The St. Louis Podcast
St. Louis' most popular business and satire news podcast. Hosted by Eric Brown, alongside the most badass guests in and outside of St. Louis. The show covers the latest in business and current events. Watch the free version of the video at youtube.com/@thestlouispodcast
The St. Louis Podcast
The War "Ended." Iran Got Everything It Wanted - The St. Louis Podcast: Episode #153
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Trump demanded unconditional surrender in March. Iran just got its oil revenue back, a path to lifting every sanction, and a $300 billion reconstruction fund. Even Lindsey Graham says the deal sounds awful.
Why end it now? Trump said it himself at the G7: "Every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship."
Same week, Elon Musk became the world's first trillionaire off SpaceX's IPO. And the FBI arrested five people, one from Missouri, allegedly plotting to attack billionaires and politicians on the White House lawn.
Eric breaks down who actually won this war, and it's not who you think.
🎧 Listen now. Share it. Start a conversation.
👉 Connect with us!
Website: https://stlouispodcast.com/
Facebook: The St. Louis Podcast
Instagram: @stlouispodcast
Twitter: @stlouispodcasts
Tik Tok: @stlouispodcast
Welcome back to the St. Louis Podcast. As always, my name is Eric Brown. I host this thing. And boy, have we had uh last couple of months. It's been big, big news. And obviously the biggest news of this week is the fact that the war is over, or is it? Or is it? That will be the question. Uh, obviously leading into next week. Of course, uh, the war didn't end because we won. Let's just start it off top. The war didn't end because we won. It ended because the markets were screaming. It also ended because uh Trump at the G7 said, um, and he probably shouldn't have said this out loud that it was recorded that multiple countries were essentially four weeks away from running out of all of their um stockpiles. So that would have created absolute mayhem. Uh this is, of course, uh Trump at the G7 as well. Every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. I didn't want to see the economic catastrophe. It's for the billionaires. The billionaires are the boys. So who actually pays when the people in charge protect the portfolio first? So after demanding, of course, unconditional surrender in March. Remember that unconditional surrender? Uh the U.S. signed a 14-point memo that holds, or excuse me, that hands Iran its oil sales back, up to $300 billion to rebuild, and a path to lifting every sanction. Even Lindsey Graham says it sounds awful. Now, of course, Lindsey Graham is one of the largest Zionists. So, um, and of course, if you look at what Israel says about this deal, um, they are not happy. They're not happy they are going to continue their efforts in Lebanon. And of course, the reason that they want Lebanon is not for Hezbollah, it is for the Greater Israel Project. Now, if you don't know what the Greater Israel Project is, go ahead and do a quick Google search. But the IDF literally has the map of what they want on their shoulder. So go ahead and take a take a quick look at the IDF patches and see what's going on there. The Greater Israel project. I'll probably get banned off YouTube talking about it. All right. So, what's actually in it? Trump signed uh at Versailles Wednesday. Iran signed remotely. Formal ceremony set for Switzerland Friday, of course, June 19th. The terms dictated to reporters after days of secrecy. Now, I believe they said that uh Israel actually uh released this information prior to the U.S. wanting it to be public, which is interesting. Um, of course, this war in Operation Epic Fury began all the way back in February 28th, with joint U.S. Israel strikes, nearly 900 strikes in 12 hours that killed Supreme Leader Khamaini and dozens of officials. His son Mojappa Motaba Khomeini succeeded him. The opening wave also killed about 170 people at a girls' school adjacent to a naval base in Manab. Now, if you look up uh Anthropic CEO, actually just said something about this. He said that that's not actually what happened there is not actually part of their red line. Uh, with their dealings with, you know, essentially AI killing of, you know, people overseas, or obviously, you know, here in the U.S., of course, as well. Go ahead and look that interview up. Uh, I think it was actually this week or last week that that was released with the CEO of Anthropic. The guys that are supposed to be the, you know, the AI company that is it doesn't want just to release all the power to the government at once, but really all these guys are scumbags. They want, you know, the majority of jobs uh essentially to be gone and be done by, you know, obviously their programs. We just saw that Elon Musk became the first trillionaire, obviously, on paper, you know, due to, of course, SpaceX, but a lot of it due to the bullshit AI side of things. Uh, after 40 days, of course, a ceasefire took effect from April 7th to April 8th, brokered by Pakistan. It was violated by both sides pretty immediately. Uh, the June fighting, obviously, we had Apache doing in the U.S. Iran strikes, was a breakdown of that April ceasefire. June 17th was day 110 of the ceasefire. The MOU was digitally signed, June 15th, signed again from the G7 yesterday, with formal signing tomorrow. So this is the end of a war that started in February, April A ceasefire, repeated violations, June escalation, and then now we have this. The official cumulative war cost is around 30 billion. Who pays for that? Who pays for the 30 billion? And I would assume that that number is only going to go up. Now, of course, the terms uh are oil flows immediately. Treasury issues waivers for Iranian crude, petroleum products, and all associated services, banking, insurance, transport, the moment the MOU is signed before any further Iranian steps. This part is solid and actually in text. The $300 billion is contested. It apparently is not a fact. The MOU text says the U.S. undertakes the regional partners to develop a plan with at least $300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of Iran. Mechanism to be determined in 60 days. Vance flatly denies U.S. money is involved. He said not a single cent. Called the reparations framing basically Iranian propaganda. And Reuters reports it's structured as a private investment fund, not U.S. reparations. Oh, so we paid for the war that is then going to allow uh U.S. Gulf, Asian, and African country companies to go in and get a piece of at least this $300 billion in reconstruction. Now, of course, I've talked about uh the Ukrainian reconstruction. Um I believe earlier this year or last year, and I know that's that's obviously not going to happen until the war is done. Uh, but they already have a fund pretty much set up, I believe, with the number being, you know, 500 billion, or maybe even it was over a trillion dollars. Frozen assets unlocked. The MLU makes frozen restricted assets fully available. ABC uh reports this could be $100 billion. Release is not immediate. It's tied to future Iranian compliance, says up to roughly $100 billion on a compliance link schedule. This is, of course, not a hard number. The nuclear question is punted and not solved. Iran had 440 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium before the war. The only non-weapon state at that level. The MOU only agrees to further discuss downblending in the 60-day talks. Officials call it the floor, not the ceiling. Uh, the IAEA has had no verified access since the war and cannot confirm how much of the stockpile survived or where it is. Much is believed Barry under bombed facilities. The 2015 deal shipped uranium out. This deal leaves the question open with the material unaccounted for. The deal also states that Israeli military operations must stop on signing and affirms Lebanon's territorial integrity. Like I just said, this is probably going to be a sticking point. But Israel isn't a party to the deal, has rejected withdrawing and kept striking Southern Lebanon past the signing as of yesterday. Lebanon's health ministry uh toll through uh 3,800 killed and 11,800 wounded. The MOU says if a final deal is reached, the U.S. would terminate all types of sanctions. But that's contingent on the 60-day talk succeeding. Don't say sanctions are lifted. The deal opens the door to it. Now, of course, the I you know, I think the biggest part of this all is, you know, the G7 confession. Uh at the closing G7 news conference, Trump didn't sell this as a victory of strength. He sold it as a resource of economy out loud. Here's what he said. I didn't want to see economic catastrophe. If you kept this going, that could have happened. But all I know is every time we talked about the possibility of peace, the stock market shot up like a rocket ship. He also said, if it doesn't get done in 60 days, that's all right. We go back to bombing. I don't want to do that because it's so good, but we might have to. Obviously, Iran benefits, they survive survive the war, gets its oil revenue back immediately, and gets a path to sanctions relief and frozen asset access if it complies. So what was this war for? You started a war to stop Iranians, um, Iran's, excuse me, nuclear program, and the program status is now an open question. The IAEA can't even verify what did the 30 billion, the dead, and the deployed buy. Well, bought a lot of uh bought a lot of people realizing um, you know, that maybe they don't care about the common man. And we've talked about this on the podcast, I mean, continuously, uh, since the uh you know start of this war. I will say right now that damn, was I accurate. Trump's gonna come out. We're essentially going to give Iran what it was getting beforehand, and more. They will now have arguably more power after this deal is structured. They're getting frozen assets unfrozen, and now the world sees them as a, you know, essentially a superpower that uh, you know, stands up to the U.S.
SPEAKER_01and Israel.
SPEAKER_00And, you know, what was interesting is the fact that I I, you know, I forgot what video I was watching, and they were talking about the fact that Israel is one is one of the main contributors to you know, really the downfall of Iran and their democratically elected uh, you know, officials and bringing back in the um, you know, it's essentially a you know rule by one. Um and you know, Israel didn't want to see a superpower in their area. So what did they do? They worked with the U.S. to ensure that they would not become a superpower. And now we are here dealing with this at this day. So all he cared about was the stock market. That's cool. It's great. The straight reopens. Did your gas actually drop? Uh $4.14 average today. Brent fell to $79 on the deal news. Uh Goldman cut its Q4 Brent forecast to $80 from $90. City C $70. I haven't even looked at the gas prices. Have they gone up or down? Have you seen? Are they into uh where are they at now?
SPEAKER_01I don't even know. Let's take a look. $375 a gallon. Wait, why does this say?
SPEAKER_00Wait, why does this quick trip so th show $3.30 on the Dorset? It's like Costco prices. So it looks like gas has come down a bit. That's good. Now keep in mind before the war, we're paying about $280. So we're still paying a dollar more than we were paying in February of this year. Until I see a two in front of it, I don't care. Did they set up another fake attempt at the White House in order to get the taxpayers to fund the ballroom? Who knows? Trump said the White House ballroom uh wouldn't cost taxpayers even 10 cents. A contractor estimated from three weeks earlier said it would cost $600 million. More than half from your pocket. Love that.
SPEAKER_01Now, of course, his prices jumped from $200 million to $600 million.
SPEAKER_00So by the time uh Trump said taxpayer uh free, the government had already approved a dozen plus payments to the contract or totally tens of millions of dollars in public funds. Arrest him! He's lying. It replaced a demolished East Wing. A poll found uh 56% of Americans oppose the demolition of ballroom. In April poll showed two to one opposition. I was about to say two to one opposition probably makes more sense. No, like who in the right mind wants our taxpayer dollars to be going to a fucking ballroom? I'd love to see Trump try and dance. I've seen him. It's this this stupid ass shit from 2016. Fuck you need a ballroom for, sir. He's made enough money off of stock market manipulation and crypto. He should pay for it himself. Paid for by the Trump family. Then he can fucking have his name on it forever. Uh so who's gonna benefit? This is a 90,000 uh square foot ballroom at the president's residence. You uh paid, you, the taxpayers, are paying $300 plus million dollars rooted through Secret Service and military budgets, which means it can be to actual security and defense spending.
SPEAKER_01I love that.
SPEAKER_00You know, every week on this podcast, I'm like, do we have any good news? Where's the good news? Is the common man winning? And every single week I come on the podcast and the common man's getting their shit kicked in. We're getting fucked over here. All right. So uh, you know, I didn't really want to talk about this because I didn't think most people would care, but I found it interesting, so therefore I am going to talk about it. Uh, Georgia, money beat the endorsement. Georgia handed Trump a split decision. His Senate pick won. His governor pick lost to a first-time candidate who spent $100 million of his own money. The lesson isn't Trump's week, it's money still outranks MAGA. Now, this also goes to prove the fact that APAC can spend a bunch of money to get Thomas Massey removed. So, what does it have to say about the people that are seeing this content and are actively being advertised to that they could, you know, let's just say swing an election in whatever way that they please based on the amount of money that they're putting into it?
SPEAKER_01I mean, if that's all it is, it's a fucking money game.
SPEAKER_00You could have the best candidate on the planet, and you could just have the evil powers that be push someone like Ed Gower. You know, if would they spend $30, $40 million on the that representative race? Which, of course, we've talked about on the podcast as well. So Trump endorsed uh Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, backed, uh he backed him actually last year in August. Healthcare billionaire Rick Jackson beat him after spending $100 million of his own fortune. Jackson faces Democratic Keisha Lance Bottoms in November. Trump's uh late pick Reprob uh Republican, or excuse me, Representative Mike Collins one-handily 55 to 45 over Kemp backdrick cooley. Collins faces Senator John Osif, one of the most expensive most watch races of 2026. So Trump's endorsements uh this cycle have skewed towards safe incumbents and clearing fields. The Collins late endorsement win mirrors his Paxton over corn and play. But the governor lost joins misfires in Iowa, Fiendstream, and elsewhere. Also, in the Secretary of State race, opened for the first time since Trump uh pressured Raffensburger to find 11,780 votes. Republicans picked Tim Fleving over outright election denier Vernon Jones. So, what does that mean? A political newcomer bought a major party nomination for $100 million and beat a sitting lieutenant governor with a presidential endorsement. In an open race, self-funded money beat the most powerful endorsement in American politics. That's a story about who can actually buy access to power, and it scales all the way down to local races. This is why machinery and money matter at every level. The further down the ballot you go, the fewer dollars it takes to be the Rick Jackson of your race. Power is cheaper locally. That's the opportunity and the warning. So if you have enough money, seems like it doesn't matter who you're endorsed by. Obviously, we have the first trillionaire. SpaceX's uh record IPO made Elon Musk by most calculations on paper. The world's first trillionaire the same week the FBI arrested five people, one from Missouri for allegedly plotting to attack the White House UFC event, naming capitalist elites and billionaires as targets. Listen. Listen. I've been saying it's only a matter of time. Uh before people start getting pissed off at the you know, the tech billionaires, the you know, healthcare uh billionaires, you know, the uh you know, name them. And that you better have a very good security force. Because the majority of people are eventually, and I'm calling it right now, are eventually going to fucking hate these people. They're going to hate Elon Musk. Like he has a trillion dollars, and people are like, good for him. What is the net worth of all of Missouri's population?
SPEAKER_01Cool.
SPEAKER_00So he has as much money as the entirety. Of Missouri. That's uh six point two seven million Missourians. What the fuck is going on? Why are people happy for the guy? The guy dumped a shitty stock on people. And it's like evaluated, uh, you know, I think like Google's like 8x earnings or something, like SpaceX is like 80x earnings. It's absolutely buffoonery. Or absolute buffoonery, excuse me. And listen, you think if you were a smarter guy, you know, you're planning to take out people, you probably don't do it at the fucking White House. I mean, if you want to take out Elon Musk, you know, make sure he's probably not with a bunch of other powerful people. Preferably alone, maybe in the middle of a lake. Wait, wait, Elon doesn't boat. What am I what am I fucking talking about? This guy doesn't go outside.
SPEAKER_01Trump gave Elon land?
SPEAKER_00The Trump administration and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a controversial land swap that gives SpaceX 715 acres of the lower Rio Grande Valley national wildlife refugee in South Texas. In exchange, the government is receiving 683 acres of private land owned by SpaceX near the Laguna at Escosa Refugee. The exchange is intended to consolidate fragmented refugee holdings. However, the swap has sparked significant pushback. This is like the family swap uh Chappelle show skit. So funny. I think it's dad swap or mom swap. Yeah, they're done. A coalition of tribal and conserve conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to block the transfer. They argue the exchange sets a dev yeah, dangerous precedent. That's that's everything going on right now. It's just a slippery slope. You get one, then they're like, Do you see how many refugees we can consolidate? Critics also point out the land acquired by SpaceX contains portions of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historical Landmark. The site of the last land battle of the Civil War. Fuck them. Who cares? Civil War not important. That was like, you know, 170 years ago now.
SPEAKER_01Who cares?
SPEAKER_00That's crazy. I mean, they're you know, they're they're going after public lands left and right, which you know is an absolute disgrace. Like that is the most un-American thing of all time, which is like Trump getting rid, like you're not American. If you are pro like getting rid of public lands, we should want more, not less. If you're pro getting, we could get some oil from there though. Fucking find it somewhere else. Who cares? They just see dollars. These companies see dollars, and they're like, Trump, can I please get this public land? He's like, sure, how about you write me a check for $50 million and you can have whatever you want? Fucking joke. The fish and wildlife are notorious. Like if you're a fisher in, I don't know, Missouri, let's just say, for example, they're notorious for like hiding in the fucking woods. And if you catch a fish jumping out and trying to get your fish license. But when it comes to refugees and moving refugees, sure. It's exact exactly. Uh so $75 billion raised, largest IPO ever, $1.77 trillion evaluation, $135 billion fixed share price, must set himself. 82% must vote in control afterwards. The fundamentals under the $1.77 trillion stickers, only $18.7 billion in revenue. Against a net loss of $5 billion. They're losing money. Morningstar pegs SpaceX's fair value near $780 billion, less than half the IPO evaluation. Arc projects up to three plus trillion by 2030. Analysts are generally spit split. This is a bet on Musk, not on current earnings. And I've said this, you know, slowly over the last couple of years, but Elon Musk might be the best grifter of all time. And then people are like, but he's developed, you know, cars and everything for SpaceX and satellites for Starlink. And I'm like, I am not disputing any of that. I am disputing the fact that he should be worth more like 100 billion and not a trillion. Tesla has been overpriced forever in the stock market. Again, the only reason that the stock price is so high, because so many people believe in Elon Musk. But a lot of that stuff should have changed after you saw him talk continuously in public over the last couple of years. That demeanor. He used to be, and I forgot where I saw this. It was like in movies, they would have referred to like Elon Musk as like that space guy. Now they would never, you know, have Elon Musk be like that space guy in a movie. It's 100% true. Uh so there is five arrested for allegedly uh plotting to attack UFC Freedom 250 on the White House South Lawn with explosive laden drones by shooting people who fled. So they were gonna have explosive laden drones and shooting people who fled. Daniel Eskridge, 32 of Missouri. Damn, same age as me. Come on, bro. You didn't plan this better. Charged with conspiracy to commit murder. Others arrested in Ohio. Tyson proper, 19, who allegedly spent three grand in graduation money on guns and thousands of rounds. The stated motive, uh we'll have to start a Patreon for this podcast and gatekeep some content because I got some things to say about this. Like, why at this point, why are you buying guns in thousands of rounds? Like, what are you doing? Like, what do you think they're gonna do? Just pull up and start. I just don't get it. The stated motive, uh, per suspect, target capitalist elites, billionaires, or politicians who received APAC donations. FBI found signal chats with 20 to 23 participants discussing maps, a safe house, and escape routes. Uh Vice President Van said that 23 people do not get to the point where they're going to commit a mass terror event without some serious funding, without some serious coordination. FBI learned of it June 10th. Investigation spanned 12 plus field offices. Now, of course, you know, I will just say that, you know, data centers, they know everything. The NSA now has, and I believe they've had a data facility or they're building one or it's already done. They have a data facility that is large enough to store every single person's U.S. citizens, phone calls, emails, text messages, any sort of communication. They can store all of it. Now, are they gonna tell us that's what it's for?
SPEAKER_01No, of course not.
SPEAKER_00So in one week, one man's wealth crossed the line no human has ever crossed, and a cell of people allegedly decided billionaires were target worth dying for. A society where the first trillionaire and the first billionaire target a terror plot arrive in the same news cycle is a society with the pressure problem. Who benefits? Who benefits from wealth concentrating this fast? I wonder. Maybe the wealthy. Who's quietly betting that the resentment it generates stays harmless? Listen, I'm not betting on that. I am going, you know, it was the first healthcare CEO, right? And that was already what, last year or two years ago. I thought that more stuff was going to pop off after that happened. And I was uh surprised that it didn't. Just because there are a ton of angry Americans. They're angry at the fact that they are spending more to live than ever before. And that's not saying, obviously, you know, a dollar in 1970 doesn't, you know, go as far as it does now, of course. I'm saying when you look at it from an overall percentage of the amount of money that you're making versus what you need to buy. People are in more debt now than ever. And that statement is true every single day. Debt continues to rise, not only for the United States government, but for its people as well. So when is society going to break? Is it going to break? I think at some point you're going to have enough people that are upset with the way that things are going in this country. And I'm not saying, obviously, that this is the correct way to go about and bring change. Um, but I will say that there are, you know, I think that there are plenty of Americans that wholeheartedly would have joined these people, you know, this day, in order to do, you know, damage. And, you know, if some of these guys go down, I can't sit here and say I feel bad for them. I really can't. Am I gonna sit here and clap and say, great job, I'm so proud of you? Probably not. I'm gonna be conflicted, but I'm not gonna feel bad. And you're like, Eric, you sound like a horrible person. Does it make me horrible the fact that these people hold so much wealth, and the average U.S. citizen is, you know, living paycheck to paycheck. Doesn't have, you know, everything that the economy is riding on now is the stock market. You know, the average person has zero dollars in the stock market. Um, so it, you know, it really is uh a them versus us situation. You know, so I'm starting to see that. I'm starting to see really the the wealth is going to start dividing us into a systemic, you know, issue of the very rich versus absolutely everyone else. And if I was the very rich, I'd be very fucking nervous because there's a lot of people that are not. You know, you got hundreds of millions of people in the US, you know, it doesn't take that many people uh to make a big change. Or just uh, you know, have something bad or, you know, terrible happen. Or good, depending on what you're looking at in and what outcomes happen. Uh, new Fed chair Kevin Walsh held rates unchanged at his first meeting and launched a sweeping review, balance sheets, communications, data, the inflation framework. He dropped forward guidance saying it wasn't well suited to the moment, and said he couldn't say what the Fed would do next. A deliberate return to a shorter greenspan era style of mystery. Markets sold off and short-term bond yields jumped after the announcement. Nine of 19 policymakers now expect a rate hike by the end of 2023. Now, of course, Trump, you know, for the past couple of years has been talking about rate cuts continuously. Trump appointed Walsh expecting an ally. He got an independent operator who just made borrowing costs less predictable for every mortgage, car loan, and small business line of credit. Here's the thread back to the whole episode, baby. The stock market shot up like a rocket ship on the Iran deal, but the Fed share just told you it might hike rates, and then the market sold off. Wall Street's sugar high from the war ending ran straight into a guy whose entire message was, I'm not going to tell you what I'm doing. Two halves of the same economy pulling opposite directions in the same week. Obviously, the big thing being talked about that I continue to see here in Missouri is Amendment 5. I have talked about it extensively a couple of weeks ago on a podcast when I go through, you know, the hypothetical is essentially of the numbers. What it comes out to, and of course, this is I'm not an economist, I'm not an expert, uh, but I try and do as much research, you know, I'm not even going to say as possible, because of course it's not like I'm sitting here reading, you know, hours and hours text on all of these situations. I try and consume as much as humanly possible in the time that I have, you know, available in order to do so. Uh, but I talked about Amendment Five, and and really where it comes down to, I think, with the income tax thing is we're so we're these people don't know where this money is going to come from. And I am a guy. I am a guy where I do believe that there is a ton of fraud and bloat and expenses um, you know, that could be hundreds of millions of dollars, right, on a yearly basis that Missouri is uh spending money on. Um and maybe then we could, you know, remove the income tax because we just simply wouldn't need as much tax revenue. But I will say right now, that doesn't seem to be the case. Of course, also I believe that Missouri is going to be in a negative situation next year, at the end of this year, um, with their tax dollars. And of course, going ahead and removing more of those tax dollars doesn't make any sense. Now, this primarily benefits the you know super wealthy and super rich here in Missouri. Um, this is going to be a net negative on the majority of people here in Missouri. You ask yourself why? Well, they're gonna have to replace that income tax with something. And that something is more than likely going to be a sales tax. Now, of course, me being a business owner, I am worried about sales tax on service-based companies. It is not applied right now. And if it is applied, this puts my company, you know, my marketing agency via media at a disadvantage. Um, and of course, you know, any other companies, you know, that are that are here. It it doesn't, why not just move, you know, 30 minutes to let's just say Edwardsville, Illinois, or somewhere over there, where I, you know, I'm not going to be charged that, let's just say, you know, 5%, 4% uh, you know, sales tax on a service-based business. So this means for all people, right? Let's just think about it this way sales tax is going to increase no matter what. So everything that you buy now is going to be more expensive. On top of that, you know, anybody that comes to your house for a service is now going to charge a tax on their work. Plumbers, HVAC, electricians, blah, blah, blah, any of those companies, you're getting contract work done. Your land care, your landscaping company, your lawn care company, all of those things are now going to have to charge sales tax. So it's it's it's anti-business, right? If that case, if that's the case, it's anti-business. They're saying this is pro-business. Businesses are going to move here. What businesses? Massive businesses, but fuck small businesses. Is that where we're at in this country? You know, I've talked I talked about that years ago on the podcast where I did a whole thing about how the system is built to destroy small businesses, and that continues to seem like the case. Um, so it's gonna be it, it looks like it's going to be on the August 4th ballot. Amendment 5 would let the legislator expand sales tax to any transaction to phase out the 4.7% income tax. St. Ann already has the state's highest combined rate at 12.38%. Jesus. So uh I don't know if it was last week or two weeks ago we talked about the 60 minutes story. Um federal prosecutors charged immigrant, immigration enforcement opponents over signal group chat messages tied to the protests against the crackdown that killed Renee Good and Alex Paretti. The exact story, Scott Pelley said Barry Weiss wanted to soften. Meanwhile, the border control commander who led the Minneapolis operation has appeared on a white nationalist podcast while teasing a presidential bid.
SPEAKER_01Who gets prosecuted? Who gets a platform? This is fucking insane.
SPEAKER_00National Park Service polled 51 exhibits. Of course, I've talked about them uh from you know over a year now going after public lands. I just talked about it earlier on the podcast. The Park Service removed at least 51 exhibits from 37 sites under Trump's executive order, targeting displays that inappropriately disparage Americans. A federal judge ordered them reinstalled by July 3rd. The who decides what history Americans are allowed to see question is apparently up to Trump. I love how a federal judge was like, nah, put that shit back. Put that shit back. Hilarious. Like the whole thing that kind of got Trump elected in the first place in 2016 was like the anti-cancellation crowd. Because like cancellation was huge then, remember? And then you're just gonna cancel history. Love it. These people literally just can't help themselves, can they? They just cannot help themselves. Uh the Pentacons Europe drawdown. We have a quiet uh but huge for uh geopolitical power. Hegseth announced a six-month Pentagon review of U.S. forces in Europe, telling NATO it's meant to push Europe towards primary responsibility for its own defense. So this is uh two signs, along with uh, of course, the Iran exit, of Americans stepping back from the global posture it's held since World War II. Now, whether that's overdue, I think it is, or a retreat, I think it also is, depends on who you ask. But I think it's both. I think it is both. And with that, that is all the time we have for today. Thank you for tuning in as always. Please like, review, subscribe, leave a comment. We appreciate everyone's support. Also, please support the businesses that support this podcast. Number one, Halfcoast Studios, the room I'm sitting in right now. If you're in St. Louis, you can record a podcast here. They'll take care of you when it comes to editing, distribution, and marketing of said podcast. But they don't only work with companies here in St. Louis. Of course, if you record your own podcast and need help with the rest, hit them up, Halfcostudios.com. Right now, in St. Louis, it's been hot. It's been weird weather, it's been muggy. Well, if you're in your house and you're uncomfortable, if you have rooms that are different temperatures, it could be the fact that your insulation in your attic is not adequate. Have the guys at West County Insulation come out, they'll get in your attic, they'll take photos, they'll show you what it looks like. If you need work done, they will outline that and show you, of course, the cost. The cost of being comfortable. Now that I moved into a house, man, I'll tell you what, it's a cost worth investing into. The shitty thing about attic installation, I'll be honest, you don't see it, right? You don't see it. So no one really cares. But you will care when it's done and you have some air sealing done in your attic, and all of a sudden you're like, ooh, it feels more comfortable in my house. Last but not least, if you need an honest marketing agency, no bullshit approach. I mean, just listen to me here on the podcast. Uh, reach out to Vi Media based in St. Louis. We primarily work with home service companies and law firms. We have a couple other verticals as well. That is our primary business. Um, and we really specialize in lead generation, like return on investment marketing, you know, ads, SEO, web, uh, primary, you know, intent-based marketing. If someone's looking for your business, let's get you in front of them. If you want to learn more, you can go to Vi.media or just type in Vi Media on Google. It's V-I-E, just like Pi or Die. Or Ty. Did I say Ty already? Anyways, all right, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you for tuning in as always. Please, again, like, review, subscribe, and we'll see you next week. Bye.