Dave Smith and Robbie Bernstein critique government overreach, analyzing Joe Biden's frailty and the Federal Reserve's inflation struggles while warning against labeling vaccine opposition as domestic terrorism. They argue that expanding this definition creates dangerous "thought crimes" lacking due process, citing the failed post-9/11 war on terror and inconsistent applications in Iraq. Ultimately, the hosts contend that inventing ideological legal categories endangers dissidents and effectively criminalizes thought rather than punishing specific violent acts. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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White House Hubbub Explained00:15:05
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, James Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am thrilled to be with you.
Of course, I'm Dave Smith, the most consistent motherfucker you know, Libertarian Tupac.
And I'm joined, as always, by the king of the cocks, COVID Jesus, Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
What is up, my brother?
I'm excited to be here.
I know.
I know you are.
That's why I love you because you're always excited to be here.
No matter where here is, you're always excited.
And that's what, that's part of your charm.
Well, that's what's fun about this broadcast.
You can do it from all sorts of places.
Like right now, I'm in my living room, but I could take this banner anywhere.
I could be in the woods right now.
You wouldn't know.
It's really true.
We'd have no, that is a weird brag by Rob Bernstein that his living room could be a homeless shelter and none of us would ever know.
No one would have any clue that there's any difference.
Well, I am in a couple days.
I am getting on a plane and going to Dallas, Texas to speak at a Mises caucus event out there, which is going to be awesome.
This is going to be a lot of fun.
When the Mises Caucus throws an official event, it's always like a show.
And so this is going to be a lot of fun.
I believe, if I'm not mistaken, Scott Horton, Scott Horton will definitely be on the show.
I believe Eric July is coming through as well, the great Eric July.
And I believe the great Clint Russell from Liberty Lockdown is going to be there as well.
So that's going to be a crazy fun time.
Everybody, if you're in the Dallas area, I don't know for sure if tickets are still available, but you might be able to still get some.
So go check that out.
I believe it's called the Take Human Action something.
Now, the Mises Caucus events are always called the Take Human Action something.
You know, we like Mises.
That's kind of our thing.
This guy right here.
Oh, no, is that?
No, that's Man Economy and State.
Where's?
Ah, shit.
Do I not have human action up here?
I really should.
I'll get human action up here next time.
Do I not?
Definitely not.
Name a whole caucus after a book I can't comprehend and you don't even put them on your shelf.
I'll be honest, Man Economy and State, largely derivative of human action.
Murray Rothbard himself would admit that.
Anyway, so that's going to be a lot of fun.
And big news, big news, Brzezinski.
We, me and Rob are going to be doing a stand-up show on the Thursday before the Libertarian National Party convention in Reno.
This is going to be fucking crazy.
You guys have to come out to this one.
If you're going to the Libertarian Party National Convention, make sure you're out there Thursday night.
If you haven't already, get your plane tickets, get your hotel reservations.
This is for everybody, especially if you're a delegate.
God damn it, get those, get that going right now, because this is going to be like a historical moment in the history of the Liberty movement this weekend, which is, if I'm not mistaken, this is the 26th of May is the Thursday.
And then that weekend will be the national convention.
We're doing a stand-up show, live podcast, and then the hooker march.
So don't miss out.
Again, I'm probably not going to be a part of that hooker march, but the stand-up comedy show with me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein, and then a live part of the problem on this historic weekend where the Liberty Movement reclaims the Libertarian Party and there's this huge shake-up.
I'm going to get some big guests for this podcast.
So this is going to be incredible.
Make sure you come out.
We rented out like a real cool theater not too far from where the convention is.
So all details will be coming.
This is going to be incredible.
Make sure you're there Thursday night before the big convention in Reno.
And I'll promise you that some of your favorite people in this movement are going to be there at the show and on the podcast and all that stuff.
So make sure that you go grab those tickets.
We'll be blasting this ticket link out like crazy.
It's going to be a party.
I'm excited for this.
Just so I don't get myself in trouble with some of these promoters, Gene, he'll come after you.
I got Soho Forum coming up.
Then April 26th, I got a Libertarian Convention up in Massachusetts.
April 30th, I got the Freedom Medical Freedom event in Jersey, where we will be fighting for the rights of Jersey people to take steroids and go to their gym because that's why people move to Jersey.
Why else would you be there?
Schilderberg and then Crossover pod at Top Lobsters Ranch out in Florida with the Tower Gang pod and more Summerport store coming your way.
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, look, it's a good thing you got those promos out there.
Gene is a brilliant guy.
He's a very friendly guy.
But if you don't promote his stuff, he will break your kneecaps.
Like you don't want to see, you don't want to see a pissed off Gene Epstein.
He will come.
I miss that guy.
I haven't talked to Gene in way too long.
I got to fucking give him a call.
We got to set up like a lunch or something soon.
Okay.
Anyway, so let's get into some stuff.
There was an incident, an event at the White House recently that a lot of people are making a lot of what the kids call hubbub about.
So Joe Biden was, of course, at the White House.
He, from what I've been told, he lives there.
From what I've been told, he is the president of these United States of America.
He needs to be told that every morning, too.
Yeah, I'm sure he does.
But the word on the street is that Joe Biden is the president of the United States of America.
I'm not completely sure that I believe it, but it seems there's a lot of evidence to back up the claim.
Let's just say that.
So Barack Obama came back to the White House in what I think is his first trip back to the White House since he used to live there.
He lived there for four years, for eight years, excuse me.
He lived there for eight years, if you recall, Rob, as he failed the country.
And so he comes back.
Joe Biden's there.
Joe Biden talks for a little bit.
And then some weirdness ensues.
So here is the tape.
We're going to take a look at it and then we're going to kind of break it down and discuss how other people are reacting to this.
What I think they might be getting right, what I think they might be missing.
Hopefully, we have a slightly different take than everybody else.
Let's play the video.
Okay, so let's pause right there.
So, there was a weird moment where Joe Biden walked away from the stage.
A few other people shuffle off this way.
He goes the other direction.
He's kind of alone and doesn't know where he's going.
He kind of signals to someone.
And it just kind of looks like, I don't know.
How do you describe this, Rob?
Looks like an old man wandering the streets, not quite sure which way his house is, which way he's going.
It's not great.
It doesn't demonstrate a man in control of his anything.
Well, it looks like he went to hug someone who wasn't there.
Like, hey, good to, oh shit, there's no one there.
Yeah, it was not the image that you'd want to project as like the alpha, you know, male of the country, commander in chief.
I am the leader.
But, you know, awkward moment.
Okay, it happens.
That's why you go to the corner of the room, you have a beer.
You just stand there.
That's what you got to do.
You lean on something.
That is a way more dominant thing to do than what he did.
Just going to the corner of the room and having a beer comes off way better, the optics of it.
At least it kind of seems like you're in control of what's happening.
I don't know.
Okay.
So, but then there was this moment that happened slightly after.
Let's continue playing.
So there's kind of a circle here, as you see, with Obama shaking hands.
Kamala Harris, the vice president, right next to him.
Joe Biden is here on the outside.
He's kind of trying to get into the circle.
No one is acknowledging him.
Joe Biden, actually, you can hear him say Barack, and he puts his hand on Barack's shoulder.
Barack is still in his chair.
He's like, and then I dropped 50 points on them.
And this was the best game I ever had.
And then this motherfucker was like, no, what?
And I was like, oh, you think I can't shoot the three?
Give me five.
Give me some slack, Jack.
Okay.
That's the video.
What you just saw right there.
Now, there's a lot of people kind of the people on the right wing in America who are, I think, claiming something happened here that didn't happen.
And they're claiming that this is evidence that the Democrats have turned on Joe Biden and they are trying to humiliate him and that this is clear that he's not the real president and Obama's the real president and all of this other stuff.
That is not exactly what I saw.
But I did see something interesting in this tape.
I know this might seem a little bit silly, but I think there is actually something here that's very interesting.
I'm curious, Rob, what are your thoughts on the video so far on seeing this?
Because I know when we talked about what we were going to discuss on today's show, both of our first thoughts were this video.
So you tell me, what do you think about all of this?
Well, for one, there's too many TV cameras in the world where you can't just be pathetic.
Like, I like to be able to show up to a place and go, I can just be pathetic here.
And especially if you're as famous as he is, you almost got to start policing the paparazzi because usually they do that.
It reads a teleprompter.
They scream at everyone to get out of the room and it's very controlled.
All of a sudden, you got him in an uncontrolled environment.
But, oh my God, I mean, dude, I've never done that to someone at a party ever.
Barack Obama is being such a dick and he's being a dick to the guy who's supposed to be the one person you can't be a dick to.
It's weird optics.
I mean, like, he is flagrantly ignoring him, shoulder pulled, Brock, bro.
And he's like, fuck, I'm back in action.
Leave me alone.
Okay.
So here's my take on it.
I'm not convinced that Obama is flagrantly ignoring him.
I, what I think this is, is that it's a mix of two things.
Number one, well, okay, before I even say the two things, in the background is that is what we all know: Joe Biden is a frail.
I don't want to say senile, a frail on the decline old man, you know, who is not what he used to be and is just weak and struggles and all of this.
And this kind of gives off an impression to other people.
Like, people just feel this.
Like, he does not have an energy about him that he is in control and he is the man.
And other people respond to that.
They kind of know it's, it's, I think this is a very like instinctual human thing.
And so he does not command this type of respect.
And then on top of that, he is walking around like, do I go over here?
Do I go over here?
Where do I go?
And just kind of lost in this world.
Whereas Obama still has this kind of energy about him.
And he's walking around and he's like, hey, what's going on?
Hi, give me a handshake.
High five.
All right.
Yes, you, this guy, I know you.
Remember, you did this thing for my campaign.
And he's just like over there mixing it up.
And so I didn't actually think, I don't know.
It didn't seem clear to me at least that Obama even realized that there was a hand on his shoulder or that it was Joe Biden's hand on his shoulder.
I didn't necessarily think that he was intentionally trying to snub him.
I thought what was crazy about this was that Joe Biden doesn't have the fucking energy to like, like if Joe Biden had walked right into the middle of that thing and been like, like, not just put his hand on his shoulder, but put his hand on his shoulder and pulled him back a little bit and been like, hey, it's me, the president of the United States, and I'm not going to be left back here for this weird photo thing.
You know what I mean?
I think probably it's not like he would have slapped his hand down.
People used to make fun of Donald Trump for the thing he used to do.
You know, you remember those videos of him where he'd pull the guy behind him.
He'd pull like someone behind him, or he'd shake their hand and pull them in and kind of move them over to the side.
And it was, by the way, Donald Trump, my point here is split the difference.
You don't have to be Donald Trump.
It was insane some of the things Donald Trump did, where he'd literally like shake your hand and then pull you behind him and weird things.
But there was something about this that I actually think was significant.
You look at this moment and you realize that Joe Biden is so weak that he can't even allow himself to be like he can't even not allow himself to just be put in this weird outcast position.
BetterHelp vs Traditional Counseling00:02:28
Like he can't just like insert himself in the middle of that and be like, you know, hey, excuse me, I'm the president.
So I'm going to step right in the middle of this and make sure that I'm part, you know, I'm not like on the outside of a circle, like, hey, excuse me, will you guys play with me too?
And Obama, it seems to me, is just so, he's a narcissist, I think, and he's just so caught up in his own thing that he's like, hey, you and you and you, and doesn't even realize.
So I don't think this is a comment on how the Democrats are trying to, you know, force Joe Biden out as much as it's a comment on how weak Joe Biden is.
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Corporate Press Approval Ratings00:15:15
All right, let's get back into the show.
I know people, just regular people at a medium level of success who would never let themselves be that person.
And this guy is the highest office in the land officially, you know, is the most powerful person in the world besides the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
The second most important person out there, okay.
And he's going to allow this.
It's like that, that's a weakness of Biden.
That's not a comment on how the other Democrats are playing him.
It seems to me Kamala Harris doesn't even have a clue that he's there.
I saw some of these like Fox News hosts trying to pretend that this is Kamala Harris, you know, you know, throwing Joe Biden under the bus.
I don't even think she realizes he's there.
She's enamored with Obama because he's just got that energy, he's got that like energy about him.
Like, I'm owning this moment right there, right now.
And Biden is just like an old man, like, and this is anyway.
I know this is all silly talk, but there's something about this that actually seems kind of important to me.
And the fact that the guy who's supposed to be like, he's the president of the United States, this is the White House, you're in his home, you know.
The fact that he can't command that area, I think that says something about what's really going on in this administration.
And that people, it's again, it's not even, I'm not even saying that, oh my God, Kamala Harris doesn't respect him or Barack Obama doesn't respect him.
I'm sure there's something to that, but the fact that he doesn't make himself someone to be respected is a real telling sign.
You know, I think it's more that they're just responding to the fact that it's like, oh, I don't know, someone was touching my shoulder.
I don't know who it could possibly be.
You get what I'm saying?
Well, I don't fall with Kamala because all she knows how to do is smile, laugh, and nod.
And she's in the one situation where that makes sense.
So she's got to, you know, live up this moment.
This is this is big for her.
She doesn't look like a serial killer.
Yeah, that's right.
Yeah, that's, I guess that's the best you can hope for out of her.
No, look, I mean, compared to Joe Biden, you know, if you compare to Kamala Harris, Joe Biden's approval ratings look pretty good.
But, you know, there is something going on.
And this is why I understand why some of these like right-wing hosts have been making this connection because something is going on here that's that's fairly interesting.
That, you know, I don't know how much of this you've seen, Rob, and I don't know how much of this our listeners and viewers have seen, but the corporate press is certainly turning against Joe Biden in a pretty blatant way.
There's been a lot of people, and not just the corporate press, like the political class, there's been a lot of people turning against Joe Biden over the last week, two weeks.
It's been interesting to see.
They're really reporting, and part of this is just that his approval rating is really in the garbage.
And I tend to be one of these people.
I don't, you know, I try not to jump onto conspiracies without any evidence.
But, you know, when someone like Joe Biden's approval ratings are so low, I do tend to think, I bet they're really lower than what they're telling us.
You know what I mean?
So, like, if they're telling us they're in the 30s, I bet they're in the 20s, you know?
And so he is really an unpopular president.
And I think that's part of the reason why that's happening.
And so a lot of people are kind of connecting this video to what, oh, well, look, this is clearly a concerted effort to try to, you know, make Joe Biden look as bad as possible.
Look, this is proof.
He's not even their president.
Barack Obama's their real president.
I think they're going a little bit overboard with that.
But there is something to the fact that Joe Biden cannot command respect in that moment and he cannot command like all of the establishment to remain behind him.
There is a connection there.
There's something.
So, um, and speaking to the movement away from Joe Biden, I think the more rational claim would be: hey, the entire system likes spending a lot of money.
And so, if they can point to a single individual instead of the system and go, hey, you're at fault for inflation, that's a lot easier than looking at the way that we spend money, generally speaking.
We also don't know what might come out of this whole Hunter Biden laptop scandal.
So, it's interesting that the media agencies like your Washington Post and your New York Times have all of a sudden turn around and go, Yep, that's real.
And I'm venturing to guess that the reason why they did that is they have the inside scoop that there are maybe some criminal charges actually coming down the line.
And so, they wanted to be ahead of it.
And maybe, maybe it's worse.
There's no way of knowing.
And usually, I, as I've learned from you, because I've gotten more excited about these stories and that people actually going down, and you're always like, Yeah, no one really goes down.
So, you know, I who, but I'm just saying, in this one, who knows?
Maybe there's some evil stuff coming up.
Maybe it's so bad ideas going down.
Yeah, yeah.
No, you might, you might be right, but I do, I do say my default setting is always like, don't ever think we're at the end of the movie where the good guys win and the bad guys lose.
Because I've just, I've been there many times and seen that.
That usually isn't how it works out, no matter how much evidence there is against somebody.
Okay.
That being said, we're in a particularly unique moment in American history for a couple of reasons.
Okay.
So, number one, If you think about the Donald Trump presidency, right?
It was this enormous repudiation of the entire establishment.
Donald Trump being elected president, as many people describe it, as I've described it, was a giant middle finger to the establishment.
That's undeniably what him being elected president was.
He ran as the biggest, you know, he was the guy who said the Bushes are liars and they lied us into war.
The Clinton are liars and the Clintons are evil people.
And, you know, the media is the enemy of the people and all of this.
Our whole country is run by really stupid people.
You know, if you remove all of the kind of like, you know, the crazy tweets and the Trump narcissism or whatever, and you just strip it down to what the appeal of the campaign really was, it was make America great again.
We used to be great.
We're not anymore because very stupid people have run this, very corrupt people have run this.
We're going to make it great again.
It was the biggest middle finger you could imagine.
And in the final year of Trump's presidency, the final year was 2020.
And that was the worst year for the American people in, I mean, for the most amount of American people, that was the worst year in decades at least.
You know, all the COVID stuff, right?
I mean, the economy just destroyed.
Hundreds of thousands of small businesses closed their doors permanently.
Tens of millions of Americans on government assistance, on unemployment, kids not going to school, kids being masked up, just, you know, everything, everything we've been talking about for years.
A very bad year for the American people.
So you have this situation where the establishment is failing so much that you have the biggest repudiation of the establishment you could imagine, you know, winning.
And then in his final year, it's disaster.
And then, so what you get is the re-emergence of the establishment and, you know, Joe Biden, I mean, almost like a caricature of the re-emergence of the establishment.
And not even Joe Biden at his best, which wasn't that impressive anyway, but Joe Biden at his, you know, most frail, senile kind of state.
And he wins by what?
A mix of, you know, just don't leave your house.
And we'll just, the whole corporate press will attack Donald Trump 24-7.
And also we're doing this voter by mail thing, which, you know, whether you even like buy into the like, oh, the election was a fraud or something like that.
I'm not saying that, but an overhauling of the way that we used to do presidential elections that distinctly benefits the Democrats.
So I was talking about this in my speech last week in Minnesota, but it's funny because like to the average, you know, to the average Democrat, they take this as like a badge of honor that, well, the more people who vote, the better we do.
But if you look at it objectively and you just go, so yeah, so the people who can't be troubled to actually get up and go to a voting poll and vote, if those people are allowed to vote, like they go for you isn't the brag you think it is.
But anyway, you know, whatever.
So with all of these things combined, Joe Biden gets in.
So the establishment limps back into power and they have one more shot.
And it's just a disaster.
And don't get me wrong, Trump was a disaster, but Biden's just more of a disaster, you know, more disaster.
And so now you just see it's like all of these problems just right in your face.
And at a certain point, I think people, I think even the corporate press and the Democratic establishment are starting to realize that, oof, goddamn, this is really bad.
They're in a really bad situation.
Like the between inflation and even COVID policy and the push for war in,
you know, with Russia and the push for support with the Ukrainian Russian war and all of this stuff is just not none of this is something that's very appealing to the average American.
Like the average American, the average working class American is like, look, I'm furious because the last two years have been the worst two years that I can remember.
The price of everything is going up.
The price of my housing, my, you know, health care, my energy, gasoline, is all through the roof.
I'm falling behind that.
This is crazy.
My kid is being indoctrinated in public schools on some shit that I find repulsive.
And you're talking about how we got to go fight a war for Ukraine or how we have to go fight racism or whatever, you know, whatever like the official establishment narrative is.
And this just does nothing for them.
Like they're just like, yeah, this is insanity.
And I think that the corporate press is starting to realize that the midterm elections are coming up pretty soon.
And this is going to go bad for us.
And we kind of got to get ahead of this narrative.
That's more or less how I see it.
I don't know.
What do you think, Rob?
I think it's closer to what I was saying that, you know, maybe there's some Hunter Biden stuff coming out.
Because if it's midterm election stuff, I guess just to give a little bit of pushback on that.
So, well, I guess, how does that help them?
How does it help them?
Because what they're going to distance the new people being elected from the basically the Democratic institution.
I mean, like from the presidency.
Well, maybe they just realize it's coming down.
Like this is happening.
And they might.
But I would think absolutely.
No, you might be right about this.
No, no, no.
But I think the issue with that is that typically speaking, the pitch for voting against the current administration is that you can keep him in check.
So when you go, hey, look how bad the guy is in charge.
And if he has more support in the Senate, look at all the bad bills that he's going to be able to pass.
So for the corporate press to kind of go, oh, look, the current administration actually really is dangerous, I think would rally more support to unseat Democrats to get more Republicans in there to keep it in check.
Yeah, that's a fair point.
Maybe you're right.
I don't know.
You know, the weird position that the Democrats and the corporate press.
And of course, when I say this, I mean, there is corporate press that is pro-Republican, you know, Fox News and stuff.
But the corporate press that is overwhelmingly pro, you know, for the Democratic, for Democrats winning, they must be looking at this like, wow, you guys are in a really bad spot.
Because, you know, Joe Biden's approval ratings are tanking.
And it's hard to imagine that Joe Biden.
First off, it's hard to imagine that Joe Biden runs again in 2024.
It's really hard to imagine that Joe Biden can, I don't know.
Who's the Republican nominee going to be?
It looks at this point like it's Trump or DeSantis.
It's kind of hard to imagine that he can stand up to either of them and actually have anything to argue, you know?
And, you know, I don't think I don't think Trump was a good president at all.
I don't think DeSantis will be a good president.
I certainly don't think Biden is a good president.
But if you're just trying to like analyze this politically, I don't see how he could stand up to either of them and not just get demolished.
Trump Or DeSantis Next00:03:37
And then you're like, okay, well, if it's not Biden, who's it going to be?
If Biden decides he's not going to run again, well, it has to be Kamala Harris.
How could they not?
How could they not have Kamala Harris be the nominee?
You know, this is the weird thing about the woke trap that the left has gotten themselves into.
It's like, well, she, what got her to the dance is what?
She's a woman of color.
I mean, they're committed to that.
So, so you can't truth a woman of color.
Right.
How could you skip her?
How could you skip the woman of color who's next in line?
And she clearly has the ambition to do it, right?
I think she has as much ambition as Trump or DeSantis or anyone.
I don't think she's going to go, I'll step back so someone better can run.
I think she's trying to run.
So if she has that ambition, who could say, how can anyone in the Democrats say that, no, we're going to skip over the one who's the obvious choice?
You know, like the narrative just writes itself, right?
You're like, oh, okay.
Oh, any other time, the vice president would be the one to be the next nominee if the president isn't going to seek re-election.
But now you're going to say we skip over the woman of color?
Of course.
Well, the only reason is because you're racist, sexist, whatever.
So if that's the case, then, geez, they're in a tough spot.
What do they do?
And so I guess I'm just kind of wondering to me, it just seems, it does seem a bit like suspicious.
Like, why right now are so many people turning against them?
And the only thing I can think of is that it's like there, it's just so obvious to so many Americans.
Like I think the situation is, if I had to Guess that the approval numbers are inflated.
He actually has way lower approval numbers than that.
And they realize that they can't pretend this isn't reality.
That if they do, they're toast.
So they have to at least admit: look, yeah, he's fucking up on all these different fronts.
That's my guess, but I don't know.
If I think you watch more news than I do, I tend to read it.
But if I had to give my snapshot of what they're trying to sell at the moment, one, they want to make Ukraine look like as big of a victim as possible so that they can kind of justify the United States's stance prior to this and the fact that we kind of, in some ways, took a hard line with Russia because we want to make it look like Russia is so evil that we got to do everything we can to support Ukraine, which is a lot easier than blaming Biden for kind of orchestrating or maybe pushing Russia into this mess.
So that's the first thing they want to sell everyone on.
The next thing that they're trying for, and I don't think it's going to work, is they're going, the Republicans have stalled the Democratic initiatives for things such as, you know, expanding free healthcare coverage, getting rid of your student debt.
But I think I'm going to venture to guess that if inflation becomes more of an issue, the free goods are going to become a little bit less popular, that they're going to try and pretend, hey, we're the party.
Times are tough.
And so we're going to get you this free shit and it's going to help you out.
But I don't know that that sale is going to work as much as people going, hey, I want to have a job and I don't want inflation like this.
So if that means that you guys aren't spending as much, I think a little bit of the Democratic storyline is actually going to fall apart here.
And they're not going to have an easy job blaming that on the Republicans.
Yeah.
No, no, I think you might be right about that.
Inflation Hangover Reality Check00:08:03
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The idea of kind of reigning in inflation at this point, I think is just, I think for people who actually know what's going on, you realize that it's like you're in, you know, the Fed was trending on Twitter earlier today, which I thought was really interesting.
Yeah, no one cares about that.
Yeah.
Well, all of a sudden, people are starting to get interested, I guess.
It wasn't until prices were this out of control that people started going, shit.
So what's going on here?
I know we've been talking about it for a while, but years.
But I think for people who know what's up, you can recognize that the Fed is in a really, they're finally pinned into this position that a lot of people were predicting.
You know, a lot of the really good people like Peter Schiff and David Stockman and a lot of these people were saying for a long time, this was where they were going to find themselves, where they really, you know, inflation is getting bad enough that everyone's feeling it.
No one can kind of deny it anymore.
No one can say, oh, no, there's not a real problem with price inflation.
Forget the monetary inflation, which has been going on for quite a while.
But now the Fed is in a situation where they have to kind of walk this fine line.
And I think this is part of the reason why the Fed all of a sudden, Rob, is talking about, you know, diversity or whatever, equity, because what are they going to do?
I mean, the idea that they could reign in inflation without crashing the economy seems pretty, it seems pretty evident that that's an impossibility right now, right?
I mean, inflation is bad enough that there's no way the Fed can actually reign this in without tanking the whole goddamn system.
And that's always, that, that was always, it was obvious that was the position that they were going to be put in.
Where, okay, so what do you want to do?
You're going to raise rates enough to tank the whole economy and it still won't rain in the inflation that we have.
They went from transitory to soft landings.
Yeah.
You can invent whatever the fuck you want.
It's, it's, what a, what a job.
You just get to be wrong.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, that's exactly right.
It's interesting because they've, I mean, marginally raised interest rates by a tiny and just that little bit.
About a quarter of a point.
Quarter of a point.
That little bit that they raised it.
I believe mortgages, like requests for new mortgages, have already fallen by 40%.
Yeah.
So just to give, just to give you the picture of crashing the economy, imagine when interest rates go up higher and then all of a sudden housing demand comes down by 80% and all of a sudden everyone's housing values start coming down because, you know, you realize it was just being propped up by government funds and cheap loans and credit asset bubbles.
And then you realize people are leveraging their houses.
Everyone realizes, oh my God, I'm actually poor.
Yeah.
I mean, go, listen, go back a couple episodes ago when I tried my best to kind of explain the whole like business cycle and how it works.
But that's exactly right.
That this whole thing is kind of propped up by people believing that money is close to free.
And when people, when the market signals let you know that it's not, that oof, that's when things get rough.
That is when things get rough.
So, you know, the problems with inflation are bad enough.
But I think, unfortunately, the American people are going to realize soon enough that the problems associated with trying to rein in the inflation, which is actually the right thing to do.
But those problems are going to be really harsh.
It's going to hurt a lot more.
It's going to hurt a lot more than even this current inflation.
And I don't, I want to be clear about this.
It's not that that we should feel that pain.
We should.
You know, in the same way that if you've been drinking for five days straight, just getting hammered, and you're like, fuck, I got to crash and then have the worst hangover of my life.
And the hangover sucks.
The drinking is fun.
And you're like, you know, you really want to have this hangover right now.
It's like, yeah, because you need to, because that's actually the process of getting healthy again.
That's actually the process of like getting all the toxins out of your body.
That's as much as that seems like the bad part, the hangover is actually the first step toward getting healthy again.
And so that's, that's what we need to go through.
And this hangover, it's almost like the inflation is the sign that the high isn't even working anymore.
You know, that you're like, oh, shit, this, I'm not even getting drunk anymore.
This isn't even feeling good anymore.
It's like, well, you need to go to sleep and you need to crash.
That's the solution.
Shut up Bitcoin and gold up your ass.
Domestic Terror Label Debate00:11:11
I just capital.
Take, yeah, swallow 17 Bitcoin and call me in the morning.
That's the fucking, that's the answer.
All right.
So let's move on to the next topic.
There was a Thomas Massey video that you sent me that I thought was great.
Thomas Massey is kicking ass on Twitter.
He's the best.
Love Thomas Massey.
He's not perfect on everything, but man, when he's right, he's really, really good.
So let's play that video.
Thomas Massey at a recent House hearing talking about a new bill that's being proposed and an amendment that was shot down.
Very interesting video.
Let's play it.
Let's just summarize this for the folks back home.
We've got a bill here, as Chairman Nadler says, that's going to set up more bureaucracy to go after domestic terrorism.
And that's probably a good thing.
And Mr. Biggs has offered an amendment that says you can't use the funds that are going to be authorized in this bill to investigate, analyze, monitor, or prosecute any individual who's declined the COVID vaccine or expressed opposition to it.
This should be, this is constitutionally redundant, this amendment.
It is obvious on its face.
But it's not been kicked out by the chairman or anybody else here for being non-germane because it is germane.
This should terrify you.
This amendment is germane to the bill because the FBI has already indicated that your opposition to taking the vaccine or to spreading information that might be true, but the CDC doesn't agree with will qualify you to be targeted as a possible domestic terrorist.
You're definitely a domestic terrorist.
So listen, when the CDC changed the definition of vaccination, they changed the very definition of vaccination.
If somebody had the gall to point out that that goes against 250 years of medicine, of science, their redefinition of vaccination, should that make them a domestic terrorist?
No.
This amendment is fought on.
The CDC has been involved in the past two years trying to cover up something we've known about for 10,000 years, natural immunity.
What if you dared to say that I trust my natural immunity to protect me from the next infection of this virus?
Should that, what if I dared?
Okay, maybe I have said that for two years, but that shouldn't make you a domestic terrorist.
Come on.
Why would the Democrats be opposed to this amendment?
I don't know.
Some have said, well, the language, there should be a four where there's an and or something like that.
Well, let's fix it then because the fact that this amendment is germane is terrifying.
The fact that we even need to mention this amendment is terrifying.
The fact that moms are going to be targeted as domestic terrorists because they think their five-year-old doesn't need the freaking vaccine because they've looked at the data.
And they don't.
They've seen that the flu presents more of a risk to their child than COVID does.
Any of the variants.
Does that make that mom a domestic terrorist?
All right.
So that's basically, that's the essence of the video.
You sent this to me, Rob.
That's how I found out about this.
Pretty incredible that you'd be having this debate in the House about a bill to crack down on domestic terrorists.
And the point that Thomas Massey is making is that the amendment can be dismissed if it's not germane to the bill, but no one's dismissing it on that ground, which basically says it is germane, just meaning it's relevant.
This has something to do with the bill.
And it's being voted down.
So the idea that we're cracking down on domestic terrorists as if that's a big problem, right?
Like we have terrorists amongst our population.
I know people can say like, whatever, January 6th or some shit like that.
But like, come on.
The idea, like, are we real, do we really live in a society where we have a problem where there's like buildings are exploding left and right because people in our country are terrorists?
Or do we have a problem that people are tweeting that they think they don't need a vaccine if they've already had COVID?
And this, they can't get this amendment into the bill.
Pretty, pretty terrifying.
I think we need as many people in government as possible talking out against the idea of a domestic terrorist because we all know where that leads.
And at the moment, the CDC is currently going under a restructuring because of all of the confusion that existed around COVID.
We already know that they didn't reveal much of the data they collected over the last couple of years.
How many things have people been right about?
I mean, forget the natural immunity.
I'm just saying how many claims the biolab, whether or not the shots were going to keep you from getting COVID.
There's been a million things that the government has just been masks, whether or not schools should be closed.
The government has been wrong about nearly every small aspect of COVID.
And so, and they've clearly been wanting to censor everyone with alternative point of views that have later turned out to be right.
The idea that you can create a domestic terrorism title that then, where does that go?
What does that extend to?
So you don't get a trial.
If I'm tweeting, my misinformation is spectacular.
I can get a knock on the door from the government and no one hears from you.
And then everyone assumes, oh, you must have done something wrong.
The government just doesn't take people and have them disappear.
Yeah, you're a terrorist.
It should not exist.
I mean, there should not be a label of domestic terrorists, and we should not be expanding the power of the United States government in any capacity to censor or remove people without trial, law, transparency.
This is the scariest thing brewing.
I mean, other than pretending that global warming is a problem or nuclear war, this is Russia.
But this one's pretty bad.
And the January 6th thing is just as bad of an application.
Nuclear war with Russia might be the worst, but let me tell you something.
This is really what you need to be paying attention to.
And as a couple of people who have been preaching against the war on terrorism from the very beginning of it, and look, just look around and see what the war on terror has given you.
Nothing but disaster.
But if you think the war on terror is a threat, you need to focus on the war on domestic terror because that is something that...
And by the way, I'm not saying like, you know, your life is any more valuable than some life in a Muslim country in the Middle East, but you probably care about it more.
But look, no, but look at it this way.
The terrorism title and the stripping of individuals of their freedom.
Did that benefit us?
I mean, all the torture, did we get good intelligence from any of that?
I mean, there are people who are still in great mode.
There are people that we've tortured.
There are people we sent to black sites.
There's kids that we've droned.
So not only have we ruined people's lives, but was there even a payoff for that?
The answer is no.
It's not you're going to expand the category of people that we can mistreat under a terrorism title.
It didn't work.
We've already, it's a failed experiment.
We should be retracting that so that we're not doing it to other people in third world countries.
The fact that we're going to expand it as if it's a title that works and the results are there, we're expanding the ability to just, you know, terrorists.
Well, that's right.
And so the idea that we could say after 9-11, so you have this horrible, you know, horrific like attack on America, and Americans are scared out of their minds.
And we say we're going to fight a war on terrorism, you know, and not a war on the people who came here and did this to us, but just a war on terror.
And we'll tell you who's a terrorist.
And a terrorist ends up being, you know, whoever the regime defines them as.
Well, okay, we've decided that every Sunni in Iraq is a terrorist.
And then we've decided every Shiite in Iraq is a terrorist, you know, and then, you know, whatever side we're on this these days.
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They're always, you know, I remember listening to Fox News and hearing Lindsey Graham and, you know, like George W. Bush advisors, Karl Rove, people like that talking about terrorism.
And they'd say, you know, it was right after 9-11.
And they'd say, Iran is the biggest funder of terrorism in the world.
And you'd be like, wait, wait a minute.
But terrorism, everybody's thinking, Osama bin Laden, you know, and Al-Qaeda and the kind of like radical bin Ladenite jihadists.
But those were a bunch of like Sunnis from Saudi Arabia and Egypt camped out in Afghanistan.
But then when you, when Karl Rove is talking about Iran, he's talking about a bunch of Shiites who are, I guess, funding, you know, Hezbollah and stuff like that.
And you're like, oh, so you just use this word now that invokes to the American people, Al-Qaeda, but you're applying it now to someone else who's a completely different group who actually hates that other group, has nothing to do with them.
Ideology Defines Crime00:07:49
So that's okay.
So that's the game you're playing now, right?
But I guess when it's all Muslims and third world countries, it doesn't, that doesn't like mean as much to people.
But if you pay attention, now all of a sudden they're telling you that, you know, we have terrorists here amongst us.
And this is almost like the message I try to like deliver to like Democrats as much as Republicans or left-wingers as much as right-wingers.
You know, once they start throwing this label out there, don't think just because you're on the other side, it won't apply to you too.
So now, domestic terrorists, you know, Thomas Massey is trying to get this like amendment to be like, but that can't just mean people who oppose the COVID regime, right?
Right?
We're probably not going to get that amendment in there.
We're probably not going to be able to fit that.
Look, if you want to have some bill against domestic terrorists, and that meant people who have been, you know, whatever, have killed a whole bunch of innocent people, you know, something like, okay, but we don't really have a big problem with that.
And so they have this bill cracking down on it.
And Thomas Massey is trying to go, but this can't just mean people who are like, you know, opposing the CDC.
And that's like, that's probably not going to have the popularity to pass.
I also think this is a larger, kind of more technical legal argument, but the idea to me is if you commit a crime, you're guilty of that crime.
It doesn't matter if you declare terrorism.
It doesn't matter if you declare it a hate crime.
Like it's the action that you did that makes something legal or illegal and something that you should be punished for.
It's when you start inventing these terms, that's when you like, you're inserting bullshit.
But on a simple level, you're inserting bullshit.
On a more detrimental level, now you can be guilty of not actually doing the crime part because you got this other, you've introduced bullshit to it.
So you've introduced some other thing that you could potentially be liable for.
That it should just be as simple as, yes, if you went out and you murdered someone, it doesn't matter if you murder them in the name of terrorism or you murder them.
There should be, that's a crime.
And so you should be penalized for performing that crime.
It doesn't like this other part, you get away from, you know, policing the actual important issue.
Well, that's right.
And this is kind of the essence of why I always hated the idea of a hate crime.
Like I, on a philosophical level, you go.
All the crimes are of love.
Usually when I heard someone, right?
So if you, if you like kind of like, if you assault someone, that's, that's the crime.
That's the crime is assaulting them.
Now, if you assault someone because they're of a particular race or gender or ethnicity, whatever, it's like the idea that that should be a harsher sentence, which is, you know, on the books.
That's what the idea of hate crimes are.
There seems to me to be something about that that's incredibly illogical and kind of perverse.
You know, it's like as if you had assaulted them for some other reason, then that would be better.
As if, like, right, if I just assault someone who's the same race as me, that's a what, a love assault?
What are we talking about here?
So if you assault someone, like if you go and beat the shit out of a gay dude, like that's a crime.
But if you beat the shit out of a gay dude and say, you fucking gay motherfucker, now that's worse.
Because you, what, you talked shit while assaulting the guy?
It's a very bizarre, like philosophically, it's very difficult to justify that.
And this kind of is, as you pointed out, a similar type of thing, where if you're going to say, like, you're like, it's not just the crime that you commit, but it's what your ideology is while you commit that crime.
This is dangerous.
And anyone who's a dissident or anyone who's like opposed to the regime should understand this because now they're not just criminalizing what actually should be a crime.
They're also adding into that the fact that you have the wrong opinion.
And particularly right now in American, you know, in the moment that the country is in, you should realize what the wrong opinion is always going to be.
And this is why Thomas Massey is inserting this amendment, even though it's not in the language of the bill, is because he's like, I know what this is going to be for.
This is going to be for opponents of the regime.
So the people who question the shit that you're talking about, the people who think that, you know, the vaccine mandates are wrong.
They'll be labeled domestic terrorists.
And that's a really big concern that we all got to be thinking about.
That's really interesting to me what you just said, that it adds in the element of a thought crime because the penalty is worse because of the thought that you had while you were doing.
So you've actually, you're now creating a criminal for criminality for a thought, which then is not that hard to decouple from criminality from the thought without that other act of violence.
So in other words, if you were to beat up a gay guy, right, but and you scream, hey, I hate you, gay guy, while you do it, you probably wouldn't use those words.
But let's just say you went, I hate you, gay guy, and you punch him.
So now you're in trouble also for because he's a gay guy.
But then you've created a criminality for saying, like for hating the gay guy.
So now maybe if you just have that thought in your head, that's going to be illegal.
You post.
That's a little bit.
Well, that's right.
Because look, if you just, if you kill someone for wearing a, I don't know, what do I have on?
A gray sweater.
If you kill someone for wearing a gray sweater, you know, you kill me because you're like, fuck people in gray sweaters and you kill me.
Or if you kill me for being a Jew.
Well, that makes sense now.
Now you get it, right?
The gray sweater thing was crazy, but the Jew thing, you're like, ah, they have caused a lot of problems.
Kidding.
Inflation's ramping.
We're going to have to say, come on.
We're going to have communism, feminism, inflation.
How much can we take?
Anyway, joking about all that.
But you know what I'm saying?
Like, if you, either way, it's the same crime.
You're doing the same thing to me.
But if you say that one should carry a stricter penalty by law, then you are kind of saying that you are kind of endorsing the idea of a thought crime.
And I know this isn't like, again, this isn't popular to say, and people can try to spin this however they want to.
But if we're being honest, thinking people, we can acknowledge there's something to that that you go, well, now you've criminalized the thought attached to a crime, not just the crime.
And as soon as you've criminalized a thought, even when attached to a crime, you've criminalized the thought.
And so what Thomas Massey is trying to insert here is that, but you can't just criminalize the thought alone, right?
And that's being shot down.
And that's what you need to focus on here.
They're like, no, we won't guarantee you that we're not just criminalizing the thought.
That's something important to keep in mind.
All right.
We're going to wrap up our episode on that note.
And, you know, we got a lot of fun stuff coming up.
A lot of gigs, as we told you about before.
Check out Robbie the Fire's podcast, Run Your Mouth.
Follow him at Robbie the Fire on Twitter.
This weekend, Dallas, Texas.
And ooh, Reno.
That's going to be real fun gigs.
Me and Robbie the Fire out there.
Live stand-up show, live podcast in Reno.
And then the National Libertarian Party Convention where shit goes down.