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Aug. 21, 2025 - Timcast IRL - Tim Pool
02:04:30
Texas Republicans Win, House Passes Redistricting Map, GOP Looks To Gain 5 Seats | Timcast IRL
Participants
Main voices
b
brett dasovic
18:22
p
phil labonte
01:05:10
r
raymond g stanley-jr
12:59
t
theresa payton
19:02
Appearances
s
serge du preez
02:01
Clips
b
bret baier
00:19
j
jasmine crockett
00:46
k
kristi noem
00:58
r
ron desantis
00:32
| Copy link to current segment

Speaker Time Text
phil labonte
The Texas House has approved redistricting, so it proves that all of that hub from the Democrats was absolutely pointless for no reason at all.
Bed Bath and Beyond is going to be back, but they're not coming back to California, so we'll talk about that.
Cracker Barrel has decided that they're going to.
do a whole bunch of red-decorating, excuse me.
And the internet has said, thanks, I hate it.
And the DHS has decided they're going to red-decorate the border wall, so that way it's hot to touch.
So we're going to go ahead and get into all that.
So if you will head on, but before that, head on over to cassbrew dot com and buy some coffee.
You've got Josie's signature blend now.
We have two weeks till Christmas.
We have Ian's Graphene Dream.
We also have the K cups.
So if you're a little on the lazy side like myself, you can go ahead and just throw those in.
It makes it much easier.
But head on over to cassbrew dot com.
It's the best coffee out there, I promise.
I actually do drink it in the morning.
That's my preferred brand.
It's good.
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That's where the things get a little spicy.
We get into topics that maybe we aren't supposed to talk about or you don't think that you're supposed to talk about or what or YouTube won't let us talk about.
So, what was it?
You were signaling at me, sir?
Oh, I'm sorry.
Okay, so, yeah, head on over to rumble dot com and join there.
But to talk about all these things, joining us tonight is.
theresa payton
Hi, everybody, Teresa Payton.
Nice to be here.
phil labonte
Who are you and what do you do?
theresa payton
I'm Teresa Payton.
I'm CEO of Fortalezza Solutions.
I was the Chief Information Officer for President George W. Bush, 2006 to 2008, the first female to hold that job.
But before that, I worked in financial services for sixteen years, and now I help companies and individuals with security.
phil labonte
And you have a book that you're reading?
theresa payton
I do have a book, yes.
So I have a paperback, second edition, Manipulated Inside the Cyber War to hijack elections and distort the truth.
It's not really just about elections.
It's all the manipulation campaigns that happen around the world, globally, including in the United States, that impact us on social issues, how we talk to each other, how we treat each other, and by the way, also elections, deepfakes, AI play a role in that as well.
unidentified
Awesome.
phil labonte
Well, thank you for joining us.
We appreciate it.
Raymond is here.
raymond g stanley-jr
What's up, friends?
It's your boy, Raymond Stanley junior.
Excited to meet you, Miss Theresa.
theresa payton
Nice to meet you.
raymond g stanley-jr
Friends, if you're looking, if you look behind Brett, I'll introduce him today.
And Phil, it's darkk outside.
We have some blue lights, we have some red lights.
So today I got to spend the day up in the air in the lift in a boom lift connecting up for the skate jam session on august 30 that we're going to have.
So we got red, white and blue.
You know how Tim Cass rolled for America.
brett dasovic
There you go.
I see a purple light there.
theresa payton
It does look a little bit.
brett dasovic
Colors might have been changed.
raymond g stanley-jr
I think Tim might have said go purpose, go pink for a second there.
brett dasovic
Okay guys, my name is Brett.
I'm normally the host of Pop Culture Crisis Monday to Friday at 3 p.m. Eastern Standard Time.
Let's talk politics.
phil labonte
Okay.
So we're going to jump right into this from Axios.
The Texas House approves redistricting map favoring Republicans.
The Texas House gave initial approval to a new congressional map Wednesday that will probably give Republicans five more seats in a closely divided US House.
The redistricting would go a long way to ensuring the US House remains in Republican control even as it sets in motion a wave of gerrymandering in other states.
Heavily outnumbered, Texas Democrats briefly held up the redistricting plan as they left for other states, depriving the chamber of a quorum necessary for a vote, but they returned Monday for a new special session, saying they would now challenge the redistricting in the courts.
The thirty eight member Texas Congressional Delegation is currently composed of twelve Democrats and twenty five Republicans.
One seat is vacant following the death earlier this year of Democrat Rep Sylvester Turner of Houston.
Under the new map prompted by a demand from President Trump, Texas would likely send thirty Republicans and eight Democrats to Washington.
You want transparency?
The underlying goal of this redistricting is to improve Republican political performance, Bill Author State Rep Todd Hunter, Republican from Corpus Christi said on Wednesday.
The proposal amounts to an illegal and racially discriminatory map that surgically strips away minority representation in the U. S. Congress, said Rep Chris Turner from Grand Prairie.
This is Texas, not Washington, DC.
The impulse of outside politicians and their billionaire backers shouldn't dictate what we do in the House.
It is not the way that the Democrats are actually framing it.
If I understand correctly, two of the five new seats would actually be majority black, or I'm sorry, two of the five new districts would be majority black.
So this has nothing to do with race, but it does have to do with the fact that there has been such a massive demographic shift and population shift, people leaving California, moving to Texas, and all of the illegal immigration, considering that the census doesn't count citizens.
It counts people.
It counts bodies.
It's something that actually has precedent.
There have been times where there have been, you know, mid-censuses that were not just every ten years and redistricting is something that I think is important.
Do you have a sense as to what this actually is going to mean for Republicans or Democrats in DC?
theresa payton
I think it's going to be interesting to see as somebody who lived in Florida through redistricting and North Carolina through redistricting.
It is going to be interesting to see how it plays out.
The one thing I always say about redistricting is be careful because one man or woman's favorite redistricting, the next party, if they're becoming If they become in charge, they can change it back.
Just make sure it's something that will stand the test of time, but it will be interesting to see how it plays out.
phil labonte
This is something we've been talking about for a couple of days because this has kind of been what's leading the news.
Nick Sorder had some stuff to say about it on Twitter.
We're going to go to this real quick.
bret baier
Breaking tonight, Texas Republican legislators have just won their fight over redistricting just moments ago.
The state house vote is now final.
The bill aims to provide five additional congressional seats for the GOP correspondent Garrett Tenney shows us what's happening from Austin, Texas tonight.
Good evening, Garrett.
phil labonte
No, that was very short.
But yeah.
So five seats is really going to be a big deal.
And I think if the Democrats are going to escalate, which is what they've kind of indicated that they're going to do, you'll see some redistricting in, I think it was California, Illinois.
But again, this is something we talked about a couple of times.
There's not a whole lot more the Democrats can do.
While the Republicans actually have a lot of room to squeeze more seats out of multiple states.
brett dasovic
Well, yeah, that's because, uh, as we've talked about endlessly on this show, at least in the times I've been on, is that Republicans historically in the past have been very weak on actually making inroads and progress.
They tend to be playing defense all the time.
And now for the first time, at least in my, it feels like in my living memory that they're actually going on the offensive and the Democrats can't really do that because they've been on the offensive for so long that they've pushed that can as far down the road as they can.
raymond g stanley-jr
And so things are happening.
It's not that, it's not that nothing ever happens.
This is nothing ever changes.
brett dasovic
Nothing ever changes.
It's not nothing ever happens, it's that nothing ever changes.
raymond g stanley-jr
And I'm excited to see God bless America if Jasmine Crockets loses her seat.
That would be fantastic and amazing.
She said, or I'm just looking at it, that it's racist and it's anti demographic warning that they're going to drastically drastically reduce minority voting power.
While, like Phil said, they're going to get at least two., possibly two with minority voting power.
phil labonte
Yeah.
So actually, speaking of representatives, I get it.
raymond g stanley-jr
Speaking of the state.
jasmine crockett
Get as many of you as possible to flood our state.
Like when it's election time, I want them to be so mad that they did all of this because we have people coming from the entire country to Texas to make sure that this little scheme that they tried to pull where they were just going to steal and diminish the voices of black and brown people.
I want us to be so loud that they actually go running and try to figure out what's that little racist town they all hiding in and some what is it in Arkansas, Arkansas, I think they all ran to Arkansas.
That's where they need to run off to.
That's how I want them to feel after this election.
So no matter what happens, I need you all to stay in this fight because literally the war is just starting.
phil labonte
It is What the hell is she talking about?
brett dasovic
I have no idea.
raymond g stanley-jr
That is a very good question.
unidentified
I didn't understand any of that other than I was assuming you did and I just didn't get any sense.
theresa payton
I mean, I wondered if she asked ChatGBT what was going on and maybe that was the answer it gave.
I mean, yeah.
So I don't know.
brett dasovic
What is the press, so it's not just her saying that it's racist.
It was the Democrat from therat from the article referenced it and called it racist.
Is there some kind of precedent for why they're saying that?
theresa payton
It's not a research study, maybe?
brett dasovic
Okay.
phil labonte
I think that it's probably just kind of boilerplate Democrat complaining about whatever the policy is.
That's just the go-to line that they've had for the better part of at least a decade, possibly fifteen years.
part of at least a decade, possibly 15 years, they just call everything racist.
And that has has worked to frighten people and say, well, because people are really people don't want to consider them, you know, think of themselves as a bad person.
And generally racism is thought of as a bad thing.
So, you know, you tell a white person, they're like, oh, you're racist.
Especially if you're talking about someone that's a Democrat.
Republicans have kind of got a thicker skin now because they've been hearing it for so long and they've gotten to the point where they're just like, I know I'm not, so I don't care what you say.
I know this is only a rhetorical tool.
This is only you trying to attack me to shut me up.
So I don't worry about those kind of accusations, but there's still people that it actually works for.
brett dasovic
Yeah, but that's like when you're having an argument with somebody about social issues.
We're talking about political redistricting.
It's as boring as it could possibly get.
And that seems so outside of the construct of what they're discussing that it doesn't even seem relevant.
Like that makes more sense if they're talking about the actual racial demographics of their politicians saying, you didn't vote for this person, therefore your racists.
We know that's still BS as well, but that seems more logical than whatever it is that they're trying to, it feels very square peg round hole, but if anyone's going to tell you to be loud and obnoxious, it would be Jasmine Crockett.
raymond g stanley-jr
Shea, that was on Andrew Yang.
Remember he tried to move to, was it Georgia when Georgia was having their special elections back in 2022, something like that?
He was trying to move down there, help people move down there, move a residence for three months so he can vote in that election.
And Jasmine, nobody cares about you.
No one's going to move from Missouri to Texas.
No one's going to move from Maine to Texas.
Just to save your ass.
Nobody gives F. I'm sorry, miss.
theresa payton
I mean, especially if you have a job that requires you to come into the office.
brett dasovic
You think everybody works remote?
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah.
phil labonte
So, like, you know, this post from Muse says that Jasmine Crockett was calling for white people to leave Texas, suggesting they move to Arkansas.
brett dasovic
That's white flight.
You're not supposed to do that either.
raymond g stanley-jr
And they're building a town of the white people.
Is that what she and they're mad about that.
And now she wants them to go join this other white community.
phil labonte
Well, I mean, that's the that's again, again, that kind of speaks to my point about using racism as a rhetorical tool or using the accusation of racism as a wedge to get people to respond because white people have been like, you know, I don't want to be thought of as racists.
brett dasovic
Again, that works when you're talking about regular social issues.
phil labonte
If we're talking about this, nobody's moving just to Yeah, but I do think that the accusation of racism is less compelling nowadays.
Just like when, you know, when you hear Nazi about Donald Trump for 35,000 times in a month or whatever, like you people start to think, okay, wait a minute.
Maybe they're just saying the most terrible thing they can think of.
And this is actually something that comes from the postmodern philosophy.
They don't actually believe, their postmodernists don't actually believe that there is a truth.
They believe that it's all perspective and they don't believe that words actually have any more meaning than we give them.
So because words have the meaning that we give them, words don't actually have any meaning.
So they can use words that function to get a reaction or to produce a result, as opposed to using words that mean something.
And it's generally has worked, but people on the right are kind of on that kind of rhetoric and are just sick and tired of it.
You point to your book.
If you got, please, if you got something you can add to that, please.
theresa payton
Well, no, I mean, as far as manipulation campaigns and that, that's what people have to realize is we all consciously or subconsciously have manipulation campaigns.
And so on one hand, it may be something good where, I don't know, I'm looking for light blue pumps and the internet, I now that I talked about it in front of all of you, the internet is going to send me marketing campaigns, manipulation campaigns to show me the blue pumps.
I couldn't find and now I have to buy.
So on the one hand, there's marketing, but then it can also be things like the rhetoric and the language that people use that can be very divisive.
And it's happening on the internet.
It's happening in sort of the language choices we use.
And we have to be very mindful of it and not do it ourselves, but also be able to help other people spot and stop when these manipulation campaigns are happening.
brett dasovic
So now like you're going to turn on your computer, it's going to be ads like move to sunny Texas.
theresa payton
I thought it was Arkansas.
brett dasovic
Well, is she talking about?
phil labonte
She wants people to move to argument.
raymond g stanley-jr
If you're white, she wants white people.
So you got to move out of state, Miss.
phil labonte
Sorry about that.
Is that something that you actually get into in your book?
theresa payton
Not about the kind of that part of the politics, but the fact that you can see where a social media campaign using certain hashtags, using certain language, can manipulate people to think, Okay, this is what's actually happening.
And they don't have time to dig deeper.
And it ends up starting.
And the internet gives you more of what you came for, especially with algorithms today on social media platforms and AI.
And so if you ask or you linger, the internet will keep giving you more and more of what you came for.
raymond g stanley-jr
The SIS shows also, like, they remember they did it again.
They did it before, like it was 2022 or something like that.
They all like, fifty some left the state, Democrats.
And they did it again this year.
And they both times they came back and they, and they didn't win anything.
Nothing.
They gained nothing.
So hopefully folks will realize that it's all just performative.
It's all just fake.
brett dasovic
I have a question for you.
What's the best way to reset, like, if we're talking purely on social media platforms, what is the best way to like reset your algorithm if it's going off the rails?
theresa payton
I mean, look at rolling pandas.
I mean, so if you think about rolling pandas?
How can you have a bad day when you see pandas rolling down a hill?
And so if you want, I mean, whenever I feel like my algorithm needs a reset, I'll look at funny animal videos or rolling pandas or maybe I'll look at something I love Pope Leo, so I'll look at something that Pope Leo recently said and it just resets your algorithm.
brett dasovic
Because like X is particularly pernicious and like last week we covered the stupid story about the Mormon dating show.
Oh yeah, that was funny.
And I did myself the service of bookmarking like two people talking about it.
And then I closed X, I opened it back up and it took nine posts before I saw something that wasn't quoting that single thing.
So I had to unbookmark.
I had to send it to myself through Slack so that it wouldn't be bookmarked on my page because it completely destroyed my feed.
theresa payton
It does that.
And that's the thing.
What they want is for you to spend more time.
So the more eyes they have, the more money they make.
And it's one of the things I found in doing the research for the book was, you know, I thought a lot of times manipulation campaigns as they related to political elections around the world was about trying to pick winners and losers.
But what I realized in the research for my book is people actually make a lot of money in the process.
So Meta makes a lot of money.
And then I came across through HackerX, there was a Macedonian group and HackerX asked them, why are you guys doing pro Bernie, pro Trump, and anti Hillary?
And this was back in that time frame when all three of them were running.
And they said, Oh, we're not.
That's the combo that makes us the most money.
So you click on their news, you click on the ads, you spend time there, and they figured out when they were pro Hillary, they didn't make as much money.
But when they were pro Bernie, pro Trump, anti Hillary, that for them, capitalism wise, they just said, We're pro capitalism, these Macedonians.
brett dasovic
Bernie would hate that.
theresa payton
He would.
raymond g stanley-jr
I don't know, he'sll, he'll, maybe he loves it for himself, but he's right.
phil labonte
He's in talking.
raymond g stanley-jr
He wrote a book about it.
brett dasovic
He's got like, he's not even, he's not even the private sector.
unidentified
Yeah.
phil labonte
So, I mean, look, at the end of the day, the, you know, whether you're talking about this kind of manipulation or whatever, or you're talking about redistricting, the goal is to get the, as much political power as you can.
And I think that the Democrats have made it pretty clear, even though they'll swear up and down that this is some kind of, I guess, a nefarious attempt by the Republicans.
This is something that's pretty mundane, to be honest with you.
Now, granted, like I said, it is odd that.
they're doing a redistricting and they want to do it halfway through the census time.
Normally, it's every 10 years that they'll do a census and then they'll redistrict.
But it's not unprecedented.
It's happened before.
They could do a whole other census and that might even change more of the congressional representation.
It's likely to change more of the congressional representation.
I just want to know, what do you guys think is going to be the overall outcome of this?
The attempts at redistricting, do you think it's going to turn into a big old fight between Republicans and Democrats?
Do you think California is going to go and then the Republicans are going to actually have to go?
Or do you think that it' will just be something that happens in Texas?
Because California, they actually have to have a referendum to do this.
Do you think that they have the actual, do you think there's the fire in California's belly to actually pass the referendum and continue this?
And if that doesn't happen, do the Republicans still respond in other states and say, let's just go whole hog and go for as many seats as we can?
brett dasovic
What would be another state that they would want to do this in?
phil labonte
Republicans or Democrats?
unidentified
Republicans.
phil labonte
Oh, I mean, we had the, let me see if I can find it.
brett dasovic
Because it was like, what, there's like seven states that have a strong percentage Republican with no Republican representation?
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, yeah, a lot of them.
Yeah.
My, I mean, my old home state, Massachusetts, they have zero Republican representation.
And, you know, 35, 35, 40 percent of the people in Massachusetts are Republicans.
It's not, it's not 100 percent, you know, Democrat.
But the same thing kind of goes for California, right?
Like they have a lot of, a lot of people that are Republicans in California because there's just a lot of people in California and there are very few Republican representatives.
brett dasovic
So I mean, that's the problem though, right?
You can't show those seven states to a Jasmine Crockett or whoever is making their argument to the contrary because they probably know anyway, well, she might not know, but the others who are talking about this might already likely know about this.
They understand that it's not racial.
They understand that it's absolutely about political power.
They don't care and they never have.
phil labonte
Yeah.
So it looks like, I mean, there's one, two, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen states that Republicans could redraw the maps in.
Whereas the Democrats have four.
So it's not, it doesn't look good for the Republic for the Democrats in California.
Again, California isn't even a guarantee.
They're just talking about it and they're going to, they'd have to have a refer referendum and the people would have to actually have to vote for it.
So Do you guys have the sense that this is something that the Republicans will push for?
Because as far as I'm concerned, like I want to see the Republicans do everything they can to shove it down the Democrats' throats because this is something again we talk about regularly.
Democrats are going to do that.
Democrats are going to do everything they can if and when they get back in power because eventually they will when they do, they are going to do everything they can to expand the court, the Supreme Court.
They're going to try to add states.
They're going to try to get rid of the Electoral College.
Now, those things may not happen, but they're going to try because Democrats aren't afraid to exercise power.
Whereas Republicans really do avoid exercising power.
raymond g stanley-jr
I think with this, with the success of Texas, hopefully folks, Missouri, there's a couple other, you know, North Carolina, South Carolina, will see this, or other states that we're talking about that need to be restricted.
Ohio, definitely Ohio, you kidding me?
Kentucky, Tennessee, hopefully they'll take the lead of Texas and be like, you know what?
And we've been shitting...
They've just been sitting by the strongly worded letters aren't going to cut it, bro.
So hopefully I'm hoping, like Phil, and like we were saying as well, too, Brett, that they should take the power and just do it.
Just do it.
theresa payton
I mean, I think it'll be interesting.
to see what happens from a leadership perspective on the Republican side.
The other thing I would say is if you're going to do it, do it, but think through the opportunity cost.
So if you're spending time on this, is there something else that's not going to get done?
And so if you're going to do it, do it knowing you're going to win, like be in it to win it, or focus on the thing you're not doing.
So that would be my biggest thing because I think a frustration, a lot of times is sometimes, you know, they like being number two versus number one because then you have to lead.
So I would just say for the Republicans, make sure if you're in it and you're going to do this this, be in it to win it and focus on.
So what's not going to get done if we're focused on this?
brett dasovic
Do you think that there's something that they could be better spent using their time for?
theresa payton
I mean, it depends.
It depends on what's going state by state, what they should be focused on.
So, like, for example, with Texas, they've had a lot of issues with having to deal with crime, immigration.
They have a lot going on in that economy, and it's a very big state and very diverse economy.
And so for them, this is probably where they want to spend their time.
And the opportunity cost is worth it.
Some of the other states.
It's, I think you've, you just have to look at the long list of things that need to get done that might not get done if you're focused on this.
phil labonte
Yeah.
All right.
So we're going to jump to this story now.
We're, we're going to talk a little bit about Bed Bath and Beyond.
They went away for a couple of years, but they're coming back.
Major retailers from Fox News, Fox Business, major retailers say no to California, pulls zero punches outlining economic reality.
Bed Bath and Beyond executive chairman Marcus Lemones, I think that's right, announced on Wednesday that the company won't operate, open or operate retail stores in California, saying the decision isn't about politics.
It's about reality.
Lemones said in a statement posted on.
X that the decision was driven by the fact that the company wouldn't be able to sustain operations in the state due to higher taxes, higher fees, and higher wages coupled with endless regulations that strangle growth.
California has created one of the most over regulated, expensive, and risky environments for businesses in America, Lamone said, noting that the state's policies created a system that makes it harder to employ people, harder to keep doors open, and harder to deliver value to customers.
Lamone said that the state's budget surpluses come at the expense of ordinary citizens who are paying too much and businesses who are squeezed until they break.
Lamone said the company won't participate in a system that he says undermines both its customers and shareholders.
But the company is not alienating its California customers.
Instead, Lamone said the company is investing in a strategy that will enable Californians to get products from bedbath and beyond dot com that will be delivered between 24 and 48 hours.
In many cases, same day services will be offered.
Lamone said nothing that it will, excuse me, Lamone said noting that it will help the company avoid the inflated costs created by an unstable business model.
This comes as the alien company fights its way back to relevance after it collapsed in 2023 from mounting debt and several failed turnaround strategies under its mother company renamed from Beyond Inc.
to bedbath and beyond dot com.
to Bed Bath and Beyond this week.
The retailer is returning to brick and mortar shops with its first, first Bed Bath and Beyond opening in Nashville earlier this month.
brett dasovic
So theoretically they should have like brick and mortar stores, right?
Like products like that seem like something that you would want to go and actually buy in person.
phil labonte
Well, not only that, like, you know, a lot of people like to be able to go and, you know, hold things like towels or sheets.
It's one thing to be like, oh, you know, I want to order things that are not tactile from from from Amazon, but was one of the things listed, did it have to do with crime?
brett dasovic
Was it like the lack of prosecution for stuff getting stolen?
Are they worried about having to like lock up individual towels?
phil labonte
I think this I think this case not in the this case, not so much because they'd been out of business.
brett dasovic
It's the taxes.
phil labonte
Yeah, it's well, it's not just the taxes.
It's the cost of hiring people because the minimum wage is extremely high in California.
It's probably the cost of regulation.
Opening actual brick and mortar stores is not cheap in California.
These things add up and they disincentivize business.
California loves to talk about how they're the ninth biggest economy in the world.
And this is what one of the guys was saying earlier.
The piece is a bit long, so we're not going to listen to it, but California loves to talk about how they're one of the or they're the ninth biggest economy in the world.
And it's tru because California's got beautiful weather and it's got beautiful land and stuff.
Those kinds of things only retain people for a certain time.
You have Teslas left and that was a big deal because literally one of the politicians was vocally criticizing Musk on the internet and Musk was like, Okay, message received and just moved out.
That's a big business that they lost.
That's a lot of people that worked there that had to either move with Tesla or lost their jobs.
And I don't know how many other companies have left California in the past five years.
brett dasovic
Couldn't even keep Joe Rogan.
phil labonte
Yeah, Joe Rogan.
Yeah, and that's like, I don't know how many people Rogan employs, but it's not that many, but even still, like, when you're that wealthy, you know, as well as wealthy as Rogan is, look man, you have a lot of leverage with getting around laws that you don't want to deal with or paying fees and stuff, it doesn't really matter, but Rogan, you know, apparently it was too much for Rogan to take.
And again, they've lost, I think they net lost like 500,000 people over the past few years, which is incredible because if you've anyone, you know, you've been to California, it's gorgeous.
It's absolutely beautiful on the coast.
You know, some of California is.
desert like the rest of the southwest, or sorry, southwest, but still, it's really, it's really beautiful where the people are, the population centers.
So it takes significantly bad governance to get people to say, I can't deal with you.
raymond g stanley-jr
When you're going to lose a staple like In and Out Burger, the headquarters of In and Out Burger, that's known for being in California, they're going to move to Nashville or Tennessee.
That's a big deal.
Also, Phil, answer your question.
Two other companies within last since 2020 have moved out of California.
Chevron, Hewlett Packard, Enterprise, Oracle, Charles Schwab, McKenzen, they all moved to Texas.
Yeah.
Like I was saying the other day in 2018 when I was doing recruiting.
Yeah, over two hundred.
brett dasovic
Putting in any data centers?
raymond g stanley-jr
Most, when I was recruiting, everyone was moving to Texas even like five years ago before 2020.
theresa payton
So can we go back just for a second?
But yes, on data centers, Stargate will be in Abilene, Texas, but let's talk about that because they're Oh, the Stargate, the AI center.
But let's go back to the fact we are building brick and mortar.
Everything old is new again.
Old school is finally cool.
And what's interesting, I'm raising three Gen Z's.
Gen Z's love going to the mall.
Gen Z's want in person, Gen Z's want tactile, they want to be places in real life.
Don't get me wrong, they love convenience.
So if they can get something delivered to them when it's convenient, great.
But they remember, we locked them up for like ten to twenty percent of their life during COVID.
Some places did, depending on where you lived.
I mean, so just a quick story.
So I live in North Carolina, but very close to South Carolina border, and we were going crazy.
It's middle of COVID.
Everything's closed in North Carolina.
And so I picked up the phone and called a bowling alley in South Carolina about ten miles from my house, and they picked up on the first ring.
And I said, Oh my gosh, are you open?
She said, Honey, it's South Carolina.
We never closed.
And so we packed up the kids and we went bowling.
But anyway, Gen Z loves brick and mortar, loves shopping in person.
So it's going to be interesting to see, like, look at Starbucks.
In store sales are down.
Gen Z says, says this place is soless.
They're adding people to work in Starbucks.
So while we're talking about AI on the one hand, Gen Z is speaking with their wallets and their pocket books.
Let's go back to Texas though.
Abilene is going to have the big data center going in.
I don't think a lot of people realize the energy consumption that AI, cryptocurrency, and eventually quantum, is going to be asking for, but we've got some big decisions to make.
So as these huge data centers go in, they're bigger than anything we have today.
We have to ask ourselves when it's in your neighborhood, when there's a rolling brown out, who gets the energy?
Is it going to be the data center that's now powering really important things?
Is it going to be your house?
Is it going to be the hospital?
Is it going to be the schools?
Who's going to get it?
So we've got some big questions that have to be answered.
brett dasovic
It'll be like one of the most centered hospital, maybe your house third.
phil labonte
We can't.
raymond g stanley-jr
Data center before hospital.
phil labonte
You can't overemphasize how important.
the generating electricity is going to be for the future.
And if you look at how much China's done, because you're right about the data centers, AI is incredibly electricity intensive and China has, I think, I don't know how much they've increased, but they have, they're just eating our lunch and you can't get permits in the US to turn on a nuclear power plant.
that will actually be functional before 2032.
theresa payton
Do you know an American nuclear engineer?
unidentified
No.
phil labonte
You know, solar, like I like the idea of solar and Musk seems to believe.
in solar.
He thinks that it's the, he's like, this is the future.
That's where it's going to be.
But look, your nuclear generation nowadays, nuclear power generation is safe.
Coal keeps the AI on.
Well, I mean, right now it does in China, but they're looking, they're making massive, massive gains in everything.
China doesn't have the same kind of restrictions that the United States does.
theresa payton
They don't.
phil labonte
If the United States, if China wants to do something, they just do it.
It doesn't matter if they have to tear an entire village up and displace ten thousand people or twenty thousand people.
They don't care.
They just do it.
This is what the state needs now, and so that's what's going to happen.
They've been building nuclear.
They're building dams.
They're building a dam now that's going to make the Three Gorges Dam look like child's play.
The new dam is alleged to be able, is planned to be able to produce enough power to power all of a population the size of Germany, like the whole country from one dam.
If the United States doesn't get their S together when it comes to power generation, they're going to lose.
Never mind all the stuff you said, because you're totally right about Brown.
It's like, does the AI center get the power?
Does the hospital that's keeping people on life support get the power?
or does your air conditioner get the power?
Like when the brown outs are happening, they're going to have to triage.
That's going to happen.
That's totally true.
But not only that, if the United States is not making enough power, the United States will lose the AI race.
And that is the most important thing going right now.
I can't, I know there are people that are AI skeptic and that say, Oh, AI is not that impressive or it won't be.
I truly believe that they are dead wrong that this technology is going to not just revolutionize one industry, it's going to revolutionize the world.
It's going to be bigger than the internet.
It's going to be bigger than the printing press., the change that's going to happen because of AI.
theresa payton
It is, it is, it's the next industrial revolution and what people have to realize.
So today's data centers don't match what we need for AI, cryptocurrency.
So the data centers that are being built, including in Abilene, Texas as part of the Stargate rollout, they're going to need to be a five gigawatt campus.
This is the equivalent to the power coming out of three nuclear plants.
raymond g stanley-jr
Real quick question.
Tucson, Arizona, recently said they rejected unanimously their Project Blue data center, massive data center.
So if we're going to if they're going to keep saying no to the data centers, I mean, it was going to take all their water and kill the whole economy and it's going to be terrible for them.
But where can they where can they put the data centers where they don't kill all the water and make people in the surrounding area, you know, not have water and just live terrible lives?
phil labonte
Look, in 2024, China generated, what is it, 10,073 terawatt hours while the United States generated 4,387 terawatt hours.
Now, it's twice as much as the US.
And granted, China has a lot more people, right?
But that doesn't change the fact that they have the capacity and the United States does not have the capacity and China is generating, China is building and investing in ways that the United States just isn't.
And this is a massive problem.
This is something that is going to AI and power generation, like the number of electrons that you can, that you can generate is a massive, massive problem for the United States right now.
raymond g stanley-jr
But they build cities that are dead.
They spend a lot of money.
theresa payton
Oh yeah, they're empty.
raymond g stanley-jr
You know what I mean?
They spend all this money.
I guess it's different when you get a data center compared to a construction site and a construction program.
They build this huge city that nobody lives in, where data center is online and it's actual, you don't need a structural foundation.
It's just the cloud.
unidentified
What was that?
raymond g stanley-jr
The data center is a actual physical No, I understand, but you're not building a huge city for people that won't live in it.
You're building a data center for people to use the cloud.
You know what I mean?
phil labonte
Okay.
raymond g stanley-jr
There's actually used data center that has a use, whereas the city of emptiness is there.
phil labonte
Okay, okay, I see what you're saying.
raymond g stanley-jr
The city of emptiness.
Yes.
I was born and raised in the city of emptiness.
phil labonte
What city was that?
raymond g stanley-jr
Hamlin, Pennsylvania.
phil labonte
Anyway.
brett dasovic
Are they going to put a data center?
raymond g stanley-jr
No, there's no data center.
phil labonte
No.
Okay, well, back to the situation with Bed, Bath and Beyond.
from Marcus Lemon said, We will not open retail stores in California.
This is not about politics.
It's about reality.
California's system makes it nearly impossible for businesses to succeed, and I won't put our company, our employees or our customers in that position.
See attachment.
brett dasovic
What's annoying about it is it's actually a triumph of capitalism that they can reopen stores and still get products to people in California and find a way around that.
But because the left is so anti business and anti capitalist by nature that they won't see this as the win that it is, what they'll say is you should open a business here, lose money on it and pay us 35,000 dollars an hour and instead they're not seeing it for what it is which is a win for everybody involved because they're working with the you know with what they've been given which is crappy regulation no ability to operate within the state but still get products to people there look california's minimum wage is 1650 an hour okay not
phil labonte
35 000 you're close enough but that's look the fact of the matter is like the amount of people that actually make minimum wage and the length of time that they stay at minimum wage is like it's very few people and it's very very short i'm actually gonna let me google that's a good question because 1650 is not a liv living wage in California if you're living by yourself.
raymond g stanley-jr
That's, I mean, in California in general, you can't live by yourself even if you're making like 80k.
theresa payton
Well, that's why they should be happy that they don't get taxed on tips now.
unidentified
Yeah.
raymond g stanley-jr
Only for four years.
And then we can talk about it later when Trump's out of office and we can have another wedge issue to fight about.
phil labonte
10% of workers Yeah, so they they don't have an actual number for us, but 10% of workers in the state make no more than the current minimum wage.
raymond g stanley-jr
That's a lot.
phil labonte
Yeah, that for it that actually is, let's see California 60, approximately 10%.
theresa payton
So it says people make below that.
Is that because they're working like commission?
Well, it would be waiting tables.
phil labonte
Yeah, people that are working in the service industry or possibly they might be talking about people that are illegal, that are, you know, being paid under the table and they might be throwing them into the estimate, but I don't really know.
But even still, like, I'm not sure.
Let me see what they say about total.
raymond g stanley-jr
Just real quick, I know someone recently who went to the service industry and they're like, what, 2,35 an hour?
They had, they had no idea because it's all tips.
Your income is tips, you get 2,35 an hour and it blew their mind.
theresa payton
But I think you have to pay babysitters at least 20 dollars an hour if you want a decent babysitter.
So I'm trying to make sense.
unidentified
Yeah.
phil labonte
So there's only, there's about 869,000 hourly workers in the United States that make the federal minimum wage.
So that's, I mean, that's an, that's 1.1% of hourly workers.
That is an exceedingly small amount of people that actually make minimum wage.
Most people, you know, make way, make considerably more than minimum wage.
Even if they're not making a lot of money, most people are making more than minimum wage.
So it's the idea that raising the minimum wage is important to a considerable number of the electorate is just wrong.
brett dasovic
Well, it's another wedge issue that they focus on during election season because it wouldn't matter anyways with inflation at the rate that it's at now.
It's like we've been so past, like, like, wages have failed to rise with the rate of inflation for so long that it's almost a moot point.
phil labonte
Yeah.
brett dasovic
Because the cost of everything is going up anyway.
raymond g stanley-jr
That's why Walgreens and all those guys went on business in California because they started doing twenty dollars an hour and they couldn't afford to pay the people.
phil labonte
That and then the fact that people regulations stealing and Oh sure, sure.
unidentified
Oh yeah.
theresa payton
You go in and buy deodorant and it's all locked individually in a case or you have to go to the reception desk and say or the cashier and say, I'd like a deodorant.
Here's the.
raymond g stanley-jr
I just want to smell clean.
That's all I want to do, smell clean.
But like, no, I have to go through the whole process.
phil labonte
Yeah.
So, I mean, California.
and not only that, but when the police won't enforce laws against shop lifting, that's what happens.
It's essentially telling people it's okay.
Why wouldn't you?
You know, what's going to stop you if the police won't actually enforce the law?
serge du preez
It's all like it's all cloud pivot stuff.
Like they just destabilize and knock it all down.
And then when they're greeted as liberators, when they, when they come to inevitably, oh, we'll insist on our laws and our order and everything like that, but it doesn't really work because we're the ones insisting on law and order.
So it kind of backfiring for them, I think.
phil labonte
Yes, sir.
Okay, we're going to jump to this story here from the post millennial.
Cracker Barrel fans slam new redesign, woke CEO insists feedback is overwhelmingly positive.
Cracker Barrel is facing a wave of backlash after unveiling its first major logo design since nineteen seventy seven, with longtime customers and fans furious that the company quietly dropped its signature cowboy from the image that defined the chain for nearly five decades, says Gray News.
The company's CEO is now under attack from Cracker Barrel traditionalists who believe the brand is being mismanaged.
The country style restaurant chain rolled out the new look keeping its golden brown palette but removed the iconic figure of a man leaning against a barrel.
with a minimalist design focused solely on the barrel itself.
In a statement, the company said the refreshed logo is rooted even more closely to the iconic barrel shape and word mark that started it all.
The controversy comes on the heels of other missteps by CEO Julie Flesmassino, who took the helm less than a year ago.
Last year she sparked outrage during an investor call by declaring We're just not as relevant as we once were while admitting that some of our recipes and processes haven't evolved in decades.
Those remarks, combined with sluggish post pandemic business, rattled investors.
The company's stock plunged nearlyly twenty percent in the weeks following her comments, whoa, following her comments, sinking to a 52 week low of 45.35, its weakest trading level in more than ten years, according to Daily Mail.
brett dasovic
She shouldn't she have been focused on the we are a mainstay, we're something that doesn't need to change, we represent a steady hand for America that is resistant to change because it's good the way it is.
Isn't the CEO's job to frame things in a positive light?
If you go by the stock price, I would say that's probably Yeah, but they're saying that that stock drop also came on the heels of her making those comments, right?
phil labonte
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, it was a bad idea, clearly.
unidentified
Yeah.
theresa payton
I have to say, they waited 47 years to change the logo, so why now?
Yeah, why change that?
What were people saying, I really don't like Barrel and Cracker Barrel?
brett dasovic
Are they looking for young people to come in and come to Cracker Barrel?
Because that's not your audience, like part of running a business is knowing who your target market is.
Now I understand that with most businesses you're always looking to expand and you never just want to settle into one demographic and stick with it, but for a company like this you have to at the very least you have to settle into what you know works and then perhaps branch out from there.
phil labonte
Yeah.
I mean, it's normal to see a backlash from people on the internet when it comes to significant changes.
But there was another picture that I saw going around, and I don't know if it's actually in this, in this piece from the Postmillennial, but they had changed the inside too, all of the knickknacks that were, you know, frequently or in all of the cracker bales, because the walls are just packed with stuff.
They're just consistently full of things.
Those are all going to be changed too.
And it looks very, it looks sparse in comparison to the way that it used to be.
And it's almost like I couldn't help but think of like the it's in my imagination.
It's like if Brooklyn was designing a cracker barrel because it reminded me of the picture of that sparse little barbecue when people were saying, Oh, this is what barbecue in Brooklyn's like.
And it's like, you think of barbecue, you think of a big plate of stuff, and like, it was these tiny little portions.
And it just made me think, this is, this is not what people think of when they think of Cracker Barrel, and it doesn't seem to stay true to the spirit of the company.
brett dasovic
Homogeneity is the name of the game of fast food now though.
I mean, McDonald's looks like a corporate office when you go inside there.
And the same is true.
Like, whenever we're back visiting in Michigan, there's like a Shake Shack there, and it looks like a CPA office.
It doesn't have any personality whatsoever.
So most of these places, I don't know if it's most of it has a lot to do with the fact that a lot of the business comes from delivery now anyways from DoorDash that they just don't try as hard inside.
But he said this lady's only been in charge for like a year.
She's taking it down in record time.
We are going to see a ton of think pieces on X2 about how this is another sign about the death of the American culture.
There's going to be very long articles written by people about how this is actually a sign of the end times.
phil labonte
Let's see what she had to say about this here.
unidentified
All right, I got to ask this question.
I think I probably know the answer.
What if all the customers are coming at you hard enough about the look the look of the restaurants and they want to go back to the old way.
phil labonte
Would you do it?
unidentified
Honestly, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive that people like what we're doing.
I'll give you another soundbite.
I actually happened to be in Orlando last week with all of our managers.
We bring them together once every two years.
And the number one question that I got asked, Michael, was, how can I get a remodel?
When can I get a remodel?
How do I get on the list?
brett dasovic
Oh really?
unidentified
So because the feedback and the buzz is so good, not only from our customers but from our team members.
They want to work in a wonderful restaurant.
So we're doing everything for our guests and our team members.
We're doing the Messino.
It's wonderful to have you here.
Pleasure to be here.
phil labonte
Thank you for asking those questions for all the Crackerberry Barrel.
brett dasovic
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is horrible.
What's worse, this or the MSNBC rebrand?
phil labonte
This.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, who cares about MSNBC, MSNow?
phil labonte
Yeah, like this.
raymond g stanley-jr
Who cares about that?
phil labonte
Yeah, I think that this is, I mean, this is worse because Cracker Barrel actually, like, I like Cracker Barrel, or I do like Cracker Barrel, and I don't care what MSNBC or what MSNow does.
I don't pay for it.
theresa payton
I think it would be interesting to see how the same store sales start to look a quarter from now.
But if I were advising the new CEO, which I'm not, I mean, but if she's listening, she might be, you never know.
If she were listening.
What I would say to her is, you know, when I worked in banking, we used to do Mystery Shopper.
So we would go in as if we were a customer, not present ourselves as someone from corporate, and just mingle with the other customers, see how we were treated, and see what the experience felt like.
I would highly recommend she do like an undercover boss and be like a Mystery Shopper, and just go visit the Cracker Barrels and even come, like, try to engage with other customers to get some real customer focused feedback.
That would be my biggest recommendation to her.
If she were asking my opinion, if she's watching the show, that's what I would say..
raymond g stanley-jr
The cracker barrel crowd aren't like hippie, dippy, drinking paps blue ribbon beer.
Hippies, you know, like cool kids anymore.
They're just older generations.
They want to relax.
They want to have breakfast in the morning with the steak and eggs.
They love the old, like you said, Gen Z. They might like the walls full of like memorabilia and all the stuff of like the history of America.
That would be nice.
But when you make it all bland and also...
theresa payton
Yeah.
raymond g stanley-jr
Do you think women, this is off topic, they come in and they ruin Bud Light, not they, but certain people come in and the room, but like, Wait, are you blaming women?
unidentified
You did.
brett dasovic
Yeah, you're right.
raymond g stanley-jr
The more I'm learning about these CEOs and these HR reps, like, what's going on with the whole, you know, can women be in charge of a company?
theresa payton
I'm in charge of my company.
raymond g stanley-jr
Are you successful?
theresa payton
Yeah, we're very successful.
I'm here.
I mean, come on.
raymond g stanley-jr
I know, I'm just having fun.
brett dasovic
Oh, that was I was thinking.
theresa payton
Except that's gone.
We need to leave now.
We ride tonight.
brett dasovic
Or the checkers outside.
unidentified
Right.
theresa payton
And the rocking chairs.
brett dasovic
They get rid of that stuff.
I'm never going back.
theresa payton
No, we ride.
raymond g stanley-jr
That gaming stuff.
theresa payton
You had to go to a Cracker Barrel.
raymond g stanley-jr
Have you ever won that game at Cracker Barrel?
unidentified
You bet.
brett dasovic
Tim, like, asked ChatGBT how to win it one night when we were.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah.
phil labonte
So this picture.
theresa payton
Yeah.
It takes me a while.
I got to warm up a little bit, you know, to get back into the groove of it.
phil labonte
See, this is a terrible picture.
It doesn't actually Oh yeah.
brett dasovic
There were videos on X of it.
There were videos of people.
You can probably find them on X. But it's just like, there were no, like, actual booths when you went there before.
It was like, oh, back chairs.
phil labonte
You look, exactly.
That was one of the things that I wanted to point out.
These chairs.
Yeah.
Like, when I googled it, they brought up pictures of just the, the changes, some of the changes they've made.
But this one is the one that I wanted to see, or this particular redesign, because getting rid of those round back, the round top chairs that really looked, had that rustic look, in favor of this, it's like, this might as well be an IHOP, right?
unidentified
This might as well be I thought it looked like a hospital cafeteria.
brett dasovic
The local, the local.
raymond g stanley-jr
This one had the older one.
The older one?
theresa payton
This looks like a hospital cafeteria.
brett dasovic
The Applebee's By My House has more memorabilia than this does.
raymond g stanley-jr
So Modernia is basically doing terrible things for culture, I believe.
phil labonte
Yeah.
serge du preez
It all looks the same now.
phil labonte
Yeah, there is a...
raymond g stanley-jr
Like last night, you guys talked about that shitbox house.
That's the African American History Museum that looks like the Chewbacca's.
phil labonte
looks like the jaw was.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, it's all like ever since what, World War II, we went to this weird and I heard Yeah, brutalism.
Instead of because the Nazis and those folks were like, they liked things looking pretty and stuff.
And we're like, you know, we're going to fight against that.
We're going to make everything look like square boxes and trash.
serge du preez
Yeah.
raymond g stanley-jr
And now it looks like square boxes and trash.
serge du preez
Yeah, true.
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, I think that I do agree with you guys, like the sameness of all of the, or at least of this particular look, right?
Like the fact that it looks like an iHopper, it looks like a friendly's, there's no rustic charm.
I mean, I imagine that if I look at this place, I can't imagine what the store would hold.
Oh yeah.
Like the stores that are attached to Cracker Barrel, they have a bunch of cool knicks, it's a great place to get little gifts or whatever, you know?
And I mean, this doesn't look like, and again, I don't know, because this is just the one pick, and I couldn't find anything else to actually give us a better idea, but, well, this one's another.
Like, you can't really look at that.
theresa payton
There it is.
See, you got clothing.
You got that's what I'm talking about.
That's what America wants.
Give America what they want.
phil labonte
Yeah.
Let's see, where is that?
raymond g stanley-jr
It's that easy.
You know, that should mean everyone's line.
Give America what they want.
theresa payton
Yeah.
phil labonte
I mean, but here's a video.
theresa payton
My kids had Halloween costumes from Cracker Barrel, and they're adorable costumes.
phil labonte
I mean, it's a little reminiscent of the old stuff, but it's not particularly.
theresa payton
You know, it could almost be like a lobby and a loft hotel.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah.
theresa payton
You feel the lighting should be that good.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, yeah.
brett dasovic
The lighting should be bad.
phil labonte
You know, I mean, it's it's much cleaner than most people are used to.
Yeah.
And I do think that this is, you know, again, you're going to get backlash when you make changes to brands that have been around for a while, but I don't know that, and I don't know that this is something that people are going to be able to get over.
Do you guys think that this is going to be something that will affect their attendance, or do you think that if the food is the same, people will be like, whatever?
I think we're just being fuddy duddies.
raymond g stanley-jr
I think we might be fuddy duddies, but I feel like older folks who are older than us, like my dad's age, they will be like, what is this?
Why is this?
I'm not, I don't like this.
That's not what I like.
So I think they might lose the older folks.
And I don't know if the younger hippies, you know, a Gen Z, younger Gen X. are going to come into that.
Like nobody, Cracker Barrel's an old person place.
phil labonte
Is it an old person place?
brett dasovic
That's from what I mean, that's what I'm saying.
Her branding, she's working against like a, like a, like a preconception people have of the restaurant.
Like how many people in their twenty and thirty are like, Let's go to Cracker Barrel tonight.
I mean, I'd do that, but that's that's the brand.
phil labonte
It's one of the few places around here that I actually like their pancakes.
I mean, like Sarah, we brought home a box of the pancake mix because I like the pancakes there.
So I'll still go even if it looks bad or it doesn't look like Cracker Barrel.
theresa payton
What if they change the food?
It sounds like she's getting ready to change the menu.
phil labonte
Yeah, then I'm going to change where I'm going to get pancakes then, huh?
brett dasovic
That would probably do even more damage, honestly.
raymond g stanley-jr
If you change the look, but if you keep the food delicious as it always has been, then maybe, maybe they can, you know, bring in new crowds.
theresa payton
Maybe.
phil labonte
Yeah.
All right.
We're going to move on to this next story from the post-millennial.
The DHS paints U.S.-Mexico border wall black, so it's too hot to climb.
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noam revealed Tuesday that the southern border wall between the United States and Mexico would be painted black as part of an effort to increase deterrence against illegal crossing.
Speaking from Santa Teresa, New Mexico, Noam said the decision was more made.
to make the wall hotter under the sun, which would make it more difficult to climb.
She also noted that painting the wall black will increase the lifespan of the metal.
Noam emphasized that the request came directly from President Trump.
If you look at the structure that's behind me, it's high, which makes it very, very difficult to climb, almost impossible.
It also goes deep into the ground, which would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to dig under.
And today we are also going to be painting it black.
We get a little video from Secretary Noam here.
kristi noem
Remember that a nation without borders is no nation at all.
And we're so thankful that we have a president that understands that.
It understands that a secure border is important to our country's future.
Now, if you look at the structure that's behind me, it's high, which makes it very, very difficult to climb, almost impossible.
It also goes deep into the ground, which would make it very difficult, if not impossible, to dig under.
And today, we are also going to be painting it black.
That is specifically at the request of the president, who understands that in the hot temperatures down here, when something is painted black, it gets even warmer.
And it will make it even harder for people to climb.
So we are going to be painting the entire Southern Border Wall black to make sure that we encourage individuals to not come into our country illegally.
Legally, to not break our federal laws, but that they will obey and come to our country the right way so that they can stay and have the opportunity to become United States citizens and pursue the American dream.
phil labonte
This is hilarious.
brett dasovic
I'm surprised she's not wearing painter's overalls.
unidentified
Right?
brett dasovic
It's like paint splattered on her.
She just did it herself.
phil labonte
I don't know why, yeah, she shouldn't be wearing this outfit.
She should have been wearing those overalls.
raymond g stanley-jr
Who's going to paint it?
Illegal aliens?
phil labonte
No.
raymond g stanley-jr
Criminal aliens?
Sorry.
phil labonte
I don't imagine.
raymond g stanley-jr
You know, what kind of people are they?
theresa payton
It might be robots.
Painting robots.
phil labonte
I mean, look, how they're such a huge.
brett dasovic
She's going to paint it herself, I'm telling you.
phil labonte
She's going to paint it herself.
brett dasovic
Exactly right.
phil labonte
Look, is this, is, I mean, is this going to actually deter people from climbing the wall, though?
Do you think?
I don't get the sense that climbing the wall was a big problem.
It seems far more common that you hear about people digging under the wall and tunnels, cartels moving drugs that way as opposed to— Yeah, the tunnels, absolutely.
raymond g stanley-jr
An angle grinder.
You could just get that bitch down.
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean.
raymond g stanley-jr
You write a hole in it and you're fine.
phil labonte
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, I'm not sure how much of the wall has actually been built.
I know that there are sections, but it's certainly not from the Gulf to the Pacific, that's not at all the case.
So, You know, they build it, but there's still a lot.
I think that it's my sense that the effect of people not coming into the country anymore, like the amount of or the fewer numbers of people that are coming in are because of policy and less because of physical barriers or what have you.
brett dasovic
Because they know they're going to get sent away right away.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah.
phil labonte
I mean, the more you make it difficult for people to actually come in and if you have policies that are like, hey, you have if you get caught, we're just going to send you out as opposed to you get caught and you get a hearing date when people know they can just disappear into the interior.
That's the kind of thing that actually deters people, right?
theresa payton
I mean, well, and I mean, to me, this has been a problem like my whole life.
We've never fixed this problem.
People want to be in this country and they want to be here, most of them legally.
And I don't know why we can't and why can't the Republicans figure out a way to give people an easier way to get work visas.
And I mean, we did it in the past with Ellis Island and that's how my family got here.
I don't know why we can't fix this issue because nobody wants the idea of the coyotes taking people because all the coyotesotes are going to do, like in the people that are coyotes.
They're going to throw up drones.
They're going to see where the wall is built and they're just going to find a way around the wall and go in a different direction.
And you have people being human trafficked because they want a better life and they're desperate.
We should do a better job of making it easier for people who are desperate to have a better life to have an appointment, to do the paperwork and to be here.
phil labonte
I have a different view on immigration personally, but you were going to go ahead.
raymond g stanley-jr
Just, yes.
Back in the day, Ellis Island, you know, what they had like five thousand a month or something great, you know, not a lot.
Joe Biden's 10 million in the last couple of years.
So it's a lot harder, a lot more people, a lot more, you need a lot more infrastructure.
I agree with you.
theresa payton
I'm okay.
A lot of mismanagement over decades.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yes.
So that's a challenge when you're trying to have people come in legally and then you have this enormous amount of legal, illegal, illegal people coming in.
It's tough to, you know, make it work together.
We're just, you know, it's hard.
They can, they can make it work.
No, they can't make it work.
brett dasovic
I always thought that the difficulty to get here was a feature and not a bug because they wanted the people that could afford it and the people they wanted people to bring the best and the brightest here.
If it's super easy for everyone to get in, then it becomes a ch detriment to the country because the people who come in become a net negative for society rather than if you make it more difficult, more expensive, the people that come in are going to add to the economy rather than detract from it.
raymond g stanley-jr
Like brain drain.
brett dasovic
And it's, and that's kind of interesting because, like you said, you worked under the Bush administration and it's in my lifetime seeing the way that politics has changed on the topic of immigration with both Republicans and Democrats at least paying lip service to the idea of fixing the border back.
I mean, even Obama did in the early days of his first term, talked about strengthening the border, border security and things like that.
And then 2016 rolls around and it's changed.
completely, but it's a much more polarizing issue because it's now downstream from the race issue.
And it's how different was it back then?
theresa payton
Was that even something that was really talked about a lot during the not really as much when I was I was there, second half of the second term, so other things were kind of going on, but but I mean, I remember growing up like Regan deciding to do Amnesty because we were then going to fix it and then we didn't fix it.
And we've we have to come up with the right way.
And I think you're right to to be able to say, look, we have room for X number of all these different skill sets, all these different backgrounds., and we have to come up with a way to if people want to be here legally to figure out how to make that work.
And you see other countries, it's very hard to immigrate there.
So, for example, Italy, you have to pass an Italian fluency test.
You have to show that you're going to have work to do.
You have to show that you're buying property.
So to your point, there's different policies that are applied.
We have to figure out in the United States what do we want to be and how do we welcome different walks of life and how do we do that in a way where they can be legal and not be in the shadows.
We can't fix this issue from a policy perspective.
As you said, there's a deterrent right now Because we say if we catch you here illegally, you won't be allowed to apply for legal immigration.
But we have to find out who we want to be as a nation and then figure out how we're going to, from a policy, allow people to be here legally or deter them from trying to be here illegally.
Because there is human trafficking and suffering that goes on because we haven't we haven't made up our mind what we want to be.
phil labonte
Well, I mean, so to that point, I do think that the American people generally have an opinion that is fairly clear, or at least the majority of them do.
You know, when it comes to illegal immigration, people don't like want to have illegal immigration.
They want to make sure that the border's secure.
They understand the risks associated with illegal immigration, whether it be human trafficking, drug smuggling, possibly smuggling terrorists in the United States.
And when you're dealing with probably 15 million or so in four years, you're talking about the possibility that a foreign country could have smuggled a literal army into the United States.
theresa payton
And that's a problem.
phil labonte
Yeah.
brett dasovic
And America's the only country because of the way politics are here, mostly from the left, that is, they're not every other country's allowed.
to act in their own self interest when it comes to immigration policy.
America is the only country where you're supposed to be allowed to be here just by virtue of America existing and other countries not being as good as America, which is also being propagated by the people that are saying that America is awful.
The people that are saying America is awful are telling you that these people coming from these other countries should be able to come to our supposedly awful country because it's better than the country they live in.
But whoa, you can't call their country awful because it's racist to do so.
And I think that there's a lot of people that are just fed up with the double standard for a lot of that stuff.
And with the way that I mean, this whole thing came up last year.
with the H1B visa discussion with Elon Musk and Americans being fed up with how they feel that work is being outsourced in many ways on top of all that.
And it has been very, very long time since Americans have been allowed to put their own interests first.
And it's like, look, we've got ten thousand issues we need to figure out in this country, we'll worry about, you know, legal immigration being more, you know, we're going to focus on the illegal immigration now, put a stop to that.
We'll focus on getting other people the opportunity to come here once we secure everyone else in this country.
And I don't think that there's anything inherently wrong with that.
I get the perspective of people that want it.
And I do believe that.
I think one of the most important things about legal immigration is that it encourages people to come here that actually have a strong desire to be here and they want to hold American values and all that represents.
But right now, we've got a lot bigger fish to fry, or at least that feels like that to me.
theresa payton
We do.
And I will say for people who came here the right way, filled out the paperwork, paid the money, did everything, became citizens, they have said they don't like the idea that people are here illegally and that they can jump in front of the line.
Peggy Noonan wrote an opinion on this many years ago where she said the reason why illegal immigration, one of the things that's really really bad about it is the first thing the person has done is they broke our nation's laws.
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, that again, that's something that the American people are generally on board with.
They want to see the immigration situation fixed.
And to be fair, like Donald Trump has really done a lot to fix it.
Like if the, if the, if the Trump administration standard were the standard for the past five, six years, we wouldn't be in the situation that we are now.
We wouldn't have probably 15 million illegals.
There wouldn't have been almost half a million people trafficked here every year for the past, for the four years that the Biden administration was in power.
brett dasovic
There was a gas station down by the castle that was owned by this family from Tibet, and they would show me videos of people getting caught immigrating here illegally, and they were pissed.
Like they didn't like it.
They didn't support it because they spent, you know, a good amount of all their family's capital to get them here so they could start a business and be, you know, standing members of society.
So that's also, again, there was a did you see the post the other day on X from PBS that was like, X amount of support immigration?
And everyone knew that it was weasel words, BS.
Yes, that, you know, did you actually ask them, did they mean illegal or legal?
But that's just more of the same garbage that we're getting from the media.
That's why people don't trust them.
raymond g stanley-jr
The left loves using we're a nation of immigrants.
You know, nothing against Ellis Island, but that's very false.
A lot of folks moved here from European lands to get away from religious persecution, but also to colonize, to expand themselves, to expand their future, not to be some multiculturalism state land.
They came here because they want to spread themselves and their family.
So they're not here being an immigrant, they're colonizing.
We're a nation of colonizers, just like Europe and England.
So the lie of that we're a nation of immigrants, sure.
Sure, whatever, but that's not true.
You can say that, but it's very false because people came here because they wanted to be something, they wanted to venture and be forth and, you know, love life.
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, look, if you're coming to the United States because you want to do something and you're in a place where you don't have the economic freedom or you don't have the ability to do it, that's one thing, but if you're just looking to come to the United States so that way you can make an economic, you can get onto some kind of support.
plan that the federal government offers or whatever, that's not the kind of person that you want in the country at all.
And it's not racist to say we don't want to take people into the country just so they can get benefits from the United States.
You look at what's going on in the UK right now, and there are a lot of people that are they're not going there because they want to be like the people in Great Britain.
They don't look at themselves as anything other than economic migrants.
They're going there because they can get on to the benefit roles and they can get something from the country.
That's it.
And they will they tell you that.
They don't go there because they think Britain is this great place.
They don't go there because they have they believe in the history of the British Empire or because they have some kind of affinity for the royal family or anything like that.
They go there because of the benefits.
theresa payton
It may be actually anti royal family from some of the YouTube videos that I see.
phil labonte
It seems so.
And that is something that is abhorrent to a country that is a free country or ostensibly a free country, right?
You don't want to have people that are coming to the United States just because they're looking for an economic benefit.
brett dasovic
And that era of immigration, the Ellis Island era of immigration, it's from a time when there was America was seen as something to aspire to and there was a lot of values that we all coalesced around that's largely been dissolved as this country.'s kind of become more fractured,
whether it's on demographic change, political change, different ideologies, people don't have that same, you know, melting pot view of what America is to coalesce around as a place where everyone can come together under the banner of the United States of America.
We're largely fractured now, so all this stuff becomes infinitely more complicated when you don't even have a shared value system.
phil labonte
Yeah, so we're going to jump to some breaking news right now.
Nick Sorter's reporting and we've got a clip from Fox News.
The Trump administration is revoking license of the employer of the foreigner who killed three people while you turning a semi truck in in Florida.
Good hold employers accountable and they'll stop working with illegals.
This is something that, well, let's go ahead and love this, but yeah, this is, this speaks right to my baby.
ron desantis
Where you had an illegal alien truck driver that got a commercial driver's license in the state of California employed by a California company killed three people in Florida.
This guy didn't even speak English.
We're bringing him up on charges.
He's going to face a lot.
And I can announce, Jesse, that I said initially the company needs to be held accountable and we've been working with the federal government and they are pulling that company's license to do business because you can't employ someone who cannot read the road signs for you.
phil labonte
We have a problem where I've said this a couple of times on the show.
My personal policy preferences when it comes to illegal immigration, right?
You obviously you shut down the border.
If you pick up an illegal, you send them back.
But there's something that needs to be done about the companies that are actually hiring illegals because they're the draw, right?
If you, you've got, and this is, it's good to see this happening that the Trump administration is going to revoke the license.
I personally would go further.
I want to see the people that are actually owners of the company.
I want to see them put in jail and I want to see their company taken from them.
theresa payton
So I have a question, like, are they not doing the i nine process?
Like, I'm an employer.
I have to do an i nine for everyone that I hire.
phil labonte
Apparently not.
I'm going to search that, but I don't think in California they have that rule and regulation as far as like because they have it and this company's hiring people to travel, you know, across state lines.
So obviously the the commerce clause is involved.
So the federal government does have jurisdiction.
But if you hire people that are illegal, you should lose your pro, your business like totally in totality because that's the only way that you're going to make it not worth hiring illegals.
This guy couldn't read the signs.
They did a test on you.
He only identified two of ten different signs that they showed him.
theresa payton
How does he have a driver's license?
phil labonte
That's something, well, California gives driver's license out.
He can't speak English, which I think the United States should have.
theresa payton
He literally passed a sign test in California.
phil labonte
No, he didn't.
He probably didn't pass it.
unidentified
That's the point.
phil labonte
Like, he probably wasn't tested properly or he did, or someone just said, well, you know, here you go because we feel bad for immigrants or I don't want to get called a racist or this is just the policy of California.
I don't know the details about how he actually got it, but on the site they gave him a test.
He couldn't read signs.
He can't speak English, which is something that I've been railing about that the, and I've, it was before the Trump administration said that they were going to make, Donald Trump said that he was going to, he made that executive order that said that English is the official language of the United States.
That needs to be done by Congress, and there should be no paperwork produced by the federal government in any other language except for English.
This is exactly why he couldn't read the signs.
He didn't, I mean, whether or not he knew he was supposed to get, you know, whether or not he knew it was illegal for a U-turn doesn't matter, but he's he was here illegally.
He couldn't read, couldn't speak English, couldn't read the signs.
serge du preez
The company Oh, sorry, sorry.
I was going to say, like, I brought this stuff up.
He crossed here illegally.
He was fast tracked for deportation in 2018.
Like, the stuff about this guy goes on and on.
Like, I read somewhere else just recently.
I was trying to get information about some of the stuff he did.
Release on five thousand dollar immigration.
theresa payton
He actually had to know what they were hiring.
serge du preez
It's crazy.
Like, he didn't, he got most of the questions wrong on his tests for the CDL itself.
So, like, he, he wasn't supposed to drive at all.
phil labonte
This guy and people have lost their lives because of it.
The guy should get the guy should go to jail for the rest of his life, the driver and the company that hired him., they should lose their business, not just their license, but all his property, like all the business property.
They have no problem, and I don't have a problem with this either.
They have no problem taking all kinds of property away from people that are dealing with drugs.
They have no problem taking all kinds of property away from people that have acquired their wealth through fraud.
They take all that away.
Why not from people that hired illegals?
If you hire illegals, you should lose your property because that's the only way to make sure that companies don't think it's worth hiring illegals.
theresa payton
What state did he do those?
Those, first of all, the poor families.
unidentified
Yeah.
theresa payton
That lost three loved ones.
Like, we don't want to roll over the fact that we have families who have people that are not coming home and they don't get to hug them again, and that is horrible.
So did this happen in Florida?
It happened in Florida, yeah.
So it will be interesting to see from a court perspective because this happened, so there's the federal piece, then there's the Florida court piece.
It will be interesting to see, can you try the owner of the company for vehicular manslaughter?
phil labonte
I love to see.
theresa payton
Of three.
Basically, it's vehicular manslaughter of three individuals.
And so it will be interesting to see.
Because basically he put this person behind the wheel and shouldn't have.
brett dasovic
And I'm guessing he's making a lot less money than people who are here legally, this employee.
raymond g stanley-jr
Pardon me?
brett dasovic
Like I'm guessing this employee was making a lot less money because he was here.
phil labonte
I don't know.
I don't know.
brett dasovic
Like the other thing about most of this issue with a lot of maybe not with this one specifically is like because of a mixture of like far left, we don't believe in borders policy and bleeding heart liberalism, which tells you that, you know, we have to let everyone in because they have been oppressed, you know, they are oppressed elsewhere.
We need to let them in and invite them here., not even encourage them to come here legally.
You're creating a slave class of people who do not have to be paid at the regular rates.
But like Phil said, if these companies can bring them in illegally and pay them under the table, they will.
They'll always try to get away with it.
And it's been nefariously pushed forward in a way now where it's shown as a good thing to create an entire class of people who are ostensibly slaves.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, Democrats love the caste system.
Like they love the caste system.
But answer the question, yes.
And nine is required in California to answer the question.
Just so we're one hundred percent on that chat.
brett dasovic
So they're just illegal.
raymond g stanley-jr
Then this whole process.
phil labonte
Yes.
And that's, if I understand correctly., that's fairly typical.
brett dasovic
And if, again, if the fine is so minimal, they'll just risk it.
phil labonte
Absolutely.
That's, and that's, again, that's why I think that there should be the most harsh punishments imaginable.
You should lose your entire business.
And the same goes for people that rent to illegals.
If you were found to have rented an apartment to an illegal, you lose your property.
You lose that rental location.
raymond g stanley-jr
I thought that was harsh at first the other day, but I'm like, I'm totally a board brother.
The whole, you know what I mean?
That's Go America, F these people.
phil labonte
the whole point is you need to disincentivize people from coming here.
And this is actually the more compassionate way because now we've got so many people that are seeing videos of ICE going and raiding apartments and picking people up and you have people freaking out because ICE is hurting people and they're tearing families apart and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
If you don't want that to happen, the next best thing is deterring people from coming here, making the people that are here illegally, right, instead of going to pick them up and having ICE have to put hands on and fighting with people or grabbing them after they come out of court for their hearing or whatever which is something that the left is freaking out about now make it so that way they people are like, you're not, if you can't prove to me that you're here legally,
I'm not renting to you because I don't want to lose my whole apartment building.
Take it from them.
raymond g stanley-jr
Shipping them all to Minnesota because I've seen videos of people living in Minnesota and it's freezing out and they're like from Africa.
They're like, I can't live in this hot and cold weather.
You're kidding me?
I don't know.
phil labonte
Look man, if you're putting hands on them, don't, don't send them to Minnesota, send them to home.
raymond g stanley-jr
Why?
The point, you know what I mean?
phil labonte
But the point being, the more and the more you do this, if you, if people that are here illegally can't find places to live, can't find places to work, and then people that are outside of the US that are looking to come here, if they know they can't find a place to get a job.
or if they know they won't be able to get a place to live, they won't come.
The people that are here will be like, I can't work here.
I need to go home.
Another thing is tax remittances at 95%.
If you want to send, come here, work and then send money back to your home, your country of origin, why should we allow that?
We've got $37 trillion in debt.
Take that money from them.
The government has no problem doing any of this stuff.
They do it to people all the time.
Civil asset forfeiture.
If you've got cash in your car and you get pulled over because you're going to buy a car or for whatever reason, the government will.
just, you know, the police station will just take your cash.
They'll say, that's ours now.
If the government can do that, there shouldn't be any problem with taxing remittances at 95%.
If the government can take your property because they think it's ill gotten gains from whatever reason, drugs from any kind of illegal, illicit activity, take their property for hiring, for employing or hiring illegals as well.
serge du preez
This is crazy.
I did a little bit digging and I found this article from June 20 or it's updated on the 25th of June in 2025.
And this guy, Raman Dylan, I guess a Punjabi guy, was talking to Joe Biden said that when they rolled this Biden here's trucking action plan out with his administration, it was a coming crisis.
So this is in June 25 when this is written and this happened in 2019.
I highlighted this thing right here where he basically this is the guy, I think this is him right here, who's also Sikh, like the guy who was driver, but he points out that they repeatedly tried to tell the Biden administration that the bigger problem is you're just issuing these licenses when they don't know English enough to pass the exam.
He's like, give me a reason why you wanted to test in Punjabi.
Most of the schools in California have opened schools in Utah because in Utah there's third party testing.
Like he literally pointed out that this was going to happen a month or so before, if not like a while before, and like here we are, it's happening.
All the stuff that they've been saying for so so long.
It's all literally coming to fruition.
All the stuff we said is this is going to be bad.
This is going to be bad, it's all.
phil labonte
And whether it's an illegal committing murder, rapes and murders, which you see, you hear stories frequently about, or whether it's an illegal here that gets into a car accident, or any number of other terrible things that happen that wouldn't have happened if that person wasn't here.
Forget about any of the other stuff, not whether it's intentional or a crime or whatever, just the fact that because that person was inside the United States, these things happened, whether they're crimes or accidents, those are things that do not have to happen.
They did not have to happen.
If the government had done what it's supposed to do, which is enforce the border, enforce the restriction on people coming into the United States and actually follow the law, and Democrats love to say no one's above the law, but they will let foreign immigrants, criminal aliens, they will let them skirt the law so that way they can have more people.
And I truly believe this is the case.
The reason they want to have more people in the United States is for the census so that way they can get more representation for Democrats in the Congress.
That was the whole point of it.
The Bureau of Health and Human Services had a program called the Refugee Resettlement Program where they would ship people in.
They would literally put them on planes, ship them all over the country, ship them to purple states and ship them to blue states again because they want those census numbers.
It wasn't about as much as I do think that there were probably people that are voting illegally, I don't think that they were illegally voting in numbers great enough to actually affect the outcome of the elections, but I don't think that that was the plan.
The plan was to get the kind of representation in Congress because of the census and through the census.
You know, if you increase the number of people in blue states, you increase the.
number of people in purple states.
You can get better representation on the Democrat side in Congress, you know, when the census comes through, because the way that the census is done or the way that the representation in Congress is counted is not by citizens.
It's, they just count the people.
So it doesn't matter if you're citizens.
It's unimportant.
So I think that the repercussions for hiring or...
I love the fact that the Trump administration is going to revoke the license of this company that hired this guy, but I don't think it's enough.
They should take their property.
They should take all their trucks.
raymond g stanley-jr
That's why you're going to be working for Christy Noam, my friend.
That's why she's going to show up in a trucker hat.
phil labonte
Yeah, exactly.
Look at how little she's started on.
Absolutely.
raymond g stanley-jr
Before I move on, to get some facts right.
Out of basically 2,000 miles of the Mexican US border, we have about 100 miles of border done.
It's not a lot.
brett dasovic
So what about we get the rest of the border built?
Then we'll worry about what color it is.
raymond g stanley-jr
I could I rock with that.
And then in the words of a beautiful woman.
who has my heart and soul, Kamala Harris, don't come.
Don't come.
phil labonte
You know, so all right, we're going to jump to this next story from the post millennial breaking.
Woke Target CEO resigns amid boycotts, declining sales.
Target announced Wednesday that longtime chief executive Brian Cornell will step down next year as the retailer deals with sales declines and stacking controversies from both sides of the political aisle.
Chief operating officer Michael Fittical has been named as his successor reports CNN.
Cornell took over in 2014 and was credited with bringing life to the brand a decade ago, but has struggled in recent years as Target faced drops in revenues in the post pandemic economy.
In the first quarter of twenty twenty five, sales fell more sharply and executives have warned that the downward trend is likely to continue throughout the end of the year.
The retailer, which operates nearly two thousand stores nationwide, has blamed consumer spending amid economic uncertainty and tariffs.
The company has been hit by boycotts that have taken its toll.
Customers objected to its diversity and inclusion initiatives, which the company paired back in January after criticism from conservatives and the White House.
At the same time, Target has faced backlash from progressives.
The Pride Reporter reported in July that many black Americans were boycotting large retailers including Target and Amazon, while a petition drive earlier in the year gathered more than 250,000 signatures from customers, promising to stop shopping at Target.
The cultural battles intensified with the release of Pride merchandise in 2023, including children's items and tuck friendly swimsuits, which triggered a conservative lead boycott.
That campaign, combined with a resurface 2015 advertisement featuring children in a Pride Month promotion, fueled further outrage.
The video, which ends with the line We're not born with pride, we take pride in celebrating who we were born to be, has circulated widely online in recent weeks, renewing criticism from opponents.
It is never a good idea to have children involved with LGBT stuff because children are not sexual beings.
That should be something that is as obvious as any other obvious thing, as plain as the nose on my face, right?
Like it is super simple.
You do not, a business, nobody should be sexualizing children.
And the LGBT lobby, the LGBT groups, that is their whole existence is based on sexualization.
That's why people had such a legitimate and negative reaction to things like LGBT story or drag queen storytime.
Why does a drag queen want to read stories to children?
Like the children don't need a drag queen to read stories to them.
Why are drag queens demanding access to children?
The response from the parents was correct.
This is insane.
raymond g stanley-jr
They look like fairies.
I mean, answer your question.
They look like weird, crazy beings in this world.
phil labonte
They look like monsters to me.
brett dasovic
So like you're going to go outside a Target right now and there's going to be people celebrating.
There's going to be like a conservative person and like a blue haired person.
They're both going to be be cheering for the demise of Target.
It's the first time they've had something in common in a long time.
raymond g stanley-jr
But it's not blue hair, it's apparently black Americans.
brett dasovic
I mean, I saw a lot of different progressive people for a long time have been talking about boycotting Target because of their rolling back of DEI policies.
phil labonte
She was painting.
I got this, just got this from Kellen, sorry.
brett dasovic
Of course she was.
She had the paint roll.
raymond g stanley-jr
Wait, wait.
phil labonte
She was, she knows?
Yeah, she was actually, she was actually painting.
brett dasovic
You know, hopefully.
Wait, seriously, or was that AI?
phil labonte
Kellen sent it?
theresa payton
Yeah.
brett dasovic
Okay, if it's real, then she did like three, she did this three times and then the day photo.
phil labonte
I think it's real.
Hold on, I'll send it to Surge.
raymond g stanley-jr
But Target's not a big, it's always suburban white women I've ever seen there.
That's what Target is, and that's what it's always been.
I don't know if you have any opinions on Target.
Do you shop at Target for yourself and your young kids?
theresa payton
It's not my, it's not my go-to place.
I mean, I go there if I have to, but typically I Shop at Surge.
Like if I need school supplies, we typically pick Walmart first over Target.
raymond g stanley-jr
You have good decor.
You have ever gone to the core section?
theresa payton
Of Target?
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, yeah.
That's the best thing.
theresa payton
I have been in there.
They have the Chip and Joanna Gaines stuff is in the home decor section, right?
unidentified
I don't know.
raymond g stanley-jr
I think there's a little controversy with that.
theresa payton
I'm not a bit like, yeah.
brett dasovic
Yeah, like it's, I mean, Target's been rolling, like, has had problems.
I'm guessing Amazon played a huge role in Target's seeming to have a business too more than anything.
phil labonte
Like, do you think it's more than the boycotts and stuff?
unidentified
Yeah, oh yeah.
brett dasovic
I mean, I I tend to feel like, like, outside of Bud Light, it feels like every boycott falls very, very flat most of the time.
phil labonte
It's, it's real man.
raymond g stanley-jr
Oh really?
brett dasovic
You know, like, she did that twice, and then she's like, get this thing off me.
raymond g stanley-jr
Maybe she's got an extension, bro.
brett dasovic
She's like, did you get the photo?
I got the photo.
phil labonte
She is the best, she's my favorite cosplayer.
unidentified
Yeah.
brett dasovic
She is.
She is.
phil labonte
She really is.
brett dasovic
She wears a skin suit of ten thousand different jobs.
unidentified
I love it.
phil labonte
I love her.
brett dasovic
In full makeup, every time.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yes, yes.
The South Park nailed it for her.
brett dasovic
Yeah.
Well, there you go.
phil labonte
But the, so the, the stuff about Target, right, like they're getting hit from both sides because there were, first there were the people that were, in my opinion, legitimately, yeah, legitimately outraged about the LGBT stuff that they were putting up.
A lot of the, the artists that they had designing some of the LGBT stuff for, again, for that were for children, right?
I don't think the tux stuff was actually the tux swimsuits that they were talking about.
I don't think that was actually for children, but they were on sale near the children's stuff.
But like the the designs, there was some really questionable designs that the artist had done in other contexts as well.
And of course, people went and they found it.
A lot of it was a lot of Satanist stuff and a lot of a lot of some really, really things that like, look, I'm a 50-year-old guy that's like, I'm from, I'm in a metal band and my background is in some of the most offensive death metal from the 90s.
So it doesn't shock me.
But, you know, when you're dealing with parents that have children at Target and they're bu going to buy stuff.
They're going to be selective about what kind of things they want to see their kids on.
And it makes sense.
Where is that thing you had, Serge?
theresa payton
That was No, you're right.
Because I mean, when you do go into a Target for school supplies, because you get the list, this is back to school time, right?
And so, and I don't know when this display was happening, but typically when you walk in the front door, to the left is where the children's section usually is, is towards the front.
And you have to walk past the children's section to get to the school supplies, usually, at least the stores in North Carolina.
brett dasovic
I just feel like, look, post pandemic, people were, people were kind of.
programmed out of shopping in stores.
Amazon has taken over a huge amount of the marketplace.
I just feel like that more than these boycotts, which I bet you if you went on the street tomorrow and you asked a bunch of normies like what they think of Target, they're not going to bring up tucking swimsuits and they're not going to bring up DEI policies, they're going to say, I go to Amazon.
phil labonte
No, well, I tell you, it is true, but I do think like Target's delivery service, like it is every bit as fast and as quality as Amazon.
Amazon's easier because of the app, I think.
But the service from Target is very good.
So from the post millennium, they were saying at the same time, Target has has faced backlash from the progressives.
The Guardian reported in July that many black Americans were booking, boycotting large retailers including Target and Amazon.
While a petition drive earlier in the year gathered more than 250,000 signatures to stop to 250,000 signatures from consumers pledging to stop shopping at Target.
Look, that's a lot of the boycott against the ending of DEI stuff.
Yes, right.
So progressives are saying, look, if you're not going to basically, you know, use unfair hiring practices, we're not going to shop at your store.
I don't imagine just because of numbers, right?
The number of people that would be shopping at Target, like the number of black Americicans that there are in comparison to the number of white and Hispanic and Asian Americans.
I don't think that this is actually a compelling boycott.
This is probably something that they're going to make a bunch of noise about, but I can't imagine that this actually has an effect on the sales that Target has.
brett dasovic
It does better for your internet engagement if you want to talk about this stuff than it does actually affect their bottom line for the most part.
At least I would imagine that that's true.
raymond g stanley-jr
And knowing just black people in general, they are not LGBTQ AI plus friendly.
phil labonte
Yeah.
raymond g stanley-jr
They are, you know, they are that is not their cup of tea.
So if they're going to boycott Target, it would be more for the Tuck friendly, for them walking into the stores.
If they go into the stores ever, it says Trans people exists, we are here now, today.
brett dasovic
And it's like, it's a petition.
It's like a change.org petition has changed exactly zero things in the history of the world.
So I don't think people are buying that.
I think that the internet becoming a more prominent place to shop has taken more of that.
unidentified
Yeah.
raymond g stanley-jr
Well, we've got to.
theresa payton
Thank you, right?
Well, and isn't the American consumer pulling back a little?
Have there been some discussions around buy now pay later plans and also, you know, pulling back a little on spending.
So I wonder if we compared Target in store sales to Walmart in store sales and other kinds of similar retail, if that's down.
And I think you're right, the online shopping, it's a thing.
So there are certain things that people are just going to buy online now because they got used to it during the pandemic.
brett dasovic
Well, yeah, and like a big part of the selling point point for women, like for women, was like, we go for one thing and I leave with two hundred dollars worth of stuff, right?
But if they're not going to the store at all anymore because they're staying home and they're buying their stuff there, I mean, certainly, you'll still get the ones that go do that, but just not in the numbers that you were getting before.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, freaking broads.
brett dasovic
Thank you for that, I think that would help out.
phil labonte
Yeah, I think we've got time for one more.
Do we have time for one more story here?
I'm not sure that I don't know.
Well, let's dive into it real quick.
From the New York Post, ex Space Force Sergeant Oris Shure sentenced to fifty four years in prison for fatally shooting suspected teen car thief.
A former U.S. Space Force sergeant who fired multiple rounds at two suspected car jackers outside his home killing a fourteen year old has been sentenced to over half a century in jail.
Oris Shure, twenty nine, became emotional as he apologized for murdering fourteen year old Xavier Kirk before he was sentenced to fifty four years in prison for the twenty twenty three fatal shooting, the Adams Broomfield County's District Attorney's Office announced.
I'm sorry for the events that occurred that night, for the pain, for the grief, and trauma that have followed, and for the impact that my case had on so many lives, a tearful Shurr told Aurora, Colorado courtroom on August 15.
The deadly shooting also left a thirteen year old hospitalized.
Shurr, a technical sergeant with the U.S. Space Force based in Aurora, was awakened by a car alarm outside his apartment at eleven PM, july fifth, twenty twenty three.
The then twenty seven year old grabbed a pistol, ran outside to his Hyundai Elantro where he spotted two people dressed in all black attempting to break into the car.
Shur confronted the individuals, but the would be carjackers fled in another car.
The sergeant gave chase in his car and fired multiple rounds at the teens.
The fleeing car crashed into the backyard fence of a home four blocks south of Shur's residence.
Kirk and his teen accomplices hopped out of the damaged car and began running away as Shur continued to fire.
Kirk was found suffering from a gunshot wounds to the head and back.
He was transported to a local hospital and pronounced dead.
The thirteen year old who was driving the getaway car was shot in the back and managed to get to a relative's house before being brought to the hospital and survived.
Shur was arrested after the shooting and charged with first degree murder and first degree attempted murder.
A juror found the discharged Space Force sergeant guilty of the lesser crimes of second degree murder and second degree attempted murder on june sixteenth.
During the trial, Shur claimed the two potential carjackers had shot first and he was acting in self defense.
Investigators found eleven shell casings were fired all by Shur included there was no evidence that either teen was armed during the robbery.
Adams County District Court Judge Karen Datz argued the trained military sergeant should have known not to take lethal action.
CBS News, Colorado reported the former sergeant faced up to eighty years in jail.
This was a vigilante violence at its worst and now a young man is dead, said Adams and Broomfield County District Attorney Brian Mason.
The defendant took the law into his own hands, chased down a fleeing vehicle, and opened fire on its occupants.
A fourteen year old boy will now never grow up because of the defendant's actions.
Kirk's family called out Shur during the hearing, questioning why he shot at unarmed boys.
What mister Shur did to my son and his friend to chase them down and execute him over a car that they didn't even take is ludicrous, Kirk's father told the courtroom.
Other relatives deflected from the teen's brazen attempt attempted car jacking to focus on Shur's shooting.
You know, kids make mistakes, and so I always teach my kids in my family like my nephews and nieces about consequences and repercussions, said another relative.
The outlet reported, We're not trying to excuse any wrongdoing of Xavier or wrong they were involved in.
The part that's messed up is Ori Sure's car was never stolen.
Look, obviously this guy had done, you know, it was a terrible idea to chase them down, shooting at them, driving down the road is a like that is begging for a problem.
It's begging for innocent people to get hurt.
It was terribly dangerous.
I'm not sure if fifty four years is the right sentence, but you know, look, he killed a kid.
I will say that I think that if there were more or more significant consequences to people that were, you know, to young kids that were breaking the law, this might not have happened because look, there are a lot of kids out there that actually break the law because they say, look man, nothing's going to happen to me.
I'm a kid.
I'm a teen.
And there are people that are, and not that this is one of those cases.
I don't, I don't, I don't think that this is, this is indicative of this, but there are people out there that will have kids go do things because they're young.
Because if they get caughtht, the, uh, it will be wiped from their record when they turn eighteen.
So it's really using children to violate the law, uh, you know, and it's using them, manipulating them into doing things that they shouldn't be doing that will only make them into or only make them more likely to commit crime in the future.
Do you guys have a sense that this is that this is something that that do you think that he he got the sentence he deserved or I mean, I think long prison terms for the kids is going to put them into the criminal industrial complex forever anyways.
brett dasovic
So, I mean, as we know, like once once once you're once you're once you have a felony on your record, it's very, very hard to get out from under that if you try to go back to being a standing member of society.
54 years was for what?
It was for the it was for the second degree murder.
So for second degree murder with and the one kid died but the other one didn't.
phil labonte
One kid died, one kid did not, did not, yes.
brett dasovic
That's I mean, that's awful.
Like he shouldn't have, like he shouldn't have chased them down.
And I'm sure that there's going to be some people saying along the lines of what you're saying, but once they're off your property and this isn't something like castle doctrine, this is not something that most people are going to be able to find defensible in any way.
raymond g stanley-jr
And then a lot of folks will like say, hey, this white guy shot these kids.
unidentified
Yeah.
raymond g stanley-jr
So he's getting more prison time.
But like you're saying, like we're all like we're all thinking like the dude chase to the kids.
brett dasovic
He's also responsible for his own actions.
Yeah, he chased the freaking guy.
Yeah, they were stupid.
They shouldn't have been doing that.
But the second you leave your property and you go after this, you're begging the consequences.
Bro, relax.
And anyone who owns firearms will tell you that that's a great responsibility to carry.
And if you're going out and doing this, like, what was his sight line?
Could he even see what was in front of him?
What if his bullet had passed?
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, look, I don't know.
Look, I don't know exactly how trained this guy is, but it's not like Space Force.
brett dasovic
It said Space Force.
I was like, did they steal a spaceship?
Is that relevant to this story?
raymond g stanley-jr
I mean, that's a big deal, though.
And that would be all, you know what I mean?
phil labonte
Look, it like just moving and shooting isoting and getting accurate hits on a target that's, you know, even if you're only 10 yards, 15 yards away, if you're walking like that, that's not super easy.
Like it's actually fairly difficult to be accurate with a handgun, which is a 3.5, 4 inch barrel, you know, and to be able to hit your target consistently.
So driving, it's not the movies.
You know, the idea that you're going to sit there and have a handgun out the window and drive with the other hand and make accurate shots, like that's just not happening.
raymond g stanley-jr
I looked up to see if he was drinking.
Like, why would you chase these people people down the street?
I mean, they went to steal, and the family says they didn't steal a car, which is a stupid argument.
They were going to steal the car, so don't use that argument, family.
Well, they shouldn't be dead, by the way.
But yeah, that's a terrible argument.
But what, why is he chasing these people down the street, shooting at them?
I don't get, you know, bro.
theresa payton
It's awful.
I mean, he should have called 911.
Yeah.
He could have, if he wanted to, take matters into his own hands, he should have taken photographs, video, you know, whatever.
But getting in a car with a weapon and shooting while driving.
raymond g stanley-jr
Wait, he was in a car?
I missed that part.
theresa payton
He was driving after them.
So he hopped in his own car and drove, and I'm like, what do you think they, what do you think you're doing?
Who do you think you are?
And again, like the casual, we have a life lost.
He's going to spend all this time in jail.
We have a family who had to bury their child, and so, arguably, they were doing something wrong and he, you know, his kids need rehabilitation.
You know, the the kid that lived, people need to watch out for him and help him along so that he can not have a life of crime.
But he could have, like, the devastation could have been much worse.
Yeah.
He could have hit all kinds of bystanders doing this.
And so for, I mean, I think they had to say he's going to spend basically the rest of his life in jail because you can't have people taking matters into their own hands like that.
brett dasovic
And those are like two, like what Phil brought up before about like if the punishments were more severe for the kids.
So like, those are, they're vastly separate discussions.
And just the fact that he went after them is where most people are going to draw their line.
You know, you could have a whole discussion about people who get shot when they break into your home.
And everyone here and most rational people are going to say, well, you broke into another person's home.
What the hell did you expect to happen, right?
But the second, and again, this is a different nuanced discussion where the second you leave the property, the immediate threat to your own life is gone, is no longer there, and it becomes a completely different situation in the eyes of the law.
So, like, to me, the discussion about the deterrence about their, you know, if they were charged at a higher rate or maybe charged as adults, that seems kind of small in comparison to what this guy actually did, which was something vastly different than most people are going to accept.
phil labonte
You mentioned call 911.
I do wonder if the fact that police, you know, they don't solve crimes anymore, and I do wonder if police actually put any effort into.
into trying to figure out who does this stuff.
It's my sense that if most people don't expect the police to do anything.
unidentified
Yeah.
phil labonte
Generally, right?
Like if you ask people, what do you think the cops are going to do?
They're just like, I'm not going to do anything.
Yeah.
And a lot of cops will tell you that, especially the, especially the larger the city or the, the municipality that you're in.
If you're dealing with a big, big town, like, I mean, if this is actually in Boulder, they're not doing anything.
The cops would be like, you called and two kids tried to steal my car.
Did they take your car?
No.
Why are you calling us?
And that's part of the problem.
brett dasovic
Yeah, that's the problem too.
phil labonte
The dismissiveness of the police department.
Why are you calling us?
We're not going to, your car didn't get taken.
The fact that people feel like they're just waiting to be victimized.
Now again, this guy totally broke the law, he went way, way beyond anything reasonable.
But I do think that it's probably because that's kind of the feeling of all we're doing is waiting to be victimized and the police don't do anything.
The police don't prevent crime.
They don't try to solve crimes.
They don't try to go after the people.
and it probably boils down to more the district attorneys and the judicial branch than the actual law enforcement because not prosecuting.
Yeah, not prosecuting, letting kids go, letting people go because I'm sure he didn't know exactly how old this kid was.
He wasn't sure that he was a young person, but they're going to look at this and say, look, the cops don't do anything.
That's just the fact of the matter.
The cops aren't going to do anything.
They're not stopping the crime.
They're not picking up kids.
The kids that do get picked up, they don't actually, and nothing happens to them because they're just kids or because they're soft on crime DAs.
Because, you know, I think that's likely what this guy was thinking and it doesn't, doesn't make anything better.
But do you guys think that there's any policy that can fix this aside from people trying to get better DAs?
And if that is the case, how do you get better DAs?
raymond g stanley-jr
This happened under Joe Biden in 2023, the great unifier, and Joe Biden would have told him to shoot him in the legs.
brett dasovic
That's exactly what you should have done.
phil labonte
Shoot him in the air.
Yeah, I mean, like, so, yeah, I don't, I don't see how, how there's, how this is going to change unless you get proper law enforcement.
and that includes, you know, the judicial side.
raymond g stanley-jr
I know it's super tech, Tom, real quick, but yeah, you need consequences and you need consequences for people's actions.
brett dasovic
Well, so if these, how old were they again?
phil labonte
One was 14 and 13 or something?
brett dasovic
15 and 13, so they would have been prosecuted for worse.
raymond g stanley-jr
13, sorry.
brett dasovic
If they had been arrested, if he had called the police, done everything as he was supposed to be, the police magically appear in ten seconds just as they're pulling out of his garageway.
They're getting arrested for what?
Grand Theft Auto?
raymond g stanley-jr
No, is that even?
brett dasovic
Like, it's just auto theft?
I did.
No, I'm saying, like, if it actually had, if it had gone that way, they stole the car, they're backing out of his garageway.
The police pull up, you're under arrest.
They're in jail for what, two, three years?
raymond g stanley-jr
I think they might be let off because they're young.
brett dasovic
Because is it bullying?
The best thing you can hope for is that they end up in jail for a couple of years rather than just not being prosecuted at all.
Theoretically then supposedly they learn the error of their ways while in jail and that's like the best you can hope for because they're minors.
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, if you don't have proper law enforcement and that includes prosecution and jail, then you're going to have a population that feels like they're not going to be protectedcted by the state and they'll want to take the law into their own hands.
And I mean, there is an argument that can be made that's like, look, if people don't do feel like they can defend their own property.
And again, not in this context.
unidentified
Yeah.
phil labonte
This context is, it's clear you do just chasing people down the street.
But if, if, if a society says, look, if you try to steal people's stuff, you know, then you're going, you're risking some kind of self-defense situation, right?
If you're, what everyone knows that if you go into someone's house, that, you know, like you said, it's generally thought of.
But even that, there are some states where you're not, you can't New Jersey,sey, Massachusetts, I don't know about California, but if you go into someone's home in certain states, you have to retreat, leave the house if you can leave and get out.
brett dasovic
And that happens a lot with people when you get your concealing carrier, right?
Because they have to talk about it in many states.
Like, even if you have a justifiable threat against your life, if you get a DA that wants to, they'll prosecute anyway.
phil labonte
Yeah, yeah.
brett dasovic
People don't feel like they can defend themselves.
phil labonte
Yeah, no matter what happens, you're probably going, if you have to use your handgun or your gun in a self defense situation, even if it's in your own house, you're probably going to have to get arrested.
They're probably going to take that weapon from you.
They might take all your guns while you are while the process is ongoing, right?
So nobody really wants to use a gun in their in their house because the government will is going to do government things.
Now you can defend yourself and be found not guilty of murder or maybe they'll find that it was justifiable, but you're still going to have to pay a boatload of money, right?
Like you're still going to have to pay a quarter of a million dollars in legal fees and and lawyer fees.
theresa payton
Reputation.
phil labonte
Yeah.
You know, I mean, it's it's it's not good to have to defend yourself in court ever.
It's not good to ever have to defend yourself from a viol violent attacker, but it is better than ending up dead.
brett dasovic
In the context in that story specifically, that kind of hypothetical has really demoralized a lot of people.
Yeah.
They feel like the criminals are better protected than your average, everyday working class citizen.
phil labonte
Yeah.
And that's, I think, that this is emblematic of that, whereas even though he did the wrong thing, broke, broke plenty of laws, and it's probably justified that he goes to jail, that doesn't change the fact that he probably felt like this was justified because the government wasn't going to do anything for him.
Yeah.
raymond g stanley-jr
And if the AG and everyone keeps going on this path, I think I said a couple of years ago, vigilantes, vigilantes are going to be on the rise.
brett dasovic
It was like the couple outside of their house with the guns with the horrible sugar discipline.
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, one of them was a real gun.
raymond g stanley-jr
Wait, what?
No, that was a fake.
Was like a letter?
phil labonte
No, his AR was real, but her whatever handgun she had wasn't a real gun.
If it was, if it was a real gun, it was a disabled gun.
Like there was something that, like it was a plugged barrel or something.
raymond g stanley-jr
I didn't know that.
phil labonte
Okay, I think we're going to go to super chats right now.
So smash the like button, share the show with all your friends, head on over to rumble dot com and become a member there so you can join us for the afters show, which is uncensored, and we can say things that we're not allowed to say on YouTube.
And also go over to timcast.com and become a member of the Discord, so that way you can call in, talk to our guests, talk to the panel.
You can also find like minded individuals, you can meet people in the Discord, there's a bunch of rooms, there's a bunch of podcasts that have got started there.
There's probably four or five different podcasts.
There's pre shows, there's after shows, there's late shows that are all Timcast members, and maybe you'll meet a significant other.
I think we got three people that are married that have met in the Discord.
So, wow.
theresa payton
Wow, it's better than dating apps.
phil labonte
It is.
It is.
It's not a hookup.
raymond g stanley-jr
It's a successful rate.
phil labonte
Yeah, it's not about just hooking up or swiping.
No, we're not looking.
We're not looking to facilitate hookups, even if Raymond is down Marine.
But right now we're going to head on.
We're going to go to Super Chats.
There is one guy that sent us a boatload of Super Chats.
Thank you, Eric Shaver.
We're not reading them because there's so many of them, but you sent like six or something like that, or you sent them on both YouTube and Rumble.
So we saw them and we appreciate your.
brett dasovic
Is he having trouble yester yesterday on the show.
There was all sorts of funny business going on.
phil labonte
No, no, no.
I think he just passed through.
I think that he just had money that he wanted to part with or something.
So, uh, my Venmo, it, no, I'm just joking.
Yeah, there you go.
unidentified
Perfect.
raymond g stanley-jr
It reminds you of myself back in 2023.
phil labonte
From, uh, from Conrad Marcinic, is that it, Marc Marcinic anyways you can say my name why are we not talking about arming and mandating it that all schools should have proper security we have the votes seems like reps want to moan rather than get the real thing done Republicans do want to moan that is generally the truth I think that the Democrats generally say things like oh we don't wantt want guns around our kids and
play up the idea that kids are going to be scarred.
One of the things that they like to say is things like, oh, look, if kids see guns, they're not going to be able to learn.
The part of the way that they got no guns in school zones, one of the, and I don't know that it was, it may not have been actually, it may not have been successful, but they were trying this argument.
They said, look, the government's lawyers said, look, we don't think that people should be allowed to exercise their Second Amendment if you're in a school zone because if kids are in a in a school and there are people that have guns around this will affect their ability to learn and their ability learn means that that will directly affect interstate commerce.
They use the commerce clause as justification to prohibit guns from from school zones.
So now again, I don't recall if they were successful, but that's what the government likes to do.
They like to say, look, the commerce clause, that's the thing.
And the argument of, you know, kids are so sensitive and if they see guns, that's an argument.
they've used before, and it's the argument that Democrats make as to why you don't want armed guards around schools.
So let's see.
CVA Buck says, I'm a computer engineer at a nuclear plant.
It's worse than you think.
Big data is building next to rural nuclear plants and poaching employees for significant raises and mortgage level sign-on bonuses.
raymond g stanley-jr
Oh, wow.
phil labonte
I would like to know more what you're talking about.
Hold on a second.
He said big data is building next to rural nuclear plants and poaching.
What kind of employees would a big data center be poaching from a nuclear plant.
unidentified
I mean, maintenance or maybe to build their own small nuclear that could be.
theresa payton
plant to power just the data center so they have their own source.
raymond g stanley-jr
And I'm not talking janitors, I mean like real maintenance, no offense.
phil labonte
But even well, I mean just when you said maintenance, I'm thinking like, are you going to give a maintenance person a house?
Oh, yeah.
A bonus that's a bonus.
brett dasovic
Hey, you got those $80,000 sign on bonuses for DC police.
phil labonte
$250,000 sign on bonus.
You can buy a house.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, with the trades going down the ish, bro, I can tell you from first hand, maintenance is a.
It's a good paying job if you know what you're doing in the industrial world.
serge du preez
Yeah, so straight up.
So read this one right here, this one right directly underneath that.
phil labonte
Sovereign Fish says, everyone on the show is literally just talking to each other in headphones right now.
serge du preez
Headlines.
phil labonte
Headlines right now.
They're putting on Dunning Kruger Clinic.
They're laughably off base on the data center power consumption.
serge du preez
Okay.
Yeah, like, I'm just pointing out, like, yeah, we don't, we don't, we're asking questions and like trying to learn more about it.
We don't know about it.
That's the point.
Yeah, of course we're off base.
Like, we're not experts in that field.
phil labonte
Thank you for the $10.
unidentified
Yeah.
serge du preez
Thank you.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah, my, my background is data center analysis.
unidentified
Yeah.
phil labonte
Yeah, I'm not sure what I'm not sure what he's expecting.
theresa payton
I mean, the thing is, all Americans are going to be impacted if we don't have the right energy policy.
So that really is what it comes down to.
So if we don't have the right energy policy, we're not going to be an economic power as it relates to technology.
That's and if we aren't going to open up our energy policy and we pursue our ambitions around being a technology powerhouse in the world, then small business, hospitals, residential areas could potentially suffer because our power sources can't handle it all.
So I think that's the impact that it has.
raymond g stanley-jr
Boom, Theresa got it.
phil labonte
Yeah, I mean, it's like we were saying earlier, like power generation is probably the most important thing that the United States, the federal government should be doing when it comes to infrastructure because without being able to generate enough power, we're not going to be able to compete against China when it comes to AI.
And AI is the actual, it's going to be the biggest thing definitely in all of our lives.
So, let's see here.
Shane H. Wilder says Texas redistricting bill passed 88 to 52.
Texas Dems are already preparing for lawsuits on the basis of race, which will go nowhere since the lawsuit for the 2021 redistricting still hasn't been heard.
Look, I mean, if they vote for it, right, if the legislature votes for it, I don't understand how they think that they'd be able to undo it considering there's no basis for this being a race issue.
raymond g stanley-jr
Is that why they left in the first place back a couple of years ago?
Well, I keep bringing up that Chet was telling me that, you know, 50 people left.
Was that because of the 2021 redistricting or something?
phil labonte
Well, they were, they were, yeah.
Well, I don't know if it was redistricting, to be honest with you.
I'm not sure.
raymond g stanley-jr
I'm looking it up.
But yeah, he's got a good point.
The shame now is Texas.
So they got to get, basically like with the Congress and Trump, he could do all the EOs he wants to do.
But if Congress doesn't do it, then the next guy, Gavin Newsom, F his face, will change it.
phil labonte
I identify as tax exempt, says, More importantly than the number of people that left California is the wealth that left with them.
Absolutely.
of the things that that conservatives or one of the arguments conservatives always make when it comes to raising taxes when people are like oh you should tax billionaires.
There shouldn't be billionaires, et cetera.
They'll just leave.
And the idea that they're not going to leave is ridiculous.
You want, I mean, if you're, if you're going to tell Elon Musk that, that you're going to tax his, you're tax his business, what you're really telling him is we're going to nationalize your businesses.
We're going to take your business from you, right?
And he's done nothing wrong other than be successful.
Do you think that the federal government is going to be able to run Tesla?
Do you think the federal government could run SpaceX?
Obviously not.
They had NASA.
raymond g stanley-jr
They'll fail in like five, ten years, bro.
phil labonte
Yeah.
You know, they're not going to be able to run.
I don't want them running X. I don't want them, I don't, I mean, actually, to be honest with you, I don't really care if they run the boring company because as of right now, I'm not sure the utility of the boring company.
But look, Elon Musk is way smarter than me and I'm sure he's got a great plan for the boring company.
So maybe it's just something I'm not seeing and I don't want the federal government running the boring company either.
raymond g stanley-jr
I don't want the federal government running PCC.
phil labonte
What?
brett dasovic
Yeah, that's valid.
phil labonte
You do?
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah.
unidentified
Yeah.
phil labonte
I don't know why.
But anyways, trucker 2019 says we don't need any more foreign immigrants in our country.
We need to kick out the ones we already have here and encourage our own people to have kids, not import them from the third world.
I agree.
I'm not sure that we need to kick out all foreign immigrants, but definitely illegal immigrants.
Those all of the illegal, the criminal aliens, they all need to go.
serge du preez
Do you check out his emoticon or whatever, the little, little, what do you call that?
phil labonte
Oh, he wants a little more than just kicking them out.
serge du preez
More than that.
It's a deep profile go.
phil labonte
Easy, Tiger, easy.
brett dasovic
Dude.
raymond g stanley-jr
Can we just kick out the older people and keep the young ones and then put them in the schools for learning for immigrants and or illegal education?
phil labonte
Kick them all the elderly.
brett dasovic
Do you want to put them in reeducation camps?
raymond g stanley-jr
Yes, yes, yes.
Thank you.
That's a great way to say it.
That's very politically correct.
phil labonte
Now they all need to go.
Let's see.
The truth A says in California, the state pays for the school and the instructor to give non-English speakers the answers to the CDL test.
Great news.
Yet people like me who know how to drive a semi have to pay 10k for school and take a legitimate class.
Isn't that absolutely disgusting?
They will actually...
brett dasovic
right?
There's also like, there's like 60 years of propaganda from Hollywood telling you that if you complain about someone not speaking English in America, you're a bad person.
Making you seem uncultured and stupid because someone is in your country speaking a language you don't speak.
And that's kind of burrowed its way into the mainstream average liberals' brains so that they don't look at policies like this having actual consequences for American citizens.
raymond g stanley-jr
Yeah.
And truckers are based.
They are, um, don't, don't listen to what Allah said last night.
If if you are driving.
your fruits and vegetables and whatnot to people in cities or whatever around the world, then you're valuable to the world, to the United States of America.
brett dasovic
What did Alad say?
raymond g stanley-jr
He's like he thinks we put truck drivers on a pedestal.
We put anyone who helps the American economy on a pedestal.
And they're one of them.
phil labonte
Yeah, all right, smash the like button.
raymond g stanley-jr
I actually want to add that in there for my buddy.
phil labonte
Go to rumble dot com and become a member there so you can watch the after show.
Go over to timcast dot com, become a member there so you can join our discord.
Theresa, do you have anything that you want to shout out?
theresa payton
No, it's just been a great conversation being here.
phil labonte
Your book?
theresa payton
Oh, sure.
phil labonte
Do you have a Twitter account?
theresa payton
I do.
TrackerPayton is my Twitter account.
phil labonte
Talk about your book a little bit?
theresa payton
Oh, sure.
So, Manipulated Inside the Cyber War to hijack elections and distort the truth.
It's about manipulation campaigns.
It's not just about elections.
It's all different types of social issues, how AI algorithms, deepfakes, and other things kind of permeate their way around the world and impact how we talk to each other.
raymond g stanley-jr
That book sounds very interesting, to be honest.
The manipulation campaign around what's going on today, it's very prevalent.
theresa payton
Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, propaganda has been around the world since there were two people walking on Earth, but it's been interesting to see how it evolves at speed and scale.
You know, back in the day, like Russia, for example, used to have to try to embed people in America and see over a long period of time whether or not things worked, and now anyone, not just Russia, but anyone can post things on social media and see through clicks and likes and mentions whether or not a propaganda campaign is actually working.
raymond g stanley-jr
Urah, pleasure hanging out.
I'm Raymond G. Stanley Jr., follow me on X, Raymond G. Stanley, Let's Go, team.
Go Timcast IRL.
Go Tim, go Phil, go., Brett, go, search, go miss.
brett dasovic
Thank you.
Guys, if you want to follow me, I'm on Instagram and on X at Brett Dasivik on both those platforms.
But what you should do is hang out with me and Mary.
We do Pop Culture Crisis Monday through Friday, 15:00 Eastern Standard Time, which is of course noon Pacific, we're on YouTube and Rumble.
See there, guys.
phil labonte
I am Phil that remains on Twix.
The band is all that remains.
You can check the band on YouTube, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Spotify, Pandora, and Deezer.
Don't forget the left lane is for crime.
We will see you all in the after show.
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