The Jason Stapleton Program

What is the culture war? I was recently asked why I don't spend more time discussing it.

I have to admit I feel like I spend an hour every day fighting against people and ideas that will destroy our country and our way of life.

But I guess because I don't use the term "culture war" some people don't get it or worse yet they don't understand what it is themselves.

"Culture War" is typically a term used by Christian conservatives to describe what they believe is the moral degradation of society. Gay rights, short dresses even rock & roll were at one time singled out as signs American values and culture were under attack.

I've never found much value in fighting a culture war. That kind of virtue signaling I leave to people like Tomi Lahren who lack the education and intelligence necessary to make a defensible case for change based more than emotion.

But I think it's worth addressing since it came up so I'll talk a little about it today.

Yesterday I had a story in the stack I didn't get to dive into as deeply as I wanted. It has to do with regulation and licensing.

I'm glad I didn't spend much time on it yesterday because today we have a couple of great examples in the news about the very subject of regulation. It turns out regulation will likely strengthen companies like Facebook and Google while harming up and coming, competitors.

If you've been listening to this show for very long, you already knew regulation hurts competition, protects large, established companies at the expense of smaller upstarts. Unfortunately, that kind of economic wisdom isn't taught in schools, so most people are oblivious to the danger of regulation and licensing.

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Bernie Sanders is back at it again. Working on legislation to offer any American who wants work a $15/hr government job. I'll explain why this is both stupid and impossible on today's show.

Jason

Yes, apparently there are bad people out there who are using legally purchased tools for nefarious purposes.

So what responsibility does Amazon have (if any) to ensure these tools are not falling into the wrong hands?

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The European Central Bank is backing down on a plan to require banks to put up more capital before nearly a trillion dollars of bad loans are written off.

This comes after overwhelming political pressure from countries and banks inside the EU who say the plan is unworkable.

Wouldn't it be great if all of us could unload our private debt onto the backs of the public? Unfortunately, that type of debt forgiveness is restricted to bankers and governments.

All that PLUS a great discussion on the movie Ready Player One.

Jason

You what to know how messed up our government is? Keep reading.

Before leaving is post-Comey shared three personal memos documenting conversations he had with Trump. Two of those documents were unclassified and one was classified. Comey went to the effort of redacting the classified portion of the memo of concern even though he had the power to declassify the information of interest in that memo.

Now that he's left the FBI someone else has changed the classification of one of the memos now claiming its content is classified.

The Justice Department is now looking into the issue to determine if Comey shared classified information with his friend.

Now keep in mind the information WAS NOT classified when he shared it but apparently, he can still be charged if the classification is changed later. (yeah WTF? That's what I said)

This is our legal system today.

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Turkey has just decided to repatriate 100% of its gold reserves from the US. Is it an attempt to start a new gold-backed currency or merely a chance to pillage the wealth of a nation? I'll discuss today.

I've got a bunch of stuff in the stack today, but at the end of today's episode, I discuss a question I get a lot. "What's your view on the death penalty?"

Libertarians are generally united in their opposition to the death penalty but why? Are there times when it's acceptable to kill someone for their crimes? What are they?

I'll discuss all of it on the show today.

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Is the war in Syria just cover for the central bankers to centralize power? Some say it is and if you can suspend your disbelief for a few minutes I'll do my best to explain why.

Great show today and it's good to be back.

Jason

If there was ever a new story that deserved to be omitted the headlines, it's the admission by Michael Cohen's lawyers that Sean Hannity is a client.

There is some question as to whether or not Hannity is actually a client but even if he is what does that mean? Answer: Absolutely nothing.

As a regular listener of this show, you know there is no love lost between Hannity and myself. But this is rediculous. Rachel Maddow would have you believe this is a bombshell. MSNBC is using terms like "shocked" and "floored" to describe the courtroom admission.

In the world of real journalism, this is a non-story. Unfortunately, real journalism is dead in America.

So, Trump was nice enough to wait until I was making dinner to drop bombs on Syria, so I didn't have time to talk about it on Friday. So today I'll give you my thoughts on that fiasco.

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Do you know WHY the post office is losing money? It has to do with the creation of a government monopoly. This is completely different than a free market monopoly that exists for very different reasons.

Great discussions today plus a very exciting announcement at the top and bottom of the show.

It seems ridiculous to even ask. "Of course robots are not people!" But, since it's Friday, I thought I'd spend a little time challenging the idea.

While I will admit, robots are not human the question about life remains. What constitutes life? If we're talking about humans or animals, we might use the standard of a heartbeat which I have used many times when discussing infants in the womb. But is this the only way to classify life?

I want to dig into this a little and have a bit of a philosophical discussion. It's something we don't do much on the show, but given the fact that the EU is proposing giving legal status to robots it seems worthy of discussion.

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UK Prime Minister Theresa May announced yesterday that she has PROOF Assad launched the chemical attack that allegedly killed 70 people. But if she has it, she's not sharing it.

Smash cut to the Russian defense minister who, in a statement said, "We have evidence that proves Britain was directly involved in organizing this provocation."

But again, if the Russians have evidence, they're not sharing it. So who's telling the truth? Probably no one.

Enjoy the weekend! Don't forget to share!

Jason

I haven't Jeffrey in a few years, and it was so great to have him in the studio today.

Jeffrey is a WEALTH of knowledge on everything from Bitcoin to foreign policy, and I always learn something after talking with him.

Today we cover a variety of issues ranging from the future of Bitcoin to Trump's economic, foreign policy. I know you're going to get a lot out of it.

You can find out more about Jeffrey by visiting the American Institute for Economic Research or at his site jeffreytucker.me

The USS Truman carrier strike group with a complement of 7 warships has set sail for Syria. Although it will take them a couple of weeks to get there, the movement has already initiated a response.

Russia has deployed 11 battleships out of the port in Syria for what they are claiming are "military training exercises." Of course, this is nonsense.

But what will the carrier group do when they get to Syria? Will Trump launch an attack? Prime Minister Theresa May has already said publicly they require more evidence (read ANY evidence) that a chemical attack took place while the Russias are claiming they are already on the ground and found no evidence an attack took place.

In a den of thieves and liars, who's telling the truth? Probably none of them. You certainly don't want to trust any of them.

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Is the dollar headed for collapse? Jim Rickards thinks so. I'll tell you what I think in the back half of today's show.

Jason