Ep 386 | The CIA Is a Lawless Agency | Guest: Sen. Rand Paul

It looks like President Trump may finally have reached a peace deal that will put an end to the war in Iran, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a war that never should have started to begin with. Matt Kibbe is joined by Joe Kent, former director of counterterrorism for the Trump administration, to discuss why Americans were led to believe that Iran was an existential threat that needed to be dealt with immediately, when in fact the war was never in America’s interests.

While skeptics tend to dismiss Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as a fad that is only useful for speculation, they overlook the important role the digital currency plays in breaking the government's stranglehold on the market for money. As the Federal Reserve continues to debase the value of the dollar, eating away at the savings of hardworking Americans, Bitcoin is an inflation-proof solution that also offers privacy and security. Matt Kibbe is joined by author and economist Saifedean Ammous, the man responsible for interesting Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) in Bitcoin, to discuss the future of cryptocurrency and its applications for building a better, freer world.

When Jimmy Carter legalized home brewing in the 1970s, it unleashed a wave of American innovation that changed the craft beer market forever. Now, there is an opportunity to do the same thing with distilled spirits. Matt Kibbe talks with Robert Alt, president of the Buckeye Institute, about a case making its way to the Supreme Court that would allow Americans to distill their own gin, rum, and whiskey at home, paving the way for a new movement of craft distillers to disrupt the liquor market and bring fresh ideas to a thirsty, thirsty public.

It's the economy, stupid! Rising prices, stagnant wages, and poor job growth affect everyone, and everyone is quick to notice when the economy isn't performing well. But these are not insoluble problems, and in fact, economists have been shouting the solutions from the rooftops for decades, if only somebody would listen. Matt Kibbe is joined by James Harrigan and Antony Davies, hosts of the "Words and Numbers" podcast, to bemoan the fact that every new generation forgets the economic lessons of the past. Like Sisyphus doomed to roll a stone uphill forever, it is the curious task of economists to keep explaining that you can't bring about prosperity through high taxes, restricted trade, deficit spending, and endless money printing. It's not all bad news, however, as "Words and Numbers" will now be distributed by Free the People, giving more people the opportunity to separate economic sense from nonsense!

Six years after COVID-19, the pandemic-industrial complex seems eager for another round of lockdowns, as the media tries to generate fear surrounding the hantavirus that broke out on a cruise ship. Yet the country still hasn't recovered from the disastrous bungling of the last major virus. Matt Kibbe sits down with Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, author of "Dangerous Misinformation," to discuss how the public health establishment did everything in its power to prevent her and other doctors from effectively treating their patients for COVID-19, demonizing and ridiculing ivermectin and outright blocking access to monoclonal antibodies, all in favor of pushing an experimental vaccine that has caused untold harm. While many people would prefer to forget about COVID and move on, it's important that we remember how badly the government reacted so that we can prevent repeating those mistakes when the next virus arrives.

Six years after COVID-19, the pandemic-industrial complex seems eager for another round of lockdowns, as the media tries to generate fear surrounding the hantavirus that broke out on a cruise ship. Yet the country still hasn't recovered from the disastrous bungling of the last major virus. Matt Kibbe sits down with Dr. Mary Talley Bowden, author of "Dangerous Misinformation," to discuss how the public health establishment did everything in its power to prevent her and other doctors from effectively treating their patients for COVID-19, demonizing and ridiculing ivermectin and outright blocking access to monoclonal antibodies, all in favor of pushing an experimental vaccine that has caused untold harm. While many people would prefer to forget about COVID and move on, it's important that we remember how badly the government reacted so that we can prevent repeating those mistakes when the next virus arrives.

Recent testimony from a CIA whistleblower reveals that the agency knew early on that the COVID-19 virus came from a lab, but that finding was suppressed in favor of the natural origin theory at the urging of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Matt Kibbe is joined by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to discuss how Fauci became so powerful within the intelligence community and why secretive agencies like the CIA are able to brazenly flout the law and ignore orders from Congress. A representative democracy can't function when the people have no ability to rein in unelected bureaucrats.

President Trump has taken a lot of criticism lately for going back on his "no new wars" foreign policy promises, but it's been a while since we checked in on one of the issues that has historically been most important to Republican voters: the Second Amendment. Matt Kibbe sits down with Dudley Brown, president of the National Association for Gun Rights, to see what the second Trump administration is doing for American gun owners and whether those who care about their rights should be concerned about the president's rhetoric on this issue.

As the U.S. Congress approves a short-term reauthorization of the FISA 702 surveillance program, it's more important than ever that Americans have a way to safeguard their constitutionally protected data from government spies. Matt Kibbe is joined by Naomi Brockwell, founder and president of the Ludlow Institute, to discuss the need for expanded privacy protections in the digital age. The Fourth Amendment was originally concerned with private papers and possessions, long before the internet existed, but the fact that communications are now digital should not mean that we lose the rights that the founders intended to give us. To that end, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has introduced the Surveillance Accountability Act to rein in government spying and restore basic civil liberties to the American people.

Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket have attracted controversy, as some interests view them as a form of legalized gambling that ought to be outlawed. A better way of looking at them, however, is as a means to harness the wisdom of crowds to improve our understanding of the world around us. Matt Kibbe sits down with BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere, host of the new show “Predictable,” to talk about how prediction markets not only offer a way for knowledgeable people to make money off their insight, but also are replacing traditional opinion polling, which has been notoriously inaccurate at making predictions, with information that is more specific and granular. It turns out that people tend to be more careful in their analyses of current events when there is actual money on the line.