueless focus groups of limousine liberals from Manhattan and, you know, the village and places where we could never live because we couldn't afford it.
When they do that with these focus groups, folks, they're not telling you the truth.
We're all for wind and solar.
What we're for, though, is wind and solar that's cost-competitive so it doesn't bankrupt people in the process of trying to subsidize it with taxpayer money that you'd never get your mitts on if you didn't use the force of government to get it.
That's just a better way to say it.
So forgive me last week for not bringing that story up.
I noticed I get a lot of emails from binge listeners and I wonder sometimes...
When I bring up a story, right?
And I say that and I never get to it.
I wonder if they're in their garages or something listening in around like your second or third hour of the show.
And they're like, is this dude ever going to talk about this story or what?
So there you go.
Finally got that out of the way.
Um, two more quick.
I got to knock out for you.
But the North Korea thing, I just want to cover quickly.
We're in a little bit of trouble with North Korea.
I'm not suggesting we should engage in a World War III right now with the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the Russians.
Please, I am a conservatarian.
I know people have a problem with that label, but I have some very proud libertarian streaks in me that I'm not going to run away from.
And one of them is I think we have to be very careful about where we send our troops.
And I think libertarians are very cautious of that.
I have a lot of respect for them for that.
You know, the Fox-Connor rules of war.
You know, never go to war alone, never go for long, and never go to war unless you absolutely have to.
I've never forgotten that.
Check those out.
Fox-Connor rules of war.
Eisenhower was a big fan of his.
I never forgot those three rules.
They're simple, but they should be true.
And, you know, when you lost a family member, like I have in combat, I never met him.
I want to be clear.
He was my uncle and my mother's older brother.
But it was so impactful on my life because my family was...
It was pre and post Greg.
I mean, nothing was the same.
Greg Ambrose was his name.
I have his Vietnam memorial, you know, where you put the chalk on the wall right in front of me here.
I never met him, but it impacted my mother, my aunts, and my grandmother so deeply.
My grandmother was never the same.
She lost her, you know, teenage son, basically, in Vietnam, shot in the back, rather heroically.
I've told this story on the show before.
But he's a hero of mine, he really is.
His story's amazing what he did, you know, in a firefight in Thu Duc, Vietnam, where he was killed.
And my family was never the same.
Ever.
Ever.
I mean, my grandmother, when she died, still Greg was on her mind all the time.
And I just remember the story, you know, we owned a bar in New York and they thought he was coming home and two men from the army showed up and instead of Greg, you know, when they showed up, my grandfather at the time, He yelled at them and told them to go away because he knew what happened.
My grandmother, they had to put her in a hospital.
They had to sedate her.
She was devastated.
It's not a tangent to me, but you listen to my show and I just want you to understand why I consider myself a conservatarian and not a strict conservative on some national security issues.
Because I feel like when we're going to put other people's kids into combat, it had damn well better be a very serious, credible, existential threat to us.
I don't think we should be casually dedicating our armed forces overseas to the safety and security of other countries not willing to send their own kids into combat themselves.
The problem I have right now with North Korea, and the reason I think we may have to, we There's no reason right now to jump into this tomorrow, and I know people are battle planning.
I don't mean to sound cavalier about it.
But these are not rational actors, the North Koreans.
Joe, what would we do if you and I woke up one morning on the podcast and we were reporting on a nuclear detonation in Alaska?
I mean, how do you even discuss that on the show?
Now, folks, I get it.
I know this sounds insane and crazy, but it sounds insane because a lot of people in the national security establishment, I'm on a lot of listservs, email groups, with very credible people with very, really unbelievable resumes.
I don't want to say who, I don't want to say anymore, but these aren't just bit players.
A lot of people out there are downplaying this North Korean threat under the assumption that there are people in the North Korean regime that are rational maximizers in economic terms.
In other words, reasonable people that understand the minute the North Koreans launch, North Korea is wiped off the map.
Folks, I'm not sure that that's the case.
The Otto Warmbier thing really changed things for me.
If you're looking to engage in credible international negotiations, like you're saying the North Koreans are, How do you basically choke a kid out and torture him to death and send him home in a coma?
That's not rational, folks.
That's not reasonable.
The North Koreans, if they were reasonable, must have known that was going to really damage their international reputation.
The point is, they didn't care.
Now, there's a big difference between launching a nuke and torturing a person.
They're both depraved, don't get me wrong, but you're talking about a geometric expansion of the use of force from one person to millions, Joe.
You know, a nuke versus the torturing of a person.
They both take a moral vacuum.
But we're talking about consequences that are geometrically greater.
But ladies and gentlemen, I'm just going to leave you with this.
I'm not so sure these people are as reasonable as some people in the national security establishment think they are.
And if we now know that they at least are capable of launching a missile towards Guam, where we have an enormous number of U.S.
assets, And potentially towards Alaska.
Now we don't know yet that they have the technology to arm that missile with a nuclear device because you have to leave the atmosphere and re-enter and the re-entry causes vibration and heat.
So they're not sure yet that they, and I'm not sure they're there either.
But the point is, do we want to wake up one morning and figure out, oh they're there and how do we know?
Because there was a mushroom cloud over Alaska?
Folks, We're in a little bit of trouble with them and here's my, not solution, but the idea that me and thousands of other people, it's certainly not an original idea.
Regime change.
We have to do it.
I mean, it hasn't worked for us in the Middle East, but in other areas of the world, it has, where you have a population, I think, eager to get back to civilization.
And I think in this case, the North Koreans are.
They have a South Korean neighbor.
It's worked for us with the unification of Germany.
It worked for us in Japan.
They had the legacy of imperial rule.
I think it could work with the North Koreans, and how that regime change happens, there are obviously legal barriers to that with assassination and things like that, but I mean, Joe, what are we going to do?
Are we going to let this guy hold the entire world at the end of a barrel of a gun forever?
I mean, we obviously can't engage in a preemptive nuclear strike.
That's insane.
I mean, what are you going to do?
We wipe out North Korea?
I mean, the fallout would fall over South Korea.
Remember that the North Koreans have, you know, hundreds of metric tons of artillery aimed at South Korea.
The minute you drop them, they're going to launch artillery into the, you know, 35 miles south into South Korea, destroy the whole city.
Right.
You know, this is a serious problem, but something's got to be done about the North Korean leader.
Our buddy Kim's got to go.
He has to go.
They have to do something.
He's not our buddy.
He's a fool, but you get the point.
Little fat guy.
We call him little fat guy?
Yeah.
We get all right.
Yeah.
Kim Dunsoon.
Yeah.
Dude, that's funny.
Paula thinks you're hysterical by the way.
And she throws compliments around like freaking manhole covers.
She does.
She doesn't, you know, Paula, she's like, I don't have an agent folks.
So, you know, one, because I'm not a pretentious jerk, but I mean, I may one day for, for different business reasons out.
So some people just like to have an agent to say they have an agent.
But no knock on agents, by the way.
You do a good job.
I really had a lawyer once.
But I say that because Paula, a lot of times, just is my intermediary.
And she's like AB, man.
All business all day.
She doesn't think anything.
She thinks Joe's hysterical.
She thinks your lines are class Kim Dunn sued.
Dude, that's classic.
I may have to like hashtag that.
All right.
You got me like crying a little bit here.
One last thing I wanted to hit because I teased it yesterday.
Put this piece in the show notes.
It's a really good piece in the Wall Street Journal.
Folks, we're not out of the water yet on the economy, and it would be really unfair for me to report to you that, oh, because Trump got elected, the economy's turned around, everything's magic.
Listen, he's doing a lot of great things.
I'm not diminishing the Trump presidency at all.
There's been a ton of regulatory reform.
Even the talk of tax reform has helped.
We're still looking at, hopefully, some healthcare reforms, right?
So things are good.
Don't take this the wrong way.
Things are good on the policy front.
Things are not necessarily great in the economy yet.
And there was a number in here I want you to remember.
It's from this Wall Street Journalist piece.
They quote this guy Nicholas Eberstadt.
The labor force participation rate, in other words, the amount of people actually working, for men, 25 to 54, prime working age men, the people who can produce the most, who are the most productive men.
There's women, obviously, who are productive too, but we're just talking about men in this case, 25 to 54.
The labor force participation rate for that group, Joe, is lower now than it was at the end of the Great Depression.
Folks, remember what I've told you about productivity.
There's only a couple ways to increase the amount of things we produce, which is our wealth.
Our wealth is measured by productivity.
What we produce, medicine, food, that's how you feel wealthy.
No one feels wealthy if they don't have anything, okay?
We can only do that by increasing the amount of output, things we produce, with the same amount of inputs, or by decreasing the amount of inputs and producing the same amount of output.
Because by decreasing the amount of inputs, you have labor available for other things, which will eventually lead to greater output later on.
You get what I'm saying?
Yeah.
You don't have as many workers, you have other workers available to do other things.
Folks, if we don't have people working, and we have a labor force participation rate for men 25 to 54 lower than it was at the end of the Great Depression, I would be very skeptical about where we are with the economy.
And it's just another reason to push Republican lawmakers to get your hands out of whatever the hell they're doing, stop sitting on them, and whatever else you're doing with them, and start getting busy on tax reform.
One more statistic from this piece, which again, I was like, gosh, I knew it was bad, but I couldn't believe it was this bad.
41% of non-disabled adults on Medicaid don't have jobs.
Whoa!
41%.
We're not talking about disabled adults on Medicaid, people who can't work.
We're talking about functional people who have full function of their, we're not talking about people who have some kind of physical disability that impedes them from actually working.
We're talking about people who are totally able to work.
They have no disability at all.
41% of non-disabled adults on Medicaid don't have any jobs at all.
What are you doing?
No, I'm serious.
Like, Joe and I are not... We're not the smartest guys in the room.
We're not the best looking.
But, you know, Joe and I work hard.
We put together a good show.
It takes a long time to put together.
I'm just curious, and I'm dead serious.
I don't mean this as a moral or ethical insult.
I'm asking you a serious question.
What the hell are you doing all day?
Are you seriously telling me you can't find a job?
I mean, there's got to be something.
Restaurants, fast food.
There's got to be something.
What are you doing all day?
I mean, I got guys coming in and out of my house all the time where these guys bust their butts.
It's Florida.
It's 100 degrees down here during the day.
I got guys out there, landscapers busting their butts all day.
What are you doing all day?
I just don't get it.
That statistic really irked me.
All right, I'm just going to take that down a road that I don't want to go because I don't want to alienate people otherwise.
All right, folks.
I appreciate it.
Thank you again for listening in.
It's been a long day.
I had a busy night last night, so, you know, it's been just a crazy week.
But I had another exciting show for you on Friday.
Don't miss it.
See you all soon.
Thanks for tuning in.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com.
You can also get Dan's podcasts on iTunes or SoundCloud.
