The Jason Stapleton Program

Donald Trump just flipped on gun control. He's now advocating for the restriction of your second amendment rights for merely being under investigation by the government. Listen to me libertarians. A lot of you have been asking me why I can't just get behind "our" candidate. You sue the same silly logic Republicans use. You say things like "He's much closer to your views than Trump or Clinton. Why can't you help the party gain ground?" Why? Because I don't care about party! I care about principle. I have seen too often what happens when we nominate and support candidates who do not hold our fundamental principles sacred. The Right is learning this truth yet again this week as Donald betrays their support by advocation for controls and restriction on our constitutionally protected liberties. http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/donald-trump-just-flipped-on-gun-control/ This is why I don't support a Johnson/Weld presidency. I won't put party above principle. We're in a major fight right now. Not from radical middle eastern terrorism but rather from radical fundamentalists in our own government. Yesterday in Rolling Stone, Drexel University Law Professor David Cohen (who teaches constitutional law by the way) wrote and article calling for the repeal of the second amendment as if removing the rights of lawful citizens to keep and bear arms would somehow prevent bad people from getting guns. FANTASTIC IDEA DAVID! While you're at it why don't you outlaw human trafficking and heroin as well? Moron. But don't think for a second that this is something you need not concern yourself with. This is very serious. Homeland Security Director Jeh Johnson now says gun control is a matter of homeland security. The army is approaching. They are large, heavily armed and if they can disarm you they will. Today on the show I'm going to take apart Cohen and Johson, publicly shaming them for their ignorance and cowardice. You're going to want to hear this. Jason

Well, it's playing out just how I suspected. Talk radio and the Right are circling the wagons around the terror issue and violent extremism while the Democrats are calling for more gun restrictions. I've done something crazy. I've done a little research on the late Mateen, and come up with what I think is a clearer picture of who this murder was and what his life was like in the years leading up to the attack in Orlando. You won't get this kind of perspective from the MSM or talk radio. It's not in their nature to question the already accepted narrative. From there we'll move to gun control, and I'll share some thoughts on the ridiculous proposals being put forward as "reasonable" and "common sense" approaches to the problem. Finally, we'll dive into the decision by London mayor Sadiq Khan to outlaw advertisements with attractive women on them. What is the role of the state when it comes to protecting our delicate sensibilities? I'll explain today.

It's a struggle to talk about an event like the Orlando massacre. I mean, it would be easy if I just followed one pre-approved philosophical line. I could blame radical Islam, and certainly there is plenty of room for that. I could blame guns since it's such an easy target. What you can't do though is suggest our own actions may have been a contributing factor to the events this weekend. Do do that would mean laying at least partial blame on the events at the feet of American foreign policy. It seems only logical to me that, given the totality of circumstances that we at least consider the possibility. If you do, though, get ready for an attack from both sides. You've now drifted off the index card of allowable opinion, and you're going to be ostracized for it. Today I'm going to do my best to thread the needle. Part of the reason I chose my words so carefully is that I'm not entirely sure I'm right. I just know that if I'm going to be fair in my assessment, I can't overlook America's role in creating the environment where these types of attacks spring forth. To all those who lost their lives, my thoughts and prayers go out to you. I want what we all want. To see that this never happens again.

I'm finally back in the studio after a long, but well-deserved break. I wasn't really on a break I was actually out in Las Vegas giving a speech and doing interviews. I'll give you a little wrap-up of my time on the road and then we're going to get to the meat of today's episode. After everything that's happened, I thought it would be nice to get Austin Petersen back in the studio now that his campaign is over. I saw a live stream he did a few days ago talking about his plans and I was excited to hear he wasn't wasting any time getting back into the fight. He's got some great stuff coming, and I thought you should know about it. What I didn't know was that Gary Johnson would fire another salvo at Petersen this morning in the Washington times. Johnson doubled down on his attacks of Petersen calling him a hypocrite. I'll talk with Austin about all of this and a lot more. Don't miss this episode. Jason

With the recent nomination of Gary Johnson there've been a lot of questions about what a libertarian is and I thought this would be the perfect time to just run through the basics.

What is a Libertarian?

Last month the U.S. created 38,000 new jobs. That's 38,000 in total. When I read the number this morning, I thought for sure I was reading something wrong. For the economy to keep pace with new workers entering the workforce, we need to create at least 150,000 jobs. Unfortunately, I wasn't reading the numbers wrong. To make matters worse, more than 600,000 people left the workforce and have either retired or stopped looking for work. This means they are no longer counted in the unemployment number which FELL to 4.7%. Can you believe that? The economy posts it worst jobs report in 6 years, more than half a million people bow out of the labor force, and the unemployment number improves!!? Sickening. Don't be surprised if Obama comes out extolling the incredible success of his administration and points to the unemployment number as evidence. I'll also comment on the new's media's coverage of the violent protesters in California who beat up and chased down peaceful Trump supporters. It's disgusting. Jason

I know another crazy headline. You'd think I was just doing it to be provocative, but if you listen to today's show, you'll find out I'm completely serious. Uber has now made it possible for you to lease a new car regardless of your credit if you agree to drive for them. What does the nanny state think about this? Well, Uber is exploiting the poor of course! How might you ask? Well, that's the funny part. You see most people who need jobs are poor. And by Uber offering them a car and a job they are making the poor, unemployed, desperate American dependent on Uber. By that standard, every single employer in America is exploiting it's workers since the employee is dependent on the company to pay their bills. A fact that was conveniently overlooked by Chris Tomlinson ignored in his scathing article about Uber in the Houston Chronicle. Sometimes it doesn't matter what you do; some socialist, nanny state supporter is going to criticize you for it. We've got a lot more jammed into the show today. It turns out progressives are gearing up for a fight at the Democratic National Convention. And I don't mean that figuratively. Bernie Sanders supporters are gearing up for a literal fight at the DNC and are passing out information on how to deal with things like tear gas and how to render first aid when protests become militant. It's a crazy show today. Listen Now.

No that is not a misprint. The French government is trying to combat stubbornly high unemployment by reducing regulation and making the country more business friendly. How have the French unions responded? Listen to today's episode for all the details. We're also going back into Venezuela to see how things are progressing there. It turns out, inflation is so high you now have to carry around backpacks full of cash to pay for cab fair. I remember reading about Germany after world war II and imagining what it must have been like to have to take your paycheck home in a wheelbarrow or demanding to pay for a meal before you ate because you knew the prices would have gone up by the time you finished eating. They say history repeats itself but as a child, reading those stories I could not imagine anyone would make the same mistake again. How could you? You know what caused the crisis; you understood how to prevent it. How could you possibly make the same decisions again? It turns out people have short memories and the allure of a leader telling you that he can solve your problems by paying you more than you're worth, and controlling prices are too much for most people to resist. We see it even now in our own country where millions of people support a man who promises free college, free health care, a garenteed minimum wage and the punishment of "greedy capitalists." What shocks me is we have a living case study in Democratic Socialism happening right now, and our own media is ignoring the fact that one of our presidential candidates is advocating we travel down the same road. It's ugly out there, and I fear it's only going to get worse. The next financial downturn is coming, and America isn't ready for it. Hunker down, we're in for a rough couple of years.

It's been a long week. I know many of you have been waiting to hear some inside scoop on the convention and my thoughts on the entire ordeal. Today is that day. I want to start out by saying I think overall the party leadership did an excellent job hosting the event. There were over 1,000 people in attendance and if you've ever tried to have a few people over to your house for dinner you know how hard it is to get even the simplest get-together coordinated. There were, of course, things that could have been better. You could have skipped the part where a nominee for party chair stood on stage for two minutes and stripped down to his banana hammock while dancing to his favorite tune. You could have required a dress code that would have prevented some of the more colorful delegates from getting mic time with the mainstream media. Those two negatives, unfortunately, overshadowed all the good news that was happening at the convention. In the end, I was deeply troubled by the outcome of the nominations. The LP has nominated two socially progressive Republicans. That is a shame and it forces me to cast a vote elsewhere.

Today you get to hear my interview with a very special guest, Ron Danielowski. Ron is a long-time friend of mine and a former colleague from my time spent overseas. Ron now serves as a Princple and Chief Firearms Instructor at Pulse O2DA Firearms Training and I invited him on the show today to discuss personal security, combative firearms training, and how you can expand your human capital by becoming an independent security asset.

Since the announcement by the Johnson campaign that Bill Weld would be Gary's VP running mate controversy has been swirling. Some say Weld is an excellent choice who's going to have the connections to raise money and grab disenfranchised Republicans. Others say Weld is a poison on the message and isn't even libertarian. Throughout the debates Gary Johnson has made some, shall I say "less than libertarian" comments on a range of topics and that has caused me to question what Johnson really believes. With the decision to partner with Weld, I grew more skeptical of Johnson and what his real principles are. So I decide to dig into the background of Gov. Weld and see I could determine what drives his decisions, and he holds as first principles. I've tried to be fair although I admit I came into this with some skepticism. What I found did not make me happy and in today's episode, I'm going to make a case against both Gov. Weld and Gov. Johnson. With this incredible opportunity, I think it is a bad idea to allow either of these men to represent the libertarian ideal to the masses.

We're going to talk about a lot of different issues today. We'll start with the Hillary email scandal and the new report from the State Department. From there I branch out into a discussion about the modern progressive movement, their tactics and the violations of liberty that occur every day at their hands. What bothers me the most is that no one seems willing to stop them. I don't know if it's fear of reprisal or if we've just become to emotionally defeated. Either way, it needs to stop. There is a time for passive humility and respectful debate, but when someone get's in your face and threatens you with physical harm there's a time break some legs. It's another fiery episode today. Hope you enjoy!

What an incredible interview today. This morning Austin Petersen was a guest on the Glenn Beck program and delivered an impassioned defense of liberty and libertarianism. It was exactly the right message delivered at exactly the right time. Today on the show we're going to run through some of the highlights and show you some of the ways Austin was able to bridge the gap between libertarian and conservative. If the libertarian party wants to be relevant this year, they need to take a page out of Austin's playbook and start crafting a message that appeals to more than the hardcore base of the libertarian party. From there we'll move on the Alex Jones whom I have a severe distaste. I know I'm going to draw heat from the Jones minions, but sometimes the truth is a hard pill to swallow. Jones is out again bashing Beck in an attempt to prop up his persona. Today I'm going to take him apart. Enjoy.

Last week the Nevada Libertarian Party held their debate, and it was hands down the best show put on this year. With the help of celebrities like Penn Jillette, Drew Cary, and Greg Gutfeld it ended up being a first class event. Glenn Beck even stepped up at the last minute and picked up the bill for a big chunk of the debate. The entire thing debuted on The Blaze, which got the highest ratings of any debut they've done. The message is alive people! While the event was full of great moments, it wants all sunshine and rainbows. Some of the questions were lacking, and the candidates themselves seemed poorly prepared. It makes me wonder how seriously they are taking these debates and how well prepared the campaigns are to be on the main stage with veteran politicians. Today it's all highlights and commentary from the event. I'll let you know I was hard on all the candidates. We don't move forward to blowing sunshine up each others tailpipes. Delegates have a crucial decision to make this weekend in Orlando. A poor decision could set the movement back decades. We've never had a chance like this before. I hope they recognize the power and responsibility being placed in their hands.