Episode 257 Show Notes- Are We Being Played? Russia, China, Mandates, Fentanyl, and Education
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Episode Description
Are we being played? When we look around what seems like a cruel joke is frighteningly real. From the international arena to the domestic front, there are a variety of ineffective and damaging policies that have a detrimental impact on the United States and the American people. China and Russia are playing chess as our official’s dither around playing checkers. In the meantime, their policies continue to fail and are doing long-term harm to the country and the people. Failed mandates, the fentanyl epidemic, and the collapse of our education system are just some examples.
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Show Transcript- Are We Being Played? Russia, China, Mandates, Fentanyl, and Education
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Intro
Welcome everyone to another episode of The PAS Report Podcast.
So, I told you on Monday that we are going to explore a question, and it’s a profound question, and that’s exactly what we are going to do. I want to ask the question- Are we being played?
When we look at everything going on, it seems like a cruel joke, but it’s frighteningly real. I’m going to examine the question- Are we being played- on two different levels. First, I want to take a look at the international landscape, and what’s going on because it appears that while we’re fixated on the Russia/Ukraine situation, we are ignoring the obvious. As the drumbeat for war grows louder, there are real signs that something isn’t right. It appears our adversaries are playing chess as we play checkers, and it’s almost as if we are walking into a trap. It appears this administration, our country, and we the people are getting played, and I’ll explain exactly what I mean.
Then I want to shift gears and focus on the domestic front because we are definitely getting played. There are a few key issues I’ll focus on, but it’s not limited to those things. These are just some of the most pressing and obvious issues. We’ll talk mandates, the opioid epidemic, particularly fentanyl, and the collapse of our education system. When we look at the issues, we have to look at the officials in charge because either they are thoroughly incompetent or there are far more sinister motives. Maybe it’s a combination, but either way, we the American people are the ones who are suffering and will continue to suffer.
The reason it’s so important to explore this question and these issues is that the consequences are so grave. We the American people are the ones that suffer. Our country will not survive under the current trajectory. We can either ignore the obvious and bury our heads in the sand or we can take these issues head-on and begin to change course.
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Is All What it Seems When it Comes to Russia/Ukraine?
I want to start off focusing on the situation with Russia and Ukraine because the drumbeats for war continue to grow louder, and something isn’t right. You have too many hawks drooling at the mouth for a potential conflict between these two countries. The rhetoric has been ramped up, and the chance for miscalculation is growing each day.
I also want to make it clear that this is a nonpartisan issue. You have hawks in both the Democrat and Republican parties, hawks within the national security arena, many within the military-industrial complex, and the media, that are all conditioning the American people about a potential conflict.
Late last week, the Biden administration stated that Russia was planning a false flag operation where the Russians were going to make a video with actors portraying to be Ukrainians killing Russians and release this to the world to justify an invasion of Ukraine. This almost sounds to juvenile to be real. But the Biden administration says this is what our intelligence community is picking up.
It’s not that countries engage in false flag operations. They do, including the United States, but there is just something to this that doesn’t sound right. If our government is going to make such an accusation, they need to put out the hard evidence to back it up. But the administration won’t do that. In fact, the administration says, “Just take our word for it and trust us.”
Sorry, but no thanks. After the bountygate lie, the Russian collusion hoax, WMDs in Iraq, Afghanistan wouldn’t collapse, and other intelligence lies and failures, I prefer to see the evidence, especially when the consequences are so high. I mean if this has the potential to lead us into conflict, shouldn’t it be incumbent on the government to release this information? To release the evidence?
I want to play a clip for you because I find it so revealing. Ned Price, the State Department spokesperson and Matt Lee, a reporter for the Associated Press got into a heated exchange. (AP) I want to play the entire clip, it’s about 3-minutes long because it is really revealing, and pay attention. Take a listen
Sound Clip- Russian False Flag Operation
I have to a lot of credit to Matt Lee because he really pushed Ned Price and he epitomizes what real journalism is about. You can’t just take the word of government. Just because they say it’s so doesn’t make it so. Of course, the administration and the intelligence community haven’t revealed the evidence, and I am so sick of this BS excuse about sources and methods. They try and attach that to everything to shield themselves from having to release information to the public.
When our founders set up this system, they warned us to ask questions. To pushback. Never just take the government’s word for it. Yet, this is what we’ve devolved into. Even worse, instead of providing the evidence, Ned Price essentially accused Matt Lee of being a Russian sympathizer taking the word of Russia over the United States.
Of course, the Russian sympathizer label is meant to brand anyone who dares to question the powers that be with a Scarlett letter to discredit them. It seems as if our own officials are playing us thinking that we are too dumb to see what’s going on.
And all we are doing is making the situation more unstable. This doesn’t make Ukraine any safe. It actually increases the risk to them, but maybe that’s the point.
China
And as our officials are playing us, maybe our entire country is being played including this administration. I said in the opening that we’re playing checkers as other countries are playing chess. As all eyes are fixated on Russia and Ukraine, what aren’t we paying attention to? Where aren’t we looking? It’s China of course.
Last week, I said they would be the big winner, but I’m starting to think that China’s actually behind the scenes trying to push Russia and the United States into a conflict. I’ll admit that I don’t have evidence to prove this, but I’m thinking strategically.
If the United States is in a conflict with Russia, we will not have the capability to defend the Pacific. Just think about the difficulties we had when we stretched ourselves thin in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time.
It would be the perfect opportunity for China to achieve one of its long-term strategic goals, recapturing Taiwan.
Just picture Xi Jinping whispering into Putin’s ear and antagonizing the situation, “Don’t let those Americans push you around. You’re defending your territorial integrity. Don’t look weak.” He knows that as Putin pushes the boundaries, the old Cold War mentality still persists among many American officials and that the more Putin pushed, the more likely to provoke a response from the United States.
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Taiwan
Here’s the thing, if Russia invades Ukraine, this isn’t a simple mission. Sure, Russia has the dominant military, but don’t underestimate the Ukrainian people’s ability to make Russia regret the decision. The Ukrainian people are tough, and they will make this a nightmare for Russia. Remember how the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was like our Vietnam. Any invasion of Ukraine by Russia will be like our Afghanistan.
However, when looking at geopolitical importance, while Ukraine is a place to watch, it pails in comparison to the importance of Taiwan. That’s not meant to demean the Ukrainians in any way. The reason Taiwan is so important is that 90% of semiconductor chips are manufactured in Taiwan.
Why is this so important? Semiconductors are in everything- computers, cell phones, cars, cameras, televisions, washing machines, refrigerators, LED bulbs, medical and life-sustaining equipment, ATMs, communications, and so much more.
Just think about what happens if China decides to recapture Taiwan. First, in the middle of a war, do you think people in Taiwan will wake up and be like, “Oh. It’s time to go to work.” The reality is manufacturing, and production would decrease dramatically. Unfortunately, no other country would have the capability to pick up the slack.
While I criticize the Biden administration a lot, I have to say that they recognize this threat. It’s why they encouraged Intel to build two facilities in Arizona. Unfortunately, it will take about 5 years for these facilities to be built and brought online before they can begin to maximize their output.
So, any conflict in Taiwan will lead to a massive worldwide shortage of these semiconductors and we already have a shortage. It will get far worse. Production will stop across nearly every industry bringing the entire global economy to a catastrophic halt.
And if China is able to recapture Taiwan, they then have control over the semiconductor industry giving them extraordinary power in the international community. Power which was already increasing due to China’s Belt and Road initiative, including taking over mines that have precious metals.
It would make sense for China to push Russia and the United States toward conflict. They would win big time, and do you think China really cares about what happens to Russia? They see us as the threat.
Mandates, Mandates, Mandates
While it appears China may be playing both the United States and Russia, if we move to the domestic front, it’s clear our own officials are playing us just look at the mandates.
A week ago, Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti were both caught maskless at the football game. Over the weekend, we saw Stacey Abrams taking pictures at an elementary school with children. All the kids were masked up, yet as usual, there are two sets of rules as Stacey Abrams was maskless. Just the latest example of hypocrisy. And I am not trying to be mean here, and if it sounds mean, get over it. When you look at the picture, who is the one who is high-risk- the kids or Stacey Abrams. If anyone should be wearing a mask, it should be her.
So, your children have to remain masked up for 8+ hours a day even though the coronavirus poses little threat to them, and they have a 99.98% survival rate.
Your children have to remain masked up even though they don’t spread COVID at the same rate as adults.
Your children have to remain masked up even though there is no statistical difference in COVID cases in schools with mask mandates and those without.
Your children have to remain masked up even though the overwhelming majority of countries have never required masks on children at school throughout the coronavirus.
Your children have to remain masked up even though it has been proven time and time again that cloth and surgical masks provide little to no protection at all.
Even knowing all this, the charade continues. It’s all theater. You have officials who want to keep the mask prisons on children, and for what? Listen, it’s not like this is the beginning of the pandemic, and we don’t know what we’re dealing with. At least they had an excuse at the start. But it’s now over two years. We know the masks don’t work. Even worse, we know how harmful they are, but it continues.
And it is scary how many parents have no problem with their children wearing masks. It’s terrifying. I’m not someone who gives parenting advice. God knows, I hardly know what I’m doing, but stop trying to normalize this crap. I people say that children don’t mind wearing the mask. That’s bull. If you told the children that COVID poses little to no risk to them, and they had a choice to wear the mask or not, what do you think they would choose?
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Lockdowns
And it’s not just masks. Look at the lockdowns. They too had a devastating effect and did little to nothing to prevent COVID deaths. A new John Hopkins study concludes that lockdowns may have prevented 2% of COVID deaths, and it came at an enormous expense. More importantly, the lockdowns may have contributed to an enormous number of other deaths outside COVID from drug overdoses, which I’ll talk more about in a minute, to preventable cancer deaths where people weren’t screened because of lockdowns. (John Hopkins)
There are some who argue that the John Hopkin’s study is flawed because they didn’t look at how the lockdowns may have prevented a hospital surge. While that may be true, these people are clueless as to how emergency management works. Emergency managers have a pretty good understanding of risks. They do risk assessments all the time.
The whole point of emergency management is to manage a crisis, and not create a crisis or crises within a crisis. When I worked on pandemic planning, one of the cornerstones of government response was to assist hospitals when it comes to surge capacity.
The planning never centered around locking everyone down to try and prevent the spread of the virus. And guess what, the virus still spread regardless of masks and lockdowns so what did we really do. Is there any major difference in numbers between the authoritarian state of New York and the free state of Florida?
Let’s take a look at the numbers as of this recording. Florida had 5.6 million cases. New York had 5 million cases. Florida has 66,007 total deaths. New York has 66,157. If we look at deaths per 1-million people on population, Florida averages 3,073, while New York averages 3,401. (WorldOMeters) With that in mind, there is little statistical difference between the two, but Florida faired much better than New York, especially when you factor in how Florida has 2-million more people and ranks second when it comes to the elderly as a percentage of the population, whereas New York State ranks 25th. So even though Florida has many more residents in the high-risk category, New York leads in deaths.
Incompetent Officials Double and Triple Down
So, again I ask, what did the mandates actually accomplish?
What’s really frustrating is that these officials continue to double and triple down in the face of all the evidence. It’s partly because they’re incompetent, and it’s partly because they are really totalitarians deep down, but it is the perfect example of how we are being played.
God forbid they admit they were wrong. If they would just come out, admit they were wrong, and apologize, it would go a long way. But they can’t do that. They just won’t come out and admit they were wrong. Instead, you watch. Wait and see. I will guarantee you that these incompetent morons will come out, and they will declare victory.
They will say because of their guidance, because of their policies, that we can now lift the mandates and start getting things back to normal. It’s not true. They should all be fired. Some of them should be criminally prosecuted for what they did. But they will declare how great they are and how many lives they saved. That’s how delusional these people are.
I am warning each and every one of you, when these mandates are lifted, when they finally come to end, which is soon given that you’ve seen blue states like New Jersey, Delaware, and Connecticut, making announcements ending the mask mandate in school. I suspect Empress Hochul will follow given the amount of pressure.
And this illustrates that it was always about politics. How we’ve been played the whole time. It wasn’t about saving lives. It wasn’t about protecting children. They are ending the mandates because it’s hurting them politically and we are seeing it in the polls. And notice how the mandates are ending around the same time President Biden is supposed to deliver his State of the Union address. Don’t think they’re not coordinating.
But, I am warning all of you, when the mandates end, you better not get complacent. We better not go back to the hands-off approach that got us here. Complacency is why all this happened, and it is incumbent on us to make sure it never happens again.
It will be years before we recover from the psychological, emotional, and physical damage they’ve caused, especially among the youth. We are getting reports from schools around the country. They are dealing with a massive uptick in behavioral issues and self-destructive behavior. We are hearing growing reports of youth being angry, bitter, and resentful.
They have every right to be, and they should be reminded each and every day who did this to them. If Republicans were smart, they would start targeting the younger generations who typically identify with the Democrat party. So, the Republican party should listen up because they can win the support of this demo.
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Fentanyl
Talk about getting played. Just look at the devastating uptick in overdose deaths from powerful synthetic opioids like fentanyl. It’s now topping out at over 100k but remember it’s about saving lives. What a joke. The fact is more and more Americans are dying from these drugs, and here is the alarming thing.
The people dying aren’t the typical 1980 drug user. Many of those deaths have no history of substance abuse. They’re not what you would consider addicts. These hard-core narcotics are being laced with everything, including cocaine and marijuana. They’re being made to look like prescription pain pills. In some cases, they are being passed off as headache medicine.
In fact, when you hear the idiots scream it’s about saving lives and protecting children and young adults, understand, that for the first time, the odds of dying from an accidental overdose is now greater than those of dying in a car accident. (Texas Medical Center) Yet, you don’t hear a peep from most of the bureaucrats or the elected officials.
Just to show you how bad the crisis is, synthetic opioid deaths are now the leading cause of death of Americans aged 18-45. 79,000. (Families Against Fentanyl) Imagine if we dropped the age down. Just think, it was about 2 weeks ago that a 13-year-old 7th or 8th grader. I’ll repeat a 13-year-old who was in 7th or 8th grade overdosed in a school in Connecticut.
This is a problem hitting critical mass. I had Michael Gray on The P.A.S. Report a little over a year ago. He is someone who understands the problem firsthand through his own life experience. Tragically, he lost his daughter Amanda, and he is just one of so many. He explained the paradigm shift when it comes to the opioid epidemic. He’s been raising the alarm bells (https://actus.org). Unfortunately, the situation has only gotten worse.
Why has it gotten worse? Because we have a bunch of cowards in office. Most of these cowards don’t mind demeaning Americans every day, but they don’t dare go after China, the largest manufacturer of fentanyl, and much of the fentanyl here traces back to China, but it comes through the Southern border. And this administration has thrown the border wide open to allow an unending supply of these synthetic opioids into the United States to kill our family, our friends, our neighbors, our fellow Americans.
Consider the DEA confiscated enough fentanyl last year to kill every single American. Take a second to think about that. You have this massive national security threat, yet not a peep from the frauds that claim the government should have total power in the name of saving lives. Funny how they had no problems locking down kids, masking them for hours on end, day after day, in the name of saving lives, all for a virus that poses little threat to them. But when there is a real specific threat, they sit on their hands and remain silent. I wonder why?
Oh, that’s right. Because if we really want to handle this problem, it will mean that we would have to get control over our Southern border, and that would be racist of course. If we really wanted to handle this problem, it would mean that they would have to speak out against their communist masters in China. We can’t have that now, can we? We wouldn’t want the corrupt gravy train to continue that enriches these frauds, their families, and their donors.
You want to solve this problem, declare fentanyl a WMD, and target any person, organization, or business that is manufacturing this poison. Label it a WMD and it opens up a whole can of tools at our disposal to take down all those manufacturing fentanyl. Not for nothing, but to give this issue some perspective, fentanyl has killed far more Americans than al-Qaeda and ISIS combined. Now, I’m not saying we shouldn’t have gone to war and targeted those groups, but it really is stunning how every 10-days we are witnessing nearly the same number of deaths as 9/11, and most are silent
But heaven forbid we do something that actually saves lives. Even worse, you had Democrats blocked the Halt All Lethal Trafficking of Fentanyl Act, H.R. 6184. This Act would keep Fentanyl as a schedule 1 narcotic, and those who are caught trafficking fentanyl will face mandatory minimum sentences, and I want to make it clear, this Act wouldn’t target users. It targets those supplying and trafficking fentanyl. Again, why would they do that?
But remember, they care about saving lives. Right. Talk about getting played.
Education
I’m going to round it out with education because when you look at how we are being played, just look at our education system. It’s a joke. A catastrophic failure. We spend more on education than nearly every country combined. We are the sole superpower of the world, although that might not be lasting that much longer. We spend over $1-trillion taxpayer dollars a year on education, and what are we getting out of it?
Well, we rank 25th of all the developed nations out there, and that’s based on the 2018 PISA rankings. (PISA) Just wait until the new rankings are released because it’s only gotten worse. I did an episode a couple of years ago explaining how the overwhelming majority of students are not proficient in the subject material. Students are only about 23% proficient in the subject material if we average out the subject areas. On average only 2% of students are considered advanced. It’s pathetic.
We simply cycle through students even though they don’t know the material and the situation has been exacerbated by the coronavirus. The lockdowns, the masks, the distance learning, have set students back even further. Yet, students are still getting pushed through to the next grade even though they don’t know the material. How is that supposed to help them as they continue to fall further behind and can’t catch up?
Now, I’ve been on top of the education system long before the pandemic, but the pandemic has revealed how the officials, how many on Boards of Education, how many developing the curriculum, have no regard for you, the students, and those teachers that do care.
Just last week, Tucker Carlson reported on how the vast majority of Baltimore high school students, one of the highest-funded districts in the country, are reading at an elementary school level. Some were as low as kindergarten, yet somehow, they made it to high school.
Our entire education system is an embarrassment, and we should be ashamed of ourselves. We’re investing all this money and for what? To produce students who can’t read or write at appropriate levels? And how far are these students going to be able to go without being able to read and write? It doesn’t matter the job, you need to be able to read. We are failing these kids. We are failing their parents. We are failing the dedicated teachers.
But they don’t care. As long as the money keeps flowing and as long as the unions have power, they’re content. I’m going to get into the breakdown within our education system in an upcoming episode, but I think the collapse of the education system symbolizes the collapse of a nation.
Rather than teach kids, we have so many administrators, bureaucrats, and teachers that would rather inject their politics, their activism, into what they are teaching. They would rather indoctrinate and teach them what to think instead of how to think. They would rather control the students than educate the students. See, education can be empowering, but they don’t want to empower the students and get them to think for themselves. They would rather the students tow a political line to our detriment.
Closing
As I said, I’m going to get into the education thing in another episode, but I think education clearly illustrates how we are being played. And I could have done this with a number of issues.
But I selected these four issues today for a reason. I selected them because it doesn’t matter what your political affiliation is. All these issues impact all of us equally. If massive conflict breaks out between the United States and Russia, do you think it won’t impact you because of your political affiliation?
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When it comes to mask mandates and lockdowns, particularly on kids, aren’t all the children suffering regardless of their parents’ position? It doesn’t matter the political ideology of the parents. The kids are suffering, and long-term damage has been done.
What about fentanyl. Do you think fentanyl targets one political ideology or the other? Do you think fentanyl cares what your political opinions are?
When it comes to the collapse of our education system, do you believe this won’t have a detrimental impact on the whole of society? You can send your kid to the finest school. They can receive the best education, but if the vast majority of students can’t even read and write at proficient levels, you can have all the education in the world, but when the system collapses do you really think it’s going to matter? Do you think your political ideology will save you?
As I said, we are being played, and it’s time to take notice and hold the frauds accountable.
There’s a lot to digest here, and I encourage every single one of you to share this episode because we are all in this together whether we like it or not, and the current path we’re on is unsustainable. Let’s get our message out there. It’s too important.
I want to thank you for joining me, I want you to stay safe, and I’ll be back next week.
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