Summary:
In this episode I discuss the Left’s increasingly sophisticated war on free speech and its disingenuous appeal to conservatives for help. I also address a spending fight going on with regard to Obamacare that speaks to the lack of guts and integrity on Capitol Hill. Finally, I discuss a fascinating survey addressing the reasons people are evacuating liberal states.
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Get ready to hear the truth about America with your host, Dan Bongino.
Welcome to the Dan Bongino Show.
Producer Joe, how are you today?
All systems go, Dan.
Ready to go.
So, you know, yesterday I was talking about this attack coming on the First Amendment.
Folks, there is a tidal wave, a storm coming ashore here.
from the far left, and they are going to use us.
They are.
They're going to use us to attack, dismantle our free speech rights.
They're going to use it through commercial vehicles like Twitter and Facebook, and I'm seeing it already.
I'm going to get into that.
It's important because I'm going to explain to you how it's going to happen.
I did a lot of homework on this last night.
I pulled a couple of really good pieces that I think explain the problem really well and how I think we're going to have to fight back because there's a serious problem.
This Cambridge Analytica story about Facebook And you know how the Trump team abused Facebook, Joe?
Meanwhile, the Obama team did it even worse, in my opinion.
It's opening Pandora's box.
So be very, very careful.
Don't fall prey to the left and their tricks.
These people have been Ever since the Fairness Doctrine went away on the radio, they've been very upset that they can't control speech.
Remember that, Joe?
You were in radio with the Fairness Doctrine, right?
The Fairness Doctrine, correct me if I'm wrong, Joe, you had to present on any controversial political topic, whatever they deemed to be political, you had to present opposing viewpoints.
Yeah.
So if you had, like, a Rush Limbaugh on, you had to have, you know, a Tom Hartman on, or some liberal.
And what wound up happening is a lot of radio stations just stayed away from politics altogether as a result, right?
Yeah, yeah.
I remember dealing with it, yeah.
Yeah, it was a mess.
Now, that went away, the Fairness Doctrine, decades ago, and ever since then, the left has been on the march to control speech, because that's what they do.
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All right.
There's a storm coming.
Yeah.
An article in the show notes today I thought sums it up really nice.
It's from The Spectator.
It's an older article, I don't know, three, four months ago.
But it is really, really good about the internet storm brewing to control your free speech, folks.
It's happening.
They are already looking and they are leveraging Republicans to do it.
And as always, sucker Republicans are falling right in line.
Now, as I said to you before, once the Fairness Doctrine went the way of the woolly mammoth, the Fairness Doctrine, which, as I said to you, basically controlled radio speech because radio stations didn't want to be involved in politics.
They had to express opposing viewpoints.
Nobody wanted to be the subject of some FCC litigation.
Like I told you, Joe was in the business when this went on.
A lot of radio stations were very hesitant to get involved in politics at all.
When the Fairness Doctrine disappeared from the landscape of terrestrial broadcasting, the explosion of conservative talk radio happened.
Because then you were free to put Rush Limbaugh on, and Sean Hannity, and Mark Levin, and you didn't have to put a kooky liberal on the air too, who nobody gave a crap about.
Now listen, liberal podcasting does very well, folks, to be clear.
Pod Save America, Pod Save the World, which is done by a bunch of former Obama people.
As Joe and I said, I disagree with them, I fight with them on Twitter whenever I can, but I respect their platform.
I'm surprised it does as well as it does because in general, liberal radio talk shows don't do very well.
Awful.
I mean, remember, Joe, when they tried Air America?
That liberal talk radio network?
And it was an abomination.
The thing lost money from day one.
I know people who were involved in it, who are in conservative radio now, who shall remain nameless, but it was horrible.
Air America.
Liberals generally did not take to talk radio, but they do seem to be taking to podcasting.
And let me just be crystal clear, I have no issue with that at all.
I am a big R rights advocate for all platforms, even really dumb ones like a lot of liberal ideas.
But go for it, do your thing.
And they've been very successful.
NPR has a very successful podcasting network, but we've been successful too.
Our show, Ben Shapiro, Steve Crowder, Econ Talk, which I talk about all the time on the show, Andrew Klavan, Michael Knowles, there are a lot of very, very successful, even liberals who are very sane, rational, and good guys, like Dave Rubin, who has a very excellent show, you know, and he is definitely not a conservative, but he's a very smart, rational guy who is very respectful of conservative ideas.
Folks, the far left cannot have this.
I'm not talking about Democrats.
You know, a lot of moderate Democrats are not trying to suppress your free speech.
The overwhelming majority of radical liberals are desperate to bring back the Fairness Doctrine in any way, shape, or form to keep conservative ideas off the air.
And the way they're going to do it is by using this Facebook thing and a lot of what's going on right now as a vehicle.
Here are the two avenues and the Spectator article I put in the show notes sums this up.
Number one, net neutrality.
Folks, I have warned you about this repeatedly.
I always, I know I'm gonna get it now.
I know Joe's giving me the, I know.
Yeah.
This is like, there are a few things I bring up that I always, always, always get it.
Whenever I talk about the death penalty, I get Hundreds if not thousands of emails on it, which is cool.
I read your emails.
Like I said, this is not a show.
I'm always open to different opinions on things.
I've learned a lot from you emailing me.
But when I talk about net neutrality, I get overwhelmed with stuff.
I'm telling you net neutrality is...
Whether you believe it or not, net neutrality is the vehicle by which liberals, liberals are hoping conservatives join them to introduce the government as a regulator.
That is all they need to do.
When they get the government involved as a regulator, you get what I call the Chuck Ecker effect.
Joe knows Chuck Ecker.
He was a former Howard County executive, Howard County being in Maryland.
Chuck Ecker was a Republican, and he was a very smart guy.
I call it the Chuck Ecker effect because I got into a conversation with him one night at this thing called the Chocolate Ball or something.
I don't know.
It was a charity event, but you go there and they serve all kinds of chocolate.
It was a pretty cool event, actually.
And I get into a conversation with him.
I was running for office at the time.
And he said something to me that changed me forever because it was so brilliant.
We got into a conversation about why introducing the government into anything ever is bad.
And how government, once you give them power, it will never, ever, ever go away.
Matter of fact, it will grow.
And he said to me, Dan, the reason government always grows is because there's no power in yes.
There's no power in yes.
There's no power in yes.
Brilliant.
There is only power in government's ability to say no.
So where is net neutrality advocates on the Republican side of the fence?
There are some.
Shockingly, I still can't believe it.
We'll come to the argument and say, well, Dan, this is different.
You know, once we allow the government in there, they're going to level the playing field.
Do you really want ISPs, Internet Service Providers, to be able to discriminate?
They use, by the way, the terminology of the left, discriminate.
We call it pricing, but discrimination is a leftist term.
But that's the terminology Republicans will adopt, some of them, to get you to believe in this.
They will say, don't you want the government to create a level playing field for companies to be able to broadcast their content over their, you know, the internet service providers who have monopolistic control, which is not true, over the pipes of the internet.
And at first it sounds like, oh, okay, that sounds legitimate.
Folks, the government, whenever they are introduced, whenever they are introduced into a medium, takes that power and uses it promiscuously over a number of other avenues as well.
In other words, what I'm trying to say here, let's say Let's say Joe works up at his radio station.
At his radio station, the government regulates whatever, the water that comes into the radio station and has some kind of a control and regulatory mechanism over the water coming into the radio station, right?
That's right, Dan.
That's right, Dan!
What Joe doesn't want to do is get on the bad side of the local government through content in the radio station because all of a sudden the radio station finds itself on the receiving end of a government lawsuit or a government initiative because they're using too much water in violation of the water regulations that the government imposed on the radio station.
You're like, wait... Oh no!
Oh no!
By the way, we've had a request to bring back Donnie Brasco and Spider-Man.
What I'm trying to tell you folks is government power is promiscuous.
You may think that the net neutrality debate is about them keeping a level playing field about what Netflix can charge and what other content providers can charge.
That is not what it's about.
It's about the government's power to say no.
It's about the Ecker effect.
Once the government can say no, All sorts of other things start coming into the equation as well.
Because you have to get to yes.
Oh, you're, you know, you're Facebook and you want to build, uh, whatever, a factory in the United States somewhere to, whatever, produce Facebook t-shirts.
I don't know what the hell it is.
You want some kind of federal tax deduction to that?
That should have nothing to do with net neutrality.
But let me ask you something.
Do you really want to be on the bad side of the government knowing on the net neutrality debate if it's something liberals are pushing and they're in charge?
Oh hell no!
Hell no you don't!
Because all of a sudden that tax deductions that's being debated amongst liberals That tax deduction goes away because you're on the wrong side of a completely, air quotes here Joe, separate issue net neutrality.
Oh, the Obama administration supports net neutrality?
And what, Facebook has a different position on net neutrality?
Hey, how about that tax deduction we were talking about for all those factories you were building for Facebook t-shirts in the United States?
Yeah, we're gonna vote NO on that because there's power in no.
Bingo!
Does that make sense there, Daddio?
Sure.
Absolutely.
It astonishes me how many Republicans don't get this.
Government has the power of promiscuity and promiscuous power that private entities don't.
I have a contract with a pest control guy.
I love Florida.
It's the greatest place on earth.
But one thing about Florida is the bugs here are prehistoric.
They are.
They eat humans.
They are man eaters.
And sometimes you have to go out there like that Steve Irwin, that crocodile hunter guy, God rest his soul, with a spear to fight off the... I'm exaggerating, of course.
Of course.
Florida is the greatest place on earth.
I recommend highly, if you're a conservative, you move down here.
If you're a northeast liberal, please don't come down here.
I'm begging you.
Please stay up north and ruin your own states.
I'll get to that later.
Don't ruin my state now.
I love this place.
But the bugs down here are... Dude, they may suck the blood out of you pints at a time.
Who?
I have a contract with a pest control company.
If I don't like that pest control company and they piss me off, it has nothing to do at all with the landscaper, okay?
Right.
In other words, if I fire the pest control company, the landscaper, the house painter, whatever it may be, the garbage collection guys, the sanitation folks, they're not going to say, hey, you know what?
Next week we're not picking up your garbage either.
As a matter of fact, we're not going to paint your house.
Matter of fact, we're not going to send water to your home either.
Wait, what?
They can't do that.
Government has a monopoly on force.
Government is a monopolistic, near hegemonic power in some respects.
Government can do anything they want because their powers are so broad.
You piss them off in one silo, they get you back in another silo.
This is why the net neutrality debate is, to me, is such a big deal and why I'm thoroughly astonished that Republicans jump on board with this.
Now, I hope I'm not losing anybody here because I'm talking about a current events very specific case.
And this spectator piece that I have in the show notes is fantastic!
The fact that it's a few months old shows to you that this is not a new problem either.
Cambridge Analytica, which was a company, just to be clear, that used Facebook to assist Trump and their campaign in marketing their campaign.
During the primaries.
They dumped them during the general election.
Which makes the story, by the way, even more embarrassing for the left that's trying to make this some huge scandal.
They are going to use this again to advance a net neutrality agenda that's going to be used to introduce the government as the supreme regulator and once they regulate and get the landscaping contract for your house, everything's in jeopardy too.
The water coming to your house, the pool guy who services your pool, the fertilizer guy who fertilizes the trees in your house, they're all in jeopardy because the government controls all of them.
Do not fall prey to this.
That is tool number one to bring back the ideological control over the idea space that they lost with the advent of Fox News on cable and with the dumping of the Fairness Doctrine.
You see what I'm saying, Joe?
Yeah.
They lost control of the space.
Liberals shift quickly, folks.
I'm going to cover a lot of turf in this show, but it's an important, important show.
Liberals move seamlessly from the political space to the cultural space.
Conservatives don't.
We focus heavily on, by the way, Andrew Breitbart understood this, and that was a genius of Breitbart, how politics is downstream.
But a lot of conservatives don't get this.
What liberals lose in politics, and they lose often, they lose governorships, they lose state houses, they lose the presidency, they lose the House of Representatives, they lose the Senate, they've lost all of this.
They're not okay with it, but they move seamlessly into the culture space.
They engage in culture wars.
What I mean by culture wars is they use mediums of mass communication transmission to get their ideas across by controlling them.
Movies.
Hollywood movies.
That's why I said to you last week, the importance of going and buying a ticket to that movie.
I can only imagine which big round of applause.
$17.1 million in ticket sales.
They anticipated 2 million.
Good for you.
I bought a ticket.
Didn't even see the movie.
You make those damn Hollywood actors act in our movies.
They ain't acting in theirs.
You got a liberal message that movie ain't going to sell.
We're going to tell you what you're going to act.
You're going to dance for us.
Entertain!
Are you entertained?
What is that, the Gladiator movie?
That's what we're gonna do, damn it, because we dance.
We have to get better at the culture wars.
Why?
Because as I told you, the liberals now have lost political power.
They are going to move into the culture space, and the culture space has to be hegemonic for them.
They cannot have competing ideas because their ideas suck.
They are awful.
Their ideas, give us more of your money, raise your taxes, we can't have any kind of school choice, turn over your healthcare to the government, heavy regulation, big government spending, do not sell.
These are enormously minority views.
Maybe 20 or 30% of the population at best subscribes to that kind of ideology.
Religion's awful, families are terrible, spend more in government.
These are minority views.
You see where I'm going with this, Joe?
The liberals can't have opposing ideas to that out there, because once the stupidity of the liberal platform is exposed in the media, in academia, on talk radio, on television, and in movies, once the futility of those ideas are exposed, liberals are embarrassed.
They're embarrassed by their own ideas, and they know it.
You can't do good gaslighting like that.
You can't do—well said.
Gaslighting.
Lie repeatedly.
Isolate people from the truth.
Boom!
Tell people a myth, repeatedly.
High taxes are great.
High taxes are great.
Big government's great.
It's a benevolent force.
But it only works if you isolate people from the truth.
Once people see the truth about the deadly effects, in some cases, of big government in places like Venezuela and other places.
Once the truth is out there, the collapse of the Soviet Union, what a big, hegemonic, powerful government does, the idea falls apart.
So the liberals move seamlessly into the culture space to control the battlefield of ideas.
Why do you think the liberal war on Fox News never ends?
It's daily.
They have people at Media Matters who sit in their mommies' basements all day and watch Fox News, waiting to be outraged about something any commentator or show host says.
I'm not kidding, folks.
This is all they do because they have to control the space.
That's the culture side of it.
But you may say, Dan, this sounds very macabre.
So they're going to try to suppress us on Facebook, suppress us on Twitter, suppress us on YouTube.
But they need political power at some point to do it.
I mean to formalize it.
They're obviously already winning the culture war on Twitter, where I've been banned from running ads, and many other conservatives.
They're winning there.
But in order to formalize it, because why, Joe?
And I mentioned this yesterday, and this is important.
This is a critical show to listen to.
I know I'm packing a lot of information, but it's very, very important you understand this.
The social media companies are worried.
YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, these social media platforms and information dissemination platforms.
That's what we'll call them.
They're concerned about something, Joe.
They're concerned about lawsuits, because they don't want to lose a lawsuit eventually.
Now, it's gonna be tough.
I'm not saying, you know, it's gonna be a tough road to hoe, but they don't want it.
They want to be protected from any kind of legal and financial liability for doing what they're doing in this widespread ideological war.
Sure.
Now again, it's a private company.
They're free to do what they want.
I want to be clear on that.
But lawsuits terrify these companies.
They want to be protected.
Because they want to be protected from conservative ideas.
Because they're liberal companies, Joe.
Believe me.
YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, if they could do it tomorrow, would wipe conservatives clean.
Yeah, big time.
100%.
They could not care any less.
They want you out of here, right?
But they need to be protected.
So at some point, the culture war they're waging, that you conservatives are crazy, you're a bunch of kooky, wacko, gun nuts, you're all out of your mind.
They want that enshrined in politics legislatively.
Let's rewind now back to how we started.
Now does it make sense how they're going to use this Trump-use-Facebook-to-get-elected-to-bring-and-haul-Facebook-up-and-they're-going-to-play-the-victim-for-a-little-while-Facebook?
Oh, look what happened!
Oh, my gosh!
The Trump team took data!
The Obama team did it, too!
Shh!
Shut up!
Trump team took the data!
What are we going to do?
Listen, man, maybe we should really look into this net neutrality thing.
And, you know, net neutrality, step one, we'll introduce the government as a regulator.
Once you get them to landscape your property, they control the pool and everything else.
And that introduces step two.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding!
Which is going to be the 1996 Communications Decency Act.
What the hell is that?
Even Joe is like, huh?
What?
Huh?
Read the Spectator piece.
There's also a really terrific piece in the Wall Street Journal today, unfortunately it's subscriber only, but it covers the same ideas, which is interesting because the pieces are separated by months, which goes to show you that I'm not the only one thinking about this.
No, no.
The 1996 Communications Decency Act, what it did was Section 230 shielded internet companies that have a presence on the internet from liability for the content, Joe, on their platform.
You have something there?
No, no, I'm just trying to remember this.
I see you thinking intuitively.
Oh, by the way, folks, one thing.
I'll get back to this, I promise.
I hate to interrupt the show, but this is really funny.
Did you see the email I sent you yesterday?
Yes, I did.
You know how I always accused Joe of fictitious crimes, felonious mopery, and the umpteenth degree, you know?
Aggravated hibernation in the 42nd degree.
I make stuff up for Joe as he's a fictitious criminal.
Yesterday, Joe was caught coughing on the show, but Joe has a button there to pot himself down.
So what did somebody, Joe, aggravated coughing in the 110th degree?
Aggravated use of a potentiometer or something like that.
That was great.
Joe, poor Joe.
He's been arrested for every fictitious crime in the book.
All right, so get back to this Communications Decency Act.
First, they introduced the government in net neutrality as the regulator.
You need that first.
Don't be a sucker.
Then you use the Decency Act.
Now, you may say, I don't get it.
If you're saying that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 shields these companies, well, what's going on now?
What's going on now is there's currently legislation up on the Hill to start wiping out that exemption.
From legal responsibility.
Like, in other words, let me explain this better, Joe.
If you at joearmacost.com and people comment on your site, and let's say in one of those comments somebody puts up a, you know, a, hey, come buy illegal drugs from my place, Tony Bagadonas.
You're not responsible if something were to happen there because it's, you know, you can't control what happens on the site outside of what you post for yourself, right?
Right.
Which, folks, is sensible.
They're starting to now reconsider Section 230, and one of the crimes they're looking to get rid of the exemption for is sex trafficking.
Now, listen, I get it.
If you're listening to the show, you're probably like, that makes a world of sense.
I mean, no one wants to facilitate sex trafficking on the website.
Folks, I understand that.
But are the companies, Joe, responsible for what people put up on their websites, even if they do that?
You can do your best to police it.
Of course companies have an interest in wiping that stuff out.
Once you're talking about legal liability for that, you're opening up Pandora's box.
Then you can swat the website, more or less.
You know?
Yeah, exactly.
It's a great way to describe it.
Swatting the website.
Meaning, you could go there, say you didn't like the website, and just start posting negative stuff about that for the purposes of someone suing them later.
Folks, these questions are not as... We can't be like liberals and get lost in the immediate emotion of it.
Of course everybody wants to stop sex trafficking.
Point absolutely stipulated.
The question is not, do we want to stop it?
Is this the best way to do it?
So just follow me here.
That is one of the exemptions they're talking about now.
They're wipe to wipe clean.
So now you wouldn't be exempt.
The problem is once you open that door, Joe, then next it's going to be drug sales.
It's going to be, you name it.
It's going to be money laundering.
It's going to be, you know, prostitution services.
This all sounds great.
Yeah.
You know, websites should be responsible.
Really?
Do you have a website?
I do.
You want to spend your entire day policing the comment section or anything else or from content people post on there?
Folks, this is serious stuff.
I'm telling you they're going to use this as a vehicle.
This is not conspiracy stuff.
The left is already out there advocating for this.
Net neutrality, get the government in the door.
The camel's nose, Joe, under the tent.
Get the camel's nose under the tent.
Eventually the whole camel's sitting there with you.
Introduce them as a regulator.
Start wiping clean the exemptions.
Now what's step three?
Because I haven't summed this up for you yet.
Step three in the left's war on free speech on the internet is going to be to do what the European Union does and enact hate crimes legislation.
Oh!
Dude!
Dude!
Remember the Rob Schneider YouTube clip?
Dude.
The 5,000 different ways to say dude.
You see a serial killer around the corner?
Dude.
You're confused.
Dude!
This is one of those, I'm really confused.
Dude!
Introduce hate crimes legislation where people can be prosecuted for air quotes here hate crimes and people like oh we should hate crime we gotta hate crimes will be defined by the government not you all of a sudden you start advocating for lower taxes on your facebook page hate crime facebook facebook loves this because facebook will say we don't want to be guilty of the communications decency act violation under section 230 hate crimes you're barred from facebook forever Yes!
There it is.
There it is!
There it is!
Folks, I'm not making this stuff up.
Read the spectator piece.
It is so, it says basically, it's in the journal piece again today.
I am not the only one saying this.
That is why I need you to be very, very, very careful and on the ball when it comes to liberal tactics here.
They're gonna play out over the next few months, the liberals, this little game.
Where they call up Facebook up to the hill and Facebook, how dare you help Donald Trump get elected?
And Twitter, how dare you?
And you know what?
The liberals are going to play this up.
Facebook's in on this.
So is Twitter.
They love this stuff.
They love it because then they get to work with these same liberal legislators on wiping clean exemptions, get some hate crime stuff passed.
Next thing you know, there will be no conservative on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, or anywhere.
Anywhere.
Advertisers will be pulling out of Google Ads.
If you have a conservative webpage, no one's going to want to advertise on your page because what happened?
Someone posted a comment on this page one time that violated a hate crimes act.
Oh, we don't want to be associated with that guy!
No more for him!
I've been warning you about this.
Folks, the Fairness Doctrine crushed them.
It crushed them.
They need a return of the Fairness Doctrine.
They need it like a Friday the 13th movie.
They need it to Jason.
They keep coming back and back and back.
They keep trying different ways.
That is why I'm warning you with every ounce of passion I have in me, I know I'm going to get a thousand emails on and that's fine.
You know, I, by the way, if you're going to, one quick thing, email me.
I read them.
I love them.
My website is on, my website has our email address.
But if you're going to email me to tell me you should stop listening, then just stop listening.
You don't have to email to tell.
I get it.
There are some people, I hate to say that Joe, but it's interesting.
Some people get so offended at an idea that doesn't comport with their thinking.
Whereas, I'll read yours.
I mean, I'm happy.
I put my email on the website for a reason, so I can hear what your opposing point of view is.
I learn a lot, believe me.
But if you can't handle opposing ideas and this bothers you, then I don't know.
You're going to have to find a website or another podcast that jumps around and comports with every single ideological worldview you have.
You know, I really mean it.
There are people on that death penalty show I did.
Man, I got some brilliant scriptural analysis from people.
No, Joe, I'm telling you, it was great.
It was mind-blowing.
I love it.
Thank you.
But if you're going to email me and say, hey, I don't agree with you on this, then I don't know what to tell you.
I'm here to tell you the truth on how I feel.
I'm not going to lie to you.
But I am sure of it, absolutely sure of it, based on my understanding of how the left works, that they are using Republicans here.
They're using them on the net neutrality debate.
They are going to use you on this Communication Decency Act thing.
Pretty soon we'll have hate crimes legislation and Facebook and Twitter will have a reason to boot your cabooses off their platform forever.
I've never been more sure about anything.
And in case you think I'm making this up, by the way, this war on free speech, there's a case in the Supreme Court being heard today.
About the First Amendment issue.
Now it's a little different.
So the point of that whole opening was the left's war on the First Amendment.
The Fairness Doctrine hurt them.
They no longer own terrestrial radio.
It was the explosive growth of the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin generation of talk radio people, which kills them.
It kills them because millions of people get opposing ideas.
They're going to try to regulate the internet.
But this is all a war on the First Amendment.
The left hates the First Amendment.
Don't believe it for... Not Democrats.
The liberals hate the First Amendment.
The First Amendment is a war of ideas.
They don't want a war of ideas.
They just want their ideas.
Case in the Supreme Court now, Joe.
Uh, NIFLA, it's a, it's a, uh, N-I-F-L-A.
It's an acronym for, uh, it's an organization that runs these pro-life pregnancy centers where you can go in and get counseling if you're involved in a crisis pregnancy, right?
In California, these pregnancy centers that are pro-life were forced to put up signs advertising abortion.
Yeah, I remember that.
How?
Do you remember this?
This is in the Supreme Court today.
NIFLA versus Becerra, who is the Attorney General for California.
I think that the state of California is going to lose badly in this case.
You cannot force a pro-life pregnancy center to put up a sign advertising for abortion.
They are going to lose badly in this case.
But it goes to show you, Joe, the left is not interested in free speech.
They're interested in their speech.
And if you dare, if you dare open up something like a crisis pregnancy center to advocate for life, you will be forced to put up their view, too.
And they will try to put you out of business as well, because that's what they do.
Right.
It's going on right now.
I'll update you on the case, by the way.
But we don't expect, obviously, a ruling in it for a while.
But the arguments are being heard today.
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Okay, quickly on the Austin bomb.
The Austin bombs, I should say, at this point.
This looks, at this point, to be a serial bomber.
But yesterday on my NRA TV show, which airs nightly at 5.30 p.m.
Eastern time at NRATV.com.
It's on Roku and Amazon Fire as well.
Please check it out.
Thank you for all the feedback on it.
I do interviews, which Joe and I don't do as a matter of practice on this show.
We may one day, but especially if we find someone interesting.
I find talking to Joe more interesting than talking to a lot of other people.
But I don't say this often because I don't want to cross-contaminate the shows.
I try to do different shows for both.
I had an interview yesterday on NRA TV, Joe.
The show is there at the website.
You can see it, yesterday's show, which blew me away.
My wife was like, that's the best interview you've ever had.
I had Johnny Joey Jones, who is an American patriot and a hero, United States Marine Corps veteran, bomb technician, tragically stepped on an explosive himself and was injured quite horrifically.
But you will never Meet a more optimistic, positive guy who left literally portions of himself in an overseas battle zone fighting for our flag.
And he talked about this Austin bombing and told me some things that just blew me away.
Describing how, you know, mercury switches and anti-disturbance devices and tripwires and how this is a really sophisticated bomber and how the investigation will proceed afterwards and how everything from Fingerprints, you know, fingerprints don't vaporize in these things.
They can still pull fingerprints off of these things.
It's a fantastic interview.
I don't mean to do a commercial for my other show, folks, but it's really, really good.
Go check it out if you can at NRATV.com.
We started at about the 10-minute mark of the show.
It is really illuminating.
And this Austin bombing thing is really troubling.
And right now, forget the motive right now.
Let's just get the guy.
We'll get to the motive later.
All right.
This is one of those stories that really upset me.
I don't mean to kind of leave you in a bad mood, but I was reading this story at the Wall Street Journal today about the Obamacare.
And I know, you know, some of you are like, oh, are we still talking about this?
This story is about Obamacare, Joe, but as always with liberals, it's really not.
And I took a note on this.
You know what this story is about?
It's about no guts.
It's about no heart.
And it's about preying on ignorance.
What is going on right now with Obamacare?
This story's really gonna upset you, so get ready.
All right.
There's a big debate going on with these spending bills in Congress they're getting ready to pass over cost sharing versus tax credits.
Let me make this simple for you, because I hate when people make stuff boring.
The way Obamacare was designed was tactically brilliant.
Sick, tragic for us, legislatively horrible, But it was brilliant.
They did things in Obamacare that they knew cowardly Republicans would always be afraid to fight back against.
What do I mean?
They instituted in Obamacare unconstitutional cost-sharing payments.
And what these cost-sharing payments are, Joe, they are basically payments from the United States government to health insurance companies to offset out-of-pocket costs for low-income folks.
So if you're a low-income, let's say Joe was, which he's not, but let's say Joe was Poor, didn't have a lot of money.
Yeah.
And Joe signs up for an Obamacare plan, an Obamacare-compliant plan.
If Joe's out-of-pocket costs for that plan are, say, $5,000 a year, and Joe doesn't have it, if the insurance company offsets that to a degree, the government will pay back the insurance company.
Okay?
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a scheme.
I see the look.
Joe's giving me the look.
It's a horrible scheme, but That's what it is.
Government pays insurance companies, insurance companies offset some of the costs for their low-income consumers.
Now, there are tax credits in Obamacare as well.
The tax credits are, you get basically a government payout to buy an Obamacare plan, even if you are middle class and above, if the costs go up as a percentage of your income.
As the costs go up, you get more money the government to pay those costs.
So the way they set this thing up is tactically genius.
There's a big fight going on right now, and if I lose anybody, of course, Joe.
Yep.
Gotta stop me.
Will do.
There's a big fight going on.
The government now is proposing, and Republicans included, are proposing $30 billion to pay to the insurance companies for these cost-sharing payments.
To pay off insurance companies, to pay off lower-income people.
That's bullshit!
That is, that is, that is.
But it's happening right now.
It's happening, it's going on right now.
Now keep in mind, it was $5 billion, now it's up to $30 billion.
Now, now I'm going to confuse you.
Get rid, Joe.
You know what this is?
Do you play baseball?
Yeah, a bit.
This is the hook.
This is the curveball.
You see that?
It's fastball.
This is the curveball.
When you can see the side of the wrist, it's the curveball.
You see the front of the palm, it's the fastball.
Okay, this is the curveball.
Liberal groups, I didn't say that wrong, liberal groups oppose these cost-sharing payments.
Wait.
Wait, what?
I'm dead!
I'm coming to join you, honey!
I saw him going around for the soundboard.
I'm like, I know what he's doing.
I could tell.
He was giving me the motions, the Red Fox heart attack.
They actually oppose it.
Now, that makes no sense if you're a regular listener to the show, because liberals love the government spending money anywhere.
I mean, why would they oppose cost-sharing payments to insurance companies?
Well, the reason they do, Joe, is because they set it up in such a way that if those cost-sharing payments are made, insurance companies can keep their premiums down, the premiums they charge you.
Alright.
And if they keep those premiums down, the government won't have to give tax credits or give money to people to pay for those additional premiums.
Now, I don't want to ask you this question, I want to set you up, and I can tell this is confusing.
This is.
But I'm going to ask my listeners for a second, where do... I'll ask you a simple one.
Alright.
Liberals, do they want to spend more or less government money?
They'd like to spend government money.
I'd say they want to spend more.
More!
More!
That's not a trick, I promise you.
Liberals want to spend more.
So what do you think, Joe, spends more government money?
Spending money on cost-sharing subsidies or spending money on tax credit subsidies?
What do you think spends more?
If liberals oppose cost-sharing and prefer tax subsidies, which one do you think spends more?
Tax credits.
Yes!
Bingo!
I'm not messing with you.
Yes, that's why they oppose cost sharing.
The Obama administration set this up.
So, win, ah, double-barreled middle finger.
Win, you lose.
Lose, ah, double-barreled middle finger.
You still lose.
Win, the taxpayers lose $30 billion.
Lose, they lose $50 billion.
You get the genius of these guys?
Wow.
Yeah.
Now, you think I'm making this up?
Here's a quote from the Wall Street Journal piece.
There's Joe Coffin again, although you didn't hear it.
Poor guy's dying there.
This is from the Journal.
They're talking about this week's government spending bill.
The question is whether a deal can move as a part of this week's government spending bill, and the politics aren't hard to understand.
Health insurers, listen to this sentence, this is going to piss you off mightily.
Health insurers are telling Republicans, what is this, a threat by the way?
That without cost sharing and reinsurance payments, they're going to announce huge premium increases right before the midterms this fall.
House Republicans, and I'm improvising here, cowards, are thus looking for a quick fix to lower premiums and are holding up the Senate for the $30 billion in reinsurance.
What a freaking scam!
So now health insurance companies are saying, hey, uh, daddy-o?
Here's how this is going to go down here, okay?
You're going to give us that 30 bill, you know, like Tommy Two Times from Goodfellas, right?
Or Joey Two Times, whatever his name is.
This is like a mob hit, like a shakedown here, right?
Yeah, you want to put that sanitation contract outside of our network?
Yeah, good luck.
I hope your shop doesn't burn down.
So you're going to give us this 30 billion in cost sharing, or not only are we going to hike premiums right before the midterm to, Double-barrel middle finger, you guys, right?
Not only are we going to do that, you're still going to wind up paying more for the tax subsidies you have to give people to pay for those increased premiums.
Is that not ridiculous?
I know.
Is that berserk?
Yeah.
It is.
This is like, this is an abomination.
Wow.
Now, I've been following the reinsurance plan and cost sharing for a while.
Those of you regular listeners, we've done, you know, 20, 30 minute segments on this.
But now let me turn back to how I started this.
I started this by telling you that I wrote in caps here.
This is not a story about legislation.
It's not even a story about cost sharing.
It's not a story about tax credits or Obamacare.
It's a story about no guts and no heart and preying on ignorance.
You know what they should tell these days?
One, Obamacare is clearly a disaster.
We get that.
Why can't these legislators just grow some nerves once in a while?
Really, grow a spine and a backbone.
Get out in front of the American people and just explain this to them in common sense terms how they're all being hoodwinked by Democrat hijinks.
This is a scam.
It's a ransom scam.
These insurance companies now have us by the, you know what, Because that's right.
That's exactly how it would sound.
But through these payments, here's what they want from us, folks.
They're demanding a $30 billion payout of your money, or they're going to hike your premiums.
You know what?
We should call their bluff.
Don't you think, Joe?
Call their bluff!
You wanted Obamacare?
You love this?
We're calling your bluff.
We're not giving you $30 billion of our money, and we're not giving you the tax subsidies either!
Alright.
How about that?
Well, you may say it's part of Obamacare that they would have to get rid of that legislatively.
But, go ahead!
Raise premiums!
We're not, because either way we lose.
Either we pay you our tax money or we pay you premium money.
Either way it's our money.
Why doesn't anybody have the to go out and say this?
They're cowering in fear.
Oh my gosh, if we don't give them the payments, they're gonna raise premiums.
Oh my gosh, that we had a Valley Forge generation and a generation of, you know, of World War I and World War II veterans with such heart and spine.
And now we are subjected to the whims of these spineless, blob-like lawmakers up on the hill who are terrified of the truth.
Oh, we can't tell.
Gosh, look what's gonna happen.
They're gonna raise premiums.
Oh, you wusses!
Will you just tell the truth for once?
Just keep voting to get rid of this thing.
Let the Democrats vote again.
Take a bill up to get rid of Obamacare every day from now to the election.
Every day.
Start a new bill every single day.
Get Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan on board and do whatever you gotta do to get these bills out of the hopper once a week, once a month, to get rid of Obamacare.
Tell the insurance companies you're not getting a dollar more taxpayer money.
Listen, I'm a free market capitalist, Joe.
This is not the free market.
This is a fake free market.
What, the health insurance companies are threatening us now?
And tell them we're gonna pay every week.
And let the Democrats say no and vote it down every single week.
And then when your premiums go up, you can point out to the 55 different votes or whatever they were, or 25 or whatever votes the Democrats took to not get rid of this disaster.
Oh my gosh, I read the story, I couldn't believe it.
I'm like, what a bunch of wusses.
And you know, Joe, just to be fair here, I am obviously, if you listen to my show, not a fan of Bernie Sanders.
Right.
But I get now how some of these young kids get suckered into believing Sanders is against this kind of stuff, which he's not.
Because he spoke out against, you know, this is it, we're going to fight for the free market as what?
We simultaneously defend a bunch of crap companies that are doing the Tommy Two Times Goodfellas act on us?
Give us your money or we're going to hike your premiums and get more money from you later?
You know, win we win, you lose either way?
Lose, we win too?
Like a, you know, a coin with two heads on it.
Flip.
I take heads.
Yeah, of course, you win.
Either way.
Oh my gosh.
Really upsets me.
Um, all right, moving on.
But that, it's just really annoying.
They, we're always on the receiving end.
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All right, last story of the day.
You know, I told you repeatedly about the exodus from liberal states and how the exodus is getting worse.
Now, the problem with this, and I tweeted this out the other day in the gym, and I meant it, one of the great puzzles of my lifetime, Joe, And the way, you know, can I just go back to something?
Yeah.
I said before with the Obamacare story that no guts, and obviously I was talking about politicians, but when I said they plead, you know, they thrive on ignorance.
They really believe that people can't understand the conundrum I told you about, cost-sharing.
They can!
Yeah.
You're just afraid to explain it to them.
That's what I meant by that.
I didn't want to leave that open-ended.
But it also plays into this next story.
The exodus from California has gone up dramatically.
138,000 people are net lost to California.
There's a story on CNBC.
I'll have it in the show notes today.
I strongly encourage you to read.
Not just because people are leaving California, folks.
That's an old story I've talked about repeatedly.
But the CNBC story is really good because it talks about the reasons people give.
Because, Joe, in the past, when you and I have debated this with people, right, about people leaving Maryland, where Joe lives, and New York, where I grew up, I lived in Maryland, too, liberals will say, Joe, oh, well, people leave for all kinds of reasons.
It's not necessarily the taxes.
OK, well, now we have the reasons.
We have the survey.
People left California, Joe, for Arizona, Texas, and Nevada.
Largely.
Other places as well, but that's where the most of them went.
Conveniently states run largely by Republicans.
Now, the reasons cited.
Number one, cost of living.
Number two, housing.
Another prominent reason, the California gas tax.
California also has five of the top ten most expensive rental markets and IRS data, Joe, shows the people leaving California are middle-class American working folks.
Now, I only bring this story up, folks, because...
Do you understand how this story entirely refutes the liberal premise that one, they're in it for the little guy, and two, their economic vision is an economic vision for the middle class?
The middle class are leaving!
Read the CNBC piece!
If what you're saying is true, in this bastion of liberal values, California, where you are virtually unchallenged by any conservative, anywhere at the statewide level, there are small pockets of conservatism at best in California.
At best!
There is no significant statewide presence in the conservative movement at all.
Zippo.
Your ideas reign supreme.
You know what also reigns supreme?
U-Haul.
People are leaving.
138,000 people evacuated your state!
So I tweeted out in the gym the other day, one of the great conundrums of my lifetime, something that's always puzzled me, is how, at least on the East Coast, Northeasterners move down here to Florida, where I live, and have for the last three years, and then vote Democrat as they simultaneously complain about the same Democrats who ruin the states they live in!
I don't get it!
I don't understand why you wanted to escape hardcore liberalism and action to go and vote in hardcore liberalism down in the states that doesn't practice it because you believe that state that doesn't practice it provides a better life for you than the state that does.
Does that make any sense?
So liberals, you're supposedly in it for the little guy.
The little guy who can't afford a house, can't afford to drive his car for the gas tax, and can't afford to live.
Cost of living.
Living.
C-O-L.
The cost of living is too high.
You can't even exist in this state based on the income you have.
You flee it in droves, and then you vote this stuff in as you leave and go to other states.
I don't get it.
What gives?
Again, this is a basic Folks, I don't know any other way to say it.
It's just pure ignorance.
There are liberals who do this, who I believe, Joe, genuinely don't understand that the policies they have enacted in the states they left are solely responsible for the destruction of their own lives.
I really don't think they get it.
And I don't think they get it, to tie it back into story number one today, because liberals are so overwhelmingly effective in the culture wars.
Academia, entertainment, television, just about everywhere you go.
They are so overwhelmingly effective in the culture wars that they have managed to gaslight people, as Joe said, and isolate them from the truth that they actually believe that the reason they're leaving their states are because someone else did it, just not the liberals.
It makes no sense.
You may say, what are you talking about, Dan?
I have argued with people when I used to radio host up at CBM with Joe Works and WBAL.
I have argued with callers who, I'm not kidding.
Remember that guy used to call Tom Marr, God rest his soul, I forget his name, Leo or something, Joe?
He used to call in all the time, Baltimore, that has not had a Republican elected in the city council since the 1930s.
He used to call in, I'm not kidding, and blame Republicans for the demise of Baltimore.
That is how effective the Democrats' control over the culture is.
You remember that caller?
I forget his name.
Was it Fred?
Fred!
Yes, Fred!
That was one of the best.
I love Tom Marr.
Tom used to eat him up and he'd call back all the time.
Fred!
They would go at it.
Fred was convinced Republicans ruined Baltimore.
Yep.
Folks, just like Californians leaving, I'm guaranteeing you, because the Democrats own the media and the messaging, and they've isolated people from the truth, disgruntled Californians, I'm sure, are convinced somehow greed, capitalism, and the Republican ideas somehow ruin their states.
That is why I am begging you to return to story one, to do not be a sucker for this net neutrality, upcoming push to regulate, and they're going to try to get conservatives, they're going to say, They went after Dan Bongino on Twitter and Facebook.
We need a government regulation and every, you know, suckers who don't understand what's really going on are going to be like, yeah!
Get him!
Freedom!
Like Braveheart.
Don't be a sucker.
Don't use my name or anyone else to invoke a government response.
It is a disaster.
Once the government knows it's under the tent, trust me, this will not end well.
And when you read the Spectator piece, he closes it by saying exactly that.
This does not portend a good ending for conservatives if we introduce government control.
Because they win the culture war, and they will move right into the political space when they get political power back, and it's going to be you who gets booted off the internet.
All right, folks, thanks again for tuning in.
I really appreciate it.
Please check out the show notes at bongino.com.
I really appreciate it.
If you subscribe to my email list, it means a lot to us, helps us get the message out.
And check out my show tonight, 5.30 p.m.
Eastern Time, nratv.com.
It's live.
Thanks a lot, folks.
See you all tomorrow.
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