Podcasts about because trump

In contrast with yesterday's guest, the Paris based Financial Times writer Simon Kuper, the newspaper's London based columnist Jemima Kelly hasn't quite given up on the United States of America. Trump, she suggests, might be the end of the line for the MAGA movement. Indeed, like another recent guest on the show, former Wired editor Peter Leyden, Kelly suggests that the Republicans might be flirting with the destruction of their brand for the next political generation. Unlike Leyden, however, Kelly isn't particularly bullish on the future of the Democratic Party, arguing that there is a desperate need for a formal national opposition to Trump's MAGA Republicanism. And in contrast with Leyden, Kelly doesn't see much of an opposition - moral or otherwise - from seemingly spineless tech billionaires like Mark Zuckerberg or Marc Andreessen. 5 Key Takeaways* Kelly is most concerned about Trump's "utter disregard for the legal system and the kind of lawlessness" that characterizes his second administration.* She believes Democrats lack cohesive opposition structure, noting America could benefit from a shadow cabinet system like the UK's to provide clear alternative voices.* Kelly predicts "MAGA is going to finish with Trump" as there's no viable successor who can match his charisma and stage presence.* She criticizes tech leaders like Mark Zuckerberg for capitulating to Trump, questioning how they justify abandoning values for business interests.* Kelly argues that maintaining moral principles is crucial for Democrats, as sinking to Trump's level only erodes institutional trust, which has already been significantly damaged. Full Transcript Andrew Keen: Hello, everybody. It is Wednesday, April the 23rd, 2025. Headlines today remain dominated by Donald Trump. Every story above the fold, at least above the digital fold in the Financial Times, seems to be about him. Yesterday, we talked to FT columnist Simon Cooper, a Dutchman living in Paris, who had an interesting piece earlier this week suggesting Americans should move to Europe, indicating the American dream was over. Cooper seemed to relish this news. Today, we're talking to another FT columnist, Jemima Kelly. She's based in northeast London, in Hackney, and she's talking to us today from the FT offices in the heart of London City. Jemima, what's your take on Simon's column this week? Is it indeed time for most Americans to move to Europe?Jemima Kelly: I thought it was a very interesting column. I'm particularly interested in this idea that you discussed on your show about the brain drain that has been going in the direction of America and that might start to come back in the other direction, which I hadn't really properly considered before in those terms. But I must say that I'm not really a fan of encouraging people to all be digital nomads. He's actually followed it up with a piece today about how to be a digital nomad in Paris. I'm not really a fan of that kind of lifestyle because I think that it means people aren't particularly invested in their local communities, and I think it makes a bit of a crappy neighborhood if everyone is just working their own jobs. The dream of earning a US salary while working remotely living in Europe—I'm just like, please don't do that because then we're just importing inequality.Andrew Keen: Although to be fair, was Simon actually saying that?Jemima Kelly: I think he did say that the ultimate life, the ultimate arbitrage was doing that. And it's true, it is the ultimate arbitrage. It's just not one that I would particularly want people to pursue. It's like the Airbnb culture—it's destroyed a lot of cities and priced out local people, meaning certain cities you visit have no locals, just tourists, which is quite crap as a tourist.Andrew Keen: I guess the other critique of Simon's piece, which is an extension of yours, is for Americans who don't like Trump—and there are many, including myself—it's not time to move to Europe. It's not time to retreat. It is time to stay and fight and try to change America. So there's no reason why you have to shift. Jemima, you're a columnist at what you call on your X account "Friends of the Deep State" (FT). I'm using you as the voice of the European deep state. What's the take from London on Trump on April 23, 2025? It's so hard to make any sense of it. In a meta sense, in a structural sense, what's your take on what's happening?Jemima Kelly: I'm going to answer that in three parts. First, the "Friends of the Deep State" is obviously a reference to Liz Truss, who referred to the FT as the deep state.Andrew Keen: I want to come on to Truss later, another rather clownish character, your version of Donald Trump.Jemima Kelly: Yes, Britain's proudest export. Second, I would probably not want to speak for Europe or Britain. Maybe I can start by saying what I think the mood is.Andrew Keen: You live in Hackney in northeast London, so maybe you can speak on behalf of Hackney. What's the take on Trump from Hackney?Jemima Kelly: Just utter dismay. And I mean, I would say that's probably the mood I'm getting, even from people who thought there was too much hyperbole used about Trump in the run-up to his election. I didn't think comparisons to Hitler were particularly helpful.Andrew Keen: You're not alone. We've had that conversation many times on the show. I strongly agree with you.Jemima Kelly: So while there were people who were very hysterical about the idea of a Trump 2.0 being worse than the first time, I think so far, it does seem kind of worse, doesn't it?Andrew Keen: I'm asking you.Jemima Kelly: I would say there is a sense that things are quite scary at the moment. I think what I personally find most worrying, and that many balanced people are talking about, is the utter disregard for the courts and the rule of law. I was amazed looking at Truth Social earlier. I saw a post from Trump about an alleged MS-13 gang member.Andrew Keen: The Venezuelan who was illegally extradited or seized and taken to El Salvador.Jemima Kelly: I think this guy is actually Salvadoran. Trump has posted a picture of an alleged knuckle tattoo with four symbols which some people have extrapolated to mean MS-13. It's very obviously just computer-generated text superimposed on the image. Trump has posted it and appears to believe this is actually tattooed onto the man's knuckles, using that as justification. I think the utter disregard for the legal system and the lawlessness of Trump 2.0 is for me the most disturbing aspect because where does that end? It's just utter chaos.I might write this week about how Trump sees the world as just deal-making and transactions. The ends will always justify the means. He's openly saying he's going to keep pushing as hard as he can to get what he wants. But his followers, who are constantly rushing to justify everything he does, including his vice president, are glorifying the means themselves, which Trump himself doesn't even really believe in. People are willing to take what he says at face value and make it happen, like Vance going to Greenland on this supposed visit.Andrew Keen: You said in an excellent column earlier this month that Vance has "the zeal of the convert" and that's the problem.Jemima Kelly: Yes, because he once called Trump "America's Hitler."Andrew Keen: And he didn't mean it in a complimentary way.Jemima Kelly: I don't think he did.Andrew Keen: So, Jemima, stand back a little. Simon noted that he'd always believed in America growing up. A lot of his friends went to America. You're a slightly younger generation from Simon. When you graduated from university, did a lot of your friends go to America? Did you ever think maybe you should go to America as a singer or a journalist?Jemima Kelly: Did any of my friends? It's quite difficult as a British person going to America. Quite a few of my friends have ended up there, particularly in LA for some reason. I almost moved to New York with my previous employer, Reuters, and have considered it, but wanted to stay in London. I love America; it's a completely amazing and fascinating place. But it does feel like people I speak to at the moment are feeling concerned. Someone in New Orleans told me that when conservative columnists in the New York Times are writing that it's time for some kind of uprising...Andrew Keen: That was David Brooks. And Simon wrote about a friend of his in Georgia who said he couldn't even go out because he was scared to bump into Trump people.Jemima Kelly: I saw that. That's not how I personally believe that divisions should be handled. The idea that you shouldn't go out because you might bump into some Trump fans—I don't know about that.Andrew Keen: I couldn't agree more. Your last column, in the spirit of Easter, was titled "It's the hope that saves you." It was a broader column, not just about America. But do you still have a vestige, a glimmer of hope in America? Have you given up?Jemima Kelly: Oh, God, yes, I still have hope. I am an optimist. But I also believe that being optimistic and hopeful, which as I explain in the column are slightly different things, gives you a higher chance of things going well. If you don't resort to cynicism and nihilism, which I don't think is particularly helpful.Another column I would like to write in the coming weeks is that I am becoming convinced that MAGA is going to finish with Trump. There is no MAGA after Trump. One thing that convinced me of this was listening to the "Triggered" podcast with Donald Trump Jr. I tried to listen to a range of podcasts, some more painful than others, and I listened to a full episode the other day and couldn't believe the level of imbecility.Andrew Keen: Well, we know what you mean anyway, even if that isn't the word.Jemima Kelly: And he's the best friend of the vice president, who's supposedly this genius.Andrew Keen: I'm sure in a year or two JD will have moved on to other "best friends."Jemima Kelly: Maybe, but I think they've been friends for a while. The thing with Trump is that he masks so much with his charisma and stage presence and what he calls "flexibility," not U-turning. And his people skills. Then you get the distilled version of him without all of that, and it's just so painfully bad and unpersuasive. There's no successor. Vance is the only one who the bookies currently have as the favorite, but that's because there's no leader on the other side; we don't know who the Democratic leader is.Andrew Keen: Peter Leyden, who was on the show a few days ago, the former editor-in-chief of Wired, believes that Trump is essentially destroying the Republican brand for a generation. It does provide an opportunity for the Democrats in the long term, although the Democrats probably have many problems of their own. Do you agree that ultimately the Republican brand has been decimated and is headed for 20 or 30 years of political isolation?Jemima Kelly: I think what they have going for them is that MAGA has its own name—there was always the MAGA part of the Republican Party and then the "other part" and the RINOs. Now they have somewhat merged, but I imagine that will start to separate if the Trump project keeps doing as badly as it seems to be. But it doesn't feel like there's any separation now between Trump and the institutions that are supposedly independent, with the Fed being an exception despite his saying he'd terminate Powell and then claiming the press made a big deal of it. It does feel like it will be difficult for Republicans to extricate themselves from Trump. There isn't anyone standing up and being vocally anti-Trump on that side at the moment.Andrew Keen: You noted that your satirical X profile "Friends of the Deep State" was borrowed from Liz Truss, who made a fool of herself and now is in political exile. Can we learn anything from the Truss fiasco? It seems to me as if Trump a couple of weeks ago on the bond front was, so to speak, "Trussed"—the market spoke and he had to retreat. Can we learn anything from recent British political or economic history to make sense of what's happening in the US, particularly in terms of Truss, who was humiliated by the markets?Jemima Kelly: Trump has the advantage of shamelessness, doesn't he?Andrew Keen: So you're saying that Liz Truss is not shameless?Jemima Kelly: That's a very good point. You could see the embarrassment on her face. Maybe that is just my projection of how I would feel.Andrew Keen: For people just listening, it's a picture of Liz Truss in New York with a MAGA hat on looking like a complete idiot.Jemima Kelly: Just before the inauguration saying, "It can't come soon enough."Andrew Keen: And she says "the West needs it," whatever that means.Jemima Kelly: She's constantly "saving the West." She was at a Bitcoin conference last weekend giving a speech on saving the West. It's really exciting that we have such capable hands to save the West.Andrew Keen: Especially at the Bitcoin conference.Jemima Kelly: Exactly. They're the real people to do it. What can we learn from Truss? What we can learn, and this takes us into the Democrats, is that a few people have floated the idea that America should have some form of shadow cabinet. One of the reasons that Truss lasted for only 42 days—less than the lettuce—was that we have such a vocal opposition in this country. It's very clear who the spokesperson is from the opposing party. So when a journalist is writing a story about Truss's mini budget, right away, you've got the shadow chancellor to tell you why it's a terrible idea. In America, it's not so clear, and I think that's a disadvantage.Andrew Keen: You wrote an excellent column in the last month on why America needs a "serious opposition."Jemima Kelly: It really opened my eyes, this idea of the shadow cabinet. Obviously, the government has a different structure in the US, and it's not a monarchy, etc. But the idea of some form—even if just in name only—if the Democrats were able to put forward a representative for each of the major government departments, it would help. It made me think that American media often sees itself as "the resistance"—the media is the resistance. I feel like our job is to report the news. Too often it feels like the media was trying to stop Trump from getting reelected or trying to hide that Biden was too old for another four years. The media is far too often doing the work that an opposition should be doing.It dawned on me that this is partly because of the lack of structure that we have with the constant back and forth. As a journalist, rather than having to explain why the Liz Truss mini-budget was bad, you've got someone on the other side to tell you. The Democrats are in disarray. Usually, there's nothing like a common enemy to unite you, and Trump should be that. Amid the tariffs, the trade war, the deportation of immigrants, threats to deport others to horrific Salvadoran prisons—if there were a time to be united, it would be now. This is peak Trump fear, and yet the Democrats have record low approval ratings among their supporters. A Gallup poll showed Republican approval of their congressmen is at 76 percent while Democrats are at 39 percent among Democrats. There is a real void of cohesive or coherent opposition.Andrew Keen: You've been quite critical of the Democrats. Back in July, you talked about the "Biden debacle" and the absurdity of a man clearly out of his depth. But you've also written more recently about Democrats not abandoning their morals. When historians look back, how much of a debacle was the Biden regime? Will it be seen as the trigger that enabled Trump 2.0, or would these things be seen separately?Jemima Kelly: I don't think it was Biden's administration; I think it was the cover-up of his physical decline.Andrew Keen: I wasn't surprised by that debate he had with Trump. He clearly was way beyond his shelf life. It was self-evident if you watched interviews with him.Jemima Kelly: It was already evident. I got into trouble for talking about this before the 2020 election because he had gotten the name of an interviewer wrong, and fact-checking organizations rushed in to say he hadn't. They were lying on his behalf, which shocked me.Andrew Keen: Does that make Trump's point on Truth Social that the media is really the Democratic party, or the two are inseparable?Jemima Kelly: It's funny because every time I've written about this, I've gotten pushback. I was the first "ritual sacrifice" on BlueSky a few months ago because I dared to say it was an echo chamber. Apparently, I implied that I wanted more Nazis on BlueSky, which is obviously sarcasm. One thing I find interesting—if you type "New York Times" into BlueSky, you'll get people complaining about how pro-Trump they are or how they're "both-sides-ists." If you type "New York Times" into X, you'll get people complaining about how anti-Trump they are and how it's just an extension of the Democratic Party.I think there's something like 3-4% of American journalists who vote Republican, so clearly, the media does lean left or Democrat. Trump is now letting really marginal right-wing news outlets into his briefings, which in some ways I don't think is all bad. I think it would be good to have a more balanced media.Andrew Keen: You wrote a good piece in December, "Democrats must not abandon their morals," which I guess goes without saying. There are still morals in the Republican party. Well, certainly ex-Republicans like David Brooks and Peter Wehner seem to be the most convincingly moral Americans. But that's another issue. What advice would you give the Democrats? On one hand, you've got a civil war within the party between its left—Bernie Sanders and AOC—versus centrists. They agree on almost nothing apart from being in the same big tent party. What advice would you give Democrats?Jemima Kelly: I don't feel in a position to give advice.Andrew Keen: What would you like to see then?Jemima Kelly: Just to be clear about the "Democrats shouldn't abandon their morals" column, that was written after Biden pardoned his son Hunter, which I found uncool. I hate that. I was arguing that if you're going to talk about how immoral the Trump project is and how full of lies it is—and it is all those things—then you have to show that you're better. I felt that was a failure during the first Trump term.I think outlets like the New York Times are doing better this time around. But there was an op-ed written after the first Trump victory about how objectivity needed to be abandoned, like there was a new game to play. I think that's really short-termist and will set a terrible precedent. Trump has come in again on the back of a massive loss of trust in institutions, which was already happening but was made worse by COVID—all the debates about origins, vaccines, etc. That chipped away at trust in science, government, and institutions in general.I write a lot about virtue and honor. I just wrote about hope. I don't think we think about values enough. Only the right in America seems to talk about religion. I'm not even a Christian myself—I was raised Catholic but don't consider myself that anymore—but I feel that values and morality aren't spoken about enough. The Democrats need to take the high ground. They were pulling up placards saying "Lie" at Trump's address to Congress, wearing colors to represent protest. AOC was doing videos saying "choose your fighter," trying to appeal to young people. It was all so cringe and inauthentic. When Trump is being seen as authentic, and Bernie Sanders, who does come across as authentic, there's such a vacuum of authenticity.Andrew Keen: You noted that one of the reasons why Trump is so successful is his eccentricity. That's one of his attractive qualities. A couple of quick questions before we go. You're at the FT, so you're supposed to understand the global economy. Back in September, you talked about America's crypto election. I have a nagging suspicion that crypto might be one of the things that ultimately blows up Trump. There is a lot of fraud within the administration on crypto, with some people making vast fortunes. Trump or his administration is in bed with the Bitcoin bros. What do you make of this association? Because Trump historically has always been ambivalent about crypto. Is this a sideshow or could it become the main show?Jemima Kelly: I don't think it could become the main show just because crypto is still not systemically important enough. If we compare it to the trade war, it pales in comparison in terms of numbers. The IMF downgrading forecasts by one percentage point for the US—that is far more likely to bring down Trump economically.Andrew Keen: Could we be seeing a restructuring of the global financial economy where crypto becomes an alternative to the Fed, given Trump's hostility towards the Fed?Jemima Kelly: God, no, not in my opinion. My ultimate point with crypto—and by the way, people who believe in Bitcoin (and I use the word "believe" deliberately because I do regard it as a belief system) think that Bitcoin is different from other crypto because it's the first one and will only have 21 million coins ever minted. But these are just strings of digits. Then someone comes along and says, "oh no, Bitcoin and Ethereum," and someone else adds Dogecoin as well.These aren't companies like the S&P 500 where there's a finite list. Each of these coins does absolutely nothing, and there's no limit to the number that can exist. I could speak about crypto for hours, but I always come back to the fact that there is no scarcity. Bitcoiners hate when I say this because they claim Bitcoin is different. There is no limit to the number of cryptocurrencies that can exist. If you look at CoinMarketCap.com, they used to count how many cryptocurrencies there were, but I think it got embarrassing because the counter disappeared. There are tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands at this point. How can there be value when there's no scarcity?Andrew Keen: I hope you're right on that front. Finally, you've been very critical of Silicon Valley and big tech. You wrote a piece recently on Mark Zuckerberg caving into Trump. Zuckerberg caved in, Bezos appears to have with the Washington Post, some law firms have, some haven't. Do you think this will come back to haunt opportunists like Zuckerberg? Is it in the interest, not just moral but economic, of American business leaders, university leaders, and heads of law firms to stand up to all this nonsense?Jemima Kelly: I think so, yes. We have so glorified wealth that people only seem to think value exists in financial terms. If I were Mark Zuckerberg, I would care about what people thought of me, but that's even superficial. I would care about being able to sleep well at night. I don't know how these people justify it.I heard a Mark Andreessen podcast a few months ago where he said, "The one thing people don't understand about billionaires is they don't care about money. They just want people to like them." I thought that was really interesting, but it doesn't seem to match their actions.Andrew Keen: Well, we probably should end. I'm not sure if you've written any columns on Musk, but he seems to represent all of this. He's clearly distancing himself from Trump, just as Trump is distancing himself from Musk. Are we beginning to see the end of this love affair between the Musks and the Andreessens with Trump?Jemima Kelly: It's interesting because Musk was supposedly the savior of electric cars, but the current-day Musk would be so skeptical of electric cars. It's weird that he was that guy and now has to keep being that guy to a certain extent because it's his brand. I think he's been radicalized by people not liking him, and he's being pushed further into this corner because he wants to feel part of a tribe. Now he feels like he fits in at Mar-a-Lago and hangs out with Trump.Do I think that's the end of their relationship? It's hard to know. I wouldn't be surprised if they did fall out quite soon. But they're both very strange people, aren't they?Andrew Keen: To put it mildly. You've got a big picture of the two of them in a Tesla on the cover of the Financial Times. I think they're both secretly fans of Millwall Football Club with their famous song "Nobody Loves Us, We Don't Care."Jemima Kelly: What?Andrew Keen: I'm joking, but maybe the same is true of Donald Trump and certainly Elon Musk.Jemima Kelly: They care so much. That's what's funny. Trump cares more than anyone about people loving him. I think that's what drives him. He really wants to be seen as a good president, which comforts me when things are going badly because I think he wants people to love him. He really wants the Nobel Peace Prize, which is hilarious, but he does want that.Andrew Keen: Well, one thing we've resolved today is that Donald Trump is not a fan of Millwall Football Club. He wants everybody to love him. He does care if they don't. Jemima, I know you don't really care because you're someone who will always say what you think. We'll have to get you back on the show for The View from London. Not an eccentric view, but an irreverent view. Thank you so much, Jemima Kelly, columnist of the FT. We will have you back on the show. Keep well.Jemima Kelly: Thank you, you too. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

Ralph welcomes New York Times journalist, David Enrich, author of “Murder the Truth” an in-depth exposé of the attack on freedom of the press as protected by the landmark Supreme Court decision “Sullivan v. The New York Times.” Also, Professor Michael Graetz a leading authority on tax politics and policy joins to discuss his book “The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America.” Plus, our resident constitutional scholar, Bruce Fein, updates us on his latest efforts to push for the impeachment of Donald Trump.David Enrich is the business investigations editor for The New York Times. He writes about the intersection of law and business, including the power wielded by giant corporate law firms and the changing contours of the First Amendment and libel law. His latest book is titled Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful, an in-depth exposé of the broad campaign—orchestrated by elite Americans—to overturn sixty years of Supreme Court precedent, weaponize our speech laws, and silence dissent.When all the institutions are crushed by a dictator in the White House, it's only the people that can save the people.Ralph NaderThe interesting thing was that Fox, and these other right-wing outlets for years had been kind of banging the drum against New York Times v. Sullivan and against the protections that many journalists have come to count on. And then they get sued and their immediate fallback is to very happily cite New York Times v. Sullivan.David EnrichThese threats and these lawsuits have become an extremely popular weapon among everyone from the President down to mayors, city council members, local real estate development companies, on and on and on…And the direct result of that will be that powerful people, companies, organizations, institutions are going to be able to do bad things without anyone knowing about it.David EnrichPeople keep asking me what they can do, what they should do. And I think the answer is really to try and understand these issues. They're complicated, but they're also getting deliberately misframed and misrepresented often, especially on the right, but sometimes not on the right. And I think it's really important for people to understand the importance of New York Times v. Sullivan, and to understand the grave threats facing journalists, especially at the local level right now, and the consequences that could have for our democracy.David EnrichMichael Graetz is professor emeritus at Columbia Law School and Yale Law School and a leading authority on tax politics and policy. He served in the U.S. Treasury's Office of Tax Policy and is the author and coauthor of many books, including Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing Inherited Wealth and The Burger Court and the Rise of the Judicial Right. His latest book is The Power to Destroy: How the Antitax Movement Hijacked America.I spent a lot of time asking people to name the most important political and social movements of the last half century. And no surprise, they named the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the LGBTQ movement, the Christian Evangelical movement, the MAGA movement lately, but no one ever mentioned the anti-tax movement. And unlike the other movements I've named, the anti-tax movement is really the only one that has not suffered a serious setback in the past half century.Michael GraetzThe anti-tax movement has always relied on a false dichotomy between “us” (those who pay taxes) and “them” (those who receive government benefits).Michael GraetzThe Democrats now don't want to tax 98% of the people and the Republicans don't want to tax 100% of the people and the question is: how do you get anywhere with those kinds of firm “no new taxes” pledges? And that's a problem. And I think it's a problem that the Democrats have fallen into basically based on the success of the Republicans antitax coalition.Michael GraetzYou're going to see individuals' budgets pinched because the federal government refuses to treat its budget with any degree of seriousness.Michael GraetzThe label they use to justify tax cuts for the rich and the corporate they call them the “job creators.” Well, that has not been proven at all.Ralph NaderBruce Fein is a Constitutional scholar and an expert on international law. Mr. Fein was Associate Deputy Attorney General under Ronald Reagan and he is the author of Constitutional Peril: The Life and Death Struggle for Our Constitution and Democracy, and American Empire: Before the Fall.Certainly, the current Congress is not going to act without citizen involvement, pressure, clamoring that they do something to save the processes which are the heart and soul of our civilization as opposed to the law of the jungle.Bruce FeinNews 3/19/251. The AP reports that on Tuesday Israel broke the U.S.-brokered ceasefire in the Gaza Strip, launching airstrikes that have killed over 400 Palestinians. These strikes, which have killed mostly women and children, are described as “open-ended and expected to expand.” This new offensive began the same day Prime Minister Netanyahu was scheduled to appear in court to provide testimony in his corruption trial; according to Israeli broadcaster KAN News, Netanyahu used the surprise attack to annul this court date.2. This new offensive endangers the lives of some two dozen Israeli hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza. These hostages would have been released as part of the prisoner exchanges brokered through the ceasefire agreement. In order to dissuade further escalation, journalist Dimi Reider reports “Israeli hostage families are trying to make a human chain around Gaza to physically block a ground incursion.” This human chain includes prominent Israeli activist Einav Zangauker, whose son is still held in Gaza and who has made herself an implacable opponent of Netanyahu.3. On the home front, a new round of state-backed repression is underway, targeted at pro-Palestine activists on college and university campuses. The Mahmoud Khalil case has received perhaps the most attention and with good reason. Khalil is a legal permanent resident of the United States and is married to a U.S. citizen who is eight months pregnant. He has long been active in pro-Palestine organizing at the college, which White House officials have claimed make him a “threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States.” The Trump administration has refused to honor Khalil's Constitutional rights – including refusing to let him meet with his lawyer – and has admitted that they are persecuting him on the basis of political speech, a clear-cut violation of the First Amendment. A White House official explicitly told the Free Press, “The allegation…is not that he was breaking the law.” In addition to Khalil however, Columbia has taken the opportunity to expel, suspend and revoke the degrees of 22 students involved in the Hind's Hall occupation last year, per the Middle East Eye. This raft of penalizations includes the expulsion of Grant Miner, President of UAW Local 2710, which represents thousands of Columbia student workers. Per the UAW, “the firing comes one day before contract negotiations were set to open with the University.” The timing of this expulsion is suspicious to say the least.4. Yet, even in the face of such repression, pro-Palestine campus activism perseveres. Democracy Now! reports that on March 14th, Harvard Law School students “overwhelmingly passed a referendum calling on Harvard to divest its more than $50 billion endowment from ‘weapons, surveillance technology, and other companies aiding violations of international humanitarian law, including Israel's genocide in Gaza and its ongoing illegal occupation of Palestine.'” The Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee adds that the referendum passed with approximately 73% of the vote, an unquestionably decisive margin. Even still, the university is unlikely to even consider adopting the resolution.5. The resilience of student activists in the face of state-backed repression highlights the fecklessness of elected Democrats. The political leadership of New York for example has not mobilized to defend Mahmoud Khalil from authoritarian overreach by the federal government. Even locally, none of the current mayoral hopefuls – a rather underwhelming lot including the comically corrupt incumbent Mayor Eric Adams and former Governor Andrew Cuomo, infamous for killing thousands of seniors via his Covid policies and for the pervasive culture of sexual harassment in his office – have forcefully spoken up for Khalil. That is except for Zohran Mamdani, the DSA-endorsed mayoral candidate steadily climbing in the polls thanks to his popular message and well-crafted political ads. His advocacy on behalf of Khalil seems to have won him the support of perhaps the most principled progressive in Congress, Rashida Tlaib, who likewise is leading the meager Congressional effort to pressure the administration to rescind the disappearance of Khalil.6. In light of their anemic response to Trump and Trumpism, Democratic discontent is reaching a boiling point. A flashpoint emerged last week when Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer opted not to fight the Republican budget proposal and vote for cloture instead of shutting down the government. Democratic voters were so incensed by this decision that Schumer was forced to postpone his book tour and the Democratic Party registered its lowest ever approval ratings, with just seven percent of voters saying they have a “very positive” view of the party. As this debacle unfolded, House Democrats were at a retreat in Leesburg, Virginia where AOC “slammed…[Schumer's]…decision to ‘completely roll over and give up on protecting the Constitution.'” One member told CNN Democrats in Leesburg were “so mad” that even centrists were “ready to write checks for AOC for Senate.” And Pass the Torch, the grassroots progressive group that called for President Biden withdraw from the 2024 campaign is now calling for Schumer to resign as minority leader, the Hill reports. In their statement, the group writes “[Schumer's] sole job is to fight MAGA's fascist takeover of our democracy — instead, he's directly enabling it. Americans desperately need a real opposition party to stand up to Trump.”7. In the early evening on Tuesday March 18th, Trump unlawfully dismissed the two remaining Democrats on the Federal Trade Commission, POLITICO reports. One Commissioner, Alvaro Bedoya, tweeted “The President just illegally fired me.” Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter was also ousted from her post. In her statement, she wrote that her dismissal violated “the plain language of a statute and clear Supreme Court precedent. Why? Because…[Trump] is afraid of what I'll tell the American people.” Trump similarly violated the law when he dismissed National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox who filed a lawsuit which prevailed in federal district court. POLITICO reports she returned to work last week. Biden's superstar FTC Chair Lina Khan, already ousted by Trump, commented “The @FTC must enforce the law without fear or favor. The administration's illegal attempt to fire Commissioners Slaughter & Bedoya is a disturbing sign that this FTC won't. It's a gift to corporate lawbreakers that squeeze American consumers, workers, and honest businesses.” On March 19th, Bedoya added “Don't worry…We are still commissioners. We're suing to make that clear for everyone.”8. Trump's radical deregulatory agenda could not come at a worse time. Amid a streak of horrific aviation accidents and incidents, it now appears that Elon Musk is seeking to permanently worm his way into the Federal Aviation Administration. Forbes reports that the Campaign Legal Center has filed a legal complaint with the Office of the Inspector General of the Transportation Department alleging that Musk may have violated conflict of interest laws through his “involvement with a deal between the Federal Aviation Administration and his own company Starlink.” Per the Washington Post, the FAA is “close to canceling” its existing $2.4 billion contract with Verizon in favor of working with Starlink, and according to the legal complaint, Musk “appears to have personally and substantially participated” in these negotiations. This matter will have to play out in court, but the risks are very real. As Representative Greg Casar put it, “Musk is trying to make our air traffic control system ‘dependent' on him by integrating his equipment, which has not gone through security and risk-management review. It's corruption. And it's dangerous.”9. In more Musk news, President Trump has announced that he will institute a new rule classifying any attack on Tesla dealers as domestic terrorism, Reuters reports. This comes in response to the peaceful, so-called “Tesla Takedown” protests, which urge participants to “Sell your Teslas, dump your stock, join the picket lines.” Any connection between the protests and isolated cases of vandalism against Teslas or Tesla dealerships is tenuous at most. Instead, this theatrical display of support for the auto manufacturer seems to be a response Tesla's declining stock value. Reuters reports “Tesla's market capitalization has more than halved since hitting an all-time high of $1.5 trillion on December 17, erasing most of the gains the stock made after Musk-backed Trump won the U.S. election in November.” It seems unlikely that invoking the iron fist of the state against peaceful protestors will do much to buoy Tesla's market position.10. Finally, in a humiliating bit of tragic irony, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has long maintained a personal brand as a crusader against junk food, is being deployed by the Trump administration to boost the fast food chain Steak ‘n Shake. Ostensibly, the endorsement is predicated on the chain using beef tallow rather than seed oils to prepare their French fries – the company called it “RFK'ing the fries” – yet even that claim appears shaky. According to NBC, “the chain's move inspired some in the [Make America Healthy Again] world to look deeper… finding that [Steak ‘n Shake's] fries were precooked in seed oils.” Nevertheless, RFK's endorsement has been echoed by many others in Trump-world, including Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Kari Lake, Charlie Kirk, and others. NBC adds that in February, Tesla announced it had signed a deal to build charging stations at Steak 'n Shake locations. Funny how Musk's fingers seem to appear in every pie, or in this case grasping at every tallow French fry.This has been Francesco DeSantis, with In Case You Haven't Heard. Get full access to Ralph Nader Radio Hour at www.ralphnaderradiohour.com/subscribe

Mahmoud Kahlil was stolen from his home and arrested by ICE in the middle of the night - why? Because Trump and the pro-Zionist lobby in America decided to do so. He committed no crime. He was not charged with anything - this is an infringement on his First Amendment Rights, and a direct attack on anyone that speaks out against this Admin, and Israel. Boy do we get into it. That, and Sam Seder of The Majority Report takes on MAGA college students in important exchanges that will make you want to tear your eyeballs out. Jump in with Janaya Future Khan. SUPPORT THE SHOW  Patreon - https://patreon.com/@darkwoke Tip w/ a One Time Donation SUBSCRIBE + FOLLOW IG: www.instagram.com/darkwokejfk Youtube: www.youtube.com/@darkwoke TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janayafk

SEASON 3 EPISODE 104: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BULLETIN: Firstly I apologize to President Volodomir Zelensky and the people of Ukraine, on behalf of the United States of America. The REAL people of the United States of America, not the half-brained Russian stooges and assets. Our sense of shame and regret is immeasurable. OURS, the REAL people of the United States of America - almost always generous, largely well-intentioned, and when we are neither, when we are at our most self-centered, at LEAST smart enough and willing to let other people fight our fights for us, and die battling fascists and dictators like Putin instead of us. We will never let Trump forget what he did to you do today. We will make him atone. And all those who serve him and do not resign just in sheer embarrassment over being so wrong so loudly and in the service of such a moron as Trump – they have from this day forfeited their legitimacy as quote “leaders” of this nation, as the pack of diarrhetic farm animals Trump calls a cabinet has from this day forfeited ITS legitimacy as a government. And to that point, Trump must now lose power. Today was a 24-hour consumer boycott, poorly publicized, poorly covered by our increasingly stenographic media. Now we must have a 24-day consumer boycott. Then a 24-month consumer boycott. Today we witnessed the most disgraceful and un-American act by any president in our history and I include Nixon and Watergate, and Bush and Iraq, and everything Trump has previously done. Now we must consume his presidency and force it to do nothing but defend this disgusting, pre-planned act on behalf of Putin and Russia every hour and every day and every week until we force him to resign the presidency. On Presidents Day the 50501 Movement protested in Washington and in state capitols. Now we must protest Trump and his attempt, of which today’s shameful attack on Zelensky WAS a part, to install him permanently in power, and we must do it every day, in every city, until nothing else in this country matters and nothing else in this country HAPPENS. In the ‘60s and before and after we mobilized on the street to protest and stop the degradation of our citizens of color and the murder of our citizens of EVERY color via the draft and the Vietnam War. Now we must have protests that recognize that at this moment, all of us, you and me, are being shaped by Trump and his terrorist gang into the equivalent of the victims of segregation and the draftees sent to Southeast Asia to be slaughtered. Civil disobedience, tax strike, general strike. Today, CNN, Politico, The Washington Post and others downplayed what Trump did and positioned it as a "scolding" or a "shouting match" as opposed to a deranged attack by a deranged man. Now, these news organizations must either stop pandering to an immoral dictator or lose as he will. Because Trump crossed his Rubicon today.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Because Trump believes our FBI, and DOJ, and Military, and intelligence community are all the enemy, he's put people in charge of these agencies & departments who want to destroy them. From Trump's perspective, it makes all the sense in the world. But from America's perspective, it makes us way less safe and less secure. But we shouldn't be surprised. He told us he'd do this. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last night, Trump said that the U.S. should take over and “own” Gaza. Why? Because Trump believes it will enrich himself personally and because Trump is an autocrat, and like all good autocrats, Trump believes he has a right to anything. Freedom, sovereignty, and democracy can't get in his way. But please don't laugh at Trump. Take him seriously. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

He's the most corrupt person on the planet, and we knowingly reelected him again. He's pledged to jail his political opponents, so Joe Biden was right to issue preemptive pardons. Because Trump lies as he breathes, here's the facts on the great economy he is inheriting. Do I want Trump to succeed? I want America to remain free, democratic, and prosperous. That's my answer. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mainstream media knows that Donald Trump helps them "sell soap powder." Because Trump's near-daily outrageous posts and statements guarantees maximum viewership, media seems intent on playing them on an endless loop, 24/7. As a result, Trump's lies proliferate, saturate and poison the public discourse. If only the media would chose to present the truth of Trump's crimes and corruption as consistently as his endless false claims about "hoaxes" and "witch hunts" and "conflicted judges" and "deranged prosecutors." This reporting disparity was glaringly obvious when the audio of Donald Trump's criminal sentencing hearing was released. It seemed you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing the recording of Trump's bloviating at his sentencing hearing, while it seemed difficult to find and extending airing of the prosecutor's truthful and accurate statements to the judge about Trump's crimes of conviction. Glenn reviews IN WHOLE prosecutor Joshua Steinglass' statement to Judge Juan Merchan before the judge sentenced Trump.If you're interested in supporting our all-volunteer efforts, you can become a Team Justice patron at: / glennkirschner If you'd like to support us and buy Team Justice and Justice Matters merchandise visit:https://shop.spreadshirt.com/glennkir...Check out Glenn's website at https://glennkirschner.com/Follow Glenn on:Threads: https://www.threads.net/glennkirschner2X aka Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/glennkirschner2Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/glennkirschner2Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glennkirsch...Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/glennkirschn...TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/glennkirschner2See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Mainstream media knows that Donald Trump helps them "sell soap powder." Because Trump's near-daily outrageous posts and statements guarantees maximum viewership, media seems intent on playing them on an endless loop, 24/7. As a result, Trump's lies proliferate, saturate and poison the public discourse. If only the media would chose to present the truth of Trump's crimes and corruption as consistently as his endless false claims about "hoaxes" and "witch hunts" and "conflicted judges" and "deranged prosecutors." This reporting disparity was glaringly obvious when the audio of Donald Trump's criminal sentencing hearing was released. It seemed you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing the recording of Trump's bloviating at his sentencing hearing, while it seemed difficult to find and extending airing of the prosecutor's truthful and accurate statements to the judge about Trump's crimes of conviction. Glenn reviews IN WHOLE prosecutor Joshua Steinglass' statement to Judge Juan Merchan before the judge sentenced Trump.If you're interested in supporting our all-volunteer efforts, you can become a Team Justice patron at: / glennkirschner If you'd like to support us and buy Team Justice and Justice Matters merchandise visit:https://shop.spreadshirt.com/glennkir...Check out Glenn's website at https://glennkirschner.com/Follow Glenn on:Threads: https://www.threads.net/glennkirschner2X aka Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/glennkirschner2Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/glennkirschner2Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/glennkirsch...Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/glennkirschn...TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/glennkirschner2See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Because Trump has a big win in the Georgia case, you won't hear about it from any of the usual talking head. We break it down. Also, we consider the Biden drilling ban. Finally, the idiocy of the FBI management of the New Orleans and Las Vegas events gets a glancing view.

The Democrats and the Left are still working their way through the seven stages of grief over the election. Many of them continue to be in denial as to how so many people could have voted for Trump and made the popular vote even close at all.In their defense, this wasn't just an election loss. It was the single most humiliating defeat probably in American history. They spent eight years doing nothing but selling hatred and fear of Trump. They pulled out the stops, from Hollywood to the Justice Department. Headline after headline told the Democrats that all of the evil known to mankind was embodied in this one man, and all they had to do was stop him, and their village could live on peacefully.Trump became the monster, the volcano that required sacrifices so that it didn't destroy the crops. He was the Devil riding into Salem. He was HITLER. Now, they're grappling with 77 million people in America who don't believe their hysteria anymore. It's been punctured at long last.But those are the rational ones. There are still many of them trapped inside the fear bunker who are now trying to survive in a country they view as full of Nazis and bigots, full of hate and white supremacy. Or else toxic masculinity won the race, and now how to raise their daughters in a country full of rapists?But if they're honest with themselves, really honest, they will have to face the truth. Sure, they abandoned the working class. Joe Biden got out of the race too late for them to mount a proper campaign. Kamala Harris was a terrible candidate (I threw that last one in there, though it's a truth they have yet to accept or admit). Elon Musk rigged the election (yes, they are saying that).But they have yet to address one fundamental question about why they lost: Why aren't they cool anymore? Being cool means thinking critically, but that was abandoned years ago on the Left. It means being a rebel against the system, but they are the system. It means being counterculture, but they are the culture.True, it's hard to be cool when you are crippled by mass hysteria, and when every tweet by Trump is the end of the world, I know because I felt it too. But it started even before that, even before Trump. One might say the Left losing their cool opened the door for the rise of Trump. Why? Because Trump is and has always been cool.He was cool in the 1980s when being rich was cool, and saying whatever was on your mind that disrupted the status quo was cool. In the 90s, he became an icon in hip-hop culture. Maybe things shifted a little when he starred on a Reality-TV series, those weren't cool, and especially once he got into politics as Obama's rival, that most definitely was not cool. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit sashastone.substack.com/subscribe

Mic, Brian and Jeff have a roundtable discussion keying off of Todd Sepulveda's November 10th podcast. Todd talked about some people who were prepping for post-election chaos seem to have just stopped prepping since chaos didn't happen. Was that a reasonable response? Because Trump won, will things be safe, secure, and problem free -- at least for the next four years?  The guys weigh in with their two cents (sometimes more). Links to items discussed in this podcast: >> Blog post by Paul T. Martin. (Nov.6) "Many Preppers Are About To Make A Huge Mistake. Don't Be Them" >> Todd Sepulveda's Nov. 10 Podcast discussing Martin's article Available Now!  Book 6: The Summer of Wood & Iron is now available on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback form.

Because Trump wasn't penalized for trying to steal the 2020 election, our democracy has already been damaged. And he was laying the groundwork to do it again in '24, with the assistance of MAGA's opportunistic election fraud lies. Meanwhile, David Sacks & co would never let Trump run any of their businesses, but they're all in on his Alex Jones-grade lies. Plus, was Kamala done in by not responding to the anti-trans ad? And 90% of what's wrong with Elon is his Twitter addiction. Sam Harris joins Tim Miller.

SERIES 3 EPISODE 70: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN BONUS EDITION: We are missing the POINT of the nominations of Sideshow Bobby Kennedy and Beavis and Botox Gaetz. This, simply, is Trump finding out how MUCH of a dictatorship his Republican House and Senate slaves will let him have. It's hard to believe that the literally worm-eaten brain of RFK Jr and the Madison Cawthorn wannabe that is Matt Gaetz could decide whether the Republicans will stop him here (or anywhere) but this is where we are. Because Trump is explaining his plan: I decide, I tell you what to do, and you do it or else. We are already HERE: THIS is the fork in the fascist road: deliberately choose people with no morals, no qualifications, and no qualities except absolute fealty to the dictator, then insist everybody else salute them. Same for Noem. Same for Gabbard. Same for Hegseth. Same for Patel. THE NEXT TEST will be openly demanding that he be permitted to run again in 2028, if he isn't dead by then. A lot of people asked me why I devoted so much time to the topic yesterday since it's a settled issue. Congressman Dan Goldman was concerned enough by Trump's third term "joke" to introduce a resolution affirming that the 22nd Amendment precludes it. Except, since early this year, the far right has been insisting that you're wrong, that's not what the 22nd Amendment says. The headline in a recent edition of the magazine The American Conservative: “TRUMP 2028.” Sub-head: “The 22nd Amendment is an arbitrary restraint on presidents who serve non-consecutive terms – and on democracy itself.” The American Conservative, by the way, is a "partner" of Project 2025.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

[SEGMENT 1-1] Trump's Free Speech Agenda 1   When it comes to people being concerned about Trump, we had only one. That Trump would believe wrongly that his success would overcome any objections to his second term. I believe now that Trump gets it. Success is only part of the answer. The second part is the complete dismantling of the Deep State. This man dropped a bomb on the Left and the Deep State. [X] SB – Trump First Amendment agenda Shatter the Left wing censorship Bombshell reports, Deep State bureaucrats, Silicon Valley, conspiracy Elections to public health EO banning Federal collusion to censor, limit, categorize, or impede speech No Fed money for mis or disinformation Fire every bureaucrat who participated DOJ to investigate all who were involve in online censorship regime.  [SEGMENT 1-2] Trump's Free Speech Agenda 2 Welcome… Before I get too deeply into this topic, let me play this clip from CNN, where Scott Jennings is concerned about secret meetings. [X] SB – CNN's Scott Jennings on secret meetings     Democrats continue to call Trump “Hitler”, because they acted like Hitler and know that Trump has every right to be a Hitler so to speak. At least in how he deals with them. But this strategy will backfire. Because Trump is going to be dictatorial in his destruction of them. Except his tactics are SELLABLE. They set Trump up to be able to PROVE why he's making these moves.  [SEGMENT 1-3] Trump's Free Speech Agenda 3   [X] SB – Lies told about women's access to healthcare   What better person to lead a free speech agenda, than the man who speaks his mind? Trump speaks his mind as much as any American. And if you ask me, that's what resonated most with people. They didn't always like what he had to say, but they appreciated that he said it. That he had the guts to say what he meant, and he was unapologetic. Do YOU know anybody like that, people listening to TKJN? [X] SB – Pelosi Consequences of Trump's rhetoric Diminishing the power of the president   It's refreshing to hear somebody say something you're thinking, but perhaps don't have the guts to say. Those people become your champion. Look at how many things Trump championed. Close the border Deport illegals Keep criminals in jail or prison Defend the police No sissies in the military No stupid wars And no matter what Trump said or how much sense it made, Democrats and RINOS fought him.  [SEGMENT 1-4] Trump's Free Speech Agenda 4   [X] SB – ABC's Sarah Isgur on how the Left behaves Mandate Yes. Condescending. Arrogant Exclusionary         Look at what Schumer has publicly stated he would do. He will use his power in the Senate to thwart Trump at every turn. Why? Because he's butt-hurt. And what about Gavin Newsom. His state is in freefall, and he has vowed to stop Trump at all cost.    Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-kevin-jackson-show--2896352/support.

Trump's Not-So-Veiled Threat That "Bad Things Could Happen" If He Loses the Election | The Pernicious GOP Operation Underway by Partisan Vigilantes to Purge Voter Rolls | Kamala May Win Big and She Has to Because Trump's GOP Will Cheat Rather Than Compete

I go on TV a lot. And I talk about the race for President most of the time. And I'm probably a lousy guest because I don't like to talk about how Trump is doing in the polls. Because Trump is a traitor to this country. That's what I want to say every time I go on TV. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After a decade of being held without charges, the Empire releases Julian Assange with a spank on the way out. Trump had the chance to 1.) NOT persecute a journalist, which he did, and 2.) Pardon him after persecution, but he didn't. Why? Because Trump has no real core ideals to guide him. Can you trust someone like that to deliver on promises?

Hey main feed, surprise! This week's Town Watch episode, usually JUST for our Patreon supporters (which you should totally become!) is coming out on the main feed too!Why? Because Trump is guity and that's just too much fun to not go worldwide.So enjoy!! Says Who is made possible by you, through your support of our Patreon at patreon.com/sayswho

SERIES 2 EPISODE 183: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: It is becoming increasingly obvious that Trump and the authoritarians seeking to overthrow democracy in the United States and install him as dictator for life and then enact the equivalent of ethnic cleansing… have made the choice to let everybody KNOW… that they are seeking to overthrow the democracy in the United States and install him as dictator and then enact the equivalent of ethnic cleansing. You may recall him summoning most of the fossil fuel industry of this country to Mar-a-Lago in April and essentially demanding they put one billion dollars into his campaign so he can eliminate virtually all the restrictions on their businesses as they try to destroy the planet faster. Now The Washington Post reports that early THIS month he summoned most of the big money donors to the Republicans and other fascists to the Pierre Hotel here in New York and was essentially demanding they increase THEIR donations by a factor of 25 or 50 so he can eliminate virtually all TAXES on their businesses and incomes… A businessman, he told them, had offered a donation of a million dollars to his campaign, in exchange for lunch. The Post's sources quote Trump as replying “I'm not having lunch. You've got to make it 25 million.” Then there was the donor who normally gave two to three million. “He told the donor that he wanted a 25 million dollar or 50 million dollar contribution or he would not be, quote ‘very happy'. It's blackmail. Give me the money I want – 25 times as much as you planned – or else. It's kinda Robert DeNiro, in "The Untouchables," playing Al Capone, carrying around a baseball bat. Which is funny because who showed up at the trial yesterday but DeNiro and suddenly the Trumpists are enraged that anybody would dare bring people TO the courthouse! If this unvarnished, unrestrained, undeniable corruption were not obvious enough that Trump just doesn't GIVE a shit any more – you're not going to shame him, you're not going to restrain him, you're not going to prosecute him – he's decided it's us or him… there's the SECOND part. Trump posted a video – another one of these fig leaf deniable videos: HE didn't MAKE the video, he just POSSSSSSTED this video. And so the threats in the video, nominally directed at Joe Scarborough, that Trump will "get rid of all you offing liberals; you liberals are gone" aren't Trump's threats.  Except, of course they are. Because Trump has called his opponents vermin and vowed to get rid of them. And expel all the immigrants. And put them in concentration camps. And use the army. And use the cops. And if you can do that, you can point at Joe Scarborough and say "YOU are now defined as an immigrant. Get in the camp." And that... is ethnic cleansing. B-Block (30:49) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The Renfield-ification of Lindsey Graham is complete. Speaker Mike Johnson is stalling on the installation of a Capitol plaque honoring the police from January 6th. And Pastor Shane Vaughn has news for you: Jesus was a millionaire. C-Block (41:30) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: Since yesterday was the saga of the 45th anniversary of my college graduation, today must be the saga of the class I nearly failed because the professor was mad because the quarterback of his favorite football team fumbled away a victory in the final minute. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Tump! Immigration! Insurrection! Muslim Tavel Ban! Elon Musk! What do any of those things have to do with a discrimination lawsuit against Red Hat, the worlds largest Linux company? Well... nothing. Nothing at all. But Tech News outlet, The Register, wants you to stop thinking about Red Hat doing something wrong... and, instead, be angry at anyone who would attack Red Hat. Because Trump. Or something. All of the Red Hat / IBM leaks: https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5515346/the-ibm-red-hat-leaks-what-weve-learned-so-far More from The Lunduke Journal: http://lunduke.com Subscribe at: https://lunduke.locals.com/ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lunduke.substack.com/subscribe

SEASON 2 EPISODE 161: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Justice Juan Merchan MUST put Trump's ass in jail for violating the gag order - even if it's only one hour at Rikers Island. Trump is determined to break Merchan, break the New York Court, break the Criminal Justice System. He is a cornered and wounded animal and this is life-or-death for him. Think of a cockroach - only with thumbs. So it's him or us that gets broken, and Merchan has to make sure it isn't us. Trump tried to finesse the gag order by quoting somebody else – this worm Watters from Fox – denigrating the jurors and the judge and adding to the pile of stochastic inducements to violence against anyone who thwarts Trump. And by morning one of the jurors – the silhouette of their name and the vague depiction of their home – was quitting out of fear. Because what Trump sought by denigrating the jury WORKS. Because Trump's intimidation WORKS. Because Trump's terrorism WORKS. Prosecutors began Day 3 of the trial yesterday noting he had violated the gag order SEVEN times just since jury selection started and they actually UNDER-SOLD the most egregious of the violations, with Joshua Steinglass saying “the defendant reposted about liberals lying to try to get on the jury, a post by Jesse Watters.” That was NOT a re-post. Trump does dozens of re-posts a day. You hit a re-post icon, a couple of rounded arrows. Maybe you add a comment. Trump KNOWS what a re-post IS. That is NOT what Trump – or someone in control of the social media account bearing his name – DID. What Trump did was to make a NEW post, QUOTING Watters. It redd – and still reads:“They are catching undercover Liberal Activists lying to the Judge in order to get on the Trump Jury - Jesse Watters.” It is in Trump's own electronic hand. It is not a re-post. It is not ‘technically ok within the gag order' because Trump ISN'T lying about the judge and the jurors and endangering them all, he's just QUOTING Jesse Watters lying about the judge and the jurors and endangering them all. RUNNING THE HEADLINES: Derrick Van Orden, a walking PTSD demonstration, calls Matt Gaetz "tubby" and Marjorie Taylor Greene demands anybody who votes for Ukraine aid be conscripting into its military as the House Republican caucus comes apart at the seems. Happily Jared Moskowitz is there with the big yucks and a Rick Perry protege has the best idea yet: four Republicans should resign from the House to own the liberals. FOUR? How about FIVE? FIFTY? Think big be big my friend! And why on earth did Kari Lake devote a disturbingly large part of a campaign speech to repeatedly saying "strap-on?" B-Block (31:18) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: Clay Travis goes from being the knight in shining armor defending the sanctity of women's sports from destruction by trans athletes, to insisting that Caitlin Clark isn't actually popular and nobody CARES about women's sports. The Charlotte GOP still hasn't realized it insulted Trump online and he'll see it eventually. And Twain was wrong: history DOES sometimes repeat itself. In 2005 I watched on in astonishment as Bo Dietl began his new MSNBC show by calling a gay reporter a "fudge-packer" and get fired within two weeks. Now, he's been fired for ANOTHER homophobic rant directed at ANOTHER reporter. Did you know Dietl's specialty in the NYPD was to serve as the mugging decoy? So he was mugged 500 times? Does it show? C-Block (48:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Snowie is fine - now - but her family could use a little help plowing through the bills for the medical wizardry that saved her life. (49:30) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: Appropriately enough, Thurber takes a dog who was alive when Teddy Roosevelt was president and makes him seem as new as the youngest pup. "The Dog That Bit People."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Find me and the show on social media @DrWilmerLeon on X (Twitter), Instagram, and YouTube Facebook page is www.facebook.com/Drwilmerleonctd   FULL TRANSCRIPT: Announcer (00:06): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Wilmer Leon (00:14): Welcome to the Connecting the Dots podcast with Dr. Wilmer Leon. And I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Here's the point. We have a tendency to view current events as though they happen in a vacuum, failing to understand the historical context, the broader historic context in which these events occur. During each episode, my guests and I have probing, provocative, and in-depth discussions that connect the dots between current events and the broader historic context in which they occur. This enables you to better understand and analyze events that impact the global village in which we live on today's episode. The issues before us are, what are the anticipated results of the most recent China Russia meetings is the US pivoting from Ukraine and Russia to China, and is the US independent is the US as an independent actor in Haiti as it claims, and we'll also discuss some other issues. My guest for this iteration of Connecting the Dots is a man who I am very proud to call a friend. His analysis is always spot on, and he's really just cool people. He's an author, two time Pulitzer Prize finalist, a Knight Fellowship recipient with more than 20 years of journalistic experience. He's a former Washington Post Bureau chief and award-winning foreign correspondent on two continents. John Jeter. John, my brother. Welcome to the show. Jon Jeter (01:51): My pleasure, brother. Thank you. That's an outstanding introduction. I really appreciate Wilmer Leon (01:56): It. Well, I know my check is on its way, so I'll sit by the mailbox. So, hey, so earlier this week, the Global Times reported Chinese President Xi meets Russian foreign Secretary Lavrov and reaffirms China's emphasis on partnership with Russia and Chinese analysts said the meeting sends a strong signal that China will firmly develop its strategic partnership with Russia despite pressure from the West, and that the China Russias partnership continues to be key for the global strategic balance and the hope of promoting a multipolar world in which countries in the global south will have greater roles to play. John, your thoughts? Jon Jeter (02:49): Yeah, no, this is a tectonic shift and we've been talking about this for quite a while on your show, and it's like a tanker. And of course it takes a while for that tanker to move, but it is moving. It is in motion. We see that geopolitical shift from the west as the United States, as France, as the UK gets increasingly desperate as they grow increasingly out of favor with what they're doing in Gaza and backing Israel's genocide. And we see this is a victory lap for Russia, what they've done in Ukraine. It is all over. But the shouting, if I can use a phrase from my southern cousins, and this is, from what I understand, it's very rare for the president of China or any other country to entertain the foreign secretary. Usually it's foreign secretary or foreign secretary. (03:48) Yeah, exactly. So this is a big deal. Again, it's like a tanker movement. It takes a while. And if I can sort of mix metaphors, like Lenon said, history moves and spiral. So this thing is not just sort of a linear thing, but it's just kind of moving in a certain direction. And we see Russia and China starting to sort of take charge, starting to ascend very much like the United States did almost exactly a century ago. After World War I we're seeing China and Russia start to make their rise as this geopolitical force, the geopolitical almost like a ruling party for the global elite. And it's almost inevitable. It's almost inexorable at this point. The only real question is how will the United States respond? It can sort of go kicking and screaming or it can negotiate sort of its dissension into second place. So we'll see what happens. I think history says, of course it will go kicking and screaming, but hopefully cooler heads will prevail at some point and we'll see what happens. But this thing is going in a very definite direction. I don't think it's at this point, I don't think you can put the genie back in the bottle. And I think China and Russia see the future and it's theirs. Wilmer Leon (05:13): I think people really need to pay attention to the next statement that I'm going to read because the western narrative of this is militarism. The focus of the West as it relates to this rising partnership is militarism. But Lee Ong, a professor at the Chinese Foreign Affairs University, said China and Russia will not target any third, but if hegemonic forces threaten China and Russia or threaten world peace, China and Russia will stand together and fight to protect their own interests and safeguard world peace together. And I want to reiterate, they will not target any third party. So I take this as they're saying, don't start, nothing Jon Jeter (06:17): Won't be, won't be none. Wilmer Leon (06:20): We're going to handle our business. Jon Jeter (06:22): Yeah, yeah, (06:26) I think so. I don't know if you've ever seen Oliver Stone's history of the world was the history world or history of the United States, I can't remember. But he talks at length about the relationship between the Soviet Union and the United States and the Soviet Union, despite the depictions by Reagan and other presidents of the Soviet Union as this sort of aggressively hostile evil empire that want to take control of the world. The Soviet Union was really just terrified of the United States. They thought that the United States was insane that it was run by mad men. I think that still very much holds true. I think Putin understands that his error, if he made any his error, was entrusting the United States to some extent and hoping I think that he could sort of find some common ground within United States. I think he sees now that that is not possible. Although he said, interestingly enough, he said, apparently in a speech sometime ago, I heard someone else say this. I think it was Ray McGovern, former CIA operative who said that Putin said, Wilmer Leon (07:30): Analyst. Jon Jeter (07:31): Yes, analyst. I'm sorry. Yeah. He said in a speech recently that Putin had once said, or very recently said that the United States and Russia at some point will find common ground, but the EU in Russia will never find common ground. I think very interesting, but I think don't think the Putin, I don't think he's ever read Maya Angelou when she wrote, when someone tells you who they are, believe them, believe them. But I think he believes them now. I think he believes in the United States. And so we see this alignment where China and Russia, and this is our shock in all moment really. Right? We are not looking for the smoke, but we here for it. If you've got some, for us, I think this is a very direct message at Washington. At France, this thing in Ukraine is over. I mean, it's all over, but the shouting again, there's some loose ends to wrap up, including this terrorist attack that was very likely staged by Ukraine and Russia a few weeks ago. So there's some loose ends to wrap up, but this thing is all over, and I think the Russia and China are now turning to the next phase, which is this inevitable rise to the top of the geopolitical order. Again, it's not a linear thing. Take some time. We see them sort of orchestrating bricks and bricks has not really been the dynamo that we expected, but what we see is that other, Wilmer Leon (08:56): It's coming. Jon Jeter (08:57): It's coming though. And we also see that there are other countries, particularly in Africa, particularly in Latin America with Mexico and Venezuela has been there for a while, but we see countries sort of mimicking bricks, parroting bricks in terms of Zimbabwe is talking about a gold back currency. And we see, of course, what South Africa is doing, which is sort of defining itself outside the US orbit, the Western orbit. So we see some things that are in motion, and Russia and China are at the center and the United States and the West, the collective West is increasingly being pushed to the outer margins. Wilmer Leon (09:38): Well, and I'm going to stay with that pushed, let me just say, because people, I'm glad you brought up bricks because people have to understand that this isn't just China and Russia. This is China and Russia, and the Bricks is an acronym for Brazil, India, China, I'm sorry, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. And then you have the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. So there are a number of countries that, Venezuela, Iran, there are a number of countries that are looking to join this group as well. And I'm glad you used the point that the United States is going to be pushed to the margins because what a lot of people really, particularly in the West really have to pay attention to is the fact that it's the sanctions regime of the United States. It's the threat of militarism by the United States. It's the blowing up of the Nord Stream pipeline by the United States that has really forced this relationship to develop and to grow, and now to become to the part where you've got G and Lavrov meeting for what will eventually be a meeting and a signing of documents between G and Putin. It's the United States fault that they have come to the point that they have John G. Yes. Jon Jeter (11:16): No, that's exactly right. And a couple of things I think it would be important to note. One is that Janet Yellen was just in China and compare her meeting with, I don't know if she met with G or not, but she met with, I know she met with her finance people. Wilmer Leon (11:35): She met with the finance people, and I think she met with Wang Lee, the foreign minister. Jon Jeter (11:39): Yes. And so her message was, you're overproducing and it's hurting us, which is foolish. And I'm being generous by saying that it's fool. That's a foolish message. It's almost like Rip Van Winkle waking up after 50 years saying, you're over producing too much. It's hurting us. What did you think was going to happen? Do you not understand how this capital system works? So you compare Wilmer Leon (12:05): That minute. And also I thought that the United States was all about free markets. Jon Jeter (12:12): Right, exactly. Wilmer Leon (12:16): I thought the market was supposed to determine what succeeds and what fails. The invisible hand and all Jon Jeter (12:25): This. Yeah. Jack Young's a socialist who knew, right? I think that's amazing though that we see this desperation. Wilmer Leon (12:35): She was begging Jon Jeter (12:37): Yes and no. I said this before, but I keep returning to it. It's amazing how this self adoration and self worship by the United States doesn't lead to self-awareness, right. This idea how this looks like to the rest of the world. The other thing too, I think this is a perfect segue. It is what the rest of the world is starting to see. And you might argue that it's late even for that to happen for them to see what's happening, but at least they are starting now to see that this world that was defined by the United States with neoliberalism, beginning with Ronald Reagan, really pushed by Bill Clinton, this whole neoliberal idea has failed, has failed. The idea was that if you do these things to open up your markets to us, you'll look like the United States one day. You will be as rich and prosperous as we are. (13:36) That hasn't happened anywhere, not even in the United States. It has not happened anywhere. No one looks like the United States in some ways. That's very good. And so the world is seeing that this was a snake oil, right, being sold by the snake oil salesman. And so we're at this pivotal point, and this is very much like what did Mike Tyson used to say? Everybody has a plan. You get smack in the nose, you get punched. Yeah. The United States has been smacking nose in Ukraine, and let me end with this. And the other thing in terms of it not working, and everyone else sees this, everyone else in the world, especially China and Russia, the United States, we have stolen money. We've stolen oil from in Syria. We are in Iraq, and they have problem, I think is at least two times, told the United States, one of the United States to leave Iraq. (14:33) And we're still there, like the guests from Hurricane Katrina who never want to leave. That's what the United States is there in Iraq. And now we've stolen money from Afghanistan, stolen money, we've stolen money from Venezuela, and now we're about to steal money. The international reserves from Russia. And so this is going to destroy the United States as a reliable or trusted partner in any kind of commercial transaction. If they're just going to steal money, no one's going to trust them. So they're really in a very difficult spot. The rest of the world sees what's happening. The United States has no idea, or at least the American people don't. I think our leadership knows, but they have no way out. Wilmer Leon (15:20): To your point about stealing money, for those that may not understand what you're referring to, many people remember the United States froze Iranian assets and was slowly returning some of those assets to Iran. Then the United States, when Juan Waid do became, was forced on the Venezuelan people in the world. Then the United States froze Venezuelan assets that I think were held in British banks, and now the United States is talking about freezing some of the Russian sovereign wealth fund that is being held in banks around the world. But the interesting thing is, a lot of those banks are telling the United States, that's not a good idea. Don't drag us into this because we don't want to have to deal with the repercussions of what Russia will do to us if we steal their money. And I think some of that perspective is coming from the reality that the United States is not the only game in town anymore. That's right. And Debo, if we go back to the movie Fridays, Deebo got hit with a brick, Jon Jeter (16:46): Right? That's right. He got knocked the F out, Wilmer Leon (16:51): Laying out on Craig's front lawns. So this is, man, this thing is unraveling. It is unraveling quickly, and folks really need to pay attention. President Xi said, he said, China and Russia have embarked upon a new path of harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation between major countries and neighbors, which has benefited the two countries and their peoples and contributed wisdom and strength to international fairness and justice. A couple of things in that statement. One, win-win cooperation. A lot of people need to understand that win-win is not just some euphemism that is thrown around carelessly win-win is an actual international cooperation strategy that Russia tries to reach with the countries it does business with. They don't go in and overthrow your government. They don't come in and tell you how to run your country. You have resources, they have money. They want to buy your resources at relatively fair market value, and they want you to be happy and they'll be happy. And that's how they do business. And they contribute wisdom and strength to international fairness and justice. That's not just rhetoric that they hide behind as some kind of excuse for overthrowing your government. That's right. (18:48) People need to listen to Xi. People need to listen to Putin because you listen to what they say, and then you look at what they do. And those things seem to be simpatico, John. Jon Jeter (19:01): Yeah, there's no doubt. I just think as someone who considers himself a Pan-Africanist, I think this is a very exciting time. It's not written in stone yet, but there's a very real opportunity, I think for, we see things happening in Africa now, some bad things with the militarization of Africa by Africa in the United States, but we also see in some ways that has backfired. So we see this militarization as a result of, in these cos by soldiers who have been trained by the United States, but who are representative of their people, particularly in Burkina Faso with this young man. And these, we see Africa turning more towards Russia, which is actually where it was during the Cold War. But we see it turning back towards Russia finding these Wilmer Leon (19:52): Ties. Where is Patrice Lumumba University? Jon Jeter (19:56): It's Wilmer Leon (19:56): In Moscow. That's Jon Jeter (19:58): Right. That's right. And the Chinese, I don't think it's a thing where African countries can sort of just lay back and be passive and say, oh, China's going to save us. And I think they know this. I think China has cut a better deal than the United States, but one that's so far has not necessarily been favorable and has led to economic development, which is what Africa most needs is economic development. Their own industrial sector at this point, one that is more environmentally sustainable, but they need their own industrial sector. They, they grow coffee, but they don't actually roast the coffee. Things like this. This is what they need. But I do think this, Wilmer Leon (20:36): They need to wait a minute to that point, because that's a brilliant point. People need to understand that we all know that the continent of Africa is the repository of minerals, but in most instances, they don't process the minerals from raw form, raw ore, for example, into a marketable commodity Jon Jeter (21:10): Value added. Wilmer Leon (21:11): In fact, I think it was either Ghana or Guyana that makes cocoa, cocoa Jon Jeter (21:19): Beans, Ghana, I believe it's Ghana. Wilmer Leon (21:20): Okay. So Ghana had been selling the unprocessed cocoa beans to Switzerland, and Ghana decided we're going to start processing our own cocoa bean into cocoa powder domestically. Switzerland said, well, then we won't buy your product. China said, we'll buy it. You processed it, buy it. Jon Jeter (21:51): That's what I'm talking about. Yes, yes. That's a very different relationship. That's one where there's an opportunity to grow to, because these value added industries are where the money is, right? Correct. They raise wages for people. I'll tell a very quick story about my time in South Africa about 25 years ago when I was a young man, and I had a girlfriend at the time, and I was famously cheap. I'm still famously cheap, although I'm also broke, but I thought, I'm going to South Africa, so I'll buy some gold. And they have diamonds here, so I'll buy her a nice tennis bracelet. I thought thinking it would be cheaper there actually turned out it costs more there because while they mine the gold and the diamonds in South Africa, they have to send it all the way to Antwerp to get it cut, then send it back to South Africa. (22:33) That's where the money is. So this is what I think can happen if Africa, they have to be strategic, they have to cut better deals with China. But China, there's some daylight with China that did not exist with the United States or the West, where China is a better grade of capitalism, and they get very much like what China did with the United States, beginning with the Nixon administration, where China basically cut these deals. They knew what they were doing, and I don't think they knew that they were playing into the United States racism. And I'm not saying that China is racist like the United States, but they cut this deal knowing that eventually it would lead to this industrialized economy, right? Africa can do the same thing with China's investments. If they're strategic, I don't think that China's going to offer it just off the top of their head, but they can negotiate these things. I think China is willing a willing partner in this enterprise. So we're on the cusp of something I think that is transformative, not just for the United States, but for the world. And so it's exciting at the same time, of course, it's sort of traumatizing to see what's going on in the world, but it's just, what did KY say? This is the interregnum, the oldest dying and the new Wilmer Leon (23:46): Cannot be born, has yet been born or cannot be born. Cannot Jon Jeter (23:51): Be born, right? Yet Wilmer Leon (23:54): Two things, and we'll move on to talking about what's happening in Haiti. And that is, I was listening to Lloyd Austin, secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, and his testimony before the Senate, and I don't remember the senator, but one of them asked him, can you tell us that you'll support our move to break the ties, the supply chain with China? Because the Department of Defense, all of this rhetoric about China is our enemy, and we hate China. The Department of Defense buys critical components from China for defense equipment, for drones. And it's not just as easy anymore as saying, we're not going to get this stuff from China because some of these things, China is the only place you can get them. That's right. So on the one hand, we're standing here beating our chests about screaming at China, and at the same time, we're getting key military components from them. And by the way, Janet Yellen is there meeting with them about trade and finance. Why? Because they hold so much of our debt. That's right. That's right. And so those are elements, that's why I say, folks, you've got to connect these dots and things don't happen in a vacuum. There's a much broader historical context in which these things are operating, but CNN and M-S-N-B-C-I-A and the Washington Post, they won't give you the context. That's one of the things that is so invaluable, I believe about this show. And guests like my good brother John Jeter. (25:59) Oh, before we get to Haiti, one final point on this too, and that is there was a piece in the South China Morning post, the United States leaves a mess in Ukraine and moves on to China as the State Department, I'm sorry, at the State Department, the Ukraine girl is out, and the China guy is in. From Washington's perspective, it was a right assessment, whether that's good for Asia and world peace is a different matter. So basically what they're talking about is the United States has decided that Ukraine basically is lost, and they're now trying to pivot, going back to Barack Obama and the pivot towards Asia. They're trying to pivot away from Ukraine the same way they did in Afghanistan. 25 years of getting your hin parts whooped in Afghanistan, then you cut and run. And was it ironic that you then start the fight of Ukraine? And in fact, in listening to Lloyd Austin, they said since 2014, the United States has spent 300 billion in Ukraine. And I know that's a low estimate, but it's the number they quoted during the hearings, 300 billion. Jon Jeter (27:33): What did Tupac say? You got money for wars, but can't feed the poor. There you Wilmer Leon (27:37): Go. And what did Dr. King say? War is the enemy of the poor. Jon Jeter (27:43): That's right. John Jeter. Yeah, no, that's exactly right. I was listening to Jeffrey Sacks the other day. I spent half my time just listening to these podcasts with people like Jeffrey Sacks. But he was saying he was answering, he was on that show Rising, I think, and he was answering a question about his critics who said that he was a Putin apologist. And the anchor asked him, what do you say to your critics? He said, I told you so. (28:08) That's how I answered. I told you so. Right. Ukraine is wrecked, and the money they're trying to send over there now, it's not going to make any difference on the battlefield. This is war profit change. This is how the United States makes its money now. And this is all, it's very seamless too. You won't hear it in the press, but it's very seamless. We began to ship our manufacturing sector overseas, beginning with China in the seventies under Richard Nixon, in part to punish the radical black political movement that was kryptonite to capital, very much like Kryptonite. What kryptonite is the Superman, the radical black political movement was to our oligarchs. And so we started sending this. Wilmer Leon (28:56): How so explain that for the audience, Jon Jeter (28:58): Because what you'll see, and you'll see this actually cyclically going back to even radical reconstruction, where this radical black political tradition, what it's allowed to express itself freely as a way of galvanizing the people, or if you are Marxist or Marxist friendly, the working class, that's just what it is. And so I've interviewed people like Bernadine Dorn who was with the Weather Underground. She says she spent her first year as the head of students for a Democratic society going around to these white college campuses telling them the first thing you need to do is get in touch with the black college, the historically black college down the street. You need to get in touch with them, see what they're talking about. So this is, that's Wilmer Leon (29:48): Part of what Bois was writing about in reconstruction in America. Jon Jeter (29:53): That's exactly right. That's exactly, it goes back to that reconstruction. If you look at that era, right? A lot of things happened, but there was Confederacy in the former Confederate states. There was a interracial political party of some type in every Confederate state in the union after the Civil War. And they all had varying degrees of success, but they all redistributed wealth from the top to the working class. They have some success in doing that. And so it is that black political voice that really has shaped and modernized this country, especially when you look at the New Deal. We look at the blacks who are allowed finally to join the labor unions. And together we fought. And of course, I mean, honestly, whites just went back to being white after that battle was won or after we were winning the battle, they started going back to being white in the seventies. That's what Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were about. Really fast, Wilmer Leon (30:46): But minute, minute. Wait a minute. Just take a step back there, because I think it's important for people to realize that post the abolition of enslavement, you had newly freed Africans that were actually joining forces with poor whites. Oh, no question. And the industrialists realized that's a force that we cannot allow to grow in this country. And they then started injecting the whole construct of race into that relationship to draw a wedge between the two. So when you say that in the seventies, whites went back to being white, I wanted to be sure that people understood where that mentality came from. Jon Jeter (31:36): And just to be clear, if you understand, people who are of a certain age will remember in the seventies when we started to see these movies, I love Paul Newman, but he was in that movie, what was it? Ford, Apache, the Bronx, these movies and these television shows, which starts to show basically, blacks is unfit for public office or blacks is unfit for public to participate in public affairs. That's what it was, right? So we're criminals, we're drug dealers, we're unpatriotic. Just as one example, if you remember the movie Alien from 1980, the most dangerous thing, that movie, other than the monster that had crept on board was Koda, who didn't want, who was just concerned about his pay, right? So this image is what has shaped modern politics. The black as unpatriotic, as unfit to lead is unfit to participate. And so this is what we're really dealing with at bottom. This is why there's never been a socialist movement or working class movement in the United States the way there's been, even in Europe. Wilmer Leon (32:38): And Point could take us into a eugenics conversation. Yes, Dr. Chantel Sherman, I'm going to give you your props here and now, in fact, I got to get Dr. Chantel Sherman on, because you're talking about the way that we were misrepresented in the films. That's also been a history of eugenics supporting the whole argument that scientifically, that biologically, we are incapable of managing and blah, blah, blah, because our brains are too small, our heads are too big and all that. So anyway, again, connecting the dots, folks, this is why you watch this show. I'm sorry, go ahead, John, you. Jon Jeter (33:28): No, no. Yeah. So I was just saying, I think the understanding these connections are what really helps us find a way forward. I don't know, honestly, if black and white can unite and fight the United States at this point, but I do believe that as Fred Hampton said, we can achieve black power for black people, white power for white people, yellow power for yellow people, and X power for all the people we left out. I do think that's possible if we can start to eradicate this tribalism, or at least put it aside long enough to work together and understand that we're at war Ukraine, not because Putin is trying to Wilmer Leon (34:07): Take Jon Jeter (34:07): Over Europe. Yeah, he's not trying to. There's no history of that, right? Either the Soviet Union or for Putin, this is about the Wall Street profiteering. They don't have any way to make money. They shipped all the jobs overseas. They killed the goose, delayed the golden egg, and now they're trying to make money. That's what I'm just looking at at a television ad. I was watching the NBA game. They had an ad about gambling, and the gambling is illegal everywhere. Now why is that? Where Cuba is, like Cuba was in 1958, right? It's because they can't make money any other way or through gambling through these Uber, which is basically just rent seeking what the French call rent seeking, looking to profit off something that already exists. This is how they make money, and war is part of that. So you really do have to connect the dots. Your show is aptly named. You really do have to connect the dots historically and contemporaneously to understand what's going on, because that's the only way you can actually work your way out of this. As my father would say, my late father would've said this trick bag that we find ourselves in, Wilmer Leon (35:09): And the new Deputy Secretary of State, Kurt Campbell, to your point about profiteering quote, I would argue that working closely with other nations, not just diplomatically, but in defense avenues, has the consequence of strengthening peace and stability more generally. So what he's saying is dumping more military hardware into already very tense situations and making them more volatile somehow is going to strengthen peace and stability. Or as Orwell said, in terms of doublespeak war is peace. Jon Jeter (35:54): Right? I think Obama said the same thing. Did he not? Wilmer Leon (35:57): Yes, he did, Jon Jeter (35:59): Basically, which tells you a lot about Obama and why he was put in that place, why he was installed. It says a lot about Obama and this country. Wilmer Leon (36:08): So let's quickly move to Haiti because there's been a lot happening over the last, a lot of negative things happening for Haitians in Haiti. The Washington Post of all places had a piece. When Haiti's gangs shop for guns, the United States is their store. Now, there's a lot of crap and a lot of garbage in this piece because again, it is the Washington Post. But Jon Jeter (36:38): My former employer, I should, I should. Wilmer Leon (36:40): There you go. So am I wrong? Jon Jeter (36:43): Not at all. Wilmer Leon (36:44): Okay. Not Jon Jeter (36:44): At all. Wilmer Leon (36:46): So heavily. This is the Washington Post. Heavily armed gangs controlled 80% of Port-au-Prince, according to a un estimate where they rape, kidnap, and kill with impunity. Haiti doesn't manufacture firearms, and the un prohibits importing them. But that's no problem for the criminals when they go shopping, the US is their gun store. And what there is so much context and so much reality that is omitted from this piece. For example, Haiti doesn't manufacture weapons, but that's no problem for the criminals because the elite in Haiti that control the ports A, allow the weapons into the country. John Jeter. Jon Jeter (37:34): Yeah. And I even take issue with that phrasing, the criminals who exactly are the criminals. Wilmer Leon (37:38): That's my point. That's why I mentioned the elite. Jon Jeter (37:41): Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, the problem with Haiti, people think it's just these sort of animalistic Haitians who are always fighting. And this guy named Barbecue was just this crazy maniacal cannibal Haitian. Yeah, cannibal. Right, right, right. They Wilmer Leon (38:03): Were talking about him eating people last week. Jon Jeter (38:06): Yeah. Well, but if you ask the Haitian people, right? I mean, really the Haitian people, right? Not the elites, but they'll tell you if you really, everybody of course knows what happened with Haiti and Napoleon and then the debts and the United States going in in 1915. But they'll tell you, people in Haiti will tell you, well, you can trace this back to when they got rid of John Tron Air, Steve Credit elected president, who is I think still Wilmer Leon (38:34): You said they, who was the they? Jon Jeter (38:36): Oh, the United States. Thank you. Who at gunpoint. At gunpoint went in. They Wilmer Leon (38:41): Kidnapped him, Jon Jeter (38:43): Kidnapped him, and then would not, Obama did this first black president, my president is black, would that allow him back in the country to run for president? But when let baby doc back in to run for president? And then part of the reason was, and they've got all these arrangements sweatshops there. They're taking land that can be used for agriculture. Your Wilmer Leon (39:05): Levi jeans are probably made in Jon Jeter (39:07): Haiti, baseballs are made, Wilmer Leon (39:09): Baseball are made in Haiti. Jon Jeter (39:11): And this is a company apparently that Hillary Clinton fought to keep the wages low to make these baseball. I can't even watch baseball anymore knowing that. Right. And so we always, Wilmer Leon (39:22): Hang on a second, because you talk about the wages. So let me make this point so I don't forget it. So they talk about the arms that are trafficked, however you say it to Haiti, are purchased by straw purchasers in states such as Florida, a 50 caliber sniper rifle that sells for $10,000 in the US can get as much as $80,000. In Haiti, a 50 caliber sniper rifle that sells for $10,000 in the US can fetch $80,000 in Haiti. What is the average annual gross income per capita income for a Haitian, Jon Jeter (40:21): I don't think it's $8,000. I don't think it's one 10th of that. It's Wilmer Leon (40:25): 1000 as of 2022, which is the last time the data was collected, $1,247 and 89 cents, which averages $3 and 42 cents per day. So how is somebody who makes on average $3 and 42 cents per day going to buy an $80,000 50 caliber sniper rifle? Jon Jeter (41:07): Right? Right. Who's buying these weapons? Wilmer Leon (41:09): Thank you, John G. Who's Jon Jeter (41:11): Buying these weapons? The job of the media today is to, and it's always been this way, but now it's worse than ever. The job is to decontextualize the news is to disconnect it from the history. And that's why you get this sort of constant barrage of, well, the economy's doing great. I don't know why people are so upset because they're broke, fool. That's why people saying Wilmer Leon (41:34): To the position of decontextualization. So you see these pictures, or you see this footage of these Haitian young men roaming the streets with AR fifteens, AK 40 sevens. 40 caliber Berettas, which will run you close to a 40 caliber Beretta, depending on a model will run, you say between $700 and a grand. And nobody asks the question, where'd that kid get their pistol from? That's Jon Jeter (42:10): Right. That's right. That's right. Wilmer Leon (42:12): He's making $3 and 42 cents a day, $1,200 a year, and he's walking around with, and we aren't even talking about putting bullets in the thing. Nobody's asking that question. Jon Jeter (42:29): Right? Right, right. Jon Jeter (42:31): Yeah. Well, we are right. But the media doesn't want to ask because the answer is very uncomfortable. The answer is very discomforting. It's the Wilmer Leon (42:38): Core group. They're called the core Jon Jeter (42:40): Group. That's right. That's right. They're Wilmer Leon (42:42): Called Montana Group. Jon Jeter (42:44): Was it six families that run Haiti basically? Right. None of them black, by the way. None of them black. I think they're Lebanese and something Wilmer Leon (42:52): Else like that, that I'm not sure of. I think, Jon Jeter (42:55): But they're not black. Maybe some of them are, but most of them are not. Wilmer Leon (43:01): Most of 'em are not. Okay. So folks, you've got to understand the context here. And now, I can't remember the guy's name, but the United States has just appointed a new ambassador to Haiti. But here's the trick bag. If I can quote the late Mr. Jeter, in order for an ambassador to be recognized, he or she has to present his or her credentials to the president of the country that he's going to. Jon Jeter (43:43): There's Wilmer Leon (43:44): No Jon Jeter (43:44): President. There's no president. How does that work? So Wilmer Leon (43:48): How does an American ambassador land on the ground in Port-au-Prince? Who does he turn to? Jimmy Rizzi. Jon Jeter (43:59): Right? Barbecue. Right. Who Wilmer Leon (44:01): Does he turn to? There's nobody home. But again, I didn't hear Rachel Maddow asking that question. I didn't hear Joy Reed asking that question. And folks, look, you can look in the US Constitution article under Article two where they described the responsibilities of the president, one of the responsibilities of American president is to what? Recognize ambassadors from other countries. That's how the international diplomatic game is played. The American Ambassador to China presents his or her credentials to Xi Jinping and Xi Jinping goes, okay. Or Get out of my country. Jon Jeter (44:55): I don't think so. Right, right, right. Wilmer Leon (44:57): Don't play that. Jon Jeter (44:58): Right. And on another note, I related, but not quite at the point, but I just think this is so interesting. I was reading a recent piece, I cannot remember where, but they were talking about the origins of Hades gangs, and if you read it, they didn't mention this, but I know the history. It's the same as the gangs in Chicago, Los Angeles. They were formed to protect the community from the police, right? From harassment. The Black Wilmer Leon (45:23): Panthers. Jon Jeter (45:24): Exactly. Wilmer Leon (45:25): The Black Panther party for self-defense, for Jon Jeter (45:28): Self-defense. That's exactly right. And Huey Newton and Bobby Seale got their start getting a traffic signal on a particularly dangerous stop in Oakland. So this was, now, I'm not saying that they're still necessarily representing the people, but that's how they got their start. They filled this void that was left by the state because the state was just serving the interest of rich people and the United States and the West Canada and France and all that. So I just wish people was such a dumb down nation. I don't mean that to be judgmental, but it's just the case. Wilmer Leon (46:00): What was one of the major actions that the Panthers in Oakland performed every day on the street? They were policing the police. Jon Jeter (46:12): That's right. That's right. That's Wilmer Leon (46:13): Right. So when they came across cops in a traffic stop, they would pull over, locked and loaded. Right? Right. No, you couldn't have a round in the chamber, but they were armed, and they would stop and be sure that the traffic stop was proper and that the person being pulled over, usually the African-American driver of the car was not going to be. In fact, folks need to understand what was the Mulford Act in California? The Mulford Act was the law that was passed in California, I want to say 71, 72, when the Panthers went into the California State House, state House armed, legally armed, so long as you didn't have one in the chamber, legally armed. And the folks in California said, oh, no, we can't have this anymore. Jon Jeter (47:20): Gun control. Wilmer Leon (47:21): Gun control. That's why I've been saying for years, if you want gun control in the United States, let the government see law abiding black people legally buying and legally training with firearms. You'll find gun control, as they would say, liquidity split. Jon Jeter (47:45): It is gun control in the United States is very similar to our edict that Iran can't possess nuclear weapons. Why can't they? They're a sovereign country, right? Because we know we don't want them to defend themselves. That's why, just like we don't want black people to defend themselves. We've got this plague of black people being shot by the police, and we don't want black people to be able to shoot back. Wilmer Leon (48:06): And quite as it kept, Ron is a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation Jon Jeter (48:11): Degree, read the Israel Is Right, Israel, and they got, I think something like 300, 400 nuclear warheads. Iran don't even want nuclear weapons. They want nuclear energy. They've said that they banned, they had a fat wall that banned or needed from the, I told it banned nuclear. But on the news here, including one of my former colleagues of the Washington Post Gene, I can't remember his name now, but he says, well, of course I ran once nuclear weapons. Really? So you know something that the intelligence agencies of the United States don't know because they say that there's no such nuclear weapons programmed by Iran. Wilmer Leon (48:48): There isn't, and they don't need one because of the missile technology, the hypersonic missile technology that they have developed. And also they don't want a nuclear weapon because they understand the attention that brings to them, and it's negative. They don't want none of that smoke because also their military perspective is defensive, not offensive. Right, Jon Jeter (49:23): Right, right. Very protect the Soviet Union. Very protect the Soviet Union. Wilmer Leon (49:28): That's why Ukraine is being turned into rubble. Jon Jeter (49:30): Right? That's exactly Wilmer Leon (49:31): Right. Is because Russia has been planning for 25 years for this very type of ground ballistic missile ground or artillery driven ground war, war of attrition. I will just send missiles into your bathroom all day, every day for the next 10 years, and eventually you'll call and ask me, will you please stop sending missiles into my bathroom? I do Jon Jeter (50:03): Appreciate it. I don't know much about militarism and war strategy and things like that, but I've been reading up a little bit on Russia, and what I've concluded is you don't want nothing to do with Russia. You don't want no smoke for Russia. Look, Wilmer Leon (50:20): When the United States sent, I think it was the Eisenhower, I think it was USS Eisenhower into the Mediterranean about three or four months ago. No, it was in October in response to October 7th. Oh, right, Jon Jeter (50:37): Right. That's right. I Wilmer Leon (50:38): Remember that. The Biden sent, I think it was the Eisenhower Aircraft carrier group into the Mediterranean, and Putin called Biden and said, Joe, why did you send that aircraft carrier group into the Mediterranean? He says, you're not scaring anybody. Because he said, these people don't scare. And oh, by the way, I can sink your aircraft carrier from here with our SU 35 fighter jets with hypersonic Ken Jaw missiles. I can sink the thing before you even know the missile has been fired, Jon Jeter (51:24): Joe. Whatcha doing? Wilmer Leon (51:25): Yeah. Jon Jeter (51:26): We started by talking about Mike Tyson's theory about everybody's got a plan. I think it's appropriate to mention, just like Mike Tyson, he beat all these people, all these other boxes because they were afraid of him until he met Buster Douglas. Wilmer Leon (51:40): Buster Douglas. Jon Jeter (51:41): Buster Douglas was not afraid. He did not back up. He kept coming. And I don't want no smoke from Mike Tyson, but Buster Douglas was ready for him. And so yeah, this is the United States. Now we're Mike Tyson, but we're in the ring now with Buster Douglas. Putin is not afraid. Right. Wilmer Leon (51:57): And to your Mike Tyson analogy, the thing that Mike Tyson was always susceptible to was a jab. The problem was he didn't come across an opponent that was big enough in stature that had the jab until he fought Buster Douglas. That's Jon Jeter (52:20): Right. Wilmer Leon (52:21): What's his name from Easton, Pennsylvania, the heavyweight he was in. Jon Jeter (52:31): Larry Holmes. Wilmer Leon (52:32): Larry Holmes. Larry Holmes. Larry Holmes would've wiped the floor. Oh, is that right? Hands down. Yeah. Man, Larry Holmes had a jab. Jon Jeter (52:44): Oh, I remember Larry Holmes. Yeah, I know. He was a bad man. Wilmer Leon (52:50): I didn't mean to turn this into a boxing conversation, but just for the point. Larry Holmes' problem was he came in the shadow of Ali. Of Ali. Right. But you go back and look at footage of Larry Holmes in his day, man, that brother, he would've wiped the floor because that's, and I go through all of that here. I'm going to connect the dots, is you have to understand the weakness of your opponent and exploit that weakness. And that's what Russia does. That's what Iran does. That's why President Raisi of Iran, in response to the Syrian bombing of the embassy in Syria, he said, we will respond when we are ready. The United States Intelligence Services told us last week, expect a response within 48 hours from Iran. I said, no, we'll get to it when we're ready. And what has Israel already done? Closed 30 embassies around the world. So in Iran's mind, we've already won. You've closed 30 embassies. We didn't have to strike one of them. We skewed you into action. Jon Jeter (54:20): And from what I understand, again, I'm new to this sort of military strategy, but from what I've understood that the weakness of the United States is this overconfidence, it's arrogance that beginning, I think with, what was it? North Korea and China, when they lured them into the United States, lured them in and basically just, they just trapped. They knew they would come because they're so arrogant. They knew they would take the bait. And that's the Achilles tea of the United States is their overconfidence. Wilmer Leon (54:49): Look, that's what Iran isn't doing. They're not taking the bait. Russia did not take the bait as they went into Ukraine, but they went into Ukraine, not in the manner in which the United States thought they would. They didn't take the bait. China as it relates to Taiwan. They're not taking the bait. They hence the adage, you have the watches, but we have the time. Jon Jeter (55:20): We got the time. That's right. Wilmer Leon (55:22): We'll handle this our way when we are ready. Look at what's going on right now in Gaza. You've got Hamas, right? Hezbollah hasn't really jumped in like everybody thought they would. Right? You've got the Houthis or Ansar, Allah in Yemen. They're handling the Red Sea, but they aren't really in it. Not everybody's in the pool yet. And see, this is something that folks really need to understand is they are biding their time. All of those entities are sitting back watching the show, and there's a reason that Hezbollah hasn't jumped in because Hamas is winning. Jon Jeter (56:08): Yeah. I'm a big fan of all the podcasts. The one that I watched the most is Ali Abu Ma with the electronic ada. And from everything I'm getting from there, and they seem to really know what they're talking about. Hamas is handling this business. Wilmer Leon (56:21): And when I say Hamas winning, folks could look at this and scratch their head and say, Wilmer, have you seen Gaza lately? Yeah. Here's the thing. Hamas wins by not losing. When they live to fight another day, they win. Israel comes into Gaza. What is Israel saying? Now? We're getting out of Gaza. They come in, they get thumped, they get out. When the dust settles, Hamas will still be in existence. And by being in existence, they will have one. Jon Jeter (56:58): That's right. And I think this was all very calculated by Hamas. I'm not sure if they even understood this kind of blowback, but again, they were trying to pull Israel under this war because they realized they Wilmer Leon (57:08): Knew what Israel would do. I'm glad you brought this up because when you talk about that, I was trying to get that together in my head, and that was a point that I was trying to make, was that Hamas lured the IDF into strategy. They knew what their response would be because of their arrogance, and they are thumping them, Jon Jeter (57:36): And there's no way out. I can't repeat the lyric. I want to, I think it was Ice Cube said, I don't want to hear that. I ain't mean it. Right. That's what Hama is saying to Israel right now. I don't hear none of that. I ain't mean it. Right. I don't. Don't gloat for anyone's death. And what's happening there is horrific, and I'm not sure if it's worth the cause. It's a period victory if it is one for Hamas, but this is the way it's going to end. Israel is not going to exist as we have long known it. If I can quite a phrase from Bill Clinton, Wilmer Leon (58:13): Let's wrap up with this. The Nation magazine reports more than half a million Democratic voters have told Biden Save Gaza, the campaign to use uncommitted primary votes to send a message to Biden has won two dozen delegates. More than 500,000 Americans in states across this country have cast Democratic primary votes for either uncommitted, unconstructed or no preference. Jon Jeter (58:48): That's right. That's Wilmer Leon (58:48): Right. I think the Democrats are shaking in their diapers. Jon Jeter (58:55): It's a wrap for the Democrats, certainly for the Biden administration. And of those 500,000 votes, I believe a hundred thousand are in Michigan. Joe Biden can't win Michigan. Joe Biden does not win reelection. Wilmer Leon (59:07): And Joe Biden only won Michigan by about 130,000 votes. Jon Jeter (59:11): That's right. Yeah. If the vote was today, he would not win Michigan. Not because everybody would vote for Trump, but because a whole Wilmer Leon (59:18): Lot of people, a lot people stay home Jon Jeter (59:20): And Michigan, lemme just say this very quickly, Michigan and the Arab community and the board, I lived in Detroit for a couple of years in the early nineties. They are really impressed in terms of their organization, and they're showing us a roadmap for how we can fight back as a people. Wilmer Leon (59:34): Exactly. Jon Jeter (59:36): Organized, Wilmer Leon (59:37): Organized. And I've listened to a number of interviews from Arab Americans in Michigan, and the reporters will say, well, don't you realize that your uncommitted movement could wind up resulting in the election, the reelection of Donald Trump? And they look in the camera and say, we know. And we don't care about that. We have a bigger point than Donald Trump that we are conveying. And plus they realize, is it a blue car or a green car? It's still a car. You're going to wind up basically. And for the most part, in the same circumstance, because to a great degree, and you are much more adept at this than I am to a great degree. It's not Trump policy. It's not Biden policy. It's American foreign policy. Jon Jeter (01:00:37): That's right. That's right. Wilmer Leon (01:00:38): Irrespective of who the president is, John G. Yeah. Jon Jeter (01:00:42): No, and I just don't think they understand. What part of genocide. Don't you understand? I'm not voting for a genocide. Wilmer Leon (01:00:48): Well, if you ask Lloyd Austin, he doesn't understand it at all. He said during the Senate hearings, there's no genocide in Gaza. Jon Jeter (01:00:56): If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck Wilmer Leon (01:01:00): And it dies like a duck, it's genocide. Jon Jeter (01:01:03): Right. That's the genocide, man. It just is. You're a lawyer. So what is it low? Wilmer Leon (01:01:09): I went, I went to law school. I went to law school. I'm not Jon Jeter (01:01:11): A lawyer. Okay, okay. I mean, I didn't mean to defame you like that, Wilmer Leon (01:01:16): But I did stay at Holiday Inn Express last night. So what you got, Jon Jeter (01:01:20): So what is it, low ipso Ur, is it? The B is as it appears? It is as it looks. No, Wilmer Leon (01:01:29): You just combine two phrases, rest ips, aquir. Jon Jeter (01:01:33): Okay. Thank you. Sorry, I didn't even go to law school and I didn't understand the Holiday Inn Express Wilmer Leon (01:01:39): Rest ips. Aquir, I think is what is the Latin you were going for? Jon Jeter (01:01:42): Yes. The thing is, as it appears, right, it is as it looks, yeah, that's the genocide. But it's most horrific thing I've seen in my lifetime, and it's just nothing else to say. I don't know how anyone's going to pull the lever for Joe Biden seeing the horror that's happening in Gaza. It's traumatized. It's traumatized. So I don't think there's a path victory. I didn't think there was a path of victory to victory for Joe Biden before October 7th. I certainly don't think there's one now. And I still think people laugh at this. I know Joe Rogan said, and I don't know that I believe very much in Joe Rogan's political acumen, but he said that he thinks that Democrats are going to replace Biden in May. I don't know if they're going to do it. I don't know if they're going to do it in May, but I still, Wilmer Leon (01:02:24): I've been saying that for a year and a half. Jon Jeter (01:02:26): Yeah, I think they might. I think they're looking to, I'll say that I think there's a fact of the Democratic party that's looking to, I think a year and a half ago, they were actively looking at Michelle Obama. I know that, as a matter of fact, I don't think she's going to do it. I'm not sure if that's still a movement, but I think because they know he can't win and it's too important, it's money that they will lose if he's not president. Because Trump, for all his flaws, is not the war profiteer that Obama was. And the Bidens, Wilmer Leon (01:02:55): I've been saying for almost a year and a half that I don't think that when you come out of the Democratic convention in August, I think right now it's the 19th, but we just found out that Ohio has told the Democratic Party that if it's held on the 19th, Joe Biden can't be on the Ohio. Oh, Jon Jeter (01:03:18): I heard that. Wilmer Leon (01:03:19): Yeah, because it has, you have to be the nominee 90 days before the election to be on the ticket in Ohio. And so Ohio has told them. But anyway, no, I've been saying that, I said almost a year and a half ago that when you come out of the convention, it's not going to be Biden. It's most likely going to be Gavin Newsom and what's her name from Michigan, Gretchen. And I said, the top of that ticket could go either way. Jon Jeter (01:04:01): That would be the best foot they could put forward. If they can't get Michelle Obama, that would be, and I don't think they can beat Trump, I'll be honest. But Wilmer Leon (01:04:07): No, I'm not saying that's going to win. I'm not saying that's going to win. But when you look at the numbers, and since I said this, Biden's numbers have only gotten worse. And Gretchen Whitmer most likely brings the Democrats, Michigan, the governor of Michigan. And because they're also, when you get rid of Biden, you got to get rid of Kamala Harris as well. Oh, yeah. So then you're going to wind up with a bunch of angry women, and you're going to wind up with a bunch of angrily black women. Jon Jeter (01:04:40): Oh, that's good. Yeah, that's good. So Wilmer Leon (01:04:42): Gretchen Whitmer brings the women back into the game. And I think, and I'll probably get bricks thrown at me for saying this, but I think a majority of black women will fall in line with the Democratic party. I seriously doubt that they would get so angry that they would abandon the party. I think they would be convinced to fall, because Kamala will be convinced to go away quietly and be a team. They'll offer her, Jon Jeter (01:05:20): Oh yeah, like they did with Al Gore. They'll offer her a bunch of money Wilmer Leon (01:05:24): Or something, or tell her, this is not your time, Jon Jeter (01:05:28): Dean of some university where she can go and Oh, Wilmer Leon (01:05:32): They might make her secretary of, I mean, ambassador to, I don't know, Botswana or, Jon Jeter (01:05:38): Right, yeah. I can play the Botswana might run her outfit into the seat though. Wilmer Leon (01:05:44): That's why they'll send her there. So anyway, so Gavin Newsom, young white cat, governor of California looks good in a suit, is articulate, can raise money, can raise his own money. And so I'm not advocating this. I'm looking at the landscape and saying they have no arms in the bullpen. I Jon Jeter (01:06:07): Wouldn't bet against that. I would not be. Wilmer Leon (01:06:08): This is baseball season. They have no arms in the bullpen, but Biden is behind in seven of the nine battleground states. Jon Jeter (01:06:20): Yeah. He can't, I think Pennsylvania's tied, but even that is trending Wilmer Leon (01:06:24): And trending in the wrong direction Jon Jeter (01:06:28): Because Wilmer Leon (01:06:29): In a lot of these states, in a lot of these states, Donald Trump is now ahead outside the margin of error of the Jon Jeter (01:06:39): Polling Wilmer Leon (01:06:40): And growing. So no, I've been saying that Joe Rogan, and I agree on that, and I've been, I'm on record for a year and a half saying Joe Biden is, and I don't think they can do it in May because the voters will cry foul at then. Why did we have primaries? You haven't had any debates. So I think they have to make the switch at the convention. I think the vote has to go down to the floor and it'll be the way it used to be when we were kids watching the conventions on television where there was all of this tension and all of this anxiety over how were the votes going to go as they did the roll call for the states from the floor. I think it's got to go that way. I don't know how they make the switch now before the convention. Jon Jeter (01:07:39): Yeah, I don't either. I don't know this though. What they don't want, their worst nightmare is for Joe Biden to appear on a debate stage with Donald Trump. They not, can't have that. They don't want that. That's just Wilmer Leon (01:07:53): No. Yeah, Jon Jeter (01:07:55): That can't happen. No, can't happen. Wilmer Leon (01:07:58): You don't even want to see, and I mean this very seriously. You don't even want to see Joe Biden, walk to the podium versus Donald Trump. Just the appearance of that. Stiff. Jon Jeter (01:08:13): Yeah. Oh, I, Wilmer Leon (01:08:15): No, no. You think Jon Jeter (01:08:16): About that. Yeah. Donald Trump is a dinosaur, but he still looks better than, he still is. More commanding than Joe Biden. Mr. That's, Wilmer Leon (01:08:28): Do you want pterodactyl or do you want, anyway, so I want to thank my guests and my dear brother John Jeter for joining me today. And John, when I say that you say, Jon Jeter (01:08:40): Thank you, brother. It was wonderful to be here. Wonderful. Wilmer Leon (01:08:44): And folks, thank you all so much for listening to the Connecting the Dots podcast with me, Dr. Wimer Leon. Stay tuned for new episodes every week. Also, please follow and subscribe. Leave a review, share, share, share, share, share the show, subscribe. Doing this every week is not cheap, trust me. We need your help. Also follow us on social media. You can find all the links below in the show description. Go to Patreon. Please contribute to the Patreon account. And remember, folks, that this is where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge. Because talk without analysis is just chatter, and we do not chatter on connecting the dots. See you again next time. Until then, I'm Dr. Wilmer Leon. Have a great one. Peace. I'm out Announcer (01:09:41): Connecting the dots with Dr. Wilmer Leon, where the analysis of politics, culture, and history converge.

A judge on Friday ordered the destruction of Trump's New York business empire and a fine of $354 million. Why? Because Trump is the king of the American kulaks. Alina Habba breaks down what's driving the New York case and what's next. Rep. Dan Bishop explores North Carolina's potential to become the next Florida, a purple state shifted to the right. Ben Bergquam checks in on the city of East Palestine, Ohio. For more content, become a member at members.charliekirk.com!Support the show: http://www.charliekirk.com/supportSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Democrats utilized every mass shooting to promote gun control. But as I demonstrate today, Republicans are failing to use the recent transgender shooters to show the need to uproot transgendersim from red states. Today, I discuss how the shooter at the Lakewood, Texas, church checks all the boxes – transgendersim, pro-Hamas, jailbreak, and criminal alien policy. I explain how Republicans could use the news cycle to build the case to remove criminal aliens. How come such a party doesn't exist? Because Trump continues to endorse horrible people within the party. He has made even worse endorsements this cycle, including those who just voted for the Ukraine bill. But his supporters refuse to pick up the phone and demand that he rescind the endorsement.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was another record-breaking blowout! President Trump has secured the Republican nomination and is poised to crush Biden in November. In this episode, I'm going to show you exactly how. Also, we've got yet another blue seat flipping red and a huge lesson last night that's going to be absolutely key for 2024!  Highlights: “Trump officially surpassed his record for the most votes ever received in the New Hampshire Republican Primary, which he set back in 2020. Trump is the only candidate who won New Hampshire three times in a row, and this is the first time any candidate has won the first two primary states, Iowa and New Hampshire, back to back since 1976!” “The non-white vote: Trump beat Hillary Haley 56 to 33! He beat her by over 20 points among non-whites!”   “We were lied to! For a year and a half, DeSantis Republicans, Hilary Haley Republicans, the Rupert Murdoch sell-outs at Fox News, They all lied to us! They knew Democrats were scared to death of Trump. They knew it but they covered it because they the Republican establishment, are just as scared as Democrats of another Trump run! Because Trump represents the end of the establishment's power!” “Donald Trump's base this newly aligned 2024 political base overwhelmed the cheat!”    Timestamps:    [00:39] Trump's record-breaking victory in New Hampshire [04:21] How the uniparty tried to defeat Trump [10:22] What is the big takeaway from Trump's victory in New Hampshire  Resources: Do you own a 401k or IRA? Are you worried inflation is slowly eating away at your retirement nest egg? Convert your savings to a Gold IRA by going to https://turleywarning.com FREE TRAINING on how to buy low and sell high by tracking the big wigs this Thursday, January 25th at 3 pm ET! Get trading like an insider TODAY: https://turleytalksinsidertrading.com/ Don't let Big Tech WIN by staying connected to Dr Steve and joining the movement to reclaim our freedoms at: https://join.turleytalks.com/insiders-club=podcast Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode.  If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and/or leave a review. Sick and tired of Big Tech, censorship, and endless propaganda? Join my Insiders Club with a FREE TRIAL today at: https://insidersclub.turleytalks.com Make sure to FOLLOW me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrTurleyTalks BOLDLY stand up for TRUTH in Turley Merch! Browse our new designs right now at: https://store.turleytalks.com/ Do you want to be a part of the podcast and be our sponsor? Click here to partner with us and defy liberal culture! https://advertising.turleytalks.com/sponsorship If you want to get lots of articles on conservative trends, sign up for the 'New Conservative Age Rising' Email Alerts: https://turleytalks.com/subscribe/. 

It's the time of the year when we celebrate Zappadan miracles.  Rudy is bankrupt, Trump won't be on the ballot in Colorado, and Fox isn't talking about any of that and also neglects to tell their audience about the missing Russia Intel Binder.  Which is a bfd.  The other things not talked about matter: Win Red and the Oath Keepers.  Because Trump invited those found guilty of Seditious Conspiracy to Washington DC and Jack Smith has the receipts.  More at proleftpod.com.. Our podcast YouTube Channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@ProfessionalLeftSupport the show:PayPal |  https://paypal.me/proleftpodcastPatreon | https://patreon.com/proleftpodSupport the show

SEASON 2 EPISODE 63: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) BULLETIN: Details are sketchy because of an online systems failure (who names their system after the AMC Pacer?) but Sunday evening Judge Tanya Chutkan REINSTATED her Gag Order against Trump - presumably because of his threats to Mark Meadows and his misconduct in the New York gag order case - and Trump has acknowledged online that it has been reimposed. (8:47) The remainder of this bulletin is a repeat of Friday's Episode #62 and if you've heard it there's no reason to continue to listen. Although you'll have a damn good time if you do! SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump threatens the New York judge, while Jack Smith goes not for a stronger gag order but something closer to a Hannibal Lecter mask.  “This is judicial misconduct, coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody from the state of New York must step in and stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice,” unquote. BECAUSE Trump had earlier suggested that New York's GOVERNOR should “get involved” and because he capitalized the word “State” in State of New York, he kept one foot in that shadowy region in which he's lived that life and his attorneys could argue that he was NOT asking “somebody from the state of New York” to “step in and stop this” by attacking somebody like the judge or the district attorney. The rest of the filing shows that Trump IGNORED the New York Gag Order, IGNORED it again, was called to the witness stand to explain what he said, LIED ABOUT IT – PERJURED HIMSELF – and has proven to be unrestrainable even with the Gag Order as presently constituted. Jack Smith isn't telling the Judge that Trump has violated her GAG ORDER. He is telling her that Trump has violated the ORIGINAL CONDITIONS under which she did NOT jail him until the trial starts. To resume the quote. “Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant's conditions of release by making compliance with the Order a CONDITION or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case, INCLUDES indirect messages made publicly on social media or in speeches.” Plus, Trump's faint grip on sanity seems to be slipping and the tell on that is: he has reverted to the genuinely unfathomable dog analogies that he fell into during the most stressful times of 2015-2016. When Trump starts claiming dogs get fired, he's about to lose it. And Speaker Mike Johnson, Day 2: For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning, advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting of the entire societal safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states, advocating for using the constitution to destroy the constitution, advocating for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for a conservative group that makes employees swear an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women's clothes, advocating against women wearing MEN'S clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas and against science that has proved we are all going to be KILLED by more oil and gas, advocating for that idiot Amy Coney Barrett since he met her in 1988, advocating for a limit of three terms in the House and then running for this one – his FOURTH, and advocating for the overthrow of the duly-elected government of the United States throughout the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. For a guy who has done nothing but comment on everything, all the time, and always wrong… so far… he sure has been Speaker of The House Mr. No Comment. B-Block (31:08) IN SPORTS: Oh boy. The World Series. The 7th best regular season team versus the 12th best. I have never been less interested. Here's a shock: after legal sports gambling websites become the primary sponsor of all North American sports league, a player is suspended for half a season for...using one. And the brilliant idea from England's Tottenham Hotspur: give each player in its team history their own "legacy number." (35:08) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: President Duda of Poland may be trying to Trump the last election. E-Bikers should be saving the planet; instead they're menacing New Yorkers. And I do not pretend this isn't a crass idea. I think we should name the mass shootings after the politicians and propagandists who have enabled them. So Lewiston, Maine, should be named after Speaker Johnson or Susan Collins or Sean Hannity. C-Block (44:35) BULLETINS WITH THURBER: A story I have not previously read you, to which almost everyone can relate. How science and swimming almost kept him from graduating in "University Days."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEASON 2 EPISODE 62: COUNTDOWN WITH KEITH OLBERMANN A-Block (1:44) SPECIAL COMMENT: Trump threatens the New York judge, while Jack Smith goes not for a stronger gag order but something closer to a Hannibal Lecter mask.  “This is judicial misconduct, coupled with prosecutorial misconduct, and somebody from the state of New York must step in and stop this complete and total miscarriage of justice,” unquote. BECAUSE Trump had earlier suggested that New York's GOVERNOR should “get involved” and because he capitalized the word “State” in State of New York, he kept one foot in that shadowy region in which he's lived that life and his attorneys could argue that he was NOT asking “somebody from the state of New York” to “step in and stop this” by attacking somebody like the judge or the district attorney. The rest of the filing shows that Trump IGNORED the New York Gag Order, IGNORED it again, was called to the witness stand to explain what he said, LIED ABOUT IT – PERJURED HIMSELF – and has proven to be unrestrainable even with the Gag Order as presently constituted. Jack Smith isn't telling the Judge that Trump has violated her GAG ORDER. He is telling her that Trump has violated the ORIGINAL CONDITIONS under which she did NOT jail him until the trial starts. To resume the quote. “Accordingly, the court should modify the defendant's conditions of release by making compliance with the Order a CONDITION or by clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case, INCLUDES indirect messages made publicly on social media or in speeches.” Plus, Trump's faint grip on sanity seems to be slipping and the tell on that is: he has reverted to the genuinely unfathomable dog analogies that he fell into during the most stressful times of 2015-2016. When Trump starts claiming dogs get fired, he's about to lose it. And Speaker Mike Johnson, Day 2: For a man who spent twenty years advocating for sending gay people to prison for having sex, advocating for sending doctors to prison for providing family planning, advocating for a national abortion ban, advocating for fewer laws against guns, advocating for more laws against divorce, advocating for gutting of the entire societal safety net, advocating for disenfranchising minorities and entire states, advocating for using the constitution to destroy the constitution, advocating for the forced conflation of church and state, advocating for a conservative group that makes employees swear an oath to Jesus, advocating against transgenderism, advocating against men wearing women's clothes, advocating against women wearing MEN'S clothes, advocating restrictions against Muslims, advocating against federal disaster relief, advocating for more oil and gas and against science that has proved we are all going to be KILLED by more oil and gas, advocating for that idiot Amy Coney Barrett since he met her in 1988, advocating for a limit of three terms in the House and then running for this one – his FOURTH, and advocating for the overthrow of the duly-elected government of the United States throughout the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021. For a guy who has done nothing but comment on everything, all the time, and always wrong… so far… he sure has been Speaker of The House Mr. No Comment. B-Block (22:24) IN SPORTS: Oh boy. The World Series. The 7th best regular season team versus the 12th best. I have never been less interested. Here's a shock: after legal sports gambling websites become the primary sponsor of all North American sports league, a player is suspended for half a season for...using one. And the brilliant idea from England's Tottenham Hotspur: give each player in its team history their own "legacy number." (27:35) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: President Duda of Poland may be trying to Trump the last election. E-Bikers should be saving the planet; instead they're menacing New Yorkers. And I do not pretend this isn't a crass idea. I think we should name the mass shootings after the politicians and propagandists who have enabled them. So Lewiston, Maine, should be named after Speaker Johnson or Susan Collins or Sean Hannity. C-Block (35:45) FRIDAYS WITH THURBER: A story I have not previously read you, to which almost everyone can relate. How science and swimming almost kept him from graduating in "University Days."See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Friends,Good morning, and welcome back to my Saturday coffee klatch with Heather Lofthouse (executive director of Inequality Media Civic Action), where we examine the highs, lows, and even lower points of the previous week. This morning we examine:— Kevin McCarthy's Republican House mess. Will there be a shutdown? Almost certainly. Who'll be blamed? Why is Trump pushing for this? — The UAW strike. When will it be resolved? Who'll be blamed? Why is Trump hoping for a long strike? — Bonus question: Why is Trump against giving more U.S. aide to Ukraine? (Hint to all of these questions: Because Trump wants to blame Biden.)— Democratic wins this week in special elections. They're more predictive than national polls. Does this bode well for next year?— The mainstream media talks about Biden's age and supposed feebleness. Why not Trump's age and genuine craziness? Isn't it worse to elect a nutcase than someone who's old?— Heather's policy of the week. Please grab a cup, pull up a chair, and (if you're so inclined), take our poll and share your views. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit robertreich.substack.com/subscribe

Because Trump has this book of Hitler's speeches on his bedside table! So he can do some leisure reading before he goes to sleep and get some new ideas about how to f****** terrorize the American population! Call the doj m**! 202-514-2000 demand disqualification under 14th Amendment if you have any f*** brains whatsoever#Goodjobbiden on your #sotu #stateoftheunion address, congratulations

HERSCHMANN SINKS TRUMP A BLOCK (1:45) SPECIAL COMMENT: Eric Herschmann may be today's John Dean. In 2021 he warned Trump to return all the classified documents he took with him. Because Trump ignored his advice that gives prosecutors a smoking gun (3:35) Because the Espionage Act requires the perp to have "WILLFULLY" concealed the stolen secrets (3:50) And 18 US Code 2071 also says any convicted "SHALL BE DISQUALIFIED FROM HOLDING ANY OFFICE UNDER THE UNITED STATES." (4:32) Herschmann has already testified against Trump at the House 1/6 Committee and is to testify to a Federal Grand Jury. (5:31) And Trump's handpicked 'Special Master" Raymond Dearie demands they tell him what Trump claims to have declassified and when, sending Trump's lawyers into a panic (7:53) While Trump is only worried about where Biden sat at Queen Elizabeth's funeral service and even in that, he inadvertently admits Biden is president, and he isn't (9:12) Meanwhile: Told you so: The DeSantis Migrant Kidnapping disaster is being investigated as a crime in Texas. B BLOCK (14:00) EVERY DOG HAS ITS DAY: Colson (15:22) POSTSCRIPTS TO THE NEWS: Sad sack New Hampshire Senate candidate Don Bolduc steps in it; GOP threatening to investigate its beloved U.S. Chamber of Commerce?; And what does TV news do, now that Elizabeth has finally been buried? (18:43) IN SPORTS: Now the Saudi Blood Money Golf Tour sends Greg Norman to DC to lobby on its heinous behalf. (20:50) THE WORST PERSONS IN THE WORLD: The GOP Congressman who confesses that unpaid student debt is the greatest recruiting tool for the US military, vies with a NYPD Lieutenant with 52 disciplinary allegations, and the Funeral Spider, for the honors. C BLOCK (25:24) THINGS I PROMISED NOT TO TELL: It's 40 years since CNN let me spend well into three figures to take the three key figures from the Players Union to dinner during the 1982 NFL Strike. I'll even reveal the day a players' negotiator tried to strangle an owners' negotiator.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As you may have heard, the FBI got a warrant and searched former US president Donald Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago in Florida this week. Why did they do this? Because Trump stole classified documents when he left the White House. Learn more in this Current Events episode as hosted by Victor Varnado, KSN and Rachel Teichman, LMSW. Produced by Victor Varnado & Rachel Teichman Full Wikipedia & news article here: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/08/09/us/trump-fbi-search-news https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBI_search_of_Mar-a-Lago WE APPRECIATE YOUR SUPPORT ON PATREON!https://www.patreon.com/wikilistenpodcast Find us on social media! https://www.facebook.com/WikiListen Instagram @WikiListen Twitter @Wiki_Listen Youtube Get bonus content on Patreon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bible Study With Jairus - Romans 13  God's Will for Believers and Politics Roman chapter 13 is about obedience to authority. Paul tells us that all authority is given by God, and that we must submit ourselves to those who govern us. If we resist authority, we resist God, because God has set up authority to punish evildoers on God's behalf. If we do good, we don't have to be afraid. Paul also notes that we must pay taxes, because the ruler is God's servant. Jesus also said “Therefore render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's” (Matthew 22:21). The words of Jesus have been interpreted in different ways throughout the ages. Some have used them to argue that Christians should not participate in politics. This will be our study focus today. How on earth do you understand what is being said here? First of all, the truth has two sides, and we must deal with each side in a balanced way. Although we should obey those in power, the premise is that those in power are doing what God wants them to do, such as maintaining social justice and punishing wrongdoers. But if the authorities persecute Christians by saying that they cannot believe in the Lord or preach the Gospel, this is a violation of higher authority. God's Word charges us to preach the good news to all nations and to baptize them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, throughout the ages, many people have disobeyed the orders of those in power by preaching the Gospel. Second, regarding understanding Jesus' words, Christian participation in politics also needs to be considered with a balanced principle. Let's start by looking at some different historical interpretations of whether Christians should participate in politics. Should Christians Participate in Politics: A Summary of Views Anabaptists First, let's look at the Amish, the Anabaptist view. I live in Maryland. There is a large Amish population in Lancaster, PA about an hour north of us. Over the years, we have taken Bible study group members and non-believing friends on trips to Amish museums and the exhibits of life-size models of tents built by Mennonites. The Amish and the Mennonites are both Anabaptists, but the Amish are more isolated; they don't accept other people or modern things, such as electricity and cars. The Mennonites are more open to other people and modern things. According to what we were told in a tour of the museum, the Amish see modern electricity, cars, and the like as evil, so they still drive wagons and run farms for a living. Students are expected to attend school only through middle school, and there is only one class in a community. Younger and older children alike have classes in one classroom. (This is what I picked up from the tour guide at the museum and it may not be 100% correct.) The Anabaptists came into being during the Reformation period in Europe. They opposed both Catholicism and Martin Luther's Reformed Church, because both Catholics and the Reformed Church advocated infant baptism. The Anabaptists, on the other hand, believe that you have to be truly saved and baptized after you become an adult, so you have to wait to be baptized. Since many people had been baptized as infants, they started the practice of being baptized after being saved as adults, hence the name Anabaptist. The Amish have chosen to live in isolation, avoiding electricity, cars, and politics. William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was a Christian who was forced out of England because he was persecuted by the state church of England. It is said that his father, who was rich, bought him a piece of land in Pennsylvania and said “you can go to America and do whatever you want.” William Penn made Pennsylvania a land of diverse Christian denominations, including Amish and Quakers. American society also protects the rights of the Amish, who are said to pay no taxes and do not serve as soldiers. (In the process of evangelization in Europe, there were many brutal wars, so Christians suffered a lot in the military. Therefore, the Amish also choose not to serve in the military.) The Anabaptists do not promote active participation in politics and stay away from some modern things of society. To some extent, these practices keep them away from the evil of the world. But the evil is definitely not only in these modern civilizations; evil is in the human heart.  I do appreciate the Amish's willingness to abandon modern civilization and live a simple life so they can focus more on the Bible and their faith. But most people agree that such an approach is not a good way to have a positive influence in this world. Local Church Movement Second, let's move on to the point of view of the Local Church Movement (LCM) where I was saved. In an article titled "Attitudes of Local Churches to Authority and Politics," we find the following statement: "We believe that churches should have no share in, participate in, or influence politics on the ground, but should operate as a purely faith body under the rule of law of government. The church should be wholly of God  and for God. As for the participation of individual Christians in political activities, The Church does not support or oppose it."[1] The LCM does not object to individual involvement in politics, seeing it as a personal issue. They also believed that the church is spiritual and should not engage in worldly politics. In particular, the LCM has drawn lessons from many difficulties brought about by the mingling of church and state in history. They have made the church less spiritual but more worldly. Therefore, they advocate that churches should not participate in politics. This view is not only the view of the LCM but is also held by many churches and pastors since they see how politics can tear the church apart. Some pastors even prohibit the church members from talking about any politics in the church. However, this does not solve the problem. This problem still divides churches and Christians alike. A WeChat post in Chinese I read earlier says that President Lincoln was asked if he thought God was on his side during the Civil War. President Lincoln said,“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.” To a certain extent, this post reflects the attitude of some believers in the churches I mentioned towards politics. They are more spiritual and do not express their positions on controversial political issues. Instead, they hide their political opinions in a spiritual cocoon and say they want to remain one with God. But knowing exactly what the will of God is depends on the individual and the Lord. To me it is kind of confusing. One of my fellow members of our Bible study group was confused as well. He asked me since some Christains say God chose Trump, and others say God chose Biden, who did God really choose? I told him that one side must be wrong as God is not a schizophrenic. The view in this social media post does reflect the common view that God is sovereign, so whoever is sitting in the office is what God chooses or allows. This view dictates that as Christians, we just accept whoever it is. This view is criticized by many as being too passive. Theological Liberals Third, let's look at the theological liberal view of politics. Liberal theology was influential from Europe all the way to the United States. Theologians from Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher in Germany to Paul Johannes Tillich in the United States are representatives of liberal theology. Liberal theology was in part an attempt to explain theology in contrast to science, or to build a bridge between the rapid development of science and the somewhat stale theology of that time. But liberal theology went to the extreme of disbelieving the authority of the Bible, even accepting homosexuality and so on. Fundamentalism is a reaction to the overrun of liberal theology. It emphasizes the supreme authority of the Bible and the basics of Christian values. Randy Clark, the founder of Global Awakening and the Randy Clark Scholars program at UTS that I am now a part of attended a liberal seminary, but later in his ministry switched to more conservative and miraculous positions. He recalls that by the time he attended the liberal seminary, he had almost ceased to believe in God. It was only because he had experienced God's miraculous healing after being in a car accident that he had not lost his faith. He criticized liberal theology for the damage it did to seminary students, but he affirmed that one of its merits is concerning social justice and helping the poor. He says caring for the poor and social justice is a constant focus of God in the Old Testament. On this point, conservative churches can still learn from the churches that hold more liberal views. The conservative churches can do more to advocate for social justice and to help the poor. This type of liberal theology includes the social evangelicals that were once popular in Europe and America. The so-called Social Gospel was also popular in China in the 1940s. They advocated participation in social reform and social relief. They advocated breaking down the systemic injustices of society to help the poor. They wanted to be helpful “in the world” but gradually forgot that the church is “not of the world.” It went too far and gradually lost the spiritual position of the church. Many of these Christian organizations gradually degenerated themselves into welfare institutions. In other words, they are “in the world” to the point of being “of the world”. If you look at the YMCA, which was once a powerful organization of evangelism, you now see a community center for sports. This is also the case for the Salvation Army and many other organizations. Therefore, the LCM has borrowed from the failings of the Social Gospels in an effort to avoid becoming secular welfare organizations. It is said that in the early Gospel meetings in Taiwan, the LCM publicly declared that their churches did not provide free rice or other welfare like many other churches do, but only provided pure Gospel; the number of people at the next meeting was greatly reduced. It is obvious that the LCM attaches great importance to the purity of the church, and for this purpose they do not advocate the church's participation in politics. The African American Church Fourth, we will look at the views of the African American church on politics. Our course on church history at the UTS included a special course on the history of the African American church in the United States, so I have a slight understanding of the history of the African American church. The history of the African American church has been one of blood and tears. From the first African American slaves secretly learning the Bible and praying, to the rise of African American pastors and churches and the persecution from mainstream churches, to the later civil rights movement in which the church became the central organizing force, the African American church played a very important role in the Civil Rights Movement. The famous Martin Luther King, for example, was a pastor of a church. My personal observation is that the African American church is very politically engaged. And the politics that African American churches engage in tend to be more left-wing and possibly related to the liberal theology. This can be seen in the numbers of the 2016 elections. Only 8 percent of African Americans voted for Trump. The Democratic Party, with its focus on welfare and social equality, has traditionally been supported by African Americans. The percentage of African American people who are Christian is very high, according to certain reports. I don't have exact statistics, but I have heard that 70 percent of African American people in the Baltimore area are Christian. I met a number of African American pastors at our seminary. We became friends on Facebook, and I saw that many of them were staunchly anti-Trump and politically active on the left side. The African American church also has conservative members who support Trump, but they are a minority. I deeply sympathize with the struggles of the African American church throughout its history and have many close friends who are African American pastors. I have absolutely no motive here to criticize the African American church, but simply to describe my observations. My observation is that the African American church in general has been more influenced by the participation of liberal theology in society, and this, along with the rise of liberation theology in South America, has been very popular. Both had a positive impact on social change during the Civil Rights movement in the United States and the anti-colonial movement in South America respectively. Both black theology and liberation theology played an important role in emancipating those who are persecuted in the US and South America. But because the African American church is too focused on improving the discrimination against and status of their own race, it has also turned a blind eye to some extent, failing to see God's greater role in politics through Trump. It is through President Trump that American society has tried to stop the left and stop anti-God agendas such as abortion and homosexuality from dominating the political and social processes of the United States. The past and present wounds inflicted on African American Christians and the African American church are indisputable, but on the other hand, the wounds and the bitterness caused by them may also become a stronghold set up by the evil spirits. We must acknowledge the previous hurt of the African American church and people, but we must move beyond this to receive healing from the Lord. We must not allow the hurts and unforgiveness to be used by the enemy. Pentecostals Fifth, we look at the views on politics of some Pentecostal preachers. Compared to evangelicals, the Christians in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are more politically engaged. I will cite only one prophet, Lance Wallnau, and in particular the 7 Mountain Mandate, which he and others have proposed. Since I left the LCM in 2015, I have studied and observed in different American Pentecostal churches and attended many special meetings of the Pentecostal church. I also attended many of the meetings where Lance Wallnau was a speaker, so I often listened to his messages online. His so-called "Seven Mountains Mandate Theory" advocates that Christians actively participate in politics and other social fields, including education, religion, family, business, government/military, art/entertainment, and media. These seven fields are known as the Seven Mountains. The main argument of this theory is that Jesus calls on us to be the light of the mountains, and that Christians are to actively enter the world to be influential figures on the seven mountains, thus positively influencing society. You have to understand the state of American society in recent decades to understand where this doctrine comes from and why it has become so popular among Pentecostal churches. For decades, leftists and homosexuals in the United States have become a vocal minority because of their active participation in society and frequent protests. In the media, especially in the arts/entertainment sector, homosexuality has become a big voice. For example, a Christian baker in the United States experienced a very difficult time because he would not make a cake for a gay couple. As a result, he was sued and his business suffered. These pastors and teachers in the Pentecostal camp learned that traditional churches do not participate actively in the political process. Based on the reality of American society, they draw a conclusion that because Christians do not participate in politics and hide in an ivory tower of spiritual pursuit, it results in a vacuum. In this vacuum, anti-God people occupy the media, art/entertainment, education, family, business, government/military, and even religion. Therefore, they actively advocated that Christians abandon the past position of not participating in politics and occupy every field with an active attitude of joining public affairs-- that they be in the world but not of the world. They encouraged each Christian to choose his own "mountains" to occupy according to his own gift and God's calling, and to be an influential person on those mountains. The purpose is not for personal success, but to influence society by occupying such a mountain and becoming salt and light to the people around us. These differing views influence churches all over the country. Churches and Donald Trump During the 2016 election, Pentecostal preachers began supporting Donald Trump from the very early stages. In addition, he received considerable support from Christians across all denominations in the United States. Stephen Strang, the founder of Charisma Magazine, a Pentecostal Magazine, described the convergence of Trump and Pentecostalism in a recent article titled "Why Most Pentecostals Back Trump." Trump, who wanted to run in 2012, sought Christian support. In the evenings, when he was free, he watched Pentecostal televangelists. One of them was Paula White, a Florida based Pentecostal evangelist. After Trump watched her show, he called Paula White. Paula White gathered a number of Pentecostal leaders, including Christian leaders gifted with the gift of prophecy, to pray for Trump. After some time in prayer, they said that God had told them that 2012 was not the right time for Trump to run, so they advised him to wait. Trump followed their advice, and in 2016 he asked them again to pray to God. When they prayed, they felt that God's time had come for Trump to go out and run. After Mr. Trump's first election, I attended a prayer gathering for him in Washington, the nation's capital, organized by the POTUS Shield. The event invited key Pentecostal leaders and many prophets to pray for President Trump after his first election. (POTUS stands for President of the United States, and the group aims to offer intercessory support to Mr. Trump.) One of the group's founders, Frank Amedia, a Pentecostal prophet, said he had a divine revelation while helping Mr. Trump campaign before he was elected. He wrote the prophecy in a note that he handed to Mr. Trump to read on the plane. The note read, "God says if you humble yourself, you will be the next President of the United States." There were many such prophecies, all of which said that Trump was chosen by God. I could give you a lot of examples, but that's not the point. The point I'm making is that talking about whether Christians should participate in politics right now is hard to separate from being for or against Trump. Because Trump is such a controversial figure, the US has acquired the phrase "silent Trumpist". If you openly support Trump's words, you may be attacked, alienated, and misunderstood by the mainstream media and people around you, because so many people in society are against Trump. Many people quietly support Trump, but are afraid to express their views publicly. One man told me that he had already seen some Chinese American churches split over their attitude towards Trump. Some churches have avoided such internal strife by taking the attitude that the church should not participate, and that individual Christians must choose their own political positions. Individual political attitudes are individual political attitudes, they argue, but the church should not take a collective stance. This would preserve the church's spiritual position and keep it from getting caught up in political disputes. But there are also people who are against this view.  “Don't worry that if you support Trump from the podium, your church will lose some supporters and followers,” said Mario Marillo, an active advocate for churches teaching their followers to support Mr. Trump. “If Mr. Biden takes office, you might lose your church.” What he said is by no means an exaggeration, because the suppression of Christian power is real. If the left, represented by Biden, is in power, the Christian influence in the United States will be greatly suppressed. So both sides are treating the presidential election as a battle to the death. I personally feel the same way. This is a decisive battle for Christian freedom in America that will decide the future of America and the future of the world. God has shown me many visions of the Great Revival to come, including a Great Revival in the United States, China, and the Middle East. I am convinced that the election of President Trump is a divine intervention to prepare the international political environment for the great revival that is to come. In a strange dream, God took me to Trump's office, where I felt God's presence. I felt that this was God confirming to me that Trump was His chosen one. So at this point, I chose to actively endorse Mr. Trump. By this day (March 23, 2021) Trump is not in the White House but I am still believing that God will intervene and bring Trump back to the White House supernaturally. But many of the people around me are deeply educated by the LCM, so their attitude towards politics is more reserved. In addition, the LCM does not hold an official  position, leaving individuals to make their own political decisions. As a former member of the LCM, I understand the reasons and considerations for their position. I also see individuals supporting Trump and Biden. I still agree with the view of the LCM that we should take the lessons of the Social Gospel and not fall into the trap of making church a political or social organization and losing the spiritual side of it. But I personally accept the Seven Mountains theory and believe that Christians should be actively involved in politics and changing society. Churches should get involved in politics and make it clear that they are taking a stand. Let what you say be simply ‘Yes' or ‘No'; anything more than this comes from evil (Matthew 5:37). This is what the Lord Jesus himself said. Personally, I think it is wrong not to say what should be said. I know from personal experience that we often do not take a stand on many things. It is not because we do not have a stand, but because we are weak and do not dare to take a stand. We are afraid of losing the church, we are afraid of losing the status and salary of the pastor, we are afraid of losing followers, we are afraid of being persecuted if we participate in politics, we are afraid of being attacked, we are afraid of getting into disputes with people and so on. Too often, we are afraid to engage in politics and take a stand out of fear, not spirituality. If this election is a showdown between God and Satan that will determine the future of America and the world for hundreds of years to come, then silence is appeasement, or even participation. Of course, my belief that Trump represents God's side and this election is a showdown was not formed within a day. It came after I left the LCM and went to a lot of Pentecostalist activities, special meetings, and teachings about the Seven Mountains. But many traditional churches and pastors do not teach these spiritual battles from the podium, so naturally, when election time comes, believers are left to decide for themselves. However, do not forget that many believers look at the media for information and are therefore influenced by the media. We also know that a lot of the media in the United States is opposed to God's agenda, so many Christians don't get a good spiritual education. They don't know why they should support Trump or what God's will is. In the end, many believers have made their own choices based on their own personal preferences, personal interests, and the media agenda. This, I have to say, is a natural consequence of the idea that the church does not participate in politics. Even though people say the church should be not involved in politics, the church is still involved. If the churches do not teach believers how to make right choices, many believers will be deceived by the media. In other words, the church, in the name of "church non-participation in politics," is actually abdicating their opportunity and responsibility to educate believers to make divine choices. If this election is a spiritual battle, the church that fails to educate its followers will be partly an accomplice to its enemies, so God will hold us accountable. This is not a condemnation, but a spiritual fact. The left is pro-gay and pro-choice, with millions of babies said to have been aborted in the United States over the past few decades. To support the left is to support homosexuality and abortion indirectly, which is not a position a Christian should take. And God's choice of Trump as president is just the tip of the iceberg of what God intends to do in the next few decades. The Great Revival is just around the corner, as evidenced by the many dreams and visions God had given me, and by the words spoken to me personally by the Lord and the Holy Spirit. God doesn't just say this to me. He says it to many people with prophetic gifts. But many churches do not accept the gifts of the prophets, which is part of the problem. “Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint but blessed is he who keeps the law” (Proverbs 29:18). Many churches ignore the prophetic gifts that God has restored to the church in the last 100 years, especially in the last few decades, and that is why they don't hear God speak in a timely manner. The church urgently needs to reevaluate the Pentecostal  movement, especially the prophetic movement, and open itself up to prophetic gifts. I know that the prophetic movement itself has lots of issues, but they have made much progress in the last few decades. Many churches and church leaders need to pray before the Lord, ask these questions, and seek the Holy Spirit's guidance. Don't forget the story of the race between the hare and the tortoise. We may become the hare while belittling the tortoise. That was the shock I felt when I went from the LCM to the Pentecostal churches. I realized that, while I thought I knew a lot of truth in the LCM, the Pentecostal churches have made great progress in some areas. Therefore, I strongly desire to pursue learning these truths. In addition to taking prophetic courses and healing courses, I am currently enrolled in the Randy Clark Scholar doctoral program at the United Theology Seminary. My project there is to compare the prophesying practices in the LCM with the prophesying practices of Pentecostal churches. My personal view is that the practice of prophesying in a forthtelling way in the LCM, including Pray Reading and calling on the Lord's name, helps believers to build a foundation of biblical truth, practice good spiritual practices, and become holier. It is well worth it for other churches to learn, including Pentecostal churches. These practices can help the believers to grow more in holiness, spirituality, and life growth. At the same time, the practice of the Pentecostalist prophecy in a foretelling way can help believers unlock the gift of the prophecy, receive supernatural revelation from God, provide guidance for the church to move forward, and give comfort and encouragement to individual believers, so it is well worth learning for the LCM and  other evangelical churches. The Lord Jesus appeared to me in a dream and told me that two rivers were about to converge, which was also a confirmation of what I am trying to do. Politics and Love Finally, we come back to Romans 13:8-10 about loving one another. I know it's hard to get involved in politics because different political views can be divisive. But this is an opportunity for us to learn more about love. I agree with Christians being involved in politics, but I do not agree with the extreme language of many Christians on the right who criticized the left. We are not engaged in a physical battle, but a spiritual one. Even those who are used by the enemy are created in God's image, and God wants them to enter the kingdom. I have been praying every morning not only for President Trump, but also for Mr. Joe Biden, hoping that the people he represents will repent and enter the kingdom of God. Romans 13:11-12 says, “...the hour has come for you to wake from sleep... The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” To be involved in politics is not to give up love; to participate in politics requires a higher degree of love. Once you get involved in politics, you suddenly find yourself facing a lot of different people. All of this will require you to love not only those who disagree with you, but also your enemies. In other words, staying out of politics comes from a fear of exposing our inability to love. Staying out of politics is ostrich policy. It's not love. It's fear of not being able to love. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” Therefore, whatever comes from fear is not from God. We will open ourselves up to more attacks when we engage in politics. Attacks come not only from people with different opinions, but also from evil spirits. Some have recognized that it is God's will for them to be involved in politics, but they are afraid to take a stand. If this is you, I pray that God will give you a strong spirit that will dare to speak and proclaim your views. Don't get caught up in any kind of political correctness or false religious masks. Yes means yes and no means no. Don't be afraid to stand up for your biblical views. Fortunately, we have observed that this presidential election has caused many Christians to become politically active and engaged. This is also part of the will of the Lord in the process of awakening the church and believers. When the Church is no longer asleep, the Great Revival is not far behind. So I say again that the fight over Trump's presidency is just the tip of the iceberg of many things that God is going to do in order to prepare everyone and wake up the church. Time will tell. I still believe God will intervene. My Personal Testimony and Politics I was born and raised in China and am now a citizen of the United States. Like many Chinese immigrants, we did not have a strong desire to participate in politics in America since we did not come from a democratic country. It took many years to become a citizen of the US, so we usually stayed outside of American politics since we were not citizens for many years. But things changed when I became a U.S. citizen. God called me to be involved in politics, especially in China. I knew I had a calling to evangelize China, but I had never thought of a way to participate in the democratic movement in China. However, several prophetic dreams from God caused me to reconsider my stance. In one of the prophetic dreams, I was riding a bicycle. A bicycle or other type of vehicle in a prophetic dream often represents a ministry we have. In the dream, I then saw a couple Chinese Democratic dissidents chasing me on bikes as well. I was a little uneasy as I had never involved myself with them, even in the US. Many Chinese immigrants take this stand as well. Some do not like them and others are just afraid to be involved with them due to fear of family members in China being persecuted. When these dissidents finally caught me, they expressed their appreciation for my preaching and books which greatly influenced their effort in this democratic movement. I was surprised by the dream because they were 50 years old. I asked them how this was possible since I myself am not over 50 years old. Later I realized that this was a prophetic dream- God was showing me that my ministry will have a huge impact on them. In another prophetic dream, I was dropped down from the air into a chimney at my college in China. God often uses my college or other places I lived in China to represent China in my dreams. I worked at my college for a few years before I left China. This chimney is not actually at the college. These were all images to explain something. No one will come into your house through a chimney except Santa Claus. Santa Claus is a figure associated with Christmas, and Christmas is the birth day of Jesus. So this means I was trying to preach the Gospel to the Chinese people. However, people in the building were so surprised to see me coming through the chimney and reacted strongly. I was forced to come back. It represented the obstacles I will be facing in preaching the Gospel in China. In the next scene, I was able to miraculously land on the campus by a tree near this building with a chimney. I saw great battles happening but eventually found myself resting on a bed. By this bed, I saw a former colleague from my college who is a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and an alumni in the US who is a democratic dissident. They were talking with me in peace while I rested on the bed. I felt that this means China will have a great transformation in politics after the great revival in China. China may even become a democratic nation. The tension between those who support or oppose the CCP will be reconciled. In another recent vision I had several months ago, I was shown that a great revival will come to China. It will eventually transform China into a democratic country. In the last scene of this vision, I saw a fish type monster wrapped in a green military uniform the size of a dolphin. It was bound and taken away by some angels. In this vision, I asked if this was the CCP and the answer was yes. This vision showed me that eventually China will experience a great political change, and the Gospel and revival will play an important role in it. This is all out of my norm. I was taught to not participate in politics, and I was afraid to stand for justice as well. But I started to realize that my calling to be part of this great revival in China is involved in politics whether I am ready or not. It is like St. Patrick in the old days. His evangelizing efforts in Ireland were greatly involved with politics at that time. He was facing many dangers. Being involved in politics, especially in a country where the Gospel has not been fully preached, is dirty and bloody, but it is necessary. Politics in the US is much more civil than it was in the time of St. Patrick or how it is now in China. It is because the American people have the firm foundation of the founding fathers of this country and the history of Western Christian tradition and heritages. Those of us privileged to live in the US need to realize that we are very fortunate here to have the freedom that we enjoy, so we must stand up to fight for that freedom.     [1] https://cftfc.com/%E9%99%84%E4%BB%B6%E4%BA%8C%EF%BC%9A%E5%9C%B0%E6%96%B9%E6%95%99%E6%9C%83%E5%B0%8D%E6%94%BF%E6%AC%8A%E5%8F%8A%E6%94%BF%E6%B2%BB%E7%9A%84%E6%85%8B%E5%BA%A6-2/

I'm starting to think Marvel became a household name to brainwash people that superheroes will save us. Because Trump supporters are waiting for Trump to save us instead of yielding their own power to do good within their community. Trump rallies were great! But we need more than just Trump rallies. We need frequent Freedom Rallies. Everywhere. Every month. No more excuses. The elite won't stop themselves. It's time to put globalism in the graveyard. I'm trying hard to remain positive but I see so much stupidity even among smart people it's concerning. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/occupytreason/support

In this episode, I share the mic with my mother Mrs. Yvonne Jones. A family member reached out to my mother and requested that we share his experience as a person who has been incarcerated and has a diagnosed mental illness. We share our family's experience of navigating the limitations of services and supports when we have had family members in mental health crisis. The letter he wanted us to share with you is below in it's entirety:Hi I'm have a message that needs to get out on Mental Health.I'm suffocating my host, and he can't tell anybody because I'm supposed to be all better now, and if anyone finds out he's not - "It's gonna be Trouble Trouble.” See the Boogeyman is back, and this time, this joker is badder than he ever was. He ain't even got nobody!!!!! He is just a virus now, and every 30 seconds he kills off all my family and friends!On December 15th at 4am in the morning, that sneaky son-of-a-bitch crept up in Momma's window and killed her!Now that wasn't right, she was just learning how to be a good girl, so why did he want to go and do that ? She never did nothing to him.Now the unit managers and counselors in this prison full of boogeyman carriers say I need to call home to get the bad news, but then they say I need to hurry up and get back to my cell, cause we are quarantined and I only got 5 minutes.5 whole minutes to lie to my children and say Papa alright, I'll be home someday soon, now go say goodbye to my Momma for me. But don't get too close or he'll get you too!Every 30 seconds seconds he kills somebody, every 30 seconds he cuts off somebody's lights!I'm not gonna be alright cause President Trump won't test the vaccine, so my people don't trust it and won't take it either so now the boogeyman can't die!!!Because Trump wouldn't wear a mask, people think they didn't need one either, and so we all became super spreaders, and helped the boogeyman kill our families, and friends every 30 seconds.Hello my name is Orell Leroy Logan, I'm a 52 year old African American man, I am one of the millions of young black undiagnosed suffering from mental illness incarcerated in the United States of America. I've been locked up for 30 years, it took 25 years of long term segregation in a super maximum prison before I was told I was bipolar.Before my diagnosis I thought I was just a crackhead. See I'm the other side of the victimless crime from the 80s and 90s war on drugs. I didn't know I was born with a compulsive, addictive personality disorder, and that I just simply wasn't a match against the high potencies of crack's addictive nature.I would serve crack faithfully against my weak will until I was locked up, or killed. Crack's black on black violence, and the booming new money maker at that time (the prison industry) along with being poor and with mental health issues, that no one ever talked to me about was a perfect storm!!I didn't see it coming, the destabilizing of every urban inner city, and otherwise minority populated community in America. This storm touched every African American life one way or another. A movement was even founded behind the results of this tragedy. The Black Lives Matter movement, ask them.I'm here to tell anybody that will listen, all of that put together, on top of every other thing we been through as a people, short of the horrors of slavery itself, will be nothing compared to what this monster will do to us, if we don't wear our mask, wash our hands, and get vaccination shots. And get mental health help because no you are not OK.If you or a family member are suffering because of an undiagnosed mental illness please seek help. Here is one resource: https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline.

Welcome to Majority.FM's AM QUICKIE! Brought to you by justcoffee.coop TODAY'S HEADLINES: Joe Biden plans to reopen the Obamacare insurance marketplace, Healthcare.gov, to help with the pandemic. But to finally institute a public option, he’ll need support from Congress. Meanwhile, the acting chief of the Capitol Police admits to a massive screw-up that allowed a mob to take control of the halls of Congress earlier this month. The threat hasn’t yet passed. And lastly, state and local officials are pressuring the new administration to make a serious commitment to fighting climate change and mass extinction. Will Biden keep his campaign promise? THESE ARE THE STORIES YOU NEED TO KNOW: On healthcare, the new White House is aiming for the bronze. The Washington Post reports that President Biden will take executive actions as early as Thursday to reopen federal marketplaces selling Affordable Care Act health plans and to lower recent barriers to joining Medicaid. The orders will be Biden’s first steps since taking office to help Americans gain health insurance, a goal that has taken on added significance as the pandemic has deprived millions of Americans coverage as they have lost jobs in the economic fallout. Under one order, the Post reports, the online insurance marketplace HealthCare.gov will swiftly reopen for at least a few months. Ordinarily, signing up for coverage there is tightly restricted outside a six-week period late each year. Another part of Biden’s scheduled actions, the individuals said, is intended to reverse Trump-era changes to Medicaid that damaged Americans’ access to the safety-net insurance. The most ambitious parts of Biden’s campaign health-care platform would require Congress to provide consent and money. Those include creating a government insurance option alongside the ACA health plans sold by private insurers. They also include helping poor residents afford ACA coverage if they live in about a dozen states that have not expanded their Medicaid programs. Federal rules already allow people to qualify for a special enrollment period to buy ACA health plans if their circumstances change in important ways, according to the Post. That includes losing a job. But such exceptions require people to seek permission individually, and many are unaware they can do so. Trump health officials also tightened the rules for qualifying for special enrollment. In contrast, Biden is expected to open enrollment without anyone needing to seek permission. It’s a long way from Medicare for All, but it’s better than nothing. Capitol Police Chief Apologizes The search for answers and accountability continues. The acting chief of the Capitol Police apologized to Congress yesterday for the agency’s massive security failures on January 6th, the New York Times reports. She acknowledged during a closed-door briefing that the department knew there was a strong potential for violence, but failed to take adequate steps to prevent what she described as a terrorist attack. Yogananda Pittman, the acting chief of police, also confirmed that the Capitol Police Board, an obscure panel made up of three voting members, had initially declined a request two days earlier for National Guard troops. The board then delayed for more than an hour as the violence unfolded on January 6th before finally agreeing to a plea from the Capitol Police for National Guard troops. Chief Pittman was not the acting chief at the time of the siege. Her predecessor, Steven Sund, resigned after the riot. Chief Pittman said that her department knew January 6th would be unlike previous protests, according to the Times. She said her department knew that militia groups and white supremacists would descend on Washington. She said they knew some participants were intending to bring firearms and other weapons. She added QUOTE We knew that there was a strong potential for violence and that Congress was the target. The department prepared in order to meet these challenges, but we did not do enough ENDQUOTE. Separately, the deployment for the entire Washington, DC National Guard has been extended until March 31st in anticipation of civil disturbance, according to Politico. The timeframe coincides with Donald Trump’s impeachment trial. And his supporters are still issuing threats to lawmakers. What did you expect? They aren’t the type to send flowers. Officials Demand Climate Action What about climate action? Hundreds of state and local elected officials are calling on President Biden to lead a speedy, aggressive national effort to combat the climate and extinction crises, HuffPost reports. They want him to protect thirty percent of America’s lands and thirty percent of its waters by 2030. An open letter to the administration from four hundred and fifty officials representing forty-three states comes as Biden’s team works to dismantle Donald Trump’s legacy of rolling back environmental regulations and weakening protections for federal lands and wildlife. Biden also made a campaign promise to establish the thirty percent by 2030 target, which is in line with the United Nations’ plan for protecting biodiversity. The president is expected to issue an executive order on it any day now. According to HuffPost, the letter, organized by the left-leaning League of Conservation Voters, includes six specific actions that the signatories say should accompany the Thirty by Thirty goal. They include upholding Native American tribal sovereignty and supporting local and private landowner conservation efforts. New Mexico Congresswoman Deb Haaland, Biden’s pick to lead the Interior Department, last year led a coalition to set Thirty by Thirty as a national goal, HuffPost reports. At the time, she noted how the the loss of nature – accelerated by climate change – is putting up to one million species on the path to extinction. The Thirty by Thirty initiative has gained momentum at the local level. California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order in October making his state the first to pledge to the goal. Lawmakers in other states, including New York and South Carolina, have introduced legislation to establish similar goals. Let’s make it national. AND NOW FOR SOME QUICKER QUICKIES: Antony Blinken was confirmed by the Senate as secretary of state yesterday. He is a longtime foreign policy aide to Joe Biden who got his start as a State Department employee. Also yesterday, Janet Yellen was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris as Treasury secretary. She is the first woman to hold the office. Tens of thousands of farmers marched, rode horses and drove tractors into India’s capital yesterday, breaking through police barricades to storm the historic Red Fort, the Associated Press reports. Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons and set up barricades. But protesters, some carrying ceremonial swords, ropes and sticks, overwhelmed police. All this is bad news for the prime minister, Narendra Modi, and his corporate giveaway farm law. President Biden yesterday ordered the Department of Justice to end its reliance on private prisons, the AP reports. It’s basically a reversion to Obama administration policy. However, the American Civil Liberties Union noted that the order does not end the government’s reliance on privately-run immigration detention centers. Come on, Joe – now’s not the time for half measures. All but five Republican senators backed Donald Trump yesterday in a key test vote ahead of his forthcoming impeachment trial, the Washington Post reports. Trump’s trial is not scheduled to begin until February 9th, but senators were sworn in for the proceedings yesterday and immediately voted on an objection raised by Kentucky Republican Rand Paul questioning the constitutional basis for the proceedings. Because Trump’s defenders care so much about constitutional norms, right? Sure. JAN 27, 2021 - AM QUICKIE HOSTS - Sam Seder & Lucie Steiner WRITER - Corey Pein PRODUCER - Dorsey Shaw EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Brendan Finn

You would think that a man who is facing election fraud and who the media claims has not won re-election would be riddled with anxiety. But President Trump is as calm, cool and collected as he's ever been. In this episode, Doug explains how this is possible: Because Trump knows the truth and the depth and breadth of the corruption & fruad and how it just may backfire on the left and gain him another 4 years in The White House.

Suzi talks to Robert Brenner about the political-economic dimension of the 2020 election, the country, and the pandemic – and what it means for the battles ahead. The corrupt and hated President Trump was defeated, yet millions more people voted for him in 2020 than in 2016. He was undone by the raging pandemic that he tried to minimize. COVID 19 wreaked havoc with an already weak economy, creating widespread economic hardship. Because Trump failed to deal with the pandemic or extend economic relief, the economic crisis threatens to get much worse. Had Trump handled it with decisive measures, we'd just be dealing with the regular features of a declining capitalism, instead of far more catastrophic ones. The Biden/Harris ticket ultimately prevailed because it meant an end to Trumpian chaos and destruction -- and represented genuine hope for compassion and decency. There's much to unpack, and we get Brenner's analysis and perspectives.

Tonight, on It's Real Talk Radio, we will be discussing the drama of the 2020 Presidential Election. The 2020 Presidential Election has been one for the ages and one like we've never seen before COVID-19 was a big difference maker in this election due to its impact causing millions of Americans to vote via Mail-In Ballots, verse the traditional way of voting at your local polling place. Some states chose to count their mail-in ballots before Election Day while others chose to count their mail-in ballots after counting the in person ballots during Election Day. This caused an epic turn around in the vote count, as many Democrat voters chose to vote by mail while most Republicans reportedly voted on Election Day. Why is this significant? Because Trump advised his supporters to not trust the mail-in ballot process and to specifically show up during Election Day. This led to a comfortable lead for Trump during Election Day, as nightmares of 2016 began to haunt the Democrats. Trump came out on top on Election Day, but there were still many mail-in ballots to count, and that's when the epic comeback began. Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin and Nevada were the 6 remaining states that would determine the winner of the 2020 Presidential Election. As the mail-in ballots began to be counted, Joe Biden made huge turnarounds in Michigan and Wisconsin and eventually won those states, which was a complete momentum shift in this race. Trump had a comfortable lead in Georgia that was eventually wiped out as the momentum of the mail-in ballots really started to kick in and as of now, Biden has leads in Georgia, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Arizona. Since the turnaround of the mail-in ballots, Donald Trump has taken to Twitter and even had a live press conference to express his distrust of the mail-in ballot process, arguing that he is being cheated and that he already won during Election Day. Call In # 563-999-3434

In this Roundtable discussion, I'm joined by 3 brilliant and amazing Lightwarriors who share their own experiences with the Great Unveiling, along with tools and insight that every soul purpose entrepreneur needs to hear: Baljit Rayat, Nicholle Caldwell, and Kimberly Firewalker. Why now? Well, I have dedicated the last two decades supporting consciousness - soul consciousness, business consciousness, and wealth consciousness - for over 100,000 souls.⠀⠀ These are beyond challenging times, and as lightworkers we are all experiencing a collective elevating of consciousness in our businesses, our souls, and our communities. I want you to be equipped with both the 3D and 5D strategies to navigate this with as much ease and grace as is possible under the circumstances, which is why I'm hosting this Great Awakening Round Table.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Join us as we step into this new 5D reality and embrace Feminine Solar Energy. Nicholle's role with the Great Awakening - reconnecting women to their own inner voice so they know what's true, clearing energetic blocks so they can trust themselves. Kimberly's role with the Great Awakening - rooted in shadow work, focuses on high impact leaders working through having a good life on paper to a place of true sovereignty. Baljit's role with the Great Awakening - activate and connect to their highest potential using Akashic Records and channels star activation to connect people to their highest potential. Their perspectives with Trump's role with The Great Awakening. “Because Trump is our President, we need to send him love. Anyone who has put themselves in that position to bravely lead our country, needs our support whether we agree with him or not. ” - Nicholle The distractions that Trump provides from us doing our own deeper work.   How do we navigate “Awakening” fatigue? If you're not speaking up, it doesn't mean that you don't care. You don't have to be everywhere all the time.  “Tune into what feels good to you and where you can be the most supportive, and go from there.” It's important to show people “where to aim their flame”.  On a 5D level, what are we being asked to dismantle? The 5D is recognizing ourselves as divine and the responsibility that comes along with it.  Dismantling of co-dependency, the slavery energetic templates, our 3rd eye, and bringing awareness to our gifts. The Divine Feminine is awakening - “She was at rest, now she's awake and she's pissed.” How we move towards a healthy divine feminine and a healthy divine masculine.  “Leaders spread solutions, not fear.” The importance of being in nature right now and having a breathwork practice.  “When you're leading a community and you're leading yourself, you need someone you can lock arms with.” How do we discern all of the information that is coming at us? “Nature is the truth.” “The dreaded drama triangle” - Victim ~ Rescuer ~ Persecutor. Ask yourself - “How am I showing up today?” The base of discernment - “Why am I doing this thing? Is it serving me?” How to start a sentence so that you can guarantee the truth will come out. Nicholle has blessed us with FREE access to 2 video masterclasses on Healing with Sacred Plant Medicine and Sacred Plant Medicine and Business - get them here: https://momgelic.ck.page/healingwithplants Take Jennifer's Business Archetype Quiz here: www.souljourneys.ca/quiz Baljit Rayat Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lotusdestiny/ Baljit Rayat Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lotusdestiny/ Nicholle Caldwel Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nichollecaldwell888 Nicholle Caldwell Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicholle.caldwell Kimberly Firewalker Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thatwildfirelife Kimberly Firewalker Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/livewildfire ⠀ 

In this Roundtable discussion, I'm joined by 3 brilliant and amazing Lightwarriors who share their own experiences with the Great Unveiling, along with tools and insight that every soul purpose entrepreneur needs to hear: Baljit Rayat, Nicholle Caldwell, and Kimberly Firewalker. Why now? Well, I have dedicated the last two decades supporting consciousness - soul consciousness, business consciousness, and wealth consciousness - for over 100,000 souls.⠀⠀ These are beyond challenging times, and as lightworkers we are all experiencing a collective elevating of consciousness in our businesses, our souls, and our communities. I want you to be equipped with both the 3D and 5D strategies to navigate this with as much ease and grace as is possible under the circumstances, which is why I'm hosting this Great Awakening Round Table.⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Join us as we step into this new 5D reality and embrace Feminine Solar Energy. Nicholle's role with the Great Awakening - reconnecting women to their own inner voice so they know what's true, clearing energetic blocks so they can trust themselves. Kimberly's role with the Great Awakening - rooted in shadow work, focuses on high impact leaders working through having a good life on paper to a place of true sovereignty. Baljit's role with the Great Awakening - activate and connect to their highest potential using Akashic Records and channels star activation to connect people to their highest potential. Their perspectives with Trump's role with The Great Awakening. “Because Trump is our President, we need to send him love. Anyone who has put themselves in that position to bravely lead our country, needs our support whether we agree with him or not. ” - Nicholle The distractions that Trump provides from us doing our own deeper work.   How do we navigate “Awakening” fatigue? If you're not speaking up, it doesn't mean that you don't care. You don't have to be everywhere all the time.  “Tune into what feels good to you and where you can be the most supportive, and go from there.” It's important to show people “where to aim their flame”.  On a 5D level, what are we being asked to dismantle? The 5D is recognizing ourselves as divine and the responsibility that comes along with it.  Dismantling of co-dependency, the slavery energetic templates, our 3rd eye, and bringing awareness to our gifts. The Divine Feminine is awakening - “She was at rest, now she's awake and she's pissed.” How we move towards a healthy divine feminine and a healthy divine masculine.  “Leaders spread solutions, not fear.”

Yesterday, Donald Trump said - once again - that he thinks the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will just "disappear." Maybe - but not until it has infected every last person in the United States. Because Trump refused to use his presidential powers to impose a nationwide standard for combating the virus, we ended up witih a patchwork of various measures among the states. And because Trump only cares about his reelection, he pushed to open the economy too soon. The result is that the virus is surging: more than 100,000 new infections in the last two days, and many communities have cancelled their July 4 celebrations in an attempt to encourage Americans to STAY AT HOME for the holiday. MOMocrats Karoli, Aliza Worthington, and Donna Schwartz Mills discuss the current virus situation in today's Independence Day edition of the podcast, along with the mind-boggling revelation that this president continues to kowtow to Putin even after being briefed that Russia has been paying the Taliban bounties for killing American soldiers in Afghanistan... the progress of the 2020 campaign... and more. Part of the DemCast family of podcasts.

So, in Florida college kids headed to the beach for spring break, no matter the coronavirus. No matter people were getting sick and dying. But it's no wonder they did that, given the irresponsible attitude of the governor there, Trump's pal, who pretty much poo pooed the seriousness of this pandemic.And now, increasing numbers of states – largely led by Republican governors – are blatantly ignoring federal shutdown and social distancing requirements because why? Because Trump is encouraging them to do so.No matter the cost in human lives.That's the subject of today's podcast, based on a blog on Not Fake News by Chris Waldron, titled “Coronavirus: Fuzzy, Fatal Math”.Take a listen…Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lean-to-the-left-podcast--4719048/support.

So, in Florida college kids headed to the beach for spring break, no matter the coronavirus. No matter people were getting sick and dying. But it's no wonder they did that, given the irresponsible attitude of the governor there, Trump's pal, who pretty much poo pooed the seriousness of this pandemic.And now, increasing numbers of states – largely led by Republican governors – are blatantly ignoring federal shutdown and social distancing requirements because why? Because Trump is encouraging them to do so.No matter the cost in human lives.That's the subject of today's podcast, based on a blog on Not Fake News by Chris Waldron, titled “Coronavirus: Fuzzy, Fatal Math”.Take a listen…

Dr. David Nabarro of the World Health Organization says that until a vaccine is developed, the corona virus will likely “stalk the human race“ for quite a while.Because Trump utterly failed in keeping the virus away from the United States and refuses to fund and implement a nationwide testing and contract tracing program, simply slowing down hundreds of thousands of coming deaths may well be all we have left.

Fear sells.  Anger motivates.  In "Fear Sells," episode one of the DeVito/Verdi podcast "Selling a President 2020," host Ellis Verdi and some of the most creative minds in advertising look at the marketing phenomenon that is Donald Trump. As he showed in 2016, candidate Trump appealed to voters with ads and speeches that more or less preyed on people’s fears and stoked their anger.  As he pushes for re-election, we discuss how his marketing is so on brand, how it has created such an intensely loyal following and why anger, fear and rage are so effective in the selling of a President, 2020. Transcript Episode One "Fear Sells" GREG [00:00:00] I think what people understand is how much Trump's behaviors are on brand. Right. So if he slept with your wife, that is completely on his brand in that it only supports him.  ELLIS [00:00:16] Forget the stump speech the whistle stops and the kissing of babies. A candidate gets elected today largely through his or her advertising. On November 3rd, America will go to the voting booths and select the next president of the United States. Tens of millions of dollars will have been spent on selling the candidates to the country. Advertising's outsized role in the packaging of a president is what this podcast is all about. I thought it would be a fun idea to gather, some of the creative minds of advertising, along with some younger creative directors and political pros to play judge and jury with today's presidential political advertising. I'm Ellis Verdi and this is Selling a President 2020. We're not concerned with Right or Left, urban or rural, deplorable or elitist. Our attention is on how the candidates are making their pitch to the American public. After all, Election Day is democracy's one day sale. As we say in advertising,  ELLIS [00:01:16] Fear sells, anger motivates.  This episode. we'll take a look at how the president's marketing is so on brand, how it has created such an intensely loyal following and why anger, fear and rage are so effective in the selling of a president in 2020. Donald Trump is not the first to employ fear mongering in his appeal to voters or distort facts to discredit opponents and burnish his own image. But it clearly feels different this time around. This is Season 1, episode 1. “Fear Sells.” STUART [00:01:50] It used to be that if you were running negative advertising, you would least mix in some positive advertising to dull the idea that you are a son of a bitch.  ELLIS [00:02:00] Famed New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott.  STUART [00:02:05] Is that out the window now? Because Trump is just always on the attack. He's always angry and he's always attacking. And if there's nothing to attack, he'll make something up.  LEE [00:02:13] Now, I think that the scary thing for me now, is you would count on facts and statistics to sway people's opinions. Obviously, you have to present them in a way that's interesting.  ELLIS [00:02:25] Advertising legend Lee Garfinkel  LEE [00:02:27] But I think four years ago the idea of facts became less relevant or rational thinking became less relevant. And so there's a big question mark for me right now is how does any candidate go forward and try to break through and actually change people's opinions, knowing that facts may not be the thing that separates you from the other guy?  GREG [00:02:50] It's emotion. The biggest drivers in behavior are anger and fear in political circles. Chief Creative Officer, BBDO New York. Greg Hahn. So Trump's whole message is going to take something away from you or they're out to get you. And that's just a really powerful emotion. No matter what facts or policy underlying that or counter that, it doesn't matter because he's saying they're going to be something's going to be taken from me. So he really plays up the driving emotion where, you know, he gets that some of the other people are more rational, more fact based. It doesn't matter. Like you're not listening.  LINDA [00:03:28] I think that look, Trump rewrote the rules.  ELLIS [00:03:31] Advertising Hall of Famer and author Linda Kaplan Thaler, you know, it didn't really have much to do with these television commercials.  LINDA [00:03:38] It was just that, you know, he was such an outlier. Everybody discounted him.  LINDA [00:03:42] And he has sort of taken the reality TV platform and politicized it. And we have to factor that in, too. I think some of his advertising moving forward into the general election is going to be just for the hell of it kind of ads that are just going to be designed to make you laugh or make you freak out, make the other guys freak out.  STUART [00:04:10] And that's gonna be big.  STUART [00:04:15] That's gonna be one of his strategies. I think that it's gonna be unusual for political advertising.  JONATHAN [00:04:21] I do think in terms of Trump, the humor is less about humor for humor's sake or entertainment for entertainment sake.  ELLIS [00:04:27] Political consultant Jonathan Prince,.  JONATHAN [00:04:29] As it is another vehicle for him to tap into the undercurrent.  STUART [00:04:33] Oh, yeah, sure. Not hiring, you know, hiring a comedian to write him polished standup lines. He's doing humor within the context of his base.  STUART [00:04:42] And what they find funny,.  JONATHAN [00:04:43] You know, basically like an overlay of some legitimate economic insecurity on top of an enormous amount of horrible racial insecurity, anger and bitterness. And the humor is for people who are angry and fed up.  GREG [00:04:59] There's a victim in his humor. There's an interesting article recently in The Washington Post that talked about the way Conservatives and Liberals see humor differently. They have different mindsets when it comes to humor, like they brought the point, like you never really have seen a successful conservative late night talk show because that kind of humor is normally based on irony and a certains bit of filling in gaps. They don't close the loop. They allow the viewer to sort of fill in the gaps and understand some context. Whereas conservatives just generally this is a generalization and you know, but they're saying their humor is very surface. It's like it's a form of exaggeration. It's very easily what you see is what you get. It's just a bigger version of that kind of thing.  ELLIS [00:05:41] And what we've seen him accomplish would make any marketer envious. He's created a level of brand loyalty that is truly remarkable. Polarizing, yes. But that doesn't seem to matter. Knowing that half the country would never buy this brand doesn't change the messaging. He isn't fazed by it. He's found that amplifying people's rage and fear is a winning formula. Sacrilegious or not. Trump has positioned himself to be the savior for those he's targeted. And though it might not expand his brand, it's certainly cementing loyalty.  GREG [00:06:13] Yeah. Even they'll vote against their best interests in policy. In some ways, because he's enraged them so much. And you know, you're a victim. You're being your way of life is being threatened and he's entertained them. Yeah.  STUART [00:06:26] And I noticed that aspect, too. Apparently, there are a number of people that don't particularly like him or they don't like his tweets so they don't like how he speaks about women.  GREG [00:06:39] It's hard to ignore.  LEE [00:06:40] I mean, I wrote an editorial back in 2016 and I said, what can I possibly do to convince a Trump supporter not to vote for Trump? And I realized after a while, I don't think there's anything that I can do. And I ask people who were Trump's supporters. If you found out that Donald Trump had sex with your wife, would you still vote for him? You know, 99 percent of Trump supporters said, well, she probably had it coming or you probably you know, I wasn't paying attention to it. So, yeah, it's OK. And I realized I think targeting Trump supporters is probably a waste of money. And it's talk to the people that either haven't voted or aren't sure.  GREG [00:07:19] I think this election is so different because I have a hard time figuring out who's undecided at this point. Like you've had three and a half years of Donald Trump, if you don't know  if you like him or not,I don't know what's going to convince you, you know, where he stands, you know? You know what you're going to get.  ELLIS [00:07:34] Chief Creative Officer Tom Christmann,.  TOM [00:07:36] That is the key, is that as much as a lot of people hate him, he is himself and he's not going to change anything. He's out there being the same character every time.  STUART [00:07:46] So, you know, there's this theory about Trump and projection that everything Trump says, it's basically projecting back onto people what they've said about him.  GREG [00:07:56] I think what people understand is how much of Trump's behaviors on brand. Right. So if he slept with your wife, that is completely on his brand in that only supports him. It's only what you expect from him.  LINDA [00:08:08] I mean, you know, you talk to people with Trump supporters. There's absolutely nothing that man can say that they don't back him on. You know, they come up with all sorts of reasons. Well, I don't look at the Tweets. And I do think he does have a visionary thing, which is it's all  me. And I'm the one you know, I'm the messiah. Only I can fix it. And the people who voted for him, they know he's arrogant and that's what they like.  TOM [00:08:37] They will point at that and they will say. Kennedy philanderer. Mobbed up. Oh. Johnson, Vietnam War. Liar. You know, like all these things. And they will just, you know, because that is what has happened.  GREG [00:08:50] I think people vote based on who they identify with and who they feel is out. Yeah, right. Right. For them, even if all the issues aren't there, it's usually one driving issue or personality.  LEE [00:09:01] And I think what's scary is that almost every late-night comedian does anti-Trump jokes and it makes absolutely no impact. It's a Trump supporter. So they're making the jokes to the people that are already anti-Trump people. Now, how do we start if we want to get someone else in office, how do we start to convince people to think differently? And my concern is from most of the advertising that I looked at from the Democrats, except for maybe Bloomberg, it all feels like techniques and styles that were done in the last 10 years. And so you can't keep doing it the same way and expect a different outcome.  ELLIS [00:09:38] But can someone who relishes the role of showing his base that arrogance pays and that tact and decorum can go to hell because dammit, he's fighting for their every need to soften his message. After all, he fell short by more than 3 million votes in the last election.  LINDA [00:09:53] So he did the advertising that he's done. I have to say it is pretty good because all it is, is a lot of people cheering and just, you know, best economy in 50 years.  STUART [00:10:03] It's Morning in America revisited. Right. Let's also remember the famous Reagan reelection campaign.  JONATHAN [00:10:10] But the thing is, the ads, the ads that are doing totally different pieces of work. The Trump ad is not designed to persuade anybody. All right. The Trump ad is simply designed to flex in front of an audience of supporters that wants them to flex. I think if Trump can just even the field, then he's happy. If he can just kind of. Take that man.  TOM [00:10:28] Yes, just take it away by adding his own commercial, I think that's.  ELLIS [00:10:32] An incumbent might have a little more freedom to do more softer kind of work. And so Trump might have that luxury. Now you go because, you know, and with a few facts, you think that he's a genius, but you don't need much. And if you're out there and you kind of have a feeling and everybody else is fighting for, you're doing the wrong thing. You're doing the wrong thing.  STUART [00:10:53] Right. But Trump has changed the landscape, too. You can't have a message of hope against a Trump because it will not be perceived marketing wise as powerful enough to address the issue.  ELLIS [00:11:08] And I also think probably if somebody attacks him, that's the end of it. He's going to attack back. So you take his nicer ads right off and go right after that person back at him.  GREG [00:11:17] If you went after him, as he's actually not a winner, he's actually a loser. The only time I saw his numbers dipped in 2016 is when he lost one of the primaries. And suddenly people start looking at it differently. This guy's not really. And then, you know, he quickly recovered from that somehow. But I would position him as not the guy he really thinks he is. That's why I think Bloomberg ads did so well a couple weeks ago when he's like, you have no money. You know, he's one person. I can say I'’’ buy you out tonight if you want me to. You know? So if you expose him for what he is, I think. You think you could take him.  ELLIS [00:11:51] The Republicans, I think, always have an advantage because they say less and they show a more emotional side. And so the Democrats are struggling with how to better position the logic.  LINDA [00:12:01] And I think the Republicans are better. You know, I once saw an ad - maybe you did it. It was in the times they compared the signage and tome, of the Democrats versus the Republicans. That's interesting. And it was interesting because, you know, they say Democrats fall in love and Republicans fall in line. And, you know, they get the same words. When I worked with Clinton, it was with James Carville and he was the master at. “OK. But  here's the soundbite. And everybody's gonna use the soundbite.” And you don't see enough Democrats doing it. Republicans do whatever they say. It's a hoax.  ELLIS [00:12:37] Well, one thing we've learned from today's discussion is that the Trump marketing phenomena is definitely not a hoax. Love it or hate it. It's proven surprisingly effective in driving his voters to the polls. In the coming weeks, it will be fascinating to see how Trump, as one of today's guests, Jonathan Prince put it, flexes in his ads and what Bernie and Biden will have to do to combat each other and the marketing phenomenon that is Donald Trump. I want to thank everyone who helped kick off this series today. Hope you can join us for the next episode when we take a look at how the election has upended the traditional media landscape and what the candidates have been doing to package themselves to the American electorate. I'm Ellis Verdi. Thank you for listening.

There is no better example of the effect of the Saturn and Pluto stations than the impeachment inquiry into DJTrump over an extortionist call to the Ukranian president. Because Trump's criminal violations are numerous, what was the difference this time? Saturn (accountability) and Pluto (abuse of power) turning direct in the sign of government and institutions finally compelled Nancy Pelosi to act and declare that "the times have found us".

Former Sec. of Energy Ernest Moniz and Al discuss putting pragmatic meat on the bones of the Green New Deal. Al coins a new Kennedy-esque slogan, “We choose to go to zero-carbon not because it is easy, but because otherwise WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!” Moniz, who was the chairman of MIT’s physics department, negotiated the technical nuclear parts of the Iran Deal with his Iranian counterpart. Because Trump has repeatedly called the US negotiators of the Iran Nuclear Deal “very stupid people,” Al tries to determine throughout just how stupid Moniz is. Not very, it turns out. And Al opens with a monologue about a high school commencement in Willmar, Minnesota, explaining that Trump has no understanding of what America is. The valedictorian was a girl born in Ecuador, the class-speaker, a Somali-American girl, and the class president, a boy of Minnesota Norwegian/German stock. They’re all Americans.

Find “Trump, Inc.” wherever you get your podcasts. This week’s episode examines the intersection of money, presidential access and security, and the push and pull between government spending and private profits at Mar-a-Lago. In April 2017, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, estate and club, for a two-day summit. While Xi and his delegation stayed at a nearby hotel, Trump and his advisers stayed at the peach-colored, waterfront resort. That evening, Trump and a dozen of his closest advisers hosted Xi and the Chinese delegation in an ornate dining room where they ate Dover sole and New York strip steak. Those sorts of lavish, formal gatherings are expected for a major bilateral summit. But then there are less formal events. At some point later that evening, a group repaired to Mar-a-Lago’s Library Bar, a wood-paneled study with a portrait of Trump in tennis whites (titled “The Visionary”) hanging nearby. The group asked the bartender to leave the room so it “could speak confidentially,” according to an email written by Mar-a-Lago’s catering director, Brooke Watson. // View note The Secret Service guarded the door, according to the email. The bartender wasn’t allowed to return. And members of the group began pouring themselves drinks. No one paid. Six days later, on April 13, Mar-a-Lago created a bill for those drinks, tallying $838 worth of alcohol plus a 20% service charge. It covered 54 drinks (making for an average price of $18.62 each) of premium liquor: Chopin vodka, Patron and Don Julio Blanco tequilas and Woodford Reserve bourbon. Watson’s email did not specify how many people consumed the alcohol or who the participants were. (It stated that she “was told” the participants included then-strategist Steve Bannon and then-deputy chief of staff Joe Hagin. Bannon, who has said he stopped drinking years ago, said he didn’t drink at Mar-a-Lago and didn’t recall the episode. Hagin did not respond to requests for comment.) // View note The bill was sent to the State Department, which objected to covering it. It was then forwarded to the White House, which paid the tab. The unusual cocktail hour underscores a unique push and pull in the current administration: Donald Trump’s White House pays a bill and Donald Trump’s club reaps the revenue. (It’s unclear if the White House asked any of those drinking to reimburse the government; the White House declined to comment.) The premium liquor costs are only the beginning of government spending at Mar-a-Lago that emerges in hundreds of pages of receipts and email correspondence between Trump Organization employees and staffers for the State Department, which oversees presidential diplomatic travel and works with the Secret Service and White House. The emails show that the president’s company refused to agree to what was essentially a bulk-purchase agreement with the federal government, and that it charged the maximum allowable federal rate for hotel rooms. The Trump Organization could be obstinate when it came to rates for, say, function rooms at Mar-a-Lago, a problem that was eased when the president signed a law lifting the maximum “micro-purchase” the government can make.   The emails have been released as part of an ongoing lawsuit between the nonprofit Property of the People, a Washington-based transparency group, and the federal government. Property of the People provided the emails and receipts to ProPublica and we, in turn, have added them to our tracker of government spending at Trump-owned properties for our interactive graphic Paying the President. (The State Department is expected to release an additional 1,800 pages of records as part of the lawsuit, which was filed under the Freedom of Information Act.) In response to questions from ProPublica, the State Department asked for and received the documents described in this article. State Department officials promised a detailed response, but then declined comment. The documents reveal the intersection between Trump’s conflicting interests. The emails show that “Mar-a-Lago wanted to have the government money without the government rules,” said Charles Tiefer, a law professor at the University of Baltimore who served on the congressionally chartered Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan. A few months after Trump’s inauguration, the State Department proposed a contract that would pay $200,000 for all room costs for federal employees who stay at Mar-a-Lago over the first term of his presidency. But Mar-a-Lago rejected the government's proposal. Instead, Trump’s resort bills the government the maximum permitted by federal rules: 300% of the government’s per diem rate, which works out to $546 per night. Mar-a-Lago rejected the proposed flat-fee arrangement, according to the emails, because of concerns the club’s lawyers had about the Federal Acquisition Regulation, or FAR, which governs federal purchases and is overseen by contracting officers. FAR seeks to promote competition and maintain “the public’s trust.” The emails suggest the Trump Organization was worried that the lack of competitive bidding could run afoul of federal rules, among other concerns. A State Department staffer wrote in May 2017 that Mar-a-Lago’s attorneys brought up federal “small business set-aside” requirements, which set strict rules for sole-source government bids for small businesses. The State Department staffer wrote that Mar-a-Lago’s “concerns are based on their general lack of knowledge on the applicability of the FAR regulations.” // View note Mar-a-Lago and the Trump Organization did not respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Since Mar-a-Lago wouldn’t agree to a bulk contract, the State Department had to go to Plan B. When it came to the meeting with China’s president, for example, the agency had to go into some contortions to make Mar-a-Lago’s $546 nightly room rate square with its rules on competitive bidding, given that there are other less expensive hotels nearby. At least 16 staffers stayed at the Hampton Inn in West Palm Beach; at least eight stayed at the nearby Hilton Garden Inn; and four others stayed at the Tideline Ocean Resort & Spa, where the press pool also stayed, according to a hotel manifest obtained through the FOIA lawsuit. The government-negotiated rates at those establishments ranged from $195 to $305 per night. // View note (At least 24 White House and federal staffers stayed at Mar-a-Lago during the Xi visit. They included then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson; then-chief of staff Reince Priebus; then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis; Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin; then-National Economic Council adviser Gary Cohn; and other advisers, past and present, such as Bannon, Hope Hicks, Stephen Miller and Sean Spicer.) // View note The State Department also broke with protocol regarding taxpayer-funded travel and applied for a Citibank travel card just for Mar-a-Lago visits. Meanwhile, other problems emerged: • Mar-a-Lago can’t process charges over $10,000, which led to problems when the club split bills and charged the government card for multiple transactions, emails show. // View note • Mar-a-Lago refused government requests to waive the costs of its "function room” for press and other official meetings in April 2017, leading to a near-violation of a $3,500 government spending cap. Last year, Trump signed a law that lifted that cap, known as the “micro-purchase threshold,” from $3,500 to $10,000. The law does not appear to have been aimed at facilitating spending at Mar-a-Lago, but it allows the club to avoid additional government contracting rules when charging sums below $10,000. • In one instance, after the government was charged more than $3,500 for conference space at Mar-a-Lago, it asked the Trump Organization for a 10% discount so that it wouldn’t violate the micro-purchase threshold. Mar-a-Lago relented, but only after months of haggling. // View note In the emails, the director of presidential travel support, Michael Dobbs, frequently described the creation of a charge card unique to Mar-a-Lago as a “headache.”   // View note As Steve Schooner, a professor of government contracting law at George Washington University, put it, “The fact that we have a State Department contracting officer saying this is a headache is a reminder that, but for the relationship with President Trump, this would not be a contract the government would be having. That's a problem." Many of the expenses incurred by White House staff are arranged and paid for by the White House’s Office of Administration. These expenses are not required to be made public. The same goes for Secret Service spending to protect the president on such visits. (The Government Accountability Office released a report last month evaluating spending at Mar-a-Lago in February and March 2017 and found that a total of $60,000 was spent at the hotel during four trips; the figure ran to $13.6 million when costs for plane travel, secret service, security and other logistics were included.) The State Department payments, and its work on behalf of the White House and other traveling staff, are considered public records. Between 2015 and June of 2018, at least $16.1 million has poured into Trump Organization-managed and branded hotels, golf courses and restaurants from his campaign, Republican organizations and government agencies. Because Trump’s business empire is overseen by a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, he profits from these hotel stays, banquet hall rentals and meals. Federal spending rules don't specifically address agency-level spending on alcohol that is directly invoiced to the government, as occurred with the $1,000 bar tab at Mar-a-Lago. The State Department and the White House have had exemptions included in their appropriations legislation to allow for alcohol purchases. Individual government employees are not permitted to use charge cards for "improper" purposes, such as alcohol, and federal per diem rules allow for charges for breakfast, lunch, dinner and related tips and taxes but specifically exclude alcoholic drinks. Six government contracting experts said Mar-a-Lago may be violating rules requiring competitive bids. They argue that Mar-a-Lago’s practice of invoicing meeting spaces, hotel stays and meals separately is a way to get around federal spending rules. “Mar-a-Lago didn’t want to compete, they wanted to sneak around the requirements, and charge much higher prices than the competition,” said Tiefer, who served as deputy general counsel with the House of Representatives for 11 years. “It’s not the first time in history that vendors have tried to get around the rules by charging individual components. This is familiar to every contracting officer. And it’s wrong. It’s not just a technicality. It’s not a game. The only safeguard the public has against the Trumps swallowing up all the government business is at least minimal competition.” Several experts contend the State Department is exploiting loopholes in government spending rules to facilitate official gatherings at Mar-a-Lago. “It’s one of the biggest fears coming true, that they are bending over backwards to help the Trump Organization,” said Scott Amey, general counsel of the Project On Government Oversight. “I'm frustrated the State Department would exploit the system to bill Uncle Sam and the taxpayers. To have the government bicker to get a 10% discount shows the Trump Organization isn't putting the American public first. It's a worst-case scenario when it comes to conflicts of interest, with the president and his children putting themselves and profits ahead of the public." ### “Trump, Inc.” is exploring whether the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is still enforcing consumer financial laws and holding companies accountable. We want to hear from people who work at the agency or left recently (particularly those familiar with enforcement actions, supervisory exams and areas such as payday lending and debt collection). We’re also hoping to hear from consumers and companies who have interacted with the bureau in recent years. To find out more, click here.  “Trump, Inc.” is a production of WNYC Studios and ProPublica. Support our work by visiting donate.propublica.org or by becoming a supporting member of WNYC. Subscribe here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Harley Schlanger, www.LaRouchePAC.com, MUELLER REPORT FINDS NO TRUMP COLLUSION OR OBSTRUCTION, THE “TIME OF RECKONING” FOR THE COUP PLOTTERS HAS ARRIVED!, Trade with Russia and China Helps De-Nuke North Korea Venezuela Nicaragua, Belt and Road, Missile Defense Worldwide, Defense of EARTH, Coming Pole Shift Ozone Collapse, Ten Years Danger of Apophys Meteor, End of Pollution a Tech Issue, NOT to Old Green No Deal!, Dr Bill Deagle MD AAEM ACAM A4M, NutriMedical Report Show, www.NutriMedical.com, www.ClayandIRON.com, www.Deagle-Network.com,NutriMedical Report Show, Bill — my latest article, on shaping the fight in the post-Mueller era. HarleyMUELLER REPORT FINDS NO TRUMP COLLUSION OR OBSTRUCTION: THE “TIME OF RECKONING” FOR THE COUP PLOTTERS HAS ARRIVED!by: Harley Schlanger March 29 — “After three years of lies and smears and slander, the Russia hoax is finally dead.  The collusion delusion is over.”With these words, President Donald Trump opened a raucous rally in front of more than 15,000 enthusiastic supporters in Grand Rapids, Michigan on March 28, celebrating the release of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller on March 22.  According to the summary submitted by Attorney General William Barr, Mueller found no evidence of collusion, nor of obstruction of justice, thus vindicating Trump's repeated claim that the investigation was a “witch hunt.”    In his remarks, Trump did not merely proclaim vindication.  He issued a call to action, asking those at the rally to join him in defeating the anti-Trump coup plotters, who are foolishly continuing their campaign to remove him from office.  He forcefully denounced leading Democrats, such as Representatives Adam Schiff and Jerrold Nadler, who are using House committees to expand the “investigation.” Trump said they “need to decide whether they will continue to defraud the public,” now that Russiagate has been exposed as a fraud.  He also excoriated the media, and intelligence officials who served under President Obama, such as former CIA Director John Brennan and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, suggesting that both of them could be prosecuted for lying, and using their positions to illegally unleash the witch hunt.In an interview with Fox television's Sean Hannity before the rally, Trump stated that he will soon release all documents related to the attack on him, including those compiled by the FBI, which used the fictional dossier written by “former” British MI6 operative Christopher Steele, to get surveillance warrants from the secret FISA court, as well as the “302” reports on FBI interrogations, text messages and emails from the coup plotters, and more.  “I have plans to declassify and release,” he said.  “We must never let this happen to another president.  I hope they don't get away with it….It's an investigation that should never have happened.”  In particular, on the role of corrupt leading officials of the FBI who were part of the coup apparat, he said, “They wanted to do a subversion….It was treason.  It was really treason.”That Trump survived the persistent and vicious assault against him is in itself quite remarkable.  He had to endure years of media leaks and lies, attacks on his family, his businesses and his associates, many of whom were threatened and bullied, to get them to turn against him, as his former attorney Michael Cohen did.  Mueller also secured fraudulent indictments of “Russians” for cyber meddling, which will never be tested in court, and convictions for “process crimes” unrelated to the assignment given him.  Yet, in his final report, Mueller was forced to  admit there was no proof that Trump colluded with foreign efforts to steal the 2016 election.  This conclusion represents a harsh blow to the anti-Trump fanatics committed to his impeachment, leaving them reeling, stammering that they will “go further” than the special counsel in their hysterical resolve to overturn their defeat by Trump in the 2016 election.  The Schiller Institute's Helga Zepp LaRouche, who has taken the lead in exposing the fraud behind the attempted coup, said in a webcast on March 28 that it is not surprising that Trump's opponents will continue, as the report “did not lead to the desired result,” i.e. his removal!  But now is not time for complacency, she added.  Instead, “Now is the time for reckoning” for those who ran the attempted coup.WHO AND WHY MUST NOW BE ANSWEREDIn her March 28 webcast, LaRouche made clear that she is not talking about revenge in pursuing the coup plotters, but of something more profound, which is a matter of war and peace.  The attempted putsch against Trump was never simply about disgruntled supporters of Hillary Clinton seeking revenge for her electoral defeat.  It was launched by the highest levels of British intelligence, in collaboration with accomplices from the Bush and Obama-Clinton networks, to prevent Trump from overturning the post-Cold War consensus of using geopolitical confrontation to protect the unilateral world order, which was imposed following the collapse of the Soviet Union.  This unipolar world is being challenged by the rise of China, and its Belt-and-Road Initiative, which is adding nations as collaborators every day, and which is occurring as the Trans-Atlantic neo-liberal financial and trading system is following the Soviet system into the trash heap of history.In his presidential campaign, and throughout his presidency, Trump made clear that he wants to lead the U.S. out of this collapsing order, as it has been defined by endless wars, regime change policy, false flag provocations, and a bubble economy, which has again built up a level of unsustainable debt which could implode at any time.  Rather than preparing to go to war with China and Russia to defend this financially and morally bankrupt system, as the imperial neocons intend, Trump said he wants to achieve a peaceful, mutually beneficial relationship with the two other leading powers.  He emphasized this again in his Grand Rapids rally, saying the U.S. should have a “great relationship with Russia and China,” but that “fake news” turned it into Russiagate. That Trump understands the British role is evident in tweets he sent out March 18, when he retweeted comments from William Craddick of Disobedient Media.  Craddick tweeted that  “Russiagate was designed in part to help the UK counter Russian influence by baiting the United States into taking a hard line against them….Just another episode of the Great Game.”  A second retweet by Trump was a Craddick retweet of a comment from Democratic Party presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, who wrote that “Short-sighted politicians and media pundits who've spent the last 2 years accusing Trump as a Putin puppet have brought us the expensive new Cold War & arms race.  How?  Because Trump now does everything he can to prove he's not a Putin puppet — even if it brings us closer to nuclear war.”  Gabbard is the only true anti-war candidate among the 16 to 20 Democrats who are campaigning for their party's nomination to run in the 2020 presidential election.In the West, other than Mrs. LaRouche, Rep. Gabbard, and a handful of other courageous individuals, such as former NSA Technical Director and whistleblower Bill Binney and his associates, the assertion in the Mueller report that the Russians did interfere in the U.S. election has gone unchallenged.  In her webcast comments, Mrs. LaRouche identified the escalation against Venezuela, led by Bolton, Pompeo and Pence, members of both parties in Congress, and the same media hacks still smarting from being slapped down by the Mueller report, as part of the effort to trap Trump into a position on Venezuela against Russia and China.  She said that, “…unless this apparatus is dismantled, they will find new ways to entrap” Trump, calling the Venezuela escalation “the continuation of the coup against Trump, with other colors,” a reference to the launching of “color revolutions”, as in Ukraine, as regime change operations under the cover of “humanitarian” efforts.In an interview done with me on radio station KTKK in Salt Lake City this week, Bill Binney fully endorsed Mrs. LaRouche's insistence that the perpetrators from the UK intelligence community and the “shadow government” in the U.S. must be “held accountable.”  If this does not happen, “they will do it again, lying as they did to get us into war in Vietnam (in the 1960s), and with the lies about weapons of mass destruction to justify the overthrow of Saddam and mass murder in Iraq,” and again with the lies from the “British and Brennan about Russian hacking.”  Binney has conducted the most thorough forensic investigation into the charge that the Russians hacked the DNC and Clinton campaign computers — which is at the heart of Russiagate — and refuted it on every level.  He said he knew from August 2016 that the charge was a fake, and that, instead of hacking by Russia, he proved that the data leak was the result of an “inside job”, with a thumb drive or similar device (see  https://larouchepac.com/20190226/bill-binney-and-larry-johnson-shred-robert-mueller-s-russian-hack-fable).  Yet, despite his known expertise in this area, he was never called to testify by Mueller, and his reports have been blacked out of the major media. Binney said the intelligence agencies must be “cleaned up — President Trump has the potential to do this, to give the intelligence agencies a double lobotomy”!    If this is not done, they will continue to “build their empire of destruction, with full support of a submissive media.”  While the combative spirit shown by Trump in the Grand Rapids is a sign that he is up to the fight, the question which now remains is whether the American people will respond to this call to action, and join with the LaRouche movement to use this opportunity to take down the corrupt British-U.S. networks responsible for war, chaos and poverty.   ENDhttps://www.nexusnewsfeed.com/article/geopolitics/how-to-identify-a-globalist-criminal/How to identify a globalist criminalIn my work analyzing the behavior and motives of globalists I often hear people question the validity of the label. Sometimes this is done by those who are purely uneducated about the background of what I can only call an organized cabal or criminal syndicate. Sometimes it is done by dishonest people who are seeking to sow the seeds of doubt. To be clear, yes, globalists are a very real group with a very real agenda, and this agenda is not morally or rationally sound.The argument then arises – “If globalists are a real threat, then we should identify them one by one…”This argument is often a ruse which insinuates that if a person points out the facts surrounding a crime on the part of globalists, his position is still not valid until he names them all in succession. This is a classic Alinsky tactic; to demand that the researcher catalog every person involved in a conspiracy or present a perfect solution to the criminality which may or may not be available, otherwise they should shut up and stop talking about the problem. The intent is to get us caught up in the weeds debating the extent of who is involved or whether one solution is superior to another.Acknowledging that a specific agenda exists is the first step before anything else can be accomplished.Obviously, one cannot outline a long list of globalist names in every essay or article. This would make each article dozens of pages long and is counterproductive. Naming names might be helpful in some circumstances, as I have done in the past such as in my article ‘Globalist Disinformation Spotlight On – Mohamed El-Erian'. I welcome readers to examine that article because El-Erian is a good example of what a globalist is and the kind of ideology they espouse. It is my feeling though that it is more important to focus on the behaviors, rhetoric, institutional affiliations and beliefs of globalists, because these elitists often hide in plain sight.Not all of them publicly call themselves “globalists”; some of them do. However, they ALL have the same character traits and they all support the same agendas.First and foremost I suppose I should address the so called “elephant in the room”; it is important to note that there is a concerted disinformation effort by a small group of people lurking in the corners of the liberty movement to push the notion that globalism is a purely “Jewish conspiracy”. And, as our social and economic structures grow more unstable, people look for easy answers and the idea is starting to gain some traction.  Their claim? It's all about the Jews, all the globalists are Jewish or somehow secretly related to Jews or are married to Jewish partners, etc. This is simply false, so let's get this out of the way…The Jewish conspiracy narrative, I believe, is 4th generation warfare, a psychological operation, an attempt to mislead liberty movement activists away from a much deeper and darker issue. It also may be an attempt to attach the movement to white supremacy or white identity groups as if they are interchangeable. Frankly, I do not care what other people believe as long as they keep to themselves and leave others alone. If someone takes special pride in their pigmentation or culture, great, I wish them the best of luck. It is true that some cultures function better than others, but this has far more to do with the superior cultures being more free.Just because we have a distaste for the race baiting insanity and hatred of white people or western culture displayed by the social justice left, this does not mean we need to swing to the other extreme and become zealots ourselves. I actually think the ability to discriminate at times is highly useful, but such simplistic divisions based on bias and broad generalizations make us weak, not strong. It makes us easy to conquer, not a formidable opponent to the globalists.Here are the facts:The vast majority of globalists are not of Jewish origin and are not zionist in their political affiliations. While there are sectors of globalist institutions that have more Jewish people than others (such as the Federal Reserve), this does not indicate a majority or any sort of broad “Jewish conspiracy”. On the contrary, the directorial boards and memberships of most globalist institutions have a small minorities of Jews, and are majority Anglo in origin. One can simply look at the board of directors of groups at the top of the globalist pyramid like the International Monetary Fund, the Bank for International Settlements, or World Bank and verify that this is the case.We can also examine the attendees of past globalist summits like the Bilderberg Group, or the World Economic Forum in Davos and see that again, some Jews might be involved, but are not a majority or even in the highest positions of authority. While the Rothschild family (Jewish) gets a lot of attention as being a major power center within globalist circles, we can see they are but one influence among many.These people herald from all over the world, and are of every ethnicity and national affiliation one can imagine. So, the broad brush of white identity conspiracy becomes rather useless in helping us figure out who the globalists truly are. It actually misleads us and points us in the wrong direction, and perhaps this is its underlying purpose.The fallback argument is that they might not be majority Jewish, but they are all “zionists”; which, again, is simply not true. Zionism is definitely a globalist scheme, but more of a side venture designed to manipulate some Jews and evangelicals into zealotry, to be exploited in supporting efforts like war in the Middle East. Zionism itself actually makes Jewish centers like Israel less safe and more prone to destruction. The globalists only care about Israel or the Jewish people in general in so much as they can be used as a tool for other more important efforts.And, while I have criticized the actions of the Israeli government on many occasions (and been accused of being an anti-semite for it), this is not the same as attacking the Israeli people. Globalism threatens them just as much as it threatens others.  I welcome readers to look over the rosters of many of the top globalist organizations; they will find a minority of zionists, not a majority.If it's not about the Jews or zionism, then what is globalism really all about? It is vital that we look at the intent, actions, motivations and beliefs of these people. Hyperfocusing on their genetic backgrounds will get us nowhere.  How do we know when we are dealing with a globalist? Let's look at some of the real and universal elements that make globalists an organized and identifiable culture, separate, distinct and destructive…Globalism As An “Inevitable” FutureGlobalists will often claim that globalism, the centralization of all governmental and economic power, is an inevitable byproduct of “progress”. They will state, without any evidence of course, that globalism represents a pinnacle of evolution in human society. Therefore, anyone that stands in the way of globalism is standing in the way of progress, which is apparently a cardinal sin in the new world order.But centralization of power is nothing new, and dreams of global empire ruled by self appointed “elites” goes all the way back to Plato and his “Republic”. Utopia by the elites for the elites is a tale as old as mankind. It does not represent evolution, but regression to an ideology that human beings have been struggling for thousands of years to escape from.We should also make the distinction here between globalists and useful idiots. Globalists are people in a position of power adequate enough to help affect the the changes and agendas they describe. Useful idiots (socialist/communists) might espouse globalist rhetoric, but they have no power. They are exploited as a blunt weapon by globalists, but they are not globalists, and will not likely benefit from globalism in the end.End Of SovereigntyGlobalists treat the idea of sovereignty with disdain. Their attacks usually revolve around nationalism and they will incessantly pontificate on the virtues of open borders. They can also sometimes be caught criticizing the concept of individual sovereignty, but they do seem to fancy the idea that THEY are unique and superior individuals. Individuality and freedom are meant for them, but not for the rest of us.Single Economic Authority And Monetary SystemA key element of globalism is economic centralization which makes perfect sense when you understand that trade is the root of human civilization and survival. Trade is almost as important as the air we breath and the water we drink. The consistent plan presented by globalists is that the IMF in particular must become the bottleneck point for global economic management, and that all the world's major currencies will be absorbed by the IMF into their SDR basket system.This would give the IMF the ability to dictate currency exchange rates on a whim, allowing them to homogenize currency values until they are so similar that a single world currency becomes a natural next step. This final product would be a cashless society, based on a digital blockchain-based currency or cryptocurrency.Single World GovernmentGlobalists all argue that the answer to most of the world's ailments is one world governance, or the end of nation states and cultural divisions in the name of “peace”. The UN is so far the impetus of this effort, but it is shadowed by various organizations like the IMF, BIS, World Bank, as well as dozens of think tank organizations like the CFR, Tavistock, the Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg, Darpa, etc., etc. A practice model for this type of government can be seen in the European Union, which is controlled by a supranational bureaucratic machine run by mostly faceless officials who are not elected and who do not answer to the public.Globalists have different terms for the shift into a single world government or single currency system.  They call it a “global reset, or a “new world order”, or a “multipolar world order”.  But all of these marketing labels are basically referring to the same thing.Close AssociationAny politician that works closely with globalist institutions or think tanks is likely a globalist. Any politician or government official that associates regularly and cooperates with known globalists is probably also a globalist.Environmental Crisis As Hegelian ThreatNot all globalists hit on this topic publicly, but most do.  The strategy, which was planned by the Club Of Rome along with top globalists like former UN Director Robert Muller, was to create the idea of an environmental threat so potentially devastating that the only option would be for the public to accept global governance as the solution.  Global warming and “climate change” became that existential threat.It does not seem to matter how often or how brutal the climate change argument is debunked by real data; the globalists desperately push the ideology.  It is a primary key to everything they hope to accomplish in terms of centralization, and their timeline is set for the year 2030.  Globalists also seem to enjoy fabricating fake moral dilemmas which force people to choose between one evil solution or another.  The fake moral dilemma here being that if we do not accept global centralization and elitist management of the planet, we are risking the destruction of our environment on an apocalyptic scale.Psychological Similarities Of GlobalistsProbably the most overwhelming epiphany I have come to in my 12 years of analysis into globalism and the nature of evil is that globalists are in fact tied together by a root mental illness or psychological aberration. This occurred during my research on narcissistic sociopathy, or what some circles might call “psychopathy”. Criminology indicates that not all criminals are full blown narcissistic sociopaths, but most full blown narcissistic sociopaths are criminals. Some are simply more successful criminals than others, and this usually depends on their ability to blend in and mimic or manipulate normal people.Full blown narcissistic sociopaths (or psychopaths) make up around 1% of any given population, but are responsible for the vast majority of violent crimes or criminal enterprises. The lion's share of justice system resources are used in dealing with these people, as they are four to eight times more likely than the average person to use violence in daily interactions or as a tool to gain advantage, and twenty-five times more likely to end up in prison.There is a long list of character traits that make a narcissistic sociopath, but the defining features are a complete lack of conscience and empathy, a propensity for moral relativism (the ability to rationalize any and all destructive behavior), a desperate need to be adored or admired by everyone around them, a feeling of being “more special” than most people, a feeling of superiority, delusions of grandeur or an inherent right to manage the lives of others, an obsessive need to control and manipulate, impulsive desires and deviant sexual inclinations, and elitist associations (they will only associate with people they feel are like them and are “equally superior”).A defining fact of narcissistic sociopathy is that these traits are inborn, not a product of environment. In some cases environment can play a role in activating these traits, but if a person is not born with them, they generally do not adopt them later in life because of a traumatic environment. The following documentaries linked here and hereare an excellent overview of high level narcissistic sociopaths.Narcissistic sociopaths defy all forms of treatment and cannot be reformed. They have no concrete personality beyond these traits, therefore, if you remove the traits, they are left with nothing else. They are almost anti-human; while most people are born with unique personality combinations, narcissistic sociopaths have none, so they mimic the personalities of those around them, mirroring behaviors and collecting or stealing quirks.Their primary drives are to fulfill their fantasies of superiority and godhood, as well as an endless quest to satiate their dopamine addiction. The more deviant the action, and the more successful they are at getting away with it, the more dopamine they generate and the more satisfied they feel. This leads to an endless cycle, seeking out more and more exploitation of others which becomes less and less satisfying, which leads to even greater deviance.I came to realize in my studies that these characteristics described almost exactly the observable behaviors of globalists. The difference being that globalists were so high functioning that they had actually built a society of narcissistic sociopaths that operated like a kind of cult, or a corporate entity. The only other historic example I could compare it to would be the mob, or other gangs which have blended into the surrounding normal society and operated in their midst.I do not know if a society of narcissistic sociopaths with its own tribal customs, mythologies and beliefs has ever been recorded before. While psychopathic people have been known in the past to organize into groups for mutual benefit, the globalists are something different. They are an anomaly; a well maintained culture of parasites that has blended almost seamlessly within normal society in order to feed off of non-psychopathic and empathetic people. The best fictional representation I can think of is the vampire. They are so similar I sometimes wonder if folklore creatures like vampires were based on narcissistic sociopaths as a way to warn people of their presence.Globalists are indeed a culture, a secretive and occult phenomenon that wants so badly to be recognized and worshiped, but fears public scrutiny. Their motivation at bottom is to condition or tear down normal, moral and free society until it becomes a place in which they can openly be what they really are without fear of judgment or consequences. They want to terraform civilization and make it a habitat that will accept them; a habitat for monsters surrounded by willing victims.Existing user? Sign in here REGISTER NOWhttp://www.gordonchang.com/article.htmChina Never Was A Superpower–And It Won't Be One Anytime Soon,  Strategika, March 28, 2019   U.S. Must Put a Ban on Google Helping China Develop a Global Digital Dictatorship,  The Daily Beast, March 26, 2019   Here's How China Plays North Korea–And Trump,  The Daily Beast, March 14, 2019   The Hanoi Summit–We Asked Gordon Chang What Happens Next in U.S.-North Korea Relations, NationalInterest.org, March 12, 2019   To Disarm North Korea, Hit Hard on Human Rights,  Gatestone Institute, March 12, 2019   The Militarization of Xi Jinping's China,  Gatestone Institute, February 25, 2019   It's Time to Stop Talking to Beijing and Start Disengaging from China's Economy,  The Daily Beast, February 16, 2019   How Chinese Theft Becomes a Global Menace,  The American Conservative, February 14, 2019    For information regarding your data privacy, visit Acast.com/privacy See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On Friday’s Mark Levin show, what happened to Omarosa or John Brennan and his security clearance? See how quickly the media jump from one “scandal” to another? They are grabbing onto anything they hope will bring down President Trump. Now we have the latest breaking story - Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was granted immunity in the Michael Cohen probe. This is of zero legal consequence because at the end of the day the DOJ memorandum says a sitting president can’t be indicted. Because Trump cannot be indicted, he will not have a chance to defend himself in a court of law. Trump will be tried in the media instead, and the Democrats will use special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to make the case for impeachment. What’s happened here is diabolical and evil. Also, the government must prove that the Trump campaign violations are in fact illegal, but they can't. Cohen took the plea deal; to protect his wife that was rumored to be implicated in his case. So now their game is guilt by association, if Cohen pled guilty, therefore Trump must be guilty, but this isn't so. Finally, Salena Zito calls in to discuss facebook’s censorship of her NY Post story on Cohen and Paul Manafort for not meeting community standards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On Friday’s Mark Levin show, what happened to Omarosa or John Brennan and his security clearance? See how quickly the media jump from one “scandal” to another? They are grabbing onto anything they hope will bring down President Trump. Now we have the latest breaking story - Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg was granted immunity in the Michael Cohen probe. This is of zero legal consequence because at the end of the day the DOJ memorandum says a sitting president can’t be indicted. Because Trump cannot be indicted, he will not have a chance to defend himself in a court of law. Trump will be tried in the media instead, and the Democrats will use special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to make the case for impeachment. What’s happened here is diabolical and evil. Also, the government must prove that the Trump campaign violations are in fact illegal, but they can't. Cohen took the plea deal; to protect his wife that was rumored to be implicated in his case. So now their game is guilt by association, if Cohen pled guilty, therefore Trump must be guilty, but this isn't so. Finally, Salena Zito calls in to discuss facebook’s censorship of her NY Post story on Cohen and Paul Manafort for not meeting community standards. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Have you ever felt the terror of being totally lost? In business, we prepare for everyday problems and stick to our established plan. But when the unexpected happens and our existence is threatened, we panic; we either fight a losing battle, retreat as fast as possible, or stop altogether in shock. This Fight, Flight or Freeze thought process is a natural survival instinct, but often it can be the end for us or our business.  We can’t expect the unexpected. That’s why it's critical for you to know the skills to not only survive -- but thrive. Today’s episode is about a survivalist. Jonathan David Lewis of McKee Wallwork, and author of Brand vs. Wild joins us to share his experience in bringing a brand back from the brink. As a survivor of a business that almost went under, Jonathan has created methods of fixing a sinking brand using survival psychology and real world crisis procedures. You will learn how to take a brand that is lost, and guide it towards your goal. In This Episode, You'll Learn Seven factors that impact survival of your business The Air Force’s Five ‘C’s of survival How pride kills in the wild Key Quotes “The factors that affect our growth are actually in our control.” - Jonathan Lewis “Why do some face adversity and thrive, and others fail?” - Jonathan Lewis “Success can be one of our biggest vulnerabilities.” - Jonathan Lewis “The first thing you need to do when you're lost is stop and orient yourself.” - Jonathan Lewis “You can only prosper from your most authentic stories.” - Park Howell Mentioned In This Episode Jonathan David Lewis Jonathan David Lewis Twitter Brand vs Wild McKee Wallwork & Co. Breaking Bad Bob Odenkirk Jon Krakauer Lego Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth Story Marketer of the Week - Donald Trump Climate change is the most urgent issue facing humanity, with many people denying the existence of the problem. Scientists working on clean energy struggle to gain traction, but climate change may have found an unlikely, unintentional advocate: Donald Trump. Documentaries like An Inconvenient Truth are nowhere near as powerful at spreading climate change awareness as the Donald and his denial. Why is this? Because Trump is a contradiction, a conflict, he gives the cause a much-needed antagonist. Having such a vocal opposition towards climate change signaled a call to action like never before. When your story has high stakes, you can channel that into purpose, and your audience will rally behind your cause. For demonstrating the power of a good conflict we have decided to name Donald Trump as the Story Marketer of the Week. About Business of Story Podcast The Business of Story is hosted by trusted brand story strategist and keynote speaker Park Howell and is among the top business and marketing podcasts geared toward founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, and communication leaders. Each episode brings you the brightest content creators, advertising creatives, authors, screenwriters, makers, marketers, and brand raconteurs that show you how to make your brand story marketing stand out and achieve epic growth in your organization.

Dianne talked about... Happy Fathers Day!  One of the most important jobs. What a day!...I’m pee-ode to no end! I don’t know about you, but I was starting to feel a little defeated lately. How can Trump take the barrage of lie-bullets coming his way? Because Trump has resolve, he does not back down—in fact he doubles down! Wow! I am finding more respect for Trump daily. The press, the Democrats, the Republicans and the Liberals, along with all the other media (even Fox News) seems to be trying to take Trump down—but what about the American people?  Arn't we sick of the political correctness that is undermining America? Judge Jeannine, my hero… a woman with common sense that is not afraid to speak her mind. The media is treasonous—destroying our country. We are being lied to daily. Why do we listen to these over-educated talking heads? The establishment is afraid of what Trump is going to do for our country. Recipes: Corn Salad, Cucumber Salad with Tomato and Sweet Onion, & Tomato Basil Soup