In The Tank

"Woke" and its pushers continues to be exposed for the ugliness, fraud and tyranny their policies unleash on the rest of us, all over the world. We'll cover how the architect of Jaguar’s disastrous rebrand has finally been canned, and Rep. Aftyn Behn’s loss to Matt Van Epps in Tennessee reveals her and her party as very sore losers indeed.

We'll also take a look at the years of widespread fraud inside Minnesota’s social services system, and discuss how Governor Walz not only buried the problem but may be setting the stage for even more abuse through a new program.

And on UNHINGED: Multiple-time violent criminals are being released to attack people again, and other craziness.

The Heartland Institute's Linnea Lueken, Jim Lakely, and S.T. Karnick will talk about all of this and more on Episode #521 of the In The Tank Podcast.

Join us LIVE at 1 p.m. ET on YouTube, Rumble, X, and Facebook.

Visit our sponsor, Advisor Metals: https://climaterealismshow.com/metals

Creators and Guests

Host
Jim Lakely
Jim Lakely is the Vice President and Director of Communications of The Heartland Institute.
Host
Linnea Lueken
Linnea Lueken is a Research Fellow with the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at The Heartland Institute. Before joining Heartland, Linnea was a petroleum engineer on an offshore drilling rig.
Host
S. T. Karnick
Senior Fellow and Director of Publications for The Heartland Institute; Editor of The American Culture (https://t.co/h2pi2B2d7T)

What is In The Tank?

The weekly flagship podcast from The Heartland Institute features in-depth policy discussions connected to current news. Host Donald Kendal leads the discussion with the usual crew of Heartland Institute Vice President Jim Lakely, Socialism Research Center “Commissar” Justin Haskins, Editorial Director Chris Talgo, and others at this national free-market think tank. The entertaining and informative discussions often hit topics such as the environment, energy policy, Big Tech censorship, the troubling rise of socialism, globalism, health care, education, that state of freedom in America and around the world, and much more.

This podcast is also available as part of the Heartland Daily Podcast, the “firehose” of all the organization’s podcasts that take deep and entertaining dives into public policy.

Linnea Lueken:

Alright. We are now live. Sorry that we were a little bit of late, complicated business, but welcome to the show, everyone. Welcome to December. Time really does fly here.

Linnea Lueken:

Hey. Do you guys remember Jaguar? I think they sold cars. I wonder how they're doing. But we are gonna find out how they're doing on today's show.

Linnea Lueken:

Also, the results of Tennessee House District Seven's race came in and went to the Republican, and the not at all unstable Democrat candidate Afton Bain did not take her loss very graciously. For our main topic, we'll be discussing fraud in the land of 10,000 lakes and how governor Waltz is teeing up yet another avenue for fraud and abuse. And for unhinged, we have a little bit of a grab bag of crazy that I think you guys will enjoy. We are going to talk about all of this and more in episode 521 of the In The Tank podcast.

Donald Trump:

Somalians ripped off that state for billions of dollars. Billions. Every year, billions of dollars, and they contribute nothing. The welfare is like 88%. They contribute nothing.

Donald Trump:

I don't want them in our country, I'll be honest with you. Okay? Somebody would say, oh, that's not politically correct. I don't care. I don't want them in our country.

Donald Trump:

Their country is no good for a reason.

Linnea Lueken:

Thank you, president Trump. Welcome to the In the Tank podcast. I am Lynea Luken, your host. We also have, as always, Jim Lakeley, vice president and director of communications at the Heartland Institute. Jim, how are you?

Jim Lakely:

I'm I'm doing great. Happy belated Thanksgiving to everyone. We were not on last week because Thursday was Thanksgiving. It is, a chilly 16 degrees in the Northwest Suburbs Of Chicago today, and I'm not usually one to complain too much about winter. But this is late January, early February temperatures, which is not very fun.

Jim Lakely:

If not for Christmas coming, I would be even grumpier than usual, but very glad to be on the show again.

Linnea Lueken:

Oh, it's a white Christmas if it if it holds, Jim.

Jim Lakely:

That's true. It's not melting before Christmas. I'll tell you that.

Linnea Lueken:

And we also have Sam Karnik, senior fellow at the Heartland Institute. Sam, how are you?

Sam Karnick:

I'm okay, Lynne. Yeah. I I have a bit of a cold. You know? So I I thought, well, I I need to do something about this.

Sam Karnick:

And and so I decided to look up some folk remedies because, you know, they're so much cheaper than going to the doctor. So I I you know, they basically tell you, do a lot of stinky things. You know? Like, eat onions and garlic and ginger and horseradish, and then hang onions and garlic around your, where wherever you're at. So, so I did that.

Sam Karnick:

And, you know, I I have the onions and garlic hanging here. I didn't hang ginger and, horseradish because it it they didn't seem to have much effect. It didn't make the house very smelly. Although I did eat a horseradish sandwich as was highly recommended. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked.

Sam Karnick:

I mean, the the cold is still there. I still feel, you know, kind of under the weather. And but the one good thing about it is at least we don't have smell o vision yet because I wouldn't even be able to be on the show. So Jeez,

Linnea Lueken:

Sam. Well, I like my mom's idea better. My mom swears by a sniff of tequila to get rid of most cold systems or symptoms. I don't know if it works. I think it kinda does work for the sore throat, but I'll I'll try it anyway.

Linnea Lueken:

I have a little

Sam Karnick:

bit of I'm gonna go right now and find out.

Linnea Lueken:

So Yeah. Yeah.

Jim Lakely:

That's I'll be back in about two hours. Okay.

Linnea Lueken:

Alright, you guys. But before we get started, as always, if you wanna support the show, you can go to heartland.org/inthetank and donate there. Please also click the thumbs up to like the video, and remember that sharing it also helps to break through some of YouTube suppression. Even just leaving a comment helps us too. If you're an audio listener, you can help us out by leaving a nice review.

Linnea Lueken:

Alright, you guys. So let's get right into it because we have a lot to look at today, and we are going to go to unhinged first, which is a little bit of a grab bag. Couple of things to look at for this segment. The first is

Jim Lakely:

Sorry to cut you off. I made that I made that drop. I'm gonna play it.

Linnea Lueken:

I forgot that we had the drop. Otherwise, I would have given you space for it. I'm sorry. I'm just thinking.

Jim Lakely:

That's all. Yeah.

Linnea Lueken:

Our first video here, you guys, is a disturbing video of a man attacking a student from NYU, if we have that.

Speaker 5:

Sexual abuse for his history of assault on women. He was released from state prison in September after serving two years on a persistent sexual abuse conviction. Rizzo has 16 prior arrests. Court documents revealed that two years ago, he groped a 33 year old woman's breast on Green Street, also here in the village, and then asked, oh, you want more? Rizzo also has a prior murder charge from 1997.

Speaker 5:

The

Linnea Lueken:

Nice. So, yeah, we found out that the guy was previously arrested 16 times for violent attacks on women, including once for homicide. And I think every, like, random act of violence that we've seen on the news lately, especially in the last couple months have been committed by multi time violent offenders. So what's going on here? It seems to be getting worse, not better.

Linnea Lueken:

And also for the for the sake of the audience, would please give us some grace on our, you know, our video call ups and stuff today because Andy is on PTO, unfortunately, for us. So we are we are handling it. Jim's doing it in the background while also trying to answer my questions. So

Jim Lakely:

Do we wanna play actually, have a question for you. Do we wanna Yeah. We have another video that kind of relates to this. Did you wanna comment on this new NYU thing first or go ahead and play that one?

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. Please play the next video as

Jim Lakely:

well. Okay.

Speaker 6:

She was just walking very casually, and he came up out of nowhere and,

Speaker 7:

like, just clocks her in the face. Exactly five months after two alleged attacks in the 2700 block of North Clark Street, the man suspected in them now charged. Police say on June 12, a 40 year old and 29 year old woman had been randomly attacked. Their assailant at the time getting away. Video shows the alleged suspect, William Livingston, violently elbow one of the unsuspecting victims as she walks by.

Speaker 6:

Feel really bad for her too. We offered her some, like, snacks and water, try to help calm her down, caught the cops.

Speaker 7:

Livingston's two new charges are aggravated battery in a public place. It's one of several crimes he was also charged with when he was arrested for allegedly attacking Kathleen Miles of Lake Villa on August 19. She spoke with WGN while recovering from a broken nose and multiple facial fractures.

Speaker 8:

There was no way to be prepared for this.

Speaker 7:

Video obtained by WGN shows the suspect running up from behind Miles, randomly punching her in the face as she was walking along West Washington Street. She says she was knocked out cold and doesn't remember anything. The suspect allegedly watching as she was on the ground bleeding. State senator Willie Preston, happened to be in the area, taking off his shirt to try and stop the bleeding before an ambulance crew arrived to help.

Speaker 8:

All I can think of is it takes so much anger to hit somebody with so much force.

Speaker 7:

Livingston's record shows he's been arrested in Chicago 26 times dating back to 2012, but continues to be released. Most cases, a similar story of random attacks on women. Another victim we spoke with in 2022 was one of four people police accused Livingston of attacking within a matter of minutes.

Speaker 9:

So a hand in my pocket, and I just, like, turned my head like that. And there's a man just, like, directly in front of me, and he just, like, punched me in the face.

Speaker 7:

A similar hope from both victims and concerned citizens that something will change before anyone else gets hurt.

Linnea Lueken:

Being arrested multiple, multiple times for doing this, and they're getting let back into the public. I mean, at some point, they're gonna kill somebody. Right?

Jim Lakely:

Well, yeah. I mean, the look. This is a result of you know? And it's what with the the guy who killed Arena in in Charlotte on the train, He was arrested. What there's so many of these incidents.

Jim Lakely:

You kind of mismatch the number of times the perpetrator, the assailant, has been arrested with the actual crime and the victim almost always on women. I think he was arrested, I think, 30 times. Maybe he was 29 times. There was another assault that we don't have in this rundown. I believe that person another high profile assault.

Jim Lakely:

That person was arrested, I think, 70 times. And, look, this is a result of policies put into place by deranged leftist Democrats who run our cities. And the reason they are still in place, frankly, is because the rest of us have maybe not been strong enough in resisting and pushing back at this absolute nonsense. We have allowed this false narrative, and it all started, you know, with this whole thing, defund the police. We're gonna be talking about bad loser Bain, you know, who almost who came a lot closer than she should have to winning a house seat in Red state Tennessee and, you know, the red counties around Nashville, almost got elected to congress.

Jim Lakely:

Lost by eight points, but that's way closer than it should have been. She also wanted to defund the police, and she actually defended, you know, hey. Hey. All my my peeps out there, she said on social media, who wanna burn down you know, happy hope hope you have fun burning down a police station. You gotta remember where all this started.

Jim Lakely:

This all started with with a complete myth. This and it was the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. The complete myth of hands up, don't shoot. Michael Brown in, Ferguson, Missouri. Hands up, don't shoot never happened.

Jim Lakely:

That had nothing to do with why he was shot. He never said that. He never put his hands up. He assaulted a police officer and tried to grab his firearm. That will get your ass shot.

Jim Lakely:

Not no matter what where you are, what color you are, or, you know, anything. That will get your ass blown away by the police officer and rightly so. George Floyd died of a drug overdose. The autopsy says so. He was detained.

Jim Lakely:

He was he was deranged in in in the in the throes of fentanyl and was detained on the ground in a way that maybe contributed to his death, but it was a technique approved by the Minneapolis police department, and Derek Chauvin was actually following police procedure. He and everybody who was just around him all went to jail, and nobody else was held accountable. It is from those sorts and then streets went on fire and, like, you know, it became popular to replace policing with social work. Or I wanna play just the very end of this video. I know it was kind of long already because this is part of the real sickness in this country.

Jim Lakely:

Listen to these two women quoted on this story in WGN in Chicago and what they say at their laying out all of these assaults, random assaults on women in the streets in public. You can't even walk around the streets of Chicago. You have to have your head on a swivel and maybe, you know, know some kung fu to fight off random attacks. But listen to the end of this.

Speaker 7:

Sense that something will change before anyone else gets hurt.

Speaker 6:

I really hope he does get the help he needs.

Speaker 8:

Whether it's mental health or the justice system or something, I feel he's been failed. And as a result, we're all we've all been failed.

Jim Lakely:

False. This person doesn't need help. He needs to rot at the for the rest of his life in prison. He hasn't been failed. You two have been failed.

Jim Lakely:

Our society has been failed by a system and, frankly, leftist Democrat politicians who are letting criminals back on the street because they care more about the criminal than they do you, period. That's the only way to interpret this. If they cared more about innocent people being killed, assaulted, robbed, all these then people would be in jail. And and the fact of the matter, study after study shows a very small percentage actually of of people in society commit these sorts of crimes, and they do it over and over again. That's why almost in every single case, each of these perpetrators have been arrested at least two dozen times.

Jim Lakely:

And a very small number of of percentage of people do these do these crimes. You lock up just those, and your crime rate would go way down. And our cities, our democratic party, the leftists who run these cities are unwilling to do even that. And so they just they unleash them upon society because they care more, frankly, about those criminals than they do about Lanea or or myself or Sam or anybody else.

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. There's no there's no therapy that's gonna sorry. I I am also losing my voice. But there's no therapy that's gonna convince a guy who does something like this to women randomly on the street that it's the wrong thing to do if all the people around him and stuff haven't been able to convince him so far. Like, sitting on a couch is not gonna help.

Linnea Lueken:

It's

Sam Karnick:

Oh, I'm sorry.

Linnea Lueken:

Go ahead. Yeah. Oh, no. Go ahead.

Sam Karnick:

People often claim that the that putting people in prison does not, prevent, crime. That's wrong. If they're in prison, they're not gonna be committing those crimes out there. They're not gonna be punching women out on the street when they're in prison. So that is why one big reason why you do this.

Sam Karnick:

It's not to, not just to send a message to other, potential criminals, and maybe it isn't even at all for that. It's just for justice and then also to ensure that that person will not be able to do this at least for some certain period of time. I think that what we what we have here is a situation that actually precedes and predates the, the George Floyd incident and and, all of the all of the defund the police. What really happened is that beginning in, like, around the nineteen eighties and especially the nineteen nineties, governments all across the country pushed back very strongly against self defense. Now they didn't it wasn't uniformly against self defense, but they pushed back very strongly.

Sam Karnick:

And so what you have is is if you I think people are fairly afraid to defend themselves. They don't wanna end up in one of these horrible prisons that we have where where it's it's just an absolutely beastly conditions. They don't wanna end up in there, and there's a good chance that you'll end up in there, and the person who did the incident won't. This actually does happen in in in society these days. So we really need to resume our respect, restore respect for self defense.

Sam Karnick:

We really need to assume that unless you can prove unless the prosecutors can prove that a person had mens rea, that they had intent to harm someone that was not motivated by by their actions in the moment by another person's actions in the moment, then you cannot prosecute them. You shouldn't even be able to prosecute them, let alone convict them. So this is one thing that we really need to get our our, selves sorted on is

Linnea Lueken:

Oops. You took Sam out. Sorry, Sam. Sorry. Yeah.

Linnea Lueken:

I mean, it's it's it's pretty bad because what you've done is you've made it unsafe for people who are not committing crimes. You know? And refusing to lock someone up for committing a crime is just like punishing everybody else because you get to deal with somebody setting a person, a random stranger on fire on a in a train when they wouldn't have they shouldn't have had to deal with that in the first place. That person should have never been on the street, especially if you are I'm sorry. I keep glancing to the side here, you guys, because I'm we're trying to run this thing.

Linnea Lueken:

But yeah. No. But especially if you are a repeat offender like this. I mean, 70 times, even the 16 times person, you arrest someone the first time for attacking someone on the streets. They should be locked up forever.

Linnea Lueken:

But, like, the third time, the fifth time, the seventh time, at what point does this become, you know, something where I don't know. I somebody's gotta be held accountable in addition at this point to the actual criminal because it's it's worse than negligent to be having these guys running around on the streets like this.

Sam Karnick:

Yeah. It should it should happen on the first time because the first time is probably not the first time they did it.

Jim Lakely:

The Sam remembers, you know, because we were both in public policy at this time in the nineteen nineties, you know, the three strikes, the street three strikes law. We you could find you you can find videos of Joe Biden, you know, one of the most prominent Democrats of the nineteen nineties going on and on and on about crime in our cities and three strikes, you're out. I mean, he he's the one who who who wrote the, took credit for writing the drug, the drug bill that, you know, made criminalized crack more than than powder cocaine and that whole stupid controversy. You know? But there was a time when Democrats were tough on crime that they supported three strikes in your outlaws, that if you, committed your if you commit your third felony, you're going to jail for the rest of your life.

Jim Lakely:

You have proven after three felonies that you should be removed from society. You cannot live with the rest of us who wanna live our lives in safety and and peace. Free felonies, you're done. The those immediately started to get undermined by judges, for instance. They would they would, you know, they would say, well, this guy, you know, this is his fifth arrest, but we're gonna make this this felony a misdemeanor so that he doesn't get put in jail for the rest of his life.

Jim Lakely:

And so it was beginning to be undermined right away. And now you can't find any politician, any democrat, certainly, who would ever advocate for a three strikes and you're outlaw. But and and Sam if Sam had his way, it'd be one strike and you're out, and and that's it. But, you know, the the the purpose the purpose of our jails and the criminal justice system is to protect the innocent and to protect the rest of us from people who, if let out, proven time and again, will continue to commit crimes. And often, as we've seen, they get it escalates in its violence and seriousness the more times they are let out of jail.

Jim Lakely:

There needs to be consequences for this. But, Lynea, I know you you've seen a lot of this. You know, you you troll on you know, you scroll on x just like me. I know. But there's been a lot of talk, serious talk, and and I think it's time to have that kind of a talk.

Jim Lakely:

It's a date it's it's it's something has to be done very carefully, I think. But there should be some consequences when judges completely throw out common sense, the the meaning of statutes, and the purpose of the justice system and continually release violent criminals back on the streets. A lot of the and, like, again, another great idea from the left and the Democrats, the whole no cash bail system. You know? Twenty years ago, Joe Biden was the throw in jail everybody who has a who has a rolled up joint in the in the front pocket of his jeans.

Jim Lakely:

And now we have Democrats all over the country going no cash bail for violent offenders. And we just elected we didn't, But the people of New York just selected such a maniac as mayor of New York City. So, you know, something needs to be done. There needs to be accountability. I don't understand why Republicans could be so unpopular right now when all they really need to do is run on crime.

Jim Lakely:

It it's worked in the past, and it's need it needs to be done. We need public policy that keeps these, these monsters locked up.

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. Well, besides the fact that Jim almost slipped up and accused me of trolling on Twitter, which I would never I would never troll.

Jim Lakely:

No. You don't do that.

Linnea Lueken:

But the yeah. No. You're absolutely right. I think I think it does we do need to find some kind of a solution to this. Maybe the Heartland Institute, we can we can put our our think tank heads together and come up with a way to hold some of these judges responsible without trampling on our our system or anything, too badly.

Jim Lakely:

Well, speaking of crime, I mean, I maybe find it put in the show notes, but we did do a study, in the in the wake of black black lives matter during the whole black lives matter, craze that about police shootings and race. I'm gonna have to find that, but shocker, the data did not actually back up the narrative of black lives matter.

Sam Karnick:

Going back to, going back to the, idea about the, three strikes and you're out, that that really is is very related to what Linea said earlier, which is that once you've proven that you cannot be repaired, that you cannot live in society, only crazy people or very sinister and evil people would put you back into society. The question we we need to ask ourselves is, which is it? Is it both? Is it one or the other? I think it's both, but mostly sinister.

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. The term that I used before the before the show started when I saw the reaction of those women to, you know, what should happen to their, you know, attackers. And they're like, I hope they get the help they need. That's a very nice thing to say. But I think part of this, at least from their perspective, isn't, like, being sinister that they might want to give them another chance.

Linnea Lueken:

I think it's genuine naivete. Right? I I think it's it's misplaced maternal instinct or something. You're right.

Sam Karnick:

As a policy matter, it's sinister and evil in my view. But oh, so so are you saying basically, okay. These peep these women are somewhat disturbed to have that kind of

Linnea Lueken:

point view. Downtown Chicago. I don't know what no. But, no. I'm not saying that they're disturbed necessarily, but I'm I'm just saying that, you know, it's it's misplaced empathy.

Linnea Lueken:

You know? They should they're the ones who are the victims. He's not a victim. He wasn't he wasn't the one who was failed. They were failed as Jim said.

Linnea Lueken:

So yeah. But I didn't wanna spend too long dwelling on this one, you guys. I had a couple other things I want to touch on in the segment, but we're gonna skip them because I want to get to our main topics here today. Remember Jaguar? Jaguar really stepped in it trying to be very trendy and whittle down their customer base, trying to be like a boutique LA Miami crowd type of company rather than the high end heritage luxury company they used to be.

Linnea Lueken:

AutoCar reports that Jaguar Land Rover has canned the guy who is responsible for the recent unpopular redesigns and rebranding. JLR has axed design boss Jerry McGovern. Sources inside the firm have told Autocar and Autocar India. Autocar India's source suggested government McGovern was escorted out of the office, although the exact details as to why are not yet known. When approached, a spokesperson for JLR replied, no comment.

Linnea Lueken:

It brings an end to a twenty one career year career at JLR from McGovern that has been filled with highlights, Autocar says. And I just wanted to read this because Autocar is kind of simping from McGovern for some reason. They said the the Coventry born designer is responsible for the modern day reinvention of the Defender, which I guess some people like. I don't like it. Helping to keep the four car Range Rover lineup ever popular and reinventing Jaguar for its transition into an electric only carmaker, which includes creating the highly controversial type double ought concept.

Linnea Lueken:

He was also key in JLR's 2021 reimagine strategy. In the immortal words, you guys, of Jeremy Clarks Jeremy Clarkson. Oh, no. Anyway, it's actually not clear if his disaster of a rebrand idea was like what got him fired here. They're not saying anything about it.

Linnea Lueken:

Apparently, and I as I was doing some digging on this, he's pretty famous for being, like, a total jerk to work with, you know, very high in his own supply. And rumors are floating in certain circles in, like, car forums and stuff that there was some office indiscretion involved in his firing. So I don't know. But I wanted to I wanted to hear what your your thoughts were on this one. Is this well deserved if he was being canned for his design ideas?

Linnea Lueken:

Let's call them. I don't really know. I think it's terrible. But

Sam Karnick:

He certainly deserved to be canned for the the the absolute ruining of a of a great brand. Even though Jaguar has never really actually operated very well, they they're lovely cars. So it's like, well, let's let's do the let's get rid of the one thing that people like about Jaguars, and then everybody will want them. I I it's it was a complete insanity on his part. And it it and I think it is kind of emblematic of this whole idea of giving people a million chances.

Sam Karnick:

Yeah. There you go. Look at that. Alright. You're fired.

Sam Karnick:

That's you're fired. It should have happened right then. And and that's it. Give a person a million chances, and they will do worse and worse things until they're murdering dozens of people a day. It's just and that's the equivalent of what he's done artist aesthetically and in terms of automotive technology.

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. I can just picture how those meetings went. And he thinks he's being really clever and cool, and I'm sure he got lots of accolades from his, you know, millennial and Gen z

Sam Karnick:

Did they clap

Linnea Lueken:

like this? Younger design people. No. They clap like this

Jim Lakely:

because No. No. Up twinkles.

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. Because because clapping can be triggering and frightening, but snaps snaps are okay.

Jim Lakely:

Yep. Yeah. I'm gonna keep playing this jaguar ad on the loop for everybody just to

Linnea Lueken:

Thanks, Jim.

Jim Lakely:

Because we may never get a chance to play it again. But yeah. I mean, as they say, the wages of woke means you go broke. It's it's mind boggling to me, and we've covered this, I think, three times now, the, the destruction of Jaguar and and the timing of this. This came out, I think it was last year.

Jim Lakely:

It was came out after the election, I think, in December 2024. So it was perfectly timed for the cultural and vibe shift, and not just in America, but in the world. But, you know, to to I mean, just just even posing it right there. Just just the logo for Jaguar. It used to be an iconic logo of the of the of the, you know, the jumping Jaguar and and very unique font for their for their styling.

Jim Lakely:

And then they go to you know, this Jaguar font could be it could be a tech company. This could be Google's new font. You know. Looks like a perfume to me. Yeah.

Jim Lakely:

It does look like a perfume. Yeah.

Linnea Lueken:

Does look like a perfume. Yeah. I well, and this is part of it too is that, you know, we're not usually we're not like a a car guy show or anything. But from what I understand, Jaguar has been kind of screwing over their dealerships and stuff too for a long time. So a lot of dealerships were working on already cutting ties with them and only selling Land Rover from that.

Linnea Lueken:

So in it it's an Indian company that owns both Jaguar Land Rover and a couple other companies.

Sam Karnick:

Ironically, it's called Tata.

Linnea Lueken:

It's called Tata. But they, you know, they've been having problems, you know, manufacturing enough and sending dealerships what they promised and stuff like that for a while now. And so a lot of dealerships were dropping Jaguar before this even happened. And then so Jaguar at the beginning of the year in 2024 basically said, we're just not gonna make cars at all for a year, and we're gonna see what happens. They sold 49 cars the first quarter of that year in Europe, which is crazy.

Linnea Lueken:

And they just stopped making them, and they said, we're gonna put everything behind this all electric rebranding. And it really didn't go over very well. And all electric was foolish to begin with anyway, not just because of the kinds of arguments that we make. Right? But because other car companies that put their money into, like, hybrids and stuff are actually doing fairly well in that department because people tend to kinda like hybrids.

Linnea Lueken:

They don't like all electric, but they do kinda like the hybrid. So it's it's just been a total disaster. So fun stuff. I didn't wanna spend too much time on this one, but I wanted to do a little bit of a a I guess you would say, like, a gloating a gloating moment that someone

Sam Karnick:

One more visit to the jelly of the month club, basically.

Jim Lakely:

Yes. Exactly. No. We we are gonna leave this subject because I ran it on too long in that first topic area, but

Donald Trump:

I did find those videos, and I found it

Jim Lakely:

very infuriating. But you make the good point about the electric vehicles. If if not putting the ad aside and the rebrand and all that stuff, the fact that Jaguar under his leadership decided we're gonna go all electric now. We're not gonna make any more in in internal combustion engine vehicles anymore. We're gonna be an all electric car company, was so so dumb.

Jim Lakely:

And I think it's a special kind of dumb, an indoctrinated kind of dumb that you have convinced yourself despite all evidence in the marketplace and all of your experience in the automotive industry that a couple of government mandates by a temporary president is going to result in a permanent transition into electric powered vehicles. And you're going to do that with your luxury brand, which is not a vehicle anybody really needs. Mhmm. Instead of even just making two kinds of cars, you can still afford when gas is $40 a gallon, you know, you can still afford it if you own a Jaguar because you're already rich. Instead, we're gonna go all electric.

Jim Lakely:

And it was that for that alone, he deserved to be canned, and good luck to Jaguar. You once great brand. Now in the

Linnea Lueken:

car. All electric as, you know, the really bad business decision. You know, they were listening to State Street and all those guys, and they were saying, you know, oh, this is gonna be the future. The World Economic Forum said that everything's gonna be electric in, like, five years. So we're gonna put all of our money behind that.

Linnea Lueken:

They were totally wrong. Not only that, but they made it ugly to boot. And that is the most offensive part in my opinion. Alright. So, I mean, your classic Jaguar might be worth a lot more nowadays because of how terrible the company has been doing lately.

Linnea Lueken:

But it's pretty hard to stack Jags as a long term investment. It'd

Speaker 7:

probably be a

Linnea Lueken:

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Linnea Lueken:

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Linnea Lueken:

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Linnea Lueken:

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Linnea Lueken:

That helps us as you're helping your financial future by diversifying with precious metals from Advisor Metals. Okay. Thank you very much. Please please do go there, you guys, because Ira really is really great and very nice to us for sponsoring us. Okay.

Linnea Lueken:

So our next topic here, you guys, bad loser Bane. For those not familiar with Afton Bane, she's gained some notoriety for being a little bit, a lot of bit dramatic and pretty classless, to say the least. She complains about the prayer groups and legislature. She supports burning down police stations, which is kind of a big one. She thinks marriage is patriarchal.

Linnea Lueken:

Sororities are white supremacist. And she's been on video literally screaming her head off while being dragged out of governor Lee's office for busting into a private meeting. The Western Journal covers her reaction to losing the recent election. They write, the whole point of winning, among other things, is that you get to dictate terms. The loser generally has the terms dictated to them.

Linnea Lueken:

Nobody seems to have bothered to tell Democratic Tennessee representative Afton Bain that. On Tuesday, Bain showed that she doesn't understand the simple rules of power dynamics by telling her supporters after she lost that she used her concession call with victorious GOP candidate Matt Van Epps to lecture him about Obamacare. She said, I called the congressman elect, and I had one question for him. What will define what happens next? Do not let the Affordable Care Act subsidies expire.

Linnea Lueken:

Do not raise health care costs for working families in Tennessee. And I wanna be clear on two reasons why this is not appropriate. Aside from the obvious optics of being the loser and lecturing the winner about his priorities, first, this wasn't a new topic for Bain who tried to reconcile her radical beliefs with the buzzword of affordability by doubling down on the necessity of funding Obamacare subsidies for the foreseeable future without any off ramp from the disastrous care program. And second, while it pales in comparison to Trump's victory in the 7th Congressional District two years ago, let's just be clear. Nine points is not a moral victory.

Linnea Lueken:

It's not a mandate for change that doesn't flip a seat. And I wanted to bring this little section here up, you guys, because it was kind of a cherry on top of the hysteria following elections this year. Lots of doom and gloom peddling. Everyone just wants to find like, nobody even notices that it's not all doom clouds and darkness. Instead of looking for a silver lining, they're just they're they're saying that there is no silver lining.

Linnea Lueken:

This is a disaster. But it's really not. And but look, here Tennessee really dodged a bullet. Didn't they, Sam?

Sam Karnick:

They sure did. This is it's interesting, though, because I think it's again, it's emblematic of this whole system we seem to have developed where maybe it's not a system. The systems actually, have some purpose and plan to them. But this whole sort of miasma that we've developed where people just aren't held responsible for their actions and your speech is an action. And and the crazy dumb things that she said should have disqualified her for even nomination in in a party that is of the left.

Sam Karnick:

The she's just a a crazy crank, and she you know, I would say that she doesn't make Marjorie Taylor Greene look good. That would be very difficult to do. But she's provides a lot of competition over there.

Linnea Lueken:

What is it with our female representatives? I just don't understand. It's she said something. I I saw one of her clips on Twitter. She was standing in front of the house representatives.

Linnea Lueken:

And she said something along the lines of, like, I was talking to my therapist and I told them about dream that I had where I stood in front of a room of women and told them, I don't wanna be a mother. I want power. And I'm like, okay.

Jim Lakely:

Wow.

Linnea Lueken:

Like, alright. You shouldn't say that kind of thing out loud to people, but okay.

Jim Lakely:

Well, I'm glad she says it out loud to people. And and and, frankly, what's what's disturbing? So, like, I think Trump won that district by 20 points in the twenty twenty four election. And what was the number there? Was it it ended up being nine point victory for the Yeah.

Linnea Lueken:

Was nine.

Jim Lakely:

Yeah. Right. So nine points. So, hey, cut in more than half, and that is a little troubling. Again, it's an off year election.

Jim Lakely:

Don't wanna read too much into it. But, you know, this isn't this is something I think Matt Walsh said the other day. You know that phrase, you know, when somebody tells you who who they are, believe them? The Democratic voters are telling us who they are, and I think it's time we come to grips with it and believe them, that they support absolute lunatics like Afton Bain. She she she said she had on the public record so many crazy statements that would have been absolutely disqualifying instantly for anybody, any party as few as five years ago.

Jim Lakely:

When you're running for congress and and you are on the record and then you're you defend it constantly that you hate the city of Nashville. You hate the people in your own district, and you come within nine points of winning in a 20, you know, 20 plus point, red district. That tells me, and I think it was a point Matt Walsh was making, is that the Democratic party voter right now is as unhinged as as Afton Bain and as Zoran Mamdani. And these are the kind of those are the people that are gonna come out and vote in the midterm elections. And they are going to, on purpose and with glee, vote for absolute complete lunatics to be taking over our government and setting public policy.

Jim Lakely:

So that's what keeps me up at night sometimes, not not anything else.

Linnea Lueken:

Well and and it's it's funny to me too. And the Sam posted something in in the private chat, a good link to an article about Trump's position on his current position on health care stuff. But, you know, her calling up her opponent who beat her to to you know? And and so his his mission is the one that won the voters. So she she does not get to be dictating terms and does not get to be saying, well, you should actually uphold my mission because for some reason, I didn't get the votes to win.

Linnea Lueken:

So for some reason, that means you should do what I want you to do anyway. I don't know. It's just it's the weirdest reasoning.

Jim Lakely:

You can put that in we should have used that for unhinged. That really is an unhinged way to think about it. It

Linnea Lueken:

is kind of unhinged. We could have done that and just combine the whole thing. But it's it's interesting too because, you know, Trump's been Trump's been trying really hard to figure out or at least he is in flux trying to figure out how to approach the health care issue because it has become such a quagmire. You don't wanna just yank people's, know, care away from them after they've gotten used to it or whatever, but you do have to get rid of this get dang Obamacare. And and Trump seems to be saying on Truth Social, he posted, the only health care I'll support or approve is sending the money directly back to the people with nothing going to the big fat rich insurance companies who have made trillions of dollars and ripped off America long enough.

Linnea Lueken:

The people will be allowed to negotiate and buy their own much better insurance. Power to the people. Congress, do not waste your time and energy on anything else. This is the only way to have great health care in America. Get it done now.

Linnea Lueken:

So, Sam, you sent this to us as just like a little microcosm here of of the negotiations, I guess, that are going on. And and I don't know if this is Trump expressing his full and total belief in what should happen or if he's doing that thing where he says something a little bit to the right or not to the right as in left right politics, but, like, a little bit far afield of what he actually is going for in hopes that the negotiation brings him to where he wants to be. But what do you think?

Sam Karnick:

I think that is exactly what he's doing. However, he certainly would, I think he certainly would like to get what we're talking about. And that is a simple a simple approach, which is that cash is king. That cash holds people boy, accountability is real, and responsibility is really the theme here today because cash cash holds people accountable. If you know what you're spending, you can do a lot better job of making good good choices about it.

Sam Karnick:

And if the customer knows what they're spending on you as a provider, likewise, you become much more efficient that way. The way to cut costs of health care is to do the opposite of what pushed them up, which was we've increased demand in insanely since 1965 when we, created Medicaid and Medicare and the like. And, we've been divorcing the the customer from the the payment. And so what you do is now you just buy prepaid care. Well, then that's what Medicaid and Medicare did.

Sam Karnick:

They initiated that whole process of moving health care from being, a way of dealing with an emergency that could impoverish you to and and and so to insure yourself against that emergency to just prepaid care. But if it's prepaid care, you've already paid it, so you'll use as much as you can. And if you're using as much as you can, what are you doing? You're demanding. And if you're demanding, what are you doing?

Sam Karnick:

You're raising prices. So that the only way to get away from this is to restore the the payment by the actual by the person who's actually getting the service. And that's what Trump was saying. And the fact that he was doing that is, to me, a very big deal. It's it's very important.

Sam Karnick:

And if we can start people thinking along those lines, then we can actually start to make positive changes. And we outline in, Anne Marie Sheber, who's our, editor of health care news at the Heartland Institute. Please, people, send donations to us for that fabulous newspaper. But Anne Anne and I put put put this piece together, and we named some of the reforms that can be done. In fact, in and and we certainly alluded to the whole variety that that is out there.

Sam Karnick:

But the key is that you've gotta get the customer who is the patient. You gotta get them recognizing what they're paying for. And once that happens, you will see prices come down. The the government created this problem, and the only way to fix it is to change what the government has done and and get these, get get the system get a system, actually, and not just a mess. Get a system that makes sense.

Sam Karnick:

And and that's that's what that, article is all about.

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. I think all in all, the crazy thing about, you know, Bain's demanding that he keeps, Obamacare basically or supports keeping Obamacare is that Obamacare isn't even popular on the left anymore. So Right. It's it's just getting worse and worse. And you know what else is getting worse and worse?

Linnea Lueken:

Minnesota. So it is fraud all the way down in the land of 10,000 lakes. It's been a very bad week for Minnesota governor Tim Waltz. Remember when he was gonna be vice president? So that's another dodge bullet for all of us.

Linnea Lueken:

Breitbart reports hundreds of Minnesota government staffers say that governor Tim Waltz hid Somali fraud and attacked whistleblowers. Nearly 500 employees in Minnesota state government say Democratic governor Tim Waltz ignored their constant warnings about massive fraud by Somalis of the state's aid programs. The staffers in the state's Department of Health Services also say that Walt's retaliated against them for exposing the corruption. Tim Waltz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota, the group said in a November 29 Twitter post. We let Tim Waltz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud, but no.

Linnea Lueken:

We got the opposite response. They added Tim Waltz systemically or systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports. They also alleged that Waltz disempowered the office of the legislative auditor to allow the fraud to continue freely. It is endemic across all of Minnesota's welfare and aid programs, not just its Department of Human Services. One case was an organization called Feeding Our Future, run by a group of Minneapolis era area, Somali migrants.

Linnea Lueken:

Prosecutors say that the organizers built $250,000,000 from the state in child food assistance funding. In another case, tens of millions were stolen from Minnesota's autism treatment program, more than 550,000,000 stolen from the state's coronavirus pandemic release relief program. And there's another feeding our future fraud case where more than 250,000,000 in pandemic era state aid for hungry children was stolen by members of the Somali community. Well, it's hard to say or hard to know what to say to all that because it's it's mind blowing. You know, the governor is supposed to care about all of his constituents, not preferentially.

Linnea Lueken:

And, you know, the craziest part about this, Sam, is that, like, these migrants were given a fair, you know, like, a safe home than at least safer than the one that they left, you know, by some of the nicest people on earth who are Minnesotans. So what what's going on here? And why would why would Tim Waltz be covering for it?

Sam Karnick:

Well, what's going on here is they're getting punched in the head and saying, I hope something good happens to the person who punched me in the head. And that's what they keep doing. And until you recognize that, okay, we I think we need to go back to the eighteenth century here for just a moment, okay, and go to Jean Jacques Rousseau, the French philosopher. I'm sure Linea is are you grooving on this or gracking or something, Linea? Jean Jacques Rousseau, who who posited that and he's the sort of the inventor of modern liberalism.

Sam Karnick:

And he posited that human beings are born good, that they're naturally good at birth, and society corrupts them. So the the premise here that you see in Minnesota is that, well, everybody in the world is is basically good. And if you bring them to a nice place like Minnesota, they'll act like Minnesotans. Well, Rousseau was wrong. He was a 100% wrong.

Sam Karnick:

He was the opposite of what's real, and, Minnesota is just proving that again. If you invite people to commit fraud, they're going to do it. It Wallace made a really great, straw man there saying, I hate the the fact that these, Republicans are saying that everybody in Minnesota is a cheater and a a thief. Nobody said that. Nobody said that everybody is, but they did say that, these people are, and it seems to be very accurate.

Sam Karnick:

So what happens here is that, you've got, again, no accountability, no responsibility, and it's not just the thieves. It's the governor himself. At some point, we look. You're gonna get French revolution type action going on if you don't restore some sense of justice. When your premises are that we do what we want and you get in line and and say you like it and say two plus two equals five, if you just keep doing that, eventually, you're going to get into some serious trouble, especially when you have a country that has the second amendment like ours does.

Sam Karnick:

I'm I'm sorry, but this is not a trivial matter. That's people stealing, you know, a quarter of $1,000,000,000 here, a half 1,000,000,000 there, that's outrageous. And think of think of that that that money went to people in Somalia. We we all can have we all can have the nicest thoughts about people in Somalia and and how they have their needs and so forth. But if anybody wants to support them, it should be done voluntarily.

Sam Karnick:

It shouldn't be done through a government program where theft

Linnea Lueken:

is

Sam Karnick:

neglected. This is this is outrageous. I mean, it's like our country is developing into one big crime syndicate, and we let we just let it all happen. It's that cannot last. That cannot stay, and it's not going to.

Sam Karnick:

So there's there's two ways it's gonna it's going to change. Either it's gonna get bad enough that there's absolute, let's say, counteraction of a similar sort, or people like Tim Walls are going to get kicked out by the people who put them in the in the first place, and slightly more reasonable people will be substituted for them. That's there's the only way to do it.

Jim Lakely:

I'm not gonna go wait. Did go back to the eighteenth century, Sam? Was that Rousseau or Richelieu? Yeah. I'm not gonna go back to the eighteenth century.

Jim Lakely:

I'm gonna go back to the nineteen nineties. Let's remember why we're even here. Why most frankly, let's go back to why there are a 100,000 Somalis all gathered together in Minneapolis of all places. And it was because, well, Quentin Tarantino actually released his top 10 movies of the twenty first century. Number one on his list was Black Hawk Down.

Jim Lakely:

What was Black Hawk Down about? It was about, our militarized humanitarian mission in Mogadishu. And why did we send the military to Mogadishu? Because the food that we were sending there

Donald Trump:

I think it reminds me of that of that classic,

Jim Lakely:

Saturday Night Live skit too with, with, Bill Hartman as as as Bill Clinton in the McDonald's. Half of the peep now 10 people under remember that one. It's one of the classics. Anyway, the reason we were in Somalia in

Donald Trump:

the in Mogadishu to begin with is because we were sending food aid over there, and it was being stolen by warlords, because that is the way society works

Jim Lakely:

in Somalia. And so you RM McIntyre, is a channel I know that, Linea and I enjoy here on YouTube, from the Blaze, he's used this term a lot, I love it. He says, you know, America does not have magic soil. Somebody does not automatically become an American and share our values just because they put their foot or put in their hand the soil of Minnesota or Illinois or New Jersey or anything else. That a country is a country because of the values that it fosters and, you know, basically creates for for the society as a whole.

Jim Lakely:

And when you bring in people that do not share those values, they do not magically become, you know, non fraudsters when they come from a fraudster country. They don't magically not become that just just because they're standing in Minnesota and not Mogadishu. It's we've say it a lot on this podcast. You get as a society, you get what you incentivize, and you prevent what you punish. And the welfare system in this country, especially in Minnesota, overseen with the fraud going on, and Tim Walts knew about it, you know, we incentivize fraud.

Jim Lakely:

And and the excuse from from the Somali community in Minnesota is basically, what do you expect? What you do you expect us to do? The fraud is so easy to commit. How are we not gonna how are we not gonna do that?

Linnea Lueken:

Yeah. There's been some pretty disgusting things on other crimes that have been given the same kind of shrug of the shoulders and, like, well, you know, it's their culture, so they haven't assimilated blah blah blah. It's just not yeah. But it's it's gross. But it's it's what's amazing to me is that basically none of these people, from what I understand, were vetted coming in.

Linnea Lueken:

So to think that, you know, you're gonna let in 100,000 people from a country that was torn apart in war and crime and some of the most, like, horrifying human rights and and and, like, just abuses and stuff that you could possibly imagine. And just say, we're gonna let a whole bunch of them over here. And imagine that some of the like, lot of the bad ones wouldn't wanna come over here too and sneak in and and be part of, you know, the very generous, you know, setup that Minnesota welcome them to. It's it's crazy. And it we we don't have to.

Linnea Lueken:

It's very nice of The United States to take on refugees from, you know, war torn countries and stuff. It's a it's an extremely nice thing to do, like, generous thing to do. We don't have to be doing that. And if we keep getting bitten for it, then we shouldn't just keep doing it. We absolutely should not.

Linnea Lueken:

I wanted to bring up that, you know, Tim Waltz is very excited about a new fraud program. I mean, new family medical leave program that he says will give benefits to undocumented workers, which is fun. And he used the word he is excited about it. Minnesota governor Tim Waltz announced the state's family and medical leave program alerting Minnesotans to the enrollment period for anyone who had a child in 2025, including illegal immigrants. During a press conference, Tim Waltz praised the program saying that he was excited about it.

Linnea Lueken:

It allows people to take time off for illness or for new baby bonding time with a maximum of twenty weeks per year total. The program is funded by an increase in payroll taxes to be paid by employees and employers and was passed into law in 2023. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce states that almost all employers in Minnesota are required to participate. Therefore, most people who work in Minnesota, whether it's full time, part time, temp work, hourly, seasonally, or more than one job are covered seasonally. I just have to pause there for a second.

Linnea Lueken:

You are covered for paternity leave, maternity leave if you are a seasonal worker. That's crazy. Undocumented workers, that's crazy. Youth workers, that's unfortunate. And new workers are also covered.

Linnea Lueken:

Jim, you had a really good critique of this plan for the remote worker angle. Could you articulate that for our audience here?

Jim Lakely:

Yeah. Well, I tried. So so the so the the law is written, and Tim also proud of it. It's like so a remote worker is also covered. So let's say you work let's say, you you know, you're a you're a, you know, a laptop jockey and you live in Minneapolis, and you're working for a company where you're you code or you write or you manage people via email, and you have a company in Illinois, say.

Jim Lakely:

And we need somebody to do that kind of work for us, But I'm not gonna hire somebody from Minnesota, not with this law in place, because what will happen is that just even though this person even though my business is not located in in Minnesota, because I've hired somebody who does at least 50% of their work while residing in Minnesota, they are covered by this law. So they could they could get a basically, a doctor's note that says I have to take care of a sick relative or or I'm I'm I'm on maternity leave. And then this person is going to be gone for five months. So now I have to go find another person. And so the the whole the whole idea, actually, just from the basics of the law that, you know, your payroll taxes are now more expensive in Minnesota, so it's now become a lot more expensive to hire and start a business in Minnesota.

Jim Lakely:

And but even though that's supposedly covered and it will be taken advantage of and it will not it'll go a 100 times over budget, but now I have to now hire a person to replace that person that I just hired in Minnesota for the next five months, and I have to pay that person. I am definitely now not hiring anybody in Minnesota. And then once I can fire this person, and who knows how legal that will be, when they come back to work after five months, I have to fire the person. I have to let go of the person I I brought in to replace this person. No matter how good this person is, I have to get rid of them and bring back this person who just abandoned me for five months.

Jim Lakely:

I'm never hiring anybody in Minnesota to do any remote work ever. Never ever ever as long as this as long as this law is in place. So it's basically the never hire anybody in Minnesota to do remote work act of 2025 because you would be an absolute idiot for hiring anybody. And, also, this law, if you had a choice between hiring somebody remote or not who is a young single band or a 31 year old married woman, who would you hire if you wanted to make sure that this person stayed in the job? Because maternity leave of five months is a lot, and it would be mandatory.

Linnea Lueken:

Oh, but don't worry. But don't worry, Jim. It's not just for the mother. It's for the father too.

Jim Lakely:

Oh, that's right. It is for the father too. Again, I said single. I would hire nothing but 24 year old single men who who don't date and just play video games all day. That would be the safest hire of all

Linnea Lueken:

in Minnesota. That's you you just yeah. Tying this to the fraud issue, though, this is so obviously ripe for fraud, though. You know, say you're a seasonal once again, a seasonal employee and you all of a sudden claim that you have to take paternity leave or maternity leave for twenty weeks during your seasonal job. You're just getting paid to not work

Jim Lakely:

the whole time. Absolutely

Sam Karnick:

right. But you're not getting paid not to work. You know why? Because this law works just like is going to work just like minimum wage laws, which is it will just end employment at the margin. So if you're not somebody that is absolutely critical to an operation that is somehow absolutely critical to people in Minnesota who will put up money for it, then you're done.

Sam Karnick:

You're out. You're not going to be working. So, what happens here is that if if if you look at how minimum wage loss work, you know, the the the the, kids in high school, for example, they can't get jobs anymore. And and and, you know, people complain about, well, people in college, they they should be working. They should, you know, support themselves and pay their tuition by working.

Sam Karnick:

You can't get jobs. You can't get jobs if unless you're some sort of really critical important worker who brings a whole lot to the table. So what this does is it makes it extremely expensive and extremely risky to hire people. Well, guess what? If you cannot hire people, you can't have an operation.

Sam Karnick:

You can't have a business. You need human beings to do that. We can talk about AI all you want. You need human beings. So what's going to happen is that the economy of Minnesota is going to shrink and shrink and shrink, and people are going to leave and leave and leave.

Sam Karnick:

And Iowa and, Wyoming and North Dakota will will become more populous, and, Minnesota will just turn into, guess what, Mogadishu.

Linnea Lueken:

Wyoming is full.

Jim Lakely:

No. No way.

Linnea Lueken:

Nobody's allowed to move to Wyoming.

Sam Karnick:

Sorry, Lanea.

Jim Lakely:

Well, yeah, I'll tell you. So, you know, we we got a little bit into the fraud that's happening in Minneapolis in the Somali community, and it's, when the New York Times is is finally forced to write the story and, about the Somali community fraud broad fraud, and we're talking a billion dollars at least. That's the tip of the iceberg. And their scams were not even that creative. They were basically you know, when the law says that you can set up a nonprofit or a or a a corporation and collect money from the government to service autistic children or or distribute food, and the state is completely uninterested in making sure that you're an actual organization that actually exists and actually does things and not just a scam, a complete scam, it's going to continue to grow.

Jim Lakely:

And that's exactly what happened with the with the Smolly scams in Minneapolis. So I'm going to suggest a great way to scam this system, and I know I'm not gonna be giving, the scammers in in Minnesota any ideas because they've already thought about this and five things better better than it. But under this law, this would be a fantastic way to scam it. So you get hired part it's because it applies to part time people. Right?

Jim Lakely:

So, apply to a place. Get a job part time. After two weeks, say, get a note from your doctor, and this can they can be in on the scam saying that I need to take care of a sick relative. Can we see a picture of the sick relative? No.

Jim Lakely:

You can't. That would be invasive of my privacy. But here's the note from the doctor. And so now I get I get, five months of paid leave. Thank you very much.

Jim Lakely:

After you get that, you walk over down the street and get another job, And then you you do the same thing every two weeks. You could be being paid for unlimited numbers of jobs that you don't actually have to go for. And if you if you time it right, you never have to go to work and you make more money than if you had actually one job. I guarantee you that is how this is gonna be scammed, and there's gonna be no money to be able to to stop. What's that?

Linnea Lueken:

I said slow down, Jim. I'm taking notes. Okay.

Sam Karnick:

Put it on But that's why no one will get hired, and and business will just evaporate.

Jim Lakely:

Yeah. Well, I mean, why work when when scamming the system is this easy? And and and and, again, this is not to say that people don't need and deserve and and require time off to take care of a sick spouse or mother Or, obviously, every every business has maternity leave of different of different sizes and and different arrangements. But it's the idea that it's a one size fit all, and it's mandatory for every business to do it exactly this way. And it doesn't matter.

Jim Lakely:

We're gonna charge you. We're gonna tax you, but we will handle all the money. Don't you worry because we're the we're the state, and we know what we're doing. People should be able to enter into voluntary arrangements with their employers in this way. There's an incentive for employers to offer good benefits in order to to attract and keep the best workers.

Jim Lakely:

That's an expensive endeavor for businesses, but it's worth it if they get the right talent. When you take all of that incentive away and actually incentivize fraud, you're going to get fraud on a massive scale, and it's guaranteed to happen in this case.

Linnea Lueken:

I still kind of can't get over though how, you know, the report from employees at the state are saying that they tried to blow the whistle on this. They were saying, hey. You know, all this paperwork is wrong. These people haven't actually proved that these businesses exist. You know, should we be, like, checking on this?

Linnea Lueken:

And Tim Waltz in his office is threatening people with firing them, threatening them who knows what other ways. They didn't give too many specifics in their report, in their whistleblowing reports to the point where 500 state employees have come forward to say that they've witnessed this. That's I mean, I think that's probably grounds for some kind of a real investigation. Right? And to get Tim Waltz taken out of office, I would think.

Jim Lakely:

Impeachment at a minimum and criminal Yeah. Criminal investigation at the the very least.

Linnea Lueken:

If we didn't live in, like, crazy town.

Sam Karnick:

It's torches and pitchforks time over there.

Linnea Lueken:

Absolutely. So yep. Doug Troyer, one of our viewers our frequent viewers here says already has fraud is going to happen, but when you don't suppress it, it grows like Sam says. And then, Chris Nisbet suggests that Jim can set himself up as a benefit consultant. That would that would be a pretty good gig there.

Linnea Lueken:

Well, he

Jim Lakely:

I got a good I like my gig right now. This is good. Although, you know, I should do that in Minnesota and then just take my five month you know what? Forget it. I'll just I'll just I'll work

Linnea Lueken:

Don't yeah. Don't give it away. Who knows who's watching this very important show? And, unfortunately, you guys, I think that's all we've got for you today. So we only went thirteen minutes over this time to almost forty minutes over, so you're welcome.

Linnea Lueken:

But, also, thank you guys, everyone, for your attention to all of these matters. Remember that we are live every single week on Thursdays at noon central on Rumble, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, X, whatever you wanna call it. I still keep accidentally calling it Twitter years later. Jim, what do you have for the audience today?

Jim Lakely:

Be sure to come back to this very bat channel at the very same bat time for the climate realism show tomorrow, Fridays, every Friday at 1PM eastern time. We're gonna have a fantastic show. I'll be hosting, and Lynea will be speaking. Sam?

Sam Karnick:

Yes. Please check out my article at spectator.org, and also go to the Heartland Institute website for all kinds of fantastic information and my substack, stkarnik.substack.com.

Linnea Lueken:

Awesome. For audio listeners, please rate us well on whatever service you're using and leave a review too even if it's just a I like this show. Good job, guys, kind of comment. It doesn't have to be long. It helps us out a lot.

Linnea Lueken:

Thank you so much to two of our usual panelists here. I'm sorry that Chris wasn't here this week, you guys, and also to our wonderful viewers. We will see you all again next week.

Speaker 10:

Oh, hold your horses. I think it's time for a gym rant. Someone get me some milk and cookies. Oh, hold your horses.