All the Narratives are Collapsing - In The Tank #484 - In The Tank

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Linnea Lueken (00:48):
We are live. Welcome to the show, everybody.
Alright. So those so calledexperts are still backpedaling
and trying to reframe thehistory of the COVID fiasco.
None of us here are falling forit.
Rand Paul insists that Trump'slabor secretary pick should not
be confirmed if she supports thepro act, And, vice president
Vance insults multiple Europeancountries that tell by telling

(01:12):
them that they should act likedemocracies if they claim to be
democracies. And we're going tohave an update on Doge and more
corrupt spending that they haveuncovered. We are going to talk
about all of this in episode 484of the In the Tank podcast.
Alright. Well, I guess we didn'thave a thing after the cold
open, so here we are.

(01:32):
Welcome to the In the Tankpodcast. I'm Linnea Lukin. Today
as usual, we have Jim Likely,vice president of the Heartland
Institute. Jim, how are you?

Jim Lakely (01:42):
I am doing just great. I'm doing better than
Andy Singer, our producerextraordinaire, who hit the
wrong, video for the beginningof the thing, and they're
supposed to be like, the littleinside baseball is supposed to
be, there's a there's a videothat plays right at the
beginning, gives people a littlebit more time to get into the
beginning of the show, and thenthere's the cold open done
beautifully by Linnea. And thenthe theme, video is supposed to

(02:04):
drop, which I put thatwonderful, little clip from,
Dumb and Dumber, one of myfavorite movies, and talking
about what Doge is gonnaactually find when they go to
Fort Knox to audit all the goldthere. And so it was supposed to
all be set up in this greatcomedic way, and Andy screwed it
up. Now Andy was that we therewas rumors.
We had talked about this, Andy,that you might have actually

(02:25):
been able to show your face andspeak on the program. You are
now back on probation. It'll beat least three months until you
even sniff being on the airagain. So well done, my friend.
Well done.

Oh, it's alright. We can't be too hard on them.
No. K. We also have, ChrisTalgo, editorial director at the
Heartland Institute and alsosocialism research fellow.
Chris, how are you?

Chris Talgo (02:50):
Well, I'm doing good. Today was the official
opening of, spring training forbaseball, so that's great. I I
think I can finally see a littlebit of light at the end of the
tunnel here. You know, if youlook in the background here, it
might look nice and sunny herein Chicago, but it is freezing.
This has been a terrible week,and I think we are almost
finally at the end of it.
So that's great news for

me. Nice. Yeah. I'm getting into, pollen season
pretty soon here myself, whichis, a very terrible time as
well. Alright.
Well, before we get started, asalways, everybody, if you wanna
support the show, you can go toheartland.org/inthetank and
donate there. Since YouTubedoesn't let us, mono be
demonetized, because we talkabout things they don't like,

(03:32):
that's pretty much the only waythat you can get, us a little
bit of help there. Please alsoclick the thumbs up, to like the
video and remember that sharingit helps to break through some
of that suppression. Even justleaving a comment also helps. If
you're an audio listener, youcan help us out by leaving a
nice review.
Thank you everybody for beinghere. Today, we're actually
introducing a new segment. I'mnot sure if we have graphics for

(03:55):
it yet, but our producer, Andy,pitched to us last week this
idea that I thought was a greatidea. And that segment is called
Unhinged, where we will treatyou all to a selection of crazy
stuff that people are sayingonline. And what better place to
start than Reddit?
So, this week on the subredditare out of the loop, user Corey

(04:16):
s p asks, what is up with all ofthese government department
heads stepping down after beingapproached by Doge? Why aren't
these department leadersstanding their ground and
refusing to let Musk tamper withthings he's not even authorized
to tamper with? Hell, they'renot even just granting him
access. They're just abandoningtheir posts altogether. Why?
My fear is that he's been doingmafia stuff, threatening to have

(04:40):
their families killed,blackmailing them with sensitive
information and more becausethis isn't normal. I hope that
isn't what hap what ishappening, but it's really the
only thing I can think of thatmakes sense. Alright, guys. So
the question I have is, is thisa deranged adult, or is this a
15 year old who needs a breakfrom lefty social media?

Well, you know what? You know, you know what
stands out to me is how he makesthis assertion based on zero
evidence. Where is the evidence?I mean, if there was, like, you
know, a video of, Musk, youknow, like, talking like a
mobster, you know, with the thehead of, Social Security, I
could see this, but there'snothing like that. So this is
just more the same.

(05:23):
It is you know, the thehyperbole just never ends, and
it's all based on nonsense.There's there's obviously, there
is zero credibility to thisreport. And, really, what's
going on here is these peopleare stepping down because they
are being, you know, put on thehot seat, and they're having to
answer some really toughquestions that they don't have
the answers to. So good. Great.

Yep. Exactly. And, Jim, did you have anything
there? I mean, most of the thegood thing is, for once, most of
the, comments under here arekind of trying to moderate this
person. There aren't too manypeople claiming that, yeah, it's
definitely mob tactics going on.
You know, Elon Musk is going inthere with a baseball bat
covered in barbed wire likefucking them.

Jim Lakely (06:09):
That's where the Walking Dead reference there.
Yeah.

That they're gonna lose their kneecaps if
they don't, obey. So I I, mostof them are saying, well, you
know, they don't wanna beinvolved in, Musk's operation.
The only way for them to not beinvolved is to leave. So,
anyway, so I thought you guyswould enjoy seeing that as a
little treat. We're gonna try tomake this segment a regular

(06:33):
thing.
So

Jim Lakely (06:34):
I would just I would just add to that. I mean, he is
you could say he is using mafiatactics a little bit. He's not,
of course, threatening to killanyone's family like these
deranged nut jobs on Reddit, areare claiming here. And in fact,
this is a very tame we wanna,you know, we wanna ease you guys
into this sort of stuff withunhinged. So this is there's a

(06:54):
lot more stuff out there.
I think maybe we didn't pick itbecause just putting it on
screen would probably, get thisvideo, taken down by YouTube,
let alone, you know,

be Yeah. We can't we can't show some of the stuff
that they say on Reddit aboutTrump and Musk and stuff.

Jim Lakely (07:10):
Right. Right. Right. But what there's a there's a
phrase I've been trying to pullit together in my head, and I
can't quite get there. But,something to the to the effect
that if you've been privilegedyour whole life, you know,
fairness looks like oppression.
Right? And so if you're agovernment agency and you've
been running a muck your entireprofessional life, a smidgen of

(07:32):
accountability brought to youseems like the mafia,
threatening your family andtrying to knock your kneecaps
out with a baseball bat. So, allof these sorts of reactions, I
think, is is good. It's healthy.It means that, for the first
time in our lives, we are seeingin real time transparency and
sunlight brought to ourgovernment.

(07:52):
And finally, some accountabilityis being, doled out. And, you
know, it's it's it's remindingme you you see all these reports
of people resigning from theirpositions of power in
government. And, again, that'sall to the good. It's like when
they asked Donald Trump, well,you can't possibly deport all
20,000,000 alleged illegalimmigrants in United States, can

(08:15):
you? And and he says, well,we'll try, of course.
But the what happens is thatpeople self deport. And we have
seen at the southern border thatthe number of apprehensions, of
people trying to get into thecountry illegally has fallen by,
like, 97% or something likethat. And the reason that is is
because so many fewer people areeven trying to get into this

(08:37):
country illegally. Instead of,you know, 5,000 apprehensions at
the border in a month, which wascommon in the last year of the
Biden administration, that'sdown to, like, a hundred or 48,
and that's because the policy iswhat straightens this stuff out.
And in this case, when it comesto Doge and exposing and rooting

(08:58):
out corruption and, you know,and and dirty dealing in our
government, just exposing it tothe light, putting it on on the
Doge website, tweeting about itconstantly, and exposing the
public to what's really going onin our government, you're seeing
people in our own governmentstarting to, well, self deport.
A lot I think there's gonna bemany thousands of federal

(09:18):
employees who wish they took thegood deal that they had in the
first, you know, in the firstmonth of the Trump
administration where they couldresign, get eight months
severance to get on with theirlives. There's gonna be a lot of
buyer's remorse, or I shouldsay, I didn't buy it, and I have
remorse in our federal,bureaucracy.

Yep. Absolutely. Okay. I'm gonna get us on to our
first main topic today, which isthat the experts are still
backpedaling, still after allthis time, still backpedaling on
COVID. A recent tweet byattorney Laura Powell highlights
a video recorded by DeborahBirx, who is Trump's White House
coronavirus responsecoordinator, in which she states

(09:56):
that the error, I guess, thatthe public health officials made
was not explaining that theCOVID vaccines were not like
childhood vaccinations and thatthey don't prevent anyone from
getting the disease.
Although I I recall they did awhole lot more than just not
explain it that way. They didthey did a lot of affirmative,
you will not get sick if you,are given these vaccines type of

(10:18):
claims. So I don't wanna spendtoo much time here. We're gonna
play the video, and then, Jim, Iknow you're really worked up
over this one, so I'll give the,floor for your rant after we
play the

Speaker 4 (10:27):
clip. Done wrong in public health is we didn't
explain that COVID vaccines werenothing like the childhood
vaccines and that the childhoodvaccines, like many of the
diseases, you get it once, youdon't get it again, And this is
getting the children to havethat disease without getting the
deadly consequences. That is notwhat the COVID vaccine was

(10:51):
designed to do. It wasn'tdesigned to prevent against
infection.

Wow. Wow.

Jim Lakely (11:00):
Yeah. I mean, what we we didn't have time, I guess,
to pull together. They're easyto find. You can just do it on x
yourself. The videos of Fauciand Birx and, Walensky, is that
her name, from the CDC?
Mhmm. And all of thesegovernment officials, plus
Rachel Maddow and all thesemedia people, all saying that if

(11:20):
you get the if you get the shot,you won't get the disease. You
won't be a carrier of the virusanymore, and that everybody
everybody has to get the shot inorder to keep all of us safe.
People forget that Joe Biden andthe Supreme Court stopped him,
but Joe Biden was going to makeit mandatory that every business
that has 100 or more employeeshas to require all of their

(11:44):
employees to get the shot.People, nurses, people on the
front lines, the people that weused to bang, you know, at least
in, in in Great Britain, I thinkat 07:00 every night, they would
bang pots and pans outside theirtheir windows to celebrate the
frontline medical personnel thatwere keeping us safe and saving
lives.
Well, very quickly, it turnedinto, well, if you're a nurse or

(12:06):
a doctor and don't get the jab,you're fired. Thousands of our
military veterans, in themilitary, people who were there
for twenty years or more, didn'twanna get an experimental
treatment against a disease thatthey would easily survive, and
they were kicked out of themilitary. This is gaslighting
extraordinaire. And for the andfor Burks to be the one saying

(12:28):
this, Deborah Burks to be theone saying this, who wrote a
book in which she admitted thatshe lied to Donald Trump in
order to, advance this faultwhat she now says was an
unnecessary agenda of gettingeverybody, shots. From what she
just said right there, and we'vehad, on a podcast in the past,

(12:50):
we had Jay Bhattacharya, talkingabout this.
He was the the person who's,birthed the Great Barrington
Declaration, which said and hespoke at our our benefit dinner
actually in September here inChicago. And the Great
Barrington Declaration said, inessence, only give the the this
experimental treatment that wecall a vaccine to the most

(13:12):
vulnerable and let everybodyelse move on with their lives.
Deborah Birx would now be asignatory to the Great
Barrington Declaration. Andlet's also remember that the
doctors and the people whosupported that document had
their careers ruined. And forDeborah Birx to come out now and
say, oh, yeah.
This that that all of you peoplethat said this about about the

(13:34):
COVID vaccines back when itmattered and took risks to do
so, you were right all along.No. No. You don't get to
freaking do oh my god. I almostswore.
I almost used the bad word. Youdon't get to do that. You do not
get to do that. For for you tobe on any media outlet and being
allowed to say that instead ofbeing you know, it should be

(13:54):
like that scene in, you knowwell, not exactly like that
scene in Game of Thrones. SheGame of Thrones.
She should be walking throughthe through the, public square,
and there should be peopleringing bells yelling shame on
Deborah Birx for this sort ofstuff. You do not get to now say
you were right all along. Andthis this yeah. This does
trigger me, Linea, because everytime we talk about COVID, I
start to get a little bit workedup. And, you know, we do this

(14:18):
every few months or so.
But, you know, this is this isinsane. And let's also remember
why and I'll give it over toChris.

I'm gonna

Jim Lakely (14:28):
calm down. Let's also remember why there was all
of this COVID panic andlockdowns and all of this sort
of stuff. It was to get DonaldTrump out of office. If you
don't have, a complete entiresocietal panic over a pandemic,
you don't get to have universalmail in voting. You don't get to
have tell people that they can'tpossibly go to vote in person.

(14:49):
It's too dangerous. You get toshut down people's, businesses
and entire lives and then pointthe finger at Donald Trump for
being as being to blame. And soall of this was nefarious. And
so, no, Deborah Birx, you do notget to come out now and say the
obvious truth with a freakingsmile on your face and not have

(15:10):
somebody push back. There yougo.

Yep. Yeah. There it is.

Jim Lakely (15:17):
Shame. Shame. Shame.

Well, yeah. I mean, it's it's pretty
incredible. And and now, youknow, of course, the the
narrative has changed too. Well,we never said that, you know,
you had to get the vaccine. Youknow, you only would lose your
job if you didn't.
You know? And it's it's it wasit was a terrible situation. I
mean, it's part of the reasonwhy I don't work at the last job

(15:42):
that I used to work anymore isbecause I was told basically
that, I would not be it's notthat they were gonna fire me if
I didn't get the vaccine, butthey weren't gonna send me out
on jobs anymore, which is whereyou get paid. So I would just be
in limbo, basically. So that waspretty much terrible.
I I it's part of the reason whyI quit. So, Chris, do you have

(16:06):
anything that you wanted to addto this topic? Because I wanted
to spend short period of time onit because we've got some bigger
ones coming up. But

No. No. No. It's fine. Just a couple of things.
I mean, Jim covered a lot ofground there. I just wanna go
back and just make sure everyoneis well aware that in 2020,
during the early days of COVIDnineteen, Fauci, Burks, and a
bunch of other people were justraising the alarm bells saying
this is, you know, the worstthing ever. We gotta shut down
all the schools. We gotta shutdown all the businesses. Even

(16:34):
while that was happening, therewere still so many instances of
Lori Lightfoot, Nancy Pelosi,Gavin Newsom, you know,
flagrantly, you know, flauntingthose rules.
So they knew in real time thatthis was not nearly as, you
know, you know, devastating asthey tried to make it out to be.
There's that. Then there waswhen the vaccines or so called

(16:54):
vaccines came out, and the CDCshortly after changed the
definition of a vaccine on itswebsite. I wrote multiple op eds
about this because this justshocked me to death. How they
just, you know, you know, just,you know, nonchalantly changed
the definition of a vaccine toimparting from imparting
immunity, meaning once you takethe vaccine, you are in the

(17:15):
clear for, you know, forever to,you know, like, helps antibodies
or or some, you know, weirdweird language like that.
So there's that. You know? Theyknew that they were, you know,
lying through their teeth theentire time. It was also an
emergency youth authorization,which means that those drug
companies are, you know, nevergonna be held liable for all
the, health consequences, youknow, that we now know has

(17:37):
happened as a, you know, resultof the, COVID vac you know, so
called vaccines. But just thereis one other thing that I really
wanna stress here.
Twenty twenty five. We're fouryears, five years out from, the
the COVID nineteen pandemic. Anentire generation of children
are still struggling because ofit. Reading scores, math scores,

(17:59):
science scores, ELA scores areall down. I don't know as a
former teacher if they're you'reever gonna be able to make that
up because we just erased twoyears of education from these
kids when they needed it most.
There's also other psychologicaland mental, you know, health
toll that it's taken on thosekids. What about other people
that also lost their businessesthat were never able to restart

(18:21):
their businesses, relaunch them?You know? Like, these are the
these are the long termconsequences that, you know,
stupid policymakers like AnthonyFauci to do not even try to do a
cost benefit analysis and justsay, well, you know what? We
want everyone to stay at homefor more than a year, and we
don't care about the, the thecollateral damage that that's

(18:42):
gonna, you know, cause.
And that just drove me insanewhile it was happening. And I
kept saying, guys, wait waittill a couple of years later
when we're seeing all theconsequences of this, the
unintended consequences. Peoplenot wanting to go to work
anymore, just all this kind ofstuff. Guess what? That all
could have been prevented, andit could have been prevented had
people like Deborah Birx, Fauci,and others just been honest in

(19:05):
the first place.
But like Jim said, of course,they had a political agenda. The
mainstream media was, you know,playing right along as as
always, hyping this thing up todeath. And you know what? It's
really sad because in ten years,I think we're gonna look back at
this and say, we overreacted.This was a huge mistake.
And for the children that were,you know, in school or not in

(19:27):
school, I should say, during,2020, '20 '20 '1, you're you're
never gonna make that up. You'renever. There are they are gonna
be permanently scarred fromthis. So thank you so much for,
you know, Deborah Birx for, youknow, admitting couple years
after the fact that, you know,it actually you were full of,
you know, what, the whole time.

Jim Lakely (19:44):
Yeah. And I know we wanna move on, Linnea, but I
just just one last thing. I meanI mean, the thing that gets me
really triggered on this is thatthere's been no accountability,
for those who who lied andwrongly, you know, locked down
the whole world. You know, theyweren't just mistaken about this
stuff in a in a novelcoronavirus and a and a global
crisis that nobody had ever seenbefore. They willingly and

(20:05):
consciously lied and took andinstituted policies that were
completely not necessary anddestroyed, people's lives,
people's psyches, and there'sbeen zero accountability to
anybody who did this stuff tous.
And until there is, I don'twanna see Deborah Birx on TV. I
don't wanna see her given a bookcontract. I don't wanna see
Anthony Fauci anywhere untilthey are held accountable for

(20:27):
these lies. And so but nobodyseems to wanna hold them
accountable. They just get to goon with their lives as if
nothing happened and as if andthey get to pretend that they
had our best interest in mindwhen they obviously did not.
That is proven to be false.

Sorry, Lene. Just one more thing. And, you know,
because Jim Jim, you know,because because Jim brings up so
many good points here. AnthonyFauci made millions of dollars
through his book deal, throughhis Net Geo documentary, and all
these things. Anthony Fauci isis a criminal.
Anthony Fauci, you know, isresponsible for this because he
gave money to EcoHealth Alliancefor gain of function research in

(21:03):
Wuhan. Like, we all know that,but he got a pardon, so he's off
the hook. So great.

Yep. No. It's it's very, very, very
infuriating. I mean, so manylives were ruined. It's yeah.
I mean, how much more can we sayabout it? So I'm a in a in a
radical shift of pace. And, and,Chris, I'm gonna go to you on a

(21:29):
lot of this because I thinkyou've written about this in
some in some cases, and I knowHartland's been banging the drum
on this issue for a long time.So Rand Paul says that he is not
going to support Lori Chavez deRamer unless she says that she
no longer supports theProtecting the Right to Organize
Act of 2021. Breitbart reportsthat senator Paul said it would

(21:51):
override all the right to workstate laws and result in a
transformation that would besuch an assault on freedom of
choice for employees.
You can't imagine. Paulexplained that 28 states have
right to work laws, and when onecompares the economics,
unemployment, economic growth,and other factors, the right to
work states are killing it. Mostof these are throughout the
South. Kentucky became one aboutfive years ago, but there's at

(22:13):
least 28 states, maybe a fewmore, that are right to work.
And, basically, just as just asyou don't have compulsory union
dues, you can still have unions.
You can still do collectivebargaining. You just can't force
people out of the workplace ifthey don't want to pay dues for
political reasons. This ispretty dramatic, and I have not
opposed any of Trump's nominees.But, you know, I lead the effort

(22:36):
for a national law, and I'vebeen a big supporter of the
state laws, been close to theright to work movement for a
decade or more. And so I can'tin good conscience support her
since she supported the pro act,he said, noting that he plans to
ask her at Thursday's hearing ifshe's willing to renounce her
support of it.
So as I said, the HeartlandInstitute has been a strong
proponent of right to work. And,Chris, you were a teacher in my

(22:58):
neck of the woods for a longtime, so you have a lot of
experience with unions,especially teachers' unions. So
is Rand being dramatic?

No. No. So, you know, this is one of the few
picks for Trump's cabinet that Idisagree with him on because of
this issue alone. So when I was,teaching in Illinois, I was
actually a substitute teacher. Iwas not full time yet.
I had my teacher's license andall that kind of stuff, but I
had to pay union dues even as asubstitute, and I made pay
almost nothing. I mean, it was,like, $20, I think, like, per

(23:28):
class, you know, like, perperiod or something ridiculous
like that. Yet I was forced topay union dues, not only from
all my my earnings, but alsojust, you know, from my biweekly
paycheck. Just I just give themmoney. Even though they didn't
represent me, they did nothingfor me.
So that that's part of thereason why I did move to South
Carolina. South Carolina isright to work state.
Immediately, you know, we weretold you don't have to join this

(23:49):
teacher union. Almost none of usdid at the school. I think very
like, maybe only a couplehandful did.
And you know what? It was muchbetter. It's much better because
you have more freedom. You don'thave to you don't have to, you
know, go through all the, thethe the union, you know,
paperwork and just, like, allthe bureaucracy involved with
it. The unions don't really evendo that much for for teachers

(24:11):
nowadays.
You know? It's much more aboutthe union protecting themselves
and making sure that membershipis as big as possible so that
they get more union dues. That'sreally what it's about. I think
the right, the right to workstates obviously are on the
right side of this issue. Iwould not be in favor of a law
that basically bans right towork states.
And last time I checked, here inIllinois, the Janus decision

(24:33):
basically made this a moot pointthat, no, you cannot be forced
to join a union. You can't becompelled to. But, apparently,
for some weird reason, this,nominee thinks that that would
be a good thing. I I just I amcompletely opposed to it.

Right. It's, it's it's interesting. You know, Rand
Rand actually has commented onpretty much everything that
we're gonna talk about today, sohe might keep coming up as we're
talking about it. But, you know,he's he's always been, again,
one of those, you know, kind offirebrand characters in the
senate who is very strong onthese issues. You know, and and

(25:14):
as I said before, the HeartlandInstitute, we have all sorts of
white papers and all, sorts ofresearch on right to work and
the way that it helps theeconomy of any state that it's
been passed in.
There are some states thatwithdrew it and immediately
began to see, detriments fromwithdrawing from right to work.

Lenny, can I just add one one more quick thing?
Jim, you know, don't wanna stepon your, you know, your time
here. But just real quick. So,you know, as a as someone who
taught American history and whoknows a lot about American
history, unions were needed inthe, you know, late eighteen
hundreds when, companies couldtake advantage of workers. I
think that is just, you know,that is that is historically
accurate here.
Right. But now in 2020, thetables have turned so much in

(25:57):
the other direction that I thinkpeople don't need they don't
want unions. So we actually wantthe the, you know, the freedom
to choose. And if you wanna bein a union, that's fine. No
one's saying you can't, but it'sthat force.
It's the use of coercion saying,no. You have to, you know, even
if it's against your will.That's what really starting to,

(26:18):
you know, make people questionthis thing. Like, if it's so if
it's so good, it should just besomething that you want to do.
It shouldn't be forced upon you.
You know? It's funny how they'retrying to force people in unions
just like they tried to forcepeople to take the vaccines or
so called vaccines, which makesme think, like, why? Why do they
have to, you know, succumb to tothat?

Yeah. And I mean, Trump's had, you know, union
support, depending on the union.Obviously, probably not the
teachers unions, but I think theTeamsters and a couple other
organizations have come out insupport of Trump. Jim, do you
think do you worry that thatwill influence the Trump
administration to, pick up stufflike the pro act again? I think
it went to the Senate and thenjust, like, sat there forever.

(26:58):
It it really hasn't moved, sincethen.

Jim Lakely (27:02):
I I would think not. I I don't think Donald Trump
needs to support the pro act inorder to retain his appeal to
blue collar workers in placeslike, you know, West Virginia
and Michigan and Indiana andplaces like that. But but, look,
right to work laws did not werenot created in a vacuum. They
were they right to work lawspassed in many states because

(27:23):
there were laws before that thatcompelled people to join unions
as a condition of of employmentin all sorts of different
industries or or companies, whathave you. And so, you know,
that's why they existed because,you know, nobody should be
compelled to to join a union andhave, frankly, have their wages
docked to that union, withouttheir consent.

(27:45):
That shouldn't be a condition ofemployment. That's why right to
work laws, you know,proliferated state for state.
And I am, of course, as a youknow, we're a libertarian
conservative think tank. And asa conservative and libertarian
myself, I I am not big oncompelling anyone to do
anything. All relationshipsshould be voluntary on both both
sides of the transaction.

(28:06):
Compel, you know, compellingsomeone to take action is not,
you know, a good moral stand inmy opinion. I will make one
exception when it comes to,unionizing, and that is I think
it should I would be okay withthe law saying that public
employees are forbidden fromforming unions. And that is
because in those sorts ofcircumstances, it is it is, a

(28:31):
negotiation among a publicservice, or a public employee
union and its employer arebasically people sitting on the
same side of the table and justnegotiating how much of our tax
money they're going to take inorder to, make sure everybody is
happy. That is not ethical. Thatis not right.
And we, the people who arepaying the salaries and the

(28:53):
benefits for these publicemployees, do not get a seat at
that table. So unless somehowthat can happen, I don't think
it's it's a good idea to havepublic employee unions. And in
fact, a hero of the DemocraticParty and the left, Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, warned that itwould be a disaster if public,

(29:13):
employees were allowed tounionize, and that's what we
have today. The the largest,most powerful one of the
largest, most powerful politicalforces in our country, these
days is the public sector, youknow, the public employee
unions, be their teachers orothers or others that are paid
by taxpayers. That unionmembership in the private sector

(29:34):
has been going down over thelast several decades, and that's
because, that it's not neededthat there is sufficient, power
on the side of the employer andthe employees into to negotiate
and make sure that everybody ishappy.
So, again, as as Chris said,there was a reason, you know,
unionization of of, say, coalminers and, steel workers made a

(29:57):
lot of sense in the latenineteenth and early maybe
through the mid twentiethcentury, but it has long
outlived its usefulness. And theidea that you need a federal law
to allow people to organize is,there there's actually no
justification for that at all inthe in the, in our economy.

You know, Lynette, one other thing. I think you
mentioned that, you know, Trumpgot a big portion of the union
vote, which is true, but I don'tthink they they voted for Trump
based on him possibly, you know,endorsing the the pro act. I
think they voted for him becauseof his common sense policies
about regulations, letting, youknow, letting us actually build

(30:35):
things here, bringingmanufacturing back. That's why
they they voted for Trump. It'snot it I think it had very
little to do with the unionaspect of things, more about,
hey.
This guy actually is on ourside. He doesn't wanna inhibit
our professions like the Bidenadministration, you know, did
time and time again. Heactually, you know, is America
First. He cares about theAmerican worker, and that that

(30:57):
is why he got so much supportfrom blue collar union workers.

Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. It's
yeah. Abel Windsor in ourcomment section made a good
point where she said about halfof union members in The United
States today are governmentworkers. I agree with Jim on
that point.
That's ridiculous. You shouldnot be able to unionize as a
government employee. It's,definitely a conflict of

(31:24):
interest there.

Well, especially when they funnel a lot of that
funding to Democrat, you know,campaigns too. Yeah. So, I mean,
it's I mean, it is it is socorrupt. You know, Illinois has
been that's been happening fordecades where the Illinois
teachers, unions, you know,shovel money to, Democrats in
the state house, and then theyget all these, you know, these
generous pay packages. They getall of this stuff.

(31:46):
So, I mean, it's a conflict ofinterest.

Oh, I mean, I think we could probably, spend
an entire episode, and maybe wewill spend an entire episode
someday just talking about theIllinois teachers unions because
they, I mean, they basically runthe state. Right? It's it's the
biggest racket, besides maybethe the, you know, alcohol
distributors racket.

Well well, just, you know, I'm I'm I'm sorry. I
know I kinda keep going backhere, but going back to the
pandemic, remember that RandyWeingarten and some of the
teachers' unions were the oneswho were coordinating the
guidance with the CDC. Like, howcorrupt is that too? These have
people have no medical, no, youknow, no health care, you know,
expertise. Yet they were saying,well, we can't go back to work.

(32:31):
We can't do this. And I rememberhow ridiculous it got even you
know, this was obviously duringGeorge Floyd riots and all that
stuff. They were they weresaying, we want, you know, free
housing. We want, you know, allthis. And it was like, what do
you like, what are you doinghere?
This has nothing to do witheducation. It has nothing to do
with students. That is one thingthat I learned from my time in
the, you know, state of Illinoisworking in the Illinois teachers
union. It's not about thestudents at all. It's all about

(32:54):
trying to get as much money tothe union coffers as possible so
that they can spend it onpolitical, you know, like
lobbying and stuff.

Right. Definitely. I I remember when I
was in high school, I went forthe audience. I went to high
school in Illinois. And Iremember, my American history
teacher, like, the first day ofclass, he pointed at the stack
of textbooks, on the countertop,and he told us we're not gonna
use those textbooks.
The union said, the unionrequires that we use this
textbook. I'm not using it.We're gonna use it for

(33:26):
definitions or something, andthen we're never gonna look at
it again. So don't bother takingthose pieces of garbage out of
here. That was, like, the bestopening day of any of my classes
ever.
You think I was so mad abouthaving to be in the union?
Alright, you guys. Speaking ofcorruption and people getting
called out for their corruption,this is a topic that I have been

(33:48):
very excited to cover because Ijust think it's terrific. Vance
really took European leaders totask last week, especially
German leaders in Munich, lastweek in the speech given at the
Munich Security Conference. Wehave a clip for you guys.
But before we get to that, Iwant to read a little bit from
this BBC article to kinda tee itup because all the elites in

(34:10):
Europe are extremely offended byVance's chutzpah here. Their
tone is, how dare he call usout? So from the BBC, we have,
it had been expected that Vancewould use his speech at the
Munich Security Conference toaddress possible talks to end
the war in Ukraine. Instead, hespent the majority accusing
European governments, includingThe UK's, of retreating from

(34:34):
their values and ignoring voterconcerns on migration and free
speech. The address was met bysilence in the hall and later
denounced by several politiciansat the conference.
German defense minister BorisPistorius said it was not
acceptable. How dare he? Mygoodness. I hope they had some

(34:54):
smelling salts at thatconference because, boy, it
sounds like they had a reallybad time. So what exactly did
Vance say in his own words toget them into such a tizzy?
We have a couple of video clipshere, if you guys wanna queue
those up for us.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
And I believe deeply that there is no security if you
are afraid of the voices, theopinions, and the conscience
that guide your very own people.Europe faces many challenges,
but the crisis this continentfaces right now, the crisis I
believe we all face together isone of our own making. If you're

(35:37):
running in fear of your ownvoters, there is nothing America
can do for you, nor for thatmatter is there anything that
you can do for the Americanpeople who elected me and
elected president Trump. Youneed democratic mandates to
accomplish anything of valueunstable results? But there is

(36:00):
so much of value that can beaccomplished with the kind of
democratic mandate that I thinkwill come from being more
responsive to the voices of yourcitizens.
If you're going to enjoycompetitive economies, if you're
going to enjoy affordable energyand secure supply chains, then

(36:20):
you need mandates to governbecause you have to make
difficult choices to enjoy allof these things, and of course
we know that very well inAmerica. You cannot win a
democratic mandate by censoringyour opponents or putting them
in jail. Whether that's theleader of the opposition, a
humble Christian praying in herown home, or a journalist trying
to report the news. Nor can youwin one by disregarding your

(36:45):
basic electorate on questionslike who gets to be a part of
our shared society.

Jim Lakely (36:53):
Yeah. Yeah. We have we have we have two other clips
here. One one on Vance, like, Ilabeled advanced religion and
Vance new sheriff in town. Youknow, we can play those.
Let me just let me I heard thisspeech or I I watched it after
afterwards. I saw x was justgoing abuzz, commenting on this.

(37:13):
It was amazing. And then if youactually listen to the speech
and it's quite short, it's aboutfourteen, fifteen minutes long
and in total And I listened toit and watched it. And and like
you said, Linnea, it's like, youknow, he got almost no applause.
There were several applauselines in there for people who
value freedom, and there wasvery little applause. Even had a
couple jokes in there thatnobody laughed at. It was like I

(37:35):
started to feel bad for him.It's like, they need to make
this like the Golden Globes, andthey all have to be sitting at
tables, and you just, you know,get everybody, you know, some
drinks or something, loosen themup so that the, so that maybe
his his speech would get alittle bit more of a welcome
reception. But in my opinion,that fifteen minutes by JD Vance
was the best speech an Americanpresident or vice president has

(37:57):
given to Europe since RonaldReagan at the Brandenburg Gate
when he said tear down thiswall.
It was a challenge to theWestern basically, Western
Europe to look. We have spenttrillions of dollars, sacrificed
millions of lives, to to secureyour freedom there in Europe and

(38:18):
to protect it all through thecold war. And now we look over
there, and you're putting peoplein jail for praying, within, too
close to, an abortion clinic.You're putting people in jail in
Germany for insulting someoneonline or sharing a meme that
you that you deem racist. Whyshould America and that this was

(38:40):
the mess and that's why theyweren't clapping, and they had
very glum looks on their facesin that in in his in his speech
is because the larger questionhe was asking or challenging
them with was, why shouldAmerica continue to support your
societies?
You spend almost nothing on yourown defense. Why should we
continue basically subsidizingsocieties that have no value

(39:02):
whatsoever on any free speechvalues? That they don't they
don't have they don't even youdon't even respect their own
elections. He mentioned in hisspeech on how Romania had an
election, and the elites didn'tlike it, so they just canceled
the results of the election. Whyshould America continue to
support, a Western Europe thathas no adherence to basic

(39:24):
fundamental human rights likefree speech, freedom of
assembly, and respect for thefor the, the selections of
voters when they go to thevoting booth.

Oh, yeah. It was very telling when they give
those, shots of the audiencethere and, you know, all these
guys are, like, I don't know,like shrinking in their seats
before Vance. They all look verydour. They're not having a good
time. You know, and like I saidat the beginning of the show,
Vance is basically telling themyou don't get to criticize us

(39:56):
and you don't get to callyourselves, you know, these
great bastions of democracy whenyou're not acting particularly
like a democracy.
You are he gives a couple ofexamples. I don't know if the
clips that we have, bring thoseexamples up specifically, where
he is discussing, free speech.Well, there's something weird

(40:19):
going on with my camera here.Not sure what that's about.
Where there are a bunch of, youknow, free speech violations
that have gone on in, The UnitedKingdom and in Germany.
And to be clear, you know, theydon't have free speech enshrined
in their constitutions the waythat we have in ours. And I'm
not saying that, you know, everycountry has to have a
constitution just like ours.Every country has to, you know,

(40:42):
follow the same exactregulations, the same exact
everything. But if you're goingto be telling people that that
you're a freedom loving country,that you are especially when it
comes to The UK, which is thecountry that we got our idea,
our conception of free speechfrom in the first place, and you
are to start clamping down onpeople who, you know, just

(41:06):
oppose mass migration publiclyor who are just praying outside
of an abortion clinic and noteven, you know, harassing
anybody, It's, it's disgusting.You don't get to do that and
then have America kiss up to youlike you're a bunch of, I don't
know, you know, our betters insome way because you obviously
aren't.

Jim Lakely (41:27):
Yeah. I mean, we can play let's we can play, Andy,
maybe play the advancedreligion, labeled video here and
then set up I think that wouldset up Chris nicely.

Speaker 5 (41:38):
And perhaps most concerningly, I look to our very
dear friends The United Kingdom,where the backslide away from
conscience rights has placed thebasic liberties of religious
Britons in particular in thecrosshairs. A little over two
years ago, the Britishgovernment charged Adam Smith
Connor, a 51 year oldphysiotherapist and an army

(41:58):
veteran, with the heinous crimeof standing 50 meters from an
abortion clinic and silentlypraying for three minutes. Not
obstructing anyone, notinteracting with anyone, just
silently praying on his own. Andafter British law enforcement
spotted him and demanded to knowwhat he was praying for, Adam

(42:20):
replied simply, it was on behalfof the unborn son he and his
former girlfriend had abortedyears before. Now the officers
were not moved.
Adam was found guilty ofbreaking the government's new
buffer zones law, whichcriminalizes silent prayer and
other actions that couldinfluence a person's decision

(42:40):
within two hundred meters of anabortion facility. He was
sentenced to pay thousands ofpounds in legal costs to the
prosecution. Now I wish I couldsay that this was a fluke, a one
off crazy example of a badlywritten law being enacted
against a single person. But no,this last October, just a few
months ago, the Scottishgovernment began distributing

(43:01):
letters to citizens whose houseslay within so called safe access
zones. Warning them that evenprivate prayer within their own
homes may amount to breaking thelaw.
Naturally, the government urgedreaders to report any fellow
citizens suspected guilty ofthought crime. In Britain and

(43:22):
across Europe, free speech, Ifear, is in retreat.

Very well said. He's he's just he's just killing
it. I want to bring up thisarticle from the postmillennial.
After Vance gave this speech,Cheryl Atkinson on sixty Minutes
hosted a couple of Germandiplomats to talk about their,
you know, criminal penalties forsocial media posts. The

(43:52):
postmillennial reports thatGerman officials laughed as they
talked about confiscatingpeople's phones and laptops over
social media posts, joked aboutexcessive fines and said free
speech needs boundaries, andadvocated for criminal charges
against the citizen who calls apolitician a dick in a social
media post.
It's you know, now you can'teven tell your, tell your

(44:17):
representatives what you thinkabout them in Germany. Germans
are stereotypically not knownfor being particularly warm, so
I I feel like they're gonnacatch a lot of, people with this
trap here. What do you say,Chris? You're smiling.

Yeah. Well, you know, my mom's from Germany, so
I get

Jim Lakely (44:35):
I I

I get all those

I have a lot of German love

coming up. Of course. Of course. Yeah. You
know?
I mean, we are who we are. Okay.Just a couple of things I wanna
talk about here. So let'scontrast JD Vance's speech at
the at the Munich SecuritySummit with, vice president
Kamal Harris's speech thereright before Vladimir Putin
decided to invade Ukraine. So Ithink there's a just such a
stark contrast between the toneof the old administration and

(45:02):
the tone of the newadministration.
Obviously, I favor the tone ofthe new administration way more.
And then on the whole, like,Europe thing. So, I've read a
lot of Mark Stein's books, andMark Stein was talking about the
collapse of Europe, the suicideof Europe decades ago. And he
was spot on. And I remembereveryone saying, oh, he's just,

(45:22):
you know, he's he's just, youknow, being so hyperbolic.
No. He was totally right. Andyou know what this really goes
back to? This goes back to whenEurope just started doing the
open borders thing and justletting all these people flood
into their country, and thenthey started to say, well, you
know what? We've done all thesebad things in the past, you
know, colonialism of twohundred, three hundred, four
hundred, five hundred years ago.

(45:42):
So now we're gonna right thosewrongs. And you know what? That
just never works. And what'shappened now is almost you know,
it's it's it's it's so strange.It's like Germany is backsliding
back into the days of the Kaiserwhere you've got these elites
who just run the country and youcannot question them.
You know? Like, what what isgoing on here? So there's that

(46:02):
happening. But at the same time,across Europe, we're seeing, you
know, these these rise ofpopulous leaders. So that gives
me a lot of, you know,confidence in the future.
And Germany is gonna be havingan election pretty soon. And
guess what they did to their,their prime minister? They
ousted him. He's, you know, a aliberal prime minister. They
said no more no more of thisstuff.
We don't we don't we don't likethis this government. And all

(46:26):
over the news, they always talkabout AFD. It's called
alternative for Deutschland. Andand, oh, they're Nazis. They're
neo Nazis.
No. They're not. Not even closeto neo Nazis. What they are is
the Trump version of makeGermany, you know, great again
or Germany First. What they'resaying is, you know what?
We should put our citizensfirst, which makes total sense.
You know, we should have commonsense policies in terms of,

(46:48):
energy. You know, we shouldn'tbe relying on Russia to buy
natural gas. We wanna actuallybuy it from America, and we
should sell it to them. So Sothese are just common sense
things that I think are finally,coming to the forefront here,
and this conversation is longoverdue.
And, you know, if, you know, ifEurope wants to maintain its
stance in the world as a as apowerful, you know, player, it's

(47:12):
gonna have to get on board withthis. So I think that that is I
think that, you know, what wesaw in with Brexit, you know,
just before Trump was elected,Trump, you know, and then we've
seen, you know, these, leadersrise to prominence, in Europe
who are kind of spouting thesame sort of, you know,
policies. I think that that isthe future of Europe. And I
think that that the, the farleft, you know, in Germany and

(47:36):
France and all these othercountries are just scared out of
their minds because, you knowwhat, they've realized that the
people finally have had enoughof the stupid climate policies,
the stupid agriculture policies,and, you know, just the the lack
of freedom. So I think that thisis gonna be the beginning of the
end for Europe's, you know,descent back into the dark ages.

(47:59):
And I I really I really hopethat Germany and France, Italy,
and all these countries realizethat it doesn't have to be this
way. They can and should providefor their citizens first and
foremost, and they can andshould do what's best for their
country. So that's that that'sthat's my my hope here.

Yeah. Vance's favorite, Margaret Brennan, on
Face the Nation recently madethe very bizarre claim

Oh, yeah.

That, Nazi the the Holocaust occurred because,
the Nazis weaponized freespeech, which is a bizarre twist

on It's it's not it's not it's not bizarre. Let
it that that that's being waytoo generous to her. That is
just flat out, like, so wrong.It's not even close. There was
no freedom of speech in NaziGermany.
Go read socials at a glance. Wedid a chapter on Nazi Germany.
There was literally zero freedomof speech there.

And not just and it's not just that the the Nazis
came in and clamped down on allthis free speech that the Weimar
Republic previously had. TheWeimar's were also viciously
clamping down. You know, itturns out, you know, I'm not
defending Nazism or anything,obviously, here, but they
clamped down hard on Nazi partycontent before the Nazis came to

(49:19):
power. And, obviously, clampingdown on that free speech did not
work out for them one bit. Notone bit at all.
It ended up being a an awful,awful situation. And that's such
a understatement that it'salmost ridiculous to even say.
So, you know, Germany just can'tlearn. They just

Well, you know, I I and and and and wasn't that what
World War two is all about? And,Jim, tell me if I'm wrong here,
but wasn't it Churchill whosaid, and I I think it was
Churchill, I might disagreestrongly with what you say, but
I will defend your right to sayit. I mean, wasn't that what the
entire war was about? You know?

Jim Lakely (49:58):
Yeah. And that actually, JD Vance said that. He
he quoted that quote in hisspeech, this week or yeah. Was
it this week? Yeah.
This week or last week, toEurope. Look. As I mentioned
before, we can move on to ourlast topic here. But, you know,
as I mentioned before, TheUnited States has sacrificed
quite a bit in blood andtreasure to make Europe and the

(50:22):
world safe for democracy. All ofthese bureaucrats in Europe, go
on and on.
They use the word democracy,democracy this, democracy that.
We have to restrict speech toprotect our democracy. And,
apparently, they also have tocancel or nullify elections to,
quote, unquote, protectdemocracy. And I I was I was

(50:45):
trying to imagine what thisspeech would have been like if,
say, Kamala Harris went there oror, or I guess, who was who was
her running mate? I don't evenremember.
I'm being caught as And TimWalls. Oh, yes. Right. Tim Walls
go there and gives a speech likethis. Or, frankly, even Barack
Obama going there and giving itgiving this address.

(51:05):
JD Vance, this was again, as Isaid, I think this is the best
speech a, a high level UnitedStates government official has
given to Europe since, I thinkit was 1987 Reagan's tear down
this wall speech in Germany. ButJD Vance pointed out, you know,
kinda like the emperor has noclothes. You you can't be saying
that you wanna protect yourdemocracy when you are shutting

(51:26):
down the voices of the peopleand not accepting their
expression of democracy. If itif it means anything at all, you
have to respect the voice andthe and the vote of the people,
and Europe is not doing eitherof those things in any any real
way. We're going to see.
I think German Germany'sElection is this week. We will

(51:49):
see if AFD, you know, has asweeping victory, which is
probably to be expected,especially if they heard JD
Vance's speech and saw thereaction of their own country,
to to this call for freedom anddemocracy to rule in Europe and
not the elites. And that'swhat's happened here in this

(52:10):
country is that the Americanpeople and that's why JD Vance
is the perfect vessel for thiskind of message. The American
people also want theirgovernment and their country
back from the elites who thinkthey are not accountable at all
to the to the voice of thepeople. Free speech crackdowns
have happened in this country,and they're gonna be less so now
that we have a a different,president in the White House

(52:30):
now.
But, you know, we will see. Andthe smugness on the faces and
the and the absolute inabilityto listen to what is being said,
by by JD Vance and to take it toheart that you can't protect
democracy when you disrespectand even put in jail the people
who oppose your rule. That'swhat democracy is. It's the

(52:53):
people choosing the direction oftheir country and the leaders to
implement that direction. And ifyou're not going to, uphold
that, why the hell is Americacontinually defending you when
you don't defend even the mostbasic human values in a in a
Western, you know, democraticfree society?

You know, I I I watched that segment where they
talked about the the Germanpolice going in and raiding the
guy's apartment who posted ameme or something on on social
media. The German police went inthere with a SWAT team, and, it
was just ins it was just so,like, insane how how much force
they were using, how manyresources they're using for a

(53:32):
guy who posted a meme on socialmedia and is just wow. You know,
that is that is really scarystuff.

Yeah. I mean and that's it's obviously, you know,
the they didn't do that for him.They did that for everybody else
in Germany watching. Right? Sothey know, you know, this is
coming for you.
We're this is how serious we areabout you posting a stupid meme
on social media or sayingsomething mean about a
politician on social media.Those those coward politicians.

(54:01):
Christine Laurel in our commentsection here makes a good point.
She says restricting free speechis a means of thwarting people's
attempt to organize againsttyranny. And I think that's
exactly right.
And I think that's actively whatThe UK is doing and what Germany
is doing. They are, you know,restricting people's ability to
complain about the state oftheir country. And it's, it's

(54:24):
very, very bad, especially whenyou are a country that is,
sensibly some kind of ademocracy or or, like, men are
what what what would it be like?

Jim Lakely (54:35):
Well well,

you know, but just just just real quick, it's so
much more difficult for them todo it in today's day and age
because there's so much moreopen communication. So back in
the nineteen thirties, if Stalinwanted to say, hey. I wanna all
these people to shut up. It wasa lot easier. Okay?
But now with the Internet, withsocial media, someone can go in
their basement and and, youknow, spread a message to

(54:56):
billions of people by justclicking one button. So it's
gonna be, I think, a lot moredifficult to them, and they're
gonna have to get a lot moreheavy handed even than Stalin
did where they would go in andknow if you had a newspaper that
they didn't approve of. Theyburned down your little, like,
you know, newspaper press. Butnowadays, what are they gonna
do? Go and and take everyone'scell phones?
So I don't think this is gonnaplay out well for them. I don't

(55:17):
think they even really have havethought that far ahead because
trying to stifle free speech in2025 is nearly impossible.

Yeah. I mean and those Germans were were bragging
about taking people's phonesaway and taking people's
Internet access away and stuff.

But then they act but then they act as if that
person cannot Internet. I mean,what are they gonna put him in,
like, some sort of, you know,cell with, like, no access to,
like, any communication methodswhatsoever?

Jim Lakely (55:47):
Did they do a Faraday cage? Does that all

those work? Yeah. Put him in

the basement of Neuschwanstein Castle and just
throw away the key. You know? Imean, is that is that what it's
gonna come to?

That's it. Shut them up. Alright. So so Germany
and and The UK and many othercountries in Europe are very
much lost. Their theircountrymen do not feel that they
are being represented by theirgovernment.
And, the same kind of thing, notquite to the same extent when it

(56:18):
comes to the free speech issue,but the same kind of thing has
been going on in The UnitedStates for a long time. Our
government has spent our moneyin ways that most people are not
even aware of. And lately, Dogehas been kind of doing a little
a little auditing, and they havefound things that are, let's

(56:40):
say, not ideal. Doge is workingcurrently at breakneck speed to
unveil a lot of the mischief ourgovernment has been getting up
to. We discussed this particularissue last week in climate
realism, but I wanna highlightthis one again from the
Washington Free Beacon.
DOGE finds $2,000,000,000 intaxpayer funds earmarked for a

(57:00):
Stacey Abrams linked group. Dogediscovered 2,000,000,000 in
taxpayer funds set aside for afledgling nonprofit linked to
perennial Georgia Democraticcandidate Stacey Abrams. The
Environmental Protection Agencyunder the Biden administration
awarded Power ForwardCommunities the grant in April
2024 as part of the agency'sgreenhouse gas reduction fund

(57:21):
program. Power ForwardCommunities received the green
energy grant despite the factthat it was founded months
earlier in late twenty twentythree and never managed anywhere
near the grant's dollar figure.It reported just a hundred
dollars in total revenue duringits first three months in
operation according to latesttax filings.

(57:41):
PowerForward Communities wasestablished in October 2023 as a
coalition of groups led byRewiring America, a left wing
group that advocates forelectrification policies and the
transition away from fossil fueldependence. Abrams, who serves
as a rewiring America's seniorcouncil, said at the time that
she was thrilled to be part ofthe power forward communities

(58:02):
coalition. So, this group,pretty obviously, was just
created specifically to get inon that funding that was being
passed out. Billions of dollarsawarded to a fresh new, NGO is
fascinating fascinatingbehavior. Jim, I think you had
comments on this last week ifyou wanna, go over those again.

Jim Lakely (58:25):
Yeah. I mean, this this is this is, you know, I've
I've made this analogy on acouple other shows, but, you
know, we've never been able toinvent a perpetual motion
machine, but we've managed toinvent a perpetual money machine
that just goes round and roundfor out of our pockets, to
government bureaucrats who thengive it to the NGOs, who then
give themselves lavish salariesand then kick back a little bit

(58:46):
to the politicians who whoauthorize more money out of our
pockets and round and round andround it goes forever and
without any oversight. I mean,the Heartland Institute, we are
a nonprofit. We are not youknow, I guess, we would be
technically you couldtechnically classify us as an
NGO or a nongovernmentalorganization, and we are fully a
nongovernmental organization. Inforty years, we have never taken

(59:08):
one thin dime of governmentmoney ever, and we we never
would because that's against ourprinciples.
And yet you see these outfits.What the hell does Stacey Abrams
know about powering you know,about about the energy industry?
Nothing is the answer. And howcan an organization that was set
up on Tuesday, then on Thursdayget 20 you know, $2,000,000,000

(59:32):
in its coffers to thendistribute for whatever it is
that they do with absolutelyzero oversight? They don't have
to report to any board ofdirectors or to the taxpayers or
to anybody.
And so what you have in fact,you know, we we've talked about
this on several shows, both thisone here on Thursdays at at, 1PM

(59:53):
eastern time and on the ClimateRealism Show every Friday at 1PM
eastern time about how that, youknow, Project Veritas did their
little, you know, honey trap,hidden camera, journalism in
which the guy said it was likethrowing gold bars off the
Titanic and how much the EPA wastrying to shovel out to
organizations like Stacey Abramshere, to get as much money out

(01:00:16):
as possible. What people kind offorget about that interview is
he also said, although that wasa great takeaway quote, he also
said a lot of us here are kindascared that we're gonna get
fired. So we're already startingto leave. Where are they leaving
to? The very NGOs at whichthey're shoveling all of this
money to so that they can getget even higher payer paying
jobs at these, you know,basically, do no work, have no

(01:00:38):
accountability NGOs that areswimming in millions and
sometimes billions of dollars ofour money.
And so, again, it's just this itit's so corrupt. And Doge, we
could we must we have to have aDoge and government spending
update. That's gonna be thefourth segment on this show for
a long, long time because morestuff like this keeps coming

(01:00:58):
out. But Stacey Abrams has nobusiness, being even involved in
an organization like this. Shehas no expertise, yet, she
expected to be able todistribute $2,000,000,000.
Where does that go? To otherfriends and relatives and other
people who set up another fivezero one c three that doesn't
actually do anything exceptcollect our money and, and and

(01:01:19):
have nice nice fat bankaccounts. This this corruption
that's being exposed here byDoge, if if if Donald Trump
actually does nothing else aspresident and Elon Musk does
nothing else in actual publicservice, not what people call
public service these days, whichagain is just filling their
pockets with our money, he willhave accomplished and done more

(01:01:41):
good for this country than thanthe last six Republican
presidents, and Republicancongresses could even dream of
doing because the sunlight isthe disinfectant here, and
people are are pissed. I'mpissed. More people should be
pissed, and more new corruptionlike this comes out every day.
And the good news is, guys, KashPatel was was approved as the

(01:02:02):
director of the FBI today, thismorning. And so guess who gets
to investigate all of thiscorruption and criminal
activity? Kash Patel, who hasbeen, vilified and attacked and
almost had his life ruined. He'sprobably lucky he isn't he
wasn't put in jail in the lastadministration. And now he can
start, sending the FBI outthere.

(01:02:22):
Now there was a great interviewI think he gave on maybe it was
a Sean Ryan podcast or somethingelse, and he said he would shut
he would shut down theheadquarters, the J Hoover
Building, shut down theheadquarters and turn it into a
museum of the deep state. Andthen tell all FBI agents that
are that are in that office, goout there and be cops. You know,
you're cops. Go out there and becops. Well, now he could tell
them to go out there and be copsand investigate this obvious

(01:02:44):
corruption that with that hasbeen hidden from the American
people for far, far too long.

Linnea Lueken (01:02:49):
Well, Jim, you know, that that's all that's all
well and good. But you've gottenone you've forgotten one very
important thing, and that isthat, you know, Stacey Abrams
is, after all, president ofEarth. So she,

Chris Talgo (01:03:01):
Well, she's also the governor of Georgia last
time I Yeah.

She's the governor of Georgia, and she's
also the president of the entireplanet. So

Jim Lakely (01:03:08):
That's right. That's the Star Trek Discovery
reference.

She yeah. That is. She gets to have, all the
money that she wants.

Also a novelist. Did you know that?

Oh, wow. No. I didn't

know that. She writes she writes romance
novels.

Well, another interesting thing that we
discovered, through Doge isthat, apparently, vampires are
collecting Social Security. It'sfascinating. They they came up
with and and Luke pointed thisout in the comments here. He
said, do you have any updates onthe, Social Security for people
over 15 years old? I see reportssaying that this is just a

(01:03:42):
clerical error, but the same agenumber or but the age numbers
that Musk's team reported saidthere are many more ages.
Yeah. They were going up to 300years old, I think, in the
Social Security informationthere. Do you guys have any I I
actually didn't look too farinto this besides glancing over,
that chart that Elon posted andsaying, yeah, that sounds about

(01:04:05):
right. And then moving on, whichis a terrible, terrible thing to
be not surprised by. Right?
The idea that, somewhere in thepayroll, there's people, you
know, there's there's mysterypeople that were never declared
dead, for the purposes of SocialSecurity or

or

checks going out. I mean Of course.

Yeah. That's that's I mean, of course. So so so far,
Doge has saved $55,000,000,000in one month, and they've only
gone through a couple agenciesso far. USAID, IRS, a little bit
with the Department ofEducation. They haven't even
gotten to Department of Defense.
They haven't gotten to HUD yet.There are a lot of there's a lot

(01:04:45):
more, fat that they're gonnafind here. I saw an interview
with Howard Lutnick, last night,and Howard Lutnick is the
commerce secretary. And HowardLutnick was saying this. In
Donald Trump's, you know, secondterm, the plan is to balance the
budget.
And when I heard that, it justmy head was like, are you
kidding me? How are you gonna dothat? And he said, here's here's

(01:05:06):
the plan. First of all, they aregoing to cut probably a trillion
dollars in wasteful spendingafter the entire Doge eighteen
month, project is over.$1,000,000,000,000.
That includes a ton of Medicaidfraud, a ton of Medicare fraud,
and a ton of Social Securityfraud. If they can lop

(01:05:29):
1,000,000,000,000 off of our,annual budget and in and they
can also raise a bunch of moneywith their tariffs. Howard
Lutnick was saying, you knowwhat we could do? We could
completely get rid of the IRS,and there would be no more
income taxes. Mhmm.
Zero income tax. We would have abalanced budget. We would make

(01:05:50):
our money like we used to under,you know, under, you know,
presidents McKinley andRoosevelt and all these other
people before. Remember, wedidn't even have an income tax
until the nineteen twenties.There was no income tax.
It was actually againstconstitution. We had to pass an
amendment for the government to,do that. So I just I'm I'm
imagining a time maybe in 2030or so when the IRS doesn't even

(01:06:12):
really even exist anymore. TheUnited States pays for, you
know, its spending throughtariffs, and we have a much
leaner government that wouldcause an economic boom like
nothing we've ever even comeclose to seeing before. The the
the amount of money that thegovernment, you know, would

(01:06:35):
would raise even in the meantimeafter these, tax, you know, tax
cuts go through again would be

Whoops.

Nope. Chris got lost there. Uh-oh. You're on you're
muted, Chris, for some reason.

We just, yeah, we just can't have nice things
today. Yeah. Chris, you're stillmuted.

Yeah. You're still muted for some reason.

If it's your, mic went out.

Maybe the mic went out. Yeah. But it just says
mute. Anyway, I I would just Iwould just add to what Chris
Chris was saying there. It'sit's like, what what's what's
important?
Yeah. Can we balance the budget?I think we can. I I think it's
probably going to be just thefirst pass through by Doge will
find a trillion dollars inwaste, fraud, and abuse. Trump

(01:07:29):
and Elon were on they wereinterviewed by Hannity the other
day.
I didn't see the wholeinterview. But, you know, Trump
said that, no. We're not goingto touch Social Security. We're
not going to touch Medicaid andMedicare. And I saw some fiscal
conservatives on x saying, well,if you're not gonna touch those
things, we're never gonnabalance the budget anyway.
We're never gonna stop, youknow, increasing our national
debt year after year. And, youknow, okay. You say that. But if

(01:07:53):
one third if if one third is thefloor of fraud and and
misallocated payments in in inentitlements like Social
Security and Medicare, then thatgoes a long, long way to fixing
it without making sure that thepeople who have earned and
deserve those benefits stillreceive them. We're we're we're
what I love about what's goingon right now is that we are well

(01:08:15):
past now.
The kinds of arguments I'veheard coming out of Washington
and from Republican members ofCongress for years and years and
years. It's that, you know, youcan't, you know, cut waste,
fraud, and abuse your way toanything close to a balanced
budget. Well, we haven't everreally even tried. Literally,
this is the first time any realeffort has ever been made to

(01:08:36):
make sure that the money goingout of the treasury is going
where it's supposed to goinstead of being basically a
money laundering untraceablecash reserve for the the worst
people in the world. Right.
Yeah. I mean, Elon Musk evensaid that when he went to, you
know, when he went to treasuryand they actually finally
allowed him in and his and hisDoge, people went to work, they

(01:08:58):
found that so much of thespending that goes out of the
treasury and and they've neverdenied any payment request, by
the way. It always gets made.But there was no system to track
where that money went. And sohe's implemented a tracking
system, which every, you know,competent government should
have.
And, again, American people werewere amazed. Seriously? We don't

(01:09:19):
even know where the money'sgoing? And so just these basic
reforms, it's been barely thirtydays, guys, and look how much
more accountability we have inour government today. And as
Chris pointed out, you know, ifif some of these reforms and
they're pretty radical, but Ilove them.
If they actually go into ifthey're implemented into policy,
and congress needs to get offtheir ass and put these things

(01:09:40):
into law, by the way. But wewill have economic growth that
would be enormous, and thatwould increase revenue into the
treasury through our economicactivity, not by taking money
directly out of our pockets. Andthat, with some spending
restraint, would balance thebudget and, actually, maybe for
the first time in our entirelives, see the national debt go
down a little bit instead ofalways increasing. What is it

(01:10:03):
now? Is it $9,000,000,000,000 orno.
I'm sorry. $37,000,000,000,000?

30 7 trillion. Yeah. My my specs. Thank god.
Just just so just real quick, Ijust wanted to say.
So, yeah, we are now, our GDP todebt ratio is a %. That has not
happened since World War two.This is getting really serious.
I remember literally back in02/2006, '2 thousand '7, '2
thousand '8 when we were talkingabout a debt bomb and Paul Ryan,
who I highly respect at thetime, was talking about. We have

(01:10:29):
a debt bomb on our hands.
And even Obama was saying, hey.We gotta stop using the nation's
credit card. We have for youknow, Republican and Democrats
have been, you know, guilty ofdoing this. It's so easy to
just, you know, say, just let itbe. Let it be status quo.
But now we're gonna go in here.We're gonna take a look and see
where this money is actuallygoing to. And I think one of the

(01:10:51):
best things that I've heard inthe past couple days is they're
talking about Doge dividendchecks.

Speaker 5 (01:10:57):
Mhmm.

So if Doge can can can, you know, slash, I don't
know, maybe, you know, couplehundred billion this year alone,
and they say, you know whatwe're gonna do? We're gonna
spend maybe, I don't know, 20%of that, you know, paying off
the the debt. But then you knowwhat we're gonna do? We're gonna
give Americans back a ball outof that because that was their
money in the first place. That,I think, would be a political

(01:11:18):
winner, and it's I just I can'teven begin to imagine how
popular that would be.
And that would be so differentfrom the stimulus checks that
were sent out during COVIDbecause that would be saying,
hey. You've been giving thegovernment thousands and
thousands and thousands ofdollars every year in your
working life, and we have justspent it on stupid stuff. We've

(01:11:40):
blown it. We haven't even kepttrack of it. We're gonna stop
doing that now, and we're gonnastart giving you a little bit of
that back.
The American people wouldwelcome that with open arms.

Yes. Let me you've just given me a great
transition into, this sectionhere about, the from Forbes. The
article is titled, Will You GetMusk's Doge Dividend via a
$5,000 stimulus check? And likeyou said, I think it's a false
direction to be calling it astimulus check.

It's not a stimulus check. Right? It's a rebate.
It's a rebate. It's a rebate.

It's a rebate. It's a rebate. It's a rebate. It's a
rebate. It's a rebate.
It's a rebate. It's a rebate.It's a rebate. It's a rebate.
It's a rebate.
It's a rebate. It's a rebate.

It's a rebate. You

In a recent social media exchange, Elon
Musk, head of the Department ofGovernment Efficiency, hinted at
the possibility of issuing$5,000 checks to American
taxpayers, a concept dubbed theDow Doge dividend. This proposal
originated from investment firmCEO and DOGE adviser, James
Fishback, suggests allocating20% of DOGE's projective savings

(01:12:34):
into distributing it to taxpaying households. Forbes does
point out some of the issuesthat they see with it. They say,
first, congressional approval.They would need to, pass
legislative authorization, inorder to distribute funds like
that.
This person says, economicimplications would exacerbate

(01:12:56):
inflationary pressures. I'm notentirely convinced that that
would be the case here.

They're not printing more money than why.

I mean, I

extra money being sent out.

They're not they're not hitting the, you know, the
money the the the money buttonat the Federal Reserve. This
this already exists. So they'rejust saying we were gonna spend
it on such and such, which wouldhave been wasteful, but we're
just gonna give it back to youso you can go and spend it
better because you know what isbest you know, the best way to
spend your own money. There'sone one other thing I would like

(01:13:28):
to say about this. Most, weshouldn't say most, but a large
percentage of Americans don'tpay 1p in federal income taxes.
Not one penny. So I think thatthese dividend checks should go
to the people who actually dohave skin in the game and
actually do pay more than 5 kper year in taxes. You know,
Mitt Romney said it back in 2012that where, you know, 48, 40

(01:13:51):
nine percent of the people getmore than they give to the
government. You know, we're evenworse than that now in 2025. So
we need to, I think, get peopleto have more skin in the game.
And, you know, for the for a lotof, Americans, they don't they
don't pay anything in in federalincome taxes. They pay nothing.
You know? They they actually getmoney back.

Yep. Let me

let me just add this. This would be the smartest
political thing, move any of ushave ever seen in our entire
lives, and I'll tell you why.And it's because we are already
seeing they're I don't thinkthey're very effective, but
we're already seeing, the mainthe legacy corrupt legacy media
giving us these sob stories ofthese, you know, federal
bureaucrats who thought they hadliterally and they even quoted

(01:14:34):
saying this. They thought theyhad endless job security, that
they would never never be fired,that they would ever be held
accountable, that there's reallyno way to ever get them out of
government, and that they'republic servants. And so they're
working for us, and they've, youknow, they've sacrificed so
much, but they had job security.
And so sob story after sobstory, which, you know, I don't
think works certainly doesn'twork on me and probably most of

(01:14:55):
the listeners of this podcast,but you really wanna put the to
put to bed the even, you know,small chance such, such media
propaganda could work to slowdown the Doge train, give
everybody a rebate, even people,Chris, who didn't pay any income
taxes. It then you would see youyou can't do this sort of let's

(01:15:17):
call it what it is. This radicalpolicy without the support of
the American people. The way youkeep that is to let us get a
rebate on the wasted money, thathas been stolen from us and
wasted. And not just wasted, butwasted in corrupt ways.
Wasted in ways that that enrichpeople who offer no service and
no value to society, but reallyare only in this for the grift,

(01:15:39):
the legitimate grift and the thestealing of our money. All these
NGOs, I just we're gonna keepseeing it day after day after
day. But if you wanna make surethat the political momentum
continues for this verynecessary cleaning out of all
the corruption in ourgovernment, you gotta give
people Doge dividends. It wasit's a brilliant idea rolled out
at the perfect time, and we'llsee, you know, we'll see how the

(01:16:01):
details work out, but I think itshould happen. You know?

I would love to see I would love to see this
compared with a a significantdrawdown at least, if not a
total elimination of income tax.Right? Like, they look at this
and they say, actually, we don'tneed to be doing this to you
guys at all. I mean, it gettingrid of the income tax would not
make inflation worse, would it?

No. Of course

not. So so why would giving people tax rebates
make inflation worse? I don'tunderstand that line of
thinking. Maybe I'm missingsomething.

There there's one other aspect of the story, and
that is that some, local judgesare stopping some of these Doge
actions. But from what I've seenso far, it looks like the
Supreme Court will take this upbecause what the Democrats
always do, they, you know, theyshop for a friendly judge in
Rhode Island or in, you know,Portland or Washington state or

(01:16:50):
wherever, and they say this thislocal judge is gonna make an
injunction for the entirecountry, which that is not the
way our legal system is supposedto operate. So they have, you
know, these judges have, thrownsome wrenches in the Doge
machine, but I'm prettyconfident from everything that
I've seen, heard,constitutional, you know,
scholars say, this is totallyconstitutional. The judges are

(01:17:12):
acting way out of line here, andthe Supreme Court, will most
likely take this up soon andsay, no. Actually, this is a
this is a completely legitimate,act on behalf of, on behalf of
the president and the executive,you know, branch here.
Because these Yeah. The the thepresident, at the end of the

(01:17:32):
day, has authority over theexecutive branch. And it seems
that these judges are saying,no. We don't want you to do
this, so we're gonna justprevent you from doing it. But
those judges don't have thatpower.
So that's something that I thinkis gonna really, you know, come
out in the next, probably couplemonths.

Right. And when when we do get to trying to push
for, the stuff that Doge haspointed out to actually get,
placed before the legislature topermanently remove a lot of
these, spending areas from our,well, our budget. It's gonna be
a major mask off moment, Ithink. Not that we haven't
already had it based on the, thekeening whales of a whole bunch

(01:18:12):
of different legislators whojust so happen to have USAID
connections or something likethat. We're gonna see a lot of
people who we trusted were, youknow, fairly good conservatives
or Republicans, probably voteagainst putting in these
spending cuts.
Right now, there is a spendingbill going forward. I believe

(01:18:34):
that is, as Rand Paul points outon on his ex accounts, not
actually going to decreasespending. It's actually
increasing spending once again.So, many of our, supposed
friends in the legislature arenot actually on our side, and
it's gonna be time to hold theseguys accountable for this stuff

(01:18:54):
because there's no excuseanymore. Like Jim pointed out,
you know, we've been talkingabout, looking at wasteful
spending, for decades anddecades and decades, and they've
never even looked into they'venever even tried.
They've never even come close totrying to do something like what
Trump is doing.

President president Trump has haven't been having a
lot of news conferences aboutthis. And one of the things that
he brings up is how often,someone gets a federal contract
for maybe five months, maybe ayear, maybe three years. And for
some reason, that contract justends up getting, you know,
reestablished again and again,and the checks just keep on
coming. There's no incentive forthat person, obviously, to go to

(01:19:34):
treasure and say, hey. Stopspending you know, stop sending
me this money.
So So what we need to do is weneed to go to the source of the
problem. The source of theproblem is the treasury
department, as Elon Musk said.And, a judge said that he could
even have access to these tothese records. He even said that
the judge even said that ScottPesce, the new treasury
secretary, couldn't even look athim. And Scott Pesce saying, you
know, of course, I can.
So, you know, there are gonna bethese little, like, legal, you

(01:19:56):
know, fights and little dramashere and there. But, what what,
you know, what really, Elon Muskis trying to get to the bottom
of is why is our, treasury,spending system just sending,
checks out with with with noinformation attached to it? It
should not be that way,obviously. A lot of this also

(01:20:17):
has to do with governmentsystems that are from the
nineteen sixties or, you know,that were the retirement cave
and all this kind of stuff. Comeon.
We can do better than this,everybody. So that thing that's
you know, this is called revengeof the nerds. And Yeah. And Doge
and Elon Musk are actually, youknow, going in there and
cleaning house and using theirtheir, you know, AI and their,

(01:20:37):
you know, calculators and justshowing the people this is the
math. The math speaks foritself.
You

know? Yep. Absolutely. No more government
cheese caves. We're done withthat.
Alright. Well, I think, Jim,unless there's something you
wanna add, that's about the timewe have for this, episode today,
unfortunately. So thank youeverybody for tuning in. We are
live every single week onThursdays at noon central on
Rumble, Twitter, x, YouTube,Facebook, all over those places.

(01:21:07):
For audio listeners, please rateus well on whatever service
you're using and leave us a nicereview.
Thank you so much to all of ourusual panelists. Jim. Jim,
what's up with you today? Whatelse, do you have to plug?

Just follow me on x at j lakeley. Follow the
Heartland Institute on x atheartland inst, and always visit
heartland dot org.

And, Chris, what do you got?

Same thing that Jim said.

Okay. Well, that was really fun. Good job, guys.
Thank you, everybody. We willsee you again next week.

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All the Narratives are Collapsing - In The Tank #484

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