Mission POSSIBLE

What do you do when you’re out of gas in an F-18…
…and you’re 1,000 miles from the nearest airport?

You do the IMPOSSIBLE or you die.

You can catch the whole story here in this week’s Ed Talks, Episode 3.

This is the next Episode of Ed Talks in a series called “What’s Wrong with America and How to Fix It.” (Hint: the solution is not even that hard.)

If you’re in a hurry, here are some Time Stamps to points in the Podcast:

0:15 – Out of Gas and Out of Ideas Over a Sea of Sharks

5:50 – The Two-Party Tyranny (aka. Vulture’s Row) and How to Quickly un-Vulture-ize It (without Guillotines Even)

8:10 – Exposed: The Clever Little Political Guilt Trip That Robs You of Your Prosperity

13:00 – Crazy Sheep Dog Possible.(Hint: What You’ve Been Told You Can’t Do, You Can)

18:15 – Mission Possible…And Other Impossible Things Made Possible for Good Measure

20:50 – The 5 & 5 Challenge You’re going to love this and then you’re going to want to go and make a change. So go watch it now.

The YouTube Link is here: https://edrush.com/EdTalks
The Podcast is above and here
Download the Transcript here.

Ed Talks : Episode 3 Transcript

Out of Gas and Out of Ideas Over a Sea of Sharks

What do a remote Pacific island, the movie Rocky and a crazy sheepdog have in common? All that and more in episode 3 of Ed Talks. But before that, I’m going to take you back to 2001 in an airplane over the Pacific. You see F/A-18 is the airplane that I flew for almost 11 years. F/A-18s were made to go fast but not far.

In full afterburner, if you just put the throttle all the way forward, you could fly for about seven or eight minutes before you were completely out of gas. And that posed a particular problem for our squadron who every two years we would fly our airplanes from San Diego all the way over to Japan. Which was about 17 times more than the average F/A-18 could fly.

We solved that problem fairly simply by flying behind some Air Force tankers. One KC-10 with six airplanes and another KC-10 with six more airplanes for some very uneventful flying over the Pacific Ocean and we takeoff in San Diego and go to Hawaii. Stay for a day. Takeoff at Hawaii. Go to Wake Island and stay for a day. And takeoff at Wake Island and fly to Japan and stay for a day.

The distance in between Hawaii and Wake Island is the shortest flight of all but it’s still about 2,000 miles. And right 1,000 miles from Hawaii and 1,000 miles from Wake Island, flying in my F/A-18, catastrophe struck. It was in this moment that I heard a sound. It went like this …

That’s the warning sound in the F/A-18. It says pay attention and look at your instruments. As I looked down at my instrument I saw a little signal that said left engine oil pressure. Normally a left engine oil pressure would not be that big of an issue.

You see, I would just take my airplane or my throttle, I would turn the engine off, and I would go find the closest airfield and land with one engine. It was a hard landing but not impossible. It was something that we had trained to do for years and years.

The problem was there was no airfield to land with and the second problem is unbeknownst to me that left engine pressure was telling me something that I didn’t know in the airplane is that something had broken off inside of the engine, and the engine was spinning around madly eating itself up at this very moment.

So I went through my procedures. I pulled the engine back. The left engine pressure stayed there. Then I pulled the throttle back to idle and realized that I was in a single engine airplane.

Now 1,000 miles from Hawaii, 1,000 miles from Wake Island, out of ideas and out of places to go. You see, with one engine, I didn’t have enough power to get gas and with one engine, I didn’t have enough gas to get to Hawaii, and with one engine, I didn’t have enough gas to get all the way to Wake Island. In short, I was in an impossible situation. What do you do when you’re in an impossible situation?

Simply put, you make the impossible possible. I talked to the tanker and asked him to slow down as much as he could because my airplane was slow. And I tried as hard as I could to balance the airplane and get into that refueling basket. To just get a little bit more gas and refuel until my airplane was so heavy I couldn’t even stay in the basket with that airplane going so slow.

All of a sudden, I descended from about 25,000 feet all the way down to 17,000 feet and I opened up my procedures manual to see exactly how much gas I would need mathematically to go 1,000 miles on a single engine. Looked up at my procedures manual and it told me at 50 miles, here’s how much gas you need.

At 100 miles, here’s how much gas you need. At 150 miles, here’s how much gas you need. At 200 miles, here’s how much gas you need. And then the chart stopped because I’m sure the engineers thought, who in their right mind would fly a single engine F/A-18 more than 200 miles?

But I thought, you know what? Up in this airplane, up in the KC-10 one of our safety officers, he’s sitting there and he’s got a big book. It’s got more charts and I say, “Hey, Smokey”, which is his name. I said, “Smokey”, our safety officer, “Check out the chart. I want to know how far I can go on a single engine. I need to go 1,000 miles.”

He took about five minutes and came back very sheepishly and said, “Listen man, the chart goes up to 200 miles. And stops there.”

So I now have to figure out can I make it 1,000 miles in an F/A-18 on a single engine? Started with 900 miles. Then I made it to 800 miles. Then I made it to 700 and 600 and 500. Right around 400 miles, I realized that the airplane’s actually burning less gas every hour because the airplane’s lighter and I can start to move the throttle back.

Start to move the throttle back and start to move the throttle back at 300 miles, and at 200 miles I start to realize I might make this. At 100 miles I start to have communications with the controls tower. At 50 miles I think, man I’m really going to make this. At 30 miles, getting closer. At 20 miles, I still talking to the control tower. At 10, no control tower. At 5, no control tower. 4, no control tower.

Now, you’re not allowed to land an F/A-18 on a runway without clearance to land. At 2 miles, no connection to the controls tower. 1 mile. No control tower. So you know what I did? I landed it. I landed the airplane.

And I’m glad I did because when I landed, the guy from the control tower came running out and he said, “Thank you so much. I’m glad you landed. We had a catastrophic power failure just when you were at 10 miles.”

It was that kind of day for me, by the way. And as I landed, I rolled out on my F/A-18 which now had barely any left engine. I realized that sometimes, the impossible becomes possible when you realize that it’s possible.

How to Stop the “Operation Money Suck” and Make the Possibility of a Third Party Real

And so together as we talk about America, which we know is in trouble, and together as we talk about the two-party system which we know has a stranglehold on this country, I want to look you in the eye, and talk to you about the impossibility of a third way or a third party winning and how we have a plan to make it possible. Let me be as direct as possible.

By now, you’re already aware that your government has been lying to you. You’re also aware that your government has been stealing from you. In this video, I’m going to show you just how deep the rabbit hole goes, and good luck hearing this on the media. They’re part of the problem too.

The truth is, is that there is a circle, an inner circle that you are not in. I’m not in it either for that matter. That inner circle is comprised of politicians, corporations and special interest groups. And you know what? You’ve probably known this for a long time.

Those three entities conspire together to do something that I call operation money suck. Here’s how this works, your politicians in the form of regulations and in the form of taxations, create a system where money moves into the circle.

I want to pause for a moment and have you ask a question. How is it possible that career politicians making no more than $174,000 a year which is the Senate salary, can amass huge net worth in record time?

Want proof? The top 50 members of Congress, the lowest net worth is $7 million. Combined, if you average the top 50 net-worths in Congress, it’s an average of $39.5 million. For many politicians whose entire career has only been in public service, and whose highest salary has been $174,000.

They must be either the best money managers in history, or something smells like horse manure in 1894. By the way, if you missed that reference go back to episode number one of Ed Talks: Horse Manure Leadership.

Exposed! The Clever Little Political Guilt Trip That Robs You of Your Prosperity

Here’s how this works. The politicians take your money in the form of taxes. Federal, state, local, fees and regulations. In fact, there are over 100 taxes. I’m going to list just a few of them here now, but as you’re listening to these, know that this isn’t even an exhaustive list.

There’s …

• –  Federal Income Tax
• –  State Income Tax
• –  Local Income Tax
• –  Social Security
• –  Medicare
• –  Property Tax
• –  Tolls
• –  Sales Tax
• –  State Fees
• –  Tv Tax
• – Internet Tax
• – Gas Tax
• – Phone Tax
• – Federal Gas Tax State
• – Gas Tax
• – Local Gas Tax
• – Death Inheritance Tax- Gift Taxes
• – Licenses And Fees On
• – Cars, Dogs, Bikes, etc.
• – Stadium Taxes
• – Court Case Filing Fees- Health Insurance
• – Mandatory Tax
• – Hotel Taxes
• – Soda Taxes
• – Airline Taxes
• – New Car Surcharges
• – Corporate Income Tax
• –  State Corporate Income Tax
• –  New Business Fee
• –  Employee SocialSecurity Tax
• –  Employer MedicareTax
• –  Unemployment Tax
• –  State UnemploymentTax
• –  Business RegistrationTax
• –  WorkersCompensation
• –  Import Tax
• –  Indoor Tanning Tax
• – Professional License Fees For Accountants, Lawyers, Barbers, Dentists, Plumbers, etc.
• – Franchise Business Tax
• – Tourism And Concessions Fees
• – Wiring Inspection Fees- Household
• – Employment Tax
• – Biodiesel Tax
• – FDIC Tax
• – Electronic Waste Tax- Hazardous Material Tax
• – Food And Beverage License
• – Estimate Income Tax
• – Underpayment Penalty- Building and
• – Construction Permits- Zoning Permits
• – Fire Inspection Fees- Well Permit Tax
• – Sales And Use Tax
• – Commercial Drivers License
• – Atm Transaction Taxes

When you go to eat, money’s coming out of your pocket. When you go to the gas pump, $0.18 of every gallon is automatically going to the federal government. And at least $0.20 depending on the state, much, much more is coming out of your pocket into the state government.

Those taxes and fees continue when you go to watch a movie. When you get on an airplane. Have you ever seen the airline taxes that are added on? When you go to a hotel and they talk about the local taxes that are being charged that go into the city or the municipality.

I could show you on every single bill, your Internet bill, your cable bill, your home bill, every single bill how they get you. The average American is working two to seven months for free to pay into this tax system.

Here’s the way they do it. They make you feel guilty, right? So, the latest tax comes up and what they’ll do is they’ll go, “Well, we need money for the schools. We need money for the roads. I mean you don’t want the roads to fall apart, do you? And you don’t want our schools to fall apart for you?”

But nobody stops to ask what we’re asking right now which is wait a second, we already gave you money for the schools! We already gave you money for the roads. What did you do with all that? I mean, think about that! They just continue to ask and they continue to ask and they continue to ask.

Remember I told you that there was a circle? And that you and I aren’t in the circle? Here’s where the money actually goes, and if you look at the federal budget, you will see that money leaks out of the United States federal budget into the pockets of special interest groups. Into the pockets of corporations and into the pockets of foreign governments. Just look at the budget. I could show you on the right. I could show you on the left. It’s not a partisan issue. It’s simply a spending issue.

Here’s where the circle completes. That money which went out of the politicians circle then comes back in. I mean, you can track almost in certain cases dollar for dollar. That money comes back in from those corporations.

It comes back in from those special interest groups and it comes back in from those nations that we give foreign aid to, back into the political campaign coffers of the average politician or into their nonprofit organizations.

You ever wonder why all these politicians have nonprofit organizations? In other words, they’re taking your money and they know they can’t just give themselves a raise because if they took their salary from $174,000 up to a million dollars, we’d revolt and so they give it to someone else and it comes right back to them.

The shocking thing about everything that I just told you is that it’s 100% perfectly legal.
I didn’t see it’s ethical but I did say it was legal and should you be surprised? I mean, these are the people who make the rules. No one gets arrested. No one gets caught. No one gets indicted or impeached. They just get elected year after year after year. And it’s time for that to stop.

Crazy Sheep Dog Possible
(Hint: What You’ve Been Told You Can’t Do, You Can)

So, why haven’t we done this before? Why hasn’t this happened yet? If the system is so bad, and it is, and the solution is so clear, and it is, why haven’t we done it yet? To answer that question, I’m going to take you back to when I was 11 years old.

You know when I was 11 years old, my mom, who is just an amazing person, saw a newspaper article about this sheepdog. This two year old sheepdog that needed a home. And my mom moved with compassion.

Went and adopted this two year old sheepdog named Shauna. And Shauna came home and became the family pet. What we didn’t know at the time was that Shauna was completely crazy. I mean, this is what this dog would do.

There were no sheep where I grew up in Pennsylvania, and so what Shauna would do is every time a car drove by, Shauna would sprint into the road and start biting aggressively the tires of this car which as you can imagine, was dangerous for the dog and the person driving the car.

And so my mom tried training and that didn’t work. And my mom tried to teach and that didn’t work. And finally, she kind of gave up on the teaching and training and bought what was called an electric fence. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen an electric fence, but the simple premise is this.

Around the border of your property, you pin a wire underneath the ground so that as the dog gets closer to the wire, while wearing a collar, the dog hears a little sound warning her, in this case, that she’s getting close to the edge.

And then as you get to the wire, this collar gives the dog a little shock that moves the dog back and trains them to where the border of the property is.

When they put this new fence in, they installed it inside of the office and house, and then put these little white flags all around the property so that the dog could see at least initially where the border of the property was.

And soon Shauna, the crazy sheepdog started to realize it: “That’s about where I need to stop. Right about where those white flags are.” Okay, but eventually, over time, those white flags started to just sort of fall away.

And eventually over time, because the office had that system and the system made a little noise. Eventually people just started turning it down and turning it down until it was completely off.

So there were no more flags and there was actually no more fence. But wouldn’t you know it that crazy sheepdog never crossed that fence ever again. You see, she believed in a fence that didn’t exist.

And the same is true in America. When you talk about the idea of a third party or a non party taking control of this government and using it for good, the first thing people will tell us is, “Man, that needs to happen.” And the second thing they’ll tell us is, “There’s no way that’s going to happen.”

I went last summer to this huge libertarian event. I actually spoke there. Thousands, tens of thousands of people were there. And they all have one thing in common. They really don’t like the two-party system and they really want to break it up and I went from booth to trade show booth to person to person to event to talk and I was talking to everybody.

I went up to a person who wrote a book about the third party movement. And I say, “Hey, man. You and I need to talk because what you were writing back, I’m doing.” And he looked at me and goes, “It’ll never happen.” I mean this is the guy who wrote the book! And so what I realized is that most people in the third party movement believe two things very strongly.

Number one, they believe that the two-party system is corrupt and needs to be broken up. Number two, they believe it’ll never happen. That’s because they believed the lie of the impossible. That’s because they believe in a fence that doesn’t exist.

You see, the only reason we haven’t done it is because as a country, we think we can’t do it.

They didn’t make a movie about the Indiana basketball team that was supposed to win. They made a movie about Hoosiers. They didn’t make a movie about the Philadelphia boxer who was supposed to win. They made a movie about Rocky. And they didn’t make a movie about the Olympic ice hockey team that was supposed to win. Should have been the Russians. They made a movie about the Miracle on Ice.

If I believed in the word impossible, I’d be dead in the Pacific Ocean right now. Because what I can tell us is if you believe in it, this is possible. Alexis de Tocqueville was a 19th century journalist who wanted to know why was America so great? And so he traveled from France and toured America for almost two years.

And he concluded America is great because America is good. And if America ceases to be good, America will cease to be great. In my opinion, the first step in making America great again is making America good again. And that starts with out political leadership.

Mission Possible…
And Other Impossible Things Made Possible for Good Measure

Isn’t it time we said enough? Corruption, enough. Outright theft, enough. Waste, enough. Government abuse, enough. The lying, enough. The stealing, enough. Isn’t it time we changed things together now? Isn’t it time you said, “Not on my watch. Now”? Isn’t it time for us to see a new solution now? Those are things that are all possible.

People ask, “Why hasn’t this been done before?” The answer it has been done before.
Go back to 1850. In 1850, there were two political parties in the United States of America. The Democrats and the Whigs.

By 1860 there were two political parties in America. The Democrats and the Republicans. If you look at history, the Whigs failed to stand up and make a stance on the key issue of the day which was the issue of slavery and within 10 years, they’re gone from the face
of the Earth.

This is possible. This has been done before. It’s just going to take us to believe. Here’s my prediction. Our movement will start out slow. And as it begins to catch steam, we’ll start pulling in the 1% or maybe the 2% range.

Right around the 10% range, people are going to start to take notice. And then there’s a magic number. And I’m not sure what that number is. My guess is it’s right around the 20 to 25% range.

Where all of a sudden, if we start pulling, make that when we start pulling in the 20 to 25% range, immediately the rest of America will look and go, “You know what? That’s possible.” And in that moment we’ll go to about 65%.

The great news is, you could say, “Hey man. I was in the beginning of this movement.” And so some people ask me, “How can I get involved? What are my next steps?” Number one, most important. Believe. Reject the lie of the impossible.

Think of all the impossible things that have been done in this world. Think of the impossible things that have been done in this country! Shoot, we can do this. We can do it in an afternoon. Second, is get involved.

Get Involved with The 5&5 Challenge

In the past, people have asked me, “How can I get involved?” And you should ask people for money and I’m not really big on that. If your consciousness is moved, you’re going to support. And if not, that’s fine too. And so what I want to do is just give you what I call the five and five challenge. Five and five challenge works like this.

Number one, tell five people.Number two, think about pitching in five bucks. That’s it.
First tell five people. You can do that face-to-face. If you meet some friends tell them about this movement or this video. Or maybe you do it via email. Some of you like to do it on social media. I don’t care what way you do it. Just tell five people.

Just say, “Hey. Have you seen this video? Or have you seen this movement? Or have you seen what these folks are doing?” Just show them a little something that you like. All right?

That’s the first five. The second is just consider pitching in five bucks. I don’t know where you’re at financially, but for most people $5 is enough to be able to get involved, but not too much to break that bank. And you can do that at Rush for America. Five and five. There’s my challenge for you. Tell five people. Pitch in five bucks. And if you can do more, do more.

Again, I’m not big at asking for money. I think, this thing’s going to do it one way or
another and so with $5 or with $5 billion, we’re going to change the country and it’s going to be awesome.Last thing I’ll tell us is that little red button, if you’re watching this on YouTube, that says subscribe. It’s also on your iTunes feed if you listen to the podcast. Hit the subscribe button.

I’ve got some great stuff coming. We’re not going to be talking about the country the entire time. We’ll talk about business, productivity, communications and more. We’ll have some great interviews. But for now, smile big. And believe because change is coming soon.

This is what I believe, and I’ll talk to you soon.