Latest / Palafox Media Network / Political Matrix News: Fraudulent Fundraising and Inciting Violence

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Political Matrix News: Fraudulent Fundraising and Inciting Violence · Palafox Media Network

• Greg Fink: Good evening, Scott. Scott Miller: Hey, Greg, and welcome folks to the political matrix news. I'm Scott Miller. This is my partner, Greg Fink. We are the political matrix news. Just the two guys on anyway. ⁓ Greg Fink: Yes we are. Exactly, mean actually as far as the makeup of our company, the PowerFox Productions and PowerFox Media Network, we are the two right-wingers on the political matrix side of the aisle here and I think we're the only two that really make sense. Yeah, but we're not bragging. Although, we are a little bit. Scott Miller: Well, I'm not going to measure myself up against anyone else other than to say that I've been working directly in elections much longer than you and I have been working much longer directly in elections than anyone else associated with our company. Everyone else has good valid opinions, know, ours are colored with direct observations from elections. Greg Fink: Yeah, I think compared to everybody, everything else that we're seeing out there today, I think we have a pretty good take here from consultant side of the mess that we see in the political apparatus that we are daily, hourly, minutely being barraged with. I mean, whether we like it or not, it's crazy out there. Scott Miller: Yeah, you know, for example, all of these states that have just decided to go redistrict. Greg Fink: Oh yeah, they forgot about their own constitution. mean, to states and memo to those people who are not thinking about their taxpayer dollars. If you're going to stick something on the ballot, make sure it passes a muster of the constitution of your own state. I'm all for redistricting, but you got to follow the rules. Scott Miller: Right, right, but if you take into account the possibility of whether or not you're going to be successful in effort, then you're gonna miss out on all the money you get to fundraise between now and then. Greg Fink: yeah, forgot because that's the whole idea here is we're not talking about policy anymore or people. We're talking about bringing cash registers for clickbait and political clickbait, which you know. Scott Miller: Exactly. don't they don't care if they win if they win lose or draw as long as they get to ring the cash register Greg Fink: And I'm all for re-incarceration. You and I both do a lot of fundraising and that's great, but you gotta do it legit. I mean, you guys gotta quit breaking the rules and quit lying and misleading and deceiving people. Just stop it. Scott Miller: YEAH! Well, I mean, know, in my opinion, and this probably gonna get me lot of heat from a lot of different directions, but the fundraisers that have intention of solving the problem are absolutely no different than the guy that you've seen begging on the street corner for the last five years. The same guy, same street corner, just needs a little temporary help. No. ⁓ Greg Fink: Exactly. Yeah, no. Scott Miller: He's, only way he's trying to, the guy on the street corner is trying to improve his life is by separating you from your money. I know too many people in the homeless community, the people try to care for these people, that'll tell you right away there are certain individuals that you can identify. If you've seen them standing on a street corner for a really long time, they ain't homeless. This is their job. They are, they're Greg Fink: I mean. No they're not. It is. And they're making pretty good money at it. Yeah, I mean, if you're going to fundraise, make sure you have a solution in mind. Like whenever you raise money for cancer, you're raising money for cancer cure. I have kids with autism. so whenever we were involved in raising money for autism, it was to help create a solution for the cause. And all these fundraisers out there who were just saying, here, give me money so we can like go ahead and Scott Miller: professional beggars. And so are the fundraisers. Greg Fink: into this other pack to this other pack to this other pack and yet none of them were talking about making solutions. None of them were talking about how to fix a problem. I mean the problems are complicated and they're not. reality here if they can actually fix themselves if you have people in leadership elected to actually put the people first instead of backroom first inside projects first and that actually fixes itself. Whenever you realize that being a public servant is about the two-word being a public servant. And whenever these fundraisers are raising money to create a solution that's embodied in that, instead of just raising money to pad their pockets and not create a solution, that's where you see the difference. Scott Miller: Well, in my mind, frankly the reason I have a in my saddle about the guys standing on the street corner and it's exact same burr as the guys that are fundraising is ⁓ that is fraud. What they are doing is fraud. Now the guy on the street corner is not a whole lot you can do about it. ⁓ But people that are raising sometimes billions of dollars telling people that they're going to do something about these problems like... Greg Fink: gaming. Scott Miller: I'm like, I don't care who they are, the Democrats, the Republicans, whoever, when their fundraisers are telling them they're going to try to address this problem, and in reality, all they do is feather their nest, which is incredibly common in politics. I don't think it's a surprise to anybody. That is fraud. Now, whether or not you can prosecute it or not, probably not. ⁓ But doesn't change the fact that it is fraud. Greg Fink: Right. Alright. And let's clarify that. mean, there are a lot of packs and everything that it takes money to make money. so we get, I mean, and we understand the profits and the advertising world and the marketing world and the media world. I get all that. And I'm not attacking the people that make a living or make money doing like, you know, projects like that, like the Lincoln projects or Midas Touch and those other groups. A lot of them are actually doing things that they believe in and creating stories and narratives that they believe in. That's fine. We're talking about the people who are basically taking billions of hundreds of millions of dollars and basically sticking in a little cell somewhere and they're using it to do maybe $10,000 worth of work and they're walking in, kind of like Sheila McCormick who just resigned yesterday. Somebody who took ⁓ $5 million thing from COVID and was basically a hundred times more than what the original invoice was supposed to be for. And so, mean, It's stealing and they're misusing all that money and the people in the fundraising world are doing that all the time. It's a fundraiser for a fundraiser for a fundraiser. It's not a fundraiser to get boots on the ground to make a decision change. It's not fundraising to put people on the ground to do petition drives. It's not fundraising for anything like that. Now it is for having rallies and that's what the lightest fundraisers are for. Scott Miller: Mm-hmm. Greg Fink: is that raising money to pay people to go destroy property. And they're paying them to protest. I understand the pay to protest thing. It's wrong, it's weird, but it's somewhat legal as long as you're not paying them to destroy property. But whenever you're paying them to destroy property, to harass police, and to get arrested, then you're crossing a line of not just fraud, you're inciting violence, you're paying for violence, you're paying for property damage, you're paying for trespassing. Scott Miller: Mm-hmm. Greg Fink: And you're not just a fraudster, you're actually a of illegal activity. That's what a lot of fundraising is going to. Scott Miller: Yeah. Well, well, right. Well, let me give you one of my favorite examples for a time, in my opinion, case of fraud. Although it seems like the federal government starting to wake up to it too. And that is the Southern poverty law center who has ⁓ a billion dollars in endowments and assets. ⁓ lot of it in, in accounts who have been indicted finally. Greg Fink: Who? poverty. Scott Miller: by the federal for money laundering. Greg Fink: Okay, now what's her name again? The Southern poverty and with their poverty they are helping people how? Scott Miller: Southern Poverty Law Center. don't help anyone do anything. ⁓ these investigations they do, these lists. Actually, they don't even do investigations. They have a list of people that they declare hate groups. And then the federal government has on occasion used their and their designations of people as hate groups to legal consequences against these I mean, ⁓ Greg Fink: So are they practicing law or are they defending anybody in court or doing any trials in the courtroom? Scott Miller: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, Greg Fink: basically they're doing what Grok or Claude or ChatGVT can do in less than 35 or 40 seconds. Scott Miller: No, Greg Fink: the AI is more credible, you're saying, than the Center on Poverty Law Center. Scott Miller: Absolutely. Southern Poverty Law Center just will pick groups. You know, again, they're a fundraising organization. That is all they are. are, they're, anyone that still believes that Southern Poverty Law Center is a, you know, is some benevolent organization that's out there trying to, you know, trying to correct, you know, correct racism or anything, because their original mission was to identify. Greg Fink: Uhhh... They are. Scott Miller: groups that were out there marginalizing rights minorities. And all they do now is basically declare people hateful that they can carry on their own about these people. And they're like a self-fulfilling cycle. Greg Fink: Yeah. Yeah, seems like, mean, and this is the biggest thing about fundraisers in politics or nonprofits or in legal circles like this, is that they all start out with good agendas, but then once a greed comes in, everything just goes away and just start, you know, just off of it. Scott Miller: You know, one of my favorite examples was, is a small example actually, is one of my cousins, he's kind like a semi-pro fisherman, know, competitive fisherman. And he used to live down around Orlando, kind of southwest Orlando, and he would go fishing in Okeechobee a lot. And the county was, you know, Greg Fink: Okay. Scott Miller: they were recognized him and a group of people went and talked to the county and they were working for a while on things to improve the water quality there and just, the sustainability of game because ⁓ they had vested interest in making sure that there were good fish to catch and that the was, ⁓ the environment was And they made a lot of great strides in that. ⁓ And then some just joined their group They were there for a few meetings because they'd have little meetings here and there. And then, and then all of sudden they start chiming in and said, no, we can start, you know, we can be more effective if we raised more money, if we raised money and tried to help push these things to a higher level. And naively they agreed with them and they let them get into the organization. They literally took an organization that had been making a lot of great progress and doing a lot of great things to one that stopped making any progress at all, but started making lots of money. That, you know, politics is basically that on Greg Fink: Yep. I'm all, you know, everybody wants to do campaign finance reform and I keep telling people it's kind of like the whole gun control issue. It's not guns that kill people and it's not money that corrupts everything. It's the people and the personnel who are handling the guns and here the fundraising. It's the people who are handling the money. Money is not the evil part. The evil part is that the laws are not enforced to let the criminals, know, go away and basically the judge slap them on the wrist because the judges or whether criminal system is obviously in my opinion, probably getting paid on the back end as well. I mean, and some, and in some form or manner of corruption people will keep on saying, ⁓ that's just a stereotype or that's just a hasty generalization or that's just, you know, Republicans. I mean, it's I mean, you know, I've seen things that I talk about on podcasts yesterday. will not talk about on camera. I will not talk about a lot of things that we've seen on camera, but actually eventually soon we will be. And so we'll have to change the names a lot, but we've seen a lot of things and we know a lot of stories from other consultants who have seen the same type of stuff that we have. it's just regional. It's not just localized. It's widespread. mean, if it's happening in one area, believe me, it's happening in other areas. Probably happening in all 67 counties in Florida and all 200 counties and other states and. All 50 saves. mean, guys, wake up. I mean, American fundraising system is octane. It's a lot of money, but you have to raise it for the right reasons. And you can't raise money something and then use it for something else. I mean, we've had people talk to us about when we do research or polling, and ⁓ fundraising, both. I gotta just go raise it for it, give me the data for this and change it to that or raise me the money for this and do it for that. I'm like, no, that's misleading to the people. It's misleading. It's illegal. It's illegal. Exactly. I mean, you just can't do that guys. mean, and people are like, well, other people will do it. I'm like, and that's the reason why they're probably rich and we're not, you know. Scott Miller: Well it's not just misleading the people, technically if it gets articulated that way then it's fraud. Well that's also the reason why they get to spend, you know, like most criminals, they get a quick influx of money that they get to spend to live the high life. You don't get to hear about the part where they get hauled off to jail. Greg Fink: Yeah. Or they don't get hauled off to jail, they just basically get sidelined every which way. Because eventually, that are acting that way, their integrity gets in the way. But their lack thereof integrity gets in the way and they pretty much start falling on flies pretty quick. It's a very interesting political climate world. It's a political consulting world of fundraising. And we're seeing more get trounced every day. Scott Miller: Yeah, well... Greg Fink: Because I was just talking to somebody earlier tonight, you know, the media saying one thing and Trump saying the other and not to pick on Trump, but Trump says a lot of stuff that we don't really know. Well, I was, you know, because I mean, he changes his mind a lot. And so he's got to keep up with it. And that's that's why 80 year old people do that. Once again, we elected them. That's how it is. And like it, get better and different. Who really cares? Because. Scott Miller: Now, Trump learned a lot of lessons after that first term. He a little bit naively thought that he could articulate his goals were and all the objectives and stuff like that. And that these would just happen. And what he found out was those would be the reasons that people would twist into way indict him. Greg Fink: Yeah. Exactly. Because the reality... Scott Miller: and telling them what his goals were was just facilitating a way for someone else to put a roadblock up. Greg Fink: Because the reality is the actions of what are happening might be totally different than what he's saying and know, and they are and actions are good aware are happening but what he's saying might sound or whatever because I already don't think you know at end of the day he is a showman he is the apprentice he is the developer he is a Donald Trump who's been on camera for 40 years so he says shit to just say stuff but And that's just the way he is. And that's who I voted for. That's who several... Scott Miller: Alright, well before we get into all the Iran BS, I don't want leave this ⁓ election stuff. Greg Fink: Iran? I'm not getting to Iran yet. Scott Miller: Well, when you start talking about Trump now, it's going to turn into Iran and I don't want to go there yet. I want to talk about the election in Virginia yesterday where they passed a bill to split, to redistrict their whole state. A state that is basically a purple state. They lean more blue than red, but they've elected a Greg Fink: ⁓ yeah. Scott Miller: governors ⁓ the last 20 years. ⁓ mean, so ⁓ they've had some reasonably Democrat versus and their current representation, I think is six Democrats and five Republicans in Congress. So what they did yesterday was they passed a law that made it so that you, that would basically their ⁓ Greg Fink: Yes, I have. Well, that's two years. I mean, four years, yeah. Scott Miller: I mean, the law didn't, it created districts that are carved up specifically in such a way. So they, pulled a lot of red rural districts into the, you into their blue cities. It almost looks like spokes on a wheel and these razor thin districts so that they, so they can get, take it from from a six to five to 10 to one. Or maybe it's nine to one. I think I'm of a math there, but the, but the effect is still the same. You know, they're going from balanced district ⁓ to a ⁓ to Cause California is kind of the same way. And they were trying, they were, you know, making efforts to make it worse. Well, good news the court case in Virginia finally got resolved and the judge ruled that This whole, whole fiasco yesterday was, ⁓ illegal, gone. See you later. A violation of their state constitution. Greg Fink: Yeah, yeah, and I was just checking on the turnout of that and the turnout I guess was around 40, 44 % turnout. So basically they were able to con and this goes back to the election conning and the fundraising that basically they the narrative to get 44 % turnout, which actually is very high turnout for a special election to come out and turn out for an election that never should have happened. Scott Miller: I would love to do a confirmation study there. Greg Fink: It would be good to see how many people really did vote the way that elections are saying that they voted. of course, there's no fraud out there. There's no fraud anywhere. Scott Miller: Yeah, of course, we're not fraud, but I would love to do a confirmation study that looks at, know, I guarantee you there are a lot of very suspect districts and we can do a confirmation study where we just go call the people that actually voted and ask them, how did you vote? But the ones I think that would be the most interesting are the people who voted via absentee ballot. Greg Fink: Yeah. Have some tea. Scott Miller: Because I think that if we get, there might be a lot of them that'd be surprised to find out that they voted at all. Greg Fink: There might be. And that's one thing we are finding about in Florida elections. And people, you said you nailed it on the head, hit the nail on the head a couple weeks ago. Illegals are not coming out to vote and putting their names on the radar like, hey, I'm illegal, I'm voting, here, come get me, come deport me now. They are not doing that. What they are doing is they're voting without even knowing they're voting. I mean, it's a total identity theft ring. it's criminal, criminal, criminal. And the... Scott Miller: Yeah, well the thing is, you steal the identity of one of these illegals, what are they gonna do? Are they gonna go and say, ⁓ they're gonna go and turn you in? Hell no! Greg Fink: Yeah. Are they going to complain about it? No. I mean, it's a safe bet though, isn't it? It's a very safe bet. It's a safe vote because all these voter voter things and these guys, you know, get their driver's license and register. And these people you're doing checking you verify? they really checking their citizenship? No. I mean, if they are, prove it. Please prove it. Let us know. Let us know how you're checking their citizenship because we have no freaking idea how you really are. Scott Miller: Uh-uh. Yeah. Well, no, they're specifically not. No, no, no, no, They're bragging about not doing it. Greg Fink: Exactly they're not. Yeah, and so whenever you're bragging about it's like Minnesota. There's a case up there in Capitol Hill at a hearing last week and they're asking the one of the supervisor of elections of Minnesota, you know, how does it work with them verifying anybody? So what do mean how does it work? We don't verify. I'm like, wow. Scott Miller: They're brazen about it, I'll give them that. Greg Fink: was basically saying that would be a violation of their rights. But I'm like, how do illegals have rights? Where does this work? ⁓ don't have the constitutional rights that a citizen does. I they don't have the right to vote, you're correct. mean, don't. come on, wake up. Scott Miller: It's what not illegals have rights. They just don't have a right to vote. And I don't want to hear any more of this. The Constitution gives the states the obligation to run the elections. And yes, they do. The states do have the obligation under the Constitution to run the elections. But that doesn't mean they get to set the qualifications. Virginia can't suddenly decide that they want to have a 22-year-old candidate for president. Greg Fink: It does. Correct. Scott Miller: Cause that is not legal under the constitution. They can't say that some person who from Panama is now qualified to be any seat. You can't set the seat. You can possibly make an argument that a state or a city or a municipality or whatever can set the qualifications. Greg Fink: Right. Scott Miller: for offices, but they can't set the qualifications for the president. we can, have certain requirements that you prove these things. Now, how you prove it, mean, they the argument, the states can an that how they prove it is up to them, but the method that they for proving it has to be acceptable. for the people who are setting the standards. And so how you do it up to you, as long as it is verifiable. that would mean that the federal government gets to set the standard for how, you know, what you do to verify that the data that you're producing is correct. Greg Fink: Exactly. Yeah. Right. It's kind like whenever they want to have the rules on a signature for an absentee ballot or signature on a voter or however, know, the absentees, we're talking about that yesterday with some groups of people and in some counties they allow you to just sign with an X. So just a slash. And so, mean, so whenever they start saying that you had to match the signature perfectly and blah, blah, blah. So are you going to match an X? I mean, come on guys. mean, Scott Miller: Yeah, I've seen that. Yeah. Well, I see, I see both sides of that. You know, there's, you know, as far as, as far as, know, like, like, you know, when the elderly, you know, you know, the, you know, that registered to vote when they were 17 years old and they, and their signature, you know, on file is 50 years old or 70 years old in some cases, you know, in those cases, you know, a little bit of judgment is, is due. Greg Fink: Here's how both sides. ⁓ yeah, I agree. I agree, yeah, I agree 100 % with that. Scott Miller: But I mean, there's also the, I can look at my parents signatures and see how they've declined over the years. yeah, but we can't expect everyone to be perfect handwriting specialists. So I mean, at the most you could just say that, Greg Fink: Yeah, I can see that. Hmm. Scott Miller: This one doesn't look right to me. want to set it aside as a provisional and then we'll verify it later. Okay. Well, I don't think there's a, I don't, well, yeah, yes. I think there's a limit as far as that goes. Yeah. Greg Fink: There's a limit though. I I think the whole slash or just an X, that's just stupid. I mean, that's just nothing short of intelligence, lazy, crout, stupid. Scott Miller: That is ridiculous. Greg Fink: I mean, I mean, come on guys. mean, whenever. And also, I mean, I've been in the rooms where they matching up signatures for petition cards and, I the other leaves signatures are much Hell, my signature is much worse. I get all that. And that's actually the frustration we had was were, they were not okaying those signatures. But if a Democrat was voting. during the election who decided to X, they're okaying that. But they were not okaying an elderly person declining signature in this election's office. And so they actually were saying that the standards for a petition card or petition verification card are higher than the standards for election day, which is not true at all. Usually your election day absentees have the highest standard of and skill set. much harder than a petition card that you're getting signed on the street or at a fair or something like that. Which somebody might be signing on the back of a... It's horribly ridiculous. Scott Miller: Yeah, it's just the most ridiculous thing. mean, ⁓ petition is far less consequential than a vote. A vote actually puts someone in power. petition puts someone on a ballot, you know, and that's it. Greg Fink: Exactly. Unless, unless you're running against the person in charge. Yes, which was this case. They were running against the supervisor of elections that was the incumbent and so they were basically making sure that that person had to do everything they could to make, not make the ballot and pay their $10,000 fine or fee to get on the ballot. Fine, fee, whatever. mean, to me, that's ridiculous to pay $10,000 to be on the ballot. Scott Miller: Unless you're running against a person in charge. Greg Fink: Especially when you had all your cards signed and they were just doing this just to make it, in my opinion, more maliceable. Scott Miller: Now, you know, and honestly, you know, that's that particular seat is one that I just have always has always just been angry about because, know, I think every single time I've ever seen a supervisor of elections have a challenger that had any credible chance, they always pull some crazy shenanigans. Greg Fink: yeah, what about the one in Scampton County a couple years ago, where the guy had all of his paperwork signed and all ready to go, but the election supervisor just did not think it was done or in time or properly. And he actually literally rejected the paperwork to his opponent. Scott Miller: don't know he was thinking. ⁓ Well opponent was a lawyer. I ⁓ don't why he didn't bother go ahead and litigating the thing out. Is that what lawyers do? Greg Fink: And we still don't know why. I know. Well, yeah, but his wife was also the clerk of the court and... Maybe it was ⁓ don't really know the details of why it was not pursued, but ⁓ is ridiculous that the, you know, that didn't end up that way. Because ⁓ signs up to run for office every day, every year. It's not that hard to do. And for the ⁓ to reject his opponent, it's just really bad in the face. But it is what it is. I mean, you know, they on. They had a clean election somewhat. Scott Miller: Mm-hmm. Yes. Greg Fink: I guess, you know, we'll find out. He got me there. That wasn't clean. Scott Miller: Well, that wasn't clean. And I'm gonna tell you, the thing that bothers me about that part, the thing that really bothers me about that part is, it makes me question all the other stuff. Greg Fink: And who it does. We have a lot to question about. Scott Miller: I mean, if the supervisor of elections is going to put his thumb on the scales for his election, there's no way you're going to convince me he wouldn't do it for someone else. Greg Fink: in the same way in Alachua County and other counties and and and people to Scott Miller: Mm-hmm. And Eskandia County is deep red, Republican as it can be. Greg Fink: Yeah, and people keep telling me these are good government sir. I says no they are people and not picking on any SOEs because I like and we have a lot of friends who are super-visors of elections but ⁓ the here is that every elected position is elected because number one they got more votes than the other guy and wait second actually the only reason. The only reason they elected ⁓ is because they got votes than somebody else. It wasn't because their skill set was so much better. Scott Miller: Yeah, I do, I do. Greg Fink: It wasn't become they were journeymen or an apprentice or they fit this here level of being on the job for 30 or 40 years and got elevated to it by merit. No, it's not a merit-based job. In fact, all your elected officials, kind commissioners, school board, all of them are all based off popularity votes and it's all beauty contests. And we've been involved in beauty contests for 30 some odd years and... Scott Miller: Mm-hmm. It's a beauty contest. It's all the way around. Greg Fink: I used to play music for them like for five or six years before that. And so I mean, I get it. And it goes back to what we're saying about fundraising in the beginning. If you're fundraising for legitimate reasons and legitimate candace is one thing, but we have so many opposers out there and it's just, it's a mess. And this year we have so many people running for office. I mean, they're coming out of the woodwork like crazy in the state of Florida where we're in. and all throughout the country. mean, there's so many more people on the ballot this year than usual. It's going be interesting. Scott Miller: Well, there's a lot more open seats than there normally are. Greg Fink: Yeah, there are lot more open seats but also I talked to a fundraiser and he said political fundraising is pretty much the number one fundraising in the country right now. I it's beating AIDS and cancer and every other ailment out there. And so that being said, you have a lot more people at the trough. You have a lot more candidates at the trough trying to get that money. Scott Miller: God yeah! Well, I just think that people need, want people to be aware of this. I want people to be aware of, and talk about the fundraiser. Fundraising ⁓ so fraught with fraud, it's ⁓ And just you agree with the issue doesn't mean, the fact that agree with the issue are the ones that you should be the most skeptical of. Because, Greg Fink: Exactly. Yeah, do your research. Right. Scott Miller: By and large, what they're doing is trying to leverage the fact that you agree with them and say, hey, we're the same. We want to fix this problem. do the heavy lifting. You just give me a little bit of money. Well, no, that's not how it works. Greg Fink: Exactly. And so, mean, you have to have a lot more credibility. mean, whenever we do fundraising, it's all about, you know, truth, period. And any any single thing that ⁓ we out there, anybody on our team ever puts out there for fundraising, there would be nothing ever but 100 % of the truth. And so, I mean, but whenever you start fundraising off misleading things, it's a mess. And I'm seeing so much of it. Scott Miller: Well, we don't have enough powerful friends skate the edge of that because most of these guys that do that fundraising know that they're protected anyway. Greg Fink: So much of it. Yep, exactly. So you want to talk about Iran or you want to stay away from Iran? Because right ⁓ they're shooting on tankers again. Why are they shooting on tankers and ⁓ Scott Miller: No, no, no, I'm happy to talk about Iran, I just don't- Well they're shooting at them, they're not seriously damaging any of them. Greg Fink: Well no, but they're scaring the crap out of them which is raising all the rates and raising insurance. Well, right, okay. But I don't understand how we are not strategically smart enough to get all these drones out of the way yet. And why are they still got weapons? How come our Fury has not dismantled all their weaponry? Scott Miller: Who cares? Well, it's a great big world and there's lots of places to hide those things. But the fact of the matter is, you know, has already done the really heavy lifting. And so now it's a waiting game for him. Because this is the thing that people don't realize. He out, he brought the might of the American military against those guys and destroyed all their ability to make real war. Greg Fink: ⁓ yeah. Yes. Scott Miller: All they can do now is fight public relations battles with these little, you know, shooting at the So basically it doesn't even matter if they make contact with them. All they're trying to do is lob some ordnance in the general direction of some boats so they can get a story. That's all they're doing. one, ⁓ still haven't sank a single boat. The American Navy almost the entire strait clear of mines. And Trump has done the one thing that the Noreneans never expected him to do, which is blockade their ports. And so now it is, doesn't have to send send the troops in. They are going to come to him and they are going to ask him, eventually going to ask him, what do you want? Because now, now he is literally starving them out and there's nothing they can do about it. Greg Fink: I know you need to. I guess, that's actually a part whole fundraising world and the communications world where we want everything done now. It's all instant gratification, all the instantaneous satisfaction here. We're kind of spoiled, which is in there, blowing the crap out of everything and then being done and leaving. The reality here Iran and Persia is one of the oldest nations in the world and they're survived like cockroaches and they're not gonna just go away. I was probably naive at the beginning thinking that we could just go in there and do regime change. And I was still staying to the point that I don't know why we went there without idea of doing regime change. do think maybe it probably would taken a couple of years of playing that. I'm not privy to the information or the intel and nobody else is either. And so everybody wants to play armchair quarterback on how come we didn't do this and why we're not doing this. Once he gets some top secret clearance here in the background, he can tell me all they're talking about. We don't know. And that's actually, think, part of what Trump is doing on purpose. think actually he's okay with hurting his credibility of saying one thing and doing any other to just, know, he's okay. And ⁓ this part of the salesman part of it, which is actually part of the hidden brilliance is that he's okay with saying something to have everybody look this way while he's doing everything in the back room. to make everything the right direction, the right way. And I think he's okay with it. I don't think he's worried about, also smart enough to realize everybody's attention span is very short. He's also smart enough to realize that actions louder than words. so why just this tethering game with the media and saying, know, feeding into their clickbait at the end of the day, the military is doing their real job and his strategic. team is doing the real job of making everything safer and dismantling Iran in a very quiet subtle way. But I do wish it were more loudly abrupt about him dismantling them all together immediately. But that's just because I want it all to be done quick. But you're right. I do think, you know, he's doing the longer game and It seems like it's been six months, right? It's only been six weeks. And so. Scott Miller: Yeah. Well, mean, think about the, yeah, think about this. He, you know, you we went in there and we destroyed all their missiles. We destroyed their Navy. We've destroyed, you know, you ⁓ their that we, ⁓ their force, have no more, they have no conventional forces. All they have is irregular forces, technicals and, and, ⁓ little boats basically glorified PT boats. And that's it. And so now, and so now, Greg Fink: Right. Scott Miller: They have no way to get, can't produce enough food for themselves. They can't produce enough for themselves. And it's a matter of time before all these people that are out there, it takes resources be an authoritarian because you have to be vigilant. You have to watch them. Every ⁓ time you around, don't have supporters, you have people that are waiting to take your head off. ⁓ Greg Fink: Right. Scott Miller: That's the waiting game that Trump has to play. keep the people out there. I'm sure at some point some country, America, whomever is going to start sneaking weapons in there, like AK-47s and rocket launchers and stuff like that. It doesn't take much in the way of long guns to feed people there to get them to go and confiscate the rest the weapons that they need. And frankly, it's not going to take them even if we didn't do that one time, the longer this thing goes on, more likely it is that Israel going to get a bead on whoever the newest problem there and eliminate them. Greg Fink: Right. Scott Miller: So is just a waiting game, but it's going to happen. Greg Fink: It is. Yeah, I do. I just would do wish it were happening faster, but that's just part of my my naivety there. Scott Miller: Well, think about this. The oil problems. Well, the oil problems are only problems until all of the other, you know, until they find other sources of oil. Like, you know, Venezuela, 250 super tankers all now starting to make laps into America and and Canada and all these other, you ⁓ know, you know, North and South American companies. Now all of a sudden we're supplying all that oil and we're going to be able to offset this, this, you know, part where there were, where we're hitting the, we're going to be able offset the loss of Iran's oil. mean, Iran wouldn't even contributed that much to begin with because they were sanctioned. Greg Fink: Exactly. Scott Miller: And Saudi Arabia and Oman and the rest of the Gulf states are out there building pipelines as fast as they can bypass the entire, you know, the Strait of Hormuz for sure. And that has anything to do with Iran. So once those things are done, I've said for a long time, when we don't need the Middle East oil, what do we need the Middle East for? Well, we're getting there. Greg Fink: I we're already, mean, we've been trying to be energy self-sufficient for years and I think we're pretty much there now. Scott Miller: We are an exporter. We are one of the biggest exporters. Greg Fink: Exactly. Yeah. so, I mean, it's, you know, the whole thing with doing and granted, you know, doing this unconventionally. He's not doing it your regular way. He's doing it the Trump way. And I'm sure he wants to do things a little bit more so than what the military is happy with. I'm sure it's like give and take and everything. Who knows what's going on behind the scenes. But at the end of the it's still putting America first. And so keeping us all safe. Scott Miller: Well the simple fact of the matter is, if he was doing what we've always done, then he would get what we've always got. Greg Fink: which is nothing. Nothing. For the last 47 years. And somebody comes up to ⁓ you know, it wasn't imminent. I'm like, it's been imminent for the last 47 years. mean, the reality here is that guys, terrorism needs a payroll. Okay? activities, ⁓ against everybody across the world, they don't just pick on America. They've been picking on the entire world. They put people all over the numerous nations and go after different states and everything, and they fund it. Scott Miller: Nothing. Greg Fink: Hezbollah, Hamas, other terrorist organizations, they don't do any of that without money. Scott Miller: No, I've said from the very beginning of this situation that nuclear weapons are just a small part of the problem. ⁓ Frankly, single time that they have financed the attack on some other country was a justification to go in there and bomb them back to the Stone Age. Greg Fink: Exactly. Exactly. mean, the reality here is, I'm not, you know, I was talking to somebody yesterday. They're like, you know, you can't be a pro war against war. I'm like, no, I'm like, I'm about keeping the sovereignty of America and keeping the sovereignty of the states. and whenever the international court or international people come in and start saying, oh, we shouldn't be doing that. Well, you know, unfortunately, we pay for the international courts. We pay for the international governance. I mean, you know, it's not I mean. They need to shut up. Scott Miller: Yeah, well, about the only country that doesn't countries that say that they're not, you know, the state sponsor of terror is our that are also state sponsors of terror. Greg Fink: Exactly. The hypocrisy is high. Scott Miller: Yeah, I mean, you the bottom line line is, is that that that if you are in favor of Iran, you are in favor of war because they're the ones that are killing all the people. They, you know, they to contort all of these, you know, different things that, you know, that America has done as a matter of policy for years ⁓ the as the entire region reason that these people are behaving the way they are. And it's absolutely not true. Greg Fink: terrorism. Scott Miller: Go ask the Saudis. Saudi princess will tell you immediately there's a reason we don't take these people into our country is because we know what kind of trouble makers they are. ⁓ not even that they're Muslims. It's that they are a particular type of terrorist that is couching what they say in Muslim Back in ⁓ 50s and the KKK used to wrap themselves in Bible too. Greg Fink: Right. Scott Miller: And it was no more true for them than it is for, you know, for the current group of terrorists that are out there as Muslim terrorists. You know, we had Christian terrorists and we got rid of them. Yeah. Yeah. The most generous estimates of the Southern poverty law center is, is that there's 20,000 KKK members in the country. Period. Greg Fink: Exactly. Terrorism of any kind is bad. Scott Miller: that's the Southern Poverty Law Center who we've already established. We believe are frauds. ⁓ do you... So we got rid of them. The countries can do the same thing. Greg Fink: Exactly. It's Everybody just needs to clean up their own backyard I mean clean up or I guess is a so-called good housekeeping clean up their own house. I mean it's it's just so frustrating because I hear this all day and I started to get myself like doubting the Republicanism and everything else and you know, I do doubt a lot of the victory all out there and everything but you know, I get frustrated with everybody thumping their chests and Scott Miller: Hmm Greg Fink: once again, not creating solutions, but it goes to the fundraising. it's a universal after-ass issue that they're just raising money for the dinner, for the next conquest, for the next, you know, lottery scheme, in my opinion. Scott Miller: Yeah, it's not money laundering fraud. mean, go to go to go to go. That's just how it is. Greg Fink: Yeah. So, what on Florida level? It looks like we have some interesting campaigns going on here in Florida. We got a house member who resigned, Sheila McCormick. Here she resigned before she got expelled. She might made it through it, but probably not. Scott Miller: Am I the only one, I don't think I am because you and I talked about this yesterday, that thinks that it's very odd that we get that we're expelling a Republican and a Democrat. A Republican and a Democrat. Greg Fink: We haven't done the other Republican. The other Republicans still there. So Cory Mills is still in the seat. And so I don't know if he's going to resign or they're going to vote to expel him or not. guess that vote comes up here this week or sometime next week. There's lot of questions about his behavior and everything. don't know him personally. I don't really have any personal information of what all he's doing to verify whether it's true or not. It's a lot of he said, she said. It's a lot of banter. It's a lot of... rumors out there about it but you know at the end of the day the ethics committee and dc has all the information and they've been pretty consistent no matter which party it is to look at everything very thoroughly i mean with matt gates after ⁓ Scott Miller: I don't care. I don't care. I don't care nothing about the about the ethics committee. Not a bit. I just I'm just saying that it's incredibly convenient that every time you have one that's on the precipice of getting kicked out, there's another one. It's Democrat and Republican. only time that it happened that it doesn't happen that way is when they're when they're struggling to find, you know, the matching guy that they can throw out because it seems like the only way they can agree to throw it. Greg Fink: Cut the other, yeah. It's a Tiffer tat. Scott Miller: throw someone out is that we're gonna do the same amount of damage to the other party that we're doing to this party. Greg Fink: So what do you think? Do you think they're going go after Cory then? To get him out? Scott Miller: probably. Yeah. But, but I you know, well, again, you know, again, we, I know I sound like a broken record and we sound like a broken record, but I mean, you know, they're making a lot of money off of him. I mean, it'd be like getting rid of AOC, man. The Republicans make a ton, make a ton on her. The Democrats make a ton on her too. Greg Fink: They are. A lot of fun raising there, Megan. I think whenever AOC actually said that she would vote to expel Sheila, that was the shot I think that the cameras back with a lot of people. Scott Miller: Oh, I think they just gave her the whip count. I mean, you know, I mean, her vote was coming up and I guarantee you that the whip just came up and told her, said, look, know, of the majority and minority whips both came up and said, look, it's not going to work out. We have the votes, you're gone. You have the option right now to resign before we publicly humiliate you. And I guarantee you that's how that conversation went. Greg Fink: Now the people in the race right now, got Luther Campbell, the two live crew guy in that race. Miso Hornyman. Then you have Elijah Manley, who's another progressive Democrat. ⁓ Scott Miller: Mm-hmm. I don't care. There is no one currently in that race that is legitimate. Manley has been in the thing for a while and he has a good possibility of winning, but all these other characters that are in there are just people that are dreamers that are for office to run for office. But there's someone, like we talked about yesterday, there's someone waiting in the wings that knew this was coming, who's organized all their efforts. and they're gonna come in and they're gonna be very well funded. Greg Fink: Yeah, and so we're waiting to see who that person is going to be. And it's going be really interesting because I think Republicans are also looking at the seat now because while the here in Florida, going to be, think, I think DeSantis can feel more comfortable ⁓ about making that district more reddish or more toward red area because there's not an incumbent there anymore. So he's not writing anybody else. Since the incumbent resigned, it's like a free for all district and he could carve it up however he wants. Scott Miller: Oh I did it. Greg Fink: And that's coming up here in the Florida Redistrict being here in the next week or two. And so we'll see how that turns out. Scott Miller: Yeah. Yeah. here in the North, you know, on an open seat, there's probably, you know, there's usually a dozen or more people that run down there. You know, they're going to be, ⁓ know, there'll be dozens. Yeah. Greg Fink: Probably two dozen. Yeah, exactly. maybe two or three dozen, who knows. Scott Miller: I don't know, you know, I don't know, look at what I'm like, I mean... Greg Fink: It's in Fort Lauderdale. For those who don't know, it's in the Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach area. It has a little bit of border near Lake Okeechobee currently, the way the seat is right now. As Parkland, I think, is in it as well. And so you have a lot of very affluent and rural parts of it. It's actually your old school Democrat district. It's your rural Democrats. It's your pro-life Democrats and your very strong Christian African American Democrat district. So it's a very... unique democrat district so you can't have whenever she ran originally she ran as a very good old southern baptist kind of christian democrat lady that's how she ran and it's a district that's very woke or progressive at all It's one of the oldest style unique Democrat districts in Florida. Scott Miller: Yeah, let's see, it's, well, we got 20. Yeah, No new ones today. Greg Fink: Yeah, this year 20, yeah. Yeah, which I'm surprised because usually the day after you see the three or four pop up. we'll see how many pop up between now and the next podcast next week. it will be. Scott Miller: That'd be interesting. Right now we have an Sheila, Sheila McCormick. got two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, nine total, but one, two, three, four, five would, ⁓ I not remotely surprised this time next week that there's, ⁓ you know, probably dozen, 18, 18. 12 to 18 Democrats in there. But there will at least be one more Democrat in there who will splash the pot with probably $500,000. Greg Fink: Right. Yeah, we will see because the reports don't come out for I guess probably nine months or two on that. So we don't really know how much they're going to splash it out with. And so that's one thing I've put up realize on the FEC reporting. It's not like the state reporting. It's not like every month or every few months. It's every quarter. And the FEC reporting is a lot more delayed. So we don't really know how much they're going to splash it with. It's probably going to be a lot though. Scott Miller: We will see. I know. mean, you qualifying is coming up here pretty soon. So I would think that, you know, I would think that there would be at least one report right around qualifying. Greg Fink: Yeah, it's like a week of May, yeah. think it's June 30th, I think is when the next report is. So I don't know. But yes, I mean, it's gonna be interesting to see who that person is who jumps in and how much fun they're gonna have with race. Because I mean, we don't really even know where the districts lie yet. And we'll probably know here in a couple of weeks. So that's a weird thing is that somebody has to jump in before qualifying. That's to know if they actually live in the district or not. Actually, it doesn't really matter in Florida. Scott Miller: ⁓ maybe. You know, well, ⁓ ⁓ I gonna say, they only have to live in the district ⁓ the day they take office. And you and both have personally known people who never lived in the district, not one day. Greg Fink: They still don't. Yeah, I mean where I live at in District 6 where in full disclosure I'm helping out Aaron Baker with some stuff and everything in his campaign, but he's running against the incumbent Randy Fine. And Randy Fine still does not live in his district. He still lives in Melbourne, which is I guess 80 miles south of the district. Scott Miller: Oh, no. And, you know, and I personally know a house, a Florida house member who, who did not live in his district one day. He, he, just, he just rented a, rented an apartment out on the beach and I don't know that they didn't use the campaign to pay for it, honestly. Greg Fink: I- ⁓ no. Well, you can rent an apartment. You don't have to own property to feel like... Scott Miller: Why get that? But you see the thing is that little beach place, he didn't live there. He lived in his house. He would just go, I mean, what a deal. Yeah, what a deal. Your campaign pays for you to have a little beach condo? Yeah, man. That's how you do it. But I wish I could say that that's uncommon, but it is absolutely not. Greg Fink: Last year. You go visit there. It is. Campaigns pay for a lot of things nowadays. It is not. We know campaigns have bought houseboats, they've bought motorboats, they've bought trucks or trailers and they'll put their signs on. I mean, that's the other part of the fundraising side of the campaign is how they spend the money. And maybe there should be some tighter rules on that. Maybe it should just be thinking in their defense, it helps the campaign because it helps me help the campaign. And that's really, ⁓ Scott Miller: Yeah! Mm-hmm. Well, they should put some more teeth in that little law is all I'm saying because, know, and, you know, in particular for Washington though, I mean, the fact of the matter is, is most of the Washington representatives live in Washington. You know, they'll have a family home or something like that back, supposed to be in the district, but generally, you know, they're, you know, they have a, and they may buy a house that's a rental, that turns into a rental property at some point. Greg Fink: ⁓ yeah. Right. Scott Miller: You know, they just don't tend to live in the district. know, Eric Swalwell sure as hell didn't live in the district. Greg Fink: Right. Eric's Wild Wild. What a guy. Scott Miller: What a guy. Greg Fink: It's gonna be interesting how the court proceedings continue with him now that he's out of office. We'll see, it'll be interesting in case I follow. Because I guess there's quite a few issues going on with him and the sexual assault and allegedly with the different women and there's rumors about, there's a lot of different rumors that are all alleged right now. And so it's gonna be interesting to see how they all come out. Scott Miller: There's a lot of rumors, but you know, there's smoke, there's fire, know. Frankly, he's always given kind of a slimy vibe to me. Greg Fink: Yeah, well, talking about Slammy Vibes, we have local officials making all kinds of heyday all over the country and even here in Florida. some local officials just doing some really, really crazy stuff. Scott Miller: Yeah. Greg Fink: But we see a lot of stuff. Yeah, we're going to turn the page and talk about some more later. But you anything else you want to talk about tonight? Scott Miller: Well, politics, what you gonna do? Nah, man, we've been rattling on for about an hour, I need to roll this thing out into the next one. Greg Fink: We're of rolling on out to the next one. guys find us on the platform of your choice. We're going to be on all of them. We are on all of them and we look forward to see you all next time on the political matrix news. Good night Scott. Scott Miller: Nice.