In this episode - This article exposes one of the most disingenuous media headlines I've ever seen. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2635204 Don't fall for these liberal DACA myths. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/14/9-lies-about-daca-trump-is-buying-into/ There are some problems with the GOP Obamacare replacement bill. https://shar.es/1VtSxX I disagree with this writer's reasons for stagnating middle-class incomes. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/why-wages-aren-t-growing There's a war going on behind the scenes over this tax cut. http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/battle-lines-drawn-over-22-trillion-corporate-tax-break/article/2635230?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Examiner+Today&utm_source=StructureCMS An incredible account of the growing madness on college campuses. https://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-madness-at-evergreen-state-1506034740
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We have to call it what it is and we have to stop being delicate about it.
Get ready to hear the truth about America.
We're not like the leftists.
The conservatives don't need safe spaces.
They don't need lollipops and coloring books and teddy bears.
I'm good, okay?
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.
What the heck?
Producer Joe, how are you?
It's like a game show.
Welcome to The Price is Right.
Well, good morning, Dan.
Everything's going swimmingly here.
Glad to be with you.
He's been, Joe's been in the radio industry a long time and that was the thing, right?
Pukin' they called it, right?
That's right Dan, we're pukin' right along!
And it's amazing that more people didn't find that annoying in the day.
You know what it probably was?
It was probably Wolfman Jack, remember?
Remember Wolfman Jack?
That's a pretty good Wolfman dude, yeah.
And you couldn't even hear him.
And you're like, what does this guy even say?
My father used to love Wolfman Jack.
Quick thing, folks, not to get you off track here, but Wolfman Jack, I don't know if you know this, was the start of radio syndication.
Radio syndication now, like when you hear Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin across radio stations across the country, barely existed at all before Wolfman Jack.
And what he used to do is send tapes of his shows, his DJ shows out, and people would play the tapes.
And that was the start of radio syndication.
So interesting little tidbit.
Clap for the Wolfman.
Yeah, yeah!
All right, so listen.
You know, today's going to be one of those shows again where we just rip apart and annihilate stupid liberal fairy tales, which are so numerous.
It's getting easier and easier to do now by the day, even though it takes more time.
You just got to hunt them down through all the platforms.
But yesterday, something happened.
T Beckett Adams over at the Washington Examiner has a piece out.
I tweeted yesterday, which you know what?
I'll retweet again and I'll make sure to put in the show notes.
That should really bother all of you on a serious note.
Now, I know this is going to seem like a small, you know, non deeply impactful story, but it just speaks to the dishonesty in the far left media and how they use headlines to manipulate you and lie to you.
A constant theme of this show from day one.
Betsy DeVos, who the far left hates.
Betsy DeVos is the education secretary in Trump's cabinet.
The far left hates her.
Why do they hate her?
Because she stands for school choice.
And when I say hate, folks, I mean, I don't, that is not hyperbolic.
I don't mean dislike.
I mean hate, like with a deep, visceral passion.
I'm not talking about all Democrats.
I'm talking about the radical far left.
Betsy DeVos is a very wealthy woman.
I think she's married to Dick DeVos.
I'd been out at their house in Michigan when I was a Secret Service agent.
They were very nice, very pleasant to me.
But they gathered their fortune through, was it Amway?
And they owned the Orlando Magic, or they did, but they have a lot of money, and they've donated lots of money to school choice initiatives, and ironically, but you're gonna help minority students more than anyone else.
I say ironically, because the left wants you to believe that Betsy DeVos hates minorities, which is a typical stupid leftist response to a legitimate argument.
So what happened with Betsy DeVos?
So there was a headline at a story at the Hill, and I have to tell you, I'm really disappointed in the Hill for this.
Here's the headline of the story, and I just retweeted this if you're on Twitter, and if not, I'll put the Washington Examiner story in the show notes at Bongino.com.
Thanks, by the way, everyone who subscribed to my email list.
We had an explosion in subscriptions this week, so thank you.
So here's the headline from the hill.
Remember, Betsy DeVos is a very wealthy woman.
DeVos uses private jet for work-related travel.
What?
Betsy DeVos, Joe, is using a private jet for work-related travel as the secretary?
Oh my god!
The nerve of that woman!
The nerve!
The nerve of this woman!
So as T. Beckett Adams, thankfully, at the Washington Examiner, I put this under a big must read, pointed out in the Examiner, What the headline conveniently leaves out is it's Betsy DeVos's own private jet, which Betsy DeVos is paying for out of her own pocket.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Seriously, guys at the Hill.
Listen, the Hill, Joe Concha over there, a lot of people do good work.
But this was an unbelievably misleading far-left headline that unquestionably got the radical far-left all riled up because they didn't understand what the article was actually about.
Betsy DeVos works for the taxpayers for a, at least relatively speaking compared to income, a minuscule salary joke.
We all agree she's worth a billion dollars if she's making a buck seventy or two hundred a year.
Frankly speaking, that's probably not a tip at a restaurant for them on a good night, right?
So she's working for almost nothing.
She's paying her own money to travel around on the taxpayer's behalf for work-related functions on her own jet.
And the headline of the story is, DeVos uses private jet for work-related travel.
Oh my gosh!
Folks, I don't want to spend a lot of time on it because it's a simple story with a simple punchline.
The punchline is this.
People in the liberal media lie to you and manipulate you repeatedly.
They don't want to tell you the truth because the truth always makes them look like fools.
This was an outrageously irresponsible headline, should be retracted immediately or should at a minimum in the headline be put in context.
DeVos pays for her own private jet to travel in government function.
That's the story.
I just find this stuff really irritating.
I defend Betsy DeVos a lot.
I think one of the reasons is, although I'm always clearing up with my audience, I don't know her personally.
I met her, like I said, I've been at her house when I was a Secret Service agent.
I spent a lot of time there doing some advance work.
They were very pleasant to me, but I defend her because it's just another example of the far left being completely disingenuous with you.
They don't dislike Betsy DeVos because they know her.
They don't dislike Betsy DeVos because they think she'll be bad for the country.
They dislike Betsy DeVos because she stands for school choice, and school choice dismantles the entire control agenda of the far left.
That's it.
And they will destroy her in the process if they have to.
Nobody gets in the way of the far left.
Alright, another example, more important right now based on current events, what's going on.
The left again, the radical far left is losing their minds over this Obamacare-Graham-Cassidy bill.
Now, to be candid on this, I'm not a huge fan of this bill, but it would be irresponsible of me to not take a position.
I owe you that much on the show.
Now, I don't think the bill is great for a number of reasons.
Now, a lot of the reasons I think the bill is poorly written out are delineated in a conservative review piece they put out.
One of them is that it really doesn't do anything to eliminate the government spending, which is becoming the problem in healthcare today, okay?
It actually, the spending levels stay consistent, relatively consistent over time, so it doesn't shrink the government footprint.
But I owe you a position.
It would be cowardly to not take one.
And I'll tell you now, I think the bill at this point should pass.
And for a couple of reasons.
And I know some of you may be a little disappointed.
It isn't the best solution.
But at this point, there's nothing worse than Obamacare.
And if we can at a minimum get this bill to pass and get some money to the states, maybe states like Texas, states like Georgia, states like Alabama and Mississippi, if they take that money, By the way, it's your money.
It's also saying it's federal money, it's your money.
And can develop some kind of consumer choice based model.
It'll serve as an example to the rest of the country.
Again, the bill's not perfect, but I think at this point, it's the best we can do right now.
I wish it were worded better, and I think Rand Paul's criticisms of the bill are genuine, are real, and I think Rand Paul is spot on.
But I just think at this point, Obamacare's killing us.
And I hate that we have to do something, but at this point I do believe that this something, this bill is better than nothing.
Having said that, and I'll put the CR piece that lodges some legitimate criticisms in there about the spending, another thing about protected classes in the bill as well.
But one of the criticisms lobbed at it from the left, which are completely disingenuous, and Jimmy Kimmel and the late night audience has been reiterating some of these criticisms, are just lies and made up.
And what bothers me the most about the far left, like the Betsy DeVos headline, Joe, is that they make stuff up and they have no... no urge whatsoever to be honest about it.
It's like they lie and... You know what it is, Joe?
It's that they lie and they assume you'll never do the homework.
Here's what I mean.
There's a piece today in the Wall Street Journal, which I'm not going to put in the show notes because it's a waste of your time.
I'll sum it up for you.
It's written by a leftist professor, Alan Blinder.
I don't really care.
He writes in the journal all the time.
I've cited his work quite a bit here.
The guy just, his op-ed, I don't, I still can't understand why the journal publishes this guy.
I get it, they want to seem like they have both perspectives in there, but the guy just lies and makes stuff up all the time.
His op-ed pieces are so unbelievably disingenuous and he hides behind this illusion of knowledge as he's a PhD.
Oh, so all of a sudden, you know, you know, I was having this, um, I had a conversation with my wife yesterday about climate change and facts, and she mentioned something about both sides.
I said, you know what?
That's disingenuous.
There aren't both sides.
There's facts.
Facts don't have sides.
You know what I'm saying, Joe?
There's right and wrong.
There aren't sides.
Blinder says things that are factually incorrect.
Here's an example, and this is being pitched around now, the far-left ecosystem, as a reason to scuttle Graham Cassidy, which is the Republican Obamacare replacement bill now.
He says in the piece, he says, Graham Cassidy, the states will lose four trillion dollars over 20 years in federal funding if this thing passes.
Now, I want to be crystal clear, I'm not supporting increased quote federal funding for this.
I'm not.
But I'm telling you, this is a lie.
Now, again, he expects you'll do no homework on it, no research, but don't worry.
I know you live busy lives.
That's what I'm here for.
All right.
Why do you think, Joe, he used that 20-year window?
You think there was some reason behind that?
Well, there must be.
Of course, because he's a leftist professor and he wants to manipulate and lie to you.
So he says the states will lose $4 trillion over 20 years.
He does that because he incorporates a trick Democrats use all the time.
These bills, due to complex legislative machinations that have to go on in there, are authorized over 10-year windows and typically reauthorized after 10 years.
It's not a big deal, Joe.
It happens like you just, you know, like you would sign.
It's like saying, Joe, you're not going to get paid next week.
Well, why?
Well, because they have to sign the paycheck.
Yeah, but they always sign the paycheck.
Yeah, but this is what the liberals are doing with this.
After 10 years, there is a 99.9999999% chance it's going to be reauthorized because it always happens.
It's just a function of how the budget and how the legislative process works out, right?
Okay.
He's using the 20-year metric instead of the 10-year metric because he wants you to believe that after 10 years the whole program is going to go away because it's not going to be reauthorized, which never ever happens.
Do you understand how he uses it?
You see what I'm saying here, Joe?
The old liberal crystal ball, yeah.
The liberal crystal ball and the liberal shell game here.
Blinder is purposely misleading you and this thing's making its rounds in the far left liberal social media ecosystem right now.
He's making you believe that the federal government is going to cut four trillion dollars from the states but he uses 20 years because he realizes after 10 years it won't be reauthorized so he scraps the additional 10 years of spending because he wants you to believe that it's not going to be reauthorized although that never happens.
He's just making this up.
This is, guys, ladies, you know, what motivates me every single day to do this is just, you know, I have this idea for a fourth book, just annihilating stupid far-left arguments and assuming You're so dumb that you won't look any of it up either.
That's all they do to you.
They lie to you all the time.
He is just making this up.
He is making this thing up.
Now, so remember that and I hope I made sense on that folks.
The program has to be reauthorized every 10 years.
He uses the 20-year window To trick you into believing that the program won't be reauthorized and therefore the money they would have spent in the second half of that 20-year thing is all going to go away and that's where he gets the four trillion dollar thing from.
He's just making that up.
He is literally making it up because he knows it sounds intimidating.
Oh my gosh, four trillion.
Now listen, I think the federal government needs to reduce its footprint in the healthcare arena.
But what I don't appreciate are lies about the matter, and that's what this is.
It's a totally, completely made-up talking point that's going around now, and people like Jimmy Kimmel and everyone else will suck it up because they don't want to do the homework on it.
Okay, there's another quote in this piece, actually from another piece about Obamacare, and I mentioned this a little bit, so I don't want to hammer this too much, because someone said to me yesterday, by the way, I got a little offended, and he goes, ah, I love your show, it's the greatest thing ever!
But, you know, sometimes the topics can be a little repetitive.
All right, that's not my fault.
It's the liberals' fault that they keep doing the same dumb stuff over and over again.
It's like every day a new nugget of dopey liberal information comes out and I have to readdress it, sadly.
So my apologies, but the show has a theme, debunking liberal nonsense over and over.
Liberal nonsense reappears every day.
So here's a quote from another Wall Street Journal piece about this, what's really freaking out the Dems right now about Graham Cassidy.
Now, just before I get to this, Graham Cassidy turns over money right now, Medicaid money, subsidy money, all this federal money, taxpayer money you're giving to the federal government.
It makes it one big fat juicy block grant to the states, which I don't think is the greatest idea, but it's better than what we have now.
So the Dems are freaking out.
So here's a quote.
It says, but these days Dems fear that state laboratories would discredit the command and control approach to healthcare that they hope will lead to single payer.
So in a nutshell, here's what that means.
Dems are freaking out because they want Obamacare right now at the federal level to either collapse or to be an excuse to introduce a single payer model, as we've already seen with Bernie Sanders.
In other words, the government controlling all of healthcare.
Scrap Obamacare, scrap the exchanges, scrap the subsidies.
Government will be the single payer of healthcare.
They are using Obamacare as a vehicle to do that.
What's freaking them out right now is if this if Graham Cassidy does in fact block grant all this money to the states to spend as they wish Joe, just reiterating what I said before, their fear is that states like Texas and Wyoming and really conservative states out there Oklahoma.
That they are going to take this money, return it to patients, and let the patients pick their own healthcare.
And that would, in turn, drive down prices, which would do what, Joe?
Would completely discredit the single-payer model.
Because, here's the because, because the single-payer in that system is going to be you.
Now, you may say, well, you know, we're getting the money from the government.
Yeah, but it's your money.
Now, granted, I, again, I don't support the model because really what it means, Joe, let's say a really conservative state like Oklahoma says, here's what we're going to do.
We're going to take this block granted money, taxpayer money from the federal government, Joe, and we're going to give a check to everyone who makes, I'm just making this up, but just to show you why the left's quaking in their boots.
We're going to give a check every year.
Sure, $10,000 to low-income people, it can only be used to buy healthcare, and if you choose a cheaper plan, whatever, you can keep the change.
Their fear here is that now that the patients have control of their own money, and the government doesn't control who gets what and when, And let's say it works, which it likely would, their fear is that the single payer becomes the patient.
And when the patient's paying with his or her own money, granted, it's from taxpayers, but you get the point, they would get the check, that all of a sudden cost and quality will matter.
And to quote this piece, it would completely discredit the command and control approach to healthcare, meaning the government controlling it.
Because what happens, Joe, as I've cited Milton Friedman often, When patients, when people, when American citizens are buying their own health care, spending their own money, even if it's given to them by the government, but it's theirs, all of a sudden the cost of a procedure matters.
You're like, wait, I can keep the change on this?
And equality matters too, obviously, because it's your body.
And they are terrified that that approach will completely, absolutely discredit federal control over the system and in turn discredit single payer.
Guys, ladies, again, this is really complicated stuff, but it's important you understand this.
Nothing the left does, they do by mistake.
They didn't attack Betsy DeVos by mistake.
They did it because she supports school choice.
They're not lying about the cost of Graham-Cassidy by mistake.
They're lying to get you to believe that your health care is going to dry up and they're using Al Gore math to manipulate budget data over 20 years rather than the 10 years it should be defined on.
They are freaking out over this Graham-Cassidy.
Not because it's the greatest bill in the world, but because they think it's going to totally discredit government-run healthcare, especially if states start turning that money back over to the patients who spend it themselves rather than the government for them.
Did I explain that?
Did I sum that up?
Yeah, rather nicely, I might say.
Okay, well thank you.
All right, one more point I want to get to on this, I'm going to move on, because it's important.
It's a silly, ridiculous, absurd idea that a medic—everybody's talking about this Medicaid expansion as if the Medicaid expansion is somehow some benevolent force in our society, which it's not.
I'll sum that up quickly.
Before we get to that, today's show brought to you by our friends at My Patriot Supply.
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You know, sometimes with the live reads, it's funny.
I know you see me sometimes stumbling over my words, and we don't edit this stuff and go back.
But they're legitimate live reads.
The way live reads work in radio, because I host for Levin and Hannity too, and I know how it works.
Joe obviously knows how it works.
Right, Joe?
You get a book and it's printed up what the company wants you to read, right?
Yeah, you got copy and you read it.
Copy, yeah.
I don't do that.
They send me copy and I ignore it.
They want you to hit a few points, obviously the website and the cost, but I like the product.
I'd rather just do it myself.
If there was a product I didn't know anything about, it'd be different, but I genuinely like the product.
So that's why when you hear me making it up every day, it's because I do.
I enjoy the product.
I could just read you.
I choose not to do that because I really believe in this product.
That's why sometimes I stumble over my words.
I don't know why I just do that out there.
It's like the longest read ever.
It's a two minute commercial.
All right.
The Medicaid expansion, just a quick note on this, because this is a common talking point by the left as well.
Medicaid is a government run, federal government in conjunction with the states, basically single payer type program that pays for health insurance for lower income folks.
Folks, one of the things you have to rebut immediately with the left, and I wish more Republicans would do, is the fact that government money spent on health care is not help.
University of Virginia study, very robust study that's quoted frequently by conservatives, laid out, in my opinion, almost conclusively, how Medicaid, the government spending money on lower-income health care rather than turning the money over to people to buy their own health care, does not help people.
There are two findings from this study you need to keep in the back of your head for use at all times.
Looking at survival rates after surgery, people with Medicaid had lower survival rates after surgery than people who have private insurance.
Now that's probably not surprising to anyone.
Of course private, you know, free market health insurance, not private, I hate that term, but free market health insurance readily available to anyone is always going to beat the government.
So the fact that you have a better chance of surviving with free market insurance rather than government insurance is probably not surprising to anyone.
I mean, even to liberals who quietly know the government can't run, you know, couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag, right?
Our military could, but I'm talking about like economically and bureaucratically, right?
So, government's a mess.
That doesn't surprise anyone.
But secondly, This should surprise everyone.
The survival rates after surgery for Medicaid recipients, you had a greater chance of dying after surgery than people who had no insurance at all.
So folks, I mentioned this statistic on the show before, but it's important you note this.
Now, I think it was between a 10 and 15% greater chance of dying on Medicaid after surgery than if you had no insurance at all.
That is an absolutely devastating statistic.
And again, it harps back to the analogy I give all the time.
It's not that government doesn't help you when you fall on the sidewalk and walks past you.
That would be misfeasance.
It's that the government actively engages in malfeasance.
It's that Medicaid is actually hurting you.
In other words, when you try to get up, the government engages in malfeasance and punches you right in the face.
That is far different than just walking by you and letting you be.
There's a different level of moral depravity, and that's the problem I have with liberalism, folks.
When you look at the data, and none of this should surprise you, The fact that people know you don't pay for your health insurance, they have no reason to satisfy you.
I'm not saying good doctors and hospitals won't take care of people if they can.
I'm just saying to you, economic incentives override just about everything.
And when they know you're not paying, there's no reason, really, other than your own good heart, if you have one, which most of them do, thankfully, to help people out.
That's why there's a survivability rate at all.
Folks, Medicaid is not help.
And assuming Medicaid is help, again, is an ignoring of the facts and data on the issue.
Government-run healthcare is not help.
Okay.
All right, I got a couple other stories I want to get through.
There's some doozies out there today.
One of them is a good piece by John Binder over at Breitbart.
I'll put it in the show notes today.
Pretty good piece.
It goes through a list of DACA lies, and there are a lot of them, but I just wanted to pull two out quickly for you.
The DACA, of course, is the amnesty program for children who were brought here illegally.
What the left refers to as dreamers.
I prefer to call American citizens dreamers.
Listen, you were brought here illegally.
Of course, there's always going to be hard cases.
And you have my sympathy, but that doesn't mean we should be incentivizing amnesty and it doesn't mean people should get a pass on breaking the rules.
I'm sorry.
It's an issue even in my own household.
I've had some disagreements with people.
But here are two of these DACA lies being told about DACA recipients that you need to rebut immediately.
The first is that the dreamers, that these are all just, you know, every one of them is just stellar people and they're all going to go to medical school and be engineers and pilots and stuff.
And I'm sure some of them will be.
But there are a lot of people who slip through in this DACA program who are not good people.
And if we're going to talk about trade-offs, which conservatives always do and liberals ignore, Joe, the good and the bad.
Liberals just give you emotions and flowery talk.
Oh, dreamers, they never talk about the downside.
We're not going to do that here.
Here's a number from the piece.
There were 2,139 DACA status recipients who had their status revoked due to committing very serious crimes.
In addition to the crime of being in the country illegally, Joe.
That's the initial crime.
So again, let's not pretend here that this is an isolated example here.
There are 2,139 people who should not have been in the country who had their status revoked due to very serious crimes.
So again, let's be honest about this.
Let's not just make stuff up and talk about dreamers.
Nobody dreams to be a federal criminal or a local or state criminal either, committing serious felonies that lead to deportation.
So let's be honest about this.
Secondly, Another research point is only 5% that were older than 18 had four-year degrees from college.
So they talk about these dreamers like, oh, they're going to be doctors.
You know, some of them may, folks, but the numbers don't bear that out that all of these people coming here as kids are going to go on to be, you know, productive members of society from an economic perspective.
Many of them will.
Many of them will.
I'm not here to disparage people because I'm just telling you that the facts and data don't back up what you're talking about with education.
You want to talk facts and data or you want to talk emotions?
I prefer to do the facts and data here and leave the emotions to the left because we have to talk about trade-offs.
And you know what?
Just not to get off track here.
There's another story I wasn't going to cover, but it just kind of is interesting parlay here from this, right?
We, I read a piece this morning about, Productivity and why wages are stagnant.
And this is a topic that's come up on the show multiple times.
For those of you who haven't heard my prior rants on this, there is a really very, and it's a good discussion.
I have to tell you, I give him credit on this one, even some liberal economists have added to the debate trying to figure out one of the greatest economic conundrums of the past decade.
And the question is this, why the heck aren't wages going up?
It's really a big mystery.
There's an interesting article in Bloomberg today.
It skews big time left.
This guy, his overall larger thesis, he posits out there that it's all due to union influence, that union influences Wayne Joe, that people are not joining unions in the private sector like they were in the past, so that unions and workers don't have bargaining power.
That's not what I want to really get into today.
I've told you my theory on this multiple times.
Mine is that The government footprint after President Obama and during, you know, the last years of Bush where we expanded federal spending through stimulus and TARP and programs like that has obviously sucked money out of the private economy.
That money hasn't gone into building new factories with new equipment, which hasn't let workers be more productive.
The way you get more productive, Joe, is you trade a shovel for a big piece of caterpillar equipment where you can do 10 times the work and demand 10 times the pay.
You get what I'm saying?
Sure.
That money has come out of the economy, and I don't think... Although this is, again, the greatest economic conundrum of our time.
Just Google, why are wages stagnant?
You'll see a million articles.
They'll creep up everywhere.
You'll learn a lot, too, if you do that.
I believe the answer is very simple.
Again, it's just the money was taken out of the economy, it's not going into investment.
And it shows when you look at the investment numbers, when you look at outside of real estate, investment in business and capital, you'll see the numbers are down.
So again, I don't think the explanation is complicated at all.
The reason I bring this up in relationship to giving you both sides of an argument as it relates to DACA and how conservatives, I think, are honest and liberals aren't, is I'm going to be honest with you about something that liberals won't tell you, right?
The union argument the guy makes in the piece, Joe, that, well, wages are down because union membership is down, there's probably an element of truth to that.
And I know a lot of conservatives and some libertarians would shriek in terror and say, gosh, we can't be talking about that.
Why?
I mean, there's probably a solid element of truth to that.
There is no doubt, Joe, that joining a union gives you a larger degree of bargaining power with your employer than if you're bargaining on your own.
Right.
I mean, there's nothing complicated about that.
So I did a little homework on this, and then I decided not to cover the story in the show, which ironically we're covering in the show, because I was like, gosh, I got so much else to get to, but it's important here.
I'll give you the data on this.
There's a couple interesting pieces, one at the Washington Examiner, showing that yes, in fact, when right-to-work states, where you're not forced to join a union, that's what right-to-work states are, unions don't have monopoly power to force you to join in right-to-work states, that wages, Joe, are a little bit lower.
Now here's what we give you, because that's where liberals stop.
You see the point I'm trying to make, Joe?
Liberals stop at DACA by saying, they're dreamers!
They're dreamers!
Great kids, they're all going to go to college and become PhDs.
Conservatives, we say, yeah, some of them will.
You're right.
But here's the downside.
Now form an opinion.
Now here's what, on the union issue, the guy said, oh unions, we need more unions, wages would go up.
Yes, you're correct.
But here's the problem.
You would probably get more unemployment.
Because in the research out there, Joe, again, we do facts and data on the show.
Liberals, stop listening now.
Because your argument's gonna be...
Right-to-work states, wages go down.
Yep!
Point stipulated.
They may go down.
They may not.
But the evidence shows wages are a little lower.
But so is unemployment!
So my question to you is, are you willing to make that trade-off?
I'm a conservative.
I'm laying out a court case for you.
I'm laying out the facts.
You're all grown, very smart adults.
You make a choice.
Unlike liberals, though, I'm not going to lie to you.
I don't make the court case and go, do you want to join a union?
If you do, your wages will go up.
Everybody's going to go, Like barking seals, yeah, yeah.
Until you put the real facts on the table.
Yes, your wages may go up, but you may lose your job.
Wait, wait, what?
Come again?
Folks, this is what we do different.
This is why it's so hard to be a conservative, because you have to give people the hard truth.
I don't run from liberals when they issue a common sense argument.
Hey, your wages may go down.
Correct, okay, they may.
They may not.
As a matter of fact, there's a good chance they may not.
But I'm telling you as well that there's a good chance you might lose your job in the future as companies and corporations move where they have greater labor flexibility.
That doesn't bother you at all?
Are you interested in both sides?
Or are you just interested in making silly emotional talking points?
Gosh, I didn't even want to cover this today, seriously.
But I read the Bloomberg piece, and he's making this case, an elegant case, but he doesn't make the counter-argument in there.
He's like, well, you know, wages are stagnant because, you know, the union power has decreased.
Well, ask yourself why, folks.
Why is union power decreased?
Because if states declare themselves right to work, meaning you don't have to join a union, people aren't joining.
What are you, I mean, what's your case?
That they're stupid?
They just don't know what's good for them?
That people are quitting the unions because they're so wonderful?
I'm not knocking unions, guys, ladies.
I'm not at all.
Grew up in a union family.
I'm just telling you, you should be free to join.
I believe in this crazy thing called economic liberty and freedom.
That's nuts.
I feel a responsibility to give you both sides.
And for you to make your own opinions.
You're all smart people.
And I'm begging you again.
Do not listen to liberal banter.
Conservatives will tell you the truth.
You may hear what I just told you and say, okay.
You know what?
I don't like that deal.
I want my wages to be high even if it leads to some risk variability in me keeping my job.
That's fine folks.
That's a perfectly rational decision for you to make.
But at least we told you the truth.
Not like Alan Blinder who's lying to you about the Obamacare replacement bill strictly to manipulate you.
That's the only thing he's doing with creating a 20-year window on a 10-year bill.
He's lying and he's hoping you're too stupid to figure it out.
This guy's a PhD.
Man, it's frustrating.
Okay, and the Voss thing too, totally made up.
All right, what else are we gonna get through here?
Oh, oh, oh, oh, this is a doozy.
Another good piece in the journal today, Evergreen State College.
I brought this story up about a month ago.
There's a biology professor at Evergreen State College, and they had this, this is like, I mean, liberal kookiness, it never ends.
They had a day of absence at this college, and supposedly what the day of absence used to be, Joe, was On the college, the day of absence was minority students were supposed to leave the campus.
I'm not really, I'll be honest, it's hard for me to understand the liberal mind, and I don't want to be disingenuous, but I really don't get what it was about.
Maybe to show the world what You know, the college, what the world would be like without black or Hispanic students.
It's hard for me to understand the liberal mind in that respect.
I don't get what they were trying to do.
But let's assume that was the case.
It was a day of absence.
Bottom line is, a couple of geniuses on the campus, a couple of far-left radical nutjobs were like, let's reverse the day of absence.
And let's ban white people from the campus on a day.
That's an interesting development.
So thankfully as a society, we've evolved from the dreaded, horrendous Jim Crow era, where black Americans were forced to drink from a colored water fountain.
And now we're going back to re-segregation thanks to... Joe, is in anything I'm telling you, is that not re-segregation?
Am I crazy?
No, you're not.
No, that's not.
All you're doing is changing the color.
Right.
No white people on campus this day of absence.
So this biology professor over there basically gave them the double-barreled middle finger and said, who happens to be white by the way, he's like, I'm not staying off campus.
Right.
I'm going to work.
I mean, I get paid to teach.
This guy got accosted.
I just talked about this.
It was all over Fox.
Happened about a month, month and a half ago, maybe two months ago.
This guy got accosted.
People were, I mean, it really, it almost got violent.
So there's an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal today where there was a FOIA request, basically a freedom of information, and it is a doozy, Joe.
Talks about all the emails that were discovered pursuant to this freedom of information request about this.
Because what happened is there was a lawsuit filed by this guy, good for him, used the process against them like they use it against us, the biology professor.
And he basically sued saying, hey, you guys created a really unsafe work environment for me.
And apparently he won, he won like $500,000 and he left the college now.
Yeah, good for him, right?
But the college's defense was that, oh no, it wasn't a hostile work environment, this guy's exaggerating.
So they put this FOIA request out there and the emails are now being exposed and leaked.
And they are a really unbelievable view, like an open view into the mind of the corrupted academic far-left kook.
There was a woman in there in email, she teaches I shouldn't laugh, did I?
No, you know what?
I should, because it's ridiculous.
Her name is Naima Lowe.
I think it's N-A-I-M-A.
So I think that's Naima.
Naima Lowe.
She teaches media studies.
What is that?
Like a book on how to manipulate and lie to people?
It's all in one.
That's the shortest book ever.
Media studies.
Manipulate and lie to advance the liberal agenda.
Thanks for taking the course.
Have a nice day.
So Naima Lowe.
She's writing emails as this whole thing is going on, this day of absence where white people were supposed to stay off campus.
And this goes to show you the sickness of critical theory.
Critical theory, which I always bring up, because if you don't understand critical theory, you'll never understand the far-left mind.
Critical theory is the idea that white men Anything white men say or anything white men do is only done to reinforce their own power.
Therefore, nothing they do, and they have no seat at the table, nothing they do is credible.
Not their science, not their words, not their facts.
Their facts are just facts used to reinforce their own power.
If this sounds dumb, that's because it is.
It's the most ridiculous thing ever.
But folks, this is what motivates the entire far-left ideology, critical theory, and the biology professor brings this up too in some of his prior writings when he was ripping this day of absence, saying how he teaches science and he just doesn't understand how in these social sciences they can just make this stuff up.
But this name-a-low lady wrote That white supremacy is literally ingrained in everything in a response.
Now, where did that response come from?
She was attacking these people who were objecting to this and saying that the more you object to the principle the day that white people should basically apologize and stay off campus reinforces the idea that you were in fact a white supremacist.
This is the liberal mind.
Do you see what they did, Joe?
Do you see what they did there?
This is a strategically clever but morally vacuous and sick thing to do.
The premise this name-a-low lady puts in her email is that white supremacy is so real and so abundant and so everywhere that when you defend yourself against it, it's only more evidence of your white supremacy and your effort to stay in power as a white man.
Do you see how that circular reasoning leaves you no way out?
Right.
And do you see how that also justifies violence against you in the eyes of the Antifa and far left radical coup crowd?
Because then you have nothing to say.
If you say something, it's evidence of your white supremacy.
If you fight back, it's evidence of your white supremacy.
If you go to speak up, violence is justified because again, your effort to speak up is further reiterating your commitment to white supremacy.
There is, there's no debating that.
Now why am I bringing this story up?
Because I always tie shows together.
Because as I said to you, I have a responsibility as a liberty-loving constitutional conservatorian to give you both sides of an argument, but to back it up with reason, facts, and data.
Folks, you can't argue with far leftists.
I'm not telling you you shouldn't, I'll tell you why in a second, but I'm telling you you can't.
Because they don't, the arguing process doesn't exist.
In other words, it's a boxing match where the guy brings in a machine gun.
You're like, wait, wait, wait, this is a boxing match.
Like, yeah, for you.
You have to get on the boxing gloves, but I don't have rules.
Matter of fact, if the machine gun doesn't take you down, I'm going to drop a nuclear bomb on you.
Do you understand?
Like, there's no rules for them.
Everything you do is evidence of your own malevolence.
Defend yourself that you're a white supremacist!
Now you're more of a white supremacist!
Speak out!
Beat him up!
Don't let him reinforce his white supremacy!
Name a low and his one email sums it up.
White supremacy is literally ingrained in everything.
According to name a low!
Nobody else!
No reasonable people!
This is what they do.
Now, I said I would get back to that, but the reason you want to argue with these people, and argue ferociously, Is because there's always a third party listening.
I've told this story before.
When I run for office, there's always someone listening who hears those arguments and well, if you can be persuasive and you have your facts and data, you can change that third party.
I heard a speech once where a guy brought this up and he was absolutely right.
I had experience with the Maryland County Fair when I used to run for office and shake a lot of hands.
Liberals would come up, especially on school choice.
You'd get teachers union advocates who would go crazy on me.
You don't know what you're talking about kids need to be public schools gonna drain money for all nonsense liberal talking points easily debunk nonsensical stuff and you know you you know you try to stay as calm as you can didn't always work for me.
You know, but I can't tell you how many times someone listening to the conversation would wait for that person to leave and come back and go, hey man, that was really good, like I didn't know all that stuff.
So argue with your liberal friends only because third party's listening.
But you're not, you know, you may influence them.
You're not going to influence these critical theory nutbags on the left.
They have to come to the realization on their own that their theory that white supremacy is everywhere, therefore if you're white you have no right to speak, It's circular, dumb reasoning of the highest order.
There's no getting out of it.
All right.
Let's see.
One more story and we'll run for the day.
By the way, I'm strongly considering, and thank you for the feedback, doing that Rough Cuts show next week.
So, you know, Rough Cuts, where I'll be covering some culture stuff, some working out stuff, some Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu stuff.
So Joe and I are strongly considering it.
I don't want you to think we abandoned the idea.
I just, there are some people who don't want it on this feed, I guess.
But the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, so we're still thinking about it.
But there's an argument breaking out right now in Congress over this corporate tax cut.
And just summed up quickly, there's a growing head of steam for full expensing.
Do you know what full expensing is, Joe?
Full expensing is this.
So Joe, you work at WCBM.
If WCBM, the radio station, were to invest in new transmitters and new sound equipment and everything like that, let's say the equipment costs $10,000.
Full expensing would be the ability for WCBM to deduct that off their taxable bill.
To deduct the $10,000.
So in other words, whether it goes as a tax credit or a tax deduction, let's say your income at WCBM is $100,000 a year for whatever, the company.
Right.
They would be able to deduct that $10,000, so they would only have to pay taxes on, say, $90,000.
Make sense?
Yep.
Because they spent $10,000 equipment.
The idea of full expensing is that expensing would happen right now.
Now we have that, but now we do it on depreciation schedules.
I'm not going to get too wonky with it.
Most of you business students already understand this stuff anyway.
But the way it's done now, Joe, is that $10,000 isn't deductible in year one, depending on the type of equipment.
You can deduct, say, $2,000 of it in year one, $2,000 in year two, $1,000 in year three, until the full $10,000 is deducted over time.
And that's called a depreciation schedule, okay?
Okay.
Now, the obvious downside to that for a company is if you spend a lot of money on investment, again, tied into the what?
The median wage story, right?
How wages aren't going up because we're not investing?
Companies generally don't like depreciation schedules because they want to get the tax break right away.
Makes sense, right?
Joe, why get a tax break in five years when you get it right now?
Right.
So this expensing idea has some supporters.
Now, you may say, this sounds like an overall great idea.
I mean, why would any business not want a tax break now, you know, that they're currently taking over a depreciation schedule, right?
Well, one of the reasons is there's a fear in Congress, and this is legitimate, and that's why, you know, and I know the Koch brothers are really against this expensing thing, that they're going to trade that off For what would have been lower rates all around.
You get what I'm saying?
Well, here's full expensing WCBM, but instead of giving you a 15% corporate tax rate, now we're only going to do 20.
You get what I'm saying?
So, here's my take on it.
Again, I have a responsibility to give you an opinion on the matter.
It's an important issue.
Believe me, it's going to affect your life.
Just do both!
Do full expensing and a big corporate tax cut and then you will see a bump up in investment and end the story I told you about in the beginning at Bloomberg about why this big economic conundrum about why middle-class wages aren't going up.
I promise you, you will see middle-class wages go through the roof because people will start investing in equipment that allow you to be more productive and claim more in wages.
This is only complicated for liberal economists who don't understand the economics and need Jay Zabickas sent to their house.
For you regular listeners.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
Thanks to everybody who picked up my book this week.
Thanks for all the reviews on iTunes, and thanks for everyone who subscribes to my email list.
I really appreciate it.
I will see you all next week.
You just heard the Dan Bongino Show.
Get more of Dan online anytime at conservativereview.com.
