Repairing Biden's Immigration Crisis
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What's up? What's up, everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith, and of course, he is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How are you this morning, brother? I am well. I got to listen to the full intro song. I got a sip in my mouth, a free coffee out of your fridge. I'm fucking humming. Let's go. There you go. That's what matters. The things that matter in life. I don't know why I said this morning. It is not the morning. It is the afternoon. It's 1 p.m. I got it. And I've been up since 5 a.m. I should...

I should be on top of that. We are going to Louisville.

Louville. Louville. Louville, Kentucky. Every state, you got to drop letters to talk like a local. We will. We will be talking like locals soon enough. This Thursday, only a couple days away, this Thursday in Louville, Kentucky, and then Fort Wayne, Indiana, Friday and Saturday. Looking forward to that. Come on out, guys. ComicDaveSmith.com has the ticket links up there. And yeah, this should be a fun one. New markets for us.

Have you ever played in either of these? I've played in both. Nope, that's a lie. I played in Pecking, Indiana, where you have to fly into Louisville. So I've never... I played a gig in Indiana and flew into Louisville once. I think I... You know, I did...

I did shows in Indiana years ago. I can't remember where, but it was not Fort Wayne. I don't know one thing about Indiana. I think they got one of the races out there, the Indy 5. I think that's out there. Oh, I thought you were going to start talking about Jews or something like that. They got one of them races I'm not very fond of. Usually if you name a state, I know one fun fact about the state. I don't think I know one thing about Indiana. Yeah, I got old beef with them over Reggie Miller's Pacers.

I really bugged me as a kid. I forgot that. I didn't even put that together. Dude, I remember watching those Knicks games as a kid and Reggie Miller just winning games the last 13 seconds and you wanted just to cry as an eight-year-old. Oh, I mean... That was something. He literally... I'm pretty sure he made me cry several times. He was just blessed by an angel in the last 30 seconds of Knick playoff games. Dude, being a Knick fan was great. It was an amazing team. I love them so much, but...

It was so heartbreaking. It was like always, this is when we were kids, the Knicks, we're like, they lost in the finals twice. And then every other year they'd lose in like the conference finals or the second round or something. But it was always like a team that we were like, this is the year. This is the year we're going to get it. Patrick Ewing missing that finger roll against the Indiana Pacers. Oh my God, it was heartbreaking. Can I tell you a good John Stark story?

Sure. There used to be a... For anybody not listening, John Starks was the shooting guard for the Knicks in the 90s. Scrappy kid. Scrappy kid. So they had this John Starks-Doc Rivers basketball camp. This was before Doc Rivers went on to become a very successful coach. Yes, Doc Rivers also. He was our starting point guard, and I think he blew out his knee or something, which was a real thing. We went to the finals that year even without him, and it was like, we probably would have won a goddamn title, Doc.

And so this I think it was a great cash grab for these guys that they ran one week basketball camp in the summer for I must have been all of seven or eight years old. So they're never there. You're shooting fouls. Yeah. You know what I mean? With some camp counselor from the JCC and then they roll in once on the last day to sign autographs and their names on it.

So one time John Starks rolls in and he goes, all right, I'm going to take like they get all the kids in there. And he goes, I'm going to take half court shots. And every time I miss it, I'll do 10 pushups. And he missed so many shots. He couldn't do the pushups. Wait, is that true? Yeah, I remember this as a kid. He just couldn't hit half court shots. And then and it wasn't even a lot of pushups. It was going to like do 10 pushups each time. And then by like the fourth missed shot, he was like, you know, we'll do one pushup.

I remember even as an eight year old being like, that wasn't the thing. And no one asked you to do this. No one's like, hey, John Starks, can you hit a half court shot? Dude, that is goddamn hilarious. Anyway, yeah, John Starks was my guy. It was hard not to love him, though, because he was such a he was like from the he came out of the CBA. He was like bagging groceries and then he was guarding Michael Jordan and.

Unsuccessfully in the NBA. Talking shit while he was doing it unsuccessfully. That made him fun. Yeah. I like Sprewell. Sprewell is my guy. Yeah, that was a fun team, too. So we traded Starks for Sprewell. And then, yeah, someone in the chat here said Reggie Punk and Spike Lee. Yeah, it was a fun time. Fun time. What a different goddamn country. What a different country we lived in back then.

I haven't watched basketball since then. It was cool when Patrick Ewing was on the team. One time also I went to NBA Jam, which was a thing that they used to do at the Javits Center. And I got to high five Patrick Ewing and I did that little kid thing where you're like, I can never wash this hand again. Yes, I got some seven foot black sweat all over my hand. Yeah, dude. Well, there's nothing. There's nothing like the way you kind of look up to athletes as a kid.

which I guess is a little bit strange. But anyway. - That ruined football for me, was when I used to be a diehard Giants fan, like a pathetically diehard Giants fan. I used to show up to training camp. I'd be the one guy. - Wow. - I'd be the one guy tailgating training camp.

I got all the autographs, so it was fun. And we snuck on the field. We took field goal practice, got thrown out. We used to sneak into the locker room. We had a good time. Anyways, this had to do with... Is it, I don't know, coming off of it's a different country? You used to be a fan? Is this the story of how you... Oh, yeah, I stopped following football because I remember...

I wouldn't say I'm less dedicated to my comedy craft, but I was willing to do open mics. And you can do open mics every night. And I realized I have no excuse for taking off Sundays and watching football. But it was partially when I realized I was rooting for kids that I was older than. And just being like, ah, I can't do this. There is a major... Something really changes when you get older than the athletes. Yeah. And that it's like, you're like, oh, yeah, dude. I'm like, I can't be like worshiping a kid. Yeah.

Like I can't be worshiping a 20 year old. This is ridiculous. I'm twice as old as this guy. And there's also, I remember, um, I remember my, uh, my principal, uh,

when I was like a little kid, like fifth grade or something like that. And the school principal where, you know, he was like talking with us at one point, it was like outside. We, I think he came and like played basketball with us one day. Like we were outside playing and he like came out to be cool. Let me show you whippersnappers how to take a foul shot. And he was talking about how the Knicks of his day were so much better than the Knicks today. And today back then would have been like literal Sprewell or maybe John Starks. I don't remember. Um,

And he, whatever, he was talking about that. And then I remember at one point he was like, the truth is I don't even watch the games.

And he was like, he goes, I do Sunday football. That's the only sport I watch. And I was like, what? Like, who doesn't watch every sport? And I remember he goes, oh, when you're older and you got a wife and kid, you got to pick your battles. And that's the one that I get is Sunday football. I don't do anything else. And that also, not just them being younger than you, but that just like is what happened to me in life too. And UFC just ended up being the thing that I was like, I still want to watch the fight.

when there's a big fight on I want to watch it that's the thing I'm most into and most excited but it is it's weird even when I think about it dude I was such a diehard Knicks fan I mean I was like I could I could have told you everything about every single player every single game every single year what happened and to a point now and Knicks actually have a really good team now I just can't I just don't

I can't invest time in watching boys play. Think about how ridiculous it is. You're like, I have like, I have a wife and two children who depend on me. I can't be watching boys play ball. Unless you bet the house on it. Well,

Well, in that case, I'm doing it for the family. If you can make the mortgage back, you're just not putting enough action on the games. Sports sponsor, this is your moment. Here we go. See? And they say we're not versatile on this podcast. All right. Let's talk some news and politics here. So...

This is a big confirmation week. This is, I believe, Bobby and Tulsi are both going to be up and Cash Patel. I think that's all. Am I wrong? Cash Patel maybe is next week. I fucking love America, bro. It's my Cash Patel impression. I'm working on it. It's not bad. But this is going to be really interesting. I mean, the Pete Hegseth one was somewhat interesting. He ended up getting confirmed by a very small margin. But there are...

there's a real effort to take down Bobby Kennedy, uh, right now. And so that is going to be an interesting one. Obviously Tulsi Gabbard. Um, I'm, I'm going on, um, uh, with, uh, Emily from breaking points tomorrow. We're going to be talking about that a bit, but, uh, the Tulsi one I think is good. CIA guy was confirmed. Um,

Yes. Yes. What's his name? Because he was one of the most vocal defenders of Trump while the whole racket of Russia. Is that Rushcliffe? Yeah. I mean, such a local defender that he then left to become the CEO of Truth Social and now got the CIA post. Yeah. Well, you know, the thing about it is, and you'll get this a lot. So like in the media, they will make a point of mentioning, you know, things like,

Ratcliffe or Kash Patel or like a lot of these guys how they're such hardcore Trump loyalists. And there is, if it makes sense, it reminds me a lot, it's very similar to their conversation about concentrated power and Elon Musk being in the White House while also owning these giant companies and all of these things. And it's like, yes, in a vacuum, it would

it would make sense to be concerned about this. If none of this other shit existed and this was just the story, you'd go, that's a little weird that these guys are so worshipy of Trump. That's a little bit weird that somebody who, you know, like there's a clear conflict of interest when you own billion dollar companies and you're in the White House. You know what I mean? But it's almost like,

But you can't pretend this is in a vacuum. You can't pretend that all of these other things aren't going on, too. And for Donald Trump, it's like, yeah, his first four years in there, his own government was working against him. So obviously he has to try to put loyalists in. And I guess we would prefer they were loyal to like some cause like draining the swamp or being America first or whatever. But.

Yeah, when you can't trust your own intelligence agencies, you got to bring your people with you. That's just the thing. And so likewise with the Elon Musk conversation, it's like, yeah, okay, I could maybe take some of this like alarmism seriously if you guys weren't all on the side of the Biden administration pressuring the big tech people to censor Americans. So now I'm supposed to just be outraged about Elon Musk. It's like, well...

I don't know. I mean, yes, I think there's a concern there, but compared to what we've had before this, it seems to be a lot better. I don't know. You get my point? It's a fair claim. All right. Yeah, love reading from the chat here. Love Tulsi, love Bobby. Let's fucking go. I'm with you, man. I mean, look, Tulsi and Bobby are about as good... They're as good of picks as you could possibly hope for. You know, I just don't know...

Who was going to, you know, realistically, who was he going to pick for the health department and for the director of national intelligence? The options were these were the best we could have gotten. And that's why just because I've been paying attention to this shit for a long time, I kind of know how D.C. works, although we are living in this new world. That's why I'm a little concerned about them getting confirmed, because you take those guys out and you're going to get someone who the establishment is much more comfortable with.

So we will see. I wanted to talk a little bit about some immigration stuff that I found interesting. I know you had sent to me in the notes that the thing with Colombia was is probably worth weighing in on. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, Trump bitch slapped him and instantly they did.

But, you know, they acquiesced. Well, the starting point is, I mean, the Trump administration is making some big claims about who they're rounding up. They're claiming to have gotten terrorists and criminals. Almost to the point where you're like, how did you know exactly where these specific criminals were and how come nobody removed them sooner? There was the number floated on Fox News, but I'll believe it when they actually credit it. But they were saying that 80,000 of the missing kids are already found.

Now, that becomes a screwy number because missing kids can include that they've been locked in someone's basement or that they just haven't reported in once they were given a court date. So that fact and figure is unclear. But they're gung ho. Every single person showing up for their cameo, putting on the fancy vest, going for ride alongs. And they're actually showing up into cities and rounding people up.

And so they put a plane to Colombia of, I guess, illegal people who had snuck into the country from Colombia. Colombia didn't want to take them back. And Trump was like, all right, you want to play that game? And then right away they were like, no, no, we'll take them all. Well, he threatened them with sanctions and tariffs. And not letting the kids would stop buying their cocaine. That's all it really took. Well, that's unique. Their economy runs on Trump's kids doing cocaine. Yeah.

It is... Look, it's interesting for several reasons. Number one, and I know Trump is aware of this because this is who Donald Trump is, but he's intentionally, like...

this juxtaposition between him and Biden and like proving in a way that the previous administration just didn't take this problem seriously at all. It's also, it's very interesting to me. Not just didn't take it seriously. I think that they were intentionally trying to get as many people over the border as possible. Yes. And then at a minimum, trying to cover up the crime elements that people wouldn't, you know, speak to the dangers of just letting anyone come across the border. Well, it's, look, it's, it's intentional.

I mean, there's no question about that. And you're right. I probably undersold it. But look, as I've said before, right, I like to use there's a bunch of analogies I always like to use. But I do like to use the one where I go, look, if I'm if I have an AR-15 and plenty of ammo and I'm a trained killer and I know how to use my weapon and I have my weapon and four unarmed people.

break into my house to come kill my wife and kids, and I just don't do anything. I just let it happen. Then you can deduce from that that that was intentional, that I intentionally allowed my family to get killed because you have... And that's the same thing with the Biden administration and this flow of immigration. I mean, they had...

And one of the things that's interesting is that it reveals, like, how much of all the stuff on the campaign was bullshit. I mean, when they were sitting there and saying, oh, we wanted to solve this problem, but, you know, three and a half years into it, we put this legislation forward, and Trump's the one who killed it. Well, Donald Trump—I mean, just clearly, I think there's just no debate about this. You can just see that—

Trump wants to do something about this and Biden didn't. Biden just was unwilling to do it. It is it is really fascinating to me how much how far to the right the American people have moved on immigration. Listen, mass immigration was never popular.

This has been true since like back in the 90s. This is the reason why, you know, people, I'm sure a lot of you guys see like the clips on social media where you'll see old clips of Bill Clinton talking like an immigration hawk or Hillary Clinton talking like an immigration hawk or John McCain or Barack Obama or any of them, because that was always popular. That's what they would say during election times. They'd be like, yeah, we got to, yeah, kind of illegal immigration. That's like always been unpopular. But today,

to see, I mean, the latest polling that I was looking at, the New York Times had a piece about this a few days ago, the latest polling where super majorities of the American people now support mass deportations. That's just never been the case before in my life. And I do think that it's, you know, obviously like this is a part of Biden's legacy here. You had the worst immigration crisis and now, of course, as a response to that, you have mass

It is more popular than ever to correct that. From what I understand, the illegal immigrants all carry COVID because they weren't vaccinated. And so the liberals are comfortable being aggressive towards them. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is YoCratom.com.

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Well, it is. I mean, look, we covered this on the show over the last couple of years. It was fascinating watching Eric Adams and some of these, you know, the mayors of the sanctuary cities, these deep blue cities being like, hey, this is a real problem. And I do, you know, a lot there's there's.

A lot of different factors to all of this. But I really, I got to say, and I believe it was primarily DeSantis and Abbott who were, like, started those stunts where they would bus migrants to the blue states. And I really think that, like, that did a lot to move the needle. It really, you could almost, you know, it was like from...

From 2016-ish until that, when they started... Really, the one that sticks out in my mind is when they sent him to Martha's Vineyard. It was a big one. But from 2016 to that, I feel like that almost broke the spell. Democrats were all... They wanted to get Trump. They wanted to paint Donald Trump as a fascistic wannabe dictator and...

He was running as an immigration hawk. So they went all in on that's the issue that makes him Hitler, you know? And so then I guess we got to be the opposite of that. We're against kids in cages. Even when it was ridiculous, even when it was the facilities were built by the Obama administration, but they'd still pin it on Trump as being some monster for rounding people up.

Or separating families, whatever the talking point in 2017 was. But I felt like that really broke the spell. Because once you saw that, you were like, oh, this is all a game. You're all pretending that this isn't a problem. But as soon as it touches you, you have a huge problem with it. And I do think that in a way that gave permission for even, you know, it was the polling that I was looking at was, I was just reading an article earlier today on Axios, I think.

about it was they had, it was, and this is the question was supporting, uh, deporting all illegal immigrants was 50, 50 amongst Democrats. Wow. 50% of Democrats were on board with the Hitlerian policy of enforcing immigration law. Um,

And that I mean, that is like just about as stark a quick change in political opinions as I could think of. And then it was something it was in the 90 high 90s amongst Republicans. So, yeah, this is this is really drastically changed. And I do think that.

Donald Trump, in this example with Colombia, he did demonstrate something. And look, I'll be the first to acknowledge that it's not he wasn't exactly following a libertarian blueprint. He was threatening government action. But it immediately made them bend the knee. I mean, immediately. And you just you do see that it's like and I think this is so much of the dynamic that explains why Donald Trump is president is that you sit here and

And this is why America first had a resurgence and why this is such a popular term. You sit here. We have the most powerful government in human history, and it is never working for Americans. You know what I mean? Like you have this. It's never working to get the thing done that the American people want. Anything that helps them at all. It's always working for some reason.

you know, small group of weapons companies or bankers or insurance companies or whatever, but it's never working on behalf of the American people. And there was just like an example right here where it's like, oh yeah, okay, so here you have an issue where there's overwhelming consensus. This is what the American people want. And all Donald Trump did was just lightly put his thumb on the scale of like, I'll threaten you with this big, powerful government we have. And they went, oh yeah, well, we can't deal with that.

So here, whatever you want. Because again, it's a point that I've made over and over again throughout the years. And I've made this point about the U.S. and Israel. Like a bunch when I've done, you know, a bunch of debates on Ukraine and a bunch of debates on like Israel, Palestine. And I'd always make the point that it's like, what? Like, why are you pretending that we don't hold all of the chips?

Like we hold all the chips here. These so many of these problems can be solved very quickly if you just have the desire to do it. I mean, like this is what I said. I was debating that Vouch guy on Ukraine. And I was like, I was saying that we could get Putin to do anything we wanted to do.

I mean, short of like commit suicide or like, you know, like NATO right next time. Well, listen, do you think and be honest about this? Do you think that Vladimir Putin would end the war tomorrow if we agreed to pull out of NATO? Oh, you mean just NATO not in Ukraine or the US pulls out of NATO? He'd end the war today.

Literally, that would... Because he'd be able to sell this as the biggest victory ever. If the U.S. isn't involved, he doesn't even really give a shit about NATO being on his borders. It's like, what, is he scared of France? No. It's America's war machine is what he's concerned about. And so, like, we could get... So, again, if you just frame it the correct way, you're like...

You're choosing to keep this war going. We have all the chips. All we'd have to do is, and by the way, it'd be a win for Americans to pull out of NATO. We're just not subsidizing Europe's defense anymore. Great. What's the problem with that? And then his response to that when I was in this debate with him was like, oh, that's just like a libertarian online idea.

It's like, okay. I mean, right now it is. Why does it have to be? And the same with Israel-Palestine. Israel holds all the chips. All the chips. They're coming from such a stronger negotiating point. They're the ones who occupy the Palestinians. Right? If you're negotiating with the resistance group...

Under your brutal occupation you have the negotiating power, right? And so like it's just in all of these things it's and it's interesting to see Trump like Almost in one of the rare times I've ever seen in my life just using that a little bit on behalf of what the people of his country actually want, you know, and it's uh, I don't know It's just a fascinating fascinating goddamn time to be alive. Any other any other thoughts on the immigration stuff Rob?

Well, I was thinking of this while you were talking about how busing the immigrants and how well that worked. And I think the reason it works so well is because if you don't have the financial resources or places to put people, it becomes an apparent issue very quickly. And as it starts depleting your financial resources for people that are here illegally, that becomes very apparent. I'm not calling these people garbage, but it's on the level of if people were going, oh—

I like garbage on my front lawn. Keep the garbage there. And then you're like, all right, well, then I'll move it to your front lawn. And then you instantly were like, oh, you called my bluff. I clearly don't want this here. I mean, that's the level of no area wants to have to spend its taxpayer dollars on housing, feeding, clothing and everything.

policing illegal immigrants. That's not what you want to use the money on. I wish there were other ways that we could, such as Donald Trump's plan of sending Hillary Clinton to war, but I wish there was more ways to call the bluffs on their, you know, stupid policies.

Well, look, I mean, you know, I've gone on this rant before and I'm sure I will again. But it's again, it's like another thing in the like, they demonize you if you want to build a wall, but they live in a gated community. They want to enforce gun control, but they have armed security. They have four mask mandates, but they're at their fancy restaurants without masks. It's like over and over all of these examples. And yeah, look, the example that

or the analogy that I always like to use, which I'm still quite fond of, is the homeless people asking to stay in your house. And it's like, it's very easy. Like, imagine...

me sitting here and there's like a group of homeless people who go up to my neighbor and they're like, can we all stay in your house, please? Like we're homeless. We have nowhere to go. And he's like, no, I'm sorry. You can't stay here. And I just sit here and go, what a terrible person he is. What an awful, I mean, think about these homeless people. Think about how hard they have it. And you've got room in your house. You could take them in and you won't. And then you're like, well, how many do you have in your house? And you're like,

I'd rather not get into that. You know what I mean? Like, I'd rather not discuss that. No, no, no. In fact, I don't want them. And, you know, one of the things that I think is is kind of challenging is that especially in the face of all the like insane gaslighting from liberals on this issue, that it is important kind of in a way for us to remember that.

Look, if five homeless people come up and ask if they can sleep in my house, my answer is going to be no, because this is my house and this is for my family and their safety is my number one priority. That doesn't mean that I can't also recognize that it's sad. It's sad that those guys are homeless and it's sad that they don't have a place to stay. It's kind of sad that I can't help them. You know what I mean? It's like it's and I do think that.

You know, obviously there's no, there's no issue like this with violent criminals, violent criminals. No one really gives a shit to deport them. You know what I mean? Who cares? But there is an element to all of this that is kind of tragic and sad when it comes to like regular people who are here illegally. And they're like, we can, we can maintain both of the positions. Like you can be like, listen, what Joe Biden did at the border was insane. Open borders are not legal.

a rational policy. And it's the American people clearly do not want it. That being said, it also is kind of sad that some of these people are going to get rounded up and deported. I'm sure there's some, I'm sure there's a lot of them who are like decent people. But much like it would be sad, I guess, in some way, if I left my house and a bunch of homeless people kind of took it over and started using it as shelter, and then I had to kick them all out. The question is really like, whose house is it?

And in this case, the question is, whose country is it? Like, who has the right to make these decisions? And I certainly don't think it should be politicians doing the exact opposite of what the American people want. And, you know, there's... And the blame is on Joe Biden. Yeah. Yeah. Like, yes, it is tragic that people felt like they could sneak into the country and that they could live a better life and that...

Joe Biden created that illusion for them. And now there's a consequence that they took a gamble and a risk that wasn't necessary. And many or some of them will end up having to go home because taking...

Some of these people at random, you want to go for the criminals first, but to the extent that some people randomly do get shipped back and they went through that entire escapade for nothing, it prevents future people from going, I want to take this risk. And so it's kind of a necessary action. And if you ask me, the fault is,

The fault is on Joe Biden, who wanted to bring as many people across this country as possible. Maybe it was to get more congressional seats in the hands of Democrats, to get more voters, to seed chaos. Who knows what his agenda was, but the fault's on him. Yeah, 100%. And how on earth do you not see the backlash coming?

You know, like how it's so much of particularly the last 10 years is one of the things that's really stunning about it is it's not like because we're living through this kind of like this era of like decadent elites who have totally just like fallen off and lost all traces of impressiveness. You know, it's just like these people who are like just I don't know, just really unimpressive people. And.

If you just, it's like, I wonder sometimes, like in a hundred years, if a historian was writing about this time period, how they would just look at it and be like, wait a minute. So your plan was to just open the borders and flood in people from all over the world. And that, um,

While you were doing it, you were going to like promote all types of degeneracy, all, you know, like weird sexualized fetishy stuff with kids and then just demonize men, like demonize men over and over and over again. And like, and it never occurred to you that like this isn't a wise long term strategy, that there will be a counter reaction to this. Like.

Like, what do you think? I mean, like, even just, like, normalizing the demonization of young men. Like, where did you think that was going to go? You know, like, however you feel about young men, there's a reason why they're the ones we rely on to, like, fight wars and be police. You know, like, there's a role for them in society. And they're the ones in society, typically speaking, who, like—

are the most capable of violence, are the most capable of imposing their will on you. Maybe it wasn't a wise move to like poke at that bear over and over and over again. You know, so much of it, I remember like just being kind of blown away, especially as somebody who was like, look, I'm a libertarian. I'm not like a hard right winger. I don't, and I really mean this.

I don't have weird, I don't care how people live their lives, essentially. You know, like I don't, I do care what's promoted and what's pushed on other people. I don't really care, you know, if people are gay or straight or live a traditional lifestyle or an alternative lifestyle, like that's, you know, that's your business. You live your life the way you see fit. But I just couldn't imagine not being,

You know, like not seeing the issue with all of this, not seeing that like, well, this is going to blow up in our faces. Obviously, there's going to be a counter reaction and an overcorrection probably. But it's just it's very bizarre, very bizarre that that was not foreseen.

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Well, when you censor the internet, potentially rig an election, get everyone to take a vaccine that they don't need and keep them in their homes, you start getting greedy. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that's a big part of it, right? There's this thing that, you know...

It's kind of a natural tendency of monopoly in general to just get really, really shitty, give really, really shitty service. And I think a lot of these people were just drunk on power and they had been in power for so long. They were like, fuck it. We can keep we can keep doing this. We can keep winning.

But yeah, I mean, in hindsight, it really is. It's bizarre. You know, also, I mean, I guess maybe this is like a little bit illogical or something, but there is also the fact that the immigrants are from everywhere. That makes me like less sympathetic. Like you just, you know, like Mexico is...

You know, Mexico is our neighbor to the south. They are kind of in many ways, at least in many parts of the country. It's not so true here where we live in the northeast. Although even there, I just grew up with Mexicans or all over the place. Mexicans worked in every business and Mexicans were pretty, you know, like there are Mexican neighborhoods in Queens and stuff like that. And Mexico is kind of our neighbor.

sister society, you know, I mean, maybe Canada a little bit more, but like Mexico, you know, if you lived in Arizona or Texas or Southern California or something, it's like, yeah, Mexico's right there. We kind of know that. And yes, there's always, there's always been, you know, day laborers who are coming and working here. And there's always been immigration from Mexico. It's just a little bit different than like when you start seeing like

You know, like Africans and and Chinese nationals and stuff like that here. You're like, yeah, what the fuck are you doing here? Like, if you didn't come in legally, you shouldn't be here. Like, we'll always understand that. Like, OK, our neighbor to the south, especially when we're a much richer country than them. Some of them are going to want to come over here like that's kind of a normal thing.

part of Americanism, but fucking Chinese nationals being here, like, no, that's not fucking American. It's just like makes. And I think that also was, you know, if you remember when Bobby Kennedy first went to the border and he came back being like, yeah, we do need to build a wall. Like, this is kind of crazy. And that was his big thing was he was like, yeah, I was shocked that it's not Southern America. It's not a Southern South Americans.

It's like Africans and Asians. What are they doing here? And of course, we all do know that this stuff was, I mean, at least there was certainly large amounts of UN funding that went into it, which is, you know, basically us, our government funding it. And then I don't really know. I mean, I'm sure somebody's done some good investigative reporting on this, but how much NGO money was going into those caravans that were coming up here? I think it's billions of dollars. Yeah, yeah.

you can do a lot you know and i think we will find out as uh some of this racket gets uncovered and i think the trump administration is doing a good job of actually selling look at how horrible this was and you know trump's only a couple days in office and they're posting daily look at who we just like look at these criminals that we just seized um i i'd be pretty surprised if the billions of dollars that were being spent by ngos

weren't in part funded by government. Yeah. Yeah. No, almost certainly. And or whether directly or indirectly, you know, it could be like as simple as the red. I don't even know if the United States gives money to the Red Cross, but it could be like the United States gives, you know, one hundred million dollars, the Red Cross for meals in this area. And then it's like the camp where these people get moved to happens to be where the Red Cross is feeding them type deal. Right. So you might as well just be handing the money to them. Right. Right.

And listen, I know this just from reading a lot about like the color revolution stuff a lot of times. And it's one of the interesting dynamics in politics. Right. Is like so if you you know, if you you could buy a politician for like, you know, a couple million bucks, right?

but the policy that they enact could move hundreds of billions of dollars. You know what I mean? So like, but someone like, let's say there, you know, there's a young Congressman or something like that who's coming up and he's making 200 grand a year or whatever the congressional salary is now that a little higher than that. There's like in less than 300 grand a year. And like, uh,

You know, this is a guy who maybe just started making a low six figure salary. He could be bought for a few million dollars, but his vote is worth so much more than that. But you don't have to spend 10 billion dollars to bribe one guy. You could just give him a couple million and they'll be happy with that. And likewise, with a lot of these, you know, with a lot of these policies, it's for you know, if you think about that, where you go, it's in the billions of dollars or something like that.

Think about how much money that is to get a caravan going and get some people over here. It's just like it's not that much money in the grand scheme of a central government that spends $7 trillion. But like in the Maidan revolution in Ukraine, for example, right? This was the big thing is they got I think at one point it was close to like a million people were in the streets.

And they had a lot of people in the streets. Now, it wasn't, at least if I'm remembering this correctly, it's been a little while since I read about this, but it never broke 50% approval rating with the country. So it wasn't, you know what I'm saying? If you think about these things like

You know, it's easy—on January 6th, there were like thousands of people protesting, right? But if I were to ever say to one of you guys, like, "That's the American people! That's the will of the American people!" You'd immediately be like, "Well, no, no, no, no, no, hold on, hold on. There's like a whole huge portion of Americans who completely reject all of this stuff, and in fact, Donald Trump's approval rating at the time was like in the 30s. It wasn't like he was like this enormously popular president, right?

So likewise, so in the Maidan revolution, what happens is the NGOs start the protest in late 2013. OK, so they start the protest. Now they're protesting over Yanukovych pulling out of the EU deal. He was making a he was.

At first he wanted to do the deal. Then ultimately he got seduced by Putin slash turned off by the EU and he pulls out of the deal and goes to make a deal with Putin, an economic deal. And Putin,

So then they're protesting that. Now, the NGOs start the protest. It's George Soros and his guys and the what's his name? I always blank on his name, but the guy who owns the Intercept, Odomayi or something like that. It's these guys started and they brag about it. They talk openly about how they started. They kicked off the Maidan protest. So then they go down there and you get a little bit of a protest going.

And then Yanukovych starts like brutally putting down the protest. And then more people start protesting that. But here's the big problem they have. Now it's December 2013 in Ukraine. So you're going into the Ukrainian winter. Okay? How do you keep a protest movement going through the brutal Ukrainian winter?

Well, tens of millions of dollars start pouring in from the National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, and all these NGOs. So they bring out heat lamps for everybody, and they put on like a rock concert. They get all these Ukrainian celebrities to come down there. So now it's a carnival. It's a carnival with heat and with everything. And if you think about it, right, like...

Imagine any protest. Imagine like we try to start a protest. And let's say even like we bring a few... We get a few thousand people together. You know, we...

promote it on the podcast and we start protesting, you know, the Federal Reserve or something like that. I mean, imagine someone just gave us $50 million. Like, hey, here's $50 million for your protest movement. You'd be like, whoa, we got a lot of possibilities now. We could do all time. So this is how they keep the thing going all through the winter and keeps putting more and more and more pressure on Yanukovych until ultimately he flees for his life. But then people will look at that and go, well, what are you talking about, Dave? That was just the will of the Ukrainian people.

That's not a U.S.-backed coup. But, like, yes, it fucking totally is. Because if you didn't put that money in, there's no way this movement would have—first off, probably wouldn't have started to begin with. But second off, you could—so anyway, the point is just that even just with what, relatively speaking, are little bits of money, like $50 million, and it was probably more than that in the Maidan Revolution. I think it was closer to $100 million. But even $100 million—

When you're talking about governments that spend $7 trillion, not much money. You know, like if you cut or added $100 million from the U.S. federal budget, you wouldn't even notice it.

But, dude, it can move trillions of dollars when you when you put it in right at the right spot, you know, and that's what this like whole that's what the whole soft power is. They call it the whole game is. It's like putting your thumb on the scale just enough to get the result that you want while having some level of plausible deniability. But I think there's no question that that's what was happening with the immigration here. You could just kind of look at it and be like, this isn't organic, right?

This doesn't just organically happen. You don't just organically have Chinese nationals crossing the U.S. southern border. Like, what's going on here? And then, of course,

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uh, part of the problem.com of course is where you can go subscribe. If you would like to participate in the chat and get our, our, um, members only episode every week. I also did meant to, I forgot to plug up top, but I just, I had a zoom call about the, uh, the Princeton debate, uh,

which is coming up in a few weeks here. And there are still, it's filling up fast, but there are still some seats available. So if you want to come see me debate Josh Hammer, who is the, I believe he's the senior editor of Newsweek. I'll be debating him at Princeton University over the Israel-U.S. relationship. So come on out to that if you can. Okay, hold on, let me see. Dave Robb, yesterday...

The NIVD, what is this? NVIDIA. NVIDIA. I know this, but what is it? Oh, that's the AI, the Chinese AI thing? I'm sorry. Excuse me. Well, NVIDIA, it's been the hot tech stock. Everyone's probably at 30 times P ratio or whatever. Yeah, whatever everyone's pouring the most amount of money into on the growth forecast, stick away from investment advice, but not investment advice because I'm not allowed to give that.

And I don't, and I don't put any of my money in the market and I keep it under my, uh, my bed, uh, so that the government can rob it through inflation. And then I don't have to worry about the neighbors coming and stealing it from underneath my mattress. So that, you know, that's, that's the nice thing about it. There you go. Um, you know, honestly, I just don't, I don't know enough about this to really even have a take on it. Um,

Well, the short scoop is that, you know, I mean, our entire tech sector of the stock market's been through the roof, but people are all excited for the AI growth and that that's the next wave of technology. And then you get this Chinese corporation that comes along and

And with using a lot less chips, they put something that's comparative to chat GPT on the market for free. And everyone's like, oh, maybe we're not as far ahead in this game. And, you know, that's the beauty of free markets. People can come in and compete and make products available, you know, for less money to the public. And then, you know, the profit margins you thought you were going to have in chat GPT or whatever else might have just gone down.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, this is always the risk with investing in stuff that is not real, you know, or like that you don't exactly understand what it's actually going to be. There's you know, there's there's things like now, by the way. OK, so here's investment advice that I really would have gotten wrong. But I do remember because like I'm sure people made a ton of money investing in Google, but like over the years.

But I remember always thinking like, dude, you'd have like there were like search engines before Google. I put it all in Jeeves. And they're just gone. They're just gone because Google just came out and did it. And there's things like that where now Google has done a decent job, I guess, of attaching itself to the permanent government system.

But there's things like this that people invest so much in and you're like, yeah, but what if like a better version just comes out and then this is just gone? Like this could go to zero. There's no intrinsic value to it at all. What's Metacrawler's stock trading at these days? Anyone remember that one? That used to be the one that we would use in my high school. We'd use like the computer in the computer room. It

It was like, that was so weird too, by the way, computers did nothing back then, but we all thought they were cool and be like, I want to go on the computer, like, and do what? Like literally nothing. But anyway, um, triangle around. I remember that game. Yeah. Yeah. I remember some weird old get Gertrude's puzzles and stuff. Yeah. That's, that's some fun ones. Um, was, uh, hold on to, uh, odd. Uh,

Oh, diggity wrote, Dave, can you bring some focus to unschooling this year? Yeah. What is that? Unschooling is like a,

It's like homeschooling, but it's more of an emphasis, I think, on giving your kids more autonomy or something like that. I mean, I don't know that there's really that much I would say about it. Kids have plenty of time to research porn on the internet. If my mom came to me in eighth grade and was like, what are your interests? Let's bake cookies and I'm going to be upstairs. I'll be conducting my own research. You know, I...

You know, I've talked about this for years. I mean, I talked about this even before I had kids, but to me, it's almost like, you know, I think that, you know, the, the, the school model, the Prussian school model is like totally designed to stamp out this very natural thing in kids. And you don't like, I don't really think it it's rocket science. Parenting always came kind of natural to me. It's like you, you,

You just kind of love your kids and you encourage them in the things they're interested in. But kids are... One of the things that's amazing, right, about little kids, if you hang out with a three- or a four-year-old, I mean, literally, if you go upstairs right now, talk to my three-year-old, he's...

From a very young age, my daughter was just like this too. Like they're all like this. What kids do and everybody who's had, anyone who has a little kid, like your sister's had little kids and I'm sure you got little kids in your family, Natalie. Anyone who has little kids, you know this. It's like two things that they all naturally do and they do with such a desire. Okay, number one,

is they ask you a million questions. They always want to know why. That's like kind of the running joke. Like why, why, why? I mean, I remember when my daughter was like four, I used to joke around about this to my wife that I called it the three whys. I was always three whys away from being out.

You know what I mean? Like, I'd be like, "Ooh, it's a hot day today." And my little four-year-old would be like, "Why?" And I'd be like, "Well, 'cause the sun is very hot and it's out today." And she'd go, "Why?" And I was like, "Well, it's a big ball of fire." And she goes, "Why?" And I'm like, "Yeah, that's a really excellent question, kid. But I got no answer for you on that one." You know, you're always like three degrees of why before I realize I'm also a child and I know nothing. And I guess none of us really know anything.

But this is just constant. It's constant questions about everything. And if you think about that, it's really kind of interesting. I mean, like they have this profound desire for knowledge. Like they want to understand. They want to know. And the other thing that little kids, and I mean like three, four years old, they all have, is they all want to participate.

They want to participate in the adult world. They really, my three-year-old is super, I mean, if my wife starts baking something, he wants to do the stirring or he wants to, and then at the end of it, he wants to say, I helped.

Like we made this and I helped, you know, like little things. I mean, if you give my six-year-old now, if you give her a task, she's thrilled. She's thrilled. Hey, can you help me fold the laundry? Can you go grab this and bring it in here? Can you go? She's like, yes, got it. And she really loves that she's being helpful. And if you just think about that for a second.

Like how amazing that is. You have these little precious, adorable little rats and they just wanna learn and participate in the adult world. Like so intensely that, you know, and it brings like, your job is so simple. It's like, oh yeah, nurture that. That's all. Like it's just, it always came so natural to me. Like it's just so obvious. And instead what we've done, you know, collectively as a society to talk like a commie for a second,

Um, is we've got, oh, I know what we should do. We should starting at six years old, put them in a row of desks and tell them to memorize and regurgitate, memorize and regurgitate. Like what? Who came up with that? Oh yeah. The Prussians.

Because they wanted loyal servants of the government. That's what they were trying to create. So it's like, yeah, you just don't do that shit. You know, don't send... And now there are alternative schools that do a much better job. You got to find them. And they're usually expensive, which, you know, so that homeschooling is not expensive, but it is...

demanding on your time. So you got to figure out like I'm not trying to downplay that there's like difficulties to like navigating all this stuff. And I'm somewhat fortunate in that department. But like that to me, it's like,

It's all there already. It's almost like asking, like, how do you how do you create a good relationship with your kids? It's like, well, I don't know. They're they're in. So just be cool to them. Like, I don't know. Be good. Be sweet to them. That's like the way to do it, because they're all nobody. You know, like it's true that like teenagers rebel against their parents and stuff like that. But little kids don't.

You're no five year old ever doesn't want to have a catch. I've never said to I've never said to my six year old or my three year old like, hey, you want to go outside and play? And they're like, nah, not feeling it. You know, they always want to. So you just got to nurture it. And I think it's like, I don't know. In my experience, it's like the most rewarding thing you could ever do. My strategy with my kids is you leave them and send checks. Yeah.

Mom knows best. Um, oh, here, this is, uh, um, Adam asks, uh, Dave is LP chair heist versus Amash, basically. Uh, what's the deets on that? Sure. Sure. So we could, that's actually not a bad, uh, biggest victory ever. And, uh,

drops the mic. What happened here? Well, she's got evidently got a new project coming up and I don't, I do not have info on what this is, but I could guess what, you know, it, it might be. But I don't know anything. So I don't want to like say that, but yeah, she's got a new project coming up. So she's, she stepped down, which, you know, look,

That's Angela just did an absolutely incredible job as the chair of the Libertarian Party. I mean, like it's you cannot overstate what an incredible job she did. She didn't you almost can't grade it on like any scale because what she pulled off was so seemingly out of the realm of possibilities that like nobody would have even thought. I didn't I like could I remember when she first told me.

That that Trump was coming to the convention and that she had gone to Mar-a-Lago and had been, you know, negotiating like Ross's pardon and all this other stuff. I couldn't believe it. I was like, are you what? Really? He's going to be at our convention. Are you sure about that? Anyway, look, Angela's just been great. I mean, she's been just from the first time I ever met Angela, just totally impressed with this woman. I mean, she's just like.

Super smart, fearless, relentless, incredibly hardworking, incredibly organized and detail-oriented. You know, I met her back, this must have been like...

What year did I meet Angela? I'm trying to remember actually now. I may have met her before the lockdowns, but when I actually got to know her, she was spearheading the anti-lockdown movement in Los Angeles, which is where she lived at the time. It was really heroic stuff that she was doing. She's a paralegal and she was giving free legal help

to small business owners who were defying the lockdowns and staying open and trying to help them navigate through how to avoid, you know, facing the harshest penalties over it and stuff like that. So it was incredible. She did incredible work there. She went to the Soho Forum, debated that Cato...

fool over vaccine mandates and just cleaned his clock. When Heiss was like, we want her to be, she's going to be our person for chair for the Mises caucus, you know, takeover. I was like, yes, perfect. And she saved Ross's life. So, you know, just she did an incredible job. She's stepping down.

And yeah, from what I saw, I know Heiss is going for the position. And from what I saw, Justin Amash is entertaining it. Good candidates. I would say... I'll just say this. Look, first of all, I...

I love Justin Amash and I have, I do not have a negative thing to say about him. I was, you know, I, I tried my best to help him during his Senate run. And the truth is that despite all the faction wars and the libertarian party and all that stuff, I've just always had a good relationship with Justin Amash. Like I've always, every time we've ever been in the same room or at the same event or on, on, you know, a,

a show or whatever together. We did one, I think it was like a clubhouse thing we did back when that was before Twitter spaces kind of put them out of business. But I just always really liked the guy. And I think he's one of the greatest congressmen to ever live. And, you know, we certainly could do a lot worse than him as the chair of the party. Listen, I'm supporting Heiss for this position. I think Heiss is the guy who has, Heiss has put in the work.

You know, like, Heiss has actually made the party his life's focus for many years at this point. And I just think that makes it—but look, I'll say this. I think what would really be the best thing for the party is if that is the case, if it's Heiss and Justin Amash both going for the chair, they should have some—either a debate or some type of forum where they both lay out their vision for the party. Right.

I think that's the healthiest thing and the best thing for the Libertarian Party. It's like have these two guys who are both very smart, very capable and really care about the party and the movement, have them lay out their visions, have them give their critiques of the other ones and what you know what I mean, like, and let the members decide. I mean, I think that would be the healthiest and best thing for the party. So that I would fully support. What about the guy who likes walking into people's elbows? Is he still around?

He's always around, but I don't think he's coming back into that position. As long as they keep him out. The Fed who likes selling cars. Yeah, that's right. All right. We got to wrap up on that one. Thank you guys very much for joining us, and we will be back with a brand new episode tomorrow. Catch you next time. Peace.