January 31, 2026 • 45 mins
Eric Epstein and Millennial Brian talk about Cubans being deported, Maduro/Oil, using a hologram instead of a real groundhog at Punxsutawney, selling a water authority, and Belichick not getting voted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, folks, January thirty first. But you know, in the
old days, when you got to February, it was like
mentally you got through the hardest month. It was cold
and it was long.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, but I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Here to let you know that it's going to continue
to be cold and horrible. What until next week?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yeah, I mean or sometimes the snow. Though the big
thing was the snow in the ice. I think that's done.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, but this does not melting. And you know, as
a school board director, you have to be mindful of
the children you're transporting in this weather. So I think
most people will be looking forward to the spring at
any rate. We're rocked the Capital. We're a good government,
anti corruption organization founded in two thousand and five. We
don't take side, we take aim. We don't care about parties.
(00:46):
We care who's throwing the party. I'm in with my sidekick,
Millennial O'Brian, and we're being produced today by Art Selby.
So I just want to shoot out a couple of
things at you that I saw during the week that
kind of caught my attention. I was surprised to learn
that Cubans in America who have along benefited from pretty
(01:07):
good relationships with administrations. They have been report deported in
record number.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Right, So initially that you had kind of like call
it the Cuban amnesty program. Essentially that anyone that was
able to skatee the island get to Florida was basically
granted amnesty and a pathway as citizenship, which for other
you know, countries in Latin America or even just around
the world, you obviously have to go through a much
more rigorous visa process. This goes back to the Cold
(01:35):
War era relationships, but also the relationship the Cuban community.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Has deby of pigs, you know, when you try to
invade a country. They and the missile crisis, but they've
always kind of been a protective immigrant group and like
you were saying, they have a pathway to citizenship if
they if they swim to the island. So what's happened, Well,
(02:01):
basically it's just been an upgrade in the enforcement.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So enforcement is any basically any immigration that's out of
step with the visa program or the legalization process is
set up by the government is going to be classified
as illegal and there it's going to be enforced. So
before it was only enforced really if you basically commit
a crime. So basically coming here illegally, especially if you
(02:25):
in a sanctuary area, you can basically stay indefinitely.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That's done.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
And now with the human community, those ambassy programs where
they sort of let them stay and then put them
in the process for legalization, that's going to take it away.
So for the people that didn't have didn't get legal status,
they're getting deported just like everyone else. The same thing
with Venezuelans. Venezuelan's got protective status, so they're basically allowed
to stay and apply for legalization, and that got ripped away.
(02:50):
So if they're not in the process, they get deported.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Well, what happened to Venezuela invaded Greenland?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That'd be real interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But so so isn't Rubio Secretary of State Cuban descent.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yes, so he's a Cuban descent and he's been a
big advocate against kind of like the leftist dictatorships in
Latin America for a while. So he's pushed, you know,
whether it's Venezuela or whether it's action against Cuba, he's supported.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That's great, and I know that then they don't look
at the rest of the continent. But what I'm saying is,
as a Cuban and he's a pretty strong partisan, it
just seems odd that this would occur while he's secretary.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, I think it's because immigration has been basically on
the campaign trail, but also in enforcement.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's like almost a consistent through line.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Through the Trump administration, which is he's going to get
hard line immigration, He's going to take out any legal
entries or legal process failures.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Do you think this was a trade off for him?
You know, I get to go after Meduro, but I
won't intervene to prevent Cuban immigrants from being deported.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I mean, I think I think he knew coming in
that that was a deal. And I think with the
Maduro thing, the trade off is that Trump gets his
oil thing. So Trump wants he doesn't want oil being
sold at cheap prices to China and to Russia in
their hemisphere, he said over and over again. Rubio, he's
also agreed with that. But I think the main thing,
if he sees throughout his career, it's been this democracy
(04:16):
push in Latin America that Venezuela Cuba, even areas where
they have democracy, where they have let's say leftist leaders,
he's been against them. So the Columbian guy that like
the Mexican leader who's very popular, she's she's a left
wing leader.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Anybody though that's to the right, even extreme right gets
a free pass that in Latin America.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, yeah, well so.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So let me ask you this. I haven't heard a
lot about Medoro. Some oil is being sold. The market's
pretty a wash in oil right now. Not to say that.
I mean people are always going to need in to
have oil. And so you invaded Venezuela but you don't
but you don't have boots on the ground.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Well, I think this is because Trump, if you were
he first came pain. He does not want long, prolonged engagements.
All his things, whether it's the when he struck the
Ice leader, when he struck Iran, it's these quick strikes
and then it's kind of hands off, reset, let's talk
it out.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So this is why when people talk about what's it
going to look.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Like, it is going to look like Korea or Iraq,
it's like neither, because I think what's gonna happen is
he's going to take out Maduro. There's no way to
put in like a democratically elected kind of Nobel Priesce
Prize winner, So you probably have to kind of deal
with the people.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The are there and her her stock plumbing it in
about thirty seconds as soon as she handed the Peace
Prize over to Trump and.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
She in to her. She's been, she's been. They've all
been advocating to get rid of Madurea.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So even if Trump, you know, did not let's say
perfect way, but they're so there.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
There is no Look, everybody knew that to get rid
of Maduro was the you know, the primary target. What
I'm saying to you is you have the Trump administration
in Trump saying that a woman who won seventy five
percent of the vote in the primary is not popular
enough to govern. Well, yeah, so I need, I need,
I need a new dictionary to follow this. The other
(06:09):
thing is that I don't you know, you kidnap the
president of Venezuela who won in a fraud genal election,
but you released the president Honduras who was convicted for narcos.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
That's what we talked about, is that Rubio is on
the right wing of Latin America. He'll forgive a lot
of stuff, and then on the left wing he's much
more critical, even though the dictators obviously deserve it. I
guess the question with Venezuela is is he going to
cut a deal? Because with the Ran it looked like
he was going to try and cut a deal, and
then he did it, and now it's like, well, are
(06:47):
we ended this kind of constant?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I think. I think what happened with Trump is that
he got a reputation for bluffing, and so now he's
probably trying to overcompensate, and these midnight runs it just
doesn't do it. You know, you're talking Iran, Venezuela, countries
that have embedded systems. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be reformed.
But what we learned with Iraq, you can't evade a
(07:10):
Middle Eastern nation, add democracy, stirret and assume you're gonna
have a right.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It's not This is not Poland, this is not Korea.
But it's also not a rock because they don't have
the ethnic and religious hatred. So when people said initially
it's like, oh, it's going to be a civil war,
I was thinking to myself, there's no way to be
a civil war in Messig. It's there could, but it's
not gonna be a democracy Poland Korea transfer, it's gonna
be like a my thing. It's gonna be I think
(07:36):
it's gonna be like a Middle Eastern dealer.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But people need to understand that there are countries around
the world that are never be democratic. It's not their culture.
And you know, if you're gonna wait for them to
ease into democracy, it's gonna be a long time. But
if you're gonna go after Venezuela, which we did, but say,
you know that Saudi Arabia, which hangs the most people
every year, it's a free ride. We all know it's
(07:59):
about all it's always been, all right, So quickly this
one got me and I'm gonna be serious. Uh So
free Puck Satani phil So groundhogs I didn't realize this
are timid prey animals who if they're able to actively
avoid humans, they will. They dislike human smells, fear allowed noises,
are poor gatherings, and prefer to stay in their burrows.
(08:21):
Yet every year, and this is uh PETA press release,
the terrified little animal is subject to allowed announcers and
noisy crowds. So PETA is calling on. I'm trying to
understand this not to bring out Puck Satani Phil, but
to do a three D hologram.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, this is great.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So what's going on here?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, listen, this is the AI generation. You've seen it
with concerts where they essentially you could have like these
AI concerts rather get the actual start to come out.
You have a hologram, you can do it with people
that have died. Stuff like that. This is just not
gonna happen. And for one big reason. You know that
whole town have built their economy on this one day
(09:04):
and this whole tourism. I know my uncle and aunt
were literally coming up going to go see the groundhog things.
So you have all these different shops. It's almost like
the places that build their entire town around deer hunting
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It's like you just you can't.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And this is also this is one of those things
where Pete, you know, they push these things that I
would think unpopular and undoable, and then people kind of
ignore the things that maybe one factory farms where they
could maybe push.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, yeah, I remember Peter describing some of the factory
farms as Treblinka as death camps. You know, you gotta
be careful with symbolism. I don't know if groundhogs are
shy or not. I know the ones around my house.
They're not shy, right, they're living under underneath my house.
But I thought it was interesting. I never heard of
that before. Look, we're gonna go to break Eric Apstein
(09:51):
in with Millennial Brian. We're being produced by Art Selby.
We are Rock the Capital and the show is Thunderdome.
So I don't know if you saw Ice is going
to Italy with the Olympic team. Seriously, no, I'm not
making this up. I'm not going to tell you either
going to you know, skeet shooting or some of that nature.
(10:12):
I don't know. But that commercial with Italian beer almost
seems like Italian and beer don't go together. I mean,
I've had.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
I feel like we know this because we go into
look control board. Alcohol is everywhere. Anyone that can get
a licensed tell alcohol, they get a license alcohol.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
That's but the other one, the other commercial and you know,
getting an electrician. Clearly there's a demand and kids should
need to know that that tech traits are a viable option.
And at lunch today, I eat lunch for the same
three people, Nancy, Cathy and Larry and Cathy said her
dad had an unbelievable her grandfather had an unbelievable invention
(10:52):
and was able to get an engineering degree sit for
the exams without a high school diploma. Yeah, I mean,
and there should be a time where you can get
be become an attorney doing that as well.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, used to have testing basically you could test into
stuff and that obviously it would save costs. But now
you know, so many jobs require a college diploma. It's
kind of if you don't have it as hard.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Well, and I don't know the value anymore, honestly. So
across Pennsylvania, the statistic surprised me. More eighteen to twenty
four year olds showed up to vote November twenty twenty
four than in previous elections, fifty four percent of the
eighteen to twenty four year olds. Now, I think some
of that had to do with the Trump enthusiasm, which
(11:33):
bumped up attendance. And you know, we noticed in the
twenty twenty four election that Hispanics and younger people were
drawn to Trump, which is now in decline. But that
being said, so there's now a student driven push to
expand voting rates in Pennsylvania to sixteen and seventeen year
(11:55):
olds to be able to vote in school board elections.
Proposals titled lowered the voting age for school board elections. So,
I mean, what's interesting. You could be able to drive
and vote before you can drink. Yeah, so it's a
bipartisan peace of legislation. I don't know if it's going anywhere,
(12:16):
but they would say, the two sponsors, Representatives Chris pye
Eli and John Inglis, that they would give the right
to juniors and seniors a direct say in their local
elections that shape school funding, curriculum activities, and students safety.
I'll respond after you, but what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Well, I think it's interesting and probably I would say,
good primer, if we want people to vote at eighteen
and you can join the military at eighteen, to have
some say in the areas where you could also see
a clear effect where you know, if you're running for
a school board and if you go to school every
day and run, you can vote or campaign at the
school board level. I think you could at least see
the effect of kind of local politics talking is that
(13:01):
you know, people talking about the federal government the most,
but the local governments that you rarely see. If people
really go to these meetings, they affect their tax dollars
the most.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Well, let me make two comments. None of these folks
that run, if they would win, would actually be a taxpayer,
you know. And then the second is, this is the
monumental conflict of interest. You're getting people involved so that
they can promote their interest. If it happened to an adult,
you know, I don't know what happened. It's an interesting idea.
I don't know. The lowering the age, actually I would
(13:30):
move towards making it higher.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
There's an argument that you shouldn't be allowed to vote
to a twenty five because that's when your frontal lobe
fully developed. And there's another argument that you should be
able to stop voting after I think seventy five because
that's when.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, that's not going anywhere. That's that's I mean, that's
where the bots come in. I mean, you know we
were talking about with a hologram for bustonic.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Help, that's what we need for voting.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I'm telling you right now, if you're in Greenland, prepared
to be invaded by holograms, man of like giant penguin
wins and velociraptors that you know that shake them up
a bit. So at any rate, this was the case
that almost everybody missed. But are not Art well maybe Art,
I don't know. Brian and I have intense interest. So
the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Chester cannot unilaterally sell
(14:17):
its water authority. As you know, a lot of municipalities
have authorities, all right, such a move would require approval
from that. There's three governing municipalities. In fact, the water
authority at Chester has expanded so now involves Delaware County
and I can't, off the top of my head think
of the third county. But what's happening here is that
(14:39):
there was a push from members on this board and
now it was split to sell off the authority. And
this is happening, and Brian can testify it, and it's
happening all over and it's a really pernicious trend. So
they are in very bad economic trouble. Chester, which used
to be a prosper support and ship building city, it
(15:02):
suffered decades of decline. It's in receivership file for Chapter
nine bankruptcy to restruction, to restructure the pension and healthcare debt.
So here again is one of those deals where they
think they see the magic. I'm trying to as they
(15:23):
believe that by selling this asset, which would held for
a lot of money. I forget what the exact amount was,
would make them hole. Now I know in twenty seventeen
they were offered three hundred and twenty million for their
for the asset. It didn't occur. The company buying it
(15:45):
is Aqua. So what's happening now that I want Brian
to respond, This is happening throughout the state.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, it's not just as Pa water. We see the
energy PP and L. Basically what's happening is that the
demand for energy is going up. The local or different
companies that used people to run a lot of these
smaller distribution networks are just not able to upgrade the infrastructure,
not able to keep up, and they're getting buy They're
(16:14):
being bought and consolidated into a few companies. The problem
is basic market economics that if you have a few companies
and a captive rate based that have to pay them,
that they can essentially argue for infrastructure upgrades that are
paid for by the taxpayer.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The right. Yeah, but this is what I want to
go over. They're being bought by private companies that now
are eligible for public reimbursement. So just let me say
that again. So when a water company sew agentity comes
and buys new local municipality number one, this isn't choice
like electric and gas. You either buy water from one
(16:49):
entity and you buy you know, your toilet from another entity.
So here you will be forced to essentially pay bills
that are always higher. And then these companies can raise
their rates almost set will and not even talk about
rates a disc which is the distribution system charge. They
can get quarterly upgrades on their infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Right which you pay for right then.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
And then here's the other thing is that now that
we're bringing data centers in the mix, well, now you
have a huge for electricity and water, and then who's
going to pick that up. It's not gonna be the
data centers. In fact, we look to it if you
look at the places where the data centers go in
the most so that Northern Virginia area electricity costs up
through the roof the amount of electricity that goes to
(17:33):
the data centers versus the normal consumers. I think it's
now like thirty percent go to data centers, seventy percent
normal consumers. And this is with are the number of
suppliers going down, So basic mark economics. You go to
a store you want to buy coffee. If the coffee
of this store isn't good or too high priced, you
go to a different store. You can't do that with
water and gas elect or It's way harder, and now
(17:54):
you have fewer suppliers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Well said the other thing that, first of all, most
people are unaware that there's even an authority within their
municipality that can sell the water in the sewage. Secondly,
the disc as I said, you now have private companies
getting rate pair of money. It's a really I think
harmful development. Thirdly is that you know a lot of
(18:17):
people say, well, you shouldn't have been in that business. Okay,
maybe some local municipalities got in over their head, but
it doesn't mean that you invite Darth Vader.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Right, Yeah, they're taking advantage of the situation. So so
it's definitely true that there's been local distributors or local
governments that have not done a good job. But then
you're essentially putting the put You're at the whims of
a few suppliers that that have a captive rate based
because you can't you can't go anywhere. You know, this
is the exact opposite of coffee where you could easily
(18:48):
just go to a different coffee shop, or you could
get your own compey. You can't do anything. You can't
get your own you know, you can go off the grig,
get your own generator.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I mean, this is well.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I mean yeah, and we've learned with nuclear ways that
you have some waste conundrums that need to be addressed
and can't be postponedent you're not going to get ability
to construct a house without hooking onto public sewer, I mean,
and the same thing with public water. So now, so
(19:16):
that's begun in forty five when the Chester Water Authority
constructed a reservoir damning the Octa Naro Creek in southwest
Chester County. Are getting close to Maryland, Delaware in that area,
so it's forty miles from the city. The thing that
makes this even more troubling is that this company now
the water company Chester Water Authority now for suburban Philadelphia.
(19:39):
So they've looped in Delaware County as well, and so
Chester City and Delaware and Delaware County have voting rights.
I know people didn't believe me a couple of years
ago when I said school board races are going to
get really really expensive. Okay, what you need to know
(19:59):
is most of the people on these authority boards are appointed. Yeah,
so your municipal races are now going to go nuclear.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Well, yeah, because you have you have millions and millions
of dollars up for grabs. And if you're a company
and let's say you go in and you get people
that are favored to your company, you're talking about hundreds
of million dollars in consistent contracts you can bank for
years and years and years. And we see it at
one other issues, let's say engineering, where you see the
same company get every contract at a certain place. But
(20:30):
this is even worse because you could, arguably you could
flip that, you could change that, you could change the
bidding process. If you only have a few suppliers and
there's always well, let's say one supplier that has the
infrastructure in your area. Where can you go? Where where
can you really negotiat?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You have a choice. Yeah, and so you made a
bad financial decision and you had years of financial decay
and you want to correct it by making another bad decision.
I think, and I could be wrong. I think the
offer price was about a billion. It for Millennial is
going to check for me.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I think it was.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I thought it was three hundred and twenty million. That
was what it was twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, yeah, and and and so here's the deal. If
an entity was not able to manage its its finances
in such a way to maintain the authority, and if
it has this dyndemic debt, and if you give them
three hundred million one billion, you might see what happened
(21:26):
in Middletown. Middletown when three Mile Island came online had
an importuity rate of one cent of kill a while,
and they sold it, and they sold it. Look at
the rates, Now, what do you got to be?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
So it was four hundred and ten million? If were
they just just got offered.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, so don't listen to me.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So for four ten million, we're talking huge, huge money.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
So I understand to cover but to cover a budget gap,
you see it a lot. But now you're you're putting
your essentially, you're putting what you the mistakes you financially
made a county on your rate payers for for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Yeah, so it's going to make your school more expensive.
It's going to make everything more expensive around you. Let
me just end by saying, if this occurs, then my
counterproposal would be, how much would you give me for
a forty nine percent steak? You know, I can see
having somebody come in and professionally operated, but I would
(22:23):
never give away my water s. Which look, Harrisburg did
that with parking, how to work out for them? Nobody's
driving to the city.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Man, that's I mean, that's that's a whole nother disaster
of budgeting.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
All right, So let's take a break. Eric Epstein and
Millennial Brian were from Rock to Capitol the show's Thunderdom
and we're being produced. But I think you've been inducted.
What do they call that?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
When you get abducted?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Not abducted or indicted?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Sorry, indicted?
Speaker 1 (22:49):
No, No, when you go to a hall of fame,
it's not inducted. Inducted yea even inducted into the Hall
of Fame.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Right, not Bill docheck, so I see, but.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Bill Belichick, get any rate. Rock the Capitol will be
back in just a moment. Well, you know, we had
an intense discussion on break and Art raised some good
points on Belichick. Look, the Hall of Fame in professional
sports is not the Hall of morality. And you know,
I thought Rose should get in. It's not what I
always thought, but based on his performance, and you know,
(23:22):
you had guys that had like seven lifetime suspensions who
got in, but Art would you. So you're saying you're
okay with him not getting in now to send a signal.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Well, first off, Pete Rose should be in Hall of Famers,
and no doubt about that. But yeah, I'm fine with
them sending Belichick a message. He hasn't won anywhere of
alper eighty his first Super Bowl they won when they
basically made up a call Nobody else who follows the
NFL ever heard of with the Tuck role never heard
of it. Yeah, the flate gate, which which I think
we talked about, was overinflated, but I think Spygate didn't
(23:55):
get enough attention. They had tapes on all the teams.
It was more than one game in the NFL just
destroyed them and threw it out. So you know, he's
kind of get in the Hall of Fame. He deserves
to be in, but he also deserves to be sent
a message.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, we'll me ask you this about because spoke.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
One of the arguments against using against him is that
they got caught and other teams have done the similar things,
and that essentially that he's just playing by the same
rules as everyone else. It's just that he got caught.
It's sort of like paying players in college. Everyone was
doing it before. Now it's above the table. But it's
not like it's not like SMU was the only college
that paid players.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Well they I mean, I think the SMU when they
got the death penalty, they just basically were flaunting it.
I mean, this was stealth, you know, this was stealing signals. Yeah,
and it could be true, Brian, everybody could be doing it.
It's like I told Bill Duiz, you know when he
told me, hey man, you know everybody uses their people.
I said, yeah, Bill, but you got caught. You know.
(24:53):
So let me ask you this. Does this after all
this year's embarrassing, Ask page, does this elevate Brady to
a different status? I mean, when people say, hey, was
it Brady? Was it Belichick because of his behavior this year?
Does that change anything? Well?
Speaker 4 (25:13):
I think that the difference between Brady and Belichick is
Brady went to a different team and they were still great,
and he won a Super Bowl, where Belichick went to
the Tar Hills and they were an embarrassment this year.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Even without Brady in his Anthol career, was blowed five
hundreds of coach. So listen, you always need a good quarterback.
But like I think Brady's when you ask who's more
responsible for the dynasty, I think it's got to be
I think a lot of people would be sixty forty Belichick.
I think it's sixty forty Brady.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
That's that's what I was asking. But one of the
things about Belichick, he was at Cleveland, then he went
to the Giants where he was mentored by parcelsh Most
everybody who was coached by him said, yeah, he was
not the most effervescent person, but he had lockdown defenses.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I mean he had that defense with Lawrence Dale or was.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Let's be clear, he's going to get in. We're not
saying he's not going to get in. We're just sending
them a message the first time around, saying, hey, not
everyone thinks what you did is wonderful, so you're going
to get in. Don't worry about you're just not going
to get in the first first ballot.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, but for somebody like him, that probably means something
the first ballot. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
I mean it means something though a team like the
Rams that lost the Super Bowl because you know they
were watching tapes of their place.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, well, look, it's to me, the biggest issue is
that you send a signal to collegiate in high school
athletics that cheating will be rewarded, that you can do
whatever it takes. And uh, Belichick did it. You know,
Brady did it. So going from that to another criminal issue,
(26:43):
all right, So I read this and we've been talking
about it, but it's not sinking in. According to the
data from the Independent Council on Criminal Justice, homicide rates
across the country saw ad decrease. Again, it's been going
down for years, all right. So you're looking at thirty
five cities, with thirty one of them seeing a decrease
in homicide rates. Philadelphia saw on eighteen percent decrease and
(27:07):
Pittsburgh saw a six decrease six percent, and that's just
over one year, all right. So you see that the
drop in homicide has also occurred at the same time
as the increase in crimes being solved. So you know,
I we had talked about this before. And the thing
(27:28):
that intrigues me is that as you right after COVID,
I think that's your theory, crime started to decrease.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Right af for COVID, they increased, right So during COVID, No,
but I'm seeing after Yeah, after COVID, crimes decreased, and
there's like, there's different reasons for it. One was that
it was just an unexpected increase that broke decades long trend.
One was obviously coming back from COVID. People took advantage
of that situation and now it's harder. But the big
thing you talked about of why I think there's a
(27:57):
good trend is one of the biggest problems we have
states is that we actually solve crimes at a much
much super violent at a lower rate, and so we
essentially have repeat violent offenders. So no one wants on
the street right on the street. And so if you
increase the solvency rate of your homicides, murders, armed robberies,
that's the big that's the best driver to drive down
(28:19):
violent crime. And so if look at these cities, all
their like their rates went up. I mean you said
cities like Chicago where the rate of like solving a
homicide was like twenty twenty five percent.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, but how do you tell our listeners that homicides
are going down in Chicago because you had the Trump
administration effectively saying, look, there's desol over the place, we
need to send ice in. Well, the same thing with
Philadelphia is that it's also I guess I don't know
what it is. This is this started occurring, I guess
twenty one two. And the trend what you're identifying is
(28:58):
different what Larry Krasner is saying the DA. He's saying
that there's more proactive.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Violence community programs.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
There's arguments that in Baltimore that's what they did to
start throwing block parties as government sponsors block parties, trying
to get kids off the streets. And I'm not saying
that doesn't have an effect, But like, I guess, my problem,
the biggest problem is that they've been doing that for decades.
They were doing that during COVID, Remember COVID, they had
all these different programs. Krassler was well, I mean krasser
(29:27):
was also oversaw the biggest increase.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
That's what I'm saying is so you have a guy
that saw the increase the decrease, he was almost impeached
by the Pennsylvania Senate, and you know it was vilified,
and now he's now he's the tip of the spear
for liberal das and combating crime. So I don't know
that there there There has to be a couple through
(29:53):
trends here because it's national, it's happening in all the
urban cities. However, people's perception is they don't. I guess
they don't.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Don't believe because one, when we say they decreased, I
mean if you look at the Chicago murder rate in
compared to other countries and say Toronto, I mean Chicago
murder rate, even though it's gone down, it's still what
Philadelphia is still way above. And then when you compare
it to where most people live, which is the suburbs,
I mean, the suburbs have like Japan low level crimes,
and then our cities have like Latin America level crimes,
(30:25):
even if it's gone down. So it's just it's such
a dichotomy that there's always going to be a perception
that the crime well not even perception reality that crime
is too high in the cities, even if it's getting better.
And the other thing is, you know, getting uh when
people run doing things that make solving murders easier is
actually not kind of what wins elections, whether it's a
(30:48):
DA and stuff like that, even though people think that.
Typically it's like we either want to get harder on crime,
more police, or we want to get sort of softer
on crime, more programs. No one's like, well, you know,
we have ten thousand rape kits we haven't tested.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
We've tested two percent of them. Let's test all of them.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
No, I mean that's I know, there's a lot to go.
But they're saying that, Look, the norm for solving crimes
was about eighty six to ninety one percent. It's up
to ninety five percent. But then you still have those
cases like, uh, the young woman who was stabbed nineteen
times in the neck and they somehow said it was suicide.
(31:24):
You know, you say, when you look at Philly two
hundred and twenty two killings a year, I don't know
that that's reason to celebrate, but it's reason.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
It's way down. I mean used to be over three hundred.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, But at the same time that there's more guns around.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
But I think the gun thing is a neutral thing
because we because unless you're looking at very I said,
with very small areas, and I'd say the Northeast. Basically,
if you want to get access to guns in the
United States, get access. So that's I would say it's
almost a neutral thing. There might be places where it's harder,
but you know, crime is always gonna have guns. If
you have more purchase of guns or less purchase of guns,
(32:03):
you know, the criminals, at least at this point are
gonna have unless you have like an insane crackdown and
full reversal of the Secon Amendment.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Right, So I think there's there's always So the question
is how do you solve repeat violent offenders. That was
the biggest problems that we kept repeat violent offenders on
the streets over and over and over again, and they
would get away with it over and over and over
and people would testify against them. So how do you
use like DNA fingerprints?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
So do you think DNA is a big part of this?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, Well, I think a perfect example is rape kits.
I mean, it's real hard if it's a one on
one scenario to prove rape. But if you have rape kits,
that's such a test DNA evidence you can immediately identify
the person. You can have such a validity because you
could test or is it a fourth entry, and then
you can solve way more rape.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Well, I tell you what I like about the statistics
is it impeaches and appumes the h Republican and Democrat
talking points. So you have at third went out of
thirty five cities, murders going down at the same time
gun purchaser going up. So I think what it tells
me is we need to think of a new way
(33:09):
to address crime. I mean, you know the other thing
we're talking about, well that's going down, but cheating in
football is going up. You know. To me, it's the mentality,
it's the mindset that anything's all right. I thought it
was good news. I'm still wrestling, you know, on how
to explain it. And you're right, the murder rate went
(33:31):
down to Chicago, but it's still it.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Runs me a quote.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
It's said by Tony Blair, who has a different depends,
but it's a great quote. He's like, whenever one talks
about government, they talk about left government, they talk about right, government, left,
and centiropologies.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
No one talks about smart and dumb. No one ever.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
He's like, eighty percent of government is smart and dumb?
Or are you getting the bank for your block? Are you
enforcing the most important laws? Let's say, repeat violent offenders.
And no one's like, hey, I want serial killers to
run around. They want those you know, I want seri
rapists to run around, they want those laws in four
So I think, can you do the basics at a
high level.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
That's really what I'd like to see more attension put
on serial rapists because I think when a rape occurs,
you steal somebody's soul and they're alive and they have
to deal with that. Yeah, forever. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Art.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Before we go to break, I'll tell you I decided
if I'm going to go job hunting, my three references
would be Jesus Christ, Charles Manson, and Sandy Kofax. How
do you think I do?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
That'd be an interesting interview?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
All right?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Right?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Anyway, Eric, I've sided with Mani Obrian. The show is
Thunderdome More Rock the Capitol will being produced by Art Selby.
We'll be back for our final segment in a minute.
All right, So in the break, I was informed that
two out of three of my references were dead. Uh
so I'm gonna I'm gonna start. Then, I guess Sandy
Kofax is great baseball player. Nicholas Maduro shows that, you know,
(34:57):
I'm tough on tough on everything to put anyone against you,
I think, and Charlie Mans was never a good idea.
But you know, the last segment here is on crime.
It's interesting and I was unaware of this, and this
is again gonna kind of break your mind. So the IDEF,
(35:20):
which is the Israeli Defense Forces, had a recent influct
of high end goods being smuggled into Gaza. And the
sources in the Army's Southern Command say the smuggling is
originating not from the Egyptian border, but from the Israeli borders.
So Army officials, suspected Israelies, defense minister, contractors, truck drivers,
(35:42):
infrastructure workers, whatnot are taking advantage. And this is what
killed me. The army, the Israeli Army has a lack
of security system on the border into Gaza, and they're
willing to take the risk because the reward is so
high and so despite it, you know, regardless of how
(36:03):
you come out in the war, you know, there is hunger,
there's sanitation issues, there's poverty. The IDF is reporting that smartphones, laptops, motorcycles, yes, atavvs,
alcohol and cigarettes, and alcohol is supposed to be forbidden,
but in Muslims all right, as readily available for purchase
across the enclaves. So the point that this writer was making,
(36:27):
and he also said, how did Hamas get all brand
new uniforms? Oh?
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, well, I mean this is the whole thing, is
that anything that goes through there they get a piece
or almost like you know, it's almost like the cartels
in Mexa. They all have to get a piece. What
I thought was interesting is that this is almost this
is a similar obviously different scale, but from that happened
on October seventh, which is one of the arguments when
you look at the review of the securities thing is
that they were basically lacks They thought that our border
(36:53):
is fine. It's actually these other boards that we don't control,
and so we had kind of lax security here. It's
obviously much smaller. It's about small bugging, you know, motorcycles ATVs.
But this is example of we're like, we're securing the
Egyptian side of the border as hard as we can,
that we're letting our side make it easy to smuggle
stuff in.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Well, look, so it was interesting some of the smugglers
are actually Bedouins. I guess they're smuggling in on camel.
But my point is somebody has discretionary income if they're
buying high end materials.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
And when we know hamas Amas has very you know,
rich billionaires in Qatar, right, that essentially helped fund them.
And then and then their organization gets funding from different
you know in moms around them, so they have money.
I would not obviously that the average Palestinian does not
have that type of money. Yeah, they're still in a
bartering system because there is hunger, there is prompt so
(37:46):
they're taking whatever they can get.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
The average Palestinian was sacrificed by Sinhwar, who came up
with the strategy of provoking Israel into a ferocious response, right,
which occurred. Sinowar is dead and most of the leadership
is dead, but they'll regenerate. And so what you've done,
in my opinion, is you create another generation of people
(38:08):
that hate Israel because the conditions are in and those
conditions are not going to be improved by the UN
or Palestinians Hamas.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Let me just say, well, I mean yeah, I mean
even before the war, if you looked at the basically
the Gaza and the West Bank were both basically completely
aid dependent that if they did not get the aid
that was like eight percent of their GDP and aw
was a sudden they kept their GDP per capita like
slightly above the world kind.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Of minimum of to make it.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
You know, where there was obviously money, but then even
when you had account for that, there's huge amounts of corruptions.
So the average person is getting maybe enough, but not
too much.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
And now with the war, well, I.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Think the corruption was always associated with the West Bank.
Administration of the Palestinian authority was always seen incorrectly as
some kind of Muslim Jesuit force, you know that. Yeah,
that had high, high ideals and things of that nature.
But it's in the interest of the our world in
(39:13):
general and Palestine Palestine and specific to have this heartstring issue.
I mean, look, if we're going to blame anybody, we
can blame Bibi net Yahu who cut a deal with
Katar to allow billions of dollars to flow in to
the Gaza strip because he thought he could handle them. Now,
(39:34):
so you have on the right, Israeli's right being responsible.
But then people blame Israeli's left for giving Gaza back.
People forget right. Yeah, yeah, the Gazza had been occupied
by the Egyptians and the Jordanians. Israelis won it in
a war. They gave it back. It was land for peace.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Right, But that's not what happened.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I mean, that's not because you had Here's the thing,
if you go back to the original peace deals, there
was high stimism because you had successful and for peace
exchange with both Jordan and Egypt. The Lebanon issue was
always an issue, but it was not during the best
part of the peace process. That actually simmered down a lot,
and so you thought, all right, all we have to
do is just give you know, Gaza and then some
(40:18):
West Bank exchanges and we could have peace. And then
when sin War turned that down and had a second
into Fada, that's when not only that peace program, basically
the peace in general fell apart.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
No, he's sabotaged it. Well, people have to remember October seventh,
and that occurred. Saudi Arabia was about to normalize relations
with Israel, and I think you know something else that people,
you know, look, As a former professor of history, I've
always learned that an occupation of any nation doesn't succeed.
(40:49):
You can be there as long as you want, but
at some point people are not comfortable being occupied by
you know, hostilentity that normally has taken gnerals, oil, you
know whatnot from from the area. I mean, I know
people made fun of Trump and I did too about
you know, talking about guys are becoming like a v
(41:12):
but it has a gorgeous shore on the Mediterranean.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Reality was if you look at the videos of gods
before the war, before it got you know, kind of leveled,
it was like it was.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
It was not.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
It was not as poverty stricken and horrible as they
would make it seem.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
It had real potential.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Obviously the people that didn't have tons of money, but
the aid money was effective, right, there was a minimum
basic level of life you had, you know, you had
opportunities there. So it's just sad that when you see
the UAE, you see Saudi Arabia, see the Gulf States
trying to become development hotspace wherever their problems are.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
You see, you wish that that would have been the case.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Let me so the UAE and we won't get it.
In Saudi Arabia are now feuding, which is interesting, and
they have lined up between different Arab countries and anywhere
from your men into Shoe Dan. So you know i'd
look at that. Uh And you know the other thing
is that, yeah, it's hard to take a country seriously
(42:08):
about fring another nation's people when A you won't accept
them as citizens and b you basically created slave colonies
when you know, FIFA came over for soccer. I mean,
he said, he said, nobody really has a good bully
point to be yelling from except me. So, uh Art,
what have we got? Three minutes? Two minutes?
Speaker 4 (42:28):
About three minutes?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Okay, so as we're going, I mean, we have to
do this, even though I know what I'm going to say.
Do you have any predictions for the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Wow, uh geez, I feel like New England's going to
win somehow Well, okay, there's my prediction about that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
I feel like because I want to watch Seattle, New England.
I'm like if if everyone plays up to standard, Seattle wins,
but New England just puts that fear in me if
like they're back, Drake May has a look good, but
we know we can be good. So yeah, I guess
I I'm just scared. I'm scared of New England coming back.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Hey, look, well, I mean, here's the deal. I'm predicting
nineteen eighty five all over again. When I think the
Bears beat the Patriots forty four to ten, I mean,
when I saw that Seattle defense and what they did
to Los Angeles that was ferocious, and they what's the
name of that guy who's got a hyphenated last name.
(43:24):
I never heard of him, and he's killing everybody.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Oh, Jackson Smith and then Jacob Yeah. On the wide
receiver he's got, he's got some of the best in
and out routes and now cuts I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
That's the key to get open, right.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Him and Pooka Nakula both have just unbelievable cut speed.
Cooper Cupp, who was the best receiver and the Nash
for a few years ago, got injured is but has
come back and that game played well. And Sam Darnold,
who you know was as about as obvious a bust
as everyone thought. Now two years in a row, un believable.
(43:56):
I guess just my brain is still thinking the Patriots
is gonna.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Well, look, I think Sam Darnold all he has to
do is not lose. It's kind of like Trent Dilfer
with the Ravens, which is what an unfortunate But anyway,
the I guess this is I don't see New England
winning because I think this is an atonement for the
Russell Wilson pass on the one yard not I mean
(44:23):
talk about fixed brother.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, that's that's tough. That's a tough way to live.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah it is, Becky feeling any better?
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Still coughing a little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So yeah, all right, So what do you got going
this weekend? Millennial?
Speaker 3 (44:37):
I mean, I mean just just I guess just watching
sports and stuff that much.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
I meeting up with my uncle tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Oh okay, yeah, I I'll check my phone machine when
I get home, uh for that rendezvous. But at any rate,
it's Eric Epstein. We're in with Millennial Brian. The show
is underdome, the organization is rocked the Capitol. We're being
produced here at the w HP five eighty Studios by
Art Selby. We'll be back in two weeks and shalom y'all.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
And it'll be Valentine's Day two air.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah. Well, for people like me who haven't had a
date since the Civil War, you know, it's it's a
little hard to take anyway. In facts for reminding me,
I didn't really, I did not realize that Happy Valentine's
Day kind of
Well, folks, January thirty first. But you know, in the
old days, when you got to February, it was like
mentally you got through the hardest month. It was cold
and it was long.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Yeah, but I'm.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Here to let you know that it's going to continue
to be cold and horrible. What until next week?
Speaker 3 (00:16):
Yeah, I mean or sometimes the snow. Though the big
thing was the snow in the ice. I think that's done.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
Yeah, but this does not melting. And you know, as
a school board director, you have to be mindful of
the children you're transporting in this weather. So I think
most people will be looking forward to the spring at
any rate. We're rocked the Capital. We're a good government,
anti corruption organization founded in two thousand and five. We
don't take side, we take aim. We don't care about parties.
(00:46):
We care who's throwing the party. I'm in with my sidekick,
Millennial O'Brian, and we're being produced today by Art Selby.
So I just want to shoot out a couple of
things at you that I saw during the week that
kind of caught my attention. I was surprised to learn
that Cubans in America who have along benefited from pretty
(01:07):
good relationships with administrations. They have been report deported in
record number.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Right, So initially that you had kind of like call
it the Cuban amnesty program. Essentially that anyone that was
able to skatee the island get to Florida was basically
granted amnesty and a pathway as citizenship, which for other
you know, countries in Latin America or even just around
the world, you obviously have to go through a much
more rigorous visa process. This goes back to the Cold
(01:35):
War era relationships, but also the relationship the Cuban community.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Has deby of pigs, you know, when you try to
invade a country. They and the missile crisis, but they've
always kind of been a protective immigrant group and like
you were saying, they have a pathway to citizenship if
they if they swim to the island. So what's happened, Well,
(02:01):
basically it's just been an upgrade in the enforcement.
Speaker 3 (02:04):
So enforcement is any basically any immigration that's out of
step with the visa program or the legalization process is
set up by the government is going to be classified
as illegal and there it's going to be enforced. So
before it was only enforced really if you basically commit
a crime. So basically coming here illegally, especially if you
(02:25):
in a sanctuary area, you can basically stay indefinitely.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
That's done.
Speaker 3 (02:29):
And now with the human community, those ambassy programs where
they sort of let them stay and then put them
in the process for legalization, that's going to take it away.
So for the people that didn't have didn't get legal status,
they're getting deported just like everyone else. The same thing
with Venezuelans. Venezuelan's got protective status, so they're basically allowed
to stay and apply for legalization, and that got ripped away.
(02:50):
So if they're not in the process, they get deported.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Well, what happened to Venezuela invaded Greenland?
Speaker 2 (02:57):
That'd be real interesting.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But so so isn't Rubio Secretary of State Cuban descent.
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Yes, so he's a Cuban descent and he's been a
big advocate against kind of like the leftist dictatorships in
Latin America for a while. So he's pushed, you know,
whether it's Venezuela or whether it's action against Cuba, he's supported.
Speaker 1 (03:17):
That's great, and I know that then they don't look
at the rest of the continent. But what I'm saying is,
as a Cuban and he's a pretty strong partisan, it
just seems odd that this would occur while he's secretary.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Well, I think it's because immigration has been basically on
the campaign trail, but also in enforcement.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
It's like almost a consistent through line.
Speaker 3 (03:37):
Through the Trump administration, which is he's going to get
hard line immigration, He's going to take out any legal
entries or legal process failures.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Do you think this was a trade off for him?
You know, I get to go after Meduro, but I
won't intervene to prevent Cuban immigrants from being deported.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
I mean, I think I think he knew coming in
that that was a deal. And I think with the
Maduro thing, the trade off is that Trump gets his
oil thing. So Trump wants he doesn't want oil being
sold at cheap prices to China and to Russia in
their hemisphere, he said over and over again. Rubio, he's
also agreed with that. But I think the main thing,
if he sees throughout his career, it's been this democracy
(04:16):
push in Latin America that Venezuela Cuba, even areas where
they have democracy, where they have let's say leftist leaders,
he's been against them. So the Columbian guy that like
the Mexican leader who's very popular, she's she's a left
wing leader.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Anybody though that's to the right, even extreme right gets
a free pass that in Latin America.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, yeah, well so.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
So let me ask you this. I haven't heard a
lot about Medoro. Some oil is being sold. The market's
pretty a wash in oil right now. Not to say that.
I mean people are always going to need in to
have oil. And so you invaded Venezuela but you don't
but you don't have boots on the ground.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Well, I think this is because Trump, if you were
he first came pain. He does not want long, prolonged engagements.
All his things, whether it's the when he struck the
Ice leader, when he struck Iran, it's these quick strikes
and then it's kind of hands off, reset, let's talk
it out.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
So this is why when people talk about what's it
going to look.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Like, it is going to look like Korea or Iraq,
it's like neither, because I think what's gonna happen is
he's going to take out Maduro. There's no way to
put in like a democratically elected kind of Nobel Priesce
Prize winner, So you probably have to kind of deal
with the people.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
The are there and her her stock plumbing it in
about thirty seconds as soon as she handed the Peace
Prize over to Trump and.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
She in to her. She's been, she's been. They've all
been advocating to get rid of Madurea.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
So even if Trump, you know, did not let's say
perfect way, but they're so there.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
There is no Look, everybody knew that to get rid
of Maduro was the you know, the primary target. What
I'm saying to you is you have the Trump administration
in Trump saying that a woman who won seventy five
percent of the vote in the primary is not popular
enough to govern. Well, yeah, so I need, I need,
I need a new dictionary to follow this. The other
(06:09):
thing is that I don't you know, you kidnap the
president of Venezuela who won in a fraud genal election,
but you released the president Honduras who was convicted for narcos.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
That's what we talked about, is that Rubio is on
the right wing of Latin America. He'll forgive a lot
of stuff, and then on the left wing he's much
more critical, even though the dictators obviously deserve it. I
guess the question with Venezuela is is he going to
cut a deal? Because with the Ran it looked like
he was going to try and cut a deal, and
then he did it, and now it's like, well, are
(06:47):
we ended this kind of constant?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
I think. I think what happened with Trump is that
he got a reputation for bluffing, and so now he's
probably trying to overcompensate, and these midnight runs it just
doesn't do it. You know, you're talking Iran, Venezuela, countries
that have embedded systems. It doesn't mean they shouldn't be reformed.
But what we learned with Iraq, you can't evade a
(07:10):
Middle Eastern nation, add democracy, stirret and assume you're gonna
have a right.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It's not This is not Poland, this is not Korea.
But it's also not a rock because they don't have
the ethnic and religious hatred. So when people said initially
it's like, oh, it's going to be a civil war,
I was thinking to myself, there's no way to be
a civil war in Messig. It's there could, but it's
not gonna be a democracy Poland Korea transfer, it's gonna
be like a my thing. It's gonna be I think
(07:36):
it's gonna be like a Middle Eastern dealer.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
But people need to understand that there are countries around
the world that are never be democratic. It's not their culture.
And you know, if you're gonna wait for them to
ease into democracy, it's gonna be a long time. But
if you're gonna go after Venezuela, which we did, but say,
you know that Saudi Arabia, which hangs the most people
every year, it's a free ride. We all know it's
(07:59):
about all it's always been, all right, So quickly this
one got me and I'm gonna be serious. Uh So
free Puck Satani phil So groundhogs I didn't realize this
are timid prey animals who if they're able to actively
avoid humans, they will. They dislike human smells, fear allowed noises,
are poor gatherings, and prefer to stay in their burrows.
(08:21):
Yet every year, and this is uh PETA press release,
the terrified little animal is subject to allowed announcers and
noisy crowds. So PETA is calling on. I'm trying to
understand this not to bring out Puck Satani Phil, but
to do a three D hologram.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Yeah, this is great.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
So what's going on here?
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Well, listen, this is the AI generation. You've seen it
with concerts where they essentially you could have like these
AI concerts rather get the actual start to come out.
You have a hologram, you can do it with people
that have died. Stuff like that. This is just not
gonna happen. And for one big reason. You know that
whole town have built their economy on this one day
(09:04):
and this whole tourism. I know my uncle and aunt
were literally coming up going to go see the groundhog things.
So you have all these different shops. It's almost like
the places that build their entire town around deer hunting
or something like that.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
It's like you just you can't.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
And this is also this is one of those things
where Pete, you know, they push these things that I
would think unpopular and undoable, and then people kind of
ignore the things that maybe one factory farms where they
could maybe push.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Yeah, yeah, I remember Peter describing some of the factory
farms as Treblinka as death camps. You know, you gotta
be careful with symbolism. I don't know if groundhogs are
shy or not. I know the ones around my house.
They're not shy, right, they're living under underneath my house.
But I thought it was interesting. I never heard of
that before. Look, we're gonna go to break Eric Apstein
(09:51):
in with Millennial Brian. We're being produced by Art Selby.
We are Rock the Capital and the show is Thunderdome.
So I don't know if you saw Ice is going
to Italy with the Olympic team. Seriously, no, I'm not
making this up. I'm not going to tell you either
going to you know, skeet shooting or some of that nature.
(10:12):
I don't know. But that commercial with Italian beer almost
seems like Italian and beer don't go together. I mean,
I've had.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
I feel like we know this because we go into
look control board. Alcohol is everywhere. Anyone that can get
a licensed tell alcohol, they get a license alcohol.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
That's but the other one, the other commercial and you know,
getting an electrician. Clearly there's a demand and kids should
need to know that that tech traits are a viable option.
And at lunch today, I eat lunch for the same
three people, Nancy, Cathy and Larry and Cathy said her
dad had an unbelievable her grandfather had an unbelievable invention
(10:52):
and was able to get an engineering degree sit for
the exams without a high school diploma. Yeah, I mean,
and there should be a time where you can get
be become an attorney doing that as well.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:02):
Well, used to have testing basically you could test into
stuff and that obviously it would save costs. But now
you know, so many jobs require a college diploma. It's
kind of if you don't have it as hard.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
Well, and I don't know the value anymore, honestly. So
across Pennsylvania, the statistic surprised me. More eighteen to twenty
four year olds showed up to vote November twenty twenty
four than in previous elections, fifty four percent of the
eighteen to twenty four year olds. Now, I think some
of that had to do with the Trump enthusiasm, which
(11:33):
bumped up attendance. And you know, we noticed in the
twenty twenty four election that Hispanics and younger people were
drawn to Trump, which is now in decline. But that
being said, so there's now a student driven push to
expand voting rates in Pennsylvania to sixteen and seventeen year
(11:55):
olds to be able to vote in school board elections.
Proposals titled lowered the voting age for school board elections. So,
I mean, what's interesting. You could be able to drive
and vote before you can drink. Yeah, so it's a
bipartisan peace of legislation. I don't know if it's going anywhere,
(12:16):
but they would say, the two sponsors, Representatives Chris pye
Eli and John Inglis, that they would give the right
to juniors and seniors a direct say in their local
elections that shape school funding, curriculum activities, and students safety.
I'll respond after you, but what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Well, I think it's interesting and probably I would say,
good primer, if we want people to vote at eighteen
and you can join the military at eighteen, to have
some say in the areas where you could also see
a clear effect where you know, if you're running for
a school board and if you go to school every
day and run, you can vote or campaign at the
school board level. I think you could at least see
the effect of kind of local politics talking is that
(13:01):
you know, people talking about the federal government the most,
but the local governments that you rarely see. If people
really go to these meetings, they affect their tax dollars
the most.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
Well, let me make two comments. None of these folks
that run, if they would win, would actually be a taxpayer,
you know. And then the second is, this is the
monumental conflict of interest. You're getting people involved so that
they can promote their interest. If it happened to an adult,
you know, I don't know what happened. It's an interesting idea.
I don't know. The lowering the age, actually I would
(13:30):
move towards making it higher.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
There's an argument that you shouldn't be allowed to vote
to a twenty five because that's when your frontal lobe
fully developed. And there's another argument that you should be
able to stop voting after I think seventy five because
that's when.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
Yeah, that's not going anywhere. That's that's I mean, that's
where the bots come in. I mean, you know we
were talking about with a hologram for bustonic.
Speaker 2 (13:51):
Help, that's what we need for voting.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
I'm telling you right now, if you're in Greenland, prepared
to be invaded by holograms, man of like giant penguin
wins and velociraptors that you know that shake them up
a bit. So at any rate, this was the case
that almost everybody missed. But are not Art well maybe Art,
I don't know. Brian and I have intense interest. So
the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Chester cannot unilaterally sell
(14:17):
its water authority. As you know, a lot of municipalities
have authorities, all right, such a move would require approval
from that. There's three governing municipalities. In fact, the water
authority at Chester has expanded so now involves Delaware County
and I can't, off the top of my head think
of the third county. But what's happening here is that
(14:39):
there was a push from members on this board and
now it was split to sell off the authority. And
this is happening, and Brian can testify it, and it's
happening all over and it's a really pernicious trend. So
they are in very bad economic trouble. Chester, which used
to be a prosper support and ship building city, it
(15:02):
suffered decades of decline. It's in receivership file for Chapter
nine bankruptcy to restruction, to restructure the pension and healthcare debt.
So here again is one of those deals where they
think they see the magic. I'm trying to as they
(15:23):
believe that by selling this asset, which would held for
a lot of money. I forget what the exact amount was,
would make them hole. Now I know in twenty seventeen
they were offered three hundred and twenty million for their
for the asset. It didn't occur. The company buying it
(15:45):
is Aqua. So what's happening now that I want Brian
to respond, This is happening throughout the state.
Speaker 3 (15:52):
Yeah, it's not just as Pa water. We see the
energy PP and L. Basically what's happening is that the
demand for energy is going up. The local or different
companies that used people to run a lot of these
smaller distribution networks are just not able to upgrade the infrastructure,
not able to keep up, and they're getting buy They're
(16:14):
being bought and consolidated into a few companies. The problem
is basic market economics that if you have a few companies
and a captive rate based that have to pay them,
that they can essentially argue for infrastructure upgrades that are
paid for by the taxpayer.
Speaker 1 (16:28):
The right. Yeah, but this is what I want to
go over. They're being bought by private companies that now
are eligible for public reimbursement. So just let me say
that again. So when a water company sew agentity comes
and buys new local municipality number one, this isn't choice
like electric and gas. You either buy water from one
(16:49):
entity and you buy you know, your toilet from another entity.
So here you will be forced to essentially pay bills
that are always higher. And then these companies can raise
their rates almost set will and not even talk about
rates a disc which is the distribution system charge. They
can get quarterly upgrades on their infrastructure.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Right which you pay for right then.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
And then here's the other thing is that now that
we're bringing data centers in the mix, well, now you
have a huge for electricity and water, and then who's
going to pick that up. It's not gonna be the
data centers. In fact, we look to it if you
look at the places where the data centers go in
the most so that Northern Virginia area electricity costs up
through the roof the amount of electricity that goes to
(17:33):
the data centers versus the normal consumers. I think it's
now like thirty percent go to data centers, seventy percent
normal consumers. And this is with are the number of
suppliers going down, So basic mark economics. You go to
a store you want to buy coffee. If the coffee
of this store isn't good or too high priced, you
go to a different store. You can't do that with
water and gas elect or It's way harder, and now
(17:54):
you have fewer suppliers.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Well said the other thing that, first of all, most
people are unaware that there's even an authority within their
municipality that can sell the water in the sewage. Secondly,
the disc as I said, you now have private companies
getting rate pair of money. It's a really I think
harmful development. Thirdly is that you know a lot of
(18:17):
people say, well, you shouldn't have been in that business. Okay,
maybe some local municipalities got in over their head, but
it doesn't mean that you invite Darth Vader.
Speaker 3 (18:27):
Right, Yeah, they're taking advantage of the situation. So so
it's definitely true that there's been local distributors or local
governments that have not done a good job. But then
you're essentially putting the put You're at the whims of
a few suppliers that that have a captive rate based
because you can't you can't go anywhere. You know, this
is the exact opposite of coffee where you could easily
(18:48):
just go to a different coffee shop, or you could
get your own compey. You can't do anything. You can't
get your own you know, you can go off the grig,
get your own generator.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
I mean, this is well.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
I mean yeah, and we've learned with nuclear ways that
you have some waste conundrums that need to be addressed
and can't be postponedent you're not going to get ability
to construct a house without hooking onto public sewer, I mean,
and the same thing with public water. So now, so
(19:16):
that's begun in forty five when the Chester Water Authority
constructed a reservoir damning the Octa Naro Creek in southwest
Chester County. Are getting close to Maryland, Delaware in that area,
so it's forty miles from the city. The thing that
makes this even more troubling is that this company now
the water company Chester Water Authority now for suburban Philadelphia.
(19:39):
So they've looped in Delaware County as well, and so
Chester City and Delaware and Delaware County have voting rights.
I know people didn't believe me a couple of years
ago when I said school board races are going to
get really really expensive. Okay, what you need to know
(19:59):
is most of the people on these authority boards are appointed. Yeah,
so your municipal races are now going to go nuclear.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
Well, yeah, because you have you have millions and millions
of dollars up for grabs. And if you're a company
and let's say you go in and you get people
that are favored to your company, you're talking about hundreds
of million dollars in consistent contracts you can bank for
years and years and years. And we see it at
one other issues, let's say engineering, where you see the
same company get every contract at a certain place. But
(20:30):
this is even worse because you could, arguably you could
flip that, you could change that, you could change the
bidding process. If you only have a few suppliers and
there's always well, let's say one supplier that has the
infrastructure in your area. Where can you go? Where where
can you really negotiat?
Speaker 1 (20:43):
You have a choice. Yeah, and so you made a
bad financial decision and you had years of financial decay
and you want to correct it by making another bad decision.
I think, and I could be wrong. I think the
offer price was about a billion. It for Millennial is
going to check for me.
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I think it was.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
I thought it was three hundred and twenty million. That
was what it was twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Yeah, yeah, and and and so here's the deal. If
an entity was not able to manage its its finances
in such a way to maintain the authority, and if
it has this dyndemic debt, and if you give them
three hundred million one billion, you might see what happened
(21:26):
in Middletown. Middletown when three Mile Island came online had
an importuity rate of one cent of kill a while,
and they sold it, and they sold it. Look at
the rates, Now, what do you got to be?
Speaker 3 (21:40):
So it was four hundred and ten million? If were
they just just got offered.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Yeah, so don't listen to me.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
So for four ten million, we're talking huge, huge money.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
So I understand to cover but to cover a budget gap,
you see it a lot. But now you're you're putting
your essentially, you're putting what you the mistakes you financially
made a county on your rate payers for for twenty years.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
Yeah, so it's going to make your school more expensive.
It's going to make everything more expensive around you. Let
me just end by saying, if this occurs, then my
counterproposal would be, how much would you give me for
a forty nine percent steak? You know, I can see
having somebody come in and professionally operated, but I would
(22:23):
never give away my water s. Which look, Harrisburg did
that with parking, how to work out for them? Nobody's
driving to the city.
Speaker 3 (22:29):
Man, that's I mean, that's that's a whole nother disaster
of budgeting.
Speaker 1 (22:33):
All right, So let's take a break. Eric Epstein and
Millennial Brian were from Rock to Capitol the show's Thunderdom
and we're being produced. But I think you've been inducted.
What do they call that?
Speaker 2 (22:45):
When you get abducted?
Speaker 1 (22:47):
Not abducted or indicted?
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Sorry, indicted?
Speaker 1 (22:49):
No, No, when you go to a hall of fame,
it's not inducted. Inducted yea even inducted into the Hall
of Fame.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Right, not Bill docheck, so I see, but.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Bill Belichick, get any rate. Rock the Capitol will be
back in just a moment. Well, you know, we had
an intense discussion on break and Art raised some good
points on Belichick. Look, the Hall of Fame in professional
sports is not the Hall of morality. And you know,
I thought Rose should get in. It's not what I
always thought, but based on his performance, and you know,
(23:22):
you had guys that had like seven lifetime suspensions who
got in, but Art would you. So you're saying you're
okay with him not getting in now to send a signal.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
Well, first off, Pete Rose should be in Hall of Famers,
and no doubt about that. But yeah, I'm fine with
them sending Belichick a message. He hasn't won anywhere of
alper eighty his first Super Bowl they won when they
basically made up a call Nobody else who follows the
NFL ever heard of with the Tuck role never heard
of it. Yeah, the flate gate, which which I think
we talked about, was overinflated, but I think Spygate didn't
(23:55):
get enough attention. They had tapes on all the teams.
It was more than one game in the NFL just
destroyed them and threw it out. So you know, he's
kind of get in the Hall of Fame. He deserves
to be in, but he also deserves to be sent
a message.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, we'll me ask you this about because spoke.
Speaker 3 (24:09):
One of the arguments against using against him is that
they got caught and other teams have done the similar things,
and that essentially that he's just playing by the same
rules as everyone else. It's just that he got caught.
It's sort of like paying players in college. Everyone was
doing it before. Now it's above the table. But it's
not like it's not like SMU was the only college
that paid players.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
Well they I mean, I think the SMU when they
got the death penalty, they just basically were flaunting it.
I mean, this was stealth, you know, this was stealing signals. Yeah,
and it could be true, Brian, everybody could be doing it.
It's like I told Bill Duiz, you know when he
told me, hey man, you know everybody uses their people.
I said, yeah, Bill, but you got caught. You know.
(24:53):
So let me ask you this. Does this after all
this year's embarrassing, Ask page, does this elevate Brady to
a different status? I mean, when people say, hey, was
it Brady? Was it Belichick because of his behavior this year?
Does that change anything? Well?
Speaker 4 (25:13):
I think that the difference between Brady and Belichick is
Brady went to a different team and they were still great,
and he won a Super Bowl, where Belichick went to
the Tar Hills and they were an embarrassment this year.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Even without Brady in his Anthol career, was blowed five
hundreds of coach. So listen, you always need a good quarterback.
But like I think Brady's when you ask who's more
responsible for the dynasty, I think it's got to be
I think a lot of people would be sixty forty Belichick.
I think it's sixty forty Brady.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
That's that's what I was asking. But one of the
things about Belichick, he was at Cleveland, then he went
to the Giants where he was mentored by parcelsh Most
everybody who was coached by him said, yeah, he was
not the most effervescent person, but he had lockdown defenses.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
I mean he had that defense with Lawrence Dale or was.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Let's be clear, he's going to get in. We're not
saying he's not going to get in. We're just sending
them a message the first time around, saying, hey, not
everyone thinks what you did is wonderful, so you're going
to get in. Don't worry about you're just not going
to get in the first first ballot.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Yeah, but for somebody like him, that probably means something
the first ballot. I mean, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (26:15):
I mean it means something though a team like the
Rams that lost the Super Bowl because you know they
were watching tapes of their place.
Speaker 1 (26:22):
Yeah, well, look, it's to me, the biggest issue is
that you send a signal to collegiate in high school
athletics that cheating will be rewarded, that you can do
whatever it takes. And uh, Belichick did it. You know,
Brady did it. So going from that to another criminal issue,
(26:43):
all right, So I read this and we've been talking
about it, but it's not sinking in. According to the
data from the Independent Council on Criminal Justice, homicide rates
across the country saw ad decrease. Again, it's been going
down for years, all right. So you're looking at thirty
five cities, with thirty one of them seeing a decrease
in homicide rates. Philadelphia saw on eighteen percent decrease and
(27:07):
Pittsburgh saw a six decrease six percent, and that's just
over one year, all right. So you see that the
drop in homicide has also occurred at the same time
as the increase in crimes being solved. So you know,
I we had talked about this before. And the thing
(27:28):
that intrigues me is that as you right after COVID,
I think that's your theory, crime started to decrease.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
Right af for COVID, they increased, right So during COVID, No,
but I'm seeing after Yeah, after COVID, crimes decreased, and
there's like, there's different reasons for it. One was that
it was just an unexpected increase that broke decades long trend.
One was obviously coming back from COVID. People took advantage
of that situation and now it's harder. But the big
thing you talked about of why I think there's a
(27:57):
good trend is one of the biggest problems we have
states is that we actually solve crimes at a much
much super violent at a lower rate, and so we
essentially have repeat violent offenders. So no one wants on
the street right on the street. And so if you
increase the solvency rate of your homicides, murders, armed robberies,
that's the big that's the best driver to drive down
(28:19):
violent crime. And so if look at these cities, all
their like their rates went up. I mean you said
cities like Chicago where the rate of like solving a
homicide was like twenty twenty five percent.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Yeah, but how do you tell our listeners that homicides
are going down in Chicago because you had the Trump
administration effectively saying, look, there's desol over the place, we
need to send ice in. Well, the same thing with
Philadelphia is that it's also I guess I don't know
what it is. This is this started occurring, I guess
twenty one two. And the trend what you're identifying is
(28:58):
different what Larry Krasner is saying the DA. He's saying
that there's more proactive.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Violence community programs.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
There's arguments that in Baltimore that's what they did to
start throwing block parties as government sponsors block parties, trying
to get kids off the streets. And I'm not saying
that doesn't have an effect, But like, I guess, my problem,
the biggest problem is that they've been doing that for decades.
They were doing that during COVID, Remember COVID, they had
all these different programs. Krassler was well, I mean krasser
(29:27):
was also oversaw the biggest increase.
Speaker 1 (29:29):
That's what I'm saying is so you have a guy
that saw the increase the decrease, he was almost impeached
by the Pennsylvania Senate, and you know it was vilified,
and now he's now he's the tip of the spear
for liberal das and combating crime. So I don't know
that there there There has to be a couple through
(29:53):
trends here because it's national, it's happening in all the
urban cities. However, people's perception is they don't. I guess
they don't.
Speaker 3 (30:02):
Don't believe because one, when we say they decreased, I
mean if you look at the Chicago murder rate in
compared to other countries and say Toronto, I mean Chicago
murder rate, even though it's gone down, it's still what
Philadelphia is still way above. And then when you compare
it to where most people live, which is the suburbs,
I mean, the suburbs have like Japan low level crimes,
and then our cities have like Latin America level crimes,
(30:25):
even if it's gone down. So it's just it's such
a dichotomy that there's always going to be a perception
that the crime well not even perception reality that crime
is too high in the cities, even if it's getting better.
And the other thing is, you know, getting uh when
people run doing things that make solving murders easier is
actually not kind of what wins elections, whether it's a
(30:48):
DA and stuff like that, even though people think that.
Typically it's like we either want to get harder on crime,
more police, or we want to get sort of softer
on crime, more programs. No one's like, well, you know,
we have ten thousand rape kits we haven't tested.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
We've tested two percent of them. Let's test all of them.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
No, I mean that's I know, there's a lot to go.
But they're saying that, Look, the norm for solving crimes
was about eighty six to ninety one percent. It's up
to ninety five percent. But then you still have those
cases like, uh, the young woman who was stabbed nineteen
times in the neck and they somehow said it was suicide.
(31:24):
You know, you say, when you look at Philly two
hundred and twenty two killings a year, I don't know
that that's reason to celebrate, but it's reason.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
It's way down. I mean used to be over three hundred.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
Yeah, But at the same time that there's more guns around.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
That's true.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
But I think the gun thing is a neutral thing
because we because unless you're looking at very I said,
with very small areas, and I'd say the Northeast. Basically,
if you want to get access to guns in the
United States, get access. So that's I would say it's
almost a neutral thing. There might be places where it's harder,
but you know, crime is always gonna have guns. If
you have more purchase of guns or less purchase of guns,
(32:03):
you know, the criminals, at least at this point are
gonna have unless you have like an insane crackdown and
full reversal of the Secon Amendment.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
Right, So I think there's there's always So the question
is how do you solve repeat violent offenders. That was
the biggest problems that we kept repeat violent offenders on
the streets over and over and over again, and they
would get away with it over and over and over
and people would testify against them. So how do you
use like DNA fingerprints?
Speaker 1 (32:29):
So do you think DNA is a big part of this?
Speaker 3 (32:31):
Yeah, Well, I think a perfect example is rape kits.
I mean, it's real hard if it's a one on
one scenario to prove rape. But if you have rape kits,
that's such a test DNA evidence you can immediately identify
the person. You can have such a validity because you
could test or is it a fourth entry, and then
you can solve way more rape.
Speaker 1 (32:48):
Well, I tell you what I like about the statistics
is it impeaches and appumes the h Republican and Democrat
talking points. So you have at third went out of
thirty five cities, murders going down at the same time
gun purchaser going up. So I think what it tells
me is we need to think of a new way
(33:09):
to address crime. I mean, you know the other thing
we're talking about, well that's going down, but cheating in
football is going up. You know. To me, it's the mentality,
it's the mindset that anything's all right. I thought it
was good news. I'm still wrestling, you know, on how
to explain it. And you're right, the murder rate went
(33:31):
down to Chicago, but it's still it.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Runs me a quote.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
It's said by Tony Blair, who has a different depends,
but it's a great quote. He's like, whenever one talks
about government, they talk about left government, they talk about right, government, left,
and centiropologies.
Speaker 2 (33:45):
No one talks about smart and dumb. No one ever.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
He's like, eighty percent of government is smart and dumb?
Or are you getting the bank for your block? Are you
enforcing the most important laws? Let's say, repeat violent offenders.
And no one's like, hey, I want serial killers to
run around. They want those you know, I want seri
rapists to run around, they want those laws in four
So I think, can you do the basics at a
high level.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
That's really what I'd like to see more attension put
on serial rapists because I think when a rape occurs,
you steal somebody's soul and they're alive and they have
to deal with that. Yeah, forever. I don't know.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Art.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
Before we go to break, I'll tell you I decided
if I'm going to go job hunting, my three references
would be Jesus Christ, Charles Manson, and Sandy Kofax. How
do you think I do?
Speaker 2 (34:32):
That'd be an interesting interview?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
All right?
Speaker 4 (34:34):
Right?
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Anyway, Eric, I've sided with Mani Obrian. The show is
Thunderdome More Rock the Capitol will being produced by Art Selby.
We'll be back for our final segment in a minute.
All right, So in the break, I was informed that
two out of three of my references were dead. Uh
so I'm gonna I'm gonna start. Then, I guess Sandy
Kofax is great baseball player. Nicholas Maduro shows that, you know,
(34:57):
I'm tough on tough on everything to put anyone against you,
I think, and Charlie Mans was never a good idea.
But you know, the last segment here is on crime.
It's interesting and I was unaware of this, and this
is again gonna kind of break your mind. So the IDEF,
(35:20):
which is the Israeli Defense Forces, had a recent influct
of high end goods being smuggled into Gaza. And the
sources in the Army's Southern Command say the smuggling is
originating not from the Egyptian border, but from the Israeli borders.
So Army officials, suspected Israelies, defense minister, contractors, truck drivers,
(35:42):
infrastructure workers, whatnot are taking advantage. And this is what
killed me. The army, the Israeli Army has a lack
of security system on the border into Gaza, and they're
willing to take the risk because the reward is so
high and so despite it, you know, regardless of how
(36:03):
you come out in the war, you know, there is hunger,
there's sanitation issues, there's poverty. The IDF is reporting that smartphones, laptops, motorcycles, yes, atavvs,
alcohol and cigarettes, and alcohol is supposed to be forbidden,
but in Muslims all right, as readily available for purchase
across the enclaves. So the point that this writer was making,
(36:27):
and he also said, how did Hamas get all brand
new uniforms? Oh?
Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, well, I mean this is the whole thing, is
that anything that goes through there they get a piece
or almost like you know, it's almost like the cartels
in Mexa. They all have to get a piece. What
I thought was interesting is that this is almost this
is a similar obviously different scale, but from that happened
on October seventh, which is one of the arguments when
you look at the review of the securities thing is
that they were basically lacks They thought that our border
(36:53):
is fine. It's actually these other boards that we don't control,
and so we had kind of lax security here. It's
obviously much smaller. It's about small bugging, you know, motorcycles ATVs.
But this is example of we're like, we're securing the
Egyptian side of the border as hard as we can,
that we're letting our side make it easy to smuggle
stuff in.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
Well, look, so it was interesting some of the smugglers
are actually Bedouins. I guess they're smuggling in on camel.
But my point is somebody has discretionary income if they're
buying high end materials.
Speaker 2 (37:23):
Well, yeah, I would agree with that.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
And when we know hamas Amas has very you know,
rich billionaires in Qatar, right, that essentially helped fund them.
And then and then their organization gets funding from different
you know in moms around them, so they have money.
I would not obviously that the average Palestinian does not
have that type of money. Yeah, they're still in a
bartering system because there is hunger, there is prompt so
(37:46):
they're taking whatever they can get.
Speaker 1 (37:48):
The average Palestinian was sacrificed by Sinhwar, who came up
with the strategy of provoking Israel into a ferocious response, right,
which occurred. Sinowar is dead and most of the leadership
is dead, but they'll regenerate. And so what you've done,
in my opinion, is you create another generation of people
(38:08):
that hate Israel because the conditions are in and those
conditions are not going to be improved by the UN
or Palestinians Hamas.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
Let me just say, well, I mean yeah, I mean
even before the war, if you looked at the basically
the Gaza and the West Bank were both basically completely
aid dependent that if they did not get the aid
that was like eight percent of their GDP and aw
was a sudden they kept their GDP per capita like
slightly above the world kind.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Of minimum of to make it.
Speaker 3 (38:42):
You know, where there was obviously money, but then even
when you had account for that, there's huge amounts of corruptions.
So the average person is getting maybe enough, but not
too much.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
And now with the war, well, I.
Speaker 1 (38:53):
Think the corruption was always associated with the West Bank.
Administration of the Palestinian authority was always seen incorrectly as
some kind of Muslim Jesuit force, you know that. Yeah,
that had high, high ideals and things of that nature.
But it's in the interest of the our world in
(39:13):
general and Palestine Palestine and specific to have this heartstring issue.
I mean, look, if we're going to blame anybody, we
can blame Bibi net Yahu who cut a deal with
Katar to allow billions of dollars to flow in to
the Gaza strip because he thought he could handle them. Now,
(39:34):
so you have on the right, Israeli's right being responsible.
But then people blame Israeli's left for giving Gaza back.
People forget right. Yeah, yeah, the Gazza had been occupied
by the Egyptians and the Jordanians. Israelis won it in
a war. They gave it back. It was land for peace.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
Right, But that's not what happened.
Speaker 3 (39:54):
I mean, that's not because you had Here's the thing,
if you go back to the original peace deals, there
was high stimism because you had successful and for peace
exchange with both Jordan and Egypt. The Lebanon issue was
always an issue, but it was not during the best
part of the peace process. That actually simmered down a lot,
and so you thought, all right, all we have to
do is just give you know, Gaza and then some
(40:18):
West Bank exchanges and we could have peace. And then
when sin War turned that down and had a second
into Fada, that's when not only that peace program, basically
the peace in general fell apart.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
No, he's sabotaged it. Well, people have to remember October seventh,
and that occurred. Saudi Arabia was about to normalize relations
with Israel, and I think you know something else that people,
you know, look, As a former professor of history, I've
always learned that an occupation of any nation doesn't succeed.
(40:49):
You can be there as long as you want, but
at some point people are not comfortable being occupied by
you know, hostilentity that normally has taken gnerals, oil, you
know whatnot from from the area. I mean, I know
people made fun of Trump and I did too about
you know, talking about guys are becoming like a v
(41:12):
but it has a gorgeous shore on the Mediterranean.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Reality was if you look at the videos of gods
before the war, before it got you know, kind of leveled,
it was like it was.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
It was not.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
It was not as poverty stricken and horrible as they
would make it seem.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
It had real potential.
Speaker 3 (41:28):
Obviously the people that didn't have tons of money, but
the aid money was effective, right, there was a minimum
basic level of life you had, you know, you had
opportunities there. So it's just sad that when you see
the UAE, you see Saudi Arabia, see the Gulf States
trying to become development hotspace wherever their problems are.
Speaker 2 (41:45):
You see, you wish that that would have been the case.
Speaker 1 (41:48):
Let me so the UAE and we won't get it.
In Saudi Arabia are now feuding, which is interesting, and
they have lined up between different Arab countries and anywhere
from your men into Shoe Dan. So you know i'd
look at that. Uh And you know the other thing
is that, yeah, it's hard to take a country seriously
(42:08):
about fring another nation's people when A you won't accept
them as citizens and b you basically created slave colonies
when you know, FIFA came over for soccer. I mean,
he said, he said, nobody really has a good bully
point to be yelling from except me. So, uh Art,
what have we got? Three minutes? Two minutes?
Speaker 4 (42:28):
About three minutes?
Speaker 1 (42:29):
Okay, so as we're going, I mean, we have to
do this, even though I know what I'm going to say.
Do you have any predictions for the Super Bowl?
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (42:38):
Wow, uh geez, I feel like New England's going to
win somehow Well, okay, there's my prediction about that.
Speaker 3 (42:46):
I feel like because I want to watch Seattle, New England.
I'm like if if everyone plays up to standard, Seattle wins,
but New England just puts that fear in me if
like they're back, Drake May has a look good, but
we know we can be good. So yeah, I guess
I I'm just scared. I'm scared of New England coming back.
Speaker 1 (43:02):
Hey, look, well, I mean, here's the deal. I'm predicting
nineteen eighty five all over again. When I think the
Bears beat the Patriots forty four to ten, I mean,
when I saw that Seattle defense and what they did
to Los Angeles that was ferocious, and they what's the
name of that guy who's got a hyphenated last name.
(43:24):
I never heard of him, and he's killing everybody.
Speaker 3 (43:26):
Oh, Jackson Smith and then Jacob Yeah. On the wide
receiver he's got, he's got some of the best in
and out routes and now cuts I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (43:34):
That's the key to get open, right.
Speaker 3 (43:36):
Him and Pooka Nakula both have just unbelievable cut speed.
Cooper Cupp, who was the best receiver and the Nash
for a few years ago, got injured is but has
come back and that game played well. And Sam Darnold,
who you know was as about as obvious a bust
as everyone thought. Now two years in a row, un believable.
(43:56):
I guess just my brain is still thinking the Patriots
is gonna.
Speaker 1 (44:00):
Well, look, I think Sam Darnold all he has to
do is not lose. It's kind of like Trent Dilfer
with the Ravens, which is what an unfortunate But anyway,
the I guess this is I don't see New England
winning because I think this is an atonement for the
Russell Wilson pass on the one yard not I mean
(44:23):
talk about fixed brother.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, that's that's tough. That's a tough way to live.
Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah it is, Becky feeling any better?
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Still coughing a little bit.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
So yeah, all right, So what do you got going
this weekend? Millennial?
Speaker 3 (44:37):
I mean, I mean just just I guess just watching
sports and stuff that much.
Speaker 2 (44:40):
I meeting up with my uncle tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
Oh okay, yeah, I I'll check my phone machine when
I get home, uh for that rendezvous. But at any rate,
it's Eric Epstein. We're in with Millennial Brian. The show
is underdome, the organization is rocked the Capitol. We're being
produced here at the w HP five eighty Studios by
Art Selby. We'll be back in two weeks and shalom y'all.
Speaker 4 (45:03):
And it'll be Valentine's Day two air.
Speaker 1 (45:05):
Yeah. Well, for people like me who haven't had a
date since the Civil War, you know, it's it's a
little hard to take anyway. In facts for reminding me,
I didn't really, I did not realize that Happy Valentine's
Day kind of
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