Bizarro World Podcast,
with Nick and Gerardo
Aug. 1, 2022
Is this rally in stocks sustainable or is it a bear market headfake? Are we in a recession? We get into all of that, including commentary on negative GDP and lackluster stock earnings. Nick gives a blueprint for a bear market. We touch on bitcoin’s bounce to $24,000. And then we get into the failed PACT Act, and how the government doesn’t support veterans. A 25-year old saves four kids from a burning house in Indiana. And another anecdote about the failed institution of policing in America.
1:27 Stocks: Bottom In or Bear Market Rally?
10:42 Blueprint for a Bear Market
13:59 Is Bitcoin’s Bounce Sustainable?
16:15 PACT Act Fails
27:44 25-Year Old Nicholas Bostic Saves Four Kids from Fire
30:39 Sergeant Christopher Pullease Exemplifies the Failed Police State
Gerardo Del Real: If it looks like a recession, and it walks like a recession, and it talks like a recession. It's probably not a recession? That's what Mr. Powell wants us to believe. The Fed has spoken, everybody. Jerome has spoken on his golden throne, and the market reaction is interesting. Everything is awesome again. I think everything is going to the moon, right, Nick? A lot to get into this week. Cops were choking cops. The blue-on-blue violence is real. We got to back the blue, not beat the blue. I am Gerardo Del Real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This is therapy session number 179, otherwise known as Bizarro World. Nick, how are you? Crazy week.
Nick Hodge: Does that make it black and blue? Crazy week, crazy week, Gerardo. Everything you just said, the people who told us that there was no inflation, and inflation was transitory, are now telling us there is no recession. People continue to give them credibility, which is the hardest pill for me to swallow. The White House saying there is no recession, you've seen all the memes of people carrying the goalposts across the field, literally moving the goalposts. And well, we'll get into it, but earnings still not doing well, and yet stocks going up. It's ... What do they call it? A Bizarro World, Gerardo.
Stocks: Bottom In or Bear Market Rally?
Gerardo Del Real: Is that what they call it? Let's get into why the markets are rallying and whether we think it's sustainable. We'll keep this particular podcast brief, because I know there's a lot going on. But this part of the podcast I think will be hopefully informative for people, because it's the part where I think there's a lot of actions you can take to prevent your wealth from being taken away from you, and/or just grow the little bit or the big pot that you have, whatever that looks like for everybody. So let's talk about the difference between how the major indexes will continue to perform and how specific sectors will continue to perform. And I think that's been a point for us the last several podcasts. We've talked about gold holding support at $1,680 and needing to do that to prevent a further breakdown. It did that beautifully this week, and I think it did that on the back of what I interpret as Powell blinking, right? It's not a pivot yet, but he sure was blinking. The major indexes, I want to get your take.
I want to start there, Nick, and then we'll get into gold and the sectors I think will outperform. Which by now, I'm sure I sound like a broken record, and everybody already knows those sectors. But the major indexes, more turbulence ahead, the volatility index, the bond market. I know they're all correlated, and they all kind of inform our opinions. What do you see there?
Nick Hodge: Yeah, so we record this podcast on Thursday, which is also the day I write my weekly letter, which is the day I dive into all the things: rates, gold, broader indexes, all those things. And I haven't quite finished that up yet, so you sort of get me forming my thoughts in real time here. But what I see is a couple of things. I see earnings continue to struggle. You had Google coming in, telling you that tech profits are soft, advertising profits are soft. You had Walmart last week cutting guidance, telling you that the consumer is in trouble, telling you that they have too much inventory, that they have to cut prices. That's traditionally a defensive stock, because it's a, “ lower end retailer.” That stock took a 10% haircut in one day last week, remember. And so that's already a distant memory.
But what I see when I look at the broader indexes is an S&P that lost 20% of its value after the yield curve inverted the first time, back in March. And I was writing to people, saying, "Look, this inverted yield curve is telling you that a recession is coming, right?" And then it continued to stay inverted. And now it's the most inverted, not just since 2001 but before 2001. It's as inverted as it was before the dotcom crash, so that doesn't give me the warm and fuzzies.
Gerardo Del Real: I call it a 69 curve now, by the way. It's not inverted anymore. It's a 69 curve.
Nick Hodge: You got to have fun with it, right? And the major indicators out there are telling you that things are going to get bad for the economy. Now the stock market is not the economy, I know. So the second thing I would say is that, since about the middle of June, the S&P has been rising and putting in what technicians would call higher lows. It hasn't gone down to the lows that it was at in June. Now what does that portend? You know I'm not entirely sure right now. You're getting a lot of mixed signals.But what I would say is that those yields, especially the 10-year yield, is saying that there's a lot of trouble ahead. And so you were talking about specific sectors. Well you got to sort of look at sectors that can do well. And I was saying, I've been saying, probably a bit prematurely, that rates were going to turn around. But here they are, have been going down now for weeks on end. And you're starting to see sectors perform that are, “rate sensitive.” You mentioned gold. It bounced beautifully off $1,680. I mean it put in a single candle dip. I mean literally-
Gerardo Del Real: Like a boss.
Nick Hodge: The wick just went right to $1,680 and bounced up. And now it's beginning to show straight. And you see that in some of the gold names. Not all of them, of course, because you've got inflationary pressures on the producers. But I saw some juniors today that had some pretty good looking charts and have put in at least that short-term bottom like the indexes have put in. And then another one I've talked about, at least in the monthly letter, is utilities, which are highly rate sensitive. And those are starting to perform really well, so those are my thoughts at the moment. We'll get more earnings this week, and I'm keen to see how it continues to play out. But I guess to give you a real answer, I do think there's more pain ahead for the broader indexes. I think they're going to retest their lows at least of June.
Gerardo Del Real: I think that's going to be the case for the broader indexes. I think there will be exceptions, and I think that we're, again, recording live here on Thursday after market. And Amazon is up 12% after hours on a solid earnings report. Meanwhile, Intel is down 10% on a big earnings miss. And I think that's the message that I want to communicate to everyone out there, not just in the major indexes but also in the resource space, which is the space that obviously gets me up in the morning, gets me excited and I go to sleep thinking about at night, among other things, of course. But look, it's stock picking time. Yes, the trend is going to be your friend. Find the trends that are going to provide tailwinds, not headwinds. And look, $369 billion looks like it is going to be approved by this administration and by Republicans. The bulk of it is going to go towards investments in clean energy.
And so when I look at that, and I look at bipartisan support to establish a domestic critical metal supply chain, and I see not just corporations putting real dollars into it but bipartisan dollars going into it, that's an easy call for me to make. One that we've been making profitably, by the way, over the past several years. But this just adds to the tailwinds that sectors like the uranium space and the lithium space already had going for them. You don't have to be a genius to know that any time you introduce more capital into any sector, it's likely going to trickle down.
And so I would say there's some names out there that we've been touting for the past month during the pullback, that are all of a sudden doing very, very well again. Patriot Battery Metals (CSE: PMET)(OTC: PMETF), everybody knows that's my largest position. Everybody knows it reached a high of C$4.50 before pulling back to the C$2.00 level. I think everybody knows, and I hope you don't mind me putting it out there, Nick, that Mr. Nick Hodge added to that position. And he already had a pretty robust one in the open market here recently. And you're up, what, some 40% since then, Nick?
Nick Hodge: That's right, in about two or three weeks since that order filled. And yeah, like you say, tailwinds in that sector for the reasons that you just mentioned. But keep going.
Gerardo Del Real: Multiyear tailwinds, so if you can, if you look at Lithium Americas, which was at $20 just a few days ago, it's at 24 today. If you look at the Patriots, which I think is going to flirt with new all-time highs very, very soon, I don't worry as much about the major indexes. One, because again, I don't have the traditional allocation through a 401K in the major indexes or through a retirement plan in the major indexes. I self manage all of our family's money, and luckily that's gone pretty well. I've been fortunate in that sense. But I would caution everybody to really, really do their homework or pay someone to do that homework for you, because it's not going to be green every single day in every single sector. I do believe there is more pain to come from the major indexes.
Though I will say, and again, everybody has opinions, the bond market is telling me that it sniffs out a Fed pivot — a pretty substantial one. I mean when you get rates going from 3.5% to 2.6% in a matter of, what, four weeks? That is a substantial move lower, or higher, depending on how you look at that market. But when I see that home sales are down 43% from their peak, mind you, the peak is all-time highs. But then I see interest rates finally starting to come down from the 5.60% level on the 30-year mortgage down to 5.2%, the last I looked earlier today. There's some easing that's going to help there. There's some inflation numbers that, while still very elevated, I think are going to start cooling off a little bit. And despite that we just had is a technical recession, I don't care what Yellen or Powell or the 400 PhDs that work for Jerome tell you. We just printed a recession, technical recession, two negative quarterly GDP prints in a row.
That just happened, so what does that do to the market psychology? I don't think it's bullish. I don't think that we get a market where everybody makes money again, but I do believe we get sectors within the different markets that are going to do very well. So it's time to pay attention, folks. I know it's the summertime. I know it's hot and scorching. And in your part of the world, Nick, you would think that you're in Texas with the temperatures that you have right now. But it is a good time to pay attention and get ready for what I think could be a very, very profitable fall for all of us, if we do our homework correctly.
Blueprint for a Bear Market
Nick Hodge: Yeah, it's 100 degrees here in Spokane. It'll be 100 degrees tomorrow and throughout the weekend. And we keep mentioning this hot summer. I want to talk a little bit about this bear market. You've got the powers that be trying to move the goalposts. As I said, the same people who said there wasn't a recession, who then said it's transitory, they're now telling you there's no recession. I mean they're lying to you. They're putting up a facade. And so you've got to be able to see through that and take things into your own hands. And so I've got to talk own my book for a little bit, as I did last week, about this bear market blueprint. Because you said, "It's time to pay attention." And you said, "Time to take things into your own hands and look for the places that are beneficial.” And one of the places that are beneficial is cash. So I'm not going to give you the entire bear market blueprint, but next week, when this podcast comes out, we will have a new video out that's talking about a blueprint for any market.
And right now the blueprint is for a bear market, and so if you watch that video, and if you become a member of Foundational Profits, you get a suite of reports. One of those reports is called Navigating Highway 22. And '22 is obviously the year that we're in, which requires caution. And what that report does is, and I've done this for the past couple of quarters, is it goes through my entire retirement portfolio, which you should know I now manage entirely myself. And so it doesn't hide anything behind a curtain. It doesn't cherry pick things that are working. It goes through not every position I own but the asset classes I own and in what percentages and why.
So I go through what sort of bonds I own and in what duration and in what percentage. And I go through the different types of precious metals I own and how I own them, physical or miners, et cetera, which ones I own and in what percentages. And it goes through the sectors of the S&P that I am bullish on and that I continue to have long exposure to and which stocks within those S&P sectors or which funds within those S&P sectors that I'm allocated to, just like I write about monthly in those Foundational Profits issues. So just having your money sitting, sloshing around in the surf is no way to go through life. And it's no way to have your money treated when it's in somebody else's hands. Which, at least in my personal experience, is what I see happened. There's no really re-allocations. It's “we're going to allocate you to the S&P or to this sector that back tested well. And we're not going to try to navigate around pullbacks or recessions or 20% haircuts that metastasize very quickly.”
So the other reports in that package will tell you how to do some of that, signals to look out for, how to time the markets a little bit for yourself and generally how to become the CEO of your own life. It's not life coaching stuff, but it is how to self manage all your portfolios and then tune out the noise, as I like to call it. So make sure you check out that blueprint for any market.
Is Bitcoin’s Bounce Sustainable?
Gerardo Del Real: I think we got to touch on gold just a tad bit more, right? It's at $1,750, $1,755 level the last time that I looked. You mentioned that beautiful balance. I can't help but notice that Bitcoin has also touched $24,000 or is right at it once again. We talked about the correlation between the S&P and the major indexes and interest rates and Bitcoin. Is there more upside to Bitcoin, or do you think it's another head fake?
Nick Hodge: I think we should get Chris Curl on, and that's probably not a bad idea to do here in the next couple of weeks. But he was talking about August being the bottom for reasons that I mentioned in the last podcast. And I won't steal all his thunder, and I'm going to give you a non-answer. I will say that Chris is coming to my office next week, and we're going to make a new video for subscribers of Crypto Cycle to talk about how to manage your own coins. So one of the things we're going to do is take my coins out of Coinbase. You'll note that they just got tangled up in an insider trading thing. And one of the beauties of Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies is being outside the system, being independent from the system, much like gold is, at least in its physical form. And so I think people are going to increasingly look to that. We were talking about what could break that correlation between Bitcoin and the S&P. And so it might be that these rates falling and a recession coming to fruition could be the thing that breaks that correlation.
If we see there's going to be continued weakness in the broader indexes, perhaps Chris is right, that post August you could see some breakout in Bitcoin. And so I want to show people how to get their Bitcoin entirely out of the system. So we're going to take mine out of Coinbase. We're going to put it in cold storage, which means it's going to be on a device that I can have in my possession. And I won't tell you where I'm going to store it.
Gerardo Del Real: It'll be next to the guns, everybody. So come and get it, motherfucker.
Nick Hodge: You know me too well, Gerardo.
PACT Act Fails
Gerardo Del Real: Let's pivot a little bit, man. I thought we loved our veterans. Everywhere I go, I mean Colin Kaepernick took a knee for criminal justice, and they almost crucified him. They made it to where this man couldn't work again. We just had 4th of July and fucking fireworks and flags everywhere. And everywhere I went, everybody had little “we love America pins.” And I saw the celebrations, all the politicians just drooling and just saying all the words, all the right words and all the right things about how beautiful America is, and it is. And how it's the land of the free, which less so every day, especially if you're a woman, especially if you're a minority woman. But that's another conversation to have for another day. But there's some things that I would think — I would think — we would be able to agree on. And when I say we, I mean the politicians that are elected officials, that are elected by us.
And I got to say, the Pact Act is one that I thought would not be this controversial. For those of you that are not familiar, there is an-
Nick Hodge: Including me.
Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, all right. Well this is a good conversation. So Jon Stewart, who is one of my favorite commentators on all things, be it comedy, be it politics in America, you name it. I think he's brilliant. He's somebody I have all the time in the world for, has been a huge champion and backer of the Pact Act, P-A-C-T. In its simplest form, the act is designed to expand healthcare to veterans who were exposed to toxin substances during service. So if you were in Afghanistan, if you were in Iraq, if you were overseas, there was a practice where the US Military would have these big burn pits that of course were lit by veterans. And they would burn stuff that they had no disposal for, tires and plastics and all of the things that you just wouldn't want to inhale. And of course, like Agent Orange with Vietnam, a lot of veterans came back and started dying and getting sick from cancer. And it was absolutely clear as all day that it was the burn pits that was the common denominator.
And so there was some controversy at some point about the US Government not wanting to extend care to those veterans, because it had been years since they served and were exposed to those burn pits. And so they didn't want to provide medical care to these veterans to help treat this stuff. So Jon Stewart, who's been a champion on this, has gone to the capital. He's spoken with both sides. He did a wonderful show that's on Apple TV about this, documenting exactly the controversy, why it's taken so long and really speaking truth to power like Jon Stewart does a great job of doing.
There seems to have been an agreement in place to pass this act, just to allow veterans to have healthcare for stuff like cancer, lung cancer and stuff these people are dying from. After the bill that I referenced earlier, it was $369 billion or $400-something billion, a lot of it that's going to go towards clean energy and that. Once that bill passed, and Republicans saw that that had passed, because they were against that bill, they then voted against this legislation and basically told veterans, "You guys can go fuck off. We're going to throw a tantrum about this other bill that just passed, that we disagree with. And you can die," basically is what they're saying to these people. I mean a lot of these people don't have the money for healthcare. I mean, who in America has money to pay out of pocket for cancer treatment, be it chemo, be it surgeries, be it therapy? And so Jon Stewart went on a tirade, rightfully so. It's happening right now as we speak, because the vote just happened an hour ago.
He said, "You don't support the troops. You support the war machine. It's like you guys haven't met a war that you don't have veterans sign up for, and they haven't met a veteran they won't screw over." And again, I hate to be partisan, because I don't really like either side. But this is just a straight up Republican blocking job that ... My god, how do people sleep at night? Jon Stewart said it perfectly. He said, "I'm used to the lies. I'm used to the hypocrisy. I'm used to the cowardice. I'm not used to the cruelty." You got veterans in the capital crying when they voted this down.
And these assholes have the nerve, have the nerve to show their face, and every time there's a thing, go, "You don't back the blue. You don't back the veterans. You guys, the left is soft on this." And it's such hypocrisy. It's such cruelty. All of these politicians got to get the hell out of here, man. It's peak low for stupidity in this country. We're still debating a law, Nick, and I hate to make it long, because I said we were going to try to not make it long. But we're still debating a law about whether or not politicians, senators, representatives of the people and their spouses can trade on insider information. We have to have a debate about this. It's insane. It's insane to me, where we're at in this country.
Nick Hodge: They don't work for you. And so gosh, there's a lot of things that just ran through my mind. I should’ve probably taken notes. So of course the good old boys, the traditional Republicans, those who would be boisterously opposed to the kneeling of a Colin Kaepernick, for example, those people vote for the Republicans. And so it's amazing to me that the Republicans, who are the lapel pin wearers more than the other side, will so easily go against the veterans. And the veterans, the care we provide for them has been on the slide for a long time. You'll remember there was a VA scandal under the Obama Administration. Like you say, there's not a lot to add there. They'll go to war. They'll send you over there. There's been songs about this forever. You go die on foreign soil for the oil or the treasurer or the whatever it is. And then when you get home, you're sort of on your own.
Like you, my brain is weird. I was thinking about the emissions that come from those burn pits and if those fit within the plan of the clean energy that we just passed.
Gerardo Del Real: I was about to say that too. You read my mind, Nick. You read my mind.
Nick Hodge: The other thing I think about, gosh, I hope I didn't lose my thought. I've been reading recently that it's getting tougher to recruit people to join the armed services. They're at the lowest amount of recruits that they've had in some time, and it's getting to the place where it's below whatever thresholds they think are safe to have people that are willing to go serve. And it's things like people's health, the obesity, not being able to pass the tests. But you've got to think about it from the point of view of this younger generation and the parents of this younger generation. You've got boys who are of age to serve, and I've got kids who are coming up, that will be of age in the next 10 years. You think I would want them to go sign up for the US Military in any of its forms? Hell no. And it's not because I don't like my country. And it's not because I'm unpatriotic, and I don't support the United States of America. But I certainly don't support the foreign policy decisions that have been made.
I mean I came of age with Condoleezza Rice telling me smoking guns were going to turn into mushroom clouds. And there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. We invaded the wrong country after 9/11. So like you say, it's hypocrisy all the way through. And personally, I can't support that. And you can see why millions of other Americans wouldn't support that.
Gerardo Del Real: And it's cruel, and people are going to die as a result of the political backstabbing that goes on. And again, these assholes are going to go home, have a scotch, give stock tips to their buddies about stuff that's coming in the pipeline, continue to get rich, continue to get reelected by you people. And it's absolutely sick. It makes me sick to my stomach. Yeah, I'll leave that one there.
Nick Hodge: Well there was one more thing I guess I was going to mention. And they control the power together, and I talk about this a lot. So sorry, it's one of my pillar topics. But try to get on the presidential debate stage without both the Republican and Democratic Party agreeing to it. You haven't had a major third-party candidate, really since Ross Perot. And so I was reading this week about Andrew Yang, who's been trying to start this Forward Party. And he's doing his little thing, and it hasn't been gaining much traction. But this week I did see a bunch of stories about how a new third party is coming to America. And maybe I'm just jaded, but I was thinking to myself, what do you mean, a third party? Don't we have the Libertarian Party? Don't we have the Green Party? You think this new party is going to be the one that rises up?
And so it all fits into the framework of a Fourth Turning. There's got to be a champion that emerges. Is it the Forward Party? I'm not sure, but what I do see is people growing increasingly frustrated with both sides. And like I was telling you the other week, I looked at my midterm primary ballot, and I was disgusted. The only thing I voted for was no on special election taxes. I couldn't bring myself to vote for any candidate. And so I think people increasingly feel that way. And when you look at the low voter turnout, people are just disengaged from the system. And that's why, as I tell people, I decided just to check out. I don't vote. I don't engage civilly. And maybe that's not the right thing, but for me and my family, I think it's worked out okay to tune out that noise and just to do what's best for us on our own terms without the help or giving input to the system.
And sorry to go back to the blueprint, but you'll see in that video when it comes out that it's got a picture of Bush standing right next to Obama. Those two are chummy. You've seen them at funerals, Michelle hugging George W. Bush, giving him little candies out of her purse. Those people aren't juxtaposed to each other. They're one big family, man.
Gerardo Del Real: Bombers in chief.
Nick Hodge: Exactly, yeah.
Gerardo Del Real: They both did a phenomenal job of fucking bombing holes into most of the Middle East. That was both Administrations, y'all. I don't care how lit Obama's playlist is, and it's a good one, but yeah. Anyway, yeah.
Nick Hodge: He bombed several muslim countries. They gave him a peace prize for it.
25-Year Old Nicholas Bostic Saves Four Kids from Fire
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, it's crazy times, folks. Let's end it on a positive note, man. I've been wanting to talk about this for a couple of weeks, and it's been ... You all know my father passed recently, and it followed my mother-in-law passing back in April. And so it's been a tough go of it on that front of it, very thankful for all the great stuff that's going on. My babies are healthy. My wife is healthy. She still loves me, for some reason. Things are great on that front. Business is great, so want to be thankful for the good stuff and not just highlight the bad. But that brings me to my last topic I have here, Nick. There's a gentleman by the name of Nicholas Bostic, who is a delivery pizza driver and was delivering pizza. And this guy is amazing. He is out of Indiana.
He's driving, and he sees a burning house, a stranger's burning house. He just looks over and decides, I'm going to stop my car. I'm going to run into the burning house. And he runs in there and starts screaming to see if anyone is inside. He enters the home through the back door, and he keeps shouting, and he finds four kids, man. And so he gets these four kids out. This guy is just fucking ... Salute to this guy. He gets these four kids out, and then he's told there's a six-year-old still trapped inside. This guy goes back inside again, climbs the stairs to a second story, and finds the six-year-old. And because there was so much smoke built up in the staircase, he goes to a window, jumps through the window, a second story window and makes sure to turn on his back, so the six year old lands on top of him and doesn't sustain an injury. I mean I don't know what America can do for this guy, but holy smokes, pun intended.
If this guy doesn't get a $5 million GoFundMe page started for him and a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a Purple Heart or whatever else you want to give him, I don't know who else deserves it. I push buttons for a living. And yes, I try to do good with the proceeds, but at the end of the day, the social utility that comes directly from making money and hopefully trying to help people make money, man. All of that will never add up to what this guy did for those five kids. And I just thought it was beautiful, and I thought it was a great story. And yeah, incredible, incredible.
Nick Hodge: It's a wonderful story. Nicholas Bostic, is that what you said his name was?
Gerardo Del Real: Yes, sir, 25-year-old Nicholas Bostic from Indiana.
Nick Hodge: A young kid too, well we'll find the page. There will be one, and we will put up the link. And I have to apologize. I know you want to end on a positive note, and that was a wonderful story. But we didn't follow up on the choking, which we led with but we never included.
Sergeant Christopher Pullease Exemplifies the Failed Police State
Gerardo Del Real: You weren't going to let me leave with a smile, were you, Nick? All right, fuck it. Let's give it to the police again. Here we go, you guys make it easy for me. Let's see, asshole of the week, his name was Sergeant Christopher Pullease ... It's actually funny. His last name, this part is the only funny part, is ... It's spelled P-U-L-L-E-A-S-E, which sounds like police. So I'm going to call him Christopher Police. A police officer from the great state of Florida responds to a call where a black man was allegedly attacking people outside of a facility. He resisted arrest. It took a little bit to get him down. He was struggling. He was resisting arrest, and finally they cuffed him. And so when he gets put into the back of the police car, this officer, Mr. Pullease says, "Hey, look at me, look at me. You want to fucking play fucking games? You're playing with the wrong motherfucker," he says. "You want to be disrespectful with my fucking police officers? I will remove your fucking soul from your fucking body," he tells him.
And so he starts lunging at this guy, who's already cuffed, who was obviously being an asshole. Because he was attacking people, allegedly, and resisting arrest. But now this guy is not resisting, and he's in cuffs. And the cop, this Florida cop, who's a big tough guy when people are cuffed up, starts-
Nick Hodge: I was just going to say ...
Gerardo Del Real: Yeah, starts really getting into him and talking pretty, pretty, pretty roughly to him. And so a 28 year old female officer, she's a junior cop who's been with the department for two years, grabs the back of the officer's belt, Mr. Pullease, to tell him, "Hey, chill out, relax."
This guy turns around and chokes her and says, "Back the fuck up, and I'll see you in five minutes," and throws her. And so this is what he does to the fellow officer that he was supposedly really upset about and then was really being protective about. Do you imagine what this fucking piece of shit is like at home, when the cameras aren't on? It's insane.
Nick Hodge: Piece of shit is right.
Gerardo Del Real: It's amazing to me. He was suspended with pay.
Nick Hodge: With pay, of course.
Gerardo Del Real: Pending an investigation.
Nick Hodge: As they always are.
Gerardo Del Real: This guy has been in the department for 21 years. This is the behavior of someone that's been on the department for 21 years, guys. This is how this guy acts with a camera on. Can you imagine this fucking charming piece of shit when nobody is looking, when there's no camera on, when there's not a brave officer that's willing to step in and say, "Hey, tone it down, relax, calm down. We're not being professional here." And of course they withheld the audio — the police department did initially — and now the audio has surfaced. And then it's absolutely clear why they didn't want to release the audio, because it shows how this officer was talking to everybody on the scene.
Nick Hodge: Of course it does, because it reveals the truth, which the police seemingly hate.
Gerardo Del Real: Just stating the facts, folks, I don't make the stories up. But I got hundreds of these, and I can't wait for the day that I don't have anymore of these and that I'm telling you what heroes they are every day.
Nick Hodge: That's it, so I mean you just talked about somebody without a badge and how he acts like a hero. And then you've got people who are paid on the taxpayer dime to protect and serve, not only lunging at people that are already cuffed but being violent towards their fellow police officers. And it's a perfect microcosm, a perfect window into the failed institution that is American policing. I've said that a million times, and I continue to say it. I will die on this hill. Look, I'll take it to a couple of things. You just had two other officers who stood by and watched George Floyd get killed. They were just found guilty and sentenced, so there's beginning to be some accountability. And I would point back to Uvalde, which we haven't talked about since the full tape came out, right? And that police department didn't want that full tape to come out, just like this department in Florida didn't want the tape to come out.
Why? Because it reveals the true nature of American police and how they're not there to protect you, how they'll stand outside in that hallway, not try to unlock the door, tell you that they did try to unlock the door, put on hand sanitizer while someone is down the hall murdering babies. Meanwhile, they'll lunge at somebody that's cuffed in the back seat. How brave they are. How brave they are.
Gerardo Del Real: The Uvalde chief of police, and mind you this is an hour... This is right literally almost in my backyard. It's an hour or so away from here, an hour and a half. This guy still has a job.
Nick Hodge: So does Mr. Pullease. So does Mr. Pullease, with pay, always with pay.
Gerardo Del Real: 19 babies were slaughtered while over 365 officers from different departments and 19 from the Uvalde department were in the hallway, and this guy still has a job. I have so many other things that I want to say, but you know that one specifically really, really hurts my heart to talk about. So I'm just going to leave it alone.
Nick Hodge: I'm not. I'm going to take it all the way to the Catholic Church, man, because these are institutions that are supposed to be good institutions, that are supposed to do the right thing, that are supposed to protect people and lift people up. And the police do the same thing the Catholic Church did for decades, send the priest to another parish, sweep it under the rug. Keep the cop suspended with pay, let him go work at another precinct. It's the same exact thing, and these are large institutions that affect a lot of people. You said there were hundreds of examples. There's one every day. There's lawyers on Twitter who post these stories all the time and have just ongoing threads. And every day, every week they just add new incidents to them. It is an ongoing infestation of bad apples, and they're disrupting the entire cart.
And here you have the good apples. People say, "Well there's good apples, right?" Yeah, there's good apples. Look what happens when the good apple stands up. The bad apple tries to choke them out.
Gerardo Del Real: And the standard in America should not be, but there's good apples. There's good guys too. You get voted in, and you get elected, and you get hired to be the example, to be the standard bearer, not to be commended for doing what you're supposed to be doing. The good apple shouldn't be the exception. They should be the rule.
Nick Hodge: No doubt.
Gerardo Del Real: Should be the rule, and I hope I live to see an America where that is the case. I hope I live to see an America where politicians and the major institutions that dominate legislation and policy in this country are actually working for and on behalf of the people in every instance, or at least most instances. It seems like that shouldn't be too much to ask from what we call the greatest country on earth.
Nick Hodge: We need ourselves a Shawshank Redemption. I was just watching it this week.
Gerardo Del Real: I’m gonna go watch Training Day again.
Nick Hodge: Sorry. Anyway, Mr. Nicholas Bostic, let's bring it back so you can end on a smile. We'll get there.
Gerardo Del Real: And so what a hero this guy is, right? Five kids, I mean, can Pornhub give this guy a lifetime subscription and a password to all the sites? Yeah, man. No, Nicholas Bostic, kudos to him. We'll put a link up to the article. I do see that they've launched a GoFundMe for his medical bills. Well we'll take a peek and see where that's at, but yeah. This guy deserves all the kudos and all the free stuff, and man, all the good karma for getting those babies out of there. All it takes is one person, guys and gals, and you can change five lives. This guy not only just changed the lives of those children but the parents and everybody that cares about those babies. And so kudos to Mr. Nicholas Bostic. I am Gerardo Del Real along with Mr. Nick Hodge. This was therapy session number 179, otherwise known as Bizarro World. Nick, say some nice words to the wonderful people out there?
Nick Hodge: Keep an out for that blueprint for any market.