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- [00:02]
A
Hello and welcome to the Mountain State Liberty Cast. I am your host, Ty Ward. Today I am joined by my co. Host Taylor Plead the Fifth, Richmond. Hello, Taylor.
- [00:12]
B
God, I was gonna. I just knew that was gonna be the. The name, dude.
- [00:17]
A
I don't. So, yeah, today we. Yesterday, I guess it was the Wednesday that.
- [00:24]
B
Yep, it was yesterday.
- [00:25]
A
Rand Paul and the Senate, the whatever committee was. Seemed kind of strange. What was it that it was like some kind of like Homeland Security committee or something. But anyway, they had Anthony Fauci in front of their committee to testify on, I guess, new evidence that they found of his, you know, stupidity. And so they brought him in front of the. That Senate committee and they. He gave a statement at the beginning and he basically. I thought it was kind of mild. Like I think you'd think a doctor would have more like, I don't know, like he had more time to craft something. But if he basically just said, hey, Rand Paul, you're just here to try to prove yourself right, or catch me in, you know, the. The smallest of lies so I could. So you could come after me more. And it was like, I don't know. He didn't really. I guess he wasn't really there to defend himself. I guess he was just kind of there to like ride it out until it was over. But yeah, that's the big joke. And the big news, I'm sure it'll be all over, you know, Saturday Night Live and late night shows is he just kept saying he pled would plead the fifth to everything they asked him. And we gave. Got some f. Bombs dropped. Did you see that?
- [01:37]
B
Bouchie bombs.
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A
They. I think it was Senator from Ohio. No, not. Yeah.
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B
Is that Moreno?
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A
Yeah, he. He basically said that that was his inspiration for running for Senate was seeing people getting their lives ruined by the lockdowns and. And basically saying it all came down to him at the beginning. And that was kind of the theme of the. The Senate committee was him saying repeatedly over the years that, you know, I didn't lock down anything, I didn't make any mandates. And you know, the.
- [02:11]
B
The.
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A
Some. There's some kind of alarm going off near me. Can you hear that? You can?
- [02:19]
B
Yeah, in the background.
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A
Okay, whatever. Yeah. So sorry. It was freaking me out. But the.
- [02:26]
B
The.
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A
The idea is, you know, he was basically Mr. Truth Science and every governor and, you know, mayor basically said that they did what they did because of his advice. So that was the. The gist of it. But he said, you know, I just kept on thinking, who the f. Do you think you are to do that. And I thought that was pretty interesting. But. And he's, he's one of those dudes that's pretty good at saying the F word, so.
- [02:52]
B
Pretty good at it.
- [02:53]
A
Yeah. And they, you know, he does it with such tact. Yeah. Fauci is just, you know, sitting there deadpan, looking at him. And I guess at one point his lawyer kept chiming, chiming in and Rand Paul kicked him out. Like he had a big, he had a, there was kind of a blow up there and he kicked him out of the, the chamber.
- [03:11]
B
So that was, the lawyer was like trying to sit as a requested or subpoenaed person at that table.
- [03:20]
A
Yeah.
- [03:21]
B
And you know, semantics or whatever. But it was kind of funny. It's like, no, you can't sit there. You need to go sit in the road behind you. And he kept trying to like talk as if people cared what he had to say. And you know, there's, it's funny because it's a very limited thing that they can do. It's not like an actual courtroom. So you can't hold them in contempt or anything. So they had to, they finally just asked him to leave and it was escorted from the room. But that was, that was comical.
- [03:44]
A
Yeah. I do find it very strange though, like, and I appreciate. And a lot of people are, you know, on the black pilled side of, you know, well, Republicans keep on saying they're, they're doing this stuff but nobody actually goes to jail. And I agree. But here's the, the problem and, and just this, I just kind of wanted to mention this because of, you know, the way I view all this is the Republicans are operating on the same system that Democrats operated on. And Democrats, like what did they do? They had, they had Trump like just about in jail. Like they, they did everything they could. So when you hear Republicans say, you know, well, we're, we're, we don't want to play the same game. We're going to, we're not going to weaponize the system. And, and everybody, you know, we all supported Cash Patel and damn on Geno and all these different people because that's what they said they were going to do. They were going to end the weaponization of government. We're not going to play that same game. We're just going to make it so nobody could ever do it again. Well, they've not done that, but they're also trying to weaponize the government. They're just really bad at it. Like they, they keep on like bringing up Comey on charges of posting an 86, 47 seashell picture in the sand. Like, just dumb stuff. And Foushee has this pardon. And you would think with all the powers of government, you know, they could find some kind of loophole and get one of their conservative judges across the country to somebody bring a lawsuit against that and like, challenge that. And. And none of that's even. We're not even hearing any glimmers of that. And it's just the system that has been created is against anything the people would want. The general, the citizens at large get nothing out of this system. But the people who are the system and created this system, they're protected by it. Anthony Fauci was the thing during COVID and after was he was the highest paid public employee in the entire country. Like, he got the biggest salary from the government of anybody, this guy that nobody had ever heard of before COVID And so, like, people in that system are protected by the system, like you and I. It doesn't matter whether we committed a crime or not. How many people do you hear of getting 20 year prison sentences? We just. I think I sent you that article there. There was that forensic examiner in Ohio. Yeah, she was basically just picking and choosing who she wanted to charge, and she was fudging data and redoing DNA tests till she got the results she wanted. And she'd been doing it for 30 years, and God knows how many people were affected by her doing that. And I mean, she's got. She's going to jail, but like, so many people, like, just somebody could just do that for 30 years and nobody even notices. And finally somebody picks up on it. But. But no, Anthony Fauci did what he did and just, he's just protected by some random pardon the President signs. Like, we don't get, like, who's getting pardons? And you could say the same. You get people who are on whatever side of the political aisle you want. You could say it was the same thing for the January 6th people. Sure, if you want. If you view that as a political thing, sure, the president could just do whatever they want, but they're not doing it for you or me. And you can go to Congress. And like you said, that brought to my mind it's not a courtroom. Like, it doesn't operate like a courtroom. But what is the thing they were trying to get Fauci on and what he was afraid of? Lying to Congress. Like, it's a crime to lie to the people that represent us. Like, there are representatives and like, you go in there and lie to them, but they can lie to us all day long. Every day, all day, all day long. They lie constantly. President Trump, like, that's his thing. It's like a joke. He just says random crap that isn't true. But it's fine. You can lie to the American people as the ex. The highest executive representative in this country, whatever. It's just a funny thing they put on snl. But you lie. Foushee lies to Senator Rand Paul and is some kind of convictable offense. Like, excuse me, sounds like I'm defending Fauci, but that this is just a huge dog and pony show. Like, the fact that anybody in the government had the power to do what they did through Fauci's advice, That's the real crime. And none of these, like, Governor Brashear in Kentucky is like, one of the names they're running as a front runner to run for president. Did the Democrat ticket, and he was one of the worst offenders of any state as far as lockdowns and, you know, gathering license plates of people who attended church, stuff like that. It is just. I'm kind of rambling here, but the. The whole thing was just. I see what Rand Paul was trying to do, and. And I'm of the opinion that sure, have the Senate do whatever they can to, like, do it like a mock trial to show the American people what Anthony Fauci and his, you know, group did. And. And whether he's convicted or not or spends a day in jail, at least you get it on the record that this isn't something that we have to. It's been long enough. Six years is long enough, but we don't have it in 20 years. We finally understand the truth. No, like, we need to know this now so people, even the people who are still, you know, lighting their Anthony Fauci votive candles that they bought during the pandemic, they can at least go, oh, no. Like, this is the evidence. Taylor, do you keep a diary?
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B
I actually started to journal, and I go back and restart journaling now.
- [09:44]
A
If you were committing. If you were committing a crime, would you put that in your journal, in your diary?
- [09:51]
B
Probably would be the last thing I would write down.
- [09:54]
A
Like, so if you were tell. No, go ahead. It's just crazy to me. Like, this whole thing, like, why? What kind of insane narcissist is Anthony Fauci?
- [10:04]
B
Oh, and I heard a good take. I mean, okay, the incriminating yourself part aside, the they say or the podcast I was listening to is a pretty good take on it was basically that a lot of once you are in politics or government at a certain level, especially when things are major things are happening around you or you're involved in major things, you begin to journal, if you weren't already doing before, or keeping a diary, however you want to say. I think that was just kind of like a gay smear against him, calling it a diary instead of a journal, but whatever. But you do that because you're likely going to write a memoir down the road and you want to be able to look back and say, oh, here's some of the things that happen that I want to include or not include or highlight, yada, yada, yada. So, okay, yes, he journaled probably a number of high ranking officials in the government journal or they have some like sectarian, probably now use AI or whatever because it's like help track what they do. So. So they can write memoir down the road. That's not abnormal. To your point, though, the abnormal part is writing down things like, yeah, you know, all the things that we're seeing is that the infection rate is like 0.1, but we're out here telling people it's like 0.8 or, you know, 10 times worse than the flu and all this kind of stuff. And basically was confessing in his private journal diary that he was lying to the American public. And then he was writing down that he went to the. He was the governor or mayor of New notice, the mayor, New York, Bill de Blasio. He went to Bill de Blasio and said, hey, I think you need to shut down the schools. And then when he said, yeah, you know, based on what you're telling me and what I saw you say to some of the other folks on TV yesterday, I'm shutting the school down. The school's down. And then Fatou came back and said, and then I told him, shut down the bars and restaurants too. And he said he's gonna do that. And then he's like, you know, I didn't know how close they were, but anybody turns right around and says, oh. And then I went out to Newsom's chief of staff and told her to do follow suit and they're going to do that too. And then he goes, has the audacity within like, you know, six months to a year of that and say, oh, I never, I never said that I recommended any of that. And it's like, you have a right. We now have it. Like, we now have, you know, your own writing. You're incriminating. Cell testimony encouraged strongly encouraged government officials to take these steps when you said you did it, and more importantly, that you knew that the virus was not as effective or viral or deadly as you said it was that you hyped the numbers that scare people to get to take these certain actions. And apparently, and I haven't read enough about it, but from what the number of podcasts and people I've listened to says, if you like, read more thoroughly through this, he's doing it to continually inflate and stroke his ego because he loves people coming back to him for information and guidance and being in the center of attention. And he knows that they won't do that if this thing is not found to be as serious or deadly as he is lying about. So what's really troublesome for me, Ty, is going on Facebook, going on Twitter, and seeing the number of people in my life who are very educated. I mean, like, you know, smart people have papers on the wall in popular sense of education, and they are still defending this man. Like, oh, he was the light in the dark and he was a voice of reason and all this shit. And it's like, we have proof that he's lying.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like, it's just the wool over the eyes is so bad. And yet in the same vein, they're talking about Trump's lie. And it's like the cognitive dissonance that has grown between the two parties is absolutely mystifying at this point. Now, to the whole case and the pardon and everything there, My understanding, from what I've heard. What? Well, two things. First, I'll say about pleading the Fifth. Paul, was it Wolfowitz, whatever the Harvard lawyer is that he's always on. Basically he came on one of the shows that I was listening to or Saul, and said, yeah, he did it 110 times. That's standard procedure. You don't, like, pick and choose what you plead the fifth to. You just do it for the entire time you're up there. So people are making a lot of hay out of, oh, he did it 100 times. He did it regarding the color of his tie or whatever. Okay. Again, that's common practice. So people. And I didn't know that until I learned that. But, you know, just for listeners, information, don't put much stock in that. The fact that he. The more important thing for me, Ty, is that. And I saw the clip right before I came on here of him in 2022. He was like, I'll go in front of any congressional committee and tell him the truth. I've got Nothing to hide. We did all the blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, then, you know, four years later, now he's going up there and pleading the Fifth because we have his diary and we knew that he was lying to us all the time. Okay, so the whole dog and pony show of this case or this hearing while he was subpoenaed, and I don't know if you caught this or not, but it's going to be interesting to see what happens because both Paul and Holly pointed out the fact that there's precedent. There's an old Supreme Court case from like 1800s, I think, or maybe 1920s. I forget what the date of it was, but basically it says if you have a pardon relating to, you know, certain things, you can't come into a hearing like that and stand on Fifth Amendment principles. You have to, basically, because you've been pardoned of it. You have to. You know, you're basically purging yourself. So it sounds like Rand is playing, and I hate saying this, some 3D chess in that he knew that, that thought he was going to do that. He knew that he had that precedent. And he's, I, I, I believe that him and Holly and a few others are trying to fit, you know, in around the pardon because it is so broad that they're looking for some cause to actually take this, to take the pardon to court. And unfortunately, we've seen with a number of other situations in recent history that in order to get something to the Supreme Court and then to actually hear the case actually have it argued in front of them, you have to have cause, meaning something has happened to have been injured or some law has to been violated that's in contest or being debated. And I think he, Paul and a few others are trying, you know, some maneuvers to get it in front of the SCOTUS to overturn that pardon or have it be more narrowly tailored in some way. And that way they can then go after him for at least perjury, if nothing else. So I'm hope again, yeah, I agree. A lot of this is show and dogs and ponies. My hope is because Brandon, Paul, probably for both of us, is one of the few people over in D.C. that we can actually have a little modicum of respect for. He's made this his mission. I believe he's going to see it through to some type of conclusion, and I'm hopeful that he can get something out of this. To your point, will he probably spend a day in jail? Will Fauci spend a day in jail? I wouldn't hold my breath for it. But more importantly, I, I would, I hope that these people that I'm seeing on my Facebook that are still defending Fauci, that are still defending the actions that we took while being lied to, have that red pill, all hall light moment to say that things like trust the science can never be uttered when we're talking about locking down our entire country, shuttering businesses, destroying ways of life, having people die alone because no one can see them, having mothers deliver babies with masks on by themselves because it was too risky to have the father that they are going to go home and live with in the same room, in the same delivery room. All those things and more. The educational loss that we experience, all the downstream effects that we are still facing and will face for another decade because we put so much faith and trust in one man who now we know, like everyone else, has a sin, nature is corruptible and was lying to us all along.
- [18:24]
A
Yeah, and that's the, that's the big problem is, you know, the recent stuff with the USDA and the, the FDA with all this, the diarrhea, lettuce that was going around and, and people saying that, you know, Trump has cut stuff to the FDA and the, some of the testing that should have been done wasn't being done. And, and my big thing as a libertarian is, is part of it is understanding human nature. And it's kind of harder to explain this kind of thing. But, you know, even it, and it seems counterintuitive if you care about people, but even if you have these apparatuses that are doing work that could potentially save lives, it's almost like the, the potential risk is not worth the, the safety aspect because you have this giant organization that's supposed to be doing what, you know, the NIH and the CDC and all these organizations are doing. And even when they are respected and they've, they've, you know, gained a certain amount of trust to the public, something like this can easily be done because of that trust. And they have all of this power and, and the weight and the public, basically the public microphone of being able to stand up there and saying, you know, I am Anthony Faust G. I am science. And people believe it because they've created this psychological, you know, game that the nih, the cdc, things you've never even really thought about before. Oh, well, no, these are the authorities. These are the people that they're telling the truth because they're about science. It's not about politics. Well, if this has done anything, it should show people that These apparatuses having this much power and your government having this much power, whether you think they're doing the right thing or not is incredibly dangerous because all of these things can start moving. These cities, governors, you know, shutdowns, lockdowns, mandates of getting medical procedures, you have to get tested to go into a library. Those things can all start rolling because of the lies of a few people that have this, you know, intellectual authority. Anthony Fauci couldn't make anybody do anything. But as this whole. The whole point of this proceeding and what he said in his diary is he clicks his fingers and people start doing things that do have authority, whether we really think they have the authority or not. And that's the danger of creating a government this large is what you said. And we've seen you, and I've seen it from Republicans from the Iraq war. You still know people. I still know people that will tell you to this day, oh, no, there were WMDs. You know, I knew a guy, I knew a sergeant that saw, you know, the aluminum tubes. It's all just a psyop. And while that makes no, absolutely no sense whatsoever on a lot of different levels, there will always be people on either side, whatever the political thing is, that will never believe that Covid was mostly just a psyop. They'll never believe it. And the reason why is because people are not capable of understanding such huge things, and they want to reach an equilibrium. They want to trust. They don't want to have to use their own authority to make decisions. They want to have somebody that they can trust, get the information and move on, and it becomes their political identity. And that's the dangers of having a government this big and powerful.
- [22:24]
B
So I highly recommend. I just watched over the past several days the Ben Franklin series that's on, like, Apple TV or whatever, and Ben Franklin is, at the very end, after they've won the war, is talking with the. He's basically, from my understanding, he's like the Secretary of State equivalent there in France. And the guy was like, talking to him was like, well, how are you going to do this? Like, run a country without a king? You know, people need that, like, security of trusting in a benevolent and, you know, entity that's going to take care of them. And he goes and goes, well, we're going to rely on the people to govern themselves and use logic and common sense. And then the comp goes, well, what if they don't have common sense? And then Ben goes, well, at least we've tried. And it's Okay, I say all that, Ty, because people, even today, it's not a king. We don't have a king, thank goodness. But we have something in sometimes worse. And that people have put so much faith and they, they feel like they can't survive without this myth of this magical security blanket that is the government. And then we just trust them. They'll take care of all of the things that we need. And as libertarians, this is the response, the retort that we always get. Well, what if there's a crisis or a, a major pandemic? And you were saying, Ty, if Foushee was just like the head of a pharmaceutical company in Capistan and he was telling us all we needed to take for this, you have to choose to go and purchase his snake oil, he couldn't force us upon, force it upon us, but because he has this position in government, because he has this elevated pedestal in this giant safety blanket that so many people feel that they have to wrap themselves in, when he says anything, everyone just nods and bows and says, okay, that's what we've got to do. You know, we've got to walk off this cliff because it's going to be the safest thing for us. And everyone just refuses to just question any of it. And again, what drives me nuts, it actually to some extent horrifies me, is that today, six years later, after the fact athletes, we already knew from studies and research and science that on the other side, that says a lot of these steps were, yeah, maybe they were knee jerk reactions at best, but they weren't necessarily. They didn't help. And then we have his own personal journal or diary that says, yeah, I was kind of stretching the numbers and I was definitely encouraging and forcibly recommending these things. And they still can't say, oh, maybe I need to have a little bit more circumspect when it comes to what the government's telling me. Nope, it's. No, he was the voice of reason. And this has been litigated for. We don't need to. Why are we even talking about it? That was the one that really got me when someone posted why are we even talking about this anymore? That was six years ago. And it's like, oh my God, we're doomed. I mean, I don't like to be black pill Ty, but when you read stuff like that and you're just like, man, part of this society just has no flu.
- [25:36]
A
Well, and that's one thing I've, I've kind of tried to understand better is I hear people say Things, you know, about what's going on in politics. And, and I try to remember that, you know, people like you or me are kind of really sucked into it. And it's kind of like our hobby basically is paying attention to this stuff. And a lot of people don't really pay as close attention, but there's a lot of. There's a huge amount of people that pay zero attention to what's going on. And I heard a podcast recently, I think it was, you know, the skateboarder Jason Ellis. He's a. I think he's Australian, but he was on the Tim. He was on the Tim Pool show and they were talking about. He's kind of a, you know, a liberal leaning guy. And he was talking to Tim Pool and he's one of these guys that kind of like has a surface level understanding of what's going on, but people just don't, like, I don't really know what people do all day that they don't know, like, literally anything about, you know, what's going on in the world. But Tim Pool was making a point that he was showing a video of, you know, forklifts moving the. You remember in Texas during the Biden administration when Texas put up all that Constantino wire on the border?
- [26:47]
B
Yeah.
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A
And you know that they said that, you know, a judge said they couldn't do that or whatever, so they had like forklifts moving all that stuff off the border. And it's like, why would you do that? Like, why? Like, what if Texas wants to put that on the border? What does it hurt you federal government to put that up? And the conclusion would be, well, they don't want the border closed. And we saw, you know, it's evident now that, you know, tons and tons of people, millions of people flooded across the border and the Biden administration was doing nothing about it. And Jason Ellis was like, well, what's that, what's that video of? And he's like, it's them. Of them moving, you know, clearing the border so people could come across. And Jason Ellis couldn't wrap his mind around why they would do that. He said, I don't believe that's real. He said, what do you mean he doesn't believe it's real? He's like, well, that. Why would the President do that? He goes, well, I mean, they're trying to get people across the border for a lot of reasons. And he was kind of going through, you know, reasons that are, you know, kind of partisan and reasons that are just generally accepted as true for what that, you know, the, the Democrat I'm doing finger Croats mindset of immigration is, you know, and we're, I'm not going to go over all that. But he said, well, but that, that I just don't believe that stuff because, like, why would the president do something to actively hurt the people he's representing? And for you and me, that state. Right. No, thank you. Thank you, Taylor, that for you and me. You, like, are you, are you like, are you being funny? Like. But no, Taylor, we have to understand there's lots and lots of people. Why would Anthony, he represents the like his whole life is. Why would he lie? Why would he do that? There's no, like, I don't believe you. So there's tons and tons of people that have. And we have to keep that in mind that the reason Rand Paul does this and the reason why it needs to happen is so those people can maybe see like, no, no, no. Like, just because they're in power and they've gotten here. Like, I understand that you're not paying attention and you don't understand the whole backstory of how all this works. The last people you should be trusting are the people to get to those positions for lots of reasons.
- [29:02]
B
You know, and to that side, I saw a post yesterday, it might have been like Onion or one of those posts, but it was talking about people who say, you know, trickle down economics doesn't work, but what we need to do is take a bunch of money from the rich people and throw it into the government and hope that it trickles down through all the bureaucracy and makes it down to the poor people.
- [29:23]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [29:24]
B
That one will. That'll definitely. And it's. So I say that because what I was going, what I was thinking through in my head was the same group of people, not, maybe not him, but there's a significant overlap in this Venn diagram of folks. But there's a significant portion of people who'd be like, you know, all the oligarchs and the, and the, in the billionaires and the trillionaires and it's like they're the only evil people that can exist. As if you're capitalist mindset. But if you, you make it into. You work in the federal government, you're some type of saint or angel that has no sin or does no wrong or has no self interest whatsoever, that's not going to lie, cheat and steal to get their benefits to yourself. And you know, going back to the, the trial or the hearing, whatever, Holly especially was honing in on the fact that, you know, Fauci got like some millions of dollars and kickbacks from some of these, like prizes that the government awards for scientists or whatever. And I'm just sitting there like, bro, I could care less about him getting a couple million dollars here and there. That. That is literally a hill of beans. But it's just funny because it shows that that same profit, you know, profit incentive exists in the, in the government. And it just, it's innate in all of us. We have a desire to better ourselves. And when you give us, when you give people, especially bad people like Anthony Fauci, the opportunity to use government to do it, they're still going to do it. It's not just because they work for the federal government. I'm putting that in air quotes that they're just going to be like, oh no, you know, the Bible says, or I'm a good consumer or whatever and stop. No, they have the same flaws and sin nature that we all do. Now, a lot of people in the government are good and don't do that. But the problem is, as you were saying, when you get the government so large and so powerful that people can rise to these positions and just on their recommendation alone, they didn't. He didn't have to pass a law. He didn't have to get an amendment in the Constitution. He just said, hey, this is what is going to make everybody the safest. Everyone just bowed. And while he was doing that, he was proving his own clout. He was profiting off the side. You know, he was preparing books that he was going to write down the road, all to improve his self value and worth and net worth, just like the billionaires and trillionaires does. He just happened to find a different avenue to do it.
- [31:51]
A
And here's. I'm gonna contradict you a little bit just because it's a point I keep trying to make to a lot of people, especially people I talk to, running in my house, race is that is a motive for a lot of people. And I think. But I think it's a side motive because as we've said, Anthony Fauci made I think close to $800,000 a year. And he'd done that job for decades. That dude had money. Like either the money wasn't a problem for him and from his journal entries, power and influence. People don't understand the type of, like, there's so many people and everybody's like that. You know, even you and I, who don't really want to be in government. You know, the idea of having. Saying, well, I'm a House rep. Even for us, that's a little bit of like, hey, that's pretty cool. Like, I was a House rep. That's pretty neat. You know, I was a state senator. That's pretty neat. You know, and it doesn't mean as much to us as, like, our value as humans. But somebody like that who gets to that point, even if you don't start out that way, him putting in his journal, somebody stopped me on the street and said I was. How thankful they were for me, you know, basically saving the country. Like, he's writing that down on paper. So that. That when you consider all the actions that people make that don't seem that you could, you know, attribute to profit motive and money, you have to remember that people aren't necessarily only driven by money. There, there's lots of. Lindsey Graham, what did it come out that he. Like. And for you and I, this is like, oh, only 1.5 million. He's a senator and a congressman for like 30 years, and he was worth one and a half million dollars. And for that, you know, that's the whole thing. Like, that's almost a joke amount of money for somebody in that position. He did it for the love of the game. Like, he was a warmonger for the love of the game, because he legitimately believed in what he was doing. And that scared that and all the
- [33:50]
B
mail pages he had.
- [33:51]
A
Right. Yeah. Well, that's. But that's way scarier. That's way scarier to me than money. I can understand money. You can do something about that. You can cut money off. You can't. You can't cut off psychology. If somebody. And that's the Anthony Fauci problem.
- [34:11]
B
But I didn't mean that money was the only incentive. It's just that people who make those claims about, you know, the CEOs and everything, they think that. That they vilify them in. In certain ways. And they think that only people in the private sector operate for those type of motives. When it's indicative of all humans in every stature, in every station, that something is driving them. And once they find that tap to. In that spigot and they can turn it on full stream like he was doing with it, like Fauci was doing with this. And he had access to all these important people and celebrities and governors and senators and the president, and he was on TV literally 24 7. Yes. That. That was his drug of choice in this regard. So. Yeah, no, I didn't mean that money is the Only driver it is for certain individuals. And there are people who go to the federal government who, you know, get to congressman or whatever and they get the board positions on like Lockheed Martin, all these things because of the money. I mean they, they fade off into revelance at once. They have their, you know, a couple terms in Congress or Senate, but then they go and make bank because of that. They don't care about that. They don't care about the power or the notoriety.
- [35:30]
A
Well, money, money's the tool, money's the thing. And I'm not sure, I'm not discounting the money part of it, but the money part of it can be dealt with in some way. And that's the thing that people, because money is part of it, people decide that that's the only, you know, they decide that that's the main contributing factor when it's, it's that. My point is it's, it's not the biggest problem. I mean, look, I mean Thomas Massie doesn't need money. He's a multimillionaire before he was even in Congress. So. And you know, he just happens to be somebody we feel like is doing the right thing for the right reasons. There's lots of people that don't agree with us and that's their moral equivalent. The main point is, is that, that and Thomas Massie. The reason why, you know, you know what Dr. Paul always said, he goes, he's an imperfect messenger with a perfect message. And the message is peace and individual liberty. So when peace and individual liberty is your driving factor, you can almost, you can be a scumbag in your real life. If you're saying I want to leave people alone and create peace on earth, it doesn't matter if you're a scumbag because your mission is that. And if you want to, if you want to get notoriety through promoting peace and liberty, I'd got no problem with that whatsoever. But when you want to get notoriety by creating lies to shut down the whole country, that's where we get into problems and into the next. Just because I want to cover this on this episode. But current events.
- [36:59]
B
How's this going to go?
- [37:00]
A
This is, this is. And it does connect because people are issues right now. Data centers, these transmission lines running across the state that people don't want, you know, coal fired power plants, natural gas fire, power plants creating the West Virginia being the energy hub of the whole country. All of these things can be, could be attributed to wanting to make people money if that's what you want to do. I do not think that Governor Morrissey and the vast majority of our legislature and bureaucratic state in Charleston are doing what they're doing because of money. And so, and herein lies the problem recently. And I didn't know this was in that bill, but that House Bill 2014, that had to do with the, what was data centers, but it was more to do with creating micro grids. And we've discussed that on this, this, this podcast. The idea that you would, these data centers would be able to create their own power generation through, you know, mostly nuclear, not nuclear, gas powered, gas fired power plants. And so I didn't know this, but in that bill, and, and this completely. I, I don't. Because we discussed this in a separate bill, but I didn't know they did this, but part of it was they wanted to create a rule. Part of that bill was creating a rule to ensure that coal fired power plants constantly ran at a 60% run rate. So basically the idea that, you know, 69%. Yeah. And I, I, but I think that this bill said 60. That was the problem. Like this is, I don't, do you remember that being any part of that bill?
- [38:50]
B
I, no, I don't. Well, maybe it was 60. I could have sworn in TJ's commentary when I was giving the thing that you sent me, it said 69. Okay, I just know that. But which kind of contradicts the need for Mr. Socialist Brian Helton to want a separate bill for that.
- [39:10]
A
Right, that was that, that's what I was getting at is, I don't know why, but evidently that was in there. And so what's going on right now? And there's a comment period. And I'd encourage everybody to go to Kayla Young social media because she's done a big thing on it. And you know, it's pretty sad when the Democrat socialists are, you know, promoting.
- [39:29]
B
Don't, don't go to her social media. It'll ruin your algorithms.
- [39:31]
A
Well, she's, well, she's got a post up and it's, I think Metro News shared.
- [39:35]
B
You'll see her, her, you'll see her outfit every day.
- [39:39]
A
And hey, I'll tell you what, man, as annoying as that is, I'll give her credit, she keeps her constituents informed about what's going on. So whether it's annoying or not, I mean, that's the sad part. You have to go to annoying stuff to try to figure out what the hell's going on with the, the, the state legislature. But she's, she's been talking, you Criticized
- [39:57]
B
me for my TikTok game.
- [39:59]
A
Well, no, you shouldn't do it either. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you're the. You. Hey man, you. You just told on yourself. It's Taylor Richmond and the Democrat Socialists on TikTok.
- [40:13]
B
Hey, I've got, I've got to gap the divide here. I gotta get all sides to win this thing, you know that.
- [40:20]
A
You gotta get the tween girls and the old boomers. But. So basically what's going on now is the legislature's discussing a rules package where and I don't know the minute, what
- [40:31]
B
a Freudian flip that was.
- [40:33]
A
Yeah, the minutiae of what is later is disgusting. Yeah, they are disgusting and more than one way from recent news. But they have a rules package that they're having to put together and I don't understand the minutiae of it, but what the p. They want the PSC to write a rule that. And I'm not in this industry so you'll have to just give me a little leeway here I guess as it works now every company first energy manpower. All these places that create electricity, basically they are what's in called called a PJM and that is like a 13 state power grid that gets power from all these different coal fired natural gas, solar, wind, whatever, it all goes into this system and on whatever specific day they have a market or the day before they decide how much power is going to be needed based on, you know, the load from the day before. And they have a market where whoever's creating the cheapest energy at that moment, which whatever, from whatever source they get paid for what goes into the system. I could be wrong about that, that's how I understand it. So look it up yourself. But basically the market part is true and what they're wanting them to do is to create what's called an autumn automatic market where the coal fired coal fired power plants with their potential 69% requirement, basically meaning no matter what the need is, they have to be operating at 69% capacity no matter what. So what that means is their power is going to cost more than anybody else because they're operating whether they need to be operating or not. And so that cost. And I heard one of the first energy representatives that was on metro news, he, he kind of made the analogy that just a rough number like let's say it costs $50 to do that $50 per watt or whatever of energy and the average that day is 40, but they're required to use that $50 watt potential because these coal fired power plants are being forced to run at 69% capacity. That means that's not the most efficient, cost effective way way to be providing power to their customers. And so who pays that cost? The ratepayer, you and I, the citizens getting the power or the Walmart or the data center or whoever has to pay that cost for that excess amount because of that automatic, I, I don't know the right term, but the automatic adjustment for what the market rate is. So instead of having a free market of whoever's the cheapest energy at that moment gets the, the watt paid for, this system is saying, oh no, we want coal to be used because coal creates jobs in West Virginia. So we're going to force coal fired power plants to run at 69% capacity and we're going to force the PJM to, to prioritize that energy because we're making them operate at 69%. That's what your Republican legislature is, is doing right now. Taylor, if you, if you were going to frame that in today's milieu of, of you know, pop terms, what would you call that?
- [44:25]
B
I'll take what is socialism for 500.
- [44:27]
A
Yeah. And you know, we throw that word around a lot. But you have a, you have a state that is saying the people will pay for the use of a product that we are forcing them to use. I mean, and I don't know if it's necessarily socialism because I don't think the government's paying for it. But oligarchy, oligopoly, look up all these terms. This is not free market capitalism, I'll tell you that right now. You can call it whatever you want. This is not market driven. This is not fiscal conservatism. This is nonsense.
- [45:05]
B
Yeah, I mean, and obviously socialism is used in my opinion is somewhat on a scale. Right. I mean you have, you have socialism and the fact that like Medicaid and Social Security and those things, the social safety nets provided by the government through taxation is a, a life form of socialism. And you have it much further where government owns and operates certain industries and so on. And then as you keep moving down that scale, then you get into communism. Right. It's kind of a gamut. But so yeah, if you have a state legislature that is dictating things about how industries run and operate, again as altruistic as you want to frame it and it's, oh yeah, well, it's giving coal jobs and jobs in West Virginia, yada yada yada. It doesn't matter in principle as you're saying it is not free Market capitalism. And that's what drives me nuts about folks like Brian Halton and others. We got to do this because we got to support coal. It's like, I want to support coal too. Here's how we can support coal. Let's remove as many state regulations as possible on the front end. Let's do things like repeal the business inventory tax. Let's do all the things on the front end that is fair for all businesses, all industries that will also help coal instead of trying to force the hand of the government into the marketplace.
- [46:20]
A
Yeah, it's almost, it's funny because it's almost like they don't. And I guess maybe, and again, you, you to my, my first point is it is a good rule of thumb to never attribute to malice what you can attribute to incompetence. And you, you can almost say, well, it's, it's almost easier just to say that they're, they are this dumb. But what have we heard for a decade about the Republicans just screaming from the rooftops? Well, they're subsidizing renewable energy. They're subsidizing wind turbines, are subsidizing solar. And this isn't a free market. This isn't fair. Coal can't compete when they're giving money to solar farms and they're giving money to these energy companies to do renewable energy. And they're, as you said, they're regulating the crap out of them so they can't operate. And you and I were going, yeah, you're right, we shouldn't subsidize anything. We shouldn't subsidize these energy companies. Let them compete on a free market. If we want to create a grid that is secure by creating every energy source we can to make it, you know, malleable, great, we're, we're fine with that. We shouldn't be subsidizing any of it. So instead of just cutting all this subsidy, what do they do? They double down. This is worse than subsidizing the renewable energy. At least that's just saying, well, we're going to give them money to set up these solar farms. This is no, we're going to make these coal fired power plants burn at 69% capacity so they use more coal. Not only is that not a free market, that's incredibly wasteful. And it just nuts to me that you're, you can argue for a decade against subsidy, against government control of markets, against, you know, being able to compete and then you create the exact opposite, the exact parallel for coal. Like what do you. You're just giving, you know, ammunition to your opposition to say, oh, no, they don't want renewable energy. Renewable energy could work if you give it time. But no, they're forcing us to use coal. It's just nuts to me, like the comedy of how stupid these people are. And I don't, I don't know. Look, man, I'm not in the coal industry. I'm not in the energy industry. And I don't know, like, if you do. I think there's been a huge, you know, with, with Morrissey and that when they did the EPA lawsuit that they won and a lot of the regulation was, you know, cut and I don't know how much was actually gotten rid of. But if you're creating a market where what was the big thing is that they couldn't dig the coal, right? That was part of the problem is they couldn't actually produce the coal to burn, not just get additional permitting and stuff, right? So it's like, have you done everything you can? Like, do you want a free market? Do you want to create some kind of weird bubble? Is that what you're trying to do? They. We've seen. That's the part, Taylor, is. I don't know if like you and I, I don't think either of us would consider ourselves like highly intelligent, but you and I can see the bubbles that will have been created by government doing these things. So it's just. And, and I don't, and here's the thing. The guy from First Energy, they have coal fired power plants. He was, he, he did wasn't talking about it like he, like it was, he was giving the facts. I did appreciate that. He was just like laying out what the facts were and he was basically saying like, yeah, this is not, this is not good for our customers. That was his like, main focus, was like, this is not good for our ratepayers. And at the same time he was, you know, and it's funny because I think it was tj he kept on saying, making new power plants to pay for, to be able to provide service for data centers. And that guy for First Energy would not say the word data center. He wouldn't do it. But he kept on saying our customer. Our customer. But that's how they think. If they know data centers are coming, yeah, man, that's gonna be a huge boon for their business. That's their customer. And they're. And again, and this is gonna sound like I'm like shilling for data centers and big energy. But if they need to provide energy for their customer. Yeah, they're gonna do everything they can to try to provide that energy. And right now, as he said, we. We don't have the capacity to provide enough energy for what's coming. And he even said, even with their current system, like, with the growth that they've seen, they're not going to be able to meet the need in 10 years. So whether it's for a data center or not, they got to do something. And that's something that people need. Just need to wrap their head around is when you. And what I've talked about. We had a recent. At Roane county, at the Armory. They. The Valley Link company that is doing the proposed transmission line coming through from Putnam county up to Pennsylvania. It's going to go right through Roane County. And they had a public meeting about it. And I was there. Our current House rep was there. A few county commissioners were there, and they were talking about it. And, you know, my main gist is what we talked about in here, just the principle of property rights is however you feel about it and its need or whatever. Property rights are sacrosanct and eminent domain is. Is evil, basically. And it's the worst thing our founders ever did was put that in the Constitution. But. And I've told them, you know, I don't. I have no love for government. I have no. No love for control. And your property is your property. I don't. I don't want to hear your sob story. I don't need to hear your sob story about how your family's farm has been in there for generations and going to ruin the natural beauty of what you've built for generations. I don't need to hear that. All I need to hear is that's your property. You don't want it going through your property. That's all I need to hear. And I know that sounds naive. And Taylor, you and I, I understand the argument on both sides. I completely understand every argument about it. But the principle is property rights are property rights. If you can't say no to something going on your property, you no longer own that property. So that's the main principle. But as we've discussed on here, Taylor, Governor Morrissey, the legislature, they've not been shy about their plans. They want West Virginia to be the Battery for the rest of the country. And if you're going to produce more power, if you're going to build new power plants, what has to come with that? Power lines. They're gonna go through somebody's property. They're going to build them. Unless you want to vote them all out because you don't like their plan anymore. You can't have it both ways. If you're going to clap when we get $68 million from the federal government to build a new coal fired power plant, if you're gonna clap for that, you can't. It's not intellectually consistent to be mad when they want to run a transmission line through West Virginia. It's got to happen. I mean, if they want to sell energy, they have to have a way to get the energy from point A to point B.
- [53:51]
B
In this same vein of logically consistent, have you seen the articles regarding the gas fired power plant they're putting up near here? Yeah, controversy. I just find it humorous that the Coal association is coming out and saying, not that we're against gas fired power plants, just really against this one. Yeah, probably all the other ones that are gonna come.
- [54:16]
A
Well, and then that, that first, the guy from First Energy, I wish I could remember his name, it was a super generic name. But he basically said that, you know, because I think TJ asked him, you know, a lot of, you know, the Coal Association, Coal association said coal is cheaper to burn and uses energy than natural gas. Right. Now, why isn't this plant going to be coal? And he said, well, here's the thing, if you don't believe me, the psc, when we do our legal petition to get this built through the psc, we are required to do these studies because we, you have, we study nuclear, we study wind, we study solar, we study every energy source for this proposed project. And part of our presentation is reasoning for why we have decided to make it natural gas. And that's the thing. Why would FirstEnergy open a natural gas power plant when they can make more money with coal? Why would they do that?
- [55:15]
B
Like, seems antithetical.
- [55:17]
A
Right. So what's the. Like, everybody says that they're all about money, right? Like that's the thing. Like they're just about money.
- [55:24]
B
Well then they must just hate coal.
- [55:26]
A
Right? Right. Which we know they don't. First Energy has coal fired power plants. What are we doing? Like, is there a bunch of coal mines in Morgantown that I don't know about?
- [55:36]
B
Some not a bunch.
- [55:37]
A
Right. But is there a bunch of natural gas pipelines going through that area? Yeah, I've been to a lot of them. You know, all this, Cooper's Rock, Mount Alto, all those places. There's natural gas all over the place up there. Like, so that's the Thing is, I'm not shilling for energy companies because I think they do a lot of stuff that's, you know, a little bit iffy, but most of it's based on the fact that the government basically allows them to do these things. But.
- [56:03]
B
Right.
- [56:04]
A
It's been a general thesis on here is I'm not. And when I went to that meeting, that public meeting, Taylor, I told a lot of people there, my. My potential constituents, that I didn't walk in here assuming this. This company and these people were evil. These people have a job to do this. This company builds power lines, and they're in here trying to talk to you like they have to. And I get misconsensis. From misconceptions. Not misconceptions, but a general consensus from people that I know in the community that. That are surveyors that have dealt with this stuff. Their consensus is like, they already know what line they want to run. Like, this is this. They have to do this. And I agree. But what I saw, there was a lot of. There was a lot of effort that went into printing maps. And everybody that had got a letter that proposed that the line was going to go through their property. When you walked in, they said, we want you to come up here and get. Look up your property in our accounting. Take this piece of paper. We're going to write a code on there. You go back to the people with the maps, and they opened up a paper map and they were asking you questions. There was a piece of paper that had all these places for you to write down different categories of stuff. Water wells, oil and gas pipeline, sinkholes, steep areas. And. And I didn't. It's not going through our property, but it's going through my wife's aunt's property. And she wasn't able to come. So I. While I was there, I just, you know, went and registered and saying registered is the wrong word. But because they didn't register me, they just gave me the piece of paper with a code on it. And I went back there and they opened it up to her property. And I was telling the guy, well, this is a horse barn. And so he circled it and put some kind of like, code on there that I guess he knows what that means. And I said, well, this area right here on the other side of the road, that's really steep right there, that's like. There's a lot of rock face there. He goes, oh, okay, okay. And he, like, marked it. And so you can say, oh, they already know where it's gonna go. They're just trying to gather information to make the later steps easier because. And that's the thing several people there told me, well, look, like, yeah, they didn't say this, but the general just was like, yeah, this is going to go through somewhere. But, you know, if there's a place where there's a horse barn there and you use that, and we could move it over 100ft, yeah, we're going to do that. So it's like, they're not just, it's. And again, I'm not trying to defend any of this. I'm just saying it's going to happen one way or the other. This is the system we have. Eminent domain exists and they're going to use it. Now, if you and I get in the House and the Senate, first thing we're going to do is propose bills to make it so that eminent domain can't be used for private entities. Right. I mean, that's what we would do. We can't amend the Constitution, but we can do whatever we can. Even if somebody sues or whatever. But whatever we can do, we're gonna try to do it because we don't think they should be able to do that. But we don't make the rules. The rules are there. And that's the problem is, is. And I told lots of people, there is not only this. If you know something that the government's doing to harm property rights or make your life harder, I am going to be the king of deregulation, the king of. Even if it's something I don't agree with, if it takes power away from the government, I'm your guy. I'm your guy.
- [59:33]
B
I'm your huckleberry.
- [59:34]
A
Yeah. I'm your Huckle. I'm your huckleberry. Yeah. So it's. It's hard to. And we've talked. I think we talked about this last episode, but it's hard to be honest a lot of the times and be a politician. And you know that my opponent in the race was there, and I. And again, I've. I've kind of promised not to say anything too negative, but the lack of communication that I've complained about, it became apparent to me that it's not just a personality trait. It is a tactic that it's a lot easier to say something different to every person, a little bit different than to make a public statement and have to defend that, if you know what I mean, Taylor. And here's the positive thing is I heard people said that to me. I didn't have to project it to them is I, I contacted my rep and I got a prepared speech, I got a platitude and I'm not getting a platitude from you. And that was, it was encouraging for me to hear that because you know, you can get really discouraged when you're not getting feedback for the things you're putting out. But I got a lot of positive feedback. And you know, the thing that I thought was positive even if I don't win the race, I think our current rep got the message that property rights is incredibly valuable to, to the constituency. And whether that is a principle that follows through with votes and decisions, I can't do anything about that. But if we can simply force that message into races like this, I think that's, that's part of what we're trying to do is force that discussion onto these, you know, if we can't win, at least we can make better Republicans, I guess is the main gist.
- [61:32]
B
Well, I mean, obviously, hopefully better Republicans and Democrats, but in West Virginia, Republicans are the only ones that really matter at the moment. But no 100%. I mean, as third party candidates and you know, I've said this, I'm running to win if I, you know, for sure we'll need a significant enough more resources to compete in this race than maybe you will or some of our other Libertarian folks will. But at the very least, you know, my hope is that my race has moved the Overton window. And I said, I said this to folks especially down in Marion county where I'm getting a lot of conservative support is that and what they said to me too. So I've kind of just parroted it a little bit. But basically they're like, well, you know, even if, if you don't win, the odds are that Mike Oliverio won't win either. And that will tell the Republican Party of Marion in Mont county that we need a more, you know, left or Libertarian leaning candidate next go round and can't rely on reformed Democrats. And I was like, well, you know, that'll probably be a little bit better in the long run as a result, but it doesn't mean I'm not gonna give it 100% either. So. But I agree hopefully that things like property rights, things like the fourth Amendment with these flat cameras and everything else private, you know, privacy from the government surveillance, that those messages are being kind of reintroduced and reinstilled into folks from our campaigns.
- [63:04]
A
Yep. And it's, it's tough, man. I don't to getting, getting the point across to people. And, and I don't know about you, but when I talk about things like we just talked about with the, you know, 69 capacity requirement, you say that to people and they go, yeah, that's pretty wild. But it's, it's hard to. We. It's one of those things where, like, you can't vote your way out of this. That's a. People say you. You need to vote your way out of it. And it's, it's hard because even if you and I get into the legislature, it's really hard to do anything in there. I mean, there's several Liberty Republicans in there. I don't know if you saw that. Henry Dillon down in Mingo County.
- [63:49]
B
Yeah.
- [63:49]
A
And I'm glad I just thought of this because it needs to be talked about. But the. Roger Hanshaw sent a letter to the governor with all these names to sign a petition before Delegate Elliot Pritt, the guy who is being, you know, he's on charges for child solicitation and, and basically he's a pedophile. But they sent a petition to the governor for a special session to be able to oust him from his position as delegate, and he ended up resigning on his own. So they didn't have to do that. But I don't know if you saw the name of the list of names, but it was, it was curiously short. And it wasn't just Democrats that weren't on the list. And it turns out that delegate, at least Delegate Henry Dillon wasn't even contacted about it.
- [64:41]
B
He's the secretary of the Freedom Caucus.
- [64:45]
A
Yes. And he's a Republican. Registered as a Republican.
- [64:50]
B
All the Freedom Caucus members are.
- [64:52]
A
Right. And so he, he didn't even get a call about it. And he kind of, he posted on social media, made us think about it, and I guess he inquired about it. And Delegate Hornby. Hornby from the Panhandle. Northern or Eastern Panhandle. He, I guess he's. I don't know what he is. He's in leadership somehow. But he emailed Delegate Dylan. He said, you have been, you have fought everything. Our caucus. We don't consider you a part of our caucus. You have fought everything that every bill we've tried to get passed in our, our plans. And you've been a. Basically saying you're not. You're not in the Republican caucus. That's why we didn't contact you. And, and it's a lot of former delegates and people say, oh, this has been going on for a long time, and this is just the first time we've seen them actually, you know, drop the veil and say it out loud. And yeah, you said, hmm, like that's pretty crazy, right?
- [65:56]
B
Like, well, no, I was, I was, I had not seen the email part to him.
- [66:02]
A
Yeah, no, he emailed Delegate Dylan and told him that we don't consider you a part of our caucus. And what have we been saying, Taylor? The Republicans are going to eat themselves from the inside out. And that's what this is.
- [66:18]
B
Our good friend, hopefully friend of the show, Mike Folt, who was a former delegate, came to our convention this year and generally is aligned with us on a whole lot of issues. Comment or no. He actually shared Henry Dolan's Facebook post and I commented on it and I said, this is why the argument of changing the Republic for a former Republican, obviously not necessarily you or Eric or some of their reformed Democrats in the party, but for a former Democrat, sorry, for a former Republican like myself, this is why the argument of change, the party from within carries no water with me is because the machine is too big inside of the party. They have too much money, they have too much power, they're too embedded. They resist and fight so much that they can't even call them to be part of a letter to the governor to oust a pedophile. That's where things are within the Republican Party of West Virginia. And not too much dissimilarly when you look at what happened to Thomas Massie in the GOP as a whole. And I had that interview with Joe early from the Constitution Party, I think is when I was talking about this. But you know, we got some good Constitutional, you know, libertarian leaning conservatives on the primary, through the primary this go round. Great guy I know nearby, he's in the Senate district next to mine, Toby Haney. 100% support him and his race. And you know, I made the comment, I said he's already aligning with the Freedom Caucus. He's, you know, buddies with Chris Rose and a lot of those folks. He went out with them to the Americans for Life or whatever that conference was in D.C. and all this stuff. And I was like, they're going to primary him next go around. I mean, four years. He's going to have four years. If when he wins in the Senate, he's going to have four years. But they'll primary him. They'll put, quote, unquote, moderate chamber of Commerce Republican up against him and they'll absolutely go after him. So they're going to go. They're going after Chris Sanders. You Know, I'm hearing rumors that there's some backdoor money going to the Democratic opponent. I mean, it's just wild. And it's for those reasons, people are like, well, why don't you just come back to the Republican Party? You make a great. I mean, I've had this said to me numerous times on this campaign trail alone. Why don't you go back and make a great Republican? And I was like, there are reasons why I can't, principally for there are national and international policy reasons for the Republican Party. But even at the state level, even here in West Virginia, you know, the comment was made, well, you know, all these people are supporting you. All these Republicans in and around the area are supporting you, but they, you know, they don't want to lose the seat and yada, yada, yada, if you just hold off and wait and in four years run as a Republican and maybe primary olive area, that way, you know, you have it made or whatever, basically. And I said, yeah, but one, I have to believe and trust that these people who I kind of barely know are going to follow through on that. But two, I'm more extreme than Chris Anders. I'm more extreme than Chris Rose and Henry Dillon and Laura Kimball, and look what they're doing to those folks. So why would I expect that I'm not going to have just as tough a time running in four years again as a Republican against a Republican in a primary and then have to defend myself from the machine inside. I'd rather stand on principle, run as a Libertarian, which I identify as, and let the ships fall as they will.
- [69:55]
A
Yep. And that's the, that's the thing. I mean, you can. And that's the, that's the problem is, is, you know, you being a former Republican, but me being a former Democrat. If I look at, you know, the party's political platforms, like if. And that's the irony is if they just followed their principle, I'd be a Republican. That's the obvious choice based on the West Virginia GOP platform, I'd be a proud Republican. But they don't follow their platform. And there's a few things you could argue with. But the basic principle of property rights and free markets, yeah, man, I'm there all day. Those are the big things I think are a problem. And the constitutionality of everything else that we don't necessarily agree with wholeheartedly. Public schools, you know, some of the social stuff, if it's in the Constitution, our job as Republicans would be to make them as efficient and productive as possible. They're not doing that. They're not doing any of it. They might as well be Democrats. So what's, why would we join the Republican Party? Not even based on them infighting, just based on the fact that they even, like you said, and they're, you know, Chris Anders is pretty darn libertarian, but, and I've had my issues with all the rest of them. And that's, that's the hilarious part. You just said it. I, I, I think Henry Dillon is a good delegate. He's one of the best. There's lots of stuff that he's voted on and things that he said that I don't, I don't agree with. And he's not like you said, he's not even as extreme as we are. Not even close, not even a minute amount. Chris Anders is the closest you would get, and they all hate him. Some of that is his personality trait and the way that he talks to people. But we've had delegates in the past, like Tony Painter. They're pretty darn libertarian and they got along pretty well with everybody. But that aside, if you vote against stuff, that's enough. We've seen delegates, Pat McGeehan, who used to be the Henry Dillons, and the Chris Anders of the House that are now in Republican leadership. How did they get there? Because they towed the line, and that's not how our government should run. I don't even think that letter about Elliot Pritz should have been a partisan thing at all. It should have been. If you're a member of this House of Delegates. I am. Roger Hanshaw, you are going to be getting a call to put your name on this list if you want to do so. Republican, Democrat, whatever. It shouldn't have been a partisan issue whatsoever. And that's the. I don't know, man. It's just nuts to me that this, it's not nuts. I'm sorry. We've, we've observed this over, you know, a long period of time, and that's why we're Libertarians and, and not Republicans. And like you said, the only thing harder than a Libertarian trying to win office in West Virginia is a Libertarian trying to get reelected. So if a Republican can't get reelected because the apparatus is going to go against them, could you imagine what they would, either of us? Yeah, we're going to have kindergarten teachers coming out against us. He, he spilled the glue and didn't clean it up.
- [73:10]
B
So, yeah, I can, I can attest that I, I have spilled glue and not cleaned it up before. So I'll put that on my, my record. John and Mike, go ahead.
- [73:20]
A
So. Yeah, but yeah. So the positive yet? Yeah. You're running for the House district or Senate. District 13. And up there in whatever you call it, the greater, greater gay area of the state. Morgantown, Fairmont.
- [73:36]
B
Sure, yeah. District. District 13. The Morgantown in Fairmont Metroplex. Since I need to find a new term for it, I guess. But yeah, been out and talking to some folks. Started my Conversation with Constituents series that I'm doing. Just sat down with a great gentleman from Marion county who's had some run ins with the foster care system and, and CPS and shared his perspective from that experience as well as what he sees as a very conservative individual, but some needs for reform and improvements in that. From his experience in being in business, just the way things operate. So, yeah, great conversation we had there. I'm looking, I've got a couple more scheduled. Mostly predominantly are issue driven, but that's in this general ones I'm going to be doing as well. So please follow me on, on Facebook, follow me on, on Tick Tock. My website is richmond4senate.com you can find some of that stuff there and appreciate any support you can. You know, It's. We're within 100 days, Ty. I think 98 now or no, maybe less 97. So it's getting to be a time. One of the things I'd also like to do is if you live in the Morgantown Fairmont area and you have friends and family that you know and you can invite them over to your house for a couple of beers, let me stop in and just talk and answer questions and introduce myself. Those, those, you know, informal events go a long way. So I appreciate whatever support folks can give. And. And you're down in House District 15.
- [75:16]
A
Yep. House District 15. You just remember. I don't. My brain, my autistic brain went to the. Have you seen Mr. Deeds? Yeah, the part where he's. He writes greeting cards.
- [75:28]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [75:29]
A
You bring the company, I'll bring the biz. I'll bring the biz, but I'm not gonna drink beers with you because they're too expensive. But the recent strike, whatever. But House District 15, Ronan Work County. Yeah, I'm out there talking to constituents. I've made some progress. I'm going to be at the Wort County Junior Fair probably I'm gonna go for the hog show, talk to some people there at the livestock show and sale. And then Saturday, I bit my tongue
- [76:03]
B
real hard on that. Just want you to know.
- [76:05]
A
I know you did. You're not West Virginia. You don't know nothing about a hog show. I'm probably gonna go the truck pool,
- [76:10]
B
West Virginia than you are.
- [76:12]
A
Evidently not. And I'm gonna go to the truck pools afterwards because my son wants to do that. And then on the 7th, the show and sale, I'm going to try to buy some rabbits. I was looking at what they sold for last year and I'm a little bit worried.
- [76:28]
B
You can buy one foot.
- [76:30]
A
One lucky rabbit foot. Yeah. So I'll be there. I've been to the work county fair once when I was a teenager, so I'm gonna try to go there and see what it's about, talk to some people. So. Yeah, that should be fun. Like you said, it's getting close to the wire and. And as Taylor said, oh, boy. I'm looking at advertising for maybe getting a sign up at the local football field, Roane County High School. And. And that costs money. And getting some advertising on the local radio station, that costs money. Newspaper ads, that costs money. So.
- [77:07]
B
Ain't no thing. It's a free lunch.
- [77:09]
A
Yeah. If you want, you know, a different choice, if you want us to have a chance. Whether you're a libertarian or not, you know, this stuff costs money. And Taylor neither. Taylor. I are independently wealthy, so, you know, we'll either do what we have money to do or we won't and we'll reach less people. So it's just. It's just as simple as that is. I'm not mad at anybody if they got economics folks. Yeah. If they. If you don't want to give your money, I've. Okay, that's fine. I don't. I mean, I'm not going to. I don't hate you. We want your vote this November. But if you could help us out with getting some of that campaign stuff done, it'd be very much appreciated. So. Yeah, you can find me on Facebook. Tyward for WV House. I've got 202 followers on my Facebook page. So that's. That's encouraging. It's. I figure if I could get as close to my business Facebook account that I do nothing on, I'll. It should be positive. Yeah. So follow me on Facebook.
- [78:08]
B
What's worse, your business or your campaign?
- [78:10]
A
Oh, my campaign for sure. But because my business is something people want. That was negative, but. So, yeah, I got a donate button on there. I'm going to do a video here pretty soon of, you know, asking for some donations. I hate.
- [78:27]
B
I.
- [78:27]
A
Absolutely. There's nothing that makes my skin crawl more than asking people for money, but it's required. I mean, I've put more money than I'd like to of my own money into it so far. And there's a lot of stuff that it's expensive, man. The world's inflation, whatnot.
- [78:44]
B
So yeah, thanks Trump and Biden.
- [78:47]
A
Yeah. Tune into the podcast on like and subscribe on any podcaster. Share this with your family and friends. Lpwv.org hit that donate button. We are a value for value podcast. If you got value out of this podcast, donate There goes to the party. Helps us get this going. Follow us on Instagram X and Facebook and until next time, don't hurt people and don't take their stuff.