The Bill Martinez Show 01 30 26

0:00 Are you ready? Yeah, Okay, let's do it. Ill Martinez Live a program about current events, our culture, our values, our politics, and our future. And now Bill Martinez. Well glad you could join us. Bill Martinez here with John Hart from Open the Books. It's time to uh, you know, for the whole truth and nothing. But John Hart, what are you saying? That's right? Yeah, you know, we'd like to focus on two things, truth and transparency. And I think I think this country, Bill is starving and hungry for an evidence based, reality based conversation. And as I often say, is let's open the books together and find out what's true. Let's find out who's right. You know, bring your best argument, but we've got to agree about what is actually happening so we can make citizens can make good decisions. You know.

0:47 We exist to empower citizens to hold government accountable because it's ultimately it's not it's not the government's money, it's our money, it's your money, and we need to we're trying to facilitate and encourage good, good citizens engagement. Well exactly, it's critical. I mean, this is the government of for by we the people. You take we the people out, and you don't have you know, federalism, you don't have a government that reflects the constitution. A couple of years ago, John Otb said we're on the brink of a transparency revolution, and that has been the case, I mean over particularly the last couple of years. I think, certainly all the great work you guys have been doing for two decades plus now and Elon Musk coming on the scene, all the reveals that are happening. You know, you see what's going on in Minnesota, and you know everything that your gut has told you was could possibly be.

1:42 It seems more and more that it's got to be a duck because it looks like, talks like and smells like. Right, that's right, yeah, yeah, And it's it's important, you know, let's let's try to start out a hopeful though, because there's a lot you know, there's a lot of ways. There's a lot of fraud, there's a lot of inefficiency, and people are right to be shocked at, outrage and angry. And I think that that Unsettleness Bill is a good thing in your spirit to hold on to. And it's just how do we take that sense that something's not right and make sure that we make things as right as we can. And that's again, that's what we're trying to do by making making the spending transparent. So but let's let's look back. So when you so twenty as we've talked about before, twenty years ago, Tom Coburn and Barack Obama very different senators. I was working for Coburn.

2:27 You know, we worked together to put all federal spending online for the first time. And if we could put our brains in a world don't have to remember twenty years ago pretty clearly, the Google search engine was a big new thing, right. It was, oh my gosh, all of a sudden, I grew up as a kid reading encyclopedias and just and just the fact that in encyclopedia could be online was mind blowing, exactly. And that's so that was early kind of Internet. And then we realized, gosh, if we could put government spending online, that will create an ecosystem of groups and individuals who will do better oversight thing Congress, and that really has happened. So when you go online today, Bill and you look at it's not just open the books. You know, we're the flagship transparency organization. There are literally thousands of accounts on platforms like x that get all of their data from USA spending.

3:19 So a lot of the debates we've had this year about oh my gosh, why is a grant going to this entity in California that's funding that's really creating a magnet for illegal immigration, or not spending housing money correctly, or Minnesota. You know, US is spending captures a lot, doesn't capture all of it. We'll get we'll get to the gap. There's a lot of gaps. But and then we see what's happened since then. This year there were real cuts. You know, we stopped subsidizing you know, PBS for instance. And I'm actually a big supporter of the arts. You know, I've got all my guitars. I love creating exactly. God created us to be creative people. But I happen to believe that I don't deserve a subsidy for my guitar collection. You know, I should be able to buy my own guitars. It's not your job to buy my guitars.

4:04 It's my job, you know. And and that's and that's and that's how we ought to think about creativity. So, but that one issue in particular was the focus of oversight and transparency for years. And this I just the metaphor I use is transparency cuts through government like water cuts through stone. The flow can seem mundane and unremarkable, but when that flow of water finds a crack, it can wipe away mighty, mighty walls of opposition. And that is how that's what the founders envisioned when they put transparency into the constitution. Transparency is a first principle of representative government and making sure that that that we the people are in the driver's seat, that we're the bus drivers.

4:49 The center of gravity is with us. And that's a that's that's been been demonstrated, you know, this year. But but but but needs to be needs to be strengthened. Well. Step one is so important. First of all, you've got to identify the problem, right and so if you're not transparent and you haven't identified the problem, then everything you like, all these politicians and even recently in the Hill, we heard somebody that you would have thought would have been pretty smart. I mean she was a doctor and everything. You know, they talk in terms. Well, John, you really don't understand because there's a lot of nuance here. No, No, there's not nuance. It either it either is or it isn't.

5:34 It's only nuance so that you can skirt accountability. Right right, Yeah, and that's and so let's talk about the Minnesota example for instance. That's great, it's a great so you know, most of you, if you haven't seen watched the nix S early video, watch it. And it's got millions of views and deservedly so it's a beautiful example of citizen journalism and this kind of crowdsource oversight that we've been talking about and facilitating for years. And if you so, what we're trying to do is we're both we're adding to that investigation. So we're we've just published you can go our sub stack. You know, all of the money flowing to daycares all over the country. Just we're starting with the ten most populous states. But when you think when you when you read about the fact checking of on Nick Shirley, there's very little substance.

6:22 It's all they're accusing him of being too political or his you know, his one of his sources ran for public office. He didn't disclose that. It's well I don't I don't care who ran for what office. I care about to your point, what is real? What is true? Are these centers, the quote leering center, the learning dropping in? Is that really or not? Are there kids involved? Are is? Do they have anyone anyone actually using these programs or is it just a fraudulent scheme? And and I think in Minnesota a lot of it is pure fraud. And so we're going to be following that up and retracing his steps, but also looking all over the country. And it's out of course, all of your listeners go to our sub stack if you live in any of these big states. You know we've published lists. So go go knock on doors, go go call call the entityuation would.

7:12 Go do some citizen journalism, like we'll pay you, but we'll pay you as a contributor to to write pieces and publish it. And that's that's again, that's the beauty of what technology can do. Is that is that there's we don't have to wait on the main court mainstream media to do it for us. We you know we can we can do it ourselves. And and your show is a part of that. Well, clearly the mainstream media has checked out, I mean, uh, professional journalism at the level when you and I were growing up. Uh, it's lost its way. Uh and uh, it's really violating what our founding fathers expected out of out of a free and independent press in terms of holding our government accountable. I mean, they had to be embarrassed that somebody like Nick Shirley can come out and expose something like this. And boy, I'll tell you did he hit the mother load? Because like you said, when you pull that thread, you're saying, well, it's Minneapolis today, but how many other states are running a similar scam?

8:13 Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, And I think and one of the things that's really unfortunate about this the whole digital revolution, you know, and the dawn of the Internet is as significant as when the printing press came on six hundred years ago. So it's a massive technological change. And we've seen the decline of investigative journalism, not just nationally but locally. That's one of the that's one of the great tragedies really that we've seen unfold is that you don't have the local newspaper, you don't have the local beat reporter to who's able to go and work and beat Nick surely to the punch. And so part we're actually we're actually working to reconstitute that too. There are other foundations, other entities that are trying to revitalize and rebuild local journalism and sort of this non agenda based where let's just get give people the facts, give people the transparent information, and trust people to use their brain. Trust them. You don't have to keep them over the head or come with this. You have an ax to grind. Just make the data available and trust the electorate to make good decisions about where they want their money going. But they've got to have the information right exactly.

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13:48 Nutrition for Patriots. Yeah, we're talking with John Hart, the CEO of openbooks dot com and you know, kind of doing a review here a little bit and then we're going to talk about what's going forward and what we can expect in this coming year. But as we started out talking about this transparency revolution that's been taking place here and in this information age. So it's it's amazing John, how all these tools are being utilized and how it really is empowering the people. And I think it's scaring that and rightfully so the traditional politicians who've been able to get away with this, because one of the big questions recently I've been posing to economists time and again is saying here we are thirty eight trillion dollars in debt, how much of that debt is tied to voter fraud and electioneering?

14:47 And they said probably all of it. Yeah, yeah, well look it's yeah, there's there's an incredible amount amount of fraud in the government. And you know, we've got to look at all all of our all of our systems, and so that's that's certainly one of them. And uh, you know, just to to kind of to kind of close the loop on the On the Minnesota example, there are one or there are a couple of things that really went wrong that are unique to Minnesota that we don't want to see duplicated. One is that the Biden administration issued a ruling where they they tagged funding to quote enrollment numbers, not actual attendance. And so what that did is to incentivize people to just have fake enrollment numbers right to get to get money. And and that's that's one of these things that's relatively easy to correct.

15:34 But then the second thing Minnesota did that was that was not smart, is they got rid of their their treasurer office. So I'm also I'm in the board of a group called the State Financial Officers Foundation. I want to do to the CEO of that group. My friend oj Alaka did a great oup ed in the Wall Street Journal describing how Minnesota was a penny wise and a pound foolish because they eliminated their state Treasurer office, and the purpose of that office is to make sure things like this happened, to have an internal check and we work open the book's works, you know, handing glove with a lot of treasures around the country to help them publicize their data, to make sure that they have the right systems in place. We did pioneering work with you know, Josh Mandel and Ohio years ago, and and they've they've really we've we've they've followed our lead in terms of setting the standard of putting government spending online.

16:22 So Minnesota did a couple of things really bad that that hopefully will not be replicated. But but I think fraud the big picture point I'll leave you with on Minnesota is fraud is a feature. It's not a bug in our system. In other words, fraud this isn't just one anomaly that happened in Minnesota. Yes, there were unique things about it, but but we When you have a government that has really set up to reward perverse incentives, you're going to see all kinds of misbehavior. And that's that's why again, we need to go back to the founders and have a twenty first century federalism, which is really go back to the numera enumerated powers. Instead of having four hundred agencies, let's have four and maybe.

17:03 Five yeah, that are that are accountable, you know, and accountable to the voters. Uh. The other thing too, Uh not big surprise here that Biden would do this, because it's it reminds me of what Barack Obama did with Obamacare. It wasn't about providing healthy it was just about a number. And so you get what you asked for and the people were rewarded for just putting people on the dole whether they were legit or not, and or legal or not. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And one of the things the highlights of kind of last year is I was able to testify a couple of times on the hill. One was the House the House Does Committee that we talked about all the federal funding that goes to furnish vacant buildings. That was that was a funny ring. You know, millions of dollars going to paintings and conference tables and solar powered picnic tables and all these things. But that I estified before the Senate a Small Business Committee on fraud within the small business sector. And one of the things we see over and over again is that the best way to make something expensive is for government to make it affordable. So you see when you have governments, whatever government subsidizes, it gets more expensive. And to your commacare. That's one of the biggest expenses for small businesses is all of the healthcare costs have gone way way up because the government has gotten between the purchaser of healthcare and the product of the doctor. Government is really the middleman, and it's

18:37 encouraged health insurance companies to be the middleman between the patient and the doctor. Yeah, and like you said, this is an exception. I mean, this is a feature of government intrusion. Whether we're talking well, let's go ahead and subsidize electric vehicles. We're going to give the consumer seven thousand dollars to go out and buy an electrical vehicle. So what did the dealers do? You know, they said, well, you can't have all that money, so they got their price, so it was a windfall profit for these dealers. I mean, that's it's just. Right, same, same principle, right exactly. So you know, they've got this system down, so wherever the government money goes, well, then they're going to find a way to capture it. Uh. And it's you know, part human nature. And like you said, it's a feature of the system. So that means the system is broken.

19:27 So is there any interest on Capitol Hill to fix it? Yeah, there's there's a Yeah, I think you know, the Minnesota case bill I think is uh encouraging. It's it's it's obviously discouraging case. It's shocking and terrible, but it's one of these rare moments that's a galvanizing moment. And we remember the early days days of the Tea Party. We were trying to foment and encourage a citizen led kind of revolt against big government. And that succeeded and we actually moved the needle. We got we got a number of forms devere marks for a decade, we cut spending in real terms for the first time since the end of the Korean War. And this, this Minnesota case feels has that feel of the start of something very encouraging, the start of something promising, where people are fed up and they're but they're fed up in a very constructive way.

20:20 It isn't it isn't just burn, burn, burn the country down. It's hey, how do we renovate? And that's really what's strong what's so wonderful about our American experiment is our American revolution was not realistic. The French Revolution was neolistic exactly, and ours is about, hey, let's continually reimagine, rebuild, renovate. Sometimes you do to get the sledshammer out and knock down a wall that never should have been built, to get back to the original vision. But but the end purpose is about creating something. It's about it isn't about tearing things down. It's about creating opportunities for for growth and flourishing. Well, like you talked, and you reference burning things down. Of course, Minnesota is become famous for burning things down because it seems to be a deflection, uh, you know, of what what we're really dealing with. And so you know, our caution to we the people is, hey, keep your eye on the ball. Don't get distracted by what the media or these other interests are doing. See. But again, if you don't know what vision or what the mission is and that what you're holding onto, you're going to be easily discouraged and dissuaded because there's going to be, as there always is, opposition to get this country back on track. A lot of politicians over the years have talked about, oh, we we need to do a better job.

21:36 But you know, it's just it's just rhetoric. There's no substance to it. It's just conversation to get you through an election period. Sure, sure, yeah, And that's and that's why people just have to demand results. And that's we've seen these again, but we really have seen changes in pivots where nineteen ninety four is for example, you know the Tom Coben who I worked for for years, he was a member of the class in nineteen ninety four, you know, I was still in college, but then worked for him three years later and started with him in ninety seven. Brought this book Breach of Trust with them, you know twenty years ago that he had a great you know, service in the Senate, but he had he was a person that had a normal career. He coming to Congress is really a demotion because he had a very thriving medical practice.

22:22 He was a business owner, believed he was a true citizen legislator. And I think there are thousands of Tom Coburn's out there, people that have done things in the real world. They might be a welder, a teacher, or pastor, a carpenter, plumber, you know, somebody that has or a banker, whatever field they're in, they have something to contribute. So I think the doors, the doors of public service are wide open, and more open than people realize, because the perception is is that there's an establishment in Washington. It's sort of protected, and there is self protection. Comu's protect themselves. But at the same time, anyone can run for office and win. And whether people love or hate Donald Trump, well he certainly proved that anyone who decides to run for office can win. And that's an incredible strength of our system that's minable to change. That change really can't happen.

23:14 We saw it in nineteen ninety four, and we saw it with the big Tea Party election in twenty ten, where exactly people saw to your point in allow in Obamacare, they we the people figured it out and realized, you know, we don't really want our healthcare to go up. And of course we didn't see the reforms we wanted out of that, but we did see electoral change. And there's a lot of you know, we could spend two hours on how we need to have better elections, better process, but the fact is is that is that we're in a better spot than oftentimes we think we are. Well. I've maintained the voice of we the people needs to be augmented and not throttled down. And that's what happen. You know, you mentioned the Tea Party, the Tea Party movement.

23:57 Oh gosh, I'll tell you that. The establishment and everybody freak out of that. I mean, you get interference from the government. Lowest learner, her shenanigans that she did that. I maintained that's still in action to this day. It's probably affected I don't know what, at least a dozen voting cycles. You think about that, John, It's disenfranchised the voter and you can't have that in a true democracy. I mean, you got a lot of people on the left talking about democracy. My first question is how do you define it? I mean, you can't even define a woman so let's talk about democracy. Maybe you might be able to come up with a good definition for that. Right, Well, it's not just the irs scandal or where where they where they discriminated against tea part conservative groups.

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28:42 Nutrition for Patriots. But we're talking with John Hark He's the chief executive officer Opingbooks dot com. Well, John, you know the American people have been frustrated. Like you said, they're seeing what's going on in Minneapolis, and their sensing, i mean, their gut is telling them that this is just the beginning. Elon Musk said, Hey, look at I think we could find a trillion dollars, maybe even more if he got some cooperation. But boy did they freak out. And you know that's what happens when you turn the likes on in corruption. All the cockroaches start scattering, don't they. Right, that's right, yeah, yeah, and it's it's important. Let's talk about Doge for a minute, right, because Elon Musk came in with Doge, and a lot of people are frustrated that Doge didn't cut more, and I wish they would have cut more. But but but I would disencourage people.

29:33 You can't when there's an effort to try to cut spending and it doesn't work as well as you think, you can't give up. And so so Elon the the way I would describe Elon Musk because it's kind of like, if you if you're a sports fan, if you remember Michael Jordan retired from basketball and he played baseball, right, Oh, Michael Jordan's a brilliant athlete. He's going to be great at baseball. Well, it turns out he's actually much better at basketball. And so so Elon Musk. It turned out he wasn't as good at cutting government spending as I wanted him to be. But he's still great at creating SpaceX, he's still great at TESLA. He still has a lot to contribute to our country, and I think we should thank him for the effort he put in to try to reduce the size of the scope of government. But let's let's learn from what work. Let's build on those lessons and and sort of the tech sector. You know when people talk about when there's like a startup venture that fails, that isn't really failure because that failure is teaching that CEO to do it differently next time. It's teaching everyone in the field to do it differently. And so so in the electorate, these things, same things are true. Like we offered with cobur and thousands of amendments that literally thousands that failed, but he didn't give up. He'd got Okay, well, this this approach didn't work. Let's try a different approach.

30:50 And then we found the bridge to nowhere. We found a woodstock museum, we found shrimp on a treadmill, things that are still talked about years and years later. And so that's what I would just sort of say that to Musk and people that are mad that Doze didn't do more, It's like, well that's you know, just because it doesn't it doesn't hit the mark immediately doesn't mean the mark isn't Because the mark is there, We've got to hit the mark. Yeah, right, let's build on that. And there's and there's a lot of findings that they that they had that you know, Congress still needs to act on and members, members are are looking at all these things. Well, Johnny, you bring up a good point in talking about the comparison of Michael Jordan, that is that Michael Jordan was gifted and wired for basketball more than baseball, and and Elon Musk by the same comparison is that, I mean, you're coming into a new venue here altogether that you know, you don't think like politicians. I mean you think like a businessman. Donald Trump thinks like a businessman.

31:44 Got a problem, fix it? You know, it's a it's a fifteen minute problem. Well you got fired? Yeah, yeah, easy, you know, Capitol Hill. No, that that's a you know that that can be an entire campaign and years long. But meanwhile, you've got all kinds of wasted money, people are injured in the process. And again this all yields to you know what you referenced earlier, and that's the size of government. It's way too cumbersome and inefficient. Yeah, and I think what we were able to do successfully is when you when you when you find a problem, you have to loiter over the target. Okay, you've got to You've got to hover over it and have a combined arms approach air power, land power, sea power until until the problem was solved. And and we kind of learned that the hard way. So there are examples of like Social Security disability, where billions of dollars were being defrauded.

32:37 We identified a few fraudsters. There's a guy named Eric con who was who was encouraging people to sign up fraudulently for Social Security disability. He was getting paid millions and millions of dollars. But then we identified them sixty minutes, did a segment, Apple TV did a documentary about them, and that changed. That saved billions of dollars. But that took once and months and months of work. Again loitering over the target. And this is where Covert is a doctor. He was able to use that perspective of Okay, well the disease isn't cured, I'm just symptoms. I want to treat the disease and find the root caause. And and that's and and sort of the wisdom of we the people could figure that out. Like people know, they look at they look at Minnesota and they think, okay, this is not just happening in Minnesota. That's just absolutely right.

33:27 And we're providing the data to help them move that move those investigations along well. And like you say, hovering over the target, I mean, how many other targets did DOSEE expose that you know, we've gone on to another you know, right, another thing. You know, maybe there's we need to revisit some of these areas that doze exposed and say, okay, you know, like anything Johnny, as you know in business, uh, it's twenty percent of the problem is going to give you eighty percent of the yield. So what are the twenty percent of the problems that we have out there that we can identify they could make eighty percent difference. Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah, I think you know one a couple of things in particular is you know they dose talked about all the the the antiquated federal account, all the retirement records in the mountain up in Pennsylvania. Right, Fixing things like that can have an enormous impact. But again that that is such a tedious, time consuming thankless, but that that kind of work and that kind of rigor makes a huge difference for taxpayers. And so I hope that they continue to focus on those. And I know, I know members of Congress are looking at that, but but I think like all of your listeners, they listen, they hear this and think, yeah, absolutely, that makes sense.

34:44 It's a no brainer, right, And politicians have to trust the wisdom of the crowd, in other words, the wisdom of decent people to realize, hey, this is a tedious task. It's kind of like, you know, pulling weeds in your garden. Well, if you really want to make a difference in your garden, you don't just the flower bed. You have to get on your hands and knees and exactly and separate you don't. You don't want to. Everyone has had the experience where they pull up a weed and they accidentally pull up your tomato plan. Or it's something you spend all the time caring for them. That's not experience. But but again, there's no quick fix, there's no magic answer. It's just people. People are right to demand and expect officeholders to do hard work and to be to be tenacious and be disciplined about it.

35:28 But it seems like they're not. John, I mean, the question that comes to mind here with my audiences, they go, where's the leadership? I mean, right now, you know, like him or not? Thank God for Donald Trump. Donald Trump in many ways is exam sampling leadership and uh and and he's met with resistance and uh, you know, for ego's sake, establishment call it what you want, you know, the Beltway Blues or whatever. You know, they're not quite catching it and saying look it, you know, right now, I think we have an opportune time. We're on the verge. I think Trump is right on and saying we're on the verge of a true golden age for this country. And the thing is is the reverberations are going outside of the country and it is touching the entire planet.

36:14 John, mm hmmm, yeah. And I think obuly what we're seeing in Iran is a good example of that. I think I think you know, I wouldcourage anyone to go look at look at all the images of Iran before the Antolas versus after. Heartbreaking, right and if that, if that imagined the benefit of that regime falling, what that would do for our national security budget, what it would do uh for so many, so many areas that affect our lives every day. Yeah, Venezuela, the same thing. I mean, these poor people, I mean not that long ago, John, three decades ago, one of the most wealthiest, uh, you know, countries in the top five certainly, and now I mean inflation through the roof. I mean we complain at nine percent, they were at a thousand percent plus and the people, the poor people were eating out of the back of Maduro's trash trucks, right right.

37:07 It's yeah, it's heartbreaking. And compare that to a country like Poland. You know, Poland has had explosive growth because they've embraced free market capitalism. And I've traveled a lot and it kind of in Eastern Europe and you know, behind the Iron Curtain again, like we remember that transition, and it's remarkable to see how some countries have really flourished and others of struggled. Poland is one that's done. That's a success story where they were behind the Iron curtain, they were under Soviet occupation, and now they've they've embraced the principles of freedom and human innovation and natural rights and they're doing really, really well. And compare that to Venezuela, which again just went with the opposite direction and hopefully hopefully that situation will will stabilize and go better. But again you can't, certainly can't whatever view you have of Trump's form and policy, see his willingness to take action, you know is not is not a question, and that could open the door to incredible reform and change.

38:07 Yeah, without a doubt. You know, you mentioned, you know what happened in Poland, and uh, you know, great success record there. But I don't hear a success record coming from communism or socialism unless I'm missing a headline somewhere. Yeah, it's it's it's a share shared as Bargart, Thatcher said, it's shared misery and yeah, and sadly Zora Mondami in New York did not get that memo. So he's he's gonna make another run at at at the warmth of collectivism as he put it, but uh, but there is a lot of warmth when you when you try to micromanage a firm society, you end up. What you end up doing is punishing the punishing the winners and rewarding the losers. And well, that's where we're going to see play out, feel well.

38:51 And the problem is is that the winners have enough money. They're leaving town, billions of dollars going out the door, just like in California. And uh, they're already having a hard time meeting a budget or even reconciling it, and so they're just exacerbating their own problem. On Sunday, February first, the sixty eighth Annual Grammy Awards will welcome AI back with an upgraded data driven fan experience thanks to IBM, the Grammy Awards official Artificial intelligence and cloud partner. This year, IBM will usher in the next era of interactivity, offering Grammy IQ built with IBMWATSONX on Grammy dot com. By tapping into the power of AGENTICAI, the new feature transforms the Recording Academy's vast reserves of music data into interactive quizzes that put music lover's knowledge to the test for the chance to win prizes, to learn about this year's nominees and more. Grammy IQ built with IBM Watson X, features an AI assistant embedded across Grammy's digital channels for seamless fan interaction, leaderboards, and sweepstakes for daily engagement and social sharing. To explore this year's IBM powered experience and to test your music knowledge, visit me dot com. That's gr a mmy dot com sponsored by IBM.

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43:28 Yeah, I mean, there are so many to choose from, and I encourage we have a sub stack up and people can look at that. There's some some highlights. I think, you know, we looked at bid near improper payments at nine hundred and twenty five billion dollars. There's a lot our progress in scaling that back center to earns from Ohio or Iowa rather has been has been a great leader on that. I think I think I would I would kind of put it a tie at two different things. I think there's real movement towards an upgrade of USA spending that's build. I talk about where we put all government spending online for the first time, and we got all kinds of pushback and people said, oh, there's no way the federal agencies will coordinate. That's impossible, it's a fool's errand but we figured it out and they and you know, all of that spending is now is now searchable now. The challenge is it's not going up as fast as it needs to, and there are big gaps within states. So our ambition back twenty years ago wasn't just to pass a law. It was to create a norm and to really change our political culture to make it an expectation that, of course government spending should be searchable.

44:33 Why what what possible reason would you not have to search government spending? And so the standard should be real time transparency and that's our tagline, is our mission. And opened the books every dim online in real time exactly. And one of we talked about what could what did those accomplish? Well, one of the great things they accomplished is they got access to the Treasury payment system. And that's the I call that the administrative state, Holy of Holies. It's where only the goverment of exactly. And really the Treasury payment system is America's checkbook. It's so Bill, you, just as you and I have the right to go to our personal account, we should be able to go to the Treasury payment system at any time and see the flow of money. Because that's what it's not the government's money, it's our money.

45:16 It's exactly, it's our personal account. What possible reason do we have to not see that. And of course there are legitimate nationality We don't need to be publishing the address of someone's CIA safe house, and you know privacy matters, those are national security privacy. There's that's an easy exception. So Congressman ship Roy introduced a bill to at least give Congress access to that system. And Chip is a great leader in Congress who's actually running for Attorney general now in Texas. But I'm working with Chip and other other members of the House to do a stronger version of that bill to create real time transparency for every American citizen and to make make that the standard in federal law. And we want to build on that to do the same thing in all fifty states. So again one of the issues in Minnesota is we talked about they got their Treasurer's office, but we could even have a better solution, which is we it's good to always have a treasure office because you need someone on the ground locally who's sniffing around and making sure there's no games being played. But we need to dramatically upgrade our transparency laws. So there was real movement towards that in twenty twenty five, and we would accelerate that twenty twenty six. That's that's probably if I would just pick one, that's probably one of the great advances of this past year.

46:29 Do you think that? And maybe you already do this, And I'm just thinking, you know, off top of my head that there should be an award for all these you know, these fraudsters and everything goes out, and I'm just envisioning a trophy with with the with the shrimp on a treadmill. Of shrimp on a treadmill trope. Sure, yeah, exactly. I mean yeah, from open the books. I mean, here's the here's the big money wasters of twenty twenty five or twenty twenty six or something like that, and you know, and you don't want to be caught with the you know, the shrimp on a treadmill. That's a that's a very good idea. I think. I think we're gonna steal that. We'll go away. It's I I thought maybe we already had something like that, But when you were talking, I'm thinking that would be awesome, you know, the shrimp on a treadmill trophy. You know you've been awarded. It's like getting you know, rowan and Martin's fickle finger of fate.

47:22 But this would be, uh, you know, one of those you know, we would laugh about it, we'd laugh. But it's also a serious issue and help keeping in the front of everybody's mind the seriousness that you know, this is the wasting of the people's money, right. Yeah, absolutely, well, yeah, one award I will highlight for you just for your audiences. We have a new Adam an Jevsky Memorial Scholarship Fund, so great. So it's just just to remind people. So so open the books. You know, this history is we did the transparency along in two thousand and six Adam Ianjievsky, wonderful entrepreneur, a public servant in Illinois. I took that idea and he very wisely expanded it to capture spending not just at the federal level, but stay and local. So that's that's how we how Open the Book started. And Tom Cobra was an original advisor.

48:13 I was an advisor of Opening the Books at the very beginning, and Adam ran the organization wonderfully and tragically passed away just over a year ago, which we've talked about a couple times on the show. So that's why I'm not leading the organization, but we have a new scholarship fund honoring Adam, honoring citizen journalism, and that's and it's a very generous twenty five thousand dollars scholarship to a current college student or someone incoming who demonstrates a passion for these ideas of transparency and citizen led journalism. So so that's something just for your listeners to beware. If you're interested, just you know, go to our website. There's a section on the Adam and Jefski Scholarship, and we'd love to tell you more about that.

48:55 Yeah, without a doubt. Wow, that's that's a great, great deal. And plus you know, of course, as you know, John Adam had been on the show regularly. We had him on almost on a monthly basis because we just so believed in what Open the Books was doing. And uh yeah, it was it was sad when we lost him. And uh but to his credit, the organization that he had built was strong enough to carry on and bring you on as the CEO. Yeah, thank you. Well, I'm trying to do the best, the best I can honor honor his legacy because he was he was doing it, not for his benefit, but for the benefit of the public. And yeah, we need more people who understand that the vision is not to grow government agencies but your agency, you know, and your and ability to pursue happiness on your terms with your resources and talents and gifts.

49:47 Well, John, as we're coming to the end of this and I so appreciate the time our audience does as well. We're so thankful for all the great work that Opened the Books has done. Uh, what what do you see in this coming year? What's what is the mission and the objective for Open the Books in twenty twenty six. Well, yeah, Bill, thanks for asking. I think one is back on on the real time transparency. We have a real, real window of opportunity to advance and dramatically strengthen transparency laws at all levels of government, federal, state, and local. So that's that's a key priority. With love your all of your listeners support you know, tell your tell your local local officials that demand the same view of your tax money as you do your own personal bank account.

50:31 Because again it's your it's your government money that they're spent. You have the right to understand what's happening with it. And then we' we have a number of in depth investigations we're working on. We're gonna we're going to look very closely back on that on the affordability theme. We're going to look at kind of the history of affordability programs in big areas of the economy like healthcare, education, housing, and really let people see the flow of money and then the results, let them come to their own conclusions about about do they do you want to see more or less of this? Yeah, we'll take a very close look at at at all all areas, you know, the Department of Education, Higher education, uh, you know, spending on sanctuary cities, how how the the ice effort is going.

51:14 There's a lot to kind of look at an unpack and we're going to provide the numbers and data for people to make up their own minds about. John. I'll tell you we're looking forward to that because, uh, you know, we the people sometimes think that we're becoming a bit cynical here because the way we see the money, you know, being utilized, it seems that, you know, especially with these NGOs, money was going out to these nng os and then it was coming back into the pockets of politicians, and this is just exacerbating the fraud and corruption all the more and the misrepresentation of we the people. That's right, Yeah, I would just just kind of end on it again. Back on encouraging note is that when when we the people get engaged and make their voices heard, change does happen. Politicians are terrified of technic revolts truly, and there's and again I want to see an enlightened revolt.

52:13 That's why what we're doing is so important, is that you can't you can't have accountability without visibility. And if you, if you, if you simply shine a spotlight on these on these transactions, on these games that get played, like you just described of you know, taxpay of money going to an ng O then going back to the politicians you know friends or their their their own LLC that's running the contract. Right. So the more the more people know that all that's going to get exposed, the less we see of that. So sunshine is a powerful deterrent and disinfectant, not just a disaffect, it's a deterrent. And and we have the technology and we're also working a lot on on sort of the next generation AI tech tech tools to help map, do predictive analytics on government waste and fraud to prevent it from happening. And so I'm very excited about what the future holds, and we're going to help the best way that people are right to be worried about AI and a surveillance state. But the best way to stop a surveillance state is to create a surveillance citizenry and create superintelligent citizens and exactly own these tools and control these tools, and not to not to delegate authority to some mysterious AI agent, but use that agent to your benefit.

53:28 Let it be like a shovel in your hand or a track. Right, that's the future. Right. Freedom is with the individual, it's not with the government. They're not the ones to give us. That is clearly stated in our constitution. It's God given and we must exercise in order to maintain a free people and a democratic republic, all that our founders had envision for us. And you're exactly right, John, I think talking about ending up on an ough notte. I mean we shouldn't be afraid of AI. I think AI is going to go long ways, like all other technologies that come a long way. You know, people initially said, oh, well, you know when you went from the typewriter to word processing was going to replace all these people? What did it do? I mean it created whole new industries. So I think we're at the early exploratory surges, uh stages of it all, and I think good times are ahead, and I think it's the time to you know, embrace it, not not run away from it, but embrace it and as you say, utilize it for good.

54:32 Right, you got it? You got it. Yeah, we call it aur AI in the Future of Freedom Initiative, So you'll be you'll be hearing more about that this year. Well well titled. Well. John Hart, the chief executive officer for openthbooks dot Com, thank you, as always so much for all the information. John. Remind everybody of the website they can go to uh to hear of and be in front of all the knowing because knowledge is power and we need it now more than ever. Yeah, probably the best starting point is open the Books dot substack dot com, or you can just go to open the Books dot com and you'll get to the right place. So John Hart, thank you for being with us. Take care, Thank you. Bill's a joy for sure. You got it.

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55:57 COVI is number now eight hundred five O six four eight eight five, eight hundred five oh six four eight eight five, eight hundred five oh six four eight eight five. That's eight hundred five oh six forty eight eighty five. Getting America back on track. Bill Martinez Live. Hey, good morning America. Good to have you with us. Bill Martinez here, and we've got from ATR Americans for Tax Reform. We've got the tax policy director Michael Palaces with us. Hey, Mike, good morning to you having new year. Good morning, Bill, Hapy, new year. Hey, We've got a lot of good stuff to talk about.

56:39 I mean, tax season underway, and uh, maybe the affordable portability issue might start to come into clear view with some people as they start seeing you know, bigger returns than more money from from filing their taxes. Right, yeah, exactly. I think it's what we're seeing to is good news for the economy here as since we've had from tax clubs and Congress back in July, you've seen the two quarters since then, it seemed really really strong GDP numbers. Can you believe those numbers? I mean, that's just awesome. And I reminded everybody if you remember Barack Obama said, you know when Trump talked about four or five percent GDP, he just laughed. He goes, he didn't even know what was talking about. He's going to be lucky to hit two percent. Well, of course, in his first term, you know, he blew those doors out and probably would have done so much better had it not been for COVID and now here we are, and in the midst of the GDP numbers, these accelerated numbers here. You know, this is right in the middle of what thirty two days of a government shut down.

57:39 Yeah, that's exactly right, which which is always funny, of course, because the economy starts taking off while the government shut down. I always think is a good visual there. But we're having the Atlanta Fed project growth at over five percent for the fourth quarter right now, which was just unthinkable given a year ago, especially during the Biden years. And I think what you're seeing is this flooding of than coming in after the tax bill has passed. We have these new expensing provisions for businesses. They're going to make. Workers more productively, to higher wages for workers, and we're finally starting to see the affordability issues start to tick up for Republicans and President Trump, and I think that makes sense. You normally see voters there's usually about a three month lag between some of the economic data coming in and people are starting to feel it on the street.

58:21 I think that's starting the place where're in. We've seen the President's approved ratings in the economy tick up four five points just the last few weeks. Here right. Well, because the thing is is you've got the media's narrative, which is all a bunch of bs, right, n ninety six percent out what they report on Trump is still again they're consistent that way. It's all negative son, you can count on that. So he's fighting those headwinds. But the good news for Donald Trump, he's fighting the headwinds not with rhetoric but with results. Right. Yeah, we've talked about this sport. He can't gaslate people on the economy. People know their own economic situation, right, And that's why we're starting to see these numbers improve because the media will not be able to hide it from people. At the fact that they're going to have on average one thousand dollars tax refund higher than lex tax season, They're going to be keeping more of their own money in their pocket because of the President Trump Republican policy, and they're.

59:15 Going to notice, and that's great. So we expect here on average, people will see a thirty eight hundred dollars tax refund that is a thousand dollars higher than last season, which is incredible, and that's a great thing. That's because of the individual tax cuts. We've seen things like no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, tax cuts for seniors, lower tax brackets, and permanently locking in all that pro growth tax cut policy. Yeah, and then on top of that, people are going to start, especially in this cold weather, are going to cuddle a little bit more, and the cuddling will result in an increase in burths and which will give them a thousand dollars with the you know, so here you got like a three four year window. Hey, to really add to the population. We need more babies anyway, So let's have more babies. And one thousand dollars you put it in their bank account, and they're going to say, at the age of eighteen, thank you very much, you know, for thinking about me, because I got all this money in the bank that I can use for school or you know, buy a car, you know, open up a business or whatever. Right.

1:00:19 And I'm really glad that the administration and Republicans are starting to highlight these Trump accounts because, as you just said, the media is not going to cover it. You got to force them to. This is a great idea. This is something that Centator Ted cruz let On and came up with the framework for and it's a great idea. It's a new savings account. It's temporary. I think it's something they'll end up making permanent. But as you said, thousand dollars starting in like, I think that's the brilliant idea here where it's very blunt. The problem with savings account is not enough people take advantage of them. So if you get one time starting balance, far more likely to invest in it, far more likely to see the benefits of it. I encourage everyone to go and do this. I have my own son born in twenty twenty five. He qualifies any it's going to be born between twenty twenty five and twenty.

1:01:02 So you and the wife are high fiving, going all right, yeah. You know, very supportive of this provision. So that's awesome, that's great. Well, you know the thing is, I'm thinking Hallmark, I have a special card this Valentine's Day, you know, to that end, right, you know, love is in the air, and so is the thousand dollars honey, come on, yeah. Great and so htr dot org Americans for Taxiforms website. We're keeping a track of all of these announcements of businesses that are coming out and seeing they're going to fund these children's Trump accounts. I think it's yeah, Well that's another thing. Can you imagine. Can you imagine about employee retention? I mean, is that going to make you want to stay with the company. Is that going to add value to your relationship with the company because they're thinking about not only the future, but the future of your children. Oh my goodness.

1:01:47 I mean, this is is a great deal. Yeah, And I think that's the way to think of it too, is for workers, this is another additional employer provided benefit. Your company can go in give it twenty five hundred dollars contribution for C three charitable organizations far higher ability to give. You're seeing all these announcements from businesses come out, and I think what's great here is if you're thinking long term, if we are ever going to do anything on entitlements in this country, we're going to do anything to get people less dependent on government for their retirement. This is how you have to start. And I think that's why this idea, it's you know, four year program right now expires in twenty twenty eight. I think it should be made permanent policy. I think this is the start of something good. And thank President Trump for signing us into law, and Senator Cruz for leading on this effort.

1:02:32 Yeah, I'm like you, I'm hopeful that it would continue. I think this is awesome. And last time I checked, you know, our birth rate is down. We're not replenishing our society, and so this will be the baby boom version part do what do you think? No? I think so. I think that's right what we're doing here, removing government barriers, removing tax barriers, making it easier for people to save and invest with a lower tax burden from the return on that. I think this is great policy. I think it clearly pro family policy that's going to help young families look mine. Yeah, exactly, Well, I agree with you. I think it's a great move. Well, you know, you mentioned the tariffs and how that's contributing to GDP. You know, so we got a couple of dynamics. We got the tariffs coming in Supreme courts overseeing that. We're just praying that they make the right decision. I understand it's a bit of a stretch, but you know, meanwhile, Congress is just sitting there waiting instead of preemptively giving us decision ahead of the Supreme Court. You know, to empower the president to do this, because you don't want to get into a situation where you're unwinding or causing some sort of confusion and you lose momentum with these tariffs.

1:03:46 Right well, I think you've seen Republicans specifically in the House talk a lot about this, the possibility of doing a second reconciliation bill to move both more economic policy and healthcare policy as well. Here, something Speaker Johns's been adamant about. Of course, we have the frustration of a very narrow House majority right now, where we have members continuing to retire, some not showing up for work, which has been a frustration. But I think the Speaker has been right about this. Republicans can't just sit on their hands until the next election. We have a unique opportunity here where we have Republican president, Senate, and House. The expectation that they should just sit on their hands do nothing for the next year into the election. I think that should be unacceptable to conservatives. We want There's no shortage of things we need to do that we need Washington to address, and I think they need to get moving on this. I'd highly encourage them to take up a second Reconciliation bill. We saw, you know, how they can pass the sweeping reforms in large chunks of the President's agenda. And the first bill we want to see more.

1:04:43 We want to see a second bill. Right And the other thing too is the heck with a filibuster. Let's just get stuff moving, Let's get it doing. You got to make hey, why the sun shines as the saying goes, and you know, get these things going because whether it's the tariffs and certainly the Fed is not doing us any favors. And I think Trump's got a big argument there and I want to address that when we come back. Mike Pallaz Mike is the American for Tax Reform tax Policy Director, and he's breaking it all down. We started off with some great news and even better news to stay with us. We've got more coming up right after this. On Sunday, February first, the sixty eighth Annual Grammy Awards will welcome AI back with an upgraded data driven fan experience thanks to IBM, the Grammy Awards official Artificial intelligence and cloud partner. This year, IBM will usher in the next era of interactivity, offering Grammy IQ built with IBM Watson X on Grammy dot com. By tapping into the power of agentic AI. The new feature transforms the Recording Academy's vast reserves of music data into interactive quizzes that put music lover's knowledge to the test for the chance to win prizes, to learn about this year's nominees and more.

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1:10:26 Well, and of course with Pal too, there's always this frustration of going back to the bidministration coming out of COVID. Right, the monetary policy was absolutely insane. He completely missed the story of inflation. Yeah. I think that alone is enough to justify the president's anger with him. Uh, you know, let let alone recent activity. But I think it just shows again the ridiculousness of the Fed here where we have, you know, what they think of themselves as an unaccountable fourth branch of government. They can do as it's pleased and set monetary policy from a you know, a handful of people. Uh. I think this is something we need to get congressional authority oversight, far more control over. But no, the frustration with Powell has been there from the beginning. I think the American people who right to be frustrated with him too, because he again entirely missed the biggest economic story the last five years, which has been the inflation story.

1:11:17 And he continues to miss that. You're exactly right. And the thing is is that this Trump has given him a lifeline to in a sense, kind of revive his legacy and his career right as the FED chief if he just followed Trump's lead. And you know, but he's I mean, he followed Biden's lead, right, Biden took him down down the road, and look what happened. I mean, it puts such a mark against his career and his legacy, and he has a chance now to do the right thing. I get it. He doesn't like Trump, so what, but look at you got to think of this long term, but he doesn't. And he's just a political eye is what He's proven to be right.

1:12:02 And the goodness is there is a ticking clock here. Yeah, his term's coming up. A thought, I believe, if I'm not incorrect about this, he will still be have a chair. Yeah, but Trump will have the ability to appoint a new FED chair. I think there's lots of floating of who that's been but that is only months away, not years away. So hopefully we'll get to see a major change here soon. Well you imagine, you know, Trump has been touting the Golden Age of America, as you mentioned GDP, all this stuff coming together, AI development, our energy sector is almost at full throttle. Venezuela's oil coming in. You know, wow, it looks it looks pretty bright. And if we can get all the cylinders going in the right direction, we get a new FED chief that understands how the FED can play an important role here in terms of monetary policy, because it's not like Donald Trump's asking the FED to do something goofy here, right, yeah, And I think.

1:12:59 Really quick you a great point just on energy overall right now too, where we've seen the price of gas comes significantly down, where we're seasonally adjusted low prices right now, which is great for consumers. And if we're making the price of gas cheaper and energy overall cheaper, you're lowering the cost of everything you're talking about. You know, everything in a grocery store gets there by truck, So if you're bringing down transportation costs or bringing down grocery prices, so I think just the deregulatory efforts. We've seen this Trump administration getting in of stupid things like Biden's electric vehicle mandate that's going to bring downward pressure on new vehicles. And this story of deregulation is another one the media doesn't like to focus on. We have to get the message out there not But it's not even just the deregulation.

1:13:41 It's companies knowing that there's not, you know, this Democrat administration out there with a bat ready to hit them at a moment's notice. Right. I think it's that change in the. Culture coming out of our regulatory system right now is what's also driving the growth we're seeing in improving economic situation. You know, Mike, you bring up a good point. You allude to the contrast here between the two administrations. I mean, America was in a lot of pain under the Biden administration. You know, yes, there were some people at the top end doing very well, thank you. Okay, they did very well probably you know, they claimed that there was more billionaires, but you know what happened to everybody else, the every day American. You know, they basically took their money and gave it to the billionaires. And you know, and it's the Democrats are always claiming that Trump is making the wealthy richer and the poorer poorer, and it was at what which is actually a big lie because it was Democratic policies that did exactly that. And so here they are projecting, they're kind of like projecting, you know, in the wrong season. You know, they needed to be saying that, you know, a couple of years back, not right now.

1:14:52 Trump has been reversing that that trajectory, and we're starting to see every day Americans benefit, you know, from this, Like you say, just real simple things, just you know, like gasoline and the effect that that has on the cost of goods all across the board. And I mean I paid this morning. I paid two dollars and forty nine cents a gallon here in Florida. Yeah, And I think what you're seeing right now, and again you're in Florida government of Republican run red state. We see a real strong contrast on tax specifically and ont affordability overall between what's going on in blue states and what's going on with the Trump administration Republican states. Look at a state like Virginia right now, where Abigail Spanberger, who you know ran as a moderate. I think everybody outlet through that tagline and every time they mentioned her name, Moderate Abigail Spamburger. She walks into office and now Democrats there are talking about every tax increase under the sun, to increasing tax on an investment, to talking about a new rate is highest state rate as low as high as thirteen percent. This is not what she campaigned done.

1:15:58 But the second Democrats get into office, we see that they've reached the tax hike lever. Immediately you're seeing blue states across the country. We're having this wealth tax discussion again, and it's just insanity. And you contrast that with the deregulation, lower tax policy coming out of the Trump administration, and we're starting to see this economic growth. And I think for voters it's the clearest contrast you could have. There's high tax Democrat run states versus what we're seeing coming out of Trump administration. Can you imagine the U haul trucks coming out of New York and Virginia. It's gonna be a race to get out of those Democratic controlled blue states and head for red country to.

1:16:40 I think you'll have more neighbors in Florida. So then yeah, well, hey, you're welcome as long as you leave your your political philosophy that helped promote these democratic policies that chase you out of town. Don't bring them down here. We don't need we don't need that. You know, this is a free country. We believe in the Constitution, we hold to it, and we're grateful for all the patriots that paid, as you know, a serious price. I mean, over a million patriots gave up their lives for freedom, and so we cherish it here in Florida, as other states around the country do as well. So you know, we're grateful for that. So the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is of course, this threat, and we're back to the looming threat of the Democrats wanting to shut down the government.

1:17:25 Yeah, and again we talk about this all the time. When Democrats see a crisis, they view as an opportunity. So here we have the you know, Democrats increasingly just calling for lawlessness in Minnesota, and now they're going to use this as a levers point to try and shut down the government unless they get their defund ice agenda passed. You know, it's just again playing politics. You're taking a controversial shooting. You see it as leverage on legislation, and this is something that Democrats. This is done in dusted. They were all ready to sign going into the weekend here and now we have another last minute hostile negotiation where they're trying to take hostages and we're sitting back waiting to see if we're going to shut the government down again.

1:18:08 Yeah, but how can you how can you defund something that's already been funded? You know, you can't, you can't. It's already there, you can't take it away. And so all you're talking about is funding what from to twenty thirty up, you know, twenty thirty and beyond. Right now they're funded through twenty twenty nine. And then number one, number two is we've already gone through that stupid mantra brought to you from Minnesota. They were the ones that's championed the defund police deal. Well, how did that work for you? How many blue cities and states are in trouble trying to find men in blue who'll come and work for them. And that's what and people should remember too that Republicans force President Biden's hand and Democrats have voted for increased funding to DHS, just as in the last few years here.

1:18:54 So the idea that they're just using this is another leverage point threatening a government shutdown. I think it shows one that they're not serious to the American people in two that they're willing to shut down the government play politics here in a dangerous situation, always taking the temperature higher in a controversial situation. When responsible politicians and we're seeing President Trump through this right now where he's reaching out and he's talking to the Minnesota Governor Tim Waltz trying to lower the temperature. He's being responsible one in the room, the adult in the room. It's Democrats who are threatening a shutdown over something that they agree to just last week. Well, you know, like you said, any they're so desperate that any kind of crisis they can grab onto desperately.

1:19:40 And that's what's clear. I mean, this party is desperate, and that's what we need to be careful of, because when people get desperate, they really do desperate things. We got to leave it there. Mike Politics, the American for Tax Reforms Tax Policy Director, Thank you, Michael, take care, Happy New Year, my friend. Have a good ni You're great to be with you do you. Have Medicare and do you use a seatpath. This is a National Healthcare alert regarding your SEAPAP supplies. Using a clean SEAPAP mask and clean supplies is important to staying healthy. The best way to make sure your SEATPAP equipment is clean is to get new supplies. If you have Medicare, we have great news. Medicare will pay for you to have new clean supplies every ninety days. We'll even do all the paperwork for you to make sure that there's little to no out of pocket cost to you, and you don't even have to leave your home. We provide free in home delivery.

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1:23:55 Nutrition for Patriots. Hey, welcome back America. Bill Martinez. Here for more information on the show. Bill Martinez Live dot com. Got a real treat for you. We're going to talk about a new series. It's not like that that is premiering with two episodes, and actually it just premiered right the first time, Yeah, the first episode and this is on Wonder Project subscription on Prime video and subsequent episodes. How many? How many more episodes we got in. There'll be six more episodes, each one dropping every Sunday.

1:24:36 So episode three drops this Sunday. We're very excited for folks to watch it. Well, we're blessed to have the show creators themselves, Ian Dytman and christ And Robinson did I say your last name. Correctly, Idytchman. It's okay, that was pretty close. I have so much worse I've had. Well, it's important because you know, like sometimes people will refer to me as Martin as my mother used to drive my mother nuts, you know. But it's okay, it's all right. So Ian and Kristen are with us right now to tell us all about it. Kristen, give us a breakdown. Go ahead. Oh gosh, this is a family drama that's really from the heart about all the messy goodness that comes with the challenges that families face, and very specifically in our case, uh, sort of the loss, the loss of a mom, grief with one family, divorced with another. And yeah, it's uh, you'll laugh, you'll cry, hopefully you'll see a little of yourself in it.

1:25:34 Sorry, Scott Foley and uh. And and uh I let's talk about the player, you know, Malcolm. Let's talk about Malcolm the pastor right, I mean he's key, right, go. Ahead, Well, I mean he's you know, when we drop into the pilot, it's been about nine months or so since his wife passed away, and he is just now he's taken a sabbatical from the church and he's a about to go back, and he and Laurie, who is. Was his wife's best. Friend, have kind of been helping each other, kind of leaning on each other, raising, you know, helping each other parent over the last few months, you know, last several months, and certainly over the last summer, and the kids are going back to school, he's going back to the church, and they're starting to catch feelings for each other, and the question is like, are those feelings real? Are they not?

1:26:30 Do I feel about LORI is it right for me to feel these things about my my wife's best friend? Like what are those about? It's not like that. That's kind of where where that launches. And I think for Malcolm, he's someone who's really had his rock taken away, which was Jenny, his wife, right, And so you know, stepping back into the role as a faith leader is something he thinks he's ready for, but maybe isn't quite four And that's one of the questions. One of the storylines in the pilot is him struggling to write his sermon for that Sunday because he's still kind of adrift, he's still in grief.

1:27:15 And Christian Laurie brings in an interesting dynamic herself. I mean she's freshly divorced and she has two teens, right, Yes. She has two teen daughters herself. And she also is very close to all of Malcolm's kids because she made a promise to Laurie that she would look out for them. I mean, she made a promise to Jenny rather, that she would look out for them. So she is struggling with motherhood and she's on her own face journey and trying to see what it means to be single again. And yeah, well and you know this kind of scenario in is it's not unique where you have a widow and family and you got kids, and he'd be nice to have some help. And you know, he's he's talking about being a pastor, so he's got you know, biblical issues to deal with and how do you align those?

1:28:11 And uh, you know, and here's my wife's best friend and wow, there's a lot a lot to deal with here. That's well, we hope. So that's what we looked, right, And you know, the more we did kind of research and talk to pastors in particular, it was so important for us to show kind of a three dimensional picture a portrait of Malcolm as a pastor, which is which is not just him in the church, but also that he's a man and you know, he's not going to always make the right choice. He's going to make mistakes, just like we all do. And we felt like that's something that you don't really see, we've never really seen on television before, but was had so much value in in kind of playing that and and kind of humanizing seeing the humanistic portrayal. And you know, we've these kinds of issues are things we've all been through. Everybody has fallen in love with someone, everybody is had friends fall away, everybody has lost someone. And so whether you're you know, wherever you are on your your faith journey or whoever you are, these are these are emotional things we've all dealt with and do deal with and we'll deal with.

1:29:27 So that's that's where we think it's it will hopefully speak to everybody. Well, and I think it does. Christian, you know, Mike Ian was just saying, I mean, this is a modern family drama centered on connection, second chances, navigating life after major transit. Who hasn't gone through something like that, right, right. That's right? And who and we all need someone to lean on, and even those of us who are trying to put our best foot forward make mistakes and and you know, redirect and yeah, it's a messy goodness. Yeah, I'll just add that it's also funny. Like that's the thing is that is that it's we love to write characters that have senses of humor because you know, I was heartbroken when my father passed away, but I also left so hard on that day with family members, and it's it's all such a mix, you know, And so we love writing scenes where the characters kind of slalom between, even within a conversation, between something that's funny and something that's you know, more emotional.

1:30:38 Well, Christian, what's just like for you? I mean you and Ian both are part of the creative team writers, as you were saying, to be able to get something like this, I mean, wow, this is incredible. The breath of opportunity is a writer to have, right. And we talk a lot about how shows like this there aren't its many of them as there used to be once upon a time, and being able to partner with Wonder Project and have them really embrace a family drama, smaller stories about the complexities of family life. Has been a dream come true and it's the perfect home for our show, and.

1:31:19 It's been it's been a dream. Yeah. And so yeah, we've always been fans of shows. We were on Parenthood, but those are our favorite kinds of shows and they're doing far between. So if you are enjoying it's not like that, please watch and tell other people that. The only way we'll get a second season is if people watch, because yeah, these are tough ones to get going. And how many episodes are planned for this season? Eight episodes? Eight and so you've got to what two in the can, as they say, right now, two. Are up right now? Then every other every Sunday a new episode will drop, right. That's great, Yeah, because January twenty fifth was the premiere and you dropped two on the twenty fifth, so it'll be a slight binge to catch up, right.

1:32:05 Yeah. That's good though. But they're also written, yeah, yeah, they're written to be able to you know, one story pushes into one episode pushes into the next. That's great. Well, you know, like you say, this is really kind of a modern family story, isn't it. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, modern and timeless at the same time, you know, we've all in terms of raising children. And yeah, right, and and what do you hope the viewer to pull out of the sea in? I mean, I think we both hope that viewers just fall in love with these characters. I mean these kinds of shows. That's really you know, that's what you hope for.

1:32:48 And we you know, we got on Parenthood season five, we were already in love with all of those characters. From the first four seasons. Yes, and so you know, we hope people tune in and just really to take these characters and these stories into their hearts. You know, we think they will. We think there's a lot there for them. Well, christ And I think that that's that's absolutely key. Is that. Uh, it's emotionally engaging, right. I don't think you can watch it and disconnect and and and not really, I just I think it just pulls in. It doesn't give you a choice. I think, Well, good, We hope people laugh and cry and come back for more and more. Yeah, and understanding and you're you're not laughing and crying alone, right exactly.

1:33:31 Well, that's exactly the bill. That's a great way to put it. No, it's it's the share. We're all on this big journey together, right, we can all a little love and kindness. Well, I again remind everybody how they can view It's not like that. I I want to be really specific. So it's on Wonder Project on Amazon Prime uh Prime Video. And the way you find it is if you go to the homepage of Amazon up at the top right, there's a thing that says Wonder Project. Click on that and you'll see. It's not like that. You just watch our show. It's a streaming show. So yeah, we're we're real excited for people to to go find it and watch it. Well, congratulations on this new series. Ian Dykman and Christian Robinson.

1:34:15 They're the team behind the feature film Life as we know it. Thank you so much for being with us. Take care, Thank you so much. Bills. Are you fifty or older, This news is for you. The CBC recommends you get vaccinated against new macacole pneumonia. Even if you're healthy, your age puts you at risk. People fifty or older are over six times more likely to be hospitalized with new macackl pneumonia compared to adults eighteen to forty nine. Just one shot and he'll protect you. Learn more and schedule at faxassist dot com. That's vaxassist dot com, sponsored Byfeizer. Do you owe the IRS ten thousand dollars or more in back taxes? Are you being audited or investigated? Has the IRS sent you a letter demanding payment? You may not owe what they claim. Make this free call to the tax doctor now let them negotiate with the IRS on your behalf.

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1:38:13 Plus you'll get a free vacation voucher. Call now one eight hundred seven eighty five nine six one eight. That's one eight hundred seventy eight five nine six one eight. Hey, we're back with you, Bill Martinez hero along with Adam Holtz from plugged in dot com, a ministry I focus on the family. How's that? Yea, that is profound. You got it, man, You're hired. I'll hire you any day. Well, speaking of being hired and maybe even fired, this social media on trial. I mean, this is a huge case. I mean you knew sooner or later this is going to be coming to a head, and it seems to be the case right now. What a story?

1:38:56 Huh Yeah, I mean I'm curious to get your perspective dive on it. So fill me in a little bit about what you think is most interesting is about the case? Well, it's something that we've been talking about a long time. You and I you know, for years, have been talking about, you know, the impact that social media has. It's almost it almost rhymes with the tobacco industry. You know, how tobacco got people addicted without their understanding, and then you found out later on they had you know, there was a reason why people got addicted because they had chemicals and everything like that. And so it's like they're you know, doing they they're opening up the hood on social media.

1:39:36 And you've got a California woman who is bringing the case and saying, look at I got addicted to this, and and I believe that, you know, the social media organization companies were responsible for this. And so there's you know, there's no denying now and all this is coming out. I mean to the point that you've got, like I think TikTok said, hey, we don't want to go to court. You know, we're right now. They settled out of court. They settled. Let's got our losses on this one. Well, and I don't know if you remember, but when there was the initial talk of banning TikTok a year ago or ish more or less, and by the way, I knew they would never do it because you follow the money, right, there's too much money, and even if the money is going to China, there's still too much money.

1:40:26 But there were some documents released by one of the attorneys general that was investigating that showed that TikTok's own internal research showed that it takes exactly thirty five minutes to become addicted. So you know, five minutes, you're kidding, Yeah, I mean because normally, in normal parlance, I mean, what does it take at least twenty one days to create a habit? Right? No? No, they say it's addictive in under an hour. And so when you know that they have those sorts of internal documents that have been released and exist out there, you know in the wilds of the internet, they don't have a case, right, And we know that these things have been engineered to get their hooks into you and to never let go. In the two thousand and I believe twenty or twenty one Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, which I still commend to people's viewing because it really is.

1:41:32 It's a cautionary documentary, really just interviewing people who got ethically queasy with being involved in this, and one of those was a guy named Tim Kendall who was the former CEO of Pinterest. And I'm going to paraphrase a little bit, right, but this phrase still just stops me cold, because I think it has biblical echoes. Unintentionally, he said, our goal is to get to get you to voluntarily give us as much of your life as you will surrender. Right, that is what is baked into the cake here. You say involuntarily or voluntarily? No, voluntarily, I mean basically yes.

1:42:12 They're trying to, you know, to coax you into to being engaged constantly. And to me, it sounds a lot like what we. See in John ten ten where Jesus says, you know, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but. I have come that you might have life, and have it abundantly and have it to the full. And I think that social media in particular, and the Internet in general, it makes a promise that it's going to fill us up and that that we're going to be satisfied by it that it absolutely cannot deliver on, and and what it ends up doing is stealing tons and tons of your time. You never get done. I mean even if you're just watching cat videos, right, I mean, let's just let's even forget about problematic content. I never get done. You know, well, first of all, you never sit down and watch one short form video. Never you know, you look up and twenty or thirty or forty minutes have gone by. I never get done spending time like that.

1:43:11 And I'm not going to say I'm not perfect here. I'm just like everybody else. Hey wait, it's a trap, There's no doubt about it. Because you sit there and after you've been on it for about thirty minutes, you go, I just wasted thirty minutes more. Well, that's what I was going to say. You never get done and say, man, I feel so satisfied with how I invested that time. That was such a good use of the limited, most limited resource that I. Have available, right. And so I think it does almost require a full reset. I do think that we were approaching something like the reckoning we had with cigarettes and tobacco in the nineteen sixties, where there's a growing recognition that the cost of this, especially for our young people, is enormous. And that's what this trial that you were talking about really is dealing with this lawsuit.

1:43:58 Well, and we get back to the basics here. This is who's going to control your life? Right? I mean, is it God or is it social media? And as you say, you come away from social media, and you say, man, I'm sure glad I invested the last hour and a half in social media. I just I feel just so much, you know, so much better improved. I'm a better human being as a result, and all this sort of thing. I mean that that quote from Tim Kendall, that is scary. Now, it's a scary quote. And you know, we can keep talking. I'll actually find it here real quick because I think I've got it somewhere. Well, when you find it, but anyway, it's but you need to send it, send it to me too, because that that is something that needs to be repeated quite often.

1:44:42 Yeah, it's just it really is one of those things that when you're watching it, it just for me, it just stopped me cold, right right that. Oh, there is there is intention here, right, there's This isn't an accident. This is what is by design, right it is. It is by design. And so we have to recognize that you're not spending forty minutes on TikTok accidentally as some kind of outlier. And it's not just TikTok. I mean, we we pick on TikTok because it has become the poster child for short form video right, But it it's Instagram, it's YouTube, it's Facebook.

1:45:32 They all have short form video. So uh, it's not just you know, it's not just. TikTok, right exactly, And it's all that clickbait. And like you said, you know, you may you may get into the ballpark there because you you know, you had something you were looking up for, something for you know, for work or maybe a research whatever, you know kind of deal. It was all good. But it's amazing how they get you to just make a make a little bit of a rite, right, and you just venture off to the right, and next thing, you know, then you're further and further right, and now you're down the rabbit hole. Now it is a rabbit hole, and and it's a rabbit hole that goes in so many different directions, right, I mean, you can go into something that is really really unhealthy. You know, you could get into pro anarexia content.

1:46:22 You can get into things that that glorify all sorts of problematic behaviors. And so it's just a it's a problem. Yeah. And the other thing that you're finding is, you know, I was just watching this story the other day out of this this young fan, this family and a young boy I think was in New York. I think he's was in Long Island and Wash, you know, drawn away from his family and to meet an individual he hadn't met before. And it shows him and the train station, and he's been missing. I think it could be several weeks. I may be miss misremembering exactly the time, but it's been a period of time. And you've got to imagine the heartbreak. I mean they showed his mother's mother she just you know, you can tell, I mean, not knowing where her son is. He's fourteen, fifteen years old and was convinced to, you know, come and meet a stranger in New York. God only knows what's happened to this young man.

1:47:24 So I got the quote here, and the first part I'm going to have in brackets, so I'm adding to the business model of social media. And now the quote starts is to keep people engaged on the screen. Let's figure out how to get as much of this person's attention as we possibly can. How much time can we get you to spend, how much of your life can we get you to give us? I mean, man, I mean when you put it, when you frame it like that, you know, I'm here, I am, I'm offering my life, and frankly, it does become I think it's appropriate to talk about it in terms of idolage, right, because God wants us to offer his life to him, not on the altar of this other thing. And you know, there's another correlation here with social media that I think is especially important right now. No matter where you're at on the ongoing conversation about what's going on with ice and immigration, I think that we can agree that social media is an accelerant, right because when I get on social media, I automatically categorize, Oh, you're one.

1:48:32 Of those people, Oh you're with us, right. It turns us into us and them, right. And it's not a dialogue like of all of the angry comments you see all over the place. Very rarely is. There a nuanced, mature, back and forth discussion between two people who have a different point of view. It's not designed, it's not designed for that. You know, you're exactly right, You've got to have a point counterpoint, you got to have this so who wants to walk into that room? Right? And And the thing is, we had a conversation with some good friends the other night, and I'll just I will say simply that we aren't quite on the same page with regard to what how we should be thinking about all this stuff with regard to ice and immigration.

1:49:18 And again, I don't want to I'm not even wanting to. Talk about the issue other than to say we had different points of view. We talked for two hours and it. Was not a comfortable conversation, but I think we were both able to hear each other, and neither one of us talked to the other one into our position. It wasn't like us became them or whatever. But by the end it didn't feel like us and them anymore. It felt like, Oh, we're having a real conversation here. And the reality is relationship, real relationship takes work. It's not comfortable. I have to get past my knee jerk reactions sometimes to get to a point where we could have a real talk about something. And exactly social media works against all of that.

1:50:02 And the thing is what makes it godly, Adam, is that after it's all said and done, compared to what you said earlier, you feel better for the opportunity. You feel better. Yes, And it's not easy, like social media is easy it's easy for me to get on and post some angry screed and then all of my other people who agree with me say, yeah, you're right, you're right. Pick any issue and you feel justified and reinforced in your position as opposed to I wonder if there's you know, a possibility that I need to think about this from a different perspective, right, or that I need a new input here there's no humility in social media. Well, I would say humility is more difficult on social media.

1:50:44 Let's put it that way. You got you find it in the rare earth part of life, exactly, and you know it's it's like Paul said, you know, you don't want to be on team Cephas or Team Peter or Team Paul. You know kind of deal. Way, that's exactly right, right, that's really. What bringing out a new impulse? No, exactly, Well, we got to leave it there, mister Adams. So tell everybody one more time. You are Adam Holtz. I am Adam Holtz, I am at plugged In. We are a ministry of focus on the family. Come check us out. You can see all of our reviews and movies, music, TV, video games, books, YouTube channels, technology, and more, and we're a ministry of focus on the family. We call ourselves Asap Travel for one reason. We can help you. Book a ticket asap. For those of you that don't know, that means as soon as possible. That means no waight time, you get through right away, no searching online. Our specialty is the lowest available fairs on the big name airlines.

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