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Join John Rush as he hosts Richard Battle to dissect the intricacies of government shutdowns. They reflect on historical instances and contemplate the current political atmosphere that fosters careless fiscal practices. Richard shares his candid insights about the inefficiencies and lack of accountability that plague federal budgets. The dialogue extends into how technological advancements like AI could streamline governmental operations. With proficiency, the hosts illuminate how out-of-control spending is a barrier to efficient governance and propose potential solutions that realign priorities to better serve the taxpayer. Listen in for a conversation grounded in practical wisdom and future-forward thinking.
SPEAKER 07 :
This is Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 05 :
You are going to shut your damn yapper and listen for a change because I got you begged, sweetheart. You want to take the easy way out because you’re scared. And you’re scared because if you try and fail, there’s only you to blame. Let me break this down for you. Life is scary. Get used to it. There are no magical fixes.
SPEAKER 04 :
With your host, John Rush.
SPEAKER 05 :
My advice to you is to do what your parents did. Get a job first. You haven’t made everybody equal. You’ve made them the same, and there’s a big difference.
SPEAKER 15 :
Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there. It is this feeling that has brought you to me.
SPEAKER 04 :
Are you crazy? Am I? Or am I so sane that you just blew your mind?
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s Rush to Reason with your host, John Rush. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating, and Cooling, where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 18 :
And it’s hour two, Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Richard Battle joining us now as he does here on Wednesdays. Richard, welcome, sir.
SPEAKER 09 :
Good afternoon, John. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s always a joy. I appreciate you joining us. And as we head down the stretch, I should say, into the holiday season, winding things down for the year, it has gone. This past year, Richard, all I can say is it has gone by super fast.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, it’s gone by super fast in this last month. I think people’s optimism levels are higher than they’ve been in a long time.
SPEAKER 18 :
I agree. All right, let’s talk about potential government shutdowns, or shutdown, I should say, lions, tigers, and bears. Oh, my.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, we remember that from The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her friends were going toward the Emerald City, how they would sing that song because they were afraid of the wild animals. And December 20th, government funding ends, and so we’re ahead of the game talking about this because in the next week or so, we’re going to be scared about what will happen if the government has to shut down even for a minute, and we’ll be stampeded into okaying our elected officials and throwing more money away.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah. And the reality, Richard, is and we’ve seen, you know, temporary shutdowns in the past. And of course, they still keep essential services going, but they will, you know, frankly, by the way, when we had the last one, it’s like, what what are we missing here? Because I’ll be the first to tell you, Richard, that I didn’t see anything that we were missing, telling you that we have, in my opinion, far too many non-essential government workers.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, that is correct. We’ve had 21 going back to Gerald Ford. The longest one was the last one with President Trump of 34 days. And what frosts my cake is that every time it’s over, the employees are paid all of the back pay for the time off, despite that being the number one thing they scare people about is the poor federal employees are going to lose their income. They always are paid.
SPEAKER 18 :
That’s right. In fact, they get paid basically a nice vacation.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s exactly correct. And what also happens on this is that they use this to spend equal or greater money. And we’ve not gone back and cut any of the spending whatsoever during this. We’ve not had a budget passed since 1997, which is why we have to do this. And it basically gives politicians from both sides of the aisle permission to spend more money than they would in a normal budget cycle.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yeah, they sort of, Richard, quote, unquote, sometimes I don’t even know if it’s slipping them in. They’re just downright, if we’re going to do X, then I want Y. And they’re very upfront about it. And at the end of the day, to your point, we don’t go back and ever adjust those things or fix them. And sometimes those end up being perpetual things that we just keep spending money on. That’s part of our problem. And hopefully what the Department of Doge will fix is some of these things that we keep spending money on that we never should have started in the first place.
SPEAKER 09 :
That’s exactly correct. And there’s no excuse in the next two years for us not to go back to regular budgets for the Doge people to come in and cut spending. Right now, only 6%. of the federal government employees are back working full-time in the office. And there’s going to be pressure to get them back.
SPEAKER 18 :
Okay, stop it. How many? Six percent?
SPEAKER 09 :
Six percent are only working full-time in the office. And there’ll be a lot of crying in the media about how bad it is to force people to go back into the office, into jobs where they had to work in the office before COVID. But now these people have moved to different parts of the country that are more enjoyable than where their office is. And I know in the Austin area, people are moving back to cities in corporate America, and that’s causing a downturn in the real estate market.
SPEAKER 18 :
You are correct. In fact, one of the things I have said here for the past couple of weeks, Richard, is when it comes to, you know, minimizing some of our government expenses and maybe figuring out a way to do, you know, more with less employees and so on, you know, get AI on our side and streamline some of the, you know, really the antiquated technologies that government uses, IRS still using computer, you know, computer programs and computers from the 60s is interesting. ridiculous. But one of the best ways to minimize some of that is, frankly, do what you just said, move the main office somewhere else and, frankly, put it in a place where, you know, nothing against you in Texas, Richard, but there’s a lot of Washington, D.C. workers that in the Department of Energy probably don’t want to live in the panhandle of Texas called Midland.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I think you’re correct. And I think President Trump is looking at and planning to try to distribute some of that federal workforce across the country what survives the doge operation and i’ll give you an example i have to apply for copyrights with the government for the books that i write and the latest book it’s taken seven months and i had to email them twice asking them what was going on they finally said it was approved and then here’s the catch you’ll get your certificate in four to eight weeks Wow. After approval.
SPEAKER 18 :
And Richard, on this one, this is a great example. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I want to stop for a moment because I think you just gave a great example of where I feel AI and technology, what you just gave as an example, should be an employee-less transaction that AI could do for government where maybe there’s an official that has the final stamp of approval before it gets mailed or something along those lines, but the reality, Richard, is… Not a single hand should have to touch that. Not a single eye should have to look at it.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, there’s a lot of opportunity throughout the government for things like that. But you have to remember also that we have more unionized government employees than we ever have before. And so we’ve basically set up a process that’s going to make it much more difficult to downsize or right-size the government. and we’re going to have to get people that will accept transfers from one place to the other, and I I hope that we can amend some of the civil service rules as well during this.
SPEAKER 18 :
Well, frankly, Richard, one of the things, and I’ve talked about this for years, one of the first things that need to happen federally and, frankly, needs to happen on the state level as well, people that I am paying as a taxpayer on my payroll should not be able to unionize. They are federal workers, and there should not be any form of unions when it comes to government workers, in my opinion.
SPEAKER 09 :
Well, I’m on the same song sheet with you on that, and If we can accomplish that, it will be a great piece of progress for slimming down the government we have. And we also have the issue, and this is part of the shutdown issue, that they have to spend their money each budget year so they can get more money. And the Congress has basically abdicated their appropriation process where they go to a baseline budget instead of a zero-based budget like most companies use. And so if they’re spending $100 this year, next year they’ll spend automatically $108. And if you try to cut it to $107, then the media and government employees scream about cuts. And so we need to move them as part of this process to zero-based budgeting where cuts are cuts. and increases are still increases, so we know what we’re getting.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep, that’s exactly right. And again, lots of things, Richard, that’ll have to be addressed. Hopefully, in these first two years, we can address some of those things. And for all of you listening… As you said a moment ago, Richard, the media is going to hype up everything to make it sound like, you know, we’re in dire straits and there’s no way we’re going to ever come out of this and people are going to lose their jobs. It’s going to be awful and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. The reality is they are going to hype that. And we, especially myself in media, are going to have to do our very best to counter that.
SPEAKER 09 :
You’re correct. And the government never takes a pay cut. The politicians never suffer any recourse, but yet we, if we’re having an issue and our income is lowered, we have to reduce expenses. The government expects to never reduce expenses, and we have to get them to thinking differently and get them to thinking more like regular citizens who have to manage that money better and appreciate it. As I’ve said for a long time, the taxpayers, the last constituent considered in any legislation, and we need to move the taxpayer to the front of line.
SPEAKER 18 :
Yep, you are exactly right. Richard, I hope that we get to see some of that. That is what I, especially as a business owner, very hopeful for, that we get some of those things done, because government has literally run amok. It’s out of control. There are people, to your point a moment ago, on payroll that probably haven’t been in the office in years now, and a lot of things need changed.
SPEAKER 09 :
Absolutely, and I look forward to change. You and I both.
SPEAKER 18 :
We’re going to turn the page. All right, as folks are heading down into this holiday stretch and they’re looking for some great gift ideas, talk about your website and what you have there.
SPEAKER 09 :
Oh, thank you so much. RichardBattle.com is the website. The latest book, which is really getting a lot of attention for gifts, is Americans Who Made America, 18th Century Birth of the Republic. I profile 40 people from the 18th century. Some you’ll know, some you won’t. They will all inspire you, make you have a greater love for your country, inspire you to live your richest life. And it’s a great gift idea for young adults. And if you email me, richard at richardbattle.com, after ordering, I’m happy to inscribe gift.com. copies on that, and all books are signed at richardbattle.com.
SPEAKER 18 :
Awesome. Richard, as always, I appreciate you. We’ll talk again next week. My pleasure. God bless America. God bless you, Richard. Have a great rest of your evening. Roof Savers of Colorado is next. And again, we get some of these days like even today in between storms. Dave can come out and do roof inspections and even do some repairs. In fact, depending upon the weather, can even do the replacement or the treatment of. So give Dave a call today. Roof Savers of Colorado. He’s there to help you. And by the way, he’ll help you with the insurance sides of things as well if needed. 303-710-6916.
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SPEAKER 04 :
Putting reason into your afternoon drive, this is John Rush. We are back.
SPEAKER 10 :
Joe, what’s going on today, sir? John, just to follow up on Richard Battle’s comments about bloated government, I’ve got some data on the U.S. Post Office over the last 10 years, starting in 2014. Any idea what’s happened to the volume of U.S. mail in the past 10 years?
SPEAKER 18 :
I know it’s gone down.
SPEAKER 10 :
How about by 30%? It went from 155 billion pieces. I’m not shocked.
SPEAKER 18 :
And for all of you listening, the reason for that is, and even I as a business coach, Joe, even advise my clients that there’s but a few exceptions where I think a mailer might actually be worth doing. But otherwise, don’t waste your money. Don’t waste your time. There’s other ways to reach people. And even mailing bills and things along those lines, Joe, most everything is done now automatically with auto payments and the like, and you’re just not sending stuff anymore.
SPEAKER 10 :
Yeah, my electric bill, my garbage bill, my water bill.
SPEAKER 18 :
Joe, I don’t – rarely, rarely do I put – the first letter I’ve mailed in the last couple of months was I had to renew a license plate for one of my old cars, and I had to do it either in person or by mail with a check. I could not do it online. That’s government for you, Joe.
SPEAKER 10 :
I bought a roll of stamps in January. I still have half a roll left. Exactly.
SPEAKER 18 :
Exactly.
SPEAKER 10 :
So anyway, so in 2014, there were 155 billion pieces of mail handled. Last year, there were 116 billion. That’s a 30% decline. Now, and there’s been a small increase in package volume, 3 billion. By the way, have you seen, and there’s been literally tens of billions invested in automation. Have you seen these new package sorting centers, these automated package sortings?
SPEAKER 18 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 10 :
They’re as big as a football field. And it’s all, nobody touches the package. Well, I mean, yeah, they have somebody to load them on.
SPEAKER 08 :
Barely.
SPEAKER 10 :
But they load them on. Once they go on, the barcode readers scan them. They travel down these chutes, which are then these conveyors, which are high-speed conveyors, which are collectively over a mile long. But at every given spot, they have like a collection basket that says, oh, you’re going to Lakewood. Boom. And it shoots that back. It diverts it into a basket for Lakewood. Or if you’re going to, oh, you’re in Aurora, diverts it up. So anyway, so they’ve So the volume of mail is down by 30%. They spent tens of billions of dollars in automation. You know what’s happened to the number of employees? Up. By 50,000.
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s gone from… I saw some of the interviews on Capitol Hill about that, Joe, and the excuses for the hiring is laughable.
SPEAKER 10 :
It is. I mean, if you’re going to have a 30% decline in what you’re handling, and you’re going to spend tens of billions… on automation, why do you need another 50,000 people?
SPEAKER 18 :
And by the way, that was the questions that were asked on Capitol Hill that the postmaster, I believe, just, if I’m not mistaken, Joe, covered his ears for.
SPEAKER 10 :
I think his name is DeJoy. DeJoy.
SPEAKER 18 :
He just covered it. And I’m not joking. He literally covered his ears because he was tired of the darts that were getting thrown his way. Let’s just say it that way.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, I have to say, you know, it’s…
SPEAKER 18 :
And by the way, Joe, his excuse was, this is what I was mandated to do when I got hired. Wrong answer, pal.
SPEAKER 10 :
Wrong answer. Oh, and by the way, despite the fact that Congress relieved them of the ability to accrue for their pension and medical, they still lost $6 billion. Jeez. But let me tell you why that $6 billion is a phony number. Private businesses that still have a defined pension or defined benefit plan, they’re saying, hey, you’ve just incurred a cost. Now, you don’t have to pay that cost for 15 years, but it’s a cost associated with this person’s weekly pay. It’s a liability. It’s a liability. Therefore, you have to book that liability. It’s supposed to. It has a cost this year.
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s supposed to.
SPEAKER 10 :
Well, right. Congress last year – Led by Democrats two years ago, Democrats said, no, no, you no longer have to accrue.
SPEAKER 18 :
Oh, these are guys that don’t understand basic accounting principles, you mean.
SPEAKER 10 :
Right. Don’t understand basic accounting. Or maybe they do, but don’t want to. So despite the fact that they’ve relieved the U.S. Postal Service of the requirement to account for all of their costs, and all of their costs includes their pension and medical for their retirees, they’re still losing $6 billion, even though they’re under account. underreporting or not accounting for the pension and benefit liabilities that are accruing every day. Every day, the post office is accruing liabilities that have to be paid in the future, and they’re not accounting for it.
SPEAKER 18 :
And yet, if there was a company on Wall Street, by the way, that did something similar, they would be brought before Capitol Hill and questioned on that.
SPEAKER 10 :
In fact, John, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the term ERISA.
SPEAKER 18 :
Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER 10 :
The Employee Retirement Security Income Act. What used to happen is people used to come in and buy companies. Companies used to bank their own pension funds for their employees. And then they’d run out of money, and the company would go bankrupt, and the employees would get… So in 1974, Congress passed the ERISA Act that says, hey, if you have any sort of defined benefit plan, you have to put that money… into a trust account administered by a third party, and every year you have to have a third-party accounting firm verify that the amount of money in that account to pay future pensions is adequate, and if not, you’ll have to cough up the money now, this year, to bring that pension and benefit account up to where it needs to be, which, by the way, doesn’t apply to PERA. PERA is exempt, but all private corporations, if they have a defined benefit plan, are required under ERISA, 1974 Act, to literally not just account for, they have to account for and bank the money in a third party. Post office doesn’t do either one of those. Post office is not accounting for it, and they’re not banking the money. So as more and more postal employees retire, and they’re living, and we all know because of advances in medical and medicine, they’re living longer and longer. All they’ve done is kick the can down the road, John, and the annual deficit of the post office is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
SPEAKER 18 :
Real quick, I’ve got a texter that actually threw something my way, and they were surprised you hadn’t called in on this yet, and yet I answered back as to, I believe, why. And that is right now this story coming out of the – it’s coming out of Capitol Hill, but it’s about the East Coast and the quote-unquote – and I put air quotes around this, folks, because I can’t verify this, and I’m not going to repeat something I can’t verify, but some Iranian ship that is sending drones – over the East Coast, and there’s a particular politician back there, I don’t even know the person’s name, that claimed this is what was going on. Right now, for all of you listening, there’s been really no solid proof that that, in fact, is the case. Now, what are these drones doing, and why don’t we have more answers coming out of our own government? That’s a whole other question, Joe. But do I personally believe there’s an Iranian ship off the East Coast that’s doing this? Frankly, Joe, I doubt it. I highly doubt that. So, no, I don’t think that part’s true.
SPEAKER 10 :
No, yes, we have one wackadoodle state senator who was on the news saying, well, I have information that there’s an Iranian drone ship left port, you know, six weeks ago, and that ship is now anchored off the coast of New Jersey, and that’s where these drones are originating from. Nobody’s been able to validate or verify. This guy’s basically repeating Internet rumors as well.
SPEAKER 18 :
He’s been listening to Alex Jones.
SPEAKER 10 :
Listen to Alex Jones, so no credibility whatsoever.
SPEAKER 18 :
Sorry, Alex, but anyways.
SPEAKER 10 :
All right. He made the evening news.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, Joe, appreciate you, man, and thanks for verifying that also.
SPEAKER 10 :
You’re welcome, John.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, man, talk to you soon. Yeah, I wasn’t going to spend a lot of time talking about that, but since somebody texted and asked, I thought I’d go ahead and mention that. And for those of you, please, I say this all the time. that are on social media, that like to post things to Facebook or Instagram or X or whatever it is. And some of you are listening to me right now. In this case, don’t. Don’t. Don’t fall into that trap. It’s not verifiable. As Joe just said a moment ago, he gave the explanation as to where that story is coming from. There has been absolutely no valid proof right now that that’s what’s happened. And I’m one of those to where until there is… I’m not buying it. So please, if you’re somebody listening to me or you know somebody that will go down these conspiracy theory rabbit holes and will then post these things, please, for the love of God, don’t. You make us on our side look like loonies when you do. So please don’t post anything about that online. Because it’s frankly, at this point, unprovable. And until it is, don’t post anything about it. Bruce Simmons is next. What I can guarantee you of is that Bruce Simmons is our expert when it comes to reverse mortgages. They are right for some. They’re not right for all. Find out if it is for you. Just call Bruce today. Find him at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 13 :
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SPEAKER 18 :
All right, Golden Eagle Financial. We heard from Al, by the way, at the top of the 3 o’clock hour. Make sure you’ve got your end-of-the-year finances dialed in. Talk to Al today. Find him at klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 13 :
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SPEAKER 18 :
All right, Michael Bailey Law, he’s our mobile estate planner, and he is booked for this year. So that’s one of those things where if you’re going to get that done by the end of the year, you can’t. But my suggestion is get that done early in 2025, and Michael can do that for you. Make an appointment today. Just go to klzradio.com.
SPEAKER 03 :
Your ghost of Christmas past is you haven’t gotten that estate plan done. And with KLZ’s mobile estate planner, Michael Bailey, here to help you, it’s going to be okay. Some of us also worry about what will happen in the future. You can deal with that ghost of Christmas future too. Get started on your estate plan now with Michael Bailey so you don’t have to worry about the past or the future. Ebenezer Scrooge learned how to change his ways in the present, and you can decide to make changes too. Taking care of a will or estate plan in the present means you don’t have to worry. It frees up the future to be whatever you want it to be. You can have happiness, peace, joy, love, although probably not from your estate plan, but at least you will have peace of mind knowing it’s done. Let your, I should have already done this, fears and worries go. No judgment here. Just call our mobile estate planner, Michael Bailey, at 720-730-7274. Or go to klz.com and our advertiser page. Now, back to Rush to Reason. Presented by High Five Plumbing, Heating and Cooling. Where every call ends with a high five.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, we are back. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560. Sonny Kutcher joining us now from Young Americans Against Socialism. Sonny, welcome.
SPEAKER 17 :
Hello. How are you doing today?
SPEAKER 18 :
Always great. Always great to hear from you as well. And this, what you sent me and the story that we’re going, or I should say the topic that we’re going to talk about today, I have followed pretty closely since its inception. And for a lot of you that are listening that aren’t in the business world, you may not have followed this at all. It may not be a big issue. But for those that are in business, this has been a big deal. And that is the corporate technology. transparency act and beneficial ownership reporting requirements. That’s a mouthful, but that’s something sunny that was passed and set into motion. I want to say over a year ago, and it may not actually be going the way that government wants. Let’s just say it that way.
SPEAKER 17 :
Absolutely. This will be a continuing saga, especially to the end of the year. So I think that they started this January 1st, 2024 to the beginning of this year and, The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network began accepting, like you said, beneficial ownership information reports. I think about six and a half million companies or entities have reported this information that the government was requesting. But it does affect over 32 million other businesses that are out there. And so these reports were due by January 1st of 2025. And, you know, the national I think the National Federation of Independent Business was working on this lawsuit to stop this reporting requirement and to not allow a fine to be to penalize small business owners. So what they were what they were asking for is is This seems like government overreach. Of course, the Corporate Transparency Act, so that’s the act through Congress that this was passed under, and the BOI, the Beneficial Ownership Information, is a report within that act that would require this report, obviously, from small business owners. And it says that this Corporate Transparency Act aims to combat money laundering, terrorism, tax fraud, and other illicit activities by increasing transparency of entity structures and ownership. Now, that sounds, you know, sounds great. We like to say it sounds great. Sounds great. But I think it’s just, you know, if you’re the kind of person who’s going to believe that asking for. More information and more fines or more fees, rather, from small businesses, from the private population to the government. If you think that’s going to stop crime and corruption, then you obviously don’t understand that the crime and corruption is exactly what they’re trying to do on the inside. Right. Government. Overreach is just riddled with corruption, crime, and nepotism, as we see. And so what they were requesting was your full legal name, course, date of birth, residence.
SPEAKER 18 :
I’m going to stop you just one second, Sonny, because prior to this, for all of you listening, one of the things that. A lot of – and one of the things that we believe in in the United States of America is that a corporation is its own being. And so it’s – by the way, I don’t want to spend all the time, Sonny, getting into the details as to why we believe that, but we look at corporations as their own quote-unquote person. And therefore – A lot of individuals or even other companies that might own a sub corporation have had the ability to, in some cases, anonymously own said corporation. And by the way, there’s lots of reasons why somebody might want to anonymously own something, because the reality is, depending upon who that person is, they may not want their identity out there in the open being tied to a particular. We’ll be right back. For all of you listening, that would be a naysayer and say, oh, yeah, no, we should be able to know. On the tax end of things, you do anyway. So the reality is when these corporations go to file taxes and do things along those lines, if government really wants to know who owns said corporation, they can. In my opinion, Sonny, this is nothing more than making things more public that, by the way, don’t need to be.
SPEAKER 17 :
Well, absolutely. And there’s there’s nothing in the Constitution that says that the government needs to know every single detail about a person’s private business. And just like you said, there are so many reasons and not nefarious reasons that someone would not want their residential address to be connected to their business. I mean, maybe they want it. to be under their spouse or their child or whoever.
SPEAKER 18 :
They may want it under a trust. They may want a parent organization to own it. They may be somebody that’s a public figure that, frankly, you take like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, maybe they don’t want their name associated with said business for reasons of if they go to buy another business and people know that they are who they are, well, all of a sudden the price goes up and Again, Sonny, there’s all sorts of reasons why individuals don’t necessarily want to make it front and center as to what they own. And that’s OK.
SPEAKER 17 :
Absolutely. And even more than that, the lawsuit also argued that this is just plain, outright unconstitutional.
SPEAKER 18 :
It’s overreach of government.
SPEAKER 17 :
Yeah, it exceeds Congress authority over the state. This is the state jurisdiction where the state needs to know, you know, what businesses are operating, who’s doing what. And I think that makes that makes sense. But this is unconstitutional. It said they improperly compelled speech and contradicts the right of anonymous association guaranteed by the First Amendment and violates the Fourth Amendment by forcing the disclosure of private information. So the interesting part about this is that. Merrick Garland, the current U.S. attorney general, filed an appeal already against this injunction because the judge ruled that, you know, they had standing that this was going to go, you know, that he was going to to impose a preliminary injunction. And he stated that it would it would be nationwide and it wouldn’t just be in Texas where this lawsuit is, you know, is. And so they are extending it to be nationwide because the business was a nationwide company. And so they’re saying this is just like people’s rights are being infringed upon in Texas. They’re being infringed all over the country. And so people are really waiting to see what’s going to happen if the appeal will be if it will overturn the ruling. or if the injunction will go through. So this is a really interesting one, and I do, as you said, a lot of business owners and people, you know, who are in that industry are going to be following this very closely. I think that they’re going to ask for, you know, they ask for your information, like a passport, driver’s license. Right.
SPEAKER 18 :
You literally are. I’ve looked at the form. I told all of my clients, and I myself was waiting to see how things would work out, and even told all of my clients, do not do anything until we get very, very close, to the end of the year, because I had a gut feeling, Sonny, that some of these things might happen, especially if Donald Trump ended up winning the election, which he did. So I advised all of my clients not to fill anything out until we got towards the latter part of the year, which is where we’re at right now. But yeah, to your point, they were asking all sorts of things that, frankly, it’s none of their dang business.
SPEAKER 17 :
Absolutely. And that is why the American economy succeeds. That’s why we created our intro to socialism curriculum to talk about the benefits of economic economic independence versus a socialist. system where the government is the one who makes the rules and you have to abide by them. When you have government overreach and issues like this where the government is trying to get information, whatever their motives may be, it creates more obstacles, more hurdles for business owners. It incentivizes stagnation and decline versus growth. prosperity, allowing people to have the freedom to choose what they do, how they do it, what works for them. That’s what makes this country great. That’s what makes our country free. That’s what makes the people in this country able to succeed and prosper because they can actually accomplish the dreams that they have in the way that is suitable to them. And so when you have the government trying to Yeah, oh yeah, and by the way,
SPEAKER 18 :
Thank you for mentioning that because this was going to be a huge penalty. And that’s what everybody was worried about is if you didn’t get this thing filled out. And it’s why, by the way, millions of businesses, because they’re, I guess, fearful and or their knuckleheads, went ahead and filled this stuff out on the front side. I was not one of them because I was bound and determined not to do it. In fact, I was waiting for somebody to not do it, you know, get to January 1st, not do it, and then fight the $500, you know, per day fine that they were going to try to, you know, throw on to everybody. individuals businesses and so on i was waiting for that as well i mean sunny this is absolutely the definition of overreach of government and even then the fines for what you would you know that you would be uh you know that you would be levied with if you didn’t fill this out was basically highway robbery absolutely and then more than that uh
SPEAKER 17 :
They don’t need to have all that information. It’s completely untraceable. Who’s organizing this information? I mean, we know that the government doesn’t do things very efficiently or economically. That in and of itself is just a disaster. Then you have all this information floating around out there that doesn’t need to be out there. And, of course, I think that this is just completely unconstitutional. Meanwhile, you have millions of people coming into the border. You can have illegals voting without a passport. You need one to run a business.
SPEAKER 18 :
You don’t need an ID to vote, but I need one to run a business.
SPEAKER 17 :
Right. Which you’ve which if you own a business at this point in the game, you’ve probably already done all of the report. I mean, you have a current existing operating business, you know, so your information is probably attached to that business already. It just seems so completely redundant and unnecessary. And that’s why I think that what’s deeper is. under this is the need for more information, more ways to, you know, get the American people over a barrel and get more information from them, the ability to catch them, find them, do all of these things, and wait until a court is, you know, has the cojones to actually put a stop to this. And thankfully, we did have a judge willing to do that who still has, you know, a moral compass and knows what is a constitutional order.
SPEAKER 18 :
Absolutely. No. And again, at the end of the day, Sonny, this is the things that you guys, Young Americans Against Socialism, you are fighting against. And for all of you listening, maybe you’ve only heard Sonny today. Maybe you’ve only heard her a couple of times in the past. Sonny, you guys are literally, the way you’re fighting this is you’re doing your best to educate mainly young people because it’s young Americans. But really, I’ve downloaded the material. If you want more, let me make sure I say this right and choose my words carefully, Sonny. If you want the ability, to stand firm on facts and be able to debate in the public realm all of what we talk about here on a routine basis. Sunny, the best way for people to do that is to download your material.
SPEAKER 17 :
Absolutely. And also just to learn, to learn information about how other people live in communist countries. You know, that’s why what really informs our work is the stories, the stories that we get to tell about people who have escaped communist countries because they didn’t have the freedom, the luxury of freedom that we have in this country. That’s what informs our work. That’s what drives us to educate young people because they simply don’t understand they’ve grown up in this, you know, in this free country and we have so much at our fingertips, but that can be taken away just by little drips and drabs like this with the government attempting overreach. And so that’s what’s really important. That’s what fuels our team and our curricula that we’re creating. We have so many big plans and many more guides coming to teach young people. And like you said, anybody can use the refresher and we’re really grateful for your audience for being there for us. And then this is really what, is going to help heal the country and have us embrace our freedom again because of people just having this information and talking about it and being aware so that they can speak up and stand up when it does affect them directly. I think it’s amazing that someone stood up and said, hey, I’m not going to pay this. I’m not going to do this. This is just unconstitutional, knows their rights, and is willing to take a chance. And guess what? That’s how the justice system works in this country. If you’re willing to take the chance and stand up, And sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But I think when it comes to the Constitution, those rights are protected and we have to keep fighting for them even when we feel like they’re being infringed upon. And that’s what fuels us. I also wanted to highlight, sorry to take a few extra minutes, but I just wanted to highlight our campaign that we’re doing on social media. It’s called American Made. This is why we really value businesses that have American values and believe in freedom, believe in the mission of spreading freedom and embracing that. If you are a small business on that topic, you’re an entrepreneur and you’d like your business or your service to be highlighted on our Instagram to appreciate and value small businesses in the holiday season. We’d love to share, you know, your business and your story. So please feel free to contact us on Instagram at gas underscore America, or you can email us. myself, Sunny, S-U-N-N-Y, at yass.org. Or you can go to our website, too. So you can find us and get in touch with us, and we’d love to share your story and your business.
SPEAKER 18 :
And also, last but not least, if you guys are at the end of the year, some of you business owners, you’re looking for a good tax deduction, you’d like to know, hey, where could I actually put a little bit of my money where I know it’s going to go to good use and I’ll get a benefit from doing so. You can also do that right on their website. Again, Young Americans Against Socialism. And I would encourage you to do so. Sunny, as always, I appreciate you joining us.
SPEAKER 17 :
Thank you so much, John. Always a pleasure.
SPEAKER 18 :
You have a great night, Sonny. Appreciate you very much. Up next, Hi-Fi Plumbing and Electrical, by the way, is next. And again, I always say, whether you’ve got an electrical problem or a plumbing problem or, hey, we’ve had some of this cold weather and you’re just thinking, maybe I didn’t get something done quite right outside. I better have that double-checked. Or you want some upgrades done in your home, Hi-5 can do all of that. Hi-5 Plumbing and Electrical. Give them a call today, 877-WE-HI-5.
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SPEAKER 18 :
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SPEAKER 04 :
This is Real Relatable Radio. Back to Rush to Reason.
SPEAKER 18 :
All right, we are back in a few minutes left of this particular hour. This Wednesday edition always goes fast. Health and wellness is fast, and then we start off with Richard Battle. Usually have a little segment in between, and then Sonny comes on. And for those of you, again, that maybe don’t know Sonny Kutcher and Young Americans Against Socialism, it’s a great organization. They’re continuing to build what they have. They have the ability to speak to especially young people and have influence that, frankly, I’ll say it, Old guys like me can’t have. Now, I understand. I have some influence among some young people, although typically those are conservative young people that probably listen to me for various reasons and so on. But in general, I don’t have the same reach that Sonny and her cohorts will have. I just don’t. They have the ability to get into areas, even social media wise, that I don’t have. So it’s imperative. It’s imperative that we help organizations like hers out because, again, they can do things that the majority of you listening and myself included, Charlie, we just can’t do. And so I appreciate the fact that we’ve got the ability to partner up with individuals like her and have other young people that join us. from time to time. And as you guys listening know, I do my very best, not only with my own family and son, to get young people involved, but I want more young people involved because the reality is we won’t continue to move forward with what we as conservatives and Christians want to do if we don’t get young people involved. Unfortunately, the left has mastered that. They own education, as we know. In a lot of ways, they have infiltrated the church and even youth groups and youth ministries and so on. And so they have the ability through the education system to have a far more reaching influence than what we as conservative has. Now, I get it. There’s a lot of folks like Charlie Kirk and others that go around the campuses and do a great work in this particular area. But the reality is we are behind when it comes to young people along those lines. And if young people really would stop, and listen to what the advantages are from one side to the other and really had an open mind and sat down and really thought about things, it doesn’t take much to get them to come over to our side and think the way that we do because at the end of the day, we give them far more opportunity than what the left does, just like minority groups and so on. We, as a party and as a belief system, want everybody to succeed, regardless of your age, regardless of your sex, regardless of your skin tone. We don’t care. We want all to succeed. Our message permeates that. The other side doesn’t. The other side doesn’t. The other side, it’s all about control. And what can I get you to do for me? Much like we were talking to Sonny a moment ago about the business registration that the left decided to implement a year ago, roughly. That is just an invasion of privacy. It has nothing to do, by the way, has nothing to do with stopping crime. Zero. Zero. That Transparency Act and what they’re – it’s funny how they call it that, Corporate Transparency Act. Yeah, you already have ways of figuring out who owns a corporation. You don’t need that. So at the end of the day, all that is is an invasion of privacy like we talked to Sonny about. And again, young people, if they were taught – Sit them down, have the ability to go through some of the things even Sonny and I went through during that last segment. Most of them, not all, but most of them would have a different look upon things and realize that, oh, wait, that’s not what I’m being told. No, you’re being told this is all about fighting crime, and it’s not. So, again, appreciate Sonny. Young Americans Against Socialism, if you have the ability to donate and help them out any way, shape, or form here as we head down this final stretch into the holidays, tax-wise, it can help even individuals out. It is a 501c3 donation. It’ll help you out on your taxes as well. We’ll be back. Hour number three is next. Rush to Reason, Denver’s Afternoon Rush, KLZ 560.
SPEAKER 1 :
I’m a rich guy.
