Dem Scrooges on Taxes

at eight four four nine hundred. Buck, that's eight four four, nine hundred two, eight to five the future of talk radio, Buck Sexton. On this vote, these are two twenty four and the knees are two oh one. The motion is adopted without a checking. The motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. Tax re form, Baby, they got it through. They did it. I gotta give a GEOP credit. Buck sex in here, welcome to the freedom hunt, my friends. They finally GOP Congress. They haven't answered to what would

you say you do? Here? We we just cut taxes one point five trillion dollars for of Americans and perhaps have set in motion or will set in motion as soon as Trump signs it, which has not yet happened. But that's gonna happen. Uh, even in our very uncertain political climate these days. Trump's gonna sign this thing, although not clear when exactly yet, we don't know, we can't tell you exactly when, but it will be signed. It's gonna happen. Now. They got the votes made, it made

its way through Congress. They have put forward a tax cut that's the biggest rewrite of the tax code in decades, and it's it's not a flat tax, not a fair tax, but it's a better tax code, which makes me happy to be sure this is there's a lot of reason for us to be pleased about this. We'll talk let's talk about that in the show today. We'll also get into some of the testimony based on the reporting, which, let's be honest, is probably based on leaks from the

closed door hearings about McCabe from the FBI. What that tells us. And we also have some other stories to bring you up to speed with. Will discuss national security a bit more in the second hour and talking about Nicki Haley saying that the US has taken names on the Jerusalem Embassy resolution. I like this. I think this attitude the Nicki Haley is taking is great, which is really all these countries that want to help, all these

different things. They think, let's let's understand what's going on here. They think they have a right to tell the United Eights where in a sovereign country, which Israel Is, that wants us to move our embassy to a certain city. They think they have the right to tell us where we can and cannot have our embassy. It's a very telling thing that so much of the world in this case not It's not just within the Arab Muslim world.

That's also a lot of your you know, a lot of European states get very uppity about this issue, a lot of European countries. But it's telling how petty it all is. It's it's really not about a peace process that's worthy of the name. It's just Palestinians in a constant state of agitation and hatred against their neighbors, and the Israelis just saying we're we're sick of it. And I understand anyway, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

We will get back into that subject in the next hour, and I might even talk to you about Mosle, where the casualty count is I think nine thousand to me. Killed is what I saw today, which is substantial. That's the last major city in Iraq that was held by the Islamic state, last important one. But let's get back into taxes here, because the tax issue matters a whole lot. It matters because of the narrative the Republicans can now deploy and will that we voted for them, put them

in office. They produced. They didn't give us everything we wanted, but they did something and it's going to be good. It will help businesses, it will help hiring. As I've been saying to you, I'm in favor of this tax cut. I just wanted to be the best tax cut it could possibly be. And I also didn't want us to be in a situation where we thought we were getting one thing and we got another. But this looks pretty good all things considered. Yeah, they carried interest loophole for

hedge fund guys and private equity. They kept that in there, which is kind of a shame. And Yeah, there's some blue states where a high property taxes are going to really start to hurt. It's gonna hurt. I don't know what it's gonna do. The real estate market in New York and Connecticut in California. But it's not gonna be pretty. It's not gonna help. It is a reminder, however, and this is something that I wish I didn't really know. But I'm not a homeowner. I never have been there.

You go, I just I just graduated from a one room domicile this year, so I now have two rooms. That's right, easy Street. I have been living in a one room home for many years before that, and I would tell you that once I speak to people who live in there. When I've spoken to people who live in these high property tax areas, I'm reminded that they don't really own their home. That's a misnumber. You rent

your home from the government. You just don't necessarily owe money to the bank if you own it, and yes, you can sell it, but each year you're renting it from the government because you have to pay money for the right to have a home in that place to the government. A real fast. I actually know of three different people who paid off their homes, retired, and then had to leave the state of New Jersey because property

taxes pushed them out. Yeah, there you go, said, you rent your home from the government, you don't really own your home free and clear, even when you've paid off

your mortgage. Oh, that's that's a real problem. And Entiron telling me that he knows people in New Jersey who in retirement have been pushed out of their homes, like they worked their whole lives, paid off their home, they own it, but they don't have enough fixed income to be able to stay in the home that they worked their whole lives to own because the government says they gotta pay more money. So I mean in New New Jersey, don't even got me started. There are like public school bureaucrats,

not teachers, public school union bureaucrats. In New Jersey. We're making like two d k. It's crazy what goes on in New Jersey. A lot of you're like, I know, Buck, I don't live in New Jersey. But the point is this is this is that's where people are going to feel the sting a little it of this tax cut package. But for everybody else it's gonna be good pretty much. It's I discussed it. The yes of Americans get a tax cut. The average cut is two thousand one four.

Eight percent will get a tax increase. So that's overall a very very good thing. It's not thrilling to see that Republicans haven't done a better job selling this thing. I guess they figured that among themselves they would get it done. And this is yet another situation to borrow from Nancy Pelosi. People are gonna pass it to find or it's gonna be passed, and then we'll find out what's in it. That's that's somewhat true here. And the more people learn about what's in it, I think the

more they're gonna like it because it's tax cuts. But the GOP didn't do a great job selling this, and the Democrats are just they're off on another planet with this thing. I don't even know how they I guess they don't care that what they're saying it's just monstrably and and aggressively false. But that's what's happening. You had what is a Congresswoman Spire right, she's not a senator, right, yeah,

Congresswoman Inspire saying the following. I mean she she had got a whole Christmas theme going on here with how the GOP or a bunch of grinches. So what we're doing here today is basically saying wealthy Americans, big fat Christmas present for you, tiny Tim. We're taking your crutch away from you and all the other kids in this country, and we're putting a lump of coal into your Christmas sucking. She was actually holding up a lump of coal, everybody. How long do they get took her staff to come

up with that gem of a little speech? There, tiny Tim, you've got a lump of coal. We had eight years of the Obama administration. Obama started out with the House and the Senate. What did they ever do for the middle class? They just I can tell you. I can tell you what the Obama administration, the Democrat Party did

for the middle class. They made for a vast majority of you who get your health care in the individual market, they made your healthcare really expensive and crappy, and for all the rest of us, by the way, they've also just made healthcare more expensive and more difficult to reform in a way that would make things better. That's what they did from the middle class. Other than that, nah,

not not a whole lot you can point to. And allowed a continued influx of illegal immigrants to compete with labor. I should know people to say this. They go, oh, it's not true. Illegal imrants don't compete for the job. They do the jobs Americans won't do. You can see there's a professor, I think his name is Professor might Professor Rojas at Harvard who has done exhaustive study of

just this issue. And it turns out that illegal immigrants, Yeah, if you live in Montana, illegal immigrants in Arizona don't affect the labor market that you're in. However, if you live in Arizona, absolutely does and it drives wages down. So it's a localized effect of a national problem. And that's how Democrats get They go, oh, well, at a national level, this is what wages have done in it. They try to hide the football. They don't want people

to know the truth. But the truth here with their tax cut, with the Republican tax cut package, is that this is going to be a an infusion of capital into the country, certainly into corporations, and you will have a T and T was tweeting out today that there was a thousand dollar bonus now coming for all two hundred thousand or some of their employees, which some are saying maybe has something to do with some merger or something. But let's not worry about that right now, shall we

It's a thousand dollars for everybody. Sounds good to me, and hey, even Mitch McConnell was in a good mood today. Last night, the United States Senate accomplished something really remarkable. Remarkable, after years of work and some parings, in an open process, we pass an historic overall of the nations txicoat It will deliver real relief to families and small businesses all

across our country, real relief. I think it will deliver some relief, for sure, but it has to now have many of the effects the market impacts that we've been told that it would. I think it will, but we probably need to get out there and make sure everybody understands they're giving people back more of their money, they're taking less away from the American people. This is a good thing. The whole issue of debt and depsit I talked to about it yesterday. We're gonna just leave that,

leave that hanging for now. We're not going to get into it because you know what, today's a little bit. It's a celebration. We're gonna celebrate a little bit on the passage of this historic tax cut. Paul Ryan, it's like, whoa are so excited? I've never seen them so smiley. Um, and he's a happy guy for what I understand. Eight

four four to five. I also want to take a look back, because I'll probably forget to do this on Friday because I just want to tell you Christmas stories and do action movie quotes and not really speak all that substantially about policy or what's happened the past year. Let's look at how the Trump presidency has been in from a from an accomplishment perspective, not like all you know, the fake news and the battles of the media and all that that's been great, and not oh, the Russia

collusion stuff. We'll talk about that in the second hour. I mean, what has Trump as president gotten done. I'm I'm wanting to talk to you about it because I know a lot of you already know this, but it's worth going over again. It's worth revisiting the accomplishments. And also I'm starting to see a little bit not not too much, but a little bit of a uh a softening of the anti Trump, never Trump line from some conservatives because they're looking back now that taxes, tax cuts

have gone through, looking back at this year. And I know he's not Hillary is not enough. That isn't enough. But this is a lot more than just being not Hillary. There's there's some real reason to be pleased with what's going on. And look, the country country is doing well right now. Think about how well before I even get into the accomplishments, think of how well the country would be doing if instead of a multibillion dollar industry, you know,

news industrial media complex, Democrat media complex. If instead of talking to us about treason and Russia collusion, are all this, you're hearing about highs in the stock market, four one percent unemployment, three growth this past year, hopefully higher growth next year, and all these companies that are looking to hire and get revved up and things get going and we're not all bogged down, and you know, the President

lecturing us on thirty seven genders or whatever. I mean, there's just a sense of sanity that we're getting from the government now with the cutbacks and regulations, a lot of stuff going on. I think it's really good. We'll talk about some of that after the break, and then maybe a little more on this tax got packed. I even had we got to hear from Trump himself I'll give you some of that, some clips of the man himself after the break. Stay with me. This is going

to mean companies are going to be coming back. You know, I campaigned on the fact that we're not going to lose our companies anymore. They're gonna stay in our country and they're gonna stay in our country. And you've been seeing what's been happening even at this prospect, but they have tremendous enthusiasm right now in this country. And we have companies pouring back into our country, and that means jobs, and it means really the formation of new, young, beautiful,

strong companies. So that's gonna be very very important. The pass through, as you know all about, and the small businesses are gonna be big beneficiaries. We are going to bring at least four trillion dollars back into this country, money that was frozen overseas and in parts and worlds, and some of them don't even like us and they had the money. Well, they're not gonna have the money long and uh so it's it's really I guess it's

very simple. When you think you haven't heard this expression, but we are making America great again, you haven't heard that he just went maga right there, he just did it, making America great. Against the top of the show, He's it's a it's a happy day for Trump, happy day for the GOP. And I'll give you some of the in review Trump's maga plans. How have they gone? In just a bit here? But first Beverly in Florida on w f L. A Hey, Beverley, A right back, how

are you? I'm good? Thank you for calling in. Um. I just wanted to say that in a way, and it's so ironic. The congresswoman, why right about the tax bill taking the crutch away from tiny tail, because it does take the crutches away from people and give them the freedom to walk on their own. Ah, all right, I see you're you're taking this, uh, taking this analogy and running with it absolutely all right, Beverly. Well, so you're happy about taxes, Oh, incredibly happy about taxes. Who

doesn't want more money in their paychecks? Well, but you're in Florida. Is it a little rough of the property tax situation or not that bad? Actually I'm a renter, so it doesn't affect there. We go like it alright, Beverly shield tie, thank you so much for calling in. Um here we go, Yeah, me too in New York. I'm like, you know, I got nothing to write off because I don't know anything. Uh you know, Ms Molly. I was trying to watch a movie with her over

the weekend. We're going, we just got a TV that, you know, I gone from having like no TV to a small TV that was only internet and now like a big TV with a cable box. I've I've succumbed. And we're trying to watch a Christmas Carol. And she doesn't know she's never seen the story. She doesn't. I know she doesn't. I'm like, how have you not seen a Christmas Carol? Or you know the I feel like I've seen the Muppet version of cartoon version, a live version.

It's you know, this is yea God bless us everyone, right, I mean, you know, come on, this is I don't know, Ebenezer Scrooge. So I gotta find the best version of it. The one that I was trying to watch with there was like Patrick Stewart and it wasn't it wasn't that good. If there's a better one, someone let me know what the best version of Christmas Carol's Maybe it's the muppet version. Who knows, but I was trying to watch that over

the weekend. John up in Alaska, k e n I what's up, John, Merry Christmas and I hope you have a very good Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you too, John. This SAX really will help everyone in the and it will help everyone even in states where they have high taxes and high um property taxes. The reason is that will start making people wake up, wake up how well they're seeing that if you go to a liberal state like Massachusetts or New York City area, the amount of

money squander, the amount of everything is unbelievable. And when people start realizing they're having to pay for it entirely, they're gonna start wanting a little accountability. But what I wanted to talk about is you mentioned about mckeeth. One of the things I had dealt with in Alaska. I'm trying to deal with Ted Stevens. The FBI was brought in from Washington, BC. They for bad local FBI to do anything, and they brought on their people and they said they were all And I called him up and

talked to them. And I also worked for the FBI. UH through the years. But that's a whole another story. And they said they were only going after Republicans. The hell can you do that? I laid before them illegal action of Democrats and make it John, We're covering a lot of ground here, buddy, but unfortunately we're about to run into a break. Man. I appreciate you calling in and shields hie to you, uh, and Merry Christmas to you. Let's talk about was it trump tastic? As America been

made greater at least, if not great again? Uh, we'll talk about it. And eight four or four to five, light up those lines, be right back if notten think about it. This president hasn't even been in office for a year, and look at all the things that he's been able to get done. I share will in many ways.

I just hope that we all get behind him every way we can, and we'll get this country turned around in ways so we'll benefit the whole world, but above all benefit our people and bring us all to a realization of how really great America really is and how the rest of the world depends on us. Senator orn Hatch making some very good points here about the year in review when it comes to President Trump and his

agenda and what's happened. Let's do a quick just glance over what and keep in mind this is all stuff that only happened because Trump was able to defeat the most unified Democrat media apparatus in history behind the candidate, with the exception of Obama. Right, I think Hillary will be number two in terms of how much the media wanted her to win. Obama was number one. And we look back at what happened, and here's what I think comes to mind. People have this thing now about but Gorsage.

But Corsage, Well, that's a big deal. It's more than just sitch though. We have a Supreme Court justice who is a constitutional originalist. You have tax reform now, you have the cuts that everybody will feel in their pocketbook. You're gonna have more money in your bank account now

thanks to what Trump has done. And by the way, you probably have more money in your bank account in the future because of increased wages, assuming that all this happens though it's supposed to, and money comes back from overseas repatriation, increased investment and hiring by companies that have more cash on the balance seat sheet because they're not paying it out in the form of taxes and maybe hopefully higher way just bigger paychecks too, not just the

government taking less of your money, but more money in the marketplace to pay you. That's a part of this as well. Um there is also but on the notion of judges alone, twelve federal appeals Appeals court judges have gotten through this year. Obama's before Now, there's there was that guy recently who didn't do so well and his hearing okay, but he Hey, you know the process worked in a sense. Have you ever tried a case in court? Do you know anything about the law? No? Do you

know anything about this at all? No? Uh, that guy's stepped down. He's not he's not going to be a judge. But twelve federal appeals court judges have gotten through this year. It also reminds me of one of the enduring and very damaging legacies of the Obama administration is that I think about a third of the federal judiciary at this point, our Obama appointees everybody for a long time. Those are

lifetime appointments. Guess what that matters. You see how much it matters with the travel ban, right, some of these judges out of the Ninth Circuit and elsewhere. Putting partisans on the bench has long term implications for a whole bunch of things. Again, even we can just begin to imagine. So twelve federal Appeals Court judges, now that's another check

we've withdrawn from the Paris to Court, which was just nonsense. Right, we no longer have a president who in the national security strategy talks about the imminent threat of climate change. How a minute, right on, like a hundred years, there's gonna be like an extra three inches in two degrees, and you know that's gonna be really bad. I don't think that's enough for us all to be deeply concerned right now, especially because they've been wrong and wrong and

wrong again with all those predictions. I will never forget if we don't have the audio now just coming to my mind, but when President Obama told the I think it was the Coastguard Academy at their graduation, the climate change poses like the most imminent as existential threat to the United States something along those lines. That was not a direct quote, but and I just wow, crazy talk. But a lot on the left we're clapping, Oh, it's brilliant.

So course's tax reform, twelve federal appeals court judges, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord. There's also the elimination, which we just found out last week of net neutrality. So there's that which I have enjoyed a lot of the commentary online and on TV and else where are people are saying, you know, if everyone's gonna die from net neutrality, how could everybody also die from the tax cuts.

It's a good point. If everyone's already dead, I don't know how the tax cuts can kill them because net neutrality is already it's like uh mad Max out there. Because of net neutrality, you know, we're never good. It's never gonna be the same for us. Until the Internet was the wild West and then came along and the regulators like wider made it all better. Um, but that's

not how that's not how it happened. You also have a huge number of federal regulations that have been either truncated or eliminated entirely, and very few of any federal regulations passed, which is a dramatic departure from the past. It is, in fact true when you're talking about the federal regulatory machine doing nothing is doing something, because doing nothing is much better than continuing to strangle businesses and

American ingenuity and entrepreneurship and freedom. Yeah, that's right. By coming up with all these laws by these bureaucrats sitting around, they're not laws passed by Congress, but they have the force of law. The fourth branch of government, I'm gonna talk about the swamp. The bureaucracy is a huge component of the swamp. The unaccountable bureaucrats who decide that a pond in your backyard is a wetland and if you don't get rid of it right away, they're gonna find

you thirty thousand dollars a day. As if anybody could actually deal with that, anyone could handle it, it's just insanity. Uh. And then there's some other important federal actions that are either ongoing or that get less attention. Work at the working to reform the v A that's going very well. And there's just a lot of stuff here that we

should be pleased about. And I think that because the media narrative has been so hysterically anti Trump, even those of us who support the agenda sit around like, well, how is it really gone? Not Hillary that's true, and that's great, but it's actually from you. If you are a conservative in this country right now and you look at what has happened in government. I don't mean tone, I don't mean tweets, and don't mean any of that talking about government action or oh, the defeat of the caliphate.

By the way, there's also that. I'm sorry that. I'm glad I call myself there. Those would have been ashamed, but I left that out and I should not have. But the defeat of the caliphate as well under this administration's all this administrations uch. So if you are a conservative who has had your misgivings about Trump, even if you're a conservative who to this to this day, you don't like Trump's tone, you disagree with his style, you

disagree with his personal choices or whatever. But you're just looking at what has happened this past year, what the federal government, what the White House, the executive branch has done. I think, if you're being fair minded about it, you have to be pleased. And a lot of your like bom Buck, I'm more than a little pleased. Yeah, I know, But I'm speaking specifically now to that part of our conservative brothers and sisters out there that they have been thinking.

They've been thinking, Oh, I just I can't accept that. I can't abide a Trump administration. I'm still never Trump and you know, really be honest about it. And I think you have to come to the conclusion that it's been a good year for the conservative agenda. It actually has. It's not perfect. People could talk about things that should have been done that weren't done. Obamacare, I know here

upset it. And the individual mandate is being repealed. When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means Obamacare is being repealed because they get the money from the individual mandate, So the individual mandate is being revealed. So in this film, not only do we have mess of tax cuts and

tax reform, we have essentially repealed Obamacare. Ah, I mean not really now, to be fair to what he said, he said essentially, he did not say repealed because clearly I did not repeal in a place Obamacare because there was that whole effort to do it over the summer didn't work. Those you listen to the show. No, we've been talking about that, okay, But what the repeal of

the individual mandate is is a it's putting. It's putting in ocean a series of events that will lead to either the repeal of Obamacare or just the enshrinement of Obamacare into law forever. Because what's gonna happen is the exchanges. People are gonna pull out of the exchanges because they don't have to get insurance, and those who don't really want to get insurance usually the ones who are only doing it because they don't want to pay the penalty.

They're younger and healthier, so they are going to say, you know what, I'm just gonna stay out of this thing because we're not gonna be paying I'm not gonna

pay a penalty anymore. And what that means is that the insurance exchanges are going to have a higher proportion of people who are older and sicker, and the expenses will go up, and these things are going to create a really fast This is kind of throwing gasoline on the already smoldering reality of Obamacare exchanges, and it means that there's going to be a quite a fight ahead because understand this, the pain in those exchanges and the skyrocketing premiums that will come as a result of this,

and that will happen. It's not like they're gonna say, yeah, see, freedom has been restored in the in the healthcare market now for at least for individual plans. Obamacare. Obamacare is terrible, right guys, And Democrats are gonna say, yeah, sure, No. Democrats are gonna say that Republicans just sabotaged Obamacare and that now it needs money more than ever, and they're gonna tell you all these cases of people that are going bankrupt in the exchanges or whatever. Right, they're gonna

have all these stories for you. It's gonna be a big fight. So to say it's essentially been repealed. No, it's forcing a showdown, is what it's doing. And it is amusing to me to see all the different pundits out there saying, fifteen million people, he's taking away their insurance. No, he's just saying you don't have to get it. There's a difference between stealing something from someone and saying that

they don't have to buy it. Right if I used to have to buy a uh, I don't buy orange juice on the way into work every day because I was mandated by law. And now they say, buck, you're no longer mandated by a lot of buy orange juice. They're not stealing orange juice from me. This is pretty straightforward, but that's the way it's being reported. Oh, they're stealing health insurance from fifteen million people or thirteen million people or whatever it is. No, they're just not making them

buy it. If they want to buy it, they still can. But I will know. I would note that as people choose not to, more people will want to choose not to, because you're just gonna have the death spiral within the exchanges get faster and faster and more and more extremes. So there will be a fight over whose fault that is and how it should be fixed. I hope Republicans are prepared for it. I am worried that their messaging game a little weak right now. Think about it this way.

If they have had a hard time getting a majority of the American people on board with literally keeping more of their own money, imagine what the debate will be like when it's democ rats doing all the fearmongering, all the scary stories and everything they're gonna do from the healthcare exchanges. They're gonna say this is because Republicans destroyed Obamacare. It's gonna be a fight. So it's not really repealed. The individual mandate will go away, but that means that

these exchanges are unsustainable. And if Republicans say, oh, we're just gonna shovel money into them because we have to, because it's a short term fix, and that's what was being talked about over the summer, I would note that's that's a big betrayal of what has been promised and what would be done by this Congress. So we gotta keep an eye on them. All right, I got a

bunch of lines. Let me will take some calls after this break eight four to eight to five if you want to join in on the fund next hour, we'll talk about what we can. When it comes to the testimony of former FBI Acting Director McCabe, it's either no, well, what's the uh what's his title now? Anyway, he's a senior FBI guy. Whatever. We'll talk about what he had to say about the dossier and Fusion GPS after the break, stay with me. Oh yeah, we've got some funky Christmas

tunes going here, like it. Take some of your calls. Brent in New Mexico listening on the I Heart app. Hey, Brent. Hey buck, she'll tie, She'll hi, buddy. Hey man, I'm pretty stoked about the the tax reform. I don't know if you call it reform, tax tweak, or whatever you want to call it. I mean he gives me a couple of extra thousand dollars. I mean I might be able to take my kids to Disney World or something. You know me, Hey, you probably see Paul Ryan there,

because after today he sounds like he's going to disney World. Yeah, hell yeah, speaking to Disney World. Did you see the picture of that trump bot at uh the Hall of Presidents? Have you seen that thing? No? I haven't seen it. Oh, gotta google. It's pretty wild, man. But anyway, other than that, I just want to tell you if you haven't seen it,

Scrooge with Bill Murray. Tyrone had the same In the break, Tyrone had the same idea said, if you're looking for a fun version of a Christmas Carl to watch, Scrooged is a good one. Yeah. This hands down the best. Begs a strong word, strong word, but I highly, highly, highly pressed my wife to watch that with me every year. Man. It's a good one, alright, cool. I saw it a long time ago. I feel like my dad took me when I was in the theaters, but I I don't

really remember. But I'm I'm a big Bill Murray fan. Always have been, always a lot of respect for that guy's body of work. Oh yeah, he's one of my favorites too. Yeah. Absolutely, brother, Thank you for listening, and have a great Christmas. I'm merry Christmas. Me Meani Meani in California. On the I hearty, Hey Meani Hi bought Siels High Fields High. You're actually very nice though nothing goodhead,

so I wanted to let you know. So. First of all, I'm more of a traditionalist on a Christmas Carol, and I liked the version that was what George she C

Scott played Um Scrooge. But the reason I wanted to call was to tell you there's a new movie out called The Man Who Invented Christmas and it is the story of Charles Dickens and how he came upon writing the Christmas Carol story, events that happened in his life and people that he met in his life, and it kind of puts it together in a really neat package. It's not in a lot of theaters, but it's I think it's well worth seeing. So it's in theaters now or it's I mean, could I could I watch it

on demand? You know? Is one of those things. No, you can't watch it on demand. You have to go to a theater. But you'll probably have to look on san Dango and find out where it's playing because it's in the smaller theaters. Okay, I'll definitely check it out. Thank you so much, Thank you so much. Me to have a merry Christmas. One more thing, uh call me beer. We really want to see him back. He's back. You have you have my word on that. All right, you

have my word on that. Be the Bearers back. We've got some This is perhaps where I could tell you guys, we've got some some changes coming in seeing here on the show. Whole bunch of things. I've mentioned the history podcast that will be really in addition to the show, but it'll be a it'll be an extension of what we're already doing here in the Hut. We have a I kind of have to wait on some of it to announce it until the new year. But there's there's

things that things are in the works. This is it's been a great year here because of all of you, and that means that we have latitude to make some changes and and have the full support of Premier, our syndicator, our bosses, to do some things to bring you an even more exciting product. In so I'm very much looking forward to that. I know that's that's really vague. So it's like I'm trying to sell you on a car that you can't see, and I won't tell you the price,

but trust me, it'll be good. It'll be good when it happens. And I think I will have to check out some of these new new versions of h the Christmas Carol. So that's so funny in this money, I couldn't believe it. But then again, she found out recently. I've never seen check this out. Never seen the movie Greece never. I know, you guys are freaking out. How is that possible? Especially for a kid that really grew

up watching a lot of movies. Never saw it, and I know the songs and everything, because you know who doesn't never seen the movie. People always like, yeah, I love John Travolta in Greece, and I'd be like, yeah, me too, just because I don't want to be left out, all right, FBI testimony. McCabe, the Deputy director of the FBI,

the Dussier lou dossier. We will talk about that and uh a whole bunch of other stuff, some national security coming at you in the second hour today and that means just kind of way through this break and I'll be right back with it, so uh, don't touch that dial. So huge tax cuts passed today. Well done Congress, Well done g O P. That's the biggest story by far. It's gonna help with the economy. It's gonna put more

money in your pockets. Lots of red and to celebrate this, and is a a really great way for the GOP to be heading into the new year. The optics of this are very powerful, very strong. That's something else happened today and I wanted to talk to you about a bit, and that is that former acting current Deputy Director of

the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Andy McCabe. He spent eight hours today behind closed doors with the Senate Intelligence UH Committee, and he has asked all kinds of questions about the dossier. Now we don't know, but it has been suspected for a while that McCabe, whose wife was running as a Democrat in a House race around the maybe a year before, around the time of the election. Uh and got a lot of money from the d n C and had those ties to Terry mccauliffe Virginia and McCabe, I'm guessing

is a Democrat too, right. We all know this, Okay. So McCabe has all of these ties to the various figures in the Hillary email investigation as well as the Russia collusion stuff that's out there, and he was behind closed doors for eight hours today and we don't yet know all that much because the FBI, and this is

not surprising to me at all. The FBI and the d o J are falling back on one of the government's favorite tricks, which is when pushed into a corner and asked, even in a closed door setting where they can discuss classified for information, they either say that they can't talk about it because it's an ongoing investigation elsewhere, or they don't know, they don't recall and we have some reason to believe that, or we have some reporting

that that is exactly what happened today. M Molly Hemingway, who is a Fox News contributor, shared this earlier today. McCabe couldn't recall quote despite reported existence of docks with his signature establishing his knowledge of the dossier's financing and providence end quote. They asked McCabe behind closed doors, did you guys did the FBI pay money for the dossier? Which is a question that that that's a yes or no.

This is this is pretty easy. You know. If I asked any of you, did you have a Rebby stake tonight for dinner, that's a yes or no. It's not I'm not sure. And if you had a Rebby, by the way, good choice, probably my favorite cut of meat. But he said, McCabe said, didn't know about the dossier. McCabe said, sorry, couldn't. Couldn't figure it out. And then there's also reporting on Fox News that McCabe couldn't. I love these I these are leaks, but these aren't damaging leaks, right,

there are leaks in their leaks. Should people be talking about what was said behind closed doors in the Senate INTELLIENTCE Committee meeting? Technically no? But are these leaks that will endanger anybody or anything? No? All right, this is just what's going on, at least from what I've seen so far. I mean, I'm I'm not privy to all the leaks, but from what I'm seeing here reported this

is pretty small time stuff. In fact, it's just leaks about non information in a sense, leaks about information that was not gathered, and that in and of itself tells us a lot. Here When asked if McCabe could give one single allegation credibility from the dossy, remember this is the dossier compiled by Fusion GPS, paid for by the Hillary campaign by the d n C to discredit Donald Trump.

That could, and I think most likely was, could have been the basis for the whole counterintelligence probe, all the stuff that you've seen about these Russia ties and all the and the collusion and everything else, because they've already been shaking the trees, as they say, turning everything upside down with investigators for months, spending millions of dollars and haven't been able to give us one single bit of actual, real, bona fide Russia collusion, right, nothing but the dossier and

all of its allegations, which include some really people keep describing it as salacious. It's a word that's been used a lot more this year because of the people know what a dossier is, and they know what salacious is, and they also know what a certain type of shower is. Now because of the of this whole situation, and they couldn't verify any of it, which is an interesting thing for them to have to say, especially given that this may very well have been the basis for all of us.

And I think the FBI at the top level has got to be pretty scared now because this would be Let's just assume for a moment it comes out that the FBI paid fifty dollars for this dossier, which was already paid for by the Clinton d n C. Right,

so they would be paying for oppo research. The FBI would have been duped into taking opo research during a presidential campaign using that opposition research that they had paid money for, if that is in fact what happened as the basis for actual investigatory steps, including using the resources of the intelligence community to try and verify this stuff, and then when they didn't find anything or they didn't find what they needed, selectively leaking information they had leaned

from that process to undermine and hurt the incoming administration, most notably the leak about General Flynt's phone called this ambassador, Russian ambassador Sir Atkisliak Goola. It's fun to say. So there's a lot riding on the provenance of this dossier. There's a lot that's at stake, and that you had the you had Rosenstein number two at d o J saying sorry, I I do know if the FBI paid money for it, but I will not say it because there's an inspector general. See this is what I mean.

There's always the pivot. Oh sorry, Congress can't tell you because the Inspector General is looking at it and I don't want to interfere with that investigation. Oh rather convenient, isn't it. But for eight hours behind closed doors, they

were asking the cave questions about this. And when all said and done, we will find out if the FBI paid money for this, and I they were to find out a whole lot more about the political biases of various figures involved with both the Hillary email investigation and the Russia Trump collusion debacle. You have to think about

it this way. Once they had already made the decision, going back to that series of events that I lay it out for you, right, dossier Hillary pays for the dossier, or rather the d n C. I'm not gonna say that. Hillary is like, I'll pay you, but the dossier gets paid for by the d n C. This guy, Christopher Steel runs around Russia is talking to all these people. They say all kinds of stuff, nasty stuff about Trump, not not none of which has been verified to this day.

But anyway, they come back after getting all that information and then they go to the FBI because a Fusion GPS employee also happens to be the wife of a senior d o J official. So it seems to me that Or's wife may who worked for Fusion GPS, may have said to him, Yeah, look, there's this dossier that we've got. You guys have got to take a look at this. This is really this is really some stuff. And as a bunch of Trump haters, they're like, oh wow, yeah,

this is all really believable. And then the FBI takes it and they go, okay, well, not only is this the basis maybe for counter intelligence investigation, but do they take that to afis a court. People have been asking that question and then they opened that when we're talking to counter intelligence investigation, understand that means they're bypassing all the standard protections that US citizens would have for communications abroad.

Right there, they're getting around those usual Fourth Amendment protections because it's not count it's not there's not a criminal predicate. It's a counterintelligence investigation. So if you're speaking of people abroad, right, that changes the story all of a sudden. And that's how you can get conversations picked up, you know, Flynn

and Kisliak and these other things. So if they used the dost see you to do that, and then they went all the way with it and picked up all this information, and they're assuming the whole time, keep in mind that Trump is gonna lose, and so Hillary would come into office then and it wouldn't really matter. Right, they were on a fishing expedition. Maybe they could help Hillary think about their perspective. Maybe they could have helped Hillary. The d o J and FBI officials involved in this

help her push it over the line. Right, Maybe they were in a position where they could say, oh, by the way, you know, something gets leaked that destroys the Trump campaign and make sure Hillary wins. Then all this stuff about the dossy it never comes out. Think about which way the gamble would have gone. Here, everyone thinks Hillary is gonna win, so they're looking all this information.

They figured they've they're gonna nail Trump on something. All it takes is one leak of really damaging stuff which they never really got, and that could ensure Hillary win. She becomes commander in chief. Guess who gets the gets get to the hero treatment. Then anybody involved in d O j R FBI in that whole process, and they know the dirty side if it's never gonna come out. So there you have it, right, What I just laid

out to you make sense. What other people talk about all the Russia and Wiki leaks and everything else doesn't make sense. I don't even see the pathway they're trying to draw here. And that's why McKay behind closed doors today and or yesterday is so interesting. Although I would note that a lot of like I don't know a lot of can't give you an answer on that for

things that they certainly have an answer on. So will we Will we ever really get to the the bottom of what was done at d O j n FPI to try and subvert the Trump campaign and hand it to Hillary. I'm hopeful but I'm not certain that's where that's That's the best that I can give you on this right now. But I would ask you to really think about the series of events that I described to you and whether at least that's plausible, and and then look at what we already have information where we can

fill in the gaps. We have facts that we can use to support that narrative versus the other narrative, which is that there was like some meeting in Trump Tower where they said they had information, there was no information, and who cares? Right, I just and so what But that's Russia collusion. No, there had to there had to be something else. What was that something else? I'm I'm certain at some point, my friends, we will get to we'll get to that place where Democrats will never meet

there are wrong. They'll just focus on something else. There'll be some other shiny object you know. Oh, you know Trump is the emoluments clause. Yeah, that'll get him out of office. The moment they have a majority in the House, they will impeach it, or they will begin to get in the process of impeaching them. It will happen because they don't have that and have a compelling enough candidate or platform to oppose the Trump agenda, especially given what

we've seen this past year. And they're still running stories. I'm literally sitting here with you and they're running stories on seeing about firing Muller would be a gross abuse of power. He said he wasn't gonna fire him a few days ago. How is this even a story? Senator Mark Warner is just warning everybody all at all, it's would be a gross abuse of power. It's like, actually, no, actually no, I'm not gonna happen. Alright, team, We're gonna roll into a quick break. We'll be back and again

in some national security here in a few minutes. Stay with me, just on the subject to taxes, and it's a great day. It's a celebration tax reform, tax cuts gone through. But there was an exchange earlier today that I'm meant to play for you, and I want to make up for that miss right now where you have This is one of my problems with the format of a place like The Today Show formerly known as Matt

Lauer is I don't know, Love Grotto. I mean, you know that the Today Show with Matt Lower Yeah, I know, but you know, but he earned that one. I mean, uh, it is a place where one moment they're like, hey, like, let's all make the best scalloped potatoes for summer, and the next minute they're like, excuse me, Mr President, UM want to ask you a serious question. It's like, come on, come on, guys. I I look looked. It makes like I half a billion dollars a year in revenue. So

they know something I don't. I guess, but it doesn't mean they're smart. Just means they know what they're doing when it comes to advertising, sales and getting people to watch. So Savannah Guthrie, who you know? I want to I don't know what does Savannah Guthrie know about anything? It's a fair question ask. I'm not clear on it. But she decided to go toe to toe with Paul Ryan, and not just toe to toe on the issue with taxes, because look, she's an American citizen. She wants to ask

him tough questions. She's a she's a journalist. That's fine, but you know, I mean, Paul Ryan is kind of a numbers guy. It's sort of what he does. But she even asked him, she even got a little she got a bit saucy, a little sassy with the Speaker of the House today, let's play that clip. Not only where are we gonna let you bring your money back from overseas, which is trapped overseas. We're gonna tax you at a rate that is that is on par with the rest of the world. But we're gonna give you

an incentive to invest in American jobs. In American businesses, you can write off your investments. So if you do it in America, and the studies are really clear, workers benefit, wages go up, more jobs occur. Are you living in a fantasy world? Are you living in a fantasy world? Now there was more to that question. She she was quoting a but better who are you living in a

fantasy world? That's not really uh? You see, this is where this is where the bias and the influence the Democrat media comes out right that that's not a question they would ever ask. You know what Obama was saying about healthcare, about Obamacare, We're gonna give more people healthcare. It will be better health care and will be cheaper healthcare.

Nobody was ever like, you know, that's kind of like telling somebody that we're gonna come up with a jelly donut that you can eat that costs you less than jelly donut's normally cost and you can eat as many of them as you want. You won't get in anyway. It just doesn't work that way. It's that's just not reality, right. But Obama was saying that about healthcare, and it wasn't reality.

You're not gonna be able to cover more people with better health care at less cost without changing anything else, so than just saying that that it will be so, and with redistributing the already existing healthcare resources, which is all Obamacare's. Obamacare is a redistributive mechanism. It's taking for some from some to give to others. It's it's social justice via healthcare. That's the shorthand. But that's the truth. Back to Paul Ryan, though, it's Savannah Guthrie. Oh, she

said before that are you living fancy land? CEOs aren't waiting on a tax cut to jump start the economy, a favorite phrase of politicians who have never run a company or or to hand out raises. It's pure fantasy to think that the tax bill will lead to significantly higher wages and growth. And that was from Michael Bloomberg. She was quoting Bloomberg, and then she said to him, are you living in a fantasy world? Um? So, Paul

Ryan pushed back on this. He said that surveys show the vast majority of businesses are gonna do just what we say, reinvest in their workers, reinvest in their factories, pay more people, higher wages, and more money. I just wouldn't I wish that. Paul Ryan's response here wasn't a survey, says, I wish it was. Let's take a company, Savannah. Let's and you know, let's take the the Great Widget Factory of Omaha where they make widgets, right, which is not

a thing, but you know, that was what came to mind. Um, you know they make let's let's let's even give it something else. Let's say, uh, the great I don't know, the Great hat factory. Right. So they they've got costs, and they've got they've got expenses running the business, they've

got employee, they've got payroll. But they export hats all over the world, right, and they've even set up they've even set up some hat factories in you know, Guatemala and Malaysia because it's cheaper there, and so they're they're doing their hat thing, and now they might be bringing back some jobs into Omaha because they won't be making hats. It's not as profitable for them to make hats overseas, although that's mostly you'd make them in Guatemala and Malaysia

for labor reasons, not for tax reasons. Necessarily. You get the idea, right. I just wish Paul Ryan, who looks at the numbers all day, would walk us through a case study. I think that's a much more powerful way to explain to people about how their wages will go up than just to say, well, the surveys say, you know, come on, Paul Ryan, just she just called you out, you know, she said, you're living in a fantasy lands, hiding hiding behind Michael Bloomberg's words while she does it.

But I just wish Ryan was a little This is the thing with Republicans. It's one of the things about Trump that we really need to keep in mind that they're not good at They're not good at the UH, at the war of words. They really aren't most of the time. You know, Mitch McConnell, these guys, you look at Pelosi and Schumer, Yeah, they're liars, wildly dishonest. But Pelosi is out there like people are gonna die because of taxes, and you know what, some people believe that crap.

Chuck Schuber's like, this is terrible, and everyone's like, oh my gosh, Struck Schubert says, it's terrible. Meanwhile, you got Paul Ryan who's sitting there. He was like, well, if you look, if you measure ebitdab, then you take that off from the off balance sheet expenses of the cume. It's like, no, Paul, she came at you gotta come back with some noise. You gotta Yeah, it just wasn't strong enough for me. Just wasn't on that on that exchange. It's a note from me, Paul. Right, but tax reform

one through. Let's talk about national security. My friends are buddy. Stephen Yates is online. He is the CEO of DC International Advisory. He formerly served in the White House as Deputy Assistant to the Vice President for National Security Affairs. Stephen Yates, great to have you, Great to be with you. Buck. All right, Steve, talk to me about Nicki Haley and this uh that the taking of names as she has put it on the u N resolution in Jerusalem I

like this, Oh, I love it. Uh. And I think the idea of accountability arriving at the United Nations is refreshing and as we both know, depressingly new as a concept. But frankly, a lot of our competitors and adversaries over the years have been taking names and pushing their agenda. And it's about time America stood up and said, you know, we've got a policy. We have sovereignty. Were recognizing the capital of another sovereign state that happens to be an

ally and it's you're gonna go against it. We're keeping names. Uh. And frankly, you're a bunch of hypocrites. Given that every member of the body is a nation state that shows its own capital. It's kind of amazing to me that that we're at a point Steven in the Israeli Palestinian issue conflict that the international community or whatever whatever we want to call it, seems to believe that they can

tell the United States where embassy can be. That that's it just seems like such a nonsensical position for them to hold. We can put our embassy wherever we want, correct, and we usually try to play nice and we'll go where the host nation would like it to be. But

other than that, really it's no one else's business. And you know, we have a couple of parts of the world where, uh, the alleged educated classes forced the rest of us, if they're lucky, to suspend disbelief and pretend we can't see with our eyes or here with our ears and just facts on the ground. One of them is in the Middle East with disconflict, and the others

in China and Taiwan. And we're supposed to just ignore who really has sovereignty and who has control and where a democracy is and just listen to what the experts tell us. But I think in this case, we've got a president and a UN ambassador that's speaking squarely from common sense facts, with the American people behind them, and probably with a lot of the world saying, yeah, what

are the rest of you guys talking about? This is Israel's capital, Stephen the The situation with China came up in multiple parts of Trump's national security strategy, which was unveiled earlier this week, in which he gave a speech about and and the focus tends to be on how we can deal with China economically without rilling them up too much politically because we kind of need them on

North Korea and some other things. What what would you advise a Trump administration in eighteen to do Visa v. China that we are not already doing, or that we need to do a lot more of. Well, first, uh, you know, having somewhat been in the arena, I would give some deference to the people who have to make

the tough calls on how to manage risk. But as one of my friends once said, the further I get away from real responsibility and decisions the White House, the clearer the solutions are, and the more the brilliance of my idea has become clearer. So I think I I can see much more easy solutions to North Korea and not having the responsibility. But they've done a lot of the things to right the wrongs of the past. First, they haven't taken the bait on trying to buy the

threat again. This is tried in the Clinton administration and the Bush administration, both times spectacular failures. So they've at least first done no harm. They've put more sanctions in place. I don't think we're going to sanction away at the North Korean nuclear threat, but they are the right policy moves. Ultimately, you have to put pressure on China, and that's the judgment call they have to make. How much risk are we willing to play in our economic relationship with China?

We're in order for them to feel enough pressure to alter their national interests with regard to North Korea. And so far no one has been able to find that formula. When people talk about pressuring China, and they say often to pressure China to pressure North Korea. Right, So it's like a transitive property of pressuring here. But if we're looking for levers to get changes in Chinese behavior economically,

what what what is that? I mean, I've heard people say, I've had other experts on the on the show in the past even who would say that we're in a one way trade war. We just refused to admit that even that's too much? Is that is that true? Do we respond in kind? I mean? What what is our leverage with China economically? Access to our market, access to the fine international financial system? Uh? And it's basically the

reputation of their state owned enterprises, including their finance two institutions. UH. And those are you know, that's a little bit of a word sell it. So my apologies to the listeners, But what it really comes down to is the one time we really had measurable movement on China's part is when we made any financial institution with exposure to North Korea a potential money laundering concern. And that was jargon that would have denied Chinese financial institutions access to United

States markets, and that gets their leader's attention. Uh. And the problem was we sold that back to them at too lower price. The price was resuming multilateral talks instead of some kind of actualty nuclearization. UM. So at this point, how far we've given, how far their programs have gone. I don't know that we can expect the nuclearization. Uh. We're really looking at how do we mitigate threat and how do we improve some sense of deterrence and missile

defense which will always be imperfect. Were speaking Vegnates, the CEO of d C International Advisory If formerly in the White House's deputy assistant to Vice President Cheney. Uh, Stephen, what what is the national security issue that would if you were close to the corridors of power again, if you are next to the decision makers as you used to be, what are you worried about. Well, for me, we still have this problem of our borders are getting

more secure, but they're still poorest. We still too many people who have overstayed. We don't know with enough surety who's in our country and what they're doing. And I still am very, very concerned about people who have been radicalized, who can do small or large things to disrupt our transportation and power networks and conduct small, small scale terror inside the United States. And I think that was always something at home is always going to burn the brightest

and hardest overseas. Just think that the multitude of challenges that China presents is going to is going to be the biggest challenge in and the years going forward. It relates to North Korea, but it's not limited to that. It's trade, it's commercial espionage, territorial claims, their military modernization, proliferation UH and basically their aim to basically do whatever it takes to take us down a notch and gain influence and primacy. And I think that that remains the

single largest strategic challenge for the United States. And just one more for you, Stephen, the Mid East. I think that it's interesting that the Trump administration doesn't spend more energy and time. And I've not been critical of this, but just as as a as a free suggestion that they're not going to listen to the caliphate has been defeated on Donald Trump's watch, I think they should make

more of that. There was some talk about that today when Vice President Tense had his term to speak, when the congressional leaders of joined the president to celebrate the tax reform. Uh, and that is the first very clear call saying yes, their caliphate's capital has been decimated, and UH, this is a major, major accomplishment. And really, as since it's that time of year, if you look back at this year, that movement on isis uh this tax reform, deregulation,

a Supreme Court justice. This is an incredible year of political accomplishments if you could just filter the distractions out along the way. Totally agree. Stephen Yates, everybody, CEO of DC International Advisory. Follow him on Twitter at Yates d c A. Stephen, great to talk to you, my friend. Have a merry Christmas, a happy new Year, and looking forward to have you joined us more. Thank you, buck my pleasure of Merry Christmas YouTube. All right, team, when

we come back. We're gonna go from uh the expertise and insights that we just heard too, the food fight online right now that involves people going back and forth with Rosie O'Donnell, who, it seemed to some of us kind of sort of maybe tried to bribe a couple of U. S. Senators today when it came to the tax reform vote by offering them millions of dollars on Twitter.

Oh oh yes, we will go there, we will discuss, and then third hour, we got a whole lot more lined up for all of you, including North Korea stealing bitcoin. Talk about it, Stay with me. I don't know what's more annoying that Rosie O'Donnell offered on Twitter to bribe a couple of U. S. Senators with regard to their votes all over the tax bill, or the fact that Rosie O'Donnell probably actually does have millions of dollars with which she could theoretically bribe U. S. Senators. She's got

bank I don't know how. I haven't seen her tie nose, I haven't seen her anything in for ever, and yet she's she's got a lot. It's got a lot of cash stashed away from I guess the night. I guess she had a big nineties. She was big in the nineties. That talk show was number two to Oprah every single year she had it. It was huge that Rosy show was the number two talk show. I had no idea. I don't I do not watch daytime talk stuff like that before she got political. Right, Wow, that's amazing number

two to Oprah. So yeah, she's got cash to burn. Which, if we're gonna talk about the whole men's ray component of this offer, you know that that the ability to actually follow through on a conspiracy or two to engage in it in the acts necessary for a conspiracy to be taken to fruition are legally important. Here's what happened today. Rosie o'donnald Uh sent out some tweets late on Tuesday night, and she offered two Republican senators two million dollars in cash.

This is what the tweet said. It's on Twitter for everybody see. I'm sure she's got over a million followers, right, I mean, she's got a huge amount of followers, which, by the way, what is wrong with this country when I see some of these people that have millions of followers I'm like, who who wants to know what Rosie o'donnald has to say about anything? But Tyrone just told me she was crushing it and talked television for or Dasi TV for a long time, which I don't even know.

So okay, uh, I was busy doing other things. Apparently all Rosie o'donald was doing her show. She said this on Twitter, So how about this? I promised to give two million dollars to Senator Susan Collins and two million to Senator Jeff Flake if they vote no. No, I will not kill Americans for the super rich. No profanity word, two million dollar cash each, she wrote, telling the lawmakers that she would send them a direct message in on two it or if they were interested. As we know,

that didn't work. Senate Republicans pushed it through fifty one to but some people were pointing out that this is the problem that offering to bribe. Offering to bribe members of the Senate is highly illegal. You could actually get fifteen years in federal prison for it, and you can get enormous fines, But as we have just discussed, apparently fines wouldn't do that much to deter Rosie O'Donnell. Now,

I know what people are going to say. I know that they would respond, Oh, she was kidding, Okay, I mean you know we can take that position, we can say to each other. Oh no, she must It must have been a joke, because nobody would be that dumb. But at the same time, who would be so dumb

as to write such a tweet? I did see the exchange with but it was Ben Shapiro pointed out to her on Twitter that this was very illegal, and she wrote back a a rather profane response to uh to our friend Mr Shapiro, and it got a lot of attention on Twitter. But this is just another instance. I remember I was talking to you yesterday about the social signaling is kind of a it's a term that sounds

like I'm in a sociology class somewhere. But the tribalism and the perception of cool the Democratic Party has created, and that really has fused itself into the synapses of so many of these celebrities, such that a really rich celebrity like Rosie o'donald, who the tax code changes will not matter to her one way or the other in any meaningful sense, and she has no idea really what

the different points of the tax code are. She just knows Donald Trump is gonna sign it, Republicans are doing it, therefore it must be bad at and she's going to share that with millions of people who will also come to that incredibly, uh, uninformed conclusion. And that's how you get fifty per cent er. I don't really believe those polls, but you've got a pretty large percentage of people overall who are of the mindset that this tax cut is bad.

Democrats have been able to convince, with the help of celebrities and other income poops out there, that a little bit of your money going back into your pocket is a bad thing. Which if you asked anyone on the street, as I've been saying, he said, would you like a little more money? The answers yes, would you like two thousand dollars, which is the average they say for a middle class family that they'll get back onto this time.

Find me somebody that's walking around on the street that you say, would you like an extra two grand in cash? They would say, no, No, I don't I don't want that's a terrible idea. I have no no interest in that at all. Yet if you walk around and say, hey, what do you think of Donald Trump's tax plan that will give you two thousand dollars in cash in your pocket when it's enacted. Uh, they'd say, well, you know, I saw Rosie o'donald saying it's really bad. You know,

I trust Rosie. The problem with our our celebrity culture is that now we are also saturated in media all the time that all of the dumbest Hollywood celebrities who have enormous followings, which is a failing of our culture. I will say I have never and this is way before I was in media too. This isn't like, oh, you know why I want, you know, fifteen million followers like I want Lady Gaga's number of followers. I mean,

obviously I do. That'd be cool. But the point I'm making is that even before I did this, I never would have cared what any of these people said about anything. Yeah, sure, will I go see movies that have you know what? Would I go see a Matt Damon movie even though I think Matt Damon is politically an ignoramus. Sure, because I don't care what his politics U s are. That's also why I would never follow him on social media and care about the latest flights of whimsy from Matt

Damon's mind. I just have no interest. Why do people care? It's it's a frustration for me and Rosie O'Donnell getting all this attention. I know, in a sense, i'm I'm part of the problem, and that I'm talking about Rosie o'donnald and that she shouldn't really matter to any of us at all. But it was kind of funny to see that. I will tell you this, I don't think she meant to bribe those senators, but I don't think she realizes that it's a that that it's a fifteen

year federal prison sentence for doing that. I bet she had no idea. So while I'll give her the benefit of the doubts, she wasn't actually gonna give them each two million dollars, which I'm giving her the better of the doubt on that, I promise you if somebody had been like, hey, Rosie, what do you think would happen if you actually tried to do that, she'd be like, you know, I slap on the wrist, you know, no, no,

no big deal. It's like nope, Actually, it's like, really serious prison time, like you're going away for a long, a long while. Um, it will make the hiatus of her fame since her show in the nineties or whatever looked like nothing in comparison. So there you have it. Rosey O'Donnell offered to ingest bribe some senators. And now I see James Clappers back on CNN. They they cannot they cannot get enough of James Clapper on CNN. Just the more Trump derangement syndrome former officials they can put

on air, the happier they will be. It's it's really appalling. I've been very upset to see, well, not upset. I don't get upset about these things right now. It sounds like a snowflake myself. And it's been very annoying to see some of the analysis out there about Clapper and how Trump is being handled by Putin like a Russian asset. It's it's just gross. All right. I'll want to talk about this time about North Korea and Bitcoin. It's gonna be a wild ride, so stay with me for that.

You are now entering the Freedom Tactical Operations Center. All visitor programs must be keVs strictly need to know Team Bucket is cleared and ready for the buck Brieze North Korea.

I spoke to you yesterday about North Korean hacking operations and the concerns that continue and actually just get worse all the time, about how North Korea is trying to use cyber operations as a way of not just engaging in offensive military operations and trying to commit espionage and steal UH state secrets, trade secrets, whatever they can in the North Koreans are out there trying to pilfer information and also trying to get there get their bank account

to go higher. UH. This is the latest we've got, though, and it involves bitcoin, which that kind of a wild ride from what I understand this week in terms of the price UH. Bitcoin is either symbolic of a whole new era of finance, or perhaps it is symbolic of the tulipmania that the country is currently and we'll see which it is. I don't know quite what the answer is, but let me talk to you first about what's going on with this North Korean heist. This is from the

Wall Street Journal. Investigators in South Korea are looking into North Korea's possible involvement in a heist from a bitcoin exchange that collapsed on Tuesday, according to people familiar with the matter, as the sanctions choked regime develops new ways to raise money. The investigation into the hack, led by South Korean law enforcement and a state cybersecurity agency, is still in its infancy, and a review of the malware

code could take weeks, the people said. But the people si that there were telltale signs and historical evidence that North Korea, which has turned in recent years to increasingly sophisticated financial warfare, was behind the hack of the Soul

based exchange you bit. The same cryptocurrency exchange operating under a different name, was targeted in April by North Korean hackers, according to sources sided by the journal UH, the company that operates you bit suspended trading and file for bankruptcy

after Tuesday's hack. So here's the problem, um, As I've been saying to you, North Korea can get on the Internet just like anybody else, and they are realizing that theft of whether it's of any kind of information is much better if you can just do it through electronic means. You don't have to take any risks to your personnel.

It's a much more straightforward proposition to just hack. Now, what stops people in some countries at least from trying to hack into international banking system or or bitcoin exchanges.

Running of that is that there are extradition agreements, or in cases where there wouldn't be extradition or we wouldn't be able to necessarily immediately work through law enforcement to get somebody who was a hacker uh either handed over to us, or they wouldn't take care of it themselves because there's or they would take care of it themselves

because there's rule of law. We usually are able to exert some degree of pressure right to get them to accept societal and international societal norms and international law when it comes to the Internet. But there are some exceptions

to this. We could ask the Russians, hey, hand us over that hacker, and I have a pretty well given that they've given that they've provided asylum to Edwards Snowden, I think we could all guess it's very unlikely that the Russians are going to start handing over high level hackers to us anytime soon, unless for some reason they upset the Russian government. Same thing would be true of China.

And because it is. That's just because these are states that are large enough and powerful enough that they won't uh bend to US pressure on some of these issues. And then with North Korea, because it's already a pariah state, there are only there are there are really no options for us. If somebody is able to operate on North Korean soil and hack into a US bank or a bitcoin exchange in South Korea or anywhere in the world for that matter, we can, you know, do whatever we

want at the United Nations. We can get all upset, we can pound the desk, so to speak, but it's not gonna do anything. So this is a vision I think of the future. This is what North Korea is going to be doing, and it shows you how sanctions

are always going to have holes in them. I think the Trump administration is making the right move by trying to cut North Korea off from the international banking system and and limit the regime's ability to get the hard currency reserves it's so desperately needs for well all purposes, but specifically to keep it's very expensive nuclear program and its military going. But they are also in a an

adaptive organism. The North Koreans are able to look at what's going on but the sanctions regime, and because they don't care about the law, they can find all kinds of criminal enterprises to engage into raise money and cash around the world. This is also why North Korea is

a true menace. But one of my major concerns about this and now this is transitioning a bit into bitcoin producer Amy and I and Tie have been trying to get a there's a handful of bitcoin experts that I really want to have on uh, and they're just they've been tough to track down, but we we hopefully in the new year, will get some of them to join. Because there's only certain people that I really want to have talking to. You would present it as an expert

on the subject. There's a lot of people out there who are like, yeah, I've got pit coins, I know everything. Uh, It's incredibly complicated. It's complicated because it creates a there are there are two areas where you have to have a real conceptual and philosophical understanding, and it's in technology, but it's also in currency and money and markets. So perhaps this is an opportunity to give a short primer from what I've learned from a lot of reading on bitcoin.

Here's what's going on. Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency. A cryptocurrency just means that it is a a digital store of value, and you actually mine bitcoin through computing power. In the past, it was a lot easier now because of the competition for bitcoin. I believe you actually would spend more money on electricity and computing efforts to try and make a bitcoin. Uh in a vast majority of circumstances, then you would

get from the mining of the bitcoins. But for those who say that it's not money, and this is a this is a very complicated philosophical area. But for those who say that it's not money, I just say, well, what is a dollar bill and why is that money? It's a piece of paper. Bitcoin is traceable and bitcoin also employs a technology called blockchain, and blockchain is a

a fascinating and possibly world changing kind of technology. It means that a ledger, so I think of it like a spreadsheet or you know, a booklet of information alleger of all bitcoin transactions is kept via blockchain technology. Blockchain means that each and every individual that is involved in any of the transactions has a record on his or her computer all of all the transactions. So it's like everybody has the copies of everything that has gone on.

When it comes to bitcoin transactions, it is unlike what many people say. They say, oh, it's great for black markets, and it got this really bad reputation. Bitcoin in fact,

is highly traceable. It is completely transparent in the sense that you will know about all transactions because it's almost impossible, when you think about it, to be able to break into all these individual computers around the world and change all of the change all of them perfectly and without anyone knowing, so that you can alter the record of bitcoin transaction. So those are two different things, and a

bitcoin in blockchain. Blockchain is the technology that is used to keep track of the transactions of bitcoin, which is

a cryptocurrency. So this would mean that the big implications for the future are that if you could transfer money easily and from your martphone to someone anywhere in the world and create absolute trust in that transaction, a lot of middlemen, a lot of third parties, all of a sudden no longer really hold meaning I think major banks, I think some of the institutions that currently get billions and billions and dollars of fees just to create, on the one end, the belief that if you transfer money

to somebody else there's a record of it, it will actually happen, it will go to that person, and it will get done. If bitcoin means that all you need is an Internet connection, it just completely changes the global financial landscape of money transferring and and banking. It would

transform the banking system. So in that way it is fascinating, and then you immediately start to think about that, or you're brought into discussion about whether or not bitcoin has value right now, it's what what's where does it stand right now at the last count? I mean, I could I could tell you officially what the the price of a bitcoin is um it's been of sixteen thousand right now, so one bitcoin is sixteen thousand dollars. That's up from

less than I think less than a penny many years ago. Uh, and people are very worried that there's a mania going

on and that the price could entirely crash. I've also heard people say that if bitcoin and blockchain technology together are what they are believed to be, and that we are in the early stage of of getting to that, bitcoin could be worth many many times what it currently is, which seems astonishing, But when you think about the rise that it's had in the last year, it's either transforming finance and banking and the global financial system this technology

and the notion of cryptocurrencies, or it's some kind of a mania and bitcoins could all just crash because you know who knows. You get into a very deep philosophical question though about what is money, and people would say, oh, well, money is you know the dollar bills that I have. Well, first of all, how many of us even really use money in our day to day transactions? Now? You mostly or in many cases at least use credit cards, You pay through your bank account, you have a routing number.

That's the way it's done, right. I know one shows up that I know of a New York City, for example, to pay their rent in cash, And if you did it, probably want to know if you're running some kind of a grow operation or something, so people pay using electrons. Already, electronic transmissions are in essence currency, it's and it starts to get weird. I know you just thinking about this, you're like, well, paper which is not even backed by gold anymore, because we got off the gold standard that

has value because they say that it does. Why doesn't bitcoin have value? And you know, you ask someone that question and it's very tough to get answers. There's a limited number. I think there's twenty two million bitcoins that will that are in total circulation as well, and they really can't be counterfeited because of that blockchain technology. So that's a little bit of a background er on bitcoin. I am not a bitcoin expert and the people who are there are very few who truly are, and we

will get one on the show as soon as we can. Um. But it's also a tremendous opportunity for rogue actors, whether states or individuals, to try and steal now that these cryptocurrencies are worth so much money, we are in a new era when it comes to the security of this of this data. And like I said, sure, North Korea, we might know that they hacked a BITCOINX or a cryptocurrency exchange rather in South Korea, UM, we might know that, but what are we really going to do about it?

And how do we stop them? It was a bitcoin heigh, So North Korea and bitcoin together it's like a shark Nato of analytic excellence here on the Buck Sexton Show. Um, we're gonna take a quick break here where to come back with much more? Eight four four, eight to five, Buck, stay with me. And I think President Trump brook now has the world record for injecting politics into the aftermath of a terror attack. Is he trying to wage something

of a copra war? You know? I think we saw the president's true colors today, and I'm not sure they were red, white and blue. How the White House could put out talking points uh saying that the President was in the right here is just it's baffling. It's strange, and but they are right in one respect. He has united the country against the views that he espoused today, which we're right there on the edge of white nationalism. And they're just not going to do this on camera audio.

Why are we even having these briefings? Are these gaggles in the first place? They won't answer these questions on camera or let us record the audio. I don't know why everybody is going along with this. It just doesn't make any sense to me. And it just feels like we're we're sort of slowly, even surely, being dragged into what is a new normal in this country with the camera engine should turn the cameras on? Why don't we turn the cameras on? Why don't we turn the cameras on?

I'm sorry you, why not turn the cameras on? There in the room? The later on? So that was kind of a throwback to this year with CNN's senior White House Correspondent. I always love that too. Is there just a White House correspondent because they got they got a senior one? So is that like an ego thing, like I'm the senior White House correspondent as opposed to the

just the White House correspondent? Anyway, Uh, we're gonna do some in the next couple of days here, some of these where we we do a little a little trip down memory lane, and sometimes it will involve, say the fake news. It will be various media freak outs. This will be our our first of these, but we'll do more tomorrow and the next day. But the fake news

CNN has has had a terrible year. As we sit here and talk about how great it is the tax package has gone through and that Republicans are going into no question on a high note. Ah, it's also funny to look back and see what we have learned over the course of this year, and in particular with CNN, we have seen that it doesn't work what they're doing. It doesn't work from the perspective of journalism, it doesn't work from the perspective of ratings. MSNBC this just came

in today. MSNBC has for the full year now officially beat CNN in the ratings. That's a pretty that's pretty remarkable when you think about it, that CNN, which at one point really considered itself and was thought of as the gold standard in cable news, has now been beaten by the third tier player, which was having a terrible time in the ratings even a few year yars ago. I mean, I remember in the latter stages of the

Obama presidency. I was like, yeah, I mean, nobody really cared anymore, and all their shows were just Obama cheerleading shows. So it didn't really it just didn't rate. People didn't want to watch it, they didn't care. But the fake news has had a bad year. Uh. And as we look on with the with with an eye to take to taking some conclusions away from all this and thinking about what could be different in the future or what

we should remember for the future. It was that despite all of the the whining, the claims of fascism within the Trump administration, and the accusations of white nationalism, and the American people by and large kind of rejected the CNN agenda for the year. Now. I do think that CNN's belief I don't think they're going to change at all, going to my I think their belief is that the Mueller probe will go on for another full year and that they will be vindicated. That's how ideologically set in

all of this they are. You know, there's no Christmas spirit from CNN. They're not They're not letting bygones be bygones with the Trump administration. They will be getting lumps of coal in their stockings this year, but maybe next year. They assumed that things will be quite different, but they have. They've been exposed. It's one of the great one of the great byproducts of the Trump administration and President Trump in the White House is that we now know really

what CNN is all about. We have a greater perspective with which to approach all things at CNN, and and another noteworks like it too. I'm not just trying to beat up on CNN, MSNBC is a different category. They're wrong all the time, but at least they're honest about who they are. I mean that that was always my my thing about Bernie Sanders versus Hillary Clinton. At least Bernie Sanders admits he's a Democrat socialist. Hillary pretends to be something else because she thinks it why it makes

her more electable. Bernie had the benefit of honesty, great shooter baby, just telling the truth like it is. So that was that was the reality of that race. And I just look now at how the ratings at CNN of crash. I mean, I can see a night in a night out. It's like they've got the same panels,

the same people. It's just boring. You'll notice they don't even have debates really on air anymore because they have to protect their their snowflake anchors and their intellectually wimpy correspondence from having to deal with the posing points of view. It's it's not fun over there anymore, man, I can I can just see it, you know, And they're all everything rides on a Trump impeachment for CNN, and it's just not gonna happen. It's not gonna happen. They're they're

in ratings trouble. So anyway, Jim Acosta for your fake newsery, we salute you, um And with that we are going to roll into a break here. I'm gonna talking about holiday stress. Stay with me for that. I hate to see people getting stressed out over the holiday, but I also totally understand why that can happen. It's a time of year when, yeah, we get together with family. For some of us that can be a bit on the stressful side. It's a time of year when we also,

I think, tend to reflect. And reflection is a very good thing in my humble, thirty five year old opinion, But it's not a good thing if reflection just becomes an excuse to beat oneself up to think about all the missed opportunities and mistakes. I don't know how each and every one of you tends to think of your day to day in your careers and your lives, but I certainly tend toward the overcritical instead of the under

critical of myself. So I have to force myself when I take time to reflect back on the year, not to make it an exercise in would a shoulda, could have and instead look honestly at what has gone well, at where I've made progress or made some good improvements into my life, and and to try and take joy as much as possible and what has gone right. There will never be a shortage of things that go wrong.

I'm always reminded of the fact that growing up here in New York City and having been exposed to a fair number of people who don't have the concerns that a vast majority of Americans do. I knew plenty of folks growing up who it was clear their families were going to be paying the bills, they weren't gonna have to worry about getting that job right out of school or even during college. But they have their own miseries

that can creep up. It's not like it's easy for folks just because they don't have the same economic struggles

that you and I do. So I think that mindset, that's just I'm using that to illustrate that mindset is so very critical and you don't want to be over critical of yourself, and it's something that I think it's easy for us to fall into over the holidays, and you know, I want to talk about fun stuff and we will in the next couple of days, especially in the third hour of the show, I'm planning a history of the real St. Nicholas, for example, and maybe some

more Christmas history about you know, the origins of the whole reindeer stuff and all that. But in the meantime, I just was really struck by this gallant poll that eight in ten Americans are really afflicted by stress. You've heard me talking about how mental health and physical health

are inextricably linked. And we don't learn this in school, right in health class when they they teach you the basics in high school or even before that about you know, I don't know medicine and how to take care of yourself and the birds and the bees and all that stuff. Uh, they don't talk to you about mental health. They don't talk to you about feelings of wellness. And the good news is for many of you listening, Um, you drive a tremendous amount of uh, psychological and emotional and yes,

spiritual comfort from a relationship with God. But in a day to day sense, in terms of your careers and your jobs and everything else. I know that faith is fantastic, but sometimes even those of us who have incredibly strong faith need a little more than that to find a way to get through some of the trials and tribulations that stand in our way, and it's important to take a proactive approach to all that. I hope this doesn't

sound preachy at all. I'm just trying to share what I've picked up from dealing with very different kinds of stress in a couple of very different kinds of careers, one being a government national security employee and now being here with you on the radio, which I love. But the media business, as I have told you many times, is a disgusting snake pit, uh and not a fun

place to be trying to make a living. So stress management is essential, and there are many different ways to do it, and it's not something that can be put off. And I see this among many of my peers where the the go to is alcohol. And look, I like to have my tequila a little bit on the weekends

and you know, moderation, it's all good. But using too much alcohol as a stress relief is particularly not just bad for the long term health risks, but all and and the relationship damage that it can do and career damage it can do in the short term. But it's

not even a good stress reliever. I think very few people really know that that the the effect, the the positive effect of alcohol that reduces stress in the short term is really outweighed by once the alcohol is gone, Uh, your body actually can kind of ramp up some of that stress again, and so it becomes a vicious cycle.

So I would uh say that, you know, I've learned to try and take a positive and proactive approach with uh some level, some basic level of anti dad bod fitness, you know, although I will embrace the dead bods soon enough. I'm fighting for another year or two and then hopefully Ms Molly is just gonna think I'm I'm great and cuddly. Um. But for a lot of people, I know, meditation is really profound prayer obviously as well. UM yoga. I have to say, yoga makes me feel like I'm having a

heart attack. I wish I could say that I have enjoyed um yoga. But anyway, there there it's really important to find out what your particular outlet is. For some people, it was painting I've maybe mentioned before on the show, though maybe it was a few years ago that Winston Churchill to battle his depression. Will one drank way too

much but also took up painting. Whatever you're constructive outlet is, it's really important to establish it and give yourself the chance and the time to do it, because stress is corrosive on everything on your mindset, on your productivity, on your day to day. And I think over the holidays in particular, people tend to get really stress. You know, end of year bills to pay, you know, how am

I doing financially? How am I doing professionally? Oh gosh, I'm gonna have to see my brother in law who I have all those annoying political disputes with at the dinner table. And I understand the stress wraps up. But that's why it's also I think a really good time two. You know, watch some Christmas movies. This is this is a health thing. I mean, I'm trying to give unsolicited and non expert health and wellness advice here, you know, And it's really in a sense I'm speaking to myself

here too. But you've gotta gotta watch some Christmas movies. Got to allow yourself to listen to from Christmas music. Yeah, sure, egg nog has the calories of like a bacon cheeseburger basically, but you know what, it's delicious. You've got to drink some eggnog and allow yourself to recoup and recuperate and

relax somewhat here at the end of the year. Now, I know some of you aren't even gonna be on vacation and so, but I just psychologically, when you're home at night, when you're them with work, or whenever your schedule allows it, force yourself to be good to yourself over the holidays. It will allow you to be better to the people around you that you care about, and all those other things that you're worried about, the stress at work, the uh, you know, bills that are piling up,

it will all be better taken care of. You will be more equipped to handle them if you take care of yourself first. And and an essential part of that is stress management. It really really is. I used to think pushed through, push through, push through, and you know what, I would do that and I would get so sick and I would get so run down. And now I realized that there's a part of this. You know. It's like for those of you who do some weight training,

you know, you've got to have your rest days. Holidays are rest days, my friends. So give yourself the time, um and allow yourself to relax and have some joy, you know, enjoy your time here. That's just my that's my two cents today and all that. We're gonna get your more than two cents coming up here. In just a moment, we will get into some Team Bucks speaks. Maybe time will play some holiday music and we come back. Stay right there, Hey, team, I just realized I don't

even have a Christmas tree up this year. I really need to need to step up my Christmas game a little bit. That's just I thought, well, my family has a beautiful tree, and they're in New York. So when I visit my parents and with my siblings, we'll all be able to look at their tree, and that'll be great, you know. But I probably should have had a tree up, you know, one of those little trees, you know, a

little mini trees that could have pulled that off, I think. Anyway, this is where I want to get into some of your thoughts, your analyzes, your Christmas wishes and limericks about St. Nick if you have any of those, that would be extra points. All right, let's see what we have here this coming into our official team Buck at gmail dot com inbox, Merry Christmas to the Freedom Hut. Several months

ago you profile the Bottleworks and Black Rifle Coffee. I had never heard of either company, but a shop with both with great satisfaction. Can you periodically say quarterly have a vet owned company as a guest on your show. It's motivating. It makes me so proud to hear how our heroes have transition from the battlefield to capitalism. Honestly, it reinforces that we live on the greatest country on earth. You, Tyrone and producer Amy do outstanding work. You entertain, educated, motivate.

As a fifty year old rush limbab baby, you all give me hope that I'll have something worth listening to on whatever app when I'm ninety. Shields eye and prayers for a blessed to the Hut. Well, thank you so much for that wonderful email. I do not have a name for the sen are up here, um, but thank you for whoever sent that email. I really appreciate it. Andy with the following Andy in accounting, it says here, Hi, Buck, I'm just listening to your podcast when you were talking

about how we're too connected. I must say, I'm thirty one and I am a zero on social media. I was on Facebook, but I got involved in too many political arguments. Some of my friends do nothing but thumb through updated I'm very happy not to be on social media. I just don't care what other people think, except, of course Buck Sexton. Well, Andy, you're very kind, and I think you are wise to not get too sucked into

the social media vortex. You know, it's really just for close friends and family and connecting with the rest of the team here in the Freedom Hunt team. Buck alright, uh, Norb writes in love your impersonations and history lessons you've been You've been slacking on history lessons. I want more, Norb. I hear you loud and clear. More history coming, and it'll be even in a full podcast format in January

and the new year. Uh. The podcast is called Shields High, so those of you who already know the Buck Sexton Show will know where that comes from. But also it will be for anybody who likes history. It's not gonna be oh, let me talk politics and then get into history. That's this show. It'll be straight up history stories and picking the coolest battles, heroes, weapons, all that stuff. That's the plan. Okay, now we have another one coming in.

Uh Robbie Rights, Come on, Tie, you're not considering a great Commonwealth super Bowl. Eiggles beat the Steelers thirty five to thirty one. I'm gonna give Tie the floor for a minute here to let him weigh in on that, and also the question yesterday about football stuff that I don't even know what he's talking about. Tyrone, my friend,

the floor is yours. To answer the question, I am considering an all Commonwealth super Bowl Eagles and Steelers, but if the Eagles quarterback hurt, I'm now taking everything week by week. While the Steelers are probably the second most likely team behind the Patriots to make it in who knows. If the referees know what they're doing, they would have

won last week. To answer the question from yesterday about the BCS playoffs, I think the issue is with these quote unquote student athletes is they don't know what they're playing for. When the playoffs started, they said it was about the most deserving, the most deserving four teams. Now they've changed it to I guess the best four teams. So to me, I do believe that Alabama was better than Ohio State, but if you look at the resume,

Ohio State was more deserving. So I think what they need to do is decide what they really want to do with these kids. Do they want to make it best or do they want to make it most deserving so that the kids know what they're playing for. Alright, Another email in here from Rick, who is original Saturday squad buck. I completely agree that reaching out to those with whom we've either lost touch can have amazing results. Here's my example. I had a client about about five

years ago that subsequently became a friend. We didn't hang out much, but we had a strong connection that was important to me. His honesty for passion for his His honesty and passion for his faith and life inspired me. Uh. He was one of the true friends I made while living in Florida. When I decided to move to Texas two years ago, I gave him a call to let him know how thankful I was for his friendship and how how I respected the life he leads, living his

values each day for all to see. After I finished, there were short silence on the line when he first tried to respond. It was through tears that I could hear in his voice. He thanked me for my words and said that they could not have come at a better time, as his father had passed away less than a fortnight ago, and that he and his wife were having a rough time of it. He said that my call and my words really helped. My innocuous little call to a friend made a difference in ways I never

could have anticipated. Two years on, my friends family has grown from two to three, and his career is flourishing. I celebrate that with them now. Remembering back to my phone call, I neither know nor care how great or little a difference it made for him in the grand scheme of things. I just know that it helped him, and I'm thankful that it brought us a bit closer,

even though we now lived geographically further apart. So my Chris Christmas wish for Team Buck is that we all reach out to friends or family with whom we haven't connected for too long. It might just end up being the best gift you give this Christmas shield, hie Rick Oss, and he says, Merry Christmas, Buck to you, miss Molly and your whole family. Well, Rick, thank you for the very kind and and inspired ring note greatly appreciated and

means a lot. Merry Christmas to you two, Allen writes in this one on Facebook, and for those wondering, you can contact us here in the Freedom Hut. Send us in a note with your thoughts whatever you want to tell us at Facebook dot com. Slash buck Sexton, Allen writes, you are asking about whether it was okay for a hug or a high five. I'll take a respectable nod between equals. How about that? L O L Well, Alan, you are getting your nod between equals right now, my friend.

Thank you very much for writing in and Merry Christmas. Lonnie writes in with the following, Hey, Buck, are you doing a poll on the new name for Team buck Speaks? What about Team bucks corner? Well, Lonnie, team Bucks corner would certainly work as an option, so I will put that on the list. Thank you so much for writing in. Merry Christmas to you. Chris writes in with the following Buck, why are you body shaming me? I sport and advanced dad bod with all the bells and whistles. Thank you

very much. Dad's are people to Chris, I totally hear you, and uh, I tremendous respect for actually being a dad. I'm still working on that, but don't worry. I'm I'm an honorary dad BOD member to my friend, especially after this this fall. I really, I really went after the French fries, the chocolate and the whole milk with reckless abandon. Uh we have Uh well, actually I don't really have

time to get in another one. We've got so many more notes, but I'll save something for tomorrow and obviously Friday, which will be our last show here in the Freedom Hunt of twenty seventeen. It's crazy to say it out loud. Please do share the podcast with friends, tell people about

the show. Over the holiday, we grow. We have more and more folks that are tuning in and becoming a part of Team Buck because those of you who listen care about what we're doing here every day in the Hut, and you know that we rely on you to spread the words. So take that holiday opportunity to say, hey, this Buck guy, give him a shot, and you're gonna hear me repeating that the next few days. I hope you don't mind. Alright, Team, have a great rest of

your day or evening, talk to you tomorrow. Shields High