Welcome to Nice Ashes, I'm Mike.
And I'm Nate.
What are we smoking, Mike?
Well, going with our last episode, we are going to be smoking a Rocky Patel Broadleaf.
This one is not a torpedo, and I would say it's a toro.
Not a toro.
It's not quite wide enough.
I would say it's a long robusto, but...
Yeah, could be.
I am quite excited for the Broadleaf.
I'm a little less excited after having smoked the Connecticut.
We're recording this one immediately after last week's episode, and I did have to run
in and grab some Scotch to get the taste of the last wrapper out of my mouth.
And taking two swigs of Scotch and holding it in my mouth has effectively cleansed my
palate.
So, thank you, Scotch.
But very similar label, both of these, we didn't mention, you can see it in the episode
picture.
And also we have more pictures of the cigar that we smoke on our Instagram page.
So we have one kind of standard image for our episode cover art, and then I take pictures
throughout the smoke of the stick and put them on our Instagram.
So if you want to see more pictures of the cigars being smoked, that is a place to do
it.
So we have the style, so the Broadleaf is in big bold letters, and then by Rocky Patel
is in short, italicized script underneath.
And it was the same for the Connecticut where the Connecticut took up most of the label
and the Rocky Patel took up the remainder underneath small.
I, man, I don't know what it is.
I got a weird taste in my mouth with the initial lighting.
And for some reason, it made me think of like slightly burnt frozen pizza coming out of
the oven.
I don't know if that was just me, weird or the scotch.
I don't know.
I haven't had that much scotch, just the two swigs.
Yes, it was slightly burnt.
Still is first couple puffs, slightly burnt, not acetone, kind of, I see where you get,
I would say like burnt bread.
Yeah, yeah, like the pizza crust is kind of what I was thinking.
You burn the bottom of the crust or something and you think it's like a good pizza and then
you just get that burnt taste.
Right, not unpleasant in my opinion.
It's not unpleasant.
It was a surprise, but you know, it's the first, we always have to be generous in the
first inch, half inch to an inch of a cigar for sure because some of them just don't start
well.
Yeah, that's kind of a theme around here with the reasonably priced cigars.
Yeah, yeah, it definitely can be.
Palette cleansers definitely recommended for some of them.
For this one, I would say you need to clear it off a little.
Yeah, that is true.
And my girl, my girl Rocky, she's not taking care of us these last two sticks.
Well, the stick is young with this one, still of legal age, but you know, we have plenty
of stick left to go for this one to turn.
Turn it around and redeem these two.
Maybe we got spoiled by the edge, you know, I think we've liked every edge we've smoked,
particularly the edge fuma.
Yes, which is coming up here in a couple of weeks.
We're going to do a edge Corojo comparison to a edge Corojo fuma.
So I'm excited.
I'm excited.
We're going to do the edge first and then the fuma.
So we should have the real deal and then we'll see the copycat.
Perfect.
Yes, yes.
Or what you would consider made of slightly lesser bits.
Yes.
Yeah, it's not a copycat in the literal sense.
It's yeah.
Yeah.
The even the even more budget version of the budget stick, which of course the edge fuma
performed very well previously that we've smoked.
So those I'm looking forward to this one after I kind of let it sit for just a little bit.
I think the burnt taste is gone.
Still not an entirely overwhelming positive taste, but for me it's rounded out maybe quarter
of an inch in.
It's rounded out.
Yeah.
It's dark, not overly dark.
Yeah.
Still a little burnt, but not in an unpleasant way.
Yeah, a slight amount of burn.
It's like the La Croix of burnt.
It was stored near something that was burning.
What are we talking about this episode, Mike?
Well, this is a Nate knows.
And I was told specifically after being sent a website to not look at it.
Yes.
And I didn't.
I do have some background information.
That was a test and you've passed.
Yes.
I have background information just being a fan of politics as I am.
But we're going to be talking about Project 2025.
Indeed, which you've heard bandied about the news and there are some liberal people out
there that are getting excited that the one of the most searched for things on Google
has been Project 2025.
They think it's some secret hidden thing that nobody should be looking at and that it's
super nefarious.
And we're going to go through this.
Now, Mike, I want to tell you full disclosure.
And I want to tell I want to tell the listeners full disclosure.
You can go and Google Project 2025 and you can download the full mandate for leadership
PDF, or you can buy the book if you want to spend money on something like this.
This is a 922 page mandate for leadership, leadership plan, transition plan, whatever
it might be.
It's 922 pages.
Do you know what Nate did not do?
Read 922 pages in the last four days.
That's right.
So I thought what better time, what better way to live in 2024.
I fired up my buddy, the old chat GPT, not a sponsor.
And I asked it to not only summarize Project 2025 for me, but to give me talking points
for a podcast episode.
And it gave me bullet points and it wanted me to fill out those bullet points.
And I told it, why don't you fill out those bullet points?
And it did.
So I'm mostly going to be going off of what the chat GPT told me.
This is not an episode written by AI.
This is consuming the data into digestible tidbits so that Mike and I can give our input.
So chat GPT is not writing what Mike and I are saying right now.
Oh, wait, chat GPT wants me to go wink, wink.
I'm just kidding.
No, I had it summarize the data and kind of break it down into digestible chunks for us
to talk about.
So I'm going to put the document up so we can certainly do a control F or search within
the document to get to what we need to find.
I did want to kind of verbatim at the beginning because I did read the first 10 or so pages
of it.
I did want to read some of that before we get into going and breaking it down fully.
Does that sound good, Mike?
Well, Nate, period.
I think this is going to be great.
Exhalation point.
Pause.
Yes.
So I just wanted to mention up front, I'm not reading 922 pages of any political mumbo
jumbo.
And I suppose that's the problem, right?
Is they make all the bills that they pass 900 pages, so nobody will read it.
Sure.
Can I just say this?
I'm getting vibes here.
Yeah.
Okay.
I'm getting sovereign citizen vibes immediately just from the language you're using to describe
it.
Yeah.
Is that?
So I could download it for free, but I had to send them a self-addressed in brackets
and the zip code.
And then they sent it to me on my email.
So I don't know why I had to send them a letter, an envelope.
It was a stamp with your legal name, not your birth certificate name.
Yes.
And they said, protect this at all costs.
We don't want people Googling this.
Yes.
I want to read from the beginning a bit from the kind of the introduction.
I think that's what they call it.
They call the introduction bit a promise to America.
So the first sentence, the first few sentences here, 44 years ago, the United States and
the conservative movement were in dire straits.
The sultans of swing were not there, I guess, unfortunately.
Both had been betrayed by the Washington establishment and were uncertain whom to trust.
Both were internally splintered and strategically adrift.
So they're trying to rectify something that happened 44 years ago.
I'm not 44 years old.
I don't know what they're talking about.
They're talking about the 1970s, I guess, or something and Cold War bullshit and blah,
blah, blah.
And then they go on for a few paragraphs.
And then they go, the bad news today is that our political establishment and cultural elite
have once again driven America toward decline.
The good news is that we know the way out, even though the challenges today are not what
they were in the 1970s.
So for something that's supposedly project 2025, it's written like this is project 1970.2
or something.
But don't take my word for it.
They will say it for me.
Conservatives should be confident that we can rescue our kids, reclaim our culture,
revive our economy and defeat the anti American left at home and abroad.
We did it before and we'll do it again.
As Ronald Reagan put it, freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation
away from extinction.
It's not ours by way of inheritance.
It must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation unless it's making colleges
a for profit thing that we can also make money off of as the government because fuck people
that want to be educated.
I'm sorry, that last bit was me.
But Ronald Reagan said it in so many policies.
Let's go back here.
44 years ago is when Ronald Reagan was elected to office.
So they're trying to correct something that happened when Ronald Reagan was elected to
office.
Is that what I'm picking up here?
I never said this is intelligent.
They love Ronald Reagan.
He's the one that reclaimed.
They're saying Ronald Reagan was what got the conservatives back on track.
Oh, with his dog whistling that the Democratic Party changed.
He didn't.
Okay, got it.
You have to understand this is the conservative promise.
This is the opening.
So this is the kind of, this is where I kind of stopped reading because it's so much fucking
bullshit.
So then it goes, this volume, the conservative promise is the opening salvo of the 2025 presidential
transition project launched by the Heritage Foundation and our many partners in April
2022.
It's 30 chapters and well over 900 pages might I add, lay out hundreds of clear and concrete
policy recommendations for the White House.
So this is just the Heritage Foundation and partners and there's 15 pages of partners
listed or 20 pages of partners listed at the beginning of this thing and opening salvo.
So they're already using militaristic and bombastic language.
So I already hate it.
You know what I mean?
Well, we've already established at least between the two of us, maybe not with the people who
are listening that both of the major political parties in the United States have fascist
tendencies.
So that's why we have the war on whatever the social problem is of the day instead of
coming up with policy solutions that would help mitigate consequences of people making
free choices that have negative societal consequences.
Yeah.
You know what's funny is didn't Ronald Reagan, did he start the war on drugs?
Who started the war on drugs?
Nixon.
Well, congratulations to drugs for winning that war and a heartfelt congratulations to
Joe Biden for winning the war on Medicare.
Thank you, Joe.
All right, so they have four broad fronts.
These are the battlefields that these Heritage Foundation and agents want to strike at.
They think these are the fronts that will decide America's future.
Four of them.
Mike, and you can tell me what you think of these.
Number one is restore the family is the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.
I'm pretty sure that the number one threat to children is bad family.
I thought the number one threat to children was priests and pastors and deacons, but I
could be wrong.
School teachers are technically more dangerous.
Just throwing it out there.
Okay, sure.
But that does all of those boil down to their family not actually taking care of the things
that the family is supposed to take care of and pushing their responsibilities off on
others.
Yes.
Number two, dismantle the administrative state and return self-governance to the American
people, which is actually one I agree with, at least on face value, let's say.
On face value, I would have to look at what exactly they're talking about.
Are they talking about changing the limits on how many birds you can shoot or are they
talking about something a little more nefarious?
Yes.
Well, we'll get there, Mike.
Number three is defend our nation's sovereignty, borders and bounty against global threats.
We're defending our bounty now, I guess.
And then four, which is, I don't know, queue up, proud to be an American, right?
Get it ready, Mike.
Get it ready.
Secure our God given individual rights to live freely, what our constitution calls the
blessings of liberty.
Okay.
You missed your cue.
I'm not hearing the track.
I'm not hearing the song.
I got my patriotic boner.
It's ready, Mike.
That's just babble.
That's nonsense talk.
It doesn't mean anything.
Yes.
But now here we go.
These are the failures and then they go on a couple paragraphs, not important.
And they go, Reagan defeated these beasts by ignoring their tentacles and striking instead
at their hearts.
His approach to the Cold War, we win and they lose.
Hey, congratulations.
You've seen a football match.
Good for you.
His economic agenda, the human dignity of work and his many rewards.
That's not an, I don't think that's an agenda.
That's a bumper sticker.
And they go on.
I don't understand what they're even saying.
I don't even understand what that means.
I'll be a hundred percent honest.
I'm trying not to be obtuse and contrarian to-
Hey man, I'm right there with you.
Not you.
Not me.
Yeah, not you.
I didn't write this thing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I just don't understand what it means.
Yes.
And I want it to be clear that this is part of the big reason why I had ChatGPT summarize
this for us because I swear to God, I don't know what they're trying to do.
I think they think Reagan is more well-loved than he actually is in retrospect, but I don't
know.
Let's see.
So I wanted, there was one bit in here.
Oh yeah, here we go.
Here we go.
This is it.
This is the, this is the one.
Today, the left is threatening the tax exempt status of churches and charities that reject
woke progressivism.
They will soon turn to Christian schools and clubs with the same totalitarian intent.
Right?
They're talking about the totalitarian state of the left.
The next conservative president must make the institutions of America civil society
hard targets for woke culture warriors.
This starts with deleting the terms, deleting terms.
This is not totalitarian, by the way.
The left is the only one that's totalitarian.
Deleting terms is not in any way, shape or form totalitarian.
Totalitarian, totalitarian.
Sorry.
They use all these big words like they think they know what they mean, but they don't.
Uh, so they're going to delete the terms, sexual orientation and gender identity, diversity,
equity and inclusion, gender, gender equality, gender equity, gender awareness, gender sensitive,
abortion, reproductive health, reproductive rights, and any other term used to deprive
Americans of their first amendment rights.
So they're deleting terms to save the first amendment?
That is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard in my entire life.
That is idiotic.
Restricting language is, in my opinion, never a viable solution.
Yeah.
I have to read this next bit and then I'm going to, I'm going to switch you over because
we could just go, we could go, I don't know, how many episodes would it take for us to
read 920 pages of this, Mike?
It'd be like 20 episodes, but I want to read this next paragraph and then we're going to
get into the summation and the summaries and stuff like that.
I just, this is, this is their starting.
This is their forward.
This, this is, this is like watching the debate that we just talked about.
This is a train wreck already.
Okay.
So the next thing after they're talking about stripping everybody of their first amendment
right to protect the first amendment, right?
Pornography manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization
of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate
claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, child welfare.
It has no claim to first amendment protection.
Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women.
I'm pretty sure pornography existed before any transgender ideology came into the public
knowledge awareness.
They used to have the oldest that through the place always been around.
Well I'm getting to that.
So back in the day before we had a more progressive Supreme Court in the 1930s.
And before women could own credit cards.
Yeah.
Before women could own credit cards or own property or whatever, the post office was
the one who managed and banned pornography because people would send pornography to the
mail and then the post office would search your mail and arrest people for sending pornography
through the mail, which I guess I don't know if that's like the level that they're talking
about but it seems like a pretty restrictive effort, especially when other countries have
banned Renaissance art for having nudity.
And I know that there are certain religious institutions that have called for censoring
art, actual art in museum art, not what we would consider pornography today.
They're a little more extreme with their interpretation of what pornography is.
And I think, I don't know, you can make the argument that any art that shows nudity is
I guess pornographic, but then you would also have to make the argument that looking at
yourself in the mirror is pornographic.
Just because somebody is naked doesn't mean they're penetrating somebody else in a sexual
fashion or you know what I mean?
Like I don't know all the definitions and all of that stuff.
I think there is a lot when they're talking about sex offenders and people taking advantage
of children, if children are taught about their body and bodily autonomy, they can say
no to things earlier or tell somebody who can stop things before something happens because
a lot of the child predators and things have a grooming process.
So if they know what's comfortable and not comfortable to them, they can easily tell
somebody I'm uncomfortable around this person and here's why.
But I don't think you get that by getting rid of art that shows bodies.
I don't think you need to look at art that shows bodies to do that.
But I think being willing and able to talk about bodies is very important.
And I think being able to use terms that haven't been deleted out of I don't know where, I
don't know how they're going to delete all these words, but you can't delete words and
have greater understanding of things.
That's not how that works.
This is to me on the surface, an attempt to remove the responsibility of parents to be
involved with their children's lives and put that responsibility on others.
Oh, but it's not Mike because their next paragraph after they're talking about pornography should
be outlawed, the people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned.
There's a public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders.
How many, when you were going through school, Mike, how many times were you handed a titty
mag from your teacher?
Nate, you already know the answer to that.
I do want to make the statement.
We live in a country and I brought this up before, I don't know on the show, but to you,
where you can watch the Lord of the Rings and orcs can get their heads cut off, but
no blood and that's a PG-13.
13 year olds can legally go on their own.
They will not be stopped, but if an incidental genitalia gets exposed, it's rated R.
Yes.
Or if a cigarette is smoked, it's rated R.
So.
Or if they say fuck more than once, it's rated R because you can go to a movie PG-13 and
they're allowed one fuck, not a mother fuck, but a regular fuck, but it can't be used in
the term, it can't be used in a sexual manner.
So they can't say you are fucking her, but they can say, oh fuck.
Right.
So there's a little distinction there.
It's goofy.
What I'm saying is that in a normal human lifespan, you are going to see other people
naked on occasion.
You are not probably going to see somebody's head cut off with a sword.
Hopefully not.
Hopefully, I mean in a normal human life.
I mean, these people are forgetting about the gym locker room where you change our gym
teacher, Giant Perv, kept the door open while the boys and the girls were changing in his
office.
The office sat between the two locker rooms.
Now you could say, well, he has to kind of like keep an eye so that nobody's bullying
anybody else or something like that.
But on the other hand, there's minors changing.
So I don't know.
I don't know what to do with that.
In our, well, this is not the good part.
We're getting off the topic.
Our real gym teacher would do the same, but he was not looking at all.
He was solely listening for a fight to break out in the boys locker room more or less.
I don't think he had access to the girls locker room, but the boys locker room-
Ours had access to both.
Both.
Okay.
Both were open.
So- Yeah.
He was just listening to make sure nobody was fighting.
He was also a football coach.
So yeah.
And had a wife and all that extra stuff.
He wasn't a creep by any means.
Yeah.
I don't know if this guy was actually a creep or not.
It was just, it was one of those situations where it's like, we're changing in here.
The door's open.
I can kind of like lean back and he's sitting there at his desk, which is facing both doors,
by the way.
And he could go and you couldn't see into the women's locker, the girls locker room,
but you could see that the door was open and presumably it was the similar layout just
mirrored.
And so he could see equally into both of them, which is just weird enough for me.
It's just weird enough for me.
Anyway, then they go on to say, in our schools, the question of parental authority over their
children's education is a simple one.
Schools serve parents, not the other way around.
Then they go on to say, no, no, no, no, no.
The parents need to have the ultimate say.
So it seems like they need to make up their minds or they're conflating two things that
aren't, aren't equal.
So but now let's get into some of it.
Okay.
I just, I had to read some of those things because I was reading these and I was thinking
the exact same thoughts you were thinking.
I'm like, what are they talking about and how are they going to do any of this?
And how does this relate to anything?
You can't protect the first amendment by deleting words and outlawing art that you don't agree
with.
Uh, I think we've already established that I'm very close to a free speech absolutist.
Yes.
Uh, very close.
And you can, and you can flame me and say pornography isn't art.
I don't know.
I think, I don't care either.
I think anything that somebody creates can be art and it just so happens it's not an
art form you prefer to consume.
And maybe, and there are some people who say I'm an adult.
I don't watch cartoons.
Great.
Are you going to outlaw cartoons for adults then?
Like what, like, no, who cares?
You just don't consume it.
You don't like it.
Don't consume it.
That's the basic simplest thing.
If you don't like it, don't consume it.
A little closer to home for me.
I'm an outdoorsman and I am against destroying our federal lands and natural resources.
And I am for protecting the environment so that future generations can have the same
hobbies that I have.
Yes.
I do not want people who say let's kill all the deer and turn everything into concrete
and pump jacks and industrialized areas banned.
I don't want them to just be silenced.
I want there to be a debate so people can weigh in on whether or not they want to just
flatten the mountain and take all the resources or leave the mountain there for people to
enjoy recreationally.
Yes.
Along those same lines, Mike, there are, and this is just, this is a reality.
There are things needed to have the society we have today.
There's no other way to say it.
You need to feed people.
You need to provide them energy and water and resources and goods and things.
Like those things have to happen and roads have to happen.
It's a necessity of our way of life.
And you could have people that say, oh, we should all just live in yurts and canvas tents
and be one with nature and this and that.
And that's fine, but you don't get mass production of yurts and canvas tents without the infrastructure.
So you have to have some sort of infrastructure.
That being said, there are a lot of movements worldwide in major metropolitan areas to create
more green space, parks, trees, reserves, reserves for animals and more pedestrian lanes
and bike lanes and walking paths and nature bike trails.
So to your point, they're not mutually exclusive wanting to preserve nature and preserve society.
They're not mutually exclusive.
You don't have to say I want nature to the extinction of society or I want society to
the extinction of nature.
There's things and ways to do things and make sense.
And the pandemic proved that there's all of these business complexes, business leases
and these business buildings that are vacant and nobody's ever coming back to them.
Green space, green space, those green space, them make them green spaces.
You know, I don't know.
Does it make money for the companies that own the lease or own the properties?
No, probably not.
There's probably a government grant for it.
So someone's going to make money.
It's not going to be you or I.
But, you know, I'm just saying there's ways to do to achieve both.
And it starts with the conversation for sure.
I agree.
And that's I'm for that conversation.
Minneapolis, a city we both know and love, they have a huge amount of green space along
the rivers and those rivers produce a lot of wildlife.
And there's arguments about whether or not they should allow hunting there.
And they currently do.
You have to get special licensing and all this stuff to be able to shoot deer with bows
and everything like that.
And I'm for shooting the deer.
But that's the conversation that I want to have.
There should be pushback against that in case somebody gets a little over aggressive about
whatever their agenda is.
Nobody has all the answers.
But you know who does have all the answers is the Heritage Foundation and Ronald Reagan.
Somehow Ronald Reagan returned.
All right.
So the project 2025 is an initiative by the Heritage Foundation.
It aims to prepare conservative leadership and policies for the next Republican presidential
administration.
And in the actual document, they said the next conservative president in 2025 needs
these things.
So they have already assumed that the conservative candidate who's not officially been named
yet will win.
It's a good guess right now.
I'm just saying.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's not it's not out of the realm of being entirely possible.
So it's a comprehensive governance blueprint.
It offers detailed policy proposals, administrative strategies and personnel recommendations.
It focuses on reforms in immigration, health care, energy policy, education and regulatory
practices.
And it identifies and trains individuals for key government positions to ensure effective
implementation of the aforementioned policies.
And it has an implementation strategy where the emphasis is on swift and decisive action
in the early days of the administration to secure the policy goals.
They don't want to mess about.
They want these instituted right now.
They want pornography banned right now.
They want all these woke words, heavy air quotes, deleted, just gone, erased off of
the face of the planet.
They're the real threat to America, not foreign powers, not immigration.
It's these words.
I don't know how to stress that to everybody listening.
Words are dangerous, okay?
This sounds an awful lot like a conservative version, a Christian conservative version
of the World Economic Forum.
I do not disagree at all.
Also, cigar check.
I'm about halfway.
Okay.
I'm about a third in, so I got to smoke a little more.
I've been doing more talking, so I'll pick it up.
Well, I'll have to slow down a little because I'm starting to really enjoy this cigar.
Okay.
It's so far it's been kind of meh for me.
It's been fine.
Nothing special.
Really better than the cadet kit.
The burnt taste is gone, which is great.
I'm getting a rounded, smoky, I'm still getting that burnt undertone now you put it in my
head.
It's rounded and smoky, very dark medium body flavor profile.
I'm really enjoying it.
Okay.
Shockingly.
I was not expecting a lot after the last one.
Maybe that's...
Yeah, it's totally tampered my expectations the last one did.
Right.
Maybe it's because I haven't smoked a cigar in a while before the last one.
That's been way too hot.
Yeah, it has been way hot.
It's been so, so hot, but I'm really enjoying it.
It's not something that yet, something that I would say go out and buy, but so far it's
good.
It's not anything special necessarily, but it's solid.
No, I would say so far it's fine.
It leaned pretty heavy on the burnt the first couple puffs, which was an interesting flavor.
I know that we're literally lighting tobacco leaves and inhaling them, but it's not something
that you necessarily look for in a cigar to taste burnt.
I agree with Mike.
It's definitely rounding out.
It's getting better as it goes.
There's hope there, but again, right now it's not a recommend, but it's one of those ones
where at least at present, if it were offered to me from somebody, I wouldn't turn it away.
Agreed so far.
Yeah.
The key areas that we just mentioned, the immigration, they have immigration, healthcare,
energy, education, and regulatory reforms.
They want to strengthen the borders, reform the immigration system, and enforce existing
laws.
They want to increase competition in healthcare, reduce regulations, which I think is a fantastic
idea, if anything needs to be less regulated, it's healthcare, and provide more choices
to consumers.
Now, I do agree with increasing competition and in providing more choices to consumers.
I don't know that the reduction of regulations is going to accomplish that goal.
I know the big companies in healthcare basically buy the politicians and keep all the smaller
things off of the market through the rigorous FDA testing that they have to do, but I don't
know, is that regulation or is that monopolistic, whatever behavior?
Even if it's legal.
Is it competent regulation or has our system devolved to the point where it's monopolistic
control of the regulator?
Are we in a fascist system where the monopolies get to dictate the regulations to limit their
competition, which is probably, in my opinion, where we're at.
That's the issue with the regulation.
It's not the regulations.
It's the method we've used has allowed the biggest players to eliminate any competition.
Yeah, and the twisting of those regulations, which we talked about briefly in the, or not
briefly, but we talked about it in the debate episode, our previous episode, where they
set forth these rules to exclude competition, basically, RFK Jr.
But those rules should have also excluded Trump and Biden, but they didn't because reasons,
right?
So I think that's kind of where our healthcare is.
The rules are there that should allow competition, but it doesn't because reasons.
The next area of focus is energy, emphasis on achieving energy independence through deregulation
and promoting domestic energy production.
So again, they want to deregulate a lot.
And in my younger days, I would say rah rah, get rid of all the regulations and let the
free market decide.
But the problem is the free market doesn't decide, the corporate entities decide.
So until they start saying stripping corporations of rights, I don't want anything deregulated.
I want more regulations.
I have insider information about the energy industry because I worked in the energy industry.
And I don't think they mean deregulating permits to allow energy companies to build new facilities.
I think they mean environmental regulations.
And most responsible energy producers don't actually want environmental regulations to
be decreased.
A lot of them want them to be increased to give them competitive advantage over less
responsible producers, right?
But they do want to build new facilities.
And right now, we're not building new facilities.
And that's a problem.
So I can see, I don't think they mean allow new facilities to be built.
I think they mean allow energy producers to pollute, to protect the less scrupulous, less
responsible producers.
I would be willing or eager to agree with you with your assessment of that based on
what I read verbatim from their actual foreword.
They're all wearing the bracelets.
What would Ronald Reagan do?
Right.
Yeah.
What Ronald Reagan did caused environmental restrictions on energy companies because acid
rain was killing off the forests in the western part of the nation.
Yeah.
I don't know why those west coasters can't just suck it up and deal with the acid rain.
Right.
Just kidding.
All right.
Education.
Advocating for school choice.
So they want universal school choice, parental control, reducing federal involvement in education.
Which is a mistake.
Dog whistle.
Yeah.
Potentially a dog whistle.
I believe, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, I don't disagree with some school choice.
I mean, I really like why isn't all school free?
But that's a different question.
But advocating for school choice is you're going to end up, I believe you can correct
me if I'm wrong, Mike, I believe you will end up with pretty drastically segregated
schools.
That is the potential dog whistle.
Just like how charter schools can end up being segregated, let's call it, if they're done
in a certain way.
It all depends on how you set the rules up.
But if you deregulate, then you're allowing people to discriminate based on physical characteristics
and not...
And even, you know, economic, socioeconomic.
In the modern world, it would be based on socioeconomics and religion.
It wouldn't necessarily be on race.
Because Edina is not going to exclude a family just because they're the wrong race.
They're going to exclude people based on their economic status.
Yeah, but I don't think school choice is the school's choice.
I think that's the parents' choice.
It is.
It is the parents themselves allowing their children to go to certain schools and then
having the schools have the right to not take students because school A can't take every
student in the whole planet.
Right?
They have to limit it.
So how do you set the rules to where the administrators get to deny students?
Right?
So they can deny a student for any reason and that reason could be not the one they
say it is.
Exactly.
The same for terminations in the corporate world.
You're terminated due to performance or economic budget reasons, not because of your skin color
or gender or anything else.
But the promotion is based on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
It's not based on performance or whatever.
There's funny language to allow bad acting.
Funnily enough, that language isn't the language they want to delete.
Real mysterious that.
Next up is regulatory reforms.
They want to reduce bureaucratic red tape, which I think everybody should be down for
simplifying regulations.
And here's the kicker, Mike.
Here's the kicker.
They're promoting a business friendly environment.
Where's all this family talk you were talking about earlier?
You want to promote a business friendly environment?
Shouldn't it be a family friendly environment or more specifically a small business friendly
environment?
You know what's really anti-business friendly?
Safety regulations.
Whoa.
And they what?
They want to get rid of a lot of regulations?
Weird.
That has to be a weird coincidence.
They can't possibly mean what I think we think they mean.
Right.
And the best part about all this is that OSHA started under Nixon because working in construction
and in certain manufacturing was a fucking death trap.
And even Nixon had to correct the wrongs that were going on.
They want to roll back to that?
That doesn't make any sense.
Well, it does from a certain perspective.
Reagan was Jesus and Trump is Jesus 2.0 or 3.0.
I don't remember what update we're on on the old Jesus, but it's up there.
Never deny the Messiah.
Okay, my friend.
The sleeper has awoken.
My dune, my arachis.
Then they've got personnel and administrative strategy.
They're going to identify and train individuals who align with these values they've outlined.
They have a pool of qualified candidates already ready to step into the roles from day one.
And they're going to have a well-prepared team in place.
And they want to avoid delays and ensure that the administration can hit the ground running.
Which is just good planning.
It's just good planning.
Sorry your kid has to go to a shit hole school.
It's just good planning.
Sorry you're destroying the environment.
It's just good planning.
Yeah.
Sorry your employer doesn't have to provide safety equipment.
It's okay.
Sorry you can't have a, huh, what is it?
I wish I had a word to describe what it is when you're pregnant and you can't be pregnant
or don't want to be pregnant.
I don't know what that term is.
I can't say it anymore because that was deleted.
The actual fuck.
Okay.
They've got a whole section on importance of early action.
So the thing is, you know what this sounds like to me?
This sounds like that Toby Keith album, Shock and Ah, which was also our military strategy
in the Middle East after 9-11.
They want, they're saying the first 100 days of a new administration are critical to set
the tone and achieving early policy wins.
I don't know how many new presidents come in and do stuff in the first 100 days.
I don't know that that's how politics works because politics isn't really about action.
It's about sucking up to one another and finding out who has the most power or something like
that.
But that's what they want to do.
First 100 days, they want to get all this stuff done.
They want to secure momentum and establish a strong foundation for the administration
priorities as if they haven't been watching every president for the past, what did they
say, 44 years?
Each president kind of gets one thing that they can do.
And then there's the filibusters and the arguing and the things not passing and then the president
trying to override and the vetoes and the overriding the vetoes.
And are they in the same country we are, Mike?
I don't, do they seem a little out of touch with how things work or am I out of touch?
It sounds like a great propaganda piece to appeal to the base.
And then it gives their political opposition a talking point because the real goal is to
keep people talking about bullshit like this instead of real reforms that would help our
society.
Because I have noticed nowhere did they talk about reforming the drug classification system
or...
Well, that's an interesting...
Reforming the tax code, right?
There are things that we need, reforming criminal justice, reforming policing and police training.
And maybe we do need more police and then the police also need more training.
And so you need fewer police hours on the street and more in the classroom.
So maybe you do need to increase the police to have a better police force.
Right?
Yeah.
So I did a quick search, they mentioned drugs 96 times in 900 pages.
The next one they talk about after pornography was they're talking about Big Tech and the
worst of these companies prey on children like drug dealers.
Man, I don't know how many drug dealers are marketing to kids.
Kids don't have disposable income typically.
I don't disagree, but I was pretty sure that you can't join a social media site unless
you're 13.
Now, I know the test for that is, are you over 13 or enter your birth date?
And it's like an honor system, but you know, they're, man.
I'm not against social media reform, but comparing it to drugs is a trope that is so worn out.
Yeah.
So worn out.
Exactly.
And I don't know what else I don't, I'm not seeing anything else here.
I know there's like 96 versions of it, but if they're talking about, if their first mentions
of drugs are pornography and technology, they probably don't care about actual drugs.
I have to agree.
Or they feel the same as the status quo, which is all drugs are bad.
People shouldn't have a choice.
If you do drugs, you're a criminal.
It's ridiculous.
All right.
And they also want to impact future administrations.
So they want to provide a roadmap that future Republican administrations can follow to implement
conservative policies effectively.
So they're trying to be all comprehensive and think far enough in advance that every
future presidential candidate will also want this, this plan.
Right.
I know many conservatives.
I am again, everybody knows an outdoorsman.
So many people who enjoy hunting and outdoor sports and things of that nature are conservative,
but they're not the conservatives that don't want governmental regulation.
Anybody who goes outside understands that the only reason we have any natural resources
to enjoy is because of government regulation.
Teddy Roosevelt.
The national parks.
National parks, hunting and fishing regulations.
Right.
You don't think that Corporation X is going to net every lake in the country.
Oh, yeah.
Pollute every river, destroy every mountain, clear cut every forest.
Of course they would.
That's how things are.
Read Silent Spring.
Right.
DDT was going to kill every bird in the country.
Could have if it wasn't regulated.
Even farmers, they want guidance on how to spray their fields because they don't want
to kill off themselves and all the wildlife.
Well, yeah, and look at pollinators.
Without regulation, there'd be no pollinators.
Yes.
Well, as you know, and maybe the listeners know, we have pollinator gardens at my home.
We have a huge bee population here, and I call them my bees.
I don't harvest any honey, but I certainly landscape to allow them to thrive at my home,
at least.
Yes.
Yeah, we don't have a pollinator garden, but we plant things that butterflies and bees
like.
And then I try and kill and destroy and burn and squash every fucking wasp and hornet I
see because fuck those things.
Oh, yeah.
I've been lucky this year.
We've been landscaping the last couple of years, and we finally have flowers all summer.
And it's almost like the bees are fighting the wasps away, and they're keeping them out
of the area.
That's good.
We've had less wasps this year too, I think because it's been wetter.
We've had a lot more rain.
Maybe.
I don't know.
I'm not a wasp expert, but I've seen a lot fewer of them.
We've had nests the last three years that we've either been successful in destroying
or moderately successful in reducing the size of.
Oh, they're still around.
They're around, but I haven't seen a big nest like we've had the past couple of years.
Here we're good.
I'll tell you a story after the show.
All right.
Yeah.
All right, Mike, do you have any questions on Project 2025?
I have a lot more to talk about, so it's not like the episode is done.
You know what I mean?
Is it enough to split it into two episodes?
I am three quarters of the way through my cigar.
Okay.
I'm about half and I can catch up with you.
That's not a problem, but we can do a quick cigar check.
I think it's fine.
I'm not overly enamored with it so far, the cigar.
I am not enamored with it, but it's a solid stick.
I don't think it's better than a good Fuma or a Brickhouse or something that is very
reasonable.
I mean, that's the whole thing is give me a Fuma or literally any edge and I'll smoke
that before this all day long.
Right.
The edge is in a different price point than the Fuma.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For the price point, this would be similar.
I was just trying to talk about the Rocky Patel lineup.
Oh, yes.
Yeah.
In the Rocky Patel lineup, this is not the bottom.
That would be the Connecticut, but any of the edges, any of the Fumas are going to be
as good or better than this.
I would say this is no better than a top shelf bin cigar.
Is it better than a Dark Shark?
That was your...
It is better than a Dark Shark in my opinion.
Okay.
It has more flavor than a Dark Shark.
It does have more flavor.
It does.
Yeah, it's got more punch than a Dark Shark.
Just to level set.
Yeah, to level set everybody.
The old Dark Shark.
It is better than a Dark Shark.
It's better than a standard bin cigar you're going to find at your cigar shop.
Yeah.
It's not... Which again is kind of like saying Donald Trump performed better than Joe Biden
in the debate.
Is it that good of a thing?
I don't know.
It's up to you.
There's a lot better Maduros for a similar price that I would smoke over this one.
Yeah.
I don't think that this needs tequila by any means.
No.
I would put this at 2.75 so far.
Maybe 2.5.
Yeah.
I was thinking a three is maybe a little high.
Three would be too generous.
Yeah.
In my opinion.
Yes.
Not to sway you.
All right.
So, I know we... So, we went over our project 2025.
It's over 900 pages long.
We can't get into everything.
I think the forward is probably a good overall what you can expect through the rest of it.
Absolutely.
If it's not in the forward, they really don't want people to... The forward is going to
be all their major points.
I think other than that, now you're diving into details, which is irrelevant because
it's never going to happen anyway.
It's not going to happen.
And for them to come out rallying against free speech while also saying they support
free speech, because you can define anything as anything.
Before 9-11, there were no domestic terrorists.
That wasn't even a term in... It might've been a term.
I don't want to be misrepresenting things, but it wasn't a term in the societal consciousness.
And since then, the way the government defines a domestic terrorist, it could be you.
And I don't know you, the listener, but it could be you.
If you ever say anything against the government, it could be you.
If you're ever not happy with one of the candidates, it could be you.
If you're angry at a politician, it could be you.
So some of these definitions when they're talking about outlawing pornography and making
people who create pornography, putting them in jail on the sex offender list.
What does that mean?
Does that mean every romance novel author is now a sex offender?
Could be, could be.
I don't know.
It depends on how they choose to define it.
It's definitely danger zone.
Yeah.
So since I knew we were talking about Project 2025, I figured one of Mike's questions, which
I'm surprised he hasn't asked yet, but I thought Mike would have a very specific question hoping
to catch me off guard.
And so I did a bunch of Mike research.
Okay.
Are there any liberal plans similar to Project 2025?
I thought that was going to be your next question, Mike.
Oh, well, I didn't ask the question because clearly there are.
Well I've got them.
I've got them right here for us to go through.
Perfect.
They don't have one banner project.
So I didn't go and download all the PDFs and all of these.
I just had them summarized for us to look at, but you might know some of these organizations
or you might not.
We can definitely look some of these up if we need to.
I don't know if the verbiage and wording is going to be as ridiculous.
It might very well be for me.
It's very strange because within the conservative movement, there are very staunch Reagan supporters
and then there are conservatives that don't particularly care for Ronald Reagan.
So it's interesting that this one for Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation, that they're
trying to really heavily lean into Ronald Reagan was God manifest in man form for our
country and freedom and this and the other thing.
When I think in an objective look back at history does not define him at that.
And I didn't read this bit to you in the forward, but they were really slamming Jimmy Carter
in the forward as well.
And I want to add that Jimmy Carter is still alive and he only served one term.
So he's definitely a potential candidate to take over for Biden.
That has been a joke many times that I have seen.
I haven't said any because they're not particularly funny, but yes.
And Jimmy Carter was lambasted back in the day for putting solar panels on the White
House and then Ronald Reagan famously took them off, which is just stupid.
It's just so dumb.
Even coal companies want solar roofing.
Solar roofing is a great idea.
It's not the end all be all to energy consumption.
It's certainly a step in the right direction.
Yes.
And I will add as well that I don't think I know when he was in office and shortly after
he was out of office, he was got the short end of a lot of jokes, you know, and everything.
But history shows that he wasn't a terrible precedent at all.
And after he left office, you know what he did?
Did he go to his giant mansion on Marla Marlago and golf and this and that he went and built
houses with the Habitat for Humanity people up until he couldn't do it anymore.
So I don't know.
That's the kind of person that we should be looking for.
Not that we need like a Jimmy Carter again or a Jimmy Carter clone, but somebody that's
not afraid to do the work.
Somebody that's not above everybody else.
You know what I mean?
Jimmy Carter wasn't overtly corrupt.
That's why I respect George Bush Senior.
Not that he was a good man or a good president or any of those things, but he was both of
them not overtly corrupt.
They actually believed in America and they believed in things they were trying to get
done.
And I respect that even if I disagree.
Yeah.
And at the end of the day, that's what we talk about that a lot, especially, you know,
we've done two political episodes back to back and these are, I think are our first
two political episodes of our third season.
So we've kind of shied away from that, not shied away, but we could just be a political
podcast, but that's not what we're about.
We have lots of other interests besides politics, but even we're talking about stuff that isn't
politics, movies, especially Disney stuff and some of the modern content coming out,
disagreement isn't bad and disagreement doesn't need to be silenced and shouldn't be silenced.
And we can disagree, but admire the spirit of somebody or their beliefs.
So we can say, you know, Jimmy Carter and George Bush Senior might not agree with everything
they've done or anything they've done, but they weren't corrupt to the extent that everybody
else has been.
And at least in Jimmy Carter's case, he was out still doing work.
It wasn't glamorous work building houses for habitat for humanity, but it was work.
It's something that any of us could do.
So I think there's something to be said for that.
He amplified it and he did something that he felt was a good thing.
And I respect that.
Yes.
It's like I respect George Bush Senior raising taxes to balance the budget.
Yep.
Things have to be done for society, whether that's building houses for people that need
houses or raising taxes to balance a budget.
All right.
So there are five liberal plans similar to project 2025.
I think the general consensus that I've seen so far, at least from my, my consensus is
Nate's consensus.
It's not the general consensus.
The Republicans and conservatives, one in the same interchangeable, I guess, at this
point in American politics anyway, are very coordinated, very on the same page.
They put out one plan.
There's not a competing conservative plan to project 2025.
So they're organized, could be to their detriment, could be to their benefit.
I don't know.
I'm not one to judge.
The liberals have five different plans compared to the one conservative plan.
So are they disorganized or do they just have more options?
Tough to say.
The first one is the Center for American Progress, abbreviated as CAP.
It's a progressive think-take and they develop the same stuff, the policies, proposals and
strategic plans.
And they have recommendations on the same similar issues, healthcare, climate change,
economic policy, education, and immigration.
There's another one called Indivisible and that's more grassroots and they mobilize activists
and provide strategic guidance.
There's the Roosevelt Institute and they focus on economic and social policies that address
inequality and ensure shared prosperity, which sounds like that one probably has similar
wording but on the opposite end of the spectrum as project 2025.
And if project 2025 happens, I don't think we'd be able to read the Roosevelt Institute
because it would probably have a lot of deleted words in it.
The second one is a think tank and they focus on racial and economic justice, focusing mostly
on voting rights, economic inequality, campaign finance reform, and social equity.
And then there's the Justice Democrats, and they aim to elect progressive candidates and
they advocate for policies such as Medicare for All, somebody better tell them, Joe Biden
beat it, a green New Deal, criminal justice reform, and income inequality.
So those are the five kind of main liberal plans and I've got more talking points on
those.
Any of those?
I'm just going to guess.
I've heard of all of them, Justice Democrats, I used to get their emails and I unsubscribed
because they're a fucking joke.
They are co-opted by the DNC and their sheepdog organization.
The first one, I can't remember the, what was the first one you said?
Yeah, the first one was the Center for American Progress.
The Center for American Progress also is a DNC co-op and they're sheepdogs.
I'm so critical of Democrats and left-wing politics because I typically fall on that
spectrum and I just can't believe the stuff that they say.
It's all nonsense talk.
It's very similar to the conservative side with their talking points and they're targeting
a certain demographic that doesn't really exist.
I don't know how much you want to talk about what they believe.
We can quickly do a rundown.
Well let's get through some of the other stuff and then we'll kind of see if there's anything
else you want to mention.
There's five of them so we can't give each of these five the same attention that we gave
Project 2025 because Project 2025 was basically the main topic for this episode and this is
the counterpoints.
So if you're a Project 2025 that's good for you and you know where to go find the 922
page PDF for free or you can buy the book for your bookshelf and you can have it for
all time.
And if you don't like Project 2025 but you want to see if one of these other ones more
aligns with your beliefs and your personal policy preferences, we're briefly talking
about them and we'll have some time to talk at the end because there's not that much left
for me to go over with this stuff but mostly we're going to talk about the health care,
the climate change, economic justice, and social equity briefly because those are kind
of key points of all of these.
So for the health care they want universal health care coverage through things like Medicare
for All.
They want every American to have access to affordable high quality health care.
For climate change, the Green New Deal is something that emphasizes transitioning to
renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions, and creating green jobs and probably a buttload
of paper straws.
Taylor Swift can still fly but paper straws for you.
Economic justice, proposals to increase the minimum wage, which when was the last time
that was increased Mike?
2008 under George Bush Jr. maybe 2007.
Okay and they want fair labor practices, implementing tax reforms to reduce income inequality, and
promote economic fairness, whatever that means.
And then social equity.
DEI nonsense is what it is.
You said it, I thought it.
Social equity, they want criminal justice reform, they want to protect voting rights,
and address systemic racism to ensure equal opportunities and justice for all.
Amen.
That sounds like DEI nonsense as well.
Yes.
All right and they've got the same stuff where they want to identify and train people to
take this over and they want to address those key challenges and promote policies that advance
equity, justice, and sustainability.
So at least, at least taken all together, their focus points seem to be more in line
with what I imagine most citizens would care about as opposed to banning words and pornography.
But that's just me.
Well, you and I both fall more to the left of right-wing talking points, let's put it
that way.
We fall to the left of even left-wing talking points based on our political compass conversation.
Oh, for sure, for sure.
It's all nonsense.
The left-wing stuff is all nonsense.
They have no real plans.
It's all verbiage and fairy dreams.
Yeah, I guess to summarize, the left-wing stuff, these plans are all fairy tale feel-good
words that is almost akin to, well, think of the children.
It's all heartstrings and feel-goods and the conservative stuff is all get your tanks ready
because we're taking America back and we're taking the family back and we're getting rid
of all the LGBTQ crowd and all of their sick pornography that they've created and there's
never pornography before the LGBTQ crowd was around.
We can't have those kind of words and everybody who disagrees with us is woke and we're going
to roll our tanks right over you, all the Tiananmen Square.
You've basically got the warmongers versus the hippies in terms of the words they use
to describe their policies and their plans.
Right, and hidden within the hippie agenda is we're secretly warmongers because they
also support war.
Because we also get paid by them, yes.
Yeah, they also get paid by them.
It's no different and not one of them has a real policy solution that's a viable option.
No, no.
Everything is so entwined but there are things that we've talked about that can start the
shift back.
We need to put together a project, Nice Ashes, that's bipartisan.
It doesn't matter who's there.
These are the things you should do.
Let us get Cuban cigars.
Gravy supports this and everything after that will be taken care of.
It all begins with the Cuban cigars.
That's really the truth.
Well, you've seen those conspiracy theories where they've said that our modern state with
the rampant inflation and COVID and everything started when they shot Harambe, the gorilla.
I have not.
That sounds great.
Okay, because they said that's the linchpin that knocked over the rest of the dominoes
that led us down this path on the timeline we're in.
That sounds wonderful.
Now, I don't remember the actress name.
They tied some actress to Harambe at the time.
Oh, okay.
A comedian.
Maybe she's involved as well.
Could be.
Yeah, somehow some actress got tied to Harambe's thing.
I can't remember all the details now off the top of my head.
It was all nonsense anyway.
Well, of course.
Yeah.
Also, it's tough to deny.
Yeah.
Well, it's impossible to deny something like that, isn't it?
That's the point.
So stupid.
Well, the best part about Project 2025 is it's become a buzzword in the media cycle.
Like everybody's supposed to fear this Project 2025.
Oh no.
Blah, blah, blah.
What are you talking about?
That's nonsense.
Well, it's ridiculous.
And it's written for the uber Trump supporters, basically.
You know, it's written for those people that blindly follow.
And this is the verbiage that they respond to.
And people like to think, or the media likes to say that anyone who's a Republican has
to love Trump and they have to be a super mega supporter, you know.
But that's not the truth.
And the media also says that anyone who likes Biden or anyone who's a liberal loves Biden
and Kamala Harris and wants, they want trans people in everything and teaching your kids
about gender reassignment, which neither of those things are true.
The majority of Americans statistically have been more centrist than anything, but you
get the loud outspoken fringes that battle it out and the media plays that up.
So then you have to look into Project 2025 and realize how ridiculously worded the whole
thing is and that these people writing it can't actually know what they're talking about
or what they're trying to say.
Well, they know, but it's trying to gather the truth with buzzwords.
Yeah, they're trying to gather the troops.
It's not about any real meaningful change or policy differences.
Yeah.
And I think the main thing with probably all of these, all six of these plans is they're
not written in a way to convert people hanging about near the middle.
They're written to appeal to those fringe cases and to get them riled up and people
like you and myself can read Project 2025 and laugh at it and say, one, none of this
stuff is ever going to happen because that's not how the presidency works for one.
And which is a giant kudos to the founding fathers, regardless of what you think of them.
And they're not all the same.
They're all individual people who had differences of opinions on a lot of things, but for them
to be able to set up a system of government where the president doesn't have the ultimate
power and ultimate authority means that Project 2025 is never going to happen in its entirety,
even in a tenth of it.
You know what I mean?
Oh, it's impossible.
It's impossible.
Yeah, it can't happen because of our system of government.
It could happen over a hundred years, but it's not going to happen in four.
It's not going to happen in 100 days, which is their timeline they put out.
Right.
Yeah.
Look at the last two presidential administrations.
They've both had bad policies that have negatively affected us, but it's not, it's life changing
in some instances, but not society wide.
It's life changing for some individuals some of the time, but it's not letting all the
felons out of jail, right?
No.
Or something wild like that.
It's not a dramatic societal shift.
It's subtle things and I think what's been more impactful is the lockdowns and inflation.
For sure.
And that's what's impacting the average American.
This other stuff is, we've talked about this before, some of this other stuff that they're
proposing and wanting us to care about is for people that don't have to worry about
inflation and don't have to worry about if they can go into their work or not.
It's for people that haven't made to sit and ponder about why there's lots of reasons
why.
I'm not trying to be super dense or combative about this.
Why does the average American who's struggling against inflation care what Russia and Ukraine
is doing, what Israel and Palestine is doing?
Why would they care?
Outside of our involvement, it's not really my concern and there are very complex political
issues that I do not understand and I have looked into it more than the average person
possibly.
That's not to say that you can't sit there and you should feel called out because you
don't like war.
That's not what I'm trying to say.
I'm trying to say when our government is sending billions of dollars to these countries instead
of fixing inflation here.
So here's a fun fact for you.
The Biden administration accidentally sent $6 billion extra dollars to Ukraine a while
back.
Yeah, President Putin.
That was after the wildfires in Maui.
The cost to rebuild Maui is guessed at $5 billion.
So an accounting error in the military industrial complex was greater than the amount to rebuild
a state in the country.
So that's where we're at, people.
We need a realignment and the realignment is not what we have available right now.
The realignment is not in Project 2025.
No.
Or any of the liberal ones.
No, no, no, definitely not.
They're both sheepdogs.
Project 2025 is a sheepdog, is to get all the conservative elements that might be straying
away from the Republican fold back in.
Any pet issue they may have.
Indeed.
I am done with my cigar.
I'm not sure where you're at.
I've got an inch and a half left.
I do need to say, sorry, Mike, I did a lot more talking this episode.
Well, you know, it's bound to happen.
It is.
I do need to say that the last third has been pretty dang good.
I liked the last third.
I actually liked most of it more than you did.
Okay.
But yeah, the first third I wasn't a huge fan of.
The second third was what I wish the first third was.
And then this last third has been quite nice, quite nice.
And I wish that with the last third was lasted longer.
Yes.
That's a good way to put it.
It's a good way to put it.
The first third was bleh.
Yeah, yeah.
The middle for me was where I started to appreciate it.
I thought it was good.
And the last third was genuinely good.
Yes.
That burnt flavor for me never really left.
It did have that like burnt bread taste the whole way through.
Yeah.
I still am getting that from time to time.
It's not in every puff necessarily, but every once in a while I'm getting it.
I know I said I thought it went away, but it never really did go away.
It's just not as frequent or as strong.
Yeah.
So I rated mine as a two and a half.
I also lowered the last one to a 1.75.
Yeah.
I think a two and a half sounds pretty fair.
It definitely did.
It got better as it went, which was good, which is ideally what you would like.
It would either start good and stay that good or it would get progressively better.
And this one definitely got progressively better.
And this one did get progressively better.
It's hard to recommend it, especially with...
So as far as price point goes, Mike, how does this compare in price to the Nica Rustica
Broadleaf?
They're going to be about the same price.
Yeah.
The Nica Rustica...
That's a champion.
Yeah.
That's a champion.
This is going to be comparable to an Edge and this is not as good as any of the Edges
that you could buy.
Yeah.
And the Nica Rustica El Brujito was really good.
Oh, yes.
So if you want something dark and they even have it, they have a Broadleaf, which we liked,
the Connecticut Broadleaf, we liked quite a bit.
I couldn't recommend this over that for the same price point, if you get them nearish
the same price.
But again, and I said this, I think during the first third or maybe halfway through,
I said, I wouldn't turn this one down.
If somebody said, hey, I got a bunch of these, let's smoke them.
I'm like, yeah, sure.
Let's do it.
Sometimes knowing what it is before smoking, it makes it better, more palatable, because
you know what to expect.
So there is some of that too.
Oh, for sure.
I have expectations and it didn't quite meet my expectation, but it wasn't unpleasant by
any means.
It was average, just average, decent smoke.
Yeah.
Decent smoke.
It's fine.
Maybe you'll really like it.
I don't know.
It's a different enough flavor with kind of that burnt.
It's not an unpleasant burnt, so I feel like burnt has such a negative connotation.
It's not really a negative.
Burnt bread.
It's burnt bread.
That's kind of an undertone throughout the whole cigar.
And then it fills out and the body grows and gets a little more interesting the longer
you smoke it, which I usually like.
And I did like it, but I don't think it's not something that I could recommend.
It's not something I'd turn down though either.
Yeah.
It fits in kind of that gray area where I would definitely recommend a Nica Rustica
over this all day.
Easily.
But I wouldn't say no to smoking another one of these.
So it's kind of in that area.
This last bit, I'm getting a little bit of pepper I think too, this last third.
Did you pick up any of that?
Yeah.
It's growing into a more Maduro style cigar or a darker cigar.
If that was the midpoint and then it grew after that, then we'd be having a different
conversation.
Oh, definitely.
It'd be a much different conversation.
But it might be a good gateway cigar to the darker, more peppery sticks, I suppose.
If you like the last half of it.
Could be.
So I don't know.
Rocky Patel.
I'm going to go out on a limb here, Mike, and say these are kind of two misses for Rocky
Patel.
I would say it's a miss.
But this particular cigar is not a bad cigar.
Yeah, it's not a bad cigar.
It's not up to par with the rest of their lineup.
No, it's not the best of the range.
That's for sure.
Yeah.
And it's not even the best of this price point of cigars in this style either, which is for
a company like Rocky Patel with their other cigars being that much better.
Right.
Everything is a comparison.
So yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, I'm with you.
I overall enjoyed this one.
Not as much as I would have liked.
Yeah.
I could do this one on the golf course probably.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah, for sure.
So.
I will note, I didn't have any lighting issues.
I didn't have any canoeing or uneven burn issues with this one at all.
So I know we had quite a few issues, even if they're cosmetic, with the Connecticut,
the Rocky Patel Connecticut last episode.
We didn't have any of those.
I didn't encounter any of those.
Did you have any issues?
I had some slight uneven burn, but rotating it solved itself.
Didn't have to relight.
So I didn't think it was worth mentioning.
It could have just been me.
Yeah.
But I figured since we mentioned it on the last, on the Connecticut, I wanted to just
check and see if we had any of those kind of issues because we both had different issues
with the Connecticut.
And this one was a lot more consistent burn throughout.
Yes.
And if you had some uneven burns, that's not always the cigar's fault.
Sometimes it is, but.
Yeah, for sure.
So not a recommend, but it's not terrible.
Also don't get worried about Project 2025 or the liberal other ones.
Or the Justice Democrats or whatever nonsense they're going to say.
Yeah.
I guess there have to be people out there that put plans out whether or not they get
read or listened to by the actual candidates.
Who can say?
And if they did, it's basically impossible to get those things pushed through, especially
in a hundred days.
So hopefully we've alleviated your worries about Project 2025 and the Rocky Patel Broadleaf.
Thanks for listening.
Be safe.
Thank you.