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10 Minute Drill
Unpacking Epstein Political Football; California Wildfire Cover-Up, & “Cabinet Secretary of the Year”
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- [00:00]
Host
The latest in the Epstein files saga and the pitfalls that come with political footballs. Also, new revelations out of California about the wildfires have Gavin Newsom sweating all of that and so much more today on 10 Minute Drill. Everybody get up. Get up. The story of America is the story of an adventure.
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Guest/Interviewee
I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free.
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Host
Earlier this week, we talked about the Epstein files. The House of Representatives voted to advance a bill that would force the Department of Justice to open those Epstein files. The Senate followed soon after. Democrats have treated this debate as a political football. That was only upside for them. But as this has gone forward, they're finding one of the big pitfalls of political football is sometimes you fumble. For example, first, Stacey Plaskett. She is the representative from the Virgin Islands who we talked about earlier this week. Plaskett was found to have texted with Jeffrey Epstein about President Trump during a House hearing, years after Epstein had first been convicted for pedophilia. She also was found to have asked him for $30,000 in political donations and sought a meeting with him. And that has caused a major headache for Democrats. Here is Plaskett attempting to defend herself.
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Guest/Interviewee
I believe that Jeffrey Epstein had information, and I was gonna get information. Wait, let me just better understand that. What is that point? Because at the time, he wasn't a sex offender, and it had been detailed, all the sexual abuse. There are a lot of people who have done a lot of crimes.
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Host
Yikes. A lot of people have done a lot of crimes is not a very good defense. And Democrats have made tying President Trump to Jeffrey Epstein through any way possible their ultimate political crusade for these last few months. So they're having a very tough time trying to explain why Stacy Plaskett's interaction with him much more recently and well after he was convicted. A convicted sex offender is not a big deal. Here's Hakeem Jeffries trying to navigate that.
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Guest/Interviewee
And you heard Stacey Plaskett there. She was arguing her texts with Jeffrey Epstein were not illegal. But in your view, were they appropriate? Well, Stacey Plaskett is not accused of violating any House rule, any law, any statute. But do you think it was appropriate for her to be texting with Jeffrey Epstein 11 years after he pleaded guilty? I mean, I have not had a conversation with Stacey Plasket to discuss this issue, so.
- [02:32]
Host
Yikes. You can tell Hakeem Jeffries is very uncomfortable there. But one other reason that he might be uncomfortable is Hakeem Jeffries himself has been involved in soliciting campaign funds from Epstein even after he was a convicted sex offender. This letter just released. We are working with Hakeem Jeffries, sometimes referred to as Brooklyn's Barack and Yikes, that's very cringe. Hakeem Jeffries is encouraging his friends to participate in a fundraising dinner. Shoot us an email or give us a call if you would like to get involved. Whoops. That was May of 2013, years after Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted sex offender. This is Hakeem Jeffries team reaching out to Epstein himself on his personal email, asking him both for money and to join a dinner with Hakeem Jeffries again, years after he he was a convicted sex offender. Now, another part of fumbling the political football is making mistakes in your attacks. Here's Jasmine Crockett, folks, who also took.
- [03:29]
Guest/Interviewee
Money from somebody named Jeffrey Epstein. As I had my team dig in very quickly. Mitt Romney, the nrcc, Lee Zeldin, George Bush.
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Host
The problem with Crockett's crazy speech there is she's talking about the wrong Jeffrey Epstein. A Dr. Jeffrey Epstein, among many other people named Jeffrey Epstein, but not the one who gave money to Hakeem Jeffries and Stacy Plaskett. Again, Democrats have hung their hats on the idea that tying Donald Trump to Jeffrey Epstein is going to destroy Trump, change their midterm direction and everything else. But they didn't look into their own books before they did that and they have fumbled the political football and made it much more difficult for themselves. Last week we highlighted that Gavin Newsom had gone to Brazil and among many other sort of climate alarmism related things, said once that the Pacific Palisades wildfire in Los Angeles was started by climate change. But new revelations by News Nation have his team sweating quite a bit.
- [04:32]
Guest/Interviewee
News Nation Investigative Correspondent Rich McHugh obtained documents that may show that the state is in fact solely responsible for that fire and possibly for the Deaths of the 12 people who died.
- [04:44]
Host
So there are a few really important threads there. First, Gavin Newsom again has tried to say climate change was at fault. We now have a lot of evidence showing that the state was responsible for the wildfire because they were aware of a burn scar from a previous fire with embers that were still lit that people were warning about could turn into a larger fire. State officials directed people away from that and that is what turned into the deadly wildfire that killed 12 people. We have also talked about a number of other factors that were involved here. The fact that there was brush allowed to grow in wildfire alley that led to this wildfire spreading and being so much more deadly and dangerous than it was. We also have talked about the fact that there wasn't water in the hydrants to put it out. Lots and lots of mismanagement, none of which had anything to do with climate change. Here is California radio host Adam Carolla talking about this.
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Guest/Interviewee
So we did not prepare for the fires, we didn't clear the brush, we didn't fill the reservoirs, we didn't do all the stuff, all things that could be done. And Newsom goes climate change.
- [05:53]
Host
We've talked quite a bit on 10 minute drill about the Democrats dark money constellation of groups that support all of their political activities and have driven them to the far left even as the rest of the country has largely moderated groups like Arabella Advisors who have indirectly funded things like the no Kings protest, the protests against Doge, a lot of state level ballot initiatives on everything from a abortion to union rights and things like that. Well, New York Times reporter Teddy Schleifer tweeted earlier this week, new stick a fork in Arabella Advisors, the powerful progressive philanthropic consulting firm is no more. But as our good friends at Americans for Public Trust have clarified, there's a lot more to it than meets the eye in a complex split. Sunflower Services is taking over part of Arabella's liberal dark money network, while the rest is being rebranded as Vital Impact. Same people, same mission and same money. Don't be fooled. So one thing that happened here is Arabella Advisors as a brand had become incredibly toxic for many reasons, one of which is their ties to foreign pervert Swiss billionaire Hans Joerg Wies. So this is a part of a shell game to continue their operations, but move them under different names and entities that are more difficult to track, the Washington Free Beacon reported a little bit further. Same game, different name. Radioactive Arabella Advisors Announces Rebrand to Sunflower Services as prominent Donors flee the prominent donors they're referring to are people like Bill Gates, who we talked about a few weeks ago, had announced they would no longer be giving to Arabella Advisors. It's a growing trend on the left of major donors realizing that their existing nonprofit NGO political network isn't really having any effect. But as we said at the beginning of this segment, Arabella Advisors isn't going away. They're simply moving operations into other groups that are harder to track and a little bit more difficult for the toxic brand they've built to follow along with them. The Wall Street Journal is calling education secretary Linda McMahon, the cabinet secretary of the year, but not for a reason that you might have thought of. This is from Jim Freeman. Kudos to Linda McMahon for continuing to make the case that her department should not exist, he writes. How often does anyone in Washington acknowledge that a bureaucracy has failed and take appropriate steps to try to protect Americans from further damage? Kudos to Linda McMahon for working to send power over education back to local communities where it belongs. We've Talked here at 10 minute drill quite a bit about what it would mean for the Department of Education in Washington to be shut down. It means the money that otherwise goes through a bureaucratic buffet of interest groups and teachers unions and others picking away at the money that's meant to help kids to learn how to read and write. That money would instead be given directly to states, which Linda McMahon has advocated for since she was first brought in as the Secretary of education. Linda McMahon highlighted this exact dynamic in an op ed in USA Today. Our nation just experienced the longest government shutdown in its history. The 43 day shutdown, which came smack in the middle of the fall semester, showed every family how unnecessary the federal education bureaucracy is to their children's education. Students kept going to class. Teachers continued to get paid. There was no disruption in sports seasons or bus routes. The shutdown proved an argument that conservatives have been making for 45 years. The U.S. department of Education is mostly a pass through for funds that are best managed by states. As you learn the history of the Department of Education you will find that it was originally designed as a giveaway to teachers unions and in the time since it was first built we have seen more money make its way to teachers unions and student success drive down massively over time. So again, cheers to Linda McMahon, Cabinet Secretary of the Year for calling for her department to be shut down. One trend that we're seeing in quite a few blue states that we have talked about here on 10 Minute Drill is states abandoning their climate targets that they had set during a time in 2020, 2021 and 2022 of increased climate activism and fervor. This from the Wall Street Journal Bay state Democrats in 2021 passed a law requiring their government to adopt policies and emissions limits to reduce its CO2 emissions to 50% below 1990 levels by 2030. Those were the days of peak climate. Banks and asset managers were pledging to go to net zero and Democrats in Washington were advancing a multitude of policies to banish fossil fuels. So that peak climate there is really important. You'll remember when Joe Biden came into office, the number one priority was was how can we get as much money as possible into this green transition. It was focused on solar and wind and developing the technology to try and force people to leave their oil and gas that they were so reliant on. But as we've talked about with New Jersey, Maryland and others, Massachusetts had a similar problem. They did not have the ability to create the energy needed with those new resources they were trying to be forced into. Wall Street Journal continues. Energy reality has dawned even on Nantucket as the high cost of the state's climate policies has arrived. About 80% of Massachusetts electricity is generated by natural gas, and about half of households also rely on gas for heating. Whoops. Again, as with so many other instances on the issue of fighting climate change, Democrats put the cart way before the horse, intentionally trying to force the cart to move along to the horse. But if you don't have power and people can't heat their homes, they pretty mad. Massachusetts wholesale gas prices are 239% of the national average and its residential electricity rates are 72% higher than in the rest of the country. Again, as with California and Gavin Newsom, where they're looking at $8.50 gas prices next year or again New Jersey, so many other states, you cannot try and force an energy transition that the people don't want and the system and infrastructure is not ready for. For our you can't make it up segment today, we're going back to the Democrats shutdown. One of the big challenges for Democrats throughout that entire 40 plus day shutdown was the fact that they had shut down things like food stamps for low income people while demanding health care subsidies for the rich for people making more than 400% of the poverty line. It also created some very awkward visuals for Democrats. Here's Nevada's Susie Lee. Democrat Rep. Susie Lee from Nevada's 3rd district went to a food bank earlier this month wearing $1,150 worth of accessories, including a $250 hat from J.W. bennett and $900 Alexander McQueen sneakers. Now, I am not a fashion commentator by any means, but even I can look at those shoes and say that $900 would have been better spent elsewhere. But it's also just a terrible visual for Suzy Lee to be demanding the government shut down, demanding we cut, and then also be saying look at my cool, weird leopard print, ugly $900 shoes. Thank you so much to Jordan for that tweet. That is all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us. We appreciate you. Please leave a Comment Leave a Reply Leave a Review have a great day.