Dave Smith Appears With Joe Rogan — Some Highlights

Plus, touching on some other big stories of the day

In an episode of his podcast posted yesterday, Joe Rogan sat down with one of my favorite libertarian political voices — Dave Smith. Of course I decided to watch it, and figured I might as well make some highlight clips as well!

At the very start of the episode, Rogan throws a jab at media for being pulled in numerous directions due to special interests, and notes how Dave Smith — a comedian — is better at the job than they are.

In this clip, the pair recounts the lockdown era and “trusting the health experts” — the same health experts who were scaring people out of their minds. That led to Rogan re-thinking his attitude towards the health experts, as well as the media pushing the fear. Dave Smith ties this in to the fear after 9/11.

This fear, of course, led to the USA PATRIOT Act, the eventual “modernization” of the Smith-Mundt Act, and the NDAA of 2012. But first, there were a BUNCH of wars to fight:

The pair then briefly talk about the intelligence agencies infiltrating/starting gangster rap, which is the perfect way to fill up prisons and get people scared (once again, making them easier to control!) while also flying in shipments of crack cocaine you’re fighting the drug war against. That provides the perfect excuse to play this mini-clip from the hilarious Reason video “Libertarian James Bond.”

After talking about more intelligence agency fuckery, namely Watergate, Smith discusses one of my favorite topics: how Nixon abandoned the gold standard and doomed the economy to ultimate failure. (This is a long video but also a perfect introduction to somebody who doesn’t know the story!)

When the money is fake, the rest of the economy is doomed to follow…….

But since the money is fake, there’s no real appetite to STOP printing (because of course there isn’t). So the wars (like the one in Ukraine) go on longer than they should……

The pair talks about the Ukraine war for a while longer, then the topic swings back to the intelligence agencies. This leads to Smith recounting one of the most enlightening moments in media history:

This soon led to a discussion of the recently released Russiagate documents. I found it interesting that here, Smith repeats the prevailing narrative surrounding the December 2016 ICA “request.” Perhaps he’s unaware of the evidence (or at least the reporting?) showing the CIA delivered the (fraudulent) report to Obama in AUGUST but couldn’t get other agencies to go along until after Clinton lost.

In this hilarious short clip, Smith compares the power of Washington DC to the One Ring:

Rogan and Smith then briefly talk about the race for New York City mayor, during which Rogan notes that it’s weird both parties are coming out against Zohran Mamdani — doesn’t the primary vote matter? Smith state that much of Mamdani’s support is because he doesn’t have a lot of the baggage that Cuomo and Adams have, including full-throated support for Israel.

This predictably leads to a long (40-ish minute) discussion of the war in Gaza, which is not really my thing but starts at around the 1:42:00 mark in the full version below.

In the last two clips, Smith emphasizes that even though we have problems, it’s important to remain optimistic that we can solve them, because what choice do we really have?

As usual, the full Rogan episode clocks in at around three hours. It’s worth a watch if you’ve got the time!

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Just wanted to touch on a couple other big stories from today that people may want to discuss. First up, a positive step from HHS Secretary Kennedy:

But at the same time, hopefully this is one step of many when it comes to the covid vaccines.

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The New York Times provides some additional information about the raid on John Bolton’s home…..

The investigation into President Trump’s former national security adviser, John R. Bolton, began to pick up momentum during the Biden administration, when U.S. intelligence officials collected information that appeared to show that he had mishandled classified information, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

The United States gathered data from an adversarial country’s spy service, including emails with sensitive information that Mr. Bolton, while still working in the first Trump administration, appeared to have sent to people close to him on an unclassified system, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive case that remains open.

So…….it wasn’t “political revenge” or “an attack on the First Amendment” at all? SHOCKED, I SAY!

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I really really really didn’t want to mention the terrible shooting in Minnesota today, but every single mainstream article I’ve seen on it has been disgustingly awful that I feel compelled to act. Here’s perhaps the worst instance:

“The name of president Trump written on the gun”:

So in the interest of letting the interested adults see the primary material so they can actually come to their own conclusions, here’s the “video manifesto” in question. if you want to know the truth, don’t listen to ABC News. (Or me!) “Robin M” leaves little doubt about motivation.

Another video features a journal, but it’s written in some sort of coded language and is functionally worthless for now.

What a senseless tragedy.

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