The Michael Knowles Show - Ep. 1163 - Biden Caught In Another Million Dollar Chinese Finger Trap

00:00:00.000 You know things aren't looking great for Joe Biden when he's lost Adam Schiff,

00:00:04.840 one of the most reliably partisan hacks in the entire Democrat Party.

00:00:09.340 But that is exactly what has happened when Adam Schiff was forced to address

00:00:13.920 Joe Biden's classified documents scandal on TV.

00:00:18.220 Congressman Schiff, you were on this show just after Attorney General Garland appointed a special

00:00:22.700 counsel in the case of the Trump documents. You said it was the right move. Do you feel

00:00:27.200 the same way about this special counsel? I do think it's the right move. The Attorney

00:00:31.460 General has to make sure that not only is justice evenly applied, but the appearances of justice are

00:00:38.120 also satisfactory to the public. And here, I don't think he had any choice but to appoint a special

00:00:44.180 counsel. And I think that special counsel will do the proper assessment. I still would like to see

00:00:50.980 Congress do its own assessment of and receive an assessment from the intelligence community

00:00:56.280 of whether there was an exposure to others of these documents, whether it was harm to national

00:01:01.420 security in the case of either set of documents with either president. But yes, I think the special

00:01:07.720 counsel was appropriately appointed. Jonathan, if I could also, though, because my state is still

00:01:13.500 trying to dig out from these terrible storms, I want to thank the president for making an emergency

00:01:17.800 declaration. I love that bit at the end. John, I'd really love an opportunity to compliment Joe Biden

00:01:23.780 so he doesn't totally hate me. John, I'd really like to curry a little bit of favor with the guy

00:01:28.500 that I just threw under the bus so that I can hedge my bets a little bit here. But still, Schiff

00:01:32.860 threw Biden under the bus. He not only supports the investigation into Biden's documents,

00:01:39.600 he's even willing to say that those documents might have jeopardized national security. And Adam Schiff

00:01:45.140 has good reason to think that they did jeopardize national security. Because it turns out that the

00:01:50.320 Penn Biden Center, where some of the classified documents were found, was reportedly funded to the

00:01:56.500 tune of tens of millions of dollars by anonymous Chinese communists. Some questions come up. Did the

00:02:03.800 donors maybe get a tour of the facility? Did those anonymous Chinese donors maybe get a peek at some of

00:02:10.720 those documents? I don't know. I'm not saying they did. Just asking questions here. Why did the Chinese 1.00

00:02:16.040 fund the center at all? Why did they keep their names hidden? How are they even allowed to keep

00:02:22.720 their names hidden when we know that age-old political rule, a rule that Joe Biden's career

00:02:28.360 has made especially clear, that he who pays the piper calls the tune? I'm Michael Knowles. This is

00:02:34.940 Michael Knowles Show. Welcome back to the show. My favorite comment from a video we put up over the

00:02:46.340 weekend. This is the woke commercials ad reacting to the pro-trans woke commercials, trying to guess

00:02:53.700 which products they're actually selling. My favorite comments from Robert Creighton, who says,

00:02:57.680 I'm trans. These ads are so inspirational and powerful. Tears in my eyes. I identify as an

00:03:05.140 American candy bar. My pronouns are her, she. I lulled. I lulled when I read it. I can't. It's good. 0.90

00:03:15.840 I'm a sucker for a good pun, okay? Especially as our culture gets so crazy. I like laughing at the

00:03:22.060 culture. And when things spin out of control, you're probably going to want a reliable assets. Why

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00:04:21.520 How do you do it? You text Knowles, K-N-O-W-L-E-S, to 989898. The Penn-Biden Center,

00:04:31.900 that's the fake think tank that Joe Biden established after he left the vice presidency.

00:04:38.760 It seems to have taken a lot of money from the Chinese. We don't know what the exact numbers

00:04:43.020 are, but here's what we know. We know that between 2014 and 2019, Penn received $54.6 million from the

00:04:54.860 Chinese. That includes $23.1 million in anonymous gifts starting in 2016. So right at the time that

00:05:04.260 Biden is leaving the vice presidency, launching this big new center initiative at Penn. Most of the

00:05:11.980 anonymous donations came after the university announced that it would create the Penn-Biden

00:05:16.620 Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement. Kind of weird. It's sort of like how after the

00:05:22.520 Clintons left the White House and they established the Clinton Global Initiative, with the understanding

00:05:27.800 that the Clintons were still going to be very involved in politics, maybe Hillary would become 1.00

00:05:31.780 the president, certainly she was going to run for the president. All of a sudden, you saw a ton of

00:05:34.980 money pouring in from foreign countries, especially Ukraine, actually. Ukraine, I think, was the largest

00:05:39.760 single nation donor to the Clinton Global Initiative. Why is that? Do you think they were doing it just

00:05:46.640 out of the goodness of their own heart? Do you think they were doing that because they just really

00:05:49.660 supported NAFTA or something? I don't know, some part of the Bill Clinton presidency? No, they were

00:05:55.420 currying favor with politicians, politicians who could possibly help them in the future. Do we think that the

00:06:01.920 Chinese funded the center just to, I don't know, promote diplomacy and global engagement or because Joe

00:06:09.380 Biden is such an admirable figure? No, they were currying favor with a potential player in the future. Joe

00:06:15.800 Biden has wanted to be president since he was a little kid, and he intimated that he was going to potentially

00:06:20.340 run again. And so, and even if he didn't, the Bidens still play a big role in Democrat politics, and the

00:06:25.640 Chinese especially are known to do this. They just place bets on different people, and they hope that one of those 1.00

00:06:29.700 bets pays off, as apparently it would have with, as apparently it could have with Biden, and probably as it did

00:06:36.060 with Biden. Trump was very tough on China. Biden and the Democrats promised to be very soft on China. Biden had been

00:06:43.500 cheering on China's rise for his whole political career. Biden said about 20 years ago, he said, you know, some

00:06:48.480 people criticize our helping China rise to prominence on the world stage, but we believe that a rising tide lifts

00:06:55.700 all ships. And that's why we're so glad that China entered the World Trade Organization. That's why

00:07:00.200 we're so glad that China is now producing so many of America's goods, that we've shipped jobs overseas, 0.98

00:07:08.040 that we're now super reliant on China, that China now buys up all of our debt. We're so happy about

00:07:12.940 that. So Biden was obviously currying favor with the Chinese as well. The whole thing stinks to high

00:07:18.260 heaven, and that is why politicians, even ones that are super tightly aligned with Joe Biden,

00:07:24.720 are trying to keep a little bit of distance here, even the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer.

00:07:32.220 Do you believe that he's violated the federal law here?

00:07:34.740 It's much too early to tell. There's a special prosecutor in each situation. I think President

00:07:40.740 Biden has handled this correctly. He's fully cooperated with the prosecutors. When the documents

00:07:47.360 were found, he notified archives. It's a total contrast to President Trump, who stonewalled for a

00:07:54.480 whole year. But the point is, we now have special prosecutors for both of these situations,

00:08:00.860 very serious people. We should let it play out. We don't have to push them in any direction or

00:08:05.420 try to influence them. That's all I'm going to say. Let the special prosecutors do their job.

00:08:10.700 Do you support the fact that a special counsel is overseeing this matter now?

00:08:13.720 Yes, I do. And in fact, you know, when they first, the FBI went to Mar-a-Lago and they said,

00:08:22.520 well, what are you going to say about this? I said, it's premature to comment. And I've said it here.

00:08:27.540 So I've been consistent about it. In both cases, you have prosecutors, special prosecutors. I support

00:08:32.800 both of them. Let them do their job. I think that's all that should be said. The politicians shouldn't

00:08:37.660 be buzzing around. The politicians shouldn't be buzzing around giving their opinion. This is the

00:08:43.280 first time in Chuck Schumer's entire career that he has not wanted to buzz around giving his opinion.

00:08:50.140 The old line was that the most dangerous place in the state of New York was the space between Chuck

00:08:54.160 Schumer and a TV camera. And yet now he clams up. Now he gets all reticent to talk about it.

00:08:58.860 Listen, I don't, I think the president, he's done a great job, but I support the special counsel.

00:09:03.540 Do you think he violated the law? Well, I don't know. It's too early to tell. So he's keeping

00:09:07.580 a safe distance here. Even as he's trying to flack for Biden, it's not persuasive.

00:09:13.800 The best he tried to do here to defend Biden is he said, what Biden's done is totally right. He's

00:09:18.780 followed all the procedures he should follow. It's all hunky-dory. But if that's true, then why is

00:09:24.520 Chuck Schumer happy that a special prosecutor has been appointed? If it's all fine and Biden followed the

00:09:29.540 letter of the law perfectly and there's nothing to criticize him for, then why is he happy that it's

00:09:33.180 being investigated by the special counsel? Doesn't quite add up. What is Schumer doing? He's hedging

00:09:39.580 his bets. He's saying, look, Biden is too weak now for me to go out and completely defend him.

00:09:46.880 But he's not weak enough that he's definitely done and I can pile on him and completely ditch him.

00:09:52.640 So he's straddling the fence, as is Ilhan Omar.

00:09:56.600 Well, one, I'm glad that there is a special prosecutor that's been appointed to investigate

00:10:04.280 this. You are glad that there is a special prosecutor. Tell me why.

00:10:06.040 Because anytime there is a deviance in regards to security protocols that should be taken serious,

00:10:13.060 it should be investigated. What I find interesting is that Republicans who have defended Trump after he

00:10:22.920 literally stole classified documents, refused to turn them over, lied about having them,

00:10:29.800 made up some story about how he declassified them, had to have his house raided in order for those

00:10:37.080 documents to be found, are now only interested in investigating Biden, who has cooperated, who his

00:10:44.920 own staff and former staff have themselves turned these documents in. So you have to understand,

00:10:51.480 right? Republicans aren't really interested in upholding the law, in following security protocols.

00:10:57.560 What they're interested in is playing a political game. 0.97

00:11:01.160 Just playing those political games, those nasty Republicans. Yeah. Is it a political game? 0.99

00:11:07.400 In part, it is. In part, it's a political game, of course. But it's Ilhan Omar and Chuck Schumer playing

00:11:14.440 the exact same political game. And when all the Democrats made a big hullabaloo about Trump's documents,

00:11:19.240 which he had the right to declassify, that was much more of a political game than what

00:11:23.960 the Republicans are doing now to Joe Biden. Because when Joe Biden took these documents out

00:11:27.400 of the White House, he did not have the right to do that. He did not have the right to declassify

00:11:32.200 those documents. Trump did. That's a major difference. But of course, they're playing political games.

00:11:39.160 And the real political game that the Democrats are playing is with themselves. So they're playing the

00:11:43.080 game, which is they're going to straddle the fence and do everything they can to leave themselves in

00:11:47.640 open. If Biden does go down, they think it's serious enough that it could hurt him. But he's

00:11:52.360 not totally weak now. The only person who is reliably defending Joe Biden is Corrine Jean-Pierre,

00:11:58.440 is his paid spokesman. And what's very telling about this classified documents case is that

00:12:03.240 the way that the White House press secretary is defending Joe Biden is by just not talking about it.

00:12:07.960 She's just stonewalling on the question. So Biden has no defense here. Trump had,

00:12:12.920 I think, a legitimate defense. I mean, I'm very persuaded by his defense. Some Republicans are

00:12:17.560 less persuaded by it, which is that he's president. He can declassify the documents in his own head.

00:12:22.200 I think that's totally convincing as far as I'm concerned. Biden doesn't have that. And so the

00:12:27.560 best that the Democrats can do is hedge and seesaw and keep their mouths shut. Go mum and stop buzzing

00:12:34.680 around. Even someone like Chuck Schumer, who hasn't stopped speaking since the mid-1990s.

00:12:38.760 Now, speaking of Joe Biden, Joe Biden, he makes some pretty weird claims and he's not the most

00:12:49.320 reliable guy. And he's been one of the most notorious liars in American politics since at

00:12:53.920 least the 1980s. And we got another doozy. The other doozy is that Joe Biden, who tells us that he's a 0.95

00:13:00.040 devout Catholic and he campaigns on being a devout Catholic, actually grew up in a black Protestant 0.90

00:13:08.000 church. And let's say one thing to rest. I may be a practicing Catholic. I used to go to 730 mass

00:13:14.080 every morning in high school and then on college before I went to the black church.

00:13:20.560 Not a joke. Andy knows this. Not a joke. I went to the black church. He made these comments at

00:13:27.800 Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia for Martin Luther King Day. And Biden claims,

00:13:36.240 he says he went to daily mass. And then every day he went to that black church. I assume he went

00:13:42.960 with his friend Corn Pop. Corn Pop actually passed the collection basket around. Joe Biden,

00:13:49.220 he wore big colorful hats. You know, come on, man. Listen here, Jack. That's the truth.

00:13:54.640 Listen, you dog-faced pony soldier. Yeah. I grew up in a black church. I was good friends with Martin 1.00

00:13:59.200 Luther King. Yeah, you know it. No, me and Frederick Douglass. Yeah, we used to go to the pool together,

00:14:03.700 swim laps with Corn Pop. He said I had hairy legs. Come on, Jack. Come on, man. I don't think

00:14:09.560 anybody believes what Biden is saying. But the most notable part of the story to me

00:14:17.400 is that any way you slice it, Joe Biden reveals himself as dishonest. Because if he lied about going

00:14:27.780 to the black church all the time as a kid, which is probably the case, then he's a liar. But even that 0.99

00:14:32.360 first part, when he says, listen, I'm a practicing Catholic, what non-Catholics might not know is that

00:14:38.220 Catholics are not permitted to participate in the religious ceremonies of other religions and other 1.00

00:14:47.120 denominations. So if you're a practicing Catholic and you go and you are regularly attending a

00:14:55.060 Protestant church and participating in those activities, that's actually considered a sin in

00:15:01.260 the Catholic church. You're supposed to confess that sin when you go to confession. You would

00:15:05.280 not really be able to call yourself with a straight face, a practicing Catholic, if you are 0.57

00:15:09.240 regularly and willfully violating that requirement of the church. But of course, going to a Protestant 1.00

00:15:17.660 church would be the very least of Joe Biden's infractions against his faith. Joe Biden is giddy about

00:15:24.140 abortion. He not only supports abortion, which is utterly impermissible for a Catholic politician,

00:15:29.140 but he supports funding abortion. Joe Biden supports radically redefining marriage. This is not a

00:15:34.600 permissible thing to do if you're a Catholic politician. He supports all sorts of things that run contrary to

00:15:40.040 the faith. So I mentioned this not really to say anything about Catholicism, but to say something about Joe

00:15:48.340 Biden. Any way you cut this story, he's either, he's a liar. He's not a practicing Catholic and he probably 0.99

00:15:57.620 didn't go to this church and you can't believe a word that this guy says. And so when you get back to a

00:16:01.380 scandal like the classified document scandal, this is why nobody believes his excuses. Oh yeah, Jack.

00:16:07.040 Yeah, I just, we forgot to take those documents. Yeah, that's too bad, Jack. That's why they ended up there

00:16:11.900 at the, at the Penn Biden center. Well, what about the documents in your garage? Oh, come on there,

00:16:17.460 fat. Don't, don't do me like that. Yeah, it's next to my Corvette. It's cool. It's all safe, man. 0.99

00:16:22.960 What about the other documents? What about this? What about that? He just doesn't have

00:16:25.660 any credibility at all. This is a man who's lied about his professional career, his beliefs,

00:16:30.960 his accomplishments, his involvement in the civil rights movement. That's another one that keeps coming

00:16:34.620 up. He's a guy who lies about everything. He'd lie to you about what he had for breakfast in the

00:16:37.820 morning. And he would even lie about a matter as consequential as his faith. Now, speaking of

00:16:46.620 politics and the Catholic church, I have seen something that you have not seen yet, but you're

00:16:51.360 going to want to see it because it's very, very cool. This is an interview that Ben did, our very

00:16:56.560 own Ben Shapiro did with Frank Pavone. Frank Pavone, a very, very well-known Catholic priest, the head of

00:17:03.900 Priests for Life, who was recently shockingly laicized by the Vatican. Another word for that

00:17:10.880 is defrocked. They say you're no longer allowed to be a priest. And it's a kind of a complex thing

00:17:16.420 because the sacrament of holy orders makes an indelible mark on someone's soul. So there's a

00:17:22.020 question, can you even really ultimately laicize somebody? Well, the church has said we're taking

00:17:27.040 away your faculties to be a priest, to confer sacraments, to present yourself as a priest.

00:17:33.200 For what? It's a little unclear. No one really seems to know exactly why Pavone was laicized.

00:17:40.920 So he just went on Ben Shapiro's Sunday special, and he made a really, really important point

00:17:46.480 about his pro-life advocacy. How do you make the case to people that would say that Catholic

00:17:54.860 doctrine or religious doctrine, it allows for a variety of opinions in terms of how you vote. So,

00:17:59.220 okay, sure, the Republican Party is pro-life. Sure, the Republican Party opposes same-sex marriage.

00:18:03.440 But the Democratic Party is more for social justice matters. It's more for economic redistribution.

00:18:07.560 How do you privilege one idea over another idea, and how does that mesh with Catholic doctrine? How

00:18:12.600 can you draw such a clear dividing line between how people should vote? Shouldn't you just sort of

00:18:16.100 speak to broad principles, and then whatever people do in the privacy of the voting booth is what

00:18:19.280 they choose to do based on the dictates of conscience?

00:18:23.600 The relationship between the issues needs to be looked at. Nobody in the pro-life community says

00:18:31.100 abortion is the only issue. What we say is that the right to live is the foundation of every issue.

00:18:38.700 If an issue is an issue in the first place, it's because it somehow impacts human life.

00:18:44.940 Why are we concerned about poverty? Well, people have a right to food, clothing, and shelter. Why?

00:18:49.400 Because they have a right to live. Why am I concerned about unemployment? Well,

00:18:52.180 people have a right to make a living. Why? Because they have a right to live. Protection from 0.95

00:18:55.580 terrorism. You can go down the list, and it's like, okay, the value of life is obviously at the

00:19:01.900 core of every issue. Such an important point that conservatives don't make nearly as much as we

00:19:09.780 should. Life is not merely one issue among many. Life is the foundational right. If we are to have

00:19:19.320 any rights at all, we have to have the right from life on which all of the other rights rely.

00:19:26.860 Declaration of Independence says we have rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

00:19:30.660 Life is obviously the most important. If any of those are rights, life has to be the most important

00:19:35.500 because you can't have liberty without life. You can't pursue happiness if you don't have life.

00:19:43.000 And so when someone like Joe Biden comes out and he says, well, listen, I'm practicing Catholic,

00:19:48.440 but I don't believe in the right to life. Well, you're saying, okay, I don't believe in any rights

00:19:52.000 at all then. I don't believe in the most basic right of all of them. And so there's been some

00:19:58.060 speculation. Again, we don't know why Pavone was laicized. I want to call him Father Pavone. I guess

00:20:03.680 I'm not supposed to call him Father Pavone anymore. It feels kind of weird to call him Mr. Pavone.

00:20:07.880 But in any case, he was laicized, some speculate, because of his pro-life advocacy and because he

00:20:14.640 was perhaps disobedient to his bishops and other people who may or may not have told him to calm down

00:20:21.360 with all the pro-life stuff. Again, I don't know. This has not been a transparent matter.

00:20:26.020 But what Pavone is saying is, I can't pipe down about this. This is a fundamental issue. There was

00:20:35.140 one report that Pavone had refused to give absolution to unrepentant Democrats.

00:20:44.100 And this was a big headline. Sounds really shocking. The sacrament of confession is where Catholics go 1.00

00:20:49.840 and they confess their sins and the priest deriving from Christ's conferring of the right to loose and

00:20:56.980 to bind. Christ says, here is the power to forgive sins. What sins you forgive are forgiven and what

00:21:02.740 sins you retain are retained. And so what Pavone is saying is, I'm not going to, I cannot absolve someone

00:21:10.360 of their sins if they're not repentant. And the report was, again, I haven't heard him say this,

00:21:15.320 but the report was that in some cases he wouldn't give absolution to people who say, vote for a

00:21:21.000 Democrat, vote for some radically pro-abortion politician, and don't repent of that.

00:21:26.640 Well, fair enough, it seems to me. If you're sorry, if you say, look, I supported abortion in

00:21:33.420 the past and that was wrong and I'm sorry, please, I'm asking God's forgiveness, then you receive God's

00:21:37.800 forgiveness. But if you don't, if you say, yeah, I support baby killing politicians and, yeah, I think

00:21:44.640 it's totally great to support legal abortion and even taxpayer funded abortion. Okay, give me

00:21:48.960 absolution. Pavone's saying, I can't do that because you're not repentant. A lot of the opposition to

00:21:55.560 Pavone is he's too political. He's getting too involved in politics. Okay. I don't even really

00:22:02.580 know what that means. Yes, we don't want to see priests just chumming it up with one candidate or

00:22:10.400 some other candidate or something. We want our priests to be doing something different than our

00:22:14.060 politicians are doing. Sure. Okay. I see all of that, but we're supposed to pretend now that our

00:22:18.680 spiritual leaders have to remain neutral. There's no neutrality. We're in a spiritual war. And what,

00:22:24.120 we're supposed to pretend that the guy who's running to save the babies and the guy who's

00:22:27.640 running to kill the babies, that we're going to not have a preference between those two things.

00:22:32.860 We're not going to tell our flock who to go to. I'm not a priest. I don't have a flock, 0.99

00:22:38.080 but we're not, priests are not supposed to do that. Give me a break. That's completely insane.

00:22:42.620 It's ahistorical. It's completely incoherent. And I really hope it all works out with, with 0.91

00:22:48.360 Pavone, with Frank Pavone. I hope it would be, it's a real shame to see what's happened. And it

00:22:54.220 would be good to see him brought back into the priesthood at some future date. I hope,

00:22:58.780 especially if, if they only booted him out for, for being too pro-life. It would be nice if they

00:23:03.440 could kind of work it out, you know, and have him get back to his overall excellent work.

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00:23:35.780 promo code dailywire to ensure your title is still in your name. Speaking of life and death,

00:23:42.980 this story, I meant to get to this a few days ago. Glad I got to it now. It's kind of grisly

00:23:47.240 and really, really stupid. The story, here it is on Daily Wire. Man googled how to dispose of 115 1.00

00:23:57.280 pound woman's body. Now his 115 pound wife is missing. This is, you almost want to laugh at the 0.98

00:24:06.360 headline, except you realize someone's been killed. You know, some guy murdered his wife here, it would

00:24:10.180 seem. And it's a guy from Massachusetts who looked up how to dispose of this particular kind of body.

00:24:16.760 And then his wife was supposed to take a ride share to the airport in Boston for New Year's Day.

00:24:22.940 There's no record. She took the ride share. She never boarded the plane. And then she was reported

00:24:28.580 missing by her workplace and her husband. And then when law enforcement searched the guy's computer,

00:24:33.260 it says, how do you dispose of a 115 pound woman's body? Not really sad story. Not the brightest 0.98

00:24:39.720 criminal in the world, it would seem. I guess he's innocent until proven guilty, but not looking good.

00:24:44.200 Not looking good for the husband. The reason I bring up the story is not because it's of this

00:24:49.600 local crime story, odd as it is, but it's because of what it tells us about one of the biggest issues

00:24:57.120 in our politics, which is the surveillance state. We are increasingly living in a surveillance state,

00:25:03.340 and that has been increasing for decades now. It's been increasing in the government sphere. You think

00:25:08.580 of the NSA, formerly known as No Such Agency, which is just processing countless reams of all of our

00:25:15.400 data constantly. But then you think of it in the private sphere as well. You think of private

00:25:19.600 companies that now have access to what we search on the internet, private companies that have access

00:25:24.080 to who we call, private companies that have access to cameras inside of our homes. It's just everywhere

00:25:28.620 now. On our TVs, our TVs very often have cameras. Our cars are spying on us to corporations.

00:25:33.860 So we're living in this total surveillance state. And our first reaction to that is that this is very

00:25:40.920 bad. And it is bad because it's giving bad people undue power. It's giving frequently very bad actors

00:25:49.380 leverage over us and control over our lives. There is a silver lining, though. You know,

00:25:54.840 on this show, I try to have a little silver lining. I don't really get angry and pull my hair out and

00:25:58.380 say the world is ending all that much. I try to look for the hope here because I think that's a

00:26:03.040 theological fact and a requirement of our lives. So here's the silver lining.

00:26:08.920 The surveillance state can keep you on the straight and narrow. It can. People don't want

00:26:15.700 to hear it, but it's true. If you knew, I mean, this is how a lot of those anti-porn apps work.

00:26:24.200 I think it was Matt Fradd, a really great podcaster, was talking about this, that you get,

00:26:28.060 if you want to quit porn, if you have an addiction to porn, you get some of these apps and services

00:26:32.080 that basically, whenever you look at a porn website, it just emails whoever you tell it to

00:26:36.740 email. So it can be a buddy, it can be your wife, it can be, you know. And so it's a voluntary kind

00:26:42.100 of surveillance. But if you know, voluntary or not, if you know that every single thing that you type

00:26:46.440 into your computer is going to be seen by somebody else, you're probably not going to go to that

00:26:51.580 naughty website that you want to go to. Now, you might, if you're living in China, say, and you know

00:26:57.240 all your searches are going to be seen by the government, you're also probably not going to

00:27:00.060 Google things like democracy, or how to lead a political revolution, or things like that.

00:27:05.020 But even just in our personal lives, if we know that somebody is watching, we're probably going

00:27:11.120 to be a little better behaved. If you see a camera in a store, you're probably going to be a little

00:27:16.520 loath to rob that store, unless you're in San Francisco where it's just a complete free-for-all.

00:27:19.820 If you are in your home even, or in your workplace, surveillance can make you behave a little bit

00:27:28.200 better. The reason that this is happening now is, one, there's been the technological advances in

00:27:36.420 surveillance. But there's a cultural reason, too. And it gets back to one of these statements that

00:27:40.400 John Adams said in the early days of our country. He said, a statement frequently quoted by

00:27:45.380 conservatives, that the country is built for a moral and religious people. It's not fit for the

00:27:49.240 government of any other kind of people. That the American expression of political liberty and

00:27:54.620 relative privacy is built for people who are going to control themselves and rein in their basest

00:28:01.560 passions. The country is built for people who believe that God is watching them at all times,

00:28:08.960 and they better not step too far out of line. As that belief has declined in the United States,

00:28:16.540 you have seen an increase in other kinds of surveillance. Police surveillance, in private

00:28:26.660 surveillance, in surveillance by your teachers, and your professors, and your bosses, and everybody

00:28:32.580 else. As people don't fear God watching us, we are going to need Big Brother to watch us. This is

00:28:40.340 something I've said always as an addendum to the John Adams quote about the moral and religious people,

00:28:46.420 which is, there will be order. There must be order and peace in society. That is what government does,

00:28:58.260 is to maintain that. That is what political communities are largely for.

00:29:01.760 However, if people will not order their own lives, someone is going to come in and order our lives

00:29:08.740 for us. But there will, don't mistake it. The people that control the country, the powers that be,

00:29:16.860 will not allow things to spiral out of control. Even when those powers are we the people, even when

00:29:21.300 it's us in representative assemblies. If our government really were still to work as the bill

00:29:24.920 up on Capitol Hill and all the rest of it, we would not allow anarchism. You're seeing this in some of

00:29:30.900 the blue cities where crime has gotten completely out of control. People are stepping up and saying,

00:29:34.300 we don't want this stuff anymore. Okay, impose some control. Now, speaking of Big Brother and the

00:29:40.220 nanny state, there's a story that seems a little bit murky, and the government is trying to kind of

00:29:47.360 deny this. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has threatened to take away your gas stove. Of all the

00:29:55.740 problems facing the country, completely open border, potential world war breaking out in

00:30:00.760 Eastern Europe, you've got the biggest drug epidemic ever in American history, declining life 0.91

00:30:06.780 expectancy. All of these problems, the government is really focused on what matters, which is keeping

00:30:13.560 you from using a gas stove to make your eggs in the morning. Yeah, you've got to use an electric

00:30:18.220 stove now. That was the threat from the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This came out, people pushed

00:30:25.000 back against it. Even some Democrats came out. Joe Manchin was interviewed about this. He said,

00:30:28.020 this is insane. Nobody wants, stop trying to ban gas stoves, you weirdos. That's fine. So then the 0.83

00:30:34.200 government came out and said, no, we're not actually threatening to ban the gas stoves. Here is the

00:30:38.920 Consumer Product Safety Commissioner threatening this just back in December. I think we need to be

00:30:45.040 talking about regulating gas stoves, whether that's drastically improving emissions or banning gas

00:30:50.540 stoves entirely. And I think we ought to keep that possibility of a ban in mind as you follow along,

00:30:56.080 because it's a powerful tool in our toolbox. It's a real possibility here.

00:31:00.960 No, thanks. No, thank you. How did this guy, one, if you cook at all, you know, gas stoves are just

00:31:08.820 much nicer to cook on. If you have the privilege of having a gas stove, I've had electric and I've

00:31:12.120 had gas at different times. Gas is way, way better. But how did this guy muster the gumption to say,

00:31:19.300 yeah, we're getting, we're taking your stove away. Yeah, why? Because I said so. Because I, some petty

00:31:25.000 bureaucrat said so. Because we have a culture now where we have infantilized ourselves and we've given

00:31:35.100 up so much of our right and our spines and in some cases other body parts, thanks to the transgender 1.00

00:31:41.300 movement. We've given this away. We no longer have a clear vision of virtue and our rights and our place

00:31:48.500 in society. We can't even defend, many people in this country can't even defend the most basic right

00:31:52.740 in the society. And as we give those things away, then the people who are going to impose the order

00:32:00.280 that we previously would have, fearing God, are going to be petty bureaucrats like the guy who's

00:32:04.980 trying to take your stove. Despite the lackluster economy, maybe, maybe because of it, I don't know.

00:32:11.280 The Daily Wire is thriving. And not only that, we are hiring. We are looking for an experienced

00:32:19.160 executive producer and business manager who will serve as the leader of Daily Wire's South Florida

00:32:23.000 branch in terms of both production and general operations. The ideal candidate has at least eight

00:32:27.660 years of experience working in a professional production environment, in a senior leadership

00:32:31.300 position, and you have to know post-production for video and film inside and out. In addition to

00:32:36.720 technical proficiency, exceptional people, leader skills, and business acumen are crucial for success

00:32:42.220 in this role, they also must thrive in a fast-paced work environment and be a self-starter. This is an

00:32:48.040 in-office position in South Florida, and a strong preference will be given to local candidates. If this

00:32:52.880 sounds like you, then head on over to dailywire.com slash careers for more info and to apply. That is

00:32:58.300 dailywire.com slash careers today. I am so happy that at the Daily Wire now, with all the zillions of

00:33:08.080 dollars that is coming through this company as people flee the woke corporations, and they want

00:33:12.120 to help fight back and build our own culture, and we've got all this cool stuff, we're making movies,

00:33:16.440 and we're making products. We have finally acquired a piece of technology from the 1970s or earlier that

00:33:23.760 will allow us to take live calls on this show, which I'd love, because my favorite part of the show

00:33:28.440 is when I get to talk to you in person. So, we've got some calls here set up. Let's see, who do we have?

00:33:36.780 We've got Daisy from Chicago. Daisy, you are on the air.

00:33:42.980 Hey, Michael. Can you hear me?

00:33:44.900 I can hear you. How can I help you?

00:33:46.540 Wonderful. So, I've been listening to your show for about a year now, and I wanted to press you on

00:33:52.260 something. You've alluded in the past that you think people shouldn't be allowed to cross-dress

00:33:58.900 in public. To me, and I suspect to pretty much everyone, there's a difference between a giant,

00:34:04.920 burly dude in a pink miniskirt and stilettos than, say, a woman wearing a suit, or even a man

00:34:11.120 wearing a woman's cardigan or women's skinny jeans. Technically, that all qualifies as cross-dressing, 0.96

00:34:16.220 but clearly, it's not all as disruptive to society. So, my question is, do you really think

00:34:21.320 it should be illegal or just discouraged? And if you think it should be illegal, how would you

00:34:27.000 define cross-dressing? How would that be enforced?

00:34:30.780 Really, really good question, Daisy. I think that in the case of skinny jeans, skinny jeans should be

00:34:36.720 illegal, not for cross-dressing, just because they're a hideous offense against style. But that's a

00:34:42.100 question, I guess, for another time. You make a great point, which is that the line between

00:34:47.960 cross-dressing and avant-garde fashion can be a little bit blurry. I suppose that's true.

00:34:55.120 Nevertheless, we can kind of know it when we see it, I think. I go back to Justice Potter Stewart,

00:35:00.900 who was asked to define obscenity. We have laws still in this country against obscenity. We have

00:35:05.360 our whole nation's history. And the line between pornography and art can be a little bit blurry

00:35:12.300 in the way that you're describing fashion. Nevertheless, Justice Stewart said, I may not

00:35:18.360 be able to give you a perfectly precise description and definition of the difference,

00:35:24.360 but we know it when we see it. And I think that's true. So, you know, this would involve a prudential

00:35:29.500 judgment call on the part of the authorities, but so does all law enforcement. You know,

00:35:34.500 even the most ardent positivist who believes that the letter of the law is exactly what should govern

00:35:39.220 us wouldn't argue that there is no judgment, personal judgment, that's involved in handing

00:35:44.620 out court decisions and in enforcing the law. So we're going to have that anyway. Politics is a

00:35:49.680 human endeavor. And so I trust that as people can distinguish between art and obscenity in 99% of

00:35:55.260 cases, we probably could in the case of cross-dressing. And then I would err on the side of caution.

00:35:59.580 Obviously, you want to err on the side of not being too overbearing. But I think right now,

00:36:04.800 we're erring on completely the other side. We're just throwing our standards and norms completely

00:36:08.960 out the window. And we're pretending that there's some constitutional right for a weirdo to cross-dress 0.70

00:36:13.620 and jiggle around for kids at the library. Is your objection to this idea of, well, not of passing

00:36:22.380 new cross-dressing laws, but really just bringing back old ones? I mean, we had laws against cross-dressing,

00:36:26.520 including in San Francisco, for a lot of our country's history. Is your objection that people

00:36:33.580 have a right to cross-dress the stilettos and the feather bow and all the rest of it? Or is your

00:36:39.900 objection that it's just, as a practical matter, it would be too hard to enforce?

00:36:44.740 Yeah, it's not so much as I think people have a right. It just seems like if we tried to bring in

00:36:53.940 some sort of cross-dressing laws, it would be probably too, it wouldn't be practical.

00:36:59.340 Yeah, fair enough. I mean, because your objection, at least, is not based on, I think, what a lot of

00:37:06.200 people mistakenly hold as this extreme individualism that says we have the right to do whatever we

00:37:12.680 want or something. I mean, that is nowhere found in America's history or form of government. So your

00:37:17.620 objection is really just that you don't trust the government to get this done because they're 0.59

00:37:21.340 basically incompetent. And I share, I think, your suspicion of the government. However,

00:37:27.820 we do have to have laws. And so we do, the government, incompetent as it is, we do rely

00:37:32.240 on the government to maintain order and to execute justice. And so in this case, a lot of the reason

00:37:37.280 people write it off is they say, well, it's sort of a trivial issue. Who cares if some weirdo wants

00:37:41.180 to wear a miniskirt and walk around New York City? And I'm sympathetic to that argument. It's just,

00:37:47.360 my answer to it is, who cares? The libs care. You know, the left has really, really been pushing 1.00

00:37:53.440 this. They put a lot of time and energy and money into normalizing this kind of stuff. And I think

00:37:58.260 they're doing it because they recognize that cultural issues really do matter. You know,

00:38:03.100 it's not just fights over the tax rate that affect politics, but it's these little cultural things

00:38:09.480 that if you're able to change the way people dress, the way people view men and women,

00:38:14.420 the way people are educated, the way the culture talks about its own citizens. If you're able to

00:38:21.980 change all of that in a kind of subtle way, then without passing a single law or only minor kind of

00:38:28.580 regulations, you have ultimately changed the culture. And so I'm skeptical of the government.

00:38:33.700 I just think it's a fight that we have to engage in. We got to go to war with the army that we got.

00:38:37.840 Really, really good question though, Daisy. Thank you for calling in. Okay,

00:38:42.020 let's turn now to Erin in the great Commonwealth of Virginia. Hello, Erin.

00:38:48.100 Hi, Michael.

00:38:50.020 How can I help you?

00:38:52.580 So I just wanted to let you know, I'm also an Italian Catholic, so I love listening to your show.

00:38:58.520 But my question is about working in the public school system. So I currently work at an elementary

00:39:03.580 school that's really conservative and I'm lucky, but I'm finishing my degree in hopes of being a middle

00:39:08.900 school math teacher. So I'm wondering what advice you have for how to work in the public school system

00:39:15.400 and not agree with or support their woke agenda.

00:39:20.700 I would recommend that you be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. And depending on where you

00:39:26.260 are, you know, if you're in Virginia, there's a good shot that you're going to be in a pretty

00:39:29.980 pre-lib school system. If you were in Tennessee or Texas, your odds of being in a conservative school

00:39:36.140 system would be a lot higher. I'm not necessarily suggesting that you retreat from that fight,

00:39:40.960 but I would recommend, one, you know what you think and you know what your lines are and you

00:39:48.420 know, okay, maybe you'll keep your mouth shut when in the teacher's break room, they're talking about

00:39:55.500 how terrible Trump is or whatever. And you say, okay, this is not worth my time to pick this fight.

00:39:59.740 But you are going to speak up when they tell you you've got to refer to one of your 12-year-old

00:40:05.360 male students as she. So that's a line I'm not going to cross. If I were a teacher, that would 0.80

00:40:10.460 be a line that I would not cross. I would not allow the school to force me to lie and to lie

00:40:15.600 about an issue that is fundamental to human nature and a lie that will really end up damaging the poor

00:40:22.500 students who are being exposed to it. So I'd know what your lines are. And then I would recommend

00:40:26.660 having a backup plan is the other thing. Because you know that you're going into the lion's den

00:40:31.960 if you're working in a woke public school these days. And I think it's admirable that you're

00:40:36.220 going in anyway. And I think education is obviously a very important thing. I remain close with many

00:40:40.400 of my teachers. In fact, I keep up with my kindergarten teacher. So I think that's a

00:40:44.860 wonderful thing. And you could be a real lifeline for conservatives and sane people and Sicilians and

00:40:49.960 Catholics at the school. So that's all wonderful. But you ought to have a backup plan because you're 1.00

00:40:54.740 going in knowing that you face greater risk to your employment than the other people who are

00:41:01.200 going in there. And so you should go in with your eyes wide open and not be caught unawares when the

00:41:08.280 libs try to tar and feather you for saying that boys are boys and girls are girls. Best of luck.

00:41:14.380 I hope you do wonderful things and subvert all of the wokeness in whichever school you end up in.

00:41:21.460 Okay, let's turn now to Ozzy Ought. It's an interesting name from Minnesota. Am I pronouncing

00:41:28.620 that correctly, Ozzy Ought? Hi, Michael. No, it's not. It took my husband three years to

00:41:34.740 pronounce my name. How do I do it? Asiat. Asiat. Asiat.

00:41:43.380 Yeah, that's right. All right, I'll keep trying. It might take me three years, but that's okay.

00:41:46.280 How can I help you? Yeah, so I'm a huge fan. I was like, I can't believe you picked up my call.

00:41:52.540 Anyway, my husband and I, yeah, and you always put my stories on your stories when I tag you on

00:42:00.280 Instagram. So thank you for that too. My pleasure. My pleasure. Thanks for tagging me. I'm really glad

00:42:05.420 I picked up. I'm certainly glad one of the producers picked up the phone. So what's going on in

00:42:10.280 Minnesota? Yeah. Oh, it's really cold. And I really hate it because I was born in Southern Russia and

00:42:17.940 I hate cold. And that's what my question is about. So my husband and I are looking at moving from

00:42:24.700 Minnesota to Tennessee. We are both young entrepreneurs and want to hear your thoughts

00:42:29.760 about people and life in Tennessee. So what do you like the most about living there?

00:42:35.160 Asiat, you should move yesterday. You should not even wait till we finish this call. You can keep 0.98

00:42:42.900 me on the line. You can hang up now if you want, but just come to Tennessee. It is so great. I just

00:42:47.280 went back and visited my old friends in LA because I still do a show out there with PragerU called The

00:42:52.660 Book Club. And so I go out a few times a year and we film episodes of The Book Club. And I like it.

00:42:56.560 I go back. I see some of my friends. Most of my friends have fled at this point, but there's still some

00:43:00.880 there. And I miss the nice weather. That's not something that you will miss in Minnesota. Minnesota

00:43:05.240 certainly does not have nice weather. But I do miss certain things. My restaurant, my cigar bar,

00:43:10.400 my this, my that. But I am so happy that I made the move because what you get out of going to a red 0.97

00:43:17.220 state is not only you get to save a lot of money on taxes, not only do you get more normal people

00:43:23.620 generally around you, not only do you frequently get your dollar going a lot further than they do

00:43:30.980 in some of these blue metropolises, but you get the standard back to a sane place. Any place you

00:43:39.100 move to, you move to Tennessee, there's plenty of libs in Tennessee. But the center of gravity there, 0.99

00:43:44.720 the political center of gravity is not nearly as far over to the left. If you're living in a place

00:43:49.960 like California, the dividing line between right and left is, do you trans the kids at four or do

00:43:55.160 you wait to trans the kids at seven? I mean, that's how far left it is. I say this with almost 1.00

00:44:00.240 no exaggeration. Whereas in Tennessee, even the Democrats are still relatively normal. And that

00:44:07.720 grounding in, look, we don't want everyone to just believe precisely exactly the same thing and to

00:44:13.360 just behave like automatons. We want there to be diversity and spice to life, but you want it to be

00:44:18.380 within normal constraints. Society is not a crazy jungle where everybody says and does whatever

00:44:24.260 they want and we're basically all just barking at each other. We want society to be a manicured

00:44:29.660 garden, okay? And so when you move to a place like Tennessee, which I just adore, the boundaries

00:44:35.460 of discourse and behavior are just more normal. People are just way more normal here. So I hope I've

00:44:42.380 convinced you, Asiat, I hope to find you at some restaurant in Tennessee eating delicious fried

00:44:47.480 chicken and enjoying the good weather. Lovely to speak to you. I think I can take one more

00:44:53.700 question. Let's turn to Sam from California, from my old state. Hello, Sam.

00:45:00.280 Hi, Michael. Thanks for having me.

00:45:02.260 My pleasure. What's up?

00:45:05.940 Well, I'm the CEO and founder of a new Christian free speech social network called Acts 29 or

00:45:14.060 Acts 29 dot online. And I'm an ex-Facebook intelligence analyst. And the reason why I'm

00:45:21.200 calling is because we were recently deplatformed from using our ad account on Facebook.

00:45:29.060 Tell me more. You've got my attention.

00:45:31.660 Well, uh, you know, we started off, uh, not, you know, we were always conservative, but we started

00:45:40.440 off, you know, very light on the political side. But the moment we started talking about

00:45:45.500 our, our country's in grave danger from the communist elements, uh, our ad accounts started

00:45:51.820 getting all wonky on us and they, uh, declined our ad account seven times in the last week.

00:45:57.880 Hmm. You know, I, I had heard that Facebook was going to make a move to, to suppress political

00:46:04.740 content. And of course the argument that Facebook made is we're going to suppress political content

00:46:08.780 across the board. Usually when, when social media companies say that, what that really means is

00:46:13.460 they're going to suppress the conservatives and maybe they'll give occasionally a little,

00:46:16.500 a little smack on the knuckles to Democrats. But, but this is almost never enforced equally. And so

00:46:21.700 I'm not, not terribly surprised. You say you're an ex-Facebook intelligence analyst.

00:46:26.320 Uh, do you, do you have any inside thoughts on, on exactly why you're being shut down?

00:46:34.120 Um, I believe that it's because they don't want a Christian free speech social network. 1.00

00:46:40.280 You know, a lot of the employees, uh, at these tech companies, they double as, uh, political

00:46:47.240 activists and you see political activism more and more in the workplace. And I believe in the last

00:46:53.000 three years, you know, it's kind of converged into this amount of amalgam of, you know, communism

00:47:00.940 within social, either socialism or communism in the workplace. Right. You know, it's funny to use

00:47:07.600 those terms because, you know, it's, I almost feel bad for the communists calling these people

00:47:13.840 commies. You know, Stalin was a very evil guy, but at least he was kind of manly, you know, at least 0.93

00:47:19.960 he recognized that men and women are different. These guys, they want to take your property.

00:47:25.420 They want to take your rights away. And, but they're somehow even kookier. They some, they 0.97

00:47:29.320 somehow believe even more fantastical things. Uh, so, well, I wish you the best of luck. I'm,

00:47:34.040 I'm not surprised. Facebook did show its hand by saying we're going to suppress political content,

00:47:38.020 but the only way that we're going to, to do very much about this at this point, now that,

00:47:43.000 now that the big tech companies have achieved critical mass through fraud, in many cases,

00:47:47.400 saying that you'll, you're signing up for one service when in fact, they're going to provide

00:47:50.660 you a different kind of a service and, and by exploiting legal loopholes that give them

00:47:54.220 protections, they've now got a critical mass. And so you're, you're not going to succeed by

00:47:58.940 just going out there and building your own Facebook. We're going to succeed by wielding

00:48:02.360 the political order. But the really important point here is that in a political order, in self

00:48:09.100 government, in a Republic, if a private or semi-private entity controls the public square,

00:48:14.780 they control the whole political order. And you and I in America, we still have rights

00:48:18.980 to come out there and, and wield our political power and say, no, we're not going to give away

00:48:24.420 the public square. We're not going to give away the country to woke wackos in Silicon Valley. 0.98

00:48:29.060 Thank you for calling in. That's our show. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Michael Knowles Show.

00:48:32.060 We will see you next time.

00:48:44.780 Thank you.

00:48:52.420 Thank you.

The Michael Knowles Show - January 17, 2023

Ep. 1163 - Biden Caught In Another Million Dollar Chinese Finger Trap

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