Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein critique shifting libertarian demographics and the Libertarian Party's internal bylaw enforcement while attacking CDC mask mandates as unscientific "theater" rather than evidence-based policy. They highlight Texas's record-low COVID numbers following restriction lifts, expose perceived conflicts of interest regarding Wuhan lab funding, and argue that mandatory masking causes psychological harm to children. Ultimately, the episode concludes that freedom and voluntary compliance are superior to state-enforced control, urging society to reject fear-based governance and embrace natural immunity. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Energy in Pittsburgh00:08:28
Fill her up.
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You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
What's up?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
Of course, I am the libertarian Tupac, the most consistent motherfucker.
You know, Dave Smith.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caulks.
What's up, my brother?
Been a little while since we've chatted.
It's good to see that button.
Yes.
How was your event out in Pittsburgh?
I'm brottling the caulks.
It was incredible.
I think the speeches are going to be up, I believe, today.
So we'll see what happens with that.
If not today, probably tomorrow.
But the speeches that Scott Horton and Jeff Deist and Michael Rechtenwald gave, I think all of them should be up in mine as well.
Phenomenal.
Just an incredible event.
It was for people who were there, if you ask anyone who attended, and I have a feeling this will come across on the video, but the energy was just incredible.
And it was, I want to say reinvigorated, but I was never down, but it was an invigorating experience.
And you, we've both been doing some LP events.
You were out in Portland, that anarchist and comhole or whatever.
How was that?
Dude, it was great.
I mean, people came out.
I did a show after the event.
I hung out for the end of what they were doing.
Thaddeus Russell spoke.
I was not that familiar with him, but he was absolutely brilliant.
And like you said, there was a lot of energy.
And I could tell that we were bringing people out.
Like there's a little bit more cool people like you and I and a little bit less of the autistic old guard.
Not to be against the autists, but we like some diversity in the libertarian.
I'm just telling you, we're bringing in some fresh faces.
We're bringing in some women.
We're bringing in new people.
And it's actually...
Women.
Yeah, yeah, some women showing up.
All right, we got to go over the bylaws.
This is getting ridiculous now.
I mean, non-autists is one thing, but women at a libertarian event, that's crazy.
I mean, not a lot, but you know, there were a couple.
You know, someone literally just mentioned to me the other day, and they were like, when are you going to get Thaddeus on the podcast?
And this is just how much of an idiot I am.
I was like, I've had Thaddeus on the podcast before.
And they were like, no, you've always done his show and you've never had him on.
And I'm like, that is ridiculous that I've never had him on.
I'm going to have to, I'll reach out to him this week and try to try to set something up because that's he's he's great.
Just really, really interesting dude who you could learn a lot from.
He is truly an open-minded thinker.
And there are so few of those these days.
Even on our side, there aren't that many.
But he is truly that guy.
So that's cool that you guys were at the same event together.
And then you did what you did, stand-up afterward.
I did a show with my friend Kyle, and it was great.
Fans were awesome.
I got to do a lot of inside jokes.
I made my pitch for why I should be press secretary.
Oh, I have to watch that.
Oh, do you have that on tape?
Yeah, I'll send it to you.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, okay.
I'll go check it.
I've been busy the last few days.
I have to watch that.
I'll watch that with careful consideration, even though I've made my decision already.
I made a compelling case, Dave.
Okay.
All right.
I will hear your case and then rain down my predetermined verdict.
But that's awesome.
Yeah, it's fun.
There's something really fun.
Like this is a little inside baseball.
I don't know how much people listening care, but as a stand-up comedian, you know, there's, you'd imagine, right?
It's so different.
The type of just little things that you can do when it's our crowd who's who's there as compared to just like, you know, a regular audience of people who, you know, you can like kind of like just hint at these little, you know, the inside jokes and the little nuances that only our people get.
And so that's a lot of fun because you don't usually get to be able to do that.
And so it's like, I remember, I mean, like, I've done a lot of them at this point, but I remember doing like roasting.
We did a roast at Tom Woods thousandth episode.
And it was just so much fun because I could just like, you know, roast all of these little guys with details that like the crowd there got so much, you know, and like loved it.
But you would never be able, you know what I mean?
Like making like Mises jokes and stuff like that.
Like as anyway, you just could never do that in front of a real crowd because they haven't read Human Action.
But I'm in front of the only thousand people who ever have.
And so you're like, all right, let's do it.
All right.
Very good.
Very good.
But it's good to experience the actual momentum in person and see like, because you and I were just talking.
We used to hang out at bars.
We've had a lot of conversations and it's easy to forget how many people are listening to this.
And then also, you know, I got into this game just as a comic and kind of bullshitting.
So it still blows my mind that we're making a real impact.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, listen, man, I'm with you on both those points.
It's, it's, you know, there's something about it that's like, you could, like, I don't know exactly how to describe this, but if you could, if I were to tell you, all right, I want you to focus and recreate the feeling you would have if you were out in a, in, you know, the, uh, the terrain in Africa and a lion was about to attack you, right?
Like you understand how no matter how much you try to imagine what that would feel like, you would never actually feel that way, right?
Like if you were actually there, there's just physiological responses that would, that would be much different than just imagining what it would feel like, right?
Well, in the same sense, when you're up in front of a crowd, it could be a hundred people in a room, but there's something like a biological force that you feel like, oh, I'm in front of a group of people, you know?
But when we're doing this, you don't have that, even though we're up in front of a way, way bigger group of people.
I mean, if we ever just saw, neither one of us have ever performed in front of as many people as are listening to us right now.
But if we did, we'd be like, holy shit.
I mean, you'd literally be stepping into like the biggest football stadium in the country going like, wow, this is really something.
But no matter how much you might think that in your head, you can't exactly recreate that feeling.
Like, because what we're doing physically, biologically, is the same thing as if me and you were just having a video call right now, right?
Like if we just took the record button off and me and you were talking, it's the same actual motion.
And so it's this weird thing when you get out and actually meet some of these people, it kind of like becomes real to you.
You know, I had, I had the experience, and I've had this at a lot of libertarian events, but when I was in Pittsburgh, where you'd like kind of meet people and they'd come up and introduce themselves and you'd be like, hey, nice to meet you.
And then it'd be like five minutes into talking and I'd be like, oh, I know you from Twitter.
Like I've interacted with you like a hundred times before.
You know what I mean?
So it's a bizarre thing in this technological age where you're so removed from the real human experience that there's something just so cool about getting out, actually being around real people and doing it in a human style event.
And particularly over the last year where human style events were banned due to COVID or whatever.
But yeah, it's great.
And I think that also, you know, I think a lot of the bullshit and a lot of the libertarian infighting and stuff like that, not all of it, but a lot of it is just because these mediums are so like removed from humanity.
The Caucus Bylaw Debate00:14:34
And, you know, you go on Twitter and everybody's trying to win.
You see this constantly, like, I'm trying to dunk on you and you're trying to dunk on me in 280 characters.
And let's see who could be a little bit snarkier.
And, you know, and then when you meet one of these people at an event, there's a human being in front of you.
You know what I mean?
It's just a completely different thing.
And you're regulated by all of the normal human factors, especially when it's two guys.
And you're like, all right, are you really going to say something to this guy right now that would justify him punching you in the nose?
Probably not.
You know, I mean, maybe, but most of the time, no.
And so I was hearing from, you know, a lot of people in the Mises caucus.
I wasn't at the LP event the next day.
I had to come back home.
I got a pregnant wife and a two-year-old at home.
So had to come back and do that, unfortunately.
Or fortunately, I should say, but just the unfortunate part being I wasn't at that event.
But a lot of people were like, yeah, dude, like I talked to Mises caucus people, Prague caucus people, radical caucus people, and everyone was cool.
And even at an event that was very contentious and all of that.
So, you know, you just start to wonder like how much of the drama online is real or would exist in real human interactions.
And my guess is a much smaller percentage than exists on Twitter.
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All right, let's get back in the show.
Before we move on, can I get the inside scoop on Pittsburgh?
I just saw like loosely online the, I guess, the hostilities, the rule changing, like playing like Monopoly with your friend, just changing the rules at the last minute.
Yeah, well, you know, so I talked about this a little bit on the last episode with Josh Smith, but to me, it's, I actually kind of, I don't know that I completely agree with the way it was being characterized by some in the Mises caucus.
The truth is what happened, right, is that in Pennsylvania, there's been a lot of hostilities between the leadership and the Mises caucus.
That goes back to stuff on the Maj Touré campaign and other things.
And I don't know all of the details on it, so I don't want to cast judgment on either side.
Obviously, I'm sympathetic to the Mises side and to Maj because that's my guy and that's my caucus.
But so the...
Basically, there's a bylaw that states that you have to be a member for at least 180 days in order to be able to vote at the convention.
And the bylaw is always waived.
Every year they waive it and just let new people in because they don't, you know, who wants to discourage new members from participating in the process?
And they're dues paying members and they're there and all of that.
So it's never been like used.
It's never been enforced.
It's always waived.
And for the first time, they didn't waive it because they knew that all the new members were, yeah, well, they knew they were going to lose and that the new members were Mises caucus and they were going to vote for their people.
And it was clear when they got there, they had that, you know, we had the numbers and all of that.
Now, a lot of the people in the Mises caucus, understandably, but their reaction to that is like, this is corruption.
They cheated.
They did this.
And I'm just looking at it and I'm like, well, look, technically, no.
I mean, corruption, I suppose, is debatable, but it's not cheating.
I mean, technically, this is a bylaw that's just never enforced before.
And they use it this time for obvious reasons.
But to me, I just, I go like, okay, so they know what it is.
They knew what they had to do in order to hold on to their positions.
And the truth is, by the next convention, all of the members are going to be eligible.
So they really just kicked the can down the road.
You know, to me, I'm like, I take this as a win.
I take this as an admission from them that they're like, the best we can do is hold off till next convention.
So I'm really not that upset about it.
It's so not libertarian to just want to hold on to your little tiny political position.
Well, if there's one thing that party's not supposed to be about, it's that.
Well, look, there's...
I got my little slice of power here.
There's certainly a fair point to that.
The other thing that I find kind of amusing is that of the people who invoked this bylaw or refused to waive it or whatever you want to say, how many of them would think that like requiring ID or something like that is some great violation of voter rights, right?
You know, like, now I'm not that person, so I'm not going to be a hypocrite.
I go, hey, whatever your rules are that you want to enforce, I suppose you have the right to do that.
But if you're one of those people and then you'll turn around and disenfranchise all these new members, that's pretty contradictory.
Also, one of the really funny things is that those people were bragging about the new membership.
They were bragging about how PPA's membership has like gone through the roof.
And then a lot of them were arguing, like, it's not really Mises caucus who's driving the new membership.
It's us.
But then why wouldn't you want the new members to be eligible to vote?
Seems pretty obvious.
You know, it's a pretty obvious admission.
But to me, I just go, we had this incredible event with tons of enthusiasm.
We go over there and they knew the only way they could hold us off was to invoke this rule that they never use.
Which side would you rather be on?
The one having an incredible event, having the enthusiasm, or the one who's so desperate that they need to use a bylaw that's never before been used, or at least hasn't been used in like 30 plus years, in order to hold on to your little sliver of very little power.
I think it's pretty obvious.
And the way I take it is like, and I said this to the Mises caucus guys, I posted a thing in the group about it.
I was like, no whining, no complaining, not even a thing.
We will all be back next year in bigger numbers.
I already said, I promise next year I'm coming back.
I promise we'll drive more recruitment.
And that's it.
It's a guarantee next year.
So I take it as nothing but a win.
And the success of the Mises Caucus around the country just had huge results in California.
Of course, as we mentioned before, took New Hampshire, took Nevada.
Things are really coming together.
I would say.
For all the stuff I talked at the beginning of the year, I couldn't be more thrilled with the way it's all unfolding.
So that's the, anyway, I just think it's great.
And that's that.
Okay.
So since we've spoken, some things have changed in the state of the COVID regime.
Some pretty major things have changed.
I'm sure you've seen all of this, but I guess the first big one is that the CDC changed their guidelines for vaccinated people.
And they said that vaccinated people don't have to wear masks, don't have to social distance.
And it seems to kind of be at least partially an admission that what people like me and you were saying was, how do you say it?
Right.
And it's pretty interesting to me to see how all of a sudden this group at the CDC, and this is like really gets into like the religion of statism, but that these group of people at the CDC, these bumbling idiots who have gotten everything wrong from the beginning of this, you know, like the people who would have had you wiping down your groceries for all these months, have nothing to do with, you know, mitigating the virus or the spread of the virus.
That they say something and you're supposed to like snap your fingers and now believe a whole different worldview than you believed before.
And that a week before, people like me and you who would say this would be demonized.
And a week after, it's totally acceptable.
It's literally just like the church has spoken and now this is our policy.
I was like, but I was advocating this policy last week.
You're like, well, it wasn't the policy of the church last week.
That's just what it is.
So there's a clip.
I shared this on Twitter, but I wanted to play it on the podcast because I thought this was like just, oof, one of those clips that just kind of says it all without intending on saying it all.
But this was Rachel Maddow, who is the, she's not just MSNBC's biggest show.
She's their only show.
If you look at the ratings, they are collapsing with everyone except her.
She's the only one who has like an audience that's anything.
It better help get Trump back if they want those advertising dollars.
Yeah, they were doing a lot better under Trump.
Joe Biden has not been good for business over at MSNBC.
But this was her reaction to the CDC guideline changes.
And I just, man, I thought this was fascinating and really kind of says it all.
So let's take a listen.
It is an amazing thing.
I mean, I will just tell you at a personal level, I'm sorry for speaking of all that in such personal terms with Dr. Wilensky, but when I was talking to people today about this new guidance and what to ask her, everybody had very personal feelings about it.
And I realized I did too and all these questions.
Part of it is that I feel like I'm going to have to rewire myself so that when I see somebody out in the world who's not wearing a mask, I don't instantly think you are a threat or you are selfish or you are a COVID denier and you definitely haven't been vaccinated.
I mean, we're going to have to rewire the way that we look at each other because the CDC's guidance, which she just told me we are sure, is that if you're vaccinated, you don't need to wear a mask except in very specific circumstances.
And so that means as we change that as a country, we are going to look at each other differently and have to unwire our preconceptions about what a mask or a lack of a mask means.
President Biden spoke to that a little bit today, asking for people to, President Biden actually and Dr. Fauci both spoke to that today, asking for people to essentially be patient, be compassionate, give people respect for whatever they decide on this front, because with these, with this changing guidance, we're going to now have changing norms and we got to give each other space to have feelings about that.
Um, as we go through what's going to be a big change that's going to create a lot of visceral, um, a lot of visceral reaction in a lot of us just in our day-to-day lives.
Big day, big change.
Yeah, big day, big change.
Except for everybody who's just been, you know, had the tiniest bit of independent critical thinking and isn't just responding to what the orders that came down from the state today are.
So I listen, this was like, to me, just remarkable that, you know, and this is, I'll tell you, I think the benefit of these echo chamber type shows where, you know, Rachel Maddow is on the left.
I mean, an establishment liberal type posing as a leftist, but her whole audience agrees with her on everything.
And the value in that is that you'll just talk, like you're not guarded.
So if Rachel Maddow was debating a conservative, she'd probably be a little bit more guarded before such an admission because she'd see like, oh, they're about to hit me for this.
But she's just kind of letting it fly.
And that's really valuable in some ways that she is literally just saying, she's think about this.
I mean, take a step back and zoom out and go, what is she saying other than I have now gotten my marching orders from the state?
And so I'm going to have to rethink this whole thing of demonizing and hating any of my fellow citizens who commit the crime of showing their face.
She's like, man, I've been so used to demonizing these people.
I'm going to have to rewire myself.
Now, why was I demonizing these people?
Well, because those were the orders of my church before this.
And now, and by the way, I don't mean this as an insult to churches.
Churches have not been this corrupt for like a thousand years.
Okay.
So I'm just saying that this is a religion, this statism thing.
But think about this.
She's like, man, I rewired myself to hate anyone who showed their face in public because I got orders from the government.
And now the government has given me orders that I don't have to hate anyone for showing their face.
So, man, this is going to be crazy.
Like, she's just saying this publicly.
Man, this is going to be so wild to not demonize my fellow citizens for breathing in public.
I just, I thought that was like unbelievable that she would say that and not even think to herself that someone might view this like the way we're viewing this, you know?
Like someone might be like, oh my God.
Now, this is now the other crazy thing is that this is the, you know, the press who obviously do not serve in this function, but who would claim that they serve the function of holding the state accountable or holding the powerful accountable.
And this is how much they just bend to their marching orders.
It's really fascinating.
And don't even ask, hey, so what changed over one week?
What's the change here?
What's the science?
You guys keep speaking to the science and also I call it bullshit.
If this lady, firstly, maybe she spends her whole life in her nice mansion and then she gets just like shepherded to work and she never has to see people.
Vaccine Passport Concerns00:06:43
But I promise you, when she does see people, she hasn't been panicking every time she's around someone without a mask and wondering whether or not she has to demonize and shame them.
Yeah, I mean, look, I don't know.
I don't know.
I think a lot of, you know, I think it's possible that she spends all her time in her mansion and is just kind of like, yeah, I'm following these are the rules and this is how I view things.
I don't know.
Or maybe she's just lying.
Either way, it's pretty damn creepy.
But it speaks kind of to this bigger thing that I think is really an important point, whether or not she's being genuine.
There's a lot of people out there who are that people have, particularly in these Democrat, Democratic big cities, have really just psychologically bought into the COVID hysteria.
And for them now to have to unwind that in their minds is going to be psychologically challenging.
Yeah, they have to figure out how to be human beings again.
I mean, she's being full of shit.
You're not really going to be, oh my God, I'm looking at someone's face and I'm like, I'm just used to being alarmed about it.
She's selling the propaganda.
So this is the news story now of, oh, my God, look, we can finally make our adjustments back to life.
You could have the whole time.
I've been out and about.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, no, absolutely.
I mean, it's always been, and, and, and this has really been like kind of accepted even by a lot of people in the establishment that it's like, oh, yeah, wearing masks outside has kind of always been bullshit.
There's just no, there's been nothing.
At least they'll admit that, right?
Like that's always been bullshit.
And, but again, you know, to your point that I think you really nailed it is like the idea that you're not going.
So wait a minute, like did something change in the science?
Or was this always the case?
Wouldn't that have, if this was always the case, wouldn't this have to come with an admission of I was wrong to demonize all of those people?
And if there is a change in the science, then, you know, explain it to me.
And why aren't we returning people's freedom to them faster?
Why is it that we're like, we have to wait for evidence of returning the freedom?
Then go, we're just changing policy.
Wait a second.
There should be accountability here that if for a full month you were telling us we weren't allowed to do things and we could, where's the commission on that?
Where's the policy review on why the CDC can't make these recommendations sooner, especially when they seem to just be obvious?
What exactly, like, I mean, seriously, what changed from a week ago that vaccinated people don't need to wear like, no, no, no, that should have always been the case.
What science ever supported that someone who is vaccinated should be wearing the mask?
And so if you were withholding freedoms from us, please, an explanation.
Like, it's not a casual thing.
It's so funny because the logic of it just all falls apart so quickly, right?
So if you're saying like, well, vaccinated people don't have to wear masks anymore.
And this is kind of what Joe Biden, you know, Joe Biden tweeted and then gave a speech about this.
That's what Meta was referring to, where he said, here's the rules.
And the rules are simple.
If you're vaccinated, you don't have to wear a mask anymore.
If you're not vaccinated, you have to wear a mask until you are, right?
And then what people will say is, yeah, but how do we know who's vaccinated and who's not?
But the thing that's really right at the, like just the thorn sticking in the heel of the person making that argument is like, oh, wait a minute.
Whose risk are you concerned with now?
Because if you are vaccinated, you don't have to be concerned about the unvaccinated person not wearing the mask, right?
The concern, I guess, would be for the unvaccinated person who's not wearing the mask.
So your concern is for someone who's taking their own risk.
And if you are unvaccinated and you want to keep wearing the mask, then okay, whatever.
Keep wearing the mask.
Like the voluntary solution solves all of these problems.
You know?
Well, the unspoken part is that they want to punish you if you're not getting the vaccine because they want that element of control over our life.
So the idea is that if you're not going to be vaccinated, there still needs to be a built-in punishment into the system where you're not allowed to have freedom until you buy into what we're telling you.
I will say that for those who look at this and go, hey, this is a victory that the unvaccinated don't have to wear masks and maybe none of us have to wear masks.
I mean, I'll just throw some fear at you.
And I hope this doesn't happen.
But you know, we were talking about like how the vaccine passport was like wearing a star.
Could be the mask is going to be the same thing where it's going to be very clear who's not vaccinated.
You might go, well, I'm not going to wear the mask if other people don't.
And by the way, thus far, when I've been going to places, for the most part, I don't wear a mask.
I've gone to Comic Clips.
I don't wear the mask.
What if cops actually start showing up places and there is some sort of a vaccine card?
And if you're not wearing a mask, they want your proof of that.
Well, this is that we're kind of up against the fourth quarter here with the vaccine passport thing, right?
So that's kind of the thing is that, well, now this is it.
Because if they're going to push it, they got to push it now.
Now, there's the optimistic side, which is that, look, they floated this out and there was a lot of pushback and backlash against it.
And it's possible that this is them conceding that they're like, look, we can't get it done.
So we got to just let people, you know, like we got to let the vaccinated people take their masks off so that there's at least some incentive to get people to take this vaccine, which clearly is what they want at this point, right?
But the other, the pessimistic side is that if they were going to make their move, they'd have to make it now because they are setting up a situation that kind of makes no sense.
Now, because of what I said before, there's no concern about it, but they can certainly pretend there is.
And if you're saying that it's safe for vaccinated people to be maskless, but it's not safe for unvaccinated people to be maskless, and you don't think through the, you know, the thorn in the side that I mentioned before.
Well, what does that lead to you asking?
How do we know?
Are we just doing this on the honor system?
And if you're going, if you're in the COVID regime mindset and you're saying it's completely justified to do everything we did over the last year and that COVID is this horrible pandemic that we have to keep all of these things in place to mitigate.
Doesn't the honor system not seem good enough?
You know what I mean?
Like, doesn't that seem like that wouldn't quite work well enough?
And so there's, you know, you've got a real issue there.
So if they were going to push through this vaccine passport, now would be the time.
So people got to stay vigilant on that.
And if there's any suggestion of that, people got to just lose their minds.
And there has to be like mass backlash against it.
Because, you know, as I was saying back on the episodes that we were doing about the passport, the American people can rise up and stop a policy.
iTrust Capital Promo00:03:00
Believe me, if we didn't push back against a lot of different things, things would be worse than they are now.
Not that they're great.
So anyway, we'll see what happens with that.
It is interesting, though, to watch them do these things, which they've done several times through the COVID regime and they've done at different points in my life.
But to watch the pivot is pretty fascinating.
And it's this, you know, it relies on you pretending you don't remember what just happened, like just a few weeks ago and what was being said about like anyone who was advocate, you know, as you pointed out with no change in the science, anyone who was advocating what you're advocating today last week was a Nazi.
And this week, they're just following the science, you know, like, how does that happen?
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Mixed Signals on Masks00:12:25
All right, let's get back into the show.
So Young Americans for Liberty posted this video that I shared.
I love those guys over at Young Americans for Liberty.
A lot of really good people in that organization.
And they posted this.
I retweeted it.
But it's a great little compilation.
I wanted to play this video of our Lord and Savior, Dr. Fauci, and the great Rand Paul playing them together.
So let's check that out.
Before the CDC made the recommendation change, I didn't want to look like I was giving mixed signals.
But being a fully vaccinated person, the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low.
And that's the reason why, in indoor settings now, I feel comfortable about not wearing the mask.
You're telling everybody to wear a mask, whether they've had an infection or a vaccine.
What I'm saying is they have immunity and everybody agrees they have immunity.
What studies do you have that people that have had the vaccine or have had the infection are spreading the infection?
If we're not spreading the infection, isn't it just theater?
No, it's not the vaccine and you're wearing two masks.
Isn't that theater?
No, that's not here.
We go again with the theater.
Let's get down to the facts.
I didn't want to look like I was giving mixed signals, but being a fully vaccinated person, the chances of my getting infected in an indoor setting is extremely low.
And that's the reason why in indoor settings now.
So look at that.
I mean, come on, man.
Like, what's infuriating more than anything else is it's almost like, look, you could have all of this.
You could have all of this happen.
But don't you have to apologize to Rand Paul then?
Like, don't you have to admit that he was right about that?
Now, of course, don't hold your breath.
That will literally never happen.
But I'm sorry.
That's exactly what he was saying.
Exactly what he was saying.
I mean, you may use the term sending, didn't want to be sending mixed messages, and he may use the term theater, but that's an admission.
The point he was making is that this isn't based on the science.
And Fauci is now confirming, yes, this isn't based on the science.
Now, it's actually more forgivable for Rachel Maddow in some sense that you go, well, she's a talk show host and she's responding to what the CDC says.
But for Fauci, it's not like, oh, well, the CDC says this now.
The CDC isn't some god or some, you know, group of aliens.
What are they getting their information from epidemiologists?
And you're supposed to be head epidemiologist.
So you should have known the same science back when Rand Paul was sitting there.
And all these people on Twitter who mock Rand Paul, oh, you're an eye doctor.
What do you know?
You're talking to an epidemiologist.
What do you know about this?
Well, he was dead right.
He was dead right about that.
Fauci's vaccinated, walking around double masked.
And it's so weird because he's like, well, I didn't want to send mixed signals.
Well, what does this send now?
That head TV doctor, Fauci, who's been appointed as like the head of COVID, even though it's all probably his fault, that he is sitting there double masked, while vaccinated and now going, nope, no mask.
And he's doing that because he didn't want to send mixed signals.
Yeah, the Rand Paul thing, I mean, first, how can anyone trust Fauci anymore?
I haven't seen for a while, this guy's a liar.
And now you just have proof.
He just openly said, yes, I lied over there, but it was for this reason.
But I think the problem's even a little bit worse because Rand Paul's question is essentially, hey, you're claiming that you're a scientist.
We're making science, decisions around the science.
So what science do you have right now to say that you need to be wearing a mask?
Because it seems to me like you don't.
And Fauci's answer was, well, no, no, no, that's the science.
Yes, it's important.
And he's shitty to him saying, how dare you declare this theater?
Now it's a month later where you're going, no, there was no science then.
And I lied to say that there was science because whatever my reason is.
But that's the bigger issue is that you've got a guy saying, hey, we got to follow the science who is not following science.
He's not, when asked for the evidence, he won't present it.
And then he's more than happy to change his story later on because guess what?
It actually is theater.
I don't know what the fuck Fauci's trying to sell you, but it is theater.
This guy is like a pharmaceutical salesman or whatever, whatever the fuck he's trying to do.
He's playing his cards to create that there's a certain amount of risk for COVID that does not exist.
And at every step of the way, he's trying to play up that there's more risk than there really is and that they're in control and that you have to follow his guidelines.
And that is just not true.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
You're 100% right.
And let me, because there was one other little piece of information that I think I might have mentioned on the podcast with Josh Smith, but it's worth mentioning again because they, you know, it's just on the topic of Fauci following the science.
So Fauci, of course, said that when Texas, was it a little over a month ago, when they ended all of the COVID restrictions, ended the mask mandates, all the capacity limitations, all that stuff, he predicted that it was going to be a disaster.
And so just two days ago, Texas had some new numbers to report.
Okay.
Zero COVID-related deaths.
The only time that's happened since data was tracked back in March of 2020.
The fewest COVID cases in over 13 months.
The lowest seven-day COVID positivity rate ever.
The lowest COVID hospitalizations in 11 months.
And there is just no.
Freedom's healing.
Well, look at that.
But there's no, you know, call to rectify this from all of the people who preach disaster.
And there were so many of them said when Texas did this, it was going to just be a nightmare.
And this is, it's getting to a point where it's becoming overwhelming.
And I think that's a big part of why you're seeing the CDC change their guidelines and why you're seeing Rachel Maddow and Dr. Fauci change his tune.
It's not that it's based on the science.
It's the fact that they're trying to lie about the science, but the evidence is becoming overwhelming that even a casual observer can look at that and go, I mean, if Texas is open and they have the best numbers they've had through this whole pandemic, why the hell shouldn't we all be open?
Why should there be any of these restrictions left?
We need anti, like, you know, they make the really bad anti-campaign ads when people are running and they'll pull the highlights of every time they lied and were wrong.
We need people to start doing that for Fauci as if he was running for something and people at home getting confused.
Like, wait, is he running for something?
But just those, we need like those style ads to all of us.
Like what we moved from his position.
Like what we just saw with the Rand Paul one, but with all of them.
Like with all of his, yeah, man, anyone listening want to put together something like that?
That'd be really great.
Just with all of his hits of just everything he said that's wrong.
And there's so much.
You won't be able to fit it all into a video, but pick some really good ones and just drag them for it because it's just, it's insane.
Well, I'll tell you that I think a really big sign to me in this whole change was Cuomo saying, because, you know, there's this weird thing where, so Joe Biden goes, oh, hey, if you're, if you're vaccinated, you don't need to wear the mask anymore, you know?
And then you're like, oh, okay.
So again, there's this disconnect like we always talk about.
They're like, oh, you could take your mask off outside.
And I look outside, like, people have had their mask off for a year, but okay.
But he says, you don't need to wear it.
The president says that.
And then you're like, okay, well, there's no real way of proving that I'm vaccinated or not.
And, you know, I identify as a vaccinated person.
So I'm going to take my mask off.
But then, by the way, I identify as a vaccinated person.
But then if you go on the train or on a plane or in an airport or any of this shit, it's like, oh, okay, well, they're all still enforcing these mask rules.
So I know the president said this, but doesn't really seem to be affecting real life.
So you're like, okay, where do we actually go from here?
And, you know, now you have Cuomo going, he's going to end the mask mandates effective today, the day that we're recording this.
There are no more mask mandates in New York City.
So now where do we go?
Like, what's actually going to happen on the ground?
And it is just weird that because people have been trained, really conditioned for well over a year now, or for, yeah, you know, a little over a year now, excuse me, that this is unsafe.
This is an unsafe thing.
And how are people going to readjust as Rachel Maddow is struggling to do?
How are people going to rewire their brains?
Yeah, I was at the stand last night and I'm just going around not wearing a mask because it's like, I don't know.
It's okay.
It was technically today, or maybe it was the night before last night.
It says technically today that the mask mandate ends.
But are you still telling me I still got to wear it on Monday when they've announced that on Wednesday you no longer need to wear it?
Like, what are we doing?
You know?
And I did, one of the staff members, a newer staff member, I don't think knew who I was, was like, oh, sir, you have to have your mask on.
And I'm just like, dude, what are we doing here?
What are we doing?
I'm not on top of anybody.
I'm not talking face to face with them.
I'm not transmitting this virus to anyone.
I don't have the virus.
You don't have it.
So it's going to be interesting to see how these places start to.
Now, the stand, I know.
I mean, I know the owners there.
I think they're not going to enforce it.
You know, I mean, why not?
Just let the rules be.
If you want to wear a mask, wear a mask.
But I will say that I have been, I mentioned this in the Josh Smith episode too, but I have been more and more brazen about not wearing a mask just in all situations where for a while I was kind of like, well, look, if the businesses require this, I'm going to respect their wishes.
I don't want to get in a fight with some employee or something who's not even responsible for these decisions and just has to enforce it, probably doesn't really want to.
But at this point, I just feel a little bit of pressure.
I mean, look, if someone in a private business asks me to put a mask, I'll put it back on.
I'm not trying to be a dick.
It's your place.
You can have your rules.
But you're like, I just think that some people need to start being pushed to see faces again and see that it's okay.
And there's nothing, you can't live your life in fear over a germ.
Like, it's all right.
And I think that, you know, the situation in Texas, it's like, well, what can what can account for this?
Why is it that they're opening back up and the numbers are lower than they were while they had the restrictions?
And it seems to me that the only reasonable answer is that, number one, there's a basic, you know, adjustment that human beings have made.
I think we're a little bit less likely to be two feet apart from somebody else than have a long conversation for 15 minutes without being somewhat conscious of like, are you right on top of somebody else?
And, you know, our little spit particles flying back and forth.
I think that, you know, people are probably like these basic little voluntary things that people just do naturally.
I think if somebody's sick, they're a little bit less likely to go out and mingle.
Like if you have symptoms, you know, back in the day, you'd be like, I'm going to tough it out and go to work anyway.
I got a little cold.
Now people are a little bit more hesitant to do that.
But really, I think it's that a lot of people have been vaccinated.
A lot of people have had COVID already.
There's just a lot of immunity out there.
You know, I don't know exactly what the numbers are.
I think it's over half of the adult population has been vaccinated.
Of the other half, who knows?
I've seen estimates, 30 to 50% have had it, have some natural immunity.
I think that's really the answer.
I think it's just not spreading as much because of that.
That's my guess.
Again, I don't know.
But something's accounting for this.
Fauci's going to have to invest in more gain of function research so that he can figure out a new variant that forces people to get their masks back on.
Funding Gain of Function Research00:02:40
Oh, yeah.
I mean, that round with Rand Paul, it was so dirty how dishonest he was being.
They'd be like, you have pushed gain of function research.
And it'd be like, I have never invested in gain of function research in China.
And you're like, okay, but that's a very specific sentence.
And if you actually look at it, right, this is what's the fact of the matter is that they certainly were doing gain of function research in the Wuhan lab.
The Wuhan lab certainly got money from an American subsidiary who got money from Fauci's organization.
But Fauci can play these little word games and say, well, we didn't give them money for that reason.
And on some technical level, it's true.
You know, like on some technical level, but the group you gave money to did give them money and they do do gain of function research.
So it's like one of these things where, you know, like obviously money, funds are fungible, you know?
So you could say, like, if somebody just gave me $20,000 and I soup up my studio, right?
Like I just get like a whole new camera, whole new setup, whole new microphones, new everything.
And then you would be like, well, you just gave Dave money for part of the problem.
And they could say, no, no, no, no.
I gave Dave money to pay his rent.
I mean, I guess, you know, you can claim that that money wasn't for this, it was for that.
But once you give them the money, it's the money in my account and I spent it how I spent it.
So they were doing that research there and you did give them money.
I mean, I'm sorry, by any reasonable standard, Rand Paul is right about this, just like he was right in the clip that we just showed you.
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CDC Cover Up Claims00:10:50
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All right, let's get back into the show.
With the Fauci and him claiming that the money's not going there, if you've spent two years saying that this virus is the worst thing in the entire world and you have any degree of responsibility for it and that maybe you funded it, like you're not allowed to be in this position anymore.
You can't both be the one saying, hey, this is the worst thing that ever happened and have any degree of responsibility for it whatsoever.
Well, yeah.
And this is the issue with when they, you know, they say like, oh, they dismissed it so quickly last year.
Oh, we've determined that the whole, you know, will.
The head of the CDC got removed a pair or it's seemingly removed from his post for saying, I don't think that's actually what happened, but they're going to sort it out.
So the fact that the official government narrative is just, hey, it didn't come out from the lab.
Firstly, China didn't let them in for an entire year.
There's a lot of experts that have looked at this thing and said, this doesn't naturally jump in this way.
And viruses don't usually advance in this way.
So there's plenty of people who are going, this doesn't make sense.
And then you also have the head of the CDC, who was the head when like a year ago said that he thinks it's out of that lab.
For whatever reason, he's no longer in that job and he's being polite about it to say, listen, they're going to have to work out the details.
But the fact that it's just like some, you know, cut it, if anything, this exposes why the CDC is trying to cover up for China.
It's because, you know, Fauci sent him the fucking money.
Yeah, look, what?
So there are a lot of experts who really believe that this is by far the most likely scenario.
Nicholas Wade, who's an absolute expert in this field, was like the head science correspondent for the New York Times.
He was the editor of the science section of the New York Times.
He was also the editor of science and nature at different points in his career.
So this is like a real deal, about as accredited as you could be to cover this news.
He came out and said it is all but a foregone conclusion that this came from the Wuhan lab.
Now, again, I'm not going to lie to you guys and say, I know that this for a fact is correct, but we do know that there are experts who are saying this is the most likely origin.
We do know that they were doing gain of function research and specifically working on viruses in the coronavirus family at this lab.
And we do know that they were very unsafe at this lab, that they didn't have any of the protections and regulations in place that you would in America if you were working on these type of viruses.
And there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of pieces to the wet market story that just don't add up.
So we know all of that.
And right, like you would think at the very least, this should be investigated by a neutral party.
I mean, God damn, this is the biggest thing like that ever happened.
And we better figure out what the hell caused it.
And as Rand Paul was saying, he goes, you know, there are some of these other viruses they're working on that have like a 15% fatality rate.
I mean, like, can you imagine if COVID had a thi, you know, it's, it's like under 1%.
Imagine it was 15%.
Just imagine what, you know, havoc this would have wreaked on the world.
Wreaked?
Wrecked?
Whatever.
The point is, you know, it's, it's certainly worth being investigated.
And I think you're absolutely right that you're like, seeing as how Fauci was the guy who signed off on invoking the clause so that we could keep funding this research.
He should be out.
That's enough that just goes, you should be out.
There's too much of a conflict of interest here.
I'm sorry.
You cannot be the guy who's, you know, the guy who's accused of murder can't be the judge in the trial about that murder.
And I don't know much about gain of function research.
It could be that there's a very practical.
It doesn't sound good, but it could be that there's a practical purpose for it and it would do well.
But the same way, if you're a drug manufacturer, you're trying to develop a drug, like I can't be anti-developing a drug.
But if you actually put the money into a project that turns into like people turning into, you fuck up, you lose your job.
That's the way life is supposed to work.
And when that doesn't happen, it seems to present some flaws in the strict in the system that for some reason somebody is too powerful.
And in this case, I have not fully researched Rand Paul's claims, but if I, every video I've watched of Rand Paul duking it out with Fauci, Rand Paul has been proved to be correct.
And so I would not be surprised if it's the same thing with this gain of function research.
Yeah.
And that's exactly it, right?
It's like there's, we don't know a lot of the details about this.
And it's not to suggest that this was done intentionally, you know, probably not.
But we want to get down to the bottom of what happened here.
And there have to be some consequences for the people who were responsible.
Now, that's not saying it could be a horrible accident.
Okay.
But the guys responsible for the horrible accident shouldn't be out there lecturing everybody else about what we have to do and certainly shouldn't be lauded as the hero of the pandemic.
And I would also think one of the elements of studying history or science for that matter is like, let's figure out firstly if a mistake was made and then let's not repeat it.
But if you got the guy in charge trying to cover his own ass because he put money into these things, so then yeah, we're not going to find out what happened here and we're more at risk for this happening again.
Yeah, no, that's exactly right.
So anyway, this is this is really, you know, to return to the theme of what we were saying before, this is really crunch time now that we're going to find out what they're doing because there is, I'll tell you, if they're going to push for any type of COVID passport or something like that, they have to get it done now.
They have to.
This is the only time you're going to be able to do it because the cat's kind of out of the bag of official people already coming down and saying you don't need masks inside.
You don't need to be socially distant inside.
So now this is either all or nothing.
And I am optimistic that they're not going to be able to get it done.
But man, if there's even one hint of a COVID passport, we need to do whatever the hell we can to push back on that.
And there was, I don't know if you saw that, Governor Murphy in New Jersey said they still, he's still not.
Even after Cuomo, he goes, no, we're still going to wait a couple more weeks.
We're still going to, and you do see this reaction from a lot of people on the liberal side who are just like, they're outraged about this.
This is so reckless.
Why is the CDC doing this?
And it's interesting to see that all of a sudden, Governor Murphy, a lot of these blue check liberals, oh, they have no problem going against CDC guidelines, even though that's been the justification for the last year.
You have to follow the science.
Well, all of a sudden, the science didn't bend in their direction.
I mean, the science TM, like the science hasn't been in their favor in a long time.
But all of a sudden, now you have a governor just saying he's not going to follow the CDC guidelines.
But he's not getting demonized in the way that DeSantis was doing a great job handling the situation and actually giving people basic liberties in Florida.
So isn't that interesting?
All of a sudden, it's okay to not follow the science, TM, if it's in the direction of overreacting to COVID.
You don't get nearly the scrutiny or the pressure that you do if you were to not follow CDC guidelines and be lax about COVID restrictions.
So all of this is very interesting.
This is quite a time.
I'm excited to fucking, you know, I'm somewhat very, very, very cautiously optimistic that perhaps we will start to wind back some of this insanity and people will start losing the masks.
I mean, you know, to, you know, do you remember, can you remember in a little part of your mind what wearing masks was like a year and a half ago?
You know, when you'd see people wearing a mask, like it was always a lot of Asian people in New York City would wear masks on the subway.
And everybody else was just kind of like, that's weird.
That's a weird thing to do.
You're going to live your life afraid of germs to the point that you're covering your mouth and nose wherever you go.
You know, it's just a weird thing to do.
And when you start to think about even what Fauci himself is admitting here, right?
He goes, as a vaccinated person, he goes, the likelihood of me contracting the virus or spreading the virus is so incredibly low.
And by the way, that also applies to someone who's had the virus, who has natural immunity in the exact same way.
And you go, the idea that you are concerned with that risk, again, this just, you start to get into the territory of like being someone who's saying, you know, I'll never cross the street because I could get hit by a car.
It's like, it's not that the risk doesn't exist exactly, but to live your life in fear of this incredibly unlikely, you know, event really, really seems like you're getting into the realm of what an unhealthy person obsesses over.
You know, germaphobia is considered a phobia.
This is a sickness that people have that in many cases prevents them from having a normal life and being a happy, well-adjusted person.
This is not something that regular people should aspire to be.
I mean, that's now, I suppose there's still an argument if you're someone who is substantially immunocompromised that you want to be super careful about this.
But for the rest of people, for healthy people, and particularly for children, man, I really hope we can get back to some semblance of normal.
I really hope the next step is stopping children from wearing masks, which I just can't believe.
I can't imagine how much that must suck and how weird and psychologically damaging it's got to be for kids.
Did you see the video of that little kid who was like testifying in front of his school board?
Oh, it was heartbreaking.
It's like this little like 10-year-old boy.
It was really well-spoken for a 10-year-old.
And I'm sure, you know, like he had some help from his parents, you know, preparing his little speech.
Kids Wearing Masks00:01:28
But he's saying these things where he goes, he was talking about how he ran into his teacher outside on a weekend or something like that.
And she didn't recognize him because she's never seen his face before.
And like, oh.
And he was talking about how they have to play in recess with the mask on and he hates it and it gets damp and gross and he's got allergies.
You know, just picture some little kid with snot and boogers all stuck in this mask and the teachers yell at him if he pulls the mask down at all.
I mean, it's just like, what are we doing to our kids, man?
This is sick.
Like, can we stop doing this?
Please, dear God, are there any sane people left?
Like, oh my God, liberals, Trump is gone.
Get back to reality.
Get back to some sense of normalcy.
Jesus.
Be great if that teacher was just a shitty drunk.
It had nothing to do with the mask.
It's just the weekend.
She goes, I don't know.
I like yelling at kids and I don't pay attention much.
All right, buddy.
Well, let's wrap there.
That's our episode for today.
Do not forget, come see me and Rob at Porkfest.
I'm not actually sure if there are still tickets available, but you might be able to get in.
So go right now.
This is probably going to be your last opportunity.