Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Election Day 2022
Aired: 2022-11-09
Duration: 57:37


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[00:00:54]  All right, let's start the show.
[00:00:57]  Fill her up.
[00:00:58]  You are listening to the Gash Digital Network.
[00:01:05]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:01:07]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:01:09]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:01:12]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:01:18]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:01:23]  You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
[00:01:27]  Here's your host, Dave Smith.
[00:01:30]  What's up, everybody?
[00:01:31]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:01:33]  I'm Dave Smith.
[00:01:34]  He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caulks, back in effect.
[00:01:38]  COVID Jesus.
[00:01:39]  What's up, brother?

=== Election Day Confusion (15:57) ===

[00:01:40]  How are you feeling?
[00:01:40]  Happy Election Day.
[00:01:42]  Happy.
[00:01:42]  Well, it's almost election day/slash.
[00:01:45]  This is before, and I assume afterwards, people are going to remain just as confused.
[00:01:50]  Yeah, it does.
[00:01:50]  It does seem that way for sure.
[00:01:52]  So we're as of now, we're recording this.
[00:01:54]  What is it?
[00:01:55]  Uh, just about 1:30 p.m. on election day.
[00:01:58]  Uh, so it's already polls for the midterms have officially opened.
[00:02:02]  People are voting.
[00:02:03]  I mean, I guess people were voting and early voting and mail-in voting, but now people are voting online.
[00:02:08]  Um, it's uh, I don't know what to say.
[00:02:12]  It's already a shit show.
[00:02:13]  It's not election day, it's what was previously known as election day.
[00:02:16]  It's like Prince.
[00:02:17]  Sure does seem that way.
[00:02:18]  So I said on the last episode, I uh I talked about this a little bit to close the episode.
[00:02:25]  I want to open today's episode with this idea or this thought that's in my mind.
[00:02:29]  I tweeted something about this earlier that's been going super viral, but I got to say, this I can't shake this kind of weird feeling that I have about Election Day today.
[00:02:41]  And I don't do not take this the wrong way.
[00:02:44]  I'm not, if I were telling you, like, okay, this is the conspiracy that I believe, I would tell you that.
[00:02:51]  I'm not saying that.
[00:02:53]  I'm just saying that something very bizarre in these midterm elections leading up to them happened.
[00:03:00]  And it was Joe Biden's closing pitch.
[00:03:04]  Now, typically, a president leading into the midterm elections, their closing pitch would be something like making their case to the voters.
[00:03:17]  You know, this is, you know, trying to drive turnout.
[00:03:22]  In this type of midterm election, the president's first midterm elections, presidents tend to take a beating.
[00:03:29]  The opposition party tends to win almost always in my lifetime.
[00:03:33]  I think the lone exception was George W. Bush in 2002.
[00:03:38]  But that was the, you know, it was a year after 9-11.
[00:03:42]  It was kind of a different.
[00:03:43]  We were so into bombing other people.
[00:03:45]  That was a brief window in America.
[00:03:46]  We're like, fuck yeah.
[00:03:48]  We were war hungry like a motherfucker.
[00:03:51]  And it all worked out great.
[00:03:52]  Anyway, but that wasn't Biden's closing pitch.
[00:03:58]  And instead, Joe Biden, who, you know, by all accounts, you know, they're saying certainly it looks like he's going to have a bad night.
[00:04:08]  That's what most of the polling data indicates, that Republicans are going to do fairly well.
[00:04:14]  There's, you know, it ranges from like a good night for Republicans to like a red wave where Republicans do really great.
[00:04:22]  And Joe Biden's closing pitch was to look out for election deniers and that we must accept the results of the election.
[00:04:33]  And also he made sure to point out that it might take days or even weeks to figure out who won.
[00:04:40]  Now, I just got to say that's, that's very bizarre.
[00:04:44]  And now, this wasn't an off-the-cuff moment from Joe Biden where then the White House later walks it back.
[00:04:49]  This wasn't Joe Biden being senile.
[00:04:52]  This was a planned, like the topic of his speech.
[00:04:55]  And they've been saying this over and over again.
[00:04:58]  And also all the people around him have been saying this.
[00:05:00]  So this is clearly like a concerted effort.
[00:05:03]  This is their plan.
[00:05:04]  This is what we're saying.
[00:05:06]  It is bizarre, to say the least, that that would be your closing pitch, that your closing argument is, hey, we're about to lose.
[00:05:20]  Make sure there's no one denying the results of the election.
[00:05:23]  You have to accept them.
[00:05:27]  Now, again, I know there's some people when I tweeted this, some like Democrats response, they go, well, that's just how much integrity Joe Biden has and the Democrats have.
[00:05:34]  But it's kind of hard to imagine that the party of Al Gore and Hillary Clinton and Stacey Abrams are really making that argument.
[00:05:41]  I don't buy that for a second.
[00:05:42]  The truth is that that's what you say when you think you're going to win, not when you think you're going to lose.
[00:05:48]  What you say when you're going to lose is you try to temper expectations, you try to drive up turnout.
[00:05:55]  You do not say that anybody who's questioning the results of this election is a dangerous person.
[00:06:01]  That's just, that doesn't make sense to me.
[00:06:03]  And so it just makes you wonder whether I'm not saying this means that an election's being stolen or that there's fraud going on or something.
[00:06:11]  I'm not saying it doesn't mean that.
[00:06:13]  I'm just saying that it seems to me like the party of Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton, if they're telling you you must accept the results of an election, that means they think they're going to win.
[00:06:27]  Whether that's legitimately or illegitimately, that means that they think they're going to win.
[00:06:31]  So I would just say for all those people who are like very confident in a big red wave, maybe you're right.
[00:06:38]  I'm not saying you're not.
[00:06:39]  There's certainly a lot of indications that would make it seem like, yeah, that's what should happen.
[00:06:43]  That's what's supposed to happen today.
[00:06:47]  But I'm not, I'm not so sure.
[00:06:49]  Certainly sounds shady.
[00:06:50]  And despite what you're saying, it sounds to me like you're saying they're still in this election.
[00:06:55]  Well, I'm not saying necessarily.
[00:06:56]  Maybe there's something else they know.
[00:06:57]  I'm not jumping to any conclusions.
[00:06:59]  Maybe there's something else that they know that we don't know.
[00:07:01]  You know, I do think that, look, the fucking two-party system is, you know, it's, this is kind of the game.
[00:07:11]  And it's what keeps us in this steady, you know, growth of government and collapse of society is that when you get pissed off of one party, you vote for the other party.
[00:07:20]  Then they fuck up.
[00:07:21]  You get pissed off at them.
[00:07:22]  You vote for the other one.
[00:07:22]  And it's kind of like, while it seems like the pendulum is swinging back and forth like this, really, it's just going like this with like a swing back and forth each time.
[00:07:31]  You get what I'm saying?
[00:07:32]  Like it's just keeps moving on the same.
[00:07:34]  Yes, exactly.
[00:07:36]  That being said, this, it seems like this is the moment when the pendulum, even on the way up, is supposed to swing back the other way.
[00:07:43]  I mean, Democrats have just been horrible.
[00:07:45]  I mean, you know, record high inflation and just the COVID policies have just destroyed so many communities.
[00:07:53]  Everything, everything Joe Biden's done has been a disaster.
[00:07:57]  He's also just like a walking caricature.
[00:07:59]  He's an idiot, you know, who's borderline senile, if not full-blown.
[00:08:04]  So it seems like it should swing back the other way.
[00:08:07]  Democrats have made the heart of their platform deeply unpopular issues.
[00:08:15]  You know, they're not even the things that we might disagree with them on.
[00:08:18]  That there are things that are, you know, somewhat popular.
[00:08:21]  You know, saying the government should provide health care or good education to everybody is somewhat popular.
[00:08:27]  Saying that we should teach six-year-olds that they're transgenders and fucking, you know what I mean?
[00:08:32]  Like, oh, this is not.
[00:08:33]  None of this is popular.
[00:08:34]  Saying that we should ban, you know, gasoline cars is not popular.
[00:08:39]  None of these things are.
[00:08:40]  And this is what they're really pushing.
[00:08:42]  So it would seem like that would make sense that the Republicans would have a really big night.
[00:08:47]  Something just feels off to me.
[00:08:49]  We talk about I got some election complaints, which is starting with elections shouldn't feel like you're playing Monopoly with your annoying friend.
[00:08:58]  And what I mean by that is we've all done that where you're playing Monopoly and you got some friend who just keeps making up rules and now it's not fun and you're pissed off.
[00:09:05]  And that's what elections feel like now.
[00:09:07]  And it makes no sense to me.
[00:09:09]  So you got early voting.
[00:09:10]  You got people that are voting early, but you're going to count those last.
[00:09:14]  It's like, why can't they come up with a system?
[00:09:16]  I mean, this is classic government where they tell you, hey, listen, we can handle everything, but this is going to take us two weeks to process.
[00:09:23]  It's unbelievable how incompetent the whole process is, and that there's so many other things that are, you know, not run by the government, things of this nature, where they're able to just like, I don't know, like, this is above my pay grade.
[00:09:38]  I'm not the fucking expert on all of this, but just have this so that it's in a secure way where it can be quickly counted and can be transparent and everyone can see it.
[00:09:45]  And like, there's not, you know what I mean?
[00:09:47]  Like, I don't know.
[00:09:48]  It just, I'm not saying like you wouldn't still have a secret ballot.
[00:09:50]  I'm just saying that people can see that, you know what I mean?
[00:09:53]  Like every vote was counted or something.
[00:09:54]  It's just, it seems there's no way this couldn't be done.
[00:09:58]  I will tell you on that, on that topic, there are already today lots of complaints about the process.
[00:10:08]  And the truth is that we are living in a, you know, as Jeff Dice calls it, the post-persuasion America.
[00:10:17]  We're living in a post-goodwill America.
[00:10:20]  And we're living in an America that is post any sort of commonly held viewed as objective centers of reality.
[00:10:40]  There are not too many.
[00:10:42]  I don't know if there's anybody, anybody out there in the field of journalism or commentary or anything like that or politics who is somebody that both the left and the right broadly would say, now that's an honest, trustworthy person.
[00:11:02]  Here's an institution that we really know is telling us the truth.
[00:11:05]  There's just none of that.
[00:11:06]  And that starts to feel normal because that's just like the world we live in, right?
[00:11:12]  Oh, the left will say everything the right is saying is misinformation, and the right says everything the left is saying is misinformation.
[00:11:17]  And, you know, lots of subgroups within that.
[00:11:21]  That was not always the case.
[00:11:23]  It just was not always the case.
[00:11:25]  Like in this country, like for better or worse, like, you know, people like Murrow and stuff like that, like were viewed as legitimate sources.
[00:11:33]  A lot of that's not good.
[00:11:35]  I'm just saying this is the dynamic of where we're in now.
[00:11:37]  And you can see already where like, look, if the Democrats have a very good night, there's no question huge numbers of Republicans, probably the vast, vast majority of Republicans are going to view that this thing was stolen, whether that's fair or unfair.
[00:11:56]  And if the Republicans have a huge night, the vast, vast, vast majority of Democrats are going to believe that fascism has taken over the country and that and that the votes and the election is illegitimate in its own way because they only got the votes because of misinformation.
[00:12:12]  You know what I mean?
[00:12:13]  That's kind of the Democrats' version of the Republicans believe there's actually fraud going on in the election process.
[00:12:20]  And the Democrats believe that, well, these rubes were just tricked by misinformation anyway.
[00:12:24]  So it's all bullshit.
[00:12:27]  Or maybe Russia.
[00:12:30]  So anyway, let's hear.
[00:12:31]  Let's just play.
[00:12:32]  These are these are quick videos, but let's play a little taste of what is going on right now on election day as we speak.
[00:12:42]  Can you repeat that?
[00:12:43]  I can promise you.
[00:12:44]  Can you start from the beginning and repeat that?
[00:12:46]  So what happens if we have two tabulators?
[00:12:48]  One of the tabulators is not working.
[00:12:51]  Okay.
[00:12:52]  The other tabulator is taking about 75% successfully.
[00:12:57]  So 25% of them are being misread.
[00:13:00]  And it could be a printer issue or it could be the tabulator itself.
[00:13:04]  So when it's misread, you have an option to put it into what's called box three and it gets read whether it goes downtown and gets read manually or whether it gets refed in into our tabulator get read.
[00:13:17]  Okay.
[00:13:18]  So no one's trying to deceive anybody.
[00:13:21]  Of course not.
[00:13:22]  Not on election day.
[00:13:23]  That would never happen, right?
[00:13:24]  No, that would never happen.
[00:13:26]  So choices are, you know, you guys ask me a question.
[00:13:30]  Sure.
[00:13:30]  If I get out there and that happens to my ballot, can I take my ballot with me and go somewhere else?
[00:13:35]  You cannot leave these premises with the ballot.
[00:13:38]  Sorry, and there's not, there's nothing because I don't trust going to box the box for hips.
[00:13:43]  No, no way.
[00:13:49]  Okay, so just you know, one these things are being straight.
[00:13:52]  This is all in Arizona, by the way, all of these videos.
[00:13:55]  I trust a guy who claps when he talks.
[00:13:57]  So I believe.
[00:13:58]  You know, but just by the way, I'm not even looking at these videos and going like, oh, like, maybe this is ignorant on my part or naive on my part, but I'm not even looking at this and going like, oh my God, this is obviously evidence of some conspiracy or something like this.
[00:14:11]  I'm just looking at this and being like, holy, what a shit show.
[00:14:15]  Those people, how is this the way we're doing it?
[00:14:17]  Those people are fat and whites.
[00:14:19]  That's clearly a Republican county.
[00:14:21]  Like, if you showed me that, Hispanics or thin white women in yoga pants, I go, all right, they're cheating the Democrats.
[00:14:26]  So I know what's going on here.
[00:14:28]  It is funny how much you really can just pick them by looking at them.
[00:14:32]  Every last one is goes, I can save you some time and just look around and go, I got 200 Republican votes here.
[00:14:38]  All right.
[00:14:38]  Can I save everyone go home?
[00:14:40]  Just count 200 for the Republicans.
[00:14:42]  All right, let's go to the next video.
[00:14:43]  I don't even remember what order these are in, but let's just go to the next one.
[00:14:47]  I'm Stephen Richard, the Maricopa County Recorder.
[00:14:50]  And we're here to give you an update on how things are going so far with the election.
[00:14:53]  We've already had almost 44,000 people show up this morning, check in, and be available to vote.
[00:15:01]  And things are going great out there, but there's one thing that we wanted to address.
[00:15:05]  Take pause for a while.
[00:15:07]  I'm sorry.
[00:15:07]  I just cannot say it.
[00:15:08]  It's discount Michael J. Fox and discount Bill Burr.
[00:15:14]  And someone's got to tell that guy to shave his head from a guy who held on too long.
[00:15:17]  I mean, that is atrocious, but that guy is, you know, you might as well just stand up and say, hi, I'm counting the votes and I'm also delusional.
[00:15:26]  All right, let's keep playing.
[00:15:28]  Today, and that has to do with our tabulators.
[00:15:31]  We've got about 20% of the locations out there where there's an issue with the tabulator where some of the ballots that after people have voted them, they try and run them through the tabulator and they're not going through.
[00:15:45]  But the good thing is, is we do, first of all, we're trying to fix this problem as quickly as possible.
[00:15:51]  And we also have a redundancy in place.
[00:15:54]  If you can't put the ballot in the tabulator, then you can simply place it here in where you see the number three.
[00:16:01]  And this is a secure box where those ballots will be kept for later this evening, where we'll bring them in here to central count to tabulate them.
[00:16:11]  So this would function much like early voting functions in that we would get your ballot back.
[00:16:15]  Once we've signature verified it, we would send it to our central tabulators.
[00:16:20]  Ballots that are in here will already be in effect signature verified, so we won't need to confirm identity, but we will central tabulate them.
[00:16:27]  This is actually what the majority of Arizona counties do on election day all the time.
[00:16:34]  And just one thing in mind, we have 200.
[00:16:36]  I'm sorry, I won't do that again.
[00:16:38]  Firstly, that thing looks like a 1980s fax machine.
[00:16:41]  Yeah.
[00:16:41]  So I just can't believe just how inept government is.
[00:16:45]  This reminds me like 10 years ago.
[00:16:46]  I was once in buying liquor in Vermont.
[00:16:49]  And in Vermont, they had gateway computers from like 1980s because it all has to like go through some government system.
[00:16:55]  And it took like, I don't even know if it took time, but I remember just looking at the computer and it was ancient and thinking, it's so funny that, you know, every other store you walk into in every other state, it's just good equipment.
[00:17:06]  And since this is the government equipment, obviously in putting it in the market.
[00:17:10]  And improvements, improvements that never even like need to be made are happening in other stores.
[00:17:15]  Like they're like, you remember what a pain in the ass it was to swipe your credit card?
[00:17:19]  And you're like, no, I don't remember that.
[00:17:21]  They're like, well, we figured it out.
[00:17:23]  Now you can insert it.
[00:17:24]  You know what?
[00:17:24]  That's still too much of a problem.
[00:17:26]  Hold your credit card near where this thing is and it will just read it and we will fit.
[00:17:31]  You know what I mean?
[00:17:31]  Just like all these innovations.
[00:17:33]  And then you come to like the government process and it's like, what the fuck?

=== School Mom Voting Stories (05:21) ===

[00:17:38]  And they're making this video to be like, basically their point is like, look, I know this seems shady as fuck, but like it's not.
[00:17:45]  It's in a secure box.
[00:17:46]  They're going to count it later.
[00:17:47]  Don't worry.
[00:17:48]  Most people vote like this anyway.
[00:17:49]  Like, this, this is, by the way, I literally, the first, when I first watched it, I thought this was like a spoof.
[00:17:55]  Like, I thought this was a parody of sorts because the guys just are so hilariously awkward.
[00:17:59]  But no, this was tweeted out by the blue check mark, Maricopa County Elections Department.
[00:18:04]  Like this is really their people saying this.
[00:18:06]  It's like they're getting all of these complaints and then they have to make this video being like, no, no, no, it's totally cool.
[00:18:13]  Right.
[00:18:13]  Like you said, standing in front of this 1987 fax machine with a box attached to it.
[00:18:20]  And look, even if you are completely of the opinion that there's no like intentional fraud or anything like that going on, wouldn't you at least have to admit, if you're being honest about this here, that you're like, yeah, that seems shady as fuck.
[00:18:39]  This lacks a level of sophistication in 2022.
[00:18:42]  Yes.
[00:18:43]  And that this is not confidence inspiring.
[00:18:46]  This makes someone leave and they go, wait a minute, the machine didn't work.
[00:18:49]  They said the other guy said 25% of the ballots aren't being read.
[00:18:53]  You're like, that's a lot.
[00:18:55]  Okay.
[00:18:56]  And then someone's got to just drop it and trust that at some point someone later on is going to count this thing or blah.
[00:19:02]  It's just like, you're like, first off, like, like, there's three points here almost.
[00:19:06]  Like, okay, number one would be the point you made.
[00:19:09]  Like, how the fuck is this system so ancient?
[00:19:11]  Like, how can you not figure out a better system?
[00:19:14]  Number two, you'd admit that this does not, this is not confidence inspiring.
[00:19:20]  And then number three, also, like, doesn't this seem kind of susceptible to fraud at the very least?
[00:19:29]  Doesn't this seem like a system where like, you know, if democracy is the most important thing in the fucking world, then wouldn't we want to really make sure we get this right?
[00:19:38]  It's if democracy, if democracy is so important, then we cannot leave it to the government.
[00:19:46]  All right.
[00:19:47]  I'd also, I'd love to know the machine mechanics of it.
[00:19:50]  So, I guess you're putting it in, but it can register that some items can't scan, and so then you're depositing it, but all the other items are being scanned correctly.
[00:19:58]  They're like, I would, I'd like for someone to explain the mechanics to me of how the machine works that it will register your vote, but then also for some reason be able to tell you when it's unable to register it.
[00:20:08]  There's just something that seems screwy about yeah, I do not understand.
[00:20:12]  Um, all right, here's one more video.
[00:20:14]  This is just a sample.
[00:20:15]  There's tons of videos like this floating around.
[00:20:17]  Maricopa County has really become like the center of a lot of this controversy.
[00:20:21]  And here's one more video, also from the same county.
[00:20:25]  So, I pulled my ballot, and but so it didn't got misread, but then what was happening?
[00:20:31]  Put it in there, yeah.
[00:20:33]  And tonight, a Republican and a Democrat will sit and go through all of the misread ballots all over the county and count them, and it will get counted.
[00:20:43]  Okay, and then both machines are not working out.
[00:20:46]  No, nothing to work in the last half hour.
[00:20:49]  Thank you.
[00:20:50]  So, I pulled myself.
[00:20:50]  So, I mean, look, I just think it's safe to say, I like, I don't even care.
[00:20:56]  I'm not a partisan Democrat or Republican.
[00:20:58]  Like, I don't have a dog in this fight, but can't we all just objectively say this is a shit show?
[00:21:04]  This whole thing is a goddamn shit show.
[00:21:08]  I mean, the idea that you got these school mom volunteers with minimal security in random locations working with boxes that they can't tell you how or how they don't function and why they're not working.
[00:21:20]  And then you can just tell me that, yeah, they're all going to be shipped to the proper location.
[00:21:23]  Like, I've seen bank security trucks.
[00:21:25]  Like, I mean, if this was really the most important thing in the world and it was being run in an efficient fashion, you wouldn't have school moms with equipment they don't understand just telling you, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all gonna be counted.
[00:21:35]  It's all work.
[00:21:37]  There's something about that.
[00:21:38]  I don't know why it reminds me of this, but there is something like about that, the school mom vibe.
[00:21:43]  And it's not even like school mom, it's like you know, was a school mom 40 years ago.
[00:21:48]  You know what I mean?
[00:21:49]  Like, it's like some grandma just there.
[00:21:51]  And she seems very nice, she was like a very nice woman.
[00:21:53]  I'm sure she believes everything she's saying, but it reminds me of.
[00:21:56]  So, I remember when my wife was pregnant the first time, she we were going, uh, we were flying somewhere.
[00:22:05]  I can't remember where, but we were going on a plane.
[00:22:08]  Uh, and she had asked her OB like at one of our appointments about it.
[00:22:14]  You know, she's like, I'm, you know, we're flying this weekend.
[00:22:16]  That's fine.
[00:22:17]  She was like, Yeah, yeah, you're in your first trimester.
[00:22:18]  Like, it doesn't matter, you can fly.
[00:22:20]  They just tell you not to fly toward the very end.
[00:22:22]  Um, and then the OB said, she goes, But opt out of the um the scanner thing.
[00:22:28]  She goes, opt out of that, just go through the metal detector and take the pad down or whatever.
[00:22:32]  Don't do, don't go through that thing.
[00:22:35]  Um, and she was like, Oh, okay, yeah, if you say so.
[00:22:38]  And she's like, I'm not, she goes, it's not even like definitive that it's bad, but she's like, I just, it could be, and like, I would just just don't do it, just go through those right.
[00:22:46]  And so, anyway, I remember like a couple months later, I was flying somewhere by myself, not with my wife, and there was a pregnant woman online ahead of me.
[00:22:54]  And she said, uh, to the TSA guy, she goes, Is that can pregnant women go through that?

=== Broken State Elections (03:51) ===

[00:22:59]  Is that like bad for you?
[00:23:01]  And some, you know, TSA worker is like, No, you good, you good.
[00:23:07]  They're like, Oh, yeah, no, it's fine.
[00:23:09]  And then I said to her, I was like, Just opt out of it.
[00:23:12]  I was like, Just so you know, my wife's pregnant, and our doctor told us not to.
[00:23:15]  So, I would just opt out, you know, and then and then she did.
[00:23:17]  And then they beat the shit out of her, anyway.
[00:23:20]  She's a gitmo now.
[00:23:21]  So, um, she's yeah, doing life, never had a trial.
[00:23:24]  So, anyway, no, but so that's, but it's just this like thing where it's like somebody who's like a little cog in this machine who has no idea what the fuck they're talking about, just assuring you with certainty that no, this is fine, everything's fine, but you have no idea.
[00:23:42]  She goes, They will be counted, though.
[00:23:43]  They will be counted.
[00:23:44]  Every vote in the county will be counted.
[00:23:46]  And I'm not whether that's the machine here is not working.
[00:23:49]  Yeah, why do you think that the next part's going to work?
[00:23:52]  This thing's supposed to work and it's not working.
[00:23:53]  We're at level one.
[00:23:54]  The one part that I can see and it's not working.
[00:23:56]  That's like if you could see an open kitchen and a guy shitting into his hands to make his pancakes and you're like, no, but your food's going to be clean.
[00:24:03]  Well, that's the only part I can see and you're not getting that part right.
[00:24:05]  And how do you know this?
[00:24:07]  Like, how does this lady know that all of these votes are going to be counted later?
[00:24:11]  It's like, I don't know.
[00:24:12]  Someone told you that, and now you're repeating it to someone else.
[00:24:15]  You have no idea what's how shit in my pancake batter.
[00:24:20]  Don't tell me that this, that the rest of the food is clean.
[00:24:23]  A lot of this, and I'm not, I'm not saying I'm sure.
[00:24:27]  I don't really know.
[00:24:29]  Just like probably everyone listening or watching this show, I don't exactly know what's going on with all of this, but I suspect that a lot of it is this.
[00:24:41]  Now that the wheels are spinning off more and more in the culture war and in the absolute just disaster from all of the policies over the last, you know, 20 years.
[00:24:57]  And now that this thing is all kind of falling apart and we live in this post-trust society when everyone's now all of the sudden, people are putting elections under a microscope.
[00:25:10]  And also we all have video cameras on our cell phones and we could post it right to social media and videos like this go fucking viral.
[00:25:16]  And now I can put it out here and now we can talk about it on a video and this can go viral.
[00:25:19]  Like, you know what I mean?
[00:25:20]  Like it's just now that we're here, people are actually looking at the process of state-run elections and realizing what a shit show the whole thing is.
[00:25:29]  I don't know.
[00:25:30]  I think it's quite possible that there is absolutely no conspiracy here.
[00:25:35]  It's just that we're finally viewing this thing and realizing like, oh, yeah, there's fraud in every election.
[00:25:42]  There's a shit show in every election.
[00:25:45]  It's just no one was ever really putting it under a microscope before.
[00:25:51]  And now that we are, we're like, wait, what?
[00:25:54]  What the fuck?
[00:25:55]  It's really something, especially the way people talk about democracy, that it is this like the most central important thing in our society to preserve.
[00:26:07]  And yet, when you actually look at the democratic process, you're like, wow, this is what, this is what it is.
[00:26:15]  I mean, it's just unbelievable.
[00:26:17]  Like, I don't know.
[00:26:18]  I don't know how to say this.
[00:26:19]  And I'm, I'm not a technical, like, I'm not knowledgeable really when it comes to technology, but like my scanner at home scans 100% of the time when you try to scan something on it.
[00:26:37]  It just always does it right.
[00:26:39]  Like, and I don't, I have a good printer.
[00:26:42]  I don't know if it's like the fucking, I don't think it's the best, but it was like, I didn't get a real cheap one.
[00:26:47]  You know, like I got a decent printer.
[00:26:49]  It prints and it scans.

=== Bitcoin Health Savings (09:36) ===

[00:26:51]  That's just that.
[00:26:52]  And like, you're telling me we can't fucking figure this out.
[00:26:55]  It's just, it's beyond insane.
[00:26:59]  Beyond insane.
[00:27:00]  If I could just go, because then I would actually vote.
[00:27:03]  If I could just show up to my ATM, I put in my debit card.
[00:27:05]  My bank clearly knows who I am.
[00:27:07]  They can, you know, they know that I'm a U.S. citizen.
[00:27:09]  If it just said, when you logged in, and who would you like to vote for?
[00:27:12]  Maybe make that the system.
[00:27:14]  That's it.
[00:27:14]  You vote at your ATM machine.
[00:27:18]  And then tell people that you got to be all, you just have to have an open bank account at any U.S. bank.
[00:27:22]  And U.S. banks, they love having the business.
[00:27:24]  So, and they're already colluding with government.
[00:27:26]  So they can get a couple more bank accounts on the books.
[00:27:29]  I mean, how many people even exist in America without a single bank account?
[00:27:31]  I bet it's easier to get than a license for all the people that claim that, you know, how tough it is.
[00:27:36]  That's racist or something.
[00:27:37]  Yeah.
[00:27:38]  Yeah.
[00:27:38]  Maybe.
[00:27:39]  Maybe that's the answer.
[00:27:40]  All right, guys, let's take a little extended break from the show today.
[00:27:45]  We have a very special segment that we're going to do.
[00:27:47]  Welcome back to the show, Andy Schooner, who is, of course, the CEO of CrowdHealth.
[00:27:52]  How are you, sir?
[00:27:52]  Good to see you again.
[00:27:54]  I'm doing well.
[00:27:54]  Yeah, good to see you.
[00:27:55]  It's been a few months, but appreciate you having me back on.
[00:27:59]  Absolutely.
[00:27:59]  I appreciate you taking the time.
[00:28:01]  Of course, right now we're in the middle of open enrollment, and I'm sure a lot of people who listen to the show are trying to pick one of these healthcare plans that are all someone who's been through this process, as many of you I'm sure have, just kind of looking at all of these plans, no clue what means what, reading all of the fine print to even figure out what they're covered for, what they're actually paying.
[00:28:26]  It's unbelievable how it really seems like it's almost intentionally designed to make sure the consumer has no idea what they're picking.
[00:28:33]  This is like my this is my mastery is understanding how health insurance works.
[00:28:39]  And so I went into healthcare.gov literally like two days ago.
[00:28:41]  I was like, okay, let's see.
[00:28:42]  Let's see if I can figure this out.
[00:28:44]  Right.
[00:28:44]  And I put in all my information.
[00:28:46]  It takes like 20 minutes to get through the signup process.
[00:28:49]  It gives me a hundred different options of what I can do.
[00:28:51]  And the cheapest option for me, my wife, and my two girls was $1,100 a month and then a $16,000 deductible.
[00:29:00]  That was the cheapest, which means I have to spend $30,000 before the health plan pays a dollar.
[00:29:06]  I mean, it's, it's, it's nutty.
[00:29:09]  It really is nutty.
[00:29:10]  Yeah, I remember after when my wife was pregnant the first time, getting on the phone, me and her both getting on the phone with one of the representatives from the company and just asking what it was going to cost.
[00:29:20]  It's like, hey, we're delivering, you know, at the end, what's it going to cost?
[00:29:23]  And he's like, whew, let me put you on hold.
[00:29:26]  And, you know, this guy's just like reading out of a manual and he's like, okay, your deductible is this and your maximum out of pocket is this.
[00:29:33]  And you're this.
[00:29:34]  And it's like, right, just what do I, what is this going to cost me?
[00:29:38]  Like, okay, I'm paying, you know, whatever it was at the time.
[00:29:40]  I'm paying 20 grand a year in premiums.
[00:29:42]  On top of that, what do I, and they couldn't even give us an answer.
[00:29:44]  They, they just give you no information.
[00:29:46]  It's unbelievable.
[00:29:47]  And what other things in life do we do that?
[00:29:49]  And people have no idea what it's going to cost before you go and do it.
[00:29:53]  They're going to, they're going to tell you afterwards, like, oh, I'll just tell you afterwards.
[00:29:55]  Like, no, like, this is important.
[00:29:57]  I have a huge deductible.
[00:29:59]  I have to know how much this costs.
[00:30:01]  Right.
[00:30:02]  Like, and with $16,000 deductible, not a lot of people have $16,000 laying around in their bank account so that if they get, you know, hurt or injured, they can actually pay that.
[00:30:11]  Right.
[00:30:12]  So we talked about this last time, but it's one of those like, if you don't have $16,000 in your bank account to pay for this, you're not actually paying for health insurance.
[00:30:20]  Like you don't have insurance because this is going to put you into financial distress.
[00:30:24]  And so it's, you know, just the scam of health insurance.
[00:30:27]  It really is.
[00:30:28]  And healthcare.gov proves it out, you know, masterfully.
[00:30:32]  Yeah, it sure does.
[00:30:33]  However, as we've told people before, and as I tell people on a regular basis, there is an alternative to the insurance system, and that is crowdhealth.
[00:30:40]  So tell our listeners who might be open again to thinking about this.
[00:30:44]  What is crowdhealth?
[00:30:46]  Yeah, man.
[00:30:47]  I had healthcare.gov a few years ago.
[00:30:49]  My daughter had an $8,000 surgery.
[00:30:51]  My healthcare.gov plan declined it.
[00:30:55]  I had to pay an $8,000 bill.
[00:30:56]  And I was like, we got to do something different here.
[00:30:58]  It's got to be different.
[00:30:59]  And so what we've done is created a company that gives you tools to operate outside of health insurance.
[00:31:07]  You can go to whatever doctor you want to.
[00:31:09]  You don't have to be, you know, have networks.
[00:31:12]  It's about half the price of healthcare.gov.
[00:31:14]  It really is taking all the best parts of healthcare, which there are really great parts of healthcare, taking out the insurance company and doing it at about half the price.
[00:31:24]  So it's tools that allow you to really do this on your own, take personal responsibility for your own healthcare.
[00:31:31]  And it's worked great.
[00:31:33]  Like I said, we met a few months ago, maybe six or eight months ago, and we literally have thousands of people now on CrowdHealth since we last talked.
[00:31:43]  Many of them are your listeners.
[00:31:45]  So, we have tons of part of the problem, you know, listeners as members in our community.
[00:31:51]  So, it's kind of fun.
[00:31:52]  Yeah, one of the things that I really love about crowd health, I think it's like the most beautiful aspect of it is I remember I used to read, like when I first became a libertarian, I used to read all of these libertarian historians who would talk about like the fall of mutual aid societies like before the welfare state.
[00:32:08]  You're like, Well, what did people do when they hit hard time?
[00:32:11]  And you're like, Oh, well, people used to join these organizations and these kind of like clubs, and they'd kind of all pitch in money.
[00:32:16]  And then, if someone was on hard times and they all knew each other, they would kind of help them out.
[00:32:21]  It was like the community basically did it, and they did it, of course, in a much more effective way than the government, who's just basically cutting shorts with no question of you know of what the situation is.
[00:32:30]  And there's something really beautiful that you've kind of found a way to go around the insurance system and kind of create that community where it's like everybody's pitching their money in.
[00:32:38]  And then, if somebody has a big medical expense come up, the community kind of covers them and then they give back to the community when they're back on their feet.
[00:32:44]  I really find something beautiful about that.
[00:32:48]  It really is.
[00:32:48]  It's kind of going back to the future, is kind of what I say.
[00:32:51]  It's like back in the day when we had a community, when somebody got hurt, like the community would rally around them.
[00:32:56]  We actually had somebody in Tennessee just a few weeks ago got their hand caught in the uh the prop of a boat, um, severed four fingers.
[00:33:06]  So, we went out and we went to the community.
[00:33:08]  We say, Hey, would you help this woman?
[00:33:09]  And we had people come back and be like, Not only will I help her, I want to give more than what you asked me for.
[00:33:15]  Like, you never see that in healthcare.
[00:33:17]  You never go to your health insurance plan and say, Hey, I know my premium is a thousand dollars this month.
[00:33:21]  Can I give you 1,100?
[00:33:22]  Like, it never happens, right?
[00:33:23]  And so, um, it really is a super effective way of doing things.
[00:33:28]  And ultimately, what we're doing here is we're allowing people to pay in cash for their healthcare services.
[00:33:34]  The doctors love that because they don't have to deal with health insurance, which they're a pain in the butt, right?
[00:33:39]  Health insurance plans are a pain in the butt.
[00:33:41]  And so, these doctors are giving us on average of 72% reductions in the price of these services for bills over $1,000.
[00:33:52]  Like, that's how much they hate dealing with health insurance and value cash at the point of care more than having to deal with the bureaucracy of health insurance.
[00:34:02]  And so, that's that's ultimately where we're creating some efficiencies in the market is really taking the insurance plans out of it and taking all the costs out with it.
[00:34:12]  Yeah, that's that's a great aspect of it too, because you know, a lot of the a lot of doctors really are great people and they're very good, and they're also burdened by this insane system.
[00:34:20]  Like, they know about it as much as anyone, and they hate this government insurance system.
[00:34:24]  So, it's awesome that you can kind of like find a way again to work with them and make it a win-win for the doctors and the patients rather than the bureaucrats and the politicians and all the people that get in the middle of that.
[00:34:36]  Now, of course, we do have a promo code here, which is P-O-T-P, where you can join for just $99 a month for the first six months, which is like it's about half the price off of the typical crowd health price.
[00:34:47]  And I mean, if you're looking over, if you're in open enrollment, you might notice much, much lower than the insurance system that we live under.
[00:34:57]  And none of those huge deductibles.
[00:34:59]  So, you're not going to have a $14,000, $16,000, $18,000 deductible with CrowdHealth too.
[00:35:03]  You just pay for the first 500 bucks of any health event, and then we'll crowdfund the rest for you.
[00:35:07]  And that's how we work.
[00:35:08]  So, you won't have to write the $10,000 check or to the local hospital.
[00:35:13]  I know also there's a lot of Bitcoin enthusiasts in our audience, and that's a new feature of CrowdHealth is that you can hold some of your health savings in Bitcoin.
[00:35:22]  Yeah.
[00:35:23]  So, every month when you put you'll submit $175 per person or $99 for the first six months, 75% of that, if you're in our Bitcoin group, will be held in Bitcoin.
[00:35:34]  The idea here is that when you send your money to a health insurance company, they hold it in this big pot of fiat, which is melting given the inflationary environment that we're seeing.
[00:35:44]  And so you can hold it on your own in Bitcoin.
[00:35:47]  And if that Bitcoin goes up from 20,000, which is today to 100,000, you get all of that upside.
[00:35:53]  You know, those insurance companies, when they have that big pot, they get interest off of that.
[00:35:58]  They invest that.
[00:35:59]  Guess who gets that interest?
[00:36:01]  The health insurance company.
[00:36:03]  We allow you to hold your money in Bitcoin.
[00:36:06]  You get all the appreciation of that.
[00:36:08]  And so, you know, Bitcoin does what we think Bitcoin is going to do, then I don't think I'm going to have to pay for healthcare ever again, right?
[00:36:15]  Because I'm actually saving in Bitcoin as opposed to saving my insurance or sending my money to my insurance company.
[00:36:21]  Yeah, that's an awesome aspect that I think a lot of our my listeners will really appreciate.
[00:36:25]  All right, Andy, we really appreciate you taking the time.

=== Libertarian Political Irony (13:01) ===

[00:36:28]  Anything else you want to say before we get out of here?
[00:36:30]  You know, for the Bitcoin folks, use P-O-T-P B-T-C for their promo code.
[00:36:35]  It's the same deal, which will put you in the Bitcoin community where it's just a bunch of Bitcoiners who are sharing their expenses directly with each other.
[00:36:43]  Okay, awesome.
[00:36:44]  Andy, thank you so much for taking a few minutes to talk with us.
[00:36:46]  I highly encourage everybody, if you're in open enrollment right now, take a look at CrowdHealth and consider this.
[00:36:52]  It's a great alternative to the crony insurance system that we live under.
[00:36:56]  All right, let's get back in the next video.
[00:36:58]  Thank you.
[00:37:00]  Anyway, let's talk a little bit about some of the races that we think are interesting to us.
[00:37:10]  The human catfish, Fedderman?
[00:37:12]  Sure.
[00:37:12]  Let's talk about it.
[00:37:14]  We haven't really talked about him at all.
[00:37:15]  I think.
[00:37:16]  I don't think firstly, off the bat, I'm surprised that Dr. Oz is doing as poorly, even though he's probably going to win because Fetterman is competing with Biden for who can be the most retarded politician.
[00:37:27]  And you got to give credit to these people to really show what inept people are capable of.
[00:37:32]  Like, don't think that you can't go out and have a good, high-profile job and make important decisions if you're mentally inept.
[00:37:39]  You know, there's still a possibility out there that you can do high-profile things.
[00:37:44]  Listen, if you're on the side of the regime, there is no floor to how like terrible you can be and still succeed and still go places.
[00:37:59]  Failing upward, man.
[00:38:00]  It is really unbelievable.
[00:38:02]  And, you know, the thing about this guy, Fetterman, right?
[00:38:05]  Is that his name?
[00:38:06]  It is remarkable how stupid he is.
[00:38:11]  Well, you know, look, he, the guy legitimately had some serious stroke, right?
[00:38:16]  So like, this is, this is actually, it's sad.
[00:38:18]  He's actually mentally incompetent to do the job.
[00:38:21]  It's not even a joke.
[00:38:21]  Like, he literally actually had a bit of a job.
[00:38:23]  He's incapacitated.
[00:38:24]  Yes.
[00:38:25]  He cannot speak.
[00:38:28]  They've been open about this.
[00:38:30]  He cannot engage in small talk, they said, because he can't understand and can't respond to like what people are saying.
[00:38:37]  And it's you know, it's like it's something when you see it, you're like, wow, oh, it's very clear.
[00:38:45]  Like, oh, yeah, there's something going on.
[00:38:46]  There's a real neurological thing happening.
[00:38:52]  And yeah, it's, it's fucked up.
[00:38:54]  And it's sad.
[00:38:55]  It's sad.
[00:38:56]  And I can kind of understand almost like him not wanting to drop out.
[00:38:59]  I mean, I think he's not completely processing everything that's happening.
[00:39:04]  And also, you know, it's people maybe, I don't know, he wants to be tough or gritty or stick it out.
[00:39:10]  I don't think, I think there's a few things on display here in this, in this, in that campaign that are pretty interesting that are more important than him.
[00:39:23]  And the biggest one to me is just that what it reveals, it's not like, oh, it reveals like this emperor has no clothes thing.
[00:39:30]  Clearly, people can see that this guy is not up to the challenge.
[00:39:36]  And yet, everybody in the corporate press and the Democratic establishment, but I repeat myself, all have to pretend that there's nothing going on there.
[00:39:48]  I've seen like all these clips from different people on different news shows, you know, saying, being like, I thought he did a very good job.
[00:39:55]  Like, wait, what?
[00:39:57]  Really?
[00:39:57]  You're going to look people right in the eyes and be like, he was very impressive.
[00:40:01]  Really great debate performance.
[00:40:03]  He's saying like, you know, goodbye instead of hello, and then just rambling and not, and then he's point blank asked about releasing his medical records and he's just like, no, I won't.
[00:40:16]  And then the other thing about it that's kind of interesting is that in a weird way, it's like, it's like calling the political correctness bluff.
[00:40:29]  And you, you realize that this kind of like political correctness, wokish type stuff, maybe not like wokeism, usually people are thinking of like, you know, there's like levels of it.
[00:40:40]  There's like max level is like, you know, whatever, something about like six-year-olds should have gender reassignment surgery or something like that.
[00:40:49]  But like, then there's also all these levels like before that that were just kind of like the political correctness that we all grew up in.
[00:40:56]  But it does seem like in some ways he's almost he represents challenging our society to see whether we are capable of even saying harsh truths out loud anymore, or whether like risking hurting someone's feelings is at your own demise is like something you would just do because you can't hurt anybody's feelings.
[00:41:24]  You can't say a harsh truth.
[00:41:26]  And the harsh truth is just like, yeah, dude, if you have lost your ability to like engage in small talk, you cannot be a United States senator.
[00:41:36]  That's just that.
[00:41:37]  You can't.
[00:41:38]  You're not up to the job anymore.
[00:41:40]  That sucks.
[00:41:40]  It's unfair.
[00:41:41]  Does it make mentally handicapped people feel a little bit worse about themselves?
[00:41:45]  Possibly.
[00:41:47]  But that is not as important as making sure that the people directing the most powerful organization in the history of the world are understanding the votes that they're casting.
[00:41:59]  You know what I mean?
[00:42:00]  Like it's just, and it's very, it's a very challenging thing in modern Western society for people to ever do that.
[00:42:08]  There's, there's, we've jumped too much on, we, we've gotten on like the, the, the bandwagon of sensitivity over truth.
[00:42:15]  And then we're so quick to demonize anyone who's insensitive that everybody else just kind of steps back and goes, well, I don't want to say it because then everyone will say that.
[00:42:24]  And that's, that's been all the democratic talking points is like, oh, this is so great for people with mental handicaps because now they have they have a representative of their own.
[00:42:33]  That's a byproduct of socialism.
[00:42:35]  And that, and it's like, no, we shouldn't inspire mentally handicapped people that they could be like a heart surgeon.
[00:42:41]  Like it's, it's better for society if people who are capable of doing jobs are filling those roles.
[00:42:47]  It's when you start ignoring performance that all of a sudden you can celebrate, oh, a person who's literally too incompetent to do this job gets to pretend like they're capable of doing it.
[00:42:58]  Yeah.
[00:42:58]  If you have a leg amputated, then you can't be a sprinter anymore.
[00:43:02]  Nice and simple.
[00:43:03]  You know, it's like, that's, does that suck?
[00:43:07]  It's really sad for people who had to have a leg amputated or something like that.
[00:43:11]  But let's be honest.
[00:43:12]  And that in an example like that, right?
[00:43:14]  It's like, oh, well, who cares if we all just pretend this guy can still run or something.
[00:43:18]  But yeah, if you were talking about like, let's say this guy in Pennsylvania was your pilot.
[00:43:27]  He was flying your plane.
[00:43:29]  And you go, he just had a stroke and his brain function is like greatly decreased.
[00:43:33]  You cool with that?
[00:43:35]  You and your whole family are on board this flight.
[00:43:37]  Is that okay?
[00:43:38]  Or you go, no, no, sorry, you can't do that.
[00:43:41]  You can't, you know, do you want a firefighter like rushing into a burning building who's like 80 pounds and five foot one?
[00:43:49]  Probably not, right?
[00:43:50]  You know, it's people don't like like it's there's this weird test for modern society.
[00:43:56]  Like, are we still capable of just telling these unpopular truths or not?
[00:44:04]  And it seems like, in many ways, even if he ends up losing, the fact that he didn't drop out of the race, that he wasn't forced to drop out of the race because so many voters were just like up in arms.
[00:44:15]  We already kind of failed this test.
[00:44:17]  And it's sad in a way because it would be like the decent thing for him and for everybody else.
[00:44:25]  Like in the same way that you were saying, like, this is a poisonous function of socialism.
[00:44:29]  I think you're absolutely right.
[00:44:30]  And when you say socialism, you mean in the broadest sense, just government intervention into all of these things.
[00:44:36]  And government by its very nature is always kind of like taking from productive people and then giving it to less productive people and always trying to like bring up, you know, others from where the natural kind of order would fall.
[00:44:49]  But it's wrong for everyone.
[00:44:51]  It's wrong for the voters.
[00:44:52]  It's also wrong for this guy.
[00:44:53]  This guy shouldn't be put out there in front of everybody to see him, you know, fumble and stumble over every word.
[00:45:00]  It's just, it's not right.
[00:45:02]  He's going, it's just on every level.
[00:45:04]  It's not good for anybody.
[00:45:06]  So, yeah, that race is just interesting on a lot of different levels.
[00:45:10]  And man, if he were to pull it off and win, holy shit.
[00:45:14]  That would happen.
[00:45:15]  And our country really does hate Muslims.
[00:45:17]  That would be my takeaway.
[00:45:19]  I'd be like, wow, we really are bigoted.
[00:45:21]  Turns out.
[00:45:23]  The flip side of that is I'm surprised that the Republicans ran Herschel Walker, mostly because what I remember of Herschel Walker a couple of years ago was the talks that he used to play where there were a couple times that he played Russian Roulette.
[00:45:37]  That I didn't know about.
[00:45:38]  I know some shit came out when his son.
[00:45:40]  This is now we're talking about the race in Georgia, is it?
[00:45:42]  Yes.
[00:45:43]  Is Georgia where Herschel Walker is running?
[00:45:46]  Yeah, he's handsome.
[00:45:50]  He's handsome.
[00:45:50]  He speaks all right.
[00:45:51]  But he was a hell of a football player.
[00:45:53]  Yeah.
[00:45:54]  He's had some things where he's like his son came out and said some shit about him.
[00:45:59]  I think ex-girlfriends have come out and said some shit.
[00:46:02]  A lot of baggage.
[00:46:03]  I don't know that much about that race.
[00:46:06]  I know the libertarian there was polling very well.
[00:46:11]  He's like more of a left libertarian guy.
[00:46:14]  And so I think that's probably hurting the Democrat more than it's hurting Herschel Walker would be my guess.
[00:46:20]  I don't know, to be honest.
[00:46:21]  I haven't like dug into the polling data that much.
[00:46:23]  But yeah, be interesting to see what ends up happening.
[00:46:26]  I'm surprised they couldn't come up with a better or more winnable candidate.
[00:46:30]  You know, there's something really interesting that I've noticed about the dynamic of the Libertarian Party in these midterm elections.
[00:46:39]  So there's often a struggle, you know, or a battle of sorts, you know, in the Libertarian Party between, say, like our Mises caucus and the anti-Mises caucus guys.
[00:46:50]  And, you know, and there's like the what the more left-leaning libertarians, and I guess the more right-leaning libertarians, I mean, all of us, both the left and the right ones, just think of ourselves as the true libertarians and then see the other side as the deviation.
[00:47:04]  Like we see ourselves as we're the real libertarians, and then they're these like lefties, and then they see themselves as they're the real libertarians.
[00:47:10]  We're these righties, you know.
[00:47:11]  So, however you look at it.
[00:47:14]  But the interesting thing is that when it comes to election time, the right libertarians, for lack of a better term, are more of a threat to the Republicans, and the left libertarians are more of a threat to the Democrats.
[00:47:30]  So, you get into this weird thing where you're kind of like, all right, now we got to be really careful with our aim here.
[00:47:36]  Cause I don't want, you don't want to like fuck up one of the good Republicans and give it to the Democrat.
[00:47:41]  You know what I mean?
[00:47:42]  And so, like, no, luckily for us, there's not too many good Republicans.
[00:47:46]  But then it's almost like all these guys who, you know, like hate me are the like left libertarian types.
[00:47:54]  Once they're running as candidates, I'm like, hey, go for it, buddy.
[00:47:59]  That's the worst thing you're going to do.
[00:48:00]  Fuck over the Democrat.
[00:48:02]  We got no problems here.
[00:48:03]  Okay.
[00:48:04]  Try to make your point, say some good things, and then fucking make sure the worst of the two candidates doesn't win.
[00:48:09]  I'm okay with that.
[00:48:11]  There's a real irony in it there.
[00:48:13]  I still think it's valuable.
[00:48:14]  Like, I still think the project is very valuable because then it lets us right libertarians, or again, you know, I just consider us libertarians, but that's what they would call us.
[00:48:23]  But it allows us to kind of like be able to put like maximum pressure on the Republican Party to get these fucking neocons the fuck out of the way while spreading our message.
[00:48:35]  So I think there's real value in all of it.
[00:48:37]  But anyway, it's just something I've been thinking about lately.
[00:48:39]  And then you got a hot Arizona governor lady.
[00:48:43]  Yes.
[00:48:43]  What's her name?
[00:48:44]  Corey Ann Carrie, something.
[00:48:46]  Wait, hold on.
[00:48:47]  Isn't it?
[00:48:47]  Isn't that Lake?
[00:48:48]  Am I confused?
[00:48:49]  Yeah, Corey Lake.
[00:48:51]  Carrie Lake, Corey Lake.
[00:48:52]  Yeah, she's at the issue.
[00:48:53]  She's well, she's been, she's been making a lot of waves.
[00:49:01]  Not sure what's going to happen in that race.
[00:49:03]  I mean, that's out in Arizona where there's already being, there's already, you know, all of this stuff of the videos that we were just showing.
[00:49:13]  So we'll see what happens.
[00:49:14]  Yeah, they got Star Wars R2D2 replicas for you just to deposit your ballot into.
[00:49:19]  It really is.
[00:49:21]  It really is.
[00:49:21]  Like this technology would have been considered incredible in like 1973.
[00:49:26]  It would have been like, whoa, no way.
[00:49:28]  Really?
[00:49:28]  It reads your thing.

=== Florida Trump Realignment (06:46) ===

[00:49:29]  We fake the man moon landing and this can scan a piece of paper.
[00:49:33]  Holy shit.
[00:49:35]  What are the any other options?
[00:49:36]  Yeah, hopefully Ron Johnson wins because he's one of the senators who's actually been doing very interesting work.
[00:49:42]  He's been doing a lot of the Hunter Biden stuff.
[00:49:46]  And he did a couple of very interesting set-in.
[00:49:49]  I think there were like committee hearings or something of the sort, really looking into documenting harm from the COVID vaccines.
[00:49:59]  So while he got into, he got himself into some trouble, I believe, in backing Trump maybe a little too aggressively on voting stuff.
[00:50:10]  But he's done some really good work in terms of trying to go after the Bidens and specifically being open-minded on that maybe the COVID policy has been actually harmful.
[00:50:22]  That is interesting.
[00:50:23]  That's nice to have somebody who's willing to say that.
[00:50:29]  Let me just see.
[00:50:30]  I wanted to check the latest polls.
[00:50:34]  Another thing that I just find interesting is Ron DeSantis down in Florida, who of course is running for reelection against Charlie Crist.
[00:50:48]  The last poll that I saw had him up like 10 points or something like that.
[00:50:55]  This has been an interesting little case study.
[00:50:59]  If, you know, Florida was a real close, like a real purple state for like always basically, going back to since I was a little kid.
[00:51:12]  And Ron DeSantis won the governorship by like a hair.
[00:51:18]  It was like just like a few, I think a few like tens of thousands of votes, not much.
[00:51:24]  And one of the things that was interesting that people have been talking about since the whole COVID thing is that you'd be like, well, what's the effect of this going to be?
[00:51:40]  And the fact that Ron DeSantis kept Florida, I mean, he did lock it down, but then backed off of that pretty quickly and then kept it as one of the, if not the most, I guess South Dakota was the most, but probably right after South Dakota, the most free state in America through 2020 and 2021.
[00:52:01]  You know, like what effect that was going to have on where Florida politics are, because that's a big deal.
[00:52:10]  I mean, Florida swinging has a huge impact on presidential elections and it's a big state.
[00:52:16]  And one of the things that people were talking about, they've talked about this a lot with Texas too, is that a lot of people moved there over the last few years.
[00:52:24]  And a lot of people left blue states to go to Florida and to go to Texas and places like that.
[00:52:31]  So there were basically almost like two different ways you could look at it.
[00:52:36]  One being that, well, all of these blue state voters are now coming in to your state.
[00:52:43]  Could that tilt it in a Democratic direction?
[00:52:47]  But of course, I think, as most of us figured, you know, if somebody is picking up and moving because of tyrannical, you know what I mean, COVID policies, they're probably going to kind of like the guy who is against those policies.
[00:53:03]  And it does seem that that seems to be bearing out, like that that seems to be what's happening.
[00:53:10]  I mean, we'll see how this all ends up going again.
[00:53:12]  It's not, shit isn't over yet, but it does seem like, I don't know.
[00:53:18]  I just think that's an interesting dynamic.
[00:53:19]  If, you know, people are moving from these blue states, but then you go like, well, maybe they're people who are actually lean red who are moving to the blue states.
[00:53:27]  And perhaps even if they were people who were blue, they've been pushed in another direction since then.
[00:53:33]  There seems to me to be no question that there is some type of political realignment going on in the country.
[00:53:41]  If ever there was a time for a political realignment, it would be the last few years.
[00:53:45]  And that's one of the things that I think is very interesting about this election.
[00:53:48]  I'm not sure exactly how clear a picture of that we're going to get, but it'll be interesting to see if we do get somewhat of a picture, you know, of a picture on that.
[00:53:57]  One of the most underreported trends in the presidential election in 2020 was that Donald Trump was way up with black and Hispanic voters.
[00:54:08]  People did not talk about this a lot, but it was pretty interesting that you had a president who was the most demonized on racial grounds.
[00:54:19]  You know what I mean?
[00:54:20]  Like cold racist the most.
[00:54:23]  And he actually really improved and did far better than previous Republicans with both the black vote and the Hispanic vote.
[00:54:30]  There's just something about that interest that's interesting.
[00:54:33]  Seems like some type of realignment, a little bit of an awakening from some of those people that like, no, they're not falling into the same old tricks that they used to.
[00:54:42]  Of course, this is the fucked up thing about the two-party system is that then the only other option is to go for the bad option on the other party.
[00:54:48]  But it's still to me, at least a little bit interesting to see people rejecting some of the programming that used to be so effective.
[00:54:56]  All right.
[00:54:56]  Any other race that's interesting on your mind, Rob?
[00:55:02]  None that I really followed.
[00:55:03]  I mean, here's the my problem with the news is that, you know, for a long time, they were saying, hey, the Democrats are going to take it.
[00:55:10]  Don't believe this red shit.
[00:55:11]  And I just kind of feel like we're in a new era of the news where you kind of have to wait for the dust to settle because they don't even come close to reporting facts anymore.
[00:55:21]  It changed.
[00:55:22]  It changed after Trump.
[00:55:23]  Just it changed.
[00:55:24]  The news changed from being, hey, we're going to give you information to, hey, we're going to spin narrative.
[00:55:30]  It's all like the Trump stuff where it's like, hey, he's got nuclear papers.
[00:55:34]  Hey, he did have documents.
[00:55:35]  Hey, we don't know what's in that documents, but you should still be pissed about it.
[00:55:38]  You know, so it's like, you kind of have to, I would be very surprised if Democrats won this.
[00:55:47]  And then I would have to reevaluate why our society is so stupid that amongst a low presidential rating, high inflation, a COVID policy that didn't work, people are still supporting Democrats.
[00:56:00]  Like, I actually have to take some time and evaluate how can this be that people are still supporting this party.
[00:56:07]  But I feel like most of the predictive talk is just nonsense.
[00:56:11]  And so you kind of have to wait for the dust to settle.
[00:56:14]  Yep.
[00:56:14]  I got to say, I completely agree with that.

=== Upcoming Live Dates (01:20) ===

[00:56:16]  And I think that's a good, a good place to wrap the episode on.
[00:56:19]  Well, our next episode, we will be recapping a lot of what ends up happening here.
[00:56:24]  We'll see how maybe everything we said on this show is stupid and we're going to have to take it all back.
[00:56:29]  And let's plug some live dates.
[00:56:31]  Oh, yeah.
[00:56:31]  Hell yeah.
[00:56:32]  November 25th, me and Robbie the Fire Bernstein will be in Poughkeepsie, New York at Laugh It Up.
[00:56:38]  We're bringing BK Chris along with us on that one.
[00:56:40]  So that should be a great show.
[00:56:43]  New Year's Eve, I'll be with Louis J. Gomez, with Louis J. Gomez out at the comedy store in Los Angeles.
[00:56:50]  And then me and Rob are going to be hitting the road hard in the 2023, starting to really fill up the calendar.
[00:56:58]  So look for a whole bunch of dates.
[00:56:59]  We'll be plugging those in the near future.
[00:57:01]  Rob, what else you got going on?
[00:57:02]  Hell yeah.
[00:57:02]  First is thanks to everyone who came out in Texas.
[00:57:04]  Those were an absolute blast.
[00:57:06]  Highlight, I got to see Scott do some stand-up.
[00:57:08]  Maybe that will get posted.
[00:57:09]  That was really fun.
[00:57:10]  He did a great job with it.
[00:57:12]  And with war jokes, everything you'd expect.
[00:57:15]  A lot of upcoming dates.
[00:57:17]  Just click the link in the episode description.
[00:57:19]  But next ones are going to be Arizona, New Orleans, Kansas City, Omaha, Nebraska, and probably going to burn at least 20 minutes of the topical stuff as like another end of year thing.
[00:57:31]  So come see it live.
[00:57:32]  I won't be doing it next year.
[00:57:34]  Hell yeah.
[00:57:34]  All right, guys.
[00:57:35]  Catch you next time.
[00:57:36]  Peace.