Last week, Thomas Massey, the Republican congressman from Kentucky, became the most hated man in Washington. He tried to force the House of Representatives to travel back to D.C. to vote in person on the $2 trillion stimulus bill, which was designed as a response to the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic. President Trump called Massey a third-rate grandstander on Twitter, which former Secretary of State and 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry retweeted, adding that, and I quote, Congressman Massey has tested positive for being an asshole, finally something the president and I can agree on. But Massey's opposition to the $2 trillion spending bill and the suspension of a voting process laid out in the Constitution is no surprise to anyone who has followed his career since he first showed up in D.C. in 2012. I'm happy to talk with him now about his reservations about the coronavirus aid relief and economic security CARES Act and how he thinks the country should be moving forward. Congressman Massey, thanks for talking. Hey, thanks for having me, Nick. Boy, there's a lot to respond to, but I want to respond to those tweets first. Yeah, yeah, please do. Well, first of all, the accusation that I'm a third-rate grandstander is completely unfounded. I'm at least second-rate, okay, and to John Kerry's tweet that I tested positive for being an a-hole, I would just say at least I haven't been symptomatic since birth. At least there was some doubt with me. In any case, let's clear that up and moving forward. Yeah, here is a question for you. What were you hoping to accomplish? And you laid out in a, we'll have a link to it, you laid out in a long series of tweets why you were calling for an actual vote on going forward with this stimulus bill or the spending bill rather. What were you hoping to accomplish with that?  Nancy Pelosi called me a dangerous nuisance, which to me sounds, it first sounds like an oxymoron because a nuisance shouldn't be dangerous, but it's just an annoyance, right? But I'm proud if Nancy Pelosi thinks I'm a dangerous nuisance, that means I'm effective in stopping her agenda. And her agenda here was to pass a bill with nobody in Congress. I call it a conspiracy to subvert the Constitution. Now, when we're in session, they oftentimes do a unanimous consent. But the difference there is there's a quorum. People are present and if you had an objection, you could register it. And then that would lead to a debate or a vote possibly. But they were planning to do a unanimous consent with nobody there. Can you imagine if I had let her get away with that, what this fourth bill that they say is coming would look like? Like if you just let her run the tables and nobody shows up to put up in the opposition or to put people on record. So there's two things here that I was trying to make a point about. Number one, it's a bad bill. And we can get into that. We hopefully can dissect that. We will, we will, yes. But number two, if you're going to vote for the biggest spending bill in the history of mankind, I mean, probably FDR is blushing in his grave right now at this. If you're going to, if you're going to pass that, somebody should register whether they were present, were they there? Did they vote yay? Did they vote nay? Today I'm sitting here, Nick, this bill, now it passed the Senate 96 to nothing and all of those were registered. Those people showed up to work and they're 10 years older than us and clearly not as healthy. But if 96 out of 100 senators can show up, surely to goodness, 218 congressmen can show up out of 435. Actually, all they needed was 216 since we don't have quite 435 right now. And just show up to vote because the constitution requires it. I literally got my little pocket constitution back out and reread the section just to make sure I wasn't imagining this. You have to have a quorum and the constitution defines a quorum as half of congress president in order to conduct business. And Nancy Pelosi and Kevin McCarthy were telling members of Congress, stay home, we got this. And the reason, there's several incentives for them to do it. Number one, if you're in leadership, you want to get reelected to leadership. And the way you get reelected is by being popular. And it's popular with most congressmen and this is unfortunate. If they hear that they can stay home and they don't have to come to work. What's also popular is that they don't have to go on record. They're by exposing themselves in the next election. Now, Kevin McCarthy isn't trying to protect Democrats and Nancy Pelosi isn't trying to protect Republicans. But what they were trying to protect were their own members of their conference, their respective conferences from primary opponents. This bill is not going to age well. Okay. On the left, you've got some of the Bernie Bros that recognize this is cronyism, like on steroids. Okay. And on the right, you've got people that realize that this puts Tarp to shame. And that Tarp is one of the things that spawned the Tea Party and got a lot of people elected and a lot of them unelected. So they just didn't want to go on record. And so what I did is I went, by the way, there's a false media narrative that I delayed the bill somehow. I actually didn't delay it, the bill signing, much to my chagrin. It happened on time, but it wasn't my objective to delay it. In fact, instead of surprising everybody on Friday, I went to my leaders, the Republican leadership, and they said, why are you telling people that if I demand a recorded vote, it's going to delay the bill by day? They said, well, when you demand the vote, we've got to give everybody 24 hours notice to get here. I said, I'm telling you, I'm going to ask for the vote. And we're 24 hours before that day is here. Instead of telling people to stay home, you need to tell them to come to Washington, DC now. And that's what they did. So how many people, because we don't know exactly, out of your count, how many people voted against this bill or would have voted against this bill had there been a recorded vote? I think there were about five or six. Can you name those names? You saw it yourself. Who else voted against it or would vote against it?  And my apologies to these members, if they were going to be a yes, they can always contest it because it wasn't recorded. And if time doesn't look kindly on anybody's vote, they can switch whatever suits them. But I know that Justin Amash was going to be a no. I know that Ken Buck was going to be a no. Ken Buck also was the strongest supporter of mine in terms of getting a recorded vote and not doing this by unanimous consent. Alex Mooney registered his objection to the bill very strongly when he spoke against the bill. And I believe Andy Biggs was a no or was going to be a no. By the way. Would AOC have been a vote? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. She voted, or she voiced some real criticism. You were talking about Bernie Bros, who were bent out of shape. Well, literally everybody who got up to speak about this bill voiced some criticism. Some Democrats said it was just a down payment. It didn't go far enough. Some Republicans said there's stuff in here I don't like. Everybody expressed some criticism. I think you'd have to ask her, but I think based on her floor speech, she would have been a yes ultimately. But I can't speak for her. And this is the unfortunate thing about not having a vote. You can't infer from the speech they gave. By the way, they accused me of grandstanding. If you watched the debate, I saw four hours of at least 150 members get up and grandstand one minute at a time. And I wished to speak on the substance of the bill. And I went and said, okay, to the floor manager. And I said, when can I speak? Like, where am I here in this lineup? Because I was starting to realize it was looking pretty bleak that they were going to allow me to speak. And he said, well, these other people registered an interest in speaking on the bill before you did. And we've run out of slots. So we'll put you at the top of the waiting list. How ridiculous is that? Everybody, I mean, I knew somebody in Germany that said this was on the news in Germany that I was objecting to this bill. How ridiculous is it for somebody to tell me on the floor of the house that I didn't express interest in speaking about this bill soon enough so I would not get one minute of the four hours? And I did not get one minute of the four hours.  I mean, you got a lot of coverage. What did you accomplish? And also, what does it feel like to be...  What's that feel like? Well, one of the things I accomplished, I got everybody read article one, section five, the Constitution. And by the way, I was right. They had, they drug a quorum there, kicking and screaming. Okay. Because I was right on the Constitution. What did I hope to accomplish? So, a lot of people looked at this, even my strong supporters said, don't go down there and set yourself on fire. Because we want you to come back to Congress. So even the people that support what I did, generally, some of them wanted to know, like you just asked, what was I hoping to accomplish? Well, they're already talking about a fourth bill. And I can tell you it's going to be more liberal. If that's a proper term. It's going to be more of Nancy Pelosi's liking, okay, the fourth one. It's going to have more spending. And it's going to have probably some more draconian stuff in it, in terms of government overreach. And if nobody had objected to this bill passing with nobody there, can you imagine a month from now, when it's harder to travel, and there are more congressmen infected with the virus? Can you imagine somebody trying to register an objection a month from now after having let this one pass last Friday without an objection? It would have been impossible. So one of the things that I've accomplished here, Nick, is I have set down a marker that people can expect that the fourth bill is going to require somebody to attend. And if they're not going to attend, they have to do it by remote voting. And by the way, if they do it by remote voting, you got to go on the record if you're going to do remote voting, right? You can't yell yeas and nays through a telephone. Well, you're not against remote voting, right?  Obviously, there's got to be a way by which Congress can legitimately register votes over the phone or something, right? I'm not against it. And by the way, it's different in one very important regard from mail-in ballots in elections with a mail-in ballot that's supposed to be an anonymous choice. And in Congress, you're supposed to own your vote, right? So the fraud, how could there be fraud if you have 435 members and there's a roll call that's printed and a member can look at it and say, yes, that is how I voted? Like there's a built-in thing that keeps fraud from happening there. I think we should have, certainly we should be having remote hearings right now. We need to get three or four of these doctors in a room that disagree and they need to produce their data and their models and let's see who's got the right model and let's defend it. And the same thing with the economists that are justifying pumping $6 trillion into the economy here in the course of a few months. Before we talk about the actual particulars of the bill and the larger government response to coronavirus, you know, some of your critics said, you know, what are you doing? You mentioned that the Senate, you know, they're 10 years older than you.  You're pulling Congress into that. A number of congressmen or representatives have tested positive for coronavirus or presumed to have it. Was that, is that at all a risk that you know, that you should have taken into account? Well, to get a quorum, you only need half of Congress. And I'm pretty sure there's some congressmen who are infected that we don't know about yet. And they may even suspect they're infected, but I'm pretty sure over half of Congress is not infected. Like you could make a choice to stay home and you could explain that to your constituents.  Now, here's my problem with the argument that the congressmen are making saying, they shouldn't get exposed. They shouldn't be exposed during their travels to this virus, that they need to stay home. They're asking the truck drivers to go to work every day. They're asking the farmers to go out and spread fertilizer on their field, which by the way, does involve interacting with people. Do you think the fertilizer just shows up on the farm? You know, you have to go buy it, okay? They're asking the warehouse workers at Amazon to keep going to work so they can buy it now. So the congressmen can buy it now. They're asking the UPS driver to go to work. And you're telling me that a congressman who makes $174,000 a year and has a really good healthcare plan paid for by the taxpayer can't come to work when the Constitution compels them. As my colleague, Matt Gagnon, said, and by the way, I think he probably would have been one of the knows, I'm not sure on this. But he certainly did support my effort to require people to come to Congress. He pointed out congressmen used to ride on a horseback and sometimes through hot wars in our country to get there, right? Like, this is not a valid excuse for running over the Constitution. So they should have come to it. So let's talk about first the public health response that the federal government, Donald Trump is pushing. Different governors are doing different things. But how would you characterize the federal government's response, particularly the role of the CDC and the FDA? Have they covered themselves in glory or has the federal government really screwed the pooch from day one with all this? They've screwed the pooch with the messaging. I never really counted on him to be that competent in terms of saving us in any scenario. But their messaging should have been better because that's the one thing you could expect they could do. They could step up to a microphone and give good advice. Let me tell you two of the biggest lies, right after I'm the government and I'm here to help. The second biggest lie after I'm the government and I'm here to help is that these face masks only confer benefits to doctors and nurses, right? Like, look in Japan. I've been to Japan several times. They wear them during allergy season or cold season or flu season. Like, it's a cultural thing. And, you know, it's called N95 because it's 95% effective at stopping particles, right? And if you don't put it on well, it's an N80, okay? Or an N50. But it still confers some benefit. And for the health professionals and the politicians who are advised by ostensibly or presumably advised by CDC to step up there and say, don't wear a mask. That's harmful. That's worse than being not fully forthcoming. It's harmful. I think a lot of people could go to work and the employer, in addition to handing the safety glasses and a hair net if they handed them a face mask and prop the door open, okay? It may cost a little more to heat the building if the door's prop, but now a thousand people don't need to touch the same door handle. Like, there's a lot of common sense things we can do if the government would quit lying. So that's one of the lies. The other lie that I've heard recently is that we don't want everybody tested, okay? That's false. Like, what we want is like a test that costs $10 that anybody can take it home before they go to work that day, right? That's what we want. Now, in both of those cases, what they're trying to do, they're assuming the American public doesn't understand the concept of scarcity. And so it's valid to say we want the nurses and doctors and first responders to have the PPE before everybody else has it. That's valid. It's responsible to say, you know what? We've only got the capacity to test 10,000 people today. And we need to test the 10,000 that we suspect most have it, right? But don't lie to us when you're delivering that message. And the CDC has allowed the politicians to lie either through being complacent when the message is given by the politician with the imprimatur of the CDC standing there, right? So that's where they've been unhelpful. What countries or what states and localities in the US do you think have been exemplary in the response to the coronavirus? I don't know enough about the other countries. I mean, just looking at the graphs, I would have to assume that Japan and Korea or South Korea are doing a good job. But also you would have to infer North Korea is doing a great job, right? If you're just going by the self-reporting. That's a joke, folks, okay? I know somebody's going to clip that out and say and make an ad out of it. So I'm not even going to repeat it. But I'm not quite sure. I can tell you that I don't approve of the job my own state is doing right now. How so? What is Kentucky doing that's so wrong? And by the way, the answer in New York may be different than the answer in Kentucky. And the answer in New York City may be different than the answer in upstate New York, okay? But just shutting everything down. Here's what we're going to get to the point of, Nick. We're going to have more deaths by suicide and diabetes and alcoholism than we are from the coronavirus if we stay on the trajectory that my governor chose.  And then we can know whether to buy one week of toilet paper or one year of toilet paper. Like people first started laughing at the folks who were buying all this toilet paper. And I agree there might be more important things if you're locked up at your house than toilet paper. But was it irrational to buy four months of toilet paper when the government was saying, oh, it's just going to be a week. And then they say now it's going to be two weeks until we open it Easter. And now we're saying April 30th. My wife's got the best analogy for it. She says we're in airport mode. We're sitting in the airport and they come on the intercom and says your flight's been delayed 25 minutes. They give you no expectation of whether there will be another delay and what their criteria was for delaying it. Then they come back on, well, we've added another hour to your delay. And pretty soon they keep incrementally telling you what they should have told you to begin with, and it canceled. And now you're looking for a hotel. That's the mode we're in. And we are owed the truth. If the governors are working under certain assumptions, tell us what those assumptions are. And then we can decide if it's valid. The other thing is our governor early on, I'm not sure if it was the governor or the local county judge that ordered this, but the governor certainly took credit for it. He sent a sheriff's deputy to somebody's house to make sure they didn't leave their house because they suspected they had the virus. And there are different versions of the stories. There always are. The wife of the man who they sought to restrain says that the hospital never even gave them results of the test and still wouldn't share them with them. But social distancing, great idea, not shaking hands, wearing the mask, not congregating a lot, self-isolation if you've got some of the light symptoms. Those are all good ideas, but when you order those at the point of a gun, now you've got tyranny. They go from being good ideas to being tyrannical. We are not China. The stuff we saw in China two months ago that appalled us. We always criticized them for cracking down on the churches. Now you can't go to church in Kentucky, and people have accepted it. They've accepted it somewhat out of trying to do their social obligation, their well-meaning people. But the fact that the governor has ordered it and is willing, there was a church that was putting together food and boxes so that they could distribute it to people who couldn't get out from the houses who were told to self-quarantine. The local health department came with the police and shut it down because they said they weren't observing the social distancing when they were putting the boxes together. That's a problem for me. Let's talk about the economic ramifications of this. The national economy has effectively been shut down by all of this. What do you think? You're libertarian, leaning. You are limited government. When the government mandates the closing of the economy, what is the government's role or responsibility to make sure that people have enough food, have enough health care, things like that? And then how does that, what you would say are the legitimate role of government in something like this? How does that match up with the two trillion plus spending bill that was just passed? Some of my colleagues make a compelling argument that this is a taking by the government. When you take somebody's livelihood by restraining them, that you owe them some renumeration for those damages. And that's a compelling argument to me. The problem we have here is that it's the governors who are taking and the natural feedback mechanism to keep them from taking too much would be that when they shut their own economy down, they deprive their state of government of revenues and they can't pay the state workers. And so the governors would, there's this feedback that would incentivize them to take a rational approach instead of just shutting everything down. What we're doing now is the federal government is making people whole or trying to make people whole with this bill. $1,200 ain't gonna do it. It doesn't give you your life back. And so this third coronavirus bill, the two trillion dollar bill is basically setting up a moral hazard for the governors.  They're now being told to keep it shut down and incentivize to do that. And so I think we've broken the feedback loop. If the state government takes something from you, the state government should give it back to you. It's not to say the federal government doesn't have a role here in fighting the virus. I believe they do. What is, you know, in terms of the money that is being shoveled out now or will eventually be shoveled out to people, you know, some of it is going directly to individuals. A lot of it, a majority of it is going to businesses, corporations, other entities. You know, what's the most egregious aspect for you? Like what sums up the cronyism that you're talking about? What's the worst part of that? Well, you know, a lot of people have pointed out that Pelosi got $25 million for the Kennedy Center. And that is deplorable for somebody to stick something like that in there. But a trillion is a million millions, okay? Like you could have a million, million dollar earmarks in this bill and it still wouldn't make up half of the bill. Like, and we're going to find out eventually what all the earmarks were. But that's not the most egregious part of this bill in my opinion. Let's just do a rough top-line calculation here. The government, this stimulus package is $6 trillion. It's either going to be spent or loaned or injected into the economy. $6 trillion, there are 100 million families, okay? Let's say the average family is three and a half people. 100 million families in the United States divide $6 trillion by $100 million. You get $60,000 per household of spending. Okay, and like, you know what, three and a half trillion or $4 trillion is coming out of Fed money, right? Yeah, yeah, right. The $4 trillion is treasury and Fed, exactly. So two from Congress, four from the Fed. That should tell you who runs this government, right? Like, you know, already, so we complain that Congress really only, only, like, only decides how a trillion dollars gets spent every year. Three trillion is entitlements. Now we're talking about four trillion that's from a totally different set here. But back to my math, $6 trillion total divided by 100 million families is $60,000 per family. Okay, they're offering $1,200 payments to each working adult if they qualify. And then like 500 per child or whatever, a family might expect to get $3,000, but $60,000 is going somewhere on their behalf. That, what's the problem here? That's like 95% of the money is going somewhere else. Where is it going? Yeah. And who's going to be responsible for the $60,000? The taxpayer, and most of the taxes come from people, not from companies, not from the corporate taxes. The taxpayer is on the line for $60,000, yet they're going to receive at most maybe $3,000 to benefit from this. I'm saying this is the largest transfer of wealth in human history. It would make FDR blush, and the Roman emperors would have no idea how to pull this off, this kind of plunder. What would be a better, what is your actual alternative to that? Okay, yeah. What should we be doing in Thomas Massey? You are the speaker of the house, or even better, you're the head of the Fed, so you're actually calling the shots. What should we be doing? Well, if I was the head of the Fed, I would turn it off, but let's go back to speaker of the house. Or let's just say this bill had been debated in a committee and amended in a committee, and I was on the committee of jurisdiction, right? Why do I have to imagine that I'm somebody else to have an effect on the government? I'm a freaking congressman, right? But you expose the reality the speaker's calling all the shots in a few lobbyists. Okay, so let's say I had a seat at the table like the founders envisioned, and I was on a committee of jurisdiction. I would point out that every American needs tested, and if the test costs $100 to perform, which is a high estimate, considering how many of these tests are eventually going to happen, $100 times 350 million people is $35 billion. That's one half of 1% of $6 trillion. Like for one half of 1% of what we're spending in this bill, you could test every American, okay? And actually you could probably test them all 10 times, because we're going to get the price of this test down to probably $10, okay? This is going to be like a pregnancy test or something. Eventually, and we're going to need something like that. So what would Thomas Massey do? Thomas Massey would have a Manhattan project, okay? When we were attacked at Pearl Harbor, did we come up with a $2 trillion stimulus package, or did we declare war on our enemies? We declared war on our enemies. Why have we not declared war on this virus? Why is our first instinct to make sure that the rich people keep all their riches, okay? Why is that our first instinct? We need to be fighting the virus. So let's do a Manhattan project against this virus. Let's do a Manhattan project that comes up with a 3D printed ventilator, right? Let's do a Manhattan project that figures out how to get everybody a weak supply of masks. Everybody, not just the healthcare workers. Let's work on the vaccine. Let's have a Manhattan project on the vaccine. That's where all the money should be going, because until we defeat this virus, what you're proposing is we're going to have multiple $2 trillion bills, and we're not even addressing the problem. I really do believe everybody, whether you're a celebrity or a politician or a grocery store bagger, should be able to get this test. And right now, that's not the case. There's a bill passed that said we're going to pay for them or that somebody's health insurance will pay for it. Nobody has to pay for the test.  So we need to, that's what I would do. I would declare a war on the virus, not a war on our taxpayers. What, you know, your colleague, Justin Amash tweeted last week, you know, that 10 years ago, the Tea Party had, you know, risen up after the bailouts that started under George Bush and Republicans and continued and expanded under Obama, Barack Obama and Democratic Congresses and, you know, bipartisan Congresses. He said, you know, the Tea Party is over. Is there any possibility of spending restraint left or the limitation of government? You know, and we can argue over whether or not it's legitimate or not, but I mean, you know, where are we? You came into office, you know, through a special election in 2012, affiliated very heavily with the Tea Party.  Is there any party that stands up for, you know, reducing spending anytime soon? You know, you saw this with Tarp, too. There were a lot of people that ultimately voted for that who at the time said they were conservative, but they were celebrating that. They were rushing back to vote for it, right? And, you know, here's the one thing that you have to look and under, you have to ask why was the world so mad at me or Washington, D.C. for being one dissenter? I didn't delay the bill a bit, right? And because there was no recorded vote, you know that the president and Kevin McCarthy announced at the bill signing that this was unanimous, that there was no dissension. Now that's about as ridiculous as saying I didn't express an interest in joining the debate on this bill, right? Obviously there was a dissenter. I was, you know, not everybody, but a lot of people were hating me for 24 hours. And by the way, I gave them the opportunity to hate me because I telegraphed to the leadership. I didn't telegraph, I just flat out told them. I'm going to ask for a vote. I gave them notice so they could get a quorum there so that I wouldn't be delaying the bill, so that we could do it constitutionally. But in doing that, I opened myself up to more hate. Now why did they hate it? Why is 434 to 1 so much worse than 435 to 0? Because the 1 gives the people hope. The 1 gives the Tea Party hope that not everybody has sold out, but there is a chance that you could get somebody in Washington DC that wouldn't go along with the nonsense. And so what I've discovered, Nick, in being this one person, when I first stepped out there in front, I had longtime supporters texting me. I mean, they've got my cell phone number, they've had it for 10 years. They're calling me up saying, don't do this, what are you doing? You're crazy. You're just bad idea. Don't stop this. We need this. But within the course of 24 hours, I had some of those same people text me and say, I'm sorry, I didn't realize what you were doing and how important it was. But what I was able to do by being one person that people could hang their objections on and say, I do this little thought in the back of my head that maybe this bill ain't the right thing to do. If one congressman, I mean, there wasn't even a senator that was able to express an objection. If one congressman can do it, then maybe I'm not crazy for thinking $2 trillion is crazy, right? And so anyways, I think the Tea Party's still alive and I've seen it raise up here in the last 72 hours. Can you say just as a final thought, is there anything good that's going to come out of this? I mean, this is an unprecedented kind of development in American history. It's not war. It is not an economic collapse like in the Great Depression or even in 2008 or something like that. But is there anything good that's coming out of this?  People are scared.  But is there something good that we can, do you think that will come out of this moment in history? We'll probably wrestle with this virus for a couple years. Okay, it's going to flare up and come back and it's not going to go away like Ebola or whatever. That was a scare. I think the good thing that will come out of it is maybe a more practical or scientific-based response and economic-based response to the next time this happens. This is a test run. And we found out that a lot of people will do some things we didn't think they would do, including our government. And depending on who writes the history books here, hopefully they'll go back and sift through the data and they'll find out that some of the things that were done were wrong and some of the things that should have been done weren't done. And that'll prepare us in the future for this. I'm hopeful about that if we haven't wrecked this country and our economy by then. But my problem is there's so much sort of socialism and central planning and big government. You've got government deciding what's essential and what's not. That's the definition of central planning. You've got government telling you when to go to work and how long to work and what things you can buy and what you can't buy. That's central planning on steroids. I hope we have enough data and I hope there are enough people that can look objectively at that data when it's over with to show that the aspects of this that saved us were free market and innovation and individuals and not the government. Maybe when this is over with people have less confidence in the government, a realistic view of what government's role is. I can be hopeful about that. The danger is that people get a little taste of socialism. $1,200 is the cheese and the trap here, I've been telling people. And if people realize it was the cheese and the trap when it's over with, then that's good. If they don't, then it's bad because they're going to be asking for $2,400 after that. I'm hopeful overall, Nick. All right, well, I'm glad to hear that and hopefully we'll be through this as quickly as possible. I want to thank Congressman Thomas Massey for talking to reason. Congressman Massey, thanks very much. Thanks for having me on your show, Nick.


The final item of business is a member's business debate on motion 4060 in the name of Ross Greer on save Loch Lomond. This debate will be conducted without any questions being put. Again, I'd ask members who wish to participate to press the request and speak buttons now as soon as possible, and I invite Ross Greer to open the debate for around seven minutes, Mr Greer. Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I thank members from across the Parliament for supporting the motion and helping to secure the debate this evening. This is not the first debate that I brought on this issue to Parliament. Three years ago, a planning application was submitted that attracted more discussion and interest than any other local issue in the west of Scotland in the six years that I have been an MSP. It is clear to me that it is so deeply emotive to people because of the importance of Loch Lomond to the communities who live there, to people across Scotland and to those from further afield who have been fortunate enough to visit our world-famous national park. It is particularly important to many of my constituents and others across the central belt who may not live in Baloch, but who are able to access everything that Loch Lomond has to offer through the gateway that Baloch is. 40 minutes on the train from Glasgow and you'll be in one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world. Fomingo land's first application back in 2018 and 2019 was riddled with problems. Their own environmental impact assessment made for particularly grim reading. Speaking of, among other things, damage to ancient woodland, pollution of standing and running water, red squirrel and otter fatalities and a host of other environmental concerns. Iconic views were to be interrupted by a water park and hotel on the shoreline. The majority of the site would be handed over from public ownership under the control of Scottish Enterprise to the ownership of a private company based hundreds of miles away and whose profits certainly would not be reinvested in the local economy. 60,000 objections were lodged to making Fomingo land the most unpopular planning application in Scottish history. Westin-Bartonshire Council formally opposed the plans, as did Rambour Scotland, The Woodland Trust and a number of other local groups. When national park planning officers recommended refusal of the plans, Fomingo land saw the writing on the wall and pulled their application. We won and I want to once again thank everyone who contributed to that victory, including members who are here for the debate this evening. During the campaign, local residents came together at a meeting to consider what Baloch in the wider area needed, what a positive, alternative development would look like. The list of ideas suggested by residents included a municipal watersport centre, camping and motorhome facilities, a backpacker hostel, a forest school, a heritage centre, a museum and much more. There was significant interest in developments around ecotourism, affordability, educational benefit and recognising Baloch as an accessible base for exploring both sides of the Loch were identified as priorities. However, the exclusivity agreement between Fomingo land and the Scottish Enterprise made it impossible to progress any of those alternatives. Despite its comprehensive rejection, Fomingo land is now back with another application, and it sounds eerily familiar. 127 self-catering lodges, a hotel, a water park, a monorail, brewery and more. Our campaign has secured one important concession already. Most of the ancient woodland at Drumkin and Woods has been removed entirely from the development that would still form part of the site and be sold to Fomingo land, putting it at risk of future development. Fomingo land had previously told me directly that their plans were not financially viable without development there in the ancient woodland, so it is easy to see why the community simply does not trust them as custodians of this very special location. Just under half a hectare of ancient woodland is still at direct risk from this application, which is one of the reasons why the woodland trust has joined us once again in objecting to Fomingo land's plans. The environmental impact assessment says that that area of ancient woodland, about two thirds the size of the pitch at Hamden, will be removed in the construction phase of the development. Lost of ancient woodland means permanent damage and is totally unacceptable when we are facing such a stark biodiversity and climate crisis, as the Scottish Government acknowledged earlier this week. The new team overseeing this application has made a number of other small improvements such as reducing the height of the hotel and the water park complex, and they have taken a more professional approach this time. Admittedly, though, the bar was set pretty low last time. I have not had any petulant insults about my age or apparent achievements from the chief executive. They have not threatened me with defamation action from quoting from their own environmental impact assessment. Their last attempt truly was the definition of a cowboy operation. Let us not be under any illusion about these apparent improvements, though. This new application is still utterly inappropriate and the grounds for objections still stand. The scale of development is huge. It would have a drastic impact on a well-visited national park location on the lockshore. Space used freely for leisure by local residents and visitors alike would become part of a branded development, meaning that non-paying visitors would feel like second-class citizens behind those who could afford the premium to rent a lodge. In response to my raising these access concerns with the First Minister, the developers issued a press release with an access pledge. The pledge just reiterates their basic legal obligations and does not address the unavoidable restrictions that come when open space becomes a private holiday park. The whole development would be focused on flamingo land paying customers to the detriment of those local residents and other visitors who just want to enjoy the accessible lockside location. Why else would the monorail link the restaurant with the upper floor of the water park? There is potential here to link the shore with the railway station, restoring a public transport link to the lock for people with lower mobility in particular. In practice, it will simply link two parts of an exclusive resort with each other without wider community benefit. Most of the site would be handed over from public ownership into the hands of a private theme park operator based hundreds of miles away. The local community have stood firm against the idea of land owned and looked after on their behalf being passed to a company who exists only to profit from it. As I mentioned a minute ago, residents' alternative ideas, which could not be progressed due to the exclusivity agreement, included a community development trust or community interest company model, so that any profits made by something like a local arts venue, for example, would be kept in the community. As we face a climate emergency, major new developments, especially in national parks, have a responsibility to play their part in tackling the crisis. That is clearly not the case with this development, which will bring in substantial additional traffic on local roads. The A82 up the west side of the lock is infamous for congestion during tourist season, as it is. That concern was key to West Dunbartonshire Council's objection to the first application, and I would urge them to bear it in mind as they prepare a position on this new proposal, given that the scale of the development and the expected traffic levels remain the same. Baloch and the wider national park need to see significant improvements in public transport, not doubling down on car-centric developments. A truly co-ordinated and easily accessible public transport and active travel plan is needed for all of Loch Lomond and the Trossicks national park. I have been discussing a travel strategy with the park authority and others for a while now, and some progress has been made. There is now a national park journey planner app, plans for shuttle buses are being actively worked on, and a sustainable travel and modal shift report is in progress, which would present a clearer picture of the barriers and the opportunities for reduction of car use within the park. I would welcome interest from the Government in working with the park authority and local councils to deliver a comprehensive transport master plan for the park. However, it is not good enough for Fomingo land to simply stand by and expect public bodies to solve traffic problems that they would be creating. A development like that is incompatible with the park's own plans to contribute towards Scotland's climate targets. The hospital watch campaign has also raised its concerns with me about the pressure that that could put on local services at the Vale of Leven hospital, where long-standing capacity issues will be familiar to many members here. It is a serious concern and I expect both the council and the park to take it into account. An overwhelming majority of my constituents are clear that they do not want a scar on the protected woodland, the riverbank and the lockshore. They do not object in principle to redeveloping wood bank houses, as we made clear last time, but they certainly do not want 127 lodges providing holidays that many local residents would struggle to afford, attracting thousands more cars and sending profits to corporations based far from the local area. People are sick of Fomingo land patronising an incorrect message that there is no alternative and that their plan is the only way to prevent misery and unemployment in the Vale of Leven, that the only choice is that this resort or baloch will be forever a neglected and derelict wasteland. We have more ambition for baloch than they do. The community has other ideas, dozens of them. Those alternative proposals could provide sustainable and quality jobs, educational benefits and far more, while preserving the stunning natural beauty that makes Loch Lomond a global destination. In contrast, Fomingo land's plan is frankly boring, generic and expensive. It does nothing to enhance Baloch's position as a gateway to the national park. It is not what we need to support the local economy and it is certainly not what we need to tackle the climate emergency. No real consideration has been given to the community or the local environment. I want to encourage members across all parties, as well as members of the public who are watching, to join me in lodging strong objections to those plans. In closing, I realise that, as this is a live planning application, the minister is severely constrained in what he is able to say, so I will not take offence if his contribution is shorter than what would normally be the case for a Government response to a member's debate, but the Government knows the strength of feeling about this development, both locally and nationally. People care deeply about Loch Lomond, they are proud of it and they want to see it enhanced, not cheapened. Our campaign's commitment to save Loch Lomond is unwavering, and I ask everyone who feels the same to join us to help us to win this fight once again. Thank you very much, Mr Greer. He appeared to have used some of the time allocation for the minister, but I am sure he will not be too disappointed. We now move to the open debate. I call Rona Mackay. We will be followed by Pam Gosel for around four minutes. I am pleased to be speaking in today's debate and thank my colleague Ross Greer for raising this very important issue in the chamber. As Ross Greer has explained, this is the second application that has been lodged by this developer with the first application reportedly having been withdrawn following a record 60,000 objections after a robust campaign from the local residents and the Save Loch Lomond campaign. I am proud to say that I love Loch Lomond. I have been going there for as long as I can remember for family days out, celebrations, dog walks and just generally to soak up the peace and beauty of this dual in Scotland's countryside. Nowadays, it has been just a 30-minute drive from my constituency of Strathkelver and Bearsden, and I try to get there as often as time allows. Loch Lomond and Introsyck's national park is home to 21 Monroe's, 19 Corbyn's, none of them are inclined by me, I hasten to add, and 22 large lochs, and that's pretty phenomenal by anyone's standards. It's clear that the Flamingo land developers have made a concession in order to progress their plans, which has been to move the proposed lodges in Drumkimin Woods to another part of the development. They're still there, of course, just not on that site of the woods. We seem to prove the fact that the developers had no real thought for the aesthetic beauty of the area in the first place when they've submitted their original proposals. To be clear, I'm not anti-development and I don't want to keep Scotland in aspect, but I don't believe that the level of this development is appropriate for an area of such natural beauty. The developers may argue that it will attract tourism and money to the area, but I'd argue that a more modest proposal would do that, and Ross Greer has outlined that very well. Indeed, in my experience, tourists flock to the national park whenever the sun shines, and it's done very nicely without a fairground attraction. Indeed, after lockdown restrictions ended in 2020 and 2021, there was a 200 per cent surge in traffic heading for Loch Lomond, and in several occasions cars were turned back from approaching lus due to the sheer volume. Loch Lomond will always attract tourists and generations of family who regularly flock there to experience the wonder of that area. I want people to come to Scotland from all over the world to enjoy our wonderful locks and tourist attractions with tasteful facilities that we've all come to expect. All of this is crucial, Presiding Officer, but that's before we even mention the inevitable environmental damage to the area, the disruption to wildlife, the pressure on local roads and the disrespecting public act test to Drum Kimmond Woods, as Ross Greer mentioned. There's also the principle of selling off precious public land to a private developer for profit. Is that a good thing? I don't think so. Do we want to sacrifice a significant part of our Loch Lomond and Trossach's national park for big business? I certainly don't. Loch Lomond is one of Scotland's greatest landmarks, and maintaining its integrity must be of paramount importance. Furthermore, our environmental heritage should not be sullied by big business intent in making profit. Rejecting those submitted proposals will send a clear message to developers. Leave our bonnie banks alone and let nature be the attraction. Thank you, Presiding Officer. As a west of Scotland MSP, I'm honoured to have places of outstanding natural beauty in my region, including Loch Lomond and the surrounding Loch Lomond and Trossach's national park. With there being just two national parks in Scotland, I'm proud to have a significant amount of one of those parks in my region. Members will agree that areas such as this are what make Scotland a truly special place to live, and protecting those areas and the communities within them should always be a priority. I'm therefore clear that proposals such as this should only go ahead when the concerns of local communities have been addressed. There have been many objections raised against those proposals since Loch Lomond banks were submitted plans in 2018. Over 60,000 objections were submitted, and the proposals were enormously rejected by elected members of the West Dunbartonshire Council in their role as statutory consultancy. However, it is positive to see that, in their new proposals, Lomond banks have tried to address some of the concerns that were raised previously and are engaging with the communities, and those plans will affect to ensure that they develop the development that is able to deliver its potential benefits to the local economy. While I acknowledge the £40 million investment with economic benefits from Lomond banks, I still have concerns over six particular areas. The first anti-show social behaviour and problems with littering in and around Baloch is already a serious problem during the summer months, and residents are rightly concerned about this becoming even worse if the development goes ahead. Secondly, there also needs to be more safeguarding of natural environments around the proposed site. There should be further assurances that there will be no pollution to Loch Lomond itself. Thirdly, despite Lomond banks stating that drumming and woods will be protected from the development, the Woodland Trust has warned that ancient woodland might still be damaged by those proposals. Fourthly, developments such as that should also come with an economic development plan, and truly that works for interests of local economy. It is possible to create a system that complements existing local businesses instead of competing with them, but it remains to be seen in the new proposals that this balance will be achieved. Fifthly, we need to see a well-thought-out workforce plan for the site that works alongside existing skills pool and takes account of existing shortage of local labour. Last but not least, those issues are in addition to many concerns that have been raised about the already stretched local infrastructure, including the local road network. When done properly, developments such as that can be a great benefit to all parties, but that can only happen when those projects are inclusive and include local residents and businesses. Going forward, I would urge Lomond banks to continue to work constructively with local communities to address those concerns, and I would encourage concerned residents or businesses to make sure that their views are known. I am not against those types of developments by default. In fact, I try to support them wherever possible, but each development has to be the right for local communities and should be considered on a case-by-case basis. I am no stranger to working with developments that have a positive overall outcome, and I hope that Lomond banks will work around the points that I have raised today to take those plans forward. I now invite Jackie Baillie to contribute for around four minutes to Ms Baillie. Thank you very much, Presiding Officer. Let me start by congratulating Ross Greer on securing debating time to explore the current planning application by Lomond banks, most commonly known as Flamingoland, to develop West Riverside at Ballach. Before I come on to the application itself, let me just note that the land belongs to Scottish Enterprise, a public agency that is answerable to Scottish ministers. Although I signed Ross Greer's motion and was happy to do so, I am not as a matter of principle opposed to the sale of public land for the right development. The question, of course, is whether that is the right development for the gateway to Scotland's first national park and, in my view, the most beautiful national park in Scotland. If the Scottish Government does not believe that to be the case, it absolutely wonders why it is agreeing to sell the land that it owns. Now that Ross Greer's colleagues form part of government, I am hopeful that we could perhaps pursue that point and whether a community buy-out would be considered. The other aspect to this is that I have no doubt that Lomond banks will receive grants from Scottish Enterprise, perhaps in the form of their replacement for regional selective assistance. I cannot help but wonder whether that will exceed the capital receipt from the sale of the land so that, in effect, we are paying them to go there. I would be grateful in the interests of transparency if the minister will, in due course, publish the anticipated figures. However, let me turn to the application itself. I opposed it the first time around and it is fair to say that opinion in the community is divided. Will it bring jobs? Will it help local businesses? Does that outweigh environmental concerns? What about our local roads? Will they cope? Those are just some of the questions in people's minds. That is why I am engaging in a local community consultation to get people's views and I am happy to share the results of that on a cross-party basis. The application itself is not substantially different to the previous application three years ago. It is fair to say that the key difference is the removal of the 32 self-catering lodges previously planned for drumkin and wood. Nevertheless, concerns remain about drumkin and wood, captured by the briefing from the woodland trust and, indeed, in correspondence that I have had from local residents about the impact of the development on a popular local area of important ancient woodland. That is a significant concern that needs to be addressed. Jobs have always been a key consideration for me. The project will apparently create 80 full-time jobs, 120 part-time jobs, and they have agreed to pay the real living wage, which is an improvement on their previous position. However, I would want to see much more robust pledges being developed about local jobs and fair work in the coming weeks. However, I also want to see guarantees on the use of local supply chains and partnerships with other local tourism businesses. Although that may not be part of the planning process, it is a critical consideration for the community, and we should not accept anything less from any developer at all. There is a question for me about density. We are talking about two hotels, 127 self-catering lodges and departments. That is a lot of visitors not just at the height of the season, but it is common with those types of projects all year round. The local roads infrastructure is poor. I have lost count of how many times I have been stuck on the A82 in bumper-to-bumper traffic. Adding any additional volume of traffic causes me concern. I know that there is a railway station at Baloch, and I like plans for the monorail. However, realistically, if any of us was going for a self-catering holiday, we would take our cars. We absolutely would, and that will have a negative impact on infrastructure. I will weigh up the advantages and disadvantages of the application, but I will be absolutely influenced by the views of local people. That application falls to the national park to be considered. It would be helpful to clarify what role lawness later as the minister responsible for national parks will have in this, or whether it will fall to Tom Arthur, who has responsibility for planning. I am not interested in commenting on the substance with them, but I think that the process is important, particularly given the interests of the Greens and their position in government. In the meantime, in conclusion, it is right to carefully consider what local people tell us that they want to happen, because, after all, it is their home. I invite the minister to respond to the debate for around seven minutes. Good luck, Presiding Officer, with the seven minutes. Thank you for this opportunity to close the debate on the motion brought here by Ross Greer. Ironically, it is my first member's debate to close as a minister. As everything in my career in this chamber is always fraught with challenges, but I will be unable to take any interventions from colleagues, mainly due to the fact, as Mr Greer has already stated, that it is a live planning application. I welcome members' continued interest in Loch Lomond and Trossop's national park and the consideration that has gone into raising those concerns in today's debate. The Scottish Government is committed to our national parks and, as you know, we intend to designate at least one new national park by the end of this parliamentary session. It is, of course, for members to bring forward whatever motions they consider appropriate for consideration at members' businesses. In this case, because the members' business debate is focused on a live planning application, it raises procedural difficulties for myself and the Parliament. As required by the Scottish Ministerial Code, ministers are restricted from commenting publicly on live planning applications, and that could potentially prejudice the final decision. The challenge of such debates was the subject of correspondence in 2014 between Joe Fitzpatrick, as my predecessor as Minister for Parliamentary Business, and Stuart Stevenson in his capacity as the then convener for standards, procedures and public appointments committee. The strict limitations on the Scottish Government in commenting on live application was noted, however, the committee was unable to identify changes to procedures to address this issue without restricting the topics that members could raise at members' business. Applications for planning permission are dealt with in the first instance by the relevant planning authority. In this case, that is the Loch Lomond and Trossop's national park authority. Planning decisions within the national park are required to be taken having regard to the national park plan and in accordance with the Loch Lomond and Trossop's local development plan, unless material consideration indicates otherwise. Recognising and respecting the important role of the planning authorities in making decisions in future developments of their area is rare for ministers to intervene in a live planning application, and they will only do so where matters of national interests are at stake. Members will be aware that the Scottish Government is currently working towards a finalised national planning framework, the NPF4, to be laid before Parliament for approval before adoption by Scottish ministers. The draft NPF explains how we will work together to build sustainable, livable, productive and distinctive places. Addressing climate change and nature recovery are key priorities, and once finalised, NPF4 will help to provide a clear policy framework for decision makers. You will, Presiding Officer, appreciate that I cannot comment on the merits of this live application, and once again I thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to take part in today's debate. Minister, that concludes the debate, and I close this meeting of Parliament.


Hey everybody, I'm Jen with opensource.com, and this is your weekly top five. This is for the week of October 2nd. At number five, we have an interview with Tilde CEO, Lea Silver. She serves up tips for dealing with burnout and explains how salary transparency can help improve employee satisfaction. This is an all-things-open interview, and you can read our entire collection on the site. At number four, we have an interview with Hans de Goad, a long-time Linux developer who will be reviewing the $9 mini-computer chip at LinuxCon Europe this year. At number three, we have an article celebrating five years of LibreOffice. The document foundation co-founder Italo Vignoli looks back at the brief history of LibreOffice. At number two, we have an exclusive interview with Chris Anzich the head of opensource at Twitter. He explains how company engineers are working on open source technologies internally and contributing to a range of community projects. And finally, at number one, how I discovered Linux's true power, Jim Whitehurst, president and CEO of Red Hat, shares his Linux story. He says it begins like that of so many others with an old computer and his desire to tinker. And we have an honorable mention this week. It's a gentle introduction to microservices. So you might wonder, what are microservices? opensource.com has created a new resource page that gently introduces microservices, which are a modern way of building applications which rely upon distributed systems to do their jobs. All right, that's it for the top five this week. Thanks so much for joining me. You can watch the full video on YouTube. You can also read the full article with all the links on our site at opensource.com.


Hey friends today. We are hanging out at Epcot recently the nine dragons restaurant reopened in the China Pavilion So I was able to get myself some reservations and decided to come out and check it out But also I know some of the food and wine boots opened up and I wasn't able to check them out My family was here So I thought maybe I would take a gander at a couple of those and maybe ride some rides and just enjoy an evening at Epcot Anyhoo's let's go do this. I have been hearing all week that the Attraction wait times have been super low So I thought I'd come over and test that theory out on test track But it looks like it's down at the moment So maybe we'll head on into world showcase and see what the wait time for frozen ever after is My reservation time for nine dragons isn't until seven So we got a couple hours before that and I figured like I said I'd ride some rides check out the food boots And I don't know I'm kind of excited for nine dragons. I have never eaten here before This would be my first time now. I've heard people say that it's not the best restaurant in Epcot's world showcase But I'm willing to try it just so I can find out. I mean, I love Chinese food. So you never know Some of the newer boots that open or the lobster landing and the mac and cheese eats and because we're gonna be having dinner at Nine dragons, I don't want to get anything to eat, but I am interested in the drinks, maybe For the mac and eats it looks like they've got obviously a bunch of mac and cheese But at the bottom there, they have an 81 Bay brewing company lemon hazy IPA right here from Tampa, Florida So I think I might try that one Here it is and I decided to go with the six ounce now I'm not a big IPA fan, but I mean it is a little lemony So I don't know how bitter it is. We're gonna give it a swig to find out and I don't know maybe it'll be really delicious Oh, yeah, that is really good. It's not very it's not bitter at all It's probably got a very low IBU, but the lemon in here. It is like it's very it's very refreshing. I like this beer Cheers Now that we've had a beer. I think it's time. We actually make it into world showcase I do want to test out frozen wait time just to see what it's like I feel like that's the busiest ride at Epcot next to test track So it'll give you a good understanding that if it is really the low crowds that everyone's talking about this week The funny thing is is whenever test track is down You kind of know it's down from a far distance because you can't hear it actually going round and round And I've been keeping in like an ear out just in case it starts up. I've run back there, but nothing yet. I Can tell you the crowds and world showcase are definitely not here Usually this is a very congested area and there's wide open spaces I wonder if anybody's out meeting honor or Elsa because Anna and Elsa are out here meeting and greeting I believe too. Look at that. There's hardly nobody out here What are the chances of that? When there's not a crowd around Anna and Elsa that'll tell you something right there And now I think we're just gonna hop right over to frozen and see what that's like Holy moly 35 minutes, and it's actually queuing up right here. Oh right here actually That is so amazing 35 minutes. Wow. It really is a slow week here in Disney said 35 minutes more like 20 minutes. That is amazing. So of course, we're gonna grab frozen. I Feel like I just rode this with my mom and sister. Oh, is this boat 21? fancy Yeah Well, that was a pleasant surprise 35-minute posted and then a 20-minute wait can't go wrong with that and since we're over here Even though we are gonna be on the dinner soon. They do have a princess's week Cookie inside the Kringle bakery, and I think we might stop in and grab it since we're here, you know Right here. It is the sisters cookie fancy world princess week. It's only 379 to it looks really really good It's a sugar cookie with chocolate ganache Three dollars and 95 cents for a cookie. It's a little bit high and expensive But for Disney it's not that bad of a deal because you figure all the other specialty desserts are like five six dollars And I just wanted to try it just to try it. I Got myself a cup of water though because I feel like this is gonna be one of those cookies where you could use Like a cup of milk or something. It's gonna be very dry Here we go. I hope I don't get sprinkles all over me. Oh That was a little bit of a shocker because I thought it was gonna be harder than it is But it is so soft and it's very delicious. I Really thought this was gonna be a one or bite like one or two bite cookie But I could actually eat this all the way now I probably shouldn't because like I said, I do want to go eat at nine dragon So I don't want to spoil and once they have a good dessert in there So we'll take like another bite or two, but overall I really did enjoy this job. I really like this cookie actually Enough of the cookie business though. Here we are the China Pavilion I cannot wait to try nine dragons now I ran into like two or three people on my way over here who told me that it is not good So I'm really really curious is this gonna be the worst Epcot restaurant. I Have eaten at the Lotus Blossom Cafe, which is a quick service location right next to nine dragons And I didn't think it was that bad. I really did enjoy the food that I had there So I don't know why people say nine dragons is so bad. I mean, we're here to find out anyway Right there is Lotus Blossom and then right here is nine dragons We're gonna actually check out the menu and see if we can go in a couple minutes early a Little look at the menu. We've got crispy duck fried rice Canton pepper beef spicy honey crispy chicken kung pao chicken and shrimp salt and pepper shrimp with spinach noodles Cologne spare ribs vegetables and tofu stir-fry the menu is subject to change based on availability It looks like we can go in a little bit early So I think we'll do that now almost like 30 minutes early doesn't seem like it's a very popular or busy restaurant But I'm hopefully we'll have some good food and just enjoy the ambience. I Have never been in here before I think that's so interesting It's a very pretty dining room though And you can see everybody actually going about their business and usually you'd be able to see the line for frozen But we just got off it and it was only a 35 minute wait So there's no line actually all the way back here, but you can see the good fortune's gift shop out there Now we're at our table. Let's take a look at the menu and kind of decide on what we're gonna get Looks like they've got some pretty good appetizers Crispy duck bow buns. I would be interested in trying those I think and then they've got crispy duck fried rice All the offerings that they had on the menu outside But for appetizers, I didn't see that duck bow buns on there So I think I'm definitely gonna get those and then maybe an entree Each table actually has this nice little place mat where you can practice drawing your own Chinese characters That's really awesome. I've never done anything like this before. I don't have a pen or else I would try I would like to do the rain one and you can actually just practice right here I don't think I've ever seen something like this at any of the Disney restaurants like a little activity as you dine So for the appetizer I decided to go with the crispy duck bow buns and then for the entree I wanted to get the spicy honey crispy chicken I had to keep looking because I forget what I'm gonna actually order and they said that the spicy honey crispy chicken was Kind of like a medium spice not too much not like the kung pao So that's why I decided to try that one and it gets served with the white rice. So I'm excited I've never had a duck bow bun before And here they are look at this. They don't look really crispy though. It looks like it's kind of like a Maybe grilled duck or something. I don't think it's fried. I don't know actually maybe it is But we're gonna try it. I got the sauce on the side just in case I didn't like it And it just comes like that a little bit of green onions a little duck and a little sauce First we're gonna try it without the sauce. We've got a little tiny bow bunny here. Very good. Oh, yeah, nice and soft And I'm excited. I haven't eaten duck in a long time. I don't even know if I remember if I like it. I I Like it. It's really really good now. We're gonna try some of this sauce on there. I'm gonna open up the bone a little bit Just drizzle it on There we go slap it excellent there it is So we're gonna try it now Mmm Okay, I like it with the sauce on so now we're just gonna we're just gonna go for it. The sauce is really really good Yeah, that's the way not too much though. I don't like things very saucy not too saucy And so far I am highly impressed with this like just so we get that straight appetizer already got me excited Uh-oh. I'm losing my duck I almost lost my duck. I put too much sauce on it and the bun fell apart But I have to say before I didn't remember if I like duck or not, but I really like this duck I do have to say everything is actually fairly Priced pretty well. I think the most expensive thing is the spare ribs and that's 30 dollars Everything else is like 20 to 25 dollars and that's kind of cheap for a sit-down meal here at Epcot's world showcase I don't think anywhere else you can actually get a meal for 20 dollars Um, yeah, maybe Mexico. They might have some chicken entrees there, but like I don't know I think that's actually not too bad of a deal not too bad of a price And here is my spicy honey crispy chicken and this one's only 23 dollars and it's a pretty big portion I mean actually that is a very big portion and they give me a nice scoop of rice. It's some broccoli I'm excited to try this. This is gonna be really good the duck buns were 13 dollars So I'm looking at probably around 36 dollars for my whole meal. Not too shabby One of the things I don't like about Chinese food Is that there's extra breading on it like I don't like a lot of breading on my chicken Or like when I get general sauce or anything like that So we're gonna see what the breading's like compared to the chicken ratio The breading to chicken ratio Oh, not too shabby That's actually not too not too breaded and we'll grab a little rice That's the way and then a little broccoli There we go. Scoop see potato Put it on a chicken and there we go a perfect bite Now he said not too spicy like a medium spice he said the kung pao was really spicy so we'll find out That is good good chicken very crispy very airy not overly breaded I really like this and the spice isn't bad at all like honestly, there's almost no spice at all Wow, I don't know why people say this isn't that good. This is fairly decent to me Maybe I don't get good Chinese anywhere I go, but this is this is very good Like I'm very happy about this meal and like I said for 23 dollars for this meal That's not too bad. I mean that's a big portion of chicken they give you like they give you At least a pound of chicken. It has to be a pound of chicken. I mean It's massive and in apat everything all the prices are inflated as it is so This is a win for me. I think it is One thing I did notice they didn't have a good selection of alcoholic drinks They had the sing-sao is the beer a couple specialty cocktails. No bijou though Everything just wine is california-based argentina new zealand germany Nothing really chinese except for that sing-sao beer and uh, yeah, I don't know. I was a little shocked by that Now i'm all done eating at nine dragons I was going to get some dessert But then I noticed the dessert is the same exact dessert that they have over at the lotus blossom cafe They have like the ginger ice cream and I've already had that so overall Like I said, it is very good food very delicious food like the duck bao buns were amazing Those were probably my favorite thing But the thing being said is you're at epcot's world showcase. I feel like there is better Options, you know, I mean even though it's very good food. I wouldn't recommend it as my number one spot I mean, there are some great restaurants here. The price is pretty decent But I mean you got to live it up when you're here at epcot world showcase I would want to go to you know, vianapoli or the celier or the beer garden and stuff like that I feel like that is a better better like uh food quality and a better experience So overall food good, but just being here at epcot world showcase It needs to be amazing to actually keep up with some of these other restaurants So that's why I think it gets its bad vibe Also, it looks like it's super rained while we are there eating and I don't even see it raining But it is like dark and gloomy out now I feel like this is a when did we get ice cream moment because I didn't know it was actually I didn't know it was raining. It didn't seem like it was raining Right now frozen is down So I'm happy we got to ride when we did but test track is still down So that means all the other attractions have to be super busy when frozen and test track go down at the same time Oh boy, that causes a ruckus They just made the announcement for Epcot forever But then I was like, hey, maybe I'll stick around for that and I realized that it's actually not even 7 30 yet. So it's still almost two hours away So I don't know if we're going to stay but one thing I'm noticing right here Is ratatouille with the lights on. I don't know if you guys can see it. I'm going to try zooming in here Do you see the building next to the Morocco Pavilion? It's got the lights on right there. That's ratatouille I don't think I've ever seen those lights on back there. That's pretty interesting Right now Remi's ratatouille is doing cast member previews And I got an annual pass holder preview that is for the sixth the first day is the fourth But I wasn't able to get one for the fourth. So I got one for the sixth. That's who shabby I wish I could have got one for the fourth there earlier But uh soon it's gonna open up anyway and we get to actually experience it as much as we want You know one thing I do love seeing is spaceship birds starting to change colors when it's still Daylight out and has this like such beautiful glow to it And you can see it reflecting in the water. Oh also looks like the rain's coming. It was that lightning Oh, oh things are escalating super quick. We got a duck down there. It's not a duck. That's a bird I pulled over for one second to appreciate the beauty of spaceship earth and all of a sudden starts lightning and raining So we're gonna get moving along here.  I think I tried this on opening day And it was so refreshing and right now I feel very thirsty Like I am super super thirsty and that sounds just delicious sounds very refreshing Right here. It is the spiced apple twinnings of london chai tea and this is so good I had it before it's four dollars and fifty cents Like I said the cookie over in norway was actually very cheap because look at like the prices of things at all of the Boots. So this is a full cookie you got for 395. There's nothing probably under four dollars at any food and wine boots Now you can get this with or without whiskey I decided to get it without because it is that good on its own Like you don't need the whiskey actually making it not as good tasting This actually on its own is just so good so refreshing and I've been really wanting to get it since I had it the first time So here we go. Hope it's still as good as I remember Yeah one life for you. It is so sweet and I don't know if it's just like the apple and the cinnamon I don't think they put sugar in there, but this is just it's so delicious There is one ride that I really would like to try to get done before we go and that's finding nebo Because last time I was here with my mom and sister We were talking about if we can get one more ride in and we couldn't get a ride in and uh I was telling my mom. I was like, well, we could have always went and done finding nemo and she's like What's that? And then we realized she's never done it before So like if I would have known she's never done it Then I would have done it like we wouldn't did it, but we didn't do it So I said next time I was there I'd ride it and show it in the video so she can see what it's like And then when they come back down they can ride it And luckily for us it's always like a five minute wait, but look at that spaceship berth now Look at all beautiful. Oh, oh wait for that monorail shot. Here it comes. I heard it in the background. Oh a little lightning too beautiful In the big blue world Fish are friends not food This is one of the longest cues I think at Epcot and you really don't need it The weight is always just kind of making your way through it But it's also really refreshing and cool Makes you feel like you're underwater Look at that We will close the clamshell for you Oh, don't worry, just keep your eyes open for him on the way Let's go Mr. Ray, we can't explore without Nemo. I'm sure we'll see him any minute now White stripes I'm thinking of something And there you go, I think we are done here We got to enjoy living in the seas or oh, sorry finding Nemo. I want to call it living in the seas I don't know why it's always gonna stick with me like that, but I enjoyed nine dragons. It was very good food We got to ride frozen We got to try a beer at some of the new food and wine stands and then also some very delicious tea Overall, I call this a very successful day at Epcot. So I hope you enjoyed the video I enjoyed making it. We'll see you next time Bye We have to say a proper goodbye To spaceship berth on the way out though. Look at that lightning Isn't she just so beautiful? I think I stopped and paid attention three times today On the way out, I found a great magic band to add to my collection Best day ever, Canada Day, and it's actually limited edition to 1000 That is so cool. I'm definitely getting it