The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Matter of Facts: MoFs Cabinet Picks

Episode Date: November 18, 2024

http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.facebook.com/matteroffactspodcast/https://www.facebook.com/groups/mofpodcastgroup/https://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabhttps://www.instagram.com/mofpodcasthttps://twitter.com/themofpodcasthttps://www.instagram.com/cypress_survivalist/https://www.facebook.com/CypressSurvivalistSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastPurchase American Insurgent by Phil Rabalais: https://amzn.to/2FvSLMLShop at MantisX: http://www.mantisx.com/ref?id=173*The views and opinions of guests do not reflect the opinions of Phil Rabalais, Andrew Bobo, Nic Emricson, or the Matter of Facts Podcast*This week, on Matter of Facts, the MoF boys talk about money, banking, and ponzi schemes. FEMA is acting a fool, and Phil and Nic talk about their picks for the incoming presidential administration's cabinet positions. Next week, there shall be some discussion on the below linked article about what can be learned from the so-called 'doomsday preppers'. https://crimereads.com/the-six-things-i-learned-from-doomsday-prepping/Matter of Facts is now live-streaming our podcast on our YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices. Intro and Outro Music by Phil Rabalais All rights reserved, no commercial or non-commercial use without permission of creator prepper, prep, preparedness, prepared, emergency, survival, survive, self defense, 2nd amendment, 2a, gun rights, constitution, individual rights, train like you fight, firearms training, medical training, matter of facts podcast, mof podcast, reloading, handloading, ammo, ammunition, bullets, magazines, ar-15, ak-47, cz 75, cz, cz scorpion, bugout, bugout bag, get home bag, military, tactical 

Welcome back to the Matterfacts Podcast on the Prepper Broadcasting Network. We talk prepping, guns, and politics every week on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify. Go check out our content at mofpodcast.com on Facebook or Instagram. You can support us via Patreon or by checking out our affiliate partners. I'm your host, Phil Ravely. Andrew and Nick are on the other side of the mic, and here's your show. And welcome back to MatterFacts Podcast. It's a Thursday evening, which means it's time for more lunacy. RaggleFraggle is already in the comments saying hi and hello to you, sir. We have a

ton, a lot, a lot to cover. So, I'm going to get the admin work out of the way super, super fast. And Nick's not going to time me on this. Not this time. Maybe next week. So first and foremost, last show was our 400th show, and I screwed the pooch and forgot to include it. So, like, this is the 401st of the Matter of Facts podcast. For those of you who've been around for a long time and are masochists, like this show started in August of 2016.

And eight years later, I haven't ended up, you know, in a gulag or, I mean, I'm probably on a no-fly list, but that's another story. We all are. Yeah. I mean, at this point, it's kind of like the cool kids club. Like if you're not on at least one government watch list, but that's another story. We all are. I mean, at this point, it's kind of like the cool kids club. If you're not on at least one government watch list, you haven't been trying that hard, and if you're on all of them, it's like

Pokemon. You've collected them all. Congratulations. You can run for Senate. Or Magic the Gathering cards, if you prefer that analogy. That's from my generation. So we have to thank the patrons. Thank you to all the patrons. The little monetary donation you make every month, believe it or not, helps out a ton. It's allowed us to buy equipment.

It's allowed us to expand the show. It's allowed us to do live streaming, which some of y'all stick around for, and it's fun to watch. And it has defrayed the cost of doing this to where my wife doesn't beat me with a cast iron skillet, for which I'm always thankful. For y'all and for my wife not beat me with a cast iron skillet for which I'm always thankful for y'all and for my wife not being with a cast iron skillet. I mean, the little lady's got a hell of an arm on her, uh, merch. So there is merch for sale. I'm not wearing it because I suck. It's right over there and I can't run over there and go get it. But if you're interested in a fun, cheeky shirt design or a koozie or coffee mug or anything, the link is in the show description, you can help yourselves to it. And then you can show off to all the other autists in your life.

Nicholas Larson probably pass airport security easier without that beard. You know, funny you mentioned that. First of all, I did fly recently and didn't even raise an eyebrow, but part of that could be where I live. Cause here in South Louisiana, like a beard like this is not exactly commonplace, but it doesn't cock as many eyebrows as you would think. You know what I'm saying? Like if I were in like the DC metro area and had a beard like this, I might get some funnier looks, but around here, people just assume that I'm on this.

I'm from the set of duck dynasty, apparently. All right. Last one. Cypress survivalist. We talked about it at the very end of our last show. Cypress survivalist is the nonprofit. My wife and I have set up with my sister and my brother-in-law.

We're going to start moving towards doing some in-person. I don't like to, we don't want to use the words preparedness because people have, people hear prepper and they have a connotation to that. And we don't want to use the term survivalist. We're, I think we're going to, we're using the language readiness. Thank you, Stuart, for giving me that idea. Because the whole idea of Cypress Survivalist is to train local communities in very practical things they can and should be doing to be ready for mostly natural disasters, but even some unnatural disasters. We just want to help people to get into a place where they can take care of themselves and their families

when everybody else is running around like a chicken with their head cut off. And we've been doing that for 401 episodes now on this show. and I took up eight years ago by myself before we brought Andrew and Nick on and pivot this more towards doing in-person events so we can try to reach a new audience and a local audience because I'm sure there's people in this area. I know people in this area

who are not ready for the next hurricane, the next flood, the next tornado, the next whatever. And I'd really like my neighbors to be in better shape than what I've seen in the past. Agreed. Those links are also in the show description through the instagram page and the facebook page i'd appreciate a like and a follow we post some comp we post we so far the posts have mostly been

like introducing the board directors including bearded truly and uh some basic readiness topics. Josh, you can't stick around, but our very first topic was to answer the question you asked in the patron chat, not even like a half an hour ago, but you can come back to this later. So we were talking earlier about currency and devaluation of currency.

And like me being the guy with the business degree and the economics nerd, like I have, I have a perspective on this, but I totally get for anybody who didn't spend four years, like, you know, in a business school, like everybody knows what money is, but the concept of money devaluing over time seems a little flimsy. You know what I'm saying? So I promised Josh a five-minute or less explanation. The time on my timer is six minutes and 20 seconds right now into the show. Nick, I'm on my honor. So let's assume for a moment that currency is nothing more than a method of exchange. Currency is nothing more than a method of exchange. Like if I have chickens and Nick has goats and we want to exchange goats for chickens, we have to agree on some kind of an exchange rate. Like no one truly believes, whether you base it on weight, on meat, or whatever, that one chicken's worth one goat.

So obviously there's an exchange rate. Maybe it's 10 chickens, maybe it's 15, but so many chickens is worth a goat. So obviously there's an exchange rate. Maybe it's 10 chickens, maybe it's 15, but so many chickens is worth a goat. Well, what happens if I don't have that many chickens to exchange for the one goat or Nick doesn't want that many chickens? Now we have an imbalance. We can't execute the trade. We can't barter because the agreed upon exchange rate, we can't fulfill both sides of that equation. So this is where currency comes in. And currency in today's market is, you know, pieces of paper and little coins, but it could be rocks. And in this analogy, it will be rocks. So Nick and I agree as neighbors in a post-apocalyptic society where there is no money.

We're going to use rocks as a method of exchange, as a currency. Basically, I say, okay, your goat is worth 100 rocks, and my chickens are worth 10 rocks each. That establishes that agreed-upon 10 to 1 exchange ratio. So now Nick can purchase my chickens at 10 rocks each without having to give up his goat, or without having to give up his goat and accept more chickens than he wants in return. I could trade him five chickens and 50 rocks.

That's that's currency 101 where devaluation of currency comes in is let's let's say for a moment we have it. We have agreed upon this exchange rate. We've agreed to use X number of rocks and there's only so many rocks in circulation. And Nick and I are trading back and forth, having a happy little time. And then I decide I'm out of rocks, but I want more goats. So I'm going to go get a bunch of rocks, just random rocks and put them into circulation. And then Nick notices he's holding a lot of rocks and I'm continuing to show up to the table with more and more rocks to trade for more and more stuff. And Nick says, Phil, where are all these extra rocks coming from? And I say,

well, you know, there's a river bed over there and I just grabbed a whole bunch of rocks. I mean, rocks are worth something. So I'm just trading more of them. And the minute Nick realizes, wait a second, Phil can just go get more rocks, like out of thin air, like the Federal Reserve prints money out of thin air. So I am doubling, tripling, quadrupling the rock supply, the money supply. And Nick would be well warranted in saying, hold on a second. If you're just digging more rocks up out of the ground, then the amount of rocks in circulation has increased. So the value of them naturally decreases. and circulation has increased, so the value of them naturally decreases.

I've just explained in three minutes how increasing the rock or the money supply leads to a decrease in value because the only reason why the rocks were worth something is because Nick and I agreed upon it. And we agreed that with a fixed rock supply of rocks, they would have that agreed upon value. But the minute I start bringing extra rocks to the table, Nick's going to start to do a calculation in his head and say, hold on a second. A minute ago, we were trading a hundred rocks back and forth to make these exchanges, but now there's 300 rocks in circulation. Phil has put 300 more rocks into this equation. So why would I value a rock at what I did yesterday a severe imbalance in the supply and the demand of money at the end of the day. at the end of the day. But that rock analogy is what I use to try to make these semi-complicated,

I don't even want to say they're complicated, but to make these very airy, esoteric concepts super, super concrete so that people can latch onto it and say, oh, that makes perfect sense. You know? Because if supply and demand was the only thing that drove the money supply, which it doesn't, then we would only create more money when there was more demand for it. And I don't mean individual demand. I mean, like when the U.S. economy had grown to a point where we needed more dollars to represent that economic output. But we don't do that. We just print money every time we need more of it. And as a result, you can watch the value of the dollar over the last, I don't know, was it 70 years or so?

Right on down. Well, part of the big problem is the fractional reserve and zero reserve banking. Banks are now allowed to functionally create more money on their own through the issuing of debt. So if the bank, it used to be the bank had to have a certain percentage of the amount they're loaning out in cash holdings. That amount, I can't remember when it was done, but it was recently of the last couple of years. That amount is now zero. Yes. Which is a separate but equally catastrophic problem because of what it means is that when you go into the bank and you deposit $5, the bank is now able to loan out 100% of that $5.

to loan out 100% of that $5 so that they can make money on that and they use that money to pay your, to pay the interest accrued on your deposit, assuming it does accrue interest. And if you show up and you say, hey, I need my five bucks back, they don't give you your five bucks because it's been loaned out.

They give you somebody else's five bucks. And if this sounds like a Ponzi scheme, it kind of is. Well, it is with zero reserve banking it was even with less than zero percent banking it just wasn't as much of a ponzi scheme right i mean it's it's clearly worse it's clearly worse and you and and you can see that in the explosion of housing costs because banks are banks are more willing to give out the loans because they can give out more money in loans right now and that has caused the availability of debt

and the cheap debt with the near zero interest rates add them together and you have an explosion in housing prices. Yes, but point of order, the other thing that has incentivized this behavior Add them together and you have an explosion in housing prices. Yes. But point of order, the other thing that has incentivized this behavior is the fact that big daddy government is right there to guarantee those loans. Oh, yeah. So understand that if a bank, see, in the private, okay, I was about to say in the private sector, but this kind of applies to the private sector too because we don't live in a capitalist society. We live in a cronyist society. So in a true capitalist society, like the one my anarcho-libertarian heart just lusts for, if you do stupid stuff in business, you go out of business. You don't make money.

Your business falls on its face. You go into bankruptcy. The business dissolves. Banks, on the other hand, are encouraged by bank bailouts. And if anybody's curious how that works, Google 2008, let me know what you find. But they are encouraged to make extraordinarily risky investments because the banks that get too big to fail are rewarded for getting too big to fail because they made extraordinarily risky, high risk, high return investments to grow their balance sheet so large that if the government didn't step in and bail them out, everybody would go broke. And your smaller banks that are more fiscally responsible basically get told, oh, well,

good on you for being responsible with your depositee's money, but you don't get a bailout when things go bad. So, you know, this isn't the finance show. I don't want to get into a rant, but it just like, well, it is tied together.

It really is. Yes. Let, let, let's just say that like me, me being as, as, as libertarian as I am.

And y'all have to understand that, like, I am that person that says, I think you should be allowed to do immoral, stupid things as long as you're the only person affected by it. But I live in the real world, and the moment government bails out banks or business, I say, you idiots have to be regulated. And I don't like regulations on private sector. I would much prefer we just go back to the old ways of if you do stupid stuff you go out of business but apparently that's not acceptable so if you get the bailout you have to get regulated and unfortunately what happens in this country is that you get the bailout but you don't get the regulations and then we just do well sometimes sometimes i mean sometimes the regulations just get dumber

yes okay josh has to go but i hope you appreciated the explanation i told you it'd be five minutes or less and it would have been except then nick got me spun upon banksters which most most of them most to be fair the analogy was within your five minutes. Yeah. Let's let's just say that I think most banksters should probably be hunted for sport. You know, at the very least, they should be investigated thoroughly. Oh, yes.

So you said you said you wanted to talk about FEMA acting a fool. And FEMA has been in the news for like two months now they these poor guys just can't get away from the bad press well here here's the the reason why I wanted to bring this up and I'm going to try to keep this as apolitical as possible all right we all know probably where I stand on the political spectrum we all know where Phil stands on the political spectrum but at this point this is right this is irrelevant politics is irrelevant to this the government is showing its hand here they are showing potentially now granted this isn't proven but potentially a top-down plan to single out a political party as persona non grata to emergency assistance if you are republican

if you are a democrat if you are a green party i don't give a this is a dangerous problem that needs to be corrected this perfectly shows why you need to be ready to take care of yourself because four years from now maybe it's not the trump people that are persona non grata for fema maybe it's not the trump people that are the persona non grata for fema maybe it's you maybe it's the green party maybe it's the communists again that's that's really all i had here you know i what is that thing i keep trying to remind people of that you should never grant the government power you don't want your worst enemy to wield because our government has this funny way of shifting back and forth across political lines every so often and that and you have to bear in mind that like

the power does not go to the person it goes to the office and this goes to the institution which is even worse but this this is one of the reasons why years and years ago when obama was in office i was warning left-leaning friends of mine like listen i understand you and i don't think alike i understand you and i don't vote for the same people and that's cool we can respect each other but understand that the power you give this man or his office or this institution will outlive him because the government has never given power back in my lifetime. So if you don't want, if you'd like, like pick one, pick, pick the craziest person you can think of. If you don't want that person to have that power, you shouldn't give it to the

person you trust because the power will not, will outlive them. It will stay in the office. because the power will not will outlive them it will stay in the office you know you know i is this lady just trying to cover her butt for those who haven't seen the news a fema employee sent out a notice to avoid some trump supporters houses okay she then went on i believe it was cnn and did an interview where she said that that was not her policy. That was a policy ordered from the top down to her. Now, we don't have proof of that yet, and maybe she's just doing some petty ass covering, which, fair enough, bureaucrats have been known to do that in the past, but it wouldn't surprise me. It really wouldn't. Not, not with the way this,

this current administration has been acting, but it's just, it, it's just one more reason to maybe number one, uh, be sure that you can take care of yourself until stuff like this breaks. And number two, maybe don't put political signs up in your yard. I mean, I hate to be the guy to tell you not to do that if you want to do that, but know that there could be consequences.

So I draw this analogy that your ability, and I'm not saying that if you put a Trump sign in your front yard, you are an a-hole, but just go down this road with me. Your ability to be an a-hole is wholly contingent on whether or not you need the assistance of the person you're being an a-hole to. A much more colloquial way of putting that is, beware of the toes you step on today. They may be attached to a, but you have to kiss tomorrow. Yeah. So all I'm going to say is if you're that person that puts the magazine on your front yard, I would only encourage you to do so if you do not require the assistance of people who may or may not take, take a dim light, dim view upon that to bail you out of trouble that's all i'm saying like to me the the two things that resonate that's any political that's any political statements you're making on your front yard well i mean for that matter like do you want to know why i don't have political bumper stickers on my vehicle because i don't like

having my windows smashed yeah i mean just calling it the way it is i don't like my car getting keyed i don't like my tires dude i'm in illinois if i had trump stickers on my truck you want to tell me how many tires i'd go through but i guess that's kind of my point i mean yeah you can make the argument of like well you're you're being scared or whatever but to me it's like no no i am avoiding conflict because my first, my prime directive, all you Trekkies out there, is always avoid conflict first. If I have, if I cannot avoid conflict, I am emotionally at peace prosecuting that conflict to the fullest extent of my abilities. But my first goal is always, I don't want this conflict. So if I if, if all it takes for me is to hold my political opinions until I'm in the like the until I'm in the confines of my home or in the voting booth, and I

get to avoid conflict, guess what, that's cool with me. Besides, you know, my friends and family know, all my friends and family know what I'm about. So it's not like I have to put a bumper sticker on my truck to show everybody else. Well, part of it too, is maybe don't you don't have to hold in your political opinions in person with other people other people are not as likely that that are in front of your face to say crazy things or do crazy acts if they're most normal people like you're not going to have the guy you sit at work with talk politics with

sometimes slashing your tires why because he knows you you know him he chances are you're going to be able to find him to get some payback on that but random individuals in a wendy's parking lot uh the fema operative that comes in from out of state that you've never met before and will never see again they see no consequences in skipping over your house, especially when they have an excuse from the higher ups. And that's, that's the other thing I want to sneak in here before we move on. Like the thing, the thing of this, that, that makes me wonder is I could, and we had a similar conversation with Eddie when we were talking about fema's activities and some of the rumors that were coming out of north carolina about how fema was withholding aid certain

communities and you know eddie to be fair there there were some threats made to fema 110 and there were also there was also multiple reports of fema blocking roads prohibiting people from even attempting to go help out some of these communities. So I always operate from the theory that like there's three sides to every story. You've heard this before. There's my side, your side and the truth. And neither one of us, neither one of us, I'm not saying neither party is going to tell the truth, but neither party can see the truth because they only see it from their perspective.

party can see the truth because they only see it from their perspective. So my perspective on this is, is it possible that this was a mid-level supervisor with an extra grind? That is well within the realm of possibility. Is it possible that this was a top-down directive? That's less probable, but not impossible. What I will say, though, is that most people that have been in these circles or even just been in business for a long time, no,

you don't hang your butt out without coverage. So the fact that like this mid-level supervisor can't find that directive or find where it was written or find where it was emailed to her. To me, I hate to say it invalidates her argument, but it's like you've been caught because you wrote this down your bosses have not been caught because they didn't write this down whether whether it didn't happen or whether they're smart or whether they're malicious it doesn't matter i think this mid-level supervisor needs to have the weight of the world hung on

their neck and an example has to be made because what they've done what they've done is a it is a breach of the trust between the american people and their government they endangered lives in an emergency yes whether or not anyone was actually harmed they endangered lives in an emergency situation when they were supposed to be the first responder. Yep. I mean, that's really all there is to it. It's like you you breach the trust of the American people where I come from. That means you don't get to work in government ever again at any level, in any capacity. You're done.

You're done. You're out. And if that hurts somebody's feelings, then just your feelings are going to be hurt. I don't care, but that's, I think that's well-deserved at this point. And, you know, ask me how I feel about politicians that violate the road of office.

I think prison is a starting point. And I think ban from government for life should also be part of the package. But let's just say there are reasons why I'm not in charge of any governmental agency. Yeah. Cause a lot of people, a lot of people will be staring at the inside of prison cells. Anyway, so let's have some fun before we discuss this article to round this out. I intentionally did not put my picks in the banners because I wanted to surprise Nick. in the banners because I wanted to surprise Nick.

Although, based on the title underneath his name, I can already see that we have agreed upon at least one of these. For the humor alone. Okay, so let me put this down so everybody can see. Those of you who can't see, Nick says Alec Jones for press secretary, and I think that would be an absolutely hilarious choice. Can you imagine the meltdown from CNN? No, no, no. What I'm imagining, what I'm envisioning, and it gives me a warm feeling in my heart, is everybody knows Alex Jones can rant with the best of them.

Like everybody knows Alex Jones can rant with the best of them, like full blown, triple digit blood pressure meltdowns. I don't even want him to answer a White House press course questions. I just want them to ask him questions. And he just starts ranting about, you know, gay frogs and and space lasers and tinfoil hat stuff for like 20 minutes, just screaming and losing his mind. I would tune into that. It'd be like a comedy hour every morning. It would be so frigging, rattle, fraggle, stop it. He's got my pick.

Yeah, he's got mine too. Stop it. One at a time. My other pick for press secretary was uh michael malice i don't know if you've heard that's a good one oh yeah okay now for anybody that doesn't know michael malice he he's an anarcho-libertarian i believe he is yeah um he is a sarcastic little smart aleck but the thing about michael malice that that makes him one of my picks for press secretary is because he is freaking brilliant and he's lightning fast. Oh, yeah. So whereas Alex Jones would just be like a complete ranting lunatic, Michael Malice would make the white house press corps feel like toddlers oh yes at the adult dudes the dude's recollection of material he has read and the speed at which he

can communicate it is insane and he is probably like one of the best trolls on the internet today he i have seen him drop rage bait on the internet and just full-blown one end of the other meltdowns occur. He is so friggin' good. It would be hilarious to watch either one of those two wind up in that job.

And now I guess we have to confront the elephant in the room because Raggle Fraggle spoiled it. But, ATF director, I've got I got two and they're both they're both good. But Brandon Herrera was my first pick. Yeah. You may not remember. I don't know if you were a listener to the show way back in the day, but Brandon was on this show probably about five years ago now before.

Like, I remember it yeah when i was watching when his youtube career was like just really getting into high gear before he started doing podcasting before he first state senate first state rep seat like before the ak-50 yes way before the ak-50 before that was even thought of in matter of fact i probably should go find that episode it's probably on patreon i should probably temporarily or maybe permanently just make it public just so that, you know, people can that way,

even people who aren't patrons can go get to it because I'm sure we have listeners who weren't around back then. And you have to bear in mind that like after so much time, I like, I pull down those old episodes that way. What's in the feed is kind of relatively fresh. And also because jesus christ we were such amateurs when we first started doing this years ago we still are but anyway hey

but um that starts somewhere but yeah it might be fun to put that episode back out so that the the potent the potential voters could get a window into him there you go but um yes for the for the pure unadulterated hilarity of it i would choose brandon herrera and he actually put a youtube video up the other day talking about how if he was if he if he got the call he would happily do it but he pointed something out that i don't know how he'd clear a confirmation hearing after saying this but i i was salivating at the idea. But he mentioned that he believes he like, so as the ATF

director in the executive branch, he can't override Congress. He can't override the NFA. He can't do any of those things. But he does believe, and I don't know why it wouldn't be within his purview, that he could offer a 90-day amnesty period for NFfa items including reopening the machine gun registry for 90 days so that

if anyone theory found a machine gun they could register it for the first time since 1986 and in theory he could open it as many times as he felt like every 90 days for four years i i was lying in bed next to my wife cackling like a lunatic like she uh so many schemes yeah she already thinks i'm nuts but i started explaining to her why i was laughing and then the look on her face told me that i i should just make it very very short and simple like i am but anyway but yes the the idea that we could have the machine gun registry reopen for the next four years like you know the definition of a priapism is when an erection lasts for more than four hours and technically it's a reason to call the emergency room but i think i would just sweat that one out you know like just enjoy that case

in that case of course my other pick for atf director was ted nugent going down the same road as the ranty crazy one like alex jones sure but but i don't know man i love uncle ted but i i really don't know that he would get things done i don't want to get things done i want him to log jam the whole agents well okay oh well if if you want that then then ron paul stick stick ron paul in any agency. Have fun, boys. Okay, if we're being really technical, what I really want the ATF director to do is to take 100% of the BATFE and assign them to the NFA branch so that NFA approvals are done in like eight hours, like one business day. You wouldn't even have to do that many. Just automate the process. I'm okay with that, too. And while we're automating the process., it should be nonpartisan and optimized.

And while we're automating the process, everybody who runs around screwing with people's natural rights can go work in the end of a bridge and process paperwork until your job is done away with the rest of you. You can find all those fast and the furious guns go go after after we automate the process because i really i would really love to see the nfa process made as fast as nix it should be there's no reason why it can't be yeah i mean it is it is designed to be an impediment just in the time alone i mean atf should be a convenience store not a government agency but i

digress okay my pick for head of the nf of the fda and um unfortunately the rumor mill is he just got he might be getting tapped to a head up at hhs was rfk jr i am emotionally at peace with him heading up hhs at least we have a health secretary that looks reasonably healthy oh you mean somebody with a bmi under 30. that would be great that'd be great i mean christ's sake you are supposed to be leading the health of the nation, or at least attempting to. Can you look the part for four years? Can you see your toes? Right. Let's set the bar reasonably now.

So you're not going to fight me on that one, are you? Oh, gosh, no. No, no, no. Absolutely not. I wouldn't have had him for FDAda but i had him for human services uh or um i think the other one i was thinking about him for was shoot oh intelligence intelligence director throw throw yeah that would be just picture perfect okay

Secretary Treasury I want Rand Paul yep or at least throw him on the board throw him somewhere in there just have him shut down that whole mess for a few years let him just leave everything alone.

All right. And now from here, first of all, I'm going to ask if you have any proposed picks. And then I wanted to talk about a couple of done deal or probables that I find interesting. So do you have any fun, humorous, or inspiring picks? I know it wouldn't be reasonable, but Mad Dog Mattis for Secretary of Defense. Just because, man, that guy, he just seems like you wouldn't, and other countries wouldn't want him

in for secretary of defense and i like a uh a nice deterrent i'll be honest when i found out what was his name hegseth is going to be secretary of defense i have no idea who that is okay so he has been extraordinarily, extremely outspoken, unless I'm getting my wires crossed, against the DEI programs in the military and against— Yeah, sold. Look, I'm a simple guy, okay? I was a very early GWAT vet. I enlisted in 2000. I was at AIT in Virginia when 9-11 happened. enlisted in 2000. I was at AIT in Virginia when 9-11 happened. I saw the beginning of the global war on terror and then fought in it and then got out in 2006. And my point of view,

even looking that far back in 2006, I could already kind of see the writing on the wall and it made me nervous. So, and I've talked to people who served after I did and it didn't get any better. There was a, an increased, there was an increased focus on the bureaucracy of the military and a shift away from being concerned about matters that directly impact war fighting.

And I mean that, that goes down to like standards for tattoos on forearms, you know, becoming more astringent that that goes in all sorts of directions. But to me, I go back to this really simplistic view of what the military was supposed to do, which was told to me by some very crusty old Vietnam veterans that the military's entire reason for being is to break shit, blow shit up and kill people, period. If it ain't doing that or helping the war fighters do that, it ain't supposed to be done. So when I hear about DEI programs, when I start hearing about quotas,

when I start hearing about opening up combat arms to, now I don't have a personal issue with women in combat. I do have an issue with lowering the standards so that they can be in combat. But then again, even when I enlisted in 2000, was in the very beginnings of like co-ed basic trainings and it was in kind of the earlier days of opening up all jobs to women and reducing PT standards and the strength standards so that they could compete.

And I said from day one, I don't agree with that. I think if we're going to have different standards, it should be combat arm standards and non-combat arms. So like, if you're going to be a cook, you can have this standard because you don't have to be able to run a 13 minute, two mile to be a cook.

But if you want to, if you want to, you know, if you want to have nods on your noggin and be jumping at airplanes, you have to meet the higher standard, but that's not the way the military works the military decide have one set of standards for based on gender and i don't agree with that or they decide to have two different standards based on gender and i don't

agree with that it's one standard sure or it's one state or it's two standards that apply equally across gender based on what your job is but that's not the way you know i'm okay with the military having a variety of standards but the standards should be determined by the job like you said not by never i've never been in meeting a lower standard to go to combat with you? Let me pose the question differently. that if you are in combat and you have to drag a buddy of yours who's been hit off the front lines and to the rear so that they can get aid and you can medevac them, do you think that buddy suddenly gets lighter because you're a woman? No. No.

They weigh that 180 to 220 pound butt chewing guy weighs exactly the same amount whether you are 220 pounds or 110 pounds. And for that reason and that reason alone, I say the standard has to be based on the job. And if you would not accept a 98 pound weakling man in that position, then I see no reason to accept a 98 pound weakling woman in that position, period, in discussion discussion and i was told even back then that was an unpopular opinion well you know reality doesn't have to be popular the the the necessities of the job dictate the requirements you don't put your smallest guy as your machine gunner and ammo carrier it just isn't going to work out the big guy's going to get saddled with that because it's less of a load for him to carry proportionally you talk to a former saw gunner

right and that shit's heavy there's a reason you're short it weighs you down a little bit i was always short but let's just say that there's a reason why i got that job because that stuff is heavy yeah that's for sure raggle fraggle asked a question correct me if i'm wrong but isn't most job because that stuff is heavy. Yeah. That's for sure. Raggle Fraggle asked a question. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't most of combat either holding the line or pushing the line? That's a complicated question. It is.

Obesity's bringing world peace. You'd like to think that, but the third world's not becoming that obese. So let me get through a couple of these that I've heard are either confirmed or highly likely. Matt Gaetz, returning general. Awesome. I can't wait. I can. I already started hearing the meltdowns and they're hilarious.

CIA director. I've heard Cash Patel's name floated quite a few times i'm not very familiar with him either in the absence of rfk i would i would take a cash patel pretty happily okay um okay his his whole thing right now is that if he gets that position he wants to declassify all the documents about 9-11 and jfk on day one and he wants to good and he wants to release the epstein client list good for those and i and i would say that anyone on that list even if i had previously supported them prosecutable is dead to me yep prosecute them all for every single one of them belongs in prison you know the cool thing not that i would want to be accused of making a threat but the cool thing about a noose and a gallow is getting gallows is that they're reusable

very efficient um head of national intelligence tulsi gabbard i've heard that too and you know i i initially my first thought was throw rfk in there just because look the cia killed jfk that's been all but confirmed i don't think that anybody can dispute that anymore so throw him in there let him be a bull in a china shop and dismantle all of their nice toys yes but i like i like him over at hhs and the reason i really want to see tulsi is because um somebody in the last administration put her on a terror watch list she's got a bone to pick oh yes and i i i desperately want to see that bull go into that china shop and um the the the doge the department of government efficiency yeah create a new government department to get rid of government waste i got problem i got

problems with this okay but let let let's think for a moment one of my criteria and one of the one of one of these idealistical things i cling to is this idea that like public service should not be a career. It should be something – I agree. Because way back in the day, it was basically a part-time job, and it paid that way, and you had to have another – I mean, most people, they had to put their businesses on hold to go serve their country. Yep. Vive or Elon are going to stay in politics

after this four year stint because they have successful businesses they should be running and the other thing of it is that until I know more and nobody really knows anything yet because this is all pretty premature but I don't yet know if this is like a permanent

bureaucracy being formed or if this is like a permanent bureaucracy being formed or if this is like basically an advisor's board or whatever so there is nothing more permanent than a temporary government than a temporary government program but give me this but give me this if those two manage to decrease the uh the size the size of our government budget by a trillion dollars. Worth it? Maybe. We live in the real world, man.

You ain't never going to get perfect. I get that. I'm not asking for perfect, but what I'm saying is that, like we talked about earlier, do we want to have another department here that in the future, if, say, in four years, six eight years ten years whatever different people are running it now and now they've created an entire bureaucracy of 40,000 people that go through and audit the government and slow everything down and cost us even more tax money and piss away even more time isn't it that the GAO? I don't know. Government Accountability Office?

Yeah, probably. That holds no one accountable for anything? Right. But okay, great. Now we have two of those, potentially. That's where I kind of have a problem with it. I mean, I realize you're not going to get what we want done perfectly. I realize that we're going to have to have some number of staff doing this

thing, but we already have a government accountability office. Why is this not, why are they not heading that firing most of those people there for starters and then starting their way down the list of everyone else? Because clearly the government accountability office doesn't do a goddamn thing i feel as though i'm about to use the one ring argument that like maybe we could use the power of government for good we can't no one can not permanently i know but if and if this bureaucracy has to exist

i i like those two in charge of it a lot more than I do a ton of people my concern is just what happens when they're not the ones in charge of it and we have just another government accountability office thank you for being a good person and not throwing my words back in my face

when I just got through saying that like be careful the power you give government it lest it be wielded against you it's just you know it's gonna happen there was one other thing i wanted to point out before we get to the last topic in the 15 minutes we have left so nick if you don't mind diming yourself out how old are you what year were you born? 1990. Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah. I thought you were closer to me than that.

No. Okay. Well, I was born in 1982. I'm 41. I'm 42 years old now. 34. Of those people I was just talking about, Matt Gates was born in 1982. Cash Patel was born in 1980.

Tulsi Gabbard was born in 1981. Vive Ramaswamy was born in 1985. I can't remember this many millennials being in the seat of power and government in my lifetime. And that's interesting to me. They are people that will have to live with the consequences of their actions and i love that you mean they're not septuagenarians and octogenarians people that are 70 to 80 years old if you don't speak latin look i i got no problem with with older people doing jobs in government but the problem is is when you have a government of all people that are elderly they are they become detached from the reality on the ground of people that are in their peak earning years their family building years their wealth building years and it they can't keep up with the with modern technology heck i'm having a problem now keeping up with the way modern technology advances, and I'm

a computer nerd. I build them for fun. I think my concern, not to sound like that ageist a-hole in the group, but my worry is, everybody has seen the meme that above a certain age, you are basically

unemployable. The job, and I'm not saying it's right, wrong right wrong or otherwise i'm just telling you the way it is the job market says it's a function of performance the job market does not believe you any longer have the tools to keep up with the rest of the job market and yet the people that are in congress and running the executive branch by far and large are in that age group that are functionally unemployable anywhere else in any other sector. And I am concerned about that. My issue is I want to believe that, and of course, I'm going to throw this right back in the voters' faces because y'all vote for these people.

But I would like to believe that there are people out there like Brandon Herrera. He's a little younger than I am. Not by much, but a bit. He's right in between us, I think. Who can do the job, who have fresh ideas, who have a fresh perspective, who have knowledge of the industry. He's been an FFL and SOT for years. He has been on the receiving end of the ATF's nonsense for years. That is the perfect person to put in charge of that agency because he sees that perspective. You want people with real world experience running government. I do not believe, nor do I condone this idea that we want career

politicians doing anything because politician is not supposed to be a freaking career. It's supposed to be a call to service. I cannot remember what country it was, but there was some country where they basically freeze all of your assets when you enter public service, and then they audit everything you own afterwards. And if they can find where you've been taking problems under the table or something, prison for life. I would love to see that in this country, but I'm about to hold my breath. Well, in order for that to pass, the people that are enforcing it would have to not be Nancy Pelosi. The people who would vote for it would have

to have principles and scruples and not be benefiting from a system that allows them to have their hands in the piggy bank. Well, you know, age is one of the problems I had a hard time getting over with Trump. That is a legitimate concern of mine about him as president. The dude, the dude's in his what? Seventies,

mid seventies, six. I want to say, okay. So he's only a little bit younger than my grandparents. And my grandfather very recently had a fall, broke his hip, had to have a hip replacement surgery. And it's,

it's been a couple months now and he's still not recovered from that so a simple slip and fall and our president's you know laid up four months yeah i'd be lying about it he has a vp that's younger i want to say his vp is a millennial too I want to say his VP is a millennial too. Or is he Gen Xer? He's also a Marine. He's also a Marine and a former E4. The fact that the E4 Mafia has finally gotten someone into the executive branch makes me so happy with myself.

Some fanaticids are afoot now. Not that I can confirm or deny the existence of the E4 Mafia. That would be breaking the rules. E4 Mafia is like Fight Club. We don't existence of the E4 Mafia. That would be breaking the rules. E4 Mafia is like Fight Club. We don't talk about the E4 Mafia. But we might sometime. Someday. So do we goof off for the next nine minutes and save this topic for another day?

Or do we think we can do this justice in nine minutes? I don't know that we could do it justice in nine minutes. There's actually quite a bit here. I mean, we could at least intro the article as a teaser for next week. That's a good point. So, the article I

summarized it, Learning from the Doomsday Preppers. It's an article. It's actually linked in the show description. So, if y'all would like to read it. Read that for next week. If you'd like to read ahead for next week, I was kind of hoping that everything else wouldn't take this long to get through,

but it was a lot of fun, so why not? But there were some things in there that really resonated with me. There's a lot in there that really resonated with me. There's a lot in there that really resonated with me i there's some nonsense in there too oh you know these are the people i believe the writers of this article or writer of this article was one of the people that worked on the blackout

mockumentary american blackout uh essentially it's uh i think it was a multi-part mini series about a country-wide blackout in the u.s for a number of days like a week or something like that and they i guess i don't know if you caught this in the in the article but they were discussing that uh the national geographic uh who put on the show did a whole bunch of background research and pulled down all of the government reports on EMP on grid down scenarios on catastrophic grid failure from a variety of perspectives. And they tried to put that all together in the show. And it turned the people that were scripting the show into preppers

essentially. Oh, it might've been a movie, Joe. It might've been a movie joe it might have been a movie i could be thinking wrong about it but i know it was on national geographic yeah i mean like i said there there was there was some stuff in there that resonated well with me there were a couple of things that kind of made me roll my eyes a little bit but i thought all in all it'd be an interesting talk but i think it will be probably best to save that for next time but if you're listening otherwise we're gonna end up going like an hour over yeah but if you're listening that link is in the show description

and if you've enjoyed this show then i mean i think you're probably a little bit of a mass kissed and i could recommend counseling but then you wouldn't be enjoying your insanity you'd be questioning it so right best to just go with it oh did you see the uh the news that came out uh i think it was yesterday or today about uh the u.s funding in 50 by 2050 wanting to have most of the grid on nuclear reactors now all of a sudden there was some something that broke about that what do you think about that phil why is that a controversial decision why has that been transitioning from from coal power plants and natural gas to nuclear power instead of all the uh but what i'm saying is why has it been a controversial decision for this long

because so radiation's scary oh bullcrap anyway so that's what it is let me petrochemical companies let me start by saying that like i am not a nuclear power engineer expert and if anybody knows one it'd be cool to have him on the show to you know get his take on it but i will say that i am i am a nerd and therefore I watch lots of nerdy stuff. Stop me if this sounds familiar, Nick. We should do a whole episode on autism so that the audience can understand us. Though, Joe, you are correct. I have been personally offended by some of the model cuts.

It's a terrible shame. I can no longer get some of my favorite necron minis but that's for a different show but i know that next generation nuclear plants are going to be phenomenally smaller first of all and cheaper to build than like because a lot of what a lot of people are thinking about when they think about like nuclear power plants, they're thinking about the second generation of plants. And those are like three months. That's basically anything that's currently built.

They're all second generation. They've improved over the years, but there's still a, a, as a group considered to be second generation nuclear plants, generation three nuclear plants have not been built yet. They're still working to try to get through the approval process and all the red tape that's involved with building nuclear power plants. But as I understand it, they are much smaller, much cheaper and've taken the Homer Simpson, who used to have to babysit the button to shut the whole thing down and made Homer basically a fail safe to multiple automated systems.

So that the plant is able to kind of modulate itself much more quickly and much more minutely than a human operator could. Yep. And they're miniaturizing them and they're making them much safer and they're making them more efficient. Miniaturized distributed grid power. And that's another thing I've seen floated. That's really interesting in the nuclear power world is that they're, they're,

they're looking at instead of having this one huge plant that serves as like this huge area. Yeah. That takes 10 years to build having multiple small ones to where like you might have a city might have its own little nuke plant and this new plant would really have would wouldn't i mean would really be about the size of a large house yep and it will serve as an entire city to where if if that if if it was absolutely necessary you diversify that power generation to the point where like if a plant goes down the right all the plants in that area because

of the whole grid is interconnected can kind of like soak that load very easily it's i i don't think anybody would fight me on the idea that our power grid is probably at this point, 30 or 40 years overdue for a serious overhaul. And that's the numbers you're hearing. You're not talking to enough electricians. I was being conservative. I'm talking. Some of them have told me that the grid is like getting closer to 70 or 80

years. Okay. So for the sake of full disclosure, my dad spent 38 years working for the power company. Yeah. And I'm sure it needed an overhaul when he was there. Yes, actually. He told me back when the big push was for everyone to buy electric cars,

he told me, he said, do you know what would happen if a quarter, he said, if a quarter of the state of Louisiana bought electric cars and put a supercharger station in their house, do you know what would happen? I was like, what? He said, the entire power grid would fail in the state.

He said, first of all, of those people that put supercharger stations in, he said about 10% of those, the houses would catch fire. Probably. There's not enough available overhead in the panels. Because he said there's still some panels in these houses that only have 100 amp service. I had 100 amp service when I bought this house. But that lathe draws a lot of current

so we had to upgrade the main yeah but therein lies expensive but therein lies the point i mean these big supercharger stations dude they suck a lot of juice so that was his that was his thing was he said first of all 10 of the houses that have them installed they will they will eventually turn into house fires second of all everybody that's he said, at 6 p.m., when everybody gets home from work, they plug their cars in, they turn their air conditioning down, and they fire up their TV, the power grid will fail. Like, there's not enough

overhead in the existing power generation and distribution system to soak up that many more high-current you know, A-word appliances. that many more high current you know um a word appliances yeah just to give you guys a little bit of perspective uh my wife's uncle bought one of the f-150 lightnings electric pickups holy crap the acceleration on that thing is amazing but he had to upgrade his panel in his

house he had to have an electrician come and run the charging station which was like another three or five thousand dollars on top of upgrading his panel and uh his tax credits that he was getting have not offset the power bill shock and all that he has got um that truck to charge it in i think it's like four hours or something like that for the high speed charging station that you can have draws as much current as an industrial cnc machine yeah um at startup so you know has he had any issues with it when it was sub-zero temperatures outside he got it this summer we're gonna find out i will report back pro pro tip to all of y'all that like to drive around where it gets cold outside not that i would know anything about that but batteries don't really appreciate being cold well they actually have to discharge

partially into the heater bands on the batteries to keep them at operable temperatures. And around here, well, I think the optimum temperature for those batteries is between 78 and 40 degrees. Well, I don't know about you, Phil, but in my area, we regularly get negative 30 and up to 110. I'm going to put a sweater on as soon as we're done talking it's already been below freezing here oh no zero zero stars do not recommend it's not too bad it's like 45 degrees today look all i'm gonna say is um my gas engines fire right on up when it's below 30 degrees. I had problems with my truck at negative 50. It started very slowly.

Bruh. I did not want to go to work. I mean, I hope your wife isn't listening to this, but if I were married to her, I'd gag and bag her and we'd move to a warmer state. The first time it got down to negative 50, she would just wake up and we'd move to a warmer state like the first time it got down to negative

50 she would just wake up and it'd be sunny and sunny and bright outside be like how did we get here that's only happened like chloroform and a moving truck honey don't ask questions that's i mean times too many well yeah i mean there was the the polar vortex that one year where it was like negative negative 30 to negative 50 for a whole week. One time when I was a kid, it was that cold. They didn't cancel school when I was a kid, though. They did this year, the most recent time.

It's not too bad. I'm over it. But this is exactly one of the reasons why I think that they've been trying to push electric cars too soon, too fast. The grid's not ready for it. But I think I could see the argument if we did manage to get all these nuclear power plants up and running and we had the grid overhead for nine to five commuters, it's not a bad call. So two things.

First and foremost, if electric cars are so cool, then government can try them first and the military and let the rest of us know how that works out. Oh, didn't you see that? They wanted to make all the military vehicles all electric by 2035. Cool. I'm behind that. Let's make the F-35s and the carriers all electric, too. Let's do that. Wait. Aren't all the carriers nuclear-powered?

I think they are. But nuclear's bad. That's what all the NIMBY people tell me, so let's run all those off of batteries and solar panels. Anyway, I'm making a point here. They're big and flat. and solar panels. Anyway, I'm making a point here. They're big and flat. So government can try it first and let us know how it works

before they dictate that we please give up our gas and our diesel while they still get to play with it. And second of all, no. If the government has to subsidize it or require it or legislate it, it's probably a stupid idea.

Like the free market makes these decisions for us and it makes them very simply. The first time it is cheaper without government subsidies to purchase and run an electric vehicle for the lifespan of the vehicle. I would say probably 75% of Americans will dump their gas burners and their diesel vehicles for electric. At least for their commuting vehicle. Exactly.

And then you're going to be in a situation where it's going to be like carburetors. Do you know why you can't buy anything with a carburetor these days? It's less efficient. It's less efficient. It pumps more emissions into the air. It makes less horsepower. But guess what? If you just have to have, you know, that old 69 Camaro ripping and snorting and bucking and everything else, you can still go buy a carburetor.

But the average American has moved on because it's better at most things. And this will be the same way. There will still be people who will want gas vehicles. There will still be a need for diesel. There's still going to be an application where that works, but if the government has to subsidize it or force it, it's probably a stupid idea. Thanks for coming to this Ted talk.

Yeah, perfect. All right, well, let's go ahead and punch this one out of the cockpit. I've got to edit this and we got to get on the road early in the morning because I have to. Oh boy. Well, I have a wedding to go to. I have to make an honest

woman of my sister-in-law. I doubt she's watching, but I'm looking forward to this weekend. Oh, that'll be great. That'll be fantastic. Pass on my well wishes to her. Certainly will. And for the listeners, again, the topic we were going to talk about on the back end of the show, we're going to have to save it for next time.

But there's a link. Yeah, we'll do it tomorrow. There's a link in the show description if you want to read ahead. And then you can join in the conversation and the lunacy next time. In the meantime, Matter of Facts Podcast is going out the door. Good night, everybody. Good night, everybody. Night. Thank you. We'll see you next time.