Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / Enough From Michael

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Enough From Michael · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

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Speaker 1: Enough from me. I want to hear from you. We
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4:02
Speaker 1: Or text Cactus to six five five three two. Welcome
4:06
Speaker 1: back to Verdict with Ted Cruz, so wonderful to be
4:08
Speaker 1: with everybody. We have not done a great job on
4:11
Speaker 1: recent episodes in taking questions from our wonderful Verdict audience.
4:15
Speaker 1: We've gotten so wrapped up in the things we're talking
4:17
Speaker 1: about that we have neglected the absolute best part of
4:20
Speaker 1: the show, which is hearing from you, which we will
4:23
Speaker 1: do in one second. But before we do that, we
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Speaker 1: your school. We don't just want to hear from you
4:34
Speaker 1: in the mailbag. We want to hear from you in
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Speaker 1: real life. We had a great time on the fall tour,
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Speaker 1: dot org slash Verdict. All right, Liz, let's hear from
4:56
Speaker 1: our wonderful listeners in the mailbag. Thank you, Michael. We
4:59
Speaker 1: have a lot of great questions over on Verdict Plus today.
5:02
Speaker 1: As always, if you want to submit a question for
5:05
Speaker 1: the mail bag portion of our show, you can do
5:07
Speaker 1: so on Verdict Plus. Just go to Verdict with Ted
5:10
Speaker 1: Cruz dot com slash plus and submit your question. Subscribers
5:13
Speaker 1: over there get exclusive access to be the ones to
5:16
Speaker 1: ask Michael and the Senator and me any question that
5:19
Speaker 1: you want. As I said, we have a lot of
5:20
Speaker 1: great questions. You can always continue to submit them, but
5:23
Speaker 1: let's get to the first one. The first one, Senator
5:26
Speaker 1: Cruz is for you. It is from Jersey. Jersey asks
5:30
Speaker 1: can the federal government, after a person has been tried
5:32
Speaker 1: and judged by his and her peers retry a case
5:36
Speaker 1: by what authority or law do they even have that
5:38
Speaker 1: authority in power to intervene in a state's judicial system.
5:41
Speaker 1: What in the constitution or bill of rights gives or
5:44
Speaker 1: retrains the federal government from the power to intervene in
5:47
Speaker 1: a concluded and tried in a court case. Well, that's
5:50
Speaker 1: a good question. So the constitution protect you from what's
5:54
Speaker 1: called double jeopardy, which is you cannot be tried twice
5:58
Speaker 1: for the same crime. If you're charged with murder and
6:03
Speaker 1: there is a murder trial and you are acquitted, they
6:08
Speaker 1: can't come back and say, oh, we don't like that result,
6:10
Speaker 1: so let's go bring another murder charge against you. There is, however,
6:15
Speaker 1: an exception to double jeopardy, which is you can be
6:17
Speaker 1: tried for a different crime, and so there's a legal
6:21
Speaker 1: analysis of whether. So for example, let's say you, to
6:26
Speaker 1: use an easy example, you're tried and acquitted to murder,
6:29
Speaker 1: but you also were speeding on the way to the murder.
6:32
Speaker 1: You can certainly be tried and convicted or acquitted of
6:35
Speaker 1: the speeding because those are separate and distinct crimes. When
6:39
Speaker 1: it comes to a federal crime, if it is a
6:43
Speaker 1: separate and distinct crime, you can be charged with it,
6:46
Speaker 1: but there's a legal analysis in terms of whether you're
6:50
Speaker 1: simply re trying for the acquitted conduct and the acquitted crime.
6:54
Speaker 1: So no one a murder charge for example, but yes
6:59
Speaker 1: if they are different indistinct crimes. All right, Michael, let
7:02
Speaker 1: me pivot over to you, because this is a question
7:04
Speaker 1: that came in specifically requesting clarification from Knolls. JJ forty
7:09
Speaker 1: eight eighty four says, I know you often criticize libertarians
7:13
Speaker 1: for being too licentious and crazy when it comes to
7:16
Speaker 1: certain moral issues. Are there certain people of certain occupations
7:19
Speaker 1: or fields of interest that cannot be traditionally conservative i e.
7:23
Speaker 1: Tech issues? Are there ways you could steal man libertarianism
7:27
Speaker 1: and any prominent libertarians you could stand alongside. That's a
7:30
Speaker 1: great question. Well, you know, I'm glad to hear you
7:33
Speaker 1: brought up big tech because at first, when you said
7:37
Speaker 1: that you wanted to know of certain professions just naturally
7:40
Speaker 1: can't lend themselves to virtue and naturally lend themselves to licentiousness.
7:44
Speaker 1: I assumed you were talking about, say, prostitution, but working
7:49
Speaker 1: for big tech is far far more disreputable than being
7:52
Speaker 1: a prostitute or a drug dealer or something like that.
7:54
Speaker 1: So I think that's a pretty good example to bring
7:57
Speaker 1: up big tech here. Yeah, there are certain fields that
8:03
Speaker 1: naturally are just not going to be all that conservative,
8:06
Speaker 1: and I do think it has been a mistake of
8:08
Speaker 1: the conservative movement to try to be all things to
8:11
Speaker 1: all people and to say that you can do whatever
8:13
Speaker 1: you want as long as it doesn't hurt me or
8:16
Speaker 1: scare the horses in the street. I mean, this is
8:18
Speaker 1: why we still have drug laws in this countries. We're
8:20
Speaker 1: saying there are some things that you can do with
8:23
Speaker 1: your body that we don't think that you should be
8:25
Speaker 1: allowed to do, or actually, for that matter, laws against prostitution.
8:28
Speaker 1: And so now, as we have discussed on this show
8:31
Speaker 1: a number of times, one of the debates on the
8:33
Speaker 1: right is over the influence that libertarianism should have versus traditionalism,
8:38
Speaker 1: versus all. You know, conservatives love all their isms. A
8:41
Speaker 1: friend of mine once told me that the obscure political
8:44
Speaker 1: monikers are the right wing version of gender pronouns. So
8:48
Speaker 1: everyone's got one and some people have multiple. And after
8:52
Speaker 1: the Second World War there was what's called fusionism. This
8:55
Speaker 1: was the postwar conservative movement put together by guys like
8:58
Speaker 1: Bill Buckley and Frank Meyer. You might call it the
9:01
Speaker 1: Reagan coalition of libertarians and traditional conservatives and warhawk Democrats.
9:07
Speaker 1: They all had a common enemy in the Soviet Union.
9:10
Speaker 1: They might have hated Communism for different reasons, but they
9:13
Speaker 1: partnered together and won the Cold War. And since that time,
9:16
Speaker 1: probably the libertarian side or the neo conservative side has
9:19
Speaker 1: led that coalition. Traditional conservatives and some of the other
9:23
Speaker 1: groups have fallen out of favor, lost some of their power.
9:28
Speaker 1: In twenty sixteen, then you saw the more traditional conservative
9:31
Speaker 1: types kind of or the more populous types try to
9:33
Speaker 1: take ground, and so these debates are inevitable. But in
9:36
Speaker 1: answer to your question, would you stand alongside libertarians as I,
9:39
Speaker 1: of course I would. The fact is politics is the
9:42
Speaker 1: art of inclusion, and the only way you're ever going
9:45
Speaker 1: to do anything is if you can win elections. And
9:48
Speaker 1: in order to win elections, you need to win fifty
9:51
Speaker 1: percent of the vote plus one. And there simply are
9:53
Speaker 1: not enough traditional conservatives, or enough Libertarians for that matter,
9:57
Speaker 1: or enough whoever to win on their own, so you've
10:01
Speaker 1: got to form coalitions. I just think that in some
10:06
Speaker 1: cases the libertarians have had a little too much leeway
10:10
Speaker 1: and Frankly, I don't I even use this term libertarianism
10:15
Speaker 1: reluctantly because I don't think that legalizing all drugs and
10:21
Speaker 1: saying that we have to totally redefine marriage and legalizing
10:24
Speaker 1: all manner of vice and licentiousness is exactly in the
10:28
Speaker 1: tradition of John Locke or Thomas Jefferson, or even the
10:31
Speaker 1: twentieth century libertarians, certainly not the classical liberals. So I
10:35
Speaker 1: just think we need to be a little more substantive
10:37
Speaker 1: about our views, not merely the right to freedom of
10:41
Speaker 1: religion or the right to freedom of speech, but actually
10:43
Speaker 1: have something to say and actually something more clearly that
10:45
Speaker 1: we can believe. And I think part of that is
10:48
Speaker 1: just intrinsic to the conservative movement in America. But whatever
10:53
Speaker 1: we've been doing for the past twenty years or so,
10:56
Speaker 1: it it doesn't seem to have worked that well. We
10:58
Speaker 1: seem to have lost on every may your cultural issue,
11:00
Speaker 1: and so I think we need the courage to say, now,
11:03
Speaker 1: this is this is good, this is bad, this is true,
11:05
Speaker 1: this is false, and stand by those convictions even if
11:09
Speaker 1: they're unpopular. Well, and Michael, let me chime in on
11:11
Speaker 1: that real briefly, which is I think I'm a little
11:14
Speaker 1: bit more libertarian than you are. But but but I'll
11:16
Speaker 1: go even further right now, Senator, I think a Tell
11:19
Speaker 1: of the Hunt is a little more libertarian than I am.
11:20
Speaker 1: So it's absolutely fair. But I'm going to go even
11:24
Speaker 1: further and and praise a libertine which whiches and by
11:29
Speaker 1: name Bill Maher. H Bill Maher. His politics are very
11:33
Speaker 1: different from yours. They're very different from mine. Um, he
11:37
Speaker 1: may be an old school liberal, but Bill Maher is
11:40
Speaker 1: someone who I think might well admit he's a libertine.
11:43
Speaker 1: And he defends licensuousness as with with gusto and pride.
11:49
Speaker 1: And it's an amazing statement of where we are today
11:52
Speaker 1: that that that Bill Maher as as an unabashed libertine,
11:55
Speaker 1: as is finding himself relatively conservative because and maybe the
12:01
Speaker 1: new impetus for the new Fusionism will be the woke
12:05
Speaker 1: anti americanism of the hard left. Because when Bill Maher
12:10
Speaker 1: speaks out against cancel culture, when he speaks out against
12:14
Speaker 1: Democrats who have lost common sense, when he speaks out
12:17
Speaker 1: against the idiocy of of you know, canceling people and
12:21
Speaker 1: correcting your pronouns, and or when he speaks out against
12:25
Speaker 1: radical Jahad and today's angry Left condemns him. Even though
12:33
Speaker 1: Bill Maher and I disagree on a lot of issues,
12:37
Speaker 1: I'm grateful that he has the courage to speak out
12:41
Speaker 1: against the petty tyrants that would silence all of us.
12:44
Speaker 1: The next question is from Elizabeth P. And I promise
12:47
Speaker 1: I did not pick this question solely based on the
12:49
Speaker 1: fact that we share a name. I picked it because
12:51
Speaker 1: it's a good question as well, but there might have
12:53
Speaker 1: been a little element of It's not nepotism, but you know,
12:56
Speaker 1: some sort of similarity of name. Elizabeth P. Says, please
12:59
Speaker 1: ask the Senator to block all efforts by the DOJ
13:02
Speaker 1: to retrial Kyle or to retry Kyle and attach parents
13:07
Speaker 1: attack parents speaking out at school boards. Senator, Yeah, look,
13:12
Speaker 1: it is a great point. I very much hope we
13:15
Speaker 1: do not see the Biden Justice Department try to attack
13:18
Speaker 1: Kyle Rittenhouse. We had a trial, the jury rendered its verdict.
13:22
Speaker 1: They need to accept that verdict. Now I'm concerned. I
13:27
Speaker 1: think this Justice Department has been wildly political. I think
13:32
Speaker 1: it's in the first year been in many ways more
13:35
Speaker 1: political than the Obama Justice Department, which is hard to
13:38
Speaker 1: believe because the Obama Justice Department was deeply politicized. You know,
13:42
Speaker 1: the second half of that question focused on going after parents,
13:46
Speaker 1: and it's one of the worst examples of the politicized
13:49
Speaker 1: Biden Justice Department, where the National Association of School Boards
13:54
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to the Biden White House saying, will
13:56
Speaker 1: you please go after parents, treat them as domestic terrorists,
14:00
Speaker 1: use the Patriot Act and silence them, because gosh, we
14:03
Speaker 1: really don't like parents getting mad at us for teaching
14:06
Speaker 1: critical race theory. We don't like parents getting mad at
14:08
Speaker 1: us for covering up sexual assaults of girls in bathrooms
14:14
Speaker 1: at school. And so if would the Department of Justice
14:18
Speaker 1: go after these terrorists? And just five days later, the
14:22
Speaker 1: Attorney General directed the DOJ and the FBI to target
14:26
Speaker 1: parents and to use tools to go after them. I
14:29
Speaker 1: think it was an absolute grotesque abuse of power. It
14:32
Speaker 1: wasn't law, it was politics. And I got to say,
14:35
Speaker 1: if we see the Biden DJ ago after Kyle Rittenhouse,
14:38
Speaker 1: it won't be law, it'll be politics. And so the
14:42
Speaker 1: question asked, will you please stop them? I will say, sadly,
14:47
Speaker 1: I don't have a magic stop button in my Senate office.
14:50
Speaker 1: I wish I did. I would I would much like
14:52
Speaker 1: Bill Bill Buckley perhaps stand athwart history and yell halt
14:55
Speaker 1: or yell stop. But I do at least have a
15:00
Speaker 1: spotlight and the ability to draw attention and call them out.
15:04
Speaker 1: But under our constitution, it's the executive branch that executes,
15:09
Speaker 1: and so right now, the Biden administration is the only
15:14
Speaker 1: federal branch of the federal government that can bring an indictment.
15:17
Speaker 1: It is the only branch of the federal government that
15:20
Speaker 1: can execute the laws. So I can do all I
15:22
Speaker 1: can to shine a light on them and denounce them.
15:25
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day, until the voters
15:28
Speaker 1: come in and give us a new Congress and a
15:31
Speaker 1: new executive, we're going to continue to see more and
15:35
Speaker 1: more abusive power. I sadly from the Biden DOJ and Senator.
15:38
Speaker 1: This next question is a very good question as it
15:41
Speaker 1: pertains to I guess the legal authority of the chief
15:45
Speaker 1: executive hit here. This question is from verdict Hawk, who
15:48
Speaker 1: asks if a court suspends or rules against an action
15:52
Speaker 1: taken by the administration, ie the vaccine mandate, but the
15:55
Speaker 1: administration persists, what remedies are available to the court. So
16:00
Speaker 1: that's a great question. There are a couple of different
16:03
Speaker 1: incidences of that occurring right now to come to mind.
16:08
Speaker 1: Number one is the order you just referenced, which is
16:13
Speaker 1: the Fifth Circuit Federal Court of Appeals has issued an
16:18
Speaker 1: order staying the effect of the Biden vaccine mandate insofar
16:23
Speaker 1: as it applies to private employers. So the Ocean mandate
16:27
Speaker 1: that applies to employers with a one hundred hundred and
16:29
Speaker 1: more employees, that's been stayed pending litigation. Initially, the Biden
16:34
Speaker 1: White House, the deputy Press Secretary went out and said, well,
16:38
Speaker 1: will you ought to just comply anyway, never mind the
16:40
Speaker 1: court order, just just obey anyway. And we've talked on
16:43
Speaker 1: the pod about how I think the Biden White House
16:47
Speaker 1: knows that this vaccine mandate is illegal and it's likely
16:51
Speaker 1: to lose in court, but I think they cynically are
16:53
Speaker 1: counting on most people obeying anyway while the litigation proceeds.
16:58
Speaker 1: And I think that order was an example, not the
17:01
Speaker 1: order of the comment from the Press secretary was an
17:03
Speaker 1: example of that lawlessness. I will say OSHA did formally
17:09
Speaker 1: suspend the order pending the resolution of that lawsuit. So
17:12
Speaker 1: you did see ultimately the administration forced to comply even
17:18
Speaker 1: while they're urging people to pretend like the order still
17:21
Speaker 1: has force of law. A second example of this concerns
17:25
Speaker 1: are open borders and the decision that Joe Biden may
17:31
Speaker 1: that caused the most havoc on our southern border was
17:34
Speaker 1: the decision to end the Remain in Mexico Agreement. Remain
17:37
Speaker 1: in Mexico was an agreement Trump negotiated with Mexico where
17:43
Speaker 1: people who came illegally into Mexico were applying to for
17:47
Speaker 1: US asylum. They'd stay in Mexico while the asylum case
17:50
Speaker 1: was proceeding. Remain in Mexico was unbelievably effective. Last year,
17:54
Speaker 1: we had the lowest rate of illegal immigration in forty
17:56
Speaker 1: five years. Biden came in on day one and did
18:00
Speaker 1: remain in Mexico, and the illegal immigrations skyrocketed to now
18:04
Speaker 1: the highest rate in sixty one years. Biden administration was
18:11
Speaker 1: sued for pulling out of Remain in Mexico by Texas
18:15
Speaker 1: and Missouri, and Biden had been lost. A district court
18:19
Speaker 1: in Texas ruled that the Biden administration had violated the
18:23
Speaker 1: law by pulling out of the Remain in Mexico agreement
18:25
Speaker 1: without going through the notice and process and the procedural
18:29
Speaker 1: steps required to do that. So they're under an order
18:33
Speaker 1: to re enter the remain in Mexico agreement. They are
18:37
Speaker 1: dragging their feet and they're basically defying that order. And
18:40
Speaker 1: I've talked to whistleblowers at Customs and Border Patrol who
18:45
Speaker 1: said that even though this court order has been in
18:47
Speaker 1: place for many, many weeks now, they're just slow rolling
18:51
Speaker 1: if they're moving unbelievably slowly. So they're telling the JUDGEO,
18:54
Speaker 1: we're going to comply. But in particular with this kind
18:58
Speaker 1: of order, it's easy z for a defined administration to
19:03
Speaker 1: resist it because it requires the cooperation of a sovereign nation.
19:07
Speaker 1: So all they have to do is surreptitiously tell Mexico
19:12
Speaker 1: wink wink, nudge, nudge, please tell us you don't want
19:15
Speaker 1: to do this. And then Mexico says, sorry, we don't
19:17
Speaker 1: want to do this, and they say, gosh, Judge, nothing
19:19
Speaker 1: we can do. Mexico doesn't want to do this. I
19:22
Speaker 1: have deep suspicions that's what they're doing. When Homeland Security
19:27
Speaker 1: Secretary Mayorcus testified before the Judiciary Committee, I asked him
19:30
Speaker 1: that question specifically, he denied they were doing it. But
19:35
Speaker 1: you know, you just ask a minute ago. What remedies
19:38
Speaker 1: are there. I'll tell you the judge has a remedy,
19:40
Speaker 1: which is you can hold the judge can hold specific
19:43
Speaker 1: members of the administration in contempt for violating the order,
19:47
Speaker 1: and can literally incarceerate them. You know, I asked Secretary Mayorcus,
19:52
Speaker 1: what would you say to the judge if the judge said,
19:54
Speaker 1: mister secretary, why should I not put you in jail
19:58
Speaker 1: right now for buying my order and slow walking my order?
20:02
Speaker 1: May Orc As his answer as well, we're trying to obey.
20:05
Speaker 1: We are complying what he didn't admit. As they're doing
20:08
Speaker 1: so unbelievably slowly and allowing the chaos to unfold. Ultimately,
20:14
Speaker 1: they risk I think there's a real possibility you see
20:16
Speaker 1: a judge enter a contempt hearing because they have, as
20:20
Speaker 1: a real and practical matter, a contempt for anything holding
20:24
Speaker 1: them to account. And what makes it even more confusing
20:27
Speaker 1: for especially for a layman like me, is we keep
20:30
Speaker 1: talking about this as a fight between the executive and
20:33
Speaker 1: the judiciary, and we're taught in school that there is
20:36
Speaker 1: the executive and the judiciary and the legislature. But there
20:39
Speaker 1: are a couple of other groups pop up as well.
20:42
Speaker 1: So we sometimes talk about the media as a fourth
20:44
Speaker 1: branch of government, But what about the administrative state. You know,
20:47
Speaker 1: in this case, the judiciary is saying, don't enforce the order.
20:51
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is tasking an administrative agency OSHA, to enforce
20:55
Speaker 1: his order. And so Biden says, employers keep following the order, OSHA.
20:59
Speaker 1: The ministrative agency says, okay, we're going to suspend the
21:02
Speaker 1: order until the court finally decides on this. And so
21:04
Speaker 1: you seem to have a little bit of dissent even
21:06
Speaker 1: within the executive branch, you know, the president and his
21:09
Speaker 1: administrative agencies, all of which says to me, without a
21:12
Speaker 1: law school education, never having argued before the Supreme Court,
21:16
Speaker 1: that our government might not work quite the way we
21:18
Speaker 1: were told it does. In Schoolhouse Rock, Michael, I was
21:21
Speaker 1: with you right until the moment that you cast dispersions
21:24
Speaker 1: on Schoolhouse Rock. That was going too far. And my god, man,
21:29
Speaker 1: have you no shame? Have you no decency? Sir? Yes?
21:34
Speaker 1: At long last, have you no decency? All right? Our
21:39
Speaker 1: next question, Michael, I'm going to toss this one to you.
21:41
Speaker 1: This is from well, the username of this individual, just
21:44
Speaker 1: to quote it exactly, is dead ass nemo. Take that
21:47
Speaker 1: or leave it. Here's the question, tho. It's a good question.
21:49
Speaker 1: What do Michael and Senator Cruz disagree on politically and culturally? Well,
21:54
Speaker 1: we touched on something earlier, which is a Senator said
21:58
Speaker 1: he's probably a little more libertarian than me. And because
22:01
Speaker 1: just about everyone, including Genghis Khan, is more libertarian than me,
22:05
Speaker 1: I guess that would be one area of distinction. And
22:09
Speaker 1: then we all were both Italian, we were both cigar smokers.
22:17
Speaker 1: In terms of legislation, we probably agree on almost every
22:20
Speaker 1: single thing. You know, Okay, I know, I know what
22:24
Speaker 1: we agree. I have a big point of disagreement here.
22:28
Speaker 1: Senator Cruises a money christal guy, and I'm a little
22:30
Speaker 1: bit more of a Coheba man myself. You know, I'm
22:33
Speaker 1: willing to split the difference and spoke both. See that's compromised.
22:38
Speaker 1: It's the art of the possible, all right. The last
22:41
Speaker 1: question is from Eileen. This one topically is it's not
22:45
Speaker 1: out there, but I thought it was very interesting because
22:48
Speaker 1: you don't often hear this question. Eileen asked, what are
22:50
Speaker 1: your ideas for an alternative option for our power grid? Senator, Well,
22:56
Speaker 1: there are lots of things we can do to enhance
22:59
Speaker 1: the resilience of the power grid. Some of it is
23:02
Speaker 1: having a diversity of sources of energy so that you
23:05
Speaker 1: don't have a particular source that goes down and that
23:08
Speaker 1: the system is dependent on that. You have coal fired plants,
23:13
Speaker 1: which are widespread and pretty consistently the most reliable. They
23:19
Speaker 1: also pollute the most. You've got natural gas electricity generation.
23:23
Speaker 1: Natural gas is also very reliable, has much much lower pollution,
23:28
Speaker 1: much much lower CO two emissions, which is a big
23:31
Speaker 1: part of the reason why last year the United States
23:34
Speaker 1: led the world in reduction of CO two emissions because
23:37
Speaker 1: we shifted a whole bunch of electricity production from cold
23:41
Speaker 1: and natural gas. You've got wind and solar, both of
23:45
Speaker 1: which are important parts of the UH the grid. The
23:49
Speaker 1: state of Texas. A lot of people don't know Texas
23:51
Speaker 1: is the number one producer of wind energy in the country.
23:56
Speaker 1: One of the problems with wind and solar as they're
23:58
Speaker 1: not always reliable. They're days when the sun doesn't shine
24:01
Speaker 1: where it's cloudy or it's rainy, and solar doesn't produce
24:03
Speaker 1: the same power their days when the wind doesn't blow.
24:06
Speaker 1: UH and and so wind and solar can supplement your
24:11
Speaker 1: electrical output, but they're not good on days, they're not
24:14
Speaker 1: consistently reliable, and they tend to be highly variable in
24:18
Speaker 1: terms of their output UM. And and in places like
24:22
Speaker 1: Texas where we don't often have cold, we saw in
24:24
Speaker 1: the winter storm last year a lot of the wind
24:27
Speaker 1: turbines froze because they weren't weatherized. You can weatherize wind turbines,
24:32
Speaker 1: and in colder environments they do that. In Texas they hadn't,
24:35
Speaker 1: and that that clearly proved to be a mistake. That
24:37
Speaker 1: that that that hopefully is being corrected the state legislature
24:42
Speaker 1: past legislation to weatherize UH the grid. You've got nuclear.
24:48
Speaker 1: I think nuclear has enormous potential in terms of steady,
24:52
Speaker 1: reliable production of electricity UH with with virtually no pollution
24:59
Speaker 1: or carbon emission UM. We actually had in the freeze
25:02
Speaker 1: in Texas, UM one of our major nuclear plants went
25:06
Speaker 1: down and it went down. I actually went and visited
25:08
Speaker 1: the plant UM a few weeks ago, and it went
25:13
Speaker 1: down because one small pipe, and it was a little
25:17
Speaker 1: pipeline that transmitted water was not weatherized. And we're talking,
25:21
Speaker 1: you know, pennies to weatherize this pipe, and that one
25:26
Speaker 1: pipe froze and it was water that was used for
25:29
Speaker 1: a sensor. But because that pipe froze, it triggered the
25:34
Speaker 1: alarms and it shut down an entire reactor for days
25:37
Speaker 1: and took a bunch of power offline. Because one pipe
25:41
Speaker 1: years ago had not been weatherized, and it didn't, it
25:44
Speaker 1: didn't jeopardize the safety of the plant. But because that
25:48
Speaker 1: water pipe froze, uh, the the warnings went off and
25:52
Speaker 1: they shut the plant down altogether. Um. They've obviously since
25:56
Speaker 1: weatherized that pipe, but it was a lesson that that
26:00
Speaker 1: was not fun learning in the process. You know, I'll
26:03
Speaker 1: say something else that is really potent for resiliency of
26:09
Speaker 1: the grid. And this is going to surprise at least
26:12
Speaker 1: some of you, but it's bitcoin. And we're going to
26:14
Speaker 1: do a subsequent podcast diving into cryptocurrency in bitcoin, because
26:19
Speaker 1: that's a topic I've been getting very, very involved in.
26:22
Speaker 1: It's a complicated topic. Most members of the Senate don't
26:25
Speaker 1: know a damn thing about bitcoin, don't know a damn
26:27
Speaker 1: thing about cryptocurrency. I've been in the process of trying
26:31
Speaker 1: to educate myself, learn more about it, meeting with industry experts.
26:36
Speaker 1: But one of the interesting possibilities, and you may be saying, well,
26:40
Speaker 1: what does bitcoin have to do with the grid, And
26:42
Speaker 1: to the extent you think about anything concerning bitcoin and
26:47
Speaker 1: the grid, you think about it as energy consumers. Well,
26:50
Speaker 1: Texas is becoming really the epicenter of bitcoin and cryptomning
26:57
Speaker 1: in the United States and in the world. And part
26:59
Speaker 1: of the reason is if you want to mind bitcoin
27:01
Speaker 1: or other crypto, you need abundant energy, you need low
27:05
Speaker 1: cost energy, and Texas has a lot of that, and
27:10
Speaker 1: there is an opportunity. It's it's something a couple of
27:14
Speaker 1: months ago, I spoke at the Blockchain National Conference that
27:18
Speaker 1: was in Austin, Texas, and I talked about a win
27:21
Speaker 1: win opportunity that there is that in West Texas and
27:24
Speaker 1: the Permian Basin, We've got lots and lots of wells
27:29
Speaker 1: that are right now flaring natural gas. And what happens
27:32
Speaker 1: is you drill an oil well starts producing oil. Often
27:35
Speaker 1: with the oil, there's natural gas, and there's not enough
27:39
Speaker 1: of the natural gas for it to be economical for
27:41
Speaker 1: you to build a pipeline to transmit the natural gas
27:44
Speaker 1: and use it. So instead what they do is they
27:47
Speaker 1: flare it. And flare it literally means they light it
27:49
Speaker 1: on fire. So you go out to West Texas at
27:51
Speaker 1: night and you see these flames like torches that are
27:53
Speaker 1: just burning the natural gas that is being produced alongside
27:58
Speaker 1: the oil that they're piping out and selling. Well, what
28:02
Speaker 1: bitcoin provides the opportunity to do is you can go
28:06
Speaker 1: and set up a bitcoin rig, think like an eighteen wheeler,
28:09
Speaker 1: like the back of an eighteen wheeler. You can set
28:13
Speaker 1: it up right there at that oil. Well, you can
28:17
Speaker 1: capture the natural gas, put it a generator right there,
28:20
Speaker 1: and so produce electricity using that natural gas. That electricity
28:25
Speaker 1: can turn can power a bitcoin rig that is mining bitcoin,
28:30
Speaker 1: so you're capturing it benefits the environment because flaring natural
28:35
Speaker 1: gas is not great for the environment. It produces a
28:37
Speaker 1: lot of pollution, a lot of CO two. If you
28:39
Speaker 1: capture it and put it in a generator, it's much
28:41
Speaker 1: better for the environment. You generate bitcoin, you it makes
28:46
Speaker 1: instead of economic waste, it makes it an economic profit.
28:50
Speaker 1: And if you have that rig connected to the grid,
28:55
Speaker 1: what it provides is a real opportunity for resiliency because
28:59
Speaker 1: those rigs can be switched on or off in one
29:03
Speaker 1: one hundredth of a second. So if you have let's
29:06
Speaker 1: say you have a weather disaster, whether it's a hurricane
29:09
Speaker 1: or a tornado or another freeze, and suddenly the grid
29:12
Speaker 1: there's a shortage of electricity and the price for electricity
29:15
Speaker 1: shoots up. Well, if suddenly the price on the grid
29:18
Speaker 1: for electricity is higher than the value that would be
29:21
Speaker 1: generated mining bitcoin, in a hundredth of a second, they
29:25
Speaker 1: can stop the mining of the bitcoin and put that
29:27
Speaker 1: electricity instead onto the grid. So one way to think
29:32
Speaker 1: about bitcoin and cryptomning is it's like a battery. It's
29:35
Speaker 1: a way of producing excess electricity that can be diverted
29:40
Speaker 1: back into the grid to meet critical needs in a
29:43
Speaker 1: time of emergency, so it can enhance resiliency of the grid.
29:47
Speaker 1: You know, my answer was just going to be hamsters
29:50
Speaker 1: on wheels. So that that's much more interesting, Senator. And
29:53
Speaker 1: that's that's gosh, And especially now, I just recently went
29:57
Speaker 1: out and bought a crip do coin. I had not
30:01
Speaker 1: really invested in crypto at all. I don't know anything
30:03
Speaker 1: about crypto or really anything about investing. So I wanted
30:06
Speaker 1: to do it. And I found a coin that was
30:09
Speaker 1: kind of mean about Joe Biden, and I bought about
30:12
Speaker 1: a billion of them. So I am a billionaire. I
30:14
Speaker 1: don't want you to treat me any differently now, but
30:16
Speaker 1: I'm very excited for this future episode where I will
30:18
Speaker 1: get to learn about the thing that I just invested in,
30:22
Speaker 1: because it sounds like there's a whole lot of possibility there.
30:25
Speaker 1: So I'm very excited about it. But we'll have to
30:27
Speaker 1: hold it until then. Thank you, Liz. All Right, anybody
30:31
Speaker 1: who wants to ask a question for next week's episode
30:34
Speaker 1: going over to Verdict with Tedcruise dot com slash plus.
30:37
Speaker 1: If you are a subscriber on Verdict Plus, you two
30:39
Speaker 1: can ask a question to Michael Noles, Senator Cruise, or
30:42
Speaker 1: to me. That is Verdict with Ted Cruise dot Com
30:45
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Speaker 1: the great merch. Not a lot with my face, not
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31:13
Speaker 1: Why the producers made that choice, I don't know, and
31:15
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31:20
Speaker 1: Cruise dot com slash shop. In the meantime, I'm Michael Knowles.
31:24
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