B (3:58)
And guys, we're gonna talk about this a little later. But what is so funny to me is that like most of the elections that took place in November, the candidates who won, they ran strongly on the economy and affordability. You know, Mamdani was talking about free this, free that, free childcare, free housing. And Abigail Spanberger did the exact same thing. She ran on affordability. So it's incredibly ironic that, you know, 48 hours after being installed as governor, everything that is happening under her watch is increasing cost for Virginians is raising their taxes. But anyway, moving on from that Fox clip, that is not all. And those are far from being the most extreme measures that they are taking in Virginia because the proposed bills range from, yes, massive tax increases to eliminating the minimum sentencing for crimes like rape, manslaughter and possession of child pornography. Just take a look at this. Democrats in Virginia have introduced a bill to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter, assaulting a law enforcement officer and possession and distribution of child pornography and all repeat violent felonies. And the Virginia politicians who are trying to push this through, the activists who are in support of things like this, they always say that this is just common sense. You know, this ends a one size fits all approach for the judicial system. This is in favor of experienced judges deciding in each individual case. Like, excuse me if I have lived through the last six years and I now do not trust a hyper politicized experienced judge anymore Because I have watched sentencing, I have watched unfair sentencing and I am now in favor of a lot of these minimum sentences, especially in case cases of rape and manslaughter. Somebody said this kind of law is why elderly people get killed or beaten up at San Francisco and the perp gets a few years. Super evil policy. No, Andrew, it's common sense. It's about rehabilitation. You should be in support of that common sense. Now on top of that, and this is just particularly hilarious to me, while all eyes are obviously on Minneapolis and the explosion of Medicaid and Medicare fraud in this country, Virginia decided that they too were going to do something about this because all of their constituents are watching Nick Shirley's videos. They are seeing the testimonies that are happening in Congress. They are going to take action. And so obviously they have decided that they're going to try to make it illegal for anyone in the Virginia government to request verification or proof of eligibility from a non profit receiving state funds. So what that means is that somebody in government, if this passes, will not be able to say, hey, I don't really trust that you have 150 kids in this empty daycare building. Could you show me proof of that? No, no, no. That's oppressive. That's probably racist. We cannot request that. I mean guys, that is not just turning a blind eye. That's not a, you know, oops, we lost some money. That even getting bullied by threats of racism and cowering like they did in Minnesota. This is straight up enabling fraud as a middle finger to Republicans. And it really does seem like they want to usher in fraud in many ways. Like another bill that they are proposing would prohibit the hand counting of election ballots for any reason. Not at all. Decoy, who has a great YouTube channel by the way. I love his stuff. He commented under this post and he said can't convince me that this is for any reason other than fraud. Yeah, I mean it reminds me how fraudulent everything in our country is, even down to the cell phone companies. But not my friends over at peertalk. Now do you know what Pure Talk' holiday is? It's President's Day because they believe that stellar wireless service should only cost you a Jackson and a Lincoln for just 25 bucks a month. 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I am not having to drive an hour each way for appointments or sitting in dirty waiting rooms with a newborn. They came to me, I got my results and the care team was able to walk me through everything virtually. It has made prioritizing my health actually doable postpartum instead of just another thing on my New Year's to do list. So if that sounds like something that you need, head over to goevity.com BrettCooper and use code Brett for 20% off that is G-O G-E-V-I T-I.com BrettCooper code Brett for 20% off to your health today. Now back to the story and the fraud that Virginia is obviously trying to enable. Somebody else commented and said makes any serious audit of an election process nearly impossible. Well I think that's probably kind of the point. You know, like let's not count ballots, let's not verify where our tax dollars are going. It'll be great guys. And the Republicans are going to be so mad, which is why they're doing it. I mean in their minds I'm sure they're thinking, well there can't be any fraud if we're not tracking anything to begin with. Just like we can't have issues with our education system when we are just handing out high school diplomas to non passing students. And no, that's not something that I am just making up. That is another bill that they are proposing removing normal standards that are inhibiting students from graduating. And obviously this is being done to promote more equity so that we can have more graduates. And it's just so ridiculous. Like rather than trying to address our failing education system, rather than addressing the fact that tens of thousands of students in every major city are leaving the public schools in favor of private schools and homeschooling and co ops. Rather than addressing what's going on there. Let's blame homeschoolers, let's tell parents that homeschooling is actually abusive and let's make it easier for non passing students in this failing education system to get diplomas. Doesn't really make sense to me. I'm not going to waste your time showing you each and every piece of proposed legislation. So let's just kind of go through and read this summary and prepare to be mind blown. This is from that same account, Christian Hinds. I'm gonna reference him a lot in this episode cause he's been reporting on this a lot. But he said here is what Virginia Democrats have introduced so far. This list is truly insane. Automatic restoration of voting rights for felons after they're released from prison and the mentally handicapped Allows for votes to be cast electronically through the Internet Public funding of political campaigns at the local level Abolishes all mandatory minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter, assaulting a law enforcement officer, possession and the distribution of child pornography and all repeat violent felonies. Makes it harder for judges to deny bail even in the cases of things like aggravated assault, armed robbery and drug trafficking Gifts convicted murderers, rapists and and terrorists A chance to get out of prison early Drastically reduces the criminal penalty for robbery Bars prosecutors from mentioning a criminal's prior convictions during the guilt phase of a trial even if it's for the same crime Reduces the amount of time that the Commonwealth can compel a convicted criminal to pay court fees from 60 years to 10 taxpayer funding for transgender surgeries Bans most discretionary state contracting under $10,000 from going to businesses owned by white men in favor of women or minority owned firms Abolishes all Confederate themed license plates Eliminates the tax exempt status for all Confederate history groups Renames Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples Day Makes it illegal to approach within 8ft of somebody within 40ft of an abortion clinic enshrines a leftist narrative about January 6th and teaches it in public schools Allows localities to adopt rent control measures Increases the sales tax in Northern Virginia Allows localities to outlaw gas powered leaf blowers Imposes a new personal property tax on electric powered lawn vehicles Limits the ability to use self driving or autonomous vehicles Assault weapons ban Strips gun rights for anyone convicted of a misdemeanor or hate crime Makes it illegal to shoot a firearm on lot sizes less than 5 acres even if you own that 5 acres. Trinks concealed carry Holds firearm manufacturers liable for gun Deaths imposes an 11% sales tax on all firearms ammunition imposes a $500 sales tax on firearm suppressors Dramatically raises the physical requirements to operate a firearm store Makes it harder to obtain a concealed carry permit Creates a new taxpayer funded state propaganda center for the sole purpose of promoting gun control Establishes the state Propaganda Commission to publicize the supposed negative impacts of ICE raids in Virginia Creates a state mandated playbook on how schools must respond to ICE showing up on their campus and ban school employees from assisting ICE Unlimited tax barefooted home purchases for government employees Mandates mental health screenings for all public school students between 6th and 12th grade drastically curtails homeschool and private school independence from the Virginia Department of Education Raises the salary of school board chairs and vice chairs. Free public school education for illegal aliens of course lets students graduate high school despite failing grades Eliminates nearly all academic Benchmarks for college students to continue receiving federal aid, mandates all localities to adopt an environmental justice plan. Mandates, unconscious racial bias trainings for nurses to retain their license. I'm tired. I just read off so much. I don't even know if we're gonna be able to include all of that in this episode. Like, I kind of feel a little lightheaded after going through all of that. And guys, all of this has happened in mere days. And what is even more egregious on top of all of this is that, yes, there was a blue wave in Virginia, but here's the thing. Abigail Spanberger was hailed by the media and by her own campaign as being the moderate candidate. They went out to voters who were not paying attention, who are not, you know, doom scrolling on X every single day like most of us. And they said, look here, this is a moderate. This is a centrist Democrat. An anti Momdani. Yes, that is a headline that was featured on her campaign website from a Wall Street Journal article. Her being the anti momdani. And that article talks about how she thinks that this leftist extremism, that it's a distraction, that it's not healthy for the Democrat Party. She is bipartisan. She pushes back on Joe Biden. She is not crazy like the Mamdanis of the world. So people vote her in. They think that they are maybe getting the Democrat equivalent of Glenn Youngkin, who was a more moderate Republican. The Dems take that trifecta of power and bo, welcome to Cala, Virginia. It is like. It honestly is incredibly impressive, the rug that they pulled over the eyes of so many Virginians. And like all of this should be like alarm bells going off for Republicans everywhere. And I think that this is going to force people to reckon with very significant ideological questions. It certainly has for me. Democrats, they wield power because they love authority. They aren't shy about that. The politicians, the voters, they want government involvement and intervention in everything. It does not matter if it is overseas or in their bedroom. They are happy, happy having the government intervene. Now, Republican and conservative and libertarian voters, by and large, we want limited government. We do not want the government meddling in our businesses or our home lives, our families. Like the less legislation, the better in our books. And I think a lot of us, including me, we pride ourselves on being so consistent on that front. And that is important and that is a good thing. But I think that the question that we are forced to address right now, how does that kind of consistency work out for us in the end when our opponent is the modern left when we are dealing with literal Democratic socialists, people who love the warmth of collectivism, literal authority, authoritarians, people who pride themselves on that. Now, that same account who posted that apocalyptic rundown of all the proposed bills said conservatives treat power as inherently illegitimate, while leftistry power as the mechanism by which reality is made. And we wonder why one side never wins while the other seemingly cannot lose. And this is what so many people wanted and hoped for Trump to combat, that he would come in and he would wield power in ways Republicans had been too afraid or unwilling to do because he knows that the threat is so severe. He was in office before he was able to take time off. He knows what he's fighting against. He was gonna come back and he was gonna do it the right way. And obviously he has done a lot looking at the last 12 months, especially through those executive orders at the top of his term. But again, if our Congress, if our Republican majority cannot even codify those, then we are back to where we started in a lot of ways. And I think that that is why a lot of Trump voters are getting restless, why they are frustrated, why Trump himself obviously seems very frustrated by the state of the country. In another post, that same user Christian said, those who are afraid of power will inevitably be ruled by those who are addicted to it. And I kind of talked about the same idea last week when we were talking about James Fishback and the onlyfans sin tax that he is proposing. And again, we can and should be consistent. But I think you have to merge that consistency, that philosophical consistency with a healthy dose of reality, with the political landscape that we are currently living in. Because as just one example, we have conservatives, you know, clutching their pearls over whether we should tax something that we almost objectively deem as a net balance society. Meanwhile, we are watching these libs who got into power 48 hours ago. Banning assault weapons, holding gun manufacturers liable for gun deaths, imposing taxes on the purchase of firearms and ammunition, funding transgender surgeries through tax dollars within 48 hours. Not looking back in the slide. It's not wondering if Republicans would do the same thing to them when they got into power. They're probably going, hey, we can do this because the Republicans will do nothing. Now, taking account of my values and what I believe, I would prefer that no taxes were raised. I would prefer that none of that that we just discussed were taxed. I would prefer that we were not using of our hard earned tax dollars for our neighbors elective medical procedures. But that is simply not the world that we live in. And that is what I personally am really having to think about. So, because that's our reality, what are we gonna do about it? Are we gonna sit around and complain? Are we gonna tweet about it? It's funny. I posted something on my Instagram story a couple of days ago and it was this guy on TikTok and he was making a joke and he was like, this is what the Democrats are doing about ice. And it was like, don't. Stop that. F off. Don't do that. I mocked that and I put it on my Instagram story. And then a couple of hours later I was looking at it and I was like, Republicans kind of do the exact same thing, sit behind microphones, tweet about it, and not codify anything that Trump is trying to do. And I guess the benefit here is that you can argue that we are consistent, we are fair, we are balanced, maybe more moderate like the former Governor Youngkin was, but that just results in us getting walked over time and time again. So I guess we have to wonder, is this going to be the wake up call the Republicans really need for the midterms? I guess we'll see.
