Stepping in and a guy who's on the phone, as you can hear, chomping at the bitch to get to whatever it is we're going to talk about. You know, a lot of times he is at the back end of the show, and if you're on the back end, the view always looks the same. But if you're on the front end, you're the first, it means that you have a level of importance that is unparalleled in the rest of the three hours. When you are the first guest, you are the setting the table for the rest of
the show. And how this interview goes will dictate how great this show is or maybe not. Well, we're about to find out. So this is not a test, Ladies and gentlemen, This is Andy Furman with Gary Jeff on the Nightcap.
Welcome sir.
First of all, get your lips off my dery air. Okay, of course, it doesn't work that way. It's like a crescendo. It's like the worst guest is first, and it gets better if it goes on. Get it okay, But I'm glad to do it. I get it over with. That's the way I feel right now. The way you introduce me, don't don't. Don't put it in a pecking order. I just happen to be on and I'm on now, all right. I mean a happy happy Holidays to you, Merry Christmas to you, Happy happy birthday.
Today's my birthday too.
Happy birthday. Mine is next Monday.
I know it is. And I say, I'm going to be there with you.
I want you to be there. I want to just celebrate together with the with the music professor.
And I love it.
Yeah, And you can tell, you can tell Seg how much you love him, because this.
Is I do love Seg, I really do.
This is the this is the time of year for Sega clause. Do you think that Joe Burrow is just happy to get the season over?
Uh? You know, I'm not going to be like every other media person in this town psychoanalyzing Joe Burrow. It's not my job. Okay, it's not their job either.
You know.
Their job is to see him play football. And he didn't play well on Sunday, and he admitted that let it go, you know, and now in a speculation, he's not gonna play yet, he's gonna leave you. You know what, I get it. It's good take, it's good clicks. That's what it is. We live in a society of clicks. People live on that media. People love that. They don't have to be correct. They just want people clicking on their site, on their social media platform.
That's all it is.
I refuse to do that. I will not do that, you know. And it's not a question of my being right anymore. It's a question of being first. That's what people want, you know that, And I want that, and I've seen it, and I've seen it happen. I think it's disgusting, you know, I'm hearing sports took people behind the microphone with no sense or responsibility saying Joe Burrow has bigger problems than football. I wonder what it could be.
It's not football related? And will he leave here? He doesn't like it here is Look, you're the same people that were pounding saying that Joe Burrow tells the organization what to do. Well, you know what, maybe it was a good thing that Joe Burrow had a piss poor game on Sunday because now he doesn't have to tell the organization what to do. He needs to go back
to the drawing board and do it himself. Okay, I'm kind of happy in a way that he proved that he's not Superman with the Cape, He's no longer.
He's a great quarterback.
He may very well be the best quarterback on Bengal history. But he's normal like everybody else.
No, Josh Allen's Superman. You can't have two the same superhero in one league.
I mean you're gonna have.
You may be right about that and what he did, and this New England on Sunday may very well be Superman.
Maybe Joe Burrow as Batman. Maybe Joe Burrows.
And maybe I'm robbin. I don't know, but I will tell you this much. I'm happy about one thing you can talk about, Josh Allen, Joe Burrow. I like old guys because I'm an old guy right now, and people love old guys making young guys look silly. And Phil Rivers came back there. Philip Rivers at forty four our grandpa. Okay, he doesn't play his twenty twenty, hasn't played in five years, forty four years of age, playing for the Indianapolis Coat
look good. Coach's loss on a heartbreak with the field goal. But he's going to play Monday night against the forty nine, it's got to be musty TV.
And here's a.
Quarterback who once played an AFC championship game, get this one week after he tore an anterior cruciate ligament. And honestly, that just shows you the toughness, the toughness and the pride that he has. You know why I say that this guy's on the cusp of the Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio, and now that he's played, he's gonna years to get get nominated, to get back in again. You love them? Do you have people gonna deny that to me? But see, I want to hear your take on Philip Rivers.
Well, do you think that he is Hall of Fame worthy before this?
No doubt, come back, no doubt.
I got the stats for him, I really do. And I wish I had a vote for the Hall of Fame. I have a vote for the Heisman, but I don't have the vote for the Hall of Fame. And I'll tell you why. Eli Maning on two Super Bowls and normally right now, that's a ticket for the Hall of Fame and the name Manning is going to get him in there. Right The Philip Rivers through forget this, four hundred and twenty one touchdowns, which is sixth on the
old time list. Okay, he threw for sixty three thousand fortune and forty yards with is seventh on the.
Old time list.
Don't she had twenty nine fourth Well, go ahead.
No, I said, no kidding, I didn't know.
Oh yeah, he delivered twenty nine fourth quarter and that's more than Joe Montana.
Okay.
He finished as one of two quarterbacks in the NFL history. Right far was the other one to start these two hundred and fifty consecutive games, including the postseason and including the AFC title game at New England in January of two thousand and eight when he played one on one leg against the unbeaten New England Patriots. Played on one leg that game. This guy's a warrior. I love the guy,
I really do. And since twenty twenty, where he retired, he's been coaching at Saint Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Alabama with one of his ten children, and one of them is Gunner, who happens to be a big time college prospect. To get this, what position? Quarterback? Of course?
Well, no, I'd say that's gold jacket worthy, the stats and the place in NFL history. Sure, but now, as you mentioned, he's gonna have to wait another five years. They got to have a waiver rule for stuff like that. But you know, there are plenty of examples of old guys. I'm the same way. If there's a guy who was, you know, getting on in years and supposedly passed his prime, I'm all always rooting for I'm all in for him
every time. But then I think to myself, and my wife reminds me, yet you call him the old guy. He's forty four, You're gonna be sixty five. So I mean, maybe I'm just trying to live as an older guy through vicariously through these old guys who supposedly can't do it anymore. And there are plenty of examples through history.
As I got.
Him, I got you. I'm glad you mentioned I got him for you. You know I love the old guys and that come back. George Foreman reclaimed the heavyweight championship at the age of forty five. Remember that Jack Nicholas won his sixth and last Master's title at forty six. Tom Brady won his seventh and final Super Bowl at forty three.
Get this one.
This ute Cody Howe from the Detroit Red Wings scored fifteen goals and passed the twenty six at sists in an NHL season that he fin is at the age of Are you ready for this? Fifty two?
How do you?
Watson?
How do you play hockey?
At fifty two?
Tom wats play hockey at twelve?
Right?
Tom Watson was one put away from winning the British Open at his ninth major when he was fifty nine. All right, so old guys can do what they want to do. I think there's a lot to do in your chest, in your heart, more than athletic skill. I really do. You gotta want to do it. Philip Rivers wants to do it. I love that he's doing this. I really do.
Well, you got to have it in your heart and your tika, as they say, but you GOLs, You've got to have the talent in the first place. And the fact that all that talent hasn't run out of the hourglass yet for somebody like Philip Rivers, I think it's wonderful. I mean, Joe Flaccoy played pretty well for the Bengals at forty two, and there's another old guy that shined last night in another Pittsburgh Steelers victory in Aaron Rodgers.
Oh yeah, I agree, yeah, And I don't think the general public or at least the media don't understand. You know, the skill set is one thing. I remember when Joe Flackhall came back to the Cleveland Browns, they just called him. He was on the couch. I mean, the guy has never picked up a football to come and give me a phone call and do it and play and play respectively.
I mean, I don't It's an amazing thing. I mean, Philip Rivers was not playing, and it's one thing to be forty four and like, you know, you got from one team A to team B and you're still playing. You're going to practice. You know a place he came from nowhere. You know, he was at his house with his kids, coaching high school football and they say, hey, you want to play. You know, we need you. I mean, that to me is amazing. It's amazing that even thought
of him, and he thought of me coming back. Yes, that to me is an amazing situation.
It really is.
It's that time of years. It's almost like a Hallmark movie.
Andy, Oh, don't go to that.
Come on, really, you know, stuck, don't get mushy on me. Really, come on.
But it's still in all. I mean, the Joe Borrow situation. It just it bothers me that everybody is cycle analyzing Joe Burrow.
Leave him alone.
You know, there's a reason why. Can I tell you why? I hope the media in this town is listening. There's a reason why Joe Burrow does not to get this. Joe Burrow does not do one on ones with the local media. He does one on one with the national media. And maybe the NFL kind of requires that to some extent. I did some pr work when I was with the Dolphins and the fourth Loodoville Strikers. They kind of lean on you a little bit because they're paying the freight.
Like the Foxes of the world, you know, the CPS's of the world. They wanted to do the one on ones and they'll do them. But he won't do anyone on ones locally, you know, the one on one people here in town. They just back off a little bit. There are bigger fish to fry. There are bigger stories out there. You know, if you're really concerned with Joe Burrow and the problems that maybe not football related. Do some homework, get off your rear end and find out.
You know what I was My first thought was, and I hate to even bring this up, but I can tell you because you don't like my coffee down. When he said the problems and they said, well, Joe, are they football related or others? A little bit of each. I pray to God. I pray to God that there's no problem health wise with his parents. Think about that, really, parents, Because he's twenty nine. His parent's got to be close
to sixty, right, Hope everything's okay at home. That's going to be wearing on you.
Two of it is maybe Andy the losing paired with uh, the realization that, to me, Joe Burrow is one of those guys and you almost have to be to get to the place that he's gotten to. To be so proficient and so good, Football has been everything to Joe Burrow. I'm just guessing since he was a very young child and he's been in all kinds of situations where he
won playing this game that has defined him. Maybe as he approaches thirty, Joe Burrow is realizing what we all realize at a certain point that what we do does not necessarily define all of who we are. And maybe Joe Burrow is starting to figure out that football's not the only thing in life and there are more things that.
Can be important.
Now you like everybody else, now, your psychoanalytic, No, football is the only thing in his life right now, and that's why he's upset because it's the only His life revolves around football. The way he has, the way he trains for it, the way he plays it. He's got his cook you know, the way he gets up in the morning for practice. It is his life. And why he's upset is because his life is going down the
cropper because of the teammates he plays with. That's why, all right, And he's realizing that now And basically he could summon up with one more because he's seen it. He had before time and again he's been bengalized. Want to get up every day and every Sunday, put that uniform on, knowing that you don't really have a fighting chance to win. It's embarrassing that they didn't score a point against the Baltimore Ravens, a team that they beat two weeks ago on Thanksgiving Eve.
What I'm embarrassing.
What I'm wondering is is the entire Cincinnati sports environment bengalized? I mean, has this contagion? Is it like an outbreaking epidemic that has spread from the Cincinnati Bengals to Cincinnati Reds, to the UC Bearcats to the Cyclones.
I mean, is the whole town bengalized? Andy?
You know what, I think there's more of a of an emotional hate, and I hate to use the term hate, an emotional hate towards the Bengals than other teams when they lose.
Obviously, the town has split collegiately, I guess because Xavier and you see. So I don't think there's a big pushback on you see when they don't do when they do poorly. So if the Reds a concerned, I don't think there's that much emotion as Reds fans, and I think people got the Reds games not with that rooting when they go home after the game, they did down to down this the depression as they do in the
Bengals game. Because the season is so long. I think baseball is one of those games that you go out there just to enjoy the sunlight. You go out there in the summertime. I have a couple of bruces skis and sit out there and enjoy the game, and you go home. It's entertainment more than a battle, if you know what I mean. He ain't playing April, you're also playing again in October. I mean, come on, it's a long stretch. But football is only seventeen games?
Is eight or nine at home?
Every game means so much, and they've seen so much disappointment and they expect so much. That's the thing they expected so much with Joe Burrow. These people in this city have to take a step back and take the brother and say, hey, we're so Joe. He's normal, he's human. He kind of a bad game. They've just tool when they went to the super Bowl in twenty twenty two, that's going to be a yearly thing. It doesn't work that way. Look at the Detroit Lions. Did they've hit
the Skins? Look at your Kansas City cheese.
It's over.
Oh oh Andy, I'm glad you brought up the Chiefs because I just want to get this out of my as system once and for all. I am so thrilled to have been a Chiefs fan for the last seven years. And rooting the Super Bowls.
You're going to stop ruining it.
No, no, no.
No, I'm just saying that that ride, that ride I'm realizing is over, and I'm I'm happy with that. I can rest on the laurels of those Super Bowls and all those AFC championships now because we got him in the bank. But I think that the window is closed for these Kansas City Chiefs. Maybe not for Patrick Mahomes. He's such a dynamic player. Maybe they will be able to revitalize their running game next year. You know, Andy
Reid's going to be back. He's an excellent coach, but you know, you kind of feel like the window of opportunity is closing and almost and you almost feel like that for Joe Burrow and the Bengals.
He's twenty nine years of age. He's going to be in the next day.
Marino man, Marino wants to want Super Bowl and that basically was it. But you got to say Dan Marino basically was the godfather of the poet pass. He throw for five thousand yards and after that, the basic game was dominant in the National Football League. But I'll tell you this much, I think that the biggest key in all of sports is choosing the right people, not so much the personnel and the players, And that's important. I
think the leaders. And what I mean by that, I mean like the Bengals, you know, the hired of guy and Zach Tail and again we've gone down this row. There's a good guy, he's a good father, he's just a nice man. But he's not a head coach. I mean, he looks like a deer in the headlights on the sidelines right now. He looks like he doesn't know what he's doing. I mean, it's embarrassing. He's learning on the job. And I think you have to make the right pick.
And if I was, if I was general manager or in a position to hire a coach at you at the Bengals, I would go after Kurt Signetti, the coach at Indiana. So what he did and I saw in the Heisman Trophy the show on Saturday night, they interviewed him and they showed tape when he was hired in Indiana. You know what he said, He said, what do you expect here?
And the media was asking him.
He said, you know, I expect I expect to win.
Yeah, I expect to win.
That's the same thing Bob Hawkins said when he came here and they scoffed him. They left it him at his first year. They made the nip the first year after five and twenty season with Tony eight, he rested. They went to then and you.
Never got this out is Zach Taylor when the Bengals hired him. But when Kurt Signetti got hired, he went out under the basketball floor at IU before a Hoosiers game. He said, produce, so produce sucks and and he was right.
I mean, do you want a guy like that to to wake up to? And they asked why he did that. He says, I want to see if the fans were dormant or not. He the guy's a mastermind. It's all about psychology. Every coach knows exerson O's But it's how you translate that, how you sell it, how you sell it to your team, how they respond to you. That's the I just responded to.
I just found it ironic that on the sideline on Sunday, and I brought this up earlier, Zach, Zach Taylor's wearing a sweatshirt that says inspire change. I said, well, you certainly do inspire change.
Since that you wearing that shirt, maybe to the unemployment. So I hate to say that. I hate to say. I look, I've been down that road.
You've been too.
When you work in radio, you're going to get canned.
That's the name what happens.
And it's not a pleasant thing. And I don't want to use the power of a microphone to say a guy should be fired. All right, I'm just saying he should be evaluated, all right, keep them keeping with them. I mean, you're not going to keep him on if he's not the head coach, that's for sure. You're not going to give them a silliary position, which is embarrassing. But honestly, if you don't do the job, I mean, I'm sorry. If you didn't do the job at seven hundred,
you be gone. You're doing the job right, you've been Saturday morning. Got almost thirty years, Yeah.
Coming up on twenty nine. That's that's for sure. So you may thirty. Your birthday is today, Happy.
Birthday, Yes it is, Thank you very much.
What's wonderful? What are you doing? What did you do on your special day? Andy?
Well, honestly, I was supposed to get an MRI, but obviously I found out this morning. I got a phone call from the insurance people that my hospital in question is not in the network. Very nice, why do you tell me that? So it's canceled and I got a reschedule, like I said, a different hospital. So my birthday present of an MRI will not happen.
Well, I mean, maybe you can get it on the cheap somewhere. I mean, I'm sure there are guys that do MRIs in like vans and trucks that roll around town.
You can just get it, I would.
Yeah, maybe I'll do that.
I don't know, And you have a telescoop you could look for me.
I don't know. And maybe maybe you can buy some frozen meat while you're at it out of.
The back of the truck.
I don't know.
I tell you what this insurance thing is driving me nuts. I know nothing about it, but I just assumed that you know what they say about being assuming. But I had to get two cat skins and I had no problem whatsoever at the same hospital, and the insurance covered like about eighty percent of it, whatever it may be. Now, all of a sudden, they're not covering this. I don't get it.
I don't understand this.
But to get worse is only going to get worse. Believe believe you me, you know, and I don't know if you know this.
My wife's not a citizen. My wife's Canadian, okay, and all our relatives live in Canada. Yeah, and they get everything's free. Everything's very intent. I'm thinking of getting a dual citizenship to move it to Canada.
I really am.
Well, every everything's free, but you've got to wait like six months.
So what I'm waiting now? I'm waiting? Now what's the difference?
All right, fur ball?
Good luck on your hamm And by the way, if anybody's listening and they do MRIs on the cheap out of a van.
Did you have an MRI machine down your basement. I'll come down there for fall.
Take care, brother.
It's the Nightcap and it continues with economist Todd sheets up right after the news. Welcome back to the Nightcap on seven hundred WLW and Gary jeb Our guests. Now the man who knows about wealth and progress like nobody else. That is his newsletter on politics, economics and well being you can find every week. He's just got a new piece out and today to talk about that and to hearken back to his great book two thousand and eight, What really Happened is the one and only Todd Sheets.
Welcome back to the show, Todd. How are you this evening? I'm doing great. Thanks for having me again, Gary. Oh you bet anytime. I mean, I have returned guests back because I had a good time myself the first time, and I felt like we actually talked about something, because so much of talk radio is just is just conjecture and rumor and all the rest of that stuff. And who knows, we may engage in a little bit of
that too, But in fact, you had peace today. Reading the tea leaves the political tea leaves of where we're going as we approach a new year, a midterm year, the first midterm of President Trump's second term. We know what happened the first time around. Where do you see it going with some of the special elections and like that we have seen now most of the evidence so far as far as those go, Todd has been that if it were a traditionally blue enclave, it's remaining blue.
Are you getting that sense too, or is there some great to see change happening? And are the Democrats hitting their mark about making things affordable. Well, they don't seem to have a plan either outside of full out communism, like in New York. What are your tea leaves reading right now.
Tod Yeah, I think the administration are the party. The Republican Party is going through a challenging period here. I think, like you said, it's important not to make too much of elections, you know, like mom Donnie in New York where he's running against another Democrat and that.
Kind of thing.
But I think given the overall picture, what I'm sensing is is that this is a little bit of a sticky point for the party.
I think the biggest issue.
Here comes down to the economy and affordability. Maybe I'd throw in a dose of immigration related issues as well.
But I think, you know, from the economy's perspective, but we have to keep in is this is.
Far and away the largest economy in the world. It's effectively the biggest ocean liner out there on the seas. And unfortunately, and not because of Trump, this.
Is something that he inherited.
You know, We've been sailing into and deeper into troubled waters for over two decades now almost three depending on where you want to count the starting point, and when you take that plus the magnitude of the changes that they are trying to push through to get this thing to course correct back into the brighter seas that we've seen in the past.
It's going to take some time.
And I think people probably generally understand that we've had a couple of good indicators. There were some really strong GDP numbers over the summer, but unfortunately those things haven't translated into jobs yet, and that's what people really want to see, you know.
I think if they.
Hear that the economy is growing and GDP is strong, but they're not seeing it in the job market.
Then they still feel like, Okay.
Well maybe things are getting better, but it's still not an economy that's working for me. So I think that's the biggest thing that the administration is dealing with, along with the affordability issues, which I also think.
Are very real.
Well.
Scott Besant has said that he expects the first six months of twenty twenty six to be a real change in affordability and also inflation, and he cited the fact that there are a lot of illegal immigrants that were brought into this country with no vetting by the millions, by the tens of millions during the Joe Biden administration,
and that brought rent up. It brought all kinds of issues introducing into the economy because there were simply these people flooding in, which was pushing the price of rent specifically up, which is the number one thing when you get to affordability. Yeah, groceries and gas, which I think the Trump administration has got.
To handle on now.
We just saw today the delayed jobs report numbers for November. They came in stronger than expected, with sixty four thousand jobs created, mostly in the private sector. Wages were up, and the unemployment ticked up to four point six percent. But we had a labor participation rate of almost sixty three percent, which is pretty strong. Would you agree with that?
Yes, I do, And I share Scott Besson's optimism about the first half of next year. You know, I think, like we were just talking about, we saw a couple of good quarters of GDP growth, not translated into jobs yet, but still strong growth, which is the first step. And then the government shut down, clearly, you know, curtailed that trend. But there's every even to believe that heading into next year,
we could be looking at very strong numbers. I think the second third quarters are going to be critical in terms of not just seeing the good growth at the overall economic level, but where we start to see it translating into more and more private sector jobs, which, as you pointed out, we've seen in these recent numbers here.
Also, you have to remember we're.
Also working against significant amounts of federal workers that are finally rolling off of the employment rules, and that goes back to the efforts, you know, with those that.
Were being made earlier this year.
So there's a number of reasons for optimism, and hopefully these things will all kick in in the early part of next year.
Do you feel like part of a big part of the place of the inflation and the affordability issues, especially with housing, were driven by all the illegal immigration that was permitted in the four years before Trump.
Well, it certainly didn't help, But for me, I always go back. You know, the greatest.
Monetary economist in history was Milton Friedman, and his famous saying was that inflation is always in everywhere a monetary problem.
So when you see prolonged.
Rates of inflation over an extended.
Period of time, like we had during the Biden administration.
That's because the FED is printing money faster then the real economy is growing. And so you could have short term impacts from things like the immigration, which I think I'm sure it did impact things for a while, you know, or if the labor markets get tight. But if you see sustained excess inflation over a period of time, it's because of the FED.
I think that's.
Where the real problem is.
I wrote in a recent substack piece to paraphrase the old James Carville Clinton line where they used to say it's the economy stupid.
The comment I made was, you.
Know, when it comes to inflation, it's the FED.
And so I think that's the core issue, and we've got to hold back on the tendency.
To want the FED to push these rates so.
Low that we continue dealing with that problem.
Yeah.
I mean, do you think there will be a new FED chair here at the beginning of the year. That's what the rumors are. Jerome Powell will be out and there'll be a new head of the FED in twenty six.
Yeah.
I think there's no question that's going to happen.
We'll probably see an announcement fairly soon. My hope is that they will be a little tougher or a lot tougher than I think Trump wants them to be. I think, you know, Trump is a growth guy. That's a great thing. We be the growth guy in the White House right now.
But the ideal thing to me is that we get economic growth going with very close to stable prices because we've leaned on the FED for too many administrations have leaned on the FED for too long, and it's created a lot of the problems that we've.
Had to deal with here.
So I'd like to see the FED actually get a little tougher and tighter with interest rate.
My Congressman Thomas Massey thinks the FED shouldn't exist.
Is that a good idea or a bad idea?
I completely agree.
The greatest growth, the greatest upward mobility, the greatest ability to absorb migration in a way that was healthy for our economy, for our citizens, and for all the people trying to escape dysfunctional systems abroad came from eighteen hundred to nineteen thirty, and for the vast majority of that we did not have a Federal Reserve, and we had a gold standard, which limited the ability of the federal government to play all these monetary games which in the
end to me create far more problems than they solve.
All right, well, that's the political leaves, and what do you think the chances are that the Republicans hold even a narrow margin in the lead when we get done counting votes in November of next year.
Yeah.
I think it all depends on the economy and job creation.
I think if if Bethant is right, and I think like we talked about, I think there's a very good.
Chance he is, and things really start kicking in.
For six months at least by the second quarter of next year, and the jobs are going I think you're going to see a lot of support for the policies that.
This administration is employing.
I think if they don't, you know, there's going to be people who are very susceptible to the mom Donnie like you know, promise of let's make everything free, that's the solution. We know it's not the solution, but people are susceptible to that when they feel like things aren't working for him.
What do you think the impact of AI We know what it could be. I mean, it could be the elimination of got millions of jobs depending on how this goes, or it could be just the next you know, technological kind of improvement that does improve our lives and make us more efficient. What are the chances that AI and the burgeoning growth of AI stunts Trump's plans for growing the economy.
I think there's maybe a tiny bit of risk on that side of things, but I'm very very optimistic about
what happens with AI. I mean, we've got basically all of human history that shows us that technological developments and improvements and efficiency gains are the key to creating a better, more healthy economy, one that makes us more competitive in the world marketplace, which puts us in a better position from trade, It makes are workers more valuable, and so I think this is going to fall into the same category that we've seen in everything from the industrial revolution,
you know, to the assembly line, to the technolo you know, the computer revolution, the information revolution, all.
These different things.
It might take a little while, but I'm very optimistic that it's going to be a very powerful tool that will enhance life, make us more predictive, productive.
And basically lead to a better system for us.
Do we need Todd sheets to figure out something with these expiring Obamacare health subsidies. I mean, they're ready to run out here in just a matter of days now, and people are looking at the proposed premiums for next year through the Obamacare exchanges in their own insurance, if they have their own insurance. The Republicans have talked about cost sharing and have a bill introduced on the House floor. I guess Mike Johnson said tomorrow he's expecting this, this
real affordable healthcare bill to replace it. The fact of the matter is there is still a slim margin of Republicans, but not enough in the Senate to get something, you know, pushed through. What's going to happen with healthcare in this country and the premiums that just keep rising beyond people's means.
Yeah, so I think that you pointed out two great issues here. We've got a short term issue with with what to do about these expiring subsidies, and then we've got a longer term issue, which is we've got to solve the healthcare issues, which Obamacare clearly has not done, if anything, has made them worse. And so my politically realistic assessment in the short term would be I would kind of expect.
To see us extend the.
Subsidies with some hard income caps at a reasonable level so that you know, if you're over.
Let's just say, I'm not saying this has to be.
The number one hundred and forty one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year, you're going to lose the subsidies, which they were intended to go away in the beginning. You know, this wasn't supposed to be a permanent feature. Is supposed to help everybody through COVID at the lower income levels. We're on top of all the other affordability issues that people are dealing with. We create something.
Like a one year extension, not a.
Three year extension like the Democrats are looking for a one year extension, and then that gives the administration some time to tackle the bigger issue that you were addressing there, which is what can we do longer term to rein in kind of the uncontrolled growth that.
We have in this systems becoming.
More and more dominated by the government, you know, which is going to lead to rationing and those kinds of things. If we end up in a single payer system, and it gives us a little more time to focus on a bigger solution for the problem.
Know, the drumbeat in the first Trump administration was repeal and replace, and they just couldn't get it done. I guess it was the the John McCain vote or whatever that that came down in the Senate when when you know, he gave the thumbs down. And uh so, I mean, it's not like you talk about the Republicans buying themselves more time with the year extension of these Unaffordable Careless
Act subsidies that were kicked in during COVID. The Republicans seemed to me like they they've had plenty of time to come up with something todd.
Yeah, and they haven't done it.
And yeah, I did that, I mean, and yeah, and but at some point somebody has to do this, and and and and at some point, you know, somebody got to take the case to the American people and just say, you know, hey, we are either going to deal with this proactively and intelligently, or we're going to wait until this eats up all of the economic wealth in the system.
You know, and we're dealing under duress where we just can't keep borrowing the money that it takes to fund the cost of all these programs, and so I think it's worth you know, you've got to try this, I think every four years or so, and somebody's got to make a real focus and we've got to tackle these things that it goes it's Obamacare.
But you know, the reality is.
And Trump has so far said, probably because of what happened in his first administration, he doesn't want to deal with.
It, which I understand.
But at some point somebody is going to have to.
Deal with Medicare and Medicaid because all of these things they dominate the budget and they are on unsustainable tracks, and so I think it's something that at some point we've just got to step up and try again.
And the key to Todd is they are.
Both rife with fraud.
Absolutely.
Mike Johnson was talking about this this morning and he talked about the sixty eight thousand Social Security numbers had been used by multiple people in multiple states to get these subsidies. And I mean, this is billions of dollars coming out of the system for real claims and real people that that has got to be addressed. And I think that's the first thing they need to address, is how do you rid the system of all this fraud.
Yeah, and you know, I think some of this goes back to those which I think at some point we need to try that again, because you know, weeding out waste, fraud and abuse should be a bipartisan objective of everybody. Unfortunately, the Democrats.
You know, when you.
Decide that the person that's getting elected by a majority of the population is Hitler.
You basically take a stance.
That you're going to fight them on everything that they do. And they did that with dose.
But at some point, I think we've got to go back and fight waste fraud and abuse in the healthcare programs if you've just suggested, and throughout the federal government. So that, because that is the best way to deal with the fiscal issues and problems that we have out there, other than growth, you know, growing the economy is probably.
The best way.
The second best way is to deal with waste, fraud and abuse, because that's in everybody's interest, no matter what color tie you wear to work each day, except for the fraudsters.
It's in everybody's interest exactly, except for the criminals.
All right, go ahead, how do.
You say there's no shortage of those in Washington either, which is part of.
The problem, right, it's a huge part of the problem. The fish rots from the head down and all of that. Todd Sheets. Look for his newsletter on Wealth and Progress. Just type that in on your search on Wealth and Progress by Todd Sheets and you can find his wonderful papers there. Todd, thank you for spending some time with us again tonight, and fruitful conversation.
I appreciated. Thank you.
It's always a pleasure.
You got it. Todd Sheets with us on the Nightcap. And there's still more to come.
Wake of the Bondei Beach massacre in Australia, in the wake of Islamist terrorist and jee hottest attacks all over the world, which are increasing seemingly by the day, I thought it would be good to bring in a guy who's one of his New York Times best selling book of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades and the Truth about Muhammad. He's a director of Jihad Watch and a Oman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center.
And he is our guest now, Robert Spencer. Good evening and welcome to the Nightcap.
How are you.
Very well saying how are you?
You know what?
I'm great but I look at what's going on in the world around us, and all of it seems to be at least to me. It's kind of like a self injury that these countries have been inflicting on their people by their ignorance and ignorance of a real threat that they've allowed to metastasize in their countries, and Australia is one of those countries. Any government that these days calls for a two state solution in the Middle East
is just inviting more of this. And I just wanted to get your thumbnail thoughts before we get into what else is happening in other places around the world because of the unchecked Islamist threat.
Robert Well, I couldn't agree more. That's exactly what's happening. This attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney would never have taken place if it hadn't been for the Australian government's appeasement of its Islamic community and for the existence of that Islamic community in the first place, which is the result of the Left program of mass migration of Muslims into Australia as well as into Europe and North America.
And so none of this had to happen. The Left has brought it on the West and now we got to deal with it well.
And the thing is too, in the wake of this horrible tragedy an Ahonica celebration on a beach in Australia, the Prime Minister and the Australian government rightly says they have to address anti Semitism, But then at the same time they part with we've got to address Islamophobia too. Is that out of fear, Because the last time I checked my news feeds, the last time I saw anything happening around the world, Jews were not attacking Muslims and
people who love freedom and Western culture. We're not trying to tear down Islam. It only seems to be very, very one sided. And it's like these people are operating blind, deaf, dumb and blind in the wake of a real threat. And it seems like we're not doing much better in our country.
No, it's the same here, it's just not quite as far along. But you have the same situation of denial and willful ignorance. And yes, it is out of fear that they don't want to say what's really happening, and they don't want to say we're going to fight anty Semitism, and we're also going to fight against Islamic g hot activity.
They don't even want to admit that there is such a thing as Islamic g hot activity, and they do not do so, you know, no Western country, including the United States, admits that there is such a thing and has any program to counter it. And this is because they're afraid of offending Muslims and they want Muslim votes, and they only have Muslim votes because they've brought them in with their mass migration policies. And meanwhile, Islam does
teach warfare against unbelievers. It does teach that Muslims have to fight them until they submit to a second class status or convert to Islam. And that's going to keep happening and going to keep resulting in violence against non Muslims, and the longer we ignore it, the worse it's going to get.
And Christianity, on the other hand, which I'm a Christian, teaches to love your enemies and to forgive your enemies. So there's definitely a diametrically opposed set of ideals at play in these two faiths, and Judaism as well, and to have it happen during Hanukkah. Do you think that there are more coordinated attacks coming soon.
Robert, Yeah, I wouldn't be the least surprised. It wasn't an accident that it happens during Hanukah anymore than it's an accident that so many Christmas markets have been hit in Europe. This is because they want to make war against Jews and Christians in particular. That's what the Koran says, fight against the people of the book, that's Jews and Christians until they pay the jizia, which is a tax
with willing submission, and feel themselves subdued. So there are going to be more attacks during Honkah or during other Jewish holy days. There are going to be more attacks at Christmas, at Easter. Remember at Easter in Sri Lanka a few years back, there was an attack in a church. Several hundred people were murdered.
And this is all the.
Same Islamic tihad that nobody wants to acknowledge even exists.
Tell me about one of your most recent books, one of the thirty two best sellers, Holy Hell, Islam's abuse of women and the infidels who enable it.
That is yet another aspect of this issue, and that is the fact that the Koran, the Holy Book of Islam, teaches that Muslims can take Infidel women and use them sexually, in other words, essentially as sex slaves. And this people don't even believe it when I tell them, But it's.
In the Koran.
I show in the book how not only is it in the Koran, but Muslims are acting upon it on a massive scale. Hundreds of thousands of girls in Britain have been victimized while authorities were afraid to act because they were afraid of being called Islamophobic. And it also happened all over Europe and elsewhere. And the book is about this and about how the authorities are afraid to confront it. Really it's the same thing we're talking about here.
They're afraid to confront that, and they're afraid to confront Islamic giod And.
It's not just Isis or Islamic Jihad or any of these groups. The FBI just foiled a New Year's planned attack New Year's Eve planned attack out in California by something called the Turtle Island Liberation Front, which is a Free Palestine group. I mean, there are all kinds of manifestations of this is what I'm getting at. You don't necessarily have to be from Syria or from any of these Islamic countries to come and do this kind of
terrorism in different places around the world. There are home grown Islamic terrorists now that have been They have been, you know, convinced that this is their path, I guess for lack of any other kind of substance in their lives. I'm not sure, but they've been radicalized in that way. And I mean because none of the people I saw in the FBI photos were people that I would instantly expect.
I mean Islamic terror. Islamis terror comes in all kinds of different packages, and that's why we've got to be constantly vigilant.
Right Well, my understanding, and I could be wrong, is that those guys were Leftists. They certainly were acting in accord with the aims of the Palestinian giod and the left has been a willing and eager ally of Palestinian Jihatis. But I'm not sure they were Muslims. Both the left and Muslims. Jihadis in general, want to destroyed the West, want to destroy the United States, and so they are happy to make common cause on that. And the Turtle
Island business is something that I've seen. If you look at the Students for Justice and Palestine website, it's the Muslim group that menaces Jewish students and pro Israel students on campuses all over the country, and they speak a lot about occupied Turtle Island on their website. Turtle Island is supposedly the name that Native Americans gave to the
North American continent. But in any case, that is a manifestation as far as I know, of the leftist Islamic Alliance, which in its own way is as dangerous as the Islamic Jihat itself.
You have to wonder too, how many Islamic jihadist terrorists, and we know of some, but how many came in the wake of the great Biden Immigrantsation mistake or plan to bring all these millions of people from around the world into the United States without any vetting, without any knowledge of who they are, and no way to really vet all those people. I wonder how many terrorst cells are within I don't know, fifty mile radius of me in Cincinnati right now.
You've got to.
Hold me any number yeah, exactly, because the Biden administration made no effort to determine whether these people were sympathetic with the Jihad, whether they were active jihattis nothing, and so it's really only a matter of time. The gi hotties aren't stupid, and they could see the border was open, and so they took advantage. And we know that there were many, many people on the terror watch list who
made it over. Some of the estimates have been frankly shocking in terms of the high number of people on the terror watch list who are here now, and that even those don't take into account the people who didn't get caught and who made it into the country with no problem. And unfortunately, given the fact that they bide their time or very patient and work on the basis of sleeper cells, we could be seeing the repercussions of this for years to come.
Well, Robert Spencer, you mentioned that it's not as advanced here in the United States as it has gotten in Australia or in the UK or some of these other countries where they have been apologetic and basically rolling out the red carpet for jihad to come to their countries. France once again is the symbol of the white flag of surrender. Particularly Paris, they just canceled their New Year's
Eve celebrations. And this is something that Paris has been famous for over the last sixty five seventy years, is it not.
Yeah, it's going on since the nineteen sixties. And it was a beautiful celebration where they lit up the whole charm. They leaves, the wonderful wide Avenue in the middle of Paris lit up brightly and gaily. It was, of course something you can only do in a country that's not under siege. But now France is under siege, and so they are canceling this and it made me wonder when I saw the news, what do they think it's going
to be like in five or ten years. They think they're just going to pick it up again then and resume doing the things that they've always done. It's not going to be that easy because they're not dealing with the root of the problem. They're not dealing with the problem of jihad or the problem of the many numbers of jihattis that they also had brought in to their country, and so this problem is only going to get worse from them.
It's not going to get better.
Well, I mean, I don't think it's far fetched to maybe in ten years see Notre Dame be converted into a mosque. I mean, it really is that. And it's again because of the mass flood of Islamic migration that was allowed to happen by France, by England.
Oh my god.
I talked to somebody who has been going back and forth to London on a regular basis over the last twenty years, and she told me that London is unrecognizable in many places because of the influence of the influx and the influence of Islam and these kinds of precess I mean, there's steps away from Sharia law in parts of London and England right now.
Yeah. Yeah.
I was last in London in two thousand and nine, which is sixteen almost seventeen years ago now, and I remember taking long walks because of the kind of work I do. I was going into mosques all over London and walking around in East London, which is the heavily Muslim area, and found that there are stretches whole streets neighborhoods where you'd think you were in Pakistan, that there's nothing visible anywhere around you that gives you any indication
that you're actually in England. And that was sixteen years ago. I imagine it's much worse now.
Ye when you're hearing chance of gas the Jews in Australia. It's really no wonder that this has occurred now, this massacre at Bandai Beach.
Yeah, absolutely no, not at all. And see this is something that is also right on directly the fault of the leftist government that they coddled the people who were coming out after the October seventh Gihat mass and acting as if these people were entirely reasonable and entirely right to be protesting and falsely charging Israel with genocide and all this business. And they made it clear that they
could essentially run free with no repercussions. And so the fact that these elements are allied with jihadis only meant that there was going to be violence, and now here we are nothing was more predictable.
What what what would be a Robert Spencer kind of a solution to this? How how do we unwind what has wound up? And how do we save Western culture? How do we save Israel?
Well, we have to make sure to make it clear to everybody in our various countries that there's one law for everyone and that there's not going to be any more indulgence for other systems of law. Now you might think this is a bit far afield, but it's not. In the UK, Muslims have been allowed to establish what are what's essentially a parallel society with Sharia courts that have the highest authority in the country rather than I mean in the Muslim areas, rather than the law in
the land. And so that has to all stop, and the people who are Muslims in all of our countries have to be made to understand that jihad you got to leave at the door. The misogyny you have to leave at the door, the anti Semitism you have to leave at the door. You're perfectly free to practice your religion in the United States and England and Australia and so on, but not at the expense of other existing laws or in a way that endangers other communities. And
so that would be the first step. But there isn't even any politician as the guts to do that.
I mean, what votes are they they looking to get? I mean, I don't understand this. Maybe this goes broader than a politician have encouraged. Maybe it's a matter of just education of the public at mass to make them understand what's going on and what needs to be done to save us. Because well, there's no doubt that the sorry, well, I mean, because that's what's at stake. It's saving culture,
it's saving a society. I mean because yes, because that branch of Islam is about world domination and about taking completely over. And I don't think that's absolutely true. And I don't think enough people understand that, Robert.
They don't, And as a matter of fact, when somebody tries to say it, he gets shot down. You take, for example, Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, who just recently has started speaking honestly about Islam, and just yesterday we did a very strong statement, a statement I don't entirely agree with, where he said Islam is not a religion. I think it is a religion. It's just a political,
supremacist and violent religion. But in any case, he went on to say that we have to fight against the Islamists in the United States, which is a word people usually use to refer to Jihadis or other people who want to bring Islamic law to the country, so you'd think nobody would have a problem with that, but he's just being inundated with people calling him Islamophobic and all that.
Robert Spencer, I appreciate your time tonight and interviews like this can't hurt if somebody hears it and maybe further understands what the world is facing right now. Again, my condolences to anyone who lost their lives at the hands of these murderous people. And happy Hanukkah.
Thank you very much.
All right, thank you, Robert Spencer with us on the nightcap back after a break.
There will be a big buzz in the arena when our basketball bear Cats look to handle the hornets of Alabama State. Can you see swarm the paint and swat away enough balls to come out victorious?
To catch the call live.
Or tomorrow at six thirty pm on seven hundred WLW or stream seven hundred WLW on the iHeartRadio ad.
Bad breath is a confidence killer.
You could have the best outfit, the funniest jokes, but if your breath smells like the food you just ate, that's all people remember. Most gums and mints just cover it up. It's like spring perfume on dirty laundry. Zelman's minty Mouth is different. It's the functional breath freshener that you swallow, clinically tested to fight the toughest offenders, even garlic and onions. Go to Zelmans dot com that's zelmi ns dot com and use the code radio for fifteen percent off your first order.
Run seven hundred w LW Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah. Harry Jeff Walker spent the words out tonight as we get you closer and closer to midnight and an hour closer to Christmas. Joining us now is a man who is an investigative reporter, I mean for years. He is the author of non fiction books like The Great Pretense, A Tour through the Boneyard of the CIA's War for Drugs, Dispatches from the House of Death, are As, a cartel Informant, a dea whistleblower, mass murder and cover Up on the
Edge of the Empire. Wow, that's a lengthy title. We could probably talk about that title for the next twenty minutes. Bill Bill Conroy joins his son the Nightcap about what's going on right now with the Trump administration, the United States and Maduro and Venezuela. Bill Conroy, welcome.
To the show.
Glad to be here, g for to having me on.
No doubt.
So the premise is basically according to President Trump and the military, is this the coke boat strikes in the Caribbean. And all of the things you've seen were about fentanyl
and drugs coming into this country. And while the precursors from fentanyl coming from China did go to places like Venezuela and Mexico, and that has been largely thwarted in many ways stopped with the closing of our border, it can still get here any number of ways, and as long as there is a demand in this country, somebody's going to supply it somehow until they're stopped for real.
But I mean, I said, from the insight, without any of your fore knowledge of what the CIA has been involved with in years past, with the quote war on drugs, saw this as what I believe it is. It's just an effort to unseat Maduro, who obviously is an illegitimate president. I mean, the other candidate got more votes, but he
said no, I'm I'm not leaving. And it's similar to things that have been done in the past, that Manuel Noriega and Panama, and you can cite many other examples of how the CIA worked to overthrow foreign governments.
It's nothing new for them.
But I also saw it as what it is I think, and that's you know, obviously about oil and sanctions against China, and from that standpoint, I kind of agree with it. But anyway, Bill, I wanted to get your thoughts on what the Trump administration the CIA is doing. And I know you've seen this movie before, so please yeah.
Yeah.
The first thing is more, you know, a number of things can be true at once, and you know, I think that's the case here there. This is the Trump Forum policy, which you know they had veiled recently. It's it's essentially the Monroe Doctor and Portant two point zero, right, it's like really exert all influence over national security or security economic policy in Americas. And you know they're in the past and as is currently, they've mainly targeted leftist
leaders in Latin America. You know, all the past coups going back to Guatemala, you know the band Pig Piggs, Envision in Cuba, the you know coup and Chile in the nineteen seventies, the cocaine coup in Bolivia in nineteen eighty, which basically replaced the Left as president with a winter composed of literally of a former Nazi in Marco traffickers. And then you know the CIA contract crack cocaine scandal the later in mid nineteen eighties. You know, that's all
Nords and everyone. And Trump tried this in this first administration. He had the CIA, and they're attempting to flevent a coup in Venezuela there in his first term. So yeah, it's no surprise that they're trying to get rid of the Duro. He's kind of the entertain of the kind of the Bulavarian leftist revolution, the remaining you know, leader
from that era. There's and you know there's other there's pressure on Colombia right next door, which is, you know, the major source of the coca plant in cocaine, Colombia, and actually all the and these nations can grow the coca leafs, but only they can. So the only place cocaine is coming from is that region of the world. Right, and Venezuela was never a major producer. They're a transit nation, so probably more money went to Venezuela than drugs. That's probably it's major use in that as.
Far as Bill, as far as the oil frigate that was seized, the oil ship that was seized, it was seized because we have sanctions against people doing business with China and this oil or with Iran. I mean, we have sanctions with people doing business with Iran and oil, and this was obviously.
Part of that.
How do you enforce sanctions if you don't enforce them, I mean, isn't that basically what the United States was doing by seizing this tanker.
Well, and also they're threatening to see more tankers. So again this goes back to the thing that a number of things could be true at once. They're using, you know, a lot of legal language to justify what's going on. In the case of blowing out the drug boats. You know, they claim that they're Darko terrorists and we have you know, sanctions against them, right, Well, we don't have sanctions to kill them, you know, that's that whole thing is built
on economic sanctions. But the point is, if you look at what they did, it's it's it's you know, there really is nothing you can do about it. Right, First, say, the first thing is if you blow, if you kill somebody in international waters and there's no war, it's not war crime. Right. Congress is the only one that will
declare war, So that doesn't really shit. If you uh murder somebody in the international waters and they're a US national in other words, you know, a residence or citizens, you can bring murder charges in US courts against whoever did that. But if they're not, which these these uh you know, the people they're killing in the in the Caribbean and in the Pacific are not US citizens, then the only option is for the nations of those uh of those killed to bring the charges. And and that
might be like what Acuador and Venezuela and Columbia. You know, that's happened before where US agents have been charged with crimes in the just aid those countries. That's what happens, and then you know, you ask gotta regisplates it. So there really is nothing that's going to be done about that. And they're kind of the same thing with the oil takers.
There there's a thin legal justification for seizing the oil tankers, you know, that's what they say is that this oil was bound for it was a you know, an unfair or a false flag ship that was bound for to deliver sanctioned oil, and that may be true, and you're right, they should be seized. Russia's got a whole fleet of those that were not seizing, right, So the double standards and foreign policy or you know, if you look at
it or profile. But anyway, so we seize their tankers and we continue to do that, and we have were blowing up all the bullets coming out of Venezuela, which you effectively have as a blockade of Venezuela, which in itself is an active war. And I think they're just going to ratchet the pressure up until there's some kind of coup in Venezuela, which is what the CIA's role
is on the ground. There is to you know, bargain for that fer meant that you know, help the opposition position themselves for you know, post Madure, all that kind of thing. So there's a lot of a lot of a lot of stuff going on on the ground that we don't know about, and that we probably won't know about frankly for years, because that's that's what you know, This stuff doesn't come out, you know, it's it's surprising that that Trump admitted we have the CIA operating on
the groundment there. That's the first surprising thing. But anyway, yeah, you're right. I mean, if you're gonna, you know, enforce stations, then you would think you'd enforce them against every country that's running these these these false relave ships and and.
Yeh, Bill, Bill, Bill Bill, I think, I think I think that where it gets to, uh, the Monroe doctrine component of this, this is in our hemisphere. We're not going to go to Russia and and go to the Black Sea and start commandeering oil ships, are we No.
Yeah, but they're not coming from the Black Seat. They're coming across international waters from you know, different places. You know, some of the Venezuela and oil is going to Russia too, So we don't know where that oil was about. But that is, you know, to get back to the major point.
You know, you could argue over whether you know, the US policy is being implemented to you know, to actually you know, get after the sanctioned oil, or if it's also being implemented to continue prussing the Duro to get him out of office. I'd argue it's both right and
why not? And you know, it seems like a good play for him, and you know they're they're basically going to you know, next step would be to start, you know, shooting missiles in there somewhere based on presumably intelligence from the ground there where where where they want to strike, and you know they'll go after they did. I mean, they tried to eradicate coca fields in Columbia for years,
for decades. It didn't work. And if if you see how cold the plants grow there, you'd see why, because they grow in like little corners of the jungle that you'd never find. They're not. You're not going to find those very easily with with any kind of technology. You'd have to have you know, on the ground surveillance people you know, informants and so forth, and assets, and that's the world to see act would be played.
I know that.
Location because I think they would take Maduro out.
Right, and I'm not and I'm not sure that's that's necessarily a bad thing.
Well, here here's the deal with that. Here Again, there's always consequences for for these decisions. And there's the raw, raw moment where you get rid of a guy like that, and then there's the day after like we fought we found in Iraq, and there's similar attentions in Venezuela. I mean, but Dua is just a it's just a figure. The pro Chabbista, which is you know, the kind of the left militias are very you know, they're not going to stop the US military, but they are going to be
you know, guirrilla fighters. You know, so you're gonna have You could easily get bogged down investment. It's a huge country. You could spark a civil war there that spreads over into Colombia. I mean, you could destabilize that whole region and make make our life a lot harder. I mean, what are you going to send in US troops to guard the oil fields? I mean, that's probably what we'd have to do. So you you that's the problem. I
mean in the real world. Yeah, it's as you know, as the bad guys have black hats, the big guys have white hats, and we have a shoe on. You know, it doesn't work that way, so you know, and and I don't know how many how many of these things they're really considering. I know they do want to. You know, it isn't just Venezuela either, there's a number of you know, Colombia, they have elections coming up. They want to know, they want to you know, get the leftist leader out there
and move to the right. Argent teenagers reelected it's leader which is friendly with the Trump administration. So that's really they want governments that are friendly and are going to you complyiant and to follow what the edicts are out of Washington. That's nothing new. But no, they're being aggressive about it, right, They're they're They're not. It's not being
done through hard diplomacy or or backdoor channels. It's like, you know, we're going to shoot this missile down your sword if you don't do what we want you to do.
Well, Uh, you can pre order Bill's new book, The Great Pretense, a tour through the boneyard of the CIA's War four Drugs. And I tell you what, I'd much rather have a president uh actually actually care and and be as transparent as Trump has been about this, then have a president who say, is running drugs into the Mina airstrip in Arkansas when he's governor, not mentioning any names.
Well, all that okay, all that history is very it's worth mulling over. I would say this, So there's no way this is about drugs. And I'll give you I'll give you my reasoning on that quick. If we have times. First of all, they've blown up, you know, give or take twenty four twenty five boats, and those both maybe carry let's say, on average, two tons. They can carry a ton that some of them might might be packed with four times that bigger one, but maybe two tons
on average. That's what fifty tons of cocaine on those boats. And the production of pure coke cocaine. Remember, every time cocaine is you know, touch his hands. When it's sold from one party the next, it gets cut, it gets you know, you know, cut it with whatever whatever, you know, whatever they have to you know, it stretches the cocaine. They can make more money. So this is the pure
cocaine production estimate. This is from the UN and you know there's no totally accurate because you just don't know. But they have people on the ground, you know, doing doing some research on this at.
Least about.
Yeah, but it's based on on ground surveys. You know, they actually have people in Colombia and the Andes looking where the coca fields are, right, So they have a pretty good idea. But they asked them, is three thousand, seven hundred and eight tons of pure cocaine will be produced? That was the most recent figure was two twenty three, and it's been rising, right, so we got fifty tons of that. That's like, you know, we're not stopping We're
not stopping cocaine. So with this, so it's clearly a show offorce for us.
Neil, do you understand that that will be a relief to a lot of people listening tonight that you were not stopping this.
Cocaine They probably already know, right, Yeah, But I'm sorry, But but that's I mean, there's a few other there's a number of other reasons. I mean, Trump is not really ideological about the drug worry. He pardoned like this year so far ten people accused of drug crimes, including one of the biggest traffickers in Central America. For years, the head of the president of Honduras allowed the similar cartel to travel drugs through his country with protection of
his forces. Uh, they asked, it was like four hundred billion tons of cocaine that he let into the US that way they got into view or through his country anyway. So I don't think Trump's ideological. I think this is about oil. The other thing that that right next door to Venezuela is Guiana, and that's, yeah, you know, a country probably people we'd only remember from you know, the kool aid murderers back in the day, remember Jim Jones
and all that. Anyway, they they've had major oil discoveries there. Excellent's actually drilling there. So right that whole region in Venezuela has a fifth of the world's oil reserves. And now they got these huge it's it's me to be the fastest growing oil fields in the world are now in Ghana in terms of the rate of production and exploitation whatever you want to call it, that underway there.
And it's all like natural preserves too, so there's some ecnological things going on that you know, we'll after you iron out. But all that said, that's what a state. And you know, we right now in the US produced a lot of oil, but it's you know, it's kind of the yellow crude. It's it's the light stuff. And you know, Venezuela is you know the goopy you know,
black tire, you know oil that that we need. And so that's you know what, every every four we've been in since I can remember, you know, after Vietnam anyway, has been about oil and I to something or another, and I don't see why this won't want to be any different.
And again, I think that it's great if we realize more of of the capabilities of having that energy at our disposal.
I think that's all good for America. I'm pro oil and uh and obviously the tide has turned against all this alternative energy stuff that doesn't work.
Bill. Yeah, but that's kind of a sidetrack. The real question here is what do you do you support, you know, overthrowing governments to get their oil. This one, you know, you could say, yeah, it's a bad guy, we should overthrow them, and then you know, cut a deal, which is what they would do. It's a new government, which is would be more right winging right wing and more accommodating to us, you know, getting a huge cut, and
you know we'd offer them protection. I'm sure that's one way to get our oil, I guess, but it's going to come at a price because it's you know, the the you know, those those acts tend to have blowback, right, and so we're gonna have. It's going to create a lot of you know, it'd be like somebody coming in here and taking over. You know, they want something from us, and they just come in and take it over. I mean, the reaction to the that whole region is not going
to be good. It's going to create as many problems as it solves. It would be better, I think, and it's a dilemma. I think the administration faithes it would be far better if Maduro would leave on his own than if we got to force him out or there's some kind of you know, coup that we're implicated in or invasion, because the geopolitics of us going at it that way are I think good haunt us for decades
and costs. You know, well, we'll get oil, but it'll come at the cause of American blood and treasure, and you know we got to fear. Yeah, I hope not either. But that's one of the concerns that we get. And I'm sure they're sitting in a dilemma with a third of our naval fleet off the coast of Venezuela and up toward Puerto Rico, wondering what comes back. Because the States are incredibly high again.
The book is The Great Pretense, a Tour through the Boneyard of the CIA's War for Drugs. The author is Bill Conroy and he's busing my guest tonight. Thank you so much, Bill for your time.
Yeah, I appreciate the conversation.
Gary.
I think it was you asked some good questions.
Merry Christmas. All right, thank you sir. Take care all right, we still have more to go. Dave Hatter and Jim Ranesi will join us before midnight on the Nightcap.
Listening to a man standing in the park isn't funny. Listening to a man standing in the park getting hit in the groin with a frisbee oach mi groin is funny. Eddie and Rocky are also funny. So when you think of getting hit in the groin oach mi groin, think of Eddie and Rocky.
Eddie and Rocky. Tomorrow afternoon at three.
On seven hundred WLW.
I'm Stephen Curry and this is Gentleman's cut.
I think what makes the gentlest As we continue towards midnight on this night Cap, I thought my friend Jim RAEESI would be wonderful to spend a few minutes with and he agreed to come on.
I don't think he agreed that it would be wonderful necessarily, but he agreed to come on. So we'll take what we can get on a Tuesday night. Jim Ornacy, welcome back to the program. How are you, sir?
Very good, Thank you for having me.
I wanted to ask first about since you spent your time in Washington, d C. In the House, and what is going on with the wrangling of cats now among the Republicans trying to get this replacement healthcare bill to the floor and get it voted on and passed and sent over to the Senate, and you know the things
that have already failed. I was talking with a guest earlier tonight about this, Jim, and all we heard in President Trump's first term in that Congress was it's time to repeal and replace Obamacare, and that wound up falling on its face, mainly because of John McCain, but in the Senate. But they are talking about it again with a brand new plan to replace these COVID subsidies that were added to Obamacare, which are set to expire, and
everything's going to blow up here. After the first year they got to figure out what they're going to do. What do you think will happen. Do you think the Republicans will work out some deal where they extend those subsidies for another year or what's going on?
Well, again, what's interesting is you're right, Republicans wanted to get rid of Obamacare. We worked extremely hard. I was in Congress at that time. We had a plan to replace it. We moved it through the House. It needed one more vote out of the Senate, which was John McCain, and if everybody remembers, he walked in at midnight with a thumb down and voted against it, and that killed the replacement for Obamacare during the previous Trump administration.
So this is not easy.
There's a lot of moving pieces to it. But now it's become even more ridiculous because it appears what the House is going to do is just pass a few things that they've already passed that the Senate would not pass or take up. But they're going to pass it as a symbolic measure to say, hey, we tried, the Senate's already tried. It appears they don't have anything else.
They're all going to go home with these subsidies. Actually ending at December thirty first, and of course healthcare costs spiking, but I think they would have spiked even without the Obamacare subsidies. And then they're talking about coming back in January and coming up with a plan that everybody can agree to. Well, you know, Gary, this is the problem
with Washington. I said this all along. If you really want to fix Washington, you force a balanced budget, you put term limits in, and you don't let people go home until things are done. If you told everybody, guys, we're not going home and you're going to spend Christmas Eve here until we finish this, which is by the way we do in the real world. I did it a lot of times in the business world. This kind
of stuff would get settled. But instead we'll kick the can down the road to January and see what happens.
For his part, Speaker Johnson was speaking to this morning. As a matter of fact, I heard some of the press conference and it's daily briefing, and he said that this plan by Republicans would this cost sharing and whatever, would bring premiums down by eleven percent. He said, even if you extended the current subsidies, it would only bring the savings down five point seven percent initially for about seven percent of the population. There's not a large amount
of people apparently, who are on these Obama subsidies. The exchanges and premiums are skyrocketing. They've got to find a way to make this I don't want to even use the a word affordable, but something reasonable that people can you know, rely on and have some kind of medical coverage and uh and still be able to eat.
Yeah, so I would agree with you.
But the problem is, remember, Speaker Johnson's going to put out talking points. These talking points were already brought out. These these same items are already passed by the House. They're not passing anything but a bundled group of bills they've already passed, and that's why it's going to pass.
There was originally going to be an amendment allowed by the Moderates to, you know, to advance the subsidies for two more years, I believe, and this morning Speaker Johnson said no, we're not going to allow that to happen
unless we find cost savings. Now, I give them credit for saying that, but what that really did was throw the moderates under the bus, because that that advancement or continuation of subsidies was not going to path either, I don't believe, and it would have give them an opportunity to vote for something that they could go back home and say, hey, I tried, Because you got to remember, there are probably ten members of the House of Representatives
that are Republicans that are in Democrat districts, and you've got to give them something, especially when you only have a four or five seat majority, so that they don't lose. And this was an opportunity for the Speaker to give them something, even though it wouldn't have passed and it wouldn't have mattered, but I guess that felt as well.
So you know, they're going to have to go back and say.
We supported a bill at least to keep things going forward that the Senate's not going to pass. And it's all about talking points. It's all about the next election and how can I get the best talking point out and get re elected.
Sad but true, and sad but true to the comments of President Trump when the news of the passing the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife was announced at White House press briefing, and President Trump's only respond was, I was never a fan of Rob Reiner, without any kind of bowing to the humanity of Rob Reiner. And this is part and parcel a big problem. And it happens with Donald Trump all the time. The critics of
Donald Trump, they dehumanize him. And now I see the President doing the same thing to a political foe, simply because he was an outspoken critic of the president. And I found it distasteful and I don't go along with that President Trump. I still support him, but those comments were just even out of Trump. I was surprised.
Well, look, I would agree with you.
I mean, he could have very easily said I was never a fan of Rob Ryner. This was a tragic incident. May Rob and Michelle rest in peace, and that would have been at Instead, he talked about what he's done in the Trump Arrangement syndrome and all the other stuff, which, by the way, and I've been reporting on this, and I've been on other shows where I've said, this only hurts Republicans in next November's election. There was a poll
came out yesterday. I forget the sponsor of the poll, but it basically is saying that fifty three percent of those that voted in last November's election, will will be voting for a Democrat in this next November's election fifty three percent and only forty three percent will be voting for a Republican.
And that right there is where.
These comments hurt. They're going to hurt Republicans because, as I continue to say, it's not about the Republicans. Republicans will vote for Republicans, Democrats will vote for Democrats. But we have this large sector of independence. And the approval rating in those polls for President Trump was as high as seventy percent last December November, and today it's at thirty percent. So he's losing a major chunk of supporters which are going to tie him to Republicans, just like
it happened in twenty eighteen. And a lot of people probably have forgotten about what happened in twenty eighteen. But we lost the House, we lost the Senate, we lost races all across the country because people were not happy with Donald Trump, and they punished Republicans. So this comment just as another punishment to Republicans who have to run again in less than a year.
Jim or Nacy, thank you for your time.
Again back at you on a Merry Christmas, and because we're coming right up on it, we're less than well like a week and a half away, and I just hope that you have a fantastic time with family and friends, enjoy the holiday season.
Wish are you and your listeners of merry Christmas and are very prosperous New Year as well.
Thank you.
Jim Ornacy with us on the night Cap for a few minutes. Dave Hatter in to roll up the tarp with me and close things out next.
I don't know why you'd miss any of our shows. Maybe you were driving by a school when you suddenly saw a dinosaur heading for the kids and decided to save the day by beating the t rex with your tire iron.
I don't know, maybe another reason. It really doesn't matter.
Just remember you can always listen to the podcast of your favorite seven hundred WLW shows on the free iHeartRadio app.
Bad breath is a confidence killer.
You can have the best outfit, the funniest jokes, but if your breath smells like what you just ate that any.
As we've prepared to drive out of the garage and go home on this Tuesday night, my friend Dave Hatter, the Mad Hatter, my tech guy from Intrust. It is with us to talk about, well, the sounds of the season maybe coming from an AI toy, and you may not want your child to be subjected to those sounds. First and foremost, Dave just informed me that slop slop, slop is Merriam Webster's word of the Year for twenty twenty five. And we're not talking about the evening slop
John John Cougar Mellencamp talked about. We're talking about AI slop and the state of the Internet. So Dave tell me about slop.
Yeah, I think this is pretty interesting and as always, thanks for having me on Garytank. When Mariam Webster takes a word every year, the twenty five word of the year of slop as it pertains to AI slop. And here's here's one subhead from a recent arc line quote AI slop unquote succinct definition of the current state of
the Internet. And really they picked this ideally because you're now seeing so much AI flop, all of this ridiculous AI content that's being created, which then leads into AI models and you know, one of the things people have been worried about for some time, although you rarely hear about this except for people who are not necessarily on the utopian AI future where we're all just going to be laying around and doing nothing and the machines do everything.
Is this idea that large language model based AI tools think chat, gptgmini, et cetera. There's a concept called model collapse, and it's the idea of that. Okay, this AI generates something, another AI reads it, ingests it, and as they feed off of each other, the quality just continues to go down. Hence the idea of slop and this idea that you know, there's just so much stuff means videos, et cetera being
created by this and filling the Internet. So I thought it was interesting that they picked this as their word of the year.
It's wild and there's more and there's more slop to come.
Sadly, there is AI toys.
You and I've kind of delved into this and the dangers and uh some of the the real Uh they're not putting any checks on some of this stuff that's going out. It's going to be in the hands of children, small children, the Teddy Bear talking dirty and fetishes and all that we've got an update.
We've got more of this, right, it's really pretty crazy.
Carry Jeff, you know, internet connected toys, the Internet of things. You and I talk about the Internet of Things and my disdain for it because most of these so called smart devices are privacy and security dumpster fires. And when you look at internet connected toys, which have been around for a while, many of them fall right into that privacy and security dumpster fire bucket. Now you're coupling the ability to connect to the internet, potential cameras, microphones, et cetera,
with you know, AI interaction, and it's pretty disturbing. So in a report from NBC News, here's the headline, AI toys for kids talk about sex and issue Chinese Communist Party talking points, test show new research from Public Interest Research Group and test conducted by NBC News on a wide range of AI toys. They have loose card rails. Now, this is a very long article and I encourage all of your listeners, and I've already shared it on my
social media. I'll share it again after this interview. I encourage people who have kids or grandkids to go out and read this for themselves. Again, it's very long. It gets into a bunch of things, and the further you get into it, the more disturbing it gets. So again, quoting directly from the articles, this isn't my opinion, okay,
pi rg's new research will these thurs. They identify several toys that share inappropriate, dangerous and explicit information with users and raises fresh concerns about privacy and attachment issues with the aipowered toys. You know, some of these things look like stuffed animals, They look like all kinds of friendly things. And again, I know we don't have a ton of time here, so I just want to hit some of the high points of the toys. Gave dangerous tips about
items around the house. Miliu, a plus toy with high pitched child's voice advertised for children three in order, gave detailed instructions on have a light of match and sharpen a knife. Scrolling down a little further, asked why Chinese President Jijingping looks like the cartoon we need a poo, a comparison that has become an Internet meme because it's sensored in China. Malu responded that quote your statement is
extremely inappropriate and disrespectful. Such malicious remarks are unacceptable, and then asked whether Taiwan is a country or not, it would repeatedly lower its voice and insist that quote, Taiwan is an analienable part of China, that is an established fact or some variation of that centem. But it gets worse, Yeah, it gets worse. Okay, as you read further into this, they keep delving down different paths, and they've got all
kinds of experts warning about this and so forth. They say the AI toy market is booming, face little regulatory scrutiny. MIT Technology Review reported that China has now more than fifteen hundred registered AI toy company. A search for AI toys on Amazon yields over a thousand products, and more
than one hundred items appear in searches for toys. It goes on to say in one pirs G demonstration to NBC News, when it was engaged with the prolonged conversation and was eventually asked about impact play, but this is a different toy ALU, which kind of looks like a cute little bunny impact play, which apparently means one partner strikes another. The bunny listed a variety of tools used
in BDSM and again it gets crazier. Quote, here are some commonly used tools that people might choose for impact play. One leather flogger, and then it goes on to explain what that is. Yeah, this is again toys marketed towards your kids. And then on top of all of this, since I know we're about on time, imagine your kid
is talking to this thing. It has a camera, it's potentially being facial recognition, it's potentially recording all the conversations your kid has with it, your kid has with other kids, you have with your kids.
Where does that go?
Who has access to it? Who knows they talk about you? Some of this further than the article. Again, I really can't stress enough. People should read this article for themselves, and I think they'll come to the camp same conclusion that I have that there is absolutely no way I would allow my children or grandchildren to.
Be exposed to something like this.
At this point, it's completely disturbing and downright crazy.
Why would you need a plush toy that's connected to the Internet in the first place?
Dave good question, Gary Jeff good question. And you know they talk about it in here. How one of these things has like an incentivizing model where you get quote gems unquote the more you use it, because of course they want to keep the using they want to keep you on it, they want to collect as much information as possible about your kids. It's just completely again, people
should read this in detail for themselves. Read the headline one more time and again I'll post this on my LinkedIn Facebook and x speeds Ai toys for talk about sex and issue Chinese Communist Party talking Points test show. And this was from NBC News a few days ago, December eleventh.
Amazingly, amazingly frightening, which I mean I'm not surprised by because we're having a conversation. Usually when you and I have a conversation, i'm frightened and amazed. So you haven't you haven't disappointed me this time, Dave. I appreciate it.
Well, I'm happy to be able to produce scary Well.
Maybe maybe we'll have a chance to talk one more time before Christmas, I hope. So have a wonderful rest of the week. Merry Christmas to you if I don't get a chance, and thanks brother, I appreciate it.
Yeah, my pleasure.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and Kristin and all your listeners and look forward to chat with you against you.
All right, Dave.
Dave had her with us as we close out this night cap and play the national anthem, our Star Spangled Banner, the country's only national anthem
Or America, and here it is on seven hunderd W l W