Episode 143

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Published on:

17th May 2023

TRS: No, You Aren't (ACTUALLY) Crazy...

If you are wondering why it always feels like we are losing, it is because we are, and the best politicians can do is put on a show that they are "Fighting for you!" but alas, they are merely going through a dance. They represent warring factions of rich people. Not you and me.

#RFK #Politics #CapitalOrder #LearnMMT #Democrats #Elections

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Transcript
Steve Grumbine:

Hey everybody, it's Steve the Rogue Scholar.

Steve Grumbine:

How you doing today?

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Um, you know, I, I woke up this morning to, uh, my normal routine of farting,

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burping, and, uh, checking out Twitter and all the other things that the

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morning comes with coffee, you name it.

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And I stumbled on to something.

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That I had, I just felt like I couldn't let go.

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And it's, um, Dr.

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Hale, if you watch this, this is not a punch.

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This is just me kind of showing the difference of how, I think

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sometimes people skip over the MMT stuff because they think that.

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They think that we're not really with it.

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They don't think that we really understand the pain and suffering.

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They don't really think, you know, that.

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We understand the, uh, the way it is.

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And I'm gonna share this tweet thread with you, and it's, it's very minimal, but it's

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gonna set the stage for this conversation.

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And, um, you know, let me know what you think.

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Okay?

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So bring this thing up here.

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And, uh, first things first, let me just state the obvious

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or maybe not the obvious.

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Um, you know, there's people out there who still have a lot of faith

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in the system who still think that we can just sort of vote our way there.

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And, you know, Dr.

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Hale is out there in Australia, so not just down under, but a world away, but he

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said collectively Americans are are loopy.

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How else do you explain a rich country where healthcare isn't

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available to all mass shootings again and again and nothing to be done?

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Extreme inequality and opportunity of outcome and silly debt ceiling

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loopy the only word for it, my response, it's far worse than loopy.

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It's malevolent.

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It requires militancy, not complacency.

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The last reformists tell activists to mine their manners here

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far too often and people die.

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Time to get angry but loopy.

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That is simply not an appropriate description of the evil taking place.

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Somebody came and said, agree not to quibble, and I know this isn't

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the point of loopy suggests random.

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It's not.

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Leadership in other countries knows that America is not a collective of citizens

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from the standpoint of decision making.

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We're a collection of corporations competing for resources, and I said

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it's incredibly difficult to get people to see that the masquerade of

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democracy is an absolute illusion.

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We are prisoners and have no agency.

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Sadly, we are castigated when we explain these truths.

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We are like an abused child begging for intervention and people think we're lying.

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And then I took a quote, somebody sent this to me in the middle of the

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night for a totally unrelated thing, but I think it's quite important.

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And that was So you think it will never happen to you?

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That it can't happen to you, that you're the only person in the world to whom

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none of these things will ever happen.

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And then one by one, they all begin to happen to you in the same

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way they happen to everyone else.

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It's author, uh, Paul Oster.

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And so as I'm looking at this and I'm thinking to myself, you know, trying to

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get concepts to people and trying to help us understand the world that we're in.

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People just can't get it.

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They can't open their heart and their mind to the fact that we're prisoners.

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They can't open their heart and their mind to the fact that we are not living

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in a democracy where you can just simply vote your way out of these things.

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I mean, if there were any justice in the world, my last stream on

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Monday where I talked about the debt ceiling and I went through all the

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machinations of the debt ceiling.

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That should be a no-brainer.

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Everybody should understand that.

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They literally should understand that.

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Okay?

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But I'm gonna take you through this article that, um, Robert

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Hockett wrote in Forbes Magazine.

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So gimme a second so I can pull this up.

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And we're gonna walk through this.

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I want you to understand how important it is that we recognize we're not crazy.

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We are not crazy.

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We are absolutely 100% living in dystopian times.

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We're living in times that exceed our brain's capacity to accept.

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And so something is always feeling off.

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Something is always feeling wrong.

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Bob, Bob does a great job here with this article that I'm about to share with you.

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And, uh, hopefully you guys will be able to pick up on this.

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It's not only a history lesson, um, but it's also, quite frankly, it

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helps you understand how ludicrous so much of what we're dealing with is.

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So let me go ahead and just walk us through this and, uh,

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he calls it six legal reasons.

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The federal budget is its own debt, ceiling, and floor.

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This is in, uh, Forbes Magazine.

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It just came out on the 11th.

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Today is the 17th.

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Obviously that's a few minutes ago, but I think this is worth hearing,

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so we're gonna go down here.

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He says, writing in outrage for over a decade about the illegality

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of the punitive debt ceiling, as I, along with several distinguished

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colleagues have been doing.

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I am not a little relieved to see.

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Some of our longstanding arguments gaining traction.

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I'm a little bit troubled, however, by how attention has centered almost

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solely upon the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution.

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The 14th Amendment is to be sure one of the grounds upon which the debt

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ceiling must be declared null and void for reasons even beyond those.

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We're hearing right now as I'll indicate, There are at least five

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additional such grounds that might then be helpful to elaborate on them along

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with their mutual complementaries.

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In summary fashion, let's start with the constitutional and legislative backdrop.

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Article one and Article two of the Constitution vest, both Congress and

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the President with budgetary roles.

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All spending and revenue raising must be legislated.

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And valid legislation must be passed by both chambers of Congress and

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signed into law by the president.

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Final budgets such as they are are accordingly.

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Joint congressional and presidential products save in rare

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circumstances as those in which Congress overrides a presidential

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veto with a super majority vote.

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The constitutional provisions that I have just channeled are broadly worded and

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prescribed very little as the details of the federal budgeting process.

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These are determined instead by more legislation in 1921.

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Through the Budget and Accounting Act, Congress vested primary budget

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formulation responsibility with the president, establishing both detailed

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timetables and the predecessor of today's Office of Management and budget O M

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B to help shepherd the process along.

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The debt ceiling is rooted in this era during which Congress relinquished

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its previous role as legislator of every distinct federal bond issuance.

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Think about that.

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Congress used to have to literally litigate every single bond issuance

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this Congress did to afford the president by their own law.

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Our primary budget formulator more flexibility in determining

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revenue sources for funding.

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The growing variety of legislated programs.

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That's right.

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The original ceiling was about affording the president more discretion, not less.

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It is no accident that the Liberty Bond Act of 1917 original source

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of the ceiling, the, excuse me.

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The 1913 Vintage 16th Amendment to the Constitution authorizing the Federal

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income tax and thereby enabled revenue Act of 1913, the Federal Reserve

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Act of 1913 and the aforementioned budget and Accounting Act of 1921

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all came in rapid succession.

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In effect, these enactments all passed by Congress and signed into

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law by the president constituted one coherent federal budget regime.

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All this changed.

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However, in 1974, the crisis, that occasion, the change was brought

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on like so many others of the era by President Richard Nixon.

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Nixon had an unfortunate tendency to think himself more imperial

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than the Constitution allowed.

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And took it upon himself to decide with unprecedented frequency.

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What?

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Congressionally, legislated and funded programs, even though he had signed

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them in the law in the first place, were worthy of actual execution and funding.

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In other words, he was just saying, I ain't gonna fucking do it.

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I ain't gonna fucking pay the bill.

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I ain't gonna, I ain't gonna do the bill.

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The, uh, laws that's written, the practice in which he manifested this

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proclivity was known as impoundment.

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The idea was that instead of spending what Congress had instructed him

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to spend and what he had agreed by signing the legislation to spend, Nixon

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was routinely spending only what he wished to spend while impounding the

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rest, in effect holding it hostage.

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Congress put an end to the Chicanery by passing the Congressional budget

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and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 pursuant to which both Congress and the

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President go through detailed procedural steps in formulating their own budgets.

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Which budgets are reconciled and collated before being legislated into law.

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Piecemeal through sundry program authorization and appropriation acts

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passed by Congress and signed by the president, Supreme Court closed all

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plausible loopholes in the ACT in trained versus City of New York one year later.

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This also is the origin of the Congressional Budget Office, which

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to be fair, Could be blown up just like the debt ceiling should be.

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This is also the origin of the Congressional Budget Office designed as

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a counterpart to the president's O M B.

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In effect.

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Then what we have for at least the past 50 years is an altogether new budget regime.

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Superseding the regime put in place 50 years before them.

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The earlier regime, in other words, including its debt, ceiling component,

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were implicitly repe repealed.

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Repealed by the later regime.

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You can see this by noting the logic or shall we say the arithmetic.

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The post 1974 regime.

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Pursuant to that regime, the dually legislated federal budget first

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determines both revenue and spending then assigns the president and his

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treasury department the task of filling any gaps between the former

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and the latter through debt issuance.

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And since the president is prohibited under this regime from not spending

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what the budget mandates, he spends the regime effectively mandates

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that he borrow any time mandated spending exceeds mandated revenue.

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We are now situated to see why the 1917 debt ceiling as presently wielded

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like an AR 15 by a rump faction of the house Republican Caucus is actually

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no more than a leaky water pistol.

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For there is literally no way for the president to comply with the

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punitive ceiling as thus applied.

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That does not entail his violating the federal budget itself as formulated

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pursuant to the 1974 regime that superseded the early 20th century regime.

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Here are the six reasons why.

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This is interesting, folks.

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Very explicit, very specific things.

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I will put this article into the chat if somebody already hasn't done.

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In fact, let me just do that right now so that I can make sure it's in there.

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Um, here it goes.

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All right, so reason number one, the take Care clause, article two,

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section three of our Constitution requires the President take care

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that the laws be faithfully executed.

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President Nixon effectively violated this provision by not spending his

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Congress through that law, which is the federal budget mandated that he spend.

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President Biden would be doing the same were he not to spend as the

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last federal budget requires that he spend and were he not to borrow.

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And so doing as the budget arithmetic aromatically mandates that he borrow.

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Reason number two, the presentment clause, a K a line item, veto prohibition.

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Article one, section seven of our Constitution requires that bills

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passed by both chambers of Congress be presented as holes to the president.

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Which the latter then signs into law or vetoes in Clinton

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versus the City of New York.

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1998, our Supreme Court held that the Lion Item Veto Act in 1996 violated

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this clause by purporting to permit the president to cherry pick which bud budget

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items he would become law, and which ones would be left on the cutting room floor.

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Were President Biden to prioritize payments mandated

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by the current federal budget.

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As the A four mentioned rump faction of the House, Republican Caucus suggests he

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would be doing precisely what the court held that President Clinton couldn't do

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and that Congress could not authorize.

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Reason number three, the 14th Amendment article.

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Uh, I God folks, forgive me for this.

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My Roman numerals are shit.

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Um, what is it?

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Article 14, section four of our Constitution provides that the

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validity of the public debt, uh, yeah, I guess it would be the 14th.

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Um, the public debt of the United States authorized by law shall not be

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questioned the framer's intention in enacting this constitutional provision.

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Is particularly of interest right now.

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The self-styled Confederate states of America controlled by slave

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owners, had pulled their members from Congress and endeavored to destroy

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our federal union from without.

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By launching military attacks upon Fort Sumter and other federal installations.

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In 1861, president Lincoln and Congress incurred unprecedented federal debt.

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Multiplying it 80 fold from a bit over 64 million to 5.2 billion in the form

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of treasury securities sold to millions of patriotic Americans in financing

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the successful effort to end that rebellion as the nation began healing.

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By the way, folks, we also know that.

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The idea of selling bonds, that bonds are not a funding operation,

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that's still very much true.

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Okay.

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As the nation began healing at the civil War's end, concerns grew that fr

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that southern legislators readmitted to Congress would continue their

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effort to destroy our federal union.

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Save now from within by repudiating the war occasion federal debt.

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That American States person since Alexander Hamilton had recognized as the

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essential financial binding agent holding our union together, indeed Southern

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legislators were quite open about their intentions on this score, which is

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precisely what occasion, the requirement that Southern states ratify the 14th

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Amendment as a condition of rejoining the union rather than remaining militarily

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occupied, conquered territories.

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Pretty important stuff here, folks.

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The applicability of the 14th Amendment to the present debt ceiling insanity grows

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quite clear when we recall this history.

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It is a striking fact that the aforementioned rump faction of the

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House Republican caucus nearly all hail from former Confederate or

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Confederate border states, and that many of them have called for a national

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divorce while routinely speaking like.

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Meeting with or endorsing white supremacists.

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It is equally striking that most of these Jim Crow Republicans have been

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transparent about their aims in most current controversies to sow chaos

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and thereby paved the way for Weimar style anti-constitutional puts by

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their criminal ring leader and serial bankrupt in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, who

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has himself now explicitly called for default on the national debt.

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Reason number four, the later in time rule, it is a well-established judicial

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canon of statutory construction that when an old law appears to conflict

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with a newer law or treaty, The older law must either be interpreted in a

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manner that does not conflict with the newer law, or be treated as having been

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implicitly repealed by the newer law.

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There are two ways in which this canon is applicable to our

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present debt ceiling in Rollio.

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First, the 1974 budget regime clearly displaces the earlier

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regime including its debt ceiling.

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This is made dramatically clear in the 1974 regimes requiring both that

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the president execute the budget in full, no impoundments, and that she,

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he issued debt in so doing to fill any gap between spending and revenue.

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And second, any current budget enacted later in that time than

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the last debt ceiling hike, of course, supersedes the ladder.

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Pretty interesting, right?

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So it is in, for this reason that I've often written that the

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budget is its own debt ceiling.

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Indeed.

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In light of the anti impoundment content of the 1974 Act, it is

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clear that the budget is both its own floor and its own ceiling.

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It is self-contained.

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It is the be all and end all of federal budgeting.

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It is the entirety of the law governing spending taxing and borrowing with

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no role left to be played by the old 1917 Liberty Bond Act ceiling.

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Reason number five, the absurd result Cannon.

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It is also well established canon of statutory construction that when a

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legal, when a legal provision either as written or as it would be applied,

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can be construed in more than one way and one such way, would yield a result

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so absurd that the legislature cannot plausibly be taken to have intended it.

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The interpretation yielding that result must be considered mistaken.

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In the present context, it is clear that the interpretation of

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the debt ceiling proffered by the aforementioned rump faction of the

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Republican House caucus would yield multiple absurdities of relevant sort.

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It would require the president to violate contract obligations, which US

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borrowing, uh, most assuredly are the last legislated federal budget of 2022, the

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1974 Congressional budget in Impalment and Control Act, and one or more of the

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three constitutional provisions assed.

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Above.

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Above.

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And that is to say nothing.

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Of the cataclysm that default on our national debt, which we've never reneged

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on before, would bring to the US dollar, the US debt servicing costs to U to the

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us, banking and financial sectors, to the nation's pension and mutual fund holders,

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to the nation's inflation rate and its broader economy, and indeed to the world's

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capital markets and trading economy.

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It is simply impossible to imagine the framers of the Liberty Bond Act of

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1917 who were seeking to facilitate the finance of the First World War effort,

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or indeed any member of Congress prior to the aforementioned rump faction

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of the House Republican Caucus, ever having intended even one of these

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outcomes, let alone all of them.

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Reason six, the constitutional avoidance doctrine.

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Finally, it is also a well established canon of statutory construction.

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When a legal provision either as written or as it would be applied,

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can be construed in more than one way and one such way, would

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raise a constitutional issue.

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The interpretation yielding that result should, if possible,

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be considered mistaken.

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See this is tightly woven together.

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Folks, the applicability of this doctrine to the president Lio

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is like those of previous legal doctrines, quite clear as well.

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The debt ceiling, as interpreted by today's Jim Crow, Republicans

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would squarely conflict with the 14th amendment as noted above.

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Either the interpretation then or the ceiling itself must be deemed.

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Without legal force, I hope that the point is now made.

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Neither the president nor the Treasury Secretary nor any responsible member

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of Congress need worry that there would be anything legally questionable about

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either or both of Congress's and the President simply disregarding the debt

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ceiling and continuing to make good on the nation's legal obligations.

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As always, no court would find other ways.

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Simply is no uncertain here.

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Indeed, the law quite clearly, quite certainly, and quite

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squarely requires one thing.

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It requires that Congress and the President alike recognize that

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the old 1917 relic known as the debt ceiling as presently applied

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is null and void and has been.

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Both.

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So, uh, has been so both since its inception and especially

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since Congress smacked down the Wouldbe Imperial President

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Richard Nixon a half century ago.

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Alright, so let's get to where Grine starts talking now.

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I think it's very important, very important to understand.

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Joe Biden is being advised by legal eagles.

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He's being advised by.

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Consultants being advised by people that know these things.

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Joe Biden has raised the idea of the mint, the coin, which raw and gray and

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others, uh, in particular within the MMT movement, have advanced as a way

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to put an end to this silly charade.

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As you can see by Bob Hawke's, eloquent legal.

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Breakdown.

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It's quite clear that the whole entirety of the debt ceiling is bullshit.

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It's performative, it means nothing.

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But that brings to question something very important.

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Why is Joe Biden negotiating anything?

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Why is he sitting down with McCarthy in negotiating any

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cuts to spending any whatsoever?

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Okay.

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And that should be the real question that makes you say, am I fucking crazy?

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If everything is there to tell him, he doesn't even have to

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deal with these sons of bitches.

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Not that the Biden budget is doing anything favors for you and I, it's

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not even about Biden, but in the end it kind of is about Biden because he's not

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willing to use the law as it's written.

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He's not willing to do the things he needs to do to call attention to these things.

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Why?

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Because Biden, in the end, wants to maintain the debt ceiling.

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Just like when he went to do the student debt relief, he wanted to

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maintain student debt in pr, you know, basically in debtor's prisons.

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Why?

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Because he was doing performative non-impact incrementalism.

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Okay.

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And ultimately it's a show.

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It's simply a show.

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So if you know, and I believe beyond the shadow of a doubt, I believe beyond the

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shadow of a doubt, that the legal case, that the debt ceiling is a non-factor,

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was clearly articulated in Forbes Magazine by Cornell Law Professor Robert Hockett.

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Now Hawke's a pretty smart guy, but I assure you, There are many

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other constitutional scholars out there that know everything

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that Hockett put out there.

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In fact, I guarantee you that most of the m t community knows everything

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that Hockett put out there as well.

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It's not some secret that Biden hasn't probably heard in closed quarters.

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So the real issue is why does he maintain the illusion?

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Why does he continue to allow austerity to be part of this game?

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Now to his credit, if you wanna call it credit, he did push back

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on McCarthy and the gang's request for stricter work requirements.

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Okay.

Steve Grumbine:

Stricter work requirements for basic welfare.

Steve Grumbine:

He did push back kind of shock, didn't expect it.

Steve Grumbine:

Figure he fold like a cheap tent.

Steve Grumbine:

But the reality is, is that he's still giving it gravitas.

Steve Grumbine:

He's still treating it like it's a thing and it doesn't make sense unless

Steve Grumbine:

you come to your senses, except that you're not crazy and know that Joe

Steve Grumbine:

Biden is not the most progressive president Since F D R know that Joe

Steve Grumbine:

Biden has never not been a deficit hawk.

Steve Grumbine:

Know that Joe Biden has never not been a conservative, know that

Steve Grumbine:

Joe Biden has never not been one.

Steve Grumbine:

And the same with Republicans.

Steve Grumbine:

Joe Biden has always stood for everything that is evil.

Steve Grumbine:

He has always been on the wrong side of things, and he continues.

Steve Grumbine:

Even now, no, the debt ceiling is not the Treasury Secretary or Joe Biden's

Steve Grumbine:

doing, but undoing it because it's bullshit is it's his responsibility to

Steve Grumbine:

faithfully execute the laws and the books.

Steve Grumbine:

So there's no excuse in my opinion cuz if I can read that in Forbes and I'm just a

Steve Grumbine:

dude, I'm just a Jag, just another guy.

Steve Grumbine:

And I can tell you point blank, I knew the 14th Amendment stood.

Steve Grumbine:

I knew the statutory rules about minting the coin.

Steve Grumbine:

I did not know all those other.

Steve Grumbine:

Legal presence, all the, all the, that, that full chain of command that

Steve Grumbine:

Hockett presented, I didn't know that.

Steve Grumbine:

Basically because those laws were superseded by newer laws, newer

Steve Grumbine:

regimes, as Hockett calls them, the 1917 bill no longer has standing.

Steve Grumbine:

That makes me fucking nuts.

Steve Grumbine:

That makes me crazy because when you talk to Normy Democrats, you know

Steve Grumbine:

already that Democrats do know wrong.

Steve Grumbine:

They're always gonna point out to you the rump Republican caucus.

Steve Grumbine:

They're always gonna point to the Republicans.

Steve Grumbine:

Well, guess what?

Steve Grumbine:

If Biden straight up did his fucking job, And use the law

Steve Grumbine:

that he's expected to uphold.

Steve Grumbine:

This man is expected to uphold these laws, and the laws are right there

Steve Grumbine:

in a Forbes fucking article broken down for him in spades that I most

Steve Grumbine:

assuredly guarantee for repeating it the next time, and I'll repeat it again.

Steve Grumbine:

He has been advised of these things.

Steve Grumbine:

He is not living in a bad, he knows these things.

Steve Grumbine:

Just like he knew that he could stack the court.

Steve Grumbine:

There was no law in the books that said he couldn't stack the Supreme Court

Steve Grumbine:

and ensure that they codified Roe V.

Steve Grumbine:

Wade.

Steve Grumbine:

He didn't do that.

Steve Grumbine:

He wouldn't do a Medicare for all bill.

Steve Grumbine:

He wouldn't get rid of all student debt.

Steve Grumbine:

He wouldn't give you your full $2,000 checks during the pandemic.

Steve Grumbine:

Joe Biden ain't your guy,

Steve Grumbine:

okay?

Steve Grumbine:

But most of you that watch this channel already know that.

Steve Grumbine:

Most of you already know that.

Steve Grumbine:

But alas, when I go back to Dr.

Steve Grumbine:

Hill's, see if I still have it.

Steve Grumbine:

Do I have it up still?

Steve Grumbine:

Do I still have it?

Steve Grumbine:

No, I put it away.

Steve Grumbine:

It's okay.

Steve Grumbine:

When I go back to Dr.

Steve Grumbine:

Hale's initial tweet.

Steve Grumbine:

That I replied to.

Steve Grumbine:

There are so many folks, good people, but they really genuinely believe

Steve Grumbine:

that we can just vote our way there.

Steve Grumbine:

That it's just loopy.

Steve Grumbine:

That we're just loopy.

Steve Grumbine:

It's just loopy.

Steve Grumbine:

The reality is we have no agency.

Steve Grumbine:

We have no electoral path forward.

Steve Grumbine:

This is hard for people.

Steve Grumbine:

I hear people in their sixties and seventies who clearly do not want to be

Steve Grumbine:

forced with their walkers out into the street trying to talk to me about how, oh,

Steve Grumbine:

it's hard and you just gotta understand.

Steve Grumbine:

And we got No, no, I'm sorry.

Steve Grumbine:

Unless we do something radical.

Steve Grumbine:

This stays the way it is and it stays the way it is forever.

Steve Grumbine:

If every fucking time, another person, I, I want you to think

Steve Grumbine:

about how fucking crazy people are.

Steve Grumbine:

Crystal Ball has R F K Jr.

Steve Grumbine:

On there.

Steve Grumbine:

They have Maryanne Williamson on there.

Steve Grumbine:

The Democrats have already stated point blank, we're not gonna do primary debates.

Steve Grumbine:

They've already stated in court that the primaries mean nothing, and that they'll

Steve Grumbine:

select who the hell they want regardless.

Steve Grumbine:

Of what the voters want.

Steve Grumbine:

Okay, so all this stuff is a bunch of bullshit.

Steve Grumbine:

It's just a bunch of bullshit, but our lives are impacted by it.

Steve Grumbine:

And now you can sit there, wash, rinse, repeat through every election cycle and

Steve Grumbine:

claim that we're just going to go ahead.

Steve Grumbine:

And you know, source the vote.

Steve Grumbine:

We just gotta get more votes.

Steve Grumbine:

We just gotta get more progressives than officer just, yeah,

Steve Grumbine:

just go out and phone bank.

Steve Grumbine:

Go phone bank, do it.

Steve Grumbine:

Go door, knock.

Steve Grumbine:

Hi, I'm with such and such bullshit candidate saying bullshit things,

Steve Grumbine:

doing nothing and you think you're gonna solve this problem.

Steve Grumbine:

I'm telling you.

Steve Grumbine:

You have got a lot of roadway to look to see the fact that you

Steve Grumbine:

haven't gotten shit with your vote years and years and years of proof.

Steve Grumbine:

You don't require a jag like me sitting in front of a camera telling

Steve Grumbine:

you that your vote hasn't done shit.

Steve Grumbine:

You don't need me to do that because the fact is everybody was shamed

Steve Grumbine:

and rushed to get rid of key rump.

Steve Grumbine:

Trump was a piece of shit.

Steve Grumbine:

Let me just be honest with you.

Steve Grumbine:

But in the end, you thought that this was some big thing that you were gonna get.

Steve Grumbine:

You got nothing and you liked it.

Steve Grumbine:

You got absolutely nothing and you liked it.

Steve Grumbine:

I, I, every time I, I hear people propping up Kennedy and Maryanne Williamson.

Steve Grumbine:

I get it, man.

Steve Grumbine:

I wanna sit there.

Steve Grumbine:

I would love to live in a country where the elections mean something that

Steve Grumbine:

actually phone banking, donating, door knocking and stuff like that matters.

Steve Grumbine:

That would be great, man.

Steve Grumbine:

I would love to have my cherry unpopped, my hyman, put back in

Steve Grumbine:

place and go back to the old way.

Steve Grumbine:

In the matrix eating steak that ain't real, so that we could have a real

Steve Grumbine:

honest to God government forum by the people of the people of the proletariat.

Steve Grumbine:

A dictatorship of the proletariat.

Steve Grumbine:

I would love that.

Steve Grumbine:

I would abso fucking lely.

Steve Grumbine:

Love that.

Steve Grumbine:

But I gotta tell you.

Steve Grumbine:

I don't wanna take Wellbutrin.

Steve Grumbine:

I don't want to take fucking Prozac.

Steve Grumbine:

I don't want to take Depakote and all the other fucking mood stabilizers just

Steve Grumbine:

to fucking live in this country and eat the bullshit that they keep feeding us.

Steve Grumbine:

We're not crazy, but they're trying to make us crazy with

Steve Grumbine:

the gas lighting, with the lies.

Steve Grumbine:

And you can always see the people that haven't quite let go of the lie yet.

Steve Grumbine:

And they go out there and they're gonna phone bank for R F K Jr.

Steve Grumbine:

And they're gonna say, what do you mean you just want Biden?

Steve Grumbine:

I don't fucking care.

Steve Grumbine:

It's not happening.

Steve Grumbine:

They don't have any responsibility whatsoever,

Steve Grumbine:

zero responsibility whatsoever to have a primary.

Steve Grumbine:

Do you understand?

Steve Grumbine:

Like, this is not me making it up.

Steve Grumbine:

Do your fucking homework.

Steve Grumbine:

Do the homework, okay.

Steve Grumbine:

Do the homework.

Steve Grumbine:

Make sure that you understand the primaries have, there's nothing in them.

Steve Grumbine:

If the D n C and the gang want to make sure.

Steve Grumbine:

That Joe Biden is president, or Joe Biden is the nominee.

Steve Grumbine:

At least there's nothing you could do.

Steve Grumbine:

You could literally vote in the primary and give the election to RFK

Steve Grumbine:

a hundred to one or a hundred percent of the vote could go to him and

Steve Grumbine:

they could say, yeah, you know what?

Steve Grumbine:

Legally we ain't gotta abide by, we're not going to.

Steve Grumbine:

Why would they fight in court otherwise?

Steve Grumbine:

Now, mind you, they'd like it to look good.

Steve Grumbine:

They would definitely like it to look plausible.

Steve Grumbine:

They don't want any kind of primary to look too outta joint because

Steve Grumbine:

then you won't eat the food.

Steve Grumbine:

Okay?

Steve Grumbine:

But as of right now, they're not going to allow a primary challenger

Steve Grumbine:

to get on a debate stage with Joe Bi Joe, uh, uh, Joe Biden.

Steve Grumbine:

Mm, your your hair smells delicious.

Steve Grumbine:

Joe Biden.

Steve Grumbine:

They're not gonna let this happen.

Steve Grumbine:

It's funny, they have super delegates, but they don't even need the super.

Steve Grumbine:

Do you understand?

Steve Grumbine:

They don't even need, they could cancel the primaries altogether and

Steve Grumbine:

say, Joe's our guy, doesn't matter.

Steve Grumbine:

Fuck you if you don't like it.

Steve Grumbine:

They could literally do that.

Steve Grumbine:

There's literally nothing you could do to stop it because they fought

Steve Grumbine:

successfully in federal court that they are a private corporation that has

Steve Grumbine:

their own rules and regs to operate, and they could do whatever they want.

Steve Grumbine:

They can violate their own rules if they want.

Steve Grumbine:

They could do anything they want.

Steve Grumbine:

It's not a joke.

Steve Grumbine:

It doesn't matter if R F K can moonwalk on water and turn water into wine.

Steve Grumbine:

Or turn dandelions into freaking big old cush Budds.

Steve Grumbine:

It doesn't matter.

Steve Grumbine:

He could turn sugar into cane.

Steve Grumbine:

It doesn't matter.

Steve Grumbine:

He can't get the nomination because the party doesn't allow for it.

Steve Grumbine:

And here you go, Joe Biden literally lying, negotiating

Steve Grumbine:

Republicans when you know damn well.

Steve Grumbine:

The very premise of the debt ceiling is a lie.

Steve Grumbine:

It's wrong.

Steve Grumbine:

It doesn't exist anymore.

Steve Grumbine:

It's been superseded by law, and yet there he is, Benney

Steve Grumbine:

talking to McCarthy, negotiating.

Steve Grumbine:

Why would he negotiate for more austerity?

Steve Grumbine:

Why would he act like, oh no, a guns to my head, I've gotta negotiate with them.

Steve Grumbine:

He doesn't.

Steve Grumbine:

The only people that get hurt are you and I.

Steve Grumbine:

In the end, it's we.

Steve Grumbine:

We get hurt.

Steve Grumbine:

If you don't think Janet Yellen knows all those legal precedents

Steve Grumbine:

as well, you're equally crazy.

Steve Grumbine:

I assure you.

Steve Grumbine:

Janet Yellen has been briefed, not briefed.

Steve Grumbine:

It was probably longed, not briefed.

Steve Grumbine:

It was longed.

Steve Grumbine:

I guarantee she got every grueling detail.

Steve Grumbine:

And they sat down with some strategy groups and thought it

Steve Grumbine:

through, let's come up with a plan.

Steve Grumbine:

Let's come up with a message.

Steve Grumbine:

What are we gonna do?

Steve Grumbine:

How's this gonna work?

Steve Grumbine:

So as far as I'm concerned, we may not be able to change the world here.

Steve Grumbine:

I want to, God knows, I'd love to create a, a movement of people that wanna

Steve Grumbine:

self-govern, work together, collaborate, and have a real meaningful movement of

Steve Grumbine:

people that are ready to take action.

Steve Grumbine:

It may never happen, probably won't, not cuz they don't want to, but it

Steve Grumbine:

probably won't because everybody's got something more important to do.

Steve Grumbine:

Unfortunately.

Steve Grumbine:

Trust me, I know I live it daily.

Steve Grumbine:

And at least maybe we can keep each other sane, cutting through the lies.

Steve Grumbine:

At least maybe we can keep each other sane.

Steve Grumbine:

So when we watch things that just don't add up, we don't sit there and

Steve Grumbine:

scratch our heads and go, what the fuck?

Steve Grumbine:

We can literally understand the system.

Steve Grumbine:

And we can unfortunately, fortunately, be the few ones that are aware that we're

Steve Grumbine:

being lied to really understand why we're being lied to, and maybe we can teach

Steve Grumbine:

a few people and hopefully grow this thing and get people ready to fight back.

Steve Grumbine:

I'm tired of watching people outnumber me in the millions.

Steve Grumbine:

Come on, let's go.

Steve Grumbine:

Phone Bank for J rfk.

Steve Grumbine:

Revolutionary fist in the air.

Steve Grumbine:

Gonna go for rfk.

Steve Grumbine:

Revolutionary.

Steve Grumbine:

Yeah.

Steve Grumbine:

Never dumb exit rfk.

Steve Grumbine:

Dumb Exit rfk, right?

Steve Grumbine:

The same rfk.

Steve Grumbine:

And there's Maryanne Williamson.

Steve Grumbine:

You know, she said a few good things about F D R and stuff like that,

Steve Grumbine:

but folks, F D R saved capitalism.

Steve Grumbine:

F D R did a number of things.

Steve Grumbine:

He's a complex individual.

Steve Grumbine:

Maryanne Williamson doesn't understand money.

Steve Grumbine:

And she's got some really, really shitty views on Palestine.

Steve Grumbine:

She's got some shitty views on Ukraine.

Steve Grumbine:

She's got some shitty view views on global, uh, geopolitics.

Steve Grumbine:

She's got some shitty views in the end, and unfortunately, probably the worst part

Steve Grumbine:

of this, probably the worst part of this.

Steve Grumbine:

In the end, my guess is she doesn't care.

Steve Grumbine:

You know, in the end, she doesn't care.

Steve Grumbine:

Because in the end, she's gonna end up saying, support my good friend

Steve Grumbine:

Joe Biden, because we've gotta defeat the Republican monster.

Steve Grumbine:

And I get it, the Republican monster's ugly and the Republicans always

Steve Grumbine:

come out with the most crazy shit.

Steve Grumbine:

But what happens when society is falling apart at the seams, when

Steve Grumbine:

people are getting mass propaganda pumped down their throats 24 by seven?

Steve Grumbine:

Both externally and internally within the alt movement.

Steve Grumbine:

Okay.

Steve Grumbine:

What happens?

Steve Grumbine:

Eventually you start finding scapegoats.

Steve Grumbine:

I showed you Tim Canova sitting there, retweeting stuff, talking

Steve Grumbine:

about black people are violent.

Steve Grumbine:

I almost threw up.

Steve Grumbine:

That's not the Tim Canova.

Steve Grumbine:

I know, but scapegoats come from this stuff.

Steve Grumbine:

I watch all the anti-trans propaganda out there.

Steve Grumbine:

Crazy.

Steve Grumbine:

Just, wow, what happened to the left?

Steve Grumbine:

Where'd you go?

Steve Grumbine:

All of these debates, all these discussions, all this stuff, it

Steve Grumbine:

makes people mean it turns 'em angry.

Steve Grumbine:

It turns 'em either productively angry or it turns 'em into folks

Steve Grumbine:

that are ready to find scapegoats.

Steve Grumbine:

And I don't wanna breed.

Steve Grumbine:

Children into this world in a fascist place like what the United States

Steve Grumbine:

already was, and it's getting worse.

Steve Grumbine:

I don't wanna sit there and try to explain to every friend I have, why I'm not gonna

Steve Grumbine:

go phone bank for Maryanne Williamson and why I'm not gonna phone bank for R F K Jr.

Steve Grumbine:

And why I'm not gonna phone bank for Joe Biden.

Steve Grumbine:

Okay?

Steve Grumbine:

I'm not going to phone bank for any of these people.

Steve Grumbine:

I'm not a Republican.

Steve Grumbine:

Won't be voting Republican.

Steve Grumbine:

This charade, we have to be the one that pulls the mask

Steve Grumbine:

off and shows what's going on.

Steve Grumbine:

There's not nearly enough of us.

Steve Grumbine:

There's nowhere near enough of us, cuz half the world is fucking lunatic.

Steve Grumbine:

Fringe.

Steve Grumbine:

For real.

Steve Grumbine:

They watched Alex Jones and thought it was news.

Steve Grumbine:

Those people, wow.

Steve Grumbine:

Maybe they really are crazy.

Steve Grumbine:

But there's a group of people out there that really have taken the

Steve Grumbine:

time to dig through this stuff and not just say, click bait shed.

Steve Grumbine:

I'd like to believe we're one of those people, one of those groups that does

Steve Grumbine:

real research and really genuinely tries to inform people that follow us.

Steve Grumbine:

So I'm hoping that we're able to make a difference, but in the end,

Steve Grumbine:

just remember, you're not crazy.

Steve Grumbine:

And it's not crazy to resist drinking the fucking Kool-Aid.

Steve Grumbine:

It's not crazy to do real homework.

Steve Grumbine:

It's not crazy to go find legitimate sources for information.

Steve Grumbine:

It's not crazy to resist being drawn into this bullshit.

Steve Grumbine:

We get pulled into so many fake pitched battles, and we think

Steve Grumbine:

they're life and death battles.

Steve Grumbine:

And we fight each other mercilessly for no reason at all because it's based on

Steve Grumbine:

lies like the debt ceiling, like the national debt, like reducing the deficit

Steve Grumbine:

and all the other bullshit, like printing.

Steve Grumbine:

Money creates inflation.

Steve Grumbine:

All these lies and their lies, they're meant to discipline us.

Steve Grumbine:

Okay, now, I talked to some good friends that were Marxists

Steve Grumbine:

and they asked me questions.

Steve Grumbine:

Some of 'em were the kind of questions I didn't expect to get from them, but they

Steve Grumbine:

were questions that nonetheless showed just how far propaganda had gotten.

Steve Grumbine:

They thought that things like MMT pertained only to the us.

Steve Grumbine:

I broke down the international view.

Steve Grumbine:

I broke down the entire system.

Steve Grumbine:

They're like, oh, wow.

Steve Grumbine:

Maybe you're right.

Steve Grumbine:

We gotta wake people up one person at a time.

Steve Grumbine:

It's small, it's slow.

Steve Grumbine:

We may not be successful, but there's no other way.

Steve Grumbine:

Through this, they've got all of the media outlets primed to ready to go.

Steve Grumbine:

I mean, crystal and Kyle, those folks, they're sitting there

Steve Grumbine:

putting out mainstream stuff, man.

Steve Grumbine:

They're not say setting anybody a blaze by being real game changers anymore.

Steve Grumbine:

If they ever were, all these big platforms are just suckling right into the

Steve Grumbine:

standard narratives, the main platforms, the big media outlets push out there.

Steve Grumbine:

They're all fill in your head with bullshit.

Steve Grumbine:

And how do you avoid becoming a nutter and not saying cuckoo conspiracy things while

Steve Grumbine:

simultaneously accepting the fact and, and really it's important to accept the fact.

Steve Grumbine:

You're not getting the straight dope that what you're getting is a bunch

Steve Grumbine:

of bullshit meant to misinformed you and meant to make you act in a

Steve Grumbine:

certain way, meant to destroy your ability to discern truth from fiction.

Steve Grumbine:

And then they bring you to the war, field, the battlefield,

Steve Grumbine:

and expect you to do the work.

Steve Grumbine:

Expect you to pick a side, expect you to jump in the fray.

Steve Grumbine:

Do you know something?

Steve Grumbine:

Most of you have no idea anything about the history of Ukraine.

Steve Grumbine:

Even the people that are informed.

Steve Grumbine:

Most of you have no idea of the history of Russia.

Steve Grumbine:

Even those of you who think you're informed, most of you have no idea

Steve Grumbine:

the history of the United States, even those you think you're informed.

Steve Grumbine:

Most of the information we have available to us is highly

Steve Grumbine:

tainted propagandized bullshit.

Steve Grumbine:

And for those folks that try desperately to keep us out of the

Steve Grumbine:

lies and tell the truth, they've gotta piecemeal a lot of that shit together.

Steve Grumbine:

And there's a lot of conjecture that they have to go through.

Steve Grumbine:

In the end, we probably will never know all the truth that we need to know.

Steve Grumbine:

And that's hard to believe.

Steve Grumbine:

It's hard to manage, hard to process, but it doesn't make you crazy.

Steve Grumbine:

I mean, it may make you crazy.

Steve Grumbine:

But you're not crazy for realizing that you're not crazy.

Steve Grumbine:

So anyway, with that last night we had Clara mate join us in our book club.

Steve Grumbine:

It was the last of it folks, I gotta tell you, we do some good book clubs.

Steve Grumbine:

We do some good work.

Steve Grumbine:

We're trying to educate.

Steve Grumbine:

That's the goal.

Steve Grumbine:

We're trying to educate because you have a revolution with a bunch of people that

Steve Grumbine:

are still colonized in their brains.

Steve Grumbine:

And they're gonna reproduce bullshit if we wanna start a new society someday, and

Steve Grumbine:

it probably won't happen in our lifetime.

Steve Grumbine:

But assuming that that's the goal, you've gotta fill your

Steve Grumbine:

brain with different information.

Steve Grumbine:

You've gotta start building an analytical framework for how to understand

Steve Grumbine:

the world, and you've gotta be able to have a good bullshit detector.

Steve Grumbine:

And it's a lot to ask of people who are slaving the grind Monday through Friday,

Steve Grumbine:

nine to five, having kids yanking on 'em for homework yet kids yanking 'em

Steve Grumbine:

for bill collectors calling, medical problems coming fucking climate crisis.

Steve Grumbine:

What?

Steve Grumbine:

You're stuck.

Steve Grumbine:

We're stuck.

Steve Grumbine:

This is our path forward.

Steve Grumbine:

Folks, I hope these book clubs help.

Steve Grumbine:

Claire Mate was fantastic.

Steve Grumbine:

She's not an MM tier yet.

Steve Grumbine:

But we're working on it because folks, this is all we've got.

Steve Grumbine:

We gotta meet people where they are and bring them into the fold and

Steve Grumbine:

help them so that they can help us because we are, our Venn diagram, if

Steve Grumbine:

this is the universal set, is like a piece of dental floss in there.

Steve Grumbine:

It's not even a big circle, it's a teeny slice.

Steve Grumbine:

That's how few of us there are, and that means we don't have a lot of power.

Steve Grumbine:

Most people don't ask us to join their broadcasts.

Steve Grumbine:

The few that do Jordan, Jen, uh, political misfits, others, it's just

Steve Grumbine:

small compared to what others do.

Steve Grumbine:

I mean, there's people out there that don't really know much of any of the

Steve Grumbine:

stuff that we talked about today that will get a first call to be on Rise

Steve Grumbine:

and get a first call to be on breaking points, get a first call to be on,

Steve Grumbine:

uh, some other show about people talking truth and speaking this stuff.

Steve Grumbine:

My phone's not ringing.

Steve Grumbine:

I don't know.

Steve Grumbine:

You can only assume.

Steve Grumbine:

They don't want you to know the stuff we're saying either.

Steve Grumbine:

They certainly don't know that We don't know.

Steve Grumbine:

They certainly don't know anything about us.

Steve Grumbine:

You know, it doesn't make sense to me why we're like treated like

Steve Grumbine:

bastard stepchildren, but we are.

Steve Grumbine:

So let's embrace it and let's build this movement together,

Steve Grumbine:

folks, because we are the out kids.

Steve Grumbine:

Let's make our issue the important one.

Steve Grumbine:

Let's build some gravity here.

Steve Grumbine:

Let's build some energy here.

Steve Grumbine:

And with that, thank you everyone who has donated, contributed, et cetera.

Steve Grumbine:

Thank you.

Steve Grumbine:

Double K.

Steve Grumbine:

Thank you.

Steve Grumbine:

Janet Schultz.

Steve Grumbine:

Thank you everybody.

Steve Grumbine:

Sky, the whole team, everybody that shows up.

Steve Grumbine:

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Steve Grumbine:

For being part of this particular, um, network.

Steve Grumbine:

And double k double 1990 nines for double up.

Steve Grumbine:

Double your flavor.

Steve Grumbine:

Double your fun.

Steve Grumbine:

Was that double mint gum?

Steve Grumbine:

Whatever the twins.

Steve Grumbine:

Thank you so much.

Steve Grumbine:

I appreciate it.

Steve Grumbine:

And uh, without further ado, I bid you ado and I am outta here.

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Jules $5
Great show with Momrade! Loved this conversation. You should do more of these - maybe Commie Fridays or something. :)

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About the Podcast

The Rogue Scholar
This is where activism & education meet. Compelling guests and thoughtful takes. Weaponizing knowledge, one mind at a time.
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Steven Grumbine

Steve is a lot more than just the founder and CEO of two nonprofits and the “less is more project manager” – he’s proof positive that with new knowledge and an open mind, the transition from right-wing republican to far left progressive warrior is possible.