"If there hadn't been a Thomas Drake, there couldn't have been an Edward Snowden."
-- Edward Snowden

Donald Trump is threatening to abolish the Department of Education. Should you freak out?

#video #politics #education #humor

The ultimate guide to actual weight loss results! This one of a kind video will explore the most tried and true weight loss methods to discuss what works!

#video #health #science

#^Tragic Pharma Magic in the Confirmation of RFK Jr.

Walter Kirn shares his perspective after sitting front row in the confirmation hearing of RFK Jr.

Why do Democrats and Republicans behave like this in every confirmation hearing ever?

Donald Trump is releasing more secrets than any president in history. Matt Taibbi on the top ten mysteries we’re likely to solve.

(0:00) Fauci’s Pardon
(7:32) The J6 Committee’s Pardon
(11:02) The Golden Age of Journalism Has Begun
(17:44) The Major Questions We Should Be Asking Now That Trump Is President
(29:00) The Destruction of Nord Stream Will Kill the EU
(33:57) The Key Players of COVID That Have Yet to Be Investigated
(36:20) The New Media Landscape
(45:17) Trump’s Mass Disclosure Will Make Certain People Very Dangerous
(51:13) Will We Ever Truly Know the Purpose of the COVID Regime?
(58:45) Russiagate and the Leaked DNC Emails
(1:03:28) Kash Patel and Political Espionage
(1:20:30) The Intel Agencies That Control Wikipedia
(1:33:47) How They Try to Brainwash Us Into Submission

The founder of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer, discusses whether conspiracy thinking is on the rise and whether it's coded right or left.

"Even paranoids have real enemies," said the poet Delmore Schwartz, who was both clinically paranoid and definitely on to something, according to today's guest: Michael Shermer, the founder of Skeptic magazine, Substack superstar, and author of many best-selling books about rationalism, the evolution of morality, and pseudoscience.

He quotes Schwartz in his latest book, Conspiracy: Why the Rational Believe the Irrational, to drive home the point that big, world-changing secret plots happen all the time, but there are reliable ways for us to decide whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, 9/11 was an inside job, or vaccines cause autism. For the record, Shermer says yes, no, and no on those counts.

Reason's Nick Gillespie talks with Shermer about whether conspiracy thinking is on the rise, whether it's coded left or right, how wokeness poisons science, and whether the reelection of Donald Trump means free thought is ascendant. This interview was recorded at a live event in New York City in January.

#^Woman Taken to Court Over Christmas Decorations

IJ condemns the city of Germantown, Tennessee for its brazen violation of Americans’ free speech rights after it cited Alexis Luttrell, a Germantown resident, for violating the city’s sign code.

Her supposed crime: Incorporating Halloween decorations like skeletons into her Christmas yard display.

You would think that only a grinch would look at Luttrell’s decorations and think they deserve a court summons.

But IJ cases from over a decade show that officials across the country regularly abuse ordinary Americans by acting like the “speech police.”

Lee Schmidt and Crystal Arrington live in and around Norfolk, Virginia. Like most ordinary people, they have daily routines. Work, church, trips to the store, visits with family, school pickups. And like most ordinary people, they don’t like the thought of somebody following them around and watching their every move.

But that is exactly what the city of Norfolk is doing. In 2023, the city installed over 172 cameras around town. These are not your standard traffic cameras. The cameras are strategically placed to capture everybody’s daily travel. They’re straight-up surveillance cameras, set up to watch people 24/7 as they go about their lives.

As the police chief has explained, “it would be difficult to drive anywhere of any distance without running into a camera somewhere.”

The cameras snap photos of every car as they drive by and upload them into a database. Officials can then use this database to go back in time and create maps of where people have been, where they tend to drive, and even who they tend to meet up with. All of this happens without a warrant or even probable cause.  

But the Fourth Amendment doesn’t allow the government to set up a surveillance state. If the city wants to track suspicious people, it can do what the police have always done: get a warrant. What the city can’t do, though, is watch ordinary people everywhere they go and create a record of their lives without any judicial oversight. Lee and Crystal, with help from the Institute for Justice, are suing to make sure of that.

During the Great Depression, Roscoe Filburn grew more wheat than the government allowed. He got fined and fought back in court. In 1942, the Supreme Court ruled the government did have the power to regulate wheat that never left his property. It’s a ruling that has paved the way for even more government power over the stuff we do on our own property.

#video #law

On this channel we conduct deep-dive discussions with hundreds of experts a year, doing our best to see through their eyes and chart a wise course through the economic waters ahead.

But with all the different approaches, opinions and conclusions, it's important to remind ourselves not to overcomplicate things.

The fundamentals to wealth building aren't rocket science.

And for most non-professional investors, keeping it simple, consistent and disciplined makes success more attainable.

In fact, today's guest claims that everything the average investor needs to know can fit on a standard index card.

So what's on that card? We'll ask the man himself.

Today we'll talk with Harold Pollack, University of Chicago Professor and co-author of the best-seller The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn't Have to Be Complicated

Folks if you have children in college or starting out in life, this may be a particularly valuable discussion for them to hear.

Can he do it? It depends.

Are you afraid of being mistaken or outed as a white supremacist? Doctors say Americans accidentally make Nazi salutes six to eight times a year. That’s why we’ve made Shoulderlok.

Students are taught to report anyone who "offends" them.

Universities even provide hotlines.

The new documentary, “The Coddling of the American Mind" points out how that hurts students.

Here are a few students’ experiences with campus indoctrination:

#^Everything ILLEGAL Trump Has Done (SO FAR)

#video #law

Can you trust Mark Zuckerberg? This episode dives into Meta’s sweeping policy changes and question whether they reflect a commitment to free expression or strategic pandering. We analyze his six-point plan, including community-driven content moderation and efforts to fight global censorship. Along the way, we explore the limits of shame, the Popper Paradox, and why fostering trust and Grace is essential for meaningful societal change.

Partisan pundits cover Trump's inauguration.

#video

The secret to why government spending fails isn't what you think. It's not corruption. It's not incompetence. It's something far simpler that happens to all of us every day. Milton Friedman breaks it down perfectly in this 2-minute clip that will change how you think about government spending forever.

#video

#^Far Out Journal Club -  Tim Russ (December 5, 2024)

#video

As we begin a new year, I thought it appropriate to continue Thoughtful Money's ongoing commitment to highlighting the principles components of true wealth -- of which money is simply a means, not the end in itself.

Research tells us that true wealth is primarily a function of quality relationships, purpose & health.

And today, we're going to drill down deep into the purpose part of that equation.

#video #media

Robby Soave and Amber Duke react to the Wall Street Journal's coverage of President Biden's cognitive decline since the beginning of his term and why it was just reported on now.