Buck’s First Thoughts - 12/21/20

COVID nineteen relief package for the economy. This is what we're talking about now, right, This is the way we're supposed to view this, is that Congress rides in to save the day. And I got to sit here and tell you, why did it take so long? Why did we have to wait for months? Businesses are going under, people are suffering terribly economically and otherwise from this. So what's the reason for this taking so long? Well, we

know the reason. We know why this took so long, and it's of course Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats were playing games here. They didn't want Donald Trump to have any assistance from the Congress doing what it should have done. Months ago, so she stood and blocked the whole thing. In fact, she's now agreed to less money than she was offered by Manuchin over the summer, by the Treasury Secretary.

So Nancy was so smart in these negotiations, or perhaps I should say, so concerned with the interests of the American people that she slowed this whole thing down under the premise that she wanted more. And now because she believes Biden has this thing all sewn up and it's all done. Now Pelosi is taking less money. Now Pelosi

is taking less money. Well, why does that do anything that should make us think that the Congress is even a little bit competent, or perhaps a better way of putting it, it's not really about competency at some level, isn't it, Because this is what they wanted. They'll tell us that, oh they stopped us, or the other side stimondists. But the Democrats in Congress wanted to slow this whole

thing down. They wanted to make sure that people were suffering from maximum misery, that the economic pain was at an all time possible high right before the election. Right, that's what they were hoping for. And now they're taking a substantially worse deal than what they were offered, because ultimately it wasn't about getting what's best for the American people, it was about doing what will benefit democrats politically the most. Here's what we get in this deal. Remember, this is

the government effectively giving your money back to you. So they've shut down businesses, they've shut down millions of people's livelihoods across the country. They've caused a at least a temporary recession in many industries. People are bankrupt, they've lost small businesses they've worked on for decades. They are facing eviction. There's a huge eviction wave that's going to hit in January.

People are going to be turned out of their homes. Well, now they're finally stepping in to say that they're going to try to prevent some of that. You've got six hundred dollars direct payments to individuals making up a seventy five grand a year, and you have payments phased out for higher run incomes, so with six hundred additional payments per dependent child. So this is kind of a means

tested situation. And with unemployment insurance, it revives supplemental federal pandemic unemployment benefits at three hundred dollars per week instead of the six hundred dollars per week that expired in July. Okay, so you've got a little bit more unemployment coming in six hundred dollars direct payments. It extends pandemic benefits for gig workers. This is all via the AP. Extends the

maximum period for state paid jobless benefits to fifty weeks. Total, brings back the Paycheck Protection Program, which provides loans to businesses that meet certain criteria. So the PPP comes back. Why didn't the PPP come back a long time ago? Ask yourself that why has there been such a PPP delay? Oh,

that's right. This was politics. This was Democrats making sure that there was increased suffering, that they had the ability, they had the ability to get, you know, to get money to the American people, but they chose not to. They prefer to do something else, and that was to wait and to make sure that the political fortunes of the Democrats were the primary consideration in the Congress, at least for the Democrats in the Congress, twenty five billion

dollars for a new rental assistance program. So these are funds that are going to be distributed by state and local governments, meant to help people falling behind on rent and who face eviction. So that's what they've got going on with that. Oh and then also surprised. This is another one. They have surprise medical billing, which protects consumers

from bills after they receive out of network providers. This strikes me as this doesn't really have anything to do with doesn't really have anything to do with the COVID relief package necessarily, or rather with COVID relief directly. But I do think that the stories you will hear about out of network benefits are stunning. Meaning the people will all of a sudden think that they're in network, they're

out of network. They'll get an anesthesiologist who will swing on by, and sure enough, the anesthesiologists will end up offering a bill for you know, forty grand or something crazy for what was supposed to be an in network procedure, so that I believe is ended by this surprise medical billing. So that's another thing added into this. Now, is this a terrible package? No, it is going to help. But

why wasn't this done in August? Why wasn't this done when the PPP ran out the first time, and I've really been hammering this home because the media is covering for them. It's Pelosi and the Democrats. They didn't want to do what they could to help people because they

were benefiting from the suffering of the American people. They were benefiting from people being in misery and losing money, being worried about losing their homes because at that point they just figured they'd vote for anyone other than who's purportedly in charge president of the United States. And it's also a reminder during all this, and this, as you know, has been something of a recurring theme here on the show, but it's a reminder of the fact that we aren't

all in this together. That was never true. Yeah, we all have to deal with the pandemic and with the changes in the world because of it. But for some of us, for some people in the elites, for the ruling class, for elite media organizations, they haven't suffered during this. They haven't had to have massive layoffs. They've been considered

essential workers. The politicians who have been telling many of you, not only can you not go out see relatives and enjoy even the most basic aspects of your day to day life. Those same politicians are out there and they are telling you that you can't open your business, but they keep getting paychecks. They keep getting paid, so we're not all in this together. They were not suffering the way that you were. I mean, Nancy Pelosi doesn't need

the money anyway. She should really give her whole salary to charity if she doesn't already. I don't know, got a very wealthy husband. So they allowed people to be hurt during this while pretending to care about you. This is why people lose so much faith in Congress in general. This is why there's so much outrage at the ruling class in this country, as there should be, because they tell you that they're doing things to help you while they're making sure that you are hurting. They tell you

that they are there to stand for your benefit. These are government mandates that cause these disruptions in the economy. Notice that you'll you'll hear this argument frequently. Oh, it doesn't matter that they ordered all these closures. Nobody would

go to all these businesses anyway. Oh really, why the closures then, because that's bull and we know it's bull, but they just throw these arguments out there trying to absolve those making these decisions of the responsibility for the disastrous, the utterly disastrous economic effects that have come from all of this. And what benefit, what benefit have we had as a result of them doing all these things? Oh,

you're not allowed to ask that question. California a masking and lockdown and social distancing exemplar for all the rest of us. That's what we were told. They were the epitome of listening to Fauci and the science as a state, and now they're having the biggest surges they've ever had, the most cases, the most people in ICU. California is getting hit in a way that is reminiscent, at least in terms of the percentages in the spike of what

New York was facing at the very beginning of the pandemic. Fortunately,

we have better treatments now. The mortality rate is lower, and there's a lot of reasons why it's not as bad as it was in New York and New Jersey at the time, but just in terms of overall cases and people showing up to go to the hospitalization, it has been an enormous increase in a very short period of time, and We've been told that California over the summer didn't get hit that badly because they were doing such a good job with all these mitigation measures, as

Fauci would call them. Why should we still believe that? Exactly? Show me. I just want to know where the evidence is. I can only ask questions about this now because declarative statements get me into all kinds of trouble. The social media censors come after me. You know, you can't say things like this policy did not work, did it? You

can't say that not allowed. But I think you can ask the question, how exactly show me how these policies are working when you have a city like New York with a one percent of COVID cases are believed to come from restaurants one percent, so they shut down all the restaurants because of that. Now, at some point, you see what we've lost here is the ability to make decisions as a society where we know that we can't stop all of this, and trying to stop all of

it becomes counterproductive. We no longer have balancing the risks that we're running by being out there living life with the risks of this virus. No, it's now just the people in charge have these dick tots. They just say this is how it will be, no matter how stupid, no matter how unlikely to succeed. And if you question that, they treat you like a virus truther, like you think it doesn't exist. Well, I've been wondering when people are

going to realize that. In fact, I tweeted out a couple of days ago, just wait, just wait until, because we're right right now, we're in this phase where we think it's all going to get better after the vaccine is distributed. Not on everyone believes that, but most people believe it's going to get a lot better off the vaccine.

I think the vaccine will help tremendously. But we also have to address this mentality, the mentality that there is no acceptable degree of risk from COVID nineteen, that there is no acceptable mitigation that we can do that isn't to the maximum right that we have to go. It's either exactly what they say or else you're reckless and your army people and you're putting Graham on Grandpa at risk.

And let me tell you this, as we continue to see how this plays out, I mentioned that all you have to do is Wait, and I put this out on Twitter. Wait until you start hearing about mutations and you realize that they're not going to give you back control over your life. How can they? There's mutations out there, man, and you gotta get ahead of this thing before it really spread. So you can't even wait to see what the numbers are. There's mutations. And now where are we?

The United Kingdom is in a most extreme lockdown it has gone to yet because they say they have found a seventy percent more infectious strain of COVID nineteen in circulation. That is a mutation. Oh that's right, we are. It's all going to get better if we just listen to the experts, right, How many of you still believe that? Thanks for listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast. Get the latest news and information from Buck by heading to

Bucksexton dot com. Here you go. Just as I was saying, just as I was telling, everybody, countries cut off as Boris Johnson holds crisis meeting on new coronavirus variant. Alarm over the new variant which was first identified. This is from CNN identifying in England as resulted in British travelers being cut off from much of Europe and other parts of the world as countries impose restrictions on travel from

the UK. France announced the temporary travel ban. The move has sparked fears that European exporters would be reluctant to send goods to the UK. The timing of the restrictions, just days before Christmas and the end of the Brexit transition period, raised concerns about food and medicine travel restrictions by dozens of countries across Europe, the Middle East, in the America's announced travel bands to the UK. Greece and Spain have imposed restrictions that require travelers from Britain to

undergo coronavirus tests or quarantine. It's just all over the place. What do we know about the new variant? The new variant can spread more quickly. Response well for sixty percent of new infections in the capital, which have nearly doubled in last week alone. He said that it's no evidence to suggests it's more deadly or neutralize the effectiveness of the vaccines, but a more easily spread virus could result

in more cases. Okay, there will be mutations to this as well, and there will be panic that is put in place by those making decisions, that's going to happen. You can basically it's basically guaranteed. Right now, they're saying, oh no, we the vaccine will still work against it. Okay, I think that's hopefully you know, from what we know right now, from what they're telling us, that's true. What

do we have with the influenza vaccine every year? That's right, you have a new vaccine for the flu every year? Does anyone Can anyone tell you definitively right now whether there won't be Wheeler will not be a mutation in COVID nineteen, so that would be COVID twenty or COVID twenty one or whatever. That will mean that there'll have to be a new round of vaccines distributed. I'm just saying this is something I believe we should all at

least have on the radar. We should at least be aware of this very real possibility because the people in charge, the people in charge are going to do everything in their power to continue to be in power and to make all these calls for you. They will not give it up, meaning that it's not going to be here. The guide here, the guidelines. Guys, you know, make decisions for yourself, try to be smart, try to be safe.

But we recognize there's only so much we can do. No, it's going to be more lockdowns, more lockdowns, more of this stuff, because they'll never admit that this wasn't really the answer. Even though the pre pent the pre COVID nineteen pandemic playbook always always looked at the possibility of a stay at home order, stay in place, freeze, lockdown

or whatever, and said this would be too much. So when they were looking at more, even more people dying from a lethal pathogen then we've seen from COVID nineteen, but they understood the societal and economic impacts of telling everyone you can't see other human beings as a mandate of the state. They came away from him and said, well, we can't. We can't advocate that as policy now. Now it's the default policy. You know, it was one thing

when it was all theoretical. I guess an academic, now that they're supposed to be the ones protecting us, now that they're the ones looking for answers, sure enough, they will not They will not relent. They will not go back and say hold on a second, Maybe we shouldn't have taken it upon ourselves to take away people's basic freedoms and to tell them that they're in no position to make these decisions for themselves. The government, the state has to step in and make these decisions for them

until the people say enough. This will continue. You know the old phrase, no one really knows where it comes from, but you see it all over the place. The beatings will continue until morale improves. The lockdowns will continue until the morale improves. They're just gonna keep doing it. They will not stop this because to stop it what also, and you have to remember, this would open up the possibility of us being able to see how dangerous this

really is. You know how different it really would be in terms of the danger if we just had guidance, but people living their lives versus mandates and closures and all the catastrophe at at a top this very awful, evil and lethal virus. We're told that this was a trade off to make everything less bad. There is the possibility that really what we've done is just added insult to injury in many of these cases with the lockdown policy.

Thanks for listening to the buck Sexton show podcast. Get the latest news and information from Buck by heading to Bucksexton dot com. Doctor Burke's not quite doctor Fauci, but doctor Burks. Remember her. She was a mainstay of the Virus task Force, a memorable for her very florid and intricate silk scarves up there during the Coronavirus task Force. Well, she over the months has become more and more of a mask. Mask masks, stay away from people. You know,

they have they don't have any real answers, folks. They don't know how to control all of societies that we stop a virus that has clearly figured out a way to be very easily transmissible among a huge number of human beings. So what they do is they just repeat themselves and then they blame us, as you know, that's really the go to. It's not that the decisions they're

making are insufficient to deal with this virus. It's that the people that are supposed to be engaging, the people that are supposed to be acting on the advice of these professionals, you and me were the problem. You see, we're the shortcoming. We're the reason that the virus still continues to spread. That's what the experts want you to know it's it's never that they need to rethink some of this. Have you ever heard have you ever heard Fauci or Burke say closing schools was absolutely the not

not that. Yeah, maybe we opened them, you know, we got to be careful with the mitigation. And no, no, have you ever heard them say closing schools because of COVID was a catastrophically bad decision rooted in panic and not data, because that's a fact. Will they ever say

it like that? No? You know why because Fauci's a big Democrat who's going to be working for Biden going forward, and he doesn't want to upset the teachers unions who demanded the shutdowns because they wanted their teachers to be able to sit at home on a couch and basically play a video and pretend to be teaching kids and still get paid and still get their benefits and not have to not have to even go through the bother of pretending to do in classroom instruction. So they won't

come down on that stuff. They won't tell you the truth about all that. You know, in New York they've had all these rules. Now it's really tough to even keep up with it. You had, No, you're not allowed in New York City, which, mind you, has half the COVID positivity rate of the rest of New York State. So we have less COVID in Manhattan, in New York City, well, New York City in general, but it's specifically in Manhattan than you do in a lot of other parts of

New York State with far less population. Why do you think that is? We have many more people, much greater population density, got hit so badly in the early spring. Could it be? Could it be? I'm asking a question, I'm making a declarative statement. Don't want any to you know, yell at me. Ssurology tests show that New York had a twenty percent COVID COVID positivity positivity a COVID syrology rates.

So when they looked at blood they found antibodies. The tune of one in five people in New York City had COVID antibodies as of I think it was either May or June of this past year, which was among the highest the country. And that's just what they were able to tell from the ssurology tests. Then do you think it would be by now thirty thirty five percent. Now that doesn't mean that people are safe. It doesn't mean the COVID not spreading. Clearly, it's still out there.

But when you have a much smaller pool of people who can be infected, they're all these they're all these blocks in the transmission route along the way, they are all of these places where you can see that somehow it's less less easy for this virus to reach that exponential spread. You know, even we don't understand this, the mechanism of this at all, at least I haven't seen anyone who claims to know why. Most people only infect one other person, and usually it's a person in the home.

So if that person the home has already had it, there's a good chance you, over the course of an illness, will not actually spread it to anybody, right because you only then they're the super spreaders. And I've never seen a real explanation for this. Maybe it's just people with extreme viral load for some reason, but they'll infect like a whole room of people somehow. At least that's what we've seen in different instances. There's a famous case in

South Korea. A woman I think went to church choir practice and all of a sudden, there were a dozen or two dozen cases. They are a huge and upper cases from what they think was one exposure based on the test and trace that they did. But in New York City we have lower COVID positivity rate than in the rest of the state. And we're not even allowed to talk about how we're doing so many more tests now that to comparing where we are now to where we were in the early spring and fall, it seems

like early spring rather. You know, it's a little bit apples and oranges in terms of how much COVID is out there because there is so much more testing now.

But the restaurant regulations are all you're really out there, know, I mean, they're picking on this industry that their best guess is was under two percent of new COVID cases we're happening in restaurants, and they're picking on this industry in ways that it's it's just mean, I mean, it's it's almost sadistic at this point with the stuff that they're doing to the restaurant industry. They said that you can't the people that are dining outdoors. It's freezing in

New York City. I mean, there's snow on the ground, it's freezing outside, and people were dining outdoors. They were told initially, you cannot go in to use the restaurants. I talked to you about this last week, and that was so dumb. It was Finally they finally reached a point where were so stupid and so counterproductive that they had to quote clarify it. But that was the guidance. They wanted people to go eat outdoors at a restaurant, which already is borderline nuts in the freezing called New

York City streets. I might do it if there's a heater, just because I want to keep some of these places in business. You know, people say, oh, why not just donate all the money? Well, I mean I also people need to eat too, right, I mean, you're spending money on food to feed yourself, and you want to keep the restaurant going, You're not. You know, It's it's a different thing than just saying I'm just gonna write checks to every business that's struggling. That's the government's job. Right now.

That actually is the government's job because the government has shut them down. But the restaurant restrictions even go beyond that. There's the ten o'clock curfew. And then there's the you can't if you do pick up. I think it's only you can't go into the restaurant to get it. They have to bring it out to you. They're all these rules, just annoying into oblivion the restaurant industry as it's being annihilated,

that's what they're doing. And yet again I mentioned doctor Burkes, who seemed to be the less totalitarian of the duo of Burkes and Fauci. You know, she seemed to be the one who is a little bit less extreme in these lockdown situations. And sure enough it comes out that she was telling everybody that you shouldn't travel over Thanksgiving. It's too risky. You cannot see your family, you cannot be with your loved ones. And yet what do you

think doctor Burkes did over Thanksgiving? It has now come out she traveled to a second home, to a country house, if you will. Traveled to a second home, and I believe it was either Delaware or Maryland. I forget, I think it was Maryland, but doesn't matter. Traveled to a second home where there were three generations of family congregating for Thanksgiving. And do you know what Her response was when this came out, was it, guys, I'm so sorry this.

I should not have You know, I shouldn't have done this. I clearly have said a bad example. No, of course not. That's not That wasn't her response. That wasn't what she said. It was I didn't really want to go, but we were trying to close the house up properly because we're trying to sell it, so you know, it's almost like

a business transaction. You could say that I was an essential traveler to my own home, like an essential worker, even though I is with three generations of family over Thanksgiving, as if we're all a bunch of idiots. Oh, she gathered with her family for them. She's an older woman. To keep that in mind, she's at risk from COVID herself. She gathered with family over Thanksgiving. But you're not supposed to and if you do it, you are reckless. That's

and you're not allowed to make the choice. Even they're going to do everything they can to stop you from going to these places. They're going to do everything they can't put in place. I mean in Oregon, right they had a sixth person in a household. Limitation can't go to church the way you want. You can't be inside your own home the way you want to. Here's one of the reasons why I'm so sick of these people.

And yes I am cynical about these orders that were given all the time, because I see them being just constantly absurdly abused. I mean, so doctor Burke's travels and then gives us a dumb excuse because you know, yet another person. None of the people telling you to live your life this way in constant fear, stay away from your family, don't see anyone. None of the people who are making the most noise about that publicly actually do

that themselves. What does that tell you. It's easy to call for the sacrifice of your business, of your mental and emotional health, from being separated from loved ones and family at all. It's easy to say just pretend like you're in a frozen state for the next three to six months, because that's the safest thing from this virus.

You can tell people that, you know, I could sit here and tell you, you know, if you really want to be lean and you really want to have a great physique, you know you should eat about sixteen hundred to eighteen hundred calories a day for a lot of guys in their late late thirties early forties. I can tell you that. I can tell you that that's also not something that I'm doing because I like food, and so I'm not going to pretend like that's easy advice

or that's a straightforward you know. Yeah, if you want to be like a mister Olympian or something, these are the things you do. But for the rest of us, we're not going to do that. The hypocrisy is just too much. The hypocrisy has become too burdensome for me to sit here and pretend like it's not driving me insane. A perfect example this is on Friday, I was hoping to have a relatively quiet night here in New York, so there's nothing. Look, I want to go back to

the normal life. So I also have better stories for you. I can travel, I can see more of Team Buck across the country. I mean, there's so many reasons, right, that's maybe, you know, on a list of a thousand things. I want everyone to be healthy. I want what everyone to be able to go back to work in their lives,

their businesses. But you know, I'd also like to be able to tell you better stories than I've been able to the last year, because when you're locked down at home all the time, there's just not a whole lot of a whole lot of interesting stuff to say about what you're up to. But I was. I was at home on Friday, and there was a party, a party that might a neighbor threw and it was allowed party at least. And I know the different parts of the building,

meaning what the layouts are for apartments. This is a one room apartment. This person has maybe six hundred, six hundred square feet, not a big apartment. I mean, I don't know. And some of you may think that's a pretty silently And I had six hundred squareoot apartment's pretty pretty tight, pretty cozy, certainly cozy and tight for over a dozen people. And there were at least a dozen or so people, maybe fifteen or twenty in what was probably a Christmas party. Now, look, I'm not I'm not

I'm not the party police. I don't care really. But the part of this that I find so interesting is that my building is extremely strict about masking. My building. You know, they will tell you go upstairs and put your mask on before you leave. If you walk around, if you're if you put your mask down for a second and you're drinking coffee and you don't have that coffee cup up to your lips for more than like two seconds, people are gonna come over and excuse me,

could you mask up again? I mean, that's they are. They are mask maniacs. Here the people at the party, all together in enclosed space for I mean, they were rocking out. It was. It was still going at one am, and they arrived around eight, so you know, they're up there for a few hours, indoors, closed quarters. No masks. Okay, I went up there. I said, no masks. I didn't go to the party, but I saw what was going on. And do you think what do you think they did?

As soon as they left the party where they had been with fifteen people or so all, you know, dancing and jumping around and all this stuff, I mean, not jumping or you know what I mean, partying whatever. But it was loud. It's a loud party. Obviously it annoyed me because I wanted to watch a movie in peace. Masked up. Got a mask up for that. Walk out of the living room, got a mask up for that. I mean of the a lobby. Rather got a mask up for that, you know, because that's that's really showing

how seriously they take this. Now to me, I look at this and say, what a farce this whole thing is, How absurd this whole thing is. Because if you're going to go to a party in closed quarters with a lot of people up close, and then you're gonna walk out and put your mask on afterwards, you're just doing this for show. And you know, Burkes and fouc you and they show up at all these press conferences where no one's really all that close to them, wear that mask.

You know, people have it on their their avatars on social media. Got a mask photo up? Now? Got to put a mask photo up? What? Why the whole port of an avatar so we can see your face? No one wants to see you with a mask on. But as we know, it's been politicized beyond beyond belief, really, and the people that are telling you what to do won't do it themselves, which is really all you have to know. You're in the freedom hunt. This is the

Buck Sexton Show podcast. Get more from Buck by following him on social media at buck Sexton on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. AOC got the vaccine over the weekend. AOC is one of the people you're seeing now who has been vaccinated. Now, now I have to ask, why are we vaccinating young healthy and this is this is not a specific AOC. I know there are others and this is the government's plan. So usually i'd bring up AOC.

You're gonna criticize her crazy left wing socialist policies. But I'm just saying she got a lot of attention because she has a huge social media following. She got the vaccine. What are we doing here? Why? Why? This is like a government continuity or national security thing. I mean, the chance of sowing AOC is like thirty years old. The chance of her getting COVID and it being any severe risk to her health is like one. Numerically, it really is like one in ten thousand. I mean it's it's remote,

it's a remote possibility. But she's going to the vaccine. This is gonna get uglier, friends, This is gonna get worse because the cases keep going up, keep going up. This mitigation stuff that we're doing, it's not gonna stop it. We all know that. I mean, we'll bring it down a tiny bit in a couple of weeks, they'll say, see it works, so well, maybe virus is gonna keep spreading. We're gonna keep having this terrible fight with people in

the hospitals and going to be losing people. We're gonna lose people, and it's awful and it's a gut punch, and it's been you know, twenty twenty is the worst year I can remember in twenty years at least. So where's year since nine to eleven? No question? And now we're starting to see that, yes, the vaccine is out there, but there's also a time sensitivity to all this. Who gets the vaccine first? I saw over the weekend there was a story that half of US states, according to polls,

think that minorities should get the vaccine first. I'm sitting here saying this is that this is creating very strange tensions in our country and in our communities. You should just be by age. The real, the real information we have on this that's global in nature, not just specific to America, is that this is dangerous to people in age categorizations and then with comorbidities on top of that, there's no greater risk based upon ethnicity that we know

of from this virus. It doesn't not exist, So why is it being treated as such? Why do we have that as a even a debate that's happening in the country right now. Shouldn't it just be along age lines? You're going to see this is going to get much nastier because there are people right now who are not getting the vaccine who probably should be at the very top of the list. I mean, AOC got it, she doesn't really need it based on her age. Demo and

other members of Congress too, Republican and Democrat. They're getting it. If they're young, they don't really need it. And there are people who are seniors who are basically, you know, at the highest possible risk of this, and they're not getting it. Yet We're going to lose some of those people. The government is at some level you're pinking who's going to live and who's going to die.