The David Pakman Show - 11/21/23: Moms for Liberty dude is a sex offender, judge finds Trump engaged in insurrection

Episode Date: November 21, 2023

-- On the Show: -- Phillip Fisher Jr, the right-wing pastor and leader of Moms for Liberty in Philadelphia, turns out to be a convicted sex offender -- A judge in Colorado finds that failed former President Donald Trump engaged in insurrection, but will not remove Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot -- David Pakman Show correspondent Luke Beasley traveled to Fort Dodge, Iowa for Donald Trump's latest rally and interviewed unhinged and dangerous supporters -- Alina Habba, Donald Trump's lawyer, and her husband owe more than $1 million in liens and warrants -- Matt Walsh, of the Daily Wire, attacks marijuana while defending cigarettes -- Ex-Republican Chairman Michael Steele calls for Donald Trump to be jailed -- Fox News host Maria Bartiromo floats an outrageous COVID conspiracy theory -- Failed former President Donald Trump says he is "proud" of Argentina's newly-elected far-right lunatic President Javier Milei -- Voicemail caller wants to know why so many right-wingers think everything is "staged" -- On the Bonus Show: Biden approval up as voters rank stronger economy, Mike Johnson says Americans misunderstand separation of church and state, appeals court says private citizens and civil rights groups can't sue under the Voting Rights Act, much more... 🔊 Babbel: Get 55% off your subscription at https://babbel.com/pakman 🎁 Uncommon Goods: Get 15% off at https://uncommongoods.com/david 🥘 GreenPan: Use code PAKMAN for 30% OFF and free shipping at https://greenpan.us 👍 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off the Füm Journey Pack at https://tryfum.com/PAKMAN 🧠 Try Brain.fm totally free for a month at https://brain.fm/pakman 🖼️ Aura Frames: Use code PAKMAN for $40 off at https://auraframes.com/pakman 🛌 Use code HELIXPARTNER25 for 25% off + free bedroom set at https://helixsleep.com/pakman 🪒 Henson Shaving: Use code PAKMAN for FREE blades at https://hensonshaving.com/pakman -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

. Well, it happened again and it couldn't happen to a nicer guy. Actually, maybe he's not a nice guy. I don't know. I'm talking about one of the leaders of the right wing group Moms for Liberty, who we have now learned is a convicted sex offender in an incident involving a 14 year old. Remember all of those anti gay homophobes who went out of their way to make life miserable for LGBT people and it turned out that they themselves were gay. This is not exactly that, but it is yet another version of the personal hypocrisy that we see with many of these so-called moral majority people. Moms for Liberty is a

right wing group with a number of different chapters. They claim to represent and defend the rights of moms and parents and morality and ethics and what is best for our kids. And we have now learned that one of these leaders, who's also, by the way, a Christian pastor, it may shock you or may not shock you to know that it turns out that he's a convicted sex offender. Let's take a look. Rolling Stone reporting right wing Moms for Liberty organizer is a convicted sex offender. Philip Fisher Jr., who does faith based outreach, deeply spiritual man, abused a 14 year old in 2011. The Philadelphia Inquirer now reports, oh, listen to this. This is a conservative parental rights group. Chapters all over the country.

They want to eradicate LGBTQ related discussions in public schools under the belief that educators use that use it to groom children for sexual relationships. The group might want to look inward first. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported yesterday, Philip Fisher Jr. He's a pastor. He's a Republican ward leader, and he is the faith coordinator bringing his spirituality to Moms for Liberty of Philadelphia is a registered sex offender convicted in 2012 for aggravated sexual abuse of a 14 year old boy with the documents saying Fisher, who was 25 at the time. And this this is graphic stuff engaged in oral and anal sex with the boy. This is who right wingers say is going to be our North Star, our shining light

for morality and raising children the right way and protecting them from knowing gay couples exist. And this is what the guy has in his personal background. Fisher pleaded guilty, said to the inquirer the conviction was a, quote, railroad job by a PAC affiliated with Lyndon LaRouche, the culty former presidential candidate whose organization Fisher worked for at one point. He says, just like Trump, it's all a hit job. Quote, it was a political situation that happened between me and Lyndon LaRouche. It was a member of his camp that made the accusation. They pushed it through. This guy has now resigned. Fisher was the leader of Philadelphia's 42nd Ward until he resigned Friday after the chair

of Philadelphia's Republican City Committee demanded he do so when they found out about this stuff. So listen, first of all, this at this point, this stuff isn't shocking. It's not surprising. The people who claim everybody else is trying to corrupt our youth. I will keep them safe. It turns out they are the last people we want, quote, keeping our children safe. No, thank you. Now, in addition to that, there's a bunch of other layers of hypocrisy here. They are not new layers of hypocrisy. A so-called man of God who tells us he knows how God really wants us to live sexually abused a 14 year old. But we are supposed to say this guy is the

barometer of morality and dangerous. What Marx, communists, LGBT people, whatever, are the people that we're supposed to be afraid of. Now, maybe I mean, I don't know, maybe just as importantly here is the the reality that a lot of these so-called parental rights groups in general are the last groups that we actually want making any decisions about what our children will be taught, the environments in which our children will be taught these things. And, you know, obviously, they're not all child sex offenders. I don't know of anyone making that allegation. But the more important point here is what about leaving the decisions about education to the professional educators, to the actual experts in that matter? And we've talked before about how there is a double standard

in general. If you say, hey, I want to figure out, I don't know how to launch a rocket into space. In general, right wingers will accept the authority and expertise of the physicists and scientists and engineers who would understand orbital dynamics and combustible materials and fuel and all these different things. When it comes to something like education and increasingly on medical stuff, as well as we saw during covid, these very same right wingers who do defer to expertise in many areas think that their opinions, their uninformed opinions, their opinions lacking any empirical basis are just as valid as anybody else's. Listen, it's my kids. I know what says what's good for my kids just as well as the professional professional educators and and teaching professionals,

when in reality, that's just not the case. Now, there's a bunch of different reasons why parents or people in general might be quick to assume that when it comes to education, they know everything there is to know, but they would defer to experts in some of these other areas. But we have to realize that that's simply not the case. I now, as a parent, understand that there are things, even though it's my kid, even though I see her every day, I lack the knowledge and background to be an expert in many aspects that relate to my daughter. So I seek out expertise. Now, of course, I layer on top of that some of my personal experience, anecdotal observations from parents with their kids. There's no doubt that you bring your personal experience. But these folks are completely divorced from that reality.

And they want to determine the curriculum. They want to determine the medical realities of what's best for their kids in school and all of these different things. And then even without the hypocrisy, that's bad enough. Then you figure out, oh, the guy wanting to keep our kids safe is a convicted sex offender. You add that personal hypocrisy and they become laughable jokes. Unfortunately, they have convinced millions of parents. I don't know about tens of millions, but certainly millions of parents throughout the pandemic and beyond that they actually know better than the professionals. And so I don't know how we

fix this problem. I don't know how we fix this issue where many parents have been bamboozled by groups like this. I don't know that the personal hypocrisy is what's going to do it, but there it is. Philadelphia Moms for Liberty leader convicted child sex offender. A judge has found that failed former president Donald Trump engaged in insurrection. However, the judge is not removing Donald Trump from the ballot in Colorado. This is extraordinarily consequential and important to understand. So here's what happened. You may be aware that there are a number of different cases that have been brought saying

Trump should be disqualified from the 2024 ballot because he engaged in insurrection and that violates the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. One such lawsuit was in Colorado. We have a decision where Colorado District Judge Sarah Wallace determined, yes, Donald Trump did engage in insurrection as it relates to the January six Trump riots at the Washington, D.C. Capitol. However, she is not agreeing to ban Trump from the ballot in twenty twenty four on the basis that it

is not clear to her that the 14th Amendment restrictions on insurrectionists apply to the presidency specifically. Now, there is one interpretation that this is bad as far as a decision. It's a it's a negative decision. There's another interpretation that this is a very good thing, because now that she has determined and set the precedent that Trump did engage in the insurrection on appeal, that no longer has to be proven. All we need to do now is determine that it does apply to the office of the presidency. So remember, we've talked about the 14th Amendment. The 14th Amendment says that if you engaged in insurrection or supported, abetted, incited those who did, you are barred from holding office. And the question that was primarily at issue

for the judge was, does that apply specifically to the office of the presidency? The 14th Amendment doesn't say that it does. It also doesn't say that it does not. Judge Wallace's reasoning was that under normal circumstances, you engage in insurrection. You're disqualified from holding office under Section three of the 14th Amendment. But she was reluctant to say it's not obvious to me. She said, it's not obvious to me. It's not clear to me. It's not unmistakably the case that Section three of the 14th Amendment applies to the president. And thus and thus, she said Trump did engage in insurrection, but I'm not disqualifying him. We now have a situation where this is going to be appealed on the Trump side. The Trump side

is saying the judge is wrong that Trump even engaged in an insurrection. The plaintiffs are saying the judge is wrong that it doesn't apply to the president or that it's not obvious. It doesn't say president is exempt. Therefore, we should assume that this does apply to the office of the presidency. So this is now going to be appealed. Legal experts are weighing in. We are going to see this rise through the ranks and potentially ultimately get to the Supreme Court. Now, I have to also present you with another empirical reality. This is all just about whether Trump will be on the ballot in Colorado. Trump's not going to win Colorado either way. Trump's path to 270 electoral votes and thus another term in the Oval Office is not going to go through Colorado.

The Democratic candidate, be it Joe Biden or whoever else you might believe it's going to be, is going to win the state of Colorado, a historically blue state when it comes to voting for the president. So all of this, if it does go to the Supreme Court, whatever happens, it will relate to a state that Trump is destined to lose. So is this all a waste of time? Not really, because if indeed we were to get a finding in Colorado that Trump engaged in insurrection, which we already have, the judge already said that and that the section three of the 14th Amendment applies to the president, that could then be used to expedite removals of Trump from the ballot in states that are in play. If we were to get

Trump off of the ballot in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, that becomes materially significant, particularly not only because those were critical states for Joe Biden winning in 2020, but because there is some polling, which I'm skeptical of, but there is some polling that says Trump is currently winning all of those states. One final note on this, and I want to be really clear. I don't want anyone removed from the ballot simply because I don't like them. That's not a good reason to remove them. If indeed they did something worthy of removal from the ballot. And in this case, it has been determined that Trump did. Then it is only right to remove them. This is not lock them up without due process. This is OK. So they did the insurrection thing. You're not exempt as someone running for president.

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to get the journey pack today, which comes with the device and several flavors to try. You'll get 20 percent off all the way until December 1st when you use the code Pacman. The info is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman show is an audience supported program, our primary funding source, the most reliable funding source, the funding source that doesn't depend of the whims of some algorithm on Facebook or YouTube demonetizing us. By the way, we're still 100 percent demonetized on Facebook is the membership program. You can sign up at join Pacman dot com. We do an extra show every day for our members. We provide commercial free audio and video feeds of the show every day to our members hours before the show is

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They are as sick in the head as they have ever been. And the most important practical, actionable reminder is every single one of us that stays home means that one of these people's votes for Trump will go unopposed. That's the primary lens through which we need to see what is a veritable emergency. Now, remember that you can find Luke Beasley's channel at David Pakman dot com slash Luke. That's a forward slash. Please. No backslashes with peace and love. No backslashes. It's David Pakman dot com forward slash Luke. Here's the first guy. Luke confronts this guy with Trump's truth social post saying you might have to suspend the Constitution. You might have to do it. The guy suggests Trump didn't really say it. No matter

what you say, they find a way out of it. Listen to this. This is what we're up against, folks. Biden, for example, he says, let's terminate the Constitution. What would be your response to that? Why? Why? And would you say that's bad? Very. Can we read this true social post from Trump right there? He says a massive fraud of this type magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, articles, even those found in the Constitution. What rules and regulations? All of the rules, regulations and articles, even those in the constitution. He didn't say that. He didn't say that. Luke just showed him the truth social post central. Exactly. And the guy says Trump didn't say it. Yeah, it's true.

Social posts. Anybody can Google and make a shot like that. Anybody can Google and make a shot like that. The first argument is Trump didn't say it. It's fake. It's doctored. No, I remember when he sent it out on social. I follow him. Didn't didn't Twitter not let him come back on? Didn't Twitter not let him come back on brain worms? OK, serious advanced stage brain worms. What does Twitter not let him come back on brain worms? OK, serious advanced stage brain worms. What does Twitter not letting him come back on have to do with the reality that Trump posted about suspending the Constitution to Truth Social? It has nothing to do with it.

You might be thinking, David, this person can't think their brain doesn't work. What does that have to do? And the problem is problem. The reality is they're allowed to think like this and they're allowed to vote, which is why we have to vote. Truth social is company. The what? Truth socials, the account. He doesn't have it. This guy doesn't have truth social. Therefore, I guess it doesn't matter what Trump said on truth social. If he said this, would that bother you? No, because he's honestly taking care of stuff. There you go. So now we go to even if Trump did say suspend the Constitution,

it also wouldn't bother me because Trump's taking care of stuff. This let me interpret that for you. I like Trump, so I don't care what he does, even if they are things I would criticize someone else for doing. This is a sickness. OK, this is a sickness. Here's the next guy. This guy's furiously unhinged, seems furious with Luke. Take a look at this. For example, Mark Milley. Do you know Mark Milley? He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah, look at this. For example, Mark Milley, you know, Mark Milley, he was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Donald Trump. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he scumbag, scumbag, scumbag.

Mark Milley says this dude. So you you believe the guy who dedicated his entire life to serving the country in the military is a scumbag and a woke is is he's a woke person and a scumbag. Wow. What an analysis, sir, is less credible than Trump. I believe Trump is better than Mark Milley. Trump is better than Mark Milley. OK, what about the truth of what they say? What about the level of expertise that they each have in understanding military situations? Well, Trump's better. He's better. He's better than Mark Milley. OK, and why is that name is. And, you know, Mark,

you're willing to throw away all the surveys and all the credibility and all of his life experiences in the military because Trump called him woke. Speaker 1 Well, you know what? I'm done. I'm done. Speaker 2 I'm done. The guy just walks away. The guy just quit quite literally just turns and walks away. And this is something that happens. There's two possibilities when these folks are presented with fact. Sometimes they just go on to the next thing like the previous guy. Well, I don't have truth social. OK, but what does that have to do with whether Trump said it? And sometimes they quite literally turn and walk away. This next guy doesn't even want to hear Luke. And Luke gives him a sort of Occam's razor, which is like, what's more believable, this super simple explanation

or this insanely complicated explanation requiring all sorts of new beliefs and assumptions. This one doesn't go well at all. I need you to admit it. It's not it's not crazy to go. Hmm. It's probably more likely that there's not the largest conspiracy in the history. You don't even listen to my sentences. Come on. In the history of the world where every single judge, every single grand jury, juror, every single judge, every single grand jury juror, every single prosecutor, every single person involved, every witness who's testified against Trump or who's going to and has already been interviewed and all the stuff we're learning, all of that's fabricated. Or the one guy who has every interest in the world in lying to protect himself is the one guy lying.

That's a lot simpler. Here. Let's go back to the 2020 election. And I saw this now, Milwaukee. There was they actually came up with more votes than the entire population of these pre voting districts. Now remember, this is a lie they've told many times. More people voted than live in Milwaukee or Wisconsin.

It's not true. It's not true. By millions of votes. We have Luke put a bunch of the articles up on the screen that that It's not true. It's not true. By millions of votes, we have Luke put a bunch of the articles up on the screen that that's simply not true. You can Google population of Wisconsin and number of people who voted in Wisconsin in 2020, and you find that it is simply not true. It's years later. This guy's still repeating it. You need to stop. You're because you're saying that you've been brainwashed with this hatred. I'm I'm just full of love. I know. So again, sorry. Luke's been brainwashed. Luke's been brainwashed because he figured out by just researching that more people

than live in Wisconsin did not vote in Wisconsin in 2020. And then here's the last one. And maybe maybe get the kids out of the room for this one. This one does go anti-Semitic. OK, this one goes anti-Semitic, which big surprise. Who's currently the president right now? Well, they say it's Biden. What do you think? I don't know who it is actually who's the current president uh brocco palma i hear that a lot i think that's the fourth time today yeah is that you really want to know cabal a group. They're a group of people that want to control the world population. One of the values is to decrease the world population by one third. By the way, the depopulation conspiracy theorists, 90 percent of them will never explain why

it's a useful thing to reduce the population. Like, why would the elites or these secretive shadowy groups, why would they want to reduce the population? You would think, I mean, in general, if you want to make money either through selling a product or a service, you want more customers in a bigger population generally would be good. 90 percent of them will never explain why would it why would they even want to reduce the population? The 10% that will give you an explanation. It's an explanation that doesn't

actually make any sense. I don't think this guy gives us an explanation. OK, people have health problems. That doesn't mean we just and who's controlling him. There is a force in power. What do you think it is? God, it's the central banking cartel. Here we go. It starts going slowly anti-Semitic. It's been a system that's been in place for about 250 years. And there's people, a little group of people, who literally has half the world's wealth.

He starts whispering. There's a little group of people, a little group of people who has all the world's wealth. Who are we talking about here? You figure it out. Do you have some names for me? The Rothschilds, the Oppenheimers, the Guggenheims, the Schiff's, the Warburgs. So a bunch of Jewish families you're saying are controlling everything in puppet masters? No, but

there's a good part of truth to that. Speaker 1 But who's currently the really. But yes, what you're saying is absolutely true. I understand the reaction to see this and say I am disgusted with this country, but the most important thing is we have to vote in such large numbers that these people don't matter. If these people get their way, we get four more years of Trump. It's just that simple. It's just that simple.

So I hope we're all registered. Really good job by Luke Beasley. You can check out his channel, which is growing rapidly, growing at an incredible rate. Doctors are looking at the growth rate of Luke Beasley's YouTube channel, and they've never seen anything like it. David Pakman dot com slash Luke. Hey, this is sort of funny. You know how Trump is known for not paying debts and not paying lawyers and that entire thing. It turns out that Donald Trump's lawyer, Alina Haba and her husband have over one million dollars in liens and warrants against them. So let me explain what this is. A lien is a legal right or interest that a creditor has in another property

because they have an outstanding debt. So, for example, you might hear about a construction lien against your house. Imagine that you have a house and you got an addition done. The addition was going to be $50,000. You didn't pay the contractor the $50,000. The contractor can put a lien on your property legally. So when you go to sell your house before you can take the proceeds, that $50,000 debt has to be paid to the contractor. That's how a lien works.

Warrants are we're talking about tax warrants. Are it sort of like a like a lien, but for taxes, it's a legal document that a government issues when you have unpaid taxes. OK, we have now learned that Alina Haba and her husband have over one million dollars in liens and warrants. Now, this doesn't make her a bad person necessarily. This doesn't make her an incompetent lawyer necessarily. But it is very interesting the sort of person that Trump is and the sort of people that Trump ends up surrounded by and the people that are willing to be Trump's lawyer at this point in time. Take a look at this report. Alina Haba has two active

liens against her in the state of Maine from the Department of Labor. She and her law firm owe over eleven hundred dollars, according to paperwork. Another tax lien against her LLP is for about a thousand dollars. Meanwhile, her husband, Ruben, has a staggering amount of state tax warrants in New York that list him and his LLCs. Her husband's 51. He owes two payments of ninety three thousand and one hundred and seventy nine thousand dollars in taxes. He owes four hundred and eighty four thousand dollars from 2020, 60,000 dollars from 2022. And several of his LLCs have been hit with liens totaling more than seven hundred and seventy thousand dollars. So what's the theme here? The theme is, is the theme birds of a feather flock together?

Is the theme that Alina Habba's financial problems are inextricably intertwined with Donald Trump's way of doing business and attempting not to pay lawyers and the entire thing. Is it a broader disrespect for institutions? And that includes tax collection agencies, but more broadly, just personal responsibility and paying your debts and the entire thing. We're still investigating a bunch of this information. We're going to link to an article that uncovered all of this, including very specific documents, the articles from InTouch Weekly. But there have been questions for a long time as to how is it that Alina Haba ended up being Trump's lawyer? There has been speculation that she was in the right place at the right time. There has been speculation that

Trump hired her because he likes the way she looks on TV rather than because of her legal acumen. What about the possibility, as Trump is the type of guy that often doesn't pay his legal debts, that she also is the sort of person embroiled in the sort of financial issues that are the sort of thing Trump gets involved in and they are just a match made in heaven? We don't really know the answer. She doesn't seem to be providing Trump with necessarily the best representation. And now we find that she is also beleaguered, maybe encumbered is the right word, by her fair share of financial problems as well.

We'll have the documents that I put up on the screen. They'll be on our Instagram. They'll be on our tick tock. They'll be on our tick tock. They'll be on our Twitter. And very importantly, they will be on our YouTube where we are now at one point nine eight million subscribers. We are within twenty thousand subscribers of two million. We are at one point nine eight and change. Make sure you're subscribed on YouTube. Help us get there. We'll take a quick break and be right back. And then someone told me about Brain FM's Focus Music, which is actually made by scientists working with musicians specifically to help you focus. I tried it and it worked really well for me, which is why I asked them to be a sponsor. and focused, easier to start on difficult work, easier to stay focused without getting distracted and do that really important deep work that I love to talk about. The team behind Brain.fm

actually won a National Science Foundation grant related to ADHD. And the app includes a special mode just for ADHD if you need it. They even have amazing sleep sounds that I've started using at night. You can try Brain.fm totally free for an entire month. Just go to brain.fm slash Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. The David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. Everything is done seamlessly over Wi-Fi. Before you give the frame to someone as a gift, you can load photos onto it without even opening the package. So when the recipient opens it, your photos are there. I've given both my parents these as gifts. We set my girlfriend's parents up with one. We put pictures of the baby on there. We're traveling and we photograph the baby and it pops up. They just love it. And now they and I can add more pictures to it, take pictures off that we don't want anymore. And one of the coolest parts is that the photo storage on the cloud is completely unlimited.

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legalization. Just as a disclaimer, and I do this only because every time I talk about this issue, invariably 30, 40 percent of the responses are guessing at what personal stake I have in this. I have no stake in this. I don't smoke cigarettes, nor do I consume cannabis in any form. I'm not doing any tobacco forms of tobacco nor cannabis. I have no stake in this. I find the smell of both annoying and I don't want any smoke near me or near my daughter. So I have no call me biased, but I have the same exact bias when it comes to tobacco and cannabis, which is I don't want to smoke anywhere near me. OK, so let's jump into the clip. He's going to say a couple of things that are fine, but then it gets completely off the rails.

OK, let me note a few things here. First of all, the whole argument that weed is a plant, so it's OK to consume is ridiculous. Opium is a plant. Lots of things are plants, but they're not supposed to be consumed. OK, so it is true that simply pointing out that something is a plant or is derived from a plant is not really an argument for or against its health or for or against its legality. To be clear, there is a difference between smoking cannabis, which is essentially just pulling pieces off of the plant versus what how you refine the I don't even know the the the jelly, the pus. I don't know what it is that comes out of the poppy into then opium,

that there is a difference in terms of how they're refined, concentrated. But it's perfectly fair to say that just because something is or comes from a plant X, that's not a great argument one way or the other. So far, it's OK because it grows naturally. It doesn't mean you're automatically supposed to eat it. Fine. Much less light it on fire and smoke it. Sure. So there are a lot of poisonous. Organically grown plants out there that you should not put in your body or on your body now should starts to get a little bit prescriptive. There may be negative health effects to some of these decisions about putting a plant in your body, or it may be that there's an ethical judgment that is being passed, which is a little bit

different. There are two different things. But let's continue. So that alone does not. Well, God made it. God made it. So so so therefore, automatically you can set it on fire and inhale it. And it's a good idea. Now, on that note, smoking anything is bad for your health. You put any kind of smoke in your lungs, right? You light up a cigarette. You light up a marijuana. You light up a banana leaf. It's not good for the lungs to inhale smoke. That being said, the completely unquestionable connection between cigarettes, which it's not just the nicotine, it's the tar, it's the other add ons. Right. We know how bad that is for your lungs. We don't yet know exactly how bad smoking cannabis is for

your lungs. It's not good, but it is totally possible that smoking cigarettes is worse because of all the stuff that's in kind of what kind of a thought process is that second related to that? It was it was claimed that cigarettes are so much worse than weed, but tobacco is also a plant. Alcohol. OK, alcohol comes from depending on what kind of alcohol you're talking about, but let's say whiskey, for example, there are the plants and grains that are used to make the alcohol. So sure. And besides, say whatever you want about, say, cigarettes, two things cannot be denied. One, tobacco helped build this country.

OK, we would not have a country without tobacco. OK, that's a very big exaggeration. It is absolutely true that tobacco played a significant role in the early economy of the American colonies, Virginia and Maryland especially. But the idea that without tobacco, this country wouldn't exist is an exaggeration. And also, even if it were true that hundreds of years ago, tobacco helped launch the country. That doesn't tell us anything about what could or should be done today. So it's actually it's both untrue and a misdirection. It was a crop in early America. That's about it. Without the tobacco plant, this country doesn't exist.

Untrue. So it has been crucial, central to this country from its foundation. The same cannot be said for marijuana. OK. Tobacco is as American as apple pie. This now this is just nonsense. Now this is irrelevant to what its health status or legal status should be. It is. You don't like it, but it is. Second, I would much, much rather live in a society filled with people who are on nicotine over people who are stoned. Nicotine makes you more alert, more productive. We does not have that effect. OK. OK. So I think that this is very, very silly. First and foremost, first and foremost, there are also. So where do you even start? Nicotine has stimulating effects. That's absolutely true. It can have a short term effect that's sort of like caffeine. Caffeine is far safer. The long term effects of tobacco

are overwhelmingly negative. They include cancer. They include heart disease. They include respiratory problems. So if his argument is weed makes you just melt into the couch and it's bad for so-called productivity, but nicotine gets you to do work. First of all, stepping outside for 10 minutes every hour to smoke a cigarette is not exactly going to do wonders for your productivity. But very importantly, there are significantly safer alternatives and cheaper, by the way, and less societally destructive alternatives to the stimulant effect of nicotine. The primary one, of course, is caffeine.

Now, marijuana's effects, they vary. Certainly some strains can induce relaxation and, you course, is caffeine. Now, marijuana's effects, they vary. Certainly some strains can induce relaxation and, you know, alter sensory perception. It's not usually associated with increased productivity. But if you are struggling to be productive at work because you're in pain or you have anxiety or whatever, now, all of a sudden, the cannabis actually may increase productivity. So this entire productivity framework is very silly. Like back when everyone smoked cigarettes everywhere, you go back to like the 40s. Everyone smoking cigarettes everywhere you go, just everything smells like cigarettes. And back

then we were a highly productive country. This is very stupid. This is extraordinarily stupid. Productivity is way higher now on a per worker hour basis than it was in the 40s with less cigarette smoking. And in the 40s, there was rapid technological advancement and industrialization that we know was responsible for increased productivity. This idea that the cigarettes were the thing. Very stupid. Not based, in fact, we have never been more productive. This back when we were building skyscrapers and winning world wars and going to the moon and stuff. I'm not saying all that happened because of cigarettes. I'm just saying that.

In fact, we don't know that any of it did. Societally, the effects of cigarettes are actually pretty positive. And same is not true of weed. OK, like, does anyone really want to deny that you take a take a city and everyone smoke cigarettes? They're all there. They're all dose themselves with nicotine. Have another city. Everyone's stoned. Which city do you think which one would you rather live in? Like which one? Yeah. You know, a lot of people would rather live in the stone city because they'd argue it's probably more relaxed and there's less violence and so on and so forth.

But again, you can't really just comparing cities. You can't disaggregate the fact that a lot of people are drinking coffee when they're smoking the cigarettes. You you're oversimplifying social and economic factors. You're oversimplifying the sorts of industries that are in those cities. As you can see, this starts to get very stupid. So this to me is Matt Walsh on a personal level, doesn't like cannabis. And he is trying to make an argument that is reverse engineering what his moral and ethical

standpoint is when it comes to the health stuff. Again, you know, smoking is bad. Smoking anything is bad. Smoke is bad for you. Cannabis has many, many, many non-smokable methods of consumption, alternative consumption methods, we would call them. We know that cigarettes are addictive in a highly physical manner. Certainly cannabis can be habit forming, but it lacks many of the additives and other elements that are what make cigarettes so addictive and so dangerous. We are increasingly seeing the medicinal uses of cannabis. There are no medicinal net positive uses of cigarettes. And of course, the public health impact of cigarettes we know is a disaster. We are starting to see more and more recreational cannabis experiments across the country. The early data is these are not destructive. These are actually neutral or in

some cases positive things. So Matt Walsh wrong about just about everything when it comes to cannabis. And just as a reminder, I have no horse in this race. I'm not consuming any of them. And I find the smoke annoying in either case by missing something here. Let me know. Ex RNC chairman Michael Steele is calling for the imprisonment of the failed former President Donald Trump. Michael Steele. Yes, the guy who promoted Sarah Palin. Right. This this guy doesn't exactly have a clean record. He wants Trump thrown in jail. Newsweek reports Michael Steele, former chairman of the RNC,

called for Trump to be thrown in jail Saturday over his repeated attacks on judges and court staff in his numerous ongoing court cases. Trump has been issued. The article explains a number of gag orders. He's continuing to flout the gag orders, not flaunt. Please don't email me. I'm not making a mistake. I don't mean flaunt. I mean, flout. Trump is continuing to flout the gag orders. He gets admonishment from judges, but, you know, modest fines. But that is it. And Michael Steele is sick of it. And Michael Steele believes it's time for it to end. Quote, It is enormously dangerous. I am shocked that we have allowed this to get this far. I'm just going to get use my best analysis that I can give you at this point on the situation with Trump and the attacks on the judges.

Put his ass in jail. That's how you end it. That's how it stops. That's where we are right now. And Michael Steele rightly says people will be mad, they will be upset. But there is no other person on this planet who would be given the kind of grace that Trump has been given, attacking clerks, attacking judges, attacking prosecutors personally and threatening them. He is 100 percent right. The two tiered justice system does exist, but it is one in which if Trump were not a rich former president, he would be sitting

in jail in pretrial detention because of his consistent and repeated violations of these gag orders. Now, this isn't about, oh, Michael Steele, what a good guy. You know, this guy was absolutely horrible in the McCain Palin era. He acted as if Sarah Palin was a reasonable person to be the vice president of the United States. He's now on the never Trump bandwagon. Trump today certainly is a better representative of what the Republican Party has become than what Michael Steele is a representative of. He's right about this. But this doesn't mean that Michael Steele is now a great guy who

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sense test. It doesn't pass the believe me, I really don't have MAGA brainworms test. There's a lot of tests, quite frankly, that this one fails. The idea is that China released the virus on purpose in order to hurt Trump. And I guess to help Biden, it's so hard to know what they're even talking about. Let's listen to it and then we will discuss. I mean, is there a chance that China released this virus on America intentionally? Disrupt the country, get Donald Trump out, get your man in there, Joe Biden, and then cover it up. Well, they certainly didn't try to protect America, did they? I mean, so whether it was intentional or accidental, they seem to be aware of it. And as I recall, and I could be wrong on this, President Xi was telling Donald Trump everything's

OK. And Donald Trump was repeating, repeating what President Xi said. Now, Democrats call President Trump a liar, but it seems that he was just repeating what President Xi said. And obviously it was more dangerous. Now, first and foremost, does someone who is strong and tough on China and skeptical of China, like Trump claims to be, does simply repeating what China tells you fit with the idea that you are strong and tough on China? It doesn't. But there are so many reasons why this conspiracy doesn't work. And it's a

common one. When Luke Beasley goes to the Trump rallies, you hear versions of this conspiracy theory. First of all, this conspiracy theory ignores the fact that covid was devastating for China. Arguably, covid was even more economically destructive to China than the United States, at least as destructive, if not more destructive. So if you're trying to get ahead and get one over on the United States, releasing a virus that hurts you as much as or more than your adversary doesn't make a lot of sense. But here's the more important aspect to this. This conspiracy theory only works if Trump fails to deal with covid effectively. What do I mean by that?

In other words, if Trump is competent and Trump is strong and Trump is smart and all these different things doing this wouldn't work because by dealing with covid appropriately, Trump would easily get reelected. As I've said before, if Trump had dealt with covid well from the beginning, he would have been reelected. It was a really close election at the end of the day, not in terms of the popular vote, but in terms of the Electoral College, the margin that Joe Biden had, which was a healthy margin, was based on really small margins of victory in a handful of key states. If Trump handles covid well and he says, I'm going to be

the most patriotic and we're all going to get together. This is our moment. We're going to have MAGA masks and everybody's going to do this, that the other thing. If the perception was that Trump handed handled it well, the way Jacinda Ardern did in New Zealand or other leaders, Trump gets reelected. So the conspiracy theory only even ostensibly functions if we all agree Trump would inevitably fail in terms of the response to covid. If Trump is competent, this doesn't work. And then again, lastly, on the on the destructive nature thing. Six point nine million people have died from covid by by one count.

We'll just use this number, OK, even if the number is not exactly right. Six point nine million people have died from covid by by one count. We'll just use this number, OK, even if the number is not exactly right. Six point nine million people have died from covid. Only one point one eight million were in the United States. So China targeted the US and Trump with a virus that killed one point one eight million in the US, but five point seven million in other countries, including an insane number of people in China. It's a very dumb way to try to hurt Donald Trump. That really doesn't pass the sniff test. So there it is. Maria Bartiromo apparently never finding a conspiracy theory she doesn't like or doesn't believe. But it is another one that fails even the most basic, basic questions of plausibility and believability. But they love this stuff on Fox News.

Donald Trump is proud of Argentina's new president elect Javier Millay. Javier Millay is a far right lunatic who believes that he is going to dollarize the economy, eliminate close to 10 different government departments and fix problems that he has no idea how to actually fix. Donald Trump taking to Truth Social, where he posted congratulations to Javier Millet on a great race for president of Argentina. The whole world was watching. I am very proud of you. You will turn your country around and truly make Argentina great again. Very difficult to imagine that he does this. Trump also posting a picture of Javier Millay standing above a don't tread on me tea party flag saying make Argentina great again.

So it is not a big shock and it is not a major surprise that Donald Trump likes Javier Millet ban abortion, do impossible erratic things to the economy, make promises that nobody believes you could possibly keep and 10 government departments. It sounds about right, but we should actually be really careful about this. As I said yesterday in my discussion about this, we've already seen MAGA Trump ism start to titillate and seduce in Europe. We've seen it for years. We are now starting to see MAGA Trump ism titillate and seduce in Latin America.

And what we have here is a situation where if we aren't careful, if we don't start by rooting it out here with the idea that maybe other countries will follow, we don't do that, then we are potentially going to be facing the future of MAGA. Even after Trump is gone, we're going to be facing it in other parts of the world. And that is an extraordinarily scary thing. All right. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here is a great question. It's a great question in light of what we heard from the people that Luke Beasley interviewed earlier in the show. It's a great question in light of so many of the stories and narratives that we've been hearing. The idea of things are staged. It's a false flag.

It's fake. Take a listen to this and then we will discuss. Hey, David, it's calling from Oregon. I have a good question for you. How come Republicans think everything is staged? Why do Republicans think that every single thing is some kind of elaborate scheme or elaborate cover up? How come right wingers continuously eat up all these

theories, these conspiracy theories? Why do these people fall in this trap? Why is every single thing a cover-up? Oh, we planted FBI agents, so we had people disguised as Trump supporters, and it's just like, do these people think that people are that intelligent and that thoughtful where everything is a scheme and everything is just, you know, the January 6th, those were planted people and the ghost buses we've just heard about. And of course, what you're talking about today is these Nazis in Wisconsin and it's just a false lie. So if anything actually even happened, is everything staged to these people?

This is a great question. And there is so much to this. So I'm going to break down some of the specific elements that push some of these right wingers into claiming things are staged. But you have to understand they don't always mean it. Sometimes it's assuming that it's real, it's staged, but maybe it was actually fake. And sometimes these things conflict. So, for example, there was no violence on January 6th and the violence was done by fake Trump supporters who were actually Antifa, Black Lives Matter and or the FBI. Wait a second. Was there violence or not? If there was violence, it was fake Trump supporters,

but it was actually peaceful, peaceful Trump supporters. Excuse me. There's countless examples of this. There's a few different things going on here. Number one, distrust in corporate media and an institution. So the deep state that they believe exists controls corporate media and institutions. They are increasingly distrustful that they are being told anything that is true, even about the basic facts. If it's a mass shooting, if it's a political incident, if it's the Trump riots, if it's Trump's indictments, we distrust all of those who are giving us the information and therefore we can say it was staged, it was fake, whatever the case may be. This is then bolstered by the echo chambers on social

media and the filter bubbles in which these people put themselves. And so in addition to distrusting the messages they get from corporate media, when some conspiracy site does tell the it was staged story that they like, they then signal boosted and reposted. And so those stories gain traction. This is all placed on top of an undergirding of political polarization. The more politically polarized the climate is, the more that events are interpreted through a partisan lens. And for some on the right, this means that it's all fabricated, it's all staged, it's all messed up, made up. This then is affected by confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias plays a role in this where individuals are already likely to believe the storyline that confirms their preexisting beliefs. And in the context of everything is staged, it means that you are more receptive to claims that it was staged, even if they are not backed by evidence or the most likely claims. You then have to consider also the crisis in expertise. This is where they are fundamentally distrustful of experts. They're distrustful sometimes of the idea that there even can be an expert, that authority is meaningless. And we saw this during covid doctors. I don't need to hear from doctors. There's, you know, a trainer at my gym who

knows about ivermectin and whatever else the case may be. So that's a factor. And then at some kind of like systemic level, there are some psychological factors as well. Believing in general in conspiracy theories. We've talked about why it's useful. It can provide a sense of control. It can provide a sense of understanding when the reality is chaotic and unpredictable. And there are people who are simply more likely to fall for fear based, especially conspiracy theories. So the answer to why do they always end up thinking it's fake and staged involves like five or six different layers, each more

concerning than the last, to be perfectly honest. Scary stuff. We've got a great bonus show for you today. Joe Biden's approval is ticking up as voters are finally realizing, hey, the economy is doing pretty OK. Mike Johnson says that Americans misunderstand separation of church and state. And an appeals court says that private citizens and civil rights groups cannot sue under the Voting Rights Act. Why do they say this? We will discuss it on the bonus show. Sign up at join Pacman dot com. Normal prices for the bonus show, I think, are really, really good.

The bonus show where you want to make money. Everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad that we're making a little bit of money on the bonus show. But if you want to save and prevent us from making a little bit more money on the bonus show. You can use the coupon code four years for indictments to get yourself a 50 percent discount. I will see you then. And then we'll be back tomorrow.