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- [00:00]
Dave Smith
Hey guys. Today's show is brought to you by yocratum.com Home of the 60 kilo. Long time sponsor of the Part of the Problem podcast. If you are over the age of 21 and you enjoy Kratom, make sure to get your kratom from yokratom.com. it's delivered right to your door. It's lab tested so you know it's quality and it is the best price you're going to find anywhere. $60 for a kilo. Yokratum.com home of the $60 kilo. All right, let's start the show. What's up? What's up everybody? Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem. I am Dave Smith. He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein. How you feeling today, Rob?
- [00:46]
Robbie Bernstein
Oh, I'm excited for some Key West. Gonna swim in the ocean, drink, drink some drink out in the sun. I'm, I'm hang out with Tom Dustin. It's gonna be a good time.
- [00:55]
Dave Smith
I've, I'm, I'm, I think I'm gonna really enjoy hanging out in Key west for a few days. I was just bitching and complaining to our producer Natalie before we started, which is, you know, it's, you should never bitch and complain about your job when you do what I do for a living because, you know, I don't work. But I've just been on a stretch of getting no sleep for quite a while and I'm, I'm, I got a big one. I know people like when I do these big shows, got a big one that I'm recording tomorrow, so I gotta go do that. I'm not gonna sleep tomorrow. I'm not, you know, it's like I'm gonna be up, up first thing in the morning then I can't sleep that night either. I gotta be up in the morning and then we get to Key west and then my wife's flying in to, to meet me down there. So we're gonna hang out in Key west and just relax and enjoy the beautiful weather which if you're in the northeast, it's a good time, a good time of year to go get some, some warm weather. So, yes, very much looking forward to that. And of course the shows for you people, that's a little bit more relevant. There's also shows going on and there's still some tickets available. So go on over to comic Dave Smith dot com. And then we got like a, a bunch of other gigs that are all coming up.
- [02:08]
Robbie Bernstein
Coming up.
- [02:09]
Dave Smith
Yeah, that's right. We'll be Back in Houston. Always love doing standup in. In Houston. We'll be at the punchline February 20th, 21st and 22nd. Then our return to Boston, which is, like, one of my favorite places in the country to do stand up. And we haven't been there, I believe. Was it 22 that we. I think it was early in 2022, because if. If you remember our last show at Boston, what a different world. By the way, three years later, our last show in Boston, we did a show the night before the vaccine passports went into effect. Do you remember that, Rob? And it was just so. It was so funny, too, for those of you guys. Of course. I'm sure most of you remember. But during the COVID insanity, this was at one point, well after. Well after it was clear that the vaccine wasn't preventing you from getting Covid or transmitting Covid, they did this thing in major cities across the country where they said, you can only come into a comedy club. Well, that was one of the places you could only come in if you showed proof of vaccination, which doesn't work too well for me and Rob's audience. And. And we just, you know, we. We weren't going to play places that had that rule in effect. Like, that just seemed. I don't know, just seemed so wrong. You know what I mean? Like, I'm not going to go somewhere where, first off, I have to lie. I have to. Me and Rob have to lie in order to get in there. Or maybe there's some artist exception or something like that. But, like, regardless, it's like, then all my fellow Pure Bloods are not allowed into the show that I'm doing. That just doesn't seem right. It's everything I'm against. So I was like, well, I can't do that. I stopped even doing gigs at Fox News at the time. I was like, well, that dude I like, what am I gonna do? You know, I remember during COVID when they first, like, reopened, I would go into Fox News and I did Kennedy show live. I did Greg Gutfeld show. I did a. A bunch of them. And because they were doing the rapid tests, they'd make you sit there and get tested, and then you could go in. So I was like, whatever. I'll do that. You know, I don't care. But then once they were like, you have to show proof of vaccination, it was like, wait, so now I got to show you my fake vaccine card? And, like, I could do that, but it just seemed to almost be. And I don't Know, I'm not really arguing like that this is the case, but it. It felt. I'm not saying, like, you're wrong if you went and did that. I'm not, but it felt to me like that was kind of like a tacit endorsement of it in some way or a capitulation to it, and I just wasn't willing to do that. Anyway, the long of the short is that was the last time we were in Boston, and it's always one of our favorite cities to play. So I'm really looking forward to getting back there. And what a different. I. I remember, like, it was such a weird thing. I mean, thinking about it now, especially just after the first. First few weeks of Trump's presidency and the vibe shift, as it's being called in the country. Like, the idea that I remember sitting there and being like, that's it for, like, doing standup in all these major cities. Where the hell are we going to go? We're going to have to. You know what I mean? Like, the concern at the time was like, they're never going to. They're never going to stop doing this. This is just going to be the policy from now on. Proof of vaccine, proof of updated boosters, you know, forever. Luckily, there was pushback, that they ended up pulling the thing back. But now it's like. I don't know, it's just. It's a very strange thing to think that, like, three years ago versus today, you're. We are living in a completely different country, a completely different country than we were then. And thank God, because that was not good.
- [05:58]
Robbie Bernstein
Prosecute Fauci.
- [06:00]
Dave Smith
Prosecute Fauci. There we go. Okay. Anyway, after Boston, then we'll be. I will be in Nashville. I'm not sure if you're on that one with me, Rob. But then Chicago, Rosemont, San Diego, Appleton, Wisconsin, Salt Lake City again, Denver, Cleveland, Tacoma, Spokane, Tampa. Bunch of dates coming up. Comicdavesmith.com for all of those dates. Yeah, prosecuting Fauci, that always sounds like a good idea. It's pretty. It's pretty crazy. But Elon Musk tweeted that out again, something about prosecuting Foushee. And it is wild just to even think about how much steam that idea is getting. And obviously he's gotten a presidential pardon now from. From Joe Biden. But, you know, and I don't know, Rob, you tell me. I'd imagine you probably agree with me on this, but I will say that, okay, it, like, I'm old enough to remember that after, when Barack Obama first got elected in 2008 and he assumed the presidency in January of 2009. There were some left wing activists who wanted to prosecute Bush and, you know, top cabinet level people for the blatant war crimes that they had committed to. There was enough pressure that Barack Obama had to give a speech about it and say he's not going to do it. It's one of my favorite things. Always, I love mentioning when Obama goes, he goes, I, I hear, you know, I hear your concerns and, and yes, there were some crimes committed and we tortured some folks. That was how he said it. We tortured some folks. And then he goes, but now is the time to look forward, not backward. And then I remember always thinking like, well, that's, here's the thing about prosecuting crime. You really have to look backward. It's really the only way it works anyway. But that even then, it was not, it never felt like it was, it was like a small enough contained group of left wing activists who believed that, you know, I mean, I, I completely agree with them, but it wasn't that big. When Donald Trump ran in 2016 and there were like the lock her up chants. That always felt to me like it was a novelty. It was like a fun thing to put on a T shirt. But it never seemed like that. Like, did you ever hear any of Trump supporters, you know, being like, man, he really didn't come through on that promise to prosecute Hillary Clinton. Like, you know what I mean? It just wasn't even taken as like a serious thing. But it does seem like today there is a palpable, very serious desire by a lot of Americans to prosecute some of the people who were, you know what I mean, guilty of these heinous crimes against humanity over the last few years. And there's just something interesting about that and the fact that like, that feeling was taken so seriously that whoever was making decisions for Joe Biden decided he better issue these pardons. That in itself is just kind of wild, I think. You know, I was talking about this with Nicole after you hopped off yesterday, but I do think that so much of the, the hysteria that we're seeing right now from the establishment, which, again, one of the most fascinating developments of the current moment is that we're not seeing this level of hysteria from the, the shock troops like the young, useful, idiot leftist activists. We don't see a level of hysteria from them like we did in 2017, but the hysteria that we are seeing from the corporate media and from the Senate and things like this, you Know when it's, when it's about Tulsi Gabbard or it's about Bobby Kennedy or it's about this, the USAID stuff or any of that, it's like the dynamic here is that it's, it's not just that, like, oh no, in outsiders coming in and they may get the policies that they want rather than the policies that we want. There's something much deeper than that. And it's. I think it's much more like, oh shit, serious crimes have been committed. And if these outsiders come in and have access to these books, oh my God, are we going to be in trouble here? You know, it's like, it's not. If you think about in the post terror war and post Covid world and you think about the picks that people are freaking out about the most and it's, well, they got Matt Gaetz out there. Tulsi and Bobby are yet to be confirmed but are still in play. But you think about the fact that it's the Director of National Intelligence, the person who oversees the CIA and the nsa, it's the Health Department and it's the Justice Department. Like, I don't think it's a coincidence that there's a freak out over, like, hey, you know what I mean? Like, these people might have access to all the crimes that were committed by the deep State, all the crimes that were committed by the health institutions. And they also have the Justice Department, like, they also have somewhere that they could send these complaints to. And you know, it's just an interesting dynamic. Like it's, it's hard to say exactly where all of this goes or if, even if Trump really has the political will to go through with some stuff like that. But it certainly is interesting to watch the freak out about all of that because like the, the truth is that the level of crimes that have been committed are so heinous that if they were to be exposed, I mean, look, when you think about even just what already has come out, right? I mean, this, this thing, which by the way was news to me. I don't know if you had had heard of this, Rob, but like I, I knew that like the NIH subsidiaries had, had funded the Wuhan lab. I didn't know that USAID had. But even just think about that, you're like, oh, look at it. We made Covid. Our government made Covid. This is like the biggest freaking scandal in the world. Like this, this virus that not only you think about the fact that it's not only the virus itself, which you know, obviously, the people who died of COVID were sick and old people 99.9% of the time, but still, I mean, you know, that's. A lot of people died of this thing and got, you know, in many cases, maybe it only robbed a year of their life or two years of their life. But, dude, that's a big deal to rob somebody of the last two years of their lives, but it's not. So it's not just the virus that killed millions of people worldwide, but then it's also all of the cost of the government response to the virus, which was also done by the government. So, like, they made the virus and then locked down in response to it. They just. The amount of human suffering that they caused because they wanted to have these, you know, I don't know, is it too far to classify it as bioweapons? I mean, whatever the hell you want to call it. They decided they wanted to do this gain of function research in a. In a shoddy Chinese lab with, like, substandard, you know, like, protocols. They decided that they wanted to do this and then just did this to the entire world. I mean, how do you look at that and not go like, wait, you're telling me if I bring my gun that I legally own in my car and drive to Philly, I could be arrested and be looking at 10 years in prison? But no one should go to prison for that, you know what I'm saying? Like, how could you possibly believe both of those things? It's just, you know, it's pretty wild.
- [14:11]
Robbie Bernstein
Yeah. It's also pretty telling with. With the fact that they were involved in the creation of the virus, that there's a freak out over the agency being absorbed by anyone else. It really seems like people that had their hands in that pie and that payment processing are a little bit concerned that they just lost a piece of pie.
- [14:31]
Dave Smith
Well, it's amazing, too, because it's. It kind of demonstrates, in a way, like, the mentality that so many of these people have where, like, so you have, you know, for. In the backdrop, you have all of these people shrieking about democracy for the last four years, you know, January, January 6th, and Donald Trump, election denier, and this is democracies on the ballot. Says the former President of the United States of America before having tea with Adolf Hitler. You know, this is the end of democracy if Donald Trump wins. And then you have the, you know, so there's this hyperbole, this insane hyperbole. And then you have the reality of the situation, which is like, hey, Donald Trump comes in and, you know, he's running on, hey, we're going to go over, like, the entire federal budget. We're going to look at the whole thing and see where there's waste. And I'm putting this Elon Musk guy in charge of this new, you know, imaginary department where he's going to go over all of this stuff. And then, like, Elon Musk's like, okay, let's take a look at this US Aid, you know, thing. And then their attitude is like, excuse me, sorry, unelected bureaucrats over here. Who the hell are you to tell us about our budget? And you're like, well, he was picked by the guy who was just democratically elected. Like, that's. What do you mean? Nobody at USAID was elected by the people. You know what I mean? And it's like, you just see this dynamic where you're like, wait, I thought you guys were so concerned with democracy, and yet the way this thing actually works is that you are completely outside of any democratic force. You're just this permanent governing structure, and you're supposed to just be able to do what you want to do and then fund things like, like, think about. Think about how crazy it is that we're just finding out that they were funding the lab. Like, this is. This is the most major story over the last five years, and the American people have no way of even knowing this. Like, how can you believe in democracy without some degree of. The most basic degree of transparency? Right? Because if you could hide the biggest story in the last five years by far, there's nothing even compares to what Covid was the biggest thing that happened to this country in the last five years. And if you're telling me that you could hide that our government was funding the, the creation of the thing, how the hell is a voter supposed to make an informed decision if they're not even allowed to know the biggest fucking thing? Which, by the way, Rob, I don't, you know, explain to me what their rationale could possibly be. Is it a national security threat that we know this? Are there sources and methods that were compromised by us knowing where the USAID budget was allocating money? I don't think so. It just makes them look really bad.
- [17:19]
Robbie Bernstein
That's it there. I do think that there is. I'm neutral on Elon Musk. He clearly did us a big favor with Twitter and restored free speech to the Internet. So. And, you know, you think, what's the problem?
- [17:31]
Dave Smith
You think the cars are gay?
- [17:33]
Robbie Bernstein
I know, but I do think he's a defense contractor and he's made some of his wealth off of favorable government contracts and being in on credit schemes. So I don't think he's an entirely neutral or good force. And there is something odd about, you know, a billionaire who still has his own private businesses having access to government data to making decisions. Now you could say if he's just acting as a hatchet man, then there is no conflict of interest and he's actually working as a force for good. The big claims was that he had access. It's always funny when they tell you that there's a massive threat, but they won't tell you what it is. It's kind of Project 2025, the boogeyman of Project 2025. Project 25, Project 25. Well, what exactly is the threat of Project 2025? No one articulated it. I mean how many news stories were there? Oh my God, if Donald Trump comes in, Project 2025 will be enacted. And then what, what is the bad thing of Project 2025 I'm supposed to fear. And so in this case they're screaming about the data breach of Elon Musk having access to this information. And explain to me what is the issue is that that now he's going to incorporate that into X, he's going to have user data. Like if there's a data breach, I'm all for, hey, I don't like, you know, people having my data. I try and to the extent that I can opt out of collecting my data, I do. But can someone, if it's that he just has 19 year olds taxpayer records, they're all trying to like paint it like it was some sort of like not quite a pedophilia thing, but like he's endangering our kids if he can see 19 year olds tax returns and it's like, well, can you explain, can you explain to me what the risk of that is? Where's the data breach here? If he's just looking at the information to actually ax people, what is, what's the threat here? What is the data breach? And I've yet to hear it articulated.
- [19:19]
Dave Smith
Yeah, I mean I really agree with everything. I co sign that entirely. I think that in a lot of ways what it comes down to for us is almost like the way I'm looking at it is almost like. I know, I'm sorry, I'm going into a metaphor. That's all. I. That's all. I'm really good.
- [19:38]
Robbie Bernstein
I like your metaphors.
- [19:40]
Dave Smith
Well, I try, I Like, to do them, because they, you know, it's a good way to, you know, stretch your brain and, like, be like, how, how to think about these things. But I'm looking at Trump and Elon Musk and all these guys more and more. Like, if someone's breaking in to your house and you just look and it's like they're about to bust through the door, and you look around and, you know, whatever, you grab something, you grab a kitchen knife or a frying pan or something, you know, something to use as a weapon. And then somebody could be like, you know, that's really not the ideal weapon. The ideal weapon is, like, this thing that you don't have. You know, the ideal weapon is an AR15, but you don't have one, and you're like, yeah, okay, it may not be the ideal weapon. It seems to be a weapon, and that's better than nothing. And I think that with a lot of this stuff with the Trump administration, we're going to get into some more specifics on this, but it's like, okay, there is at least some positive motion in some areas, and that is so much better than what we've had for quite a while, including Trump's first term, you know, including his first four years. And in some ways, it does seem. I know this is early in the administration to say something like this, but it does seem to me that it's like, okay, Trump maybe needed those first four years to figure this shit out. He may. He may have needed those years, and then he may have needed to be that burned by the system in the four years he was out to. To come in now with at least a little bit of a game plan, a little bit of a sense of how to wield this power of the presidency. Again, still, big question marks. The guy's only been president for, you know, what is it, three weeks or something like that? So, okay, let's not make, you know, jump to conclusions here. But it does seem like. It just seems like it's a different Trump in a lot of ways this time.
- [21:33]
Robbie Bernstein
And it's also incredible that if you just desire to clean up some of the mess, how easy some of the mess is to clean up. So the fact that some criminals are actually being sent out of the country, that's common sense? Or the fact there was some guy who's making a $10 million salary year, like, in Kentucky on, like, farm construction equipment or something, and he just got fired. Elon Musk came back that the people that process payments in the treasury have Never declined a payment ever. Or in this case, the fact that, that this organization was responsible for sending money over to Wuhan. We never heard about that. And I can only imagine how much fraud and abuse is in the usaid. I can only imagine. So, I mean, we're only a week.
- [22:16]
Dave Smith
And it's not. Again, you know, the issue with the USAID is not even that. It's, it's not so much that it's, there's, there's fraud or an abuse. It's not like there's like, oh, there's this waste, you know what I mean? And that's the thing about the USAID is that it's the CIA front. It's like that's funds. Yes, that's, it's the whole game. It's for, it's for development. You know what I mean? It's like the National Endowment for Democracy, right? We're just democracy promoting, aka overthrowing regimes that we don't like. And the usaid, I know they were big, you know, like, the thing I know about them the most is that they were the ones who pumped $5 billion into Ukraine between 1991 and 2014. They were pumping in. And what were they doing with the money that they were pumping in there? Well, they're establishing independent media. That's what they call it, independent media. Right. And helping these NGOs and all this shit. The same organs that ended up fomenting the, the Maidan revolution. And so it's like, which, by the way, overthrew a democratically elected government, didn't stop the National Endowment for Democracy from pouring money into that protest that the, that Yanukovych was democratically elected, as I've mentioned many times, by the way, elections verified by the eu. And it's so, it's not as if, it's not even like the west is claiming that the elections weren't legitimate. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, that's the way this game works. And so what they do constantly, you know, Mike Benz was just talking about this the other day. Or he was like, there's nothing that the USAID does that isn't a CIA op. Like, even if they're just doing something that might seem kind of like aid, like, oh, they're just helping to irrigate these crops in this country somewhere. It's like, yeah, because we want other resources that they have. What, what it is, they have a 50 billion billion dollar budget, I believe, double check me on that number, but I believe it's a $50 billion budget that the USAID has. And they're just in the game of empire. That's what it's about. It's not about this idea of like, oh, helping people here and there. Like, that's all bullshit. It's about controlling the world. There's always strings attached. There's always a goal in mind. And it's never, you know, like, I mean, like, it really doesn't take too much to. To notice this stuff. But, you know, when you are, let's say, when you're as deeply connected with, say, Saudi Arabia and Israel, don't tell me you're overthrowing some other government over human rights abuses the fuck out of here. You know what I'm saying? Like, don't tell me you were overthrowing Muammar Gaddafi because you were very concerned about the human rights abuses. And that's why we support the Israeli war cabinet and the house of Saud. Like, get out of here. This is too ridiculous. It's like, how stupid would you have to be to not see through that immediately? You know, oh, that's our. You know, our real problem with this is why we had to overthrow Milosevic because he was ethnically cleansing people. Yet we have to support Israel in their effort to ethnically cleanse people. Come on. Well, I'm going to venture to say I don't think the real issue there is ethnic cleansing. I think it's something else, right? Like, I think it's about, oh, oh, Milosevic was aligned with Russia. Okay. Now it's making a little bit more sense. So this isn't about democracy promotion. It's not about human rights. It's about empire. It's about ruling the world. This is, you know, like it's. It's like in the same way that every company wants to make more money, every company wants to expand, every government wants to expand, every government wants to get bigger and bigger. And America is the most powerful government in the history of the world, and that's not enough for them. They would like more, and that's all that it's about. So the real freak out is that that could be revealed and then people have a whole different look. This is the essence of why the Kennedy files have been sealed for this long. And by the way, I should get ahead of this on record because I'm just, you know, because when this comes out, I'm sure there'll be people who look back and go, like, I see there was nothing to it. I don't think anything's going to be major, is going to be revealed by these declassified documents. I know, I don't believe that like.
- [26:54]
Robbie Bernstein
They had enough time to clean them up, holding them for 40 years. The fact that they can't just be brought out of their file and release yes to the President, they need to be released is insane.
- [27:05]
Dave Smith
Right? But listen, for anybody out there that it's not like there's a document out there going, the CIA killed Kennedy and then they just left this document in there for all these decades. And then they're like, we sure do hope a president never gets elected who decides to declassify these things. But the reason why there's been so much secrecy over the Kennedy assassination is like, and look, I mean there's people who have done much deeper dives on this than me. And it's. Aside From World War II, there's probably been more books and more research done on the Kennedy assassination than like any other topic. But all you have to do is know some very basic things about it. And it's so obviously a cover up. It's just so ridiculously obvious. Like if you just know like a few key pieces of information. Like, you know that like, okay, like, dude, I mean, first off, just looking at it on paper, how the hell anybody believe the story where you go, it was a lone gunman who then happened to be assassinated by another lone gunman? You know, this is like, that happens, that happens a lot, right? Like the what? I mean, that's insane. And then the, oh, by the way, the first lone gunman was also working for the CIA. Don't let that fuck with you too much. Don't like, don't even overthink that. He also, by the way, at the height of the Cold War, just went and popped into Russia for a little bit. And then Bob back here, like it's just. And then, you know, if you just know that Jack Kennedy had fired the head of the CIA shortly before his assassination and that that fired head of the CIA was put on the Warren Commission to investigate what happened in his assassination. I mean, I think, I think just having those points down would be like, okay, my working assumption now is this is a conspiracy. Like, like, now the onus is on you to prove that this wasn't a conspiracy. But the reason why this has to, has to be kept secret for all of these years isn't because anyone's like protecting their own ass. Nobody's alive anymore. I mean, and if they are, they're ancient. You know what I mean? It's because like the similar thing I was saying with the usaid. It's because, like, if you figure that out, that's just such a juicy secret that you can't let the American people all know that. Because once you know that the CIA murdered the sitting President of the United States of America, well then this whole country isn't what you thought it was anymore. That's the only next conclusion. You're like, oh, every normie out there is like, oh, okay, well, now I have to totally reevaluate what I, what I think about everything. And then one of the next logical questions might be like, hey, so what year did it stop being like that? You know, and then you realize pretty quickly, oh, that is some year in the future, maybe, but that year has not come yet. So anyway, that is, it's just very, very, very interesting time for people like us who have cared about these issues for quite a long while and kind of just a lot of the things that are happening right now. And again, I'm not trying to oversell it. You know, there's, there's bad that comes with Donald Trump and he, I guarantee he's going to disappoint at some point in the next four years, probably at multiple points. And I'm not at all claiming that, like, the establishment has been overthrown or that permanent Washington isn't still running the show. But there are so many of these things just seemed impossible not very long ago. Like, it just seemed like so much of this was never going to happen and so much of it is happening now. And that's, that's very encouraging and exciting. 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Check them out visit them@native hydrate.com Part of the problem to see what native hydrate could do for your health. That's nativehydrate.com part of the problem. All right, let's get back into the show. I should, okay, a couple things that we should address, actually. I'm just going to real quickly double check the news on this, but Bobby Kennedy did pass the Senate committee vote, so he, he passed the Senate committee, the Finance Committee vote, so he was confirmed by them. And now I guess it kicks it over to a, to, to the Senate vote. So that should be in later today. From the reports that I'm seeing, it's, it's looking like he's going to be confirmed by a very small margin. Never know until the time comes. You never know what you know when you're dealing with these small margins. All you need is a couple of senators to kind of do the wrong thing. Tulsi is in a similar situation. I'm hearing that she's probably going to be confirmed, but that it's a razor thin margin. And again, these are like, you know, if you remember John McCain famously voting down the repeal of Obamacare, all it takes is like one or two of the Republican senators to fall in line and just go, no, we're not going to do this. I'm not counting any chickens before they're hatched on this one. But that's the latest of where we are and you know, for the, for the rest of the show. Well, I'll, I'll check a couple more times and let you know if there's an update there. Okay, let's, let's see. What, what should we go to next year? Because I had a few kind of debating on which one, what did we have here? We had the, this is. Okay, let's go to the Elizabeth Warren video because that's on the topic of Bobby Kennedy. And I believe this was her reacting to him passing the Senate Finance Committee. So, so this is Elizabeth Warren reacting to Bobby Kennedy passing the initial Senate Finance Committee vote.
- [34:19]
Elizabeth Warren
Here she is stated this is not only about a private company that gets sued and has to pay out. Vaccine manufacturers often operate on very slim profit margins. If they get sued repeatedly and successfully, they simply move out of the vaccine space. We've already seen this happen with vaccines in the past. Twenty years ago, we watched vaccines just move away if they did not have protection from these kinds of lawsuits. The consequence of Mr. Kennedy's ability to make those lawsuits easier is also the ability to shut down access and manufacturing for Vaccines for every one of us. And I think that's a stated.
- [35:11]
Dave Smith
All right now, Rob, I gotta say this comes off as a little dishonest to me. And I just, I'm shocked to see dishonesty out of Elizabeth Warren. It's really a betrayal of her Native American heritage. This is, you know, they're very honest people. They pride themselves. Their word is their bond. Yeah, Rob, I don't know, dude. You ever take a moment to think about how tough it is out for these pharmaceutical companies? You know, big pharma is operating on razor thin profit motor. Like, you know, isn't it wild that this is a defense of a giant? This is Elizabeth Warren we're talking about. And the issue we're talking about is giant corporations being able to be sued for injuring people. And Elizabeth Warren is on the side of the giant corporations and is making the argument that like there's, you know, the person who always wants the wealthy to pay their fair share and is always concerned about big money or whatever, she's making the argument that this could disincentivize them from further production and therefore we can't have the threat of lawsuits. Like, what is it? It's just wild. Nothing exposes how phony people are than when they totally go against their own stated worldview just because they don't want. I don't know, I mean, it seems like trying to protect these big companies, but again, I mean, I don't know, Rob, I don't know what you think about this, but I just kind of go like, okay, well like what's the art? If you're making the argument that the lawsuits are frivolous or that like they weren't really injured, well then the argument would be to tighten up the legal system and be like, yeah, you shouldn't be able to sue a company if they haven't actually caused any harm. That is kind of already the case. It's pretty hard to sue a giant company. Like, like really think about this, right? You're a vaccine injured person. You're trying take on like Pfizer, you know, probably they got a few more bucks to throw at lawyers than you do. And it's kind of, it's already pretty difficult to prove vaccine injuries. That's one of the messed up things about vaccine injuries is that it's very easy to say like, hey, you know, this happened to you, but how can you prove that it was from the vaccine could have been from something else. And I know a lot of people, I know several people very well who have had like heart issues since COVID And you know, the suspicion is that like, yeah, I mean, I don't know, this person got double vaccinated and then took two boosters and all of a sudden, you know, a 44 year old, perfectly healthy person is having heart issues. That seems to me like. But I can't prove that that's what it was. You know what I mean?
- [38:16]
Robbie Bernstein
Like, I saw that person eat a lot of chicken nuggets that weekend.
- [38:19]
Dave Smith
Yeah, right, right. So who knows for sure, but it does seem like a likely culprit. But if the argument here really is right, that they. Well, listen, if you had to pay out every time these vaccines injured somebody, then it wouldn't be profitable enough to make the vaccines. I don't think that's the winning argument. You think it is because that would kind of suggest that like the vaccines may not be worth it. Right. Like, isn't that the lot? Isn't that the information that you would get from this economic reality? That it's like this is a math equation. If you're telling me that having to compensate people for all of the harm that this product causes would then make it not worth it to produce this product, then that is the economy telling you it's not worth it to produce this product. Kind of like if college is so expensive that you can never pay off the loans, that kind of lets you know that college isn't worth it at that price. Right. Am I missing something? Rob, what do you think?
- [39:24]
Robbie Bernstein
Well, I got a hot take, which is. And you guys can check out tomorrow's on your mouth because I'm going to play this clip, but I happen to agree with Elizabeth Warren that RFK Jr. Should have to divest his financial stake in these lawsuits. And.
- [39:38]
Dave Smith
But I believe, I believe he said he would.
- [39:41]
Robbie Bernstein
Well, he's passing it on to his son. And the problem with that is that it's not a true divestment. But on the other side of it, I don't know that you can really hold politicians to the standard that your own relatives can't possibly be profiting from any of the auxiliary things of what you do. Because I'm sure that there's not a single senator or congressman who doesn't have a kid in some sort of an agency that, you know, it's. That's a tough standard. But speaking more specifically to the clip that you just played, and I've broken this down before on the show, that removing vaccine liability removes the market mechanisms to figure out whether or not these products are safe.
- [40:24]
Dave Smith
Yeah.
- [40:24]
Robbie Bernstein
And so it just doesn't make sense specifically because if they did not have those protections, it would be absorbed in the cost of the vaccines. And then people who are, if it, if it serves the greater good that everyone needs to be vaccinated. So then there's no reason why we wouldn't pay into a fund where the people that are injured by them get paid out. And the easiest way to collect those funds is let's say there's a vaccine and I'm going to give it to 100 million people and one of the hundred million people is going to lose their life. Well then great, instead of charging a dollar, charge two dollars now you can pay out $100 million to that family or you can change up the math, you can decide what that value is. But the point, I'm just saying, is it's actually very easy to compensate the people that will be vaccine injured. And then it also creates a market mechanism by which if a vaccine is not overwhelmingly good, then it's not worth producing. Like, can you please explain to me why their product is so good, but it can only exist on the market if they can't be held accountable for when it doesn't work the way that it's supposed to, then how can the product be that like? Or why are their margins that thin? Why, if their product is so good and everybody needs it, why does it have such thin profit margins? I thought that this is a. Usually revolutionary technologies have room for profit. Is it other legislation that the government created that they can't make the profit that they need to like? And so now you got to overcompensate for that distortion by not giving them liability. And is that better? Is that a better system?
- [41:55]
Dave Smith
So I mean imagine, imagine I was selling computers and I started with the claim that I was like, listen Rob, this is a perfect computer. It's never going to blow up and kill you. I do need to enshrine in law that I cannot be sued if this blows up and kills you, though, you know what I mean? Like, it's like, wait a minute, hold on. First your claim is that this isn't happening. Then your claim is that, well, and then I go, and by the way, if I don't have liability protection over that, then it wouldn't even be worth it for me. I wouldn't even be able to sell this computer to you. Come on, can't you see through this?
- [42:37]
Robbie Bernstein
And then there was also a good stat of which give me a second, I can, I can pull this up. But Elizabeth Warren I think is in the top 10 Senate list of who receives money from pharmaceutical companies here. I can give you the exact number right here. She comes in third at $1.2 million.
- [42:57]
Dave Smith
There you go. Well, I'm sure that has nothing to do with her position on this whatsoever. All right, guys, let's take a moment and thank our sponsor for today's show, which is Tax Network usa. The IRS is the largest collection agency in the world and it just stepped up enforcement for 2025. If you owe back taxes or have unfiled returns, do not wait for the IRS to come after you. Simply avoiding your tax troubles is the worst thing you can do. Getting ahead of this is the smart move. But never, never contact the IRS alone. Turn it over to the team at Tax Network usa, because not all tax resolution companies are the same. Tax Network USA has a preferred direct line to the irs. This means that they know which agents to deal with and which ones to avoid. Tax Network USA has proven strategies are designed to settle your tax problems in your favor whether you owe $10,000 or $10 million. Their attorneys and negotiators have resolved over $1 billion in tax debt. Talk with one of their strategists. It's free. Stop the threatening letters, stop looking over your shoulder and put your IRS troubles behind you once and for all. Call them at 1-800-958-1000 or visit tnusa.comSmith that's tnusa.com Smith all right, let's get back into the show. All right. The other thing that I do have to at least mention quickly is that at least according to Disclose TV and this is as of two hours ago, the White House is preparing an executive order to abolish the federal Department of Education. And they say this is NBC News is where they got it from. So how about that?
- [44:52]
Robbie Bernstein
Will the kids go to get the shit kicked out of them by bullies?
- [44:57]
Dave Smith
Well, of course, this isn't, you know, abolishing the Department of Education wouldn't even be abolishing public school. It would simply be kind of kicking it back to the states and not having Washington, D.C. you know, centralize the, the control of education and the. What's the word that I'm looking through the curriculum. It is, first of all, just because a few people, and I know particularly this is. I've seen some libertarians who were saying this. It is true that doing this through an executive order is not as ideal as doing this through an act of Congress. You know, the concern being another Democrat could come right back in and then just undo all of Trump's executive orders. While that is true, it is still preferable to not doing it at all. So this is. I don't know why I'm telling you. I'm going to have to get out of the game of making this exact point because I just make it too much that it's starting to drive me crazy. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, yes, okay, by the way, Thomas Massie has just introduced legislation into the Congress to do this. So what? The move here would be to do it through executive order immediately and then really champion codifying it into law through the Congress. But this would just be such a remarkable win for the country. I mean, just a win for education, a win for the taxpayer. There's just nothing but wasted money and totally at the expense of children's education to have this ridiculous, ridiculous socialist model of centralized control over the indoctrination of children. Like, why? It makes no sense. And by the way, I will go a step further and say public school in general makes no sense. You know, there's. It's really funny because there's kind of like, these things. Let's take it Back to Libertarianism 101 for a second here. But there are so many of these things that, like, because we're used to the government doing it, people just take it for granted that the government does it. And then if you're against the government doing it, they're like, well, you must be against the service. You know, like. Like, if there was. If there was like the. The Department of Shoes in, you know, in D.C. that we make all the shoes in the country, which, you know, it sounds kind of goofy, but, like, socialist countries actually had things like this. You know what I mean? Like, they had centralized, you know, like in the Soviet Union, you could only get that one crappy car or whatever. You know, like, there were experiments like this, but it. So you have this department of Shoes, and they make all the shoes, and all Americans have the exact same shoes, and obviously the government's making them. So it's like the crummiest pair of uncomfortable shoes. And then you were like, hey, I think we should abolish this department of Shoes and just let the market take care of this. And then someone's like, oh, so you're against people having shoes on their feet? You think everyone should just walk around barefoot? And it's like, no, that's not exactly my claim. Now, when I use the example of shoes, nobody thinks that way because we already have it. Completely decentralized. And if you may notice, everybody's got shoes on their feet. Like, notice that next time you're outside, even drive through a really poor neighborhood and people have shoes on their feet. Okay? There's some exceptions to this. Generally speaking, though, it's not a major issue of, like, getting shoes to people, you know, because the market takes care of it, though. As. As with everything, the market provides a better quality product at a. At a cheaper price that is more tailored to what the consumer actually wants. But yet somehow, when it comes to education, there is this idea that the government must do it because. And look, I can understand on some level where people feel like, well, look, we want to make sure that every kid is provided with education. But again, you could make the same argument with shoes and say, well, we have to make sure that everyone is provided shoes. And the truth is, like, once you take an example, like shoes, you realize that you're like, okay, yeah, but even if our concern is that everyone is provided with these or that if somebody's so poor that they can't get shoes, they can't afford them, we want to make sure someone gives that to them. That you can't jump from that to, therefore it must be Centralized in Washington, D.C. you just be like, like, yeah, we could have charities do that. We could raise money for that. You know what I mean? Like, we could have, you know, the companies themselves can do things like ask you if you want to pay a dollar more when you get your shoes, because that goes toward the shoes of less fortunate people. Like, there's just lots of other options. And likewise with education, when you think about it, you think about public education, government schools, the idea that you're going, hey, there are these, like, there are the. There's poor people and they can't afford school, so the government comes in and gives it to them. That is just not what happens. That's not actually true. The. The truth is that when in all of these neighborhood, even in, like, poor communities, in poor neighborhoods and poor towns, they. The people there are paying taxes, they're paying for the schools. And you could say, like, maybe these people are. Maybe they're. They're unemployed, or maybe they make so little money that they don't really pay any federal income taxes. But what's paying for the schools is the property taxes, and all of them are paying that either directly or indirectly. You know, like, if you. Even if you rent an apartment, you are paying for the property tax, because that has to be. That has to be factored in to the rent price, you know, like if, if, if, if somebody is paying, you know, $500 a month and a landlord, let's say just to keep the numbers easier, say they're paying a thousand dollars a month for, for their mortgage and then another 200amonth for the property tax. Well, they've got to charge you at least $1201 to make a profit off that. It's not a business, otherwise, it's a charity. And so you're paying for the property tax. So really what the government is doing is stealing your money from you and then coming in, paying a whole bunch of bureaucrats six figure salaries and then with the crumbs that are remaining, giving you these government schools. And again, if you're, if your argument was that, you know, like, well the, you know, there are some people who just can't afford to educate their children, we must have the government come in and do this. Ask yourself a follow up question. How's the government doing at that? You know, is it like, is it, could you say right now that like, you know, in America we have some poor neighborhoods, we have some high crime areas, but at least they, they're all getting a great education in their government schools. No, they can't even read at grade level. They're graduating illiterate kids. Kids. It's just the wildest failure. It's every bit as much of a failure as that shitty Soviet car that everyone makes fun of. I can't remember the name of it. And so it's just, you know, the whole thing, when you really think about it, it's like the, the task is so doable. Like what are we really talking about? When you talk about school, you're talking about what, teaching kids reading, writing and arithmetic, maybe as they get older, a little bit of English in history. You know what I mean? Like what? This is totally doable. Communities can come together and do this. This does not need to come from Washington D.C. and have orders barked at, you know, like from bureaucrats in D.C. and, and we've had an experiment in this. It's been it. The Department of Education has not been around that long. I mean, you know, I say that maybe that's my age speaking, but it's been, I think it was under Jimmy Carter. I want to say it's in the 70s. I think the late 70s is when the Department of Education was created. And so we've been running an experiment. We've done this for about 50 years. Does anybody here, does anyone think the country's gotten smarter over these 50 years. Does anyone think the country is better educated now than they were back then? I mean, I, you know, I, you ever see like, where they'll have like those old, like high school tests from like 1920, and you're like, whoa, this is what they were asking the kids back then. We were a much smarter country before we went to this bullshit socialist indoctrination model. And so this is a great step in that direction. And again, just another signal that Donald Trump might actually mean business this time and kind of want to do some big, bold things. And again, between Doge and this move and the USAID stuff, and like, it's like, it's not just that he wants to do big legacy building things, but it's like he wants to do big legacy building things. And he sees the way to do that as like draining the swamp, cutting the government, exposing the corruption. Everybody, every president, always wants to do big legacy building things. That's why George W. Bush wanted, in 2008 at the Bucharest summit, That's why he wanted to give Ukraine a full map, a full member action program. And he didn't end up getting that. They just made the promise that they bring him in, but they said that was it. Scott details it in his book. Provoked very well, but that's, he was just like, well, this is for my legacy. The war in Iraq didn't work out, so I got to do something big. And it was Angela Merkel who was like, you know, this really might piss off the Russians. You maybe don't want to do this. But anyway, so this is a very, I don't know what else to say, but it's a very positive move. Oh, I could say the other thing, by the way, which is to me is the compromise position. But like, Corey D'Angelos has been the guy who's really pushed this for many, many years now and had some real success in it. Now my, my position would just be abolish government schools, let people do it, you know, like people can. The unbelievable task of like, teaching a kid how to read is something that human beings are actually capable of figuring out and did figure out for thousands of years before it was done in Washington D.C. but the, you know, his whole, like, school choice thing is it's almost impossible to argue against. Like the, and essentially what, what the school choice idea is is that you basically just look at, so you could look at how much money, say and say, given in a state. There's a certain amount of money that they spend to educate the kids. So there's A certain number, like per student per year, it's outrageously high. I think in. In New York City, I think it was 20 grand per student per year was the cost of, of educating kids. And so Corey DeAngelis and other school choice advocates just say, okay, so you're spending 20 grand per student per year. Here's what we're going to do. You're just going to give that as a voucher to the parents. Okay? They get this voucher that's worth 20 grand a year, and they can choose which school to use it at. And now you'd have a situation where you empower the parents rather than empowering the teachers union, rather than empowering D.C. and you let the parents have the chips. And the schools have to compete now over getting the parents to give them their voucher because they get 20 grand for each parent who gives them their voucher. And so you immediately would just introduce market forces back into school. And now at least the schools would have to demonstrate some value. Now the school goes, hey, everyone in our school is reading at grade level. And there's very little bullying or there's very little violence. And there's very. You know what I mean? Like, they have the same. The same thing that private schools do right now. Right? Which is why wealthy people send their kids to private schools when they have the option to. It just introduce those market forces into school for everybody. And, like, there's no reason why, if, you know, it's so disgusting when you think about it, that it's like the people who, you know, okay, like me, you know, the people who are able to send their kids to, like, the elite schools that are very expensive, they're able to do that. And yet these people are forced. They don't have the resources that, that some others have, and yet they're forced to pay this and that. They don't even get control of it. You know, it's like the fact that New York city is spending 20 grand per student per year. Why shouldn't you let the parent. Now the parent has, like, real money that they can go and be in the same position. They can be as privileged as the people who get to send their kids to private school where they have the chips, they're the one with the money, and you have to work for them, and you have to work to keep their. To keep their business. It's such a better model than what we have right now. So there's just a lot of different things that can be done in education, even short of the ideal, which would just be to abolish government schools. But anyway, long. Long story short, this is a very good move. Anything you want to add, Rob? We'll wrap up on that.
- [58:34]
Robbie Bernstein
Prosecute Fauci.
- [58:36]
Dave Smith
Prosecute Fauci. There we go. That was a nice. We really bookended this episode. I like that. All right, guys. Thank you guys very much for. For listening. I am. The schedule might be a little wonky over the next couple days. I gotta figure it out. I'll. I'll bring equipment with me or Rob. I should say. I'll bring Rob with me and count on him to bring equipment with him. But we'll. We'll get some episodes. I know we still owe a members only for last week. I'll make sure to. To make that up for you. You subs you to everybody who subscribes@partoftheproblem.com if you love the show, please consider going over there and subscribing as well. Catch you soon. Look out for a big one coming soon. Peace.