Episode 768 Scott Adams: Pardons, Fixing the So-Called Homeless Problem, Trump Takes on California

Date: 2019-12-26 | Duration: 1:06:20

Topics

My new book LOSERTHINK, available now on Amazon https://tinyurl.com/rqmjc2a The perfect time to pardon General Flynn and Roger Stone? Stock market up 50% since Trump Presidency began The homeless problem is really a mental health and drug problem NOT a lack of housing problem President Trump, California, Nancy Pelosi and Gavin Newsom Housing FIRST? Exactly backwards, guaranteed to fail Lindsey Vonn’s marriage proposal Kanye’s gospel album and unique spiritual importance Michael Moore’s evil, damaging statement Demonizing groups of people by identity Pete Buttigieg’s policy, no jail time for drug possession Why aren’t we testing this on a small scale? Will it work or fail? Testing small answers the question Annex of West Bank and Jordan Valley for Israel? The “kids in cages” issue… …What could Obama have done instead of building/using cages? …What can Trump do instead of continuing the Obama solution?

If you would like my channel to have a wider audience and higher production quality, please donate via my startup (Whenhub.com) at this link: https://interface.my/ScottAdamsSays

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## Transcript

[0:02]

[Music] boom-boom-boom-boom pom pom pom pom boom hey everybody come on in here it's time for coffee with Scott Adams yeah it does look good I have a dog Scott Adams and you're here for coffee or possibly another beverage a beverage of your choice and if all of that is true and I know it is you're ready for the simultaneous sip yes it comes with a little song it is something that you've been learning it's improved it's better and it goes like this I know why you're here you're here for the simultaneous up all you need is a cup of margaret glass a tankard challenger stein a canteen joker plank or flask the vessel of any kind fill it with your favorite liquid I like coffee and joining me now for the unparalleled pleasure the dopamine hit of the day the thing that makes everything better the simultaneous hip go uh-huh

[1:03]

the simultaneous hip go uh-huh yep that's the good stuff just like I hope it's better every time did everybody get everything that they wanted for Christmas are you enjoying your Boxing Day happy Boxing Day if anybody knows what Boxing Day is all about please tell me I understand there are a few different theories on that and we don't know which one is thank you somebody liked my comic today Dilbert so we got stuff to talk about are you ready UN Agenda 2030 I don't know about that's but I'll look into it here's what's going on in no particular order where the heck are our pardons for Roger stone in general Flynn now I've said that there probably could never be a better time to pardon Flynn and stone than right now at the end of the year

[2:03]

than right now at the end of the year but there might be some considerations some people have said let their pleas run out before you pardoned them because if they succeed in their plea deals and the
the nothing's pardoned and that's the best of all cases well maybe maybe but I see both Flynn and stone a sort of special cases and if they were to get pardoned I don't think that would have any impact on their careers versus you know going through the appeals process and being cleared that way if they got lucky in that way but I can't think of a better time to do it can you it seems to me that the president has clearly signaled his interest and willingness to do it because when he was asked about it instead of saying yes or no which is the correct thing to do he doesn't want to give a yes or no but he says immediately they were treated very very unfairly that's that's the cats on the roof right if you're president who has the power to pardon only has one comment about the

[3:05]

pardon only has one comment about the people you're asking about and the comment is a positive one he's decided I mean it seems to me he's decided that's what he wants to do now that doesn't mean he can do it meaning that there there may be bigger considerations here that we don't quite understand the legal system can be a little opaque sometimes but let me say on behalf of a an exhausted public and see if you back be honest in the comments I want to see if you agree because stone and Flynn were caught in processed crimes for something that was a setup basically a way to squeeze these guys and they were essentially entrapped because if you if you put Roger stone on if you put Roger stone on the record he's gonna say something that isn't this is actually true maybe possibly so in a

[4:11]

is actually true maybe possibly so in a way it looks like Roger stone is going to prison for being Roger stone and I know that you can't really you can't make it okay to lie to law enforcement you know I get that that has to be a crime but the reasons for pardons is that there special cases they override our technical need for following all the rules I've never seen a better case than this I don't believe you'll ever see maybe you probably never see a case this clean where where the circumstances that caused them to get in trouble in the first place we're so illegitimate on on behalf of the entire country that it just seems right at this point it just seems right to to clean the record as much as a pardon can clean record so I don't know the legal technicalities but I would say mr. president the greatest showman on earth I've called them that before the president probably has the best sense of drama story and show that

[5:16]

best sense of drama story and show that you've ever seen I mean he just has a natural sense on knowing what the moment is what the what the most provocative thing would be what the what the clever twist would be to keep the thing interesting I mean it's the most interesting person any of us have ever known love him or hate him president Trump is the most interesting person any of us have ever known I mean I think that's just true he doesn't even know how to be uninteresting have you ever seen him uninteresting once even once yeah I don't even think he could turn off interesting dodd jr. has the same thing by the way Don Jr I think it's impossible for him to be uninteresting love him or hate him always interesting so they've got that and here's my point because we're in this little weird holiday season when people are far more biased toward goodwill than they are toward fighting and it's the only time of the year that happens yeah really this is the only

[6:16]

happens yeah really this is the only time of the year the entire country is a little bit more biased toward love then let's fight it out you couldn't pick a better time to do this because he's gonna get brutalized no matter what but why don't why not do it when the press is on vacation and the country is already leading your direction there is no better time this is the best time to do it unless there's a legal thing I don't know about anyway so enough on that stock market is reportedly up more than fifty percent since Trump was elected which is reportedly faster if you look at just this point in his presidency entering the third year or into the third year it's faster to stock market growth than any president before any president now here's the fun part he has the best stock market growth of any president and I don't think the stock market is overdone because the experts are not

[7:18]

overdone because the experts are not warning us that we've hit a bubble and the stock market is gonna fall back there are just as many experts saying you know 2020 it's looking kind of good right and this is on top of and I might be the only person in the world who says this on top of a really strong performance by the Obama administration I always give Obama credit for taking us off the bottom but that's a different skill set than taking you from a strong position to oh my god position which is what Trump has done Obama did a solid solid job of taking us from the very bottom the you know the precipice almost falling off the edge to a strong position but Trump took us from strong to I didn't even know that was possible you you gotta get both of them credit for that it's just a different skillset different skill set at a different time if you would reverse their jobs if you'd made Trump president first an Obama president second I don't know this this

[8:19]

president second I don't know this this would've worked honestly because their skill sets would have then been mismatched to the situation let's talk about something else oh just one more thing on that when I say something like the stock market is up after Trump got elected let me say for the benefit of the people who don't make that normal assumptions I do not believe that any one economic indicator tells you what's happening I am aware that the federal debt is pretty scary looking although it's not like regular debt so I don't know exactly how to evaluate it but it's scary I will acknowledge that a good stock market doesn't help everybody I'll acknowledge that you know lots of other factors etc and I acknowledge that Obama was a big part of getting things strong as a base that said it is unambiguously room for celebration that the stock market is up and it's not a bubble I mean that's just good you know

[9:21]

bubble I mean that's just good you know there's no negative spin you can put on that it's just not everything my cat is ripping up my Hasek right now if you hear you hear fabric flying through the air I've got a suggestion let's talk about the the so-called homeless problem which is really a mental health and drug addiction problem let's talk about that because I feel as though 2020 is going to be the year that we get serious about that it feels like the the zeitgeist is starting to focus on the homeless problem maybe it's because of scale if I only got big enough that we can't you know nobody has the luxury of ignoring it anymore it could be because our other problems are under better control than before so we have a little luxury of focusing on the next big thing it could be because it's a political season and California versus Trump gets them jabbering about whether California is doing a good job with their own state and it could be and I think this might

[10:21]

and it could be and I think this might be the biggest thing is that dr. drew is making a dent in the national consciousness how many of you are aware and and I talked about this before when I once tweeted something I think last week in which I without comment I tweeted something that made it look like the the homeless problem is a lack of housing and so many of you jumped on me because you had been trained either directly or directly through dr. Drew's or dr. Drew Pinsky that is not really a homeless problem and the the compelling reason that he gives is we have you know how many millions of immigrants come into the country illegally every year and they don't sleep on the street even pee
pee who have nothing can find a place indoors to sleep but the people were out in the street it's because they're they have some kind of mental problem some kind of a drug addiction problem in general I'm generalizing and once you

[11:23]

general I'm generalizing and once you understand that the problem is not a lack of housing but a lack of people who want to get into that housing because they'd rather stay outside sleep on the sidewalk take some drugs fall asleep in a heroin stupor yes maybe it's not a bad day you know think about it if you were one of these people on the streets and you had two possibilities one is that you could spend half of the day under heroin which I've never had I understand feels good that's why they do it and then you fall asleep on a you know a pile of clothing and you're you know you're dressed up with you know 50 pounds of clothing on you so you're not that cold and you're you're drunk or you're on heroin anyway they at least have some part of a day that's pretty good I hate to say it but they have some part of their 24-hour day it's kind of good cuz they're stoned or drunk or whatever or sleep and so as dr. Joe points out you can't solve that problem by building houses that they don't want

[12:24]

by building houses that they don't want to live in they couldn't live in don't want to live in and won't live in can't force them so I have a frame suggestion instead of calling it a homeless problem which I think gets us down the wrong track and by the way we'll talk about Gavin Newsom and the president's words with each other in the debt I would refer to reframe this and I'm just gonna throw this out as a suggestion we're in the brainstorming category so I make no claim that the following suggestion will be productive it'll just make you think differently than you were rather than saying we have a homeless problem or that it's mental health or even the drug addiction problem I wonder if you could define people as indoor people versus outdoor people indoor people versus outdoor people the indoor people will be people who want to be indoors now if they can't get indoors but they want to well let's see if we can help

[13:24]

want to well let's see if we can help them you know what's that take if your only problem is you don't have you don't have a drug problem you don't have a mental problem your only problem is that you wish you lived indoors and you're outdoors that's one set of solutions you know what do you do for that person and in fact I talked about this one of the solutions was people are literally sleeping in their cars but in parking lots that are have a security guard and it's for that purpose and they have some kind of public restroom facility for those people who just have a money problem and it might be temporary because they have jobs so they're working through their temporary money problem maybe that's some kind of solution like that where it's not really outdoors but it's not quite indoors but there must be it seems to me that that let's call them the outdoor people the people who wouldn't go indoors even if you gave them the opportunity is there a way to keep them outdoors but much much more comfortable much safer in a way that they're less likely to die it's

[14:24]

that they're less likely to die it's just a question you know could you could you literally make it more of a tense situation could you take advantage of somebody suggested this the other day of using let's say broken or obsolete campers you know ones that are not good enough to be on the road anymore but maybe they're good as a shelter you put him in some kind of outdoor campsite so I'm just gonna brainstorm and I'm I think that there might be a place in some situations not every situation where improving the outdoor life and getting them off the public street get them to something that has something like a bathroom facility you know however rudimentary it is is that better I know does that get you anything or does it make people want to go live there I don't think you'd want to live there I don't think anybody would say hey give me some outdoor life so I can live with the dry that drug addicts and the mentally unstable people I mean nobody's gonna choose it but it might be

[15:25]

nobody's gonna choose it but it might be better now the other thing that has to be talked about and dr.xu brings us up the most is the laws do not you two involuntarily control somebody so if somebody's an adult and they're not breaking a specific law that's the kind you get arrested for you can't make them leave the street apparently there's nothing you can do if somebody's crazy and dangerous to themselves there's not much you can do you just leave them there until they die I think dr. drew said there was something like a thousand homeless people died just being you know outdoors and dangerous situations of various types so the the conversation that has to happen and you're gonna see it in 2020 looks like this what what moral responsibility does the government have regarding the people who were outside and really can't take care of themselves in a safe way do we have a moral responsibility to step in take control

[16:29]

responsibility to step in take control of them physically and say you can't be on the on the street you must be in this facility you must take this treatment you know you must take this maybe in some cases pills if they have mental health illness that could be helped by medication so that is a question which I think is going to be a big big 20/20 question and I'm gonna I'll help dr. Drew magnify that maybe some of you will and I don't know that I have the answer it could it well could be that the country looks at it wrestles with it as a as a moral you know a real moral contest if you will pro and con and at the end of it it could be that we say you know freedom is actually that important that will let people who died a day died in the street or whatever it is whatever the number becomes because it's better than involuntary incarceration for things that normally would not be so I think the conversation

[17:31]

would not be so I think the conversation has to happen it has to happen by responsible people who mean well and 2020 that's going to happen all right interesting I'm watching President Trump take aim at California specifically governor Newsom and Nancy Pelosi for their districts being a mess with homelessness and addiction and bad stuff in the streets etc and Gavin Newsom it responded back by saying and this is sort of mind-blowing given given the conversation I was just having sort of mind-blowing earlier this month Gavin Newsom governor of California blamed the Trump administration over rising homelessness in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco saying the White House was taking no action on quote housing first the governor's approach to solving homelessness the proposal would involve getting people in homes first and potentially adding job skills training

[18:32]

potentially adding job skills training or addiction services later correct me if I'm wrong but isn't governor Newsom's proposal first of all exactly the opposite of what I think dr. drew an actual expert in this field would tell you you should do it's exactly the opposite right it's backwards so is it a bad thing that President Trump is not allowing or helping governor Newsom do something that is exactly backwards and guaranteed to fail I mean there's some things that you can say well it might work right there are lots of things where you'd say to yourself this could work you know give it a chance but this is one of those things you know won't work and that's actually a rare category if you take a drug-addicted persons and put them in a nice home how long does that last you know it's just not a home problem and if the governor doesn't understand even what the problem is it makes you wonder why does he want to build facilities well anytime you have

[19:34]

build facilities well anytime you have local politicians let's say state politicians who are in favor of building construction to solve the problem what's the first thing you think of right now if the local politicians control who gets what bid you know what what budgets go to what construction projects and all that immediately you're talking about all kinds of corruption now I'm not saying that governor Newsom is corrupt I've never heard anything that would suggest that but it's immediately going down the road that has all the problems because that's where the corruption lives you know the building a facility so certainly I would like to see if if California were even a little bit serious about this California would say you know we may not know exactly what the problem is or how to fix it let's try a few things you will know they call it California's on the way to getting fixed when you hear the following we're going to try something we haven't tried before in this one area in California

[20:36]

before in this one area in California and maybe we'll try some other things at the same time but we're going to test and we're gonna see what works if you hear California saying something like that we'll get a test it against other things and then whatever works best we'll do more of you might have something you might be hearing about the beginning of of an improvement somebody says they have heard that but I haven't heard that when that becomes the dominant message you might have something but if if you're hearing somebody say we have a homeless problem and the government the federal government isn't letting us build more structures you do not have anything that is even a potential problem there's nothing in that that even might work it doesn't have a it's empty it's completely empty so the president is hammering California and it feels like he's really put a the crosshairs on them you mean as a as a state and as an issue and I think is really strong now I don't think anybody thinks it's possible their

[21:39]

think anybody thinks it's possible their president Trump could win you know let's say the popular vote or or the electoral vote in California but let me let me just toss this out here I want to say this in the most dramatic way anybody you ask who knows anything about politics will tell you that it would be impossible for president Trump to win California in the in the electoral college
but I think he might be taking a run for it
it because the way he's targeted to them and and in his his attacks you know are relentless they're gonna be targeted they will be repeatable they will be catchy and they will become as big an issue as he wants them to be because he's the president and he's not an ordinary president he's president Trump so if he wants you to think about how bad California is for the next year you're gonna be thinking a lot about how

[22:40]

you're gonna be thinking a lot about how bad California is for the next year if it turns out he doesn't have a bigger target to go after and given that Pelosi is in California and some of the biggest problems that our Democrat related are in California he might he might just focus all lasers on California and I want to be the first one to say although it does seem impossible on any rational basis that the president could flip California I think this president could flip California now maybe a year isn't enough but I'll bet he can move the dial because he does have those skills he has the skills to move people's brains like nobody ever has nobody's ever been anywhere in this you know even the vicinity of his effectiveness of doing this stuff and if he decides that this is gonna be his big things to go after a drug addiction and homelessness and it's all related you

[23:42]

homelessness and it's all related you know maybe a lot of people's minds is related to immigration and some interactor direct way I he might take a shot at it he might you know I wouldn't predict he could succeed but I've never heard there's nobody else who would ever even have a slight chance what do you might never know all right I would say the best way to think of the quote housing shortage so when goose' when Goosen Gavin Newsom talks about the the need for low-cost housing for the homeless I think that housing should not be considered housing should not be considered a solution for the homeless although in some cases it is but there the limited cases I think that low-cost housing should be seen as a solution to wait for it
it what is low caste locked low-cost housing a solution to the debt and to

[24:42]

housing a solution to the debt and to high taxes because if we can build and I think this is the future I've been saying this forever but the biggest change that's coming in the next say 10 years is low-cost housing that's actually good housing we've had low-cost housing that's you know low quality we've had high high-quality housing there was good quality what we've never had but now chem because we we have the ability to do it with just nobody's doing it we have the ability to build very low-cost housing that's actually more livable better a better quality of life than even expensive housing we have all that know how to do that now some you know maybe some local building codes would have to be revised people would have to form businesses in different ways and find different business models and all that but that's what the golden age is you know I've defined this as the golden age meaning that it's a period when there are no real shortages there

[25:42]

when there are no real shortages there we don't have a shortage of goods there's enough stuff there's enough money there's enough materials there's nothing you know metal in the ground etc there's enough stuff well we don't have systems that are designed correctly to put the right stuff where it needs to be so we're in a design phase where everything that needs to be fixed is a question of design not of shortages or or not of shortages basically so every time we talk about a housing shortage and and they need need for low-cost housing think of it in terms of if we could get the cost of living let's say a really high quality retirement life or a you know millennial young person life if we could get the cost of living a good life down to a let's say 20% of what it cost now what does that do to your ability to buy health care insurance well suddenly you've doubled the number of people who are covered let's say that in a rational

[26:45]

are covered let's say that in a rational way you might cut in half the number of people who don't have health care if you made their living spend so low that now they can afford it so thinking about the housing shortage so to speak or the need for low-cost housing should really be a question about the national debt about you know the social services expenses and about taxes and the question about the people who are living outdoors well maybe they're just indoor people and outdoor people first you decide which they are and then you decide let's try some stuff maybe we leave them outdoors but give them more services maybe there's a one County where we involuntarily Lock them up but we just try it for a year because we don't want to necessarily commit to this forever just see how it works all right here's the here's a cautionary tale for you Lindsey Vonn famous Olympic skater Lindsey Vonn proposed marriage to her boyfriend PK who was a professional

[27:47]

boyfriend PK who was a professional athlete and posted it on Instagram I guess and she said women aren't the only ones who should get engagement rings and she showed that she bought an engagement ring and proposed to her boyfriend and he said yes what do you think about that what does everybody think about I just want to get your reaction now in one hand on one hand can we not all celebrate can we not all celebrate that we're all different we're all completely different you know we're not just different in gender we're not just different and ethnicity experience income we're just all completely different and it's only our minds that try to put us in these packages say all right you're you're mostly Filipino and you're a woman you know so that's your package that's just our minds organizing ourselves into categories because we like to deal with categories but the truth is were all just completely different people so there's certainly no right or wrong way

[28:49]

there's certainly no right or wrong way to do anything so let me say this Lindsey Vonn Vaughn and her betrothed this probably worked just fine for them so I don't have any any criticisms whatsoever I will say this would not work for most people and it gets worse they posed with a picture and it looks like she might be a little bit taller than him I can't tell but it looks like she might be a little taller I think she's tall and they have their arms around each other but in the same photo that's announcing their engagement she has her arm around him above so you know their arms around each other side by side and it looks like his is below and and hers is above and so you see her her one arm coming let's see how'd he do coming over his shoulder like this in like a in like a dominant position like she's got the highest arm position so she's she's sort of towering over him

[29:50]

she's she's sort of towering over him physically while announcing on on Instagram that she proposed to him and he said yes and she gave him a ring now all I got to say about this is um they look really happy and again I'm not going to judge what works for those two people because the most important thing over all this is that no two people are like this could be the greatest thing ever he might be saying you know that's why I want to marry you I mean it's perfectly possible that why he says is this is exactly why I want to marry you this you know you you make everything work for us you you know it wasn't ready so glad you did it could be perfect but ladies ladies let me give you this advice you probably don't want to follow this model it might work perfectly for them no criticism intended or accidental but

[30:52]

criticism intended or accidental but don't follow this model it's all I'm saying because I would say that 99% of men would not respond to positive positively to this but I'm glad that they seem to be happy because they do look pretty happy in their pictures all right Kanye West dropped his new album Jesus is born on Christmas on Christmas he drops an album on Christmas who drops a new album on Christmas the day you would get the least publicity god yeah now this is a follow-up to his Jesus was it his other album about Jesus and I guess most of it is from his Sunday services the the choir that he brings to Sunday services and I gotta say every time I hear more about Kanye I like him better every time I hear a news story about him now for full disclosure I am NOT a fan of that genre of music so I'm not a I'm not a believer I would

[31:52]

not a I'm not a believer I would wouldn't be somebody who would you know naturally attend a spiritual service nor would I listen to spiritual music doesn't doesn't quite connect with me but nonetheless it is fair to say it's very popular around the world and his last album was a giant hit I think this one will be too and and the reason I talk about Kanye is because I think he's more important than other people think I think he's more important to the world he you know he talks about being president and I've said this before but I think president would be shooting low in his case you know who won do you think Kanye West's talents would be best used sitting around meetings all day like as a meeting and when the meetings done you got another meeting and then you're gonna cut a kind of tape and pass somebody in the head and you're gonna meet the Ambassador from Luxembourg does that feel like the best use for the you

[32:54]

that feel like the best use for the you know maybe the greatest creative force of our time hey greatest creative force of our time once you go to some meetings I feel like the worst thing he could possibly do right now could he become a president I think he could actually I think he could run for president if he if he got as serious as you could possibly get and he said stuff like if I become president I will choose from among this group of people as my advisors you would say Wow okay the same thing Trump did with with Judicial Appointments for the Supreme Court one of the things that made people comfortable with Trump as they said he said this is the list that the Federal Society or somebody made of judges I will only pick from this list so you don't even have to worry if I'll make a bad pick it's already pre picked so somebody like Kanye could do something like that and say look I'm not I'm not an economist but I'm gonna pick an economist from this list they're all they all won I know Awards or whatever

[33:55]

they all won I know Awards or whatever so yes Kanye could win the presidency maybe not this next one you know but at some point he's a young man he could win the presidency if that's what he wanted well I'll say this again I think it would be a waste of his talent because he seems to be doing something that's bigger way bigger the the biggest gap in this country wasn't even government you know our government has lots of flaws but it runs long you know the government it chugs along it's it's not broken per se but we were kinda broken on the spiritual level wouldn't you say we have we have a fractured country who is maybe our biggest problem is that people are divided and we're fighting about identity politics and stuff that we don't need to be fighting about I mean we've we've solved so many of our big problems and our external threats that we've sort of turned on each other you're not not too seriously but it's

[34:56]

you're not not too seriously but it's getting that way if you can't walk outside with a the name of Trump on your hat without getting your ass kicked we've got some work to do right so I think that Kanye is essentially without saying it and maybe I don't even know how much intention there is to this he is emerging shall we say oh so I'll take I'll take the intention and it I'll just say he's emerging through intentional acts as a spiritual force that is very unique think about this if you said to yourself any other religious leader let's say anybody from the religious right if somebody from the religious right whether it's you know Bill Graham jr. who ever tried to emerge as the spiritual leader for the United States how would that go over it wouldn't right it wouldn't go over at all it wouldn't go over because people would say no

[35:56]

go over because people would say no that's a you know white Republican guy I don't really want to be in the spiritual path with the white Republican guy and if it were whoever else you know somebody would said I'm not one of those Kanye has done something that other people can't do and he's already done it which is he's become free from labels who did whoever did that who has ever been free from labels because you say to yourself what label do you put on Kanye conservative no liberal no name another person that you can't you can't tell me if they're a conservative or a liberal name one other person in the whole world that you actually can't answer the question you know I don't even know if he's conservative or liberal right yeah I'll bet for a lot of you that's the first time you thought of it that way yeah oh somebody saying liberal but when

[36:59]

yeah oh somebody saying liberal but when I say conservative when he talks about freeing yourself from your the mental prisons of the past and just working in you know doing the best at what you can do with what you have that's a very conservative message he just doesn't wrap it in traditional conservative language but in terms of you know lift yourself up you know pray to your God take care of yourself first and then you can take care of other people he's an amazing role model amazing role model and he's done what nobody else can do he has freed himself from labels he freed himself from labels do you know I Jesus historical Jesus was in part one of the reasons that Jesus is such a important historical religious figure is that Jesus also was was free from labels named somebody besides Jesus who was free from labels was Jesus a

[38:00]

who was free from labels was Jesus a liberal you know what even is ethnicity Jesus's ethnicity was almost irrelevant you couldn't even tell if Jesus was you know part human part God Jesus was almost well I don't know accidentally or by design I don't know but Jesus is sort of unlabeled why is it that black people white people every kind of people can pray to Jesus because Jesus isn't really on the other team Jesus is the character who you can't even tell what color is supposed to be if he's human liberal didn't you know you just don't know so that's part of the magic of Jesus Kanye he managed to pull off a Jesus move I'm not saying he's Jesus calm down calm down I'm not saying Kanye's as good as Jesus all I'm saying is that if you were to look at that one element the ability to be free of labels who else did it

[39:02]

be free of labels who else did it who else did it I can't think of anybody so keep your eye out and Kanye once he freed himself from labels and by the way here's another thing that Kanye freed himself here suddenly I talk about all the time how many times have I talked about using your ego as a tool instead of using your ego as who you are I've got to protect my ego I don't want to be embarrassed I don't want to go out there and have people think badly of me watch watch what Kanye does over the course of his career how many times has Kanye put his ego completely on the line imagine making this you know for famously when he he said the thing about President Trump didn't like black people famously when he said what he said about Taylor Swift you know maybe maybe shouldn't have won that award and it should have gone to somebody else think about all the things that Connie has done and now here's his support of

[40:04]

has done and now here's his support of the president you're at least as a person his his movement to this kind of music I mean really almost everything Kanye does is a an ongoing public debate with his own ego and you saw that in the famous video when he was with the TMZ crew and he was he was he got kind of emotional because he was talking about how he had he had lipo so that the people he was talking to you know the press and the public would not make fun of him for being fat and you could see it was a very vulnerable moment you can see it actually it actually bothered him but here's what's special about it he was saying it in public Kanye was actually putting his you know even though he told you his ego was damaged in a sense because he you know you had to get lipo so he didn't get mocked for being fat but he was he was sort of confessing that in public and so he was basically telling you you know I had a weight problem it bothered me I mean he was

[41:06]

problem it bothered me I mean he was completely putting his ego on the line so watch for this pattern because I've said this is a success tell for somebody who's going someplace somebody who's still on the way the people were still on the way somewhere they're still rising are the people who can have that honest conversation with their ego and they could say you know I'm just gonna put my ego inside their hurts I'm gonna move it aside I'm gonna talk about it I'm gonna take a chance I'm gonna take a risk I'm gonna put myself out there he does that every day Kanye does that every day I sounded like a Fox News commercial there all right they're getting in my head apparently Michael more famous anti-trump er recently said I think it was yesterday in an interview he said and I quote white men who voted for President Trump were quote not good people and then he went out and made another Equipe about it

[42:07]

another Equipe about it so he said that 2/3 of white men voted for Trump and if you see three white men walking down the street two of them are not not good people on average and I thought to myself has President Trump here's just a mental exercise what has President Trump ever said let's say as president well limited to his time as candidate or president what as president Trump ever said that was as evil and as potentially damaging as what Michael Moore said that white men who voted for President Trump were not good people is there anything that any time the president Trump has ever said or done that's actually as bad as this you know I'm not talking about policies I'm talking about statements this is one of the worst things I've ever seen a person say in public now he of course he can get away with it because you know that's that's the way our press works and because he is a white man he can make fun of white man that's the rule I get

[43:08]

fun of white man that's the rule I get that but as soon as you go down that road of demonizing a group by some kind of identity you are I'm not gonna say the H word but you are in territory that never goes well do you know what Kanye West never says let me tell you something that Kanye West has never said and I will predict today never will say this kind of stuff Kanye West would never say it's just my opinion you know kid Never Say Never but in my opinion Kanye is on a whole different level of spiritual awareness he would never say this would he can you can you even imagine Kanye West demonizing an entire segment of the American public I don't think so I am anyway P Budaj

[44:10]

think so I am anyway P Budaj said in an interview I guess maybe this week they're all drug possession should be should not result in jail time so he would like to see no jail time or any form of drug possession so I assume that means the dealers the drug dealers still have an issue but in terms of possession no jail time and then somebody said are you kidding me you mean even cocaine and you know meth even that no jail time and Buddha judge said correct no jail time and in this move Peabody jej has eclipsed president Trump's position on drugs so I would say that Buddha judge has the clear advantage on the drug question because of this opinion and if if he ran against President Trump and there were only one topic I'd vote for him the of course there is not one topic but if the only topic there was you know if every other problem in the world were solved let's

[45:11]

problem in the world were solved let's say Trump solved every other problem and the only thing left was drug addiction and Trump ran against Buddha judge I'd vote for Buddha judge every time because Buddha judge is just way ahead in in the thinking about and the taking a chance and being creative and everything now I would of course add my usual caveat why are we not testing this somewhere why are we still having a conversation in the United States about whether drug it's not legalization but deep DJ islet izing I don't know what it what is the term for something still being illegal but there's no jail time there's a term for that probably but if we're not at least testing that in some County and some state it can't be said that we're trying all right let me say that as clearly as possible the the problem with drug addiction in my opinion is that we're not trying to solve it because

[46:11]

we're not trying to solve it because trying to solve it would look like this there's a test going on in this town there's a different test going on in this town there's a different test going on in this town we're watching those three tests very closely we're tracking stuff we're gonna and then when we find out which one works we'll take that one and run it and if we think of something that might even be better we'll test that too if you ever hear something like that going on that means that you've decided to solve the problems if you don't if you if you don't people are saying that decriminalization is the word for something that's still illegal but you don't go to jail is that true if it feels like that should not be the right word because if you get if you get a fine for it it's still a criminal act right or as criminal have a specific I don't know we'll figure that out but you know what we're talking about anyway so I would appeal to President Trump and his administration to to leapfrog Peter

[47:13]

his administration to to leapfrog Peter Budaj edge who is in the lead on this topic so he's he's taking a clear unambiguous high ground and but he could be he could be leapfrog by saying not only do we think we should look into that but we're gonna fund a few tests let's just see that would be the higher the higher ground so Buddha judge has the high ground but there's a little bit higher ground which is we don't know let's test it that's the high ground in a very interesting move and timed with the holidays maybe coincidentally Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday repeated his campaign pledge to annex in other words make part of Israel proper all West Bank settlements as well as the Jordan Valley now I don't know my geography well enough to know if that includes all of the disputed lands or just the important ones or whatever but it's the same point that is a really clever idea now I'm

[48:16]

that is a really clever idea now I'm going to use the word clever because I'm not going to take sides right so at the moment I'm not going to take sides Israel versus the Palestinians I'm just going to talk about the strategy if you were nanyo this would be exactly the right time to try that because he's doing it for election purposes it's a election promise because I don't know that there would be ever a better time to do it and you know I always talk about picking up their free money on the table if you have a situation where the Palestinians and your enemies in the region have said that under every six enter under any circumstance they want to wipe you off the map if they leave anything that laying around it's free money because there's nothing you can do to make your enemies less want to wipe you off the map apparently there's no path to get them to hey let's just live in peace you can have this land we'll have that land

[49:17]

can have this land we'll have that land it doesn't exist and because Israel's enemies have made it clear that that doesn't exist and they don't want to ever to exist Israel would actually be stupid not to take the land they can take it's free it's free in the sense that there's no extra charge because if you're penalty is a hundred percent we want to wipe you off the map and then nothing will stop us there's no expense so Netanyahu is picking up free money here at probably the exact right time to do it because remember we're going to be we're going to be mad about Iran building their nuclear capabilities and Syria's trying to sort itself out and you know you've you've just got all kinds of stuff going on over there and I think Israel might be concerned that if they don't get it now maybe there'll be some kind of comprehensive peace plan that they'll have to treat seriously that they maybe don't want to treat seriously

[50:17]

treat seriously so by grabbing this land I think Israel would do two things first of all make it basically impossible to get a peace plan so whatever Jared was working on I think that would become impossible right because of this but I suppose it could be some kind of a negotiating trick where Netanyahu's going to take the extreme position of annexing all this land and then in a grand gesture you know for a for a major peace deal he could give up the thing which nobody thought he would give up and then it looks like a concession so it could be that Netanyahu is just can solid they'll and so he has something to give back I mean it could be nothing but one of the best negotiating moves in the world planned ten years in advance it could be that but so let me say again I will not get into the moral historical argument of who owns the land and who should own the land and who's being mean to and who's occupying who you can keep

[51:20]

to and who's occupying who you can keep all those arguments and I'm not gonna I'm not going to debate them but as just a strategy thing this is kind of brilliant it's exactly the right time to do it it's free money it's gonna be expensive because it'll cause problems you know probably be an uptick in in deaths etc but I think any country that had this opportunity to acquire land that has a security and financial benefit for ages if they didn't do it I know somebody said Scott once World War three no I don't think so the thing that makes this idea so appealing is that the Palestinian side seems so weak that I don't see anything but an uptick in you know low-level military stuff that's about it
does anybody have any arguments about kids and cages over the holidays because

[52:21]

kids and cages over the holidays because I have a curiosity about this I have if you count Twitter and casual conversations I've mentioned or been as part of the conversation about the kids and cages and kids separated from their mothers and stuff lots and lots times how does that conversation go every time see if you agree it goes like this Trump put kids in cages and then what do you say Obama did too and then what is the other side say I don't know I don't know what the other side says doesn't it always go like that you know hey Trump put kids in cages and then the Republican or Trump supporter says Obama started it actually literally Obama's cages he built those cages for that purpose Trump just used them and used them more because the problems that you know Obama had a problem of a temporary upsurge and

[53:22]

had a problem of a temporary upsurge and it was the temporary upsurge that caused Obama to build some cages and to separate people by genders and stuff to keep them safe Trump had an even bigger upsurge so there were even more people separated from parents etc and put in cages as far as I know they were similar situations except when it was a smaller case and one was a bigger case but in either case was the president responsible for it being a small case of that problem or a big case in both cases it was events happening south of the border that caused the influxes now here's what I've never I've never experienced and I'm wondering if any of you have have you ever talked through and asked people what their view of the world looks like just describe your worldview and it would go like this Trump put kids in cages and then you say Obama put kids in cages and then you say what would you what do you think should have been done as an alternative and

[54:22]

have been done as an alternative and I've never heard anybody walk through that where if you just say did the other person instead of stopping it as hey those are Obama cages why not take it the next push and say you know nobody wants kids in cages right can we agree on that you know you me is there anybody who wants to put a kid in the cage rip a rip a baby from mother's arms anybody want that okay so can we start there can we start with we both don't want it can we further agree that if you could reduce it we'd be happier as long as reducing it did not make something worse so I would I would go for this agreement in advance and say would you agree the you and I would both very much like to see less of this kids in cages business we'd both want that a lot but we would both agree that if the only way we can get there is to make something else worse well in that case we wouldn't would you agree with me before we talk about the details

[55:22]

about the details yes you would of course because you're a reasonable person and then you say why did you why did Obama put kids in cages like what was even the point of it now that's where you have to get the person to walk through the thinking the my understanding and maybe I'm wrong but my understanding is the reason that anybody was separated is that you couldn't tell who were real parents from not real parents and furthermore because of the risk of you know sexual bad behavior which is rampant in the immigration population not rampant in the Mexican population let me be very clear not rampant in immigrants in general want to be very clear I'm talking about people who are literally in the act of crossing the border there's there's a little more crime there it's more of a lawless situation by its nature and so the cages my understanding was for the temporary purpose of keeping them safer than under any other scenario which we

[56:22]

than under any other scenario which we could reasonably come up with on short term is that right somebody says your level of new nuanced understanding is purposely manipulative I'm not gonna block you for that I normally do but because you use big words it makes me think that you have an actual point that you haven't said so I'd like to hear whoever said that I'm being purposely manipulative with my nuance I might be but I'm not aware of it meaning that I'm not know if it was purposeful I would be aware of it so I'm not aware of it but if there's something I've said that would suggest that I'd actually like to hear that because that could be interesting there might be something in the way I'm saying this or leaving out somebody says he's right some of you were having the same experience if there's something I'm leaving out
filling it please do cage is a small word yeah there there were more like

[57:22]

word yeah there there were more like facilities with with wire fences but that doesn't help much does it so so other others are agreeing that that I'm saying it saying it in a way that's unfair you know if there's anybody here who wants to come on in as a guest let me take a guest so I'll give you a moment to come on I'll only pick from people were not yet on so right now there's one person who's volunteering as a guest but away first some others so I'm looking for somebody only who wants to debate the question that there was some fundamental difference between the way Obama did it and the way Trump did it or to fill in the blanks about why why Obama did it in the first place so only looking for something that fills in the in the blanks there let's see I could tell from some of the names that all right I'm not sure I'm gonna get anybody but let's now Joe I know that I

[58:23]

anybody but let's now Joe I know that I don't think you can argue in that case let's say Kate I'll just take a shot Kate may not be coming on for that purpose but let's see Kate Kate Kate are you there Kate Kate is not there all right let's try somebody else all the ones who are signing up have funny troll names so that you're all trolls all the ones with the funny troll names are coming on to come on but I think Theresa might be real let's get Theresa on here Theresa are you there maybe maybe this feature isn't working that's two people in her oh I tried to add and didn't work
let's try G Duffy are you there oh god how are you are you here to talk

[59:25]

oh god how are you are you here to talk about immigration yes I am but actually a slightly different take on the whole thing so longtime listener first-time caller I've read your comics since I was 13 years old thank you so so make it quick because I want to talk about this idea of the cages are you on that topic did I lose you now it looks like we have some kind of a technical difficulty so we lost we lost scholar all right so I won't try that again there seems to be some kind of technical difficulty here sorry about that but anyway I'd love to hear the argument about what they should have done instead of the cages in the case of Obama which would have been the same solution they should have done in the trump administration but at a higher scale I would think all right I think that's all we got for now and oh and there was the DNA test yeah so I think there's some issue about DNA testing the

[1:00:27]

there's some issue about DNA testing the kids to make sure they're really relative to the adults now I think the people who think kids should not be in cages do not think in terms of incentives this is a typical Republican versus liberal not Republican versus liberal but left versus right thing people on the right tend to think in terms of what kind of incentives will that create and if you made it easy to come across the border with a kid then the cartels are going to start kidnapping children and putting them with people and selling them as a package to get across the border easily because there's a kid with them so that's the incentive somebody says take down Kate then try again I took down all of the callers on my end there's nobody there's nobody here well I do a 20/20 New Year's prediction show I hadn't thought about that but maybe oh
you can still see Kate on the screen interesting let's see if I can yeah

[1:01:31]

interesting let's see if I can yeah she's not in my screen so I can see all the names of people and none of them are Kate all right so it's just technical difficulty we'll try we'll do better next time somebody says go on now let's try again alright let's see if I can bring on LA child
la child can you hear me good morning did you have a comment on immigration on kids in cages yes I do um it occurs to me that many of us didn't know about Obama having kids in cages his era and so that is the one thing that keeps knowing well but there's but I would argue so I'll just be I'll just take the other side of the

[1:02:32]

be I'll just take the other side of the the argument just for fun here I would argue that in the Obama administration it was a brief and temporary situation in the Trump situation it was simply larger and in and I had nothing to do with that what the presidents were doing had to do with just events below the border there were more organized events during the administration of Trump so would you not say it's not in terribly it's not terribly surprising that a small problem did not become a national news story whereas a bigger problem did and Trump through no fault of his own they just weren't ready for it and or nor was there any reason that they should have been ready just had a bigger problem would you say that that would explain what you've seen because the Obama problem was just smaller and scale I really I'm sorry my voice I really don't know if I'd gotten that far and

[1:03:34]

don't know if I'd gotten that far and what would I seem to what I think is is incongruent with with all of this is that we didn't really have the information before so it's it's new to all of us yeah we really owe Bhama supporter or Trump supporter I was not an Obama supporter but I but I never heard of it I was I never I never heard of it either but I think that can be explained by the fact it was small you know there there are thousands and of small tragedies happening all over the country if somebody takes the gun and kills you know one person we don't hear about it nationally if they kill - we might but you probably hear it at a state or local level if they if they kill ten it's a national story so it shouldn't be too surprising that a small Obama KJ's problem wouldn't be reported but a somewhat larger one later would be

[1:04:36]

somewhat larger one later would be reported so but but the question is completely fair you know caravans were there where they're also caravans that we were unaware of I don't I don't remember a caravans per se but there was an uptick in in in volume so in other words they there was some kind of a change or something happened in which the number of people coming over with kids suddenly increased but I don't remember the details yeah I think thanks for calling and I appreciate it all right so mortified that about that I have a feeling it's shaping up that the anti-trump errs are going to use the kids in cages because they're going to go back to stuff that seemed to be working before and because the rush occlusion didn't work Ukraine isn't working impeachment isn't working the economy is doing well because everything else is doing well they're going to be searching for crumbs and it looks like the crumbs that they're gonna pick up

[1:05:36]

the crumbs that they're gonna pick up are going to be related to you know racism and they need specific situations and the kids in cages work so here's what I would ask can we somehow figure out how to get past the conversation that ends after somebody says Trump put kids in cages and then you say so did Obama and then you change the subject can we push it to the next level is there is there a way to force that conversation into the third thing which is one of them had a big problem one of them had a small problem they both handled it the same way all right that's all for now I will talk to you all tomorrow