Ep. 508 Debunking The Latest Liberal Talking Points
In this episode I address the exploding Net Neutrality debate and I debunk some disingenuous talking points on the issue. https://bloom.bg/2u2smhS https://www.wsj.com/articles/neutrality-for-thee-but-not-for-google-facebook-and-amazon-1500591612 I also discuss the disturbing use of Euthanasia to terminate the lives of people determined to have lived "full" lives. http://www.nationalrighttolifenews.org/news/2017/07/netherlands-offers-euthanasia-for-alcoholics-2/?utm_content=buffer3c4ec&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer#.WXIXFYVlCEd https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-the-netherlands-the-doctor-will-kill-you-now-1500591571 I discuss the death penalty and the ramifications of supporting it for believers. Finally, I address a ridiculous story out of Toronto involving a 150k set of stairs in a public park. http://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/canada/toronto-man-builds-park-stairs-for-550-irking-city-after-65-000-estimate-1.3510237
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I am doing well.
Always glad to be here, babe.
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Yeah, a lot of people running around.
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So really good crowd.
Happy to be out here.
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All right, so I've been getting a ton of questions about net neutrality lately, and there's an interesting new development in this arena.
A lot of people want me to explain it, what it is.
We've done a lot of shows on this.
Joe and I were hot on this about, what, six, seven months ago?
Yep.
We were all over the net nude thing.
But I understand, I don't expect you to go through my entire library and find those shows.
So I'm just going to quickly hit on it again, because I saw an interesting piece in the Wall Street Journal today that just floored me, Joe, because the hypocrisy was really It was one of those cases of, listen, hypocrisy is everywhere, but this was one of those like, really?
Wall Street Journal piece today says that Google, Facebook, and Amazon are now speaking out for net neutrality.
I didn't say that wrong.
For net neutrality.
I'm surprised.
Well, you should be because we've covered this extensively.
I think you see where I'm going with this.
Google, Facebook, and Amazon were big advocates for this day of action last week.
This day of action to advocate for net neutrality.
Now before I get to why that's...
Unbelievably hypocritical to the point where you're going to scratch your head when I'm done like, really?
Let's just explain again quickly what net neutrality is in the simplest way humanly possible.
Because it gets very complicated, you know, the regulations and phone regulations and railroad communications and, excuse me, railroads and what does that have to do with anything?
They're regulating the internet the same way they regulate railroads and old landline phones, which is insane.
They're completely different entities.
But People out there want to sell you net neutrality based on the idea that we shouldn't have an internet fast and an internet slow lane.
Which, if that was all it was Joe, makes a lot of sense.
A lot of the young kids out there are hot on this, too, and their objection is, hey, companies like Verizon, Comcast, broadband providers, what they would be able to do, Joe, is basically create a first class and a second class internet.
And the minute you start using class warfare rhetoric, people, and understandably so in many cases, say, well, that's not fair.
Well, what if I'm poor?
Does that mean I get the slow internet and the rich guy gets the fast internet?
Now, for our liberal friends, you can turn off the show now.
For our thinkers out there, moderate Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Conservatives, this is where we will actually talk about what's really happening.
Again, the emotional portion of the show is over, this is the reasonable portion.
Because if you're dealing with emotion, the idea of fast and slow internet lanes is repulsive.
And understandably so.
That's not what net neutrality is, okay folks?
That's not what it is.
What net neutrality really did is it created not fast and slow internet lanes, But it's, they're really right now using yes and no internet lanes.
And I actually made that one up myself.
I put a little quote, yes and no internet lanes.
And you go, what the hell does that mean?
What actually happened is, Net neutrality eliminated price discrimination in pricing of internet packages.
So you may say, well that sounds great too, like do I want to pay more to have to have access to the internet?
No, that's not what it did.
What happened was the internet, folks out there tried to institute policies like zero rating.
People involved in the internet community with internet providers.
So a zero rating, Joe, is the idea that if, let's say I'm You know, whatever, DirecTV or something else, and I want to grant access to one of my websites for free.
I have a partnership with ABC, whatever it may be.
They could partner... Forget DirecTV.
Let's make it simple.
Say Verizon partners with ABC and wants to provide all ABC shows for free.
Verizon could cut a deal with a zero rating thing, a zero rating agenda, and what they could say is, if you have a Verizon plan and you're watching an ABC show on your smartphone, we won't charge you for the data.
Make sense?
You have an iPhone, Joe Armacost, you like a show on ABC, whatever, Joey Bagadonat's Comedy Hour, it's an ABC show, Joe's at work at WCBM in the morning, he's bored, he takes out his iPhone, he's got a data plan, streaming a show or watching a downloaded show would cost a lot of data to download the show, Joe takes out a smartphone, watches Joey Bagadonat's Comedy Hour, The way Verizon incentivizes people to go to that show is they'd say, well, that show, we're not going to charge you for the data.
Copy?
Okay.
Yep.
That's zero rating in essence.
It's a very simple analogy.
It's a little more complicated than that, but this is the idea that people could work deals to make things free.
Now, keep in mind, That is essentially, Joe, using leftist terminology for a second price discrimination.
Because if you want to watch another show, you're going to pay for standard data.
You want to watch a CBS show?
A TBS show?
You want to watch The Ultimate Fighter on Fox Sports News?
Whatever it is?
You are going to pay for that.
Right.
But the price discrimination works in your favor because zero rating plans don't charge you anything.
You see how liberals always screw things up in favor of the argument that class warfare is somehow going to benefit the rich when some of these things like zero rating, some of these concepts, these economic incentive-based plans to do things, some of them are actually plans that benefit people who don't have a lot of money.
Now, my point here is, they're trying to sell it to you as a fast and a slow lane.
One for rich people, one for slow people.
The slow lane for poor people, excuse me, that's not what I meant to say.
Because they love class warfare rhetoric.
But that's not what's happening.
The side effect of this and the way it's backfiring is twofold.
Number one, zero rating plans that actually gave stuff away for free, Joe!
To people who may not have a lot of money and people who may be middle class.
Those plans are now illegal under net neutrality type stuff.
So again, liberals, they pretend they're trying to help you, but what they're really doing is not only are they not helping you, they're punching you in the face as you try to get up.
You were going to be given something for free, you are now not going to get for free, because the government got involved, wanted to regulate the internet, and that regulation of the internet prevented the giving away of a free product to people who probably didn't have a lot of money to pay for it.
This is ridiculous.
Now, zero rating is bigger than I described.
There were plans by Facebook to give away Facebook free data, in other words, to entire geographic regions.
That have now been, you know, questioned.
There are plans by DirecTV to give away content, to give, listen to what I'm telling you folks, to give away content.
That have been scuttled because of net neutrality.
So the second problem with net neutrality, and this is why I say they're using yes, it's not a fast and slow lane, it's a yes and no lane.
And what I mean by the yes and no lane, it's the government saying yes to certain plans and no to other plans that actually benefit people who are poor.
It's not fast and slow.
One of the other ways this is going to backfire, and I'll get to the Google thing in a second because that's the current news story that you really need to know about that I haven't heard anybody cover until The Journal picked it up today.
You are essentially paying for your neighbor's consumption of Netflix.
This is incredibly unfair.
This would be like you on a flight to Mexico, whatever it may be, subsidizing a first class passenger's ticket.
Now you may say that's really dumb.
The way it works now, the way a free market works, this is where the left always gets this backwards and it really pisses me off.
And the best way to think about it is air travel.
Price discrimination is the greatest thing humanly possible for people who are poor and people who are middle class.
You may say, well how the hell's that?
Think about what happens on an airline.
You get a bunch of really rich folks or business class travelers, Joe, who, candidly speaking, pay a ridiculous amount of money for very few benefits to sit in first class to get, what, six inches of leg room and a cheap turkey sandwich?
I mean, seriously.
Well, you get silverware with it or whatever.
You don't even get that anymore on a flight because it's like a danger.
You can hijack the plane with a butter knife or something.
Who knows?
Joe, have you ever flown first class?
Yeah, once.
British Airways, yeah.
Yeah, this reminds me, I got the past tense there.
Reminds me of a story I once heard with a protectee I had.
They asked her the past tense of skydiving.
She said, skodoving.
It's just a true story.
But the point about that is when you fly first class, people pay a lot of money.
And the additional money they pay makes your fare cheaper.
That's how the real market works.
How liberals want the market to work, even though they won't tell you this, they'll say, well, we can't ban price discrimination.
But it's price discrimination, using their terminology, intentionally, sarcastically, Joe, it's that price discrimination that enables a cheaper seat and coach.
Because these people are paying extravagant sums for a cheap turkey sandwich and six inches of legroom.
What the liberals want to do, and what net neutrality is, Is people flying in the bathroom seat in the back, you know that seat right in front of the bathroom that everybody hates?
Yeah, that's a rough seat.
Takes you forever to get off the plane.
They want those people to pay more to make the first class seats cheaper.
That's net neutrality!
Folks, that, listen to me, make no mistake, that is exactly what net neutrality is.
Now, I'll explain it to you, I'm not going to leave you hanging.
Net neutrality, the idea that we cannot price discriminate, You have people out there on the internet, gamers, people who watch 25 hours of Netflix in a 24 hour day, people who are on the internet all day in their homes downloading movies.
You have people who are essentially, Joe, first class consumers.
Sure.
They don't care.
They're willing to pay the business.
I have it in my house.
For business reasons.
I do radio.
I fill in for Mark Levin for my house.
I have a radio studio in my house.
I need tier one top flight internet.
So I pay a lot of money for it.
CRTV helps me with it.
But I have a studio in my house.
Why the hell are you paying for me?
No, serious question.
I love Joe, but when Joe and I do remotes, Joe doesn't need a lot of bandwidth to talk to me and record the show.
It's audio.
Really, a basic home internet connection is fine.
Why is Joe Armacost Paying, and listen, I love Joe too, but I get paid more than Joe does.
Joe does well, but you know, I'm the voice of the show, so they pay me more.
Or do well-er.
I do well-er, or good-er-er, as I've heard my five-year-old say.
Why is Joe Armacost paying more for the internet to make my internet cheaper?
Joe, do you understand that's what net neutrality is?
Oh yeah, I understand.
When you eliminate, quote, price discrimination, using again the awful rhetoric of the left, That's what happens.
The left wants you to believe they're flattening out the price curve.
They think by eliminating the peaks, and by the peaks I mean first class price go all the way down to bathroom seat.
They think by flattening that out that they're benefiting the poor and the middle class.
But what's really happening is the poor and the middle class are buying the first class guy's seat.
The first class guy's seat was paying for a ticket on Virgin Atlantic.
to LAX from Fort Lauderdale was probably paying $2,500.
The coach guy is paying, what, $400?
Now the coach guy's paying $1,000 and the first-class guy's paying $1,500.
And liberals are like, equality, baby!
Yeah, that's fair?
That's just stupid!
That's just straight-up dumb!
You're just- it's just stupid, but these kids- and listen, I'm not knocking- I was in college once too, and I swore I knew everything.
You can only imagine.
In college, I thought I had the whole thing, you know, pegged.
You really just don't know what you're talking about.
Net neutrality, the why matters here.
The reason why the government's pushing for net neutrality is very simple.
If you listen to the show, you've already figured it out.
The government craves control.
It craves control over the economic flow of funds.
That's why it wants your tax money, but it doesn't care about the amount.
What do you mean?
Liberals want all the money in the world?
Liberals just want to control the resources.
They don't care how much money comes in.
If they did, they'd cut taxes.
Because cutting taxes, historically speaking, largely raises tax revenue.
They don't want that.
They want control of your health care.
They don't care if it's good health care or not.
If you listen to yesterday's show, where I just exploded on Medicare and Medicaid, And I showed you that everything the Obamacare agenda was supposed to do backfired on them.
A common sense person would say, well, if Obamacare was supposed to cut down on ER usage, and usage of the ER has exploded since Obamacare, that liberals would say, OK, we screwed up.
Folks, they don't care.
It's about control.
Net neutrality is the same damn thing.
They want control over the internet to control the flow of content, and to control who gets the goodies on the internet, who gets the free stuff.
It's about nothing more.
You know, kids out there and adults who are, oh, net neutrality, we're really getting back those broadband people.
You're not getting broadband.
You're not doing anything.
The traffic is already moving over cellular networks.
You've done nothing.
You've done zero.
What you've essentially done is stop investment in broadband infrastructure because broadband companies are not selling airline tickets anymore.
Because they can't price the tickets effectively, Joe.
So broadband companies are not building out.
The investment's gone way down.
That's a fact!
That's a fact, okay?
If you're a kid who knows nothing about net neutrality and you listen to that dope John Oliver, broadband investment has gone down since this happened.
Meaning if your goal was to get people fair internet access, there's less internet access happening in the future because you wanted to get people more internet access.
Does that make any sense?
Gosh, this topic frustrates the crap out of me.
Because I'll still get emails from people going, you don't know what you're talking about!
And I respond back, really?
Tell me one thing I said that was incorrect.
I can't, but you still don't know what you're talking about.
I'm telling you it happens all the time.
Now, back to Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
This is where this is completely hypocritical.
They're advocating for net neutrality.
In other words, we don't want fast and slow lanes.
We want all content to be treated fairly.
Which is again, leftist terminology for crap.
But here's the problem.
Google, Facebook, and Amazon don't treat traffic fairly.
Joe, you're a pretty savvy internet cat.
If you go to search for something on Google...
Google has sponsored ads up front, right?
Sure.
I'm not crazy, right?
My wife's an internet designer.
She's pretty savvy on the internet.
If you go to Google, folks, people on the front page can pay to get there.
What?
Yeah.
Joe, normal human beings like you and I, fake outrage here, would call that price discrimination.
So what do you mean?
Really rich people can pay to get on the front page of Google?
Uh, yes.
Well, what about Facebook?
Surely they treat everyone fairly.
Everybody has the opportunity to get on the front page of Facebook.
Um, no, you don't.
You don't have the opportunity to get on the front page of Facebook because the guy with the sponsored ad who pays more will outbid you and get on the front page of Facebook.
Joe, in a normal world, we call that price discrimination.
Oh my god, price discrimination.
Again, these class warriors everywhere.
Amazon!
Folks, let me be clear on this.
I am not knocking Google, Facebook, or Amazon.
I'm not.
I use Amazon all the time.
I have some objections to the internal politics of all those companies, but I think they brought a tremendous amount of wealth, jobs, and technological advancement to the United States.
I'm not knocking the companies.
I'm knocking their political stance on this because it's totally hypocritical.
Amazon.
Joe, I go to Amazon.
Are you an Amazon user?
Yes, I am, Dan.
I am addicted to Amazon.
I'm a Prime member.
My wife is always like, dude, seriously with the Amazon.
Like our bill comes in every month and we have this credit card debt and we knock it all down and then a month later it's like triple what it was.
It's all Amazon because it's me on Amazon.
I'll wake up one morning and I got a You know, a big purple marshmallow pillow, a new Daredevil comic book, and $6,000 in supplements.
She's like, what the hell are all these boxes doing at our front door?
I get the same thing.
It's horrible, but it is.
It's terrible.
Well, Amazon's great, but my shopping haunt is terrible.
My point is that to get to Amazon on the front page is a form of discrimination.
The people who sell a few more items, it may just be because they had a name that people found appealing.
But it's a form of discrimination creating a quote fast and slow lane or a yes and no lane in my language.
And by the yes and no lane I mean people on the front page of Amazon sell.
They get the yeses.
The yeses meaning the clicks, buy now.
And the people who aren't on the front page get the no's because they're never seen.
So what I find absolutely hard to believe in the journal piece, I'm going to put it in the show notes.
I'm pretty sure this is subscriber-only content, so my apologies, but I'll give it a shot.
Sometimes you can get around it if it's the first time you click, but I will put it in the show notes.
I want you to read it.
It's a really short piece, and they just call Google, Facebook, and Amazon out for this.
Like, let me get this straight.
You have a big problem with net neutrality and, quote, fast and slow lanes, yet you guys are completely in the yes and no business.
It's just completely, totally hypocritical.
And, hey, listen, I take all kinds of feedback on the show.
If you are a really strong net nude advocate, I'm not trying to alienate you, but email me, Daniel Apponjino.
Tell me your thoughts.
I'm just telling you, and I'm saying this fairly and with no...
Malice towards you at all.
I have never gotten an email, and I've gotten hundreds of them, about net neutrality that has even been remotely convincing that anything I've just told you is inaccurate.
Nothing.
I'm serious.
It's always something emotionally.
You don't know what you're talking about.
They're going to discriminate against us.
But again, they don't object to Google discriminating, which they do now.
It's just so hypocritical.
They'd rather pay for their neighbor's Netflix.
It's really upsetting.
As a matter of fact, I got an email yesterday that really upset me from a guy.
I was like, dude, are you serious?
Like once in a while on the show, folks, I talk about personal stuff because it's my show and I feel like you're entitled to know who I am and who this person you've invested time in.
I read your emails to invest in you.
And you know, my sincere apologies that sometimes I do get a little bit distracted with personal stuff, but it's not an effort for me to waste your time.
It's really just, I feel like you're entitled to know me just like I read your emails.
I don't consider it a waste of time when people email me about their sons overseas in the military.
You know, I like to know who the listeners are too.
So, you know, I'm really not trying to waste your time with that stuff, but it was a particularly nasty email.
All right, I got a couple other emails about a topic very sensitive to me.
I was kind of taken aback, caught off guard.
I didn't really think much of it when I said it, but I got a number of emails on it
and I thought I better address that.
So, I don't know, four or five days ago, I lose track of the shows.
I had mentioned something just casually about the death penalty.
We weren't even really talking about that.
And I said that, you know, it may surprise some of you to learn
I'm not a supporter of the death penalty.
And gosh, I got 10, 20, 30 emails.
I can't even keep track from people who were very respectful about it.
Some disagreed, but they wanted to know why.
And I think they felt like I shortchanged them quick.
And I don't like to talk about things when they don't have a nexus to a current in the news story.
Because I, again, repeating back, I don't want to waste your time.
But I saw something today and I thought this is a good opening to readdress that topic.
There's another story in the Wall Street Journal today.
About something that should really disturb you.
The explosive growth in this assisted suicide euthanasia movement and the op-ed.
Yeah, it's getting a little ugly, Joe.
I mean, I don't support euthanasia.
At all.
Or assisted suicide, doctor assisted suicide, at all.
But it's really taken on a very ominous tone.
And the piece in the journal addresses what's going on in the Netherlands right now.
And this is serious stuff.
I don't know if you know this, Joe, but 2002...
The Netherlands was the first country to legalize euthanasia.
I didn't know that, but it was a pretty good piece.
And the gist of the piece, which is written by a member of the government in the Netherlands who objects to this, says that they legalized euthanasia.
And this is the slippery slope.
That social conservatives, Christians, and a lot of religious folks like myself have warned about for years.
Once you make it legal for doctors to assist in not the saving of a human life, but the taking of a human life, the line between what is a human life valuable enough to save and what is a human life that's expendable constantly moves, Joe.
And why do I bring this up?
I'll get to the death penalty in a second.
There is now a push in the Netherlands, and I'm quoting from the piece, to legalize, quote, a pill for those who consider their lives to be, quote, full.
Now, you're probably saying, what the hell does that mean?
Euthanasia started in the Netherlands, you know, for physical ailments.
Physical ailments that were incurable.
A terminal cancer where people said, hey doc, I want to end my life.
Again, I do not support that.
I'll get to that in a second, but I don't support that.
It then moved on to severe psychological disturbances.
Again, folks, the slippery slope we're constantly warning about.
Now, it's not just Joe physical cancer type things, terminal diseases and psychological problems.
Oh, my life's not worth living.
It's now moved on to people who consider their lives to be full.
What the hell does that mean?
Full?
Like you had a bucket list?
You wanted to catch a foul ball at a Yankee game and you caught one and you're like, hey Doc, can you inject me with that lethal drug now?
I'm good.
Folks, this is insane.
I'm not making this up.
I'll put, let me take a quick note on that.
I'll put it in the show notes too.
Again, I'm sorry if it's a subscriber piece, but it's good content.
I, uh, you know, I don't want to, you know, you should check it out.
But your lives are full?
Now, You want to know what, getting back to your emails, you want to know why I mentioned that I'm not a death penalty supporter?
Well that's it, folks.
It is not, if you're a Christian like me, and I'm a sinner, I'm not a preacher, folks.
I'm not here, I'm not holier than thou.
Believe me, I screw probably 10,000 things more up every day than you do.
I am not a preacher, I'm not a role model, anybody's example.
I'm not, I'm not trying to do any of that.
I'm just trying to tell you my personal beliefs.
I am a wholehearted, passionate believer in the power of redemption in Jesus Christ.
And when Christ died on the cross, he died next to two criminals.
Now, if you're a believer as I am, that Christ was God, that none of that was a mistake.
That he died next to two criminals.
It also wasn't a mistake that the people he chose as his apostles were not saints at the time.
Peter would deny him three times.
Matthew was a tax collector.
Mary Magdalene, although it's frequently reported, was a prostitute.
I don't believe that.
I don't think the Bible says that anywhere either.
But there's no question in the Bible it alludes to the fact that she was troubled.
You had Thomas, who would doubt that he even was resurrected.
You can't be a Christian... My point here is that Christ, obviously the message there, by picking sinners and not saints as his followers... The message, I believe, is that he came down here to give us an example of, one, the power of suffering, and second, the power of redemption.
I don't believe, and I know this may offend many of you who believe in the death penalty, and I get it.
I understand why you feel the way you do.
But I don't know how you can be a believer in Christianity and support the death penalty.
I don't understand that.
The message of Jesus Christ was that everybody's redeemable, including two hardened criminals.
He died next to one on the cross, one of which he forgave next to him, who said, remember me when you get to heaven.
Forgave him right there on the spot.
How can you not believe in the power of redemption?
I know it sucks.
You're like hardened rapists and killers.
They don't deserve to live.
But is that any different than Then what's going on in the Netherlands right now?
Well if someone considers their life full, Joe, well maybe they don't deserve to live anymore.
Matter of fact, maybe if they go to another Yankee game, and their life was already full, they're taking a ticket away from someone else who could have been there, and therefore they should be killed so that would open up the seat for someone else.
Do you see?
Does it make sense?
The parallel I'm trying to make?
That once you start using human reason, which is nothing close to the, you know, omniscient, omnipotent power of God, to determine what lives are worth living and what lives aren't, where does it end?
You have a baby born with a, what, a missing quarter of a digit?
And you're like, well, he's got to get whacked.
He's no good.
You have a female born and she's got a patch of hair missing.
Well, that's a kind of an ugly baby.
Let's get rid of that one too.
Folks, this is a slippery slope.
You either value human life or you don't.
You don't value human life but, exception A, B, C, D, E, F, if you've committed a crime, if you've done this, if you've done that, if you have a patch of hair missing, missing fingernail, you walk with a, you know, a limp.
This is dangerous stuff.
Again, I'm not judging anybody.
I'm not here to do that.
This is not a religious show in that respect.
But I am a spiritual guy and I believe in what I believe in, so I just felt like I had to answer that for you because I did get a ton of questions on it from people.
I'm absolutely not a death penalty supporter.
I believe that any... Sorry Joe, go ahead.
No, I knew you were going to get some feedback on that as soon as you said it.
Yeah, and you and I talk about this stuff, because I know, you know, you're like me.
I mean, you're a flawed guy who goes to church and recognizes it every Sunday.
I mean, we both, we've talked about this all the time.
Like, we have a litany of mistakes.
We have a mistake resume 65 pages long, if not longer.
So, but I just don't think it's up to human beings to judge the bankruptcy of a soul.
You don't know.
One of these, you know, rapist killer animals could find redemption tomorrow with Jesus Christ and
because Christ's forgiven him what human beings are oh no he's oh let's just kill i i don't i'm
sorry i just don't buy it you know and someone i'll wrap this up in a second but there was a member of the
old debate with michael dukakis and george w bush and they asked george w bush uh oh excuse
me they They asked Dukakis in the presidential race.
He was the Democratic nominee.
He was a huge liberal from Massachusetts, and they asked him if someone were to, you know, kill his wife or family, you know, would he support that?
Because he wasn't a death penalty supporter either, and he said no.
You remember that?
And it really hurt him because people saw it as a moment of weakness.
Now, I am obviously not a Dukakis fan.
I didn't, you know, his answer was a little strange.
It seemed politically rehearsed, but You know, I always start running for office.
If anybody asked me that, I'd be like, well, I can't guarantee the personal death penalty wouldn't kick in.
Like, I can't guarantee that if I saw the guy, I wouldn't beat the living snot out of him, choke him out within an inch of his life.
But I don't believe in a government forced death penalty.
I mean, that's the only answer I could think to give that would be honest.
You know, Dukakis sounded like he was giving like a focus group rehearsed answer, you know.
All right.
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Okay.
A couple more things here to get to.
Yesterday I had put in the show notes that I was going to get into this Betsy DeVos story and I didn't because I got so involved with the data and statistics on Medicare and Medicaid that I got a little bit sidetracked on the length of the show.
The left is going wild right now on full-blown, you know, Tier 1 attack mode against Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, who they hate with a passion.
A breeze has gone out the window, and here's why.
Title IX law governs the conduct of universities when it comes to the investigation of sexual assaults.
Now, folks, I have to be brutally honest with you.
I hemmed and hawed on discussing this.
I wasn't even gonna, because, but I don't like to avoid controversial topics, but this one's a tough one, I'll tell you what.
The left, there's nothing you can say about this topic that will not be intentionally misconstrued to make you out to be a savage animal.
Nothing, Joe.
You see where I'm going with this, right?
Sexual assaults on campus, folks, it is understandably an emotional Passionate topic for many people.
I have two daughters.
I, like I said, I don't believe in the death penalty, but God forbid you and I may have a serious problem if this topic ever came up with me on a college campus, right?
Mm-hmm.
I get it.
I totally understand that.
But what was happening on college campuses, and what Betsy DeVos right now is trying to change, is college campuses have turned into complete kangaroo courts when it comes to charges of sexual assault.
I am not saying rape suspects should not be believed.
None of that.
Do not put words in my mouth, you liberal psychopaths, because they do this all the time.
The Guardian, which is a left-leaning newspaper, Joe, said that Betsy DeVos' attempt to reorganize and to basically rewrite the rules for how these kangaroo courts are being conducted is, quote, enabling rape deniers.
You're just an idiot.
That's not even serious.
You're just a moron.
Yes, that's a perfectly appropriate moral, ethical, and political solution.
Let's give rape deniers a seat at the table.
You're just an idiot.
Now, here's the problem with this system now.
If an allegation of a sexual assault on a college campus occurs... Well, Joe, I've got news for you, for all the liberals out there who may not know this.
That's a crime, folks.
That's a crime.
Thankfully, you cannot do that, okay?
If a sexual assault occurs on campus, though, how do we handle crimes, Joe, in the real world?
Do you know the standard of proof?
Beyond a reasonable doubt, right?
You have to be convicted of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by a jury of your peers.
That's not what happens on college campuses, folks.
The Obama administration pushed college campuses to change the evidentiary standard for a quote conviction to a preponderance of the evidence from The standard before was clear and convincing evidence.
Now, I know that's a lot of legalese jargon, but what it did is it lowered the standard of evidence where someone could be convicted.
It used to be you had to provide clear and convincing evidence that you were sexually assaulted by this person.
Now you only have to provide a preponderance of evidence.
It doesn't end there, Joe.
I took some quick notes on this.
The Obama administration dictates that they sent out to the universities Quote, strongly discouraged cross-examination.
Well, folks, really?
I mean, I get it.
This is to be treated with the utmost of seriousness and I have no doubt that the overwhelming majority of these women and men who claim sexual assault are and accuse people of sexual assault are telling the truth.
I have no doubt.
I mean, it's just not much in it for people.
But the fact of the matter is, Joe, In an imperfect world, imperfect people make bad decisions, and some people are probably being accused falsely.
But now you can't even cross-examine them, and you only need a, quote, preponderance of the evidence?
It goes on, Joe.
This is in the college system, quote, court system, right?
Not guilty decisions can be appealed.
What the hell is that?
Not guilty.
I didn't say guilty.
Not guilty decisions can be appealed.
So Joe, God forbid, you know, this guy's on a college campus.
He's dating this woman.
Let's just say for a minute it's a false accusation.
He's not guilty.
How do you appeal that?
You know, in the normal justice system, we have a name for that, Joe.
It's called double jeopardy.
It's not allowed.
Because, for obvious reasons, Joe.
I mean, if the government wanted to go after you, and they wanted to convict Joe Armacost of felonious mopery on the open seas, and you get off because you didn't do it, then they'll go, oh, we're just going to appeal that.
And then, Joe, for the rest of your life, what are you doing?
You're at trial, defending yourself against felonious mopery on the open seas.
How do you appeal a not guilty decision?
It gets even worse.
One more.
The adjudicators, remember they're not judges, the adjudicators in these cases, some of them have as little as five hours of training.
So you've got a judge in a federal case doing bankruptcy trials, Joe, who's been to three years of law school, probably five or six years of work experience, probably a couple years on lower courts and experience.
It's probably 15 years before he hears a major case.
You have adjudicators determining the lives, literally the lives of these kids, because they will never be the same if they're convicted falsely.
With as little as five hours of training?
So Betsy DeVos, the education secretary, to her credit, because this was a tough call, because you knew the libs were going to go nuts, which they did, they're enabling rape deniers, imbeciles, is saying, listen, we just need a fair system.
We should have a system that actively investigates and goes after people who are accused of sexually assaulting women on campus.
Thankfully.
Women should feel safe on a college campus.
But the system, Joe, should actually convict people who are guilty and not engage in a witch hunt on people who can be tried over and over and over again.
Now, you may say to yourself, well, Dan, you're making this up.
There are no cases of this where people were accused falsely.
Oh!
You would be incorrect again if you believe that.
And I'm going to include a Breitbart piece from yesterday.
I'll repeat, it was in yesterday's show notes, but I'll put it back again in today.
The Breitbart piece.
There were 170 students who sued for this, being accused falsely.
Not all the cases are finished.
Already, Joe, 50 of them have won cash payouts from the, have won against the schools because they were convicted falsely.
Folks, these are not isolated cases, okay?
This is happening a lot.
We should be robust in our investigation and our prosecution of anyone who assaults a woman on a college campus.
There's absolutely no question about that.
Only an idiot would say otherwise.
But folks, we also have to guarantee a system of fairness.
So that we can't turn a man-woman-woman-man spat into a false charge of sexual assault that sticks with that person forever.
I'm sorry, but that's not fair either.
It's not a perfect justice system, but this system we have now in these college campuses is certainly very imperfect.
I mean, that's just insane.
You know, a not-guilty decision can be appealed?
That's crazy.
So check out the Breitbart piece.
I'll include it again in today's show notes.
All right, one final story on kind of a humorous note.
You know, I love... This was a great one.
I don't know if you saw this.
I laughed about this a little bit.
You know, government just sucks.
It can't do any... I mean, it cannot do anything right.
Really, outside of our military, there's like nothing the government ever gets right.
There's a story out of Toronto I saw.
It's been getting a little bit of publicity here and there, but there's this guy in Toronto, Addy Astell, and he goes to this park, Tom Riley Park, and there's a dangerous kind of ledge people try to walk down in the park.
It's walkable, but some of the older folks had a problem negotiating it, people falling and hurting themselves.
This Toronto guy, Tom, excuse me, Addy Astle, said, well, you know, we need a set of stairs.
This is dangerous.
People are getting hurt.
It's a public park.
So the Toronto folks, the mayor and them, got together at whatever, a little commission or something, and sent people out there to look at it.
And they said, all right, the stairs are going to cost $65,000 to $150,000 to build.
So this Toronto, and by the way it'll probably take 52 years because it's the government and they suck and they can't do anything right.
So this guy Addy Astell, he grabs a homeless guy and builds the stairs at the total cost of $550.
Not $550,000, not $5,500, literally $550 and builds the stairs.
Toronto's going nuts.
The Toronto mayor, John Tory, is having a meltdown over this.
He says, and I quote, this is hysterical, he says, We can't just have people decide to go out to Home Depot and build a staircase in a park because that's what they would like to have.
Folks, does this not sum up big government?
This is the Toronto Mayor.
He wants to spend $150,000 on stairs that some guy spent $550 on.
And he's upset because, quote, we can't just have people decide to go out to Home Depot and build a staircase in a park because that's what they would like to have.
Now, there are two lines in there that sum up liberalism.
Really?
In an embarrassing fashion?
We can't just let people decide?
Ah.
Well, Joe, who's then deciding?
Oh, people in the government who have no attachment to the stairs or the park at all.
So we can't just let people decide.
Totally inaccurate.
What he's really saying is, we can't let you idiots decide.
We in the government are smarter.
Right?
Is he not saying that?
We can't just have people decide.
Who's deciding?
Martians?
Jupiterians?
Seriously?
Or is that guy emailing?
That's not actually the correct term, Jupiterians.
Someone sent us an email about those.
But who's deciding?
Oh, people in government.
So again, you are just too stupid.
People in government can figure this out.
And the second line is here at the end.
We can't have people decide to build a staircase, because that's what they would like to have.
Okay, so again, you're the taxpayer, it's your money, it's your park, and it's your ass that's falling down the damn cliff, breaking your bones.
But, Joe, we're not concerned about, quote, what they would like to have.
They, talking about the great unwashed, again, the taxpayers.
Again, it's what the bureaucrats and the government wants.
This mayor, John Tory, just embarrassed himself and summed up liberalism in one quote.
Who cares what people say?
It's us that matters.
Let's pay more money and take more time.
Toronto made my new hero Adiasto built for 550 bucks in a park.
Nice job, Adiasto.
All right, folks.
Thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
I'll see you all next time.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com.
