I'm filling in for Tim tonight because he's not feeling well and needs a little something to make him feel better, and I have a crowdfunding campaign to support, so I put something in his drink so that he could be the host all night.
00:01:30.000I actually have a crowdfunding campaign to support, so I put something in his drink to make him sick so that I could be the host all night.
00:01:36.000Don't tell him I said that, though, okay?
00:01:38.000Now, before we get into tonight's show, what's that?
00:02:41.000It is open enrollment, the season where health insurance companies hope you'll blindly sign up again for overpriced premiums and confusing fine print.
00:03:05.000You get access to a team of health bill negotiators, low-cost prescription and lab testing tools, as well as a database of low-cost, high-quality doctors vetted by CrowdHealth.
00:03:15.000You pay the first $500 and the crowd steps in to help fund the rest.
00:03:18.000It feels like the options we used to have before Obamacare messed everything up.
00:03:22.000And of course, you'll join the crowd, a group of members just like you who want to help pay for each other's unexpected medical events.
00:03:28.000The system is better, as betting, you'll stay stuck in the same overpriced, overcomplicated mess.
00:03:34.000And this year, it's even more complicated because most of the ACA subsidies expire, which means your prices are going sky high.
00:03:39.000So far, CrowdHealth members have saved over $40 million in healthcare expenses because they refuse to overpay for healthcare.
00:03:46.000This open enrollment, take your power back, join CrowdHealth to get started for just $99 for your first three months using code TIM at joincrowdhealth.com.
00:03:54.000Remember, CrowdHealth is not insurance.
00:04:04.000For those of you who don't know me, my name is Seamus Coglin.
00:04:07.000I'm hosting for Tim tonight because he's not feeling well.
00:04:10.000I've made over 600 animated videos on my channel, Freedom Tunes.
00:04:13.000We have over a million subscribers and over 290 million views with zero dollars spent on marketing.
00:04:18.000Part of the reason I do what I do is because we have the most powerful technological infrastructure for storytelling that has ever existed in all of history, and people form their values through stories.
00:04:28.000This infrastructure is unfortunately entirely owned by people who hate us, who hate our values, and hate our way of life, and have been slowly chipping away at it for decades through their propaganda.
00:04:37.000That's why I've decided to expand my team and expand our role into creating a new full-length animated show called Twisted Plots.
00:04:44.000It's an animated anthology series which expresses our values as conservatives, not through ham-fisted monologues or preaching, but good jokes and good stories.
00:04:53.000We are already over 70% funded, and we have until Thursday to get the rest of the funding.
00:04:59.000Thursday night, as soon as it goes into Friday, the time's over.
00:05:03.000So, if you want to help us save our country, if you want to help us push back against the media, if you want to send the message that the future of entertainment is grassroots in its right wing, go to twistedplots.com, support us at the $25 level, watch our 25-minute pilot episode become a part of the future.
00:05:20.000So, today's show, we've got a lot of awesome guests.
00:05:22.000Sitting across from me is one of the CEOs of the Babylon B. If you'd like to introduce yourself, CTO of the Babylon B. CTO, my apologies.
00:05:28.000Co-owner and CTO of the Babylon B. My name is Dan Dylan, and I'm also the CEO and founder of NotTheB, which is the sister site of the Babylon B.
00:06:45.000And of course, pushing the buttons, we got our boy Surge.
00:06:47.000So, first story: illegal Mexican immigrant with a rap sheet arrested for shooting at Border Patrol agents during a Chicago raid.
00:06:55.000An illegal immigrant from Mexico was arrested after he allegedly opened fire at Border Patrol agents during a weekend raid in Chicago, which also saw protesters lobbying bricks at the fence.
00:07:05.000Now, here's the thing: here's the thing, and this is just my personal perspective, New York Post.
00:07:10.000I think when you're lobbying bricks, you're no longer protesters.
00:07:13.000I think maybe at that point, you graduate into rioter territory.
00:07:16.000I don't think that throwing bricks at law enforcement is a legitimate form of protesting.
00:07:22.000If you're missing, then you're mostly peaceful.
00:07:24.000Lobbing sounds like they're playing catch.
00:07:35.000The man who was not identified allegedly drove up alongside agents during an imminent raid in Chicago's little village and fired a few rounds before speeding off in a jeep.
00:07:43.000Now, again, I just want to be clear: when a bunch of people show up to the location where a law enforcement raid is going to occur and start throwing bricks at police officers, and one of them starts shooting at the police, that is not a protest.
00:07:54.000That is obstruction of law enforcement, and that is a riot.
00:08:24.000I mean, it always seems like there's a pile of bricks.
00:08:27.000Well, I don't know if you know this, but immigrants built America, so they have a lot of bricks inside their mind to continue to do the business of building.
00:08:33.000Chicago is falling apart, so there are bricks from the brick buildings falling apart, laying around all over it.
00:08:39.000Like, even if you look at the picture here in the New York Post article, look at that dilapidated building.
00:08:44.000You could tell like bricks are kind of falling off from the left of that window.
00:08:47.000Do you think they're just like taking a pick out of the building and lobbing it?
00:08:50.000Well, like, I'm assuming their homes are, they're already falling apart.
00:08:52.000Like, half a brick might be on the floor already.
00:08:54.000But I think throwing things like rocks or bricks, what is it?
00:09:30.000That won't necessarily guarantee you don't get shot, but I think if you throw a rock at someone who has a fireharm, like the likelihood is they're going to feel a need to defend themselves.
00:09:39.000Now, I also think, of course, a huge part of this is the rhetoric surrounding this issue has paved the way for this kind of obstruction and violence to continue to occur and to worsen.
00:09:48.000We're told that ICE agents and the people who are trying to enforce immigration law from within our borders are criminals.
00:09:54.000They even call them Nazis, are Gestapo.
00:09:57.000And so this is kind of what we should probably expect to see, unfortunately.
00:10:01.000They're also saying some of the rhetoric they're using that they're kidnapping these illegal migrants, which I think the rhetoric is crazy.
00:10:08.000I think this is a successor movement to defunding the police.
00:10:11.000Defund the police is no longer popular, but now they're using all that angst and anger that they had in that movement towards ICE and DHS agents around the country.
00:10:18.000I think you're totally right because it is the exact same rhetoric.
00:10:20.000You take something that legitimate law enforcement does and then you apply the label to it that you would apply to it if a citizen who is acting as a vigilante were to engage in that behavior.
00:10:29.000People feel emboldened to agitate and prevent DHS and Border Patrol and other ICE agents from doing their like lolly prescribed duty.
00:11:36.000He had to hire a lawyer and defend himself.
00:11:37.000So I don't know if the process is the punishment here, which I don't agree that the punish punishment.
00:11:41.000No, yeah, the process should be the punishment.
00:11:43.000If you're breaking the law, then the punishment should be the punishment.
00:11:46.000If they can't get to you, then the process is the punishment because it's still a bitch to have to go hire a lawyer and the DOJ is coming after you.
00:11:53.000And I can't imagine it's good for your public record to even have that out there publicly.
00:11:57.000Well, why do you think DHS isn't doing enough about this?
00:11:59.000Why do you think they're not arresting people at the ground level?
00:12:01.000They don't want to inflame tensions even further.
00:12:03.000I believe that if they begin arresting people, then like the videos going viral will be of them being physical with protesters, and they're fearful that that might agitate them further.
00:12:12.000This is their way of like calming the crowd, if you will.
00:12:20.000We have evidence in 2020, the summer of 2020, when all the riots were going on.
00:12:26.000There was literal see there was a federal building literally under siege for like 90 days or 100 days, and they didn't do anything definitive.
00:12:37.000They didn't do anything to actually stop the siege because they were afraid of the way that it would be perceived.
00:12:45.000This light touch with protesters and with the left, it is not going to work.
00:13:06.000They have all the authority they need.
00:13:08.000I'm not talking about doing anything illegal.
00:13:11.000I'm not talking about hurting people or violating their rights, but you absolutely can arrest people and stop this absolute trash behavior.
00:13:51.000A, the left never felt a need to take this approach with the right.
00:13:55.000They were going after grannies who wandered into the Capitol after a police officer opened the door for them on January 6th.
00:14:00.000But secondly, we're getting the worst, the worst of both worlds, where it feels like a lot of these White House social media accounts will post these edgy edits, which I think are funny, right?
00:14:13.000But they are inflammatory to a degree.
00:14:15.000But then they won't step in and enforce the law because they think that's too inflammatory.
00:14:20.000So they're doing things to kind of like rally the troops and get us pumped up.
00:14:23.000Dude, I don't want to see another edit made by some Zoomer with heavy bass playing while people get arrested.
00:14:30.000I want you to actually go out and arrest the people who are breaking the law because that video is going to be a great memory for me when the left takes over because you didn't do enough.
00:14:39.000And now we're all locked in prison for standing up for the truth and freedom.
00:14:42.000They are behaving as if the left is going to have something new to accuse them of.
00:14:49.000As if the left is not already calling them Nazis.
00:14:52.000As if the left is not already accusing them of being terrorists.
00:14:56.000Literally, I saw someone tweeting that the DHS was acting like terrorists.
00:15:04.000And you should not take into account how they are going to respond one bit because they're already doing it.
00:15:11.000This is something that we, this is an argument we make here on the show all the time.
00:15:14.000You cannot worry about the fact that the Democrats or the left are going to say X because they're already saying it.
00:15:22.000You can't worry about what the Democrats are going to do if you do something because they're already going to do something worse when they get into power again.
00:15:30.000You need to exercise power and you need to stop this behavior.
00:15:35.000That is what the government is in, is that's what the mandate the government has is supposed to do.
00:15:41.000They're supposed to make sure that this behavior is not allowed to continue to metastasize across the country.
00:15:48.000I think, sorry, you haven't gotten much of a chance to talk and you were going to say something.
00:15:52.000No, I was just going to say, I mean, I was raised.
00:15:54.000I don't know how you guys were raised, but I was raised to not throw things at police officers.
00:15:58.000And my expectation growing up in the United States would be that if you did, you would get arrested and it would be serious.
00:16:03.000But it seems like anything revolving around immigration and the enforcement of immigration laws for some reason is just handled in a different way, right?
00:16:11.000Like, I mean, seriously, throwing a brick at a police officer or any, it's insane.
00:17:00.000But I'm an American citizen here legally and all this other stuff.
00:17:04.000I don't understand why it's people who were not even at January 6th were charged with conspiracy.
00:17:12.000And one of the emotionally manipulative tactics the left used throughout the entire persecution of their political enemy process was, well, you know, there were police officers who were harmed on January 6th.
00:17:23.000It's like, oh, yeah, you guys care so much about law enforcement.
00:17:26.000People are literally throwing bricks at cops and you're sitting there going, well, it's civil disobedience.
00:19:13.000And the last question I have before we move on to our policy expert, Shane, who's, you know, he's a Shane, as you guys know, is a think tank guy.
00:19:20.000He's spent a lot of time in the halls of academia working with these prestigious institutions.
00:21:08.000So we have two people from complete opposite ends of the spectrum with respect to approach who are saying these people need to be thrown in prison.
00:21:53.000Well, speaking of this very contentious issue of immigration and illegal immigration, this illegal alien invasion and keeping foreigners who break the law off of our streets, there may be some illegals who were not showing up to the protests who were less likely to on account of their weight.
00:22:11.000And Donald Trump's actually calling them out specifically.
00:22:15.000I'm curious which specific problems is going to solve.
00:22:17.000Maybe it's a question about maintaining our health care system.
00:22:19.000But the short of it is the U.S. may deny visas for fat foreigners.
00:22:25.000A memo sent to embassy, I'm sorry, to embassy says health conditions should be taken into consideration when processing applications.
00:22:31.000Foreigners could have their U.S. visas rejected if they are obese.
00:23:14.000Yeah, I think being fat should be illegal.
00:23:17.000I mean, look, if you know that there are people that are going to consistently be screaming for Medicare for all, if Medicare for all is going to be a thing, then all of your nutrition decisions are public policy.
00:23:35.000I just want to say that is an undeniable fact.
00:23:38.000If the government, if the taxpayer is going to pay for your health care, then the food that you eat is the business of the taxpayer.
00:23:53.000I'm against the government being involved in what you put into your body.
00:23:56.000But if this is something that the people are going to demand, then the people are going to have a say in how much you sit on your ass and don't do anything.
00:24:05.000The people are going to have a say in what you have in your refrigerator.
00:24:11.000I just think that this is lazy law enforcement because they know they're going to be easy to catch.
00:24:15.000They're like, if we have to deport them, it's not going to be very hard.
00:24:18.000The transportation might be a little more difficult to get them out of the country, but it'll be easy to round them up, pun intended.
00:24:24.000We're going to need bigger like vehicles.
00:24:26.000We're going to need bigger at the bigger seat.
00:24:28.000The other point I wanted to make here, too, is you're absolutely right.
00:24:31.000Listen, if you're going to come to our country because you receive health care benefits, which they do, this is part of why we were talking about the shutdown.
00:24:37.000If they get temporary protected status or even if they entered illegally, they're declared to have been here legally.
00:24:42.000Non-citizens can collect health care and they can receive some of these benefits.
00:24:48.000When people are overweight, they're an additional burden on the healthcare system.
00:24:52.000This is something that future Mayor Mom Donnie made remarks about in his speech.
00:24:58.000There is no issue too small for the government to care about.
00:25:04.000He said that in his acceptance speech the other night.
00:25:09.000But the point that he was making is the government will have a say in every part of your life.
00:25:17.000That is not something that is up for debate.
00:25:20.000That is not something that we're going to question.
00:25:22.000If the left has their way and if the government is going to say, oh, we're going to provide you with this, with health care and health, you know, with Medicare for all, they are going to be involved in what you eat.
00:25:35.000They're going to be telling you, citizen, you have not done enough exercise, et cetera, et cetera.
00:25:40.000Now, yeah, what do you think of this, Elad?
00:25:43.000I don't necessarily degree with laws on, disagree with laws on principle, but I do think it is a little bit ironic because Americans on average are a lot fatter than most on average people of any.
00:26:59.000Yeah, I don't Disagree with these laws in principle.
00:27:03.000You just want to take a look at the moment.
00:27:04.000I think there's all your fellow Americans.
00:27:05.000It's still ironic because we have these poor health outcomes.
00:27:09.000And like, you know, this is a part of the bigger picture, too, because, you know, the issue with having a single-payer healthcare system or having Obamacare or what have you is that our costs are so high.
00:27:36.000Because yes, the only reason that our health care costs are so high is not just because we are unhealthy, but it's also because we have so many immigrants in our country that are going to the emergency rooms and using our health care system, whether they're actually collecting Medicare or not.
00:27:53.000They're getting, you know, care before we are.
00:27:56.000And in reality, you know, like these, a person who's coming in who's significantly obese, you know, they're going to come in and use that health care significantly more than I don't disagree with you.
00:28:07.000I think two things can be true at once, though.
00:29:56.000Well, I was just saying, if these people manage to get so overweight before coming to the United States, I can't imagine what's going to happen.
00:30:02.000I also was going to say when I get here and start eating Popeyes, maybe the wall has to have an entrance that's a little bit thin, so you really have to squeeze through it.
00:30:09.000Well, we're ACA compliant everywhere across the United States.
00:30:29.000It doesn't matter if you are a foreigner.
00:30:31.000I've been trying to start a petition for the border to be an American Ninja Warrior course so they can actually do some work, lose those pounds before they get here and really.
00:31:12.000Like, it's not like if you have, the ACA is a big part of it, actually.
00:31:16.000But if you have a country where people have these chronic health issues because our food is very, very bad, then of course healthcare costs are just going to be much higher.
00:31:35.000But what I am saying is we do have an obesity crisis that is going to make healthcare more expensive.
00:31:39.000And I'm so sick and tired of people pointing to some small country with like a couple million people and they're all in great shape and saying their healthcare is really cheap.
00:31:49.000It must be because they have a public private system that mandates purchasing within the insurance marketplace or they have a single payer system, whatever.
00:32:11.000So they'll say, we need to go to single payers so we can solve this crisis and we can get people insured.
00:32:15.000Countries with universal healthcare systems almost always have some form of a private market that the state mandates you to purchase from or that they'll redistribute tax money for you to purchase from.
00:32:58.000You're correct, but I do want to point out if you have an improper diet, if you have a bad diet, you are not going to be able to do enough cardio, enough exercise to defeat that diet.
00:33:10.000You cannot cardio away four or five thousand calories a day.
00:33:46.000Well, I think at the end of the day, now it is, but it shouldn't be.
00:33:49.000I think at the end of the day, what we could all agree on is even though our food supply is terrible and something needs to be done about it, people need to cultivate virtue.
00:33:55.000People need to live their lives in a way that prioritizes moderation and not overconsumption.
00:34:01.000I'm trying to create a show that I think is going to help distill some of these values in people.
00:34:04.000Go to twistedplots.com, help us get funded.
00:34:32.000President Trump, President Donald Trump, excuse me, has suggested creating a new 50-year mortgage plan as a way to encourage young people to buy real estate, according to a post on his Truth Social platform.
00:34:41.000The U.S. director of federal housing bill also replied on X.
00:34:45.000Yeah, the Director of Federal Housing replied on X saying that the agency was working to institute the new housing proposition.
00:34:51.000And thanks to President Trump, we are indeed working on the 50-year mortgage, a complete game changer.
00:34:56.000Well, I agree that it's a game changer for sure.
00:35:00.000It's a little bit vague on how it's going to change the game.
00:35:03.000I don't think it's going to change the game in a way that helps Americans.
00:35:06.000What people don't realize is before the Great Depression happened, mortgages generally were less than 10 years in term, usually around five years.
00:35:16.000And what happened was you put down 50% of the money and it was a balloon payment.
00:35:20.000So you only paid interest throughout that loan term.
00:35:24.000And then when it matured, you had to either have the rest of the 50% that the property was valued at or that you owed the bank in order to pay it off, or you had to create another deal with the bank, which is what most people did.
00:35:34.000You had to refinance or you lost the house.
00:35:38.000Now, most people would just refinance indefinitely.
00:35:40.000And then the Great Depression hit, and then a bunch of people lost their houses.
00:35:43.000So the government started meddling in the housing market.
00:35:45.000And with the New Deal, we got the FHA and a number of different ways that we've sort of regulated home lending.
00:35:53.000Now, since that time, the price of a house adjusted for inflation, it's done something like four to five times the numbers.
00:36:00.000It's multiplied around four to five times.
00:36:07.000And sure, you can make the argument that they're larger.
00:36:10.000I don't think the construction materials are as good, but let's just say houses really are that much better.
00:36:14.000Well, in the private marketplace, basically everything has gotten better without exploding four to five times in price.
00:36:20.000So what happens is when you expand people's borrowing power, they are able to afford a larger house because they're only paying it off in small snippets at a time.
00:36:30.000And then eventually what happens is you bring prices up.
00:36:32.000So I'm curious what all of you think about that.
00:36:34.000If anyone disagrees with me and how you feel about Trump trying to institute this, I think the 50-year mortgage is insane.
00:36:39.000I think that, you know, I firmly believe that we should be empowering people to make good decisions in their lives.
00:36:47.000I think that a 50-year mortgage is a really bad decision.
00:36:51.000I think that when you look at the amortization schedule for a 50-year mortgage, like you don't actually start paying principal on these things for like 30 years.
00:37:42.000Just to steal me in the argument, right?
00:37:44.000Not that I'm for it, but just because I want people to kind of think about the entirety of the situation.
00:37:50.000Like the goal is to get young people into houses that they can afford.
00:37:56.000And ostensibly, the plan would be you get into this house, right?
00:38:01.000You start paying for it, and then you refinance for a shorter term when you become established, when you financially have more resources, you have a better job, what have you.
00:38:11.000And I think that I don't think that this is a good idea.
00:38:16.000I think that this will end up with a ton of bad negative externalities.
00:38:22.000But I do think that the idea to try to come up with means for people to, for young people, to own homes is better than doing nothing.
00:38:32.000And the reason I say that is because right now, young people have no reason to buy into a capitalist society, right?
00:38:41.000They don't, if you have no assets, you have no money, you have nothing but debt, you're going to look at your situation and you're going to say, capitalism doesn't work.
00:38:51.000To say that our system of property rights, I own no property, so I so I don't have rights.
00:39:22.000I just want to, before you jump in a lot, I want to respond to you because I agree that this is probably being approached by Trump and some others around him with good intentions.
00:39:42.000And people are going to feel as if they can afford the house when it actually is truly unaffordable for them because it's spread out over such a long loan term.
00:39:48.000And then on top of that, you're not going to get the much-needed market correction of housing coming back down in price, which is difficult for the economy in the short run.
00:39:57.000But if we want young people to be able to buy into the economy, to have houses to own property, it's necessary.
00:40:04.000We would just be throwing a bandit on the problem that would make young people debt slaves instead of giving them the opportunity to purchase houses at a more reasonable loan term at a more reasonable price.
00:40:12.000But Elod, you were going to say something.
00:40:34.000I don't know if we'll ever, I don't know if property taxes are 2% is a pipe dream, but a decade ago, they had 2% interest rates on some of these 15-year mortgages, I believe.
00:40:43.000So if they could get them that low, then I think they could make sense.
00:40:47.000Otherwise, I generally agree with you guys.
00:41:11.000One thing I'll say, and here's where I'll disagree with you, a lot.
00:41:13.000Let's say that you do have a very low interest rate.
00:41:16.000That carries with it, even though there's less, even though that sort of solves the problem of the person being a slave to the bank with respect to how much interest they're paying over the course of the 50 years, it exacerbates the problem of them having more purchasing power because the lower the interest rates are and the more purchasing power you have, the more the market is going to skyrocket.
00:41:34.000So even if you're only paying 2%, houses would just explode in value because of that.
00:41:43.000One thing on property taxes, as I understand, local governments are largely funded by those property taxes and wouldn't have anywhere else to like siphon that money from.
00:42:11.000I mean, I'm not a banker, but I believe that the way the whole system is set up is that the shorter the term, the lower the interest rates, not vice versa.
00:42:19.000I don't believe that these would have low interest rates.
00:42:21.000I think these would have higher interest rates than third-year mortgages significantly.
00:42:48.000In theory, the way things should be is your highest tax burden should be for your local community, and it should not be that high.
00:42:54.000It should probably even be lower than it is now.
00:42:56.000But the idea that the majority of your taxed income goes to the federal government is completely insane.
00:43:03.000Like, realistically, your tax money should be going to the things in your immediate vicinity that actually improve your life to a measurable degree.
00:43:10.000And then, the people, you know, hundreds of miles away in Washington, they should be getting like maybe pennies on the dollar with respect to how much you're taxed.
00:43:17.000Maybe if that, hey, penny on the dollar for those functions, but of course, it's completely backwards.
00:43:23.000You're working something like what, one out of five days out of your work year just for the government.
00:43:29.000So, one day out of your entire week is literally just for your federal taxes.
00:43:35.000But I'm curious: does anyone have anything else to say about this issue before we move on to another story here?
00:43:40.000So, are you going to buy a crib with the 50-year-old?
00:43:42.000No, I'm thinking, I'm thinking I want to finance as much as possible with the 50-year mortgage, and I'm actually waiting for the 50-year Uber Eats loan so that I can just start putting those payments off down payment on dinner.
00:44:00.000I think that any, I think that anything that the federal government does to try to alleviate the suffering of young people, the economic suffering of young people right now, is good thing, is a good thing for the country because there are so many people that no longer believe in America.
00:44:21.000Yeah, young people do not believe in our system, and it is because of the behavior that the banking industry and the government has had for the past 15 years, ever since the 2008 crash.
00:44:32.000The government has been, and actually, no, before that, but it's become acute since the 2008 crash.
00:44:38.000The government has behaved incredibly irresponsibly.
00:44:43.000And so, we have to do something as a society.
00:44:45.000Like, our government has to do something because they're the ones that have the levers of power.
00:44:50.000They have to do something to make sure that young people have a reason to buy into America.
00:44:56.000There has never been a generation that believes in America less, believes in our system less.
00:45:02.000And so, we need to do something to ameliorate their problems, to help them, to give them a reason to believe in America.
00:45:12.000Like, I don't agree with this policy, but I know people can't afford houses right now.
00:45:17.000They don't think they can have a family, and there's just widespread suffering.
00:45:21.000So, I want to see those people get help, and getting a house could help you build a community and all those things.
00:45:26.000The other thing, though, is, I mean, I agree that we should be making efforts to make things easier on young people to live the American dream.
00:45:33.000But, like, here's a 30-year mortgage versus a 50-year mortgage on a $410,000 house.
00:45:38.0006.5 interest rate on 30-year, $3,200 a month payment.
00:45:41.0007% interest on a 50-year is a $3,088 a month payment.
00:46:04.000We should do a generational mortgage, the 3,000-year mortgage.
00:46:07.000We'll call it the Millennia of the Mortgage.
00:46:09.000And what will happen is you'll borrow it from the bank.
00:46:11.000And if you can't pay it off and your descendants can't pay it off, by the time you're dead, they'll just upload your brain into Neuralink and you'll work on spreadsheets for a couple millennium for like, you know, $75 a week until the loan is eventually paid off.
00:46:24.000Better than the system in China, which allegedly is, I think you can only do 99-year leases on land.
00:47:25.000In New Hampshire, where I'm from, you don't have like my property tax is quote unquote high.
00:47:30.000It's not actually high compared to like Massachusetts.
00:47:33.000I have like 50 acres and I pay, you know, a few thousand dollars more than my mom, who has like not even a full acre.
00:47:39.000But the point is, like in New Hampshire, there's no sales tax, there's no income tax, but the property taxes are high.
00:47:46.000So the government will get the funding.
00:47:49.000State governments will get the funding that they need to function somehow.
00:47:53.000And some people will say, hey, maybe a sales tax or an income tax.
00:47:57.000Personally, I think things like sales tax and consumption tax are the best of a bad options because if you didn't have property tax, then you actually do own your property.
00:48:07.000The government can't take it away without going to court or what have you.
00:48:11.000And then I think an income tax, a state income tax or a federal income tax, I think that those are bad because they're literally taxing you for generating economic activity.
00:48:20.000Whereas if you have a sales tax, you can decide not to engage in exchange.
00:48:26.000But the point, I think the broad point that I want to kind of push on again is the government has to do something about the fact that there is an entire generation, like not kidding around, like a whole generation.
00:48:39.000You think that millennials are fond of socialism.
00:48:44.000Even Gen Z, the people on the right are fond of socialism, right?
00:48:48.000They'll be right-leaning, but they're going to be national socialists, right?
00:48:52.000They're going to be nationalists and socialists.
00:48:54.000They're going to say the government should take care of us, and maybe the government should take care of only people that look like me.
00:49:10.000Only you should be cared for by the people.
00:49:11.000Well, another thing that will help that, just not to stay on this story for too long, but immigration affects this significantly too.
00:49:19.000I mean, a lot of the people who are taking these FHA loans and things like that and getting into houses and driving the cost of homes up are not Americans.
00:49:27.000So there's two things that you can do.
00:49:28.000You can A, limit immigration the way that you're actually supposed to enforce our border, get the people out of here that aren't supposed to be here.
00:49:35.000B, something that I would be strongly encouraging would be to bring down our debts and to make things more affordable for people is if you have foreign interests owning land in the United States, they should be taxed at a much higher rate.
00:49:48.000And I like what you were saying, Phil.
00:49:51.000I tend to agree that a consumption tax, a tariff, things like that, where there's actual economic activity occurring, which is then taxed, makes more sense to me than taxing someone based on how much wealth they have.
00:50:02.000Because frankly, we tax people based on how much they earn, but the amount that you earn doesn't actually say all that much about your lifestyle.
00:50:09.000It's a question of how you choose to spend that money.
00:50:11.000So if you have that money and you're behaving virtuously with it, you're saving it or you're investing it instead of going out and indulging in luxuries.
00:50:20.000You should have the freedom to do that.
00:51:09.000And I think that right now they're in a buying because no matter what the Fed does, it's kind of inflationary.
00:51:15.000If they don't lower interest rates, it's a little inflationary.
00:51:17.000Or if they do lower them, it's a little inflationary.
00:51:21.000And Serge actually could speak to that better than I can.
00:51:24.000But anytime the government just writes checks, I think that that's a bad thing, especially when you're dealing with the federal government being so insolvent and having so much debt.
00:51:34.000Yeah, that could be something you talk about being insolvent and having where the money could go.
00:51:39.000But a lot of things could go a lot of places.
00:51:41.000And I think at this point where people are struggling with money, any money in their pockets, great.
00:51:45.000And I was actually surprised when I saw it because I was like, wow, that's a good idea.
00:51:48.000He's going to use the money from the tariffs we're making that everyone complains about.
00:51:51.000He's actually using that against them, saying, oh, well, tariffs are bad for small businesses.
00:52:16.000Part of me is curious if this has to do with Trump wanting to curry some favor with the American people as we're getting closer towards midterms.
00:52:24.000Maybe this is a check that would be sent out around the time when those elections were occurring.
00:53:40.000I agree with what you were saying there, Seamus.
00:53:42.000Like, if the debt is such a big issue, then it seems like giving out $2,000 to each American might not seem like the best idea.
00:53:49.000However, however, telling people, telling voters, the electorate, that you'll give them money can incentivize them to support you and your preferred candidates.
00:53:58.000Yeah, well, I do think there's a political aspect to this.
00:54:01.000I think there's a reason why Andrew Yang's UBI, despite not having any other policy positions on anything and despite being a complete DALT, was able to amass supporters based on what?
00:54:25.000If I'm the government, it's everybody's debt.
00:54:27.000Like, we're talking here about how a 50-year mortgage enslaves us.
00:54:30.000Imagine if it was an indefinite loan that all of our children had to pay off and our children's children had to pay off someday and couldn't consent to it.
00:54:38.000And also, it was how we ran our government.
00:54:39.000Like, that's literally what's happening right now.
00:54:41.000And we're talking about giving everyone a $2,000 check.
00:54:43.000I do agree with you that there could be a kind of 4D chess move here.
00:54:46.000Well, if the Democrats get back into office and Trump can't enact his agenda, the country's destroyed anyway, and they are going to import a bunch of people and they are going to balloon the national debt regardless.
00:54:54.000So, maybe if we give people these short-term payments to get them to vote for Republicans and we play the Democrats' dirty gang of a game of allowing people to vote themselves gifts from the treasury, we can actually try to turn the spigot off.
00:55:06.000I'm a little skeptical of the argument, but I could see the strategy.
00:55:10.000It feels to me like it could be a knee-jerk reaction to the uproar over the snap benefit issue with the government shutdown, too.
00:55:16.000I mean, it's like, well, how do we get these people back to possibly supporting our party?
00:55:21.000So, I mean, that's exactly what's happening right now: everybody's so mad about snap benefits.
00:55:25.000Those are the people that you are speaking to by offering them dangling $2,000 out there.
00:55:29.000Those are the people you're trying to win back.
00:55:30.000Do you think $2,000 is going to sway anyone's vote these days, though?
00:55:54.000I'm against it, but I don't think it would hurt him.
00:55:56.000I think it only has potential to help his electoral process.
00:55:59.000It could hurt him if it causes more economic problems.
00:56:04.000Because at the end of the day, what's going to matter the last six months before the election in 2028 and well, actually next year and in 2028 is how people feel about the economy, right?
00:56:16.000Like if there is civil unrest and there's big, big riots and blah, blah, blah, that'll affect people.
00:56:22.000But if that's not going on, it is the pocketbook, it is the kitchen table issues.
00:56:26.000So if they do things that make it harder for people to pay for their groceries and causing inflation will make it harder for people to pay for their groceries, if they do things, if they have policies that do that, people will vote against the Republicans.
00:56:41.000That is absolutely the most important thing.
00:56:45.000We can talk about, and people on the internet, they love to talk about all these niche issues.
00:56:51.000They're all interested in like, you know, all sorts of things, the Epstein client list, what Ben Shapiro said, what people are talking about, Israel, blah, blah, blah.
00:56:59.000Those issues are very important to a very, very narrow segment of the population, right?
00:57:06.000They're not important to everybody that pays attention to politics.
00:57:08.000They're important to a small percentage of the people that pay attention to politics.
00:57:13.000The amount of people that pay attention to politics is also very small, right?
00:57:19.000Most people don't spend more than an hour or so a week paying attention to politics.
00:57:25.000I don't think most Americans knew the government was shut down.
00:58:08.000I agree with what Aladdin's saying about the fact that it probably is good politics.
00:58:12.000I mean, who could argue that you're going to have more trouble winning an election if you just gave people money?
00:58:16.000You just give them a free $2,000 check.
00:58:19.000I also think that there's an argument to be made.
00:58:21.000Well, these tariffs did cost the American people to some degree, but it's going to improve America's manufacturing and our ability to deliver products.
00:58:28.000And we can return some of the money back to the people to stimulate our economy.
00:58:31.000And in my mind, it makes economic sense to say we're going to protect American industry by making foreign companies pay tariffs or the people importing from foreign nations pay tariffs and then give that money back to the American people to bolster our own economy.
00:58:43.000I'm not disagreeing that this is complicated and that it could on some level be good strategy.
00:58:48.000I think ultimately it can also help solidify this idea that the shutdown was the Democrats' fault.
00:58:55.000The reason people weren't receiving their EBT was because of the Democrats and that Trump is trying to look out for you.
00:59:03.000Again, in the long term, I think it's bad economics.
00:59:06.000I'm not advocating for it, but I certainly understand the political strategy.
00:59:11.000And speaking of the shutdown, we have a wild turn of events.
00:59:16.000Now, you guys are not going to believe this.
00:59:18.000This is going to be really shocking for all of you at home listening.
00:59:20.000It's going to be shocking for all the people in this room.
00:59:22.000So I'm glad we're all sitting in chairs and that Tim Cass is not done at a standing desk because I think some of you might faint.
00:59:28.000Even though the Democrats have been claiming the shutdown was just the fault of Republicans, they are now complaining that the Democrats they elected worked to open the government back up and they quote unquote caved.
00:59:57.000The Senate took a major step towards ending the record-long government shutdown on Sunday as a group of Democrats broke ranks and joined Republicans in advancing a revised plan to reopen federal agencies.
01:00:11.000I thought it was the, you mean all the Republicans didn't break rank to open the government?
01:00:16.000It's almost like they wanted the government open the entire time and it was the Democrats preventing it from happening.
01:00:20.000One of the hilarious things you'll see if you go on social media is all of the leftists whining and complaining about the fact that the government's going to be reopened and saying the Democrats betrayed us.
01:00:28.000They stabbed us in the back, even though they just spent the entire shutdown telling us the entire thing was the Republicans' fault.
01:00:33.000So I want to open it up to you guys and get your opinions.
01:00:36.000And I want you to let me know just how shocked you are that it turns out that this was the Democrat shutdown.
01:00:41.000I wanted to ask you, there was one Republican who actually voted to continue the shutdown.
01:01:37.000They weaponized this government against the American people for decades and needs to be completely gutted.
01:01:41.000Doesn't sound like something an establishment guy would say.
01:01:43.000Yeah, I had a change of heart last night.
01:01:45.000Slept on it, and I was like, I've been wrong completely.
01:01:48.000The shutdown, I mean, it's so ridiculous that every year you end up in the same situation where the shutdown is used as, you know, a way for people to pit, you know, the left versus the right and for them to grandstand and to try and get all these publicity points and stuff like that.
01:02:03.000I mean, I had to travel here yesterday.
01:02:54.000And it's strange that the government does it.
01:02:55.000But then these same people will argue that argue that the government should control more and more and more.
01:03:00.000So you go, well, you know, even if the government controls like virtually everything, we're still going to have a political system where there are these arguments and disagreements, and the government will shut down.
01:03:08.000And then what's going to happen to all of the services that you consider to be essential if they aren't considered essential by the government at that time.
01:03:15.000But furthermore, yes, as someone who's been traveling a lot recently to promote the crowdfunding campaign that I launched for Twisted Plots, like planes have been delayed.
01:03:22.000Thank goodness my flights, even though some got delayed, none got canceled.
01:03:37.000And I had to fly back here late at night for a podcast.
01:03:42.000And this is when a bunch of flights were starting to get canceled.
01:03:44.000And I was like, dude, if this flight gets canceled, I have no idea what I'm going to do because I am like as far away from here as you can be while still being in the United States.
01:03:53.000And so thankfully, my flight was not canceled.
01:03:57.000But this is happening to a lot of people.
01:03:59.000And so hopefully we're able to get that back up and running as the government's looking to open up.
01:04:35.000No, I'm against your idea of only privileged people flying.
01:04:37.000Yeah, the fact that Lad just said only the privileged flights.
01:04:41.000You literally just said he puts on a suit and then he starts acting like he's better than everybody.
01:04:45.000Like this gosh idea that like blue-collar people or average Americans that make you know $60,000, $70,080,000 a year, like they don't fly regularly.
01:04:54.000There are plenty of jobs that require people to fly that are not like elitist jobs.
01:05:22.000Now, Elad, this is also shocking coming from the neocon economist that you would say people in the upper classes whose wealth trickles down to the rest of us through their entrepreneurial vision.
01:06:41.000What's going on with the shutdown vote, though?
01:06:43.000Because it's got to go through the House, right?
01:06:46.000After it's passed through the Senate, I think there's some procedural things that need to happen that'll take a few days, and then it'll go to the House where Johnson should have a majority.
01:06:56.000I'm assuming Massey, these libertarian types, they just always vote with the Democrats.
01:07:00.000We'll also probably vote against, but he will be the token Republican to do so.
01:08:25.000Berkeley has a long history of these types of protests, and usually they get a lot more out of hand than this so far, but I guess it's still early there.
01:09:27.000The question is whether there is an escalation on the part of law enforcement that puts the riot down and puts, frankly, the insurrection down, or whether they continue to raise the temperature.
01:09:38.000And whenever the left says, I wish people would stop raising the temperature, what they're really saying is, I want to be the one in control of the fire.
01:11:11.000Get them out of the country because I guarantee there's a lot of people in that protest that's got they're here on green cards, especially if they're fat.
01:11:19.000Yeah, and if they're fat, they shouldn't be here at all, according to Trump.
01:11:23.000But the government needs to start coming down on these people hard within the law, of course, within, you know, I'm not talking about injuring people or violating people's rights, but if you are protesting in a manner that is meant to intimidate other people who are peaceably assembling, jail.
01:12:03.000They're afraid of the optics being short.
01:12:05.000Well, one thing is that they're demonized when they do something to protect people.
01:12:10.000I mean, whether they're law enforcement or not, you got the Daniel Penny thing.
01:12:13.000It's like you actually stand up and do the right thing.
01:12:15.000It seems like these days you're actually demonized for it.
01:12:18.000And that is one thing that's demotivating to the police in general, the individual police, but then also for the police chiefs and for the people in charge of them.
01:12:27.000There's too much demotivating factor to do this.
01:12:38.000And so it's gotten to the point where the Republicans won't even play by the rules.
01:12:41.000The right won't even play by the rules because they won't do the things that the Law allows them to do in order to shut down this kind of violence and these kinds of riots.
01:12:48.000We've been dealing with this, and I'm sure we all sound like broken records because we've been dealing with this for over a decade at this point, and nothing has been done.
01:12:55.000And there was a mandate from the people of the United States when they Democratically elected Donald J. Trump, handing a Republican the first popular vote history in a very long time so that this problem could be dealt with and it's not being dealt with.
01:13:13.000And there's a number of explanations and rationalizations, just like Phil pointed out.
01:13:19.000It could be because he's worried about bad optics before we start getting closer to the midterms.
01:13:24.000But I don't care because if something isn't done, the problem's only going to get worse.
01:13:29.000And we heard all of the same excuses about the BLM riots in 2020.
01:13:33.000Well, it's going to look bad if the government does something.
01:13:36.000The way these things work is that you got to shut them down immediately before they go completely out of control.
01:13:42.000And yes, the optics look a little bit bad for a little bit, but you got to bite the bullet right away and stop it from happening so that you don't have to worry about a little optical disaster.
01:13:52.000Because by the way, every single time one of these riots happens, there is some kind of optics disaster for the Trump administration, regardless, because his supporters go, why isn't he doing anything?
01:14:03.000And you always have at least one person getting arrested who the left then says is a poor innocent victim who didn't do anything wrong.
01:14:09.000So what he needs to do is he just needs to bite the bullet.
01:14:11.000He needs to take all the bad optics at once.
01:14:13.000He needs to throw all these people in jail.
01:14:15.000And then he's going to spare himself years and years of news stories of rioters being locked up one at a time just to be released again.
01:14:21.000You know what the solution to bad optics is?
01:14:25.000You make massive tax cuts and incentivize Massive tax cuts, incentivize people to start businesses, fix the economy, and then no one cares about the optics because they can pay for their groceries again.
01:14:40.000You make sure that people can afford to live, make sure that people can afford to pay for their rent, pay their mortgage, buy their groceries, and then they don't care that you're wrapping up leftists and throwing them in jail.
01:14:55.000The solution to the optics is making sure the economy is booming.
01:15:00.000Effective government people want this.
01:15:01.000Also, by the way, the people who are out here doing this crap, it's not like they're law-abiding citizens who are a benefit to their community regardless.
01:15:08.000If you were able to lock them up and they hadn't even committed the law or broken the law, which I'm not saying you should do, it would still probably be an improvement to the environment that they live in.
01:15:16.000Like these people are generally repeat offenders.
01:15:19.000You don't just start throwing bricks at a cop when you've never broken a law before.
01:15:22.000You don't break down barriers and try to protest someone's free speech with violence when you've never broken a law before.
01:15:27.000So not only would he be taking all the optics disasters at once and then not having to deal with them in the future, but he would probably improve crime rates in all of the cities where he cracked down on these riots and arrested people.
01:15:39.000I think the system is so broken, though, because this goes back longer than a decade.
01:15:43.000These people have been emboldened for decades.
01:15:45.000You go back to the Weather Underground.
01:16:18.000That's supposed to be the antidote, right?
01:16:19.000I mean, that was the reason that a lot of people want Trump to be in office is because he was finally an outsider who didn't care about the optics.
01:16:25.000Like that was supposed to be his thing.
01:16:27.000And so sometimes he really, he really does act that way.
01:16:33.000And then other times, turning the blind eye, like I'm so frustrated about some of the things that aren't happening.
01:16:37.000I'm frustrated that people who are obviously breaking the law aren't getting arrested.
01:16:42.000I'm frustrated that there's no push right now for nationwide voter ID requirements, right?
01:16:47.000Well, I mean, one of the reasons we're in this mess is because we don't have nationwide voter ID requirements and we're losing elections on the federal level because certain states are disenfranchising everybody else.
01:16:57.000Why is there, we just don't care about that anymore?
01:17:00.000No, I mean that was one of the things that Donald Trump said that would be passed if they got rid of the options.
01:17:05.000And so those and it's a snowball effect.
01:17:07.000If you enforce the border, kick out everybody who's not supposed to be here, arrest criminals and actually put them in jail and keep them in jail, and enforce voter ID, you're going to see that the country is actually a lot more conservative than you thought that it was.
01:17:19.000Way more conservative than you thought that it was.
01:17:52.000So we've got another story here tonight that I think it's important to talk about, as well as a little segue later into something that your outlet published that I found kind of funny.
01:18:02.000But the Supreme Court just rejected a long shot effort to overturn the same-sex marriage, they're still calling it marriage for some silly reason, ruling.
01:18:13.000The court turned away an appeal filed by Kim Davis.
01:18:48.000Without comment, the justices rejected an appeal brought by Kim Davis, a former county clerk in Kentucky, who was sued in 2015 for refusing to issue quote-unquote marriage licenses because of her opposition to same-sex.
01:19:21.000So this is not very, very cringe, not a great day for the Supreme Court.
01:19:25.000But I'm curious what everyone else here has to say about this.
01:19:28.000The politics of this is extremely fascinating.
01:19:31.000Based on other rulings that the Supreme Court recently made, notably on overturning the Dobbs decision, overturning Grove v. Wade, many onlookers and legal professionals assumed that following the logic that the court used in previous cases was going to strike something like this down had they taken the case up.
01:19:50.000But they strategically decided not to take the case up because I first assumed they didn't want to deal with the backlash of having to turn something like this that is generally popular with Americans.
01:20:00.000So, you know, if they follow their, what is it, their textualist tinge of the Supreme Court right now, they might have had to overturn this to stay legally consistent, but have chosen to not take up the case.
01:20:10.000If you guys don't also know, the Supreme Court chooses what cases it takes up and has to make a decision on or doesn't have to make a decision on.
01:20:18.000I think the politics of this is fascinating.
01:20:20.000Yeah, I mean, hopefully they're willing to take it up soon.
01:20:22.000I'm curious what you think about this, Shane.
01:20:23.000I know that you're like just a gigantic LGBTQ activist.
01:21:03.000Well, what's also interesting is that if there's one institution that shouldn't worry about optics, it's the Supreme Court because it's one of the few places that you have lifelong membership.
01:21:12.000So it's interesting that if that's really the motivation is optics, it's interesting that they would care about optics.
01:21:19.000I think you need four votes in favor, if I'm not mistaken, in order to take up a case.
01:22:30.000Was the one was the one who, uh, well, and by the way, you're right that we small correction by so if we arrested some of the people who like threaten the judges directly, but when you see all the political violence that's occurred with people who haven't been arrested, I mean, if a massive mob surrounds them or does something like that, a lot of those people don't get in any trouble.
01:22:45.000The guy who threatened Kavanaugh, who went there to kill him, did go to jail.
01:22:49.000I believe he's in jail now or was just found guilty.
01:22:53.000And then in court, the judge was saying, I'm glad that this led your family to accept you or something completely.
01:22:57.000It's always, I think it's also worth mentioning public opinion currently in the United States on the matter.
01:23:03.000So I'm reading right now from Pew about six in ten adults express a positive view of the impact of same-sex marriage being legal, including 36% who say it is very good for society.
01:23:13.000Roughly four in 10 have a negative view, 37%, with 19% saying it's very bad.
01:23:19.000So there is a supermajority in the country.
01:23:22.000I mean, the Supreme Court shouldn't be motivated by the opinion polls.
01:23:25.000Sure, but if they continue to do things that are extremely unpopular, then their legitimacy decreases and they become less relevant as a branch of the United States.
01:23:31.000Their legitimacy decreased when they got Katanji Brown Jackson.
01:23:39.000And they shouldn't, again, be swayed by the public, but I think there are political realities that just, you know, they have to take into account.
01:23:45.000They shouldn't be influenced by politics.
01:23:46.000That's why they allegedly have these lifelong terms, but they don't exist in a vacuum.
01:24:47.000Again, obviously, it's not the point of a Supreme Court justice to play politics.
01:24:50.000I also understand in this hyper-polarized landscape why they might feel a need to.
01:24:53.000And Shane, I think you're also correct that they could have been intimidated into deciding not to hear the case.
01:25:00.000But with what you mentioned about opinion polling on the matter, if those numbers are accurate, what it demonstrates is that the law is a teacher.
01:25:09.000Because remember, gay marriage, quote unquote, was not something that the public demanded.
01:25:14.000It was not something that was voted for.
01:25:15.000It was something that was forced onto us by the courts.
01:25:18.000Even in California, the bluest blue state, they could not get people to vote in favor of it.
01:25:22.000It was the California Supreme Court that decided that homosexual, quote unquote, marriage existed and had to be respected in the state of California.
01:25:30.000And in such a limited time, with that legislative change that was forced onto the public by the courts, the American people have largely changed their perspective on this.
01:25:39.000It can be changed back if the courts decide to reverse the decision.
01:26:08.000And, you know, I guess the same logic can apply here to the Bargerfeld decision.
01:26:11.000Despite it being settled law, some people would argue that the legality, it's not very textualist in nature and could be overturned.
01:26:18.000I do think they are taking politics into consideration, though, when it comes to this.
01:26:21.000Although they maybe shouldn't, I feel like it is viewing them too much in a vacuum.
01:26:26.000One more thing that I want to point out here, because Kim Davis got brought up, and that's such a throwback for most of us.
01:26:32.000I don't think I've heard that name in what, 10 years.
01:26:35.000She was made the target of a smear campaign by the media where rather than discussing whether she had the freedom as an American to not partake in the legitimizing of unions that she understood to be sinful, we instead had conversations about her moral character.
01:26:49.000What they kept saying was, well, Kim Davis is divorced.
01:26:53.000Okay, well, sodomy is a sin that cries out to heaven for vengeance, and she's still allowed to oppose it, even if she has committed other sins in her life.
01:27:00.000The argument is not Kim Davis is a perfect person and the moral guru we all have to listen to.
01:27:04.000The argument was: does a person have to earn the right to conscientiously object to partaking in the legitimizing of lifestyle choices they understand to be disgusting and wrong?
01:27:16.000Do they have to earn that by being up to your moral standards?
01:27:21.000Or are they allowed that freedom as Americans?
01:27:25.000Yeah, because you're not allowed to speak out against their cult, their religion.
01:27:29.000Their religion, their cult, you know, wants this stuff to happen.
01:27:32.000So it's all this attack on Christianity.
01:27:49.000I think it's initially what you meant.
01:27:51.000I think it's worth mentioning that gay men have become more prominent in the Republican Party now more than ever, both in the closet and out.
01:28:00.000And that could help in normalizing gay people, particularly for the party that is most predisposed to potentially be against gay marriage.
01:28:31.000There's a lot of high-ranking gay people in the Trump administration and the Republican Party writ large.
01:28:37.000And the Republican Party isn't nearly as anti-gay and against gay marriage as they used to be, despite there being a religious part of the party that is.
01:28:47.000But I also know there's a lot of gay conservatives who don't agree with marriage being dictated by the government who are who actually oppose gay marriage.
01:28:54.000So I think most of the gay men in the Republican Party support the O'Bergerfeld decision.
01:30:09.000Well, I will know, but there's actually an important distinction here.
01:30:11.000Like, it is also a sin to deny the divinity of Jesus Christ.
01:30:16.000You wouldn't say, well, you can't tell that person they're not Christian because they deny the divinity of Jesus Christ because you also sin.
01:30:22.000Like, if you have chosen to base your beliefs around something explicitly anti-Christian and you've said what the church, what tradition, what scripture explicitly defines as a sin isn't a sin and I'm not allowed to do it, or and I am allowed to do it, is different from being a believing Christian who sometimes makes mistakes.
01:30:39.000Yeah, but Seamus, for example, that's like you're stripping away many people of their religious, you know, no, I'm not their decision making.
01:32:10.000All of that is to say the gay stuff's becoming more normalized in the Republican Party despite the fact that aren't there a lot of graphs that show that support for a gay marriage is declining?
01:32:19.000And there's a revival in Christianity right now.
01:32:20.000Yeah, there's a revival in Christianity.
01:32:22.000So I think anything that you do to shrink the party is probably bad for the party and for the United States because if you allow the Democrats to get back into power, they're going to start throwing conservatives in jail.
01:32:41.000If Christians have self-have the desire for self-preservation, you do not want Democrats back in power.
01:32:51.000Listen, the Democrats call Christians Christian nationalists.
01:33:25.000But if you do, then you are going to send people that don't agree with that into the hands of the Democrats and into the hands of people that will destroy the country.
01:33:36.000My thing is, though, I think we're screwed on either side right now.
01:33:38.000And one of the things I have the problem with Trump is the total embrace of Silicon Valley, which is anti-human and anti-Christian.
01:33:45.000And they're building out a dystopia that is shackling people to the material world.
01:33:49.000So right now, I feel like they're both kind of selling out humanity and the middle class for sure.
01:33:55.000And by the way, Phil, even though I disagree, I understand your argument from strategy.
01:33:58.000I understand coming at it from a place of pragmatism.
01:34:01.000A, I agree with Shane, but and B, then it becomes a question of how much do we allow the party to change and lose its identity for the sake of getting outside people in?
01:34:10.000Because at some point you go, well, what are we fighting for?
01:34:13.000Has always been a part of the concern or of the right that was based not on religious principles.
01:34:23.000There has always been a wing or whatever you want to call it of the Republican Party that was based on economics and not based on social conservative conservatism.
01:34:34.000And I think that it is important to keep the big tent.
01:34:39.000Because look, if you're going to start saying you are a sinner, so you're not welcome in my party, you're going to.
01:34:49.000It sounds a lot like it because it's going to start saying, okay, if you're a pro-choice conservative or a pro-choice Republican, you can't be here.
01:34:57.000If you're a gay Republican, you can't be here.
01:34:59.000These things will whittle away at support on the right.
01:35:03.000That is not something that the right can afford.
01:35:06.000Whereas right now, the right is largely made up of Democrats.
01:35:10.000Look at Donald Trump, RFK, Tulsi Gabbard.
01:35:14.000All these people are Democrats that are basically not far left enough.
01:35:19.000Right now, we have a big tent Republican Party, and it's fine if you don't have to agree, but I don't think that saying, look, we need to kick out people or we need to stop aligning with the big tent party because we believe because our faith won't allow us.
01:35:35.000I think that will cause massive problems for the country.
01:35:40.000If someone is in favor of abortion, I want them to vote Republican.
01:35:43.000The Republican Party should not become a pro-abortion party.
01:35:46.000And if it does, then you're not allowing the pro-lifers and the people who have sustained this party for decades and been the most reliable voting block for it are going to be pushed out.
01:35:55.000So it's a question of which side we're on, and it's a question of which policies we're going to adopt.
01:35:59.000If the Republican Party says that it's going to become a pro-abortion party, it loses like 90% of its appeal for me.
01:36:14.000So fair enough, maybe using abortion is a bad example when it comes to the issue about whether or not gay people should be welcomed in the Republican Party or whether or not we should overturn Obergefeld.
01:36:28.000Remember, that's just the federal overturn, same as Roe versus Wade, right?
01:36:31.000You still have states' rights to have gay marriage, correct?
01:36:50.000But like I said, we are a big, the reason the MAGA coalition has won is because it is a big tent coalition.
01:36:59.000And the Christian conservatives are an important leg, but also the not left enough Democrats that have found a home in the MAGA coalition, they are important too, because that is what Donald Trump is.
01:37:15.000That is what a lot, most of the people in Washington that are in the cabinet are those people.
01:37:21.000And this is maybe where we disagree, but where we probably do have some area of agreement, which is I do think that with the parties transforming and changing and people moving over to the Republican Party from the Democratic Party, there are ways the Republican Party can benefit policy-wise.
01:37:34.000I just think that's on diametrically opposite issues.
01:37:36.000Like, I would rather see the Republican Party maybe embrace like some kind of support for local social safety nets or the kind of thing the Republican Party might not spring for in the past with people who were traditionally Democrats entering into the party or some of the stuff RFK says about what's in our food supply.
01:37:51.000Historically, Republicans have said that's nanny state stuff.
01:37:54.000We don't want anyone being concerned with the health of our food.
01:37:56.000I do think there's room for policy growth on the with the no, absolutely not, because single payer would destroy the country.
01:38:03.000But I don't think abortion is the same.
01:38:06.000If you allow the Democrats to get into power, that'll destroy the country too, because they're going to get single payer.
01:38:11.000Sure, we oh, you're saying if we let the democrats get power, they're gonna get single pairs if yeah, but we can't just be like just but the thing is we can't only be one percent to the right of the democrats because if they get elected, it'll be worse.
01:38:23.000We have to draw a line somewhere, and I think we just ultimately disagree over where we draw the line.
01:38:27.000Uh, I mean, maybe, but I think that my in my opinion, the the conservatives or the Republicans winning is the most important thing.
01:38:37.000Well, Elod, you've been wanting to say something for a while, so let me let you jump in.
01:38:41.000And by the way, this could also be part of the after show.
01:38:43.000Yeah, I think there's a lot to yeah, there's just one one thing I feel like it's important to hit on, and I want to ask you this, Seamus.
01:38:48.000Uh, do you feel marginalized by the Trump administration?
01:38:52.000Kind of your support being taken for granted, given his stances on things like abortion.
01:38:58.000Recently, in Texas, he didn't want to challenge a case regarding Mefa Pristo and the abortion pill.
01:39:03.000Um, I don't know if you're against IVF, but he's definitely very supportive of IVF.
01:39:07.000Depending on how you look at this Obergefeld thing to not even take up the case, you could say that he's tacitly pro-gay marriage.
01:39:15.000Well, no, he's openly gay marriage, but I don't think that has anything to do with it.
01:39:18.000So, do you feel marginalized as a result of that?
01:39:20.000Because, I mean, a lot of your top issues are taking a back seat in the Trump.
01:39:26.000And I don't want to speak for Shane here, but I think this is the way that, and I don't want to speak for you either, but I think this is the way that a lot of conservative Christians feel that the party's trying to soften his stance on abortion before the election.
01:40:03.000You know, it's interesting with Trump, though, because it's a give and take because he is not the ideal candidate for somebody who has Christian beliefs and every single belief.
01:40:14.000But he's also one of the only candidates who actually stands up for Christians.
01:40:18.000Like we're talking about, you know, Christians being slaughtered over an African year.
01:40:22.000And he's the only politician I can think of that actually is addressing it.
01:40:26.000So, you know, it's give or take with Trump.
01:42:58.000I don't think anywhere from, you know, from Boston all the way down here, you're more than an hour and a half, two hours from an airport.
01:43:07.000So I think that that does take, you take that into account.
01:43:10.000And if you're out west, you know, if you, if you're out, you know, in the, in the hills in the Rockies or whatever, and it's three hours to get to Boise or to Denver or Salt Lake, then I totally understand why you would have that opinion.
01:43:24.000I don't have any problem with your take at all.
01:44:10.000I'll just have to ask Tim if that's allowed.
01:44:13.000Evan for us says, as the mass exodus happens out of New York, they will lose their electoral power and hold on the country and red as well as purple areas will become more red.
01:44:27.000It's always difficult whenever you have this kind of mass exodus because someone thinking that Zoran Mamdani's policies make New York unlivable does not make them a right-wing conservative.
01:44:37.000That's pretty much a normal position that like any reasonable person has.
01:44:41.000And so a lot of these people are going to move to red states and they're going to ruin them.
01:45:15.000I mean, just based upon the circles that he has been courting, I guess you would say, I think that it's still unpopular enough to be Islam first in a major city like New York that you kind of have to be hushed about it.
01:45:31.000But based upon the people he surrounded himself with, especially towards the end of the election cycle, I think that that's just a decoy to get out.
01:45:53.000So I'm going to answer somewhat similarly.
01:45:56.000A little bit of a distinction here, though.
01:45:59.000I think that he's leftist first, but in the sense that the reason leftism appeals to him is because of the anti-white identity coalition that forms around it.
01:46:11.000I believe that he views himself very much as a member of his specific ethnic group.
01:46:16.000And this is basically what he was saying during a speech.
01:46:18.000You know, black and brown solidarity will defeat white supremacy.
01:46:24.000To him, it seems the most important thing is pushing back against what he views as like white hegemony.
01:46:32.000I think he's fueled by racial resentment.
01:46:34.000I believe that his Islamic beliefs probably play a role in that.
01:46:41.000Yeah, I think his anti-colonial beliefs are downstream from his Islamic beliefs and resentment from is like downstream from there.
01:46:50.000And well, this is important because it's like, is he a leftist first?
01:46:53.000Well, I've said this a million times before, but leftism is essentially just the intellectual rationalization for social decay.
01:46:58.000And as societies decay, the thing that people care more about than their actual values are things like skin color.
01:47:04.000So you look in prison, they're not like having debates over, you know, what policies they think they should have as inmates as they interact with each other.
01:47:12.000They go with their racial group because when everything else has broken down, that's what people gravitate towards.
01:47:18.000And so because leftism is social decay, it does lend itself towards people just coalescing with their own specific racial or ethnic group and not in the sense where they like love or prefer their own people, but where they hate other groups, like they hate white people, for example.
01:47:34.000And I think Mamdani is a really good example of that.
01:47:36.000So I don't know that there's this like complex, you know, ideological rationalization for it.
01:47:43.000I think that the thing that matters to him quite a lot is his ethnic identity.
01:47:50.000So we have from Nathan O'Connell, there are foreign combatants inside our country.
01:47:55.000American civilians are providing material and financial support.
01:47:59.000At what point is treason not an acceptable charge for these supporters?
01:48:03.000Yeah, I mean, I think if you have enemies of the United States operating within our borders and Americans are funding them, then they absolutely need to be tried for treason.
01:48:10.000I'm not sure if someone has like a more nuanced or complicated answer than that, but first of all, I'm comfortable saying that.
01:49:31.000Cloned beef and pork has entered the Canadian food supply without safety testing or mandatory labeling, followed by the cutting of 300 ostriches in BC.
01:53:11.000Regarding mortgages, if the borrower is given three choices with equity rates, 30 years, 50 years, and 50 years with monthly costs of 30 years, additional money is used as down payment, you save on interest and finish at 24.5 years.
01:55:00.000One thing I will mention is: yes, Elot, I think you are correct that BlackRock buying up residential properties is certainly not the main culprit here.
01:55:06.000I think this is a way that people want to misdirect some of the anger at other more serious issues, like millions and millions and millions, tens of millions of illegals being in the United States and regulations that prevent new houses from being built, new residential properties and constructions from going underway.
01:55:56.000I mean, it feels like so much of the economy at this point is built on that.
01:55:59.000It's difficult to know how we could strip that away.
01:56:01.000And property ownership has become one of the primary vehicles of generating wealth for your average middle-class family.
01:56:07.000So decommodifying it could actually really hurt the middle class.
01:56:09.000But ultimately, I think you're right that it probably is a more sensible way to operate your economy where the house is not merely viewed as an asset.
01:58:21.000That's a one-dimensional way of looking at it.
01:58:24.000If the entire economy is affected by people being able to move throughout the country, you're affected by it in ways that you don't even realize it.
01:58:32.000I mean, just because you're not personally flying doesn't mean that people have to get places.
01:59:21.000So this person, Gage Ramsey, says, America First Americans don't want to fund the rest of the world's wars, especially they spelled it Israel.
01:59:30.000And our, is there, does that, the algorithm flag that word or something?
02:02:21.000You can go see it for yourself if you support us at twistedplots.com.
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02:02:41.000So if you want to help us fight back before it's too late and preserve our country from the people who are chipping away at it through their propaganda and have been for decades, you need to go to twistedplots.com.
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02:07:45.000Well, listen, I feel as if it was the right decision for me at the time, and I stand by it, even though in retrospect, it might not seem as if it was the right thing.
02:07:54.000There was a not the be article that I pulled up while we were on air, but didn't get a chance to get to about how trans-identified males are to be banned from women's events at the Olympics.
02:08:03.000How do you like, so how do you feel about trans misogyny?
02:08:08.000Yeah, like this, this, this hatred of trans women, no matter how much they just try to live their lives, and these bigots just tell them, no, no, you can't beat up a 90-pound woman in the ring.
02:08:20.000I mean, this entire concept of trans-identifying males, I don't even like this whole trans-identifying males thing that we put in the headline.
02:09:14.000The Daily Mail's headline was the funniest one because it's like after they decided to make this decision after new evidence suggests that men have an advantage over women in sports.
02:09:25.000Dude, I love seeing these studies that come out every couple months where it's like it turns psychologists discover cutting off your penis makes you sad.
02:10:04.000Like, sincerely, it is, like, it does really surprise me that we live in a world where there are people that not just entertain this, but for a time, really got upset at people who violently.
02:10:18.000Yeah, but then they would literally try to argue.
02:10:21.000And the science says that men don't have an advantage.
02:10:26.000I get the people that are quote unquote trans that think of themselves as trans.
02:10:31.000I get the reaction that they have, right?
02:10:34.000They're the ones that are living in a fantasy world.
02:10:38.000So I understand an emotional reaction from them when you won't play along.
02:10:43.000The thing that shocks me is when you get people that are not trans, that are just on the left, and they will get aggressive and they will have an emotional reaction when you say, yeah, he's just a guy.
02:11:01.000Like, again, even though I think they're crazy people, I understand when a crazy person gets reactive and emotional when you don't play along with their crazy worldview.
02:11:15.000But when it's normal people, and it is normal people, it's most people on the left support transgender people because they have this toxic empathy where they're told that if they don't feel this specific way, then they're a bad person.
02:11:30.000Which is why, you know, I don't agree with everything that J.K. Rowling says, but I have agreed with almost everything that she said on this particular topic.
02:11:36.000And I appreciate her a lot because she's actually willing to stand up for women in a true feminist way.
02:11:42.000But feminism in the country, like you were referencing at the beginning, has become misogynistic in this weird way.
02:12:29.000Super valuable if a man does, which is hilarious.
02:12:31.000But the only people who are allowed to be feminine are men, basically.
02:12:35.000But this, the real red pill is that this goes all the way back.
02:12:39.000I mean, to early first wave feminism with the Seneca Falls Convention and like demanding that women be allowed to be priests.
02:12:45.000They've been devaluing womanhood since day one because they just hate that God made them a specific sex and has a specific plan for their life based on that.
02:12:53.000They don't just get to choose for themselves.
02:13:54.000And well, it's funny because when we're talking about the trans issue, we're saying, I can't believe that we're even having this conversation.
02:14:02.000That's how anyone 60 years ago, 70 years ago, would have understand the conversation, would have understood the conversation surrounding feminism.
02:14:08.000What do you mean men and women are the same?
02:15:54.000And then there's a second kind of ring, and they're the people that are the scholars.
02:15:58.000They're the people that will pass that knowledge down.
02:16:01.000And then there's another ring outside of that, which is just the general kind of population, which is this is where Tim talks about like the woke.
02:16:10.000He says that it's the, he calls it the cult-like adherence to the liberal orthodoxy.
02:16:15.000What he's saying is the all the totality of your average person that isn't a philosopher, isn't an academic, isn't someone that's really coming up with these ideas.
02:16:27.000He's talking, when he says woke, he's talking about the general population.
02:16:31.000And so I think that for a long time, there were people that the argument that you're making, you were correct, but that was only the top tier.
02:16:40.000Yeah, I think it's the, I think the leaders of the movement were always pushing for that.
02:16:43.000And they know if they could get people to accept the broader arguments at a basic level, it would be easier to lead them in that direction.
02:16:51.000I don't think the early, like the normie early adopters were on the same page.
02:16:58.000But all right, Elod, you're back after Elod cussed me out and said those horrible things to me and stormed out and threw a book at me, threw a brick at me.
02:17:09.000There's something you wanted to ask me.
02:17:10.000Why don't you ask me before we go to callers?
02:17:12.000So we were talking about kids and families a bit earlier, and I wanted to follow up on something me and Phil were talking about in the pre-show.
02:17:20.000And that's, do you notice when parents, they either choose to or choose not to post the pictures of their children online?
02:17:26.000And sometimes they put an emoji face over their children's face because they don't want it to get out to the public.
02:17:32.000Yeah, like if I'm an influential person, if I had or if I had or would have children, I think the internet would not even know and would never mention it.
02:18:07.000I also, there's one difficult thing with doing this.
02:18:10.000Whenever you're with a group of people and people have their phones out and they're recording stuff, it's like, man, I don't always want to have to be like aware of the presence of a camera.
02:18:17.000But with respect to respect to Children and everything, yeah, I would be um very apprehensive because some people, then there's some people who like will post you know footage of their kids all over the internet.
02:18:33.000And I think normies with a regular social media account who like aren't trying to be influencers or anything are less aware of it because there's less crazy people in their life, but there's still the danger for them.
02:18:43.000So I just advise people, like, I wouldn't put anything involving children online.
02:18:48.000I think a lot and I were talking about this earlier.
02:18:50.000Like, because of the fact that I was you know a public figure before I started doing political commentary and stuff because of the band and stuff, like it was always a thing for me.
02:18:58.000I was like, if I ever have kids, there's not going to be pictures of them on the internet.
02:19:03.000I never put up pictures of my nephews on the internet.
02:19:06.000Like, they were, you know, I've got two nephews who are both late teens now, or one of them's adults actually.
02:19:13.000But, but yeah, I never put up pictures of them just because I didn't want you know, Uncle Phil being the public figure, the guy in the band, to in any way negatively affect them.
02:19:24.000How old were you when you became famous?
02:19:27.000Um, we, I was actually kind of old, like we really kind of hit, and I was third, like 31 is when the record, the record that put us on the map came out when I was 31.
02:19:37.000So, like, it was 31, 32, 33 when I was like really get hitting my stride.
02:19:43.000Whereas a lot of times, people that are in bands, they like they'll hit at like 19, 20, 21, 20, in early 20s, or something like that.
02:19:51.000Most of the guys that are in or that were in all the remains at the time, like most of them were younger and they were like, you know, 25 or something like that.
02:19:58.000So, um, but yeah, so let's let's go to some callers because I want people to be able to get their opinion in.
02:21:03.000I've never taken one and I never would.
02:21:06.000And that's in you know me, and you know I would never do that.
02:21:10.000Okay, but on a more serious note actually, I'm asking about in particular about your faith or Catholicism.
02:21:17.000With regards to the Pope, I'm a Protestant and looks from an outsider looking is it does seem like the current Pope isn't going to use much, but rather it's going to be very similar to the progressive rhetoric that some of the previous shows were supporting.
02:21:32.000So a hypothetical situation for you, if possible, if there is something that the Pope says in the future, then maybe something that you are very much against.
02:21:44.000Let's say, for example, if he starts to support homosexual marriages, how would you, as a Catholic, without Catholic, respond to it?
02:21:53.000Would you say, for example, say that because he's a Pope and he said this, you have to agree with him?
02:21:59.000Would you be rather that even though he's a Pope, you would disagree with him or stay within the faith?
02:22:04.000Or would you say that because it's something that you disagree with and then you have to leave the faith?
02:22:10.000So let me just repeat your question to make sure I'm understanding it properly.
02:22:14.000You're asking the question, if a pope were to come along and state something ex catharja that contradicted previous Catholic teaching, would a Catholic have to accept it?
02:22:34.000As Catholics, we believe that the Holy Spirit guides the church.
02:22:37.000Christ said that the gates of hell would not prevail against it.
02:22:40.000No papal, no infallible statement has ever contradicted a past infallible statement, and in fact, they can't.
02:22:47.000So the Pope can issue theological opinions or speak on things in ways which conflict with or don't agree with what previous popes have said.
02:22:54.000But when they issue an ex cathargist statement, which actually defines magisterial teaching, which is very rare, they don't often do this.
02:23:02.000In that case, they actually, they literally cannot contradict a previous statement.
02:23:08.000So when it comes to something like homosexual marriage, it wouldn't be possible for a Pope to come out and say two men are capable of being married for a few reasons.
02:23:15.000A, the one I listed, which is that they can't contradict prior teaching, but B, because that's not a matter for church determination.
02:23:21.000That's a matter of natural law, which is to say marriage pre-exists the church.
02:23:27.000Marriage existed before the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church has no power to redefine it.
02:23:32.000This is why a lot of people are confused about the issue because they'll say, how can you as a Catholic decide that your religion gets to determine what marriage is?
02:23:39.000But the irony is the reason the church understands marriages between a man and a woman is because we can't redefine marriage.