Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire dissect MSNBC's dishonest coverage of the "Rage Against the War Machine" rally, exposing how Rachel Maddow ignored anti-war speakers to falsely label the event pro-Russian. They analyze Ron DeSantis's political maneuvering regarding Ukraine aid and transgender bans, arguing his stance on parental control is a strategic move against Trump rather than genuine big-government support. Finally, they condemn Bernie Sanders for profiting from Ticketmaster while preaching anti-capitalism, highlighting the hypocrisy of a millionaire senator criticizing income inequality without personally redistributing his wealth or earning a median wage. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Small Rally Turns Weird00:14:08
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What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
It's me, the libertarian Tupac Dave Smith, and it is he, the king of the caulks, Robbie the Fire, Bernstein, back home from a great weekend in old Detroit in the D. Thanks to everybody who came out.
How you doing, Rob?
How'd you get home?
That was a fun run of shows.
Yeah, that was particularly fun.
I think that's already up.
Yes, I think if yes, by the time you're hearing this, it should.
You should be already having it.
It's the only logical conclusion.
Yeah, really fun live podcast, really fun shows.
We got more stuff coming up.
We'll be in Potts Town, Pennsylvania.
Then we will be out in, what's it called?
Jesus Christ, where's the freaking, why am I blanking on the next one after that?
Providence.
Providence, Rhode Island, Tampa coming up.
A whole bunch more stuff.
Come at DaveSmith.com for all those tickets.
Rob's got a new weekly show in New York City.
Yes, every Wednesday, I got the link up on my website, RobbieTheFire.com.
Great little showcase show.
You can get tickets for five bucks with promo code FIRE.
And then I got this weekend with, I'm opening up for Ryan Long along with BK Chris in Buffalo.
And then in the middle of March, I'm doing a ski date with Kyle Ruff up in Steamboat.
So coming out, RobbieTheFire.com.
Yeah, just to be clear, you and Kyle are doing a comedy show.
Something about calling it a ski date just makes sounds like you guys are.
I'm just going out.
We're going to hold it over hot chocolate or something like that.
But I mean, that will be happening too.
But also at some point, they'll tell some jokes and people can buy tickets to see their jokes being told.
And just try to make that clear.
But something about date, it's a very comic term.
Ski date just sounds like you're hanging out.
Anyone who comes and ski was with me, I'll bang you in the woods.
There you go.
That's the offer.
That offer stands on pretty much any show you come to with Rob.
He will bang you in the woods.
If there are two or more trees nearby, Rob considers those woods.
All right.
So I wanted to start today's show by talking about this big anti-war protest.
It was called Rage Against the War Machine that just happened this past weekend in Washington, D.C. Me and Rob were not able to go.
We had prior commitments.
We were off in Detroit doing some shows.
But I wish we had been able to be there.
It was just an inspiring event.
Really, congratulations to everybody who was a part of organizing that and who spoke at the event, who attended the event.
Of course, Angela McArdle and the Libertarian Party were a big factor in organizing that.
They worked with the Forward Party and some other groups to do it.
But it was incredible.
There are thousands of people turned out.
It was an unbelievable group of speakers.
It was headlined, of course, by the great Ron Paul.
The great Scott Horton spoke.
Tulsi Gabbard, Jimmy Dore, Daniel McAdams, Max Blumenthal.
Just had a ton of really, really excellent speakers.
I know I'm leaving some people off that list.
I do apologize to all of them.
But if I didn't mention you, you were also great.
I'm sorry.
I'm just blanking.
But it was really awesome.
It was cool to see a lot of people, very diverse group of people.
I mean, people from like hardcore, you know, like libertarians like in our camp to like hardcore leftists and a lot of people just in between who all kind of came out, you know, as we were talking about on a couple episodes ago, you know, if you can see in the polling data that support for this insane war in Ukraine is really falling.
And it's kind of cool to see a big anti-war protest.
I don't remember there being a big anti-war protest this big since like George W. Bush was in office.
So anyway, if you're against the insane, reckless Washington, D.C. war machine, if you're concerned at all with the prospects of World War III, which we may already be in, and concerned of the prospects of a nuclear war, which seems more likely than at just about any time, at least since the Kennedy administration, it'd be hard to look at this and not just see it as like a good thing.
This was very good.
Of course, some other people have a different view.
Anyway, here's just to be clear, because some people were kind of pushing back against the narrative.
Oh, this wasn't a success.
Not that many people came or whatever.
It's like, oh, okay, here was Max Blumenthal took a good video of this.
So let's just give you guys a little taste of how the event turned out, or at least how the crowd was.
So anyway, it was certainly, it was the range of people there, it seemed to be from about a couple thousand people.
It was reported from people who were there that at the height, it was around 3,000, 4,000 people.
Anyway, I think that's a nice turnout.
You got to start somewhere, but it was very cool.
I'd highly recommend people.
It's up on YouTube and stuff.
Go watch the speeches.
Just some really great speeches given.
So anyway, it was enough of an event that it drew some pushback from some people on Twitter.
And then, of course, the always wonderful Rachel Maddow jumped in and had some comments to make.
So let's play this.
That's right.
That's right.
The entertainer, Rachel Maddow, not a news source.
And I mean, truly random rally on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
A rally in support of Russia, I guess.
If you could pause here already, if you notice the way she starts it, this truly random event, a rally in support of Russia, I guess.
And you see an angle where there's two Russian flags being held.
And then you see it cut to another camera angle.
There's also two Russian flags in that camera angle.
And then she's like, this was in support of Putin, evidently.
Just to be clear, if you can, if you watch this video, take a look at the outfits of the people who are holding the flags.
And then here, just keep playing.
Given all the Russian flags, at least a rally against the U.S. supporting Ukraine in trying to stand up against the Russian invasion of their country.
This was a tiny event.
It was small.
It was a weird assemblage of Americans.
There were proud boys there.
There were some of the white supremacist groups you'd recognize from the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville a few years ago, also represented prominently the remains of the bizarre Lyndon LaRouche cult.
There were a lot of people with Russian flags, also the occasional flag of the former Soviet Union.
Also, at least one person who guest hosts for Tucker Carlson on the Fox News channel was there as a featured speaker.
There were anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, a lot of them.
There were cryptocurrency promoters.
It was a really weird group.
It was a small rally and a weird one.
But that's what it looks like.
That's the assemblage of short straws and split ends and loose change and loose electrons that's advocating. in this country that Russia's in the right in this war and America should be on Putin's side as he keeps invading other countries.
I mean, no disrespect to the Americans who turned out as part of this small event this weekend, but it's not like they represent a big constituency that is arguing for this pro-Russia point of view.
So there's Rachel Maddow's coverage.
Just notice as soon as you start, as soon as you're really hardcore anti-war, how the hacks like Rachel Maddow just do nothing but slander you.
If you notice, there's funny, but if you actually like kind of go through that footage and look at it carefully, first off, one of the guys who's holding a Russian flag, this is why I say, you know, pay attention to the outfit the person's wearing.
He's in seven of those cuts.
It's the same guy who has one Russian flag.
There was never a shot where they had more than two Russian flags.
And every time they zoomed out and showed the crowd, you can't see a Russian flag anywhere.
They did find one guy with a hammer and sickle flag.
It's like, yes, there were a bunch of left-wingers at this event, what Rachel Maddow has pretended to be for 20 years.
So a left-winger who, I guess, at some point sold her soul to this corporate war machine.
She then just goes on.
She mentioned that it was small, I think, five or six times, which is quite ironic coming from someone who works at MSNBC.
The amount of people there were probably about the amount of people in the key demo who watch MSNBC every afternoon.
But okay.
Yes, small.
You would know something about small audiences over at MSNBC.
Then just insults.
It's a bunch of, you know, completely ridiculous stuff like they just want America to support Putin as he invades every country, blah, blah, blah.
And then, you know, you might notice from the little package there something missing, which would be anything anyone said.
You know, they had like 20 something speakers there.
Not one clip from anything anyone said.
But man, that guy, the one guy holding up a commie flag, we made sure to get a picture of him.
And then just call everyone, oh, anti-vaxxers and Bitcoiners.
There's a white supremacists.
That's who made up the whole, right?
Okay.
It's just, it's so like transparently pathetic.
And all of the people like on the internet who are trying to shit on the rally too, you're basically, this is the company that you're in.
There's like using these bullshit tactics.
They can't disagree with anything that anybody actually was saying there.
So they just have to go like, oh, well, look, you're all a bunch of bad people, essentially.
That's your argument.
And she cuts to Tulsi Gabbard.
She's like, oh, it's white supremacists and proud boys.
And they are just rooting for Putin to invade other countries, Bitcoiners or whatever she said, cryptocurrency people.
Oh, and look, and someone who guest hosts for Tucker Carlson show.
Of course, she describes him.
She describes Tulsi Gabbard as someone who guest hosts for Tucker Carlson.
She also could have described her as, you know, a veteran who served two tours embedded in a medical unit at the height of the fighting in Iraq.
That maybe wouldn't sound quite so good.
You know what I mean?
Like that's, that's it.
No, it's just she guest hosts Tucker.
That's what she is.
But anyway, you also notice she doesn't, she doesn't play anything that Tulsi Gabbard said.
She doesn't actually want to like let you know that Tulsi Gabbard's all there.
Her whole speech was basically like, look, there's a real danger of nuclear war here, and we need to do everything we can to ignore that.
But yeah, anyway, that's just what a what a hack Rachel Maddow is, man.
Screw her.
I mean, anyway, go ahead.
No, I think that showcases probably how inaccurate all of their coverage is.
So this was an anti-war rally that she addresses as a pro-Russia rally.
That's not accurate.
They clearly pinpoint the one person in a crowd with the Russian flag, which I want to say.
For the person out there that likes to troll these situations and get on TV and do the loudest thing, I understand no one at the rally could be like, hey, can you not bring your Nazi flag or can you not bring your Russian flag or can you not bring this flag?
And the guy doing it is never going to not think that that's funny and going to prove a message.
But you do kind of negate the work of other people every time.
Yeah.
No, it's stupid.
And I think at one point, if you're watching it, like there were two Russian flags.
And then as you're watching it, they're down.
And I think someone probably did go over to him and go, dude, you're making us look like assholes here.
Like just don't, there's no point.
There was someone issued an apology on Twitter.
I don't know how legit this is because, you know, you can't vet things, but they were like, hey, listen, I apologize for that.
Didn't make mean to make anyone else look bad.
And then I heard from someone that one of them was just like a Russian citizen who was kind of, you know what I mean?
Like in their mind was like, hey, look, there's American flags.
There's Russian flags.
There's like, it's just like, hey, look, like, I'm just saying, like, you know, I'm worried about like the people of Russia.
Again, you know, I remember talking about this.
I think I talked about this on the show where I remember I had, so after 9-11, I was 18 when 9-11 happened.
And my mother was like very, very worried that I was going to get drafted.
And she was just like, you know, like we had just been attacked.
She was like, they're going to institute the draft.
There's going to be crazy wars.
My son is like the age that they would come take him.
She also, you know, like grew up like in Vietnam when like this was like a real thing.
Like, you know, like everyone, you knew people who were getting drafted.
Everyone you knew was dodging the draft or getting drafted or all this stuff.
She was very concerned about that.
And I remember my stepfather put up an American flag.
It's like right after 9-11.
And I remember my mother asked him to take it down.
And I remember asking her about it.
This is like 18 year old.
And I was like, oh, why did you want to take that down?
And she was like, it just sends a message.
Grove Collaborative Free Country Message00:02:56
And I'm not sure exactly what the message is, but I don't want to be sending.
Like, I don't know if the message is like, right now it's like, yeah, we're going to go bomb the shit out of you.
Or the message is kind of like, I'm with George W. Bush no matter what he does.
Now, you can argue whether she was right or wrong about that.
But at the time, certainly I wouldn't have been flying.
Like, like, certainly I'd say in 2004, 2005, I wouldn't have been the guy who's like going to put an American flag up.
Cause it just seemed like that was kind of almost like at the time.
No, I don't know.
This is debatable, but it seemed to me like the message of that was like, you either support the troops or you're with the terrorists.
And I'm with the USA.
America, fuck yeah.
Cause that was kind of the time we lived in.
Today, I have a big American flag outside of my house.
And it just feels to me like the message of that is more like, it just feels like more of a like, this is a fucking free country.
Fuck your dumb mandates.
Like I care about this country.
Now, all of this is kind of subjective and debatable, but that's kind of how I feel about what the flag represented then and what it represents now.
You could certainly come up with a different argument and say, well, it means something different to me.
I'm just making the point that number one, it's kind of subjective what a flag means to somebody.
It's certainly it's not Rachel Maddow's like worst interpretation like because two people at a rally had a flag, that means this rally was all about we hope Vladimir Putin invades more countries.
Like, yeah, that's ridiculous.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Number two, it's like you have two people holding up a flag at a rally.
Here's the reality of the situation, right?
Ambiguous Flags at Political Rallies00:14:53
Anytime you have any movement that's important, and I think almost anyone who's listening to this show, if you were going to have a rally about anything, let's say it was opposing the Federal Reserve.
Let's say it was opposing the war in Iraq.
Let's say it was opposing the vaccine mandates.
Let's say it was, you know, just like anything you could think of that you think is a worthwhile issue to have a rally about.
It's impossible to never draw anyone into that who has a view that you'd go like, yeah, all right, you're against this thing that I'm against too.
But you, you know, if you were opposing the Federal Reserve, there'll be someone there who's like, this is how the Jews control the money.
There'll be someone there like that.
Now, that doesn't mean that everyone who opposes the Federal Reserve opposes it for that reason, but there'll be someone there.
You know what I'm saying?
If you're opposing the vaccine mandates, there'll be someone there who's saying like, the magnets are sticking to my arms because of the vaccine that someone took.
You know what I mean?
Like if you oppose whatever, the war in Iraq, there'd be someone there who was like, you know, like Dick Cheney brought down the Twin Towers.
I'm just saying in any one of the, you can never, the standard can never be that you have like this 100% pure crowd.
And if anyone in that crowd is wrong, then all of a sudden it discredits the whole thing.
It's just not like, you know, it's not fair.
And even for like more left libertarian people, if you were opposing like, you know, police brutality or something and were trying to coalition with some lefties, well, aside from the violence and looting, you'd also probably have some people who believe some wacky stuff.
For the record, I wouldn't, as I said in 2020, I wouldn't be for working with any of these other groups if it was leading to violence.
But if it was peaceful, then you got something to talk about there.
But they would never apply this standard to themselves, right?
Like they would never apply this standard to themselves to go like, whatever, you know, Harvey Weinstein supported Hillary Clinton.
Therefore, the entire Hillary Clinton campaign was about that or whatever.
But of course, if you're there and two people have up a Russian flag, then all of a sudden, what?
What everything that Dennis Kucenich said doesn't matter.
What Ron Paul said doesn't matter.
What any, you know, like it's just, it's just a really lame, stupid tactic.
And of course, she can't respond to anything that any of the big speakers there were saying.
So she'll just show you over and over again the most, you know, kind of like deceptively out of context edited clips.
We'll look at all these flags.
And they did show the same two guys like six times.
So it makes it seem like, oh, there were these flags all over the place when all what she showed was two, two Russian flags in a group of thousands of people.
So anyway, just lame, dishonest.
There's just the type of stuff that people with zero integrity do.
And showcasing a thirst for war.
Well, yeah, that's the other thing.
It's like, Jesus Christ.
That's the one thing.
Like, it's like, no, it's so clearly a group of people who are motivated by the fact that they think this policy is insane and reckless and is prolonging the war and can lead to a much wider war.
That's like the only honest way to sum up what the general consensus of that rally is is something like that.
And yeah, and it makes you wonder like, you know, even if you want to take the position, which you kind of just did, and I agree with you, it's like, if you were there, if I was there near those people, I'd be like, fucking knock it off.
Just like put those flags down because this doesn't help anybody.
You don't even have good intentions.
You might be like, we're trying to say that we're cool with the Russian people.
Right.
We're all just people.
But like, for example, by the way, just to elaborate on the point I was making before, how like flags send a message that's kind of like, it's a little ambiguous and it can be like, okay, so say I'm at one of those rallies and I'm holding up a Russian flag.
I could understand where some people might go, wait a minute.
So Dave, are you saying you're like on Russia's side in all of this?
But then if I was standing there and holding up a Russian and a Ukrainian flag, you might go like, oh, like that's, that's a whole different message now, right?
Like now your message is almost like, oh, I'm, I don't know, I'm for the people of both country.
I'm not again.
So it's like these things are very, but if you were there, you might be like, hey, this is bad.
This is going to make us look bad.
So just don't do this.
Only bring pride flags.
That way the left can't criticize it.
They just have to assume that it was all gays and queers and the privileged class that they're not allowed to be criticized.
She's going, let's stop fighting this war and just start blowing each other already.
Come on.
If you made that speech, how is MSNBC supposed to cover that?
That should be the only thing said at the rally.
One person should get up and just say that.
There's literally nothing else they can click.
You see Rachel Maddow with like a bead of sweat just running down her head.
I don't know how to fuck it.
But it is one of these things where you're like, look, so even if you think that that's bad, they shouldn't have had these flags there.
They shouldn't have had the fucking hammer and sickle flag for short.
That's an easy one.
It does, at a certain point, you're like, what are you doing?
Like, what role in this whole game are you playing when what you're doing is just trying to like smear the one anti-war rally that's happened since like 2006 in this country?
What role are you playing here when we have like the most reckless foreign policy, the biggest war-hungry government in the world is now like propping up this proxy war that certainly would be over by now.
And now it's going to go on for the foreseeable future.
And you're the one rally that's criticizing them, you're taking all your time to bash that.
Like even if you're against those flags being there, what a stupid waste of time.
And of course, it's just, it becomes pretty obvious who Rachel Maddow serves when you watch all this stuff.
All right.
So speaking of the war in Ukraine, of course, the Bidens were off making a trip over there, whereas they went to Ukraine.
Then he just gave a speech in Poland.
Really is something to see, you know, as there is like a mushroom cloud of toxic chemicals over an American city.
The president is off promising another half a billion dollars to Ukraine in support.
There seems to be a big political opening to oppose that.
And something that I found very interesting was that just the other day, Ron DeSantis seemed to, at least partially, I mean, maybe not in exactly as full-throated of a way as we might want to, but he did seem to be very critical of the policy.
I wanted to play this clip and then kind of discuss the political implications of all of this.
Here is the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis.
Well, they have effectively a blank check policy with no clear strategic objective identified.
And these things can escalate.
And I don't think it's in our interest to be getting into proxy war with China getting involved over things like the borderlands or over Crimea.
So I think it would behoove them to identify what is the strategic objective that they're trying to achieve.
But just saying it's an open-ended blank check, that is not acceptable.
So, Governor, what does a win look like for us in Ukraine, for Ukraine?
Well, I think it's important to point out, I mean, you know, the fear of kind of Russia going into NATO countries and all that and steamrolling, you know, that has not even come close to happening.
I think they've shown themselves to be a third-rate military power.
I think they've suffered tremendous, tremendous losses.
I got to think that the people in Russia are probably disapproving of what's going on.
I don't think they can speak up about it for obvious reasons.
So I think Russia has been really, really wounded here.
And I don't think that they are the same threat to our country, even though they're hostile.
I don't think they're on the same level as a China.
Right.
Governor, you're doing something very important.
You're announcing a tour.
All right.
And he goes on to say that he's announcing a tour, which is, you know, it's kind of interesting.
So just taking a look at this.
Look, I'm not saying what he said there was perfect, but it's not bad.
It's, you know, and you see where there's these two paths that Ron DeSantis could go down here.
He could oppose Biden in the way that Mitch McConnell is opposing him, which is like, you should have gotten these weapons over there sooner and you should be doing more to help Ukraine.
Or he could oppose him in this other way to go like, hey, what even is the plan for victory here?
Why is it worth us risking a wider war over Crimea?
What's going on?
China and Russia are now allying.
How does this strategically help us?
And to say we shouldn't be giving them a blank check.
Now, I don't like the little shot at the China hawkishness at the end there, but just saying of those broad two paths, this one is, first off, it's preferable.
Second off, I think politically, this was a very smart move for DeSantis.
We're in a situation now where, at least as of now, there are really only two viable options for who's going to win the Republican nomination.
This is Trump versus DeSantis.
Of course, DeSantis hasn't officially declared that he's running yet, but this is just an interesting, it's a really interesting competition that's unfolding here.
You know, Ron DeSantis basically said nothing about the Ukraine war for when it first started happening, which was, which got a lot of eyebrows lifted.
Like it's like, oh, he's not, he's not even throwing in the obligatory, like, Russia's so horrible.
We're with Ukraine.
We're blah, blah, blah.
He's just not.
And I think probably he was taking his time and figuring out strategically where he thought it would be better to land on this issue.
I suppose that's not the most charitable interpretation.
You could say maybe he really thought about it.
Maybe he was really convinced or something like that.
Who knows?
But while Donald Trump, I would think, has to be the favorite in a head-to-head matchup right now, as Ron DeSantis starts to take this posture, you kind of have to wonder, like just start to picture, imagine these two really go head-to-head with each other.
What is Trump really going to hit DeSantis with?
Like, what issue is he really going to trust?
Yeah, like, it just seems like Ron DeSantis is setting himself up, at least politically, to have a pretty strong, be in a pretty strong position here.
Especially with the vaccines.
I think one of the stories the media did not report on in the last election cycle was they were talking about how much backlash there was over abortion.
And I think what they missed out on was that no Republican actually stood up against the vaccine mandates with the exception of DeSantis, who had a big victory.
And I think those policies were very unpopular.
And I think that's going to be the Achilles heel potentially for Trump is that he's still taking pride in the fact that he initiated them.
Yeah, well, I saw there was something.
I can't remember exactly what he said, but Trump, he hit DeSantis on something about his handling of COVID.
And you're just like, I mean, does anyone really think that that's a winning fight for Trump to put his handling of COVID up against DeSantis's?
You want to fight that?
Like, if you're Ron DeSantis, you're like, make that the whole campaign.
Make that the entire fight.
And look, sometimes it's hard with these things.
It's kind of when you're trying to analyze politics and you have your own deeply held views.
It's hard to not like put your wishful thinking into some of these things and be like, this is why this guy won.
You know, it's because he was so much.
But look, when you have the results that the Republicans had in this midterm election, and at the same time, you have Ron DeSantis win an overwhelming landslide, turning it around by 20 points from his last election campaign.
And he was the guy who branded himself as the anti-COVID regime guy, the anti-lockdown guy, the anti-vaccine mandates guy.
It's hard to not say, I think that was at least a big part of this.
And that that's going to be something that he's got, at least for a while now, that he was the guy who, at least grading on a curve, at least comparatively, did not fall for all of the bullshit over the whole COVID insanity.
I think the only graceful de-escalation at this point of this war might be essentially the next election.
And if a anti-Ukraine war candidate wins and that becomes the central issue.
And what's interesting about the debates is that we're able to actually push forward the narrative that Biden's being inhumane in what he's doing and pushing a war that is just having Ukrainians killed that could be de-escalated and that we were the aggressors to start this thing with the talk of NATO.
I get that that wasn't actual going in anywhere with violence, but we did provoke this.
This is a losing strategy and that Russia is still working with China.
We might end up with major currency issues.
I mean, we're like slowly marching just towards escalation in World War III.
Massive costs, massive loss of life.
And if we just keep doubling down on this, I don't see where it goes.
And it's almost, you go like, and for what?
So that Crimea, the area that's majority ethnic Russian, doesn't fall to Russian hands?
The area that would vote that voted to be part of Russia, not Ukraine, which was backed up by polling data, by the way, because a lot of people say they had these plebiscites in 2015 in Crimea where they voted over whether they wanted to be a part of Russia or not.
And they're like, yeah, you can't trust those.
You know, blah, blah, blah.
The Russians were the ones who held the elections.
So we don't really know if they're legit.
The problem is that independent polling went in afterward and basically got the same results.
So anyway, just saying you're talking about these areas that like if they could vote at least pre, but before this war, things may have changed a little bit now, but would have voted to be part that, what, we're going to fight World War III to try to get Crimea back in the hands of Kiev.
It's just so absurd.
And so, yeah, I think there's a whole lot of people who are waking up to this.
And certainly, you know, it would help if there were more leaders who were kind of like, you know, driving this point home.
Public Opinion Shifts on Stamps.com00:02:44
Yeah, but that can turn is if someone starts being honest about it and public opinion changes enough, like all of a sudden, Buttigez talking about going to East Palestine, things get enough coverage and they have no choice but to own it and go, I'm even more concerned than you are.
So if people start actually getting these talking points out there and public opinion changes, you might even see Biden realize, oh, I have to walk back this thing to get reelected.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
You know, this is a point that I make a lot on the show.
And this is like, to me, the ultimate like white pill, the ultimate, you know, reason to have some hope is that you're like, look, they don't just enact these policies.
They launch massive propaganda campaigns and then they enact the policies, right?
And so why is that?
It's because they understand that they need to convince people because if nobody's convinced, they just won't be able to like just imagine there was no fear campaign about COVID and then they just announced there were lockdowns.
Like it just wouldn't work.
You have to like convince people to be afraid and then you can get away with robbing them of their civil liberties.
And Scott Horton talked about this in his speech at the Rage Against the War Machine rally, where he talked about this document from the RAND Corporation, where they were basically laying out all the things they wanted to do.
And then they were like, we want to do this and this, but there's not enough public support here.
Fighting Authoritarianism and Big Government00:10:47
And we want to do this and this, but the German people would never go for this or the French would never go for this.
But we can get away for this because the people will go with this.
And you realize that they recognize, it's like, oh, yeah, they recognize that they can't get away with this shit if there's just an overwhelming, you know, just to prove the point, you use like a thought experiment where you take it to its logical conclusion.
But like if 95% of the people felt exactly like me and you about the war in Ukraine, there's just no way.
Guess what our politicians would do?
They'd go, you know, I've been thinking about it and I don't think we should support this war in Ukraine anymore because they know they can't get away with it.
So if we can just move the ball in that direction, and that's why all these independent shows are like important.
It's like if you can just move the ball in that direction, we can win.
It's not inevitable that we lose.
Yeah, we're basically going to have to walk this back, go sit down with Putin and go, hey, sorry, we voted for a guy with dementia.
That was our bad.
We apologize.
Let's move past this.
It was that one guy and we got rid of his whole administration.
We learned our lesson.
Won't happen again.
We're going to end up sending war concessions over to Russia.
Yeah.
Well, you want to, you want to.
Oh, right.
Ultimately, you find a way where everybody's got an out where they can save face a little bit.
You go, yeah, he would have taken over the whole eastern part or the whole western part of Ukraine if we hadn't helped them out.
Or Putin gets up there and he commits to not invading anywhere else that he wasn't going to anyways.
Oh, I've learned my lesson about going eastward.
So I'll keep my lines right here.
I learned my lesson.
And Ukraine goes, we learned our lesson about saying we would join NATO.
So we're not going to do that.
Well, it's just so obvious already what the negotiated settlement should be in this.
You know what I mean?
It's just kind of like, you know, like the ideal settlement is just kind of like, okay, the like largely ethnic Russian portions of Ukraine that don't want to be ruled by the government in Kiev, they have their independence.
Crimea is going to stay under Russian control.
Ukraine agrees to not join NATO, but the rest of that country gets security guarantees all around.
And Vladimir Putin can't interfere.
I mean, I'm not like there's details to be worked out, but the broad strokes is like fairly obvious.
It's the deal that Fiona Hill reported that they were already working on before Boris Johnson went over there and told them not to negotiate.
And who gets the biolabs and who do the Nazis end up joining up for?
Yeah, well, that's right.
There are some questions that remain.
Anyway, one of the broader, back to the Trump DeSantis thing.
One of the things that makes this dynamic of Ron DeSantis coming out and taking this position interesting is that there's Ron DeSantis has been is a person of interest, let's say,
for a lot of the worst elements of the establishment of the Republicans because he is in a unique situation now where as much as they may prefer Nikki Haley or as much as they may prefer Marco Rubio or whoever else could jump in the race, they're not so stupid that they don't realize what Ron DeSantis has going for him, which is that he's the only one who could plausibly beat Donald Trump.
And if you know about how the establishment feels about Donald Trump and you're a person who can plausibly beat him, that makes you someone who they're interested in.
But him coming out and taking this approach is not going to help him gain the support of the establishment, which I think is great.
You know, I'd much prefer Ron DeSantis decide, no, I'm not going with the establishment.
But what you're going to see now is a lot more attacks on Ron DeSantis going forward.
And you're going to see them trying to bring down his popularity so that maybe somebody else can step in and fill that void of being the person who can perhaps take on Donald Trump.
This has already started.
And what's interesting about it is the way they're attacking him.
So there's a clip that we have here that we're going to play.
This is a little, I would guess that this is a little kind of preview of what we're going to see a lot more of.
My question to you is not whether this is a legitimate issue to be talking about.
It's about whether this is the main issue or not.
Do you view this as the main issue for 2024?
No, I think it's an important issue.
And I do hear it.
And people are concerned about this as I travel around the country because, you know, most people just don't think we should be talking about things like sex to young kids.
And the parents want to be more involved in this decisions about what their kids are being taught.
However, I think some of this rhetoric is demanding that things be done a certain way or that you can't say this or you can't say that.
We've got to be really careful.
I know, does it feel like you're going the other way?
Like it's sort of like you're on one hand, you've governor DeSantis claiming, hey, I don't want all of this, but I'm going to tell you exactly what you can say and I'm going to say what you can't say.
Well, I'm a small government, you know, common sense conservative.
And to me, it sounds like big government and authoritarian.
You agree with me and I'm going to tell you what you can and can't do.
So, but it's an issue.
It's not the most important issue.
I think more people are concerned about the economy, inflation.
They're concerned about crime.
But education is one of the things that we've got to talk about.
All right.
So there you go.
The economy is number one because even the parents with kids that are trans, we need governments to be able to afford the new dicks.
Well, I just think it's going to be pretty amusing that as the as Ron DeSantis comes out against giving a blank check to Ukraine, he's going to be accused of being for big government.
You know, it's like, it's one thing if like a hardcore libertarian is accusing Ron DeSantis of being for big government.
I mean, they've got an argument there for sure.
But it's very funny.
Like there's, I remember people criticizing Donald Trump for this, like George Bush type people, or they'd be like, you know, he's proposing these things and that's, that's big government.
We're for small government.
It's like, listen, Republican establishment types, you have lost forever the ability to claim that you're for small government and that that's the deal breaker with someone else.
Take me back.
When was the small government conservative time exactly?
Give me the year.
I want to know.
You tell me when it was, when it was that the Republican establishment supported small government.
Please, I'll wait.
Give me the year.
Speak slowly.
Tell me exactly how they cut the size and scope of government.
And I will show you how they actually drastically increased it.
But this is kind of an interesting, you know, this is one of the criticisms that I hear launched at Ron DeSantis for banning certain things from public school curriculum, that this is big government.
This is the government telling you what you can and can't teach in public schools.
I've always found this argument to just be completely absurd.
Of course, by the very nature of having public schools, you're always going to have a curriculum, and that will always be the government telling you what you can and can't teach.
Like, what do you mean?
It's obviously so implicit that in every public school, there are things you can't teach.
Test this out.
If you're a public school teacher, why don't you go start teaching how you think the Nazis were right and see how long you keep your job, right?
There are things you're not allowed to teach.
And a lot of them, thankfully, we don't want that taught to our kids.
But as soon as you go, oh, and also I don't think you should start teaching them trans ideology.
They're like, authoritarianism.
It just makes no sense.
Look, the fact is that if you had to look, if your concern is big government and your concern is authoritarianism, like, okay, hey, you're kind of speaking my language.
So let's talk.
Where, what area of the United States of America in our life, what is the most socialized area?
I mean, you could argue the military.
You know, short of that, it's school.
Like, there's nothing that's more of a socialist institution than public school.
And okay, fine.
So if we're against big government and we're against authoritarianism, then we'd want to roll that back as much as we can.
And I would support any proposal that was moving in that direction.
You want to talk about abolishing the Department of Homeland, excuse me, abolishing the Department of Education?
Okay, Republicans used to talk about that.
That used to be in the Republican platform, except every time they gained power, they never did that.
They did drastically expand it.
George W. Bush doubled it.
So, you know, doubled the size in the budget.
So, if you weren't talking about like returning schools to more local areas and giving them complete control over the curriculum, I'd be all for policies like that.
But if you're not talking about any of that and we're just talking about having this socialist institution, well, the best thing to do would be to work to reduce or eliminate it.
If you're not talking about that, well, and again, by the way, I put like a school choice up there in another policy I would support moving in the right direction.
But if we're not talking about any of that and you're just talking about what the curriculum is, this is the question I always ask people, the people who are for small government and against authoritarianism, or at least claim to be.
Well, what would you prefer?
Kids in school get taught the merits of small government and being opposed to being anti-authoritarian?
Or would you prefer that they're taught the merits of big government and being pro-authoritarianism?
It's a little bit of a conundrum for people who are in this situation.
They're like, well, I don't think we should be deciding the curriculum.
You're like, okay, but given these two options, what would you rather?
Would you rather them be taught the virtues of capitalism or socialism?
And if you're going to honestly say that you have no preference between those two, then you're just being goofy.
Like, I'd also prefer that public schools were just abolished or reduced or decentralized or anything like that.
But I can also say that given a choice between whether you're promoting liberty or promoting tyranny, I'll take liberty.
Like, I have no allergy to saying that that's a preferable decision.
And if you're asking whether kids, particularly little kids, are taught all of this crazy, like sexualized insanity or not, I pick not.
Bernie Sanders Distributing Wealth00:13:52
And anyway, the point is that this is this fight.
I just, you know, the guy at the former governor there, he makes the point that, well, I don't think this is the most important issue.
I think there's other issues that are more in it.
He's self-declared, common sense man.
Right.
So maybe, maybe he's right.
I mean, inflation might be the number one issue.
I think he's probably right, but they're not like, you know, it's not as if you can't care about both of them.
But again, like if you, if you want to fight Ron DeSantis on this issue, I think he'd be happy to have that fight all day long.
I think he'd be happy to have the fight that it's like, you overstepped your authority by banning, you know, teaching eight-year-olds about transgenderism.
Okay.
I think he'll have that fight with you all day long.
And I don't think you shouting that he's for big government because of it is his actual talking point is pretty middle of the line, which is we want parents to have control over their kids' education and we want to focus on math and other topics that are relevant to school.
Yeah, again, try to argue with him about that.
Like, I just say this is going to be a losing battle for you if you go, no, we can't just teach him math.
We got to teach him about how, you know, Sam is now Sarah or something.
Like, well, okay.
All right.
Good luck.
Good luck with that fight.
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All right, let's get back into the show.
Okay.
Speaking of people who do love big government and who are quite open about it, there was a very interesting clip that I really enjoyed of our boy Bernie Sanders.
He was on Face the Nation.
Bernie Sanders is also going on a big tour.
He's got a new book out.
The book is called It's Okay to Be Angry with Capitalism.
That's what Bernie is.
Look at all the money this guy's making.
There should be something against senators or people in government, maybe even being allowed to put out books while they're in office because you got an unfair advantage of that.
You're using your political power for the ability to promote.
Well, you shouldn't perhaps be allowed to make money off of them.
I mean, like, you could write something and put it out if you want to get your ideas out there.
There does seem to be a conflict of interest there in some way.
And there also seem, or maybe not a conflict of interest, but there seems to be like something unfair about that.
But it's a conflict of interest that you're not doing your job.
Your job is supposed to be doing the senator work.
Instead of doing that, you're at least putting some of your time and effort into this other project and then making it off of the political position that you have that the news networks will have you on to discuss your book.
You're collecting a six-figure salary off the taxpayers and then spending a whole bunch of time writing a book.
You know what I mean?
To go use that platform to promote the book.
But particularly for someone like Bernie Sanders.
Here, let's just play this because I found this kind of entertaining.
It's a point we've made before and lots of other people have as well, but it is really funny to me how Bernie Sanders supporters will dodge this point and how his response when he's asked about it.
So let's play this clip from Face the Nation, then we can talk.
To promote this book, it's okay to be angry about capitalism.
And you're here talking about it.
I understand we're not the bad guys you're describing in the book when it comes to the media, but tickets for your tour apparently are selling for $95 on Ticketmaster, which is accused of anti-competitive behavior.
You know that some of your Democrats are criticizing them.
Aren't you benefiting yourself from this system that you're trying to dismantle?
First of all, those decisions are made totally by the publisher and the bookseller.
I think there's one case where in one place here in Washington politics and pros and independent books are the decision is made by them when you say, hey, I want to be in business with you and you guys are going to run it and go make me some money.
And as the artist, you can call them up and go, hey, I'd like to be making less money on this, so let's reduce it.
So no, it's not being made by them.
It's being made by them at yours or someone else's discretion.
You could call a ticketmaster and go, hey, I want to do this thing for free.
I'll only do it for free.
And they might go, well, we don't want to do it and go, listen, I'm a United States Senator.
You'll get better press out of this by doing it for free, but I demand it's free.
It's coming from him.
This would be on the level of if I charge an outrageous speaking fee or something like that.
And they were like, oh, Dave, we tried to book you to speak at a thing and they said it's $200,000 to get you to come speak.
Like, doesn't that seem like a lot of money to be charging?
And this is like a cause you really care about.
And I went, oh, but that's what my agent asked for.
You know, like, I didn't, I don't know.
It's like, yeah, okay, fine.
But like, you are in business with this guy.
You hired him.
You are working with him.
You could put your foot down about this.
And it's a ridiculous cop out.
But it's funny that she asked him if he benefits from this system and he says, no, here, let's just play the end of the clip and then we'll talk about it.
Most of them, I think, are $40, $50, and you get a book as well.
So if you want to come, you're going to have to pay $40, I'll throw in the book for free.
And we're doing a number of free events, but I don't make a nickel out of these things.
But you're okay doing business with Ticketmaster?
No, not particularly, but that's, again, I had nothing to do with that.
That is, if you wrote a book, probably be the same process.
So you have to operate within the system.
I do.
You can write a book, a major publisher, et cetera, et cetera.
You know, you just pay the bribes of the publishers.
So if that's the guy who's going to bribe me, I am forced to work with them.
And if they are working with the Ticketmaster.
I just don't look.
I think that, how do I say this?
I think, look, I understand to some degree this argument.
I understand the argument that you have to operate within the system.
And even if you think the system should be changed, there's certain things like, well, this is the process of how it's done.
Okay.
I mean, look, I think someone could turn around to us libertarians and say, well, hey, you drive on the roads or you whatever.
You know what I mean?
Like you use some government in some way.
And I could say, okay, fine, but there is a little bit of a difference where it's like, look, I'm forced to pay for something.
I don't think I should be forced.
But since I am, that's just the way it is.
And so Bernie Sanders, I almost, I could understand this if he were saying, look, this is the way you got to play the game.
And I'm going to take all of this money and pass it out to poor people.
You know, but I'm sorry if you're saying if what Bernie Sanders, which is central message, the central message, his reason for being is that income inequality is a moral outrage.
That inequality is a moral outrage.
Why do some have so much while others have so little?
And if you're going to say that, then how can you justify being a millionaire?
Like you yourself, you could go, let's say, like if Bernie Sanders has a net worth of a few million dollars, he could go and like take half of his net worth and evenly distribute it amongst people who make $50,000 a year and change their lives and at least for those people, drastically improve this moral outrage that he claims is inequality.
That's the central message of everything he does.
And it's like, it's almost like as if like, you know, like Ron Paul could end a war if he wanted to and just doesn't choose to do it.
And you'd be like, but what is, then what is this whole thing you claim to stand for?
It'd almost be like Bernie Sanders introducing a war powers resolution and then pulling it out at the last minute on behest of Joe Biden.
It kind of starts to make you think you're full of shit and you don't mean any of this.
And for him to find these kind of like these mental gymnastics to justify why it's okay for him to be in the 1% and to go out of his way to make as much money as he can under this system while he claims it's so fucked up and people should pay their fair share and yet nothing's stopping you from paying your fair share.
Now, I understand you could make the argument if you did that and then be like, but I'm still advocating for tax policy because I want to make sure everyone in this situation does that.
But to sit back and go, no, until the tax code changes, I'm just going to keep all of it.
I'm going to have multiple houses and be a millionaire and live this lifestyle that most people will never be able to live.
While, as he says, while other people go bankrupt from their health care bills or something like that.
Well, I don't know, buddy.
Nothing's stopping you from paying off their bills.
You got the money to do it.
And look, even if you could only do it for one person, okay, that's one less person who's going to be a victim of this capitalist system, right?
Right, Mr. Sanders?
So like, what is this?
I don't understand how there's any justification for you not walking the walk.
I do, again, to me, I think it would be on the line of like a libertarian who in their personal life like beats people up and steals from them.
It'd be like if you found out that like while I'm ranting against the income tax, I'm also robbing my neighbor blind.
You'd be like, oh, dude, so then you're a complete hypocrite.
You're completely full of shit.
Why should I listen to you about anything?
I just, I don't, I don't see any way around that.
I like how while he's describing being anti-capitalism, he turns into this sham wow guy goes, I'll even throw in the free book.
Yeah, really?
And if I know you can get the second book free.
So it's going to cost you 40 bucks and I'll throw in the book for free.
It's like, well, then the book isn't free, dude.
You have to pay for it.
It's just like, this is all ridiculous.
And then also at the end of it, where he goes, and I don't see a nickel off of this.
You're like, look, dude, first of all, we all know what this is.
First off, I find it hard to believe that he doesn't see any money from those $90 tickets.
But okay, even if that's true, you're doing this all as a fucking huge push for your book.
What Bernie Sanders, who is a millionaire, what Bernie Sanders has made his money off in his career has been two things.
I mean, primarily.
It's been two things.
It's been collecting money from the taxpayer in the form of a salary and selling books.
So don't act like I don't see a nickel off this.
This is a big book promotion tour.
You're absolutely going to see a nickel off of it.
Let's just say he was slick enough to set it up where he literally didn't see $1.
You know what that would mean?
That when he left office, he'd get a bigger payday on the next book because it would actually be the payday from this book.
So don't believe for one second that he's not had this all worked out.
And also, he doesn't have to work with a big publisher.
He could put out his book for free.
He could give these speeches in the park.
He could do all sorts of things.
But instead, he's leveraging the power he has as a politician to get free press and be able to sell a book.
Yep.
There's, what was it?
There's Bernie Sanders according.
These things are never exactly accurate, but Bernie Sanders' net worth in 2018 was estimated around, where is this?
Hold on.
What was that?
Oh, 3 million.
All the people that have even more beach houses than I do.
I only have a beach house and one regular house and another vacation house.
That's very reasonable for a man of my age.
Yeah.
I mean, it's like, okay, but just why shouldn't you like, well, I'm not even saying live like a poor person, but why shouldn't you live like an average?
I can't even afford a normal haircut.
That is how poor I am.
It's funny because like it's not like me and you think any of these government schemes would work necessarily.
But if it was, if it was even intended to work, wouldn't you just think like of the most basic things?
Like you'd be like, what should a, what should like a congressman's salary be?
Wouldn't you just right away, if you're just being common sense, you'd be like, I don't know, the median American income.
And if that goes up, they can get a raise.
Like if their policies result in the average American making more money, then okay, then you make more money.
But you're going to live exactly like the average person in your country lives.
And then you can like, and if you can't survive off that, then if the average person in your country can't survive, maybe you're not doing that good of a job.
Do a better job.
Like this, I don't know.
I'd say you should get their take-home pay, not even their total wage.
You should get what they make after taxes.
And then let's see.
Let's see now how you feel about cutting taxes when it also directly affects how much you make.
Anyway, all right.
That's going to be our episode for today.
We're coming out near you guys a whole bunch of shows.
The next one is Pottstown, Pennsylvania, Soul Joels Comedy Club.