[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign. [00:00:05] Speaker B: You're listening to casual talk radio where common sense is still the norm whether you're a new or long time listener. We appreciate you joining us today. Visit [email protected] and now, here's your host. Ler. [00:00:20] Speaker A: Good morning or good afternoon, depending on your location. Leister here. Casual TALK Radio I am going to be talking about some very disappointing things today. I'll apologize in advance, but I do think it's important that I cover some ground on some topics that came to light. This has been a very challenging 2025 overall, certainly a very challenging September. It is the September that I'm going to focus on. I'm going to be jumping around a little bit, so bear with me. But I thought it was important to cover as much as I could and not fixate on any one topic. I didn't want to spread it out and I wanted to make sure I got as many of these in as I could. First, just some mentions. Robert Redford passed away. He just passed away. Literally. I think it was either today, early today or late yesterday. He just passed away. And if you're younger, you don't welcome by the way, but you may not know the name Robert Redford, but I would argue Robert Redford was one of at one time he was one of the most famous actors I can think of. He and, and within the roles that he had, he stood out. You know, it's kind of like Patrick Stewart. He stood out in his roles in a very important way that many modern actors don't. And it's, it's doing him a disservice to refer to him as an actor. I'm simply saying that's how he was most known. He was an actor. He directed rather movies. He was also an environmentalist in his later years. Died natural causes as I understand it. I, I'm going to say for me, probably the most notable was the Butch Cassidy and Sundance Kid, one of the classics of old times. But there's also all the President's Men. He, he, if you looked at him in various movies, he didn't, he just didn't look like an actor. I know it sounds weird, but he was so good at what he did. He just never came across as an actor. He always came across as just, he made you believe what he was doing. And I thought he did a really, really good job. He had, I think five years ago or something he had lost his kid to cancer and he decided to kind of go into this environmental climate focus and really kind of dig into it. And I think he lost at a point the love for acting later on. So I want to say rest in peace to Robert Redford. I, I, that was, that was, it wasn't surprising. He was an older gentleman. I just, it given everything else that was going on, which I'll talk about it was still sad to hear that. You never want to hear somebody that was so important so signature in, in cinema that we lost. Then of course the more recent that people recent in terms of recent relevance that people are aware of. Of course Charlie Kirk assassinated out in Utah at a school, literally assassinated. Probably one of if not the one of the most brutal types of killings I've witnessed and I have witnessed quite a few killings in my day, unfortunately. Murders, straight murders. This, this was brutal for multiple reasons. It was unnecessary. Sad to see it and especially because you know, whether you like and I'll say and have said when people made attempts on pre then candidate Trump, now President Trump's life. And I said, you know, you, if you're one that celebrates that I don't support if it's somebody who is murdered like that. I don't, I don't condone it. Especially when it's somebody like Charlie Kirk who's just a talker. He's just talking, he's sharing what he believes. He's strong in his beliefs. He's willing to debate you about his beliefs. But there is a subset of people who celebrate resorting to violence when they can't win the argument. You know, they can't. I actually had a conversation with somebody younger guy. I say younger, I put it in quotes. But because we were having a conversation and another member and these are the younger, these are the newer, the newbies. Right. And I'm kind of the veteran even not been around that long with the client and we were having a conversation, there was different points of view and I'm, you know, I'm kind of the mediator. I'm saying you, neither of you are wrong. Right. Something to consider in this sense. I'm trying to just encourage think about it because there's nothing wrong with that stance. And he said this one guy said something to the effect of, I don't quote, I don't know why we're arguing about this. And I had to correct him discussing because it's important that you clarify. Just because there it happens to be different opinions about an approach or different opinions about something doesn't mean it's an argument. The only one who was any kind of animated about it was this guy because he is inherently combative. I called it out when they were screening him for the hiring. I was part of the hiring process and I directly called out. Soft skills is the number one thing this person lacks. And you'll have to mentor him because it'll be a problem because you're going to run into contentious points. And that manager didn't listen to me. But it's true. He is a very contentious, combative person. He's not trying to be, but he is one where it's like, this is the way I like to do it. Sure. But when you're working in a team structure, you have to kind of concede at points, especially when there's nothing wrong with the other side. He eventually conceded. I get why you're recommending it. I don't think it makes sense here, but I get why you're talking about it. He finally got to that point, but it took a while. It took a lot of this back and forth. Okay, but you leap to this word of arguing. It wasn't arguing. We're just discussing it because the other person was not trying to argue the case. He was saying, here's the. Here's the strength behind why I'm suggesting doing it this way. He was making his case and he was not wrong. And neither was this person. Neither were wrong. There are two different philosophical views. It's a semantic, but it's worth considering. Both sides. You have to be considered of both sides and think about the long game. Think about your peers, think about everything. And I had to just kind of level sit. We were fine after the call. It's just that's. That's the society we're in. There are people who simply cannot deal with anything that goes against what they believe. They can't accept it. When I say can't accept it. I'm not suggesting that they don't, that they, they shouldn't speak up. I'm talking about the people that have to resort to violence as a result of said disagreement. And this crosses gender lines, unfortunately. I told a story about my second girlfriend where she would always pick a fight. No matter what you tried to do, she would pick a fight. She would ask a question, and you know it's coming. You know it's going to go south. You know it's not the right deal, but she'll pressure you to answer it, and then you answer it and she picks a fight. And then you're fighting for 20 minutes. That's how some people have gotten. They can't just simply agree to disagree and realize that nobody should be blindly agreeing with you all the time. And you shouldn't want a world where everybody is. Is on groupthink. That's. That's the most dangerous world in the thinkable. So with Charlie Kirk, his whole shtick, and I'll refer to it as a shtick, his whole shtick is I believe what I believe. Prove me wrong. That's. That's the shtick. And I'm. That's. You can search it yourself. That's the stick. There's videos of him debating the young folks and he's purposely going out into hostile territory to debate them and hear their case. And he comes back with his, and he's trying to have a dialogue and he has a saying where you're saying, you know, if you don't, once you stop talking, that's when people start. That's when things get really bad, is when people don't talk. It's the talking that makes it calm down. He's not conceptually wrong, but he misunderstood, I think, the nature of the current modern society because there are certain influencers as well as government people who have told the young folks that they have to be combative. There's a omnibus video out there floating around. Maxine Waters, Nancy Pelosi, as well as a whole slew of others who are inciting people to violence. Snopes and others would swear it's not inciting to violence. That's exactly what they're doing. Pelosi literally is saying, I don't know why there's not more people riding in the streets. Maybe there will be. That's inciting them to do it. You're a person in leadership is telling them, I don't know why you're not outrighting. You're inciting and welcoming them, doing so. That's what you did. Maxine Water. I would take him out myself. That's inciting to violence. Kid Rock. Have you ever seen, I think it was Kid Rock. Have you ever seen a president get a. Whatever he said, you're inciting violence. So these, then there are impressionable young people who listen to that rhetoric. That's what it is. And they take action. That's what's triggered assassination attempts against then candidate Trump. That's what triggered the person who got killed out there in Minneapolis and Minnesota, wherever it was. That's what triggered what happened with Charlie Kirk. That's what's triggered all these different singular events, political events. That's what's triggered it. Because you've told people, okay, this guy's Hitler and this guy's that. And you, we, it's not about whether you agree or disagree. You shouldn't look for the good in people, none of that. And then it's thoughts and prayers, right? And then it's unity. You heard unity from Joe Biden despite the fact that he went up on the air and threatened half of America. That's the rhetoric is, well, when you do it our way, we're happy with you. But the moment you are dissenting against what we want you to do, we're going to say all this rhetoric to turn you against that. That's what triggers these nutcases, because that's what they are, their flat out nut cases to go out and do it. Candace Owens then said she believes rather firmly. I would argue that there was something more, possibly a conspiracy, possibly higher powers that were involved in the Charlie Kirk shooting. I will tell you that assassination was rather professional for some kid. I would argue that is the case. I would argue that whoever was behind it knew what they were doing. It was very well planned. I would argue that there was a lapse of strong security. When I say that, I'm saying that most of those campuses have significant camera security for a reason, but yet here there's very little high quality footage. Now, security cameras by and large suck, but most of the school campuses have really good security cameras and yet the footage was very lacking. And then it seemed like the security was only isolated to those around Charlie and not the perimeter. Same as what happened to Trump the first time when the attempt was made on him. That seemed like nobody. There's no thought of, you need to, you need to case the roofs, you need to case the surroundings. And why are you allowing people to get into those blatant point of view shots and where is the real security on that? These are valid questions that should be answered that are not, that have not been answered. So I am suggesting, yes, that there was something sketchy about what happened to Charlie Kirk. I'm not going to go so far as to say conspiracy, but I will say that I was very disappointed in the lacking amount of security with Charlie Kirk. And I will say for those listing, if you're one of those that, that celebrates anybody getting murdered, you. Because again, Charlie Kirk, he's, he's a debater, he's talking, he's and he says proven wrong. And you don't come with proof. And then you get angry because you can't debunk what he's saying. And to call him a racist because he believes what he Believes the guy wasn't a racist. He believed what he believed you might feel that things he said were offensive to you. No problem. He would say, I'm sure he would say, consider why you're being offended by it. And that's what he wants you to do. He wants you to think about it. He doesn't want you to get mad. He wants you to think about why you're mad. You're mad because some influencer told you that you should be angry about these things. Just like the hatred for Donald Trump, there are influencers that tell you he's the devil, he's Hitler, he's this, he's that. With no evidence of any of that. The most that people can say is that he says these derogatory things about women. That's the most people can really say, arguably. But we cannot dismiss an improving economy. We cannot dismiss some of the executive orders that he's passing that are designed to try to improve the country, whether they will or not. But you can't dismiss the fact that Joe Biden, in his last. Even Kamala Harris, by the way, recently, I don't know if you saw this, Kamala Harris just put out a book where she trashed Joe Biden and Jill Biden. Why? Because she was the patsy. She was the patsy. She was ill prepared to take over. And when she finally did get put in that situation, she was drafted into it. I said it. The American people never voted her into that. They drafted her into that, but it was already too late. Biden stuck around when he really should have. He was physically incapable of doing it. He was adamant and they bowed down to him, knowing he was physically and mentally incapable to do it. And yet she just put out a book trashing Biden for that decision, Trashing Joe Biden for that decision. They're all snakes. Donald Trump then and all the people. If you notice, with Cash Patel, the FBI, if you notice, there's much more transparency coming, at least for certain of these things. You know, like this was a transgender person. This happened here. This is. We're investigating this. This person is going to be death penalty. They're communicating much more than what you saw in the Biden administration. How's that possible? Because that's what they said they were going to do. People talked about the Epstein files. They just did the interview with Ghislaine Maxwell where she said there was no list. I don't know what that's all about. And Donald Trump didn't do anything that I've seen. And I would have seen it like. And people still don't accept it, right. They still think that there's some underlying something. I'm pretty sure there's something. I don't think it's what people think it is. So when they're disappointed, then they'll just keep screaming, cover up. And I said that's probably what the government's doing is they're saying it doesn't matter if we do, there's nothing here. And if we do release it, they're going to think we're hiding something, it's never going to end. So we kind of have to just dust it, which I think is a bad decision. But I think it's what they're doing. My point is ultimately there's all these different things that you're told about these different people, about the Candace Owens and the Alex Joneses and the Tucker Carlson's and the Fox News peoples and the, you know, Charlie Kirk's and the Megyn Kelly's and there's all this that you're told about these people, right? And there are, trust me, I have had my disagreement with a lot of things that Ken Zoans has said, disagreements with things Megyn Kelly has said, disagreements to some stuff Tucker Carlson said. They're not always right, but they are firm in their beliefs. Charlie Kirk's the difference with him. He would actually debate you on it. Right. He wasn't just putting his stance out there and walking away like many others do. He'll say, prove me wrong. And you had to respect that. I'll just say celebrating a man getting murdered, a father, a husband getting murdered, it's a fuck you from me to you because you should not celebrate that kind of thing. We shouldn't be in a world where you're resorting to violence because you get schooled on the debate stage or because your feelings got hurt. That's the wrong world to be in. And the truth is, if it happened to you, if it happened to a family member like on your side, you would feel the same way I am. But it didn't affect you. You're too busy in your feelings. It didn't affect you, it didn't affect your family. So you're disconnected from what happened. You shouldn't be disconnected from what happened. You're directly affected by what happened because that incident is going to change our country and possibly not for the better. You can say you don't care. I guarantee you you will care. Because if we got to a world where the government felt like they had to get more involved to Help prevent those kinds of things and we have to end up rolling back things. You are going to regret it. Maybe not tomorrow, but there will come a time when you're going to regret feeling like this is the right answer. If that's you, you need to rethink your priorities. And I would argue, look at yourself in the mirror. Because you should not be celebrating a father and a husband getting murdered. You should not celebrate a kid having to go without a father because somebody got their feelings hurt. You shouldn't celebrate a wife who was innocent in the whole damn thing to begin with. Who, by the way, is over there speaking to young girls and trying to encourage them and bring them up. People that are doing those positives. You should not celebrate anything close to murder for those people. If you do, fuck you. That rhymes. I'm off to Charlie Kirk. I'll say rest in peace to Charlie Kirk because he didn't deserve what happened to him. I'm sorry, you can disagree, but he did not deserve what happened to him. Bottom line, Luigi Mangione, you know, this is the guy that shot the United Healthcare CEO. Just, just cold blooded shot him on the street. This again, straight up murder, assassination, cold blooded. No reason. I talked about it briefly on a past episode and I said that he, he's. This is a game to him, right? You can tell from the body language. The government tried to slap a terrorism charge on him. The terrorism charge was dropped. Some people were surprised. Why? Why are you surprised? There was no way to prove terrorism. Terrorism would assume that he was a terror to the vast majority of people. He was targeted. What he did, he went straight after, straight after the CEO. Just like the assassin, Charlie Kirk Singer. When they're going straight after, you're not going to get terrorism charge. When there's a singular motivation, you're not going to get a terrorism charge. He's still on the hook for all the other ones and it should be slam dunk. But it goes to like with Diddy. They're throwing too many heavy charges on these people. They're not focusing the charges on what they can prove. They're just throwing heavy charges on there, hoping it sticks and hoping they get some nutcase judge that's going to go along with it. That's why you get people like Diddy getting off of the slap. Because the justice system doesn't understand you need to only focus on what you can prove. You never could have proven what you said. There was no way you were going to prove what you said. It was never going to happen. So Don't. Don't even try, dude. Stop putting out things like this where you know good and well you're not going to prove those charges. Ultimately, he is. Yet another one where it's a singular type of thing. The government's going after him as they should, but they're putting the wrong charges too heavy. And as a result, there's a risk of bias against him that may act in his favor. Let's hope not. Let's hope not. I want to talk real quick as I wrap up for those that are somewhat older, not old, but older. You know the term Publishers Clearinghouse. You remember Publishers Clearinghouse. You remember the commercials, you remember the little stickies, you know, the little stickers, right? You remember the magazines, you remember the big checks, the fake checks. You remember make money for life. You remember all those stuff, right? Here's the history before I get to the story. The history of Publishers Clearinghouse was started in a basement 70s by, I think it was a husband and wife and their kid in the basement. The way it was set up, and this was, after a while, the way it was set up is, I would argue, I can't imagine this can be described as anything other than a glorified pyramid scheme. Because if you think about how it worked, the way they set it up was brilliant. They would work with all these different magazine companies. Right at the time, you know, the 70s and the 80s and a little bit of the 90s, magazines were a real big thing because they were the primary source not only of information, news, but also your connection to celebrities, your connection to different shows, things upcoming fashion magazines were a huge thing. They're nowhere near as large as they once were. Now you kind of think, okay, airports or the doctor's office, right? You know, maybe at the gas station, maybe at the shopping, but they're nowhere near what it used to be. But at the time, they were huge, huge business. The Publishers Clearinghouse, the early form of it, they worked with these different magazine companies and they were getting paid to make those magazine subscriptions available to people. Publishers Clearinghouse would say, okay, as part of these subscriptions, then you have a chance to win this money. And their whole big thing was, you know, you're set for life. You make this money for life. You get paid forever. They always put forever in quotes, if you notice that. And that goes to my story. But that was the big thing, is the magazine companies would work with Publishers Clearinghouse to get their magazines in front of people. Publishers Clearinghouse would then send it to all these people. They do Mailings, mail campaigns. And just you would, every time you turned around, there was a Publishers Clearinghouse book in your mailbox because they get your mail as part of these public lists, mailing lists, and let's say they only got a fraction of them back. But a lot of people would take that and then they would, they would sign up and do this. And sometimes it was okay if you buy this. Publishers Clearing House would have verbiage that says a purchase is not required. Right. Fast forward now and you get closer to the 2000s. The magazine market, the business is starting to decline. A lot of the magazines that we took for granted are now gone digital. And so there's no longer that presence. And subscriptions are dwindling. And near Covid a lot of people shift to online shopping because some of the magazines would also be for, you know, being able to mail order things. So as they shift to online, the business is dwindling public. Publishers Clearinghouse is not making as much money on these subscription agreements as they were recently. It turned out Publishers Clearing House was essentially insolvent. They were, they had run out of money or they weren't able to pay. They owed more than they were bringing in. So then they filed bankruptcy. And as part of the claim, in the bankruptcy filing, it was noted there was a bunch of prize winners. They still owed millions of dollars to the company. Arb. I believe it is company buys it. So basically they're saving them or helping them. And they say, well, it's part of this restructuring agreement and this purchase agreement. There's a capital company and everything else. We're going to still do these kinds of sweepstakes things. And what they've done is they've tied it to like online ads and online games and same model, but it's all around the digital world and moving away from the physical. But they said if you're a winner, go forward, you're good. But we're not, we're not going to honor these old agreements that we had. Now if you remember those old days again, the whole Publisher's Clearinghouse game was set for life. You know, money for life, you know this. And he had a story, John Wiley. And he was on one of the commercials, somewhat older at that time. And he was shaking. I don't know if you remember this one, but he was shaking. He was visibly shaking as they were coming up to him handing the check, 5,000 a week for life. Now in that physical check, the big one, you can straight see at the word forever's in quotes because they knew they couldn't guarantee that. A worker from in like the 80s gave an interview and he said at the time when I was working there, because he no longer was there at the time when I was working there. What they would do is for each winner they would set up a 30 year annuity and they would pre fill the annuity so that the money's set aside, it's guaranteed, and then it's just paid out over time. And that something must have changed. If they have these prize winners that are owed millions of dollars, that means they must have moved away from the annuity model, obviously. Right. So this John Wiley as well as a couple of others, they were getting checked. So like for 5,000 a week. And you got to understand this is now that I think he won his, I want to say in the 90s, but it might have been early 2000s. But the point is you got to think that 5,000 a week went a lot farther back then than it does now. We take for granted the 5,000 a week. It's still a lot of money. But I'm saying that that was a lot. It went further back then. There was a time if you were getting something like that in the 90s, 5,000 a week meant you were buying a car in two weeks. Brand new, off the lot, decent, nice car. We're, we're past that now. Well, this John Wiley, I'm targeting him because he, they interviewed him, told a story. So he had, he was getting 260 grand as a lump payment every year. And that basically is, you know, split out. So it wasn't like you got a 5,000 check. 5,000 check, 5,000 check. They just waited for, they accumulated for the year and then sent him a 260 grand check. Well, he didn't get the most recent check. And he's like, what's going on here? And that's because of the bankruptcy filing. They had to terminate all the payments. They never communicated what was going on. So once he figures this out, he's freaking out because apparently, you know, he had paid. He used the money at the time to buy a house. He used the money to buy like boats and RV and all this other stuff. He had quit his job. So he has been out of work for like 10 years. And when this starts happening, he's freaking out because now the bills are piling up. He doesn't know what to do. And he says, well, you know, they told me forever. They told me it's for life. So I banked on that. I need that money. I Need that income and it's hard to find work. Obviously, the word forever was in quotes. That's. That's how they get you, right? Because there was no guarantee of for life. They just, they said essentially it's forever. But there's always a caveat, there's always a catch, there's always a hook. And if you were to win something like that, you can't bank on companies like, there's very few companies that have been around, quote, forever. We don't. I can't think of a single company outside of maybe Wells Fargo. That's. That's around from like the olden days, like the real olden day. And even then, the Wells Fargo today is nowhere near the Wells Fargo of old. You know, the Wells Fargo old did telegrams and other stuff. They don't do any of that. So it's different business. Essentially, most of those older businesses are gone. Businesses die. It happens. And this one was based on a model that wasn't going to. It was like Don lapree, you know, tiny little ads in the newspaper. That guy, same thing. He was based on physical newspapers which declined. His business model wasn't sustainable. It wasn't going to sustain the. Got me now, Ms. Cleo, her business model was around phone and 900 numbers died off when the landlines were dying off. Can't sustain empires crumble. There are no exceptions. Like the quote says. So I. Anybody who won that, obviously I feel bad about them not getting paid, but you can't. You got to be skeptical of those claims of that. It's going to be that. You got to have a contingency plan. Like, I would not. I make just, in all disclosure, I make more than he was making for his deal. I would still, if I won something like that, where it's just basically free secondary money, I would not quit my work just because I got that stream. I would absolutely not do that. I would instead tell that money. I would tell that money to make money. I would put that money into something else that generates more money, right. And give, you know, set up multiple different things. Like I would have set up some sort of franchise or something else that's generating more and more revenue. Like Sugar Ray Robinson was doing. Near, you know, near after he. After he got out of the ring, something like that. That I just, I don't understand a lot of these people that they just yolo into something and they don't plan and I don't have a call to action off of it. I'm sharing it because there may be people Remember Publishers Clearinghouse? And it's a good story to tell, I guess I would say. If you ever get anything that's windfall man, please don't just quit your job. That's the worst thing to do. And don't tell anybody at work that you got it. Don't. What are you doing? Use it to set yourself up. You know, pay off bills, make sure your taxes are out of the way, and then make that money. Make money, invest. Get some other stuff going on. Don't just yolo into something because all of these things are temporary. You can't count on it. You got to build and you're. You got to keep at it. The grind never stops. At some point, you might find that you can retire because you're in a good spot, you got everything situated, bills paid, you know, house paid for. Cool. But until you get there, please don't quit your job. Please don't do that. In closing, you know, it's been a very difficult September for people, and I am. I am not immune to it. I'm not in a bad spot or anything, but I'm not immune to it. I'll just. I'll just say. I think I even said it earlier the year. I remember saying it. It's going to get worse before it gets better. Because it feels that way. It certainly does. It feels like there's a long way to go. I shifted mentally, I shifted. I got to this point where I understood it was time for me to change my game plan. And I went. I don't want to say all in, but I went strong in rare metals. Absolutely. I have a nice stash of rare metals. Nothing that where I could retire off of it, but it's enough that if I'm right, it'll be worth a lot at some point in the future to someone. So that's good. And my business, right, keeping it situated and then fixing up the house, those are my key priorities right now. Getting it to where everything is correct, it's where it needs to be. It's right, it's settled, it's dealt with. I don't have to worry about things or think about things like I currently do. Situating things to where they're not consuming thought and I can focus on things that actually matter. That's where I'm at. So I'm not suggesting by any means that life is at a standstill or dead or anything. In fact, I will talk about on another episode, maybe next week, maybe not. But I will talk about, as an example, this whole situation with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith. Just to share a little thought on because something, something came to attention in my that I was thinking about on that. Theirs is a great example of how it really doesn't matter who you are and there are forces at work that are beyond your control, but you can control your situation regardless of those things. And that's. I'm going to use that story to kind of help that and see, maybe, maybe I can steer someone in a positive direction that's currently in a negative direction. I make no guarantees on that. Nobody can guarantee positivity. That rhymes.