Tax Day, Trump on Trial, and Tesla's Troubles
Hello, everybody. Welcome to another edition of look through the chaos of podcast. The podcast that tries to look at all the chaos in the world, sometimes economic, sometimes political, a lot of times cultural, both domestically, internationally, and at least tries to unscramble it for you. At least that's what we try to do. My name is Duane Patterson.
Duane Patterson:You can reach me at Radioblogger on Twitter slash x, or you can reach my partner in crime. That would be former congressman John Campbell. Used to represent the state of California for about 10 years in congress. You can reach him online at look through chaos, look, t h r u, chaos. Plus, you can read our stuff at look through the chaos dot com.
Duane Patterson:The links to all the podcasts are there. Apple, Spotify, all the links are there. That's really the one stop shop to go get anything between John and me. That's look through to chaos.com. Hi, John.
Duane Patterson:How are you? There's a there's some
John Campbell:generally speaking.
Duane Patterson:Chaotic things in the news this week.
John Campbell:Yeah. There are. I mean, the missiles flying usually is contributes to chaos. It's not something that is normally calming and and peaceful by definition.
Duane Patterson:So neither one of us I would consider to be Israeli experts or even Middle East experts. So there's not much we can add from a tangible stuff you didn't already know standpoint, but there is aspects of the American response to how this whole thing has played out that we can give you some information on and that we need to point out, and it's stuff that just makes me crazy, John. John Kirby, the co press secretary of the Biden administration, has been making this point for quite some time, and he made it again on Sunday, on Fox News, Sunday with Shannon Bream, and he made it again at the White House, press briefing today. Well, on Monday when we taped this. And the the concept is media is starting to push back and ask questions about, hey.
Duane Patterson:Wait a minute. I thought Iran was broke when you guys took over, and they couldn't afford all this terrorism. They couldn't afford all the rockets and all the ballistic missiles, and now all of a sudden they can't. Is this because you freed up all that money for them in during your administration? And here's what John Kirby had to say on Sunday, cut number 1.
Speaker 4:Is it not fair to say, though, that there have been moves by this administration that have opened up cash and other opportunities for them, which we know are fungible in ways that are not helping the Iranian people, but are benefiting the elites and people there who chant death to America. And death to Israel. You and I
Speaker 1:have had this fungibility argument, before. I obviously take a different issue, or take an issue with that characterization. The the sanctions relief that has come about or, it's not even sanctions relief, but the additional funds that have been made available to Iran due to sanctions relief program that the Trump administration put in place can only be used for humanitarian goods. It doesn't go to the regime. And the idea that the regime was somehow felt like they were freed up to support these proxies because of that, it just doesn't comport with the facts.
Speaker 1:They have been supporting these
Speaker 4:proxies for
Speaker 1:many, many years.
Speaker 4:And it comports with their language, though, saying we will use this money in the way that we wanna use it. They can't.
Duane Patterson:Now John Campbell, you were in government for 10 years. You helped oversee budgeting. You were in charge of monetary policy. The the concept of fungibility is a word that's confusing to a lot of people. Maybe a lot of people listening to this podcast don't quite have a handle on what fungibility actually means or what this argument is about.
Duane Patterson:Personally, I know what it means, and I think John Kirby and the White House are full of it. I think you can lay everything we're seeing at their at their feet. But explain to people what fudgeability is and how this actually manifests itself.
John Campbell:They are. And before I do that though, who was asking those questions?
Duane Patterson:Do you know? That was Shannon Bream over at Fox News.
John Campbell:Oh, my gosh. Because good for her. I would say whoever was asked that question, good follow-up questions and so forth. But, yes, I was actually in full time elected office for 14 years when you include California legislature, which is one of, I believe, only 5 legislatures in the country that are full time that don't adjourn and go home in ape ape somewhere between March May. So I'm gonna use an example from there so that people understand it.
John Campbell:California, when I was there, got people to vote for funding for roads. Because as high as the taxes are in California, the roads suck, and they don't spend a lot of money on the roads fixing them, etcetera. So they said, we're gonna increase tax, sales tax, gas tax by a certain percentage, and we will guarantee that all this money goes to roads. And the people of California bought it and because they read the actual language in the initiative, and it said, all the money raised from this thing has to go to Rhodes. So they said, alright.
John Campbell:I don't wanna raise taxes anymore, but I will do it as long as it goes to Rhodes and it's not going to something else because that's winter due. But here's then what they did. They took the money that was already going to Rhodes before that initiative was passed, and they diverted that into all kinds of social programs and all kinds of other garbage, you know, you know, for illegal aliens and whatnot, which is exactly what people wanna do. So they ended up getting 0 more dollars for roads and higher taxes instead. And the higher taxes as it because of the fungibility of this money, because the other money wasn't locked into going to roads.
John Campbell:They were able to move it to something else. So the end result was space same money got spent on roads. Everybody's taxes went up. The roads were crappy, and they spent it on all the garbage that people didn't want to have it spent on. And that's part of how California got into the mess that it is.
John Campbell:Now let's look and move that over to e Iran and what's going on. First of all, as Shannon Breen said, the Ayatollah himself said specifically, he said, you've someone asked him in an interview, some, like, BBC person or or maybe it was, Al Jazzaar. I don't know. But I don't remember. But asked him, what are you gonna spend this money on?
John Campbell:You have to spend it on humanitarian. And he said, we'll spend it on whatever we want. Okay. So there you go. The person with the money is saying they'll spend it on whatever we want, but let's just take that and say that was a throwaway comment.
John Campbell:And say they do get this money and they spend on humanitarian. Well, then whatever else they're spending on anything else, I mean, I'm sure, yeah, they spend a lot of money on weapons and on their military, but I'm sure they spend some money on roads, on their people somehow, on their health care system, on whatever they do so they can just take all that money, spend it on missiles to go attack Jews in Israel with, and then take the other money take the, money they were spending on that and spend it on that other stuff. So but, you know, it's like many things this Biden administration says. I'm sure that question was probably the only such question they got, that he got. It was challenging at all on this issue.
John Campbell:So all they have to do is lie to Fox News or occasionally if some other reporter in there, I I mean, we know that the regime media I I mean, like, Kathryn Haraj, who used to be at CBS, but they fired her. And, you know, any of these regime media outlets that used to have someone that would ask stuff questions of the administration, they've gotten rid of them. So now I think they just figure, alright. We'll just lie to them. No one else will question us.
John Campbell:You know, if this were Trump in a, in a press conference or Trump press secretary. They'd be
Duane Patterson:trying to lie this at the or lay this at the feet of Trump all of the the whole way.
John Campbell:Well and CBS asked that question. NBC then would do a follow-up. ABC would do the next follow-up. CNN would do the next follow-up. Bloomberg would do the next follow-up.
John Campbell:Yep. Wall Street Journal would do the next follow-up. Atlantic would do the next follow-up. Reuters would do that. AP would do that.
John Campbell:They they would ask the same question 15 times, and and they wouldn't be able to lie their way through it. The Biden administration knows they only need to lie once, and there won't be any follow-up, and they're done. And so that's part of the problem. A lie. It's an absolute ball ball faced lie that that they can't spend this money on anything else.
Duane Patterson:At at best, when when John Kirby is saying that, well, they they can't. They they they're they're not allowed to spend the money on terrorism. At best, he's being willfully obtuse and not understanding how how seamless money flows once it's within a government organization. And at worst, he knows what he's talking about, and he's just lying his his rear end off. Right?
John Campbell:And 100 percent it's it's like, yo, Hamas gives you figures on casualties. Does anybody believe anything Hamas says? Yes.
Duane Patterson:Yes. He regime does.
John Campbell:Yes. He did. No one in their right mind should, nor should we believe Iran, nor should we believe anything coming out of the Chinese Communist Party. The these these groups lie. That is what they do.
John Campbell:And when you accept them, it's, as I as I did said on Hugh and I said on his show this morning, it's like believing Hitler. Peace in our oh, don't worry. Just give me the Sudan land. I'm not gonna attack any place else. Don't worry about it.
John Campbell:No sweat. No problem. It's like believing Hitler. We now know in retrospect that was pretty stupid, but people did it. But people did it.
John Campbell:And and right now we have the same thing going on. There are people believing what Iran says, which is insane.
Duane Patterson:Okay. So I wanna cover 2 political aspects of the, escalation between Iran and and Israel. And that is the house of representatives, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the house, announced over the weekend that in light of the attack, he was going to fast track. He was going to streamline a stand alone Israel aid package, which I would think would pass fairly easily in the house. I'm sure there's a bunch of anti Semitic cranks on the Democratic side that would have a problem with it, but it will you know, stand alone aid package would probably pass in the house pretty easily.
Duane Patterson:And I would imagine if it went over to the senate, John Campbell, in light of the attacks, it would be hard for Chuck Schumer to say no to that. But at the White House today, we had not one but two questions about a stand alone aid package asked of both Corinne Jean Pierre and of John Kirby. Here is how John Kirby handled it. Cut number 4.
Speaker 1:We are opposed to a stand alone, bill that would just work on Israel as we've seen proposed.
Speaker 5:We would we would oppose a stand alone bill. Yes.
Duane Patterson:They would veto they would veto an Israel aid bill stand alone because well, to hear that because, you have to get into the depth of knowledge on this subject that Corinne Jean Pierre has. Cut number 3. Listen to this.
Speaker 4:House speaker Mike Johnson has said that he'll move forward, with a vote on additional Israel aid. If Congress were to pass additional aid for Israel and only that, will president Biden reject it?
Speaker 6:So we've been very clear, my colleagues from here just moments ago, that we, will not accept a stand alone. A stand alone, would would actually not help Israel and and Ukraine. It would actually delay the needs that they the the the needs that the the needed aid, that they obviously need, to fight. You see what were happening in Ukraine? Obviously, brave people of Ukrainian are are fighting against a tyrant.
Speaker 6:We need to make sure that they have this the assistance that they need. We saw what happened in Israel just over, over the weekend, and the leadership that this president has shown. It would it would actually it would actually not help them if we do a stand alone, and we do not support a stand alone.
Duane Patterson:Now, John, there's so much. There is so much in here. But number 1, the fact that we can do a stand alone aid package, and Karim John Pierce says that actually wouldn't help. Now if you were a country getting an aid package from the US, would that help or not help you?
John Campbell:Yeah. I think it would help. I think it was See,
Duane Patterson:I'm thinking that would help you. Yeah. But when but when she says, yes, we're going to veto that just from a political standpoint. Don't you as a Republican want to force Joe Biden to veto an aid bill to Israel right after they just had 300 missiles launched at it? Don't you wanna force him to do that?
John Campbell:Yes. But it won't happen because Schumer won't take it up. One thing I disagree with you that you said in the lead into this was that you thought Schumer would have to take it up. I don't think he would have had to anyway, but with the veto threat, that really gives him cover. That gives him huge cover to not take it up.
John Campbell:So I and he'll just say, well, we're not gonna waste floor time for something that's not gonna pass. Very, very easy, for him to not take it up. So that's not gonna happen.
Duane Patterson:You don't think the pressure against
John Campbell:No. Wow. No. I don't I don't think so. So so now, because remember, they're still more worried about their 100,000, you know, pro Hamas people in Dearborn, Michigan than they are about every Jew in America.
John Campbell:I I just they just are or a very pro Israel Christian in America for that matter. But I, what so I I still, I think speaker judge should put it on the floor, pass it, send it over there, and and he'll, do that with it. Now it may give the only thing by doing that, it may give some cover to some vulnerable Democrats who can vote for it knowing it's not gonna pass, although that might get them in some trouble with their left at home. So who knows? Whether you do that or not depends on what kind of position it puts vulnerable Democrats in.
John Campbell:You know, we're we're close to an election now. An awful lot of bills that get put on the floor in either house are there to stake out positions for the election. Because something walking. Something you voted on a year ago, a lot of times people forget. But something you vote on a month or 2 or 3 months or 4 months before an election becomes fresher in people's mind.
John Campbell:Your cards can run ads and bring it up, and it makes more things. So so there will be a lot of calculus on that. Obviously, it would help every Republican, but the question is, would you be helping Democrats if you gave them something they could vote for that wasn't actually become law? Now let's assume that happens. What what's speaker Johnson's next step?
John Campbell:So what basically the president is saying is I'll do support for Israel, but you gotta put support for Ukraine in it.
Duane Patterson:He's holding the Jews hostage. He's holding Israel hostage to Ukraine aid is what he's doing.
John Campbell:So so a lot of a lot of Republicans don't wanna vote for Ukraine, and and maybe this would just blow up because nobody would vote for it. But if you put Israel funding together and Ukraine funding together and in it but you paid for it. Because one of the things I think we really every Republican bill should be doing now is you're not gonna cure the deficit with a $100,000,000,000 or $50,000,000,000 or anything else. But the the rule of holes, once you're in one stop tipping we are in
Duane Patterson:a very spending offset you have to do spending offsets.
John Campbell:On on everything. I think on everything we want to do, there has to be a spending offset. And there's plenty of offsets you could put in there Sure. Of course
Speaker 1:there are.
John Campbell:That Republicans would like and would vote for. Now you'd lose a bunch of you'd lose some Republicans that don't wanna fund Ukraine. It but if the offset was, you know, the IRS or the offset was, these days, the Department of Justice or the offset was the Department of Education or, you know, the offset was something Republicans really wanted. Might you get some Republicans to go for it? And It would be yeah.
Duane Patterson:It might be worth it.
John Campbell:That that you could send over and say, there you go, mister president. There's your Ukraine package. The reality is when you put all of this stuff together, is it's very hard to imagine a bill. It's hard for me to imagine right now, a bill that's out there that would fund Ukraine, fund, fund Israel that would get the president to sign it and a majority of Republicans in the house, a a substantial majority of Republicans in the house to vote
Speaker 1:for it.
John Campbell:Now you could put a straight up Israel, Ukraine funding bill on the floor in the house, just straight up, no offsets. And a whole bunch of Democrats would vote for it. A bunch of Republicans would vote for it, and it would pass. And it would go to the senate, and it would pass. The president would sign it.
John Campbell:But you would have a lot of really pissed off Republicans in both the house and the senate, for doing that. So I'm not sure that that would be a Democratic bill, and I'm not sure that in a Republican controlled house, you wanna float that out there.
Duane Patterson:Okay. Last, avenue on this, topic before we move on to other things is today is not only tax day, at least Monday was tax day in, the United States, but it was, pro Hamas shutdown traffic day. It was, we are anti Jewish everywhere we possibly can, and we are not going away. It happened on the Golden Gate Bridge. They they chain themselves to the center of the Golden Gate Bridge and shut off, traffic for hours upon end.
Duane Patterson:At O'Hare Airport, the protesters shut down people trying to catch a flight at the world's busiest airport. And, the police showed up to provide a cordon or in a barricade to protect angry citizens trying to get to the airport from attacking the protesters and moving them out of the way. So, actually, the police ended up blocking traffic. In New York, they went after the Brooklyn Bridge. They went after Independence Hall in Philly.
Duane Patterson:It happened in briefly in Tampa, Florida. It happened, until the police showed up and cleared everybody out in about 15 minutes. There were protests in Miami, but not in traffic. They learned that lesson. They they they were protesting on the sidewalk somewhere, but they they weren't affecting traffic.
Duane Patterson:But all over the country on Monday, John, basically, Joe Biden's base turned out. Here's our friend Tom Cotton and what he had to say about it. Cut 5.
Speaker 7:Feel very deeply for all those people who are trying to get to work or trying to pick up a a kid. Very worried about the diversion of police resources where it needs to be stopping crime in cities like San Francisco where firefighters are having to go there when they might have, calls for fires out. I have to say, Sandra, I agree with you that you have to get to these pro or these, criminals early. If something like this happened in Arkansas on a bridge there, let's just say I think there'd be a lot of very wet criminals that have been tossed overboard, not by law enforcement, but by the people whose, road they're blocking. If they glued their hands to a car or the pavement, well, probably pretty painful to have their skin ripped off, but I think that's what the way we'd handle in Arkansas, and I would encourage most people anywhere that get stuck behind criminals like this, who are trying to block traffic to take matters in their own hands.
Speaker 7:There's only usually a few of them, and there's a lot of people being inconvenience. It's time to put an end to this nonsense.
Duane Patterson:So, John Campbell, here's the thing. I I have to believe in my heart of hearts the closer we get to the election. This is not the summer of 20 where you've got Antifa and race riots going on everywhere, burning everything down, and everybody getting the vapors over this. Nobody likes to see this, and the the amount of people in this country that are saying, yeah. Chain yourself to the Golden Gate Bridge over over, support for Hamas.
Duane Patterson:I'm not seeing this has gotta be a big catching issue this this fall, and all it's doing if there are even a dozen independents left in this country, they're turning off the independents. Right? I mean, what's the political ramification for all this?
John Campbell:Yeah. I love senator Cotton. I served with him. He was in the house when I was in the house, and, man, he's a great guy. I love him, and that was that was outstanding.
John Campbell:And it's one of the things that kept being missus Campbell and I. We're watching Fox News at lunchtime. It is now Monday tax day. You you won't be listening to this until after that, but we're recording this on Monday tax day, April 15th. And we were watching it during lunch just before we came and did this.
John Campbell:And we have Fox News on, and we they said it'd been blocked for hours, and we were like, well, why didn't they just take bolt cutters, cut them, throw them in the back of squad cars, and get them the hell out of there? What why did that take 3 hours to block the Golden Gate Bridge to do that? And I'm sure in California, there was lots of handwringing about, oh, we can't disturb these protesters. But to your point, I don't know how they think this is helping their cause. I just don't be.
John Campbell:No.
Duane Patterson:It just can't.
John Campbell:The there I as you say, these people are getting to work. They're getting to a job. They're picking up a kid. They're doing whatever. The people are going to the airport.
John Campbell:I saw some of the people going to the airport would just park on this pull up on the side of the road, park, lock their car Abandon their
Duane Patterson:car or lock their car and just have to walk into the airport.
John Campbell:Abandon their car and just walk in the airport. And I don't care if you're a Democrat or what. You can't be thrilled by this. And and so I I don't know how they think this helps their cause. I I presume what they're thinking is that they get publicity.
John Campbell:Okay. Score. They get that. Alright. If that's what they want, they're getting that.
John Campbell:But I and I understand Reggie Jackson said love me or hate me, but talk about me. I'm not sure that works in politics completely. You don't wanna be the bad news story every day. You don't wanna be the story that
Duane Patterson:people didn't work for Donald Trump in 2020, did it? Everybody talked about Trump every every day of the week and and twice on Sunday, and it didn't work out for Donald Trump in 2020.
John Campbell:And the, the the parallels you and I talked about this in our exhaustive show show prep. The parallels to 1968 are absolutely scary. They're coming together right now. That was with the left splitting with the Democrats over the war in Vietnam
Duane Patterson:Vietnam.
John Campbell:Which was being prosecuted by Lyndon Baines Johnson, who was not running for reelection, but whose vice president, Hubert Humphrey, was. And so it was still kind of the continuation of that administration running an unpopular war, a war that was unpopular with the hard left of the Democratic Party at the time. Bingo. We have the same thing here. Difference being that US troops are currently not serving on the ground being killed at the rate of 200 a week during that war.
John Campbell:But it is a split with the hard left of the Democratic Party that is antiwar, same as it was in 68. And, you know, that Democratic event what is this? This is April, so we got May, June, July. 4 months, you've got the Democratic primary. And I have to think that unless something dramatic changes in the Middle East between now and then where Israel pulls back somehow, or Gaza becomes a a a paradise of swimming pools or I don't know what, that these guys are going to be at that convention, and they they're I do you hear those chants today?
John Campbell:Genocide Joe has got to go. Genocide Joe has got to go. That that they well And again And again we can vote for Donald Trump, and he'll go.
Duane Patterson:According to Tom Cotton, this is Joe this is Joe Biden's base. These are people. This is what he is setting the nonsensical, uns untenable, position. Paul a foreign policy on Israel is being set to try to appease the very people that are calling them genocide Joe.
John Campbell:And I don't think they're appeasable. I just I just don't think that's gonna happen. And by the way, we were watching it on Fox News, and I thought for a minute, I wonder what CNN's doing. So I clicked over to CNN because I was curious how they were covering it. They were covering Trump's trial.
John Campbell:I don't even know. I I they weren't even covering this. I mean, okay. This is journalistic, malpractice. This truly is.
John Campbell:Shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge is news. I don't care I I don't care who did it. I don't care why they did it. That's news, and it's happening right now. Instead of that, they're covering this Trump trial, which, by the way, will be their neck tomorrow and the day after that and 3 months from now.
John Campbell:And
Duane Patterson:we're through June. Yeah. It's gonna go for 2 months.
John Campbell:Yeah. And I'm not even sure the people who watch CNN care that much about it. I I just I I just don't think they do. It's it's amazing. I mean, you will look at that, and there's no wonder that CNN has couple 100000 people who watch it anymore, rather than the millions that watch Fox.
Duane Patterson:So I watched a smattering of the Sunday shows just to mine, data in
John Campbell:my Did you did you do that for the listeners to this podcast? I did it
Duane Patterson:for listeners of podcast. I did it for the Hugh Hewitt Show because that's kind of my job. So
John Campbell:That is a selfless act. I I wanna I wanna say people should be, thanking you for that. That is
Duane Patterson:a selfless act. I I watch I watch the Sunday shows, so you don't have to. Yes.
John Campbell:There you go.
Duane Patterson:About half of the time on most of the Sunday shows, half the time was spent on the the Iran attack that happened the night before. For obvious reasons, they they couldn't ignore it. They were just trying to find a way to salvage Joe Biden's, position on it. The other half of the Sunday shows were spent on abortion. Now you and I you and I and nobody else in the country is talking about the abortion issue today, But that's what they spent half of the Sunday shows on.
Duane Patterson:Today, on MSNBC and CNN, it's wall to wall Trump trial because it is.
John Campbell:I'm sorry to think the I'm sorry to think the that the regime BD just talks themselves, that the that the only people that watch CBS are the people at NBC and ABC.
Duane Patterson:Wish casting.
John Campbell:Yeah.
Duane Patterson:It's wish casting.
John Campbell:It's ridiculous.
Duane Patterson:Okay. Let's do some good news before we completely run out of time. And I want to let you do the good news because I kinda stepped on you last time and, monopolized it. Now I know the subject matter you want to crow about on good news, and and we may disagree on the good news. You can convince me, but, you know, I'm seeing stories like your one one of your 3 current governors, and I mean, you know, your cow farm governor, this would be, governor Laura Kelly in the state of Kansas, just vetoed a protection for children with gender dysphoria from having surgery.
Duane Patterson:She's vetoed it after it passed the Kansas legislature. I also read last week that it's now considered to be homophobic violence to notice that Hamas actually hates gays and would actually kill gays as part of their as part of their religion. But if you point that out to try to tell people it's kind of a silly argument to be gay or transgendered and support Hamas when they would kill you just the same. You, by pointing that out, are engaging in homophobic violence. I think we're losing the narrative, John Campbell, but you've got some good news on this.
Duane Patterson:So
John Campbell:I do. I I think perhaps we're turning the core corner on this whole transgender thing. And remember, everyone, that what this is about, if you go back and read the, I don't know, epistles, if you will, of the people who essentially started this Neo Marxist movement back in the sixties seventies and and even to some extent early eighties, and people have continued that in this century. Amongst the things that is important for the Neo Marxist overthrow of the United States from within, Obviously, we have to get rid of the constitution. We have to get rid of of, American exceptionalism in our culture.
John Campbell:But one of the things they hate intensely is the nuclear family. They they believe that the nuclear family of a husband, a wife, and children, is is a barrier to putting Marxism and socialism in place. So it they need to destroy that. And, the whole s 2 LGBTQII+plus movement is a well orchestrated and thought out over decades movement and, progression of overturning, of getting rid of the nuclear family. It is one of the pillars of American society that they wish to tear down.
John Campbell:And when they're all torn down, the roof of American society falls in, neo Marxist authoritarian government, and Nirvana in their view, going forward. So that is why this transgenderism is so important. I there are a lot of conservatives and people out there who dismiss it. I talk about it some and, you know, it's a 1% of the 1 hundredth of a percent of the population. No.
John Campbell:No. They want it to be half the population because it tears down the nuclear family. So, they have been making huge progress in this in as you as you just mentioned, in schools, in governments to get people like okay. I understand she's a Democrat, but she's in freaking Kansas. And for a Democratic governor in Kansas to say no, we have to do gender mutilation of 6 year olds without telling their parents about it Right.
John Campbell:Is is insane. I get it that Californians do that because and people in Oregon and Washington because they are insane. Those governmental they are insane. But but, Kansas people doesn't make any sense. But there were 2 major shifts recently.
John Campbell:1 was the pope and the the I am not Catholic. I should be having this discussion with Hugh Hewitt or somebody who is, but I am not a fan of this pope. This pope is a big leftist, and so many of the things that dictates that this pope has made are not things that I agree with. And he has waited way into political waters, way farther than I have, than other popes have done.
Duane Patterson:He's gotten in front of, in front of skis a lot on a lot of social issues. Yes.
John Campbell:And all was on the left. All was on the left. And I've had Catholics telling me my, former chief of staff, in fact, when I was in Washington. I was talking to her about it. And she's like, oh, yeah.
John Campbell:The worst pope in 200, 300 years. But when it came to transgender, he drew a line. And he said a couple of weeks ago, and I'm gonna paraphrase it and do it badly because pope speak is not something I'm particularly well versed in. But, he basically said, god made men and women, men and women. And to say that men are women and women are men is to is to mess with God's creation.
Duane Patterson:It's an offense to God. It just is.
John Campbell:And the Catholic church cannot and does not support that. So for this You know how
Duane Patterson:you do that in papal talk? You know how you do that in papal talk? Okay. How? Do your South Park accent.
John Campbell:Oh, oh, wait. No. No. No. The South Park has the pope.
John Campbell:The pope goes. Yeah. I've seen
Speaker 1:I've watched South Park a lot.
John Campbell:But I've watched South Park.
Duane Patterson:But but, yeah, you But See, whatever you've whenever you've got to do an accent, for for anybody and you've got to do pope speak or British speak or whatever else, you
Speaker 1:you should just do those laps in the South Park. I do like Caribbean. I do like Caribbean. But but
John Campbell:the thing is on South Park, the pope just goes. But because they they make fun of everybody on South Park, which is what I like, including the pope. And, anyway but, that was a good sign. The other thing I tweeted out today, Bill Maher. Now we've all you know, Bill Maher's a big liberal and, but he's a liberal.
John Campbell:He's not a leftist. He is a true classic liberal. And and now if Bill Maher and I would find lots of things to disagree on, but, because it's not like he's becoming conservative. He is not gonna vote for Donald Trump. That that is not where Bill Maher is.
John Campbell:But he did a diatribe, and it is hilarious. And I was surprised, actually, Elon even Elon Musk tweeted it out to his 200,000,000 followers. That's a few more than I have, and even more than you have, generally, Simo. Yes. Yes.
John Campbell:200,000,000. But, anyway, he said in there, amongst the things, he was telling about places that the Democratic Party has gone too far. And he said, you're going too far, and basically said, you're ensuring Donald Trump is gonna win, and you guys need to back off on this stuff. And he talked about the transgender thing, and he said one of the things Democrats and we on the left have always said, well, Europe does it. Europe does it.
John Campbell:And one of the and he said it, and, again, it's very, very funny, all the things he said about it. But he said, that, in this case, Europe doesn't do it. No country in Europe. None. Because the British National Health Service just pulled back from this.
John Campbell:No country in Europe will allow the gender surgery, the the gender mutilation To kids.
Duane Patterson:To minors.
John Campbell:Kids. To minors. No country in Europe allowed he said no country actually on planet Earth allows it except for the United States. Insane. So he said, so stop so he said, so on the left, stop this.
John Campbell:You can't even find, you know, shade from any other leftist country on Earth. Stop it because, otherwise, you're gonna get Donald Trump as president. So, you are seeing some voices on the left say, you know what? This is a bridge too far, folks. We need to not go here.
John Campbell:And, of course, as I've mentioned to you, there's another bridge after this one, which is the the map male attracted person issue, what we used to call pedophilia.
Duane Patterson:Right.
John Campbell:And so they're taking things that are dysfunctions that are, I mean, they're legitimate people, right, who are male or female depending on their chromosomes, but who believe there's something else. Before this whole thing happened, it's like a 100th of 1 percent of the population, and it was considered a dysfunction, a psychological problem that needed to be corrected. And guess what? That's right. That's what it is.
John Campbell:And male and and, minor attracted people are the same thing. That is a dysfunction. That is that is cruel. It is cruel to the minor, and that is their next that you already see them out there, the same people that
Duane Patterson:move Gradually trying to normalize it. Gradually trying to bring you the conversation. That's gonna be another letter in the alphabet.
John Campbell:Is it because they correct. And is it because they love that? It doesn't matter whether they love it or not. The objective is tear down the nuclear family, tear down Judeo Christian culture, tear it down because then we bring in Neo Marxism, and that's what they wanna do. So And I think that is a good news.
Duane Patterson:News is the pendulum is gonna swing back because
John Campbell:it We we we may have hit the peak of transgender support. It may have peaked and be coming down the other way. I hope.
Duane Patterson:I sure hope so. Okay. Let's get back to, some economic stuff. As we have mentioned all the way through, we recorded this on April 15th, which was have been Monday, which is tax day in the United States. I wrote my check to, both Gavin Newsom.
Duane Patterson:Gavin Newsom, that would be this guy. Yes. I, I paid for I paid for a few more deck chairs on the, California Titanic, on Monday. But you had some thoughts about tax day and its effect on US debt, John.
John Campbell:Yeah. I was just going to mention, so that people understand, as we're recording this, interest rates, particularly at the long end, the 10 year treasury and other things have been on the rise. On April 15th at the close of the market today, the 10 year yield, exceeded 4.6%. I am still of the belief it's going to 5, 5a quarter by the end of the year. And that by the way, that means mortgage rates will be in the eights, by the by the end of the year.
John Campbell:If I'm right about that, I can be wrong. I have been wrong before. Just ask the captain, missus Campbell. But part of the reason I believe part or you. Part of the reason I believe that is that the Q2 of the year is the best time of the year for revenues to the federal government.
John Campbell:The federal government spending is fairly even over the 4 quarters of the year, but their revenues are not at all even. And they get most revenues between April June, And that's because in April, people pay their taxes. Yes. There are people who are overpaid and and and, and get refunds. But if you get a w two, taxes are taken out every paycheck, and that happens throughout the year.
John Campbell:But for all the people out there, increasing number of people like me, who don't get a w two or people who have capital gains income, which is increasingly a bigger share of the federal government's revenue, you don't pay that till April 15th, and then you pay your estimated payments also on April 15th and again on June 15th. And for all the people who have LLCs or partnerships and income that comes from that that gets taxed on a personal return, but the incomes comes from a business. And something like 87% of businesses in the United States now are what you call pass through entities, where the tax is not paid by the entity, but it's paid by the people who own the entity. And those people pay their taxes on April 15th and their next payment on June 15th. So they're paying something like 65% of all the taxes they're going to pay for the entire year in the second quarter.
John Campbell:So the federal government right now doesn't have to issue as much treasury debt because of the deficit. And it it the treasury debt new treasury debt they're issuing in the Q2 is lower than normal because of all this money coming in, but that will soon subside. And then in the Q3 between July September, man, they are gonna be issuing a ton of new debt. And if the interest rate on treasury debt is going up now, what happens when there's a whole bunch more supply in the Q3?
Duane Patterson:It's gonna go up even hotter.
John Campbell:Is is that It's gonna go up The rates go up even more.
Duane Patterson:And that and that gets into September when we start seeing those stats in October right before the election is when the 3rd quarter, numbers come out.
John Campbell:Correct. And and for you and your friend Gavin Newsom So
Duane Patterson:Go ahead, John. Oh, that was for you. I So Go ahead, John.
John Campbell:Oh, that was for you. I think
Duane Patterson:that was a point for Brutus.
John Campbell:That was yeah.
Duane Patterson:That was that that was a that was a make good. Yes. Go ahead.
John Campbell:Yeah. Okay. So, anyway, so the, in May, I can't wait to hear what what he says, but on May 10th, they always wait, and most states do. They wait for the actual tax revenues in April for the state because the state revenues work similar to federal revenues in that regard. So Gavin is waiting to see what comes in in April, and he's hoping against hope that the revenues are greater than they think, than they're projecting.
John Campbell:So there's deficit isn't so big. So when in May, he has to come up with his new plan, it doesn't have to be as difficult a plan as it looks like right now. But, but Well,
Duane Patterson:all I can tell you is I'm I'm doing my part, to the best of my ability, begrudgingly, but I'm doing my part today.
John Campbell:That's so nice of you. I've sent him 0.
Duane Patterson:Yeah. I Yeah. I
John Campbell:know. 0. I know.
Duane Patterson:I know.
John Campbell:I know. So, there you go. But, in fact, I didn't send much into Arizona because we don't have a very high tax rate here. But it it, they will know. I mean, today, everybody's money is in by today.
John Campbell:They'll count it within the next 2 weeks. And then by the 1st May, you'll know, what it looks like, and and that's when Gavin will have to decide what he needs to do.
Duane Patterson:Okay. One more economic data point I wanna run by you and, get your take on, and then we'll do a kind of a couple of feel good stories to con conclude this edition of Look Through the Chaos. Apparently, the EV sales market has now hit the big guy. It's hit the big dog. Elon Musk at Tesla announced today that they are going to have to do a 10% employee layoff, and this is completely corporate wide.
Duane Patterson:This is line level assembly line all the way through. This is a a company wide 10% layoff. And, what did you tell me in our exhaustive show prep? That's 10, 15,000 jobs?
John Campbell:It's about 15,000 people. Tesla has about a 150,000 employees worldwide.
Duane Patterson:That's that's a real number. I mean, that's that's actually that's actually a a a chunk of people are being laid off.
John Campbell:Yeah. Some of those will be in China and some will be in Germany, but most should be in the US.
Duane Patterson:So what do you make of that? What does that, what does that bode for the, for the market?
John Campbell:Well, he has to do it, I think, because their sales are slowing. Their margins are slowing, and there's more competition into a market, which is the EV market, that looks like it may be reaching a peak, that there may not be a lot more EVs being sold than there are now, but the pile get divided further. And, and he actually raised prices on a few cars last month, which makes me think, okay. They've now cut them as far as they could cut them, and they can't sell them Any producer in the car to lock.
Duane Patterson:Truck ever to be put on wheels.
John Campbell:I saw one. First one I've seen in the wild. I saw this weekend, actually, on a dirt road here in Arizona. It was cruising along. I'll say this.
John Campbell:You notice it. You absolutely notice it. And I'm not a big fan of the looks of it. I'm not a big fan of any Tesla, and it's not I love Elon. I think he's the Thomas Edison, whatever
Duane Patterson:Steve Jobs. The CGI dragon in doctor No back in 1963. It was that it was it it looks bad.
John Campbell:Do you remember the Cylons on, what what was that TV show? Some star Galactica? Yeah. That's it. I'm bad.
John Campbell:Because the eyes that looks like that, because there's a slit that goes across the front, they look like those guys on Balestar Galactica. That's right. But it, you you met you don't miss it. And so I know there actually are a lot of people think they're super cool. So it's, it'll sell.
John Campbell:There will be people who, I I admire that he went out and did something that strange. Good good for him. That's what entrepreneurs do. General Motors, Ford Motorcar are never doing anything like that because they they just won't take that kind of risk. So I I admire him for taking risks.
Duane Patterson:Wouldn't take a look like that and call it the call it the mock Mustang truck?
John Campbell:No. They would not.
Duane Patterson:No. Oh,
John Campbell:okay. So, but I, I I admire him for doing it. But, anyway, back back to the whole thing, the, the EV market looks like it may be topping out or close to topping out, and Tesla's whole pitch has been gross, gross, gross, gross, growth. And if you thought EVs were gonna be 50% of the market in 2 years, that's why I'm sure you thought that. But now they seem to be topping out at around 8, 9%.
John Campbell:And in China, not just Tesla, but also Apple, I don't know what you saw today, iPhone sales were down 10% last quarter. So there's another company that was growth, growth, growth, growth that now looks like that's stopping. And and for both Tesla and Apple in China, part of it is the Chinese are saying, go buy Teslas. You need to buy our Chinese EVs. And they're saying, go buy Apple phones.
John Campbell:You need to buy Huawei phones. And so these American companies that counted on China as being their growth engine, that's clearly stopped. And frankly, I'm okay with that.
Duane Patterson:Okay. So, here's here's a story that's fun for the whole family. It's, it it it's just kinda one that just kinda make you laugh. Now after you left the congress in 2015, one of your many side jobs that you tried for about a week was to be a college professor. Right?
John Campbell:I did. I actually did it for
Duane Patterson:One semester.
John Campbell:No. They were,
Duane Patterson:2. You did not get 2 full semesters in.
John Campbell:They were semesters. They were quarters.
Duane Patterson:Oh, no. It was UCI.
John Campbell:It was UCI. So it's a quarter system. Quarters.
Duane Patterson:Yes.
John Campbell:So I
Duane Patterson:did it for 2 1 semester?
John Campbell:2 quarters, and I also, before that, did 1 semester at Pepperdine.
Duane Patterson:Oh, okay. Well, I forgot about the Pepperdine gig. Yeah. Anyway, I just remember the I remember the UCI gig that you were that you were raving about and you did for about a week and a half, and then you said, okay. This this is for the birds.
Duane Patterson:I wanna go to Harvard University, Hughes, Hughes College. Right? And they had a president there named Claudine Gay that got herself in a wee bit of trouble, and she got bounced from her presidency of Harvard College. And do you remember why she ended up getting bounced, John Campbell?
John Campbell:I think she might have, let's see. What's it called? When you take things that other people wrote and and you write them as well.
Duane Patterson:The verb is called Biden's
John Campbell:She she Biden. She Biden. There there are other people use the term plagiarized, so, so I believe that's what she did. Yes.
Duane Patterson:Well, according to the College Fix, Claudine Gay has, announced that she is going to have an upcoming semester class schedule where she is going to teach a graduate level class. Do you wanna know what the what the course is called, John? Just take a wild stab at what Claudine Gay would be teaching to to, to graduating school, to postgraduates? How to write your own original papers or something? Reading and research.
John Campbell:Oh, yeah. Okay. Claudine Gay
Duane Patterson:is gonna teach kids how to do reading and research.
John Campbell:So they can use other people's work
Duane Patterson:So they can use it
John Campbell:for themselves. Own.
Duane Patterson:Yeah. I'm sure. Spectacular. Yeah. Now my good news stories of the week, are twofold.
Duane Patterson:Number 1, back in 1981, Gallup had a survey of US voters' view on the state of Israel, if they were, what their positivity index was towards the nation state of Israel. And back in 1981, this is again Ronald Reagan's coming in, They've just had, you know, the seventies depression, all this kind of nonsense going on, gas lines, economic shortages, oil, gas gas prices, all this kind of stuff. 44% of the country had a positive view of Israel in the state in in 1981. Today, that number is at at 51%. It's gone up 7% net in the last, 40 years or so.
Duane Patterson:It's gradually trickling up, has been the trend over the last 40 years. So to me, if you look at all the anti Israel protesting that's going on on the bridges and roads all over the country, and you hear Joe Biden trying to appease this, tiny minority that's not really a thing, just know that the country itself is still more pro Israel than it's ever ever has been, actually, historically. Number 2, and I don't wanna get too, evangelical about this. I'm not Catholic, but the the evangelical side of me, if you look at what Iran tried to pull off on Saturday night, they sent dozens of ballistic missiles that take 12 minutes to get to their intended target. They sent hundreds of cruise missiles that, take about 2 hours to get to their intended target.
Duane Patterson:They said, who knows how many drones, which take 9 hours to get to their intended target. Any one of them could have caused mass casualties in the state of Israel. And the defense, both the US military, which was stellar, and there were Jordanian fighters, there was coalition forces, but the Israeli arrow 2 and arrow 3 missile defense system. What do you think the odds are that it works to the degree it worked and nothing lands with the exception of one lone rocket in a remote area that hit 1 kid that ignored a warning to get into a bunker early enough. If that kid would have, heeded the warning and gotten into a bunker 2 minutes sooner, there would have been 0 casualties.
Duane Patterson:I mean, 0 casualties after this. The odds of a defense system working a 100%, it's non existent, John. I mean, this is hand of god stuff to me. There is there is there is a reason beyond what just human capability was as to why this attack by Iran was such a spectacular failure. Right?
Duane Patterson:Or is that just me?
John Campbell:No. And I actually have nothing to add, to what you said. I think you expressed it expressed it very well. It is quite, remarkable that that happened. And we haven't talked about this because you and I don't know enough.
John Campbell:The the, what is the war council? I'm sure in Israel is working on Yeah. On what they're gonna do. And maybe by the time people listen to this, we'll know, but they have a lot of information we don't know. And, yeah, that that defense was absolutely like you said remarkable.
Duane Patterson:It was just remarkable.
John Campbell:It really was. And what Israel does from here depends on can you destabilize Iran? You wanna keep the Saudis on board. We need to go back to the Abraham Accords, that sort of thing. There's there's a lot to consider here.
John Campbell:If what whatever step Israel takes, what will be the counterstep that Iran takes, and how do they go from there? And, you know, you know, they can game theory this thing out and figure out where they're gonna go. And that's what I'm sure they're gonna do because it's existential to them. And mister Biden can say whatever he wants to say, but it's not him, his country, and his people that the enemy wants to exterminate. And so easy for him to say, take a win, step back.
John Campbell:We'll let them decide what they're gonna do.
Duane Patterson:Absolutely. And with that, I think that's gonna wrap up this edition of look through the chaos. Lots of stuff we covered this week. We will be back on Thursday with another edition of Look Through the Chaos. You can go to Apple and Spotify and all the cool places kids get these things, or you can go to look through the chaos dot com and all the links are there.
Duane Patterson:You can listen to it on that page as well. Plus, read my columns, John Collins. Rate the podcast, share it with others, review it, give us good, thumbs up, all that kind of stuff you do with podcasts, and join us next time. For John Campbell, I'm Duane Patterson. Thanks for listening to look through the chaos.
Duane Patterson:We'll see you on Thursday.
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