Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - How Freedom Ends
Aired: 2023-04-08
Duration: 01:05:37


=== Hush Money and Presidential Defense (09:15) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
[00:00:09]  We need to roll back the state.
[00:00:10]  We spy on all of our own citizens.
[00:00:12]  Our prisons are flooded with nonviolent drug offenders.
[00:00:16]  If you want to know who America's next enemy is, look at who we're funding right now.
[00:00:22]  Every single one of these problems are a result of government being way too big.
[00:00:34]  What's up, everybody?
[00:00:34]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I'm Dave Smith.
[00:00:38]  He's Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
[00:00:40]  We will be out next weekend in Albany, New York at the funny bone out there all weekend long doing some stand-up shows and a live part of the problem podcast.
[00:00:49]  Come on out and join us.
[00:00:50]  After that, we got Zane's Chicago.
[00:00:52]  We'll be in Tampa at Side Splitters.
[00:00:54]  Bunch of stuff coming up.
[00:00:56]  More dates will be announced soon.
[00:00:57]  And you can get them all over at comicdave Smith.com.
[00:01:01]  Of course, you can also go to RobbyTheFire.com.
[00:01:03]  You can check out Rob's other podcast, Run Your Mouth.
[00:01:05]  Any other gigs you want to promote?
[00:01:08]  I got nothing, buddy.
[00:01:11]  I got the stuff like this.
[00:01:12]  When we first met and stayed true to this day, nothing.
[00:01:16]  Exactly.
[00:01:17]  Standing true to my think.
[00:01:21]  Oh, you've got plenty, Rob.
[00:01:23]  You knocked down that run your mouth poster behind you in there's a whole mansion.
[00:01:27]  Anyway, so we left last show.
[00:01:33]  We were kind of in the middle of the day where Donald Trump was to be arraigned.
[00:01:39]  And I guess at the very end of the show, he had gone in.
[00:01:42]  It was like happening as we were recording.
[00:01:44]  A little bit more information since then.
[00:01:47]  I guess let's catch up with what happened.
[00:01:50]  It was somewhat anticlimactic.
[00:01:52]  Nothing major happened.
[00:01:54]  We were speculating, as was really all you could do at the time, that like perhaps maybe they had some other charge up their sleeve that they were going to pull out.
[00:02:03]  Perhaps there would be something else that they would, you know, that they would key us in on.
[00:02:08]  There was, of course, always the outside shot that they weren't going to let him go or they were going to hold him or something like that, that we were going to get pictures of him in handcuffs, that we would get a mug shot.
[00:02:19]  None of that was exactly clear.
[00:02:21]  Essentially, none of that happened.
[00:02:24]  They charged him with 34 counts of the same non-crime.
[00:02:29]  He left, went back to Mar-a-Lago, gave a speech that night.
[00:02:34]  Yeah, we can talk about a few different things here.
[00:02:39]  What did you think about the way the day ended, Rob?
[00:02:41]  That's a fairly good summary of 34 charges of the same non-crime.
[00:02:46]  That's the best way to state it.
[00:02:47]  It's even funny to read through because it just over and over, it just goes, what is it, falsifying business records?
[00:02:54]  But falsifying business records is apparently a misdemeanor unless it was to cover up for another crime.
[00:03:00]  And in this case, the payoff benefits himself and the campaign.
[00:03:05]  So I don't really understand how they say that this was a the best that they could come up with was saying that essentially he was robbing the general public of important, like misleading the general public on important voter information.
[00:03:19]  But in terms of the Clinton campaign, falsifying records to try and pretend like, you know, he was a Russian asset or everything that the Bidens did in regards to the Hunter Biden story.
[00:03:32]  I mean, in what world can you live in that you can pretend that this is a more egregious example of withholding information from the voting public?
[00:03:41]  Yeah, I mean, I agree with you, certainly, but I got to say I'd go even a step further than that and that this just is not a crime.
[00:03:50]  It's not even that it's not as egregious of a crime as many of the other crimes that have been committed by other presidents or by Donald Trump while he was in the White House.
[00:03:59]  This just isn't a crime.
[00:04:01]  Well, I think hooker payments should be tax deductible.
[00:04:03]  So I just want to make that clear in case it was naked.
[00:04:06]  Yeah, exactly.
[00:04:07]  Well, it's not.
[00:04:08]  Look, the crime, right, as you pointed out correctly, it's the statute that they're using, which again, they really are.
[00:04:17]  If you go look into it, it's 34 counts of the same crime.
[00:04:21]  So it's they the statute is that if you're it's a felony to falsify business records in service of a crime.
[00:04:33]  And even Braggs himself has not said what that crime is.
[00:04:36]  He's been very vague about it.
[00:04:38]  But the fact is that it's not a crime on any level.
[00:04:43]  Now, falsifying business records, perhaps there would be some type of like very small, you know, penalty for that.
[00:04:49]  But in terms of like anything bigger than that, it's not a crime to pay off Stormy Daniels.
[00:04:54]  It's not necessarily clear that you can prove he did pay off Stormy Daniels.
[00:05:00]  And the bigger crime, the idea of you tying it to like withholding campaign information or a campaign finance violation or something like that, it's just, it's just not there.
[00:05:12]  You'd have to demonstrate the standard, the legal standard would be that you'd have to demonstrate that Donald Trump would not have done this had it not been for the campaign.
[00:05:22]  Like as in, in other words, that this, that paying off, paying some hush money to a chick he slept with would only have been done because he was running for president.
[00:05:32]  And there's just no way to demonstrate that.
[00:05:34]  I mean, number one, he's married.
[00:05:36]  Number two, he's in the public eye.
[00:05:38]  He was a public person for his entire life.
[00:05:41]  There's no conceivable way that you could actually prove that this wouldn't have been a personal expense to Donald Trump, even if you can prove that he did pay for it or whatever, or that he instructed his lawyer, Michael Cohn, to pay off Stormy Daniels.
[00:05:57]  Now, I'm just talking about what you can actually prove.
[00:06:00]  What you can get a jury of New Yorkers to convict Donald Trump for might be a completely other story, but we'll see what happens.
[00:06:08]  I think that that is an interesting element, though, because you very rarely have politicians or people running for public office keeping their word.
[00:06:15]  So here you had a guy who said, I will go get Trump.
[00:06:18]  They voted him in.
[00:06:19]  He went out there and he got him.
[00:06:21]  Now, in my opinion, it's pathetic the charge that they're trying to bring.
[00:06:24]  This doesn't look like a win.
[00:06:25]  And I would love to see some reporting on how many resources went into building this case while he've got, I believe crime is up in New York City.
[00:06:34]  I wouldn't think that the residents of New York City would be pleased to see how many resources have been diverted over this nonsense charge of Donald Trump that probably won't stick versus the criminals that have been walking free for all sorts of shenanigans.
[00:06:49]  Yeah, well, there's a term that I've used on the show before called anarcho-tyranny, which was coined by one of the paleoconservative guys.
[00:07:02]  Who was it?
[00:07:03]  Why am I blanking on this?
[00:07:04]  Who ended up coining the term paleo?
[00:07:07]  It was sorry.
[00:07:09]  What was it?
[00:07:10]  Yes, although crime is, crime has been way up since 2020.
[00:07:14]  I think it went way up in 2021 and then dipped back down a little bit in 2022 in New York City.
[00:07:18]  But the crime rate is much higher than it has been in like previous years, if you look at it over like the last three year span.
[00:07:23]  Anyway, it wasn't Paul Godfrey.
[00:07:25]  It's the other one whose name I'm just blanking on.
[00:07:26]  But anyway, the term anarcho-tyranny is a great term that kind of sums up the current state of the U.S.
[00:07:35]  And the concept is basically that you have this like tyrannical government with so many laws on the books that we're all in violation of one of them just by speaking, that anybody could essentially be charged of anything at any time.
[00:07:50]  But then you also have like the worst of anarchy where, you know, if you, you know, if someone comes in and like robs your store, eh, you could tell it to a cop.
[00:07:59]  They'll write it down on a piece of paper.
[00:08:00]  Nothing's going to happen.
[00:08:01]  No, you know, like you actually have no protection under the law.
[00:08:04]  But then let's say someone robs your store and you defend yourself with your guns island.
[00:08:10]  Yeah.
[00:08:11]  That literally just happened in New York City.
[00:08:12]  There was a security guard guy shot at him.
[00:08:15]  Then he took the gun, killed the guy with the robber's gun.
[00:08:20]  And his job is literally to be a protection service person.
[00:08:23]  And he still got charged.
[00:08:25]  I think he might have gotten off by now or he will get off, but it's still a pain in the ass to deal with that.
[00:08:30]  He woke up in a hospital bed handcuffed to the railing.
[00:08:34]  So this is like, I mean, it's like, this is the kind of anarcho-tyranny that we're, that this is what like the concept means is that you, right.
[00:08:43]  So you yourself, if you're running a business or something like that, and there is one regulation that you're a peg off on, they'll shut you down.
[00:08:53]  They'll, they'll fine you.
[00:08:54]  They'll do all this stuff.
[00:08:55]  You know what I mean?
[00:08:55]  They'll go back on you 20 years on your taxes and break you financially.
[00:09:01]  However, if you're like the victim of a serious violent crime, you have no government protecting and no government protection at all.
[00:09:10]  In many ways, it's the worst of anarchy and the worst of tyranny all rolled into one system.

=== Funding Dirty Political Opponents (15:17) ===

[00:09:16]  And this, this, D.A. Braggs is like a good example of that.
[00:09:20]  While people are like raping and murdering people essentially with impunity in effect, he's going after his political opponent or his party's political opponent.
[00:09:31]  Not a bad move, though.
[00:09:32]  You got to, the right needs a Soros type character and you go to districts that are like extremely against the other party.
[00:09:39]  You get a D agent, you fund them.
[00:09:42]  You get everyone in the area to commit to, hey, let's use our police resources to go find someone in Maryland.
[00:09:48]  I mean, that's what they should do.
[00:09:48]  They should go to Biden's home state and get some very, you know, Republican-loving Delaware.
[00:09:56]  You get some Republican-loving D agents that instead of prosecuting local crimes, divert their resources to investigating the Biden family.
[00:10:04]  This might be a new and good way of dirty politics.
[00:10:08]  Yeah, maybe.
[00:10:08]  Or at least just get some in there who are like not going to prosecute like gun possession charges or something like that.
[00:10:14]  I don't know.
[00:10:14]  Well, then that favors the Bidens because when the CIA agents, you know, buy him for him, said he has them for his crack deals.
[00:10:21]  You know, someone's got to cover that up.
[00:10:23]  Well, okay, it favors his kid, at least, for sure.
[00:10:25]  That's true.
[00:10:26]  It would, that would help Hunter, no question.
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[00:11:28]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:11:30]  All right.
[00:11:31]  So here's a, we have a clip of Bragg's.
[00:11:33]  He had a brief press conference after Donald Trump was arraigned.
[00:11:38]  He said, I'll now take questions.
[00:11:40]  And then his assistant said, no follow-up questions and we're going to limit the number of questions, which was somewhat funny.
[00:11:47]  But here is him talking about the crimes that Trump's statement of.
[00:11:53]  Why did Donald Trump repeatedly make these false statements?
[00:11:58]  The evidence will show that he did so to cover up crimes relating to the 2016 election.
[00:12:05]  Donald Trump, executives at the publishing company, American Media Incorporated, Mr. Cohen and others agreed in 2015 to a catch and kill scheme.
[00:12:18]  That is a scheme to buy and suppress negative information to help Mr. Trump's chance of winning the election.
[00:12:27]  As part of this scheme, Donald Trump and others made three payments to people who claimed to have negative information about Mr. Trump.
[00:12:38]  To make these payments, they set up shell companies and they made the false statement.
[00:12:44]  All right.
[00:12:44]  So that is, that's the DA Bragg's there.
[00:12:47]  Now, what you notice there is that he says that these payments were related to crimes involving the 2016 election, but he doesn't say what the crimes were.
[00:12:58]  And he was asked about this later and wouldn't give a straight answer.
[00:13:01]  So that's where they're at.
[00:13:03]  It's legally speaking in any like quasi-honest jurisdiction, this would all be thrown out because they'd go, you don't, you don't even, you can't even name the crime that you're relating this to.
[00:13:16]  And again, what he's saying there, if you read between the lines, is that he wanted to pay people to be quiet about negative information they had about Donald Trump.
[00:13:25]  Now, the major problem that you have here is that it's not a crime to pay someone to not say something.
[00:13:33]  This is why there are NDAs at like almost every major company.
[00:13:37]  It's not a crime to make a deal with someone to not say bad information about you.
[00:13:44]  It's just not a crime.
[00:13:46]  If I go at one of these, our next stand-up shows and I just horrifically bomb.
[00:13:50]  I mean, I should use a more realistic example, but imagine a world where I could not be hilarious in a stand-up set.
[00:13:58]  And I said to Rob, here's like $1,000.
[00:14:01]  Don't ever tell anyone that I bombed tonight.
[00:14:04]  There's nothing illegal about that.
[00:14:05]  We can come to an agreement that I pay you money and you keep your mouth shut if there's things that make me look bad.
[00:14:10]  Now, what he's trying to say here is that he didn't want this information to come out so he could win the presidency.
[00:14:18]  And the only, again, that's not even illegal either.
[00:14:21]  It would just be illegal because then it would, then it would be like a campaign expense.
[00:14:25]  And that's when you can get into this like falsifying business records or a campaign finance violation or something like that.
[00:14:30]  But there's no possible way that you could actually prove.
[00:14:35]  Look, Michael Cohen was Donald Trump's personal lawyer.
[00:14:38]  He wasn't like on the campaign.
[00:14:40]  He was his personal lawyer.
[00:14:42]  And in other words, you'd have to say, are you telling me you're sure that Donald Trump wouldn't have paid some hush money to a chick he was banging behind his wife's back before he was running for president?
[00:14:54]  There's like, you'd almost have to get inside of his head.
[00:14:57]  And again, as far as the federal campaign finance violation laws go, there's already precedent for this with John Edwards, where they basically tried to say this, that him paying off his side piece was a campaign expense, and they lost because there's no way you could prove that, because there's just a whole bunch of other reasons why he would also want to keep this silence that have nothing to do with the campaign, just like his own image, his family not finding out, like a bunch of other stuff.
[00:15:24]  So this is just it's.
[00:15:26]  It really is something it's hard to kind of overstate this that after all of these years of being like okay, this guy is involved in a conspiracy with the Russians.
[00:15:37]  He might be a Russian agent himself.
[00:15:40]  And then they said he, you know, was involved in this.
[00:15:43]  Like you know, you know uh, conspiracy to use uh military, you know, assistance in Ukraine.
[00:15:52]  Uh, to hold up a, a weapons deal in order to damage his political opponent.
[00:15:56]  And then they said oh he he uh, you know um, incited an insurrection to overthrow our democracy.
[00:16:05]  And then they're like, all these things are crimes, you know what I mean like, and they're of like the most serious crimes imaginable, like one of them was treason, the other one was like a serious violation of, like government authority.
[00:16:18]  The other one again is treason and like this is what you got him on, like falsifying business records in service of another crime that we can't name.
[00:16:29]  It's really just something where like imagine, like you know, imagine being one of these like blue-pilled liberals who believes that he did all of those things and like how and feeling like, and this is, but we got him for this.
[00:16:44]  It's just hard to even get into that mental space.
[00:16:47]  Yeah, I guess from here it's going to be interesting to see uh, how this actually plays out.
[00:16:52]  So, instead of campaigning, is he gonna have to spend a bunch of time in court?
[00:16:56]  Are they gonna be able to dictate the news cycle?
[00:16:58]  Quite a bit about um, look at Trump's bad business practices and that he's such a mortally repugnant person that he's both having affairs and falsifying business records.
[00:17:09]  Um, it are.
[00:17:11]  We can end up in a situation where Biden weasels out of debates and he goes.
[00:17:14]  Well, I can't debate that guy.
[00:17:16]  He's a criminal who has sex with hookers.
[00:17:19]  So it's going to be like, this is all nonsense.
[00:17:21]  But I guess it's going to be interesting to see how the nonsense actually plays out from just a campaign standpoint.
[00:17:27]  Sure now, that's a very good point.
[00:17:29]  Um, it does seem, at least so far, with none of those very interesting questions that you laid out being answered yet it does seem like they've just really handed Donald Trump a political victory for the moment, a kind of like a talking point.
[00:17:42]  Um, i'm sure all of the people who say like well, he's the first president to ever be indicted on 34 crimes or what whatever it's like yeah, these are all kind of the deranged Trump haters anyway.
[00:17:53]  Um, Donald Trump was able to go back and I gotta say, um his speech in Mar-a-lago, he kind of just went through every way in which they've tried to get him from the beginning and how it's all been nonsense and how this is like the most pathetic nonsense.
[00:18:08]  Yet, like you know, he's basically like they tried to say I was a Russian, a Russian spy.
[00:18:12]  That was obviously not true.
[00:18:13]  They tried to say I did this.
[00:18:15]  That's obviously not true.
[00:18:16]  And now this is just pathetic.
[00:18:17]  He's like, they were talking about indicting me from before I even was sworn in as president, or they were talking about impeaching me before I was even sworn in as president.
[00:18:25]  And it's kind of like you listen to this whole speech that Donald Trump's giving and you're like, yeah, that's pretty much right.
[00:18:32]  Yeah, I was just on Tim Pool the other day and I got a great response from them.
[00:18:37]  And, you know, there's a lot of like Trump supporters in Tim Poole's audience.
[00:18:42]  And it's funny because the last time I was on, I actually like really argued with Tim a lot because I was being very critical of Donald Trump because he was kind of looking back talking about Donald Trump's legacy.
[00:18:53]  And I'm just like, no, I'm sorry.
[00:18:55]  This guy was actually a disaster, like, you know, in every way, or just about every way.
[00:19:02]  And some of his audience was pissed off at me after last time.
[00:19:06]  This time they loved me because it was just going in right off this.
[00:19:09]  There was just nothing else to say other than like, yeah, look, obviously, this is all just ridiculous.
[00:19:14]  And yeah, look, Trump's right about what he's what he's saying here.
[00:19:18]  The other thing, Andrew Suburban tweeted out, you know, a video clip of me on Tim Poole's show talking about how Donald Trump has really been saying all the right things on this war in Ukraine.
[00:19:32]  And of course, Donald Trump Jr. grabbed it and he quote tweeted it and said, President Trump is the only Republican running who has been clear and consistent about wanting to end the war in Ukraine immediately to stop World War III.
[00:19:45]  And that's exactly why the swamp is doing everything they can to stop him.
[00:19:49]  So it's pretty funny.
[00:19:50]  The last time I was on this show, I was just trashing Trump.
[00:19:54]  But this time I'm on it and they're like, ooh, yeah, I like what he's saying here.
[00:19:57]  So I responded to Donald Trump Jr., but he didn't get back to me.
[00:20:00]  But I said, your father's rhetoric on Ukraine has been great lately.
[00:20:04]  Maybe tell him not to appoint Bolton, Pompeo, and McMaster next time.
[00:20:07]  And for the love of God, stop listening to Lindsey Graham.
[00:20:10]  That's some good advice right there.
[00:20:12]  That's pretty concise.
[00:20:14]  I got a note to the former president.
[00:20:15]  We'll see.
[00:20:16]  I'm sure he'll get back to me anytime.
[00:20:18]  I'm sure I'll be at the next Kanye West dinner.
[00:20:20]  It'll be me, him, and Trump.
[00:20:22]  Kanye, who loves the Jews now, by the way, he's way back in.
[00:20:25]  He saw 21 Jump Street.
[00:20:26]  All he was Jonah Hill.
[00:20:28]  Yep.
[00:20:29]  Who would have thought Jonah Hill would ever make less people hate Jews?
[00:20:33]  Really, really threw me for a loop there.
[00:20:36]  All right.
[00:20:37]  Let's move on.
[00:20:38]  Here's a story that I really love.
[00:20:41]  And look, I'm not saying everything about everything about Elon Musk buying Twitter has been perfect.
[00:20:51]  There still are some mistakes, I feel like.
[00:20:55]  He didn't unban all of the people that he said he was going to.
[00:21:00]  He did unban a lot of them, though.
[00:21:03]  I'm getting, I feel like I'm getting more spam than ever before in my replies.
[00:21:07]  That's a little bit annoying.
[00:21:09]  But he did release the Twitter files, which was very cool of him.
[00:21:14]  He has unbanned a lot of people.
[00:21:16]  And I'll tell you, this one might take the cake as just my favorite thing he's done so far.
[00:21:21]  So he labeled NPR U.S. state-affiliated media.
[00:21:27]  So now that's on every tweet that they tweet out.
[00:21:29]  It says, no, this is something they do with like state media in other countries.
[00:21:33]  So this is something Twitter's always done.
[00:21:35]  If like the Iranian media or something that wants or Chinese media or something like that wants to tweet something out, it'll say state affiliated media underneath it.
[00:21:43]  And so they did this to NPR.
[00:21:45]  And it's just been hilarious to watch the response from this.
[00:21:50]  NPR is furious that they've been labeled state media, which is just on so many levels great.
[00:21:57]  Like it's almost like a story where you're like, this has got to be out of out of the matrix or something out of a simulation.
[00:22:06]  Here is, we have a video of Kier Jean-Pierre weighing in on the subject.
[00:22:12]  Twitter labeled national public radio as a government-influenced entity.
[00:22:20]  Putting NPR in the same category as Russia Today or Chinese media.
[00:22:25]  Do you have a comment?
[00:22:27]  Yeah, so social media companies make their own independent decisions about content rules.
[00:22:32]  So I won't comment on Twitter's rules.
[00:22:33]  But what I will say more broadly, I'll say there's no doubt of the independence of NPR's journalists.
[00:22:40]  So there you have it.
[00:22:41]  I guess there's nothing else to talk about here.
[00:22:43]  I mean, obviously it's not state-run media.
[00:22:46]  Now, funnier than that, even, is that NPR, you can't make this up, okay?
[00:22:53]  NPR ran an article about how outrageous this is, and they cite Jean-Pierre defending them in the article.
[00:23:03]  They go, oh yeah, if we're government media, then why did the government just tell you how great we are?
[00:23:08]  This is actually the simulation that we're living in.
[00:23:11]  Where they thought that would be a defense for them is that it was, look, we're not government media.
[00:23:17]  And don't take my word for it.
[00:23:19]  Ask the government.
[00:23:20]  They're saying the exact same thing we're saying.
[00:23:22]  So doesn't that prove to you?
[00:23:25]  So in trying to argue that it's not a state-affiliated media outlet, they also cited their disinformation expert in this article.
[00:23:40]  They also cited a disinformation expert.
[00:23:43]  Unfortunately, he happens to work for a program that's funded by the Pentagon.
[00:23:48]  So there are two sources in this article were a disinformation agent who's funded by the Pentagon and the White House press secretary.
[00:23:58]  To prove to you that, of course, they're not state media.
[00:24:01]  Now, one of the things that what I think is so great about this, obviously, there's no debate that NPR is, they're public radio.
[00:24:08]  It's right there in the P.
[00:24:10]  They are state-funded.
[00:24:12]  Now, they might argue that they get a lot of funding from other areas also.
[00:24:16]  If you actually look into it, a lot of their funding does come from the government.
[00:24:20]  They get direct taxpayer funding, but then they also get like these companies that like send them funding who are themselves funded by government, local, state, and federal governments.
[00:24:31]  It obviously is state media.

=== Left-Leaning Media Control (06:02) ===

[00:24:33]  If we saw this in any other country, we'd go, yeah, that's state media.
[00:24:37]  But one of the things that's interesting about this is that, you know, the religion of statism, much like religion in general, has this kind of defining characteristic where people tend to believe in one.
[00:24:54]  You know, like people who are religious, it's pretty rare that you meet someone who's religious and you say, oh, you know, what are you?
[00:25:02]  And they say, I'm a Jew and a Catholic.
[00:25:05]  You know, they usually pick one.
[00:25:07]  Now, they might, there might be people who are like, I'm half Jewish, half Catholic, but that just means my mom was this, my dad was that.
[00:25:13]  If someone who's actually religious answers that question, they usually tell you what they are.
[00:25:17]  And it's usually one.
[00:25:18]  In other words, they're usually an atheist for all other religions except their own.
[00:25:24]  And so there is also this dynamic with people who believe in government, particularly in the United States of America, because we're such a kind of egocentric culture.
[00:25:35]  Where, you know, yeah, if you saw this from China, you'd be like, yeah, that's state-run media.
[00:25:39]  Yeah, if you saw this from Iran or if you saw this from Russia, sure, that's state-run media, but not here in America.
[00:25:46]  And so it's just, I think there's just something powerful about that kind of like putting that idea into people's heads that it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, no, this also is state-run media.
[00:25:55]  I love it.
[00:25:56]  I wish they'd put it under NBC and CNN also.
[00:25:59]  Why not?
[00:26:00]  Let them know.
[00:26:01]  This is all, it's all state-run, essentially, in effect, I should say.
[00:26:06]  So anyway, I don't know.
[00:26:07]  Any thoughts on that?
[00:26:08]  I thought it was hilarious because it's technically true.
[00:26:11]  And I did always think it was odd that the left, I mean, it's a very left-leaning and like all media services, it got a little bit more extreme in its left-leaning after Trump was elected when nearly every single media company decided, hey, we can no longer report truth and fact.
[00:26:29]  We have to report spin.
[00:26:30]  So I remember the change in NPR.
[00:26:32]  I remember it was always kind of left-leaning, but it was certainly like almost every news organization better in the before Trump days, before they realized, oh, we need censorship because of what just happened.
[00:26:45]  But I always just thought it was odd that one team got basically a government sponsored, you know, media outlet, whereas the other one does not.
[00:26:54]  So I don't know why the Republicans haven't either attempted to defund NPR or kind of launched their own.
[00:27:01]  Well, it kind of goes to show you that for the most part, the Republicans are kind of in this game too.
[00:27:06]  You know, the Republicans play the role of Washington generals.
[00:27:09]  They're not the globetrotters.
[00:27:10]  They're supposed to be there to lose.
[00:27:12]  So that's kind of the way the game works.
[00:27:15]  Yeah, look, NPR followed a very similar trajectory as to a lot of kind of liberal left-leaning publications and just people over the last, you know, 10 years or so, where they were always certainly progressive.
[00:27:32]  They would always favor progressive economic policies and things like that.
[00:27:37]  They would always care about what were left-leaning issues, but they got wrapped up in the anti-Trump insanity and the woke insanity.
[00:27:46]  And it just like became this crazy different thing where they're not just arguing for like why we need rent-controlled apartments or something like that.
[00:27:55]  Now all of a sudden they're talking about how like, you know, transgender, there was a story about transgender dinosaurs that like a trans person who was also like some type of paleontologist like made a whole book on that.
[00:28:10]  It's like they got, they went way down the rabbit hole of really, really insane woke shit.
[00:28:15]  And so it's kind of interesting to see this, this go in the way that it did.
[00:28:20]  But yeah, that's, but it is kind of a path that a lot of these big media companies have followed over the last, let's say, 10 years, broadly speaking, while we've seen the rise of all this woke craziness.
[00:28:32]  So that's what's going on here.
[00:28:35]  I'm happy to see them labeled as state media.
[00:28:37]  It's pretty funny that they that that bothers them so much, like that they're offended by the idea that you're like, well, what do you mean we don't have independence?
[00:28:46]  And you're like, look, you guys collect taxpayer dollars and then they were one of the major players who suppressed the Hunter Biden story, who said that we won't report on the laptop.
[00:28:59]  And so it's just like, okay, let's look at you the way you are.
[00:29:04]  The truth is that a lot of these other, like, you know, the New York Times or CNN or NBC News or any of them, they're all in effect state media.
[00:29:14]  And the way that's done is always through control to access, control of information.
[00:29:20]  You know, if you, if you watch CNN or MSNBC, it's, you can't watch it for more than 10 minutes before they're going to throw to someone who's our, you know, expert on the Pentagon.
[00:29:32]  And he used to work in the Pentagon.
[00:29:34]  Here's our intelligence expert and he's the former head of the CIA.
[00:29:37]  And he's the, and of course, if you read the New York Times, it's constantly like giving you information from insiders.
[00:29:44]  Oh, well, you know, an anonymous source at the Justice Department said this, an anonymous source in the Pentagon said this.
[00:29:51]  And this is kind of how it works.
[00:29:53]  They control the information that you are going to report on.
[00:29:57]  If you report on it the way they want to, you'll continue to get the information.
[00:30:01]  And that's the only way you can actually get it.
[00:30:03]  So it's this weird dance where the media has been locked in by the government who can basically control what direction it wants to go in.
[00:30:12]  Anyway, a good start labeling NPR as state-sponsored media.
[00:30:20]  I'd like to see some next layer of like label where it would just be like, you know, like MSNBC and they could just have like CIA, you know, I don't know, CIA adjacent media or something like that.

=== Cultural War Hotlines (08:36) ===

[00:30:35]  I don't know.
[00:30:36]  Let's think about it.
[00:30:37]  Maybe we come up with a better term than that.
[00:30:39]  All right, guys, let's take a quick second and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is yokratom.com, home of the $60 kilo.
[00:30:47]  This is for listeners who are over the age of 21 and who are already using Kratom.
[00:30:52]  If you don't know what Kratom is, don't worry about it.
[00:30:54]  But if you're a fan, go get your Kratom at yokratom.com, home of the $60 kilo.
[00:31:00]  They've been a great sponsor of us for years now.
[00:31:03]  Marquee sponsor for SkankFest, sponsor for Legion of Skanks, and of course, for part of the problem, they help us do what we do.
[00:31:10]  We would not be able to do this show without companies like YoKratom.
[00:31:13]  So if you're in the market for Kratom, go grab yourself a kilo for $60, the best deal you'll find anywhere.
[00:31:19]  Ship directly to your door, yokratom.com.
[00:31:22]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:31:24]  All right.
[00:31:24]  So sticking with the brilliant and lovely press secretary, Jean-Pierre, she had something else to say about a new program that the Biden administration has set up.
[00:31:37]  Let's play from that other clip.
[00:31:38]  It can really take toll on people's mental health.
[00:31:42]  So I want to say directly to LGBTQI plus kids.
[00:31:46]  You are loved just as you are, just the way you are.
[00:31:51]  And if you're feeling overwhelmed, you call 988, the National Crisis Hotline, and dial the number three to talk to a counselor who has been specifically trained to support LGBTQI plus kids.
[00:32:04]  This is a new service that the Biden administration is proud to offer during these incredibly hard times for these trans kids.
[00:32:12]  I have a lot of questions.
[00:32:14]  Yeah, so do I. When did the IA plus come in?
[00:32:17]  And do we have two?
[00:32:19]  Yeah, what is that even?
[00:32:21]  I don't know.
[00:32:23]  What's the I?
[00:32:24]  An igloo?
[00:32:24]  I don't know.
[00:32:25]  Maybe there's some kids out there who identify as an igloo.
[00:32:28]  I don't know, man.
[00:32:30]  Can you stop adding letters?
[00:32:32]  It doesn't questioning, like, doesn't that already leave it like you already left it open-ended?
[00:32:36]  Like you, the last letter.
[00:32:38]  I think Q is queer.
[00:32:39]  No, I thought that was questioning.
[00:32:41]  Lesbian, bi, gay, transactional, transsexual, transactional, and questioning.
[00:32:49]  I thought it was and questioning, like, doesn't even know.
[00:32:52]  I've always been under the impression it was queer, but oh, yep, there we go.
[00:32:55]  It looks queer.
[00:32:56]  Oh, intersex, asexual.
[00:32:58]  Oh, yes, of course we have to include those people in it too.
[00:33:02]  You know what I thought, thought was...
[00:33:03]  Asexual, by definition, don't you not want to be grouped in with these perverts?
[00:33:09]  You're declaring yourself not interested in sex.
[00:33:12]  You're saying I don't want to have anything to do with any of this.
[00:33:16]  You're hanging around with the Q's and the T's over here.
[00:33:18]  You seem pretty interested to me.
[00:33:20]  I thought it was kind of funny because it's almost like an old-timey saying, but it's such a weird thing to apply to trans people is she goes, you're you're perfect just the way you are.
[00:33:33]  Right.
[00:33:34]  Isn't the whole point that you're not?
[00:33:37]  I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but they're like, you're, you're loved just the way you are.
[00:33:41]  It's like, no, that, that seems like it would be the anti-trans message, right?
[00:33:46]  Be like, don't change.
[00:33:47]  Stop transitioning.
[00:33:51]  Look, what we think you're gross in your current form, just like God who created you in the wrong gender, but we can fix with technology that doesn't work.
[00:34:00]  which, by the way, is really right at the whole core of this whole goddamn thing, which really is almost like a spiritual battle in a way.
[00:34:06]  It is, there's something profoundly about, there's something about the whole trans identity, the whole trans ideology that is fundamentally a critique on God.
[00:34:22]  There's something about that.
[00:34:23]  That it's almost like, no, you're the God.
[00:34:26]  God didn't decide you're a man or a woman.
[00:34:28]  You're the God and you're more powerful than biology in some sense.
[00:34:32]  God lets anyone play dress up.
[00:34:35]  That is true.
[00:34:36]  God wouldn't have put all these costumes down here if he didn't want to.
[00:34:39]  So God is pro-drag, but he's not so into the trans thing.
[00:34:45]  Look, there's a very common tactic that's going on right now where anytime anybody on the right wing or and for the sake of argument here, you just define the right wing as not the left wing.
[00:34:59]  Or, you know, anytime anyone who's not on board with this kind of trans ideology, if when you push back on it, they go, oh, you're just obsessed with this culture war nonsense.
[00:35:10]  They go, oh, you're just inserting culture war into everything.
[00:35:12]  Look, the old guard of the libertarian party, who, you know, lost every single position that they have in that party, thanks to the Meecox.
[00:35:22]  A lot of them, the people who supported them, there weren't that many of them, but the ones who did used to always say this, oh, you guys are just trying to insert culture war issues in here, but that's not what libertarianism is about, which is, I mean, in some strict sense, in an abstract, I could kind of see what they're talking about.
[00:35:38]  Like libertarians could have whatever feelings on cultural issues that they want to.
[00:35:43]  And strictly, as long as you don't force anybody else into it, then, you know, like you're, you're at least consistent with libertarian principles.
[00:35:50]  I mean, you could despise a group of people or love a group of people, but as long as you're not initiating violence on them, then, you know, okay, fine.
[00:35:58]  But it's just so ridiculous to pretend that anybody who's reacting against this stuff is somehow like obsessed with culture war issues.
[00:36:08]  Many of us would rather never talk about this insanity, except it's being forced on people.
[00:36:13]  This discussion that I would have assumed, I shouldn't say I would have assumed, that's an understatement.
[00:36:20]  I would have guaranteed just five years ago, certainly 10 years ago, that there would always be a consensus on some of these issues.
[00:36:27]  We would always think that a drag queen giving a lap dance to a seven-year-old was disgusting.
[00:36:32]  No one would ever be like, no one would ever be debating it, let alone watching it happen on videos online.
[00:36:41]  But here you have, you know, the White House promoting a hotline that they set up for trans kids to call.
[00:36:51]  So rather than speak to your parents or someone at your church or someone in your community, no, no, no, just call who the government tells you to call and they're going to what?
[00:36:59]  What are they going to tell them?
[00:37:01]  I'm sure at every turn, encourage this transition, tell them that, undermine any other influence in their life who might be telling them like, that's not real.
[00:37:12]  You're not actually a girl trapped in a boy's body.
[00:37:16]  You're just a boy.
[00:37:18]  They're going to undermine that.
[00:37:20]  And it's just so bizarre to see the government promoting this.
[00:37:23]  And when you get to this level of cultural interference by the government, now all that stuff about libertarians being neutral or anything like that, that goes out the window.
[00:37:35]  Now the libertarian position is to oppose this, period.
[00:37:40]  There's like, it's absolutely, it's, um, it's wrong.
[00:37:44]  It should be illegal.
[00:37:46]  And it is sickening to see the federal government trying to insert itself into the most like intimate decisions of a young child's life and to encourage young children to make permanent decisions, which we really have no idea.
[00:38:03]  I mean, we know there's going to be negative effects.
[00:38:05]  We have no idea exactly how profound they're going to be.
[00:38:08]  But man, isn't this like some something really sick?
[00:38:12]  That like you're telling kids, trans kids, as if this is even a thing.
[00:38:18]  Like as if this is actually objectively a category.
[00:38:23]  Would we be in violation of any laws if we got like a seven or eight year old to call in and gave him a script and recorded it?
[00:38:31]  Ooh, that's actually a really good idea.
[00:38:34]  Just to see what goes on.
[00:38:35]  It's illegal first.
[00:38:37]  But that would be interesting, right?
[00:38:38]  Just to see like what exactly they're saying.
[00:38:40]  I'd be curious if they even pick it up.
[00:38:42]  Like, you know, how'd that suicide hotline work for soldiers?
[00:38:46]  Yeah, right.
[00:38:47]  Now, this, but this is a much higher priority than saving soldiers' lives, Rob.
[00:38:51]  This is trans and the kids.
[00:38:53]  Someone's going to pick up on the other end.
[00:38:55]  They're going to be excited about it too.
[00:38:57]  What if it was just that, what's his name?
[00:38:59]  The Bud Light.
[00:39:02]  Her name, pardon me.
[00:39:04]  The Bud Light.
[00:39:05]  Oh, she answers the phone?
[00:39:07]  She just answers all of them.
[00:39:08]  Like just enough time for every single trans kid in America.

=== Painting Portraits in Minutes (02:13) ===

[00:39:12]  Well, then you got to respect her talents.
[00:39:16]  Yeah, at that point.
[00:39:17]  Well, maybe it's not that hard.
[00:39:18]  Maybe you're getting a phone call a day.
[00:39:20]  I don't know.
[00:39:20]  I mean, how necessary was it?
[00:39:22]  She's picking them all up.
[00:39:23]  She's like, do it.
[00:39:24]  Transition.
[00:39:25]  Or do it.
[00:39:26]  Are there so many kids that are both looking to transition, having hardship, aware of this number and want to call in?
[00:39:34]  I mean, how many dials can this number be getting in a day?
[00:39:37]  I don't know, but I think they're upping the numbers as they make it into more of like a fad and this kind of like rebellious thing that you can do.
[00:39:43]  I'm sure there are, and there's, there's dad on this.
[00:39:46]  It's like, it's skyrocketed the number of kids who identify as trans.
[00:39:50]  And you got to think a lot of these are just AIs.
[00:39:54]  All right.
[00:39:54]  Anyway.
[00:39:55]  Maybe it's a kid and his dad says that his wiener is too big to get rid of.
[00:40:01]  He's only six, but he's got like an eight inch hog.
[00:40:03]  And so everyone's telling him.
[00:40:05]  We're not going to be able to do it.
[00:40:06]  Not for the price we quoted you.
[00:40:07]  That's for sure.
[00:40:08]  We're going to need to bring in some machinery for this thing.
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=== Digital Currencies and Vaccines (16:14) ===

[00:41:26]  And there's no risk.
[00:41:27]  If you don't love the final painting, your money is refunded guaranteed.
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[00:41:39]  To get this special offer, text the word problem to 87204.
[00:41:44]  The word is problem and you text that to 87204.
[00:41:49]  One more time.
[00:41:50]  Text problem to 87204.
[00:41:53]  Paint your life.
[00:41:54]  Celebrate the moments that matter most.
[00:41:57]  Message and data rates may apply.
[00:41:58]  See terms for details.
[00:42:00]  Text problem to 87204 to get 20% off at paint your life.
[00:42:06]  All right.
[00:42:06]  Let's get back into the show.
[00:42:08]  All right.
[00:42:08]  Moving on to a more serious topic.
[00:42:10]  I mean, okay, this is actually serious when they're propagandizing children like this, but it's anyway, a more us topic.
[00:42:20]  One of the things we've been talking about more lately as this push seems to intensify and narrow is this the push for central bank digital currencies around the world, particularly in the United States of America, Canada, and Europe, and how creepy this is.
[00:42:43]  It seems like the timeframes that they're pushing these things out are drastically smaller than we may have previously thought they were.
[00:42:52]  The central bank, the Federal Reserve Central Bank here in America is talking about making a decision this summer.
[00:42:57]  The European Central Bank is talking about making a decision by the fall.
[00:43:02]  That's not that far away.
[00:43:05]  And I think that this is an issue.
[00:43:08]  I was talking about this on Tim Pool the other day too.
[00:43:10]  I think it's really important that as many people who have large platforms kind of wake people up about this as much as possible.
[00:43:20]  We're in the phase, Rob, we've seen this time and time again.
[00:43:24]  We're in the phase where they're floating out an idea to gauge the temperature of the water, which is something they do a lot.
[00:43:32]  There's go, okay, how much resistance does this have to it?
[00:43:35]  If it's not that much, they'll go through with this policy.
[00:43:37]  If it's too much, they'll pull it back and attempt it a little bit later.
[00:43:41]  But we really need to at least buy ourselves that time.
[00:43:44]  And so people need to understand that this is the absolute, has to be the absolute brightest of red lines.
[00:43:51]  Whatever you have to do, whether even if it's just like posting on social media about it, calling your local congressman, talking to, you know, friends and family and like waking people up about this, the central bank digital currencies will be an absolute disaster.
[00:44:07]  This game is over for us if this actually gets passed and goes through.
[00:44:11]  This is the big one.
[00:44:12]  And I think it's just really important that people understand what we're up against here.
[00:44:17]  I think the problem with central bank digital currencies is that they got some really good marketability to it.
[00:44:26]  Cause there's actually there's significant efficiency.
[00:44:30]  The problem is like, as a theoretical, if the government offered a digital currency, but you were still allowed to have your bank account and you were still allowed to have cash.
[00:44:37]  And so you kind of had both systems running at the same time, it would be a good product.
[00:44:41]  What makes it a good product is one.
[00:44:43]  At this point, the banks are essentially socialized.
[00:44:46]  So why am I interfacing with like a half socialized bank so that other people can have profits, but I still have to be concerned about my money?
[00:44:52]  We're kind of at a point where it's like, why don't I just keep an account with the Fed?
[00:44:56]  Why is it that I have to interface with some bank to digitalize currency?
[00:44:59]  Also, if you want to actually be doing record keeping in terms of transactions that might be like have taxes involved with it, for example, like when I put together gigs, you know how annoying it is to try and get tax records from people?
[00:45:12]  I got to email them.
[00:45:12]  I got to get the W9.
[00:45:13]  I got to figure out how to keep it.
[00:45:14]  I got to get it to my accountant.
[00:45:16]  Like if Vanmo interfaced in a way that I could just pay them and I never had to do any record keeping whatsoever, and it's easy enough to do with digitalized currency.
[00:45:23]  Like if you're, if you're in that kind of a business and I could take in digital currency and just pay someone digital currency and now I don't have to keep any tax records, that's great.
[00:45:32]  So that to me is the big sales.
[00:45:35]  And I'll tell you why it's a disaster, but the big sale is one.
[00:45:38]  Our banking systems basically socialize anyways.
[00:45:40]  All the losses are going to fall on the taxpayers.
[00:45:43]  Why am I interfacing with Chase or any of these other banks as it is, if it's just that I want to know that my money's safe with the Fed?
[00:45:50]  Also, if the Fed can get it to me quicker or take it from me quicker or keep records so that I don't have to actually do my own record keeping on taxes or otherwise, there's a sale in there.
[00:45:59]  In fact, if you look at just with now that cryptocurrencies exist, it almost doesn't and the amount of transactions that all of us do that are digital.
[00:46:07]  This old banking system, which is socialized anyways, doesn't even make sense.
[00:46:11]  So digital currencies are kind of practical.
[00:46:13]  The problem with digital currencies is the same way that I've been removed from YouTube, I've been stricken from YouTube, or I was told that I could and couldn't go to businesses or where I can and can't spend money.
[00:46:23]  What's going to happen when all of money is digital?
[00:46:26]  Let's say you wanted to subscribe to this program and the government goes, nope, we consider that terrorist media.
[00:46:30]  You're not allowed to subscribe to it.
[00:46:31]  Or I heard someone talk about this, whatever you want to call it.
[00:46:34]  Or I heard someone talk about this on Twitter.
[00:46:35]  It was a great point.
[00:46:36]  He's like when they were doing the lockdowns and you weren't supposed to be in your house.
[00:46:39]  Well, what if they can just turn you off from your money?
[00:46:41]  You're not supposed to be spending money.
[00:46:42]  You're not supposed to be at a gas station.
[00:46:43]  What are you doing at a gas station?
[00:46:45]  Or and the ability of them.
[00:46:46]  And the trucker protests in Canada, I mean, this is actually what they went after was turning off people's bank accounts.
[00:46:52]  Now, imagine this in a cashless society.
[00:46:55]  Or, hey, you've spent more than your allotted carbon this month.
[00:46:58]  Or hey, you're actually only allowed to spend your money on these green energy initiatives.
[00:47:02]  You're over your consumption on meat.
[00:47:05]  And I will say, just to back up what you're saying, I think that at a certain point in time, maybe years ago, we would have said like, this is a real concern that the government would be willing to exercise this type of authority.
[00:47:17]  I think after what we've seen with the lockdowns and the vaccine passports and the trucker protests and this push for climate change, I think you'd be crazy to think they won't do this.
[00:47:27]  Like that, this is, and this is, this is obviously what they're going to do if we do move to a full central bank.
[00:47:34]  You can't spend your money.
[00:47:35]  You haven't been, you don't have that vaccine that we told you that you could get.
[00:47:39]  I mean, and the vaccines, I mean, take a look at the retrospective vaccine of what they enforced upon us without good information.
[00:47:46]  So we've already got proof of concept that they're willing to, I mean, that's the way socialist systems work is, you know, they can have bad science, bad policy, but they got to commit to it a thousand percent and they need full compliance.
[00:47:57]  So right.
[00:47:58]  And just to think about it this way, there is, as much as the Constitution is all but dead and we're not really governed by the Constitution.
[00:48:08]  We're kind of governed by precedent that has followed from a couple hundred years after the Constitution.
[00:48:14]  There are still kind of some legal protections.
[00:48:20]  They're not nearly as good as they should be, but you can still go to court and defend yourself against a charge if the law on the books says, you know, like you were justified.
[00:48:30]  You did have judges over, you had the Supreme Court overturn the OSHA mandate that Biden pushed through.
[00:48:36]  You had a federal judge strike down the mask mandates on planes and things like this.
[00:48:43]  If you have the central bank, the Federal Reserve, which is given its quote, independence, and they issue the currency, then they have a right to do whatever they want with that currency.
[00:48:56]  Then all of the legal protections that you have are gone.
[00:49:00]  It doesn't matter because you could say, hey, well, I have a right to not take the vaccine.
[00:49:06]  And they could be like, the government plays this game where they're like, yeah, the Fed's separate from us.
[00:49:10]  So they go like, yeah, yeah, no, totally.
[00:49:12]  You have a right not to do it, but we can't stop them from like turning your money off.
[00:49:16]  You know, like, oh, yeah, you have a right to buy a gun.
[00:49:19]  Absolutely.
[00:49:20]  You have a right to purchase a gun.
[00:49:21]  It's just that, you know, the only currency won't work at any gun show or whatever.
[00:49:25]  You know what I mean?
[00:49:26]  Like, so it's they can make this an end around of any law that restricts tyranny.
[00:49:34]  It also creates an infrastructure.
[00:49:37]  Like if the government wanted to observe my activities at all times, it needs quite a bit of infrastructure.
[00:49:42]  Might even need a team of cops to actually follow me around.
[00:49:45]  If all of a sudden I'm linked to a digital currency, that's the only way that I can transact.
[00:49:51]  Let's just say the only way I can transact is by a digital currency.
[00:49:54]  And the only way I can have that digital currency is if it's on my phone.
[00:49:57]  That's the only way to do it.
[00:49:59]  So now the government literally, by use of software, can know where I am at all times, make sure that I'm fitting within their algorithms, get flagged within a system if you're outside of their algorithm of what money you're spending, your behavior patterns, where you're going, how you're operating.
[00:50:15]  And now, like, in other words, they have an infrastructure by which they can actually observe your behavior and police your behavior at all times, easily.
[00:50:24]  I mean, you can easily in your own head, if you had to sit down with the people and forecast for this, it's not hard to do.
[00:50:30]  You know what I mean?
[00:50:31]  And let's just say this, and we can go to this clip that I want to show everybody.
[00:50:35]  So, like, I think that the point that me and Rob are making here is like, I certainly think for anyone listening to this show, probably does not seem like much of a leap.
[00:50:43]  And as I said before, after the lockdowns and the passports and the trucker protests and all this stuff, I think you'd be crazy to not just be like, oh, yeah, obviously that's what this will be.
[00:50:51]  Like, it's not even like, oh, it might go in this direction.
[00:50:53]  I'm not making a slippery slope argument.
[00:50:55]  I'm saying like, all things the way they are, roll back to the last three years, but with a central bank digital currency, what does that look like?
[00:51:03]  And this is what it looks like.
[00:51:04]  But here was an interview with the president of the European Central Bank speaking about this topic.
[00:51:13]  I want to play this and really just focus on, listen to what she's saying and think about what this actually means.
[00:51:19]  I'm also a good user of electronic money.
[00:51:25]  So my question, you're introducing the electronic Euro, as I know.
[00:51:30]  So how can switching to an electronic currency help?
[00:51:38]  Well, two things.
[00:51:39]  Number one, it will be decided in October.
[00:51:42]  So we are preparing the ground.
[00:51:45]  We want to be ready.
[00:51:47]  We want to be trained, but it will not be decided until October 23.
[00:51:53]  The reason I'm personally convinced that we have to move ahead is a situation like the one we are in now.
[00:52:03]  We are dependent on the supply of gas by a very unfriendly country.
[00:52:11]  I don't want Europe to be dependent on an unfriendly country's currency.
[00:52:19]  For instance, I don't know, you know, the Chinese currency, the Russian currency, the whatever.
[00:52:25]  Or dependent on a friendly currency, but which is activated by a private corporate entity like, you know, Facebook or like Google or anybody like that.
[00:52:40]  I'm a user of Bitcoin too.
[00:52:42]  So I had bought it when it was.
[00:52:45]  Yeah.
[00:52:46]  I have no idea what.
[00:52:47]  Is this right, Brian?
[00:52:48]  You were saying this guy was pretending to be Zelensky?
[00:52:50]  Is that how I did not know that as bad?
[00:52:54]  I've got somebody else too talking about how NATO has been planning with America to do this for years.
[00:53:00]  Ooh, okay.
[00:53:00]  We'll have to look into that video for the next episode.
[00:53:03]  But anyway, so go ahead, Rob.
[00:53:06]  Let's just start with.
[00:53:07]  I don't know what the fuck she just said.
[00:53:09]  Well, she's essentially saying that her argument is that we need the central bank digital currency to ensure that no other government or no other private company is going to interfere with their ability to control their own currency.
[00:53:28]  I think the point that she's making here, now understand, of course, this woman is French and English clearly is not her first language.
[00:53:36]  But if I read between the lines of this part, I think what she's saying is basically that she believes digital currency is going to be the future.
[00:53:45]  And that if they don't have a digital currency, then some other crypto will end up coming in and essentially being the currency.
[00:53:53]  And that could be a digital currency that's controlled by a foreign government or that's controlled by meta or that's controlled by whatever, but that in order to maintain control, Europe has to move toward a central bank digital currency.
[00:54:08]  So maintain the control that central banks currently have.
[00:54:11]  Stated a little bit differently.
[00:54:14]  In my opinion, the product, the governments is essentially their currency.
[00:54:18]  The usage of the currency is what gives them the power to do, you know, to pay themselves, to purchase goods, to be in control.
[00:54:25]  So, I mean, it's somewhat a logical claim.
[00:54:27]  Hey, our product is currency, and we're currently losing to the fact that people are creating better currencies, which even includes like, like, why wouldn't government have a version of Venmo?
[00:54:38]  If you just think about it, why am I using some other thing that can just digitalize and I can just pay someone by texting them?
[00:54:44]  If you're the United States government, you're the business of money and transactions.
[00:54:49]  Why would you not want to have a similar product?
[00:54:52]  Yeah.
[00:54:53]  Well, I kind of get that point.
[00:54:55]  But I think also if you look, and it's again, this already is an issue of control.
[00:55:00]  Right.
[00:55:01]  Yeah, we have to make sure that we can control our currency.
[00:55:03]  And I think to your point, you go like, yeah, that is really essential to governments.
[00:55:08]  Right.
[00:55:08]  Being able to control the currency is more important than even educating the kids.
[00:55:12]  I think what it sounded like she was almost saying, but didn't quite say, is that beyond currency, if there's too much demand for a product that is in another country, for example, let's say Germans would like to be buying Russian oil, but we consider Russia to be our enemy.
[00:55:28]  And so we don't, with digital currency, we can control that you can't actually go buy that product.
[00:55:33]  So we can actually dictate what consumers are buying.
[00:55:36]  It sounded like she was leaning towards trying to say that, but she didn't quite say it.
[00:55:39]  Well, let's listen to the end because she makes some things a bit clearer.
[00:55:43]  I hope that it also will work through the special system.
[00:55:49]  And I know there are many protests in Europe against the electronic Euro.
[00:55:56]  What is the reason?
[00:56:01]  You know, it's the beauty of Europe.
[00:56:03]  It has different positions.
[00:56:06]  If you ask in Northern Europe, for instance, in the Netherlands, they're quite happy to see the E-Euro coming.
[00:56:16]  If you ask a young German man, you'll say, yeah, fine.
[00:56:22]  As I said, I don't want Meta, Google, or Amazon to suddenly come up with a currency that will take over the sovereignty of Europe.
[00:56:31]  I don't want a foreign currency to become the currency of trading within Europe.
[00:56:36]  So we have to be ready.
[00:56:39]  No, the problem is they don't want to be controlled.
[00:56:42]  They don't want to...
[00:56:44]  Yeah, but you know what?
[00:56:46]  You know what?
[00:56:48]  Now we have in Europe this threshold above 1,000 euros, you cannot pay cash.
[00:56:54]  If you do, you are on the grey market.
[00:56:57]  You take your risk.
[00:56:58]  You get caught, you are fined, or you go in jail.
[00:57:03]  But, you know, the digital Euro is going to have a limited amount of control.
[00:57:10]  There will be control.
[00:57:11]  You're right.
[00:57:11]  You're completely right.
[00:57:13]  We are considering whether for very small amounts, you know, anything that is around 300, 400 euros, we could have a mechanism where there is zero control.
[00:57:24]  But that could be dangerous.
[00:57:25]  The terrorist attacks on France years ago were entirely financed by those very small, anonymous credit cards that you can recharge in total anonymity.

=== Dangerous Zero-Control Limits (07:56) ===

[00:57:40]  I just I want to say something terrible and I i'm going into this acknowledging that this is terrible.
[00:57:46]  But if we were to like I don't know, if suddenly we live in a world where you're not allowed to freely transact in any capacity because every 20 years there's a terrorist attack, I mean, like, we're already living in a worse dystopian reality than more frequent terrorism.
[00:58:02]  I mean, your claim of that we need to control every single microtransaction at all times because otherwise we can't, you know what?
[00:58:10]  I'd rather have the occasional terrorist attack.
[00:58:13]  100%, dude.
[00:58:14]  And look, this is why I kind of wanted to talk about this a little bit and then play this clip.
[00:58:18]  I understand that she's saying this in a kind of diplomatic, respectable, professional way, but she's saying what we were saying.
[00:58:27]  Like what we're worried about is literally what she's saying is the point of the central bank digital currency.
[00:58:33]  And she's going, oh, yeah, no, there will be control there.
[00:58:36]  And perhaps we could say, you know, for transactions 300 euro or lower, well, we'll let that go.
[00:58:43]  But then again, you know, we really might need to control those also.
[00:58:48]  This is what she's telling you, that this is the plan here, is to have a mechanism of control for every purchase.
[00:58:56]  And I would say, you know, even beyond that, we live in a time where we're particularly in the United States of America.
[00:59:05]  This is true for much of Europe as well.
[00:59:08]  We're not a country that's built around the fact that we all produce tangible things.
[00:59:15]  We're kind of like an information economy.
[00:59:18]  And that almost leaves like bartering as being next to impossible.
[00:59:24]  It's not like me and you can go around and like trade someone a stand-up joke for an egg.
[00:59:31]  You know what I mean?
[00:59:32]  Like you like kind of have to have like, it just, it makes it much more difficult that if they really do control the medium of exchange, you're almost helpless to exist.
[00:59:42]  It's also, it's odd because like the old, in the old system, central planning didn't work.
[00:59:51]  But and I still agree that it wouldn't work.
[00:59:53]  But what happens when government has the best possible analytics about all general consumption like in an economy and they can see exactly what like product demand there is?
[01:00:04]  So like you don't think they're going to partner with certain private industries.
[01:00:08]  Like there's not going to be a preferred Amazon to someone else where they get a call like, hey, you know, people are looking for more of this product or less of that.
[01:00:16]  Or, you know, this competitor of yours is actually doing particularly well by doing this.
[01:00:20]  It's like all the data that you normally can't get on people's like consumption or general behavior, government would have access to at all times.
[01:00:29]  And when she invokes the, what was it, the terrorist attack in Paris there?
[01:00:34]  She invokes as like, well, look, by the way, that's probably not true.
[01:00:37]  That's probably not true that most of the funding was done with microtransactions on credit cards.
[01:00:42]  It was a truck attack, right?
[01:00:44]  I think is the one she's talking about.
[01:00:46]  Or was it guns?
[01:00:46]  I can't even remember which one she's referring to.
[01:00:48]  But either way, it wasn't.
[01:00:49]  It's possible.
[01:00:51]  But regardless of that.
[01:00:52]  Well, we also shouldn't have trucks because, you know, every once in a while, the truck is used for driving into people.
[01:00:57]  Yeah, this is.
[01:00:57]  Literally everything in the world could be used for bad.
[01:01:00]  If all of your citizens were on house arrest, it would be a lot easier to stop crime.
[01:01:07]  I don't know.
[01:01:07]  There's like this whole line of justification is ridiculous.
[01:01:11]  It's all just like naked tyranny.
[01:01:13]  No one thinks about this who has thinks in this way if they have any respect for liberty at all.
[01:01:20]  Yes, you could stop some bad things from happening.
[01:01:22]  Like North Korea does not have a lot of problems with terrorism, right?
[01:01:27]  Okay.
[01:01:27]  So like, yes, you could, you can deal with this problem if you're willing to sacrifice every inch of liberty.
[01:01:33]  But I just thought what was really fascinating about this clip is that she just like, it's very out there and it's very naked.
[01:01:38]  It's like, look, this isn't just me and you.
[01:01:41]  It's not just like some libertarian kooks are telling you, oh, this central bank digital currency thing is all about control.
[01:01:47]  This is the head of the European central bank telling you, yes, it's all about control.
[01:01:52]  It's about maintaining our control over our currency and guarding against any other currency coming in and overtaking us.
[01:01:59]  And then it's about controlling down to the most basic transactions.
[01:02:02]  And she'll flirt with the idea of maybe it would only be transactions over 300 bucks or over 300 euros.
[01:02:10]  Maybe that's all we'll have to control, which is already pretty much giving away the entire game, particularly by the way, with inflation.
[01:02:16]  Like what?
[01:02:17]  How many transactions are there that are meaningful that are actually under that amount?
[01:02:21]  But then she also, as soon as that comes out of her mouth, goes, yeah, but you know, that's dangerous.
[01:02:26]  That's dangerous.
[01:02:27]  You know what's much more dangerous?
[01:02:29]  This.
[01:02:30]  All of this.
[01:02:31]  Much more dangerous.
[01:02:32]  If your outlook is that any degree of freedom is potentially dangerous, you're a totalitarian dictator.
[01:02:38]  That's literally your outlook.
[01:02:40]  Also, your claim of underneath 300, we won't pay attention to.
[01:02:44]  What that really means is everything's going to be logged at all times.
[01:02:47]  And if we want to review your records, it will be there.
[01:02:49]  But we're not actually flagging the algorithm for minus under 300, which is probably true because whatever they're looking to detect, those transactions aren't going to matter.
[01:02:58]  And believe me, if you start doing a transaction that's under the limit on a daily basis or with frequency to the same thing, you don't think their programs are going to be able to monitor and see that?
[01:03:09]  Yeah, it's pretty unbelievable.
[01:03:12]  And you could see the slippery slope that, you know, Brian was just saying, what that they've already limited cash purchases to 10,000.
[01:03:18]  Anything above that has to be electronic.
[01:03:20]  Look, you could see this is stuff that they started putting in in the Patriot Act here in the United States right after 9-11, that any, I think, transaction of 10,000 or over, you know, flags an automatic report.
[01:03:32]  This has all been building toward this, but this is really the culmination.
[01:03:36]  But don't worry, 300 euros are under.
[01:03:39]  They're considering letting you be free.
[01:03:42]  You can go grab a sandwich.
[01:03:43]  We're thinking about letting you do that.
[01:03:45]  Maybe even some groceries.
[01:03:47]  I guess you can thank our world leaders for letting Osama bin Laden win.
[01:03:51]  He hated us for our freedom.
[01:03:53]  And by doing one action 20 years ago, he managed to get our world leaders to take our freedom away from us.
[01:04:00]  Yeah, you think if Osama's looking up at us from hell right now, he's like, you guys passed the central bank digital currency.
[01:04:06]  I don't hate you anymore.
[01:04:07]  Right.
[01:04:07]  There's nothing to hate.
[01:04:08]  You took our freedom.
[01:04:10]  Well done, world leaders.
[01:04:12]  Jesus Christ.
[01:04:13]  All right.
[01:04:13]  That's going to be our show for today.
[01:04:14]  Thanks, everybody, for listening.
[01:04:16]  Come check us out in Albany.
[01:04:17]  Come check us out in Chicago.
[01:04:19]  Come check us out in Tampa, in Syracuse, all over the place.
[01:04:22]  ComicDaveSmith.com.
[01:04:23]  Go check out Run Your Mouth, Rob's other podcasts.
[01:04:26]  Yeah, I should have plugged this.
[01:04:27]  I also, I've been organizing my YouTube channel.
[01:04:29]  I got a ton of content over there, Robbie the Fire, all one word, including video of the Run Your Mouth podcast.
[01:04:33]  Man, I forgot I'm in Orlando.
[01:04:35]  I believe on the 21st and go to my website, robbythefire.com for the information on the Orlando event, which is with the LP over there.
[01:04:42]  Oh, yeah.
[01:04:43]  Hell yeah.
[01:04:43]  That should be awesome.
[01:04:44]  Of course, also, if you want to support the show, go become a subscribing member.
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[01:05:26]  Oh, and I will finally say my brother, Big Jay Okerson, his hour special just came out, Dog Belly.
[01:05:31]  It's really hilarious.
[01:05:32]  Go check it out.
[01:05:33]  It's up on YouTube right now.
[01:05:35]  All right, that's the show for today.
[01:05:36]  Peace.