The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Patriot Power Hour #269

Episode Date: July 10, 2024

Each week on Patriot Power Hour, Ben ‘The Breaker of Banksters’ and Future Dan explore the latest Liberty, Security, Economic & Natural news, providing the situational awareness needed to execute your preparedness plans.Questions, Feedback, News Tips, or want to be a Guest? Reach out!Ben “The Breaker of Banksters”@BanksterBreaker on Twitter; [e-mail] Dan@FutureDanger6 on Twitter

Not too long ago two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro. And in the midst of his story, one of my friends turned to the other and said, we don't know how lucky we are. And the Cuban stopped and said, how lucky you are. I had some place to escape to. And in that sentence, he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here

there's no place to escape to this is the last stand on earth this is the last stand on earth the last stand on earth Stand on Earth. © BF-WATCH TV 2021 Thank you. You are now listening to the Patriot Power Hour. This live episode features the situational awareness you need to practice self-reliance and independence. Introducing your hosts, Ben, the Breaker of Banksters, and Future Dan, the editor of FutureDanger.com. Patriot Power Hour, episode 269. It's July 10th, 2024. Ben, the Breaker of Banksters, here with Future Dan. Still a quiet week, I would say, Ben, but twice as many headlines as we had last week. So, plenty of topics to discuss. Absolutely.

We have a wide variety of topics to discuss, current news and events. We also got a couple topics we might get into in the second half of the show that maybe aren't as news-focused, but I still think we'll put on some good conversation. Now, future Dan, we're going to get to the news blitz, as always, in the second segment. But what's been on your mind the past week? Time's flown. Fourth of July was good over here, but before you know it, we're live again. What's been on your radar?

Yeah, so Biden's just dug in, said he's not leaving. No way, no how, not leaving no way no how not leaving complete resistance so it's just one more week of watching the democrats in turmoil about his condition and uh yeah we're something's got to give there's an election something's got to give something's got to break but we're pretty much exactly where we were seven days ago, I'd say. I don't often do this because it makes me sick to my stomach. But I went on to social media and decided to go see what Democrats were posting just to get an idea. And a lot of them were saying how undemocratic and pretty much BS it would be to get rid of Biden after the primaries. And he's already won it.

So there was a lot of people defending Biden. And then, of course, there was a lot of Democrats also just eviscerating him. They're very fearful. It's all about Trump's going to crush us. We've got to get rid of him. Or, on the other hand, Trump's going to crush us. We've got to get rid of him. Or, on the other hand, Trump's going to crush us. We all need to rally behind Joe. It's too late. And I always thought it was kind of funny

in a sad way that they're saying, oh, it'd be so undemocratic if we just got rid of Biden and put someone else in there. I'm like, oh, wait. Maybe you're waking up to something. Maybe there's a sliver of hope there. The only thing the word democracy or democratic means to Democrats is power. How do they have power?

The means, the democracy required to distribute power, they don't care about. you know, distribute power, they don't care about. So to say that their convention doesn't have state party delegates that could use their judgment and vote against Biden on what they're supposed to, you know, tradition holds that they have ballots, right? They have delegates that vote and nominate. It's a nomination convention. That's democracy, by the way. If you have someone frail of mind, by the time they arrive at the convention, those party

delegates could vote against him. It makes sense. Let's just take away any semblance of alleged corruption. You should be able to do that in case something occurs, health-wise especially, unless someone passes away.

Well, parties should be able to do it. Parties should be able to nominate their presidential nominees any way they see fit. Pull a name out of a hat if that's what your party wants to do. It's freedom of association, right? So, knowing that, Democrats are going to are going to

have something that's essentially a completely orchestrated party machine you know they'll they'll hold the ballots but it'll all be decided before they hold the ballots right they're gonna they're gonna do the least motions to to be democratic about how they select their nominee. And some of those states canceled their Democrat primary, both in 2020 and 2024, right? So they're not really practicing it anymore. Now, one thing I want to point out is DNC is August 19th to the 22nd, so still more than a month.

We don't make too many predictions on this show, except for our end-of-year and mid-year predictions. We have a whole show dedicated to that. But otherwise, we try not to make too many predictions, I don't think. But I'm going to ask you, who do you believe will come out on Augustust 22nd or beforehand as the dnc nominee biden biden he's dug in and he's got control of the party they have no mechanism to i don't think they have the gumption to do a open democratic ballot before the whole world. Conventions became highly staged since, I guess, the 70s, right?

I mean, some of those Republican conventions, even back in the 70s, had first ballots and delegates. And, of course, you know, this still is in effect in the Republican Party. That's why Nikki Haley released her 90-something delegates that she won in the Republican primaries to Trump today. So that the Trump nomination is essentially unopposed. These parties have behaved this way for a long time. You can go back in history. It wasn't always this way. I think a piece of news that came out

I believe since our last show, or almost maybe the exact same day, but the July 11th big date on the calendar for Trump's sentencing has been moved to September 18th. So I just wanted to point that out as well. Yep. Which conviction is that? The civil in New York?

Yes, the New York Manhattan jury with the 34 counts and whatnot. So it's still before the election, obviously, but it's not July 11th, which would be tomorrow. I was actually thinking a week or two ago, I was like, oh man, our July 10th show is going to be pretty intense if the next day will be the sentencing, but it got pushed off a couple more months. I gotcha. Yeah, it's like that, Judge, and all of the cases against Trump, the prosecutors and the coordination in the Department of Justice, consider that one car, and maybe it's the same car as the the biden family inside the white house you know just deciding that joe's sticking with it and there's nothing you can do about it it's like two cars

and and they look like they're going to drive off cliff both of them one right after the other are together and i'm just watching this year to see if the Democrat party can can you know pull up short of the cliff putting putting Trump in jail sentencing him and and walking him in cuffs into custody to go to prison at that would be one of those cars going right off the cliff and Biden getting nominated going into that election and his mental condition, another one. And I don't see any reason why they won't drive both off the cliff.

They're that crazy right now. I don't see any reason either. They're that crazy, that desperate, that much hubris. It's like, yeah, this is a good case of history rhymes where the elite just become too powerful in their own mind that they think reality doesn't apply to them. And then when it does, it comes back and smacks them in the head pretty hard. So we're going to go to this news blitz

in about 60 seconds. I do want to do a real quick shout out. Anyone who missed the 4th of July PBN celebration on Rumble, and I think it might have been also going on on Instagram. I don't have Instagram, but it was the full day of speeches, Patrick Henry, Gettysburg Address, different papers written, whether pre-revolutionary or from the civil rights era, all throughout,

and some pretty darn good music. I wrote down multiple pieces of music that we're just going to have to integrate into Patriot Power Hour in the next iteration of our Master Block Break. So that was super cool, James. It's kind of a tradition now. I remember tuning in often. So I just wanted to point that out, Future Dan.

Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Let's do the news books right after this break, Ben. Deal. Folks, we'll be right back stick with us Patriot Power Hour ¶¶ ¶¶ are you prepared to be the family doctor in a disaster or emergency this is the intrepid Commander and I'm holding

The Prepper's Medical Handbook by William W. Forgy, MD. In this great book, you'll learn how to prepare for medical care off the grid. You'll learn about assessment and stabilization. You'll even deal with things like bioterrorism response, radiation, and how to build the off-grid medical kit at home. Look, 2020 taught us a lot about the limitations of our medical infrastructure in America. Get the Prepper's Medical Handbook today at Amazon.com. Again, that's the Prepper's Medical Handbook by William W. Fortin. A person who advocates and practices preparedness. One ready for any event that would disrupt their daily routine.

That is a prepper. The pictures tell the story This life had many shades I'd wake up every morning And before I'd start each day I'd take a drag from last night's cigarette That smoldered in its tray Down a little something And then beyond my way

I traveled far and wide And laid this head in many ports I was guided by a compass I saw beauty to the north I drew the tales of many lives And wore the faces of my own. I had these memories all around me so I wouldn't be alone.

Some may be from showing up. Others are from growing up. Sometimes I was all messed up and didn't have a clue. I ain't winning no one over. I wear it just for you. I got your name written here and a rose tattoo

In a rose tattoo, in a rose tattoo I got your name written here in a rose tattoo We're live. Welcome to the News Blitz. Not as much news as other days. However, I will say a few of these articles are of a high grade. So let's get started. Record temperatures scorched the USA from west coast to east coast and the midwest. Some pretty hot temperatures.

Also had a Category 1 hurricane hit Texas. About 2 million people were without power at a certain time around the Houston area. I know a lot of them have their power back, but I know a lot don't. Going on to Liberty column. Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstates unstaffed drop boxes ahead of 2024 election. 10% of illegal aliens, admit they're registered to vote. A radio talk show host,

admits that the president's, reelection campaign, sent them questions for their interviews. One of the talk show hosts was fired. We do have a 75th anniversary of NATO, and a NATO summit going on in DC, but not much in the, in the news kind of of new information. Some Patriot batteries have been pledged in addition to what's already been

sent over and economically quite quiet. Dow Jones is just over 40,000, essentially all-time high. S&P about 5,700, also close to an all-time high. The NASDAQ also near an all-time high. So stocks at an all-time high. Debt at an all-time high. Oil not at an all-time high. 82 bucks and holding.

Not horrible for this time of the year. And given the other inflation we've experienced, Bitcoin has taken a bit of a thrashing in the last week. Down from about 63K to about 57K. Always pretty volatile. Gold and silver, on the other hand, relatively flat. Silver just under $31. And really, that's about all we got right now,

future damn, economically or otherwise. That's the news blitz. Yeah, and the search continues on the same standard i assure people same sources same frequency and i'm not hunting for news that's you know on the edge of trivial like marginally related i'm not looking for headlines or news articles rehashing things that we already knew just just reformulating something for people that might not have seen it before. And it seems like a new shock headline, but you get into the details, and all the events that it's reporting on were reported by another source months earlier.

None of that. So I'm trying to call the balls and strikes as I see them, and it's relatively quiet again. And we're headed towards the potential of four years with a president that all hell will break loose in Washington, D.C. But again, Trump could just roll back a lot of bad things in the country. And so we could see improvement. So it's not necessarily a foreboding summer of 2024 from my perspective.

I think that just means it's a good time to prep and maybe enjoy some life before any potential collapse. I just know for a fact this fall is not going to be as quiet as it is now. So I'm taking advantage of that, myself, getting some things done, is now. So I'm taking advantage of that myself, getting some things done, um, and, and just preparing myself mentally, physically, spiritually, otherwise here's the, you know, the articles I want to jump into first, I'm not going to go on a ramp, but I could, uh, I think I know, you know, and I think a lot of the listeners that have listened for a while know that I'm fairly libertarian and I don't like following government rules and regulations. I'm not a fan of show me your papers, please.

But gosh darn it, one of the only times you do need to, in my opinion and really fact, show your papers is when you're voting. There's so many times where i as a citizen get a pat down or have to go through different hoops whether it's with the irs or the dmv or all these different things where i have to show my birth certificate i have to do this i have to pay a fee all this stuff but 10 of illegal aliens admitted in their register to vote unstaffed drop boxes I mean the mail-in ballots never should have happened anyway

maybe for deployed soldiers that's about and related kind of people working overseas maybe some mail-in but I don't know long story short this is pathetic that illegal aliens are able to vote

without showing their ID, but me as a citizen, I get totally raked over the coals if I don't have my proper paperwork and taxes paid on time and all that. What's your take on 10% of illegal aliens admitting they're registered to vote? I bet many others would not admit it or don't even know that they're being registered on their behalf by others, probably. What do you think? Yeah, I think it's all true.

I think it's widespread. I think it's a deliberate globalist strategy against the West. I think it's obvious for everybody. So what are we going to do about it? Because as soon as these people get social security cards, even if they're not a full-on citizen, we're never going to be able to deport them. I don't think we're going to be able to round up 20 million

people and deport them anyway. That sounds pretty bad. Authoritarian. On the other hand, we can't just let everyone stay and let everyone keep coming. What do you think is the solution if there is one? Well, you don't have to deport them all to get many to leave, right? The threat of it alone would create a massive self-deportation.

Right. You've got to incentivize them to leave in many different ways. I'm not looking so like the left would say oh ben the breaker bankers wants death squads to go house to house and drag out 20 million illegal aliens by their hair or execute them if they won't comply that's totally not what i mean but but you know we need something reasonable and it needs to be done now and i think the most important is at least close off the borders or highly, highly, highly restrict it. At least stop the flow, stop the bleeding,

and then we can start dealing with what's going on. But what do I know, I guess? Well, think about the leverage that the state, being the government or government's layers that you live under, the whole state applies against you. You just listed them a minute ago. Every single one of those can be applied more easily against people who aren't documented and are illegally here, right? Tax policy, licensing, all of that. The opportunity to come here and make a very large income relatively because you're not paying taxes is easy to shut down.

We know that the IRS can come after people. It all depends on who they're ordered to focus on, right? Certainly. And a lot of it's the businesses that employ them illegally. That's a big part of the route you've got to dig out, too. Because there's a lot of companies, big, small, and medium, that do their absolute best to pay these folks under the table. So they don't have to pay insurance, don't have to pay taxes,

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't have to pay insurance, don't have to pay taxes, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Don't have to pay overtime. So, yeah. What about this Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstating unstaffed drop boxes? Is that even – will that be challenged at the Supreme Court? Or maybe it is legitimate and I'm just whitewashing or don't fully understand what an unstaffed drop box is. But what's up with that?

Well, that goes to Dineshza de suza's 2000 mules that's documentary from from 2020 right all and all the videotape of unstaffed drop boxes with the same people showing up dropping off you know five to six ballots which is plausible if you had doing it for your family, I guess, and coming back every other day, every few days, over and over, getting dozens and dozens and dozens of ballots stuffed into unattended drop boxes. I don't know what Wisconsin state law allows. I don't know if there's a constitutional question. Obviously, the Constitution allows states to organize their own federal elections, but there's federal election law. And I don't know the case, but

it's clear that these types of things are, you know, what it comes down to deciding elections now, not democracy. So to say that Biden needs to win to preserve democracy is like the act of doing it is literally the opposite of democracy if you're stuffing ballots. So this was a 4-3 decision. It actually

reversed the Wisconsin Supreme Court's own 2022 prohibition on unmanned drop boxes. So 2020 happened. We know what happened there. 2022, they prohibited it. Prohibited it.

And in 2024, they said that four to three with a liberal majority on the court. Eh, what if we made a mistake? Quote, are we now supposed to just perpetuate that mistake into the future? No, you fix the future uh no you fixed the mistake and now you're putting it back into place so yeah it's just it's a tough go does seem at least some of the polling i've seen that trump is kicking the crap out of biden many points ahead of where he was in 2020 and And many believe Trump won 2020. And even if you take the narrative mainstream result on its face,

Trump was damn close to winning anyway. So the way it's trending right now, he's whooping Biden much more than 2020. So even some of these tricks and illegal voting may not be enough. I guess we'll find out sooner than later. Radio talk show hosts admit presidents' re-election campaigns sent them questions for their interviews and one gets fired

as a radio talk show host yourself. Do you consider that unethical or just doing your homework? I consider it blatant news censorship. I consider it Goebbels

kind of censorship. Like a regime of a fascist party controlling state media kind of censorship. So, yeah, it's an ethical problem on a high order for me. Yeah, that's about as high as you can get.

Goebbels himself, the godfather of propaganda. This was CNN. Two radio talk show hosts said that President Joe Biden's re-election campaign sent them questions for their interviews with him last week in the wake of his debate debacle, by the way. So this was after his debate. This is extra sensitive timing for the Biden campaign. And this is the source in Philadelphia telling CNN this.

So it wasn't actually CNN employees doing this. They were reporting on this radio host. Although we know that CNN does stuff like this too, so that's kind of ironic. Almost eight years ago, when Future Danger had just begun, and we still had a YouTube channel. During the, I believe, second debate between Clinton and Trump, there was footage of Hillary Clinton entering the debate complex and coming in, parking, walking through the hallways.

And there was a guy, an aide, following along with her. And then after the debate, the same guy crossed the stage and did something to interact with Lester Holt in a suspicious manner, almost as if he was trying to return the questions that Lester Holt had written and also shared with him so that he could share them with Hillary. So this prepping the questions thing, the Bidens did not invent it, but it is Soviet-style, non-transparent, just the anathema to what our democracy always was.

Just the anathema to what our democracy always was. I won't go too deep into conspiracy theories, but I believe it was Patrick Ewing who was the first-round pick in the NBA. Oh, oh, Future Dan's coming back. Future Dan, you there? Future Dan, Future Dan. I am back now, yes. Awesome, no problem. I was just going down a little rabbit hole saying it's a well-known part of NBA lore

that there was a cold envelope during the lottery pick. It's like the biggest thing. They have entire documentaries about how they were fraudulent for a first round draft pick blah blah blah in the nba that's not even one one millionth as important as what we're talking about here but people some people care but a lot of people either say well of course it's all they're already pre-approved maybe that's kind of where i fall into but a lot of others they don't even really care at all. They're like, eh, that's not even a problem,

or they're not even paying attention to this type of stuff. Yeah, well, one way to look at the world right now is there's like three kinds of Americans. There's patriots that stand against this. There's Democrats who do this. And then there's more Democrats that often pretend like they're not Democrats that let it happen.

That's my view. They might be the worst ones because they're not even trying hard. Yeah, I mean, they're not raping America, but they're standing by watching somebody do it. Yeah, they're not even playing for the bad guys.

They're just too cowardly to pick sides, I suppose. Let's see here. From a natural news point of view, did have Hurricane Beryl in Texas, as well as some of these hot temperatures. I mean, it is July, and Houston has been hit by a lot of natural disasters in the past. I don't even think there's much that you or I could comment on more than, hey, these things happen, we'll continue to track them, and if we see any trends, we'll certainly point them out. But, eh, hurricanes happen, 100-plus degree weather happens.

It's a little early in the year for both uh but nothing too crazy what do you say well it's topical right grade one green it's the fatalities 12 in texas is not to be unexpected from any hurricane hit in the country right pop populated areas that's not a you know a radically dangerous death toll right wouldn't unstabilize a region like Katrina did. The part about Hurricane Burrell that has me kind of scratching my head, and I read this in Twitter from an account that has good points. I take the points from that account seriously. Asking the question how the forecast for that thing was to hit Mexico,

well south of Texas, for much longer than you would have thought the national hurricane forecast would have had it wrong. So I don't know if Burrell is an example of a natural occurrence that just juked out the forecasting models, but it makes you question how off that was. Would anybody benefit from a natural disaster in Texas this time of year, this year? Of course. I think it was a distraction a little bit from the complete devastation of Biden's campaign. You know, I don't know. We've talked a little bit about weather manipulation, geoengineering on this show.

And there are documented patents and even programs admitted to exist. Does that mean that Hurricane Beryl was steered? and even programs admitted to exist. Does that mean that Hurricane Beryl was steered? Not necessarily. But even going back to the Vietnam War, they admitted they could move, start, or stop major storm systems. If they needed to flood out the Ho Chi Minh Trail in a certain area at a certain time, they could cloud seed, for example. And again, that was 50 years ago.

So they would have the ability, in my opinion, to do it. But did they do it for Beryl? I don't know. But I think the closer we get to the election, the more they got a reason to make things chaotic, perhaps. But I guess there's the argument that they want to keep things calm if they really want Biden to win. Because if things get chaotic, it might look bad for him. Every exotic form of weaponry was tried during the Cold War. On the very principle that if the Soviets were trying it too and succeeded, we'd have to know how. So clearly that happened to Vietnam. I don't think

it's true to say it succeeded. I'm not sure there's any evidence that they succeeded in flooding out the Ho Chi Minh Trail in any effective way militarily. human technology, no matter how secret it is. But suppressing the real forecast that's headed to Texas and putting out there disinformation that the forecast was going somewhere else, thus leaving a U.S. state unprepared like it otherwise ought to be, that's not outside of the realm of possibility when we cover the new censorship stories right i mean the white house white house admit you know essentially is exposed feeding questions to the press and only talking to the press that will allow biden to ape back

whatever part of the answer he can remember i think uh when it you know that's a great point when you use occam's razor the simplest answer is probably the right one it would be a lot more simple for them to change the the forecast or manipulate what noah gives as the official forecast and a few other maybe universities that are highly controlled could be a little easier than actually moving the storm itself. So something to consider. I will say there's a lot of random things happening in this world, and even with 90% certainty, there's always that 10%, something crazy could happen. It's tough to pin it, for sure, in my opinion.

Which is the space in information operations that's most effective to achieve results, right? And the people we're up against know that better than anybody. Great point, for sure. I'm going to say it better. I mean, we've pretty much hit every article today. No reason to belabor the point. Were there any other items

you wanted to talk about either on this dashboard or otherwise? Well, you did kick out the idea of discussing pros and cons of NATO before the show. Yes, it is the 75th anniversary of NATO. They had a big meeting yesterday.

I don't know if it continued today, but it was definitely yesterday and maybe even started on Monday in D.C. Big leaders were there. Biden spoke. Hey, if I had to choose NATO or the Ruskies, I would probably be picking NATO every time. But I just wanted to ask you, maybe from a historical point of view, you could explain a little of the history of NATO. And also, in your opinion, is NATO still relevant? Is it irrelevant? Is it more relevant than ever

compared to your historical review of the last 75 years, I guess? It's more relevant now or since Putin invaded Ukraine than any time since the end of the Cold War. Then obviously during the Cold War, it was the Warsaw Pact, not just Soviet Union, which was a union of later independent countries, Ukraine being one of them, of course,

which is part of why there's a war there now. But other countries, Poland, Romania, Hungary, the Warsaw Pact versus the NATO alliance, right? And NATO alliance was formed by a treaty ratified by the Senate. So it's law, right? It's not an option to just not follow it. You know, if someone did that, including Trump, just ignored the NATO treaties, you know, basic, you know,

requirements, that would definitely herald in the collapse of an entire world order. So NATO's right up there. It's one of the strongest international organizations that exists or ever has. And I don't see it going anywhere. All those questions you asked, is it relevant? What does it do? What is it for?

That's what was being asked from it from 1991 until Obama's term, really. And if it survived that period where it had the least amount of relevance, you would think then, like you said, after Ukraine was invaded, it's probably more relevant than ever in a practical sense,

or at least it's like you said, early 90s or late 80s. It never made sense to abolish it, right? You could just fund it or defund it at whatever level you could get away with, which is what the Europeans were doing. They were just rewriting on our military strength, and that was the whole thing about Trump, is making them pay their fair share. Some officials in NATO have said that the 2% minimum GDP percent of your GDP in contributions to NATO, or at least your internal defense spending at 2% of your GDP to meet the NATO minimum, you know, we got officials now in NATO saying that's not an option anymore. And they're not saying it to the United States of America. We're always above that number by a

lot. But almost none of Europe had been until now. That was always something that annoyed me a bit on, let's just say, social media or otherwise, where Europeans would be bragging about all their great government benefits.

And obviously they're paying a hell of a lot under taxes. And a true American doesn't even really want many government benefits anyway. It's part of being independent. But I always thought in the back of my mind, yeah, well, that's because we spend so many billions of dollars to keep your ass safe. So we don't have to go save you for the third time in the last hundred years in a world war. I actually have a couple of friends that are European. One's German.

One's British. Maybe he wouldn't like me to call him European. But anyway, long story short, I think NATO has an important role, especially Article 5, which is if you attack any of us, then we all attack you back. But one thing I really am not fond of is not only just adding more countries, which they've done recently, but potentially adding Ukraine. A lot of people are pushing for Ukraine to get added to NATO. A lot of people are like, no, that just like way too much of a red line do you think they're actually gonna try or even be successful adding ukraine to nato because that would be a whole new

thing no i don't but what you're highlighting really is one of those loopholes in constitutional law that clearly Soros-funded think tanks, going back to the 60s, honestly, with people just to have a fetish for disrupting and undoing American constitutional order. I mean, that's their number one goal, right? And it's definitely the goal of at least the 20% hardcore Democrat voter in this country is to absolutely ignore and wipe out constitutional order. One of the ways to do it is expose issues with it. Like if you ratify a treaty that has a set number of states, ratify a treaty that has a set number of states and then the next president's administration can agree with the rest of the members of NATO to add more members and that never gets brought back to

the Senate for ratification. I don't think the people that signed it envisioned that, right? It's an oversight, but it's entirely legal because they didn't prevent it it when when the senate passed ratified the treaty originally so now you do we have this problem because our forefathers didn't have the foresight to anticipate this kind of you know type, it's a type of constitutional crisis. I'm looking, this is actually, wow, a lot bigger disparity than I even thought. And this is after Trump tried to get some of these countries to pay their fair share or increase their percentage NATO defense expenditure. So this is 2021, a couple, couple you know a few years old couple years old but again trump was already out of office at that point so anything he did to improve it

is baked in here we go the united states 811 billion so 811 billion 811 billion. So $811 billion. $811 billion to NATO. 3.5% of our GDP. You mentioned the 2% GDP standard. We're at 3.5%, so much higher. But at the raw numbers, 800... All right, go ahead. That's not to NATO. That's our military spending, which constitutes our contribution to our commitment to NATO. That's our military spending, which constitutes our contribution to our commitment

to NATO, right? We don't give it to some international organization. We spend on our military. I'd question how that's measured. Is that measuring the entire military budget? I'm not sure about that, right? And of course, if you're going to do the math fairly, you'd only count basically European command and the forces that are allocated to European command for our contribution to NATO. Yes, and some of the masters of finance did a horrible job reading the data set. That is total defense budget, $811 billion. I don't know if I'm going to be able to find the amount contributed, the value of the units, man and material, by country to NATO. I don't know if I'm going to be able to find that.

Not on the fly, but that's a great point. If you look at who the free riders are historically on that basis, you've got to look at the other members of NATO that actually do have military commitments outside of Europe. So not all of them do, right? But Britain and France definitely do. military budget spending is going to be a tiny fraction of the things that they're always side by side with us when it comes to sailing the Strait of Taiwan or working to suppress piracy off of Somalia, whatever it may be. But it's almost always token representation compared to the U.S. fleet doing that. always token representation compared to, you know, that the U.S. fleet doing that.

The, uh, don't want to go too deep into it, running out of time. My dogs are barking. And also, uh, this is a tough visual to describe only in words, but who really sticks out to me is not carrying their fair share is Luxembourg. $474 million. That's less than half of 1%. Luxembourg is one of the richest countries per square foot in the entire world. Highest GDP per capita. They're barely contributing to GDP, even though they're right in the middle of Europe. I think we need to get

Luxembourg to quadruple their NATO. That still would be nothing but a drop in the bucket. Anyway, the U.S. has put all the NATO members together, all their military budgets together, and the U.S. is at least

six times larger than all of them combined in overall military spending. So here's a question for you then. Is NATO even needed? Or is this just a little bit of a formality but NATO is really just the U.S.? I think you've almost said that before. It's pretty much the U.S. but it is a good way to facilitate

help with our allies. Well, we always have the commander of NATO. There's never going to be european commander nato with american forces under his or her command so we always command the military of nato when member states decide to do a coalition operation together you know it hadn't happened since world war ii in any major way i shouldn't, though, because covertly all those staffs are working the ISR and the supply of weapons and the training to Ukraine. So, honestly, NATO is on a military level is cooperating at a tighter level in active war than at any time since its founding.

at any time since its founding. Well, they seem to be working towards becoming a more cohesive unit, and they've got a lot of supplies that they're putting through to Ukraine and the Eastern Front, so working together with our allies to help provide. One thing that was attempted at times and talked about a lot was a European military force under the European Union outside of NATO, possibly even to replace NATO, to stay outside of the control and demands of the United States. of the United States, watch out because people might start to talk about that if Trump comes in and negotiates a peace in Ukraine. There's a lot of people in Europe that might say, all right, we're going to have our own military that's a unified, federated, cohesive European force.

And all I can say is good luck with that because it's never happened in the history of Europe, and I don't think it ever will. Nah, I don't think so either. It can only happen with the United States at the head of the table because essentially we reconquered Europe from the Nazis. All right, that's all I got. Yeah, well, there you go. Good point.

The better half maybe. But what do you have else to share for the tonight? Are you done? Yeah, I'm going to enjoy a summer thunderstorm, which is going to interrupt this podcast right about now. But it was a good one, and I'll be back on for episode 270 next week with you. Break your banisters. Absolutely, man.

Another great show. Folks, I'm going to play a couple ads. Please support PBN. Please support all the hosts, all the shows. A lot of great content on PBN. Another shout out to Intrepid Commander James Walton. Really cool. Fourth of July. Need to definitely

do that more often. Maybe we can, I don't know, maybe a Veterans Day or Memorial Day equivalent would be cool too. Anyway, future Dan, I'll talk to you next week, all right? Good show, Ben. Good show. Who wants free ammo?

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