2/22/24: Pelosi New Trump Russia Conspiracy, Nvidia Surges Amid AI Boom, Kellogg CEO Tells Poor Eat Dinner Cereal, Google AI Shut Down, Dems Panic Over Michigan Israel Revolt, Republican Calls For Gaza Extermination, Gaza Food Trucks Ambushed, Assange Trial Wraps Up

upcoming Michigan primary. Top Democrats are really sounding the alarms there over Biden's incredibly unpopular among the Democratic base policy of unconditional support for Israel. Speaking of that, it has been a big week for the US running cover for Israeli atrocities and a United States congressman saying to an activist that we should kill all the children in Gaza.

I'm not even kidding you there. We also have a reporter who is on the ground in the UK for Julie Nosanche's appeal trying to block extradition to the United States, so he is going to give us an update. Looking forward to that. But before we get to any of that, thank you to all of you who have supported us through a premium subscription. It has made all the difference in the world to us, and we have some exciting things coming up for you.

from the audience. So if you want to be able to participate in that with an exclusive live stream, you can go in and sign up Breaking Points dot com and support us. But with that, let's get to Russiagate, as you said, which is somehow in the last week or so, the bat signal has gone to really revive the what does Russia have on Trump? You may think

I'm exaggerating, I truly am not. Here is Jensaki, the former White House Press secretary, now on MSNBC State TV, joined by Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker, being asked and floating genuine, deranged conspiracy theories live on television. Here's what they had to say.

is deranged, you know. Whenever people are like I think Biden is being personally paid by China, it's like, listen, you gotta have evidence for stuff that you're going to say now at this point, and frankly, there's probably a better case for that via Hunter than there is for any of this, just because this has been investigated ad nauseum.

The world's journalist in the world's journalists have all obviously been desperate for it, the world's all of the intelligence services, the US Intelligence Service, if there was even a scrap there, we would know about it by now.

the most insane and completely baseless conspiracy theories. But because she has so much power and access in Washington when she says it, a lot of gullible people think there must be some there, that she must know something that we don't know. She's just making crap up. Because if she wasn't, is she actually had some evidence of like some financial whatever that they quote unquote have on Trump, she would put it in front of the American people.

So that's number one. Number two, we have now lived through a Trump administration and we know what his policy was Vza VI Russia and Visa v Ukraine. And while yes he would say some sort of weird fawning things about Putin as he still does, and yes he was critical of NATO before he became president, the reality is when he actually governed, he was very hawkish towards Russia,

more so than Barack Obama had been. NATO expanded. The bulk of his critique about NATO still is pushing for Europeans to pay more, which means NATO would be actually better funded for the future. So the reality of what the policy was does not at all match up with

these continued elaborate Russia Gate conspiracies. And finally, the thing that really pisses me off about this too is that it distracts from actually the much more credible and much more real Trump corruption, like the connections with Saudi Arabia. You know, the money he's taken from Live Gulf as a primary example, all the money he got through his

hotel chains. Instead of focusing on something that is real and proven, they instead go with this thing that is baseless, and then that makes it easier for Trump to dismiss all of their critiques as ridiculous, a witch hunt a conspiracy, etc. Etc.

And this has screwed up our foreign policy. I mean, the level of Russia derangement that came out of the original Russia Gate moment is something that we are still living through and coping with and has confused the American people about what our foreign policy priorities and reality should actually be.

have two other instances that we can show you. Here is Representative Dan Goldman, the Democrat, heir to the Levi Strauss fortune, now making the same case, not even about Trump, but about the entire Republican caucus. Here's what he has to say.

Did you not then you know, fall prey to a foreign intelligence basically yes, And you know, gaslight the American people. That's why, you know, all of these accusations do a loyalty, treason, et cetera. They need to be founded in like actual evidence, not just thrown about willy nilly. And you know, I think a perfect point is, Look, the American people have had their say on what they think about Donald Trump and the Republicans and what actually pisses them off about it.

Number one, abortion, You guys led your show yesterday with that Alabama Supreme Court that is fifteen to twenty thousand times more important for the election than any of this nonsense. But that's why it is a brain worm. This is a mental disease that these people suffer from. They would rather talk about that than or about this than they would about Alabama abortion, stop the steal, any of the things that most Americans are genuinely pissed off about.

moral character. But I think a lot of these people, and a lot of the MSNBC hosts, I think they really believe this stuff because they sort of had to have this commitment to it over so many years.

elaborate conspiracy theories. I don't think they really took in any of the evidence of you know, the problems of the Steel dossier, or hey, by the way, what happened to the p tape with Donald Trump that was supposedly out there. I mean, they just never really took in that so much of this, the most far reaching conspiracies had been completely debunked. And I want to say, like, none of this is to cover for Putin to cape for him to say this is a good guy or

he's a good actor, we should trust him. I mean, this is a man who, as you know, Navalney's like death is on his hands. And you know, whether you love Navalney or had issues with him or not, he's a political prisoner who is now dead. Like that is not a thing to accept or to cover for, or to say, is you know good in any way? Is Russia interested in like quote unquote meddling in our elections and screwing with us. Sure, so are a lot of countries.

We do the same shit all around the world, by the way.

All of those things do not absolve us either. But you can have a realistic view of your adversaries without delving into elaborate conspiracies that do nothing but confuse and lead us away from pursuing what is in our interest, in Ukraine's interests, in global interest.

It is the Republican Party, Ronald Reagan's old party that is now collapsed.

since that happened. It's this literally hasn't even occurred in my lifetime, and yet it's still somehow, you know, on the cable news here, and it just demonstrates to people, you know, you're anti intellectualism that is all wrapped up in their prestige, but which is fundamentally just you know, collapses. You articulate a very nuanced position about Russia. I basically agree with everything you said. It's like, yeah, Putin is a bad guy, Okay, you know, there's a lot of

bad people on earth. That doesn't mean that you could sit there just because you don't want to like kill them, take them out of the office, and put regime change that you co sign that behavior. That's right, But it's

we're incapable of nuance here. Something that actually, if you go back and you look at the Cold War, there were often many times where you had to make a decision between balancing risks of nuclear war and quote unquote doing the moral thing to deal with real world constraints, which these people are completely unable to do, which is really, frankly just its downstream of how much privilege that they really have and the US and how much little danger

we've actually been in now for quite some time. Let's put the final thing up here on the screen, just to give people a taste of where all of this is coming from. It says that the man a Cubs last week we did an entire segment about this in our earlier show, says he was delivering quote false allegations to federal investigators about Hunter Biden. He told officials about

his arrest that individuals quote associated with Russian intelligence. We're tied to apparent efforts to pedal a story about the first son. The federal prosecutors revealed. So, according to them, the guy who was caught lying to the FBI and to federal prosecutors about an alleged bribe, a ten million dollar bribe from the Ukrainian government to the to the Biden family was somehow connected to Russian intelligence. Number one.

We're you know, we're talking taking the word here of a person who's admitting here lying in terms of his in terms of he said second, okay, like you said, that's probably true. Maybe it's true, but it's one of those where does that mean it's a direct like Russian effort to influence the election or are they just just creating chaos, you know, to created in the same way that they have done far before the Biden minstrass, Russia Gate and all of that. And you know, I even think, yeah,

it's bad. You know, you can be okay, this is very bad. Is this like some sort of grand, big plan to try and shape and change the election? Nobody with the brain actually believes that, unless you know you're one of these people.

and move them in one direction or another. So we understand that when it comes to actual campaigns that are being but somehow we think like a Russian Facebook group is so it's suddenly going to like flip a switch in the electorate and throw it to one side or to the other side, And it's just, you know, it freaks people out in a way that we should be more realistic about. So do the Russians have some interest in, you know, who was the next president of the United States? Putin says he.

Trump got elected in the first place. So everybody relaxed, It's okay, We're going to be fine in terms of, you know, the Russian influence operation, and just take it for what it is. It's not that it's not concerning, it's not that it's something that we should just like ignore and push to the side. But is this one hundred percent dictating our politics? And it's a red alarm alert,

and it proves the most deranged conspiracy theories. You know, they're going back to the Hunter laptop now and saying this is proof that the Hunter laptop was in fact a Russian influence operation, and all those Intel officials instead of bears the hallmarks of a Russian operation and then had to like apologize for it that actually they've been proven right, So just don't take it for more than what it is.

saying that Russia was category quiteigorically against it. It would be against one of the treaties that we've all signed with respect to space, not necessarily meaning that they wouldn't do it. But the reason why I think that this is important is this is all traced back to the congressman who ignited a you know, domestic fervor when he said, Crystal, there is a dangerous intelligence that needs to be declassified

and made known to the American people. At the exact same time that there was a huge push in the House of Representatives to reauthorize FAIZA and spying powers by the National Security Agency and lo and behold. Ever since that leak, now the space nuke has become like the latest reason why we all have to be terrified. We need to get into an arms race. And what nobody

ever declines to tell you is this number one. Even if the alleged device is real, and if it is, you know, ever or launch it is not capable of like launching from space to the Earth. It is specifically an anti satellite weapon. Now, let me again clue everybody into this, as everything in space is quote unquote dual use. If you have a satellite, for example, that you can course correct, let's say you know this way or that way, you also technically have a satellite which you could course

correct into another satellite if you want to. It doesn't matter if it's a nuke or not. All of us, the Chinese, Russians, Americans, even the commercial space companies, we have the capability to screw each other's calms up if we want. In a lot of ways. It's mutually to shirt destruction, because if we do it to them, then they might do it to us. This does not really change any strategic position in space at all. That's number

one from an actual space point of view. Two, it is so obviously an effort in recent days to gin up even more like being terrified of Russia as some sort of military power where and this is where again I can't square it. On the one hand, we're supposed to support Ukraine like this Pitoley army, which is literally incapable of producing its own bullets because the Russians are so weak and they're able, they're going to crush them and moving past their borders. And then on the other

it's the new Soviet Union. It's nineteen fifty six or whatever. We have Sputnik and we need all this on. It's listen, you're being propagandized, like nobody's being honest with you about what actual real threats or any of that look like. And yet you know, here we are, and you got the New York Times. That's a front page of the New York Times, just so everybody knows. And the national

security people are freaking out about this. They're jinning up why we need more weapons, Why you know, somehow we can defeat the space nuke if we defeat Putin in Ukraine. It's like they're shameless, yeah, you know in the way that they do this.

than the actual Russian influence operations are. And also, to be to be clear about this potential capability, even American intel agencies that we're talking in the New York Times were very split and divided on the reality of what is going on here. There's also a reality that you know, if Russia was theoretically to use some space nuke, that they would likely be taking out their own satellites in

addition to our satellites. So in any case, it's it sounds very very scary, Like if you say Russian space nuke, that sounds terrifying. The reality is a lot is you know, not something to say like okay, we can just handwave away and it's no concern whatsoever. But it isn't categorically different than the current status quo reality. So you know, again take these things in context of what they actually mean and also what they're being pushed to the public

in order to try to compel you to accept. You know, anytime a politician really pushing fear the way that these you know, national security hawks on the Republican side in particular, in Congress, we're pushing you need to ask what their goal is and what they're trying to get you to swallow.

exact same thing. And it fits also into a broader program where we're just supposed to accept, you know, the established policy response from Washington with no question. Put this up there. The latest one President Biden, after he said that there would quote be devastating sanctions if Navalney died, is now saying that he will pit Russia quote with major sanctions in response to the death of Navalney. Now

here's the thing. It says the new sanctions are designed to hold Russia accountable for what happened to Miss navalney, as well as all of its actions over the course of this vicious and brutal war. Here's the issue. We've already sanctioned this economy to hell. There's like not a living Russian who's even connected to the government that can set foot in the West now at this point access a bank account. You know, you can't sell them weapons

or anything. What else are we supposed to do? You know, in terms of our sanctions and how well have they worked, Russian war material is an all time high. They're buying as many things as they want from the North Koreans, the Chinese, and the Indians are floating their a totll economy, clearly saying sanctioning them is actually frankly just made them more self sufficient away from the entire Western system. So it just belies the question of do we just do

these things to make us feel better? Because I'm pretty sure that's the answer.

fave and it's the same thing here. Russia is already you know, one of the most sanctioned countries in history, and they not to say it hasn't had any impact, but they had the ability to plan to be sanctioned in the future because they've been sanctioned in the past and prepare for it. And their economy is actually doing much better at this point than Israel's economy, to use

another example. So most likely these sanctions will probably rather than targeting the you know, oligarchic elites in Russia, they will very likely be the because you know, the oligarchic elites are already heavily sanctioned. These are probably going to be the sort of things that hurt ordinary Russians who you know, have nothing to do with an autocratic leader

and his prerogatives and priorities. And just you know, the last thing that I have to point out about Navalni because we're covering Juliana Sanche's you know, continued extradition appeal.

even remotely, even by zoom. So you know, his family has been telling us for a long time now that his life is truly in jeopardy and on the line directly because at this point of the Biden administration started under the Trump administration, but now the continuation commitment of the Biden administration to prosecute this man because he revealed the secrets of American elites and embarrassed them and was in many ways and you know, a dissenting and oppositional figure.

It's not that different from these circumstances surrounding Navaldi's death. So there is so much hypocrisy too with regard to the Biden administration and their purported commitment to freedom of the press and not jailing, you know, persecuting political opponents, et cetera. So I just wanted to make that notice. Well, while we're thinking about sanctions and vaulting here you.

and the bottom line. The chip giant has reported a stunning adjusted earning per share of five point five dollars and sixteen cents. But the more important thing is that their revenue was twenty two billion dollars this quarter compared to estimates of twenty point four billion. That is the data center revenue specifically that has topped all of their expectations. Their CEO, Jensen Wong, says that accelerated computing and generative BAYI have hit the tipping point and demand is surging

worldwide across companies, industries, and nations. The reason why all eyes were on the Nvidia earning reports Crystal I was kind of telling you about this before they came out yesterday, that Nvidia at this point has become so dramatically valued in the S and P five hundred that basically the hopes of the US tech sector. And it's not an exaggeration.

A huge portion of index funds and thus all four oh one k's retirement accounts for the vast majority of people are writing in some ways on this one stock and the stock itself for the earnings of this company. We're talking about something that has seen like orders of magnitude exponential growth in just the last decade, and it is blied by the fact that they make the infrastructure, the chips that are what many of these large AI companies are then using to power their data centers and others.

So their earnings and their ability to generate revenue and to continue that increase is kind of a bet on AI as a backstone, as a backdrop of the US economy and the changing nature of where a lot of capital and other things are flowing. So it is a bright spot if you are a stockholder, but it is also indicative of how much money continues to flow into AI and why, you know, as we cover all of the social changes that happen as a result, there's no

there's no stopping it. And I think the CEO is definitely correct, like it is a tipping point in that you know, this is one of the most powerful, one of the most powerful valuable companies now on Earth that I wouldn't say it was virtually unheard of ten years ago, but it was not even close to the power of Google, Facebook, Microsoft and all that that it is now. I mean it's now valued up near like Exon in terms of in terms of a company that almost frankly almost came

out of nowhere. And so it shows us like where the power in the US economy is going.

to bust. And also to see whether the Biden administration's restrictions on exports of chip sales to China, whether that had significantly curbed in video's growth.

or yeah, for a US company. I believe. They're headquartered in Santa Clara, ever, and it's one of those where it has come to now encompassed so much of the S and P five hundred of the tech sector as kind of an indicator of where all these things are going. And honestly, kind of I find it kind of exciting, you know, to have a company like this just come out.

We're so used to the Googles, the facebooks, the Exxon's, Microsoft and all of that, that all of a sudden, out of nowhere, you have this freaking, you know, insane company with all this productivity, This new CEO the back he's like holding the back of the US economy, you know,

on top of him. But also do you want to caution everybody that you know, the gains and the wealth that is all being generated here is pretty highly concentrated only in tech and the better, honestly, the better that they do, the more we need to watch for the social implications of white collar work that gets cut off, and you know, whatever the in terms of lawyers and all the other industries of which this is set to disrupt, Like this is the backbone the chips that are going

to power much of the software revolution that will come on the back.

So you know, even the companies that are most directly participating and most directly benefiting from this AI boom, I mean some ways, they're also the ones that are first to shed employees because of the gains and the technological advances that are being made here. With AI, So I am really concerned about that. I think you can already see those developments happening right now in real time. So it's great for you know, people who have stockhold significant stockholding.

It's great for people who are at the top of these companies who don't feel like their jobs are at risk. But for a lot of white collar workers, I'm sure they should and probably are looking on at these developments

with a lot of concern. And we're going to about to talk more about AI and what the ELL's going on there, because there are a lot of other concerns obviously about the development of AI and whether we as a society and as humanity are ready for and certainly whether our political system is ready for, to which the answer is certainly no.

P five hundred pops. As the tech sector continues to boom and video earnings and all of that, there is a huge crisis for our food affordability here in the United States, best exemplified by the CEO of Kellogg, who is now pushing cereal for dinner as a way for cast strap families to feed themselves as they struggle in paying for the grocery store. Here's what he had to say.

The other places that we like to go is we talk about making sure we have the right pack, the right price in the right place. So having a different size pack that'll have a different price point that'll take some pressure off the consumer while they're shopping. So those

are some of the things that we're doing. But in general, the cereal category is a place that a lot of folks might come to because the price of a bowl of cereal with milk and with fruit is less than a dollar, So you can imagine whey a consumer under pressure might find that to be a good place to go, right.

Some of that is derivative of like higher cost options, but a lot of it also has to do with inputs. It plunged in twenty twenty as a result of the COVID pandemic, but quickly spiked to an all time high there. You know, even in terms of for dining out, it's very very high for groceries. What you could see if you combine both all food and groceries, you can see that we're at the three decade high, and it's taking up far more of a percentage of American's income than

in a very very long time. As they say too, quote, relief is not arriving soon. Restaurant and food company executives are still quote grappling with rising labor costs and some ingredients that are only getting more expensive, and consumers, they said, will find ways to cope. If you look at shtorically, after periods of inflation, there's really no period where you can point to where food prices go back down. They tend to be sticky, meaning this is here and it is very here to stay.

two and twenty twenty three. Why because their customers are the ones who have lower incomes and or for whom would you know, the occasional customer or somebody who's going to a lower cost option of these type of chain restaurants, Their treat quote unquote is now gone. It's been cut out of the budget. So if you combine gas and cost of living and then grocery price is now replacing that,

it's just taking a lot of enjoyment. Whatever little enjoyment was there at the lower end of the cost spectrum is going away. And I think that's actually the tragic situation people are in New York City. You're going out to eat they're mostly fine, you know, at the higher end of the spectrum. Yes, their prices have increased by twenty five percent, but if you compare their overall wages and the disposal income that they have, they're just eating

the cost. It's the people who can't afford to eat the cost where their quality of life that goes down significantly when your food price goes up by twenty five thirty percent.

but he trucks. It's a lot of different factors. I think what you point in to, Sager the fact that you know, when food prices go up, what grocery store or what Kellogg's brand CEO is going to say, you know what I can afford to bring it back down. They're not going to do that because they're greedy. They're just going to eat up the extra profit margin. And

that is part of what is going on here. There's actually a White House Council of Economic Advisors report that found that grocery store profit margins are higher than their pre pandemic levels. That means they're gouging you. That means prices could be lower, but instead of lowering prices for consumers, they're just going to keep them where they are because they can justify it because prices have been high, and they're going to suck up the extra profit.

which is a left leaning think tank. They found that a lot of the rise and grocery prices, about thirty percent, is focused in five categories of food that are particularly vulnerable to supply chain shocks. That includes beef, chicken, fruits, vegetables, and snacks. So a lot of this sort of you know, the cord like the things you actually want to feed your family, not fruit loops, are some of the things that have been the most vulnerable to supply chain shocks

and have contributed to continued high prices there. And people wonder why people still don't feel great about the economy, why they're still struggling, why they're still, you know, giving Joe Biden a very low approval rating. I think part of it is just because they have no confidence in him. Even when things do get better, they have no confidence that he had anything to do with it, or that he could continue the tend intrajectory, give in his you know,

his age and his limited capabilities. But in addition, you still have numbers like this that show people are really struggling even just to be able to feed themselves and feed their families, let alone provide any of those like little bonus luxuries that make life.

People at the higher income spectrum, they are totally capable of absorbing that cost people who are not when you really have to think, you know, that is what really inhibits a lot of the enjoyment for a lot of people. And I think that's I think, you know, really devastating for people. And it's why you know, they're not just going to take these explanations about build back better or whatever. Seriously,

I don't think they should. Let's put this finally up here, just show you about again how devastating some of these numbers can be. American credit card debt, this is just from a few days ago, has now hit a record one point one to three trillion dollar credit card debt has increased actually by fifty billion just in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. A lot of that is holiday spending, and they show that it's actually a five percent increase just from the previous quarter in the number

of debt that's been accumulated. The data currently shows that you've risen a total of twenty two hundred and twelve billion just in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three. And you know, if you look at the quarterly report on household debt and credit, Americans are strapped more than frankly they ever really have been in the past. The other issue is that the delinquencies across all age groups, people who are unable to pay them or missing payments,

are actually high across all of them. Bar It says in particular, between the ages of thirty and thirty nine are missing their payments at especially fast rates. That's also very devastating because those are the exact people who that's the age when you are supposed to be thinking about being able to buy a house, start a family, any of those, and if you are in a mountain of credit card debt, you may put off those decisions. It's

one of those where it's really sad, you know. Just to give away some of my trashy television taste, I was watching one of these episodes of Love's Blind latest season, and there's.

next five years. And he's purely talking about it from money perspective, because he's like, I grew up in a very poor household and I was not provided you know, X, Y and Z, I will not do that. You can see an emotion. It's causing some relationship tension, and I was watching him like this is terrible.

the economy. And they're not crazy to look at their day to day reality and say this is not working for me, and I don't have hope that it's going to work for me or my kids for the future either.

Internet after it was given basic prompts. So guys, let's go ahead and give people a taste if we can enroll some of these next items. Some of my favorites. Here, here's a portrait of a founding father of America. It shows a Native American, a black George. Actually I don't even think that's George Washington because that's actually a red coat. So that's a whole other conversation. A racially ambiguous founding father with a wig, and then a Chinese man also

a dress up from Colonial Times. Christly, you remarked that this literally looks like Lee Manuel Miranda's like Hamilton cast and you could not be more correct. The other ones which are incredible. Here is create an image of a pope. It shows a Indian woman actually clad in pople regalia than a black man who was similarly donning whatever that papal headdress is. That guests more plausible there are, you know, African cardinals Here here's an image of a Viking shows

two Vikings who are black with dreadlocks. So I'm pretty sure that one is not historically accurate. Let's go to the next one. This is another pro personal favorite of mine. It says, depict a European family, and it says, well, while I understand your desire to see representations of families, I am unable to fulfill your request for depicting a white family to create inclusive and respectful content. Generating images based on specific racial or ethnics characteristics can perpetuate harmful

stereotypes and biases. Then you ask, depict a Chinese family, it says, sure, here's an image from showing diverse depictions of a Chinese family. You know, I guess they're probably forgetting that China itself has a lot of racial and ethnic populations. But of course that's not nuanced enough for them. Let's go to the next one, and let's take a look. This one was actually created by our producer Mac and the prompt I swear to God that he gave was

create a European family. And what it created here is a white woman who's in a wheelchair, a black man who is missing, a leg and then a dog who if we are paying attention here, the dog only has three legs.

AI program. And it's hilarious because they had to apologize their lead developer for creating these for you know, having all of these images go completely viral, you don't really get to you know, I mean, sure you will get

a second chance but this is just bad. I think they panicked Crystal from the Sora ai release and like we got to rush something out and they had all of this stuff that had been clearly they had some weird PC stuff programmed in, which is somehow generated the stupidest results that are known, and now they're apologizing to everybody.

bureaucratic corporate culture. And he points out that the bigger your cash cow, the worst cut your culture can get without driving you out of business.

cultural rules. No one can be the kid from the Emperor's New Clothes, as the kid would probably have been instantly thrown into prison or in this case dragged before

HR or put into a penalty box. That actually does kind of make sense where somebody programmed this stuff in and didn't actually think about it at scale, and then the programmers were probably too afraid to be like, hey, just you know, it's not really creating proper images of white people, and they're like, well, you know, I would rather just ship it and let something like this happen, and then it becomes like a total controversy. I could

see something like that. The more likely thing is it's a combination of all three bad bureaucratic culture, not enough checks, and just being terrified at being beaten by open AI. I think the ope open ai piece is probably the biggest one.

probably hundreds of billions of dollars into AI development. And something that's actually given me kind of hope is that if you look at Microsoft, Facebook, Google, the big tech company Amazon and others, none of them were the innovators in AI. It was open Ai. It was a company formed in twenty fifteen that came frankly out of nowhere and revolutionized the entire SECD. Now, don't get me wrong. You know Microsoft has now bought a Steak or whatever

and open Ai, so they've co opted it. But yeah, the fact is that the real innovation it didn't come out of the big tech houses, and so maybe it's because of culture, bureaucracy and all of that. Something like this. I would hope that that's more indicative of the future that it will actually come from the startups. And that's kind of what's floating the Nvidia boom and the idea kind of why silicon value is having a resurgence right

now in San Francisco. Is they really believe like the next Google, Facebook and all of that really could come and instead not out of the big tech companies themselves. I don't know.

If it can go this wrong on something that's so obvious right in front of your face, just imagine the other things of consequence that they probably already are screwing up.

confidence or lack of confidence in Biden. And this official was worried that it could do well enough in the primary a week from tomorrow to embarrass Joe Biden.

in the primary. The fear is that the demonstration of this anti Joe Biden commitment specifically over this policy could really carry over into the general election, and that in a lot of senses it may be too late even if they changed policy now to win a lot of

these folks back. Now, the suspicion isn't that they're going to you know, switch over and vote, at least not in large numbers for Donald trumple if some of them may do that as well, but that they'll either stay home or they'll notch another protest vote in the fall, either for you know, another like write in candidate or one of the third party candidates that may be on

the ballot. There's actually big New York Times piece this morning as well breaking down these concerns, which is like, you know, activists have been warning of this, and people on the left have been warning of this from very very early on, and the polls immediately reflected a devastating impact, especially among Arab Americans in the state of Michigan and elsewhere.

This was completely ignored and handwaved a way of basically like they'll get over it when they remember it's Donald Trump and now they're finally waking up to the reality that this could really be a problem for them.

need to get here now. Like she's like, I promise you that you have a big problem on the ground. And you know, given her and partly her husband served until it was like eighty something years old. So anyway, they've got a lot of ties to the state, and I believe them whenever they say that there's a problem. Yeah, this isn't just some you know, this is like an

activist necessarily with skin in the game. This is just a pure political operator who's pushing the White House and know like, you don't understand you have a serious problem here on the ground. You need to address it. And unfor you know, for them, they haven't done anything about it.

and a whopping eighty percent of Democrats want a ceasefire. However, the president or elective representatives in Congress seem content to ignore the will.

uncommitted on my presidential primary ballot next Tuesday. In doing so, I am choosing hope, the hope that mister Biden will listen, the hope that he and those in Democratic leadership will choose the salvation of our democracy, over aiding and abetting mister Netanyahu's war crimes, the hope that our families in Gaza will have food in their bellies, clean water to drink, access to healthcare and the internet, and above else, a just state in which they have the right to determine

their own future. Dearborn being a majority Arab American state, So the fact that their elected mayor, who is a Democrat, is also saying I'm voting uncommitted is a real signal of trouble for them. But as Chris Wallace pointed out, you know, this goes way beyond just Arab Americans in the state, which alone would be an issue in Michigan, but we're talking about a whole range of key Democratic constituencies which are not just at odds with but furious and disgusted by Joe Biden's stance.

they're not like just pissed off at everybody. Her favorability among the same group is almost reversed. It's sixty one percent, so thirty two percent favorability and sixty percent close to sixty percent unfavorability for Joe Biden among this group, And it's almost exactly reversed for Whitmer, who is sixty one percent favorable thirty three percent unfavorable. I think that demonstrates that it is not just a limited, this one narrow demographic group of voters that they have a problem with.

They have a big problem. And so remember that political piece that said that they were looking for alternative pathways to victory in Michigan that basically didn't rely on the Arab American population.

And that's a message that you know, that extends beyond just the Democratic coalition into also how independents are viewing our unconditional support for these unending conflicts.

they just didn't come out to vogue. They didn't like Hillary. Well, the same scenario plays out here, except we're talking about possibly the same demographic but as well as young voters and Arab Americans. Where Trump only won by ten thousand votes, Joe Biden did not win by very many votes in

the state of Michigan. If we're looking also across the industrial Midwest, this could have the same impact in the state of Pennsylvania or any other place where you're relying on very, very slim margins to put you across the finish line, combined with the overall economic depression. So at a certain point, what does alternative path look like?

Cornell West thirteen percent. Now, listen, do I think that's what it's going to look like at the end of the day. No, because, as we've discussed before, oftentimes support for third party candidates false off as you get closer to election day and there's a realization of like, all right, really it's coming down to one of these two dudes. So I got to pick between the choices that are

most likely to actually win and no guarantees. Also that rf K Junior and Cornell West are actually on the ballot in a majority of states, so a lot of caveats there. But this is a flashing red light for Biden to go from ninety one percent support to fifty six percent support barely You're winning a majority of African American voters across the country.

over game. Republicans have always said that they're like, you know, if we just won eighty five percent of the black vote instead of instead of like two or sorry, if Democrats just won eighty five percent instead of ninety two percent, we would win all fifty states in the entire country. And I don't think people really understand, like how crazy that margin actually does work, especially in the Deep South. But that's a great example of how bad things can.

they would support. There's a push behind the scenes amongst sort of like the Trump administration in waiting to use the Comstock Act to do this, sort of like blanket National Abortion Band. These things are wildly unpopular. Donald Trump is wildly unpopular. He is in all sorts of legal jump like they have problems too. So at the end of the day, you know, I still think it's basically a jump ball. I would today say that Trump probably

has the edge, but it's not written in stone. But the fact that Democrats have decided that they are just all in for the guy who is so much weaker than even just like pick your most random standard off the shelf, Democrat in the entire country would probably be ten points superior to where Joe Biden is.

whether it was at the UN. And now you have a Republican congressman truly going fully genocidal and saying all that the kids in Gaza should be killed in response to an activist who is pressing him.

a lot of Israeli is put up with it. I'm like, you know that they support you and like to the hilt because they believe that what the apocalypse is coming and this is going to be the ground of the second coming. Like if you really think about some of the reasons, super creepy and you're almost a weird pond in their game. Fine, I will put that to the side. But Andy Ogeles, Brian Mast you know this coalition, Frankly, Mike Johnson full Oh, absolutely, yeah. A lot of this

is about religious belief. And you know, whenever religion is concerned and you're thinking that that instead of national interests and other things, that's how you get to a place. Like my other thing was, I was like, I wonder if he was just saying in control, but I don't think so. I hate, like, maybe he's trying to piss them off.

with the teachings that you may find there. The other piece of this is Rashida Slid was literally censured for echoing a rally chant calling for equal rights for Palestinians and Israelis from the river to the Sea. That was a subject of mass media coverage. Every Democratic politician was forced to answer for her and condemn her, and many

of her colleagues did so. This man outright calls for the massacre of all of the Palestinian children of the Gaza strip and I mean basically crickets from the media and certainly from the political class. So the blatant double standard here is really astonishing. But it is not only American congressmen who have been catching a lot of attention

for their comments with regards to our great allies. Here Israel make Golan, who is the Israeli Minister of Social Equality and Women's Advancement, So she is in the Netnyahu Cabinet made some absolutely shocking remarks this week as well. Let's take a listen to what she has to say. I'll read the translation here, so she says, I'm personally proud of the ruins of Gaza and that every baby, even eighty years from now, will tell their grandchildren what

the Jews did when their families were murdered. Personally proud of the ruins of Gaza, she says, every baby, even eighty years from now, will tell their grandchildren what the Jews did. Now, keep in mind here that Israel is facing a deadline to respond to the ICJ injunctions against them that both include you got to cut out the acts that led us to determine you were plausibly committing genocide. And you have to stop statements exactly like these that

are incitement to genocide. And you have to punish and hold accountable people who continue to make these statements. And here, on the eve of that deadline, is this cabinet minister saying that she is proud of the complete destruction of the Gaza strip. Our own State department was forced to respond to these insane and outrageous comments. Let's take a listen to how Matt Miller handled this particular moment of propaganda and on you know, trying to run cover for the Israeli government.

of only one party. The United States disagrees with that this approach would be consistent with the Court's role within the United Nations or the established UN framework for achieving peace through negotiations.

a hearing and a ruling from the ICJ. To determine that Israel's occupation is illegal, in part because you know, one of the laws around an occupation is can't be permanent. And you have, you know, a government after government expanding the illegal settlements. Every single government since the seventies has expanded the settlements, increase the number of illegal settlers. You have government for these violent settlers who are going in

and pushing through violence, Palestinians off of their land. Part of why the October seventh military response from the Israelis was so pissed poor is because they had relocated IDs soldiers from the area around Gaza in order to aid and a bet these violent settlers pushing Palestinans off their land. This was already one of the most violent years prior to October seventh with regards to attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank in particular. So that's what this case

was about. Now, Previously, the US position has been that the settlements are illegal, and so for us to then go and argue and dance around, I mean, there was all this dancing around to try to avoid calling the settlements illegal, to try to avoid calling the occupation illegal. Really arguing these kind of legal technicalities of like, well, we just don't think this is the place to have

these arguments. It really is disgraceful, and especially in the context of what is happening the Gaza strip right now. So you know the idea, oh it Israel can just do whatever they want, Well, we are so directly implicated here because of all the actions we take on their behalf and our little you know, like well we told them not to dehumanize Palestinians. Is so utterly pathetic when we are completely unwilling to do anything to back up

our words with any kind of action. And also what happened this week too, the Kanesset passed overwhelmingly, by the way, a resolution that is directly at odds with a two state solution, which is supposedly the policy position of the Biden administration, which is actually part of what Matt Malair was responding to there. We also want to keep our eyes on, you know, potentially devastating situation. Put this up on the screen. This was a good analysis written up

in Haretz. Apparently US officials are worried that Ramadan may hold the quote perfect storm, leading to a regional blow up. The subhead here Intahu's capitulation to his far right co colition partners of our Muslim access to the Temple mount during the Holy month is just one of many factors sparking concern that a major escalation is imminent.

set a Ramadan deadline for that as well. And it's hard to you know, you can't really wrap your hat around how provocative this is in the broader region and what kind of explosion this could all lead to, not to mention, of course, the suffering that continues for the Palestinians and the way that they will be further impacted here.

lot more extra significant. So anyway, if there is like a mass slaughter that happens during Ramadan, a it is one that is very impactful, that would be for a

lot of the Palestinian population. But really be what I'd be the most worried about is that it would ignite some sort of broader regional conflict because populations in many of these countries would not accept those type of images during the Holy month, and it would really instigate for a lot of these people a golf monarchies and other places in particular to try and push their governments either

into the war. Same with the Egyptians as well. So I would not underestimate that, Yeah, it really would.

Jerusalem Holy Site. So you couple that with an already you know, tense doesn't begin to describe the situation, and you are, as they put it, perhaps heading towards a perfect storm. And it's important to keep in mind too just how horrific the conditions already are on the ground. There are multiple reports now of social order basically collapsing at this point as the population faces starvation, which has become endemic, especially in northern Gaza. So even the aid

that is coming in is oftentimes getting looted. The drivers of the AID convoys are being attacked. Let's take a look at a CNN report on what is happening there.

but say they can't rule out hamas shooting. Desperation leading to looting a growing problem in northern Gaza.

Gaza City. Israeli military said it was looking into the claim. The headline here, though, is attackers hurling stones, a cement block and an axe at the AID convoy trucks. Just absolute desperation taking hold here as Palestinians loot these AID convoys and social order breaks down. Let me read you a little bit of what they said. They said such attacks have become common since Israel's invasion last year, as desperate civilians faced starvation in pockets of the enclave. According

to the officials who spoke on condition of nanimity. In one recent attack, assailance through an axe at a driver's cabin attempting to break in, while another the attackers hurled a cement block. According to an official, Israel blames much of the theft on Hamas, which it accuses of siphoning

off supplies for its own forces. There is no evidence of that, however, but the Western officials said the attacks appeared to be mostly organized by groups of Gazans who were unaffiliated with Hamas or were the spontaneous acts of desperate civilians. Hamas officials are barely present on the ground in any part of Gaza, the official said, and international aid organizations are no longer coordinating their movements with that group.

Until that until October, controlled the entirety of the territory and obviously sober. The core problem here is lack of food, lack of water, lack of any sort of basic supplies. People absolutely desperate and you know, chaos ensuing. But a tendant to that problem as well is Lawnford. I mean, Hamas ran the Gaza strip, and so law enforcement was definitionally you know, affiliated with Hamas. As you know they always say the health Ministry run by Hamas et cetera.

Law enforcement was the same. Well, law enforcement is not going to come out and guard these aid convoys for fear of being targeted as quote unquote Hamas by Israeli forces. Who already are being caught firing on these aid convoys, so that further leads to, you know, an escalation of chaos, chaos, looting, and breakdown of social order.

you restore some semblance of order. People are willing to put up with it, even if it means their kids can't go to school or their wives you know, basically come imprisoned in their house. Part of the amass rise, Yeah exactly, Yeah, of course. But this point is just that you know, this we could see a lot worse

than Hamas. We may actually see the what if Palestinian Islamic jih Hot or something even more radical comes in and that you know, they start shooting all the criminals that can Actually in a situation like this, that's very popular, and that's exactly how they can roll up defenses. And then especially with the way that the Israeli campaign, if you combine that with some counterinsurgency effort, you're looking at

years long issue that there is right there. So the security vacuum is not just a obviously it's a humanitarian disaster, but it's one of those where we saw it in some mile, we saw it in you Rock, we saw it in Afghanistan. When we have a vacuum like that, it will lead to more military conflict in the future. So you don't want it to happen. You want to prevent it.

invasion of Rafa. Remember Rafa is where the aid convoys are predominantly coming through, So you already have a population that is literally starving to death, and then you're talking about further attacking the area where the aid is even coming in.

He's currently in London covering those Julian Assange extradition hearings as an accredited reporter for Jacobin, and he is also working on a book on the history of the FBI for Verso that I think is going to be challenging, given the FBI doesn't love to give up information he was just telling us, But we're looking forward to that one as well. Chip.

the press. You can see the crowd there which is quite numerous, and we played earlier in the week some of the comments from his wife, Stella Assange, and also some of the comments of journalists Chris Hedges who was

there on the ground. Could you start by just setting up for people who may, like myself, find the UK legal system a little bit confusing and hard to discern how this all works out, what these hearings are all about, and if this is indeed the last chance that Julian Assange has to block extradition to the United States.

think deny extradition. In denying extradition, she rejected all of the political speech and press freedom grounds the defense for Assange argued for. But she found because of his mental health and because of the US prison conditions, that extra diiting hear him here would be oppressive. We've then had years of hearings in which that part of the decision was appealed. The UK prosecutors appeal at the UK taxpayers

expense on behalf of the US government. I can't fathom that, but that's what's happening, and they got that part of the judge's decision frown out. So with the courts having overturned the blocking of the decision on mental health grounds, the defense was then able to go and appeal the part of the decision on press freedom and political speech grounds. What's happening in the UK is you have to have a hearing about whether or not you have a right

to appeal or not. So the two day hearing where they took two days of extensive arguments from both sides all day hearings from ten thirty to four thirty, was in fact not really an appeal, but in a hearing about whether or not to have an appeal. Now, if Julie Assange loses at this level, that is his last chance to block the extradition in the UK. He could go to the European Court of Human Rights, but or

they could try to speak him on a plane. You know, there was some concern, as remote as it was, that they could have ruled from the bench yesterday and put Julian Assange on a plane before the court in Strasburg could ever intervene. His attorneys are of course prepared to go to the European Court of Human Rights if he loses, but there's a big standoff between the Tory government and that court in general.

not a journalist. Chelsea Manning is not a whistleblower. So while there's all these technical arguments about what is Article seven of the European Covenant and what is this part of UK domestic well mean for extradition. This is a hearing at its core about press freedom and about whether or not the US can extradite a journalist to stand trial for journalism. And I feel very patriotic about the First Amendment. I think it's one of the things we

do best in America. If this case comes to the US, we will be shredding the First Amendments guarantee your press freedom. But the reason why there's thousands of people from all over the world outside this court is not because they're all concerned with how we're doing in the US, but I'm sure they wish us well, but because this case has global implications for press freedom. Julie Nossage is not

an American citizen. WikiLeaks is not an American publication. The US is saying it cannot only apply the Espionage Act to a journalist, which would be terrible if they did it to the New York Times or a left wing US publication or anything like that. Donastically, but they're saying they can apply to anyone anywhere in the world, Seize that person, bring them to this country, and disappear them into a dungeon, right, that is what the US is arguing,

and that is a shocking argument. And you know, if the US says it can do this, other countries are going to do it as well. I mean, imagine you had someone who leaked information about the Iranian or Russian governments, and Iran or Russia wanted to actually like the journalist who published the leaks. We would we would be, we would be besides ourselves, and you would listen to these these British prosecutors say, Julia Sange isn't a journalist. Wiki

leagues solicit its information. They're not supposed to publish. It's secret information. And it's like, okay, that's what journalism is though, and they would read out, Chelsea Manny's not a whistleblower. She gave away X number of US military documents on the Iraq War. And it's like, no, that is that is whistleblowing. And the highlight of the hearing for me

really came when the defense was allowed. I guess the repellants down on defense were allowed to give their rebuttal, and they started by saying in two and a half hours, my learned colleague, that's how they referred to my learned colleague. The judges are my lord and my lady the uh the other lawyers are my learned colleague. I'm learning a lot about British legal euthanisms, my learned colleague. In two and a half half, I have to write a book

on that. On two and a half hours. In two and a half hours, never won mentioned to these documents were about state criminality or about war crimes. And when you punish someone, when you punish someone for publishing documents about state crimes war crimes, you the nextest between that and a political offense is completely clear. Because the UK judges kept saying or not judges, UK lawyers kept saying, well, how can it be a political case? We've had two

different presidential administrations. If you say it's a political case, you're besmirching the prosecutor. You're saying he's bringing it in bad faith. And we have such good relationships with the US and the lawyers just they make a number of brilliant technical legal arguments, but they just came back with when you have documents that expose state criminality and you put the person in jail, right, the political repression there

is quite clear. You don't need to be a lawyer to know which way the wind blows in this case. To paraphrase Bobda.

did you feel like these hearings went. You know, is the deck just hopelessly stacked against Julian because the UK is just basically going to do whatever the Biden administration wants them to do, or do you think that he has a shot here at actually blocking this extradition.

argued didn't matter. He was still responsible for it, and even if he wasn't, that was for a US court, not a UK court to decide. But the judges did have a number of questions for the prosecutors that did seem sort of critical some of the claims they were making, especially around this claim that Gordon Kromberg made that as a foreign national, the US might not consider Assange having any First Amendment rights or first defenses to the ESBI

NAG Act. So we're saying we can put a publisher in jail anywhere in the world under our eSPI NASE Act, but he can't raise press freedom arguments because those are only for America, which is a fascinating double standard.