The Rising Republic: Saints and Sinners

[00:00:01] The American people are entitled to transparency. We can't sustain a system that bleeds billions of taxpayer dollars on programs that have outlived their usefulness or exist solely because of the power of politicians, lobbyists or interest groups.

[00:00:21] They're entitled to be able to figure out where their dollars are going and they're entitled to accountability, to make sure that we're using the dollars for what we said it was for. We are going to go through our federal budget, as I promised during the campaign, page by page, line by line, eliminating those programs we don't need and insisting that those that we do need operate in a sensible, cost-effective way.

[00:00:53] What should be easy is getting rid of the pointless waste and stupid spending that doesn't benefit anybody. We hope to be instilling an entire new culture that not only our administration, but every succeeding administration will in fact pursue. No amount of waste is acceptable. Not when it's your money.

[00:01:18] Hey, welcome to The Rising Republic. It's your boys, L. Douglas Hogan. And Ryan Buford. Glad to have you. Heck yeah. How do you like the new intro there? I do like it. I mean, it's nothing like using someone's own words to prove a point. And one thing I like about Obama was he was such a concise speaker. I mean, when he was reading, don't get me wrong. Remember, he was a teleprompter king. Like he was great at teleprompting.

[00:01:48] But after he got off the script, he was like Trump. He just fell apart. Yeah. I mean, he was an eloquent speaker when it came to that. And I've been told that good presidents are made by good speech writers. So true. That's why even when Trump has, you know, cause he's got this mannerism about him whenever he's reading from a teleprompter. He's like, he's got this, this, he tries to have a commanding voice. He kind of breathes in through his teeth and tries to say, have this commanding kind of a tone to him, but God forbid you get him off that teleprompter. I'm like, please don't talk. Please don't talk. Unleash the Kraken.

[00:02:18] Right. It's like, oh no, all hell is breaking loose. Yeah. But, uh, no, it's been kind of, kind of crazy. Like you said, when you kind of use their own words against them, you know, Elon Musk and the crew that is being used, um, at Doge to uncover all this wasteful spending that we've talked about in the past. There's been even more stuff come out since then. It's the, it's like the, the, the Democrats right now, they don't want the wasteful spending spending to stop, but you won't hear them say that because they're lying in their pocketbooks, obviously.

[00:02:47] Well, yeah, they're lying for your vote. And I think people have gotten enough of that to the point where they've lost faith in the democratic party. I think I saw somewhere today that, um, the democratic party, I think I saw it was on a, actually a newsfeed that is at an all time low as far as, um, like their, uh, favoritism, like not favoritism. What's the show that too? Yeah.

[00:03:12] And, uh, yeah, that's kind of, it's eyeopening really, because you kind of, you, they seem to be such a powerhouse over the last 12 years and, you know, it's, and 16 years, maybe even. And beyond that, but now we're starting to see that it was just a unit party system the whole time.

[00:03:31] And the, the extreme left is getting hated more and more and eaten themselves alive, which, I mean, I kind of had a feeling that that was going to happen, but it's fun to watch. It's, it's their favorability rating. It's, you know, it's what you was trying to, the word you was trying to use earlier, their favorability rating is an all time low. And it's because it's because of the fringe. It's like, and we just briefly spoke about this at the beginning of the show before we started recording.

[00:03:56] Um, there's just a small, it's just, it's just a small, tiny little percentile, uh, of the, of the left. And every time I talk about the left and the Democrats, please understand, I'm talking about the, the far left, like the, the friends, I'm not talking about the ones that are moderate. The ones that are, you know, centrist. I'm not talking about those guys. I'm talking about the extreme ones. Um, same thing, you know, I can, I can complain about the ones on the far right. I don't like any of those views. It's just that the ones on the left right now are so far out of touch with reality that they've, they've completely lost touch with their voter base.

[00:04:25] And if they think that their voter base is the ones that's being the loudest and being the most clamorous, but that's not the case at all. Those are the ones that most Americans, I'll say 96% of Americans absolutely detest. They're trying to appeal to about 40% of their voter base.

[00:04:39] Yeah. And somehow they managed to get into power. So now, I mean, it's some of them were starting to see that it's like, Oh, wait a second. This was a bad idea. You know, I threw my, my vote, my intention away with this person who's just running with an agenda and they've gone so far that it's not even, you know, it's, it's not even reality. I mean, we're off in law land here.

[00:05:00] And after the last four to eight years of seeing what, what that can become, people are probably fed up with it. I am. I'm sure some of our listeners are one or two. Probably, probably a couple. The, uh, I know the big one is the open borders and, uh, you know, people, people don't want, and it's not just that, that, that immigrants are coming in unlawfully. That is a problem. Don't get me wrong. But it's, it's the elements that are coming in with them. Right. It's not just, you know,

[00:05:29] it would be different. I'm not saying it's good or right even, um, to have open borders. I don't think it is at all. Even, even if we knew exactly, you know, the only good people are coming in there. That's still a problem because we've got all these undocumented people. We got, it's a, it's a strain on the economy. You know, there's a lot of problems there. But what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to say is there's this, this, if I gave you a bag of M&Ms, like a family size bag of M&Ms. And I said that there's two pieces in this entire bag that once you eat them, it'll, it'll instantly kill you. They're poisonous. They'll, it'll instantly kill you. Would you even stick your hand in that bag and eat an M&M?

[00:05:58] No, of course not. Of course not. And that's what's going on with the border when it's open like that. Uh, yes, there are good people coming in, even though their first act of getting here is committing a crime, right? That's not so, that's why we say it's, it's, they're illegal immigrants because their first act of getting here and coming into the United States is to commit a crime. It's a border policy and it's, it's, it's a U S uh, federal law. You cannot do it. And so.

[00:06:21] And it flies in the face of the people who actually did what they were supposed to do to get here legally, you know, all that stuff. I mean, it's like, these are the people who I want to immigrate to the country. The people who want to be here, not just people who are floating across the border because they, you know, find an opportunity or they get a coyote to be able to haul them across the border.

[00:06:44] And, you know, they, they have, they, they don't have any intention of assimilating, you know, it's just a matter of coming in and taking over. And that's not, that's not immigration. That's warfare. Really?

[00:06:55] I think in there, in Elon Musk hit it on the head one time. We're going to talk about him here a little bit, but, um, he was on the Jill Rogan podcast on, uh, on February 28th and I believe this episode number 2281, um, he hit the nail on the head. We've talked about this also, but this basically, basically what they're doing with the open door policy on the border is, is it's like, it's like you're buying votes pretty much.

[00:07:17] Um, because when, when, when the Democrats are in charge, they're saying, well, here, there's no, no more border policy. We're just going to ignore the federal laws. We're going to open up the gates, just let people flood in. What they're essentially doing is saying here, the Democrats are on your side, vote for us.

[00:07:33] And, and, and Elon Musk hit it on the head in this episode of Joe Rogan. He's like, he's like, it's not necessarily going to be felt right now, but in time it will be because once these people begin to settle down, you know, and, um, and, and the districts, the voting districts are realigned, you're going to have any swing States or, or organized and, uh, they become settled with these illegal immigrants. And they, let's say start voting. For example, they're no longer going to be swing States. They'll be forever blue States.

[00:08:01] And see, that's the problem. You're going to have situations like California and Illinois and Washington where right off the top of, of the election process, they just said, we're going to, we're going to give California to the Democrats. Cause we know that, but all those electoral college votes, you got four counties in Illinois, for example, that are blue, but they're so densely populated that they control the entire electoral college. And so with these swing States, when they're out of, out of existence, will control the narrative for all future elections.

[00:08:27] And that's why I said last time before the selection, I was really worried that there was even willing to be another Republican president ever again. That may be a reality before long. Once, um, these, all these, uh, illegal people start settling in and they're allowed to vote, which are not supposed to be, but let's face it in a lot of counties and a lot of cities in, in States, um, they are voting. And, uh, these things are not being controlled by, by law because there's no ID checks and you know, there's no voter voter IDs.

[00:08:55] They just come in and they, they grab a ballot and they, they cast it. And then, you know, children that are naturally born in the United States to illegal immigrants become, they become citizens. So at that point, you know, it might not be a generational problem right now, but for our kids and their, you know, our grandkids, they're going to see a completely different country.

[00:09:14] Yeah. And that was the thing with Trump too, because he, he tried to, um, to make that, you know, uh, he tried to get rid of that law and I think got stopped by, I want to say the Supreme court said no, because this whole thing was, it wasn't that just that it's ingrained in our constitution that if you're born in the United States, you're, you're nationalized citizen. And I get that. But when the constitution was written, let's look at this in the context where the constitution was written. It was not people that are in the United States are not looked at as being ill, they're illegally, right?

[00:09:42] They're saying at some point, these people came here legally through the proper immigration process. And then they were born here and therefore they are citizens by default. You know what I'm saying? What Trump is saying is, is these people are coming here illegally and they're having children here. And now they're those, those children who are the offspring of illegal immigrants are now citizens. And I see the gray area there. And I don't, I agree with Trump, but I think the constitution needs to be amended is the issue.

[00:10:08] And I don't like the constitution necessarily being amended because it has to be a super majority. And once the constitution, you open it up for being amended, who knows what they're going to put in there? Yeah. And that's kind of, it takes quite a bit to make a constitutional amendment. When was the last one? Maybe in the sixties or seventies. I mean, it doesn't seem like it's unheard of, but it would have to be, like you said, a super majority. It'd have to be a significant portion of the nation who would have to come to an agreement that, hey, look, this is, this is not what our country is about, you know? Right.

[00:10:38] The last time the U S constitution was amended was on May 5th, 1992, when the 27th amendment was ratified. This amendment deals with congressional compensation, stating that any changes to the, to the salaries of members of Congress can only take effect at the next election of the house of representatives. Of course, they're going to, they're going to vote calls in for the, I mean, you know, raises and stuff like that, which happen all the time. These guys have ridiculous amounts of money in their pockets and, and they vote themselves on their own raises all the while off the backs of the taxpayers.

[00:11:04] You know, our, our, our taxes go up and up and up so they can eat better. Yeah. It's, you know, it's going to be nice to see what happens. I mean, people are starting to feel some of the pain with the Doge findings and, you know, I think the next one on their shopping block is a public education system.

[00:11:21] Um, you know, it's, and we're starting to see some of the pain that comes along with, you know, the realities that, that we've been living in the last two or three decades of misspending and, you know, hiring people at outrageous salaries for not doing jobs, not showing up to work, barely be able to come up with five things that they did the week prior. I mean, we're starting to realize that, Hey, look, this is massively corrupt.

[00:11:47] And that corruption extends into, into daily lives of normal Americans. And for those funding avenues to be disrupted, it's sometimes people are like, Oh, well, you know, that's not right. This person should still have a job. So did you hear about Trump's, um, his latest, uh, he's trying to cut some, uh, um, like, I think it's like seven or eight agencies. Uh, he was signing an executive order to cut seven or eight agencies. Um, I got a list of them here, the federal mediation and conciliation service.

[00:12:17] Never even heard of it. United States agency for global media. Never even heard of it. Woodrow Wilson's international center for scholars. Never heard of it. Institute of museum and library services. Same thing. Never heard of any of these really. Uh, United States, uh, interagency council on homelessness, community developmental financial institutions fund and the minority business development agency. Huh? And that's a list straight from the Epic times. I get subscriptions from them just to step on stuff, but. Yeah.

[00:12:46] I mean, a lot of those things are already, they're, they're kind of self-sustaining. I don't see why the federal government should be involved in funding and, or, you know, managing or having any sort of regulation over those industries. That's the problem with it. That, you know, yeah. Presidents can concrete agencies by the, by whipping his pen around. It's that simple. Um, it's, it's crazy to me that I'm seeing on a regular basis how the, how federal courts are telling Trump or issuing court orders that, that Trump can't do this or he can't do that.

[00:13:15] But he hired, I guess he fired a bunch of federal workers here recently. And one of these federal courts said, uh, um, ordered a halt against the termination of those employees. I'm like, what gives you, no court has the power to tell the president that he can and can't fire his employees. Exactly. Exactly. That's, that's the executive branch's power to hire and fire. Yep. And there's, it's not just that I get these all the time on these different things. Like you, they're far reaching, far, they're overreaching and they, they, they, they're trying to use, utilize more power than they have. The president has powers to do these things.

[00:13:45] Yeah. And at what point does losing your job turn into a human right or a civil right or something that can be even possibly remotely contested in a Supreme court level? Right. Yeah. It would take forever for like, I would understand it if you, if somebody gets terminated on the basis of their race or their age or something like that, but it takes, it takes years for that stuff to get fought up to the Supreme court level. Yeah. And you can't just like, if it's a blanket thing, whether you like, whether you're, you know, any kind of different religion, race, color, creed, whatever.

[00:14:14] And the entire department gets whacked. That has nothing to do with it. It has to do with the department itself. Exactly. Either performance or funding or whatever. So there's, there's, yeah, I don't see how that would even hold water in a Supreme court or even an upper district level court. In and of itself, you can tell, you know, that the, that, that, I mean, the proof is in the pudding here. When, when, when the entire agency is getting whacked, they're, they're not discriminating, you know? No.

[00:14:38] So the, the, no court has a power to tell the executive branch that he can't hire or fire his people. It's ingrained within the constitution, uh, what the, what their executive powers are. And if that's the case, the Supreme court should be able to do the opposite and prevent any new branches from being formed by any president. Yeah. That's not part of that branch of government. So.

[00:15:01] That being said, a lot of the executive orders that, that Biden has, has, has written, Trump has, has unwritten, so to speak. Right. So that's the power of the pin because an executive order is a legislation and another led to another executive can come in after that and say, oops, sorry, no more. And just undo it. And I think that's one thing that, that really needs to happen in this term is watching to see what is effective after this first 12 months.

[00:15:29] Once the dust settles, the economy is going to change. The lifestyles in the United States are going to change. The rules and regulations are going to change. And if those things trend on an upward positive level where people can go back to their normal lives without having to worry about what, about what bathroom they're going to be able to go into or what bathroom they're going to be able to let their kids go into. That change has to happen. And I think if that is an executable that happens during this term, then we're going to be in good shape.

[00:15:58] If it isn't, if there's all these stopping blocks and government agencies that start, you know, throwing their weight around, um, we're going to wind up. And in another election cycle without having enough successes, so to speak, to be able to write off the next, you know, Joe Biden or Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton. And it's just going to happen back. You know, it's going to happen again. It's going to creep back into where we wound up four years ago. Yeah.

[00:16:28] And I feel that Trump's already done so much in favor of the, you know, like the, for example, uh, allowing men and women sports, for example, to me, that's a woman's rights issue. So I would say, you know, from a conservative perspective that he's done a lot for women's rights where you got your feminists who are big on women's rights. Uh, it's largely a leftist group or have always been quiet about this.

[00:16:50] Like you would think that they would be outspoken about it because men, biological men coming into their, into their sports. I mean, ladies, females in general have done a lot in the past to get to where they are currently. And it seems to be all being undermined when you get these, uh, these female sports athletes who are a lot of them incredible, you know, and they compete for years to get to where they're at. And then some male comes in who can't, who can't rank in, in, in, in the series of men.

[00:17:19] So they, they come over and they identify as a woman and they come over and they compete in the woman's series of whatever it is. We'll say track, for example, and then knock the top woman out easily. You know, that's unfair. And you'd think that the feminist groups in the women's rights and advocacy groups would step in and say, yo, yo, yo, yo. But no, they're, they're largely quiet about it. But Trump, this is, he's doing this in a second term. It would have been an appropriate thing for him to do in his first term. I would like to have seen it, but you know, those are the kinds of things that you want to take care of in a second term.

[00:17:48] Like we talked about last time, that's a second term decision. And he's done so much already for women's rights. So I applaud him for that. Yeah. And I mean, I think what that Brittany Griner, I don't know what her name is. She was a WNBA. He was a WNBA person. I don't know if you remember that story. He went to Russia, got busted with weed, and then they wound up prison, imprisoning him.

[00:18:14] And then Biden swapped him some sort of like, oh, the basketball player terrorist. Yeah. Yeah. Brittany Griner. Yeah. I mean, that's, that is the exemplification of what can go wrong. I mean, and, and I don't even know who's going to be carrying that standard forward saying that, oh yeah, this, this is good. This is a good thing. Let's go ahead and let women in men's sports. I remember when it first started happening.

[00:18:39] It first started, I want to say in, in like, like MMA and like boxing and stuff like that, like, oh yeah. Like, oh yeah. And you were seeing like women were, their careers are being ended within seconds of getting into the ring with a biological male. Yeah. That's not acceptable. I don't, I don't know on what planet anybody can say that that is acceptable. And I think that's why these, you know, these, uh, these feminists, so to speak, aren't saying anything about it because they're pinned down by their, their trans agenda friends or whatever. So I don't know.

[00:19:09] That's, it's messed up. I'm glad to see that that's changing though. Yes, sir. Let's do this. Let's, uh, because I want to talk, uh, I got a clip here with, uh, with Elon Musk when he's on the Joe Rogan show. Nice. And he's, he's, he's obviously, I'll say he's definitely fretting, but I'll say probably possibly even scared. And he, he, he's, he's a slow talker anyway, because he thinks, and I don't have a problem with that people. Some people talk really slow because they like to think about what they're going to say. And that's good. I have a lot more respect for people who do do more listening than they do talking.

[00:19:38] Um, he's articulate about his words, but I know he's also autistic to some point. Um, but he's talking here about his worries with what he's uncovered in Doge. And I want to talk about this and then we'll take, we'll, we'll, we'll talk a little bit about, about that. Uh, take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk about more Elon Musk, but, um, in the scientific, if you will, uh, area of his business. So let's hear, here's this clip real quick here from the Joe Rogan podcast. It's really going to get me assassinated.

[00:20:09] It's more than just insider trading. Um, like the insider trading stuff, like the stock portfolio stuff is quite trackable, but there's, uh, it's a lot more than insider trading. The way they're acquiring wealth. Correct. And what other methods? I mean, this is really going to get me assassinated. It's like, uh, I'm, I'm not lengthening my lifespan by explaining this stuff to say the least.

[00:20:41] Um, I mean, I was supposed to go back to DC. How am I going to survive? This poker is going to kill me for sure. Um, so, um, in fact, I, I do think like this, it's like, I actually have to be careful that I don't push too hard on the corruption stuff because it's going to get me killed.

[00:21:06] Um, you know, um, yeah, you know, it's like, I was actually thinking about that on the plane flat over here. It's like, if I push too hard on the corruption stuff, people get desperate is the issue. Uh, so he's not laughing because he's funny. That's obviously nervous laughter. How many times did he say it'll get me killed or assassinated? This guy's worried. This is an issue. Yeah.

[00:21:34] And I think even before he wound up having this position, once he started doing things, switching over to the right, you know, leaning in that direction with certain things he was saying on social media, he started getting these death threats, credible death threats. And his, um, you know, all this, all this kind of stuff. And yes, he's multi-billionaire and has all these things and, and I could see how he would be a target.

[00:21:56] Um, but for him to clam up like that, that is telling, you know, what are these people doing beyond corruption to make money that he is so terrified of that he can't even say it. You know, that's, and it's not a matter of, Oh, I can't say it because it's, you know, it's under currently under investigation. He knows, he knows what it is. And it is so bad that he can't even say it out loud. Right. And then, and then that is scary. And then he can't, if he does say it, he can't go back to Washington. Yeah.

[00:22:25] I mean, what, who has that kind of power? You know, that if this is big and it tells me that there's more than one person involved, there's probably a group of persons involved in that they're all, they're all mutually aligned, uh, for whatever cause it may be. And there's a lot of people benefit from benefiting from this. And if he was to say it out loud, he knew for sure that something awful would happen to him. Like you said, what could it possibly be that he came to speak this out loud? Because Rogan asked him quite simply, what are the methods? Because it's clear that there's corruption that he's uncovered.

[00:22:53] And he's talked about some of that corruption that he's uncovered. It's more than just shifting money around. And Rogan's like, well, what are the methods? And he's afraid to say. Yeah. He won't give, yeah. He's like, and I, and kind of is telling too, like, Oh yeah, this insider trading, that's trash, that's traceable. And that you can look up, you can find out because you have to, you know, put that out on your taxes, like what your trades were and what your losses were, any shares that you sold, that kind of stuff.

[00:23:23] But, you know, now we're looking into things that are seedy. You know, we got politicians and factions of government that are making money, billions and billions of dollars doing illicit things. Horrible things, probably. I mean, if you can't even say it, I mean, child trafficking, government takeovers, blackmail. I mean, murders. Who knows? Culture, Pizzagate. Human trafficking. Yes, Pizzagate's very real.

[00:23:52] I mean, that's a whole other freaking short story right there. Definitely a whole other story. But let's do this crazy. All right, let's take a quick break here. And when we come back, I want to talk about SpaceX and the Teslas and stuff like that. Be right back at the Reservoir Public. Nice. Who is on your side, PBN family? When it comes to healthcare, I know no better ally than the folks at the wellness company. They've been our sponsor now for months, and I want you to look at their monthly membership.

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[00:24:50] So, Ryan, I think you've been more up to up than I have been on what's going on with SpaceX and people in space. I guess there's been some folks that have been stranded up there, and we've been trying to – Yeah. What's going on? Go ahead. Maybe eight, nine months ago, there was a group of astronauts that went up to the International Space Station. These are U.S. astronauts, and for whatever reason, they had an issue during the Biden administration with getting another rocket ship back up there or their equipment back down here.

[00:25:21] Short story, they were supposed to be up there for a couple of days, and they've been up there for eight months. And, you know, it never came up during the election, you know, what was going on with these people. But, I mean, this is like a rescue mission type thing, and for some reason we're just leaving these astronauts up in space. Well, Elon Musk had made the comment, hey, well, just untie my hands, and I can send a ship up there, and we'll go pick them up. I mean, it's just like – it's like leaving your kid at the soccer field, you know?

[00:25:51] Well, you forgot to pick them up. Okay, well, I'll just drop what I'm doing and go do it. But then sitting here and having your hands tied to the point where you can't do it. And I honestly believe that if anybody but he and Trump had gotten into office, those astronauts would not only still be up there, but they would not be getting home. And they – I mean, they don't have that kind of supply up there. They have enough to survive this long. But, I mean, for whatever reason, they couldn't bring them back.

[00:26:19] Well, this morning I opened up my phone and saw that, oh, here we have the SpaceX Dragon loading up to the International Space Station and being received by the astronauts up there. And it's essentially a rescue mission that's not getting any publicity. The guy's not getting any kudos for this. And he's doing it essentially on his own dime. This isn't – I mean, he's not using U.S. taxpayer money to go get U.S. citizens.

[00:26:46] He's using his own money, his own resources, his own tools and equipment, his own team, everything for this rescue mission. And he's basically – he's getting lambasted by people on the left. And it's like, what in the hell are people thinking? I mean, how do you get so much hate in your system to where someone can do something like this and you still can't give the guy a little bit of slack? This is big bad Elon you're talking about, right?

[00:27:10] The guy that's going into all these government programs, wasteful spending programs and basically the budget of the United States and all the waste that we've been spending. And the guy that's been exposing where all of our tax dollars is going, that bad guy? Yeah. Spent his own money to go to send a ship into space to rescue some – how long were they up there? Some like six or eight months. How much food – how long was the mission supposed to be? A couple of days. Well, hold on a second. I'm confused.

[00:27:40] And I don't – again, I don't want to catch you off guard because I didn't follow this. But if they went up there for a couple of days, did they only take – what? How much food did they take? Well, the space station has supplies on it. Okay. So they had to have tapped into those space station supplies. I mean, you get eight extra people there. Yeah. You're going to have quite a bit more coming on. So it's kind of like, you know, they have resources, but they're tapping into them, which is going to stress the remaining mission of the space station. To be able to stay stocked up.

[00:28:09] So I'm sure he sent a ship up with supplies to resupply the space station, which, you know, I don't know. I don't have all those details, but it does kind of make you wonder, like, how did they survive for eight months? And they probably went to a ration scale to realize that, oh, well, we're not going to be able to have turkey dinner every night. We're going to have to pare it back until we get word from NASA. And, oh, by the way, now we're in the middle of an election.

[00:28:37] And, oh, by the way, we've got to wait to see what's going to happen because there's a new administration. And we still – NASA hasn't done boo about this, you know? Right. And that upsets me because our taxpayer dollars are funding NASA. Well, we have a SpaceX program. And what's that being used for? I don't know. I think that is Tesla's own pet project. Or, I'm sorry. Trump? What's his name? Elon Musk.

[00:29:03] There's a SpaceX program that is essentially – it's a private company that is using U.S. resources to be able to get up and out. But I think they've moved outside of launching from – what's the one in Florida or Texas? You know, the NASA launch sites to where they're essentially moving toward their own space station launch setup. Well, what's the thing that Trump created in his last term? He created some kind of – Oh, that's Space Force. Space Force. I'm sorry.

[00:29:33] Yeah, yeah. I said SpaceX. I meant Space Force. So, what's that all about? Look, we need to spend a reasonable degree of money for this kind of thing because we have – there's a lot of dangers out there. There's asteroids all the time. There's big ones at some point. We've gone through how many extinction-level events via meteor, right? And it will happen again. It's not a matter of is it going to happen, but when will it happen? This is going to happen. At some point, we're going to be hit again by something that is going to annihilate us.

[00:30:02] And so, I think that we need to have a reasonable degree of money, not just us, but some kind of global fund, something, you know, that goes into protecting our world. Because when this thing comes – after all the family feuds are over with and all the countries are done fighting, we're still a human race. Yes. And the only planet we have is this little blue ball that floats around in a finite universe.

[00:30:26] And there's an infinite amount of rocks that could level this planet easily. And we need to work together to get this, you know, some kind of space study, some kind of – we need that. I believe that we do because I – Amuamua. Have you heard about that? The asteroid? It's elongated. And it came from another celestial – like they're saying it's not even from our galaxy. So, they believe that this thing came from another galaxy. You have to look up – just do a Google search.

[00:30:56] Good luck spelling it. If you even try to spell Amuamua, you're going to – asteroid or meteor, Amuamua. You're going to get all kinds of studies on it. But this thing came around a few years ago when they thought that when it passed through, it was going to leave and we'd never see it again. It has come back around again. And this thing is unlike any meteor that our world has ever seen as long as we've been able to look at the stars. This thing is long, like a pencil. It's elongated.

[00:31:23] It's not roundish like most meteors are that fly through space. Most meteors that fly through space, they have gases that kind of eject, you know, from the back of them. They have a tail. This thing emits no gases. It emits – it has no tail. Well, it's almost like it's just other galaxy. I won't say otherworldly, but of course it is. It's almost like it's from another galaxy. It's nothing like anything we've ever seen.

[00:31:50] And some believe when it first came here, when it was rather far distance away before it got closer to us, that it was some kind of an alien ship, some kind of a planet or some kind of a scout. That's what Amuamua actually stands for in the Hawaiian language. I believe it's either Hawaiian or Samoan. I won't say Hawaiian, but it stands for scout ship or scout, something along those lines. And they believed it to be some kind of a scout from another planet or another galaxy that came here. Look it up. It's really, really deep. This thing has passed by.

[00:32:20] And I don't know if it's big enough to end us, but it's big enough and close enough that we're able to bounce lights off of it to determine what it's made of and to see it really closely. And it's unlike anything that we've ever studied in as long as humans have been studying asteroids and comets. Wow. It's truly amazing. Well, that's the kind of stuff.

[00:32:45] I mean, like you say, we have to have some sort of international level of readiness when it comes to that kind of stuff to be able to survive as a race. And the reality is there. I mean, it's just like you say, it's a matter of time. But if we can't even bring eight individuals back that we put up on a space station that's orbiting our Earth, we got some major problems.

[00:33:09] And I think that Elon stepping up to do something like that, it's a move in the right direction. And I think more people need to recognize that. And if it wasn't for his role right now, what he's doing in assistance to the United States budget, he would get some kind of a medal, some kind of, he would get something from all countries of the world for doing what he did. And, you know, if, if, if who will, who was it? Who, who did he rescue exactly? I don't have the names. Not names, but it was like countries.

[00:33:38] Eight astronauts from the United States. They're all from the United States? I believe so. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's worthy of some kind of recognition, but he's probably not going to get it unless it comes from this current president. Yeah. And even then it's going to be shunned like, oh, just one billionaire pat another billionaire on the back. It's like, well, you know, we got eight human beings that have been stranded up there because the previous administration couldn't pull their heads out.

[00:34:01] And, you know, billions of dollars we are finding out has been wasted on stupid stuff like gender plays in Bora Bora or wherever, you know, Bolivia. And it's like, we don't, we had the means to be able to fix this problem a week after it happened. And instead it's just been pawned off on the private sector to pull up and get shit done. And that's where we are as a nation. And I think most of the people are like, you know what? Yeah.

[00:34:30] We need to start cutting these programs, get rid of that stuff. And let's see what we can come up with on our own. People see this guy is just exemplifying that through something as simple as well, not as simple as, but, you know, by stepping in where the government has failed. People seem to forget that because a lot of, a lot of people, they place, once they place a dollar, like a large dollar sign on the, on the, on a person, they seem to forget that that person is also still a person and a human.

[00:34:58] And he has a heart and nobody cares to bother to look into the charities that he pays into and the things that he has done and sacrifices his life. You know what I mean? He's not just, Elon's not just letting his money, using his money to enrich himself, which any good capitalist would do, but he also does things like, like he's the things he's doing for us right now for the United States and doge. He's not taking a paycheck for. And this thing that he did with this on this rescue mission, he's not going to get paid for that. Like you said, he's doing this of his own money. And what did he do with the Starlink for the people of North Carolina, right?

[00:35:28] When they had, when they had, when all, when that, when that hurricane came through, you and I was there, we slept through it. We was not 10, 15 feet apart from each other on, on the side of that mountain, that hurricane came through. We were, you know, we pulled together as, as a little group of preppers and survivalists when we were there and helped clean the way and get, you know, for us to get out. But most of the people that was there, they lost everything in, in, in that state and parts of Tennessee. They lost their, their homes or they lost all electricity.

[00:35:58] Their, everything was flooded and the trees were down, the lines were down. It took months and a lot of them are still suffering, but they had no communication with the outside world. The president Trump went and visited because Biden didn't go and Kamala Harris didn't go. They, they, they put on a makeshift show like they did. They filmed somewhere like they went, but the, the people that said that, that were at the landing, at the landing pad where they were supposed to go. So they never showed up here. So they said they were going to go, but they didn't go. They filmed that they did go.

[00:36:26] So something weird was going on there, but Trump actually went and he made a phone call to, um, to Elon Musk. And Elon Musk is on there, man. And he sent out these, uh, I don't know how many units he sent out, but he sent out a lot of Starlink units and he made it available to people who couldn't communicate with the outside world. They're in North Carolina, made it possible for them to get on their phones and, uh, or their tablets or whatever they had to reach out to people outside of their, their state, uh, for assistance. Yeah.

[00:36:55] And that was our life. Well, lifeline when we were there is one Starlink unit for two, 300 people. You're right. Uh, uh, what Jasmine, Jasmine, um, uh, throughout, uh, I mean, I was unable to communicate with my wife, you know, and she was worried. She knew that there was a hurricane coming in there. Uh, I, we knew that there was a hurricane coming when I went. I'm like, this is this prepper camp. I'm going. And, uh, my wife was worried about me and I could not reach out to my wife. I'm sure using the same exact situation.

[00:37:25] She couldn't reach out to your fam. Um, and, um, and Jasmine had, she had a Starlink, uh, mobile unit in her backpack and she gave me her password and she said, here you go. And it was, I don't want to say lifesaver because there are people out there that lost their lives, but man, it helped in such a way that I was able to reach out to my wife and say, Hey, I, you know, the day of the storm, I'm safe. You know, um, it passed through, you know, where I'm good to go. I'm safe.

[00:37:52] Uh, I'm going to work on, you know, getting things packed up and getting back home here pretty soon. Uh, which I did because of the floodwaters that we had. Um, yeah, I know me and a few others left, left a day early, um, because we were vending. Uh, I know Sarah, uh, Hathaway left a day early. I left not long before she did because, uh, nobody's getting in. Nobody could get in. And, uh, we barely got out to tell you the truth because of all the, all the line, the power lines and trees that were down. Yeah.

[00:38:21] I mean, in events like that, scenarios like that, somebody stepped up to make it happen. One person. And in our instance or our circumstance, it was Jasmine with a tool that was provided by one person, you know, that was designing that five years ago that wouldn't existed.

[00:38:38] But that little, that little thing that, that existed because somebody went through the channels, built that thing, had, you know, employed however many people to get it made and, you know, shipped and delivered and all that kind of stuff. So there's a whole chain of people and a whole chain of events that came to pass just for that thing to be there when we needed it. And if it was a government supplied unit, it wouldn't, it would have never showed up.

[00:39:08] It'd have been a week late and it'd cost 10 times as much when nobody needed it. And by, by the time we saw it, money had been spent and we were already off on our way. I'm hesitant to, to, to say what I'm about to say here. But I, I believe that we're, we're, we're not attracting the types of listeners who would react negatively to this. So I'm going to go ahead and do this. But this is reported widely and I'm going to read something here now from ABC news. Shots have evidently been fired at Oregon Tesla dealership.

[00:39:37] It's, it's an ongoing vandalism since must began working for Trump. I guess people are doing drive-bys in, in any kind of, uh, there could be more than Oregon. Cause it says here that more shots were fired at Oregon. But, uh, these, yeah, exactly. So, so Trump put on, uh, Elon to do this. Trump who himself is not taking a paycheck, uh, brought in Elon Musk, Elon Musk to help with this, who himself is not taking on a paycheck.

[00:40:03] And people who are working with Elon are not taking any paycheck, at least not from the government. I mean, he's a billionaire. He's probably paying his own people. Hey, you know, probably detailing them from their businesses to come over here and do this thing, which whatever, you know, that the, the Trump has the executive authority to assign whoever he wants to look into any kind of executive actions that he wants to look into in the budget and all this other stuff. But it's just, it's shameful that they're, they're, they're shooting. How long ago was it that he released the blueprints for electric vehicles?

[00:40:31] And he was hailed as some kind of a, of a green, you know, green energy goddess, God, you know, and, and the, the, the left loved him. Everybody loved him because he just released the blueprints. Here's how you do it guys. Because Elon is not the type of person to say, I'm just going to keep this to myself and I'm going to copyright this and patent this and I'm going to make all the money off this. But he released it. He said, here you go. Here's the blueprints to this. Do you remember when he did that? Mm-hmm. And, and, and they, they held him as a hero. Okay.

[00:41:00] Here's our green energy guy, you know, and now years down the road, he's doing more good things, but it's for the wrong person in their minds. And so now they're taking shots and how many millions of dollars you think have gone into waste? I don't even know that. I don't, I haven't read these articles in full as far as the money goes, but how, I wonder how much loss there is at these Tesla dealerships shooting their guns and putting holes in these very expensive vehicles to prove a point that they haley to Elon Musk.

[00:41:30] Yeah. And there's been, uh, 15 attacks since January 20th, everything from Molotov cocktails to spray painting, um, AR rifle attacks. Uh, they had to make sure that they get that one in there. Um, let's see where we're seeing shots fired, Molotov cocktails, a lot of the same stuff, which to me screams Antifa. So on tariffs, let's talk about tariffs for a second. Because it seems like everybody's freaking out about the whole, Oh my gosh, we're going into a tariff war.

[00:41:58] How many of these countries, I think right now at this point, a hundred percent of them have all conceded. Am I, am I wrong about that? I don't think any of them have, have backed out. I mean, there have been concessions and there have been, you know, some sword rattling, but for the most part, you know, those tariffs are still in place. And until these nations are getting ready to start, you know, putting in some, some real work on the international level, that doesn't make sense why we should pay extra.

[00:42:25] We're paying for all everybody's global security and food supply and all this kind of other shit. And then we turn around and, you know, just take it on the backend because everybody else is outsourcing their, their labor and their materials and all that kind of stuff to Mexico or Canada or China or wherever else. So, you know what? If we bring that stuff home, we'll be self-sufficient. I'm, I'm all for it personally. I've read an article more recently that, that some of the tariffs that Canada has on the

[00:42:54] United States are as high as 360%. And everybody's freaking out that we have a 25% tariff on them. 360%. Are you, are you kidding me right now? You know, and, and, and, and here's the problem, you know, if they're not assisting with the border issue and some of this fentanyl crisis and stuff that's coming down, you know, of course, raise those tariffs. I think 25% is extremely fair. Especially when you're, you, your tariffs on us is 360% on some of these goods.

[00:43:24] It's, and it varies, you know, from the 200 percentile to 360 percentile. That's an extremely high tariff. If we did that, we'd almost get nothing from these other countries. It'd force them. And here's the whole idea behind tariffs is to force them to move their business, their businesses into the United States. So the jobs are created here. And that's what we're starting to see already with this semi-conductive company out of Taiwan. I think that made a eight or $10 billion deal or partnership of some kind. I haven't heard that. Yeah.

[00:43:52] I don't have all the details on that, but that is something that has come about recently as a direct result of these tariffs. Because it's like, well, if you're going to put a bunch of tariffs on our product out of coming out of Taiwan or whatever, then it'll be less expensive for us to build them in the United States because we're still going to need it. And if they are shipping their own materials in and assembling here in the United States, guess what? That's a job here in the United States.

[00:44:22] And that's a product that's built here in the United States. And the rest of the world is going to need these same semiconductors and other stuff, you know, parts and pieces, vehicles, computer components, stuff like that. So why not? I mean, bring that stuff in. We can still do these things. And if we have the means to be able to make it happen, let's make it happen instead of just sitting there and, you know, trying to buy stuff cheap from other nations that's getting

[00:44:49] cheaper and taking jobs away from American citizens. That's a whole part of this whole tariff story that I think the news isn't covering. You never hear them talk about how it's going to create jobs in the United States. You only hear them talk about how it's going to cost other countries and they're not going to want to do trade with us and all this other stuff. They don't talk about how the prospect of pushing them or forcing them to move their businesses into the United States. Because here's what people don't understand.

[00:45:19] When we put a tariff on, let's say, Canada, okay? All imports from Canada are going to be charged as 25%. It's basically a tax, but it's not called a tax because they're not a citizen, right? It's another country. So we just change the word from tax to tariff. It charges them 25%. And that could be adjusted by executive fiat pretty much. But those businesses inside of Canada can move their businesses from the United States. They can move their businesses.

[00:45:48] They can send representatives over here and start a business inside the United States. It's not like... Don't get me wrong. You know, those countries understand that they're going to be losing those businesses. Because right now, those businesses are in Canada. They're in Canada and those jobs are in Canada. And when we trade with them, that causes the... First of all, those jobs are not with us. When they come over here, the price of those items are rather expensive because of the price of tariff.

[00:46:17] But once they get so high, the people who are working on the Canadian side are like, this is expensive. I don't want to close my business. If I want to keep money in my pocket, I'm going to have to move my job to the United States. When they move their job to the United States, it lines their pockets and it creates more jobs here and our products become cheaper. Yep. And I think, you know, people are crying about, oh God, the tariffs are going to come out of my own pocket. It's just going to cost me more and all this kind of stuff.

[00:46:44] But the reality is, like you say, you're going to have more income in the United States as a result of this, more buying power. And it's a form of stimulus that is far more long lasting than a stimulus check. On top of that, the other side of these tariffs is once they become established and we start making money off of tariffs as a nation, that's less money that we wind up needing as a tax base.

[00:47:13] And, you know, if they're, if they're, cause they've been talking about eliminating income tax, tax on tips, all that kind of stuff. So if this actually happens, I mean, I'm that to me, that's about an $800 a month difference. So, you know what, if it costs me $400 a month extra to do the, to buy normal stuff that I wouldn't normally get because it's, you know, hits, it gets hit by some kind of tariff, like building supplies or plastics or something like that. Then guess what?

[00:47:41] I'm still 400 bucks ahead every month. So I'm, I'm looking at it more on the longterm side of things like 10, 20, 30, 40 years down the road, not, Oh, you know, I can't afford eggs. So I can't afford these tariffs because my iPhone's going to cost more, you know, it's just, I don't, the short sightedness is pretty much, I, I, I can look past that and realize the longterm value of what is trying to be achieved here.

[00:48:10] And I think that's a big problem with the leftists is they always wanted instant gratification and they're not willing to be patient and to work and to labor for, you know, like you said, um, the long game or, you know, extended outcomes, you know, some of these things you just gotta, you gotta work and wait for and tariffs aren't an instantaneous gratification. It takes time. It's like what we were talking about a couple episodes ago with, with chickens. If you get baby chickens, you're going to, you're going to have them for a while before they get to egg laying age.

[00:48:39] Um, which by the way, I mean, my wife been talking about that and we're absolutely going to start raising us some, some chickens, but we might be getting, I think some adult chickens, which are quite a bit more, probably double the price of, of, of a chick. Um, but it's a lot less work right out. So that'd be like essentially getting a, uh, tax, tax refund every year on whatever you put out, you know, to, to offset the, you know, the time that it would take to raise those chicks on your own.

[00:49:10] And the price of eggs right now are astronomical because as we just discussed before, how many of them have, you know, they were, they were killed because of this bird flu thing. Um, so with fewer egg producers, the price of eggs are going up. Yeah. So if you are, if you have your own chickens, I mean, you're doing yourself a favor. You're, you put money in back in your pocket. It's like this whole doge thing. Uh, the money that, that they're finding all the wasteful spinning that they've, they've found and then they've put a halt on there.

[00:49:38] They're sending that out in, in kind of like a relief check, I guess. I'm hearing rumors about that. Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, that's just the thing I'm hearing rumors. I know, you know, I've, I've heard, I've heard, um, uh, Oh, uh, is it Catherine? I want to say, I don't want to get her first name wrong. Catherine Levitt, the, the new press secretary. Um, it's, they're coming. It's just a matter of, in the, the price, I guess, could be 5,000 per, $5,000 checks per, um, per, uh, income earner.

[00:50:07] But, and then I don't, if you don't hear directly, you hear all these other rumors. It's like, where are you guys getting this information? And one of the most recent rumors I heard that you have to make at least $50,000 a year to get one of these checks back. And I'm like, I don't understand. I, it's partly I do because the more, more tax are taken away from people who make more money. Yes. Um, so if you make more, if you make 50,000 plus dollars a year, you're going, you're getting taxed by the, we'll say rape by the government, the hardest, like they're taking

[00:50:36] more from you, like more money. Um, it's not a fair tax situation. They take more money from you because you make, you make more money. And so that money then is, was being shifted to these, this, these wasteful spending groups that we've seen are going to the Himalayas and to all these countries that a lot of people haven't even heard the names of before for, uh, LGBTQ, DQ, uh, LMNOP training.

[00:51:01] And, you know, uh, uh, uh, I've seen some things as crazy as, as, um, studying the binaries of mice. And if you cut their testicles off and do, do they become more feminine? You don't say that's just wasteful tax spending. True story. And it's like, this is so wasteful, but that's being re-diverted back to the American people then. And so, uh, it's, it's a lot like that, but in a smaller scale with chickens, you put,

[00:51:29] you put your money in now, let's say you buy some chickens and you take care of them when they're small, you raise them until their leg, laying age. And then, and then you get to reap the harvest of, of eggs. And that's just less money that you got to put out for other things. You get to pocket that then. I mean, you can, yeah, you can buy food on the table. You know, it's a baking supply. It's something that you can use every day and you're not going out to pay for it. I saw something today that was like, um, if I think, uh, what's the guy's name?

[00:51:59] Ah, he does a survival podcast. Oh, what's his name? Spearco, Jack Spearco. Um, but he, he retweeted something out on, on X. We posted some on X today that I had seen earlier in the day about this guy who was like, well, you know, if one in three families had just three chickens, it would eradicate the entire egg laying industry, you know?

[00:52:28] And that to me was kind of like an interesting way to look at that. If one out of three families in the United States had at least three chickens, that means that, and I would consider myself one of them, I have enough for myself and potentially two other families. And that's, that's totally possible with the amount of chickens that I have and how to be able to manage and maintain them. So, uh, it's really, when you look at like world poverty and hunger and things like that,

[00:52:57] if you were to take that to that level and say, well, if you want to end world hunger, just make sure that you have one in every three families have at least three chickens. And you know what they did right before world war two, they encouraged every family, every household to have at least two chickens. Now, not every household could, but if that's the propaganda that they're putting out to these people is because you know what, we're going into war.

[00:53:22] We need to make sure families are fed and you know, the population continues to grow because we're going to see a rapid decline. So get those chickens going. And I'm seeing the opposite here. Like where it's happening is in, it's like an undertow in our community where people are like, look, uh, we're seeing writing on the wall. Maybe we should raise some chickens, not from the government or anybody saying, look, be more self-sufficient. Well, let me ask you this question. Sorry.

[00:53:52] No, I'm, I'm curious about this whole chicken thing because I've, I'm going into it. My wife is knowledgeable on it, but I'm, I have a question for, for you and, and for the listeners, if they would like to hear the answer to this is the overhead. So I'm thinking I have to buy food for chicken. I have a, I have a big old pasture that chickens can come out, you know, they can do their own thing and they can walk around and free graze and go back. You know, I guess they go back at dusk, right? Um, back to the roost.

[00:54:17] Um, but as far as overhead goes, because we were trying, if, if, if raising, getting your own chickens, the whole thing here is to save money. So what's the overhead? Is there less overhead than there is produce? Uh, yes. Once they're established. Yes. Okay. So produce takes a lot of time and energy. Um, chickens, once you have a home for them and, um, you know, you have a means to feed them, then you're usually fine. And really, you don't have to pay for feed.

[00:54:45] Um, if you decide to grow your own or if you free range them, you know, they'll, they'll destroy a yard if you get a lot of them, but they'll also take care of bugs like ticks and, you know, things like that. Uh, they'll eat grass and comfrey. And so if you grow things that are prolific, like kale or comfrey or, um, you know, different forms of spinach in a greenhouse or things like that, you can keep them fed.

[00:55:10] And my wife will always give them like oatmeal or cake table scraps, things like that, that they can eat. Um, the, the most expensive part that I see people getting trapped in is their surroundings, like building a chicken run or buying one that's like thousands of dollars when you don't need to. So the overhead is what you make it. Um, but the best thing you can do is recycle something, repurpose something into it. That's what we're doing. Or run. Yep.

[00:55:37] I have, I have a concrete building that I just need to, the wall in the back end is open up and I'm going to close it off with some exterior, uh, two by fours, probably some two by sixes and get that closed off and board up the windows. And I got, I just got to repair a door on it and boom, you know, uh, there's shelves in there that they can use to, uh, to lay on, but I need to put, uh, roosts are easy to put, you know, just a two by four, a couple few two by fours on top. Uh, we don't need a lot of roosters probably. I mean, not, no, I'm not rooster. We're not getting a rooster. We've decided against that.

[00:56:06] Um, but some hens probably, uh, four, four, maybe six of the most. Yeah. I mean, I've got five and I want, and that usually is, I tend to go up and down depending on how many predators get each year. But I mean a two or $3 investment per chick, get three or four chicks every year, lose three hens every year. I mean, that cycles through enough to where I'm still getting anywhere from two to four eggs a day.

[00:56:35] And even at the price of feed, say, you know, a 50 pound bag for 30 bucks for four to six eggs a day, or, you know, let's say two to four eggs a day on average. Um, that's easily two or three dozen eggs a week at eight bucks a week, you know?

[00:56:59] So, I mean, it pencils out just fine if you have a decent type of hen and, and mine are all egg layers. They're not designed for me, but you could use them for both. Basically, I have coworkers that do that. Yeah, they run, you know, a hundred, 150 chickens every year and they'll, they'll let them lay and then they'll call about a third of them. And then they'll let those continue to lay through winter and through the next year. And then they'll call a third of them and then rebuild their population.

[00:57:27] But I mean, their freezers are always full and they always have eggs and they sell their surplus to pay for the feed. So it's, it's, it's a self-sustaining type of thing once you get to a certain point and, you know, depending on how you manage it, it's really pretty minimal. And in places like in Illinois where I'm at, we get, we can get a lot of snow in the winter time. So yeah, through the spring, summer, fall, they could be out running around in the winter time would be probably about one of the only times we need to actually get out and put

[00:57:56] some, some, some food out. Yeah. And yeah, that's pretty much where I'm at too. I mean, we'll put food out and they, that my chickens don't mind the snow. They'll walk around in two, three feet of snow and make their little chicken trails and they'll, they'll find a little hut to hang out in. And I mean, they, they still scrape around and do stuff. I mean, they're, they got a built-in down jacket. So yeah, they don't, point being though, I guess they're not going to find as many insects out there, greens and things probably under the snow. Yeah.

[00:58:26] You'd be surprised Siberian kale. If you grow that, they will eat it. And I mean, that stuff will grow under two feet of snow. So, I mean, there, there are ways to do it and keep them fed through winter with greens. They may not like it in the best, but they'll be fed. Yup. Well, then you can supplement with your own stuff. Right, man. Well, that concludes our show. I do have a little bit of news. I do have, I have four books that have gone audible now.

[00:58:56] So when I go to, every time I put out a new book, one of the earlier questions I get is, is it on audible? Uh, because a lot of our, my readers, so to speak, are not quote, quote, quote, unquote, readers. They, but they listen. Um, you know, we got people who are, uh, they work a lot and they walk around with headphones or earbuds in or their drivers and they're on the road and they, the books that they would know, you and I would normally be reading, they're listening to. And so I get this question a lot. Is it, is it on audible? Well, no, not yet.

[00:59:24] And it's a little bit of a process and I've had somewhat of a grudge against narrators, um, for a while because I just don't like the whole idea with, and I don't think I've talked to you about this, but the whole process, when you write a book, how long does it take, you know, an author, especially for me when I'm writing like a nonfiction series, like every book, I got three books in the Patriot series. They're nonfiction books. It takes a great deal of time and resources to, to do studies and to put all this material together.

[00:59:50] So it could take me upwards of several months to write, you know, a relatively smaller book. When I say relatively smaller, I mean, when, when you, when you read it, you know, it might only, uh, take up, you know, four hours of time. What my point being a narrator, well, first of all, Amazon gets 50% of it. Okay. And the other 50% is divided in two between the author and the narrator. So I could spend several months writing a book and narrator can spend four hours reading the book. Yeah.

[01:00:20] There's edits and stuff in there, but you get my point, right? It's still substantially more time that me, the rights holder has, because the author is always the rights holder. I put several months into writing a book and the narrator spends four hours reading a book and maybe a few more hours editing a book. And point being, it's probably less than a, than a day, uh, writing and editing for them or, uh, uh, editing and reading for them.

[01:00:46] And they get the same output that I do, the same royalties I do. It's equal split. And to me, that is, uh, extremely unfair. I don't like the way that that pans out, but that's the system that audio or audible has in place. Amazon has a place through ACX, audible creation exchange and, um, Amazon, their audible branch, if you will, for audio books. But, um, they have something new out, which I was selected and I got an email from Kindle direct publishing being an author.

[01:01:15] Or they, I guess they went through my inventory and saw that I had some books that had been successful, but we're not yet on audible books or audio books. And they sent, um, some emails to me to say, Hey, you've been selected for this new beta program. And what they've done is they've included some narrators in the, in the, in the beta program and they've recorded their voices and they've made this digital version, if you will. So, so I, I would go through and I would select a narrator that I like based on their voice.

[01:01:42] And I would select that and add it to the book. And that voice would be digital, digitally written and, um, would produce my book in a digital format. And so I get a higher royalty then from that. Uh, so what I want to do here, uh, is just play a virtual voice sample and I'm going to edit this down for a little bit. So it's going to start off kind of slow, but, um, and this is from my book, culture saloon. No, you know, I'm going to do surviving martial law because that's more along the lines of, uh, or the program I'll do.

[01:02:14] Let's do the program here. This is an audio just so you can hear what this is like. Uh, it's kind of cool. Sometime prior to 2015, I heard what I thought was a conspiracy theory involving the United Nations. What was the conspiracy? Thanks for asking. It was agenda 21, a voluntary act that was open to all nations to agree upon and to sign up for an act. So brazen that it opined the idea of population control upon the world. That is right. A global plan to modify the world's population.

[01:02:44] My original notion was that it is just a conspiracy and probably not even true. I mean, how could you develop a program that could appease every world religion, every nation, every language, every culture, and more importantly, the nuclear family? No authority on earth could enforce a worldwide planned parenthood, right? Well, what if there was a worldwide mandated identification system and a way to bring financial equity to every human on earth? It sounds like science fiction.

[01:03:11] I had to dig deeper to learn the truth, to see for myself. I visited the United Nations website and there it was in all its colorful truth. Please do not misunderstand. The exact words, population control, are not used. Instead, the program used buzzwords and phrases that, when studied individually, pointed the finger at a population crisis and inequities. In 2015, I wrote my first book, Oath Takers, and watched it launch to bestseller status.

[01:03:39] I know that is not a big deal, since there are not a million books filed under law ethics and professional responsibility. But it made me feel good knowing I had put my voice out there and was heard by people I had never met. After a gentle push from fellow Marine and USA Today best-selling author G. Michael Hobb, I was put to the task of writing a fiction apocalyptic book. The thought scared me at first. After all, no way could I possibly string together a good storyline that people would read, let alone find interesting.

[01:04:08] The idea was a bit intimidating, to say the least. As I lay in bed that night, a crazy idea came to mind. A lengthy story of America under the yoke of oppression and tyranny as envisioned by the United Nations. Agenda 21 in full motion. In my mind, it was a story that grew from the book Oath Takers. I asked myself the question, what would happen to America if oath-taking Americans stopped abiding by their solemn duty to uphold the oath that is sworn without end?

[01:04:34] Imagine a dystopian America where judges, lawyers, police officers, military personnel, etc., just stopped caring. That was the reasoning behind my fictional three-book series, Tyrant and its spinoff books. I wrote the main three novels between 2015 and 2017. Not to give away any book spoilers, but ironically enough, much of what I wrote about has come to pass in the years since, including a man-made virus that was accidentally on purpose released.

[01:05:03] Sure, the means to bring about the ends were not the same, but it was released nonetheless. I am not sharing that detail to say I can see the future or that I am a prophet. I am certainly not. But all one must do to see what is coming down the pike is to open your eyes and see what has been done and what they are currently doing. I am just going to stop it there, but that was a kind of a sample. Can you tell it's digital? Yeah, you can tell it's digital.

[01:05:28] Yeah, but I mean, if it is something that allows you to hold on to a little bit more of those royalties, I mean, go for it. Exactly. Exactly. And no, it doesn't have the character of a live human reading it. Not as good as, like, I chose for, I have a Western also, a Western novella that I wrote that is really cool. And I chose, you know, in the old West, in the 1800s, the United States was full of immigrants

[01:05:57] that had come over, you know. Oh, yeah. And a lot of them had accents because some of them were, a lot of them were Irish and Scottish and they come over from all these other countries, England, you know, Wales. But this is a sample of that one. This title is narrated with virtual voice. Just to show how there's a little bit of a difference. For audiobooks. Coulter's Saloon by L. Douglas Hogan. Part one, St. Elmo, Chaffee County, Colorado, July 1881.

[01:06:27] Taking a step out of public view, Emma dabbed her face with a handkerchief privily. She was a quiet, reserved woman who never did anything to bring attention to herself or to make a fuss. If ever there was a lady in St. Elmo, it was Emma Coulter. On this particular day, the temperature felt near 90 degrees, warmer than most Colorado summer days. That was pretty much the only thing out of sorts at the Lazy Snake Saloon.

[01:06:53] Sitting at the bar were the usual customers, miners and locals in for a bit of shade, laughter and lightheartedness. Oh, come on now, Miss Emma, the heavyset lady said, grabbing Emma by the arm and gently pulling her to a side room. Excuse me, Emma said, laughing as she went. Please don't tell me there's another issue with the dancing lady's schedule, Mary Bell. Not at all, Miss Emma. I simply saw that young buck over yonder looking you up and down.

[01:07:20] I said to myself that it ain't proper to be looking at a lady like that, so I pulled you aside to tell you. Don't be looking back at that boy. What young buck? Emma answered, going to take a look. She'd barely made it a step or two before Mary Bell grabbed her again and pulled her back into the room. Look at you acting like a young filly. He looks ten years you're younger, Miss Emma. He's too young. And he looks like he's been chewing muddy cud for a month. I'm just going to leave it there.

[01:07:50] But that's Coulter's Saloon. It's probably my favorite book that I've written. I had so much fun writing that. I actually had just had surgery on my right arm, and I typed this entire novella with two fingers because I was off work and kind of recliner ridden, and I had a blast doing it. Nice. Yeah, that was kind of cool. I mean, I like it. It's actually not too offensive, you know, especially seeing where some of that audience

[01:08:18] audio has come, you know, how far that's come along since, you know, digitized this type of thing. Yeah. And these narrators that pitch into this, they're getting a royalty too. Don't get me wrong. I mean, they're still getting a royalty, but I'm getting a bigger chunk of the royalty than I would have been getting prior to that. But I did. I got four new books on Audible. The program, which would be book three in the Patriot series, Survival of the Martial Law, which would be book two in the Patriot series, and the Blood Corps, which was a spinoff

[01:08:46] or a one-off, we could say, from the Tyrant series based on one of the favorite characters in that story. Her name was Tori. She's one of the favorite characters in that story. A lot of my readers reached out to me about her and they liked that character. So I made a novel just on her. And then finally, the fourth book would be Colter's Saloon, a Western novella. But four new books out on Audible for the listeners out there. If you're a reader and you was wondering if I have anything new coming out on Audible,

[01:09:15] there you go. It's been a minute since I put out a new Audible book. But I'm happy to do so. It's awesome. Yep. Anyway, that will tidy things up for this episode of The Rising Republic. Thank everybody for listening. I'm El Douglas Hogan. And I'm Ryan Buford. Have a great week.