Old media.
This is it could happen here. Executive Disorder, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what this means for you. I'm Garrison Davis today I am joined by Mia Wong, James Stout, and Robert Evans. This episode recovering the week of November thirteenth to November nineteenth. The biggest news I think of this whole week. Jd Vance has been sentenced to two years in prison for
threatening Donald Trump and jd Vance. This is, of course James Donald Vance Junior.
Different jd Vance.
A sixty seven year old man from Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Second. Jd Vance has hit the discourse.
Who's also named Donald, which is phenomenal.
It's amazing.
Whop plead a guilty to three criminal accounts based on the social media posts about killing the President, the Vice President, Elon Musk, and Trump Junior.
Yeah, not good, not a good, ye, Garrison. I would quibble that that is a bigger story this week because this is the week of couse that Nicki Minaj addressed the United Nations.
And this is a week where years happened.
Ye Nicki Minaj, if readers are familiar with her. It will doubtless be because of her contribution to discourse on her cousin's friends testicles. But this this time, she's back and she is talking about the perse baby. Yeah, that's what we do here. She's talking about the persecution of Christians in Nigeria. Just for listener to another way, Nicki Minaj is from Trinidad. Yeah, not at word of any particular expertise or insight she has on a topic. But yeah, she she did that this week.
Yep, at the United Nations.
How did do we know? How she decided that this was a problem she needed to get involved.
She reposted a truth that Donald Trump had made great and I've had a great start. I believe they reached out on the basis of that. There's some tremendous like statements calling her the greatest female recording artist in history. Yeah, yeah, which sets us up nicely for a Nicki Minaj Dolly Parton beef.
Yeah.
I think I join on the side of Dolly Parton in that one.
It would be hard not to, yep.
So yeah, I guess she reposted a thing about a truth that led to them reaching out, and she volunteered her time to address the United Nations organizations set up afterward what to try and prevent genocides. Yeah, outstanding.
The truth is so beautiful. Yes, speaking of the truth and the truth coming to light, we're talking about Jeffrey Epstein again, I guess.
Yeah, the ongoing revelations based on He's this guy's post depth career has really been one for the books.
Yeah, he really really rivals Michael Jackson in more than one way.
Yeah, or Tupac, I would say Tupac.
No.
It was when when fucking John McAfee died, there were all these people being like, oh, he's got you know, because his McAfee had lied and said, I've got like an insurance folder that'll come out in the event of my death that'll, you know, reveal a bunch of top level secrets. And John McAfee didn't know shit.
He was.
He was a crazy old drug addict who killed his nephew and then fled to South America or Central America anyway, whatever, one of the America's one of the He fled to a different America than the one that he came from anyway. But that's actually happening with Jeffrey Epstein, we actually now have a lot of dirt on a lot of people. Larry Summers just left the board of Open AI because he was revealed as a rampant misogynist and friend of a pedophile sex trafficker. Not a good look.
He's also announced that after finishing his current class at Harvard, he will be resigning from Harvard University.
What a loss for Harvard. I don't know how they're gonna run.
Well, it's the biggest low since President Gay.
Yeah, look, Harvard, if you need someone to teach his class, I'll do it. I don't know what his class is. I don't actually know what Larry does. We know what his expertise is, but I feel like I could do a better job. Yeah, bring me in.
We do know a little bit about what Larry does, and that is the problem.
Yeah. Yeah, the sex crimes right after recording Executive Disorder last week, not the most important, but certainly the oddest email was uncovered as a part of that big document's release. This is an exchange from twenty eighteen between Mark Epstein and Jeffrey Epstein to brothers. Let's start with Mark, how are you doing? A while back? You mentioned that you were pre diabetic. Has anything changed with that? What is your boy Donald up to now? Jeffrey replies, all good,
and with me. Mark replies, ask him if Putin has the photos of Trump blowing Bubba. You know, yeah, I'm going to continue the exchange. Yeah, because, Jeffrey replies, and I thought I had terrists. Mark replies, you and your boy Donnie can make a remake of the movie Get Hard sent via tin can and a string.
Oh god.
Jeffrey replied, you mean Donnie T. And Mark replied, I'd rather be in Donnie D's shoes. That's the exchange.
Also, what Epstein said was was siris, which is a Yiddish word that means like problems, like I got I got problems, I got shit, I'm all, I'm all fucked up, which he was. He was not wrong about that, look, yep.
So many people have speculated that this could be a reference to former President Bill Clinton, whose nickname was Bubba, and whose name is Bubba in some of these other emails, or is referred to as pub in some of these other emails.
Which is something that I've seen surprise a lot of people. If you grew up in the nineties. You were aware that his nickname was Bubba, but he has not been called Bubba in a very long time. When he like lost all that weight and went vegan and like it kind of stopped seeming like as much of a Bubba as he did when he was the president. The Saturday Night Live made fun of in that great McDonald's sketch. But yeah, anyway, continue gare.
I mean, I don't know how what else there is to say here. You know, photos have been recirculating Trump, Yes.
Bubba gump shrimp, Well, the real.
Bubba, please stand up.
Photos have been recirculating of Trump, I would say, groping Bill Clinton's penis. Yeah, yeah, yep.
There's more there than you expect, right, yes, yeah, but Bubba.
Has referred to a few people, including other people like in Epstein's circle, like a golf and models. Yeah, but Bubba was also the name of Gleaine Maxwell's horse.
Oh I'm just not hearing this, and that's I'm sorry.
And here's the thing. I see the appeal to believing that this is the answer. I simply don't believe Donald Trump ever had that kind of throat game. I'm sorry, I just don't. I just don't accept that.
This is by far the funniest possibility that he did like a joke photo shoot where he like pretetted.
I could see him doing that.
This is really understandable. This is like, this is really doable.
Heaven't we all been there? So that is.
Yeah, and you know, take this however you will, Like Mark Epstein has denied that the bubba referred to in the email is a reference to Bill Clinton, while also admitting in this same like interview to a news nation and a statement that like, you know, Jeffrey certainly did have dirt on the president and thought that he was the only one that could sink both candidates career in twenty sixteen, both both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.
Pretty good chance that's true.
Actually yeah, But he for what it worth is saying it's not a reference to Clinton. Who who knows.
That there's a real sort of you know, if if you if you want to do the sort of pop Marxist live this, there's a real sort of historical unity of the ruling class moment. When you read these emails and the people in them, it's like it's Bill Clinton. It's Bill Clinton's like the people around Bill Clinton it's
Ken Starr. And you know, you go back and you look at like you look at like the actual like impeachment of Bill Clinton, right, and you realize that every single one of these people are all friends with Jeffrey Epstein and are just kind of hanging out like yeah on like on the pedophile island.
And it's just yeah, it's it's.
Something that like you couldn't if like the most the most sort of on the nose, like I like completely didactic, I'm pounding your head with a hammer, like Marxist thing from nineteen sixty where they go, Yeah, all of the presidents are hanging out on Pedophile Island like consecretly conspiring behind your back, and they're taking photos of them like
grabbing each other's dicks like you wouldn't believe. But it's like no, no, no, no, this is just this is just the historical unity of the ruling class is literally they're all friends with this pedophile Well.
It's just these are all wealthy, powerful people and the only people that they socialize with is each other. You know. The New York Times came up with an out with an article this week that was like the Epstein emails or an insight into an old New York long departed or yeah, that was an incredible headline, And yeah, I mean it was. This was like the transition between all of these people writing each other letters and all of these people just bitching publicly on the internet, openly and
losing their minds. Like the awkward interstittle period was them all emailing each other from their iPads. Right, So, to that extent, the New York Times article is right, not the main takeaway from the Jeffrey Epstein emails, I would say, probably not worth an article in the Times, but it's not wrong technically.
Yeah, yeah, it's a fascinating thing to choose to.
Go Yeah, that poor horse.
Yeah, it's a little bit. It's a little bit like a journalist showing up in Berlin in late nineteen forty five and like going through like papers in the ruins of the Reichstag and being like, wow, this really reveals a lost to Berlin. It was like, I mean, yeah, that's really the point.
The other comments on on Bubba.
Did anyone ask guys his brother about the Holtz?
I don't believe Mark has been asked about the horse.
Mark is in a not that I have a ton of sympathy for this guy, but just recognizing things objectively. He's in a tough position because his brother was an incredibly famous he's a file sex trafficker. Yeah, and he is desperately trying not to get disappeared by the regime or he also knows what'll come after the regime, so he doesn't want to set himself in a self up in a way where he gets in trouble from that either, right, Like it's a legitimately complicated situation he finds himself in
that his brother just kind of laughed for him. And again, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the man, but I can recognize it because he also said at the same time he was like this definitely was not him, referring to Donald Trump giving a blowjob to Bill Clinton. He did also say that he believed that the Republicans were removing the names Republicans from the Epstein files before release. Right, So he's he has been like hedging his bets because
again he's in a lot of danger. Yeah, this man, this man is in trouble.
Yeah.
Yeah, I would not be granted infused if I was him, I would.
Be I wouldn't say shit, yeah.
Like literally under the ground.
Yeah, I would. I would, for one thing, not be in a country that extradited.
I would.
I would never set foot in a country with extradition treaties to the Western world. Again.
Yeah, the next strike in Venezuela will be Mark Epstein.
I would be living in Tehran right now.
Like, let's talk about Marjorie Trader Green.
Sure, why not? Yeah, so Marjorie Taylor Green is part of the resistance.
Now hashtag welcome to the Resistance.
Yeah, exactly.
It's very like and Or.
Sure, it's like that point in and Or where the person and who did nothing but help Emperor Palpatine suddenly at the last minute was like, you know what, this guy want to step too far from me, you know?
Or A, Actually I hate Jewish too much that.
I think that's the I think that's the reality.
I wasn't sure if there was an analog for anti Semitism in the Star Wars universe.
That I wasn't Well, you probably don't want to, you know what.
I've asked the wrong people.
Right now, you have three hours, James.
In the early two thousands, George Lucas invented some names that are themselves hate crimes. Just be remembering the names is a hate crime.
James, Do you want to read about the Troydarians.
No, No, I'm as far as I get into into Star Wars Bigotrey discourse is Jia Juo Binks and after that I leave.
Well from the same movie.
But no.
So, Yeah, Marjorie has been more combative against some of the you know, Trump cultist mega right on a few issues. One she's extended her already evidenced anti Semitism, a lah Jewish space lasers towards foreign policy in this like America First, Nick fuent Tzi way of being critical of Israel. You see seeds of this because like Martin Tyler Green like attended the Nick Fointes America First conferences like four years ago, Like this is this this side of it not a
surprising turn for her. Her finally flipping on Trump in terms of the pedophile stuff may be a little bit surprising because she was the original like QAnon candidate. Yeah, and QAnon's built on this, like trying to justify in some ways Trump's proximity to Epstein by building this grand narrative.
And she made a statement recently that she's no longer all in on the Q stuff right like she had she is. This is a pivot for her, but it's a pivot that's pretty consistent with you know, her anti sense.
And it makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it makes sense with with with the Israel foreign policy stuff. It also makes sense in terms of Trump's made a a lot more statements directly addressing this Epstein stuff, which kind of does call into question some of like the Q narratives, which for someone like Marjorie might actually get her to kind of reflect on some of some of like this
Trump cultish status that she's had for a while. This has frustrated Trump, and you know, Trump's also been frustrated with other members like Lauren Bobert and other like congress people who were pledging to vote in support of the release of the Epstein files. And this pressure was building a lot last week during this like twenty thousand document release and all this new news coverage and as these as more and more Republicans bean to deflect from Trump
over the release of the Epstein files. Trump himself flipped his rhetoric over this past weekend, still calling the debate over the files a Democrat hoax, but truthing that the files should be released because we quote unquote have nothing to hide, and he called on Republicans to vote in favor of the bill to release the Epstein files, which they did on Tuesday in a four hundred and twenty seven to one vote, with Representative Clay Higgins, the Republican
from Louisiana, the only congressman to vote no. Hours later, Chuck Schumer unanimously passed the measure through the Senate. Mike Johnson had previously expected the Senate to amend the bill to quote make sure we don't do permanent damage to the political system unquote, and after its passage through the Senate, Johnson seemed quite worried that it went through the upper
chambers in its current form. And I want to play this clip here because it's kind of shocking to hear him, hear him freak out.
And before we say this, you owe it to yourself as a person to go actually look at this clip and watch his face.
It is amazing.
Sorry, I haven't seen this. I'm excited.
It'll be in the sources below.
Action to lead your foond.
Are you seeing the bill without adding amendments or changing it.
I am. I am deeply disappointed in this outcome. I think I'm told I've been at the state dinner.
I don't know.
I was just told that Chuck Schumer rushed it to the floor and put it out there preemptively. It needed amendments. I just spoke to President about that. We'll see what happened.
So is he do you think he may beat on it?
You say you spoke, I'm not saying that.
Is he supportive of it in its current form?
We both have concerned about it, So we'll see.
As I was staying there with the.
Crown transmitting call, are you frustrating on the Majority leader?
Are you uptime with.
The Majority leader?
Cool?
Nice?
What a what a normal?
What a normal interaction That is also also worth the very end of that video, he says I was eating with the Crown Prince because he is again walking out of a state dinner with one Mohamed bin Selmond.
The yeah, I.
Don't even list of war crimes here, the suit, may child, soldier, exterminator, et cetera, et cetera.
But no, it's safe to say that both Johnson and President Trump have concerns about the state of the bill and Johnson seemed a little bit wishy washy on if the President would even sign this or veto this. Now, it's not all bad for the president. I oh, I'd like to seal Donnie j wiggle his way out of
this jam. This bill that has passed does allow Attorney General and Bondy to withhold or redact portions of the files that could jeopardize active federal investigations and personally determine if information in the files should remain classified to protect national security. The last weekend, Trump ordered Bondy to launch investigations looking into connection between Epstein and prominent Democratic politicians and donors. Here's clip from a Wednesday, November nineteenth press conference.
Jurnity General, do you mean that you will provide all the files by thirty days?
We will follow the law. The law passed both chambers last evening. It has not yet been signed, but we will continue to follow the law again while protecting victims, but also providing maximum transparency.
To that mad Maternity General. The DLJ statement earlier this year saying that the files would not release mention the fact that the review of the documents and the evidence did not suggest that any additional investigation of third parties was warranted. What changed since then that you launched this investigation?
Information that has come for information, there's information that new information, additional information, and again we will continue to follow the law to investigate any leads. If there are any victims, we encourage all victims to come forward, and we will continue to provide maximum transparency under the law.
Very normal, very normal response.
Uh huh, Yeah, that's that doesn't sound sketchy.
I have never, at any point in the last eight years, twelve years, however long we've been in this hellscap, been a been a pistape believer. This looking at these people's faces is the closest I've ever been to being like, no, maybe that shit's real, and maybe it's in there, because there's clearly something in there that they are just they're just going through it.
Yes's wild.
Yeah, some of these guys seem to seem a little bit concerned.
Yeah, Yeah, I wonder why, surely there's no.
I mean, imagine the workload ahead of them. They have to redact so much. Yeah, I have to get so many of those markers. Imagine how tired their risks are going to be.
Yeah, it's like that feeling when you come back from a reporting trip and you're like, now I have to do the job.
Yeah, yes, I'm familiar with that feeling.
Do you know what we have to do right now? Ads? It's pivot to ads.
Yes, yeah, let's go ahead and do that and we're back.
Now. I would like to take some time to discuss probably the second most important news story of the whole week, do It Sure, which is totally not a hail Mary distraction to get away from the Epstein stuff. This is
totally legitimate and totally newsworthy. On Monday, November seventeenth, a piece in the prestigious outlet The New York Post opinion section provided earth shattering relevations revelations care that's the word about the attempted Trump assassination, claiming to have discovered evidence that Thomas Crooks, the shooter, had two possible accounts on Devian Art.
Which, yeah, this really is the biggest story, which the post New York Post describes as quote one of the biggest online hubs for furry art and the furry community.
A furry is someone who has an interest in mormorphized animal characters, often as a sexual fetish.
Unquote every time.
Later reporting in The New York Post claimed that one of these accounts had only shared a single post quote a repost of a towering, muscular female bodybuilder and a slight man in his underwear unquote and quote. Multiple searches for muscular women and female bodybuilders were found on Crook's supposed YouTube search history.
He's a real pervert, then excellent, yes, beautiful quote.
Oh it's not it's oh, Robert, that's That's not even the worst part. The furry stuff obviously problematic considering our past few furry mass shooters. Is maybe a trend here. We should look into this. But possibly the most damning piece of information in the New York Post reporting is that Crooks quote described himself with the pronouns they them on the platform Debian art, which is one of the biggest hubs for furry art and the furry community. This
became the big thing among the right. Another trans shooter, the Trump the Trump assassin was trans the whole time, and we didn't even know. The FBI covered up the trans connection. Here. It's all coming together more more red string on the board. The trans the trans shooter narrative is growing more and more evident. By the day.
Right.
This, this is the way that this was framed across all of these all these commentators.
Who's the president right now is supposed to work?
At the time they investigated, Biden would have been president right or they began their investigation.
The New York Post did reach out to the current FBI for comment. They did not receive a response.
Deep State.
The New York Posts reporting like in these in these opinion pieces, and I think later an article they did did later include references to quote violently anti Semitic comments and racist remarks about Hispanic immigrants.
Hmm, that seems Thomas Crooks.
Also made, including YouTube comments from twenty nineteen quote, this is going to be blatantly racist. But I hope Trump has these people a squad murdered.
Oh great.
I always believed being patriotic was lighting up a bunch of socialist Jews like the ones that booed Trump and blasting their useless brains out with an ar I hope a quick, painful death to all the deplorable immigrants and anti Trump congresswomen unquote. Obviously, the right wing commentators are not talking about this sort of stuff. They're not talking about Crook's actual politics or political shifts during the pandemic where he started getting kind of more Trump critical, but
still from a conservative perspective. Instead, the story is now to quote libs of TikTok, Charlie Kirk killer furry fetish, Trump shooter, furry fetish, Idaho firefighter killer furry fetish, what's going on? Right wing podcaster and disgraced BuzzFeed journalist Benny Johnson quote it has now been confirmed that attempted Trump assass and Thomas Crooks used they them pronouns, had a deep interest in furries and was exploring gender identity. Add
it to the list. This list is then a list of both real and many not real quote unquote trans mass shooters. Another account in d C. Draino, who was part of the White House photo op team during the initial fake release of the fake Epstein files, not that the files were fake, but like this fake meetia UH presentation around releasing the already released and actually even more redacted versions of already public files. Dcudrena was one of these guys who was like paraded around as like a
prop holding up these binders of files. He posted quote it is now confirmed the deep state tried to cover up that Thomas Crooks was a transgender extremist, to use the then pronouns and then shot President Trump. We need a massive crackdown against violent trans extremism. This sort of stuff is losing steam. This sort of stuff is not
spreading around the way that it has been previously. It's very clear that this is a blatant distraction away from unflattering stories about Trump in terms of the economy and specifically Epstein and all of this. Uh. You know, you might be wondering why maybe no other outlets of picking this stuff up, and that could be due to the dubious nature of the New York Posts sourcing on these claims, but also the fact that devian art automatically lists the
user's pronouns as they them as the default setting. If pronouns are not specified, this is the setting that everyone gets. You have to actively try to change it. There is no indication Thomas Crooks specifically set pronouns to theay them. He is not a transgender extremist. He, like many gen Z people, is aware of furry art online. This is
very common. This is a very common thing. But the post had a few other things They try to try to wrap this story around to give it some credibility, including this post from the Devian art alleged to belong to Thomas Crooks, which is a picture of someone shooting someone else in the head, which your post calls another artwork appear to feature a shooting against a backdrop of the trans flag colors. This is not the trans flag, nor the trans flag colors. This is a blue and
purple background. What purple is not in the transflag colors. You can maybe argue this is magenta maybe, but this is not a transflag. This is not an LGBTQ pride flag. This isn't even the bisexual flag, which does use these same colors. This is just like a sky blue and a magenta purple backdrop, which they are trying to frame
as further evidence of Thomas Krook's transgender ties. But what is kind of interesting is as a part of the social media accounts alleged to be linked to Crooks that have appeared in new reporting from both The New York Post and Tucker Carlson's own news outlet, But as a part of this reporting on Crook's possible online background included a collection of search results or like search history from April of twenty nineteen to May of twenty twenty, which
lines up with stuff that me and Robert have been talking about for a while in that this guy seemed to have the ideology or non ideology of a school shooter. This is the actual through line across this act of violence.
These searches include quote crazy chemical reactions, deadliest mass shootings in the world, people attacking pride parades, cars running over protesters, getting away with racism, best places for a mass shooting, Pulse nightclub, Pulse nightclub, police body camera, mass shooting, El Paso mass shooting, Trump civil war, Trump church shooting video, guns versus protesters, Orlando shooting reaction. Why I'm missing handgun? Firing an air fifteen as fast as possible, fertilizer bomb.
How do you use a tourniquit? How to make napalm Maltov cocktail? How to make maltov cocktail mixing ghasoline with styrofoam, Mass shooting, Canada, Oklahoma bombing sniper in Dallas shooting.
Man, Yeah, who's in real trouble? Hitting with his pistol huh.
And his rifle.
It turns out probably choking up to your much on the trigger.
I guess, yeah, many such cases. Yeah yeah, but that's that's a pretty clear theme that you've established there, Garrison.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like you see this in some way being like a not necessarily an actual precursor, but in the same vein that some of these like TCC people later would you know, start developing these past few years, and it's just obsession with doing violence. This subsception with mass killings, with bombings, and some of it takes the form of like you know, what looks like political violence, like the Oklahoma City bombing, but a lot of it
is is very nihilistic. That's all I have on the explosive reporting from the New York Post.
Great, great.
I don't know how to segue from that list of Google searches to tariff talk, but you know what I've been searching for is this music locking jazz bomb, rocking jazz, sorry lacking.
Rocket Jazz, Bob Rocket jazz boy.
So this is actually a very this has been a very very light week on tariff news. It is almost entirely composed of people arguing about whether you're going to get the tariff check, which no, you're not. You're not going to get a check from the government with teriff money. It's just not happening. So I thought, I thought I'd take a second to pull out and look at some of the macro stuff that's.
Happening in the economy and.
Look at why it feels like a recession even though there isn't one. And the answer is that you and me, and everyone in this room and probably most of the people's sister keep listening to this podcast, are effectively in
a recession. And the reason I can say this is that there's there's pretty good numbers from the Harvard economists Jason Furman, who points out that if you if you look at so okay, so recession is is three consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth, right, And this is not like a perfect economic indicator, but you know, Jason Furrin points out, ninety two percent of GDP growth in the first half of this year is in a category that's
called information processing equipment and software. And so, okay, what is that? That is all data center it's all data center construction.
It is ninety two percent of all of our GP growth.
Well, the good news is that, for example, Oracle didn't just make a big deal with open AI to provide them with computing resources, and after making this three hundred billion dollar deal has dropped three hundred and fifteen billion dollars in valuation. That didn't happen obviously, Like these are things are good in an AI world. There's not a bunch of people pulling their money out of Nvidia as fast as they can.
Yeah, we're getting to that.
Yeah one of them again, Peter Deal pulling his money out right now, getting all.
His shit out.
Yeah, get your shipped out. Fucking Michael Burry is now shorting the ass.
Okay, I will say this, The Michael Burry short thing is literally the only thing that I've ran into that actually makes me be like that. Like Michael Burry versus the AI industry is like really truly is the great duel of the stoppable force and the movable object. Yeah, like that's who're not dealing with like world rending titans here.
But you know, but we are. We are going to get a sequel to The Big Short that's going to really struggle to be entertaining because with the Big Short, what was fun was these guys realizing how fucked the this like system based on like really bad like tranches of debt and how badly it was going to fuck the economy and with AI it's just going to be like literally everyone in the world except for the people in media and politics, being like the same, like a
fucking grift. This seems bad and them all being like no, no, no, bro trusts me, no no no, And then it all goes to ship. Yeah.
I'm going to do a full episode about this to some point.
There's a really good interview on a on a Bloomberg podcast called Odd Thoughts with its kind of Paul Katrowski who points out that well, ay, he has a great line but calling this like the super bubble basically where it's it's every single kind of speculative bubble rolled into one because all these data centers are being financed with like the with the equivalent of mortgage backed securities.
Well yeah, these are these are subprime loans for tech companies, right, Like that's that's what's financing all of this.
Yeah, and then these buildings. Right.
It's also it's also a real estate bubble because all of these data centers are taking a ridiculous amount of real estate. There's a tech bubble, and the single thing that and again, we're going to do a longer episode
about this later. The single thing that's the most unhinged to me about this, and it's you know, even even excluding the fact that you know, all of these processors that they're using these data centers burned out after about a year and a half because they're just running them constantly, is that if you look at like the housing collapse in two thousand and eight, right, and you look at what was underlying all of those bad assets, there were houses there right at the end of the day, all
of these banks can go in and they can take your house, and that's really bad obviously, But what is the underlying assets for all of these tranches of all these tranches of debt. The underlying asset that you're supposed to be taking, you know that that's supposed to be the collateral is compute power.
Yeah.
Now, no, it seems fine just because people can live in the computer power and that we all need to live in a computer power, So it's fine.
Yeah. Look, the the bad news is things are going to be really bad for a lot of people. Oh yeah, and they already are probably most people, and they're going to get worse. The good news is once we get past you know, if if this is the way the dot com bubble went right, once we get past this crash that's brought on by you know a mix of greed and insanity and ignorance and lies, then we can finally get to the Internet changing society in only positive ways,
which is what happened after the dot com bubble. You know, we got Facebook, we got Google, we got Twitter, we got Instagram, we got all of these great apps that have made our lives nothing better but better, you know. So I'm looking.
Forward forget get her.
Wouldn't be ferries, I wasn't with the.
Dvn RT exactly. How would we know who was without deviant and what their pronouns may have been.
I do want to make a serious note about this because I've seen a lot of who compare this to the dot com bubble, and this is so much worse because the dot com bubble and you look at the telecom bubble afterwards, right, there were actual assets there, right, you know, like the only way people talk about this is like.
There was pets dot com, but there was real stuff too.
Yeah, yeah, And you know what a telecom bubble goes under, right, there's still a whole bunch of like fiber optic networks that they've set up that you could get you know, people, people with a bunch of money afterwards can come scrape up. And there's there's a material basis something.
Here these data centers, there's they're not practical if the because and this is what the reason, because our colleague at Zetron had a big scoop last week that's getting a shitload of attention right now for good reason, which is that inference cost has been raising consistently for open Ai, which is increasing their like it's fucking their margins and it's increasing their losses, which is why they keep losing
more money each quarter. And the idea behind why people thought open ai could be a good business is that these inference costs, which is basically how the cost that it takes to keep making the models better, right, that that was going to decline once they hit a certain level that like you're not going to need to it's it's super expensive to get the models to a point where they're good. But once they're good, then they get
to be really cheap. And that's not really true based on the data that we have and they were lying about it kind of you know, they were not in a way that was legally actionable. They're not a publicly traded company that were not required to release this to
the public. It does seem like they were honest with their investors, like Microsoft, right, they were lying to us, right to regular people, in order to pretend this was a business that had a lot better of a shot of being successful in the way it needs to be. The problem with AI as a money thing is not that there's no profit in this. It's not that there's no use for any of these tools. There are many
uses and there are many potential businesses. It's that none of them equal trillion dollars, which is what the minimum that they need to be profitable, right, And these data centers are all based on the bet that no, no, actually, this is a multi trillion dollar industry and we need this much compute, right.
And this is this is the greatest misallocation of capital in human history. There has never been anything like this. There has never been crazy this much of the capital on Earth poured into nothing because there's there's not there's not even physical assets left, right.
The physical assets are burned out, graphics.
Cards, because a lot of these data centers aren't built and they don't last. Ye, right, that we're going to do like, yes, they have a building, they have a building you can run power to, but the graphics cards don't last.
Yeah, and you know, and at the end of this, right, it's you. You have a bunch of buildings that don't do anything attached to like extremely expensive diesel generators.
And I am praying.
The one thing that makes me be like, I hope this goes down quickly is that I am praying that this bubble goes down before they actually start trying to build nuclear like really truly get off the ground building a bunch of nuclear reactors, because can you imagine these guys who created a computer that can't win at chess trying to build nuclear reactors.
I think we should let them do it. I agreed to fuck it. Why not? Why not?
Long for Stalker?
No, I mean it's one of the this is like, the point that is meaningful here is that after the dot com bubble, you were able to have a massive boom that created a bunch of wealth. It created wealth doing things that were often super bad for society, but it created a shitload of wealth because real infrastructure had been put in place that actually enabled the whole country to get connected. It enabled the birth of like the mobile computing revolution whatnot, because a lot of groundwork had
been laid that was really meaningful. Even though a number of the business is involved in it didn't work out. And that's really not what we're seeing, because it's hard to imagine assuming there's not a multi trillion dollar need for AI, assuming everyone isn't going to do everything for the rest of their lives through AI agents and do all of their thinking through chat GPT, unless that's the reality,
wherein these are not good investments. And the only thing I can compare it to in terms of what you were saying to me about this being like the worst allegation of capital in history, because I've been reading a lot about like the nuclear arms race, and it was one of those things where you go from we've dropped tens of thousands of bombs over the course of five years to if we were to accidentally launch these ten missiles, it would be more explosive power than has ever been
detonated in the entire history of human war added together
up to the present moment. Right like that that is the because of and part of this was enabled by the actual like Internet boom, right, the one that brought about Web two point zero in the social media era, Right, Like all of that wealth and all of the money that poured into these vcs who'd gotten on board companies like Facebook that had to be created to allow something this irrational, because twenty years ago, if the technology had been there, there wouldn't have been the money to enable
this kind of insanity. Yeah.
Well, and I think the last thing, I mean, I guess, I guess there's two more things that I want to say about this. One is is that you know, this is also part of the cyclical economic crisis that we've been looking at since the seventies, which is that one of the ways you get these bubbles is that there are suddenly these unbelievably massive trillion dollar pool like trillions of dollars of pools of capital that you're trying to find something to invest in, right, you have to reproduce it.
And this is one of the things that causes, for example, the Third World debt crisis in the seventies, is all of this capital flows into all of these there will debt things.
It eventually.
This is one of the things that powers first the Japanese giant housing bubble that they did that caused the Asian market collapse in the early nineties, and then cost two thousand and eight, is that there's all of these pools of capital they.
Have to turn into more capital, and they can't do it.
And when they can't do it, you get two thousand and eight, right, And they've been able to sort of hang on for about a decade, a decade and a half ish roughly, because there was so much money coming in from this tech sector.
But everyone outside of the tech sector it sucks. It's bad.
So this is part of the reason why everything feels unhinged right now, right, Like, Okay, there's obviously kind of a problem with trying to track employment data just by seeing news of firings, because companies just do firings because it makes their stocks go up, because it makes investors think they're being more efficient, which is nonsense, but it's why it feels like this is why you feel broke.
And everyone is like talking about how the economy is growing, and it's like, well, yeah, this really small sector of tech has accumulated an unfathomable amount of wealth and they are getting very, very.
Rich, and everyone else is fucked.
You know.
And when this bubble collapse, when these people take all of the money they got out of tech and have thrown it into the metaverse and AI, when that blows up, it is going to be cataclysmic, and we're getting closer to it.
Yeah. Yeah. The only one of them that will be left is Gabe Newell sitting on his yes, finally releasing Half Life three.
He could he could probably appoint himself to kidder for life after that light.
Yeah, he'll be the only one with money left. What else all of the money and gave Newle's pockets. The only asset is esteem. We've had, We've we've had it replaced the military. Now, this is a basically the plot of Yu gi Oh. Yeah you think I'm joking, I'm actually no. I I never paid attention to the U gi Yeah.
The plot of Yu gi Oh is the card game becomes so profitable that the guy who runs the card game company fights a battle with all the entire Builty industrial complex and defeats them because he's making more money than they are.
So okay, yeah, I guess I think that's that that sounds better than what we're doing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, we can't get his fine with that. Mentoring tulip mania, Yeah yeah, share the perfect historical comparison, right, No one, you can eat a tulip bowl if you have to think they're poisonous.
I don't think you can eat a bole.
I shouldn't say that, but they're more edible than a graphics card.
Mia is telling every listener to go out and find a tula bowl, then eat it.
Putting this on my tombstone more, oh, and a graphics card, do it side by side.
Don't do this, don't do that. If you have you can tag near on blue Sky, I write, okay, send her a picture of your face post tulip. If you've eaten one that, don't eat one on our account. Uh. Talking of other things not to do? Yeah, all right, fuck it. Kit's an ad for culips. All Right, we're back, and I am going to talk about a number of things. I guess the first thing I should talk about is the sanctions and fto's designation for various leftist groups in Europe.
There are four entities that the State Department has announced they've already been sanctioned, and I believe they'll be added to the FTO list either sad Day or tomorrow as we're recording this, so it'll be on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list by the time you hear this on Friday. The four entities are called Anti for oust aka Hammerbund hammer Gang, the informal anarchist Federation. There's an Italian group
they use the initials FAI. Also they use fr I that is not the same as the FAI that you're familiar with from the Spanish Civil Wars.
That's your thing.
And then two Greek groups called Armed Proletarian Justice and Revolutionary Class Self Defense.
Notes on the names, guys, I guess I shouldn't, but I have notes on the names.
Yeah, well, I mean yeah. The European leftist groups it's going to be yeah.
Yeah, of course, it's going to be as many syllables as they can possibly have. Yeah.
Yeah, it is an alphabet soup. So a couple of notable things here. The US doesn't seem to have coordinated with the states where these entities exist. For example, the German government and they prosecuted people who they've accused of being members of Anti for aust recently, I think it was in September, and they claimed that the threat of violence for them has quote decreased significantly, which is contradicting right the claim that these are these are violent groups.
The State Department, when it talks about anti for Oz, talked about a series of attacks in February twenty twenty three. What's missing from the analysis of February twenty twenty three is what was happening in Februar twenty twenty three. It was an event in Hungary which existed to honor Nazis. I don't mean Nazis like people who have a right wing political ideology. I mean like member of the NSDAP in Germany who fought in World War Two at the
time when they were doing the Holocaust. The rally included several groups which were already sanctioned by US allies, including Blood and Honor Combat eighteen. Jesus, I'm not going to go into an in depth history of either of those groups. They're neo Nazi groups, right. That eighteen is Adolf Hitler one eight. These are the people who are, as far as I'm aware, the victims of that February twenty twenty three violence right. Notably, though Antifa ost was sanctioned by
Hungry earlier this year. Right Hungary under Auburn fast moving towards extremely right wing. I didn't think what political scientists like to call it an illiberal democracy. Right.
This sucks to hear. I mean, with this news, I feel like we might need to pull out of Victor Orburn presents Hungary for comedy the upcoming Cool Zone headlined comedy festival.
Yeah, so many of our famous comedian friends have been planning to join us.
We are doing that show in Riad though.
That's a lot.
Yeah, that's still what Yeah?
Yeah, yeah.
The other groups aren't explicitly anti fascist, right.
Because this is getting framed support of Trumps like anti antifa crackdown. Yeah, we're trying to find foreign terrorist organizations linked to Antifa, But these other three groups are not explicitly like Antifa in name or scope.
It seems no, exactly right, So most of them are anarchist groups, right, and just to like delve very briefly in two lines into things that have literally written a book about. Anti fascism is a left unity position derived from the common term position that it adopted its Congress in nineteen thirty five. These groups do not call themselves
anti fascist. Right, there is a distinction between anarchism and anti fascism, which can be seen very acutely in the May nineteen thirty seven events of the Spanish Civil War. But these groups have neither claimed anti fascism, nor, as far as I'm aware, have any of them killed anyone. I believe that the antifa ost people being prosecuted. One of them is being prosecuted for attempted murder. In other
cases they have been responsible for explosions or attempted bombings. Normally, to be designated in FDO, they would have to be a threat to either US people or the United States as an entity. Right, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that these groups have any ties to anyone in the United States or present any immediate danger to the United States. I don't quite know where they got these particular groups from.
So weird, it's a completely baffling list of groups, like even looking at like gree karachist groups.
I mean, my guess is that someone in the Trump administration has a friend in or Bond's administration and ask them here some antifas we can go After that, you guys like you know, Europe.
Yeah, the Greek anarchist groups specifically are some of the more interesting inclusions here.
They're not the Greek anarchist groups you would expect them to be going after.
It's very weird.
Yeah, Like they're not groups I was familiar with. Likely you know, I don't speak Greek, I don't, I don't read Greek.
I don't.
I don't pay that much attention to that part of the world. But like, there are other groups which are more notorious. Like, it's very odd that they've come up with the anti for usd one, a Greek garrison. I think the lineage is more obvious that the other three. Yeah, I'm not entirely clear on how they got to those. If any you know, contact us if you have ideas.
The other terrorist designation that happened this week, which is breaking as we record on Wednesday, the nineteenth of November, is that Greg Abbott has declared care this Center for American Islamic Relations and the Muslim Brotherhood as foreign to US organizations. Jesus yeah, Jesus Christ. Texas doesn't appear to have an FTO list as far as I can tell. What this seems to be is a designation under SB seventeen, which parts passed earlier this year, which relates to property law.
It would stop the Muslim Brotherhood or Care as a national five oh one C three renting or buying property in Texas. I'm not sure the Muslim Brotherhood intended to rent or buy property in Texas. Most of SB seventeen deals with with like nationals and entities linked to like China, Russia, and North Korea. It's trying to not have them by large chunks of Texas. But it also does have this this mechanism in it. So again, just Muslim Brotherhood is
the sunniest limits organization. It has participated in violence, but not for some time. It has its origines in Egypt. It does a lot of like social programming CARE most people we've familiar with right Care has already issued a response letter, and in their letter they said, quote, your proclamation has no basis in law or fact. You do not have the authority to you latterly declare any Americans or American institutions terrorist groups, nor is there any basis
to level this smear against the organization. It's probably worth noting that there was a dog investigation into epic, not that epic, the one you're thinking of, probably, but this is the El Paso Islamic Center. That investigation was closed, right, but this is not the first time that they have attempted to It's just very clearly in Islamophobia out of Texas, right, Like, that is what this is.
There's also just an ancient sort of Obama era conspiracy where all of these people were all convinced that the Obama was part of the Muslim Brotherhood and that there was this whole network of Muslim Brotherhood operatives that were like running the country and really sort of if you squit hard enough, it was like, well, there's a bunch of people from the UAE who are kind of involved in some off but this is like one of their they're kind of fusing this old school like old old
schools allophobic stuff with their like kind of very specific current contemporary targets. Bye, that's sort of running these two together.
Yeah, me, it's rightly. I think Ted Cruz has has tried to get the Muslim Brotherhood on the FTO list like several times. Yeah, there's this old like from like the golden age right wing conspiracies, right, like the Bohemian grove era. That's this idea that yeah, they're on, Like, it's like a fifty or one hundred year plan to bring the US and the Sharia lore and like, yeah,
it's it's old, it's it's boomer stuff. Yes, combined with now trying to explicit eld them to hamas right, So yeah, that that is great.
That that's not great. I would agree, James, I think that's not great. I'll be brave enough to say it.
You know, it is a it's an assault on the First Amendment. Like, the the stuff.
The inclusion of care is is like is absolutely outrageous.
Ye, KERR is a very respectability for a civil rights like liberal civil rights.
They're the least threatening organization in the world.
Yeah, no, like, and they have advocated for an end to the genocide of people in Palestine, which is a perfectly reasonable and legal thing to advocate for. They have not expressed support for political violence. Care Is is like as as protected by the First Amendment as things can be in this country. This is bonkers. So yeah, I guess care is already presumably preparing a court case.
In other Texas news, a three panel judge in Texas just struck down Texas is newly drawn congressional map in federal court, with Trump appointed Judge Jeffrey Brown finding that quote, substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the twenty twenty five map unquote. The judge has required Texas use its previous twenty twenty one map for the upcoming midterm elections.
What's really what's really funny here is that before the elections in November, where the California redistricting measure was up for vote, Newsom specifically removed language in that measure that framed the California redistricting as a triggering event, as in, if the Texas one passes, then the California one can go into effect. You've specifically removed this.
Yeah, the trigger language.
Wasn't, which means that California now doesn't wipe down five Republican seats and Texas probably won't be able to do anything about it.
That's still a challenge the California GOPI also trying to challenge.
Yes, and this Texas case is set to be heard before the Supreme Court. There's a few other redistricting measures
I think in Louisiana and in North Carolina. A few other states are trying to do this, But there is a possible future in which Texas is not allowed to racially jerrymander and California is able to go forward with their redistricting because it may not have been specifically violating this like a racial gerrymandering aspect that Judge Jeffrey Brown found was affecting the Texas maps intentionally.
The GOP claim is that California is quote favoring Hispanic voters. That's going good. It's gonna be a harder landing to stick, right, given that there are Latino people in every square mile of California, Like, yeah, it's gonna be a rougher one for them.
And specifically, the stuff that Judge Brown found is like in the way that these districts were redrawn, it was to totally exclude non white voters and some of these districts all right.
One for the train fans in the audience. A section of railway that connects Warsaw to Lublin in southeastern Poland, which then connects onto Ukraine was destroyed by an explosion earlier this week. Overhead cables further down the track were also damaged. This comes as drone incursions into European space continue. Donald Tusk, the Police Prime Minister, called the ex sabotage, and it seems extremely likely that he is correct about that. Right.
I guess we haven't explicitly covered this on ed very much, but there have been dozens of documented Russian operations in Europe since the the expanded invasion of Ukraine that began in twenty twenty one. What's concerning to me about this is that Europe is responding to some of these by accusing Russia of trying to quote destabilize polities by sending migrants there. It's likely true that Russia is messing with migration flows. It is demonstrably true in some cases. Right.
Responding to this by hardening borders deploying troops to borders is not the solution to that problem. Europe's Iron border kills more people than any other border, and hardening that border is only going to kill more people. Like if you want to be the shining city on a hill, right, if you want to be, I think that title is
maybe up for grabs. If you want to be the place that stands out as like a safe place for democracy, you don't do that by killing migrants, and so Europe's response to this is extremely disappointing, right, and I wanted to highlight that because I don't see that in the coverage. Yes,
Russia escalating it's meddling in Europe is extremely concerning. But if we accept that Russia is a totalitarian state or going in that direction, then we should also therefore accept that people are going to want to leave that and many other states where they cannot have autonomy, where they cannot live healthy and full lives, and we should welcome them. Talking of people leaving places where they cannot have autonomy and have full and happy lives, let's talk about immigration
in the United States. Very quickly, border patrol named Gregory Bovino have moved their internal enforcement I of Sauron to Charlotte, North Carolina. Seems in large part due to some racists on x dot com demining that they do so. I shouldn't say in large part, I guess in some part there has been video already showing Bovino participating in detentions at a home depot car park. I've said two words there, which of coursed one of my colleagues, a smirky giggle
at me stand by both of them. So yeah, it is in part right due to x dot com the Everything website being a haven for racism. But I think it's also worth noting in twenty eighteen, Democratic sheriffs in five North Carolina counties ran on the platform of not cooperating with ICE. All of these I believe were black sheriffs, and ICE pushed back hard right, including with a billboard campaign.
Last year, the North Carolina Republican state Legislature over rote a Vito to pass AGB ten, which required agencies to cooperate with ICE and honor their detainers. A detainer is basically when ICE is like, hey, you've arrested this person. We want you to hold them for a bit longer so we can come pick them up for ICE reasons. Since then, Meckleberg County Sheriff McFadden has claimed that ICE has failed to collect people on detainers one hundred and
sixty three times. So this will be. They would normally have a forty eight hour detainer, right, they're more than forty eight extra hours I should come get when they are held on the detainer. It is still the state that is responsible for them. It is a state that is paying for the cost of incarcerating that person, it is the state that is still incarcerating that person.
Right.
This has led, I guess, to Republicans claiming the McFadden is ignoring his obligation under HB ten. McFadden says he isn't. He is holding them for the duration of detainer, but then releasing them when no one comes to get them. Right. This has led to like CIS right, It's Center for Immigration Study SBOC has designated it as a hate group. CIS has listed Charlotte and Mecklenburg County on its map of quote unquote sanctuary jurisdictions. There's a link to the
map if you want to look at it. They actually cite the twenty eighteen policy and don't even mention HB ten. So it's unclear to me if they haven't updated this map or if they just believe that nothing has changed because they believe that HB ten is being ignored. I think that might be a lot of the reason why we're seeing this now. Then, finally, I want to talk
about something local. Southern California, in Temecula, north of San Diego, seventeen year old boy was pulled over at gunpoint by a man who was known to locals as an ICE agent. The man does not appear to have been in his professional capacity at this time. Neighbors were able to de escalate the situation and get Gerardo Rodriguez, the man in question, to stop pointing his gun at the teen. La Tucker
got video of this. It is wild. The guy is just in the middle of the road with a handgun point to get at a truck that's driving down the street. Rodriguez accuses the young man he's seventeen years old and we're going to say his name right as a child of speeding in the neighborhood, not generally something that warrants drawing a firearm. Rodriguez was detained by the Riverside County Sheriff's Office. I believe he's bonded out now that this
is an interesting development. Right elsewhere, like in Santa Ana, an agent pulled a gun on a community watch member. Fullerton police on the scene did not detain the person. They also refuse to assist, right, they just kind of were present. But this is one of the few cases I'm aware of an Ice agent. There was someone else arrested in a who I believe died. I believe that was a Border Patrol agent that first unfortunately passed away
of an overdose. But this is one of the first instances I've seen of this right of a kind of a state federal direct confront where this guy appears to have been pseudo claiming that he was acting under his authority as an ICE agent. That's not entirely clear to me. The young man's parents that rushed a scene with the young man's passport, but by that point neighbors had already been able to de escalate them. So yeah, I'm going to keep an eye on this because I think it's interesting.
All right, this week we have a fundraiser from Borderlands Relief Collective. I know they're helping a lot of people who need a lot of help right now, some folks whose roofs are really struggling to keep up with the recent rainstorms so we've had in southern California. They have an Amazon wish list. The url is too long for me to read out to you, so we will include it in the show notes. If you'd like to help, you can look on that and buy something for someone. Thank you.
All right, Well, folks, this has been the news. Goodbye.
We reported the news. We reported the news.
It could happen here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources where it could happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.