S598 - Gas Company CAVED, Pays $5M Ransom To Restart Gas Pipeline, Biden Blames RUSSIANS As Gas prices Rise
Gas Company CAVED, Pays $5M Ransom To Restart Gas Pipeline, Biden Blames RUSSIANS As Gas prices Rise. The FBI Advises against paying ransom but it is done and will get worse.
Joe Biden made the announcement that it was Russian hackers who did it but said the russian government was not involved, Putin denied involvement.
Democrats may have won power in the last election but clearly are not capable of dealing with these major crises
Gas shortages, inflation, migrant crisis, middle eastern conflict and a president seemingly to befuddled to deal with it
#GasHack
#GasShortage
#Inflation
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Colonial Pipeline has paid the ransom $5 million to get the pipeline restarted, and it is restarted.
Joe Biden says this is the work of Russians, but not the Russian government.
In our next story, we are closed.
Nobody wants to work trends as more and more people are walking off the job thanks to Joe Biden's policy of paying people not to work.
And in our last story, Ohio is offering $1 million in a lottery for people who get vaccinated as creepy mainstream establishment political endeavors ensue, desperate to get people to take the vaccine.
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Now, Let's get into that first story.
The company that got hacked in the ransomware, Colonial, which resulted in the shutdown of
the largest oil pipeline in the country, has paid a $5 million ransom in hard-to-trace
cryptocurrencies.
My friends, this is shockingly bad.
They caved.
Now news is the pipeline is restarting.
That's good.
It'll take several days to get the supply lines back moving again.
Some of the gas stations that were previously out of gas are starting to start back up.
And it does seem a lot of what was going on was panic buying.
But my friends, this is just, it's just not good.
Joe Biden has come out and said that we have new information on the hackers.
They are Russians!
Though they're not operating for the Russian government, and Vladimir Putin has denied any involvement, giving in to the hackers' demands is just bad across the board.
Already we're hearing this hacking group has more victims in line, and when the largest pipeline in the U.S.
is shut down, and we see gas shortages across the country, and then they cave in pay, it shows the hacking works.
Our critical infrastructure is in serious jeopardy.
I just think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
And surprise, surprise, we now have 124 retired former military officials, generals, coming out and saying that Joe Biden is mentally unfit.
They're questioning the integrity of our electoral system.
And I'm not surprised.
Now, I'm not going to blame Joe Biden because this company caved and paid the ransom.
But when you pay the ransom, it only ensures they do it again.
What's to stop them from just infecting the machine again every month?
Here we go.
Gas shortages were already expected.
Gas prices are already up.
And the United States has bent the knee to Russian hackers.
There you go.
So don't be surprised when we get more shortages.
Don't be surprised when Democrats call for shutting down more pipelines.
And don't be surprised if Joe Biden is unable to handle the complex circumstances that are facing this nation.
Now, look, there were many other retired officials, many more, who said Donald Trump was not fit as well.
At the very least, I can say to the left and the right, the argument, I suppose, from both sides then would be no matter what, we're screwed.
Now, I personally would have thought Donald Trump would be doing a better job because at least he was brash.
At least he had demands.
Joe Biden is just not there.
He's unfit.
I suppose the left's view of Donald Trump was that he was too erratic.
Well, maybe erratic would have been better than weak, because now we're also hearing stories about internet outages in some places, and this just goes to show that hackers can get away with what they do, and the United States will cave, and our critical infrastructure is vulnerable.
Let's read this story.
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All right, here's the big breaking news.
Now, I want to stress before we get started, listen, there are a bunch of culture war stories everybody's talking about.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, AOC, this, that, or otherwise.
There's some story from The Intercept smearing a bunch of reporters known as the Riot Squad.
I'd love to give you the shock content of culture war stuff, but I think it's important we talk about what's impacting the United States, and we have to talk about this for sure.
Bloomberg reports Colonial Pipeline paid hackers nearly $5 million in ransom.
They say Colonial Pipeline paid $5 million to Eastern European hackers on Friday, contradicting reports earlier this week that the company had no intention of paying an extortion fee to help restore the country's largest fuel pipeline, according to two people familiar with the transaction.
The company paid the hefty ransom in difficult-to-trace cryptocurrency within hours after the attack.
Underscoring the immense pressure faced by the Georgia-based operator to get gasoline and jet fuel flowing again to major cities along the eastern seaboard, those people said.
A third person familiar with the situation said U.S.
government officials are aware that Colonial made the payment.
Once they received the payment, the hackers provided the operator with a decrypting tool to restore its disabled computer network.
The tool was so slow that the company continued using its own backups to help restore the system, one of the people familiar with the company's efforts said.
A representative from Colonial declined to comment, as did a spokesperson for the National Security Council.
Colonial said it began to resume fuel shipments around 5 p.m.
Eastern Time Wednesday.
The hackers, which the FBI said are linked to a group called DarkSide, specialize in digital extortion and are believed to be located in Russia or Eastern Europe.
Joe Biden made a statement.
We'll get to that in a second.
On Wednesday, media outlets including the Washington Post and Reuters, also based on anonymous sources, reported the company had no immediate intention of paying the ransom.
Apparently that was a lie because they had already done this.
I'll tell you what's funny.
It seems to have been a waste of time because apparently they had to use their own backups anyway.
Do not pay ransoms.
More importantly, our critical infrastructure is in shambles.
And this partly goes to Donald Trump's administration, for sure.
It partly goes to Obama's administration.
We needed to upgrade these systems a long, long time ago.
And it's just been neglected.
Now Joe Biden was in the Obama administration, so where were they when it came to updating this critical infrastructure?
As for Donald Trump, I can certainly say his administration didn't get it done either.
Joe Biden's only been in for four months.
We can certainly mention that Joe Biden's weakness is going to help exacerbate these problems.
But it should have been any one of the previous administrations who solved these problems.
Of course, Joe Biden was in one of the previous administrations, so I'm gonna throw it to him.
Not to mention, the incessant uproar from the media screaming out every little thing Trump did certainly impeded his ability to do his job.
And we said it a million times.
You got a guy flying the plane you don't like, don't make the plane crash because you don't like the guy.
Well, that's basically what we're seeing now.
They're going to say, ransomware is a type of malware that locks up a victim's files, which the attackers promise to unlock for a payment.
More recently, some ransomware groups have also stolen victims' data and threatened to release it unless paid, a kind of double extortion.
The FBI discourages organizations from paying ransom to hackers, saying there is no guarantee they will follow through on the promise to unlock files.
It also provides incentive to other would-be hackers, the agency said.
However, Anne Neuberger, the White House's top cybersecurity official, pointedly declined to say whether companies should pay cyber ransoms at a briefing earlier this week.
We recognize, though, that companies are often in a difficult position if their data is encrypted
and they do not have backups and cannot recover the data,"
she told reporters Monday.
Such guidance provides a quandary for victims who have to weigh the risks of not paying
with the costs of loss or exposed records.
The reality is that many choose to pay, in part because the cost may be covered if they
have cyber insurance policies.
They had to pay, said Andres Krehel, chief executive.
You want to die or you want to live.
digital forensics firm Lifars, a former cyber expert at Lowes Corp., which owns Boardwalk
Pipeline.
This is a cyber cancer.
You want to die or you want to live.
It's not a situation where you can wait.
Crail said a $5 million ransom for a pipeline was very low.
Ransom is usually around $25,000,000 or $35,000,000 for such a company.
I think the threat actor realized they stepped in the wrong company and triggered a massive government response.
A report released last month by a ransomware task force said the amount paid by victims increased 311% in 2020, reaching about $350,000,000 in cryptocurrency.
in 2020, reaching about $350 million in cryptocurrency. The average ransom paid by organizations in 2020
was $312,493 according to the report. Colonial, which operates the largest fuel pipeline in the
U.S., became aware of the hack around May 7th and shut down its operations, which led to fuel
shortages and lines at gas stations along the East Coast.
Now, according to ABC, the news is, as of today, Colonial Pipeline has restarted.
So this is good news.
People can stop panicking.
Don't buy gas.
Operations are going to be restored.
ABC reports, the Colonial Pipeline has been restarted following a multi-day shutdown in the wake of a ransomware attack.
Quote, Following this restart, it will take several days for the product delivery supply chain to return to normal.
The company said in a statement, Some markets served by Colonial Pipeline may experience or continue to experience intermittent service interruptions during the startup period.
Colonial will move as much gasoline, diesel, and jet fuel as is safely possible, and will continue to do so until markets return to normal.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said she had spoken to the company's CEO just prior to them restarting operations.
Colonial Pipeline transports approximately 45% of all fuel consumed on the East Coast.
The company said Saturday, it was the victim of a cyber attack, so this we all know.
Tonight's announcement means there's an end in sight for the supply disruptions that have affected states across the southeast.
The White House said in a statement late Wednesday night, President Biden and the White House will monitor the situation closely in the coming days and continue to urge Americans to just purchase what they need and not hoard fuel as supply is restored.
Now, people are hoarding fuel because they're not too bright.
And one guy's truck, I guess, his Hummer exploded.
I'll show you that story in a second.
But read what they said here.
The quote from the White House.
That today's announcement means that it'll end the supply disruptions.
What do you mean, it'll end the supply disruptions?
I thought they said there was no supply shortage.
I thought they said it was just people panic buying.
Now they're saying it was a supply disruption.
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They told you there were no long lines in the New York Times, remember?
They told you in the DHS there was no supply shortage.
There was no shortage of gasoline.
Many people were saying, it's just the people panicking that are ruining it for everyone.
And people continue to eat up the lies.
Now that they restarted the pipeline, they're like, oh, okay, that disruption in supply, it's back to normal.
But you told us there wasn't one!
You told us there wasn't a shortage.
Yeah, they're lying.
We know they're lying.
They know we know they're lying.
And we know they know we know they're lying.
That's the game, right?
And we all just keep playing along.
I forgot where that quote comes from.
But we know they're lying.
Now, Joe Biden has come out with a statement.
President Biden reveals new details of the pipeline hack.
This from vice.com.
They say, President Biden directly addressed the Colonial Pipeline hack in a White House speech Thursday, in a signal of both how serious the effects of the hacks have been and how hard ransomware has affected both critical infrastructure as well as public agencies and companies.
Notably, Biden said the U.S.
government does not believe the Russian government was involved in the hack, but said that the FBI currently believes the hackers live in Russia.
Quote, The FBI has released details on the attack, Biden said.
We do not believe the Russian government was involved in this attack, but we do have strong reason to believe the criminals who did the attack are living in Russia.
I am confident that I've read the report of the FBI accurately, and they say Putin was not involved, the government was not.
Now, I'm sorry.
How am I supposed to trust these people when they keep lying?
I'll tell you what I think may be the case.
It may be that Russia was involved as a government, and they're not going to tell us publicly out of fear that it would result in an escalation of political tensions and possibly war, because if the Russian government was involved, it could be an act of war.
But it's entirely possible that these hacking groups are funded or directed by the Russian government, much like the piracy in, you know, way back in the day.
Privateers, Corsairs, they would receive a letter of marque, basically giving them the ability to go and disrupt enemy supply lines, but here's the way it worked.
The government would say to a private ship, go and, you know, raid these other ships and blow them up, then we can deny responsibility.
I'm not saying that's true here, I'm just saying I don't trust the government.
And I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that Russia is doing all this crazy stuff, though I think it's naive to think that Russia, China, and, you know, other countries that we're in conflict with would not do these things.
They say in response to a reporter's question, Biden said he has not ruled out offensive cyber attacks against the hackers responsible, and said the government would take decisive action against ransomware networks.
Biden refused to comment on whether Colonial Pipeline paid a $5 million ransom.
There have been conflicting reports about whether or not the company paid a ransom.
On Thursday, Bloomberg reported the company paid the ransom hours after the attack.
A day earlier, Reuters said the company had no plan to pay the ransom.
Last week, they go on to explain what happened.
Now, Russia has denied any involvement, Reuters reports.
They say, well, okay, never mind.
Russia's embassy in the United States, very simple story, on Tuesday rejected speculation that Moscow had any responsibility for a ransomware cyber attack that has disrupted the activity of the U.S.' 's biggest gas pipeline.
Now here's where it gets bad.
They paid, reportedly, they paid the ransom immediately.
So all of this news we've been hearing, it was a lie.
That they were going to stand their ground, that they were going to solve the problem, that they were shutting down these systems to repair everything.
In reality, they immediately caved into the hackers.
The hackers knew what they were getting.
They had won.
CNBC reports, hacker group behind Colonial Pipeline attack claims it has three new victims.
It's going to keep happening.
CNBC reports.
Over the past 24 hours, the group posted the names of three new companies on its site on the dark web, called DarkSideLeaks.
The information posted to the site includes summaries of what the hackers appear to have stolen, but do not appear to contain raw data.
DarkSide is a criminal gang, and its claims should be treated as potentially misleading.
The posting indicates that the Hacker Collective is not backing down in the face of an FBI investigation and denunciations of the attack from the Biden administration.
It also signals that the group intends to carry out more ransom attacks on companies, even after it posted cryptic messages earlier this week indicating regret about the impact of the Colonial Pipeline hack and pledging to introduce moderation to avoid social consequences in the future.
Now, I believe that.
I do.
You see, this company wants to make money.
Or this company.
This group wants to make money.
They don't want to destroy anything.
Why?
They're trying to buy these things, right?
If they shut down a gas pipeline and it disrupts the economy, what are they going to buy with their money?
So, they take what they can get.
They say, we're not going to do that again.
That was a mistake.
But it does mean that other areas of our economy are going to be severely impacted.
It won't be something as critically important as oil.
But also notice they say, They were going to introduce moderation to avoid social consequences.
Apparently this group provided the malware to someone else.
I don't think this is going to stop.
I think the company has just proven it's going to get worse.
They say one of the companies is based in the US, one in Brazil, and a third is in Scotland.
For those that aren't familiar with what ransomware does, you get a virus on your computer, and then one day you get a pop-up saying, we are going to encrypt your entire computer unless you give us this money.
Basically turning your machine into a brick.
You can't do anything on, you'll lose everything.
Locks your computer essentially.
It basically encrypts the device unless you pay up.
So when you pay, they give you the password to prevent the encryption.
Unfortunately for many of these companies, they're ill-prepared to deal with this because these hacks are usually social engineering attacks.
What that means is they don't break into your computer.
They just get one of your dumb employees who doesn't understand this to infect your machine and then you're done.
And if you don't pay, they destroy your machine.
This is a problem that needs to be stopped, for sure.
They say, none of these companies that they've now hacked appear to be engaged in critical infrastructure.
Each company appears to be small enough that a crippling hack would otherwise fly under the radar if the hackers hadn't received worldwide notoriety by crippling gasoline supplies in the U.S.
You see what they're saying now?
CNBC is now saying that this group did cripple gas supplies in the U.S.
It is all lies, isn't it?
I'll tell you why they're lying.
Because, unfortunately, a lot of people are really dumb.
Let me just read a little bit.
They say, the US-based company is a tech services reseller based in Illinois.
DarkSide claims to have stolen more than 600 gigabytes of sensitive information, including passwords, financial information, HR information, and employee passports.
The Brazilian company is a reseller of renewable energy products, and DarkSide claims possession of more than 400 gigabytes of data.
The Scottish company is in the construction industry, and DarkSide claims to have stolen 900 gigabytes, including contracts, commercial, and personal data going back three years.
CNBC has contacted each of the companies for comment on the apparent ransomware attacks.
Let me tell you why they don't want you panicking.
Hummer catches fire after driver fills up four five-gallon gas cans in Citrus County in Florida.
Official cause is not yet determined.
A Hummer in Citrus County caught on fire Wednesday after the driver filled up four separate five-gallon gasoline containers.
According to fire rescue officials, the vehicles caught fire around 10.52 a.m., right after the driver filled up four gas containers at the Texaco food mart.
The Florida State Fire Marshal's office will determine the official cause of the fire.
Officials said one person in the vehicle was injured and refused transport for treatment against medical advice.
The fire was out by 1109 a.m.
Citrus County Fire Rescue says the Florida Department of Environmental Protection was notified and will coordinate cleanup of the fuel spill.
No other information is available at this time.
The situation comes amid problems with the gas pipeline.
This we all understand.
They say the gas pipeline supplies 45%.
You get it.
We were waiting for this story.
We knew this story was going to happen, didn't we?
I saw a photo of a lady with like a bin from Walmart just filling it up with gas.
What are you going to cover that with?
What are you going to do?
It's going to evaporate.
There's one video, or I'm sorry, photo, of a bunch of plastic bags full of gasoline.
And there's a bunch of photos of people filling up tons of multi-gallon canisters.
Don't do that.
Look, if people go and fill their cars up, I don't consider that panic.
If people start filling up... There's one photo where a guy's got like a thousand-gallon, you know, bin on a trailer hitch, and he's pouring gas into it, that's just insane.
What are you gonna do with that?
I guess he's gonna have gasoline for a long time.
It's only a matter of time before somebody set themselves on fire.
Now here we go.
But look.
You can buy the gas if you want.
People are going to hoard.
They shouldn't.
But you can buy it if it's available for sale.
This is the problem.
These news outlets won't tell you the truth.
They're not telling you the truth.
They claimed there was no supply shortage.
They blamed panic.
Now that they've gotten everything started up again, here we go.
They start saying, oh, actually there was a supply disruption.
Oh, actually inflation is really, really bad.
Actually, yeah, the White House is taking inflation seriously.
They wait until their friends can get an opportunity to buy things up.
That's the name of the game.
Like I mentioned in the earlier segment with Bitcoin, they tell you, oh no, it's bad, don't buy it, and they whisper to their friends, hey, make sure you go and buy it.
Then a week later, everyone buys it and you're left holding the bag.
I think the sad truth is that Gas prices are expected to go up.
There's going to be shortages.
Problems like this will keep happening.
Inflation is going to keep happening.
And there's no real way to deal with it.
Panic buying will happen.
Some of it won't be panic, it will just be massive demand.
So I'll say this, when people are going to gas stations and setting up huge lines, that's just demand.
That's not panic.
Filling plastic bags of gas is illegal, and that's panic.
So panic does play a role.
But when demand skyrockets, and there's no supply, you see shortages.
What do they tell us?
No, no, no, it's just panic.
Now they tell us the truth after they've given themselves the leeway.
This will always happen.
There is no circumstance in which they will not give themselves advanced warnings.
They will not, you know, and by they I mean like the wealthy elites, the people who run these companies, they're going to inside trade, they're going to find loopholes, and they're not going to tell you the truth, and the people who don't pay attention to the news will be the ones left holding the bag, so I hope you are paying attention.
From NBC News.
Gas prices are spiking in the South.
Here's where the jumps are highest.
Prices have risen by almost 10% in Georgia and South Carolina.
Here we can see in Georgia, they're up about 8.3%.
South Carolina is up nearly 8%.
North Carolina about 7.3%.
We can see across the board, Texas, Mississippi, Michigan, Virginia, Tennessee, Alabama, they have all gone up by at least 5%.
Prices have risen the most in Georgia, where the average price of a gallon jumped from $2.67 to $2.90 on Wednesday.
Prices rose sharply beginning May 10th, two days after the pipeline shutdown began.
The pipeline will restart operations Wednesday afternoon, so this we understand.
We learned all of this.
The problems are serious.
They're not going to tell you the truth outright.
Yahoo Finance reports from May 11th, White House says it takes possibility of inflation seriously.
The White House takes the possibility of inflation quite seriously, spokesman Jen Psaki told reporters on Tuesday, amid concerns about potentially rising inflation.
Asked whether the White House expects the surge in gas prices fueled by the shutdown of the country's biggest fuel pipeline to affect its outlook on inflation, Psaki said, most economic analysts believe that it will have a temporary transitory impact.
They will tell you this, they will lie, and they will just wait as everything gets worse.
I don't know what they should do.
Now, I've mentioned in previous segments, I'm going to tell you the truth.
I'm not going to play this game.
Although, there are many out there who say it's irresponsible of me to tell you these things because, for one, it makes people scared.
It causes panic.
I don't think that's the right approach for it.
I don't think it's my job to tell you what you should or shouldn't do.
I don't think it's my job to make predictions about how people would respond to this news.
I think it's my job to say, here's what's being reported.
This is important information.
I would have loved to have done a segment about Ron DeSantis in Florida pardoning people over COVID restrictions, violating them, or talking about The Intercept.
They put out this story smearing the DC Riot Squad, calling it like right-wing distortions.
This is what's important.
What's happening with our government.
Obviously, culture war plays a role in that.
But what's important is whether or not we are going to be able to navigate these crises, and whether or not they're going to get worse.
And I'm not saying this because I want anyone to freak out, but I do think it's going to get worse, and I think most of you probably agree with me.
From The Hill, we have an update.
124 retired generals and admirals question Biden's mental health.
We must always have an unquestionable chain of command.
They say, a group of retired U.S.
military admirals and generals signed a letter released Tuesday questioning Biden's fitness for office and seemingly challenging the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.
The letter signed by 124 former military leaders and posted by flag officers for America said
the Constitutional Republic is lost without fair and honest elections that accurately
reflect the will of the people.
The FBI and Supreme Court must act swiftly when election irregularities are surfaced
and not ignore them as was done in 2020.
Former AG William Barr said in December the Justice Department uncovered no evidence of
voter fraud that would have affected the outcome.
The signatories also questioned the mental and physical condition of the Commander-in-Chief,
adding that national security issues require quick and accurate decisions involving life
and limb.
Recent Democrat leadership's inquiries about nuclear code procedures sends a dangerous national security signal to nuclear-armed adversaries.
Raising the question about who is in charge, we must always have an unquestionable chain of command.
While in office, former President Trump periodically questioned Biden's mental capacity and age during the campaign season, at times referring to him as Sleepy Joe.
Kevin O'Connor, the president's doctor, released a report earlier this month maintaining that Biden is a healthy, vigorous 77-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency.
The signatories additionally compared potential challenges to ideological battles not seen since America's founding.
Quote, We are in a fight for our survival as a constitutional republic like no other time since our founding in 1776.
The conflict is between supporters of socialism and Marxism versus supporters of constitutional freedom and liberty.
A statement on the Flag Officers for America website says that although its members are no longer engaged in active military service, they are bound by that oath to do what we can in our capacity to protect our nation from threats to her freedom.
Now, this is not directly related to the gas shortage, the gas crisis, but it's a very, very important story that is related in a broader sense.
124 retired generals.
Do we take them at their word or do we say it's just partisan hackery?
I believe it was around 357 or so individuals who were former military who came out and questioned Donald Trump.
You had the former intelligence agency members coming out and questioning Donald Trump.
Hey guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the First Podcast Network.
Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the Hill, the this, the that.
There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented lawfare debilitating and affecting the 2024 presidential election.
We do all of that every single day right here on America on Trial with Josh Hammer.
Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm not going to pretend either side is right or wrong.
I'll tell you my personal opinion is that I think the left is wrong on this one, and these generals are right.
But maybe it's just partisan bickering.
The reality is the divide is there.
The country is fractured, to a degree not seen in, you know, a hundred and some odd years.
A hundred and fifty or so, or more.
And that's kind of scary, isn't it?
We have retired generals we've got on both sides, showing that there is a very real likelihood of some kind of conflict between rival factions.
And we can see that we do not have a unified government that will be able to handle very serious attacks.
Maybe from the Russian government?
Seemingly not, but definitely from Russians, so saith Joe Biden.
When they pay this ransom and cave, we show weakness.
This is why I've mentioned stories in the past about how, in the Middle East, when terrorists kidnap Americans, the American government, the State Department, says, we won't pay for it.
Sorry.
Congratulations on your American, because the only thing we will give you is a bunch of dudes in helicopters landing on your building, killing you, and getting our citizens back.
As for Germany and Spain, they do pay these ransoms.
And that means when you're a journalist or someone, a contractor working in these countries, you're a huge target.
Because these terrorists know that if they kidnap you, your government's gonna pay.
They know that if they take someone who's American, they're going to get a helicopter—black hawk or whatever military helicopter—and a bunch of dudes raiding their compound, and they don't want that.
That's the problem.
Joe Biden is weak.
He's weak and unable to handle his role as president.
It's only four months in and we are dealing with a wide swath of controversy and crisis.
And what do we get?
It seems like Democrats don't care.
They're willing to extract whatever they can and watch the system burn down instead of compromising.
and figuring out ways to solve these problems.
Our law enforcement has become pathetic, going after dotoring morons and old ladies who went to the Capitol, as well as the, you know, the actual violent individuals, but wasting time with garage pull ropes, wasting times with these stupid PC stunts, whatever.
We get stories like Jussie Smollett.
I'm sorry.
We are being ripped apart from the inside.
And now it's hitting our critical infrastructure.
Several years ago, when I mentioned civil war, people were saying, I was wrong.
It would never happen.
They said that anti-fun, Proud Boys fighting in the street was nothing.
And I said, what do you think is going to happen when this ideological battle reaches the highest echelon, the highest level of government?
Oh, that's never going to happen.
The deep state's too strong.
Yeah.
Here we go.
The fracture is there, and now that we've reached the point where our critical infrastructure is crumbling, where, you know, look, the CDC just announced everyone can go back to normal, even though the red states are already doing it, Florida, Texas are already doing it, clearly not listening to the federal government.
More and more states are declaring some kind of sanctuary, either for abortion, for gun rights, for illegal immigrants.
It is a disruption.
There is some kind of sundering happening between these states, and now our critical infrastructure is being hit by it.
What will the response be between these states that are reliant on this gas pipeline coming from Texas up to New Jersey?
Is it going to be to just remain completely dependent, or are they going to take action to secure their energy independence?
We went from energy independent, and in only four months, our critical infrastructure attacked.
We caved to the attacks.
Our supply is still disrupted.
The political polarization is getting worse.
There's conflict in the Middle East.
There's inflation.
They're scared of inflation.
It is getting worse.
I don't mean to freak anybody out, but I'm not gonna play this game where I just tell you everything's fine.
You look back at the previous economic crises in this country and what do we get?
The mainstream media was like, everything's fine!
Economy is great and it's better than ever!
Go buy stocks!
Don't worry about it!
And then people did, and the scammers, the ultra-elites cashed out, and hid their money and hard assets, the market tanked, and then the poor people are the ones who suffered.
And then once they did, they go to the government, the government gives them a bailout, the government prints more money, that's the name of the game.
In the end, you're left holding the bag as the regular American.
But you know what?
I gotta point out, some of the responsibility and blame will fall on you as well.
How many of you watch?
And don't speak up, don't say anything.
Don't challenge the manipulations.
A lot.
I know.
And I get told by people, but it's too hard.
I can't do it.
I can't take the risk.
If you don't stand up now, there will be nothing to stand up for.
In the next few years, it's likely going to get increasingly worse.
Maybe Republicans will win in 2022.
Maybe Donald Trump will win in 2024.
And then there will be a hard shift in the other direction.
That doesn't mean things are getting better.
It just means it's getting worse.
Maybe Trump can pull us out of a tailspin.
Maybe this is just a Jimmy Carter moment, and then we get a better president, and Trump brings in another Reagan-like era.
Or maybe it's more like a Buchanan.
Maybe it's more like a pre-Civil War, feckless president, and Trump comes in, and the left loses their minds.
Maybe it won't be Trump.
Maybe it'll be DeSantis.
I don't know.
But I can tell you right now, we've got four years of Joe Biden, and in only four months, we are dealing with major problems he can't solve.
I hope you are taking care of yourself and taking personal responsibility for what may come next, because I don't know.
But I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 8pm over at youtube.com slash timcastirl.
Thanks for hanging out, and I will see you all then.
Right now, the number three trend in the U.S.
on Twitter is, we are closed.
Nobody wants to work anymore.
Where tons of people are saying that we refuse to work for trash wages.
We're not going to work for these companies that are exploiting us.
The CEOs are making too much money.
Some people are saying it's not that nobody wants to work.
It's that nobody wants to work for trash wages.
That's true though.
We were talking with Max Keiser on the IRL podcast and he said, once your weekly budget around 40% goes to food, this is when you see people start revolting.
It's what you see in Egypt and these other Arab Spring States.
People are just like, I can't do this.
I'm working my butt off and barely able to get by.
Some people also pointed out another really interesting thing is gas prices go up.
If you're making 10, 12 bucks an hour, and you've got a small commute, how much money are you spending in gas just to get to work, and then you don't make enough to actually cover your bills afterwards?
Let me tell you, man.
We're gonna talk about inflation.
Joe Biden's gonna spend 4 trillion more dollars while inflation is slamming into us.
They're lying about it in the media.
Now they're slowly coaxing us into accepting it.
It's a dirty game, but I will tell you this.
I once worked at O'Hare Airport in Chicago when I was 18 and I was getting $10 an hour.
It was impossible for me to pay for anything.
I couldn't save up to get an apartment.
I couldn't afford the gas to get to work.
So I eventually started racking up debt and then I quit.
These things, this is a reality.
A lot of the guys who worked there were older, so they were getting a bit more, but they would also work 80 hours a week, full-time, and when you do, you spend most of your time there, and I'm like, I can't make that work.
So I absolutely sympathize and empathize with the people who are being told, you're barely gonna cover your bills, you're gonna be slowly going down in terms of covering, you know, you're gonna be generating debt, not assets, you're not gonna be able to pay your bills, totally get it.
You know what one of the problems is?
There's a lot of problems.
For one, unfettered immigration.
We need standard immigration controls.
We don't have this.
When you get people coming in and these massive multinational corporations exploiting cheap labor, it displaces the labor market.
There's a massive supply of workers, but only a certain amount of demand.
Then they pay less.
There are a bunch of other issues too.
But one of the big problems we have is inflation.
Gas prices go up, food costs go up, your wages don't go up as fast, so now people are like, yo, 15 bucks an hour is not enough!
Fifteen bucks an hour is enough.
It is.
Now, is it enough as you'd like?
Probably not.
It'll allow you to survive, you'll have a job, but a lot of people just don't want to do these things, and the main reason this is all possible right now.
You know, like I mentioned with Max Keiser, when you get around 40% of your budget going to food, that's when we see a revolution.
That means if food prices go up, not if wages are stagnant or go down, if food prices go up, people eventually lose their minds, they explode.
It's possible that these people are— we're getting to this point only because of Joe Biden's spending policies for two reasons.
The $300 unemployment bonus, which most of you probably know about by now because we've talked about it quite a bit, is incentivizing people not to work.
$16 an hour.
So a lot of the people who aren't working are not the same people who are complaining about, you know, the top 1%.
No, there's people who are just like, I can't lose a dollar an hour to go and work your job.
If you're paying 15 bucks an hour at McDonald's and I'm getting 16 on unemployment, I can't drop this and go and work for you to lose money.
So I was on unemployment when I was like 20 or so.
I lost a job, filed for unemployment.
They told me, do not accept a job that pays you less because then you will just end up here again on unemployment and we don't want that.
And that's happening now.
A lot of people are sitting there, and I don't think they're greedy and laughing and saying, ha ha ha, now I'll make all this money and I'll never have to work again.
I think there's people just like, I'm getting $638 a week or whatever.
If I go take this job, I'm going to lose money.
I'll be able to cover my bills.
I can't do it.
And this is creating a strange forced inflationary problem.
Now here's where it gets just so dang funny.
First, we got Steven Crowder as the top post in We Are Closed.
He said, We Are Closed trend is filled with entitled crybabies.
There is a greater job surplus than at any point in modern American history, a huge portion of which pay far more than $15 an hour.
If you think that plumbing, welding, and carpentry is beneath you, you get nothing.
I hear you, bro, but the problem is the government is saying, nah, you'll get something no matter what.
And if you get something no matter what, then why would people bother working?
This you know.
But also, let's be real, okay?
There's a dude right now, and he's got a kid, he's got a wife, and he's on unemployment because of the COVID lockdown.
He didn't quit his job, they shut it down, they gave him unemployment, and now he's like, okay, I gotta get work.
And he looks and he's like, they're gonna pay me the same for what I'm already getting, but I got time to find something better.
There are a lot of lazy people, don't get me wrong.
Which brings me to this story from Fox Business.
That's right.
Joe Biden doesn't seem to care that we're in the midst of this inflation and work exodus.
That's right. Joe Biden doesn't seem to care that we're in the midst of this inflation and work exodus.
Fox Business reports, President Biden's $4 trillion tax credit and spending proposals encountered a new political
obstacle on Wednesday, the threat of surging inflation.
After consumer prices in April saw the biggest increase in decades.
The Labor Department report that U.S.
consumer prices for goods and services surged to 0.8% in April, the largest in more than a decade and the fastest year-over-year jump since 2008.
Excluding the volatile food and energy data, core inflation rose 0.9% in April and 3% over the past 12 months.
There's so much money out there in the economy that the demand is high and it's outpacing supply and starting to push prices up.
Senator John Thune told Bloomberg on Wednesday, we need to be a little bit more cautious and restrained.
Well, they lied to us.
Let me show you this.
This is from May 4th.
Yellen sees no inflation problem after Ratehike comments Royal Wall Street.
They didn't come out and say no inflation.
She said no inflation problem.
Here's the issue.
They're lying to you about what's going on.
And you know it.
And I know it.
We know it.
And there's a reason they do it.
The fear is that people will panic.
If you tell people inflation's gonna hit, what happens is people will then say, I better spend my money now.
And then that results in...
Faster inflation.
Prices start skyrocketing because people start fighting over prices.
To put it simply, if people are like, I better spend my money now before it's too late, quick, call the carpenter to get the wall fixed or whatever.
And the carpenter's like, okay, it's five grand to fix this.
And then his phone rings.
I need you to work.
Why can't I?
I'll give you $6,000.
Okay.
And another person's like, I'll give you $7,000.
The prices start skyrocketing.
People start spending like crazy.
And then boom, more inflation.
So what happens is, they come out, these experts, these government actors, telling you to ignore everything.
It's not happening.
There's no inflation.
And then, once they can get a handle on things, once they can protect themselves, what happens next?
The New York Times.
Inflation is here!
Oh.
There's no inflation problem.
Inflation is here.
So you see, the first time these stories come out, they make sure the framing is such that you make assumptions that are incorrect.
So when they say there's no inflation problem, a lot of people assume that means there's no inflation.
There is inflation.
And it's getting really, really bad.
Now what they're doing is they're saying, it's temporary.
Just calm down.
The New York Times says inflation is here.
What now?
Prices are rising fast in ways that seem temporary, yet this could change expectations in ways that are self-reinforcing.
Just a week ago, they were saying there was no inflation problem.
Here's what they do.
They tell you, they lie to you, they manipulate, that way they can buy things up, secure their own assets, and then go, oh yeah, by the way, that inflation thing?
Yeah, it's here, it's a problem.
Then when you rush out and panic, it's okay, they've already taken care of themselves.
They don't want you to flood the market.
Look at what Fauci said.
Remember when Fauci, last year, was like telling people not to wear masks?
And then later came out and said, wear masks.
He said in an interview, we were concerned that medical experts wouldn't, you know, the medical professionals wouldn't get the masks they needed.
It's true.
It's all true.
And he basically just said, we will lie to you to leave you holding an empty bag because we need it more than you do.
Now look, He's right in certain circumstances, for sure.
Medical professionals needed the masks more than regular people did.
And so, instead of telling people the truth, he's had to lie.
Why?
Their fear is that people are selfish.
And I think it's a reflection on themselves.
But it's probably not entirely untrue.
There are a lot of people who will go out and disregard this and say, every man for themselves.
I will protect myself.
Screw you.
And that's a big challenge, it is.
There's no easy, ethical way to deal with these problems right now.
I know that by doing a video where I say, look, inflation is here, your dollar is getting devalued, prices are skyrocketing, there's a processor shortage, there's a computer chip shortage, there's food shortages, people might freak out and go panic buying.
It could make things worse.
In fact, people probably will.
But what do I do?
Do I just play the game they're playing and say, don't worry everybody, everything's fine, then whisper to my friends, hey, go buy stuff quick, buy gas, it's gonna get bad.
Or do I just say, like, here's what's happening?
What are we supposed to do about it?
I don't know, man.
I can tell you that the media seems to think they're smarter than you, they're better than you, and instead of journalists doing their jobs, instead, journalists are working for the establishment political class to make sure that you do what you're told and what they want you to do.
That's not the job of a journalist.
The job of a journalist is to say straight up, Here's what's happening.
You guys figure it out.
Now, I suppose these people feel it's irresponsible because it could lead to inflation, crisis, panic, etc.
A lot of people started buying up gas in stupid ways when they heard about the pipeline hack.
They started filling up drums in plastic bags with gasoline.
It's the stupidest thing I've ever seen.
I don't think a plastic bag can hold gas, but sure, I guess.
Don't do that.
People don't care.
When they hear the news, they panic.
Then what happens is over time, you get a group of people who believe that they have the power to control the masses and that they should.
I disagree.
That's more communistic.
It's more authoritarian.
They say, we should control the economy.
We should centralize it that way because we know what's best for people.
Michael Bloomberg said it.
Michael Bloomberg said we should tax the poor because they're too stupid and they buy dumb things, so we should buy for them.
That's a slippery slope.
There's a reality that, yeah, people do buy dumb things.
But, man, when you think you're smarter than the entire economy, what happens?
Soviet Union, China, food shortages, the Holodomor, crises.
These people think, you know, they have to intervene to save the system, to lie, to manipulate, and the more they do, the more problems are bred from this, and the more they think they have to intervene.
The issue is, maybe no matter what we do, we will have problems.
There is, for everything, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and these people think that they can just control the system.
But let's be honest, I think a lot of people in reality, a lot of the wealthy people, a lot of the New York, you know, people at New York Times, people in government, are more so thinking, hmm, the ship is sinking, how do we get to the life raft first before they do?
Hmm, inflation is coming, what should I buy before they do?
Or how can I strip the value of regular working people?
Which brings me to my next, my next point.
Elon Musk.
Elon Musk announced he's not going to be accepting Bitcoin for Tesla anymore.
You see, as much as I've praised Elon Musk, I have said he should be criticized when he should be criticized.
I'm not going to have a panic attack over his offensive jokes or tweets, but this to me reeks of stripping the value of regular people.
I believe Elon Musk is ripping people off as a wealthy individual who wants to protect his assets and cause mess and just strip away from other people.
Here's what happened.
Hear me out.
Elon Musk tweeted, Tesla has suspended vehicle purchases using Bitcoin.
We are concerned about rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for Bitcoin mining and transactions, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
Cryptocurrency is a good idea on many levels, and we believe it has a promising future, but this cannot come at great cost to the environment.
Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin, and we intend to use it for transactions as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.
We are also looking at other cryptocurrencies that use less than 1% of Bitcoin's energy transaction.
Elon is lying, in my opinion.
I believe he's lying.
I believe he's manipulating.
I believe the goal is to cause a panic because this is how the game is played.
Now, typically, rich people don't tell you this.
They just sit back, laugh, and buy the dip.
Now, of course, many people on Twitter keep saying, don't sell!
Buy the dip!
Don't sell!
But people panic.
I remember when Bitcoin hit 20k.
People were mortgaging their homes.
Stupid thing, they shouldn't do that.
To buy Bitcoin, thinking that, you know, if Bitcoin goes up 100%, I can pay it off and make all this cash.
And then Bitcoin fell to like $7K or something, or $10K.
And then people panicked and sold, and racked up a bunch of debt.
The banks, the institutions, and they sold at such low prices and the people who bought it up were the rich people who knew the game and then Bitcoin is now sitting at around $49,000-$50,000.
Bitcoin went up to $58,000.
Elon Musk says, we're no longer going to accept Bitcoin anymore and people panic sell, losing thousands, millions, billions of dollars.
But what did Elon say?
Tesla will not be selling any Bitcoin.
You know why he said that?
In my opinion, they crafted the message as best they could to protect themselves from any legal liability for defrauding people.
Oh, we're not gonna accept it anymore because of the environment, but we ain't gonna be selling it, really.
You're concerned about mining, but you're not going to offload the coins you have.
Maybe you should.
You're contributing to this problem.
Here's the truth.
Elon Musk, I believe, is lying.
Bitcoin does not use, according to a report, the majority of the energy generated in all likelihood for Bitcoin is renewable.
Why?
Bitcoin can be mined anywhere.
And so many people who have set up mining operations look for cheaper alternatives, and they look for places where they have renewable access, notably hydro dams.
So, mining is being done in many places with renewable energy because they don't want to worry about their operation being impeded by a supply chain disruption with fossil fuels.
So, they get supply from solar areas and there's a report that says 79% of the energy used for Bitcoin comes from renewable sources.
This came out, this story, from Harvard Business Review, May 5th.
Okay, let me slow down for a second.
A lot of people probably don't care about Bitcoin.
You need to hear this.
You need to listen.
For one, I do own Bitcoin.
I own a few other cryptocurrencies.
I am bullish on it.
I'm not going to tell you what to do.
You can do whatever you want.
I'm not giving you advice.
What I am saying is, Bitcoin is a deflationary currency.
There can only ever be 21 million coins, plus you've got general entropy, coins being lost, you know, people passing and not giving their keys away, which means the supply will shrink, but it is a decentralized store of value.
It doesn't matter what one Bitcoin is worth.
I wish I understood this in 2011 when I first saw it at 70 cents.
I wish I understood that it doesn't matter what a Bitcoin is worth, it does store value.
If you're holding U.S.
dollars right now, as hyperinflation is slamming into us, and these rich people are like, there's no problem!
There's no problem, ignore it.
Then, what do they do?
Bitcoin jumped to $60K, Ethereum jumps to $4,000, another cryptocurrency?
In my opinion, probably a lot of these rich people seeing hyperinflation and panicking and getting out.
Getting out of the dollar.
That means, by buying something else, Bitcoin's gonna keep going up, the dollar's gonna keep going down.
Gasoline prices are skyrocketing.
What you can buy with a dollar becomes less and less every single day.
What you can buy with a Bitcoin becomes more and more every single day.
Which means, I guess you want dollars for immediate transactions, But you want Bitcoin, and man, I wish I paid more attention to this, and I feel really dumb because I've known this for so long.
If five years ago, I just put my money in Bitcoin and said, whenever I need cash, I can just cash out a Bitcoin, I would have been extremely wealthy.
Extremely.
Unfortunately for me, I decided to just do work in order to build my business and didn't really buy massive amounts of Bitcoin.
Here's what happens.
Elon Musk comes out and says, we're now going to accept Bitcoin for transactions.
And I'm not sure what happened first, the mass buying of Bitcoin, but Tesla buys a bunch of Bitcoin, the price skyrockets.
How do you get more?
What people have consistently done, these wealthy individuals, these news organizations, governments, China, for instance, is like, we're banning Bitcoin and the price tanks.
And then the rich people all buy it up for discounts.
Right now, Bitcoin dropped from like $58k to like, it went down to like $47k.
Oh, it's back up at $50k again.
Why?
Poor people.
They don't understand.
And they panic sell, thinking, oh no, it's gonna go down!
And the rich people laugh and buy it all back up.
And they instantly make $8k per coin.
You can buy fractions of Bitcoin.
You can buy one penny's worth of Bitcoin, two pennies worth, one dollar's worth.
It doesn't matter how much you buy.
You can buy any amount.
Because I think the smallest division of a Bitcoin costs 0.05 of a penny, meaning 0.0005 of a dollar.
It's nothing.
And then when Bitcoin goes up to a million bucks, you'll have, I think, you know, ten bucks or whatever.
So in the price tanks, it's because people who have maybe $100 in Bitcoin, $200, they sell thinking, I'm gonna lose $100, what do I do?
Imagine you make $15 an hour.
I'm sure many of you do.
You've got $500 at the end of the month, and you're like, I got a little bit left over.
Maybe I should put it in Bitcoin.
It's a smart idea.
So you do.
Then you hear that the news is breaking, Bitcoin's dropping, and you think, oh no, I can't lose $300 right now.
It's too much money.
So you sell.
You end up losing it anyway.
You keep only $200, and then a week later, it goes back to normal.
I'm not telling you what you should or shouldn't do.
Do not take any of this advice.
I'm just saying.
These people are exploiting a crisis.
It's what they're good at.
They come out and say, don't worry about inflation.
Everything's fine.
There's no shortage.
Remember the New York Times?
There's no long lines for gas.
And then we saw the videos of long lines for gas.
People don't trust the media.
They don't trust the government.
They panic.
And that's the problem.
When people panic by gas, it creates shortages.
When people panic sell crypto, it creates an opportunity for the ultra-rich to buy things up.
When people get angry and panic smash windows and riot, then the property values decline rapidly, and the rich people can come up and buy the property for pennies on the dollar, and then wait, and the property values will recover a little bit, not perfectly.
See, that's how the game is played.
It's how they keep poor people down.
If in 2011 you spent, I think, $15,000-$16,000 in Bitcoin, not like you had it, but maybe you had some, you would be a billionaire right now.
A billionaire.
If you spent $20 If you spent $20 in 2011, you would be a millionaire right now.
You see, that's the nature of deflationary currencies, cryptocurrencies, and these assets.
Elon Musk surely knows.
When you look at this, Harvard Business Review says, let me pull up the numbers to make sure you can see it.
According to one report, 73% of Bitcoin's energy consumption was carbon neutral, largely due to the abundance of hydropower.
They say one report says in September it was maybe 39%.
So why is Elon Musk telling you, oh no, fossil fuels?
So here's what I tweeted.
I am suspending the use of my Tesla.
I am concerned about the rapidly increasing use of fossil fuels for powering Tesla vehicles, especially coal, which has the worst emissions of any fuel.
Electric cars are a good idea on many levels, and I believe it has a promising future, but it cannot come at great cost to the environment.
I will not be selling my Tesla, and I do intend to use it as soon as energy becomes more renewable.
I am looking at other electric cars to use as well.
You see the name of the game?
Tesla uses... Tesla is less... generates more carbon, lithium batteries, car production, energy consumption, than Bitcoin does.
Now, I think Elon Musk, whether intentional or not, somebody... I believe the intention for a lot of these people is to cause a panic, everybody sells, they buy it back up for dirt cheap, or their buddies do.
That's how the game is played.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 1pm on this channel.
Thanks for hanging out Apparently, for some diseases, they'd make you drink mercury back in the day.
And we look back and we laugh at these people as crazy.
It's so crazy they thought drinking mercury or lead or whatever was a cure for certain diseases.
I guess the idea was you were poisoning yourself just enough to kill the disease.
I don't know if it actually worked.
I read a bit about it.
But then I think about modern medicine, like chemotherapy, and it's relatively similar.
You try and poison yourself enough to take out the cancer and then survive it.
And I just think, you know, we look back, and it's a bit unfair.
You know, we didn't know, right?
We knew what we knew, and this was the best we could do at the time.
Now I'm taking a look at what's going on today, and it really does feel like we're in the stupidest of times again.
And it's probably just because humans will always be learning and always be improving, and we'll always think we were stupid back in the day.
But the point is, I think based on the things we're seeing, yeah, people are gonna call us dumb.
Now, first and foremost, I am not opposed to the vaccines in any way.
I think Trump did a tremendous job getting the vaccines out.
I think if people have concerns about them, you're allowed to, and you can talk to your doctor, and you should always talk to your doctor, and not take medical advice from TV doctors or from comedians.
You get the point.
I say it 50 million times.
But I gotta tell you, I look at some of these videos and it's all, in my opinion, absolutely insane.
We have this article that came out from Matt Taibbi's TK News.
Meet the censored CJ Hopkins critic of the new normal.
Let me read you the opening paragraph, and then I want to talk to you about Ohio giving a million dollars to five lucky vaccine recipients, or Shake Shack saying free french fries for those, and Bill de Blasio sitting on camera shoving french fries in his mouth like, get the vaccine, you get french fries.
It's like, stop!
Okay, okay, hold on.
This is a great opening paragraph.
The arrival of COVID-19 has crashed America on a paradox that reads like the plot of a bad Star Trek episode.
Actually, I think it's kind of a good Star Trek episode, but I digress.
Half the country mistakes science for a set of inflexible decrees and demands it be worshipped as a religion.
The other half believes the first group is always lying and defies even its sensible dictates.
In its own theology of liberation, science, a deliberative process, is collateral damage to the battle.
And they go on to mention...
Who are the people?
But that opening paragraph really sums up, I think, what we're seeing.
And I'm gonna start with criticizing the absurdity and the zealousness of the mainstream media and criticizing the kookiness and insanity of those falling for insane conspiracies.
Listen, I know a lot of people talk about mRNAs, new technology, and things like that.
What have we given out?
Like a hundred million vaccines?
Talk to your doctor.
Because if there was really some nefarious evil thing going on, wouldn't your doctor be like, something crazy is happening?
Or are they just like, I don't know, things seem to be normal.
There are adverse reactions to vaccines.
That's why we have the Adverse Vaccine Reporting System.
It's called VAERS, I believe.
And a lot of people have been pointing out that there's thousands of deaths reported here.
But these are individuals reporting.
Now, my understanding is that it is illegal to lie.
So there are some concerns.
What happens is...
When people get a vaccine, if they experience an adverse reaction, they can report it to the CDC, to the federal government, and then doctors can look to try and see if there's a pattern.
It's a brilliant system.
It's not verified claims that people are experiencing something because of a vaccine.
Now, that being said, I understand the mRNA vaccine is new.
I understand it's emergency authorized use.
So, if you have any concerns, you just talk to your doctor.
And I've had people say to me, like, I'm not gonna talk to my doctor.
Listen, I just don't understand the conspiracy stuff.
And I do understand.
Well, actually, no, no, I take that back.
I think I get it.
I do.
People want to believe and there's, you know, some crazy thing happening.
They want to believe that the reason bad things happen is because it's outside of their control.
Much in the same way that many people are following critical race theory where they can blame others for their problems, it's easier to believe there's a grand conspiracy around certain things because, well, then it's not your fault if something bad happens.
And I think that's a core component of why many people believe insane things.
And don't get me wrong, the mainstream media believes a ton of insane conspiracies, like Russia.
We didn't lose the election!
We're not bad people!
We don't have bad policy!
It was Russia!
You see, can you just stop and accept that maybe it's your fault?
You know, I hear a lot of people going like, my YouTube videos aren't getting enough views anymore.
YouTube's throttling me.
Or maybe your videos just suck now.
I mean, look, you've got to balance external with the internal.
How much is your fault?
How much is out of your control?
And then realize you can't control the wind.
You can only adjust your sails.
Okay, anyway, let's talk about a million dollars!
The media is going absolutely bonkers.
These local politicians are doing some of the craziest and stupidest things, in my opinion.
Here's what CNN reports.
Others have tried free donuts, beers, and gift cards.
Now Ohio is betting millions to improve its vaccination rate.
While Krispy Kreme is offering free donuts to people who are vaccinated against COVID, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is betting dollars to those donuts.
The state will give away millions of dollars to vaccinated people and full scholarships to vaccinated children through special lotteries.
Let me tell you first and foremost, big pharma companies love the idea that everyone will get this whether their doctor advises it or not.
I don't care if YouTube wants to get mad at me for this, and maybe I'll get this video removed because I'm going to say it.
If your doctor gives you advice, you follow it.
You shouldn't be listening to what YouTube's stupid rules are, or what Fauci is saying, or what Joe Rogan is saying.
Look, you go to the doctor and they tell you what makes sense for you.
And I'll tell you what really bothers me about this vaccine millionaire thing, this million dollars thing.
There was another post where they were like, go to bars and give people free beer in exchange for vaccines.
Dude, there are people who need to talk to their doctor before they get a shot.
I'm sick of this.
You've got one side, like Matt Taibbi's article points out, one side that's like, everyone just has to do it.
No, Fauci comes out and he goes, everybody should get it, it's safe.
Dude, There are... I have some family friends, they went to the doctor, they said they wanted to get the vaccine, and the doctor was like, because of this pre-existing condition you have, we would recommend against it.
Most people that I know who got it have had no issues at all.
But you have a mainstream media and an establishment political class that's basically doing everything in their power to get people to ignore their own private medical consultations.
You can get second opinions, you can get third opinions.
But TV doctors should not be the ones convincing you.
Offering people up a million dollars, in my opinion, is reckless and irresponsible, and I am sick of the bias on YouTube, and Twitter, and Facebook, how this is allowed!
And don't get me wrong, I don't like the conspiracy stuff either because it really has come from your medical professional.
But I'm sick of how YouTube ignores all of this.
Think about when Donald Trump came out talking about hydroxychloroquine.
They went nuts.
They were banning people.
There was another medication called ivermectin.
They went nuts and they started banning people.
Because politicians were saying, here's what you should do.
And they were like, but they're not doctors.
Yeah, well Bill Gates ain't a doctor either.
So when you come out, and you're promoting a medication from a major pharmaceutical, and you're telling people just to go and do it, No!
No!
People should go and talk to their doctors.
Again, I've had people say, oh, but doctors are stupid.
Look, I don't care if you don't trust your doctor, because you can get a second opinion.
But it's really annoying to me that Trump can come out and say, here's medicine, and they say, you're banned.
And then CNN can come out and say, here's medicine, and they say, oh, that's fantastic.
Joe Rogan can come out and say, here's what I think about it, and they say, no, no, you're crazy, don't say that.
And then Bill Gates can come out and say, here's my opinion, like, oh, Bill Gates is great.
It's a double standard that makes no sense, and it's all bad.
I'm just frustrated by it.
There seems to be no logic in this stuff.
Giving people a million dollars is going to get people to defy orders from their doctor.
Do you get this?
When Joe Rogan came out and he made his comments about, you know, his advice for young people on the vaccine, he got slammed by Media Matters.
And you know what?
I don't... I think Joe is entitled to his opinion.
I don't think... You know, I would put it this way.
If someone who's 21 years old comes to me and they're healthy and they say, should I get the vaccine?
You know what my response is?
My response is, I don't know, talk to your doctor.
Why are you asking me for advice?
I'm not here to give you medical advice.
I don't want to be responsible for your health.
Joe Rogan said he would give them advice and say not to do it.
He got slammed by the media, came out and said, look, I'm wrong, just listen to Fauci.
But Fauci comes out then and tells everyone, just go and get it, it's safe, go get it.
And I'm like, dude, what if someone has a particular allergy?
What if somebody has a particular condition, and you go on TV and tell them to do something, giving medical advice to people you don't know?
Okay, now maybe if people want to listen to TV doctors and comedians and Microsoft's founder, I don't know what to tell you.
But when you start offering free food and money to people, what happens when someone's like, I could win a million dollars?
And their doctor's like, due to this particular food allergy we have, we're recommending against it.
Due to this particular, you know, issue you have with a certain ailment, I recommend against it.
Okay, these things happen.
I'm not advocating for or against, I'm saying your doctor needs to tell you don't take advice from me.
But what happens when someone gets advice from their doctor to say no, but they're like, but a million dollars, man!
This is what really bothers me about the media incentivizing medical advice to people with no grounds to do so.
It just pisses me off.
I'm sorry.
They say, will the incentives work?
The media is acting like everyone should get it without consultation.
That is what pisses me off.
I think the overwhelming majority of people can and should get this, but it's ultimately your choice.
I think if private businesses don't want to let you in, that's kind of a violation of the 14th amendment in certain capacities, and you can't deny someone public accommodation based on their health.
But I get it.
We want people to get the vaccine so we can stop the pandemic, ease everything.
Now, one of the issues, I suppose, is that Florida and Texas are doing alright.
Younger, healthier people are being disincentivized to get it.
So they're trying to counter with these million-dollar program lotteries.
I guess they're going to be giving five million dollars away.
Look at this, they say, what is it?
Jesse Patterson wasn't in any hurry to get vaccinated against COVID, she said.
I was very fortunate that I don't have any underlying conditions and I'm only 36.
And she's a coordinator for the Parks and Recreation Department of Ackworth, Georgia.
Then the city offered $200 Walmart gift cards to its employees to get vaccinated.
And the offer came with a time limit.
Get vaccinated by the end date or you won't get the gift card.
It definitely made me get it faster than I would if I didn't drag my feet on it.
And for Patterson's employer, It made sense to offer the gift card as an incentive to get vaccinated.
City Manager Brian Bolthuis said, if someone is vaccinated, they don't get sick.
That saves us money because they don't have to take time off work.
Okay.
Now, we got a conundrum here.
Let me tell you something.
Incentivizing people to get the vaccine by paying them money.
I don't know how that will impact, you know, OSHA or things like that.
But over at OSHA.gov, if you go to their coronavirus page and their frequently asked questions, they say, vaccine-related, if I require my employees to take the COVID-19 vaccine as a condition of their employment, are adverse reactions to the vaccine recordable?
And the answer is yes.
If you as an employer require people to get the vaccine, it is, they say, you will, it is a work-related issue.
The vaccine is, adverse reactions would be work-related.
The adverse reaction is recordable if it's a new case under 29 CFR 1904.6 and meets one or more of the general recording criteria.
I don't know exactly what that means.
My understanding is it means the business will be responsible for any adverse reaction.
Adverse reactions do happen.
I think you've got a problem with mainstream media who wants to freak people out by publishing any and every claim.
You've got people who are naturally predisposed, like the Matt Taibbi article says, to distrust the establishment and the Democrats.
And you know what the problem is?
When you've got people offering millions of dollars in donuts and french fries and burgers, I'm going to say it again because I am really, really pissed off about this.
OK?
Two things.
Donald Trump, you get banned when he mentions hydroxychloroquine.
People get banned for mentioning ivermectin.
Don't take any of these things.
Your doctor will tell you.
But the media is doing the same thing about a big pharma new vaccine.
And then we heard Johnson & Johnson, you know, they, I think it was Johnson & Johnson, they suspended it.
There was AstraZeneca was suspended or something like that.
I'm just, I'm annoyed with the insanity that is taking over in, just in our culture, in our society.
People who are acting like there's a grand conspiracy to kill a bunch of people, and then you see this other stuff.
First, okay, let me slow down a bit.
Let me see what I got here in these, we got this tweet from Tim Barnes.
It's easy to despise de Blasio, but with this, I'm honestly just jealous he's doing something I wish I could while talking in Zoom meetings.
Bill de Blasio shoveling fries down his mouth, eating a burger during his press conference.
Shake Shack's got good burgers, I gotta tell you.
Shake Shack is gonna give you free french fries with your... Wait, wait, wait, you get a voucher for a free burger?
You see, look, Shake Shack's got good burgers, man.
So they're incentivizing people to do something that may make them override the decisions of their own doctors.
And that pisses me off.
A lot of people are gonna be like, I'll be fine.
Doctor said no, I'll be fine.
If your doctor gives you advice, you listen to your doctor.
I don't care what YouTube says, I don't care what Fauci says, and if you don't like your doctor, you get a second opinion, but you don't get your advice from the media.
This stuff is such stupid, stupid BS.
Let me show you how much stupider it gets.
From the Science Times.
Now, I chose the Science Times on purpose, because they are not NewsGuard certified.
As most of you know, I like to use NewsGuard certified sources for everything, because it's a check on my bias, but also it's making a point about the establishment, what they deem to be credible news.
The Science Times says, COVID-19 vaccine magnet challenge is fake.
Experts debunk new coronavirus myth.
And I'm showing.
There is a bunch of videos where people are taking magnets, so they say, they're putting it on their arm where they got the vaccine and then it sticks and they go, oh look, look the vaccine, it's a magnet!
And then they put it on their other arm and the magnet doesn't stick.
It's called the parlor trick.
It's called mocking stupid people.
And it's called making viral trends because people want to.
When you get the media saying, free burgers and a million dollars to come out and get this vaccine, and people would then listen to a TV doctor instead of just talking to their own doctors, you get people who resent this.
And you get people on the other side who just don't trust the other side.
And then you get political incentives to own the libs or challenge the other.
First and foremost, okay, you can't—it's very difficult to debunk something like this unless you go to the people in question and then test it.
A bunch of people have posted that they got the vaccine and then put magnets and nothing happened.
Yeah, surprise, surprise.
They're putting a liquid in your arm.
It's mostly like saline or something.
It's a vaccine.
It's an mRNA vaccine.
It's different from the other vaccines we've used.
But the point is, there's no chip.
This lady is like, we're all chipped.
There's no way they're putting... What do you think they're doing?
It's like in Magneto and X-Men when he puts the... When Mystique injects the metal into the guy's body and then Magneto pulls the... Come on, man!
That's ridiculous.
And people eat this stuff up.
Guys, WTF is this?
And there's a woman wearing a mask in her own home.
And she takes a little piece of metal, puts it on her arm and it sticks.
She takes it, puts it on her other arm and it falls.
You know what?
Watch the video closely.
She puts the object on her arm and then she takes it off and she flips it over and puts it on the other arm and it...
And it sticks to her finger.
Why?
She probably had some stupid 3M adhesive on it.
Because they're tricking you.
People want to get clicks.
Now look, I don't know what these people are doing.
There are a bunch of videos of people claiming the magnets are doing whatever.
And I'm like, bro, I don't think the lady at Walmart's got some microchip BS in a thing to stick in your arm.
I think you should get medical advice from people you trust in the medical practice that work with your family, and you should ignore all of this noise.
The noise really is destroying everything.
You know, Hillary Clinton came out and said, disinformation is, it must be stopped, it's tearing apart our culture, and I'm like, yeah, you're right, but you are the cause of it, lady.
The Russiagate lunatics who prefer to believe that they couldn't have lost.
Hillary Clinton was so popular, there's no way Donald Trump could have actually won.
So it's not our fault, it was Russia.
These people don't want to accept that Hillary Clinton was just trash.
That Donald Trump made people laugh and did narrowly win in three states with 77,000 votes.
And that gave him a decent electoral college victory.
They don't want to accept that you put up someone awful.
So what do they do?
The only thing in their minds that makes sense is that Russia did it because they don't want
to accept they are bad people with bad policy ideas.
Right now, we are getting all of this across the board and it is ripping this country apart.
People don't want to accept that there's medical technology.
I mean, come on, man.
You don't know.
When the doctor prescribes you, you know, whatever medication, you don't know what's in it.
A lot of the people who criticize anti-vaxxers will point out that someone listed the chemical composition of an apple and people are like, I don't want that.
Like, it's an apple, bro.
You thought it was something else?
I can understand wanting to wait for FDA approval.
I can understand, you know, wanting to get confirmation from your doctor and not just jumping out because someone's offering you a free burger.
I get that.
I don't understand people who would ignore advice of their own doctor, not get advice from their own doctor because they want a free cheeseburger and get a shot.
I don't understand people who think magnets will stick to your arm.
No, no, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I do get it.
I do get it.
That's the point.
I'm just being a bit hyperbolic.
I get it.
People want to believe that there is something out of their control and it absolves them of responsibility.
They want to believe that Donald Trump is the true winner because, in reality, it's like, there's no way Trump could have lost.
He's the best.
How about this?
A bunch of people who don't care and don't pay attention were inundated and slammed with relentless media plays and the Democrats went in and changed election laws and set up, you know, things like vote in the park and mail-in voting and that gave them the push they need.
Republicans in Pennsylvania made universal mail-in voting.
Of course that was going to help Democrats, because Democrats are more likely to vote by mail.
That's it.
Trump may have gotten a ton of votes, but this country is hyper-polarized, and the Democrats just pulled it off.
I know a lot of people are looking at Maricopa County.
I just don't think anything's going to happen out of this.
I think you need to stop believing that there is this single Illuminati that runs things.
I don't know who I'm speaking to because I don't think a lot of those people actually watch, but, you know, probably a small percentage will watch and then get mad at me for saying all this stuff.
Whatever, man.
Look, I operate based on evidence.
So when I see a bunch of people screaming, go and get an emergency authorization vaccine, and they're going to give you a bunch of crazy million dollars potentially to win, or cheeseburgers, or french fries, or donuts, I'm like, I just find that is really irresponsible.
We've already complained.
You ever see those commercials where it's like, ask if lobodonzo is right for you?
No.
No, don't ask if lobodonzo or whatever medication is right for you.
If you feel bad, if you're feeling unwell, if something's wrong, you go to your doctor, and your doctor will give you recommendations.
These leftists used to make fun of pharmaceutical commercials, because it's like, I don't even know what the medication does, and you want me to go and ask my doctor if I should take it?
That's stupid.
Now they're like, we'll give you a million dollars if you, you know, we'll get you a free beer.
Getting people drunk.
I kid you not, people on Twitter were advocating for vaccines at bars where they would get people drunk with free beer and then while they're drunk and their inhibitions, or they're disinhibited or whatever the right word is, they'll be less inclined to reject a vaccine.
I'm like, Think about how insane it is that someone could be like, free beer, go to a bar, get drunk, not give informed consent, not talk to their doctor, and then someone's gonna be like, now we're gonna give you medication.
They changed, in the dictionary, the definition of anti-vaxxer.
It used to be people who rejected vaccines.
Now it's people who oppose mandatory vaccine laws.
You see, these people...
Everybody is losing their minds.
So you know what people need to do?
They need to get offline a little bit.
Because if you just go out and smell the flowers, you know, take the advice that you believe in, that you trust, get a second opinion, you'll be doing better.
Now listen, for me, I have food allergies.
And the first thing that came out was, if you have food allergies, you should wait.
And I'm like, okay.
And I have a close family friend who went to the ER, I believe, due to food allergies, I'm not entirely sure.
And these things happen.
It's not, you know, and don't let the media publish these stories that make you lose your minds.
I've had people commenting like, Tim's shilling for the vaccines.
And I'm like, dude, I'm shilling for not being a doctor.
Okay?
I might know a lot about media, and I can tell you this.
The New York Post puts out a story where it's like, young man gets vaccine, next day dies.
And then you read at the bottom, the death had nothing to do with the vaccine.
He was at a frat party or something.
He probably got alcohol poisoning.
But there's... the media wants to shock you and scare you because it gets traffic.
Don't be exploited by either side.
That's why I like this Matt Taibbi article.
It's like a Star Trek episode.
They land on a planet and there's one side screaming, everybody must, you know, do this one thing.
This side's screaming, no, nobody should do this one thing.
The people who are screaming your face to get vaccine or don't get vaccine, I think you should ignore them.
