Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of ways we can up our game for this critical election.
We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent.
Coverage that is possible.
If you like what we're all about, it just means the absolute world to have your support.
But enough with that, let's get to the show. Good morning, everybody, Happy Tuesday. We have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Grissel.
Indeed, we do many big things that are happening this week.
So we had big Scotus.
Oral arguments yesterday about a case that is absolutely vital to free speech and bad news did not appear to go well for team free speech. Also, the Don Lemon versus Elon Musk interview also did not go that well for free speech. So we'll show you some of the low light highlights, whatever you want to call it, from that interesting moments. RFK Junior has apparently chosen his vice presidential pick. There are reported out rumors about who that
may be. That announcement is set for next week in Oakland. So we tell you what we know there. We also want to break down this is actually incredibly consequential, huge landmark shift in the housing market that could completely upend the entire real estate industry. Not a lie, not a joke, as Joe Biden would say, not a joke. So we'll get into that and what that could mean for you. We also have some more disturbing details about the death
of that Boeing whistleblower. You just cannot believe the latest things that have come out. Or also taking a look at the latest out of Israel. They have once again rated Al Shifa Hospital. Will break that down for a new report about the extent of the famine and starvation that is being caused by Israel in the Gaza Strip, and the Biden administration making some very noteworthy comments calling out bb directly as they escalate their rhetorical concern for
civilians in the Gaza Strip. I'm also going to do this is going to be whatever. I'm going to break down that big debate from Lex Friedman. It was Destiny, Norman Finkelstein, Marien Rabani and Benny Morris, season Israeli historian.
It was very interesting. I'm taking a.
Look at some of the building blocks of Israeli propaganda as on display during this debate.
So excellent, excited for that. It's going to be long. Just the heads up for everybody.
It took me a lot, going to be kind of together.
The freaking debate was five hours long, so I promise my monologue will be a lot shorter than the debate.
Okay, well, I think personally, yeah, first, it was like the meme whenever I saw the run length, where it's like, I'm happy for you, I'm sorry for you. I'm not sure what happened, but I ain't reading all that Personally, Kyle and I.
Had a long drive. I'm very Carolina, so we just.
Cooked it down well, and I'm very happy that you are taking the time as a synthesizer for everybody. Before we get to that, thank you to everybody. Couple of things. Number One, on the emails to our premium subscribers, we are working on it. We're to maintain continue to watch your inbox. Everything should be delivered correctly today. If it is not, just send us an email and we will
try and figure it out for you. Number two, As we teased yesterday, we do have big announcements coming for our premium subscribers in particular, you're going to want to sign up at breakingpoints dot Com. You're looking at a major upgrade in our premium service. We cannot get into all of the details, but for those who are with us, you are really going to enjoy it and it's just
really going to be better for you. So Breakingpoints dot Com, as I said, you can sign up today and we have the discount that is going on.
Indeed, let's start with the Supreme Court.
As Crystal said, team free Speech didn't do so well before the Supreme Court. We've put together some elements from the audio of the actual hearings where the case that was brought forward was won by two Republican Attorney generals
against the Biden administration stemming from twenty twenty one. That case revolves if people are familiar, for example, White House officials contacting social media companies and pressuring them to censor and take down what they alleged was COVID nineteen misinformation. So we have two kind of sides of the different arguments to see how they were received before the court,
and then we'll break down even more of it afterwards. First, let's start with Justice Samuel Alito kind of coming down on the free speed side.
Let's take a.
Listen exchanged between the White House and other federal officials and Facebook in particular, but also some of the other platforms. And I see that the White House and federal officials are repeatedly saying that Facebook and the federal government should be partners. We are on the same team. Officials are demanding answers. I want an answer, I want it right away. When they're unhappy, they curse them out their regular meetings.
There is constant pestering of Facebook and some of the other platforms, and they want to have regular meetings, and they suggest why don't you They suggest rules that should be applied, and why don't you tell us everything that you're going to do so we can help you and we can look it over. And I thought, wow, I cannot imagine federal officials taking that approach to the the print media, our representatives over there. If you did that to them, what do you think the reaction would be?
Yeah, Well, he's actually making a pretty good point there, Crystal. Imagine if a government official ever came to us and was like, hey, how about you change some of your talking points?
And the way they think.
I mean they maybe they would do it to us because we're not as established in their eyes, but I mean they could try and do it to the New York Times. The New York Times will probably just published the entire thing. It would never be treated that way.
I thought it was an important point from Samuel Alito because what he is ascribing there is he is saying and noting both the Facebook role as a publisher, and then noting also the Biden administrations the way that the norms have evolved such that they have different ways they might deal with the New York Times, for example, as opposed to a mass platform of communication for everybody.
Yeah, And I mean the reality is the government does communicate with the New York Times, you know, especially when they're reporting out something that contains potentially classified information and there's a question of whether it could harm national skin.
There is a given take there.
But I think what he's getting to is that the extent and nature of the communications here, the amount of basically badgering from the government when it came to these platforms, is way beyond what you would think was appropriate when it comes to other more traditional media, and we would understand it more clearly as wildly inappropriate if these types of communications, swearing, badgering, constant meetings, not just okay, visavi this one particular story, let's make sure that we're not
harming national security, but on a variety of topics and consistently over time, we would easily see that as inappropriate when it comes to The New York Times the Washington Post. Yet because of social media and we get sort of like fuzzy in our head about what these platforms are and what they mean to society, then it becomes entirely less clear.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
And so then to show everybody the counter side of how it looks is got Katanji Brown Jackson, Justice Jackson talking and raising about how the First Amendment may actually be an obstacle then to important function of the government.
Let's take a listen to what she had to say.
So, my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways in the most important time periods. I mean, what would you have the government do. I've heard you say a couple of times that the government can post its own speech, But in my hypothetical, you know, kids, this is not safe. Don't do it, is not going to get it done.
And so I guess some might say that the government actually has a duty to take steps to protect the citizens of this country, and you seem to be suggesting that that duty cannot manifest itself in the government encouraging or even pressuring platforms to take down harmful information.
So can you help me, because.
I'm really worried about that, because you've got the First Amendment operating in an environment of threatening circumstances from the government's perspective, and you're saying that the government can't interact with the source of those problems.
So, as you can see, using and kind of worried that the First Amendment is going in front of the government's ability to at least coerce agencies, social media companies and others to censor information that they don't like.
Let's put this up there on the screen.
Unfortunately, Justice Jackson's line of questioning and the skepticism of it seemed to really.
Carry the day.
From all of the rite ups of the correspondence that were present for the multi hour arguments, what they really note is that the vast majority appeared to believe that with the way that there's ruling and the merits of the case were brought forward, that the solicitors of these Republican states were not able to demonstrate what a clear and extended harm would be like, and that furthermore, what they were really worried about was quote, hamstringing the government power.
It's very likely that a conservative justice, there at least a majority of conservative justice will rule with the liberal justices and that this will come out in favor of the Biden administration.
Crystal, Yeah, I frankly find the type of language that she was using, they're terrifying.
Yes, great, find is terrifying.
I mean what she said is my biggest concern is that your view has the First Amendment hamstringing the government in significant ways. That is part of what the First Amendment is about when it comes to ensuring First Amendment rights for the citizens of this country. And nothing about this case says that the government can't put out there.
You know, part of this had to do with COVID and the COVID vaccine, right, Nothing says the government can't put out their view of of the vaccine, their recommendations with regard to the vaccine, whatever information that they want
that is not being constrained whatsoever. But by what we're talking about here, what we're talking about is them pressuring and badgering and in some ways implicitly threatening the social media company to tow their line and quash the speech of individual citizens who have a different view that they
want to express. That's what that comes down to. So the view that seemed to rule the day or win the day on this court, and not just from Katanji bron Jackson, although I thought her reasoning year was particularly terrifying, was that no, the government's rights to censor and control information that they deem as bad as if they have a monopoly on truth, that is the thing that we're going to prioritize. And I find that wrong. I find it horrifying. I think that it is a slippery slope.
And I think it also Soccer really ignores something that liberals like Katanji bron Jackson would clearly see in a different setting, which even if the government is not directly saying like we're going to pull your contracts, we're going to shut you down, we're going to break you up if you don't do what we say, because the government is so large and does have those powers in it.
The very nature of those conversations contains a power dynamic that is explicit, that is implicitly threatening in and of itself. And I think that piece was also completely ignored here. And again I think, you know, usually liberals see those power dynamics and describe a lot of merit to them.
Here that all seems to be completely invisible. One other thing I wanted to point out, which is just kind of an irony, and it was something that Fire the Free Speech Organization in their front of the court brief talked about, and they are, you know, they are very much on the side of free speech. I think they're
a very solid and consistent and principled organization. They pointed out that, you know, they take the side of free speech, even though some of the Republicans who are behind this suit and what constrained the Biden administration's stability are sort of on the other side. And these other free speech cases that we talked about where they want to give states the power to censor control speech. So there is an irony here, you know, implicit in the Republican position.
But to me, this isn't a right left Republican Democrat. This really does come down to the First Amendment, and you can see by the unanimity in the court here that it's not a left right Republican Democrat thing, and it appears that they're very likely to come down on the wrong side of this.
It's particularly Justices Cavanaugh and Kagan, both of whom who worked. Kagan, for example, was the Solicitor General under Barack Obama. Cavanaugh worked as a political operative in the Bush White House. Both of them were taking a line of question which
was very, very heavily slanted towards executive power. We can put this next one please up on the screen because I found one ride up actually very illuminating from Justice Amy Cony Barrett, where she asks in a hypothetical where if any Louisiana government officials were, say, docks followed by social media posts about how people should rally and do something about this, could the FBI, she queried, quote, really encourage social media platforms to take down these posts?
Now the Solicitor gen role of.
The state said well no, because if what the FBI is trying to do is trying to persuade a speech intermediary to take down a private third party speech. That would be an abridgment of speech to which Justice Barrett did not agree with that line of questioning. And I mean that's ridiculous for a number of reasons. Number One, doxing is already against the is a violation of the terms of service of all of these platforms. Why would the FBI quote need to encourage it. And this is
the whole point. If you just have a consistent set of rules, then the government has to operate under the same rules.
As everybody else.
But when you have this hodgepodge system, and this really gets to both the failure of social media regulation as well as government action. Well, then the government, with its immense leverage and its power. I mean, look, any of us, if any of us who've ever been on the receiving end of a phone call from the White House with that infamous no caller ID or from the EOP address, is like whoa every time time anyone that comes out, I don't care if you're in the media, I don't
care if you see it regularly. Every time you see it, you pay attention. You have to pay attention whenever your Twitter, whenever your Facebook or any of these other organizations that we saw so many of this crystal during the Twitter.
Files, remember the FBI flagging all of those.
Ridiculous posts, and I mean, yeah, they'd be finding one guy with six followers who'd be like, hey, guys, the elections on Wednesday, and they're like, hey, you got to take this shut the thing down. And guess what they actually did it though they really did do it, And if anything, you know, it's very concerning that these justices are not taking into account that the vast majority of the time they do comply with what the government wants them to do, and especially here in the COVID case,
because this is even a heightened environment. I think we talked a little bit about this yesterday. For example, in the Constituents being Blocked case, where in the middle of a lockdown you had a guy who was a critical of his local like I forget who it was, it was like the city manager or something like that their
lockdown policy, and the guy blocked him. And it's like, well, if you're in the middle of lockdown, you only have the ability to communicate and to articulate some of these things online, as some of these cases were happening, then your ability to express yourself freely online without government censorship
becomes even more important. So really imagine this in a heightened like a wartime scenario, pandemic scenario, where government power is even more expanded than normal and they're really coming down on.
The ability of the executive to just do what they want. I think it's a real travesy.
They absolutely are.
It sort of reminds me of the way that they have so narrowly defined corruption, oh good point where it literally has to be like Sager, here is some money in exchange for doing this thing for me, and then you do the thing, and it's like in writing and on video, and it has to be that direct. It seems like if you did have some direct government threat or corrosion.
Of like you know, Facebook, we're going.
To break you up if you don't take down that post saying election day is on Wednesday instead of being on Tuesday, maybe they would say, okay, that's inappropriate. But if they're just you know, having some friendly meanings some coffees where they're yelling at them every day and swearing at them and pressuring them, but there's no direct coercion, then that's okay.
It's this sort of very.
Narrow defining of what would be inappropriate here. That does remind me of the way that they have ruled with regard to corruption. Just to break down a little bit more of sort of the technical legal pieces of this case, and this was reflected that scotus Blog piece. There's basically three potential you know, decision points in terms of how they will rule. One is always this question of standing whether the parties who sued even have grounds to sue,
whether they were actually injured. There's some question about that because these are you know, states that brought this suit.
States don't technically have first.
A memorts it applies to citizens, so there's some question about that. Then there's the merits themselves. And then there's the idea that the the original the original ruling that came from an appeals court was too broad because it applied to all social media platforms when the individuals in question we're not using all social media platforms. So the government is saying, okay, even if you find with them, the judgment should be very limited to just the social
media platforms that we're involved here. So those are sort of the three main pieces that Scotus Blog breaks that down. They're going to have to make decisions on and they appear to even be skeptical of this question of standing Sager.
Yeah, I mean that's where look the danger of it from the ruling, and it does seem very very likely that this is going down as a pretty big margin is that the government, both the Biden administration possibly a future Trump administration can call up Facebook and call up
any of these people and tell them to take stuff down. Now, obviously they can't force them, but you know, Glenn Greenwald made a really good point about how Mark Zuckerberg, you know, publicly had talked both i think on the Lex Rieman podcast on the Joe Rogan podcast as well about how the FB is coming to them all the time with all of this fakery, and that's what led to the censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was a
one hundred percent true story. It was preempted by government action. It wasn't just the private bureaucrats at Twitter.
So one last point, just to drive it home, well, leave the TikTok debate for another day, but you agree with me that the reason that the TikTok thing has legs right now is because they're upset about the pro Palestine view no question, Yeah, that rules the day on TikTok. You don't think they will use these powers or may even right now be using these powers to quash pro Palestinian debate and viewpoints on a wide variety of social
media platforms. That is absolutely possible that that's happening right now, and the Supreme Court could be siding with the government to say, yes, that's appropriate, Yes, you have an interest in doing that, et cetera.
If Trump gets back in the White House.
I mean, if you don't like Donald maybe you love Joe Biden, your come with him having these powers. Put the shoe on the other foot and think about the way that Donald Trump and his administration could use these powers to quash any sort of debate and dissent that they find uncomfortable and they don't like. You do not want to hand the guy. This is like, you know what we learned with.
The Patriot Act.
You don't want to hand the government these types of powers when it comes to core key liberties that are supposed to be enshrined in the Constitution visa vi are citizens. So this looks like very very dire and distressing direction.
One going, yeah, that's well said. You're right, so you can apply it to everything. Ukraine bounced on any and pick your issue.
That's something.
If it's controversially, you can guarantee that the government is involved. Don Lemon finally dropped his interview with Elon Musk will brush over some of the ketamine parts of which we've already discussed. Frankly, not that all that controversial. And let's get to the debate around censorship, the First Amendment and moderation, which Don really is incapable of rap his head around.
Let's take a listen.
Do you think if there, if if you moderated yourself more, if there was better content moderation on the platform, that you wouldn't have to answer these questions from reporters about the great great Replacement theory as a really I don't have to answer great Replacement theory as it relates to Jewish people.
Do you think that I don't have to answer questions from requarters And the only reason I've been this interview is because you're on the X platform and you ask for it. Otherwise there would not do interview with this interview, So.
You don't think do you think that you wouldn't get in trouble, or you wouldn't be criticized for these things.
Possibly I could care less.
You don't care.
No, I don't like.
I don't think people should care what the media thinks about them.
They're terrible judges of character, even someone who has one of the biggest social media and biggest information platforms in the world.
You don't think.
You don't care.
You don't think that there's you have any X dot Com or you have any responsibility to the truth. Are moderating the platform, You're.
Conflating the truth with the media, and I think the media is not truthful.
You recently call content moderation though a digital chastity belt. Do you think that Do you believe that X and you have some responsibility to moderate hate speech on the platform?
I think we have a responsibility to adhere to the law, and we have a responsibility to be transparent about when things are shown, why they're shown. So that's why we've open source are algorithm. The I think once you start getting going beyond the law, now you're putting it thumb on the scale, and we don't want to put out that on the scale.
It doesn't concern you that hate spece has gone. Research shows that it's gone up on the platform since you took over. That's not concerning to you.
I believe that is false. In fact, the research that I've seen says it went down. So what they will typically do is they will count the number of posts, but not count the number of views. So what matters is was that a post given high visibility or what did like one person see it? Uh? And if you look at the number of views of how many how many times was Hayese content viewed on our platform? It is down substantially.
Yeah, well that's not what the study shows. And you said you like transparency, I'm going to show you this and you can get a.
Study that to We'll tell you whatever you want.
But the studies this is, these are just a handful of extremely. You look at those anti semitic and racist tropes and tweets and as of this morning, they're still on x And from your own content policy, these posts should have been deleted. So why haven't they been deleted? Why are they still there?
Do you?
Uh, we believe things if there are illegal, but these have been up there for a while. Are they illegal?
They're not illegal, but they're hateful and they can. They can lead to violence, as I just read to you. The shooters you know, and all of these mass shootings attributed social media to radicalizing.
So don your love satoship is what you're saying.
No, I don't love sense. Then why I believe in moderation but I don't believe in censorship?
Is moderation is a propaganda word for censorship. You can find like you can sign up right now and and do a hundred things that are hateful, but if nobody reads it, it doesn't matter. So you can think of X as being it's much like the Internet. It's not some tiny publication with like twenty articles day, it's five million.
But everyone has the opportunity to read.
A d loon.
I think the opportunity to read the Internet. Are you said suggesting we should shut down the Internet?
Okay, we're all much dumber for every That was hard to entire entire conversation, but okay, let's try and extrapolate anything important from it. Number One, Elon is correct when he's like, you can find a fake study to say anything.
But by and large, I actually find.
His counter even more annoying because he's embracing this idea of like algorithmic d ranking.
I don't believe in any of that.
Actually I believe it Hay speech is freeze each and that he should be allowed to put it up. I mean, look, you know you can have an offensive meme or all of that, and Don loves like, why is that still up? And then he confuses it being illegal with it. Well, maybe not illegal, but you know, why should it be up there.
I'm like, well, you know it's not. It's not illegal. That's why it should stay up there.
So there's both of them are kind of talking in fakery, which much of this is an advertising problem, which belies Elon's entire business model itself.
That's kind of secondary.
But I think the bigger problem is that Don cannot like literally wrap his head around that correct counter where he's like, well, people could read this, it could lead to X, Y or Z with the idea that it could be extended. This links very much with our Supreme Court case that we just talked about, and that overall it's a complete lack of understanding of First Amendment. It's like truly wrapped in a censorious mindset. So I thought it was just idiocy really all the way around.
Don Lemon clearly has a very bad case of CNN brain and it is not letting go his firing, and you know, being out and now being independent or whatever has not changed the way he views the world one inch. Because so clearly the area that I think would be more difficult for Elan to respond to is you claim to be this avatar of free speech, but you're not. I mean even his view and we've discussed this on the show before that he articulates of like, I follow
the law. Well, okay, in this country where we have a first Amendment, that may work out fine. And by the way, he hasn't followed, you know, strictly just what the law requires in this country when they get to that at a moment, but when you think about a repressive regime that doesn't have free speech, his policies is still not a free speech commitment. But I will follow the law, and so you have him.
You know.
For example, in India, Twitter censored this documentary that was critical of Mody. They took that down. This is something that the interceptor Ryan Grim reported on.
So if it is a and.
Jack Dorsey brought this up as well when we spoke with him, that actually they were much more willing under Jack rebuff repressive countries that were demanding censorship in that may be consistent with their own repressive laws in their country than Elon has been. So a commitment to I will strictly follow the law no matter what the law says is not actually a free speech commitment. So that's number one. Number two. You know, I just mentioned the
Modi thing. We also have had the example right now post October seventh of Elon saying that he's going to ban the terms from the river to the sea and decolonization with regards to Israel and Palestine. How is that a commitment to free speech? So those are the areas where I would like to see him respond. I would like to see him attempt to answer, because there's a significant distance between how he has held himself out and
the way he has actually run this platform. But because Don has such CNN brain, the problem has to be on the other side that he's not censoring enough, he's not being censorious enough, he's not doing enough quote unquote modern and so you end up with this, you know, sort of crazy making quote unquote debate, and then the other pieces you point out Sager is Elon is also saying something here that is I would say, also inconsistent
with free speech. That he's like, well, yeah, technically we leave the stuff up on the platform, but we basically bury it so no one can see it. And Don can't really wrap his head around what he's talking about. I mean, I'm talking here about shadow banning. He's talking about using the algorithm to suppress this type of content so absolutely no one can see it. And that's another area that would be interesting to dig into. But it seems to me like he's not really even grasping what
Elon is saying. I mean, in fairness, Elon doesn't want to use terms like shadow band because that sounds bad, So he's not being really straightforward about what he's trying to articulate. He's like a little cagey about it, but that's clearly what he's laying out, and I think that that is worth exploration as well.
But that none of that happens.
Yeah, there's a moment that we didn't include in this clobe because it was already very long. But where Don gets in this fight with it, Well, mainstream media would never post this type of hateful content. He's still standing for CNN even after all of this. So anyway, there you go, there's been no evolution.
I guess is that the accident that immediately after he's fired, the first place he goes.
Back to is CNN.
Yeah, that's exactly kind of you know, he can't teach an old dog new tricks. His overall mindset is just completely devoid of any like grasp of the first men, which is genuinely concerning for somebody who's allegedly been in broadcasts for like what twenty something a year, maybe thirty years now, yeah, at this point, and who made his whole career.
And then you know, it's also so it's it's.
Very counter because the moment then he that Elon fires him or doesn't sign his contract or whatever, he's like, well, I thought you believed in free speech.
I'm like, dude, you don't believe in free speech? So which one is it?
Bro?
Like, what are we actually doing here?
And then you know, I just find it so egregious every time they do this, as Zuckerberg, they did it to Jack, now they're doing to any of these people they find like the worst content, Like why isness still up there? It's like, guys, they're not defending the content. It's about the principle. I mean, for example, I'll talk to the third rail. I don't think Kanye should have been banned for tweeting a SAP swastika. Swatska's a hateful symbol.
I abhor it, that said, well, and he even posted it genuinely in a pro Nazi way.
Not illegal.
Sorry, he should be allowed to do it. And guess what he suffered private consequences. It's not like it worked out for him all that. Well, you don't need to take it down for no reason. I'll give another one. He'd banned the elon jet account for no reason except for the fact that he alleged that it was doxing. It's bullshit. It's completely wrong. It's like, sorry, yeah, I get it's probably annoying. That said, you can do it for any celebrity, including Taylor Swift or any of these
other folks. So sorry, that's I guess the price that it is to be like ultra wealthy. Good for you. You can afford, you can afford like hyper around the clock security. So that's just what comes with the territory. He still always like reaches for it in a shadow banning Sense and others. I still believe that the greatest golden age of the Internet was like twenty eleven or so, right when Twitter was still calling themselves a free speech
swing of the free speech Party. Everything let fly, everything was equal in an algorithm, And yeah, it led to some uncomfortable things, but you know, that's part of what it means to live in a free in an open society. And that's when the Internet was a tool of dissonance and it was a tool of people being able to speak out. And unfortunately what we've seen is instead like
a mainstream capture of the Internet. As part of why the Supreme Court case and this Don Lemon thing really go together is because that elite mindset about the ability to police what and how and the rules around these things is their most treasured power, especially as they continue to lose it in the number of viewers.
That they have.
Yeah, I mean, there's just a whole lack of confidence in the sort of baseline concepts of you know, there's supposed to be bedrock to America, including free speech and including a commitment to democracy. They're so terrified of if you actually allowed people to self govern what that would look like and so you know, it's an anti democratic backlash, and you see it with liberals, you see it with conservatives when it comes to speech that they don't like
as well. It really is an elite led phenomenon. And you know, none of that was really grappled with in this particular debate. I guess I would say bottom line, you know, it made me a little more sympathetic to Elon pulling the plag afterwards, because he was just like, Wow, that was bad and ridiculous, and I don't think that I really want to lend my dollars. But it also made me question the original like why did you think that this was going to go well to start with?
What was it in the Don Lemon lexicon? A body of work that you thought was really worth like supporting and lifting up.
So I guess that's what.
That's my counter is. I'm like, dude, why did you think that he had changed at all? Like anyone could have told you that anybody who's ever worked with Don Lemon, read any of his stories about Don Lemon, had watched.
Him in that thing.
He's an ego maniac who is dedicated to a very specific worldview. And when you hired him. There was no evidence that he had changed whatsoever. So you know, if anything, I don't have any particular sympathy for you on.
No, I mean I don't either. I don't either.
I say, listen, if if Don Lemon had started his show and he was doing things that were interesting and he learned something from his like, these things happen. You know, when you get let go from a job, it could be a like, you know, a real shake up moment for you, and your perspective can change. It did for me when I got fired from VISEMEBC. So I can speak to that.
But clearly none of that has yet occurred.
So he'll continue to see this is pretty consequential news. Let's go and put this up on the screen. So Donald Trump in a new court filing his team saying that he cannot secure a bond to cover that four hundred and fifty four million judgment. He was spurned, apparently by thirty different companies as he saw that bond.
Let me read you a little bit of this.
They disclosed on Monday it failed to secure roughly half billion dollar bond in that civil fraud case in New York, raising the prospect that the state could seek to freeze some of his bank accounts and seize some of his marquee properties. That is now seriously on the table. The court filing, coming one week before the bond is do suggest the former president might soon face a financial crisis
unless an appeals court comes to his rescue. He is asking the appeals to court to pause that four hundred and fifty four million dollar judgment. Again, remember this is from the civil fraud case about him inflating asset values to secure loans and things of that nature. Otherwise, the New York Attorney General's office, which brought the case, might
soon move to collect from mister Trump. They go on to say, although the former president both of his billions, his net worth is derived largely from the value of his real estate, which bond companies rarely accept as collateral. Apparently, he has more than three hundred and fifty million in cash, which is a lot of money, but it is short of the nearly half a billion dollars that he would need in order to secure this bond. Still, even if the higher court rejects his appeal, he's not entirely out
of options. He might appeal to the state's highest court quickly sell an asset or seek help from a wealthy supporter. So he was saga able to secure a nearly one hundred million dollar bond with regard to the Egene Carol case. But there are two problems here. I mean, number one, these insurance companies just normally don't do bonds of this
size half a billion dollars. And number two, as they point out, you know, since most of his collateral would be in real estate, they usually don't use that as collateral. And so none of these companies, the thirty that they reportedly went to, were willing to take it. The Letitia James, the Attorney General who was you know, pushing this case. She has not commented yet about what she is going to do. But you know, this is this is real.
This is we're at the point now where she could actually you know, put leans on his accounts, where she could see some of his iconic properties in New York in order to obtain this amount of money while this appeals process plays out. So it is truly a wild scenario here.
Yeah, what they said is that he has not ruled out his corporate entities declaring bankruptcy, which would halt that judgment. But apparently in the nineteen nineties, Trump did go bankrupt, right, He's very weary of that entire experience.
Yeah, well, I mean, you can see, his whole political brand is the billionaire, you know, wealthy, successful, always wins, et cetera. So having to declare bankruptcy doesn't really jive with that image that he has created over decades.
The other question is is I mean, he's probably just gonna have to sell something. He's gonna have to do a fire sale, or you know, he's going to have to come up with some way in order to meet this just because it's such a colossal amount of money, or to take out some incredibly onerous, high interest loan. But this is the reason we're covering everyone, is because
this is personally a major, major threat. It also leads to the possibility that he would have to be able to tap campaign cash or raise some sort of fund from supporters and others in order to help bail him out of something like this. But even then, I mean a colossal half a billion dollar bond.
I mean, that's more.
Than I think Bill Clinton spent in the entire nineteen ninety two campaign, let alone for the billion or so that the Trump campaign and the associated people are going to have to drop in the general election that's going on right now.
So this is a serious problem for him.
Yeah, and there are definitely legal limits on how much you know, political cash can be used. I don't believe it can be used at all to pay this you know, four hundred and fifty four million dollar judgment. But he just did that big R and C shake up, cleaned house, making sure he's got you know.
Full of loyalists.
There a lot of fundraising consultants, I think, to make sure that they are able to pay whatever legal bills they are legally allowed to pay. And then we've also seen the way that the party apparatus has been used to funnel cash through his businesses, you know, the whole
events at his hotel, et cetera, et cetera. So I do think part of that house cleaning at the RNC is to make sure that in whatever ways they can possibly you know, color the law to help bolster his personal finances, they will be in position to do that. But it is an extraordinary moment. I mean, we'll have to see what direction the court takes. We'll have to see how aggressive Letitia James is in terms of going ahead and fire sailing assets, you know, seizing assets, putting
leans on his accounts. But there's no doubt that, listen, he's a very wealthy man. Half a billion dollars that was still a lot of money for literally anyone on the planet, anyone.
Multi billionaires don't have access that much.
We've got a half billion dollars just sitting around in cash, I.
Mean literally about no one, right, maybe some like drug lord or something like that.
It has to keep it in cash.
But so this is this is I know there's been a lot of in the past. You know, liberal is always not as rich as he says, etcetera. As that which it probably isn't as rich as he says. But he is a very wealthy man. This is enough money that is a genuine threat to his personal cash financial position. There were some other news that I can't even believe that this name has resurfaced, but put this up on the screen. Apparently Trump may enlist ready for this. Paul
manifort back into his campaign. But in the way the watch the post frames this is, you know, just gives me like PTSD. He was criticized for Russia ties. Former campaign manager was pardoned by Trump for bank and tax fraud convictions and accusations he had hid millions that he made consulting for pro Russian Ukrainian politicians, including Yanikovich. You'll recall that whole Constantine Kolimnik situation to bring up some more blast from the past in terms of the Russia
Gate narrative. You know, Manifort passed some polling to Kolimnik, who was tied in with Russian intelligence, and he legitimately, I think this part of the case against Manifort was legitimate. He made millions, he hit it in these offshore bank accounts so we wouldn't have to pay taxes on it. Led this incredibly luxurious lifestyle that he really didn't have the cash to completely afford, especially not if he was actually paying taxes.
So that was what ended up bringing him down.
But Sager, apparently Trump wants to bring him in particular, they say with regard to organizing the RNC.
So what he did last time, Yeah, oh, that's true.
That is what he did last time.
He's a long time figure in Republican politics, going back to I mean, who was his first that he worked.
For, Richard Nixon, so yeah, Paul Manifort and Stone, Roger Stone.
That's right, geez, that's they.
They had their own firm, and then Roger eventually went his own way. Maniffort kind of made his big name in washing, made tens of millions of dollars, representing like any regime in the world that wanted to hire him. This is always what annoyed me to They're calling me a Russian stooge, and like he's not a Russian stoo Jesus is a paid stood. She's like it was like, oh, have a grifter, oh o Bajan cool.
You know, any regime.
Out there, no matter who you are, whatever you're doing, what you're.
Asking for, he would rep you. He would take your money.
He didn't file for Farah, which is what the Mueller team got him.
Onto Foreign Agent Registration Act. Here's the thing.
I mean, every lobbyist in town who's lobbying for these governments is.
Well, I got him on taxing bank fraud.
That far was was actually I mean he was stashing his money overseas and the's like Caribbean bank accounts and whatever to avoid paying taxes.
Not defending the man.
He is a very typical DC character, I guess is what I would say. He is far from the only one who will take whatever skeezee client from a you know, horrific, repressive, corrupt regime or whatever. Whoever has cash to pay there will to get in bed with.
That's who Paul Maniford is.
Trump apparently likes the fact that he you know, that he did time on his behalf and he stayed loyal. He wrote some book about you know, the Dutch state and how he's relically persecuted, et cetera, et cetera, And so Trump wants to get him back in the fold because he appreciated that loyalty. It's not a done deal yet, but at least according to this report, Trump is very inclined towards this because he appreciates the way Paul stood.
Tall for him.
He didn't take its plea deal right. Who is his dad?
Forget his deep This is the thing. I've blacked all this moment stuff out of there because it was so useful.
Paul Maniford even existed to be al Anatolia.
Look Manafford, He's not.
A terrible political operative serial old school. He almost certainly would do a fine job at the R and C. He was pardoned right by Trump, so it'd be one of that. He's not technically a fellon I guess, or.
Maybe he was, I'm not maybe he was commuted or something. I'm not one hundred percent sure.
But my point is is just that look for the job that they're asking him to do, he'd probably be fine. He did a fine enough job last time around. The Muller investigation never found any you know, trying to influence the RNC or any of these other shenanigans that were going on.
So whatever, who cares.
He probably is more competent than some of the other idiots that Trump has around him from time to time. The other thing we wanted to highlight around Trump is that he is pressing hard for a debate with Joe Biden. He made it a truth social post about this yesterday, also raise it in a recent Fox News interview. Let's take a listen to what he had to say.
And you want to debate Joe Biden an take him any place an I'll leave in debate him on your show. Well, I'll be happy to ho I'll do it anytime, any place.
But any time any plays Crystal.
Unfortunately, though, Biden seems to be pressing back a little bit against this, if we could put this up there. He recently was asked about it and said, quote, I don't know if he's serious. I don't know if he's serious when he's asked whether he was going to debate Trump ahead of the twenty twenty four election. The reason that's noteworthy to me, Crystal, is that that is not about will you debate him?
Now?
That's if you will debate him ever, and I mean increasingly, I don't know. Increasingly, it does look likely that Biden may back out. That said, because Trump has committed to any time, any place, he even said he would participate in a DNC debate anything that's either with the Commission on Presidential Debates or elsewhere, it does seem like the onus is on Biden to then try and work within that framework.
I'm curious.
I mean, if I were him, I also wouldn't want a debate, right, you know, you don't necessarily want that on display for everybody.
Yeah, I mean, if he could do an even serviceable job, he should do it.
Oh yeah, because as we saw with I mean from a democracy standpoint.
Obviously he should do it. Okay, let's just talk about political tactics. If we saw with the State of the Union, how low the bar is for Joe Biden for the media to declare him a victor. I mean, if he can come out in a debate against Trump and even do okay, then I think this would benefit him tremendously because this is the big questionesson that people have in their minds. It is certainly one of the biggest questions people have in their minds about Joe Biden.
Just is he up to the desk.
So if you get him on the you know, whatever the right drug cocktail is that they've put him on before that worked out for the Stay of the Union, worked out for him several years ago, and that debate against Bernie Sanders. If they could have a confidence that he could even perform adequately, adequately, then I think this would be a win for him, because, you know, the expectations for Trump are high. He is seen as a performer.
He's seen as, you know, this sort of political animal who can get up in front of a crowd and really do his thing. His debates against Hillary Clinton and the Republican GOP cast of characters back in twenty sixteen are still legendary. That's still the expectation people have for him. The expectations for Joe Biden are literally on the floor, So.
You know that's but that's the question.
Does his staff even think that he can perform he can meet those incredibly, incredibly low expectations. And I think that's probably what being is debated behind the scenes right now.
So obviously, I mean, I think a position is clear. Democratically, they should all debate. In fact, they should have way more than three debates. The current CPD structure is completely stupid. There were many times in the past we had a lot more debates, or we could have one big debate and it could be several hours long. There's no reason that foreign policy should be the last, like the ugly stepchild debate.
They're always actually right now.
The economy debate the foreign policy but it's like, well, hold on, who asked for that? Also, the current format is totally rigged by the CPD and all that. I've done some monologues on this. The town hall format as well, which I do like, but as long as it needs to be more raucous, it needs to be less pre screened. So there are a lot of ways that we could
get to that. But if I were the Biden team, and I'm talking purely selfishly, even though I do believe that he should debate, I probably wouldn't do it because the vast majority of evidence that we have says that the debates don't matter at all whenever it comes to the polls, unless there is an insane moment, and even then it has to have been in.
The media monoculture era.
These days, most people know who they're voting for. They may or they make up their minds close to election day, and their minds are not swayed by a debate clip.
It's usually like, hey, what's the price of gas today?
Are like, oh, well, yeah, I guess my bank account is doing when people vote for all kinds of reasons, my only point being that there's enough political science debate that if you think that the risk is high enough of him having a complete brain short, I wouldn't do it if I were him, which is tragic because I think that's probably where he'll end up.
Yeah, yeah, I need more information about what his actual condition is fair enough to make that judgment, because I agree with you. Typically debates don't matter, even though our perception is that they do, and they can temporarily have an impact in the polls, but by and large, geopolitical science says they don't have a huge impact. I think if they were ever going to matter, though, it would
be right now. And that's because that question of his age and his capabilities is so central to people's concerns. So if he was able to turn in a you know, like I said, an adequate I don't even want to go to the level of solid right, an adequate, non embarrassed saying no, remember that time, as I like exploded on stage, Like, nothing like that can happen.
Right, Okay?
If he remember the first debate he had with Trump last time around, he actually won, not because he did such a great job, but because Trump was so fricking obnoxious. If you could guarantee you could turn in that level of performance again, I think it would be well worth it, and I think it could actually have a lasting impact, because you know, the one off of him doing all right at the State of the Union reading from a
teleprompter that is going to fade. People need more proof of life from him before they're going to be comfortable showing up again and handing him another four years. So for that reason, I do think it could potentially be
more consequential than debates typically are. So listen, Obviously I'm cheering for them to get in the ring, and I do want to reflect on the fact that already we have sort of accepted and normalized the idea that these people don't have Even people seeking the highest office in the land don't have to debate. Joe Biden didn't debate his primary opponents. Donald Trump didn't debate his primary opponents.
So it's not like Trump would be able to use against Joe Biden like, oh, you won't even debate, you don't want a debate. I mean, I'm sure people tried to do that, but you can turn right around, Okay, well you wouldn't debate Nikki Haley, you wouldn't debate Ron DeSantis. So we've sort of already broken that norm of expecting these people to have to subject themselves to that process.
I think that's a tremendous loss for the country.
I genuinely do totally agree. I mean, think about this.
The last time that the two of these men debated was the twenty twenty election back during COVID Right it's the last time that we saw either of these men who want to represent us for another four years that were on the stage, and the likelihood that we will see them again on the stage appears to be less and less, which is genuinely.
Look, here's the other reason.
Why debates matter, because sometimes when they become president, you're like, hey, during the debate, you set that out to do this, and then you didn't do it, So why did you change your mind?
That happened. That happens a lot.
That's why getting people on the record is so important, not for media purposes, for your purposes.
The league can actually hold people accountable.
So there's a lot of reasons why this is really really bad, but unfortunately does look like that's where things are headed.
Yes, indeed, we are expected to get an RFK junior vice presidential announcement next.
Week's right next Tuesday.
And there was a leak some potentially accurate, I don't know reporting from media. They seem to have an inn in the RFK Junior campaign.
Mediaite.
Maybe we'll see, Yeah, we'll see just plans cans out some of this, we'll talk, Okay.
So here's who they are saying is going to be rfk's pick, woman named Nicole Shanahan, who they describe as a California based attorney and entrepreneur once married to Google co founder Sergey Brinn. That is who Mediaite is claiming that RFK Junior is going to pick. Shanahan has apparently already been involved with the campaign, at least from an
arms length distance. She was the one who funded and put together that That's Kennedy super Bowl commercial that we showed you that was like heavy on the Kennedian nostalgia that we both thought was very effective.
And very smart.
And so she obviously, having divorced Sergey Brin, has a good amount of money to lend to the effort, and according to their source at Mediaite, that is a key part of.
His interest in her.
They said, quote, she might be infusing millions of dollars in the campaign to help fund the ballot initiative. That's the effort to get his name on the ballots, which makes her attractive financially. However, this source and I guess this is why they're leaking it to Mediaite, lacks. They say she lacks the qualifications to actually do the job. They also say that she aligns with him on numerous issues.
The campaign is also looking for a canon and who can help finance the ballot access initiative that will be crucial if Kennedy stands a chance of competing in the election.
So, to be.
Honest with you, this is the first I'd heard of her. Apparently there was some dust up with the Wall Street Journal where they had reported that while she was separated from Sir Gaybrin but still married to him not yet divorced, that she and Elon Musk had an affair. Musk vociferously denied this. It was also reported this was like, you know, real rupturous one could understand, and his relationship with Sir Gaybriyn.
So there was that whole situation.
Everyone involved, I think, basically denies this happen, but the Wall Street Journal stands by it.
So make of that what you love, Listen.
I have no idea.
Yes, when I heard he know, boy scout himself, mister Bryann, I'll just leave it at that. But from what we understand, at least with some of the reporting, the only reason I knew who she was is because she was married to Sarah gay Brand, but also because I knew that she had donated quite a bit of money to the RFK Junior super Pac previously. Yeah, which does raise some questions here about pay to play. If she does get the eventual tap for vice president, don't forget this is
not one hundred percent done. RFK Junior was asked about this last night on Chris by Chris Kuoma.
He said he was considering her.
He was, yeah, he did not say that he you know, she was officially the picker any of that. We still have Aaron Rodgers who was in the running, Mike Rowe, some of these other individuals, Tulsi Gabbard as well, Andrew Yang. Apparently these are all people that the domain names at least for all these people had been registered. They've been approached. We don't know, you know who is in the running or not. Tulsi was asked I would know about running
as Trump's vice president. She did seem to answer affirmatively as if she would be willing to do something like that. Let's put this up there on the screen. In terms of the reporting, this is from a guy I really trust, Teddy Schleipper. We've had him on the show previously. He does a really good job covering Silicon Valley specifically, and he says, forget Aaron Rodgers, what if the next vice
president is Nicole Shanahan. There's a lot of buzz in the RFK Junior circle that Shanahan, who's that philanthropist in the native of Oakland where Kennedy VP is soon to take place, could be the choice. Of course, nor decision is final. This is from the RFK Junior campaign itself. They say, oh boy, this media. They were sure that about Aaron, Now they're sure about Nicole. Tomorrow they'll be sure about somebody else. The truth is they're just going to have to wait until we all get to celebrate
Bobby's brilliant running met together in ten days. Well, I can't share a name. I will say I could not be more thrilled with this decision. He ran a thorough process and he's chosen a vice president who is truly worthy of the American people. So I guess that will be the big the big question Crystal as to who exactly he does pick. I am not as sure maybe as she is, that the pick is actually certain, because this is what people do all the time. They float
them and then see what the reception is. Yeah, Aaron Rodgers. Maybe how the sports world freak, you know, how can he handle the attention? What about Mike row Mike Rowe seems to have micro you know, posted positively about it.
What about Jesse Ventura? Ryan and I talked about that. I actually think just would be a cool pick. I like Jesse. Jesse. He's a while man. That's why I love him. Listen, we control that, man.
Let me tell you he's going to do.
What is going for it. Let's go for it. Okay, Let's not pick some Google arress or whatever.
Let's pick somebody who's really gonna shake things up, because that's what he's claiming.
So anyways, I have no idea.
That said, though, the recent actions by the White House show that there's still not one hundred percent writing off the RFK Junior campaign. They are definitely still looking at him as a little bit of a threat.
Yeah, so let man get to that in one minute. I just want to say a couple more things about Nicole Shanahan. First of all, if it is her, it does say something about the way they're thinking about the biggest challenges in the campaign. It reveals that having the money to get on the ballot is the number one.
So then maybe it's a good strategy if you if.
You were primarily concerned about electoral appeal. I mean, no offense to Nicole Shanner. This is the first I've heard of her. I have a zero opinion of her, positive, negative, or otherwise. Although it does say that she was a bundler for Pete bootaegidch so I do hold that against her. But and I'll tell you a little bit more about what we know about her politics in a minute. But you know, if you were really looking for an electoral pop, I think you would go for more of a celebrity
household name Rogers to add to the Kennedy name. You know, I think that probably would make more sense elector I don't know necess I mean maybe people freaking love these you know athletics.
I said last time, we should think it's just it's a headline. It's everybody in America.
Everyone talk about it. You couldn't help but talk about it.
This.
You know, Nicole Shanahan, no one knows who she Very few people know who she is, So it doesn't really impact the ticket one way or another. I mean, and perhaps that is part of the calculus too, that RFK Junior wants to be the guy on the ticket. Right, If you're r K Junior and Jesse Ventura, Jesse Ventura is a gigantic personality.
You are not going to outshine jesse Ventura.
No, I don't care who you are in this great nation, you are not going to outshine Jesse Ventura. So perhaps that's part of the calculus as well. Her politics up to this point, she's been very focused on, you know,
what would read as sort of traditionally liberal positions. She's been very focused on reproductive health and just as she talked in this interview that she gave to Teddy Schleie for a while ago, non connection to this RFK Junior chat, but she talked about how that was really important to her. She talks a lot about the invite being very important to her. Of course, that has been you know, part of Bobby Kennedy's career as a lawyer as well. So you can see how they may they may be simpatico there.
I haven't seen anything about like you know, vaccines or COVID or any of those pieces. There were more sort of traditional standard liberal positions that were at least identified in this interview which also meshes with the fact that she was apparently behind Pete Bootage right the last time around. So anyway, that's the little bit that we know about her. But yes, Soccer, you are correct that there is apparently this is a great display of pettiness, I think coming
from the White House. So on Saint Patrick's Day they hosted at the White House with Joe Biden. Like the entire Kennedy clan minus RFK Junior.
Let's go and put this up on the screen.
Kennedy family sons RFK Junior poses with Biden at the White House. I mean, if you look at the picture, I don't think we have the picture. We should have grabbed that. But if you look at the picture, there's dozens of Kennedy's there and very conspicuously absent RFK Junior. In addition, Carrie Kennedy, one of mister Kennedy's sisters, posted that picture of the family on Twitter at the White House with mister Biden and said President Biden, you make
the world better, little lie. Mister Biden responded to the post sager from one proud Irish family to another, it was good.
To have you all back at the White House.
So definitely appointed job there at RFK Junior, and they've also enlisted Liz Smith and others to directly try to combat the third party efforts, not only from r K Junior, but Cornell West, Jill Stein and potentially others.
So yes, look, I think they're taking it seriously, which they need to. They should take it seriously. Well, and that's look, you maybe change my mind a little bit.
One of the reasons why I.
Said Aaron Rodgers because everybody knows Aaron Rodgers is super famous, and that would possibly lead to a groundswell of campaign donations, and then you can get on the ballot. The other ways, you pick a rich lady and she pays for your back access. Right, not a bad strategy. So if anything,
let's just give people the option. Everything is about options, But putting your name on that ballot, if it's going to cost twenty five thirty fifty million dollars or something like that, it's probably just more efficient to pick somebody who has that on tap, or who knows a bunch of other rich people who are bundlers. So it could be that that is the correct strategy, And especially if this is an inoffensive pick, you know, in some ways, you know, RFK Junior, just because he is such a
lightning rod in so many ways. You pick somebody who's a blank slate and people don't know very much about. That's also not terrible. You know, Aaron himself, him and Bobby are very aligned on certain policies, just specifically whenever it comes to COVID that could lead to more of
a valance on the campaign that he doesn't want. He wants it to just be blank, blank slate, such as you could project anything that you want on top of it, and that's probably his best bet to eat into any of the margins.
Whenever it comes to the general election.
I don't know, Yeah, we'll see. I mean, number one hurdle is getting on the ballot. So if this is going to help you achieve that aim, it probably is right goal. Again with all the caveats that we don't even really know if this Nicole Shanahan is going to be the pick or not. Although listen, in addition it to being in Oakland, which she is, size you whatever, she is from Oakland, they also did register Kennedy Shanahan, and you know that, but they also registered another of
a number of different ones. So signs are pointing that she's at least in the running. That's confirmed by amyryalist Fox that she was certainly considered, although obviously they're not saying whether she is the pick yet or not. We will all wait and find out next week. Last Vcar, I just had to get this in because I love this article with the Saint Patrick's Day. Irish American tie in Al Jazeera did a great write up about how Ireland is disowning Joe Biden as one of their native sons.
Put this up on the screen.
Ireland, they say, has long been one of Palestine's foremost Western supporters. Country was the first EU member to endorse Palestine in state, and after October seven, Irish lawmakers were among the first in.
The West to call for a ceasefire.
The Irish public support is even more bust then they're politicians. About eighty percent of Irish people believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. Many have called for a boycott of a White House meeting that just occurred in light of this fear support, and Israeli minister recently told Palestinians to go to Ireland or the desert, and so the Irish public has largely turned on Joe Biden. In November, mural of Biden his ancestors hometown was spattered over with red
paint along with the words genocide Joe. But they go on to interview also a bunch of Irish Americans who are similarly disgusted with the Israel, the unconditional support of Israel and the aiding and betting of what they and I see in icj says as plausibly a genocide, and so lots of great quotes here about just how disgusted they are with Joe Biden. You know, how seriously he takes his irishists, and how much he loves being part of this tribe.
That's said Crystal.
The Irish PM was here in Washington like yesterday, and I think talked to Biden at the grid Iron dinner.
So I don't know, maybe it's not.
He's sech some pretty pointed things though about Palestinian the civilians.
His name Vard car something Leo Verodkar, I forget. I also they refer to him as something different like that. I'm not even gonna try and pronounce it starts with a T.
Whatever.
Sorry, Irish people, I'm married.
I guess I should know this, but where anyway, as I understand it, he's still here, mister Verrod Carr was here in Washington. I know for sure at this very fancy party because there were images that came out of him and Biden. But you are right that Biden takes his Irishness very very seriously, to the point where.
He was like, didn't want to meet.
He didn't want to what was it appear too obsequious to the royal family because of his Irish American heritage, which is a whole other thing that I won't get it too.
Yeah, so apparently the Prime Minister made some very pointed comments about why the Irish have such historic empathy with the Palestinians, with Biden having to stand there.
Oh, that makes sense, that did occur, Okay.
At the same time, there has been a titanic development in the real estate market brought everybody that details previously of a lawsuit filed against the National Association of Realtors by a group of sellers who are saying that they're buying and selling commission prices were artificially high, thus seeking and taking money away from them. So let's go ahe
and put this up there on the screen. As a result of that successful lawsuit, there has now been an agreement by the National Association of Realtors that will do away with the automatic six percent commission in which the
buyer's agent splits the commission with the seller. So I know that this is a little bit complicated, but effectively what it boils down to is that the taking away of this automatic commission free structure commission structure which has been in place crystal for now the last thirty years, it will open up and reduce the amount of commission
that both sellers and by buyers will sell overall. Currently, as I said, the national average of real estate commission is five point five to seven percent roughly six especially
in a higher end market. It is now being projected that that will drop to some one to one point five percent, meaning that the sellers will be able to hold onto a significant chunk more of their money, and that the automatic nature in which the buyer's agent does not take a fee from the buyer and then splits the commission with the seller, takes away any potential conflict of interests where the buyer technically is working for the seller has a direct financial incentive to possibly work and
to collude and to keep prices artificially high. This means that the lack of upfront fee gives consumers a lot more optionality. They could then opt into entering a negotiation with that buyer's agent in the beginning and be like, look, okay, we will pay you three percent fee, but I need a ton of concierge service. No, I'm actually only going to pay you ten grand. I'm just going to pay you cash upfront. So it's going to open up all
kinds of interesting possibilities. And most importantly, this is a huge, huge blow to anybody who is in the real estate game right now and who has been frankly making a killing from what I really perceive here as like a cartel red seeking behavior.
The more and more that I researched the entire thing so.
The way it currently works, just to try to break this down, because to be honest with you, though I've purchased a home, I didn't really know the ins and outs of how this all worked, which is partly by design that you don't even really understand the fee structures and what you're signing up for here. So the seller side pays both agents both the agent representing the seller
and the agent representing the buyer. Right, Okay, if you are the buyer's agent, you know from the MLS listings, what the commission is going to be on each of the houses that you're showing. Your client doesn't know that. So you have an incentive to show and prioritize and hype for your client the listings that are going to secure the highest commission for you, not necessarily the listings
that are most ideal for your client. Now, of course they would claim, and I'm sure there's just through many cases that listen. If you don't do a good job and you don't sell any house, then you don't get any commission. And so you have every incentive to, you know, actually show the listings that will be most specifically you know, tailor.
Made for your client.
But you do have this, you know, financial incentive to show the ones with the highest commissions, which again your client has no access to and no way of really knowing in advance what the commission.
Is going to be in any given house.
In addition, because of the way this market works right now, and we should say this works this way in the US, it doesn't work this way most of the world because of the way this works and the feebing paid in fronted all on the seller's side that has also that basically gets put into the price of the house, and so it artificially elevates house prices by a certain amount
as well. So one of the expectations here is that this change in the fee structure and making this all transparent is going to potentially lower the actual listing prices of houses overall. Not that I'd expect like a huge shift, but this could be reflected in housing prices. Now, if you are the seller of a home, this is going to impact you because you're no longer on the hook
for both sides of the transaction. If you are a buyer, now ultimately you were going to be paying this in terms of a higher housing price instead of paying it through your mortgage. Your higher housing price, you're now likely
to have to pay something upfront. So I do think for a lot of buyers they will experience this as inferior because now you're gonna have to pony up some cash to your agent upfront, and you know, previously you were able to this was reflected in your mortgage, So this is rolled into you know, your expectation of everything in your agreement with the bank, et cetera. Now you may actually need to have that cash upfront, which eats into what you can pay in terms of down payment.
So I don't want to say that this is, like you know, all around, going to be perceived as advantageous for everyone, even though I agree when this shakes out in the long term, I do think it is going to lead to lower costs being paid by both the buyer and the seller, a much more transparent market, and incentives being much more aligned between the agents themselves and the clients they're representing.
Yeah, and then to address that, because I think it's a fair concern, we can put this Axios piece up on the screen. The reason I love this is because it's just all about options now whenever you're buying and you're selling. So, for example, as you just said, how
will the buyers get paid? There's multiple possibilities. You can have a flat fee out of the buyer's pocket, so if you have the cash, great, you can just pay a simple fee, or the buyer will agree to pay then a percentage of that sale price to the broker, or even pay possibly an hourly rate, even better, maybe skip having.
A broker at all.
And then third, the realayes state industry is saying that a seller can still cover the buyer's agent fee, it will just have to be negotiated in the deal process.
So let's say you.
Want to roll this solid into your mortgage and you want to make it a part of this consolidation.
Fine, that's within your purview.
This means then that you have to be a little bit more educated, but you have a lot more financial options.
And you know, I'm not going to look right now.
The average sale price in this country four hundred and seventeen thousand dollars. This is according to the FED. Six percent of that is twenty five grand. That's a lot of money. That's a third of the average salary in an entire year. Sure, when you tast spread it out across a mortgage, you know, you may not notice it as much.
But let's not ignore this, Okay.
That's how people in real estate have been making a ton of money just flipping you know, buys and sells and representing that. So this makes it so that especially lower quality realtors, they're they're done. Because what it means is that when you drop that average price to one to one point five all of the chaff that is currently amongst the one point five million people in this country,
you have a real estate license. The vast majority of there's people very rarely make a sale in the first place. And this explains you know, I tweeted this kind of as a joke, but I think I've said it previously. I always wondered, you know, you always meet people in your life who are just like going around and they're always like, I'm studying for my real estate license, and I was like, why, I really wonder are they really
making all this money? And you know, reading the details of this, I'm like, oh, yeah, they're making a ton of money. It's like you don't have to do all that much, especially in a high cost of living area where I mean here in the DMV. The average sale price in some neighborhoods in the DMV is a million bucks. So six percent of that is sixty thousand dollars that you can make off of a single transaction. You just do two and you've made a pretty good nut for
some part time work. All of that going away just means that there's more power and ultimately too for sellers. Because housing is such a holder of equity and is the number one way that people reach a positive net
worth in this country. This is very advantageous because it means that you can hold on to a lot more of your home equity whenever you do come time to realize that game, if and ever that you need to again twenty five thousand bucks, maybe fifty up to seventy thousand, you know, depending on the price of your home in any area, that can mean quite a bit for retirement, for inheritance, for a lot of other purposes.
Listen, it is truly a seismic shift, and the industry is reacting as such.
It really is huge. I think they'll probably be a period.
Where things haven't settled out, where there's all kinds of different arrangements and people are trying to figure it out, probably settle into some new model that is sort of the typical and the standard, the default, while you'll have more optionality, asagas pointing out, but I think it'll take a while for that to shake out exactly how this
is going to look going forward. You know, I do think in terms of the number of people who are realtors, especially like you said, those who aren't super high performing.
It is going to be a real blow to their livelihood.
I support a just transition for them, but I think overall it will make the market better for you know, the people who are actually trying to buy and sell homes. And by the way, you know, we could put this next piece up on the screen about just where the housing market is. Home prices continued to hit new highs. We had a new all time high in December.
We had a.
Period where prices had basically flatlined. But in most markets they have either you know, stayed stable or continued to rise. And prices, especially with you know, mortgage rates being significantly higher than they used to be, prices and affordability, it really is a disaster for people who are trying to get their first foot on the rung of the home
ownership ladder. And I'm sorry, guys, but they are not predicting that there's any relief insight in terms of in terms of prices, and the expectation is that potentially this shift could lead to even more you know, housing demand and more churn in the market. But you still have a problem of low inventory that is that is, you know, really hindering things and really keeping prices at that incredibly elevated level.
They're likely hood actually is that the housing market is only going to heat up even more because interest rates are already dropping. I believe that they average mortgage somewhere around six percent right now. The FED is projected to cut rates sometime in the middle of the summer, will probably settle around like four percent, which is not all that much higher where that things work in twenty twenty one,
that's enough where there'll be some normalization the stick. You know, sellers will then have been relatively comfortable with the fact that prices have not been moving as much previously, and they're willing to press the button. But the problem has been on new construction. We don't have a lot of new construction inventory that's coming online, and in general, especially here in the Northeast, we have a massive housing crisis.
Same thing in the coast.
So I did a whole monologue yesterday about Census about where people are moving. Unsurprisingly, I went and I actually sent this to our group.
Thing.
If you look at new housing inventory dramatically, it is all in these red states with very little housing regulation. It's Texas, it's Florida, it's Tennessee. It's a lot of places with decent enough weather. But more importantly, they just have a lot more inventory. Yeah, cheaper stuff that's coming online.
Is we've got to build more. We got to build orm and that's that's the bottom line.
And we got to help people too, because these prices have gotten so high, and this is something that Joe Biden floated like a small solution for but we got to help people with the down payments because as it stands right now, the number of people who are first time home buyers who rely on you know, mom and dad or something other wealthy for under relative in order to be able to front a sufficient down payment has gone to all time highs, putting it out of reach
and locking in these you know, generational wealth trends where if you don't have the luxury have grown up with a mom and dad who confront you that down payment, you're likely to be locked out of the housing market for a very long time, if not forever.
On inheritance too.
So I've been learning a lot about tax law, and there I've learned about the step up basis.
I know we've talked about this previously.
What an insane law where if you like, And this is the way that people really transfer wealth in this country. It's not about handing over dollars. You put all your money into real estate. Let's say you buy a house
thirty five years ago. Whenever you die, the value of the house gets quote unquote stepped up to your heirs, meaning that let's say you bought a house for one hundred grand and it's worth a million bucks well upon your death when it transfers for your heirs, if they sell it, they don't sell.
They don't pay any capital gain.
Over the value of where it was when you died, not the value of the one hundred to nine hundred thousand dollars capital gain, So you actually have less of an incentive to sell if you want to have a more tax efficient way of transferring things over to your airs.
It's a total loophole, and obviously you can understand why that leads to all these real estate barons just passing stuff down because then you can take, you know, refinance or whatever to pull value out of a mortgage out of the mortgage and then never pay any tax on any of this. So anyway, the more I learn about this, I'm like, man, this tax code is so rigid. Is the most insane thing I've ever learned.
Although to be ho, listen, this is a whole other conversation. But given what we're funding an Injuril right now, I've never been more anti time than I am right now.
I feel more libertarian every day. Like, you know what, these people got a freaking point.
Well, what would be good is some sort of like the taxpayer has to have a referendum on certain things that they think you have to pay for. I actually I kind of liked that idea because then you know, anytime they want to spend extra month like Ukraine or something like that, they wanted sixty billion, It's like, okay,
well then you have to prove as to why. I don't know if anybody knows this, but the total amount of our tax revenue that came brought in last year is now only enough to pay the interest on the debt right now. So there's a lot that's going on. Let's move on to the next part about Boeing. This is something we wanted to make sure we got into the show and update on the story we did yesterday. The Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, who allegedly died by suicide.
His friend came forward in an interview and said that there was no way that he killed himself, that he had told her previously if he was ever found dead by suicide, that it was almost certainly a result of the murder. Well, we are learning even more about the circumstances of his death, which are very fishy. Let's put this up there on the screen. It turns out mister Barnett was planning to drive home to Louisiana after his deposition on March eighth, before Boeing lawyers asked him to
stay one more day to finish his testimony. His body was then found on the morning of March ninth, so he was planning on going home. He stayed an extra day last minute. As a result of that last minute's stay, he is then found dead the next morning. Again Charleston police claiming that this is an apparent suicide from the circumstances, but a lot of the details do not continue to add up.
Let's go to the next one.
As they show mister Barnett was planning to start that drive after completing that testimony and then something quote happened overnight at his hotel room, and he has found dead the next morning. This is direct testimony here from the people who were involved. They say John was really tired and he didn't want to testify anymore that day. He wanted to drive home to Louisiana starting that evening as he had planned, told his mom he'd be home on Sunday, and it took him two days to drive home. I
suggested we break for a week or two. The Boeing lawyers took the position no more depositions could be taken until mister Barnett had completed his testimony. Let's go to the next part here. This is especially important. The previous day Barnett was on a roll. The video camera had recorded the event. He testified for four hours in questioning. This was following seven hours of cross examination by Boeing lawyers.
He was really happy telling his side of the story, excited to field our questions, and he was doing a great job.
Quote, it was explosive stuff.
As I'm sitting there, I'm thinking, this is the BET's witness I've ever seen. At one point, says his lawyer. The Boeing lawyer protested that Barnett was reciting the details of incidents from a decade ago and specific dates without looking at documents. As his lawyer recalled, Barnett fired back, I know these dogs documents inside and out. I have had to live it, so Cristal, from the interviews, from
all the testimony. Now, this man was an explosive witness with deep knowledge as to Boeing misconduct, and then by Boeing's own request, he ends up staying an extra day and he's found dead in the next morning.
So you can riddle me that one.
If we can judge for themsel, yeah, you can make up your own mind of events. And this lawsuit was with regards to you know, he was a long time Boeing employee. Obviously according to this account and also interviews he's given.
I mean this has been put on display for the public. He was had extraordinarily detailed knowledge. He was an extraordinarily compelling witness. This particular lawsuit had to do with his allegations that he was basically bullying and retalied against him. Pushed down because of, you know, raising the concerns some of which were we heard him raise in interviews.
And have been documented. He wants to go home.
Testimony is pushed by the Bowie side to continue for another day, and then he is found dead and his friend says he told him her explicitly that if he was found dead, it was not a suicide.
Yeah.
Very As I said before, it is very convenient for Boeing that this man is out of the way. They have perhaps never been under as much scrutiny as they are right now. The number of incidents involving Boeing planes that are you know, happening on a near daily basis are insane.
Course.
The situation with the door plug coming out, you know, and endangering the lives of everyone on board has invited incredible scrutiny, including a potential criminal investigation. So there is a lot on the line for Boeing right now. And mister Barnett was right at the heart of that.
Yeah, And you know, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that one of the things that mister Barnett had alleged in his whistleblowing lawsuit is charging that Boeing violated the Department of Labor statutes that he said it was unlawful to retaliate against a whistleblower.
He had alleged whistleblower.
Retaliation, and he was actually seeking compensation from the company as part of this lawsuit, saying he was blackballed and didn't deserve what he was owed to him because his bosses failed to heed all of the warnings that he had given them, and he said that he was suffering from PTSD as a result of the way that he
was treated. So look, I think Boeing is going to try and say, oh, he's a mentally disturbed individual and all of that, But from all of the testimony that they have right now, I mean, it's just one where.
Look so much at it too is so it's so sketchy.
For example, they say that all of his stuff was packed up, you know, whenever he was found dead. Why would you pack something up if you thought you were if you're a warning commitsuice. I mean, there's a lot of things you know, in the overall like mini by minute account of his death and of how his body was found and all of that, that still doesn't make a lot of sense. This all took place at a holiday inn. I'd love to see some camera footage about
that room and all that. But potentially, even if he was blackmailed, we have no idea certainly possible that he was mentally disturbed and fell pressure to this. But the more that we learn about it, that's sketchier and sketchier. The circumstances get so to flag.
That for everybody there was one other.
Well, there were a number of pieces of information this report that were new as far as I know, I recommend you read it. This was Yahoo, I believe that put this all together. And one of the things that they said was that when he was found there was some sort of a note that was with him. We don't know the contents of that note. We don't know what you know it allegedly says or didn't say. So that's another thing to keep an eye on. But obviously massive,
massive questions here about the circumstances surrounding his death. Okay, all right, all right, let's move on to the very latest out of Israel, and especially with regards to our government's unconditional support for their assault and annihilation of the Gaza Strip. We have more rhetorical pushback from the Biden administration,
especially vis a VI BB net and Yahoo. This is Jake Sullivan yesterday talking about how Biden rejects the straw man that Phebe has laid out that invading Rafa is necessary to beat Hamas.
Let's take a listen to how he framed.
That the Israeli government is now talking about launching a major military operation in Rafa. The President the Prime Minister spoke at length about Rafa today. The President explained why he is so deeply concerned about the prospect of Israel conducting major military operations in Rafa, of the kind of conduct it in Gaza City and Conunis. First, more than a million people have taken refuge in Rafa. They went from Gaza City to Knunis and then to Rafa. They
have nowhere else to go. Gaza's other major cities have largely been destroyed, and Israel has not presented us or the world with a plan for how or where they would safely move those civilians, let alone feed and house them and ensure access to basic things like sanitation. Second, Rafa is a primary entry point for humanitarian assistants into Gaza from Eba and from Israel. An invasion would shut that down or at least put it at grave risk,
right at the moment when it is most sorely needed. Third, Rafa is on the border with Egypt, which has voiced its deep alarm over a major military operation there and has even raised questions about its future relationship with Israel as a result of any impending military operation. Now the President has rejected and did again today the straw man that raising questions about RAFA is the same as raising questions about defeating Hamas.
That's just nonsense.
Our position is that Hamash should not be allowed to save Haven and Rafa or anywhere else, but a major ground operation there.
Would be a mistake.
It would lead to more innocent civilian deaths, worse in the already dire humanitarian crisis, deepen the anarchy in Gaza, and further isolate Israel internationally. More importantly, the key goals Israel wants to achieve and RAFA can be done by
other means. On the call today, and Biden asked the Prime Minister to send a senior interagency team composed of military, intelligence and humanitarian officials to Washington in the coming days to hear US concerns about Israel's current RAFA planning and to lay out an alternative approach that would target key Hamas elements in RAFA and secure the egypt Gods of border without a major ground invasion.
So there you go again, Sager.
I'm curious your reaction by, you know, sort of upping the anti in terms of the level of rhetoric. What I'm not hearing is still any actual concrete policy change.
Look, I think that they're trying. I mean, from their perspective, they have tried to delay this as long as they have. They believe that it was a they believe it's been successful, at least so far, because it hasn't happened. From what I understand, there is a new hostage negotiation temporary ceasefire thing happening right in Qatar.
I don't know lived through this movie before.
Yeah, we're supposed to get that done before Ramadan.
We've lived through many of these movies before. That said, people are still talking. It's not necessarily a bad thing. They're trying to forestall it at the very least. I think what the Biden administration's tried to do is hold off any sort of assault during the month of Ramadan, which he is really cleep saying that they won't do. But then they still haven't done it, at least so far.
I'm not exactly sure. What I do know is that increasingly that from the White House's perspective, there's been spit in the face now so many times that they are beginning to look ridiculous, where they're like, well, we've asked he's realies to do this and it's not happening. Well, we've asked he's really to do this, and it's not happening.
And they rely on obfuscations or just non acknowledgment. And in this particular case, if there is a rubicon cross with RAFA invasion, it would just be even more humiliating to them. But again, from the Israeli perspective, wiser why would they heed their warning?
There's no reason to do it.
Biden literally set himself on tape on camera that he will never condition AID to Israel.
Says that will never leave Israel.
That's it's like, okay, so you can have Jake.
Sullivan on here pushing back on your straw man and all you want.
You said you would ever leave Israel, You said you would never condition Aid, you know, specifically called out Iron Dome. But you know, in this same sentence where he's supposedly laying on a red line, he's immediately saying, well, there really is no red line. And again words are fine. BB does not care about words. That is very clear.
So they had to escalate from like, you know, there's leaks that used to come with our having tough conversations to now come into the podium and doing some rhetorical pushback and you know, green lighting Schumer's speech calling for newgaver. These you know, these things are not where I'm going to show you a few more noteworthy comments from other Democratic politicians. As long as there is no change in policy, it literally doesn't matter. And I don't think that they
have pushed back anything with regard to RAFA. Remember we were looking at those reports when bbe started talking about going into Rath and it became clear they had these plans, saying, well, they're not really ready to do this right now.
We saw this.
Haratz had a whole analysis of like, they're one hundred percent going to go in, but they're not prepared.
They don't have the troops on the ground, they don't have the plan worked up, etc. Etc.
So it's no surprise that has taken a while for them to be able to execute on these plans.
But make no mistake about it. Jake Sullivan calling them out for their straw.
Man is not going to dissuade them from continuing the horrors that we have seen, as none of the rhetoric has dissuaded them from continuing, for example, starving this entire population.
Put a pin in that.
Because I've got more on that, I think part of the context. Let's put this next piece up on the screen for why you're seeing this different rhetoric from the Biden White House is because they have finally belatedly realized that his unconditional support for Israel is a disaster for his electoral aspirations. This NBC News report is so revealing on a number of levels, so headline here. Behind the scenes, Biden has grown angry and anxious about re election effort.
In a private meeting at the White House in January, allies of the president just told him his poll numbers in Michigan and Georgia, kind of important states, had dropped over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, both their battleground states he narrowly won four years ago. As we all know, he began to shout and swear. A lawmaker familiar with the meeting said he believed he had been doing what was right despite the political fallout,
he told the group. So I think that part is in some ways the most revealing soccer because it's not like he's rethinking what he did. He still thinks he's right. He's just upset about the political fallout, which is why they're attempting this messaging shift from war behind Israel to we have problems with what Israel is doing, We're just too impotent in and effective to.
Actually change course.
Yeah, that makes sense.
At the same time, you know this also very noteworthy. Nancy Pelosi is even now directly calling out Israel for their starvation policy.
Let's take a listen to what she had to say.
The issue of food in God is a very big one, and either the Prime Minister Naciello is unaware or ill informed, but the head of the world's Central Kitchen, Jose Andres, who's there as you mentioned Sindy McCain, the World's Food Program, and any other other of these entities that are there to feed the people, will tell you there is starvation, there is famine, there is dehydration because it has not Israel has not allowed the food and the humanitarian assistants to go right in So.
This is significant SOGA because in order to be in accordance with American US law, you cannot ship weapons to a country that is blocking humanitarian aid. And so the fact that Nancy Pelosi is saying that outright is basically an admission.
That we have been violating US law.
Israel's just signed been compelled to sign this letter, you know, certifying that they're not blocking humanitarian assistance, which is just a complete lie.
And we also had.
Senator Van Holland similarly indicating they are not in compliance and saying it very directly.
Let's take a listen to that as well.
You said last week senators need to read the classified report prepared by the Director of National Intelligence about the NETNYA who government claims about that agency. You seem to be implying that the links to terror groups are unfounded.
Oh, there's no doubt that the claim that Prime Minister net Yaho and others are making that somehow UNRA is a proxy for Hamas are just flat out lies.
That's a flat out lie.
If you look at the person who's in charge of operations on the ground in Gaza for UNRA, it's about a twenty year US Army veteran, You can be sure he is not in cahoots with Hamas. Net Yaho has wanted to get rid of UNRA since at least twenty seventeen. That's been his goal, not just in Gaza, but also in the other places you talked about. And if you get rid of un in Gaza today, it is the
primary distribution system for food and aid. So if you cut off funding for UNRA in Gaza entirely, it means more people will starve, more people won't get the medical assistance they need, and so it would be a huge mistake to cut them off.
Israel has until March twenty fourth to turn in a letter. They reportedly did so are they in compliance?
No, they're not not as of today. And you're right, this is a very important tool that the Biden administrations put forward. Applies to Israel and any other country that receives US military assistance.
Well, President Biden's administration say that they're not in compliance.
Are you confident?
I hope they will because President Biden himself has repeatedly said that the net Yahoo government is unnecessarily restricting desperately needed humanitarian assistance. I mean, the President has said it
a number of times he said no excuses. So it may be that the Minister of Defense in Israel signed this, but I cannot imagine a scenario right now where Secretary Blincoln can find that that promise is credible and reliable when the day it was signed, clearly the net and Yahoo government is not compliance because we see that they're continuing to restrict humanitarian assistance.
So then the I'm not criticizing here because I think that was a good exchange. But the follow up question, Soccer is Okay, well, are you going to vote for continued military aid given the fact that you're certifying that they are not in compliance? Because that's really the bottom line here, Like you can express your bleeding heart liberalism by saying, you know, Israel is starving cousins and they're blocking humanitarian aid.
All of which is completely true.
But if you're still going to vote for the for the weapons to ship, what difference does it make what you say, Well.
The problem is they're not even voting right now because the Biden administration is going around their back doors to ship weapons to them with no congressional authorization. And this kind of calls back to what we were talking about previously they did this with Ukraine and they're doing it with Israel. Like the Imperial State basically just has the ability to ship weapons to whoever they want with no authority whatsoever. Remember eight months ago they were telling us
the Ukrainians were going to run out of weapons. Then they just devalued the weapon stock of everything so that they could tap even more.
It's self fakery. They do the same thing right now with Israel.
I was thinking about this with regards to this whole bullshit temporary peer situations, Like, if you wanted to build a peer for Americans, they're like infrastructure for Americans, there'll be a whole process. It wouldn't happen, it's the bottom line. And yet when it's you know, this temporary boondoggle port for some ass covering pr move for the Biden administration, pretend like they care about the fact that people are
starving to death. Oh, that can happen right away. It's like, what the hell is this system that we're operating under.
Literally no, they have total unilateral authority. It's totally wrong.
I mean, for yeah, the temporary peer it's going to cost billions and billions of dollars nobody voted for it, nobody authorized it, nobody has to fund it. The president has the ability to deploy it, use all these forces, and not a single one of us can do a thing.
And yeah, I mean look often it can be a meme, you know, and it can be low iq I think, be like, well, we've all this money for people over there and nothing for people over here, but here, like you are, right, Like, try building anything in the United States of America.
Try building that same temporary peer to benefit you know, flin Michigan or whatever, or was that.
What was that bridge that fell down, like Memphis or something like that, or Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania, that's what it was. There was one Pennsylvania took the governor like you know, he did it fast, and it was still not even as fast as something like that.
So it's a digression, but it does show you how we've.
Got all the money in the world for Israel, Ukraine, Afghanistan, anywhere else, but whenever it comes to our own people, it's a lot more difficult, and that's because it's anti Democrats.
We've also got health care for Havana syndrome, which.
Yeah, which is now officially officially fake but.
Oh healthcare for let's say, you know the people in East Palestine who were poisoned.
Oh, good luck, good luck.
That's just to underscore how dire the situation is, and to rebut the lies that are being pushed now on the Israeli side that oh, there's no humanitarian crisis.
Oh no, one's starving to deat These.
Are all lives, et cetera, lies that are being pushed by the way, by APAK to our members of Congress, elected officials, by lobbyists right here in DC. Oxenham has a new report on the specifics of the many ways in which Israel is in fact blocking AID.
We can put this up on the screen.
So they flagged seven different methods that Israel is using to block AID, resulting predictably in the starvation of the entire people.
I mean, the level of.
Starvation, hunger, famine in the Gaza strip has reached absolutely horrifying, unthinkable levels and it is I just have no words for the fact that we are standing by and allowing this to occur. So they say, number one, they only allow aid in via two crossings into Gaza. They are intentionally leading this dysfunctional and undersized inspection system so that even you know, what goes through those two crossings is minimal and wildly inadequate. They are routinely and arbitrarily rejecting
items as of aid as having dual military use. We're talking about, you know, things like fuel generators, including other items vital for a meaningful humanitarian response like protective gear and communications kit. I know one example, I saw sogers. They were walking tense from coming in after you've displaced basically this entire population. They've cracked down on humanitarian missions,
basically seiling off northern Gaza. That's the area where the level of hunger is the most acute, and where the people that we have seen, the children and babies that we have seen literally starving to death, are predominantly in northern Gaza. Israel's assault has caught Gaza's own aid workers, they write and international agencies partners inside a practically uninhabitable environment of mass displacement and deprivation. So the aid workers
themselves obviously subject to these same conditions. So how can they perform their duties to help the rest of the population when they themselves are struggling and starving and suffering under severe deprivation. Israel is rendered nowhere in Gaza safe. They write, amid the forcible and often multiple displacements of
almost the entire population, You displace the entire population. That's going to make aid distribution pretty difficult and dramatically spike the need, which is why there needs to be dramatically more trucks of aid coming into Gaza after October seventh than there were before. And they're not even able to
meet what was going in before, not even close. And they say their attacks are disproportionate and indiscriminate upon civilian and humanitarian assets, including people such as solar water power and sanitation plants, you and premises, hospitals, roads and aid convoys and warehouses, even when these assets are supposedly decon inflicted after their coordinates have been shared for protection. That's obviously something we have covered a number of times. But
some of the numbers here. Seventy five percent of sewage of solid waste is now being dumped in random sites, ninety seven percent of groundwater has been made unfit for human use, and they write, the Israeli state is using starvation as a weapon of war, which is just thoroughly undeniable.
At this point.
Yeah, I think it also raises the question about this aid. Are they going to inspect the US military port whenever we build it or not, because I'm starting to suspect given all of this, that there is going to be.
At least some clearance.
And it's like talked to about it outrageous, right, that there will be flagging things that we're giving as potentially dual use or whatever, which you can claim about anything, right, I mean, it just doesn't make are any sense. What was it They were like rejected a pair of scissors, like medical scissors because they could have been used as a weapon.
It's ridiculous. Yeah, I encourage people to go read this for themselves. You really should because you can actually see it.
And rejecting things like anesthetics and so you have children getting amputations with no I mean.
It's just beyond people.
It doesn't make any sense.
And speaking of striking civilian assets, the Israeli military, for I believe the fourth time, has once again rated Alshifa Hospital can put this up on the screen. This is the writer's report written very much from a Western perspective. I'll just say they say Israeli forces killed twenty gunmen in rate at Gaza's Alshifa Hospital, according to the IDF.
According to the IDF, in any case, they say the Palestinian health authorities claim this has caused multiple casualties, set off a fierce fire in one of the building's Special forces, supported by infantry and tanks, conducted a what they describe as a precise operation based on intelligence that the hospital was again being used by Hama's leaders were fired upon when they entered the compound.
The military said, Al chief of the Gaza strip's.
Biggest hospital before the war is now one of the only healthcare facilities that is even partially operational in the no of the territory. Is also housing hundreds of displaced civilians. They have a quote from a father of two who was nearby. He says, suddenly we started to hear sounds of explosion, several bombings, and soon tanks started to roll. They came from the western road and headed toward Al Shifa.
Then sounds of gunfire and explosions increased. Footage circulated on social media appeared to show an Israeli tank blocking the main gate of Al Shifa while this operation was being conducted. They apparently detained at least one journalist for some twelve hours and beat him while they detained him. He was there at Al Shifa to cover whatever this quote unquote precise operation was going to be. Put this up on the screen and said they arrested and beat this journalist.
It was their report on what happened, and Al Jazeera journalist it was there with his press, best on etc. Media watchdogs, they say, are decrying Ismail Algul's arrests from Alshifa Hospital where thousands of civilians are trapped. He was early on Monday with his crew and other reporters who cover the Israeli Army's fourth Rate into the hospital where thousands of civilians are trapped.
Witnesses said Al.
Jazeera reporter was dragged away by Israeli forces, who also destroyed the broadcasting vehicles of news crews at the medical facility. He has since been freed after twelve hours in Israeli custody. That reporter himself said that after his release that Israeli forces had.
Destroyed media equipment.
They had arrested other journalists as well, according to him, that had gathered in a room that was being used by media teams. He said the journalists were stripped of their clothes, forced to lie on their stomachs as they were blindfolded and.
Their hands tied.
This is no surprise, of course, because Sagar they have killed at least ninety five journalists and media workers, the overwhelming majority of them Palestinians, since October seventh. This is the largest toll of journalists that we have ever seen killed in offensive like this. And of course, you know, Raises listen. Al Shifa was the place that they claimed the hamas command and control center underneath there was a
whole big propaganda campaign around this. Even mainstream pro Israel outlets like The New York Times have said they never proffered evidence to match the extraordinary claims that were made not only by the Israelis but by our own government in the wake of that initial raid.
And you see how these things just.
Become normalized, where now they can raid Al Shifa in it you know, barely gets any attention, and by the way, can arrest and detained journalists, so they can't show what is actually happening on the ground.
Gee, I wonder what they have to hie.
Yeah, we tried to look actually for footage because we wanted to be able to show it here on our show.
Let's put this last part up on the screen.
This is also very important is that one of the men who was killed was a member of the Gazen civilian police force who there Biden administration had actually specifically asked Israel to stop targeting even though it is quote unquote Hamas run, because it is leading to a quote total breakdown of law and order and in significantly exacerbating
the humanitarian crisis. And I know this may sound facetious, but I actually did some research into this and kind of the way that we can think about it is Amas runs a gaza strip, so if you were in a civilian capacity, you're technically part from us. So the way that we can think about that is why was
debathification during the Iraq War such a bad idea? For those who are not familiar, what we said is that anybody who was part of the Bath Party, who was under Saddam could no longer be qualified to serve in government. The thing is is that just like them in a totalitarian state, Well, if you are part of the sewage company, then you're part of the Bath Party. If you're a teacher, you're part of the Bath party. If you are part of any civilian administration. That doesn't mean that you cared
or you believed in Saddam. It just means that you wanted a job. And so this is very similar. Again, as I understand it from the US point of view as to why there is a significant difference between the militant arm and the civilian arm. A lot of these guys are quote unquote amas in name only. They never had anything to do with any militancy. It was just
in terms of, you know, providing some civil administration. I've been a run in the damn place for seventeen years, so it wouldn't be crazy to think that these people don't exist.
Yeah, you've created conditions. Israel has created conditions of absolute desperation, chaos and anarchy in northern Gaza, in particular because they completely destroyed the area. I mean, we've seen the images of the level of devastation which is very near complete. You have hamas Is the government. So you know, even if you have a civilian police officers who are still wont to do the job, they're fearful of coming out because they'll get killed Like this dude, Yeah.
That's right.
So who is supposed to who is supposed to shepherd those.
Aid convoys through and get them to you know, the intended desperate civilian population Israel, sure as hell isn't doing it. They're firing on people who are desperately trying to, you know, grab some flour off the truck. Multiple times, not just the flower masker that got attention of over a hundred Palestinians killed, We've now had multiple incidents of them firing
on people who are desperately just seeking food. So this is the reason why the Biden administration has said, hey, stop killing police, because there is no other force of civil society that could create any sort of order. But I mean, at this point it's honestly too far gone. But I think it just illustrates once again the way that things have become normalized in this conflict. The you know, attacks on all sorts of civilian infrastructure institutions, they get
sort of floated. You know, there's a pr campaign. They try to convince the media and Biden that we have to do this for Hamas, and then they do it four more times either. You know, it says something about how poorly you're executing this war. That this same infrastructure has been you know, reinhabited and your words.
By hamas or more likely you have been lying this whole time.
And I think the fact that they intentionally detained the journalists who were there to cover what was going on is quite indicative of what is actually.
Happening there on the ground.
Crystal, what are you taking a look at?
Podcaster Lex Friedman recently hosted a roughly five hour long debate on Israel Palestine that was frustrating, combative at times, but nevertheless extraordinarily revealing. The debate featured author and scholar Norman Finkelstein, analyst and researcher Mauen Robani arguing the Palestinian perspective. On the pro Zionis side, you had author and historian Betty Morris and YouTuber Stephen Binnell, also known as Destiny.
Now, if your immediate reaction is that one of.
These individuals doesn't quite fit in with the rest, you are correct, and it was painfully obvious the entire five hours that Destiny was wildly on side of his depth. In fact, although many of the viral clips from the debate involved Destiny's humiliation at the hands of Norman Finkelstein, the truth is that for most of the debate he was kind of irrelevant, sitting like a child at the
grown ups table. His presence was nevertheless useful for helping to illustrate the commination of ignorance, wilful blindness, and debate bro tricks of the trade that are required to fully defend the Israeli position. At this point in time, Benny Morris and Destiny threw every propaganda device in the Hospara playbook up against the wall to see what would stick. So let's see how it went in the face of what at this point is an undeniable and indefensible reality.
So first up, any good Haspara campaign has got to start with a fairytale view of history. Now, in this history, the only permitted victims are Jewish people, who no doubt
were horribly victimized in the Holocaust. And in this history, the only just response to those atrocities is not for the US, the UK, or Germany and the Soviet Union to provide justice, peace and safety for the Jewish people, but rather to impose that burden entirely on a people who had nothing to do with the Holocaust, and who had in fact been by and large living peaceably alongside
indigenous Jews for centuries. In other words, the only solution to a European atrocity was to give lice to an additional atrocity, the ethnic cleansing of the native Arab Palestinian population from their own land, and the only acceptable response of that Palestinian population was then to meekly accept their dispossession. To do otherwise is to prove that Arabs from the beginning were violent, unreasonable, and anti Semitic. This was a matter of quite a lot of debate at the beginning
of the podcast. Here, for example, is Destiny challenging the idea that expulsion or ethnic cleansing was a core and necessary element of Zionism from the onset.
A claim that gets brought up a lot has to do with the inevitability of transfer in Zionism, or the idea that as soon as the Jews envisioned a state in Palestine, they knew that it would involve some mass transfer of population, perhaps a mass expulsion. I'm sure we'll talk about Plan Diwallador Plant d at some point. The issue that I run into is while you can find quotes from leaders, what you can find maybe desires expressed
in diaries. I feel like it's hard to truly ever know if there would have been mass transfer in the face of Arab peace, because I feel like every time there was a huge deal on the table that would have had a sizable Jewish and Arab population living together,
the Arabs would reject it out of hand. So, for instance, when we say that transfer was inevitable, when we say that Zionists would have never accepted a sizable Arab population, how do you explain the acceptance of the forty seven partition plan that would have had a huge Arab population
living in the Jewish state. Is your contention that after the acceptance of that, after the establishment of that state, that Jews would have slowly started to expel all of these Arab citizens from their country, Or how do you explain that in Lusana a couple of years later, that Israel was willing to formally annex the Gaza strip and
make two hundred thousand people those citizens. But I'm just curious, how do we get this idea of Zionism always means mass transfer when there were times, at least early on in the history of Israel and a little bit before it, where Israel would have accepted a state that would have had a massive Arab population in it. Yeah, it's your idea that they would have just slowly expelled them out.
Yes.
In fact, expulsion or apartheid is the only logical outcome of establishing a Jewish state in a land that was and is majority Muslim Arab. Zionis leaders at the time were pretty open about this and about the necessity of violence and conflict with that indigenous population. For example, Joseph White's head of the Jewish Agencies Colonization Department, set in nineteen forty quote, between ourselves, it must be clear that there is no room for both peoples together in this country.
We shall not achieve our goal if the Arabs are in this small country. There is no other way than to transfer the Arabs from here to neighboring countries, all of them, not one village, not one tribe, should be left. So pretty clear cut, and there are plenty of other historical quotes besides that that make it clear. Early Zionist leaders realized their ideology would inevitably result in conflict with Palestinians.
Some acknowledged that Arab resistance was in fact logical and even just, and that they would also fervently resist displacement if the roles had been reversed. Now it is this point about the reasonable and in fact inevitable nature of Palestinian resistance to Zionism that Mauen Rabani picks up on.
In doing so, he lays waste to the idea that Palestinians, in rejecting the original nineteen forty eight UN partition plan, were out of line, or even that it was inherently anti Semitic to reject a Jewish state being established on a portion of their land at all.
I mean, one doesn't have to sympathize with the Palestinians to recognize that they have now been a stateless people for seventy five years. Can you name any country yours, for example, or yours that would be prepared to give fifty five percent, twenty five percent, ten percent of your country to the Palestinians.
Of course not.
And so the issue was not the existence of Jewstine. They had been there for centuries, and of course they had ties to Palestine and particularly to Jerusalem and other places going back centuries, if not millennia, but the idea of establishing an exclusively Jewish state at the expense of those who are already living there. I think it was
right to reject that. And I don't think we can look back now seventy five years later and say, well, you should have accepted losing fifty five percent of your homeland, because you ended up losing seventy eight percent of it. In the addition, the remaining twenty two percent was occupied in nineteen sixty seven. That's not how things work. And I can imagine I can imagine an American rejecting giving
ten percent of the United States to the Palestinians. And if that rejection leads to war and you lose half your country, that fifty years from now you're going to say, well, maybe I should have accepted that.
So they didn't accept the establishment of an explicitly Jewish state because the inevitable outcome was some version of exactly the apartheid, ethnic cleansing and now out and out genocide that we are seeing play out. This was a point that Norman Finkelstein made quite eloquently talking about the version of nationalism Zionism represents.
Most theorists of nationalism say there are two kinds of nationalism. One is a nationalism based on citizenship. You become a citizen, you're integral to the country. That's sometimes called political nationalism. And then there's another kind of nationalism, and that says the state should not belong to its citizens, it should belong to an ethnic group. Each ethnic group should have its own state. It's usually called the German romantic idea
of nationalism. Zionism is squarely in the Jewish German romantic idea. That was the whole point of Zionism. We don't want to be Buddhists and be one more ethnic minority in Russia. We don't want to become citizens and just become a Jewish people in England or France. We want our own state. Like the no way, let's before we get to the Arabs, let's get let's stick to the Jews for a moment, or the Zionists. We want our own state. And in that concept of wanting your own state, the minority at
best lives on sufferance and at worst get expelled. That's the logic of the German Romantic Zionist idea of a state. That's why there's Zionists.
So the truth is the desires of the early Zionists, especially after the Holocaust, but even before, given the number of violent Pigrams in Europe, were completely understandable as the cause of black nationalism. A similar nationalist ideology given the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow and other discrimination, also
so understandable. But it's also true that though their aspirations were understandable, in reality, Palestine was not a land without a people, and realization of those Zionist aspirations in Palestine required committing grave injustices against the people who were presently
living in that land. Now, in order to accept the fairy tale version of history and to accept the current fairy tale version of Israel version Joe Biden seems to believe wholeheartedly in where the Israeli government would never intentionally target civilians, are engaged in apartheid, or have ethnic cleansing as a policy goal. In order to accept those disney versions of reality, you got to make a bedrock underlying assumption that Western powers in every instance have good intentions
and Palestinians in every instance have bad intentions. Now, oftentimes these assumptions are based in racist world views in which Westerners are inherently civilized and Arabs are inherently barbarians.
Net Nyahu hints at.
This when he describes their genocidal assault on Gaza as being a conflict between the suns of light and the sense of darkness. Now, this unshakable belief in the goodness of Western powers was evident throughout the debate. In a jaw dropping moment, Destiny reveals himself to be fully captured by an almost religious devotion to that benevolent view of Western powers.
Take a listen.
It was correctly brought up that I believe that ben Gurion had I think Schlimo Benamine describes it as an obsession with getting validation or support from Western states, Great Britain. And then a couple decades later it complains us who was, yeah, exactly correct, that was one of the major motivators the idea to work with Britain and France on a military
operationial stooge. But then the question again, I go back to if that is true, if Bengurion, if the early Israel saw themselves as a Western fashion nation, how could we possibly imagine that they would have engaged in the transfer of some four hundred thousand Arabs after accepting the partition plan. Would that not have completely and totally destroyed their legitimacy in the eyes of the entire Western world would not have been how not, if you thought.
The US and the UK would object at any point to naked barbarism against Palestinians, then the past several months should.
Have thoroughly disabused you of this notion. The idea that.
Israel and his allies are always operating with good intentions is also incredibly imparent in how incredulous Benny Morris and Desny both are at the notion Israel would intentionally target civilians. Now you would be very familiar with the arguments that were proffered in that section of the debate. Essentially, both of them argued that if civilians are killed, then they must have been human shields, or at the very worst, they were regrettably killed due to the one off actions
of a few rogue soldiers. Such atrocities could not possibly be the result of official Israeli government policy. Of course, a look at the evidence renders this view absurd. After October seventh, the Israeli Defense Minister announced to the world a top down policy of complete siege of the civilian population. That collective punishment has continued to a sufficient extent that children are now literally starving to death and Gaza is now the site of the worst levels of acute hunger
in the entire world. This in and of itself disproves the fantasy the Israeli governments would never target civilians intentionally. That's to say nothing of the vast destruction and debthol, which is inconsistent with the view that the problem civilian casualties is simply the result of a few bad apples.
The entire Gaza Strip population has clearly been targeted now in the Bait, Mouen Rabani does a phenomenal job of identifying this massive blind spot and hypocrisy when it comes to judgment of Israeli or Western actions versus Palestinian actions. This particular section has to do with documented Israeli atrocities committed against civilians in Lebanon.
Take a listen.
It sounds coold to say it, but war is tragic and civilians die. There is no war that this has not happened in in the history of all of humankind. The statement that Israel might take care not to target civilians is not incompatible with a diary entry from someone
who said they saw civilians getting killed. I think that sometimes we do a lot of weird games when we talk about international umanitarian law or laws that govern conflict, where we say things like civilians dying is a war crime, or civilian homes or hospitals getting destroyed as necessarily a war crime, or as necessarily somebody intentionally targeting civilians without
making distinctions between military targets or civilian ones. I think that when we analyze different attacks, when we talk about the conduct of a military I think it's important to understand, like prospectively, from the unit of analysis of the actual military committing the acts, what's happening and what are the decisions being made, rather than just saying retrospectively, oh, well, a lot of civilians died, not very many, you know,
military people died comparatively speaking, so it must have been war crimes, especially when you've got another side all fastward to Hamas that intentionally attempts to induce those same civilian numbers, because Hamas is guilty of any war crime that you would potentially accuse. And this is according to the Amnesty
International people that norm loves to cite. Hamas is guilty of all of these same war crimes of them, failing to take care of the civilian population, of them essentially utilizing human shields.
To try to fire rockets free from attacks. Essentially.
Yes, I'm just saying that essentially in terms of how international law defines them, not how Ambesty International defines them. But AMSCY International describes times of human shielding, but they don't actually apply the correct international legal standard.
I know, absolutely, but I absolutely have I absolutely I think. But I'm just saying I'm just saying, I'm just saying, believe it or not normal. The entire Geneva convections is all on wikipedi.
It's a wonderful lives, you know.
But I'm just saying, I'm just saying that on the Hummas side, if there's an attempt to induce this type of military activity, attempt to induce civilian harm, that is not just enough to say, like, well, here's a diary entry where a guy talks about how tracktic.
I think the problem. I think the problem with with your statement is that if you go back and listen to it, the first part of it is war as hell. Civilians die. It's it's a fact of life. And you state that in a very factual matter. Then when you start talking about Hamas, all of a sudden, you've discovered morality, and you've discovered condemnation, and you've discovered intent.
Ween absolutely bodied him there. When it's a mass, the bad intent is assumed. Destiny has zero trouble calling their actions war crimes when it's Israel or as Hell, and the default assumption is that they were trying to achieve legitimate military objectives and the civilians just got in the way. But double standards and hipocricy are not the only way of denying Israel as committing war crimes. When left with
no other options, one can simply deny basic reality. Here is Benny Morris resorting to this tactic when confronted with the starvation of Palestinians.
As today one quarter of the population of Gaza is starving. That means five hundred thousand children are starving or on the verge of famine.
It keeps saying, on the vergil, I have I've not seen.
I have not seen one Palestinian die of starvation in these last four months.
On the verge.
They have been documented cases I haven't seen.
Al Jazeera said six and the day before that they said too, So those are the two that.
Number probably dies in Israel starvational.
I don't think there's famine in Israel.
There isn't. There isn't in the Gaza strip either. It's something which is produced for.
The Western There are infants dying due to a engineered lack of access to food.
And engineered I think the must stop shooting perhaps.
Or as you say, I said engineered, I think.
I mun standing excuse me, human Rights Watch code that using starvation as a weapon, that's called engineering.
Benny Mar's claim there, I have not seen one Palestinian die of starvation. Maybe you need to spend some more time on TikTok where you might get actually information versus whatever propaganda networks you are currently being fed from. Yes, Palestinian children and infants are dying of starvation. Yes, it
is because of an intentional series of Israeli policies. In fact, Oxfam, as we discussed before, just released a new report detailing the many methods that Israel's using to intentionally starve Palestinians. That includes blocking it entirely, using an arbitrarily bureaucratic and restrictive process to block the aid indiscriminately targeting civilians, including
aid workers, rendering distribution impossible. In the face of these undeniable facts, which are too awful to defend without resorting to outright Nazi rhetoric, the only option left is just to flat out DENI reality. They're not o their choice if you're committed to painting Israel as a moral actor. For his part, Desty was inclined to pull from the debate bro playbook in order to distract an attempt to
put Norm and Moeen both on the defensive. One of these tactics was on display as the debate participants argued over whether or not Israel is in fact committing genocide. Now in this section, Destney attempted to throw up a smoke screen of complexity to number one, try to make it appear as if Norm's correct interpretation of the ICJ finding was wrong, thereby dodging the actual implication of that International court's ruling that the South African case alleging genocide
was in fact plausible. And two, in order to make the question of genocide seem so complex and technical that no layperson could possibly understand it, and you're a fool to even try. You also get to enjoy some of Norm's unbridled contempt for destiny in this exchange.
Take a look to.
Even make it to plausible.
Out with it is absolutely not dead.
Mister, Please don't teach me about the English language.
So the declarations judge.
In the present phase qualifying the Court is.
Not asked at this present phase of the proceedings to determine whether South Africa's allegations of genocide are well founded.
They're not well founded. They're not even well founded. You said that plausible was a high standard. It is absolutely not.
It is a misrepresentation of the strength of the case against Israel, just like the majority of the quotes they have in this case are and also you said it
was an extremely well founded case. They spend like one fourth of all of the quotations, some even pulled from the Goldstone Report that try to that actually deal with the intent part, which is by the way, I think you guys, I don't know if you use the phrase of the dolo specialist, that the intentional part of genocide, the I think it's I think it's called dolo specialist. It is the most important part of genocide, which is proving the special there's a highly special intent to commit genocide.
It's possible in Israel.
That's men's thralium.
No, the men's yes. I understand the state of mind. But for genocide there is it's dulles specialist. It's a highly special intent.
Did you read the case, Oh, it's a highly special intent. Dulus specialis. If you don't know this obscure legal term, then apparently you can't possibly understand the concept of genocide. It's a neat way for Destiny to dismiss the targeting of civilians, the collective punishment that direct quotes of high level Israeli officials admitting their genocidal intent, because only Destiny at the table possesses this super special knowledge, and so only he is qualified to judge whether Israel has in
fact met the bar of this highly special intent. Now, as our friend Jegor details on Twitter, there is nothing magical about the Latin legal term dulus specialis. It just means specific intent. In other words, you can't accidentally do a genocide. You got to have specific intent, something that Norm and Ween clearly demonstrate in their comments that they
fully understand. Furthermore, there is actually debate for what it's worth in the international law community about how such intent can be established, Since usually usually governments do not go around declaring they are doing a genocide. Many scholars argue that as a result, circumstantial evidence could suffice for proving this specific intent to genocide or Dolus specialists if we're
being fancy. In the case of Israel, however, we don't really have this problem since everyone from bb to President Herzog to a defense minister, to a wide variety of war cabinet ministers and ruling party members have been happy to give quotes elucidating their genocidal intent as South Africa accurately detailed in their ICJ filing. This assertion of complexity is a go to tactic for Israel defenders, and it's
quite effective. Frankly, many a liberal concerned about the humanitarian horror unfolding before their eyes can be shut down in an instant by a simple assertion that the situation's really complex and therefore outside of the understanding of those without
encyclopedic knowledge of every twist and turn in the historical record. Now, ironically, Norm Mouween and Benny actually have that encyclopedic expert knowledge of the conflict, which Destiny is himself completely lacking, but the tactic is such a go to that Destiny attempts it anyway, even when confronted with actual legit experts, and of course the history of the technical legal minutia. All these things are of course complex, but the basics are
not difficult to understand. Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their land, they live under occupation and blockade, both of which are illegal. They're currently being slaughtered and starved en mass. You don't need to know what Theodore Hertzel Wroten's diary in eighteen ninety six in order to understand these things, although normal
Ween and Benny actually do know such specific details. Relatively, I don't think it's inappropriate for non experts like Destiny or myself for that matter, to have opinions and to voice them and to defend them and to debate them even with experts. I might just recommend a little bit of humility awareness of the bounds of your technical knowledge as compared to legit historians who have spent their entire
adult lives studying all of the details. Now, there is one final tactic consistently deployed by Destiny, and Benny in this debate, which is worth illuminating, and that is the inconsistent appeal to international law. Now, when it suits Israelis, such as when discussing the original UN partition.
Plan, then international law is everything. It's binding.
When it doesn't suit them, such as when being held accountable for illegal settlements and war crimes, it's irrelevant, it's useless.
Who cares.
This selective appeal to international law came out several times throughout the debate, but perhaps most notably in an exchange between Norm and Benny, in which Norm de cries the illegal blockade of Gaza and Benny replies that the judgment of these international bodies, it's irrelevant, no one cares, and that we should quote, forget the law, take a lesson.
They were shooting rockets at Israel for twenty years. Why is that illegal? To blockade Gaza?
Why? Why is it illegal?
I'll tell you why.
You don't draw it your calbury expect.
I'll tell you why.
Expect that works both.
I'll tell you why because every human rights, humanitarian and un organization in the world has said, has said, nobody cares. This is a form of collective punish which is illegal under international you think, you think a block hate.
You don't understand the way the world works, and you.
Think, and you think confining, because that's the blockade, confining, confining a million children combining.
That's the confining.
That's a million children in what the Economist called a human rubbish sheep war and support, but International Committee Red Cross called a sinking ship, with the U n. High Commissioner for Human Rights a toxic slum. You think you think under international law, you think it's legitimate. Forget Hey, I know you want to forget the law. It's the thing that every it's what every Israeli fears the most, the law. And Sippy literally said, I studied international law.
I oppose international law. Of course you don't want to hear about the law. Okay, So here's the thing. Then don't complain about October seventh if you don't want to. If you want to say, I forget about the law. There is no international humanitarian law. There's no distinction between civilians and combatants. And so now you're doing what Mouen said, You're becoming very selective about the law if you want to forget about the law.
So Nor refers there to Mawen had said previously about the selective appeal to international law, and in fact Mawen did sum up this point quite brilliantly and succinctly.
If you want to dismiss international law, that's fine, but then you have to do it consistently. You can't set standards for the Palestinians but reject applying those standards to Israel. If we're going to have the law of the jungle, then we can all be beasts, and not only some of us. And I think so it's either that or you have certain agreed standards that are intended to regulate our conduct, all of our conduct.
Not just some of us.
So does international law matter or do we all live by the law of the jungle? Makes right?
It's a good place to wrap up, because that's really the core question being tested right now in the Kaza strip.
Can any of the international rules that were set after the horrors of World War II withstand the genocide being committed in front of our eyes, with the direct aid of our country, the world's quote unquote superpower, well, distinctions between civilians and combatants, or prohibitions on war crimes or genocide, Will any of that survive this moment, or will we drop even the pretense of pretending to care about these concepts and leave it, as Mwen says, to the law
of the jungle, where we can all be beast because even the propaganda smokescreen carefully erected over decades cannot block the world from seeing the echoes of those World War II atrocities. You cannot see the images of the wasted, starved bodies of Palestinian children without thinking about the Holocaust. You can't witness the utter destruction of Gaza and not think of Dresden or even Hiroshima. You cannot hear the casual public dehumanization of human beings as animals and vermin
and not think of Nazi ideology. The wall of Hasbara has crumbled, and we are all left to wrestle with the grave crimes that our leaders are perfectly willing to commit. So Sager, even though, and if you.
Want to hear my reaction to Crystal's monologue, become a premium subscriber today at Breakingpoints dot com. All right, we'll see you guys later. I know it was a long one, but we'll get it to you as long as we can.