Latest / Beyond Labels Premium / Episode #232: Flaw in Maine’s "Right to Food"Law & Sued for Criticizing Sugar?

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Episode #232: Flaw in Maine’s "Right to Food"Law & Sued for Criticizing Sugar? · Beyond Labels Premium

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Which is bigger, big pharma or big ag?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why this is being called a gag law.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't outright ban speech, but it does make speech Without batting an eye, he said, Oh, big ag is way bigger than big pharma.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's giving agricultural companies a special legal advantage that other industries.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: What is the influence of that?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: What he said was.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, everybody.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to another episode of Beyond Labels Podcast with your hosts, uh Joel Salatin.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I would be the um the guy in the dirt, the farmer, and uh Dr.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: Cena McCullough, our favorite uh researcher, biochemist, and uh guru of all things truthful.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um so here we go with another, uh I think we're gonna double down today on another couple of current topics that are real hot.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um the first one we want to talk about is a proposed bill, HB433, in Florida, which is indicative what we're seeing is a pattern around the country of pushback in the industry.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna be very broad here and say to everything concerning Maha and the new dietary guidelines.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: So uh we saw the effort by Bayer uh and friends to exempt chemical companies from liability if their chemical is used, is approved by the EPA.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh similar to the um exemption to the liability protection given to um pharmaceutical companies by uh President Reagan and Senator Ted Kennedy back in whatever it was 1980.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And and and we saw what happened as a result of that.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: We went from whatever it was, half a dozen childhood vaccines on the schedule to now, you know, over uh 70.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so we've seen a proliferation of the protected uh the protected material, if you will, um, you know, since that since that that shield of protection, uh protection from, you know, from litigation, uh uh, you know, like came came in.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the chemical companies um being sued over glyphosate contamination primarily have sought a similar shield, and that has been stricken out of the upcoming farm bill, and so it's it's dead for now.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_01: But similar to that, we now have a bill in Florida, HB 443, that um Cena's gonna tell us about that is is consistent with this pattern that we're seeing.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: That if there is going to be a sea change in the culture, in food, in farming, the entrenched status quo, the big chemical industrial cartel, if you will, is not going to go down easily.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so, Cena, bring us up to speed on HB433.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, thanks, Joel.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: So this is being dubbed the uh the gag law, and it's Florida lawmakers.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to quietly expand an existing law in a way that could silence people who speak out about food, including sugar, and also farm practices.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: This change is buried inside Florida's farm bill.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's harder to notice and presumably harder to stop.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Florida already has normal defamation laws.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone lies about a product, a company can already sue.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: This new provision goes further.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's giving agricultural companies a special legal advantage that other industries don't have.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: So there's a couple key changes.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: One is that the bill removes the word perishable from an older food disparagement law.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: That one word used to limit the law to foods like fruits and vegetables that would spoil quickly.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But once it's removed, the law can then apply to all agricultural products, including sugar.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: The bill also adds language that covers, quote, any agricultural practice used in production.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: So that means if you criticize things like pesticides or fertilizer runoff or soil contamination or water pollution, it can now trigger lawsuits.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so why does this matter?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because even if someone is telling the truth, large companies can now use lawsuits to intimidate and financially exhaust critics if this passes.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: And most people can't afford years of legal battles.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: So they're gonna probably opt to stop speaking out.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why this is being called a gag law.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't outright ban speech, but it does make speech riskier in Florida and potentially across the nation, because some products like sugar made in Florida are exported.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So this isn't just about farmers, it's about protecting the powerful industries from criticism and discouraging our right to free speech about things like public health, the environment, the adulteration of the food food supply.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: And once people are afraid to talk, talk about even sugar or farming practices that can cause detriments to our health and assist in the chronic disease epidemic, the public loses access to that important health information.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it's the thought is that the overview is that the provision is being backed by big sugar, big ag, and apparently the Florida Agricultural Commission, uh Commissioner Wilton Simpson.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the stated intent in the document is to silence activists from criticizing sugar and sugar-related farming practices like pesticide use.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: So Um Cena, Cena, is there anything in that bill that um that gives the caveat as long as these as long as the food or the or the agriculture practice is legal.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, in other words, criticizing something that is illegal um would not carry would not carry the prote uh it's hard for me to believe that it's so broad that it would that it would cover um even criticizing a practice that's illegal.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not seeing anything that's saying if it's illegal, I'm seeing that it creating a special right to sue just critics of Florida agricultural products and practices.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and the the reason why they're saying that it's expanding that um or creating that special right is it's because it expanded the definition of how food is grown, um, which could trigger the lawsuits, and it's creating financial pressure on regular people because of the uh cost for attorney fees.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um But they're saying it could apply to pesticides, um, you know, uh forever chemicals in the soil, agricultural runoff.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: That's the the the yeah, the re the reason I'm drilling down on that, Cena, is because the bill that was put in at the national level by Bayer um had the caveat that you that they that the chemical companies were protected from liability for any um for any product that was approved by the EPA.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that you know that that's been that's been the big the core argument of uh Bayer Monsanto all along, hasn't it?
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_01: In the in the the that I've followed in the um in the litigation against glyphosate, the the attorneys for Bayer and Monsanto Santo say, look, um EPA says this is this is okay.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: So how can we be how can we be held held liable for a product that the government says is okay?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um now if the government says no you can't use this and then you use it anyway, well now you're on your own.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, now you're now you're a rogue, uh rogue ranger.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: But if but if I use something that the government says is okay, um then that that's what's protected.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so um and so if if somebody engages in a practice, for example, feeding uh feeding chickens an illegal substance and I criticize them, I can't imagine that this would protect I mean look, it's it's bad enough as it is, uh, but it's hard, it's hard to believe that there's not some sort of a of a caveat.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Where I'm going with this, Cena, just I I know you're you're searching frantically here to give me an answer because I don't know, and you're smarter than I am to search these kind of things.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: But where I'm going with this is the libertarian view, the beyond label view, that this is the problem with the government authorizing or deauthorizing anything is because if the government's approval of a product or a practice gives it um gives it special protection in the in the world of narratives, um the answer is to simply get the government out of the endorsement business.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because we all know that the government is really a lackey of the uh chemical cartel and the pharmaceutical cartel.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: So if we just if we just eliminated the intervention of the government to make an endorsement or or make an uh you know a green light or red light, then you you then then the companies the companies would lose that cover.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: Does that does that make sense?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I I agree with you.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we're we're back we're we're back to inspection.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, uh if there's a food recall, you know, Campylobacter or Listeria, whatever, you know, the first thing the CEO of the company does is call a press conference, and with all the cameras and and microphones in his face, he says, we have adhered to all government requirements and inspection requirements for food safety, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: And and it's it's the it's the protection, it's the interventive character of the bureau of the government's um uh stamp of approval that gives cover to these um, you know, to to the to the product or the practice.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I I'm not seeing any exemptions.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, as I'm trying to read, you know, these bills are quite massive.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: You're never you're never um the two things you're not supposed to see made is sausage and sausage and and uh legislation.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um yeah, so this is I'm gonna read you read this to you from the bill itself.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Disparagement of and it perishables crossed out.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's just disparit uh disparagement of agricultural food products, cause of action.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: The legislature finds, determines, and declares that the production of agricultural food products constitutes an important and significant portion of the state economy, and that it is imperative to protect the vitality of the agricultural economy for the citizens of the state by providing a cause of action for agricultural producers to recover damages for this disparagement of any agricultural product.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And once again, perishable was knocked out.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So disparagement means the willful willful or malicious dissemination to the public in any manner of any false information that an agricultural food product is not safe for human consumption.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: False Ah, so it says false information.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's critical.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's critical, Sina.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: False information.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so here's the definition.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: False information is that information which is not based on reliable scientific facts and reliable scientific data, which the disseminator knows or should have known to be false.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: So here we go with misinformation again.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Who decides which is false?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: So apparently it's if it's if it doesn't, if you're not stepping in in tune with mainstream narrative, you are this is my interpretation of this.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not in lockstep, you are now providing false information.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so now they have a uh a legal right to recover damages, so they can sue any of us, not even just a journalist, just uh uh, you know, people like us.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it literally says here.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and this says our agricultural food product means any agricultural or aquacultural food product or commodity grown or produced within this state for a commercial purpose.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: The term also includes any agricultural practices used in the production of such products.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Huh, with no no limitation whatsoever.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Any ag practice used, how is it any ag practice used in uh you want me to read it again to you?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, any ag practice used used in the production of such products.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: And um any product or any association representing producers of agricultural food products which suffer from damages as a result of another person's disparagement of any such agricultural food product may bring an action for damages and for other relief a court of competent jurisdiction deems appropriate, including but not limited to compensatory and punitive damages, reasonable attorney fees, and costs of the action.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: The statute of limitation for disparagement of agricultural food products is two years from the date the disparagement occurs.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So they can go back two years once this is passed.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: And there's nothing else in here.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now it goes on to um now it goes on to uh something totally different.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh signal jamming.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um well that's what you know, they they they they bundle these things into a you know a dozen different uh a different dozen different policies, and that's a that's a technique just to obfuscate everything that's in there.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean this one document.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: So this I pulled up SB290.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is 71 pages long, just this one document, and it's like a couple pages shoved in there um right next to now you can't use these jamming devices to jam signals.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: So it is embedded in there.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know, Joe.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: That there's I I read to you the whole law that proposed proposed bill.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: That does not seem to carve out any exemptions.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: This seems like a pretty blatant um, yeah.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: It sure does.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: It sure does.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's really um that is that is um that's surprising to me coming out of Florida.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, but it's but it's coming out Oh man, it's coming out of the conservative element.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when I when I asked Callie Means, you know, who's RFK Junior's lieutenant, which is bigger, big pharma or big ag without batting an eye, he said, Oh, big ag is way bigger than big pharma.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then I asked, well, um, what is the influence of that?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So what he said was that the core, the core of the conservative senatorial bloc.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Now I I'm I'm going to federal, not Florida, all right, but but hang with me here.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: The core of the conservative block in the Senate is from big ag states.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, Alabama.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: These and and and so and big ag is all, as you know, it's all into chemical industrial agriculture and exports and factory farming.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Everything that you and I disagree with is the is the the modus operandi of big ag.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: And so basically, big ag owns, they own the conservative wing of the of the Republican Party.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just say I don't know if there is a conservative wing of the Democratic Party, but uh there's certainly a conservative wing of the Republican Party, and and and Big Ag owns that.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what state right now is one of the most conservative?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you say, name me the reddest state in the U.S., it would be between, you know, Missouri, Tennessee, and Florida.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the reddest of the red.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_01: So it is it is completely consistent with the pattern that we're seeing broadly in the pushback to everything that RFK Jr.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_01: for sure is trying to bring to the table.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And and actually, you know, my estimation of Brooke Rollins has actually gone up a little bit in the last four weeks.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I she's she's actually uh I think she might um she might be not as bad as I thought.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um and and and so, well, I I think I think RFK Jr.'s got her ear.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I think he's he's got her ear a little bit more than I more than I thought he would at the beginning.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so my point is that it is completely consistent with I with what I'm seeing across the nation that the most conservative state would be the first for the conservative big ag, because they're conservatives, big ag is conservative in that respect.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, you know, they they use chemicals, they eat meat, they, you know, uh, they're conservative.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so it it's completely consistent that that state would be where we would see the most aggressive pushback from conservative big ag um against against uh disparagement about what they're doing.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, from that perspective, yeah, it does make a lot of sense.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's so fascinating because it's in contrast to you know what the governor's doing and you know, um well but yeah, I mean they're they're the state that uh that uh stopped all the vaccine mandates, right?
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they've got this wonderful, they've got this uh most amazing um you know Surgeon General there in in Florida, and uh you know they were the ones that pushed back on on uh Fauci, on censorship.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so you have this you have this uh this this philosophical hypocrisy between uh I I want to I want my I want my freedom but then you it you you extend that into a freedom a freedom to continue my business and I absolutely want them to have the freedom to continue their business, but then when you when you go beyond that um and and you know the caveat that I was looking for is false.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: False information.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_01: So who's gonna determine what false information is?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when I come in apparently big ag.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean a a court, a court would determine that, but but we know the courts are also political bodies.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_01: You like to think they're not, but they are.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so then you bring in, you know, you bring in experts, and um it it's back to the same old same old rigmarole.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so and so your point is absolutely correct that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whether or not or it's false or not actually is not as important as the fact that legal action happens and that's costly.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: And so falsity, falsity takes a back seat to the economics of the situation.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people can't afford that.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's just like, you know, we had my friend Dr.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Peter Osborne on the show when we talked about mycotoxins and mold.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of the big strategies of um, like in the construction world, where if people are trying to sue because of mold in their house, like for new builds, for example, like he was, part of the strategy is to delay, delay, delay, because a lot of people can't keep affording the legal bills.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, they they can silence us because some of us can't afford to go through that the legal system.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: But um, did you hear what Florida just did about their candy testing?
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: No, what was that?
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is great.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I was like, it's such um, you know, such a dichotomy with, you know, with the big ag and and what the what they're trying to do.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this was under Healthy Healthy Florida First Initiative.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they already tested um baby formula, right?
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Infant formula.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: Did you see that?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: The test results from the baby formula.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this one was great.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: They tested.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not in I'm not I'm not in the baby scene right now.
• 23:31
  unknown: Okay.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, either am I, but some of our listeners, you know, may be interested.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: But no.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm with you.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm with you.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: No, but so this is the overarching, the over the reason why they're doing this is fantastic.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: What the first lady, Casey De um DeSantis, said was that they were bringing sunlight and transparency to the quality of food in our food supply.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And the Surgeon General, who I I just love him, he said, we believe that evaluating risks and communicating our findings to the public are essential steps for driving the change we see in the food industry and improving the health of Floridians.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: So they're free market supporters.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like I love this.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: So they're doing um consumer awareness.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: So this was really cool.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: First, they started with testing uh baby formulas that you'd find in the grocery store.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: They tested them for heavy metals.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you, all of the um infant mil products that they tested um were high in um mercury.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like every single one of them was high in mercury.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some were high in arsenic and cadmium.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and similac is another main brand of baby powder, a baby formula.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And similac, almost all of them were high in mercury.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Many were high in arsenic.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: Some, one of them was even high in lead, and one was high in cadmium.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: So they did a great job, and they have great marketing.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: Joel, I don't know if you can see this.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: We can post this too.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: You see how simple this marketing is?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a oh wow.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's yeah, yeah, it's the actual picture of like the baby formula, and then there's circles filled in of which metal turned positive.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: So they're doing a fantastic job.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is the best marketing that I have personally seen on getting the point across for the marketing.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: Then it got so the nice thing, Cena, just just to be consistent with our libertarian slant, this chart does not outlaw that's right.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Similar, it does not outlaw anything.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: All it does is use the clout of the of the government, and we we can debate whether that should be done or not, but but it uses the clout of the government to inform people so that the marketplace can respond to information.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that that is laudable.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: That is laudable.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, if they're gonna use our money for something, I would rather them use it for this type of information and marketing, uh, you know, to empower the consumer than to start another bureaucratic agency or or implement more laws on us.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, right.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_00: So then it gets even better.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: They outdid themselves with this latest one.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: This was on popular children's candies.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the headline: 60% of popular children's candies contain dangerous arsenic levels.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what they did was they tested 46 popular candies that are heavily marketed to children.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And they found that 28 out of the 46 products contained elevated levels of arsenic, which is a known human carcinogen.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's associated also, associated with the risk of skin, bladder, lung, kidney, and liver cancer, along with other things that you can think of, you know, uh developmental issues and whatnot.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: But basically, it was a state-conducted analysis released by the Florida Department of Health, and they tested things like sweet tarts, sour patch kids, Skittles, Twizzlers, Tootsie Roll, Snickers, Kit Kat.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: So these are common candy bars that, well, you may not know these, Joel, but these are candy kind of candy bars that we know of.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: So what makes this really interesting is not that just 60% of them contain dangerous levels of arsenic.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's the way that they that they got their marketing message together.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: So here's another, and again, we'll link this, but Joel, if you can see this.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: So so see so Cena, you're the you're the biochemist.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why, why does somebody put arsenic in in uh in Skittles?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, what's the purpose of arsenic in Skittles?
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in my understanding is back when they used to put arsenic in chicken feed in factory chicken houses, it was a it was an appetite stimulant.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it was uh, it was put in to artificially elevate the appetite of the chicken so they could eat more and gain faster.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, no, no.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: So this is this is not intentional addition of arsenic.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: What they're saying is these products are adulterated.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it often comes from contamination of the raw ingredients.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like if there's a rice-based ingredient, you know, we know rice can contain it, um, cocoa or cacao, or sometimes through a contamination through water that's been used in the processing of it.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, arsenic is um common in in a lot of um counties in the water.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: So it could be um through processing.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that and that's that's primarily from pesticides and herbicides, is it not?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's exactly right.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: So what they're saying is that the these are adulterants that are in the product.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, of course, the the government has their own quote unquote safe level of consumption for these things, which many of us would argue, you know, uh there's a problem with those ranges too.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: They're too high.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is, um, here, if you can see it, I don't know if you can see this.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_00: Another great chart where they have the candy, and then what they did was it's red if it's too high of a level beyond their safety level.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the really smart part here is that they they put safe consumption level for a child per year.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: So they put on here how many pieces of this candy could your child eat in one year and be um below, you know, this believe believe be within the safe level of arsenic consumption.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: So again, this is one year.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: How many pieces in one year?
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we have these gummy bears to be uh considered in the safe level of consumption of arsenic.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: The child can eat 16 pieces in a year.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: 16 gummy bears.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's nothing.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Laffy Taffy, there's a laffy taffy banana, you can eat four pieces in one year.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh sweet tart ropes, you can eat the these look like maybe like a licorice rope.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can eat three ropes.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: A um, let's see, there's Jolly Ranchers, you can eat six pieces of that, four pieces of Twizzlers, you can have two and two-fifths pieces of a Kid Kat, 12 pieces of a Sour Patch Kid, eight pieces of Swedish fish, eight pieces of Tootsie rolls.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up on Tootsie Rolls, but literally, uh they did a this is a fantastic job because most people don't realize that arsenic is in candies.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what they did was they they normalized it.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: They, I mean, not they don't normalize it, they they personalized it.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: They said, okay, if you want to give your kid a Tootsie roll, we all want our kids to be healthy.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to give your kids a Tootsie roll, don't give them more than eight pieces of a year because now they've consumed too much arsenic.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean In a year?
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: You you can eat eight pieces in in one in one uh watching one sitcom.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: I would say in five minutes I can eat eight pieces.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: Mike, you know, you know, the the the juxtaposition of this with um with what we started our podcast with was this Florida bill of disparaging food, the juxtaposition of of this kind of information coming out of the government that has in the same state this gag rule that you can't say something bad about Tootsie Rolls.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it it you you you you just almost have to laugh, don't you?
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it's if it were a different state, that'd be one thing.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: But this is the same state.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think though, they're saying unless the Tootsie roll is made in Florida, you can talk bad about the Tootsie roll.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: But if it's made there, you can't so don't talk bad about oranges or pesticides on the oranges or the dyes they use to make the oranges look orange sometimes.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't talk bad about any of that if it comes out of Florida.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I think I don't know where Tootsie Roll is made, do you know?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_01: Wow, that's pretty cool.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's pretty cool.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, he um uh that the the Surgeon General down there uh is is just terrific.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he uh I I did a I actually did a conference with him in I think it was Massachusetts a couple of years ago.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_01: Got to meet him, he and his wife.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_01: And uh man, he is he is as genuine as anybody you can ever imagine.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just um just a great great guy.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's cool.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if you're ready, Joel, I wanted to kind of pick your brain on something that I think is right in your wheelhouse and is possibly really good news for all of this in for all of us who are in this you know food sovereignty movement.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: So for years you've been talking about food emancipation, and you got the book coming up.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm wondering if the some states in this legislative world are finally catching up to you know what you've been espousing.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: So Maine is leading the charge.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: They were the first to pass the the right to food constitutional amendment, and that I believe was in 2021.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: They actually became the first state to constitutionalize the right to food.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Then uh there's now what's being called a massive win for the opt-out movement.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: They've doubled down with LD 124, which is a bipartisan bill, and it is redefining the relationship between the government, the producer, and the eater.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: This bill became law and took effect on um in September of 2025.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: So what I'm wondering is your thoughts on this, because it sounds like this bill um codifies the principle that if you and I want to trade a meat pie in the state of Maine, like on your front porch, the government has no standing in the middle of that transaction.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, that that is correct.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: But here's here's the one here's the one problem.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_01: The meat has to be from a legal source.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: What's a legal source?
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: It can't so it can't be like slaughtering k uh chicken, for instance, on your own property?
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, it has to be from an inspected source.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_01: This this is the this is the problem with all of the food sovereignty bills that have come out is that they they grant tremendous latitude, and and I don't I'm not opposed to it.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm thrilled, okay?
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: But but where where the problem comes in is that the ingredients have to be legal.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there's no there's no legal requirement for tomatoes, for example, peppers.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can you can use those out of the garden.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: There, there's no inspection process for tomatoes.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, if if I could work out an arrangement with Kroger's downtown, I could take a box of tomatoes into Kroger's, they could put them on the shelf.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: There's no government agent in the middle of that of that chain, all right?
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: There is when it comes to the animal and the the the animal stuff, dairy, meat, poultry.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And including eggs, including eggs?
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, well, eggs are gray.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it i if you're if you're producing fewer than 600 Generally, generally, I'm gonna make a very general thing here.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: If you're producing fewer than 600 dozen eggs a week, you're pretty you're pretty free and clear, all right?
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: If you're going over 600 dozen eggs a week, you're supposed to register, and it's not an inspection thing.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: The thing about eggs is if you make no claim, there's no inspection.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why for for example, on our egg cartons, you notice they don't say grade A, they don't say large, they just say pastured eggs.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: So there's no claim.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_01: That keeps us away from government inspection.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as we said grade A or large, then we'd be under, we'd be, then they get to come out and inspect our inspect our our scales and our you know uh candling and all that stuff.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: So eggs are eggs are pretty open.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, uh a quiche, um you know, that that certainly is is uh doable.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_01: But um if you're gonna make a cheese is okay.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um most states pretty much look the other way on aged cheese.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_01: In other words, uh and that usually is a 60-day a 60-day age, uh, because the aging supposedly, you know, the bacteria kills anything that's bad.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: And um and so the aging actually um self self-sanitizes it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um so cheese cheese is is is good.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh where they get you is the pork, poultry, beef, lamb, goat, what are called the amenable, amenable species.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't even know what that means.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: All I know is it's all the way over it, it's it's in the law everywhere.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: Amenable.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um so for example, pheasants are not an amenable.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_01: So you could raise a million pheasants and make pheasant pot pie without any regulations whatsoever.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_01: Because they are because they are not considered poultry.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now okay.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just tell I'm just telling you what the law is, okay?
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um uh but the the amenable the amenable poultry, you know, you've got duck and chicken and turkey and um you know those things.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: But pheasant is outside the realm.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um I actually don't know where guinea fowl are.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm not sure about guineafowl.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: But anyway, uh this is where this is where they get you is uh the state can make this.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, New Hampshire has legislation in right now.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: It hasn't been voted on yet, that has uh Pete Kennedy was telling me about this the other day, um, where they actually have a uh one of the one of the parts of the bill is that um that we we kind of we reserve the right to um to not comply with federal regulations.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's it it's the only state bill that has anything like this in it.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Pete Kennedy caught it, he pointed it out to me, and it really is uh quite unusual.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: So what what happens in a place like Maine is they make these wonderful things, and then you go and you want to you want to butcher a, you know, uh what we always had, a Thanksgiving hog kill in here, neighbors come, family comes, you butcher a couple hogs, and um and and you you you you sell out the the different pieces, or you use the pieces in a in in something that you cook, uh and and because it hasn't been inspected, then it's not a legal ingredient and therefore doesn't come under the under the right to you know right to food.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so if I'm in Maine and this law says that I have the right to the exchange can be, it says barter, trade, or purchase, covers transactions at the farm, property owned or leased by the producer, roadside stands, farmers markets, community social events, and fundraisers, and you can produce the food in your own kitchen.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: So what you're saying is if I want to, for example, barter with you at a social event and and I want to give you uh I want to exchange a chicken pot pie.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_00: I can do that as long as I, for example, got the chicken at a grocery store.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, exactly, exactly.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_01: Or, or if you're a farmer who took your chickens for processing to a federal inspected facility.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or you or you took your beef.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, here at at Polyface, for example, we have all of our beef and pork um uh processed at a small federal inspected processing facility.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_01: It all comes back with a USDA label, you know, a USDA stamp on it.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: So in Maine, we could take that and make you know a shepherd's pie.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: All right, that normally has beef or lamb in it.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we could make a shepherd's pie and without any regulation.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not, man, believe me, I am not disparaging or taking anything away from what Maine has done.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just stand up and salute and say, wonderful.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um but the but this is why I'm pushing on the federal level to say, if a you know, if a state wants to do this, let it let it be where it can be a true farm produced and processed.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why why does every animal have to go on a trailer the last day of its life to be handled by hirelings that didn't raise it, didn't grow it.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, there there's there there are all sorts of emotional and physical and energy uh uh uh and economic issues involved with that.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, because remember when I was when I was a you know a young teen selling at the curb market here in Stanton, it was a holdover from the Depression era, and we had a federal, a federal blanket, there was a memorandum between the Federal Safety Inspection Service and the State Extension Service that um that if if if a vendor was a member of any government educational program, so for me it was 4-H.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: 4-H is a quasi-government, you know, it's a government program, um, then we could sell anything except fluid milk.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we, you know, we milked a couple Guernsey cows, we made butter, buttermilk, cottage cheese, um, yogurt.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: We we had a neighbor that loved to butcher animals, and he came and mentored us, showed us how to, we could, you know, put a put a beef down in the meadow out here in front of the house and uh and skin it out, um, hang it up in the shed with a you know block and tackle, let it cool out, then we could cut it up.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, same with pigs and take that as fresh, you know, fresh meat down to the curb market.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it was it was fantastic.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_01: It was, and that's been in my lifetime, we've seen that go away.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this just reminds me of the problems with having the government involved with our food supply, because I'm reading this bill that became a law, and I'm thinking, wow, this is great.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like all we need is for all 50 states to step up and you know codify these in their constitutions, but it's like it never ends.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: So now you're saying, so so this isn't even far enough.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because like I said, so so what do they so they would need another bill?
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's just well, seeing it look, let's be it's as far as.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: State can go.
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's as far as a state can go.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: And see, this is what Congressman Thomas Massey's Prime Act has been about from wherever he's been after that for ever since he's been in Congress, is that that that the federal the federal um inspection would would not be applied in a in a custom slaughterhouse.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: So he he the Prime Act does not do a blanket either.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't let you do it in your backyard, but it does let you do it to a custom house, which is there are a lot of them, small ones around the country, that that do custom processing.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_01: I have an animal, I want it butchered, I take it to the custom house, they do it for me, I pick it up, bring it home, but the packages are stamped not for sale because there's not an inspector on site that poked and sniffed through the guts.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: And so the Prime Act, uh, what Thomas Massey has been after, and he now has, I think, 65 signatories to it, um was it is that if a state wants to allow this custom processed meat to be sold, you know, so I take a beef down and get it done, but I don't want the whole thing.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: I just need a half.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I've got a neighbor that says, hey, I'll take two ribeye steaks.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: Another neighbor says, hey, I'll take five pounds of ground beef.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_01: Another one comes and says, Hey, I'd like the you know, chuck roast, you know, ten pounds of chuck roast.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Massey, the Prime Act would say if a state wants to allow that within its state, federal is not going to come in and and uh cause you a problem.
• 45:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's a state, it's a state prerogative.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, it's a it's it's a it's a stand down order.
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's a stand down order to the federal bureaucrat saying, hey, if a state says we want to do this, you can't touch that particular, you you you can't intervene in that.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: And that would be a that would be a fantastic thing, but you know, he's been after it for eight years and still only has 65 signatures, and you know, it it's a it's a hard, you know, you would think that something like that would be so easy to pass, but uh, but big ag, big ag, big retail, big grosser, you know, they don't want, they, they know what that kind of thing, it would open the floodgates to um to small farmers accessing their neighbors, with, by the way, Cena, about 30% cheaper processing costs than federal inspected.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_01: Because the the paperwork, the paperwork, the office, the toilet, the all the stuff involved in a federal inspection um adds about 30% to the actual uh fabrication.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, if you if you've got a if you've got an animal that um that is gonna be$700 and under federal inspection, you know, you can get it done for$450 under custom.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's a big savings.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: That is a big savings.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_00: So you're saying if the Prime Act, you know, were to pass, does that mean that the consumer who is frequenting those farms could potentially have a lower food price?
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely, absolutely.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and this is the message that I try to present to people that think that we're, you know, elitist and overpriced and all that stuff, is that that a lot of our price structure is not because it costs us more to produce it without chemicals and antibiotics.
• 47:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's trying to squeeze a craft product through an industrial commodity platform.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And all food regulations are scale prejudicial.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: They're cheap, they're they're easier to comply with if you're big than if you're small.
• 48:17
  SPEAKER_01: They're cheaper per pound to adhere to if you're big than if you're small, which is inherently unfair.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_01: No law should be easier to comply with if you're big than if you're small.
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, why couldn't a state like Maine, since they already have, you know, those, those, that in place, why can't they do something like New Hampshire is doing and just in a way say we're gonna opt out of the federal, like for the meat processing?
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: Well, yeah, just thumb their nose.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 48:48
  SPEAKER_01: So so when Maine tried to do that, uh I'm gonna say uh several years ago, I can't, I can't tell you when.
• 48:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um when they did this first effort, then the federals, the the feds came in and said, All right, we're gonna withdraw all inspection from your state, and you won't be able to sell a single piece of meat across the state line.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: Then you get into interstate commerce.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_01: So immediately the governor, he had he had already signed the bill and he rescinded his signature.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_01: That that was the extortion, that was the federal extortion on the state um to to not let that happen.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that and that and that has not changed.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that sounds like a big bully.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it is.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean the federal government, the the the the the gov the government is a big bully.
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: So much for uh 50 states of you know, laboratory right?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_00: What was that?
• 49:48
  SPEAKER_00: 50 laboratories of you know the United States.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, why can't we just, you know, we don't need cookie cutter states.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we need to go back to the original founding.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: And well, and and yeah, and and this is why this is why there is so much um acrimony and partisanship in the country is because we have arrogated to the federal level things that were supposed to be done at the state level.
• 50:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so, and so instead of being a 50-state experiment, and well, let's try this and you can try that, and we'll try this.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of that, what we have is a is a winner-take all, a one, a one, you know, a one recipe, a one-regimented thing.
• 50:34
  SPEAKER_01: And it it it um it elevates the stakes, you know, in the in the conversation.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: It makes the stakes weigh higher for the winner and loser.
• 50:43
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's a it's a winner-take-all kind of thing nationally, and that's the you know, that's the problem.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, this we only have a few minutes left, but this reminds me of another story that I wanted to get your take on because it involves this whole, you know, um, you know, having being able to vote with your feet, right?
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_00: By having these 50 different experiments.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you saw this, but after the US officially left the World Health Organization, um, I think that was last month.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_00: Did you see how Gavin Newsom he went to Davos and he met with the head of um like some Who Group and he signed California up for their global outbreak response network?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, in essence, the state is trying to bypass the federal government and stay plugged into this globalist infrastructure.
• 51:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're also using state laws, I think it's like AB 144 to prioritize international health guidance over federal advice.
• 51:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, in a way, it kind of looks like a functional, you know, secession into the arms of global governance.
• 51:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I'm wondering, you know, this means the data, California data is still flowing into the WHO, right?
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is like a data.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um that that's one thing that that he's apparently agreed to do is to keep giving the WHO um its citizens' data.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: And um so they're still he's showing alignment with who.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you see this?
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like, is this I'm wondering if this is constitutional, is this a gray area?
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like you know, they can't a state can't form a treaty uh with an international body, to my understanding.
• 52:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's this weird kind of space that I don't think we've actually seen before.
• 52:46
  SPEAKER_01: It it is a weird space, and and what what it is, what it is, is uh whatever whatever Trump is for, I'm against.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I mean I mean Gavin Newsom, there's no there's no question that he's grooming himself to run for president.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: There there's no uh I don't think there's any question about that.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so he is he is um at at every at every turn that he thinks he can make a fool of Trump, and and I I I'm not don't I'm I'm not endorsing Trump here.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: I'm just the the the the fact of the case is that every at every turn that he thinks he can get one over on Trump, he's gonna do it.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so Trump wants to leave who?
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_01: So Gavin Newsom, I want to stay in.
• 53:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, Trump wants to uh Trump wants to whatever lower taxes, and Newsom says, well, I'm gonna need to raise taxes on the billionaires.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
• 53:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um so so it's a I I and of course the media being anti-Trump um doesn't pursue the questions you're asking.
• 53:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it just it just lets it ride.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh I I I actually don't know what the constitutional effects are.
• 54:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, certainly governors go to international, they travel internationally to make deals with other states.
• 54:12
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Virginia's been to Egypt, I don't know how many times, to make deals for um wheat exports and things.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so governors certainly do that.
• 54:21
  SPEAKER_01: They I don't I don't know what level of treaty um you know is is or what treaty of agreement or arrangement is, you know, over the over the threshold.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that is, but um I'm certainly glad I'm certainly glad to leave who and uh they certainly haven't done anything for health as far as I can tell.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's an it's kind of an interesting thought experiment because you know, I think both of us are proponents of the 50 laboratories of democracy, right?
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and we don't want cookie-cutter states.
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_00: And but the the goal of having that 50 laboratories of democracy in part is that so states can move closer to their people and further from globalist control, right?
• 55:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's getting it worked down to what do the people want.
• 55:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then you get to vote with your feet.
• 55:13
  SPEAKER_00: So in this case, California is using its state sovereignty to plug itself right back into a globalist power that we just walked away from.
• 55:22
  SPEAKER_00: So is that actually a good thing?
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, does the laboratory of democracy?
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_01: I certainly don't think it's I certainly don't think it's a good thing.
• 55:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the question was, is it constitutional?
• 55:32
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I I don't I don't know.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a I'm not a constitutional uh attorney.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_01: I I know that governors make deals all the time with other governments around the world.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I don't I don't know whether this one goes over a threshold or not.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: Have to get a constitutional attorney on here and uh run it run it by.
• 55:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know who do you know?
• 55:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, um I I think I mean this is one that could maybe has to go to the Supreme Court to see what they think eventually, you know.
• 56:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I mean I I think it's a big deal.
• 56:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I'm not hearing people talk about it, but I do think, you know, for a constitutionalist, this is actually a big deal.
• 56:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what's the ramification for the citizens in that state?
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I guess at this point it's you know, vote with your feet.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 56:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, because I, you know, I wouldn't want to have any more connections with them or be bound to them in any way.
• 56:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I also don't want to be bound to any globalist entity at all.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 56:35
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, we're certainly seeing we're certainly seeing um you know fracturing in our culture um that's that's that's actually fairly significant.
• 56:49
  SPEAKER_01: And um and this is this is symptomatic of that.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: The whole thing in in Florida with the gag rule, that's symptomatic of it.
• 56:59
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're just seeing those kinds of of um really significant fracturing going on around the culture.
• 57:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, I I can imagine that uh if Florida did pass, in fact, a gag rule, that um there would be, you know, it would be battled in the courts and uh and there would be pro bono, just like any other, you know, uh any other uh big effort like this, there would be pro no pro bono representation or organizations, organizations on our side that would stand up and um and go against this.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's it it it's sad.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the the one thing that I would say overall is it's sad that the conservatives who have been, you know, leave me alone, let me do my thing, um have have essentially allowed the conservative voice to be co-opted by the chemical industrial cartel.
• 58:13
  SPEAKER_01: And and to me that's just sad.
• 58:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's really sad.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_01: Because these guys tend to be conservative, church going, honorable, honest, you know, they're not um, you know, they're not they're not communists, they're not socialists, they're not, you know, they're for low taxes, they're for uh, you know, independence.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_01: That you know, there are a lot of things that we go with, and to and to let and to watch them get bamboozled into becoming um tyrants by the industrial chemical big ag cartel, food cartel, is um is is just tragic.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's all.
• 59:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's just tragic.
• 59:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think they're uh maybe not reading the bills?
• 59:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like do they maybe are not aware of the language that's in the farm bill, or do you think they just think No, I I I I I I think, I mean, based on people that I talked to, um, you know, just last month I was in I was in uh Des Moines and spoke to these uh whatever 1200 um conventional chemical corn and bean, corn and soybean growers.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I I the the the animosity the animosity against somebody that dares to question glyphosate, for example, in in the in the conservative red block farm community.
• 59:49
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it it it's deeper than just you don't want me to use chemicals.
• 59:54
  SPEAKER_01: It is well, you want half the world to die?
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you are a you are sick.
• 1:00:00
  SPEAKER_01: You are a sicko.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we don't use this, half the world's gonna starve to death.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I can't talk to a sicko that wants half the world to die.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's the that's the mentality, that's the level of of emotional philosophical pushback.
• 1:00:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so these guys are thinking they're doing divine work.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: They're doing divine work by saving themselves from the people who would dare to disparage the very technology that has made us breadbasket to the world.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_00: Oh wow.
• 1:00:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh that's a harder gap to bridge than I thought.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 1:00:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 1:00:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's very hard.
• 1:00:43
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Which is why, seeing it, which is why I'm pushing for food emancipation and not outlawing glyphosate and outlawing GMOs and all, you know, the the general agenda is we gotta outlaw this, outlaw that, outlaw, you know, factory farms, outlaw all this stuff.
• 1:01:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and and and to me, it's it's a much more whatever appealing uh message to say, let's not, let's not talk about them.
• 1:01:15
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about us.
• 1:01:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about freeing us up to create a parallel universe.
• 1:01:19
  SPEAKER_01: They can go if they want to do that, yeah, that's fine.
• 1:01:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: All we want is to grow stuff the way we want to grow up with compost and earthworms and feed our kids raw milk and you know, um, homegrown stuff and and um herbs and you know, just leave us alone.
• 1:01:39
  SPEAKER_01: To me, to me, that's a much more positive upbeat message than I'm gonna be against, against, against, against.
• 1:01:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:01:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this gives us something to be for.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's much more doable.
• 1:01:51
  SPEAKER_00: As we saw, yeah, there's you know, Maine took a huge step forward, and so now we just have to get that processing of the meat, you know, through.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 1:01:59
  SPEAKER_01: Maine, Maine, Maine totally gets it.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that philosophically, that is that is absolutely where we need to go.
• 1:02:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we just need a little more, a little more of the shackles taken off at the federal level, and and this thing's gonna just um blow out.
• 1:02:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're all gonna move to Maine and live on a compound together and be happy with our community garden.
• 1:02:22
  SPEAKER_01: Like no, what what's gonna be happen, what's gonna happen is Maine's gonna go bankrupt with all the hospitals, with all the sick people from tainted, uninspected food from dirty farmers and dirty kitchens.
• 1:02:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:02:38
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what the other side says.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is what they say.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's what the other side says.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh, but but but what we need is the freedom to experiment.
• 1:02:46
  SPEAKER_01: We need the freedom to experiment on a scale that that we can actually do this.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and so Maine is Maine is giving us that uh that option.
• 1:02:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:02:57
  SPEAKER_00: What okay, lead us out with a community question.
• 1:03:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so um the the question is this uh uh I'm blown away by this uh this chart that you held up with the the metals in these uh kid candies, and um I guess my question is when you go to the grocery store, and almost everybody goes at some point, uh when you go, um do you bypass the kid candy aisle?
• 1:03:32
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't, what's your favorite one?
• 1:03:41
  SPEAKER_01: Mine so so if if I have any of those that we've mentioned today, mine is a Snickers bar.
• 1:03:48
  SPEAKER_01: Really?
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I can I can eat about four of those a year.
• 1:03:55
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you would be over your arsenic limit, I think.
• 1:03:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be over my arsenic limit at four a year.
• 1:04:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:02
  unknown: Wait.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me see real fast, because there's a child version and then there's an adult version.
• 1:04:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, you could have six pieces as an adult.
• 1:04:13
  SPEAKER_00: Oh you're okay?
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm okay.
• 1:04:16
  unknown: Yeah, all right.
• 1:04:17
  SPEAKER_00: As long as once a quarter?
• 1:04:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but but that also means you can't consume arsenic from any other sources.
• 1:04:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's right.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, none of that other stuff.
• 1:04:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I I I just I I have no desire to eat whatever the you know, gummy bears.
• 1:04:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've never had any of that stuff.
• 1:04:36
  SPEAKER_00: I see kids, whoa Well, I even mean like you know, if you're if you have arsenic in your water and you don't know, or you know, other products, that's a no-no.
• 1:04:45
  SPEAKER_00: So so maybe go down to two Snicker bars, Joel, just in case.
• 1:04:49
  SPEAKER_00: Give you a little buffer there.
• 1:04:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:04:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:04:53
  SPEAKER_01: Hey everybody, thanks for spending this time with us.
• 1:04:56
  SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate it.
• 1:04:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh if you if you like our our banter here, uh tell your friends about it.
• 1:05:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we'd love to enter um more people's homes once a once in a while, uh, once a week.
• 1:05:11
  SPEAKER_01: So once in a while, once a week.
• 1:05:13
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for joining us.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_01: We'll be with you uh with another Beyond Levels podcast um next week.
• 1:05:19
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.