Join us as we explore the challenges and controversies that define our current socio-political climate. From UFO sightings over the U.S. Capitol to the unyielding debates around BRICS nations and their economic ambitions, Karen Murray delivers insights with candid commentary. The episode further dives into the gross mismanagement of public funds as chronicled in Rand Paul’s Festivus report, bringing to light the dysfunction within government spending, while also advocating for fiscal responsibility and pragmatic governance.
SPEAKER 04 :
Welcome to Shooting the Breeze, brought to you by the team at Franktown Firearms, a family-owned, family-friendly shooting range in Franktown, Colorado. Franktown Firearms offers practical, defensive training, as well as an impressive selection of firearms at the lowest tax rate, so you can develop confidence with your firearm. The team at Franktown Firearms believes the only difference between a beginner and an expert is practice. so they equip you to keep yourself and your family safe in a welcoming atmosphere. And now, here are your hosts of Shooting the Breeze.
SPEAKER 11 :
Hello, hello, hello. Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome to Shooting the Breeze. My name is Karen Murray. I’m the lead instructor at Franktown Firearms, your one-stop shop for all your gun needs. And you guys, if you haven’t been down there in a while, it is time to go check it out. The place has gotten a new facelift and it’s gorgeous inside. You’re not even going to believe it. It doesn’t even look like the same store anymore. So if you haven’t been there in a hot minute, I suggest you go down and check it out. We are located conveniently just east of the intersection of Highway 83 and Highway 86 in Franktown. We can be reached by phone at 720-770-7777. Lots of new great things happening. We got our new sim house that’s opening up for closed quarter battle type scenarios and training. And it’s fantastic. You guys will love that. I’m going to be going down there this evening and doing some training in there myself. I have a class coming up this Saturday. I think it’s December 7th. I’ve got a co-ed concealed carry class that you guys can sign up for by going to the website, franktownfirearms.com, and clicking on the calendar tab. And that calendar tab, you can see all the different dates that are available for training. Click on that date in the class. It will open up a course description, and then you can sign up from there. No prepayment is required at this time for signing up for a class, so you can just go on and sign up, and then you’ll just pay when you get there, so it’s quick and easy. If private training is what you’re all about, if you’d rather, you know, kind of a one-on-one sort of thing and you’d rather not sit in a classroom with a bunch of people, then you can contact me directly for that by email. My email address is karen.murray, M-U-R-R-A-Y, at franktownfirearms.com. and we can just sit down and figure out a date and a time that works for you and get you started, get you started the right way. So we’ve got lots of big things coming at Franktown. You guys need to check it out. You’re going to love it. So I want to start out today hoping, first of all, that everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving with family and friends. Did anyone get up the nerve to go Black Friday shopping? If you did… Good for you because I’m glad that you’re here to listen to this and tell the story about it. I always do. I got this. Remember the show One Day at a Time a long time ago. It was back in the 70s. If you remember, Valerie Bertinelli walked in and she said, now I know why they call it a mall and as in M-A-U-L. That’s kind of how I feel. Personally, I hate Black Friday shopping. I much prefer Cyber Monday, sitting in front of the computer and ordering things and getting free shipping and great prices, and that’s more my bag. My daughter went Black Friday shopping with her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. She left her house at 4 a.m. on Friday for a day full of crowds and traffic and no thank you. She told me that they went to Park Meadows Mall and had to park at the at-home store, which is If you’ve ever been in that area, it’s down like Yosemite and 470. It’s a big, gigantic store with a great big parking lot, but it’s kind of a haul to walk from there all the way to Park Meadows Mall, but they had to park there because there was no parking at the mall. My husband and I actually went down to Canyon City on Thanksgiving morning to finish clearing out my mom’s house of all her belongings. As you know, she passed away in August, and Been slow going, being, you know, an hour and a half away from her house, trying to get things straightened out and going through probate and all that stuff. So that’s been fun. But we needed to kind of take advantage of that time. And we still had a little Thanksgiving dinner. I roasted a chicken and we had some mashed potatoes and beans and whatever. Very simple. But on the way out of town, we stopped at McDonald’s and got some breakfast. I know, I know. Poisoned food. But we hadn’t eaten, and we were kind of in a hurry, so we needed to get some road fuel. So we were stopped at the light to get onto I-25 at Castle Pines Hess Road exit to get onto southbound on I-25. And there was a homeless man standing there, maybe late 20s, early 30s, somewhere around there, standing in the median with a sign that read, thankful for your kindness. Now you guys know how I feel most of the time when it comes to this kind of thing. Usually if I’m being honest, I just feel weird and awkward and uncomfortable when there’s a guy with a sign right outside the car window staring at you. But this time we felt different because it was Thanksgiving. Nobody should be standing on the street begging on Thanksgiving. So as we’re sitting at the light, my husband says, should I give him my orange juice? because he wasn’t going to drink it. He doesn’t really drink juice, carbs and sugar and all that stuff. And I said, yes, absolutely. So he rolled down the window and he asked the guy, do you want this? And he gratefully responded, oh, heck yeah. And he ripped open that straw and stuck that straw in the lid and started sucking down that orange juice like there’s no tomorrow. And my husband rolled up the window. We’re still waiting for the light to change. And he said, should I give him my sandwich? he hadn’t touched it yet. And, and I said, yeah, yeah. I said, I’ll, I’ll share mine with you. So my husband rolls down his window again and asked the man, do you want this sandwich? And the man again, Oh heck yeah. You know, and he thanked my husband profusely and he grabbed that sandwich and he sat down so fast that my husband thought he fell because he just planted himself on the ground and he tore into that sandwich. Like he had never seen food before. And he, You know, sometimes doing things like that just kind of makes you feel good inside. I don’t like seeing people hungry anyway, but on Thanksgiving, it just, it’s worse. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think giving homeless people money is a good idea really in any situation. And I’ve given them food before and they’ve taken it and just like stuck it in their backpack or tossed it down on the ground where they’re planted or whatever. But this guy that we encountered on Thursday was hungry and And if I had known he was going to be there, I probably would have, you know, we would have gotten him an entire meal. So he could have enjoyed his hash browns too, and maybe brought him a blanket and a hot cup of coffee. Cause that’s just, I don’t know. Sometimes it just tugs at the heartstrings a little differently and seeing that guy on Thanksgiving holiday, that’s all about eating and being with family and, you know, being warm in your home. And, you know, this guy’s all alone and cold and hungry. And I don’t know, it was just very sad, but, Anyway, I guess just a little reminder for some people don’t have it all that great. So starting out with shocking news in the political world, Joe Biden has pardoned his son, Hunter. That’s shocking, right? Just totally shocking. From Fox News, quote, on the heels of President Biden’s move to pardon his son, Hunter Biden, several Republican lawmakers highlighted on a post from X earlier this year in which The president had asserted no one is above the law. Representative Tom Emmer from Minnesota and Eli Crane from Arizona both shared Biden’s post and commented, unless your last name is Biden, which obviously that’s the case. Senator Ted Cruz from Texas tweeted, this aged like fine milk, which I thought was really funny. Representative Steve Scalise said that You’ve been lied to every step of the way by this administration and the corrupt Biden family. This is just the latest in their long cover-up scheme. They never play by the same rules they force on everyone else, and it’s disgraceful. So, yeah, it’s something else. And in a statement on Sunday, President Biden noted that he had signed the pardons. He said, quote, from the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with the Justice Department’s decision making. And I kept my word, even as I have watched my son being selectively and unfairly prosecuted, the president said in the statement. The full unconditional pardon the president granted to Hunter covers offenses against the United States with states which he has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 1st, 2014 through December 1st, 2024. So were all of his shenanigans with underage girls before January 1st, 2014? I’m just wondering. President-elect Donald Trump sounded off in a post on Truth Social. He said, quote, Does the pardon given by Joe to Hunter include the J6 hostages who have now been in prison for years? Such an abuse and miscarriage of justice. First son Hunter Biden said Sunday, after his father, President Joe Biden, pardoned him, that he has taken responsibility for his mistakes, which have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport. So he’s saying that it’s all politics. Hunter Biden, 54, was convicted in two separate federal cases earlier this year. He was first found guilty in June on three felony charges for federal gun violations and pleaded guilty in September in a separate felony tax case. He said, quote, I have admitted and taken responsibility for my mistakes during the darkest days of my addiction. Mistakes that have been exploited to publicly humiliate and shame me and my family for political sport, Hunter Biden said in a statement to Fox News. Despite all of this, I have maintained my sobriety for more than five years because of my deep faith and the unwavering love and support of my family and friends. In the throes of addiction, I squandered many opportunities and advantages, he continued. In recovery, we can be given the opportunity to make amends where possible and rebuild our lives if we never take for granted the mercy that we have been afforded. I will never take the clemency I have been given today for granted and will devote the life I have rebuilt to helping those who are still sick and suffering. And here’s what Creepy Joe had to say. From the day I took office, I said I would not interfere with Justice Department’s decision-making, and I’ve kept my word and watched my son. We’ve already gone over that. He said no reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s case can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son, and that is wrong. There has been an effort to break Hunter, who has been five and a half years sober and even in the face of unrelenting attacks and selective prosecution. In trying to break Hunter, they tried to break me, and there’s no reason to believe it will stop here. Enough is enough. The president additionally blamed raw politics for the prosecutions against his son. For my entire career, I have followed a simple principle, just tell the American people the truth. Okay, that’s funny. He said, they’ll be fair minded. Here’s the truth. I believe in justice in the justice system. But as I have wrestled with this, I also believe raw politics has infected this process and it led to a miscarriage of justice. And once I made this decision this weekend, there was no sense in delaying it further. So after all the things that have come out about Hunter’s laptop and its contents, my question is, Has Joe Biden seen Hunter’s laptop? Because clearly what’s on that laptop has no bearing on anything in terms of the things he was prosecuted for. Tax crimes and something for a federal gun background check thing when he was doing drugs and said he wasn’t or whatever. I mean, I know that most of us have seen the laptop. We’ve seen all the pictures of underage girls with a naked or half-naked Hunter smoking crack in the bathtub and very compromising positions with these girls. I mean, when the contents of the laptop were leaked, fairly soon after the computer repair shop handed it over to the FBI, that stuff was leaked out. And I saw it. I saw it very soon. I saw most of the images probably on Telegram and maybe a few other sites. And in looking at it, I was scared that I was going to get in trouble just for looking at what was on my screen. Because it was bad, really bad. So once again, if your last name is Obama, Clinton, or Bush, or Biden, you can get away with just about anything. It’s kind of sickening. So before I go on to my personal favorite cabinet pick, I wanted to address something that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. may have a hand in fixing. I saw this on Facebook this morning, and it should make you think. I mean, I have been guilty of some of this stuff in the past when my daughter was growing up. But looking at this in black and white, it just kind of hits different. It starts out, people need to wake up. Your seven-year-old wakes up exhausted, not because he’s sick, because it’s 6 a.m. You pour him cereal, not because it’s healthy, but because it’s quick. He stares at an iPad, not because it’s good for him, but because you need to get ready. The school calls later. He can’t focus. He can’t sit still. He needs testing. The doctor writes him a prescription, not because your boy is broken, but because the system is. The truth, his brain is fighting. Chemical food dies, sugar crashes, screen addiction, sleep deprivation, natural energy. But we medicate the child instead of fixing the cause. Your grandfather’s kids played outside, ate real food, Slept well, moved freely, no pills needed. Modern parenting isn’t convenience. It’s warfare against your own child. Give him a chance. Clean food, real sleep, free play, natural movement. Don’t give him pills. The system wants patience. Nature made warriors. Choose wisely. And then I added my own kind of twist at the end there. After it says nature made warriors, I would add the system creates soy boy girly men who will forever have low testosterone because of the chemicals in our food supply. So hopefully Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can maybe put a stop to some of these chemicals and get people on the right track to health starting when they’re little kids. Because these sugary cereals and all this stuff, there’s actually an account that I follow on TikTok. And it’s a British guy. I think his name is Josh. And he’s funny, and he’s a good Christian guy. And he comes over to the United States from the U.K. several times a year. And he did a series with his friend called Eating American Foods That Are Banned in the U.K., And so far I’ve seen Twinkies and I’ve seen Pop-Tarts and a couple other things. And they’re just delicious, obviously. You know, you eat them and they taste good and they feel good in your mouth and they’re just fantastic. But they’re all banned, as you know. You know, so many of these chemicals, the red dyes and the yellow dyes and atrazine and glyphosate and all that stuff, they’re all banned in other countries. And why we haven’t followed suit – Why we haven’t led the charge in banning some of these chemicals in the food is just beyond me. You know, the greatest nation in the world, and we’re allowing our citizens to eat poison. It’s just amazing. So the past few shows, I’ve been talking about President-elect Trump’s transition team and his cabinet picks. And over the weekend, he made the best pick by far, by far my favorite pick. And that is his selection for FBI director in Kash Patel. Wow. If you don’t know a lot about Kash Patel, you should. But I know him from kind of probably some alternative media type things. But allow me to fill you in just a little bit on Kash Patel. So Kash Yap is Kash Yap, Yap, Yap. I’m not sure how you say it, but Kash is obviously short for this longer name. P. Patel served as the former Chief of Staff to Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and is responsible for leading the Secretary’s mission at the Department, including his executive staff and providing counsel to the Secretary on all matters concerning the Department’s operations. Previously, Mr. Patel served as the Deputy Assistant to the President. and Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council. In that capacity, Mr. Patel oversaw the execution of several of President Trump’s top priorities, including eliminating ISIS and al-Qaeda leadership, such as al-Baghdadi and Qasem al-Rimi, and the safe repatriation of numerous American hostages. Mr. Patel also served as principal deputy to the acting director of national intelligence, where he oversaw the operations of all 17 intelligence community agencies and provided the president’s daily briefing. Now I know that Trump didn’t always want his briefing, but Patel was there to give it to him. Before joining the national security council, Mr. Patel served as the national security advisor and senior counsel for the house permanent select committee on intelligence. where he spearheaded the investigation into the Russian active measures campaign to influence the 2016 presidential election. Concurrently, he oversaw sensitive programs for the intelligence community and U.S. special operations forces and worked to enact legislation to fully fund the multi-billion dollar budgets supporting intelligence and counterterrorism operations worldwide. Mr. Patel joined the HPSCI following his tenure as a terrorism prosecutor at the Department of Justice, where he led investigations spanning multiple theaters of conflict and oversaw the successful prosecution of criminals aligned with al-Qaeda and ISIS and other terrorist groups. Mr. Patel also served as the DOJ liaison officer to Joint Special Operations Command, where working with our nation’s most prestigious counterterrorism units to conduct collaborative global targeting operations against high-value terrorism targets. Mr. Patel began his career as a public defender, trying scores of complex cases ranging from murder to complex financial crimes in jury trials in the state and federal courts. A native of New York, Mr. Patel completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Richmond before returning to New York to earn his law degree, along with a certificate in international law from University College London Faculty of Laws in the UK. Cash is a lifelong hockey player, coach, and fan. So there you go. I believe Cash Patel is a beast of a pick, and he’s going to do some damage to the deep state. in this new role. I can’t wait to see what happens. So, and as we all know, these things have been sorely needed for a very long time within that corrupt agency. And I’m not saying that everybody in the FBI is corrupt. We know that they’re not, but a lot of the top brass is beyond incorrigible. So now if we can just make it through Christmas and New Year’s and get Trump’s electoral votes certified and get his hand on that Bible to take his oath of office, There’s a lot of ground to cover between now and then. But if all goes well and Trump returns to the White House in one piece, I think we’re going to see some major changes in this country. For example, Trump has warned the BRICS nations, and I’ve talked about BRICS before and what a threat they are to our economy overall, kind of to our nation as a whole. He’s going to be imposing 100 percent tariffs on any of the BRICS alliance countries choosing to not trade in U.S. dollars and or create their own currency. On Truth Social, Trump said this, quote, the idea that the BRICS countries are trying to move away from the dollar while we stand by and watch is over. We require a commitment from these countries that they will neither create a new BRICS currency nor back any other currency to replace the mighty U.S. dollar or they will face 100% tariffs. and should expect to say goodbye to selling into the wonderful U.S. economy. They can go find another sucker. There is no chance that the BRICS will replace the U.S. dollar in international trade, and any country that tries should wave goodbye to America. So I think he means business. On to something totally different is the UFOs. So these UFOs. And talk about UFOs seems to be just flooding the internet right now. It’s all over TikTok. It’s all over Telegram. It’s everywhere. When the extraterrestrials get here and start living among us, do you think they’ll vote Republican or Democrat? And I know that sounds like a ridiculous question, but I mean, they’ll be allowed to vote, right? What makes them any different than the illegals crossing the southern border when they just come in and start setting up shop and hanging out? Are they going to be voting? I guess this is not that far from reality or I guess what’s going to be perceived as reality. It seems some strange lights have appeared over the U.S. Capitol. Maybe you guys have seen this, but it’s sparking concerns that the aliens might be planning something. So last week, I think it was last Friday, Thursday or Friday, four lights seemed to hover directly over the Capitol building in Washington, D.C. And before you say the picture is fake, just know that it was taken by a United States Air Force veteran, and he’s a licensed D.C. tour guide. His name is Dennis Diggins. There was another video on the same night, same time, taken from farther away that kind of confirms Dennis Diggins’ photo that he took. The same four twinkling lights maneuvered from a square pattern to a single line, but they remained above the government building. So some of us who have been down the rabbit hole for a while, we’re already expecting an alien invasion here. A few of us believe it will be authentic. Some people believe it will be staged. That’s kind of where I’m at. Just another distraction from all the other BS that’s going on behind the scenes. So this is all leading up to something. You know it is. So if the aliens do arrive, and when I say aliens, I mean extraterrestrials, maybe Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy can prevent our government from wasting money on them. You know, rather than studying them as a species, we’ll probably have to ask how they identify, inquire about their sexual orientation, and maybe assign them pronouns first. But right now, DOGE, or the Department of Government Efficiency, is focusing on reducing government waste and increasing efficiency. Is there anything in the world less efficient than government? I think not. I think things are about to change drastically in the arena of government corruption and wasteful spending. I remember when I was a kid, and maybe you guys heard this kind of story when you were kids. And by the way, if you guys want to talk about anything, you want to chime in on anything I’ve got to say or anything I’m talking about, you can give us a call at 303-477-5600. I’d love to talk to you about this stuff. But when I was a kid, my parents used to talk about how much money it costs to get a light bulb changed in the U.S. Capitol. And even back then, when you factored in filling out the work order and then having it have to go up through a chain of people to get approval and then back down through the chain to the people who actually do the work, if you want to call changing a light bulb work. And maybe this was metaphoric. I don’t know. But they said it was around $3,000 if you factored everything in and all the people and all the salaries to get a light bulb changed. And it could have been an old wives tale. I don’t know, because people, where’d they arrive at that number at $3,000? I don’t know. I tried to do some research on today’s prices, like, you know, how much does it actually cost to get a fixture replaced or a light bulb replaced or something in one of these government buildings, and I couldn’t find any information. So maybe it was just an old wives’ tale, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest that it would cost that much. So I’m going to share a little bit of Rand Paul’s Festivus report from 2023. I don’t think the report for 2024 is out yet, but Rand Paul is serving on the Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Committee as I’m just going to skim it. I won’t read the whole thing because it’s pretty lengthy. It’s like 25 pages long, but some of this stuff is just infuriating. And just so you know, you can find Rand Paul’s Festivus report at the Homeland Security Governmental Affairs Committee website. It’s hsgac.senate.gov. And in addition, just real quick, I want to add a question. Why do we have to have so many committees? There are so many committees and all these subcommittees. It seems to me that just keeping track of all these committee members requires full-time staffers, which is wasteful in and of itself, but I digress. So I’m going to read a little bit of this Festivus report, which is just, it’s kind of funny. Well, I don’t think it’s funny, but He gives us this little intro, and he’s talking about the last Festivus that we did. So he obviously did one in 2022. He says, we lamented over the national debt reaching an astronomical $30 trillion, and shockingly now it’s $34 trillion. So he says, who is to blame for our crushing level of debt? And he said everybody. This year, so meaning last year, members of both parties in Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling. I’m going to go ahead and take a brief timeout real quick, and I will be back in just a few minutes, and we’ll go over this.
SPEAKER 05 :
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SPEAKER 11 :
And we are back. I’m going to be talking briefly about the Rand Paul Festivus report. But first, I’ve got Jim on the line. What do you got for me today, Jim?
SPEAKER 09 :
Hey, before I get started, so give me your opinion, what you think about Donald Trump and what he said about the BRICS.
SPEAKER 11 :
Well, I think he – I don’t know. I think it’s a big open threat. Because 100% tariffs, that’s a lot. That’s a lot of money. And I don’t know if they’re going to give him the big metal finger and just make their own currency and do what they want to do. I don’t know. I don’t know if it’s a big enough threat to prevent them from going down their own path. What do you think?
SPEAKER 09 :
Okay, here’s where I’m going to go with this, okay? So, well, first off, you know, There’s some people that claim that even if BRICS was to happen, it’s not going to have no effect on this country. I don’t know one way or another. But I can tell you this much I do know, Karen. First off, I think part of the reason why they’re doing this is look what the United States does. Every time that they want to sit there and sanction and go after people, good, bad, indifferent, doesn’t make no difference. First thing they do is they start basically – they can call it whatever they want, but to me it’s straight up it’s theft from our government. And so when this whole war started in – when this war thing started over in Ukraine, they started basically, as far as I’m concerned, stealing all this stuff that belonged to these oligarchs out of Russia and confiscating all this money that was in this country that Russia had in it. This country doesn’t have that right. It doesn’t belong to the United States government. That money was put into private banks and stuff in this country. And this country, flat out, as far as I’m concerned, they don’t have a right to feed this money from these other nations. And I think a lot of nations, from my understanding, a lot of nations, not just the people that are joining up with those BRICS, a lot of nations are starting to… yank their money out of this country, but they’re not wanting U.S. dollars. They’re wanting straight-up gold for their money that they want returned to their nation, scary.
SPEAKER 11 :
Right, and I hope that Trump, you know, something tells me that he’s no different in terms of money and how it’s spent. He was a big money printer. You know that. He printed, you know, he oversaw lots of money printing. So it’s not that he’s this… this fiscal guy that’s going to be responsible and not print any more money and go take us back to a gold standard that’s not going to happen so you know you’ve heard me talk about this stuff before and you’ve also heard me talk about that this country needs a reset we need a big reset and and the bricks nation could hand us that reset kind of involuntarily whatever but That’s what could happen, and I think it needs to happen. People need to wake up to this whole money printing scheme that’s been happening in this debt and the whole thing. So, yeah, I agree. I agree.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, you know, and the thing is, people also have to realize, I mean, this country was not threatening Europe when Europe wanted to go to the European Euro. And Europe doesn’t use the U.S. dollar anymore either.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what BRICS is doing. And you think about the countries that are involved, just the big ones that have the acronym of BRICS, that’s Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Especially Russia and China, those are not economies to sneeze at.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, absolutely not.
SPEAKER 11 :
They’re going to do what they want to do, and they can tell Trump to go pound sand. So we’ll see what happens.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, see, another thing is, Karen, these countries also saw what happened in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was threatening to pull away from the petrodollar. And people can worry whatever they want on that lie, too. And that was all about the petrodollar.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yep, exactly. Yep, they didn’t stand for that. And, of course, 9-11 was a big cover story for that. But, yeah, I got you. I know.
SPEAKER 09 :
You know what I’m saying? And so this country thinks that this – and don’t get me wrong. People, don’t get me wrong. I love my country. But this country has bullied a lot of nations, and now they’re starting to bully nations that are a hell of a lot bigger than us as far as in size. Maybe not monetarily, but in size overall. It’s not exactly like we’re going to walk in to Russia or China like we did in Iraq.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, that’s not happening.
SPEAKER 09 :
No, it’s not going to happen. So I don’t think this threat that Donald Trump’s going to make with them is going to hold water. Because, I mean, this nation right now is walking a fine line with China anyways. And I think You know, China is testing our waters. Do you know that the vast majority of our warships, our aircraft carriers, are not over there in those oceans over there right now?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah. And, you know, and here’s my thinking as well in terms of the whole money thing. So when you have an economy like Russia or an economy like China or even Brazil, they don’t need us. Just like we don’t really need them. They don’t need us. We need them more than they need us, actually, if we’re being honest, especially under this administration. You know, it’s not like Russia and China don’t have their own resources, because they do. And Brazil has lots of natural resources. They’ve got oil. They’ve got meat. They’ve got everything. So, you know, I think it’s just an idle threat. It’s kind of Trump puffing his chest up, you know, trying to maintain the last thread of of any substantial, you know, meaningful thing that our dollar has going for it. Cause it’s, it’s on the downhill slide if you ask me.
SPEAKER 09 :
Right. Hey, then one more thing and I’ll let you go here. Hey, the alien thing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 09 :
I’ll tell you what, that thing gets me all giddy when I start hearing about these aliens. It really does.
SPEAKER 08 :
I’m like, what would this nation in the world do if all of a sudden they actually exposed themselves to us?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, it’s pretty crazy. And, you know, as you know, I’m deep down the rabbit hole. And I’m also a flat earther, as you know. So in my never-to-be-humble opinion, these are not aliens from outer space because, in my opinion, there is no outer space. There’s inner space. There’s, you know, down… They were talking about… And even during the hearings last week or two weeks ago, they were talking about the aliens that they’ve discovered in the water, in the deep oceans and stuff. So… I don’t know. I guess we’ll have to see what happens with all this stuff.
SPEAKER 08 :
Right? Okay, Jay, you have a good day now.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yep, you too, Jim. Thanks. All right. You bet. Bye. Bye-bye. So all this talk about the wasteful government spending and all that, I’m going to talk a little bit about this Rand Paul, the Festivus report from last year. And maybe next week I’ll talk about the report from this year. But for this purpose, I’m going to talk about this last year’s report and use the numbers that he used in this report. So he says the mountain of debt is going to continue to pile ever higher. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that we will add an average of $2 trillion in debt annually for the next decade. The U.S. government will add over $5 billion of debt every single day for the next 10 years. We borrow over $200 million every hour. We borrow $3 million every minute. And we borrow $60,000 every second. This year, he says, I’m highlighting a whopping $900 billion of waste, including an NIH grant to study Russian cats walking on a treadmill. Barbies used as proof of ID for receiving COVID Paycheck Protection Program funds. Remember the PPP? And $6 million to promote tourism in Egypt. And $200 million to struggling artists like Post Malone, Chris Brown, and Lil Wayne. No matter how much money the government has already wasted, politicians keep demanding even more. He goes on, as always, taking the path to fiscal responsibility is often a lonely journey. But as I’ve done in years past, I will continue to fight against government waste this holiday season. So before we get to the feats of strength, it’s time for my airing of spending grievances. He says, I have a lot of problems with federal spending, and now it’s time to hear about them. So there is a list here of just stupid things that the money that was wasted on in 2023. So I already told you about the Barbie doll photos. Now people were taking actual pictures of Barbie dolls and putting them on identifications and sending them in or sending pictures of them in order to acquire those COVID PPP funds. Okay. Which the COVID PPP funds were $800 billion. Okay. So that’s pretty frightening. In the red, there’s another section here. Interest on our national debt is $659 billion annually. Dr. Fauci’s monkey business on NIH’s Monkey Island in South Carolina, I think it is, $33 million annually. The USAID Fund to Boost Egyptian Tourism, $6 million. There was a USDA cutting-edge research on studying the rectal temperatures of walking dogs in the summer and the different colors of the dogs and if it affected the rectal temperature of these dogs out for walks. And nobody knows how much that, but that was a legitimate USDA research. test or a study that they did. Russian cats on a treadmill funded by the NIH. Again, that’s a portion of $2,700,000. The government’s paying dead people. All these social security checks and all this stuff are going out, and that’s $38 million that’s being spent on dead people. The Department of Defense Lobster tank, they spend about $8,400 on that annually. And then so there’s all this stuff about military equipment. So I’m going to go down here a little bit, and I’m going to get to this military equipment and how much money this is wasting, and it will boggle your mind. Let me get to it here. There’s the Russian cats. There’s the dead people. There’s the lobster tank. Okay, how to ruin millions of dollars in military equipment, part one. $89 million worth of engines. He says very sarcastically, I know, let’s store your vehicle engine outside, said no auto mechanic ever. But that’s just where the U.S. Army officials improperly stored 80 gas turbine – is it turbine or turbine – I can never figure that out. I say turbine, so I’m just going to say turbine. Eighty gas turbine engines valued at basically $89 million. Each of the $1.1 million engines were improperly stored for three years. Apparently, the code to properly store the engines was missing upon their arrival, so instead of putting the engines in a covered shed, they were left outside. At $1 million per engine, why couldn’t someone just call and ask for the code and how to store them? So there’s a picture of these engines being stored outside, and I guess the humidity levels were such that it wrecked all the motors. How to ruin millions of dollars in military equipment, part two. $12.6 million worth of transmissions. How much does something have to be worth for the U.S. Army to store it properly? Evidently more than $12.6 million. This time, the Department of Defense Inspector General found the U.S. Army improperly stored 135 hydraulic transmissions valued at $12.6 million outside. Despite the requirement to be stored in a shed, over 1,000 officials told the Inspector General they simply didn’t have room in the shed. So let me get this straight. Can’t we just build sheds to store these? If you’re going to waste them, I mean, you waste money on everything else. How about building an environmentally controlled shed to store these motors, right? I got a caller on the line. What do you got for me?
SPEAKER 07 :
Hey, good morning or good afternoon, Karen. How are you doing?
SPEAKER 11 :
I’m great. How are you?
SPEAKER 07 :
We’re doing well. Hey, I think you’re missing a big one. When Greg Lopez went to Congress to fill in – Ken Buck’s seat, he came back and kind of presented the town hall. He had found over 1,200, he called them zombie programs. These are appropriated programs where the appropriations have run out, yet Congress just automatically continues to fund them. Some of these appropriated programs are from the 1980s. This is 1,200 programs. The total that he came up with was $516 billion a year for programs that are no longer appropriated but are funded.
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, and doesn’t that make you wonder where that money is going then? If these are zombie programs that don’t exist, yeah. I mean, the laundering is just – it’s off the rails.
SPEAKER 07 :
It’s off the charts. Well, what do they say AOC is worth now, $20-some million? And she’s been in Congress how long?
SPEAKER 11 :
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Is it four years now?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yeah, well, four or six, whatever it is. I mean, we have our own good governor – who became a multimillionaire because he had insider trading knowledge about when Obamacare was going to pass, so he invested in health tourism. So it just goes on and on. But I think when you’re looking at the – they’re maddening, but $6 million, that’s like pocket change when you’re talking billions that it’s appropriating. So anyway, that was just about to get that one out there.
SPEAKER 11 :
Good call. Yep, absolutely. I’m going to continue listening and continue hearing about this Festivus stuff and all this because these numbers are staggering.
SPEAKER 07 :
You just want to make me mad all afternoon, right?
SPEAKER 11 :
That’s my job.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right.
SPEAKER 11 :
I appreciate the call. Thank you. You too. So the third and final example until next year, which would be this year, Department of Defense ruining expensive military equipment revolves around military tanks and tank treads. The DOD inspector general cataloged 117,534 vehicular track shoes valued at $68.29 million left outside in the open air. They were not covered or stored properly at all. The IG said over 1,000 military officials did not follow the military’s own guidance on storage. The Bradley, Stryker, and Abrams using soldiers along with the taxpayers that fund their vehicles deserve better. At least we know they’ll be in real military victory. vehicles, not lobster tanks. So that goes, it goes on to talk. There’s pictures and stuff of all these, these treads and things being stored outside. Real fake DHS is graphic novel about disinformation. The cybersecurity infrastructure security agency, the department of Homeland security agency that made itself the arbiter of misinformation during the COVID pandemic created a series of graphic novels called resilience series. to help educate the public about misinformation. There is nothing comical about wasting taxpayer money to justify censorship of constitutionally protected speech. The first in the series was called Real Fake and featured a foreign operation created to spread misinformation about a U.S. senator and impact U.S. elections. Misinformation is not a joke, but it is especially not funny when bureaucrats in the federal government are determining whether what is and isn’t considered misinformation, all under the guise of protecting Americans. And it’s this book. It’s like a comic book kind of format. And then there was another one, COVID novel. COVID disinformation was the other one. So all this money was wasted, and these books were printed about misinformation. And it’s crazy. NIH’s Mess Head Monkeys, and this is all about the – I think it’s, like I said, South Carolina, the White Coat Waste Project, $12 million in NIH grants for that to study the sleeping habits of monkeys given meth in the morning. I mean, really? Stuart, what do you got for me?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, here’s what I want to talk to you about. The last caller before me, I guess, said something about since the 80s is This funding’s been going on, wasted funds. You’ve got to remember that, though. There’s been a lot of Republican congresses and the House is the one that controls the spending. So I don’t like Biden any more than anybody else. And I think Hunter, it’s tragic that he got pardoned by his daddy. But, I mean, that is in the Constitution. The president is allowed to do that. but I don’t like it but anyway but this money stuff I mean the PPP my company participated in it but it was very strict on how we were to log the money and do the accounting on the money in order to maintain the funds and without having any penalty or paying them back and it saved a lot of our businesses because When we didn’t have work for our employees because the government is the one that shut down the economy, not COVID. COVID was a joke. It was a ruse. And it was a scam. And it was all designed to get rid of Trump. And I’ll go to my grave believing that. Absolutely. But what I’m saying is, though, that it saved a lot of heinies and it saved a lot of families. I know it saved – we used to have a bigger company, but – It saved about 40-some employees that we had, and it saved their families so that they could put food on their table by participating in the PPP. And we also participated in the earned income tax credit, and we did get all our money back. Now, people got to remember, though, that the ERTC was based on monies that we’d already paid out as far as earned income tax credits. They were the tax monies that we spent for our employees. Social Security, FICA, and all that good stuff. And we got money back to compensate that. And it was seven quarters out of eight. It wasn’t like a five-year program or anything like that. You picked the seven best quarters that you could find out of a two-year program. And that’s what you got back over time. And it took a long time to get it.
SPEAKER 11 :
Money you already paid.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right.
SPEAKER 11 :
And we did get it back.
SPEAKER 06 :
And I was glad for it because It helped save my bacon as well. But anyway, with that all being said, I agree 99.95% with what you talk about on the radio. I enjoy listening to you. And if I lived closer to Franktown, I would visit your store. I used to ride by it all the time on my Harley in the days when we’d go out to Franktown Canyon before it was a tourist trap. Now it’s, I don’t know what it is now.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, I hear you.
SPEAKER 06 :
But anyway, that’s about all I have. God bless you and hope you had a good turkey day. Yeah, lock and load. Same to you.
SPEAKER 11 :
Never leave home without an extra clip. Magazine. It’s a magazine. Don’t call it a clip. Don’t call it a clip in my presence. All right, I’m sorry. Thanks so much. Thanks for the call.
SPEAKER 10 :
I appreciate it.
SPEAKER 11 :
Bye-bye. So since we’re running low on time, there’s something that I really want to get to, and this goes far beyond any of the wasteful spending. This goes way beyond that. I want you to listen to this piece, and I hope I have enough time to squeeze this in. This is all talking about NGOs and being given exorbitant amounts of money to allegedly protect migrant children. Check this out.
SPEAKER 02 :
So what I’d like to go into, what I’d like to ask Mr. Carroll and anybody else who would like to answer this, can you name some of these NGOs that have specifically taken these hundreds of millions of dollars and not used it to protect these children?
SPEAKER 01 :
Catholic Charities, Lutheran Family Services, Jewish Family Services. I spoke to a gentleman that works in DHS. He actually sends the electronic fund transfers, and I asked him, sir, tell me, who are you responsible for and how much is the largest check you cut? He said, I’m over Jewish Family Services and I cut a check for $600 million and I said, Is that for like three years? And he told me, JJ, get in the game. That’s two or three months and it’s renewable. That’s one NGO. And I say, well, Catholic Charities is bigger than Jewish Family Services. Yes, they get the same or more. You’re talking about billions upon billions of dollars given to NGOs to further the trafficking of all, of everyone crossing the border to include children.
SPEAKER 11 :
So in my opinion, that is sickening and disgusting. And there’s another part of this hearing that I would play, but time is not going to allow. But the voice that you were hearing, Mr. Carroll, he’s actually a former Border Patrol agent, and he authored the book Invaded, the Intentional Destruction of the American Immigration System. So he’s being questioned by Mississippi Representative Mike Ezel, and he’s telling Ezel that these NGOs, you heard them, you heard the names. They’re receiving $600 million every two to three months, and it’s renewable. And these charities, and I use that word with heavy air quotes, get all this money from us. in checks handed out by the Department of Homeland Security, who has to date, might I remind you, lost 500,000 migrant children. Lost. So where is this money going? Who’s spending it? Who’s benefiting from this money? So I’m not going to play the other Tara Rodas, and she’s a whistleblower. She used to be an official with Health and Human Services, and she goes on to talk about how she was trying to You can tell some people about this money and about all the terrible things that are happening to these kids and that they’re being lost and everything else. And she got fired. So all of these charities should be dismantled, gutted, and their leaders should be brought up on federal charges. It’s just absolutely sickening. I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. Trafficking is real. It’s been happening for a very long time. I talk to people about this stuff and I get the dull stare of the dairy cow. They just look at me like I’m nuts. And I’m telling you right now, just look up some of this stuff and you will read all about it. Child Protective Services is probably the number one trafficker in the United States and across the world. It’s absolutely sickening, if you ask me. Another really bright spot, real quick, Walmart has decided to end their DEI policies. So that is a big win for me and for Walmart right now. They’re eliminating everything. Robbie Starbuck has a report out there, sat down with a bunch of brass from Walmart, and they’re going to take a look at what they’ve been doing and rewrite everything, and it’s fantastic. More doing away with DEI. That’s it. Well, that’s going to do it for me today. You guys, thank you so much for tuning in today. Thanks for spending the last 58 minutes with me. I will be back here live next Monday from 2 to 3. Until then, Mama Glock is out for now. Take care, everyone, and God bless.
SPEAKER 04 :
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