Europe's Economic Takeover Exposed - In The Tank #467
Download MP3Alright. We are live, ladies and gentlemen. The European Union recently approved a piece of radical legislation that is poised to overhaul the global economy, wreak havoc on the United States, undermine individual rights, and force thousands of American businesses to adopt left wing values. Also looking to cripple the United States economy are the longshoremen who officially went on strike this week. We are gonna be talking about all this and more on episode 467 of the in the tank podcast.
Kamala Harris:I don't know what's wrong with you young people. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree?
Donald Kendal:That is right. Fresh out of the coconut tree, you've got me as always, your host, Donald Kendall. I've got a full crew today. I've got Jim Lakeley, VP of the Heartland Institute. How are you doing today, good sir?
Jim Lakely:I'm doing okay, I think. I mean, you know, the the the viewers and listeners don't know that just before we came on air, it was getting quite contentious in the backstage area. Lots of, names being, thrown around at each other, accusations of not emailing links to the show to a certain person in here. And so I I have to calm down a little bit, you know, go to my happy place so that we can have a good show. I'm gonna be plenty angry later, but, you know, I like to start off in a good mood.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Unrelated to that, Justin Haskins, senior fellow here at the Emerging Issues Center at the Heartland Institute. How are you doing today, Good Sir? Terrible. Absolutely.
Donald Kendal:He had a absolutely terrible. He had a bright colored hat on, but then the mood changed, and he put on the black hat. So, No.
Justin Haskins:That's exactly that's exactly right. I was was promised that I was gonna get a link to the show, and then I didn't get the link to the show. And so then I had to go searching for it like like, you know, I'm a piece of garbage. Just treated like a homeless bum that wandered in off the street into this show, which honestly would probably be invited onto the show if a homeless bum didn't wander into the Harlan Institute headquarters.
Jim Lakely:We we would email a homeless bum that link for sure.
Justin Haskins:We probably would. Yeah. Yeah. No. So we're we're changing we're changing the mood.
Justin Haskins:We're changing the mood lighting. We're going Oh, Seth.
Donald Kendal:We're going Seth.
Jim Lakely:We're going right.
Justin Haskins:Yep. Totally angry.
Donald Kendal:Also joining us, we have Chris Talgo, editorial director here at the Heartland Institute. You're in a great mood, aren't you?
Chris Talgo:Doing pretty good. You know, we've got an extended summer, so I'm loving that. These temperatures are great. Looks like it's gonna be really nice this weekend. Got a big golf tournament coming up, so, hopefully, all goes well.
Donald Kendal:Fantastic. Well, we have got a lot to talk about today. But before we get into those topics, I do have to put that message out there that I put at the beginning of all of these episodes. First thing goes to those audio only listeners that are catching the show probably on a Friday or later, join us. Consider joining us a day earlier on Thursdays at noon CST where we are live streaming the show on YouTube and Rumble and x and Facebook.
Donald Kendal:You can join the conversation, throw your comments and questions in the chat. Maybe we'll show your comments on the screen. Maybe we'll address your questions on the fly. Also, we're demonetized, so don't even look for that, super chat function because they don't like the things that we say on this channel, apparently. But if you wanna support the show, you still can by going to heartland.org/inthetank and donate directly to the show.
Donald Kendal:That way YouTube doesn't take a 30% cut. Also, you could help out the show by not spending a dollar and spending just a couple of seconds hitting that like button, sharing this content, subscribing if you haven't already, or just leaving a comment under the video. All of those things help break through those big tech algorithms to prevent content like this from being shown to more people. But, I guess first things first, we could, talk about the good old debates. So, yeah.
Donald Kendal:I mean, I feel like we can't not talk about the the vice presidential debate that took place on Tuesday between JD Vance and, Tim Walz. This debate completely eluded me until, I think, Sunday evening when my brother asked me if I was planning on watching it. I was like, oh, is that happening? I was completely unaware, and his theory is that, it wasn't being publicized much because the left knew that JD Vance was going to crush walls. And I think that's a fine enough theory.
Donald Kendal:So I did end up watching, admittedly, only probably half of it in between, you know, putting the boys to sleep and stuff. But, but to me, I think it was a pretty clear victory. I mean, Vance came off as clear, concise, knowledgeable, level headed. He appeared focused. Whereas, Waltz came off like a a stunt double for Don Rickles, just overwhelmed by the stage that he was on.
Donald Kendal:So, Chris, I'm gonna go to you first on this one. I know that you watched the whole debate. I'm sure you watched much of the coverage from various news outlets. So what is the consensus on what went down on Tuesday night?
Chris Talgo:Good question. I think the consensus is the, the mainstream media, the MSNBCs and CNN's don't really wanna talk much about the debate. They've actually tried to ignore it as much as possible. But I agree with you. I was very pleasantly surprised by JD's performance.
Chris Talgo:I thought he was very articulate. I thought he did a great job of introducing himself to America. I thought he did a really good job of, explaining, why Trump's economic agenda, which JD Vance is fully in favor of, is gonna be much better for, the vast majority of, working Americans and why Kamala Harris's policies are actually gonna make life even worse. I agree with you. I think that I think Tim Walz just seemed like he was flustered a lot.
Chris Talgo:I feel like he just wasn't prepared, and I feel like he was, just not really, you know, nearly as engaging as, JD Vance was. I also thought it was kind of interesting because, they did the the split screen a lot like we're doing right now. And what what they showed was when JD Vance was talking, I was, watching, the facial expressions and the body language of, Tim Walz. He was agreeing much of the time, shaking his head like this, like, just in in nodding in agreement. So I thought that was just a little bit odd.
Chris Talgo:Like, wouldn't you think that he would actually be disagreeing when JD Vance is laying out the, you know, make America great again agenda? But he actually didn't do that. So, I mean, those are some of the things that stood out to me. In terms of the the the coverage, one of the things that is, becoming clear is that women, actually thought that JD Vance was did a great job and that he was not this this freak weirdo that the mainstream media has tried to portray him to be in over the past, you know, couple of months. So I think we actually saw a a future, you know, superstar in the GOP.
Chris Talgo:I was very glad to see that, JD was, not, you know, taking the establishment banner by any means. He stuck to his guns. Good for him. And, you know, I thought in a couple couple particular instances, he could have really taken it to Tim Walz, but he didn't. And I think the civility that JD Vance demonstrated, was also very good, and I think that the American people, really thought that that was a breath of fresh air.
Chris Talgo:And, I think that JD Vance set himself up for a very good political future.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Jim, I mean, it's vice presidential debate. You know? I know that we're kind of in this little echo chamber. We're kind of in the industry of kind of paying attention to this stuff, but do you think that this moves the needle for anybody, regardless of how the debate went down?
Donald Kendal:What are your thoughts? Oh, classic, Jim. Put that on your bingo card.
Jim Lakely:I usually remember when
Justin Haskins:I meet my
Donald Kendal:middle thing. Go ahead.
Jim Lakely:Great. Alright. Well, so the answer to your question is I don't know if this moves the needle very much. I mean, this is gonna be a close race all the way. Maybe there's some polling, that shows that things have swung a little bit toward Trump's way.
Jim Lakely:But what I think it actually does is it, for those I think 46,000,000 people saw it, which is quite below what I thought I think it was 67,000,000 people watched the Kamala Harris Donald Trump debate. So quite quite a difference in in audience. But what, what JD Vance was able to do on Tuesday night was to communicate and sell the MAGA agenda to normies, to swing voters, to independents. And, frankly, he sold the the Make America Great Again agenda better than Trump does. I mean, when Trump's even in his stump speeches, he tends to wander and have asides and, you know, tell stories.
Jim Lakely:And, it it can be kinda hard to kinda get the sometimes to to the meat of his message and his agenda and his platform. JD Vance was the most prepared and eloquent debater, as a Republican for either president or vice president I've ever seen in my lifetime. And I've been watching these things since, you know, when I was 14 and Ronald Reagan, wiped the floor with Walter Mondale. He was relaxed. He knew the answers to you know, he knew he was gonna get nothing, and this is what it was.
Jim Lakely:It was nothing but questions framed from the left and attacking him and Donald Trump. And, and even when they gave rebuttal time to Tim Walz after attacking JD Vance, the moderators would set it up again. You know, it's like it wasn't enough that they gave him a chance to rebut. They would they would set it up so absurdly for him that it was like they were putting it on tea for him and while still miss the ball over and over again. But, if and I know Justin, you know, talks about this all the time, that the election is going to be decided by, you know, suburban mothers, in, you know, who are independent minded voters or, you know, who don't wanna vote for Donald Trump.
Jim Lakely:But I think if there were suburban, you know, soccer moms, as they say, watching that vice presidential debate, I think they might wanna vote for JD Vance. And, he did as as good a job as any Republican I've ever seen on in such a stage. And you know it was a really great job because immediately after the debate, commenters on MSNBC and CNN were, were saying things like in fact, one of the one of the commentators said that, this was kind of an unfair fight because, JD JD Vance is so polished and professional and practiced at such things. He was elected the senator from, a republican senator in Ohio, like, about 37 minutes ago. This is his first elected office.
Jim Lakely:The man just has real political talent, and, I think we were probably looking at a future republican nominee for the president of the United States and perhaps even a future president himself.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Justin, I'm, almost kind of echoing what, Jim is saying there. I'm almost hesitant to say this. This might be my spiciest take when it comes to the debate, but let me just preface this by saying that I like Trump. I think my record is pretty clear on that point.
Donald Kendal:But after watching much of that debate, I couldn't help but think, again, it's kind of refreshing rooting for a candidate that's a little bit, less of a loose cannon up there. What what are your what are your thoughts on how it all went down on Tuesday?
Justin Haskins:Yeah. Well, I mean, I didn't watch every second of it, so I'll start with that. But, and and I don't know that vice presidential, I don't know that vice presidential debates really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things either. But every vote counts, and, this whole thing is probably going to come down to, you know, if it's anything like the last election, around 50,000 votes in 3 swing states since that's probably what's gonna determine who wins and loses this election. And I think in light of that, winning even the vice presidential debate is is a big deal because of that reason.
Justin Haskins:And it just seems like, every every part of that debate that I saw, every clip that I've seen since, it was a resounding victory for JD Vance. And I agree with you that, you know, it it was a reminder, watching that debate of how bad presidential candidates have been at debating for a while now because Kamala Harris is a an atrocious debater. Right. Whether you like Donald Trump or not, he's a terrible debater. When you watch, he's good in the Republican debates because he doesn't have to give details.
Justin Haskins:He can give little snippets of information, and everybody knows what he's talking about. So he doesn't have to necessarily, you know, give lots of, detailed names. He doesn't have a hostile people asking him questions, stuff like that. But when you when you actually force him to drill down on policy details, Trump sounds terrible because he doesn't know policy details. Kamala's terrible.
Justin Haskins:Joe Biden doesn't even know where he is half the time. Can't tell the difference between his wife and his sister. So that's a problem for him. Obviously, his debate performance was so historically bad that he was forced out of the embrace because of how bad his debating was. And then, obviously, you go back to Clinton, you know, Clinton, Trump.
Justin Haskins:And Clinton, you know, is a more seasoned politician and whatever, but not the most likable person by any stretch of the imagination. So you gotta go all the way back to, like, 2012 before you had a last big high profile debate between 2 people who really were, like, pretty solid at it.
Donald Kendal:Mhmm.
Justin Haskins:And, and this was a reminder of of what really we should be seeing in debates. This is what we should be seeing. It shouldn't be as much about personality, and and potshots and, like, little stuff like that. And it should be more about substantive issues, real actual things that people care about that affect their day to day lives, policy details, and this had a lot more of that than, what you saw with with Trump and Biden or Trump and Kamala Harris. And so it's kinda sad in a way.
Justin Haskins:The debate made me a little sad. On the one hand, I was happy that Vance did so well because I think his agenda is much better for America. I think he's a much better representative of, conservative policies. And I think Walls is a nutcase, and I think he came across as as not great. Although, okay.
Justin Haskins:You know? But not nowhere near what they needed him to be. But at the same time, it made me a little sad because I thought to myself, you know, this is really what it should look like on the presidential stage, and it's not this. And it's not going to be this for 4 more years, at least, and maybe never and maybe never. And so it was kinda sad.
Justin Haskins:Yeah.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I can't wait for AOC, you know, in in 4 years to be debating against, my gosh.
Justin Haskins:Why are you manifesting that into the universe? Actually, is she I don't think she can run-in 4 more years. Right? We've got a little bit more time.
Donald Kendal:Do we? I hope. Alright.
Justin Haskins:I don't know. I hope so.
Donald Kendal:Alright. Well, let let's move on. I mean, we can get into the fact checking and all of that stuff too, but it's already old news. So let's get into some new stuff.
Jim Lakely:Can we can we at least put up that, that meme I found or the the image of the of the campaign?
Donald Kendal:Oh, shit.
Jim Lakely:Right there. Yeah. That is your visual summary of the debate. It's, JD Vance looking. As I as I saw on Twitter, it wasn't my original joke, but shared it with Donnie at the time.
Jim Lakely:I was I was texting you guys like crazy during the debate, and you guys were hardly watching. But, you know, the what makes The Office funny is when Jim looks into the camera, breaks the 4th wall. And for JD Vance to do that during the debate, I thought was pretty brilliant. I mean, just look
Donald Kendal:at that. Yeah. Right. No. My favorite was, superimposing, Vance's head on Al Borland's head, and it was every time Wall spoke, it's I don't think so, Tim.
Donald Kendal:If anyone watches home improvement, you're chuckling, I'm sure. But, alright. Moving on. So main topic here. So buckle up for this one.
Donald Kendal:What we're gonna be talking about next is, has the potential to be kind of the next great reset topic. In fact, we have some insider information that suggests that this could be a big story over the next couple of years. And if you've been watching the show for any sustained period of time, I'm sure that you've heard us talking about ESG. That's the corporate social credit scheme designed to reward or punish firms based on a subjective set of social justice and left wing ideological metrics. I've described ESG before at best as the largest cronyist system ever built, and at worst, a system designed to control the economy and society by extension.
Donald Kendal:Mhmm. This form of ESG that we've historically talked about, like a million times before is, enforced by a system of economic coercion, financial incentives. But this new version that we're gonna be talking about is one that is mandated by law and the force of government, and worse, it wasn't even passed by the United States government. I'm talking about the European Union's ESG system or their corporate sustainability due diligence directive. But despite the fact that it was passed in Europe, the, the way that the legislation is crafted, it'll have a profound effects on the ways our businesses here in America are allowed to do business.
Donald Kendal:So Justin has been working on this issue for a while now. And, when we last talked about this this topic on the show, we thought it was defeated. Several months ago, the legislation was voted down in Europe, and we celebrated on the show. We did very briefly outline a potential pathway in which this what we thought was dead legislation could pull itself out of the grave and wreak havoc on the world. And guess what?
Donald Kendal:The legislation pulled itself out of the grave and is it's positioned to wreak havoc on the world. So, Justin, why don't you start off by just kinda laying out some of the basics of this EU ESG scheme?
Justin Haskins:Okay. So in May, after several years of this, being proposed and negotiating and all kinds of crazy backroom deals, the European Union formally passed something called the corporate sustainability due diligence directive,
Jim Lakely:which is
Justin Haskins:the CSDDD. Okay? Most worst named law in in history, but so effective actually because it's so boring. You wouldn't think that there's anything nefarious about it. But what the CSDD does is something absolutely incredible.
Justin Haskins:It's probably the biggest attack on American sovereignty, really, when you think about it. Certainly, the biggest attack on American sovereignty other than an actual physical war that we've had in a 100 years or something. I mean, it really is remarkable. What it would do is force all companies that do business in the European Union above a certain threshold, and that threshold is low enough that basically all large corporations that do business in the EU would fall under this law. What it would do is it would require them to adhere to, a bunch of ESG social credit scoring rules created by the EU.
Justin Haskins:So, for example, anti climate change type policies, you know, phasing out fossil fuels, moving toward electric vehicles, water use, land use, biodiversity vague biodiversity rules and protections and things like that. There's lie language in the legislation that's about disinformation, and and making sure that disinformation isn't being tolerated in the business model, etcetera. These American companies and companies from all over the rest of the world as well are going to be forced to adhere to these new EU ESG rules. So, one example of that would be, the, one example of that would be the, Ford for or McDonald's or Apple or Microsoft, etcetera. Large companies that do a lot of business in the EU are going to have to comply with all of these EU ESG rules.
Justin Haskins:Now that in and of itself is really bad because what it means is you're going to have all of our economy and society impacted because these big corporations have a significant influence on the way our country operates. So if just Apple and Microsoft and all of those kinds of companies, Ford, McDonald's, etcetera, all just started moving to the left in their hiring policies, their corporate governance policies on climate change, etcetera, that would have a massive impact. Just that alone. But what makes this thing really, really crazy is that the law requires as part of that, the what they call covered companies. So one of the responsibilities for these covered companies like Apple and and Meta and Ford, etcetera, is that they have to make sure that all the businesses in theirs or most of the businesses in their supply chains, upstream and downstream of their businesses are also complying with these EU ESG rules no matter how big they are and no matter how much business they do in the European Union.
Justin Haskins:So for example, if you're Ford and, you buy, parts for to make cars from some manufacturer in Ohio, you have to make sure that that manufacturer in Ohio, no matter how big they are, no matter how much business they do in Europe, is complying with various EU ESG rules. And if they aren't, then you have to coerce them to change their policies so that they will be in compliance. And if they refuse to be in compliance, then you have to stop doing business with them, or you have to face a massive fine in the European Union as well as the possibility of being sued because you can be sued for damages by private parties, including activist groups in the EU under this rule, or you have to leave the EU entirely. Those are your options. So if you're a big business and you do, you sell a lot of whatever it is, cars or hamburgers or whatever, soda, etcetera, in the ear in the European Union, and you're doing 1,000,000,000 of dollars of business there, you're not going to leave the EU so that you don't have to force some small supplier in Ohio to change to electric vehicles.
Justin Haskins:You're just gonna make them change to electric vehicles. That's what you're gonna do, or you're gonna stop doing business with them. And if you're the small business in the EU, in America, and you're doing business with some company that's telling you you have to make this change or else they're gonna stop doing business with you, it's probably cheaper for you just to go all electric than it is for you to lose this business relationship with one of these big gigantic conglomerates. So if you're a potato farmer, for example, this is a real thing that this will apply to. If you're a potato farmer in in, Idaho and you sell potatoes to McDonald's to make French fries, even if none of those French fries end up in Europe, it doesn't even matter, You have to comply with these EU ESG rules or else you lose your business relationship with McDonald's.
Justin Haskins:So what are you gonna do? You're just gonna do whatever the EU rules tell you. And by doing this, not just in America, but all over the world, the the EU is effectively forcing every the the vast majority of companies in the west, certainly, to change and transform so that their values are in line with the value in practices and products and everything else in line with what the EU wants. So the EU is is literally, taking over, the regulatory a giant chunk of the regulatory burden, for these other countries and imposing its values on all of these people all over the world, many of which, unlike in America, really can't I mean, you're talking like, think about the average farmer in Guatemala that sells some product to some gigantic corporation that does business in the EU. And now this this you're a farmer that I don't know.
Justin Haskins:Maybe you're in Colombia and you, farm coffee beans, and you sell coffee to McDonald's. And now McDonald's comes to you and says, sorry, but you're gonna have to change all your practices or else you're done. We're not doing business with you anymore. Like, that's literally like like you know, that whole business will be completely destroyed if that relationship is broken. They have nothing.
Justin Haskins:So so this is a massive takeover by the European Union. It's already been passed into law. It's going to take a couple of years for the individual EU countries to write it into their national laws, which is the first step. And then beginning around 2027, it starts getting phased in for companies based on size all, all over the world. And, you know, so within, say, 5 years or so, I don't have the numbers right in front of me, but it's about 5 years, it will be fully operational.
Justin Haskins:And, all of these companies will be forced into compliance with it. But before we ever get to that, these companies are gonna start ramping up their compliance in anticipation of this happening, of course. And so this whole thing is really starting right now. And unless the United States comes back and says really pushes back hard and says, no. You can't do this to us.
Justin Haskins:Like, this is effectively a trade war that you're that you're starting here. It's like it's like, worse than tariffs. This is way worse than tariffs. Unless they come back and start really forcing the EU to change, which obviously Kamala Harris is not likely to do, then this is going to happen. And our entire way of life is going to change, our entire economy, our entire electric grid.
Justin Haskins:All of that is gonna have to change because of the EU. People who we didn't elect, we have nothing to do with, but it's going to change because of the EU and because of the influence of these major corporations.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. It's pretty crazy. And the the fact that it's kind of hand happening in tandem with kind of the ESG system here in the United States that we've been, you know, talking about endlessly for the past couple of years, to have it, like, enforced by law, you know, across the pond or whatever you want to say, just like it's like we've already built the infrastructure to, you know, facilitate this sort of changes that would need to happen in all of these businesses that have, you know, upstream or downstream connections to these places in Europe. So it's almost as if it was coordinated. And maybe I won't put on my conspiracy theory hat and go to Davos and see that that's actual fact, but, you know, the let's let's put that to the side.
Donald Kendal:But is it, like, a direct one for one overlap when it comes to the metrics? I mean, I see in the key takeaways of this beautifully designed report, that we have featured on the screen right now. It says some of the policy goals addressed in the CSDD include unions and collective bargaining standards, health care and disease prevention, children's education, a full transition to green energy economy, requirements for companies' climate transition plans, reductions in water and land use, social justice provisions, and bans on disinformation related to climate change and energy. So is it like a is it like a one for one overlap with the ESG stuff that we've been talking about here in the United States? Is this, broader in the in the objectives that it's going for?
Donald Kendal:Can you fill me in a little bit there?
Justin Haskins:So, it's a lot of the same kind of stuff, but it's the difference the biggest difference is that it's the government imposing it as opposed to pressure being put on companies by big asset managers like BlackRock or or banks, etcetera. Like, in in the United States and throughout Europe up to this point, the main way ESG has been used is through financial pressure, tying money to it so that people feel like they have to do it. But it hasn't been imposed by the government really anywhere. It is with government contracts and stuff like that in some cases. Pensions have government pensions have been involved with this, but they haven't, they they haven't been forcing people through regulations to do it.
Justin Haskins:And in America, they can't, you know, at least on a lot of things. Because in a lot of ways, you have a a lot of these ESG metrics. You run into, like, constitutional problems. You know? Like, you can't ban disinformation through some ESG system because now you're you're, you know, running into issues with the first amendment.
Justin Haskins:But the EU can because the EU doesn't have to comply with our first amendment. And so this is the genius of the system. They figured out a way for the what the left has always wanted is for us for a long time now is for America to be like Europe anyway. That's what they want. They want us to adopt the European, sort of socialism light system, you know, a a light smiley face fascism.
Justin Haskins:Like, that's what they want. That's what they want. That's what they've wanted for a long, long time, but they haven't been able to figure out a way to to pass those laws here effectively. They've tried, and they haven't been successful at it. So what they did was they said, okay.
Justin Haskins:Well, let's do it through these big corporations. Let's buy off all the big corporations and get them to do it for us. And we'll just print lots of money, and we'll give it to them, and we'll and, you know, and we'll do all these schemes and invite them to all these fancy dinner parties and make them have a feel like they're, you know, these saviors of the world, and we'll get them to impose their left wing values through the private sector. And that was working. And then all of a sudden, that stopped working as well, and there was this massive pushback, started largely by the Heartland Institute.
Justin Haskins:And now they've decided, okay. Well, let's just have the Europeans force it on the companies who will then force it on our companies.
Donald Kendal:Right.
Justin Haskins:And then we don't we can't do anything about it here in America unless we have a president who's willing to go to, like, war, like a trade war with the European Union and how many of them actually wanna do that. The vast major all the Democrats are in favor of these policies anyway, and so they're not gonna go you're not gonna call Kamala Harris go over to the European Union and say, stop making us go green. Like, that's not gonna happen. So and they know that. No.
Justin Haskins:So it's a really, really ingenious way of making America more like Europe, without having to pass a law in America and without making it driven entirely by American companies. So now you can't even say, well, BlackRock's the villain or, you know, some big bank is the villain. No. Because they're just saying, look. We have to do this because the European Union is forcing us to do it.
Justin Haskins:We our hands are tied. And and and so what are we gonna do? We can't hold the EU bureaucrats accountable directly, So you need a president who's gonna get up there and fight like hell to stop it. And we do have someone running for president who probably would do that, but most of the Republicans won't even do that. So so it's an ingenious, ingenious, ingenious, diabolical, horrible system that will not only crush our economy by forcing the prices of everything to be higher, by forcing us to go to less reliable, less affordable energy sources like wind and solar that will force us to adopt all these radical, you know, environmental rules and things like that, force us to adopt all these woke things, force us to adopt disinformation policies and all this stuff.
Justin Haskins:It's going to completely transform the way our economy and society works, and and it's a complete, affront to our national sovereignty. But in addition to all of that, we can't even just simply pass a law and end it without having a president really lead the charge on it. And there's a pretty good chance that we won't have a president who does that if you just look at the last 16 years of presidents. We haven't had too many Republicans in the mix, and they know that, and that's all part of the calculus here.
Jim Lakely:You you know you know, it's funny, Justin. I'm a I'm a child of the cold war, and we were always in fear of, global communism marching across the globe, led by a government, the USSR. And as it turns out, what we really needed to fear was global fascism that was, put in place by the private sector and the the EU. You know? It's just it's just crazy.
Donald Kendal:Public private partnership. That's that that's the World Economic Forum's, like, you know, championing slogan over there. So yeah.
Jim Lakely:Right. But but but, Justin, I have a question. So, I mean, what is the you say that we may elect a president who will resist this, but as it stands now, what is the ultimate enforcement, of this scheme? And isn't it conceivable that, companies in America can just say, hell with you, not doing it, and then just see how that goes and just concentrate on America?
Justin Haskins:So there's 2 things in it that are that are making that make it less likely that that would happen. So the first thing is the fine that you could face under this policy is extremely high if you do business in the European
Jim Lakely:Union. Who finds you? Who the European Union. Go to hell.
Justin Haskins:So if if you are a company that does business in the European Union, they would fine you. So you would have to leave the EU to escape the fine. So it would be like, if you're Apple, for example, you would this policy would apply to you. So you're Apple, you don't do an you don't you don't force these rules on all of the people in your supply chain. So then the EU would issue a fine to you, Apple.
Justin Haskins:And unless you leave the EU and just stop selling your products in the EU, you have to pay the fine. And the fine is under the the way the rule is written. It's it it can be there'll be these regulatory bodies at the national level in the EU that will be the ones issuing the fines, but it could be 5% of net worldwide turnover, which is essentially revenue. So we're talking in the case of Apple, I looked it up. It was $19,000,000,000 is the potential fine for Apple.
Justin Haskins:So for one violation. So the idea that they would accept that fine, which would cost them $19,000,000,000, they'll never do that, or leave the EU, which would cost them probably 1,000,000,000 of dollars. They're never gonna do that. Right. So it's just much easier for them to impose it on these other companies down their supply chain.
Justin Haskins:Now how do they do that? I think that's the question. Right? Like, how does Apple force some, truck driver in wherever in Minnesota to comply with this rule. What the law says is that Apple should use contractual assurances to force the company.
Justin Haskins:In other words, you force your supplier to sign a contract that says you're gonna adhere to these rules. That's part of the requirement that Apple has. So Apple has to go to the truck driver in Minnesota and and and as part of their business contract, say you have to comply with this, this, this, this, and this. And if you don't, then you're in breach of the contract. Okay?
Justin Haskins:So if the if interestingly enough, though, and this is, like, another really crazy provision in the law, if the truck driver because one of the big things that we were asking when we were investigating this over the past couple of years is, well, how do you get China to do this? Like, if you're the European Union. Right? Or, like, China's not gonna go along with it, and China knows that Europe is completely addicted to its cheap stuff. So it's not gonna just shut off China if China doesn't start appointing LGBTQ people onto its board of directors of every company and stuff like that.
Justin Haskins:Like, that's not gonna happen. Right? So what what do you do with them? And we thought, well, maybe what they'll do is just they'll just selectively enforce. So they won't enforce the law on China.
Justin Haskins:They won't enforce it on poor Mexico or poor Guatemala or something. They'll only do it on the European countries in America and Canada and places that have a lot of money. We thought this was the strategy they were going to adopt, but what we found was that there's this provision buried in the law that says that if you are a small or medium sized enterprise, which is actually a fairly large company, and you, as a result of this rule, are in the supply chain, go to your large company that's telling you you have to do this as part of the European Union's requirements. So in other words, Apple has an has a warehouse that it contracts with in California, and they go to the warehouse and they say, you have to follow all these rules. And the warehouse people say, oh, maybe a warehouse isn't a good example.
Justin Haskins:Maybe it's a farm, and we're talking about McDonald's. That would be a better example. So the McDonald's goes to the farm and says, if we're gonna keep buying produce from you, you have to change all your land and water use policies. And the farm says, we can't. If we do all the things you're telling us to do, we'll go under.
Justin Haskins:We can't do this. Then what the law says is the companies, the big companies, so in this case, McDonald's, should pay or provide financing or some other financial arrangement so that this supplier can comply with the rule. Okay? So in other words, McDonald's goes to the small farm and says, okay. We understand you can't go all electric, so we're gonna pay for you to go all electric.
Justin Haskins:We have to under this rule in the EU Before they leave that farmer and go to some other farmer who is willing to go all electric, they're supposed to give the opportunity to this farmer. So in America, you might say, okay. Well, that's bad. That will drive up costs, and that will be a crazy rule, and I don't know how they'll enforce it. But, you know, I don't know if that will necessarily be a a a a a like, the biggest problem in the world.
Justin Haskins:But when you start thinking about how this applies to developing countries and the businesses that operate there, now you have a massive problem. Because in effect, what's being said is, if you are a company that's buying manufactured goods in, Indonesia or wherever, anywhere in the world, and that company in this developing that that that business in this developing country says to you, sorry, but we can't afford to pay our workers the wages you say we have to under this EU law, then this big company is supposed to give them extra financing or money or loans or whatever so that they can put solar panels on the roof and pay higher wages and get more LGBTQ recruitment and all this other crap. Now who's paying for that? It isn't the company. In reality, the company is just gonna raise their prices on the wealthier citizens of Europe or America or wherever they're selling their products so that they can pay for this Indonesian manufacturer to have solar power.
Justin Haskins:That's how this is all going to work. So it is a giant wealth transfer from wealthy western nations to these poor developing countries in addition to being all the crazy stuff. And it's not. And it's a well, it's the worst kind of wealth transfer because we're not sending them money so that they don't have to live in in squalor. We're sending them money so they could have solar power while they live in squalor.
Justin Haskins:And that's the most ridiculous wealth transfer of all. And this is all being driven by the crazies in the European Union.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. It is really crazy. And the more you think about it, the crazier it is and the more implications that it has and, you know, the more, you know, just power is wielded by these, like, Davos types and all of that. But at the same time that we're talking about all of this, like, it's largely flying under the radar, and this is very similar to when we were talking about ESG for the first time. Basically, nobody else was talking about it outside of, like, a jargony investment, you know, perspective.
Donald Kendal:You know, we talked about it, and all of a sudden, after a little while, it sustained campaign. Like, it start it entered the kind of the conservative lexicon, and everyone from Trump on down started talking about this ESG issue. Similarly, I feel like this is flying under the radar, and part of that probably has to do with it's Europe. So who cares about Europe? They don't really realize the impacts that it's gonna have, across the world and here in the United States.
Donald Kendal:But, Justin, do you think that it's starting to catch on yet, or do we still have a mountain of work ahead of us when it comes to kind of forcing this into the public spotlight?
Justin Haskins:So we've been we've been trying at Heartland in the same way that we did prior to ESG really taking off as a topic. We've been trying really hard to bring a spotlight to this, and there has been some traction lately on on that. We've had some articles published in some in big publications, you know, like like The Blaze, Fox News, published an article that we that I wrote on this. And we've been working on tip sheets and and other policy documents for lawmakers to help them, be better informed on this issue. We're gonna be distributing that all across the country soon.
Justin Haskins:And so that's that's good. We've had some some media hits lately that have been very, very good. Glenn Beck's been a leader on this for a while and been talking about this for over a year and been very, very supportive of our efforts on this. So that's been very helpful. I've done some media lately with him.
Justin Haskins:He's done whole specials talking about this and laying it all out on his chalkboards, diagrams, and how everything works out. So that's been great. Lately, I'd, very recently, I did an interview with Ali Stuckey at on at The Blaze. She has a big, big following for those of you who don't know. Big, big following on, YouTube and and places like that, a show on The Blaze.
Justin Haskins:And her YouTube show got episode that was just me and her sitting down talking about this and other crazy stuff related to the UN and things like that for an hour, is now up to a 1000000 views. Yes. And so that's been great. And so, we have been getting some traction there. We also recently met with a a, some policy folks on Capitol Hill, worked for some members of the house, and that was very promising.
Justin Haskins:They did seem to be aware. So there are at least some people in congress, Republicans, who are aware of this and are starting to push back against it. Gonna be circulating a letter soon to, other agencies in the federal government. So there is some action being taken. There are some there is some progress being made, but we are nowhere near the, the the threshold that we need to pass to actually get action on this.
Justin Haskins:And, frankly, you know, not to, you know, root for Donald Trump or anything like that, and we're not endorsing candidates or anything, but it's just a a reality that if Donald Trump loses the election, it is virtually impossible that this thing will be defeated in the next 4 years.
Donald Kendal:Oh, wait. You were talking about Donald Trump earlier? I thought you were talking about Vernon Vernon Vernon Supreme or whatever Vernon Supreme. Oh, okay. It was Donald Trump you're talking about.
Donald Kendal:Thank you for clarifying.
Chris Talgo:Got it.
Justin Haskins:Yeah. If he if he loses, we really are. We real I don't know how this stops because Kamala Harris is not going to do it. Now that you could have something that happens in congress where congress, you know, some crazy debt, you know, ceiling crisis type thing where they force something into a law somewhere that, you know, requires action to be take place. And that kind of thing does happen on occasion, but that would require so much grassroots support and momentum.
Justin Haskins:And we're working really hard to make that happen, but we are not there yet.
Donald Kendal:Yep. Well, like I said, this this topic is positioned to be like a great reset level, topic over the next couple of years, and we are gonna be doing our best to be right at the epicenter of it. So, you know, stay stay tuned to work from from us at the Emerging Issues Center, Heartland Institute, and the In the Tank podcast to stay up to date on this developing story here, but, let's move on. Let's move on to another thing that says the potential to cripple the United States economy. That's not my words.
Donald Kendal:So on on Monday night midnight of this week, dock workers and longshoremen on the East Coast ports officially went on strike. They are demanding substantial compensation increases and protections from automation. The International Longshoremen Association Union points to $1,000,000,000 profits as justification and demand increased wages. But let's not have me explain their case. We can hear it straight from Harold Daggett, the ILA's chief negotiator.
Donald Kendal:So if we have that clip, of this very stately official guy talking about it, let's go ahead and play that clip, please.
ILA Guy:These people today don't know what a strike is. Right. When my men hit the streets from Maine to Texas, every single port a lockdown. You know what's gonna happen? I'll tell you.
ILA Guy:1st week, be all over the news every night, boom boom. 2nd week, guys who sell cars can't sell cars because the cars ain't coming in off the ships. They get laid off. 3rd week, malls start closing down. They can't get the goods from China.
ILA Guy:They can't sell clothes. They can't do this. Everything in the United States comes on a ship. They go out of business. Construction workers get laid off because the materials aren't coming in.
ILA Guy:The steel is not coming in. The lumber is not coming in, they lose their job. Everybody's hating the longshoremen now because now they realize how important our jobs are. Now, I have the president screaming at me, I'm putting a TAF hardly on you, go ahead. Tough Harley means I have to go back to work for 90 days, that's a cooling off period.
ILA Guy:Do you think when I go back for 90 days those men are gonna go to work on that pier? It's gonna cost the money, the company's money to pay their salaries while they go went from 30 moves an hour maybe to 8. They're gonna be like this, who's gonna win here in the long run? You're better off sitting down and let's get a contract and let's move on with this world And in today's world, I'll cripple you. I will cripple you and you have no idea what that means.
ILA Guy:Nobody does.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. So let's take the, mafia boss here at his word. I mean, union boss here, at his word. I mean, he definitely has tons of leverage in the showdown. Labor and business experts say that the strike could cost as much as $5,000,000,000 per day.
Donald Kendal:It'll disrupt supply chains. It'll hurt America's ability to export. Shortages of certain goods will occur. Prices will go up. Chris, what what, what are your thoughts on this?
Donald Kendal:And I'm also curious to know kind of, like, the CNN's and MSNBC's perspective on this, ongoing now strike.
Chris Talgo:First, I gotta go back to the previous topic to just give a one minute, you know, my my my opinion on this. I find it mind boggling that Europe, after all we've done for them since World War 1, World War 2, protecting them from the Soviet Union, protecting their shipping lanes with our navy, that they would even try to do this. I just find that preposterous, and, I hope it goes down in flames. And there's a part of me that also hopes that this completely backfires on Europe and puts them, you know, back in the economic stone age. And I say that, sadly, with people who still live there, family members who still live in Germany and Norway, but this is just absurd.
Chris Talgo:I can't believe that they're even trying to do this. Now on the dock workers' strike, like I said well, not like I said earlier, but like the BP debate, the mainstream media is not covering this very much. But, you know, Fox News is covering this, and I've, you know, been doing some reading on this. And, it's just a I think it's just another example of how these unions are trying to hold America hostage. And, you know, we saw this happen during the Reagan years with the air traffic controllers when they said we're just not gonna go to work and too bad.
Chris Talgo:No no flights are gonna be able to, take off our land. And what did Reagan do? He fired every single one of them and said, no. You can't do that. So, unfortunately, we don't have a president right now who, you know, has the backbone to do that, and, I'm afraid that they're gonna get away with this for quite a while.
Chris Talgo:And, you know, the sad part of this is it's gonna hurt the American people at a time when we're already hurting big time. This is gonna make inflation worse. This is, you know, happening with holidays, you know, a couple months away, so people are not gonna be able to buy Christmas presents and and that kind of a thing. It's just so sad. It's so sad that these dock workers and I feel for them in some ways because they are hard workers, and they were there doing their thing during the pandemic, And I get all of that stuff, but they're also extremely greedy in some ways.
Chris Talgo:And the fact that they want an 80% pay raise over a 6 year period and turn down a 50% pay raise over a 6 year period is really difficult for me to accept.
Jim Lakely:Mhmm.
Chris Talgo:They also insist on no automation whatsoever. Everything must be done by hand by, you know, by by people. And, you know, that that I just I I I can't understand that. I mean, they they think that they can, block technological progress by by striking. Like, wow.
Chris Talgo:I also know that this is obviously only occurring on the East Coast, and they were very, very mad on the West Coast because the West Coast went into a mini strike for basically the same problems or, you know, the same, demands. And they gave in very, very quickly, And they did not get there no automation in the future. They did not get the outrageous pay hike that they demanded. And now the east, the East Coast, longshoremen are saying, well, you guys, you know, didn't didn't, hold out long enough. We're gonna hold out long enough.
Chris Talgo:And just listening to that to that union boss, who, by the way, does make vast amounts of money and lives in a very big house and has a very nice life, For him to, to treat the American people the way he does and to for him to just, play so loose with the language that he did about, yeah, we're just gonna shut down the country and there's nothing you can do about it and, like, it's it's hard for me to, to understand where he's coming from with that. I mean, it's it's almost, you know, it's it's it's evil in some ways. It's he's almost as if he's trying to, impart as much pain as possible. So him and his, you know, cronies can just gets more money. And, I don't know.
Chris Talgo:It's just it's a it's a sad state of being. Obviously, I, you know, I understand that unions played a very vital role, especially, you know, a 100 years ago or so when, the industrial revolution was, you know, really, you know, just coming into being, and there were corporations that absolutely took advantage of workers. Those days are far gone. And, nowadays, I think the, the the tide has swung so much in the other direction. And I was on a, I was on a webinar yesterday morning, with the competitive in, Independent Employees, Institute, and they were talking about right to work in Michigan and how Michigan had right to work instituted for, a decade, and they just, undid that.
Chris Talgo:And they were saying that in that decade, manufacturing jobs flourished. The Michigan economy was great. Their wages were up. It's been 2 years now since, and manufacturing jobs are going back down. Wages are going back down.
Chris Talgo:So these unions are just in this protectionist mindset that they do not need to be in. It's this it's this stupid idea of everything's a zero sum game when, no, it's not a zero sum game. Actually, you, the unions, can, can have your cake and eat it too, and then you, the American people, can also do the same. You know, I wish that there was more cooperation and less of this us against you, you against us mentality. It's it's it's it's really sad to see.
Donald Kendal:Yeah, Jim. I mean, I've seen people, you know, I've already done it here. Like, joke about unions and being, like, a government sanctioned mafia. I mean, that guy's rhetoric isn't doing that, that depiction any favors, but, I mean, the this just I don't know. It seems pretty crazy, and, yeah, the timing of it seems even crazier.
Donald Kendal:What are your thoughts on this?
Jim Lakely:Yeah. I mean, that that was like a scene from The Sopranos for crying out loud. Exactly. Right. Thing bada boom kind of stuff.
Jim Lakely:So you gotta be you gotta be shitting me with this stuff. But, you know, some someone on X mentioned I mean, this isn't applicable necessarily in this case. They said, you know, we need to go Ronald Reagan on these assholes and just fire them all and automate the docks right away and, and bring out the National Guard to protect the ports from the union thugs and mobbed up, guys that are wanna come back and take their jobs. Because this is the fact. The the United States of America, the most important economy in the world, has the slowest, least efficient ports and, port delivery system on the globe, and it's not close.
Jim Lakely:We it's basically, we're still stuck in the 19 fifties while the rest of the world, is in the 21st century. I know I think we have a a clip here, and maybe Andy can show it in the background, of what a real modern port looks like, from Singapore. That's not what American ports look like. You know, so it's hard to actually even measure how much, how much that inefficiency at our ports cost us in economic growth. I mean, it's I'm sure there's been studies done.
Jim Lakely:It just occurred to me now that the, the amount needs has to be pretty significant, because inefficiencies any anywhere in the chain of economic activity, makes that economic activity less vibrant. And so this is a it's a choke point, really, for, for for America's economy. And this also actually plays into Trump's agenda. I know that his his appeal and his make America great again stuff, you know, message, I should say, not stuff, but message. Part of that is he wants to bring manufacturing back to the United States.
Jim Lakely:If we were to bring more manufacturing back to the United States, we would need fewer imports from China and Southeast Asia and other places around the world because we'd be making those things here. And then I guess we'd be dealing with the truckers union, but not the longshoremen's union anymore. And so, that actually plays into his agenda. So, the longest strike goes on, if Donald Trump and I know he he actually has a lot of union members voting for him. I bet a lot of those union members are looking at what the longshoremen are doing here and how they're leveraging their power in our economy at a very precarious time for a lot of Americans, especially those in Appalachia who are drowning and dying, in those floods and now had died and drowned in those floods, and now need a lot of materials to rebuild as quickly as possible.
Jim Lakely:And this guy's like, you know, yeah, I'll cripple you in the middle of a national, crisis, in a large swath of land, in the middle of hardworking American country. And so, you know, maybe Trump should I think Trump should talk about this. I haven't seen if he's talked about it. I guarantee you that if he hasn't said it yet, he's he would say that give me 5 minutes on the phone with these guys. We'll work out a deal, and it'll all be done.
Jim Lakely:Right? You know, he's a big dealmaker. But, you know, this is this I mean, I I if if there was justice, we you could go full Reagan. And by by Reagan, I mean I forgot. I kinda skipped the best solo base there.
Jim Lakely:I mean, when he fired all of the, air traffic controllers, and people said, you can't do that. Oh, you have? Watch me. I'm gonna do that. And that just happened.
Jim Lakely:You have to have balls to do something like that. And, of course, this administration is just sitting there, letting the longshoremen get away with this. They asked president Biden, what he thought about it, and, I think he mumbled something out, but he's certainly not gonna be helping the American people in this kind of crisis. But, you know, we have a natural disaster in in Appalachia. We have Christmas coming up.
Jim Lakely:We have economy that is struggling, and we need it needs all the help he can get. And these guys, as as Chris said, are holding out for a 77 to 80% pay increase over over 6 years, was it? Yeah. When the wages for everybody else in America are stagnant or falling. And to and to come out, I guess, that's just kind of the the defining characteristic of a of a thug union boss.
Jim Lakely:You know, he's completely arrogant. He does not care about anybody but my guys. And he and he drives around literally in a Bentley and makes $900,000 a year, and he doesn't actually do any work. So, yeah, we need to automate America's ports as quickly as possible. I had never thought about what the longshoremen did for a living until this week.
Jim Lakely:Mhmm. And a lot of people that never thought about it or gave it much mind are now concentrating very, very squarely on this because of the selfishness and unreasonableness of, you know, this union.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Just the last thing I'll say on it, and, you know, like, I don't know what pay raise that they are, you know, justified to have. You know? I I I don't know. Like like like Jim said, I haven't paid attention to these guys or this industry, like, at all until just the last week.
Donald Kendal:So I'm not gonna get into that, but, you know, I've done plenty of work when it comes to kind of sounding the alarm on job losses that could result from automation. However, there's gotta be a balance there. I mean, the idea that we're gonna, like, hamstring ourselves, as a country with 30 year old processes and and shun any attempts of updating our our operations in the sole effort of keeping as many dues paying members of this union as possible just seems absolutely crazy to me. So, yeah, that's the part of the negotiations where they're like, yeah, no automation. Yeah.
Donald Kendal:Give us pay raises and no automation. It's just like I've got a real bone to pick with that last part of that for sure. But, alright. Justin, you can jump in on this, but we do have one more topic to get to. Alright.
Donald Kendal:Great.
Justin Haskins:No. I'm good. I'll just say that that guy reminds me a lot of hanging out at my sister's softball games in Johnston, Rhode Island.
Donald Kendal:Uh-huh.
Justin Haskins:It's just like that. It's just like that guy. It's just instead of threatening to shut down the economy, he's, like, yelling at the umpire and other parents. But it's pretty much exactly that experience. It's just funny because, you know, people from the Midwest and, you know, in, like, polite country, they see a guy like that, and they're like, oh my god.
Justin Haskins:Like, he's, like, from The Sopranos, and it's it's like, that just reminds me of the people that I grew up with, honestly. Seems like a nice guy.
Donald Kendal:That's a that's a ball out of strike. Right. Alright. Let's, let's end the show with a little reminder of, you know, the rhetoric that's espoused at places like Davos and the World Economic Forum. So recently, former climate czar John Kerry took part in a panel at the recent World Economic Forum sustainable development conference, where he had this to say about disinformation and that pesky first amendment that keeps getting in the way.
Donald Kendal:So we have that clip ready. Let's go ahead and play it.
Speaker 6:And I think the the dislike of and anguish over social media is just growing and growing and growing, and it's part of our problem, particularly in democracies, in terms of building consensus around any issue. It's really hard to govern today. You can't you you know, there's no the referees we used to have to determine what's a fact and what isn't a fact that kind of, you know, been eviscerated to a certain degree. And, people go and their people self select where they go for their news or for their information, and then you just get into a vicious cycle. So it's really, really hard much harder to build consensus today than at any time in the 45, 50 years I've been involved in this.
Speaker 6:And and, you know, there's a lot of discussion now about how you curb, those entities, in order to guarantee that you're going to have, you know, some accountability on facts, etcetera. But look, if people go to only one source and the source they go to is sick and, you know, has an agenda and they're putting out disinformation, our first amendment stands as a major block to the ability to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence. So what you need what we need is to is to win the ground, win the right to govern
Donald Kendal:Say it.
Speaker 6:By hopefully having, you know, winning enough votes that you're free to be able to to What does that mean? Implement change.
Jim Lakely:What does that mean?
Speaker 6:Obviously, there are some people in our country who are prepared to implement change in other ways. Oh, really? Really for democracy longshoremen? Survive unregulated social media. I think democracies are deep are very challenged right now and have not proven they can move fast enough or big enough to deal with the challenges that we are facing.
Speaker 6:And to me, that is part of what this race, this this election is all about. Will
Justin Haskins:we break
Speaker 6:the fever in the United States?
Donald Kendal:Yeah. Well, for, Justin, let me do
Justin Haskins:you sick. I'm gonna go to Donald, the show's sick. You're all sick.
Donald Kendal:It's true. We have been demonetized already. But before I go to you, Justin, I do wanna congratulate John Kerry at, securing the role as Herman Munster on the upcoming, you know, Munster family, yeah, reboot. So that's that's good. But, yeah, it seems like I don't know.
Donald Kendal:We've talked about this issue, the first amendment, and and people kind of the the rhetoric raising against it and the, you know, the the the crusade against misinformation and disinformation. We've talked about this a lot on the podcast in the last several weeks. So, Justin, do you think that there's, like, kind of a more of a concerted effort when it comes to that issue going on right now? What do you think?
Justin Haskins:I what what I think is he inadvertently proved, why his language is so dangerous, because here he is. This guy was almost president of the United States. Let's remember that. He was almost president. He's not just some guy.
Justin Haskins:He's not even just some senator. He was almost president of the United States. He's standing up there in this very powerful forum, and he comes within just milliseconds. Just just he's he's right there. He's so close to saying get rid of the first amendment.
Justin Haskins:He's just so close. He flirts with it so hard, and then he and then he uses these vague language about changes. And this election might change those things and maybe break our fever that we have in the United States. And, like, he comes so close to saying it. And right right in the midst of saying, well, lamenting about how we don't have these independent umpires fact checking everything and that we can all just agree are the experts, and we should just trust whatever they say.
Justin Haskins:And and the world we live in now where we have, you know, freedom of speech everywhere is just the worst thing that's ever happened. And it's like, if if we could trust the fact checkers, then everything would just be so much better. This is how he, you know, is presenting all of this. In the midst of that, nobody asks him the question in this fact checking, you know, benevolent, wonderful, trustworthy mainstream press invited to this event. Hey, John.
Justin Haskins:It sounds like you might wanna get rid of the first amendment. You know, you almost said it, basically. What do you think about that? Should we get rid of the first amendment? Is the first you know, what do you think?
Justin Haskins:Really press him on that. And, of course, nobody does. They let this guy who, again, almost president of the United States, come within as close as you could possibly do to saying, let's get rid of one of the most quintessential American distinctives and and rights and protections and freedoms, and nobody even asks him a question. And then he wonders why the rest of the world, the regular folks of the world, don't trust the media or people like him or any anyone in positions of power anymore.
Donald Kendal:World economic forum in general.
Justin Haskins:Yeah. Like, maybe it's because you guys are all sitting around together lamenting about how much freedom we all have because we get to say some stuff on the Internet while we pay, like, 40% more for every single thing that we have to buy in the world because you people completely screwed up the economy. And then you have the gall to stand there and say that we're all sick and deranged because we don't agree with you on everything and because we don't think the New York Times and the Washington Post, which are all just your crony sycophants, are telling us the truth after lies and lies and lies and lies and lies, well documented. And, of course, it would all just be better if everyone just agreed with John Gary and did whatever the hell he wanted. Yes.
Justin Haskins:Of course. I'm sure it would be better in his deranged mind, but that's not the world we wanna live in. And notice what we want, the people, does not matter to him. He didn't say, well, you know, we should get rid of freedom of speech because people don't want freedom of speech. That would actually be a more logical, reasonable argument.
Justin Haskins:It's not true, but it would at least be logical, and it wouldn't make him a tyrant necessarily. I mean, it would, but not in the same way as saying, I know you guys all want freedom of speech, but screw you. You shouldn't have it because you're a bunch of sick people, which is essentially what he said. And instead of the media mentioning it, they just let him get away with it, move on to the next question. Great.
Justin Haskins:Got it. Yep. Jot that down. Americans are all sick. First amendment bad.
Justin Haskins:Let's move on to the next tyrant and see what he has to say.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. But, Justin, it's it's so simple. It's because they agree with him. And, you know, they just of course, they do. Right.
Chris Talgo:Yeah. I know you know that. Just just a couple quick things. I was surprised at how monotone he is because I've been accused of being a little too monotone sometimes in my life, but, man, that guy was as monotone as one can possibly get. So, wow, I thought this guy was like a politician.
Chris Talgo:They're supposed to be good at speaking, but whatever. He's 80 years old.
Donald Kendal:I'll give him a give him a little break.
Chris Talgo:That that's true. But it just seemed like he was really low energy, like, really, really low energy. You know, it's it's it's shocking that John Kerry can go out and say these kind of things. And like Justin said, there's very little pushback. It's just it it blows my mind.
Chris Talgo:It just really goes to show that that's that's what they want too. And, you know, we can come up with a thousand examples of in the past few years how the, quote, mainstream media has been dead wrong on so many things from the Hunter Biden laptop story to almost everything to do with COVID. Yet, here they are saying, oh, well, you know what? We're we're we're always right, and you guys are always wrong. So, therefore, just give us 100% trust, and we will make sure that everything that you see in here is true.
Chris Talgo:I do not trust them 1 1%.
Donald Kendal:Oh, of course.
Chris Talgo:And and, you know, I I I really think that this a lot of this goes back to, Elon Musk, taking over Twitter because by doing that, that that that really changed the game. Before Elon Musk took over Twitter, Twitter, Facebook, all these big tech social media companies were basically in cahoots working with the government to propel the narrative that the government wanted them to put forth. Twitter, thank god for it. You know, x now, thank, thank you so much, Elon Musk. He just broke that system, and, I'm so glad that he did.
Chris Talgo:And I I'm also so glad that Fox News, you know, out outperforms all the other, cable news channels combined, which goes to show that people do not actually trust MSNBC and CNN. And I can't help but think that, John Kerry was alluding to Fox News in a couple of those comments and how much he just hates the fact that, you know, that they're out there given the alternative point of view because we all should live in this Orwellian, you know, dystopian nightmare, 1984 scenario in which we all just, you know, are brainwashed and indoctrinated with, government propaganda. And I know, Donnie, that you and Justin have a great book coming out on that very topic, and I can almost guarantee you that John Kerry would want to burn every single copy of that. But too bad he can't do it. I think he should be forced to read every single page of that book.
Donald Kendal:So, Jim, I mean, I know you're you're in a funk right now because Justin stole the mantle of rants of the of the episode. But,
Justin Haskins:Yeah.
Jim Lakely:I I'm just gonna say, Justin, you you really you really need to calm down. You you need to get ahold of yourself. Nobody wants to hear somebody ranting and raving and screaming and throwing their hands around. This is a proper adult, mature program, and it's it's really a disgrace. Chris, you were almost as bad.
Jim Lakely:This is just not what the people want.
Justin Haskins:What the
Jim Lakely:people want is a good source of information delivered calmly with an adult conversation.
Justin Haskins:What? What?
Jim Lakely:Okay. I've snapped out of that.
Donald Kendal:It gave me the wrong answer.
Jim Lakely:My ranting thunder, Justin. I couldn't believe it. I was sitting here going crazy. Look. Do you notice that, you know, but for first of all, you know, I didn't realize that John Kerry hated CNN this much because he did describe a single sick source of news and information, and that I immediately thought of CNN.
Jim Lakely:So, you know, really shocked that he's going after CNN like that. But, you know, he talked about John Kerry did about the challenges that, we are facing. You know? What are those wait. First of all, who is we when he says that in that sentence?
Jim Lakely:We are the global elites and, the our ruling class, not, our elected temporary representatives, but our ruling class. That's how they see themselves, and they're our permanent ruling class, by the way. But what is the challenge? The challenge is merely people speaking freely in opposition to the government that rules over them. You know, and but, you know, Justin, he didn't say that he wanted to repeal the first amendment.
Jim Lakely:But that was the appoint you know, get rid of it entirely. He was actually jealous that it doesn't exist in most of these societies that he mingles with over there at the WEF. Right? So he he didn't say explicitly that it needs to be repealed. He just says that it's a serious major problem that is in the way of their permanent rule over the likes of you and me.
Jim Lakely:And then there was a question that that snobby host sitting there, moderator in that panel had said. He said, can democracy survive unregulated social media? He said, that's exactly that's pretty much what you're saying, isn't it, John Kerry? And, yeah, that's that's what he was saying. But the truth, of course, is that democracy, a free society, can't survive regulated social media.
Jim Lakely:You know, the the and I'll just give one quick example, the Hunter Biden laptop story. That was regulated into oblivion so that people couldn't hear about it. It was banned. You got your accounts, taken down. It was banned from Twitter.
Jim Lakely:It was banned from Facebook. You couldn't talk about it, because it was sold to us in a lie that it was a Russian op to try to throw our election when, of course, the exact opposite is always true with these people. Everything they accuse others are doing or afraid others might do, they are doing in this very moment. Polls showed after the election that if people knew about the Hunter Biden laptop story, it would have changed their vote. That story suppression likely turned the election, of of 2020 and made sure that Joe Biden was in the White House.
Jim Lakely:So, you know, when I see stuff like this, Justin, and I and I you probably pretty much agree because you might be as paranoid as me. Do you know how close we are in this country in the United States to being arrested for saying misinformation and disinformation? Do you know how long they've been setting up the table to have this actually happen in this country? Because it's happening in the United Kingdom today. People cops come to your house because they saw what you put on Facebook.
Jim Lakely:We are very, very close to have that happening in this country. John Kerry is jealous that that doesn't happen here, that he can't have his his political opponents and anyone who just happens to disagree with him thrown into a gulag because free speech is makes it harder for them to rule and, implement their aims for society. There we're so close to this. I mean, it's crazy that this is happening in the United States of America, but we are very close to it.
Donald Kendal:Yeah. I won't subject anybody to this audio, because we're already 15 minutes along, 16 minutes long. But, Hillary Clinton was on MSNBC a couple of weeks ago that was advocating for, like, jail time for people that are, you know, purveyors of disinformation. Maybe that would be, like, an adequate, deterrence from it or something along those lines. And then another thing that we're actually considering of, making a segment on today's show was a New Yorker piece that was published just about a week ago that was titled, is it time to torch the constitution?
Donald Kendal:Subheading, some scholars say that it's to blame for the political dysfunction and that we need to start over. So I just really feels like right now, we're in the middle of a concerted effort, against some of the most, like, fundamental freedoms that we enjoy here, in the United States. And, you know, we're gonna be doing our best to push back against that and highlight it, shine a nice bright spotlight into those dead eyes of John Kerry whenever he says something like this. But, gentlemen, any final thoughts, last words, or anything you need to get off your chest before we wrap up the show today? Hearing nothing?
Donald Kendal:I will thank all of you for joining us for this latest episode of the in the tank podcast. Join us every week for a new episode. Those audio only listeners that are catching our show probably on a Friday or later, write a review for us on iTunes. That would be greatly appreciated. And consider joining us a day earlier, Thursdays at noon CST, where we are live streaming on Facebook and YouTube and x and Rumble.
Donald Kendal:You could join the conversation, throw your comments and questions in the chat. We will show your comments on the screen, maybe we'll address your questions on the fly. You can, also, if you'd like, follow us on Twitter at in the tank pod or send us your comments, suggestions, questions to the show by, emailing us atinthetankpodcastgmail.com. You can support the show not by super chats because we have been demonetized, but you can go to heartland.org/inthetank and donate directly to the show. That way, YouTube doesn't take a 30% cut.
Donald Kendal:And, you can also help out the show just by hitting that like button, sharing this content, subscribing if you haven't already, or just putting a comment under the video. All those things help break through those big tech algorithms that prevent content like this from being shown to more people. Jim Lakeley, where can the find people find you?
Jim Lakely:At jlakeley on Twitter x, at heartlandinstonx, and always visit heartland.org.
Donald Kendal:Fantastic. And, Chris Talgo, would you have to pitch today?
Chris Talgo:Heartland.org. A lot of great stuff up there, especially Justin's and Jack McVernon's newest, policy brief on the EUCSDDD.
Donald Kendal:That's right. That's right.
Chris Talgo:Remember that acronym, everybody. It's gonna be here for a long time, unfortunately.
Donald Kendal:Yes. It will be. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:Rolls up the
Donald Kendal:all. Justin Haskins, where can the fine people find you? That's,
Justin Haskins:I don't know. At justinhaskins on on x. You could also go to heartland.org, of course, and, stopping socialism.com. Also, check out justinhaskins.com if you get a chance.
Donald Kendal:No. Don't do that.
Justin Haskins:Find out more about
Donald Kendal:Don't do that. Alright. Harass him on Twitter as well. Alright. Thank you all for joining us.
Donald Kendal:We will talk to you
Justin Haskins:Talk on Twitter anymore. Next week. Appreciate all that. Turn that off.
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