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- [00:01]
A
Hello and welcome to the Mountain State Liberty cast. I am your host, Ty Ward, joined as always by Taylor Richmond.
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B
Hello, Taylor.
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C
Good morning, sir.
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B
Yeah, so we just got back from.
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A
Well, you probably. You got back, did you.
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B
You didn't spend the night in Charleston after our legislative day, did you? You went home.
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C
I. I try to spend as little, as little much of time in Charleston as possible. Drove down, drove back.
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B
Oh, come on. There's plenty of beautiful things to do in Charleston. Go to all the stores that you have as well.
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A
In Morgantown.
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C
The mall's gone, man. There's no reason to go.
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B
No, when the mall's not gone. I mean, there is like, I think like a Claire's in there.
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C
There's a Claire's.
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B
One of.
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C
Is there a Hot Topic still?
- [00:56]
A
I don't know.
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B
I think Spencer's is still open.
- [00:59]
C
Oh, that's what I meant, Spencer's. I don't know why I said hot Topic.
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B
Well, they had a hot Topic too, but I think that probably closed.
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A
I don't know.
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B
I need to go in there and see all the stores I would never go to anyway. So I'm watching.
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C
Yeah, kids that shop at things.
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B
No,
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C
you guys just hand. Hand sew all your own clothes on the farm.
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B
They shop on the Internet dot com. I don't know where they shop.
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C
There's a website called the Internet dot com.
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A
Well, that's the funny thing is, you
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B
know, it's kind of taken the whole having to take your kids places thing awake because, you know, it used to be, you know, when I was a teenager, preteen or whatever, you know, your parents would. Or my mom would go to the mall, take us to the mall, and I don't have any idea what she did there. But we would walk around, you know what I mean? And that's not really an option anymore. So I mean, we could go to the mall and walk around with the old people that use it as an exercise facility.
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C
But silver sneakers? Are you old enough for silver sneakers?
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A
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I could definitely go and hurt my
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B
feet on the pavement, but yeah, this is just the.
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A
The consequences of late stage capitalism. Right?
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C
That's what it is.
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B
Yeah.
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C
It's finally come home to roost.
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B
I was like when people say that as if they know what it means because I don't even really know what it means. Like, oh, capital. This is finally capitalism failing. I'm like, yeah, all that capitalism we've had. But yeah, the funny thing, since we're talking about the. The city's been bought that building, and they've been talking about turning it into a sports facility for probably half a decade now. And the big thing was they bought the building, but didn't think about buying the parking garage attached to it, because
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A
I guess the somebody else owns the parking garage somehow. And I think they finally got that figured out.
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B
But it's just been like the perfect example of government trying to do things. It's like a.
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A
The biggest.
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B
And I'm sure you've seen this as well. But one of the biggest problems we have in West Virginia is these pseudo big cities trying to act like big cities, and they don't know what they're doing because they. I guess they can't attract the intellectual knowledge to plan these things. Yeah. So. And you have, you know, the Mayor Goodwin, she's a lawyer, she's not a business person. So it's like you have all these people that don't really know what they're doing, that have. Well, this is what other places have
- [03:42]
A
done, so let's do that. And speaking of which, they. They're the team. What was it. What was the Ohio plan they were trying to mimic? Did they call it Team West Virginia?
- [03:57]
C
No, Team West Virginia was one of the bills that was part of the Jobs Ohio or something like that.
- [04:04]
B
Yeah, that's what. That was the thing they were trying to mirror. And they haven't even gotten that out of committee yet? I don't think so.
- [04:11]
A
I mean, it's.
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B
That's one thing, Taylor, I don't know if you've kind of gotten wind of that as well, is I think we maybe talked about it last time, but the West Virginia legislature, they had this, you know, Roger Hanshaw had this big plan about this session being their, you know, whatever that term is, piece de resistance of economic planning, and it's kind of fallen flat. They've gotten a few small business things through, and it's. They've mostly come from individual delegates. It just seems strange that. Like that. I don't know if they just didn't have enough time to plan it or what, but I don't think really much has come out of this session other than, you know, more spending for these little bills.
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A
So I guess we'll have to see maybe again.
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B
I think last time I kind of said that. I don't know if I was. Who I was talking to, if I said on the podcast or not, but it kind of felt like they're waiting till the end of the session to maybe drop some stuff to
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A
get it
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B
through fast so nobody could object to it. I don't know what they're doing. But yeah, we got to talk to
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A
legislators on Thursday for our Libertarian lobby day, which had a good turnout. What did we have about 10 people there, let's say.
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C
Yeah, about a dozen people.
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B
Yeah.
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C
From like every corner of the or every corner of the state. I mean we had folks from Wheeling and wherever. Travis and live in the Eastern Panhandle, Martin there in Martin, myself and Dustin from Morgantown and your holler and Erica, Carl from Buchanan. So yeah, I mean and my good friend Adam who is really hitting the ground running with folks in Raleigh County. So yeah, we were, we were well represented.
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A
Yeah.
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C
It.
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B
And I'll to correct. I think Travis is from the Bunker Hill area of the Eastern Panhandle, which isn't technically Martinsburg, and they like to point that out. So the apple man up there.
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A
So yeah, I, I don't know about you, but I don't really trying to,
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B
you know, encapsulate the feeling I got there.
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A
There was a few delegates that we
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B
talked to that are are stalwarts like Chuck Horst and Anders and a few others that, you know, it is what it is. And, and I will say that I was not assigned any of the easy delegates to talk to. Crying yeah, I got to talk to the ones that.
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A
No.
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B
And it was okay because I mean,
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A
I think generally most of the Republicans, if we had more time to sit
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B
down and talk to them about stuff, maybe they would kind of, I don't
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A
know, be more receptive.
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B
But the general feeling I got was
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A
they're almost there on some things and
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B
then other things are probably never going to. We just have to get new people in there that have that, you know, liberty.
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A
I don't know, inclination.
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B
I don't know if that's a way to describe it.
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A
But one, one example I was talking
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B
to one delegate from I think he's up around your area actually, and he was feller.
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A
No, not him. No.
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B
Maybe he's from Fairmont. That's right. Because David Prince knew him.
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A
But we were talking about cutting taxes and one thing I tried to do
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B
because we had a little printout and one of the things was tax cuts. And one of the things I pointed out to every delegate in, in almost
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A
not a confrontational way, but kind of
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B
a, you know, just presenting the idea
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A
of the tax cuts are great because they'd all do the north south head
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B
shake with tax cuts. But then I would point out we've got to cut spending or none of this matters. Where these revenue in a Couple of
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A
my even said, you know, the idea
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B
of responsible tax cuts makes my skin crawl because that means you don't plan on cutting spending.
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A
And one of them even said, well, you know, yeah, what we would like to do would be able to increase
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B
spending while lowering taxes. And I was like. And I was, you know, I kept
- [08:29]
A
my cool, but I'm like, okay, like. Because that's the, that's the mindset of
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B
a lot of these Republicans that's been drilled into them from leadership and people they think know more than them because they're not. They're like, you know, coal mine supervisors or teachers or something else, and they don't.
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C
They.
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B
They've not really done a whole lot of study on economic principle, but they see other states, well, you know, well,
- [08:54]
A
you know, you bring in these bigger manufacturers and these bigger jobs and they pay more revenue and then you can cut taxes on the people. And that's the idea they're going with, with these data centers. And while that's all well and good, you can't. As we've talked about many times, Taylor, and you've pointed out that these places close. I mean, we've had. In West Virginia, we've had times when we had a lot of these places here, like the aluminum factories in the, you know, Jackson County Mason area, and they close and then what.
- [09:23]
B
And then that revenue's gone. And now you have this spending that you have to contend with, and that's
- [09:28]
A
what we're dealing with right now. And it feels like they just want to get back to the status quo and getting it through their heads that, you know, no, you can cut spending. There's a lot of stuff. And, and I gave him some ideas of stuff that I've just had. And, and, you know, he was receptive to it. And he even said, you know, there's a lot of this government that's, you know, redundant and there's a lot of positions and things that the government does
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B
that it doesn't really need to do. And that would be a huge, you know, cut in their, you know, their budget. And that would help reduce the, the
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A
spending just easily for things that they
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B
don't think the government should be doing.
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A
In general, the prod. The disconnect is getting them to actually
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B
do it because it's, it's hard because
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A
people's jobs are connected to it.
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B
And that looks terrible when you're trying to run for reelection.
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A
So that was the only thing that
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B
really was the sticking point I found with a lot of what we were trying to Present.
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C
Yeah. In the general, I would say retort or response from most individuals, not just Republican lawmakers, but I think, you know, the general public is, okay, well what do you cut? And it always leads. They don't want to, I don't say, understand or, or realize or accept that there is ways to utilize spending cuts to drive efficiencies and improve process by operating, you know, like a business. You know, like I said when I was on on Talk Line, a lot of these guys go down there and gals and they say, oh, we got to run government like a business. But they would never run their business like they're running Charleston or like they're running the state through Charleston. They would try to look for ways to cut costs and save money and do things better and faster and more efficiently. But they don't do that with state government. They just see that, okay, more, slightly more money's coming in, so we can spend slightly more now than what we did. So, yeah, I did get to go to some of the easier folks like Chris Anders and Horse and thank them. And, you know, our goal for the day was, was multifaceted one. We did want to meet with the individuals who are part of the Freedom Caucus or are sponsors or co sponsors of legislation that are very liberty forward and thank them for what they're doing and being champions of good bills and trying to return freedom to the state and small government and right size Charleston. And then there were some that delegates that either we knew through people that were going or they were told to us by other delegates and senators who were maybe on the fence for some of this stuff and were kind of there, but not all the way on certain issues shoes and try to, you know, present our position and let them know that there are West Virginians out there that do care about this, that will vote accordingly and what we want to hopefully see them support these pieces of legislation. So that was where we spent several hours, you know, going around the, the Capitol and meeting with folks. But then, you know, also the major thing that was going on down there was the fight, the ongoing fight of the HOPE scholarship that was happening in House Finance. So a number of us went and showed solidarity with a lot of our HOPE families, Katie and some others who had been going down and sitting in these extremely boring House Finance Committee meetings where they kept punting the discussion on changes to HOPE every day for almost a week. And, and finally while we were there, decided to take up the possible adjustments. And I think we got a real win, Ty. I mean, I think the Only change that appears to be going forward. The only change that came out of House Finance was to move the, the payments to families from a front ended schedule to a quarterly cycle.
- [13:34]
B
Yeah.
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C
Which help helps the, actually helps in the funding mechanism of it. So it's not a immediate draw right at the beginning of the fiscal year, but it can be spaced out throughout the calendar but also helps some of the families in a number of ways also. So I mean obviously the legislative session is not over, budget is not passed. We're not going to say that it's a full victory, but from everything that we're seeing, you know, but because we were there. But I think the, the, the show of support, the outcry for hope that has happened from a number of individuals including us, has led to a current victory. We're crossing our fingers, but what looks to be a victory for Hope for, for this legislative session.
- [14:20]
A
Yeah.
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B
And I don't know about you, but
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A
almost just to a man every, even that we went and talked to the Education Chair and there was a few things that I didn't necessarily agree with him on, but he is his idea for hope. I mean I much every delegate was like the, the Commerce or the Fiscal
- [14:40]
B
Finance Chair was up over his skis with what he was trying to do with Hope and none of them really agreed with everything they were trying to do.
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A
And so that was a good thing to, to hear that they were kind
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B
of in, you know, a little bit
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A
of solidarity in general of supporting HOPE and, but I think they all are justifiably concerned with the funding for it in the future and, and having to
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B
deal with their constituents in public education.
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A
But I think people like Katie Switzer who are sharing a lot of this
- [15:10]
B
information about hope that the delegates should already know because the majority of them in office did vote for it. So they should know what they're voting
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A
for, but they don't most of the time. So yeah, I think it's on them
- [15:23]
B
to educate themselves and educate their constituency about what HOPE scholarship really is and the truth of it and the numbers
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A
and, and it's not almost any argument
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B
you hear about hope from anybody advocating
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A
that it be eliminated isn't just, isn't true.
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B
I mean it's not doing what they think it's doing.
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A
And the, the problem with public schools, which, which I did get the Education chair to admit and agree that the public school system needs to be addressed on its own, it's a separate issue. And, and however much they want to
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B
connect school choice with the failings of the Public school.
- [16:01]
A
It's. And he. And he said as well that there is a reason these people are leaving these schools, and it's not because
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B
they
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A
want to abuse and neglect their children. I mean, when you have. In Roane county, you went from, I think it was 40 some people that were using the Hope Scholarship and maybe 100 leaving the school system before our school closures. And the Hope scholarship was expanded to everyone. You had a smaller number of people leaving. And then all of a sudden, this year in Roane county, you've got 300 people leaving the school system, and 106
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B
of them are with the Hope Scholarship.
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A
So all 300 are somehow nefarious. No, they're leaving because you're taking their schools from them. And the system isn't what they thought it was.
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B
And a lot of people are just finally fed up.
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A
So it's a public school system that needs to be addressed. And I'm all for that. And I think you and I both have said here on here at nauseam is the perfect libertarian solution, is that public schools wouldn't be a thing. But that's never going to happen. And it's constitutionally mandated that we have that system, and it's the system itself that needs to be reshaped and fixed. And that gigantic code book that the education chair had sitting on its desk, it's even bigger than I thought it was. I mean, it's a double bible, basically, of code for the school system. And you wonder why they're failing. And he happened to be talking to me because I mentioned Roane county schools about, oh, they've got all these administrative employees and they have too many for the mix that they have for the funding formula. So they got to switch some of them over to professional roles so that they. They're classified correctly and all this. And I'm like, yeah, I wonder why education isn't the priority. They're having to deal with all of this nonsense that, you know, it just doesn't happen in, you know, the private school scenario. And from what I've seen from charter schools, they're not dealing with things this way and dealing with employees this way
- [18:01]
B
and it in it.
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A
And it's no wonder they're not able to focus on education and talking about things with him about, like this literacy initiative. As much as we poked fun at it, you know, they're getting down to the science of reading. I'm using finger quotes that. Okay, sure, yeah. Should this have been something they've been doing the whole time?
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B
Yes.
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A
But they finally are Doing thing little laws like changing the way that they do literacy curriculum and how they teach reading and they are seeing success. They're being classified by, excuse me, nationally, as you know, we're the fastest growing state in the country with literacy rates
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B
over the last four years since they passed that legislation.
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A
So it's something that's working and it's focusing on education and improving the education the students being produced. Not statistics, not numbers of fiscal numbers.
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B
It's.
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A
Are we teaching kids how to read? It's getting better because of something the legislature did. So that's the kind of things that we want to see how the legislature is. Excuse me.
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C
Well, and the sad thing about it though, the sad thing about it though, Ty, is that there's a number of those legislators and Republicans nonetheless who believe that that success would not have happened save for, you know, the bill that they passed where I, I think it's, I don't know, say, pretty obvious but should be that those same successes would happen if to your point, the people, the teachers and the administration, the minimal administration that is needed to run a school could focus on actually teaching and not have to spin all these plates to appease the code book and all the legislation and regulation that's put on top of them.
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A
Yeah.
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C
Just because they pass one that broke through or you know, somehow re focused the attention on actually teaching doesn't mean that that couldn't have happened had they cut, you know, a significant portion out of that code book and given time and energy back to the teachers to do what they actually, you know, are taught to do and know how to do.
- [20:08]
A
Yeah. And the, the education chair, he seemed like a pretty, you know, reasonable guy and he kind of sees things. He doesn't like to sugarcoat what reality is. And he, one of the things that
- [20:23]
B
they were talking about doing is changing
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A
from 160, 180 day requirement to making
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B
it like a 900 hour requirement.
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A
And you know, and he said, you know, it's probably too low and he was talking about, which I don't. That was one of the things I
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B
don't agree with him on.
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A
I don't think you need to have
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B
a kid in a classroom five, even
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A
five hours a day doing learning, you know, the rest some of the day is inevitably going to be, you know, moving them around lunch, things like that.
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B
That's inevitable with the system where you're bringing kids in somewhere it's going to happen.
- [20:57]
A
But you know, real, real sitting down in the classroom, learning time five hours a day. That's for a Lot of kids, it's just not necessary. And, and while that's a disagreement, he understands that there needs to be more flexibility within the individual schools and the counties of how they use that time. And, and so that, you know, if they, you get a bunch of snow somewhere they're not having, counties are, are going to be able to be flexible with how they use that time. And, which is good to hear. But he also said, you know, if you go to like a four, four day, four day school week, you know, whether that be on Monday or Friday, they don't go to school. He said it's a, it's a real thing that there's a ton of parents that school is their daycare. And while we always want to say, well, school shouldn't be daycare, well, guess what, it is. And it's not. And for a lot of parents, it's not daycare because they don't want to deal with their kids. It's daycare because they have to work and their kids go to school.
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C
That's the system that we have constructed.
- [22:00]
A
Right in the education chair. Yeah, and the education chair can't do anything about inflation and the fact that
- [22:06]
B
both parents have to work.
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A
That's a, that's another issue they, they should address. But that's, that's not.
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B
Right now.
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A
Right now is the fact that, yes, if kids aren't in school, there's a lot of families that don't know what they're going to do with their kids in the daytime on that, that fifth
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B
day of the week they normally go to school.
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A
So he said, let's look. We already pay these, these service personnel, we've got all these aids that don't make as much as teachers and they're not necessarily as qualified as they should be. There's absolutely no reason why on that fifth day you go ahead and make the meals, you have the, the minimal staff there, the kids that need somewhere to go, they can go there, they can do their homework, they can have activities for them to do, they can supplement their education there. And a lot of the kids that are struggling during the school week can get caught up on some things. And maybe they have a math teacher there and they're teaching, you know, doing some tutoring and stuff like that. Like ideas like that are things that I like seeing, even though I don't necessarily agree that it should be a daycare and we just open up a school just to do it. But that's the reality of what's going on and addressing their constituents concerns and Hearing the concerns and just in general them thinking about their constituents and not just, you know, this top down, heavy focus, centralized planning thing, that they understand the concerns and they want to be
- [23:24]
B
able to address them accordingly.
- [23:26]
A
And I mean that was a positive for me. I was trying to stay positive while we were there. And I think, you know, one thing that came up inadvertently from one of the delegates is they asked us, you know, what's your opinion on daycare? And it was one of the more,
- [23:40]
B
you know, Christian conservative delegates. And he said that, you know, I don't really believe in daycare.
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A
And you know, I brought up, you
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C
know, because he was, doesn't believe in daycare.
- [23:50]
A
Right. Taylor, there's a whole group of people that don't think daycare should be a thing because guess, you take a guess
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C
what they think their wife should stay home.
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A
Yes. The mom should be at home. If you're going to have kids, you should prepare and somebody should be home
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B
taking care of the kids.
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A
Hey, Taylor, I don't necessarily disagree and I reflected because he said I agree with libertarians on almost everything except for social issues. And, and one thing, you know, Carl Colonage pointed out like nothing on that sheet has anything to do with culture or social issues because that's not what we think is going to, that's not the most pertinent thing to address here in the state. But, but I did say, I'm like, look man, my wife works like one day a week sometimes, every, every third weekend. She has to work a shift on Saturday and Sunday. But she homeschools, she's home with our kids. And I'm with you, buddy, I don't want to have to do daycare either. But we have a, I have a mother in law that watches our kids that she doesn't work and she's able to do that. We pay her gas money and a little bit of extra to do that. And, but some people don't have eggs and milk. Yeah, some people don't have that opportunity. So I used you several times, Taylor.
- [25:00]
B
So whether without your permission, I told
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A
the story that you told about the daycare that you went to that got shut down and I said, what would you rather have happen is a subsidize these already failing daycares that are full or deregulate the, the market and allow families, even people that receive subsidy for low income, you know, daycare stuff, we, we're not going to get rid of that anytime soon. So if they're going to be, have that money, why shouldn't they be Able to pay whoever they feel is appropriate to watch their kids to do so and make it easier to. If a church already has an annex that has liability insurance, maybe we change the code and say, well, whatever would be required. I'm sure there's things that would have to be done to make them qualify as being able to have kids in their facility to watch them. You have a couple old ladies that volunteer, maybe they pay them a minimal salary, whatever the church wants to do. And then they can fit 10 kids in this annex or the church basement or whatever. And you've opened up the market. And wouldn't you rather have a bunch of old church ladies watching these kids than a giant facility full of kids and they don't even have time to interact with these children on a daily basis. That would be a way that government
- [26:12]
B
can open up this market short of subsidy.
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A
And almost every single delegate that I talked to that I mentioned that to, they went, yeah, that's a really good idea. It is way too hard to open a daycare. So there is places where we can get through to some of these delegates. And while you would think that something they had already thought of, that's where we can step in and point out these things because that's where our mind is all the time is deregulation, free markets and that stuff that gets lost in Charleston.
- [26:42]
C
Well, yeah, unfortunately a lot of good ideas go down there to die, which. Changing gears a little bit I want to do. I do want to talk about one of the things that we're still hopeful for that we saw die on the House side, which is delegate horses, open fields doctrine bill. And he was explaining to us basically that he, he. Well, he and Anders believe there's probably enough votes on the floor to. To get it across the line if they actually got it out of committee. But the chairman of. I think it was under. I think it was under judiciary. Right. So it was. Acres basically attacked him on like, you know, why do you hate law enforcement? And you know, this would prevent law enforcement from being able to do their jobs if the. They were chasing a. In hot pursuit and stuff along all along these lines because it didn't specifically protect. And I can't say the word Ty. What's the word?
- [27:41]
A
Exigent circumstances.
- [27:43]
C
Thank you. I don't know why that's my, my one. One of my few hangout words, but yeah, that. Because it didn't specifically protect those situations and have it listed in the code. It was poorly written and they basically killed it. But which was just frustrating because as you always say, Ty, they're either stupid or lying. And we wasn't really sure which ones, because that is a superior, you know, statute or law or whatever you want to call it, where that bill would be, would succumb to the law enforcement's ability and quote unquote right to pursue and investigate ongoing or active crimes, if that. If it actually were happening. So anyways, long story, all that to say that that bill died over in the House aside, but we believe, or they. They believe that it's being taken up in the Senate.
- [28:40]
A
Well, it's not. Okay, just to. Just to clarify that it wasn't his bill. It was his. His main open fields doctrine bill is
- [28:47]
B
in Judiciary Committee, where it will likely stay.
- [28:51]
A
But what this was, was. And we. I don't know if we talked about this or not, but there was a bill in the Senate to. It was actually a good bill because it said that law enforcement.
- [28:59]
C
Right, this is the one that I was getting ready to. Yeah, you're gonna say the camera bill.
- [29:03]
A
Yeah, the camera bill. That's what it was, is the camera bill, that. What the camera bill was is that no law enforcement could place a camera on anybody's private property without a warrant. And here's the thing the bill already says.
- [29:17]
C
Or. Or the property owner's permission.
- [29:20]
A
Right. Yeah. And the bill already says unless you have exigent circumstances. Meaning. And what that would cover. When I first read it, I was like, what are exigent circumstances?
- [29:29]
B
To go and put a camera on somebody's property?
- [29:32]
A
But what that means is their body cameras that if you're in, which is. I mean, basically they're looking at technicalities that if a. A police officer has a body camera on, which we support, and they go onto somebody's property and because some little
- [29:46]
B
girl screaming for help in the.
- [29:48]
A
In the bedroom, that they're now filming
- [29:50]
B
that property with their body camera.
- [29:52]
A
And so those are the exigent circumstances they're talking about. And again, what was that word, exigent circumstances? It was already in the bill. And what Charles was trying to do was add his open fields doctrine into that as an amendment, basically just to try to get it through, because this is how legislation works, is if you can't get your bill passed, you try to do things however you can. And the argument was, well, it wasn't basically germane to the main bill. And like you said, they argued it was going to not be able to keep them from entering a property at all. And which just isn't true because exigent circumstances is already in the bill itself. And it's well known, established, you know, precedent that exigent circumstances and, you know, police officer has reasonable suspicion of something happening. That's already the legal standard. So it's not like they're changed. They can't change that. It's already the standard. So it's not like it's going. They're going. A judge is finally. Is just suddenly going to say, oh, no, you know, decades of. Of established case law is no longer relevant because you put this one amendment into this bill. No, that's not going to happen. And that. I wanted to point this out, that this is the problem with a lot of our legislators is if they're not an expert on a subject, they just shut their minds down and just listen to whatever the leadership is telling them. Because that's what happened. Because I had several delegates tell me that parrot that same line of. Well, it was.
- [31:24]
C
It.
- [31:24]
A
I like the, I like the idea of it. It was just poorly written and it wasn't. It wasn't right for this bill. Well, that. Okay, I mean, maybe. Maybe it should be its own legislation in a perfect world. But this is how this works. And no, it wasn't poorly written. Chuck has been studying this for years and years and years, and he even came back and rewrote his own legislation because of issues that it had. And so this is a problem that we have is there's people that. They will just do whatever leadership says. And I mean, heck, even if it does pass, the. It's going to be scrutinized after. I mean, how many bills have we seen become code and they get tied up in court forever? I mean, we're seeing that with the charter schools right now. It's not like there's not organizations that aren't going to scrutinize these things. And if they, The. The police unions, they're going to scrutinize this stuff, and if it doesn't pass muster, it's going to get tied up in court. So it was just a good example of legislators.
- [32:26]
B
We're not sending our best and brightest up there to Charleston.
- [32:31]
C
Yeah, but we are hopeful. As you were, you were mentioning. And what I was, what I was getting to was that there is a bill also in the, in the Senate that Chuck and others are hopeful that they can kind of backdoor what they were trying to do into, and hopefully that moves in a circuitous route and they have all the right language and so on and so forth. So our fingers are still crossed. So we get that additional victory there. Additionally, it looks like everything is good to go or, you know, nearing the finish line for the constitutional care for 18 year olds. So that's another success.
- [33:05]
B
Yeah.
- [33:08]
C
But you know, as I mentioned and I think we talked about previously, but I mentioned on the talk line and everything that, you know, because it's election year and people don't want to be too contentious or overturning the apple carts, there just wasn't a whole lot of legislation, at least at the time we went down there, which was only two days ago, that were controversial that we needed to either try to support or try to kill just because all they're trying to do is get to November and get through some of their primaries and everything else. So. But next Wednesday is what they call crossover day, which means they have it's a deadline to get bills out of the the how our side of the legislator that originates it. So if it's a House bill and it's not out of the House, it hasn't gone through third reading, then it can't get over to the Senate. They haven't done that third reading in passage of the bill on the side that it started on. It can't make it over to the other side. But if it hadn't done that by Wednesday, then it's basically dead in the House or the Senate, depending if that's where it started. So it's kind of like this mad rush now the last several days to get things started and push through in red all three times if it's going to have any chance of getting anywhere and possibly becoming a piece of past legislation. So we're seeing a lot of stuff begin to like come out of the woodworks, for lack of a better phrase.
- [34:32]
A
Yeah. And defend a guard is one that's yet another year where it's going nowhere.
- [34:36]
B
So I just wanted to point that out, which. Yeah, I don't, it's, I think it's getting worse instead of better.
- [34:43]
A
I don't know, especially with what's going on right now.
- [34:47]
C
Move on.
- [34:47]
B
We wanted to talk a little bit
- [34:48]
A
about, since it's Saturday morning, the March or March live breaking news, February 28th. Evidently we're attacking Iran.
- [34:57]
C
So, yeah, this is day 13 of the 12 day war. We had a long, long pause in it, but again, starting to back up.
- [35:07]
A
I just wanted to there's a quote
- [35:08]
B
from Donald Trump from Fox News, from what he said, I guess.
- [35:13]
A
Yesterday the United States military, military began combat operations in Iran. Our objective is to defend American people by eliminating the threats from the Iranian regime, a vicious group of very hard, terrible people. And so we've got to defend us. But wait, wait, Taylor from. There's another new quote from the White House from June 25th of last year, Iran's nuclear facilities have been obliterated and suggestions otherwise are fake news. So which is it?
- [35:48]
B
What's going on?
- [35:49]
C
Yeah, so unfortunately, this is the continual moving the goalposts that we see in not just the Trump administration. Obviously we saw it with Obama and, and Bush before him. Can't say Biden, Biden wasn't really there or doing much but thankfully, but the other, the other two presidents just continually moving the goalpost on what we're trying to accomplish. So originally the, the 12 Day War, when we went in and did these precision strikes and air quotes, obliterated their nuclear facilities and capabilities was to prevent them from moving beyond their, was it, is it 60, enriched uranium or whatever, what they're trying to do for civilian use. So prevent them from taking that any further. Okay. And we obliterate it. Okay. Well now because they're doing stuff that other stuff that we don't like, like, you know, killing protesters and just in general pissing off Israel, we have to go back and bomb them because they are also either capable or nearly capable or trying to be capable of constructing ICBMs, Intercon Intercontinental Ballistic missiles. So the big, big scary missiles that can actually, you know, hit like New York and somewhere in the United States. So, yeah, that's the new goalpost was we had to go back and make sure they don't have those weapons. And I'm sure, you know, if this is as, again air quotes successful as the last strike and all we're doing is going in, bombing them and coming back out. I'm sure there will be something else we have to go bomb, you know, probably in like October or a little closer to the election so that, you know, all the war hawks can pound their chests ahead of the, ahead of the, the general.
- [37:38]
A
Yeah.
- [37:38]
C
Election. Sorry, not that, not a, not a general.
- [37:42]
A
Yeah, it's, it's really. I don't even know what to say, man. I mean, it's like beating a dead horse. I mean, it's, I'm sure we're going
- [37:51]
B
to hear all about it from Scott Horton when he comes to our convention in March.
- [37:54]
A
But it's just another thing. It's, it never ends. The justification is what it is. But the, I mean, I don't, everybody talks about the War Powers act and, you know, there's no imminent threat here. I mean, who's attacking us? Is Iran attacking us? I mean, the, the concept is that they could, could make a nuclear weapon. Is that an imminent threat? Does that give the President the authority to attack them? No, I, it just, it doesn't make any sense. I don't, I'm, I'm hopeful that, you know, just like the, you know, 12 day war or whatever that they get, get it out of their system, I don't know, regime change, whatever it is, to get it done and get it over with and we don't end up in another quagmire. And anybody who says that, you know, the idea that Israel has influence over our country and our foreign policy is a silly thing and we just need to get out over that the neocons aren't in power anymore. I don't, it's. What, what, what do you need to see? I mean, literally the reports are the US and Israel are attacking Iran. Like what, what more do you need to see? I mean, we are doing this for Israel. There's no way around that. Like that's what we're doing. And this is the thing. And you don't have to be anti Semitic, you don't have to even hate the country of Israel, you don't even have to hate their government to see that this is a dangerous dilatory relationship that we have that's getting us. It's dangerous. Contrary to what the President said, we know this. You know, Ron Paul educated on this, us on this almost 20 years ago. This is what happens. This is the blowback will come, it's inevitable. And, and ironically, the stuff that Iran is doing that you and I wouldn't support, you know, funding terrorism stuff, this is all blowback from the actions we've taken over the last century. So this, yeah, it just never ends.
- [39:58]
C
And, and you know, a lot of the, the MAGA blowhards, for lack of a better phrase that, you know, because when, when this, when we were flirting with the idea or floating the idea of the trial, 12 day war and taking out the nuclear facilities and all that, you know, there were some folks like Dave Smith and others who, you know, went on places like Piers Morgan and other popular outlets and shows and said, you know, there can be serious repercussions with this. You know, we talk about the axis of evil and the fact that Iran is aligned or backed or friends with, with China and Russia and some other, you know, bad actors. And the problem is, is when you do things like this, you're, you're poking a bear, you're playing a version of, no pun intended, Russian roulette. And yes, we were lucky that that time, you know, the day was wrong and there was no World War III because of it. But, you know, just listening to the news before coming on with you, they were talking about the fact that wasn't terribly long ago within like the past couple of weeks or months or a month, that Iran was doing war game operations and, and drills with Russia and China. So, you know, it's not like it's not a known fact that they are what you call them, allies, but at least the possibility that they get drawn into this thing, and then what, then what do you do? Just because they had possibly some big scary missiles that they may, you know, throw up in the air, we have the capability to shoot these things down. I mean, obviously we don't want, you know, people that hate us throwing missiles up in the air, but is that worth the risk of possibly drawing in Russia and China into a hot war with us? And then that's, that's on the one side of the worst possible scenario. Right. And possibly World War iii. But you still have some other ramifications. They're talking about, you know, utilizing or leveraging the Houthis to go down and basically shut off the Straits of Hormuz that would drastically, drastically upset the global economy because it's the major funnel for oil in and out of the Middle East. And, you know, what does that look like? Okay, well, now that we got to go attack them and basically go to war effectively with Yemen, because what's left of Yemen besides the Houthis is not much besides a bunch of starving people that have been subjugated during our supplying the Saudis in their war against them. So now you have another frontal war because we have to clear the Straits of Hormuz. So those, all these ramifications, all these shoes that can drop, all these dominoes, all because you want to flex for your buddy Israel and you know, take out their missile capabilities now, and it's like, is that necessary? You have to, you have to consider the blowback. And if you're not, then, you know, you're putting the country in and possibly the world in a worse position.
- [42:56]
A
Yeah, and that's the, that's the main problem is you got all these people calling everybody doves and, and, you know, the most appropriate line for most of
- [43:05]
B
these people is, you know, I'd rather
- [43:07]
A
be a dove than a chicken hawk. I mean, I've, I don't know, it's just bizarre to me, this whole concept of people that Never served. Saying that everybody is a chicken. Like, I don't, it's just so funny to me.
- [43:19]
B
I don't know.
- [43:20]
A
I don't see. I have yet to see, and I pay attention. I've yet to see a reasonable explanation for why we're doing this. Like, we know we've done this. If, if we were, if this was the new, a new thing, I'd be like, well, you know, they've got a point. Everything they're saying is what they said about Iraq and Afghanistan and, you know, Somalia and every single country, Syria, Libya, Libya, all of them, they all say the same thing. And it always ends up with ISIS running the country.
- [43:52]
C
Right. I mean, and then we have to pay. We have to go fund Al Qaeda to fight isis.
- [43:58]
A
Yeah. What are we going to do? We're going to stick this prince that, that is the former Shah's son that's been, hasn't been back to Iran since he was a child. This is who's going to run the country. Like, what are we doing? Like, I don't. And again, you know, we got to do this regime. Lindsey Graham said, you know, what do we. I think a reporter asked him about, I don't remember the exact wording, but it was basically like, well, what are we going to do to stabilize the country? And he said, well, why do we have to do it? Like, getting indignant, like, well, why do we have to. Have to do. I'm like, why do we have to do any of this?
- [44:31]
C
Why do we have to destabilize it?
- [44:33]
A
Yeah, like, you know, bizarre. Like just no self awareness.
- [44:38]
C
Yeah. And it's, it's one thing, you know, and I'm not that I'm necessarily obviously supportive of it, but it's one thing that for the United States to aid in some targeted strikes against Hezbollah or, you know, Hamas or whatever. And not that I agree, but you can make a better argument for some very targeted special ops type of, you know, attacks on, on terrorist groups. Because right now, and really for the past however long, that's really been Iran's only kind of weapon. And I, I could understand better that argument, but we are actually invading and attacking us another sovereign nation, which I understand if we would bomb those places, they, they exist in other sovereign nations. But anywho, we are actually attacking not a terrorist organization or a terrorist camp somewhere in the hills of a country, but we're actually bombing Tehran like the capital of another sovereign country. So it's on a scale much more significant. And for me, and I think should be Most people, much harder to defend in principle of what we're doing and then why we're doing it. And you know, it's, it's wild that, you know, you're saying why can't we. And not that they're the suffering and the things are terrible that's happening over there and thousands, if not tens of thousands of protesters are being killed. But Iran does not have the capability to go on its own. They got more on their plate right now to worry about than possibly trying to go and take out Israel. And as soon as they did, as soon as they showed any possibility of doing that, you know, actually moving troops or, or what have you, then, okay, defend our allies, fine. But in the meantime, these preemptive wars are, are, it's so easy for them to quote, unquote, justify, but then we'd never have any clear evidence that anything was likely going to happen. Especially when you have a country who is trying its best just to maintain its power within its own people. Like, I just can't. It's so, they make it sound so easy to understand, but it's like when you actually get into, understand what's happening over there, you can't square that circle.
- [46:59]
A
No, you sure can't square that circle. I mean, there's, I mean, we could talk at nauseam about it, but it's just, I think anybody who really pays attention to history and understands what, what this means, I mean, again, I, I hope, I hope it's, it's nothing more than a few attacks, but I mean, if they do destabilize the regime, what, what happens after? I mean, it's never again. It's history. It never goes well. I mean, what we did in Venezuela, we just gave the, took the socialist leader and put another socialist leader in. So, I mean, are we going to do that over there? I mean, what's the, is the entire, I mean, people forget that the Iranian people, I mean, by all objective standards, I think a big majority of them supported this, this government when it, you
- [47:48]
B
know, they elected a new president. I don't know how, how that works
- [47:51]
A
over there or even if it's legitimate or if it's another, you know, a fake, fake thing. But the, there, if somebody comes here and does what we're doing in Iran, do you think it matters? Do you think the Democrats are going to, you know, celebrate somebody bombing our White House no matter how much they hate Trump? No, it's not going to work. I mean, the people aren't. I mean, maybe there will be people in the Streets that are supporting us. But I don't think that it's going to be this general celebration. I mean, we were greeted as liberators in Iraq until they found out that, you know, we completely destabilized what government they had. I mean, I don't know what they expect of it to happen there. I mean, and again, just like we talk about with our local governments, um, they act like all these people are these super geniuses that know what they're doing. But I mean, we've seen again, through history, they're not any smarter than anybody else. And no, they really don't know what they're doing. So.
- [48:43]
C
Yeah, well, and, and, and, and just to close that out, I mean, you know, I heard Shelley Moore, Capital say this the other day, being interviewed about the build up. And what possibly was to become true this morning was now, you know, you have these people and they come out of the womb saying death to America or whatever the hell. She said something stupid basically that they're taught at a young age. Death to America. Well, and I think Scott Horton talked about the actual language and what it actually means. But anyways, why do they, why do people in Iran hate us so much? Well, I don't know, Ty. Maybe because about 50 years ago we came in and had regime change in their country and threw out a relatively moderate leader who allowed a bunch of freedom comparatively because he was not willing to play in the, play in the sandbox with us, no pun intended, regarding the oil sales between us and in the uk and he wanted to nationalize that so that they kept more of their oil money in their country. And we said, oh no folks, we can't have that. And then we put in or allowed for basically a rather brutal dictator to come in and take over in this theocracy to rule over Iraq or Iran for the past 50 years. Now, yeah, maybe they have a reason to not like us very much. And just to assume that it's because, you know, we eat apple pie and listen to Britney Spears and watch baseball is a bunch of bs. It's because we go over and we meddle all the time in other countries and when they get slightly out of line, according to us, we drop bombs on them. Like that's our, our way to, to, you know, regulate other countries. It's rarely ever through actual diplomacy or, you know, any type of significant economic processes. We just go and drop bombs and damn the consequences.
- [50:36]
A
Yep. And that's a you, that's the constant, you know. Well, we didn't, we're not Putting in any ground troops. I'm like, who cares? Like, what are you talking about? We're blowing up buildings. What does it matter how you use it, what military tactic you use? We are attacking a country that didn't attack us. That is unconstitutional. End of story. Well, this president did this, and this president did that. I'm like, yeah, we've been violating the Constitution for a long, long time, and we finally had a president that said he was going to stop doing that, and here we are. So if you don't understand why people are upset by that, you're just not reading the room. And this is why you're going to lose the midterms, because you don't get it. You don't understand what you. Who voted for you. And you can listen to, you know, Israel and the Mike Huckabees and the, the Marco Rubios and Lindsey Graham's all you want, but they're not voting for you. They're. They're not. The people that are going to get you impeached, the people that you're pissing off are the ones that are going to end up getting you impeached because they're not going to vote for you. They're either going to vote for Democrats or stay home. So good job, buddy. Congratulations. You did a good job. Like, I don't know what you think you're doing, but you're not reading the room, that's for sure. So, yeah, Taylor, I think that's.
- [51:55]
B
I mean, I mean, what more can we say about it?
- [51:59]
A
So, yeah, we're. We're close to an hour. So, Taylor, are you getting excited for our convention in March?
- [52:07]
C
Well, I'm definitely even more excited now because Scott Horton's gonna have a lot more to talk about.
- [52:15]
A
Yeah, he definitely is. And I don't think he'll have any problem schooling us on it. And I mean, I don't know. And again, it's. It's going to be kind of just frosting kind of thing because he's, you
- [52:31]
B
know, preaching to the choir here.
- [52:32]
A
But I think it's really, it'd be interesting to, to hear from him the analysis of, of the details of it, because, you know, none of us could have the time to read the things and understand the things that he does about it. So if you want to hear some good, get some good battle fodder to, to spew to your MAGA friends, come to our convention. March 14th. $25 to hear our speakers. It's not a big fee. You can come to the business meeting. You can vote if you're already a member of the party and we've got some likely a few candidates that we're going to nominate. Do some business and it'll be a good time. So yeah, like comment and subscribe on the podcast. If you want to donate to the party or to the podcast, lpwv.org hit that donate button. Give us a few bucks if you if you enjoy what you're listening to on the podcast. $25 to join the party. Yeah, we're on Instagram, Facebook X and email me Mountain State, Liberty libertycastmail.com Email the party info.org until next time, don't hurt people and don't take their stuff.