Pod Roll

00:00 that goat yogurt. Backpacks, bombs, boondoggles and broadcasting live from the heart of the Texas Hill Country here in FEMA Region number 6 in the morning everybody. I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley where it took all of nine days to turn over Syria. What's that all about? I'm John C. Dvorak. It's Crackpot and Buzzkill in the morning! Well it is on the West Clark 7 list so

00:40 Yeah, it's... did we already kind of knock that off the West Clark 7 list or was it still officially on? No, it was on. Yeah, but I mean was it already taken? Had it already been done? I mean we've got Lebanon, I guess we have Libya, I guess. Sudan? We don't know about any of this. What? Yeah, we got this, we got that. We don't know what we're doing. You know, the oil baron was here this weekend. Ah, let's talk about, I want to talk about Syria and its collapse overnight. Yeah, that was kind of interesting, wasn't it?

01:21 Before we do that, I think it'd be better to listen to this but but but he had to say well It has this I have to assume this has something to do with oil or pipelines. Yes, I would agree agree with you first of all Turns out that he has been drilling in Libya for quite a while so that kind of answers the question and Well, that's Libya we're talking about Syria. No, I know but I just said do we have Libya on the West Clark seven list? Oh, yeah the answer is yeah, you said Syria at the beginning I thought I said Libya. Okay, I meant Libya Regarding Syria and regarding oil. Let me say this about that because we did have some very interesting Hubert Humphrey Very interesting conversations

02:06 and it is specifically about this. almost ten trillion dollars for nonsense, for absolute nonsense. We'll do bridges, we'll do roads, we'll do things that we need. So the oil baron says all of us in the oil business are laughing out loud about this. He says there's not going to be any drill baby drill at all because ever since 2017 really he says the streets, the streets, Wall Street,

02:55 is demanding cash flow instead of investment and growth. He says Chevron just reduced their drilling by 10%. He says there's not going to be any drill baby drill. And Trump knows it, everybody else knows it, and they're baffled other than he must have a plan to lower the price of oil that does not include drill baby drill. And I think this is where Syria comes into play as just one of many options. Well, I see nothing wrong with this thesis because as we know and we've talked about, I've talked about on this show and also on Horowitz's DH Unplugged, our oil supplies have gone way up. Yeah.

03:46 They haven't gone down during the Biden administration. Smart money knows this. What's gone up is the prices. How does that work? How do you have supply and demand reversing its, you know, you make it sound like there's a shortage when there's no shortage so you can jack up the prices. Pretty slick. Well, war does that, of course, that always jacks up the prices to some degree. But he feels that reopening Russia Getting their oil back onto the market would be one way that it's going to take place and we could probably see that. Also, there's something else that's taking place which was just announced I think Friday in the European Union and then I'll let you get into Syria.

04:31 The European Union and the South American trade bloc Mercosur finally came to an agreement on a historic trade deal on Friday. My fourth message is that economically this is a win-win agreement. Europe is already Mercosur's second largest investment and trade partner. So, you know how we do business together? The deal, first proposed in 1999, aims to create one of the largest free trade zones in the world. So this is South America, so Argentina, lots of places with oil and the EU, and I can only presume free trade means no tariffs. So they're looking to get their energy from places other than the United States. So there's a lot of dynamics happening here.

05:22 Well, the French aren't too pleased because they see this because besides, yeah, you have Brazil, they got a lot of energy that the other countries don't so much. But Argentina is like the is really the beef capital of the world. They're going to wipe out the French beef farmers. Well, the clip continues. Covering over 700 million people and nearly 25% of global GDP, the agreement received the support of leaders in Europe and South America alike, with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Argentinian President Javier Mille both celebrating the deal. But while an agreement has been reached, getting it approved is another matter altogether.

06:02 It needs the green light from at least 15 of the European Union's 27 member nations. That could prove to be a challenge as several countries opposed the deal. Notably France, who have denounced its impact on the environment as well as unfair competition for its farmers. Farmers who von der Leyen has looked to reassure. And to our farmers, F you! We have heard you, we have listened to your concerns and we are acting on them. We have listened to your concerns and we say F you! We don't care about you, we have nice Argentinian beef coming! Yeah, this is... and you know, Macron and France is melting down over this. The EU is a mess. It's a mess. France is melting down but they're cozying up to Trump as fast as they can. It's just entertaining to see it all happen.

06:56 Hope people find that as entertaining as we do. I'm sure everyone's sitting there like talk about the shooter man the CEO shooter Well, we'll get to that. We'll get to that. We'll get a place There's plenty to talk about the shooter for the next few weeks. Oh, that's shooter. That's the point You know, there's someone murdered in New York City every single day, but this one Oh stop the presses get the Maya everybody all hair on fire Oh walking around. Oh, we've got drones. We're checking. Oh, we're finding everything. He's got a black coat. He's got a white coat He's got a black backpack. He's got a he's got a black mask. He's got a white mask. Come on Come on. It's hilarious. Let me just do this to get it out of the way. Wait, wait, wait before you do that I want to mention one thing so they find his backpack. I got I got all this I got the oh you got the back of the bullshit. Yeah, I got

07:43 I got the clip. We got the scuba gear, let's go all out, let's have some fun today. Spotted in Central Park searching the pond near Bethesda Fountain for clues to find the killer. NYPD divers went underwater Saturday, searching for answers in the Central Park lake by the Bethesda Fountain.

08:21 The net is tightening and we're going to bring this person to justice. The net is tightening. Okay, Eric. Early Wednesday morning a killer opened fire in Midtown targeting 50 year old Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare. police believe the gunman ditched his backpack near the bandstand in Central Park. We've learned there were clothes inside, including a Tommy Hill figure coat seen in some of the surveillance video and curiously some Monopoly money. Police first had to make sure there were no explosives in the bag. Then they used an excavator to remove the backpack and some of the surrounding area in case there was extra DNA evidence on the ground. It's all now in a lab in Queens. Let me get through these because this is hilarious. Wait, wait, I didn't know this part where they dug up all the dirt. Oh yeah, it's in a lab. It's in the lab in Queens. So I'm looking for what the media has not done yet is we haven't come up with a name.

09:19 So I hear the Hilfiger coat, I'm like, could we call him the Hilfiger hero? Could we call him the Monopoly money murderer? I mean, we've got to come up with a name for this guy. This is what we do in the American media. We come up with cool names. And we just haven't done it yet. I think the Hilfiger hero could be one because... Yeah, they're not going to use hero. The media won't do that because then it looks like they're encouraging this. Well, here's... The media is aware of what's happening, it's the CNN. The New York Times writes this, quote, The dark commentary after the death of the 50-year-old insurance executive from Maple Grove, Minnesota, highlighted the anger and frustration over the state of health care in America.

10:03 Where those with private insurance often find themselves in Kafka-esque tangles while seeking reimbursement for medical treatment and are often denied. And that frustration is something that doctors say they've seen from patients throughout their careers. I see people when they're at their lowest, when the system has failed them. And I'm frankly not surprised. They feel abandoned, they feel exploited, they feel lied to when it comes to the healthcare system, and especially insurances because of the things you mentioned, denials, prior authorization, narrow networks, the cost of healthcare. It's been going on and bottling up for a long time.

10:40 So, our panel's back. Annie Linsky, you know, we're going to be clear here about the tragedy that is Mr. Thompson and his family, right? And set that aside. But what we do see in the wake of this is an outpouring of anger around the way people have been treated by these companies. Now we are again going to be clear, we are not saying that this justifies any sort of violence at all. In a CNN story that was just published about this, they note that a Facebook post that was put up by UnitedHealth Group expressing sadness about the CEO's death, it received 62,000 reactions. I'm a 57,000 of them were laughing emojis.

11:20 Laughing emojis. We are so, so dark in America. So dark. And everyone is looking at the possibility of this being a disgruntled patient, but the constitutional lawyer checked in, in particular around the words delay Depose, defend. Now we've probably all seen there is a book that has similar words delay, deny, defend. It has the same, it's the same words on the book. I think, no, I think depose was one of the words in the book. Well, the book is a bestseller now, by the way. Yeah, we don't know exactly what's on there, but the book is delay, deny, defend. Why insurance companies don't pay claims and what you can do about it. Now, the constitutional lawyer writes in, and I was allowed to talk about this, he says,

12:07 My firm represents scores of doctors in reimbursement cases against UnitedHealthcare. UnitedHealthcare is notorious for not reimbursing physicians, even emergency physicians, who have no choice but to treat emergency patients. And my first thought, he said, is when I heard about this assassination was the assassin might be a disgruntled doctor. It will be interesting to learn more about the suspect. And he said, he said, I should add that the UnitedHealthcare is hardly alone in this respect. I know the healthcare industry is, of course, has has questionable conduct all around, but the insurers are distressingly cheap when it comes to reimbursing physicians who are billing them for their services. I have seen emergency doctors who have stitched people back together after horrific accidents and the insurers pay their claims at fractions of a penny on the dollar, sometimes don't pay them anything at all. So we need to take a doctor into account and then

13:02 The, remember the UnitedHealth hack on Optum, which is their network. That happened on February 21st, 2024. UnitedHealth discovered a cybersecurity breach on the same day Nancy Pelosi made her second purchase of call options in Palo Alto networks, who then were announced as the company chosen to investigate the breach. That's always fun to bring in Pelosi. And I have to say that all of the video evidence we're being shown is such bullcrap. Literally, the guy, he's in the taxi cab with a white mask. He's in the youth hostel with a tan jacket and a black backpack. I mean, everything is bunk. But we do have another possible name here.

13:53 Let me see. Authorities say he was calculated but sloppy, leaving behind a burner phone and a water bottle that's being tested for DNA. We're looking for the passport. A flirtatious smile with a front desk clerk at a hostel could help break the case, according to authorities. It's an age-old story. Beauty killed the Beast. She said, oh, let me see your face, and he just said, okay, and pulls his mask down, and here we are. Beauty killed the Beast. I mean, they're loving it. And of course, don't worry about Trump's assassination attempt. Don't talk about that. Don't talk about anything. Tucker talking to Lavrov is not important. Let's focus on this. So I have to call it the distraction of the week at this point. Yeah, it's going to get worse because I was reading a newsletter, 404, one of these sub stack things that come... I'm sorry, this is the one from McCullough, McCullough Foundation. They have a lot of

14:56 Weird theories, and I think that maybe the guy was a actual Pro made to look like an amateur there you go So it was very meta yeah, and and the reason was is because this guy This the CEO was going to the meeting to blow the lid off that it was some yeah facts about Medicare fraud and scams that are going on well it just as an aside I It is and we even talked about I think on the show at some point that UnitedHealthcare specifically had moved away from having people review cases and a turn to the old mighty AI and they went from 10 point things like 10.9 denial percentage to 22 percentage points because of AI you know which which also I mean that by itself seems like a very iffy practice at best

15:54 So there's not a lot of love and I think this is also in a way, John, but we played those clips from the insurance, the health insurance coalition about how they have all the pieces and how it operates. A lot of people went, I didn't know that. They have no idea. So I think we are in the middle of the season of reveal. Yeah. Any chance I get. Yeah, I don't know why. It's beyond me. People are learning. People are learning about how the system works. They know it wasn't working in their favor, but now they're like, oh, wait a minute. This is truly, truly rigged. I think a lot of people didn't realize this. You know, that brought up something. This is off this topic, but it's similar in terms of the sociology.

16:51 So we're at dinner, JC and Jesse were over the house and JC brought up this interesting phenomenon he's discovered. He says that when he mentions to any liberals whatsoever about the fact that there was a phone app that illegals were using to bypass the system, they'd go on this app and then they'd get into the country. We all know about the phone app. Not one liberal that he knows, knows about this and they're all aghast about it. He says so far it's 30 for 30. Wow, but then they're shocked, they're actually shocked. Yes, yes, so it's

15:54 So there's not a lot of love and I think this is also in a way, John, but we played those clips from the insurance, the health insurance coalition about how they have all the pieces and how it operates. A lot of people went, I didn't know that. They have no idea. So I think we are in the middle of the season of reveal. Yeah. Any chance I get. Yeah, I don't know why. It's beyond me. People are learning. People are learning about how the system works. They know it wasn't working in their favor, but now they're like, oh, wait a minute. This is truly, truly rigged. I think a lot of people didn't realize this. You know, that brought up something. This is off this topic, but it's similar in terms of the sociology.

16:51 So we're at dinner, JC and Jesse were over the house and JC brought up this interesting phenomenon he's discovered. He says that when he mentions to any liberals whatsoever about the fact that there was a phone app that illegals were using to bypass the system, they'd go on this app and then they'd get into the country. We all know about the phone app. Not one liberal that he knows, knows about this and they're all aghast about it. He says so far it's 30 for 30. Wow, but then they're shocked, they're actually shocked. Yes, yes, so it's

17:44 Everything is like this. Yeah, I mean we have family members who are convinced that Trump is going to take away their Social Security. Convinced! Demanding a full refund today of everything they've paid in. He says the only common denominator he can find is that they all read the New York Times. Yeah, that would probably do it. Yeah. But you know, does anyone go after the New York Times and blow them up? No. There's your problem. Let's go to the root of the problem, people. Let's go to the roots. That probably wouldn't help. Not advocating for that, obviously. And it probably wouldn't help. No. No, you don't know. You don't know. Anyway, let's get to Syria because Syria has a number of aspects to it and I see that you're loaded for bear.

18:36 Actually, I have plenty of stuff, but I first I want to play the rundown that took this is yesterday's story This is Syria good rundown from NPR and this is from yesterday in Syria rebels are nearing Damascus after they claim they took the city of Homs Meanwhile Qatar has hosted a flurry of meetings including one between Saudi Arabia and Iran and another between top figures from Hamas and Turkey What exactly constitutes a flurry? More than two. The most urgent meeting though focused on Syria and the lightning advances by fighters there seeking to topple the government. Ampira Zia-Betroui has more. The meeting brought together the Syrian government's most important backers, Russia and Iran, with the fighters main backer, Turkey.

17:44 Everything is like this. Yeah, I mean we have family members who are convinced that Trump is going to take away their Social Security. Convinced! Demanding a full refund today of everything they've paid in. He says the only common denominator he can find is that they all read the New York Times. Yeah, that would probably do it. Yeah. But you know, does anyone go after the New York Times and blow them up? No. There's your problem. Let's go to the root of the problem, people. Let's go to the roots. That probably wouldn't help. Not advocating for that, obviously. And it probably wouldn't help. No. No, you don't know. You don't know. Anyway, let's get to Syria because Syria has a number of aspects to it and I see that you're loaded for bear.

18:36 Actually, I have plenty of stuff, but I first I want to play the rundown that took this is yesterday's story This is Syria good rundown from NPR and this is from yesterday in Syria rebels are nearing Damascus after they claim they took the city of Homs Meanwhile Qatar has hosted a flurry of meetings including one between Saudi Arabia and Iran and another between top figures from Hamas and Turkey What exactly constitutes a flurry? More than two. The most urgent meeting though focused on Syria and the lightning advances by fighters there seeking to topple the government. Ampira Zia-Betroui has more. The meeting brought together the Syrian government's most important backers, Russia and Iran, with the fighters main backer, Turkey.

19:21 Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the ministers called for ending hostile activities in Syria and implementing a years-old UN resolution for a political process between the government and opposition. Lavrov said he cannot forecast what Russia will do militarily to support the Syrian government, but that... Guessing what is going to happen. We are trying to do everything. Not to allow terrorists to prevail even if they say that they are no longer terrorists It comes as fighters led by hate at the Harir's sham inch closer to the Syrian capital after a blitz on key cities in recent days Hold on a second. Was that Lavrov from the Tucker interview? Because that's what it sounds like Well, he always sounds like love I Watch the whole interview and I think that was that was taken from the I'm just as a point of interest like okay. I

20:15 Well, that would be interesting if they're taking if NPR is taking clips from Tucker wouldn't surprise me. Yeah so I have the 32nd breaking news from this from this morning, which I'm sure you have a longer version of I have the well Let me let's play this first before we get into the analysis, which is the part that I wanted to play I The breaking news is that they the place fell apart Assad is gone Assad fleas

20:53 Does it tell you where he went? No, it doesn't even tell you how he fled, but all I saw consistently was like, am I watching a rerun of Iraq where they're pulling down the statues of Saddam Hussein? It's exactly the same. Pulling down statues. Not from what I could tell looking at the real reporting that took place by the bonus clip. Play the bonus clip and then we can go into discussing that. It's a long one, three minutes this bonus? It's because I didn't have time to chop it up. Oh, okay. Just a short time ago, CNN's chief international correspondent Clarissa Ward was on Lebanon's border with Syria where celebrations erupted after the Bashar al-Assad regime collapsed.

21:38 We are now about 20 miles from the Syrian border and you can see celebrations are breaking out everywhere. This woman actually has just offered me some sweets. This is the mood right now. It is festive, it is jubilant. Take a look with me. You can see people are waving the flag, the flag of the Syrian revolution. It has got three stars. You can see children. And it's just an extraordinary moment. I think no one realized that this would ever actually happen after so many years of waiting, so many years. A lot of work as well. Let's keep moving.

22:37 Wow, it's like Amsterdam on New Year's Eve. Now she goes on and on. This Clarissa Ward is something to behold. She is the foreign correspondent. I'm going to read from her wiki page. Ah yes, here we go. I don't know what kind of a spook she is or if she's just spook adjacent, but she's been, she was a war correspondent or a foreign correspondent for CBS, ABC, Fox. She's been positioned all over the world. Now she's with CNN. She's the first, it doesn't say it in this report, but she is the only boots on the ground reporter for all Western media. She's actually in Damascus as we speak.

23:23 And she is just hanging out. She says, let me read this, Ward speaks fluent English, French, Italian, Russian, Arabic, Spanish, Mandarin Chinese. What's her first name again? Clarissa. You can look at her to see if she looks, she has a kind of a common look. Is she cute? She has she's more let's put it this way you're gonna look at pictures. She's more telegenic than photogenic Yeah, yeah, I see what you're saying Yale. Yeah, Yale. Yale. Yale, okay?

23:59 Yes, but she has no other but she was like born and she lives in England and London. She's a Londoner She was her parents are American and British. No good. Ah Yeah, well finally she's got something to do. That's good. She's Noah. She's she was at the in Iraq when Hussein fell she was this woman has knows how to Basically if this woman shows up in your country batten down the hatches is what you're saying. Okay. There's some elements of that it looks like. So she goes on and she's there reporting and she talks and there's a bunch of stuff left out and she she breaks it up but she doesn't discuss it. And one of them is the third star on the Iraqi flag which is the what the rebels are using and it's like the Iraqi flag has two stars, there's a third star. But that third star flag has been

24:48 In and out of vogue since the 40s, it comes and goes with different colors. The Iraqi flag itself is a mystery as to what it is. Listen to this. She got married in 2016 to Philip von Bernsdorf, a fund manager whom she met in 2007 at a dinner party in Moscow. As one does. Yes, as one does. Yeah, the whole... yeah. When you start seeing this sort of thing... What dinner party? Where's my invite? We had a dinner party in Moscow, you know. Met a fund manager. Yeah, okay. Yeah. All right, good. Oh, brother. Oh, it's great. It makes our job entertaining.

25:33 Yes, and she is good at what she does and she's wandering around. She didn't have a headscarf or anything. She's wandering around looking very Western speaking fluent Street Arabic. And talking to everybody. It's the funniest report to watch, but it's all this morning, she's dominating the scene because she's the only one that's actually made inroads. But we skipped the rest of her. Let's get into the analysis because obviously, with oil in mind and everything else that's going on. Well, the analysis tells me one thing in particular why this happened in the first place.

26:11 I have to harken back to the commentary that we have from our various Muslim contacts that listen to the show like to tell us contacts. Oh, I like how you position that and they are They have one of them was actually predicting this would happen on Fridays and and our contact said Syria's going down and was before it was on the news yeah, and the The commentary earlier on in this discussion was that the street thinks that the United States, Iran and Russia are in all this together. The street? Not Wall Street but the streets of the Middle East. The streets of Cairo. Basically. Yeah. Oh, okay.

25:33 Yes, and she is good at what she does and she's wandering around. She didn't have a headscarf or anything. She's wandering around looking very Western speaking fluent Street Arabic. And talking to everybody. It's the funniest report to watch, but it's all this morning, she's dominating the scene because she's the only one that's actually made inroads. But we skipped the rest of her. Let's get into the analysis because obviously, with oil in mind and everything else that's going on. Well, the analysis tells me one thing in particular why this happened in the first place.

26:11 I have to harken back to the commentary that we have from our various Muslim contacts that listen to the show like to tell us contacts. Oh, I like how you position that and they are They have one of them was actually predicting this would happen on Fridays and and our contact said Syria's going down and was before it was on the news yeah, and the The commentary earlier on in this discussion was that the street thinks that the United States, Iran and Russia are in all this together. The street? Not Wall Street but the streets of the Middle East. The streets of Cairo. Basically. Yeah. Oh, okay.

27:06 Russia America and Iraq you said Iran Oh Iran. Oh, well, this is what the Iranians always say. They say we're always working with the US together I'm all in so the analysis does bring up a point that kind of I don't think NPR notices it when they bring this guy on to talk about it, but I did. Here we go with analysis one. Uh, this, not the SIP, okay, I got it. Syria analysis one, got it. It has been a dramatic week in Syria as the country's long stagnant civil war, which began in the early 2010s, has reignited.

27:42 Insurgent groups have taken over big cities long controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad's authoritarian government and today they reached the suburbs of the capital city Damascus, according to the Associated Press. I think we should just stop for one second and remind everybody that in 2010, 2012, The Guardian published an article about when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie met the Assad's. Do we remember this? I think we just need to... Oh yes, there was a photo op. We need to present this properly so you understand how quickly this turned. And they weren't the only ones that were doing photo ops with them. Oh no! And his wife was in Vogue magazine, by the way that Vogue magazine no longer available online.

28:28 and Asma, and she says, my husband was driving us all to lunch, relates Asma, this is in The Guardian. And out of the corner of my eye I could see Brad Pitt was fidgeting. I turned around and asked, is anything wrong? Where's your security, asks Pitt. So I started teasing him. Oh, see that old woman on the street? She's one of them. That old guy crossing the road? Yep, that's the other security. The president joins in the punchline. Brad Pitt wanted to send his security guards here to come and get some training. So, it was so laid back during the so-called dictator's reign and gassing the people, which we also found out was completely bogus, completely. It's all been theater. It's all been bullcrap. His dad did some bad stuff, but this ophthalmologist, not much of a dictator. But that's been the narrative for the past 12 years.

29:19 I think we've positioned... Yeah, I'm not going to argue that. Okay, we'll continue. As we monitor this fast-changing story, we're going to focus in on one aspect of it. The role that Russia has played in keeping Assad's government in power and how that has changed in this latest phase. Russian President Vladimir Putin has for years provided critical military support that propped up the Assad regime, but with a war dragging on in Ukraine and a struggling economy at home in Russia, the thinking seems to be different. Here to talk more about this is Mark Katz, a professor emeritus at George Mason University who specializes in Russian policy toward the Middle East. Welcome. Great to be here. As I just laid out, it's been such a surprising last few days in the Syrian civil war. It's been going on for more than a decade.

30:04 Let's look backward, especially to those early years of the war. How critical was Putin's support for Assad and Russia's support for the Syrian government in those early years of this war and since? It was really very important. I mean, certainly from the outbreak of the Arab Spring in 2011, Up until mid-2015, Putin was sending arms, but it was Iranians and Hezbollah who were fighting on the ground to defend Assad. But then, 2015, Assad seemed to be on the ropes. Putin's intervention in September of that year really turned things around, saved Assad, helped him gain back territory, and didn't take all that many men, partly because the Iranians and Hezbollah had a lot of people there already.

30:50 But Putin's small intervention was successful compared to the large American interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq that were not. So it was very dramatic. Surely in this NPR analysis they mentioned that we've had military personnel in Syria flying drones, doing all kinds of stuff up until, you know, up until this so-called revolt, revolution, capture, etc. and that we've funded Rebel. I mean, do they have any history? Do they remember anything? This is really about... the theme of this little analysis turns out to be all mostly about Russia. Gee. And what it... which brings us to... when we get to the end, it brings us back around to the

31:45 thesis that you introduced early unthinkingly about getting Russia back in the oil game. All right, part two. What's the best way to frame the current Russian interest in Syria right now, whether that's the focus of the Russian government or whether that's Russian manpower in Syria or not in Syria? I think the relationship with Syria is very important because at the time of the Arab Spring, Assad was his last Arab ally. And if he had fallen, there wouldn't have been much room for Russian influence in the Middle East. But the fact that

32:21 not only did Putin save Assad, but oddly enough, even Arab governments who didn't like Assad were impressed by Putin having supported him so strongly, compared to what they claimed was a lack of American support for its allies. And so I think that Putin's position in Syria has helped him build relations with a lot of countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates in particular, and they have very important relations with these. But now, if Assad's going to fall, then the question arises, well, just how useful an ally is Putin after all?

33:01 Right. And has there been any Russian support in this particular dire moment for the Assad government? Or is it fair to say that Russia is focused on Ukraine and just is not able to contribute in the same way? Russia is mainly focused on Ukraine. And certainly the images in the reporting seems to be that the Russians are moving out. They've moved their naval vessels out of the port at Tartarus. They seem to be pulling back their assets to the, you know, both the air base and the naval base. They're not moving people in. They seem to be moving people away from the battle. How does this guy know? How does he know that? You don't know his sources. I mean, he's an Ameri- he's retired supposedly. If it came from that ward woman, I'd take it as, you know, some fact, but this guy's sitting somewhere. Where is he? London? Where is he sitting?

33:52 He is in, they do say I think at the very end, he's in the Middle East someplace doing something, I don't know what. This whole thing is spooky to the extreme. And so he knows because he knows. Hey, he knows because he knows. But this, what's clear is that this was like a knee-jerk, like someone said, okay, let's do this. Because there was no ramp up, there was no media ramp up to it. We haven't really heard about the evil dictator Assad for quite a number of years. No, the whole thing is overnight. Yes. Clarissa mentioned this, the entire revolution, quote unquote, this civil war, whatever, it's nine days total from beginning to end. How does that work when it's been dragging on its feet forever? And I love these guys with the fresh, completely spot-free, soil-free new camos, their boots are clean.

34:53 I mean, it's like someone went in, dropped off a container of gear. Okay, it's time. The optics are obvious. So what does that mean for the Assad government, first and foremost? Do you think that if the support's just not there, do you think that makes the coming weeks that much more precarious? I think it makes the coming days that much more precarious than the coming hours. Why is he laughing? Coming hours. He nailed it. This is from yesterday. Why is he laughing? Because he knows. Yeah, why do you think he's laughing? And then he throws in the coming hours. It's just not there. Do you think that makes the coming weeks that much more precarious? I think it makes the coming days much more precarious than maybe the coming hours. Yeah, I think that certainly there have been some complaints by Russians that Assad has not been willing to fight, that Assad's troops have not been willing to fight. So the implication is how can Russia defend people who aren't willing to defend themselves?

35:51 It just seems that the Russians seem to understand that the situation is pretty dire, and they're just not in a position to help. And we've also seen, you know, the Iranians seem to be moving out as well, which I think is really surprising because if anything, the relationship with Syria is even more important to them than to Russia, although it's obviously debatable. If the Assad government falls, how much does that weaken Russia in the Middle East? Well, it's certainly going to hurt Russia. Now, of course, they have relations with places that do important things to them. There's cooperation with the Saudis on oil, lots of economic cooperation with the UAE. Certainly, the Egyptians will probably still

36:35 work with them, but it means that Putin is not as powerful. And I think that for a lot of countries who really accepted the narrative that the Americans are not reliable, but Putin is, that this is now going to be undermined tremendously. Oil. Yeah, only reliable? It's going to be the Chinese, the way things are going. Yeah. So the Russians bailed out. They just bailed out. This is what happened and nobody talks about it in our, you know, the mainstream media besides the NPR. Is the Russians left? It's okay, we're done. And so they left and it turns out the Iranians, oh well, they're leaving, we're leaving. As if this isn't schemed. Because these guys with those fresh uniforms, oh, well we can't handle them.

37:23 So the final clip I think we're coming to. I want to ask about one other factor here and like you said this might be a matter of days in terms of the immediate change in in fortunes in Syria. But looking forward you have Donald Trump coming back into office in the United States when he was president. Trump made it very clear that he was incredibly skeptical of American intervention in Syria. What do you see, how do you see a second Trump administration changing the dynamics in Syria? If Assad falls before Trump comes to power, I think that Trump, when he comes in, would be very likely to pull the remaining 900-odd U.S. soldiers out of Syria, that leave Syria to the Syrians. In other words, if it's not

38:09 going to be under the control of an external great power, then that's sort of what America was trying to prevent, although we were there to fight ISIS. But I think it'll be very hard for the US, no matter who is president, to maintain its presence. And I wouldn't be surprised if Trump in particular withdraws it. That is Mark Katz, Professor Emeritus at George Mason University. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk us through all of this. Okay. So, Yeah, I see the oil play but there is one other thing that I would not put past our intelligence services being CIA as we know the military-industrial complex doesn't want Pete Hegseth and I have some funny some funny stuff on him in a moment and they've really been pushing hard to to just discredit this guy and Trump keeps saying no no stay strong you're the guy and

39:03 The intelligence services are... Well, well, well, well, pimping DeSantis as the backup. Oh, yeah, of course. He's the perfect guy to be the backup. I take you back seven years in time. You met with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. What is your response to the criticism that doing so essentially legitimizes a war criminal? My focus has been and continues to be on how we can bring about peace to the people of Syria, how we can bring about an end to this counterproductive regime change war that the United States, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar and other countries have been waging in Syria that has caused this tremendous loss of life, destruction and suffering as well as the refugee crisis that's being faced.

39:53 We have to be willing to meet with President Assad, who whether people like it or not remains the president of Syria, if we care about bringing about peace for the Syrian people. What did you and President Assad discuss? It was a lengthy discussion. We talked about a variety of things, including the reconstruction of Syria, how to ensure that these refugees who have left Syria because of the war are able to return home. We talked about, again, how to ensure that Syria is able to continue as a secular country. We talked about the effect and impact of sanctions and what effect that has had on the Syrian society as a whole. So this meeting that Tulsi Gabbard had with Bashar al-Assad seven, eight years ago has been hanging over her head. They haven't really quite been able to pump it up.

40:55 But now that this has taken place, well, it only took the mustache man Bolton a few seconds to pop onto CNN. Yeah, I think she's totally unqualified to be DNI and I think her positions put her beyond the outermost fringe of American politics. Why are you laughing, Bolton? On the outermost fringe of American politics. When she visited Assad in Syria, he was effectively a Russian-Iranian ally. And what she said about Syria not being a direct threat to the United States, that was her justification for going, is completely false. The Syrians and their combination with Iran and Hezbollah have posed direct threats to Americans across the region. They certainly pose a direct threat to key American allies, Israel and Jordan.

41:45 And it's going to be very interesting to see what the files that may be uncovered in the Syrian government, if the rebels succeed in capturing Damascus, what they show about a number of Americans. I think there's a chance that it might have just been coincidence, but I think the intelligence services are very happy this is happening so they can have the senators discredit Tulsi Gabbard during her confirmation process. Good one. I forgot about that interview. Yeah, actually I actually pulled you know when she was running for president in the Democrat debates I pulled a quick clip here and she's talking to I think Chris Matthews and She it was interesting just listen to what she said I've served in Congress for seven years on the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Armed Services Committee on the Homeland Security committees meeting with world leaders

42:39 working with military commands, getting high-level national security briefings focused on ensuring our nation's security, the safety and security and the freedom of the American people, and working towards peace. That was why I was willing to meet with a brutal dictator of Bashar al-Assad in Syria in the interest of peace and national security, and why as president I'll be willing to meet with any leader from any other country if it means that we are able to ensure no more of my brothers and sisters in uniform are needlessly unnecessarily sent into harm's way, fighting in these regime change wars that have been so costly and so destructive to my brothers and sisters in uniform and to every single American. This is why I'm calling for this sea change, a shift in our nation's foreign policy.

43:31 away from the Bush Clinton legacy of interventionism and more regime change wars and instead toward a foreign policy that leads to diplomacy and cooperation. It's Bush Clinton Trump. I couldn't understand what was going on there. Well she's saying the regime change policy. No I heard her not him. He said it's Bush Clinton Obama. She said no it's Bush Clinton Trump. I thought that was just interesting. That is interesting Yeah, it's a mess it's a mess but I think that you know the way this came about because what really if they want to get rid of her oh, they do not and and It's that they might do a quid pro quo. You know her for Hexeth. Oh man, Hexeth NPR had a great piece, you know the Was it New Yorker magazine did this big hit piece big hit piece? Oh big hit piece. Oh

44:30 And so NPR got the journalist who wrote this hit piece. Let me see, I don't have her name. Do I have her name? Jane, hold on, Jane Meyer. So here's NPR's Mary Louise Kelly. with New York writer Jane about this hit piece she wrote on Pete Hegseth. Among the other journalists who have been looking into Hegseth's record is Jane Mayer of The New Yorker. She's with me now. Hey, Jane. Hi there, Mary Louise. Hi there, Mary Louise. Mary Louise. Hello, Mary Louise. If I was on the radio and my name was Mary Louise, I would change it.

45:13 it. I would change it. Mary Louise Jane. Hi there, Mary Louise. Your reporting cites documents, cites eyewitnesses to alleged sexual impropriety, also financial mismanagement, alcohol abuse. Oh my! Let's start with that last one. Oh my! Now it's... it used to be money issues, now it's financial... what did she say? Financial... uh... Tell us... Hold on, what was it? Back it up and play it again. Yeah. To alleged sexual impropriety, also financial mismanagement. Financial mismanagement! Alcohol abuse. Start with that last one. Tell us... Yeah, let's start with the most important one. Wow. Yeah, you might be ripping off the whole world, but let's talk about your drinking problem. Oh, and it gets good. Start with that last one. Tell us what Hegseth's former colleagues told you about witnessing alcohol-related incidents in professional settings. Now, what do you think... What kind of professional setting do you think this would be?

46:11 So I'm having to assume that that would include the Christmas party Professional settings listen I was hearing was a fairly alarming catalog a lot of specific instances I love this a fairly alarming catalog a catalog It's like the Sears catalog of alarming incident was hearing was a fairly alarming alarming catalog of specific instances that his former employees at a veterans organization called Concerned Veterans for America saw and reported. A group of them put a report together that they sent to- By the way, Concerned, I haven't looked it up, but it sounds like-

46:58 Concerned Veterans for America sounds like a political group that are concerned about the direction of the country. Doesn't sound like it's specifically for, you know, helping veterans. I'm just guessing. I haven't looked it up. The veterans organization called Concerned Veterans for America saw and reported a group of them put a report together that they sent to the managers of this group. And what it describes is about two years worth of moments where Pete Higgseth was repeatedly inebriated, often to the point of almost blacking out, where he had to be carried to his room. There was one particular description of him at one point as

47:41 needing to be restrained from getting on the stage at a strip club. He tried to get up to dance with the strippers and a female employee had to pull him away. He was about to be thrown out of the club according to this report. Oh no, because that's never happened to any guy ever jumped up on the stage drunk to dance with the strippers and he was about to get thrown out of the club. Oh my. Whistleblower report. But he didn't get thrown out. About what because the the female? Days clubs don't put up with that crap. They three are a female But a female colleague who was also at the strip party and the strip bar has restrained him to get up to dance with the slippers and a female employee had to female employees

48:20 Another stripper, i.e. another stripper went, hey, get off the stage, bozo. And a female employee had to pull him away. He was about to be thrown out of the club, according to this report, this whistleblower report. It's a whistleblower report. And another instance that was also kind of a standout was one where a different former employee sent a letter to the managers saying that Pete Hegseth had closed down a bar at 2.30 in the morning in Cayuga Falls, Ohio where he was chanting with another person, kill all Muslims, kill all Muslims. Oh man, this is what we call a hit piece. This is what we call a hit piece. Kill all, so we're drunk. We, oh man. And NPR, Marie Louise,

49:10 I don't know. Well, this Meyer woman is notorious for, she's obviously a Democrat operative. She's one of the people that went after Clarence Thomas, wrote a book about it. Oh, is that who she is? Okay. Yeah, she is... Gotcha, gotcha. She wrote a book about dark money. She's a very smart girl, obviously. Another Yalie graduated top of her class, Phi Beta Kappa. And so she's no dummy, but she went right into journalism. This doesn't make a lot of sense, but okay, that's what she did. And all her stuff is about slamming Republicans. Okay. Pretty much. Well, she's doing her job. She's doing what she's paid to do.

49:54 Here's President-elect Trump speaking out on behalf of Pete Hegseth. Adding he'll be a fantastic high energy Secretary of Defense. As long as Donald Trump wants me in this fight, I'm gonna be standing right here in this fight. Today, multiple sources confirmed to ABC News, Hegseth will be getting an FBI background check. Hegseth's attorney on CNN. I am expecting that the background check is going to take a lot of the false stories that have been circulated in the media and it's gonna put them completely to bed.

50:31 Hegseth faces accusations of financial mismanagement, sexual misconduct and excessive drinking, allegations he denies. Trump in New York last night touting his transition at an award show broadcast by Fox Nation. I think you have seen more happen. in the last two weeks than you've seen in the last four years. And we're not even there yet. They both told me how much they enjoyed it, how productive it was. Musk and Ramaswamy will lead the outside advisory group looking to slash government spending. Elon and Vivek talked about having a naughty list and a nice list for members of Congress and senators and how we vote and how we're spending the American people's money.

51:22 It's not clear what programs could be cut. House Speaker Mike Johnson called the meeting a brainstorming session. He says Americans will find dollars in hand without cutting programs like Medicare and Social Security. No, they're coming for your Social Security. They're coming for your Social Security. So is Trump. So I think we need to go to some dumb Dems for a moment just to get a little temperature of how this is playing out with the dumb Dems. And when we talk about dumb Dems, well, I mean, who else could I bring in, John? Dumb Dems? Yeah. Who wouldn't you bring in? I'm going to bring in Kara Swisher and Professor Scott Galloway. Oh, your buddies. Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, because they've got a lot to say about all these appointments. Anyway, let's get to our first big story. Big story! Big story!

52:10 President Electon- What? What's that? They have a band? Oh yeah, they've got these hits. Like these audio hits. Let's go to our first story. Bum bum bum bum, because we're not a tech news, we're news. It's a podcast, isn't it? Podcast with hits? Okay. Yeah, unlike us, you know. Now for real news. President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the FBI is former national security official Kash Patel. That's a... what a strange man he is. Patel is a Trump loyalist who's vowed to come... Oh, now she's making fun of an Indian name? What a strange... What kind of a racist comment was that? Oh no, he's got the funny name.

52:56 And he's a loyalist. He's a loyalist. They're all loyal. That's what you do. What are you going to do? Who are you supposed to hire if you don't hire a loyalist? I'm just asking the question rhetorically. Who would you hire that you don't want? That guy hates my guts. He's got the job. Well, the reason the term loyalist is chosen, and you'll hear it in the coming few days. No, they say it over and over. I've heard it. No, but I'm telling you why. The reason why is because that's the same, you'll hear it over and over again in a different context. I was going to finish my sentence. You will hear it in the context of Bashir al-Assad's loyalists. Oh, they're doing associative stuff. Yes, dictators. So a loyalist is a bad person. Well, a loyalist is someone who is loyal to a dictator.

53:45 That's the association. Loyalists. Putin loyalists. Assad loyalists. Loyalists. What a strange man he is. Patel is a Trump loyalist who's vowed to come after Trump's enemies, including people in the media. A number of high-level Senate Republicans have already indicated their willingness to get behind the choice, but others not so much. It's a real mixed bag on this guy. By the way, he has to fire Chris Wray, who was appointed by Trump to a 10-year term. Oh, ironic. is a damning whistleblower report on his previous behavior at running two organizations. They keep calling it a whistleblower report. This is not against the government. Whistleblowers... Did she say that? Yeah, and that was in the... How's it whistleblowing? Well, the NPR lady said it too. It was, oh, this is a whistleblower. We had whistleblowers talking here. So Kara basically read the article and said, oh, it's a whistleblower. I don't think it qualifies as a whistleblower. No, it's just a standard

54:54 The smear yeah, this is a whistleblower is a damning whistleblower report on his previous behavior running two organizations where he drank too much. She abused women sexual harassment I think the abused women and sexual harassment is the stripper story I think that's what they're folding on the stage, holding that in. A bunch of lying, misspending, mismanagement. This story is quite, has got it all by Jane Mayer. And it's based on, well, it's a devastating. It's based on nothing. Very well reported piece about how bad a... No it's not, it's not well reported if you have all anonymous sources. Very very well reported. Hey, Kara's a journalist and an author, she knows what she's talking about. Very well reported piece about how bad a

55:45 manager he was. It may have been a bad period of his life, but boy was it bad. The New York Times also had the 2018 email from Hegseth's mother calling her son an abuser of women. That email was something else. She told the Times she'd written the messages in anger and had apologized for it, but boy did it have a ring of truth at the time. I guess it was during the same time period. Had a ring of truth. Now just like Just like the guy who was laughing about, oh, hours, it's hours from now. Kara Swisher seems to know about new reporting before it comes out. Anyway, we'll see what happens here, but it's disturbing. I would recommend reading The Mother's Letter. It's disturbing, along with the story from The New Yorker for Hegseth, that's for sure. And I'm looking forward to the Kash Patel story, which is going to be just worse, I think, in a different way, and the Tulsi Gabbard stories.

56:31 Anyway, journalists are doing a great job with these things and I thought it was a very fair story and Pete Hedges thought it really was. So, you know, whatever. Her voice is going to fall over here if it gets any more bright. Yeah, journalists are doing a great job here. They're doing a great job. Wait until you see the Tulsi story. Wait until you see the... the the cash patel story. It's gonna be worse. It's much worse. Cash Patel. They were two strippers. I'm telling you that Cash Patel. Yeah, goat yogurt. Goat yogurt? Where does that come from? It's just fermented goat yogurt. The guy can't hold it.

57:10 Obama is also out on the trail. He was speaking at a democracy forum. Yeah, I'm glad you got this clip. This clip was played, I think it's just Obama flailing personally. They've made a lot out of this as though some scheme is afoot. Well, that's the whole point. First of all, he looks very thin. He doesn't look Very just look healthy. I don't know he's probably I agree with that I think and I think he doesn't look healthy man. I think he looks unhealthy So it takes him 45 seconds to say 15 seconds worth of content, but here we go there are going to be times potentially when one side tries to stack the deck and lock in a a a permanent

58:05 What he's saying there is no more elections. You mean, wat je zegt ben jezelf? Met je kop door de helft? Yes, exactly. And in those circumstances, pluralism does not call for us to just stand back and say, well, I'm not sure that's okay. In those circumstances, a line has been crossed and we have to stand firm. That's not who we are. Just back to Swisher and Galloway. I just have two short clips here because they're just such morons. It's funny.

58:59 So, who really should we be selecting for these important cabinet positions? What would we be? What would be our job if you had to pick one? We do exactly what we're doing right now because our lives are really nice. I understand. But if you had to take a cab, they said, here, Scott, you have to take one cab job. You don't have a choice. Oh, easy. I'd want to be secretary of education. Oh, wow. Interesting. What would you guess I would want to be? Head of the CIA. That's right. That's right, my friend. That's correct. I spy on you. You do spy on me. You fucking text me at three in the morning. You know, she wants to be a spy so bad. You identified this like a couple of years back. Some time ago, yeah. Yeah. Maybe. She's in her bio. But I'm sure she talks to people all the time. Maybe this is part of their job. They have a pretty big reach amongst the Democratic elite. They all love the, oh, we love Pivot. We love. This is why I listen to it.

59:54 But that was a little back and forth there that was kind of disturbing. Oh, they do this all the time. They are massive elites and they just talk elitist. It's funny. So who would clean up the food instead of, you know, we can't have RFK Jr. Who would Kara Swisher want to really get rid of chemicals in our food? Who could it be? Who would be the right guy for that? No guesses? No. It's important, but I one of the ones we're just talking about this UnitedHealthcare thing is that the Health and Human Services Director, I would make that Mark Cuban, you know, or someone like that. You need to facilitate change in how health care goes in this country. I'm going to never guess that in a million years that anyone would be so lame to suggest Mark Cuban as HHS. I know it's a basketball team. He sold broadcast.com. Give me a break.

1:00:55 We know how that went down. Now there are two, there's another, this is a kind of something odd that I picked up. Trump has appointed Lutnick, is it Howard? Howard Lutnick from Cantor Fitzgerald to be the Commerce Secretary? Yeah. Now interesting by himself... That's a Musk... Is that a Musk play? Well, Musk wanted him to be Treasury. Right. Well, so first of all, the 200 million dollar, 200, 200,000 Bitcoin that we have is going to go, from what I understand, is going to go into Cantor Fitzgerald for safekeeping.

1:01:36 And they're the guys who are now pumping up Tether stable coin. They just bought another $5 billion worth of treasuries. So he's very, very intertwined with all of that. But there's something else that he is doing. And he is, and I have the other investor as a second clip, he is investing in SataLogic. And I had not heard of Satellogic, but it makes sense that he's friends with Musk. Let me start with you, Howard, because you were there first in a sense, as far as I know. Tell us about this company, Satellogic, and your deal with it. Why it's a good investment.

1:02:13 Well, we felt that space and the satellites in particular is really the next coming gigantic market for data. I mean, to have images of the whole Earth, data on the whole Earth, the amount of decisions that that will unlock and the ability and the economics of how that will unlock was extraordinary. So we found the company Satellogic, it has the best technology, it builds It redesigned every inch of the satellite. It takes 10 times the images of everybody else. I mean, you look at these images, 70 centimeters. so that you can count the containers on the ships, count the cars, count the trees, count the number of what's working and what's not working in a solar farm. I mean, this is incredible technology, and I think it just unlocks a vast, vast sea of opportunity and marketplaces. And so this was the best technology, and that's why they redid the transaction. Yeah, I don't like that so much.

1:03:14 Yeah, we can see everything. How many cars are on the lot? We can look down to 70 centimeters. We can see the pubes on you. He's way, way too excited about that. And who is the other investor who was in the same interview? It's our old buddy, Steve Mnuchin.

1:03:49 the technology area, national security, and in other forms where we can add a lot of value. So what we liked about this is great technology. We can add a lot of value here. So what we liked about this is great technology, very scalable, very affordable. And the combination of having a lot of data with a lot of AI really will enable both very big government markets and more importantly, very big commercial markets. We're a long-term investor. Our horizon is generally five years or longer. So, we're really not focused on where the markets are in the short term. But the opportunity here is with vast amounts of data, we can really analyze climate issues, energy supply, food security, supply chains,

1:04:41 So we really believe that this is going to create all new types of markets with scalable, affordable imagery. Yeah, scalable, affordable imagery. How about the border? Maybe they should be doing border security. There you go. Yeah, we'll be checking. We'll be watching the border for your president. I don't like these guys. You don't like who? I don't like either of them. Oh, I like him, but I don't want this commerce guy, this being our commerce guy. If he's all he's got commerce on his mind. Well, that's what he did. Yeah Seems like a conflict reason musk likes him. Maybe this is satellite Satellites, of course, have you seen how many satellites are blanketing our globe that must? Especially with these these little moving ones using for your story for your internet. Yes For your protection. Yeah. Hmm. I'll keep your eye on these guys. Oh

1:05:40 I did pull two clips from the Tucker Lavrov interview, which just, I was excited. I'm like, wow, he's talking all kinds of interesting stuff. And then it just felt completely like a dud. It was at 400,000 views on YouTube and I'm sure it's all jacked and, and. and rigged whatever. It's up there, I'm sure it is. No, it's like 500,000 this morning. Oh, so that's not a lot. No, it fell flat, or at least the numbers that YouTube shows. Well, maybe it was... Lavrov's not the most exciting guy to chat with. Well, he had two specific things that I wanted to play because it's always fun when you get, you know, Putin's, I would say, right-hand man is probably fair.

1:06:24 To call to call you out, you know, like well, what are we really fighting over? What is this really about Tucker asked we fight for our legitimate security interests they say for example 1991 borders and Lindsey Graham, who visited some time ago Zelensky for another talk. I love that he's calling out Lindy Hop. He bluntly, in presence of Zelensky, I think, said that Ukraine is very rich with rare earth metals and we cannot leave this rich, this richness to the Russians, we must take it.

1:07:09 We fight, so they fight for... But Lavrov gets better. He's like, oh, he's taking the high road. We fight, so they fight for the regime which is ready to sell or to give to the West all the natural and human resources. We fight for the people. Uh-huh. Yeah. Oh, brother. There you go. No, I fight for the boy. He's going to take it one step further. Who have been living on this lands, whose ancestors were actually developing those lands, building cities, building factories for centuries and centuries. We care about people, not about

1:07:55 And and to have Ukrainians just as servants on these natural resources. Whores! We'll make them slaves and whores! That's all you want, Lindsey Graham! So the message which we wanted to sell by... I like he's... instead of saying the message we wanted to send, he says the message we wanted to sell, which I think is some form of a Of a flub you know like truth wanted to come out because the test missile was what he's referring to we wanted to sell a message Sitting on this natural resources. So the message which we wanted to sell by Testing in real in real action this hypersonic system is that we will

1:08:53 We will be ready to do anything to defend our legitimate interests. We hate even to think about war with the United States, which will take nuclear character. So the timing of all this is not lost on me because we have Trump, we went to the reopening of the cathedral in Paris. And Zelensky was there, so we're starting to ramp up the deal. We've heard continuously, well, we got to give these guys all that we can because they have a position of strength for the coming peace negotiations. Everybody knows this is coming.

1:09:34 And you know, who walks into the UFC arena with Trump? It's Tucker. So, you know, how does he just call up and say, you know, hey, I think it's a good time for me to interview Lavrov. Let me see if I can call Lavrov. No! No, this is a setup, this is a deal, and it got thwarted by the CEO assassination because I believe the idea was to have the truth come out about the war in Ukraine, about the true mission, which is to take the resources and have the Ukrainians go back to being slaves and hookers for everybody else, in the good old days, Lindsey Graham leading the pack.

1:10:16 and to again reiterate that this is a war that NATO started but the whole thing just fell flat in the media and even in the, I believe, Old boss new boss, you know the podcasters. I thought the idea was have Tucker sit down Oh my god, Tucker didn't age you would love rough I expected Megyn Kelly to be on a damn Bon Geno to be on it, but they're all on the on the usual Suspense the hill figure hero, you know, they're all on the Monopoly money murderer so they completely got distracted, but I do want to play Lavrov's

1:10:53 reiteration of the coup. But I just wonder how worried you are that considering there doesn't seem to be a lot of conversation between the two countries, both sides are speaking about exterminating the other's populations, that this could somehow get out of control in a very short period and no one could stop it. It seems incredibly... No, we are not talking about exterminating anybody's population. We did not start this war. We have been for years and years and years sending warnings that pushing NATO closer and closer to our borders is going to create a problem. In 2007 Putin started to explain to the people who seem to be overtaken by the end of history and being dominant

1:11:50 no challenge and so on and so forth. And of course, when the coup took place, the Americans did not hide that they were behind it. There is a conversation between Victoria Nuland and the then American ambassador in Kiev when they discuss personalities to be included in the new government after the coup. The figure of 5 billion bucks spent on Ukraine after independence was mentioned as the guarantee that everything would be like the Americans want. So we don't have any intention to exterminate Ukrainian people there.

1:12:38 brothers and sisters to the Russian people. So, no, we didn't get through to Code Bongino with this. I thought it would happen, but everything got sidetracked, and for good reason. I wanted to ask you, does it make sense for us, because we've done it a couple times, two and a half minutes, to replay that Victoria Nuland call just so everyone kind of remembers? Oh, I love that call. In fact, the funny thing is that he brought it up. I want to mention this before you play the clip, you have it lined up. I think the Russians, because they're the ones who, it's obvious who captured this, this is Russian intelligence, they grabbed this, they had everybody tapped and they had this beautiful call. High-end quality. High-end quality call, beautiful, and it didn't get the results they expected. No, the media completely ignored it, completely.

1:13:30 So here it is. They must have been... I have to say they have to have been beside themselves. Like how dumb is the American public that we can do this and they don't even give a shit? I'll tell you that, you know, hanging out with the oil baron, he said ever since I started listening to No Agenda, he says my whole view on the world has changed. Here's the guy who even understands such basic fundamentals as drill baby drill is bullcrap, but he wasn't really thinking in these ways, you know, the no agenda way of thinking.

1:14:09 And I think part of it's just, you know, exposure to the stuff that we play, which is out there. It's just, it doesn't get picked up. It doesn't get into any form of any stream, let alone mainstream or alternative stream or urine stream. It's just, it doesn't get picked up. Oh, please. Well, I think that you get there because the media and the narratives, bringing it back again to JC, presenting his liberal buddies with this one piece of information they never got. 30 for 30, they never, it's so controlled, the public perception is so controlled by these guys that to break through it, once you break through it, you should be able to live with yourself. But I guess it's an eye-opener. I was gonna say, this clip should have really opened everybody's eyes about what's going on and it's still,

1:15:10 Nobody, half the people don't know it. Half, nobody knows about it. This is 2014 after Victoria Nuland was on the Maidan Square handing out cookies and doughnuts to the protesters. And Brennan was there, don't forget. CIA Director Brennan was there, Lindsey Graham was there, John McCain was there, everybody was there, and Hunter of course. What do you think? Oh, this is the call, she's talking to the US ambassador and his name is Pyatt, and here we go. What do you think? I think we're in play. The Klitschko piece is obviously the complicated electron here. And for those who don't know, Klitschko became the mayor of Moscow. He actually owns some strip clubs, I think, or some brothels.

1:15:56 then he became a very famous fighter, boxer, became the world champion heavyweight boxer along with his brother, they both did. And they didn't really want him in but they wanted him adjacent and this is the guy who recently went on X and said, hey Joe Rogan put me on your podcast I will tell you how it is really working. It's obviously the complicated electron here, especially the announcement of him as deputy prime minister and you've seen some of my notes on the troubles in the marriage right now so we're trying to get a read really fast on where he is on this stuff but i think your argument to him which you'll need to make i think that's the next phone call we want to set up is exactly the one you made to to yacht and i'm glad you sort of put him on the spot on where he fits in this scenario and i'm very glad he said what he said in response

1:16:47 good so uh... i don't think we should go into the government i don't think it's necessary i don't think it's a good idea yeah i mean i i guess you think uh... what in terms of him not going into the government just let him sort of stay out and do his political homework and stuff i'm just thinking in terms of sort of the process moving ahead we want to keep the moderate democrats together the problem is going to be tiny book and his guys and you know i'm sure that's part of what you have to which is calculating on all of this uh... i i i i i I think Yotz is the guy who's got the economic experience, the governing experience. He's the guy, you know, what he needs is cleats and tiny book on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week, you know. Do you remember Yotz and Yook, the guy who they installed initially, that wimpy ass soy boy? Yeah, that guy. And he was a big disappointment. That was the wrong choice.

1:17:45 I just think Kleech going in, he's going to be at that level working for Yatsinuk. It's just not going to work. Yeah, no, I think that's right. Okay, good. Well, do you want us to try to set up a call with him as the next step? My understanding from that call that you tell me was that the big three were going into their own meeting and that Yats was going to offer in that context a three-plus-one conversation or three-plus-two with you. is that not how you understood it no i think i mean that's what he proposed but i think there's no in the dynamic that's been with them where uh... which goes to the top dog you can take a while to shop for a meeting they've got he's probably talking to his guys at this point so i think you reaching out directly to him helps with the personality management among the three and it and it gives you also a chance to move fast on all the stuff and put us behind you behind it

1:18:38 before they all sit down and he explains why he doesn't like it. Okay, good. I'm happy. Why don't you reach out to him and see if he wants to talk before or after? Okay, will do. Thanks. Okay, I've now written... Oh, one more wrinkle for you, Jeff. Yeah. I can't remember if I told you this or if I only told Washington this, that when I talked to Jeff Feltman this morning, he had a new name for the UN guy, Robert Serry. Did I write you that this morning? Yeah, I saw that. He's now gotten both Sari and Ban Ki-moon to agree that Sari could come in Monday or Tuesday. Okay. So that would be great, I think, to help glue this thing and have the UN help glue it. And, you know, fuck the EU. Yay, there it is. And the only thing that the media reported on is, well, the Russians tapped her phone and they heard her say, F the EU.

1:19:31 That's the only part of the call that was out of discussion. I don't even remember that, to be honest about it. Yeah, and then later she talks about having Biden come in to midwife this deal, because of course, and with that she meant Joe Biden. I mean, this whole thing was so obvious. It was ridiculous. And now Trump had the right idea, like, oh, we'll get this going through the new podcast narrative, the new podcast virality, and it just fell flat. fell flat, but they still had the meeting in Notre Dame. I have, let me see... I have two Notre Dame clips. Okay. The first one is interesting because you've been in Notre Dame. Yes. I've been there at least

1:20:21 three or four times. I mean, when you go to Paris, you don't always go there, but you go there because it's a pretty cool place. It's kind of a one and done, honestly. I've been there a couple of times. Well, I usually have taken different people showing me. Hey, look at this. Hey, put this thing on your head. If you're a woman, you got to put a paper bag on your head. No, you don't. Yes, yes. You have to get to the wailing wall. No, no, no. I've never seen anybody with a paper bag on their head. Not an actual paper bag, but you have to cover your head in the Notre Dame. Women have to cover their head. I don't believe this to be true. Well, when I was there, anyway, okay. I will say this and you have to, you must have noticed this too, it doesn't look like the same place at all. No, no it doesn't. It is just dynamite looking because when you went there in the olden days, it was kind of dingy to be honest about it. It was dark, everything was dirty.

1:21:14 You know, because of the grime for hundreds and hundreds of years of coal burning in the area, it's all got in, so everything was like that European kind of grayish look that all the, everything becomes because of the coal soot that gets into everything. It's white. Yeah, yeah. And spectacular looking. I'd go back just to see what it looks like now. So here we go with the clip one. The bells of Notre Dame Cathedral rang this evening in Paris for the first time since a fire devastated the landmark in 2019. After that fire, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed that the ravaged cathedral would be repaired within five years, and tonight, the doors of Notre Dame opened again. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley was there to witness it all and joins us now. Hey, Eleanor. Hi, Scott. What an emotional evening.

1:22:09 It really was. You know that bell you're talking about? It's a 13-ton bell called Emmanuel, and they've just put it back up in that spire in November. You know, remember the church, what we saw, the roof collapsed, the spire collapsed, there was a huge hole, twisted metal? It's like a brand new church. You go in, the soaring ceilings are white, the stones are all white now. The gray is gone. glowing golden chandeliers. It's absolutely pristine. The clergy, I mean, it was something from the movies tonight, you know, the archbishop and all the bishops with them, they wore their long cloaks and their miters, these big hats, and these vestments were all made for the occasion. And then, Scott, the ceremony, the rituals, the symbolism, I mean, it felt like almost medieval. I mean, to start with, the archbishop, he took his crozier, that's his staff, and it's made from one of the charred roof timbers, and he banged on the door three times, and it sounded like this.

1:23:15 So he says, Notre Dame, please open your doors for us. And I was like, wow, you know what we're witnessing. Yeah. Wow. I apologize. It is shoulders. You can have no bare shoulders in Notre Dame. Women cannot have bare shoulders. Yeah. I thought had you looked it up. I did. I'd looked it up on the on the Notre Dame website. No bare shoulders. You get a little bib. I will say this, the thing is spectacular looking, but I'm reminded of St. Xavier, it's near Tucson, which is a Catholic church that is more traditionally decorated like they were, I guess, during the era of all these churches that were built all over the West Coast by the group of people that floated around building churches and making Indians do work.

1:24:12 I don't know, who were they? Well, it's a term that alludes to me for some unknown reason, but whatever the case, that church, if anyone gets to see it, you go, holy mackerel, you'd go to this church. And you say the same thing, I think, at Notre, this church, you'd go to this, nobody goes to these churches anymore. The worst example, if anyone wants to check it out, there's a cathedral similar to Notre Dame, only it's not quite as elaborate, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, that is just a dump. It's just a dump. And you can see where people kind of lose interest. I don't know, why am I coming here? This place stinks, it's a dump, it's dirty. And Notre Dame was that way more or less compared to what it is now. You could see where people would just go crazy. So wait a minute, so you're suggesting that maybe this was an insurance scam by the church to spiffy it up and get people interested again?

1:25:09 I wasn't suggesting that at all, but now that you mention it, it's quite possible. It is spiffy looking. I agree. It was kind of... I think the word dank would come to mind. Like dank. That's a better word. It was dank. It's because of all that buildup of all that soot from, you know, coal burning. It's just like... First time I went to Europe was in 1973 and I had to change my shirt. I was in London. I had to change my shirt three times during the day. Because around the collar and around the sleeves it was just black within just a few hours of walking around So everything everything is dingy and dank. Dinky and dank. Yeah, that's right

1:25:51 All right, clip two. Also some real politics today. President-elect Trump was there and he met with Macron, right? Absolutely. Well, President-elect Trump was here and First Lady Jill Biden with her daughter Ashley and they sat in the front of the cathedral. And actually Trump sat between President Macron and First Lady, French First Lady Brigitte Macron because he came alone. But before the ceremony, yes, he met up at the Elysee. He was welcome to the Elysee and Macron says, welcome back. Do you remember this room? And you know, he reminded people were there that Trump was president when Notre Dame burn and he thanked him then how he was so moved and he thanked Trump and Americans for their solidarity with the cathedral. And then Macron did something that he loves to do these little political coups. He was meeting with Ukrainian President Zelensky after Trump. And by the way, Zelensky got a round of applause when he entered into the cathedral tonight. But anyway, Macron's meeting with Zelensky and he.

1:26:44 you know, asked Trump to wait. So we actually got them together. So the three of them also met. Interesting. One more important question. Notre Dame isn't just a landmark. Hold on a second. What is where's this report from? NPR. So we have Macron who was called for boots on the ground, we have Trump who was called for peace, and we have Zelensky who is, you know, obviously- Called for money. But listen to how NPR handles it. And he, you know, asked Trump to wait so we actually got them together so the three of them also met. Interesting. The three of them met. Interesting. What? What? That's not just interesting.

1:27:24 That's like an off-the-books meeting that is beyond interesting. NPR? One more important question. Could it be about Ukraine? Notre Dame isn't just a landmark, it's a Catholic cathedral. Is there going to be mass tomorrow? There sure is. Two masses tomorrow and it will open for the public. But let me tell you, you've got to now go online and get a slot and I don't think you're going to be able to get a ticket anytime soon. A lot of people want to go. You always have to get a slot. I never had to get a slot. I did. Well, you were there a much different time. I also went to the roof. Was it on fire?

1:28:04 No, you could there was a there's one pathway you could climb all the way to the roof and go sit on the roof of the Notre Dame cool Right next to the gargoyles. This is usually about a half dozen or dozen people up there Yeah, and you just sit you have lunch or whatever you want to do. It's actually quite good quite remarkable to do that. It's a pain in the ass to get up and down those steps though. And the Pope did not show. I thought that was rather interesting. Well, the Pope, yeah, well, you can talk to your Catholic buddies about this. I think even Mark, I think Void Zero would have some comment about why this was. You are my Catholic buddy. What are you talking about? Okay.

1:28:49 But well why not a real Pope? Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. Well, yes, I would say universally most Catholics I know don't certainly don't think he's the he's a good one though. You know, he's not gonna show up dude. He'll show up late. He didn't want to show up and get struck by lightning is what you're saying. I didn't say that. No, I am. I am. So anyway, it does look like a spectacular view now. It'd be interesting to see, because it's probably in the condition it was when it was built, before the soot. Well, we might as well stay on some dumb political news.

1:29:34 I have a couple clips here. Let me see. This is a shorty to introduce the topic. We talked about it briefly on Thursday. Well, just days after President Joe Biden issued a sweeping pardon for his son Hunter, sources say the president is considering even more pardons. And these could be for the people who might be targeted by the incoming Trump administration. An ABC News source close to the president confirms that Biden and his senior aides are discussing pardons for current and former officials. They include retired General Mark Milley, Senator-elect Adam Schiff, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and former Republican Representative Liz Cheney. Throughout his campaign, Trump vowed to enact retribution on his political enemies.

1:30:20 So there's and this is ridiculous by the way I have two clips I want to play this is you know the kind of ridiculousness you get from these guys this is Rachel Maddow. You saw these right? No I have not I have Meet the Press but I'll take Rachel Maddow over Meet the Press any day. This is in 2020 she was ridiculing Trump because there was some phony baloney rumor that he was gonna do do these crazy pardons for his family. Oh, that's right, preemptive for his family. Yes, okay. Yeah, of course he didn't do any of that, but... Okay, 2020. It's not beyond her to talk about it. Here's your... This is pardons 20... This is in 2020. President Trump, as he winds down his last few weeks in office, is considering preemptive pardons for all his adult children, including his son-in-law, Jared.

1:31:14 What a mess. More as we know. He did, of course, pardon Jared's dad. His dad was in jail. Yeah, and pardoned him and made him ambassador. Well, that's recently. He didn't make him ambassador then. No, but he's ambassador. Wasn't he? Didn't he become ambassador? Or was he ambassador before? Yeah, France. Yeah. Ah, good place. Which is a nice, you know. That's the best one. They have the best residents. Well, actually, the best one I, and I think we've talked about this. You think London? Supposedly. The best way, if you want any one of these jobs, you get one. Vatican. It's basically just all party. Grand Cru Burgundies for the rest of your life. Non-stop partying. There's nothing else to do there.

1:32:03 All right, now we have Rachel Maddow on the 2024 pardons. I'm sure this is in stark contrast to what she said about Trump. Here we go. Exactly. To all the hand wringing and gnashing of teeth today about a president using his power, his pardon power, his powers as president, to do something for a family member. Tell me more about how outraged we all are about President Biden's pardon for his son. She's the worst. All right, I have my Catholic buddies have checked in with me. Here we go. Francis is the real Pope, but he's like that very old grandpa that comes over for dinner and nobody likes but everyone has to respect for, you know, reasons. He's just a typical happy clappy Kumbaya boomer. He's tried to reduce the importance of traditions and people who do love traditions, the Latin mass,

1:32:57 etc. are just being thrown aside as being rigid while we think that he and his mentality are rigid. But okay, we got to respect him because he's the highest authority on earth after all, and we can choose to ignore his personal opinions. That's from my Catholic buddies. Yeah, that sounds like void zero. Yeah, of course it's void zero. Who else did you expect it to be? All right, so here's Meet the Press. on the preemptive pardons. So is the only check on a president's pardon power essentially impeachment? Yes, and I would argue that since the Supreme Court's immunity decision this past year, that it's even less checkable now. Because let's say for example, imagine a situation where a president pardons people that were arguably co-conspirators in a crime that he committed.

1:33:49 This is exactly what one of the framers, George Mason, was worried about when they argued about whether to include the pardon power in the Constitution. They almost didn't include it, or at least there were those who argued against it, even though it came from the English tradition and was already in existence in the colonies. There were folks who didn't want the pardon power for exactly that concern. So it's strange that now post-immunity decision, that exact conduct might not even be prosecutable. So yes, the short answer is, it may be that the only check is impeachment and probably not even criminal prosecution for a criminal pardon. What are they saying there? I don't even know. Well, there's more of it. Hold on. Is accepting this pardon essentially an admission of guilt? That is a thorny question. That's better than great question.

1:34:40 That's better than a great question. It's a thorny question. I like that. I like this. Supreme Court case from 18. Wait, let me, I want to hear him say it again. Oh, that is a thorny question. A Supreme Court case from 1815 suggested that yes, acceptance of a pardon is an admission of guilt. But in the modern era, that's probably not the case anymore. For example, I handle wrongful conviction cases and often if you get a pardon, Critical is whether or not it's a pardon based on actual innocence because actual innocence is key to wrongful conviction payout statutes. So in the modern era, it's still an open thorny question. But the more likely answer is that depending on the language in the pardon itself that can control a pardon may no longer be per se an admission of guilt. No, boy, they'll do anything to make it to paper over it, won't they?

1:35:35 You know, we brought up Rachel in 2020 when Trump was leaving. I found this clip which has been going around again for some reason and this is the clip that ran on NBC just before Trump got kicked out of office. And as I listen to it, I think I'm wondering... What do you mean kicked out? You mean when he lost the election? What do you mean kicked out of office? He lost the election. Oh, okay. All right. But under strange circumstances. Yes. Is it possible that this is a circumstance, this is the second half of show clip called History 2020 the Space Aliens clip? Okay, here we go everybody. This is by the way, wait, wait, this is just, this ran just before the rigged 2020 election.

1:36:25 Aliens exist and President Trump knows about it. That's according to Israel's former space security chief. In an interview with an Israeli newspaper, he said, the aliens have been waiting until today for humanity to develop and reach a stage where we will understand in general what space and spaceships are. NBC News chief global correspondent Bill Neely explains this one. Hi, Alison. Well, this is quite a story and it comes from the man who headed Israel's space security program for nearly 30 years. Haim Eshed is making the extraordinary claim that the United States and Israel have been in contact with a group of aliens for years, not immigrants, but extraterrestrials.

1:37:06 He has called them the Galactic Federation of Aliens and he says President Trump is aware of the existence of these aliens and had been on the verge of revealing their secrets, he claims, but was asked not to do so by the Federation in order to prevent what he calls mass hysteria. Well the retired general said the US and Israel have kept it from the public because Quotes humanity isn't ready and the aliens don't want to reveal themselves until humanity can evolve he says and understand what space really is. Well the good news is that he claims an agreement has been reached between the US government and the aliens a contract to do Experiments here. There's also he says a secret underground base on Mars where there are American and alien representatives Wow Space Force. I love it John Mars That's why

1:37:59 Yeah! Musk is all over the Mars then. There you go, he's got to go have a meeting with the Galactic Council. Well, since you've introduced the second half of show, allow me to thank you for your courage and say in the morning to you, the man who put the C in my Catholic buddy, say hello to my friend on the other end, the one, the only, Mr. John C. DeVore! Yeah, well, in the morning, you, Mr. Adam Curry, in the morning all ships and sea boots on the ground, feet in the air, subs in the water, and all the dames and knights out there. Hold on a second, Trollstomp, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, what do we have? We have $24.69.

1:38:43 That is a little higher than normal. Not much. 2469 is a little higher than normal. Well yeah, 24, okay, 69. That's a little higher than normal. 69! 69! Those trolls are with us live in the troll room. That's right. Hello trolls. The oil baron was like, I can't get in the troll room. How do I get? I want to be the, I don't want to be just web troll number. I want to be the oil baron in the troll room. So you know, he might be in there. I don't know if I haven't seen him yet. People, people getting into it, into the troll room. They're loving it. That's what, yeah.

1:39:19 People like it. They like... I don't like being a number. I want to be oil baron in the hood. Funny enough, that's not how he talks. Isn't that interesting? Oil baron, huh? Does he hear texting? Does he talk through his teeth? Yes, I'm gonna shoot you some new guy. I'll get you some from the King's Ranch pretty soon. Yeah, that's exactly how he talks. You nailed it. So you can join the oil baron in the troll room troll room dot IO And of course you should be listening to us on a modern podcast app where you can get Alerted when we go live a lot of people seem to enjoy that as a feature not available on your legacy podcast apps It's really it's a nice thing or when we when we? When we release the show 90 seconds within release the modern podcast apps are

1:40:07 We'll tell everybody about it. We've got all kinds of extra goodies like transcripts. It's easy for you English as a second language people you can read along if you feel like it and we have chapters so you can jump around the topics. Dreb Scott does that with a lot of the images used created by the artists uploaded to knowagendaartgenerator.com which is part of our value for value model. We love it. Because it's a great way of receiving value back for the value we provide for the show, which is the only way. I think the more I look into it, there's been a lot of people trying to, still trying to do advertising and this whole, it's at this point almost a psyop of, but if you don't have video, your podcast is never gonna do anything good. They're continuously trying to push everybody to YouTube.

1:40:59 And I'm here to say it's not necessary. It's not. Even Schwisher and Galloway aren't on video, thank God. But you know, it's like... But they were. No, they're not on video. No. No. Can you imagine? I mean, seriously, Galloway is great in audio. He does not have a... He's not telegenic, let's put it that way. No. That's why he's done three CNN pilots. They all failed because he's... I'm sorry, he just... He has a face for podcasting. You as a producer would go looking at him like, no, no, he's not good for television. And we don't want to be on it. We don't want to do video because it's complicated. It adds all kinds of complexity that we don't want to deal with. And you got to get dressed up. Well, I don't think I would, but yeah, you got to get dressed up. You know, I don't want to have, you know, I'd be very self-conscious the whole time. Like, oh, everyone sees my Tourette's. I don't want any of that. And you know, you don't want to show your studio, although you used to show your studio on, on Twit.

1:41:59 Although a little bit of your studio, of your office I should say. You would have like a Bert and Ernie doll behind you or something. What was that doll? Yeah, it was Barney, Barney the Dinosaur. Barney doll. Bert and Barney doll. There you go. So the artists, we're always very appreciative of what the artists do when they go to noagendaartgenerator.com. Anybody can do it. It's completely open and we like to comment on the art because that is, it's kind of like a value loop. We send value back again to the artists and we tell them why we didn't choose them, which is something that they never hear from art directors or people that they, you know, submit art for, for a project or for an advertisement. No, they just get kicked off in there.

1:42:40 get picked and they never know why. They don't get to analyze the tastes of the art director necessarily. I mean, to the extreme they can with us. Yeah, exactly. I'm just looking at... Let me see this for a second. Huh. So this is M. Adams. who did the artwork for episode 17-18. We titled it On The Fritz, which we still think is just groovy. We're never going to use the word glitch anymore. We're just going to say it's on the fritz. We're bringing that word back into the lexicon. And so the artist is mxadam.com and if you go to mxadam.com, you should do that. I mean, he is an artist. He does a lot of art that he hasn't submitted to

1:43:28 To the show this is all different art. I didn't even realize that and it looks like he does some commercial art as well I don't know if he's yeah all Commission. He has commissioned art interesting. This is seems like he's kind of real deal interesting the the art was You looking at it Yeah, I am. It's just the way that you put it, you know. Like this is some sort of shocker. Like that we have actual artists who submit artwork? I know. Now, this piece, we both liked it because, you know, you had the tsunami alert, there was an earthquake, there was all kinds of warnings, which you didn't, you just slept right through it, didn't feel a thing. In fact, Berkeley, is there a harbor in Berkeley?

1:44:16 Yeah, the Berkeley Marina. Yeah, the Berkeley Marina was supposed to be, you know, the target of the tsunami, it turns out. But none of that happened. It was quite far away and I don't think there was any substantial damage. But this piece of art... No, the tsunami was a dud. It was a dud. Seven magnitude, but it was a dud. And this was clearly... Yes. Yeah, they explained it if you want to know what the exact... Well I do. They didn't have any uplift and you had to need an uplift to get the tsunami to happen. It was just two things banging into each other, different. This piece of art was clearly San Francisco under severe stress from an earthquake.

1:45:00 And it was a very apocalyptic, but yet somehow cartoonishly funny piece. It was a good piece. Yeah, it was. And we both liked it. We didn't want to pick it right away, but we both agreed on it. I liked it, and I used for the newsletter, I used Darren O'Neill's on the Fritz piece, which was a box. I don't know why it was a box. What the point of that was, I'm not sure. But he had every imaginable meme and whatever he could jam into this thing. I don't know how this managed to happen. He must have his own trained AI. He knows how to do something with that. It is pretty interesting, Taron.

1:45:42 It's too bad that we didn't talk about the Sinterklaas chocolate letters that the Dutch give each other. So December 5th, which is our last show day, the good Saint Nick comes to the Netherlands and he or he's in the Netherlands and he and his black Pete's the racist They go around and the good boys and girls they get candy in their wooden shoe and the bad boys and girls, the evil Black Pete, puts them in a burlap bag and takes them on the steamboat to Spain. So she had some... Why Spain? That's where he's from, didn't you know that? No, I don't recall it. Let's put it that way. Sinterklaas comes from Spain on a steamboat with his Black Pete helpers every year to reward the good children and punish and stuff the bad children into the burlap sack and take them away to Spain.

1:46:39 Exactly. So she had some N.A. chocolate letters, which had we talked about it, I would have probably fought harder because she had that perfect piece, but we just didn't talk about it. And then she also tried to do a hunter's shoe with a pardon present in it, I guess. But we didn't talk about any of that. So she was doing some preemptive programming. Yes, she was guessing. Guessing is another way of looking at it, yes. People who do that always fail. It's too bad. Yeah, it usually does fail. Oh, I'm sure they'll talk about this. Because our topics tend not to be as obvious. Some of them aren't obvious. We're not very topical, it turns out.

1:47:24 So thank you MXAdam.com for bringing us the artwork for episode 17-18, we appreciate that. It is value for value, we accept all kinds of value in return. You can tell someone about the show, you can... a lot of people do websites for us. I don't think we've actually built our... well, we did our No Agenda donations, we built NoAgendaRings.com, well Jay has built that. NoAgenda meetups and the Art Generator, many, you know, tipoftheday.net which we'll talk about later as we have a tip of the day. All of that has been done by producers to help us. We love the boots on the ground. It's very helpful. Boots on the ground are fantastic. Gives us insight so we have...

1:48:07 We already knew what was going to happen in Syria and we just didn't have a show on Friday. But we already saw this coming down the pike and there's more. We have more boots on the ground coming up. And of course, we'd like to thank our producers who support us with treasure. It's one of the three T's time, talent and treasure. And we thank anybody who sends in $50 or more. And we thank everybody with the amount. So I think we're one of the most transparent shows in show business. And our executive and associate executive producers are people who support us with just that little bit more, $200 or above. You get an official credit, associate executive producer, and we read your note. $300 and above, executive producer for this episode. And you get that credit, which is good for your lifetime and usable in any show business context, including imdb.com, and we will read your note. As we start off with William Grantham,

1:49:03 from Paradise Valley, Arizona who comes in with $1,000 and I believe he is vying for an instant night and he says, I can't remember my last donation but it's been years so I'm sending this to make up for all the free shows I've been getting. Please send some new contract karma and knight me as Sir Plussage, I would think it's pronounced, of the Wind River Valley. So there you go, there's a guy who's like, you know, it's time for me to send back some value and he catches up and I think it's beautiful and I thank you. You've got karma. Switcheroo in the morning, John and Adam. This donation brings me to knighthood status. See accounting below. I'd like to bestow this honor posthumously unto my son Jacob the amount of 44444 is an honor of the 44 days he spent in the NICU greatly fighting all manner of complications related to being born too early at just 23 weeks.

1:50:11 On December 7, 2021, he went on to a much greater reward in the presence of Jesus, and we know that he has been cheering on his twin brother every day since. Please dub him Sir Jacob, dearly loved refugee of room 6 and prized resident of the county far above the chemtrails. We love you sweet Jacob. No jingles, no karma. Thank you for what you do. Calipigious Colin in dubbed Spring, North Carolina. Okay, well that's a very nice commemoration. Yeah, it's kind of nice.

1:50:47 Bryson Wolfert, Sandpoint, Idaho, 333.33, ITM Adam and John, long-time listener, first-time producer. I was hit in the mouth during Adam's Joe Rogan appearance in September 2020. I have been seeing 33s all week. Oh, we know what that means. And the final straw was doing the math on listening to nearly 33 days over 785 hours of podcasts this year. That's when I knew I had to pay homage to the Podfather. Thanks, he says. Well, thank you. Yes, it's, uh, it says no jingles, no karma, just a dedouche. You've been dedouched. Well-known facts. When you see the magic number, it's time to donate.

1:51:32 And meanwhile, Sir Zach of Fudge at Frankenmuth, Michigan, 333.33, in the morning, John and Adam, I forgive you for my handwriting and grammar on the note I sent out with our fudge, John. Adam, your fudge is in the mail. It's a new version of your check is in the mail. Hey man, your fudge is in the mail. And don't forget No Agenda Friends free shipping on any orders over $30. Order now at noagendafudge.com. Have you looked at the website? Uh, no actually I haven't. I should have. No agenda fudge duck. Let me see what it goes to. They got a bunch of different kinds of fudges. They should have a no agenda fudge. And JC's wife Jessie is from Michigan and she recognized when she saw the boxes of fudge, she recognized the brand as one of the best in the world. Really?

1:52:32 Yeah, it was just a Michigan company. Everybody in Michigan apparently is all jacked up about these guys. Well, it just goes to show we have the most amazing producers in the universe. And they do weddings. I just read. You have the note from Michael Stojak, apparently. I do. It's Michael Stojak from Kingston, Washington, home of the Kingston Ferry. 333.33. He has a note. Sounds legit. Turned out to be on a piece of paper. First and foremost, I must say I do believe, I do believe No Agenda is an exceptional product. This is without doubt. I've been listening since Adam was on JRE, another JRE donation in 2020, and I have been streaming Sats via Podverse.

1:53:25 Yeah, it all goes to our producers, goes to the artists. For the past year, however, since I guess John didn't quite understand Bitcoin's value, and since this is my first fiat donation to the show, please de-douche me. You've been de-douched. That's funny. Adam, I've also been a regular listener of Podcasting 2.0 since discovering this product and am extremely grateful to you and Dave for continuing to support the decentralization of podcasting. I greatly enjoy the board meeting every week.

1:54:07 PS thanks for working the holidays jingles ah oh, I didn't realize that foot here jingles Trump. I'm gonna come And there's something hot on my leg not a completely original thought there with those two, but many. Thanks Michael Stojak I just felt something hot on my legs all right I like how you do the the minute it's someone who's a you know, using a modern podcast app, it all of a sudden turns into like some kind of nut job with that voice you did. I'm not sure why exactly. That's kind of a mild version of Jiminy Glick. Who's Jiminy Glick? Huh? Huh? You can look him up. It's a Martin Short character actually had his own TV show for a while. Oh, okay. All right. Hey, we go to Dame Astrid!

1:54:59 Who doesn't know her? Grand Duchess of Japan and all the disputed islands in the Japan Sea. And she is in Japan, she comes in with 27272 and says, Dear John and Adam, thank you and all the lovely producers who kindly reached out with get well karma prayers and messages. Yes, she had a nasty fall and had to have the ball bearing, the ball of her femur replaced. Which is just, well she says in fact here, it was nowhere near as gruesome as you mentioned on the show. In true Sparta fashion, I even hobbled home about a hundred meters thinking the pain would go away. But trying to sit down was something totally else. In Tokyo you get to walk right after the operation before you lose muscle mass and confidence. So yes, I am walking alright, it's sitting down and getting up from the toilet that is more tricky.

1:55:53 And I can say, I've been to her house, she has an awesome toilet. You know one of those Japanese deals? You know, the kind that automatically opens? Yeah, it opens automatically, it has the heater and it has the spray. I'm thinking maybe just turn the spray pressure up and it'll boost you right up. Blow her off the toilet! The most annoying part of it all is that I didn't get to meet Jay and her husband. My daughter, Nanami, who I've met, she's fantastic, along with Yuko from the office did the honors on my behalf and I hope they had fun anyway. Have you heard from Jay? Did they have a good time? Did Nanami show them a good time?

1:56:31 I haven't heard about anything since the meeting. So no. Sir Mark and I truly will try and redeem ourselves with a proper Tokyo meetup in the new year. Watch this space. Cool sneakers only from now on and much love to you all from Dame Astrid. I'm gonna give her a little bit of karma because we love Dame Astrid. You've got karma. And here we have the Indy No Agenda Meetup report from Greenwood, Indiana. And I guess they do their little raffle. Twitcheroo raffle donation from the Indy No Agenda Monthly Meetup. ITM John and Adam for this, and by the way it's 255 bucks.

1:57:12 For this past month's NA Indy Meetup, I was blessed to be the lucky winner of the producer credits. I took a... who... oh, okay, it's the Sir Cycle Path. Yes. Jonathan Keegan. I took a same-day round-trip flight from Charlotte, this is pretty dedicated, to spend the afternoon with fellow No Agenda producers and new friends. It was like a party! And everyone had a great time. Next time I'll try to be in Indianapolis longer than five hours. Attending a meetup, especially one that isn't local, connection is protection.

1:57:49 I am overdue for a promotion at one of the largest financial institutions so would you please send me some jobs, Karma? Additionally, I never claimed my territories when I became baron and therefore I would like to claim Seversville, Stoneham and Lake James, North Carolina as my territories. Thank you for your cursor, psychopath. Jonathan Keegan, Charlotte, North Carolina. Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. Let's vote for jobs. Yes, I think it's Stonehaven. You said Stoneham, but I think it's Stonehaven.

1:58:25 And Dame Rita comes in with a nice sequential support number here, 23456. She's in Sparks, Nevada. ITM John and Adam, thank you for the best podcast in the universe from Dame Rita. Beautiful Dame Rita. Associate Executive Producer title for you and thank you for the short message. Eli the Coffee Guy in Bensonville, Illinois, 2208. He's got a big don't read but they posted it. Put it in there anyway. I don't think you should. No, we won't read it. The other day I received a text message asking me to contact my senator Dick Durbin and tell him to block the nomination of Kash Patel as FBI director. Ah, they're out to get him. Well, Dick Durbin's not gonna vote for anybody anyway.

1:59:10 I was intrigued, this was intriguing as I've never received any sort of political text regarding a political nominee. Only the usual chip in or go vote. Chip in. Text message. I would guess the fireworks are going to fly regarding many of Trump's nominees. It will make for great show material if it's anything close to Kavanaugh's buddies, Boofing Booze. For those that prefer drinking their beverage, coffee is a fine choice. Visit gigawattcoffeeroasters.com and use code ITM for 20% off your order. Stay caffeinated. Eli the Coffee Guy.

1:59:49 Yeah, you know, he's not wrong. I'm still receiving political texts and it's of similar nature. I thought it would end and it did slow down abruptly after the election, but they started to come back again. which is rather annoying. By the way, a tip for all of you gigawattcoffeeroasters.com lovers. Tina uses the espresso from Gigawatt for her rub on the tri-tips we as she makes. It's dynamite. It really tastes good. The espresso. You want to do this next one? I'll do the long one because you know, we've had nothing but long ones. Yeah, I'll do Rogier 21060. He wants, he's from Calumet, Michigan. He came in with 21060 and he wants a jingle, Dying in the Dark. I don't know this jingle and it's science. Well, we have the it's science, but do we have Dying in the Dark?

2:00:47 I don't think that's a jingle. I think that might have been something. I don't know it. I don't know it. But I remember something about this, freedom dies in darkness. That's good enough. I just did it. Perfect. Shut up already. It's science. I don't have anything with darkness. People sometimes hear a clip and they think that that's... I have... Are you ready to pierce the heart of darkness? I don't know what that is. Andrew, Ocala, Florida. 21060. I did it! After two years, 250,000 miles, and one Trump derangement syndrome divorce notice, I finally did it. Knighthood!

2:01:37 Talk about the pinnacle of your of your life. I love it Yeah, big thanks to Eli and the amazing live wire brew for keeping me focused on the road and for boosting me on my road to knighthood Hopefully I got this in time for tomorrow's show. We did we're doing it now, which is 7th Which was of course yesterday his 55th birthday December 7th 1969 a day that you're living in for me I told the guy I used to work with my birthday was Pearl Harbor days and man. How old are you? Still need to make a meet up and look forward to 17 more years. Dub me Sir Fret Pound. I used to use that name because I play guitar and kind of heavy music pounding the frets. But now that I'm old and out of shape it tends to make more sense that I'm just fretting over the pounds. Oh he's on a roll.

2:02:27 Andrew from Ocala, Florida for the round table I'd like to request Bacardi 151 and a Coke, smoked brisket, and for dessert, Knafa. Knafa. What is Knafa? Do we know what Knafa is? Knafa? Sounds like something tasty, something sticky and tasty. No jingles, no karma. Soon to be Sir Fret Pound Andrew. Well congratulations brother, I love it. He's been supporting us for a while. Yes. Last on our list from Lakewood Colorado Linda Lopatkin, $200, and she wants jobs, Carmen, and says for a resume that has, that hits people in the mouth. Go to imagemakersinc.com for all your executive resume and job search needs. That's Image Makers Inc with a K.

2:03:12 and work with Linda Liu, Duchess of Jobs and writer of resumes. Jobs, jobs, jobs and jobs. Let's vote for jobs! All right, those are the executive and associate executive producers of episode 1719. Thank you all so much for supporting us. Of course, we love all support, financial support. We thank everybody over 50. Under 50, we don't talk about for reasons of anonymity and we have a number of people who are helping us out with sustaining donations. We really appreciate those. No matter when you donate, what you donate, if you can set up a sustaining donation, any amount, any frequency, we really appreciate that. You can do it at noagendadonations.com. Set up your sustaining donation today or get an executive producership at noagendadonations.com.

2:04:00 That's noagendadonations.com. Our formula is this. We go out, we hit people in the mouth. Order! Order! Shut up, slave! Shut up, slave! Um, wanted to do a... have some quickies here because of Hotep, Hotez Hotep. who promised us a new pandemic and just a vast amount of viruses and death and destruction that is coming upon us on a specific date, January 21st. Not before, not a day before, but on January 21st. That's when it's all happening. So I have my eyes open.

2:04:51 And something bad could happen to my eyes because man, if this one gets on the loose, we're all in trouble. A mysterious disease that has sent alarm bells ringing in Congo. The mysterious disease is a flu-like disease that has reportedly sickened hundreds of people and killed at least 79 since late October. The disease emerged at a time of increased influenza circulation and the culprit is likely to be airborne. Patient specimens are being analyzed at a national lab. Meanwhile, in Rwanda, health officials continue to monitor an outbreak of what's being called the bleeding eye virus or Marburg virus. The outbreak has triggered concern about a potential spread outside the country.

2:05:38 One of the typical symptoms of the disease is bleeding of the eyes. Yeah Ebola does that. Yeah, it's bleeding from the eyes and this would be so cool. You imagine a bunch of people walking on the street and all of a sudden the blood starts stripping down. That would be a good one. Okay, that would be good, Hotez. Or maybe we could just stick with the same old bird flu. all of its raw milk products after the virus was found in several samples. The CEO of that farm told the Los Angeles Times that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s transition team encouraged him to apply for a position at the Food and Drug Administration. Kennedy was picked by President-elect Donald Trump to be Health and Human Services Secretary and would oversee the FDA if he is confirmed. Let's bring in NBC News medical contributor Dr. Kavita Patel. Dr. Patel, let's talk about

2:06:46 what the what the testing is gonna do here and what are some of the dangers of drinking raw milk? Oh John did you know that drinking raw milk can be dangerous? I've heard this usually on NPR. Yeah oh believe me my next report is from NPR. Yeah, and to be clear, there has not been any cases of bird flu, which is what the testing is for, as you mentioned, Kate, and taking in raw milk. So let's take the first one. Bird flu. Wait a minute. So wait, this is a bogus report? They've been making a big fuss about this and then we got no examples of it ever happening? No, but wait, we can still scare you. Bird flu testing at farms. This is actually something that we've been calling for for a long time now because

2:07:28 If we can detect at the farm level what's happening, then we can try to monitor any spread and contain it pretty quickly. What you don't want, Kate, is for it to not be detected, which is what's been happening up until now, leading up to the 52 cases that we have today, with three recent cases where we're not quite sure about the transmission. And that indicates a potential spread. With raw milk separately, There's a lot that can happen, including dangerous bacteria, salmonella, E. coli, campylobacter, listeria, to name a few. You can get that from a quarter pounder. And it can really lead to severe foodborne illness, vomiting, diarrhea, especially for young people, elderly people, pregnant women and immunocompromised people. And to date, I've been scanning the literature, there's no health benefit of

2:08:13 of raw milk in the evidence that we know of yet. There's no benefit. That we know of yet. Why are you doing it, you fools? You can get bird flu. I have to conclude after listening to these reports for the last, I don't know how many years now. Yeah, yeah. There must be something in raw milk. That is really good for you. That is really good for you. There must be. That they don't want you to ingest. Yes, it must be. You're right. Because they're just psy-opping us so hard. They're going overboard. So NPR went exactly where we would think they would go, and they spoke to researchers who were doing a study, I believe it's Colorado, University of Colorado. And the question is, because I mean, you can't just talk about bird flu, no, you have to ask the question, what would it take

2:09:07 For the bird flu virus to spark a pandemic. Yeah, that's what we really want to know. A bird flu infection starts when a protein on the virus binds to a receptor on the cell it wants to take over. Luckily, the version of H5N1 spreading in cattle has not evolved to target the receptors that dominate upper airways in humans. For that to change, there would need to be mutations affecting the viral protein. Somebody quick make that change please. So that if someone were infected, the virus could easily spread. When you sneeze on someone, you have very small amount of virus is being transferred through the air.

2:09:45 That's Jim Paulson at Scripps Research Institute. In that context, it becomes extremely important for the virus to have success, to be able to latch on strongly to the receptors that it encounters. For many years, Paulson and his collaborator Ian Wilson, also at Scripps, have tracked how other dangerous influenza viruses have made this leap. So these are, let's not call it on a university, it's a different outfit. But it sounds to me like these guys are trying to figure out how it could become a pandemic and they're in a lab doing this. Does that sound familiar to you? Yeah, this is what you do. They wanted to know. Illegally, I might have, but nobody's latest. Whatever happened to the whole honest, whatever happened to the Geneva Convention about biological warfare and all this stuff that we know they've already been caught doing it. There's plenty of evidence of that, but nobody brings up the Geneva Convention that this is a war crime and people should be executed. Tell other dangerous influenza viruses have made this leap.

2:10:45 They wanted to know, could this happen with the latest bird flu virus? We looked at these mutations one at a time. This was in a lab using proteins, not actual viruses. They did a handful of experiments. Most mutations did not lead the viral proteins to switch from an avian type receptor to a human type. But there was one. It was completely switched. Wilson says all it took was one mutation in the right spot. Yeah. They were expecting from previous research it might take three. That was really quite surprising. And concerning because it raises the odds of this happening. Paulson says one mutation was enough in some previous influenza pandemics to allow the virus to switch to human-type receptors, triggering some of the early infections. I'm sorry, what previous influenza pandemics have we heard? Well, there was one in 1918. Well, they're making it sound like, you know,

2:11:43 Well, that was something else. That was the... Maybe the swine flu they're talking about from the... I don't know. 2012, whenever that was. How about COVID? Maybe that was an influenza pandemic. Yeah, but that's not influenza. It's coronavirus. It's different. He specifically said influenza. Yeah, okay. Finished up. That said, he's quick to point out... We don't want to leave with the... that we think that this is going to happen tomorrow. Not tomorrow, January 21st. No, January 21st. We all know the date. This is the report from Colorado University, who I guess have, I'm just guessing, I don't know for sure, seems like maybe they have some kind of deal with the Ozempic people.

2:12:27 Well, a medicine that accidentally became a miracle weight loss drug may have just accidentally become an anti-addiction drug. A study underway right now at CU Anschutz Medical Campus is looking at how Ozempic can curb alcohol use. Now the study won't be finished until late next year, but researchers say it is showing a lot of promise in reducing the desire to drink. So today I went out to Aurora and met with Dr. Joseph Schacht, who's leading this study. They tell us that they are less interested in drinking, that they feel less interested in having another drink after having one or two, and that they just don't want alcohol as much.

2:11:43 Well, that was something else. That was the... Maybe the swine flu they're talking about from the... I don't know. 2012, whenever that was. How about COVID? Maybe that was an influenza pandemic. Yeah, but that's not influenza. It's coronavirus. It's different. He specifically said influenza. Yeah, okay. Finished up. That said, he's quick to point out... We don't want to leave with the... that we think that this is going to happen tomorrow. Not tomorrow, January 21st. No, January 21st. We all know the date. This is the report from Colorado University, who I guess have, I'm just guessing, I don't know for sure, seems like maybe they have some kind of deal with the Ozempic people.

2:12:27 Well, a medicine that accidentally became a miracle weight loss drug may have just accidentally become an anti-addiction drug. A study underway right now at CU Anschutz Medical Campus is looking at how Ozempic can curb alcohol use. Now the study won't be finished until late next year, but researchers say it is showing a lot of promise in reducing the desire to drink. So today I went out to Aurora and met with Dr. Joseph Schacht, who's leading this study. They tell us that they are less interested in drinking, that they feel less interested in having another drink after having one or two, and that they just don't want alcohol as much.

2:13:04 Now, though this study is specifically focused on alcohol, Dr. Schacht says there's also growing evidence that drugs like Ozimbic are reducing other addictions like smoking and illicit drug use. We hope that this might be something like a Prozac moment in which we... Oh yeah, that's what you want. A Prozac moment. I don't think that's a good thing, Broseph. A Prozac... We're hoping that this is another Prozac moment. Yeah, well you just take it for everything. We hope that this might be something like a Prozac moment in which we suddenly have an effective and widely used drug for alcohol and other addictions.

2:13:43 Now you may recall that these drugs were actually created as a treatment for diabetes and this weight loss was an unintended consequence. So the CU study is still looking for more participants. So if you would like to stop or reduce your drinking, they'd love to hear from you. The number is 303-724-2424 or you can email alcoholstudy at ucdenver.edu. Hey, are you a lush? Call these guys. They can help you. It's unbelievable. No, it's actually very believable. What am I saying? They really need it. They're just going for it. They're swinging for the fences. They want it in the package. They want the government to pay for it. Bankrupt everybody. Just a moment on China. Do you have anything on China?

2:14:27 Not really. We were talking about the National Defense Authorization Act and you had a clip about, was the Falun Gong Protection Act? Yeah, the Falun Gong. What are they doing in there? Well, producer, Whose name shall not be mentioned in Thursday's episode Falun Gong was mentioned and if they operate in Taiwan they do I lived in Taiwan from 2010 to 2013 and my wife is Taiwanese She detests following Gong being a devout Christian as I am and their practices The general thrust is holding banners and banging drums outside popular spots in the three larger cities of Taiwan Taipei

2:15:09 Kaohsiung and Tainan in the main squares. The weird thing is, his word, is when there's a rally of any kind there are huge numbers of supporters that come out of nowhere and they hold candlelight vigils or hours-long sit-downs. All this is very Taiwanese style. The Taiwanese are very genteel nation of people except in Parliament and the Falun Gong signage is just allowed to happen as it is regarded as a mild nuisance, but the numbers at the events are, I imagine, mainlanders coming to bolster the numbers. The local government know who they are and they just let it happen. But then he goes on and he has a revelation. On to Lino. We discuss Lino. You remember this? No. Lesbian in name only? Oh, Lino, yeah. He says, Lino is rife in Taiwan.

2:16:03 My wife used to work as one of the directors of Ogilvy Taiwan and was a big cheese, shall we say, in the advertising industry before she sought Jesus and smiled a lot more. Nearly all her friends in the company were gay with a few exceptions. The thing is, the girls were only wanting to have partners, not physical relationships regardless as to the dykes they were with who wanted more. The two that stand out are JP Tower and bumper Asian nicknames as they all have girlfriends for years We're both shun men and a true mental and physical gay relationship. This is everywhere all caps in Taiwan How about that?

2:16:43 What is going to sting? Yes, I say all this in Taiwan because a lot of the men are homogenous fembots who actively seek darkness and solitude after leaving school with a lot of kids staying home for a long time and Essentially disappointing a lot of parents and have little to do with girls and the girls are actively turned off by the female ridden looks and behaviors of the boys Gaming and digital brain rot has a lot to do with this Trans Maoism is a real thing here That's our future, I guess. Yikes! What a report! I did not expect the lino part of the report. That's what kind of surprised me. Like, man.

2:17:25 That's pretty crazy. Well the Chinese, the mainlanders, I think they're somewhat aware of what's going on. That's why they're putting the... Yeah, the kibosh on this stuff. Stop it! That's the word I'm looking for. They're putting the kibosh on this bull crap. Stop it! But I don't know that you can. That's the thing. No, you can't. It's like the computer revolution, the personal computer itself, the phone revolution, the pocket Computer which is what it amounts to yeah all that is part of it. Yeah interesting right yeah more than interesting all right well, let's see what we got here for my list okay, we have the stuff going on in the Supreme Court with the Trans yes, yes, this is now I had a series of clips on the last show, but I

2:18:16 I just boiled down, I think it turned out that PBS had a report on this but I thought the NPR report looking back on it is better and I think it'll keep, people can catch up quicker and it's not a bad report even though it's slanted obviously as it would be but you can take the slant out of it, it's not bad. SVP trans NPR. At the Supreme Court today, the conservative majority seemed very likely to uphold Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. In the last few years, fully half of states have adopted similar bans. Today's case provided the first test of those laws, as NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

2:17:25 That's pretty crazy. Well the Chinese, the mainlanders, I think they're somewhat aware of what's going on. That's why they're putting the... Yeah, the kibosh on this stuff. Stop it! That's the word I'm looking for. They're putting the kibosh on this bull crap. Stop it! But I don't know that you can. That's the thing. No, you can't. It's like the computer revolution, the personal computer itself, the phone revolution, the pocket Computer which is what it amounts to yeah all that is part of it. Yeah interesting right yeah more than interesting all right well, let's see what we got here for my list okay, we have the stuff going on in the Supreme Court with the Trans yes, yes, this is now I had a series of clips on the last show, but I

2:18:16 I just boiled down, I think it turned out that PBS had a report on this but I thought the NPR report looking back on it is better and I think it'll keep, people can catch up quicker and it's not a bad report even though it's slanted obviously as it would be but you can take the slant out of it, it's not bad. SVP trans NPR. At the Supreme Court today, the conservative majority seemed very likely to uphold Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors. In the last few years, fully half of states have adopted similar bans. Today's case provided the first test of those laws, as NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.

2:18:58 Three Tennessee families and the Biden administration are challenging the bans on puberty blockers and medications for kids who say their gender doesn't align with their sex at birth. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogger led off today telling the justices that the state cannot eliminate medically approved treatments for gender dysphoria while allowing the same medical treatments for minors suffering from other conditions, from early onset puberty to endometriosis. The state law, she said, singles out one particular use in its ban. It doesn't matter what parents decide is best for their children. It doesn't matter what patients would choose for themselves.

2:19:38 And it doesn't matter if doctors believe this treatment is essential for individual patients. She got immediate pushback from the court's conservatives, Justice Thomas. Isn't this simply a case of age classification when it comes to these treatments as opposed to a ban? Chief Justice Roberts followed up by noting that this case is heavily involved with medical judgments and different studies conducted outside the US. Doesn't that make a stronger case for us to leave those determinations to the legislative bodies rather than try to determine them for ourselves? Do they come to a conclusion because the constitutional lawyer examined this case for us? You want to hear his short summary or do you want to play the clips first? The conclusion is in July of next year.

2:20:27 The constitutional lawyer says, there is a report that he sent me, concludes that the justices are leaning towards not disturbing the ban, which would be consistent with the court's general approach of taming our sprawling federal government, and he believes states' rights may be coming off the ventilator. Well, it's not in this report, but the best report I've heard is from some laywoman who has a podcast. Oh, of course. And she brought out the fact that it's the immutability angle and the way she explained things to... The law is based on

2:21:11 discrimination, male-female trans discrimination, but because one of the justices pulled a stunt and said, well, you think this, you think that, you think this, you think that, and then brought up the fact that... Was that Jackson? I bet it was Katanji. It was a conservative who brought up the... No, Katanji's off the rail. She doesn't know what she's doing. I think they're gonna have to knuckle under some of this because there can be no discrimination if something's not immutable. And it turns out that by tricking them into accepting the fact that somebody says they're trans, oh I'm trans, I'm a boy, it has to be a girl, do you ever switch back? And if there's any examples of that, then the immutability thing is out the window. No, if you can switch back, then this is bull crap.

2:22:07 And so that's gonna be the crux of the matter, but let's just listen to these, because this is still interesting besides kind of ignoring that fact. Justice Alito reeled off a list of studies from Sweden, Finland and the UK. Studies that he said showed damaging effects of these treatments for minors. In light of that, he asked, would you like to modify your claims? No, replied Prelogger, noting that the medical evidence overall indicates these treatments can be medically necessary for some minors. Pressed by Justice Kagan about whether all state laws would have to be struck down under her theory, Prelogger said no. We do think there is a real space for states to regulate here and I point to the example of West Virginia. West Virginia was thinking about a total ban like this one but then the Senate Majority Leader who's a doctor looked at the underlying studies and the West Virginia legislature changed course and imposed a set of guardrails that are far more

2:23:03 more precisely tailored to concerns surrounding the delivery of this care. Justice Kavanaugh noted that some minors who undergo these transition treatments later have regrets. And then there was this from Kavanaugh, who coached his daughter's basketball team. If you prevail here, what would that mean for women's and girls' sports? Those questions are different, said Prelogger, because they pit the rights of trans kids to participate in sports against the rights of cisgender kids concerned that they're being disadvantaged on the field. Oh, man. Yes, okay. It was Kavanaugh who brought up the immutability thing. They didn't cover it in this report because they missed it. Yeah. Oh, NPR missed that little ditty, did they? Yeah, they did. I think there's one more clip. Both Kavanaugh and Justice Barrett asked about parental rights to determine their kids' medical treatments and noted that even if the trans kids lose this case, the parents can come back with a fresh challenge based on parental rights.

2:24:01 Next up to the lectern and representing the trans kids was Chase Strangio, the first openly trans lawyer to argue before the court. He too faced questions about whether these are policy or legal questions. Again, here's Chief Justice Roberts. My understanding is that the Constitution leaves that question to the people's representatives rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor. Here what they've done is impose a blunderbuss ban overriding the very careful judgment of parents who love and care for their children and the doctors who have recommended the treatment. Countering that argument was Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice. The law allows the use of drugs and surgeries for some medical purposes but not for others. Thus he maintained the law is based on purpose not sex.

2:24:48 But Justice Kagan wasn't buying that argument at all. Justice Sotomayor followed up asking whether the state could similarly block treatments for trans adults. Rice said yes it could. All this prompted this comment from Justice Jackson. I'm worried that we're undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases. Justice Gorsuch, usually quick with questions, had none today. He's the author of the court's only decision on trans rights and a decision that favored those rights in the context of employment. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.

2:25:33 I'm guessing the lawsuit didn't come up in this hearing, the lawsuit against Dr. Joanna Olson Kennedy, known as America's best practitioner of youth gender medicine, who is being sued for medical negligence by a former patient, young girl who underwent a gender transition and now feels deeply betrayed? Well, it was only brought up in the sense of the immutability question where people can switch back. Well, your prediction is coming true though. I mean, they're suing the doctors. It's happening. Oh no, my prediction is they're going to shoot the doctors eventually. There you go. Okay. Well, I have something very important, which I would have hoped you would have had a clip. Do you have any TikTok clips today?

2:26:36 Uh, no, I had a couple I was thinking about but they were usually just whining guys. I like the women TikTokers. I was gonna set you up because, you know, it's coming down. You can set me up at the next show. I'll have some TikTok clips. But the news is now. TikTok has lost its bid to strike down a law that would lead to a ban of the app in the United States. TikTok argued that the law which requires the app's parent company ByteDance to sell to a non-Chinese owner is unconstitutional. A US appeals court upheld the law in a ruling released today. ByteDance now has until January 19th to sell the app or face a ban. The law was passed over concerns that the app poses a national security risk.

2:27:21 If I were them, I'd get out of there. Sell because we've got the pandemic coming two days later. You should sell and get out of town. I don't know how this is going to end up, but the TikTokers have been blamed for the... a couple of the screwball elections around the world, supposedly. The Russians, those Russians infiltrated TikTok and the next thing you know they're telling people how to vote and they're doing it, they're following whatever it says on TikTok. I don't buy any of this. I have a clip.

2:27:58 Yes, here it is. That's referring to Romania, of course. Romania's current president was due to end his term later this month. But now Klaus Johannes, due to an unprecedented decision by the country's constitutional court, says he will be staying in the job until a new president is elected and says that's because of Russian interference. A candidate illegally benefited from massive electoral promotion during the two days, when according to the law this is prohibited, either Saturday before the election and even on election day. Romania is in crisis after the Constitutional Court annulled the first round of the presidential election held on the 24th of November.

2:28:39 That came after Yohannes' declassified intelligence alleging Russia ran a coordinated online campaign to promote the far-right outsider Kalin Djordjevsku. Djordjevsku won the vote in a shock result after he scored only single-digit numbers in opinion polls beforehand. He would have been going into a second round runoff this Sunday. He says he broke no campaign rules. It's absolutely clean, free and more than that to us based on the sovereignty of the people. Drogescu declared zero spending on his campaign which took place on social media. One of his policy platforms was to end all support for Ukraine. He was due to face a centrist pro-EU candidate on Sunday. A new date will now be set to rerun the vote from scratch. Yeah, I love those countries.

2:29:26 Oh, the European Union, you voted it and didn't vote the way we wanted. You voted wrong. We're nullifying it. And why would Russia want a bunch of right-wingers to take over someplace? I mean, this is a communist country. I mean, it doesn't make any sense from that perspective. If they don't want to be in Ukraine, that's another story. Yeah, I guess it would be a good idea, but what are they doing about it? What is Romania, a big player in Ukraine? Come on. And Georgia, of course, is still on the block. People getting hosed down there for their own little mini-Maidan. We don't know how that's going to turn out. I'm getting a little sick of all these Netflix documentaries. You know, they're bringing all this stuff back and I guess it's working. Which one? Tell me about this. Oh, we have the Menendez brothers. Yeah. And then JonBenet Ramsey. Now they're bringing that one back.

2:30:22 It's like, it's like, it's like, you have a Netflix documentary and you and I could do it. I mean we could do a Netflix documentary on Son of Sam, whatever. Zodiac killer. The Zodiac killer. And we should find another one. You know, we had the Central Park Five, all this stuff. This is real news, everybody. Tonight, we are hearing from the father of JonBenét Ramsey amid the popularity of that new Netflix docuseries about her murder. Ramsey spoke with ABC News about where the case currently stands. If the police will do what we've asked to do regarding DNA testing, genealogy research, I think there's a very good

2:30:58 possibility that we will have him behind bars. Sooner than later somebody asked me once what would you say to John Bonnet if he could I would tell him I'm sorry I didn't protect you. Sounds like a distraught father to me. That's a father's job. It's heartbreaking words and ABC News is reporting that sources briefed on the investigation say progress is being made now It's unclear exactly what that means in an update last week the Boulder Police Chief said the department continues to follow up on tips and have now digitized all the evidence into a searchable database. Oh, it's in a database. Oh, please watch the Netflix documentary. Next on the agenda next on the next on the next train stop

2:31:43 AI. Oh yeah, yeah. That we ran some AI on the DNA database and we found the killer. Win-win. Win-win! Yish. Alright. Alright. Well I got a horrible, NPR horrible report on social media which is worth listening to. Oh yes, we like horrible reports. If it bleeds, it leads on the Noah Jenner Show. This is one of many. NPR has some, sometimes they have some very good approaches. almost as good as NTD. And then sometimes they just go nuts. Sorry, sorry, no, I tried to time it. Here we go. Social media has played, as usual, an outsized role in launching and shaping cultural trends in 2024. And here to walk us through some of the year's most significant ones is NPR culture correspondent Chloe Veltman. Hey, Chloe. Hey, Chloe. Hello. Always good to talk to you. Likewise. Oh, why a British lady? So what would you say the

2:32:43 She's the expert on social media. Yes, she is. In Culture on Social Media was in 2024. Well, Scott, let me sum it up in one word. Fans. Fans? Yeah, fans have completely transformed the entertainment landscape this year through social media. Tell me more what you mean by that. Well, of course fans have this enormous influence. What we watch used to be decided on by these big networks and mainstream media and then streamers, but now what fans create or love is spilling over into everything. I took a look at the new reports released this week from companies like YouTube, TikTok and Spotify, and I have two big examples for you to illustrate this. Alright, let's do it. What's the first one?

2:33:25 The first one is the beef that took place this year between Kendrick Lamar and Drake. I am well aware of it, but wasn't, I mean that was a real life beef, right? This existed independently of social media. It did, yes, they exchanged diss tracks, songs where they attacked each other over accusations of domestic abuse, fathering illegitimate children and so on. But the spat was hugely amplified by fans dissecting every single beat of it on podcasts and videos and making their own related content. So here's one animated short film from May, a cartoon Kendrick Lamar confronts a cartoon Drake about hiding a child he fathered and it's

2:34:02 in Japanese. So this video has racked up nearly two and a half million views on YouTube and three million views on X.com and all of this fan related content it seems to increase the fan bases for both Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Awesome John I love the sound effects. Yeah well somebody had to shoot her. Yeah. It goes on and on and I have one more part of this because she's just nuts as a woman. She's talking about fan base. Now she's talking about how, you know, because of this they're taking stuff that's on the platforms and they're moving it to mainstream. You know, this is like the reverse of what's really going on is mainstreamers are going to podcasting and the other way around, but okay.

2:34:55 They're seeing it this way because of course they are representing mainstream as being part of PP and PR But I want to remind people this is phenomenon of going from bouncing back and forth Really, I think began with if people can remember back this far. It was probably for the show began I think yeah, it was before our show even began rocket boom and Yes, well no we used we used to laugh about rocket boom on the show they were still around when yeah, they were still around but they began in 20 2004 what happened was that was her name the rocket boom girl and she got a man that Congdon yes And then she got an agent and then rocket boom fell apart. Oh

2:34:02 in Japanese. So this video has racked up nearly two and a half million views on YouTube and three million views on X.com and all of this fan related content it seems to increase the fan bases for both Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Awesome John I love the sound effects. Yeah well somebody had to shoot her. Yeah. It goes on and on and I have one more part of this because she's just nuts as a woman. She's talking about fan base. Now she's talking about how, you know, because of this they're taking stuff that's on the platforms and they're moving it to mainstream. You know, this is like the reverse of what's really going on is mainstreamers are going to podcasting and the other way around, but okay.

2:34:55 They're seeing it this way because of course they are representing mainstream as being part of PP and PR But I want to remind people this is phenomenon of going from bouncing back and forth Really, I think began with if people can remember back this far. It was probably for the show began I think yeah, it was before our show even began rocket boom and Yes, well no we used we used to laugh about rocket boom on the show they were still around when yeah, they were still around but they began in 20 2004 what happened was that was her name the rocket boom girl and she got a man that Congdon yes And then she got an agent and then rocket boom fell apart. Oh

2:35:38 She got an agent and they moved her to the mainstream media where she didn't have the chops for it because she was really good at what she did online, but it was different media. Media is, people always have to understand these things aren't all the same. Just because there's a video involved, this doesn't mean it's the same as being on network TV. Doing a movie's not the same as doing a TV show, YouTube videos not the same as anything. It's the same as remember Tommy Lahren when she was Tommy Lahren just the social media She was great and then they put her on Fox and she says no it is no it didn't work And she got an agent. I remember she got an agent. Yeah, which is

2:36:21 I'm gonna make you a star. Hey, baby. I want to make you a star sign So I don't know whatever happened to Amanda Cogden she disappeared off the face of the earth maybe she listens to our show and she can tell us what happened, but Yeah, so this is not a new for the day. All this is bullcrap. This is a filler show and I felt really that it was like Why am I making people suffer by listening to it? It's just because I had to. After the election, a lot of talk about the manosphere and how influential men have been in this space. What are you seeing about this? Yes, indeed. Men continue to dominate social media celebrity space. Mr. Beast, for example, is still at or near the top of social media charts for popularity.

2:37:04 He's the face of an enormous social media empire, of course, focused on elaborate stunts and giveaway videos that he makes. And then there's the ever popular Joe Rogan. President-elect Trump made an appearance on his show. But let's not forget women also made a big impact this year. There was Charli XCX's Brat Summer. Brat, which translates sort of as swagger and attitude, is Collins Dictionary's Word of the Year. And it was widely applied to presidential nominee Kamala Harris and she appeared on the Call Her Daddy podcast hosted by woman Alex Cooper. This feels like a trend that's going to continue. Digital space, podcasts, streamers and politics all merging together. I think so. I talked with Abigail Dukosnik. She's an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who studies social media and fandoms. She says in 2025, we can expect to see cultural spaces on social media increasingly becoming co-opted by political factions in our very polarized society. I think a lot of it will be culture war.

2:38:06 at many levels. And I think a lot of the culture warring will have real ramifications for politics and for everyday life. Let's end with this, Chloe. What is your favorite social media cultural moment of 2024? Oh, I'm so glad you asked Scott. Well, I think I think my gold star has to go to Jules Lebron's viral TikTok video. Very demure, very mindful. She not only coined a new phrase, but this was also named 2024's word of the year by dictionary.com. Thank you, Chloe. You were very demure. Oh, thank you, Scott. I do try to be mindful. Gracious.

2:38:46 Well, this is NPR, National Treasure. Well, you actually lead me into something I wasn't going to bring up because I was reading this report, article, it's in a military industrial complex blog. And they were talking about the, do you remember the recruitment video for the armies, the fourth psychological operations group, the ghost in the machine? It was this really strange, cartoonish video. I do not. Well if you saw it you would. Probably. Yeah and in this article they talk about the psychological operations on social media. I pulled two quotes from this article. Psychological operations or PSYOP is all about influencing governments, people of power, and everyday citizens.

2:39:40 PSYOP soldiers are described as adaptive thinkers who have language and cultural expertise, specialize in deception and cyber warfare, and work in small teams to persuade and influence populations in support of the US military. Throughout the world, psychological operations are occurring literally everywhere, every day, in every component of our lives. And we know this to be true mainly with entertainment products. They go on to say, social media is used to replicate conditions of low-intensity warfare in order to physically induce people into political radicalism so they can be cultivated as assets and deployed in the media narrative to replicate conditions of low-intensity warfare. At the end of the day, conspiracy theorists aren't far off, but then they become, most frequently, another means by which the low-intensity eternal culture war is developed.

2:40:34 And I thought, yeah, this is absolutely true. And the next spot for this is going to be Blue Cry. From what I understand, threads, threads, the Facebook social network is kind of dead because everybody left for Blue Cry, including the European Federation. Yeah, I know you're using that as a nickname, you call it Blue Cry, but I don't think everyone's getting that. Blue Sky? And Blue Cry? Well... Because you say Blue Cry, it always takes me a couple of beats to figure out what you're talking about. Okay. Blue Sky. And I should also mention that there's a number of interesting theories out there that Blue Sky is just an AI sop. Well, they are now, according to the CEO, considering advertising. So you know what that means. Once you get advertising... Wait. What?

2:41:34 They don't have advertising? No. Well, they're just giving it away? Well, to get everybody in, yeah. Including the European Federation of Journalists who are leaving X. Oh, we're leaving. The European Federation of Journalists has officially announced that it will no longer be posting on Twitter. Why? Starting on January 20th, 2025, the day Donald Trump is sworn into office. The president... Why? I'm getting to it. The president of the EFJ slammed Elon Elon Musk in a statement following the group's announcement. And here it is. After the US elections, EFJ pointed out the threats to democracy and freedom of expression posed by the cooperation between the president of the most powerful country in the world, Donald J. Trump, and the richest man in the world, Elon Musk, who is also the owner of Social Network X and has been appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE. When Donald J. Trump takes office as president on January 20, 2025, we cannot continue to participate in the social network feed of a man who proclaims that

2:42:33 death of the media and therefore of journalists. Wait a minute. So let me get, I want you to straighten me out here. So I'm an outlet for let's say news articles or tidbits that I post. Yes. So people would go follow up and read the whole thing or go to my site or whatever. Yeah. So I have a, so I have a bunch of followers because I've been on the site for a long time. I got hundreds of thousands. You got a hundred thousand. No, I'm talking about them. These guys, oh, they must have millions. I have 100,002. Yeah. Which is low. So you have this group of people, you have a bunch of followers and you post it. So you post there and then you post it Facebook, you post on Insta, you just do all these posts because the real idea is it's a marketing approach. You just post all over. I mean, I tried to post. I'll probably get a Blue Sky account myself so I can just post a link to the show.

2:43:31 So I'm going to pull this, I'm going to pull my huge audience, screw the audience, I'm going to not post there anymore, hurting my own brand, and I want you to explain to me the logic behind this thinking. Virtue signaling. There's no other reason for it. It's dumb. It's completely dumb. And you know what, honestly, I didn't even know there was a European Federation of Journalists. I didn't either. So it kind of worked. That's what you mentioned. It kind of worked. They already did a shitty job of pulling themselves up to the fore. But I think once Blue Sky goes to an advertising model, that only makes it easier for people to be used for psychological operations because then the

2:44:21 The military or whoever else, the entertainment company, whoever it is, can come in and can target people directly. That's what those tools are meant for. Exactly as we heard the Global Engagement Center of the State Department doing. Oh, well, we just went to Facebook and we could target people exactly where we wanted them. So blue sky is going to be, I predict we're going to see a lot more people going very crazy. like what we're seeing with the Trump is going to take away all my rights women and He's going to take away my social security people

2:44:59 You know, the same way that people don't hear about the CBP app for the asylum seekers, they'll only hear about what they hear about and it's already rampant on Blue Sky. None of this is good. None of this whole concept of social media is not good. They are digital towers of Babel. They need to be taken down. They're no good. I like the way this contrasts with your previous Um, I would say boosting. I believe it's not the right word but of the Fediverse and Mastodon. But they don't have algorithms. Yeah, well they don't have users either. I'm gonna show myself all by donating to No Agenda. Imagine all the people who would do that. Oh yeah, that'd be fab. Yeah, on No Agenda.

2:45:54 That's exactly right. See Nostr. Another, you know, oh it's decentralized, no one can take away our freedom. Well no one's used, like 40,000 people use it because A, it's only people talking about Bitcoin and B, there's no algorithm. That's exactly right. People don't use things that aren't exciting and entertaining. Just like blogging was never really exciting and entertaining. And you had a life, you did stuff outside of social media. You went outside. I blame the blog role for failing. Yes. We're going to say... Somebody brought that up to me. So why don't we bring back the blog role? Maybe that'll make blogging popular again. You know, we have a pod role in Podcasting 2.0.

2:46:37 Is that right? Yes. And in some of the apps, not all, but some of them, you will, if you look at, they surface it differently, but even our show has a pod role. I can tell you what's in there. Hold on a second. We have a pod roll. We have a pod roll. And I have in there, I have the DH Unplugged podcast. I have the Curry and the Keeper podcast. Now add anything you want. You want another pod in the pod roll? I didn't know that was going on, but now I'll start to think about it. Unlimited. We can put unlimited pods in the pod roll.

2:47:17 It's not all the apps are using it yet, but we actually had a conversation about the other day. Like, you know, people should be doing this. Make it exciting with a pod roll. Pod roll. Pod roll. Everybody wants it. I think that's almost a show title. Funky sandwich. It's like a lobster roll, only it's funky. That's a pod roll. Let's end this thing. All right, we have a tip of the day coming up with the exciting development. John and I had a meeting about the tip of the day, which I want to remind you of because I don't forget these meetings. We don't have many meetings. Do you remember the meeting? Oh yeah. Okay, we'll talk about the meeting. And it's going to be like a Hollywood.

2:48:07 It's a Hollywood situation. Which means it will take a long time to really develop. Yeah, if it ever comes to fruition. Before that though, we want to thank our producers $50 and above who supported the show episode 1719 and John take it away. Yeah, Jorge Zavala in Strathmore, Victoria, Australia started us off at $100. It's a long, kind of a long note dedicated to, he's been a listener for six years. My wife Maggie used to be skeptical, but the pandemic opened her ears. Got big ears, that woman. So this is a donation for her and he wants to give her a de-douching. You've been de-douched. He wants to know how he can become Australia's No Agenda ambassador.

2:47:17 It's not all the apps are using it yet, but we actually had a conversation about the other day. Like, you know, people should be doing this. Make it exciting with a pod roll. Pod roll. Pod roll. Everybody wants it. I think that's almost a show title. Funky sandwich. It's like a lobster roll, only it's funky. That's a pod roll. Let's end this thing. All right, we have a tip of the day coming up with the exciting development. John and I had a meeting about the tip of the day, which I want to remind you of because I don't forget these meetings. We don't have many meetings. Do you remember the meeting? Oh yeah. Okay, we'll talk about the meeting. And it's going to be like a Hollywood.

2:48:07 It's a Hollywood situation. Which means it will take a long time to really develop. Yeah, if it ever comes to fruition. Before that though, we want to thank our producers $50 and above who supported the show episode 1719 and John take it away. Yeah, Jorge Zavala in Strathmore, Victoria, Australia started us off at $100. It's a long, kind of a long note dedicated to, he's been a listener for six years. My wife Maggie used to be skeptical, but the pandemic opened her ears. Got big ears, that woman. So this is a donation for her and he wants to give her a de-douching. You've been de-douched. He wants to know how he can become Australia's No Agenda ambassador.

2:49:05 Well, that will be a promotion we do next year. We can do it anytime we want. Yeah, true. Well, we get like five people. Okay, Kevin McLaughlin's up. This is a very short list. This is an embarrassingly short list. You should be embarrassed, people! Kevin McLaughlin comes in from Concord, North Carolina 8008 of course He's been doing this now for some time quite a while and he's the Archduke of Luna lover of American booze I have to get the exact date when he began this trek Victor Greg in Corvallis, Oregon 6718 Sir Chris in Arlington, Virginia 6363 hmm David Cox in Austin

2:49:51 6325 Grayson Insurance in Aurora, Colorado. Grayson, that's Grayson Insurance, but with a G. The Outer Swamp Meetup in North Bethesda, oh he came with 6006 by the way, small boob. The Outer Swamp Meetup in North Bethesda, Maryland? Yeah, January 22nd. It's spook country. Oh yeah, that's why it's the Outer Swamp. It's the Outer Swamp, yeah. Anything in there? No. He needs a group de-douching. That's what he needs. You've been de-douched. Sarah King... or Kring. Sarah Kring Nielsen in Quebec, 54, 27. The Real Bobby Z in Port Isabel, Texas, 52, 72. Brittany Miller in Trinidad, Colorado, 52, 72. Josiah

2:50:50 Thomas in Ankeny, Iowa, 51. Kate Myers actually is a switcheroo for Steve or Booper of Noses. As you'd know him, she says. That means he's one of those guys that, you know, hey, look, you got a stain on your shirt. Oh, your nose. Kate Myers and William Stenibboper, actually, of Williamston, New Jersey, 5023. Now the rest were already in a $50 donor's name and location. The few that are on here, we'll start with Stephen Ray in Spokane, Washington, Edward Misurik in Memphis, Tennessee, Ray Howard in Cremling, Colorado, William Kidwell in Dover, Delaware.

2:51:34 Julie Brenneman in Marshall, Illinois. And last in the short list is Chris Scooter, scouter, scouter, S-C-O-U-T-E-R, in Lower Hutt, New Zealand. That's nice. He needs some house-selling karma and you would give him maybe that if you feel like it at the end. We do need a de-douching back here. I sorry just saw it Julie Brenneman says She needs a de-douching for the holiday season You've been de-douched. This actually was a donation that this husband gave and Julie got on the list.

2:52:11 But she needs the both they both are douchebags according to him and she got the deducing She's good to go and Chris Schouler says that it has been years since he mugged me on the way to the MeVeo office I don't remember being mugged. Where's this? That's Chris Schouler his note there from New Zealand He said Adam and John has been years since I mugged Adam on the way to the MeVeo office, but I'm still here hmm Did you get robbed? I don't recall, but there was a lot of weed in my life back then, so I don't know. It could have happened. Hey man, take it. Uh, what? Yeah, okay. You want what, a dollar? Okay.

2:52:51 Thank you very much to these supporters, these donors, these value for value producers who support us for episode 1719. Again, thanks to all who came in under $50 for reasons of anonymity or if you're doing one of those no agenda sustaining donations, they are very much appreciated and help us get through these slower moments. It's noagendadonations.com. Any amount, any frequency, you make it up yourself. That's the good news about it. You can start, stop whenever you want. Noagendadonations.com. Here's the karma as requested. You've got karma. Once again, noagendadonations.com. And we do have a couple of birthdays on the list. We have Kate Myers, we just heard, who wishes her husband Steve, aka Booper of Nose, a happy birthday. He turned 40 on December 6th. Andrew turned 55 yesterday and he's about to become a knight. And Paul Saltzman, who's been a long time supporter, he celebrates on December 10th. So we say happy birthday to everybody here from the best podcast in the universe.

2:53:55 We do not have any titles today, but we do have a doctorate. We have a brand new doctorate of education. This one goes to William Grantham. William, you are now hereby an official doctor of education specializing in climate change studies. Congratulations! And you can go to noagenderings.com that is where anyone can go take a look for their handsome knight or dame rings and that's also where you let us know what you want on your doctorate of education and where you want it sent and we'll be happy to take care of that for you. And we do have a couple of knights who will be receiving rings today. If you can give me a couple of knights blade there we got three of them. Here's your couple of knights blade. Beautiful. Here he is, William Grantham. Jacob.

2:54:45 And Andrew! All three of you gentlemen are about to become knights of the Noah Jenner Round Table. I am very proud to pronounce the K- the as... Sir Plussage of the Wind River Valley, Sir Jacob, dearly loved refugee of Room 6 and prized resident of the county far above, the Chemtrails, that is our posthumous knight, and Sir Fred Pound. For you we have the customary hookers and blow, rent boys and chardonnay. We also have, uh... Prostitutes and cigars, Bacardi 151 and Coke, smoked brisket, and for dessert a kinafeh. Along with that sparkling cider and esports, ginger ale and gerbils, pressed milk and pavlova, and of course the requisite mutton and mead, go to noagenderings.com. We'll be happy to send it off to you, just let us know what size, what address, and with that comes official wax. Yes, wax you can melt onto your correspondence and seal it with this night ring which is a signet ring.

2:55:40 And with that, always a certificate of authenticity. And thank you all very much for supporting the best podcast in the universe. Yeah, we don't have a long meetup list today, but we do have a number of reports that came in. The first one is from the Ottawa meetup. They said they had a pretty good turnout at the second Ottawa meetup, considering the typical Ottawa snowstorm that was happening and getting worse. Some fresh faces joined and a toddler came as well by itself. The toddler drive. I see why John enjoys having kids at the meetup. Yeah, I guess they're fun.

2:56:19 Thank you both for all you do again. I hope this meetup helps the show in some way the Ottawa meetup and then we have the Goleta California meetup 805 ITM buzzkill and crackpot. This is the 805 meetup in Goleta, California And this is Dame bang bang JD any mouse here Out of the way you swine, a podcaster's coming. This is Gabriel. Thank you for hitting me in the mouth. Introducing my smoking hot wife. Kelly, hi. Merry Christmas. And Sir DH Slammer out here on the patio where the occupancy is 33. ITM boys. Merry Christmas in the morning. Go edit it in post.

2:57:01 Yeah, very good. And then we have the Gitmo Brats and Festive Hats. This was Gladewater, Texas. This is Rudy reporting for the No Agenda Gitmo Brats and Festive Hats meetup. Passing the mic around for today's report. This is Dirty Jersey Whore from the International. meet up here in Gladewater, Texas. Y'all be good. This is Crypto Andy reporting. Bitcoin hit 100, over 100,000 just two days ago. Crazy time 2025. This is the Boone. Obviously an international addition to the Gladewater family here. Very excited to see what's going on here. Wishing everybody the best of luck with their future investments. Talk to you soon, next time. Carpe Diem.

2:57:49 Glad to see Bitcoin over 100,000. Glad to be here. And Merry Christmas to everybody. This is Dirty Jerdy escaping from Chinatown. And a hooey hooey, a merry Christmas and a happy new year. In the morning! And thank you for your courage. And thank you for your courage, indeed. Then we have the Wageningen meetup in the Netherlands. They called it the WEF Food Hub. Those guys are always dark and dank over there. And now it's time for the meetup report of the WEF Food Hub. Meetup. From the Wageningen Frankenfood Valley. Frank aka Mike in the morning. Super cozy here. This is Roland in the morning. Mike here. Here, Joe Derks from Six Feet Under. A very cozy meetup. Hi, this is Natalia. I'm going to fast for four days tomorrow so I ate three burgers. Ha ha!

2:58:47 Yes, from Amsterdam. Yes, you notice the term gezellig there. John, gezellig, a very typical Dutch word. It's untranslatable. Gezellig is what it is at the WEF Food Hub. And finally, The biggest meetup... Yes, you want to say something? No, I just said... The biggest meetup we have consistently with a very snappy fast report but man there's a lot of people in Indy. Hi, this is Sir Mark. And this is Dame Maria. And we had a fantastic meetup with a couple of fly-ins. One came in from North Carolina. Very cool. And we're so thrilled

2:59:32 Thank you for joining us. The Broad Ripple Tavern. Shout out to Millennial Media Offensive. I get asked to choose like your your raffle ticket. Yeah, very happy to oblige Had a great time with these folks. What a great group of people in the morning I am syrup over the maple and I want to wish John and Adam all the producers a very happy Thanksgiving and a Merry Christmas

3:00:31 And happy new year, because I won't be speaking again until February. In the morning. This is Sparrow, aka Baron Foxpat, reporting on site from this no agenda meetup. I have to report there's only moderate to gross productivity occurring during this meetup. Sparrow out. In the morning, Dame Swanning. Sir Benny, and I'm looking for Max Buffer. I can't find him. Broadcasting live from the Moonlight Lounge, this is Newbie Dave in Indianapolis in the morning. This is Mike from the Easy Peasy podcast. If protection is connection, why does nobody have a condom? Oh, I have a condom. Dear Santa, this is Nick, and this year I won an octocopter. Hi, I'm Brooke. I'm with the Rotterdell Tavern. I served the Noah Jenna meetup today, and they were great. In the morning, happy Thanksgiving.

3:01:19 I love it when they bring in the servers. Everybody should have their server in the meetup and hit them in the mouth while you're at it. And if you want to go to a meetup today and you're in Denver, Colorado, Lincoln's Roadhouse will be host of the Denver Christmas Kwanzaa Kandunuka Meetup 630. and the fourth amygdala checkup 733 at Barra that's Amsterdam time oh I guess they're already underway there probably done in Leiden the Netherlands well we expect to meet up report from them thank you all very much many more on the calendar at noagenda meetups.com connection is indeed protection these people will be your first responders in an emergency go to a meetup if you can't find one near you at noagenda meetups.com start one yourself

3:02:03 Hang out with all the nights and days You wanna be where you won't be Triggered or held to blame Be where everybody feels the same It's like a party Yeah, like a party They are like a party They sound like parties actually It is a party It's always a party I don't think I've done very well with ISOs. Again, I know I'm not doing well. This has been going on for a month now. I know! I'm in an ISO glutch. Glutch, no. Gulch. ISO gulch.

3:02:43 It's just a glut. No, it is a glut. It's an isoglut. I'm not doing well. Your glut means there's excessive. Oh, then what is a... when I'm in a dip? An isodip? Slump. You're in a slump. I'm in an isoslump. That's it. So here's my one. Full of facts and just great journalism. I know. It's actually not bad. It's okay. It's okay. I'd rather it be these. I got two. Uh, dipshit? Goodbye, dipshits! Yeah, yeah, that's gonna beat my... I'm removing mine from the lineup already. What's your next one? Expect. What did you expect? We are done! No, no, no. Goodbye, dipshits! That's the one. There's no doubt about it. That's definitely the one. I like it. Very good.

3:03:34 Do you want to have the conversation about the meeting now before we get into the jingle or what do you want to do? Because this was a little troubling for me. Yes, the idea is that in the tips of the day jingle within the jingle Dana Brunetti, our Hollywood guy. Hollywood producer of films like 50 Shades of Grey and House of Cards and 50 Shades of Greyer, which was even more raunchy. Well he also did Captain So-and-so and he did about ten good films. Good. Yeah, but everyone knows him from 50 Shades of Grey, let's be honest. That's the movie that everybody knows. Well, that's where he got all his money. Yes, exactly. It's dirty money. He's very ashamed of this, by the way. Yeah, he should be. It's dirty money.

3:04:24 Dirty money for a dirty film. Yes, dirty money for a dirty film. Yes, so Dana Brunetti called you. He never calls me and he did not back channel me on this one which is odd for a Hollywood guy. I find that to be peculiar. Yes, odd for a Hollywood guy. He wants creative credit for the tip of the day because it was his idea. And he wants us to slip it into the jingle and there's a spot where it gets slipped in, I'm going to produce this. It's gonna take a while because there's so much work Hold on stop. Why does he I mean there are lots of people who've created things How come he he says he gets paid the big bucks to come up with these ideas? And we've even given him barely given him credit. He's very offended by the whole situation There's something else has got to be going on with Dana. I think he doesn't get mentioned enough. I

3:05:20 You know... I think that's it. I think there's something else going on. And the fact that he hasn't back-channeled me means that I think he wants to talk with me. Oh, that could be. He wants to talk to you. Maybe he's got a project. Here's... Well, how about this thought? One of the hottest categories right now in movies, if you look at Angel Studios, they got this new movie Homestead. Christian movies are hot now. And I think that Dana just doesn't know anyone in the space and he's very worried about his hedonistic projects and he wants some kind of wheelbarrow to get him in. And I think he's searching. He's looking for me to help him to get into this category.

3:06:07 It's within the realm of possibilities. Dana, it's okay. First of all, God loves you and I'll be your God. I'll be your guide. No worries. We'll take care of you. You can call me. We'll set it up. And by the way, it's a killer category. Now, ladies and gentlemen, created by the one and only Dana Brunetti, it's John's tip of the day. ♪ Creative vibes for you and me ♪ ♪ Just the tip with JCB ♪ and sometimes Adam.

3:06:54 And I had qualms about this, I have to say it's quite tasty, but it is a liquid... One of our producers said, you got drinking the wrong stuff. You want to drink a sparkling water that's called liquid death. Yes, who drinks... Dave Jones was drinking this for a while, my buddy Dave Jones, liquid death. Yes, all the kids are drinking it. And here, and I, so I'm at the table, I had a, he sent me a couple of cases of it. You got cases? From who? Yeah. From the liquor death people? From our producer, one of the producers. I'm not gonna tell you who it is, because now you're gonna sponge him. Oh. So, uh... I'm too busy sponging Dana, don't worry about it. You'll get a bit part before I do. I will.

3:07:39 So I'm having a dinner, Brennan and Jay are there, and I said, I don't know why is anybody, because I saw this stuff before, I said, who in their right mind is gonna buy a product called liquid death? It just sounds terrible, like a bad idea. And so Brennan explained it to me, and as soon as he said it, the logic was so good I had to use it as tip of the day. For one thing, it comes in a big 16-ounce can. It's not like a normal can of sparkling water. It's a huge can of sparkling water. It looks like a beer. Hmm. And it's a drink that you have at cocktail parties, where you hold a can of this stuff, it says liquid death, and you drink it like a beer, and you look cool as opposed to just drinking some sparkling water because you're drinking liquid death at the party. It's a cocktail party gag is what it really amounts to. From what I'm reading in the troll room, liquid death, now this is interesting,

3:08:40 And you need to talk to your son-in-law about this. Liquid Death is a huge sponsor on podcasts that accept advertising. Is it possible that this is, that Brennan has somehow snuck in a native ad and he's actually getting paid for this? No, no, Brennan was unaware I even had this stuff. Huh. The guy who sent it to me is possibly he could be working for the company for all I know. And that's a possibility. So they're getting a free, that's possible that the liquid death people that support, I didn't know this by the way, but I know it now. I didn't know it, I just read it. It's possibly I've been duped. Yeah.

3:09:20 And I've been giving a free advertisement to these guys, the Liquid Death guys, although we give our advertisements and what we give, tell people to do is based on sincerity, not payment. We didn't get paid to do this. But now having done it, I expect these guys from Liquid Death to send us a couple of cases and you should get a few too. Thank you very much for creating this awesome advertisement, Dana Brunetti. Good work everybody. There's John's tip of the day. Created by Dana Bernanigan. And by the way, the liquid death sparkling water is, it is good and it has a nice kind of a medium sized bubble. Okay. Man, we got duped again, Dvorak.

3:10:06 We keep missing the boat on all of this stuff. I don't know how we do it. You know why? Because we're just here to provide a service to people. A public service. We're too busy providing a public service to spin you down and keep your world sane. And all we ask is if you get any value from this show, like you feel sane, send it back to us. NoAgendaDonations.com Time, talent, or treasure. Or cases of liquid death. Coming up next we have end of show mixes. Let me see, we have nothing new by the way, these are all evergreens.

3:10:43 We have Maddie J. We've got Leo Lapuque and we've got Brian Longenecker. There you go. Next up on No Agenda Stream, we've got Fun Fact Friday, the last one, the very last episode, a new show, Everything's an Argument, coming up next. And I am coming to you from the heart of the Texas Hill Country. In the morning everybody, I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley, We're at Smoggy out for some unknown reason. I'm John C. Dvorak. Noagendadonations.com. Remember us there until Thursday. Adios, mofos, a-hooey-hooey and such. They, I think, feel like they can't depend on America. They don't know what to expect. And this is a global political crisis. Lisa Lerer, do you think it's that serious, a global political crisis? Or do you think people are just kind of

3:11:41 Um, listening to the president I'm thinking, well, you know, wait 15 minutes and see what he says. Oh no! He is unpredictable to the point where they have no faith or trust in him. Oh no, oh no, I think it's a global political crisis, I totally agree with that. Global global global political crisis I told you. Michael. It's a global political crisis we are witnessing, John. I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I-I

3:12:34 By the way, the website is cosmicweenie.com We're gonna have to leave it there. The American public needs to stay outraged. Obama bastard! Leave it alone! I want you to argue with them, get in their face, get in their face, get in their face. I know who's ass to kick, to kick, to kick. This unworthy president, he does not deserve to be the president of the United States. Outrageous! Outrageous! You and me

3:13:21 Dog meat, tough. Snake meat, tougher. And roasted grasshoppers, crunchy. Outrageous! So what's behind egg flavor?

3:14:03 Eggflation! Pathogenic egg-laden influenza, more commonly known as bird flu. The worst bird flu outbreak in years that has just swept through the country. Tens of millions of birds have died or been slaughtered. Bird flu has reduced the egg-laden hen population by more than 40 million. 40 million, that's astounding to think about that. Looks like eggs are the new toilet paper! It's egg-stremely bad news. You might want to consider alternatives. This is an egg replacement item. These chickens that were laying eggs, those are mature hens, right? So we don't get a mature hen overnight. It takes some time for a chick who hatches out of an egg to be ready. This could be lasting us into the summer. Can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time? Yeah, he's got it! The best podcast in the universe!

3:14:57 Adios, mofo. Dvorak.org slash N-A. Goodbye, dipshits!