Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein critique President Biden's State of the Union, highlighting his Iran/Ukraine slip-up and the administration's flawed economic policies like price controls. They condemn CNN for profiting from wars in Ukraine and Syria while mocking Schumer's solitary applause and Pelosi's gestures. The hosts argue the nation faces a precarious state due to unconstitutional mandates and corporate welfare, proposing solutions such as ending COVID restrictions, abolishing the national security state, and pursuing detente with Russia. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Platforming The Protesters00:04:20
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
We need to roll back the state.
We spy on all of our own citizens.
Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
You're listening to part of the problem on the Gas Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I'm Dave Smith, the most consistent motherfucker you know, Libertarian Tupac.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, COVID Jesus, the king of the caulks.
What's up, my brother?
Nothing much.
How are you today, Mr. Smith?
Doing good, man.
Doing good.
Getting looking forward to going off to the Libertarian Party Pennsylvania state convention this week.
This is going to be a really interesting one.
It's one of the feisty battlegrounds?
Yeah, one of the more feisty battlegrounds, these state conventions.
And this is the one where last year they so last year they refused to have me speak at the convention.
And so we held a counter event that was way bigger and more fun.
And then this year, they invited me to speak at the convention.
And then, I guess, a few of the haters passed a motion to ban me after I had already been invited and accepted.
But it got voted down.
And they, so like, I think even like some of the people in the middle there were like, nah, dude, we're not doing this again.
Like he's just going to bring more people to a different thing than our thing.
Like just let him bring the people to our thing.
So, which is good.
I'm glad.
I hold no like resentment about it.
I don't give a shit.
I'm happy to go.
I'm excited.
Hey, people that passed the resolution, hit me up.
I'll do the counter convention with you guys.
We'll counter this convention.
I'll lead the anti-Dave Smith contingency.
Let's have some fun with it.
It's only, you're really only angling for a matter of time to just heel turn on me and go the other side.
Honestly, I couldn't hate you for it.
The counter protests have been fun.
I would have enjoyed joining the Antifa people when we were up in Rochester.
So check this out, by the way.
We'll get into the episode in a second.
I know this is just a little inside baseball stuff.
But so I guess there were a few disgruntled, angry, you know, libertarians who don't like me who were upset that that motion failed and that they're having me to speak.
They're having this horrible person, you know, me to speak at the event.
So there, I heard rumors that they were going to protest outside, like what we had in Rochester.
You know, they'll all walk.
Although, I mean, the difference is it's like, you know, it's Pennsylvania in the winter, so it's going to be a less comfortable protest.
But so I decided, I just figured, and this is kind of in my typical fashion, I just put this out there.
I said, hey, how about this?
All the people who want to protest, which there's going to be like eight or something like that, I would guess.
I go, how about instead of protesting?
Like Archie Flower.
They all are.
They're all eight of him.
So I go, how about instead of protesting, you can all come on the podcast?
You go, I'll bring some equipment, some recording equipment.
I'll get someone to find us a space.
You can all come on all of you versus me.
I said, only one rule is we can't all talk over each other the whole time.
There's got to be somewhat ordered, like you go, and then I get to respond and then you can respond and then I can respond type thing.
But I go, how about that?
You can, you'll reach, you know, thousands of times more people than you'll reach protesting outside.
So why don't you do that?
Still haven't heard anything back from them on that.
You offered to platform the protesters.
Platform you and I will one by one by one take on whatever your grievance is with me and all of you versus me.
Doesn't that seem like a reasonable offer?
So we'll see.
Still haven't heard anything back.
I'm doing a lot of podcasting now.
So excuse me if I have this wrong.
Run your mouth daily briefing.
Check it out.
But didn't we already discuss?
Didn't they hand out pamphlets in California with some crazy shit about you?
Oh, yeah.
Like a Nazi logo on it.
Yeah, dude.
I have it.
I have it somewhere.
I'm going to hang it up in the office here.
Why They Ignored My Offer00:04:25
But yeah, it was fucking nuts.
Oh, yeah.
There's some real derangement.
But this was like one really, really weird person out in California who was doing it.
I guess there's a few more in Pennsylvania.
Anyway, I don't, I'm not, I'm not allergic to confrontation.
So it's like, okay, let's go.
Let's do it.
All right.
Anyway, let's get into the episode today.
Last night, Joe Biden delivered the State of the Union address.
And let's, we're going to do a podcast responding to it.
So did you watch the whole thing, Rob?
Hell yeah, I did.
Yes.
Okay, very good.
Can I start off?
I want to say I was disappointed by it because this is a different Joe Biden who seems to be holding it together.
Now, I didn't agree with what he had to say, and he had one epic blunder with the Iran thing, but like it honestly seems like they've given him steroids, drugs, and this is just a coherent individual.
Well, it's not what I tune into Biden for.
But there's something about Joe Biden where, like, it's, it's weird.
It's almost, it's part of the genius of Joe Biden is that he gets the expectations so low that you're kind of like, he talked for an hour.
He did, he talked for an hour.
And at no point did he just start walking up to a wall and yelling at it or something.
You know what I mean?
You're like, none of that happened.
I don't know.
The stuttering was somewhat under control.
He lost his place a few times, but was able to pull it back together.
Like, you really grade him on such a Joe Biden curve that like you get, you're like, what?
He pulled it off.
Like his presidency isn't over because of that speech.
Um, yeah, the Iran line.
What did he say about Iran?
What was the flub again?
He meant to say Ukraine.
He just meant to stand with the people of Iran.
Yeah, which is pretty fun.
Yeah, that is pretty of all the countries to get wrong for it.
It's yeah, it's um anyway.
Uh, after watching it, we we can all agree that he was awake at 9 p.m.
You know, no one can contest that.
That's true.
Almost certainly, there would have had to be a lot of people in on it for that to have been at his usual bedtime of four.
Um, but yeah, that's that's right.
So he gave the speech.
Um, okay, so we'll go through it.
By the way, you know, one thing that I just I was noticing right away.
I don't know, I haven't seen anyone address it, but um, so the masks are gone.
Do you remember that from last year's State of the Union?
Matt, no more.
Uh, I guess we don't need them anymore.
They made it, they made an announcement day of that they weren't gonna, that it was no longer needed.
Is that true?
Oh, I didn't see that.
Okay, no, I just know.
So, I don't know.
It just, it's it's just like so many different things in this crazy world of COVID, but you're like, so that's why, like, why then, but not now?
Just because fuck it.
They got the poll numbers that it's really no one wants this anymore.
And they realized, oh, we can't be the party telling everyone that they have to stay in their houses and not live their lives.
People are done with it.
And so they moved on.
Well, it's funny because it's like, you know, they'll use these things like, you know, follow the signs.
And then they say the science changed, but really all that's changed is the poll numbers.
There's no science that's changed.
I mean, honestly, the all of the evidence, or should I say, the lack of evidence that cloth masks were actually doing anything, that was all out and known well before.
It wasn't okay to say last year, but it was all out there and known.
But really, you know, the vaccine, I mean, it seems to be almost almost beyond the point of argument, I think less effective with the Omicron strand than it was with whatever was floating around last year at this time.
Was that Delta?
Or maybe it was even before Delta.
So it's like, it's not as if there is a... more of a scientific reason why you shouldn't be wearing a mask this year than last year.
But anyway, that's kind of neither here nor there.
I don't give a shit.
I'm glad, I guess, that they're not wearing masks.
They also won't use the words herd immunity, but they do acknowledge that so many people were infected by Omicron that there aren't new people to infect, which is herd immunity.
That's a way of doing that.
That's another way of saying it.
Yes.
Yeah, right, right.
Exactly.
Yeah, it really is something.
So, okay.
Jumping To War And Sanctions00:15:19
So the first about 10 minutes of the speech were all about Ukraine.
And we stand with the people of Ukraine.
We'll do everything we can.
Vladimir Putin's evil.
The Russians are evil.
And that just, you know, the most shallow surface level, you know, political crap.
Not just shallow, it's evil.
You bring the guy's wife there, you applaud.
We got Ukraine into this mess and now we're not going to support them.
Not that we should.
We shouldn't have got them into the mess.
And it would be even more dangerous to support them.
But then to go, oh, we feel so bad for you.
We're going to do everything we can when you won't do anything and you got them into the mess.
I mean, it just shows the evil.
It's evil.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I think you're absolutely right.
And we have that clip of Colonel Douglas McGregor, who really makes this point too, which we'll play that in a second.
But yeah, it's so bizarre because actually the best thing that Joe Biden said was that we will not militarily get involved in the conflict, but we will defend all of our NATO allies.
And at least that was something to say, hey, we're not going to war over Ukraine.
Like that was kind of nice to hear the president say.
So that's the best.
So right.
So you're stuck in this like weird position where it's like, okay, so we're supporting you.
We'll give you some help for you to go fight this war that you can't win.
I mean, no one really thinks that Ukraine can beat Russia in a war.
Like, so then what's the point?
What's the point of encouraging this country to fight a war, you know, that we think they're going to lose?
It'll just lead to more deaths.
You know, it kind of reminds me of with the response to the Afghanistan withdrawal.
And the people are like, so like so many of the DC political class and the, you know, pundit class and all of them, they were like furious that the army that we had, you know, been propping up there just collapsed and didn't fight the Taliban.
But it's kind of like, well, what did you want?
Three more years of war?
After which the Taliban probably wins anyway?
You're just like, like, it's very weird.
It's very bizarre.
Like, war is a crazy thing.
It really is so nuts.
It's like, if you just like, if you just spent time in like the civilized part of society and you just like, I don't know, you know, do normal things.
You go to a grocery store, then you go to like Best Buy and I take my daughter to like a swim lesson or like just do these nice civilized things.
You would, you'd never believe that human beings do all of this.
But then also sometimes we just, you know, send in big metal machines to drop explosives on other human beings.
And you would think that all normal people would just be horrified by that prospect and go, whatever it is we have to do, anything's better than that.
Let's try anything.
Anyway, I tweeted this out earlier today.
So someone asked me on Twitter and they said, honest question.
What should the U.S. do then in situations like these?
I guess that was in response to me.
Oh, yeah, Mike Cernovich tweeted.
I really liked this.
He said, my position on sanctions is highly unpopular among my friends.
I don't support starving poor people.
Never have.
No matter how much you hate the regime, you don't deny medical care, clean water, and food to people who lack political power.
Thought that was an excellent tweet.
So I just responded by saying, this is so obviously the correct moral position.
Like, how could anyone even argue with that?
And so then this guy wrote to me and he said, well, honest question, what should the U.S. do in these situations?
You know, so I got an easy answer.
I think we've invaded or something.
The stats, something like 50 countries, and we've got military bases all over the world.
So I guess Russia's taking one little slice of land.
Look at all the slices of land that we can take.
And then we can still claim the moral high ground of how dare somebody go into a country or have military bases somewhere.
But it really is something, right?
Like that, even the mentality that people have.
It's like, okay, dude, well, it's like, well, you don't want to blow people up and now you don't want to starve people.
So what the hell do you know?
I understand.
I don't think he was asking this to be a dick.
I mean, he prefaced it with honest question, but that's already, it's just like, these are the only two options.
So this was my response.
I said, offer Russia a treaty promising to never bring Ukraine into NATO.
Drop all sanctions contingent on their immediate, complete withdrawal.
No missiles in Ukraine.
Get back in the INF and ABM treaties.
Not guaranteed to work, but I think there's a good chance it would worth trying.
Let them know that they can have their Nord streams.
They're really into Nord streams.
Yeah.
Trying to take away their Nord streams.
Just let them have a Nord stream.
But you got to think that right now, right?
It's, I'm not, as I said, it's not a guarantee that this could work.
Maybe it wouldn't.
Maybe we're beyond that point.
Maybe Putin is such a madman, like people say, like, you know, he just wouldn't take it.
No, he just wants to keep taking countries or whatever.
But it's like, why aren't we trying?
Because I also think there's a really good chance that it would work.
Number one, right now we are in a position where we have a lot we could offer Vladimir Putin.
I mean, you could add some things to this too.
Say, we'll remove the dual use rocket launchers from Poland.
There's like things that he's concerned about that we really don't need.
And there's no reason why we can't.
We've said we have no plans of bringing Ukraine into NATO.
Put it in writing.
Put it in a treaty.
And while you're at it, get back in all of these nuclear arms treaties that were just broken.
The INF treaty was just, Trump was the one who pulled out of it.
It's like a year and a half ago or something, maybe two years ago.
It's like, this is, we could go back to that, right?
You can, you could see.
Are you saying Biden stands by Trump?
Right.
You could even see how he could politically spin it, right?
Oh, this was a crazy Trump had a terrible idea.
So we'll get back into that.
I mean, like, there are these options.
And if you were to do that, you could kind of put Vladimir Putin in a situation where certainly many of the oligarchs who back him would be in a situation like, wait a minute, we can get all of these assurances guaranteed in writing and all of the sanctions dropped immediately.
And all we got to do is like fall back and withdraw from the Ukraine.
Again, I don't know that this would work, but the idea that you're jumping to war and sanctions before you're willing to try something like this is, I mean, it's just absolute madness.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
So, anyway, someone responded to this, and I thought this was like a really a few people kind of responded with similar takes.
But one guy, I'm trying to find his tweet.
I responded and then I deleted it because I said something.
Every now and then you say something on Twitter that you're just like, shit, shouldn't say that.
Because it can be construed the wrong way.
But so he said, he goes, oh, great.
So give Putin everything he wants.
And I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute.
So you're telling me that even if this theoretical proposal that I just offered, if it were to, because I said contingent on their immediate withdrawal of Ukraine.
So even if, so, so even if this ended the war, ended the war in Ukraine right now, and more importantly, ended the prospects of a greater war with nuclear armed powers involved.
That's still not good enough because it just didn't punish Putin enough.
Like that's that's your mentality here.
And then I said, I said, if you feel that way, why don't you pick up a gun and go join the fight?
And then I deleted that tweet because I was like, ah, shit.
You know what?
I shouldn't tweet something that says pick up a gun.
Just saying, like, ah, this is something.
I mean, it's Twitter's going to, you know, be like, oh, you, this was a call to violence or some shit like that.
So I just fucking deleted it.
But, but anyway, the point is that it's like, this is the mentality that people have.
This is insane.
And it's, it's insane.
It's like people exist in this civilized world that we're in.
You know, they're like right there next to you with like, like, I'm taking my three-year-old to a swim class and he's right there with his three-year-old at the swim class.
And these people, like, they exist in this civilized world.
They have no intention of themselves going and fighting in any of these conflicts, yet they'll just have the hmm that ends all of the wars and takes the prospect of a greater war off the table.
Not good enough.
I need to see Putin punished.
This is the attitude that they have.
Even if you feel like in some more just world, he should be punished.
Isn't it just better than instead of starving innocent people or murdering innocent people?
We don't do that, but he doesn't get punished.
You can't even accept that you don't have that much control over what happens in the world.
It's a very, it's a very bizarre attitude.
War fever is a really crazy thing.
And anyway, I just, it, you know, so Joe Biden's going to talk about this shit for the opening 10 minutes, but there's no real even attempt.
I mean, I don't know.
I'm a fucking stand-up comedian.
This is just something I threw up on a tweet as a response to somebody.
You know what I mean?
But like, there's no attempt to even be like, hey, look, here's our plan.
Here's what we'll offer.
You know what I mean?
Like the truth is that the U.S. and NATO are far, far more powerful than the Russians are.
And that doesn't mean that in this immediate conflict, that they're the you know, they're wrong for it.
Like they might be wrong for everything they've done up the last 30 years, but okay, Vladimir Putin is wrong to have invaded Ukraine.
But since they are so much more powerful and he's doing something really bad where innocent people are dying, the powerful side has a lot more concessions that they can make.
Why not try?
And then ask for a few reasonable ones from him.
Seems like there's no effort being made to do any of that.
What you're missing here is that Biden might be getting exactly what he wants, which is making forcing and making Putin look evil so that it's not as easy for Germany and China to work with him.
And if people in Ukraine and some president had to die in the process that Russia couldn't sell oil directly to Germany and we didn't have to risk this new alliance that might weaken the U.S. dollar, then so be it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, there's there might be some truth to that.
So anyway, you know what?
Now, just since we're a little bit unrelated to the State of the Union, but since we're talking about it, let's play that clip from Colonel Douglas McGregor, who really is fantastic.
He's a, if you're not familiar, he's a retired colonel.
He does media appearances somewhat regularly.
And Donald Trump made him the like top advisor at the defense, the Department of Defense.
And of course, did it after he lost the election of Joe Biden?
Literally, this is the guy he should have made his defense secretary in 2017.
But anyway, here he is with Trey Gowdy.
Senior advisor to the Secretary of Defense, thank you for joining us.
Why do you think Putin is doing this?
What is his end game?
Well, Vladimir Putin is carrying through on something that he's been warning us about, at least for the last 15 years, which is that he will not tolerate U.S. forces or their missiles on his borders, much as we would not tolerate Russian troops and missiles in Cuba.
And we ignored him and he finally acted.
He was not going to allow Ukraine under any circumstances to join NATO.
What's happened now is that the battle in eastern Ukraine is really almost over.
All the Ukrainian troops there have been largely surrounded and cut off.
You have a concentration down in the southeast of 30 to 40,000 of them.
And if they don't surrender within the next 24 hours, I suspect that the Russians will ultimately annihilate them.
That's why Zelensky is meeting with Putin's representatives right now.
The game is over, and he's going to have to negotiate the best deal he can get.
And we've already told him, the president of the United States has that if he opts for neutrality for Ukraine, we'll back him.
And I think that Vladimir Putin will do that for Western Ukraine.
That is the Ukraine beyond the Ypper River.
But behind it in the east, where he is now, I'm not sure what he has planned there, whether he forms another republic, annexes it into Russia, because historically it has been Russian.
But the territory west of Ukraine is not.
He knows that, and he's happy to live with that as a neutral state.
I am not a military expert.
I'm not even an expert on geography.
But if he takes Ukraine and Ukraine abuts Poland, then he's going to have a NATO country abutting him.
So if that's what he doesn't want, then isn't he going to just have to keep going until he runs out of NATO countries?
I guess I should say it again.
He has no interest in crossing the West, the Nipper and heading west to the Polish border.
Okay.
Yeah, that was there's more of that clip where he goes on to make the point that we were making before that you're really just encouraging more death if you're encouraging the Ukrainians to fight.
And he was basically saying that those soldiers, particularly in eastern Ukraine, should surrender.
He's like, because you're going to get annihilated if you don't.
But yeah, so anyway, Trey Gaddy, I mean, it's just like a really dumb point that he hasn't really thought through.
It's like, oh, but I mean, if you keep expanding this way, then, you know, NATO's still on your border.
It's like, right, but there's more of a buffer zone.
Minimum Wage And Protectionism00:07:04
That's that's kind of the whole point.
It's not like if like by that logic, you're like, why, you know, why would anyone ever want to expand or not want someone else expanding onto their territory?
Anyway, um, so anyway, it's interesting.
So see, the point is just like, you don't hear anything like that from Joe Biden, obviously, not one thoughtful, interesting thing.
And this, you see this all over the place.
This is, this is part of war propaganda.
That it's not as if, look, I'm not like I tweeted out earlier today, um, something along the lines.
I said, uh, you know, like the people of Ukraine are largely innocent, um, and the people of Russia are largely innocent, and the people of the United States are largely innocent.
But all three of their governments are criminal.
And the truth is that in these, in the midst of war propaganda, you usually get this kind of like ridiculous, childish, binary thinking of like, well, here's the one big, bad, evil guy, and then everyone else is on the side of good, you know?
And that's just how clear-cut it is.
And that's not the reality.
And we have to pretend like, you know, it's like, okay, Putin, evil madman, he's Hitler now.
And Ukraine, good, innocent, democracy, great people, just want freedom, blah, blah, blah.
Like, this is what you have to love.
But no one like can ever have an adult conversation where it's like, okay, Putin, bad guy, but here are his motivators.
Here are his motivations.
And here's what maybe could avert this.
And here's what maybe we could do.
Our side, not good guys, have done a lot of bad things.
Here's what maybe, here's our motivations.
Here's what maybe we could do.
Like none of that.
And so it's just interesting when you actually get someone, you know, who understands shit like Colonel Douglas McGregor.
That guy's a goddamn hero.
Okay.
So Biden talks for about 10 minutes, opening 10 minutes on that.
Nothing but nonsense.
Then he, okay, he transitioned into just like some really naked corporatism at one point, just bragging about all the big corporations that are investing so much in the U.S. economy.
That was one of the themes that was kind of odd throughout the show: like a bit of like, not exactly championing protectionism, but a lot of like invest in America, made in America, buying American products, that kind of stuff.
Almost, you know, sounded more like something Donald Trump would say than something Joe Biden would say.
I would sum up his economic policy for how we're going to solve inflation as price controls.
That we're going to basically, we don't believe in specialization anymore.
We're going to make more of these goods in America.
Now, as to how making them in America is going to have them cost less without price controls, which would lead to rationing, he doesn't explain, or as to how you're going to defy the economic principle that people can specialize, we can get goods for cheaper from other places.
Like, so why is it that America can, these companies that are for profit, they just haven't made the investment that would be profitable for them.
I love that.
That was one of my favorite lines when he goes, they're ready to make a hundred billion dollar investment if you just sign these papers.
Those papers must guarantee their profits.
It must guarantee that they're doing something that otherwise is not profitable.
The whole thing.
Otherwise, why wouldn't they be doing the investment?
Like, what's the holdup?
Explain that to me.
What's the holdup then?
Why do we need to sign any papers?
What exactly are in those papers?
It's all very like, you know, I thought was, yeah, his take on inflation was just so.
I mean, if you don't want to lower your wages, it's super cool.
This is what he basically said.
It's super cool that you're making more money if you work.
So now we just have to make sure that you can continue to make more money.
But then when you go to buy stuff, they don't raise the prices on you.
Yeah.
All right.
Good luck.
You're describing flying.
You're describing breathing underwater.
Good luck.
Yeah, exactly.
And the idea that, you know, basically, it was funny because first he kind of seamlessly transitioned into praising all of these big corporations for their investment in America and what they're willing to invest in America and all of this stuff.
And then starts blaming all of them for their greed, which is why we have inflation to begin with.
It's all just because of corporate greed.
And they need, you know, a lot of just repetitive, really tired old Democratic Party talking points.
They need to pay their fair share and this and that.
And, you know, this is the real issue is we need to, you know, it's funny too.
He even got another thing about raising the minimum wage to $15, which I find, isn't it kind of funny just hearing like these guys like, okay, so the minimum wage for $15 an hour goes back a while, but certainly in 2016, this was a big deal with Bernie Sanders.
This was like a real central part of his campaign, which I always find it so bizarre when minimum wage is like even a central part of anyone's presidential campaign.
It's, it's, if you actually look at the numbers, it's such a small percentage of the workforce that gets paid minimum wage.
And the vast, vast, vast majority of that percentage of the workforce that's getting paid minimum wage doesn't stay there for long.
Like they, I forget the numbers, but a huge chunk of them get a raise like their first year.
And then the, you know, like, I mean, just think it through.
Like, even if you're like someone listening to this who knows like people who are not particularly wealthy, like how many people do you know who make minimum wage and stay at minimum wage?
It's almost always like somebody who makes minimum wage and never moves up, never, never even moves up a little bit from what the absolute minimum wage is to like the advocated minimum.
You know what I'm saying?
Like someone who's like, if the minimum wage is $12 where you live or whatever, someone who doesn't even themselves get themselves up to $15 at some point, it's a tiny percentage of the population.
And usually there's a reason for it.
Not saying it's like their fault necessarily.
Sometimes it's not, but usually there's a reason why that person isn't moving up.
But, but the other thing about it is like, why is it still, why are you still pushing 15?
I mean, it, you know, I remember it was such a controversy when Hillary Clinton wanted 12 and Bernie Sanders wanted 15.
And this was something like the Bernie Sanders people kept bashing her for.
You remember this, Robin, in 2016?
He's like, no, no, no, 12 is not good enough.
We need 15.
And then he's like saying 15.
And they're like, all the progressives are like, yeah, 15.
You're like, 15 bucks in 2022 is not the same as 15 bucks in 2016.
Right?
So even if you're inflation, shouldn't you be moving it up a little bit?
Even if you're the whatever.
I'm not trying to give him any ideas.
But anyway, all this stuff, very frustrating if you know anything about economics.
You know, I'm no professional economist, but even I can see through this, just like ridiculous arguments.
Inflation Game And Federal Role00:06:51
And I mean, the idea that you're going to have a long conversation about inflation and that monetary policy does not even come up.
I mean, it came up once briefly.
Joe Biden had one hilarious line where he said, you know, make sure to Confirm my Fed chairman appointee because the Fed has an important role in controlling inflation.
Not just inflation, but if you put Raskin in, she's got to use the power of the Fed to combat global warming.
Well, that's right.
Yeah, it's a lot more than inflation.
Yeah, now that we discovered that the Supreme Court's going to rule against the EPA and you can't just bypass Congress in terms of making legislation for green energy, you're going to need the Fed, right?
And so you're going to need your corporatists like Raskin, who make a lot of money basically lobbying for companies.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
But isn't it something to be talking about?
Like you're going to, you're going to have a chunk talking about inflation and you don't bring up monetary policy except just to say that the Fed has an important role in controlling right.
Yeah, that's very funny.
It's okay.
So they do play some role in this inflation game you're given, but it's only what making it better.
Well, what if they don't do a good job at that role of making it better?
What does that, you know what I mean?
Like, it's come on.
I mean, you're living through the last two years where we just printed trillions and trillions of dollars and then handed out checks in the form of direct payments.
And you're not even going to mention that.
That is not, you don't think that has anything to do with seeing record high inflation?
It just, I guess it's just a coincidence that it just happens to be one preceded the other, you know, like, but also to speak to your point, if there was a solution, you're giving this speech about, hey, look at all these solutions I have, right?
So wouldn't you want to speak more than just, hey, nominate my person?
Wouldn't it be, hey, nominate my person because here's what they're going to be able to do?
But he can't even do that.
Well, I mean, if you're saying that the Fed has a role in controlling inflation, right?
Okay.
So what would the Fed do to rein in inflation?
Well, I mean, there's not that many things.
What is it?
Raise interest rates.
No, you can't do that.
Is that what you want, Dave?
Right, exactly.
So it's like, it's not like any of them are actually advocating that.
And that's not, that's not a Democrat or Republican thing.
That's a whoever is in power thing because, of course, none of them want it coming crashing down on them.
Donald Trump was every bit as bad on that.
I mean, he was demanding the Fed lower rates from where they were under him, which was pretty goddamn low.
But yeah, I mean, it's like if you can expand or contract the money supply, well, expanding it ain't going to rein in inflation, right?
So what are you saying here?
Raise interest rates, contract the money supply.
Is that what you're advocating?
Is that what anyone who Joe Biden appoints to the Federal Reserve is going to do?
Again, like, of course, obviously in these speeches, they never get into shit like this, but like, no, so what exactly?
What exactly is the Fed's role?
Yeah, me and Rob would like some details.
How are they going to control inflation?
I heard Joe Biden nominated someone who wants to get back on the gold standard, raise interest rates, get back on the gold standard, and really solve inflation.
I mean, if that were the truth, then he wouldn't be completely wrong.
The Fed would have an important role in controlling and controlling inflation.
So then I guess he started talking about COVID.
It was about, I want to say, 45 minutes, maybe 50 minutes into the speech when he started talking about COVID.
And that itself, to me, I thought was just really something that just after the last two years, it's 45 minutes into this speech before we even start to talk about this thing that has revolutionized everything that has,
you know, upended every social norm, every political norm, every economic norm, you know, every semblance of belief in individual liberty in this country over the last two years, our response to COVID.
And then it's like all this talk before we finally get to it.
And what did he have to say, Rob?
Really nothing.
Well, he did say that scientists are doing everything they can to try and vaccinate your kids under five.
We know that because we know that people really want their kids under five vaccinated.
And despite the evidence that came out yesterday, that there's very little utility in the five to 11, we've got our best scientists working on getting your kids vaccinated under the age of five.
And then he also recognized that kids should be in school, but he didn't say anything about looking into why they were kept out of schools, the teachers' unions that didn't want to work or the scientists that were telling you, despite all evidence of kids not being at high risk or high transmission, now they just get to flip sides and go, man, those kids really need to be in school.
So we're going to do everything we can.
Well, then, is anyone going to be responsible or are you going to flip anyone's job for keeping them out of schools?
That was basically all he said on COVID: the schools and the kids under five.
Right.
And then, of course, he did, they took credit for vaccinating so many Americans.
Kind of left out the detail that, you know, so many of them were coerced into getting the vaccine.
It's like, we were able to vaccinate so many Americans.
All we had to do was threaten to ruin their lives and leave them destitute.
And then they, you know, we got it.
Profit Over Public Safety00:09:29
And if it turned out that it wasn't illegal, we would have forced everyone.
But no apology for us doing something illegal.
Yeah, that's right.
How about that?
But then we broke the law and we got away with it for a period of three months.
Yeah, the major mandates that were deemed unconstitutional from the Biden administration.
Yeah, we're just going to pretend that that, you know, that doesn't exist, never happened.
That is, you've made this point several times, but it is one of the major flaws.
And there are many, but it's one of the really major flaws in our system of government is that you can do these things.
You can impose some like unconstitutional measure, do it for a couple months, then it gets struck down.
And then you go, okay, onto the next thing.
Like, nope, no recourse, no, like, no, like, okay, well, then isn't that criminal?
I mean, if you're saying it's unconstitutional, then you're saying it's illegal.
Then you're saying they did something illegal for two months.
No private person is able to act this way.
No, I'm just going to like have some money laundering operation.
And then when I get busted, go, okay, I'll stop.
That's your punishment.
You have to stop.
Right.
Like, it's, it's an insane system.
Yeah.
The entire idea of government is that I guess we should have laws and people shouldn't be allowed to break the laws.
But then the government itself is allowed to break the laws.
And when they break the laws, it's in the biggest and most flagrant ways.
So I don't know, like it kind of self-defeats itself because you're creating an apparatus for literally just legal law breaking in ways that dwarf.
I remember years ago reading this article that the amount of money we spend on cops is like more than if we just let everyone steal, essentially.
Like if we just kind of cover the losses of like when there was like theft, we would be break, it would be better than break even with the amount of money we spend on cops.
I'm sure that's that's right.
I'm sure if you add like civil asset forfeiture and stuff in there too, they end up stealing more money than criminals do.
So yeah, it's it's yeah, it's really bananas.
I mean, these are many of the kind of like thoughts that start that that really converted me to being an anarchist, you know, years ago, where it's like you realize that also like it's, it's by the very nature of the state that you wind up with these contradictions.
As Hans Hermann Hoppe calls it, what's his term?
He goes an expropriating property protection force.
You know, where you're like, okay, so we're going to like, we're going to say, hey, we're going to tax you to have these cops to make sure no one steals from you.
You know, like, but wait, what?
Like, that just seems like it's a self-defeating concept.
Like, why, why would we have to do it this way?
And then, of course, we'll build up a force that steals more from the American people than anyone else.
So, yeah.
Speaking of cops, there was one, there was one line in there that he said that we don't need to defund the police.
We need to fund the police.
And this got like thunderous applause, which is, I don't know, I thought that was kind of odd.
And just, it's so weird how like, it's so weird how much they count on short memory spans from the American people.
Like, you know, they're all, they almost all pretend like there are some things like terms that are only used by one's opposition, like trickle-down economics is one of those.
You never, you, you never see any Republican ever say, I'm for trickle-down economics.
That's not what they say.
Um, that's just what the Democrats call what the Republicans are for.
So if you see a Republican go, we don't believe in trickle-down economics.
We believe in bottom-up, like, you know, economic growth or something.
Okay, it's fine.
But when you see these Democrats like, we don't believe in defund the police, we believe in fund the police.
It's like, motherfucker, this is not a term that your enemies made up.
Like, I'm old enough to remember last year.
Like you, this is what you guys were pushing.
And you see like AOC and like, you know, like these other progressives in the audience like clapping for it.
And you're like, but this was your thing.
It's not like anyone just claimed you were saying defund the police.
This was like the most popular hashtag.
You guys were out there talking about it in every interview.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
So, anyway, of course, if the Democrats ever say anything involving defunding a government program, you know, they don't really mean it and they will backpedal on that pretty quickly.
But anyway, I just, I don't know why that stuck out to me.
Well, the second you get polling numbers in, you find out your position's unpopular, you gotta, you gotta put your flip-flops on.
Yep.
No, once again, it's it's really interesting.
Um, and there seems it's it really is something how much that like, man, I like, I think there are probably, there's got to be some people who were involved in the Black Lives Matter thing who were somewhat woken up by all of this.
But isn't it kind of amazing how much they just used that movement for political purposes?
And then just as soon as it was more of a wait than, you know what I mean?
As soon as the cause leadership wasn't there, you're gone.
The leaders used it for profit.
Dangerous criminals used it for cover to go out and do violent things.
Liberal douchebags used it as a way to go, oh, look, you're not a liberal douchebag.
You don't swear by the same stupidity as I do.
So everyone won.
Who's the victim there?
Everyone got what they wanted out of it.
Joe Jorgensen used it to lose a bunch of votes.
Everyone got what they wanted.
Everyone got what they needed.
Yeah, but it is funny.
And like, meanwhile, like, and then it's so funny, like, it's like all these causes.
You know, today it's the Ukrainians or, you know, a few years ago, it was the Kurds and whatever it is, the Americans in Afghanistan, the Americans trapped in Afghanistan.
Do you ever see one piece on CNN?
You know, like, oh, we're checking in on all those people in Afghanistan.
Oh, hey, we're checking in on the Kurds in Syria, how they're doing.
Like, no, because no one ever cares.
Like, it's not, it was never a genuine care.
Now, I'm sure there are some people who kind of mindlessly go along with it who are like, well, yeah, I mean, those are like innocent people.
We should care about them.
And like, I get that.
But by the way, you did, there's an argument you should care about all those people.
I'm not saying you shouldn't, but it's just like that.
You see, once the political gain, the political opportunity is over, there's just no even like, oh, but seriously, there's a really big problem with like black people being mistreated by the police.
No, there's no.
That's that's such a great sketch or TV show idea of like when they when they're talking about the Kurds, you actually do follow them for a whole year.
You almost turn into a like they're fine.
Are you fine?
Those Americans in Afghanistan, they're just on TikTok with the Taliban.
They're having a great time.
Yeah, well, it's like, it is unbelievable, though, how much they still, you know, can use this whole, this whole thing and how much it benefits them.
You know, what's it called?
Oh, fuck.
I wanted to see.
I saw this a few days ago, Brian Stelter tweeted this, by the way, in the middle of the Ukraine war.
And this was really interesting, right?
So he goes, our favorite little piggy Brian Stelter tweets.
And of course, he's, it's unbelievable the things he can say without ever having any self-reflection.
So he'll say something like this and not even for a second think, oh, hmm.
If you look at this a different way, this could maybe not come off so good.
So he says, referring to the war in Ukraine, he says, the past 24 hours, he wrote this last week.
So talking about the first day of invasion.
He said the past 24 hours are a reminder that consumers in an era of TikTok and YouTube still gravitate to trusted, established news outlets during emergencies.
They know where to go, so to speak, and television coverage is essential.
So he's basically saying that, like, look, even though our numbers are way down and there's all these other ways to get information, when a war happens, you know, our ratings go way up.
But you're like, oh, okay, but do you not see what the admission there is?
It's like you're just, you're just one just stated differently and more plainly.
War Is Good For Business00:03:16
You go, war is really good for business.
War is really good for our ratings.
It's like, hmm.
I mean, that in itself, forget all the other conflicts of interest, but that's a pretty big one, right?
Oh, look at that.
War is the health of CNN.
And in fact, these days, it might be the only thing that can get CNN one show that cracks like a million viewers.
Might be like, oh, we need a big war.
I haven't actually looked at the numbers, but I'm sure he's not making that up.
I'm sure that the numbers at CNN are going way up.
I'm sure.
More people are like, still going to be like, ah, shit, I want to watch CNN to see like what the latest is, you know?
All right.
Anything else from the speech that stood out to you?
Well, the same as what you were describing with the odd hypocrisy of him championing, like saying, hey, we're going to corporations are making too much money, but we're also teaming up with them.
I felt there was a similar thing in talking about COVID where he starts bashing big pharma and he goes in the profits of big pharma.
It's like, I don't want to hear about big pharma from government anymore.
Like, what's the better solution?
Yeah.
The better solution, I guess, is you make the drugs free and you force everyone to get them.
Like we pay for the development of them and then force everyone to get it.
So you got a built-in customer base.
Like, I just don't want to hear about big pharma from government anymore.
You're not, you're clearly on their side.
Don't pretend like there's some evil entity that's overcharging.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, let's get real.
Like, how many, how much of their profits have you locked in?
And like, don't get me wrong.
Like, I'm not for any government involvement in any of this stuff whatsoever.
And I'm against all of the mandates and, you know, all of this stuff.
But like, once you're going to mandate it, like, like capitalism is wonderful if it's like laissez-faire, free market.
But once if the governments like if they're in any way mandating a product, like if they're mandating you get a vaccine in order to be able to go to a restaurant or you have to get it in order to keep your job or anything like that, then there's no reason why those profits should go to those companies.
Does that make sense?
Like, why should you get the product, the profit for something that I'm being forced by my government to get?
This just makes no sense at all.
So like, if you want to talk about profits, it's like you guys have locked in profits for them and done nothing to like be like, well, no, like, you know, even in some theoretical model that I don't believe in at all, but like something like, oh, but those profits are going to be like pulled back to these people that were like forcing to buy this product to begin with.
Like, nope, none of that.
And then, of course, that when you have drugs where their patent has run out and so they can easily be made by anyone, those just happen to be the drugs that are completely demonized, even though doctors are prescribing them to people.
Those drugs are completely demonized in the entire corporate press, which is, you know, seemingly pretty in bed with those big pharmaceutical companies.
Yeah, it's, it was all goofy and weird.
Bizarre Weekend State Of Union00:02:49
Okay.
Any other topics from the speech that stood out to you?
No, I think that's, it sounds like we covered it.
Yeah, it was, it was unimpressive.
But again, Biden didn't, he didn't, he, he spoke.
He, he did say words into a microphone.
So by Biden's standards, pretty big success.
You know, like Biden's team are like nailed it.
That's as good as it possibly could have gone.
Um, there were a few, there were a couple good moments at one point.
Uh, Chuck Schumer stood up to clap when no one else was clapping, and then he just like kind of and then just sat back down.
That was pretty great.
Nancy Pelosi got up at one point and just started rubbing her hands together, which was very bizarre, very weird move.
Um, and some of the more uh crazy Republican ladies there were booing Joe Biden and stuff, so that was fun.
Um, but yeah, there you go.
Okay, that's our response to the state of the union.
Here's the reality of the state of the union: the country is in a more precarious, dangerous place than it's ever been in my lifetime.
It's all the fault of the people giving that speech and in the room listening to it, plus maybe a few others who weren't there.
They should stop doing all of the evil shit that they're doing and just let us be a prosperous, free country again, which really we could do.
We really could do it.
Like it doesn't have to be this way.
They could just end all of the COVID restrictions immediately.
They could just say we're going to get out of the business of doing all of this corporate welfare and stealing your money to give away to billionaires to try to screw you over more.
We could stop spending so many of our resources on this national security state, on this police state.
We could just abolish all of that.
And like I said, we could go really make an honest effort for detente with Russia, really make an honest effort to roll back the empire.
There's no reason.
It's doing us no, there's no benefits to any of this stuff.
Just destroys the country.
There's my state of the union.
Oh, and I will be.
I am.
I know a lot of people ask.
I am.
I just saw Ari the other day.
We're going to record our annual State of the Union.
I know we're late for this latest one, but in the next couple of weeks, we're going to make that happen.
All right.
That's our show for today.
I will see you guys in.
I'll see you guys in Pennsylvania this weekend, Colorado the weekend after.
Got Minnesota coming up, Texas coming up.
I think there's one or two more in there that I'm forgetting.
But yeah, we'll be all over the place.
Anything you got?
Yeah, run your mouth daily briefing.
And then I'm also, I'm going to be in Colorado the weekend before you doing a steamboat with Kyle Ruff.
So got two ski dates and then comedy those nights.
And then I think the weekend before that, I'll get these in the episode description with Adam Nutter near Philly.