Congressman Timmons on the SC Presidential Primary & Medical Ethic Debates with Alexander Raikin
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Welcome to another episode of Breaking Battlegrounds with your host Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. Our first guest up today, Congressman William Timmons, represents South Carolina's 4th Congressional District. He was first elected to Congress in 2019, serves on the Financial Services Committee and House Oversight and Accountability Committee. That's one group that's had plenty to do lately, Chuck. A little bit. A little bit. A little bit.

But he also has a fantastic background that I know you're going to get into. He serves as a JAG officer and captain in the South Carolina Air National Guard and is a business owner. Unbelievable background. Congressman Timmons, welcome to the program.

Hey, good afternoon. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me on. So Congressman Timmons, or do we call you Captain Timmons? My question is, how does being a JAG and practicing military law different from practicing law outside the military? Well, we deal with the UCMJ a lot, the Uniform Code of Military Justice. And honestly, our biggest role right now is advising the commander, the wing commander and commander.

McIntyre Joint Air Force Base in Columbia, South Carolina. We got a bunch of F-16s and our job is to make sure that we are always ready to be deployed. We actually have 300 of our 1,350 airmen currently downrange. So we got to support them downrange and make sure that they're able to

Put warheads on foreheads, as the pilots say. Well, we appreciate your service. We appreciate your service. One question that you brought up in my mind, Chuck, and I never heard anyone answer this. What happens if a civilian on base commits a crime? Are they punished under the military justice code or civilian justice code? So-

They would be punished by the federal government. Probably the FBI would be in charge of that. But we would...

essentially arrest them and then, depending on exactly what they did, would determine whether the state, local or federal law enforcement would take over from there. But no, the Uniform Code of Military Justice only applies to service members. Interesting. All right. So we had something interesting happen this week. Congressman Mike Turner, the House Intelligence Committee, released a tweet saying there's a serious

national security threat and that he wanted President Biden to declassify it so people in Congress and our allies could discuss it. Basically what it is is space-based nuclear weapons, which caused a brief meltdown in the country for about five hours. Yeah, like the market melted down right away. Yeah, the market melted down and so forth. So I have two questions for you about this space-based nuclear weapon. One,

Did he do the right thing by tweeting that out? Now, I am of the belief that we would not be discussing this, nor would Biden administration talk about it if he had not done it. But I'm still not sure that was the best thing to do. What is your opinion on that?

So I think process matters. I've been in Congress for five years. This has never happened before. So what happened is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee stood up in the Republican conference meeting and said the Intelligence Committee voted 23 to 1. So it's a bipartisan committee, but 23 of the 24 members said that we should take this extraordinary step, which again has never happened in five years that I've been here. And

read the rest of Congress in on what is essentially an elevated threat. So this has always been something that the Russians have been trying to do. And basically, they have no reason to believe that they're closer than they were before. And so but what's interesting is we had to go to the SCIF and we had to essentially get a briefing about

we're not allowed to talk about it period and i was just like well this is adorable they're going to leak this in the next 10 minutes um but you know look i mean if you want to get something out in the public just tell 435 members of congress about it i mean it's they can't help themselves but you know so i mean they took elevated levels we actually had to sign an initial like a bunch of stuff um

saying that we would not tell anybody about it. And then within two hours, it was on judge report. So, you know, that's never happened. When you get sworn into, most people don't realize this, but when you get sworn into Congress, they give you this little blue postcard and you have to sign it. And it basically gives you a top secret security clearance right there.

And, you know, again, we talked about being in the military. I also have my top secret security clearance through the military. So, I mean, it's it's a serious thing. And, you know, our our country's national security depends on our ability to keep secrets. And Congress is very bad at that. But, you know, whether.

He made the right decision. I think time will tell. But at the end of the day, it is a serious threat that Russia has been able to develop additional capabilities. And we need to be aware of that. I don't know. I don't think that he would ever...

try to do something to sway public opinion. I think the bipartisan nature of the vote gives him some credibility in my view, but obviously there's different views on that. Beyond Congressman, just this one particular issue with Russia, are we paying enough attention to the weaponization of space?

Absolutely not. I mean, we are so far behind. We're behind in cyber. We're behind in space. You know, we have the largest military in the world by military.

But if we are no longer dealing with sea, land, air, and our sea, land, and air capabilities are being impacted and disrupted or damaged from space-based weapons, we have a big problem. So, I mean, look, they're going to weaponize space. The Chinese and the Russians have been working on this for decades. So we need to be able to compete in every area

Every area of war in space is no different. So I would say we're behind. Obviously, the creation of the Space Force has given additional –

expertise, additional resources to the development of our capabilities. It's really a matter of focus. Yeah. That's one of the things, Chuck, Congressman Timmons, I thought Trump didn't get the credit. He really was due for taking that step and creating a dedicated branch of the military. 100 percent. And he was mocked for it.

Well, he was mocked for everything. I mean, the most ridiculous stuff ever. The media is so far in the tank for the left. It's not even, I mean, it's just ridiculous. So no matter what he did, they were going to criticize him for it. And everything that he said turned out to be true. They said they spied on my campaign. They said, that's ridiculous. Oh, actually they did. And it was illegal. And they abused FISA. And that's why we're fighting over FISA reauthorization right now. And I mean, you know, look,

The journalism's dead, and it's terrible because without any degree of truth or any appreciation of the underlying problem or agreement on the underlying problem, it's really hard to address the challenges, address the obstacles. I mean, look, I'll give you a perfect example. $34 trillion in debt. Our debt is incredibly unsustainable. Next year, we're going to spend more on our interest payment on our debt than on our entire defense budget. And

The chairman of the Budget Committee last Congress, John Yarmuth, who's a wonderful man, he's a Democrat. He retired. He's from Kentucky. He said that when Abraham Lincoln was president, they had a million dollars in debt. When Reagan was president, a billion, trillion. But nobody ever has to pay it back. And, you know,

That is a crazy worldview. And there are these Democrats that have this modern monetary theory that says debt don't matter. We can keep borrowing. It doesn't matter. And it does. It does. It is incredibly unsustainable and it is immoral for us to mortgage our kids and our grandkids future. Yeah, I think that's a great point because people do not understand if we don't go after this now, a couple of things are going to happen. Countries are going to stop buying our sovereign debt.

Now, what happens when that happens? And then concurrent with that, we are going to be replaced as the world's reserve currency or there will no longer be a reserve currency. What would be the impact for everyday Americans if that happens? Because I think Democrats ignore this, like you said. It's not Bill Gates who's going to suffer, right? It's the people they say they care about that are going to suffer if all this happens. It would be catastrophic.

It would be absolutely catastrophic. The challenges we're facing right now because of Biden's policies related to inflation and the increased interest rates because of that inflation, it would be nothing compared to what would happen. If we lose the global reserve currency, our interest payments would go substantially up. So we would probably be paying, I mean, 50% of our tax revenue would be going to interest. We also, the other big challenge,

Our ability to borrow money in times of war is critical. So, I mean, we're closer to World War III than we've ever been. You got Russia has invaded Ukraine. You got Hamas has attacked Israel.

Iran is using proxies to kill U.S. service members, all because President Biden is weak and they're not afraid of us. But if we were to go to war, if we were to have World War III, we would have to go on to a wartime footing. We would have to increase our industrial base to...

Build more bullets, more tanks, more guns. I mean, in order to do that, you got to pay for it. You got to borrow money. Who would you borrow money from? Who's going to loan money to somebody that has their credit card maxed out? I mean, you know, so it's just completely irresponsible. And it has the potential to really severely impact the trajectory of our country.

We have about two and a half minutes before we get a break. But one thing you touched on there is the ability to expand our industrial base in a wartime scenario, which looks more and more possible than it has in decades. Do we make a mistake by focusing on really high-tech equipment all the time when so many of the armies of the world and navies are operating effectively with much cheaper and easier-to-build equipment?

Hey, old school war is a lot easier than the high tech drones. I mean, you know, for one Reaper drone that costs tens of millions of dollars, you could get more bullets than you can know what to do with. I mean, so, you know,

Yes and no, because a traditional war, like what's going on in Ukraine right now is literally trench warfare, similar to what happened in World War II. They have dug in along about a hundred mile stretch and dug.

They're shooting artillery back and forth, and they're shooting guns back and forth. I mean, they're using drones to try to take out people past the trenches, but it really is just trench warfare. 21st century version of World War I. It's awful. It really is. But, I mean, you know, we need to make sure that we have bullets and munitions, and, you know, we don't have enough. The president...

because he's an idiot told everybody that we actually have our stockpiles are dangerously low because we've been given it all away um which by the way was uh i mean i guess he's the president he can say things but that was classified and he just didn't care um but i guess he's an old man that doesn't have the mental capacity to be charged with crime so you know that's our commander in chief um but you know this is it's funny but it's also really not funny right um

They've weaponized the government and they have used every tool in their toolbox to try to attack Trump and to try to...

derail his candidacy and he's up in all the polls and I mean they've scheduled him for a trial in March in New York for some ridiculous I mean that one is so far that one is the most ridiculous of the cases because there's no injured party the banks that offered those loans are like hey we were very happy we made our money folks we're going to be coming back with more from Congressman William Timmons here in just a moment stay tuned Breaking Battlegrounds coming right back

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Warren. I'm Sam Stone. We're continuing on now with Congressman William Timmons of South Carolina's 4th Congressional District. Congressman, right before we went to break, we were talking about Joe Biden and his ability to let out classified secrets at random moments. Is there anyone who would trust this guy in a room right now one-on-one with a foreign leader? I mean, isn't that the definition of can you be president?

Well, you know, I guess the good thing is nobody would, but nobody does. And so his team that is around him, who is basically run by Barack Obama and Eric Holder, his team is controlling everything that he says and does. So, I mean, that's bad, but I mean, it's good that he's not going to be in a room alone with the world leader and do something even more unintelligent than he has. So this week we had an impeachment vote which passed on Mayorkos, who's done a absolutely horrible job.

Should Republicans take a different approach on the border crisis and just start passing single bills like return to Mexico policy one bill, second policy a border wall, instead of trying to do these grand plans and hope the Senate takes it up? Would that be a better strategy so that people understand what we're doing? Because I don't think they understand it.

And you put them on the defensive. Yeah. So like we're going to return to Mexico, which according to customs would solve 60, 70 percent of the problem. Do you just go pass a bill like that sent to the Senate and say, get this done? So –

I would like to do that. We have a couple of must pass bills coming up. We've got a number of appropriations that are going to be in early March. And the idea would be to return, put remain in Mexico on one of those. So H.R. 2 is really everything that we need to do. It solves all the problems, but it is.

So the question then becomes, do you just say, all right, let's just reinstate remand in Mexico in law and force, force Biden's hand if he wants to fund the government. And, you know, that's an easier one because the beauty of this three, four months ago, the administration was saying it wasn't even a problem. So,

So now everybody agrees it's a problem, and now there's finger pointing. It's hilarious because all Biden has to do is reinstate Remain in Mexico in catch and release and resume construction of the border wall. Those are the only three things, and he can do that by signing his name. All he has to do is sign his name.

So, I mean, he's trying to say that this is Republicans that are being perfectionist and they're not – they're being obstructionist because there's legislation that was agreed to in the Senate. That Senate bill had $140 billion and had nothing to do with the border. And so for them – and it let 5,000 people illegally into this country every day. So it didn't do anything.

Absolutely. One of the things about this, I really thought that this should have been a bigger PR win for us, this whole thing. We're horrible at it, though. Democrats plan and prep. You watch their members of Congress, their senators, their talking heads come out ahead of an issue. They lay the groundwork and then they all come out in mass speaking out of the same hymnal the minute that the issue drops.

Why is it the media jumps in and says that they're right? One hundred percent. Why is it that our side doesn't I mean, obviously, the media is not going to help us out. But why don't we lay out the why don't we do that? Here's a perfect example. Congressman Timmons, every we have a majority in the House, close to a majority in the Senate. Every state and district has a.

talk radio show you guys can all pop on. So, for example, after this supposed, using air quotes, bipartisan border deal comes, okay, that the fact that we didn't have every House member or senator on talk radio and the editorial boards that weekend and saying they should have accepted our H.R. 2, which passed in 23. We've already passed a border bill. This is a bill that actually works. This does nothing. Why can't we get the House members to go follow a strategy like that? Because there are the tools out there.

We did message. I mean, the Republican conference in the House tried to message on how H.R. 2 is superior to this and then the shortcomings of the Senate deal. And I mean, really, the shortest version of why it was bad is that it allows 5000 people a day in the country illegally, which doesn't solve the problem. I mean, literally, the only thing that we need to do is stop

people crossing the southern border illegally. After that, we can have a conversation about just about everything else. But we got to, that has to be the first thing that we do. You know,

I also think that the Democrats are generally – they're just way better at getting in line. They have fights behind closed doors and they come out and agree. Republicans have factions within the conference, and everybody's right, and a lot of people allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good. So it really becomes a problem. I mean I love Speaker Johnson. He's doing the best he can.

And, you know, it's just hard. We literally have failed repeatedly, whether it's rule votes, whether it's legislation. We can't even use the Rules Committee anymore because McCarthy put people on there that wanted everything to be perfect. So, you know, we're just in a really bad spot. And I think that.

we're going to stumble through the remainder of the year and hope for November. And I mean, with President Trump back in the White House, we will have leadership. And I think it'll be a lot easier to get things done. Since you've been in politics, you're a member of the legislature in South Carolina, been on your third term in Congress. What has been your biggest surprise about being an elected official? Something that when you first started, you never expected. But now it's like, I

I didn't see that coming. You know, people are really ugly. People are mean and, you know, just hateful. And, you know, I put my cell phone number everywhere. And the you know, a lot of people read their mean tweets. Just just the way the way that people communicate with their elected officials is just kind of shocking.

I think that technology has caused people to act in a way that we're just really struggling because they would tweet or they'll send a text message and say something to an elected official. They would never say at the grocery store in church. So, I mean, just just I call it resiliency training. I used to care a lot. Now I just kind of, you know.

It rolls off the bat, but it really, that was the one thing that kind of has shocked me. I think what worries me about that in a sense is that when there's legitimate criticism, if you have to be armored all the time against illegitimate criticism,

I wonder if that limits your ability to accept and process legitimate criticism when it comes around. Yeah, well, how can it not? If you're always on the defensive, you're not going to listen to things. And so, therefore, you're never going to get anything done. That's why we're not getting things negotiated because it's like Congressman Tim has said. People are just hostile and ugly now. I mean, you're right. The things they say – we have our social media pages. We get over 2 million engagements a month. And the things people write and say sometimes, it's just like –

What is wrong with you? One day I just wrote and said, do you kiss your mom with that mouth? It's just horrible. Well, again, I think it's just technology. I think the cell phones and the internet have really brought us

far closer together. There's so many efficiencies, but it also has removed the personal nature of communication. And with that, I think there's, there's a problem where people just literally the things that people hit send on their phone or on their computer, they would never, ever, ever say to the person that they're speaking about. And that's just not, not just politics. It's everything. Yeah. So, um, our society just needs to, uh, uh,

remember that, um, you are still communicating with another human and basic human decency is something that's lacking. Congressman Timmons, how do our listeners follow you on social media? Where do they find you? Uh, at rep Timmons on Instagram and Twitter. Um,

VoteTimmons.com is my campaign website, and then Timmons.house.gov is my official. And for our South Carolina listeners, you can catch us at WJMX AM 1400 News Talk Radio. Congressman Timmons, thank you so much for joining us today. You've been fantastic. We hope to have you on again soon.

Thanks for having me on. Have a great weekend. Bye-bye. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. You can find us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. We'll be right back to talk about euthanasia and assisted deaths in Canada, our favorite subject. Friend of the program, Alexander Rakin. Always a pleasure to have him on. Coming up.

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Our next guest up today, Alexander Rakin, friend of the program, freelance journalist and writer, covers medical ethics and bad statistics. And medical ethics are getting worse. Bad statistics are getting more frequent. So we keep having him on the program to talk about both. Right now we're talking about, once again, Canada has been in the news with their medical assistance in dying program, which is expanding at a frightening and –

Frankly, immoral rate. Evil pace. Evil pace. Evil pace. Alex, tell us what the latest developments are there, because I've been I've been seeing some news lately about the expansion of this. They're talking about expanding it to very young children who might have quite a while to live. Otherwise, this stuff is just crazy.

Yeah, I mean, it is just crazy, right? So the people who are advocating to expand it to kids is, well, the Quebec College of Medicine, right? So no politicians have explicitly said, you know, so like Justin Trudeau hasn't explicitly said that he's going to expand it to minors, but there's talks of it.

And it's coming from medical professionals. Right. So that's the first thing that that alone is just so disconcerting. Yeah, I could almost understand it more if it was from a government bureaucrat.

I think it would be easier to understand. But remember, they're not calling it infanticide. They're calling it the Groningen Protocol after a city in the Netherlands that essentially, well, reinvented infanticide in the modern age. So, you know, it sounds better, let's be frank, right? If you're not talking about infanticide, right? You have medical physicians who are already describing it as postnatal abortion.

I hadn't heard that term and I want to kind of throw up right now. It's in the journals, right? Like it's in medical journals, right? Like this isn't, you know, I wish it was a joke, but it isn't. Oh my goodness. They're openly describing it as postnatal abortion.

You can abort as many, you know, as many children as you want. Right. Right. And by the way, this is an actual argument from medical ethicists in Canada that, you know, you're going to have some children who are born with disabilities. Right. Just from the birthing process. Right.

That is incredible. How did before we jump off the truck, I have to ask, how did how did we go from just a few years ago where people were saying, you know, people with disabilities, whether, you know, Down syndrome or other things, they bring a unique and special aspect to society and to the world that we should be.

Embracing a color, a color to our portrait. Yeah. I mean, just a few years ago, that was what the left said about these folks. And then now all of a sudden we're here at let's just kill them because it's because it's a budget number. Yeah. I mean, it's very difficult to give it a charitable reading. Right. You have at the same time people down syndrome, you know, achieving quite.

significant results in society, right? So like in Spain recently, the first politician was elected who had Down syndrome for the Conservative Party, by the way, in Spain.

But, yeah, it's very difficult to think of this, you know, unless there's this, again, budgetary concern. And it's important to point out, right, that for patients, right, at the end of your, you know, who have less than a year of life left to live, they cost the health care system between 10 to 20 percent of total health care costs, right? And then you add, you know, the less than 1 percent of patients who have serious chronic disabilities, right?

Right. And among those patients, they count for another like up to like 20 percent of like the health care costs. Right. So you tally those up and you realize that only a few percentage of patients actually need health care. Right. And they're just looking at this and saying that's 40, 50 percent of our costs that we can write off.

Essentially, I mean, you see this, right? So we've seen reports. So there's actually been two reports in Canada estimating the cost savings associated with medical assistance in dying, right, or euthanasia. We have just about one minute before we go to break. And then we're going to be coming back with more from Alexander Raken. Alexander, how do people follow you and your work real quick?

You're more than welcome to go on Twitter. I'm, or X, I should say, you know, my, you know, Alexander Rakin. Rakin is spelled R-A-I-K-I-N. And I mostly post about depressing topics. So, yeah.

He should join Kylie's Corner. Yeah. All right. Folks, we're going to be coming back with more here from Alexander Rakin in just a moment. Remember, you can always get We Always Have Kylie's Corner in a fantastic podcast-only segment available for you if you download via Substack, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, everywhere you get your favorite podcasts. Breaking Battlegrounds will be back in just a moment.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds with your host, Chuck Morin. I'm Sam Stone. Continuing on the line with us right now, Alexander Rakin, freelance journalist, covers medical ethics and bad statistics. We've had him on the program several times here before to talk about everything that's been going on with government-assisted euthanasia. I don't even like medically-assisted because this isn't a medical thing, Chuck. This is really a government program to –

cut costs in socialized medical systems. Cut costs and hassle. We don't want to be bothered with this anymore. So let's just save the money. It's worth noting that all these systems that are promoting this are places where it takes a very long time to get medical care for normal treatment. Exactly. So in 2017, Alexander, there was an article

in CBC, which said medically assisted deaths could save millions in health care spending. Across Canada, the journal calculates 136,000

point eight million dollars in savings annually I read this article and it was so clinical that it just absolutely took the soul out of human beings and it made you wonder what's happening now yeah so seven years ago that's six seven years ago what has transpired since they came out with these savings what has transpired since this report came out

Right. So the cost savings, right, if we're going to describe human lives in that way, they've increased tremendously, right? So the two researchers who wrote that original report, right, they assumed that 100% of patients who die through medically assisted death, which again, you know, a medically assisted death used to just be called palliative care, right? Now it's

You know, euthanasia, you know, and they assume that 100 percent of those patients would have otherwise died in under a month. Right. So they assume that the people who would choose euthanasia or assisted suicide would be patients who are dying anyhow in a matter of days or weeks. And that's how these programs were sold initially to the public. Correct. Correct.

Yes, yes, right? Everything has been tried, right? There's nothing else left, right? They're dying anyhow, right? Why can't we just help them die, right? That's how the programs were sold, okay? Well, in 2022, right, the last year that we have data, and we only have data about natural prognosis expectancies in Quebec, right? So how long would people have left to live?

And we find out that, you know, in the last year, a majority of patients who die from MAID would have lived over a month, right? So we went from 100% are going to die in under a month to a majority are living past a month, right? And on top of that, we now have, you know, so in Quebec, it's around 5% of patients who are not even, who don't even have a terminal illness, right? Who are expected to live for a matter of years, right?

And that was also not counted in the report. Right. So the total cost savings are, you know, they've underestimated by a magnitude of like three or four. Well, and one of the things that's been in the news lately really kind of blew up about a week ago was the potential expansion of medical assistance and dying to people who are mentally ill, including those who are depressed. Right.

So someone who might be suicidal, every society I've ever heard of when someone suicidal says, hey, we got to, you know, we got to pull you back from that ledge. Canada says, hang on, stay there. I got I'm going to come up and shove you off. Right. I mean, it's even worse than that. Right. So like physicians in Canada, right, are told that they can't persuade patients or encourage patients to not choose mate.

They can't argue against it? Like, hey, you're going to recover. You can have a good life. They can't even say that? Yeah, they can't give them options. Like, look, here's the chances you'll live. Here's the chances you'll die type thing.

Yeah, so they're told by different, so again, it depends on different hospitals, but quite a few, and again, I'm reading these hospital policies, right, where they explicitly say if a patient has a clear desire to die, they are not allowed to try to encourage them to continue living, right? And think about that, right? If a patient who's suicidal and suicidal patients have a clear desire to die,

Right. You you know, you would assume that a physician would try to say, you know, you have X amount left to live. Right. Or there's, you know, these treatment options. I would not merely assume I would expect that that is the requirement to call yourself a physician. Well, it's no longer do no harm medicine. Right. As Wesley Smith says, we're in the era of do harm medicine.

And this is considered to be, you know, the most effective therapeutic option. It doesn't matter which condition you have. Right. So like in the most recent report. So the federal report that came out about Canada's 2022 maids death. There's a new category and the category is for patients who are blind or deaf.

Think about that. It happens so frequently, they have to add a category for patients who are requesting medical assistance in dying because they are blind or deaf. The thing is, we like to say that this is just a government policy. Here's the thing that's alarming. I saw a poll that 77% of Canadians surveyed support Canada's current medical assistance in dying policy.

I mean, 77%. I mean, that's not a slim margin. That's overwhelming, right? But, you know, but only 42%. It's also the way the question is asked, right? So the way that the question is asked, right, is exactly as made with first advertised, right? Patients who are, you know, have a grievous or irremediable medical suffering.

OK. Right. It makes it sound that, you know, that, you know, they have no other options. Right. Right. Right. You know, they've tried everything. That's what people assume. Right. That's not the case. And in fact, we have quite a lot of polling. So there was a relatively recent poll that came out in the UK. No one has asked this poll in Canada or the US. But it came out asking, you know, asking the public, what do they think euthanasia is?

And it turns out that a majority of Brits fought that euthanasia meant, you know, withdrawal of life-sustaining medical treatment, right, or just removing a ventilator. Right, right. So they're being kept alive by machines. To them, it's just, okay, let them go at that point. That's a different thing than those programs. Right, that's what they call euthanasia, right? That's not, you know, a physician, you know, they don't, that's not what's happening.

That's what people think. I would wager that the public thinks euthanasia is. Not a physician ending the life of a patient who's asking for a medically assisted death because they're blind. Well, in 2022 in Canada, there were 13,241 people who chose medical assistance in dying, which is called MAID in Canada. So they've now had, since they've implemented it, about 44,958 deaths.

Is that higher than they thought it would be or is it lower? Oh, my gosh. I have a great statistic for you. Okay. Absolutely disturbing. And it also shows how the bureaucrats have no idea what's going on. Okay. So Health Canada, it's a federal agency responsible for the oversight of Canada's health care system. Okay. They came out in a report in May of 2022 saying,

estimating the number of May deaths in the future, right? And they said Canada is finally going to reach a max amount

of May deaths in 2033, and they estimated that it would be 4% of total deaths will be caused by May. Okay? So they estimated that's in the middle of the year of 2022. Okay? Turns out, in 2022, 11 years ahead of schedule, Canada already surpassed 4% of total deaths that are caused by May. Okay?

Wow. They had no idea what was happening in the year that they were writing it. And these are the people who are supposed to be in charge of oversight. This is really stunning. The blind thing gets me because right by my house, there is a school for people who are losing their eyesight to help acclimate them to how they navigate and get around. And they walk in the little park that I go out in the morning and walk in. And I talk to these folks all the time. And obviously, a lot of them are scared.

But the one thing I've found in talking to some of these folks is the guides who help them are fully blind, who have experienced this and gone through this process. They will all tell you when you talk to them that it was a scary transition. But once they made it, they're back to loving their life. But you're never going to give somebody that chance if the government steps in and helps kill them. That's just insane. Right.

And look, here's what's happening, right? Next month, unless a current bill is actually passed and there's chances that it won't be, medically assisted deaths are going to expand to only mental illnesses. OK, that's going to happen next month unless this bill is passed in the Canadian Senate right now. OK, and you already have senators who are opposing it.

And when we look at other jurisdictions that have legalized medical assisted death for only mental illnesses, right, like the Netherlands, there was a news article that came out last year that patients with only autism, right, the only medical condition they have is autism, have qualified to die and have died in the Netherlands. How many? Dozens. Dozens.

Just because they have autism. Just because they have autism. Just because they have autism. Sorry, suffering caused by autism. This is insane. What other countries is this seeping over into? I know we talk about Canada a lot. We talk about the Netherlands. You know, there is this. I love the press this week trying to do this sweet story about the former Netherlands prime minister or something died hand-in-hand with his wife as they did assisted suicide at the same time. But what other countries are really considering and taking it up now?

Well, I mean, let's be honest, right? It's spreading here in the U.S. Yes. Over 10 states have already legalized suicide, right? So right now it's just for terminal illnesses for under six months. But advocates are trying to expand that. In fact, however, there is one place

that it might not expand to. The House of Representatives in West Virginia recently passed a bill to formally condemn assisted suicide and euthanasia and mercy killing. And they're trying, so they passed that, and they're trying to change West Virginia's constitution to explicitly prevent euthanasia.

We hear about this with some of the European countries, but the other concentration of socialized medical care is obviously in the Far East, China, any of the other Asian countries there. Most of them have that type of system. Is this spreading there also?

Well, it's a different type of euthanasia, right? So euthanasia in China is, you know, non-consensual. Yeah, they charge your family for the bullet.

You know, in Canada and in, you know, liberal democracies, right, like Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Colombia, Ecuador recently, the Supreme Court of Ecuador recently expanded, you know, euthanasia and assisted suicide there, too. In Ecuador? Yeah.

In Ecuador. I mean, a solidly Catholic country. That surprised me. Well, they used to be solidly Catholic. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Right. You know, all of these countries, right, like the people are requesting to die from euthanasia and assisted suicide, right? But part of it is like the pressures of the system, right? So like in Canada, right, a majority of people who die from AIDS are over the age of 65. Okay. That is, it's true.

However, the original promise was that the elderly would not have a disproportionate burden of total medically assisted deaths. Right. That's what the Supreme Court said.

Yeah, it's interesting. I'm just seeing a report from October 23, where the assisted suicide deaths in Canada in 2022 were 30% higher than the previous year. So it's 4.1% of all deaths in Canada now. How high do you think this gets in Canada? If it's 4.1% of all deaths annually in Canada now, how high do you think this gets?

Honestly, I'm even scared to speculate. I mean, Canada has the world's fastest growing euthanasia program. We have a medical system that is collapsing. The head of the Canadian Medical Association warned that Canada's health care system is undergoing a collapse. Canada's public health care system, and remember, you had Bernie Sanders advertising how great Canada's health care system is.

It's undergoing a collapse, and at the same time you have the world's fastest-growing euthanasia program. It doesn't seem like a coincidence to me. Absolutely. So I'm worried that those numbers are going to keep growing. Absolutely not going to be. Folks, you can follow him at Alexander Rakin on Twitter. All the good stuff. Alexander, thank you so much for joining us once again. We really always love having you on the program, even if it's a fairly ghoulish topic that we end up covering.

Because I just don't think people are tuned in enough to this. No, they aren't turned into this at all. Alex, we appreciate your reporting and look forward to getting you back on when you have your new article come out. Thank you. Folks, make sure you stay tuned to Breaking Battlegrounds. Go to BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. You can find all of our material there. You can also get the podcast-only segment with Kylie's Corner. You need that. Kipper's Corner. We're all over the map on this one, but we've got a good one for you today. So make sure you tune in. Download Breaking Battlegrounds back on the air next week.

The 2022 political field was intense, so don't get left behind in 2024. If you're running for political office, the first thing on your to-do list needs to be securing your name on the web with a yourname.votewebdomain from godaddy.com. Get yours now. All right, welcome to the podcast segment of Breaking Battlegrounds.

Kylie is sitting here with a Cheshire Cat grin on her face right now. I'm super excited about this one. Well, you learned a new word today, too. This is very exciting. Parthenogenesis. So if I say it wrong further down, that's how you say it. Say it again right now so people know. Parthenogenesis. And what's that word mean? I'll let you know in a little. All right. Parthenogenesis. No one should blame you for getting that word wrong. Yeah, I agree. It's a long word. All right. So what's going on in Kylie's corner? Well, um...

I had a segue, but it doesn't work because this is in North Carolina, not in South Carolina. But have you guys heard about the pregnant stingray from North Carolina? Well, I've seen a little bit, but don't know anything about it. It's amazing. So according to the x-ray, there's three to four babies that her name is Charlotte. We're going to call her Charlotte today. What's my grandma's name? And she's expected to be served. Oh, that's so cute.

She's expected to give birth in two weeks. She's described as a rust color stingray that is the size of a serving platter. But the reason this is so odd that she is pregnant is because she has not been with another male stingray in over eight years. Oh, wow. So...

So they say, they don't know if she's sneaking out or not. She could be sneaking out of the tank. So she started growing in size. What is the Nemo movie, right? Honestly, that's the third. So I thought there was only two possible, but that could be the third is she's from Nemo. Yeah.

So there's two possibilities here. In July, prior to her getting pregnant, which she's due in two weeks, and I Googled it, pregnancy is three to four months. So she's been pregnant for about three months at this point, I would assume. Yeah.

In July, male sharks were put into the same tank that she was in. So we could be having shark rays coming out. Oh. In two weeks. That seems a bit unholy. If that's the case. And they gave this possibility because sharks, when they mate, they bite each other and they found bite marks on Charlotte.

Wow. Now, cross-species fish breeding is not really a thing, is it? No, there was some examples, but not like that far. You know, we do have a buzzkill here. So an outside expert, we're going to call her Candy Lions because that's her name. She's the buzzkill here. She says that is not possible for that to happen. So the other explanation would be the lesser of the cool. But still, you know, we could have a Jesus ray being born because this pregnant impregnated herself.

And got pregnant called parath, whatever I just said earlier. Yeah. And that is a type of asexual reproduction in which an offspring develops unfertilized eggs, meaning there's no genetic contribution from a male. And there are actually, I've heard of that before. There are examples in the animal world of that happening. Yes. There are zero examples of it happening with stingrays.

So I'm still going to go back to the shark ray. Evolution is an amazing, amazing phenomena. Yeah. And that's. I'm going with the sharks. I'm going with the sharks. I'm going with the sharks. I'm going with the sharks. Well, they want to see a shark ray, so I'm in. Me too. Yeah. Like a liger. Bringing us the shark rays. Yeah. No, that's actually. So one of the coolest things, my friend sent me some photos. There's a new breed of canine, wild canine that has come up in the east lately that they're calling coy wolves.

that are coyote-wolf-dog hybrids that have created their own population. They're much better at dealing with human environments than coyotes or wolves. Their population is expanding at a tremendous rate.

So I am all – Where do you find them at? Actually, the whole northeastern seaboard, they're starting to find big populations of these. They're replacing the coyote population. Are they killing the coyote population? Likely they are because they're much bigger and stronger. And because they have significant amounts, about 20%, 30% of their DNA is dog, they're much wilier at existing in and around urban environments with humans. Well, I bet that excites everybody in the northeast.

Does it sneak down to Boston? They are in Massachusetts. Yes, yes. Gotta keep that head on a swivel. Massachusetts, New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, that whole area. Something I wanted to discuss is why Tucker Carlson's going crazy.

OK. Can we also – we need to cover the New York mag's finance. Yeah, yeah. No, we do. But yeah, Tucker – So Tucker did this interview with Putin, which I don't think there's anything wrong with it. Of course, the media goes bonkers and they all do it all the time. So that's insane. I have a big problem with their complaint on that.

Yeah. You call yourself a journalist? Go ask the guy questions. If you don't think he – if you don't think Tucker asked the right questions, then go make – go schedule an interview and ask the right questions. So I've only seen clips of it and I really this weekend want to watch the whole interview. I did watch the whole thing. And your thoughts? Look, I found it fascinating. Obviously Vladimir Putin is spinning a story for his own and Russia's benefit. I do love he said he thought Tucker would ask harder questions. Yeah. Yeah.

Tucker Tucker let him off the hook a little bit. And that I didn't like. Right. Although Putin filibusters the first 30 minutes for a history lesson, that's very Russian centric. Yes. It's all Russian history is. Yeah. But at the end of the day.

Look, I think it's an incredibly interesting insight into the mind of Vladimir Putin, who clearly that filibuster was not because he was trying to dominate the interview. It was because he's obsessed with this worldview. Well, that's his narrative for the Russian public, right? I'm going to bring you back to greatness. And here's our history and why we are great.

And these no good SOBs in the West have screwed us of our empire. Why we can't allow certain threats to encroach into specific areas, right? Yeah, so I don't have a problem with him doing that. I actually wish more journalists would do it on all of them. I wish they'd go do Chi. I wish they'd go do Iran. I'm happy with these folks doing it. Kim Jong-un, yeah. Yeah, do them all, right? We should –

That's journalism, supposedly, right? Which we don't have anymore. Right, that's the problem. But then Tucker, he said silly things like, quote, the city of Moscow, it is so much nicer than any city in my country. It is so much cleaner and safer and prettier aesthetically in architecture, its food, its service than any other city in the United States. First of all, that's a lie. Then he goes and takes himself to the grocery store and he's raving about this. Well, first of all, there's a currency deficit there. And, you know, I mean,

I mean, we spend 11% of our money on food monthly. They spend 50%. I mean, everything about that is such propaganda. And I think that's a mistake he made. Why he did that. I'm going to show you a subway. Well, I am sure the subways are North Korea and I've been to the Beijing one. They're nice and pretty. So what? Do you want to live in Beijing? I rode the Moscow subway about a year and a half before the wall fell when it was still the Soviet Union.

And look, those subways were built by German POWs after World War II. They run like a top. They are beautiful. They were designed to be the emergency nuclear fallout shelters for the population. And so they are way deep underground and they are loaded with beautiful artwork and they are maintained.

And here's one issue that I do agree with Tucker on is that you don't have the rampant migration that's leading to the problems we're having. Well, because no one wants to go there. It's a stupid comment. It's so dumb. Which again shows you what a worthless degree Harvard is. Oh, yes. By the way, folks, Tucker went to Harvard. Hence the comment. The one thing I will say that I agree with Russia and what they do, they do broken windows policing.

Well, look, it's an authoritarian state. Let's call it for what it is. But let's not discount the value of that specific effort. I don't disagree with that. But, you know, if you go and have a criminal justice system that is a bat to the head on everything, yes, you could do that. And you and I both support harsher laws.

I don't know about the bat, but a wiffle ball bat, I'm all for it. But, you know, look, he talks about Russia and some of these glowing terms sometimes, which I don't understand how he's got there from being the creator and the editor of Daily Caller to now this Russian guy. But let's say, for example, he talks about Russia.

Mexico, which has many of our friends down south who have many family members here, many of them still try to come up. It's about 50% now, not what it used to be, two-thirds, right? So the average GDP per capita income for a Mexican household is $13,804 in U.S. dollars. Russia is $13,006. Yeah. I mean, there's, you know, and it's like when he does these things like the subway, it's a total Thomas Friedman of the New York Times-like...

Like, oh my goodness, look at the newness of this new subway system. It just shows you how effective their social systems are. Liberals do this all the time. They used to do it all the time with socialized medicine in Canada and UK, which are now saying, how do I kill people to save money, right? I just have a real problem. I have no problem going out there. I wish you'd ask harder questions. I do too. Yes. I think all of us, if we were given the authority to just

beat the crap out of anybody committing any crimes in the United States, yes, we would have a much cleaner street. We have gone way too far down the rabbit hole of this social justice idea. Are we at the point, for those listeners who have sympathy for Russia,

A, stop, and B, we'll post on our site all of Putin's political enemies and opponents who are now dead. Right. And they love poison. Poison's a big thing there. There's just nothing to highlight about this atrocious country and enemy of the world. In a particularly Russian and KGB way, their favorite way to poison people is with –

uranium basically right I mean it's a horrific death it's amazing how often they get away with it too

They get away with it very reliably. I mean, you know, so, you know, it's, you know, I don't know. Maybe they need to take a more intermittent fasting like those Brown College, Harvard students did this week, the hunger strike for 12 hours. They skipped lunch. Yeah, they skipped lunch. And now it's a hunger strike. Skipped lunch for Gaza. Before you get into your New Yorker article, I want to talk about this reporter, which explains everything about her. Yeah.

So Denver is going to have to cut $180 million from their annual spending for city services from police to animal shelter to continue support of the migrants. Right. Of course, the New York Times is blaming Texas for this. They don't feel sorry for Texas, but they still feel sorry for a city that has proclaimed, I'm a sanctuary city. And...

You know, it's funny. The mayor still cannot have the courage to say we don't need any more of these people. They need to close the border. Yeah. I mean, look, if you're going to say you're a sanctuary city, you know, walk the walk, talk the talk. Right. Just do what you need to do. It's just it's so funny how The New York Times and The National Media are trying to make Abbott the bad guy for this when we are one country, supposedly. I mean, that's what they tell us all the time. Right. So these dirty southern states are doing something that's not very American. But.

The immigration crisis is Arizona and Texas problem. Right. So when you come in and you get busloads of immigrants seeking a better life in America, not all, you know, most of them are right. Right. You have a responsibility if you say you're that city to do it. And, you know, I have no sympathy for Denver. I have no sympathy for the voters who now are going to lose funding for their animal shelters and cops.

I don't have any sympathy for most of their voters. I have sympathy for the Republican voters who are trapped there and being dragged along by these bat-crazy leftist ideas. I mean, look, the fundamental thing – yeah, they're fine with illegal immigration if it floods Arizona and Texas and Florida and any other red state where they don't have to deal with it. They did all this virtue signaling about these sanctuary cities.

But what we've seen is that it really comes down to, to me, it's a more fundamental issue with the left now. They don't believe in the rule of law. No, zero. No, no, zero. You know, I mean, it really there is nothing at all. Kylie, are you going to do a hunger strike this week where you skip lunch? What's the issue you're going to protest when you skip lunch this week for your hunger strike? I'm going to keep that to myself. Okay.

Sam, you were talking. You sent me this morning an interesting article. Was it a New Yorker reporter? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. Tell us a little about it. This is really New York Magazine. New York Magazine. Okay. Charlotte Cowles has a story out. The day I put $50,000 in a shoebox and handed it to a stranger, I never thought I was the kind of person to fall for a scam.

So quite literally, the New York – and she is New York Mag's personal finance columnist. So she's probably a little informed on scams.

Right. She's probably read an article or two on it. You would hope so. I mean, you probably read an article or two. You would hope so. But this person cold called her up, claimed to be a CIA agent in Langley and that she needed to empty her bank account, put the money in a shoebox and give it to a guy coming to meet her on the street. Now, I love it's not even a duffel bag. It's a shoebox. Here's the thing about this.

How close a relationship do some of these reporters have with the CIA that you would buy this line? Well, that's a great point. I mean, I've not seen anyone bring this up. She just simply feels that she's warned to get a call from the CIA to notify her of this grave danger. Yeah. So here's her account. And look, I give her kudos for the bravery of admitting this, right? Like what happened to her. Right.

She told the caller that she had two bank accounts checking in savings with a combined balance of a little over $80,000. Good for her. She's a saver. Yep. So preaches what she – Impressive. Does what she preaches, yeah. As a freelancer in a volatile industry, I keep a sizable emergency fund. I also set aside cash to pay my taxes at the end of the year since they aren't withheld.

Okay, great. So she's responsible. Yeah, she is clearly financially savvy and responsible. And that's where I wonder about the CIA angle, right? It's a really good point. How much contact does the CIA have with these freaking reporters at this point? The voice took on a more urgent tone. You must have worked very hard to save all that money. Do not share your bank account information with anyone. I'm going to help you keep your money safe.

He said that he would transfer me to his colleague at the CIA, who was the lead investigator on my case, and gave me a nine-digit case number for my records. He said the CIA agent would tell me what to do next, and he wished me luck. He asked me how much cash I thought I would need to support myself for a year if necessary. He told me my assets could be frozen for up to two years if the investigation dragged on. There could be a trial. I might need to testify. I don't know. $50,000, I said.

So that's where they got the $50,000 number. They were telling her they're helping her secure this aside. Right, right, right. And this guy tells her, okay, go to the bank. Get that cash out now. You cannot tell them what it is for.

First of all, if you go to a bank to take out $50,000 cash, isn't that flagged? Oh, absolutely. IRS flags everything over $10,000. So wouldn't the bank be able to say, why are you doing this? Well, in most banks, I mean, I guess it's going to be a little bit different in parts of New York, right? Most banks don't have $50,000 cash on hand. Yeah. So I find that a very strange angle to this as well. Yeah.

The guy told her to stay on the phone on the speaker. They would remain in contact. It's important that I monitor where this money goes from now. Remember, all of your assets are part of this investigation, he said. Then he told me that one of his colleagues would meet me at my apartment at 5 p.m. to guide me through the next steps. You can't send a complete stranger to my home, I said, my voice rising. My two-year-old son will be here. Let me worry about that, he said. It's my job, but if you do not cooperate, I cannot keep you safe. It's your choice.

Well, they also had to somehow hack and knew she had money. They had to know that there's a bank with $50,000 in it. There's a lot more to this. I feel really, I'm a little anxious for her, frankly, because they knew a lot more about this. So the CIA angle, how many people would fall for that? Their normal angle with scams is you have an IRS debt, right? Right.

Which, like, everybody can relate to on some – like, everyone fears that, oh, my God, I filled out a form wrong and now I owe the IRS money. You know, that I get. I actually got one of those calls years ago and I ended up kind of having some fun with them because they started talking about gift cards. And I'm like – but what they did, which was smart, was at the time I had a dispute for $5,286 with the IRS. Right.

where a subcontractor had not given me receipts for money spent, right? Right. So I was in the middle of this fight. They knew that number when they called me. That's amazing.

Right. That's scary. So that's where do you get that? In this case, I wonder where the CIA thing came from. Like somebody had to know that there was a reason she would respond to that. Because if someone called me and said, you're under CIA investigation, I'd say, what the F are you talking about? There's more to the story. We need to follow this. I have two more things to bring up before we end this podcast. First of all, it was announced today in The New York Times that Trump has privately expressed support for a 16 week abortion ban.

Which I believe. Yeah, sure. I believe. And frankly, I think that's where most Americans are at as a majority. I think reasonably so. So just FYI, it'd be interesting to see. I could see him coming out with that clear after he gets the nomination for sure. And then let's talk about

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's dumb statement this week. So as you know, she was on CNN and she told Jake Taper that she will absolutely not support the $95 billion foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Gaza. Why?

Because the money does not go to... She wants the money handed out to civilians in Gaza. Because it has restrictions on the current United Nations program, and she wants complete lack of humanitarian aid, which he brought up to her, there's 10 billion humanitarian aid. And she just said, foreign aid to Gaza is the only thing that counts. I mean, she is just so dumb.

Well, I mean, do you think her and Kamala Harris go into charades in a group party? I actually I mean, I don't think she's smart. No, not at all. But here's the thing about her that I think I think it's all just an act.

I don't think she really buys into half of what she says. Well, here's the thing. Whereas the other squad members are really that crazy and evil. Is there a scarier person than a person who's so dumb but so confident in their beliefs? No. And she is that person. Oh, she's a moron and she's certain. Yes. So, fun week. What's the word we learned this week? Kylie, did you already forget the word? I already did. There's not much room for words like that in my...

Brain up there. Well, folks, we hope you have a great week. Next week, Michelle Ugenti-Rita will take my place as I will be traveling. But we appreciate you visiting us at BreakingBattlegrounds.vote. You can subscribe for us there and be on our Substack account and wherever you get your podcasts. Have a great weekend.