The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program | Guest: Jeff Brown | 12/12/22

Episode Date: December 12, 2022

Glenn and Stu break down the three legal issues Twitter could face after Elon released the third and fourth editions of the Twitter Files. Once Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout returned to Russia, he, along with the Russian media, began trash-talking America’s priorities and politics. Chief investment analyst and founder of Brownstone Research Jeff Brown joins to discuss the benefits and timing of nuclear fusion energy and the dangers of it being a government-led venture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So would you put today's podcast in a positive or a negative call? Yes. It's very positive at the end, if you believe the government. It's very positive. We discovered this weekend there is a real possibility that we can make energy through fusion. That's the announcement that's supposed to come out tomorrow from the U.S. to be. Department of Energy. So I'm a little skeptical. But then we also had Jeff Brown on, who is a futurist, who's like, if it's not this in the next 18, 24 months, it's going to be somebody.

Fusion is here. That's remarkable. We're going, it's going fast. I don't know that we've really thought through all the ramifications of it, but a lot of them will be positive if that happens. Oh, that's good. Waiting until you hear. Yeah, today's podcast, just for a futurist, you're going to love this. also we talk about the future of the the Republican Party what is it they have to do with the budget we take that first step there today on the podcast here it is

you're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program even know where to start on the Twitter thing the I mean what bothers you the most that Twitter and the Democrats lied about censorship that the government was involved with Twitter and censorship that Michelle Obama pressured Twitter to ban Trump, that the media is

completely silent. New York Times, Washington Post, one story in the last week. There have been several updates that have happened. And nothing on the Sunday shows except Fox. How about the FBI and CDC using a back channel with Twitter or the internal documents that show only one Twitter employee was raising serious free speech concerns. And identified as a junior staffer, by the way. Okay, so there are three things here that they should lawyer up about. First, it looks like the material may have been intentionally hidden or destroyed despite inquiries from Congress.

Remember, congressman said, Twitter, don't destroy anything. thing because we're coming for an investigation. So it looks like some of the evidence has been destroyed. That's not going to go well for people. Plus, they lied under oath over and over and over again. This is a free speech fight for the public. And most people are debating whether Twitter is bad or good. this is about the federal government being involved neck deep in censorship to me.

I think so too. Because it's interesting, you read the back and forth. There is one employee. It's like, hey, guys, I don't know if we should like ban a leader of the free world. Maybe this is a bad idea. There is one employee doing that. One. One.

One. I mean, legitimately one single employee, a junior level staffer. in a slack message. In a slack message. It's a comical. There's nobody there going like, hey, guys, like, don't you see how this is going to be seen by half the country? He says, this might be an unpopular opinion, but one-off ad hoc decisions like this that don't appear rooted in policy are in my opinion a slippery slope and reflect an alternatively equal dictatorial problem. He said, this now appears to be fiat by an online.

platform CEO with a global present that can gatekeep speech for the entire world. That seems unsustainable. It's a very nice way of saying the very obvious thing. How is wrong with you? Yeah. So it's interesting because first of all, you mentioned the CEO. I don't know if Jack counts at that point because he went back and forth in that role. But I will say it does seem that Jack was out of these conversations often. It doesn't seem like he was the center pushing point for a lot of this stuff. And he was, I mean, in this one, he was on vacation phoning into meetings, they say. So we'll see how that plays out as we get more information.

But he doesn't seem to be the center, the center power, the gravity of all of this. He's not, he seems to be occasionally involved, but not necessarily involved in the day to day. This guy, Yowell Roth is the guy who seems to be the guy who really is behind a lot of this. And they have a lot of his messages. What I find interesting, though, is you go through them. And there is a lot of conversation from Twitter employees saying things like, look, our policies don't allow us to do this. There's no justification for doing these things because of our policies. Yes.

So how do we craft? You're supposed to stop there. You're not supposed to go to the cell. I know. But they go on and they say, so how do we craft a path around the policies? How do we justify this through the policies? So in other words, we all love the Constitution. But there are things we have to do.

Right. Sometimes there's things we have to do. And that seems to be the constant refrain in these messages. They all agreed, obviously, that Donald Trump was bad, and then he needed to be removed immediately, and conservatives were dangerous and all of this. But they didn't. do a lot about that in this period as far as banning if they couldn't come up with a way to justify the policies around january six that all seemed to change like they just abandoned this

completely and just started because of blanket justifying things how they felt because of how they felt and how they felt is is important because i think it's you could say it's how they felt because they felt Donald Trump was a danger to the country, that the right was a horrible group of people that were doing terrible things. And I think that's true. Like, I think that is part of this story, part. But the other thing they felt was massive pressure

from federal government employees. Michelle Obama. Major people in the press that are supposed to be neutral. All of the pressure came. in, a lot of these people are friends, they felt massive outside pressure to come up with a way to justify this policy or not. And so they executed it. Does that mean that they are innocent here? No, not at all. I mean, it doesn't change how you should feel about Twitter. But it should, I think, put the focus of the American people and their attention span, which is limited, to the people

and the federal government who are starting this pressure campaign, right? Yes, it's interesting that some executive at Twitter was liberal and looked for a way to ban Donald Trump or some other conservative. Sure, that's interesting. It's part of the story. But the fact that our government was getting involved,

federal government and former government employees, oh, as early as, I mean, as late as last week, Elon Musk fired the guy who was involved in the Trump setup of the Russia gate, that FBI agent was still filtering and possibly deleting things covering up the FBI's involvement in Twitter

as late as last week. And that's far more important, right? It's far more important that this stuff was going on outside. Because look, there are a lot, they're going to have their defenses on whether they ban people or not, whether it fits policy or not. How big of a violation is that?

Look, they could get punished, but it might not be that serious. The First Amendment specifically deals with federal government influence. I mean, it specifically means talking about laws, but it does have, I think, a direct line, direct line from federal government employees and former employees. Oh, yeah. To the White House. They said it.

They said it. They bragged about it. Yes, they bragged about it. At the time, and the media was so on their side on this stuff that it never got any critical treatment. It shows CDC, FBI, White House, all of them, all of them, steering and pushing the steerage of Twitter. They had an online portal where you could say, hey, this tweet you should pull down and Twitter would look at it. Now, is Twitter looking at that really? Are they making a coherent analysis of what this tweet is?

Actually, this particular physician is from Stanford. He's well respected. He's a little out of the mainstream, maybe of consensus. But, hey, he still has an important voice. Are they doing that? No. But the experts say, the federal experts say, he's not. So are you more expert than the federal government's experts?

Right. The pressure is making the decision. Correct. There is no decision making. Correct. They're just adopting it. Now, of course, if Donald Trump's administration came to them and said the same thing, it would not be this way.

Why the silence from mainstream media? This is an enormous story. This is proof positive that the government is colluding to lie to you and using Twitter to do it. Why the silence? How does the press think they will get away with this and will they? You're listening to the best. of the Glenn Beck program. All right, I want to play a couple of pieces from the media in Russia, and I'll translate

here. First, let's play Victor Bout. He is speaking on... Bout. Bout. Bout, sorry. Vector Bout. He's speaking on Russian television about the American society.

Here he is. He says, what's going to be the world. He says what's happening in the West is simply the suicide of civilization. And if this suicide isn't prevented, at very least outside the Western world, in the world not controlled by the Anglo-Saxons, the entire planet will commit suicide, you know? And this is probably happening in all areas, drugs. What is it called in Russian, LG, B, T, Q, plus?

Can you imagine that in American schools, they are now teaching first graders, six and seven-year-old first graders, that it turns out there are 72 genders. Not just, you know, gay people and normal people, but 72. All right. So people tweeted that and go, look, we released a guy. He was in prison here, and he goes back, and he even knows how sick we are, and he's saying it. Comment reserved. Now, here's another show.

This is a big talk show, television show in Russia. This is Russian state media mocking Biden. Now, listen to this one. Of course, I was very amused, but not surprised that Boot was exchanged. for Griner and not whaling. First of all, I congratulate Boote in his entire family for many years. We have been touched with his family. To the extent that it was possible we communicated with him,

the extent we could. Of course, this is a huge joy and relief to all of us. I can't even imagine what this means to his family. But he was not exchanged for the heroic spy. Not because he's a spy. Because he's a spy. Wheelan is a spy. He was apprehended while receiving information on a flash drive.

He said he was supposed to get photos of churches on a flash drive. You send church photos through WhatsApp, right? That's where we got him. We don't get a flash drive brought to you for that. Quality would be decent. No worse than a flash drive. He's a spy. Therefore, to them, he's a hero.

He's a hero. decorated marine, covered in metals. He has not one, not two, but three problems. First problem, he's white. Second problem, he is a man. Third problem, he's a heterosexual. This is not something you can get away with. American voters, he beats Griner in every aspect.

It's a catastrophe. American voters were given a choice, a hero who, who suffered while serving his fatherland, or a metal-covered hero who suffered during his service to his fatherland, the United States, or a black lesbian hooked on drugs, who suffered for vape with hashish, hashish. A well-known for the sake of PR. American voters are choosing the obvious.

I think this is one more piece of good news. The first good news is boot, returned. The second good news is a nation that spits, on its heroes to the extent that it considers it significantly more important to free rightfully charged, well-known athlete. She didn't suffer. She served her as she served her motherland, but because she couldn't live for 10 hours without hashish. Instead of freeing the person in prison for two years for serving his motherland, this says a lot about the state of this society, these intelligence agencies

and everything related to geopolitical confrontation. Wow. Wow. A lot to unpack in that analysis. So what are your thoughts watching this? Well, taking it, I think you're going to go. Just your base. Just on what they actually are saying.

First of all, he was not a spy. This is a complete lie. He was not a spy. That is still to this day is not a spy. That is a lie by the Russian, by Russian propaganda, not true. Important to note. And at some level, you know, he's not an American hero. And I say that not because that's my opinion,

but because the media has not focused really at all of the guy. I mean, he's not known in American circles at all. He's an unknown person unless you happen to follow this stuff, which I know we have, and I know the audience probably has, but generally speaking, it has not been covered. Most people don't know. In fact, the hero of the two to the American media is Britney Griner. Now, is it because she's black and lesbian and a woman?

That part is interesting. And a celebrity. And a celebrity. So taking the celebrity part separately, because I think that is undoubtedly true. Like, 100% true, the reason why they went after Britney Griner is because there was so much pop press on it. I were, if I were over in Russia and arrested for anything, to say the same thing, vaping, okay? Oh, they'd send you. I mean, they'd ask you to go to Siberian. Yeah. Okay. So. Yes. It's not just pure fame, but it's the right kind of fame. It's the right kind of fame. It's the politically correct fame.

Right. I think the interesting part about her gender, her sexuality, the color of her skin is you could argue, well, that's not it. we made this argument, and I know you made this argument last week, where there's a real argument to be made, to me, to you. Yeah. To, I think, many conservatives. Right. That we do go get the woman out of this situation before the man who's a Marine out of chivalry. Oh my gosh. How outdated are you?

I know. I know. I know. It is. I mean, that is that America would have done this. you know, 50 years ago, 20 years ago. Without question. Without question, the woman goes first.

The Marine was trained. He can handle it. And every Marine would cheer it on. Yes. You know, and I think now, of course, the Biden administration can't make that argument because they can't even define what a woman is. Right.

So how can they possibly say it? And they're not saying it's chivalry. They're not saying that's why they did it. But like, think of the alternative. Let's say they did take Wheelan. what would the media be saying today? If they did take a white male instead of Britney Griner, forget the way it came out.

If they did the opposite, we know it would be months of coverage of the only reason they didn't take Britney Griner is because she's black, she's a woman, and she has an alternative lifestyle. And you can't do that to the hand that feeds you. Mm-hmm. So it would have been only the extreme left that would have, it would have split.

I mean, the left has one thing the right does not have. Cooperation. Cooperation. They hate each other. They hate each other. Do you really think that the Marxists are in bed with GE and all of these other giant corporation with Citibank? Do you really think?

No. Of course not. That was a deal made at Occupy Wall Street. Look, we'll give you some money. You go away. You'll leave us alone. But they still hate each other. But they work together.

The right doesn't. If he would have released that, only the extreme dedicated left would have gone on television. And it would have been mainly on MSNBC, I think, because they couldn't bite the government hand that is feeding them. It would have been there, but it wouldn't have been as strong. If it was a Republican that did it, it'd be over.

That's all you'd hear about for the four years. That's true. That's true. Here's the thing that I really want to point out. This is Dugan. Alexander Dugan is a master at traditionalism. Capital T traditionalism. He's a Russian advice.

to Putin. He is a scholar. He is the guy whose daughter was just assassinated. He says by Ukrainians. He is a very influential figure in Russia. Alexander Dugan is extraordinarily dangerous. He has used Putin money over here in the United States. He has allies here in the United States. His allies tend to be like, what's his name? Robert Spencer, the head of the Nazi. Is it in that? Richard Spencer? Richard Spencer.

Yeah, sorry, Robert. Whoever you are. Yeah, rich. Kind of known as the head of the alt-right and such. Yeah. And, you know, he was Nazi. His wife or his girlfriend, I can't remember. I think it's his wife.

His wife is the translator for Alexander Dugan, the English translator. Okay. he is in bed with the worst of the worst, and he also comes in with sheep's clothing. He also has emissaries that have put money into traditional family kind of things. So he's just talking tradition. Look, we're going to lose our traditions. We're losing basic things here that God wants us to have. He is as close as.

as you can get to Satan on earth as you can find. He believes that the entire world has to reset. And so he wants to bring on literally Armageddon and the end of the world. He believes it's better to reset to the Stone Age to where we all are just tribal again. and we get rid of all of this new technology and get rid of all of these new things that make us into who we are. I think we should just master them

and not let them be the master of us. He wants everything destroyed. He is really frightening. I think he is the most frightening James Bond-style villain alive today. He and Klaus Schwab, extraordinarily dangerous. But he is, he is the most frightening, dangerous because he's the guy who pushes narratives in the West like this. He's the guy who's like,

you know, this is suicide by the Anglo-Saxons. And somebody's got to stand up or the entire planet. And so that's got to be Russia. Russia is the defender of the faith. Now, have you ever thought of Russia as the defender of the faith? Russia's the defender of the faith. Not the reputation historically. But, you know, in American schools, they're teaching about 72 genders. Look, they're letting this lesbian drug user out over a traditional hero. She was rightfully charged.

How could they possibly do that? They've gone to hell. Extraordinarily dangerous. I tweeted this without comment because I wanted to make the comment today because you need to understand it, and that's not going to happen in a tweet. You need to understand this. Satan is the author of all lies, confusion, and chaos. But he does not only speak lies.

His trick is he speaks much of the truth and then commingles it with extreme. extraordinarily evil lies. What's the truth? We're on a suicide path, gang. Unless somebody stands up in the Western Hemisphere, the West is going to wipe itself out. We are on a suicidal path, period. That part of the message is true.

We have turned things upside down that because you're a man or a heterosexual, you're not worth as much as somebody else. Meaning all men are created equal is no longer true. That's suicidal. That's not sustainable. That's what built the West. Again, true.

The lie? Russia is the Savior. Their kind of government is the Savior. I don't think any government is the savior. I think the government of God is the savior. The only reason why we had a semi-decent government, as Churchill said, the worst, except for everybody else's government. The reason why we had that semi-decent government was because we understood our first passport, our first sales. our first citizenship was to the kingdom of God.

Our second citizenship was American. And until we realize that, we will be duped by dangerous, dangerous lies mixed with clear truth. The best of the Glenn Beck program. Jeff Brown, always good to talk to you, my friend. How are you? Good morning. Good to have you on. Jeff, I was reading Saturday something from, what was it, Morgan Stanley?

I can't remember. One of the big financial firms. And they were showing what's happening with ESG and the whole plan. And it got to 3031 and it said fusion plants to provide baseline energy. And I thought, gee, that's eight years away. how's that going to happen? The next day, I hear that we are announcing fusion energy. So I come to three conclusions, and I want to see what you think.

A, the big oil companies have always put fusion and hidden all that technology. We've had it forever, but oil, big oil, stopped it. I don't believe that. Second, the government has, uh, has, uh, fusion and it's ready to go and it's going to be remarkable and it's going to happen quickly. Or the third option is they know we're close to something and this is a way to get people excited like a moonshot and get everybody on board with a public private partnership to pioneer this technology with no idea whether or not we're going to be the ones that find it but we might as

well try a moonshot. Which one of those, or is it something else? Well, Glenn, the closest, the closest one of the scenarios that you described is definitely the third one. Right. You know, there are a large number of different approaches that are being tested around the world of nuclear fusion reactors. And it's very experimental at this stage. generally speaking, we all know that it's going to work. It's just a matter of figuring out which one or ones, which approaches are going to really be the most effective in terms of producing limitless clean energy. You know, the technology historically, we just haven't had the material science. We haven't had the artificial intelligence to manage these incredibly complex.

plasma reactions under immense heat and immense pressure. But the whole industry has been advancing at an incredible pace over the last three years in particular that we're right on the cusp, that inflection point where we've actually produced a net energy output reaction. We produced a lot of fusion reactions for milliseconds or in some cases a few seconds, but they haven't been net energy output. output, they've required more energy to create and maintain the reaction than the energy that was actually produced from the fusion reaction. So let me show you the read to you, the exact report. The report offers some reason to be careful, as two of the sources said the greater than expected energy output of 2.5 megajoules of energy in the experiment using 2.1 megajoules

of energy in the lasers, damaged diagnostic equipment so they couldn't measure. Initial diagnostic data suggests another successful experiment at the National Ignition Facility. However, the exact yield is still being determined and we can't confirm that it's over the threshold. That analysis is in process, so publishing the information before that process is complete would be inaccurate. So we're at exactly the same place we've been for a while. We don't know if we have it. We haven't been able to measure these. Well, we may know as early as tomorrow.

It sure sounds like they've had a net energy output reaction. And it's worth mentioning that Lawrence Livermore Laboratory has had successful fusion reactions in the past. They had a big breakthrough earlier this year. Their approach is quite different. They use a bunch of lasers, 192 to be exact, that they focus on some fuel. to create that intense pressure and the intense heat that causes the hydrogen to combine into helium, which releases the energy. They've been able to demonstrate that before.

So to me, it wouldn't be a surprise at all if the news is confirmed tomorrow or later this week that they, in fact, have had a net energy output. So what kind of a net energy output do you need to be? the miracle we're looking for? Well, I mean, the reality is anything greater than one. In other words, more energy output than the energy required to sustain the reaction is a win. But the reality is we actually don't have to sacrifice. The technology, when implemented, when proven to be successful and no longer theoretical,

you'll be able to manage a nuclear fusion reaction and create 10 units of energy for every one unit of input. Now, what that means is basically almost free, limitless, completely clean energy for the planet. It's extraordinary. So what kind of energy do you need to fuel it? Would we still have to have fossil fuels to fuel it? or can you skim off the top to refuel? I mean, no, this is the great part.

You know, the inputs to these reactions, once you obviously have built your fusion reactor are basically two different kinds of hydrogen. One is deuterium and one is tritium, otherwise known as hydrogen two and hydrogen three. Hydrogen two literally can be derived from water, tap water, And hydrogen-free is a byproduct of lithium. So these are obviously widely available.

That's the fuel. And those are the inputs to create this limitless clean energy. And perhaps, Glenn, another way to look at it is that if we think about an individual consumer, to produce 10 years of energy for an individual consumer, it only takes a few tablespoons of water and the amount of lithium that is in your smartphone. Wow. One person for 10 years. That's how incredible nuclear fusion is as a source of clean energy.

Holy cow. Now, they say that if this is true, it would still take us decades before we could open up a plant. Do you believe that to be true? No. It can happen a lot faster than that. I mean, I think back to when you and I sat down in your studio almost three years ago to the date. I think it was November 2019. And at that time, I predicted that we would see this moment within five years. So before 2024. And here we are. And back then, I remember the consensus in the industry was, you know, 2030 and beyond. Yeah. So, no, it's not going to take 10 years to commercialize. We're going to have compact nuclear fusion reactors, really within the next three years. We're going to see net energy output.

And then, from my perspective, it's just a matter of commercialization. So as I look into the second half of this decade, we should see at least one or two companies producing those initial compact fusion reactors to be put into commercial use for clean energy production. Like what kind of compact? What are you talking about? For your house, for your phone, for a city? Well, in the industry, when we talk about a compact fusion reactor, we can imagine something roughly the size of a semi-trailer, which is exciting because you can manufacture these things, put them on the back of a semi-trailer, ship them out to whatever neighborhood or subdivision or city metropolitan area, and install these and basically connect

them to the electricity grid. Is this something that is affordable? Will it become affordable? I mean, it sounds like the resources that you need are plentiful. Engineering required is, while technically more advanced in terms of material science, especially with regards to making these magnets that are required to contain this incredibly hot, pressurized plasma, that's really the hardest part. But the costs are going to be a lot less than a large power production plant.

because fusion is such an energy-dense way to produce electricity as opposed to, you know, a natural gas plant or a coal plant, something like that, or for that matter, a nuclear fission plant. And once you start the fusion, it doesn't stop, right? It just keeps feeding. That's right. This is the great part. You know, this is, in terms of operational cost, if you're producing, you're producing. 10 units of energy, then you can just take a portion of that energy and use it to the fuel the nuclear fusion reaction. It'll just go on forever as long as you need it to. 24-7, that's the beauty

of these fusion reactions, and there's no risk of a meltdown at all. The moment you basically take your finger off the button, basically the plasma cools down peacefully, and the reaction stops and just stops producing energy. Well, Jeff, we know that big oil kept big battery from being made. And so now why would big battery allow fusion to happen? What does this mean for all of the battery research and the cars we're building now? Well, yeah, the industry for petroleum and gasoline, of course, natural gas, this is the one that will be the most threatened coal as well from a breakthrough like this. When we have limitless, almost free clean energy, no carbon emissions, no reactive waste, you know, why do we need those?

other sources of energy and there's obviously some very large vested interest that would probably prefer to not see this happen but the car industry you know this is what makes from my perspective electric vehicles make sense you know historically in the US 60% of all electricity production comes from coal and natural gas and in fact in the last two years our usage of coal has increased from about 21% to 25% just in the last two years. I know it's counterintuitive. So driving around an electric vehicle,

when it's fueled by electricity from fossil fuels, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. But if we have nuclear fusion, then electric vehicles make a ton of sense because we don't have to burn fossil fuels to create the electricity to fuel them. All right. So I hate to be such a pessimist,

but I just have seen too many things here. There's also vested interest right now, especially with ESG, to make sure that those profits happen that haven't been happening and of causing all kinds of problems for these big hedge funds, etc. The idea that we are on a breakthrough energy

would funnel a lot of money into these kinds of new technologies and help fund them. And if they're real, great. If they're a green new deal, not so great. And so there is big business and big money and big government that would love to. It's just coincidental or very, very convenient that this would be announced like this by the government, which would play right into their hand.

Am I being too pessimistic here? No, I don't think you are. There's just tens of billions of dollars at stake here. And obviously, I mean, even if we look at the whole carbon credit industry, the net beneficiary of carbon credits has been the financial services industry that makes money trading these things around. They're not solving our environmental problems. You know, they haven't changed how energy is produced around the world. They're just a financial instrument. And so this is real. This is transformational. In fact, I would argue that commercializing nuclear fusion technology is the single most important thing that we can do for our environment. Oh, by far. This should be it. This is it.

If you have this, this is really all you have to do. You'll take all energy that is being manufactured and make it one. 100% clean. That's all you have to do. That's like shutting the planet off, which they said we had to do. That's what this would be. That's right. That's right. And, you know, the, the craziest thing about all of this is that as we're so close to having this, this breakthrough is that less than $10 billion, dollars, less than $10 billion over the last three decades has been invested by the U.S. governments and by the private sector in nuclear fusion technology projects and companies. Now, that said, this year, 2022 was an absolute record year.

It was the biggest private funding year. This whole industry has been primarily driven by a private industry, venture capitalists, And so in that sense, it was a breakthrough year, and that's because people can see that we're really on the cusp of this breakthrough. So I think, I believe that at the government level, we're going to see a very big shift in terms of levels of investment. This should be the equivalent of, you know, a Manhattan project or an Apollo program in terms of energy policy. No, no, no.