In 1952, claims that smoking causes cancer caused Kent cigarettes to come out with an asbestos filter to “protect” its smokers

In 1952, claims that smoking causes cancer caused Kent cigarettes to come out with an asbestos filter to “protect” its smokers. pic.twitter.com/5hbvpNgUiZ

— Brian Roemmele (@BrianRoemmele) March 6, 2024

Our political rights- voting, 1st amendment criticism & petition of government, protesting- are largely illusory. We get meaningless pseudo-choices like Biden vs. Trump and a permanent bureaucratic superstate.

Economic freedoms are much more important.

Would you give up voting…

— Jeff Deist (@jeffdeist) March 6, 2024

2:10.  And the culture in Australia went very complacent.  They had it too good for too long.  They got wealthy, they were the "Lucky Country," as the saying goes.  That essentially drove me away because I was being shut down and stopped from participating in the Bitcoin world, attending Bitcoin conferences, Bitcoin events, representing Swan Bitcoin, various things in the community.   I'm being shut up from that and I'm paying a very high tax for that privilege for being locked down.  It was very disappointing to me.  I've been a Libertarian for most of my life, since I was about 14 or 15 years old, and so if you would ask me before this hysteria I would have very much said "Oh, hey, come to Australia.  It's a great country.  The taxes aren't great, but overall it's pretty free and the people are nice.  It's good.  But from 2020 onwards, that all changed.  

SPEAKER JOHNSON CHANNELS RON PAUL: "We are going to cut 3% from DOJ, 7% from the ATF, 6% from the FBI, and 10% from the EPA."

Real Spending Cuts?!

They said it would never happen here.

They said Powell at 5.5% was irrelevant.

They said Tom, you're crazy.

I AM crazy.... I've also been dead right. https://t.co/iPA6YjOYe9

— Tom Luongo (Head Sneetch) (@TFL1728) March 6, 2024

ALEX NICOL: What a lot of people don't understand is that the Renewable Energy Act creates a subsidy environment where if you build wind turbines you are paid between $600,000 and 900,000 per turbine per year as a subsidy alone.

So they pay $12,000 to the farmer, but they get $600,000?  

So, he gets $12,000 a year, but if anything happens to it he's got to fix it?  

Yeah when they catch on fire, they're responsible for their neighbor's property going up in smoke.  That kind of thing.

Hilarious if not also terrifying.

You see, we have an opportunity to awaken.

A once in a generation opportunity to realize that we have been governed by LIARS. Not good intentioned people or midguided...but genuine LIARS.

Once you see it, you can never unsee it. https://t.co/B6NPZcqSVw

— 🔬 ))ay( 🚴‍ (@jjcouey) March 6, 2024

Alex Nicol.

Alex, now, you used to work for the federal government.

I did, yeah, for 7 years.

Doing what?

I was policy advisor for a liberal party senator.

Until you were saying that you were working about the windmills? 

Yes, the area that I was working in was renewable energy, and basically it was my job to uncover a lot of the stuff that was going on with renewable energies equipment that was put in in 2002 during the Howard government.  That was the Liberal Party put there in place, and I was looking at the mess that it had created.  What a lot of people don't understand is that the Renewable Energy Act creates a subsidy environment where if you build wind turbines you are paid between $600,000 and 900,000 per turbine per year as a subsidy alone.  

Well, if it's on your property?

No.  What happens is that the wind company comes in and leases they pay a lease to the farmer to build the wind turbine and that in effect makes sure that the farmer is still liable for the turbine and they pay a lease of $12,000 a year usually and the company gets paid between $600 and $900,000 per turbine per year.

So they pay $12,000 to the farmer, but they get 600,000?

Exactly.

Per turbine . . .  

Yep.

This is a big incentive to put in turbines.

Yeah, and the landowner takes the liability for the turbine.

So, he gets $12,000 a year, but if anything happens to it he's got to fix it.  

Yeah when they catch on fire, they're responsible for their neighbor's property going up in smoke.  That kind of thing.

Woooow.

And effectively that money, that that subsidy getting paid to the wind farms is draining $40 billion a year out of the Australian economy and it's paid by everyone, householders, schools, hospitals, everything, everyone.  It's not just coming out of your tax, it's coming out of your power bill.

Is this why power bills are going up? 

That's why power bills are going up . . . 

So power bills are going up to pay for wind turbines that don't work?

Exactly.

And why don't they work? 

They don't work because for a start they draw power off the grid so they have to have coal-fired power in order to turn.  They're not windmills, they're turbines.

Sorry, what do you mean, the power to turn, we see them turning . . . that's not the wind that's powered generating turning?

Essentially.  They have to draw power off the grid, so they have to draw coal-fired power off the grid in order to turn.  What happens when the wind picks up, they do start to create electricity of their own but that electricity is so intermittent and unreliable that when it gets back to the grid it has to be balanced on the grid which you can't do with your coal-fired power station, you can't ramp your coal-fired power stations up and down.  So the coal-fired power station stays at the same level because it takes 24 to 48 hours to get up to heat anyway, just let off steam as the wind comes on to the grid so there's absolutely nothing about them that works apart from draining that amount of money out of the Australian economy and it's going offshore.

That money's going offshore . . . 

 

Thank you to Steve Bartin.

2:00.  We have the big decision come out of the Supreme Court yesterday.  This is huge, and, of course, as I predicted on the show, it would be a very interesting decision.  I initially predicted a couple of months ago that it would be a 5-4 decision in favor of Trump.  Guess what?  It was essentially a 5 to 4 decision in favor of Trump.  All 9 justices argued that Colorado could not keep Trump off the ballot, but 4 of them had reservations about it.  There was a concurring opinion that was almost a dissent.  As I said, it was going to be 5 to 4, and then after listening to the arguments I thought, well, it's going to be 9 to 0, or 8 to 1, but it turned out to be 9 and 0 in favor of Trump "staying on the ballot," but the arguments against it, kind of this expansion of the 14th Amendment, certainly the 3 liberal justices believe that Amy Coney Barrett, who I thought would be in the 5 to 4, who I thought maybe Roberts would go to the 4 but it was Barrett.  She is certainly still saying that maybe the state can do something with the 14th Amendment, Section 3 of that, but regardless, I was right on both accounts.  That's why you listen to the show and that's why on social media I said I should be making Rush Limbaugh kind of money.  

3:30. Let me go into some of the things about this; in fact, I'm not going to read the decision very much.  I'll say some general things about the decision.  First and foremost, I think that Barrett in some ways is actually right that states can enforce provisions of the Constitution.  I mean state judges take an oath to defend the Constitution, and so do state officers.  They do it.  This is what I've mentioned about Texas.  Texas can enforce the Constitution.  They can round up people crossing the border illegally, send them back to Mexico, or wherever else they are from.  They can do that.  State officers take an oath to support the Constitution.  Now, what states don't have to do is enforce unconstitutional laws.  I've talked about that on this show.  That's non-commandeering.  But if the law is constitutional, and they take an oath to do it, then they have to enforce those things.

4:20. Now, the situation with the ballot is very interesting because it wasn't until the late 19th century that we had the States involved in that process, and some of that was because of the 14th Amendment.  But also because states wanted to regulate who could and who could not be on a ballot; in some ways, that's a little bit of an expansion of power that maybe they don't have.  Private entities or parties can put anybody they want on the ballot.  The states can sort that out after they get nominees, but you can have any party nominate anyone.  And if that person had been convicted of, say, insurrection, well, then the state could potentially leave them off the ballot, or if that person was a criminal or another way of what if they were in jail well that person could be kept off the ballot I mean there are some things you know like when if they're not old enough whatever the situation is the state can review that and say no well this person can't be there also Congress has a role in that regard as well they can refuse to see people in Congress but the state certainly gets to decide to choose it's electors so in that way there could be some control of that for the states.