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Try it out now@wix.com welcome everyone to redacted. Hey, Natalie's back today and we've got a, we've got a very busy show for you on this Thursday. We're going to look, of course at the ICE protests that are now emerging across Minnesota in the wake of that horrific shooting that unfolded. And of course there's battle lines being drawn on both sides, camps merging on the left and on the right. And we're going to look at, and people like rushing to judgment before seeing body cam footage and all of those things. But what are the legal ramifications? We're going to talk about that on the show today.
B
We're also going to talk about the new war budget and President Trump now being hamstrung by the Senate voting to limit what he can do further in Venezuela. He's pissed. He says, hey, all presidents wage war. War Powers act is unconstitutional. It's kind of scary when your president says that. So we're gonna talk all about that.
C
Yeah, $1.5 trillion budget, which is what he's asking for. And clearly Even as Tucker Carlson pointed out, war is coming. Like the President knows something. Of course. And that's why we're ramping up this enormous war budget. We're also gonna talk about the food pyramid today.
B
Yes. Did you know pyramid was largely influenced in the US Government by a certain, what? I don't want to use the word sect. I want to use the word denomination of Christianity. Did you know this? Guesses as to which one it was. And we're going to give you the history of the old food pyramid that was just thrown into the trash. Now we have a new one. So I think you're going to like this story. Stick around.
C
Also, Emmanuel Macron and his husband. Seems they're in hiding right now in Paris, apparently in a bunker. According to reports, there are protests all over Paris tonight demanding the resignation of Emmanuel Macron. And the farmer protests have been emerging. They're really taken to Paris. They've taken over the Champs Elysees, they've taken over multiple parts of downtown Paris. And now UK farmers are lining up their tractors to do the very same thing. They've had enough of this. We're going to talk about what this means for the future of Europe. By the way, do you know, like, Berlin has been under a black. Like they haven't had power for like five days. So things are going really well in Europe right now. So we're gonna talk about all of that and more on this Thursday. Let us know where you're joining us from. Thank you so much for subscribing. Happy to be black pilled. If you're happy to be black pilled, then you're in the right place. Welcome back to the show.
B
Oh, yes, I wore black too.
C
Yeah, yeah, so did I. So all of us black pillars out there who don't take bullshit for an answer, we're happy to stand up and stand together. So nice to see all of you. Before we get to our guest today, we want to tell you about silver. I don't know if you've seen, of course, silver and gold prices surging because smart money is moving right now. A lot of big investors, of course, are. We know that. How you know the benefits of silver right now, because it's not only it's, I mean, it's a commodity. And now that China, of course, has drawn the battle lines there, saying we are done with these. We're putting in place export controls for silver moving out. We've seen silver prices surging over $80. I think it's about like $76 as we speak. I mean, that's a huge, massive spike in precious metals prices right now as again, we are moving away from globalization. So I think it's incredibly important for you to think about where the US Dollar goes from here and actually a portion of your portfolio, portion of your savings in precious metals. I cannot, you know, silver was a big move over the past few days. What's next? Is it copper? Like, what is next? Because we're going to see continued spikes in precious metals, I think, over the coming year for sure. And we are big believers in investing in precious metals. And our friends at Lear Capital can help you do the very same thing. All you need to do is go to learn and learn more about it. Get your free gold guide. I mean, Goldman Sachs predicting $4,500 for an ounce of gold by the end of this year. Others, bank of America even have it going higher than that and is going to continue to go higher as central banks, of course, continue to dump the US Dollar and move towards precious metals, gold and silver specifically. And by the way, once these banks start putting silver in as part of their gold buys, it's going to be even bigger than that. I want you to give them a call as well. If you give them, call 1-800-613-3557 to get your free investors guy, just get on the phone with them and have a conversation about how you can start investing and have it sent right to your house, stored in your gun vault if you want, or stored off site at a protected facility. But at least start having a conversation moving your money out of U.S. dollars and into something that has survived for 5,000 years. Go to learedacted.com or call them 1-800-613-3557 for your free guide today.
B
All right. The ice shooting of a woman has people protesting across the country. The shooting happened in Minneapolis and people are incredibly emotional about it, as you may have seen online. Now, here's where people agree is that a woman named Renee Good was allegedly protesting ICE raids with her partner when agents ordered her out of the vehicle and instead of complying, she attempted to drive away. An ICE agent fires at close range and she dies later from those gunshots. From there, the narrative split instantly on the right. Their claims are that she was resisting law enforcement and he was threatened and that's why he had to respond accordingly. The left says there was no immediate threat and they portray her as a legal observer who was just documenting the raid. President Trump made a statement saying that he had viewed the clip and his view was Aligned with the right, you would imagine. The whole I viewed the clip thing really raised my spidey sense. That's weird. You would think that a president has more available than just what we see online. Go ahead, David.
D
Well, I just wanted to point out it's not just the left that's saying that a lot on the right are in agreement with a lot of the left.
B
Yes, I am pointing out the partisan divides right now, but you're right, there is sort of a dog piling on the right. Anyone who doesn't say this, and we should discuss that, too, our opinion is that our opinion won't matter. We learned from George Floyd we should not run our mouth before we have all the facts. We have two videos from two angles there. The ICE officers most likely have body cams. There are many people filming, so we should have more. And this needs to go to trial quite clearly. So instead of screaming an opinion, we're going to let Lionel from the Lionel Nation YouTube channel do the screaming. He's better at that. And he has an educated opinion because he is a former prosecutor and a litigator. He can ring in on what's allowed and what's not. So, Lionel, are you ready?
C
And he's a constitutional attorney. I mean, the guy knows more about the Constitution than just about anybody. So.
B
Yeah. So, okay. People are saying online. This is one of the main narratives. I wanted to ask you that, you know, you don't have to get out of your car when ICE approaches you. They didn't have jurisdiction. They can't order you. Is that true?
E
No.
B
Oh, you're laughing.
E
Okay, that's insane. This ICE agent is completely 100% off the hook. He did absolutely nothing wrong. And there were two bases for this. First of all, I love the way laypeople start opining. They just start saying, well, I think that he should. No, first question is, what does the law say? I don't care about your opinion. Two statutes. Title 18, section 111. You are interfering with a federal officer. By the way, they've got cases where somebody one time shook a fist at a probation officer and that was considered violating the rule. What this woman did, as sad as it is, nobody likes to see anybody killed or die for any reason. Basically took on a federal agent in violation of the federal statute. Period. End of discussion. Nothing. There is no. There's no. Well, maybe she didn't. Maybe she was trying to get away. Get away? Criminals get away. It's called flight. I love when they say that. Well, she was just trying to get away. Like an escape. What are you talking like OJ in the slow speed chase? What are you talking about? Trying to get away. That's number one. Here's the best one. A Supreme Court case. All of you, constitutional.
C
Hold on, Lionel. You said a criminal trying to get away. I just want to be clear. Clear on that. So you, you know, so she's a. How do we know? Just. I'm asking as a dumb. As a dumb. As a dumb person, how is she a criminal?
E
Because she's violating. She's threatening or assaulting a federal authority, a federal officer. I don't care why. If it's a physic, if it's a. If it's a protest or whatever, she is there doing this stuff. And people will be able to talk about her behav the day she was there to obstruct and oppose federal authority. She is a criminal. Period. She broke the law. You don't do that. People think I don't know what they think ICE agents are, let's say FBI, atf, same thing. I don't know where people get off by virtue of minimizing their impact. She was a criminal. She broke the law. Now you could say, well, no, she was protesting. Fine. She was a protesting criminal. I'm not saying this because I'm happy. She broke the law. And let me tell you two. If you go up to anybody, a federal officer in particular, anybody in the entire gamut of the federal family of officers, and you obstruct a pose, threaten, you don't even have to touch them. Now, you can talk about the angles, have all. Listen, you enjoy yourself with these Zapruder angle, Phil. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. But here's the best one. This is the best law, Tennessee against Gardner, Supreme Court case, 1985. A federal officer or police officer can use deadly force to stop somebody who is in the middle of or is in the process of committing a violent felony and is about to go off and do what? Where was she going to go next with her truck? Where was she going to go next? What was she doing? I love the way they're asking. Well, she was clearly. She wasn't clearly anything. So not only was it legal for them to use deadly force against her for attacking these officers, they could have used deadly force to stop her from advancing and posing a real threat to others. Now, let me explain something to you, and I don't mean to talk to you like that because you're my friends, but to the rest of the world, Let me explain something to you. When I see these videos and they slow them down. No Clayton ever see these, these self defense things on YouTube. Here's how you stop. Here's a. You know, I mean I can fight anybody if I can go like that. But that life's not like that. These three shots were like in a millisecond. And they said, why did he shoot so much? Why?
B
Yes, excessive force. That's. That's what people are saying.
E
It better be excessive. You have to use deadly force. You have to. Empty. I'm surprised he only did that. But anyway, so on two separate occasions, the law clearly, clearly is in the. Is in favor or benefits this officer or supports this ICE agent. They are not going to be charged by the federal government. They are not going to be charged by the doj and Minnesota is not going to do it either. And if they try to, the federal government will come in and remove the case. This a George Floyd. This is not somebody with. And we can argue that was a neck, you know, the leg on the neck. This was absolutely tragic. This is a lesson. If you get anywhere near an ICE officer, an armed officer who tells you to stop and you are in a missile, a deadly missile, and you're driving away, that officer does not have the ability to say, is she merely trying to get away? Am I scaring her? No, it doesn't matter. All bets are off. You have just entered an arena you never thought you'd get into because for some reason, my dear friends, a lot of these twits think that just because they get a hair up their arse and they're going to go out there to protest that somehow they are imbued and protected with this cloak and Kevlar of first amendment protection. Get out of here. It's simple. He is free. Nothing's going to happen to him. Show watch all the tapes you want all the videos. It doesn't matter.
B
So, you know, I guess it bothers you. Well, of course it's bothering everybody. Right. But I don't have an informed opinion about. About what was and I can't say who's people are saying she meant to hit him. You can say I know like what she meant or bothers you meant to kill her. Not nobody knows someone else's intentions. That's impossible. What bothers you're a psychic.
E
What bothers you?
B
Well, I was. Was there any other way to not have killed her? I guess was that.
E
I mean, yeah, but for her not to go there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, when you enter the fray. If Clayton and I decide to rob a bank, and I go in there and I say, all right, give me the money, and all of a sudden, somebody shoots Clayton, the bike guard. They charged me with felony murder. Was that necessary? Who cares? I'm putting myself in this world right now. Once you walk into it, get ready. Pick the hill you want to die on, because you don't know what's going to happen. Let me explain this not to you, my dear friends, but to the rest of these stupid people out there. If you're driving, you say, hey, let's go where those heavily armed ICE agents are right off the bat. Okay. Are you sure about that? You know, are you sure? Yes, because we're upset with this, because apparently she. Okay, fine. Terrific. Some protests. Terrific. They are great. First Amendment all you want, but with a truck.
C
And we. And we're learning also not. She's not from there. From Colorado. So, like, driving there with the intention of going and seeking out ICE agents in order to disrupt their operations.
E
Right. Let's do a couple of things. I am an expert. My favorite thing. And, well, I love to watch YouTube videos of Karen's getting arrested on and pulled out of the car.
C
That's one of Lionel's hobbies. I. Actually, that's one of my favorite hobbies as well. You and I should have a Karen party and watch them.
E
You and I can do it. We'll have a drinking game. Let me see your supervisor. I'm traveling. I'm not driving all that. Sovereign citizen. Oh, I love that stuff. But anyway, here's the difference. Let's say little Natalie's driving her home, and all of a sudden, she's pulled over, and it's a country road somewhere in Colorado. She's by herself. And when the officer goes back to his car to do it, Natalie takes off, and the police officer goes after her, pulls her over, and shoots her. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's. That's not. No, no. She drove away, but she. There was no threat. No, that. That's kind of Natalie, what I think you're talking about, which didn't exist here. But if all of a sudden, Natalie starts getting her car and she starts going like this, and she bumps in or brushes against one police officer, and there's a crowd of people, and she takes off. Then fleeing. Felon rule, which is what it used to be called. They can open fire on you because you now pose a threat. You have evinced a depravity and a disregard for the safety of others. You've got to be stopped. Listen, this is tough. And also one last thing. There is the standard of care that police officers have and the way they handle things and the use of force. Then there's the federal. And they're almost quasi military. These people are not Barney and Andy. This is not that way at all. These are a different group of people. They are brought in as federalized agents, quasi military, posse combatants. This is not. These aren't ICE Is not the cop that says you have the right to remain silent and asking questions. They're there almost to stop this thing. Can I ask you.
D
Almost.
E
It's a different. It's a different standard.
C
Can I ask you about what the mayor is saying? Of course, the mayor. We were joking earlier. This guy is like a little mini.
B
Mini Gavin Newsom.
C
Mini Gavin Newsom. Maybe like a little less greasy. I don't know the mayor who says, we're going to prosecute this. We're going after. I issue. What's going to happen legally? From the mayor's perspective, nothing.
E
This is the supremacy. Cause you can't. You can't prosecute them. No, this isn't George Floyd. This isn't any of this. This was a different story. These were people who basically confronted. Remember, just. Just so people understand, George Floyd was an arrest. He was already in control. And they argue that they had him under control. This was a woman. I'm going to say, ladies and gentlemen of the jury. She aimed her car, her truck, and she went right after these officers. Don't give me this. You're trying to get away. No, you're trying to run them over. And then there's. There's two, if you like these videos. There's one taken from the front. Well, this police. Of this ICE agent, I should say, was clearly hit. Clearly.
C
Sorry, I just want to follow up on that point, because that's really the crux of it, right? Either she was trying to hit them or she was trying to get away. In either of those cases, does it matter?
E
No, because she assaulted them. That assault is basically an attempted battery. She can threaten, she obstructed, she opposed. She put herself. She insinuated herself in the middle of a federal law enforcement operation. Let's say there's the. There's speaking of a bank robbery. The FBI is there taking somebody into custody, and Natalie gets some crazy idea that somehow this is fair because only people of color are arrested. So Natalie gets her Subaru.
F
Whatever.
E
I shouldn't say that. Drives in to basically drive.
C
No.
E
Well, to obstruct the thing. She does it in her protest. Guess what? The police officer, remember, it's about reasonableness. And people are saying, was it reasonable? What did these officers, these ICE agents, feel they were under attack by some lunatic in a truck who then was going to turn around and is headed towards others. What did she have in mind? Remember that. That Christmas event where some idiot drove through one time years ago, this horror, Remember? Could it be that. What if the police officer said, why didn't you stop her? Can I tell you a quick story real quick? Real quick? There was a story you had years ago of a person who was at an ATM and he had a knife and he was trying to open up the atm. I don't know why, but he was trying to do it. Police officer came with a gun and said, drop it. Freeze. Drop the knife. And he walked over and he says, oh, I'm sorry, here. And he was trying. He said, here. And the officer shot him. I mean, empty. The clip just lit him up. The jury acquitted him because the instruction was, drop the knife. And he said, no, here. He was approaching the police officer. When you're involved in this thing, you've entered an arena that now you better know what you're doing. And these people want to go home to their families. And they're tired of this end of law call of end of duty and these memorials. They're tired of that. If you enter the world of criminality, you better know what you're doing. These people are professional. They've got guns and society gives them a gun. And we give them also the benefit of the doubt. We're not going to paralyze them. We're not going to have some police officer wonder, should I. Should I not shoot? What if I'm. What if I'm prosecuted? What if I'm sued? No, you don't have time to think that. That officer was a hero and he was protecting us. And the next idiot who thinks they're going to be what? The next whoever, this woman. And it's sad. And you notice how they said she was a mother, she moved, she wrote poetry, she read to the blind. Who cares? Who cares? It's like Trayvon, Remember Trayvon, whatever his name was, Trayvon Martin Williams. Remember that when he showed a picture of hers? And then as a kindergartner, they're doing this because this stupid left wing, I don't know what this is, this demented idea that the police are always wrong and the criminals always have another point of view that we have to alter Give me a break.
B
Well, let me just ask you and play a little devil's advocate. If you were asked to be a prosecutor and prosecute this officer.
E
Oh, yeah.
B
And perhaps.
E
Oh, the officer.
G
Oh, that.
B
The officer. If you're asked to do that. Some reports are that eyewitnesses say so again, we're. We're very down the road of hearsay that some of the officers said, get out of here, and some said, get out of the car. And so if she was getting conflicting and, you know, instructions, and she said, well, I'll choose get out of here, then maybe, you know, there was no. So, okay. Is there a way that if you were a prosecutor, you would be able to take. Take down this?
C
Especially if you saw body cam footage where you heard one officer saying, get out of here, and another saying, clayton.
E
Let'S hope there's body cam. Body cam, yes. When I was a prosecutor, when body cam came along, I thought, oh, no, no, that's the greatest thing that's ever happened. You notice how polite police are because of body cams. They're wonderful now because they know it. And not only that. Anyway, that's your next channel. Redacted body cam. But here's what I would do if you really had to do something. Remember the story today where it says that he was hit by a Mexican or something or some Illegal immigrant?
C
Yes. Three months earlier. And he was dragged for like 300ft. So this is the same officer?
E
Yeah, same officer. By the way, you think I would have retired immediately? You could maybe. Maybe argue that somehow this affected him and maybe he said to somebody else, I'm gonna get. I'm gonna get the. I'm gonna pay somebody back for that. I mean, I'm going crazy here. Aside from that. No, you don't even have to put on a defense or prosecute. It's simple if they try. And by the way, civil case, same thing goes with that. If that. If the family tries to sue the federal government or that officer. Good luck. Good luck. Doesn't matter. There's nothing he did unreasonably. This woman was in a truck and she went after him. They didn't put. It wasn't the wrong person. They didn't pull the wrong. Some poor guy pulled out of a ground. This is a woman who was there barreling towards them.
C
Well, that's the thing. I wanted to avoid emotion with this because I just want to you know how you feel about someone getting shot in the face. Like, I'm not a fan of that at all. But what is the law. And, you know, that's, I guess, at the heart of it, I think. And I'm just still kind of torn on this one question. One person in our chat room. Forgive the insult here, Lionel. I know you can handle it. You're a New Yorker. But H. Hapa Power says the vehicle slipped on the ice, you retard. How do you know what she was trying to do?
E
So what? That's what happens when you're on. In your suv. You and you decide that you're gonna go on to obstruct, and it's icy. You might find yourself in the. In the position of not being able to stop. You might find yourself in the position of giving the.
H
The. In the.
E
The incorrect impression that you're trying to hit a police officer. Oh, well, those are the brakes. You be ocean. You nitwit. You twit. Let me tell you something. You in Maine, stupecks. This is. This. Is this. This idiocy. You try going out there for one day and do what they do. And let me tell you something. You'd have to wear four layers of Depends because you'd soil yourself repeatedly. All these armchair quarterbacks who sit back and say, yes, but perhaps he could have wounded her. Maybe he could have winged her in the. Oh, give me a break. Shut up. That's right.
B
Okay. I mean, you know anyone else who's obsessed. Upset about this? You can be as upset as you want. The law you say is clear. And if you want to protest ice, go ahead and do that. Don't use a car, don't use any other weapons, and don't.
E
Don't protest. Don't protest. Ice on ice. Exactly.
C
I like that. Lionel, great to see you.
E
Happy New Year.
C
Happy New Year. Thank you. For this perspective. And you did your job, which is you. You. You. You made a lot of people happy in the chat room, and you pissed off a lot of people in the chat room.
E
The truth hurts.
C
That's.
E
Thank you.
C
Friends can't handle the truth. Thank you, Lionel. Great to see you. Happy New Year.
E
All the best.
G
Thanks.
B
I mean, look, this is clearly not a funny story. It's not funny at all. But what I think, you know, watching this, you think, okay, maybe people are clearly getting the law wrong and they're going to get themselves hurt if they continue to say things that are fake. False ICE does have the authority to stop. You don't drive towards them with your car.
C
Maybe the other. You know, there's another.
E
This.
C
I just want to say this, okay? I spoke to A Customs and Border Patrol agent yesterday. And I think maybe there's a bigger issue at play here, which is that these ICE agents maybe aren't meant to be handling this. And as, as I've spoken before about this, that this infrastructure, everything that's in place right now with all of these ICE arrests and everything are sometimes just a few months after being trained. They don't have decades long experience like Customs and Border Patrol agents do who are cut out for this physically and mentally. So there could be a larger issue here, but that's not related to this story necessarily. But.
B
Well, I thought we would find this out because there would be a trial. Lionel is saying there will not be. So that's surprising to me. So we're going to have to watch because Lionel is right a lot, very much so. We can rewind the clock on the things he can say. I told you.
D
And, and doesn't the sheriff department supersede federal government? Like couldn't they step in and, and, and take over an investigation? Because I know that federal, like the sheriff's department kicked out federal agents that were from the FDA that were at an Amish farm in Indiana for trying to take milk. And the sheriff was able to supersede their orders.
C
I guess it depends on if they have the proper paperwork in orders. But I mean, I don't understand how federal. Because now we know that the FBI is taking over this full investigation. They took it right out of the hands of the Minneapolis department. So superiority clause, Is that what he just talked about? Exactly, yeah. All right, we've got more news to get to today. We're going to talk about war is coming. President Trump announcing a $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget. And many people are speculating. Well, he clearly knows something. We are heading into very dangerous waters. First of all, we thought it was insane that we hit $1 trillion, but now we're going to 1.5 trillion. So where are these threats coming from? We're going to talk about it next after this. But first, if you manage crews on the road construction, H vac landscaping, I was thinking of my father in law who runs like a large landscaping business. I, in fact, I sent him this today. I said, you guys got to check out coast pay because you know you have a whole team of people paying for gasoline or materials like out of pocket. The receipts go missing. Trucks are fueling up when they shouldn't be and your accountant is chasing you at the end of the month. Well, coast pay fixes all of that. Coast pay is a modern fuel Card and expense management tool that's built specifically for fleets. And we know we have a lot of viewers out there who run multiple businesses that have fleets. This isn't some generic corporate card dreamed up by people who've never run a crew. Fuel, maintenance, materials all go on one card. With real control and instant visibility, you can set real time spending limits for every driver or vehicle. Fuel only fuel and materials, it doesn't matter. Maybe certain days, certain hours, you decide. And the coast app enforces it automatically. Coast pay enforcement forces it. So right now, coastpay is offering our listeners free gas for a day. When you get started, just go to coastpay.com redacted. That's coast pay.com redacted. Terms apply. All right, everyone reset from that. Everyone reset from that.
B
Yeah, emotions running high. I mean, I don't think we succeeded in tamping him them down at all. But you know, again, the law is the law. I'm not here to applying what it should be. If this is what Lionel says it is, I believe him. That's why we go to him. Whether you like his take on it or not, you don't have to like it.
C
Well, he's prosecuted so many cases. He's been. He's been deep, deep, deep. I mean, constitutional law law professor. So, I mean, yeah, all right, But.
B
I think, you know, someone makes a good point in the chat that the lady, the. The driver probably was watching a lot of mainstream media that was riling her up to think that you don't have to. To listen to ice. You don't have to do this. Right. And that could really be a problem. What Lionel makes clear is. Yeah, we kind of do. They're federal agents. You can't just go threatening them or think you have any kind of authority to disrupt. You don't. It's dangerous. But protest to your heart's delight.
C
Bouchard75 in our rumble chat says, I'm surprised to see so many idiots seem to be watching. Redacted. No, we have. We cater to everybody. I mean, we've got bots, we've got based individuals, we've got awakened. We've got black pilled individuals. Yes, we've got some idiots. I'm here. Yeah. Phillips.
D
Yeah. Hell, we got diversity on our own team.
C
Exactly. We got. I mean, there's idiots even on at this desk right now, so feel you're welcome here. All right. Speak for myself. All right. War is coming to the Arctic Circle. Something we've been covering on this show for a few years. The plague For Greenland, of course, all part of this larger plan. Russia, China, the US all making plays for the most important trade route in the world right now. Of course, we've been telling you for years about this. United States had one ice cutter. So Russia, China had already laid claim to a vast portion of all of this. Now, the United States wants in on this. Trump is now calling for a $1.5 trillion military spending. He mentioned mentioned this last night, citing dangerous times, and here is his tweet about it. After long and difficult negotiations with senators, congressmen, secretaries, and other political representatives, I've determined that for the good of our country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times, our military budget for the year 2027 should not be 1 trillion, but rather $1.5 trillion. Of course, on that news, Lockheed Martin stock exploded. All of the military industrial complex stocks exploded. But then he also said, hey, all of you CEOs of these military industrial contracts, companies like Boeing and all, should not be getting $25 million a year. It needs to be capped at 5 million. That's it, 5 million. So we'll see if that holds. Glenn Greenwald posted this. He said when the Pentagon fails its audit for the seventh consecutive year, the DoD simply can't account for the hundreds of billions of dollars flying lying around like Zelensky. The only rational solution is to increase its budget from 850 billion to 1 trillion, then to 1.5 trillion. He makes a good point. Tucker Carlson makes the point that war is coming, and maybe Trump knows something that we don't. But clearly something is happening.
H
The President announced that he is hiking the pentagon budget from 1 trillion to 1.5 trillion. Just announced that?
C
Why?
H
Well, it's hard to know without asking him. He'll explain. But big picture, obviously, that's the kind of budget that a country that anticipates a global or regional war has for its military. There's no other reason to do that. That's not a peacekeeping budget, that's a war budget, a big war budget. So I think it's fair to expect. And all the signs suggest that we're going to have a big war soon. A big war soon. I think everyone expects that to happen. Hope it doesn't happen, but obviously we're moving in that direction toward a world war. Sorry. So how do you position yourself for that? Well, you look at a map and you ask the most basic questions. What areas do I want to control? Where the trade routes? Who's got the resources?
C
Exactly. Well, one thing is for certain, war is coming. How it will all play out, we don't exactly know. We do know that a large scale attack against Iran is likely to happen before the end of the year. Excuse me, before the end of the month. Likely. On a Friday into Saturday morning, just like it did last time, Israelis will wake up at three in the morning to learn that their country has gone to war with Iran. That's one piece of it. What's going to happen in the Arctic Circle, that's another big piece of it. Europe, of course, is certainly gearing up for war. So all of this to say is something big is happening. Ben Freeman is the author of the Trillion Dollar War Machine. How Runaway Military Spending Drives America Into Foreign wars and Bankrupts Us Here at Home. Ben, welcome to the show. Great to see you. Oh, you're muted.
F
Sorry about that. Great to be with you.
B
You're good.
C
Great to have you here. So the president says this budget is affordable because of the income that is really going to be generated abroad, not here at home. Like, it's largely maybe from the pillaging of oil resources in Venezuela and kind of other places. He says this. I mean, and to me, the implication seems to be that the military, military is like paying for itself because they'll steal it by conquering other economies and sort of like subjugating them. I mean, it sounds like the Roman Empire.
F
No, I live in Florida and we call that piracy. It hasn't worked historically and, you know, it's not going to work that way now. I mean, what we're seeing here with Venezuela, you know, that's what it is. At the end of the day, the president's justification for a foreign war is effectively that we're going to take their leader, we're going to run the country so we can steal their stuff. That just historically hasn't worked for us. It hasn't worked for a lot of countries that have tried that, and it's not going to work for Venezuela. And into this $1.5 trillion budget that he's talking about. I think it's important, and no disrespect to Tucker on this, but I think it's important to put that $500 billion in perspective. That's more than any country on the planet's military budget. Then that's more than China, Russia and Iran spend on their militaries combined. So if we are spending $500 billion more to prepare for war, I think at the very least we're spending way too much on it.
B
I believe you make an important distinction because China's military Budget is about a third of what ours is. But I believe they have, Is it double or triple the personnel, the service members?
F
Yeah, they have over triple the personnel that we do. But I think, you know, talk to any Navy SEAL here, talk to any Army Green Beret member. You know, there's quantity and there's quality. Nobody in the world, I don't think, believes that the Chinese military is more capable than the US Military. I don't think China believes that. And so the idea that even, you know, just because they have three times the, the number of troops, that doesn't mean a thing. The US Military is already by far the best and the most powerful military on the planet, period.
B
But this budget is not to pay them better because they're the best. This budget is to buy more weaponry. Right. It's not to boost the military or to better compensate them. Otherwise it would be a different thing altogether.
C
I mean, I guess, what is it for? Like, why throw another 500 billion into it? Like, what is it for? To Natalie's point, that's a great question.
F
We don't know. In typical Trump style, we're seeing an idea thrown out on true social and then the rest of us sort of left reeling to figure out what that actually means. In practice, we haven't gotten a lot of details, really any details about what that means. But, you know, we can look back sort of recent history to get a sense of where that money might go. And you know, as we document in the trillion dollar war machine right now in today's military, Natalie, you're totally right. Most of the money in the military budget isn't going to military members. It's, it's not going to veterans, not going to military families. More than half of the defense budget right now goes to pentagon contractors, about 54% of it. So, you know, to your point there, Clayton, you know about Lockheed stock soaring. That's where this money is going. This money is going to the Lockheed Martin's General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman. So there's no, no surprise to me whatsoever that when this, you know, $500 billion treasure chest is thrown out there, no surprise whatsoever that the defense stock started soaring. Because what this means is it's a big payday for them at the end of the day.
B
Well, I think I have it in my notes. It's between 2 and 4% was the pay increase for military service members. So that does not account for another half a trillion dollars by any stretch.
F
No, no stretch of the imagination whatsoever. And if you look at our current Trillion dollar budget too. And you think about what that does for military families right now. There's a stunning fact that one in four military families is facing food insecurity. One in four. And this is at the same time we have a trillion dollar Pentagon budget. And as Clayton mentioned, some of these executives at Pentagon contractors are getting paid 10, 20. We documented a guy making $80 million a year. And most of the revenue for these companies is coming from the US government which yet it can't feed military families enough to keep food on the table for their families. I mean, and so when you're Talking about adding $500 billion to that, it's just a tragedy what we're doing already with wasteful spending in the military. This is only going to put gasoline on that fire.
C
I just don't understand. Amen. Pass the ammo in our chat room says 50 year mortgages and another two 250 years at war. I don't think so. I mean I just don't have. See to me if you read like Jared Diamond's collapse or you study the Roman Empire and you're gobbling up these other proxies and taking over different economies and you're continuing to just feed the military industrial complex, the snake eating its own tail and you're really just lining the pockets of Lockheed Martin and Boeing and Honeywell and all of these other defense contractors, you're forcing us into wars in order to justify the cost of this. Right? So these perpetual wars will never end.
F
100% Clayton. I cannot agree more. This system, when you have a military industrial complex, when you have a trillion dollar budget, forget about $1.5 trillion budget. When you have that much money on the line, you have to have wars to justify, right? If you don't, if you do not have have wars, if the world doesn't look scary, then people like, like the folks in your chat, they start to ask questions and they start to ask things like well instead of that 500 billion going to, to fight wars, well what if that helped me with, with the housing market, you know, what if that helped with health care? I, I have a one year old and a three year old. So I'm like we're spending just a stupid amount of money on childcare. It's like what if we got some help for that? If the world doesn't look scary then you start asking those tough questions. You know, people start having those trade offs so they have to sell us a scary world.
D
I was going to say General Wesley Clark said if you're A hammer. Every problem has to look like a nail.
F
Exactly.
D
Right.
C
Right. You know something else Tucker said in addition to what he just what we played there was about our relationship with Russia, said under no circumstances would we be able to win whatever boondoggle it is we're trying to win without the support of Russia. What if we became an ally of Russia and tried to stop whatever madness is currently going on? And he said that that's arguably the only way that we would survive this. I'm not asking you to be a military strategist here, but what do you think about that?
F
I would frankly love if we could have more cordial, better diplomatic relations with Russia. You know, for. For too long, the temperature in the room when it comes to US Russia relations has just been nothing but hostile. And, you know, I honestly thought it was a breath of fresh air when Trump came in and said, you know, I'm going to talk to Putin. We're going to have open dialogue. There's no reason. There's no justification for the US To. To look at Russia as being a natural enemy. You know, there's no. It's the old song, why can't we be friends? And we can't here. You know, I think, you know, we can resolve the Ukraine conflict. You know, we can resolve. Help to resolve other conflicts together. There's no reason the US should not have better diplomatic engagement with Russia. So, you know, I think on that point, I'm definitely in agreement with Tucker.
B
Oh, I want to just point out one more thing that sort of supports this, because this afternoon, the Senate voted to limit the. The actions that the president can take in Venezuela. That's going to continue. And he's furious. He posted this online. It was basically, how dare you saying, look, every president and Department of Justice before me have determined that the War Powers act is unconstitutional. I'm going to. Basically, he's telling us, I'm going to do whatever the heck I want. These people are traitors for thinking that I shouldn't. I mean, the irony is, like you just said, when he was a candidate, he criticized the presidents before him who went around the War Powers act and waged endless wars. Now he's defending that. I don't see that as anything else, as him signaling to us, I'm gonna do whatever the heck I want. Your little votes in the Senate be damned. I can see it. It pisses me off. I'm not stopping. How do you read that?
F
Right? Thank you so much for bringing that up, Natalie. And I'll tell you, I'm a shameless plug. But, but we open this book, the Trillion Dollar War Machine, with a quote from candidate Donald Trump on the campaign trail just ripping war profiteers a new one. He talks about them making 2 million. They want to go to war. Cuz rockets cost $2 million. Bombs cost this, bombs cost that. Whenever he was going around the country, a lot of people voted for him because they thought he would keep us out of wars. And so that's why when we see this rhetoric coming from him now, it's the opposite of what he was saying on the campaign trail. You know, we talk about this on the book and it's not, it's not unique to Donald Trump. Every, every president we've had, they campaign on peace, they become president and they go to war. You know, and it's not a partisan issue either. You know, go back to President Obama. President Obama is given the Nobel Peace Prize and then he oversees the surge in Iraq. And Iraq and Afghanistan, the two highest years of military spending that we had prior to this one since World War II. So regardless of what party it is, they're going to tell you one thing on the campaign trail, when they get into office, they suddenly become war hawks. Trump is just the latest example of it.
C
Yeah, yeah, they're told something as soon as they get in there. Ben, so great to have you here on the show. Check it out again. Hold up the name of the book so people can go and read it. I think this is valuable. The Trillion Dollar War Machine. It's right there. Go grab it. It's available on hardback. You can grab it on Kindle as well if you want the digital version. And I think you also have an audiobook version, don't you? Are you working?
F
It's everywhere. Everywhere. Books are sold. Grab your copy now.
C
Ben, great to see you. Thank you so much for joining us.
F
Thank you guys. Take care.
C
Appreciate it.
B
All right, well, coming up we're going to talk about France Macron in hiding from protesting farmers. What's that all about? And the new food pyramid. What's the deal with the old food pyramid? I asked at the beginning of the show, can you guess which Christian denomination influenced the old food pyramid? I'm going to tell you that story also. One commenter said, why did I giggle about Subarus? I have nothing against Subarus whatsoever. I am loyal to Volvo. For me, it's Volvo or bust. That's. That's all I have to say about that. So that was not a dig on Subaru owners whatsoever, but it's just the.
C
Funny memes that, of course, that are online that, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of funny, like.
B
Earthy and crunchy types or whatever. The Subaru type, I guess it's like.
D
Yeah, the Subaru Outback is like one of the most popular cars in Portland. And I was at Ikea one time and they came over the thing and said, there's a blue Subaru in the parking lot with its lights on. And everybody in the store just laughed.
C
Yeah. All right. All right. Coming up. Yeah, we're going to talk about France. We're going to talk about the protests there and Macron in hiding and the UK now pharma protests also starting to unfold. We're going to talk with Professor Werner about that in a few moments.
B
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C
Well, reports this morning in Europe say that French President Emmanuel Macron along with his husband is in hiding in a bunker in Paris right now. Why? Well, thousands of French farmers have brought Paris to a standstill, taking over the heart of the nation's capital. Of course, police are arresting farmers. As you can see here. They've many thousands of tractors. The Champs Elysees here is arrests happening, of course, and now there are incredible amounts of demand for Macron to resign, as you can see here. Watch. Well, Professor Richard Werner is the author of Princes of of the Yen, Japan's Central Bankers and the Transformation of the Economy. One of the smartest economists in the world is joining us right now to talk more about this. Professor, great to have you back here on the show. So pleasure is all ours. Of course, when you see happening right now with these thousands of farmers, like when you, when you see, when in the west we see these things unfolding on social media, well, this is probably like an isolated incident, no big deal. But this seems to be a very big deal to the Emmanuel Macron government and it's reverberating across Europe. Am I reading this wrong?
G
Yes, it is. In many ways, the farmers have been quite impactful in this case, and it looks like, at least partly, the Macron government has given in and has stated that they will now vote against the proposed international trade deal between the EU and mercosur, you know, the four Latin American countries, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay. I mean, this trade deal has been in the pipeline for a quarter century, really. But it's come to a head. We're sort of on the line. The commissar, the, the president of the European Commission, which, you know, has essentially dictatorial powers over the eu, you know, that's just the governance structure that they created, has signed this a while back, and now it needs to be passed by a majority vote. They've got this new qualified majority voting system. So one country like France blocking it is not going to stop it. And that seems to be where we are, that there's, there's a sort of proportionality by population. And it seemed to be that the case that enough countries and with enough people are backing it, including Germany, Spain and so France opposing it, Macron saying, okay, I'm going to back the farmers now on this one seems to be too little too late. But we have to see because it's, yeah, it's not a given what will happen at that boat. And obviously, if the farmers, and that's why the farmers are still fighting here, you know, if they can make their voice heard in the media in Europe, there's a chance it may either be postponed or modified again. Why are they against this? What is this about? Well, it's A free trade agreement. And of course, these Latin American countries, you know, Brazil is very large, Argentina, very large agricultural sector. The fear is that the agricultural products from there will undercut European farmers and essentially drive them out of business. And so they don't want this deal. There is, there's some particular clauses in there at the moment. Namely, you know, should this agreement result in European prices falling by more than 8%, then governments can step in and do something and sort of slightly, you know, put this on hold and the farmers. And France now is saying, okay, we want to Change this to 5%. Should be the pain threshold. Should prices drop. So that's the fear that, you know, prices will drop. And of course, farmers don't really have huge profit margins as it is, you know, and then various costs, very high energy costs particular and various, you know, government, eu, you know, burdens on farmers have been stepped up dramatically in the last 15 years under, you know, climate, various other excuses. So they are quite squeezed and you can see why they're doing this. And of course you can say, well, but free trade is good and we should allow the cheap products to come in. Farming is, is very essential. And if a country or a region doesn't have, you know, autonomic supplies from their own sources, then of course you are at risk of being blackmailed or just, you know, essentially, if there's an embargo, if there's disruption, trade or may, may be due to various other things, you know, whether some environmental problem, climate catastrophe, well, let's say some, some realistic one like, like volcano eruption or war. And if you don't have your own farmers anymore, then you're in dire straits. So I think it makes sense to actually treat your farmers well, imagine that.
C
And not have, and not have their entire herds culled. I mean, that's, that's what we saw, you know, happening. Happening. Of course, in the Netherlands, we had a tax issue, of course, in Germany with that, with their farmers, but across the Netherlands, across Denmark and now with the French, of course, one of the pieces of this was having them, their cow herds culled because of lumpy skin disease. That's a piece of this as well. We saw it happening in Canada as well, killing, you know, of course, killing ostrich farms. And they're going after multiple farms now and they're centralizing this control. They really don't want them to have cows. They really don't want them to have this farmland like we saw in the Netherlands. They want to get rid of these farmlands, create these 15 minute cities, right? I mean, turn this farmland into small little cities. You eat bugs, eat fake processed food, don't eat actual real meat. And they're attacking the very sustenance that provides the food for all of these people. I mean, I, it's just deeply disturbing. I remember I was in Berlin during the protests there and the farmers were saying, without us, this country collapses. In Germany, without us, you can't. We provide food for our regions, our counties, they rely on the butchers. All of these people without our meat, without our food, without our chickens, Germany would collapse.
G
Exactly. And of course, and that's true, and it's a truth that the leadership knows and that's where you really start to wonder potentially that is the aim. You know, I mean, a lot of the policies taken in Europe, Germany particularly, but EU in general have been so self destructive on every count, so obviously self destructive that it's very hard to, to just say, oh, we didn't know, we didn't expect this to be this bad. I mean, Germany, the economy is collapsing, is really in dire straits. Other European economies are not much better. And so, you know, this all adds up to really policy imposed, self imposed, disaster upon disaster. And of course farming really goes to the basics if you can't feed your people. We just had the news yesterday that an elderly lady in Germany died because the heating was, you know, it's pretty cold now, snow minus temperatures. And there was a blackout of 30,000 households in Berlin. You mentioned you were in Berlin. Why was that? Because some climate, and what is it, antifa radical activists had actually blasted some electric supply grid in Berlin. So it was essentially a terrorist attack. But also the government, the Berlin government didn't do anything about it. Foreign migrants, they were taken care of, but locals, they just were left to freeze to death like this lady.
C
So when Germany, Germany has a record of when people blow up their things, whether it's a Nordstrom, a Nord Stream pipeline or a power grid that wreaks havoc on 45,000 people, 45,000 homes and people are without power for five days in Berlin. Germany doesn't do anything about it. Of course. They also shut down their own nuclear power plants as well. So it's not surprising.
G
Precisely, precisely as you say. So these are things that authorities have allowed to happen or have actually actively supported these destructive policies. And it goes across, you know, the economy. Energy and food supply is a key pillar and we see the same thing. So it is a very concerning pattern and it's definitely time for Europeans and others, you know, just to actually Take notice. And, well, we have to stop this because, you know, when leadership and governments do not protect their people and the basics. And of course, there's the whole other issue of borders, you know, lack of border protection, I mean, it just goes on, then the governments are not actually legitimate and something has to be done. Policies have to be changed because things will continue to deteriorate at the moment. That's where we are at the moment.
C
What about in the uk? I mentioned off the top, of course, the UK also lining up now, tractors in solidarity with the French, you see the Canadians, Canadian farmers, they really led the charge, of course, on the trucker convoy. They said, we stand with you. You. Where do you think things go next?
G
Yes, well, first on the uk, of course, they also have their indigenous issue, the farmers, and that is. I mean, it's the same across the eu. They're being attacked essentially by their own government. And then each country, each government has their own nuance on how they're going to make them suffer. In the uk, it's actually another version of the Dutch expropriation policy via really high inheritance tax. Now, that's an old trick. Governments have used this in many countries throughout history. If a government wants to own something that is privately owned, it can always suddenly impose huge taxes and then you have to hand over whatever it is. There's been done whether, you know, Russia's done this with some foreign gas companies, but, you know, the west has done it and the UK is now doing to their own farmers. So when, because farmland, you know, land prices are in general quite high in the uk, but, you know, farmers aren't rich. They have to live off the land and work the land. But when they die and they own the land, the inheritance tax is going to be raised so much they have to sell the land. It's gone. And that's pretty evil. A lot of people are really against that, not just the farmers, but it looks like they're going ahead. So the farmers, of course, have an axe to grind. They were also out today protesting in Oxford, and it's very understandable, but unfortunately, and I think, you know, people should show their opinion and express their opinion and their resistance against this. But perhaps we need a bit more of that because they're just steamrolling ahead with all these destructive policies.
C
I'll get you out of here on this, Professor. How bad is it in Europe? I mean, it's one thing to be kind of hyperbolic about it. You see blackouts across Germany, Germany in new recession, factories closing. You see Frederick Mertz saying we're going to conscript young men to go to war against Russia. You're seeing this of course, with these insane leaders right now across Europe. It's one thing to be a little hyperbolic and say it's really bad in Europe, but is it really bad in Europe?
G
The economic statistics are dire. They're really dire. Germany is in the third year of economic contraction. You know, that's the data and that's the first time since 1933 that there's been such a long recession. Three years consecutively of contracting GDP, the, you know, the national income shrinking year after year. That's despite the government turning around saying, okay, we're going to have huge government spending on military, which is basically quite wasteful spending. And so that's pretty bad. The number of bankruptcies is at multi decade highs. But other countries don't look much better. France doesn't look great, Austria doesn't look great. And of course on top of that we have the pending problem of below the surface trouble in the banking system because the ECB have been engineering this big asset bubble in the property markets. The usual trick they did disperse in Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Greece in the periphery. And now after that they did it in Germany. That peaked in 2022. And so the banks are now quite exposed. We see already the occasional story about banks being a bit in trouble, forced to merge. Bank mergers have increased, but that's brewing below the surface. And of course the economy getting worse will mean that at some stage this also comes to a tipping point. And then we have a big banking crisis on top. But these are just the economic factors then you've got, and the fundamentals we mentioned energy, no change there, despite the obvious desperate need to change things here. Still energy cost side and then the EU on top of that, stepping up various new demands on climate policies. The latest that has just come into effect actually just a week ago is the new, it's got a fanciful brand new acronym, there's just so many in Brussels is essentially a CO2 tax on imports. But it's structured in such a cumbersome fashion. The document is 3,000 pages but every firm in Europe in the EU has to read this document because Europe used to be a very open international place. So a lot of companies of course are importing things and exporting things all the time. You know, that's, that's really been the, the life flow in, in, in Europe. But now every company that imports has to check and make sure that the various new brand new CO2 tariffs are being applied. And this is such a complex 1600 page register of what is applied, how and when and where for which type and component and product. And these small firms have to do that. So essentially you need now full time staff looking into this. It's going to drive so many more companies out of business. As if we needed this. But it's just really symptomatic of how the EU continues to really hurt and damage the economy. So it is pretty bad. And then of course, as you mentioned, I mean, we've got the war situation and the Europeans being apparently at least the leadership, been quite keen to continue this war. The population in all the countries, they don't want one. Nobody wants war. And so one could really seize this opportunity with President Trump saying, okay, let's end this. Europe could help. And that definitely would make a difference to actually come to an agreement and end this war. And people could. Governments could focus on turning around their really bad economies, but it seems to be the other way around. They're all afraid to focus on their domestic economies. They'd rather focus on international issues and beat the drums. We need to raise more money for Ukraine and step up warfare. It is very destructive. And so it is a pretty bad situation. Almost any count and sector things are getting worse. Yeah.
C
Well, you're in a country right now where Viktor Oroban, I think this morning said, hey, we figured it out. We closed our border. We don't have the types of crimes, the types of problems that other, all of these other European countries have. Pay attention to what we're doing here in Hungary. Professor, great to see you. Thank you always for enlightening us, educating us. And, you know, I thought maybe you're going to talk me off the ledge a little bit about Europe's dire situation. But no, I'm still on that ledge. I'm still on the ledge looking over. It's an abyss right now, unfortunately.
G
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
C
Professor, thank you so much for staying up late with us there in Hungary. We really appreciate it.
G
No, it was a pleasure. Thank you very much.
C
Thanks. God bless. Appreciate it. Always great having him on.
B
Yeah, he's great. One of my favorites. All right, well, coming up, we're going to talk about the new food pyramid. And I'm going to give you a little history lesson about the old food pyramid. I asked you at the beginning of the show, which Christian denomination influenced the old food pyramid? What are they going to do now? You may not know. They also own many large hospitals and universities. Who. Who is it?
C
And here's another hint. It's heavily based on cereal. Like they really wanted you to eat horrible, you know, I know now. No, don't say it, don't say it. But we're going to, we're going to reveal in a second. But cereal, you know, anyone who, Anyone who knows. Right. Cereal is arguably one of the worst things you can put in your body.
B
It. If you like glycemic spikes, then you should eat that.
H
Yeah.
C
If you like eating Corn flakes or any other garbage, cereal is like one of the worst things you can put in your body. And so, yeah, they really were pushing.
B
This big time for a very specific reason. It was a biblical vision given to one of their founders. Specifically eat Corn Flakes, the cereal. Yeah. Okay, so we're gonna get there in a second. Before we do, we wanna tell you about our friends at Mizzen and Maine. Now they make some dapper clothes. Clayton normally walks around me in his pajamas or T shirts.
C
Yep.
B
I mean he does look good in a T shirt. Let's, let's close up on Clayton again. But sometimes he comes out in a mizzen in Maine and he looks super dapper. And I think, where'd you get that? Because I didn't buy him these clothes. Well, he buys them himself. And they really do contour a gentleman's body in a way that a woman notices. As a woman, I can tell you this. Now here's another thing I can tell you as a woman is that they are really nice to launder as well. It's not the type of shirt that's delicate and you have to either iron it or take it to the dry cleaners. They hold up when you wash these shirts. So you really, it's, it's such a beautiful sort of dapper. Have you heard of this quarter zip trend, you know, where young men now are trying to look dapper like this? Well, you too can set the fashion standard. Head on over to mizzen and main.com if you use the promo code redacted, you can get 20% off your first purchase. Clayton's pointing out the shirt that was just on the screen was his favorite. He wears that one often. It looks nice alone. It looks nice with or without a tie. These shirts look really tailored. It's not like, you know, the, the look of like a 20 year old boy getting his first office job. That's not it. This is the opposite of that. This is, is like tailored Italian man look, but American style. That's how I, that's how I perceive it.
C
I wore it on New Year's Eve. I love the shirt. I wore it with my suit. It's fantastic. Yeah.
B
Yes, really recommend. So check them out for yourself. It's spelled M I Z Z E N mizzen and main m a I n dot com. The promo code is redacted. 20 for 20% off. And if you'd rather shop in person, you can find them in the select stores across certain states. Well, this is a fun story about why we have a food pyramid and why it has looked like it has since the early 90s and then subsequently led to skyrocketing rates of diabetes. One of the lesser known influences behind those guidelines comes from a small Christian denomination and its role is rarely discussed. In the beginning of the show I asked people to guess who it was. It wasn't Jehovah's Witnesses. It wasn't Mormons. It is not the Catholics. I'm going to tell you in just a second. The U.S. department of Health and Human Services along with the Department of Agriculture this week rolled out this brand new food pyramid. It's basically an inversion of our old one. It says that your diet should be made of mostly healthy fats, protein and dairy, vegetables and fruits, whole foods. If you go to realfood.com it's a beautiful site actually and the government has all kinds of tips on how to eat real unprocessed foods low in sugar and other types of processed grains. The old food pyramid was a okay with processed grains, spaghetti, breads, crackers, even. Like literally the government was telling you to make most of your diet out of crackers. Look down there as saltines. There's no nutritional value in that. This, that's a way to get diabetes because it's a constant insulin spike and have very little dairy and meat. It. Why was it recommended? Who ever thought that it was preferable to eat breads and pasta as the main course of your meal and suffer this constant elevated glycemic spike? Well, this is an interesting story. Most of it told by what? This is the way I learned it through Jane Buxton's great book, the Great Plant Based Con. And I'm gonna summarize it for you. But I have many times recommended that you read this book and here is another time. So this is not the only story of how profitable processed foods came to dominate the American diet. But it is a big one. In 1863, a woman named Ellen G. White said that God gave her a message in a vision. And that message was that humans should eat what she called the Garden of Eden diet. By that she meant fruits, nuts, vegetables and seeds. Seeds and no alcohol, no tobacco, no meat, and very little dairy. This was part of the religion she would go out on to found it was the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Did any of you get that right? Anyone in the chat Seventh Day I saw a few. You did. Now, she founded this church in Battle Creek, Michigan. One of the families that would help her establish the church, the dad was a man named John Prestige. John Preston Kellogg. Do you recognize that name? You probably do if you've ever been in an American supermarket. Kellogg had 11 children. One of them, John Harvey Kellogg, as a young man was given a job to typeset the books of Ellen White. And so her Seventh Day Advantage books and her temperance movement were what he would typeset. And back then, this is the 1800s, you had to letter by letter. So he was clearly reading the books and heavily influenced by the temperance movement. The temperance reformers believe that citizens were plagued by disease because of overstimulation and immoral behavior. So they set out to curb these things by abstaining from alcohol and meat processed. I lost my way. I was going to say, oh, okay. By from abstaining from alcohol and meat and practicing sexual restraint and promoting a balance between exercise, rest and cleanliness. They were also very big on preventing masturbation. John Harvey Kellogg also typeset books on that subject too, that told mothers that it was their responsibility to stop their sons from masturbating or else they would suffer from headaches, weak backs, spinal illnesses and blindness. That's where we get that joke that if you do that, you'll go blind. That came from the temperance movements. They literally said this in books. So books about this movement would influence Kellogg and it would become his life's purpose, which motivated him to make these bland tasting cereals and provoke and prescribe a vegetarian diet. By 1882, he had been invented the Corn flake. And by the early 1890s, he would bring it to market with his brother Will. He actually invented more than just breakfast cereal. That was just their most profitable. He had a whole line of pat. He had over 30 patents, including the first veggie burger. Now the question is, Americans at the time were not eating this. Why would they choose to. Why would you want. Why would you want to eat this instead of bacon and eggs that they were eating? Well, a lot of that is because of the Seventh Day Advantage. They had secured appointments within dietary organizations in the government for decades. One of them was Lena Cooper. She was a protege of Kellogg and his wife. The Kellogg's had a cooking school and their students went on to develop nursing schools focused on nutrition. Cooper graduated from one of those and went on to establish the American Dietetic Association. She served as on the staff of the Surgeon General and she created the Department of Dietetics at the National Institute of Health. There are many other Seventh Day Adventists who would then continue to influence the plant based diet. Like this guy Harry Miller. He was also a Seventh Day Adventist and a missionary in China. That's how he came up with the idea of soy milk. Did you know that that that came from a Chinese missionary or an American missionary in China. Now this influence continues all the way through until in 1988 the American Dietary association issued a formal acceptance of vegetarianism. Of the nine reviewers on that board, eight of them were vegetarians, five were Seventh Day Adventists, the other three were vegetarians but not religiously associated. And one was not a vegetarian, but he was funded by cocaine, Coca Cola, and then we get this four years later, the original USDA food pyramid in 1992. Now I'm not saying that the Seventh Day Adventists were the only influence in the government development of that monstrosity. There were other stories to be told, but we know those stories were told them a lot. The sugar lobby, the soda lobby, the seed lobby. Who benefited from that? We know those stories. This one I feel like most of us just really don't like. What about you boys? Did you guys know this about Kellogg's?
I
Yes. I mean I took a nutrition class in college.
D
Like, okay, I watched a documentary.
B
A documentary. Okay, all right, so this is something that maybe some of you know, but some of you might not. Now did you also know though that the Seventh Day Adventists still own quite a few food brands, including Sanitarium, which is the largest cereal producer in Australia. They make Weetabix, you might have heard of this. Australians like to talk about Weetabix. They also make Vegemite, as in he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich. That's what this is. It's made by the Seventh Day Adventists who believe that you shouldn't eat meat because of the temperance movement in the us. They own Worthington which makes plant based sandwich meats and Cedar Lake which makes beans, rice and sugar and coffee. Now most of these companies don't have to pay taxes because they're on their profits because they're owned by a church. The vegetarian diet is still very much out, outwardly promoted by the Seventh Day Advantists. Here's Their website. Now what people may not know, not only in their influence in the American diet, but also in sort of overreaching in all areas of American healthcare because they run large hospital systems still such as the Advent Health which is really big here in Colorado. David, you've seen it, right? These, these Advent Health is one of the biggest health systems that's. Did you know that's owned by the Adventists?
D
I did not.
B
Yes it is. They also run adverse universities, medical schools, research centers, they publish peer reviewed research and nutrition. They have still quite a lot of influence in public health. Now I'm not saying maybe they don't believe this, they probably really do. Right. But this is their, it's their underlying religious philosophy that's influencing their research and products and then is put on the American consumer whether we know it or not. So this is a story worth telling because the Adventist church population is quite so small. It's about 1.2 to 1.3 million members. It's about the size of like Jehovah's Witnesses. It's, it's a small portion of the American population that I estimate that at about 0.4% of Americans. But they have such disproportional influence in dietary decisions in the U.S. government and health care decisions. So you know, it's interesting to know that this is a story worth knowing. When you hear the government pushing vegetarian and grain based diets. Where is that influence coming from? Now RFK Jr has chosen not to do that. And you know what he says is more evidenced based food pyramid. But how do we know that the current food pyramid now is not shaped by profit or ideological pressures? Well, we don't, not with certainty. What we do know is that human beings do require complete proteins, bioavailable fats and essential micronutrients for growth, repair and metabolic function. And this pyramid does clearly have promote those things instead of processed foods. So we can feel better about that. But will there be people who profit from this shift? Well, almost certainly. That's why this scrutiny shouldn't just stop. Because of these new guidelines. We should always be paying attention to who benefits and what power they yield. So let me know what you think of this in the comments. And if this is a story you'd ever heard before, what do you guys think before we move on anything?
I
I just think looking at that, looking at that image, I'm, I'm guessing the money behind it is the chicken and broccoli. Big chicken and broccoli.
B
Big broccoli.
C
Yep.
D
I thought that was a turkey but.
I
Big egg, big, big poultry and big broccoli.
C
That's.
I
Who's in charge on that one.
G
Yeah, one.
D
And the thing is, like, if you look at it like our school lunches and stuff, like back in the day were so unhealthy. And I used to come home from school and eat an entire box of cereal in one sitting.
B
I did too. I don't think I'd eat the whole box, but I would go home and eat cereal.
G
He would.
I
I can. I can. I can attest.
D
Yeah. We as a family went through like 6 gallons of milk a week.
C
Yep.
B
That's a lot. I would, I would.
I
I haven't eaten cereal probably since my daughter was maybe eight or so. I think I'd had some Cheerios, plain Cheerios. So it's probably been 12 years, give or take.
B
Yeah, 13 years. I ate a lot of cereal as a teenager too. It was very much in style. You know, we thought that low. We were. Low fat was our. Was our main concern back in the 90s. Don't eat fat. So I ate Entenmanns and snack well and fat free cookies and, you know, I'm sure. Yeah, I'm surprised I didn't get diabetes and I ate cereal constantly. And then as an adult, I was like, I never want to eat this again. I just was tired of it. That trend was over. And I literally have not bought it since I turned 20. Like, since I became an adult. I've never had it in my house. Never. So, yeah, I'm not one to be sad to see this go. And I point of pride is that I've literally never fed it to my kids. Never. So.
G
Wow.
D
So they've never had the fortune of tasting frankenberry or any of that stuff.
B
I don't know. I think that, like, at camp, people have given it to them or, you know, in certain places that they've gone, you know, people have given it to like there. There was even some places where people gave it out as a snack baggie, I think, on one field trip. And, you know, I'm not saying they've never had cereal. They've never had it, like for breakfast at home.
D
Gotcha. Gotcha.
B
So it's. I'm not like, oh, my God, you must never touch it. I'm sure they're curious and someone give them some and they try it. You know, I don't.
D
What do you think about oatmeal?
B
Oh, no. Oh, same. You're gonna get the same glycemic spike out of oatmeal.
I
So it's funny because I, I, I got like, I was probably somewhere between 10 and 12, somewhere in there, but I was at my grandparents house and they had Fruity Pebbles and I poured a bowl and grabbed the milk and poured it on it.
H
I started eating.
I
I was like, what the hell is going on? And it turned out my grandfather had bought buttermilk and that completely. And so just the flavor of buttermilk and Fruity Pebbles. I still to this day cannot think about fruity cereal. Like any kind of sweet. Like the only cereal I could handle after that was just plain Cheerios flat out. That was it.
B
Well, my mom was a health nut so, you know, she was buying this for us with the best of intentions because the marketing was so good around cereal. Remember the ad, you can't have cookies for breakfast, but you can have cookie crisps. They literally were trying to tell us that you could have hardened cookies for breakfast. But my mom wouldn't buy any of that. She would buy like Cracklin, Oat Bran or Raisin Bran. And you know, it was like, it's the boring stuff. Yeah, it was boring, but I still.
I
I still Grape Nuts.
C
Someone in our chat said you don't get the same glycemic spike from oatmeal, oatmeal that you do with cereal, but oatmeal is just awful for you anyway, right? And oat milk is even worse, right?
B
Yeah. It leeches calcium from your bones.
C
Yeah.
B
I can send you all kinds of. Yeah, it, it's not great.
C
I always want to like, you know, if you're at a coffee shop or something and someone's like, yeah, I want to have this with oat milk. I'm always like, like, why did you do that to your. Especially if you're like a 50 year old woman. Like you want to, yeah. Want to just give yourself osteoporosis while you're doing it.
B
Yeah, Mom.
C
Yeah.
D
When I'm sick, I, I love having oatmeal with whole milk.
C
Whole milk or like putting some of that. Yeah. Brown sugar on top. The only way to eat like oatmeal where actually doesn't taste like you're eating drywall is like to put like some brown sugar on it or something.
D
Brown sugar, maple and walnuts.
G
That's what I like.
B
I, or like I used to make a peanut butter bake with baked oatmeal with peanut butters.
C
But I'm glad, I'm glad we're back though, with butter, with meat, with bacon. You know, it's just like finally Finally. And did you see that study this week? I know Nicholas Holscher, doctor, epidemiologist, was. He posted it this week about LDL and cholesterol. And I think it was an older study from 2021, but it kind of got buried, actually. People weren't talking about it, why your cholesterol needs to be high. But of course, statins and all of the industry that relies on you believing that your cholesterol needs to be so low. Yes, the whole statin.
B
Yes, indeed. And I mean, you study hormones, travel along, your cholesterol is imperative for hormone regulation. And so if you, you know, your body can make some, but you cannot get it from anything other than animal based products. There's no supplement for it. The same thing with heme iron. There's, there's so many, you know, nutrients that we are. That you can get in more abundant qualities from eating meat products than plant products.
D
When are we going to start seeing colostrum flakes on the shelf?
B
Right, Cholesterol flakes.
C
Right. Yeah. Oatmeal. It's actually amazing because if you look at the science on oatmeal, people think, oh, it's good for fat loss, it's good for blood sugar control, heart health, lowering insulin. If you actually study the data, it does the exact opposite. It works against you. It's actually the opposite of that. And there was a video by a doctor this week that was published about, here's what oatmeal looks like in your veins or in your body. And it's just like a, it's a weird sludge.
B
Oh, it's disgusting.
D
Wow. The Quakers in the oat lobby must have been huge, right?
B
My dad, he's, you know, my dad's in his 70s now and he's, he's always trying to improve his health and was telling me about his diet and I was like, well, he's like, I don't need any red meat. As if that was virtuous. And I'm like, no, it's not. So he was the recipient of a long email about this. And so I can't wait to gloat about the new food. Beer.
C
Right? Send it to him. Well, because he, he's still stuck in like that early 1980s paradigm that they were pushing, which is like, again, the cereal, no red meat, no bubbles, no. No eggs. Right.
B
We got a whole separate email about salt. Yeah, yeah. He's like, salt is really bad for you. I'm like, based on what? What, what? Where do you know about that? Well, I know it from A doctor. I've heard it places.
C
Right. And we know how.
E
How.
C
You know, bad the vegan diet is for you as well. I mean, I know you're going to get some people coming after us, but, like, the science is in on it. They can try to obfuscate as much as they want with their own statistics or whatever, but the data is pretty overwhelming.
B
So I think that this pyramid, at least it leaves room. If you want to be a vegetarian, you can. You can sort of cut out. Can we put it back up one more time? You can cut out the top corner if you don't want to eat animal products and still have plenty to eat, if you want to be a vegetarian. But the problem is it's so hard to do it that way because you'd be starving. And so that's why vegans naturally eat so much carbs. It's really hard to do.
C
Yeah.
D
You're missing out on a lot of protein. Like, protein is very important.
I
At the very least, pescatarian, Right?
B
Yeah, yeah. And fat. You're right. Yeah. So, anyhow, let us know what you think of that. Thank you for the chat. We're going to stay a little bit extra time to do our Rumble Premium. What? Do you want to.
C
No, someone's saying oats in your veins. Yeah, I didn't mean veins. Like. Yeah, I was about to comment on that, too.
F
I was like.
I
I was like, clayton, you are doing that wrong.
C
My guy, you are doing that wrong. You're not supposed to mainline oatmeal.
D
Eat oatmeal or anything.
E
I should have.
C
I should have meant in your intestinal tract. But I'm sorry, but someone in the chat was joking and having fun. Says, oats in your veins. Oats in your veins. No, that's not how it works, Earl. Thank you, Jake.
D
Appreciate it, Jake.
B
When I was pregnant with my second, I was like, I. We were eating pizza with hot sauce, and I was like, I can't get enough of this hot sauce. I want to put it in the syringe and just put it in my veins. I was like. Like an addict. Like, I literally thought, can I get it into my veins somehow? Then I was like, maybe I should take a pregnancy test. This is not normal. So there's a name for that. It's like pica, right? When you eat food wrong or you want to eat things that are not food, or you have, like, weird.
C
Yeah, yeah.
I
Typically, it's dirt. It's associated with picas. Associated with eating dirt. Like, pregnant women, for some reason have crave Dirt.
G
But it.
I
But it also encompasses other things.
B
But yeah, yeah, maybe that's what that was. So it's like, I need a syringe of hot sauce right now. So maybe you're pregnant if you want to eat your oatmeal that way.
C
Yeah, that's why.
B
Could be. All right, so we're going to talk to our Rumble Premium members for a bit. If you'd like to stick around, if you don't know what this is, if you'd like to join Rumble Premium, you can do so by joining Rumble. Going to rumble.com/premium. If you use the code redacted, you'll save 10 off and then you'll be a real champion of free speech. Because Rumble is a platform that does not censor. They do not demonetize or down rank or shadow ban. We are super proud to be members of, to be creators for Rumble and along with other voices that we respect, like Glenn Greenwald, who you just saw on this. Look at that.
C
Look at that guy watching Redacted on.
B
His tv and he's like, I like this. I'm learning something from that girl in the red glasses. So we like to thank our. Oh, yes, and him too.
C
What about me?
B
Well, they went to a close up to a single shot of me. Yeah, I'm not leaving you out. What was I saying? So, yeah, we'd like to thank our Rumble Premium members by spending a little extra time with them after our last live show of the week on Thursdays. So if you'd like to join us, please do rumble.com/premium. If we're not going to see you there and you're a YouTuber, totally fine. We will have a live show for you again next Monday and content for you on the channel throughout the weekend. So stay tuned. Thank you so much for staying with us for being patient. I took two sick days. That was a lot. I. I appreciate Clayton for taking the show solo. And we will both be back next week. Bye, everybody.
C
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Hosts: Natali & Clayton Morris
Date: January 9, 2026
Guest Contributors: Lionel (Constitutional Attorney), Ben Freeman (Author, "The Trillion Dollar War Machine"), Prof. Richard Werner (Economist)
This highly charged episode of Redacted News explores a series of urgent and controversial global events with the hosts' trademark skeptical and "black pilled" lens. Key topics include the fallout from a police shooting in Minneapolis and its legal dimensions, President Trump’s announcement of a massive $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget, escalating global tensions hinting at imminent war, and widespread protests by farmers across France and the UK in response to new trade treaties and climate measures. The show closes with a unique, critical look at the history and religious origins of the U.S. food pyramid.
Segment Start: [05:58]
Context:
A woman, Renee Good, was shot and killed during an ICE raid protest in Minneapolis, sparking nationwide outrage and polarized narratives: Right claims she was resisting and endangered officers; Left sees her as a harmless legal observer.
Legal Guest: Lionel (Constitutional Attorney) [07:56] – [25:42]
“It better be excessive. You have to use deadly force. Empty. I’m surprised he only did that.” — Lionel [12:13]
“They are not going to be charged by the federal government. They are not going to be charged by the DOJ, and Minnesota is not going to do it either.” — Lionel [13:12]
Hosts’ Reflection:
Segment Start: [30:34]
Guest: Ben Freeman, author "The Trillion Dollar War Machine"
Segment: [34:23]–[45:27]
Ben’s Critique:
“That’s more than China, Russia, and Iran spend on their militaries combined.” — Ben Freeman [34:56]
“Most of the money... isn’t going to military members... More than half goes to Pentagon contractors.” [37:09]
“When you have a military industrial complex... you have to have wars to justify it. If the world doesn’t look scary, people start to ask questions.” [40:12]
Trump’s Turnabout:
Discussion: [32:27]–[34:23]
Segment Start: [48:12]
Guest: Prof. Richard Werner, economist ("Princes of the Yen")
French Farmers Uprising [49:38]:
Structural Economic Crisis in Europe:
Wider Grassroots Unrest:
Segment Start: [66:03]
The Central Reveal:
Policy Consequences:
“Whoever thought it was preferable to eat breads and pasta as the main course of your meal... that’s a way to get diabetes.” — Natali [68:36]
Recent Shift:
Broader Insight:
Lionel on the ICE Shooting:
Ben Freeman on the Pentagon Budget:
Prof. Werner on EU Policy:
Natali on Food Policy:
Tucker Carlson (as paraphrased):
Redacted continues its commitment to delivering alternative, skepticism-driven narratives on mainstream topics, blending legal expertise with aggressive questioning on government policy and corporate profit motives. The episode warns of coming instability—both in war and in domestic economic terms—while connecting past ideological influences to present-day crises.
For listeners seeking critical, deep-dive analysis on breaking global crises—and a willingness to challenge the accepted narrative—this episode is packed with provocative insights, memorable quotes, and pointed questions about the future.
End of Summary