Chapter 4: Vance claim’s he’s “doing God’s work” even if that brings the end times

I’m trying to focus on is doing as much of God’s work as possible right now and if that leads to the end times. Okay.

Chapter 5: Trump regime calls Iranians “radical mullahs” but Vance is working to bring end times

Okay. So, this is a man who is part of a regime as you like to call it and I’ve I’ve copied you. um that talks about the radical mullahs in Iran and how you can’t trust them and they’re a bunch of the theocrats and fundamentalists and they’re not rational and they’re evil and um all the tropes about you know Muslims wanting to go to to um uh wanting to die uh so they get into heaven all the racist things like that right and yet here he is saying out loud that two things were stunning to me but I then I’m going to ask you about this like to To me, it was just stunning because one is he admits that he wants he’s fine with the end times coming and the other is that he sees this as a Christian value. Well, you know, we I’ve you you know my views. You know, when Zionism is uh when

Chapter 6:

Zionism is not a true Jewish or Christian value, Al-Qaeda is not Islam you have Jews saying that we’re not Zionists, then you can’t say Zionism is a Jewish f. When you have Zionist Christians who say when you have Christians who say I’m not Zionist, then you can’t say that Zionism is a Christian value. When you have Muslims saying that I don’t like al-Qaeda and ISIS, then you can’t say that Islam is ISIS or al-Qaeda. Right? So, uh, his values are obviously not the Christian values that I hear from my Christian friends or my Jewish friends or my Muslim friends.

Chapter 7:

Christ and Moses would oppose genocide and uh they they support genocide and Christ or Moses uh they uh they would be you know the first to condemn and stand up against genocide right so uh they are the enemies of Christ and Moses in in in Shia Islam and in Islam we do

Chapter 8:

Islam says people have to protect the oppressed, not kill them also have the end times but human beings areo supposed to strive to support the oppressed and to to bring an end to oppression. In the Quran, it says that the inheritors of the earth are the oppressed, right? So it’s okay to I mean we no one knows when the end times are and and but the point is that your responsibility as a human being I mean if you don’t you know as a as a moral human being Christianity Muslim Islam Judaism you know all religions aside as a human being your responsibility is to is to is to oppose uh aggression and and murder and slaughter. or whoever it comes from wherever it wherever it comes from all right not bring it not bring it about not endorse it not close your eyes uh in the face of it so you know it depend you you know they’re

Chapter 9:

Ends don’t justify the means they’re to say that okay we are going to bring in all these Jews into Palestine so that we will have the rapture meaning like millions of them will die that is you know they used to say you know the ends justify the means right you know and They would often say that the communists are like that. They they would they end with well that’s this that’s that’s and that is utterly immoral. So you know whether you’re ISIS or you’re al-Qaeda or you’re Christian Zionist or a Jewish Zionist or you’re I don’t know a Hindu uh extremist or whatever you are the ends don’t justify the means. You cannot reach moral uh you know morality through immorality right? I cannot, you know, I cannot slam, I cannot lie about you and undermine you and hurt you even though I’m lying for some greater good. No, it doesn’t work that way. So you you you when you when you see these sort of things, you know that you know and it’s it’s amazing to me and it’s amazing to all of us to see like how some people would support ISIS when like they were slaughter you recall when they

Chapter 10:

The height of immorality were taking all these people who they captured by a river and just shooting them in the head and throwing them and like a,700 people and then we saw how a lot of people supported that online or in Syria when they were sending ISIS through Turkey and then Jordan into, you know, into the country and they were burning people alive or and then a lot of people supported that or pretended that all these were like fringe groups and all that justifying it. That’s the height of immorality. Well, the same is true in Gaza. The same is true elsewhere. So Vance, in my opinion, he’s an he’s an my opinion, he’s an enemy of Christianity, just like Netanyahu is an enemy of Judaism.

Chapter 11:

Vance is an enemy of Christianity — “Netanyahu is an enemy of Judaism”

QUESTIONS:

1. What does JD Vance think is the “Lord’s Work” he is doing?

2. What leads JD Vance to think that his work may bring about the “end times”

3. What do Christian and Muslim perspectives on the end times have in common?

4. Can “End Times” politics be compatible with good governance, pursuit of the greater good, and responsibility, or does it always lead to extremes?
   

   Thanks for reading openpolitics! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Transcript:

23:02

of a referendum on how Trump has done and Trump is willfully ignoring the fact that he is probably the least popular president in since they started keeping records. But being trounced at the polls uh in November is going to be not only devastating for the Republican party, but it’s going to be de devastating for a man whose ego is basically bigger than his brain. Um and so uh this is this in part is really affecting um how some of the Republicans are actually approaching Trump now. So, we um last week we had the unheard of process where a bunch of Republicans joined with the Democrats to deny further military action um to Trump to to require war powers um uh authorization by the

AI: Brave:

What can AI discern, using only the phrase ..

Q: “a man whose ego is basically bigger than his brain”

A man whose ego is bigger than his brain exhibits egomania or an inflated rogue ego, where an exaggerated sense of self-worth crowds out executive function and reality. Psychologically, this is not merely conceit but a fragile ego driven by insecurity, trauma, or a need for validation, leading to behaviors that are self-absorbed, defensive, and lacking in accountability.

Key characteristics and impacts include:

• Lack of Self-Awareness and Accountability: He rarely accepts criticism, refuses to apologize, and believes he is infallible, often dismissing others’ opinions as attacks.

• Social and Emotional Deficits: He dominates conversations, listens poorly, and prioritizes his own image over genuine connection, making deep relationships difficult or impossible.

• Superficial Success: While he may appear confident or successful on the surface, his ego is often a mask for fear of inadequacy, keeping him stuck in superficial achievements and preventing authentic growth.

• Negotiation and Interaction: Dealing with such individuals requires tactical empathy, showing deference, and avoiding direct challenges to their ego, which they perceive as hostile threats.

This condition is distinct from a strong ego, which involves healthy self-esteem and confidence without the need to diminish others or deny reality.

The Healthy Ego

But before I continue to put the Ego in its place, I really should give it its due. The Ego, in its healthy form, serves a necessary function, and we couldn’t get by without it.

The executive Ego that I am referring to helps you to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and helps you to act in accordance with that reality. When functioning well, it doesn’t use denial or avoidance when things get scary. It helps you to tolerate frustration and stress, delay gratification, restrain overly selfish desires, and manage internal conflicts well enough that you don’t go apoplectic when the waiter brings you ceviche instead of cerveza.

It gets you to pay your taxes, shovel snow, and brush your teeth no matter how boring those things are. It will get you a car, put gas in the tank and drive within the lines.

But it has no idea where to drive or what it’s driving for.

It’s kind of a bummer, but the reality is that we have to spend a couple of decades building up an Ego, only to have to trim it down to size eventually.

The Unhealthy Obsessive-Compulsive Ego

The Inflated Rogue Ego is the embodiment of the unhealthy obsessive-compulsive personality. The compulsive part fights for order even when it’s not necessary. The obsessive part likes to think, and it likes to think that life is all about control. The emotions that it values most are those of mastery and righteous anger, not so much peace, love and that feeling you get when you savor a piece of finely crafted caramel chocolate truffle.

Gratification is allocated strictly on a morals-and-merit-based system.

Like any dictator, the unhealthy Ego convinces you that it can solve all of your problems if you hand things over to them, and then it conveniently forgets that it said it was going to serve. Typically, in the case of those with obsessive-compulsive personality, it says that it can save you by fixing that disturbing doubt about whether you are good–morally good. It says, “Just let me run your life with discipline, planning, and perfectionism and all will be well.” Instead of serving you, it demands that you serve it. It promises protection but delivers depression.

QUESTIONS:

1. What you think of AI’s response to the query about a man whose ego is larger than his brain?

2. Were you aware that a healthy ego helps you tolerate frustration and stress, delay gratification?

3. What would society be like if youth were taught to recognize the difference between a healthy and unhealthy ego?

4. What do you think of the suggestions for Negotiation and Interaction: Dealing with such individuals requires tactical empathy, showing deference, and avoiding direct challenges to their ego, which they perceive as hostile threats?

1:10:22

.. And fundamentally, we need lawmakers to actually be educated on how technology works. And I don’t mean just, oh, we need to make sure they know what LLM can do. They need real understanding and also a financial understanding. And fundamentally across the board, this is not just legislation wise. We need a better understanding and clarity into the actual financials of these companies. We need to reform private company valuations. And this is a really specific one, but I have a point. We need to make it illegal for private companies to disclose something called annualized run rate. This is when a company says we annualize a period, usually a month, but they never define it. And they say this* 12 equals this. Anthropic said they have $65 billion in annualized run rate. They don’t say what period or how that’s calculated. That should be illegal. That should no longer be illegal. You shouldn’t be able to do it. We need to stop thinking of kill switches and big sexy ideas. And we need to think of the practical ways to stop this industry doing the most harmful things. What I am discussing would be more effective than any AI slowdown. It would actually immediately stop these companies from acting in ways that are malevolent. It wouldn’t be perfect, but these would be changes that would quickly rein them in. And I do overall think we need to massively change how private companies disclose stuff. The public relations industry has through the AI industry allowed genuine what I think will eventually be seen as bordering on financial crimes to happen.investors to be misled. All because we have a media ecosystem that fails its readers, fails its listeners, and fails the average person. Ed Zitron is the CEO of Easy Primary Research and writer of the newsletter I read all the time. Where is your ed at? We will link to it in our show notes. Also, thanks to Matt Stler of the American Economic Liberties Project, whose recent piece that we just republished at the lever, you can see it at levernews.com. Ed, thanks so much for taking time today. Thanks for having me. Thanks for listening to another episode of Lever time. [music] Lever time is a production of The Lever. This episode was produced by Natalie Bondorf. Our theme music is by Nick Byron Campbell.

QUESTIONS

1. Do you agree that an AI “slowdown” is desirable?

2. This seems like nabbing Al Capone for tax fraud. How often is the “solution” to a problem found in a round about way like this?

3. Are there other accounting “solutions” to American problems?

Yes, research and legal data indicate that individuals on the autism spectrum (ASD) are disproportionately vulnerable to being mistakenly suspected, wrongly arrested, or falsely charged with crimes.

Although autistic individuals are statistically no more likely—and in many contexts less likely—to commit crimes than neurotypical individuals, studies show they are roughly seven times more likely to interact with the criminal justice system. These interactions frequently lead to misunderstandings, wrongful charges, or false confessions due to distinct behavioral and social factors.

Key Drivers of Wrongful Charges and Misunderstandings

• Misinterpretation of Social & Nonverbal Cues: Law enforcement officers rely heavily on body language to gauge guilt or deceit. Behaviors common in autistic individuals—such as avoiding eye contact, maintaining a flat affect, laughing inappropriately due to anxiety, or responding with delayed/literal answers—are often misinterpreted as guilt, evasion, or lack of remorse.

• Sensory Overload Misconstrued as Resistance: Police interactions typically involve flashing lights, loud sirens, raised voices, and sudden physical contact. These triggers can cause intense sensory overload, leading to “stimming” (repetitive movements), freezing, or a meltdown. Officers unformed in neurodiversity often misread these involuntary panic responses as resisting arrest, intoxication, or active aggression.

• Vulnerability to Coerced or False Confessions: Autistic individuals are statistically far more vulnerable to making false confessions during interrogations. High compliance with authority figures, difficulty anticipating long-term legal consequences, susceptibility to leading questions, and a desire to escape high-stress environments lead many to agree with false police narratives just to end the interview.

• Social Naivety and Exploitation: Autistic individuals can be coerced, manipulated, or framed by peers or online actors to carry out illegal tasks (such as transporting illicit goods or handling cyber-hacking scripts) without fully understanding the criminal context or malicious intent.

• Misconstrued Fixations and Threat Assessments: Intense specialized interests (e.g., chemistry, transportation networks, or security systems) or blunt, unfiltered language can be misread by authorities as preparation for a crime or a literal threat when no criminal intent exists.

Systemic Context & Interventions

In recent years, disability rights groups and legal scholars have pushed for specific safeguards, including specialized autism training for law enforcement, the mandatory presence of an advocate or support person during questioning, and pre-trial diversion programs tailored to neurodivergent individuals.

Tim’s Comment:

• I suspect that people on the Autism spectrum are disproportionately chosen as patsies (framed) to take the fall for a crime others committed.

QUESTIONS:

1. Do you agree that people on the Autism spectrum are disproportionately likely to be charged with a crime?

2. What do you think about the theory that they are targeted for framing to take the fall for a crime that others did?

3. Do you think that police ought to be required to interrogate and consider evidence against someone the suspect is on the Autism spectrum?

4. Would it be useful to look backwards to see if the government has wrongly convicted people because it misinterpreted the behavior of those on the spectrum?

RELATED:

Jan 6 Pipe bombing Suspect: Brian Cole Jr

• NBC: D.C. pipe bomb suspect Brian Cole diagnosed with autism, attorneys say in motion for release

Just Human

Reading J5 Pipe Bomber Brian J. Cole Jr.'s Interview and Confession

At 7:06 a.m. on December 4, 2025, Brian J. Cole Jr. was arrested while walking to a 7-Eleven near his home. The FBI took Cole to a staging area and then to the Washington Field Office, where they interviewed him…

Listen now

5 days ago · 22 likes · 9 comments · Just Human

• Transcript, (pdf) Courtlistener.com

• Autism Within the Criminal Justice System

• Cambridge: Autistic defendants are being failed by the criminal justice system

11:59

We’re at a moment where um I think Americans want something that that speaks to this moment that’s different, which is how the Republican party was born. And so I think mom donni is one version of that. Um that that people want leaders who they feel in one way or another are in the moment or up to the moment. And but you’re right that um for someone to be doing that who is the mayor of a major city, it does suggest interesting things about the government and the government guess what being ours like you would actually call him a public servant.

How how how many other politicians right now would you apply that to? It’s not I mean there are many locally but but people whose name you know we know that’s sort of out there being used all the time. We you know we certainly don’t use it anymore for national politicians.

I mean as as you and I were talking beforehand Congress isn’t even meeting but but but not Yes. And I want to talk about that. But but there are there are national people who are public servants for sure who’ve taken huge hits being you know and I I mean let’s start with Andy Kim for example senator from New Jersey.

So but but I would even I mean you could make an argument about a lot of people and why they are in why they’re doing what they’re doing and um but the I think what jumps out to me there is that it did not it used to not I’m going to put this badly. There has been a period in which being a public servant said you were a sucker and that you know really what politics was about was sort of being savvy and getting stuff for your people. And you know I think of the way that the u people like uh Sarah Palin sort of d tried to drag Barack Obama over the coals for being a community organizer or even the idea that the words social justice warrior was actually a compliment right until very recently.

Well, this is like diversity is bad, equity is bad, justice [laughter] maybe those maybe those people have always been there, but they are um that but you know they tended not to get the limelight because they just seemed like suckers. I guess I don’t know.

That’s interesting. I mean, I what I was thinking of obviously was um certainly Trump um who’s not only [clears throat] not a servant of any kind, but he thinks he’s a king, but um also some of the MAGA people in Congress who you know, if if Congress isn’t meeting, if you’re not willing to have town halls with your constituents, if you appear to have no interest in their interest at all, then yeah, you’re not thinking of yourself as a public servant, never mind calling yourself a public servant. But you’re right. There are many people who are acting that way. Um, and who would probably accept that label. So, um, I agree with with your correction to my big sweeping statement. Um, but you know, I think it’s kind of tied up with accountability where I keep I always say we’re in a crisis of accountability where no one wants to be or often is being held accountable for anything. And public servant goes with that. Public servant, the public is a big part of it, right? us. So public servant means, you know, serving our interests, which means they’re accountable to us for what they do. And that’s not generally speaking how a lot of the government is behaving right now. That mammi is kind of in a different model as I said before, but um I think that’s some of what’s happening right now.

But but isn’t that actually what gave us our great reform periods is finally people standing up and going the government should be working for us?

Well, right. I mean, so that so that’s um related to what you said before about the economic changes and and having these big moments. I always and I think these things probably go together. When I talk about the 1850s, I talk about the 1960s. Um I talk about the 1790s. Um I talk about and now I talk about those as moments when um generally speaking Americans knew there was some big issue on the line that that the United States was in a place where 1850s obviously slavery was that issue. 1960s civil rights is that issue. 1790s actually democracy was the issue in which Americans were learning how loud a voice they could have and the people in power thought the less the better. So I’ve always when I talk about that I say there are moments when people can feel that there’s some major fundamental aspect of Americanness that’s under debate and that that makes people that riles people up. It brings people into the conversation who maybe aren’t there all the time. Obviously that could affect the economy as well.

So maybe maybe my cultural approach and your economic approach do they go together in this way? I I would personally I would say that it’s the economic thing that wakes people up to recognize that the government isn’t working for them. That it’s when you start to feel like you no longer have a shot at the American dream, which I would argue that is fundamentally um for most people the idea that if you worked hard, you would be able to live and support your family and they’d be better off than you were. And when you stop thinking that that you can believe that that’s the case when it isn’t for a long time, but then when you finally realize it, you get really pissed off.

But that maybe we can work backward because like you and I both have been all over the rising authoritarianism now for literally decades, you know, since at least George W. Bush. And nothing seemed to grab people. I mean, I I’m exaggerating, but but things like Abu Grae and, you know, the fact we were we were putting people in in third party torture detention centers and all that stuff, nobody seemed to pay any attention at all. And now they are.

And what do you think our trigger issue is now?

Well, I mean, what is you said there’s slavery, there’s democracy, there’s I would say the concentration of wealth in the 1890s. What do you think our center issue is now that people are waking up?

Well, I know what I would I know what I would say the answer is, but I actually don’t think this is what people are responding to. Although maybe now they are. For a long time, I’ve said, you right now we’re deciding about democracy.

Um and and by democracy in part I’m talking about what you’re talking about which is who’s the government actually working for? Does the government represent us? Um but I I don’t know if I’m satisfied with that answer because I don’t I’m first of all I think a lot of people have tuned out that message because it feels kind of ethereal. So um you know it’s democracy related to that. It’s race related to that. It’s um you know as you put it earlier like you know can people still get the American dream? It’s oligarchy. It’s all of these things are happening right now. So, I don’t know right now if there is one issue or do we sort of bundle it all under democracy. I do think that um Americans feel at this moment that in one way or another [snorts] things are going in a way that they’re not happy with and that that there’s some fundamental aspect of the United States and what it is that is at stake. And whether they want to call it democracy, whether they want to call it um you know out of control racism, whatever people, however they define it, I and and that’s true for the MAGA people too, right? That they’ve decided that you know the crazy crazy Democrats and liberals like what are they doing? It’s not American. That somehow now we all feel that we’re fighting about something that’s fundamentally American. I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but I think a lot of people think that.

Well, one of the things I I would argue that every one of these things we are talking about is ultimately about democracy. What is this country supposed to do? But it takes different shapes. And the reason I asked that is because and the reason that I you know I know you’ve never heard of this word, but there’s this thing called contingency.

Oh my gosh, what a great word that is. I will have to use that word sometimes.

I just put my trademark on it. Joanne, I’m teasing Joanne because like like I use it every called Contingency, but like you can’t get out of a conversation with Joanne without talking about contingency.

My students, you should have you should have t-shirt.

You should have swag made. [laughter] I should have contingency swag.

Think about that a little.

But the the protests against data centers really came kind of out of the blue for me. It was not like if you had said to me a year ago, and mind you, you know, my friend Nancy, your friend too, um went on a trip through Virginia a couple of years ago and she came back and she said, “Oh, Heather, you just don’t have any idea about what’s happening with these giant centers.” And and I was like, “Really?” Because I live in Maine. I don’t see any, you know, I I I heard it and I She’s always great on on everything, but it didn’t process for me as something that could become a big deal.

Right. That’s true. And and I wonder if these protests against data centers are symbolic of people are protesting the data centers because they’re loud and they’re taking all our water and all our energy and all those sorts of things, but because they are the symbols of the billionaire oligarchs who are trying to take over our society right there in our towns. And it’s a place where instead of going, I really don’t like Open AI, you can say, get this piece of crap out of my backyard. And and when I think about this moment and where American political anger is, I don’t think it’s just over the data centers. I think the data centers are the symbol of why are you taking away my neighbors? What you know, right? the same way that the petition campaign was not just about petitions.

I think you’re right. But what I was saying earlier is I don’t know if a lot of Americans are thinking about that as being about democracy. I agree with you in one way or another. It’s about democracy. But when people are saying, “I don’t want those data centers in my backyard. What gives you the right to do it?” And then even to close off public hearings about them, right? That was the last thing that the EPA was trying to do is like, oh, and now you don’t even get to have input about it. People understand that that’s affecting them. They don’t like it. They feel that in that sense government isn’t protecting their interests, that the oligarchs are trampling on them. My point right now is and it’s better than it used to be, but I still somehow think that, you know, democracy is at risk doesn’t ring powerfully enough with people as it should or as I think it should as a political historian. So that’s that’s what I’m hedging on. I agree with you. I think it’s all about democracy. And I think if people thought about the fact that it’s about government’s proper relationship with you and the kind of power you should have over the government and that that’s democracy, then I I think that would be clear. But sometimes I’m not sure that that’s clear. Sometimes I’m afraid that democracy feels like an ism to some people.

But but think about take us back to the revolution. um not the revolutionary war um which the distinction between that and the revolution in people’s minds before the revolutionary war that the framers made founders made um most Americans didn’t care at all right they just wanted things to settle down you know you had the patriots and you had the loyalists but the whole middle of the country were just like would you please all just leave us alone right

well yes and no I mean it depended kind of like the data centers if something near them was being affected by the laws coming down from parliament that were taxing things and doing things that they hadn’t done before that that came down to people in the middle of the country. If for example um they wanted to buy a newspaper and now it was going to be a lot more expensive because it needed to be on stamped paper or um they had a deed to the land that they were on. now like just even the deed was going to be expensive because it had to be on you know the stamp act is is a thing that I talked about for your series that that got people thinking about they didn’t call it rights necessarily always the average person thinking about their rights under the British government and how they suddenly felt that they weren’t they were being violated and they had no way to object act, right? People when people think no taxation without representation, they focus on the taxation part and they don’t focus on the representation part. And that was a big part. Uh so, you know, I wouldn’t say they’re just saying leave us alone. Some were for sure, but I would say there was kind of a brewing sense that, you know, we’re treated lesser then and we have no way to be angry about it. that that wasn’t just in cities and certainly wasn’t just elite people.

So that’s actually really helpful because one of the things that I have seen on social media are complaints that it took the diesel crisis to get people to pay attention to the truly horrible things that are happening in this country and have been happening as as I say for at least two years. Um, and people are like, “Yeah, all this stuff was happening, but it took the diesel for cost of diesel going through the roof for you to care about any of that.” And that’s actually really interesting because what the Stamp Act did, you know, as you just laid out, is it meant that even if you weren’t at a place where you could see um, you know, a patriot being harassed by loyalist soldiers or whatever, um, you couldn’t get away from it. And one of the things about this diesel uh the you know the price of diesel going through the roof and now Trump saying well I’m gonna start the war again after the midterms which is um his reported to be his inclination um by a major newspaper last night. I’m not going to say which one because I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong. But um the idea that he’s basically saying I’m going to keep it quiet till the midterms because you all hate it. But then as soon as midterms are over I’m going to do more. that idea that you can’t get none of us in this country can get away from the results of the rising cost of diesel for home heating of oil but also everything we buy

I was going to say anything that’s being moved shipped yes so it’s sort of like our own stamp act well right and and that’s you know what the stamp act did and it was the first sort of thing in the what becomes the leadup to the revolution although they don’t know that at the time is it brought what was a brewing controversy about colonial rights down to everyday citizens and it did it in a way that spread widely. So it it woke people up to the idea that something was happening and it wasn’t just where you were and that’s the you’re right the diesel thing is doing the same thing that suddenly it’s not just like it’s some government thing it’s about politics it’s about parties it’s about no it’s actually come all the way down. It’s pretty much about all of us in one way or another. It’s going to shape or affect us in one way or another. And yeah, that becomes an equalizing experience. That becomes a moment that doesn’t feel as though it’s about politics. It feels as though it’s about, you know, everyday things in a way that really matters. It’s something that brings people together, which is one of the reasons why the Stamp Act really mattered in the leadup to the revolution. Yeah. So, I actually really like and certainly would not have made the connection between how people feel about diesel uh and the price of diesel and how they feel about suddenly every piece of paper needing a stamp on it, which is a way of taxing it. I haven’t made that connection, but you’re right. It makes it every day. It it makes it part of your life. You can’t get away from it. Um and you don’t feel that you have any power to affect change.

Well, especially considering that we had neither us nor our representatives had any say about this Warren run and we appear not to to continue not to have any say in it and that I mean but the next piece of that as you’re saying that which I think is right I am looking like yesterday I think I’ve totally lost track of time um you know there the news broke that Russell vote who’s the head of the office of management and budget is planning and the Trump administration planning not to distribute another billion dollars of um appropriations that Congress agreed to. Congress in Congress the only group that can decide how to spend our money. And of course, Johnson has thrown the House out of session. So there’s nothing people can do to complain. And then after the midterms, we’ve got the pieces of that budget reconciliation bill that the Republicans passed back in July of last year that’s going to dramatically affect Medicaid, which is going to turn around and, you know, all those cuts. We’re going to lose even more of our care. And our we’ve already lost our birthing center uh in in in my whole area, the the closest hospital where you can have give birth is an hour away. and that um I I wonder as we watch these pieces come closer and closer to people’s lives, what comes next if you think about the revolution and the revolutionary war and then you look at the fact that Trump is it’s almost like he’s congealing that as he loses power in some areas he lashes out in others and he’s using the places where he still has running room to do stuff like threatening Cuba again and I just h how do we how do we regain power as of the people without a cataclysm right um I don’t well before I even think about that I do want to make clear the implication of everything that we’re talking about and that you were just saying so folks Congress is us as far as branches of government go they’re all us particularly we vote for presidents and we vote for our representatives. But, and it’s obvious, but I feel the need to say it anyway, when the executive branch or the president or whoever else is floating around in that sphere ignores what Congress has the right to do and Congress MAGA congressmen also appear to have no interest in doing what they supposed what they are supposed to do. What they are literally saying is that we don’t matter. That is what it means. we the people don’t matter. They’re just dismissing us. Now, back to your other question. What do we do to address that? How do we address that? I mean, you know, in the long sweep of American history, often, this is not going to be um it’s not going to seem like a solution because we’ve been saying this for a long time. often there’s some kind of huge mass protest because there there’s always and this was true before we were a country because colonies colonists have a very strong sense or certainly British colonists have a very strong sense of what they would do because colonies have charters and so they understood their rights they understood what their colony was they probably knew in one way or another the people who were governing them and thus when they felt that they suddenly had no voice that was real. That wasn’t like, you know, that darn Congress. It was like, hey, as a colonist, I’m do this or that or the other thing. And now I can’t protest. So, there were all of these protests and sometimes rebellions, you know, Bacon’s rebellion when these uh gentrified young men thought they were due land, they should get land, and the government wasn’t serving them in the way that they wanted it to. So, they rose up. Um, generally speaking, again and again and again, there’s one in New York in the 18th century. Um, you can sort of march through time, you know, the whiskey rebellion, the there are a whole series of these and rebellion sort of sweeps a lot of what it is under the rug. But these are moments when people said, “Wait a minute, we’re we have not only are things not fair, but we can’t do anything about it.” And that’s where generally, who knows about now, but generally speaking, Americans have a strong sense that it’s their right to be able to speak up and affect things. Now, right now, not operating really well. So, your question is what happens next? And I don’t know the answer to that. But but I think if you look at the whole sweep of American history, no matter how people are what words people are using for it, they have a sense that they have certain rights. And when the government is violating those rights, if they don’t feel that there’s a way that they can protest, they get angry. Maybe and maybe they have a mass protest, maybe, you know, whatever or a mass boycott or whatever. But that’s a that’s a and gripe is too trivializing. That’s a an outrage that that Americans and even British colonists who were in North America have always felt. They’ve been very tied to their understanding of a system that in one way or another should represent them in some way. even even parliament although that becomes a big issue over time. So I’m trying to think here how you avoid a conflration and the there we of course we have you’ve just outlined the answers to that. We’ve got the 1890s, the 1930s and the 1960s when especially rising politicians recognized the divorce between the ideals of the country and the way they were being executed and recognized the extraordinary power of the people that that is growing. They’re starting to complain in a really big way in each one of those three periods. [snorts] And they they adjust the government to the desires of the people. And we get the progressive era, we get the New Deal government, we get the civil rights movement. And I mean, this is your field. Doesn’t it doesn’t it seem like the answer to that is making it freaking clear that we’re really pissed off?

Yeah. and and and then you look right now and one of the things that um that I mean you’re seeing all through the news all sorts of Republicans jumping ship from Trump right now, which I don’t believe. I mean, I think they say anything they can at this point to get elected, but the fact that they feel obliged to do that. Um that’s that to me is a significant marker. Not that they’re going to do it, but the fact that, you know, Susan Collins after this thing about the billion dollars last night came out and called it illegal. Well, she’s under huge pressure, not only because she’s unpopular and Trump is unpopular in Maine, but also because she’s implicated in this pretty major scandal, uh, pay-to-play scandal. So, the fact that she’s like, uhoh, I got to do something to make the people happy. I will call this illegal when she, you know, she’s just been concerned now for a very long time. Yes. Um I I thought that again I don’t think for a second her voting will change or anything, but the fact that they’re starting to hear it, rising politicians hear it, too.

Well, right. And obviously it’s tied to an election, right? You know, I mean, that’s why they’re hearing it. And it is true. It’s noteworthy that regardless of whether people actually are backing away from Trump or not, they’re acting that out because they suddenly have to think about the public because there’s going to be Exactly. So suddenly we matter and our opinion matters. So they will perform what they feel they need to perform to get our votes and then they will go back to doing whatever the hell they want to do. So on the one hand, you know, it shows you why our votes are so important. It’s obvious. It should be obvious to us, but you know, they are bowing down to the importance of our votes. It’s also why they’re trying so hard to repress them and negate them and everything else that they’re doing. But what we’re watching is people saying again and again and again that we actually have the power and thus they have to please us for a little window of time. [snorts] Well, so but but I’m making the case um yeah, I’m on the road now. I’m making the case that this is about the midterms for sure, but the midterms are not going to be the magic shift. You know, Trump or JD Vance will still be in power and this is going to be momentum that is building. And I I always go back to the election of of uh 1930, you know, after Herbert Hoover gets elected in a landslide in 28. Then then he takes office in 29. There’s the crash in October of 29. And in the midterms of 30, uh, the Democrats make huge gains, but they don’t win control. It’s actually they get control because I think 14 Congress people die, man, at that point die between um the election and when Congress goes into session, which is almost a year later. It’s the elections in November, they go into session in December the next year. And um um and so at that point, the Democrats get more power. But um but it’s not really till 32 when you see the the landslide for FDR that things really turn around. So that momentum has to keep building. Well, right. And that’s I want to reiterate that because you’re totally right. A and it and it many of us will not be feeling that, right? because we’re so angry and what’s happening feels so wrong that it feels as though there should be a big shift now. We’re too outraged and it’s too corrupt. How can there not be a big shift? And what’s important about what you just said is if there isn’t, and there very well may not be, it’s momentum. What we’re looking at is is moving ahead, pushing things ahead. So, you know, I I would urge people if it isn’t a massive blue wave in the way that they want it to be, not to think, “Oh, well, we lost. It’s over.” What we’re watching now, and what you and I were just talking about, was evidence of it. What we’re watching now is the the power of people who object to what’s happening making itself felt in one way or another. And that’s it’s going to take some time for that to build up and and have a big impact, but it matters that it’s happening. It it matters big time that it’s happen

QUESTIONS:

1. What image or person do you envision when you think of a public servant?

2. Who do you think of as the “public servants” of today?

3. Do you agree that the “public servant” has been seen as a “sucker” previously?

4. What hope do you have for a rivival of public servanthood?

15:34

Britain needed the Countries that supplied its Resources to be Non Democratic

Yeah. I well I think two things I think first of all the idea that capitalism the postwar capitalism was kind of the best model. I think that is something that you can only really say from the perspective of Europe and North America.

that those conditions in Europe and North America was heavily reliant upon

the emiseration of people in the global south. You know, the NHS was built off

of cheap migrant labor and also the rents and debts that were taken from

the former colonies. You know, there’s a reason why the same government that built the NHS in Britain basically

thwarted the possibility of there to be a similar kind of social democracy in Iran at the same time because there was kind of there was a mutual

interdependence between that because capitalism had to extract from
somewhere. So I think that’s that kind

Political Systems that Resist Consolidation of Power

I think when it comes to you know any political system can go any economic system can go in in a particular direction I think that that obviously you know no there’s no you can’t design a system that is completely unable that will never ever evolve into something worse but I think this is where you can have systems that do not incline towards consolidating power and this is where the questions around you democratic ownership of workplaces, democratic stake in the economy and also understanding the economy to not be a beast that operates on its own but is a is a political economic system and therefore there has to be democratic systems that override um whatever we are told is the economic lo the logic of a particular economy. So what my argument is that capitalism has in its DNA a much stronger um kind of impulse towards the consolidation of power and and e economic and political power because it is ultimately centered around the concept that a small number of people should own the means of production. Um and that the vast majority of people should be workers who sell their labor to those capitalists. Whereas a kind of a socialist system is tries to kind of have an internal guard rails around by having democratic ownership and saying, you know, we’re not going to have a small number of people own the means of production. The means of production are going to be collective. Now, can forms of power and forms of corruption emerge in that system? Absolutely. But I would say it’s less likely um in one than in the other, which is where it’s actually always been about a small number of people um owning capital and owning the means of production. That’s kind of the definition. Um you can’t have a capitalism where the vast majority of people are owners. Does history show it’s less likely in one than the other? I suppose sort of like actually existing 20th century history. Well, I mean, I would say that I mean, obviously the one that you’re referring to here is is kind of is Russia. Um, I would say that obviously there’s been a there was a lot of experiments with socialism in that post-war era that were like deliberately thwarted. I mean, I can speak to kind of like my own context. You know, my parents grew up in, you know, a social were born into social into a kind of socialism under narcissism and obviously it had it was a dictatorship. It had deep problems within it. But at the same time, there was an economic redistribution program that completely transformed the lives of so many people.

QUESTIONS:

1. Are there reasons to doubt when the West says it wants its trading partners that are egalitarian, democratic and inclusive? Under what conditions would the West benefit from a well-educated and democratic “Global South?”

2. Would the West prefer to see a Russia that is a more-democratic value-added economy or a resource exporter under the sway of the West?

3. Why does power consolidate in Capitalism and Socialism?

4. How has power consolidated in Russia, as the the Soviet Union dissolved?

5. How hasa power consolidated in the US since the 1950s?

6. What’s the difference between a Capitalism in which all workers own the means of production and Socialism?

Abdul al-Sayed

Comments:

@jj947

It’s not actually that bizarre. Mamdani needs to woo Trump to not have a protracted political fight, and Trump at his core is a gossipy socialite who likes hanging out with the current media darling

@IT_Farhan

Trump ultimately is attracted to charismatic and influential people no matter who they are.

@kaneinkansas

Narcissists are attracted to confident personalities that also demonstrate all the things that their narcissistic heart feels they lack. They are bedazzled by the bedazzling personalities

@strawberry.basil.14

It’s so funny how he’s so much nicer around Mamdani. He has a huge crush

@Christian_Sandoval

It’s his M.O. He thinks he’s charming. See how he speaks of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. He’s scared of politicians more popular than him.

@agloriouspurpose

.. Trump looks at Mamdani like a proud father looking at his son, something Trump never did for Jr.

@seanwhitehall4652

Zohran must have an actual aura around him that makes people on his side.
Does he have a fresh baked pie hidden under his coat as a perfume?

@EngineerVet-n3q

The ideas never mattered to Trump- it’s all about publicity, events and relationships.

@wilbertwallace6655

Trump genuinely liking Mamdani actually does make his look more sympathetic and human. Almost makes you forget about the unbelievable corruption and open looting of the nation. Trump getting along with Mamdani is the only smart political move in a long while, its that old “political instinct” people talk about, stand beside the guy people actually like.

@acridwolf

Mamdani lettin Trump get some of his shine is f#ckin genius.

@PeteAustin31

Trump loves to be in proximity to anything successful. We saw that with the World Cup. He didn’t care that Spain won as long as he was in the photo. Trump is aware Mamdani is loved by New Yorkers, that’s what he desires. In his core He’s just a bandwagon fan.

@geosunkist

I think it might be a trait of narcissists because my dad is the same way - they have no strong conviction or ideology beyond being “the winner”. The kind of guy that voted for Obama 2x and then Trump 3x. And like Trump, he was super critical of Mamdani until he won and became super-popular. Things like ivy league, nobel prizes, wealth and prestigious political/business titles is what matters to these kind of people, not ideology.

@Ray_MondiNYC

There are no goals, he just wants relationships with the most powerful winners. And those relationships are the thing he points to as proof he’s a totally cool dude. Which I think more than money even, is all this dumb loser wants.

@ChauTee

Can you blame him? Mamdani is charming

@TheGreatNomad

Zohran playing 5d chess

QUESTIONS:

1. Why does Trump like Mamdani?

2. When Mamdani visited the White House for the first time, what was his strategy to get Trump to like him?

3. Where did Mamdani get this talent to deal with someone like Trump? Did he encounter particular people in his life that honed this ability?

4. Why does Jesse Waters of Fox News like Abdul El-Sayed? Is it just that El-Said plays the “Bro-mance” game really well, was captain of the football, lacrosse and wrestling teams.1

5. If Fox News hosts can be won over by a “Bro”, what does that say about women who run for office? Do they have to be able to perform Judo throws like Rhonda Rhousy?2

6. Does seeing Mamdani and El-Sayed on the high level political stage affect Americans’ impressions of Muslims? Will it lead to greater understanding of Islam?

FOOTNOTES:

Summary:

Operation Legacy was a official program carried out by the British government from the 1950s through the 1970s to systematically destroy or hide documents detailing war crimes, torture, and racial discrimination before granting independence to former colonies.

Key Points

• Systematic Destruction: Across the British Empire, officials destroyed vast amounts of records to avoid post-independence embarrassment and exposure.

  • India (1947): Document burning created visible smoke plumes over Delhi.

  • Malaya (1957): Truckloads of records were incinerated in Singapore.

  • Egypt & Trinidad: Records were burned on embassy lawns during the Suez Crisis or dumped into the ocean.

• The Kenya Discovery: Instead of being destroyed, 307 crates of documents from Kenya were secretly flown to a undisclosed facility in Buckinghamshire to bypass public oversight and Freedom of Information requests.

• Exposure in 2011: The hidden Kenya files were publicly released in 2011 following legal pressure, revealing state-sanctioned torture during the Mau Mau Uprising and explicit orders to destroy embarrassing archives. The surviving files are now housed at The National Archives in Kew.

• Impact on Public Perception: The destruction of records contributed to widespread public ignorance in Britain regarding imperial atrocities (such as the Bengal Famine and Amritsar Massacre). However, public sentiment has shifted over time: YouGov polls show the proportion of Britons who feel proud of the empire fell from 59% in 2014 to ~33% in 2020.

QUESTIONS:

1. What sort of exposure would the US face if its “Empire” were to fall?

2. What percent of Americans (are aware of the scope of the US “Empire” and what percent are proud of it?

3. Will digital tools change the way the compromising evidence is saved and accessed?

4. Fifty years from now, what will Americans attitude be towards the US “Empire”?

5. How much more will be know about the US “Empire” in 50 years?

More Information:

• Cobain, I. 2020. Lying about our history? Now that’s something Britain excels at. https://www.theguardian.com/commentis...

• Dahlgreen, W. 2014. The British Empire is “something to be proud of”. https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/9954-britain-proud-its-empire

• Jasanoff, M. 2020. Misremembering the British Empire. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/20...

• Milmo, C. 2013. Revealed: How British Empire’s dirty secrets went up in smoke in the colonies. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...

• Sato, S. 2017. “Operation Legacy”: Britain’s Destruction and Concealment of Colonial Records Worldwide. https://doi.org/10.1080/03086534.2017...

• Smith, M. 2020. How unique are British attitudes to empire? https://yougov.co.uk/international/ar...

Wikipedia:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Legacy

YouTube:

• youtu.be/RIMkeRycCNw

Cancel culture, also called call-out culture, is a cultural phenomenon in which people criticize an individual thought to have acted or spoken in an unacceptable manner, and call (typically over social media) for the target to be ostracized, boycotted, shunned or fired.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} This shunning may extend to social or professional circles— whether on social media or in person— with most high-profile incidents involving those with influence in media or politics.^[6][7][

• (Wikipedia)

The Psychology of Cancelling (9 takes)

Cancel culture isn’t random. It follows psychological patterns—both in who lights the match and who gets burned.

Mapped through the Enneagram, those patterns reveal something uncomfortable: we’re not watching justice. We’re watching personality types wage war using moral language.

Type 1: The Righteous Canceller

Type 1s are the architects of cancel culture. Their core drive—to correct what’s wrong and uphold standards—makes calling out wrongdoing feel like moral obligation, not mob action.

Pattern:

• Spot a moral failing

• Feel genuine outrage (not performance)

• Demand accountability and visible correction

• Quietly pull back once the mob exceeds proportion—but rarely defend the target

Type 1s cancel because they believe they’re making the world better. The cruelty isn’t the point—the correction is. When the pile-on intensifies, the Type 1 often steps away while the others finish the job.

They tell themselves: “Someone had to say something. It’s wrong, and people need to know.”

Type 6: The Protective Canceller

Type 6s cancel to protect their communities. Their core fear—being without support when danger comes—makes identifying and neutralizing threats feel necessary, not aggressive.

Pattern:

• Frame the target as a danger to vulnerable people

• Rally the in-group using safety language

• Stay vigilant for the next threat after the first one falls

• Distrust apologies (“They could be lying”)

Type 6-led campaigns lean hard on words like harm, unsafe, and protect. The target isn’t merely wrong—they’re dangerous. This is why Type 6-driven cancellations produce the most durable banishments: safety claims are harder to argue with than moral ones.

They tell themselves: “They were hurting people in our community. We had to stop them.”

Type 8: The Power-Confronting Canceller

Type 8s cancel to challenge power. Their core drive—to confront and never be controlled—makes taking down untouchable figures deeply satisfying.

Pattern:

• Identify a powerful person abusing position

• Attack directly, publicly, without softening

• Refuse to back off under pushback

• Lose interest once the power is disrupted

Unlike Type 1s (who want reform) or Type 6s (who want safety), Type 8s relish the confrontation itself. They’re most energized when the target fights back.

They tell themselves: “They thought they were untouchable. I showed them they’re not.”

The Rest of the Mob

Type 2s join to defend perceived victims. Type 3s join once cancellation becomes the popular position—momentum matters more than principle. Type 4s join when they emotionally identify with the harmed party. Type 7s get swept up in the energy and move on before the dust settles. Type 5s watch and analyze; Type 9s silently disapprove of the excess but rarely intervene.

The Platform Makes It Possible

The psychology is ancient. The mechanics are new. Cancel culture in its current form exists because of four structural features of social platforms:

• Algorithmic amplification. Outrage outperforms calm. The angriest take gets the most reach.

• Screenshot evidence. A receipt from 2014 deploys in 2025 with no context attached. The internet never forgets and never updates.

• Context collapse. A joke meant for a comedy room reaches the audience least equipped to read it. The “right audience” no longer exists.

• Anonymous accounts. The infantry of any cancellation has nothing to lose. Targets fight people, but get attacked by handles.

For the broader psychology of why the crowd enjoys punishment once a target has been marked, see The Anatomy of Public Shame.

Take any of these away and the dynamic weakens. Together, they’re the operating system.

The In-Group Always Lights the Match

People aren’t cancelled hardest by their enemies. They’re cancelled hardest by their own side.

A progressive author gets buried by progressives, not conservatives. A conservative pundit gets primaried by his own party, not the opposing one. Out-group attacks are predictable and rally your base. In-group attacks feel like betrayal—and they stick because the audiences overlap.

This is also why Type 6 cancellations are the brutal ones. Type 6 loyalty operates inside the in-group, and disloyalty is the worst possible sin. The witch trial never comes from across the river. It comes from your neighbors.

The Psychology of Getting Cancelled

• —skip—

The Anatomy of a Cancellation

• —skip—

The Moral Language Is Tactical

Cancel culture reveals how each type weaponizes their core psychology:

• Type 1 weaponizes morality — every disagreement becomes a moral failing

• Type 6 weaponizes fear — every dissent becomes a safety threat

• Type 8 weaponizes aggression — every conflict becomes a fight to the finish

• Type 2 weaponizes victimhood — the protective instinct distorts until every dissenter is a predator and every disagreement is harm. The helper becomes the prosecutor.

• Type 3 weaponizes popularity — being on the right side becomes more important than being right

• Type 4 weaponizes authenticity — “this is just who I am” becomes a shield against accountability

The moral language is real and tactical. People genuinely believe they’re doing good while also meeting the psychological needs their type requires. Both things at once.

• Source: https://9takes.com/pop-culture/cancel-culture-enneagram-type

How to tell a shame ritual from an accountability process

There is a single diagnostic test: what happens when the target repairs.

A genuine accountability process has a shape. It names a specific harm to a specific party. It names what is owed. When the harm is repaired — through restitution, behavior change, or proportionate public apology — the process closes. The relationship is restored, modified, or honestly ended. The point of the process is the repair.

A shame ritual does not have this shape. It names the target but rarely the specific harm. It demands denunciation but not restitution. And critically: when the target repairs, the ritual does not stop. There is no exit. The wall is forever.

• Source: The Anatomy of Public Shame: What We’re Actually Doing When We “Cancel” Strangers

Related:

• 9-takes Examples:

  • Enneagram Corner

  • The Anatomy of Public Shame: What We’re Actually Doing When We “Cancel” Strangers

  • Podcaster Personality Types

    Thanks for reading openpolitics! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Average Ticket Prices, by League:

1. NFL $297

2. NBA $165

3. NHL $146

4. MLB $79

NFL tickets are the most expensive on average across leagues ($297). The NBA features the widest price spread by market (Golden State Warriors vs. Memphis Grizzlies). NHL pricing is dominated by Canadian teams (especially Toronto and Montreal). And the MLB offers the most affordable options among major leagues.

NFL Average Ticket Prices (2024–2025)

• Las Vegas Raiders $578

• San Francisco 49ers $501

• New England Patriots $468

• Philadelphia Eagles $456

• Dallas Cowboys $446

• Kansas City Chiefs $416

• New York Giants $395

• Chicago Bears $380

• New York Jets $375

• Green Bay Packers $363

• Los Angeles Rams $359

• Buffalo Bills $344

• Pittsburgh Steelers $339

• Denver Broncos $320

• Miami Dolphins $310

• Baltimore Ravens $305

• Seattle Seahawks $295

• Cleveland Browns $288

• Minnesota Vikings $283

• Tampa Bay Buccaneers $273

• Detroit Lions $270

• Washington Commanders $265

• Los Angeles Chargers $262

• New Orleans Saints $252

• Carolina Panthers $240

• Atlanta Falcons $235

• Tennessee Titans $232

• Indianapolis Colts $229

• Houston Texans $220

• Arizona Cardinals $215

• Jacksonville Jaguars $210

• Cincinnati Bengals $206

• Source: Statista - NFL Ticket Prices 2024

NBA Average Ticket Prices (2024–2025)

• Golden State Warriors $589

• Los Angeles Lakers $562

• New York Knicks $432

• Boston Celtics $410

• Brooklyn Nets $270

• Miami Heat $260

• Chicago Bulls $255

• Philadelphia 76ers $250

• Dallas Mavericks $240

• Toronto Raptors $230

• Denver Nuggets $225

• Phoenix Suns $220

• Los Angeles Clippers $215

• Milwaukee Bucks $210

• Houston Rockets $200

• Atlanta Hawks $190

• Cleveland Cavaliers $185

• Portland Trail Blazers $180

• Washington Wizards $170

• Sacramento Kings $165

• New Orleans Pelicans $160

• Minnesota Timberwolves $155

• Indiana Pacers $150

• Charlotte Hornets $140

• Oklahoma City Thunder $135

• Utah Jazz $130

• Orlando Magic $125

• Detroit Pistons $120

• San Antonio Spurs $115

• Memphis Grizzlies $110

• Source: Barry’s Tickets - NBA Ticket Prices 2024

NHL Average Ticket Prices (2024–2025)

• Team Average Ticket Price

• Toronto Maple Leafs $385

• New York Rangers $363

• Chicago Blackhawks $320

• Boston Bruins $310

• Vegas Golden Knights $305

• Montreal Canadiens $300

• Philadelphia Flyers $290

• Pittsburgh Penguins $285

• Edmonton Oilers $275

• Vancouver Canucks $270

• Washington Capitals $260

• Los Angeles Kings $255

• San Jose Sharks $250

• Calgary Flames $245

• Minnesota Wild $240

• Tampa Bay Lightning $235

• Nashville Predators $230

• Detroit Red Wings $225

• Dallas Stars $220

• St. Louis Blues $215

• New York Islanders $210

• Colorado Avalanche $205

• Buffalo Sabres $200

• Winnipeg Jets $195

• Ottawa Senators $190

• Arizona Coyotes $185

• Florida Panthers $180

• Anaheim Ducks $175

• Carolina Hurricanes $170

• Columbus Blue Jackets $165

• New Jersey Devils $160

• Source: Statista - NHL Ticket Prices 2024

  MLB Average Ticket Prices (2024–2025)

• Boston Red Sox $167

• New York Yankees $160

• Los Angeles Dodgers $155

• Chicago Cubs $150

• San Francisco Giants $145

• Houston Astros $140

• St. Louis Cardinals $135

• Philadelphia Phillies $130

• Atlanta Braves $125

• New York Mets $120

• Washington Nationals $115

• Toronto Blue Jays $110

• Seattle Mariners $105

• Texas Rangers $100

• San Diego Padres $95

• Milwaukee Brewers $90

• Minnesota Twins $85

• Los Angeles Angels $80

• Kansas City Royals $75

• Detroit Tigers $70

• Baltimore Orioles $65

• Cleveland Guardians $60

• Pittsburgh Pirates $55

• Cincinnati Reds $50

• Oakland Athletics $45

• Tampa Bay Rays $40

• Miami Marlins $35

• Arizona Diamondbacks $30

• Colorado Rockies $25

QUESTIONS:

1. How much were ticket prices when you first became aware of the cost of a ticket?

2. How much do parking, food, etc. add to the final cost?

3. Many stadiums are now luxurious. How does the fan experience compare to the 1980s - 2010?

4. What percent of stadium/team costs are financed by the public?

5. Do ticket prices affect how you view major league sports?

Summary:

Sam Altman is asking society to risk massive infrastructure, public data, and economic stability on OpenAI’s grandiose promises, despite a recurring track record of exaggerated metrics, self-dealing, and questionable business practices.

A Pattern of Misrepresentation

• Loopt: Claimed high engagement while hiding metrics. In reality, the app had roughly 500 active users before being sold, shut down, and abandoned, leaving Altman millions richer.

• Y Combinator & Hydrazine: Placed up to 75% of his venture capital fund into YC-incubated startups using insider access, despite publicly denying cross-investments.

• Reddit Data & Community Deals: Aggressively scraped Reddit content to train AI models while holding a major personal stake in the platform, failing to deliver on an earlier pledge to return 10% of Reddit’s value back to its user community.

Circular Economics and Unsustainable Spend

• Revenue Disconnect: OpenAI has committed over $1 trillion to infrastructure over the next eight years, despite generating roughly $13 billion in annual recurring revenue—a fraction of its commitments.

• Recycled Capital: Deals with tech giants like Microsoft, Nvidia, and Amazon function circularly: big tech invests billions into OpenAI, and OpenAI immediately spends that cash back on those partners’ chips and cloud servers, artificially inflating valuations.

Profiting Off Both Sides of the AI Crisis

• Power and Supply Chain: Altman holds personal investments in the networking, rare-earth mining, and nuclear energy startups (such as Oklo and Helion) needed to supply OpenAI’s projected 250GW power demand.

• Monetizing the Fallout: While AI disrupts industries, Altman invests in solutions to the problems AI creates—including deepfake verification, scam insurance, and Worldcoin (an eye-scanning crypto project pitched as a UBI and identity verification fix).

Socializing the Risk OpenAI abandoned its original nonprofit safety charter to pivot toward commercial expansion. Statements from leadership indicate that if these aggressive, over-leveraged infrastructure bets fail, OpenAI expects government backstops, subsidies, and taxpayer bailouts to rescue the sector.

QUESTIONS:

1. If an investigative journalist dug into Sam Altman’s background, how many more examples of deception would they find? Does Altman have a reputation for deception with the public that contributes to the backlash against AI?

2. What would AI look like without cicular revenue deals?

3. Are AI leaders like Sam Altman able to create a Too Big To Fail system that makes their Bailout likely?

Israeli citizens have different rights, depending on their “nationality,” which is based on their ethnicity. This affects where they may live.1

Source: https://visualizingpalestine.org/visual/identity-crisis-the-israeli-id-system/

The primary nationalities recognized in Israel’s internal registry include:

• Jewish (the majority nationality)

• Arab (including Muslim, Christian, and Druze subgroups)

• Circassian

• Armenian

• Baha’i

• Samaritan

• Assyrian

• Aramean

• Maronite

• Coptic

There are approximately 130 different “nationalities” recognized in total. While some sources note that Israeli ID cards may simply list "Israeli" for all citizens, the internal population registry maintains these distinct ethnic-religious classifications, a system the Israeli Supreme Court has upheld to preserve the state's Jewish character.

Source: Brave AI

RELATED:

• 2013 Supreme Court ruling on nationality (Wikipedia)

MYTH: All Israelis are equal

Whenever Israel is accused of being undemocratic or being an Apartheid state, one of the main counter-arguments used by its advocates is that everyone in Israel is politically equal. They’ll often cite examples of “Arab” judges or members of Knesset to reinforce their point. We have specifically discussed the issue of Apartheid more thoroughly in [This article], and while they are connected, the goal of this article is to inspect the narrower claim that every Israeli citizen is equal.

While such a claim is very attractive to defenders of Israel, how realistic is it?

At first glance it does seem that all citizens in Israel enjoy the same rights, they can all vote, for example, among many other rights granted by citizenship. However, after a more thorough look it becomes clear that this talking point is only held together by the omission of one very important fact:

Israel distinguishes between citizenship and nationality.

What does this mean?

For example, you can be a citizen of Israel but be a Druze national, or a Jewish national. Your nationality is determined by your ethnicity and it cannot be changed or challenged. But how is this relevant to the original question being discussed?

It is relevant because many of the rights you are accorded in Israel stem from your nationality not your citizenship. Meaning an “Arab” Israeli citizen and a Jewish Israeli citizen, while both citizens, enjoy different rights and privileges determined by their “nationality”. Seeing how Israel is an ethnocracy it is not a mystery who this system privileges and who it discriminates against [You can read more about this here].

This is not merely discrimination in practice, but discrimination by law. Adalah have composed a database of discriminatory laws in Israel that disfavor non-Jewish Israelis. For example, the Law of Return and Absentees’ Property Law are but two examples of flagrant racism and discrimination in the Israeli legal system [You can read more about this here].

Source: DecolonizePalestine

ELSEWHERE:

• Israel expands law that allows villages and towns to ‘reject Palestinians’, Middle East Eye, Lubna Masarwa in Jerusalem and Elis Gjevori in Istanbul, July 27, 2023.

FOOTNOTES:

ELSEWHERE:

Israeli minister threatens to revoke filmmakers’ citizenship over Gaza documentary (BBC)

Israel’s culture minister has called for the Oscar-winning Israeli co-directors of Naza, a documentary that accuses the Israeli army of mass civilian killings in Gaza, to be stripped of their citizenship over “treason against the state”.

Named for the Hebrew military acronym for collateral damage, the film speaks to 24 unidentified Israeli military and intelligence officers who outlined the AI-powered targeting systems used by the Israeli army to bombard Gaza in the war triggered by the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023.

Since then, more than 73,000 Palestinians, including more than 20,000 children, have been killed in the campaign by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, figures considered reliable by the UN. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack.

Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor say their 80-minute documentary “details the systems behind Israel’s calculated mass killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza” during the war, according to its official synopsis. One of the people interviewed says there was the approval for an attack to kill 500 people for “one human target”, an allegation the IDF said was “completely false”.

In a post on X, Culture Minister Miki Zohar said he had asked the authorities “to investigate how the materials were obtained, who is behind them, and whether in the process of obtaining or publishing them, actions were taken that amount to aiding the enemy during wartime”.

In a letter addressed to Israel’s Interior Ministry, he said: “The claims presented in the film are false and distorted, and I categorically reject the attempt to portray IDF soldiers and the State of Israel as perpetrators of intentional crimes.” Zohar mentioned the country’s Citizenship Law, saying it “allows for the revocation of citizenship due to a ‘breach of allegiance to the State of Israel’”. The measure, however, has rarely been applied.

There has been no immediate reaction from Abraham and Szor. The filmmakers won an Oscar last year for No Other Land, a documentary about violence by Jewish settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Naza premiered last Thursday at the Venice Film Festival, where it received a 25-minute standing ovation, but has not yet been made available to the wider public. It won a special jury prize at the festival. Speaking then, Abraham said the reporting for the film, which was produced by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, had been “rigorous” and that efforts to discredit it were “attempts to not face reality”.

“It’s a war that has principally been killing civilians. And I think our film is showing that this is not some mistake. It’s not an accident. It’s something very, very systemic. And this should have been apparent to everyone, I think, from the start. But we are showing it from the inside, with insider testimony,” he told the Associated Press in an interview.

The IDF, after initially saying it “categorically rejects [the] allegations”, later issued a new statement via its spokesperson Brig-Gen Effie Defrin, saying: “The film ‘Naza’ has not yet been released in full. However, based on what can be seen in promotional material, it presents a series of serious and false allegations regarding the IDF and its personnel.

“To enable a substantive, professional, and fact-based discussion, rather than one based on misleading portrayals, I invite the filmmakers to allow IDF representatives to view the film in full so that we can address each of the allegations it raises on merits.”

Other Israeli politicians have criticised the documentary, including former prime minister Naftali Bennett, who called it a “horrific blood libel against our sons and daughters”, and former defence minister Avigdor Lieberman, who described the directors as “haters of Israel”.

But more than 700 members of the film industry signed a petition in support of the filmmakers, saying they were being subjected to a “campaign of incitement and vilification”. Speaking to Israel’s N12 channel, Israeli actor and screenwriter Shlomi Elkabetz said: “These are questions [raised in the film] that must be examined, not silenced.”

Prior Film

The Oscar Winning Film whose Creators have been stripped of Israeli Citizenship

For half a decade, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist, films his community of Masafer Yatta being destroyed by Israel's occupation, as he builds an unlikely alliance with an Israeli journalist who wants to join his fight. No Other Land is an unflinching account of a community's mass expulsion and acts as a creative resistance to Apartheid and a search for a path towards equality and justice.

QUESTIONS:

1. Given that many of these claims were published in +972 magazine or elsewhere, is this a demonstration that in the US is like Russia — there is a “free press”, but more retaliation for attention-getting video/movies?

2. The threat to the filmmakers citizenship is likely incentivized by election-season demagoguing, but will it backfire internationally?

3. Are you interested in organizing screenings of “No Other Land” and trips to “NAZA”?

Video Comments:

There's your "only democracy in the region".

So, only genocide supporting Jews are considered Israeli citizens. Got it.

An indicted war criminal defending war criminals. Who'd a thunk it?

The IDF filmed and posted their war crimes themselves. Will they get in trouble?

In a 2023 interview with Israeli media, [I] stirred up controversy with [my] remarks on [my] 1967 visit to the Zionist ethnostate, saying, “I saw Arabs being thrown out of their houses in Jerusalem. But it was just the extraordinary magical energy of a country just beginning to put its roots in the ground. It was an amazing time to be [t]here.

Now, bring this forward two years to 2025, when I was walking in London and a pedestrian heckled [me] for my positive portrayal of Israel in 1967.

In Britain today, could I, a (Christian Zionist) living in London, rightly be described as a victim of Anti-Semitism because of the pedestrian’s heckling related to my public minimization of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians in 1967 and opposition, today, to boycotts?

Can a Christian Zionist be a Victim of Anti-Semitism?

• And does this qualify as Anti-Semitism?

• Perhaps a more accurate term would be anti-Zionist?

But does calling it “Anti-Zionism” properly label an issue that pro-Israeli supporters want to conflate?

Elsewhere:

This scenario happened to Dame Helen Mirren, when she was called an “Evil, Zionist bitch”

Bad Tactics, less offensively done?

I don’t agree with the heckler that this is a good way to win friends and influence people, but I also don’t agree that everything deserves the label of “Anti-Semitism.”

Judging from the video, this incident was less intimidating than it could have been, as the heckler created quite a bit of distance between the couple before he delivered his insult.

“Mirren isn’t Jewish, but she supports the existence of the Jewish State. She also played former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir in a 2023 biopic, and has spoken out against the boycotts of the Jewish State that so many in her industry have shamefully supported.“

Jerusalem Post: ‘Evil Zionist b****’: Helen Mirren harassed on London streets over Israel support

Daily Mail: Dame Helen Targeted

QUESTION:

1. What is your definition of “Anti-Semitism,” and how does it compare with this usage?

2. If this version is broader than yours, why do you think that is?

3. How much of this attention is due to the prominence of the actor, Helen Mirren?

4. What would happen if this were a Muslim celebrity?

One would think that Democrats would be seeking the largest possible majority so that they can serve as an effective check against Trump in his final two years.

That does not appear to be the case, as establishment Democrats appear willing to pre-emptively fight the left in 2026, reducing the potential margin of victory. The goal is to maximize the prospects of the establishment's 2028 Democratic Presidential candidates, to the detriment of the left.

25:04

Hassan Piker. So what is their role? I mean, these are people who want to become president and they think obviously that denouncing per is a good move in terms of their campaign.

Is that setting up something? I mean, as we go because the other thing that we’re kind haven’t addressed yet, and maybe this can be folded into this question is the question of 2028 and the presidential candidate, the Democratic nominee, and how these issues will inevitably factor in. We saw what happened to Harris as a result of the genocide the last time around. Obviously, these are going to be key demands. We know all about the polling. we know it’s like a central um plank of many you much of the base so to speak. So how do you see the per is the are the two things connected? Do you see the the per attacks kind of um laying the groundwork for a more centrist candidate

Chapter 4: Why Democrats target Hasan Piker before 2028

to uh emerge as the nominee? Because as you say this is kind of a battle over o over the party and how you know the Jeffries of the world, the Schumers kind of see it and think how they think it should operate. What what what do the attacks tell us about 2028 if anything in your opinion?

Well, I think they’re more than just connected. I think that’s what they’re about. And Vox did an article uh not too long ago that said, you know, the Democratic mainstream or moderates have one goal right now, which is not winning the midterms by the biggest possible margin, but it is making a liability for 2028. So, uh, the Democratic establishment and the Republicans that were putting up on the, uh, on the jumbotron last night, they’re actually very closely allied in their way, or at least they’re working in tandem. Um, the way that they’re working in tandem is the Democrats, the Nera Tandins of the world, if people know who she is, the head of uh, American Pro progress, who’s very, very um, you know, aggressive in fighting progressives. uh they will take this thing on the jumbotron and say, “See, look, uh if we stick with with Per, we’re going to be opening ourselves up to these kinds of criticisms.” And of course, that was never said about Democrats associating with with Charlie Kirk or or um or or Mike Savage or you know, you know, any of the ones that Gavin Newsome was talking to. And it it does show the hypocrisy, but they they don’t really care about the hypocrisy. what they really care about is bullying us. So, to your question, are do these candidates think that they’re helping themselves? I think they’re soldiers in the fight. I think that that Gavin Newsome and John Oaf uh would potentially feel themselves threatened by a candidate who rises up who does have support from say if decides to support AOC, who’s, you know, herself been a little bit muddled in how she’s addressed all of this. But um no, they want to take they want to remove a a a progressive asset. And you’ll remember from 2024 and earlier, the Democratic establishment was was, you know, uh shaking their heads and moaning about how are we going to get a Joe Rogan of the left? Well, they got a Joe Rogan of the left and and and all they want to do is is suppress him and make him um uh ostracized and and and and make him unfit to take part in any campaign. And they’re saying why stay away from Abdul’s race? You know, don’t you know any better? You know, just just be quiet. Well, the thing is what he’s saying is very very popular and I don’t think he is going to shush up. I think what Nuome and Assaf are doing really is making themselves radioactive because as far as I’m concerned, Assaf is now unac unacceptable to the progressive left if AOC doesn’t run or if she falls back. I I wouldn’t support Assaf. I think most, you know, I I I wouldn’t support Gavin Newsome, you know, for for multiple reasons, including that, but also including the fact that he’s fighting against the wealth tax and he he killed Medicare for all in California and um you know, has sided with tech in numerous ways. So, I think that you know, Gavin Newsome is never going to be acceptable to the progressive left and most of the candidates won’t be, but I think that they really want to take um this is all what it’s about. They want to win this fight more than they want to win a big margin in the 2026 midterms.

And that’s why they’re focusing on it now. And they would love to see the progressives lose and all these moderate um uh central casting uh candidates that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has come up with. All the ones that are like, I served six tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. They want those people to win and their theory of electability to be uh proven in these midterms and the progressive theory of electability which is Elsed would win and Bill Lawrence would win and Angie Nixon could win you know and a few of the others. I mean I think um I’ve got um uh you know uh Amish Sha in Arizona one is another one. Uh Bernie Sanders is supporting some swing candidates.

29:59

3 Popular Issues

1. Local: Flock cameras

2. Regional: Data Centers

3. Global: Israel/Palestine

33:45

Israel. Um David Hog made a really interesting point about what’s going on at three different levels. He said basically we have three levels of issues that have really energized the progressive Democratic base. At the local level it’s flock cameras and and and surveillance that people can see in their communities. At the regional level, regional dome do domestic levels. It’s data centers. And of course, data centers have um really transformed a lot of these uh these contests in the primaries and I think still in the general election. At the global level, it’s Israel, it’s the genocide in Gaza, it’s the Iran war, it’s uh you know, it it’s everything that goes along with that. So, I think we have to be sober about the setbacks that we’ve had in several places, but I think we also have to lean into our strengths and find these alliances and find these commonalities. And I think the progressives can and should still be able to win. I don’t want to be gloomy, you know, and and negativistic, but I think we can’t claim bigger victories than we’ve had. This is just a step along the way. The Empire always strikes back and the Empire knows that they’re in a death match with us and they want to win that death match more than they want to more than they want to win a big victory for Democrats in the midterm. So that’s maybe where I would leave it.

35:04

QUESTIONS:

1. Do you think establishment media knows about establishment goals?

2. Do you think establishment will tell their audiences that the establishment is willing to sacrifice a margin of victory so that they can fight the left?

3. What do the top 3 popular issues have in common?1

FOOTNOTES:

Are Iranian drones using Chinese GPS?

Yes. While “GPS” specifically refers to the U.S. Global Positioning System, Iranian drones and precision missiles rely heavily on China’s satellite navigation constellation—BeiDou—alongside Russian and Western satellite signals.

The National News

Key Navigation Technologies in Iranian Drones

• Multi-Constellation GNSS Receivers: Modern Iranian drones, such as the Shahed series, rarely depend on a single satellite system. Instead, they use multi-system Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) chips capable of receiving signals simultaneously from U.S. GPS, Chinese BeiDou, Russian GLONASS, and European Galileo.

  The National News

• The Strategic Shift to BeiDou: Iran has systematically reduced its single-source reliance on U.S. GPS to counter Western signal-degradation and localized jamming. BeiDou offers dense satellite coverage and high accuracy across the Middle East, giving Iranian strike systems reliable positioning data.

  Defence Security Asia+ 1

• Anti-Jamming Integration (CRPA): By combining BeiDou and GLONASS reception with Controlled Reception Pattern Antenna (CRPA) technology, Iranian drones can filter out electronic warfare interference and directional “spoofing” (fake GPS signals), allowing them to maintain target trajectory in contested airspace.

  The National News

• Commercial and Dual-Use Supply Chains: Iranian defense manufacturers harvest dual-use navigation chips and circuit components manufactured in China, which are widely available on the open electronics market, allowing Tehran to assemble low-cost guidance packages despite international sanctions.

  The National News

How does Chinese GPS compare with US Military GPS?

China’s BeiDou navigation system (specifically BeiDou-3, completed in 2020) and U.S. Military GPS (NAVSTAR GPS utilizing military M-code) represent the world’s two leading precision positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT) networks. While GPS established the technical standard, BeiDou was specifically designed to counter GPS vulnerabilities and modern electronic warfare.

• Constellation Architecture & Orbit Strategy

  • U.S. Military GPS: Uses ~31 operational satellites positioned strictly in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO). It offers uniform global coverage, but typically yields fewer visible satellites overhead at any single point on Earth.

  • BeiDou-3: Uses a hybrid architecture of 45+ operational satellites across three orbital planes: MEO, Geostationary (GEO), and Inclined Geosynchronous (IGSO). This provides global coverage with a much higher density of visible satellites over Eurasia, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific.

• Anti-Jamming & Signal Security

  • U.S. Military GPS: Relies on M-code (Military code), which features encrypted, high-power “spot beams” designed to burn through localized electronic warfare jamming, paired with SAASM/M-code chips to prevent signal spoofing.

  • BeiDou-3: Broadcasts military and civilian signals across three frequencies simultaneously (B1, B2, and B3). This multi-frequency structure gives it built-in signal redundancy against selective frequency jamming.

• Targeting & Accuracy

  • U.S. Military GPS: Delivers sub-meter to centimeter-level positioning accuracy for military units equipped with Precise Positioning Service (PPS) receivers.

  • BeiDou-3: Achieves military accuracy on par with or exceeding GPS (centimeter-level). In the Asia-Pacific region, its GEO/IGSO satellites provide superior satellite geometry, reducing positioning errors compared to standard MEO-only constellations.

• Two-Way Communication (Short Messaging)

  • U.S. Military GPS: Strictly a passive (one-way) broadcast network. GPS satellites send timing data down, but receivers cannot transmit data back to the constellation.

  • BeiDou-3: Features a native Short Message Communication capability via its GEO satellites. Authorized military receivers can send short data bursts (location reports, field commands, emergency messages) back through the satellite network without needing ground cellular or radio relays.

• System Independence & Autonomy

  • U.S. Military GPS: Relies on a global network of ground tracking stations to maintain precise orbit and clock corrections.

  • BeiDou-3: Integrates inter-satellite optical (laser) links, allowing the satellites to sync clocks and calculate orbital metrics directly between themselves. This allows the constellation to remain operational even if domestic ground control stations are damaged or disconnected.

What is the "second mover advantage"?

The second-mover advantage (often referred to as the “fast-follower advantage”) is a business strategy concept where a company gains a competitive edge by entering a market after a pioneering first mover [1.1.1, 1.1.3]. Rather than taking on the massive risks and costs associated with creating a brand new market, the second mover observes what works, learns from the pioneer’s mistakes, and introduces an improved product or strategy [1.1.1, 1.1.3].

Key Benefits of Being a Second Mover

• Learning from Mistakes: Second movers can analyze the first mover’s early missteps in product design, pricing, or target demographics and avoid them entirely [1.1.1, 1.1.3].

• Reduced Costs: The first mover spends heavy capital on research, development, and educating consumers about a completely new concept [1.1.1, 1.1.3]. The second mover saves on these upfront expenses, capitalizing on a customer base that is already educated about the problem being solved [1.1.1, 1.2.5].

• Validated Demand: Being a pioneer is incredibly risky because actual market demand is uncertain [1.1.3, 1.2.5]. A second mover enters with the confidence of validated demand—they know consumers are already willing to pay for the solution [1.1.1, 1.2.5].

• Incremental Improvements: Unburdened by the pressure of creating something from scratch, second movers can focus their resources purely on executing a better, faster, or more specialized version of the product [1.1.3, 1.2.5].

Classic Real-World Examples

• Google: Google was not the first search engine (following AltaVista, Lycos, and Yahoo) [1.2.5]. Similarly, Gmail launched in 2004, years after Hotmail and Yahoo Mail [1.1.1]. Google won by studying existing user frustrations and offering vastly superior technology, such as 1GB of email storage (100x the competitors) and much better search algorithms [1.1.1, 1.2.5].

• Facebook: Entering the social media landscape after Friendster and MySpace, Facebook learned from the clutter, user-experience flaws, and scaling issues of its predecessors to build a cleaner, ultimately dominant platform [1.2.5].

The Disadvantages While highly effective, the second-mover approach is not a guaranteed success [1.2.5]. Second movers must play catch-up to overcome the first mover’s established brand recognition and market share [1.1.3]. If the first mover has locked in early customers through high switching costs, secured crucial patents, or built fierce brand loyalty, a second mover may struggle to capture the market and might simply be viewed as a copycat [1.1.3, 1.2.5].

Ultimately, winning as a second mover requires pristine timing and a clear value proposition that meaningfully differentiates the new offering from the original [1.1.1, 1.1.3].

QUESTIONS:

1. How many companies are expected to use Chinese GPS, rather than American GPS?

2. What effect will Chinese GPS have in adversaries’ ability to counter the US?

3. Does the “second mover advantage” alter incentives for being “first”?

And David Petraeus is way too friendly with him. I do wonder if we flipped him.

Well, Dave, you know, we go back a year or so ago at the UN General Assembly last year and Betraeus interviews him at some That’s right. And Betraeus is saying to him, “Your success is our success.” And he’s talking to him like he’s a proud father talks to his son.

Oh, absolutely. No, that that that that relationship there uh between the Oh, it’s deep. Oh, it goes back I mean it go I mean you go back of course into the 1970s with it. uh maybe even further. People probably know us better than I do, but certainly you know some of the uh uh uh u uh Hegmater uh Gulin Hecmar in Afghanistan. The United States is involved with him as early as like 1973. Yeah.

Right. I mean when he when they were throwing acid and stuff in the faces of uncovered women in Kbble these types that’s who the Americans are getting in bed with in the early 70s in Afghanistan because that is juxtaposed against the Soviets, right? So Soviets are all about women going to school, women being allowed to wear whatever they want. So if that’s what the Soviets are about, then let’s get in line with the guys who are against that.

Well, and that was Carter. That was also Jimmy Carter. I I because for my book on Iran, I was I was researching, you know, when Carter took over, there’s a lot of recently uncovered stuff that he was telling his advisers. For instance, something Carter told Big New Bjinski was look uh with the with the Ayatollah uh the Grand Ayatollah. He was like, “I I’m a Baptist. I’m a big believer in God. He’s not a Baptist, but he’s a big believer in God, and together we could form a union to fight godless communism.” And that was Carter, you know, Mr., you know, peck and he’s talking like he’s, you know, a zealot. You know what I mean? I mean it’s it’s there’s something wrong with US foreign policy here.

Well, there was well it’s based upon a righteousness, right? You know, a faux righteousness.

A faux right. But it is there’s manifest destiny turns into American exceptionalism. Um there is straight up genocide often.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, and you had uh uh the you know, you had a whole class of people that again um you know, come to power within the American Empire believing these stories, believing these narratives, again, thinking, you know, thinking they hit a triple when they were born on third base, which is what happens with the United States. Look, we we we we we have a vast continent and all we got to do is kill off a several hundred thousand couple million Native Americans and it’s ours, right? I mean like all we have to do we we we build this country on enslaved labor, right? I mean like and then when literally it’s it’s 1891 was wounded knee, 1893 the American Marines are overthrowing the kingdom of Hawaii, right? I mean, so it’s like that as soon as we take this continent, we’re moving.

And then, of course, 1898 is SpanishAmerican War. On and on and on, you know, I mean, so this idea that we were ever not an empire is ludicrous.

And then, of course, as we were saying earlier, World War II comes and everyone else is burnt to the ground with the exception of us, Canada and Australia. That’s it. Everyone else is burnt to the ground. Yeah.

Well, yeah. and Canada and Australia had their own problems and we were able to uh you know it’s it is astonishing and you see these patterns replicate now in the Middle East. Uh it’s not North America though. I mean this is a very different very far away place and the locals clearly have a little bit more leverage than we realize. Um, and um, you know, I’m again I come back to the Houthies and I’m just wondering, wouldn’t it just be easier to cut a deal with these guys? Like wouldn’t it just be easier to just what are we doing? Like what? Like this this is insane. And you look at these people and and I say I don’t mean it like these people, but you look at, you know, you look at them and you go, well, they’re clearly not just fighting for materialistic purposes. This is a group that clearly believes in their cause the same way other insurgents have. And we have a terrible track record against insurgencies like this. And yet nobody in DC is sitting down talking. I I was told by one of our guests today that the Houthis are still classified as a foreign terrorist organization.

I think they are. Yeah, I think they are.

What have they done to other than being partnered with Iran? And I’m genuinely asking because I don’t know enough about the Houthies to be able to say like what have they done to earn that distinction, you know, right? I mean, yeah, you get you get fluxed over it, right? And so, of course, you have this al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula that in Barack early in Barack Obama’s term, people were saying those are the guys you got to watch out for. HQAP is is very dangerous. On and on and on. And so, we get involved there and we start mucking around. Mhm.

And then in order to muck around there, who are we going to lie with? We going to lie with these insurgents that, you know, in with 2014 they take the capital, kick out the government. We’re going to lie with them. They’re Shia. That means they’re Iranian. Or are we going to lie with our buddies, right? Our good time buddies, smoke some cigars and hot tubs with the Amiradis and the Saudis. Who are we going to go with? Right? I mean, and so a lot of this just comes back to United States’s fixation on um uh divide and conquer, right? Um, you know, there’s a whole uh but also then too the the uh ensuring that we’re always against the Shia and you know and that means as well then supporting the Saudis and the Amiradis and AQAP uh because honestly a lot of the Houthies have been fighting al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda has been aligned with the government in Yemen and al-Qaeda has been aligned with the Saudis. Oh, big shock on that in Yemen, right? And so we have found ourselves on the same side of al-Qaeda once again. You know, we did it same side in uh uh Syria, same side in Libya. Uh oh, guess what? We we created them in Afghanistan. [laughter] I mean, so like, you know, there’s aspects of American foreign policy, this willingness to engage with the worst because the ends justify the means. I remember when I was a kid, I used to hear that about the Soviet Union that the Soviet Union practiced had this practice of the ends justify as utilitarianism. Yeah.

Yeah. Right. And then I come, you know, of age and like I’m looking at what my country does and our alignment with them or our alignment with the drug lords throughout the world, right? I mean, what we align with with the the the the uh mafioso uh throughout the Mediterranean and in Cuba and then in Cuba and then of course the history of our relationship uh with the drug trade in Southeast Asia. Anyone who’s not familiar with that, uh Google Alfred McCoy and buy his book uh you know, but also too then you have the 80s come and what are we doing in Central America, right? We’re running drugs on behalf of the Contros. Same thing in Afghanistan, by the way.

In Afghanistan as well. And I mean, I saw it firsthand in a sense of of literally we gave drug lords, we made them generals in the Afghan army, and then we gave them planes and helicopters. And what do you think they did? I mean, I’ve got all kinds of great stories about, you know, our relationship with those drug lords in Afghanistan, uh, you know, throughout our occupation. Uh, you know, literally paying them to rub out their competition. I mean, it was absolutely incredible stuff. Um, and you know, but that was that’s who we’ve allied ourselves with. We ally ourselves with these drug lords, with these with these gangs. We ally ourselves with these uh reactionary religious fanatics, right? I mean, because for us the ends justify the means or because we have some sculpted image of who our adversaries are and so we think that we have to support the exact opposite of them. So take Afghanistan the 70s. If the Soviets are on the side of modernization and allowing women to go to school and wear what they want, then we got to be on the other side of that, right? Um yeah, it’s funny. I I know a couple of former old-timers uh who live in the United States now, but they’re former Soviet officers. They that’s what they did. And one of them told me, we were at an event and uh speaking event and we were out and and he told me, he said, ‘You know, the only reason my country invaded Afghanistan is because we were worried about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism that you in America triggered in Iran and we were worried it was going to go right up to our border with Afghanistan. Now, I don’t know if that’s true.

Well, that was that was Brzinsk’s strategy. So, Right. So if people aren’t familiar with this, the United States starts uh sending assistance to the mujaheden to the Afghan rebels fighting the communist government in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet Union invades. And Bzinsk’s plan in his own words wrote this uh Gates wrote about this as well was the idea was to give was to to to force the Soviet Union to bait the Soviet Union into Afghanistan, get them trapped there and give them their own Vietnam. Bzinsk’s idea was that if people recall 7879 you have Iran of course but you also had Saudi Arabia the seizure of the grand mosque there you had also uh uh Pakistan as well right the the the attacks in Islamabad I mean you had major upheavalss in these uh countries and Brzinski’s idea is what if we take these jihadists I don’t know if they use that term back and we put them into an army and use them for our purposes and then we can use them against a Soviet Unionist way, bait them into evading. And so, exactly. Now, what’s also interesting too though is that if you read the Polar Bureau discussions on uh Afghanistan in 79 and into early 80, one of the things that they’re saying is we have to go into Afghanistan because the Americans got kicked out of Iran.

And if we don’t go into Afghanistan, the Americans will because the Americans have to replace their bases in in Central Asia someplace. So now if they’re out of Iran, they’re probably going to go into Afghanistan. And that is a serious line of argument. Yes.

Within the polit bureau, right, in 79 as to invade. And of course, Americans, we had never had any plans of doing that. But the Soviets believe that, right? Um I mean so but but yeah no this idea of then using this force for our purposes to uh in Brazinski’s words to light the soft underbelly of the Soviet Union on fire by spreading Islamic revolution throughout those Muslim republics in Central Asia that belong to the Soviet Union. That was the idea. That was the plan. Yeah.

And uh yeah and you know his big uh his book the grand chessboard in 96. I mean, I take it to task in my upcoming book, Fortress Americas. Um, I think that book did more damage to US Grand Strategy.

Yes.

Than probably any other book I can think of with the exception of maybe Fukuyama’s book. But that wasn’t really a grand strategy book as much of a political philosophy book. But in terms of like somebody offering here’s how we should go forward now that the Soviets are gone. I think big new Bjensky was one of was probably the most damaging individual in the post war.

I think he he had uh people became acolytes of his.

I know some people from CFR who and the same with Kissinger. Kissinger has this as well. Although I think in terms of lasting effect exactly I think still I mean you still have this idea. Have you ever seen the show The Diplomat on Netflix?

Yeah. With uh Carrie Russell from Yeah. Yeah. Great show. Great show. But at the end of one of the seasons, the American vice president comes in. She pulls out a map and she gives us whole explanation.

I’ve seen this why they need to be West.

Yes. Yes. Yeah. Alison, she’s a terrifying.

Terrific actress. She’s wonderful. And that’s a terrific show. Great show. Really fun. And uh for people who are wary about it being pro-America, it’s not. You know, it it it it really takes the task. The Iraq war really shines a light on American foreign policy as well as American politics in general. But, you know, in this scene, the American vice president’s at the map and she’s like showing this is why we need to be in Iceland because of this and that and if this happens and this will happens. It’s essentially, you know, elucidating Brzinsk’s grand chessboard, right? And it is it was infectious. And I agree with you on on on uh Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History. I think that did as well. And I would say uh Sam Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations. Um I actually think though his was probably the least of the three that were bad. I I thought his Oh, yeah. I thought his analysis in terms of how the world was going to divide along cultural and political lines, I thought that was very apt. And but I agree. Yes. the the the those Yes. Definitely though. Fukuyama and definitely is big. Yeah.

Oh man, that and and you know, you look at the what’s going on and I don’t mean to go on a tangent here, but you you look at what’s going on in Ukraine. This is straight out as big new Brazinski. In fact, there was um I quoted in my book on Ukraine. There was a uh Robert O. Wade maybe was the professor. He wrote at the London School of Economics blog right when the war in Ukraine happened. He said this is a purposeful strategy by the West. They want to they think they’re going to trigger the Russians to go in and then the Russians will get bogged down just like Afghanistan in the 80s. And then and I think he’s right. I think on some level that was the strate. It was a replication of what Big was saying to do in Afghanistan.

I well Hillary Clinton believed it as well. you know, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still in all those circles. Don’t, you know, don’t don’t uh pash what I’m saying in the comments about Clinton. Like, whatever you think of her, she is still very important. And and she’s praising Trump’s foreign policy now.

She is. She is. And she just this weekend said that uh her vote for the Iraq war was meant as a vote to put pressure on Saddam Hussein, not actually authorized the war. So even, you know, 25 years later, she still can’t own up to it, you know, or whatever. But of course not. She uh but but no, I mean that that she said that she said that end of February or early March of 2022 that this is what we want. Don’t we want this the Soviet the Russians, excuse me, to you know, and give them an Afghanistan, which is just incredible for anyone that’s paid because of what had just happened to us in Afghanistan. Right.

I can confirm, I’ve said this and I wrote about it in my book in right when the war started, like month three or four of that war, I was asked to go to a West Coast Air Force facility and and I participated like I usually do in a panel discussion after I gave a talk and you know all the panelists were you know we’re got to go in there, nz and I was the only one who was expressing doubt and concern and the the twostar it’s always a two star. The twostar lit me up in the audience. He was like the base commander or whatever. And he goes, “You know, Brandon,” he goes, “you don’t seem to understand.” He goes, “We’re breaking the Russian army in the field for free.” Right? And I was like, “It doesn’t seem like it’s for free.” Like, you know, like, [laughter] you know, ask the Now, mind you, I had just helped my wife’s colleague, my now my wife, her she she works at the hospital here. her colleague was from Ukraine from Kkefe and she had flown the week before the war began. Her sister was dying of cancer in KKE and she got stuck in the Russian advance and so I had to call a buddy of mine at State Department and they basically navigated her out to safety now. So I’m like it’s not for free, General There are people who are being annihilated and ruined by this war that we clearly triggered and wanted.

Oh, it’s uh it’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking, you know, on on both sides, the hundreds of thousands of families that have been ruined. Uh and then you talk about the millions of people who’ve been displaced. Uh you talk about the environmental damage to this war. Uh Ukraine is wrecked for generations to come. Uh for what? Rebuilt. What’s that?

I don’t think it’ll ever be rebuilt. I think I mean, well, Black Rockck’s got the contract, right? So, I’m sure it’s all going to turn out. Yeah, they’ll they’ll import a bunch of people from around the world and it it won’t be Ukraine anymore though. The Ukrainians don’t have a home anymore.

But none of the money will get the I mean, you know, with and and then as you said, for free if you want to get literal with that with the cost, you know, I I American American in was about what 175 billion or something like that. You know, all of our interceptors between that just the money we put in this uh how much of that actually made it to where it was supposed to go? You would have had better luck putting that cash uh unbundled, right? Ripped out of its packaging [clears throat] loose in the back of open trucks and driving it from Odessa to Kev hoping it’s going to get where it’s going to going than actually in the process that we have for it. I mean that money so much of that money was stolen. Uh well, it was institutionalized. There’s a reason. Look, I know everybody is, you know, turning and I say this all the time, too. Whatever corruption the Biden family was involved in in Ukraine, the Trumps have just made that look like nothing. But I will say there is a reason the former president’s son was on the board of the largest or one of the largest Ukrainian gas companies with Jay Kofer Black who was the former counterterrorism center director at CIA. That was not a coincidence. That was purposeful. They wanted an institutionalized system set up to pill for our money. that was going through Ukraine.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and so you know that war um as it continues and I don’t see an end of that war either. I think that goes past this presidency. I mean the money, man. That’s how they do it.

I have heard that from both Russians and Ukrainians that this is, you know, and my friend in Russia, she was saying this the other day. This is a big problem because the war has become the business. The war is what’s driving industry. The war provides money to people who never had money before as well as makes the rich even richer. How do you stop that? How do you stop it? There’s no reason to stop the war. It’s going so well, you know, for many communities, many industries.

Also in Russia, I mean, you look at the defense manufacturers in Russia, 40% of their economy or something like that is now geared toward the war. now understandably because they are in a major war but I mean I’m sure on some level some of those guys are also saying hey this is good for business that’s absolutely right that’s absolutely right I mean and you know say yeah and Russia has done very well preparing for this war as we’re talking about Iran did and one of the things that they really excelled at was ensuring that their industry their economy in general was going to be able to be elastic enough to survive the attempted isolation by the west by all the sanctions, the seizure of assets, all these things. And the Russians have not just weathered it, they’ve actually improved their economy in many ways, either by finding new markets to their south or to their east, or by creating industries in country to make sure that their shelves aren’t going barren, but it’s still a wartime economy. You still have real issues with inflation. You still have real issues with interest rates. I mean, you still have a drag on the economy and you were putting, as you said, your focus into the war. And so maybe the first year or two or three where you’re not prioritizing everything else, you get by. But then in years four and five and six, it starts to show that you’re not investing in your country. You’re only investing in the war. And I’m not saying that’s going to cause Russia to collapse or the people are going to burn the Kremlin down. No, not at all. Absolutely not. I don’t believe that either. This is a war that Russia can’t win. I mean, excuse me. Russia can’t lose. Ukraine can’t win. I mean, that’s basically the this the setup here, you know, but it is it’s one of those things in the Ukraine, of course, um the amount of money being made there and the political class that’s benefiting from it. Uh disgusting.

It is. And if that political class was to fall for some reason, who replaces them? It’s going to be the far right. You know, nationalists, right? Yeah. And they’re not going to end the war. So I don’t see how this war ends, you know. Um and all everyone who said, “Well, Ukraine’s military going to collapse.” You can’t. So you’re telling me Russia is going to occupy the entire country and the West is just going to say, “Oh, okay. That’s fair enough. You won.” No. I mean, Jesus, you talk about the the wet dreams that Langley and the MI6 have about an insurgency and you’ve been dreaming about this for 80 some odd years. They tried it for what a dozen or so years after World War II. an insurgency in Ukraine. They are so excited about this.

And again, it gets back to the idea of like that was the idea is get Russia to invade Ukraine and then we’ll give them another Vietnam or or this way we’ll get Afghanistan right on the second try. You know, God help us.

It it is so well I and and by the way, I I also I couldn’t confirm it for my book. I did include it in my book, but I made it clear that, you know, this was still a rumor. I was convinced, you know, the the Pentagon found, what was it? Seven billion dollars they found through accounting errors. Oh, yeah. Remember that? Well, then 48 hours later, 24 hours later, who goes trucking into Russia is Pragosian, the world’s greatest mercenary. And I always thought, man, there’s there’s got to be something there. There’s got to be something there. We paid because we were desperate at the time because the Russians were holding everybody off. So we maybe we paid off pragosian, you know, and he goes running into Russia because he’s a mercenary and hey, maybe he gets lucky and he’s pissed off at Putin anyway. Doesn’t go well. Then he makes a deal with Putin and now the CIA’s left holding the bag.

Very possible. Very possible. I I I never put those two things together like that, but I’m not going to tell you no. I’m not going to tell you no. You know who told me no? You know who told me no? I got I got a real nasty letter from a friend of mine who’s very senior um in the intelligence community saying that I have become a Russian disinformation.

[snorts] Come on. Yeah. Normally when I get letters like that it means I must be overt target. Um I mean that mean the the American uh commentar Apple and uh Mike McFall. I mean these guys must be by the way they were wetting their pants in the summer of 23 when Pgoan made that run on Moscow. They were wetting their pants when was that June or July or whenever it was I mean they were oh they were so excited and you know political was was bursting cheering on progosion I’ve so excited about this you know and then you know right but then also too as you said I remember people don’t recall us look it up they had they were running low on their money for Ukraine the Biden administration and all of a sudden they found oh actually these weapons didn’t cost as much as we thought they cost. We’ve got $7 billion more.

That’s right. [laughter] And they did it on a f I remember they did it on a Friday on an afternoon, so nobody was listening. And it was like, oh yeah, this is how it goes. And I was just like, “Oh my god, they’re they’re doing it again. They found a way to wash the money.” And by the way, today is the anniversary when Rumsfeld said, “Uh, we’re missing $2.3 trillion from the defense budget.” Well, that’s right. The day before September, Right. Exactly. So very fortunate for him.

There’s nothing there. I’m sure I’m sure I’m being a conspiracy theorist again. And we’re going to have tomorrow Dr. Michael Shyer on with us for the 91 anniversary. And I’m going to ask, he’s a buddy of mine. Um, and you know, he’s he’s got some very interesting theories about what was really going on. One of the things he told me once, I’m going to ask him about it again, uh, is he was he became convinced that as he was running the CIA Bin Laden unit to kill Bin Laden, he was convinced that Brennan and some of these other guys had created a counter CIA bin Laden unit to help Bin Laden because he was saying there he had four or five times where he had bin Laden in his crosshairs, literally minutes he could have killed him and at the last minute somebody above him said, “No, no, no. We’re not going to do it.

Do it. Well, I mean, there are those stories certainly. There there was uh he was like on a hunting expedition in southern Afghanistan. That’s right. This is one of those times. Yeah. And that was that was one of the ones and and I I think there were a couple other times. I mean, you got to remember this man was our ally. This man was our success story and we continue helping al-Qaeda after he dies.

And in General David Petraeus’s words, your success is our success. you know, and I read Shrier’s books in uh Oh, they were great. And man, they were they were I thought they were extreme though in his understanding of of uh the the reach of al-Qaeda and even with I mean because my understanding too of al-Qaeda in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq that fought the foreign fighters that came here which was such a tiny part of the insurgency was that they were not were following religious conviction. And it was more coming to defend, right, against a foreigner, to help their neighbors kind of thing. Um, and then the Islamic State came around though and man, no, maybe maybe Shore was off by a few years, but I’m going to talk to him about this because I do Islamic State fits what he was talking about. Yep. Absolutely.

Let me ask you, I know we’re running out of time. I know I know I’m sorry to keep you. Let me just ask you one last question here. Um, you and I are very critical of American foreign policy. I I I think it’s because we both mean you had much more experience than I did with it, but we both kind of lived on the policy side at least and we saw what really happens and it’s ugly and it’s stupid at times, right? Um and we were just criticizing sort of what the general sort of disposition of the US is in foreign policy. What do you think would be a good or healthy grand strategy or foreign policy for the US to adhere to where we avoid what we’ve been doing but we don’t also sort of give up the ship if you will? You know, what is the best way forward where we still preserve our our our power but you know we we’re not we’re not doing what we’ve been doing. Feel free to go anyway with that if you want.

Yeah. I mean I mean my one I would you know try and return to international institutions and international law. Uh that’s the only thing we’ve got right. I mean what they came to at the end of the second world war the creation of United Nations however flawed it is however much you know it was uh you know however flawed it was uh whether in its construction or in its operations over decades I understand but what else do we have kind of thing. Uh but for the United States specifically essentially come home America. You know this idea of you know true national strength comes from our people. It comes from our economy. It comes from our infrastructure. It come right I mean we are putting everything we have now on this bet that we are going to win the AI race. This is absolutely insane. uh our most of our growth in our economy is coming from this speculation on AI you know and this just inability over the decades to invest in ourselves to make sure we have worldclass infrastructure worldass education exactly health care right I mean what do you need for a strong economy uh uh educated and healthy workers you know I mean you read these things that are now they don’t even ask this question anymore more uh you know this idea of like could you produce iPhones in the United States you know and decade or so ago Tim Cook is saying no we can’t we couldn’t get the workforce here you know we don’t have we don’t have an educated enough workforce for it you know I mean so that would be my thing Brandon we want to succeed in the world come home you know pull these kind of what the Chinese did yeah exactly what the Chinese did I conquering except accept the limits of our power you know you can have a realist mindset on this. I’m not saying we’re all going to get in a circle and smoke pot and sing Kumbaya. I mean, I’d like that. I would enjoy that. I’d take part in that. But I mean, I also can like, you know, I mean, you could talk to a guy like John Mirshimer or, you know, I mean, Steven Walt and I think they have the same ideas here. This idea of like a realist policy would be something that actually works in the real world. Not adhering to the fantasy of our empire, not adhering to what we once were, not adhering to a 20th century military in the 21st century as being able to achieve. We couldn’t even do that in the 20 20th century with it, right? We couldn’t, right? I mean, so why we’re going to do I mean the whole but but essentially this idea of investing ourselves and accepting the world as it is. So accepting the multipolar world. I don’t know if that means saying okay uh if you want to get real uh real uh uh focused on interests here okay then we’ll have sphere of influences and we’ll take the right I mean like if you want to go down that path I don’t agree with that but I understand that’s the path I I favor because I understand where the path is coming. I’m not I don’t I don’t believe in uh owning the western hemisphere. I think that is well through trade. I want to do trade. That’s exact trade. Exactly. that sense. But you know, spears of influence certainly, you know, that that’s certain that’s something that’s very uh that could be articulated quite reasonably uh can be argued for uh and keeps uh the powers out of each other’s business. Uh because that’s that’s a big thing for me is like I if we see how we’re reacting now, but the other thing too is you look at the success of China over these these two decades and god, you go back go back to 2001 and look where China was. Look at Shanghai 2001, the skyline, and look at it today. Yeah, exactly. Look at Shenzhen. Yeah, Shenzhen’s even more impressive that story, right? You know, and and then, you know, I mean, look at like GDP. It’s incredible. Or, you know, this is a big thing going back to the beginning of the year, you know, one of the reasons for the Venezuela operation. Uh, you know, who’s the biggest trading partner of every country in the Western Hemisphere except for North America, right? it is the Chinese. You I mean like and the idea of like my god, how did we allow that to happen? I’m sympathetic to that. Like not in a sense that we should now go kidnap presidents and you know [laughter] all that type of stuff, but I understand like there’s a middle ground there. There’s a middle ground somewhere like the frustration like how the heck did this happen? How did we let this happen? How do we focus on this militarism and everything that comes with it and running them around the world like an upset giant toddler destroying countries and meanwhile in our sphere of influence our western hemisphere our backyard and again I don’t really subscribe to that but I can understand that phrasing um China has won every economy you know if you ask Google put me up a map of the western hemisphere and show me which countries are you know have their biggest trading partners, China. It’s all of them. Yeah. And how did that happen? We let that happen. We let that happen. It wasn’t because the Chinese tricked us or they don’t play by the rules. No, because we were f focusing on building F-35s and hanging out in the Middle East.

Exactly. I had a friend of mine, Brandon, who went to China uh in 2010 or so, and he he went and spoke with folks in the Chinese Foreign Ministry, and he asked them, he said, “What would you like to see American policy to be?” And they say, “We want to see the Americans stuck in unending wars in the Middle East. We want to see you continue that.” Sounds about right.

Right. I mean, exactly. You see, like, okay, great. That’s what we did. And we burned trillions of dollars and we burned our focus and we burned uh all of our prioritization. If people don’t think prioritization and focus don’t matter in terms of, you know, our leadership in DC as well as our corporate leadership, well, they’ll follow the money. But the the political leadership only has so many hours in a day after spending all their days focused on either this war or a coming war or what have you, particularly wars like Iraq and Afghanistan or, you know, proxy wars, Syria and Libya. How are we going to succeed anywhere else? That’s right.

You know, and you I I agree. And and this is the basis of my next book that’s coming out in November. Uh now I’m more of a sphere of influence guy, but I I I make it clear the the the impetus is geoeconomics. It can no longer be at the barrel of a gun because that’s not it’s not how anybody does it anymore. The really successful countries, you want to acquire power, you want to acquire influence, you trade, you do trade, you do business.

How many how many meetings and briefings did Barack Obama sit through about Afghanistan, right? And how many did he sit through about healthcare or about education or about our infrastructure? How many briefings did he had on our rail system? How many times did somebody sit down with Barack Obama and say, you know, Mr. President, this is the condition of our ports. This is this is the reality of it. Like we are way behind, you know? I mean, yeah.

And now they’re having the briefings and it’s in an emergency setting. It’s uh Yeah. Everything’s falling apart. Yeah. We can’t We can’t maintain the carriers. We can’t maintain the destroyers. Yeah.

It’s uh [sighs] Yeah. You know, it’s a what’s the line? It’s a It’s a fickle thickle world out there and we’ve been very fickle and uh you know, now we’re in a pickle. Um well, I thank you again. I know we went a little long on this one like we did last time. I always love talking to you though. It’s uh it’s always so interesting. Um, yeah, there’s a lot to think about there. And, uh, also I’ll just add, I think it was one of the veterans who was killed in the recent war with I or in the war with Iran. It might have been even Kleiner, but one of them had plans to leave the service and go be uh, high school football and history teacher. And you and you start thinking how many how many of these guys and gals could have come back and actually built community and built up the next generation. How many holes are now being created for the next generation that no one can fill? You know, I think about that a lot. Um it’s it’s really sad because you know these are young people that are being deployed away from their families and yes they I know they volunteered but ultimately the point of the military colon pal had it right and I know Maline Albbright yelled at him about this but Colon Pal didn’t want to use the military and he wanted to hold it back for an actual crisis and it was Maline Albbright in the 90s who said for God’s sakes Colin we have this big military why don’t we ever use it yeah you know she did she Yeah.

He um Yeah, I mean I have plenty of uh friends and those I knew who were killed in the wars, you know. I think about them, you know, I think about Michael or JD or Train or Joe or, you know, and these are all really good men, really capable, really smart. You think about their families, about their children, about their wives who’ve lived these years without them, right? So that future that was once promised is was gone, was destroyed for what? But then you also think about too uh what they could have done. That’s right. What they could have done for their communities, what they could have done.

I I had this experience. I was in Columbus, Ohio back in April and um the KC 135 that crashed. I guess that that Kleiner or Kleiner was aboard. Yeah. And um uh one of the one of the the crewmen was being buried that day. And so I’m driving down through Columbus, whatever the main highway that goes up in the middle of Columbus, and I’m driving and the road is empty next to me. And I’m f and I see there’s state troopers blocking the uh on-ramps. And then finally, it comes this giant funeral procession. I’ve never seen a funeral procession like this before in my life. It must have been it was miles long. And it was for this uh airman, this air national guardsman, this Ohio National Guardsman who was killed in the skies of Iraq during this war. And I just, you know, what he could have done, right, for his community, what he might have become. This is what EB Sledge says in in uh uh um his his book with the old breed, which was one of the great books about World War II. You know, Sledge throughout that book, and Sledge fought on Paleu in Okinawa, and Sledge said, you know, it haunted him. He became a doctor after the war to make good with what he from what he saw in the war, what he took part in. But this idea of what a waste, you read that book and that’s how he ends paragraph after paragraph, chapter after with that phrase, what a waste, you know, this idea that these young men were and what could they have become. That’s right. Right. And you see that, you know, and it’s the same. So it’s the same. We we’ve killed 4,500 Iranians. We’ve killed the Israelis have killed 10,000 Lebanese since 2023. Uh they’ve killed 80,000 Palestinians. I mean, like just the idea of all this stuff. But then we just saw I saw a sailor was killed off of the coast of Dubai on a ship that was hit by either us or by the Iranians. You know, what’s happening to his family? What could it have become when he got home? And now he’s got children who grow up without a father. I mean, like what an absolute waste. And for what, you know, no one can answer this, right? No one can give me an answer, you know, but what a waste. Yeah. What a waste.

That’s right. And uh it’s it’s got to end. It’s because we do need to come home. Yeah, we we’ve got a lot of problems here and we need those men and women here. Um, not to be military police, but to contribute, right?

Yeah. I mean, my my we just put together a a policy my organization media network just put together a policy statement on nuclear weapons. And one of the things is, you know, reducing it down to just basically the term force of submarines. And if you feel you need to have air launch munitions as well, okay, well, keep some keep a squadron or two in the reserves or the guard or something. But all we needs are ballistic missile subs for deterrence. And uh the idea of of taking apart this uh leviathan, this nuclear leviathan. But the reality is is that you have thousands, tens of thousands of engineers, scientists, just incredibly well-trained and educated people who could do anything. And so you can imagine if you took this whole class of people, the thousands or tens of thousands who work on our nuclear weapons, whether designing them and building them, maintaining them, operating them, safeguarding them, whatever, uh what those people could do for our country, right?

Right. You know, but we’ve got them sitting in missile silos or out in a hanger, you know, in Missouri someplace. Yeah.

And there’s still the the possibility based on what the limited things I’ve done for the again I don’t have a clearance so I don’t they don’t read me into all this stuff but uh when I go out there uh you know Edwards Air Force Base they they could be playing with a lot of stuff and they’re not sharing it with the you know that’s another thing is that they’re locked away and all this technology clean energy could be there.

I mean, there’s so much that’s locked away because of our national security state. Anyway, yeah, it’s a uh it’s it’s a it’s a tragedy. We need to do some very serious changes. We need to come home and change and get better at home. Um, thank you, Matthew, as always. He is Matthew Hoe, uh, Eisenhower Media Network, former State Department official, former US Marine, and I am Brandon Warder at WeWe the Brandon, Twitter X, and I’ll see you tomorrow.

All right, thanks Brandon. Bye, buddy.

QUESTIONS:

1. How many Americans would support terrorists on the theory that they share a belief in God?

2. Were you aware of Brzinsk’s strategy of baiting the Soviets in Afghanistan? What do you think of it?

3. Had you heard that on the eve of September 11, 2023, Donald Rumsfeld announced that the government was missing $2.3 trillion from the defense budget.

If a country is small, their ability to exercise influence by threatening to sell is minimal.

TRANSCRIPT

7:00 min. (Quotes appear further down the transcript)

Um, but it probably goes even further back than them. I I'd imagine that when Malay starts first making alliances among the nationalists and stuff, he's making the Argentinian nationalist case for the Fauklands. So, this is probably like a baked in policy that's been there very long running between the Argentinians and the Americans. And now, like Jack in the Box is on the scene at the worst possible time. But you know now you know now the British could respond if there's any serious um uh changes around the status of the Falkland Islands or if respond for the audience respond by so because the Americans are supporting Argentina's malay pressure to to regain or to get to get control or to enex the the Falcon Islands, whatever term you want to use. So what the British could do is then dump US treasuries or at least threaten or weaponize their US Treasury holdings to pressure the Americans not to support MLE in these efforts. Yeah. I mean imagine like imagine you have a lot of debt and you decide like you know you're in a lot of you're under a lot of pressure with your credit cards or whatever and then your neighbor is your second largest debtor and you decide to pick a fight over the height of the wall. It's like, dude, like, don't pick a fight over the height of the wall at the moment. You own loads of money and your other creditors are calling in all the money, but you're like, "No, I'm going to go and pick a fight with him because that wall's not high enough." Like, I don't know why they're doing all this stuff. I guess that it's probably legacy. Mhm. Do you think how been a lot of rumors that the Gulf might have threatened Trump behind the scenes to dump US treasurers if he does XY Z or doesn't do ABC for example retaliate for the strike on Dubai and Fujra a few months ago or stop the war with Iran or not escalate whatever they requested from him but these are just rumors. Have we seen many examples of the weaponization of the US treasuries? I haven't seen anything anything recently only rumors where countries treasuries use that. They haven't weaponized it. They've just decided to sell US treasuries, but they haven't gone to the president or best. That's never that's never that that's never a neutral decision to sell US treasuries to public. Even if they came out and said about saying maybe it's not maybe it's not political though, maybe it's just an economic decision because it makes sense economically instead of being used for political purposes. Even if those sorts of decisions make sense economically, they're always political. like part of US uh foreign policy statecraftraft is managing their reserves holdings. Like what we're learning in the current crisis is that the public was told that the American uh uh treasury holdings abroad were reserve holdings. And what are reserve holdings? I mean simplified, they're like rainy day funds for for countries, right? You have reserve holdings because you have like savings in the bank. And if you have any serious economic problems like the Japanese currently have, you have the reserves in the bank to bring out and you know bail out your currency or whatever. That's what the Japanese are under pressure to do and the British are probably under pressure to do it too. What we've learned from this crisis is those aren't reserve holdings because the the boss in Washington DC says when you're under crisis you're not allowed get rid of them. So that's what actually there's a term for that. It's called tribute. It's called tribute to an empire. So, if you're in an empire back in the old days, you'd send tribute. You'd send like gold and slave girls and elephants and all and tigers and you'd send them to the big guy, right? And the big guy would be like, "Okay, proconsul, like everything's cool in your neck of the woods cuz I have my slave girls and my elephants." And that's basically what those reserve holdings have proved to be. They're tribute to the emperor. And then what happens if you start to say I'm not really sure I want to send tribute anymore. The emperor gets mad and they put pressure on you not to sell those reserve holdings. So they were never reserve holdings. They were tribute to the empire. And actually the economy the US treasuries that those countries hold the treasur the example you're referring to is that the treasuries these countries are hold is that in many cases it's not an economic decision. It's a political decision to be able to be on the good side of the Americas and ask them for favors. The British ones are particularly interesting. I've got lots of um responses to some of the conversations we've had that the British ones actually aren't majority held by state actors. They're held by some strange hedge fund vehicles in London. I haven't been able to confirm this, but it sounds kind of credible to me. And the Cayman Island ones might be the same. They might just be kind of like recycling mechanisms set up uh partly by the Americans. But even if that's not true, even the Japanese ones, they are genuine reserve holdings. Oh, genuine reserve holdings. And then it's like, well, we it's our rainy day. The yen's falling. We need to sell our reserve holdings. And you know, the big guy's like, nope, keep sending the slave girls. And of course, what it's doing is it's just propping up American living standards. You know, the economist Januz Farfakus, who was Greek finance minister back during the crisis, he said this. He wrote a book called the global minotaur ages ago. I think it was just after the Greek debt crisis or maybe it was before. And he said that it was all tribute. And the response that he got was like that's a bit he's kind of a Marxist. I I know Janos actually is a Marxist but he's a very smart guy. And people were like you're just a far leftwing Marxist. That's not how the world works. Well, okay. Sorry. It is how the world works apparently. So that's like crazy. By the way, on the Treasury thing as well, there's massive ETF outflows now. So the retail have started dumping. I I'm not sure why the retail started dumping. like is it because words getting out through shows like this or onx or in newspaper headlines but the retail is usually like not to be mean but it's usually thought of as the dumb money and it's usually the money that moves last but ETF flows are moving out I I I don't know what to make of that but in any normal situation when the ETF flows reverse you're like whoa retail's leaving like that's like small investors but just talking about the one just about the point you made earlier that this is uh the the countries holding US treasuries is like holding tribute and asking the US for favors. We're seeing Trump [ __ ] on countries that hold a lot of US treasuries, especially Europe and European countries and Gulf countries dragging them into the war. Gulf countries, European countries, invest a lot in the US, hold a lot of US treasuries. So if the argument, if your argument applies, we shouldn't be seeing we should be Trump further supporting Ukraine and not doing the complete opposite. I don't know with the Ukraine one, but in general, not JD Vance, not JD Vance going to Europe and the first thing he talks about is the threat not of Russia, but remember that speech last year, the threat being Europe from within. Well, here's the thing. They misunderstood this whole system. You want to go back to before all this craziness started, right? And the Trump administration had the bones of an economic strategy. I think it was called the Mara Lago accord. And it was written by a guy called Steven Moran who was kind of Scott Besson's brain. Uh he brought him into treasury with him. Um Moran ended up saying some stuff about the US dollar that was way too spicy and he got thrown onto the Federal Reserve Board. But like Besson can think for himself. He's a smart guy, but you always want your kind of like high-end research guys, right? The good papers and stuff. And that was Moran. And he put together the uh the strategy for the administration. And a lot of it uh derived from uh Zultan poer's work who was kind of a dollerist guy. He's friends with Bessant. I know Khan a bit. Um and he gets it like he gets that the world was moving away from the dollar. And the strategy there was basically twofold, right? The first part we all know about. It was to raise tariffs, right? And that was the big tariff move back 2025 before all this craziness with energy markets and stuff like that. Now raising tariffs on its own isn't just going to create companies. Like that's not how the world works. Like if you could if that worked then like Ghana could just raise 100% tariffs and they'd start making Teslas, right? But the world doesn't work like that. Obviously you need inward investment too or you need investment domestic or inward. So the plan was if you remember that um Bessant was going to go around the world and he was going to go to various global capitals like Korea and Japan and he was going to say if you want to continue using our military protection give us money, invest in our economy. This was part of the plan. Leverage American military might to extract tribute from the subjects. That was an overt tribute relationship and it was invest FDI into our economy, build factories or whatever, foreign direct investment. I never I never thought that this was going to work and we can discuss it if you want, but it's kind of ancient history at this point. But what it shows is that they didn't understand that the current system is already a tribute system. So to Japan, please send, you know, Nissan factories if if it's even a relevant company anymore. Japanese stuff is not competing with Chinese now. Let's say it is send Nissan more Nissan factories to the United States and Japan's like dude we already hold most of your like most the the most foreign treasuries or whatever and we're propping up your consumption by that. So clearly they did not understand the the fragilities in this tribute system that have built up but they're now treating it like a tribute system and as you say they're making this huge mistake of bullying a bunch of their creditors. Britain with the Argentinian thing, Europe, yes, with the Ukraine thing. Although, you know, you could make a case that the war in Ukraine has to has to end and it's like existentially important for the American Empire. There is a case to be made. Faullands, what? Like, who cares? Come on. M um yeah, but the one thing I'm I'm wondering as you speak is there's no I can't think of any instance or even any leak from a credible source where a Gulf country says they will dump US treasuries if Trump does not stop the war in Iran. Otherwise, we wouldn't see the war in Iran. Now, I know he offered a swap line for Dubai. No, no, there's a reason there's a very significant reason for that. Why? If the Gulf countries even intimate that they're going to drop treasuries, they'll immediately have the pegs that they have to the US dollar broken. All those countries pegged to the US dollar. Of course. Of course. Now, they can make a decision to unpeg, but that would have huge ramifications for the economy. You live in one of those countries, you know, it's a US dollar system there, right? That would have huge ramifications to undo that peg. The the oil would go north. The currency will go north. They're not pegged up. They're pegged down. And they're not trying to defend their currencies. They're trying to defend them from rising too much. Currency pegs are super politically sensitive. My old boss almost got thrown out of a country for criticizing a currency pack. Is that No, not is do you work with Arty right now? Art, do you work with him? Who? Who's who who's the person that owns uh PI Private Investor Capital? Uh that's Max. Yeah, he's Say his No, no. Say his name again. Who Who is it? Max Max. I think he's been on your show. Yeah, he Yeah, he's coming on show today again. He's speaking to a brother. Okay. I just remembered now as you're speaking um um Yeah. So So Okay. So that's to the Gulf countries. But then how do you explain um what he did with Greenland and Denmark for example, you know, that stuff is that stuff's needless. Okay. So you can make a case the Ukraine war was the beginning of this process of American imperial decline runs on the dollar and so on, right? You can make that case. So you can say DC needs to get the Ukraine war resolved and like they need to put a lot of political capital behind that. Maybe even risk risk uh annoying the Europeans. I think you can make that case. But then why annoy them on Greenland? Why annoy Britain on Falklands? These are strategically irrelevant. I mean, Greenland has some sort of a strategic thing for their polar strategy, but it's all because it's all bl with with the argument. But the argument the reason I like your argument, but I'm just trying to poke holes into it. The argument you're making is that if this is um what did you call it? A not a gift. Treasuries treasuries. Yeah. If treasuries are slave girls and elephants, then how do I get these analogies from? But if they slave girls and and elephants, but then we um you're essentially making the point that the US is hostage to all these different countries hostage world US cannot do. Yeah. But that mean the US don't have doesn't have agency to do what it wants around the world. Doesn't have agency to start wars to to launch a tariff war to use leverage in any way use this military might as leverage because it's economically hostage to all these other countries. And all these countries would just use the treasuries as their weapon to deter any US aggression. When I started in financial markets maybe 12 years ago or something, we all used to debate whether China and America will get into a conflict. Remember this is a different world. This is under Obama. This is before any of the Trump chaos, the nationalism days, any of that. The the good old days in a sense whether you liked Obama or not. the um when we used to have those debates with my colleagues in finance, it would always be like, "No, America can't go through World War II because it's a it's a debtor and if it went to World War II, people would start to dump the US treasuries. It would sink the economy, blah blah blah." That was common sense back then. Everyone said it. And what did they do? They've gone to World War II. I mean, not a full-on one, but effectively gone to World War II. And they're not even treating their allies right in the middle of the war. their allies being their creditors. It's completely irrational. And yeah, like the South Korea, North Korea thing, man, it just doesn't make sense. Go there, praise Kim Jong-un, probably the only leader that I'd understand if you don't praise him, you criticize him. Um, and you sanction this country, even though I don't like sanctions. Um, but then you [ __ ] on South Korea and complain that they did not help you with the Iran war. It's just so bizarre these these actually. The Chinese The Chinese might be asking for that North Korean thing. I've been thinking about it since we talked about it once. Um, before we go there, another story that came out, I wanted to mention it earlier. Didn't the Netherlands uh recall a lot of its gold that is being held in American banks? Have you seen that? Yeah, I saw that. That's for me that isn't that action generally doesn't it usually correlate with uncertainty and instability around the world? Why else would countries want to hold their own gold, physical gold? The only reason is because they think that the US dollar system is about to melt down. But that's why Norway is selling the debt. Like yeah, words out, man. Like exactly. You got Netherlands moving its gold from the US banks and British banks, I think, as well to its own banks. You've got Norway not far from the Netherlands selling US treasuries. These are European countries. These are American allies that rely on the American financial system and the dollar euro dollar system. This is what happens. I went in last year. I I gave a television interview on Belgrade in Serbia and I talked about dollar decline and everything and it was not mainstream at the time. Now it's apparently mainstream. And the next week the the Serbian central bank broke back the gold reserves, the physical ones. It's it's the it's the immediate response and China's been doing it for a long time. What about talking about gold Fort Knox? Isn't that this big uh storage facility that's meant to hold millions and hundreds of millions of ounces um of gold? What is it? Let me see if I have the information. How many tons or a lot? But thousands of tons. I don't know what the number is. Of gold that has never been audited or hasn't been audited in like decades. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you know anything about it? Why wouldn't you Why wouldn't you audit the depository of of uh gold bullions? I I don't get it. Because it's fake. remember what happened when go back in time here a little bit. How did the gold peg uh break? The big instance, the big event before America went off the gold peg in 1971 was the French under it wasn't under Charles Gaul. It was under the guy after him. I can't remember his name. The French said, "Okay, you're running a big trade deficit with us because of the Vietnam War and your Great Society program, and you're sending us dollars to fill that trade deficit." But in 1970, it was Pompadoo, was it? Can't remember. Anyway, in 1970, uh, you're, uh, sending us these dollars and those dollars are backed by gold under the old Breton Wood system. And that gold is held in Fort Knox in New York, I think. And so the French sent their main warship, a destroyer, right across the Atlantic, and said, "Please put the gold on our ship." And I think they gave them the gold. And then they won off the gold standard. So that was the big bluff call. And since then, no one really knows what's been in Fort Knox. It's the legend of like, you know, in one of the James Bond films, they rob Fort Knox, don't they? It's very bizarre when when Elon Trump and others are calling for it to be audited as one of the rallying cries before before the elections, and then everyone just goes silent after Trump becomes president. Well, there are these there are these deep dark secrets of government. Every kind of government has one. Britain's one is their Trident system. And uh you know when you get in you go, "Hey, we want to do this program. We want to do this audit program or whatever." And then some guy in a gray suit comes up and gives you like a a red briefcase and you open it up and it's like in that Indiana Jones film where like there's too much light, you know, and you go, "Ah." You're about to turn into a skull or something like that and then you close it and they're like, "Wow, I never want to see that again." They probably do it in a skiff and then they're like, "Oh, there's no gold." Or like there, you know, there's just like spiders and rats and stuff like that. We probably don't want to make that clear to the world cuz What is it? When you say British the British Trident system, what are you referring to? You're talking about the nuclear triad or something else? Yeah. Apparently, it's um uh got it's it's the biggest deepest budget hole in the in the British state budget and it just keeps growing. It's called the black hole. um what's his name came out and hinted at it without breaking security clearance. Um uh can't remember his name. The really smart guy who worked for Boris Johnson. I quite like him. Um he's quite controversial. He was the guy that got in to do Brexit and all that. And he was the kind of the brain of number 10 for a while, but unlike most uh civil servant adjacent people, he's got a big mouth. And he came out and gave an interview and said that there was this there was this black hole in the budget that was handed off to every prime minister when they get in. Yeah. There's a serious concern that Britain's nuclear deterrent is becoming a major drain on the defense budget. The broader defense nuclear enterprise cost 10 billion euro pounds between 24 25 18% of the entire defense budget is expected around 20 to be 20% this year and the ministry of defense says it could reach 25% coming years. Parliament has specifically warned that rising nuclear cost squeezes money available for conventional forces. The dreadnot dreadnot submarines alone have a 31 billion pound budget plus 10. It was it was Dominic Cummings. You remember Dominic Cummings? Dominic Cummings came out and said every single prime minister that gets in gets that red briefcase on the desk. They flip it open, you know, their skin starts melting off. They close the briefcase and they hand it back and they're like, so for the US for the US it's Fort Knox. It's that big of gold bullions. It's it's Fort Knox. It's those dollar printing computers of the Treasury and other departments that Elon Musk talked about. Yes, that clip Chris Martinson mentioned it. Uh the dollar print. That was such a bizarre clip. Let me play it for the Such a bizarre clip. He said he's going to launch an investigation to find out what it is. Dollar. He better not be suicidal. Yeah. Let me see if I can get the clip to play it for the audience. Yeah. Magic. What is it? Let me put magic. Magic money printers or something. Magic Money Machines or something. Can you play this one with the audio, please, Paul? Um, have you I'm sure you've spoken to people about it knowing you I talked to Chris about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, Chris Martinson. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He's highlighting it. He's always highlighting it. It's a good point. Like those things are like Musk got run out of town for a reason, you know. He came in as the sheriff, you know, and the bandits ran him out of town pretty quick. Yeah. It's it's uh I've just sent it now to the to the to the team to play it. So just quickly before we play that, the other big development this week is that the algos aren't working anymore on the oil market. There's like evidence of this. I I I don't know. I I don't know. I just don't I think they hedge fun hedge fund long positions are back to half where they were at the beginning of the crisis. They're back up to 200 bill or whatever it is. So, and at the same time like Bessum's out saying like, "Hey, I don't know why the oil price is going up and the oil price is like what 96 or something. It's way higher than they want it to be." So, I think the hedge funds have started going along which means that they've altered their algorithms. Oh, here's the magic money machines. So, uh I call a magic man computer any computer which can just make money out of thin air. Best magic money. So, how does that work? It just issues payments. You said there's something like 11 of these computers at Treasury that are that are sending out trillions in in payments. They're mostly at Treasury. Uh some are there's some at HHS, some at there's one or two at state. Uh there's some at DoD. I think we found now 14 magic money computers where they just send money out of nothing. So yeah, every you know every Um, every family, you know, every family has a deep dark secret, you know, like a skeleton in the closet like grandfather was a bank a bank robber like that. Again, first, one thing I love about Elon, he does he speaks his mind a bit too much and gets him in trouble a lot of the times. Remember, they told the Disney CEO to go [ __ ] himself, for example, told advertisers to stop advert. And this I remember speaking to one of the CEOs. I interviewed her, Linda Yakarino, and she said, "Mar, like one of the things with working with Eno is I wake up every day, I don't know what he's going to say." Um, but yeah, this is for him for someone is the version of that in Britain and and just to understand as well, this is the world's by far the world's wealthiest man and one of the smartest people on this planet that's taking us to another planet. And he's saying this machine when he was working at Doge having full access to the government to try to cut costs. He's literally saying it and repeating it that there's computers that just print money out of thin air. Yeah. And my guess is so I know a little bit how about how it works and my guess is that they're they have overdraft accounts at the Federal Reserve. So legally, just to go into a little bit of US economic law, the Treasury isn't allowed to issue money except one way. They can do a platinum coin, but that's slightly different because they can issue these souvenir platinum coins. So some people can say they can make infinite platinum platinum coins. It's an interesting legal arm, but basically Treasury can't usually issue money. It has to issue debt to spend. Only the Federal Reserve has power to issue money. So, if they have these magic money machines, it must mean that they have overdraft accounts at the Fed, just like your overdraft in your bank account if you have one. I I I have zero euro, but I have uh 500 euro overdraft, so I can spend into my overdraft and figure it out later. Overdraft. Sorry for asking a very basic question, but that's your bank allowing you to spend more than what you have in there. Yeah, you apply for an overdraft. People have probably done it. I mean, I wouldn't advise doing it. It's like taking on debt, but it's zero interest debt. So, it's kind of interesting and you can just, you know, Well, yeah. Well, no. If you leave the overdraft, there's always rules. If it goes too high, they'll start to charge exorbitant amounts of interest on it. But how does that I don't get it. These But how does the Department of Defense have an overdraft account? Because the only one that can just actually create money out of thin air is the Fed. So, if they're creating money on these magic money computers, it must have an overdraft account with the Fed. And so the Fed is automatically allowing. It's probably not actually legal, but um technically, but it means but they'll probably make up

QUESTIONS:

1. Do you believe that Treasuries can function as tribute for smaller countries that are coerced into it?

2. Do you believe the the US Military has been used to extract protection money?

3. Do you believe that Treasuries can provide a form of influence for countries owning larger amounts of treasuries?

4. What specifically is stopping the Japanese from selling their treasuries?

Shane Tickle who um spoke to us on the record for this story and he was part of another consortium that was bidding uh for this FDP contract in the big NHS contract the 3 million pounds and he says look there’s nothing illegalhere but they had all the influence they were able to talk they had all the influence with the politicians and the policy makers and some of Global Council said uh and it’s in the piece as well

about how effectively what you’re trying what you as a company as a lobbyist you’re not trying to rig the tender

process. You’re not trying to get you know get someone to give you the contract. What you’re trying to do is influence how the tender is written.

That’s the key moment. It’s how it’s written and that will that will dictate who gets it. It’s almost predetermined once the tender is published often who

gets You were saying that about about Palanteer with the FTP contract that they they’d almost managed to write the tender for themselves. Such was their influence.

Such was their influence. And that’s the real power. The FD the FT has done some good work on this. They look at how the FT showed how um the the actual tender

documents mirrored language of Palantirs. You know, they have they actually talked about uh stuff the Palunteer does. You know, it was like without naming the company, they had,

you know, they had without using Palanteer’s name, it was very clear. And that’s where the lobbying the influence happens. And it’s really striking. It’s very successful.

QUESTIONS:

1. Does the public realize/understand how the “Swamp” works?

2. Is there any way to avoid self-serving tender requests?

3. Is there any way to penalyze companies that employ such tactics?

4. How feasible is it for the government to extract itself from these relationships?

.. they are a vulnerability now even the logistic base is a vulnerability because today what they have is digia togo gcia is supporting three commands one command of course is not active right now the Africa command but sentcom and packcom are being provided the logistics by the by Dugachia. It’s a it’s a massive base where everything happens. Fuel loading, fuel filling and the loading of the missiles. It has a runway for the stealth bombers. Everything is there on this and everything is automated. It is digitized. And as I was mentioning to you, nobody should undermine the cyber capabilities today that the Iranians have. Let me first go back and talk about their cyber capabilities. I just told you about a center that they have on the street of Harbos. So they can disrupt the ship-to-ship communication of the American ships. The ship-to-shore communication can be disrupted. And coming back here to do Garcia when you have so much of automation you don’t know which missile is in which banka because everything is automated and everything is held by what is called the brain and that is what is the PLC which is programmable logic controller and with the cyber capability that today they have they can disrupt the speed of this which means there’ll be total chaos at the base because nobody knows exactly which missile is in which bunker, how to do it. There can be total confusion. So the point I’m making is it is not only their vessels, aircraft, carrier, destroyers, everything is a vulnerability. Even their uh Diego Garcia base is a big vulnerability because it also supports US Pacific Command and lot of capabilities from Pacific Command have already been brought into the theater. The long and short is Mario if there is something that any discerning observer has to read, it is this. You can go and spend $1 trillion every year on your budget. What good are they if you have the capabilities of the 20th century warfare? They are no good. And here is a country Iran whose total GDP is what 600 billion. That is the GDP they have compared to how much it is 32 trillion of the Americans. And but they have the 21st century capabilities, capabilities of missiles, capabilities of cyber electronic warfare and of course they drones. They have jetpar drones. The Iranians have jetpar drones. What that means is the drones which actually can be brought from a long distance with the help of the satellites the you know which have been provided by the Chinese their space capabilities. So you can well imagine when President Putin he told President Pishkian on the sidelines of the SEO that we will support you at the state of harmonos what was he hinting at? He was hinting at the missiles. You see, and then today, one of the big issues in the Ukraine war is that the Ukrainians have the drones, but they do not have the jetpar drones. What they have is only the tactical war, the tactical battlefield. And because they have been good at the tactical battlefield, they’ve been able to hold it so far. But when you look beyond the tactical battlefield, we are talking of cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, jetpar drones, which is what the Russians have. And that is precisely what they are doing there today. They are cutting their railway, their railway communication. The Odessa port has been isolated. Nothing is going. The food is not going. Nothing is coming. The military wherewithal is not coming inside. The transportation has been broken. The warehouses have been targeted. It’s all dipped. Where is it coming from? Which is why Zillinsky was so keen that I want patriot missiles. Even if he gets the patriel, what will the a couple of patriots do there? So the point I’m making is that until you understand the war, it is good to talk in your think tanks. I mean the Americans think tanks, they talk of 21st century warfare taking on China, PLA. Please explain me how do you take on China and for decades they’ve been doing this war gaming about the Taiwan strait and how you know we will uh do the we’ll do the war with PLA. How do you do war with PLA? PLA is at the cutting edge of the 21st century warfare. So the but anyway we digressed from from our main subject. One of the key problems today now see where is Trump today? Trump is badly in a corner. His two big capabilities of the American empire, one capability is the military power. It has been thoroughly exposed and this will have a impact on all the other theaters and it’s already having a impact. And what is the second one? Second one is your uh the dollar being the reserve currency of the world and once the American forces they leave they leave uh West Asia it’s at some stage they’ll have to leave then they can forget about the petro dollars then they are again in big trouble in any case there is brick summit that is happening now and before that there was SEO one of the key things that both these summits are looking at is trade in local currency That is what they are looking at and how to have a system where you can you can bypass you bypass swift and that is what they are looking at. So the American empire is in extremely it’s a real trouble and you know people need to understand what’s going on and which is why uh Trump is so keen to salvage something in Ukraine which is why he has sent he first sent the CIA director then you know this Witkov Steve Witkov and Kushner they were there Jared Kushner now what will they do there the war has already being one on the battlefield and as far as Putin is concerned, Putin is very clear that the anchorage spirit on which he was putting so much of hope that happened in August 2025 now he’s given up on that and which is why we are seeing this targeting depth targeting that the the Russians are doing and Russians have huge capabilities people don’t seem to understand that they all along have been fighting with suboptimal capabilities that they have. They have not even used their navy. I mean they are the number ones. They are very good in submarine warfare. Nothing has been used. You see? So the point I’m making is that today the Russians because they are in the fifth year of the war. Their military industrial complex has been geared up to meet the war surge requirements. something that the Americans will take a long time to come to that level. So, President Trump is in next in big trouble. He was trying to see through this pushner and everybody the possibility that this war does not enlarge, does not involve NATO. Because while the Americans want that the Western Europeans, they do the heavy lifting in NATO for the conventional war, they still want to have a foothold and their foothold can only be NATO in Europe. And NATO is in big trouble today. The EU is in big trouble because this war will 100% be decided on the battlefield and what he has said publicly. President Putin, he means business and he’ll get it. So it is up to Zillinsky. I mean Zilinski can keep having any number of conferences. He’s he’s had two round of talks with these fellows you know Kushner and Witkov and in the third round he’s got the Europeans also now who’s he got these three countries which are themselves in trouble the Germans the French and UK they are themselves in trouble the Germans are in big trouble they just lost one election so the point I’m making is Mario the American empire is in trouble uh Iran has accomplished in this war Until now the diplomacy they have created the basic infrastructure they have brought to reality a basic infrastructure based on the concept of collective security which is a key thing in the new world order and now they are focusing on the military side. This is where we start. I think you’ve covered everything. It was a great overview. seeing if there’s anything we missed or any questions I would still have. So maybe to wrap up, one final question to wrap up is what options do you think Trump is currently considering? He’s using the ship for ship strategy, but we’ve seen the Iranians respond disproportionately respond by attacking American linked ships or ships using the Omani route or ships of American allies. And we’ve seen them strike the navy as a warning shot with the advanced missile 3 days ago, the castle missile 3 days ago. So then what options, what military options do you think Trump still is considering now? So the first thing Trump needs to consider is that the Iranians don’t bluff. When they are saying that our military response will be disproportionate, they mean it. So they have already told you that remove your naval blockade and this is the state of dignity of the Iranians. Iranians control that. So there should be no doubt on that. Now basically what was he looking at all this while what Trump was looking at is to get the state of Hermos free to get it what it was before 28th of February. So that is not going to happen and what the what the Israelis were looking all along was the nuclear weapons. So because Israel controls America, so it became a American demand of nuclear weapons and state of Haros. And the point is that I do not see the possibility at all of Iranians going for a nuclear weapon though they have the capability. There should be no doubt about it. They are intelligent people. They have a lot of engineers. But if Israel controls by say Israel controls Trump is focusing just on the straight of not on regime change but Israel doesn’t care about the straight of they care about regime change. See the point is it is up to the Americans to decide. Americans are in big trouble and honestly today the way I see it does not matter what is the outcome of the 3rd November midterm elections. And why I say that is because the control of the Israelis is so much on the US Congress if the reports are to be believed. So much control they have that in any case what Israel wants will happen. So Israel is running the show. Trump is helpless. The American empire is sinking. And I don’t think in America anybody is honestly standing up and saying that look we are in trouble because of the Israelis. Um just one thing when you saying is I think Israel has a lot of influence over the US but when you say Israel has control I’ll ask the same question again if Israel controls why is Trump only focusing on the straight of Hamuz getting concessions on the straight of Hamuz which Israel doesn’t benefit Israel in any way and he’s not seeking regime change as he was or he’s not striking Israel would love to see the US strike the Iranian energy infrastructure but Trump has avoided that. So Iran Israel’s objectives are not being pursued by Trump. So what at least now yeah no no I understand to answer your question Trump wants to save pro dollars and for that it is important for him that the GCC countries see that yes state of harmonos is genuinely free which it isn’t which it will never be that is why he’s focusing on state of harmonos and that is why he will not destroy the energy infrastructure. But having said that, this man is desperate. He can do anything. In fact, I remember we discussed one day the tactical nuclear weapons also because after all the Americans have the no first use policy. I’m not saying that they’ll use it. You ask me what are the options he has. So honestly the only option is that he has no option and he will not come back also. So then what will happen is this war will not end in a hurry. This war will now be determined the course of war. The military aspect will be determined by the Iranians. And alongside the new world order will be created and the dollar will get displaced in 12th and 13th of September in Delhi is the bricks conference. And one of the key things to be discussed there is this only displacement of the dollar not the replacement displacement of the dollar by use of local currency and by bypassing swift this is one of the key things which will be discussed. So if uh you know if 30% the global trade if 30% of the trade in the world today does not happen in the US dollar then America is in big trouble. Uh there’s some argue there’s a lot of arguments a lot of economists argue that the US dollar not being the world global reserve currency could actually be a positive thing for the US. That’s a big debate that happens in finance and between economists. Some but there is a strong argument that that dollar not being used as a reserve currency could lead to a weaker dollar could then allow the US to bring back manufacturing into the country. So I know it’s a separate discussion but it’s just one last point here. I I will not argue at all. I’m not qualified with economist. No I’m not qualified but let me make one point. The point is that this new world order who is joining this it is the global south. majority of the global south country and global south is 80% of the world and global south because of them the wealth and power what we call the global geopolitics has shifted from transatlantic to the Eurasian landmass and Asia Pacific it is because of these economies which are growing so they are the ones and if you see the figures uh how now they are trading in local currencies and trading in yuan So the dollar can remain. Nobody wants to replace the dollar. But if the dollar is not being used by the world, by the majority of the world and the economies that matter, you see as far as the Europeans are concerned, the EU, I mean these three countries, they are headed for a recession. Their economy is in big trouble. Everybody knows that. So what is the use of that dollar when the majority of the world which is actually where the power and prestige has come the the the you know the trade is happening commerce is happening if they’re not using the dollar or they are using the dollar sparingly what good is the dollar that is the point yeah and the dollar is what allowed the US to the living standard to be so high allows the US to be able to borrow money endless amount of money and to the US treasuries to always be considered a safe asset is because of the strength of the US dollar, the demand for the US dollar globally. So if that goes away, it fundamentally changes the US economy in so many ways. Um, Praina, always a good conversation. Really enjoyed it. Thank you for your time and uh I’m sure we’ll be speaking again. Thank you, Mario. Bye-bye. Have a good night. All right, guys. I’ll be live again in two hours, I think, with uh Brandon to give you the daily news recap. And let’s let’s see who we have today. With Brandon, we have Chris Martinson afterwards. Then I have Chank. We’ll be talking to Jenk. I keep getting his name wrong. Jenk, Joe Kent, and then we have Raymond Zukaro and Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kuatowski. So, pretty good lineup. I’ll see you in an hour in two hours. Bye-bye.

QUESTIONS:

1. Do you believe that the US Base Diego Garcia is vulnerable to disruption because of signal interference and and automation?

2. Do you believe that the US Empire is in jeopardy?

3. Pravin Sawhneyv predicts that the Dollar will lose market share to local currencies (exchanged for gold). How you see this as a threat to the US dollar?