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Speaker 1: What's going on.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It

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is heard live every day from noon to three on

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Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet,

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and again, thank you so much for your support. Me

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start with a bit of the breaking news, and not

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in order of importance. Here first piece of breaking news,

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we have an announcement from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who

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is going to replace Senator Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio tapped

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to be Donald Trump's Secretary of State, which, by the way,

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I watched yesterday. I watched the confirmation Q and A

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with Rubio in the Judiciary. I think it was or

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foreign Relations.

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Speaker 1: I forget.

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Speaker 2: I guess it was foreign relations. And he did a

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fantastic job. And if you are, if you're interested in

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the geopolitical stuff, high level discussions about threats and our

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relations with various nations, well worth it. I mean it runs,

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you know, three hours, but it it did not descend

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into any of the any of the sparring that we

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have seen in the other hearings. I suspect it's because

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Marco Rubio has being in the Senate, cultivated good relations

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with his colleagues over there and has worked, you know,

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with many of them across the aisle, and so they

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were not interested in, you know, a slash and burn

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approach to him.

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Speaker 1: So, yeah, he did a very good job yesterday.

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Speaker 2: But he is obviously now vacating his seat in the

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US Senate, and so the govern gets to appoint the replacement.

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And DeSantis said that he intentionally waited until now to

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make the announcement as to who would replace Rubio, so

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the pick would not be thrown into as Brad Slager

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reports it over at RedState dot com, But he would

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not be that the pick would not be thrown into

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the media meat grinder where they're just a pinata. As

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DeSantis said it, he said he would make the call

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just ahead of the inauguration, and he told some members

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of Congress that he was not looking to pull a

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name from the Florida delegation to the US House. In

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other words, he was not looking to name a congressman

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or woman, a congress person from Florida to be the senator,

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because when you start moving some of these people around,

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you're going to end up reducing the Republican majority in

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the US House. And it's already very very close. Republicans have, like,

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I forget what it is exactly, Is it a two

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or three seat majority, something like that, And so if

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you pull a member out from the House to move

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to the Senate, then it reduces that majority in the

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US House. And so he apparently told members of the

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Florida delegation, he's not picking an interview, he's not moving

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any of you because he recognizes the impact it would

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have on the Republican majority in the US House. So

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he opted instead for the Florida Attorney General, Ashley Moody,

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to take the Senate position. Moody, like her predecessor, Pam Bondi,

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who is the nominee for Attorney General for Donald Trump,

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has been looked at favorably in the state, a twice

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elected attorney general who in her support in her reelection bid,

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earning sixty percent voter support. So that's the first piece

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of breaking news. Another piece of breaking news just came

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out again, I'm not these are of equal importance. I

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believe the New York Times has the big scoop here

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that the Washington Post newspaper has adopted a new mission

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statement and it is no longer democracy dies in darkness.

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It is now quote riveting storytelling for.

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Speaker 1: All of America.

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Speaker 2: There you go, people, Now you can read the Washington

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Post again, right, because it's for all of us, and

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it's storytelling, well not just storytelling, it's riveting storytelling. And

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surely the Washington Post would never lie to us about.

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Speaker 1: I was gonna say about the nature of their reporting.

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Speaker 2: But okay, so I'm sure that's going to make all

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the difference that's going to turn around the sinking ship

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that is the Washington Post. I am certain riveting storytelling

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for all of America. It's very much like Joe Biden.

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If we just say it, it will become true. We're

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going to speak it into reality, into existence. It will

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be rivoting storytelling because we call it riveting storytelling. Although

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I'm not so sure storytelling is the best way to

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frame it, especially if you're trying to win back an

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audience that left you because they feel like you're making

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up stories. You know, because I understand news stories are stories.

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I understand that, but a lot of people also call

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fictional stories stories too. Stories are also stories. Oh there

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they go telling stories again, or Oh, I gotta make

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sure I get home in time to watch my afternoon stories.

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Speaker 1: You know.

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Speaker 2: So I'm not sure this is going to have the impact,

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But I guess democracy has not died, right, because why

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else would you change your mission statement of democracy dies

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in darkness and replace it with this one? They really

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it does make me kind of say it, right, because

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the New York Times they still go by the all

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the news that's fit to print, right, that's their that's

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their mission statement or whatever their branding effort, and that's

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been their brand for a long time. And it feels

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like the Washington Post just can't figure out what it

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wants to be or what its mission statement should be.

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Speaker 1: And it's kind of sad to me.

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Speaker 2: But I mentioned Joe Biden, much like the Washington Post,

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trying to convince people by saying something is true when

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it is demonstrably not true and flies in the face

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of our own personal experience. Another word for that is gaslighting.

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So Joe Biden gave his farewell address, and my fingers

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are crossed that this is in fact the last time

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I ever have to hear from this man, unless, of course,

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he's like being sworn in in a court proceeding. But

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I don't know, because he could come across as a

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sympathetic old man with a failing memory.

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Speaker 1: So I don't know.

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Speaker 2: But the farewell address, I watched it last night, seventeen

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minutes of my life that I'm not getting back, and

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so I'm going to now rob you of your seventeen No,

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I'm just kidding.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to play I'm not going to play it.

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It was let me. I do have three sound bites

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that I did pull from the.

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Speaker 2: From the legacy branding effort, from the marketing campaign to

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tell us that we did not just live through the

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four years we lived through. But I want to start

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with Jeffrey Blair, who is a right over at National Review.

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He described it fussly, a humiliatingly garbled ramble that read

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like the sort of delusional, self exculpatory fantasy his caretaker

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wife might whisper consolingly into his ear. He does have

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a way with words. He also hosts a podcast called

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Political Beats, where he does like music reviews and they

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bring on political people and they talk music, and so

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it's something it really is a gift. I think of

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people who are able to write about music, it's something

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I've never been able to do, even to describe music.

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It's just like, oh, I really like that. Oh it's

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got a good beat. You can really dance to it,

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you know, stuff like that. That's the extent of my

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ability to discuss music. And he is he's very good

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at that kind of writing and communicating what a song

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is in words, right, because think about that, You're trying

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to tell people what a song or an artist sounds like,

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and that's difficult to do because you're just writing it,

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they're not hearing it. So he is sort of perfectly

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positioned to write this because when it's just Joe Biden

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sitting and staring at a camera with those dead eyes,

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then so much of it is in fact sort of

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like a song, right, and an artist. And so he

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calls it humiliatingly garbled ramble that read like the sort

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of delusional, self exculpatory fantasy that doctor Jill might whisper

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consolingly into his ear right.

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Speaker 1: Like you did a really good job, Joe you did awesome.

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Speaker 2: By the way, when I play these sound bites, you're

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gonna hear the room noise again, and you're gonna be

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wondering what is that. That is the ambient room noise,

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And you normally do not hear it because people speak

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at a volume that the microphone captures and it doesn't

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pick up that ambient room noise because the controls on

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the mic filter it out, basically. But Joe Biden's voice

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is so weakened that that's why you hear that ambient

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room noise in every interview he does. They've got a

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lapel mic on him that's about four inches from his

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vocal cords, and his voice is so weak that you

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still hear like the HVAC system running in the background. Oh,

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you'll hear it, You'll hear it. Here's a great idea.

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Calener I have a message. It's a pete male from Jonathan,

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who says there was one point from last night's debacle

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that Joe Biden performed. There was one point in the

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address last night where you could actually hear Uncle Joey swallow. Yes,

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that did occur, but you know nobody wanted to give

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him a water bottle lest you end up like Marco Rubio,

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Secretary of State. Yes, so let me play a clip here.

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Let's start with a clip, because if I just keep rambling,

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then I'm not going to get to the audio. And

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I listened to Biden's speech two times in order to

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pull this audio.

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Speaker 1: So Dad gumt, We're gonna listen to it.

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Speaker 2: Although I'm now seeing hmm, I only have two of

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the cut saved and apparently missing one of my cuts. Anyway,

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here's the first one. It's so he starts to wind

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up for his whole in case you weren't to wear this.

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This tech industrial complex is what he was calling it,

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the tech industrial complex. Okay, and so he starts this

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wind up to this warning about three minutes into his

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seventeen minute speech.

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Speaker 3: But we know the idea of America, our institution, our people,

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our values, that uphold it are constantly being tested. I'm

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gooing debates about power and the exercise of power. But

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whether we lead by the example of our power or

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the power of our example, whether we showed the courage

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or stand up to the abuse of power, or we

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yield to it. After fifty years, at the center of

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all of this, I know believing in the idea of America.

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I mean's respecting the institutions govern a free society, the Presidency,

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the Congress, the courts, free and independent press, good one.

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Institutions that are rooted. They just not to reflect the

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timeless words, but they real they echo the words of

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decoration of Independence. We hold these truths to be self evident,

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rooted in the timeless words of the Constitution. We the people.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, you get the flavor of it there. Yeah, you

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can hear the background room noise, the ambient noise there, or,

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as the Grateful Dead may have called it at one

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point in one of their recording sessions, heavy air. That's

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because his voice is so weak, the mic is having

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a difficult time picking it up. And then he of

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course talked about all of his awesome accomplishments that he

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had in just four years man, what he could have

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done with another four will never no. All right, I

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hope you had a happy holiday season. But tell me

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if something like this happened at your house. Your family

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and friends are gathered around, maybe y'all are in the

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living room, You're laughing, swapping stories, reminiscing, and then somebody says, hey, Dad,

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remember those old VHS tapes? Did you ever get them transferred?

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And then the room gets all quiet. All eyes are

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on Dad, who says, oh, you know, well, I've been

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meaning to but I just having gotten around to it. Look,

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don't let those priceless memories sit in a box for

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another year.

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National review saying, Joe Biden concluded his career much as

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he began it over half a century ago as a

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venal pettisouled fool in denial about his own limitations and

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failures in a thick, slack toned voice, stumbling over his

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words from beginning to end as he squinted at a

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teleprompter with vacant eyes, Biden slurred through the single most

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incoherent speech of his life. He began by taking complete

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credit for the breaking Israeli hostage deal with Kamas, which

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was to be expected, and then launched into a sleepy

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lecture awkwardly framed around the statue of liberty and how

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it was built to sway in the wind, much like

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America was built to be flexible enough to withstand his presidency.

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One marble mouth cliche after another poured from his half

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opened maw, smooth, featureless pablum with all the texture and

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flavor of Gerber baby food.

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Speaker 1: One of the quotes he had was.

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Speaker 2: He said, shall America lead by the example of power

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or the power of our example?

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Speaker 1: An imponderable one for the ages, as it were. I believe.

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Speaker 2: Well, he says, I want to worry. This is what

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Joe Biden said last night in his warning to the

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country of some things that give him great concern.

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Speaker 3: This is a dangerous content and that's the dangerous conversation

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of power in the hands were very few ultrawealthy people,

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the dangerous consequences if their abuse of power is left unchecked.

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Today there was the swallow oligarchyse taking shape in America

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of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threads our

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entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms and a fair

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shot for everyone to get ahead. We see the consequences

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all across America, and we've seen it before more than

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a century ago. But the American people stood up to

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the robber barons back then and busted the trusts. They

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didn't punish the wealthy, just made the wealthy pay that

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play by the rules. Everybody else had to. Workers want

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rights to earn their fair share. You know, they were

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dealt into the deal and helped put us on a

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path to build in the largest middle class, the most

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prosperous century any nation in the world has ever seen,

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and we've got to do that again. Me.

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Speaker 1: It was with me.

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Speaker 2: So he's talking about the I believe that word he

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was trying to say, with concentration, the concentration of power

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in the hands of an oligarchy. Guys, I've been in

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talk radio, either as a reporter or as a host

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since nineteen ninety nine, okay, and I can assure you

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that this is not new. This has always been one

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of the criticisms in our system. And by the way,

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there is no system on the face of the earth,

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past or present where this does not happen.

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Speaker 3: Right.

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Speaker 2: Power accumulates among a certain group of people until it

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is diffused, and that was why the founders set up

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the system as they did, recognizing this very real truth,

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and so they diffused the power systemically. That's why they

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made for example, US senators appoint did by state legislators.

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But then people like Joe Biden decided, no, no, we

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should have them elected by the citizens in each of

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the states popularly elected, passed an amendment to the US

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Constitution to do just that, and my entire life, that's

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how US senators got their seats. They win elections, but

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the Founders set it up differently. Why This is just

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an example. I'm not arguing for or against this particular topic.

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I'm just saying the founders had a different construct why

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because they believed that that would protect state's' powers. In

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other words, you put people into these positions of power,

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and they will act as checks and balances. They will

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act as guardrails against other people with different powers. And

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so when those other people with the different powers try

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to encroach on your turf, you seeking to protect your

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will fight back, and in that fight, the people's freedoms

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are protected. That's the idea, that was the concept. That's

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the federalist model. Dana Perino over at Fox News she

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watched it, and well, here was her reaction.

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Speaker 4: You know that I try to be really nice and

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I intended to find something that I could say, Wow,

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that was great. So news of the day at the

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top understandable, big soaring attempt at a rhetorical push for unity.

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I'm like, okay, I'm following, And then like, what in

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the world was he talking about? For example, when he

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talks about dark money, does he not remember that just

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last week he gave the medal of a Medal of

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Freedom award to George Soros. They Also, he talked about

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the fact that they had the biggest economic rebound than ever.

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He never mentioned COVID, which was the entire premise of

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his presidency. Today, I looked at a pool. Britt mentioned

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our pool. There was another pool. The Gallup poll. They

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asked about eighteen issues, which ones are you feeling better about?

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Only one out of eighteen did people feel better about,

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and it was gay, lesbian and trans issues. So he's

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sitting there talking about all these things that he's done,

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and I'm just like, this rings hollow to me. It

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felt like the speech writers have already left the building

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and that they asked chat GPT to write a speech

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for Joe Biden in which he doesn't remember that he

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was president for the last four years. If you ask people,

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are you better off today than you were four years ago?

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The answer is no, except for maybe the solar companies

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and the Delta smelt.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I think her assessment is spot on.

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Speaker 2: That the speech writers left and chat GPT some AI

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platform wrote this speech for him, like give me Joe

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Biden's farewell speech, and this is what it's spit out out.

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Speaker 1: That would not surprise me.

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Speaker 2: It flowed about like an AI generated speech would all right.

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If you're listening to this show, you know I try

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to keep up with all sorts of current events, and

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I know you do too, And you've probably heard me

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say get your news from multiple sources. Why well, because

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it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've

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00:23:18,480 --> 00:23:21,799
been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and

362
00:23:22,039 --> 00:23:24,960
it's a website and it combines news from around the

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00:23:24,960 --> 00:23:27,640
world in one place, so you can compare coverage and

364
00:23:27,759 --> 00:23:31,599
verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground,

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00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,920
dot news slash pete. I put the link in the

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00:23:34,920 --> 00:23:38,160
podcast description too. I started using ground News a few

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00:23:38,200 --> 00:23:40,920
months ago and more recently chose to work with them

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00:23:40,960 --> 00:23:43,720
as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how

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00:23:43,839 --> 00:23:47,240
stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature

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00:23:47,279 --> 00:23:49,960
shows you which stories get ignored by the left and

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00:23:50,079 --> 00:23:54,039
the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news

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00:23:54,400 --> 00:23:57,519
slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen

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00:23:57,559 --> 00:24:00,640
percent off any subscription. I use the van plan to

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00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:04,119
get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not

375
00:24:04,160 --> 00:24:07,160
only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News

376
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:10,640
as they make the media landscape more transparent. So last

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00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:13,359
night Joe Biden does his farewell address, can't come soon enough,

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and he goes through this laundry list of all of

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the things that he's done so amazingly well.

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Speaker 1: Like good change, and he said there.

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Speaker 2: Needs to be tax reform, and we got to get

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the dark money out of politics.

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Speaker 1: After he just gave George Soros the medal.

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Speaker 2: Also he said he wants there should be a ban

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on congress people trading stock, which I agree with that.

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But he runs through all of these things, and Jeff

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Blair over at National Review says, this warning against the

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new oligarchy that is taking shape, as Biden called it,

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before our very eyes, the tech industrial complex. He said,

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this limp attempt to invoke Eisenhower's farewell address. By the way, hey,

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everybody always forgets the second part of what Eisenhower warned against.

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Speaker 1: Do you know what that was? The universities. That was

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the second part.

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Speaker 2: It's the military industrial complex and the university industrial complex.

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And everybody forgets and ignores the second part. I wonder why.

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But he says that this limp attempt to invoke Eisenhower

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was followed by an equally tired rehash of every complaint

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the mainstream media and the Democrats have been rehearsing against

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Silicon Valley since they lost hammerlock control over it. Right now,

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all of a sudden, Joe Biden is worried that they're

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no quote fact checkers. Now, all of a sudden, there's

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a concern about the social media spread of misinformation. Why

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because they don't get to pressure or, as Mark Zuckerberg

404
00:25:51,480 --> 00:25:53,799
told Joe Rogan, they don't get to yell and scream

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at Facebook employees to get them to take stuff down,

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to censor people on the platform. And now it's a

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00:26:02,599 --> 00:26:08,799
big problem. We're not controlling the narrative. I've talked about

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00:26:08,799 --> 00:26:11,960
this before. We are in a realignment of the political system.

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We are also at a point now where maybe you've

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heard it framed around like authenticity, right, Like people just

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want somebody that's gonna talk to them like normal.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: The idea of the or the caricature of the old

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time politician that Joe Biden embodies, and Donald Trump most

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00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:33,759
certainly does not.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: Trump is the new avatar of this, and Biden is

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the old People do not want these kinds of rehearsed

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political speech, these kinds of talking in sound bite speeches.

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They're not moved by them, and we don't believe them.

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We don't believe you. And when you couple this with

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the behavior that we have seen while you're telling us

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that you're the opponent of the very thing you're engaged in,

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it's just more evidence of why we should not believe you.

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Blair says Biden's delivery collapsed into utter incoherence near the

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end of the speech, as he rambled on about climate

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change and artificial intelligence and giving America a fair shot

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00:27:23,559 --> 00:27:27,559
quote unquote, before returning clumsily to his opening statue of

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liberty metaphor Americans will remember nothing about it a day

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from now and thus ends the Biden presidency. He claimed

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00:27:38,599 --> 00:27:41,440
that he had strengthened NATO, he pulled ahead of our

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competition with China, mm hmm, and created affordable high speed internet,

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00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:50,119
which actually never got built. By the way, every president

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tries to give a flattering account of themselves on the

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00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:55,160
way out of office, a way of contextualizing their time

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00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:59,200
and power into an upbeat narrative. The problem with Biden's

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00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:04,039
attempt had an apologia tonight isn't even just that he

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00:28:04,119 --> 00:28:07,519
is no longer physically capable of delivering it, but rather

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that his account bears no relationship to the story the

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American people saw throughout the four years of his presidency

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or the threats they worry about presently. We didn't see

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economic competence or foreign policy strength. Instead, in four years

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00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,799
experience with Joe Biden at the Helm, we saw a

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00:28:28,920 --> 00:28:32,960
venal cynic who lied about such basic matters of integrity

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as pardoning his son when he wasn't violating his promise

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to be abridged to the future. We saw an incompetent

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00:28:38,880 --> 00:28:42,319
bumbler who threw open the borders and watched the world

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light itself ablaze as a detached spectator. Most of all,

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we saw a frail, dependent old man whose mental and

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physical condition had weakened to the point where he allowed

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himself to be hidden from view and governed by a

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coterie of his closest advisors who sought only to please

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the activist gris groups whom they gleefully slopped favors to

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from America's policy trough. And finally, remember, this man, who

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00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:10,240
was already collapsing in the first months of his administration,

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00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:14,839
sought another four years in office. All right, that'll do

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00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:16,039
it for this episode.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much. For listening.

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00:29:17,519 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 2: I could not do the show without your support and

460
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:22,400
the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast,

461
00:29:22,799 --> 00:29:24,839
so if you'd like, please support them too and tell

462
00:29:24,880 --> 00:29:26,599
them you heard it here. You can also become a

463
00:29:26,640 --> 00:29:31,319
patron at my Patreon page or go to thepetecleanershow dot com. Again,

464
00:29:31,559 --> 00:29:34,079
thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything

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00:29:34,119 --> 00:29:38,599
while I'm gone.