Timcast IRL - Timcast IRL #457 - PA Court Rules Mail In Voting UNCONSTITUTIONAL Sparking Electoral Chaos w/Tom Garrett

Episode Date: January 29, 2022

Tim, Ian, Seamus of FreedomToons, and Lydia host Tom Garrett, spokesman for the documentary "Exile" at ExileSeries.com to discuss the Pennsylvania court that ruled their mail-in voting law unconstitutional, Republican cowardice in the face of being called mean names by the press, the Washington Post opinion piece calling for government crackdown on the truck 'Freedom convoy' and the political cartoon calling the trucks 'fascists,' and Tom's documentary about religious and ethnic persecution and why American companies don't want to back it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We got one heck of a story for y'all tonight, and I can't say that I'm surprised it's on a Friday. A Pennsylvania statewide court has ruled the universal mail-in voting law that was pushed forward in 2019 is unconstitutional, exactly as several Republicans had claimed when they filed the lawsuit. Now, the left is saying it's a party-line vote. I mean, it was five judges, it was three Republicans, two Democrats. Of course, it was the Republicans who said that it was unconstitutional. This is a complicated story. Democrats and Republicans made a deal, a deal that Republicans could not actually follow through on because the state constitution bars universal mail-in voting. We know this because both the Democrats and the Republicans are now actively trying to amend the Constitution, even though they already passed an unconstitutional law.

This country is in some deep ish, if you know what I mean. This story is absolutely off the wall and saying so. I don't I don't think this means anything, to be honest, for 2020, other than it'll make it'll piss off Trump supporters. But as for moving forward, the midterms and potentially 2024, this could have a very a very serious impact because well we know the law is unconstitutional the democrats and the republicans are trying to amend the constitution to make it that to make it legal but they're doing it anyway so if we have an election in november if we have an election in 2024 after this ruling it's going to be bonkers it's just going to be absolute chaos but we'll talk about that we've also got some other crazy stories we've got uh barilow. Apparently, there was a big

rumor that he was pulling his music off Spotify over the Joe Rogan thing, and it was a lie. Surprise, surprise. They're lying about everything. We got a big story. Apparently, Black Lives Matter, the official organization, is in shambles. No one knows where the money is going, and some people are outright saying it's basically just a scam because the address isn't even a real address. But we'll get into all of that. Joining us today is Tom Garrett. How's it going, man?

Hey, man. How are you? Do you want to introduce yourself? Yeah. Sure. No, no. You don't have to. All right.

Seamus. How's it going? No, I'm kidding. No, I'm just a guy who grew up in rural Virginia who's had a neat life and got to do some cool stuff. He's trying to change the world. So boom, right? But you've done – what's that cool stuff you've done? So I served in the military and then got out, went to law school after I was in the military,

and then served 10 years as a prosecutor, served in the Virginia Senate, served a term in Congress, but really got a passion for human rights, right, that we live in a world where if you're listening to this podcast, odds are you're very fortunate. The odds of being born in this country are one in 26. But while we speak, there are people who are being raped and murdered and tortured and displaced because of who they love, because of how they worship, because they choose not to worship, et cetera, et cetera. And you go see this stuff firsthand. And then I sort of was like, what can I do about it? And so that's, that's, that's why we're here.

It's interesting you say that because I think, you know, you were mentioning just before the show that identity politics is, is really, really dangerous for us, the wokeness, right? Well, I mean, so if you, if you dissect everything into my hair color is this, or my skin color is that, then you've lost the real essence of what's important, right? And that's humanity itself. And, you know, politicians and evil entities have used character traits to divide people for time immemorial. And why do we continue to fall for that when we have more information than any generation in history at our fingertips? But we do. And that's identity politics. And it causes violence and bloodshed and suffering.

And I'm over it. One of the things that we're going to get into on the show today is that you're working on a documentary series and you're on the ground in Syria. I believe it was Syria, right? And you're having trouble getting networks to pick it up because you're not too kind to China. So, yeah, it's fun with my passport.

I've spent the night in three of the seven official state sponsors of terrorism, Syria, Iraq, Sudan, and sort of trying to shine a light on man's new humanity. Fellow man at ExileSeries.com, first of many egregious plugs. And so we go to the networks, and we show them this trailer, which is, like, really good. Like, I'm the weak link. The presenter is the weak link. And then we love it. It's great. Can you do this series without talking bad about China? Show them this trailer, which is really good. I'm the weak link. The presenter's the weak link. And then we love it. It's great.

Can you do this series without talking bad about China? And I'm like, we could do a Beatles doc without talking about John. It would suck. That's crazy. Let's get into that. You were saying, I don't want to spoil it. I don't want to spoil it. But these networks are refusing to do it. And there's other issues, too.

So we'll definitely get into that. We got Seamus sitting over here. Good to be here. Thank you for having me. I am a political cartoonist and animator and political commentator. I have a YouTube channel called Freedom Tunes where we make cartoons about politics and culture. So go over there and check it out. All right. Ian Crossland up in here. Hi, everyone. IanCrossland.net. Check me out. And I want to tell everybody that Freedom Tunes is spelled T-O-O-N-S, not T-U-N-E-S, because

people tend to search that as well. I am Sarah Petulance. In the corner, pushing buttons. It's going to be a great talk. Let's go. Well, I'm going to make Freedom Tunes U-N-E-S, and it's going to be a band. Perfect. That's perfect.

It's going to be a band. That sounds good. We've actually done that, Tim. I'm sorry to tell you. Our music, yeah. Oh. Well, anyway, before we get started, my friends, head over to TimCast.com, become a member, and help support all of the journalism that we do here.

Your membership helps support all of our journalists. It helps make this show possible. And you will get access to our massive library of TimCast IRL podcast members-only segments. We have a ton of really amazing people who have been on the show in the past. So you can go there. You can search all of these crazy names and listen to these uncensored members-only shows. And, again, help support all of our work. But don't forget to smash that like button, subscribe to this channel. And the most

important thing, the best thing you can do for us is just copy that URL up top, paste it wherever you can and whatever social network that is grassroots marketing. It's the most powerful way to get the word out. It really, really does help. So we greatly appreciate it. But now let's get into that first story, man, from timcast.com. Pennsylvania court strikes down mail-in voting law. A U.S. district court in Pennsylvania has ended an extension to mail-in voting provisions, which drew criticism during the 2020 elections. Let me try and give you the quick version of this because, boy, is it a doozy. In 2019, Republicans wanted to get rid of

something called like single, single, what's the, now I can't even think of the phrase. I'll put it this way. Republicans didn't like the fact that in Pennsylvania, you could go and press one button and vote for all Democrats. So they said to the Democrats, get rid of that. They said, okay, we'll get rid of that if you give us universal mail-in voting. The Republicans said, we can't, it violates the constitution. And they said, well, we'll do it anyway. We'll amend the Constitution. Give us universal mail-in voting. The Republicans said, we agree. Ninety-nine percent in the House, 98 percent in the Pennsylvania Senate of all of the members agreed on this and passed a law in violation of the state Constitution. Now, in comes the primary elections, in, in comes the primary elections,

in comes Congress and the presidential elections, and some Republicans take notice. Hey, wait a minute. How did they pass universal mail-in voting when it's actually in violation of the state's constitution? State constitution outright says, absentee voting is for these specific reasons. But what Republicans and Democrats had worked a deal on

was universal mail-in voting. So they went to sue and the judge said, you guys wait until after the primary and after your guy lost to try and challenge this law. You could have, you could have challenged this beforehand. And there's an interesting point to be made there, but I don't think it matters. I think the problem is the Democrats got swindled. The Republicans agreed to a deal. They never had the right to promise the Democrats in the first place. So now here we are. It is a year and a

half or so, a year and a few months later. And now a state court has said, yes, the Constitution outright says here are the specific reasons for absentee ballots. You cannot pass this law. Here's the kicker. Democrats, Republicans alike have agreed on a bill to amend the constitution to make universal mail-in voting constitutional. It would require two back-to-back sessions where they approve this. That's not possible to do in one legislative session. So what they decided, I guess, was we'll approve the amendment, which won't go into effect until a second legislative hearing and a referendum from the public. And then we'll approve the amendment, which won't go into effect until a second legislative hearing and a referendum from the public. And then we'll just pass universal mail-in voting anyway.

Surprisingly, I believe it was 11 of the Republicans who actually voted on that law for universal mail-in voting were involved in the lawsuit saying it was unconstitutional. So I got to say, the Republicans are kind of dicks in this moment, but I don't think that matters. We can smack tuck the Republicans all day and night. The law is unconstitutional. Now here's where it gets crazy. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania is, I believe, five judges, three Democrats, two Republicans. And so it is widely believed that the Democratic Supreme Court in Pennsylvania is going to just say, nope, it's constitutional regardless of what the Constitution says. And if they do, you're going to have a law on the books, as you do now, which says you don't need an excuse for mail-in voting and a Constitution that says you can only

have mail-in voting for these reasons. Ladies and gentlemen, this country is imploding. Anyway, guys, how are you doing? So what's that like eighth grade civics, right? The rule of the courts are to interpret the laws, not to make them. Yeah. And it is the judicial activism is the end of checks and balances. So, yeah. It's a Friday. Hey, man, I'd rather, what did I say before we went on air?

Worst country in the world except for all the others. Yeah. What do you do if the judicial system has become political? Accept that you are being ruled by appointed judges. Well, I mean, there's got to be some sort of constitutional recourse to pull them out of office, I would imagine. Well, only if the legislative branch asserts itself, which it hasn't been willing to do for the last 100 years anyway, right? I mean, we promulgate 28 pages of regulation for every one page of laws we pass,

but they can take your liberty or your property for violation of a regulation. Therefore, it is tantamount to a law. That means that they've abdicated their responsibility to legislate, right? And why? Because it's more important to get reelected than it is to do. The axiom is there's two types of people in politics, those who want to be somebody and those who want to do something. And tragically, the be somebody's outnumber the do somethings like 10 to 1.

And tragically, pardon me, as a liberty leaning guy, the vast bulk of the do somethings aren't on the right. I think... It's true. I think the simple way to put it is the system is falling apart. It's quite simple. If a judge on party lines can say we don't care whether this is constitutional

or not, you can't do this this late. So initially, they told the Republicans who filed the lawsuit over it, well, it's too bad you guys did it. They were treating the individuals in the lawsuit as a party and not as individuals. That's the first problem. The judge should not say your guy lost and now you're suing. So like my response would be like my guy, look, that's somebody else. That's not to do with my election. In fact, one of the guys suing, I think actually won his election. So the judge first comes out the gate. The judges in general are just like,

we're partisans and we know it. Now it goes to the next state court and on the merits, they say, yo, the constitution of Pennsylvania, there's a section on absentee voting. It says, here are the specific reasons you can have an absentee vote. It's like you're out of town on business. You're in the military, You're medically indisposed or whatever. But no excuse, universal mail-in voting, not allowed. So the court says, OK, you can't do it. Now the Democrats are coming out saying, we don't care. We're going to do it anyway.

This is going to go to the state Supreme Court. And if they, on party lines, uphold the law and say the law is allowed regardless of the Constitution, you have a court saying the Constitution doesn't matter at all. We're going to do whatever we want on party lines. They've already used a party line vote in the first place. Republicans are the ones

who made a bad deal. They swindled the Democrats in the first place. But this means that a judge can enact a law which favors Democrats, which will then result in your legislators

who pass the laws being basically put in place by broken laws. The system is a hodgepodge of duct tape and bubble gum jammed together to hold stuff together. And we're all looking at it. And I got to be honest, it doesn't make sense. If this moves forward with Democrats in the Supreme Court being – it's the state Supreme Court, not the federal – saying, no, we're going to let this law stand, I'm just like, yo, you guys don't have representative government anymore. You have appointed judges who uphold unconstitutional rules to allow their buddies to get reelected.

No one's voting. Like, what's the point at that point? Well, I guess a point could be that you might have a bout of corruption, and then after that it gets back to normal and they're no longer corrupt. So just because one time there's a bunch of corruption doesn't mean that it's ruined forever. Keep in mind um i don't know how power never voluntarily relinquishes itself it doesn't power does not relinquish itself i think in like these judges are they're human so like they're morally shattered if you get if you get demoralized

shattered mentally shattered judges like you're gonna see all sorts of weird behavior the problem is the judges and the legislators are viewing every single person as a member of a tribe big problem the judge initially outright when the lawsuit happened should have said is it constitutional or not instead they said who is the person who's filing the suit ah a republican well you're you're you're only trying to get points for the Republicans and I'm not. So I say no to you. Okay. Well, that's not law. That's just tribalism. Look, man, I've been telling people we are in some kind of civil war. When a judge issues a ruling and explicitly states your guy already lost. So you're doing this for that reason. It's like that judge is not ruling

on the merits. He's ruling on the tribe. He's telling one tribe, you are not allowed. Okay, so what happens next? I mean, now you have the Democrats saying this court is Republican. So they're saying the exact same thing. Republicans are right. Our tribe wins. The next court is going to be Democrat. Democrat wins. There is no judicial system at that point. So welcome to America. It's 2022. How are you guys doing? Well, as far as I'm concerned, this is just more undermining of more institutions. And from what I saw in 2020, there is no low that we can possibly reach that will not turn something partisan. Like the judicial system is not intended to be partisan in any way, but they're turning it into that, which is going to be a huge problem down the road. And maybe they don't see that as being the case because they're very short-sighted. But if you can use it against the other party, they can obviously

use it against you. And yet, if there is an institution, a foundational institution, that has demonstrated that it seems to work still, it's the judiciary usually, right? We got the Rittenhouse verdict followed by the Aubrey verdict, right? And I was just watching both of them going, okay, they murdered that dude. And this kid, like, watched the video. Like, I was impressed with his fire discipline, candidly. Well, what dude got murdered? You're going to trick. I'm going to get triggered.

Oh, you're going to trigger me. The guy jogging in Georgia. He wasn't jogging. Might not should have been kicking through the houses. But yeah, he was a burglary suspect. You shot him. The prosecutor called him a burglary suspect. The only reason the McMichaels got convicted was because the judge gave the instruction to the jury that

unless they had witnessed the the potential crime taking place they had no right to try and confront him and deadly forces never never authorized for the protection of property except ahmed arbery grabbed the shotgun from the mcmichael and fought him for it which is dual possession which resulted in him getting shot which Which is a good argument. And then they put the guy who filmed it in prison for life. From that point, you need to start, the whole Ahmaud Arbery question is, why is the guy who filmed it going to prison for life? You start to unravel the thread from there and you realize the whole thing is a travesty

of justice. Wow. Dude, I'm so excited to be on this podcast. I think I was going to get smoked in the first 15 minutes. Well, it's something. I'm not saying that personally. At least as the facts were distilled for me, I thought that the judiciary had gotten it right.

What their job is is to call balls and strikes. And that kind of is politically dangerous because of the tribalism that you make reference to. But kind of the way I try to do it. When my guy was in the Whiteism that you make reference to, but kind of the way I try to do it. Like, you know, when my guy was in the White House and I was in Congress, I had a duty to say when I thought my guy was wrong. Well, so this, the Ahmaud Arbery thing is actually a really great point to what we're talking about here. And it's why I think in many ways the Republicans are losing and probably will

lose. But I do think there's a great potential for national populist Republican types, people who believe in America. We have a big problem with corporatists, crony, conservatives who are just rhinos, I guess. They call them Republicans in name only. The issue is when it comes to a story like Ahmaud Arbery, Fox News is more than happy to come out and just praise the ruling without looking at the facts because they want to earn some points from the mainstream media. It is said that there are many Republicans who care more about the opinion of the New York Times than their own constituents. That is why I think the Republican establishment is being gutted and ripped apart.

The Ahmed Amri case being another example of this where many Republicans came out and were like, see, this was a good ruling. And then we actually had a self-defense expert, Andrew Branca, as well as some other lawyers come on and break down the case. And we were like, oh, wow, that absolutely is not true. But why were so many conservatives willing to come out and defend that ruling? Well, I think it's because people on the right are, many of them, they care more about the opinion, not just the Republicans, but individuals care more about the opinion of the New York Times than their own constituents.

So you'll end up very often with Republicans being, you know, demure and backing down, where Democrats go for the ultimate win. Sure, right. What happens is Republicans take control and hold the line, and Democrats take control and push the football. Absolutely. And, you know, it's hard to lose ground on the offensive. I want to give a good example to people, because one of the narratives from the left and Democrats is that Republicans don't play by the rules, that Republicans are steamrolling and getting whatever they want.

And Democrats won't fight back. Democrats repeatedly call for gun control. Republicans repeatedly call for not gun control. We continually get gun control laws. Where are the Republicans to call for repealing gun control? You see, Democrats say we want to ban these particular weapons. The left then says no one is coming for your guns. Waco disproves that. Then you get Republicans saying we've already banned a bunch of guns. We'll stop here. No, no, no, Republicans. How

about you act like Lauren Boebert or Marjorie Taylor Greene and repeal the NFA, abolish the ATF and start passing laws to repeal unconstitutional gun bans? Yeah, absolutely. The contrast is astounding because you're absolutely correct that there are a lot of Republicans who care more about what the New York Times says than their constituents. It's also the case that there are many Republicans in general among the constituency who care about what the New York Times says more than any Democrat cares about what Fox News says. The left doesn't consume media that's generally catered towards right-wing markets and shape their thinking based on that or determine which opinions they're going to be comfortable voicing in the workplace based on that. Yeah, you know, I'm still fairly optimistic, though, because the uniparty establishment

is struggling. You know, it's well said, right? I mean, so we've had one president who was elected without a party affiliation and we're talking i think off air again i i loathe political parties yeah and and and there are lots of people in washington who i won't name because i'd like to make a living um who are in the party they're in because they analyzed the district or the state where they were running and and said this is the party i need to be in, right? They're amorphous. And that's exactly who will destroy this great thing

that's been bequeathed to us, this republic. So if you won't divert from your party, then you shouldn't be elected, period, right? Number one. And number two, if you'll ever take a vote to get reelected, then you should never be elected to begin with. This got me in so much trouble in Washington. I carried the Obamacare repeal.

And I was told by leadership, dude, you can't carry the Obamacare repeal. And I'm like, you mean the one that you and everybody else with an Arbus either name voted for last year? And they're like, yeah, because now we have both houses in the White House. So you, oh, wait, hang on.

I can't carry it because it might pass? Yes. And I'm like, oh, yeah. hang on. I can't carry it because it might pass? Yes. And I'm like, oh, yeah. So this was Kabuki Theater to placate a base that they look down their noses at and think is ignorant. And then when we have the ability to get it done, then they go, you can't do that. Why not? Because what then? And the first day I was in the state senate, I cannot remember the issue, but the majority leader is like, well, what do we do about this?

And I said, new guy, what about this? And he goes, they'll say we're racist. And I said, dude, they're already saying we're racist. What if we just do the right thing and trust that African-Americans and Caucasian-Americans and all Americans go, son of a gun, those guys did the right thing. And that was another thing we talked about off air. I cared too much what people said, but it never was able to change sort of what I was going to do. You guys are amazing because I've read the crap they say about you, and that's what happens to Republicans. They get cowed into sort of submitting.

Well, that's the point I was making about the Ahmaud Arbery thing. You could say on the question of the laws as the judge ordered the jury, they made the right call. But when you actually break it down and look at the full story, I mean a gun had been stolen from a car. A gun had been stolen. And there had been a string of robberies. The neighbors were scared. They were setting up cameras everywhere. The police went door to door and said, here's a picture of the guy we're looking for.

Someone sees the guy running down the street. Surveillance footage caught him in the building the night before. And the guys are like, let's stop him and get the cops. So they call the police. But the police said, don't pursue. They pursued anyway. Dude, they flanked him to the front. He runs after him.

Guy drives behind him filming. He goes to the right around the truck and then grabs one of the McMichaels shotgun. They fight for it. It goes off. He gets shot in the chest. He dies. Now we're in the case where the narrative from the left was he was just jogging. He's just jogging, what, like 20 miles from his own house? No, no, no. But why did the McMichaels grab a gun and go after him? Well, because a gun had been stolen. And I'm not saying it was the right thing, but the judge basically said, if the law is to be read that you need to witness the crime, then they stopped him illegally, which is a felony. And because he died in the struggle, it's felony murder. Yeah, right.

The felony would be, I think, false imprisonment, kidnapping, essentially. But the law actually states you have a right to stop someone if you suspect a felony. Well, here's the story to me, right, as a guy who just got sort of schooled on this. The story to me is that I consider myself to be marginally well-read and half the stuff you said I'd never heard. That's wild. Right. I mean, you see where I'm going with this, Tim? Shout out to LegalInsurrection.com and Law of Self-Defense, Andrew Branca, because they educated me on this.

I actually trained on self-defense, on self-defense law and circumstances. And I had a long phone call in the snow on the way up here about this dude's like, well, if I shoot the intruder with number four versus double-up buck, and I'm like, it doesn't matter. You shot him. It's deadly force anyway, so don't overthink this. We've talked a lot about that too.

But back to the main point, it's that these Republicans, the ones you mentioned, that they're like, oh, we can't actually repeal Obamacare because then we have no, I guess, no political ammo. They took like three or four votes where they all voted for it. And then I had to do a discharge petition, which is where you try to get a number of members to sign a bill to get a vote on it on the floor because the speaker won't bring it, who was a Republican.

And I got like 26 signatures on the discharge petition. People wouldn't even sign the document to let it come to a vote because they didn't want to be held accountable and i'm like like it took me less than 24 hours to go this place is broken beyond my ability to repair it this is why i went back to the ahmed arbery thing the fox news personalities and the conservatives who are unwilling to actually look into it and call it out because they're scared of being called racist or whatever yo i got called racist when i said all of that stuff. And I'm like, I literally don't care that you call me that. That word has zero meaning to me or anybody else at this point.

Well, it's like, what's worse that you could call somebody in 2022? I don't think you'd call them anything, to be honest. But again, that's the point, though. And so I did a radio show for a while while and the last few segments were more or less on philosophy. And the rhetorical question was, if you could choose between freedom and truth, which would you choose?

And my answer is you always choose truth because truth will beget freedom. Exactly. And the truth is freaking dead. Uh, they get to define truth. Right. And that's, that's,

that's the exhaust series.com. Again, I'm shameless plug. It's like people know what's going on. People demand it's done differently. You mentioned Republicans saying we can't pass that. They would call us racist. That was something the state said. I can't even remember what it was.

But I remember the majority leader going, well, they're going to say such and such. And I'm like, dude, they're already saying it. They're saying worse than that, dude. But that, come on. You know, I hear you saying that that was during the state Senate. But I have to imagine that's everywhere for Republicans. So Winsome Sears is an African-American woman, elected lieutenant governor of Virginia.

And there was a story in a legitimate media outlet about how that proved how racist Republicans were. Like the mental gymnastics you have to do to get to that point right I feel that it requires like a level of spiritual toughness to navigate criticism like this in the internet age the comments and the news articles so like these people can't do it obviously that they tried and failed they're they're older they're not used to the internet um like some young people people are. I see them as a vulnerability, having individuals there that can get their morale shattered or smashed by the news media. So what do you think about just eradicating the concept of a bunch of people going to the Capitol building to vote 700 and dispersing the workload to the American people? So you're talking about an actual democracy, direct democracy? Or a republic that we create a smart contract that our 700,000 people can vote to decide

if that contract is going to toggle yes or no for certain things. So we still have some sort of representative. So it still requires that more people listen to Tim Pool's podcast. I mean, what I mean by that is, I'm serious though, but without truth, without a competently informed, intelligent, discerning electorate, you're still going to get bad policy. So this is a – I disagree with Ian on this one, but it is a really interesting thought. The idea is instead of doing a direct democracy, you do a direct republic. You still have districts.

You still have electoral college. But instead of having a representative, it breaks down like an electoral vote within the state. So it doesn't matter if, you know, if you have 750,000 people in one area and you have 500,000 in another, it's still weighted. You know what I mean? Well, yeah, so you should get your Senate, the effect thereof. But it's hybridized. I don't agree with it. You know, I personally think it's good to have reps there in person doing their jobs. But I do think it's an interesting idea. And I do think that, you know, as technology changes and times change, we do need to be addressing how this is going to affect legislation. So if this is like you want to fix D.C. term limits for staffers.

Oh, yeah. Yes. Right. Not because the elected there is a bidding war when an influential member retires over their chief of staff. And that guy, I mean, I grew up in the same neighborhood as a young man. A young man. He's older than me. Who had been chief of staff for four or five members.

Great guy. Like, not disparaging him personally. But he had a floor pass, right? I mean, like, this guy's on the floor of the House. More influential by far than a lot of people who've stood for election by 800,000 of their constituents. So term limits for staffers. Once you hit GS-15 in an agency or what have you, you can be there this long and you've got to move. Because that's where the secret power is.

And the second thing is instead of allowing party leadership, because, again, political parties are the poison that will destroy the mix, to determine committee assignments, let people draw lots for committee assignments. Maybe you get, you know, if there's 15 committees, maybe you get 15 sheets of paper to put in one bucket and 14 and 13 and 12 because that's how they bribe you. If you want to be on this committee, Ian Seamus, then you have to promise to vote for the farm bill or not vote for marijuana reform or what have you? And so in giving the leadership in both the majority and minority the power to appoint committees to provide committee assignments, you've just given them the ability to blackmail every single member. What if you promise it and then don't follow through with your promise? Then you're done. Like they just won't work with you.

They'll all ignore you in Congress. There's always retribution for any time that you betray the hierarchy. It's invisible or it's visible what would you think because if they didn't make you pay everyone would disobey yeah what would you think about uh removing party affiliation from ballots i don't have a problem with it again i ran as a republican because it more closely jibed with my value set but my value set is classical liberalism. Right.

I was listening to a podcast that you were in. You were talking to somebody about masking and isolating in order to preserve the most vulnerable. And my immediate knee-jerk was, what is the responsibility to protect the most vulnerable? And my immediate knee-jerk was, what's the responsibility of the most vulnerable to protect themselves? Amen. Yeah.

Right? And I'm not saying, like, be inconsiderate of your Right. And I'm not saying like being considerate of your grandma. In fact, you should be really considerate of your grandma. But grandma's primary responsibility is grandma. Right. Government starts as the pinpoint center of a circle and radiates outward from there. So the essence of government is you, then your family, then your neighbors, then. Yeah.

Yeah. The reason I bring up the party affiliation thing is that uh people will go into the ballot and they'll just be democrat democrat democrat democrat they don't know republican republican right it's ignorant on both ends so imagine what would happen if people just go in and there's no party affiliation to vote for it's just names so you know we've talked about this before and one response is people would just vote for whoever's on the top of the list and then everyone would fight people would people would change their name to like aaron aardvark yeah well or everyone would fight. People would change their name to like Aaron Aardvark.

Yeah, well, or people would just vote for somebody if their name sounded like they were from the same ethnic background or something like that. Like, oh, that's an Irish name or oh, that's an Asian name or whatever it is. Someone would change their name

to Charizard. A bunch of people would vote. Guy's going to change his name to Crash Lightning and everyone would be like, oh, I'm voting for Crash. I'm voting for Deez Nuts. Deez Nuts did pretty well.

They would literally. No, no, no. Deez Nuts actually did well on a ballot. Someone put it on the ballot. I'm not surprised. He's like a middle school kid, and he pulled it off. Was he? Yeah.

Wow. But so there was a story in, I think it was New Hampshire, of a trans-anarchist Satanist who ran as a Republican in the primary for sheriff and ended up winning. What? But I think it was like a Democrat sheriff ended up winning or something like that. But a bunch of Republicans freaked out, like, I voted for this person?

It's like, well, yeah, you checked the box. Joke's on you, dummy. Don't blame the person you voted for. If you voted for voting records, so you didn't know the name of the person, you didn't know what party it was, but you just got to see all like, or a bio. You voted for a bio or something.

Yeah, right. Then the devil becomes who writes the bio. I mean, I've checked my own Wikipedia page. Did you? Exactly. Like under oath. Those are like under oath bios, like legal verified. And if you lie on your bio there, you go to prison kind of thing.

I think we should let the same people draft the PolitiFact. Voting for a name or a party is so insane. Look at what the media does, how they frame things to make them negative. It'll be like, you know, Ian will run into a burning building to save a bunch of puppies who are trapped on the top floor. They'll show a picture of Ian standing in the fire holding the puppies, and it'll be like crazed man holds puppies above flame. And you're like, well, that's technically true, but he was escaping the fire through the window. They'll just frame it however they want. So you get, you know, who's going to write the bio? Who's going to, who's going to

write about the people? Um, it's just like during one of my favorite examples of that occurred during the Rittenhouse case when I believe it was Grice Gritz took the stand and what they were reporting on it. I can't remember which outlet it was, but he had brought a gun of his own to try to protect himself from Rittenhouse, even though what he had testified on the stand was that he pulled a gun on Kyle before getting shot. Yeah. And he lied. And MSNBC, they were like, he testified that Rittenhouse pulled the weapon on him.

And then it was like, actually, he testified he pulled the gun on Rittenhouse and then Rittenhouse pointed the weapon. So it's just like the media just chooses to say whatever they want, because I don't think it's necessarily Times v. Sullivan that gives them this power. The fact is lawsuits are very hard and they take forever. And so look at it this way. They say often for a lot of cops, process is the punishment.

New York City is notorious for this. The cops know they can illegally arrest you, but nothing will ever be done about it. So there's nothing to worry about. So a good example is there was a photographer in New York by the name of Alex Arbuckle. He was standing on the sidewalk taking pictures of cops during an Occupy protest. He actually had gone down there to document it from the police's side of things because he felt the media was only covering the protest perspective. The police arrested him, filed a false police report, and claimed that he

was obstructing a roadway. The officer who actually arrested him wasn't the officer who claimed to have arrested him and who had signed the arrest report. And the officer who signed the arrest report wrote a fake account of what happened. Fortunately, I had been filming, and the National Lawyers Guild, I'm not big fans of them, but they got a hold of the footage, which proved the police lied. The police officer went on the stand and lied under oath. Not a single bad thing happened to any of these officers.

But the cops know if you're in their way, they can arrest you and you will go to jail, even if for only a day, because that is the punishment for defying them. They know it can destroy your life.

They know it can, you can get fired from your job if you can't show up. If they arrest you on a weekend when you're protesting, you're there till Monday. They know. So this is a huge problem we have when lawsuits in this country move much too slowly. So someone lies about you and says like, Ian, you kicked my dog.

Okay, go ahead and sue them. The story's out. It will perpetuate. So let's say there's a news website called, like, The Daily Monster. The Daily Monster. And they write a hit piece about you claiming that you stole someone's cat. Oh. And it's completely made up.

Can you imagine? The most made-up and insane story. And, you know, so you're like, okay, maybe I should sue for defamation over this. First, you've got to prove damages. What were the real damages caused by this? Well, what they've done to Project Veritas is they've said his reputation is so destroyed. He's, he's, you know, he, you can't make his, you can't make his reputation any worse. Thus, we're now allowed to lie and say whatever we want. A court rejected that idea,

but they destroy your character so much that eventually you won't be able to fundraise. You won't be able to start a business. You won't be able to fundraise. You won't be able to start a business. You won't be able to get business partners. People will be terrified of you. So you say, I need to sue over these lies. The first thing that happens is the court says, Times v. Sullivan, Ian, you're a public figure. Did they know they were lying?

Or did their standard in this procedure violate their typical standards? My general understanding for Times v. Sullivan. Let's say you get past all of that. You got to get to actual malice too, right? So their defense is, well, we didn't know, therefore they win. Exactly.

That's Times v. Sullivan. As a public figure, it's proving they knew they were lying or that what they did in this instance violated their typical standards for research. So if you can get past that, bro, it's going to take you a million dollars in a year. And then if you can get past that, bro, it's going to take you a million dollars in a year. And then if you can't prove you lost money because of it, they're going to

ask you, what are the damages? And you can say reputational. My reputation is my business. And they can say, prove it that you, you, you lose. So it's not just times be Sullivan. It's that the media can lie with impunity and nothing can be done about it. Nothing. And they do it all day. They do it every day. They did it, you know, seven days a week and twice on Sunday when it came to Donald Trump. And what do you do? So, like, if I make a lie like that, am I do I have protections or do I need to start a company called like Aardvark News and then just a website Aardvark News and then lie about you under Aardvark News? And then I then I have protection because I made a website called Aardvark News and then just a website, Aardvark News, and then lie about you under Aardvark News.

And then I have protection because I made a website called Aardvark News. All that matters is you can defend yourself from a lawsuit. So when CNN or these big companies, New York Times, have billions of dollars, they will drop an anvil on you, metaphorically. So I hope you're ready to defend yourself. Can you do the same back? Probably not. Probably not.

So Project Veritas has Veritas Legal where they're trying to fight back. It's this attrition, the war of attrition when you are planning on losing anyway, you just want to drain the resources of the other person and you know you have way more resources so you can just wait them out. And you may still lose, but they're going to gonna like a pyrrhic victory they might win on paper but because it's the percentage of their army has been decimated they've basically lost have you guys ever played poker hold them oh yeah yeah if you're if any if you know hold them if you've got the stack you can you can pressure your opponent yeah endlessly and force them out that's exactly how it is in the real world you

put them all in every hand. Every hand. Say, you've got to risk everything you have right now, and I don't. And I can do it again seven times. And you're just, man, and they're putting in the blinds, and eventually they're getting eaten away at, and they've got to take that risk, and then they take the wrong risk, and they're out.

But you can also win in those situations. And, man, does it feel good to take someone's stack? It does. It does. But if you're the last two in a game of hold'em and you've got a smaller stack to the guy's bigger stack, you know. And the blinds are going up. Yeah, eventually a blind is going to be your entire, just a play, you're going to have to

bet everything. Yeah. So this is the challenge. Hatchet Harry's going to take your dad's bar, you know. That's right. You're going to have to throw your wedding ring into the middle of the thing and then the deed to your house. Well, I have gems. But that's the big challenge. As long as the media can just lie

and say whatever they want, we stop all this by not caring what the media says. I don't know. I also think we need to change the laws. It used to be

that there was some responsibility in NBC, CBS, and ABC. That was it. New York Times. Now it's Joey Maccaroli. Sorry, Joey, if you're out there.

I was just making up a name. Joey Rackamole. Rackamole at you're out there. I was just making up a name. Joey Rekamoli. Rekamoli at Aardvark News. Yeah, he can spin up a news organization and start making lies. Defamation suits being filed now. Sorry, Joey. I love you. Come on the show.

There are clever things you can do, Ian, to your question about starting Aardvark News or whatever. And you probably said Aardvark News because I mentioned Aaron Aardvark earlier in the show. Oh, that's why. Yeah, but so, Ian, if you start a news organization, they'll still just sue you personally. And you may have a good chance of winning, but you better fork up the $100K for that initial defense. So if someone at CNN lies about you, you can sue the person that lied directly and not CNN?

Yep. Is that normally what happens? You can sue anyone. Joining them all. But do you have a better chance of winning against the individual reporter or the entire entirely depends but uh you can go after the individual and then they can try and deflect typically what will happen is the institution will offer up the defense for can you sue the institution and the individual at the same time okay yep so uh cassandra fairbanks a good friend of ours she held up the okay hand sign in the white house which is just the trump you know you know hey we're trump supporters and a reporter accused her of flashing a white

supremacy hand gesture she said that's not true it's defamation she filed a suit it got thrown out on a motion to dismiss i guess because they're like like you yes i think what they said was because she trolls on twitter then you can't blame someone for believing you're trolling or something for falling for a troll or something like that. But it's just the news organization defended the journalist. The news organization said we're going to pay for the journalist's defense. So the individuals who work for these big companies with hundreds of millions of dollars can say what they want and they get away with it. Yeah, exactly.

And so, Ian, you were sort of talking about possible legal solutions a moment ago. I think the fact of the matter is even though something like that would be good in specific instances, and there are really great victory stories. We were discussing Sandman yesterday. We've also been hearing that Rittenhouse is trying to go after some of these networks that lied about him. I think that's fantastic. But ultimately, people are waking up, and there's a reason that they have to write pieces and hit pieces on people like Joe Rogan or Tim. And that's because old media is scared because people are paying more attention to independent content creators. And one of the reasons for that is because it's insane to get your information from people who pay no price for lying to you. Walk the dog backwards to the Genesis, right?

And so the Genesis, I think, is what they teach in J school and who decides to be journalists what's the role of the journalist because jefferson talked about that that fourth state and and the importance of information to uh free public like there can't be one without the other uh and so we've gotten away from i want to be a storyteller to i want to be an advocate i want to advance an agenda and right so, again, off air, Aristotle repeatedly said, you give me the storytellers, I'll give you the future. Dude, these guys have studied

on what they're trying to do. And a lot of the parts of the machine don't even realize they're parts of the machine, but indeed they are. The individuals of these companies don't know. What happens is there's a political group and they'll say, how can we get more votes?

We need news stories in our favor. Can we fund a news organization? Yes. The news organization then hires people. These people are business people who want to make money. They're told, here's our plan for making money. Hire people who believe X, Y, and Z. They then go and find journalists who have written stories about X, Y, and Z and say,

how would you like a higher paying job? They get hired under the company. No one forces them to be cogs in the machine. No one forces them to write lies. They find people who are liars and idiots and hire them and have them do more work. Or they're not liars. They've drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid. They just genuinely believe it.

But, like, your formative years include your higher ed, right? So University of Missouri and Columbia, these J schools, Syracuse that put out a disproportionate share, the orthodoxy is in place. And dude, man, I didn't become comfortable in my dorkiness until I was 25 or later, right? And I am now. I am who I am, and I like me. These kids are vulnerable. So people are saying this is it, and there's nothing else, and they go, okay, this is it, and there's nothing else,

and they go, okay, this is it, and there's nothing else. Yeah, it's funny. You just mentioned a moment ago that some of these people might not necessarily be lying, but they're on the same page as all of their colleagues, and that's unsurprising. But at the same time, there was a great moment from Chomsky, who I'm not a huge fan of, but he made a point when he was on an interview show about how the dominant media culture tends to espouse a specific set of views and you can expect to hear a certain number of you know

legitimized opinions from them and the reporter responds to him by asking him do you believe i'm insincere in my values and chomsky said no i believe you sincerely hold those i'm telling you you wouldn't have this job if you didn't. That's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. Chomsky also said in the arena of violence, the most brutal wins. And that's not us.

When he was condemning. That's right. Violence in writing. So, you know, the dude lost the plot later on, but he was pretty good back in the day, too. He's a free speech guy. I mean, he's made some good noises over the years. Again, not my favorite.

Not my favorite, but he's made some good noises over the years. Again, not my favorite. He's made some good noises. Like quack. Let me show you how dark this evil goes, man. I've got no problem calling evil. I know that each and every one of you who watch this show will be shocked, but not surprised. The Washington

Post published an opinion piece which reads, Canada must confront the toxic freedom convoy head on. You heard that right. What? The Washington Post has published an opinion piece in opposition to working class individuals standing up against the elites because democracy dies in darkness.

Let me show you this tweet. Sure does. This is a tweet from a political cartoonist, I believe from the Washington Post, Michael DeAdder. And it is a cartoon of truckers with fascism written on the sides of them. I responded, these people think that when the working class resists the elites, it's fascism. Amen. That they do. And they write this article saying, the convoy is by and large a fringe group, an unfortunate minority in which the further minority of insidious extremists lurk, bolstered by conservative politicians.

Time and time again, we learn the lesson, or at least come across it, that teaches us that rage-soaked anti-government types can't be reasoned with. This time around, the convoy has produced an incoherent memorandum of understanding, premised upon a misunderstanding of government and absurd demands. Of course, the memo should be ignored it's the product of a temper tantrum but doing nothing is a risky suboptimal strategy also that's right the working class of the problem i guess this ridiculous article wasn't a temper tantrum but these working class people trying to stand for their jobs was also i love how he called them fascist and then called them anti-government i don't know that

was different okay the fascist was the cartoon oh that-government. I don't know. That was different. Okay. The fascist was the cartoonist. Oh, that's right. You're right. I'm sorry. I shouldn't confuse those. I love that cartoon.

And part of why is because so as a political cartoonist, you know, sometimes you swing and miss, but I can't imagine doing a cartoon where you like literally just drew a picture and then wrote bad on it. That's what he did. He sure did. I'm going to draw trucks and write fascism. Write bad. Rip off Ben Garrison.

He even signed it like Ben Garrison. Ben Garrison does label everything. Everything he does. But at least they're still funny. So I checked the author. David Moskopp wrote that op-ed. So about the author. David Moskopp is a political theorist with an interest in democratic deliberation.

What does that mean? Well, I guess he wants us to have democracy where we are deliberative in our coming to conclusions, unless, of course, that deliberation leads to conclusions that are adverse to David Moskopp, at which point it becomes fascism, right? To me, the irony is rich. His book is Too Dumb for Democracy, so clearly he's smarter than everybody else, too. Those daggone truckers are messing everything up.

His book is called Too Dumb for Democracy? It is. Well, it's an admission. Was that his autobiography? Next week's guest on TimCast, David Moskops. I don't know about that. I just think it's funny. This article is written by a comic book villain.

It's a bunch of buzzwords. The people are rising up against us. They want their rights. Stop those pathetic truckers. They should have a say. Anti-government types. Was that one of the words that they used in here? Anti-government types.

Can you imagine being against something the government does? It's a type. But it's like they something the government does it's a type but it's like they're not even they're not even it's not even the craziest project i've ever seen it's like oh people driving trucks you know in in the united states when they burned that when blm burns down i know whatever they're like this is democracy it's like this is people with jobs there's people with jobs like representing their jobs let's juxtapose this headline onto, say, Antifa burning a courthouse in Portland or trying. These Antifa protesters must be confronted head on would be called an incitement to violence. Oh, yeah.

They fired that New York Times editor because he ran the op-ed from Tom Cotton that said send in the troops or whatever. But when you have Antifa and Black Lives Matter engage in violence, what is it, AOC? She's like, protests are supposed to make you uncomfortable. Like, yo, they literally killed people, dude. I don't know. That's a bit beyond discomfort. Where does it say it's supposed to be peaceful?

Like 30 people died. Yeah, dude got shot in the chest, man. Businesses were burned down. People's livelihoods were destroyed. Billions, right? I mean, like, yeah. Billions of dollars. Who's leading the comms?

And those, by the way, those places are not going to recover for a very long time. So there's a second YouTube channel I run with the Foundation for Economic Education. If you guys want to check it out, it's called Common Sense Soapbox. And we did a video on the riots and how much it's cost this country and the communities it's happened in the long run. And it's really astounding. And I have to consult the figures again, but I recommend all of you check that out. And what community says it happened in? Exactly, corner city communities. again, but I recommend all you. And what community says it happened in? Exactly. These are

socioeconomically challenged people who the left says they champion who are absolutely screwed by virtue of this violence. Absolutely. And the people who are I mean, the greatest racism visited upon Americans today is failing schools that disproportionately

impact what? Socioeconomically challenged people and people of color. Right? But meanwhile, we're calling everybody in this room a racist. I actually give a damn. I want these young people to have a freaking chance because that's what the promise of America is. It's not an outcome.

It's a chance. And also, I did interrupt Ian. I apologize. Oh, no, Ian, before the show. I just met Seamus. He's like, watch, I'm going to interrupt Ian. I did. It was a play.

It was premeditated interruption. But then they high-fived and then i interrupted tim to apologize good work so just just to loop this back into what you were saying earlier about republicans who are like but they'll call us racist do you i have to imagine there are democrats who also have the same mentality of we can't like so so a better example is when you mentioned uh the obamacare repeal. There are Democrats who are like, we're going to pass this bill to help minorities. Don't actually vote for it. Like in that video where AOC is sitting down and then Nancy Pelosi walks up to her and wiggles her arms on C-SPAN.

You don't know what they say, but then all of a sudden AOC changes her vote. Things like that, I'm sure they're happening. Like, no, no, no, no. We have to pretend like we just narrowly didn't get this passed so we can earn votes. So they give leave to certain members in certain districts to vote a certain way because they think it might be politically helpful. Dude, I don't want anyone representing me who won't vote the way that they told me they were going to vote when they ran for office. Stribalism. It's just that's what it is.

So my dad was a realtor. But his political theory was like here's a novelty. Tell people what you're going to do and then try to do it. And it will work. And for, I don't know, 10, 12 years in elected office, it did for me. But that's gone, right? I mean we're hosed. So, Tom, can I ask you? It sounds like working within the system you saw a lot of things that were very disillusioning i'm curious would you say that you became more uh pessimistic about the political

system or did you maybe become more optimistic about your ability to affect change outside of it ultimately where would you say it's placed dude um so i'm on three committees i'm on homeland security which is and this is past tense but which is like the worst committee there is. It sounds super cool, but like they have no power because everything's a turf war in DC and it's a new committee. So nobody relinquished any power. So we just go talk. I'm on foreign affairs, which I fell in love with, which is where they go to warehouse the pro-liberty people.

Like how much harm can a legislative branch guy do when he's in an executive branch arena foreign affairs? And then I'm on educational workforce. And you go to these committee meetings, there's 50 members in the committee, and somebody fact-checked me, it's probably 51 or 49, I don't know them. But normally there's five or six in the room. They come, they do their two-minute talk, they ask some questions, they leave. Because we've gotten so far beyond the enumerated powers envisioned by the founders that nobody

can carry the bandwidth, and they know nobody cares, which just pisses me off because this stuff matters. And so nobody's ever there. Mike Rowe comes in from Dirty Jobs to speak to Ed and Workforce. And he starts up. By the way, when I grow up, I don't know if I want to be Tim Pool or Mike Rowe. Yeah. Mike Rowe is pretty rad.

He's pretty great. But so Mike Rowe starts off by saying, I'm Mike Rowe, and I'm a trained professional opera singer, and I know nothing about Ed and Workforce, but I care passionately about it. That's how he starts. But every single butt is in the seat. Every Democrat's in the room. Every Republican's in the room every republicans in

the room and they're all scrawling down what mike rowe who starts his comments by saying that i'm not an expert but i care about this they're writing stuff down and i'm and so that's when i thought like the aristotle quote like you give me the storytellers i give you the future and i'm hating washington from the second day i'm there i'm like this place is broken beyond my ability to fix it and the coolest thing i I've ever done is literally snatch people out of prison against the will of the president and the committee chair and everybody because I wanted to do something that freaking mattered. And I thought, son of a bitch, I can do more good telling stories

that aren't being told than I can ever do in office. That was a light bulb moment. And it wasn't like, oh, an exile series was born. I didn't know how to make point A reach point B, but I knew that Mike Rowe was more powerful than Nancy Pelosi at that moment a reach point b but i knew that micro was more powerful than nancy pelosi at that moment i could not tim pool was more powerful no shit right i'm not just kissing your butt um like because if you're loud enough and you scream long enough washington will do something but you have to tell the story but let me tell you cultural enforcement

is more powerful than law. So the way I explain it is that we have a bunch of laws in the books that no one ever enforces. There's books called like silly laws. And there's one where it's like you can't put a pie on the windowsill on Sundays. And it was passed in 1790 because some guy put a pie on the windowsill that attracted bears. And then they were like, guys, you got to stop putting pies in the windowsill. We're going to write this down. And now it's still on the books. So we have these silly laws, but no cop is going to walk up to you because you had a pie in the window sill and care about it at all. But hold on.

That law is on the books. Does the cop just get to decide I won't enforce that law? The cop doesn't even know the law exists. So if the culture changes, it doesn't matter what a politician says. Why do people not beat their wives, hopefully? Because you don't beat your wife because it's a jackass horrible thing to do yeah it's been illegal but that's why people don't do it so you're exactly right but we had a conversation a while back too about cops choosing i think we had a cop we had some you know former cops in the show saying like well cops can't choose what laws to enforce i'm like they literally do every single

day otherwise they'd be arrested in some dude for having a shower on a Tuesday in Massachusetts or whatever because these laws are on the books. But just as important, now there are sort of benign the pie on the windowsill on Sunday laws that are still in the books. But then there are laws that are still in the books that are never going to be enforced because they're horrible and politicians still lack the courage to repeal them. My favorite that i had anything to do with was virginia had up until 2016 a crimes against nature law in the books

which made it illegal for anyone to have any sex other than missionary between a man and his wife it was a freaking felony wow it was a felony to have any sex other than missionary between a man and his wife and it was on the books it was a felony and so in in 2005 why were cops enforcing it and in two but well they said they so there's a story in 2005 a democrat named patsy ticer from northern virginia carried a bill to repeal it and it failed and i'm like i'm the like i got a evangelical biblical sort of constituency but i'm looking at this one this is horrible so i write the repeal bill but I carved out to leave it illegal if it was an adult and a minor, right? Because, you know. And then the headline was, Garrett's obsessed with teenage sex.

And I'm like, only when it's my teenager and you're a 40-year-old that we're locking your butt up for that. But we took that off the books because here's the thing as a former prosecutor every law that's on the books that's selectively enforced or not enforced waters down the meaning of every law that's on the books that is enforced because i as a rational thinking person will go why do i obey that law they don't enforce that one or they don't enforce that one uniformly but back to your point about you know this show or any other show people need need to realize if tomorrow every single person woke up and just said the US dollar is no longer the currency I care about, Bitcoin is, then Bitcoin is currency and the dollar is worth nothing, so long as the system has confidence in it. So these are really important points for people to understand the philosophy of how our society

works. When Republicans are like, we're going to get a bunch of judges appointed, I'm like, wow, that's completely meaningless. Because when they come out and they get a Supreme Court ruling, the federal judges won't really matter. When they come out and everyone on TV says, you're racist, and then GOP members are like, we can't pass that bill, they'll call us racist. The cultural enforcement is substantially stronger than any statutory law. Yeah, I remember having a conversation with you a while ago. I think it was around the time we first met, but you made a good point that as long as you change the language, you don't actually have to change law.

So I think this was off the heels of the civil rights laws being interpreted as saying you had to cater to certain delusions with respect to transgenderism, which is certainly not what was intended back in the 1960s. But because our cultural understanding shifted it was argued that this law was actually meant to be enforced in a very specific way uh well so just sorry to interrupt but the specific point you're having just so people and then i'll throw back to you but is uh if if the 1964 civil rights act says you know you can't discriminate against you know the basis of sex or whatever or they say you know women have the right to x y and z equal to men if those laws in the books use the word woman

but then later on you have a major cultural push to change the definition of the word woman the law changes after the fact exactly and i agree with so this this wonderful aristotle quote about storytelling i wholeheartedly agree with that. I think it's so important for people to recognize that the best avenue for political and cultural change isn't just political. I mean, that's part of it. You do want something there, but it's really shaping hearts and minds. And this is a huge reason why I think it's good to just stay away from Hollywood entertainment generally. Even if there's not anything in it that you think is particularly morally objectionable,

a lot of these stories are written by people who hate you and hate your family and hate your way of life and want to reshape the country. And the idea that the kinds of stories that they tell aren't at all going to have their worldview bleed into it and influence you on some level is just ridiculous in my opinion. When you say they hate you, you mean more that they work counter to your belief? Because they don't know you. So they don't know you as an individual person, but also the idea, well, so let's say you have a Christian or a Trump supporter or a conservative who's listening to this right now.

There are many screenwriters in Hollywood who would say, I do hate that type of person. Well, you said they don't know you, but they think they know you. Exactly. Exactly. Well, that's exactly going back to your reference of this show. And we can mention many other shows, be it Ben Shapiro, Stephen Crowder. The pro-life movement is a really good example.

There was this really funny thing that happened we were talking about where this Democratic congressman said, if pro-lifers or if Republicans think that life begins at conception, then I'm going to pass a bill that makes men financially responsible for babies starting at conception. Based. There you go. And they posted it in this leftist subreddit. And they were like, ha-ha, that'll show these conservatives. And then all the conservatives were sharing it going like, this is awesome.

Exactly. That's how I felt. I was like, this is fantastic. Yeah, I yeah i love that good make men responsible for their children why would why would a conservative who cares about the family not want men to be responsible for their children but this is the point they think they know you exactly based on media manipulation from people like people like rachel maddow who lie who make things up and not just people like rachel maddow i think more importantly the people who make things up. And not just people like Rachel Maddow. I think more importantly, the people who make films and television shows who work conservative characters into them who act that way. So the sodomy bill repeal, and I've over-characterized it.

I think it was less broad than anything other than missionary between a man and woman. But a friend of mine named Adam Eben, who was the first openly gay man in the Virginia Senate, he's a Democrat. I go to Adam, and I'm like, I'm going to do the sodomy bill repeal. I want you to co-patron it with me he's like i can't it's your bill like we're friends and again i went through the whole this is homophobic and i'm like son of a bitch i'm like trying to like i mean like i'm the last guy who cares what anybody does in their bedroom right like that's between whomever you're doing it with and god so long as they're of age and with

consent so yeah man i mean we're going to paint this however we went in a gay rva is a publication out of richmond virginia and and one of the guys comes to me and mean, we're going to paint this however we want. Gay RVA is a publication out of Richmond, Virginia. And one of the guys comes to me and goes, what you're trying to do is this? And I'm like, yeah. And he goes, oh, dude, I'm on your team. I'm like, hello! It's really commendable that you actually made a bill to repeal another law. Like, I think these laws

should have sunset clauses built in. Oh my gosh! So you don't have to go through all the effort. It's just like, I'm going to keep it alive. Well, at Loving v. Virginia, right, we had a bill in the books that says that you can't marry somebody of a different race. WTH, right? I mean, like two human beings who are in love, right? So what do I want for my kids? I want them to be happy.

Now, I'm a person whose life has been changed by God's grace. That's my belief structure. But what I really – because happiness is like more valuable than gold, dude. It's so rare. There's a – probably an urban legend, but they say that there's a Reddit post. It was like, when John Lennon was a kid, his teacher said,

what do you want to be when you grow up? And he wrote down in his assignment, happy. And the teacher said, you've misunderstood the assignment. And he said, you've misunderstood life. I don't think he really did that. No, I don't think John Lennon's that interesting. I don't think he would say something like that as a child.

I think he might have, actually. It is John Lennon. that interesting. I don't think he would say something like that as a child. I think he might have, actually. It is John Lennon. Hey, you made an interesting point that cultural enforcement overweighs law. And I think that's because law is a type of cultural enforcement. It's just a specific one. But it's downstream. Yeah, it is. It's like a little bit of it.

The grand cultural enforcement is media. You see that. Redefining language. People say that law and politics are downstream of culture, and there's truth in that. But I think it's much more cyclical because the laws that we have do influence the way people think. So you were mentioning this earlier about how certain outdated laws in the books that are no longer enforced or laws that people don't care about actually shape a person's understanding of other laws. And I think on some level we could argue that that's cultural. The law is a teacher.

So I don't want to get into a can of worms here, but like immigration, whose fault is it that 2 million people cross our border illegally? It's not theirs. God bless them. OK, I got kids to feed and there's a wealthy opportunity zone to my north that's tacitly encouraging me to come. It's our fault. So any law that's on the books that's notitly encouraging me to come like it's our fault i think any law that's

on the books that's not uniformly enforced to the best of our ability to enforce it should be off the books or enforced or changed i agree with the with with these illegal immigrants and i i respect them infinitely more than these leftists in this country like america it's racist i'm like you got dude from south america traveled 2 000 miles risking his life because he was like america is racist i'm like you got dude from south america traveled 2 000 miles risking his life because he was like america man and i'm going to take care of my family it's like everything i've ever dreamed of is coming to america because it's it's it's it's a land of opportunity i don't think they're coming here because they're like oh free speech some of them are some of them are like gangs will kill me and the government will kill me for

speaking out i need to get to america some of them are like the land of opportunity where i can work hard and succeed and then you got these millennials who are like but i don't want to walk a dog longer than 20 you know i have to do cubans man i'm like okay we're gonna can we pick half a million people and swap for half a million freedom-loving cubans send the communists to cuba and bring the cubans over here no yeah but then i also i'd be remiss not to mention a number of the people who are crossing the border are those gang members who the other people crossing the border are running from. My underlying point, though, is that it's nobody's fault but our own. We have the wherewithal.

We need to enforce the laws we have. Enforce them or change them. You see that story of the leaked video where the federal contractor says that the government has betrayed the American people. They're secretly chartering illegal immigrant flights from Texas around the country and taking illegal immigrants who are crossing the border and just shuffling them into other communities. And this cop confronts him, and he's like, what's going on? He's like, we're past curfew. You're not supposed to be here. And the guy's like, too bad. We're with the feds.

And the cop's like, well, that sucks. And then the guy's like, no one's supposed to know about this, so I can't show you my work ID. then the guy's like no one's supposed to know about this so i can't show you my my work id and the cops like man that's crazy and he was like but but why isn't anyone supposed to know about it and the contractor goes because the american people found out the government betrayed the people like he actually said that at least we're not paying for the flights oh wait we are i got I got Jorge Ventura was on the show. He was down at the border watching them deliver people across the border, and they had these armbands on.

This one says entrejas on it, which means deliveries. This was on a child. So it's straight up. It's real. They're delivering human bodies over here probably for slave labor. I don't even care why they're coming. They're just delivering them for money. Yeah, trafficking.

The Biden administration is trafficking underage migrants. Kids, dude. That's a fact. That is a fact. Yeah. Cheap labor. In Tennessee, it was a huge outrage because these lawmakers found out that the Biden administration was getting these military flights from Air Force bases, I think, and putting underage

migrants on them and trafficking them. They probably think they're doing good, too. Like like we're giving them an opportunity by listen listen they think they're engaging in a political strategy that'll help them win the coyotes these are the people who are human traffickers they're criminals many of them they abuse and and harm children in very extreme disgusting ways there's a story of one guy just chucking a kid off a boat into the river and just like a baby, I think it was. And the reason they're doing it and able to do it is because the Biden administration has basically said, if you bring those people here, we'll take care of it for you. Livestock deliveries.

If the Biden administration said, you show up, we got a pair of handcuffs with your name on it, they'd be like, guys, it's really difficult to do this. It's going to be hard. We can maybe do it. With the Biden administration being like, come on down and we'll get you a flight to wherever you want to go. The coyotes, the smugglers are like, don't worry. It's really, really easy. You give me a couple grand, I'll get you to the border. The Biden administration will take care of everything for you.

That's why a lot of these migrants are wearing shirts that say, Biden, please let us in. And he was like, okay, and did. And that's what's going on in this country. They should have put Kamala, please let us in. They should know their Kamala. Please let us in. They should know their real audience. Yeah. Yeah, but that's why I look at that.

I look at the judges in the Pennsylvania story, and I'm just like, the United States has been eviscerated. I don't even know if I can blame, like you were saying earlier, you blame us basically for letting this happen. I see migration as part of our special history. You know, since the dawn of time, people have, no one really cares about the border unless it's a river and you can't get across it. People have always cared about borders. Yeah, sorry. Well, I guess the point would be, though,

that you have to, if you want to call yourself a country, be able to define that. But, again, the argument is always conflated with that which casts your opponent in the worst possible light, right? So what we miss is illegal immigration, right? There are real arguments to be made for the amount of people in the workforce and the needs of the workforce, et cetera, et cetera, and that they might be addressed by loosening and tightening the flow of inflow, right? We're lucky enough to live somewhere where people want to come. But all that's lost.

You hate these people because, right? And then it's parroted from the hilltops, the mountaintops, by sort of a complicit messaging organization that's job literally is to do that. Very interesting when you're standing at the wall saying, you can't come in, and they're like starving and begging you, and you're like, it's for your own good, and for my own good, you cannot come. And they're like starving and begging you and you're like it's for your own good and for my own good you cannot come and they're like please god let me in and you're just like no well it's the responsibility of a nation state to ensure the needs of its people

are met first and foremost i believe that you should as a country care for the needs of others if possible but you can't do it at the expense of the well-being of your own people it's very complicated let me ask you a question tom because you've spent time in the Middle East. How does the United States respond to American citizens being held hostage for ransom? When? I mean, like, truly, there's a timeline here because how many people are still sitting in Afghanistan? I know Americans.

But let's say a terrorist organization, you know, surrounds a vehicle with some Americans in it, captures them, and then makes a ransom demand. We want $4 million. Historically, you don't negotiate with terrorists. So what does the U.S. typically do? Again, it's when. I mean, you had the missionaries kidnapped in Haiti recently, and I can't get into the back story on how that release was secured. But, you know, the protocols change over time is all I can't get into the back story on how that release was secured, but the protocols change over time is all I can say. What I used to say with young children was you can't feed the monster because if you

feed the monster, it's hungrier next time. Mad Fientist So do you know what Spain and Germany are known for doing when their citizens are taken hostage? No? They just pay it. So I did hostile environment training this is this is years ago now this is uh uh six years ago so maybe maybe protocol has changed but what we were told and what i've what i've learned and generally my travels you know going to like

turkey and stuff the united states doesn't negotiate with terrorists and they basically say these guys in these countries know that if they take you and find out you're an American citizen, they'll typically be like, get away from me. They'll kill me. Because the Americans, some black helicopters will be over your building in a day or two, and they'll kill you and your family. So it's the Israeli response to Munich, right? And what it does is it begets less of that in the future. But I'm telling you, without saying stuff that I can't say because I might compromise the safety of people who I hold in high regard, and without saying stuff that might keep your podcast from getting ganged, that the paradigm may have shifted. Even worse, we're giving money to people who are holding Americans without getting anything for it.

By golly, if you're going to give them $600 million palletized, then you at least ought to get something in exchange for it. I mean. I believe. By golly. If you're going to give them 600 million palletized dollars. Then you at least ought to get something in exchange for it. I would absolutely believe that. In the current political climate. But just to finish that point off. What we were told was. We did a training where they kidnap us. They blindfold us.

It was like three hours. It was really crazy. Because it felt like 10 minutes. And they bring you in blindfolded. And they play. There's weird noises going around this whole big warehouse you're in then they bring you into a room with a light in your face and you can't see anything and they ask you a bunch of weird questions and then all of a sudden the door is bang open and you hear

screaming on the ground now hands on your head on your ground everyone does it then you get picked up now what you learn after the fact is these guys are the americans rescuing rescuing you and what they said was these are these are like former intelligence guys these are former uh like Then you get picked up. Now, what you learn after the fact is these guys are the Americans rescuing you. And what they said was these are like former intelligence guys. These are former like special forces. And they were like, if any of you, you know, we're all Americans, are kidnapped, play it safe, stay alive, you will be rescued. However, you know, you probably, they said the likelihood that you as Americans get kidnapped is lower because Americans will execute the individuals who kidnap you and their families. It is extremely brutal.

When they kick that door in – Nobody rescued Daniel Pearl. I mean it's – I mean – You think they let that guy get killed for propaganda? No, not at all. I think that historically we've tried to create a scenario that disincentivized bad behavior. But when you don't have boots on the ground, sometimes people get beheaded on video. What they said was Spain and Germany just pay the ransoms. So they hunt these people down basically.

They created a market for it. They created a market to buy their own citizens back. It's insane. The story we were told on this show that there was like some town in India that had a snake problem. So the government said, that was your story? Yeah, yes. That's another video I did for the Foundation for Economic Education. This is known as the Cobra Problem.

So basically, I believe it was in British-occupied India. There was a snake problem. There were cobras. And so it was said by the British government that anyone who brings us a cobra tail will be paid. And they thought this is going to help us eliminate the cobra population. Well, what actually happened was people started cobra breeding operations and then started killing the cobras and bringing their tails. And the problem got worse. It's amazing.

There's another stupid bill. So we had no hunting on Sundays in Virginia, but we were paying bounties for people to kill coyotes. Except if you killed a coyote on a Sunday, you'd committed a crime. And I'm like, hang on, we're spending tax dollars to incentivize this six days a week, but we're prosecuting people for doing it on the seventh. And again,

coming from somebody who's saved by grace, like, you know, I'm a Christian, but like, explain to me this law again. You know, you were saying earlier that our behavior towards terrorism how we deal with terrorist changes and i i see that like in afghanistan they say we don't negotiate with terrorists yet we will surrender to them well i was gonna say how we define terrorist changes because 20 years ago the idea that we would be placating the taliban and sending them money while there were literally hundreds of americans who are being held against their will, despite what Psaki tells us, in Afghanistan is unthinkable.

And Biden's approval ratings are low. Not as low as they'd be if we still defined terrorists the same way we did 20 years ago. Do you have evidence that there are Americans there being held against their will? Yeah, I know people who've been into Americans who've been in Afghanistan subsequent to August. Right. And again, careful what I say. But you know what they're doing? Pulling out Americans. Yeah, I know people who've been into – Americans who've been in Afghanistan subsequent to August, right? And again, careful what I say. But you know what they're doing? Pulling out Americans now.

And that's without the security provided by the American government. God bless them. So I so want to talk about exile series because these are the guys that – Well, let's talk about this. We have this Indiegogo you launched, and here's what I find truly interesting about this. So this is your exile documentary series, the global crisis of religious and ethnic persecution. But the first thing I want to talk to you about is you're trying to shop this documentary series around to these networks, and they're telling you outright, yeah, but can you do it without criticizing China? So they're telling us two things.

Hey, that's a good product. And then secondly, can you do it without? And so it's, hey, that's good product. Can you do it without talking about China? And secondarily, the Gulf states. And I'm like, this is my exact words the first time I heard this, where, you know, we could do a Beatles doc without talking about John, but it would suck. So first,

tell us what this is, like, give us the elevator pitch on what it's about, and then, you know, why China, you know, why they're upset about your christ no human being should have to live in the place of their birth with fear that stems from their faith their ethnicity or race their sexuality or what have you this is a human fundamental right to live without fear in the place of your birth now if you want to move move i was in syria speaking to some members of the christian community from the carver river valley

and a representative. And I said, if I could give you anything, which I can't, that you want, what would it be? And he's like, send all the Christians back. And I'm like, hell no. No, never. But I would like to help make a world where they didn't have to fight like hell to leave to begin with. Nobody should have to live in fear based on deeply held convictions or immutable character traits. Pause for dramatic effect.

That's it. So why do we live in a world where 80% of the world lives in fear of religious persecution, which we do? Eight out of ten people, right? That's four out of five for those of you who went to the same school I did. That's because nobody freaking knows. I just got to point out, I feel for the white male Christians in this country who are suffering the worst. I'm not looking over at Seamus. He's looking directly at me.

Wait, a white Irish? What are you talking about? But yeah, so I just kind of backed into this and I'm still friends with some people in D.C. shockingly. And these guys and gals don't know this stuff. Nobody knows this stuff. But if we understood just how bad this

is, right? I wish you guys could, I mean, in three and a half minutes, we kind of sort of shine a light on how bad this is, how pervasive it is. And the other thing is, like we talked again off air,

hubris is when you say it can't happen here. That's like the last thing anybody says, the Titanic can't sink. It's unsinkable. Oh, shit. Right?

This boat's in trouble. And so we want to show these stories because all too often, the West, the United States even, and I love this country. Right. I've served it in uniform. I've served it locally, state, and federally. It's not as cool as it sounds. But the United States has all too often been complicit. We've either turned a blind eye or actually helped the people who are hurting their minority populations.

Oh, yeah, definitely. Well, so I definitely want to get into that in detail. But how is it that China plays a role in this? And why is it that – I mean, I imagine you criticize America to a certain degree. I just did, right? But so are these networks being like, oh, don't criticize America? No, they're saying don't criticize China? Well, because in America you can criticize America, but in China you can't criticize China, right? In America you can't criticize China. Well, because in America, you can criticize America. But in China, you can't criticize China, right?

In America, you can't criticize China. Apparently, right? In fact, there's a cottage industry built around keeping Americans from criticizing China. Irony. Shout out to Mark Cuban. Everybody, right. And everybody wants, oh, we should boycott the Beijing Olympics. It's like maybe we should, but that ship has sailed.

What would be freaking awesome is for one of these amazing young men or women who's worked their whole lives to be so good at this as to earn a gold medal, to use that podium in Beijing to stand up for freedom and human dignity. That's not boycott. Jesse Owens sent the biggest possible message to the Nazis when he kept winning gold medals. But didn't they ban protests outright? So like no Black Lives Matter stuff, no anti-China stuff? They gotta have a medal ceremony.

Right? Who were the guys in was it 68 who raised their fists? Right? I personally think they should boycott it. I think they might should have but it's too late. We could have replicated this. We're pouring money and fuel onto the propaganda fire

that is the CCP that is literally... So I'm doing a Fox News interview, right? You think they're playing to the right. And they go, well, on the screen are the 10 biggest offenders of religious freedom. And I'm like, how do you have that list without China on it? I mean everybody stole their souls. Dude, it's the Uyghurs that tipped the iceberg. So they've been organ harvesting from the Falun Gong in China for decades. There's two churches in China. There's the state-sanctioned church that does as they're

told. And then there are the people who huddle it. And this is not hyperbolic, who huddle in fear in their kitchens in groups of two, three, five, because they want to actually learn the gospel, right? So the Chinese are the absolute worst. Because why? Because for communism and totalitarianism to succeed, the state must be paramount. And faith, whether it's Judaism or Islam or Christianity, says that there's something bigger than you and me and indeed the state and the government. That's why Jesus was such a threat to the empire. Dude, right? And so they had this script for how Jesus was supposed to play and he didn't play by it. And it's also why in North Korea Korea they're told that, what is it, Kim

Il-sung or whatever created the universe or something like that. Is that true? I read that. I don't actually know but we did have Yeonmi on, right? Did she talk about that? I can't remember the specific details on what they're told to believe. All I know is that she came out of there

not knowing what love was because they had so thoroughly brainwashed her. And there's no chance of developing any kind of faith outside the state in a place like North Korea. Where are some of the hot spots around the globe as you've been studying this? So Nigeria has been horrible for 20 years, and it's never talked about, right? Again, like I served in the military. I did eight months in a tent in Bosnia during Operation Joint Guard Joint Endeavor, largely because Christiane Alampour told us truly, and she was right, how horrible it was when 8,000 Muslims were massacred at Srebrenica

and half a million people are murdered in Rwanda over ethnicity before the U.S. and the world get up off their hands. So Africa is terrible. There's like a line of blood across Africa as radical Islam. And not Islam. I have wonderful Muslim friends who have helped me not die, sort of creep southward. Myanmar, Burma is one of the worst. So in the Second World War, we promised the Burmese minority groups, which is about 45 percent of the country.

You get 55 percent Burmans. And then you've got Kachan and Wa and Karen, all these ethnic tribes which are either Muslim or Christian. And so the Burmese had never lost a fight. And then you've got Kachan and Wa and Karen, all these ethnic tribes which are either Muslim or Christian. And so the Burmese had never lost a fight. The British came in, subjugated them. The Japanese came in. The Burmese are like, let's get the British out. We're on your team.

The minorities, the British and the Americans go to the minorities and go, if you help us get the Japanese out, we'll make sure you have autonomy and self-determination when we win. And they did. They fought, bled, and died next to Americans and British soldiers. And then the war ended and we said, yes, well, anyway, and left. And the Burmese Civil War started in, like, 1947, and it's still ongoing, right? Right. And so you hear about the Rohingya, but also there are the Kachan and the Wa and the Karen. And so this has been going on for generations. South Asia is horrific, right? Modi has absolutely weaponized faith because he understands that even though they have 240 million Muslims

and millions of Christians and even a Jewish community, et cetera, in India, that they've got 870 million Hindus. So it's a big we-they paradigm. If you're an Ahmadi Muslim in Pakistan, that is Muslims who believe that there have been subsequent prophets after the Prophet Muhammad, you'll be murdered in public and often without recourse. If you're a Christian in Pakistan, the Christians in Afghanistan now, and we're talking about tiny slivers, right? Again, the formulaic sort of totalitarian game is to pick a minority group

big enough that everybody thinks they know somebody from it, but small enough that it can't defend itself. What are they doing to the Christians in Pakistan? Driving them underground, right? There was a great story about a pastor, Sahil Atif, who I was able to tangentially help, who was locked up because he was advocating for the rights of the impoverished in Karachi, not just Christians, but Muslims, as land grabbers came in saying, oh, this is the next place that we want to invest, and then systematically essentially did title fraud on all these people who had like 10 square feet and so sahel latif speaking up for him and they put him in prison and shut down his church right so like it's brave just to be a christian there to be a christian

who stands up and leads so it's even it's even it's arguably stupid but the backstory was when he got out immediately they said well you need to move i mean he shouldn't have to move right so that's exile is if we tell these stories right i'm a naive guy because it's a lot easier to be naive than than than to be worldly i if we tell these stories i think that the that the people of the west won't tolerate it if the people of the west demand their leaders act differently then they will act differently and if they do act differently we can change the world without putting boots on the ground without spending money do you want to do economic and security business with the U.S.? You do? Good. Then stop throwing your homosexuals off rooftops, dumbass. Stop persecuting your Christians. Stop displacing

your Muslims. When George Bush Jr. invaded Afghanistan and then all of a sudden we had this Muslim problem. It was a problem with Muslims. It was all of a sudden that felt very racist towards Muslims in Islam. There was a lot of hate, 2003, 4, 5. What if we have a Sikh that was shot because an idiot thought he was a Muslim? Yeah. So how do we, being implicit in that, because sometimes I'm like, take the plank out of your own eye before you try and fix your neighbor. Like, there's definitely some sort of problem here in the United States, obviously. It's global.

It's beyond nation. Oh, yeah. How do we kind of unwind our own racism? Do you see it anyway as part of the same problem? Like we need to unwind our own racism? So if we are able to do Exile at ExileSeries.com, if we are able to do Exile, we'll do an episode here in this country because we do have very

real problems with prejudice and discrimination. They're not necessarily what have been identified by the groups that claim to speak for the oppressed groups. But this is so simple. And again, I think Offair talked about, well, they say it's too simple. I think we've overcomplicated things. You simply say that as a point of entry to do economic or security business with the

U.S., you have to pass these civil rights criteria. You may not segregate or disallow the participation of any group based on sexuality, race, religion, et cetera. And I think it works because the world has to choose between getting in camp with the West and the U.S. or China. And China doesn't – they don't borrow. They take, right? It might look like borrowing. So I think it works. The example I always like

to use is Turkey during the Cold War. I think I already spoke to this. So we needed to control the Bosphorus, right? Because we needed to keep the Soviets, Black Sea Fleet from sneaking down in the Mediterranean and wreaking havoc in Europe. So we said, Turkey, we want you on our team. And they said, cool, we want to be on your team. Meanwhile, they're persecuting their Christian community. They're absolutely decimating their Kurdish community. They passed a law. These are our NATO allies, the Turks, who subsequently in the last five years

actually put under siege a U.S. base and held Americans hostage, and it never made the news where there were tactical nuclear weapons. But I digress. So they passed a law that said there's no such thing as a Kurd in the U.S. Didn't do a darn thing about it.

I'm going to guess that if you say to Turkey, you can go be with the Soviets or you can be with us, but the price of being with us is not oppressing your minorities, that they're still with us. I take that gamble. There's challenges in how much the United States should be policing other countries. So I think boots on the ground, I would always be opposed to. Right. But then there's the question of us knowing what's going on in China with the Uyghur Muslims. And then doing business with opposed to. Right. But then there's the question of us knowing what's going on in China with the Uyghur Muslims. And then doing business with them anyway.

Right. And people like Mark Cuban and LeBron James being like, oh, we got to stop insulting China. And it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Like, look, we don't want to go invade China or anything like that. But we don't need to, like, be buying stuff made in Xinjiang. So my head's going to explode, right? Because people go, oh, Muslims. Dude, ISIS killed more Muslims than they did Christians or Yazidis, right?

It ain't even close. And people go, oh, you're insulting China. You know who suffers the most under the Chinese regime? The freaking Chinese. So don't tell me that by me speaking out against an authoritarian regime that stymies their people as it suits them, I'm anti-Chinese. I'm anti-oppression. We do have a decent amount of viewers. I have a lot of friends who are very much proud isolationists.

They're like, nope, America is for America. We should focus on America. We got to not be involved in that stuff. And I don't agree. I think there's a happy medium between boots on the ground in a foreign country because of their concentration camps like China. And hey, China, we decided not to buy those cloths from you because you have concentration camps.

This is totally liberty-based foreign policy. It really is. I'm not advocating for boots on the ground anywhere. I'm advocating for not doing business with oppressors, right? Now, things will happen that we will not know about and things will happen on varying scales and certainly hard and fast rules are tough sometimes, but we have absolutely positively turned a blind eye over decades and the world knows it.

If, and this should like, here's the thing. I'm tired of the partisan back and forth rhetoric that they were wrong and we're right. And this and that, and the other, we should be able to unite under the idea,

right? This is what exile series.com is all about, that you should be able to live in the place of your birth without fear. Left and right should be to get behind that. And if the cost of it is that we choose to do business with people who treat their minority groups and their majority with basic human dignity, right? Who, who can't, who can't get behind that? But we don't because nobody's ever said that.

I guess then the solution, or maybe you're suggesting the economic sanctions against countries that just don't do business with them. Yeah,'t because nobody's ever said – I guess then the solution – or maybe you're suggesting economic sanctions against countries that – No, just don't do business with them. Yeah, I guess that's – But you're talking about instead of the government, it's more of an individual choice, like you're inspiring individuals. So when I buy a clock radio, to this day – and I don't buy clock radios anymore because it's 2022, but I'm old. But so when I buy a product, to this day, I'm going to look on the box and try to ascertain where it's made. And if I can buy a product that's made in Malaysia before I buy a product that's made in China, I'm buying the product made in Malaysia.

And if I can buy a product that's made in the United States and I pay a little bit more, to be fair, I'm going to buy that one too. When I was in the military, I used to say I don't want to pay for the bullet that might be used to shoot me because another little secret of the Chinese is the actual military apparatus owns a lot of the means of production. So if you're in the American military and you're buying products made in China, you, ironically enough, are paying for weapons that will be pointed at you. So, yeah, it starts with the individual. Or if you're a taxpayer. I mean, just with all the coups that we funded and everything that's gone in the Middle East and how we end up fighting rebel groups that we funded. So it's like, yeah, ultimately American troops are just going to inevitably be shot with bullets

that they paid for. It's pretty insane. And without gratuitously piling onto the debacle that was the Afghanistan withdrawal, it is not a question of if but when Americans are killed with American weapons. Yeah. I mean, it's going to happen if it hasn't already.

It's already happening. Fast and furious. Obama's whole give cartels guns thing. Man, talk about failed leadership. They've literally prioritized the political agenda over the lives of their very citizens. And in the case of what we're trying to address at ExilesSeries.com,

they've politicized profit over the lives of their fellow human. Nobody cares about the Uyghurs. It was refreshing because somebody told the truth. Oh, yeah. The co-owner of the Golden State Warriors? People were ragged on that guy because they were like, how dare he say that? And I'm like, what?

Be honest with everyone. He didn't say, I personally don't care about their plight. He said, come on. Nobody cares about this. Let's be honest. Which is right. And I'm like, nobody. That should be the clarion call.

They buried the lead. We talk about the Uyghur Muslims concentration camps fairly frequently. And it's remarkable how, for one, a lot of people don't know. And a lot of people do, literally don't care. And like I said, look, I know it's not easy for the average person to find that solution, but try to buy American, even if it costs a little more. And there's a happy medium, like I said, between invading the country, declaring war, and just being like, you know, you shot that Disney movie in the province with a security force of concentration camps.

We're not going to watch that movie. No, but people don't know or care. Yeah, well, and if everything I was discussing earlier, the fact that these Hollywood screenwriters and executives at these studios actually hate you and your way of life isn't enough to encourage you to stop purchasing their products, they're also in league and catering to people who are running actual concentration camps for real right yeah i mean like that's not hyperbolic that's not hyperbolic so you asked earlier um what's the elevator pitch and of course i would like to wait 20 minutes to answer questions the elevator pitch is hollywood won't make this movie this this this doc series they won't and if you go to xl series.com shameless plug and you click on that trailer and you don't think that's freaking world-class product

to tell these stories. It may be the best, but you did insult China. So I'm sorry we can't fund your project. It reminds me of a Vice doc in the early days of Vice when they were just like, the darkest places. How much money can we make if we air this?

We can make money. How much money can we lose if we air this we can make money how much money can we lose if we air this we could lose more what's the right thing to do make money holy crap we're screwed right that's where we are and it's just i mean like can you believe it that's not that's not rhetorical can you believe it if we're at the point where uh and we are where these big networks are like let's make a movie, but don't offend China. China's winning. China's won. And then what?

I mean, they're some of the worst human rights abusers on the planet. What was it? Khrushchev, and I'm going to butcher the quote, who said, you will manufacture the rope that we use to hang you. Yeah. Right? Again, when money drives you, when money and not justice and that which is right drives you. It's like the free hong kong stuff you know when the nba wouldn't allow you to make a free hong kong jersey to order or the hearthstone player it's a

card game held up free hong kong and they're like get him out of there and you know there was look i do think there's some rational argument and keep politics out of some of these things but when the nba can't like you're trying to buy a custom jersey for yourself and you're like i want free hong kong like no or there was that guy who got kicked out because he had the free Hong Kong sign at the NBA. Like, yo, American corporations. It's I'll even say this. It's one thing if you are like Mark Cuban actively defending China. It's one thing if you are like, you know, look, we don't want politics in here.

And then it's funny when an American corporation is actively defending China from protesters in America. Like, that is just a whole new level. Corpionism. What? It's communism and corporatism. Yeah. Right?

Remember, you can use that one, man. I like that. That's great. Corpionism. Well, so, like, the left used to rail against the corporations, and now their agenda is funded by and and at some level dictated by the corporations but we won't go down that road um and they used to stand up for free speech and now you know you must adhere to the orthodoxy i mean like

it's it's dystopian it's remarkable how uh you know one of the points brought up by one of our super chatters the other the other day was that they say black people can't be racist, but Candace Owens is racist. I'm lost, man. I get it. It makes no sense on purpose, I suppose. But sure, whatever. When I went into Sudan against everyone's wishes and snatched these two guys out and met them at the airport, I didn't take a camera crew because I'm a crappy politician. Because I felt like it would be dirty to do that.

But meanwhile, I'm being called a racist. It just baffles me. Like I'm literally risking my life again and again and again as a white Christian male for people of different races, ethnicities, and faiths. I wonder how many people – And I'm being called a racist. How many throughout time have been demonized that actually did good? And like Lucifer, let's take the worst demon of all.

How do you know that he was evil? Because history told you he did wrong? People talk, because God said so. You're a racist. Dedicated to Lucifer. I'm not down for the same crazy argument. I'm steelmanning the argument here, but I can't stand

the way propaganda works against individuals, the way they try and tear people down. I just thought you were going to do the Alinsky book for us. No, but I think it would be fascinating to see you both do like your own conversation on religion, you know, hippie, EN, DMT spirituality with, you know, Seamus, Christianity, and have that conversation and, you know, it would be fascinating. Yeah, it doesn't have to be about the Christian Bible. I know that the Bible is very divisive about good and evil, i wonder if like i think of that as propaganda do you think that's

evil what propaganda is too divisive about good and evil oh yeah if the catholic church actually devised a plan to manipulate people that's evil well no but you're saying it's too divisive about good and evil is it like what's wrong with being divided like what's wrong with talking good and evil because if you if you're the one that gets to decide what's good and what's evil and you tell people like this is evil don't then you're controlling people's Because if you're the one that gets to decide what's good and what's evil and you tell people, like, this is evil, then you're controlling people's behavior. But you're saying what the church is doing is evil. You guys should have a conversation later on. Seamus has told me that I shouldn't consume product from Hollywood, but I've already made a lock stock reference earlier.

And I'm about to quote Kaiser Sose. So, right, the greatest trick that the devil ever pulled is convincing us he didn't exist. Amen. say so right the greatest trick that the devil ever pulled is convincing us he didn't exist amen so until you can until you can identify some baseline for right and wrong right liberty is ultimately allowing your freedom stops where mine starts allowing people to make any decision they want to for themselves until it begins to impact others and so um what i'm advocating for is a world where and we can all do that but when you start hurting other people, then we have a duty, I think, particularly people lucky enough to be born here, to say, no, no, I can't support it. We're literally supporting it. That's the thing.

It's not even a question of going over there and doing something. It's just a question of not supporting it from here. So should we go intervene in Ukraine? Hell no. But we should let the ukrainians help themselves all right let's go to super chats if you haven't already smash that like button give it a nice little tap that thumbs up it's greatly appreciated subscribe to this channel share the show with your friends if you really want to help us out and go to timcast.com become a member

to get access to exclusive members only segments from all of our guests really awesome shows it's a huge library of content you don't want to miss. But let's read what y'all have to say. All right, let's see. Cheeseburger says, Arguing with Ian be like jelly wrestling an eel. That's a wonderful bunch of noises that Tim just made. All right.

Jamis Tefferson says, Hello, I'm from PA and appreciate you covering this news as actual journalists with a broader perspective on the local stations no offense to them what are your thoughts on governor tom wolf uh didn't he kill a bunch of old people i think he did too yeah sounds like not a good guy yeah so all right bradley heaton says big fan i think you use the term objective incorrectly objective evil can only exist if a creator exists. Objective evil would be any against that entity. Human evil is subjective. Objective is without emotion. We can subjectively determine evil. I don't, uh, I, I, I, your point taken, but I don't

think I used objectively wrong. Um, but I do think, you know, I can clarify, and this was on the member segment. I think we were talking about this. And my point is, in the human experience, there is evil that is universal to all humans. All humans can identify certain things as evil. That's my point. Yeah. I mean, we have certain moral intuitions. And again, human perception doesn't define whether something is good or evil, but I think it's a good point because we wouldn't say, for example, if every single person in this room was able to observe that there was this water bottle here we wouldn't say well but we don't actually know for sure the water bottles there because our senses could be deceiving us yet we tend to do the same thing with morality yeah yeah right so the baseline again is when do you start to harm others

right you can do whatever you want until you do my liberty stops right well i think for i think for a libertarian analysis but i would also say with morality we have an obligation not to harm ourselves and to take care of ourselves, et cetera. I'm thinking about it from the perspective of the CCP. Like, are they saying the Uyghurs are harming us by existing? Just their existence is a threat to our species? Their value structure is a threat to the regime, right? I think they're the Borg and they're evil. Yeah, that's what it looks like from this perspective.

The CCP is the Borg. That's kind of how I see it. But from their perspective, the Uyghurs are a threat to their way of life. Another thing that's been going on is back before they got rid of their one-child policy, they weren't adhering to it in the rural outlying areas anyway. And the Chinese are – the Han Chinese are like, if you want real racism, right? So the Uyghurs aren't Han Chinese. And they don't want more of those people people thing with them but yeah let's read some more we got a raftus of stet hey Seamus

Mormon here just wanted to say that polygamy hasn't been practiced with the church's approval since 1890 and divorce isn't legal either I think it's important to remember churches are made up of the same flawed humans yeah definitely I would I'd have to defer to Carrie on that if she were still here. According to a lot of people I've spoken to who either were former Mormons, it's something that has occurred, but not necessarily within the church or not something that the church endorses anymore.

I think the fact that you have to like go back on a teaching, and this is with all due respect, by the way, because I actually do appreciate your super chat. And I'm not just like here to bludgeon you for disagreeing with me. And obviously, you know more about Mormonism than I do. And there's plenty I could learn about it from you.

But I would say that a church having to say we speak for God, but God was wrong about this or we were wrong about this is an indicator that it's not the true church. So for it to change its position on polygamy is actually condemning it in and of itself. But what you're saying that if any kind of church reforms, then that is satanic, that is evil? Satanic. I don't know if that's the wrong word. So no, it's a good question because there can sort of be like administrative changes

or there can be changes in terms of what practices are occurring. But if a religion says this is immutable morality from God and then later on they change it, then they're basically saying either A, God changed his mind, and I believe that that's an incoherent idea, or B, like God changed his mind about fundamental morality, or B, we got it wrong in the first place, in which case, why do you trust them to get it right now? Did you think that Lutheranism was a heresy? Absolutely, yeah, that's why it's called Lutheranism. The Catholic Church names a heresy after the person who started

it, generally speaking. So that's why Lutheranism is called Lutheranism, actually. Luther called himself a reformer and actually called himself a Catholic. The Catholic Church called him a Lutheran and his followers Lutherans. Interesting. Alright, well you guys should have a longer conversation on this. Yeah. By the way, thank you for your super chat, too, because I

do appreciate being challenged and having these kinds of discussions. Alright, VBDC says where in West Virginia is Friedomistan? Nice try. does timcast music launch can i help run it i've had a number one reggae album on itunes a couple weeks ago uh purebloods ps no ian we fleeing um love that we we're producing music i just recorded scratch track uh vocals for for one song we're putting together fairly rough i just did like two takes and there were a few sour notes in there. You know what happens. I'm not the greatest singer in the world or anything like that, but I can get it. Just take me like six or seven takes to get a good run

through. And we should be having a few songs coming out soon. I think we might even have like, we might end up with like five songs all at once ready to go and then make some videos for them. And we're talking with some of our good friends about producing music one of the things i really want to do is send one of our tracks to uh the daily wire and see if ben shapiro could drop some violin on it oh my goodness i'm not even kidding and then uh you know like sydney watson plays piano and sings and then jack plays bass and uh james o'keefe sings so i'm like why don't we just like ask people to do a quick recording and then we'll throw it in the mix

and then we'll have this crazy song of all of these different you know people first of all you should invite Ben Shapiro to rap yes

secondly you should have invited me to play harmonica but I get it you don't love me oh yeah I mean if Ben Shapiro

was down to rap on a song I would be it would be an honor and a privilege even if he paused to think about what he was talking about

yeah gangsters paradise easy oh my god all right let's read okay gang does he say that all the time honestly gang okay thanks here's the thing okay gang yeah he says gang a lot can you do can you combine jordan peterson and ben shapiro yeah i've actually done that before on a stream so yeah so so um we can either do like shapiro's voice with Peterson's cadence or Peterson's voice. So like honestly, if you're going to tell me that universal health care is a good idea for America, you're wasting my time. Okay, gang. Okay, gang.

All right, all right, all right. DJ White says, what if we removed names and parties from the ballot and instead put issues on the ballot and whomever matches the position on that issue gets the vote? Make their positions known, though. Because primaries would be confusing. You'd have, like, a big list of pro-choice. It would be like, one, pro-choice, two, pro-choice, three, pro-choice. And you'd be like, I don't know, the second one, I guess. And then who are you voting for?

Who puts the gun to their head and makes them keep their word? Yeah, right. Maybe that's something. Metaphorically, just so we don't get— Well, we talked about this. No, no, no. We talked about Ian proposed arresting politicians who signed bills without reading them. Interesting.

Yeah, I should read that one. I had a bill called the Read It Act because they dropped like 20,000 pages on us and said we're going to go in tomorrow and vote on it. And so Read It Act stood for review every enactment detailed in total or something. It's hard to be clever. Dude, I couldn't – of course, I couldn't get a vote on that one either. So what the bill said was that we were entitled to, without sleep, five minutes per page or one minute per page per piece of legislation

before it was brought to a vote. And everybody was like, what are you trying to do? Without sleep. We have to. Yeah, without including sleep or trips to the bathroom, right? Why would they do that? That must be because they want to ramrod it through. Of course it's because they want to ramrod it through. Of course it's because

they want to ramrod it through. And if anybody stands up and says that in front of a microphone, then they won't get money from the NRCC or the DCCC to get reelected.

What's NRCC? National Public and Congressional Committee. It's all about that party getting that money? I've told you, man, there's four people in that building

that have any power. It's the majority leader and the minority leader on one side and the speaker and the minority leader on the other. What about crowdfunding? If you crowdfund everything and the minority leader on the other. What about crowd?

Like if you crowdfund everything and it's all about the people. Campaign finance is supposed to be crowdfunding except the donor lists are all kept and held tight by the, yeah.

All right, let's read this. Axie says, or I should say Axel, two Xs. Am I the only one who thinks Seamus's impression of Jordan Peterson

sounds like Kermit the Frog? No. I love the show. I came for Tim but stayed for Ian. I mean, that's just how Jordan Peterson sounds. I love Jordan Peterson but like that's like, yeah? No. Love the show. I came for Tim, but stayed for Ian. I mean, that's just how Jordan Peterson sounds. I love Jordan Peterson, but that's like...

That's the point. Yeah, Kermit's more like this, a little. And Jordan Peterson's a bit higher. He's more up here. The way he says his O's is like, Not doing it. Yeah. And the way...

Like, say psychologist. Psychologist. Yeah, he's Canadian. Yeah, yeah. It's like Canadian Kermit the Frog. It's a science. Exactly. Justin Force says,

the media cheered when demonstrators risked derailing a train by setting fire to the tracks, but call it fascism to use peaceful noncompliance against the government. That should be the greatest wake-up call. Take that cartoon showing working class people protesting, where it says they're fascists, and share it with your friends and family. And then when you have a family member who's like,

I don't believe this. I watch CNN. Be like, do you think it's fascist if working class people are fighting back against the elites? And like, well, no, of course not. Here's the Washington Post saying, stop the people from resisting us. You know what's so evil? Those fascist truckers. We have political cartoonists who want fascist truckers in the workforce. I thought the whole idea is we wanted to push these people out of the system, get them canceled, take their jobs from them. And they want those fascist truckers back on the

job? Insane. They're not anti-fascist enough. Not anti-fascist enough. Shut up and get to work. Exactly. They are protecting the jobs of fascists. So, Lydia, you said you checked my Twitter, and so I got called out by Dinesh D'Souza because I tweeted at one point, like,

anti-fascism is something I think we can all get behind. And Dinesh D'Souza goes, now we've got conservative Republicans saying they're part of Antifa. And I'm like, no, literally, I think anti-fascism is something we can all get behind. Yep. So, ah. Yeah. But they use clever word games. They do.

So that if you ever say you oppose fascism, then you must be a communist. Oh, you're not pro-choice? You mean you don't want to allow anyone to choose to do their own thing? Oh, okay then. Watt Fandom says, have you seen the latest information on the Shroud of Turin? Proven to be authentic. I have not seen that. Have you seen that?

Let's check it out. I haven't seen the latest information. I know it's something that's gone back and forth. I believe it's authentic, but it's a much longer discussion. Is it the Shroud that they apparently buried Jesus in? Yes. They said they recovered it at some point, and it's like an artifact? Mm-hmm.

Interesting. But they can't carbon date it because it was in a fire or something? I don't remember all the details. It's been a while since I've looked at this. There's a lot. It goes pretty deep, and people have been very back and forth on it. All right. Let's read this.

We've got Mr. Obvious. He says, I don't agree with immigration in a time where there's not enough to go around for Americans. America has starving children and people living in poverty. They are hurt hardest by an influx of cheap labor. I just don't know how to stop it. How do you stop immigration? I know one way to stop it that they did historically, and we're not doing that.

At the very least, they could be like, you have entered the country illegally. We will now send you back. And at the very most, you look at what the romans would do which is just take families and tribes and cities worth of people that were trying to migrate across the river and kill them all so like yeah no no we don't do that no so how do you deal with you don't put them on secret charter flights we're not even trying but how do you deal with it though i really want to you put them on secret charter flights back to the countries where they originate from back to where they're citizens the wall I used to laugh at it I kind of understand oh you see you see this is the funniest thing when Trump was like I'm gonna build a big beautiful wall from

sea to shining sea 30 feet high or whatever and then the wall just got 10 feet higher and all that stuff and the left was like walls don't work and then I think it was Greece built a three meter high fence and illegal immigration dropped by 95 oh my goodness it was just a chain link fence they didn't even put money into it so when everybody was being driven out of the middle east by isis turkey actually had a wall built between themselves and the kurdish populations in iraq syria and iran and the eu paid for it and i'm like there is yeah well also how could you even say something like that walls don't work like obviously it's going to stop some people. This is a matter of probability.

But they like to show videos where someone's skinny and can slip through the bollard fencing or where it's not complete and people walk through it. And it's like – this was really funny. They'd be like, Trump didn't complete any of the wall. He only built the fencing where there were already fences. And they don't show you that the original fence is like a four foot high log on a post yeah and the new the new wall is a three layer barrier and what they don't tell you is that the areas that trump reinforced were the hot spots where all of the people were constantly coming through so they reinforced the most you know the worst spots

okay like the idea that walls don't work is the stupidest thing ever we we live in we live in walls yeah an argument trumpeted ever. We live in walls. An argument trumpeted by people who live in gated communities. Exactly. That's right. Like people, and yes, people break into gated communities sometimes. No one is claiming that a wall would stop 100% of everybody. But it would help.

Yes. All right. Let's see what we got here. This is Murph. Says, Seamus, another way to think of a nation taking care of their own is a parent who will feed the other kids in the neighborhood thinking it's charitable but not feeding their own children. Exactly. This gets back to the principle of subsidiarity, which is that that which is most appropriate to you is that which is closest to you. You have certain responsibilities that you need to fulfill before you go and try to take care of everybody else. devolution away from a brilliant system that we were bequeathed by our founders is not prioritizing

those things for which government is actually responsible right so when i was doing state work i would ask myself first is this appropriate for government but the most important question is at this level because the county doesn't need an army but the federal government should probably have one right so yeah we've just lost it we've completely lost it no politician wants to vote against anything that's a good idea because it could hurt them at the instead of saying to the to the body politic to the electorate hey look guys this might be a good idea it's not our job right like if you want and i live in a rural area if you want the government to if you want good high-speed internet don't let the federal government pay for it right i mean think about when you try to

call the IRS but your county government might have an appropriate role in that so all right Atherin says I want to recommend quote the science of storytelling by Will Storr and he explains the neuroscience of storytelling Tom said these guys ain't lying

they've drunk the Kool-Aid this book explains how and why very interesting Sniper says ever since i heard about the uighur muslims and what china was doing to them i'll never forget it and i'll never i'll never ever stop thinking about it yeah it's crazy man the following gong's crazy too very crazy and the crazy propaganda they try to run here in the u.s i get comments still i don't know if I'm going to. I probably will. Whenever I talk about the Chinese government, the CCP, I get people on Twitter usually are like, you've fallen for the propaganda.

The CCP is totally benevolent. There's no evidence. And like I don't know who to believe. What I love is in Virginia we have free Tibet license plates always on cars belonging to people who would never do anything to sanction the Chinese who suppressed and subjugated Tibet. The Tibet, those are the Falun Gong and Tibet? No, no, the Falun Gong is more to the east, but Tibet's a nation state that's been essentially subsumed by China. So I'm going to free Tibet, but I'm not willing to lift a finger to do it. And again, we're not talking about troops on the ground.

We're talking about standing up and saying, you guys, that's not right. All right. Marco says, hey, Tim, I heard you were interested in having representatives from West Virginia on. How would someone go about scheduling with you guys to get on? I don't know. I don't know. We can look. Well, we'll have to look at the West Virginia reps and then reach out to them, I suppose.

The problem with politicians, sorry, politicians, is that we'll reach out and be like, hey, we'd love to have you on the show. You know, this thing happened. And they'll say, oh, man, we'd love to come on. Send an email to this person. And we go, you got it. And then we do. And they never respond. Why is that?

Somebody somewhere who is not elected by anyone has read something on the Internet where they deem that there's a greater risk than reward from having been on your show politics this is why for the most part i i'm just not interested in asking politicians to come on only only some and a few like uh we've reached out to it to some and they've agreed to and i will say this you know uh we're planning on having dan crenshaw on the show we reached out to him and he was like we'll find a time and then he was like yeah i can make it i can make it work and respect him for doing it. A lot of people are mad at him for a lot of different things that happen in the press, but he's willing to come on the show and talk about whatever

and whenever. So I'm awesome. Glad it's going to happen. From your perspective, Tom, having been a politician, do you think that there's value to doing shows like this as a politician? My fear with ExileSeries.com is that we'll get like cubby hold as as a right-wing thing or a christian thing or whatever thing this is a human freedom thing

um but i tell you like if there is a podcast that is the opposite of timcast i'll go on but because this is a story that like we should be to freaking believe in right but look the issue right now is you know obviously everybody knows, if you ask me, I'm just like Civil War. And whatever form that may take, it's not going to look like it was in the 1800s, but we're here when Joe Rogan, who believes in universal basic income,

who supported Bernie Sanders, had him on his show, and often touts relatively left social policy and left economic policy is called far right, dangerous misinformation over like one guest. Look, they're claiming he's alt-right, far right, and all that stuff. And Joe's almost a socialist. So it doesn't even matter what the show is. It breaks down to this.

If the show tells the truth, it's going to be called right wing. If the show lies, it's probably establishment, corporate, or democratic. And in Mao's China, they would be considered left wing. They were all leftists. Or no, they were rightists, rightists. They would condemn the rightists. So stand by for the canceling of Bill Maher in like three, two, one, right? I mean, as soon as you start getting out of the orthodoxy, then.

Maybe. Or Bill Maher is a fair weather liberal who waited until it was safe enough. And now he's coming out and criticizing all this stuff two years later because we might be seeing the end of the pandemic. So he may just be another corporate shill. I just again, though, I mean, we talked about the vaccine, right? Donald Trump rams through a vaccine and one fourteenth of the time that his historical scientific protocol dictates. Why do we have these review periods? Two reasons.

Primarily, number one, to make sure there's efficacy. And number two, that the harm doesn't outweigh the benefit. We throw those rules out the window. The same group of people who said everything this guy does is evil are like, you got to go get the vaccine. And I'm like like there's no consistency anyway well yeah yeah so in in 2020 you have all these people saying they would never get it now these are the people saying you better go get it or else yeah it's it's it's all right it's all tribal it's all it's all tribal you know and and and because of this we it's difficult to have

certain conversations on youtube because youtube is clearly within one tribe. But you know what? I think we're winning. But I'm not advocating for a decision either way. I'm advocating for a thorough review of the facts, right? I said earlier, like the last radio show I did, there was a philosophical argument, and the question was, if you can choose between truth and freedom, which do you choose? My answer is choose truth. It will beget freedom.

We're losing truth. Therefore, it is reasonable to presume that if we lose it, we'll lose freedom. All right, let's read some more. We got DW. He says, YouTuber CRS Firearms was arrested yesterday by the ATF for made-up bogus charges. Please let people know to look him up and support him. Well, I don't know much about it, but y'all can look it up and see what's going on there. All right.

Brian says, there has to be a federal law that prohibits media companies from being traded on the stock market, taking the corporate out of corporate media. Perhaps, perhaps. I don't know that that would solve the problem of them being horrible. Yeah, they're just – I don't know. Because, of course, NPR is completely reliable. They're not publicly traded. Exactly.

Right. And Google's alphabet is not a media corporation. All right. Burrito Boy says, The Canadian government's propaganda wing has labeled the Freedom Convoy a white supremacist movement. Makes you wonder about agent provocateurs. Also, first ever super chat. Love the show.

Keep it up. Hey, appreciate it. Hot Dog says, Do Anthony Fauci singing Tragedy from the Bee Gees? Which song is that? I don't know, but I think Fauci would sing Stayin' Alive about the vaccine.

That's a good one. Ah, ah, ah. I wish we were tragedy. I'm stayin' alive. I'm wearing two masks. By the way, I use my walk. I'm a woman's man. No time to talk.

Careful. Because the droplets will come out and land on your grandmother. Stop talking. I was listening to Fauci and Rand Paul, and I was like, my voice doesn't really sound like Rand Paul. No, it sounds pretty good. I thought you were going to say I was listening to the Bee Gees for a second. Well, it's like I do a very gruff version. It works, dude.

Also, people can't tell it's your voice. I know. That's really funny. So I voice Fauci on his cartoon and people are like, no way that's Tim. It was cool.

I was listening to it but I had forgotten it was you. But I was listening to it and it was like, that's awesome. I was like, oh yeah. I love that when you forget

your friend is the character. Seamus, Alex Jones into me. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. Don't say anymore. You and I are going to just don't want to. Don't say anymore. Yeah, gosh, yeah. Don't say any more. You and I are going to... Don't say any more. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

All right. Lane says, Ian is like a D&D character who rolls either a 1 or 20 for perception checks on conversations. I always loved the... Oh, is there more? Yeah.

Wouldn't be the same without him. P.S. Love you, Seamus. I've been a fan of you longer than I have Tim. Hot topic. I love you. Thank you. I just want to say real quick, Ian, this is correct. You either roll a 1 or a 20. And it's not by design. Hot topic. I love you. Thank you. I just want to say real quick, Ian, this is correct.

You either roll a one or a 20. And it's not by design. Wait, it is by design. That's what I meant. No, it isn't. I like the character playing the Fallout run-through every once in a while.

If you guys play Fallout with a really stupid character because they have a whole new form of dialogue choices when they're really stupid. It's funny. Yeah, I think that's funny too. So do you understand D&D at all?

So I just know that there's been a tacit admission that Ian owns 20-sided dice. There's no doubt. It's funny. I think that's funny too. Do you understand D&D at all? I just know that there's been a tacit admission that Ian owns 20-sided dice. There's no doubt. It basically means that perception, if Ian rolls a 20, he's going to articulate this amazing thought that invigorates the conversation. When he rolls a 1, he sounds like a moron. I think it's because if I start

and it's not working, I just kind of give up. It fizzles into weirdness. I try to keep going, but we're on a team. We're only on a certain amount of time. Let's grab some more Super Chats. All right, there's Elwood Blues. Alex E. Jones for president. Is that Alex's middle name?

Is it whatever? Yes, Alex. Oh, yeah, what is it? Eugene. I don't know. Has Tim ever explored Brock's candy in Chicago before it was demoed? I didn't know it was. No, I didn't.

Emmerich. Emmerich? Emmerich Jones, yeah. That's a good name. It sounds Irish to me. Is demoed. I didn't know it was. No, I didn't. That's a good name. Sounds Irish to me. Alright. Pitzu says Switzerland is neutral and they have border walls. Yes, Switzerland's where the Bank of International Settlements is headquarters. Neutrality's nice when you run the economy.

20 or a 1? That's a 20. I think I rolled a 7. I think I rolled a 17 on that. I don't know if I beat the armor class. I think what's so insane about that, though, the mentioning that Switzerland is neutral, it's a point you have to make nowadays, but the idea that having a border is a political statement is so ridiculous.

I mean, if we follow down that track for 50 years, it's a one-world utopia where everyone holds hands under the rainbow and all that stuff right right is that what they're claiming yeah yeah yeah all right john stalling says i'm from missouri and i'd love to see you reach out to josh holly is that in the works that'd be so cool yeah i'd love to have josh holly on the show but look it is so insanely difficult to get politicians they're so busy too they're, and often they're not in D.C.

We're really close to D.C. We're an hour from D.C., so even that's too hard for a lot of these people. It's going to be a lot harder now that I'm filling in every now and again. Plus, Tom made a really good point. They're going to be like, oh, we got invited on this big podcast. Meh. Somebody who didn't get elected

who shouldn't have the authority will go, you don't want to do it and here's why. And they're going to be too busy to do their own homework. You know who I want to have on the show? Who's that lady running for governor in Florida? You know what I'm talking about? Is it – Nikki Freed or something?

Oh, Nikki Freed. Is that her name? Nikki Freed? I'd love to have her on the show. That would be so fun. Yeah, she's running against DeSantis in Florida. And she posted something that I thought was really interesting. And I was like, I would love to discuss these ideas.

It was not that she was wrong about something. It was like, she said something about restoring freedom but being opposed to gun rights. And then I was like, I would love to have a philosophical discussion about what that means. What does that look like?

Like only the state should be able to use violence against people, but we want you to be free. Something like that. Can't protect yourself and your family. I think Republicans should right now abolish the atf yes repeal the nfa yes and uh should there be a convention of states we should uh we should have an amendment which is just called the second amendment a where it's like It's basically the exact same language

As the Second Amendment But we just want to make sure Everyone's clear on this one This time around We just write Shall not be infringed Shall not be infringed Shall not be infringed

Right, right We'll say it again For those in the back We actually meant this Yeah Second Amendment I will taunt you For a third time

Yeah All right Oh hot I don't know how to pronounce that Whatever It says you for a third time. Alright. Ohat I don't know how to pronounce that. Whatever. It says Ohatakarl Ohatarkal. Okay, I know this is kind of a broken record, but why haven't you had the

ADV China guys on? A lot of the stuff you talk about on China lines up with them. I don't know. Why haven't we? Yeah, why haven't we? I had them a while ago. Yeah. In Laowai. Yeah, in Laowai. Yeah, that'd be cool. Yeah. All right.

Nicholas Cronkite says, Hello, Tim and friends. I'm putting my name in for Nevada governor. I'm going to run on no more mandates. I returned to normal and making Nevada a two-way sanctuary state. The governor's job is to protect your rights, not take them from you. Best of luck, good sir. Sounds good.

All right. Roadrunner says, Ian means well, but he must be careful. His want to not step on others doesn't cause evil. Sometimes the right thing is not the kindest. That's a pro-mean tweets comment that you got.

Hunter says, Michael Savage defined a nation as borders, language, culture. It's a good way to look at it, in my opinion. Yeah. I think the problem in the United States is that we have no community anymore. People don't view each other in this country as neighbors. They view each other not as neighbors. So even though we have a greater umbrella constitution in government, people in certain neighborhoods don't view their other neighbors as friends. People don't view other politics as Americans.

A judge in Pennsylvania says, you're a Republican, so we rule against you. I've been finding since the internet video age that I have more in common sometimes with an Australian guy that I meet. And I'm like, well, you're just a smart person. I just get your – I understand you. Rather than just because I was born next door to that guy who... I went to high school and school with kids that I don't even ever see anymore. They're like, I don't stay in touch with them just because I was from

there. So it's out of this global homogeneity, borders, culture, and language. Well, culture is dispersed throughout the globe now. Language, almost everybody speaks English. So other than the borders, what's keeping this... unifying this country? And what are the borders even?

So when I was reading up on you, I heard you like K-pop. No. Okay. Who said that? You might have heard that he's a quarter Korean. Is that real that someone said I like K-pop? Truly, I was just doing a deep dive on his dimple. I honestly don't know anything about K-pop.

I know Gangnam Style. It's not true. Yeah, right. That's what I know. The point that I'm making is that there is still definitive culture, right? And I've been, again, really blessed to spend time in a lot of places. I've got more common with somebody in South Central Los Angeles than I do with somebody in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. It ain't even close.

You know what? Let me read this. One more super chat. Noah Zork says, answer your own question. Expose politicians that won't talk in public by inviting them. Promote the ones that will.

Why don't we do that? Put all politicians on notice. And this may mean that no politician ever wants to come on again. If we reach out to a politician and they don't respond, we'll just tell everyone we reached out to this politician to come on the. If we reach out to a politician and they don't respond, we'll just tell everyone we reached out to this politician to come on the show. They didn't respond. If they do and then they don't show up, we'll say that. And if they do and they do show

up, well, you'll see them on the show. That's right. And then we can start being like, you know, I'll say it like this. We reached out to politician so-and-so. They're under no obligation to give us their time. They're very busy, but they did not respond to our request to have him on the show. Simple as that. I'm not trying to dictate that people, you know, that we're owed anything like that, but there's a lot of people we've invited on the show, and I'm sure people would want to know who we did invite and, you know, why they didn't respond or didn't end up coming on.

And I think that's fair. These are politicians. These are not private people. These are public officials. So with that being said, smash that like button right now. Subscribe to this channel. Share the show if you really do like it. Tell your friends about it.

And become a member at TimCast.com if you want to support the work we do because membership is our principal funding. It's how we have everybody working here. It's how we grow. It's the principal way we do it because we do have sponsors, obviously, but it's with your support that we're able to expand. So again, TimCast.com. You can follow the show at TimCastIRL on Instagram. You can follow me at TimCast basically everywhere, also

on Instagram. Tom, you want to shout anything out? Yeah, man. So everything Tim said better than I can, ExileSeries.com. Go take a look at the trailer. I believe in it. I hope you will, but by gosh, if we get eyes on this product, we're going to fund this product. So social media, share it. Get it out there.

There are people who are far less fortunate than you. If you can't give a buck, then give a share. And thanks so much for the opportunity, guys. What an honor. All 20s, by the way. Yeah, yeah. Critical success. Yeah, thank you so much for having me on tonight, Tim.

It's always a privilege to be able to be second chair while I'm filling in for he who is dearly missed. You're just assuming that Ian's third chair. Ian's third chair, no. It got switched. He was demoted. Now, I'm Seamus Coghlan. Check me out.

Freedom Tunes, T-O-O-N-S. This is my YouTube channel. I do political cartoons, and I think you guys would probably enjoy them. We released one yesterday about the masks that I was pretty happy with, and we release every Thursday, sometimes on Tuesdays as well. What's the other channel? The FEE channel?

Oh, yeah. So I also run a channel with the Foundation for Economic Education called Common Sense Soapbox. But Common Sense Soapbox, I have a couple other things that I handle. They're all linked to on the Freedom Tunes channel. So if you go over there, you'll be able to see all of it. Sweet.

Cool. You can follow me at iancrossland.net. Tom, you're also Garrett in Exile on Twitter. I don't know if you showed that. I was literally looking

to see who I am. Garrett in Exile on Twitter. And it's new, but yeah, do follow. Thanks so much, William. Thank you for making this and pouring yourself into this. How long have you been doing this?

How long have you been doing this? Oh, gosh. So this is like, we're supposed to be done, right? I want to be respectful of you. Thank you for making this and pouring yourself into this. How long have you been doing this? How long have you been doing this? Oh gosh, so this is like, we're supposed to be done, right? I want to be respectful of you. This thing started before we knew it started. It started when we went into Sudan and got those guys out and then just kept like, so I, recovering alcoholic, three years, eight months, and five days. And I'm like, what do I want to do with my life? This shit

feels right because this stuff is stuff that matters. Helping people who can't help themselves, And a compelled charity is not charity. But every single life has value. We should be doing something about it. This is ExileSeries.com. ExileSeries.com. God bless you guys. Thanks.

Yeah, I'm really excited to hear about this series and I hope this documentary really takes off. I hope all of you guys will go over and check out ExileSeries.com and see what Tom's been up to. Very hard work, very interesting, neat, challenging stuff. You guys may follow me on Twitter at Sarah Patchlets and also on Mines.

Make sure to check out the Cast Castle vlog over at YouTube.com slash Cast Castle because we have a video up every single day and you can watch the shenanigans that happens here in the castle and just keep in mind it's a semi-fictitious show where we make jokes and gags and Seamus tortures people. What?

Thanks for hanging out, everybody. We'll see you all there. Just asking questions.