Part Of The Problem - Dave Smith - Covid Is Officially Over
Aired: 2023-04-13
Duration: 01:07:42


=== Emergency Mandates Changed (14:13) ===

[00:00:00]  Fill her up.
[00:00:02]  You are 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?
[00:00:35]  Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
[00:00:37]  I am Dave Smith.
[00:00:38]  He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein.
[00:00:40]  We are back at you with a brand new episode.
[00:00:42]  Lots to talk about.
[00:00:43]  And of course, this weekend, we will be up in Albany, New York at the funnybone.
[00:00:48]  Then coming up, we'll be in Zane's in Chicago.
[00:00:51]  A bunch of fun stuff coming up.
[00:00:53]  Go to comicdave Smith.com if you want to find out where our next live performance is going to be.
[00:00:57]  Come out and see us.
[00:00:58]  A live stand-up show, a live part of the problem podcast.
[00:01:01]  It's a lot of fun.
[00:01:02]  And it's what we do all of this for, really.
[00:01:04]  Really, it's just to get out there live and tell jokes to you good people.
[00:01:08]  How are you, Rob?
[00:01:09]  How's it going?
[00:01:10]  I'm doing well.
[00:01:10]  I like the studio's looking good.
[00:01:12]  You look like a Liberty Angel.
[00:01:15]  I'm trying my best.
[00:01:16]  It's coming together little by little.
[00:01:19]  I do want to, I'm going to forget the name of the company here.
[00:01:21]  So let me just pull it up so I can give a shout out to a fan of ours who made me this awesome wood piece behind us.
[00:01:28]  It's American Pegasus at American Pegasus on Twitter.
[00:01:34]  Ryan is the guy who made this video.
[00:01:35]  You got me nervous that you were going to say American Pegging Corp.
[00:01:38]  Be like, Dave, it's a family-friendly Christian conservative show.
[00:01:41]  But they're also a good company, but they didn't make me a sign.
[00:01:44]  American Pegasus did.
[00:01:45]  But yeah, this guy, Ryan, who's a great guy, he's like a wood artist, and he made this for me and shipped it up to me.
[00:01:51]  It was fucking really beautiful, really cool.
[00:01:53]  The studio is coming together.
[00:01:54]  In the next couple of weeks, we're going to have Rob here in studio with me and we're going to start doing this.
[00:01:58]  A bunch of changes coming to part of the problem.
[00:02:01]  Very excited to announce all the stuff we're going to be doing going forward in the next few days.
[00:02:06]  You will get all of that announcement.
[00:02:08]  I think you're all going to be very happy about it.
[00:02:10]  So anyway, let's get into today's show.
[00:02:13]  Big news, a kind of monumental thing that happened today.
[00:02:19]  It is official, Rob.
[00:02:22]  COVID is over.
[00:02:26]  And just like that, as of today, the national emergency for COVID-19 was officially lifted.
[00:02:36]  It's over.
[00:02:37]  I can see my family again.
[00:02:39]  You can.
[00:02:39]  You can go outside.
[00:02:42]  You can go within six feet of another person.
[00:02:44]  I don't know.
[00:02:46]  Yeah, I don't.
[00:02:47]  Listen, this has been a very long 15 days.
[00:02:49]  Okay.
[00:02:50]  It's been a very, very long 15 days.
[00:02:53]  But yeah, as of today, the national emergency, which started all of this insanity and was, of course, declared by Donald Trump, as of today, that is over.
[00:03:05]  And it's even, there's some other things that I want to talk about today, but it would seem to be impossible to start the show with anything else other than that.
[00:03:14]  There's so many things that are kind of like that are fascinating about it that it kind of gives you an opportunity to reflect back over the last three years and two months or whatever exactly it is that that national emergency lasted slightly more than 15 days.
[00:03:31]  I guess the first thing that's just kind of hilarious about it is that for all normal people, this has been over for a long time.
[00:03:42]  And it's just so ridiculous that coming in behind everybody else after they've already stopped everything, then the federal government goes, oh, and yeah, it's over.
[00:03:56]  We've decided it's over.
[00:03:57]  You're like, dude, we decided it was over a long time ago.
[00:04:01]  Some of us decided it never started.
[00:04:04]  But anyway, I don't know.
[00:04:07]  I guess the other thing I'll say kind of on the meta analysis of it is that it is, there's always, and, you know, I talk about this a little bit in my stand-up, but one of the really interesting things over the last few years has been every time they stop a policy, which I guess this isn't even technically like an actual policy that really was affecting people's lives.
[00:04:28]  It's not like they stopped the mask mandate at your local, you know, library or whatever or something where like a place where you go and now you don't have to wear a mask or, you know, have masks on planes or you don't have to have a vaccine to keep your job or you don't, you know, when the lockdowns are lifted or things like that.
[00:04:43]  But every time they stop one of these policies, it's tremendously revealing about the whole nature of these things because it just leads one to go.
[00:04:53]  It's like, oh, okay, so we stopped the emergency today.
[00:04:56]  Well, why today?
[00:04:59]  Why not last week?
[00:05:00]  Would it have been any different?
[00:05:01]  Would anything have been even slightly different if we had stopped it last week than today?
[00:05:05]  And the obvious answer is no.
[00:05:06]  There's not one COVID zealot, no matter how crazy, who could really look you in the eyes and argue that it had to be today rather than yesterday or last week.
[00:05:15]  And then you go, what about a month ago?
[00:05:17]  What about six months ago?
[00:05:18]  And you start to realize that it's like, it's completely arbitrary.
[00:05:22]  And that's what would happen with all of these things.
[00:05:24]  Like as soon as they'd say like, okay, that judge ruled down the federal transportation mask mandate.
[00:05:30]  So you didn't have to wear masks on planes anymore.
[00:05:32]  All of a sudden, one day, the entirety of COVID, we're wearing masks on planes.
[00:05:36]  One day they decide you don't have to anymore.
[00:05:38]  And then you're like, oh, so was there a big uptick in cases or deaths?
[00:05:43]  Did it result in something very bad happening?
[00:05:46]  Well, then, I guess we didn't ever need to be doing this, right?
[00:05:50]  Certainly it didn't.
[00:05:50]  It's ridiculous.
[00:05:52]  Once you don't have to do it today, you realize it's very arbitrary that I had to do it yesterday.
[00:05:57]  And this process is a big part of like what tears down the whole, you know, or what pulls the curtain back on this whole fake wizard.
[00:06:05]  Like you're like, oh, we never needed to do this.
[00:06:07]  This is all just so insane.
[00:06:08]  So anyway, any thoughts you have, Rob?
[00:06:11]  I have a relevant tale.
[00:06:12]  I once had, I was driving back from the city late at night and I got an emergency broadcast over both my phone and radio at the same time letting me know that there was a tornado in the war in the area and to seek shelter immediately.
[00:06:25]  If you're in a mobile home, find a permanent thing.
[00:06:28]  Like it was like a full emergency broadcast and I'm driving on the highway and I'm looking around.
[00:06:33]  I'm like, did these other cars get this warning?
[00:06:35]  Like, should I be running into the woods right now?
[00:06:37]  And then nobody reacted.
[00:06:39]  So I just drove home, same as I always drive home.
[00:06:42]  And I was like, why was there in a casual emergency broadcast?
[00:06:46]  Like, if there's going to be an emergency broadcast, it should be for an actual emergency.
[00:06:50]  Otherwise, we have to live our lives like in like animal house double secret probation territory where emergency doesn't mean anything.
[00:06:57]  So they have to go, no, this is an extreme urgent emergency.
[00:07:01]  I know I told you guys that was an extreme urgent emergency, but this one's a triple actual emergency of epic magnitudes.
[00:07:10]  It's like, how do you have something that you're the government?
[00:07:13]  So you don't get to like have poetic language.
[00:07:15]  If something's an emergency, it should just be an emergency.
[00:07:18]  And if it's not, then you should probably end it immediately following it being an emergency.
[00:07:24]  Cause otherwise we got to live in this gray area of trying to interpret what like, you know what I mean?
[00:07:29]  It's just nonsense.
[00:07:30]  Like you're, you're literally just showcasing the fact that it's nonsense while dictating that you're supposed to be in control and making the adult decisions.
[00:07:38]  Yeah.
[00:07:38]  No, absolutely.
[00:07:39]  It's, it's, uh, I, it's hard to almost like reflect back on what happened over these last three years.
[00:07:46]  And I know we've talked about this a lot.
[00:07:49]  And in many ways, I think we kind of, you know, being opponents of the COVID regime is now like trendy.
[00:08:01]  It's well, the times changed.
[00:08:04]  Well, it's um, but for me and you, I mean, it's, it's like tied to us.
[00:08:09]  Like this is a part of it's the probably the major thing nowadays that me and you have like this show that we do has become known for.
[00:08:20]  And we were one of like the, I mean, there's bigger podcasts out there than ours, but we were one with like a sizable audience that was really on this the whole way through.
[00:08:30]  And this is what a lot of people know know us for.
[00:08:33]  I've made a lot of like, you know, relationships and connections with other people who were big opponents of the COVID regime over this thing, this, this kind of event that really upended every societal norm, every expectation of what the role of government is, every expectation about like interpersonal kind of customs and traditions.
[00:08:59]  Just a very like, it really was a revolutionary time these last three years where things that you never could have imagined would have happened happened.
[00:09:09]  The world was shaken up.
[00:09:11]  People were profoundly changed.
[00:09:14]  Some for the better, many more for the worse.
[00:09:18]  Lives were destroyed.
[00:09:19]  And this is a big thing, like how we kind of made a name for ourselves.
[00:09:25]  This show grew a lot over the last three years.
[00:09:28]  And a big part of it was that we were like these very loud voices opposing every inch of this.
[00:09:34]  And so I know we've talked about this a lot, but as the national emergency ends, it's hard to not at least just look back over it and go, man, this now that it's over, you, you kind of take another, like you take stock in like, okay, so what did we get here?
[00:09:50]  What did we just do for the last three years?
[00:09:53]  And from all of the draconian policies, from the lockdowns to the, all of the, the mandates, the mask mandates, the, um, you know, in the most appalling places, particularly like schools and kindergartens and things like this, the vaccine mandates where just, you know, I mean,
[00:10:19]  I don't know the exact number of how many people either lost, either their livelihoods were destroyed or they were coerced into getting this jab that they didn't want to get, but it's in the millions, you know?
[00:10:32]  I don't know, you know, exactly how much, you know, like the total, it's probably hard to calculate between all of these policies, the total economic toll that it took.
[00:10:46]  The vaccine passports where we actually, for a while in the United States of America, in 2000, you know, 22, just, I guess, late 2021 into 2022, just kind of instituted this new apartheid system where one, one huge category of Americans that was something in the ballpark at the time of like 40% of Americans were just,
[00:11:14]  it was decided that they did not have equal protection under the law.
[00:11:18]  They did not have the same basic rights that other people had.
[00:11:21]  It varied in different areas of how severe that was, but it was, it was a fucking crazy thing, man.
[00:11:28]  It was a really crazy thing for me and you when we'd be like in New York City and you're like, I can't go out to eat here.
[00:11:37]  I can't go to the Knicks game.
[00:11:39]  I can't go like, it's a really, yeah, I'm like, I'm not saying it's the most important thing in the world.
[00:11:43]  And like, I got on just fine, not going to the restaurants.
[00:11:46]  And like some, some of them were more, you know into enforcing it than others, but it was just something about it that you were like yo, this is really nuts, this is really just something that felt like you, this feels like a story that my grandfather would have been telling me, not something that I would be living through.
[00:12:05]  Like, oh really, they just told you your kind ain't welcome here.
[00:12:08]  Like okay um, and I didn't, you know, I mean I, I don't know if you ever did or didn't I never used like any of those fake vaccine.
[00:12:16]  I had people giving me those fake vaccine cards, but it just felt like something dirty about it.
[00:12:20]  I was like yeah, i'm not gonna like participate in this system um, but anyway, and for all of this, for all of this, what?
[00:12:32]  What did we get out of it?
[00:12:33]  Just destruction, a total reordering of of society for the worse.
[00:12:40]  And really, I guess, the big one, the big accomplishment um, if you could call it that is, the largest transfer of wealth from the people to the powerful in the history of the world.
[00:12:55]  And and, of course, the terrifying precedent that all of these, these draconian policies, could be implemented like.
[00:13:04]  That's what we're left after these three years.
[00:13:07]  It's like, okay, here's what you have to show for it.
[00:13:10]  Um, I guess the, the inflation the, the destruction of the currency, the tens of millions of people's lives who have been upended by this the largest transfer of wealth in human history and the fact that we've now set this precedent going forward, that at least, if you wanted to try to do any of this stuff again, it wouldn't be the first time you could say hey, there's precedent for this, people have accepted this before, it's been done before and it wasn't legally challenged for the most part.
[00:13:36]  A few mandates here and there were, but for the most part um, that's what.
[00:13:42]  That's what we have to show for this.
[00:13:43]  It will be.
[00:13:45]  It will be.
[00:13:46]  Generations will feel the impact of the awful policy decisions over the last three years and just as, as they end it, there's not even like really an attempt to give a rationale for why we should end it right now, why a year ago or six months ago would have been reckless and crazy, but right now it's okay.
[00:14:11]  No one's even attempting to say that, no one's even giving a reason.

=== Losing The Emergency Mask (03:39) ===

[00:14:14]  It's just like, yeah, we're gonna do it.
[00:14:17]  I according, you know, even within the corporate press, it's not even like the number one story and they're reporting on it.
[00:14:23]  But it's just kind of like, oh yeah, the Biden administration deserves it.
[00:14:26]  You know they agreed to do this.
[00:14:27]  They let it expire, okay.
[00:14:29]  You would just think for something so profound, something that had such like mean, so meaningfully impacted people's lives, that there would always, like every day, there'd have to be a rationale for why we're going to continue this going.
[00:14:45]  And yet there wasn't.
[00:14:46]  It's just oh, we're not in an emergency anymore emergency.
[00:14:50]  When was the last time you actually thought to yourself that this covet thing was an emergency?
[00:14:55]  All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is paint your life.
[00:15:01]  With Paint Your Life, a hand-painted portrait is easy to create.
[00:15:05]  It fits almost any budget and is a great gift idea for those you love.
[00:15:10]  Paint Your Life transforms your photos into a one-of-a-kind, beautiful hand-painted portrait by a professional artist.
[00:15:18]  You can get a professional hand-painted portrait created from any photo at a truly affordable price.
[00:15:24]  Upload photos to create anything you imagine.
[00:15:26]  Put yourself in a location you've always wanted to go or add a lost loved one to a special occasion to create the portrait of your dreams.
[00:15:33]  Your choice of artist, art, medium, oil, acrylic, watercolor, charcoal, and more, and a great selection of quality frames.
[00:15:41]  This is such a cool gift idea.
[00:15:42]  If you're looking for something to get your wife or get your mother, your grandmother, your dad, something that's really going to mean something to them, take like one of the most your like iconic family photos and get it turned into a beautiful portrait.
[00:15:54]  You got to go check this out at Paint Your Life.
[00:15:57]  You can give the most meaningful gift you've ever given at paintyourlife.com.
[00:16:02]  And there's no risk.
[00:16:03]  If you don't love the final painting, your money is refunded guaranteed.
[00:16:07]  And right now, for a limited time only, you can get 20% off your painting.
[00:16:12]  That's right.
[00:16:12]  20% off and free shipping to get this special offer.
[00:16:17]  Just text the word problem to 87204.
[00:16:21]  That's problem to 87204.
[00:16:24]  You just text the single word problem to 87204.
[00:16:29]  Paint your life.
[00:16:31]  Celebrate the moments that matter most.
[00:16:33]  Message and data rates may apply.
[00:16:35]  See terms for details.
[00:16:36]  One more time.
[00:16:37]  Text the word problem to 87204 to get 20% off.
[00:16:43]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:16:44]  If you remember last Christmas, so it's April now.
[00:16:51]  So four months ago, five months ago, this last Christmas.
[00:16:57]  Do you remember we talked about this on the show where Fauci was still telling people to like socially distance and make sure everyone at Christmas is COVID tested and that everybody's been has their latest booster or something like that?
[00:17:11]  And you're just like, what?
[00:17:13]  What?
[00:17:13]  Like you're, who is still doing this?
[00:17:16]  And then the crazy thing is that you will still see the occasional person in a mask outside.
[00:17:21]  You will still see some people who it's like, oh man, I guess like some people are really still doing this.
[00:17:28]  Well, we live in a country now where you got to be compassionate of mental illness.
[00:17:31]  So if you see someone who's wearing a mask, what you want to do is pretend like they should be wearing it.
[00:17:36]  It's kind of like the gender thing.
[00:17:37]  You just, you see people that have problems, but you just want to try, but you should put on a mask too to be sensitive to the reality that they're trying to live in that we should all be panicked.
[00:17:48]  You almost want to like see that person in a mask and go, have you, have you tried gender reassignment surgery?

=== Rational Minds Lost Advantage (06:21) ===

[00:17:54]  Like maybe that would just work.
[00:17:55]  Maybe just like lose the mask.
[00:17:57]  You know what I mean?
[00:17:58]  Lose the mask.
[00:17:59]  You could play permanent make-believe.
[00:18:01]  The mask thing, the emergency is technically over.
[00:18:03]  So you're going to have to move on.
[00:18:05]  Yeah.
[00:18:05]  The trans emergency goes on forever.
[00:18:08]  Yeah.
[00:18:08]  It does seem cartoonish to just go no more emergency, but you weren't doing anything to convey that there still was an emergency.
[00:18:15]  And you're the guy that gets to decide, all right, we're not going to call it an emergency anymore.
[00:18:20]  There's just, I don't know.
[00:18:21]  I don't quite have the joke yet, but it just, it's cartoonish to like Biden himself wasn't living like this was an emergency.
[00:18:27]  Yeah.
[00:18:28]  No, well, that's, yeah, I mean, that's it.
[00:18:30]  It's the fact that none of them were.
[00:18:31]  Like you're the government, you're on top of things and you just continue to have this considered an emergency.
[00:18:37]  Like you're the one that can just change that title.
[00:18:40]  Right.
[00:18:41]  It's almost like if you declared an emergency over the rise of the Nazis and then you ended it in 1951 and you're like, well, 1945 is when the Nazis fell.
[00:18:54]  So you're just like, you're just like, oh, it's over now.
[00:18:56]  And you're like, but it's been over.
[00:18:58]  None of us have been living under this for like, what are you talking about?
[00:19:01]  It's uh, yeah, it's just, just very strange.
[00:19:05]  And, and like I, I said before, it's very, it's revealing in a way that it's like, oh, this, this never really meant emergency.
[00:19:13]  This just meant kind of like, well, this is, we have to, we're going to declare this thing so that we can get the policies we want done through it.
[00:19:21]  But look, like I said, the real, the real takeaway is like, what are we left with here?
[00:19:28]  What did we get from all of this?
[00:19:30]  And what we got was absolute like the destruction of our currency, the destruction of our economy, the, you know, destruction of millions of small businesses.
[00:19:47]  And in many ways, just kind of the destruction of the nation's mental health.
[00:19:54]  And I don't mean to like talk in collectivist terms like that.
[00:19:56]  Like, obviously, mental health is an individual thing.
[00:20:00]  But there is kind of something about collective psychology, you know, like social psychology of a group.
[00:20:13]  And there are times throughout history where you can look at little areas and pockets or sometimes entire big nations and go like, whoa, what the hell happened there?
[00:20:23]  Like, did everyone just go crazy?
[00:20:25]  You know, you go read about like the Salem witch trials and shit.
[00:20:28]  You're like, what the fuck was every, did everyone just lose their goddamn mind?
[00:20:32]  Didn't have fireworks or burning women was like, that was the shit back then.
[00:20:36]  Yeah, no, I'm saying like, I, like, I get it, but I'm just saying like, no, but you know, do you read about the stuff where they would have these tests where like, um, they would throw you with like, they would like weigh women down and then throw them into the water.
[00:20:51]  And they'd go, if they were a witch, they would float, but they'd always just die.
[00:20:56]  And then you'd confirm that they weren't a witch, you know, but like yeah, you'd think by like, I mean, how many of those tests would it take before you went, you know, we're killing a lot of innocent people here?
[00:21:07]  I mean, like, no one, no one really seems to be surviving this thing.
[00:21:10]  And yet, like, they, but there's a lot, you know, and of course, like, you think about like the rise of a whole bunch of just like crazy authoritarian regimes.
[00:21:19]  And you're like, if you, if you study the history at all, it's like, you're like, what the fuck happened here?
[00:21:24]  Did everyone lose their mind?
[00:21:26]  And it's really hard to not look back at this time.
[00:21:29]  And it's crazy how many people now who are actually pretty good on all of this insanity, but then you go back and see their tweets from like March and April and May and shit.
[00:21:43]  And they were like cheering on the lockdowns.
[00:21:44]  There's a lot of people like that.
[00:21:46]  And I've generally operated under the rule of somewhere.
[00:21:51]  It's like, to me, I give you to like May slash June of 2020.
[00:21:58]  You know, like, it's like there was no excuse beyond that.
[00:22:01]  I kind of feel like at the, but the truth is, many of us were much better on it much earlier on.
[00:22:08]  And by the way, I'm not even saying this to like trash people because there are some people who are really good on this ultimately.
[00:22:15]  And like they got fooled through like March, April.
[00:22:18]  And then like in May, they kind of like were like, yo, this is insane that we're still doing these lockdowns.
[00:22:23]  You said two weeks.
[00:22:23]  This is way over.
[00:22:25]  None of the data is adding up with this.
[00:22:26]  You're not looking at the cost benefit here.
[00:22:28]  And then they were really great the whole rest of the way through.
[00:22:30]  So I'm not even like trashing those people, right?
[00:22:33]  Like in the same sense that there are some people like who supported the war in Iraq, but then realized how bad that was and then have opposed every subsequent war and really passionately done so.
[00:22:43]  And like, okay, I'm not trying to pick that person out as an enemy.
[00:22:47]  But it does, there is something interesting there to like pay attention to that like even so many of these people who are like good now, who are rational people, they just lost their freaking minds for like a few months and totally went along with this.
[00:23:02]  And they did that you didn't have, now I understand we, me and you had an advantage in this.
[00:23:09]  We had an unfair advantage going in, which is that we're libertarians.
[00:23:14]  So we're right about everything.
[00:23:16]  Like that's, I get it.
[00:23:18]  But particularly because we're libertarians, we have a particular aversion to state power and a kind of like a built-in skepticism of state power.
[00:23:30]  And so right away when the government's like telling you we're locking everything down, your immediate default position is like, wait a minute, let's fucking really think about this or whatever at the very least.
[00:23:43]  And at the most, you're like, absolutely not.
[00:23:45]  This is evil.
[00:23:47]  So we kind of had this advantage going in.
[00:23:50]  But even for people who aren't, you know, like strict libertarians in the way that we are, you would think almost everyone has some conception of there would be, there is a place where there's government overreach.
[00:24:04]  Like short of being like a straight up Stalinist or something, like you'd agree that there's something that would be like crazy over the line for the government to try to legislate.

=== Hysteria Over Epidemiology (06:10) ===

[00:24:16]  Like, you know, and I mean, like the lockdowns crossed every single red line.
[00:24:23]  And it's just, it's really something to sit back and study and like try to understand how there was this national mass psychosis, a global mass psychosis, I suppose, where so many people were just like willing to accept it and go, hey, they, well, they needed to do it, you know?
[00:24:42]  I mean, I was talking to, I was talking to somebody the other day.
[00:24:47]  It was like another parent of a kid, my, my little girl's age.
[00:24:52]  And she was talking about how her, you know, there's something about a kid with, who had like a speech delay during COVID and they were doing speech therapy, but they were all, they were wearing masks at the time.
[00:25:04]  And so it was completely useless.
[00:25:05]  Yeah, it's completely, and, you know, and this, this kid's mom just goes to me, you know, and I try not to make it political in these conversations with just let my kid have a normal life.
[00:25:16]  But she goes, she's like, no, look, I understand they had to do it.
[00:25:18]  They had to do it, but it really did hurt these kids.
[00:25:21]  And I'm just sitting there and you're like, yeah.
[00:25:25]  All right.
[00:25:25]  So even there, even when you're in, talking about a story where like children's development was was damaged, there's still just this acceptance of like, well, I mean, but we had to do it.
[00:25:36]  And you're like, okay, go show me a study.
[00:25:38]  Show me one study that said, I mean, I didn't say it's, but you know, you're in my mind.
[00:25:41]  I'm like, go show me one study that says that they had to do it.
[00:25:43]  Cause actually, no, they didn't.
[00:25:45]  They didn't have to do it.
[00:25:46]  They could have just taken the masks off.
[00:25:48]  And you would think like, it's so funny with what COVID was, but particularly by this point, you know, she was talking about in 2021.
[00:25:57]  You're like, you know, at that point, you were basically talking about getting a nasty cold.
[00:26:01]  You almost think like if you were one of these people who is trying to help a child develop, that at some point you would just go, okay, we're just going to take these masks off because this isn't going to work with a mask on.
[00:26:12]  Obviously, that's the whole thing.
[00:26:14]  Like you have to see my mouth.
[00:26:16]  But that kid's speech problems is going to be a testimony to his commitment to government for the rest of his life.
[00:26:23]  It's a badge of honor.
[00:26:25]  That's like a tattoo of his, you know, willingness to stand with government.
[00:26:31]  I guess.
[00:26:32]  Yeah, I guess.
[00:26:33]  Anyway, what a wild ride the last three years have been.
[00:26:36]  And of course, the after effects of this are not over.
[00:26:40]  And that'll be what's interesting in the next chapter of, you know, national craziness is like what, how exactly this manifests itself next.
[00:26:49]  And of course, we can already see in many areas where it's kind of beginning to do that in lots of different ways.
[00:26:57]  Obviously, we talk about a lot like the kind of climate change hysteria, which has really ramped up in the wake of COVID.
[00:27:03]  And also even I think the Ukraine hysteria.
[00:27:07]  I think in general, it was it there was this constant theme throughout the COVID insanity, which is a theme throughout the woke stuff, all the transgender stuff, the war in Ukraine.
[00:27:22]  And it's this theme is something that all authoritarian regimes rely on.
[00:27:29]  And it's really kind of like the main force that's destroying this country.
[00:27:33]  And it's just this pattern of conformity where the people, the people who are in charge let you know what you think about this and then you blindly follow.
[00:27:48]  And there's a lot of different like kind of dynamics that it takes to make this work.
[00:27:52]  One of them is really viciously demonizing anybody who steps out of line, trying to make real consequences for people who dissent, whether that's fired from your job, banned on social media, just viciously attacked, mocked, ridiculed, any of that stuff.
[00:28:09]  And you see this with all of these different issues where like that force is something that our rulers really rely on.
[00:28:21]  That like you're going to get your marching orders and you will change your Twitter bio to have a Ukrainian flag in it.
[00:28:27]  What?
[00:28:28]  Could you tell me one thing about Ukraine before this day?
[00:28:31]  No, you don't know anything.
[00:28:33]  You know, like when you would first see when Vladimir Putin first invaded and everyone was first putting the Ukraine flags in their bio, like of the people who were doing that, what percentage of them could have told me anything about the last decade of Ukrainian history?
[00:28:47]  Just the last decade.
[00:28:49]  You know, you want to grab them.
[00:28:51]  What's the Minsk agreement?
[00:28:53]  Tell me.
[00:28:54]  You know, grab one of them.
[00:28:55]  They have no idea.
[00:28:56]  Or nine out of 10, at least have no idea.
[00:28:58]  You know what I mean?
[00:28:59]  And then if they know, they just know the official, you know, like story.
[00:29:03]  They don't know any of the real shit that happened.
[00:29:05]  So it's like, there's just a lot of that, where all of a sudden people who knew nothing about epidemiology have a very strong opinion about epidemiology.
[00:29:13]  The people who knew nothing about Ukraine have a very strong opinion about Ukraine.
[00:29:16]  The people who know nothing about climate science have a very strong opinion about climate science.
[00:29:20]  And it all happens to be the official narrative.
[00:29:23]  Every single one of them is point by point the official narrative.
[00:29:28]  And by the way, I'm not like, I'm a do your own research guy.
[00:29:31]  I'm not saying you shouldn't have an opinion on these things.
[00:29:33]  I'm just saying that people have an opinion without doing an ounce of homework, without even like reading a couple books on the subject, have, you know, like have a real strong opinion on something.
[00:29:44]  And so that was like that, that force was really capitalized on over the last three years in a way that I've never seen before for anything in my life.
[00:29:55]  Never seen anything like how much they were demonizing people.
[00:29:58]  It's easy to forget as we move on to the next thing, but how much they were demonizing people for not wanting to get vaccinated or for questioning the vaccine stuff.
[00:30:07]  Like you'd feel it personally in your life, like if you interacted with people outside of your ideological bubble.
[00:30:15]  And so the hope, I guess, is that at least because the failures were so obvious, the hope is that that force was diminished, not strengthened by all of this.

=== Supporting Family Farms With Moink (02:42) ===

[00:30:26]  And I am somewhat optimistic on that.
[00:30:28]  I have seen like a fair amount of what you would call like Normies, who have kind of been to some degree radicalized by the Covet stuff, like because even they go yo, this is like insane.
[00:30:43]  Um uh, some mix of the Covet stuff and the trans kids stuff seems to be actually pushing some of the Normie class into the dissenter class.
[00:30:54]  I think that's a to some degree, a positive uh development, not the not that the actual policies are positive, but the waking up is, and then just wait till the same people are like, can I just have electricity again?
[00:31:07]  That seemed to work pretty good when I could just drive a car, have gas, my oven worked.
[00:31:11]  I didn't need carbon credits.
[00:31:14]  Yeah yeah well, that's that's.
[00:31:16]  That'll be the next challenge that we uh, we deal with, rob.
[00:31:20]  All right guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Moink, an unbelievable company that delivers grass-fed and grass finished beef lamb, pasteurized pork chicken, sustainably wild caught Alaskan salmon and, more straight to your door, Moink farmers farm like our grandparents did and the result is that Moink meat tastes like it's supposed to, because the family farm does it better.
[00:31:45]  The Moink difference is a difference you can taste and you can feel good, knowing you're helping family farms stay financially independent too.
[00:31:52]  Choose from a wide range of meats delivered in every box, Ribeyes, chicken breasts, pork chops, salmon fillets and much more.
[00:32:00]  You can cancel anytime.
[00:32:01]  I, i'm excited, I just it's just uh.
[00:32:04]  Where I live here in Jersey, it's just like the warm season is starting now.
[00:32:07]  It's sunny and beautiful.
[00:32:08]  I'm getting into barbecuing more and more, which I love to do, and now i've got a bunch of delicious meat to grill up there.
[00:32:14]  Stuff that you know is good for you, you know comes from a family farm.
[00:32:17]  It's not got all this crap that you find in the supermarket.
[00:32:20]  Jamie Simenoff, the founder of the RING Doorbell, jumped at the chance to invest in Moink, and you'll understand why.
[00:32:27]  Once you taste it, you are gonna love Moink.
[00:32:31]  Go check them out.
[00:32:32]  Moinkbox.com slash problem.
[00:32:35]  Keep American farming going by signing up at moinkbox.com slash p-otp.
[00:32:41]  Moinkbox.com slash p-otp.
[00:32:44]  Keep American farming going by signing up right now and listeners of this show will get free bacon in your first box.
[00:32:51]  It's the best bacon you'll ever taste, but for a limited time only.
[00:32:56]  Moinkbox.com that's m-o-i-n-k-b-o-x.com.
[00:33:01]  Slash p-otp.
[00:33:03]  Moinkbox.com slash p-otp.
[00:33:06]  All right, let's get back into the show, all right?

=== Classified Documents Censorship (14:34) ===

[00:33:08]  So let's move on, because there are a couple more topics that I want to hit um on on today's show.
[00:33:13]  So one of the big ones is a major story uh that that's been going out um, that that's been, i'd say, been somewhat dominating the uh the, the news.
[00:33:24]  So there uh, there was a, a leak, a Pentagon, uh leak of some sort rob that uh was was put out there online.
[00:33:34]  Um, I guess it was uh, um what it?
[00:33:37]  I think it was put out on some uh like Discord group first, then it made its way over to 4chan.
[00:33:45]  It was then going all over social media um, there seemed to be some uh effort to suppress it on on social media uh, so it was a leak of uh classified documents uh that were um relating to the war in Ukraine.
[00:33:59]  Um there's it's, it's uh, they were flying all around.
[00:34:04]  Now there's accusations that some of them were doctored um, and so you don't know exactly what you can or can't uh trust in these things.
[00:34:12]  I guess the big thing that uh, the Pentagon, as of now, is claiming is not accurate and was doctored um who, who knows exactly.
[00:34:22]  But it was the casualty numbers um, where the uh, I think, the official, what i'm trying to find the uh, the exact numbers right here.
[00:34:31]  So this um Uh, there was a section titled Total Assessed Losses, and one of the documents listed 16 to 17,000 Russian casualties.
[00:34:45]  But of course, publicly, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has he said as of last November that over 100,000 Russian soldiers had died.
[00:34:56]  So this document was saying it was really much lower than that, 16 to 17.5,000, not 100,000.
[00:35:03]  They're claiming that those numbers were doctored and this isn't in the original documents.
[00:35:07]  Make of that what you will.
[00:35:09]  Who knows exactly?
[00:35:11]  The response, though, has been very interesting.
[00:35:13]  We're going to play a clip from the Pentagon in a second, but anything on this story that you, that jumped out at you, Rob?
[00:35:19]  Yeah.
[00:35:19]  First is I was digging, even went all the way to 4chan.
[00:35:24]  I can't find the actual source materials on this one.
[00:35:27]  I've only been able to see reporting on the source materials, which the first thing they did was to get out ahead.
[00:35:32]  They went, yeah, yeah, the information's false.
[00:35:35]  Now, they've been reporting on the materials, but I haven't been able to actually see the materials.
[00:35:39]  I don't really trust them on what is or isn't there.
[00:35:44]  But the biggest thing that seems to hurt them is the claim that while they keep telling us that Ukraine's doing great, they're going to win the war, they just need more resources.
[00:35:54]  In private, they seem to openly acknowledge that the casualties are not what they're presenting to the general public.
[00:36:03]  And some of the other key takeaways, one is we're trying to get arms from South Korea.
[00:36:07]  It's like, how unprepared is our military, generally speaking, with all the money that we're spending that we don't even have, you know, we don't even have munitions to get to these people.
[00:36:18]  Like, that just kind of seems like a pretty shocking piece of information.
[00:36:22]  Then they love yelling about, oh, look, we're spying on, yeah, we spy on everyone.
[00:36:25]  Like, I don't understand this game that we play where they go, oh, this is shocking.
[00:36:29]  Israel, America's spying on Israel.
[00:36:31]  And say, yeah, everyone's spying on everybody.
[00:36:32]  And like, the fact that we play this dumb game where we try and pretend like everyone's outraged that they're being spied upon or that you're spying on them, everyone spies on everyone.
[00:36:40]  So just drop it.
[00:36:41]  Just drop that one.
[00:36:42]  Especially like since like Snowden and like stuff like that, you're just like, yeah, this wasn't really very shocking to find out that we're spying on all of our allies as well as our adversaries.
[00:36:53]  Yeah, of course.
[00:36:54]  That's that's what we're doing.
[00:36:55]  And I'm sure they're attempting to do that to us as well.
[00:36:57]  So yeah, that part to me just wasn't like there.
[00:37:00]  There wasn't that much red meat on the bone.
[00:37:03]  But it is interesting.
[00:37:04]  And I think this is a dynamic that we've been talking about for quite a while on this show where, look, as always with government policies, particularly when it comes to war, there's always kind of like the public official declarations.
[00:37:23]  And then there's what they're saying to each other privately and what they actually know.
[00:37:26]  And the story that they've been trying to tell of like how incredibly well Ukraine is doing, how much Vladimir Putin is just getting destroyed has always seemed to be a little bit out of step with reality.
[00:37:42]  Now, I do, it does seem to me that Vladimir Putin did not run through Ukraine in the same way that like many people probably thought he would have.
[00:37:50]  But it certainly seems like whether these casualty numbers coming out are accurate or not, or whether the official ones are accurate, I really don't know.
[00:38:02]  It does seem that privately, they are much more concerned about Ukraine's performance than they seem to be letting on publicly.
[00:38:10]  And that would kind of explain why the need for ever-increasing aid packages along with guarantees that we will be with them all the way are necessary rather than anyone else ever coming out and being like, they're just going to need this one more package and that's it.
[00:38:28]  It's always them saying, and then we'll give you more and more and more.
[00:38:31]  And then Zelensky is always asking for more and more and more.
[00:38:33]  And that actually paints quite a different picture.
[00:38:35]  Anyway, here was the Pentagon's official liar was out talking about it.
[00:38:42]  So let's check in on him.
[00:38:43]  Again, without confirming the validity of the documents, this is information that has no business in the public domain.
[00:38:50]  It has no business, if you don't mind me saying, on the pages of front pages of newspapers or on television.
[00:38:58]  It is not intended for public consumption and it should not be out there.
[00:39:03]  Again, without confirming the Okay, so what a child.
[00:39:08]  What a statement on so many levels.
[00:39:10]  Without confirming the validity, Rob, I will tell you that this shouldn't be in the public domain.
[00:39:16]  So if it's true, it shouldn't be out in the public domain because it's classified.
[00:39:24]  And if it's not true, it shouldn't be out in the public domain because it's false misinformation or whatever.
[00:39:30]  It's just like, okay, but like you're not telling us why it shouldn't be out there.
[00:39:35]  You're just saying it's one of these two things and I don't think it should be out there.
[00:39:39]  Now that already is laughable because of course, if they're like, let's take either side, right?
[00:39:48]  Like if it's true, if this is really classified information and this is all, let's say, accurate, then why the hell should the American people not have the right to know that actually the war isn't going very well?
[00:40:01]  Why shouldn't they have the right to know that actually, you know, it's like, look, Ukraine is not a part of the United States of America.
[00:40:07]  Ukraine's not even a part of NATO.
[00:40:09]  The American taxpayer is under no legal obligation to finance this proxy war of choice on Russia's border.
[00:40:17]  And yet our politicians are trying to convince us that we must.
[00:40:21]  So yet, wouldn't you think we had a right to know if the case if it was the case that actually Russia isn't taking losses in the way that you say?
[00:40:28]  And actually the investment that you've made has not yielded results other than to alienate countries around the world from us and prolong this awful war.
[00:40:39]  Seems like something we'd have a right to know.
[00:40:41]  And if it's not true, if this isn't true, like let's say these documents were completely doctored and all fake.
[00:40:47]  Well, then you have no case to tell anyone anything because this isn't a breach of classified documents.
[00:40:52]  So you're in no legal position to tell anyone that they can't publish stuff.
[00:40:55]  You know what I mean?
[00:40:57]  And then it is crossing quite a line to say, which has been for a very long time.
[00:41:05]  This has been basically like established like legal theory.
[00:41:10]  And there are Supreme Court rulings on the matter since at least the war in Vietnam.
[00:41:15]  That you that essentially what they would say is that the government has a right to classify material and they have a right to punish people who have access to that classified material who leak it, but they do not have a right to tell journalists that they can't publish it once they have it because that would be a violation of the First Amendment.
[00:41:36]  And so it's just pretty blatant how we're now just crossing that line and Kirby at least is and saying, no, no newspaper should be publishing this.
[00:41:48]  Just to be clear, this would mean like the Pentagon papers, the Afghanistan papers, all of these things would be, you would be saying journalists can't publish this.
[00:42:00]  If we ever find out that the government is doing something that the American people don't know about, that's nefarious, journalists like what should not, this shouldn't be out in the public view because, well, he won't tell you because why?
[00:42:14]  We won't even tell you if this is real or not.
[00:42:17]  And certainly, and certainly he feels he's under no obligation to then tell you his rationale for why this shouldn't be out in the public.
[00:42:27]  Just that.
[00:42:28]  But he won't confirm or deny the validity of it.
[00:42:31]  Of course, Zelensky went in a different direction and he said he gave that this has all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation was Zelensky's response to this.
[00:42:41]  I guess we can take some solace in the fact that our government felt like they didn't even want to play that hand again.
[00:42:50]  God, we can't.
[00:42:50]  We've said this so many times, man.
[00:42:52]  This is going to sound really bad if we say this again.
[00:42:55]  But anyway, so that's where we're at on that story.
[00:42:59]  Any final thoughts, Rob?
[00:43:01]  I just, Kirby's statements are so childish.
[00:43:03]  It's already out.
[00:43:04]  It's leaked to go, but don't look at it.
[00:43:07]  It's kind of like when a new celebrity photos leak and like, don't, it's already out.
[00:43:12]  Like, you got to kind of deal with it.
[00:43:13]  Like, it sucks.
[00:43:14]  You're right.
[00:43:14]  We probably shouldn't.
[00:43:15]  It's like, I don't know if a helicopter blew up and money fell into all of our yards and the guy at the bank's like, we're going to need everyone to bring that money back in.
[00:43:22]  Yeah, I guess some people, you might have some nice old grannies, but guess it's out.
[00:43:27]  You better start making the adjustments.
[00:43:28]  Yeah, right.
[00:43:29]  Quality insurance policy.
[00:43:31]  I agree with you on that.
[00:43:33]  All right.
[00:43:33]  So the last thing I want to talk about before we get out of here, it's kind of on a similar theme, was that John's.
[00:43:41]  Oh, wait, wait, one other thing.
[00:43:43]  Sure, sure, sure.
[00:43:43]  Go ahead.
[00:43:44]  Which was a little bit surprising.
[00:43:45]  There's a couple elements to this that's really surprising.
[00:43:48]  One, I don't know how me Google searching, going on Telegram, going on 4chan, I can't find the original information.
[00:43:55]  So all of that.
[00:43:55]  I couldn't find it either.
[00:43:56]  Very hard.
[00:43:57]  Same with you.
[00:43:57]  Just found reporting on it.
[00:44:00]  A few still photos, but I didn't even know if they were accurate or not.
[00:44:03]  And some of the reporting on it's better than like Zero Hedge had elements that they were saying was there that no one else reported was there.
[00:44:10]  So like some people, so somehow the journalists, I guess, have access to all of it that they're reporting about what's there.
[00:44:16]  But I haven't seen a single counterfactual story on this one or any of the original materials.
[00:44:21]  That's weird.
[00:44:22]  The other part of this that's weird is I wouldn't think that something could exist on Discord or Telegram or social media for a period of time without the government knowing about it.
[00:44:34]  I just think that they would have enough control over the internet that if someone's producing leaked documents about the Pentagon, even on private servers, I would just think that that would somehow get flagged.
[00:44:45]  And it wasn't even made clear how long this was circulating on private channels before the media picked it up.
[00:44:52]  So there's just that, I don't know, both sides of like the internet censorship here just seems to be a little bit screwy that it both existed on private channels for a period of time without the government knowing.
[00:45:02]  And then once the story became known, it seems to have completely disappeared where even if you're looking for it, you can't find it.
[00:45:08]  Yeah.
[00:45:09]  Yeah.
[00:45:09]  No, that is an interesting aspect to all of this.
[00:45:12]  Yeah.
[00:45:13]  All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Fast Growing Trees.
[00:45:19]  You got to go check this out.
[00:45:21]  The experts at Fast Growing Trees curate thousands of plants so you can find the perfect fit for your specific climate, location, and needs.
[00:45:29]  You don't have to drive around to nurseries and big gardening centers.
[00:45:32]  Fast growing trees makes it easy to order online and your plants are shipped to your door in one to two days.
[00:45:39]  Whether you're looking to add some privacy, shade, or natural beauty to your yard, Fast Growing Trees has in-house experts ready to help you make the right selection with growing and care advice available 24-7.
[00:45:53]  I love this company.
[00:45:54]  I'm actually very excited to order some plants from Fast Growing Trees.
[00:45:58]  Now that I got a big property, you realize it makes such a big difference to kind of richen up your yard, just make it look cool and classy, to just have a couple really nice plants there, the stuff that's right.
[00:46:08]  You know, it's going to look good.
[00:46:10]  And I don't know much about this.
[00:46:11]  So this company is great for me because they just show me how to do it.
[00:46:14]  FastgrowingTrees.com slash P-O-T-P.
[00:46:17]  That's where you got to go.
[00:46:18]  You'll get 15% off your entire order right now through October 15th.
[00:46:24]  at 15% off at fastgrowingtrees.com slash P-O-T-P, fastgrowingtrees.com slash P-O-T-P.
[00:46:32]  All right, let's get back into the show.
[00:46:35]  Okay, so Jon Stewart was in a video that went super viral the other day, which was really great.
[00:46:44]  It was nice to see Jon Stewart back in the position of being someone I can be rooting for for a period, however brief.
[00:46:53]  But so he had the deputy, the deputy defense secretary on his program.
[00:46:58]  Let's just jump right into it and break this down a little bit because it was glorious.
[00:47:04]  Are these, do you feel like these are unfair questions of somebody within a department of that size and scope?
[00:47:11]  I think you feel that it's fair.
[00:47:13]  I think you have a particular thing you really want to talk about and you're asking me other questions, but I don't think it's unfair to ask me about the audit.
[00:47:20]  It's absolutely the case that the United States military should be able to pass an audit and we've got to be on that pathway to get there.
[00:47:27]  But don't you think that that does speak to the larger point that we're trying to get at, which is good journalism uncovers corruption.
[00:47:37]  Okay, I mean, good journalism does uncover corruption, but I'm not sure these two things are linked.

=== Auditing Government Waste Fraud (16:21) ===

[00:47:43]  An audit is not.
[00:47:45]  Okay, so you need to explain to me, do you understand what an audit does and the degree to which it is linked to the question that you're asking?
[00:47:52]  I believe so.
[00:47:53]  Okay, go ahead.
[00:47:55]  Give me your explanation.
[00:47:57]  No, I don't mind learning.
[00:47:58]  So what I'll pause it already for a second.
[00:48:01]  It's unbelievable.
[00:48:02]  I don't know what this woman expected going into this, you know, this interview with Jon Stewart.
[00:48:08]  I think maybe she just expected he's kind of one of us.
[00:48:11]  You know what I mean?
[00:48:11]  And I'm not going to, but how she's immediately so he just starts asking about how the Pentagon has failed, I believe, five audits.
[00:48:21]  And she's immediately defensive and kind of like condescending to him.
[00:48:26]  Like, do you even know what an audit is?
[00:48:28]  Do you even understand what you're saying?
[00:48:30]  And it's like, by the way, this woman is the defense deputy secretary.
[00:48:34]  She's the number two at the defense department.
[00:48:38]  She's very high up and is a completely, it just right away shows you kind of like the nature of where things are, where this, you know, the supposed servants of the people or whatever that just get like, they're kind of like the nerve you have.
[00:48:57]  That's my lesser would be even asking me about these things that he can't possibly understand.
[00:49:02]  You can't possibly understand what an audit of the Pentagon is.
[00:49:07]  And she's snippy.
[00:49:08]  Her snippy tone with him is really something.
[00:49:10]  Anyway, that was just my first kind of takeaway of it.
[00:49:13]  All right, let's keep let's keep playing.
[00:49:15]  That the audit that they have in the military doesn't really look at whether or not there's efficacy.
[00:49:24]  It's just whether they got delivered the thing that they ordered.
[00:49:27]  And that is any audit.
[00:49:29]  That is any audit.
[00:49:31]  That is true.
[00:49:31]  But generally, those audits aren't $400 billion for Raytheon and $1.7 trillion for a plane that doesn't seem to be doing like there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse within a system.
[00:49:42]  Audits and waste, fraud, and abuse are not the same thing.
[00:49:45]  So let's decompose these.
[00:49:47]  Please educate me on audit.
[00:49:48]  Sure.
[00:49:49]  So an audit is exactly what you just described, which is do I know what was delivered to which place?
[00:49:54]  The ability to pass an audit or the fact that the DOD has not passed an audit is not suggestive of waste, fraud, and abuse.
[00:50:02]  That is completely false right there.
[00:50:04]  So what is it?
[00:50:05]  Now is a question of, it's suggestive that we can't, we don't have an accurate inventory that we can pull up of what we have where.
[00:50:15]  That is not the same as saying we can't do that because waste, fraud, and abuse has occurred.
[00:50:20]  So in my world.
[00:50:22]  Yeah.
[00:50:23]  That's waste.
[00:50:25]  How is that waste?
[00:50:26]  If I give you a billion dollars and you can't tell me what happened to it, that to me is wasteful.
[00:50:32]  That means you are not responsible.
[00:50:35]  But if you can't tell me where it went, then what am I supposed to think?
[00:50:40]  And when there has been.
[00:50:41]  All right.
[00:50:41]  So let's pause it right there because it's really a, she's being a stickler as if he's somehow wrong.
[00:50:50]  But the rationale that she's hanging on to, she's trying to win this argument.
[00:50:53]  I'm like, the weakest technicality that I, yeah, I mean, look, basically what failing an audit means is we can't tell you where the money went.
[00:51:05]  We can't account for the money that we have.
[00:51:07]  So yeah, technically you could say that like, well, you don't know that the money's wasted.
[00:51:12]  It might have been spent on really good things.
[00:51:14]  We're just telling you, we also don't know the money was wasted.
[00:51:17]  You know, like, we're just telling you, we have no idea.
[00:51:20]  So it's so funny to be like, oh, that doesn't prove waste.
[00:51:23]  That doesn't prove fraud because maybe the money was going to completely non-fraudulent, you know, things or maybe it wasn't being wasted at all.
[00:51:31]  Now, of course, it does mean that you can't tell us it's not being wasted because you don't know.
[00:51:38]  That's what you're telling us is that you can't account for the money.
[00:51:41]  So technically on some on some grasping at Straw's technicality, she is right.
[00:51:48]  You know what I mean?
[00:51:48]  That it's like, yes, no, that's not exactly what it confirms.
[00:51:52]  But of course, like, what an argument to be making.
[00:51:55]  Now, I would argue on abuse that I would say, yes, that is abuse.
[00:52:00]  It is abuse to rob the American people of $800 billion a year and not even be able to tell them where it's going.
[00:52:09]  But again, now we're just getting into technicalities.
[00:52:11]  The point is that it's insane.
[00:52:14]  And it is certainly the most fertile ground for waste and fraud and abuse and certainly a clear indicator of appalling corruption.
[00:52:26]  Like the idea that there's trillions of dollars that are completely unaccounted for.
[00:52:32]  Who could justify that?
[00:52:33]  Like what person in any realm of anything could justify trillions of dollars being spent on things that you don't, that are completely unaccounted for.
[00:52:43]  We don't know where they are.
[00:52:44]  We can't tell you.
[00:52:45]  I've I've handled and not been in charge, but I guess been on teams involved in payment processing.
[00:52:53]  And when you do an audit and by an audit, I just mean you're kind of looking things over on an account or something and something's off by a dollar.
[00:53:00]  What that means is you've done the work wrong and there's probably a bigger problem.
[00:53:05]  Right.
[00:53:05]  And so I'm not even, I'm talking about on small scale just payments of, oh, we're off by, wait a second.
[00:53:11]  If it doesn't work out like perfectly, then that means you've, there's a problem there.
[00:53:15]  And so especially here, I mean, if your entire system, like I guess the system is, hey, we've bought things.
[00:53:20]  We're not even going to argue about whether or not it was a good idea to buy those things or whether or not that much money should be going here.
[00:53:26]  But we're just going to see if the things were even purchased.
[00:53:28]  And then you look at it and you go, oh, well, nope, the math's completely wrong and none of this is accounted for.
[00:53:34]  But I mean, that would be indicative of a bigger problem to look at a failed audit and go, yeah, but all of that missing money might have just gone to good places magically.
[00:53:45]  It might have.
[00:53:46]  That doesn't make sense.
[00:53:48]  The entire point is if it was delegated for something and we can't actually ascertain that it went to the place that it was delegated for, then we have failed.
[00:53:59]  And what world do you get to live in where you just assume that the failure, well, it probably went to the right place.
[00:54:04]  Well, and it didn't because you can't account for it.
[00:54:07]  If you could account for it, it would have gone to the right place.
[00:54:09]  And so this is what I mean.
[00:54:11]  If you're grasping at the technicality, like, yes, technically speaking, if you don't know where the money went, then you don't know it didn't go to a really good place.
[00:54:19]  like, oh, okay, but it is completely unreasonable to say that if you fail an audit, your default position should be to assume that all the money went to the right place.
[00:54:29]  I would say definitely to assume that there could be some corruption afoot here.
[00:54:34]  If you can't track that it went to the right place, then by definition it went to the wrong place.
[00:54:39]  So there is no default of, oh, it might have gone somewhere good.
[00:54:43]  If you're doing a fight, if you're a business and I've delegated money that it's supposed to go to a specific person and it ended up in the charity bucket, that's not good.
[00:54:52]  That money went to the wrong place.
[00:54:54]  I still owe that money to a supplier, to a business contract.
[00:54:58]  I guess it's nice that charity got some money, but guess what?
[00:55:01]  I got to figure out where that shortfall in the budget is because I can't call someone up and go, hey, I can't pay for that delivery because the money that was supposed to you went to the charity bucket.
[00:55:09]  So I got to actually say the claim is just false.
[00:55:12]  The idea is you got to track everything that you're doing as a business.
[00:55:14]  And if you can't track everything that you're doing, you're doing it wrong.
[00:55:17]  And if it, and anything that's off means it's off and wrong.
[00:55:20]  There's a lot of things.
[00:55:20]  Well, can you just imagine?
[00:55:22]  And you've worked pretty closely on Skank Fest before as a performer and also on like the back end of it.
[00:55:30]  And like, so SkankFest is a big comedy festival that we have.
[00:55:33]  I don't know exactly what the budget is offhand, but it's in the, it's in the six figures, let's say.
[00:55:38]  And could you just imagine, and this would be a much smaller, obviously much smaller amount and much smaller percentage.
[00:55:43]  But let's just say at the end of like, you know, SkankFest being prepared, this, this comedy festival, like a three-day festival in Las Vegas this September.
[00:55:52]  Go check it out.
[00:55:55]  You just found out there's $100,000 missing.
[00:55:58]  $100,000 of the budget, whether it's sponsor money or ticket money that just isn't accounted for.
[00:56:03]  We don't know where it went.
[00:56:06]  I mean, you could say, maybe it all went to where it was supposed to go.
[00:56:10]  But like, no, you'd be like, no, there's a huge problem because we don't know.
[00:56:12]  Did someone just pocket this money and walk off with it?
[00:56:15]  Like, did it not, did it get wasted?
[00:56:17]  Was it lost on the bus?
[00:56:18]  Where the hell did this money go?
[00:56:19]  Like, and now this, we're talking about trillions of dollars.
[00:56:24]  So you've got 800 plus billion dollars a year where it was something like 60% of it couldn't be accounted for.
[00:56:31]  This is just so insane.
[00:56:33]  There's just no defense there.
[00:56:34]  But then to condescendingly be like, I don't even think you know the difference between an audit and waste, fraud, and abuse.
[00:56:41]  God.
[00:56:42]  It's like you are presiding over the defense department that is failing its fifth audit and you're still looking down at somebody else and she's not even right about the point she's making.
[00:56:55]  All right, let's keep playing.
[00:56:55]  I mean, why do audits?
[00:56:56]  If audits are in no way indicative of waste, fraud, and abuse, I guess we're just, even if you fail an argument audit, we're just clarifying that you did good things with your money.
[00:57:05]  Right.
[00:57:05]  Right.
[00:57:07]  All right.
[00:57:07]  Let's keep playing.
[00:57:09]  This is not, look, I'm not, I'm not saying this is on you and that you cause this, but I think it's, it's a tough argument to make sure I can cause it.
[00:57:19]  An $850 billion budget to an organization that can't pass an audit and tell you where that money went.
[00:57:28]  Like, I think most people would consider that somewhere in the realm of waste, fraud, or abuse because they would wonder why that money isn't well accounted for.
[00:57:39]  And especially when they see food insecurity on military bases and they see.
[00:57:45]  I don't want to talk about that because that's a good, we should be talking.
[00:57:47]  I mean, I'm trying to understand where you're trying to go other than the dollars, which really bother you.
[00:57:53]  I think it doesn't really bother me.
[00:57:55]  It's all connected.
[00:57:56]  Okay.
[00:57:56]  I think when I tell me that story.
[00:57:59]  Tell me how you're thinking about that.
[00:58:00]  When I see a State Department get a certain amount of money and a military budget be 10 times that, and I see a struggle within government to get people like more basic services.
[00:58:12]  And then that department that got that, I mean, we got out of 20 years of war and the Pentagon got a $50 billion raise.
[00:58:19]  Like that's shocking to me.
[00:58:21]  Now, I may not understand exactly the ins and outs and the incredible magic of an audit, but I'm a human being who lives on the earth and can't figure out how $850 billion to a department means that the rank and file still have to be on food stamps.
[00:58:40]  Like to me, that's fucking corruption.
[00:58:43]  I'm sorry.
[00:58:45]  And if like, if that blows your mind, and if you think like that's like a crazy agenda for me to have, I really think that that's institutional thinking and that it's not looking at the day-to-day reality of the people that you call the greatest fighting force in the world.
[00:59:04]  So I just, again, I get back to this idea of like, I'm not looking to pick a fight with you, but I am surprised at that the reaction to these questions are, you don't know what an audit is, Bucko.
[00:59:17]  Like that's just weird to me.
[00:59:19]  Okay.
[00:59:20]  On food insecurity, major priority for us.
[00:59:24]  A lot of funds are going toward that.
[00:59:26]  The biggest.
[00:59:27]  Hold on, pause it right there.
[00:59:28]  Like she goes, a lot of funds are going toward that.
[00:59:30]  I go, well, you can't tell us exactly how much now, can you?
[00:59:34]  Because you can't pass a freaking audit.
[00:59:37]  So we don't really know how much funds are going there or what percentage of your total funds are going there.
[00:59:42]  But of course, Jon Stewart's point, he's like, so getting right at the heart of something there that really matters.
[00:59:49]  And, you know, I mean, he's doing it in a nice way where he's saying, I'm not trying to pick a fight with you, even though he is.
[00:59:54]  John Stewart, on the other hand, am trying to pick a fight.
[00:59:57]  But yeah, look, man, you're telling me we've, the point he made right there, okay, we end a 20-year-long war.
[01:00:05]  The Defense Department budget goes up.
[01:00:08]  Explain that.
[01:00:10]  We got tens of thousands of soldiers who have committed suicide in the last 20 years.
[01:00:17]  Where's the money going for them?
[01:00:19]  You get $850 billion a year and you can't account for it.
[01:00:23]  There's real people who you're like failing within your institution.
[01:00:29]  And you're sitting here like annoyed that someone will even bring up these questions that you once have to get asked about them.
[01:00:38]  And then she's going to just ramble on.
[01:00:40]  I mean, here, let's hear it.
[01:00:40]  Let's listen to what her response to any of this is.
[01:00:43]  And first of all, we have significantly increased funding on food insecurity.
[01:00:49]  And we do think we are getting much better on that.
[01:00:52]  We believe some of the challenges we face are not what you often think of as food insecurity as hunger.
[01:01:01]  They're really around do we have food available, for instance, as people come on and off shifts?
[01:01:08]  Is it healthy food?
[01:01:10]  Those are the types of food insecurity issues we are seeing in and around our military installations.
[01:01:15]  We have increased pay two times in a row here.
[01:01:18]  We've done 4.6% pay raise last year.
[01:01:21]  We've asked for a 5.2% pay raise this year.
[01:01:23]  We've also increased basic allowances and increased housing.
[01:01:28]  Just pause it for a second there.
[01:01:31]  So she's increased pay.
[01:01:32]  They asked for a 4.
[01:01:34]  They got a 4.7% increase and then they asked for a 5.2% increase on the next year.
[01:01:40]  So just know, Rob, still losing to inflation.
[01:01:45]  Still losing pay, actually.
[01:01:47]  If you just strictly measuring the price inflation, you're still losing if you get a 4.7% pay raise.
[01:01:55]  But whatever.
[01:01:55]  I guess that's something to feel good about.
[01:01:57]  So don't worry about the trillions of dollars because your buddy who went and fought in Iraq, he'll only be making slightly less next year than he did this year.
[01:02:06]  Isn't that true?
[01:02:07]  Only have one play, which is uh, they find out one of the elements that you're annoyed about and they go.
[01:02:12]  Well, i'm even more bothered by that than you are, which is why we've acknowledged the problem and we're improving on it and we're committed to solving it.
[01:02:21]  Yeah, and it's the extent that people are dying I care even more about the deaths right, it's always this thing where you paint like a grand picture of, like this total corruption and then you go and look at this corruption and then there's like several things down here in the list and they like pick one of them and they're like well, I actually championed the policy to improve that one thing, and blah, and you're like yeah, but you're not.
[01:02:44]  You're not even kind of addressing like the, the like what major reform needs to happen so that you guys can pass a freaking audit.
[01:02:51]  It's just so insane.
[01:02:52]  All right let's, let's play the rest of this and then we'll wrap up in a sec.
[01:02:55]  So overall, we definitely think we need to increase the spending that we are putting forward toward our service members and their families.
[01:03:02]  We're putting our money where our mouth is.
[01:03:03]  Another big area is child care, spending a lot more money on child care.
[01:03:07]  That includes both child care facilities, and it includes, um uh uh, a benefit that allows folks to go out on the economy to get child care and have that subsidized by the government.
[01:03:20]  Those are all examples of ways we're trying to put money forward for our service members and their families.
[01:03:27]  All right, so what a nonsense, non-answer.
[01:03:30]  All of that was it's.
[01:03:31]  Here's what's great about it too.
[01:03:32]  Is that like so?
[01:03:35]  And this is where I think Jon Stewart has a real blind spot, as most uh, progressives do.
[01:03:39]  But so here you have.
[01:03:42]  What is the one thing she can brag about?
[01:03:44]  They're like, well, we're looking for an increase in our budget.
[01:03:47]  To your ass, to all of this.
[01:03:50]  We like it.
[01:03:51]  Well, we'd just like an increase in our budget, and then we'll throw some of that money at all these problems that you're talking about.
[01:03:55]  That's a literally that's her answer.
[01:03:56]  That's her response to what this started with.
[01:03:59]  Is that?
[01:04:00]  Yeah well, you know, I think we should pay them a little bit more.
[01:04:02]  They should get more money for child care, more money for food and stuff like that, you know.

=== Missing Budget Milestone (03:37) ===

[01:04:05]  So we just were trying to get more money for all of them, although the point, of course, immediately originally, was that you've already you've got the highest budget of anything in the world.
[01:04:14]  I mean maybe the entitlement programs or something like that.
[01:04:16]  But yeah there, you'll be hard to find anyone who's got a bigger budget than the U.S Defense Department the biggest uh, military budget in THE history of the world.
[01:04:25]  And you're, you're sitting here, we're going and you failed multiple audits.
[01:04:29]  There's trillions of dollars that you can't account for and meanwhile, while you have this humongous budget and you can't account for all of these things, the rank and file people are like not doing very well.
[01:04:39]  You have something like 30 000 soldiers who have blown their own brains out.
[01:04:43]  That's only the ones who took it to that extreme level.
[01:04:45]  Let's not talk about how many are just like living miserable lives hundreds of thousands, you know.
[01:04:50]  And uh, so you're like hey, that's a problem.
[01:04:53]  And they're like uh well, don't worry we, we want some more money.
[01:04:57]  That's that's the response that you get.
[01:04:59]  Also, you're an idiot.
[01:05:00]  You don't really understand this stuff.
[01:05:01]  But just give us more money.
[01:05:03]  How uh, because I would think that the audits would be designed to pass.
[01:05:08]  How flagrant is their bookkeeping that they're failing the audits like?
[01:05:12]  Are they missing it by a mile?
[01:05:15]  Yes I, I don't know.
[01:05:16]  So the first uh part of your question.
[01:05:19]  I really don't know, because I agree with you they'd probably be designed so that they can pass them and that's how bad it must be.
[01:05:23]  I don't know exactly, but I know they're missing it by a mile.
[01:05:26]  It was something, at least in one of the audits it was 60 of their budget.
[01:05:30]  They couldn't account for that.
[01:05:32]  There's been like five audits that they've that they've failed, but I know that in one of them it was 60 of their budget, they couldn't account.
[01:05:39]  I i'm surprised that the top staff doesn't get fired every, because I would think that they would design the audience the same way that uh, Hillary Clinton got to go intelligence officials, which is just a very good way of, you know, appealing to authority and hiding your ass.
[01:05:52]  So I would think, if anything, they would just pass the audits to be like, I don't know what you're talking about.
[01:05:56]  We they, the government audits us every year and we pass our audits, Yeah, when you don't even have that level of just using the Will, where'd you go?
[01:06:05]  Just using the example of our little comedy festival, I can promise you if $100,000 was missing from this GangFest budget for this next festival, I can promise you and I'm being fired.
[01:06:17]  Yes, I can promise you two things.
[01:06:19]  Number one, people will be fired.
[01:06:22]  And number two, there would be a radical new system in place the following year to make sure that no money was going unaccounted for.
[01:06:30]  I don't even think you'd have that name anymore.
[01:06:32]  That's the honest truth because too many people would not get paid.
[01:06:35]  I mean, I don't know.
[01:06:35]  I actually don't know the back end finances.
[01:06:37]  I'm talking here.
[01:06:39]  Yeah, fine.
[01:06:40]  But I'm just saying there would be major changes if something like that were to happen and people would be fired.
[01:06:46]  I'd be the one hung.
[01:06:48]  Yeah, there'd be an apology made and a public hanging.
[01:06:52]  And yet, but that's a government program for you.
[01:06:55]  No, here's the real answer.
[01:06:57]  We need more money.
[01:06:58]  All right.
[01:06:59]  That's going to do it for this show.
[01:07:01]  Come check us out this weekend in Albany, everybody.
[01:07:03]  Looking forward to that.
[01:07:04]  The Albany funny bone.
[01:07:05]  And then the next stop is Zaney's in Chicago.
[01:07:08]  ComicDaveSmith.com for all those tickets.
[01:07:11]  RobbyTheFire.com at RobbieTheFire on Twitter.
[01:07:14]  And Run Your Mouth is Rob's other podcast.
[01:07:16]  Go check that out.
[01:07:17]  Anything else you want to plug before we get out of here, Rob?
[01:07:20]  Weekly show, Cafe Bohemia, other than that, Summer Porch Store.
[01:07:23]  Coming up April 14th, I'm going to start responding to emails and putting it together.
[01:07:27]  Actually, not April 16th.
[01:07:28]  That's Sunday.
[01:07:29]  So if you haven't gotten your applications in, there's still time.
[01:07:32]  If you didn't hear back from me, this is because I'm lazy and I'm waiting until that Sunday.
[01:07:36]  There you go.
[01:07:37]  You'll hear.
[01:07:38]  Just wait.
[01:07:38]  Be patient.
[01:07:39]  As I tell my kids.
[01:07:40]  Okay.
[01:07:41]  All right.
[01:07:41]  Thanks for listening, everyone.
[01:07:42]  Catch you next time.