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August 4, 2025 • 144 mins


Host: CAM ALAN


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*2024 Annual Elections Report.pdf

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
This is this between US? This is just just between us, us

(00:23):
with. Your host, you host them all.
All right, How's it going, everybody?
My name is Chris and this is just between US, and I've been
working on a whole plethora of shows that I've got to get out.
I've got the rest of the SupremeCourt case shows to get out.
I've got a new episode on prohibition and the opiate

(00:46):
crisis that I can't wait to put out.
That I have put about 10 times more effort into than I do any
average show because I want to see whether or not that effort
pays off and if it's going to besomething that is well received.
Nonetheless, that has led to a bit of a dry spell as far as
getting normal shows out. So I wanted to take the time

(01:06):
today just to put a little something out there because it
has been a while. I was recently on my buddy's
show, Austin over at the Miller Talk Podcast, which you can find
on Spotify and Rumble Miller Talk Pod.
He's also on Twitter at Miller Talk under score Pod or
millertalk.substack.com. That episode is doing really

(01:29):
well. In fact, it's actually 2
episodes. We did two parts because the
conversation went so good. Always happy to be on his show.
I love having him here. We always have a good
conversation. But it's it's rather funny to
see because his audience is different than mine and because
his show is set up a little bit different than mine.

(01:49):
It's always funny to see the reaction that that he gets,
especially when I'm on the show compared to some of the things
that I generally get. All week he's been sending me
little snippets of, of comments from TikTok and stuff from
leftist commenting on the show so we can get a good laugh out
of it. And it's always it's always

(02:11):
interesting because you see thiswith everything, right?
You see it with videos online, you see it with media and and
whether it's a news story or a newscast or whatever, or a
podcast from one of the major players.
And, you know, you have all sorts of people to comment on
things. And they've they don't even, you
know, at best they've watched the little clip that was posted,

(02:34):
but they definitely haven't seenthe broader context related to
it, let alone read the article, whatever it is, right?
But when it's yourself, it's notthat it's shocking all over
again. I expect it, but it is, you
know, disheartening I guess, because this show in particular,
you know, I put a lot of effort into it and so do the people

(02:58):
that help me with it. And when we are relating facts,
you know, we go to every effort to make sure that we are
confident in what we were saying.
And the show is not just about facts.
It is mostly about my opinion. And I try to be very clear when
I'm stating an opinion versus when I'm stating facts.
Austin show is a bit different than that.

(03:20):
Austin show is closer to a a JoeRogan type experience.
I hope he doesn't mind me comparing it like that just in
the sense that it's it's more casual conversation.
It's not a news show like this kind of is.
I mean, I wouldn't necessarily call this a news show, but you
know, we try to take deeper dives on specific topics.

(03:41):
As well as. Covering certain things that
come up that I think are important at least like the
Supreme Court cases and things along those lines.
But when I'm talking on his show, of course, I'm not citing
my reference is I'm not, you know, I'm not, I don't, I don't
have a big book of facts in front of me.
We're just talking, we're havinga casual conversation.

(04:03):
And so I try to couch a lot of what I say that, you know, I'm
going off memory and, and thingslike that.
In particular, in this last, this last example, he posted a
clip on TikTok of me talking about elections.
And of course the clips, you know, it's 30 seconds of context

(04:24):
in a three hour show. Nobody expects it.
No, nobody that is being reasonable, let's say, expects
it to be a complete picture of anything.
And in no way am I am I coming down on Austin or anything for
posting this. I've just just to be clear, you
know, no problem with any of it.But I do just for my sake, want

(04:47):
to correct the record because the whole point of Tim and I
starting the show was our our firm belief in credibility
mattering. Because in a day and age, you
know, I've said it a million times, I'm going to say it
again. In a day and age when
everybody's a liar and you don'tknow who to trust, credibility

(05:10):
is the number one currency. And so even though, you know, it
is a bunch of people that are very disingenuously responding
out of emotion and, and without knowing the broader context and
probably without knowing any of the facts themselves, other
people still see that too. So it's not really that I care

(05:32):
to respond to these people, but I do want to make sure that, as
always, I'm being clear about what is fact and what is not,
what is opinion and what is speculation and, and, and things
along those lines. And because Austin and I were
just having, you know, a, a general conversation and at this

(05:53):
point we were, I don't know, I think 3 hours into the second
part, I don't remember exactly when this took place.
But I do remember that definitely by the end of the
second part, I had, you know, itwas very late at night.
We had both been working alreadyall day.
And you can hear it in my voice and you can you, you can

(06:13):
probably hear it in both of us alittle bit.
You know, I lose, I lose my trade of thought several times
because I'm just so just so tired at that point.
And because of that, perhaps I said something that I didn't
mean to or I didn't clarify something that I should have.
We were discussing ballot harvesting and in elections in
general and our personal beliefson what took place in

(06:39):
20/24/2020, etcetera. I don't even remember exactly
how we got here, but nonetheless, I told him, you
know, I can tell you exactly howshady things happen in
Washington state. And I said very clearly, I
cannot prove any of this. I do know what I've experienced

(07:00):
and I will vouch for anything that I've experienced.
And while you can't technically prove most of this, you know,
X&X&X is fact. Specifically, we were talking
about the fact that Washington State has mail in ballots or I
was talking about the fact that Washington State has mail in
ballots. The only thing that verifies

(07:21):
your ballot is your signature onthe back of the ballot.
That's it. The ballot is pre printed out
with, you know, all of the, the,the people that are on the
ballot for that year and your information on the front.
It is put into an envelope whichis sent to your address,
whatever address you have registered with the state.

(07:44):
You receive that ballot at your address.
You fill it out, you sign your name on the back, and then you
can either return it in the mailor you can return it to a ballot
drop box, depending on how much time you have and what you
prefer to do. And what this means is every
single registered voter has a ballot generated in their name

(08:09):
every single election. That is fact.
All of this is fact so far. It's not like in some states
where if you want to vote in a particular election, you have to
request your ballot or it's not like other absentee mail in
ballots where you have to request an absentee ballot.
The ballot is automatically printed and comes to you every

(08:32):
single time there's an election,whether it's a local election, a
state election, or a federal election.
Obviously, as many that can be combined are combined.
But sometimes we'll get a ballotthat is just for a local levy.
Other times it will be a ballot just for, you know, city
officials or city and state officials.
And then, of course, every two years, it is either a

(08:54):
congressional or a presidential and congressional ballot.
Often that includes a lot of state offices, too.
And so a couple more facts that are relevant here before I get
to the point. And I told him, you know, when I
did this, that these numbers were off the top of my head
because we weren't taking the time to stop and look every
little detail up. And I know roughly, you know,

(09:15):
how many people are in this state.
And I knew roughly, you know, that it was about 70% were
registered as voters, but only about 40% of the total
population actually turns in a ballot for any given election.
But I didn't have the exact numbers off hand, so I'm going
to give those to you right now. First and foremost, I was.

(09:37):
Pretty accurate on my estimationof the amount of people that
turn in a ballot compared to total population.
Total population of Washington state 7.96 million in 20243.9.
Hang on here, let me get the exact number back up. 3.960
million people turned in a ballot.

(10:00):
That means that in 2024, 48% return to ballot.
Now, 2024 and 2020 were markedlyhigh years for ballot returns.
It's about 40% in a general year, however, in 2020.

(10:20):
Specifically, which was the highest?
2024 is probably the second highest, at least in recent
memory. They were closer to 45 and 50%,
or rather 48 and 50% to be specific.
So far so good. Now of course not everybody in
the state is a registered voter.In 2024 specifically, there were

(10:43):
5,000,001 or excuse me, 5,018,245 registered voters.
Out of ballots return, there were 3,960,496 or a 78.95%
return rate compared to registered voters.

(11:03):
There are two primary ways to return a ballot in Washington
state. Remember, they are mailed to you
already printed out, already hasyour name.
All you do is fill it out, sign your name on the back and then
you can either return it by mail, ensuring it's postmarked
by Election Day, or you can return it to a quote UN quote,

(11:24):
because this is what they call them, secure Dropbox.
We'll talk about that security in just a second.
There are a small handful of other options.
Very few people actually use them.
You can return them in hand to avoter place.
There are actual voter locationswhere you can go and vote in

(11:44):
person. However, they are not used in a
significant percentage. Actually, to be fair, this
report doesn't include I'm usingthe 2024 report on elections in
Washington state. Anybody can look up the PDF.
Of course, I will try to remember to link it below, but

(12:05):
that is where I'm getting this data from, directly from the
state of Washington. This report does not include how
many people voted in person, so I don't actually know how
significant that number. Is anyhow, in 2020 466.47% of
ballots were returned to secure drop boxes again.
That's what they call them. That does not.

(12:26):
Mean they are in fact secure, but they're literally titled
Secure Drop. Boxes so that they can say that
every time they're referring to him to reinforce the idea that
they are in fact secure. Meanwhile, 32% return via mail.
Now, as far as the secure drop boxes are concerned, they are

(12:50):
entirely unmanned. I have not seen every drop box
in the state of Washington. There are like 575 or something
like that. It says in this report
somewhere. I don't remember off hand though
it's over 500, but I have not seen every last one obviously,
but I have seen several. Most of them are not

(13:11):
particularly, you know, in frontof any building that has
cameras. They don't have specific or
dedicated cameras set up to them, at least the ones I am
familiar with. And the one in my local area is
literally in an alley and the only thing quote UN quote
securing it is the key. A regular mailbox key.

(13:33):
That's it. But it's not really.
It doesn't really matter who canget into the box.
That's really not that much of Aconcern believe it or not.
What's more important is who is dropping ballots off and how
many ballots are they dropping off since most of them are not
on camera? Who knows, but.

(13:54):
What does that mean? Is that good?
No. As I mentioned in that
conversation, ballot harvesting is legal in Washington.
It is legal in most states actually, including likely your
own. Ballot harvesting allows an
individual. Generally, it's only, you know,
campaign staff that's really theonly people to go around and do

(14:15):
this, people that volunteer around elections to help either
the Democrat Party or the Republican Party.
And yes, both sides do do it, but it allows any individual
person to go out and collect people's ballots.
Now, theoretically, they are only supposed to collect secure,
sealed, signed ballots. But it's not as if anybody's
checking on them. It's not as if if you're going

(14:38):
to ballot harvest, you then musttake them to a person who is
going to verify that all the ballots you're turning in are
sealed, signed and secured, which even then still leaves a
lot of leeway. We'll discuss that in a second,
but nobody's checking. So anybody can go and collect
ballots again. The theory I used on that show
is someone goes to a nursing home to collect ballots for

(15:00):
individuals to return them for them, even though it's entirely
unnecessary because if you can receive mail, you can also send
mail. But they can collect all the
ballots from the old people and then go and drop them off.
This means that you can legally have individuals dropping off
boxes full of ballots, and it does happen.

(15:22):
And what that means is any ballot that a person collects
that isn't signed and sealed, there's nobody that could ever
know whether or not the person that collected it then filled it
out. Sign the name, which is printed
on the front because it's mailedto you.
So your name, your full name is printed on the front.

(15:42):
So if they just sign the name that's written on the front and
then throw it in with the rest of the ballots, there's
virtually no way to know that that ballot was ever tampered
with. I mean, unless you're going to
go in DNA test who licked the envelope, I guess.
But that's of course not going to happen.
Theoretically, the one verification method that the

(16:04):
state of Washington uses is the signature.
However, if you just think aboutit logically, there are.
In 2024, there was 5,018,245 ballots that were cast.

(16:25):
OK, there's 30 or so votes on a given ballot.
If you had 500 people in the state verifying signatures on
ballots, which remember the votes are counted that night, a
very very small amount of ballots are counted the next

(16:46):
day. Like 90 plus percent are counted
night of, which means you reasonably have 4 to 6 hours to
count ballots. If you had 500 people verifying
the signature on every ballot itwas counted, they would have to
count more than 10,000 ballots. Each.

(17:07):
I'm sorry, not count, but verifythe signature.
Think about the time it would take to verify the signature.
You get the ballot. You then have to look up who the
voter is. I assume you use the driver's
license system because that is generally how all of this stuff
is done. The signature on file, I believe
is the same signature that is onyour driver's license because I

(17:29):
do not remember any specific time sending in a signature.
You can request to update your signature for the ballot, in
which case they'll send you a form to do that, a detail I
didn't mention because it was a casual conversation.
That can be done, but that is not automatically done.
So if you had 500 people verifying signatures, they would

(17:52):
have to 10,000 more than 10,000 times each in a four to six hour
period. Go into the driver's license
database, look up the person forthe ballot they're looking at,
and then compare the signatures and then becomes a question of
what level of comparison are we doing?
It's obviously just going to be a quick check you.

(18:13):
There's no time for anything else.
I'm not sure there's even time for this.
We'll do some math in a second and find out if it's reasonable,
but there's definitely not time for a forensic inspection of the
signatures, nor am I necessarilyasking for one.
But let's be real, it's just a quick eyeball check by a various
human. Which one of those 500 you get
will determine how good they areat at verifying a signature

(18:36):
matches. But since most people's
signature is just their name anyway, what is allowed and what
isn't? What is?
Exactly the criteria for. A signature being close enough
and not close enough, Who knows?Why?
Why? If you're going to frisk me,
frisk me, though that sweeping my inner right thigh was pretty
half assed. But if we break it down even
farther, if one person would have to do 10,000 in on election

(19:03):
night, again, let's assume a sixhour period, OK, because that's
about right. Elections polls close 8:00 or
9:00, I can't remember exactly, but it's fairly late in the
evening, at least here in Washington.
I don't know if it's the same across the country, but it's 8
or 9, maybe 10:00 PM somewhere in there.
So I'm giving them from let's say 8:00 to 9:00, 10/11/12, 1:00

(19:25):
in the morning to count the majority of ballots, not all
necessarily, but the majority and verifying each signature,
each person, if you had 500 people doing it would have to do
10,000 in that 6 hour period. Again, assuming you had 500
people doing it, which seems like a fairly high number to me,

(19:47):
but I don't know. That would be statewide.
That means that each person would have to count would have
to verify the signature on 1671 ballots an hour.
That means they would have to verify the signature on 28

(20:08):
ballots a minute. Even if you had all of the
signatures lined up for the ballots you had, you couldn't do
that with any sort of. Of accuracy, significant
accuracy at best if you had everything lined up, which
there's no way to do ahead of time because you don't know what

(20:28):
order the ballots are going to come in.
If you had everything lined up, at best you could verify that
the name is correct on the signatures that are readable.
That's it. So there either has to be
thousands of people checking signatures or they're more or

(20:49):
less just checking to see if a signature is there.
We'll get into that in just a second with a little bit more
depth. Again, I, you know, I'm not
trying to go through rehash all of this a little bit.
I'm just trying to, to back up basically what I said for
posterity. The main thrust of my point was
simply that there are 5,018,245 registered voters.

(21:15):
In 2024 specifically, 3,960,496 ballots were returned.
That means that 1,020,245 ballots, legitimate ballots,

(21:36):
blank ballots that are completely legit and real are
just floating around the state unused.
Because remember, you don't haveto request your ballot to vote,
it's just automatically sent to you.
And because our voter rolls are not very often cleaned out and

(21:58):
we literally register every breathing body that we think is
over 18 to vote. Many of whom are homeless, don't
live in the state anymore, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.
I would love to see how many. Ballots are just loosely sent to
each post office, but we'll cometo that in a second.

(22:19):
There are, you know, a certain percentage of that million plus
ballots every single election that are going to be returned
back to their place of origin. At any point in time.
Any of those ballots can be intercepted by a person.
That person can fill out that ballot, sign the name on the

(22:41):
back that matches the front, because again, the name of the
voter of the correct voter is written on the ballot itself.
Because it's mailed to them. They can sign the name that's on
the front and turn it in. Now, theoretically, that ballot
would be rejected for the signature not matching, assuming

(23:01):
the person doesn't know the signature.
But as we've just seen, that process can't be extremely
secure. Further, I offered anecdotally
that I have literally signed my name different in every single
election that I have voted in, none of which matched the

(23:24):
signature that they have on filefor me.
I have never had a ballot rejected.
Once you turn in your ballot, there is a website in Washington
state that you can go to to verify that your ballot was
approved and counted. It doesn't show you that it was
counted correctly, but it does show you that it was approved or
rejected and whether or not it was counted.

(23:45):
And I have never had a ballot rejected.
Now, again, that's anecdotal andthat only accounts for what,
maybe 5 different signatures that I've turned in, But there's
no way for me to verify again. And that is something that that
I clarified, I know multiple times in that conversation, I
can't prove any of this. All I can do is point out the

(24:07):
fact that there are literally a dozen ways in which somebody can
turn in fraudulent ballots and there's no way to prove that
they are fraudulent. And when I say that, let me be
clear, it's not that there's absolutely no way to prove it's
fraudulent. Surely you could check
fingerprints, DNA, etcetera, butnobody's ever done that.

(24:30):
So it's irrelevant. Yes, you could theoretically
prove it in an extreme scenario,but that's not going to happen,
nor has it ever happened. Therefore it's unprovable.
And so that is a way in which fraudulent ballots can be turned
in, and yet they will never be identified as fraudulent
ballots. As far as anyone's concerned,

(24:51):
they are legitimate ballots. They were just fraudulently
filled out. And again, I can't prove it, but
I know without a doubt that it happens.
Can I say exactly to what scale?No, but I know that the going
rate for a ballot in the homeless communities is about
$15. At least it was during 2020 and

(25:14):
2024. If you want more details on all
of this and in a deep dive that I go into, I did an election
special. I believe it was during the
midterms in 2022. I don't remember.
It could have been all the way back in 2020.
I know I was going to do a follow up in 2024, but it did
not end up happening. But I've definitely done at

(25:35):
least one election special before where I dove deep on all
this. Use the facts provided, the
references, etcetera. So I'm not trying to do the same
thing here. I'm just trying to clarify what
I said on that podcast with a little bit more detail and some
receipts. It's also worth pointing out

(25:55):
that I'm talking about Washington state specifically.
I'm not talking about every state in the nation.
Every state handles their elections differently, and there
are different ways that fraudulent ballots or excuse me,
legitimate ballots that are fraudulently filled out can
enter the system in various places.

(26:15):
But in Washington state especially, there are numerous
ways, and this is the way that progressives want ballots to
work across the country. This is their ideal system.
It's also worth noting there hasn't been a Republican in any

(26:36):
seat of significant power in Washington state for 40 years.
It's also interesting to note that in Washington state voter
turn out in 2020 and voter turn out in 20/24/2021 of the most
highly contested elections that Democrats were seen to stand to

(26:59):
lose everything if they didn't win.
In 2024, kind of much the same also had the highest voter turn
out in a long time, kind of significantly so.
And when we look at the voter turn out, there's some
interesting facts there as well.It's also worth noting that in

(27:19):
2024, drop boxes became the predominant return method that
was unique. 2020 was the second highest year of Dropbox use.
Now, again, nobody monitors at least some of these drop boxes.
Maybe not all, but again, the ones I've seen, there's nobody

(27:40):
around to see if you're droppingoff 1 or 500 ballots.
In 2024, almost 60% of ballots were returned via Dropbox, only
40% by mail. Yet in 2023 it was 5050.
Yet again in 2020 we see a 52 1/2 percent Dropbox return and a

(28:05):
47.3% mail. Still dominant Dropbox on that
year, but a lot closer. Then we go back to 2019.
It's 60% male, 2018 60% male, 20/17/50.
It's 5050 2016 55% male, 2015 74% male, 2014 65% male and 2013

(28:30):
71.7% male. It's odd that the Dropbox use
spikes on the 2 elections that are most hotly contested, is it
not? It's also ironic that these are
the 2 elections that Democrats absolutely could not positively

(28:50):
lose. And for those curious who might
be wondering, well, this could mean that the Republicans were
were trying to rig the election.Sure it could.
Except no Republican again won any seat of significance either
in the state or at the federal level, except for the the House

(29:11):
seats which are only for certainareas, right.
There are 39 counties in Washington and only about 7:00
to 10:00 depending on the election Vote Blue.
The rest of the counties between30 and 32 of them are red,
fairly significantly red on top of that.

(29:34):
So because of the way that Houseseats work, you do occasionally
get Republican House fairly consistently.
You get Republican House membersin those more red areas, of
course. But as far as any seats of
significance in the state, in statewide elections and in
federal elections, nobody of significance that is

(29:57):
conservative, let alone Republican as one.
On top of that, Republicans haveall but given up this state.
I'm guessing these elections andthe way they're conducted is
part of it. There's very little.
Money spent in this state on theRepublican side, the Republican
apparatus in this state as is certainly as weak as it is

(30:18):
anywhere else you know in the country.
Pick wherever you think it's weakest.
It's at least. As weak as.
Washington State, if not worse. in Washington state, they have
no power. They have virtually no positions
of power. They have a minority in the
State House. They have had a majority before,
again, because that goes by the county level.

(30:39):
But they never have the governor's office, the AG
office, the Lieutenant governor,any of these things.
It is not that there's never been somebody with AR next to
their name that has held those. But first of all, when a
Republican does hold one of those positions, never governor

(30:59):
in the last 40 years, but when somebody does hold, say,
attorney general as a conservative, it's only when
there's dominant Democrats in the State House and in the
governor's office. Then you might have a attorney
general that has our next to their name, but they're the most
progressive Republican you've ever seen, too, so it doesn't

(31:19):
matter. I apologize, I was giving you
the Dropbox percentage to mail returns for primary elections in
2024. For general elections, the
difference is even more startling, 2020 being the most
contested election in 2024, of course being somewhat contested.

(31:40):
Let's keep those two in mind. Starting in 2024 it is 32%
return their ballot by mail, 66%Dropbox 202343 percent, 56202238
percent, 61202143 to 56%, and in2020 a startling 26.2% return by

(32:04):
mail while 73.1 came back in drop boxes.
Now listen to the preferences before 2020 with only one
outline year 2016, I'm only going to give you the mail
because these are all you know. You can determine what the

(32:25):
Dropbox return rate was knowing what the mail was.
Obviously it has to add up to 100.
In 20/19 it was 51.5% return by mail.
In 2020 it was only 26. In 20/19 it was 51%, IN201854

(32:45):
percent almost 55, in 2017 54%, In 2016 it drops to 42%, 2015
59% 2014 59% 2013 61%. So it appears that between 55

(33:08):
and 60% of the time, people tendto return by mail.
Yet in hotly contested electionsin 2020 only 26% did, and in
2024 only 32% did. Isn't that strange?
And why is returning by mail more secure than these drop

(33:30):
boxes? Well, as I said, many of these
drop boxes, the one I specifically used in the last
election was in an alley with nobody watching it.
No camera. The closest building with a
camera, which I'd like to specify, but I, you know, I
can't be too specific about where I live.

(33:50):
I don't know if they have any cameras in their parking lot,
but I'm sure they have at least a camera on.
The building facing out is a block away.
It is literally at the opposite end of this block.
It's kind of like 2 blocks that are combined into one.
It's hard to explain. Nonetheless, at best, if they
have a camera aimed just perfectly, you would be able to
see who pulls up, like what kindof make or model car pulls up to

(34:13):
the Dropbox, but you wouldn't beable to see much detail at all.
As mentioned, there were 545 Dropbox locations in 2024.
And if we look at a couple more details real quick and then
we'll move on. Another really interesting thing
is the ballot rejection rates. In hotly contested years, the

(34:35):
average ballot can contested rate is very consistent or
ballot rejection rate not contested but flat out rejected.
It's very consistent in the general elections and in the
primary elections for that matter.
Every year in the primary elections it's 1.4 to 1.6%.

(34:55):
Literally in every year from 2012 to 2024 it is either 1.41
point 5 or 1.6% rejection rate. However, in the general
elections from the same years, 2012 to 2024, I'm just going to
read them to you so you can see how the consistency changes the

(35:17):
two most important times. 1.1 percent 1.3% Starting in 2012
2013 is 1.3% 2014 1.2% 2015 1.1 percent
20161.120171.220181.120191.2 2020

(35:40):
0.820211.32022.220231.220240.8 Now while that might not seem
very much, that means half the number of ballots were rejected
in the two hotly contested years2020 and 2024.

(36:02):
That amounts to nearly 20,000 ballots.
Now, that's not enough to turn the governor's race and it's not
enough to turn the presidential race, but it is enough to turn
almost every other race in the state, whether it's a State
House member, whether it's an attorney general or some down
ballot, or whether it's a federal Congressional District

(36:27):
or whatever it is other than thepresident or the governor.
20,000 ballots would sway a lot of those, maybe not all of them,
but a lot of them. Because as everybody knows,
local elections, it doesn't often take very much to sway
without having the exact numbersoff hand.
There's probably at least 10 or more counties in Washington

(36:49):
state that barely get 20,000 ballots return period.
That means the 20,000 ballots could entirely sway even if 100%
of people in those counties voted for a person. 20,000 extra
ballots floating around that should have been rejected but
weren't could sway the entire district 100% the other way.

(37:11):
And I apologize, it's not 20,000ballots, it's nearly 40,000
ballots, which obviously widens the doors even further.
In 2024 general election, 37,812ballots were rejected, amounting
to .8% of all returned. If instead of .8 it was 1.2,

(37:36):
that would be I guess 30,000 ballots.
It would be. It would split the difference.
It would be about 30,000 ballotsthat should have been rejected
that weren't. Meanwhile, looking at voter turn
out, we have more anomalies and again, anomalies do not equate
to fraud. They're just questionable

(37:57):
things. If you want to go through the
deeper dives, go back to the episode on elections.
But for general election turn out in 2024, they claim 79%
voter turn out. I mean, 79% of those ballots
were returned. That's still left over 1,000,000
ballots, legitimate ballots floating around that could
easily be fraudulently filled out and returned by anybody.

(38:21):
Regardless, they claim 79% were returned.
However, in one year prior 2023,there was only 36% voter turn
out. 2022 there was 63% voter turn out.
In 2021, only 40% voter turn out.
In 2020 there was a miraculous 84.1% turn out.

(38:43):
Now yes, it was a contested election, you would expect a
higher turn out, but boy is thata lot.
The year before 2019, there was only 45% turn out, yet in 2020
there was 84.1. If we go back to 2016, we see
78. It would appear that during

(39:03):
hotly contested elections, it's around 7879%.
If we look at 2016 and 2024, respectively, that still leaves
2020 as an incredible outlier. And if we dig a little deeper
and look at the counties with the highest turn out, it's no
surprise that four of those counties that have the highest

(39:23):
turn out both in 2024. Yeah, 2024 and 2020, but
especially in 2020 are also of the 7 to 9 counties that are
deep blue. The only exceptions to that are
a couple small counties that have a very small number of
voters. But the deep blue counties that

(39:44):
have large populations, which you would expect slightly lower,
turn out the larger the population, of course are among
the highest. As far as ballot rejections, we
already talked about the miraculously low numbers in 2024
and in 2020. But if we look at the percentage

(40:05):
of ballots rejected by county, we also see that the 7 to 9 deep
blue large population counties have miraculously low rejection
rates. As well, you would expect fairly
low rejection rates in small counties that have small voting
populations in general, 20,000 or less.

(40:27):
But when you're talking about a county that has 500,000 or more
voters, 100,000 or more voters, you would expect a slightly
higher rejection rate, somethingthat's closer to that 1.21
point. 3%. Yet the most populous county the
votes blue in Washington state and also the most populous

(40:49):
county in general, King County which includes Seattle only
rejected .9%, possibly the second, but I'm not sure if it
is actually the second largest deep blue county, but it is
certainly second or third was only .5% rejection rate.
And that is the Thurston County,which includes Olympia, WA,

(41:13):
which is the capital, as well asbasically everything from
Olympia to Seattle. It's interesting to note that in
the appendix of this report, Appendix E, active and inactive
voters by county, the state onlyreports in 2020, 364,705

(41:35):
inactive voters. In 2024, they report 520,000
inactive voters. I'm not sure where they get
these numbers from. I'm not sure exactly what they
mean by active and inactive voters.
I guess because if you go by theamount of people, the amount of
ballots returned versus the amount of ballots generated

(41:58):
there was over a million, 1,020,245.
If you go by the general population, it's even more than
that. So I'm not really sure what
these numbers mean. But the next time we do an
election special, rest assured Iwill investigate to find out
what the disparity is there between our calculations and
theirs. They probably just have a

(42:19):
specific definition for active and inactive voters that doesn't
have to do with whether or not they return a ballot.
Maybe that's whether or not theyreturn a ballot during any
election. There was 5 total elections in
2024 for Washington State, meaning they sent out ballots 5
different times for different things.
Again, this could be anything from a local levy to the general

(42:42):
presidential election. As far as what's included in
this report, I don't think they would include the local levies
that would be in county level reports.
This would only be statewide or higher.
But there was, according to thisreport, 5 statewide or higher
elections in 2024. So perhaps as long as you

(43:02):
returned a ballot out of. Any of those 5.
Maybe that's where the disparityis.
The last detail about Washingtonstate elections that opens the
door for fraud is the incrediblysimple voter registration
process. You can register same day.
There was, I believe 30,000 according to this report.

(43:23):
I don't want to go back up to the top and well, actually I can
I guess, hang on, let's see exactly there were I might have
mentioned it earlier, 13,250 newvoter registrations on the day
of the election in Washington state.
The only thing required to verify that you are legal and

(43:44):
eligible to vote is you signing a piece of paper that says it is
illegal if you are not a citizenof the United States to vote.
That's it. Even if they were to check your
driver's license, which they don't even if they were to, you
can get a driver's license as anillegal immigrant or a otherwise

(44:05):
legal immigrant that is under some sort of status that doesn't
allow you to vote IEA non citizen but legal immigrant.
You can get a driver's license as well, so it means very
little. It's also worth noting that
voter registration during the year of 2024, the absolute
highest numbers by far come fromnon in person registrations.

(44:32):
You have by mail 130,000 online 271,000 and other unknown what
those are 47,000. Motor vehicle is the highest at
621,000. But in Washington state most of
the things that you do with yourcar you do online.

(44:52):
Yes you could be in person. So we don't know how many of the
621,000 were actually people that registered to vote at a DMV
versus people that just did it online.
It doesn't specify. You would think that you would
put online under online, but no.Online category only covers
people that went to the specificwebsite for changing voter

(45:16):
registration information or for signing up to or rather
registering to vote. Whereas motor vehicle covers
anything through the DMV even ifit was through online.
The actual in person you also have 14,000 from federal
postcard, 2000 from unknown. But as far as the actual in

(45:38):
person options to register to vote, this includes places like
agency which would be like DSHS or if you were to I don't know,
register to police station. Basically any other government
agency that will register to vote.
There's a list of them obviouslythat was 17,000, 14,000 returned

(45:58):
a federal postcard that's also not in person registration
drives only got 12,000 and Walkins was 53,000.
So All in all non in person voter registration in 2024 /
1,000,000 people registered without it being in person.

(46:19):
Where again, the only thing you do is check a little box that
says you recognize that it's illegal to, but if you're not a
citizen, that's it. It's kind of like the little box
you check on a background check for a gun.
Are you a felon? Except the difference is on a
background check for a gun, somebody actually checks your
answers on a voter registration.Nobody does.

(46:43):
Not in this state. They might do random audits of
certain registrations, but they do not check every registration.
The other thing is we don't knowexactly how this broke down.
We know there were 13,000 on theday of voting, but we don't know
the dates for the rest of them. And they combine.
So the numbers I just gave you were not just for regist new

(47:06):
registered voters. These were quote UN quote voter
registration transactions. So this can include people that
are updating their address, they're changing counties,
etcetera. So we don't know exactly how
many of those were just new registries.
They don't separate that information.

(47:27):
So we can't see if in 2020 and 2024, for example, a bunch of
new people registered to vote. We also can't see there was a
total of 1,170,651 voter transactions, but how many of

(47:48):
those were new registers? If a million of those were new
people registering to vote, we would immediately know there's a
problem because there wasn't a million people that moved to
Washington state and or became of legal age in 2024.
And that, in my opinion, is why they combine all of that data

(48:13):
and don't show us exactly how many people registered to vote.
In fact, if we just do a quick cursory check, according to
Grok, there was roughly 95,086 people that turned 18 in
Washington state in 2024. There was only about 65,000 net

(48:36):
migration. So about 65,000 people moved to
the state more than moved away. So that means there was about
160,000 new people eligible to vote.
Theoretically, assuming 100% of them were eligible and 100% of
them registered to vote, that would mean that according to

(49:00):
these numbers, 1,010,000 of these voter transactions were
just people changing their address.
And you might point out, while alot of people registered as a
different party in 2020 and 2024in order to try and vote in
separate primaries, that's not the case in Washington.

(49:22):
Because in Washington, you get to vote either for the Democrat
primary or the Republican. But it doesn't matter how you're
registered to vote when the ballot comes to you, You get to
pick one or the other, but you can't pick both.
It's kind of a weird setup. It's unique compared to the rest
of the country. But the point is how you're

(49:42):
affiliated doesn't matter. You can vote in either or, but
you can only vote in one. In fact, I don't even think
you're officially registered with either party.
I mean, you can register with the parties themselves, of
course, but as far as the state is concerned, I do not believe
that we register based on, you know, Democrat, Republican or
Independent. Nonetheless, it definitely

(50:05):
requires A deeper dive another time because I know I did not
cover that aspect of it in that election program and this is
highly, highly suspicious. Nonetheless, altogether, the
only point I was making was thatthere is ample opportunity or
fraud in Washington state that can't be proven.

(50:29):
Doesn't mean there is fraud. Doesn't mean there was fraud.
It means that there is ample opportunity.
My personal belief and opinion is that there is unquestionably
fraud that goes on. I also believe that there is
probably enough fraud, at least at the state level, to
significantly affect either the governor's office or the

(50:54):
governor's office and other elections.
I'm sorry, I just find it hard to believe that anybody would
vote for Jay Inslee 3 times in arow, let alone vote for Bob
Ferguson for literally anything.But look, that's just my
opinion, feel free to make up your own mind.

(51:14):
But what you can't contest is that there are over 1,000,000
ballots, legal, legitimate blankballots that just float around
the state every single election.And if somebody did want to
interfere in the election, the only thing they would have to do

(51:35):
is collect enough of them and then sign the name on the back
of the ballot that matches the name on the front of the ballot.
That's it. I tell you, the data that I'd
really like to see is the numberof ballots returned that are not
completely filled out. Because you can, of course, you
can just return your ballot onlyvoting for one race, such as the

(51:58):
presidential race. But I have never met anybody
that does that. If you understand the importance
of voting and you're already filling out your ballot anyway,
of course you're going to vote for more people.
Now, plenty of people, you know,they'll vote for multiple things
and they'll leave a couple blankor one blank because they don't

(52:21):
really know enough about the candidates or whatever.
But I've never met anybody that fills out just the presidential
race and nothing else. However, if.
You were. Interfering in an election and
you had to fill out 40,000 ballots over the next two days.
You're probably only going to circle the the race that you're
worried about. So I certainly think that

(52:44):
ballots that only have one race or a couple races filled out, I
feel like those ones are at least worth investigating a
little bit further. Anyway, you tell me what you
think. JBU at usa.com anchor dot FM
back slash JBU is where you can find all the shows, all of the
places the show is available, and all of the links to the

(53:06):
social media, which is primarilythe xx.com
backslashjbu_showandthejbu@usa.comis a direct e-mail if you wanted
to reach us there otherwise. Listen on rumble Spotify, Apple,
Podcast Wherever, you prefer we.Have a new Second Amendment Win
to discuss as soon as we get back.

(53:28):
Don't tell me, don't tell me. I've never.
Heard because everyone he's worked with is.
I'm not really sure how I feel about that transition music,

(53:51):
that offbeatness and the snare only to the right.
It's almost irritating. I don't even know how that one
got in my list, frankly, but I don't know.
I'll let me know what you think,I guess, and we'll decide
whether we keep it or not. Anyway, we got a new Second
Amendment win today. That is a very, very important

(54:13):
one, and I hope it stands, though I'm sure California is
going to appeal it to the Supreme Court.
This one comes from the 9th Circuit yesterday, which would
be July 24th because who knows when you're listening to this.
And surprising enough that it came from the 9th Circuit that
is widely considered the most liberal appeals court in the

(54:34):
country by far. It is the one that is based in
San Francisco. So really no surprise there.
But they struck down California's ammo background
check requirement. But this isn't just about
background checks for ammo. There's a lot more than that.

(54:54):
In fact, this might even set up the argument that background
checks themselves are unconstitutional, which, as you
know, if you listen to this show, is, of course my opinion.
Despite the fact that I'm not really opposed to background
checks, I've had many myself. I don't think that they're,
strictly speaking, constitutional.

(55:14):
And that matters more to me. It's hard to see how you can
have a meaningful hurdle and a background check is meaningful
to a right. I also believe that criminals,
former criminals, people who have been convicted and served
their sentence and are now free citizens again, should have all

(55:39):
of their rights restored. I think that if they're too
dangerous to have their rights restored, then they probably
shouldn't be released from jail in the 1st place.
Further, you also have probationand things like that, which
could still further prohibit somebody.
But once we have completely released them and they are free,
it's kind of hard to say. Yeah, you're free, but you only

(55:59):
get certain rights. I don't know.
I, I can, you know, it, it's notsomething that I've gone super
in depth into, but that is definitely what I've been
leaning more towards the older that I've gotten based on my
better understanding of rights and freedoms in the Constitution
itself. Nonetheless, I don't want to get
too off base here. The 9th Circuit Court of

(56:21):
Appeals, in a 2 to one decision in the case of Rd.
V. Bonta struck down California's
law that required background checks for ammunition purchases,
ruling it unconstitutional underthe Second Amendment.
This law was enacted in 2019 following a 2016 voter approved
ballot initiative. Proposition 63, championed by

(56:43):
the then Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, mandated that
Californians undergo a background check for every
ammunition purchase, costing oneor $19.00 depending on your
eligibility. Kind of a weird swing in price.
I also saw one in $5 in some places.
So it seems that this isn't exactly clear.

(57:06):
Let's see. And prohibited out of state ammo
purchases or online orders without going through a licensed
in state vendor. The majority opinion, written by
Judge Sandra Siegel Ikuta, foundthat the law quote meaningfully
constrains the right to keep andbear arms by imposing fees and

(57:27):
delays that hinder access to ammunition, which the court
deemed essential to operate a firearm.
The ruling upheld a permanent injunction by U.S.
District Judge Roger Benitez, who had previously struck down
the law in 2024, citing its infringement on the 2nd
Amendment. The decision was grounded in the

(57:48):
US Supreme Court's 2022 case, New York V Buren, which requires
gun regulation to align with thenation's historical tradition of
firearm regulation. The court found California
failed to demonstrate. Such a historical precedent for
recurring ammunition background checks.
Now, we've talked about Buren onthis show.
We talked about it when it happened, of course, and we went

(58:10):
through the law. I've also been pretty upfront
about the fact that I don't lovethat ruling.
I don't love the historical precedent thing.
I do think that historical precedent is a valid metric to
check. However, I would have much
preferred a better, more broad ruling on the fact that a right

(58:34):
means the government can not regulate it or interfere with
it, period. If it interferes with the
individual's right, then it's interfering.
They can regulate the industry, they cannot regulate the
individuals right, period. Anything that applies to the

(58:55):
individual. Is by definition
unconstitutional. And I wish the Supreme Court
would just say it. This whole, you know, historical
precedent thing is, has just created chaos too, because it's
allowed liberal judges to claim,you know, any analog that they
want. While more honest and more

(59:16):
conservative judges, And I'm notsaying that only conservative
judges are honest. What I'm saying is the more
activist liberal judges are saying whatever the hell they
want and finding any analog theywant as a justification, whereas
more honest judges and more conservative judges are trying
to issue rulings in good faith. The problem is when you have

(59:38):
activist judges on one side and honest judges and more honest
judges on the other, you have people that are going radically
off the rails and then people that are refusing to correct
those people going radically offthe rails because that would
require going outside of what they normally do.
But you have to go outside of what you normally do to correct
somebody that has gone wildly off the rails.

(01:00:02):
And that's what drives me nuts about this supposedly extremely
right wing radical Supreme Court, which we've already long
proven that's not the case, but.That's supposedly what it is,
and yet we can't get a freaking conservative ruling out of them
that is clear, concise, and consistent.
The fact is, there's no justification for requiring a

(01:00:24):
background check for ammo whatsoever.
The ammo itself is just lead, brass, and gunpowder.
It cannot do anything on its own, and therefore there is no
justification for requiring a background check.
If you can require a background check for that, you can require

(01:00:45):
a background check for milk. You can require it for a
television. You can require it for a radio.
A gun is not a gun without ammo,but ammo is not a gun without a
gun. Why is this good news?
Well, of course it affirms Second Amendment protections.
The ruling reinforces that our right to keep and bear arms
includes the right to acquire ammunition.

(01:01:08):
This seems fairly obvious, asidefrom the fact, again, if you can
require a background check and or limit access to lead, brass,
and gunpowder, you can limit it to anything.
It affirms your ability to exercise your right with undue
burdens. Without undue burdens obviously

(01:01:29):
reduces barriers. The law imposed significant
obstacles, not just adding the cost to every purchase of ammo.
I don't know the difference between the one and the $19.00
per transaction, but I know that$19.00 for a transaction, a lot
of boxes of ammo cost less than $19.00.

(01:01:49):
Further, there was an over 10% denial rate, most of which were
for frivolous things. Obviously these hurdles have
been removed for people that live in California.
It strikes down out of state restrictions.
The decision also eliminated California's ban on importing
ammunition from out of state vendors unless processed through
a licensed dealer, allowing gun owners to buy ammo online or

(01:02:11):
during out of state trips without government interference,
enhancing convenience and potentially, certainly reducing
costs. I wish that there would just be
a flat out ruling. I hope that this it, I slightly
hope that this goes to the Supreme Court, except that they
keep giving these ridiculously narrow rulings.

(01:02:32):
But I wish it would go to the Supreme Court and the Supreme
Court would rule and say, look, ammunition is part of arms,
period. That's the end of it.
Because this wasn't really a problem back when the Second
Amendment was written because ammunition was black powder and
lead balls. Most people just made it
themselves. You didn't need to buy

(01:02:54):
ammunition because the ingredients for black powder, of
which there are only three, werecommonly available, and lead was
of course commonly available, and all you had to do was melt
it and pour it into molds. Therefore, there was not really
a way to restrict sales on ammunition.
Plus, the founding fathers saw it as blatantly obvious that

(01:03:18):
arms included ammunition. It included swords, it included
cannons, it included ships, it included anything that could be
used in offense or defense against another human.
One way or another. Therefore, they thought arms
covered it and it should cover it.
But with the hair splitting progressives we have today that

(01:03:40):
are just desperately trying to use any method they can to slip
past an ignorant judge who doesn't know better, it does
matter. Because ammunition today, of
course, is a much more precise piece of equipment.
Now, it is still primarily just a chunk of lead, gunpowder and a

(01:04:00):
brass case. That is the the major addition
is the brass case. But they're made to a much
higher degree of precision than one can obtain in their
backyard. Therefore, access to ammunition
is much more significant. It would stand to reason that if
you have the constitutional right to access the firearm, you

(01:04:21):
have the constitutional right toshoot that firearm.
Otherwise, the only thing that you actually have a
constitutional right to is a chunk of wood, metal, and
plastic. So it shouldn't have to be
clarified, but progressives havemade it clear that it must be.
So I wish it would be. Nonetheless.

(01:04:44):
It builds on Bruin, which is also good.
The ruling aligns with the Bruinframework, which has shifted
Second Amendment jurisprudence towards stricter scrutiny of gun
laws. This strengthens the legal
foundation for challenging otherrestrictive regulations, which
is the biggest highlight of this.
If this ruling stands. And we'll talk about what the
next steps are after this to determine, you know, what lies

(01:05:08):
ahead. But if this stands, then it does
kind of de facto do what I just said.
But at the very least it is a sign because this is the most
liberal court. It's pretty much the most
liberal court in the country right now, the 9th Circuit.
And what they are essentially saying is that ammunition is

(01:05:28):
covered by the 2nd Amendment just the same as firearms are,
which is a huge win because whatwe have seen and as we've talked
about in other pro gun episodes recently, is this attempt by
progressives to go after more orless mechanisms of function
instead of the firearms themselves.

(01:05:49):
Americans have made it pretty clear you're really not going to
get any further on firearms. People like Gavin Newsom love to
quote very biased poll results and, you know, misquote them at
that to misrepresent what the American people are willing to
accept. But the precedent stands for

(01:06:10):
itself. The only time progressives get
these radical laws passed is either in deep blue states.
It's pretty much only in deep blue states, actually, not at
the federal level. And even in the deep blue
states, they often have to do itwithout representation of the
people. And what I mean by that is they
do it through pet legislate state legislators without a vote

(01:06:31):
of the people. And yes, that technically means
they're supposed to represent us, but because of the severe
lack of education, because of the government education of most
of our kids, nobody understands that.
Nobody understands how our system works anymore.
Nonetheless, this is what Gavin Newsom said about it.
Governor Gavin Newsom issued thefollowing statement today on the

(01:06:55):
three judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the 9th
Circuit striking down California's ammunition
background check law, which was passed in 2016.
Strong gun laws save lives. There is absolutely no proof of
that, and today's decision is a slap in the face to prog to the
progress of California has made in recent years to keep its

(01:07:16):
communities safer from gun violence.
Gun violence has only gotten worse in recent years and
certainly since 2016 in California.
So this hasn't done anything to keep California's community
safer, and I have. I have a feeling that's why he
just had his press office released this statement and
hasn't really said anything elseabout it because he doesn't want

(01:07:38):
people to draw that connection. Gun violence has only gone up in
California since 2016. This law has done nothing to
slow gun violence in Californiancommunities anyway.
The press release continues by saying most major polls show
overwhelming bipartisan support for background checks and quote

(01:08:00):
other safety measures, with support typically ranging from
85 to 90%. Again, this is not this is not
entirely true. But they cite a Fox News poll
that found 87% of American voters back criminal background
checks for gun buyers. What they fail to mention is the

(01:08:21):
fact that we already have background checks for gun
buyers. Oh yeah.
Oh, good. Oh, good.
So then. And yeah, they don't work out.
The other thing they always do with these polls is they always
take them the day after a mass shooting.
And ironically, polls show that when taken immediately after a
shooting, a high profile shooting that is, people tend to

(01:08:44):
prefer more gun safety measures,whereas when they are taking
farther away they don't, showingthat people that take polls are
highly emotionally reactive. That's about it.
And of course, the things not mentioned by this, by Gavin
Newsom about this Fox News poll,which was from 2023 by the way,

(01:09:06):
and really begs the question, why the confliction?
If you know, 80% are in favor ofall these new restrictions or
added restrictions including 30 day waiting periods, restriction
of assault weapons, and raising the legal age to 21 and things
that don't exist federally, thenhow do you explain that it's

(01:09:30):
roughly 5050 according to this poll that would encourage more
citizens to carry guns to defendagainst attackers.
Further, it is almost entirely Democrats that support these
measures, 84% to 36% on something like banning assault
weapons for example, which wouldmean that roughly 80% equally

(01:09:52):
oppose the ban. More crazy, according to this
poll, only 43% feel passing stricter gun control laws would
make the country safer. Then for that other 40 some
percent that would vote in favorof those proposed laws above.
Supposedly, if you don't feel itwould make the country safer,

(01:10:14):
why would you vote for the laws?It's just it doesn't add up.
Further, 56% versus that 43 believe it would make the
country either less safe or haveno difference.
This of course, was a pre election poll.
Only 12% were particularly concerned about gun violence or
gun control anyway. And about 50% of voters were

(01:10:41):
extremely or very concerned thatthey or a loved one will be the
victim of gun violence. But the stats don't bear that
out. The most generous estimations
suggest that 3 to 4% may be a direct victim of gun violence.
Now, that doesn't mean shot or killed necessarily, but, you

(01:11:03):
know, held up in a robbery, something along those lines.
If you remove suicide from that,which is half of gun deaths
every year, it's 2 to 2 1/2%. And these are very generous
estimates. In reality, I'm willing to bet
it's considerably lower than that.
If we just look at the same, using the same numbers, so the

(01:11:24):
same generous estimates, if we just look at people that would
be killed or could be killed, rather percentage of total
Americans that could be killed by gun violence, not by
themselves by gun violence, it'sabout 0.2% annually.
Only about .00062% are killed byguns, so over 50% of the And the

(01:11:55):
other thing is it very much matters where you live.
Obviously, if you live in a dangerous part of an inner city,
those numbers go up exponentially.
If you live out in the country, there's virtually no chance.
This means that 51% of people afraid that they will they or a

(01:12:16):
family member will be a victim of gun violence is absurd.
And all it proves is that media has done a very good job of
making you making you terrified of something that is very
unlikely to actually kill you. Again, with the exception of if
you're a member of a gang or live in a particularly violent

(01:12:40):
area. But even if you live in a
particularly violent area, unless you are a member of a
gang or. Engaged in illicit activities.
It's still very unlikely unless of course you're a police
officer or something along thoselines of first responder I
should say. Then of course, even if you're
not involved in illicit activities, you're constantly

(01:13:00):
well, more or less being involved in illicit activities.
So your risk goes up for that aswell, of course.
But listen to this. This is concern that you were a
loved one and will be victim of gun violence.
All is 51% out of gun owning households it's still 44% under
4560%, parents 60%, urban voters65% and non white voters 65%.

(01:13:31):
Now those bottom 2 definitely have a reason to be a little bit
higher. If you live in an urban area,
you are more likely to live closer to where violent things
occur. If you're not white, the
statistics are much higher, particularly if you're black.
Good news is, if you're black, you're less likely to be shot by

(01:13:53):
a police officer than if you're white.
But I'm sorry, the statistics are what they are.
If you are black, you are more likely to be involved in illicit
activities. That doesn't mean you have to
be, but that's what the stats say.
And that's why, obviously, the risk for black men, particularly
young black men, is higher than for other Americans.

(01:14:17):
The more concerned you are, the more likely you are to think
more laws will somehow make you safer.
Of course, if you live in an urban area, that would be you.
You are more likely to be concerned and you are more
likely to think the gun laws would make you safer, despite
the fact that if you live in an urban area, you probably live in
a much more dangerous area that already has far stricter gun

(01:14:41):
laws. Kind of counterintuitive, don't
you think? Nonetheless, these numbers are
outrageous. The fact that over 50% except
for gun owning households which is 44%, basically every other
demographic of America, at leasthalf of them are afraid of being

(01:15:04):
a victim of gun violence despitethe fact.
That on any given year your riskis .00062.
Over the course of your life that only brings it to 2% and
again that highly. That is highly dependent on the

(01:15:26):
activities you involve yourself with and where you live.
The media has lied and this is the problem with.
And I know we're getting a little bit off topic, but this
is something that I've been building up for a while that I
want to discuss with somebody onthe show.
I just haven't decided who yet. The media has done a really good

(01:15:49):
job. And when I say the media in this
case, I'm not just talking aboutthe news, although you almost
cannot get through any nightly news broadcast without hearing
about somebody being shot somewhere.
Regardless, I'm also talking about Hollywood, and when I say
Hollywood, I'm not just meaning Hollywood because obviously

(01:16:09):
Hollywood is kind of splintered quite a bit.
A lot of stuff is filmed in Georgia now.
A lot is filmed in Florida, but particularly fit places like
Netflix and stuff they film outside of California because of
how ridiculously expensive it isto operate within California.
Not to mention, a lot of this happened during the pandemic
while California was not allowing anybody to do anything.

(01:16:31):
They had to move out in order tokeep filming.
Nonetheless, you know it. It's just all of these shows
about serial killers and child abductions and rapists and all
of the books that are promoted for women these days that are
really the most graphic things that you can imagine.

(01:16:55):
These play a psychological role,particularly on women who tend
to be more emotionally driven. And when it comes to fear of
guns, gun violence and crime in general, it leads people to be
unnecessarily paralyzed by fear.Yes, people are victims of

(01:17:17):
crimes every day, but statistically it is a very small
amount. And again, it is highly
dependent on what you are involving yourself with.
If you are just the average person who doesn't involve
themself in illicit activities, who doesn't go out in public and
get so drunk that they can't, you know, take care of

(01:17:37):
themselves and thus make themselves an easy target for
predators. And no, I'm not blaming the
victim. What I'm saying is you're
clearly making yourself an easier target and more likely to
be victimized if you don't have your wits about you.
Regardless, if you're just an average person, the likelihood

(01:18:01):
that you will be the victim of aviolent crime is extremely low.
You might have your car broken into while you're not around,
you might have your house brokeninto while you're on vacation,
but the chances that you are going to be the victim of a
violent crime are extremely, extremely low.

(01:18:22):
Vicious and violent crime happening to average people not
involved in illicit activities is very rare, despite the fact
that I would venture to guess that at least half of television
shows today support something around that theme.

(01:18:42):
And if you ask me, that's intentional.
I don't, I'm not saying that people shouldn't be allowed to
consume these things or they shouldn't be allowed to be made
or anything like that, OK. I believe in freedom of speech
and I believe in freedom of choice.
And certainly I watch certain. Police shows and stuff.
Which is why I know that this has a psychological effect

(01:19:05):
because I've had to check myselfbefore.
But you have to be aware of the psychological effect that it's
having on you. You have to be aware of the fact
that what you are seeing depicted is extremely unlikely.
Again, those other factors aside, anyway, the long short of

(01:19:28):
it is, you know, I don't believethose polls because it doesn't
really add up. I could understand 5050, but 80%
supporting these things, but then saying all these other
things that don't align with supporting more gun control
measures, it just doesn't make sense.
And if we consider how wrong thepolls have been on things that
we can actually verify, like elections, you know, we can see

(01:19:50):
what the polls are before the election.
We can see how the election actually turned out.
I They're just propaganda tools these days in my opinion.
There's very few people that hold any sort of credibility
when it comes to polls anyway asfar as this ruling is concerned.
In the dissenting opinion, JudgeJBBIB argued that the majority

(01:20:16):
misapplied the brewing test and that the laws minimal burden of
a dollar fee and short delay formost.
Did not significantly infringe on the Second Amendment rights.
He warned the ruling could undermine nearly all firearm
regulations. Good.
What happens from here, we don'tknow.
It depends on what California chooses to do.

(01:20:36):
They could put in for an on bonkor what is known as an on bonk,
which would mean that the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
will rule instead of just a three judge panel.
All in all. This case is important to to a
advocates because progressives have been increasingly going
after these these functionality claims and attempts, such as

(01:21:00):
claiming that the Second Amendment does not cover
ammunition or the Second Amendment does not cover gun
parts or etcetera. This ruling says that it
absolutely does, as is obvious. Again, constitutional rights.
Are not an explanation of what civilians can do.

(01:21:23):
They are an explanation of what government cannot interfere
with. Period.
And as we've done hundreds of times on this show, we've given
you the context of the founding Fathers own words of what they
meant when they wrote the SecondAmendment.
And if you read that context, itis abundantly clear what the

(01:21:47):
intent of the Second Amendment, let alone every other amendment,
was. There's no ambiguity whatsoever.
The government cannot interfere with civilians rights to own
guns, period. Only exception is somebody
convicted of a violent crime, and even then I would argue that

(01:22:09):
that only allows you to remove their right to own a firearm as
long as they are serving their sentence.
Or on probation, etcetera. That's all part of the sentence.
Once they are released as a freeperson again, I do not believe
the government has a right to forever restrict them from being
able to defend themselves. Much like the prohibition opiate

(01:22:30):
crisis episode that I am workingon right now that I talked about
earlier. I'll give you a little bit of a
spoiler. Alert One of the conclusions
that is abundant and clear. From the opioid crisis section
of that episode is that fentanylcannot be gotten rid of, period.
No matter what we do, we will not get rid of fentanyl.

(01:22:51):
It's too easy to make, it's too cheap, and there are national
governments, China in particular, that are helping to
ensure it ends up on American streets.
Guns are the same. We're not.
Even if we completely overturn the Second Amendment and

(01:23:11):
outlawed every gun, we're not getting rid of them.
It's not going to happen. You know, as it's been said a
trillion times, because it is blatant fact.
Sure, law abiding citizens will give up their.
Guns. Some, not all, some.

(01:23:31):
But criminals won't, and government certainly won't.
So the better thing to do ratherthan, you know, chase this
fool's errand of restricting gunrights of law abiding citizens,
which the government does not have the right to do, is to
instead focus on the criminals and the crime itself.

(01:23:56):
Plain and simple. Same with everything else.
And just to clarify this point, because it seems to.
Be completely lost on our friends on the left today when
it's said that government cannotinterfere with something which
is everything the Constitution outlines.

(01:24:18):
They are not rights granted to citizens by government, rather
they are natural rights. Explicitly outline preventing
government from interfering withthem.
But what does that mean? Government interfering with
them. We all recognize the government
interference means that our elected officials cannot use the

(01:24:41):
government to interfere with things.
But it also means that you cannot use the government to
interfere with another American's right.
Meaning if you are one of those 49% that is terrified of gun
violence and that you or one of your family members are going to
become a victim of it, and you somehow still believe that more

(01:25:01):
laws than we have now are going to reduce that risk, it doesn't
matter. It doesn't even matter if you
have a majority that agree with you.
You do not get to interfere withthe rights outlined in the
Constitution. Period.
You don't get to use government to limit another American's

(01:25:23):
rights. That's what it means.
The reason the conservatives areso specific about clarifying
that we do not have a democracy,we have a constitutional
Republic, is because in a constitutional Republic, the
minority, meaning the minority voters, are protected from the

(01:25:46):
majority. So while the majority gets to
write new laws and make decisions, which currently is
conservatives, we do not get to affect the rights of the
minority. It's a damn shame that for 250
years we have not expanded the rights explicitly outlined in
the Constitution since, apparently.

(01:26:08):
The words of the 10th Amendment.Which reads, The powers not
delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states or to
the people. Or the words of the 9th
Amendment, which says the enumeration in the Constitution
of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage

(01:26:32):
others that are retained by the people.
But apparently those words mean nothing to progressives.
And if it's not explicitly outlined, it doesn't exist.
Unless, of course, it's one of their pet projects.
Then it doesn't matter that the words appear nowhere in any
documents. It exists because we said it
does. And yeah, I get that's

(01:26:54):
reductive. I really don't care.
I'm really tired of Democrats and Democrat voters who have
complete ignorance about our history and about our laws and
about our system of government going around pointing the
finger. As if it's conservatives that
are attempting to take away rights.
As if it's conservatives that are constantly manipulating the

(01:27:18):
law and the system of government.
As if it's conservative judges who are constantly trying to
interfere with a Co equal branchof government.
As if it's a conservative president that tried to jail his
former opponent on entirely trumped up charges.
And yes, I understand that Donald Trump has been talking
about arresting Obama. I don't think he's actually

(01:27:40):
going to do it. And unless he does do it, I'm
not going to criticize him for something he hasn't done.
If he does, we'll have a conversation about it.
However, he is alleging that there is concrete proof that
Obama broke the law in trying toarrest him.
If that is the case, and if the proof exists, that is not the

(01:28:03):
same thing as Joe Biden's Department of Justice literally
creating laws to go after Trump for that is not the same as New
York's AG literally creating laws to go after Trump, for.
It is not the same as Barack Obama willfully ignoring his own

(01:28:24):
intelligence apparatus, telling him that the reports about
Donald Trump and Russia are false and passing it off as true
anyway. It wasn't conservatives that
illegally, according to state and federal courts, changed the
laws during COVID in order to ensure that their team won the

(01:28:46):
election in 2020. Yes, Democrats illegally changed
laws in states like Pennsylvania, according to
Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, ifwe're talking about their
specifically, but that's not theonly place in order to ensure
that they won. Of course, though, these cases

(01:29:06):
didn't come out till after the election.
It wasn't Donald Trump's administration that withheld the
information about Hunter Biden that would.
Have changed the election. It hasn't been conservatives
that have rioted, looted and burned down entire areas of
cities multiple times across thecountry.

(01:29:29):
It was not conservative Ng OS. And the GOP that organized riots
the day after the 2020 election if Donald Trump was not re
elected, That was Democrats who then went on to boast about the
fact that they had planned and staged protests in every city

(01:29:51):
across the nation if it appearedthat Joe Biden was not winning.
It wasn't conservatives. That quote used a well.
Funded cabal of powerful people ranging across industries and
ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence
perceptions, change rules and laws, and steer media.

(01:30:13):
Coverage and control the flow ofinformation spending further
quote hundreds of millions of dollars on a conspiracy
unfolding behind the scenes. Of unprecedented scale that,
among other things, was ready, to, quote, flood the streets.

(01:30:33):
Nope. That was all progressives and
the Democrat party. And I swear to God, if I have to
hear about the three hours on January 6th, 2021 more time.
Are you aware that on October 6th, 2018, protesters opposing

(01:30:54):
Kavanaugh's confirmation, Never mind the fact that that was all
based entirely on lies and made-up allegations that were
completely uncorroborated and even friends of the accuser said
we have no knowledge of this. But those protesters pushed Bass
police and a police barricade and pounded on the Supreme Court

(01:31:15):
doors in an attempt to gain entry, leading to the arrest of
164 people. This was not the last time,
however, that Democrat protesters would storm a Capitol
building. It's happened several times
since. You're probably not aware of it
though. And by the way, of those 164

(01:31:36):
people that shoved past police and attempted to gain entry into
the Supreme Court, guess what? All of them received tickets.
Not a single one was put in jail.
Whereas we know the January 6th protesters, who thankfully have
been pardoned since because theywere wholly unfairly treated,

(01:31:58):
many of whom had never committeda crime in their lives, were
sentenced to years in prison andtreated horribly with solitary
confinement, diesel therapy, andeven alleged beatings by guards.
And yes, there is a handful of people on January 6th that

(01:32:19):
probably deserve to be in jail. Not anywhere near the number
they were, but there's definitely a handful.
But because you guys had to be greedy and you had to try to
punish anybody that supported Trump, now we can't hold those
people accountable because you pushed it too far.

(01:32:40):
And yes, that is 100% your fault.
You know, part of me wishes sometimes that Trump was half
the dictator that the left claims he is, because things
would be a lot easier, things would be a lot simpler if he
was, and dammit, do some of these people deserve to be held

(01:33:01):
accountable. Unfortunately, I believe in
principles. I believe in the rule of law.
And as much as I believe withouta doubt in my mind that there
are certain people in our government that are responsible
for some atrocious crimes against the American people, let

(01:33:21):
alone against people across the world, I also believe that
there's not much we can hold them accountable for.
Yes, when there are provable cases, they deserve to have a
fair trial like everybody else. But in general, we give our
elected officials a serious amount of qualified immunity,

(01:33:42):
and that's for good reason. I wish the American people would
hold them accountable and get them the hell out of office, but
I don't wish that we just go andround them all up and lock them
up. Even though I do believe that
there is a large group of these people, both left and right,

(01:34:02):
that deserve to be in jail, the fact is it's on us for
continuing to elect them. And the fact is we cannot set
that precedent. But boy, sometimes do I wish
that Donald Trump was the dictator they claim he is and
would just do that because I'm sick of it.
But I would like to see Trump do.
And what I would like to see Trump focus on going forward is

(01:34:25):
exposing these people. You don't have to arrest them,
you don't have to try them, and you don't have to impeach them.
That's our job to expose them. Expose them.
Put the facts out there and let the American people decide.
Tell us what our State Department has been doing behind
our back. Tell us what our Pentagon, our

(01:34:47):
intelligence agencies, our Congress, our presidents have
been doing behind our back. Let the American people have the
information, and let the American people decide what
needs to be done. But Democrat voters, you have no
legs left to stand on. You have burned every bridge of

(01:35:11):
credibility. Period.
You have nothing that resembles A principled stance.
Your overwhelming guilt and empathy for the poor, the sick,
the children, the disabled meansnothing when you're willing to
destroy us all in order to satisfy your guilt and your

(01:35:36):
empathy. I empathize with the very same.
The difference is, I recognize that we cannot continue to spend
$2 trillion in debt every singleyear without it eventually
coming crashing down and then nobody gets helped.
In fact, a lot of people end up dying.

(01:35:56):
If we look at historical precedents, when economies
crash, whether from sickness, starvation, riots, etcetera, it
doesn't matter what it's from. When economies crash, when
governments fail, people die, historically speaking, And
there's no reason to assume or think this time would be any

(01:36:17):
different, even if I might hope that it is.
The fact is, your empathy cannotoverwhelm reality and logic.
And no, you are not a good person for letting your empathy
override your logic. In fact, I would argue that

(01:36:37):
you're not only a bad person, but you're a worse person than
somebody that has no empathy because at least they're
straightforward and at least they make no attempts to guilt
people into agreeing with them or to shame them into agreeing
with them. Never mind the fact that your
solutions to all of your problems are using government to

(01:37:00):
take away rights from others. Ensuring quote universal
healthcare requires taking away my choice to what health care I
can buy, as well as taking away my choice of whether or not to
buy health care. That is not a solution that is
permitted by our system of government, by our Constitution.

(01:37:25):
Just the same as you yourself cannot force somebody else to do
something for you, you cannot use the government to force
somebody else to do something for you.
And every time you are arguing for the government to provide
something for you, that's exactly what you are doing.
That's not empathy, that's selfishness.

(01:37:45):
Even if you claim you're arguingfor it in favor of somebody
else, it's still selfishness. I don't care if we are the
richest nation in the world or the poorest nation in the world.
We are a nation that is built around individual rights,
liberties, and freedoms, and youdo not get to take those away

(01:38:08):
because you think it'll make your life better.
When we come back, I'll give youan example of exactly what I'm
talking about. All right, I know that I am

(01:38:32):
asking for trouble by reading Salon.
However, it's important to read what the other side reads, and
while I rarely give credit to things like this or even pay
attention to them as anything other than mindless nonsense, it
cannot be ignored that so many people do.

(01:38:55):
This opinion piece is written byMike Lofgren, and we're actually
going to read two different articles by him, this one only
partially, and the point of thisis to highlight how progressive
elites frame Republicans to Democrats.
All of which is both. All of it.

(01:39:17):
Which is kind of sad to say, because it's such an elegantly
written article from that same pretentious, elitist attitude
that we see all across the left.What are your thoughts on the
incumbent in this election? On the what?
The incumbent. What are you doing in your big
school where it's just these normal people words and I'll
understand what you're talking? About this.

(01:39:38):
Article right from the title almost.
Is set up on a fallacy. Which is why we're going to read
another article as well to give him a second shot.
It's an article that he cites inthis article.
And because I don't particularlyknow and or care very much about

(01:39:59):
the subject of this article, butthe title is David Brooks Faces
the Truth of U.S. history and Runs away.
I'll explain why that's hypocrisy in just a second now.
Understand that this is of course a leftist, I'm assuming
progressive just based on what I've read so far, but that's an

(01:40:23):
assumption. To be fair, I don't know how he
describes himself. So of course I.
Expect criticisms and I expect, you know, some some
generalizations and what's the word I'm looking for here,
stereotypes about conservatives to appear, right?
That's not what I'm talking about.
You'll see. Let's start the article and go

(01:40:46):
from there, because there's going to be plenty to chop up
here. America's so-called sane
conservatives. Hey, there's your hypocrisy.
He is immediately putting David Brooks in the category of
conservatives. We'll talk about who David
Brooks is in a minute and share with you some of his

(01:41:08):
conservative ideas, but suffice to say, as a conservative myself
who does a podcast and is in themedia landscape on a daily
basis, I had no idea who this was.
Anyway, America's so-called saneconservatives have had a lot of
explaining to do since 2016 and even more since January of this

(01:41:32):
year. How do they disassociate
themselves from Donald Trump andstill justify their own
continuing belief in a conservative ideological project
that is supposed to be good for America, but in practice has
brought chaos, misery and poisonous social strife?
Yeah, who is? Bringing the chaos, misery, and

(01:41:53):
poisonous social strife to America because of Donald Trump.
Because I promise you, it's not the majority of conservatives.
Conservatives are not the ones that brag openly about cutting
off their pro liberal family members or friends or kicking

(01:42:13):
people out of their business. They aren't the ones that have
rioted multiple times and encouraged the riots.
Keyword there. And they aren't the ones that
have tried to punish Americans for voting for Trump.
Regardless, you can see the hypocrisy in his own statement.
You can see who it is that's bringing the chaos, misery, and

(01:42:34):
poisonous social strife in the first sentence.
America's so-called sane conservatives right there.
He's starting from the position that there is no such thing as a
sane conservative, but whatever.You know that that's so far all
a matter of opinion. Agree to disagree.

(01:42:57):
I guess it would be more straightforward and honest of
these anti Trump conservatives to admit that post war
conservatism in America was all a lie, that they were dupes and
that they finally saw the light.Or they could claim they were
seduced by its darker authoritarian strains.

(01:43:20):
It's temptation to worship powerand now they have finally saved
their souls by renouncing this ideological devil.
It's at this point that I question why I'm even doing
this. I mean really?
He even hyperlinks the words darker authoritarian strains as
if he has some sort of example of that.

(01:43:42):
When in reality, all the hyperlink takes you to is a
search of opinion articles for the word authoritarian on
salon.com. Of which, by the way, the first
two examples of Donald Trump's or rather conservatives
authoritarianism is this articlethat we're reading right now.

(01:44:05):
And another one titled Trump is Causing Emotional Turbulence.
Yeah, a lot of authoritarian dictators known primarily for
their emotional turbulence, he continues.
That is the well worn path of sinners come to confession or in
secular terms, Whitaker Chambersrenouncing his allegiance to

(01:44:26):
Stalin. Instead, they typically
reposition themselves as the immovable axis of correct values
and denounce their former ideological fellow travelers as
heretics who profane true conservatism, as they often
claim. I didn't leave the party, the
party left me. Now at this point I'd like to

(01:44:48):
point out, did I agree with him on that paragraph, which starts
with the They typically reposition themselves as the
immovable axis of correct values, and I didn't leave the
party, the party left me. I agree with him on that
statement. David Brooks is not
conservative. Just because somebody calls
themselves a conservative doesn't in fact, lump them in

(01:45:10):
with groups of the group of conservatives.
Conservatives share a set of beliefs.
We'll talk about some of those beliefs here in a little bit.
I've talked about it many times.Absolutely.
The Republican tent has grown considerably with the
disillusionment of many on the left especially, but in

(01:45:33):
particular the Never Trumpers. We're never conservatives to
begin with. They're Republicans, but they're
not conservatives. In fact, they are the exact
people that pro Trump, conservatives and Republicans
alike, we're renouncing with theelection of Donald Trump.

(01:45:53):
These are the progressive Republicans that got us into
places like Iraq via lies. By the way, that also.
Voted in favor of things like the Patriot Act and yes, there
are a lot of people in with conservative ideals that did

(01:46:15):
promote those things 25 years ago.
I don't take seriously any one of those people unless they have
admitted that they were wrong and most importantly, can
articulate why, because that is how you can tell generally if
somebody is actually being honest now.

(01:46:38):
Or if they're. Just saying what they think is
popular. But lest we forget, and what
somebody like Mike Lofgren here would like you to.
Not remember when you're readingthese one sided things is that
the Patriot Act, for example, bipartisan support

(01:46:59):
overwhelmingly, in fact. In the Senate, which was
Democrat controlled mind you, and therefore could not have
passed the Patriot Act, which was part of the authorization
for the war on Iraq, mind you, could not have passed without
Democrat support at all. But the support was 98 to one in

(01:47:22):
the Senate, which was pretty much 5050 but slightly
Republican, controlled 221 seatsto 212 seats with two supposed
independents. I know one of which would be
Bernie Sanders. I'm not sure who the other would
because I don't think Rand Paul was still in the House at that
time. Maybe he was.
So it might have been Rand Paul.Either way, it passed 357 to 66

(01:47:47):
overwhelmingly. All of those people.
Are why conservatives voted for Trump because we were sick of
the progressive government despite whether they claimed to
be Republican or conservative orDemocrat and progressive.

(01:48:09):
It was all progressive in my opinion.
I'm labeling it progressive to be clear.
Whatever it was, even if you want to call it something other
than progressive, they were all the same.
Those are the people. That conservatives reject David
Brooks is one of them. Longer knows that I assume, but

(01:48:32):
he wants to lump him in with conservatives so that he can
tie. All those things together.
It's why we're not. Going to go too much further in
this article because I'm more interested in the second one
because Brooks isn't a conservative anyway, which I'll
demonstrate here in just a second.
Either way, he continues about Brooks by saying this form of
rationalization and denial is embarrassingly evident in a

(01:48:54):
recent apologia by David Brooks.The New York Times notion of an
ideal conservative. Yeah, the New York Times notion
of an ideal conservative. That says it all.
Riding in the Atlantic again says it all.
And yes, to be. Fair there are.

(01:49:16):
Actual conservatives, I believe.I don't know for sure, actually,
I'm not sure I've ever seen an opinion piece that was actually
conservative in the Atlantic, but I do know for sure if it has
happened. It is extremely rare.
Nonetheless, Brooks says that conservatism, that the
conservatism he enthusiastically.
Discovered in the 1980s was a movement bursting with ideas.

(01:49:40):
There was a minority within the movement, he admits, who were
not real conservatives but reactionaries.
At the beginning, they were barely worthy of notice.
I won't bore the reader by recapitulating the process of
this shocked realization 40 years too late that the
reactionary quote, fringe, as Brooke calls it, was the true

(01:50:00):
core of the party. See, in fact, the true core of
the party at that time was Brooks, which again,
conservatives have realized for about 20 years now, maybe a
little less. At least since the Tea Party
movement. We're not actual conservatives,
so we've already announced them too.

(01:50:21):
I don't think we've had an actual conservative president
since, probably Calvin Coolidge.To be honest, I don't know
enough about Truman or Eisenhower.
I know the things of Truman thatI've read are definitely
conservative sounding, but I don't know enough about the two
of them specifically to to say whether they really embody
conservative ideals. But Calvin Coolidge definitely

(01:50:43):
did. Ronald Reagan embodied some, and
admittedly far too many conservatives hold up Ronald
Reagan as a conservative champion when in fact he wasn't.
He was better than anybody since, no question about it.
He was not a progressive, in my opinion, like George.

(01:51:05):
Bush junior and senior were in my opinion it was more of an
outlier. However, things like the war on
drugs definitively not conservative.
Big deficits. Another thing that happened on a
Ronald Reagan definitively not conservative.
I'm going to back up to finish reading this sentence again just

(01:51:27):
because I I can't help but love the the writing.
I was going to say something but.
I'll just say the writing anyway, he says.
I won't bore the reader by recapitulating the process of
his shocked realization, 40 years too late, that the quote
reactionary fringe, as Brooks calls it, was the core, was the

(01:51:48):
true core of the party. The seed of a poisonous fruit
that required decades to reach its putrid bloom.
It's said that every confession is a species of boasting, and
Brooks mea culpa that he, quote,should have seen this coming is
in that vein. He was just too good hearted to

(01:52:10):
think his fellow travelers in the conservative movement
capable of such iniquity, of course.
Maintaining one's innocence requires rearranging history.
It was mainstream conservatives,not some fringe.
No, it was mainstream Republicans.
Let's Get the facts clear. Not some fringe who perpetrated

(01:52:32):
the Iran Contra affair. Another thing Reagan did that,
albeit not at all what progressives like this guy
claim, but also not really conservative.
I can appreciate the goal. But hardly conservative, much
more globalist. However, you know any time

(01:52:54):
leftist here, Ronald Reagan. They love to bring up Iran
Contra and ignore the fact that literally it has happened under
every single administration since.
Probably under Trump too. I can't say for sure under Trump
offhand, but I can almost guarantee it did under the first
Trump administration too. The CIA has never stopped, you

(01:53:16):
know, doing illicit deals to make illicit money that is off
the books from Congress in orderto fund regime change all over
the globe. Another thing that pro Trump
conservatives are trying to stop.
He continues by saying that theyinvaded Iraq under false
pretenses Already covered this bipartisan another thing that

(01:53:39):
Trump supporters oppose enthusiastically tortured
prisoners in the Quixotic war onterrorism.
What are you doing in your big school words?
Just use normal people words andI'll understand what you're
talking. About If you don't know what
quixotic means, it means foolishly impractical.
Pretty much goes without saying that all Americans, well, I
shouldn't say that I shouldn't say all Americans oppose the

(01:54:00):
torture. Now, I don't want to rehash
this, but of course it continuedunder Obama just the same.
This is a hallmark of progressivism and globalism, not
of Republican or Democrat, because both did it.
Both. Continued to do it.
There are some conservatives that still defend.

(01:54:23):
The use of quote UN quote enhanced interrogation
techniques, because that's not actually torture.
I acknowledge the line you're drawing.
I just don't think it matters. No, I don't think we should use
torture. Yes, all of our enemies do.
All of our enemies would not hold the same amount of respect
for us. I get it.

(01:54:44):
Yes, it will probably lead to more harm, assuming in the
future. However, it cannot be.
A nation of laws and principles and claim to uphold a high
standard of morality. If we go well, they did it so we
can. The fact that progressives are

(01:55:05):
OK with it should be enough to tell you it's not aligned with
conservative values. I will never, I, I will never
concede that it is. It can't be.
I understand the desire, the knee jerk, the you know, we have
to do this because these people are trying to kill us.
Yes, they are. That does not justify doing

(01:55:29):
things that we know to be morally wrong.
Most of our enemies have killed civilians at war with us.
We don't intentionally do the same.
It's not that we haven't had civilian casualties.
Of course we have. In fact, it was one of the
things that we were all very pissed after WikiLeaks released
all that info under Obama that both under Bush and Obama

(01:55:52):
finding out that the US militaryhad killed a lot more civilians
than they'd actually claimed. Our military has up always
upheld high standards in trying to avoid civilian casualties.
I think that is a good thing that is consistent with
conservative values and we shouldn't change it.
Nonetheless, trying to pin it onconservatives or Republicans in

(01:56:16):
any way is just silly. Finally, he says and recklessly
cut taxes and deregulated markets to pave the way for the
biggest global financial crash since the Great Depression.
Obviously, I disagree that cutting taxes and deregulating
markets pave the way for that, but I also don't know exactly
which he's referring to whether he's talking about O 8IN which

(01:56:40):
case, cut taxes and deregulated markets have virtually nothing
to do with it. In fact, it was regulation,
picking winners and losers and then bailing out the winners
that caused all that. But I digressed, you know,
again, matter of opinion as far as that goes.
Otherwise, you don't. We're talking about the
recession by any other name under Biden, which clearly came

(01:57:02):
from the overspending during thepandemic, which was under
Trump's final year but was also under Biden's.
And again, controlled by Congress.
Yes, the president has influence, no doubt about it.
But primarily controlled by Congress.

(01:57:23):
And guess which party controlledCongress every time They
controlled Congress under Bush'ssecond administration, under
Obama's first administration, and under Trump's?
Well, the second-half of Trump'sfirst administration, IE the
half the COVID happened during and when all of the.

(01:57:46):
Spending took place, it continues, by saying it was
mainstream conservatives who voted unanimously against Barack
Obama's rather tepid Affordable Care Act, itself a rehash of a
Heritage Foundation proposal. From the 1990s, yes.
The ACA came from a Heritage Foundation proposal, originally

(01:58:07):
the product that actually passedin Congress.
And it was introduced by Democrats, resembles it in
nothing except name and I don't know what.
Opposing a progressive democratic socialist policy like
the ACA, which its own rider claimed was a Trojan horse to

(01:58:29):
socialized healthcare, meaning intended to fail.
I, I, I don't know what that hasto do with Brooks being a good
or bad conservative. I, I don't even know at this
point what he's getting at. So we'll continue.
Brooks labored apologia is a history, his history of recent

(01:58:51):
American conservatism, A Manichaean fable of civilized,
conscientious conservatives fullof marvelous ideas and the Class
A knuckle dragging right wingers, whatever that means.
But beyond its heroes and villains simplicity, the piece
reminds us of a characteristic habit of conservatives.

(01:59:12):
Brooks distorts not only his ownpast and that of the
conservative movement, but the American past as well.
Since much of his piece is a Parson Weem style potted history
of our country, apparently written to vindicate his
optimism that everything will come out right in the end.
I have already written about right wingers long standing

(01:59:34):
taste for distorting the record of the past conform to their
ideology. That kind of historical
mythology is now the law in manyRepublican.
States good Christ. All right, so this is where.
We're going to diverge into. The other article of his the one
that he. Links.
Hyperlinks where he says I have already written about right

(01:59:57):
wingers long standing taste for distorting the record of the
past to conform to their ideology.
That article I think matters more because again, I don't know
or care about Brooks at all. He's not a conservative, no
question about it. The fact that he calls himself
one doesn't make him one. And of course, American history,

(02:00:18):
in my opinion, far more important as well as an interest
of mine. And so I can take some more
specific claims and debunk them.For example, we can start right
now before we even switch to theother article.
That kind of historical mythology is now the law in many
Republican states. He's referring to Florida
primarily, but some other things.

(02:00:40):
As well, which we'll just take areally brief look at just to
show you that. He is every bit as full of as
he's claiming Brooks to be. And to be clear, I think Brooks
is full of who the article that he hyperlinks to prove his point
is from the Hill. We all know where this is going,

(02:01:01):
but it's a Hill opinion piece, so we'll start there.
An opinion piece is not fact. Period.
It is by. Definition An opinion.
It's entitled Red states are forcing public schools to go
MAGA. In Oklahoma, new social studies
standards sound like they were written by loyal Trump

(02:01:22):
followers. The standards include teaching
high school students about Quotediscrepancies in the 2020
presidential election. Yes, because no American
recognizes that there were discrepancies in the 2020
election. Even if you think the outcome
was correct, we all recognize there were discrepancies
regardless. It says including discredited

(02:01:45):
theories. Hyperlink to prove that these
theories are discredited. I'll come to that in a second.
Related to the quote, security risks of mail in balloting.
So are they suggesting that there are no security risks with
mail in balloting in the whole beginning of this episode I laid
out. How?
Washington's mail in balloting works and just in doing so

(02:02:08):
highlighted a dozen and a half ways that there could be risks.
Not that there is that there could be.
Their hyperlink for discreditingthe theory that there are
security risks of mail in balloting links a Wall Street
Journal opinion article. So their evidence that these

(02:02:31):
theories are discredited is an opinion article from another
mainstream news site. They also say sudden batch dumps
and unforeseen record number of voters and the unprecedented
contradiction of the bellwether county trends again.
All. Factual.
You can say that none of that matters, that the the conclusion

(02:02:56):
was still correct. That's fine.
But all of those things are true.
There was a sudden batch dump. We can all see the spike on Joe
Biden's name that happened over the course of one hour.
We all remember we're closing down counting for the night.

(02:03:20):
We'll come back at this time tomorrow morning.
I don't remember exactly what time it was.
It was like 3 or 4 hours later because it was already very
late. And then a bunch of counted
ballots all the sudden got turned in even though they were
supposedly weren't counting anymore.
And guess what? Those ballots went 97% for Joe

(02:03:41):
Biden. Don't hold me to that number
because I'm going off my memory.It was overwhelmingly for Joe
Biden. It might have been 90%.
Regardless, it was overwhelmingly unforeseen record
number of voters. Also true and hardly a a
shocking statement. We all recognize that 2020.
Had the highest. Voter turn out in like 100 years

(02:04:02):
or something. I don't remember if it's the
highest ever or not but I know it was exceptionally high.
And then the quote unprecedentedcontradiction of bellwether
county trends is also relevant because whether you like it or
not, this is what half the country believes and it is

(02:04:26):
unprecedented. Believe it or not, there has
never been a case where all 19 bellwether counties we're wrong.
Never. That's unprecedented.
And so even if the election was decided correctly, 50% of this
country still has questions for those reasons.

(02:04:47):
So even if all of those reasons were in fact discredited
theories, it's still part of history that those are the
theories that half the country believed.
They don't want any question in the history books, though, of an
election that progressives won because they want to have the

(02:05:08):
perfectly clean record. They don't want there to be a
belief in any contention in an election that progressives want.
But that's not the case. And in fact, it's often a
problem of our history books that certain nuances lost.
What would you say Joe Biden wonthe end.

(02:05:28):
It was one of the most contentious elections of our
lifetime. And the reason for that is
because people had questions about these things.
Again, even if history proves that none of those things were
true when in fact they are true not not that it means that there
was fraud, not that it proves fraud.

(02:05:50):
But it is true that the. Bellwether County thing is
unprecedented. It is true that there are
security risks of mail in balloting.
It is true that there was a sudden batch dump.
It is true that there was an unforeseen record number of
voters. It's also true that Democrats
illegally changed the law just before the election in states

(02:06:13):
like Pennsylvania, and courts later overturned it.
These things happened, so why wouldn't they be mentioned in
the history book? Unless you want to revise
history to make it look like there was never any ambiguity
whatsoever. Does the history book say that
Donald Trump win the election? I'm guessing not, since that's

(02:06:36):
not what you reported. Further, they claim it's
controversial that students willbe asked to, quote, identify the
source of COVID-19 pandemic as coming from a lab in China.
Because it did and our government lied about it.
They should probably learn that too.
According to the Hill opinion piece, though, scientists are

(02:06:58):
still divided on that matter. No, they're not.
And any logical, reasonable person recognizes that COVID did
not come from a fucking bat. Not only that, but it didn't
come from a bat two blocks away from the Wuhan Corona virus lab.
And frankly, this is entirely unrelated and totally a

(02:07:20):
conspiracy theory. But frankly, nothing convinces
me more that our government in some way knew ahead of time than
the 2020 US quarter with a bat on it.
Why? Because the quarter was designed
long before 2020. In fact, at one point I read

(02:07:41):
that it was designed and submitted in 2016.
I could not find anything that verified anything other than the
design was released to the public as far as the
announcement in 2019, early 2019, long before.
COVID. Anybody had heard the word COVID
as far as when it was actually designed?
I don't know. I couldn't find a specific

(02:08:02):
answer during this episode, but I'm pretty sure I read 2016
somewhere at one point. Regardless, it's not an eagle,
it's not a state bird. It's a bat, which has absolutely
no parallel for any reason. An American folklore of any sort

(02:08:25):
except 2020 and COVID-19. But I digress.
Don't worry though, this Hill opinion piece has some more
examples for you. Like Kentucky, they prohibited
instruction on human sexuality and STD.

(02:08:48):
'S before the 5th grade. Apparently preventing sex
education before 5th grade is going MAGA.
If that's the case, then so be it.
They also claimed that Iowa banned instruction on sexuality

(02:09:08):
or sexual orientation before 6thgrade.
What the hell is? Wrong with you even.
Worse, they went so far as to prohibit school libraries from
carrying books depicting sex acts.
What? Fuck you, let's go.
They also claimed that in the backlash the social justice
activism that followed George Floyd's murder in 2020, at least

(02:09:31):
18 states have passed laws banning the teaching of critical
race theory and restricting how teachers talk about racism,
sexual orientation, gender identity and other divisive
concepts. I don't know what any of those
latter ones have to do with George.
Floyd, but whatever never mind the fact that critical race
theory was started around thingslike the 1619 project being

(02:09:56):
introduced, which the authors ofthat.
Project later admitted they madeit up.
The 1619 Project, which literally, according to the New
York Times, argued that the American patriots fought the
American Revolution in large part to preserve slavery in

(02:10:17):
North America. You know, I just read this on
the 4th of July special episode,but I'm going to read the select
portion again from the original rough draft of the US
Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson,
which explicitly outlined how evil slavery was.
Now you might say, well sure, but it was deleted from the

(02:10:40):
Declaration of Independence in the end, correct?
It was because the Northerners were concerned that by leaving
that in the Declaration it wouldencourage the southern colonies
to fight on the side of Great Britain in order to keep their
slaves. They understood that if the 13
colonies did not stand united, there was no chance.

(02:11:03):
At ever achieving the goals laidout in this document and
therefore they removed that paragraph and instead stuck with
the words all. Men are created equal under God.
Of course, that part came first,which Jefferson felt was
sufficient without unnecessarilyalienating the southern

(02:11:24):
colonies. But in case you wanted to know
how Americans. Outside of the actual ones that
owned slaves which were very fewaltogether felt about slavery.
It goes like this. He has waged.
Cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most

(02:11:44):
sacred rights of life. Liberty in the life, and liberty
in the persons of a distant people who never offended him,
captivating and carrying them into slavery in another
hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their
transportation thither. That's a funny word, This

(02:12:05):
practical, or, excuse me, this piratical warfare, the opryium
of infidel powers, is the warfare of the quote.
Christian King of Great Britain meant sarcastically determined
to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he
has prostituted his negative forsuppressing every legislative

(02:12:27):
attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable
commerce, and the disassemblage of horrors might want no fact of
distinguished die. He is now exciting those very
people to rise in arms among us,and to purchase that liberty of
which he has deprived them, and murdering the people upon whom

(02:12:50):
he has obtruded them, thus paying off the former crimes
committed against the liberties of one people with crimes which
he urges them to commit against the lives of another.
Yeah, clearly they've fought therevolution in order to maintain
slavery. They based this claim on the

(02:13:12):
fact that Great Britain was already overturning slavery and
therefore the Patriots wanted tosecede before that could happen
in the colonies in order to protect their.
Incomes or something, I don't know.
But this is what actually happened in 1772.
Right About the same time was the OFT sided Somerset case in

(02:13:37):
which an enslaved black man claimed that there was no law in
London that allowed slavery. More or less, the court agreed.
10 to 15,000 slaves in London were freed.
Well in in Britain the ruling applied to London and Wales.

(02:14:00):
However it didn't apply to the colonies of Great Britain
anywhere, nor did it actually apply to all slavery in Great
Britain in general. It only applied with certain
conditions. In fact, it would be 60 more
years before Great Britain, ultimately 60 years after the

(02:14:21):
Americans. I mean the Great Britain would
finally free it's slaves. However, that still didn't
happen overnight and took quite a long time in fact.
The way in which they went aboutit too, instead of just freeing
the slaves as we fought a. War to do Here in the United
States, they ended the practice of slavery by paying off the

(02:14:43):
slave owners, a bill which they continued to actively pay until
2015. That means they were still
paying the descendants of slave owners to compensate them for
having to give up their slaves until 2015.

(02:15:07):
So while we shed American blood to right the wrong.
Of a king, of a country that we'd left.
Granted, many southern states continue to practice.
I'm not, I'm not trying to undermine that.
Great Britain, on the other hand, very slowly.

(02:15:28):
Released slaves first in in Scotland, Wales and Great
Britain, though that wasn't by choice.
That was because there was no official law allowing slavery in
two slaves, one in Scotland 1. Great Britain successfully made
their cases that there was no law allowing them to be

(02:15:48):
enslaved, but then the practice continued until the 1830s for
Jamaica and whatever was left ofGreat Britain's in the Americas,
primarily Canada. But they continued in Sri Lanka
and in Asia I think even furtherthan that.

(02:16:09):
And then they continued to bribeslave owning families for giving
it up until 2015. The point is, the idea that
Americans fought the Revolutionary War to protect
slavery is not only dubious, it's a flat out lie.
And since the 1619 project was at the foundation of CRT, among

(02:16:30):
other things, there is damn goodreason for 19 states to ban it.
All states should. The fact that we still have
states teaching this crap is a bigger problem, in my opinion.
Anyway, that's enough of that dubious Hill opinion piece
telling you about Republicans rewriting history.

(02:16:52):
Oh, the other one I mentioned though that I didn't say was
Florida. And this one is quite
interesting and it really highlights how they're just
blatantly lying. The the claim has been many and
I don't remember exactly what what Mike here said about it.
Something along the lines of slavery being, according to

(02:17:14):
Florida's new textbook, slavery was a benefit for slaves.
Something along those lines, is what he said.
I've seen everything from leftist sites claiming that
Florida's doctrine now says thatslavery was a good thing to
saying that Florida says that. Slaves benefited.
Florida school history books saythat slaves benefited from
slavery. Here's what it actually says.

(02:17:36):
The article that he links where he says that is from NIA Today,
which is a radically progressiveeducation group.
It stands for National EducatorsAssociation.
I assume it's probably based offof the National Educators Union
but I'm not positive on that. I just took a little look around
the website and it's very very progressive.

(02:18:00):
Their biggest concern is LGBTQ plus students and immigrant
students. No mention of American students
anywhere. Never mind that it's the
American National Educators Association.
Nonetheless, it all stems from one quote out of a textbook in
Florida where they got rid of CRT and similar type curriculum.

(02:18:25):
1619 project and all of the curriculum based around that and
instead opted for a traditional view of American history.
You know, one that actually reflects the things that happen.
And the sentence I'm about to read you, I'll admit, strikes
you funny at first. But when you hear it and you

(02:18:47):
actually process what it says, you realize it's a pretty
mundane statement. Did it need to be said?
Probably not, but it's a pretty mundane statement.
This is the only sentence that all of those headlines are
referring to. Slaves develop skills which in
some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.

(02:19:12):
How is that not true? Again, did it need to be said?
No, it probably didn't. Does it sound a little bit like
somebody trying to find a way tofind something positive?
Out of it? Yeah, a little bit.
It's also one of those things like no matter what, you if you
were thrown in jail. For a crime you didn't commit,

(02:19:33):
you're probably going to gain some sort of useful skill out of
it, or at least useful lesson that benefits you later.
That doesn't mean that it was good to throw you in jail.
The fact that some slaves in some instances could have
developed skills that they applied for personal benefit
later does not mean that slaverywas OK, nor is that what it

(02:19:58):
says. There's a reason they only
provide you the one sentence too.
Because I'm sure in the broader context, which I tried to find
but I couldn't find because all I could find was the one
sentence. I'm willing to bet they only
share that because in the broader context it's probably
very clear that slavery is beingmore than just frowned upon.

(02:20:23):
It's just silly. We can't acknowledge basic facts
anymore for all I know. What the textbook actually says
is this. While slaves develop skills,
because keep in mind, slaves is not capitalized, therefore it is
not the beginning of the sentence most likely at least
unless they just copied it wrong.

(02:20:44):
But the textbook very well couldsay this.
While slaves did develop skills which in some instances could be
applied for their personal benefit, slavery as a whole was
an absolutely evil, atrocious, terrible, awful thing.
That could be what the sentence actually says.
I don't know because they didn'tprovide the context.

(02:21:06):
So it shows you that all of his complaints about Brooks and
everything we're about to get into in the final segment of
this show is equally bull to what he claims Brooks is
peddling. Which I agree with him on that
point only. But rest assured, it only gets
worse when we move to the final article.

(02:21:29):
Real quick. Just to give you an idea of who
David Brooks is a little bit better than that Mike did.
This is one of his most recent articles.
David Brooks. America needs a civic uprising
to stop Donald Trump. Why do so many people think
Trump is good? I should have seen this coming.

(02:21:51):
That is the article that Brooks was referring or not Brooks that
Mike was referring to Lefkren, where Brooks is claiming that
you know he is the good conservative and that I guess
the rest of the party was just all bad.
Some of Brooks other opinion headlines These are from the.
Atlantic, By the way, Vivek Ramaswamy is Uninvited to My

(02:22:14):
Sleepover, How the Ivy League Broke America, Confessions of a
Republican Exile, and finally, one from his New York Times
column. Producing something this stupid
is the achievement of a lifetime.
Talking about Trump's tariffs, He's also a frequent contributor

(02:22:34):
on PBS Public Broadcasting System.
Gee, I wonder why he doesn't like Trump.
But yes, Mike, he is a bastion of conservatism.
But that's OK, because now we'regoing to look at your own
hypocrisies as soon as we come back.

(02:23:11):
All right, that's it for Part 1 of this episode.
If you would like to hear Part 2, it will be posted shortly
after. You can find the episodes on
Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, on Rumble, and of course, anchor
dot FM back slash JBU. You can find us on xx.com back
slash JBU under score show. Don't forget to check out the

(02:23:35):
American Militia Project at-x.com back slash Militia
under SCORE Project and if you want to send us an e-mail
directly, JBU at USA dot. Com My name is Chris and this
has been just between us. Understand what I'm saying?
I get killed for telling you this.
Kill walking the doggy. Bye, bye, bye.

(02:24:09):
Bye, bye, bye, bye. You want to be a little bit
water? This is only between us.
This is just between us. Perfect, Perfect, perfect.
Perfect. Perfect.
Perfect, perfect, perfect.
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