ICE Lies, People Die

00:00:00

Nathan Brady: And then, all right, you ready?
Mike Smith: as I'll ever
Nathan Brady: Here we go. Hey everyone and welcome to the inaugural
Mike Smith: be.
Nathan Brady: 2026 edition episode of the Blues Edition podcast. I'm your host Nate Brady alongside
Mike Smith: A very merry Mike Smith everybody.
Nathan Brady: Very Mary.
Mike Smith: Happy New Year to you.
Nathan Brady: Oh, what do we have to be merry about? Can you tell me that?
Mike Smith: We got we have all all sorts to be marry about.
Nathan Brady: I got nothing to be merry about.
Mike Smith: Think about it. I mean,
Nathan Brady: Uh oh,
Mike Smith: think about all the money we're going to make from all that oil. Just Yeah.
Nathan Brady: the Venezuelan oil.
Mike Smith: Americans are definitely going to see that,
Nathan Brady: How could I forget? Listen guys,
Mike Smith: right?
Nathan Brady: a lot has happened since uh I think it's been it's been some time. We had some stuff happening and the holidays and all of that stuff. So, we haven't been around for a little while, but we're back and we're going to bring you some of the hottest uh I don't maybe that's not the right word, some of the latest news.

00:01:02

Nathan Brady: Um, and let's just let's just dive right into it. Uh, Mike, Mike,
Mike Smith: We gota uh we we doing coups
Nathan Brady: what's going on? What's going on out there?
Mike Smith: again, you know,
Nathan Brady: We're doing coups.
Mike Smith: make America coup
Nathan Brady: Okay,
Mike Smith: again.
Nathan Brady: so what do you mean again? I mean, that's just what America does, right?
Mike Smith: Well, but we stopped for a while. I mean, what was So,
Nathan Brady: What?
Mike Smith: so I actually don't know the
Nathan Brady: Tell the people what you're talking
Mike Smith: date that it happened. Do you know what day it happened?
Nathan Brady: about.
Mike Smith: I have no notes on it, but the United States uh basically performed a bombardment of Venezuela and Caracus, the capital. And under the cover of this seeming attack, uh, a SEAL team went in and, um, captured, uh, their president and his wife and brought them back to the United States to face charges in a country they do not live. It's like extradition except the country didn't agree to it.

00:02:08

Mike Smith: And in fact, it's against UN policy for anybody to do this. But that's the high
Nathan Brady: Yeah. I mean, and so there's there's a whole oh my god, there's a whole plethora of stuff to talk about here.
Mike Smith: level.
Nathan Brady: Trump obviously said the quiet parts out loud, which he does and and nothing ever happens from him doing that, but he basically said, um, we're we're going to go take the oil because the oil is for some reason ours. the oil on their land um is is for some reason ours. So he said that part out loud. He also said that the United States will effectively run Venezuela during the transition period. And I want to talk about I think it's important to address even though they're idiotic um all of the talking points because I feel like uh the right-leaning media gets a lot of its um talking points from X versus the other way around. So like when something happens there's a whole big uh you know what's the word I'm looking for?

00:03:12

Nathan Brady: echo chamber on X that builds up a narrative and kind of the
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: strongest narrative strongest narrative takes hold and then that's what's kind of run with Elon runs with it, Trump runs with it and therefore the media runs with it, right? And so one of the things um that people are claiming and that Trump and Elon is claiming is that the Venezuelan people are so thrilled about this, right? Because obviously Maduro um is a brutal leader,
Mike Smith: Yeah, he he's a he's a fascist in his own right. They've held several general elections in the last few years where he's like Putin gotten like
Nathan Brady: right?
Mike Smith: 98% of the vote and killed his political allies or political rivals or jailed them or kept them from kept certain voter blocks from being able to actually vote. So, I mean,
Nathan Brady: Right.
Mike Smith: it's a banana republic.
Nathan Brady: So, so we we we know that one of the first things that happened after uh Gravy Seals Gravy Boat Team Six or whatever went in there and kidnapped the um alleged president, you know, whatever.

00:04:18

Nathan Brady: Fine. He's been running it since 2013. and his wife is that uh the Venezuelan Supreme Court um and their body uh swore in Maduro's VP as acting president, right?
Mike Smith: right?
Nathan Brady: So essentially nothing really changed for the Venezuelan people except for well two things. It's more unstable there. Uh infrastructure was damaged, civilians were killed. Um, and people are being arrested. The the the few people that are out in the streets celebrating um like X wants us to believe um are actually being arrested because the the there there has been no change as far as um the political rule, the political class that is ruling Venezuela right now. So,
Mike Smith: right?
Nathan Brady: so what I mean what did we do
Mike Smith: I mean, we we took away their their,
Nathan Brady: effectively,
Mike Smith: you know, their talking head. Imagine it was the same thing except in the United States and some other country had come in and captured Trump. I don't think it changes any of the dynamics of the controlling party which is the Republicans at the moment, right?

00:05:32

Mike Smith: They're still going to be,
Nathan Brady: right?
Mike Smith: you know, doing what they're doing.
Nathan Brady: Does it stop ICE from doing what they're doing?
Mike Smith: It doesn't change.
Nathan Brady: Does it stop,
Mike Smith: No. In fact,
Nathan Brady: you know,
Mike Smith: I think most Republicans would be like, "Oh, you captured him." Okay. And then they would move on with their day because I don't think most Republicans actually like him. And without him being able to be in power, they'd be like, "Oh, that's better. It's better this
Nathan Brady: Yeah. So, um I mean,
Mike Smith: way.
Nathan Brady: yeah, what would happen? JD JD Vance would just become president, right? So, essentially the same thing is going on in Venezuela right now. Now, Trump has made um Trump and Marco Rubio have made threats um to the, you know, the current leaders of Venezuela saying, you know, if you don't get in line, you know, what's the things that are going to happen to you are going to be much worse than what happened to Madera, whatever that means.

00:06:22

Nathan Brady: I mean, I think they're I think they're basically saying, we'll execute you.
Mike Smith: Yeah. I don't I mean,
Nathan Brady: Um,
Mike Smith: this is all so crazy to me because it's so blatantly like a declaration of war without actual Congress approval. I I don't know how you can read it any other way, right? I'm threatening another country. I'm going to steal their sovereign natural resources with this.
Nathan Brady: I
Mike Smith: Like, that's that's war. What are we talking
Nathan Brady: mean, it's unreal. And you know, there, of course, the again,
Mike Smith: about?
Nathan Brady: the talking heads on the other side are like, "Oh, I thought you guys didn't like Kings. I thought what happened to no Kings, blah, blah, blah." This isn't this isn't the point. I think we can all we all agree. You're not going to find liberals out there that are like Maduro was a good guy, you know?
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: Nobody's saying that.
Mike Smith: No. No one has ever said that. And it hearkens back to like the,

00:07:08

Nathan Brady: No.
Mike Smith: you know,
Nathan Brady: No.
Mike Smith: the early stages of George W. Bushes when we were like, "Oh, so you're in you you don't like, you know, you don't want us to go to war, but just you don't like fascists and blah blah blah blah." Like, it's the same. You got it you can be two things. He could be a bad guy and a fascist. Like, like, you don't have to go into that
Nathan Brady: They they cannot no no they cannot understand that there
Mike Smith: country.
Nathan Brady: can be two things happening at the same time.
Mike Smith: That's too many thought processes for them.
Nathan Brady: It's something very difficult for them. Yeah. It's it's it's hard. Um, so I mean I don't know what else to say about this other than uh huh uh and hopefully when Congress is back in session well I mean they've already said that they're going to vote on you know a war powers resolution but I mean it's first of all it's a little too late for that you know Um,

00:08:01

Mike Smith: Yeah, I mean the this this is so bizarre because they've gotten to the point where, you know, he's obviously just violating the Constitution and they don't like what do you care? What are we going to do about it? That's that's where we're at right now. The Republicans are like, I'm not going to do anything about it. Go ahead, violate the Constitution. It doesn't matter to me.
Nathan Brady: It's it's it's completely insane because these people who were yelling in our faces about uh we don't want hawkish Hillary Clinton, you know, it needs to be America first now. We need to stop meddling in other countries. I mean, they can't even do America first, right?
Mike Smith: No, they're just liars.
Nathan Brady: I mean,
Mike Smith: Everything that they say is a
Nathan Brady: it's it's lies all the way down.
Mike Smith: lie.
Nathan Brady: Um, speaking of lies, so we had some breaking news this morning. I I can transition to anything by saying speaking of lies.
Mike Smith: You sure can. Speaking of lies,

00:08:52

Nathan Brady: It's just who knows what story I'm going to bring up next.
Mike Smith: All
Nathan Brady: This morning, a an ICE agent um in in Minneapolis,
Mike Smith: right.
Nathan Brady: Minnesota, um executed a woman, from what we can tell from the video, which we are not going to play on the podcast. Um a a woman who was apparently an observer, a legal observer to uh a situation happening. Uh I don't know whether ICE was attempting to arrest somebody or ICE was gathering at a certain location. She was parked in the middle of a street. Um, she had ICE officers screaming at her to leave and then other ICE officers attempting to open the door to drag her out. It was a very confusing situation. And this American citizen who was uh clearly nervous and also afraid for her life decided it would be in her best interest to get the hell out of there, which was what some of the ICE agents had been telling her to do. So, she started to drive off and she she kind of made like a a sharp right-hand turn to get out of the way and away from ICE officers attempting to open her door.

00:10:02

Nathan Brady: On the other side of her was an ICE officer that I I wouldn't say I mean you can you all can watch the videos for yourselves. I wouldn't say was even standing in front of her car, but was sort of to the side of her car, pulled out his firearm and shot her several times, point blank, through the window, killing her. And you can see in the video her car then, you know, drive, you know, it rolls forward, slams into another car. People are screaming, lots of chaos. The officer who shot the woman appears completely fine. Um, he's not he he wasn't hit by the car. He wasn't injured. Um, so, so this is what happened. Before we dive into what the hell does all of this mean, I want to share um this message from our pedophile President Donald Trump. Excuse me, our President Donald Trump. Um, that reads, "I have just viewed the clip of the event which took place in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is a horrible thing to watch. The woman screaming was obviously a professional agitator.

00:11:08

Nathan Brady: And the woman driving the car was very disorderly, obstructing and resisting, who then violently, willfully, and viciously. All three of those things ran over the ICE officer who seems to have shot her in self-defense. We don't know what video he's watching. Based on the attached clip, it is hard to believe he is alive, but is now recovering in the hospital. The situation is being studied in its entirety. But the reason these incidents are happening is because the radical left is threatening, assaulting, and targeting our law our law enforcement officers and ICE agents on a daily basis. They are just trying to do the job of making America safe. We need to stand by and protect our law enforcement officers from this radical left movement of violence and hate, President Donald J. Trump. Mike, your response?
Mike Smith: Good f****** god.
Nathan Brady: I think that's the correct
Mike Smith: So, they've identified the woman.
Nathan Brady: response.
Mike Smith: The driver is named Renee Nicole. Good. Um, there are several vantage points and videos of the incident,

00:12:07

Nathan Brady: Okay.
Mike Smith: and I'm not going to link any of them. them. We're not going to put them in the show notes. You guys are welcome to look for such things. And be warned, they are very graphic. At no point were any ICE officers ever in danger or injured.
Nathan Brady: No.
Mike Smith: The videos very clearly show an officer standing toward the front left of the vehicle as from the driver's perspective and not touching the car. You can see his feet away from the car and the driver is trying to turn the car away from him and then you can see him pull out his gun and unload several shots into the car and through the driver's side window as she's trying to escape. It's it's a clear-cut assassination for no good reason.
Nathan Brady: I mean
Mike Smith: And if this if this guy felt like his life was in danger,
Nathan Brady: they
Mike Smith: then he needs to quit this job. And frankly, I think he needs to be tried for murder and probably set to death because this is just very very cut and

00:13:06

Nathan Brady: no I Okay, so I think there's Oh, all right. Wow.
Mike Smith: dried.
Nathan Brady: There there's a lot here. First, I will say um the same thing that happened with January 6th and with uh the murder of George Floyd is you have this kind of bubble like we just talked about earlier, this echo, this narrative on X. Um especially coming from Trump's statement here. Christy Gnome said that the driver characterized the woman's actions as a domestic act of domestic terrorism, which is insane. You have that bubble and you have that narrative coming from the president and his goons all the way down. But what you'll find in real life just with January 6th and Derek, what was his name? Chovin. Um uh and and and all of those other murderers is that once it gets in front of a grand jury and the grand jury looks at that evidence, that that bubble, that nonsense, that's gone. They will they will move to indict this guy and this guy will get will be convicted of murder.

00:14:09

Nathan Brady: I mark me right now,
Mike Smith: Mark
Nathan Brady: January 7th, 200 p.m.
Mike Smith: me.
Nathan Brady: is when we're recording this right now. Uh this this man will be tried and convicted of murder. I have no doubt in my mind.
Mike Smith: I It's unbelievable the things. So I I've said it a lot on this podcast and I think that I'm just going to keep saying it until it stops being true. But we live in a posttruth society where like you're talking about this this echo
Nathan Brady: Right.
Mike Smith: chamber, this bubble is of people who just want that to be true. They want that there was this radical leftist who tried to run down this heroic ICE agent and the ICE
Nathan Brady: Right.
Mike Smith: agent pulled his gun and and stopped the attack or
Nathan Brady: And saved the earth. Yeah. Save saved America.
Mike Smith: whatever this Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Yeah.
Mike Smith: saved America.
Nathan Brady: Yeah.
Mike Smith: Just made it safe.
Nathan Brady: From this domestic terrorist,
Mike Smith: And they don't look at the video.

00:14:59

Nathan Brady: right?
Mike Smith: They don't look at the photographs. They don't look at the evidence. They just want their side to be right. And so they'll they'll champion that. I want to believe, you know, there's some people out here who who just are ignorant and proud rather than like the Christy Gnomes and the Donald Trumps of the world who are vindictive and evil. I guarantee you there will be people on the right who have not seen the videos, have not looked at the evidence, and will do this. And I just think they're ignorant.
Nathan Brady: Oh, for sure.
Mike Smith: And then you'll have Christine O and Donald Trump who have seen the videos and will lie to your face. They'll say, "She tried to run that man over as she was going away from him." And you're like,
Nathan Brady: Right.
Mike Smith: "That's not in the world. That's not real. What you're saying is provably false from several different vantage points. We have a neighbor on the stoop. We've got a a Nest Cam and somebody else's like upper eaves that records like for packages and stuff.

00:15:50

Nathan Brady: Right.
Mike Smith: There's a ton of videos out there. So, a person just doing selfies like watching this whole thing happen. And you can see very clearly that that none of the ICE agents were ever in danger except maybe one of the ICE agents because he was pretty close to the other ICE agent while he was murdering the woman. He could have been shot like collaterally. You know, that's the dangerous part of his
Nathan Brady: Yeah, I mean, yeah,
Mike Smith: job.
Nathan Brady: being around a bunch of untrained armed jack booted thugs is pretty dangerous.
Mike Smith: But the but it's it's the same problem that you're going to have now, right?
Nathan Brady: Um,
Mike Smith: We live in the post-truth society and like you said, they're gonna indict this guy. He's gonna be tried and probably convicted of murder and then he's going to get pardoned by the president because he doesn't care and he wants it that he wants the people to believe the narrative of this
Nathan Brady: most likely
Mike Smith: man is being, you know, targeted by the radical left judges and that you're just feeling very early stages

00:16:41

Nathan Brady: Right. I
Mike Smith: of uh of, you know, Germany preWorld War II here where just like don't believe your eyes and we've got the
Nathan Brady: No, I think we're midstages.
Mike Smith: jack jack booted thugs out there taking over the
Nathan Brady: Yeah. And and and then there are a lot of people and you wonder,
Mike Smith: world,
Nathan Brady: you know, one of the questions everyone asks is how did you let how how did those who live in Germany kind of let that happen?
Mike Smith: right?
Nathan Brady: And we just see people on the right just because it's their team um just
Mike Smith: Yeah, because it's their team.
Nathan Brady: kissing the ass of the state that is willing to go out there and murder innocent people and they're going, "Well, I voted for Donald Trump, so this has to be okay." You know,
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: this is this this is what I voted for. You voted for murdering people, murdering innocent American citizens. And and I hate to keep qualifying it. I've seen it in several ways.

00:17:33

Nathan Brady: You'll look at all of the posts, even from prominent people on the left. They'll they'll qualify it as innocent American citizen, blah blah blah. Don't you don't have to qualify it. Even if that was a an an illegal immigrant.
Mike Smith: Just stop f****** killing Americans. I don't ask for
Nathan Brady: Yeah. I mean, don't you don't murder anybody in the in the middle of the street like that,
Mike Smith: much.
Nathan Brady: especially all those bystanders. I mean, it is insane. It it is literally insane. And as you pointed out, you know, Trump made this ridiculous statement,
Mike Smith: Contradicts
Nathan Brady: which we still have up, and he posted the video, which directly contradicts every single thing he said,
Mike Smith: everything.
Nathan Brady: right? Christine Gnome goes out and says, you know, domestic terrorism, blah, blah, blah. Thankfully, both the Minneapolis uh mayor Jacob Frey and uh Governor Tim Waltz have come out and said the DH DHS narrative is nonsense and quote b*******. Um which is one of the reasons why I love Tim Waltz.

00:18:29

Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Don't I hate that he's not running for a third term because this is a guy that will come out there and say, "Are are you f****** kidding me? That's b*******." And that's what Americans need to hear. Like just plain and simple. No more of this dancing around nonsense that the the Chuck Schumers do like,
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: well, we're going to look into it. It's possible that blah blah blah. No, this is this is f****** b*******. We got we got to put an end to this.
Mike Smith: We're not going to stand for it anymore.
Nathan Brady: We're not going to stand for it anymore. And that's what we need more of. We definitely need more of that.
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: And so point being though is that um DHS and and Trump are are saying one thing. we can see with our own eyes what's true. I believe when it gets to a grand jury, hopefully it gets that far. Um, they'll move to indict and he'll be convicted.

00:19:22

Nathan Brady: My only caveat to that is in a uh interview I think I I forget who was asked, somebody at uh MPD was asked who's whose investigation is this? And MPD said actually um we're just here to secure the scene. it's now in the FBI's uh jurisdiction. That makes me a little bit worried because, you know, we have a clown show for for the FBI. But at least Tim Walsh has also said, you know, the state is also going to be involved in investigating this. So, even if there aren't federal charges, hopefully there will be uh state charges brought uh against this ICE officer who you you can't just walk into a you can't walk into a state and a city and murder people. you just can't do it.
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Um, that's what I got
Mike Smith: Well, and you know, at the very least, this guy's never going to know peace again.
Nathan Brady: there.
Mike Smith: He's been captured on video and pictures, and there's very good uh uh quality of that. And so, the internet's going to do what the internet's going to do.

00:20:28

Mike Smith: And I would be surprised if we don't learn his name in the coming hours, basically. and well that is
Nathan Brady: Do we have his
Mike Smith: we don't have his name yet.
Nathan Brady: name?
Mike Smith: Um I did uh share uh some pictures that you could probably post up there. Um, and like it's pretty I I think that this is the type of thing that you can find this person pretty quickly because they're they're they're clearly up in a gate like they're gatored up, but I don't think you're ever going to completely erase yourself like
Nathan Brady: No, no, they'll they'll find him.
Mike Smith: that,
Nathan Brady: I'm sure the the the internet is is working on it right now. They probably already have
Mike Smith: right? And then the state will have some ability to to make requests for information on officers and things like
Nathan Brady: somewhere.
Mike Smith: that involved and get, you know, mug shots, not mug shots, but like security shots like for their badges and stuff. And they'll be able to put two and two

00:21:27

Nathan Brady: Yeah. I mean, uh, bottom line is we have these masked, jack booted thugs who are armed and untrained.
Mike Smith: together.
Nathan Brady: I mean, we already have quote unquote trained police officers that don't know how to deescalate situations. Now, we've got a group of, you know, eight guys together. Some are yelling at her to leave. Some are trying to open her door. Some have their guns drawn for this woman in her mid30s in a minivan or I forget, you know, what she was driving. But I mean, what is what is happening here? This is this is insane. Um, okay, before we move to any other stories, I want to backtrack a little bit to the um Madnuro thing because I forgot to mention something that I I wanted to mention, which was this this Poly Market. Um,
Mike Smith: Oh
Nathan Brady: so so so we've talked about Poly Market in the past.
Mike Smith: god.
Nathan Brady: I think I even did a short on it at one point. Um, but Poly Market is this um uh I I forget the I forget the proper term for it,

00:22:29

Mike Smith: Gambling site.
Nathan Brady: but it allows you Huh. Yeah,
Mike Smith: Gambling site.
Nathan Brady: it's I mean it is a gambling site. A prediction market. It says it literally right here. It's a quote unquote prediction market that lets you kind of trade shares of an event either happening or not happening with other users on the site, right? Um and and uh shortly before I think it was the the night before um
Mike Smith: It It was like when choppers were in the
Nathan Brady: right right you know uh somebody on Poly Market some user who is
Mike Smith: air.
Nathan Brady: listed here um they bet $30,000 that Maduro would exit Venezuela would no longer be the president. I forget what the exact title of the trade was. Um, and then hours later, the uh the prediction resolved in their favor, netting them $436,000. So 30 $32,000 bet is what they made in this brand new account. Um, joined December 2025. You can see on the screen kind of in light gray. Uh they made a $30,000 bet that Maduro would exit hours before his exit and they uh made half a million dollars.

00:23:50

Mike Smith: Oh man,
Nathan Brady: Um I mean
Mike Smith: insider trading gets a lot easier when you stop regulating every single money market there
Nathan Brady: that's that's a
Mike Smith: is.
Nathan Brady: that's a well so first of all to be fair quote unquote fair I believe Poly Market is a non US um trading site. I don't think you can be a United States citizen. I'm sure there I mean I could probably sign up for an account right now. It's very easy for for us to to figure that out. Um so it's it's supposed to be some foreign person did this.
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: They're using Bitcoin. They're using whatever.
Mike Smith: Got it.
Nathan Brady: They signed up. They they made a bet. They they had a huge win. Now they can withdraw that. It's so clearly Pete Hegsth or somebody in the in the Department of
Mike Smith: Man, I was going to say it's Nancy Pelosi,
Nathan Brady: War.
Mike Smith: but I mean Hegs's a good bet, too.
Nathan Brady: I mean, hey, there's uh there's precedent for it being Nancy Pelosi, so it's hard for me to argue with you on that one.

00:24:53

Mike Smith: Near as I can tell,
Nathan Brady: Um,
Mike Smith: one of the only perks about being an elected official is you just get to do insider trading whenever you want because nobody
Nathan Brady: it's a lot of Yeah.
Mike Smith: ever nobody ever loses a campaign on
Nathan Brady: Yeah. Um I, you know, I I talked briefly with you,
Mike Smith: that.
Nathan Brady: Mike, about it as being people that are both in tech. like um you know I feel like we should just be scraping these sites for when when a brand new account is created and puts a a decent sized bet on one of these things and then either
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: also put a bet on it somehow uh legally I don't know call my friends uh overseas or start reporting on the news because so so that's the
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: interesting other part is there were news outlets that were sitting on this
Mike Smith: Yeah. Allegedly. I mean,
Nathan Brady: story.
Mike Smith: have any of them come out? I I read that that there was like a whistleblower at WPO that said that that they were told that uh something

00:25:46

Nathan Brady: Mhm.
Mike Smith: was happening in Venezuela and don't report on anything you hear because it could endanger the lives of agents involved. And I don't think that they had any specifics more than that. Do you have do you have more information to those that
Nathan Brady: I don't I don't um that was the that I heard of it too.
Mike Smith: like
Nathan Brady: And I mean I it's a I I believe
Mike Smith: see I I would believe it but you know it's just it the
Nathan Brady: it
Mike Smith: the way that it was phrased in the the version that I read seemed very handwavy as like something's going to happen maybe in Venezuela. Don't talk about Venezuela for the next couple hours.
Nathan Brady: I don't know if that were me and I had a couple grand uh in the bank uh that I could move quickly on the poly market maybe maybe uh maybe that's it
Mike Smith: Yeah, maybe that's it. Maybe, you know, Jake Tapper or whoever just made a a good
Nathan Brady: right
Mike Smith: Sorry.
Nathan Brady: um fantastic uh okay let's move on you have another story listed here that we want to talk about um we can we can talk about

00:26:53

Mike Smith: We don't have to. We can. You want to talk about it?
Nathan Brady: this
Mike Smith: I think it's more of an economics topic whereas we're we tend to stick with ma mainly maybe it's political
Nathan Brady: uh
Mike Smith: economics but
Nathan Brady: Oh, no. It's definitely political. Um because there's there's some things uh here that I find really interesting as
Mike Smith: okay
Nathan Brady: well. Um so Trump in it in his infinite wisdom and his randomness um just uh tweet stuff into law. Um and today today he said and I don't have the post in front of me but today he said
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: that he will ban uh Wall Street and corporations from investing in and buying up single family homes. I think some he said something like corporate people live in homes not corporations was some something that he said in his now you know what if this came from Bernie Sanders I would be like yeah this is great like you know and and this is probably something that Bernie Sanders has said at some

00:27:47

Mike Smith: Sure. almost
Nathan Brady: some point in time um which some which people on the right would lose their goddamn minds over and
Mike Smith: assuredly.
Nathan Brady: then they would defend hey I I got enough Red Sox hats and they would defend um they they would defend and come hell or high water, you know.
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Uh so, so what do you think about this? Let's let's just let's
Mike Smith: So, I mean, there is there's a lot to be said about obviously the housing market for for new
Nathan Brady: just
Mike Smith: firsttime buyers is just awful. Like the the wages versus home prices is ridiculous and has been growing in the wrong directions for many, many decades at this point. you know, our parents' generation uh were able to scrape together a living with with the wages that they had to buy put a down payment on a house and eventually pay it off in many cases. But like this generation or or even our generation really, it's it's kind of like an impossibility unless you get just absolutely the most luck ever or you're willing to live in in places that are less desirable.

00:28:58

Mike Smith: You know, obviously you can go buy a house down in, you know, in in the swamps that's going to get hit by the hurricanes every year and you maybe can afford that, but you can't afford the insurance and you can't afford the commute and there's there's so much that goes into it. But the other side of it is that we've been hearing for at least the last decade about um uh entities because they don't really go into who it is buying up American real estate from overseas mainly from Chinese firms. Right.
Nathan Brady: We'll call them large institutional investors I think is
Mike Smith: Right. and and they go under the pretext of being an individual.
Nathan Brady: what
Mike Smith: And then when you actually start looking at how the the payments are coming in and where the banking information is coming,
Nathan Brady: right
Mike Smith: it's all coming from corporations out of China. And so that was mainly during the big Airbnb a BNB era, you know, what eight years ago thereabouts. But after that you start seeing hedge funds like um Black Rockck and and some of these other these other uh growth focused institutions, investment institutions buying up um not just not just the debt of mortgages but also houses themselves as equity to line against their other mortgages.

00:30:17

Mike Smith: So you you think about the problem that we had uh in the big short where you had these subprime loans being shoved into packages with prime loans where it turned out that none of none of those loans were actually very good. Well, Black Rockck's doing the opposite. They're just buying homes against the debts that they're purchasing as well and packages packaging them together so that they'll offset each other to mitigate risk. Okay. So you're buying homes and you're buying mortgage debt.
Nathan Brady: Yeah.
Mike Smith: What are you doing with these homes? And the answer is nothing. They're just holding
Nathan Brady: Yeah. Well, okay. So, I I do want to point out that it is only a fairly small percentage.
Mike Smith: them.
Nathan Brady: I won't say it's negligible, but it is fairly small percentage of homes that are currently owned by Blackstone linked entities.
Mike Smith: Sure. Sure.
Nathan Brady: Right.
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: And what what some on the left are saying is that okay this is good okay you know you can't even a broken clock is is right twi you know twice a day whatever right however the the this doesn't actually solve the problem so will it will it drop uh will it lower housing prices hard to

00:31:29

Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: say if it's two, three, 4% of the market first of all already owned by these institutional investors.
Mike Smith: Yeah. What do you do?
Nathan Brady: Uh does that mean they have to sell them?
Mike Smith: You're going to do a Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Does that mean whatever?
Mike Smith: Tik Tok style must sell like
Nathan Brady: So so so there's that. But then the the whole the whole point is what we need is broader supply side, you know, and affordability measures. Like that's what we need to work on because it's not necessarily that there's a huge problem with institutional investors is still a problem,
Mike Smith: right?
Nathan Brady: but we have zoning problems. We have building problems,
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: supply, all that supply side stuff, all the affordability side stuff.
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: interest rates are. But you tell me I can get I you know, okay, now the $700,000 home uh that that I was looking at is now $655,000. Great. I still can't pay 8% interest on that.

00:32:36

Nathan Brady: You know, I mean, that's just insane. So, there's still issues that we have to deal with.
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: But I want to take a a quick step back and point out that this is now the second kind of I would call good thing that Trump has kind of just thrown against the wall since it was you know called out that he was in the Epstein files and he's a pedophile and he
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: hurts children. Um what the first was that he would he was urging his
Mike Smith: Sure.
Nathan Brady: he created an executive order to urge the attorney general to reschedu marijuana.
Mike Smith: Oh, yeah.
Nathan Brady: So So yeah,
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: that's great.
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Guess what? that that just made the news for a day and it tried to
Mike Smith: Okay.
Nathan Brady: move, you know, uh tried to get eyes off of him and Epstein,
Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: right? And is it actually going to happen? I don't know. Probably unlikely.

00:33:29

Mike Smith: Right.
Nathan Brady: The same thing here is he's urging, excuse me, he's taking steps through the executive branch to urge Congress to codify a ban.
Mike Smith: Some new law. Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Exactly. So again, this is just Trump throwing something out there in a tweet. He's getting some backlash obviously from from the very wealthy investors on his side. the same way he got huge backlash from the the Christian nationalists and Republicans on the marijuana rescheduling. It's it's very unlikely that either of the these things are going to happen while he's in office. And the only reason why I'm saying that is because I made a post the other day that said something to the effect of I do not want to hear Democrats, if they regain power, ever say that you cannot do one thing or another because of political backlash or whatever. Apparently, you can just do whatever you want. So, if Donald Trump says that you that he's pushing for a reschedule of marijuana, why have we been Why have Why have Democrats been running on this for 20 years and not doing anything about it?

00:34:54

Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: Just do it through executive order. Tell your attorney general, who will then be, you know, a left-leaning attorney general, to reschedule marijuana. Done. You can do that in three hours. Next item on the list. Don't tell me that we have to. Well, we're working on healthcare right now. We're working on Obamacare. That's going to take about six years. During that time,
Mike Smith: We're going to lose the Senate.
Nathan Brady: we have no political capital.
Mike Smith: Lose the House.
Nathan Brady: Yeah, we have we have no political capital to do anything else except focus on Obamacare.
Mike Smith: Especially for things like this where
Nathan Brady: So, that's all you're going to get. Incremental
Mike Smith: you don't need laws to be written.
Nathan Brady: change.
Mike Smith: It's a schedule in a narcotics law that you control.
Nathan Brady: Yeah.
Mike Smith: Just change it. Like you don't even need an executive.
Nathan Brady: Just change it.
Mike Smith: Don't just I I just tweet it.

00:35:41

Nathan Brady: Well,
Mike Smith: Be like it's no law. Just it's no it's schedule four.
Nathan Brady: because in the old days in in in the old
Mike Smith: It's I'm gonna make up a new one. It's if you do it, you're cool. That's it.
Nathan Brady: days in the old days,
Mike Smith: The cops have to have to like say well you're cool.
Nathan Brady: listen listen,
Mike Smith: I got
Nathan Brady: in the old days you couldn't just go to the attorney general as the
Mike Smith: right.
Nathan Brady: president and say you're going to do this thing.
Mike Smith: Mhm.
Nathan Brady: you have, you know, well,
Mike Smith: Why
Nathan Brady: you couldn't do that back in the old days because there's a separation of these of these branches. I don't know if you knew about that. That's the judicial branch. Okay.
Mike Smith: don't you just what you do is you send him a you hit him up on Signal and you say,
Nathan Brady: Oh, it's on signal. Well,
Mike Smith: "Resched it.
Nathan Brady: first you invite reporters.

00:36:20

Mike Smith: reschedule it or some of my my my devotees are going to erect a guillotine in your lawn
Nathan Brady: Yeah.
Mike Smith: next week. So
Nathan Brady: So, what would normally happen is that would have to go through Congress, right? and Congress would say, "All right,
Mike Smith: just
Nathan Brady: we're going to do this." And then and then the judicial branch would then follow the new laws, right? But now you can just text the guy. You know, Congress isn't even a thing anymore. I mean, we we don't have time. We're gonna we're going to wrap here in a few minutes. We don't have time to talk about how Congress isn't even a thing. They shouldn't even come back.
Mike Smith: They shouldn't. They They just
Nathan Brady: I Why are Why are we bothering with Congress?
Mike Smith: shouldn't.
Nathan Brady: That is a whole the legislative branch is seems pretty useless now. Am I am I wrong on that?
Mike Smith: No, you're completely right. I mean, nobody wants to do their job.

00:37:09

Mike Smith: Nobody's abiding by the laws.
Nathan Brady: Okay.
Mike Smith: And we're just sitting around going, "Well, what can you do?"
Nathan Brady: Well, they're they're Yeah,
Mike Smith: like and you know what the most
Nathan Brady: they want to do their jobs so long as it makes them any amount of money.
Mike Smith: annoying thing this is I mean there's everything's terrible start from there and I'll say it's not the most but it's part of the whole soup of annoying stuff is that if and when the Democrats regain power they're going to look at this and be like that's the way not to do it we can't do that because that's what the psychopaths do and we're going to be like can you just reschedule marijuana because it's such a simple thing like just make an executive order like like Trump did it. That's not the right way to do it. The right way to do it is to get Chuck to to whip the votes. And we're going to be sitting around doing nothing through filibusters forever and
Nathan Brady: Yeah, listen.

00:37:57

Nathan Brady: I'll trade you marijuana for,
Mike Smith: ever.
Nathan Brady: and this is what this is what legitimately will probably happen. I'll trade you reschedule a marijuana for more ICE funding, more border patrol funding,
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: more they'll give everything to the minority, assuming Democrats ever regain control of the House and the legislative branch. This is what Democrats do. They give you a little nibble while for some reason they give the minority everything.
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: This can no longer happen. We're seeing in real time what Republicans are willing to do when they are in the majority.
Mike Smith: Yeah. And and they're building a military state at the same time.
Nathan Brady: So,
Mike Smith: I mean, they're just building this this militia in ICE that will only answer to the right. And you're just like, "Stop giving them money. Shut the government down so that they don't get paid anymore. I I don't understand what we're doing here. Why are you going along with this?" Oh,
Nathan Brady: So, um,
Mike Smith: there are people who are they need their paychecks.

00:38:56

Nathan Brady: it's time and we'll see.
Mike Smith: There are people who are gonna I don't care.
Nathan Brady: We'll see. I mean, guys, it's going to be it's going to be an exciting year. Um, it's an election year. It's a big election year. Uh midterms are coming up and we will see what happens if the Democrats can overcome, you know, the the re well if they can overcome themselves,
Mike Smith: themselves.
Nathan Brady: but if they can also uh beat Trump uh probably cancelling mail-in voting for every state, like you know, fi finding ways to interfere with the midterms.
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: We'll see what Democrats can do if we if we take back the legislative branch. I say we, I don't really feel the Wii in that, but you know what I mean. Mike,
Mike Smith: Yeah.
Nathan Brady: do you have anything else for us before we leave? We're going to do kind of a short one today. Just kind of get get back into the swing of things
Mike Smith: Yeah. You don't want to,

00:39:49

Nathan Brady: here.
Mike Smith: you know, you don't want to just get off the couch and run a marathon. You want to ease yourself back into
Nathan Brady: We're going to ease We're going to ease back into this. It's going to be a big year, Mike. I think you and I I you know I I think we're we're going to do some stuff this year to we're going to do some stuff this year.
Mike Smith: do some stuff.
Nathan Brady: Blue Sedition is we're going to be out there. Um we're going to build some tools. Uh I probably even for the midterms, Mike, you you know what I'm thinking.
Mike Smith: Oh,
Nathan Brady: You had a you had a Yeah. Yep.
Mike Smith: I know it.
Nathan Brady: Okay. So stay tuned. There's going to be a lot of exciting stuff coming um in this next year. We're going to we're just going to do the same things and go out there and and put things in front of you. Make sure that we share as much uh important valid information as po possible.

00:40:37

Nathan Brady: So, please follow us on our Blue Sky accounts.
Mike Smith: No,
Nathan Brady: Um subs like and subscribe to the to the YouTube channel if you haven't already. Uh do that thing. We're not going anywhere. We're going to keep fighting. And I I just want to say before we sign off how proud I am or or how uh I don't know excited is the wrong word, but there were people out there that saw that shooting in Minneapolis. There were bystanders that were out there yelling at ICE and then saw that shooting and they didn't hightail it out of there. They clo they doubled down.
Mike Smith: they doubled down.
Nathan Brady: They closed in on them. Guys, this is what we need to keep doing. We need to keep doubling down. Uh this this won't last forever. Um so as long as we don't put our tail between our legs and run away, um we're going to take our country back. I don't like that slogan.
Mike Smith: Yeah,
Nathan Brady: But yeah,
Mike Smith: then this too shall pass.
Nathan Brady: nevertheless,
Mike Smith: But you got to
Nathan Brady: okay, you got to fight. Don't stop fighting. Um, and it's easy for me for me and Mike to say,
Mike Smith: fight
Nathan Brady: um, as two white middle-aged guys with our headphones on here, but I will say both of us have been out protesting. Both of us have been out knocking on doors. We have done it in the past. We will continue to do it. We urge you to call your congressmen, to write letters, to talk to your neighbors, get people to vote, register people, all of that stuff. Um, and we're going to look at ways in the coming uh, weeks and months to help make it a little easier for you to do all those things. So, thanks for listening to the Blues Edition podcast. I'm Nate Brady.
Mike Smith: got Mike
Nathan Brady: That's and we'll see you next time. Bye. All right.