Stop Letting Billionaires Run The Car

Hawaii did not “fix” Citizens United, but it did something rarer: it picked a fight with the idea that corporations get to buy our politics without consequence. We dig into Hawaii’s Senate Bill 2471 and the legal theory behind it, then ask the question sitting under all the court doctrine and campaign finance jargon: are voters still the basic unit of democracy, or are we just the background noise behind donor checks and corporate influence?

From there we head to Louisiana, where redistricting battles and suspended primaries show how power can rewrite the rules while people are trying to participate. We break down why gerrymandering and vote dilution are not abstract problems, especially for Black voters, Latino voters, and communities that keep getting cracked up or packed in. If representatives can choose their voters, what are elections even for?

Then we confront a moment that exposes elite politics in plain language: Trump’s remark that Americans’ financial situations are “not even a little bit” motivating decisions around Iran. We talk through the moral problem of treating working families as a footnote, connect it to inflation data like wholesale prices and energy shocks, and look at warning signs like credit card delinquencies and rising food price risk. We also hit the War Powers fight over congressional authorization and end with a hard look at SNAP cuts and the way “dignity of work” gets used as cover for cruelty.

If this conversation hits home, subscribe, share the episode with someone who argues with you in good faith, and leave a review so more people can find independent media that refuses tribalism.

Transcript

Welcome And A Hard Quote

SPEAKER_03 0:46

Welcome to the Darrell McLean Show. I'm your host, Darrell McLean. Independent media that won't reinforce tribalism. We have one planet. Nobody is leaving, so let us reason together. I have the great pleasure of being able to speak to you today from the great Commonwealth of Virginia. Beautifully sitting in the mountain area in Buna Vista in Lexington, Virginia, right now. The quote of the day will be coming from Zora Neil Hurston. If you are silent about your pain, they will kill you and say you enjoyed it. Let's get into the episode. So first let's go to the paradise of Hawaii, where there's been less, we all know what Citizens United is, and what I would just call the first crack in the wall. So let me start here because this one matters. Hawaii did not just pass a bill. Hawaii rang a bell. Hawaii sent a signal across the country that maybe, just maybe the people are tired of being governed by bank accounts with logos. Now, let's be precise. Hawaii has not magically overturned Citizens United. The Supreme Court has not suddenly said, My bad America, we probably should not have turned democracy into a private auction. This is not what happened. What happens is more subtle, more creative, and more interesting, honestly. Hawaii's legislator passed Senate Bill 2471, a bill designed to limit corporate political spending, by saying, in essence, corporations are artificial creatures of the state. They exist because the state gives them permission to exist, and if the state grants corporations certain powers, the state can also decide that one of those powers is not the power to spend money influencing elections of Hawaii. This is a legal theory. Because since the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision, we've lived in a political world where money is treated exactly like speech, and corporations are treated exactly like a person, and ordinary citizens are treated like background noise. The ruling opened the door for corporations and unions to spend unlimited money independently in elections, not direct donations to candidates, but outside spending money to superpacks, dark money, and the whole shadow machinery. And both parties have benefited from it. Let's not play stupid games here. This is not one of those stories where Democrats wear white hats and Republicans twirl mustaches in smoke-filled rooms. Nope. Both parties have taken the money. Both parties have learned to speak fluent donor language. Both parties send you fundraising emails about democracy while doweling rich people privately and asking how much can you do. This is why this is bigger than one party. This is about whether we still believe the voter is the basic unit of democracy. Because right now, in too many elections, the voters treat it like the product, not the sovereign. Consultants slice us into demographics, donors purchase uh purchase messaging, corporations fund influence campaigns, dark money groups hide the fingerprints, and then politicians come back to the public after the election and say, Thank you so much for participating. Participating. This is like getting somebody to hold the steering wheel for three seconds after the car has already begun, you know, malfunctioning because it's been programmed by billionaires and the GPSs. And here's the deeper insult. Corporations already have power. They already have lobbyists and lawyers, they already have access, they have trade associations, they have executives who can give money as individuals, they have influences over jobs, wages, supply chains, prices, media, and all public policy and foreign policy. So when somebody says corporations need political rights too, I want to ask how much more of a microphone do they really need? The average citizen has a vote. A corporation has a vote, a lobbyist, a PAC, a legal department, a public relations team, uh a marketing team, and a senator who picks up the phone. That is not how this thing is supposed to work. That is not democracy. That is a republic wearing a red at tuxedo to make sure they can go to beg the dumblers. Now, critics of the Hawaiian bill will say this is unconstitutional, and maybe the courts will agree. Oh, the courts are a bunch of rubes. United States courts, especially the federal courts, they're picked by politicians, which means they're useless. But anyway, it's uh that's a whole other conversation, but we need to be honest about that. Under the current Supreme Court doctrine, this bill is going to have a hard fight, but that does not mean the effort is pointless. Sometimes the law changes because somebody is willing to create the test case. There was a time when segregation was protected by precedent. There was a time when women were denied political equality by precedent. There was a time when workers had almost no rights against corporate power, and the courts were perfectly fine with that too. Precedent matters, but precedent is not uh wholly writ. And even scripture has prophets arguing with kings. So what Hawaii is doing is forcing the question are corporations actually citizens? Are corporations members of the moral community? Are corporations accountable to the common good? Or are they legally machines designed to protect profit while outsourcing the consequences to the rest of us? And I know some people hear this and say, well, corporations create jobs. Yes, they do, and fire creates warmth, but that does not mean you let it burn down your house. The issue is not whether corporations should exist, of course they should exist. The issue is whether artificial entities created for commerce should have the power to drown out flesh and blood human beings in elections. That's the issue. Because in order for this republic to work, it depends on political equality. Not perfect equality of talent, not perfect equality of income, not perfect equality of influence, but at least some basic belief that a citizen is not supposed to be swallowed whole by concentrated money. Hawaii is saying we may be small, but we are not powerless. And I love that because every moment starts somewhere. Sometimes it starts in Montgomery, sometimes it starts in Selma, sometimes it starts with a local school board, sometimes it starts on an island in the Pacific saying no corporations do not get to buy our politics without a fight. This is how change begins. Not with everyone agreeing, but with somebody finally saying, Okay, I've had enough. Now I'm gonna jump right into the Louisiana redistricing and the voters caught in the machinery. So I'm gonna move from Hawaii to Louisiana because the stories are very similar. We could basically say they were cousins. One story is about the choosing the candidates, the other is about politicians choosing the voters, like we talked about in the previous episode. And I want to say this plainly. When a state suspends congressional primaries because the maps are being redrawn in the middle of election season, that is not a minor administration hiccup. That is democracy coughing got blood. Louisiana's U.S. House primaries were suspended at the Supreme Court's decision in Louisiana versus Calagius, where the court struck down Louisiana's second majority black congressional district. The governor's executive order specifically suspended closed party primaries for the U.S. House races, while the Senate primary was not affected. Now I want folks to slow down and sit with that. People have been preparing to vote. Candidates have been campaigning, election officials have been organizing, voters have been trying to figure out where they stood, who represented them, and what ballot they were going to see. And then the whole thing gets thrown into confusion because the map itself becomes unstable. That is the problem with modern rediction wars. It's not just about lines on a map, it's about power deciding which communities count. And here is where people start talking in language designed to make your eyes blaze over. They say racial gerrymandering, uh vote dilution, compact districts, section two constitutional tensions, and half of the audience starts looking for the leftover chicken wings. But underneath all the legal vocabulary, this is very simple question. Will black voters, Latino voters, and minority communities have a fair chance to elect representatives of their choice? That is the question. And the Voting Rights Act was created because America had a long, ugly, documented history of answering that question with a resounding fuck no. Not accidentally, and not occasionally, not because somebody misplaced a form. Deliberately. Literacy tests, polls taxes, intimidation, closed primaries, white primaries, and large elections, racially cracked districts, racially packed districts, we have a long history of taking the ballot and surrounding it with barbed wire that pretending the fence was just a neutral design choice. So, when the Supreme Court weakens the Voting Rights Act and suddenly states start rushing to redraw maps, you do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to see what is happening. You just have to have a longer memory than a TikTok video. The Associate Press reported that the court's ruling could open the door for Republican red states to eliminate black and Latino electoral districts that tend to favor Democrats. PBS describes the decision as intensifying states redictioning battles around the country. Now, let me be fair. Not every argument is about race, and because of that, not every argument about race is clean. Not every majority minority district is drawn perfectly, not every court intervention is wise. Sometimes maps are ugly because politicians are ugly. Sometimes maps are ugly ugly because the Constitution and the Voting Rights Act are pulling in different directions. I understand the legal complexity, but here's what I do not accept, pretending this is only about clean lines and neutral principles. Please, these folks are not sitting around with geometry textbooks trying to honor any tradition. They are counting voters. They are counting black voters, white voters, rural voters, urban voters, democratic voters, and republican voters. They know exactly what they are doing. And this is where America becomes a crisis. And the crisis is too visible to ignore because the public is told vote harder, but the politicians draw the districts. The public is told organize better, but the courts weakens the protection. The public is told trust the process, but the process keeps getting rewritten by those people who benefit from rewriting it. That is why people are cynical. Not because they are lazy, not because they hate America, but because people are cynical because they keep watching powerful people move the goalposts and then lecture everybody else about sportsmanship. And Louisiana becomes a symbol. Because if elections can be suspended, maps redrawn, voting blocks reshaped, and communities rearranged all in the name of a political advantage, then what are we really protecting? Are we protecting democracy or are we protecting control? That is the question because democracy is not just voting day. Democracy is everything that happens before the voting day. It is a map, it is ballot access, it is a campaign finance, it is a court doctrine, it is election administration, it is where the people believe the system has room for them. And when people no longer believe that, you get disengagement, you get bitterness, you get conspiracy, you get citizens who say, why even bother? And once a democracy teaches people not to bother it, it was wounded itself. So Louisiana is not just Louisiana. Louisiana is a warning. If voters cannot choose their representatives because the representatives are busy choosing their voters, then the republic has become a rigged room with a patriotic wallpaper. And you can sing the anthem in that room. You can wave your flags in that room. You can quote the founders in that room. But if the people are boxed out, cracked up, packed in, and politically managed like livestock, do not call it freedom. Call it what it is, power protecting itself. So let's talk about this Trump quote because this is one of those moments where the mass does not slip. So I only got wind of this because one of my uh jujitsu brothers posted it online, and uh I actually could not believe that it was true. So I'm gonna play the clip here and then talk about it.

SPEAKER_08 16:00

To what extent are irritating finances motivating you to make it feel?

SPEAKER_05 16:05

Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters is when I'm talking about the room. The most important thing about far is a woman weapons. Every American understands had a poll, like 85%, which is surprising. It's only that they understand that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

So, first off, do you actually this is something that I find troubling. There was no real poll that it said 85% of Americans understand that they just have to be poor as long as Iran doesn't give a nucle give a nuclear weapon. That is a bullshit poll that the president's staff is giving him something that they keep making up that is obvious that they keep giving him information that they know he wants this here. And I do find that troubling that they are manipulating the president that way. But anyway, that's another story. Um but I am gonna speak for myself. I do not care. I do not care if anybody has nuclear weapons because every that that genie is already out of the bag, that ship has already sailed. And most people that have nuclear weapons, including the United States of America, are countries that are immoral, like the United States of America. So one more immoral country having a weapon does not cause me any pause. There are immoral people in this country with weapons that do mass destruction all the time. Every single day when I pick up the news, there's a death here, death there. And when I say death, not death in the natural sense of somebody lived a long life, some American is murdering some other American for whatever foolishness that Americans kill each other for, because America's an evil, sick nation. And because the world is an evil, sick place, but Americans specifically hate each other way more than they love each other. Americans love one thing, one thing only, their little tribes that they decide to pick. Their little piece of whatever that they allow to be in their group. And they also love the image of themselves being John Wayne, and they're gonna take down fascism when they come, and then the government comes, and that's a bunch of crap. Because Americans like to pretend they're some frontier and some rugged individualists, but Democrats will sell this whole place out for power. And let me break the news to you: Republicans will sell this whole place out for power as well, because Democrats hate Republicans, and Republicans hate Democrats, and they hate each other so much that the only thing they actually love are their guns. And they will sacrifice their children on the altar of their guns, they'll sacrifice their churches on the altar of their guns, they'll sacrifice you on the altar of their guns, they'll sacrifice their political opponents on the altar of their guns, and they'll sacrifice their political allies on the altar of their guns because they are obsessed with some fantasy that if the government decided to come and take their stuff away, that them and their 42 friends that they have are gonna do anything, they are stupid. Because you know who had a lot of guns? I don't know. Iraq. And it took about 45 minutes because we had something called missiles. If one million of you and your friends started organizing anywhere, the government would blow you all the smithereens. And and if they didn't blow you all the smithereens with with weapons you have that I that I knew existed would curl your hair, they would send some very eager people with military uniforms on who have nothing better to do than to kill people. And that's all they are trained to do is uh put warheads on foreheads. I'm telling you, from somebody who was trained by the world's greatest United States Navy. Now let's talk about this Trump quote because it's one of those moments where, like I said, the mass did not just come off. The mask takes a massive coffee break. Asked how much Americans' financial situations motivated him in negotiations over Iran, you heard what he said, not even a little bit. He framed preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon as the only thing that mattered. CBS runners both reported the remarks. Uh, the clip that I played was coming out of the Associated Press. Now, before somebody runs to the comment section, overweight, breathing heavy, let me say this. No serious person wants Iran to actually have a nuclear weapon. Let me go ahead and get that out of the way. Iran with a nuclear weapon would be just as dangerous as us with the nuclear arms. A nuclear arms race in the Middle East would be dangerous. Even though we already know the Israelis have nukes. The Iranian government has done plenty to deserve people's scrutiny. Opposition, and I will even dare say condemnation. So this is not a let Iran do whatever it wants segments. That is cartoon thinking, and at least over here, we do adult stuff. But what I will not accept is the idea that concern for national security requires indifference to the suffering of ordinary people in this country. That part bothers me. Because Americans are paying more to pump, they are paying more to the grocery store, they are stretching paychecks like cheap elastic. Writers reported that the administration has been under pressure over rising gas prices and the economic fallout tied to the Iranian war. And when people ask, Does this matter to the president? The answer should never be not even a little bit. Even if you believe in the mission, and if you believe the mission is necessary, the people in your country and their economic situation should still matter. That is leadership 101. A commander can believe a war is justified and still grieve at the cost of its of his people. A president can say we cannot allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and also say, I know this is hurting working families, and I am also carrying the burden with them with seriousness. That is what moral leadership sounds like. But when you say you do not think about Americans' financial situation, you are not projecting strength, you are projecting distance. And that is the disease of elite politics. That's the problem with having a president who's a billionaire, and who's all his all his family are billionaires or multimillionaires, they don't give a damn about ordinary people. The people who make decisions in DC, and I'm jumping past Trump with this, almost all of them, when you look them up, they're multimillionaires. They don't give a damn about the general public because their economic situation is so far removed from the everyday American that this is just a game to them. The people who make decisions are really the first people to feel the consequences of the decisions. The wealthy do not experience inflation the way working people do. They do not experience gas prices the way a single mother commuting 35 minutes to work does. They do not experience grocery prices the way a retired man on a fixed income does. They do not experience a war the way a family deployed with a service member does. For the powerful All of this is nothing more than strategy. For ordinary, everyday people, policy is wrecked, gas, groceries, medication, anxiety, and mixed sleep. That is why that quote lands so hard. Because it confirms what many people already suspect. The people in charge talk about sacrifice while outsourcing sacrifice down. And let me take it a bit further. America has a very long history of selling wars as a moral necessity while hiding the human invoices of that war. Vietnam was sold with anti-communist urgency. Iraq was sold with weapons of mass destruction, Afghanistan was sold as justice and became the twenty-year graveyard of Mission Creek. Every time the language is elevated, freedom, security, democracy, civilization, and every time the dead are real, the death is real, the trauma is real, and the ordinary citizens get handed the bill. So when the president says the financial suffering of Americans is not motivating him, the public has a right to say, then who exactly the hell are you listening to? Are you listening to the defense contractors, the foreign policy hawks, the donors, the ideological think techs, the cable news generals? Because the people at the gas pump are not abstractions, they are the country. And this is where nationalism gets exposed. A lot of politicians say America first, but when that they say that, that often means one thing: America power first, American foreign policy first, America hegemony first, and there is a difference. America first should mean the American worker does not get crushed by the decisions made in rooms he will never get a chance to enter in. America first should mean no war without clear objectives, clear limits, and honest accounting. America first should mean the president remembers the nation as not just a flag, not just a military, not just a market, not just a border, but people. Real people. People with kids, people with bills, people with jobs, people who do not have the luxury of treating gasoline as a geopolitical footnote. And again, none of this means Iran should be ignored. It means the wisdom must be larger than the aggression. It means prudence is not weakness. It means asking about cost is not cowardice. This is one of the great lies of empire. That anyone who asks, what is the cost, must be solved. No, that is what responsible people ask. Before a family buys a house, they ask, how much does this cost? Can we afford it? Before a church builds a sanctuary, they ask, what will it cost? So before a nation goes deeper into war, they ought to ask, how are we going to pay for this? What are going to be the cost? Before a nation goes deeper into war, they should always ask those questions. In dollars, in lives, in credibility, and moral authority in the soul of your nation, because if your foreign policy requires you to stop thinking about your own people, something has gone terribly, terribly wrong. Be right back to more on the Darrell McLean show.

Vance Denies It Then Inflation Hits

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Well, yesterday, Vice President T. Vance got asked about those comments and just strain was, oh, I don't think he said that at all. Let's take a listen.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

When approaching the war uh with Iran, do you agree with the president's position that Americans' financial situations should not be a consideration in that decision-making process?

SPEAKER_01 34:56

Well, I don't think the president said that. I think that's a misrepresentation of what the president said. But look, I agree with the president that Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. We're obviously engaged in a very aggressive and very engaged diplomatic process to try to ensure that that doesn't happen. And the president has a lot of options.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Well, if you're gonna get you a spouse, get one like J.D. Vance. You're on videos saying something as clear as day, and your spouse will come right out in front of you to say a damn lie. What it must take to be the vice president. What an incredible, incredible liar.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

So he thinks that was misrepresented. He doesn't think the president said that. Literally, I don't think about Americans' financial situation.

SPEAKER_04 36:17

I mean, at a certain point, what do you even do? You just deny that it never happened again.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Good. Yeah. Good. And and Vance having to just like lie about him. I don't think that's what he said. It just shows you what a devastating quote it ultimately was. So let's take a look at Americans' financial situation, shall we? We got another very hot inflation rating. Um, let's put C three up on the screen. This was wholesale prices that jumped in April. From the New York Times, they say uh prices rose at their fastest rate in four years. The latest sign that the war with Iran is taking a toll on the U.S. economy, the producer price index, a measure of the cost that businesses pay for goods and services, rose 1.4% in April and was up six percent from a year earlier. You can see the spike, there guys, on that chart. And it's very clear what that is attributable to. That is attributable to a war of choice in Iran that this president decided to start at the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu. That is why these prices are going up. They go on to say the news came one day after the government reported the better-known consumer price index rose 3.8% in April from a year earlier, the fastest pace of inflation in nearly three years. Producer index typically gets less attention than the consumer index, but economists watch the measure closely, especially during periods of global disruption, because it gives an early look at how costs are filtering through the supply chain. So these are wholesale prices. This is what businesses will be paying. Do you think that they're going to just absorb those costs and decrease their profit margins? Of course they're not. They're going to cost the pass those costs on to you, and very likely then some in addition, because we hear them on their earnings call saga. We saw this plan during COVID, where they were bragging to their investors about, hey, because of inflation, we're able to raise our prices above and beyond even what our increase in costs are, which is why corporate profit margins have continued to go up and up and up, no matter what the inflation numbers are doing and whether their actual costs have risen at the same pace.

SPEAKER_04 38:22

Yeah, exactly. And actually, initially, what they had seen in the last time that this happened from last month, the BLS said that PPI rose only by 0.5% in March, which they said at the time was an encouraging sign that the energy price shock was not setting off a broader inflationary spiral. However, after two months, they say that optimism is now called into question. The increase in March was revised up, and April's gain was triple what forecasters had expected. Energy prices jumped by 7.8% in April after rising 10.1% in March, and the price increases were not limited to energy. Key point. Core producer prices, energy, and other volatile categories were up four to five percent from the year before. Suggests that the oil price shock, as well as the tariffs, is working through the supply chain. I will just challenge anybody in the world to tell me that a 17% increase in energy is not going to show up in a bill somewhere. I mean, do be real. Like, you know, just take a look at credit card net, at uh all of the other consumer, you know, goods that are beginning to price. Honestly, I still don't even think that we've begun to began to see really any of it because right now the increase, it's only been two months. It's only at the gas pump and with diesel. There are contracts being booked out six months from now. There are hotels that people haven't booked yet for August or for September. There is some, there's some guy out there, maybe me, who's supposed to have done a rental car who hasn't done it yet. Like there, you know, there are a lot of like there are guys like that who is it's been on his task list from his wife for over six months, and he's just gonna push it to the end. There's a guy out there, again, maybe me, who is going to be paying probably triple for what he is supposed to have paid if he had just done it whenever he was told. But that is one of those which is just going to continue to ripple out, I think, through the economy, where the sticker shock at these things is just so crazy. I was just talking to my parents because they flew back from India and they're saying if you want to avoid the Middle East, like right now, the price, the going rate for an economy seat is literally what people were paying for business like a year ago. Just again, if you want to take the risk of, oh, I don't know, getting shot by a drone on your approach to the Dubai international airport. That's that's the reality of just like basic international travel, plus jet fuel, grocery price. I just think uh really it has not even begun to show up.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

Let's get forward to C6, um, just to show you the level of stress that the American consumer is already under. So this is credit card delinquencies, um, 90 days plus delinquent. The numbers here have skyrocketed. And this is not just Iran war and gas prices. This has been for the past two years. Those numbers have been going up and up and up. And you could see mortgage delinquencies there at the bottom, 90 plus days delinquent. Those are edging up as well. These are dire warnings for and signs that the American consumer is tapped down. This means they are using credit cards to sustain their lifestyle, perhaps even just sustain their ability to pay bills at the end of the month. And they are running out of runway because now they're not able to even pay those credit card minimums at the end of the month. So this is a very poor sign for the US economy, in spite of was it Kevin Hassett that went on and was bragging about, like, oh, credit card spending's up as if that was somehow a good thing. Again, it's a good thing, I guess, if you are one of those credit card issuers. But for ordinary people, this is obviously a disaster and shows just how stretched people are and the ends they're having to resort to in order just to keep it together. So while unemployment continues to be relatively low, um, we did the last hiring report was relatively good. It was over 100,000 jobs that were added. You see these incredible signs of stress throughout the economy. And you also just see logically the way that the growth sectors in the economy, which is largely like AI and I guess gambling, um, do not benefit. And in fact, they are predatory and exploitative of the American public. You add on top of that the negative impacts, uh increase in inflation, increase in gas prices on uh the American consumer because of the Iran war, and it's a very bad-looking picture.

Drought Warnings And Food Price Risk

SPEAKER_04 42:44

Yeah, I mean, look, the credit card stress one, I don't know, it's hard to say. We've said we've covered it now for five years. It's one of those where I think a lot of people often have a modal outcome of like 2008, like one big moment. I don't really think that that's what's happening here. I think what's happened is what's reflecting in our politics and in the general happiness and feeling levels. It just gets worse every year. It's it's nobody's breaking. Nobody, there's no great kumbaya moment where everyone's like, oh, it's all fake, this entire thing, because that's very cathartic. And instead, it's just year after year after year, it gets more expensive, the house price goes up, the mortgage rate. It's like this slow grinding, you know, thing that where you can just look back over the period of your life and say, oh, wow. Uh, it's actually a lot worse. It's really shocking whenever you confront it, you know, from a I think I've talked about, I always talk about my McDonald's stories, because that genuinely is like a five-year difference of being like, wait, what? And I'm sure everybody has felt that at some point. People coffee. I know you're not a coffee person. I buy specialty coffee. The price increase is so insane. It's up a hundred percent, literally a hundred percent. I was looking at my old orders for what we would pay with the stuff that we drank here in the studio compared to what it was. I was like, I can't believe this. Now, granted, it's already specialty or whatever, but then I looked at the wholesale price and I was like, oh, so this is actually reflective of the whole market. It's it's it's but the thing is if you experience it daily, then the 5% or whatever cumulative inflation year over year, you get conditioned slightly to it. But it's only when you look back at the long increase of 21, 22% that you're like, wow, I really have materially become way worse off in terms of what I'm spending. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:30

Uh one more thing here, C5 that uh was was flying around yesterday. Chicago Board of Trade Wheat and KC Wheat Futures climbed by their daily trading limits on Tuesday after the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected the nation's harvest will drop to the lowest level since 1972. Now, I think a lot of people saw this and assumed this was because of the Iran war. Those effects from the Iran war, those are the ones that we're still working on. That will come in the next harvest, okay, when fertilizer was so expensive that we're already having farmers, farmer bankruptcies have been accelerating. We're already having farmers saying we can't afford to fully plant our crop. That is all in our future. This is a warning sign of what is to come, though, because this is because there was a devastating drought and um very strange like weather patterns last planting season. Um, this is wheat that's sown in the fall, and then, you know, now is when it should be harvested. And there was massive problems because of this drought and then unseasonably warm weather in certain parts of the country that screwed up this prop crop for a lot of farmers. Again, this is you know, very likely fallen out from uh climate crises that um, you know, that has been exacerbated over the years, and is something we can continue to expect in the future, but definitely not because of the climate crisis this time. We can expect for sure we're gonna have problems because of the issues with fertilizer and the increased cost there for farmers.

SPEAKER_04 45:52

So in general, uh low harvest means what? You know, limited amount of supply, which means higher prices.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

And it means in poor countries, famine.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

Famine, fertilizer, oil, credit card. Uh I don't think, I don't think anything is yet at a so-called breaking point or anything. I do think if we get to six, seven dollars a gallon that we will be. And that's still not far off. I mean, nothing has happened. It's very absolutely nothing has happened. How much is gas up? Let's let me take a look. Yeah, 453. It was 452 yesterday. So it just, you know, give it a week. Every week it goes up by 6%, 7%. Gas is$614 a gallon in California. It'll probably be seven. Uh, I think I saw that in Los Angeles, it's around$650, almost$7 a gallon. Very not uncommon to see a dollar diesel or any of these things. The national average of diesel today is 566 a gallon and the all-time high is 581. So give it what, a week? And we'll probably be there, or another bombing or something like that that happens. I don't know. All right, let's get to test force. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.

SPEAKER_10 47:04

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SPEAKER_04 47:10

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War Powers Vote And Congress Backbone

SNAP Rollbacks And Scripture Misused

SPEAKER_03 47:16

Any of my OG listeners remember I used to always say I was an economic extensionalist. And I will say in a more broader sense of the of the way things work. I only think that way because all the complicated uh ideas I have about world, the world as it were, and society and how to fix things and how it would happen, yada yada yada, most of them I know are so complicated in the way I look at history. It would it would take a mass movement of let me just be frank, violence to get what I wanted to actually be put in place. And because I I know that, I say the only thing that really matters is how you pay people. Because if I don't like a place, but you pay me well enough, I can pack up and leave. If I don't like a place and you don't pay me well enough, you just created a slave by another means through the economic situation that you put me in. I always have the quote unquote freedom to leave, but it's also freedom to be eating out of the trash can, freedom to have my family starve to death, you know, that type of situation. So, let me move on to some somewhat good news. Um but it's gonna, you know, good news is relatively speaking here. Uh three Republican senators um actually decided that they were gonna vote no on the war powers in Congress. And I want to give these people credit because people in the Congress and the Senate, to me, both Republicans and Democrats, have made a pro have made this a problem where they forget that it's their job to do. So I want to commend these senators for at least having the courage to put a no vote to somebody in their own party. And it it it is extremely difficult in this political climate to be a dissident and still remain in your party. Three Republican senators broke with their leadership and voted with most Democrats to advance a resolution aimed at curbing a President Trump's ability to continue military action against Iran without congressional authorization. The resolution still failed, but the votes showed growing bipartisan discomfort. The Republicans were Rand Paul, who I I do like, Susan Collins, which I don't know enough about, and Lisa Murkowski, who I also am somewhat ignorant of. Democrat John Fetterman sided with the Republicans, I can't stand John Fetterman against it, but now I I know that Senate sounds like inside baseball, but War Powers resolutions are a procedural vote, Senate tally, and congressional authorization. People hear that and they think wake me up when the snacks arrive, but that is not boring. That is a constitutional dynamite because the constitution does not give one man the power to drag the nation into an open-ended war whenever he feels like it. Congress has the power to declare war. The president is the commander-in-chief, yes. But the commander-in-chief does not mean the president is supposed to be the emperor and the bomber-in-chief and the judge, jury, and executioner. The War Powers Act exists because presidents, both the Democratic and Republican, have abused military authority. Both presidents, Republican and Democrats, have stretched authorizations, they have rebranded wars as operations so they don't have to get congressional approval. They have called bombings limited strikes, and they have called deployments adversary missions. They have discovered every linguistic trick in the English language except the word accountability. And Congress has often gone along with it, and that's the shameful part. Congress loves to fund wars, praise troops, standard memorials, and issue solemn statements. But when it's time to take a real vote, the votes that puts their names on the life and death decision, suddenly everyone becomes constitutional minimalists. They hide, they hedge, they say presidents have authority. No friend, you have the responsibility. And that is why this vote matters. Even though it failed, it matters that a few Republicans said, hold on, this cannot be automatic, this cannot be endless, this cannot be one more war where Congress watches from the balcony and collapse when politically convenient. Now, Rand Paul has been consistent on this for years. Um I was a really big fan of um Rand Paul's father growing up, uh, Senator from Texas, Ron Paul. I still am a big fan of him. I wish as much many people that we have in the Congress and the Senate who are elderly that should have retired, Ron Paul is somebody that I wish would have stuck in there a bit longer. He he would have he was a voice that was needed and should have stayed. I wish Rand Paul would have uh run for president a few more times. But anyway, uh it's a whole nother story. Uh but Ron Paul has been consistent on this issue for many years. I'm sorry, Rand Paul has been consistent on this one. You may disagree with him on a thousand things, but on war powers, he has often been willing to say what many in both parties will not. Congress needs to do its job. Now, when it comes to Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joining the vote, that matters too, because it shows even within the president's party, there is discomfort with pretending war can be managed by executives' moods, swings alone. And let me say this plainly. I know if you believe presidents should have unilateral war power only when your party controls the White House, then you do not believe in the Constitution. You believe in team sports, and that goes for everybody. Democrats did this with Obama, Republicans did this with uh President Bush. Republicans are going to do it with President Trump. Democrats will be tempted to do it again when they hold power. This is a nonpartisan issue. This is an imperial American illness. The president has become too large, and Congress has become too small because Congress has become too cowardly. And the American people have become too used to the war happening in the background like bad weather. But war is not weather. War is a choice. War is a policy. War is a human being being ordered into danger. War is civilians dying under language like collateral damage. War is veterans coming home with injuries nobody can see. War is transferred to children not yet born. War is a moral injury wrapped in patriotic ribbon. So when senators vote on war powers, they are not just voting on procedure. They are voting on whether the republic still has a spine. And I know people will say, but Iran is dangerous. Sure, whatever. Everybody and everywhere in the world is dangerous. But that is exactly why Congress should debate it. The more serious the threat, the more serious the process should be. You do not protect your country by bypassing the parliamentary democratic process every time the stakes are high. That is backwards. That is like saying seat belts are only needed when the car is parked. No. When the road is dangerous, that is when you need restraint. That is when you need structure. That is when you need constitutional breaks. I am tired of watching politicians praise the founders while ignoring the architecture the founders built. The separation of powers was not a decorative feature. It was the crown molding on the republic. It was the whole damn point of this thing. That powers must be checked because humans, beings, cannot be trusted with unchecked power. As the philosophical saying goes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That is not cynicism, that is biblical anthropology. A constitution without wisdom shaking hands? No. So yes, the resolution failed, but the crack in the wall matters. Because every empire demands silence. Every endless war depends on Congress looking the other way. Every executive overreach depends on the legislators deciding their careers matter more than their oath. And when even a few people say no, we need authorization, that is not weakness. That is a republic trying to remember its own name, and that's a good thing. Now let's talk about this thing that ticked me off this morning. This is about the agriculture secretary Brooke Rollins in this Snap story, because this is where politics put on a church hat and starts quoting the Bible badly. So Rollins celebrated that millions of people have been kicked off of Snap. The food assistance program many call food stamps. The Associated Press fact-checked the larger came and found stamp participation drop by nearly 4.3 million people from January 2025 till January 2026, using preliminary USDA data. But experts said the main driver was not some massive fraud cleanup or miracle economy, it was policy changes that made the program harder to access. And this is where I need people to hear me clearly. There is nothing wrong with going to work. Work is where people get dignity in themselves. Work is where people get structure, purpose, responsibility, rhythm. Scripture honors work. There's a verse in the Bible that I'm pretty sure people have heard over and over again. Proverbs wars against sloth. The Bible is not romantic about laziness. But the Bible also thunders against cruelty, and too many politicians know one verse about work and forget the entire prophetic tradition about justice. They remember work but forget feed the hungry. They remember responsibility for but forget do not impress the poor. They remember dignity but forget mercy. That's not theology. That is a political talking point. And that's it. The Associated Repress reported that fraud disqualification is staffed for less than 1% of total participation in the latest available data. So when politicians imply millions were moved off because they were cheating, the numbers do not support the moral panic that they are living out of. Now, should fraud be addressed? Of course, but let's address it at the White House first before we address the small person. Then maybe you may get me on board. Every public program should have integrity. I don't mean I don't want to say fraud in SNAP or Medicare, defense contractors, PP loans, tax fines, or corporate subsidies. But isn't it interesting how the language changes depending on who is receiving the money? When the poor get help, it's dependency. When corporations get subsidies, it's economic development. When working families need food, it's fraud. When defense contractors run over a budget, it's national security. When a mother needs groceries, she needs more paperwork. When a billionaire needs a tax cut, he needs an incentive. Come on now. At least insult us creatively. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the 2025 law cut SNAP by roughly$186 billion over 10 years. And policy groups have warned that expanded work requirements and eligibility changes will push millions off of assistance. And here's the cruel trick. When you make the program harder to access, you know people are gonna fall off, and that does not mean they no longer need help. It means they missed a form. It means they could not get through on the phone. It means that they work unstable hours. It means they live in a rural area. It means that they are caring for somebody. It means that they are sick, confused, ashamed, overwhelmed, or just exhausted. Bureaucracy can starve people without ever looking them in the eye. That is why I reject this celebratory tone. You don't brag about people losing food assistance unless you know they are better off. If a person leaves snaps because they got a better job, praise the god. But if a person leaves Snap because the wages rose and rent went down and the groceries became affordable, wonderful. If a person leaves Snap because they are thriving, oh let us all celebrate. But if they leave because the state built a maze around the breadbasket, that is not dignity, that is abandonment, and it's disgusting. And the phrase dignity of work becomes wicked when it's used to deny the dignity of people having something to eat. Because food is not a luxury, food is not a moral trophy, food is not something children should lose because adults want to applause for themselves at press conferences. And let me say something, as the pastor hat goes on here. The Bible never commands us to investigate the hungry before feeding them with the same enthusiasm politicians investigate poor people. Jesus just fed the crowds. He did not say, Do you have a job? If so, where's your employer? I need to verify. That's not how that happened. He did not say, before I multiply these loaves and fish, I need to know amongst you, are you actively searching for work? He fed them. And yes, society needs responsibility, but responsibility is not a one-way street. The poor have a responsibility, and so do employers, so do landlords, so do legislators, so do corporations, so do presidents, so do churches. You cannot build an economy where wages are low, rent is high, healthcare is expensive, child care costs a mortgage payment, groceries keep climbing, and then turn around and shame people for needing help. That is not morality, that is arson, followed by a lecture about fire safety. So here's my position. Reform the programs, yes. Fight fraud, yes. Encourage work, yes. But do not brag about people, you're kicking off programs. Don't do that. Don't brag about hunger. Don't call the deprivation of your citizens discipline. Do not take food from the poor and then just try to hide your your hatred for them behind Bible verses. Because the prophets had a word for leaders that do that. And I'll just say this it definitely was not good news. See you on the next episode.